Chapter Fifty: Waiting
Ginny
August 1979, Order of the Phoenix Headquarters
"It doesn't fit," said Sirius. He paced the floor, backwards and forwards and back again. "None of it fits."
"He's asking us for help, Sirius. Listen to him. He's your brother."
"He's a Death Eater. It could be a trap."
"It might not be."
Ginny sat and listened in the kitchen of Headquarters as the two went over and over the same arguments. She was hungry, or had been, but there was no way she would be able to eat. Remus sat perched on a stool, as Sirius paced, a mug of tea nestled in his hand. It went on and on, the discussion, until Remus seemed to snap.
"Could you forgive yourself if he died?"
Sirius stopped dead, in the centre of the kitchen. He looked at Remus, then Ginny, then Remus again, then down at his own feet.
"No."
"He might, you know. If he wants to go against Voldemort, and Voldemort finds out, he'll kill him. Do you know that?"
"Yes."
"Then we have our answer." He was reluctant, but final.
Ginny nodded.
Regulus was not supposed to die until early September, not according to what they knew. Could it all work earlier, or would she have to hold them off until that time? It could all still work. If Sirius and Remus rescued Regulus, if they took him in, if they saved him, it would not work. He would take no final stand. He would survive, yes, but they would never get to that Horcrux. They didn't know where it was without Regulus. Without Kreacher.
Fucking hell, she thought, fucking hell.
Had Kreacher already been? Maybe Hermione could get him to show her. He had to obey her, didn't he? But not if Regulus had sworn him to secrecy. Regulus could override Hermione. Lyra.
She could barely calm the shaking of her hands and the hammering in her chest, and even if she had been able to think of something to say her throat would have been too constricted to say it.
"Remus," said Sirius. "What if it kills one of you? Doing this? If I save my brother, but not you?" His voice faltered.
"Do you honestly think we'll survive this, anyway? I don't. Not all of us." He said it flatly, with finality, and without any emotion. As if he was talking about the weather.
Ginny's heart broke. If there was anything in the last year and a bit that had destroyed her, this was it.
Sirius stared, mute, at Remus. He picked at the wood on the stool he sat on, his brown eyes refusing to meet Sirius'.
"There's a chance some of us will. But look at how many die. Every day there's someone, Order or Muggle, or one of them. We're all in the middle of it." He continued talking as Sirius' face turned from blank to distraught.
"I know. I know!" He shouted that, as if begging Remus to stop talking. He flopped his arms pathetically, and his voice quietened. "Shit, Remus. Fucking shit. It's all fucking shit. I want to, I want to punch someone. Something. Shit."
Remus pulled himself from the stool, landing lightly on his feet, and the two men collapsed into one another. They stayed there for several minutes, and Ginny sat on her stool, and she began to question.
And, somehow, the first of those was that she no longer wanted to lie to Remus.
That, almost certainly, wasn't the fucking plan, was it?
"I'm going to talk to James and Peter," said Sirius. "They'll know what to do. They always know what to do. Don't they?"
"Hopefully," said Remus, releasing Sirius from their embrace. "I've told you what I think. Ask them. Talk to Dorcas. We said we'd meet him tomorrow, might as well make the most of the time."
"Okay," said Sirius. "Fuck."
He walked off, leaving Ginny and Remus alone in the kitchen. A rare feat, at Headquarters. There was almost always somebody in here, doing something, avoiding something. But tonight it was just the two of them, well, and the overwhelming urge to tell her boyfriend the entirety of the truth.
"What do you think?" Remus asked. "You didn't say anything."
"I don't know," she said, honestly. "I don't know."
"It's going to be okay," said Remus.
"You said we might all die. Some of us would, you said."
"I did."
"Do you believe that?"
"I don't want to," he said. "But I do."
"Yeah," she said. "So do I. How could we all survive?"
"Luck," said Remus. "Well, my mother believes in God. She'd say we have someone out there looking after us, intervening, trying to save us."
Ginny ignored that. She had to.
