A/N: Hi hello! It's been a while since I updated this particular story, but I give my full assurance that I haven't abandoned it (yet?)! I don't know how fast I'll update, seeing as there are several details that needs to be hammered out about Regulus and Sirius' past, and I've been doing some revisions on the past chapters as well as The Soldier went on. But anyway, enjoy!
He was surrounded by complete darkness.
Only his breath was audible to him. Time itself seemed to have stopped in the dark field, and even the stars seemed to have abandoned the sky in dismay. Life could not exist there. Not even his own.
Next to him someone hissed, and Regulus knew that signal very well. He crouched to the ground and kept his eyes open and alert despite the darkness.
A jet of light flashed on his right side and there was pandemonium.
The person who had gave the signal fell to the ground with a dull thud. Shouts in the distance rang through the entire field, filling the otherwise empty night. Regulus stood his ground and sniffed the air the way the war taught him, his back alert, his gaze unwavering. A spell missed him by inches from his right side and Regulus adroitly retaliated. Someone fell not far from him but the only sound he could hear was the pulse drumming in his ears. He could feel nothing but alertness. Alertness and attention. But something was approaching him, he could sense it, and Regulus tried to decide what the best course of action would be, to acknowledge the surprise attack or to pretend he didn't notice anything until the last second. But the thing that was creeping up toward him approached closer and closer until he could feel it. He could feel the enemy in the same air he was breathing in, crawling up his skin, reaching his back, his shoulders—
Regulus Black woke up, drenched in sweat for the thousandth time.
His breath was heavy and his chest heaved with each effort to draw his breath in. His left wrist throbbed painfully, and his legs felt like they were made out of lead. The clock on his bedside table told him that it was barely five. Regulus sunk back into the pillow, the familiar smell of sweat and oddly bitter, and closed his eyes in exhaustion.
The only thing that he hated more than life was sleep.
At least, during the day, he could somehow, through sheer will-power, keep his thoughts in check. During the day, unbidden memories were promptly suppressed, and whatever pained him from his past lingered only momentarily before receding into the dark recess of his mind. During the day, he could bare it, bare what he'd done, with the wish to see everything righted and changed. During the day. But nights were a different matter altogether.
His heart drummed painfully in his chest and Regulus heaved with difficulty. Each breath burned on its way to his lungs. The muscles around his ribs constricted in the most agonizing way. He lay like this until he could find enough bearing to pull himself up.
The first rays of light were creeping their way through the thick window.
One would expect that, after the death of Voldemort, the situation at the Auror office would be calmer.
It seemed, however, that the opposite was true. Immediately after the death the main focus was to capture as many runaway and disguised Death Eaters as possible, put them in temporary prison, and station wards to make sure that no one escaped. As there were many Death Eaters in Britain and abroad, this took considerable amount of time and resources—all the resources in the Auror department. Trials and evidence against these war criminals, unfortunately, were secondary to identifying and capturing them. But now, it was a massive amount of paper work, sleuthing, and countless hours dealing with sophisticated advocates that these filthy rich pureblood sons of bitches decided to hire.
James banged his fist on his desk in frustration.
It wasn't that he was incapable of reading, as Lily sometimes implied in her teasings. It wasn't that he couldn't understand the legal jargon. It wasn't even that he was under too much stress—damn it, the war was over. Any stress he was under didn't compare to the constant threat that his family was in danger.
No, what prevented him from doing his job was his memory of Sirius.
There was the body—and there was the mind as well. What did Padfoot even mean by that?
He understood Padfoot's need to find Regulus' body. Yes, the Black brothers had a rocky relationship—James got a personal front row seat to some of their more famous rows—but he was still Sirius' brother and Sirius, despite everything, had a warm and affectionate heart. He would never stop caring for Regulus completely. And with the war over, Sirius needed closure for the losses that he received. They all did.
But Sirius wasn't himself when he came back after three months of searching.
No, that wasn't it. Sirius was—his adolescent self. Irritable, moody, completely overreacting to every single comment that concerned his brother. Sometimes incoherent in his excitement.
There was the mind as well.
James' eyes widened. There was only one person that could rile Sirius up so badly in so short a time. His little brother. But Regulus Black, the Death Eater, was dead. He couldn't be.
James stood up. He had to pay Sirius a little visit.
"Why are you still here?" Regulus asked Sirius. Sirius turned around from the counter, not having heard Regulus approach the kitchen.
