"You all know where you're positioned?" Harriet Favreau, a golden-haired senior Order member, asked Lily and the Marauders. They nodded.
"All right; we're not sure exactly when they'll show up, so all of you need to stay on guard. Constant vigilance, as Moody would say. Got it?" The five of them nodded again, and Harriet directed them all to scatter as she herself turned to vanish into one of the twisted alleyways that defined Knockturn Alley.
Sirius and Remus waved a quick goodbye to the others and moved to crouch among a tower of overturned crates just across the street from the shady-looking antique shop Borgin and Burkes. The Order had received a tip-off from a weaselly little man named Mundungus Fletcher that the Death Eaters were planning to pick up a mysterious package from Mr Borgin that night—Mad-Eye Moody and Neville Lewis had swooped in earlier in the day to apprehend Borgin and take him away for interrogation, but it was up to Lily, the Marauders, and Harriet Favreau to deal with the Death Eaters who showed up for their order. Sirius was more than a little excited for the mission; they'd been members of the Order for more than a month now, but this was the first time any of them had been assigned to anything involving open confrontation. Sirius was itching to show off the skills he'd acquired from his years terrorizing Snape and his friends.
"You're trembling, Sirius," Remus breathed into his ear. He ran a soft hand down Sirius's side. "Is it excitement or nerves?"
"Probably both," Sirius murmured back. "And impatience. How much longer are we going to have to crouch here? My knees are aching."
"You don't like being stuck alone in a dark corner with me?"
Sirius smirked, giving Remus a quick kiss on the cheek. "Oh, I'd love it if we didn't have to be so bloody quiet."
"You're not being very quiet right now," Remus pointed out, kissing him back. God, how Sirius loved him. For a brief moment, he even wished the two of them were not in the middle of an all-important Death Eater stakeout. Then he caught a quick flash of blue out of the corner of his eye from the alleyway diagonal to them, and he snapped back into focus.
"You see that?" he whispered—he felt Remus nod in response against his neck. Harriet was signaling them, which meant that she'd spotted their targets. It was almost time.
"To our right," Remus murmured a moment later; Sirius turned to find three cloaked figures emerging like shadows from the darkness of the alley. Once they stepped inside the ring of dim light surrounding the shop, he was able make out the features of the two Death Eaters in front: a dark curly-haired woman with her face twisted into a smirk that could only belong to Bellatrix Lestrange, his cousin, and a slighter young man with hair swooping down into his eyes: Regulus. Sirius bit his lip at the sight of his brother dressed in Death Eater robes. He very much did not want to fight him, to do what he knew the Order needed to do with him…but he knew he had no choice. He couldn't break his pledge, not for anything.
Carefully he and Remus rose to their feet, as did James and Lily to their left and Peter from his hiding place across the street. "Expelliarmus!" Sirius cried at the same time as Peter and Lily; the three Death Eaters' wands flew from their hands, Sirius catching the one belonging to the hooded man in the middle. Then Remus and James stepped forward and cast Incarcerous, sending thick cords of rope from their wands to bind together the Death Eaters' limbs. Finally Harriet stepped out from her alley, her wand raised; she cast "Laqueus," ensnaring the Death Eaters within a small circle inside which they could not Apparate away. They were trapped.
As the Order members approached their captives, the hooded man gave a sudden, snakelike shiver, and the ropes binding him slipped down to his feet. His hands freed, he reached up to lower his hood, revealing a haughty, handsome pale face that easily could have belonged to a Black. But it wasn't the face of a Black—it was the face of the Dark Lord himself, a face Sirius had only seen before in photographs. Voldemort.
"Impressive little trick," Voldemort said, smiling a little; Sirius glanced helplessly to Harriet, wondering what they should do, but Harriet looked just as stunned as he did. "But my followers and I always come prepared." As Regulus and Bellatrix shrugged off their own bindings, the wand in Sirius's hands crumbled to dust, as did the wands taken by Peter and Lily. Voldemort and his followers drew new wands—their real wands—and aimed them at Harriet, Sirius and the others.
Everything became a blur after that: Harriet dropped her Anti-Apparition Charm and tried to Stupefy the Dark Lord, but he dodged her spell and sent a "Crucio" for her, which she deflected as well. Sirius aimed for Bellatrix, knocking her off her feet with a jinx; she sprung back up with a cackling laugh. "You've really got to do better than Flipendo, cousin," she taunted over the noise of dueling wizards. "Let me show you. Avada Kadavra!"
"Protego!" Remus yelled, leaping in front of Sirius and deflecting his cousin's Killing Curse with a powerful shield. Sirius locked eyes with her, shocked; even after everything Bellatrix had done, he still hadn't believed her capable of murdering a member of her own family, at least not so casually. Bellatrix giggled in response.
Regulus screamed as his hair went up in flames, courtesy of a jinx from James; Sirius was a heartbeat away from reversing it when he heard an even louder, more pained scream coming from Peter, his fingers clutching at his face in agony. Voldemort was using the Cruciatus Curse on him.
"Petrificus Totalus!" Sirius yelled, but his anger and nerves hampered his aim and the curse wound up hitting his brother instead. Regulus fell to the ground with a cry, his hair still burning and powerless to help himself.
On instinct, Sirius raised his wand to summon water and save him. But before he could, Bellatrix let out an annoyed screech and grabbed Regulus, Apparating away with him; at their departure, Voldemort turned away from Peter, finally releasing his curse. He swept the gathered Order members with his frozen glinting glare before raising his hood and vanishing into the night as well. Peter was still screaming.
James and Lily ran to Peter, while Sirius, stunned, turned to Remus, hoping the sight of him would ground him again. "Regulus," he whispered.
Remus, understanding, reached forward to squeeze his arm. "He'll be okay," he murmured. Sirius nodded.
"Shit," Harriet growled, grabbing at her temples. "Shit. We let them get away, all of them—we should have been more prepared."
"Well, it could've been way worse," James retorted, helping a clearly shaken Peter back onto his feet. "I think it's pretty impressive we managed to scare Voldemort off."
"He wasn't scared off," Harriet snapped. "He's decided to deal with us later. If there's one thing the Order has figured out about him, it's that Voldemort is careful about the timing of his kills. He wasn't looking to finish us off tonight, so he didn't."
Sirius shivered; Remus wrapped his arms around him, but he still felt chilled to the bone. Voldemort was a mass murderer, a terrorist, and Sirius's first instinct had been to help Regulus, one of his followers, against the people trying to save the wizarding world, against his best friend…. What was wrong with him?
There was still a large part of him, he realized, that thought he could save Regulus from the Dark Arts. No more, he promised himself. His family had renounced him long ago; he had to renounce them, too. His cousin had just attempted to murder him, after all.
Biting his lip, Sirius went over to James and Peter and pulled them close to him. The Marauders were his family, far more than the Blacks had ever been. If he could give up on Regulus for anyone, it would be them.
He just wished it didn't make him feel so broken to do it.
