chapter twenty
Jo plans on confronting Regulus, at first. She examines her scowl and rehearses a stern, commanding voice in her head; she stares at herself until her own features become unrecognisable, until the voice in her head sounds like a stranger's. This leaves her questioning all the qualities that usually seemed to come naturally to her; her glare, her curtness, her ability to intimidate. She doesn't know how to apply that to Regulus, how to look him in the eye and demand something from him. So she leaves it, and tells herself, alright, fine, if Regulus has something to say, he'll say it. Because she trusts him-that's a realisation she has from all of this. She trusts him and she's not going to let some slimy blood purist put ideas in her head, not going to let him rattle her. She won't. She won't.
But she does, that's the thing. Jo cannot stop thinking about Crouch, about the words he spoke and the way they fell from him so easily. He so obviously knew what he was doing and Jo wants so badly to be unpredictable, to not fall for the trap he's set. But she can't. She's too obvious, another realisation Jo has that makes her want to slam her head into the wall.
Ultimately, she decides to approach it causally. To bring it up, lightly, maybe teasing, maybe curious. Not angry and not demanding and she decides she would watch Regulus for his reaction, watch how he shifts and how he looks at her and she'd decide what to do from there. She figures that's best, that that'll go over smoothly. And even though there is a knot of anxiety and nerves burrowed deep inside of her, she reminds herself of what Regulus told her in the Hospital Wing: I think you're my best friend. She reminds herself of his hand on her back while she was drunkenly flinging herself in his arms. She reminds herself of the kiss to the top of her forehead that she can still feel, like it's burned into her skin. Whatever it is, it can't really be that bad.
But it turns out, all of her worrying was for nothing, really, because Regulus never shows up.
Just a few hours after Crouch's words had driven her insane, she stands by the Greenhouse where he always is, and stares at the empty space he normally occupies. And she doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what to make of it. Because for as long as Jo has been sneaking out of the Gryffindor tower, Regulus has been there waiting for her, just past midnight. She waits for what feels like an hour, but is actually a little under ten minutes. She walks by the kitchens, by the Astronomy tower. She lingers near the dungeons, near the courtyards and the Room of Requirement, near every space they have taken up together but he is not there.
Jo is swallowed up in her anxieties. She can feel it manifest more and more with every step she takes, in the frazzled state of her hair and her perpetually wide eyes, in the sweat that builds in her palms and the lump growing in her throat. Her thoughts are spiralling-just a few words from Crouch and she is left running around in her circles, frantically searching for answers, trying to come up with some sort of explanation.
Because as much as she's telling herself that Crouch was just trying to get a rise out of her, that there's nothing to be so worked up over, she can't talk herself down, can't wash away the feeling that something is wrong.
It's heavy on her, the anxiety that creeps up, almost suffocating. Jo hardly gets any sleep that night.
There's rumours, the next morning, ones that started in the depths of the Slytherin common room that have worked their way through breakfast and classrooms and study halls to find their way to Jo. Hestia tells her, as they struggle to restrain their Bouncing Bulbs in Herbology, that there was a bit of a row, and by a bit of a row, Hestia means an absolute, all out screaming match between Regulus Black and Barty Crouch.
Jo doesn't know how to take that, either. She sits there, one of the young bulbs struggling to attack her, with her jaw hanging agape and deaf to the way Hestia says her name, trying to imagine Regulus yelling. She tries to imagine him as anything other than what she sees him as now. Jo can't imagine him bellowing until he's red in the face, not like her brother does and not like his brother does. She can't imagine what he'd say. But she can't imagine that it wasn't about her. That it wasn't about his obligations.
Jo's only knocked back into reality when one of the more mature bulbs manages to catch her in the cheek.
Regulus isn't in Potions that day either, which really churns the knot in Jo's stomach.
Saturday is nothing but Quidditch for Jo. James is holding hours long practise in preparation for the House Quidditch Cup-something Jo couldn't really give two shits about, but it serves as a good enough distraction. Jo is running drills and blocking Quaffles like never before and when she thinks she sees a head of silky dark curls in the stands she turns her head and grinds her teeth and focuses more than she ever thought she was capable of.
