James Potter violently threw down the file onto his desk. A few assistants recoiled slightly in anticipation of another famous Potter shouting, but Kingsley Shacklebolt, an Auror a few years senior, was unperturbed.
"Dead end," James spat. "Another. Dead. End."
"Patience, Potter," Kingsley said in his low voice. James spun around.
"Patience?" James said, his voice getting louder. "Patience? First the Ministry itself is infiltrated, and now he's gone. Both of them are gone."
"Two events for which we haven't found conclusive evidence that they're linked," Kingsley said. "For all we know, they're on vacation."
"Vacation?" the whites of James' eyes began to show. "You heard them as clearly as I did, Shacklebolt. Regulus Black, a known Death Eater, is alive, and furthermore, he's planning something."
"Yes, he's planning something. Doesn't mean his brother is." Kingsley sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. They'd been up all night listening to the ears planted in Sirius' London flat. When the flat went silent near midnight, Kingsley suggested that they continue the next day, but James wouldn't hear it. Something bothered him, and this something was usually what made James so successful as an Auror. When they finally reached Sirius' flat, both brothers were gone.
Frantic, James began to go through the list of employees at Zonko's to find "Bertie" and his daughter that Sirius mentioned. Around three in the morning the pair found themselves kicked out of a very grumpy couple and their twenty-something daughter, whom James muttered wasn't Sirius' type to begin with. Frustrated, he began to comb through the evidence they gathered from alarm raised during Bartemius Crouch Jr.'s interview. It was almost five in the morning now.
"James," Kingsley said, gently laying a hand on James' shoulder. "You need sleep. We all do."
"I just—"
"James." At Kingsley's tone James finally looked up, the crazy energy in his eyes still swirling inside of him. They weren't just colleagues, James Potter and he—they fought in the Order together, trusted each during work when the rest of the Ministry was suspicious at best, and they relied on each other's advice when it came to the Reconstruction—what the Ministry was calling cleaning up after the mess that Voldemort and the Death Eaters had made.
"I'm telling you as a friend," Kingsley continued firmly. "I know what he means to you. He's my friend too. But you can't jump to conclusions about Sirius—he's too unpredictable for that."
James' gaze wavered. "You don't understand," he muttered. "I know him—better than he knows himself. And he's going to get into trouble because of him. Again."
Kingsley persevered. "Go home. Get some rest. Say hi to Lily and Harry. You need this." At this James began to nod, as if in assent. But then something interrupted them again.
"You asked for me?" Henryk Lee was standing by the door, looking tired. Kingsley felt a wave of relief whenever he looked at Lee—why he felt this way, he could never tell. He'd seen Lee at few of the Order's meetings during the war, but it wasn't until he applied for a position in the Auror department that Kingsley saw how skilled Lee was at reconnaissance and security. A trustworthy colleague.
"Yes," James said. "There was an incident yesterday. I need you to go over the case."
Lee frowned. "It's my week off, Potter," he said. Field Aurors worked in rotation—exhaustion for a few weeks, and then a week off to recuperate.
"Can't do," James said briskly. "Need you in the office. You're one of the best we've got. The files are on your desk." Lee pursed his lips but left without argument. James sighed and sank into his seat and Kingsley nodded in approval.
"Good call," he said. "Lee's one of the best."
James looked warily at him. "I need you to keep an eye on him," he said.
Kingsley drew back in surprise. "What?"
James groaned—in fatigue or exasperation, only Merlin knew. "Do you remember from Hogwarts who Regulus Black's best friend was?"
Kingsley frowned. He was several years above James and the rest of the gang, and the Black heir rarely drew his attention. "No," he said.
James tutted. "You really should listen more to gossip, Kingsley," he said. "It was going all around the Order."
Kingsley looked stoically back at him. "Because gossip in wartime is always accurate, right?"
James shrugged. "Alex Wilson," he said.
"Alex Wilson?" Kingsley said in surprise. "Wasn't she—weren't her parents in the Order?" The entire family of Order members, and the daughter befriend a Death Eater? Impossible.
