Word Count: 11,585 (halved is 5,793 words - for the Hogwarts Writing Month challenge)
Chapter 14
It was a little after eight in the morning when there was a sudden, unwarranted flash of light from the top landing. Sirius startled awake, on his feet before he could register what spell it was and scrambling to get his wand off the cluttered bedside table. Who had come into the house casting? Was it Narcissa's kid, or the woman herself? Did she tell someone? He doubted Bellatrix; the spell seemed to do nothing at all.
Sirius then registered the laughter - no, giggles. That wasn't anyone he was related to at all, and squinting through sleepy eyes, Sirius realised it was instead Emmeline with what he was pretty sure was one of Sturgis's contraptions. No, it was a camera.
That was a camera flash.
"What the hell, Vance?" Sirius said, before lunging himself towards her.
Vance took off at a speed that was extremely improbable in her heels, taking two steps at a time as she bolted down the stairs. Sirius had been running up and down these stairs a lot longer than she had, so she was doomed regardless, but he was still annoyed she managed to keep a lead. On the second floor landing, he didn't register Harry down on the landing below until Emmeline called "Good morning, Harry!" as she sped past him. Sirius merely tipped a salute at his godson, who looked on flummoxed. Naturally, their stomping about had awoken his mother, but in the time it took Emmeline to run down the full length of the ground floor staircase, Sirius managed to climb over the bannisters and drop down.
Emmeline came to stop but mimed an inability to listen due to his dearest mother's screeching. He took her by the shoulder, giving her a shove towards the dining room and following her in. However, for the second time this morning, he was forced to double-take. There was a large, blue structure that had taken over the dining room. Was this some sort of Harry-shaped joke that he didn't get?
"What is that?" Sirius asked.
"A tent," Emmeline said, as it was perfectly normal to have a tent overtaking the grand dining room.
Sirius tapped the side of the camera, which hung limply in her hands. "Have you taken leave of your mind this morning?"
"My mind doesn't allow leave," Emmeline replied. "It's an every day of the week vocation, being me."
Sirius gave up on trying to argue semantics. "How does that translate to a tent in the dining room?"
"It was the least used room," Emmeline replied. "I wanted to make sure I could get it up."
Which didn't particularly shed light on it either. "Why?"
"I'm going camping," Emmeline shrugged.
"Is that a good idea?" Weren't there still a whole bunch of people attempting to murder her? It wouldn't be the most safe way of going around.
"We'll be fine," Emmeline waved him off.
"We?"
"Regulus and I are going camping," Emmeline said, in a tone that you would explain something obvious to a young child. "You knew that."
"I know you joked about it!" Sirius said. "He's not an outdoors boy, Emmeline. He's very much an indoors boy. Ironically, the only way to get the stick out of his arse about the messiness of the great outdoors is to shove him on a broom."
"We'll be fine, thank you," Emmeline replied, nonchalant.
"None of this explains why you're taking pictures of me in my sleep," Sirius groused. "That's creepy."
Emmeline shot him a look. "Like being able to watch what everyone is doing every minute on a map?"
"We didn't go about looking in people's bedrooms," Sirius muttered.
"The door was open," Emmeline protested. "I needed to test the camera."
"Which brings us to why you have what looks like a Podmore-special." Sirius waved his hand in front of the camera.
"I asked Sturgis for his Vishis player for the trip, but it's broken," Emmeline finally explained. "He lent me his extended length camera until he could get it fixed."
Sirius shook his head. "A what player?"
"Vishis," Emmeline replied. "Or is it Vishus? It really needs a vowel, the inventor must have been Welsh. It's the muggle pensieve thing."
Finally, something clicked in Sirius's brain. "The video camera? Benjy's old one?"
"Yes, that!" Emmeline declared. "He was quite sure it was working last week, but it's Sturgis; last week could be 1980."
Sirius ran his hand over his face, all thoughts of going back to sleep banished by the adrenalin. "Don't you have work?"
"It's barely eight," Emmeline replied, evenly. "I don't need to leave yet."
Sirius swore; he'd been expecting to sleep until at least after ten. His headache from the night before was bound to come back. Still, he supposed if he must be awake at such a terrible time, and Harry was obviously up as well, then he should take the time to go to the flat today. He had been putting it off for a while, but Harry would be back at school soon, and he had some random things from James and Lily - notes, postcards, even a jumper - that may mean something more to Harry than to him.
They meant a lot to him too, but he had some of his memories. More so than he had a year ago. Harry barely had that.
He had also told Regulus he could root about in Alphard's stuff in the basement too, so he could probably kill two things with one stone. He doubted he'd ever live there again; it wasn't suitable for Harry, though now he thought about it, probably still had some of his toddler things in it. He tried to ignore the pang in his chest for that toddler. He liked the teenager; he was bright, good-hearted, and loyal. Pretty funny, when he was in his right mind for it. It was just harder sometimes to equate the toddler to the teenager, especially as the teenager got closer to an adult.
Sirius shook the thought way. He had to appreciate what he had, not what had ripped from him due to his own stupidity, the Ministry, and traitors he won't dignify with attention in this moment. He now had Remus's keys; it was early enough they could get a look around, and the two of them had buggered off a few times by themselves before. At least he'd be around this time.
Number Twenty-One B Delancey Street was just off the high street in Camden. It was a square, faded red building with two steps in front of it. Sirius had loved it the moment he'd seen it; he'd bought it within the week of viewing it in April and moved in with Remus at the end of the school year. They had all done a little decorating, which meant it had always been half-done because they'd always ended up mucking about instead of doing much of anything else. From the outside, it didn't look that different. There was still the little buzzy thing you had to use to get to the stairs to the top floor; the windows were still placed in a haphazard fashion; the green gate at the side was still patchy and rusted; and although the Arlington Road sign no longer said Arselington Road, he could almost pretend the last twenty years had evaporated like a smoke.
Not completely. Twenty years ago, Harry was still the mere concept of Elvendork, and Regulus wouldn't be caught dead here. Sirius was a little disappointed he'd done the paperwork to revive himself, or that would have been an excellent joke.
"Don't put your foot on the second step," Sirius warned. James had originally mucked about with it, so even if Remus had not, it'd never been exactly right. One of his neighbours sprouting spontaneous hair growth all over her body had been funny at the time, but he'd seen what James's hair did to combs, brushes, and all manner of hair products. Harry wouldn't thank him.
Regulus lifted his brow. "Does it creak, or did you do something to it?"
Sirius gave him a pointed look. "Why do so many of our interactions begin with the words 'did you do something to it'?"
"Because history strongly supports such a conclusion," Regulus asserted with an unapologetic tone as he passed over the step in question.