He's not there Saturday night, either. Jo gives up earlier than she did the night before.
Sunday morning, Jo wakes her brother and Sirius up at dawn and makes them run laps with her. They yell complaints up as Jo as the sun rises and she gets farther and farther ahead of them. She drags Alice down to breakfast and makes Dorcas teach her how to knit. She has Remus revise at least three of her essays and begs Peter to sneak down to Honeydukes with her for some licorice wands. But no matter how many arbitrary activities she tries to fill her day with, she is still left thinking of Regulus and his obligations.
And by then, she's abandoned all pretence of not wanting to seem annoyed. She is properly and thoroughly annoyed.
Still, when the sun is set and the clock tolls past midnight, Jo slips out of the common room, past slumbering portraits and takes the path she's walked dozens of times. She doesn't expect Regulus to be there, one hand clutching his ribs and the other tangled in his hair while he stares down at the ground, but he is.
Jo feels something flare up in her chest at the sight of him. Kissing her forehead and then dodging her for two days-she's more than irritated at that. "You done avoiding me?" she calls to him as she halts, careful to keep a distance between them, one that she's never been so careful to maintain.
At the sight of her voice, Regulus lifts his head, revealing to Jo his bloodshot eyes and the heavy bags that rest under them. "I wasn't avoiding you," he tells her swiftly, voice raspy and raw. "I just needed some time to think."
He takes one step towards her. Jo takes another back. "About your obligations?" she questions, arms crossed over her chest, lips in a fine line.
Jo watches the confusion work its way across his face, brows tightened together before they soften. "Is that what Crouch told you?"
"Hmm," Jo hums in response. "You know, for someone who claims not to be very close with anyone but me, Crouch seems to know a lot more about you than I do," Jo says, not realising what she says until the words have left her mouth, not realising that she means it until after it's been said. Her chest constricts, and Regulus looks like he's struggling to find his composure. "I don't like liars," she finishes with a whisper.
Regulus looks like he's choking something down; there's a pained look in his eye. "I don't ever want to lie to you," he tells her, speaking it with such sincerity it hits Jo's ears like a vow.
It's Jo that takes a step towards him now, reaching for one of his hands and cradling it in her own as she pleads, "Then tell me what's going on."
For a moment, Regulus says nothing. He stares down at his hand in her own, like he's trying to commit the image of it to memory. His long, elegant fingers draped over her rough and calloused hand. He doesn't look up at her as he speaks. "You have to swear that you'll hear me out, listen to what I have to say."
The air is too thick. Jo feels dizzy. "Is it that bad?"
Regulus looks at her, forehead tilted down at her and his eyes red. "Promise me, Josephine, please."
The desperation in his voice is clear, coming out almost like a whimper. Jo can't help but soften. "Alright," she says with a nod. "I promise."
And Jo watches. She watches with baited breath and a shaking frame as Regulus takes his hand out of hers. As he lets his left arm drop to his side. As his right hand tugs at the sleeve. As it goes up. As he holds it out to her. She watches as he reveals to her the Dark Mark that has branded his forearm.
For a moment, Jo stares. She feels numb and she stares and she can swear it is almost moving against his pale skin, like it's alive. Like it's breathing. And then it hits her, what it is, what it means. Jo looks up at Regulus, feeling like she has been filled to the brim with acid, and ignores his wide, pleading eyes. She ignores the tears that are building and the way his bottom lip quivers and she ignores the look of shame and she places her hands on his shoulders and shoves him away from her.
Jo turns on her heel, ready to run and feeling like she's going to vomit, when Regulus catches her by the elbow. She tries to tug away from him, rip away from his grip but his hold on her is firm. Regulus is not letting go of her.
Her eyes meet his once more, and she refuses to let any form of sympathy warp her rage. "You promised," Regulus reminds her in a strained whisper.
"And I wouldn't have if I knew you were going to whip that out," she spits out at him, venom in her voice as her eyes glance down at the mark once more.
"Josephine-" he starts, but she tries to get out of his grip once more.
