Sirius fled the drawing room to go and deal with his mother.
Remus had been helping him clear out what he suspected (and was currently confirming) was yet more doxies. They'd festered all over the place in here, and the usual methods weren't getting the job done at all. Remus was the professor; he ought to know how to deal with the pests.
Speaking of, the house was in chaos when Regulus had reappeared from his excursion to Hogwarts. Sirius was trying not to feel bitter about that. After a month inside these walls, he was about ready to start tearing them down. In all fairness to the current inhabitants, the house had been in a state of chaos for a couple of weeks now, and the only real difference was that Regulus was now aware of it. Fred (or perhaps George, he would have to ask Remus if there was a way of telling the two apart when they weren't wearing identifying clothes) had been correct in his assessment of his younger brother's face: he really had looked somewhat horrified. Removing their mother's screeches seemed like one way to diminish the din, if nothing else.
"Remus, you remember my idiot brother," Sirius said offhandedly, when he made it back up the stairs after a fierce battle of the curtains.
Remus dropped the drawing room curtain from his hand, giving Sirius a look of disbelief murkied by incredulousness and a desire to roll his eyes, expressed seamlessly without words. "Even if we hadn't co-existed under the same roof for the last month, I would still remember your brother," he said, "We all sat three tables to the left of him for six years."
The 'you're being ridiculous' was left unsaid, but it was left unsaid in a really loud and obvious way.
"And can you stop referring to me as your 'idiot brother'?" Regulus piped in, glancing away from the strangers in the room to spare Sirius an eye roll of his own.
"There are worse things I could describe you as." Sirius shrugged it off. It was bound to be a bit awkward.
Remus sighed. "I think everyone could benefit from a hot drink and a break. Sirius, do you want to give me a hand?"
Remus wanted to serve hot drinks in the middle of one of the biggest heatwaves in Britain, yet Sirius was the ridiculous one of them? "Alright," Sirius allowed, hoping his own bemused look communicated that he thought it was a barmy idea. "I think the girls are upstairs."
He was sure that one way or another, this was bound to be one of Regulus' first stops. They were one step closer to getting to the bottom of this.
"So..." Regulus began, peering over his cup of tea to eye the three ginger-haired boys, the younger one settling into a break while the other two moved about. "Which one of you hooligans keeps touching the cabinets?"
A pair of identical grins spread across the twins. "Hooligans?" said one of them. "Do you suppose he means us?"
"We did go through the cabinets-" replied the other.
"-and the drawers-" the first twin interjected.
"-not to mention that weird looking box, but we couldn't get into that," the second admitted. "Loved the wooden arms. That was a decent bit of spellwork!"
Regulus did not drop his gaze as he took a sip of his tea. Though the remark was a compliment, he still could not decide whether to take it as such when that had hardly been the intention of it.
"Gryffindors are endlessly baffling," he remarked with a shake of the head. Baffling, yet nonetheless consistent with Sirius's description of the situation. Mentally, he made a note to watch these twins a little more closely, just in case there was some sort of effective deterrent. (In only these first few minutes, he had begun to fear there might not be.)
They seemed rather pleased by his comment. "If we're baffling Slytherins, we must be doing something right."
"I think even for Gryffindor, those two are a special case." Remus shook his head as they headed out, resuming talking about how to stop vomiting long enough to bite something or other. "I wouldn't pay it too much mind."
"He's a point," Sirius said, flopping on the lounger with his feet up under him. Somehow, he didn't manage to spill his drink all over himself either. "Dunno how you managed to teach those two."
"With great care, and water spells at the ready in case something exploded." Remus smiled. "We will try to keep all pyrotechnics to a minimum."
"That sounds exhausting," Regulus said, watching the doorway as the boys' voices started to fade down the hallway. Again, he turned back to his brother and Remus with a shake of the head.
"A small price to pay for another year at Hogwarts," Remus replied, with genuine affection. "There are few things that feel as satisfying as coming home again."
With a shift of his gaze, he turned to the remaining ginger-haired boy. "Have you had your letters yet?"
"I don't think so," he replied with a shrug. "Can you get owls here?"
Regulus looked to the boy, easier to notice in the absence of the rowdier twins. (He had now officially opened his mouth without seeming immediately terrible, which was a good start.) "Yes," he then answered, "I obviously have not had the opportunity to test it within the bounds of the charm, but as far as I am aware, owls can find us just fine."
"Dumbledore would have found a way regardless," Sirius assured him, putting the cup down. It looked suspiciously more like butterbeer than tea. "My sixth year letter came with no address save for 'adjacent to Mr. Potter'. How he knew that, I'll never know."
(A flush of anger prickled at the back of Regulus's mind, and it was with great effort that he tried to smother the scowl forming readily on his face, settling on an unnecessarily long sip of his nearly-finished tea to give his mouth something else to do. Sirius's insensitivity knew no limits, particularly when it came to the insufferable Mr. Potter.)
As it was, the others did not seem to notice.
