Due to the nature of the safe house, it was not entirely unexpected for Sirius to come downstairs and find someone he didn't expect sitting there. He had once come down to Emmeline looking in one of the cupboards before squeaking "Nothing!" before he'd even asked, seen Dung many a time looking at and probably pilfering bits and bobs, and Remus himself was a mainstay in the kitchen around the full moon, given its proximity to warmth and easy access to hot drinks and biscuits.
(Strangely, it was a bit nippy today, despite the fire.)
So coming down to see Bill in the kitchen wasn't unusual in the strictest sense, though he tended to shack up at the Burrow. Sirius thought he had his own place as well, but couldn't be sure. What was unusual was the charged atmosphere.
"Alright, Bill?"
"Hullo," Bill said, strained.
At the precise moment Sirius was going to ask what was going on, something cold smacked into the back of his head. He turned before he could even process it to the sounds of manic giggles and a flash of purple. All at once, he put together why it was cold (the back door was open), why Bill sounded strained (he had been trying not to laugh), and upon poking his head out said door when he heard a sudden clatter, realised it had been snowing. Standing next to a sorry excuse of a snow ridge was Tonks, who had clearly collided with a well-wrapped up Remus, sending them both into skid on the disturbed white.
"Gripping charms!" Remus reminded her, flapping his arms as she turned a deep shade of pink that matched her current hair quite nicely.
Sirius dug his hands into the snow, grabbing a poorly formed ball and lobbed it back at his cousin. However, he wasn't exactly awake, and he hadn't been expecting the frozen feeling of the snow. This meant that he managed to hit Remus right in the face, causing him to rise up in bluster and Tonks to crack up laughing as she sat there.
"You realise," Remus said, calmly removing the snow from his face with his scarf, "That this means war."
"I'm with him!" Tonks chirped, as she tried to step up.
Sirius poked his head in the door. "Bill, little help here?"
"I'd love to," Bill said, putting down his mug, "but I've been dibsed."
"Seriously?"
Bill looked torn on whether or not to laugh.
Oh, for fuck sake.
"That joke was old before you were born."
Bill shrugged. "Should have gotten up earlier."
Sirius scowled. "Betrayal on all sides."
Thankfully, Sirius had one other possible source of backup. Despite his outwardly bookish nature, Sirius was well aware that Regulus was a deeply competitive little brat (anyone who'd seen him play quidditch or chess would understand) and that he had a love-love relationship when it came to snow (it was all to do with a birthday where it snowed). He was pretty sure it'd been a long time since Regulus had done anything as frivolous as a snowball fight, but like some of the younger Order members, maybe he could use a bit of a break too.
Sirius took the stairs two at a time, heading up to the door and reluctantly giving it a few sharp bangs.
A beat passed before the door to the library swung open to the reveal Regulus sitting back in a chair with a book in hand. "Can I help you?"
"I need your help," Sirius said, as earnestly as he could while still breathing hard. "I'm completely outnumbered."
Frowning, Regulus examined his brother's face with a flicker of concern. "Alright. What do you need help with?" he asked even as he stood, setting the book aside and crossing to meet Sirius in the doorway.
"Grab your coat, it's freezing out there," Sirius said before bolting to the stairs.
Regulus processed the movement, first - something hurling towards them through the air. His wand, already gripped even as they opened the door, swiped in a shielding charm just as a glimmer of white exploded in front of them.
It was the blanket of snow, peppered with footsteps and hand swipes, that he noticed next, followed by three familiar faces huddled behind a makeshift snowbank. Turning his head to Sirius with a look of mild (but not altogether unamused) exasperation, he shook his head. "It's a snowball fight? You sounded like it was something serious."
"It is serious!" Sirius insisted, pointing at the purple spikes currently half hidden under a lump of snow in the garden. "I'm getting beaten by a kid I used to babysit! You would hate it if - you have never babysat anyone in your entire life, have you?"
For a moment, Regulus looked thoughtful, his mind calling back to his France - to his friends' children, though he had never watched over them in isolation from other adults. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, another snowball struck his shoulder, and he looked back to their three opponents, all of whom looked pleasantly guilty.
"We are not ready yet," he objected with a pointed look to each in turn.
