"He's a tyrannical maniac," Hermione pointed out, staring at the grey stone ceiling as she absentmindedly fiddled with her green school tie. "How could you even think of willingly aligning yourself with someone like him?"
Regulus triple-checked the privacy charms they'd set up around the boys' dormitory. Their housemates would most likely steer far clear of them, assuming that the couple were using the space to fool around, but it didn't hurt to be safe. "What other choice do I have? He has his eye on my family, Hermione. My only options are to join him or to go into hiding, and we have no hope of outrunning him. The manor has enough protection to keep him out, but the ancient wards will allow any trueborn Black to enter at will. My dear cousin is crazy enough and powerful enough to slip in and take us all out if he asks her to, and we both know that he will."
She frowned, unable to accept the idea that joining the self-styled Death Eaters was his only recourse. "What if you leave the manor and go into hiding somewhere she can't follow you? Or if you go to Dumbledore and ask for his protection? There are rumours that Evans' parents went underground shortly after she joined that little group of his."
"My mother will never agree to leave the ancestral home, and do you really think their side would take me in? Dumbledore would 'request' that I become a spy in a way that brooks no disagreement, and his little cronies would just continue to hex me for being a Slytherin."
As much as she wanted to find another way, she knew that he was right. His father could probably be convinced to move, but Walburga Black would insist on standing their ground proudly until the end. And, for all that she thought that Dumbledore's side had the right idea of it when it came to the war, the Gryffindors would never let go of their petty hatred for all things Slytherin. "Try to hold off for as long as you can," she told him. "Buy me some time in case I can come up with an alternative. If I can't, then I'll stand beside you the whole way."
"Really?" he questioned, uncertainty lurking in his eyes. "Even though he's a tyrannical maniac?"
"They're the ones who have made their side so unappealing that someone who doesn't want anything to do with the war would rather side with a tyrannical maniac than them. If joining the Death Eaters is the only way you'll get through this ordeal alive, then so be it. We owe no loyalty to people who have done nothing but kick us down for the last six and a half years."
A/N: Prompt: tyrant
