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Chapter Nine

Diana did not leave her dormitory once that weekend, not even for the Halloween feast held the night after her last session with Regulus, feigning ill to her concerned friends and confining herself to bed.

She felt terrible lying to her friends, especially when they were so sympathetic and going so far as to smuggle meals to her out of the Great Hall, but she couldn't bring herself to explain the true reason she did not want to leave the safety of her four-poster bed or the walls of their dormitory.

The night of her session with Regulus, she hadn't slept at all. She'd kept tossing and turning, shedding her bed coverings when she began to sweat and her heart would pound, only to draw them back to her chin moments later when chills wracked her body and her gut tightened with nausea.

It hadn't been real, she kept thinking. There could be no way she had actually seen Regulus with a Dark Mark. The fumes from their concoction had surely gone to her head and toyed with it, making her see things that weren't actually there.

But then she pictured that ghastly grinning skull, the black ribbon of the inked serpent coiled around it, in it, so clearly that she knew within her heart what it was, what it meant.

Regulus Black was a Death Eater.

Saturday, the day of Halloween, she'd simply remained motionless in her bed, her eyes staring, unseeing, at the soft golden fairy-lights she'd strung between her bedposts, mulling over what she should do.

Go to Professor Sprout, or Professor Dumbledore, was the obvious answer. Informing her Head of House and the headmaster that there was a Death Eater—and possibly more, she realized with a flare of panic—in the school was in everyone's best interests, to keep the students safe. Death Eaters were more than a fringe pro-blood-purity group. They were a Dark and criminal movement helmed by what the whispers suggested was the most powerful Dark wizard since Grindelwald, and bound to surpass him. They were an army, waging war on the Wizarding and Muggle worlds alike. She would be foolish not to tell anyone. But she remained in her bed that day, occasionally brushing her fingers over the skin on the inside of her left forearm.

Her time was running out on Sunday. Her excuses to her friends about why she wouldn't go to the hospital wing were beginning to sound unconvincing even to her own ears, and she couldn't just ignore the problem any longer. Regulus was sure to have put the pieces together by then, and for the first time since they'd met, she was scared of what he might do to her now that she knew about him.

She examined the hand that Nott had torn through with his purposeful spell. It was perfectly healed—not even a scar remained thanks to Madam Pomfrey and her copious ointments and potions. She wondered if Nott was a Death Eater, too. She wondered if Regulus had told him about her discovery. She wondered what they were planning to do with her. That was all she did as she laid in her bed and stared at the yellow canopy and lights above her—just wondered.

Regulus had told her that he wouldn't hurt her that night on the dungeon steps. For some reason, she had believed him at the time. But that had been before she knew he was a Death Eater.

Death Eater.

The words soured her stomach and made her hands fist in the bedsheets. Just when she thought that maybe he could be decent underneath all that pure-blood bravado, that perhaps they could be—

Her thoughts halted abruptly. Thought they could be what? Friends? She scoffed aloud to herself in the empty dorm, the sound thick with scorn.

Regulus Black was not her friend, nor would he ever be. He was cold, and proud, and dangerous, and a liar. A child soldier in the service of the Dark Lord.

And yet.

And yet.

She remembered his promise on the stairs, the regret in his eyes. When he'd laughed and looked surprised right after, as if realizing for the first time in years that he could still laugh. She remembered the boy in the chair, looking for all the world that he was alone, a ship far out at sea at threat of being crushed beneath the black waves.

The dormitory door opened, and Diana closed her eyes, pretending to sleep as her friends entered and began rummaging in their trunks, speaking in low voices. Diana caught her name whispered amongst them and stayed very still.

"I wonder if something happened between Black and Diana on Friday?" mused Jackie.

"Like what?" asked Gemma.

"Dunno. But it could be something to do with—"

Diana got the impression that Jackie had gestured to her. She remained still.

"Come to think of it," Henrietta said, "I haven't seen Black at all this weekend either."

Diana forced her eyes to stay closed. There was a beat of silence until someone closed the lid of their trunk.

"Well," said Jackie, "never mind all that. Let's just get ready for bed, yeah?"