Though Sirius could definitely argue the point, he supposed he wasn't entirely wrong about the precedent. "Why would I do something to my own step?" he grumbled, as he heard a snort from Harry. He was trailing behind a little. "Alright, Harry?"
"Yeah," Harry said, ducking into the hallway. "It's not what I thought."
"Because it's muggle or because it's not gigantic?" Sirius asked.
Harry looked embarrassed for a flickering moment. "Both, to be honest."
"I've had muggle neighbours my whole life. I merely never met them." Not even because they were muggle, though that played a part in it for a while. Mostly because they were old, and he didn't see the point. "I also don't require that much space. I'm not a fan of clutter, and I don't keep things for no reason."
Sirius let the door shut behind him and heard the mechanism lock. He still wasn't exactly sure how that worked, but it's not as if he knew anyone he could reasonably ask. Ted, maybe, but he always seemed like such an adult. Even if he was one himself, Ted was more of an adult. Arguably, most people were more of an adult, but he wasn't going to give ammunition by asking how the weird buzzy thing worked. Lily had promised to tell him; it could wait for the day she perhaps could.
"Need to grab the basement key. Door's not locked," Sirius said, mostly because it never had been. They'd relied on spellwork, their own wards, and passcodes. The old lock had never worked properly anyway.
Stepping inside, there was still haphazard and fairly mismatched shoes in the corner. Some looked a little more trampled, likely by the Aurors. The wallpaper was patterned brown and cream, as he'd remembered it. A lot more faded. Despite the wallpaper, the decor was - much to the pride of his eighteen-year-old self - nothing much at all like Number Twelve. He could see the mismatched dining set that Remus had partially bought from home, and chairs they'd seemed to simply accumulate. The walls did have photos on them, but they were stuck up with spellotape and mixed in with old band posters and a cross-stitch that Dorcas Meadowes had once given him with the words F*CK DEATH EATERS upon it.
He slipped into the second door of the hall, and found himself in his own room. Not as he'd left it; the space had clearly been upturned. It might take him a bit longer than anticipated to find the keys. "Give me a sec," he called back out. After a beat, he remembered; he actually did have his wand on him. "Accio keys!"
Which meant that several keys suddenly came flying from the mess and forced Sirius to duck as they embedded themselves in the bedroom and hall walls. "Duck," he said, lamely.
Regulus quirked an eyebrow, glancing first at the keys, then to Sirius. "Your timing is a little off."
"My ducking is a little off," Sirius answered, before pulling out a couple of the embedded keys. Where had all of these keys come from? He didn't own that much. His motorcycle keys had gone to Hagrid, though he might have had a spare. He might have had the keys to James's, but he couldn't recall ever having used a key. "I have no idea what half of these are."
"That looks like it comes from Hogwarts," Harry said, picking up one of the old, larger keys.
He was right. It did. Had he nicked one of the keys from Hogwarts and never given them back? Borrowed - or 'borrowed' them from Hagrid? Then, with a sudden startled laugh, he remembered where this particular key had come from. "Well-spotted," he said. "It's the broom closet down at the Quidditch pitch."
"Is that something you get as captain?" Harry asked.
"Probably," Sirius replied.
"It is," Regulus confirmed in turn.
"You would know." Sirius gestured the key in the direction of his brother pointedly. "I was never a captain. I'm not the overachiever around here. This is from a very long, very involved story about us lot - not your mum, she'd gone home since she had a lick of sense - and some accidental trespassing. Really probably not a repeatable story just yet."
"Why?" Harry said, stiffly.
He thought it was something bad. Ever since that pensieve, he'd noticed a little bit more trouble when talking about his father's school escapades. Sirius could at least stomp that down. "In part, because it was just a really stupid thing to do, even if it was funny at the time. Mostly because what I know of this story is second hand. It involves one of the first times we ever met the Order, two Death Eaters, ill-advised apparition, splinters in uncomfortable places, and - from what I've been told - Dumbledore's brother chasing Remus and your father out of the Hog's Head in his nightie. I wasn't there; I lost them with a floo mishap." Come to think of it, whose bathtub was that he'd ended up waking up in? "I think I ended up at Vance and McKinnon's, but since they went through flats every five minutes back then, I'm not sure."
On second thought, it's not like any of that sounded good to tell someone's child. But it didn't involve stringing anyone up, even if they did deserve it, so it was probably alright.
Harry handed him the key. "Why were they having to move a lot?"
"Because Marlene McKinnon never met a fight she could back down from." As if Sirius could claim he did. "Tiny, but terrifying. Think of your Ginny, for example."
"She's not-" To his surprise, he watched as Harry turned pink for a moment right to his ears. "I mean, she's just - she's Ginny."
Oh, for the love of Merlin, not another one. Was this his penance, now? He was doomed to spend his life dealing with flustering crushes and teenage yearning? At least this was from an actual teenager.
Pointing to his own room, Sirius abruptly changed the subject. "I know there's a bunch of stuff of theirs under the desk; I can see Quidditch stuff from here. We better go and see what mess the Aurors have made of Uncle Alphard's things. I'm sending Tonks in to eat the faces off them if they've damaged anything worth keeping. You coming?"
Regulus tipped his head in a slightly uncomfortable nod and stepped forward to move down to the basement.
"Do I need to check your mouth?" Sirius said, bouncing down the stairs again, and this time, taking a utility door to another stair set. "I appreciate all the tongue-biting, but if there's blood, you should probably rinse it out."
"My mouth is fine," Regulus said stiffly as he stepped onto the second stair set after him.
"I'd keep all decisions on that to yourself until you see what mess the Ministry's made in here," Sirius replied, feeling the telltale cardboard at his feet. There definitely was a wider walkway around the boxes than he'd had, and he doubted he left them stacked that way. "I really need to check what might've been impounded, but I'd need to check the old inventory sheet. He wasn't Grandfather, but he might've had a few things they found a bit iffy."
"I suspect it does not take much for them to deem it questionable," Regulus remarked, shaking his head.
"That's the Ministry for you." Sirius pivoted around some old horoscopes that probably contained something of value. "Have you decided what you're telling them? Whatever you say about your own circumstances, it's going to end up implicating others in the process. How you say it will decide who you screw."
"I know," Regulus said uncomfortably, expression pinching with an awkward pause. "Fortunately, most of the people I interacted with have already implicated themselves at this point."
"It's not the implicated people that I thought of." Sirius replied, trying to ignore the uncomfortable expression. "But you will only have absolution from what you admit to, and no matter what, you will end up having to lie. You're part of the Ravenclaw Rebellion these days, and figuring out what you want to say with Dedalus and what you're willing to say will help get through the parts you'll have to lie through."