"He is a Gryffindor," Remus was saying as he smiled into his cup, "and therefore baffling."
"Speaking of," Sirius said, leaning forward onto his knees before pulling himself up. "Do you know what happened to the diary your sister had?"
"No," the boy crinkled his nose. "You'd have to ask her."
Interest flickered in Regulus's eyes, and subtly he looked up again. The tea had done little to lessen his irritation, but to harp on the late James Potter would risk detracting from the conversation's current course, and locking in his source for that diary was priority for the moment.
"Ginny, right?" Regulus clarified, glancing between Sirius and the red-haired boy.
"Yeah," the teenager responded with a frown. "Have you met her already?"
"She was mentioned earlier, and I deducted as much," Regulus responded with a confident sort of vagueness, though any mention by name had been a little more than 'earlier' and the most immediate mention had not been by name, but it hardly seemed a detail to dwell on. The boy's frown was telling, and even if the mention of Potter was still grating at the back of his mind, he did not want to punish Sirius for his helpful identity confirmations, small though they were. "Speaking of meeting people, I am going to go investigate just how many people have been living in my house." Looking to Remus with a tip of the head, he added, "Thank you for the tea. If you will excuse me..."
Regulus called for Kreacher when he stood, passing along his now-empty teacup for washing before slipping swiftly out the door. When Sirius had come back up from their mother's portrait, he had mentioned 'the girls' being upstairs. Ginny was presumably a girl, so it seemed as good a place as any to start, even if there was technically more than one 'upstairs' to consider.
As he walked up to the landing above, Regulus noted to himself that the unfamiliar residents he had thus far encountered appeared to be members of the same family, given their resemblance. The Order of the Phoenix had other members - even without confirmation, he was confident of that much - but it seemed that only this family of gingers remained. (One particular family of gingers stood out prominently in his mind, but he thought it best not to think to hard on that suspicion just yet.)
Regardless of who they were, now that Regulus could see them, he could navigate them, study them - and study them studying himself, which was a vast improvement over the uncertain month of blindness. Most importantly, he had a direct line to possible horcrux information, and he would far prefer to speak that conversation than risk writing it down as some observable permanent product. Information was as delicate as it was precious, and he could not risk carelessness.
Coming to an open door, Regulus heard a pair of voices - presumably 'the girls,' from the sound of it. From inside, one of them (a bushy-haired brunette) seemed to notice him, recognition flashing on her face as the conversation stalled.
"Pardon me for interrupting," he started politely as he approached the door, looking between them - the brunette, and another with the same fire-red mane as the boys he'd seen in the drawing room. If Ginny was that boy's sister, he had a reasonable guess as to which was which, and yet he said: "I'm looking for a 'Ginny,' and Sirius said she was likely to be up here. I presume it is one of you two?"
The two girls exchanged a curious look. The ginger-haired girl raised her hand in a half-hearted wave. "I'm Ginny," she said in a measured sort of voice before gesturing to the girl beside her. "That's Hermione."
"Is something wrong?" Hermione asked.
(Hermione - the polite library-dweller who liked to talk about house-elves.) Regulus took note. "Nothing of immediate concern," he answered mildly, then with a glance to Ginny, he added, "At the risk of sounding overly blunt, I've heard that you had an experience with a 'haunted diary,' and I was wondering if I might be able to ask you more about that. I wouldn't call my brother a particularly reliable first-hand account, much less a second-hand one."
Ginny appeared to recoil, but then collected herself in the space of a moment. "What do you want to know?" she said, if a little more forcefully than strictly necessary.
Regulus's mouth turned down slightly at the recoil, watching as she clearly smothered down an onslaught of unpleasant associations. Her tone was bordering on combative, but he felt no need to rise to a bicker. Unpleasant experiences with the Dark Lord were something he could relate to a little too well, and she was still a child. She could not be any older than he'd been when he joined the Death Eaters so many years ago - most likely younger, from the look of her, though it was hard to say.
"Clearly this is an uncomfortable conversation for you. I'm afraid Sirius was scarce on such details," Regulus said with a crinkle of the nose, though his tone was no less sincere when he added, "I apologise for the insensitivity. I've been away for awhile, and I am attempting to gain an understanding of what has been happening. Sirius mentioned this diary belonged to a schoolboy named Tom Riddle… a boy who apparently went on to become a murderous, self-serving megalomaniac." The words were treacherous in these walls, and he half-expected some curse to fly through the house like a homing spell, but strangely enough, nothing happened. "Considering its author, I was unsure if describing it as 'haunted' was dramatic or literal, and if literal, what exactly the nature of its haunting was."
Ginny seemed to consider it for a moment, before letting her shoulders drop some of their tension. "I didn't know what it was," she said, the ghost of the defensive tone still there. "I thought it was just a diary, then just a ghost in one. I wrote in it, and he wrote back. Then I started losing time...and there were the messages about the heir of Slytherin. I started to put it together after Hagrid's roosters were strangled and I woke up covered in feathers."