"Well, we didn't know about the father until much later," James said. "But yeah. I'm just saying, Lee's going to help Alex even if he doesn't like what she's doing."
"But you don't know if she's helping Regulus Black."
The strange glint in James' eyes grew stronger. "Trust me," he said. "I know the lengths you go for your best friend."
The next day Regulus woke up near noon, feeling nowhere near refreshed.
It was well into dawn when he and Sirius arrived in Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the dim morning light Regulus could barely make out in his sleepy state the stone-brick walls and frosted windows that gave the entire town a medieval aura before falling flat-out asleep at a nearby inn. Unfortunately, even his fatigue couldn't withstand the attack of Sirius' snoring.
"Up, you git," Regulus said groggily, chucking his pillow at Sirius' head. Sirius' hand swatted it away like a dog's tail swatting away flies.
"Mmfblahph," Sirius said. Regulus rubbed his eyes tiredly and checked the clock. Eleven.
"Check-out's by twelve," Regulus muttered, remembering a detail from the morning. "I'm not going to lose twenty quid because you were lazy."
"Blmphf," Sirius said, sounding a little defiant.
"Breakfast, Padfoot. You're going to miss breakfast."
"I'm up," Sirius said, sitting up straight. "And might I say, famished."
"You prat," Regulus said. "You were awake all along."
"I couldn't sleep, with all your snoring." Sirius hopped out of the bed cheerfully and dusted himself.
"With my snoring?" Regulus repeated incredulously. "I don't snore."
"Do too."
"Do not."
"I'm sorry, are you saying that I woke myself up with my snoring?"
"Are you saying that I woke myself up with my snoring?"
"Tell me, which of the two possibilities seem more likely: that your snoring woke me up, or that you woke yourself up with your snoring?"
Regulus sputtered. "Both of them involve me snoring!"
Sirius whistled. "You're catching on, little brother," he said, giving a little bow of condescending acknowledgement.
"You—" but Sirius never got to hear exactly what Regulus thought of him, because before Regulus could finish the sentence he slammed the bathroom door.
"Don't you take too long!" Regulus shouted futilely after him.
Unfortunately, what awaited them downstairs in the hall made Regulus wish that he could continue the repartee indefinitely.
"Morning," Alex said without looking up from her Muggle newspaper. "Fancy a cup of tea?"
"Wilson," Sirius said, sitting across from her. Regulus gingerly sat down, trying to discreetly check the state of his hair on the back of the spoon. Drat it. The Muggles clearly didn't shine their silverware. If this blasted knife was even silver.
"I ordered you a plate," Alex folded the newspaper and set it on the table. "But better hurry."
Sirius began to grumble, but Regulus cut him off and said, "thank you." Alex didn't look at him fully but she didn't look away, either. Was that a promising sign? Regulus rebuked himself. There was no point in hanging on to everything she did.
"'Ow didya findus?" Sirius managed between mouthfuls of toast. Regulus would've rolled his eyes at Sirius' ridiculous table manners, but he was pretty hungry as well.
Alex shrugged. "Closest inn to the bus station," she said offhandedly. Sirius nodded.
"What now?"
Alex sighed. "Henryk's being tailed. The Auror office called him in to do some last-minute work, and as far as he can tell, his every move is being written down by somebody."
Sirius swore. "That's no good."
Alex nodded. "I think I managed to lose whoever it was watching our house, but in cases like these I think constant vigilance is best." Then she did an odd thing—her hand went to her stomach thoughtfully as if consulting her appetite. Sirius, despite his apparent indifference, noticed this.
"Stomach pains?"
"Something like that," Alex muttered vaguely. "Anyway, I have a place not far from here, about half an hour hiking distance."
"Where?" Sirius asked. Regulus dutifully shoved a fried egg in his mouth and chewed.
"My father's house," Alex said wanly.
Sirius' eyebrows rose. "Oh yeah," he said.
Alex also raised her eyebrow. "Problem?"