"I don't think Sirius' brother wants to kill him. He had the chance. He didn't do it. But that makes him more dangerous, doesn't it? If he thinks he has no other way than to do something drastic."
"That makes sense." Remus began the process of making a cup of tea, two cups, as if he was doing it without thinking of why. "Sirius will come round." He put the milk in before the water from the kettle. Sirius did it the other way around. "Actually, I don't know if he will. He always would have. But it's doing funny things to all of us, this war. James will tell him to trust Regulus. I'm certain of it."
"He will."
James would trust anyone, and that had been his downfall.
"I hate this."
Remus handed her the pink cup, her favourite, and took the blue one to the table for himself.
"It's shit," he continued. "It's like the whole thing is going to come to some kind of end, soon, except I don't believe it can, so the end is just going to be a massive mess of shit."
"I hate it too," she said. She found her way to him, and snuggled herself in, and this was somewhere that it felt marginally less horrible.
"Maybe we can all survive it." He shrugged. He didn't sound convinced.
He died, she knew. He died a little under twenty years from now, with years in between spent alone and lost. James and Lily died in a little over two years. Peter would betray. Sirius would go to Azkaban, and he would die, and there would be nobody left except Harry and little Teddy Lupin.
"No," she said. "No. You can't." She didn't cry, she wasn't the emotional sort.
"Why do you say that?"
"You said the same thing. That there's too many of you. You're all too involved. Probability."
And she burst into tears.
Ginny Weasley was not, and had never been, a crier. It didn't get you anywhere in the house she'd grown up in. She'd felt like she should, at times, but it wasn't how she dealt with things. Apparently, it was how Philomena Prewett dealt with these issues.
"I'm going to take you home," he said, wrapping his arms more firmly around her as she cried into his shoulder. "I think we've all had enough for tonight."
"No," said Ginny, as firm as she could be. "No, you can't."
"Why?" he asked. "You've never let me take you home. I don't even know your address."
"You just can't."
"Well, you're going to have to let me, I'm not letting you Apparate like this. Look at you. You'll Splinch yourself and there'll be nobody there to help you."
"I'll Floo," she said. "It's fine. I always get myself home."
"Let me help you." It was a plea, really, and it made Ginny feel terrible.
"I can't. I'm sorry, Remus. I'm going to Floo home, now, and I'll come back in the morning. Maybe the day after, I have to write my lesson plans."
"Yes. You'll be teaching in a few weeks."
"Exactly. I'm fine, Remus, honestly."
"Okay." He didn't believe her. "I don't understand why you won't trust me. Why you always act like you know something."
"I do. I trust you. I love you. There are just, there are things, Remus. There are things."
It was the worst explanation, and she watched his face fall. How far could she push him? How far would she have to push him? She did love him, she knew that. The lovely, kind man who stood in front of her, the man who had stood beside her as they threw themselves into danger. She loved him. And she was hurting him, this beautiful man.
"Okay. I'll see you when I see you."
"Yeah. I'll be back tomorrow, I promise."
"That isn't the point, is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"We're supposed to be together. Do things together. Not keep secrets."
"It isn't a secret, it's just - it's more complicated than that."
"Okay. I'm sure I'll still be here tomorrow."
"Remus," she started.
"No," he said. "I love you. But I can't do this if we can't trust each other."
"It's just an address."
"It is and it isn't. I've asked before. You don't want to tell me, that's fine, to a point. What's there that you don't want me to see?"
She couldn't answer. A time-travelled version of your best friend. A girl who is pretending to be related to several Death Eaters and socialises with more of them. Luna.
"I'm going to go now," she said.
"Okay."
"I love you, too."
She stepped through the Floo, and looked back at him one last time as she did so. He still sat at the chair in the table, both of their mugs of undrunk tea in front of him, staring sadly down at her cup.
"Sorry," she whispered. If he heard her, he didn't show it.
Their house wasn't connected to the Floo. So she went to the Leaky, and Apparated from there, because she was fucking fine, no matter what Remus said. Sirius was the only one at home, stretched out on the sofa reading Witch Weekly, of all fucking things, and something snapped.