"You seemed ready a second ago," Bill pointed out, hands lowered beneath the bank in a manner that made Regulus wonder with no small amount of suspicion if more snowballs were being formed.
Regulus crinkled his nose. "We're having a conversation. You can wait." Turning back to Sirius, he added, "And no, not strictly speaking. Unless you count."
Sirius frowned. "Count what?"
"Count you," Regulus responded with a flicker at the corner of his mouth, pointing at Sirius with the tip of his wand. "As someone I have babysat."
Sirius did a remarkable impression of a surprised guppy while there was the distinct sounds of stifled giggling from behind the makeshift snow barrier and clothing.
"I hope your aim is more sharp than your wit," he said, flipping him off for good measure. "You in or what?"
The hint of a grin grew at the edges of Regulus's mouth, and he nodded. "Can't leave you to flounder alone." Pulling his gloves out of the coat pocket, he cast a warming charm on each to guard against the wet chill of the snow. "Let's destroy them, shall we?"
It ended the way most snowball fights do: when everyone was too cold to keep going, sniffling and running on empty. Tonks ended up declaring the fight over as she flopped backwards and waved her arms about in the snow to make what was supposed to be a snow angel but looked considerably more like a snow billywig.
"There are towels on the side. Put warming charms on the blankets before using them," Remus said as everyone bustled back into the kitchen.
It was surreal, and sounded like one of those three men walk into a pub jokes. Five people shuffle into the Black townhouse: a cursebreaker, an auror, an ex-Death Eater, an ex-prisoner, and a werewolf. However, there was no sign of a punchline. It had just felt like one of those spontaneous moments they had from time to time, where they could just have fun despite the looming darkness and responsibilities.
"Alright, who's having hot chocolate?" Tonks announced, shaking her hair out into a long brunette and managing to smack Bill in the face with it on the way down. It was mostly taken as a rhetorical question, as the ingredients began to fly unceremoniously from the kitchen.
"Are we really not going to talk about you getting beaten?" Sirius said, rubbing his fingers.
"No," Remus said, ducking as mugs began to assemble on the table. "I told you that you should have put gloves on. Warming charms on skin are finicky."
"Don't put brandy in his, contrary to his genes, he doesn't drink," Sirius said, waving at Regulus. "And don't be embarrassed, Remus. We all know you're the only person here who didn't play quidditch. No one expects you to have perfect aim."
His aim wasn't that bad. The towel hit Sirius smack in the head.
With a soft snort, Regulus shot them both a sideways glance, then pulled off each of his gloves in turn, drying them and slipping them in his pocket. "He seems to be managing," he remarked to Sirius, "even if it tragically was not enough."
Sirius rolled his eyes and dropped the towel on Regulus's head with a flourish.
"I've never been glad to be an only child," Remus said, watching the two with a headshake.
"Me too," Tonks agreed, going to pick up the drinks. Remus hastily took them before she could.
"I'd have no idea," Bill said.
"Seven kids in eleven years," Sirius winced, flopping onto one of the chairs without ceremony, and in the chair next to him, Regulus was settling with more care. "Terrifying."
"Yes, we all know how you feel about commitment," Remus rolled his eyes. "And children."
"I like kids!" Sirius replied. "I just don't want to inflict me or my genes on anyone."
(At that, Regulus rolled his eyes but seemed to be biting back a comment of his own.)
"Charlie's alright," Tonks said, taking a drink and giving herself a white mustache in the process. "We went to school together."
"Is he still mucking about with dragons?" Sirius asked.
Bill nodded. "He's still in Romania, but he'll help when he can."
"Him with his dragons, you with your frog," Tonks sniggered.
"Charlie isn't dating his dragons," Bill pointed out.
"How is the charming Miss Delacour?" Tonks drawled.
"Butt out of my love life," Bill said, giving her a warning look. "Go get your own."
"Believe me, I'm trying." Tonks grumbled.
The name rang all too familiar.
"'Miss Delacour'?" Regulus lifted his brow, his mind immediately leaping to the Beauxbatons champion, Fleur Delacour, though it seemed a bit farfetched to assume as much. The others seemed to know who Bill was referring to, but he supposed he had not had much access (nor a particular pursuit of) their personal goings-on.
