He Can't Hurt You if You're Already Dead

by unspeakable3

In which Regulus Black finds his peaceful post-life disturbed by his stupid brother and some stupid organisation called the Order of the Phoenix or something. (takes place in the summer of 1995, between "lie low at Lupin's" and the events of HP and the Order of the Phoenix)

1. Chapter 1

The first round of banging at the front door didn't alarm Regulus. Number Twelve was an old house. It had been inhabited by countless generations of his family and was steeped in unfathomable amounts of their magic; he was well used to its strange noises by now. Every morning he rose to the sound of water clanking through the house's ancient pipes, every evening he retired to the sound of the wind howling around the house's windows and walls, and in between, he heard the horrid muggle neighbours from three doors down and their horrid muggle cat, always yowling for food.

The banging at the front door was irritating, but Regulus was sure that it wouldn't be anything worth disturbing his carefully-honed morning routine for.

The second time it started up, Regulus lifted his head and turned towards the source of the noise. He was loath to put down his book (Kreacher had sourced him a copy of the new Prendergast for his birthday last week, and the scholar's updated theory about the origins of bind runes and their practical application in the field of protective magic was proving quite fascinating) because it definitely sounded like someone was attempting to get into his house.

But that would be ridiculous. Nobody had tried to get into Number Twelve since Aunt Druella had been repelled from the top step a fortnight after his mother's funeral, some ten years ago.

Regulus marked his page with a bookmark, carefully set the tome on the side table, and rose from his armchair. He floated over to the window and peeped out from behind the curtains, but couldn't see whatever was making the disturbance. He did consider sticking his head directly through the glass for a better viewing angle, but was concerned that the noisy and unwelcome visitor might be Druella again, or Cissa and her ridiculous Malfoy, come for a good old nose and a root around their ancestral home.

He absolutely could not risk the possibility of being seen. He leant back against the wall and hoped that whatever, or who ever, was banging around outside would just go away and leave him to linger in peace.

The third time he heard it - an almighty rattling and thumping along with a torrent of foul language - Kreacher apparated with an even louder crack! into the middle of the room.

"Master Regulus," he said, his already large eyes growing even wider in alarm. "There is - the door—"

Regulus whipped around and flew towards the house-elf, away from the window. "Who is it, Kreacher? Who is at the door?"

It was 1995 and almost the entire family were either dead or in Azkaban. Those who were neither had never expressed the desire to inherit Number Twelve. Quite the opposite. And nobody outside of the family could even see the house - it was Unplottable and buried beneath a mountain of protective enchantments besides. Regulus's father and grandfather and great-grandfather had seen to that.

Could it… Could it be the Ministry? Could they have found him at last?

Or— or perhaps the Ministry had forgone the usual protocols and skipped ahead, straight to the Dementors. Perhaps they wouldn't bother with Azkaban after all, not after what happened with his— with Sirius. And on account of his incorporeality, of course.

No, they would probably just administer The Kiss right now, right here, in his own home.

What would happen to him if a Dementor tried to give him The Kiss? He would not be able to defend himself (nor would he have been able to even if he still had a wand). Would Kreacher? Why had he never thought to ask if a house-elf could cast a Patronus?

Could a Dementor even remove the soul of a ghost at all? Was that not all a ghost was? The lonely, wretched, imprint of a soul, left to linger for eternity?

"The door," Kreacher said, "the banging - the door - it is—"

They both flinched. It sounded horribly like somebody was trying to kick the front door in.

"Who is it?" Regulus asked urgently.

Kreacher's eyes narrowed as he scowled in the direction of the window. "The brat!" he said. "The swine! The traitor who has come to pilfer and pillage and destroy poor Master Regulus's house!"

Regulus suddenly felt as though all the air had been sucked out of him, as though he were drowning again, choking, struggling to breathe, even though that made absolutely no sense at all since he hadn't enjoyed the luxury of lungs for the past sixteen years.

"W-what?" he said, his voice coming out in a far higher pitch than usual. "You mean— no— not— not Sirius ?"

"Nasty worm! Ungrateful boy! Always making Master Regulus miserable, always!"

An almighty bang came from downstairs and rattled the chandelier above Regulus's head. He glanced up at it, terrified.

"No," Regulus said, speaking to himself; Kreacher was too busy ranting about Sirius to listen to him. "It can't— it can't be him. No. Why would he be here? He wouldn't. He wouldn't . He hated it here! He's never been back, not once, not since he— No! Why now? No. Why would he?"

They were interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps stomping across the hallway two floors below them. Ghost and house-elf looked at each other in alarm.

"Master Regulus must hide!"

"But—"

"At once, Master Regulus! Go!"

Regulus flew upwards, forgoing the staircases (he often liked to climb the stairs, just so he could pretend that he was mortal once more) in favour of passing directly through ceiling and floor and ceiling and floor until he reached the sanctuary of his childhood bedroom on the very top floor of the house.

He backed up against the window. He wished, desperately, that he could somehow manifest the power to leave, to get out , to go somewhere else. Anywhere else. If only he hadn't been unwittingly tethered to the house! If only he could get onto the rooftop, even, or out into the garden, instead of being stuck, stuck here forever, in a home that was being invaded by the very last person he wished to see.

"This cannot be happening!" he cried, balling his fists and pressing them against his eyes.

It didn't make any sense at all. Sirius hated Grimmauld Place, had always hated Grimmauld Place.

Unless…

It had been so difficult for Regulus to believe the papers, at the time. The Prophet had always been so inherently biased, had always printed whatever nonsense the Ministry compelled it to spew, had always been considered a joke among Regulus's family and friends.

So when he had read about the Dark Lord's downfall, a mere two years after his own death, and when he had read about Sirius's… when he had read that Sirius had betrayed Potter - Potter - and that the Dark Lord… well. It had been difficult to believe. It had seemed to go against everything that Regulus had thought he'd known about Sirius - but then, as Kreacher had pointed out, had Regulus ever really known Sirius at all? They had barely spoken a word, had barely even looked at each other since Sirius had left home, when Regulus had been just fourteen years old.

And, as Kreacher always said, Sirius had already betrayed his brother-by-blood. Why wouldn't he have betrayed his brother-by-choice, if he had thought there was something in it for him?

"No," Regulus groaned. "No no no no no."

Footsteps, on the stairs. A harsh, scratchy voice - Sirius? - yelling for Kreacher.

What if…

No.

But what if…

What if Sirius was still working for the Dark Lord? What if Sirius was helping the Dark Lord?

There had been rumours, for years, and just this morning…

Regulus might have been dead for over a decade but he was still shrewd enough to be able to read the Prophet 's subtext about the so-called "madness of Harry Potter" and "lunacy of Albus Dumbledore", no matter how much he might agree with the assessment of the latter.

And— and hadn't Sirius tried to break into Hogwarts, after he'd escaped from Azkaban? Hadn't he tried to kill the Potter child?

"I shouldn't have left that note," Regulus groaned to himself. "I shouldn't have done it. I was such an idiot! That was such an awful, monumentally stupid thing to do!"

What if the Dark Lord, concerned after so many years... wherever he had been. What if the Dark Lord had gone to check on his Horcrux? What if he had discovered that stupid note and realised who it was from? Who else could it have been - who else would have been stupid enough to sign it with their initials? It was hardly as though it could have been mistaken for Rabastan Almeric Lestrange - a "B" didn't look anything like an "L"!

And what if the Dark Lord had ordered Sirius to track Regulus down and take him to wherever he was hiding out, to receive his long-awaited punishment?

Kreacher apparated into the bedroom - Regulus flinched violently at the noise - and hurried over to his master.

"What does he want?" Regulus whispered urgently. "Why is he here?"

Kreacher wrinkled his snout-like nose. "The horrid brat says that he wishes to put the house to good use, at long last."

"What does that mean?!"

Could he intend to use Number Twelve as a hide-out for the Dark Lord? A base from which he could gather together his old, faithful Death Eaters? And recruit a new legion of followers?

"Kreacher does not know, Master Regulus."

Regulus sat down on the end of his bed and folded himself over, letting his forehead pass through his knees.

"I don't like it," he whined, his voice muffled by his position. "What does he want ? Why is he here? What is he doing - did he try to give you any orders?"

"The nasty traitor has gone away again," Kreacher snarled. "He says that he will return shortly with another, he—"

"With another?" Regulus wailed and raised his head. "He can't! Not him! Did he— did he say who, Kreacher?"

"He did not, Master Regulus."

"Kreacher," Regulus whimpered. He could feel his immaterial, insubstantial form trembling and vibrating. He clasped his hands together and raised them to his lips. "What if— do you think he might— oh, Kreacher! Do you think he means to bring the Dark Lord here?"

Kreacher jerked his head around, as though he imagined that the Dark Lord had crept into Regulus's bedroom and was lurking behind him, waiting to pounce. When he turned back to Regulus, his dear old wrinkled face had paled tremendously.

"Do you think he knows that I am here?" Regulus whispered.

Kreacher shook his head. "He cannot, Master Regulus! He—"

"But what if he does ? What if he— what if he wants to hurt me?"

"Master Regulus…" Kreacher spoke slowly, blinking his wide, watery eyes as he wrung his hands together. "Master Regulus cannot… Master Regulus has already died…"

"I know that," Regulus said hurriedly. He didn't want his house-elf to think that he was so out of his mind that he had forgotten that fact. "But I don't doubt, Kreacher, not for one moment, that the Dark Lord could invent some cruel and twisted way to— to punish me. To torture me, incorporeal though I am."

Kreacher expelled his breath in a great huff of air and stood up taller, prouder, despite his tear-stained cheeks. "If the Dark Lord wishes to do Master Regulus harm, then he will have to get past Kreacher first," he said bravely, tilting his chin up though his bottom lip was still quivering.