Regulus nodded slowly. "I know. I'm not going to sell out the Order."
"I knew that!" Sirius rolled his eyes. "I'm talking about if they go looking at the other houses and try to get you on a technicality of you owning a restricted object, or deciding who knew what and when if you don't fancy putting someone like Narcissa in the firing line for obstruction or lying."
With a furrowed brow, Regulus nodded, mouth pressing to a quiet line again.
Why did he always think that Sirius would believe the worst of him? Regulus had worked hard to prove himself, and he wasn't even enjoying the benefits of it. "It's going to be hard enough on you with Bellatrix," Sirius added, quietly.
To that, Regulus let out a heavy sigh and nodded. "I'm not looking forward to it."
An understatement of the century. "You keeping Crouch's kid out of it?"
"I suppose it depends on what they ask," Regulus responded with a frown. "I don't want to drag Barty into it unnecessarily, but I suppose his involvement is a bit obvious at this point. I don't want to trap myself with a superfluous lie of omission either."
"It's not as if it'll make much of a difference at this point," Sirius commented. "You can't give Bellatrix another life sentence; she's already got one. Another is just greedy."
"I don't think she would see it that way," Regulus said wryly, "but I know it doesn't make much difference for them from a legal standpoint."
"No decent person enjoys being a snitch," Sirius acknowledged. He pulled out a drawer and coughed against the sudden, musty smell it let loose. "But it's what it looks like from the outside. A kid getting involved with something half their family was before freaking out when they realise it's a murder and torture club, and no, their parents or grandparents didn't lift a finger to stop it because they all figured either he was such a little adult he didn't need the help or his lovely cousin and friends would take care of him. It doesn't hurt your case. It's just not flattering."
Regulus sighed, scrunching up his nose. "There is not much in the way of flattering explanations."
Finally, one of the boxes had a set of photographs. Set was probably overstating it; it looked more like individual ones all shoved in there and forgotten about. "Better than Death Eater," Sirius said, before tapping the side of the cabinet. "I think this is the personal things. The rest is just accumulations."
Regulus nodded, approaching the cabinet. For a moment, he eyed one of the brightly coloured masks (couldn't say the country of origin) laying on a smaller cabinet to the side, then turned his attention to the box of seemingly random photographs. Picking up a few, Regulus fanned them in his fingers to look at the three at once: One of Alphard on what looked to be a ferry, and two baby photographs. One of the photographs was of the two of them, taken the Christmas that Uncle Alphard got his camera, but the other definitely wasn't.
"It looks like this one is from before Uncle Cygnus was born," Regulus said in reference to what was probably a picture of their mum (looking characteristically unpleasant) and Alphard when they were little.
"They didn't change much." Not entirely true, as while their mother had always been a tall and imposing woman, there was barely two years between her brother and herself. Not unlike them, Sirius thought, with some discomfort. "You're right; he was born around Uncle Alphard's first year at school. Maybe second. This is definitely before that. I've never been so thankful our own had no interest in each other like that. I think I'd have thrown up again if we'd ended up with another one when I was thirteen." Sirius tapped the picture where his toddler self was, red-faced and clearly upset, looked on the verge of doing exactly that. Even the thought was enough to induce a shudder. They were not affectionate people, their parents, not even really with each other, and it made it a little more palatable that they just treated everyone like that. It wasn't personal. "You were just destined to be the baby. A bit terrifying to think the baby before you is Tonks's - and Draco Malfoy's - grandpa now."
"A loose definition of 'baby,' as ever. I think everyone is a little bit uncomfortable with that fact," Regulus said, letting the photos drop back into the box and picking up a few others. "Or at least those who are aware of it. I would expect that Draco is not."
"Baby is the youngest of a generation." Sirius waved his wand at Regulus pointedly. "Like you. But how would he know? He's his own generation, far as everyone's concerned. Tonks may be his cousin, but she's not family, and thus, doesn't count. No wonder he's spoiled."
"I'm aware of the circumstance," Regulus said without looking up from the photographs, having picked up a small stack to flip through. "But that didn't make it less strange to realise he doesn't know you were a Gryffindor. Not that I would expect it to come up when you are historically a Non-Topic, but it is still jarring."
"Damnatio memoriae, the fate of traitors. Nothing to do with me is meant to be passed down." Sirius gave a dry huff. It was supposed to be a punishment, but the tree hadn't mattered to him for a long time when he'd been sixteen. There might have been other things he missed, but the idea of his life being just another part of a lineage wasn't one of them. It was freeing. "There's not many sentimental people, and even our own parents were not chatty. It doesn't bother me. I wouldn't know much about our parents', their generation, or our grandparents' school days beyond a few stray details." Sirius tapped the photo splayed in the box. "They probably hadn't finished school when this was taken. I can't remember if it was just Andromeda's parents who got married when they were still in school."
"No - they were the second in a row, if you look at the birth years," Regulus replied.
"One doesn't always mean the other," Sirius replied. "But your ability to instantly know all familial facts never ceases to impress and slightly disturb me."
"I suppose my memory suits it," Regulus said with a half-shrug, flipping to the next photograph.
"You alright down here if I leave you to nose about?" Sirius asked, before glancing upward. "Harry's been alone long enough that trouble is probably about to start."
"I'm fine, yes," Regulus said, sparing him a glance for good measure. "Go ahead."
Sirius nodded. "I'll get you when we're heading out."
It felt different to walk in alone. Not truly alone, for he could hear Harry in the bedroom and knew logically that Regulus could probably spend a week down there looking over anything before he'd notice time passing, but alone enough to process how it looked. Though he'd had many places to call home, Sirius had only created one space for himself his entire life. It looked like the first home of two teenage boys, which is what it had been, but it had been crystalised and ransacked through. Some bits still had dust, and the corners were still cobwebbed, but most things had been scuffed up and rifled through as if it hadn't been anyone's home at all. Sirius spared a thought to Remus living through this happening and felt, not for the first time today, that he wanted him to be here.
It was harder still to glance into his own room, and at a fleeting look, Harry sitting on the floor was almost indistinguishable from his father. His life of late had consisted of nothing but moments like this; of exploring Number Twelve in a way he hadn't since he was a small child, though this time he was trailing behind to see what his brother was doing rather than the other way around. He'd gone to the same beaches he'd spent his childhood on, gone and sat at Andromeda's and let her fuss and dury in the way she had always done for as long as he'd known her, and here, he could feel it again. The ghost of what used to be.
In the present, he watched Harry run his fingers under his glasses in the same way that James had always done when he was upset about something, but trying to hold it together. What he'd been feeling at the time had always been written all over his face, no matter what, but while Harry had the same subtlety (or there lack of), Sirius rarely saw him outright emotional about anything.