The other girls murmured their agreement and moved into the washroom. Diana rolled onto her side, flushed and sweaty after overhearing her friends' conversation. Her fingers clenched and unclenched, over and over, long after the lanterns were extinguished, and her friends were asleep.

She did not sleep again that night.

Regulus Black had to be the biggest fool in all the world.

As soon as Diana had bolted from the Potions classroom, terror etched into her face, he'd known that he was finished.

How could he have been so bloody foolish? Sirius was the idiot of the family, the disgrace—Regulus had sought to rectify his older brother's foolishness for years, carefully replanting the garden of the sacred Black family that Sirius had tramped all over since they were children. Regulus Black was not an idiot. He was not a fool.

But he'd never felt to be a bigger one than the moment that Diana Fairchild had run out that door.

He spent the weekend after in perhaps the foulest mood he'd experienced since the day that Sirius had run away from home. Nott had coaxed him, then threatened, to get him out of bed, but Regulus remained adamant. The blade was over his neck now, hovering, and he was waiting for its execution the second that Diana opened her mouth and blabbed to Dumbledore that Regulus was a Death Eater hiding under his very nose.

But Saturday passed, then Sunday, and Regulus had neither received an ambush of Aurors at his door or even a summons from the headmaster.

As he reluctantly prepared himself for lessons Monday morning, he had to wonder what Diana was playing at. Had she told the headmaster, and the headmaster was just waiting for the right moment to pounce on him? Or had she kept it to herself, planning to use it as blackmail against him?

Neither thought sat well with him, but he didn't let it show. He had a reputation to maintain, and succumbing to paranoia and fear was a sure way to get him killed by the Dark Lord instead. He suppressed a shudder as the Dark Mark twitched against his skin like the crawling of some many-legged creature.

Nott and his other roommates had gone to the Great Hall without him, but he trudged through the dungeon passageways anyway to join them for breakfast. He had just ascended the stairs leading from the Slytherin common room to the entrance hall when he looked up and spotted Diana leaning against the wall across from him, her arms crossed and her face as impenetrable as the stone behind her.

He hesitated for only a second before crossing the hall to her. Despite the careful neutrality of her expression, he still noted the exhaustion hanging in the shadows under her eyes and the way she fiddled with a fraying seam on the strap of her book bag. She looked just as wretched as he felt, but he was wise enough not to point it out. Instead, he simply waited.

"We need to talk," she said without preamble. She couldn't quite meet his eyes, instead staring at no spot in particular on his forehead.

When she said nothing else, he nodded slowly. "I suppose we do."

She glanced around the hall nervously before jerking her chin. "Not here. Follow me."

He did as he was bid, careful to make sure that no one noticed them as they slipped out the double doors leading to the courtyard and stepped into a dreary November morning.

Mist clung to them as they walked, first through the courtyard, and then down the worn limestone steps that took them onto the grounds, leaving the castle behind. Regulus shivered as the mist settled into every pore of his skin, and he drew his cloak tighter around himself. Diana seemed unbothered even though the messy knot she kept her hair in was already drooping under the weight of the moisture, but she led on, past the greenhouses and past the gamekeeper Hagrid's hut, until they were what he judged was about a mile into the tree-line of the Forbidden Forest. When they reached a clearing surrounded by stifling thorn bushes and rotting trees, she spun around and faced him.

She opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She did it again—once more, twice more, her frustration visibly growing with each failed attempt to speak. He only watched her, pretending not to notice the tightening pinch in his gut the longer she said nothing.

"Do you need assistance?" he burst out when his nerves finally snapped. "Or were you planning on gaping at me like a fish for the next hour?"

She drew herself up at his annoyed tone, her shoulders squaring. "Is this all a joke to you, then?"

"If you're going to say something, then just say it," he spat between his gritted teeth.

"Fine," she fired back. "You're a Death Eater."

He thought the words would have felt like a slap, but instead, all he felt was a hollow nothingness. His irritation vanished. "Yes."

He waited—for what, he didn't know. A spell? A scream? Something.

What he didn't expect was for her to ask, "Why?"