"Sirius!" she shouted. "How could you!"
To his credit, sort-of, he looked baffled. He dropped the magazine onto his own face and sat up, his hair a mess and searching for his wand. A reflex, she realised. A reflex coming from years of fucking, stupid, sodding, bloody war.
"What?" he asked. "What did I do?" He stopped looking for his wand when he saw it was her.
"You don't deny it," she said. The fight had gone, anyway. She didn't feel the urge to shout at him any more. Just to sleep, mostly. "Did Regulus come and beg for help from you in the original timeline?"
"Oh."
"He did, then."
"It isn't something I'm proud of."
"Like fuck you're not. Nobody would be."
"You've got to remember what it was like."
The fight returned.
"Got to remember? Sirius, I'm basically fucking living it! I'm there with the other you, with your friends, waiting for some kind of shit to happen and blow everyone's lives apart all over again. A Muggleborn family died this morning, by the way. Killed in broad daylight. Peter's distraught. Again. James is bouncing off the walls because he wants to do something about it all. Remus looks like he's going to cry. Regulus is begging for help, and I can't let them help him, and you're saying I need to remember what it was like. I've got to remember what it was like all of half an hour ago."
"Sorry," he said, which wasn't good enough. "I'm sorry, I didn't think."
"Neither did the other you."
"I'm not proud of that. I wonder if I caused him to die, that time."
"Probably."
It was harsh, she knew that as soon as she said it.
"Sorry." Her turn to apologise. "I'm sorry, Sirius."
"Don't be a git, Ginny. Or not just because I was one to you."
"It's just shit. Can't decide if I want to shout at you, drink with you, or just go out into the garden and cast a bunch of explosion spells on rocks. And I've got less than a week until I have to go up to Hogwarts for a fucking job I don't want."
Realistically, Hermione had the short straw. At least Ginny spent her time with people she mostly liked. But she felt like she had at least a reasonably short one.
Sirius said nothing.
"I don't really think you caused him to die," she said. "He's in a state. He'd probably get himself killed anyway."
"In that cave. Did Harry tell you what it was like in there? I want to know how he died."
"Inferi," she said. "That's what we assumed. There was a lake, you see. And you had to drink a potion that forced you to relive all your worst memories."
"Dementors," he said, and she saw his eyes go glassy, as if remembering the feeling.
"So Regulus drank it. And the only way," she continued, wondering if she should finish it, "to get relief was to get water from the lake. And that's when the Inferi rise up. Or they did for Harry."
He was shaking.
"Sirius," she said, noticing. She'd gone too far, she always did, when she was like this. "Sirius. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told you, I shouldn't have, shit!"
"It's okay," he choked out. "It's fine. I asked."
"Yeah, but Remus asked, and I fucked that up too." She sat on the floor, and he joined her.
"What do you mean?"
"He wanted to bring me back here, because, well, I got a bit emotional about it all at Headquarters. He wants to know why I won't trust him."
"Ah." Sirius squeezed her shoulder. "If it helps, I'd fuck that up too."
"Doesn't," she said. It sort of did, though.
"We weren't always very trusting," he said. "I think we were taught not to be ultimately. Our thing became that we always trusted the four of us, but not anybody else. Lily was sort of reluctantly included, but there were things she didn't know, even. And then I fucked that up by not trusting Remus."
"Peter did," she said. "Peter's terrified. You're all terrified. You're just dealing with it differently."
"I used to be jealous of you," he said. "Getting to spend your time with them. I don't know if I want to, now. I don't know if I'd have the strength to see it all happen again."
"It isn't going to," she said. "We're going to fix it."
"And you'll fix whatever this is with Remus. You'll just have to bring him here."
"What?"
"You heard me. We'll sort out a time when everyone's out, and you bring him here. Or have Luna here, or something, she's safe enough. Just as long as you remember to call her Pandora. Remus is satisfied, and you're not feeling like you're keeping things from him."
"As many things." The distinction felt important, and Sirius must have thought so too as he smiled.
"Yeah. As many things."