"You're up early," Sirius commented. Contrary to everyone's expectations, it was Sirius who'd always been the morning person, up before the entire castle, while Regulus always forced himself out of the bed. Regulus rubbed his eyes but didn't correct Sirius. He'd been up for the past three hours.
"Why aren't you at work?" he rephrased the question instead. Sirius shrugged.
"I'm taking a leave of absence."
"Again?" Regulus said incredulously. "Doesn't Zonko's have some policy against unmotivated employees?"
"Probably," Sirius said. "But they were so impressed with my reputation at Hogwarts, they hired me on the spot… obviously they're not going to lose the golden boy." Regulus scoffed but decided to let the matter drop. If Sirius and his gang charged the entire castle for each and every spectacle and prank they pulled, they would've already made a fortune comparable to the entire Zonko's company.
"I might've also dropped hints that the rival company's been trying to scout me," Sirius continued lightly. "It's all about the mind game, brother."
"I've no doubt," Regulus said, hunching tiredly over his coffee.
"So," Sirius said, facing him squarely. Regulus barely raised his eyes.
"Yes?"
"Kreacher."
"Yup."
"Today?"
"Yup."
"But—"
"No."
"Fine."
A few seconds followed.
"But—"
"Today."
"Fine." This was followed by a series of unintelligible words that Regulus was certain contained more profanity than the commentary for England-Ireland Quidditch game, but there wasn't enough space in Regulus' tense mind to accommodate Sirius' every grumble.
"I need clothes," Regulus said instead. "Something presentable."
The content of Sirius' closet was much worse than Regulus had expected, but Sirius was probably proud to say that he exceeded all his expectations.
"Brother dear," Regulus said, "I'm afraid that you've gone colorblind."
Sirius tsked from his back. "Brother mine," he said, "I'm afraid you know nothing of fashion."
"I mean—are these actual clothes? I'm quite sure that even Muggles don't prefer to have puffs of balls clinging to their shirts."
"Ah," Sirius said sagely. "That, I'm afraid, was due to… unfortunate incident. What a pity. It was one of my favorite shirts, too." Regulus didn't suppose that the unfortunate incident had turned a decent shirt into hot pink, as well. He tossed the shirt away and searched deeper into the pile.
"What I don't understand," Sirius said, showing no indication of helping Regulus, "is why you need a new shirt to meet that—that creature. It's just a house-elf."
"He," Regulus said, gritting his teeth, "has a name. And it is crucial to show him that there is absolutely nothing to worry about, and that he must go on taking care of mother oblivious of my fate as usual. Otherwise, he'll think that something's the matter and try to assist—which will only arouse suspicion in everyone else."
"Right," Sirius said drily. "I just think that you don't want Kreacher to see his dear young master looking so shabby and weak."
"Like you didn't clean the kitchen when I said I wanted him here," Regulus shot back. "How long has it been—five years?"
"Nope," Sirius said, popping the p. "Only three days. You cleaned it last week, remember?" Regulus unfortunately remembered.
He was able to find a plain black shirt at the bottom of the pile. He sniffed it cautiously and began to take off his sweater.
"I don't know, Reg," Sirius sighed at no direction in particular. "I still think you need to stay rest a bit." When Regulus gave him a pointed look, Sirius responded with another pointed look—this time directly at his body.
"Sirius, I would've thought that even you weren't so immature to make this into a contest," Regulus said, trying not to automatically shield his torso from Sirius' view.
"Please," Sirius snorted. "That was so sixth year. I mean, I know that you've always been on the—er, leaner side. But right now you look downright malnourished."
"Please," Regulus said. "That was so last year."
"Unfashionably skinny, then."
"Sirius," Regulus said, mock-chidingly, buttoning the shirt as he discreetly inspected his body. Did he look that frail? He did not look into the mirror much these days… "Girls never liked us because of our lovely physique." It was probably a combination of face and money and power, although Regulus supposed that Sirius' rebellious facade must have helped him in his cause as well.
"Maybe they didn't fall for your physique," Sirius muttered, "but they were perfectly satisfied with mine. In every possible way you can imagine." Regulus decided to ignore the poorly hidden suggestion. Sadly, Sirius seemed to prefer this topic than what Regulus was about to do.
"I mean, didn't she like how you were?" It took Regulus a few seconds to perceive that Sirius was indeed talking about the same she that Regulus had in mind.
