"You've been a little jumpy," Sirius had said. By the end of the week, that would have been an understatement. Regulus knew that once he was back in Britain, he would calm down because there would be more pressing things to think about— hunting, the possibility of dementors, keeping Sirius from being overprotective or stupid or both— but his remaining affairs in France proved easy to tie up, leaving him with far too much time to dwell on both the possibilities and the past.
Regulus could, after all, still remember when he'd first gotten the Mark. It had been Bellatrix who had ensnared him, of course— only Sirius had had the same hold over him when he was young, and in 1979 Sirius hadn't been a part of his life anymore. Logic failed when it came to Bellatrix even more than Sirius– her passion consumed everything, and to an extent it was better to just walk after her lest he be dragged.
He was still sweating and trying to recover from white-hot pain after his first Death Eater meeting, staring at the Mark, as ugly a black when it was first branded as it was when Voldemort called his followers, before it really occurred to him that following Bella, while easiest, had never been the wisest of ideas.
Bella had been there at the time, which was probably on of the reasons he couldn't articulate the horror he felt. She'd said she was proud of him and that he'd recover before seizing his arm and demanding that they Apparate to Malfoy Manor for a celebratory round of drinks.
Before he could say anything in reply, she'd Apparated them both to the front gates. Regulus's retort— that he didn't know if they should celebrate being scarred for life— became a reminder that he had passed his Apparating test several months previously and knew exactly where the manor was.
As expected, Bellatrix had only laughed and dragged him inside.
Narcissa and Lucius evidently had known they were coming, since they were both seated in the parlor with a bottle of wine. Bella had immediately sat on the opposite side of the couch from Lucius and declared her intention to get him drunk, claiming it was the only way he would be any fun all night.
Regulus, who had already heard enough of Lucius and Bella's bickering to last him a lifetime, turned to Narcissa without waiting for Lucius's inevitable reply that she could try. "So how's the baby?"
"As far as I can tell, perfectly all right," Narcissa, who was about five months pregnant, replied. "So you've committed yourself? You've taken the Mark?"
Hesitantly, Regulus nodded.
"Good. Let's see it."
Bella agreed to this command with enthusiasm and Regulus hitched up his sleeve so Narcissa could see. He couldn't help but think that his cousin seemed a lot more pleased about it than he was, as she traced it with her pale fingers.
"I just wish he didn't have to brand it on our skin," Regulus had muttered at the time.
Bella had raised an eyebrow. "And where else would he put it?"
"I don't know, just not on our bodies. On something we could carry around" —Regulus quailed a little under his cousin's dark glare but resolved to finish the sentence— "or at least not something so permanent."
"Why would we want to take it off, though?"
This wasn't a path he wanted to be treading down, not with Bella or in front of Lucius. Regulus's gaze dropped back down to his arm, still in Cissy's grasp, and he muttered something irrelevant to his thoughts about the Ministry of Magic.
Bella had only laughed. "Why would they ever know to look?"
That had been the first of two signs that she had become Bellatrix Lestrange, Death Eater, rather than the Bella Black he'd known as a child. The other was the first time he'd seen her kill.
He couldn't remember the victim all that clearly— a blonde woman of about twenty-five, perhaps six months along. It was only about a week after he'd taken the Mark, and all he could think of when he looked at her was Cissy and her baby.
Bella had tried to tell him to kill her, and the tone of her voice had frightened him so much that he'd squeaked the spell a few times without any accompanying flash of green light. He couldn't hate someone he didn't know, particularly not someone so obviously terrified of him. And if he couldn't hate her, he couldn't kill her with magic.
Finally Bellatrix, impatient, had shoved him out of the way and snapped that she'd do it herself. The look on her face when she had— cold, emotionless, as if she didn't feel anything— scared him more than her rage had. The Bella he knew was moody and temperamental, but never apathetic. Never as if someone's death didn't matter to her.
After the green glow had faded, she'd rounded on his with a fury that would soon become familiar, but Rodolphus stopped her. "He's young, Bella, not used to using that much power in a single spell," he told his wife, laying a restraining hand on her shoulder. "It took Rabastan some time, too, when he first started."
For a moment it looked as if she might turn and hex him, too, but she relaxed. "All right. He is young. Just, Regulus?"
He froze, staring at her and not sure what to expect.
"Learn how to kill. Soon. I don't want to have to kill you, too, but I will if I have to."
She stalked off, and Rodolphus told him to take a moment to regain his bearings. Then he chased after his wife to calm her down.
Regulus had nodded at his back and glanced over at the body, fighting down a wave of nausea. It wasn't as if she'd even done anything to the woman, but the life was still extinguished. "The thing is, Bella," he'd whispered in a shaking voice, "I don't know that I can learn."
"Reggie!"
Sirius's hand landed on Regulus's shoulder as he started to stir, and at that the younger brother sat bolt upright in bed, scrabbling at his pockets until he found his wand, which he whipped out and pointed at the man's chest.