"I hate all this deception. I'm sorry I said all that about Regulus."
"No, don't be. I wanted to hear it. Needed to, I think."
"It's shit."
"We should get that charmed onto a mug. Used to be a man in Diagon Alley who'd put whatever you wanted onto an object, in whatever colour you liked."
"After, maybe."
"Yeah."
"Remus might break up with me. Can't tell if he has, actually."
Sirius reached for her hand. "I know he's like my best friend, the only one I had left where we came from, but he's a twat if he does."
"Yeah, but he's right isn't he? I don't trust him. I don't trust him enough to tell him the truth about everything, anyway."
"Maybe we could."
Ginny's stomach swooped. "What do you mean?"
"If we swore him to secrecy."
"Maybe if it comes to it." She wanted to tell Remus everything, so badly. But if he broke up with her over it? Well, their relationship wasn't entirely what mattered. It was the whole thing. He'd find someone else. She might go back, anyway.
But she didn't fucking want to go back. She'd spent a year here, she could barely remember the future. She could barely remember the people she'd spent her whole life with.
"You know Hermione will refuse."
Sirius smiled. "Yeah. She didn't want to do any of this, did she? Took her months to come round. If we start now, we might be able to persuade her by Christmas."
"I've promised to go see Peter," said Ginny, deciding this particular moral quandary could be dealt with later. "Got some shit to be doing. You know how it is."
"Okay. Be safe."
"Survived this far, haven't I?"
It didn't make any difference if you tried to stay safe, she didn't think. Not if you'd joined the Order.
She arrived at The Crossing, and let herself in. Calmly as anything, Peter pointed his wand at her.
"What did I say to you about Remus, after the attack at Diagon Alley?"
"That he'd tell me about something in about three weeks." She lowered her own wand, in a mirror of him lowering his. "He didn't, by the way, he said it that evening."
"I also said that I'd have something to say if you were a bitch to him," said Peter. "He's upset."
"It isn't my fault," she said. "I want to be able to tell him the truth about something, but I can't."
"He's told you his secret." Peter stared her down, the most menacing she'd ever seen the still slightly pudgy man. "You could get him Azkaban if you wanted, for not being registered. He's trusted you."
"I know. Fucking hell, Peter, I know. I wouldn't do this if I wasn't trying to protect him."
"In case you haven't noticed, Remus doesn't need protecting. Not from the truth. Just from Death Eaters, like the rest of us."
"Okay. Fine. I'll tell him, Pete, I promise. Alright?" She wanted to cry, for the second time that evening, and Peter seemed to realise that now was the time to let it drop. "I want your help with something, anyway."
"Not Remus? Or James, or Sirius?"
"No, yours. Got to do something at St Mungo's. A job." Not technically an Order one, but if Peter didn't ask it could be another secret between her and everyone else. She sighed, slung her wand into her pocket, and turned to go. She didn't have the time for this, not in the narrow window she thought she had available to her. "Coming?"
He nodded, and hurried after her.
Sirius
August 1979, Saltburn-by-Sea
Once again he was the only one at home. He'd got used to it. Though he'd never done well with silence.
Being a dog helped.
He wandered around the garden, taking a nap in his canine form under the tree. He got up and turned back into his human form, made a sandwich. He made a lot of sandwiches, actually, and sat at the table hoping Ginny or Hermione or Luna would arrive home.
He ate the entire plate of sandwiches.
It was at this point that Sirius had a rather horrible thought.
Lucius Malfoy was dead. Had been for a while. And while Sirius didn't mourn that, not in the slightest, there was something about that fact that had been rankling for a few days.
And now he had it. Voldemort had given him a Horcrux. If the protector of the Horcrux was dead, what would Voldemort do?
Well, he thought, getting up and washing the sandwich plate by hand, it might be that, technically, he'd given it to Abraxas. Voldemort had been at school with Abraxas Malfoy, and he was alive, so maybe it was that he'd given it to him and he would trust in the hiding place for a little longer. He tried to remember where exactly Hermione had found the diary. Had it been in Lucius' study? The library? Abraxas' rooms?
