Chapter Twelve

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Mr. Black grunted at the new burn marks on the forearm of his youngest son. The skin was still inflamed and the scab was just starting to overtake the wound. Regulus smiled proudly at his father as he now concealed the Dark Mark.

"Regulus," he started, "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes, father. I am prepared to serve Lord Voldemort."

"But are you willing?" His father looked a bit skeptical in the firelight of their darkened kitchen.

"Of course, father!" Regulus's young and innocent face was set, but naive.

"Regulus, my son," he said softly. "I want you to grow up and be a proud man with a pure family. But I mostly want to see you grow up. You could easily be killed in this line of servitude."

"I know." His determination seemed to falter a bit. "But I must! Lord Voldemort is right. We are being overrun by these mudbloods and muggle-lovers. I don't want my children to grow up in the company of such filth."

Mr. Black's eyes darkened at this statement, and for a wild moment he wanted to yell at his son - to scream at him. But he said nothing. He didn't tell his son how wrong these ideals were. He didn't express his great concern over his choice of actions.

Instead, Regulus turned to leave. Mr. Black lingered only long enough to glance into the gap in the door to the pantry with a sorrowful eye.

Inside the pantry, behind the door ajar, Sirius stood with baited breath. Mr. Black knew he was there. His father was dying, he knew, and to learn of his youngest son becoming a Death Eater at the tender age of fourteen probably wasn't on his 'To Do' list in his remaining months. He sighed to himself and turned back to stashing snack foods in his bag to take to his room. Sirius knew that he would need to leave this house soon. His only problem was how to get where he was going. The Potter's manor, after all, was quite a ways out of London.

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They reached the dungeon doorway and glanced at each other. Sirius took the lead. He knocked. A voice beckoned them into the room. Rae hesitated. As she made eye contact with Professor Jackyl, a chill struck her. It was almost a sense of foreboding.

"Rae?" Sirius's voice broke through her haze. "Are you coming?"

She blinked and replied, "Oh, yeah..." She entered the room, keeping slightly behind Sirius as the professor spoke to them.

"Good evening, Miss Orion; Mr. Black." His shallow eyes gleamed with the cold of the dungeon; one might say that it reflected his personality.

"Evening, sir," said Sirius.

Rae avoided his eyes as she mumbled a greeting. She shifted uncomfortably, folding her arms across her stomach.

"For your detention tonight, you will be cleaning cauldrons." He waved his wand and a large closet opened, revealing several dozen of the pewter pots. "You are allowed to use magic."

Rae and Sirius nodded.

"You may leave when you are finished, but see me before you go. Now get started."

He turned away and walked to his desk at the front of the room where he sat down. Sirius and Rae walked to the closet and each pulled out a cauldron. Rae's nose wrinkled. "These things smell horrible!"

"Yes, I know," Jackyl replied, sifting through some papers. "It seems that the last potions teacher didn't keep very much order."

"Julienne was always a bit scatterbrained, wasn't she?" Sirius muttered. Rae giggled a bit in agreement.

"And the last memory she had of our class was when you... when you saw that fly that nobody else could see." Rae finished, casting a quick sideways glance at him. She blushed slightly, accidentally catching his eye. A flash of laughter, mixed with embarrassment, danced across his face. She remembered exactly what had happened on the last day that Madame Julienne had taught their potions class. Sirius had been watching her. When she felt his eyes on her, she had looked up and locked into them. They were so deep...

"Evanescence!" Sirius said loudly. He blinked at the dirty cauldron before him. "I'll murder Remus. He said this was the perfect charm for cleaning!"

"It is. But it only works when you say it right." Rae smirked. She raised her wand and said, "Evanesco!"

"Nicely done, Miss Orion." Sirius mocked, careful to keep his voice down so that the teacher whom he was impersonating wouldn't hear him.

"That's just creepy." She shuddered and then looked over her shoulder. Jackyl was walking towards them. Her eyes widened as she whipped her head back around. "He's coming," she mouthed to Sirius, jabbing him in the side to get his attention.

They heard a door open, then shut. Sirius turned around and looked. "He's in his office."