As she trailed off, Hermione jumped in. "You didn't know what you were doing!" she said fiercely.
"I still did them," Ginny said, miserably. "I just didn't remember. By then, Tom had gotten scary, and I tried to get rid of the diary. But when I saw Harry had found it, I took it back." She flushed, clearly more embarrassed than anything else. "I did try to stop him, but he was too strong."
"He told Harry he'd been draining her life to make himself a real body," Hermione clarified.
"I don't know what kind of haunting you'd call that," Ginny said, regaining some of her bravado.
As the girls spoke, Regulus's frown deepened. (Draining life to make himself a real body- Was that how a horcrux worked? If Regulus had worn the locket, used the locket, kept the locket close, would it have-) Face pinching, he tried to smother the threat of a cringe, however hot the anger might burn in his chest.
"The worst kind," Regulus settled with a bitter edge. "And to do so to a child is particularly detestable." Shaking his head, he fought to cool the mounting frustration. Mulling in disgust was a hyperfocused examination of information he already he knew, and he could not get lost in the known when so much was yet unknown. "But it was destroyed, wasn't it?" he continued, trying to modulate the degree of curiosity, "If it - he - was growing strong, how were you able to destroy it in the end?"
"I didn't," Ginny said, simply. "Harry did."
"It was basilisk venom," Hermione explained, stepping in again. "After he killed it, he used the tooth to tear the book."
Regulus nodded thoughtfully. Basilisk venom - he had used same through sheer trial and error (and more hard-earned money than he might have preferred), though not from a tooth.
"Dare I ask where you got a basilisk fang?" he asked, lifting his brow just slightly.
"From the basilisk," Ginny replied, as if that were obvious.
Regulus pressed his lips to a line, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "I will be more specific, then. Where did you get the basilisk? Or has Care of Magical Creatures changed that much, too?"
The girls exchanged a look, but this time, it was Hermione that spoke. "He opened the Chamber of Secrets," she said, carefully. "And released a basilisk from it to attack muggleborn students."
"I opened it," Ginny corrected her.
"Yes, but he was using you to do it!" Hermione cried, with a tone of exasperation. "Besides, if Harry hadn't insisted he could hear someone talking in the walls, I would never have figured it out. Honestly, who'd have thought Slytherin would stash a giant, pureblood maniacal snake in Hogwarts?" She turned her attention to Regulus. "Everyone thought Harry was trying to hurt them, that he'd gone crazy. But it turns out he could just hear the basilisk in the pipes. It bit him, when he went after - well, Ginny - so he was able to get a fang."
"A basilisk in Hogwarts in the Chamber of Secrets… I assumed that was just a legend," Regulus muttered with a shake off the head. He'd heard the tale of Slytherin's monster before, but even if it had been true, he would have thought it'd be dead by now. (Petty though the thought was, he also doubted that the basilisk itself had any actual opinions on blood purity, but somehow it didn't seem an appropriate point to make at the moment.) "Fortunate that you all made it out relatively unscathed, from the look of it.
"Riddle was gone when I woke up," Ginny said, slumping forward with a bemused look. "Dumbledore told us when we got out of the chamber that the real You-Know-Who was off in Albania and that hardly anyone knew Riddle and he were the same person. He'd just left part of himself behind when he was sixteen."
"Wasn't that where he killed that woman from Ministry last year?" Hermione interjected suddenly. "I wonder what was so important about Albania."
"That Dumbledore's not in Albania?" Ginny quipped.
"Not the worst strategy," Regulus granted with a huff. (His own time abroad had permitted him to avoid the worst of his problems with the utmost effectiveness, but returning to it all seemed to be going rather less well for him than it apparently was for the resurrected Dark Lord. Such was life.) Albania struck him as no more or less random than any other country outside of the UK, but he supposed it mightn't hurt to look into, in case the remains of some trail had survived.
Tucking away their experiences and speculations alike, Regulus looked between the two girls. He still could not tell if they knew exactly what they had destroyed. Perhaps they realised it in part, for they knew it was part of the Dark Lord left behind - yet it was vague, and their manner was not particularly secretive. Perhaps they ought to be more secretive, given the Dark Lord's successful return, but he would not spit in the face of helpful behavior. Sirius had provided a skeleton of the story, but the details were even more informative than he had allowed himself to hope. Trails to explore, a near-matched destruction method, a legend come to life… Perhaps there were other horcruxes out there, controlling unknown people even now, as with the diary; or perhaps they were hidden away, as the locket had been.
A final curiosity remained, nudging at the back of his mind.
"That is quite a remarkable story," Regulus continued, "and not the typical Hogwarts experience, I must say. How did you come across a diary owned by Tom Riddle in the first place, if you don't mind me asking?"
"I found it among my year one spellbooks," Ginny shrugged, giving Hermione an unreadable look. "Lucius Malfoy slipped it into them when we ran into them in Flourish and Blotts. He practically admitted it, since no one could prove it."