"I thought you were different," Jo snarls, watching her words hit him, watching as his face falls even more.
"I am. I want to be," he insists, trying to pull her back closer to him. "Can you just listen to me, please?" he stresses, bending his knees, hunching his shoulders, anything to get closer to Jo's eye level. "I'm begging you, Josephine, just hear me out. Please. You're the only person I can trust and," Regulus struggles, voice hitching, "and I can't lose that, or you, so just please, please listen."
Jo tries to square her shoulders, puff her chest out and jut her jaw out but she must not be as stubborn as she thinks she is, or at least she's not anymore. Because her horror is seemingly overridden by the way he looks at her, green eyes glassy as they search her face. And the longer she sees him like that, the more she wants to listen, wants to understand. Wants to know how the boy that kissed her forehead and brought her water while she was drunk and cursed McNair for her could do something so vile. "Go on then," she instructs, voice curt.
Regulus takes a shaky breath, and lets go of her elbow. "My family's reputation was slipping," he explains, inching closer to her, fervour in his voice. "First it was my cousin Andromeda, she was disowned after-"
"I know about Andromeda," Jo cuts him off, feeling impatient. She's heard the story from Sirius a dozen times, about how his cool cousin Andy left his rotten family for the love of her life, for a muggle-born, she doesn't think she can sit through hearing it again. Not now.
Regulus nods, and continues with shaking words. "Alright. Well, first it was her, and then it was Sirius. And there were rumours going around that we were not as loyal to the cause as we once were-"
Jo cuts him off once more. "The cause being wiping out all muggle-borns, but go on."
"I didn't want to," Regulus rushes, leaning down closer to her, voice getting lower and lower, "I never wanted to. But my mother came up with the idea. If I were to swear my loyalty to the Dark Lord-"
The Dark Lord- that makes her shudder. Jo's never heard anyone decent call him that. "Don't call him that," she hisses.
"If I were to swear my loyalty to him ," Regulus goes on, "I would be the youngest ever to do so and it would restore whatever reputation was lost."
Jo waits for more, blinks up at him expecting something else, but nothing more comes. No other explanation, no other justification. She scoffs at him. "And was it worth it?" she questions. "Was giving up any and all decency and morality you had worth it, to save the Black family reputation?"
"I was scared," he whispers back at her, like he's afraid someone else might be able to hear. " I had just turned sixteen and I didn't know if they would torture me or kill me or worse and I'm not brave like you," Regulus lets out, voice shaking, hands reaching out for hers like hers going to hold onto them, but he doesn't. "I couldn't bring myself to face the consequences of doing the right thing."
Jo still feels a rage-filled disbelief beating in her chest. "I never pegged you for a coward," she snaps at him. "There's no going back from this."
For a moment, Regulus tears his eyes away from her and looks down at her hands. "I'm hoping there is."
There's too much inside of her, pulsing and vibrant and it is all heavy, all screaming to be released. She taps her foot against the ground. She chews on the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood. She looks up at Regulus with wild, accusatory eyes. "How many?"
He flinches. "What?"
"How many people have you hurt? Muggles and muggle-borns," Jo clarifies, and rolls her eyes when Regulus gives her nothing but a furrowed brow. "Don't look confused, I know what it is you lot do. I know what it takes to get that on your arm."
Regulus pales. "I've never-" he starts, shaking his head. "I've never done anything I couldn't take back. I've never crossed that line."
Jo stares up at him with a ferocity in her eyes. "How long before you do?"
His hands twitch again, like he's going to reach for her shoulders, like he's going to do something, but he does nothing. Regulus lets them drop by his side again. "I won't. I swear to you right now that I never will, no matter what happens to me."
Jo searches his eyes, looks for something that feels like the truth or something that feels like a lie but all she sees is the same cool green that fill her up with nerves. "And how I meant to believe you?" she questions, wanting to sound firm but she can't miss the way her voice trembles and wavers under the weight of everything.