Oh bloody hell, he couldn't remember. And he couldn't owl Hermione, because they didn't own an owl, and he couldn't Patronus her, because he still couldn't do a fucking Patronus. And anyway, it was hardly the message he could send while she was dealing with his brother.
"Hey, Hermione," he tried, out loud. "Or Lyra, seeing as you're faking being my cousin. Old Voldy-pants' Horcrux might be compromised, y'know, those bits of soul we're trying to kill before we kill him. Because we're time travellers with a mission and we've all got fake identities. Except I've got like three, because I keep fucking up. And Regulus, if you're there, kindly fuck off to the far side of fuck and then fuck off again. Also, forget you heard any of this."
It didn't work, did it?
He kicked the door.
Sirius Black did not deal well with inaction.
He watched three programmes on the television, and enjoyed none of them. The television went off, showing some kind of screen that suggested nothing was going to happen in the near future. He turned it off at the wall. He'd lost the remote.
Luna came home as he was standing on the sofa, moving from sheet to sheet of the paper pinned to the walls.
"Sirius?" she asked. "Is everything quite alright?"
"No," he said. "The diary. Lucius is dead. What if he decides it needs a new hiding place?"
"Oh," said Luna, dropping her bag. "That is rather a problem."
"Yeah." He went back to combing their notes.
"And I suppose we cannot fix it without Hermione. To talk to Narcissa, maybe. Get into Malfoy Manor."
"Honestly," said Sirius, deciding that there was nothing in the notes, and flopping down onto the sofa, "I don't know if there's anything we can do."
"I suppose not. To ask questions would draw attention."
"We could try and leave a replacement."
"That would only fool Narcissa and Abraxas, if either of them knew anything about it in the first place, and only if they knew the basics only. Perhaps not even Abraxas, if he was the one that was given it to look after. Lucius obviously knew something about what it did, else he'd never have tipped it into Ginny's cauldron in '92."
"It is a conundrum. Shall we tell the others?"
"Maybe not yet."
"Tell them what?" asked Ginny. "Are you talking about me and Hermione?"
"Maybe." He took a proper look at Ginny. "Thought you were only going to see Peter. Why've you got blood on your arm?"
"Someone at HQ had injured themselves, and Dorcas wasn't around to fix them up, so I did it." She looked up at the ceiling as she said it, rather than making eye contact.
"Fine." He thought she wasn't telling the entire truth, but then, he and Luna had just agreed to keep something from her. Except wasn't that how it had all fallen apart, at the beginning, when they'd first been here? He shook his head. He didn't want to think about that. He'd been an arse.
"Where's Hermione, anyway?" Ginny asked.
"With Regulus, still. She's trying to keep watch."
"Ah."
"I do not like this, much," said Luna. "This waiting. It makes me really rather nervous."
Sirius nodded. It did. It made his stomach fizz with worry, his palms sweat, and his brain unable to focus on anything at all.
"It's just a few more days," said Ginny. "To success or failure. I can't hold the other Sirius and Remus off from saving Regulus themselves much longer than that."
They sat in silence as the clock ticked onwards. Nobody made a move to go to bed, even once it crept past one o'clock, and almost to two o'clock.
"Need some sleep soon," said Ginny, but still none of them moved.
It was at five past two in the morning that Hermione finally arrived home, yawning and with dark circles forming around her eyes.
"Regulus?" asked Sirius.
"Today, I think," said Hermione. "Or tomorrow. Tomorrow is technically today. I don't like the early hours."
"That soon? It isn't meant to be until September." Ginny's eyebrow was raised.
"He's going to. I can tell. I've got Kreacher supposed to be standing guard for me. He's going to come and tell me before Regulus goes. Made him promise." She sat down. "I hate ordering a house elf like that."
"It's for the best," said Sirius. "Kreacher's suffered enough, but we can't do it without him." Pause. "Or Regulus."
"Any of us," said Hermione, firmly. "We can't do this without any of us."
"What are you going to say?" Luna asked. "How much do we tell him?"
