Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters. Everything belongs to JK Rowling, and I'm merely allowed to play around with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

I'm supposed to be doing English homework, but I just can't be bothered. I didn't got any name suggestions last chapter (unless you want them to have a kid named Update Black), but that might come later, if you want... However, I do have a pretty solid idea on how this is going to end up... And it's not yet. I might actually pass the 100 000 words bar! That'd be really cool... Anyway, on with the story.

Chapter 28

-o-O-o-

The clock struck ten.

"Oh!" Lily said. "It's time for you to go!"

Sirius whined. "But don't want to go!" he said.

James shook his head. "Fine, you can stay. But it's only because I need someone to help me clean up the mess."

Sirius seemed content with that. Hermione sighed. "I'm going home. I'm tired."

She kissed and hugged everyone goodbye, before grabbing her coat and heading outside to Disapparate. As she left, she could swear she heard James say: "It's just the shock… Lily was the same… She slept for fifteen hours straight… And snored!"

And Lily answer: "I heard that!"

But then she twirled on the spot, and the next thing she knew, she was home. She sighed in relief at the sight of the familiar flat, before swishing her wand to make all the lights turn on. Without taking her cloak off or putting her handbag down, she went to the living room.

There, a flashing red light caught her eye.

She went closer to it and noticed that it was the message button from the phone. At first, she wanted to ignore it and make it wait for the next day, but her curiosity got the better of her and she pushed the button down.

First, her message came up, and she smiled at the memory of when she had recorded it. She was the only one in the house to know how a phone worked, so she had been assigned to do everything that had even the slightest thing to do with one. 'Hello, you are at the residence of Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Hermione Granger, but we are currently unavailable, so leave a message after the beep!'

Then the beep sounded and the message came. 'Hermione…'

She gasped as Regulus' voice came from the receiver. Why was he calling her? He had ignored her for a year and a half and now just decided to call her? She stopped her thoughts for a moment and just listened to the rest of the message.

'I just called to say… I'm sorry.'

"It's a bit late now!" she sneered, feeling slightly bitter, but yearning as well.

'I should've listened to you all along and never taken the Mark. I should've thought about you… us more, and about what I was doing to you. I knew it was going to break you when you found out, yet I completely ignored it. I shouldn't have.'

As much as she wanted to yell at him right now, there was something she wanted to do more than that. She just wanted to take him into her arms and hold him so that they could be together until the end of time.

The message continued: 'Also, I listened to that song, with that Muggle singer… Erm… Oh, yeah, Stevie Wonder, 'I just called to say I love you'. The music was crappy but I loved the lyrics…'

She laughed a little, because it was the same opinion she had on that song. 'Because it reminds me of us… Only I didn't call just to say 'I love you', but… Fuck, I love you Hermione.'

Her breath caught in her throat. 'I'm not asking you to come back; I just wanted you to know, because you won't have a chance to after tonight.'

What did he mean by that? 'So yeah… I love you, always will, I'm sorry… And…' she heard him sigh. 'Shit, just… Be happy. Please.'

She heard a beep and knew the message was over. He loved her? 'No he doesn't!' a little voice in the back of her head nagged. 'He betrayed you, lied to you and used you… How can he love you?'

She shook her head. "I don't know." she said out loud.

'Why do you even care about him, anyway?' the little voice continued.

"Because I love him." she answered, and as she said it, she realised it was true. It was something she'd never considered before, but as she repeated it again and again in her head, a smile spread on her face and she started crying.

But then again, he had said something about not being able to say it after tonight. She wondered what he meant by that, when a memory popped up in her mind. The memory of a dream, a snowy street, a man, an elf, a cave… A potion… A locket….

Her hand flew to her face in shock. "Oh, God!" she cried out. "I have to stop him!"

She ran around like a headless chicken for a couple of seconds before she decided on a plan. She quickly pulled out a piece of parchment and scribbled a note on it, before taking off her ring and, giving it one last kiss, she put it down on the table, on the note.

And then she left for Grimmauld place.

-o-O-o-

The potion burnt his throat, but he swallowed none the less. A few flashes of colour went before his eyes and his head thudded dully, but that was all that happened. "More." he told Kreacher, who filled him another glass. He tipped that one back too, and the same thing happened, albeit stronger, this time.

He had drunk around five glasses, when images, well structured ones, that is, started to appear. His father, being murdered before his very eyes. He shuddered, but drank the glass Kreacher presented him with.

He no longer had the strength to ask for the potion, nor to open his eyes. Another images: a man's head falling to the ground as his wife screams. The screams were so distinct, he moaned; "No…"

Another glass, another image. Him, insulting Hermione at the beginning of their sixth year. Her eyes were full of tears, but he was uncaring. "No!" he said, louder this time. "Don't do this!" But he did. He watched his past self turn away and leave her behind, broken.

He felt more potion being shoved down his throat, glass after glass, until he could sustain it no more. "KILL ME!" he yelled. "Hermione, kill me! I hate myself, please kill me!"

Far away, he heard a soothing voice tell him that this was the last one. He drank it all, and something else came up in his mind. The thing he hated most in the whole wide world.

Her fearful eyes as she discovered his mark. Her realisation that he was nothing more than an abomination… A monster.