And this time, he really does reach for her. He grabs at her arms and squeezes his fingers around her biceps, just above her elbows and Jo holds her breath as Regulus leans down so close to her she can feel his breath fan across her face. "Because I have you now. Before I had no one, and now I have you and it's changed everything," he tells her, low and raspy and rushed and with such a conviction in his words that Jo suddenly feels so much weaker, "And this may be nothing to you, but it is everything to me."
Jo doesn't know what to say to that. She doesn't know how to tell him that it's not nothing to her, that she can't even begin to express it to him, can't even begin to explain it to herself. Jo doesn't know how to process that she's changed everything for him and can't comprehend the way that combines with her indignant anger. She takes a deep breath, she lets her forehead drop against his chest as he continues to hold onto her, and she lets it all drain from her. "The consequences if I trust you and you're lying are far worse than they would be if I didn't and you're telling the truth," she mumbles into him.
"Take the risk on me," Regulus urges at once. "I'll never ask anything else of you. Please, just believe me."
Jo lifts her head. "Reg-"
"Veritaserum," he says suddenly, dropping his hand to tug at her wrist now. "I know where to get it. I'll drink it and I'll tell you everything."
He tries leading her down the corridor but Jo digs her heels into the ground. " Regulus -"
Regulus stops, looking down at Jo over his shoulder. "I'll do whatever it takes to make you believe me."
Jo sighs, and doesn't know what it is about him, what it is about Regulus that makes her crave his company and makes her lose any sense but she feels his hands on her and she can't be mad and she can't hold onto any sort of bitterness for him. "I want to believe you. I just-" she stops, and lets out a shaky breath. "This is a lot."
Regulus nods, fingers still around her wrist, holding it delicately, drawing circles with his thumb. "I know."
Carefully, Jo reaches for his arm. His left one. She grabs it and turns it in her arms, Dark Mark facing her and she stares down at it so harshly she sees it when she blinks. It looks wrong, especially on him. Something so hateful doesn't belong on someone so gentle and someone so soft and someone so beautiful. Jo chokes back something heavy. "It's so ugly," she says, strained and heavy, not able to put the rest of it into words for him.
"I know," Regulus says once more.
Jo runs a finger along the side of his forearm, watching as goosebumps pop up from the touch. She keeps going until she reaches the edge of his sleeve, where fingers hits a bump. Jo freezes, and looks up at him, trying to catch his gaze but he keeps it fixed on her fingers on his skin. She knows where it's from, knows that there's more. "Why did she do this?" Jo asks, tugging his sleeve back down over the exposed skin.
Regulus shrugs. "She finds her reasons."
"I'm sorry I called you a coward," Jo says at once, louder than she was just a moment ago, less control over her voice. Regulus's shoulders rise and fall. "It's easy to be brave when you don't have anything to be afraid of."
He still doesn't look at her. "Are you upset with me?"
"I don't know. I don't know what to make of this," she answers with a shake of her head. "I don't want to be. I think, I think I just need to sleep on it."
Regulus nods at her. He takes a step back. "I'll be here, when you're ready."
He doesn't walk her back that night. Jo asks him not to. She tells him she'll talk to him soon and she as no idea what she'll say but she's sure she'll come up with something. She takes a while to get back to the Gryffindor tower, makes a lot of stops, loses track of time, fills her mind with fluff and tries to get rid of the image of the mark on his arm. But whenever she closes her eyes, it's there, darker and darker each time.
And by the time Jo finds herself back in the common room, it's later than she thought and her limbs are aching and James is there, sitting in his spot by the fire, map in his hands.
At the sight of Jo, James stands, hair standing upright and hands flailing widely. "Honestly, Josie, nearly four in the morning, this is getting-'
James doesn't finish. There is something about the sight of her brother, standing there looking so ridiculous and ready to say something that would make Jo roll her eyes any other day, something about it that just causes her to break down. Jo leaps towards her brother. She flings her arms around his shoulders and lets out sobs into his shoulder. James is bewildered, stunned as his sister clings to him like a child. "Josie," he says, almost chuckling in disbelief. "It's alright, Josie," he says, patting down on her hair, awkward, unsure.
But it's not alright. It's not, but Jo can't tell him that. She wants to. She can't. She just sobs into James's shoulder until she feels like she has been wrung dry.