"That is really none of your business." Regulus said, trying to hide his face from Sirius' view by rummaging frantically through Sirius' drawer of pants. For some reason, all the pants that Sirius had given him had stars and planets printed on them.
"Oh, no," Sirius said. "This is too much fun."
"You must have had all your fun with Potter when this kind of talk was actually acceptable. Sirius, you're twenty-two now."
"Exactly!" Sirius said. "Since when did twenty-anything people talk about something serious? Besides, I know more about James' body than I need to know in this lifetime." He shuddered. "Oh, my stomach feels ill even just at the memory."
"I'm sure," Regulus said drily, eyeing a pair of dark jeans. They might fit…
"Don't think you've evaded me," Sirius said. "Spill. Ooh, that was an unfortunate choice of words..." When Regulus looked up, he found the face of his brother smirking. Of course.
"She liked me enough," he said stonily. Sirius' eyebrows rose.
"Huh," he said. "So you weren't really her type."
"WHAT? No, you—" Regulus paused in mid-sentence, frowning.
"You're trying to get a rise out of me."
"And it certainly looks like I'm not trying hard enough. You see, brother dear, her current boyfriend possesses quite a lovely physique. Even I think so, and I tend to be very critical when it comes to these sorts of things."
"Sirius, that's enough."
"I mean, his shoulders—"
"Sirius."
Sirius stopped.
"The thought for my body, which you seemed very preoccupied with, is a luxury right now. In fact, quite everything connected to my physical state is a luxury, as long as I can walk and run. Which I can. I really don't have time to think about bodies, or how I look, or—"
"It's just what you said," Sirius interrupted him.
"What?"
"What you said. That you had nothing to offer her." Sirius now looked rather uncharacteristically serious. "I guess you're not wrong. Objectively speaking, you don't have much. I just thought that you might feel better if you felt physically healthier. You used to. You loved being on the Quidditch field. Watching you, I could tell that you felt confident about what you could do." Regulus stared back at his brother for a few seconds, trying to process what Sirius was actually saying.
"I mean, the Gryffindors beat the poor Slytherin's ass every single time, but—"
"And calling me "unfashionably skinny" was supposed to show concern?"
"That's really not the point."
"And bringing her up, of all people—"
"I admit, that wasn't really the point, either."
"Sirius—"
"Or maybe it was," Sirius said. "I meant it when I said that you should take it easy."
"Please do tell, then, how a fugitive is supposed take life easy."
"Well, technically, you're not a fugitive yet, because no one knows that you're alive."
"How lovely," Regulus said.
"And I didn't mean just mentally," Sirius said. "We've all been through war, we know what it's like to constantly feel like you have to do something and not being able to rest, and—your body's going to suffer. Especially when you've been cursed by Dark Magic and didn't get it properly treated for over a year."
"I—"
"And—well—I thought she might be one of the better incentives for you to take things easy."
Regulus frowned at him. "Just exactly what did you think was going to happen to us, Sirius? That we'd—oh, I don't know—actually meet up at Three Broomsticks and grab butterbeer?"
Now Sirius frowned back at him in confusion. "Well, maybe not right now, but—"
"In case you've forgotten, I'll remind you—we went through a war. The days of just having a laugh over butterbeers are over, Sirius."
"Okay," Sirius said, holding his hands up in surrender at the flash in Regulus' eyes. Sometimes his brother could get downright scary. "Okay. We'll talk to Kreacher. It'll all be as stressful and anxiety-filled as you want it. Happy?"
Regulus scowled and checked the collar of the shirt in the mirror. It was crooked.
He went into the living room and sat awkwardly on the sofa. Sirius watched him with wary sort of eyes.
"Kreacher!" Regulus enunciated. For a few seconds nothing happened.
Then a loud pop came, followed by an appearance of the aged house-elf. Kreacher looked around in dazed surprise, taking in the sight of the flat—the flabby cushions on the sofa, the unswept corners, the suspicious-looking carcasses beneath the cabinet. Then his eyes landed on Regulus.
"Master Regulus?" Kreacher said in a hushed tone.
"Hullo, Kreacher," Regulus said. The sight of the old house-elf, whom he'd known all his life, brought a faint smile to his lips despite the difficulty of facing him. "How have you been?"