"What have you got there?" Sirius asked quietly.
Harry looked up, a deer caught in headlights. "It's, er. It's a letter."
"It does resemble one, yes." Sirius took a few steps in and almost tripped over an old pair of shoes. That could've been Aurors, but honestly, it could have just been him. He wasn't the most organised bloke at the best of times.
"My mum wrote to you." Harry made a motion as if to hand him the letter, but then stopped himself.
"Sometimes," Sirius agreed, with no small amount of confusion. "Is that so strange? You write to Ron and Hermione all the time."
"No," Harry shook his head, and the frustration of what he was trying to communicate was more than evident. "It's just reading her writing, it's different from a photograph. It's almost as if I can hear her talking, like I know what she sounded like when she – I mean, I do know, but only a little, and I'm not explaining this right..."
"It's more personal." Sirius managed to give him a weak smile. "Anyone can look at a photograph, but not everyone will hear her voice in the words she writes."
Harry looked at him and took a long shuddering breath. "She wrote about me."
"Of course she did." Sirius did smile this time, genuinely. "Why would she not?"
It didn't appear Harry had much of an answer for that one. "We had a cat?" he said, suddenly.
"Yes," Sirius said. "James had a feral stray set up shop when he was a kid, called uh, Patch. No, second name was Patch."
"The cat had a surname?" Harry asked.
"First name Cabbage, often referred to as Mr Patch unless you wanted your hair clawed out." Sirius caught the look Harry was giving him and bristled. "Don't look at me like I'm the crazy one here. It was a well known fact that James was not allowed to name things anymore. We all learned this the hard way. You were nearly called Elvendork, till your mum got him to use his grandfather instead."
"I'm named after my dad's grandfather?" Harry interjected.
"You didn't know that?" Sirius asked. That was hardly unusual. Sirius was named after his as well, and Regulus after both their grandfather's younger brother and their grandfather himself. Recycling names had its upsides.
Harry shook his head. "So there was another Harry Potter?"
"I think his real name was Henry," Sirius mused, as he tried to think back to the spare conversations he'd had with James and his father. "He was on the Wizengamot, so there should be a picture down there. Ask Arthur, or whoever you're with, to run you past the offices."
Harry nodded, but seemingly more to himself this time. He lifted the letter, now finally showing Sirius the contents, if not handing it over. "It was about my first birthday."
Sirius swallowed thickly. "I have a picture of that, but it's at Grimmauld Place. Tonks swiped it for me. If you see any indentations around the furniture around here, that's probably why."
"You bought me my first broom," Harry said, as if this was something important. "You didn't tell me that."
"Didn't I?" His memory wasn't what it used to be. "You loved flying, even then. It used to be the bike. I had this motorcycle I used to love; it was a 50's model, and it was beautiful. I used to take you on that a lot when you were a baby, and you always squealed the place down. A broom seemed like a safe bet. It's why I wanted to see you fly."
Harry smiled at that. "You could've saved yourself a lot of trouble if you'd just talked to me then. Or any time you tried to get into the dorm, actually."
Sirius gave a bark laughter. "And you'd have believed me, would you?"
"I'd have heard you out," Harry said, with such an earnestness that Sirius could believe him. James would probably have heard him out too, now he thought about it.
"As hard as it's been," Sirius said, tentatively, "I'm glad I didn't. I wasn't in my right mind, if I ever am, and I don't like the thought of you getting caught in the way of that. I'm sorry to tell you that I got my temper from my mother, and I don't handle it well when I'm upset. I don't handle the anniversary well. It's why I'm not going to the memorial."
"Memorial?"
"You don't know about the memorial?"
Harry made a noise of frustration. "I told you, no one tells me anything!"
"When did you tell me that?" Sirius asked.
"A few weeks ago," Harry said, distractedly. "What memorial?"
Sirius took a breath. "There's one in Godric's Hollow, where your dad was from. Every year, on November 1st. Remus goes, so do Emmeline and McGonagall. If you want to go, you – could ask her." Even the thought of going anywhere within a hundred yards of that house made his stomach drop and his blood run cold. But if it was something Harry wanted, he'd try. He owed him that. It was half his fault that he was clinging onto a letter from his mother instead of the real thing.
For a long moment, Harry said nothing. Then he pointed to the letter. "There's a page missing. Do you remember the end of it?"
Sirius looked at the run off sentence about Dumbledore and shook his head. "Probably about what a little toerag he was he was young. I heard he was wild as a teenager."
"It's hard to imagine Dumbledore as a teenager," Harry said.
"It always throws me off to see him in old pictures," Sirius agreed. "He was ginger at one point."
Harry laughed, "Really?"
Sirius nodded, "Regulus has been pulling this, that, and the other out of the attic lately. There's some group school photographs from Mum's and Dad's days, back in the '30s. He was a bit ginger in them."
"Was that when Voldemort was at school?" Harry asked.
"Year below my dearest mother," Sirius said. "It's almost understandable. Six years around my mum would turn into anyone into a homicidal maniac."
The following day, the grand family tour continued its path to the coast of Wales once again, this time landing where their Great Aunt Cassiopeia had once lived - more recently, where Sirius and the kids had resided during their stay at Porth Iago.
Curiosity had prickled, at the time, but Regulus had not carved out the time on those lazy days, merely dancing around the idea of distant burn marks. The past was a steep step into deep waters, and the dams had since burst open, pushing forth a certain momentum of discovery. He had visited Great Aunt Lycoris's house, the day before, but there had been nothing out of the ordinary from what he would expect from the Family. Stepping through those doors had triggered a rush of memory - from his escape from the inferi cave, rather than anything as a child - but he'd stuffed the thoughts down swiftly. A variety of interesting objects and (acknowledge) family photographs were spread throughout the house, but there had been nothing to build upon his search. Now, Regulus once again found himself in a dusty attic with aging wood slanting around him, surrounded by a different great aunt's eccentricities and memories alike.
Just a few minutes before, Sirius had abandoned the rifling in favour of searching the house for anything he might have left during their stay. Regulus suspected it was actually just an excuse to get out of the attic, but he appreciated that his brother had come at all, so he did not comment on the suspicion, instead continuing to gather up any related curiosities that seemed worth bringing back to the house.
As it turned out, there were no pictures in the attic, so he soon turned his search to the house itself. It was terribly invasive, poking in a dead person's room - and when Sirius had passed by in the hallway, his brother had not spared the opportunity to make a rude remark about 'taking his time looking through an old lady's drawers'). Even so, for all the invasiveness, it was in the personal spaces that he found success. Aunt Cass had kept her photographs in a bedside drawer. Family did not visit much, at least not within Regulus's own conscious memory, and he supposed her cats were unlikely to be harsh on the judgement front. Even Regulus had kept the photos of Sirius hidden in his room, angry as he was. He wondered a little about how Aunt Cass might have felt, but the mix of his own memory stung swift and sudden, tugging at the train of thought.