"Fleur Delacour," Remus filled him in, with a quick shake of his head. "She's working at Gringotts with Bill."
"She's trying to learn English," Bill explained. "Though my French is horrible."
"Mine too," Sirius admitted woefully. "We went a few a times as kids, do you remember? I think there's a couple of places there. After a while, you sort of lose track."
Regulus had not lost track of such things at all, but in that moment, Regulus was recalling a little girl with blonde hair, little Genevieve, who would be incredibly jealous that he was speaking to someone who regularly spoke to Fleur Delacour, convoluted though it was. Saying as much still felt too strange in such company, but all the same, he felt the twitch of a smile.
"Paris and Cagnes-sur-Mer," Regulus instead confirmed with a nod, accent slipping comfortably into French as the cities rolled off.
Sirius gave him a pained look. "Could you possibly sound more pretentious?"
"He could've said it in French," Tonks said, throwing a wink at them both. "What's it in French anyway?"
"Paris et Cagnus-sur-Mer," Bill pointed out, sounding considerably less French with a deep west accent.
"Blimey," Tonks shrugged. "Guess it's not just the snogging parts she's teaching you."
"Will you leave it alone?" Poor Bill had started to go a little bit pink around his freckles. "You know Mum's starting to reckon I like you!"
"Does she really?" Tonks grinned, before fluttering her eyelashes in an exaggerated way. "And don't you?"
"Piss off," Bill said, before laughing at her.
"You're not my type." Tonks gave a slight shrug.
"Glad to hear it," he replied. "Can we please stop talking about love lives? There's a war on."
"Gotcha." Tonks grinned. "Besides, Mum already said she didn't think those freckles would go well with my cheekbones when I went out with Charlie."
Bill blinked. "When did you go out with Charlie?"
"For about a week when we were twelve," Tonks shrugged. "I told her it was a bit soon to be thinking about the marriage and babies part. I was pretty convinced we were going to have to go in some kind of balloon and fight acromantulas for a living, then. Of course, then she told me her mum had her sister when she was only a couple of years older than me. I thought she was having me on 'til I looked at that tapestry! Totally mental."
Regulus exchanged an awkward look with Sirius, sipping his mug of hot chocolate, and after a beat, Remus spoke up: "How is the search going?"
Tonks drew serious. "I dunno. Scrimgeour's been closing ranks, and everything's gone 'need to know.' He's a good bloke, but..."
Regulus assumed they were talking about Bella and the other Death Eaters, and in that moment, he thought that - despite all the chaos and frantic searches - he could probably find them with very little difficulty. Subtlety had never been Bella's forte, and it was undoubtedly Cissa who was shielding her now. More likely than not, all it would take was calling on the Malfoys for at least some of the escapees to come out of the woodwork…
(…Yet the idea of being live bait was terribly unappealing, fruitless searches or not.)
"Has anyone thought to check the Malfoys?" Sirius rolled his eyes, putting his mug down on the table.
"You try getting past Lucius Malfoy and his lawyers," Tonks grumbled.
"If only we had a vigilante group not bound by that," he deadpanned.
"Then you have to think about the other people who could get hurt in the process," Remus reasoned. "Not only are they bound to have an impressive warding system which could injure anyone trying to break it, but there are innocent people, potentially innocent children, on the inside. A little caution will not hurt."
Regulus nodded. "They had a thorough set of wards in the past, so I can only assume they still do. Perhaps even more so." (And children… Draco was off at school now, presumably safe from any raid for the next few months, but in truth, he had no way of knowing which children may or may not be there at any given moment...it had been so long...)
"A little patience," Remus said, quietly. "That's all."
Frowning, Regulus tapped his fingers on his mug, not wanting to think about what would happen to his family when the Order's patience ran out (or the Aurors got their warrant). "I'm in favour of patience."
"Shocking," Sirius said, sarcastically. "Is there anything you're not patient about?"
"Rash decisions have wrought more mixed results. I would say patience has served me well," Regulus remarked lifting his brow and sipping his cocoa. With a moment of further thought, Regulus thought of Dumbledore and how devastatingly annoying it was to still be waiting for any sort of private meeting, but it felt too uncomfortable to mention as much with the other three present, so he let the thought pass.