In all of this, they'd never discussed that.
"The truth. I can prove it, or bits of it, anyway. Arcturus has a Pensive somewhere in his rooms, so I can borrow that if I need to, show him bits of my memories that back up our claims. We've still got the broken time turner." Her turn to pause. "We've got the Horcruxes, if it comes down to it. If he needs that sort of proof."
"Do you think we should tell him that?" Ginny looked concerned. "What if he's in front of Voldemort and thinks about them?"
"Why would he be in front of Voldemort?"
"Can we keep him safe? Him and his wife? If we can't, then he'll have to." Ginny flicked at her hair, twisting the ends of her bob around her finger. "And this isn't the end. We've got to kill Voldy, once we've got all the Horcruxes. And Regulus might be able to help us with that."
"If he wants to," said Sirius. "If he wants to." His brother would have done enough. His brother was to have been through enough.
"We've been waiting for this for so long," said Hermione, quietly. "I don't really know what to do now it's here."
Sirius understood. His life had felt for the last couple of months as if it was gearing up to just this. To the day that he could stand in front of his brother and be truly proud of him, knowing everything.
Luna went to work, the following morning, and Ginny off to go and talk to Peter again, and so it was Sirius and Hermione. It was the first time they'd had alone in a week or so, what with everything she had been doing, and he was determined to enjoy it. Hermione, on the other hand, was not. She sat in their bedroom, for she had moved in permanently now, somehow, without it ever being properly discussed and agreed upon. She was wrapped in a cocoon of the duvet, and wasn't moving.
"What's that matter?" he asked. Something was. She'd been fine yesterday, discussing how to deal with Regulus with the rest of them, and now, she wasn't.
"Your mother," said Hermione, looking grim. "Your mother says I need to choose a husband by the end of the year. That's four months away. That's how long I've got, or she'll choose for me."
"Fuck," said Sirius. "You'll be gone by then. It'll be fine. She won't be able to do anything. She can't. It's illegal."
"Illegal, yes, but I notice you don't say impossible. And your mother never did shy away from illegal. Not even for her own children."
"No." He felt a jolt of something horrible, but this wasn't about him. He could manage to not be that terrified little boy when talking about his mother, for once. "Fucking hell. Sadly, it isn't impossible, no. They did it to Bella."
"How?"
"I don't know. Regulus would know. He listens to those sorts of things, and I was always too busy trying to work out how to be a dick in the lessons. I learnt bits, but you know. Nothing really that useful. Fucking hell. Shit. Hermione."
"It'll be fine," she said. He had the distinct feeling he ought to be comforting her, not her him. Add it to the list of his usual failings, you could. Might as well.
"It's my family," he said, realising something. "I let you do the blood ritual to bind you to our family. It's that. That's how they do it. The genus. Fuck." It was his fault.
"How do you get out of it?" she said. "If she's doing it like that, does it matter that I've run away? If that's what I do. If Regulus sticks around, I should stay. To keep him safe."
"You can't. My brother's a big boy, he can look after himself. Well, he can't, not yet, but he'll be able to soon. We could take your genus away, but fuck, I don't know how to do that! Luna might. We could ask Luna."
"I don't want to marry someone she chooses."
"No, you don't."
They looked at each other for a moment, and she climbed onto him and put her arms around him. They melted into each other, all warmth and comfort and everything he had ever wanted. Safety. He'd laughed at James for describing Lily that way. He'd said that a woman wasn't supposed to be your safety. That was for your friends, the family you chose for yourself. But maybe James had been right, and he had been wrong.
And that gave him the idea.
"Marry me."
"What?"
"Marry me. She can't make you marry someone if you're already married."
"Sirius, that's…" she trailed off, looking hopeless. He'd fucked that up. Of course she didn't want to marry him. She was pretty and perfect and intelligent, had her whole life ahead of her, practically. He was an ex-convict who would never be good enough.
"Forget it."
"No. I won't. Yes."
"Yes?" Something leapt in his body. His heart, perhaps. He'd never understood those words James used, and now he was understanding all of them.