"Just, you know. Your dad was, I don't know, unemployed. Will there be enough room for all of us?"
Alex's smile had no warmth in it. "Trust me," she said. "There will be room."
To be more precise, the Wymond Manor was situated half an hour's hike and an additional quarter of an hour drive from the city center of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and Regulus' impression gathered from Alex's modest Austin was that it was a remodeling of an old Muggle house that was abandoned sometime in the sixteenth century, by his estimation of architectural embellishments. And the manor, a humble two-story building that stretched across the plain English hills surrounded by the woods and a little else, appeared even less well-kept than Alex's car; ivy grew from the ground to cover the dirty second-floor windows, and it seemed that the bricks had chipped off the wall in several places. There was nothing homey about this place, nothing that welcomed a visitor to stay and relax.
"Welcome to the manor," Alex said unceremoniously as they got out of the car, trailing her Muggle coat behind her (and Regulus really had to stop being surprised at seeing Alex in Muggle garb). Sirius sniffed the air as he was wont to and frowned.
"What's that smell?" he asked.
"What?"
"… Dog," Sirius settled, looking around suspiciously, but before Alex answered a yelp came from the entrance of the building. Regulus spied some gray balls of fur hurling themselves toward the humans' direction and soon enough it became apparent what they were.
"Wolves?" Sirius said incredulously, looking at the four-legged creatures that reached his shins in height. The wolves in question were looking inquisitively at the Black brothers but stood in distance, guarded. But as soon as Alex took a step toward them they began to wag their tail like household dogs, jumping up her leg and trying to lick her hand.
"Hullo," Alex said, crouching down and petting the three wolf pups, and it was the first genuine smile Regulus had seen on her face in a very long time. "Hi, sweetie. How have you been? Where's your mommy?" The wolves in question had apparently been doing very well, it seemed from their energetic tails. They began to climb on Alex' back and arms, trying to cling to her as much as they could and getting snow all over her hair in the process. Alex laughed.
"I missed you too," she said, scratching the head of the smallest wolf who crouched by her leg and whined softly.
"Wolves?" Sirius repeated in disbelief.
"Yeah," Alex said. "My family has long ties to wolves. We just get along."
"In middle of England?"
"They keep to the grounds," Alex said defensively. "Stay by the house, when we're here. Henryk and I've been busy the past couple of weeks, so we didn't have much time to visit."
"Visit?" It seemed that Sirius was suffering from multiple shocks that day. To be honest, so was Regulus, but perhaps it wasn't the worst thing that he lost Speaking Privileges. At least he was avoiding sounding like an idiot.
"They need human contact," Alex explained. "They usually like me either way, but Henryk got bitten a couple of times. Here," she said, handing Sirius a bag of treats. "Come say hi."
Regulus and Sirius approached cautiously, but as soon as Sirius held the bag of treats they began to jump up and down their legs, their dark eyes shining brightly. Regulus crouched down gingerly and offered the smallest one a bite, who began to lick his hand enthusiastically. Sirius was already playing with one on each hand, trying to teach them how to sit and wait. Alex chuckled and then clapped her hands in the direction of the gardens.
"Come here!" she called out, and then a giant gray wolf slowly made its entrance through the woods. It stood observant between the stone pillars, but when Alex sat down on the snow and opened her arms wide, the wolf trotted briskly to her side and, its tail down in submission, rubbed its snout by the side of her thigh, rubbing its head in the snow.
"Hi, baby," Alex whispered, scratching the wolf's belly as it willingly turned on its back. "How have you been? Have you been eating?" The wolf wagged its tail in the snow.
"What are they?" Sirius said, unable to take his eyes off the pups that played with his fingers. "Do they have names?"
"No," Alex said, looking thoughtfully at them. Sirius looked scandalized.
"That's just inhumane," he said.
"They're wolves."
"But they're adorable." And Regulus had to admit this was true—the wolf that came to him managed to curl up into his lap and, folding its long legs, buried its head in his stomach and licked his palm.