"As long as you don't wait so long you get blindsided," Sirius pointed out. "But fine, patience."
Another Order meeting came and went, but the way his brother shook his head in response to Regulus's own inquiring look upon the meeting's dismissal, Regulus gathered that Dumbledore was once again absent from the attendees. As far as grand resistance leaders went, he was turning out to be quite the disappointment, but Regulus supposed it was still better than the alternative.
Severus was nowhere to be seen either. His absences stacked higher during the school year, it seemed, though Regulus could not always determine if it was a matter of slipping out immediately or failing to come at all, when Regulus had yet to experience the other side of those doors during a meeting. It stung a little that his old friend had grown more chilly, rather than less, in the peppered interactions, especially when it seemed they were still on the same side...
...and tentative though it was, that side was becoming less and less disjointed. It felt a bit like a betrayal of self, wondering if it would really be so bad to work alongside the vigilantes - like a trap waiting to happen - yet the lines had been blurring, as of late. Sometimes, Regulus tried to convince himself it was only the additional sources of information that he was favouring, yet he found his argument less persuasive as time passed, however valuable that external information perspective might be.
Occlumency had been the focus of Regulus's attentions today as the Order chattered away in their meeting, anxiety mounting at the prospect of crossing his cousin with minimal mental protection, but theory only took you so far before hitting a wall. He recalled that Severus was teaching Harry in hopes of protecting against whatever that connection with the Dark Lord was, horcrux or not. Having another person on hand was essential to testing those bounds-
-but there was no one here would trust enough to practice with anyway, so he supposed he would have to hope Bellatrix wasn't feeling too aggressively nosy, should she evade the law for long enough for them to someday cross paths.
Wandering back into the drawing room to return his book to the shelves near the window, Regulus saw Emmeline peering into one of the open cabinets. Lifting his brow, he stood there for several seconds in silence before speaking: "Are you looking for anything in particular?"
Clearly caught unawares by the sudden company, Emmeline squeaked and spun around. This resulted in her catching her side on the cabinet corner and hissing in discomfort, so she managed to look surprised, pained, and embarrassed all in one caught red-handed expression. "There was something moving! I was just curious..."
"As long as you aren't stealing anything, I don't care if you look," Regulus said in response to what seemed to be an unspoken apology, given her expression. Moving closer to take a glance, he saw a large, corked flask - nearly the size of a palm - with some dark, slimy substance that crept along the glass like gravity-defying molasses. Nothing else seemed to be moving at the moment, though it was hardly a confirmation of what may have been moving a few moments before. "I would advise against touching it. If you haven't been told already, that recommendation is best applied to all of the various cabinets and display cases, in general."
"I don't take things without asking," Emmeline said, but then she openly dithered. "Alright, I took the books from work without asking, but that was Order-related, not personal-curiosity-related. And I'm good at identifying wards, so I don't trigger them, meaning I guess I could be a master thief if I wanted to be, but I really don't. I'm not helping my case, am I?"
Regulus's mouth tugged a little, and he shook his head. "Not really, but fortunately for you, I do agree that there are situationally-appropriate times to take things without asking." The locket had been truly stolen - though Bella's books were more...indefinitely borrowed...and the restricted section, a temporary but unsanctioned time of access... "So long as the things don't belong to me, of course, which I would consider to be the key distinction."
"It also depends how you feel about bribes," Emmeline said, indicating the cabinet. "Because I wouldn't mind a more tactile examination of a few things, and I'm really not above it. I think vigilantism has ruined my scruples."
"Perhaps an arrangement could be made," he said, glancing in the cabinet, then at Emmeline herself, hands overlapping in front of him to clasp along the spine of his book. "Which objects are you curious about?"
"The box," Emmeline pointed out, before bending to get a better look at it. "It's been bothering me for weeks. Everything else potentially illegal and lethal is out in the open, what would be in a box?"