Recognition flickered in Regulus's expression before he could smother it - and with that flicker, a sinking feeling. Perhaps Lucius had not known what the diary was, just as Regulus had not known the truth of the locket until he tore relentlessly into his extensive research, but it did not bode well, if the Malfoy family was entangled now, too. (Cissa- and Draco-)
"I see..." he responded simply, voice trailing off for only a fleeting moment before he spoke again. "Thank you for your thorough explanation, unpleasant though the memories might be. It was quite illuminating."
For a moment, it almost looked like Hermione was going to put her hand up and only just about managed to stay the impulse. "Why do you want to know about the diary?" she asked. "Everyone seems more worried about him being back now, and the memory was destroyed. It seems a strange thing to get hung up on."
"Becoming too fixated on the blinding anxieties of the present teaches you nothing of the greater context," Regulus responded, his tone as mild as it was firm. "He is back, and quite frankly, there is nothing we can immediately do about that, incensing though it might be. As it is, I would rather understand the context I am returning to than talk about how fretful it is."
"We're not fretting," Ginny crossed her arms.
"He wasn't brought back from a memory this time." Hermione frowned at him. "It was a spell. Flesh, blood and bone. That's why he can touch Harry now." Ginny was staring at her, and the girl suddenly flushed red. "I just wanted to research it, but I haven't seen anything with the same requirements. It...must be very dark."
"Potentially important information, as I imagine you would agree, if you are putting such efforts into research. You ask why I would question, but how, I ask, am I to know such things without asking those questions?" Regulus posed, his tone pointed but not unkind as he lifted his brow. It was not an entirely candid presentation of his motives, but neither was it untrue. Perhaps these girls were possessing of more suspicion than he had given them credit for, but half-stated though his intentions might be, he felt no need to shy from them. In that, at least, he felt an unshakable confidence. "Even if I were proficient in Legilimency, I cannot imagine anyone would prefer that. The great beast of ignorance would devour those who take it as a companion, and I do not intend to bait its bite." (Not again, not anymore-) "Perhaps the knowledge seems obvious to you, having lived through it, but it is not so common to those who have not."
"I ask because it means you're not in the Order," Hermione replied, more statement than fact. "Or you'd already know a lot of this. You're just under the charm, the same way we are. Aren't you?"
"You are quite right. I'm not a member," Regulus said, instilling a bit more confidence into his voice than he felt, sensing the invisible finger pointed squarely in his direction. (Careful navigation was in order. The last thing he wanted to do was set off suspicions when not even a day had passed.) "The Order of the Phoenix is using my house as their meeting hall and summer home, and I have been accepting that invasion of privacy for a month now." Pausing only a beat, he pressed his fingers firmly to his temple and spoke again, even as she was opening her mouth to respond, "Fragile trust is hard-won for us all, in these times, but you don't have the monopoly on grudges. I'm not happy about this resurrection either, and quite honestly, I'm tired of being blind." (Blind to the inhabitants in his home, blind to the Dark Lord's contingency plans for his contingency plans, blind to the fates of his family and friends, blind to an adolescence of misplaced faith-)
Uncomfortably, he let a well-worn sigh escape unwrangled. "And for that reason, I do thank you for humouring my questions. In hindsight, perhaps I should have waited to ask about the diary, but I did not realise it was quite so intense an experience. That is the trouble with second- and third-hand information, I suppose."
"We don't like not knowing what's going on either," Ginny said, an obvious olive branch in a tense moment. It didn't stop frustration from slipping into her voice. "And people don't usually answer if we ask."
"It is a terrible feeling, being dismissed," Regulus granted, and though his face was neutral, he too had a subtle edge to the tone.
"Erm, Mr. Black," Hermione started, before letting herself trail off for a moment. "What you were saying before...is that why you asked about Death Eaters teaching Defense?"
('Mr. Black,' she'd called him - how strange that sounded, when it wasn't coming from a professor, nor directed towards his father.)
Sixteen years was a long time.
"Yes," Regulus responded with a tip of the head, and it was true, at least in part. "Even with the constant turnover of the position, three in four years seemed an unusually high ratio, considering ours were zero out of seven, in our school days. Probably." A thoughtful expression tugged his mouth to the side. "I suppose I can't guarantee that, but none we were aware of, at least. Things have changed quite a lot."
"Only two defense professors," Hermione corrected. "Professor Lupin and Lockhart aren't."
"Ah, that's right," Regulus said thoughtfully with a nod. Severus was the potions master, after all. "Yet the point still stands. I would rather know than not know, and as it turns out, there is a great deal to know." Again, he tipped his head to each of them in turn. "On that note, I must excuse myself. It was a pleasure to meet you both."
And how surreal, the day (week- month-) continued to be.
