He'd never been able to cast the Unforgivables. Bella had always told him he needed to focus or mocked him for it, but Regulus thought he had a pretty good idea why. He squirmed when he saw even animals in pain (although frankly he preferred cats to people), so there was no way he could cast the Cruciatus. People weren't tools to him, so the Imperius was also out.

As for the Killing Curse? He might not like very many people, but he didn't hate anyone nearly enough.

At the same time . . . he'd felt the Cruciatus; it was Voldemort's favorite punishment when his followers displeased him. He'd met people under Imperius, which was awkward, since he always knew it was Bella or Lucius or Rabastan or Rodolphus or Dolohov who was answering in their stead. And goodness knew he'd seen the green flash of light when someone killed in front of him enough times for an army of thestrals.

Those things had decided to haunt his dreams tonight. It seemed that every time he turned his head that Bella was standing there with that look on her face, the one she'd been wearing right before he'd Apparated away with Nym. But that was preferable to the other one, the cold, emotionless mask she wore when she killed. It wasn't murder to her, Mudbloods weren't people. . . .

Between glimpses of Bellas, it seemed that every scare he'd gotten since taking the Mark had come back to haunt him— dementors, Inferi, giants. . . . Twice he felt his arm burn and jolted awake, scrabbling at the sleeve of his nightshirt to make sure it was only a dream and Voldemort wasn't really calling his followers, but it was only its usual dull red and not black on both occasions.

Anna cuddled next to his chest and purred, but her warm presence wasn't enough to drive off the nightmares tonight.

Cursing himself for being this weak after the second time the burning had woken him up, he slid into his slippers, gathered the tabby in his arms, and padded down the hall to— as he told himself— make sure Nymphadora had gone to sleep.

She hadn't. She was seated upright on the bed, picking at the Fwoopers embroidered on the comforter. Regulus had always hated that thing, and in a comment more like Sirius than himself, had informed his Aunt Lucretia that anyone who slept under it was going to be driven insane because that was what Fwoopers did. Fortunately he'd been six at the time, so everyone had thought it cute.

"Can't sleep?" he asked quietly, sitting down next to her. "Or nightmares?"

Nymphadora raised an eyebrow.

Regulus shrugged. "Well, if Bella threatened to kill me, I'd be having nightmares."

Anna leapt out of his arms to pounce on a Fwooper, and sat prodding it for a few moments as if she expected it to run away. When it didn't, she lost interest and curled into a ball on Nym's lap to go back to sleep. Nym patted her absently and shrugged. "I just can't sleep."

"There's got to be a reason you can't."

"I'm worried. About Mum and Dad."

Regulus shook his head. He wasn't sure what to say in a situation like this. "Well . . . we know they're alive," he told her. "Otherwise someone would have put the Dark Mark up and everyone'd know about it."

Nym shook her head.

Regulus realized he'd probably used the wrong tactic, but he didn't know how to tell someone everything would be all right when that was completely against the odds. Finally, he just asked, "Have you tried going to sleep?"

"Not really."

"Maybe that's why, then." Regulus leaned over and flicked her braid over her shoulder. "C'mon. You, at least, need eight hours of sleep and I'm not going anywhere until you're snoring."

Nym shook he head but sank down under the covers. "I think I'm not the one you were 'fraid was having nightmares," she murmured.

Regulus shook his head. "Perceptive," he muttered.

Nymphadora heard him. She propped herself up by the elbow, staring at him. "What were they about?"

He wasn't about to explain to this girl that he was a Death Eater, just not nearly so rabid as Bellatrix and in fact not even sure if he still wanted to be one. He didn't want her to be afraid of him. So he did what his father was good at and circumvented the question. "Bella scares me when she does that," he whispered. "She scares me a lot. . . . And well, I guess I did used to go climb into Sirius's bed when they happened when I was little."

"Oh." She settled back underneath the covers. "Still not going away until I'm snoring?"

"No, but I may put I Silencing Charm on you if you choose to hound me with questions about my nightmares," Regulus answered, likewise stretching out on the bed. Anna crawled onto his chest, purring slightly.

He really wasn't sure which one of the three fell asleep first.

☐☐☐

"Ungh?" Regulus asked. Someone had been shaking him for the last few minutes, and he'd finally woken up enough to respond.

"Come on!" Nym exclaimed. "It's nine o'clock, and you fell asleep on my bed!"