"I could just tell you, but I suppose you'd like to see, hm?" Regulus commented, though it was more rhetorical than not as he took out his wand and flicked it at the shelf with a mutter, lifting the most recent touch-activated curse he'd placed on the items some time before. Slipping the wand away again, he carefully plucked the ornate box from the shelf, a dusted silver finish with intricate etchings along the surface. Holding it in front of himself, he added, "However - before I permit you to experience these incredibly intriguing Black family treasures, I do need to know what it is I'm getting out of this bribe."
Emmeline scrunched up her face in thought. "I have seen you coveting my work books. It probably wouldn't be terrible if a couple more...had an outing..."
Smothering a grin (and feeling a rush of excitement at the thought of another opportunity to flip through such rarities), Regulus instead offered a neutral nod, feeling that he absolutely was getting the better end of this deal. "I accept these terms." Extending the box a little further, it soon exchanged hands with care, and again, his hands clasped in front of him.
Emmeline put her finger on the clap, then stilled it. "It's nothing alive, is it? Or nothing that was alive and may still jump on me?"
"Assuming nothing has crawled in there during the last sixteen years, that should not be a concern," Regulus assured, though he supposed he couldn't really account for that either way, given some of the pests they'd cleared out over the months.
"Very reassuring," Emmeline snorted. Nevertheless, she opened the box tentatively and raised her eyebrows at the cluster of vials. These were not blood red, though a few did have tints of colour to them. They didn't look much like potions, not in such small quantities but rather, an ingredient. "And the reason these aren't in the pantry is...they wouldn't be great to consume?"
"I would not recommend ingestion, no," Regulus responded, shaking his head. "These vials contain a small collection of venoms, some more rare than others. The one with a bit of a pearly, deep green sheen-" he gestured to a vial tucked in one of the corners, "-is from the American horned serpent. These two," he pointed out two more," are runespoor venom, then an ashwinder vial - it has the slightly orangey tint - and the last is boomslang venom. It's a bit harder to tell the runespoor venom from the boomslang because they both look black at first glance, but the runespoor does have a very slight coppery sheen. The empty vial," he added with a tone that was carefully filtered of the sudden annoyance he felt, "I believe used to be basilisk venom, but it has been empty for the entirety of my conscious memory."
Unable to resist quirking a smile, Emmeline rolled across a couple of the vials. "Given the matter of fact tone, I suppose having a load of venom in one's cabinet is not considered unusual for you."
"Not particularly," Regulus responded, "Though some of these cabinets are in need of organisation. Venom and jewelry aren't really thematically consistent. And this one," he pointed at another small vial filled with a black substance, "I'm pretty sure is just an inkwell. I'm not sure why it is isn't in a desk, but I suspect it would not be prudent to test it at the moment."
"They're thematically consistent if the jewelry is cursed." Emmeline pointed out. "But that this doesn't bother you is a little bit funny. You're not even a little unnerved by potentially lethal display cabinets in your own home or possibly evil inkwells."
"It has always been like that, since before we were born," Regulus responded simply, his brow lifting subtly. "And I say 'before we were born,' but I would hazard a guess that it has literally always been like that. The curses are generally reversible, so long as you know the counter-curse, and you learn them quickly enough." He tipped his head, looking into the cabinet at a more simple, nondescript sort of box near the back, nearly blending in with the dark color scheme. "But as for the jewelry - the pieces in that plain box in the back are actually quite harmless." Reaching in and lifting the lid to peek inside, he nodded confirmation before retracting his hand. "They are just gifts my mum didn't want. I think it was a case of shoving them somewhere out of the way and never coming back to them."
"At least the clutter is interesting, bar the jewelry." Emmeline handed the silver box back, sliding the lid back on. "We mostly had these little baby figurines that had eyes that followed you no matter where you went. And plates. And commemorative thimbles. We've never been a very exciting family, I'm afraid."
"There is a lot of history to the house - and to the family," he said, his tone warming a little. "A lot of people with a lot of different interests and knickknacks and treasures, accumulated over centuries. Sirius would prefer to throw it all out, of course, but that has always been a bit of a running theme." He lifted a shoulder in a shrug, though the words were free of the bitterness they would have possessed some months before. "Some of the other family properties were decorated in what might be considered a more conventional manner, but it depended in part on who was living there at any given time. I recall a great many decorative plates in our grandparents' manor - our father's parents, specifically, though it was not just them."