As an answer the house-elf flung himself at Regulus' ankles and began to howl in relief and happiness, blubbering about how he'd never lost the conviction that the clever young master would've found a way out of the lake. Regulus attempted to console him by patting him on his back, but it seemed to make Kreacher even more emotional. Sirius watched from a distance, a plain expression of disgust on his face.
"'Course," he said. "He doesn't even see me." At his voice, however, Kreacher did turn toward his direction and looked at Sirius with a mix of loathing and confusion.
"Former master Sirius?" he said, looking at Regulus for confirmation. Regulus nodded.
"We're working together now," Regulus said. Kreacher, however, was not to be so easily convinced.
"But he broke our mistress' heart, the ungrateful wretch, he brought shame to the entire family—" Sirius, by this point, was getting ready to pluck the house-elf from the carpet of his flat and chuck him out the window, but Regulus gave Kreacher a firm look.
"We brought shame to the family, Kreacher, when we decided to follow the Dark Lord," he said slowly but clearly. "We have only ourselves to blame."
Kreacher sniffled and looked skeptically around the room. Then, at the sight of the dishes in the sink, he began to sob again—this time, it seemed, in despair.
"Oh, come on," Sirius said exasperatedly. "They're just dishes." Nonetheless, he waved his wand at the direction and the sponge began to scrub the dishes energetically.
"Kreacher," Regulus said, "I know this is difficult, but I need you need to calm down and tell us what happened after you got out of the cave. Could you do this for me?" Kreacher stared at Regulus' eyes which he'd seen since he was a baby.
"Kreacher got out of the cave with the locket," he said, his voice shaking. "And… and Kreacher did everything to try and destroy it, but—" at this he began to beat his head against the floorboard violently.
"Kreacher, stop," Regulus said. "You needn't punish yourself. Just tell me what happened."
Breathing heavily, Kreacher looked up in shame and said in a small voice, "Kreacher failed his master, Kreacher couldn't destroy the locket! No matter what he tried, the cursed thing just won't open—" at this he once again tried to beat his head against the floor, but Regulus stopped him in time.
"What happened to the locket, Kreacher?" he asked.
Kreacher's lips trembled. "In his cupboard, Master Regulus," he said. "It's been in Kreacher's cupboard for over a year now, and not a day has gone by when it didn't whisper things to Kreacher, how he let his master down, and—"
"Wait, whisper?" Sirius broke Kreacher's soliloquy. "What do you mean, whisper? It's just a locket."
"With a bit of the Dark Lord's soul in it," Regulus supplied.
"Thanks for making this less creepy."
Kreacher, meanwhile, was shaking his head slowly, as if just the thought of it made him recoil physically. "Kreacher wanted to keep it safe," he muttered senselessly. "He tried to keep it from getting discovered. But it just won't open. And Kreacher sleeps it with at night, and at night it creeps into Kreacher's dreams and says dreadful things-" Kreacher began to howl yet again. Regulus let him have his fill, wishing that he didn't understand what Kreacher was feeling as well as he did. Sirius, on the other hand, watched the house-elf with his arms crossed in front of his chest, skepticism clear on his face.
"So this Horcrux—" Sirius paused, looking for words. "It can communicate with you?"
"It seems so," Regulus said, feeling impossibly more tired than he thought was possible just that morning. "Makes sense, doesn't it? It was meant to keep him—alive. Of course it would have a strong way of reaching out to people near it. Take possession of their minds, maybe." Regulus, unaware of what he was doing, stood up and began to pace the room.
"I've never heard of something like this," Sirius said.
"Yes, well, the Dark Lord does pride himself in his ingenuity," Regulus said absent-mindedly.
"I mean, it's a piece of your soul. A soul without a body—"
"Wants a vessel," Regulus finished his sentence. "When you kill someone, their soul leaves this world. The relationship between the vessel and the soul is more close together than most realize. So when you destroy the vessel, you "kill" —that is to say, rid the world of—this soul."
"So that's why you ordered Kreacher to destroy the locket," Sirius said. Regulus nodded.
"I need to look at the books again," Regulus said, turning to Kreacher. "Kreacher, would there be a way for me to get into the house without alarming my mother?"
Kreacher, who'd been following the conversation mutely, looked at Regulus with large eyes. "Without alarming the mistress?" he repeated.
Regulus nodded grimly. "If my mother knows that I'm alive, she'll wish to notify everyone of my survival. Which would lead to my immediate arrest. I need to buy myself time."
