Chapter 16: The Sole Heir

The constant creaking and clicking of doors pulled Regulus from a dream-filled sleep, footsteps padding overhead, below, and all around.

Confused and irritated by the hive of activity, Regulus ripped his trousers from his bedside table and stomped his feet through the holes. Too angry for the delicate buttons of his night shirt, Regulus only bothered with the bottom two; pulling a robe on and pulling open his own door.

No one was in the hallway to comment on his abrupt awakening – to apologise for waking him.

Regulus seethed and stalked down the hallway to the stairs. The silence snipped away at him until it was no more – until he happened across another presence just shy of the stairs.

The door to the drawing room was ajar, beckoning Regulus into the sliver of light spilling across the hallway. The thorn of curiosity tickling the skin beneath his neck hairs was dislodged by the image of his mother in the gap, writing furiously in her night gown and lop-sided braid, and was replaced with confusion.

"If you have received any correspondence…reply would be most welcome…"

"Mother?"

Regulus had never seen his mother jump before. Or look so young; with her untamed black curls, a bare face, and bare feet.

"Oh, Regulus…" Walburga returned her eyes and hand to her parchment to scribble of what seemed to be a salutation, "Kreacher should be able to handle your breakfast..."

"I'm not hungry," mumbled Regulus, raking a hand across his sleep-crusted face, "It's three in the morning."

Walburga's hand slipped around the stamp, sliding and disfiguring the Black family wax seal.

"Is it?" asked Walburga, blinking at the stack of sealed envelopes before her.

"How long have you been writing letters – why have you been writing letters?" asked Regulus, trying to make his sleepy mouth move around his words.

"I suppose you'll find out eventually…" said Walburga, sighing and pressing a finger between her eyebrows, "It's your brother –"

A SCREECH, louder than the thrumming of anxiety through Regulus' veins, was followed by the unmistakeable scratching of claws on a windowsill.

Regulus' neck snapped around to it, and throbbed alongside his heart. A twinge of familiarity assuaged the bubbling disquiet at the mention of his brother's name; Regulus had seen the owl before.

The Eagle Owl threw its shoulders back as it hopped down onto the table beneath the window, proffering it's leg that was weighted with a scroll of parchment.

Walburga shot out of her chair and hastened across the floorboards, feet shuffling, her hands shakily pulling the scroll of parchment from the scaled leg of the owl.

Shaking its freed leg, the owl glanced around the room and, with a HOOT, it took to the grey skies once again; vanishing into the London skyline.

Walburga turned, the scroll in her hands.

It was bound in a crimson ribbon.

And in the process of crossing back to her desk, it met the floorboards.

Regulus instinctively dove for it, like he would a snitch, and saw the ironic glint of the gold lining on the inside of the parchment. Unfurling it, he saw that it possessed only few scrawled words.

'Sirius arrived at midnight. He's safe. He will be staying until the time he comes of age. Regards, Euphemia Potter.'

Reading it aloud, mused Regulus privately as he watched his mother unsheathe her wand, perhaps wasn't the best idea; leaving him in the room and privy to flick of the wrist that created a new hole in tapestry.

Regulus' felt as if his brain was drifting out of his skull, and he had to keep jumping to snatch it back and gain some semblance of thought.

The name next to his – the one that had been there long before Regulus', and the one that he thought would be there long after both brothers had passed – was no longer.

Walburga's shoulders didn't heave. Her hands no longer shook. And her bare face was shaded, not by powders and creams, but by her cascade of black curls.

"Go back to bed, Regulus." said Walburga, not stirring a single bare toe from where they hugged the floorboards.

"But, Sirius –"

"The last Sirius in our family died in nineteen fifty-two," said Walburga, pointing to her own Great Uncle, "And there won't be another, ever again,"

Walburga turned to Regulus, grey eyes as hard and blank as a slate – grey eyes that had an uncommon habit of only being bestowed upon first born children in the Black Family. A dead giveaway that Regulus wasn't the only child Walburga would now insist he was from then on.

"My boy," said Walburga, softer, and with a perfunctory maternal lilt of her lips, "You should go back to bed – you'll need your rest."

Regulus returned to his room.

But he did not sleep.

And owl was waiting for him, sitting neatly on the foot of his bed; a package tied above its talons.

The package contained a shard of a broken mirror, Regulus sure that if he made the journey to the room across the hall he would find the mirror on the wall missing a piece, and in it he saw a face so like his own – but not. The reflected fragment of face flashed briefly, the eyes – not blue – rather like silver lightning.