"You can't change the past. Well, actually you can, and if I were allowed to speak more about it, I would talk about how disastrously it goes wrong when you try." Emmeline mimed putting a zip over her mouth, but she looked very grim on the subject. "I don't think you can change your history is what I'm saying. I'm supposing you know this better than most. But stuff like this, even if it's a little weird to me, they're things people cared enough about to keep. There's usually a reason to have them: a friend gave it you, a family heirloom, remembering a holiday. Living memory, the difference between a house and a home. I might think the plates are ugly, but they remind me of my grandparents, so I couldn't part with them either."
With a sobered nod, Regulus let out a soft, slow breath. "Nostalgia can be a powerful thing." He felt a little twinge in his chest: it seemed beyond measure, the number of things in this house alone that had memories associated with them. To hear such a thing being acknowledged was strangely comforting, even if he knew he didn't need their permission to care about his own house. "There is a lot to be learned from history - whether it is your own, or vicariously through another."
"There's also something to be said for not carrying your whole history around with you all of time. You can't choose your history, but you can choose what parts you want to be part of your future." Emmeline adopted a conspiratorial tone. "I have the greatest respect for Nana, but when a reasonable amount of time has passed, I'm finding somewhere to bury those figurines and hoping they won't claw their way back like an unholy army of porcelain. I think I'd rather have the venom."
"And you imply my house is frightening," Regulus said with a little snort. Perhaps there was a place for picking and choosing, but he had a hard time imagining throwing even a subset of things out, regardless of whether they would officially be his, soon enough.
(Except for the house-elf heads - those, he could very likely do without.)
"I didn't mean it was frightening!" Emmeline scoffed crossly. "Interesting, very dramatic, a little strange to normalise this much illegal magic in children without them becoming extremely confused by mainstream acceptability, but not frightening."
"No need to get flustered - I was only joking," Regulus said with a quirk of the mouth, shaking his head, "Rest assured that your open mind is noted and appreciated. Perhaps it seems strange, but truthfully, I don't think mainstream acceptability was the priority, so I suppose it follows the course of reason."
"No, I'm sorry, it's a charged word." Emmeline raised her hand, then let it drop sheepishly. "I have my own feelings about mainstream acceptability, and while I don't think there's ever been a benevolent use for the cruciatus, for example, most magic just isn't that straight forward. You can be magical, have been magical for a hundred generations, but the most amazing thing remains that we could spend a hundred more studying magic and still not fully understand something that's integral to our very existence. It's innate, toddlers can control and bend to will, but somehow this ability seems to get lost because it's not seen as acceptable in Western magic to practice before a wand chooses you. It's as if we've forgotten that magic itself is not learned, but responsible magical practition is. And..." She went a little pink at the ears. "I'm rambling. I told you I had a lot of feelings about it. It's just interesting to see a different perspective, even if it also involves potential murder weapons."
Regulus nodded, a thoughtful expression settling on his face. "Certainly. It's a complex concept, and to take all regulations at face value doesn't always serve you well. Our perspectives may not actually be completely different, at least not on the subject of your noted points, and I think such examples illustrate it well: The cruciatus is problematic, to say the least, and is rightfully considered to be culturally unacceptable, on the whole - but something as natural as underage magic is also punished and stifled."
Glancing momentarily at the family tapestry across the room, he thought of how many of his ancestors had disregarded the rules as deemed appropriate, and in truth, could not imagine a scenario in which his family wouldn't. "Our parents were not terribly concerned about underage magic laws, and Sirius and I were picking up old wands lying around the house and practicing spells long before our letters, even if - technically - society would dictate that our parents 'control' it beyond school walls." Looking back to her, he added, "I think you raise a fair point in that the concept of 'responsible' magic is a key point that isn't always considered critically."
"The trace makes that interesting though!" Emmeline chirped. "It can pick up a specific spell used in a specific area, and identify an underage witch or wizard in that area, but seems to only enforce it if there is not another adult, human magical presence. I know it can't identify someone after the age of seventeen, but it seems as if it also can't tell - when in the presence of an adult - who the caster is, only that the spell was cast, when, and where."