"I have an idea," Sirius continued. "This one's Sniffles, that one's Scuffles, and that one's Skittles—"
"That's horrible," Regulus said.
"You got a better idea, I-had-an-owl-named-Edge?"
"That name had a story," Regulus shot back, unable to stop himself from glancing at Alex just momentarily to see if she reacted to his words, if she remembered their time together in the Owlery and how she named him Edge. Their eyes met briefly, but hen Alex looked away, scratching the big wolf behind its ears.
"We'd better get going," she said, picking up one of the pups with one hand and cradling it in her chest. The big wolf—the mother, Regulus realized—stood up and trotted next to Alex happily. "I'll show you your rooms."
Sirius picked up another pup, barely paying attention to where he was going. "Come with me, little Scuffles," he cooed. "You and I will get into so many scuffles, you'll have no idea."
"Fence, Sirius," Regulus said, but it was too late—Sirius' groin felt the sturdiness of the old wooden fence. Sirius yelped, not unlike a dog.
"Come on," Regulus muttered to the small wolf who looked up at him with bright curiosity. "Let's get you away from stupidity."
But inside was a different story from the outside.
The decorations were sparse, but those that were there seemed to have been crafted with one intention in mind: intimidation. While there weren't any rows of beheaded house elves in the Wymond Manor, there were all sorts of magical weapons that Regulus was sure every goblin in Gringotts would sell their children for (and, judging from a scepter that was suspended behind glass, a few Pureblood parents as well). A pair of daggers hung over every large window like an eyebrow, and the main room, to which Alex led them, was bereft of any human activity except for shiny axes.
"This is the drawing room," Alex said, and then frowned. "I think."
"This is wicked," Sirius breathed, the thought of the pup forgotten for a second. "Blimey. I think I even saw a cabinet full of invisibility cloaks. How did your dad even collect all of these?"
Alex shrugged. "Who knows. Mostly heirlooms, I imagine."
"Wasn't your father's name Warner, or something—"
"Guest quarters are that way," Alex said, jerking her finger to her left. "Really, find any room you like. Don't touch anything that looks suspicious. I haven't finished cleaning."
"Alright," Regulus said, as Sirius was again preoccupied with the pup. Alex exited to her right, and Regulus realized that her curt words had strong implications: don't enter my side of the house.
"You reckon it's safe?" Regulus said, looking around the room slowly. He didn't know everything about Alex's paternal family, of course, but the things he remembered from their research and the things he remembered Warner doing were enough to keep him on his toes.
"Must be," Sirius said, half-interested. The pup had wrestled its way from his fingers and joined its brethren on the carpet near the fireplace, which was burning weakly but steadily. The pup in his hands poked his neck with its snout, looking longingly at him. Regulus sighed and set him down (Regulus decided it was a boy), and he ran to his siblings and his mother.
"Nice place, this," Sirius continued. "A bit old, but looks pretty steady, y'know?"
"Yeah," Regulus said, picking up the only item in the room that appeared as though it came from this century: a picture frame of a boy with two parents in the background. The boy couldn't have been more than ten years old, but his expression was uncommonly solemn. The father stood behind the boy, laying a firm hand on his shoulder; his full-grown beard and broad shoulders made him look like a farmer someone who was used to using his body. But the woman standing next to him was slimmer, though still athletically built. Her dark hair flowed freely from her shoulders and her dark eyes, resembling her son's, sparkled dangerously out of the picture.
"This is her," Regulus heard his own voice. Sirius came over.
"Is that Wilson's grandmother?"
"Must be," Regulus said, still entranced by the picture. "Look at that. The exact same eyes."
Sirius was unimpressed. "I guess plain runs in the family."
"Alex isn't plain," Regulus argued reflexively. At Sirius' knowing look he backtracked.
"She isn't," he insisted, but nevertheless he put down the picture frame. Perhaps Alex wasn't pretty in the conventional sense, but she was interesting—she was like an artwork that he could spend hours trying to figure out. Certainly not some simple beauty that Sirius appreciated.