Falling into the familiar grooves of this new pattern, Regulus made haste to his room after parting ways with the girls, turning over the details of the conversation. The resurrection spell (flesh bone blood, flesh bone blood, flesh bone blood), the chamber, the basilisk, even Albania - what was key and what was extraneous was hard to say, but when at last he had settled at his bedroom desk again, he scrawled it all.
Known
H- Obj. (
Spec. or Ord.)
C: M
D: BV & ?
E: Pos.
1. SL (X) - BV, no pos.
2. Unk. (used?) - spell (GMFTI CPOF CMPPE)
3. TRD? TR→DL (TR: UPN SJEEMF) (X - HP) - BV, pos. (G)
M (16)→TRD
LM→G
Investigate
-D: Other?
-HC? RD? GS?
-2? 3? 4? 7?
-FL - found?
-K (exp.) - after SL
-Re-use?
-G (exp.) - TRD
-TR - SS?
-COS (DIBNCFS PG TFDSFUT) → B
-BMCBOJB?
As he'd hoped, this chaos might well be worth it.
Another day, another crash, another screaming fit from his mother. Sirius was starting to get pissed off with that fucking portrait, screeching like a banshee under the cruciatus every damn time anyone so much as stubbed their toe or walked into something. It had begun to wear thin. Even screaming back at her, once a valued activity of his youth, had become incredibly tiresome. Still, the desire to set it on fire or break the wall down had yet to manifest into action, so he considered that a true reflection of some exceptional self-control. But it was every day. It could be several times a day. At the very least, someone needed to find a way to silence her or move her before he lost all of that self-control and just did something stupid.
Today's offender was a harried looking Tonks, whose apologies were drowned out by the mad ravings of desecration, but she certainly looked sorry, and that helped a little.
"I'm really sorry, mate." Tonks said, probably still a little too loud, but he couldn't blame her. His own ears were ringing.
He beckoned her upstairs, but since Kreacher was (as usual) nowhere to be found, he made the tea himself and brought it up to her. Despite what Remus called the oregano incident, he could manage. It was only when he was putting out some of McGonagall's biscuits that he noticed she had a backpack.
"Been busy?" Sirius asked, indicating it.
"Oh, yeah, I'm helping Kingsley out." She beamed, crunching into her shortbread. Knowing that Kingsley's main job was tracking down Dangerous Mass Murderer Sirius Black, he snorted at that. "He's had some fun looking over the old case files. Nice eyeliner by the way, mate."
That startled a laugh out of him. "It was the seventies!"
"You sound proper old when you say stuff like that," Tonks grinned, as Sirius revoiled. "Anyway, we got them to open up your old flat. Did you know the Ministry's had it watched?"
"Remus mentioned," Sirius confirmed.
"Anyway, I managed to knock some things over, so I was able to grab a couple of things. It's not much, but..." As she trailed off, Tonks pulled out of the back a hodgepodge of random things. By the looks of it from his own fuzzy memory, she grabbed things from the desk in his old bedroom. (With a stab, he realised how badly he missed it.)
Sirius sat down at the table and began picking the items. The most useful was an old pocket knife he hadn't realised wasn't in his pocket when he was arrested, a few letters (with a stuck breath, he recognised both James and Lily's writing from the mashed up pile), a postcard he was pretty sure was from Mrs. Potter's trip to Amsterdam in '77, a couple of clips from newspapers he could no longer remember why he kept, and best of all, a few photographs: himself and james mucking about, Harry on the broomstick he'd gotten him for his first birthday, a bunch of them huddled in a ridiculous- looking fort they were all too big for after he'd moved into the flat. For a moment, he couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't result in something horribly embarrassing happening.
"Thank you," he managed eventually, touched she'd even thought to do it.
The moment was broken by a fresh wave of Walburga Black's form of havoc. Sirius wasn't sure what had set her off this time, but he knew he was going to lose his mind if he had to do it again. He leaned forward and hit his head against the table a couple of times.
"Does she ever sound happy?" Tonks asked.
"No, art imitates life and the closest thing-" Sirius stopped, realising that he could in fact ask. He looked to Tonks. "Hang on."
He walked across the landing to find his brother, because he supposed if there was anything that had ever supposed to make his mother happy, it was him. "Can you please try to calm her down? That's the fourth time today," he asked, trying to remain earnest. He hadn't the reserves for it. He fiddled with the letters and photographs in his hands, turning them over in a nervous tick. "I'm just pissing her off more."
Regulus looked up, then down to mark his place. "I will see what I can do," he responded, setting the book aside on the table nestled against his armchair as he stood.
It was quick work, calming their mother. The moment her younger son came into view, Walburga Black's screams decayed to mournful mutters as rapidly and predictably as they had come to expect over the course of their cooped up month. A strange look passed over Regulus's face as he calmly pulled the curtains closed again, and it was only then that he turned his attention back to Sirius.
"You're welcome," Regulus said preemptively, shifting so his back was to the portrait.
"Blimey," came Tonks' loud whisper. Sirius turned around to see her half hanging over the bannisters of the landing overlooking the hall. "How'd you do that?"