The metal tin of photographs was no longer than his hand, easy enough to carry, so Regulus had it clasped securely as he wandered back down to the ground floor where he found Sirius still milling around.
Sirius eyed the tin, perhaps curious or perhaps simply wanting to leave. "You done, or are you going to faff about a bit more?"
"You don't have to stay, you know," Regulus said dryly, though he could not drum up too much annoyance when Sirius had stayed longer than Regulus might have expected at the start. This house was probably only interesting to him when Harry was in it. "I can manage some old houses by myself, if you're ready to leave."
Sirius looked back at towards the door, clearly restless but also torn between staying and not. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other once, twice, and then seemed to decide. "Are you sure?"
Regulus tipped his head. "You can go on. I'll see you back at the house."
"Yeah, alright." Sirius was barely out the door before the crack of apparition sounded.
Breathing out a sigh, Regulus looked at the small tin in his hand, then strode out the front door and turned around to look at his great aunt's mismatched house, struck immediately with the smell of the coast. They had not often visited her as children; even with all those summers here in Iago, it was Aunt Cassiopeia who had come to them, rather than them making frequent trips to her eccentric house of quirks and cats. He wondered if that bothered her or if she might have liked it better that way.
With a crack, he apparated to the house he had spent so many summers in, growing up - the one he had gone back to, just this summer. He searched its attic, too, but he was unsurprised to find it lacking in additional insight. This was not the place to hide embarrassments, nor points of shame and despair. Traitors weren't meant to mix in Iago - not even the memory of them. He would not have thought their ancestral home was either, but it was not the first aspect of his investigation that struck him as confusing or difficult to swallow, and there was nothing to do but tuck away the information and try to make the most of it.
By the time Regulus had left the second family home of the day, the sun was hovering over the horizon, not yet touching the water, but it had already cast its amber glow over the slow-rolling waves. He could feel his hands clamming up just a little at just the thought of the settling night. All over again, he was frustrated that he couldn't go sit on the beach like a properly adjusted person - if he could call his youth 'properly adjusted.' He probably couldn't.
Steeling himself, Regulus instead set off on the path he'd walked with Emmeline, just a month and change before. Society had not wanted her here; Society had not wanted a certain few people in his tin of photographs, either. He could feel himself slipping into such an ostracised category, if this summer was anything to go by, and that made his hands feel even clammier - but he knew he couldn't go back. Didn't even want to, really, at least not in full, but months into the process, that still did not seem to matter much to anyone.
The rocky ledges rose on each side of the path, and after a short stroll, he found a nice nook of sorts that opened up to the grassy knolls and hills on the other side. He apparated up without ceremony, but he did not dedicate much time to the Welsh scenery before opening the small tin. There was a little boy in many of the pictures, and judging by the ages of Aunt Cassiopeia and his grandfather Pollux, that was probably the burnmark within their branch of the family. It was strange, how she had only kept photographs of him when he was little - the ones of her cousins stretched into adolescence, which helped a great deal with their recognisability. As Sirius had speculated in passing, Great Aunt Callidora had some photographs in the stash, too, of her and Charis and what must have been Cedrella - Arthur Weasley's mother. How normal, it all looked - a far cry from the blackened char on the tapestry, and further still from the complete erasure from all conversation. There was no information notated on any of the photographs, but he supposed Aunt Cass wasn't intending for them up to be found.
For some time, all Regulus could hear was a subtle breeze and the faint sounds of waves breaking along the beach, but it was the sound of loosened rocks that caught his attention first - loosened rocks, a blast, and the sudden sensation of falling as that blast knocked the ledge out from under him. All at once, the world was whirring stones of brown and grey, jutting out with sharp jabs that he couldn't quite grasp. He hit the ground before he could fumble out his wand. His knees and legs felt like they were shattering out from under him with a blinding white pain that caught his arms next, then knocked out his breath out of his chest as he tipped over in a tumble. The debris was sharp and grainy beneath his hands - his whole arms, both of them, felt a bit like they were vibrating, but it was his legs that were searing with even the tiniest shift.
Everything felt like dirt and agony, but when a photo of the little boy landed by his hand, he remembered the tin up at the top. In a haze, that tin felt like the most important thing, and after pulling out his wand - thanking his lucky stars it had not snapped in the fall - Regulus cast a silent summoning spell for photos and tin alike, more because he still couldn't breathe properly than anything else. The descending cloud of pictures, as well as their container, zipped towards him. He was closing them inside and slumping against the rocky wall when he heard a voice.
"I should have gotten a better angle to spare the ledge," came the dryly mocking tone. "But I suppose this is fitting too. Playing in the dirt does get you dirty."
Trying to pull his mind into focus and ignore the pulsing pain, Regulus narrowed his eyes towards the voice and saw a Death Eater in full garb, standing there in the Iago pathway like it was perfectly normal. Perhaps it was more normal than Regulus liked to openly let on, but he really hated the sudden twist of panic in his chest. It hurt to grasp his wand, but it would hurt a lot more to get blasted to bits, and he did not particularly want to give whoever it was the benefit of the doubt by assuming it had been meant as a joke.
"That was incredibly rude," Regulus muttered, biting back a hiss as he shifted his weight off of his legs. Wand still in hand, he barely waved a shield charm in time to stop the follow up curse, and his mind was reeling, but not in a particularly helpful way.
With another swish of his wand, Regulus knocked the Death Eater back into the rocks just as a blast of fire connected with his arm, catching the sleeve. Immediately, he felt the searing pain and smelled the burn of flames catching his skin, but a rapid Aguamenti stopped it from spreading beyond the sleeve.
A follow up shot from the Death Eater was already on the way, and Regulus cast another shield charm just in time to block. Shooting a blasting curse at the rocks above the Death Eater dropped a stream of debris; this accomplished little in the way of harm, but it seemed to distract the assailant enough to follow up with a petrification spell. With frustration, Regulus saw the spell miss - his poor grip at play, perhaps - but he didn't waste any time thinking about it further. The Death Eater, whoever he was, could be seen fumbling for the wand he had dropped, and Regulus took that extra window of time to shove the tin under his arm and apparate back to London.
Appearing in the street in front of his house was not a risk Regulus typically favoured - one never knew when a muggle might be looking - but even a shift of his legs was blinding, and he refused to drag himself from the shroud of trees in the park just across. He was visible for no more than a few seconds, appearing just outside the bounds of the charm, then shifting inside with a concentrated attempt to ignore the splitting pain.