He stared at her. She stared back, her gaze finally latching onto his. He'd always prided himself on being observant, on knowing what people were thinking or feeling without them having to tell him, but at that moment, Diana's eyes were completely unreadable. He had no idea what was going through her mind, and he floundered. No one had ever questioned him about it before. It was just something that had been expected of him.

"What?" he eventually spluttered. "What do you mean 'why?'"

"I want to know why you're a Death Eater."

He bristled. "You know why. I know you're not thick, Diana; you know what being a Death Eater means."

"Not all pure-bloods are Death Eaters," she said. "James Potter isn't. Your brother—"

"My brother," he hissed, "is a fool who brought shame to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. My family was dragged through filth because of him. Do not bring him into this."

"So, you became one because of your brother?" she asked, taking a step toward him, her eyes intense. "You thought that it was up to you to save your family from further disgrace, so you joined You-Know-Who?"

He stepped back from the glint in her gaze. He'd seen that look before. He knew what it was. He'd had the same gleam in his eyes when he was younger. Before it'd been snuffed out like everything else until all that remained was the Black name, the legacy of duty and honor befitting an heir. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to turn and run, but his feet stayed rooted to the spot.

"Don't," he said, his voice hoarse. "Don't try and make me out to be something that we both know I'm not."

"Please." She swallowed, and her mask of invulnerability slipped. She looked at him, pleading, desperate. "Regulus, please, I—I want to believe that you're a good person despite this. I want to believe that you had no choice, that the decency you showed me wasn't—wasn't fake."

He said nothing. Her face crumpled.

"Regulus." She held up her hand—the one that Nott had mangled on purpose. It looked fine, but he still remembered the ugly hole, the way her blood had splattered on the stone. "You told me you didn't want to hurt people, remember? So why—?"

Newspaper clippings flashed in his mind's eye. He'd followed the Dark Lord's campaign for years, back when it was only a rumor, a rumbling of pro-blood-superiority growing on the underbelly of Wizarding society like a tumor. Articles, photographs, the cold eyes of his father, the wicked ones of his mother, the anger and righteousness in Sirius's—all of it coalesced into a man with a pale face and a bloody gaze who'd stamped that damning mark on Regulus's arm in a freezing chamber as he'd cowered on the floor—

She'd never understand. Diana couldn't understand. Looking at him with such hope in her eyes like he wasn't a monster just like the rest of them.

"Stop it," he rasped. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Why?" she pressed. "Why did you become a Death Eater, Regulus?"

He should Obliviate her. Erase her memory and pretend nothing had ever happened.

His hand stayed at his side.

"For the greater good," he said, the words devoid of any meaning.

She came closer. "Whose greater good?"

A tremor went through him. Who did she think she was? She was nothing. A witch so insignificant that he could've gone his whole life without ever knowing who she was. What was that compared to him? To what he must do?

"The whole of the Wizarding world," he forced himself to say.

She stood in front of him, so close that he could see the tiny droplets of mist clinging to the wisps of her hair, her eyelashes. Several freckles were smattered across the bridge of her nose. Her hazel eyes held more green in them than brown. He wondered why she wasn't running from him. He wondered why she was staying.

She reached for his left arm and gently lifted it between them. He stood, rigid, as she pushed back the sleeve of his robes, exposing his Dark Mark to the cold, damp air. Her fingers hovered over it. He could feel the barest whisper of warmth from them.

"Does it hurt?" she asked quietly, her gaze on the ugly marking.

"Sometimes." The word surprised him. He hadn't expected to say anything. "It only burns when he summons us."

"He." She frowned. "You-Know-Who?"

He nodded.

Her fingers drifted over it again. "Will something happen if I touch it?"

He shook his head. His breath was lost somewhere between his lungs and his lips.

She glanced up at him briefly. "May I touch it?"

He nodded again, once. The pads of her fingers came down on the mark, and he watched as they traced over the skull, then the serpent, her brows furrowed. Her fingers were rougher than he expected, like old parchment. He supposed it was from all the brewing she did with potions. The words were out of his mouth before he even knew he was speaking.