Regulus not only decided to go back to sleep on her bed but to usurp her pillow, which he pulled over his aching head. "I need five hours of sleep a night, and I didn't get to sleep til four," he grumbled.

"And now it's nine. That is five hours of sleep," Nym informed him, tugging the pillow back off and poking him in the ribs.

With a groan, Regulus rolled over. Nymphadora was grinning at him and clutching Anna. At least, he thought it was Nym— same big gray eyes and heart-shaped face— but her hair was a vivid, neon blue. After a moment he decided that exhaustion and the side effects of healing potions were banding together to play tricks on his eyes and blinked several times. It didn't help. Feeling stupid, he asked, "Isn't your hair brown?"

"A lot of the time," Nym told him. "I changed it this morning."

"Is there any way you can change it back?" he asked. "I mean, no offense, but my head is killing me this morning. Sleep loss."

Nymphadora dropped the cat and screwed up her face. Her hair didn't go back to brown, but it did change into a much darker, more subtle shade of blue. In dim light, it could have been taken for black, and made her look like her mother's miniature. "That better?"

"Much." Regulus sat up, flexing his shoulders and the stiff, newly mended muscles in his chest. They still ached a bit, but the bandages could be taken off now. "Why don't you go down and bug Kreacher or Dad for breakfast or something? I need to get dressed."

She nodded and crawled off the bed.

"And why don't you take Anna with you?" Regulus mumbled. She had perched on his abdomen in a warm gray ball and begun purring, and the weight was making it much more difficult for him to convince himself to get up.

Nymphadora picked up the cat and left the room, leaving him with no excuse but his exhaustion to go back to sleep. But he'd never let either Sirius or his father get away with that excuse, and if Nym really was half Black she'd probably be back up in five minutes to make sure she'd gotten her way.

The prospect of her coming back in with some other ludicrously neon hair color was probably what convinced him to get up in the end. He wasn't even entirely sure why it bothered him so much; it wasn't as if he had drunk enough last night for a hangover.

He showered to wake himself up thoroughly— and partially in hopes of steaming away his headache— before throwing robes on and wandering down to his father's office.

Orion wasn't there, and Regulus took advantage of the fact to leaf through a bit more information on the House of Gaunt. None of them seemed to be particularly savory characters, and a few reminded him uncannily of what Sirius used to grumble about their family. He half-resolved to ask his father if Araminta Meliflua had really tried to make Muggle-hunting legal and went to go looking for Orion.

Orion was in the parlor with the Daily Prophet, flipping idly through the front pages. Regulus joined him on the couch. "Anyone we know in the obituaries?" he asked quietly. It was a common enough question now— common enough that complete strangers had walked up to him in pubs and asked if they could borrow the obituaries for a few minutes— but it still always made him nervous.

"Fortunately not."

Regulus nodded and after a moment felt comfortable enough to continue the conversation. "Um, Dad . . . aren't Metamorphmagi genetic?"

"Rather abrupt change in subject, don't you think?" Orion asked absently. He lowered his paper. "But, yes, they are. They and Seers're the opposite side of the inbreeding coin from Squibs; they pop up more often in pureblooded families."

Regulus nodded. "Any in the Black family?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Nym was changing hair colors in front of me," Regulus answered, shrugging. "Bright, neon blue, and I already had a headache. It's not like she'll have a spell for it at six."

Orion nodded and bit his lip. "Hm . . . I think Ursula Flint-Black— Phineas's wife— was one. Hey, Phineas!"

There was a shuffling before Phineas Nigellus— Orion's great-grandfather, sidled into the landscape that hung over the fireplace, scowling. "Hullo, Orion. What, may I ask, led you interrupt—"

"Something very important, I'm sure," Orion answered dismissively. "Wasn't your wife a Metamorphmagus?"

"Yes, she was," Phineas answered, shrugging. "She did the most horrible things with her appearance when I was in the grip of a terrible hangover and she wanted me to promise her I'd never drink again— to the point where I'd promise anything just to get her appearance back to something demure. Why do you ask?"

"Your great-great-great-granddaughter has been traumatizing Reg with neon hair colors, apparently," Orion answered.

"I have a relative with three greats?" Phineas asked, bemused.

"Andromeda has a six-year-old."

"Ah. I'm glad Walburga finally matured enough to let the girl back into the family fold."

"She didn't. We don't know how to find Meda and Wally's not here," Orion answered quietly. He was suddenly uncomfortable himself, and reached as surreptitiously as he could for his paper.