When he reached the front of the house, Regulus collapsed against it with a shaky, steadying breath. Part of him wanted to apparate straight to his room to avoid a measure of humiliation, but it was difficult to concentrate, and he was probably pushing it, apparating even once without splinching. He could not have said how long he sat there (no more than a few minutes, though it felt like much longer), but when his breathing had calmed to something less frantic, he waved his wand again to make the serpent knocker on the door clunk its three rapid raps - then rested his head back against the house with a sigh.
There was a knock at the door. As a rule, no one knocked the door of the Order Headquarters. Most people who knew the Headquarters were there simply walked in, and then made their presence known. It happened on occasion with meetings, when someone was known to be coming, but as far as Emmeline was aware, no one was scheduled to be coming there who'd knock. She wondered if she ought to go and find the resident house-elf, though perhaps she was the reason he had not materialised. He certainly didn't seem to like appearing around her.
The only real options then were to either open the door and have it look extremely peculiar if it was someone not on the ward, as no one would see her, or go find the house-elf. She supposed she could just ignore it, but it seemed a little rude. So would opening the door and getting stabbed. Why did her manners often conflict with her vigilantism? She lost more houses that way.
Bounding up the stairs, Emmeline did not find a house-elf, but she did find Sirius. "I thought you'd gone out," she asked.
Draped over the lounger in what could only be described as a casually dramatic fashion, Sirius shrugged. "I did, but going through an old lady's drawers has never been my idea of fun."
A blatant lie, given the continual desire to get something from McGonagall's private quarters at school. "The door knocked."
Sirius sat up. "What do you mean, the door knocked?"
"I don't mean that I think it did it by itself," Emmeline replied. "I mean someone knocked the door, and I don't know of many occasions where knocking would happen."
Sirius twisted himself back into a sitting position. "Since Death Eaters don't knock, that means it's either Andromeda looking for me or Regulus, or Narcissa Malfoy." He stood up, and went over to one of the windows to the front of the place. She hadn't considered doing that. She hadn't actually been sure that would work.
It was entirely unexpected for him to just bolt out the door. Not in general - Sirius had always been a bit of a jumping bean and rarely stopped to explain himself, but wouldn't some form of communication be so pleasant? Uncommunicative pains in her backside, the lot of them, at times.
"Well, which is it?" Oh, there goes that bloody portrait again. It was so easy to forget about when it was quiet in the house.
As she got to the bottom of the stairs, Sirius opened the door and there was a sudden crack of apparition. Some of the ridiculous dramatics in this place were enough to make her want to tear her own hair out. He couldn't have gone far. Surely, opening the door didn't mean you could just apparate out. Did it?
"Vance!"
No, just right back where he was. With a heavy sigh, she started back up the stairs. She turned back into the drawing room, and her stomach dropped. There was Regulus, looking considerably worse for wear on the same lounger. He wasn't looking particularly happy about it, either.
Emmeline hurried over. "What in the hell happened?"
For a moment, it looked as though Regulus - pale as a sheet - was going to rub at his temple, but he did so for only a second before looking at the scuffs on his palms and lowering them. After flicking a glance over at her, he let out a slow breath and leaned his head back. "Experienced a bit of conflict, I suppose one could say."
"I see your talent for the understatement continues to thrive." Emmeline grabbed a pillow from one of the other chairs and tapped his shoulder lightly. "Head up."
"Not too bloody. Keep him out of trouble for a minute," Sirius moved to stand up. "I'm going to go find that useless elf and find out where the pain potions are. I'm not calling him in here; he'll wail the place down, and Mum's already got that job well in hand."
"I think you ought to call Hestia to be safe," Emmeline replied. "I've seen nightgowns with more colour to them. Where is it worst?"
"Legs - fell from a ledge," Regulus said, holding his face neutral, save for a shaky wince. "Most of the rest will likely do fine with a salve, I should think."
"Fell, or got pushed?" Sirius pressed.
"Is this helping?" Emmeline pushed at the air near him, being unable to reach. "I don't want to risk healing it in case the bone shattered, and no one should be subjected to your healing attempts. Hestia, salve, painkillers, go."
For a moment, Sirius dithered. However, a good strong glare always produced excellent results when you were right in the situation.
"Painkillers will need to wait for Hestia, or they may mask something wrong." Emmeline took a quick glance over him. "Salve should be fine, though. Do you want a drink? You look ghastly."
"I'm fine," Regulus responded, pinching his eyes closed for a moment.
"I have the most horrendous feeling you could be bleeding to death and say the same thing," Emmeline said. She conjured a flannel nonetheless. "Let's see those hands. There's probably some grit in there. Do you know who did this? We should try and make sure the right Auror gets it if we're calling them."
Regulus held out a hand - the right one, first - and frowned. "I'm not sure. The Death Eater was an adult man, from what I could tell; but I didn't recognise the voice or mask, so it wasn't one of the Lestranges. Anyone else I might have recognised is dead or already in prison - or in Severus's case, on our side."
"The game has changed," Emmeline agreed quietly. "There's very little blood, aside from where you've obviously tried to shield yourself." She turned his hand over, making sure there was no glass or anything in it. "That usually means old pureblood - they will kill, but they do feel strongly against large spills of pure blood, so it's never messy. I think Sirius has been one of the few exceptions to ever be bled badly, but he will taunt. Other hand?"
For a beat, Regulus was staring hard at the ceiling. His right hand had retracted, but the left - the one with what looked like tattered burns - hesitated before he held it out.
Concerned, Emmeline touched it lightly. "Do you think it might be broken?"
"It is possible, but I'm not certain if it's a full break. I was able to grip with my wand hand, but not well. I have not attempted to use my left to the same extent," he responded in a quiet, measured tone. "Moving it is painful, but that is not exactly unique to my arms at the moment."
"If you want to play Healer, you're going to need an outfit." From behind her, Emmeline heard the telltale bustle of Hestia Jones and her (extremely) magic bag. "You should probably have dinner first, too. People will talk."
Her words were light, but there wasn't much tease in them. She was in job mode, which Emmeline could well understand. "He had an altercation involving a Death Eater and a ledge. At least one leg is probably a nasty break."
"Okay then." Hestia pulled out some cloth and a few potions bottles. She turned to Regulus now. "Do you want me to shoo the hovering people, or you okay with me doing this here?"
"Here is probably fine," Regulus responded. His eyes had closed again with a subtle pinch as he shifted.
"Can you tell me where the worst of it's coming from?" Hestia said, moving around to the end of the chaise and moving to take his shoes off. "Did you hit your head at any point?"