"By virtue of being her son," Sirius jumped in before Regulus could respond. He looked a little out of sorts; perhaps he shouldn't have disturbed him after all. With Molly taking the younger children out to collect things, it was one of the few relatively quiet days, and he did know Regulus prefered quiet days whenever possible.
Some combative words seemed to be dancing on the tip of Regulus's tongue as he glanced at his brother, yet he ultimately decided against them as his eyes drifted up to the landing above. He was examining the spikey, bubblegum-pink mop of hair when at last he spoke, "Who might you be?"
With all the usual grace of an enthusiastic erumpet in a china shop, Tonks charged down the stairs. It was possible she was a little curious about Regulus too. Since she had been running around on Order business, she hadn't had as much time to stalk around Grimmauld Place watching what he was up to.
"Wotcher," Tonks grinned. "I'm Tonks."
Given that this wouldn't actually answer the question, Sirius sighed. "That's Nymphadora Tonks," he explained. "That's Andromeda's kid."
Tonks turned around sharply to look at Sirius, but slammed into him instead. "Don't call me - oh, sorry!" she said, as the haul he'd been holding scattered itself along the stairs.
"CHILD OF MUD, SHAME OF MY BLOOD-"
Immediately, Regulus winced at the sudden barrage from behind him, and whatever jarred and conflicted feelings had been tangling up in the realisation that this strangely dressed person was Andromeda's daughter were instead redirected to their shouting mother once again. (He could not help but wonder if these two were the primary culprits.)
Pointedly, Regulus looked between them with a wave of his hand as they scrambled to gather the fallen items. "Go on. I will pick those up in a minute," he tried to say over the shrieks, "She is unlikely to stop while you're both just standing there."
The portrait was clawing when he turned back again - and endlessly unnerving display -and he steeled himself again to cool her ire.
"Mum, it's alright," he soothed, though he could not meet her eyes, and it was unclear if she could even hear him over her own voice. A few more seconds passed before Walburga Black began to calm again, and when he glanced back over his shoulder, Regulus saw that both Andromeda's daughter and Sirius alike had vanished from sight, leaving a small spread of papers and photos on the floor, as instructed. With a sigh, Regulus took the curtains in hand and carefully pulled them closed again before setting to clean the floor.
To peek at another person's spread of photos and letters was impolite, Regulus knew, but he could not help the way his eyes took in the unfamiliar handwriting, nor the way each moving photograph drew his gaze, if briefly. Potter and his ilk, from the looks of it, and hardly anything Regulus was interested in experiencing voluntary. When at last the floor was clear (of parchment and photographs, at least), Regulus stood again and peeked inside the nearest room, where Sirius and Tonks had ducked from sight, each holding a small amount of the mess, themselves. Wordlessly, he held out his own.
"Cheers," Tonks said, dropping her own things (thankfully) onto the table. A few letters scattered, along with the paper clippings. When she made a move to take the pile from Regulus, Sirius swiftly dropped his own top of hers and hastily took it before she could. How she got through auror training being that uncoordinated, he had absolutely no idea. Neither of her parents were that uncoordinated..
In the disarray, Sirius noticed one thing sticking out amongst the parchment. He reached forward and picked up a faded white envelope with his own name on it, looking it over with suspicion for a beat before seemingly deciding something. He held it out to his younger brother. "You might want this. I don't have a use for it anymore."
For a fleeting moment, Regulus privately considered the unlikelihood that there could possibly be a letter or photograph from any pile of Sirius's things that he would want, but as his eyes flicked down to the extended envelope, a rush of familiarity struck like crashing waves.
"That is Cissa's stationary, isn't it?" Regulus was asking even as he took the envelope, though he needn't have wasted the breath. He recognised her delicate handwriting immediately, a nostalgic call back to letters sent to him at school after she had graduated, but Narcissa and Sirius had never gotten along particularly well, even before his disownment.
Pulling out the parchment, Regulus's eyes found the date, and immediately, his heart wrenched. The 26th of November, 1979.
'Sirius,
Regulus is missing. It has been four months now. If you are hiding him somewhere,
if this is some sort of a joke, we have long passed any point of humour.
Send him home where he belongs.
In the case that you are not responsible, I ask instead:
if he has contacted you at all, even in passing, you must tell me.
It will only make it worse if you are keeping it to yourself.
He is still so young, and this has been a terrible year in every way.
We thought he might've wanted some time alone, but he would not have just left, not like this.
No one has seen or heard from him since he came back from school.
Any information, even the lack of information, could be something.
I would not ask this lightly. If you have any shred of decency, you will do this for him.
N.M.'
Like a punch in the gut, her letter had stolen the breath from Regulus's lungs, and he stared uncomfortably at the neat script and earnest words. The acidic burn of guilt rose immediately, and even as he folded the parchment back into careful thirds, he couldn't quite lift his eyes.