Suddenly, she blinked a couple of times and let an indistinguishable noise. "The trace records!" Emmeline said, excitedly. "When the Chamber was opened, the Dark Lord - the boy - he was only sixteen. Any magic between that and his seventeenth birthday months later that wasn't in the presence of a magical adult would have been recorded! He didn't live in a magically-designated area! Somewhere in the archives of the Improper Use of Magic Office, there could be records of his movements because of citations!"
Regulus had been preparing to say that he'd known the loopholes of the trace quite well, but memories of his magical childhood were swept aside in favour of intrigue, interest lighting his eyes. His grasp of the Dark Lord's childhood remained fuzzy and disjointed, but if the Dark Lord was steeped in muggle society, casting magic- perhaps there was serious merit in such a lead.
(Could he have been creating horcruxes, even then? Might there be clues?)
"Do we have means to gain access to those records?" he asked with a certain thinly-veiled earnestness.
"It shouldn't be heavily guarded. It's not exactly an office anyone wants to go to. But we might be able to do it without resorting to that." Emmeline was half-pacing on the spot, clearly trying to figure out her line of thought. "That's 'forty-three, we would just need something to look up from the same period. Forties...that's the Grindelwald Revolution, so maybe Dumbledore. Fudge will take any chance to humiliate him, and Dumbledore initially abstained from the war effort. It might be enough to get in and make some copies undisturbed. But past actions might indicate what exactly the Dark Lord is trying to do, or was trying to do. He could have unleashed the basilisk on the wizarding world, but instead, there was only a single fatality, and of course the diary. That implies there's some sort of larger plan, even at that early stage, or could at least give indications of past locations that may still be in use now that he's in hiding." Finally, she deflated. "Or I'm overthinking it and about to spend a lot of time in half-a-century-old memos. But the chance is there."
That is my hope, Regulus thought to himself with growing certainty, a hint of satisfaction flickering at the corner of his mouth. "I would be very interested in such an investigation." If Dumbledore wasn't going to make himself physically present to be helpful, at least he might be able to help in this respect...
"I'll see what I can do," Emmeline replied.
Nodding, Regulus made no effort to bat away the smile on his face, already turning over the exploratory options in his mind. "Wonderful."
It wasn't a total surprise for Sirius to find Emmeline standing in the hallway like a truant student a few days later, but with Remus heading off for another couple of days to play translator, he had expected the house to remain quiet again.
"Ten points from Ravenclaw for loitering, Miss Vance." He said, as sternly as he could without raising his voice.
Emmeline rolled her eyes, and he noticed that she was disheveled. It was a little unusual. Her family were well-to-do, and she didn't like to be seen as anything less prim.
(Marlene used to tease her so much about that.)
"You could polyjuice into Professor McGonagall herself, and that still wouldn't be convincing," she said.
Sirius put a hand to his chest. "My secret fantasy revealed!" When she snorted in response, he dropped to the bottom stair. "What brings you here? Is there trouble?"
"Only the kind you see when looking in a mirror." (Sirius tried not to preen at that. He wasn't successful.) "I might have a lead."
That caught his attention. "On?"
"You-Know-Who. Or rather, something from when he was still using his birth name. There's a few small citations for use of magic in non-magically designated areas before the trace was lifted, so I started digging." Emmeline hesitated. "Some seem run-of-the-mill. Obliviation, clean up, nothing we haven't done. It could be another witch or wizard in the area, someone off the designated areas but we won't know until we snoop about."
As far as leads go, Sirius supposed it wasn't bad. "But why would what he was doing as a kid matter now?"
"The diary," Emmeline said, with a shrug. "If the memory inside it already referred to itself as Lord V-v-voldemort, then by sixteen, it was name he was already using. And the graveyard, didn't Harry say that it was where the muggle father had lived? In the house? He had already killed him, but the trace didn't pick it up, so he had to have had a legal adult near enough to him. An early follower, maybe, or he found a way around it. I'm just hoping by going back to the beginning, we'll find more clues on how to end him – permanently."
That was consistent with what Harry had said, but it wasn't something Sirius would have considered. Hopefully, that means it's something Voldemort hadn't considered either. "What made you think to look?"
