The Red String

Some say trust and understanding are good foundations for a lasting relationship.

Pairing: Lily/Regulus, background Marlene/OFC, background Alice/Frank, background Mary/OMC
Rating: general
Warnings: Lily is engaged to James but there's no infidelity
Tropes: Accidental Hero, Soulmates, Pre-Relationship
Words: 1,214
Original Release Date: 19 Feb 2020

Regulus grasped the locket horcrux in his hand long enough to feel the oily slick Dark Magic encasing it. He thrust it at Kreacher. "Go," he demanded, "Take it an destroy it!" His parched throat ached with the force of the words.

Kreacher nodded, croaked out a desperate, "Yes, Master," and disappeared in a crack of Apparition.

The sound of it echoing around the cave drew Regulus's attention to the groaning horde of Inferi climbing onto the little rock he was on. Their boney fingers outstretched, intent on dragging him under the dark water.

There was something like irony in his delirious thoughts, death by drowning at the same time he was dying of thirst. He wanted to fight the pawing, groping hands pulling him down but he didn't have the strength. He closed his eyes, tried to breath through his fear, and hoped death wouldn't hurt.

* . * . *

It was just supposed to be a silly game, Lily thought, as she felt her magic amplify the swirling wind destroying the room. There was a book of spells she had found at an old Muggle bookstore in Cokeworth that she thought would be fun to bring to Alice's bridal shower. They'd all agreed that the incantation and ritual couldn't hurt. They'd get a giggle out of what the spell would show them—if it worked at all—and then they'd make another round of drinks and Alice would open some more presents; she still hadn't opened Marlene's gift which was supposed to be lingerie.

The seven of them (Lily, Alice, Marlene, Mary, Dorcas, Emmeline, and Gwendolyn) had all done the soulmate spell altogether, not expecting anything to happen at all. Not this whirlwind pulling at their magic, not the opening hole in the ceiling, not the ear-splitting cracks of thunder and blinding lightning.

Lily's heartbeat loudly in her chest and something inside her tightened.

As suddenly as the roaring windstorm had appeared, it disappeared, leaving the room partial destroyed. Pictures frames that had hung on the wall were broken. Furniture was tipped up. The couch was in two different pieces on opposite sides of the room. The seven witches had been tossed back against the walls of the room in the course of the spell. In the centre of the room on top of the splintered pieces of Alice's hand-me-down coffee table and all of the women's cocktails were seven more people. Most of them were looking around the room in disorientation, confused to how they were here, pulled from wherever they had been before.

Seven red strings manifested above and between the seven witches who'd cast the soulmate spell and the seven newcomers. All at once the strings attached themselves to one person from each group.

The red string tied around Lily wrist and pulled taut to the wrist of Regulus Black. He was drenched from head to toe and the only one laying down. He had propped himself up and opened his eyes. Upon looking around he asked quietly with a scratchy voice, "Am I dead?"

No one immediately answered him.

On the other side of the group, Frank was looking at Alice. "What's going on?"

Peony Pepperquat, a Hufflepuff two years older than Lily addressed Marlene. "Marly? I haven't seen you in ages. How've you been?"

Alice was the first to take charge of the room. "So out of fun, we cast a Muggle spell to find our soulmates. We didn't expect it to work. As you can see, something happened." She glanced at Lily and followed the string to Regulus. Lily could see worry and sadness in her expression, and Lily was starting to feel the same dawn in her. She was engaged to James. James was her... her partner, her lover, her everything. But if Regulus was the one the spell had called... Alice cleared her throat and continued. "I've only got so many rooms in this house, but I think we should split up into our little... pairs... and have a conversation." She reached over and squeezed Frank's hand to led him from the room and their string disappeared. Without another word, they headed for the bedroom.

Marlene and Peony headed to the kitchen. Mary and whoever the man tied to her headed outside. Before Lily could decide where to go, the loo was the last room left unless they wanted to head outside into the cold.

Regulus didn't look well. Sweat beaded on his brow and his hair was wet as if he'd been caught in a rainstorm. When he got close to the sink he fumbled with the facet for a moment before turning it on fully and leaning down to drink straight from the flow of water. His undignified slurping was loud in the confined space but Lily didn't try to talk over the water or him. When he was finally done, he turned off the water and collapsed against the wall. The string between them pulled tight again.

"I suppose I should thank you," he said, gesturing with his other hand. "I was expecting to die where I was—"

"Don't be so melodramatic," Lily said, rolling her eyes. How had she not known he was prone to exaggeration like his brother?

"I'm not. Death was imminent. I'd drunk poison and has been pulled into a lake by Inferi." He looked at her and Lily could feel the bare-faced truth of his words. He sighed and raised the wrist the string was attached to. "What do we do about this?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't feel any different. To me, you're just Sirius's Slytherin younger brother."

He looked down at his feet where they were pressing against the cabinet under the sink. "I don't feel any—No, I take that back. I feel gratitude for you. Though I honestly don't know if I can... go back to before. Not with what I know now."

"What do you mean?"

Regulus pushed his wet sleeve up over his left forearm. The black mark there on his pale skin was harsh. A reminder that he hated her and everyone like her. "You're part of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix, aren't you?"

"I—" she started, though she wasn't supposed to reveal that.

"Can you take me to him?" he asked.

She looked at him hard, wondering if this was somehow a trick.

"I'll surrender my wand to you. I just... There can't be absolution for what I've done but there might be... atonement."

Lily's opinion of him, that he was just a pureblood with hate and viciousness in his heart, shifted. She could see him for what he was, a boy, only a little younger than herself, who had listened to his parents, believed what they'd told him about blood purity, and was only now coming to terms with what that actually meant.

The red string tying them together vanished.

"What just happened?" Regulus asked. He rubbed at his wrist where the string had been and then at his chest.

Lily had done similarly as she felt an odd relaxing in her chest. Whatever tightened there before had loosened. "I don't know... but I think I'd better take you to Dumbledore."

He smiled at her, though it seemed sad. "Thank you."