"My mother used to bring us to the parlor to teach us our family history," he began. Diana's fingers stuttered but didn't falter as she continued to trace the Dark Mark. "She taught us about all the old traditions, about what would be expected of us as heirs to a family that was practically royalty. The walls were covered with tapestries—our family tree. She would educate us about each family member, their deeds and their shortcomings, their legacy. She would also teach us about the members who had been scorched off and why. It often had to do with supporting Muggles and Muggle-borns, or anything that remotely resembled disagreement with the notion of blood purity."

Diana said nothing, but Regulus knew she was listening intently.

"We were of the purest blood, our mother said. Toujours Pur is our family motto. Always pure. We were to abide by that, my brother and I, or else we would be the next ones blasted off the tree and disowned."

He thought of the burnt black hole where Sirius had been, right next to Regulus's name, and he wet his lips.

"We were taught that we were superior to anyone without pure blood. Sirius had always been so skeptical and so outspoken, even when we were just boys. He questioned everything at every turn. It drove our mother mad."

He frowned, remembering.

"I knew to keep my mouth shut. I warned Sirius to do the same. Mother was strict, and she'd always liked her punishments."

Diana's fingers stopped tracing. They rested against the inside of his wrist, undoubtedly feeling the way his pulse quickened.

"So I kept quiet all those years. Mother adored me for it; said I was the perfect son and the clear heir apparent. When the Dark Lord began his rise to power, she and my father were enraptured. When I began following his movement in the papers, they were over the moon that their favorite son was finally putting their teachings of blood purity into practice. Then this past summer, just after I turned sixteen, I received my mark from him."

Diana was frozen completely, her eyes locked on the Dark Mark. "You became a Death Eater. For her. For them." Her grip on his arm tightened. "For the sake of what you were taught about blood purity. Because it was expected of you."

"It was expected of me, yes." When she moved to pull away from him, he reached out and grasped her wrists, keeping her anchored in front of him. "Did you not listen to a word I said, Diana?"

"I knew it." Her voice wavered. "I didn't want to believe it, but I—"

He leaned in close, forcing her to meet his eyes as he enunciated each word. "I. Kept. My. Mouth. Shut."

She stared at him for a long moment, uncomprehending, until her breath left her in a great whoosh. "So you… You… You—"

He released her wrists, and she stumbled back. "Rome was once the greatest empire the world had ever seen. It rotted from within until it collapsed. Rot is a hard thing to stop once it sets in, you see."

Her eyes were wide. "Regulus…"

She said his name like a prayer. To him, it felt like a curse, especially with the way it made his heart thunder in his chest. He forced that feeling down; locked it away and buried it deep within him.

"Don't look at me like that, Diana," he said. "I'm not doing this to be anyone's hero. That's not who I am."

"No, you're not," she agreed, startling him. She lifted his arm again and placed her palm flat against his mark, nearly smothering it completely. When she met his eyes and smiled, he no longer saw or felt anything but her. "And you don't have to be."

His voice held the faintest trace of a waver. "I'm still a Death Eater."

She squeezed his arm. "You're still a person, too."

"You place far too much faith in the decency of others."

"Maybe I do." Her eyes blazed despite her gentle smile. "And maybe that makes me a fool, but I don't care." She hesitated. "Let me help you."

He blinked. "With what?"

"Everything. Anything at all." Her cheeks turned red. "Just…I'd like to be here for you. If you ever need me to."

He should deny her. After all, she was already in too deep, knowing what he truly was. If anyone else were to find out she knew about him, she would already be in more danger than she was as a half-blood.

But what came out of his mouth instead was, "Yes."

A breeze rattled through the bones of the trees then, and he could've sworn it was Fate heaving a sorrowful sigh.

So, to clear up any confusion, Regulus essentially admitted to Diana that he's not entirely on board with Voldemort's notion of blood purity and that Regulus plans to destroy the Death Eaters from within. Since the books really only give us Sirius's version of events and his speculations regarding Regulus's allegiances, I'm just placing Regulus's "cold feet" earlier in the timeline. Regulus is smart as hell and I believe he would've seen through Voldy instantly, but that's just my own personal headcanon that I'm throwing into the story. Hope that makes sense.

(And, yes, their talk in the forest was ripped from Twilight. Playing "Eyes on Fire" by Blue Foundation really sold it for me.)

Thanks for sticking with me! Until next time!