"I'm going to pick a room," Sirius said. "And then maybe get some more sleep. Merlin knows just how much your snoring kept me awake." But Regulus himself was too tired to argue—kept awake by Sirius' snoring, naturally—and he simply followed his brother to the guest wing, where he found a small but excellently laid out room by the garden pond.
All the rooms in the Wymond Manor had something in common, and it was their utility, practicality, and simplicity. Everything in every room had some definite use that defined the room for a certain function. The guestroom, for example, had a wooden desk, a bed frame with a small but clean mattress, and a low empty drawer in which guests could presumably put their belongings. There was also a chair and a lamp for the desk. The odd thing was that, the further one got away from the drawing room, the less there were of objects that didn't serve a purpose; shining swords and shields disappeared; even the chair was bare, with a simple spine and straight legs without any carvings or finishes. The result being that the house was, despite its size as a manor, simple. A fine layer of dust had settled on the surface of most furniture.
Very dead.
A whimper came from his ankle and Regulus picked up the small pup, scratching him behind his ears. The pup closed his eyes contentedly and relaxed into his arm, looking ready to fall asleep. Soon enough his siblings came crawling into his room and gathered by the foot of the bed, cuddling into one another. The picture was so peaceful that Regulus sat down to join them, resting his head against the bedframe and stroking the pups' warm coat.
"It's good you keep her company," he murmured. "Such an empty house."
Regulus knew his fair share of empty big houses. Empty, possibly because the houses were so big; one would need to procreate for the entirety of a person's reproductive years, more or less, in order to fill most of Black family houses. Sure, there were some smaller cottages scattered around here and there, but even the cottages could never be small enough to be called cozy. Even when all his relatives were gathered, three generations of Black family members could not fill Arcturus Black's main house in Dorset. The house that Sirius would've inherited had he not been blasted off the family tree.
Those houses were maintained spotless by house elves, of course, so there was no outer appearance of neglect. The Wymond Manor, on the other hand, made no pretense of being cared for.
Regulus looked out the window flecked yellow and brown with decades of debris and rain, and the sight snapped him out of the melancholic walk down the memory lane, all the dreary childhood years when he had been confined to family houses. Alex was walking determinedly to the pond—no, to the side of the pond, where there was a little plot of ground clean of fallen leaves and stones. She set down a basket and peered down at something that Regulus couldn't make out from his position, poking it gingerly. The mother wolf lied down next to her patiently and rested its face on its paws.
He knew it was a bad idea. He'd made the same mistake many times in seventh year, when all he wanted to was for her to look at him and acknowledge his existence even though she was angry at him. He tried to talk to her over and over again, unable to deal with the reality that every time he spoke to her he reopened her wounds wider, cut her deeper. But his feet had already picked themselves up to the front door and his fingers were already clutching the small pup (he was thinking of calling him Archie). The other pups jogged merrily next to him, as if they didn't recognize that he was a murderer. Weren't animals supposed to be smart about these things?
Alex heard his footsteps before he was even within twenty feet of her. She looked up, regarding him with an inscrutable face.
"Something wrong?" she said.
Regulus cleared his throat. "They wanted their mother," he said, pointing at the pups. Archie, not helping him prove his point, licked his chin lovingly.
Alex blinked but didn't say anything.
"I noticed that you were looking at a plant," Regulus continued, regretting more and more with every second having come outside. "And, y'know, I—was interested in Herbology." Turned the small front lawn of Grimmauld Place into a veritable arboretum was more like it, but probably no point in saying it out loud when Alex was looking at him so owlishly. Next to her the wolf stirred, looking at the intruder warily.
"It's a common tree," Alex said eventually. "Nothing magical about it, I'm afraid."
"That can't be true." The words were out of Regulus' mouth before he could stop them.
"I beg your pardon?"
The inner Regulus was beating himself up with his tiny fist. But another part of him wanted to call her out for being dishonest. "The roots disappearing into the ground are purple," he said, pointing at the place near her feet. "That's magical residue."