"Oh, Kreacher," said Regulus, feeling a mingling rush of affection and sadness swelling within him, "whatever would I do without you?"

---

"Is that Lupin ?" Regulus whispered in surprise. He narrowed his eyes and leant further forwards, his entire head and shoulders now bent over the landing. "I'm sure that's Lupin, but…"

He and Kreacher were kneeling on the top floor landing, the small space between his and Sirius's childhood bedrooms, peering between the bannister rails at the patch of hallway they could see stretching out four floors below them.

Sirius had returned to Number Twelve with his mysterious guest around lunchtime. As soon as they heard the front door opening and closing (far more quietly and civilly this time), Regulus and Kreacher had darted out of their hiding place in Regulus's bedroom to see if their worst fears had been realised.

They hadn't.

Not yet , anyway. Though there was still time.

"The house doesn't look much like I remembered it," said Sirius, his voice drifting up towards them from below. The portraits lining the walls, their frames polished bright gold, began muttering and tutting.

"You've not been here in twenty years," his companion said diplomatically. "Perhaps you've forgotten, or…" He trailed off. Sirius must have given him A Look; he might have denied his Black ancestry at every turn, but there was no mistaking where he got that from.

"That's definitely Lupin," Regulus whispered to Kreacher. "He's Welsh ," he added. Kreacher wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"Perhaps your parents redecorated sometime after you left," Lupin suggested.

Sirius snorted. "Yeah, right. More likely my darling mother made it her dying wish to turn the house into some sort of giant assault course should I dare make my return. Don't touch that bannister - it'll probably come to life and try to eat you."

Regulus rolled his eyes. Sirius had always liked to think that the entire world revolved around him, that nobody could ever possibly go to sleep or even die peacefully without their last thoughts being of him and how brilliant he was and how they could possibly get his attention. It didn't seem as though twelve years of Azkaban had beaten that out of him.

(And Regulus would never, ever confess, not to anybody, not even to Kreacher, that his own dying thoughts had, indeed, been of Sirius.)

"Perhaps Lupin is also working with the Dark Lord," Regulus whispered. "Perhaps he and Sirius had been conspiring together, before the Dark Lord's disappearance."

Kreacher's gnarled fingers wrapped tightly around the spindles on the bannister as he scowled down at the top of Lupin's head. "The Dark Lord's standards have certainly slipped since young Master Regulus joined the Cause."

" His Cause," Regulus corrected. "It is not our Cause any more, remember? We turned our backs on the Dark Lord - he was selfish and cruel, remember? He was a liar. He was arrogant. He didn't have our best interests at heart, remember? He didn't care about purebloods. Not really."

"Yes, Master Regulus. Kreacher remembers."

They both drew their heads back out of sight as Sirius and Lupin crossed the hallway beneath them again. The two men were bringing in a battered old trunk and piles of cardboard boxes, as though they were planning on moving in .

"We'd better check the bedrooms," Sirius called over his shoulder. "There used to be a load of creepy fucking decapitated house-elves on this wall. I wouldn't put it past Mother to have taken one to bed with her."

"I can't tell if you're joking or not," Lupin called back.

"Kreacher wishes Master Regulus had not taken Kreacher's family away," Kreacher said quietly.

"No matter what Mother told you, it was a disrespectful and undignified way to honour your ancestors," said Regulus. "And we can still visit your mother whenever you like. She's in the garden, remember? We planted that lovely Aconite over the burial spot so you would always be able to find her."

"Kreacher remembers." He gave Regulus a sideways glance, the closest thing to a glare that Regulus had ever received from him.

"Perhaps… Perhaps when the Dark Lord fell, Sirius - really, Kreacher, I do appreciate the effort but you needn't hiss like that every time I say his name - well, perhaps Sirius admitted his guilt in order to, I don't know, save Lupin, or something? So Lupin could walk free? Perhaps they had both been conspiring against Potter, and Lupin helped Sirius to escape from Azkaban so they could reunite and conspire against Potter's son? Or— or against me !"

"Wretched brat! Dirtying Master Regulus's halls! Murderer! Mistress would be so distressed! Kreacher does not like it!"

"No. Neither do I." Regulus sighed and rose from his knees. "Come, Kreacher. We'd better go back to my room before they start traipsing about upstairs."

He knew, instinctively, that if Sirius wasn't working for the Dark Lord after all, then he would have no interest whatsoever in snooping around his little brother's childhood bedroom. He had never wanted to do so when they had both lived here, alive, even though Regulus had plenty of very interesting things in his room - far more interesting than the dungbombs and smelly socks and odd bits of muggle things that Sirius liked to keep in his own room.

There was no reason why Sirius should change the habit of a lifetime and suddenly express the desire to pillage Regulus's belongings now that he was old .

And if it turned out that Sirius was a servant of the Dark Lord, as the rest of the world seemed so convinced? Well. There were plenty of places for a ghost to hide in this old house.

He drifted over to his bed and sat down cross-legged in the middle of it, on top of the quilted eiderdown. It had once belonged to his namesake, his Great-Uncle Regulus, who had died before either of his great-nephews had been born. It was made from deep indigo velvet, the rich colour of the night sky, and embroidered by Regulus's great-grandmother and great-great-aunts in shimmering silver threads to depict the constellations of the Northern Hemisphere. His own star, Regulus, was embellished with the tiniest, daintiest, twinkliest pearl beads. He stroked them absent-mindedly with one hand, half-convinced he could still feel how cool and smooth they were to the touch.

"We need a plan, Kreacher," he said, glancing up at the ceiling.

Kreacher hovered at the foot of his bed. He ran a long finger along the edge of the footboard, inspected his fingertip, and grimaced. Regulus watched, amused, as Kreacher snapped his fingers and conjured a duster, which he used to wipe the non-existent dust from the carved wooden bed. He then turned towards the desk, and Regulus thought it best to interrupt him before he could get too distracted and lose another entire day to cleaning.

"Kreacher," he called out, "we need a plan."

"A plan, Master Regulus?"

"A plan for how we should deal with this… Sirius situation."

Kreacher hissed loudly and scurried back over to Regulus. "Ungrateful wretch! Broke my poor Mistress's heart!"

"Yes, him." Regulus sighed. "But Sirius cannot know that I am still here. That I have… lingered here."

"Kreacher will tell the brat nothing."

"No, of course you won't. I know that. But what I mean is…" He glanced around, hoping to land upon some inspiration for how he might phrase this because he didn't think that Kreacher would be at all pleased with what he was trying to say. "Sirius needs to think that he is the last of our line." Kreacher stared at him. "The last Black ." Kreacher blinked. Regulus sighed. "Kreacher… Sirius needs to think that he is the Master of this house."

Kreacher staggered backwards, recoiling in horror. "No! Master Regulus!" he begged. "Do not make Kreacher do it, Master Regulus, do not make poor old Kreacher serve that rotten boy! Traitorous slug! Despicable worm!"

"Kreacher," Regulus said softly, shuffling towards the end of his bed and stretching his hands out consolingly towards the house-elf. "I'm so sorry, but you must . It's the only way. If you don't obey him, then he will suspect that something has happened - he will know that I am here, Kreacher, and he cannot."

"But— Kreacher does not want to— to betray Master R-Regulus again!"

Kreacher burst into tears, taking great, gulping breaths that caused his entire body to shake. Regulus drifted down from the bed and knelt in front of him.

"Oh, Kreacher," he said, patting Kreacher's shoulder. Kreacher flinched at his icy touch. "You've never betrayed me, you—"

"Kreacher did!" he howled. "Kreacher did! At the c-cave! Kreacher abandoned Master Regulus! Kreacher left Master R-Regulus to— to—"

"No," Regulus said firmly. "You did not betray me. You followed my orders, every single one of them. Nothing that happened to me has ever been your fault, Kreacher."

"When Master Regulus was a— a baby," Kreacher hiccoughed, "when Master Regulus was so, so small, Kreacher s-swore to keep him safe. Always to keep Master Regulus s-s-safe!"

"And you will be keeping me safe, if you treat Sirius as though he were your Master," Regulus said, handing him the discarded duster to use as a handkerchief.

Kreacher's chin wobbled. "He is not fit to be Master! Only pond scum!"

"I know. But we must—"

Regulus was interrupted by Sirius's voice, hoarse but still loud enough to be heard from downstairs, calling, "Kreacher!"

The ghost and the house-elf both looked towards the door, in the direction of the voice, and then back at each other.

"Where is he?" Regulus whispered.

"The drawing-room, Master Regulus, he—"

"KREACHER!"

"You must go to him," Regulus said urgently. "I will try to eavesdrop, but I want you to do exactly as Sirius says, and come back to me afterwards, alright? Come back to me here and tell me everything."

Kreacher nodded.

"Where the hell is that bloody— KREACHER! "

Kreacher disapparated with a loud crack! and Regulus sat back on his heels, his head bowed, as he tried to dispel the awful, wretched feeling twisting in the hollow emptiness of where his stomach had once been.

Had he not said those exact words to Kreacher sixteen years ago? Had he not caused Kreacher so much suffering - and almost his death - with those words?

And now he had just used them against him again - used Kreacher's obligations against him, again - and forced him to go and serve someone who… someone like Sirius , who had never been kind to Kreacher, never gracious, had never treated him as the vital member of the family that he was.

Sirius, who could be working for the Dark Lord .

"Merlin's fucking arse ," Regulus swore under his breath.

He dived through the bedroom floor and down into the parlour that lay adjacent to the drawing-room. He hovered there for a moment, eyeing up the wall, before he carefully passed through it and into the sideboard that sat in the drawing-room on the opposite side of the wall. He crouched in the lower cupboard, among the boxes of surplus silverware that Kreacher kept there, and listened.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Sirius demanded.