"Well, the Ministry loves it's paperwork. It keeps records on everything, no matter how mundane." Emmeline stopped, then plowed forward. "And truthfully, I was talking to Regulus about the trace."
Sirius blinked. "Why?"
"Because of this house," Emmeline gestured to it. "You were both casting long before Hogwarts, but weren't cited."
"We may have had sorry excuses for parents, but they were magical," Sirius pointed out.
"I know," Emmeline said. "But we've known each other a long time, haven't we?"
Unsure of where she was going with this, Sirius nodded.
"So I'm betting there's no way you confined yourself to only using magic here. Not if you moved around as children." Emmeline shrugged. "But no citation, even though I highly doubt there was an adult within fifty feet."
"I admit it's got some loopholes," Sirius said. It was true enough – various relatives, the street, the park, the tunnel system on holiday. All long before he was of age. Not to mention being an illegal animagus.
"But that's the point, they assumed since you had magical parents, they would sort it out. Riddle did not. It stood to reason at least some of his actions would be enough to catch the attention of the trace." Emmeline crossed her arms defensively, clearly getting annoyed that perhaps he wasn't appreciative of her theory.
"Then thank Merlin for the Ministry being a bureaucratic nightmare," Sirius shrugged. "Did you call a meeting?"
"No," Emmeline admitted. "I wanted to talk to you first."
"I'm starting to get sick of repeating myself," Sirius said, dully. "But why?"
"Because we're spread thin, and this could be nothing. If something happens at Hogwarts, and we're busy mucking about in muggle areas, then we're going to have trouble getting out without being seen," Emmeline said.
"Okay," Sirius said. "But you shouldn't go alone. Remus should be-"
"I'm going to ask Regulus to come with me," Emmeline interrupted.
Sirius had to stop and retrace the sentence in his head. He immediately wanted to ask why again, but he was getting sick of the question. This was why Ravenclaws were such nightmares to deal with. "He's not in the Order," Sirius reminded her, instead.
"I know," Emmeline said, clenching her jaw. "But he is privy to much of its comings and goings on your request. You told us at the meeting you felt he was genuinely remorseful for the pain caused when he was in school, and that he wanted to try to make up for some of it. If he truly wants to make a difference, and you believe he's trustworthy, then it falls to us to test the waters."
"And you're offering," Sirius said, doubtfully.
"We get on," Emmeline shrugged. "And we're less visible than most. If we have to ask questions, there's less chance of it being linked back to the Order."
The real hesitation was not the mix of the Order and Regulus so much as who else they may run into if they're looking up old Voldemort haunts. Ashamed as he was to admit it, as much as he trusted his brother in any other circumstance, he didn't want someone to walk into a situation he couldn't be positive they would be safe in. Either because of a fight they may get into, or because there may not be a fight when there should be.
"Mulciber's out there," Sirius said. "So is Bellatrix."
"So are Travers and Dolohov," Emmeline said, gaining some steel to her tone. "And I can't promise to keep my head around them either. You don't have a monopoly on the desire for revenge, nor difficulty in controlling yourself around certain Death Eaters."
"I don't know how he'll react around them," Sirius said, quietly. "It could be anger, but it could be something...trickier."
Emmeline shrugged. "I'm not twenty anymore. I can fight if I have to, I'm accomplished."
"I don't doubt that," Sirius said. After all, she was part of Harry's guard. "I don't want either of you to get hurt."
"What happened to 'some things are worth dying for'?" Emmeline said, not unkindly.
"There are," Sirius said. "But there's been enough needless death, hasn't there?"
Emmeline looked him over in an uncomfortable way, before she seemed to settle. "The first sign of trouble, I'll apparate. Both of us, if need strikes. But if we're ever going to stop this, we have to at least try to work with that we have."
"Yes," Sirius said, even if he couldn't completely dampen the worry in his stomach. The Order would say no. The Order would want to wait. But hadn't it only been days ago he had wanted something, anything, some kind of progress to be made? "I know."
"Cheer up. He might say no," Emmeline said, with a quirked smile.
Sirius's eyes flickered to the landing. "He won't," he said, grimly.