"Remind me why the girl was disowned again?"

"The same reason your mother disowned Isla, apparently," Orion answered quietly.

"Who?" Regulus couldn't help but ask.

"My sister," Phineas answered shortly. "To say the least, the Blacks seem to have an aptitude for breeding vicious matriarchs. Give my regards to Andromeda when you find her, Orion; she was the only one of you to ever show up in my old office for something positive. . . ." With that, he stalked back out of the portrait.

"I'm going to have to ask him about Isla sometime," Orion said quietly. "And his older brother, Sirius. The only one he's ever willing to talk about is Elladora. I think the other two hurt even a portrait."

Regulus raised an eyebrow.

"Sirius didn't live to ten. And from what I can tell, Isla was Phineas's favorite," Orion answered. He glanced st his son. "Pity what the world can do to close siblings who take different paths."

Regulus nodded. There was something in his father's glance that implied Sirius— his Sirius— as well as Phineas and his sister.

At that moment the doorbell rang, making them both jump.

Before Regulus could get to his feet, there was a crack as Kreacher appeared to answer it, and after a moment Regulus heard Bellatrix asking after him. He had been half-expecting this after the previous night; she was either going to kill him, yell at him, or apologize for being a violent drunk. "Nym," he muttered.

"I think she's in the kitchen. I'll go find wherever she is and keep her there, though, shall I?" Orion asked. When Regulus nodded vigorously he folded the paper and got to his feet, passing Bella on his way out and her way in.

"You don't have to leave, Uncle Orion," she told him.

"Perhaps not for privacy reasons, but there is something I need to find," Orion answered with a shrug. Regulus wished he could mislead Bellatrix half so casually.

"If it's your wand, check your pocket."

"It's not," Orion muttered grumpily. "I'm old, not senile." Then he stalked from the room with a look of wounded dignity.

Bella rolled her eyes and proceeded to the nearest easy chair, where she sat down. "I suppose you know what this is about, Regulus?" she asked, her voice dropping to a lower tone, more threatening and less fond exasperation.

"I have some idea, yes." At least she hadn't been sent to kill him, if she hadn't intended to send his father out. After all the times he'd lost his nerve and told her not to hurt someone, Regulus had wondered.

"What did you do with the girl?"

"I took her home," he answered, as casually as possible. There was no need to tell his cousin who's home he took her to, although he remembered how Sirius could always tell he was lying as he reached up to his glasses.

Bella was either not as observant or thought his nervousness was due to having disappointed her. "If you see Meda again, tell her she'd better keep her husband and daughter close to her if she wants them to survive," she said. "You're not going to always hold me back."

"Am I not?"

"You'd better not. Why did you in the first place?"

It was a moment of weakness, and it won't happen again. The words presented themselves in his mind, and he was half-tempted to use them. Then again, Bellatrix knew how important family— even Meda and Sirius— were to him, so she probably wouldn't buy it. He settled, as usual, for the truth. "Because I wasn't going to let you kill my second cousin— your niece— in front of me."

Bella sighed and leaned back. "I see that Uncle Orion's insistence in including everyone in his family trees has been a disadvantage for you," she said. "Learn this: just because they have our blood does not make Meda and Sirius family. They betrayed us. And if you can't learn that, I might just have to make those lessons more physical."

With that, she swept out of the room. The door slammed as she let herself out before Disapparating.

Silence settled around him for a moment before Orion came back in. "Nymphadora's having breakfast in the kitchen," he announced. "Erm. What did Bellatrix want?"

"To threaten me."

"Oh." Orion hesitated again. "Well, I need to go into Diagon Alley and get a couple of things from a library. If you want to be left alone to think, I can take Nym with me and set Kreacher cleaning out the attic or something."

"No. The libraries you frequent have practically everything, don't they, Dad?" Regulus asked. "Even Hogwarts records?"

"I believe so. Why?"

"I think I'll go with you. I know I don't have much to go on, but I want to know exactly who the Dark Lord really is."


Author's Note:
All right, slightly longer chapter, although it was again more back story orientated than plot orientated. Oh, well, you'll notice I have a great fondness for back story at some point, and I will be sliding more of Orion's in at the corners, partially so you know where he's coming from and partially because I like him. Isis Flamewing: I'll go change that word-choice issue now, shall I? Thanks for pointing it out. Everyone else, thanks so much for reviewing! Cheers! — Loki