Alex looked at him some more in a way that made the outer Regulus want to beat himself up with his fist as well. Get a grip, he scolded himself. You're twenty. You know better.
"It's dying," she stated simply.
"It seems that way."
"It used to be part of a bigger tree," Alex continued, not looking straight at him, not looking at the tree. "I cut off a branch and brought it here. I thought it'd like the atmosphere, meet the—anyway. It hasn't taken so far."
Regulus carefully crouched down next to her and examined the brittle branches. "Ebony?" Alex nodded.
"Why'd you bring it here?"
Alex shrugged. "Good sunlight. Good soil."
"I meant to England. Y'know they don't grow well in this climate, right?"
Alex stilled. "Clearly I didn't."
"That's fine," Regulus said, hurriedly taking out his wand. "It's possible to recreate certain elements of a more temperate climate with a bit of magic, but really the biggest problem seems to be—Ow!" he jumped back, shaking his hand. As soon as he tapped the tree with his wand to check for magical infection, the tree had zapped him.
"Oh yes. Sorry about that," Alex said, not sounding particularly apologetic. "She tends to do that. Should've warned you."
"She?"
"It's a family tree. You know, for the family house," Alex pointed at the manor, as if that was supposed to explain everything. Regulus huffed and patted Archie, who began yelping at the sight of Regulus harmed.
"It's okay, Archie," Regulus murmured.
"Archie?" Alex said, arching an eyebrow.
"It's short for Archilochus," Regulus said defensively, and for a moment he thought she was going to break out into a laugh like old times.
And for a second it looked like she was thinking along the exact same lines. But then she stopped herself.
"Better than Skittles," she said. "But you know that's a girl?"
"Oh," Regulus said, embarrassed.
"The tree's been—a storehouse for generations," Alex said. "Whenever someone in the family was about to pass away, they—extracted parts of themselves to keep the tree alive for a little longer. Apparently the tree is more than a thousand years old, and ebony trees don't tend to live that long."
"No," Regulus said, stroking the trunk with newfound curiosity. "They don't. So it's a bit like—a Horcrux, is it?"
Alex shrugged. "As far as I know, no one had to kill to put themselves in there. No, I think it's—a bit of a crack."
"Between what?"
"Between this world and—the one after." At Regulus' look Alex shook her head, frustrated. "You probably think it's ridiculous."
"I don't," he said. "There are—we've heard of such things. That portal in the Department of Mysteries, if you heard about it—and the Resurrection Stone, even. There are—things that are beyond our understanding."
Alex picked up a stick and started scratching the ground with it. "I suppose," she said, muffling her voice. She seemed—almost embarrassed.
"So this is a family tree, then?" Regulus said, attempting to change the subject. "Certainly doesn't look like the ones I'm used to."
"It does the same thing," Alex answered. "It helps you remember where you come from."
At his inquisitive look, Alex hesitated, and Regulus thought it better to drop the subject. But before he could say anything, she grabbed his hand and took out her wand with her other hand.
"What—" he began to ask, voice cracking a little with surprise at the action and the warmth of her hand, which he had not felt in years. But before he could ask what in Merlin's colorful scarves she was doing, Alex touched the tree with her wand and images began to flash before his eyes.
They were fragments, mostly, and ghostly echoes. It was seventeenth century—or, at least, everyone was wearing wigs—and he was in some kind of a ball that he didn't recognize, trying to dance to an unfamiliar rhythm . And then he was by the seaside, a tall, pale man charging at him with his sword raised. Before he was struck down by the impact, however, a tall warrior blocked the attack and ended the attacker with a single blow.
"Are you alright?" she asked, turning toward him. Her fur hood moved with her, and Regulus thought he recognized the face within the hood—
And the images changed again. He was in China one second, and then he was in middle of some islands. One moment he was floating down a river in a jungle, the next moment flying across the mountains. It was centuries ago, and then millennia ago. Impossible.
"What," Regulus gasped when the sight he saw in front of him was the small tree and Archie wagging her tail. "Was that?"