"Kreacher does not know what Master is referring to."

"This! This bloody— bloody everything!"

Regulus pressed his eye to the cupboard's keyhole. Sirius was standing in front of the family tapestry and gesturing very angrily towards it.

Shit .

He'd forgotten about the tapestry.

It had taken him so many years to work out how to do it, and he hadn't dared to do it until long after his mother died, just in case she returned as a vengeful spirit to haunt him for the rest of his eternity, and nobody else was ever meant to see it, certainly not Sirius , and—

"The tapestry, Kreacher! What the fuck is this?"

Lupin strolled into view, a battered suitcase in hand. "Is everything alright?" he asked, glancing between Sirius and Kreacher.

"No, it's bloody not!" Sirius fumed. "This fucking elf has done something— why is my bloody name still here, Kreacher? Why is my face still here?"

"Kreacher does not know, Master."

"Who put it back? Did— that little shit. Or did she never…?" He looked back at the tapestry, scanning it, searching. "No - there's Andromeda, and— who the fuck is Marius?"

"Master Sirius's great-uncle, he—"

"No, he isn't! No he fucking isn't!"

Sirius strode forwards and grabbed Kreacher by the shoulders. He began to shake him, demanding him for answers, and Regulus almost forgot his newly-formed plan entirely. He would have swept right out of the sideboard to attempt to stop Sirius in any way that he could, had Lupin not got there first.

"Sirius," Lupin said in a low, calm voice, "don't take this out on Kreacher. He didn't do this."

"So? He bloody well knows who did!"

"Does it matter?" asked Lupin, the idiot.

"Yes! Of course it fucking does!"

"Then we'll find out later. But there are things we need to do first, Sirius. We need to check the house, make sure it's fit for purpose, prepare ourselves… Dumbledore will be here tomorrow morning. He'll expect us to be ready."

Regulus, forgetting himself, inhaled sharply.

Dumbledore? Sirius was working with Dumbledore ?

He shrank back against the wall, cowering among the silverware. He had suspected, once, before… But the reality of it? Hearing it from Sirius's own mouth?

Regulus thought that he would have preferred to hear that the Dark Lord himself was coming for breakfast. Anything but Dumbledore .

---

"Do you have everything you need?"

From his perch in the flue, just above the fireplace's lintel, Regulus squeezed his eyes tightly shut and curled his fingers around the edge of the smoke shelf he was sitting on. The smoke billowing upwards didn't affect him - he had no lungs, after all, not any more - and neither did the sparks of fire, nor the flames that licked around his not-quite-transparent legs.

On the other side of the chimney breast, Sirius sighed heavily. "Yes, Professor ," he said. Regulus could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" Lupin asked calmly.

"No," came Sirius's terse reply. "Go home and feed Buckbeak. He likes chicken - no more rats."

"Yes, I know."

Regulus heard footsteps on the wooden floorboards and the door creaking open (he would have to remember to remind Kreacher about oiling that) and Lupin leaving, at last.

"Just don't forget to write to me with the Secret, alright?" Lupin added. "Or Floo it to me. Whichever is easiest."

Regulus rubbed his eyes. He wished they'd given him more warning. Any warning, really. If he hadn't been eavesdropping in the kitchen, if he hadn't heard them discussing it over breakfast, then he would have been even less prepared than he was right now.

But one morning wasn't nearly enough time to try to discover whether a Fidelius Charm - performed on his house, without his permission! - might end up inadvertently exorcising him from the place.

There was, of course, a rather large volume of books on the subject in the family library. Regulus's father and forefathers had always been concerned with security, with each successive Master of the house adding another layer to the near-impenetrable blanket of protective enchantments that swaddled Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

But to his frustration, Regulus had not been able to find any information whatsoever about the potential effects of the Fidelius Charm on Spirits.

So there he was, unwilling test subject, hiding in the chimney of the fireplace in the downstairs parlour, waiting to see whether he might be expelled from his home, or if he would perhaps explode into a thousand million tiny little globules of ectoplasm.

He ought to have known that he would eventually come to such an ignoble end. As if drowning in a lake full of grasping, scratching, groaning Inferi wasn't undignified enough, now he was, in all likelihood, going to excrete ectoplasm all over his ancestral home, in front of his hateful ex-brother and hateful ex-Headmaster, like a ridiculous toddler who hadn't yet learnt to control its bodily functions.

He brought his knees up to his chest, hugged them, and sighed.

On the other side of the chimney breast, Sirius answered Regulus's soft sigh with a heavy one of his own. Regulus turned his head towards the noise.

"What the hell was I thinking, coming back here," Sirius muttered.

There was a tiny crack in the brickwork above the mantlepiece. Regulus, emboldened by his curiosity, shuffled forwards and pressed his eye to it. He watched as Sirius - a bedraggled mess, all tangled hair and paper-thin skin wrapped up in yesterday's clothes - rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and rose, slowly, to walk towards the fireplace.

Regulus quickly withdrew and flattened himself against the back wall of the chimney. He sat perfectly still, his eyes wide and the ghost-hairs rising on the back of his neck, as Sirius drew closer, closer, closer. He stopped just a few inches away from Regulus's hiding place. Sirius rested his elbows on the mantlepiece and bowed his head as he scrubbed at the back of his neck.

"This was a stupid fucking idea, Sirius, you moron," he said to himself. Regulus was inclined to agree.

The brothers remained there, both completely motionless, only one aware of the other's existence, until the doorbell chimed. Sirius swore and dragged himself away from the fireplace.

"Dumbledore," Regulus gasped.

He could hear Dumbledore's voice in the hallway, could hear him complimenting the house - Regulus's house, and if he'd known that bloody Dumbledore would approve of it then he would have chosen an entirely different colour scheme and kept a few more dark (possibly illegal) artefacts on show. He heard footsteps approaching, closer and closer, and then there they were, in his mother's parlour, preparing to exorcise him from his own bloody home.

Regulus pressed his eye to the spy-hole again.

"I must thank you again, Sirius, for offering your home to the Order," said Dumbledore. He was circuiting the room, inspecting the family antiques. Regulus bristled.

"It's not my home," Sirius replied bluntly. "Never was."

Liar . Regulus scowled at his brother through the chimney breast. It was your home until you decided to reject it .

"Regardless, it is a most generous and welcome contribution," said Dumbledore. "I could hardly dare to imagine happening upon a more suitable location for Headquarters."

Sirius shrugged. "Shall we get on with it, then?"

"Certainly. I shan't take up too much of your time - I'm sure you have plenty of things with which to occupy yourself, Sirius."

Regulus just about managed to stop himself from snorting out loud when he saw Sirius stick his tongue out at Dumbledore behind his back, and then immediately loathed himself for finding Sirius amusing .

He watched the two men walk to meet in the centre of the parlour and stand, facing each other, almost directly in front of him. Sirius drew his wand. Regulus thought, just for a moment, how marvellous it would be if Sirius had been bluffing and he was actually working for the Dark Lord, and that he'd lured Dumbledore here under the pretence of offering Number Twelve to the Order (whatever that was) as Headquarters (whatever that meant).

"You understand, Sirius," Dumbledore said calmly, clasping his hands behind his back, "that once the Secret-Keeper dies, anyone privy to the Secret will become Secret-Keepers in his place?"

"Yes," said Sirius. He folded his arms and tapped his wand against his side, impatient as ever.

"Forgive me, but I must ask: did you scour the house for any other residents, besides Kreacher?"

"There's no one else here. Unless you count the portraits of my hideous old relatives."

"The portraits will not be affected by the spell, no," said Dumbledore. He turned his head, quite calmly, towards the fireplace, as though he were merely glancing at the carriage clock sitting on the mantlepiece. But Regulus couldn't help feeling as though Dumbledore was staring at him , somehow, as though he could see through brick and mortar, could see Regulus, perched uncomfortably in the small space of the chimney, terrified and trembling and staring right back at him.

But Dumbledore couldn't see through walls. Dumbledore couldn't see him .

Could he?

"Very well," Dumbledore said eventually, turning back to Sirius. "And you are quite sure that you wish me to be the Secret-Keeper?"

Sirius shrugged. "Pettigrew wasn't available."

Dumbledore tilted his head slightly downwards, peering at Sirius over the top of his glasses. Sirius sighed and extended his wand arm.

"You're the leader of the Order," he said, resigned. "Makes sense for it to be you."

Dumbledore inclined his head and reached out to clasp Sirius's wrist with his left hand. "Then let us begin."

Sirius cleared his throat. " Habeo arcanum servandum. "

A pale blue light emerged from the tip of his wand. It hovered there for a moment, trembling like a dewdrop on the tip of a leaf illuminated by the glow of a full moon, before it dripped down Sirius's wand and spread along the length of his arm, suffusing wherever it touched with its soft light. Regulus leant flat against the chimney wall, pressing his eye right up against the spy-hole.

" Arcanum servabo ," Dumbledore intoned in reply.

" Intra te arcanum servabitur ."

Another pale bead of light sprung from Sirius's wand. This time it travelled down the length of wood and his hand, and paused, shivering at the spot where Dumbledore was clasping Sirius's wrist. The light spread along Dumbledore's arm, just as it had along Sirius's, making it look as though the two men had dipped their arms in shimmering, ethereal moon dew.

" Arcanum servabo ," said Dumbledore.

Sirius took a deep breath and lifted his chin, meeting Dumbledore's steady gaze. " Domus cuius dominus sum arcana est. "

Countless beads of light came streaming out of Sirius's wand, spilling over one another, bouncing off one another. The lights flew in all directions, through the walls and the ceiling and the floor, illuminating the parlour and filling every room in the house with a bright, blinding light.