"I'll marry you."
"What?"
She laughed. Perhaps his face was as baffled as he felt.
"It was your idea. Don't look so bloody terrified."
"It might have been my idea, but," he wondered how to phrase this, "I didn't think you'd say yes."
"Why wouldn't I?" she asked. "Why wouldn't I?"
He had a thousand and one reasons, but decided to keep them to himself in case she realised that he was right about all of them.
"I'll buy you the most beautiful ring," he said, instead.
Adeline
August 1979, Grimmauld Place
Adeline Black, nee Fawley, was not as stupid as some would believe of her.
She might not be allowed to discuss politics, but she knew what it was that was going on in the wizarding world. Her mother had brought her up to be quiet, decorous, accomplished in the arts of a witch, intelligent enough to attract a wizard but not intelligent enough to scare them. Her Aunt Augusta, her father's sister, had encouraged her to think critically. She had married into a family that valued its women as much as it did it's men, and Adeline had always longed for that.
It was not the reason why she had married Regulus, but there was something else about him that had always attracted her. He was quiet, naturally, a good leader but kind. He did not fit in this world of darkness that he had put himself into. The others that had tried to court her had been mixed in with their dark lord, just as he was, but he was different. They were harsh men, and she was scared of most of them. She would never be scared of Regulus. No matter how much he had killed.
The other thing her Aunt Augusta had taught her was to be a good judge of character. To notice things others did not, in case they became useful later. In social situations, remembering whose daughter had done well in her music studies and whose son was good at Quidditch. But also in times where life was more dangerous.
And so she knew her husband, more than he knew that she knew. She knew of his liaisons with Francis Macmillan. She didn't mind, not really. Wizards did things like that before marriage. It was not as if he had chosen him. She knew of his work for his dark lord.
She knew that there was something wrong, something unbearably, terribly wrong.
She went down to the kitchen. She ought to tell the elves to begin preparing lunch, not that anybody here would eat it. Pollux was out, Walburga and Orion too. That left Regulus, pacing up and down in the library, who hadn't eaten for days, herself, who was struggling rather with the morning sickness, and Arcturus, who was half-mad and rarely bothered with meals. But it was her duty. That, and to save her husband, although she did not know how.
There were no house elves in the kitchen, just the sound of sobbing from a cupboard.
"Kreacher?" Adeline thought it was him. She opened the door, to find a writhing mess of elf in a tatty old pile of bedsheets. "Whatever is the matter?"
"Mistress Lyra gave me an order! An order to tell her when Master Regulus was to leave, and Kreacher promised, but Kreacher promised Master Regulus he would not leave the house, yes he did, and Mistress Lyra is not being here!"
"Oh."
She thought about it. Whatever Regulus was planning involved the elf, then. She had known that he was up to something. She crouched down, trying to ignore the wave of nausea that hit her whenever she moved too fast.
"You can tell me, Kreacher. I can help. I can write to Lyra."
"Kreacher is to be telling nobody, young mistress!"
"I am bound to Regulus," she said. "To endanger him, to go against his interests would harm me, would it not?" She looked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. "If you want to save Master Regulus, should you not let him be helped?"
Kreacher looked up at her, his big eyes watering.
"Master Regulus is needing saving."
"I know."
He told her. He told her a horrible story, of caves and darkness and the Dark Lord. Voldemort, Adeline decided. He was not someone she wished to revere.
"And Kreacher does not know what Master Regulus is planning, young mistress, but Kreacher is knowing he will go there."
"Thank you, Kreacher. I will fulfil your promise to Lyra, and you will not have to leave the house."
"Can you be helping him?"
"I hope so."
She would write to Lyra. Lyra often seemed to know what to do.
Adeline had always had the answers to the problems that had come her way in life, the ones that she had expected of someone in her position. She had known how to attract a decent, pureblood wizard for a husband, how to pass examinations in appropriate subjects, how to attend and host parties and gatherings.
She was not prepared for war, or for dealing with whatever mess this was that Regulus had got himself into.
Dear Lyra, she wrote, hoping that it would do some good.