Sirius put his hands out in front of him, palms out, and backed up a few paces. "Easy, Reg."
"Oh, it's just you."
"'Just' me?" Sirius asked huffily, crossing his arms over his chest and assuming a look of badly-feigned hurt. "When am I ever 'just' me?"
"Sirius, not now," Regulus groaned, reaching up to rub his temples.
"All right." Sirius ran his fingers distractedly through his hair, staring at his brother with some concern, but his eyes returned gradually to the length of wood in Regulus's hand. "You sleep with your wand?"
"Old habits die hard," Regulus answered, shrugging. He put it on the night stand so it was no longer a threat and added, "and if you're theories are right, it's a habit we could all do with developing."
"Yeah," Sirius muttered uncertainly. "Reg, are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Now, however, it's my turn to ask a question— why did you wake me up?"
"Well, I just fed Buckbeak breakfast and found your door was opened and you were muttering," Sirius answered. "That's not wholly unusual; you tend to do that in your sleep. But when I heard our dear cousin's name, I figured that whatever it was you were dreaming about, you might like to stop."
Regulus nodded. He'd been right.
"You up for good?" Sirius added softly.
"It's a bit early for it, but I can be," his brother muttered, wondering why Sirius wanted to know. He was opening his mouth to ask when the answer hit him. "Oh. It's four in the morning on Saturday, isn't it?"
Sirius shrugged. "You did say you wanted to be out of here before that many Muggles were up."
"Yeah." Regulus picked his wand back up and handed it to his brother. "Why don't you disillusion that hippogriff and tether him outside while I get dressed and debate the wisdom of putting anything in my stomach considering my abysmal fear of heights and the prospect of another damn two-day flight?"
Sirius smiled and mock saluted him before leaving.
Regulus thanked Merlin for the semi-darkness that saved him from untoward questions— he was still a bit preoccupied with the Mark— and threw on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and his jacket before wandering into the kitchen. Regardless of his opinion of a cross-channel hippogriff flight, after all, he really ought to eat something.
He was slicing what was left of the bread when another owl, this one brown and clearly built for speed, tapped on the window. Regulus undid that latch and it immediately muscled its way through the crack and attacked one of the slices of bread with gusto, ignoring Regulus as he untied the letter and unrolled it to find two pieces of parchment and Dumbledore's loopy script.
The only real assurance in the note was that the owl couldn't have been intercepted— it was charmed to go blank if anyone but Sirius or Regulus looked at it. Dumbledore, after all, wasn't the type to give any platitudes about student safety, and he only assured Sirius that he was taking every precaution he could. If, however, Sirius still wanted to be closer to hand this year, he had enclosed directions to a place near Hogsmeade that they might find comfortable.
It wasn't the sensible argument for staying in France that Regulus had wanted from the headmaster, but the directions were nevertheless welcome. There were too many ghosts in the Shrieking Shack for Sirius, and Regulus didn't want his brother to relapse into the obsession he'd had with Peter Pettigrew earlier in the year.
He flipped the first of the two pieces of parchment over and scrawled a quick thanks. The owl, who had finished his snack and was now looking expectantly at Regulus, held out his leg. He ruffled his feathers a bit and fluttered out the window as Sirius reentered the kitchen. "What was the post?"
"A letter from Dumbledore," Regulus answered, looking down at the second piece of parchment. One side was a map and the other a list of detailed directions from Hogsmeade. "He recommended a place to stay."
"There's an inn that doesn't mind convicts and dead men?" Sirius quipped.
"That is the first time I've heard Azkaban described as an inn," Regulus answered dryly. "It's a cave, Sirius. Please don't be stupid. I think he knew we didn't want to spend another school year in the Shrieking Shack."
"Well . . . he's right on my count, at least," Sirius answered quietly. Then he shook his head and brightened considerably. "And there is a difference between being stupid and making a joke, you know. Aren't I allowed to do the latter?"
"Not when I'm about to spend the better part of the next two days near water and four or five hundred feet in the air on a creature that weighs twelve-hundred pounds, should not technically be capable of flight, and can't swim."
"Reg, Buckbeak's fine."
"On the ground, he is," Regulus retorted. "Are you going to give me my wand back?"
Sirius handed it over.
"Thanks. Let me disillusion the both of us and let's get on that bloody bird, shall we?"
--
Author's Note: All right, glad to have this one up— even though putting up the first chapter with a flashback does make me a bit nervous. Anyway, in response to a few reviews: Mizz Moony Luver: Yeah, it did occur to me that there were no tropical birds in France earlier. But I decided that Regulus would rather be somewhere where he spoke the language (if not precisely fluently) than someplace canonically correct (but I don't mind the Canon Nazi, really). Firorenza: Yeah, I'll be the first to admit that my updates on Mugglenet are much, much more sporadic than they are here, although I'm glad you found and enjoyed both this and 1993. Thank you to everyone else, too, for all the reviews! I'm still a bit pleasantly shocked by the response. Cheers! — Loki