Regulus shied away from the brightness and shielded his eyes. His not-skin tingled; his not-body prickled. He felt an odd and unwelcome thrumming inside his nothingness, a gentle but insistent tug, like someone was plucking at the invisible tether that had bound him to the house, to his home.

He wished he had asked Kreacher to join him in the chimney.

"Please," he whispered, scrabbling against the rough brick interior of the chimney with one hand, and clutching onto the smoke shelf with the other, as though gripping the house itself could prevent him from being expelled from it. "Please don't make me leave!"

" Arcanum usque ad mortem tuum servabis ," said Sirius.

The light streaked from all corners of the house back towards Sirius's wand. It met the light from Sirius's and Dumbledore's arms, all converging at the tip of Sirius's wand, twisting and turning and binding into a sphere of blazing blue light. The sphere trembled and moved, slowly, towards Dumbledore, coming to a shivering halt above his chest.

" Arcanum usque ad mortem meum servabo ," Dumbledore said.

And as he spoke, the sphere above his chest pulsated like a heartbeat. Regulus counted the pulses in an attempt to quell his panic, just as Sirius used to make him count the stars, until the sphere plunged into Dumbledore's chest and was swallowed by his heart.

Dumbledore gasped a ragged, gulping breath, and closed his eyes.

Sirius's wand clattered to the floor as he lurched forwards to steady the old man. "Are you alright?" he demanded.

But Dumbledore had already opened his eyes and was standing tall once more. "It is done."

---

After Dumbledore had disappeared again to do whatever it was that Dumbledore did, wherever it was that Dumbledore did things (somewhere far, far away from Grimmauld Place, with any luck), Sirius wasted the entire afternoon, evening, and night drinking his way through what remained of their parents' drinks cabinet.

Regulus, unable to watch the horrifying spectacle with his own eyes, winced with every update that Kreacher dutifully brought him.

It wasn't the blatant disrespect of the family property, really, that bothered him. It wasn't as though he could partake of alcohol any more, however much he wished he could drink himself into a stupor on those long, lonely nights where the shadows looked like skin-sloughed limbs stretching towards him, creaking cracking bones grasping for him, tangling in his robes, dragging him down beneath the surface of the lake, again and again and—

No.

It wasn't that that bothered him.

It was the fact that Sirius was alive - alive! - and apparently in possession of at least some of his wits, despite his stint in Azkaban. It was the fact that Sirius was alive and breathing, that he had a heartbeat and a sense of taste and smell and touch, that he could do things, could do anything he wanted to.

And instead of doing any one of those countless, joy-filled things one could do with a corporeal form, Sirius was instead choosing to laze about in yesterday's stained and crumpled clothes, and to down bottle after bottle of Dubonnet.

Sirius had never even liked Dubonnet.

And oh, what Regulus would give to be able to breathe again! To close his eyes and inhale deeply, filling his nostrils and his lungs with the tartness of a freshly-sliced lemon, or fragrant wildflowers drifting on a summer's breeze. To smell woodsmoke, an old bookshop, the briny sea air, the sweet hay in Cassiopeia's stables, broom polish, the sickly syrupy treacly deliciousness of Honeydukes at Christmas…

Merlin, he would even choose to choke on the mugglish pestilence that London steeped itself in if it meant that he could breathe just one more breath.

Kreacher snuffled in his sleep and murmured something intelligible. He rolled over beneath his pile of blankets, drawing Regulus out of his doldrums. Regulus sighed and reached out to stroke the fluffy white hair that sprouted from the house-elf's ears. He could just about remember how soft it was to touch, like fresh down or a bunny's tail; soft, and oddly comforting.

There were footsteps on the staircase, sounding as though they were descending into the kitchen. Regulus quickly withdrew his hand. How embarrassing to be eighteen years old (always eighteen years old) and still comforted by the softness of his house-elf's ears. How Sirius would bully him if he ever found out.

Regulus sat very still and pressed his eye to the gap in the door of Kreacher's den, a warm and cosy spot he favoured beneath the boiler and hot water pipes in the airing cupboard. Regulus watched as Sirius staggered into view and braced himself against the kitchen wall, grumbling and muttering to himself, an empty bottle held loosely between his fingers.

The bottle, obviously, dropped to the floor with a crash. Kreacher sat bolt upright and stared, wide-eyed, at Regulus. Regulus mouthed Sirius to him, pressed a finger to his lips, and turned back to the gap in the door.

Sirius's coherence and spatial awareness might have been dulled by his intoxication, but his magic wasn't. Regulus's mouth pulled down at the corners as Sirius noticed the smashed bottle and cleaned up the broken glass in an instant, with just a casual wave of his hand.

Sirius didn't need a wand. He didn't even need to verbalise the incantation. He had spent over a decade in the most fearsome wizarding prison and he was still more talented and more intuitive with magic than Regulus had ever been when he'd been alive.

Regulus sniffed. It wasn't fair . Sirius had always had everything handed to him. Whatever Sirius had wanted, Sirius got. He'd been the eldest child, the precious heir: he'd been showered with attention and praise and gifts, been applauded for every tiny inconsequential thing he'd ever done, while Regulus had had to work twice as hard just to be noticed by their parents and grandparents.

The family had all laughed when Sirius had first been Sorted into Gryffindor. "What a lark!" they'd laughed. "He knows his mind!" they'd said. "Stubborn, headstrong boy - a Black through and through!"

Yet the following year, when it had been Regulus's turn to travel to Hogwarts, to the Highlands of Scotland, so far from home in so many ways, when it had been Regulus's turn to be Sorted, all he could remember was his mother pinching his arm and hissing in his ear, warning him not to even dare to think about stepping out of line.

One son - the stubborn one, the impulsive one, the Black one - going against the grain was acceptable. Two sons would be heresy.

Even in later years, most of their relatives had continued to laugh at Sirius's antics and brush him off as a high-spirited boy who'd learn to settle down when the time came.

But Sirius never did settle down, of course. Sirius had left them, had left Regulus, had left his blood , and stepped right into the arms of a family of blood traitors instead.

And why shouldn't he have? Sirius had always been so self-righteous, so adamant that he was the only one with all the answers to the world's problems. And he'd always had a safety net, too; someone willing to catch him whenever he tumbled off his broom.

Bloody Potter .

Regulus had no one. He'd never had anyone. He'd always had to do everything on his own.

In the years since his death, Regulus had almost forgotten all these past grievances that had once weighed so heavy on his heart and his mind. They'd seemed so petty in the face of what he had vowed to do - in the face of death. But as soon as Sirius had turned up to reclaim his home - Regulus's home - everything had bubbled up to the surface once more.

And he had almost forgotten that he could no longer perform magic, too. What had once been such an integral part of his existence didn't seem to matter once his existence had… ceased to exist. He didn't think there was any point in fretting over the fact that he could no longer Summon something when he wouldn't even be able to hold the thing, anyway.

And after he had begun to adjust to his new lack of corporeality, once he had begun to master floating and drifting and passing through walls and becoming cognisant enough of his spectral form that he could sit beside his mother's bed and read books to her once more, he had never coveted her or Kreacher's magic. He had never been envious of either of them.

His mother had wasted away, her once awe-inspiring and fear-inducing magic dwindling to nothing beneath the cresting wave of despair that had swept her away.

And Kreacher… Kreacher was different. Like any sensitive pureblood boy, Regulus had always been aware that Kreacher's magic was different to his own. He'd investigated it, asked Kreacher about it, researched it in the library. He knew that house-elf magic was far older and far more powerful than a wizard's magic. It might seem like wizards' magic on the surface and, indeed, many wizards (including a certain Dark Lord) took house-elves' magic and service for granted, or even considered them lesser than themselves. Many died not understanding how completely, utterly, and fundamentally wrong they were.

But Sirius?

Regulus glowered at him through the gap in the door. He leant back against the pipes and crossed his arms against his chest.

It wasn't fair. Regulus had died . He had given his life - and given it willingly! - to play his own small part in halting the Dark Lord's progress (he had locked away the possibility that it had all been in vain until a time when he might be able to contemplate that fact and not dissolve in despair). And he had not just given his own life, but the existence of his entire family, too. For there could be no more Blacks after him, no more branches on the tapestry.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black had expired in that lake with its last remaining son.

He had given everything , and all Sirius had done was act like the idiot he had always been, thrown away every good thing he had ever been given, and got himself locked up like some horrid petty criminal.

And now! Now Sirius had the gall to swan about the house he had made such a big song and dance about leaving, to intoxicate himself on the personal effects of the family he had been so eager to turn his back on. Now he had returned, to flaunt his power, his brilliance , as if it were nothing.

Regulus sniffed and turned back to Kreacher. He had fallen asleep again, and looked so warm and cosy beneath his pile of blankets. Regulus reached out once more to pat Kreacher's shoulder and then drifted up through the ceiling. He spiralled upwards through the tall old house, up and up, higher and higher, until he reached his own bedroom and his own bed. He curled up in the middle of it, pulled his eiderdown over himself, and blinked furiously, desperately trying to bring about the cathartic release of crying, even though he was no longer able to cry at all.

---

The following afternoon, Regulus realised that he much preferred drunk Sirius to just-about-sober Sirius, because just-about-sober Sirius could manage to rifle through their father's study ( Regulus's study), upending books and accounts and neat stacks of parchment as he went.

Just-about-sober Sirius could manage to rip the corner off a receipt for Crockett and Crump's Conservation Studio, scribble down the Secret, and send it through the Floo to Lupin.