Sirius, perhaps realising his possible misstep, lowered his tone to reply. "I know you were close." Were, not are, which was unlikely to help matters. "I thought you'd want to have something of hers, something that indicated her giving a damn."
Regulus nodded, carefully slipping the letter back into the envelope and trying to rearrange his expression to something more neutral. Narcissa had cared - even after months of nothing, she had cared and hoped and held on, and though on some level he'd known they must have mourned, it was a level he made every effort to ignore. To cause suffering for his family, the very people he wanted to please and protect, felt deeply wrong… yet to stay for their sakes would have been even more wrong, if in a different way.
In November of 1979, she had been desperate to find him, but how did she feel now, in 1995? If he were to reach out and soften the years of his absence, would she respond with relief and care, or was this frantic letter the last words of love his cousin would have for him?
"A thoughtful consideration," Regulus granted, though he still was uncertain of how to meet his brother's eyes - nor Andromeda's daughter, standing beside him, full-grown. Regulus did not think himself a traitor to his blood so much as a defector from the lies of the Dark Lord, but would Narcissa be able to make that distinction? Would Bellatrix?
He did not want to know, not really, yet temptation tingled in his fingers as he slipped the envelope into his pocket.
There was an awkward moment where no one said anything. Despite all being related, they were still strangers to each other in many ways, and there were a lot of things unsaid between the lines of their family tree. However, before a reasonable response could be fathomed, a large silvery bird flew in the door as if it owned the place and hovered in front of Tonks.
MINISTRY OWL HAS BEEN SPOTTED AT PRIVET DRIVE.
STAND BY.
Something icy dropped down in Sirius's stomach, and his throat clenched. Harry. The Ministry didn't believe him, that much was clear, and with the Prophet ridiculing him, it could mean anything. What if he was in danger? What if Voldemort had found him?
He looked to Tonks, who must have made the same connection. "I'll go find out what's going on," she promised, sounding more serious than he had ever known her to sound.
Quick as a flash, she bolted down the stairs and slammed the door hard enough that for the sixth time that day, the screams of Walburga Black resumed.
Again, Regulus screwed up his face at the shrieks, but if nothing else, the sudden chaos had broken the tension enough for him to spare a look to his brother. "I take it something important is happening?"
"Have you ever known a letter from the Ministry to be a good thing?" Sirius replied, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. What the hell was he supposed to do? He wasn't built for waiting around to see what the Ministry was going to accuse Harry of now.
There was another sound of fluttering, but instead of Emmeline's patronus, an owl suddenly burst through the chimney half covered in grit and grime and not looking very happy about it. It didn't look like one of the Weasleys, nor was it Hedwig, but it stopped on the table for him to retrieve the note none the less.
'Harry's been called up for use of underage magic and expelled. MLEP on their way to take his wand.
Tonks is stalling them. Dumbledore's just arrived at the Ministry.
AW'
"What the hell is going on out there?" Sirius growled, more at himself and his own uselessness cooped up in this blasted house than anything else. Why would Harry use magic? He knows he's not meant to. He knows he's supposed to keep his head down this summer. But maybe he hadn't meant to, Sirius reasoned, thinking back to his own teenage years here. How many times had he done accidental magic in the heat of the moment? Even before he'd left, things had literally been exploding. Surely he couldn't be expelled for something like that!
"Have you got a quill on you?" he asked.
"Not literally on me, but I can see if we have one in here," Regulus said, brow furrowing slightly as he walked to a desk nearby, pulling open one of the drawers to find a small set of quills and tightly sealed inkwells. Placing one of each on the desk, he added, "Do I get to ask why, or is this going to be one of those things everyone is terribly mysterious about?"
Sirius took the quill, and ripped a piece of the parchment from one of the old letters still left on the table. Harry just needed to stay put and Dumbledore would sort this out. It was his school, not the Ministry's and he had the final word on it. He scribbled a note to Harry, before registering the question. "I don't think you want to talk about Harry," he said, as he gave it to the owl who whooshed off in a hurry.
"Ah," Regulus responded, extending no further word on the subject, though his gaze followed each agitated movement carefully, caught in tension of a different sort.
"Why is it than when the only two people around consist of the person not involved and the one who can't bloody leave that all hell breaks loose?" Sirius asked, irritably pulling all of the papers into one messy pile. He hated not knowing what was going on. In this way, he knew his brother was not dissimilar. It had to be driving him crazy.
Another swift flapping of swings was followed by the appearance of a snowy owl, a much more welcome sight than the others. If Harry was sending Hedwig, then he was probably alright. Dumbledore would sort it out. He was just overreacting. Realising he could still hear the screeching from downstairs, Sirius thought wryly to himself that dramatic overreactions did run in the family. Even the quietest of the lot had faked his own death.
There were three letters, one for Ron and another for Hermione along with his own. He set them down the table. They could get them when they returned (which had to be soon, or Hedwig would have gone to find them, or at least nipped him for taking theirs) and tore into his own.
'I've just been attacked by dementors and I might be expelled from Hogwarts.