The shard found its way into the pocket of Regulus' coat when he left in room in the guise of getting breakfast, but, more truthfully, to hear someone mumble the name – to cement the fact that something was wrong, that something – someone – was missing.

Alphard Black, on a rare occasion, didn't disappoint.

"Where's your brother?" asked Alphard, swinging onto a backwards chair and using a small, sharp knife to slice off a piece of apple.

Regulus glanced at the stiff shoulders of Kreacher by the stove, the rising Daily Prophet of his father, fixed his eyes on the place he had sat the day previous – elbow to elbow with, according to his mother, no one – and fixed his composure.

"I don't have one."

Regulus wasn't sure if truly were he that had spoken.

But Alphard paused, considered Regulus over his apple, and sighed.

So, he must have said it.

"Charming woman; your mother…" said Alphard, standing and tapping the chair before gliding from the room like a wisp of steam snaking through the air from the boiling kettle on the stove Kreacher had to jump to.

Regulus fingered the broken piece of mirror in his pocket an owl had delivered at the crack of dawn, careful to not catch his smooth skin on the jagged glass.

Alphard didn't pick another fight with his sister like Regulus expected his uncle to. Regulus was unsure if it was because boughs of holly and sprigs of mistletoe seemed to sprout out of the wooden panelling of the home wherever Walburga happened to go, or if Alphard had slipped into a deeply repressed Slytherin characteristic of cunning – forfeiting the battle for the war.

Holly was supposed to protect homes against lightning according to old tales, as well as promote peace and joy, but Twelve Grimmauld had never been so charged.

His office in the Ministry had always been a refuge for Alphard Black, ever since he left Hogwarts and assumed the position. He worked in the Department of Births, Deaths, and Marriages – specialising in ancestry tracing. Who better, John Entwistle; the deputy head of the department, had said upon Alphard's acceptance into the role, to trace ancestry that someone with the oldest traceable ancestry in the wizarding world.

It wasn't often that he had people visit his office, being a Black and usually working via owl correspondence with those looking into their families. So, a knock on his door during the Christmas Holiday period was regarded with confusion and irritation.

Alphard frowned at the door, "Come in."

A neat head of coiffed white-blond hair slipped through his door, a long, lithe body attached – draped in form-fitting green velvet.

Alphard vaguely remembered the days when his robes clung to him in such a flattering, disarming way…

"Hello," said the young man, blinking and standing next to the chair on the other side of Alphard's desk, "Mister Black, I presume?"

Alphard simply blinked, feeling his eyebrows lift ever so slightly as he took in the man.

"I'm Minister Bagnold's Junior Assistant, Alexander –"

"To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from the Minister's Junior Assistant?" asked Alphard, leaning back in his chair and knitting his hands across his waistcoat.

"This isn't business," said Alexander, lowering his gaze, pressing his lips together, and raising his eyes once more, "It's a personal matter,"

Alphard sighed, sat up, and waved a hand in gesture for him to continue.

Alexander's throat bobbed and his eyes set on Alphard's crystal orb paperweight, "I was adopted by squibs as a baby, and now that that I am of age and…able to finance it, I would like to find my birth parents."

Alphard nodded at the chair Alexander's fingers ghosted by, "Sit down,"

Alexander moved with crisp grace into the chair, his elbows finding the arms rests and his ankle finding his opposite knee automatically.

"Adoptive parents' names?" asked Alphard, readying himself on the edge of his chair, hands braced on his arm rests.

"Charles and Valerie Abbott."

Alphard's body stalled, and he didn't pull himself out of his chair as he had planned to.

"Abbott?" asked Alphard, surprised that he managed the name through his numb lips and face.

Alexander raised his eyebrows and nodded once, as if entertaining a man hard of hearing.

Alphard dragged himself to his filing cabinet, flicking his wand at the alphabetised sections.

"Abbott… Abbott…Abbott – Abbott," Alphard fished the file out of the 'A' section and peeled it open, plopping back down into his chair, "The ninth of February, nineteen fifty-seven…"

Alphard snapped the file closed and considered Alexander's hair, eyes that matched his robes, and his commanding smile…

"As it so happens, I am familiar with your case,"

Alphard placed the file down on his desk, preparing to push it across.

"You are technically an Abbott," said Alphard, blinking in concession, "Charles Abbott is your grandmother's squib brother."

