I swear under my breath and let my forehead rest on the side of the boat. "You were meant to leave, Kreacher," I say dimly.
I glance over at Sirius. He had gone milk white, like he'd seen a ghost.
"I thought you said that this…." he stopped as he searched for the right word, "thing was meant to be destroying the locket."
"He was," I conceded.
Kreacher averted his eyes from mine. He shuffled around on his feet, clearly sensing my displeasure. "I is sorry Master, Kreacher only wanted to make sure that the Traitor did not harm you."
I think about my split lip, throbbing cheek and chest where I am sure Sirius had left a boot shaped bruise. "You've done a good job, thank you," I say, trying to keep the bitterness I felt from my voice.
I succeed apparently, as Kreacher looks up and smiles at me. "I is glad you is not dead, Sir." A single tear trickles down the side of his face.
"Me too," I reply, though I don't believe what I say.
"Enough," Sirius says suddenly. He appeared to have overcome his sudden shock-induced paralysis; the colour had returned to his cheeks and his breathing returned to its normal rate. "Get in," he barks at me, and shoots his hand out to grab the scruff of my neck.
I try to step in gracefully, but Sirius shoves me as soon as I find my feet so I end up sprawled on the floor of the boat next to Kreacher. I feel the elf lay a small but protective hand on my shoulder. Then I notice that he has the locket around his neck, and can't help but feel relieved that at least a small part of my plan had succeeded.
"Do not hurt Master Regulus," Kreacher squeaks ferociously.
"I'll do what I bloody well like," Sirius shoots back, stepping onto the boat with the poise he had denied me.
I roll my eyes: doing what he liked was the story of my brother's life.
"Now, be a good little house elf and row us out of here." Sirius orders, a mocking smile playing on his lips as he perched himself safely onto the bench.
Kreacher looks at me, and I can tell he would be only too happy to refuse, but I nod my head quickly. The last thing I needed was for them to start a full blown fist fight. Kreachers ears sag in disappointment, but he snaps his fingers dutifully and the boat instantly starts to glide away from the island, putting more distance between me and the potion with each second. For that I am grateful. I hope never to come near that awful stuff, or indeed this place, ever again.
"Is that it?" Sirius says after a while, pointing towards the locket around Kreachers neck.
I nod. Sirius scoffs.
"Hardly looks worth the bother," he says dismissively.
If my hands had been free I would have slapped him. I content myself with shooting him a fierce glare and not giving him the satisfaction of a reply. Sirius really could be tedious when he was in such a self-righteous mood.
The journey back takes a lot longer than the journey towards, but then I suppose times always moves ridiculously fast when you are dreading something. I decide I might as well make the most of the time seeing as it would likely be the only rest bite I'd get for the foreseeable future. I couldn't be entirely certain of course, but I was almost sure that my brother was taking me to some safe house of the Order of the Phoenix, and despite what the general wizarding population liked to believe, the Orderers could be just as vicious as the Death Eaters when they wanted to be.
And they would want to be with me.
When I eventually felt the boat bump against land my brother wasted no time in hauling me to my feet again. I stagger off the boat and turn just in time to see Sirius hurl Kreacher after me. He landed heavily on the ground and I feel a short stab of anger course through my veins, as it always did whenever someone mistreated my elf, but I know it would be foolish of me to react. Half the time when we were children Sirius had only abused Kreacher to try and get a rise out of me.
Sirius marched towards me and gave me a shove towards the opening I had created earlier. He raised his foot to kick at Kreacher, but the elf was too quick, springing to his feet and after me before Sirius could manage a swing. Kreacher was massaging his wrist, which I assumed must have been what he landed on when he fell and I feel my anger rise again. I swallow it down. Not now.
After the entrance, getting out of the cave proved to be just as easy as it had getting in, and in no time at all I found myself back in the open air. I had no way of knowing how long I had been in the cave, but the sun was still up so it couldn't have been more than a few hours. I took in a deep breath of sea air and stared at the sky above me. I hadn't thought that I'd see the light of day again when I had entered the cave. After what I had just been through even just standing outside with the warm summer sun beating down on my face felt like a luxury. A luxury I wasn't allowed to enjoy for long as I heard a yell behind me.