I am sorry to bother you, but Kreacher is most concerned that I get a message to you soon. He says that Regulus intends to leave tonight, and that you will know what he means. I date this letter on the afternoon of the eighteenth of August, 1979.
I fear that if you are not able to act, to do something, that the consequences for Regulus will be dire. I do not want to put this on you, dear cousin, but Kreacher says you wish to be warned, which must mean that you know something. Please do whatever it is that needs to be done.
If I can be of any assistance, I will be.
Your loving cousin,
Adeline Black
She signed it with a flourish. It would have to do.
Oh Regulus, she thought, as she watched the owl fly away. She put her hand on her stomach, feeling for the baby. It was too small yet to be felt, but its presence weighed on her.
Oh Regulus. What in Merlin's name had he done?
Luna
August 1979, Ministry of Magic
"Luna Lovegood?"
She had to try her very hardest not to look up at the sound of her own name, because that was not who she was here.
"Oh, I believe that you are mistaken," she said, allowing herself to look up slowly. "My name is Pandora. Pandora Lovegood."
"It is not."
Luna took a proper look at the woman who had been speaking, and was rather surprised. She had never seen her before, not in her year in the past or in her previous life. Luna supposed she did bear a resemblance to their old neighbour, but that was the closest match that she could get. Something in the face. She stood differently, though, tall and as if she was in charge. She wore long, brown hair plaited up away from her face in a complicated style and a dark, plain robe.
"It is polite to at least introduce yourself, when you are accusing others of being not who they are."
"Betty."
"Hello, Betty." Luna put down her quill and stood up, holding out her hand over her desk. "Pandora. Can I help you?"
"I think," said Betty, "that it is whether I can help you. And besides, your name is not Pandora."
Luna had always had a certain amount of self-awareness, and this was somebody who possessed the same capacity for vague statements as she did.
"My colleague will be back soon," she said.
"Really?" asked Betty. "And you have not used a Confundus Charm to convince the other occupant of this office that she in fact works for the Department of Magical Games and Sports?"
"I do not know if that is illegal," said Luna, "but it is certainly unethical."
"But you don't deny it."
"It is a very strange and very specific accusation to make of someone."
"And it is a very strange and specific thing to do. My sister works in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and there is a woman who has been turning up to work in their department for quite a long time now, claiming that she has always worked there. Ministry efficiency being what it is, it took them a while to work out that she did not. That she should be here."
"I know nothing of that. I don't go far from this office, unless I have documents to carry."
"Not of the investigation, perhaps, but the root cause. You are quite clever at answering questions."
"Ravenclaw."
"I'll bet."
Betty took a seat without being invited to. Luna did not think that it was particularly rude. The conversation had been going for a while.
This was not something she really wanted to deal with, today. The entirety of her house had been in a state the evening before. Ginny had been pacing the place, worried that she had offended Remus Lupin. Hermione was certain that Regulus would be going to the cave soon. Sirius was a predictable mess, and seemed to have proposed marriage. It was all somewhat of a mess, and it felt as though something was about to happen. All of her methods of divination also suggested that.
"What I would like to know, Miss Lovegood, is how you came to be here."
"I applied for work here after I left Hogwarts. I really am very busy, you know. There might be a better time for this." She looked at her diary. "Perhaps the 29th February?"
There was one the next year, she knew, but suggesting the leap day normally threw someone for long enough that you got the advantage.
Betty was quicker than that.
"Shall I rephrase? How you came to be in 1979."
End of Part Two.
Author's Note: Yeah, erm, sorry about that.
I'm going to do a bit of self promotion, which is something I always feel awkward about, especially when there's no update for poor Regulus. I've started a new fic on here, a Minerva/Tom Riddle soulmates fic. I've also added some one shots from this universe on AO3. I've not put them on here yet, probably will at some stage, but my user there is tabbycat or they can be found here if you take the spaces out: archiveof / works/16620842/chapters/38960657.
Regulus will be back next chapter, promise, which is 3/4 written and will hopefully be around Monday/Tuesday.