Regulus still bristled at the thought of his home, his ancestral home, being used as the headquarters for whatever stupid secret society Dumbledore had so magnanimously put himself in charge of. Regulus was so irritated at the idea of Number Twelve being besmirched in such a way (and was still somewhat preoccupied with his concerns about the potentially disastrous consequences of the Fidelius Charm) that he hadn't quite found the time to worry about who, or what, "Buckbeak" was.

In fact, he had barely registered the name at all when Sirius had mentioned it the last time Lupin had dragged down the mood of the house to ever greater depths with his shabby robes and mournful face.

(Wasn't it odd, that a man so otherwise mediocre and uninspiring, should have such an intriguing array of scars?)

He had assumed that "Buckbeak" was another of Sirius and Lupin's ridiculous friends. The name sounded rather like one of those stupid nicknames they had invented for themselves when they had been at school, after all.

(What had Lupin's nickname been? Moody? No, that was— no. That name belonged to… another.)

But if Regulus had known then what he knew now - if he had known what "Buckbeak" really was - then he might have exorcised himself from the house instead of waiting around for someone else to do it for him.

It had taken all of his prodigious self-control to restrain himself from joining in with the family portraits' shrieks of horror and expressions of outrage when Sirius had opened the front door to Lupin and their new house guests.

It had taken all of his self-discipline to not scream the house down when Lupin had so casually crossed the threshold of his home and dragged a dirty great Hippogriff into his hallway.

It was abhorrent. It was disgraceful and disrespectful and downright immature to bring a wild beast - a dangerous wild beast! - into anyone's home, let alone the ancestral seat of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

"Azkaban must have addled his mind," Regulus told Kreacher, when they had retreated to the sanctuary of his bedroom, "because Sirius would never have acted so ridiculously, so foolishly , not even at the height of his most stupid teenage recklessness. A Hippogriff, Kreacher! In this house!"

"Impudent brat," Kreacher said with a snarl.

"I just don't understand," Regulus said, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. "Where did he even find such a creature? Why on earth would he want to keep it as a pet? Why did he have to bring it here ?"

"Does Master Regulus wish Kreacher to kill the beast?" Kreacher asked hopefully.

Regulus gave a weary sigh. "As tempting as that might be, Kreacher, we do need to keep up this ruse that Sirius is your true Master. I know, I know," he added, as Kreacher hissed viciously, "but we're only pretending, remember? And we'll only have to tolerate it until we've worked out exactly what Sirius is planning, and then—"

"KREACHER!"

Regulus and Kreacher exchanged weary expressions. Kreacher growled.

"You'd better go," Regulus said in resignation, flapping his hand towards Kreacher. "It won't do to keep him waiting. You know how ill-tempered he can be."

Kreacher disappeared with a crack! and a sour look, leaving Regulus to his own devices once more. He drifted towards the bedroom window and took a perch on the windowsill, resting his head against the glass.

He stared through his transparent reflection and sighed. He could still remember how his warm breath, when he had been able to breathe, would fog up the cold glass. He could remember how he would write his initials in the fog - out of desperation to prove that he had existed, he supposed, that he had made some imprint upon the earth, however small and trivial - but had always wiped the letters away again before Sirius could see them and laugh at him for it.

Regulus slowly traced his initials onto the window now - R, A, B - though, of course, his spectral fingers could leave no mark or smudge behind. He sighed again and gazed out into the back garden beyond the window, beyond the reflection of his grey-tinged face.

He had never opted to take Care of Magical Creatures at school. The idea of outside lessons, in the cold and the dirt, with all those unpredictable creatures, was not the slightest bit appealing to him. But even though he had never studied Hippogriffs, he could see that the small patch of grass at the back of the house was no suitable place for the beast to live. Even if Sirius dared to remove their grandmother's rose bushes, their great-grandfather's ornamental grasses, the oak tree that had been there even longer than the house, the house-elf burial ground (a recent addition)… Even if he cleared the entire garden and transfigured it into whatever a Hippogriff's natural habitat was (not that there was anything natural about a Hippogriff, vile creatures), it surely still wouldn't be big enough.

A Hippogriff had wings . Beasts with wings needed to be free, to be able to soar high up into the air, to look down upon the ground and forget all earthly inanities. There was nowhere for a Hippogriff to safely fly in the heart of central London.

"Master Regulus!"

Regulus turned sharply and found Kreacher standing in the doorway. He looked to be on the verge of hysteria, trembling all over, his long fingers tugging down his fluffy ears.

"What is it?" Regulus asked, alarmed.

"My poor Mistress!" Kreacher wailed, his voice breaking.

Regulus swooped down from the windowsill and came to kneel on the floor in front of his house-elf.

"What?" he said. "No, Mother— your Mistress— she… she passed away, Kreacher, remember?"

Fat tears spilt from Kreacher's eyes and dripped down his face, rolling into the creases of his wrinkles.

"My poor Mistress!" he repeated. "What would she say to Kreacher if she knew the horrors that had taken place in her halls? The defilement! The obscenities!"

"What horrors? What obscenities?" Regulus asked, feeling the space around his incorporeal chest tighten.

His mind flew to the mausoleum, to the Black family tomb, to the place where Kreacher had told him that his parents' bodies lay side by side, on cold marble, resting together for all eternity. Sirius would never… would he?

"That dirty - great - beast!" Kreacher sobbed. "In m-my Mistress's ch-chamber!"

"What…?"

"The beast! It has defiled my poor Mistress's bed!"

Regulus blinked, stunned. Surely not. Surely he didn't mean… "The… the Hippogriff?"

" Yes !" Kreacher wailed. He lurched forwards and grasped at Regulus, yelping as his tightly clenched fists passed right through Regulus's insubstantial form. "Master Regulus must do something! Master Regulus must stop the brat and his beast! Oh, the shame! The shame, Master Regulus!"

Regulus knelt in stunned silence.

He couldn't believe it.

He couldn't believe that Sirius would have the audacity to do such a thing, that he would have so little respect…

Sirius had never seen eye-to-eye with their mother, or with any of the family, really, but to desecrate her memory like this? To keep a Hippogriff in her bedroom ?

"Master Regulus!"

He blinked. "But… I don't… What can I do, Kreacher? I'm just a ghost, I can't—"

"Master Regulus must drive him out! Drive the brat far away from here! Never allow him to return!"

Regulus tilted his head, his eyes narrowed. "You mean…?"

"Yes, Master Regulus! Haunt the blood traitor!"

---

"What on earth are you doing, you odd little child?"

Regulus paused. His ghost-hands were clasped around the pitcher of water, and it was taking an extraordinary amount of concentration for him to be able to hold it securely, let alone lift it.

"Nothing," he said quickly.

He glanced up at the portrait above him; his great-great-grandfather Phineas Nigellus had barged his way into the gilded frame that usually held Regulus's great-great-uncle Arcturus. Phineas Nigellus peered down at him with raised eyebrows while he puffed on his pipe.

"Curious," said Phineas Nigellus. "Very curious indeed."

"Please be quiet, Grandfather."

"I see that death has yet to make you any more respectful towards your elders."

Regulus rolled his eyes. "I did say please ," he muttered under his breath.

He thought it quite rude of his great-great-grandfather to even suggest such a thing. Regulus had always been extremely polite and courteous, in life as he was in death.

"Bugger off, Uncle," said Regulus's great-great-uncle Arcturus as he elbowed his way back into the frame of his own portrait.

"You bugger off!" Phineas Nigellus retorted.

Regulus winced. Phineas Nigellus grabbed a book from the painted bookshelf behind him and bonked his nephew on the head with it.

"Wonderful," Regulus said with a sigh. "A warring portrait is precisely the thing I need right now."

"You rotter!" barked Arcturus.

"You whoreson!" Phineas Nigellus hurled back.

Arguments between portraits were not uncommon, and whenever they occurred they seemed to quickly draw the attention of every other portrait in the house. Regulus might have had some sympathy for their painted plight if he hadn't also spent almost half his entire existence stuck in Grimmauld Place, lingering, without even the freedom to go and visit a linked portrait in another building.

And he had never debased himself by indulging in petty gossip.

As it was, his painted family members flocked from all corners of the house, swarming the relatively few numbers of picture frames in the drawing-room. They elbowed one another, smacked each other around the head with fans and hats and books and squeezed themselves around furniture and into corners to try to get a good look at the day's entertainment.

It irritated Regulus, how each of his ancestors liked to appear so haughty and disdainful most of the time. They would either ignore him entirely, pretending to be asleep whenever he drifted past them, or else they would mutter some disparaging comment behind his back and noisily disapprove of his mere existence.

Yet whenever there was a scuffle or a dispute to be spectated, they would drop their uppity pretences and descend en masse, like flies on a corpse.

"How dare you speak about my mother like that," Arcturus shouted, "you son of a harpy!"

"Good boy, Archie! You give the ugly sod what-for!" encouraged his mother, Ursula (who was, incidentally, also Phineas Nigellus's wife).

"Oh, shut up, you interfering old bat!"

These insults elicited many gasps and jeers, laughs and cheers, from the gathered audience of portraits. Regulus kept one eye on events as he devoted most of his concentration to carefully pouring water into the half-empty bottles of whisky and gin that Sirius had left lying around the house. Regulus had already changed the labels on the bottles that Sirius had, somewhat miraculously, so far left untouched - relabelling red wine as Doxycide, for example; cognac as Anti-Spider Solution, a bottle of something strange and green and foul-smelling as "Cleaning Fluid (misc.)" - and had high hopes that Sirius would find this admittedly low-level sort of haunting irritating enough to want to drag himself back to Lupin's, or wherever it was that he had come from.