Alexander sat up, his elbows abandoning his armrests, "And who is my grandmother?"

Alphard resisted the urge to close his eyes – to turn away. But he pursed his lips, and did his duty.

"Margaret Abbott,"

Alexander didn't blink, he didn't flinch.

Alphard gulped and went on, "She married into the Montague family however before giving birth to your mother."

"And what of my mother – my father?" asked Alexander, eyes shining ravenously.

Alphard knew that the paternal side of Alexander's birth certificate was blank, but he also knew who was supposed to be on it – and that Alexander would most likely not be pleased.

"Your father isn't listed."

Alexander's hands fell to his knees, his backside moving to the edge of his seat, "Mister Black, my mother – please."

Green had never had such an imperious lilt, thought Alphard as he slid the manila folder across his desk; a glossy edge peeking out – a corner of sleek white-blond hair that Alexander shared, and a waving hand.

"What does this mean for you, Albus?"

The consecutive tick of the clock was interspersed with snores and gentle snorts of the portraits on the wall, a gentle whirring of silver instruments – all of it held behind the steepled fingers of the silver-haired man, peering over the tops of his half-moon spectacles.

"It doesn't mean anything for me." said Dumbledore.

"Don't kid yourself, Albus," Slughorn tweaked his sleep-squashed moustache, "You collect people too – you were invested."

Dumbledore's crooked nose lowered, and his spectacles slipped precariously to the sun-spotted tip, "Please make your meaning plainer, Horace."

Slughorn tightened the tassels of his velvet bathrobe and flexed his feet in his slippers.

"There's potential to be great," said Slughorn, impassioned, before tilting his head and lowering his eyes thoughtfully, "And then there's potential to be…useful."

Dumbledore blinked, "How would a teenager be useful to me?"

The right side of Slughorn's face twitched, the man leaning forward as if telling a secret, "How is the weapon to destroy the darkest wizard in history – that you've given refuge and protection – useful to you?"

Dumbledore's fingers parted, his hands lowered to be in line with his elbows, and he crossed them on the desk in front of him.

"How is a… a –" Slughorn waved his hands around with wide, watery eyes, before leaning forward and whispering "– werewolf useful to you when he's graduating in two years and will be able to form connections with the very packs that can unleash mayhem on both muggle and wizarding worlds under the wrong leadership?"

Dumbledore's crooked nose slowly lifted, as the man set his wispy-eyebrow-framed gaze on something through Slughorn.

"How is a half-giant you saved from expulsion useful to you when dark wizards are so fond of utilising the brutishness of his kind that the Ministry's chased to the mountains?" asked Slughorn, his hands clutching at the arms of his chair.

Dumbledore knitted his hands together and leant back against the high back of his wooden chair, his blue eyes very pale in the candlelight.

"They're soft enough to believe themselves indebted to you – primed for the moment you snap your fingers and ask whatever you will of them; …always too much," Slughorn shook his head, turning away all the while, "You always ask too much…"

"And of Sirius Black?" asked Dumbledore, tilting his head and blinking once.

Slughorn abandoned his arm rests, and might have rolled forward – right out of his chair – in his incredulity, if his slippered feet hadn't stamped onto the carpet.

"What could come of having inside eyes and ears in one of the oldest, most prestigious – and arguably darker – pureblood lines in the wizarding world?" whispered Slughorn, falling back into his chair, "Only boundless usefulness."

"And what makes you think that I cannot harness that usefulness like you seem to think I do with many others?" asked Dumbledore, closing his eyes and waving a hand.

Slughorn turned solemn and still.

"Because Sirius Black isn't a pariah that needs your help,"

Dumbledore's eyes cranked open.

Slughorn blinked, "And he is, I think, more Slytherin than any of us truly know."

"You think he'll change sides?" asked Dumbledore, furrowing his brows.

"Goodness, no," Slughorn's eyes were as wide as tennis balls in the scarce, flickering light, "But you'll never make him do anything he doesn't want to do."

"And what of his brother?"

"Would you duel Walburga for him?"

Dumbledore almost smiled, the ghost of twinkle returned to his pale blue eyes, "The only witch who may be my undoing…"

"Black's, above all else, are fiercely protective of their kin." said Slughorn, folding his hands in his lap and nodding once.

Dumbledore's eyes creased, his lips twitching.

"Not as of late, it seems."

Slughorn bowed his head, "They've pruned their tree, I will concede that."

"You still wish him to eventually accept one of your invitations though?"

"Of course."

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! :)