Sorry for the delay in updating this and thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed or private messaged me with words of encouragement. I'm expecting this to run for three or four more chapters and then possibly a sequel if people would be interested in reading it. As a disclaimer, I am of course not JK Rowling, and anything you recognise is hers.
Alphard's cottage was exactly as I remembered it. Dilapidated, run-down, wood rotting. The only difference was that there was no smoke coming from the chimney because, of course, he'd been dead for nearly four years.
After I apparated, as close as I dared, I scanned the lonely landscape for signs of life. The hut, on a mountainside in tbe Lake District, was about as remote as it was possible to get. Occasionally - I remembered my uncle telling us tales of it - he would get a lost Muggle hiker or two pass his door and, ever the gentleman, would invite them in for a cup of something warm before pointing them along the track that led down to the valley road and out through Black Sail Pass or, if they were so minded, up to the cloud-covered peaks of the Great Gable and the Pillar.
He was curious, Alphard, about these Muggles who would risk their lives simply to say they'd stood on top of one of those mountains. Brave, he called it, and it was usually around this point in his storytelling that Regulus, my cousins and I would be summoned away by our parents to busy ourselves with something considered more suitable because the Blacks didn't approve of bravery. Or Muggles.
I unlocked the door and muttered a spell, checking for signs of life. Something flickered, but doubtless it was a mouse or a squirrel, come to make its home here for the winter.
With some difficulty I lit a fire, filled the old iron kettle with snow from outside and placed it on the hearth. I had no idea why I'd come.
Regulus wouldn't have come here. He was terrified of this cottage. Scared of the vast wilderness around it and the Muggles, having believed every lie my parents and our psychotic cousin Bellatrix had ever told him.
I took a mildewed cushion from the sofa and sat beside the hearth like I had as a child.
Our visits here had been few and far between. Alphard's lifestyle had been considered irregular, almost eccentric, by all members of my family who considered themselves 'right-thinking', but then he was a Black and as such could never be wrong. I ran a hand across the side of my head, remembering the cuffs I'd received from my father when questioning that as a young child.
So we were allowed to visit, especially when I began to get a reputation for being something of a handful and many other relatives refused to babysit me. Alphard took us ranging up the mountainside, me running off and climbing trees and Regulus sticking closely to our uncle's side. I invariably got back to the cottage exhausted and spent the rest of the evening reading by the light of the fire and sipping hot chocolate.
"Why won't you explore with me?" I asked my brother once, giving him a not-too-gentle shove for good measure as he sullenly refused to run. Alphard grabbed the scruff of the neck of my jacket.
"Think it's fun pushing around someone smaller than yourself, boy?" he asked. "Why don't I try it?"
I can't remember my reply, but it was enough to earn me a slap to the head. I ran off, returning later than normal, after Reg had gone to sleep.
"Don't be too hard on him, lad," Alphard had said to me, handing me my hot chocloate. "He's not like you."
"Of course he is, we're brothers," I replied with my child's logic.
"Siblings aren't always similar," he replied, settling into his armchair by the hearth. "Look at me and your mother." I stayed quiet for a time, thinking about this. "Just remember Sirius, no matter what happens, he's your brother. You look out for each other. No one else in this damned world will."
I shook my head, cleared it of memories. It was around a decade after that day my brother had publicly declared that we were no longer siblings, that I'd been officially disowned. It was the first I'd heard of it. I didn't care. I hated my parents. But Regulus? He was what he'd been made. What I so easily could have been.
I must have slept. I came to, cold and aches in my bones, but warm from the heat of the fire. Which should have long died down.
I grabbed my wand and turned around. Saw Remus. Casually pouring soup into a small cauldron.
"You're awake," he greeted, moving around me to hang the pot over the fire.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded.
"You really have no ounce of self-preservation, do you?" he grinned. "The door was unlocked."
I gave up, unable to tolerate his self-satisfaction. I'd heard it thousands of times before.
"How did you even know where I was?" I asked, flinging myself into the armchair.
"Lucky guess," he shrugged. "Why d'you tell James you'd given up looking for your brother?"
"Maybe I'm fed up of having you lot prying into my private life."
Remus snorted. "You gave up the right to a private life when you befriended us at the tender age of 11."
"Don't I know it." I accepted the cup of tea he offered me. "Anyway, you're one to talk."
He shook his head. "Not the same. I told one tiny little white lie..."
"About being a werewolf!"
"...and since then I've been completely honest with you. It's years since you left home and I still don't know the full story there. And now...now it seems like you want to go back."
I stared at him over the top of my mug. He was wrong, in so many ways, but I had no idea how to go about explaining that. And I didn't have the energy to try.
"Can I ask you something?" he said. I half-shrugged. "Why didn't you come here, when you left home? Why did you go to James's?"
I sighed, considering. "What have I told you about Alphard?"
Remus frowned. "Just that he was your favourite uncle. You said he wasn't like the rest of them. And...you were pretty upset when he died. I remember you disappearing for about four days."
"He wasn't like the rest of them, but he was still a Black."
"You thought he'd send you back to your parents'?"
"He would probably have tried. I dunno, Remus, I wasn't really thinking that night. James's just seemed the obvious place."
"Did you ever wonder why he didn't leave you the cottage?"
"Maybe he thought Andromeda would like it for a holiday home. He left me money, I was grateful enough for that."
"And Regulus...Alphard didn't leave him anything?"
I shook my head with a short laugh, remembering how annoyed everyone in the family had been at the reading of the will. Although..."There was something he left him. It was just something silly. A small model horse. No one could understand it."
I stood up. Stretched. "We should go. It was pointless coming here."
"Eat your soup first," Remus ordered gently, getting up to serve it our into wooden bowls. I allowed a smile to come to my face. Everyone thought I was being ever so generous, letting an unemployed werewolf live in my flat rent-free. Truth was he was excellent at all the domestic stuff, like remembering to eat, that I wasn't so good at.
"You're not going to give up, are you?" he asked, handing me a spoon.
I took a mouthful before answering. "Nope."
"Right then. We'd best get thinking."
I shook my head. "Remus, this has nothing to do with..."
"Oh leave it out Padfoot. If it's important to you then we're helping. End of. Besides," he added, allowing himself to grin, "you've not exactly been getting anywhere on your own so far."
I shook my head, smiling.
"So who are his friends? Someone must know something."
I shrugged. "I've no idea who he hangs out with nowadays, other than Death Eaters. And even at school he was only really close with one or two people."
"Great," said Remus, ever the optimist. "We start with them. Names?"
"Everard Nott," I supplied. "And Severus Snape."