"I'M A MONSTER!" he cried out, writhing on the floor. He wanted nothing more than to die, right then. Then, he felt something cool grab hold of his ankle, not as softly as he would have liked it, and pulled him towards somewhere else.

He felt himself be submerged in water, but he couldn't care less. He didn't know who he was where he was, just that he was a monster to be killed.

That was why, when he found himself unable to breathe, he welcomed the peace of certain death with open arms.

-o-O-o-

As she knocked on the door of number 12, Grimmauld place, Hermione wondered what she would say. The woman from her dream answered, and Hermione recognised her as Sirius and Regulus' mother. "Good evening." she said politely.

"What do you want?" the elder woman snapped, and Hermione backed off a couple of steps.

"I, erm…" she stuttered, unable to find a good story. "I'm here on the behalf of the Dark Lord, and I'd like to talk to Regulus."

The woman's eyes widened. "The Dark Lord?" she whispered, to which Hermione nodded. Mrs. Black looked around the street, to see if anyone had heard, before gesturing Hermione to come in.

Hermione looked around. "It a… very nice house, you have here, Mrs. Black."

"Thank you." the woman replied, her nose scrunched up as if she smelt something bad. She started climbing the stairs and Hermione could do nothing but follow. They arrived in front of a door with Regulus' name plate, and she smiled. Mrs. Black knocked on her son's door. "Regulus?" she called out. "You have a guest." When no answer came, she tried again. "Regulus?"

"Maybe he's not there." Hermione said.

"He can't have Disapparated," Mrs. Black said. "The whole house is warded. Unless…" Something must've dawned on her, because she suddenly looked angry. "Kreacher!" she called out, my shriller than before.

As the elf appeared, it was obvious that he had been doing something out of the ordinary. His tower was dirty and smeared with a kind of greenish sludge and he was, in overall, wet. "Mistress Black?" he croaked, his voice hoarse, as if he'd been crying.

"Kreacher, where is my son?" she asked.

"Master Regulus is…" Kreacher looked like he was trying very hard to say something, but in the end he just was physically unable to do so. "Kreacher cannot say." he gave up.

She huffed. "Why not?" she asked.

"Master Regulus made Kreacher promise that he cannot tell my Mistress where Master Regulus is." he told her, his head bowing in shame.

Hermione bent down in front of Kreacher. "Kreacher, is Master Regulus in danger?" she asked softly.

He looked up to her trusting eyes and whispered. "Yes."

"What?!" Mrs. Black shrieked. "No, not Regulus!" she started to sob

Hermione shed a single tear. "Kreacher," she whispered. "I want to help Master Regulus. Can you take me where he is?" Kreacher hesitated, but in the end, his adoration for Regulus won over, and he nodded. Hermione looked back up to Mrs. Black and declared: "If I don't come back, then we're both dead."

The elder woman sobbed harder. Hermione took hold of Kreacher's hand, and the elf twirled, making both of them disappear. When Hermione's feet hit the ground again, she was on an island, illuminated by a ball of light. As she looked around, Hermione noticed a few bubbles come from the deep, murky waters.

"Oh my God!" she shrieked, and turned back to the elf. "Kreacher, go back to your mistress, I'm sure she needs you more than I do."

He hesitated, but finally nodded and Disapparated. Hermione stripped down to her underwear, pulled out her wand and performed a Bubble Head charm on her self, before diving in the lake.

The cold water bit her skin, and for a couple of seconds, she thought she was dead. She recovered quickly, however, when she saw some activity at the bottom of the lake. She swam as fast as she could to reach it, and then came upon a horrifying scene.

Inferi, hundreds of them, were settled near the sand, a few of the clutching a poor figure which could only be Regulus. She pulled her wand out and tried to cast a spell, but she didn't remember which one to use. Then, she remembered her fourth year, when she had researched all the monsters which Harry might have to fight during the Triwizard Tournament. Inferi were afraid of fire!

"Incendio!" she cried out and, by some miracle, fire formed and burnt, underneath water, in a long serpent that crawled towards the deadly creatures. Slowly, they detangled themselves from Regulus, and Hermione swam towards him. She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pointed her wand the surface: "Ascendio!"

She felt herself being pulled out of the water, and landing on the island. Regulus landed next to her, and she immediately began working. She first placed her fingers on his neck, where she found a pulse. It was weak, but it was still there.

She undid his shirt buttons and placed her hands on his chest, pumping so as to get the water out of him? It turned out he had quite a lot, but in the end, his eyes opened slightly and he coughed the rest out.

"Regulus?" she asked, brushing a strand of hair out of his face, but he had already closed his eyes again and fainted back into slumber. She figured he would die of hypothermia soon if she didn't hurry up, so she grabbed her handbag and rummaged inside it until she found what she was looking for: her tent.

She had bought it for Sirius and hers first camping trip. It had been the only one, too. The point was, the war had threatened them and so she had always kept the essentials packed for that sort of stuff.

"Erecto!" she said, and the tent lifted up, perfectly anchored into the rocky soil of the island. She levitated Regulus inside and into a sleeping bag, stripping him to his boxers along the way so that his wet clothes didn't make him even colder.

All this physical activity had made her warm, so she figured that if she slipped in beside him, he might have a better chance of getting out of hypothermia. And so she did.

The last though that came to her mind before she fell asleep was that it felt nice to be with the man you loved.

-o-O-o-

Please review! What do you think will happen next? Hmm…