Regulus had already taken great pleasure in sneaking into Sirius's bedroom whenever his brother had passed out in a drunken daze. Regulus would sift through Sirius's old wardrobe and the horrid plastic bag of hand-me-down clothes that he had brought with him when he first came back to Grimmauld Place. He discarded the foulest and most offensive items, the jumpers with holes in the sleeves and the strange, stiff muggle trousers. He asked Kreacher to wash the few remaining items of clothing that met his approval; to wash them over and over again until they were entirely saturated with the sweet-smelling scent of laundry powder that Regulus had always loved, and Sirius had always loathed.

He had also formed a habit of slipping from room to room, following Sirius as he moved around the house, opening all the windows again whenever Sirius tried to shut them. He grinned to himself as he placed the last bottle back in its place in the drinks cabinet, thinking himself quite ingenious: Sirius hated fresh air, preferring to sit and stew in his own malodorous staleness whenever he was in a strop.

But not today , Regulus thought, smirking to himself. Not while I'm around .

"Stop this charging about hither and thither, child! Where are your manners?"

"Sorry, sorry, I just—"

"You're standing on my robes , get away before I set your sister on you!"

"I'm terribly sorry, I didn't—"

"Impudent boy!"

Regulus glanced up at the commotion. The largest concentration of his painted relatives, grouped in a large frame hanging above the mantlepiece, were grumbling and complaining, holding onto their hats and pulling their cloaks closer about them as a small, dark-haired boy weaved in and out of them. He eventually emerged from behind an elderly witch's extravagant robes and hurtled up towards the foreground of the painting, looking wide-eyed and exhilarated.

"They're here!" he announced, sounding somewhat out of breath. "More visitors have arrived!"

The portraits began talking loudly all at once. Phineas Nigellus and Arcturus had dropped their argument in favour of barking questions from the other side of the room. Regulus supposed that none of them had had much call for this sort of excitement in many years - even before his mother's death, very few visitors had ever come to Grimmauld Place uninvited - but it was quite tiresome to have to listen to them all squawking at one another, and to watch them elbowing each other out of the way in their rush to spread through the house and investigate.

Regulus saw the young boy turn to follow his older relatives and called out to him, "Wait, Sirius!"

The boy - Regulus's great-great-great-uncle Sirius, the first Sirius Black, who had died of a mysterious illness at just eight years of age - turned, his face lighting up with joy when he spotted Regulus, and skipped back towards the front of the picture frame.

"Nephew Spectre!" he said in cheerful greeting.

Regulus gave him a tight smile. He had never liked to be called "Nephew" by this painted child while he had been alive, and he liked it even less with the appendant "Spectre".

"Hello, Sirius," he said. "Did you recognise any of these… visitors?"

"Only the young headmaster," Sirius-the-first replied, "the one whom Phineas Nigellus loathes. But I'd never seen a single one of the others before - it's terribly exciting, don't you think?"

Regulus thought that it most certainly was not.

"Mm," he said, noncommittally. "How many people did you see arriving?"

"Oh, so many! I expect that Kreacher will have to extend the dining table to accommodate them all! Perhaps you ought to call in the family elves for reinforcements, Nephew? It has been such a long time since a party has been held here! Are you not thrilled?"

"Extremely thrilled," Regulus said faintly. "In fact, I think I should go and… warn Kreacher… about our guests…"

"Yes, of course, you must! We wouldn't want them to think that we were underprepared now, would we? I shall hurry to welcome everyone - oh, I do hope there will be a fireworks display after dinner!"

Regulus fled from the room and spiralled upwards through the house to his bedroom, avoiding the sounds of noisy footsteps and cheerful greetings coming from the ground floor. He found Kreacher there, fussing over his bedsheets, smoothing and re-smoothing his eiderdown until there was not a crease or lump to be found.

"Kreacher…" he said, in a distant voice.

"Master Regulus!"

"There are—"

"KREACHER!" came Sirius's summons from downstairs.

Regulus made an odd whining noise and let himself drift towards his bedroom window.

"Master Regulus?"

"Kreacher… I think that Dumbledore's merry gang of miscreants have arrived to torment me en masse," he said weakly, resting his head against the glass.

Kreacher hissed.

"You must answer Sirius's summons," Regulus said. He sighed heavily, gazing out into the garden below, filled with the riotous colours of summer in full bloom. "You must act as though you are bound to do exactly as he tells you."

"Kreacher does not like it," he said, fiddling with the hem of the tea towel he wore, "but Kreacher shall always do as Master Regulus wishes."

He gave Regulus a deep bow and disapparated from the room.

---

It had never been Regulus's intention to go and eavesdrop on Dumbledore's miscreants. He had, honestly, intended to simply stay in his bedroom and reminisce about happier times, times when he and Kreacher had been alone in the house. He had intended to just sort of mope about and generally feel sorry for himself.

But as the minutes ticked by with no sign of Kreacher's reappearance and no news to be found from whatever was happening downstairs - no noisy voices or sounds of precious objects breaking - Regulus found that his sense of curiosity was beginning to overcome his feelings of self-pity.

What on earth were they doing down there? Could they be bullying Kreacher? Hurting Kreacher? Had they discovered that Regulus was still lingering in the house? Were they plotting his downfall at this very moment, working out a way by which they could exorcise him from the house and drag him down to the Ministry to finally atone for his sins?

He paced around his bedroom, passing through the bed and the wardrobe and the desk with each circuit. He ought to stay in his room. He shouldn't go and investigate. Someone might see him. Dumbledore might see him. Hell, Dumbledore might have already seen him, might already know he was lurking in the house, might just be biding his time, waiting for an excuse to reveal Regulus to everyone (to Sirius ) when there was no opportunity for him to escape.

Besides, Kreacher was there at the meeting, too. Kreacher would be able to recount whatever it was they were saying.

But… what if Kreacher forgot? What if Sirius ordered Kreacher out of the room? What if Sirius tried to get rid of Kreacher entirely? Sirius had never liked him, had never been kind to him, surely he would jump at this opportunity to—

What if Sirius tried to behead Kreacher?!

The panic surged within him like the swollen tide, leaving Regulus with no choice but to investigate downstairs - and to intervene, if necessary. He swooped down through the floors of the house, towards the dining room, and halted abruptly on the second-floor landing: Kreacher was there, carefully levitating portraits down from where they had hung for Regulus's entire lifetime to stack them in neat piles against the wall.

"What are you doing?" Regulus asked him in a loud whisper.

Kreacher flinched at the sound of his voice and jerked around. "Master Regulus!" he exclaimed, casting nervous glances between Regulus and the dining-room door. "Master Regulus should not be downstairs! Master Regulus cannot be seen!"

"I know, I just… what are you doing?"

The portraits that had been removed from the walls were noisily complaining about their new circumstances, though it was difficult to make out exactly what they were saying since their canvases were stacked up against one another.

"The brat does not wish to be surrounded by eavesdroppers ," Kreacher snarled.

"Oh. I see." Regulus blinked, surprised. It was unexpectedly astute of his brother to think of such a thing.

"Master Regulus should go back upstairs," said Kreacher, sounding awfully like Regulus was a curious child again, sneaking into the library when he was supposed to be "getting some sun", or some other such pointless activity.

"I just… I wanted to know what they were talking about," he said.

"The intruders are tedious and dull, Master Regulus. All they are talking about is Potters and prophecies and—"

"What? Prophecies? Potter ?"

"The brat made Kreacher leave and placed a sound-proofing charm on the door," he said, "but he should not have wasted his time because Kreacher does not care to listen to such trivial matters."

Regulus glanced down the stairs, towards the dining-room. "I want to go in," he said, determined. "Could you cause a distraction, for me?"

"If that is what Master Regulus wishes."

Kreacher had never been one to do things by halves, and Regulus was sure they would both come to regret the way the house-elf unceremoniously dropped half a dozen portraits down two flights of stairs. The commotion caused Sirius to come roaring out of the dining room, swiftly followed by Lupin and half a dozen witches and wizards whom Regulus did not recognise. Regulus used the distraction to slip into the dining room unnoticed, and he concealed himself inside a large ornamental urn.

He curled up at the base of the urn, resting his back against its belly, and waited.

It didn't take long for the meeting to resume, but Regulus quickly realised that a large, echoing urn wasn't exactly the best hiding-place he could have chosen: there were no cracks or spy-holes through which he could observe the room, and the various voices he could hear were distorted beyond recognition by his porcelain cave.

He shifted position and pressed his ear against the side of the urn to see if he could make out what was being discussed. He could have sworn someone said something about Surrey - which puzzled him because as far as he was aware there were no wizarding communities in Surrey (or at least, no wizarding communities worth talking about) - and there was mention of the Hall of Prophecies - which was doubly puzzling, because he was sure that there was mention of a weapon in the same breath, and who on earth would conceal a weapon in the Hall of Prophecies? - and plenty of talk of recruiting and tailing known Death Eaters and other boring, obvious things.

And then, as the sounds of scraping chairs and muffled footsteps and people wishing goodbye retreated, as the room finally grew quiet again, Regulus heard a voice that he recognised. A terrible, rough voice, a growling voice, a voice that could have stopped his heart if he had still been in possession of one.

"I'm not questioning your judgement, Dumbledore, just whether Mundungus Fletcher is really the man you want to be guarding Harry Potter."

"Is there another you would have take his place, Alastor?"

Alastor Moody .

Regulus sucked in a breath and pressed his hands flat against the base of the urn, trying to steady himself. He closed his eyes. He can't hurt you , he tried to convince himself, you're already dead; he can't hurt you.

"Tonks. She's good in the field, excellent at disguise. Her father's a muggle-born; she's got experience. And she's a metamorphmagus."

"Yes, that particular talent of hers did come to my attention once or twice during her years at Hogwarts."

Alastor Moody: Auror.

Regulus's ears swelled with a rushing noise. He raised his hands to cover them and bent himself over his knees, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

"But I need not remind you, Alastor, that our numbers are stretched thin enough as it is. I fear that we have a very long road ahead of us."

