There was a silhouette at the door, a shadow of the man she once used to know.
There was protocol, she knew, procedures she was supposed to follow in case of when strangers knocked on your door in the middle of the night. But he wasn't a stranger and she had never been really wise when it came to him. To either of them.
It took her a little while to get to the door, the world tilting unevenly under her feet in the darkness of the room. The thick black curtains guarded the windows against any moonlight but more than that, it didn't let anybody on the outside know of the life inside. It was a one room apartment, everything else of necessity smashed together in a haphazard chaos.
She had let the room remain in darkness when she had come in; it had suited her mood then and it had felt better to get drunk in the dark alone. Now, she felt a faint shiver of nervousness overtake her.
Which was all wrong.
Because if it was who she knew it was on the other side of the door, she should have been terrified. She should have been running away, pronto. But she was still there, making her way to the door in small steps that didn't threaten her already precarious balance as she flicked her wand to cast a quick 'Lumos' around her.
The moment she opened the door, she felt blinded for a second by all the lights. She had forgotten life still went on in the night. It was so easy to become used to the dark.
Once her eyes had adjusted, they were drawn to the hooded figure standing on her doorstep. As if on cue, hands emerged from the under the folds of the robes-and there was that familiar and repulsive black twirl of a half-hidden tattoo on his left hand-and pushed the hood back.
He looked exactly the same. Those were the same blue-gray eyes that could hold the attention of any crowd, the same black hair pushed back in studied casualness, and the same mouth that could make her forget anything.
But he had changed too, she could see that. There were more lines on his forehead, his eyes weren't smiling with the amusement they used to, and there were bags under his eyes.
It didn't matter. He was smiling faintly at her. "Olivia," he said softly and there was so much in that one word that she refused to let herself drown in it.
"Regulus," she said, purposefully blank and harsh.
"How are you?" he asked, in that same soft voice of his, unruffled by her coldness.
"Do you have a death wish?" She said instead because there was no good way of answering his question. Besides, he must have known the consequences of what he was doing. Despite the late hour, he had knowingly come to her place and had revealed himself for the whole world to see. There was more than one way it could go, and none of them pleasant.
"I wanted to talk to you," he said, leaning closer this time as if sensing her anxiety. "Can I come in?"
Olivia debated saying no for a second and shutting the door on him because that was the best she could do for him with all the choices they both had made. But then she looked at him looking at her and for a moment she was that girl again, the one who had seen the world before it was torn into black and white, back when there were colors.
"Get in," she relented, checking outside to see if anyone had been watching as he walked inside. "You have five minutes. Be quick."
"I didn't know you had started drinking," Regulus said as she closed the door and she turned to find him staring at the almost empty bottle of firewhiskey near the bed.
"Seemed like about time," she said. She didn't want to tell him about the funeral she had come from but more than that, she didn't want to know if he had had a hand in that death. "Talk."
"Is anyone else here?" he asked, looking around carefully.
"No," she said and maybe that wasn't the wisest thing, to be so forthcoming with the truth when she had no idea what he was with-holding and even less about what he had come to reveal but it was the end of very bad day and she just needed it to be over. "My brother would be here soon."
"I'll be quick then," Regulus said and Olivia rolled her eyes. That's what she had been telling him to do in the first place. "I need to ask you something first."
Olivia raised her eyebrows at him, letting him know that he had come there voluntarily and she'd be dead before she gave anything away.
"I don't think you are in any position to that," she said, leaning against the counter; her left knee couldn't take more than five minutes of standing upright. She briefly wondered when she had gotten so old and realized she was just twenty. The last years seemed like centuries somehow.
Regulus chuckled. Out of all the things he could have done, he chuckled and she was furious.
"Get out!" she said, rocking back on her heels. The quick motion sent a sharp pain up her left leg but she ignored it. "If you are here to mock, get out."
He sobered quickly after that. "I thought I had five minutes."
"Well that was before you started getting on my nerves," she spat out. "And there's only four left now."
"I promise to leave your nerves alone then," he said looking at her like she was being beyond reason and it amused him. Olivia only huffed and looked pointedly away. "Can we start again?"
Olivia let the silence speak for itself.