Alex cleared her throat uncomfortably. "My ancestors." She said. "Some of them."
"There were—so many of them—"
"Yes, well, we all got here the same way. By being born by people who were born by people who were born… it goes on." Alex shook her wrist, and Regulus realized that he was still clutching her hand. Mortified, he let go—a little too quickly—and took two steps back.
"Usually I get clearer images, hear better," she continued. "It's—connected to me, it's meant to be, with my wand and all—and usually the people who listen in tend to fare okay, but some of them get a little dizzy their first time." But Regulus stared at the tree in wonder.
"It's a family tree," he repeated.
"Yeah, well—the further you go back, the fainter things get. Memories get old. The tree got old. And then parts of the tree die, taking some memories with them. So it's not a perfect record. Not like the Pureblood registry."
"The Pureblood registry?" Regulus said. "By Merlin, what we have are—dry papers, ink blots—and this is—life! The whole family history preserved so—how come—" But by the look on Alex's face getting excited about family legacies wasn't the best course of action at this point.
"This is lovely," he concluded somewhat lamely. Alex buried her face in her knees again.
"It's the Wymond line," she said. "I thought you should know."
"Know what?"
She visibly hesitated. "My family, it's—I didn't know much of it, growing up. And I didn't care to. They were missing pieces that reminded me how much I hated missing them. And I was used to thinking of things in my terms, and not having to answer to anyone else in my family, because there was no one else—I mean, there was my Mum, but then—" Regulus stirred uncomfortably and Alex let in a shaky breath.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is," she said. "I forgive you."
The February air suddenly felt very silent. Not cold, not warm, no sound of anything—silent.
"I beg your pardon?" Regulus heard his voice say.
"I—understand better—what it means—to come from a place, or to think that you do, and—to feel like you have to preserve it, or be responsible for it, or answer to the past—to be beholden to people who came before you. It's not—it's not always the best way, but it's—a way to—to find the center of gravity. Your center. And I couldn't understand you, because you—let me down—to protect people who hurt you—and I was—angry. But I'm not. At least, I don't want to be." She looked at him warily. "So I forgive you. Apology accepted."
Many things were occurring in the brain of Regulus Arcturus Black the second. He had felt a fair share of pain in the twenty years and several months he'd spent on the earth, and a fair number of them were spent convincing himself that he was not worthy of forgiveness, because what he had done were horrendous. His actions, his words, his thoughts and his very self had been horrendous. And Alex's words jarred him, shook his head like a snow globe, and all the snowflakes of his thoughts and emotions were floating in the incomprehensible liquid of his brain cells, obscuring everything from him. By Merlin, how she knew just how to disarm him. Confuse him until he wanted to plunge himself in the Black lake.
"I never properly apologized," the words came out. Regulus blinked. He did not mean to say those words.
But his mouth was still talking. "You said, apology accepted. I never properly apologized, so—you can't accept my apology. It was never given."
Alex looked at him with the trace of exasperated amusement he'd known so well. "That's true, you were a giant arsehole at that time," she said. A sound came out of his throat that might've been a laugh.
"I'm sorry," Regulus said sincerely once he sobered up, trying his best to look at her in her eyes. The same pair of eyes that he'd seen in the picture frame and in the visions of the family tree. "I'm sorry for everything I've done to hurt you."
Alex smiled. "Well then," she said. "Now you've got to help me cure this tree. I was always useless in Herbology."
Regulus sighed. "Honestly, the tree is halfway towards death."
"Well, I was trying to kill it, but I changed my mind. Now, I read in Arduous Arbors and How to Ail Them that sheep kidney stones are quite good…"
A/N And I'm back (however temporarily)! I thought I'd make the chapter longer, but then figured I should save some for the next chapter. Speaking of which, here's a little sneak peak (if major TV networks can do it...)
"so you're telling me that you and your little friends made a map of Hogwarts with all the secret passages, and you just conveniently forgot about it until now?"
I must warn you that the line may be cut.
Thanks to all those who read/reviewed! Always makes me smile:)