"She's capable. I hand-picked her, went back to the DMLE to train her myself. You'll find no better, Dumbledore."

Alastor Moody: Auror; Hunter of Death Eaters.

Regulus had twice seen him in battle. He'd never had to face him (he'd always been hiding, scared, the weakest and most cowardly of them all) but if he had, he was sure he would have been killed long before he'd had the chance to destroy the Dark Lord's horcrux.

"I don't doubt that, Alastor. But I need every Order member with some affiliation to the Ministry to take shifts at the Department of Mysteries and I understand that Miss Tonks, as a newly-trained Auror, already has a considerable schedule to contend with."

Alastor Moody had killed Regulus's best friend.

(His only friend.)

"I see your mind is set."

"It is. But she will have her time to shine before this war is over, Alastor. I daresay they all will."

He had found out one morning, at breakfast. It had made the front page news of the Prophet , a gloating headline screaming one side of the story with no thought for the people Evan had left behind. No thought for Evan at all; to them, he was just another nameless, faceless, story-less Death Eater towards whom they could direct all their hatred and fear.

HEROIC AUROR ALASTOR MOODY VANQUISHES VICIOUS DEATH EATER ROSIER IN THRILLING DUEL!

Interesting word choices. Regulus might have chosen "cruel Auror" and "murders" instead. Because his best friend had been murdered, in broad daylight, by a man who was employed by the Ministry. A man who claimed to have been working to uphold the law. A man who was currently occupying Regulus's own dining room and who had presumably sat on Regulus's own furniture and taken a cup of tea from his own house-elf and would be back, again and again and again, for more.

He didn't know if he could take it.

The Prophet hadn't bothered to conceal Evan's face in the photographs which they had slapped across the front page and scattered throughout the paper for months afterwards. Regulus could still see his best friend's glassy, unseeing eyes, frozen wide open in panic, or perhaps fear, staring up at him from the pages of the newspaper. His most vulnerable moment displayed in black and white for all to see.

Evan hadn't become a ghost. Regulus knew he wouldn't have. He knew bold, brave, brilliant Evan would rather die a thousand painful deaths than linger for eternity in this wretched half-existence. But Regulus had still begged his mother to write to Evan's mother and ask. She had been distraught, he remembered, her face crumpled in on itself as she explained to Walburga how she had only discovered that her son had died that morning, at breakfast, while reading the morning newspaper, at the same time as the rest of the world.

He shouldn't have been surprised, really. He had known for a long time that the Ministry's mercy - the world's mercy - had never extended as far as teenaged Death Eaters' lonely, elderly, widowed mothers.

---

Over the duration of the following week, Sirius ordered Kreacher to remove all the portraits - despite their noisy protestations - from the walls and store them up in the attic, out of sight and earshot. Regulus tried to explain to him, many times, using Kreacher as a go-between, that the portraits were not only incredibly rare and incredibly valuable, but also incredibly delicate . They needed to be kept in very specific conditions and, ideally, cleaned and inventoried by the specialists at Crockett and Crump's before being moved into storage.

And, really, if Sirius had paid the least bit of attention to their father on any of the many occasions on which he had tried to impress upon them the importance of safekeeping Number Twelve and all its fixtures and fittings, then he would have known this.

Unfortunately, Kreacher was not successful in conveying these instructions. Sirius grew more and more irritated by Kreacher's "interference", to the point where he was on the verge of banishing the poor old elf from the house. Regulus had to (begrudgingly) thank Dumbledore for intervening and ensuring that Kreacher was only banished from Sirius's presence , and not from Grimmauld Place entirely.

Both ghost and elf hid themselves away in Regulus's bedroom, complaining at length about the goings-on in the floors below them. They would occasionally creep out onto the small landing and lean over the bannister to spy on visitors and eavesdrop on conversations. So many of Dumbledore's miscreants traipsed in and out of the house, coming and going at all hours of the day and night, treating Number Twelve like a common boarding house and disturbing Regulus's routine beyond comprehension.

His irritation at this intrusion was compounded by the fact that he was utterly and extraordinarily afraid of Alastor Moody.

He was unable to stop his mind - already prone to melancholy, in death even more than it had been in life - from drifting over memories he had tried to bury, memories of duels (skirmishes, really) that he'd allowed himself to get caught up in when he had been a Death Eater.

Flashing lights dazzled his vision, blinding him. He feared that the vivid green burning into his retinas would be the last thing he ever saw. Explosions rung in his ears, followed by muffled shouts and piercing screams. Smoke. Choking, suffocating smoke. The stench of burnt hair. And worse.

He saw the whites of an Auror's eyes as she grasped for him, stretching towards him, her fingers just grazing the edge of his robes as he managed to twist out of reach and apparate far, far away. He saw the silhouettes of other Aurors, shadowy figures lit only by the stars and spellfire, aiming killing blows at his friends.

The Aurors had shown them no mercy. They had begun using the Unforgivables long before little Barty's father had decreed that his troops were permitted to cast them without repercussion. Regulus had been one of the lucky ones - he had only been caught once with a grazing Cruciatus. It had been painful, yes, but nothing in comparison to what his cousin Bellatrix had treated him to during his "training".

His friends, though…

He knew that Evan, Thorfinn, and even Barty himself, not yet of-age, had all been subjected to the Cruciatus Curse. They had each managed to escape… until they hadn't. Evan had finally been caught with a Killing Curse to the chest, courtesy of Auror Moody. Thorfinn had been subdued with another Cruciatus and shipped off to Azkaban. Barty had been brought before the Wizengamot with his trusted mentors, Bellatrix and her husband: a public trial for three of the most public Death Eaters.

The Ministry hadn't cared that Barty was still a teenager when he'd been captured and put on trial. The Aurors hadn't cared that so many of the Death Eaters were teenagers, so many still Hogwarts students, young and foolish and inexperienced. The Aurors showed no mercy when they duelled. The Aurors didn't discriminate.

Had it been their own fault? For wearing those masks and cloaks, for concealing their identities? Had that been the Dark Lord's plan all along, to make each of them indistinguishable from one another, each of them as vulnerable as the next?

"Master Regulus…"

They never realised how good they'd had it. Those years at Hogwarts, those (comparatively) carefree schooldays: fretting about their non-existent love lives and complaining about their very-existent homework; good-natured arguments about Quidditch and the bathroom rota; lazy summer days stretched out beside the Lake and cosy winter nights curled up by the fireplace. The comfort and reassurance of the Lake lapping against the common room window, of his roommates' steady breathing at night, of those thick castle walls, of stone and wood carved with the initials of centuries' worth of students whispering we were here, we existed, we mattered .

"Master Regulus?"

He wished he could go back. He wished he could unearth a Time-Turner somewhere in this house and go back to his eleven-year-old self, to shake some sense into that odd, frightened child and tell him to open his eyes, to realise what he was missing, what he was going to miss.

"Master Regulus!"

Regulus jerked around, blinking. "Kreacher?" he asked, feeling disorientated. "What is it?"

"More intruders are arriving! Master Regulus must come at once!"

"Right, okay."

Regulus stared down at his hands as he tried to centre himself again. He was slipping into the past and nostalgia and ever-shifting memories more and more frequently, these days. He supposed it was the sudden onslaught of reminders of things best left forgotten. He supposed he shouldn't have quite so literally papered over his past when he and Kreacher had redecorated Grimmauld Place. He supposed he should have faced those memories head-on and—

"Master Regulus! Intruders!"

"Right." He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "Yes, of course. Sorry, Kreacher."

They crept out of Regulus's bedroom and onto the landing, where they knelt on the floor and gripped onto the bannister rails as they peered through the gaps to look down below. There was a host of red-headed people passing down the hallway, talking noisily to one another and carrying what was unmistakably luggage .

"Looks like Weasleys," Regulus muttered.

"Looks like they're moving in," said Kreacher. "Befouling Master Regulus's home!"

"But why ? Sirius doesn't even know any—" He cut himself off and jerked his head back as one of the red-headed intruders happened to glance up in his direction. He stared at Kreacher, wide-eyed and fearful.

"Nosy brats," Kreacher snarled.

Regulus nodded and slowly moved back into position. It was quite difficult to count the Weasleys, since they all looked so alike from this distance and kept moving , but Regulus thought he could distinguish an older man and woman, a girl, and two - maybe three - boys.

" Twins! " exclaimed Kreacher, looking as though he might vomit. "Devil's spawn!"

They all seemed to be acquainted with Lupin. Disturbingly, the children called him "Professor".

"And you're sure this is alright with Sirius?" the older man said to Lupin, as they clasped hands in greeting.

"Ignore him if he complains. It'll do him some good to have some life in the house for a change," Lupin replied.

Regulus sniffed. How rude .

"Hi, Professor Lupin!" said one of the indeterminate red-headed boys as they passed one another in the hallway.

" Professor ?" Regulus repeated to Kreacher, feeling flummoxed.

Kreacher gave a world-weary sigh. "Mistress always said that Hogwarts was being overtaken by charlatans and mudbloods and scroungers and muggle-lovers. Master Regulus was very wise to not return for his NEWTs."

"Mm."

Regulus's reason for not returning to Hogwarts for his final term had little to do with the state of the school, and everything to do with retrieving a piece of the Dark Lord's soul, but he had no desire to remind Kreacher of that fact just now.

A plump woman passed into view. She was holding a large picnic basket and chivvying along the children.

"Come on, hurry up you four," she said. "Put that down , George!"

Regulus frowned and leant out further, trying to see which of his precious belongings this "George" had been trying to pilfer.

"Alright, Mum, calm down, I was just having a look."