Kreacher's eyes widened even further in horror. "But Master Regulus," he said, "mistress isn't well—oh, mistress has been worried sick, and it's been taking a toll on her delicate body, and—she stays in bed all day—" Kreacher, struggling for a way to put all this delicately into words, scrunched up his face in frustration. Regulus looked away, remembering his mother.
His mother—he loved her, or Regulus supposed that he must've loved her, after a fashion, when he was younger, as all children cling to their mothers for warmth and support. Mrs. Black, however, had never been able to provide this warmth and support—quite the opposite, in fact, and Regulus already knew, before he started Hogwarts, how to stand on his own in the world. The lesson of independence came, however, with a certain distance from his mother. Sirius interpreted this distance as spite. Regulus instead tried to hold the family together as adults always seemed to fail to do so.
So now his mother was sick. Bed-ridden. Having lost both of her children. Regulus swallowed a taste of guilt, but also a rather unkind thought that his mother could spare him this much. His entire life spent asking her for nothing—she could give him this much time.
"Books," so Regulus repeated. "I'll get you a list. Bring me the locket also—that's a given—and—"
"Wait," Sirius said. "We're bringing in the locket here?"
Regulus gave Sirius a mild look. "I thought you wouldn't like going to Grimmauld Place whenever we wanted to have a crack at it."
"Oh, no," Sirius said. "Bring in a piece of Voldemort's soul into my flat. No problem at all."
"It's contained in a locket, Sirius," Regulus said patiently. "It's not going to come out during your sleep and strangle you."
"You sure?" Sirius said, looking warily at Kreature's wide eyes. "'Coz that seems to be pretty under stress right now."
"We'll keep it in my room," Regulus rolled his eyes, about to say something else, when—
Three hard knocks came from the door.
Regulus looked questioningly at Sirius, who looked back, clueless, before settling an accusatory glare at Kreacher, who, in turn, seemed just as clueless.
"Friendly neighbor?" Regulus asked casually enough.
"Not likely. Not since I almost burned down the building five months ago, anyway."
Regulus scoffed. "Some neighbor you make—but who is it then?"
Sirius marched toward the door and looked through the peephole. "Shit," he swore. "It's James."
"Potter?" Regulus swept his hair back incredulously. "What is he doing here at this time of day?"
"Beats me. Alright, Kreacher, you have to go back—"
"Kreacher doesn't take orders from Master Sirius, he ran away—"
"Alright, Kreacher, you have to go back to Mother," Regulus intervened, seeing the murderous looks in Sirius and Kreacher. "Look after her. I know you've already been doing that without my order, and that was incredibly kind of you—I know how difficult our Mother can be. But you must continue to comfort her without telling her of my survival." Kreacher nodded, tears collecting at the edges of his eyes again.
"Go!" he ushered him. "And don't forget the list of books—"
"And the locket—" Sirius added. Kreacher's eyes narrowed.
"Kreacher doesn't take orders from Master Siri—"
"Go!" Regulus said, and Kreacher disappeared with a crack. Sirius turned on him.
"Dissimulation charm?" he suggested. Regulus shook his head.
"Homenum revelio will catch that in an instant," he swore. "Why do you even need to have an Auror friend?"
"Trust me, I wonder that sometimes myself. But what are we going to do then?"
"Give me a wand."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you're not ready."
"I'm a twenty-one year old wizard who graduated with seven N.E.W.T.s—"
"Good for you, but you're still too weak."
"If I don't get a wand and apparate out of here, my health will be my last issue."
"I'm saying that there's bloody another way—"
"Padfoot? Sirius, mate, are you in there?" James' voice rang muffled through the loft. "I stopped by your workplace, but they said you were on leave of absence, again—"
"A wand," Regulus hissed.
"No!"
"And I'm just a bit worried about you, that's all—"
Regulus punched Sirius' shoulder, hard, nodding toward the door. Sirius yelped but took the hint.
"Prongs—hey, Prongs, why would you be worried about me? It's nothing—"
"Padfoot? Oh, thank Merlin," James sounded genuinely relieved.
"Wand," Regulus growled. Sirius' eyes were slowly being possessed by panic.
"Wand!"
"Alright, fine, fine," Sirius said. "Just a moment, James! I just—need to get decent!" Sirius took off the Stinging hex and looked through the drawer.
"Decent?" James laughed. "I think I've seen far too much to ever go back to decent, Sirius." Sirius handed Regulus a wand, who inspected it critically.