Regulus sighed wearily before he continued. "My brother," he said. "You love him?"
"Merlin, do you honestly not get it?" Olivia yelled, enraged.
There was a hint of smile on his face for second-it was so easy to slip back into the old intimacy with him-but then the smile faded from his face and although it was blank this time, she knew all that was hiding beneath the surface.
"You do," he said softly, not accusing or questioning just stating what they both had known for a long time. Olivia felt disoriented with how easily he could read her, like he had never forgotten how to. "That's okay," he said, half to her and half to himself. "You've always had enough room in your heart for both of us. I just need you to promise me something this time."
Olivia swallowed, letting her frayed nerves fall back into calm before she nodded shakily. "What is it?"
"I have to do something," he said. "The Dark Lord he-It-," he started but couldn't finish, like there was something physically stopping him. It didn't matter though, she was done listening.
"How can you take his name and expect me to listen?" Olivia asked.
"It's-" he took a shaky breath to steady himself before he could continue. "There's something I need to do." At Olivia's incensed expression, he powered through quickly. "Believe me, it's not what you think. There's something evil going on about him."
"You've just realized this now?" Olivia scoffed. "I could have told you this before."
Regulus smiled, looking reminiscent. "I wouldn't have listened then," he said quietly. "But what I know now- I... I can't tell you. It's something I have to do myself but you'll see. It's the only way to end this."
"You're not making any sense, Reg," Olivia said, taking a step towards him. "What's going on? Why can't you tell me?"
Regulus looked like he wanted to say something but no words came out of his mouth as he wheezed heavily. "I-I can't," he said, finally giving up after struggling for a moments. "I took an oath. I didn't know then, Liv, I swear I didn't. Or it wouldn't have come to this. You have to believe me."
He looked beseechingly at her and maybe it was the fact that for the first time since he had come, he looked truly frustrated and broken that Olivia decided to believe him. She had half a mind to ask him to try writing down what he knew but she knew it'll be of no use. Magic had a curious way around loopholes.
"Can you tell me something?" Olivia asked, at last. "Anything?"
"I'm sorry," Regulus shook his head, his eyes wet. "It's very dark magic. But if I finish this, the battle would be easier. On more even ground."
Olivia didn't dare let herself believe but her heart was already racing. Was he coming back to the right side? To her? She shook her head; these were all dreams and there was far more danger down the road first. "I can't let you do this alone. It'll be dangerous. I'll come with you."
"No," he said, a little too quick. "You know that I can't put you in danger. It's all my fault, I need to fix it." He sounded so resolute, it broke her heart right where it had never quite fixed itself back together.
"Reg," she said softly, aware how pleading it sounded. "Please, don't do this. At least wait till I can talk to Sirius about this." She was crying now, silent tears falling down her cheeks. She hadn't realized when the tears had started but she was not surprised.
Regulus took a step towards her and they were only inches apart then, as he put a hand on her cheek, his thumb wiping away at the trail her tears had left behind. They had been inevitably drawing closer towards each other during the conversation and now that they were face to face, Olivia felt all the air leave her lungs. It was all horribly familiar.
"I'm sorry," he whispered in the space between them. "I have to do this. I just need you to promise me something."
"What?" Olivia asked. She couldn't bring herself to care about how her voice cracked as she had done so.
"Promise me you would give me another chance when all this is done," he said, a strange urgency in his word. "Just tell me that when I've done what needs to be done, there will be redemption."
And there was so much she should have said in that moment, so many questions she could have asked because some things, no matter how hard you try, can't ever be put back together. But it was the boy she had once loved, the man who had been her best-friend before it had all began and all she said was, "Reg."
"Please, Liv," he begged. His hand on her cheek was shaking but he made no effort to take it away or hide it. "I just need you to do this for me. Please."
It was in that moment she realized.
He hadn't really come back to ask for anything. He had come back to say goodbye because where-ever it was that he was going, whatever it was he was going to do, there was no coming back from it. And there was nothing she could do to stop him.
"How can you be so sure?" she asked him instead.
"Because this can't be how it ends," he said so fervently that she almost believed it too. "We deserve more. There has to be more."