"Yes, well, you don't know where it's been. Do you want all your fingers cursed off?"

Regulus bristled at the insinuation that anything on display in his house could do such a thing. All the cursed objects (or rather, most of the cursed objects - he was rather fond of the haunted teapot; it made him feel less lonely) had been secured in his Gringotts vault for safe-keeping.

"It's alright, Molly," said Lupin, passing into view again. "Sirius and I have made sure the house is suitable for occupation. As long as you all steer clear of the fourth floor, you'll be fine."

"What's on the fourth floor?"

"Never you mind, Fred! Concentrate on helping your father with the trunks."

"I'm doing it, I'm doing it."

"Where's the kitchen, Remus? Ron, help Ginny with this food! We thought you two boys might need feeding up, you see," the woman said, patting Lupin's shoulder.

"That's very kind of you, Molly, but we—"

"There's no use protesting because I won't hear it. A basement kitchen, is it? Very well, I'm sure we'll get it spruced up in no time."

" Spruced up ?" Regulus sat back on his heels and crossed his arms, feeling mightily indignant. "What does she mean 'spruced up'? What needs sprucing ? This is a perfectly lovely home, and I will not have some— some blood-traitor Weasley marching in here and acting as though she owns the place!"

"Kreacher supposes she will want to paint the walls orange. Horrid old hag!"

Regulus frowned and peered between the bannister rails again. The older Weasley man was directing two of the boys - the twins - upstairs, each of them levitating a worn and battered trunk in front of them.

"If any of them dares to go anywhere near my bedroom," Regulus said, pouting, "I swear they will regret it."

---

Another child had joined the Weasley brood and moved into Number Twelve.

"A mudblood," Kreacher had informed Regulus, late one afternoon, practically spitting the word out.

"A mudblood?" asked Regulus, looking up from his book in surprise. "Really? Who?"

"Kreacher does not know. The blood-traitor brats called it 'Hermione'."

"Hermione…" Regulus repeated. "How strange! I always thought muggles liked to give their children boring, uninspired names - 'Jane' and 'Steve' and so forth. There was a girl in my year at school who liked to be called Liz ," he said, wrinkling his nose.

"It is because mudbloods have no imagination," Kreacher said sagely. "Not like Kreacher's Mistress. 'Regulus' is a proper, noble name, befitting of a proper, noble pureblood. Kreacher knows that—" He stopped abruptly, his chin beginning to tremble as he gazed at Regulus. "Kreacher thought that— Kreacher knows that Master Regulus would have— would have chosen a p-proper name for his own sons if he— if he had not— if Kreacher had not—"

"Oh, Kreacher," he said, putting his book aside, "let's not go over all this again. I've told you, none of this was your fault. None of it ."

And, if he was being honest, he was quite glad that he had never had to endure the terrors of courtship and marriage and parental approval that would necessitate having children of his own.

Kreacher gave a jerky nod. His hands were clenched into fists by his side, and the tendons in his neck were sticking out as he tried his hardest to stop his chin from wobbling.

"Kreacher is sorry, Master Regulus," he said eventually, through clenched teeth.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." He patted Kreacher's shoulder. "Now, tell me what you have heard about this mudblood…"

To Regulus's great displeasure there was little opportunity for either him or Kreacher to investigate the mudblood, and his curiosity only grew stronger the more it was left unsatisfied. She - not 'it', for, as he had to keep reminding Kreacher, mudbloods were still people , after all - and the Weasleys, along with a proliferation of Dumbledore's lackeys, were constantly coming and going, thundering up and down the stairs, playing infantile practical jokes on one another, and generally causing a nuisance.

The disturbances seemed to distress Kreacher even more than they distressed Regulus. The house-elf's memory was getting worse and worse each day: he would forget that Regulus had died and upset himself over it again and again; he would fret about his Mistress, forgetting that she, too, had died. When he wasn't spending hours in the garden, talking to the plant that marked his mother's head's grave, he would trail after the new occupants of the house. He had told Regulus that he mistrusted them and wanted to make sure that they weren't stealing any precious heirlooms from behind Regulus's back.

Regulus did appreciate this, although, going by Sirius's terrible moods and frustrated shouting, it seemed that Kreacher spent more time insulting them than preventing thievery.

But the worst part of it all was that the kitchen had been colonised by the Weasley matron.

Kreacher had not cooked a proper meal since Walburga had died - Regulus had no need of sustenance any longer, and Kreacher refused to make himself anything more elaborate than a weak broth - but he still liked to spend many an afternoon in the kitchen, sorting through the cutlery drawers and rearranging the pots and pans and scrubbing every work surface until it gleamed. He had spent so much of his life there, Regulus supposed, that it was something of a comfort to go about the same routine that he always had, even if the kitchen wasn't being properly used.

But then the Weasley woman had arrived and immediately commandeered the kitchen, tying an apron around her ample waist and clattering about with Kreacher's precious tools. She'd shooed everyone out of the basement - including Kreacher himself - while she whipped up an offering of dull, mundane foodstuffs that everyone else in the house apparently found appealing.

"The nasty old blood traitor has violated Kreacher's den!" Kreacher sobbed, as he sought Regulus out after his third eviction from the basement in just one morning.

It pained Regulus to see his poor old elf so distraught. Perhaps he ought to up his haunting game - although, he thought miserably, the Weasley woman didn't seem to be particularly affected by his efforts so far.

"Kreacher's trinkets and his photographs," he continued, "and Kreacher's blankets and his memories, all ruined, Master Regulus, all ruined!"

"What do you mean, ruined? What has she done to them?"

"Touched them, Master Regulus!" Kreacher's face contorted as he hissed, then quickly melted back into an expression of grief. "Touched them with her filthy blood traitor claws!"

"Oh," Regulus said stupidly, feeling somewhat lost for words.

"Kreacher will never be able to sleep in his den again! Not after that nasty old woman has defiled it!"

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" Regulus said, suddenly seizing upon an idea. "Listen, Kreacher - why don't you go downstairs and fetch all your blankets and things, and bring them up here?"

Kreacher grew very still. He stared at Regulus, and hiccoughed. "Up… here, Master Regulus?"

"Yes! We can cleanse all your things and make you a nice new den, see, just there," he said, pointing to the space beside the clanking old radiator, between his bed and the window. "Or we can get you some new blankets, if you'd prefer, there are plenty in my wardrobe. Would you like that?"

Kreacher turned his head towards the place Regulus had suggested. He was silent for an uncomfortably long time. Regulus couldn't help but wonder if he had offended Kreacher, somehow, or perhaps surprised the poor old thing right out of his wits.

"Only if you want to, of course," he added.

Kreacher turned back to him and nodded slowly. "If that is what Master Regulus wishes, then that is what Kreacher will do."

"Well—" he began, but Kreacher disapparated before he could even form the word. "Right."

It was odd, having a roommate after so many years sleeping alone, and odder still to have a roommate who kept waking him up in the middle of the night to ask if he needed his pillow plumping or the window opening or a glass of water fetching or any number of things that Regulus, being a ghost, had very little need of.

And he couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit disgruntled that Kreacher hadn't shown more… not gratitude , exactly, but some sort of appreciation, perhaps, for his kind offer. He was quite sure that not many young Masters, whether they were dead or not, would have offered to share their bedroom with their house-elf.

But Regulus supposed that Kreacher was a singular elf, one-of-a-kind, and unlikely to change his ways when he was so stubborn and advanced in age. One can't teach an old elf new tricks, as the saying went.

He did wish Kreacher would stop antagonising the intruders, though, because Sirius seemed to be getting more and more volatile with every passing hour, louder and angrier every time he summoned Kreacher to yell at him for trying to sabotage the Weasley woman's cooking or hiding the young Auror's cloak or setting Lupin's slippers on fire or—

"KREACHER!"

And there he was again. Regulus sighed and drifted over to his wardrobe, where he had taken to burying himself among his old robes and cloaks in an attempt to muffle the sound of Sirius's yelling that seemed to reverberate around the house as much as their mother's had once done.

He sat at the bottom of the wardrobe and closed his eyes. He wished that he had ever expressed an interest in music, so he might know a song that he could hum or sing to himself to help drown out Sirius's hoarse and grating voice. But as his brother's shouting grew louder and louder, Regulus wondered whether perhaps he wouldn't just have to start screaming as well, in order to drown it out.

Sirius really did seem unusually angry, this time. Regulus couldn't quite work out what it was that he was shouting, but the thumps and bangs that accompanied his tirade were quite worrying. He passed back through the wardrobe and stared at his bedroom door.

Could he…?

The shouting grew louder. Regulus thought he distinguished the word "kill".

Should he…?

He heard the sound of glass breaking. He couldn't stand it any longer - couldn't risk Kreacher getting hurt, again, to protect him, again .

Regulus dropped down through the floor and sped directly to the source of the noise, feeling his fears and upset crescendo as he reached the drawing-room and found Sirius, surrounded by broken glass, raising Kreacher off the ground by his neck.

"Let go of him at once!" Regulus demanded.

Sirius froze. He loosened his fist and Kreacher dropped to the floor, falling neatly onto his feet. Kreacher scurried away from Sirius and hid behind Regulus's back - not a particularly good hiding place, considering the fact that Regulus was somewhat transparent, but he would do his best to protect his elf.

"Master Regulus!" Kreacher whispered urgently. "Master Regulus mustn't!"

"I must," said Regulus. "Go, Kreacher; I will not allow him to hurt you."

He stared at Sirius's profile. He hadn't realised how haggard his brother looked, how worn and tired and old . Slowly, Sirius turned around. His face was deathly white as he stared in disbelief, more bone than flesh, looking half-dead himself.

"Regulus…?" he whispered hoarsely.

Regulus fled.