"Yes, well, there's no decent with you," he murmured, waving his wand at a snow globe on the shelf. "Wingardium leviosa." The ball wobbled in its place, but didn't budge.
"Another wand," Regulus hissed.
"Bloody hell, why do you have to be so picky?" Sirius grumbled, taking out all the wands in the drawer and throwing them at Regulus. "Here, choose—quickly—"
"Hey, mate, any chance you'll let me in anytime soon? I'm freezing out here—"
"Damn it, damn it, damn it," Regulus said, inspecting the wands one by one.
"Yeah, almost there—"
"Found it!" Regulus said, holding out an old wand triumphantly. Sirius shook his head in exasperation.
"Then what are you waiting for?" he hissed. "Go!"
As he apparated with a crack, Sirius opened the door, smiling a tad too widely.
"Prongsie," he said. "What brings you to this… hellhole?"
Oddly enough, he ended up at the back alleyway of a part of London that he didn't recognize.
Regulus put away his wand and slowly emerged into the main street, where cars were busily rushing by one another—it was time for work, Regulus remembered. He looked around.
It was the same café that he'd visited more than a year ago, when he wrote the fateful letters to Dumbledore, Voldemort and—ah, well. No use dwelling on it now.
He checked his pockets and realized that he had absolutely no money.
A long cold walk in the snow seemed to be the only option left for him.
Pointing the tip of the wand to his face, Regulus muttered a series of spells and checked his reflection on the café window. A blond-haired man with brown eyes and a shallow face looked back at him, his wide mouth slightly agape. He mussed up his hair, feeling slightly self-conscious.
His mind was already running three steps in front of where his body was, planning, constantly planning, as he'd been doing his entire life. So he almost had the Horcrux. There were a few options available to him, Fiendfyre being the most notable one—but the spell was difficult to control, and he doubted that he had enough of power to control it should the occasion arise, and Sirius certainly wasn't going to help with the spell. He supposed that he and Sirius may be able to procure basilisk venom if desperate enough, but breaking in—no one would sell basilisk venom legally, unless for strictly academic purpose (and neither of them had permits). Regulus remembered his brother's words about a certain curse-breaker who had arguably a vast larger resource at hand and tried to dismiss the idea. But damn Merlin, Alex was beginning to look like practical necessity, not just about his desire to see her again but real asset to his—mission.
He kicked a stray stone moodily.
So far he had four known Horcruxes: Slytherin's locket, the Gaunt's ring, Hufflepuff cup, and the Ravenclaw diadem. That meant that his soul was split into five pieces, the last piece residing in the Dark Lord himself when the Lestrange manor burned down. What if he created more? Was there ever a way to make it certain?
But there was still the matter of finding the cup and the diadem. The hiding places for the two horcruxes he'd found—the cave and the Gaunt house. Perhaps the Gaunt house made sense—it was basically a hovel, barely standing on the ground, but it was nevertheless the residence of the old family who had directly descended from the Slytherins. But the cave. Why the cave? Why? Did the place have any meaning to him? Knowing the Dark Lord, he would not have put pieces of his soul in any random place—no, the Dark Lord loved power and recognition far too much for him to throw something so precious into any arbitrary place. Someone would need to awaken the Dark Lord, should a piece of his soul ever perish. He must have entrusted them to someone he trusted, someone he knew that would not betray him.
Regulus groaned. There were two persons he knew out of all Death Eaters who was fanatic enough to follow the Dark Lord after his death, and neither one of them made particularly pleasant company for a tea party.
Bellatrix Lestrange and Bartemius Crouch Jr.
What a fun pair.
"Tea?" Sirius offered, trying to keep his voice light. James looked around the flat, looking a bit wary.
"What happened here?" he demanded.
"What'y'mean?"
"It's—clean. Organized. Blimey, you can see floor now."
"Very funny," Sirius drawled, secretly cursing Regulus for cleaning the flat, again. Not that having a clean house didn't have its perks, mind, but it took even longer to find some things than it used to.
"What's going on, Sirius?"
"What would be going on?"
"Mate, you're not going to work—you love your job."
"There are just some things I need to take care of," Sirius tried to evade James' unusually sharp gaze.
"Related to Regulus?"
Sirius attempted to look natural. "Yeah. Related to him," he said quietly.
"You said you found his body."