Rae let out a whistle. "Good. I thought he was coming after us."

"Yeah. Since he's gone for now-" Sirius dropped his voice down lower than usual "-do you get a bad feeling when you're around that guy, by chance?"

"Yes. I do," she said after a pause. "I felt it the first day. Something about him scared me - I mean, really freaked me out."

"I know what you mean." He thought a moment. "It's like the room gets colder when he walks in."

She froze. "That's it. He has a bad aura, and - and a lot of negative energy." She put her free hand to her temple. Sirius looked at her, his brow wrinkled in question.

"Err, bad aura? You sound like Bree," he chuckled. "Is that what we feel around him? His aura?"

"Yes," she said, then paused. "What do you see when you look at him? I mean, besides his physical appearance."

Sirius set down a clean cauldron and picked up another, examining it and frowning. "Now that you mention it, there is something different about him. He - he glows, but it's like a deep shade of gray. Almost black."

Rae watched him as he spoke, studying his own growing purple emission. "And what do you see when you look at me?"

"A beautiful girl," he smiled. She sighed.

"No, what do you see?"

"Red. Deep red." He looked at her thoughtfully, as if for the first time.

"Sirius," she started.

Say my name again, he pleaded inwardly.

"You have a sixth sense," she finished.

"I have a what?" He stared at her.

"You don't know what a sixth sense is?" She regarded him with incredulity.

Sirius shook his head, his eyes inquiring.

"The red you see around me and the dark gray you see around Jackyl are auras. Most people can barely sense them. You have a sixth sense, meaning that you can actually see them," she explained calmly.

"Wow." Sirius hesitated, wanting to ask her more, but not sure if he should. After all, he was trying to impress her. No. He wasn't supposed to impress anyone. He was supposed to be himself - and the self of Sirius Black was an inquisitive one. "So... do you have one, too? A sixth sense, I mean."

Rae nodded. "It's not as strong as yours, though. But I've been trying to improve it lately."

"Improve it? How can you improve a sixth sense?" He really was confused this time.

"Meditation helps a lot, but I'm not very good at that. I don't have a short attention span or anything, it's just that I can never fully clear my mind." She shrugged it off and picked up an exceptionally heavy cauldron, nearly dropping it. As she caught herself, a small furry object scurried out of the pewter pot and up her arm. Rae screamed and jumped backward, dropping the cauldron like it was on fire.

"Rae?" Sirius turned around just in time to catch the falling object before it hit the ground, preventing breakage. The mouse that had jumped out of the cauldron ran, squeaking, across the room to hide in the other closet. He set the cauldron down, smirking as he caught sight of Rae, tangled on the floor in the tail of her own coat.

"Are you okay?" Sirius wandered for a moment if he should help her up, then remembered the last attempt he had made at helping her. He winced inwardly and decided that she was a big girl and could get up herself.

"Black, it had better be that mouse you're laughing at," she warned, glaring at him softly.

"But, of course!" He grinned widely, taking a sweeping bow before her. As she positioned herself to stand up, her foot caught on her long jacket and she tripped. The coattail wrapped around her and she started to fall a second time, but never made it all the way down. Sirius had caught her under the arms. Then a voice spoke from their left, making him jump and nearly drop her.

"Is everything alright in here?" Professor Jackyl's head was protruding from his opened office door. He had undoubtedly heard Rae's scream.

"Yes, sir," Sirius answered briskly. "She just tripped, that's all." He pulled her up in one swift motion, purposely demonstrating his strength (courtesy of Quidditch) to his audience of two.

Rae's heart jumped, and she realized the full strength of her classmate.

Jackyl seemed unfazed by this act. Instead, he was studying the markings on Rae's lower back that had been exposed. Was that what he thought it was? He blinked, suddenly remembering that he was gawking at two of his students. After a mental slap he cleared his throat. "Back to work." He retreated into his office once more.

Sirius looked from the door to Rae and back again. "Is it me, or was he looking at you funny?"

"It did seem so," she said quietly. There was something about the way she spoke that suggested a perturbance. Her hand crept to her back and touched the mark with which she was emblazoned. Had he seen it?