I want to know what's going on and when I'm going to get out of here.'
The air went out of the room. In a numb sort of way, he realised that he must have sat down because he could taste the dust still in the air from doing so. He's fine, he thought purposefully to himself. He's absolutely fine. He wrote, so he must be fine. In all truth, he sounded pissed off. Pissed off was good. Nothing like being pissed off if you're dealing with dementors because there's damn all they can do about that particular emotion. He should know. Distantly, he was aware that he was reacting publicly, even if that public was only Regulus, there was still some long standing urge not to let him see anything like that.
Sirius shook his head, trying to shake off the feeling of cold that persisted. "Looks like he's recruited the dementors," Sirius said, a little hoarse and trying his best to hide it. "You'll - you'll want to add that to whatever it is you're trying to figure out."
"Lovely," Regulus remarked in a dry tone that implied quite the opposite. "What is a resurrection party without soul-sucking dementors?"
Sirius snorted, and if you were feeling generous, the quick twitch could have passed for a smile as well. "The better question," he started, speaking as he thought, "is if they're drawing to Voldemort, who's keeping Azkaban?"
Regulus's expression distanced at the words, sticking a hand in his pocket where he had slipped Narcissa's letter just a few minutes before. "That is a better question," he echoed with a nod.
Sirius really needed to see Dumbledore. There would be a meeting, he was sure of it now. Someone had to go and get Harry out of there. If the dementors had gone rogue, then they were about to get an influx of Death Eaters, and if it was a solitary dementor, then someone sent it after Harry personally. One way or another, Harry was right: they needed to know what was going on, and Harry himself needed to be here where he could see him.
Regulus had expected a degree of change and abnormal happenings, once the magical blindfold was lifted and the invisible people became recognisable within the house just as he, Sirius, and Kreacher had been all along, but when he rounded a corner to see their resident group of children huddled along the railing with some strange, stretching, rubby-looking object, Regulus acknowledged to himself, once more, that the only thing he could expect with these people was the unexpected.
"Sounds like they're going to get Harry," one of the twins said. He was holding the rubbery object to his ear.
"Do you think they'll let us come to?" the younger boy - Ron, he had gathered - was asking.
The Order must be having a meeting. Regulus had gathered as much from the series of shrieks they'd been graced with not to long before. If he had to guess (and as it was, he did have to guess), such a meeting was most likely about the dementors Sirius had mentioned the day before, though naturally, Regulus was not to be privy to the details. These children seemed to be discussing something of the sort, as well, but not directly with each other, and that in itself was a point of curiosity.
Regulus had stilled his pace, but before he could backtrack again, Hermione had noticed him with a startle from her position opposite. To pull back now was pointless, so instead he said, "What exactly is he holding to his ear?"
There was a sudden scattering amongst the children, though the twins held their place, seemingly unfazed by the appearance of someone new. They really did appear to be completely unflappable. While Ron and Hermione had the decency to look sheepish, it looked for a moment that Ginny might claim there was nothing against their ears despite glaring evidence to the contrary.
Instead, she placed a finger to her lips. "Shhhh!" she hissed, waving her hand.
"No need to panic. I'm not going to tattle on you," Regulus said, and his voice quieted in turn, however small his contribution to the scramble might have been. "But my question still stands."
In lieu of answering, Ginny simply pointed over the edge of the bannister. The long, flesh-like strings extended from the ear of each twin and twisted down where the entrance to the doorway to the kitchen was.
"We just want to know what's happening," Hermione said in a loud whisper.
"Don't be thick," one of the twins told Ron before making a noise of frustration. They had clearly decided to leave the newcomer to the girls. "Blast Snape, his voice is too low."
"Snape is down there, then?" Regulus asked, more as a statement than a true question. Severus Snape - an old friend, living and breathing, and yet the thought of him wandering about the house (about the headquarters, too, though Regulus was unsure which was worse) made Regulus more nervous than anything. So uncertain, these steps were, and though Severus must have given them some reason to believe he was an ally trustworthy enough to join their band of vigilantes, the blank void of the past 16 years could only be filled by braving a conversation with Severus himself...
"Everyone's here," said Ron, before getting walloped on the arm by one of his other brothers and lowering his voice. "Well?"
"Nothing," the twin nearest him whispered, shaking his head. "Can't even hear Snape's dulcet tones anymore."
"Is the meeting over?" Hermione asked, glancing over the bannister furtively.
"Either that or Mum's found the extendables again," the same twin replied, dropping the tube from his ear.
"So is Harry coming here or isn't he?" Ron asked, voice rising in the sheer frustration.
"I'd say so," said the other twin.
Regulus pressed his lips to a line, unsure of how he felt about a Potter breaching the walls of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place again, after over two decades free of the lot. Even so, it sounded as though Harry Potter was quite securely situated in the center of every dramatic step in the Dark Lord's plan, as of late - and with each step, he was managing to come out alive.
That, at the very least, was worth taking notice of.