"Yes," Sirius said, looking into his best friend's face. Then, for the first time in his life, he told James Potter a lie. "I found him in a seaside village. He was dead, and the Muggle authorities didn't know who he was, so they threw him in the public cemetery. Now there's all the legal issues and I have to report him officially dead and take care of the family inheritance, which I thought I escaped from six years ago—apparently not."
Sirius couldn't tell if James believed his faked annoyance or not. "You seemed out of it a few days ago."
"What is this, an interrogation?" Sirius immediately regretted snapping at his best friend. Then he saw the look in James' eyes.
Yes, this was an interrogation, and Sirius Black was the suspect.
The guilt evaporated inside of him, replaced with—mistrust. Mistrust in his friends that Sirius hadn't felt since the war.
"No," James said, but the wary look didn't leave his face. "No, of course not." He sat casually on the sofa, the sofa that Regulus had been sitting on less than five minutes ago.
"How's work at the Office?" Sirius asked casually.
"Fine," James slowly said. "A little annoying. These Death Eaters, you'd think their guilt would be clear as day, but no, there's still politics involved. Bribes. Cutting deals. The new Minister of Magic wants to show that our policy is mercy, not cruel violence—or something like that. If you ask me, chucking them to Azkaban is mercy, but—" James emitted a long, deep, un-James-like sigh. Sirius regarded his friend, considering.
James had always been lighthearted, but, unlike Sirius, he was never light-headed. But it seemed as though he'd aged a decade in the past four months. There were deep crevices on his forehead that Sirius didn't notice when he came to visit a few days ago. His hunched shoulders and tired neck belied the years he spent as a Marauder, enlivening the lives residing the Hogwarts castle. Even his usually messy hair seemed flatter, more obedient somehow.
"Isn't there a bloke named Crouch? Head of the Law Enforcement?" Sirius began to look through the last few days' copies of the Daily Prophet. "He seemed pretty… strict." James sighed and stretched out on the couch.
"We apprehended his own son," he said, sighing heavily again. "Bloody hell. He can't stop confessing. Loves the old nutcase, apparently. Crouch Senior is trying to stall, I think. Have his son give up a few names, lighten his sentence. I don't see any chances of that happening, though."
Sirius tapped his knuckles impatiently against the armchair.
"I'm sorry to hear that, mate," he said. James shrugged.
"Could be worse," he muttered. They sat in silence for a while.
"What happened to us?" James suddenly burst out. "I thought I'd seen enough when we realized that Peter was—that he betrayed us. But no, that was only the beginning. I thought that, once the war was over, everything would be back to way it was. That there would be some decency in the world, and people would go around helping each other. I'm starting to think that everything was always dirty and messed up, and that I just didn't see it before." Sirius remembered his brother, his annoyed glances, his dry, infuriating retorts, and thought that, just maybe, James was wrong.
"Let's not think that way," he said gently. "Think about Harry! And Lily, and Moony—I heard he's doing well at Hogwarts, the new DADA professor, a damned good one at that…"
James snorted. "Can you imagine Moony yelling at sixth-years? We were such brats back then…"
"You were always a brat," Sirius said. "I dunno, I think I would have found him pretty cool."
"Yeah," James conceded. "I'm sure they love him." Sirius watched as James sat pondering.
"I'm sorry, mate," he eventually said. "I trust you, I always have."
"I know," Sirius said, trying not to show his guilt. Regulus was—yes, he was guilty of being a Death Eater. But James couldn't have him, not now, not when they still had to bring Voldemort down, and when—
When he just got his little brother back.
"It's just—everything's suspect these days, and I don't know how to stop doing my day job, I suppose." Sirius smiled assuringly as James took a sip of his tea.
Then James froze, and Sirius knew that something was wrong.
"Huh," James said.
"What is it?" Sirius said, slowly stuffing his mouth with biscuits, one by one. If he couldn't talk, he'd have lower chance of incriminating himself.
"Nothing," he said. "Just… remembered that I actually have a meeting soon, and I really shouldn't keep the—officers waiting, and—"
"Right," Sirius said rising from his seat quickly. James nodded.
"Maybe we can have brunch on Sunday," Sirius suggested.
"Yeah, maybe… if Lily's not too busy," James said, clearly distracted.
"Well, see you—" Sirius said, but James was out the door before he could even finish the sentence. Sirius sunk back on the sofa, picking up the teacup glumly.
"Fine," he grumbled, taking a sip. His eyes widened.
Bergamot.
Shit.