"No, managed to break the fall before my head could hit," he responded, letting out a huff as he opened his eyes again. "I do have a headache, but more from the jolt than any serious impact. My legs got the worst of it."
"Can you wiggle your toes, or is it too painful?" Hestia prompted.
He paused for a beat, scrunched his face slightly, then shook his head.
"I think the amateur is on the mark, then. I'm going to want a better look, make sure I can't see the bone through the skin before I start working, so you're going to have to disrobe enough that I can see. Arms too - I don't want to start and realise I've got more pieces to work with than I expected and have them heal wrong." Hestia dropped her voice to a slightly conspiratorial whisper. "That offer to shoo still remains."
Face reddening a little, he muttered, "Shooing would be better."
Hestia nodded. "I'm an excellent shooer, best in my department." She suddenly clasped her hands together. "Right! Sirius, you can go down and inform your mother this is a quiet area. Afterwards, we're going to need a change of clothes, loose and comfortable. Emme, these are particularly disgusting pain potions, so we're going to need some of your continental hot chocolate, cream, the works. It's also better not on an empty stomach, so I think biscuits will not be optional."
"That's not subtle," Emmeline said.
"Let's leave something for the wedding night, shall we?" Hestia replied. "Go on, hurry up. Let's not leave one of our own pain, we're supposed to be the good guys here."
Emmeline pressed her lips into a thin line, "Yell if you need anything?"
With a hint of embarrassment still creeping through his expression, Regulus nodded in response and looked up at the ceiling again, letting out a heavy huff.
With some reluctance, Emmeline cleared the room. She had thought to ask Sirius about what Regulus had even been doing, but out in the hallway, it would be hard to hear over the noise of Walburga Black, the one-woman screaming show. Sirius made an indicator towards going downstairs, and they broke formation as he went to the usual wrestling show while Emmeline headed down to the kitchens.
It took a few deep breaths for her to move on to doing anything at all, let alone the rich, liquid chocolate that had been requested. Her heart was still somewhere around her throat, beating too fast for her liking with the feeling of worry; and the frustrating thing was that she knew she'd feel like that. This was why she wasn't sure she wanted to even attempt to focus their relationship in a non-plantic way, because he was sitting there, a martyr in the making ('fine', he says, with shattered legs, totally fine), and this was another worry she'd be introducing to her already worrisome and hectic life. But...perhaps it didn't matter. Would she feel less for someone simply because the relationship was platonic? If Sturgis or Dedalus had come in the same fashion, would it have hurt any less? Feelings, by and large, were complicated, annoying and persistent, but they were at least consistent. She would care, regardless. She did care regardless.
There wasn't the right sort of chocolate to melt for the right kind of drink, but she hoped she had added enough cream that it wouldn't matter. She hadn't the slightest clue whether Regulus had a sweet tooth or not, but hot chocolate was something she had promised him before, and he'd been amenable.
When she arrived back upstairs, Hestia was coming out of the door and closing it after. "Getting changed," she explained, though she looked a little troubled. Emmeline was about to ask if there was something more seriously wrong, but she shook her head. "We'll talk later. He should stay off that for a day, take it easy for a couple more. Salve three times a day, and don't ingest it."
"Ingest it?" Who would ingest a salve?
"You'd be surprised." Hestia poked her tongue out theatrically but moved along. "I'll check in tomorrow."
Emmeline nodded. She waited until Hestia had gone from sight, counted another minute or so, before knocking as loudly as she felt able without risk of more screaming.
"Come in," came the muffled reply.
Shoving her wand into her hair, Emmeline shifted the tray to one hand and opened the door. "Tea service?" she laughed. "Well, actually, grossly over-sweet chocolate service."
Regulus had been staring at the ceiling, and there was still a bit of a distant look on his face when he looked over at her, but the hint of a smile was starting to tug at the corner. "Hopefully she was right about it masking the potion's aftertaste; apparently, it was not an overstatement."
"I'll do it occasionally for Remus with wolfsbane. If it helps that, you'll be fine. That stuff is stomach churning." Emmeline pulled a table up and set down some of the silverware carefully. "How are your hands?"
"Not terrible," he responded, looking down at them for a brief moment, then turned his attention back to her. "They started feeling stiff once I'd settled, but the potion's already helping."
Emmeline smoothed down her dress so she could sit down onto the floor properly. She really hoped they'd gotten everything weird out of the carpets. "What were you doing?"
"Looking at the photographs I found at our Great Aunt Cassiopeia's house - the one where Sirius stayed with the kids this summer, in Iago," Regulus said with a little frown. "I should have looked then, but I wasn't quite ready to pull at those threads, I suppose."
"I thought the photograph quest was mine," Emmeline commented. She flicked her wand to begin pouring the viscous liquid into the ridiculously fancy cups. "What was it you had to prepare for?"
"On the tapestry - the burn marks," Regulus began. "I'd been wondering about them, so I started looking for people I don't recognise. Surprisingly enough, Phineas was actually rather obliging when I asked after the ones around him, but it's probably best to keep that between us. I don't think he fancies being viewed as too cooperative."
"I rarely have the pleasure," Emmeline replied, dryly. "You haven't broken into the Ministry for their census records, nor Hogwarts for their student lists, so I suppose you haven't gone completely mad with it. What is it you're looking for, in the photographs?"
"Nothing in particular - anything that comes of it," Regulus said, taking the cup for a slow slip as his eyes flicked around the immediate area. When the cup lowered again, he added, "I think Sirius left the photographs outside."
As if anything he ever did qualified as 'nothing in particular'. "Would you like me to get them?" Emmeline asked.
He turned his glance over. "If you don't mind."
"I'm here to help." Oh, well, that didn't sound ridiculous at all. If she was going to start getting flustered, this was going to make life unbearable. One small mercy was that the tin remained on the inside step, so it had hardly been a chore to leave, grab it, and bring it up.
"My gran has a tin like that," she said, as soon as she set the retrieved tin down beside him.
"Thank you for bringing it up." He tipped his head at the tin, eyes lingering for a moment before he turned them back to her. "Do you know what your gran keeps in hers?" he asked, taking another small sip of the hot chocolate.
"The last I saw? Sewing supplies. She's crafty. I'm sorry to tell you that I'm not at all." Emmeline put her hand on the tin, and then tapped it lightly. "May I see?"
He nodded, mouth flicking with a little smile. "Of course. I don't know if they will hold as much interest to you, but you are welcome to have a look."
"I'd consider myself an expert in your family photography." Emmeline had gone through an impressive amount of staunch, serious pictures in her quest for something she could determine an embarrassing picture. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Probably," he answered, pulling off the lid and fitting it neatly underneath. "I think Arthur's mother is in a few of them - with her sisters." He thumbed a few photos aside until he came to one with three young women, two with dark hair and the third with blonde hair that stuck out amongst the sea of brunettes in the tin. "I don't know for certain yet, but it seems likely."