I whirled around to find Sirius trying to prize the locket from around Kreachers neck. The elf was putting up a tremendous fight despite the alarming height difference between the two (Kreacher hardly reached Sirius' knee). Sirius seemed to have succeeded in getting the locket from around Kreachers neck, but the elf had managed to grab hold of it, and was now been swung about in mid-air as Sirius shook it viciously, trying to detach him. I couldn't help but grin with pride as I heard Kreacher hurl insult after insult at my brother in the struggle. It felt just like old times.
But then Kreacher lost his grip and fell to the floor. Sirius wasted no time in pocketing the locket and once again swung his foot back. This time Kreacher wasn't fast enough, and my brother's boot landed on his small frame with a sickening thud. Sirius raised his foot again, and I felt my anger flair for the third time.
"SIRIUS, LEAVE HIM" I shout.
His foot stops in mid air and he shoots me a look of disgust, but he puts his foot down again without incident, so I know I have won that battle. Kreacher staggered to his feet and returned to my side. I feel him lean against my leg and I look down.
"Kreacher, go home," I say to the him softly. Apparently not soft enough, as my brother, along with Kreacher, shout in protest. "Give Mother an excuse. One she'll believe. She cannot know what I've done," I say quickly.
Sirius begins to stride forwards, closing the gap between us at break-neck speed.
"Go, Kreacher," I urge him.
Kreacher looks towards Sirius, who was almost upon us, and then back at me, his eyes huge disks of sadness.
"GO!" I yell.
With one last sorrowful look he disappears. Sirius' hand closes on thin air in the space where he had just been.
"Damn it," Sirius curses and straightens up. I let out a sigh of relief. I look towards him and instantly regret it as his hand shoots towards me. Expecting another blow I take a step away, lose my footing and almost fall backwards into in sea but his fist latched onto my shirt just in time.
Without warning he spins us around, and the cave and the sea vanish into a mix of cataclysmic colours and movements. My stomach lurches, as it always does when I apparate. Thankfully we land somewhere quickly, but for the moment I don't care where, as I focus my mind on the almost impossible task of preventing extreme vomiting. Sirius noticed my struggle and stepped hastily away from me. In the end it is an alarmingly close call, but I manage to gulp it down.
I look up to find I am in an empty room. Completely empty. No furnishings, no decorations, no windows. No anything. The only item of interest was a muggle light that hovered beneath the ceiling, which seemed to flicker every eight seconds or so. Otherwise the room was completely blank. Like no one had ever stepped foot it in. The sparseness was alarming.
Behind me I heard a door open. I look over my shoulder to see Sirius on its threshold. He looks me up and down. "I'll be back," he says ominously and shuts the door behind him with a snap. It locked behind him.
"Always the drama queen," I mutter, shaking my head.
I watch the door for a few seconds to make sure that he actually had gone somewhere, and wasn't just trying to frighten me. Then I turn my attention once more to the room to check if it really was as empty as I had first thought. It was. I'm in the middle of it, and for some reason this makes me feel too exposed, so I step over to one of the walls, half expecting there to be some kind of booby trap that I'd set off when I moved. Nothing happened so I felt safe to lean my back against it. After a few dull minutes of waiting I let myself sink to the floor. No point in wasting energy unnecessarily, as I'm pretty sure that I'll be being interrogated again within the next the hour. I groan. Becoming a prisoner of the Order of the Phoenix really hadn't been the way I had imagined today going.
My head still feels foggy from the potion so I decided to close my eyes to shut out the world for a bit and see if that helped.
How long I was like this I'd never know as there was no way of telling time. Plus there was the fact that I fell asleep at some point, which didn't really surprise me. My body had gone through a lot in the last few hours. Adrenalin had been all that had kept me going through most of it, and that was bound to wear off at some point.
I'm startled awake by the sound of the door, and I snap my head up quickly. I look to the door, expecting to see Sirius at the threshold again.
It's not Sirius.
Not even close to being Sirius.
Panic courses through my veins. I hadn't expected this. Even my worst nightmares could not have conjured up this. This was bad. Worse than bad. This was catastrophic.
Ice blue eyes locked onto mine and I felt myself shrink back into the wall, hoping that it would by some weird turn of events swallow me up whole. Of course that didn't happen, and there I stayed, quivering, as the figure stepped closer towards me. The only way this situation could have been made any worse was if The Dark Lord himself had stepped into the room.
But this was still a close second.
"Good evening," said the figure of Albus Dumbledore. He walked forwards and stopped about half a meter in front of me, and looking down his long nose at me. I swallow hard and try to match his gaze.
This could not be good.