"Is nothing labelled?" Or were they removed? Emmeline had to admit that as yet, she was still unfamiliar with the nuances of disownment.
"I cannot say for certain. Labeling has been inconsistent. Whatever the original state was, I don't think Aunt Cass wanted to erase them, or she wouldn't have kept the photos in her room," Regulus said, staring hard at the small pile.
It just seemed so sad. It was different to what she'd expected, but even to Emmeline, she had to know not everyone would be furious and ban the people they once loved, or at least were blood relatives of, from their sight. "I realise this is a serious conversation, and you are a little bit medicated, so you can tell me this isn't the moment if you like." It was only fair, as it could be construed as taking advantage. "But it seems to me like, despite their removal from an unofficial, if very historic, document and a dismissive public face, most of the people on that list of burn marks seemed to have people who loved and missed them. Is that not considered a valid choice? Does one action really speak for everyone?"
"That's a complicated question," Regulus began, breathing out a heavy sigh and tapping the photo lightly against the lip of the tin. "It does speak for everyone; but it doesn't necessarily represent everyone." A brief pause, and then: "You asked what I was looking for, and I suppose that is part of it."
"What you represent?" Emmeline asked. "Or if anyone else didn't have quite the same desire to slash and burn their bridges?"
"Both, I suppose," he said with a small, tight smile as he let the photo drop back into the tin. "It all felt very… certain - and final - back then."
"Everything does when you're young, and it all feels so very out of your control." Not so for Emmeline herself, though she had seen it with others. If anything, the reverse was true for her own childhood. It was all within her control then, and everything had become so uncertain. "I don't know if I can understand what it is that can cause a break of that magnitude within a family, especially when it seems to make people angry and miserable. I know there must be some boundaries, given the fanaticism and murder threats, but I really don't envy the job. Besides the formality, these girls look happy together. It's difficult to imagine that not too long later, they wouldn't be part of each others' lives, get to know each others' children, grandchildren, for no reason other than her husband believed in the rights of those who don't have magic. It's quite tragic, in its own way."
"It is," he agreed with a frown. "For all that time, I did not feel sorry for them because it seemed they'd done it on purpose… and I did not think it bothered anyone else in the family because it only seemed to make people angry if it came up at all. Anytime I was upset about Sirius, I felt as if I was committing some terrible betrayal." Again, he looked up at the ceiling with a heavy sigh. "The irony is terribly depressing."
"It is. I can't believe that all of these people woke up one morning and decided that they didn't want to be a part of their family anymore. There's always more to the story. Given your age at the time, it's not a surprise the complexities were lost on you." Ever the problem of dragging children into it, and now it was happening all over again. She had not joined the Order with the knowledge that she could end some child's life because they were driving themselves to an impossible ideal. "I can see why you want to know their stories. It gives them back a certain measure of the immortality that you get from that tapestry, to have their stories known by what's left of their family. It's how you keep people alive when they're gone, with their words, their pictures, and their hot chocolate recipes."
Turning his eyes to her again, Regulus looked at her for a quiet moment, then nodded. "That is it, exactly…" Pulling over the tin so it was nestled next to him on the lounger, he seemed to busy himself with separating them into two piles. "There was nothing that scared me more than getting erased and forgotten. I don't want to forget them either."
"That's nothing you have to fear now, is it?" Emmeline said, quietly. "In fact, I believe you've seemingly already survived such an ordeal as being without your given name, and you're still you at the end of it. If the worry is that you are somehow easily erased, that's ridiculously dramatic, which I do expect from you, but also quite foolish."
She took a glance to the doorway, given the discretion at which this secret was unveiled. However, there was something in his demeanor that made it seem like that 'was' afraid was very much an 'is' afraid, and she could set that straight at the very least. "Let's look at this logically. You are the first person to walk away from the Death Eaters and survive it. The first to uncover the secret of that bastardised immortality. You chose to join the Order of the Phoenix, and to protected those who needed it. You have simply accomplished too much, and been too integral to be at risk of being forgotten. If it's something more personal, a worry of family, or of...love, of that being forgotten, then I'd like to point you to the fact that you very much do have that. It's smaller, more complicated, and different in form than what it perhaps once was, but not something that can be yanked away at a moment's notice, for the good and the bad. I don't say it as an insult to the memories of these people, but rather to draw your attention to the fact you can't suffer their fate, and though you can't change it, you can, I have no idea, write a book or something someday. You have a slightly terrifying, passionate, varied, and intense family history full of very unique people. It'd be fascinating."
He thumbed at the photos for a silent beat, his expression pulled to a thoughtful focus. "That would be some book." He looked over at her, then, and when his mouth flickered at the corner, it reached his eyes, too, despite the twinge of sadness lingering. He picked up a photo from one of the piles - a little boy, maybe five years. "There are yet more holes to fill."
"Not for now. For now, you're resting," Emmeline reminded him as she raised her cup. "Are you one of these people who are difficult if they're ill or injured?"
Regulus tipped his head. "I suppose it depends on how you define 'difficult'."
Not a terribly good sign. "Do you argue about the need for rest, resist rest, do explicitly the opposite of what the Healer has told you, and stop taking potions before you're supposed to because even though there's still pain, you want to be a bit of a martyr about it?"
"Only when it's important," he settled. "With that being said, there are more meaningful things to martyr oneself for than broken legs, so I will make an effort to comply with the given instructions. Encroachment though it might be, at least it is only a few days."
"Find a good book, and be a gentleman of leisure with it," Emmeline replied, approvingly.
"I do love a good book." Regulus smiled again, meeting her eyes as he took another sip of his hot chocolate. "Do you have any recommendations that you would like to put forth?"
"Fictional or factual?" Emmeline asked. Most of her reading these days involved buying books and saying she'd get around to reading them, then delving into textbooks and old works instead to look for Order-related work. "Or muggle, which is usually a mix of both. Or perhaps totally factual, and no one's thought to corroborate it magically."
"Lupin once said something of the sort, about the mix..." he said, setting down the cup again with a soft clink. "I've no significant preference at the moment. I was investigating additional wards and protective spells, but it's probably best I keep the serious casting until after the potions have run their course."
"Remus would know; you should see some of the werewolf books. Perhaps something a bit less serious," Emmeline suggested, the hypocrite that she was. "Bawdrip's got one about spells that were invented when they were looking to try and invent something else. It gives me hope one day Experimental Charms will have a reason for existing that isn't turning half of Archival Administration into large, gooseberry shapes."
His mouth tugged up into a little smile. "Bawdrip, it is, then."