All characters belong to JKR

Part IV:

The rest of the day Hermione was allowed free entrée to the massive old mansion. Regulus left her alone to explore, though Cain found her after she wandered through the maze of rooms downstairs for several hours, and he finished conducting the tour with her, explaining that the house had belonged to one of Regulus' ancestors, and that it had been converted to their 'coven' almost ten years ago.

Hermione took notes, placing them carefully in a small red leather-bound journal that had once belonged to Regulus Black when he was a young man, and using a Muggle pen that had been given to her by her grandfather years ago. She asked Cain how he and his brother became vampires and he was forthright and honest. They went to school with Regulus, and years later, he turned them. Explaining that they were left to die after a Death Eater raid during the first war, their mother and father, both Muggle-born, had been killed and they would have died if Regulus hadn't come along hours later and 'saved' them by turning them.

"Then he's your maker?" she asked, awed.

"I suppose that's what that means, although I consider him my friend first and foremost," Cain answered. "He hadn't been a vampire very long at this time. It took concerted effort on his part to turn us, instead of killing us."

Hermione acknowledged that statement with a nod before she asked, "What are your real names?"

"David and Richard…I'm David. Black used to say that we fought like Cain and Abel, and that since we were the first two vampires he made, they were fitting names for us, because Cain and Abel were Adam's first children. He said that we should leave our human names behind us, because our lives were forever altered, and how right he was."

"Who turned him, do you know?" she inquired.

He was quiet for a moment, and then said, "He's never even told us, although if I knew, I wouldn't tell you. You'd have to ask him."

"Then it wasn't Sanguini?" she asked. She had assumed it was, from the passage that she had discovered in the very journal that she used to keep her notes, written when Regulus was young and still a Death Eater, and also from things that Sanguini had alluded to, but never admitted.

He expelled a sardonic laugh and said, "No, but there is bad blood, so to speak, between them, but that's Black's story, not mine."

"Fine. Why do you call this house a coven? Why not just call it your home?" She bit her lip and held her pen above her paper, to wait for his response.

Smiling, he said, "A coven means a group of wizards or witches, but for us, we call our home a coven because we've entered a covenant together by agreeing to live together. We've agreed to never tell another living soul where we live, or how to find us. We don't give away each other's secrets, and we protect each other, sort of like a family. It's covenant, or a sacred agreement, hence, a coven."

"Yet you're talking to me," she pointed out.

"Because Black told us to do so, and he's the head of our coven, rather like our father figure," he answered. "Otherwise, I would not. I find I like speaking to you, however. I haven't told anyone my secrets in a long time."

"Does that mean you never bring people here?" she asked.

"Any other questions?" he asked, as a means of avoiding that question.

She was smart enough to know he was avoiding her question, so she decided to ask another. "How many others are in this coven?"

"Are you asking if Black has changed others, or if other vampires merely live here with us?" Cain asked back.

She nodded and said, "I guess both."

"He's changed two others that I know of, but they don't live with us. Black allows others to come and go from here, for short periods of times, but only those he trust." Cain smiled and then asked her if she wanted to see the attic.

"How about the second floor?" she asked with a smile.

He smiled back and said, "How about, no."

She laughed at his teasing and allowed him to lead her all the way up to the attic. Cain told her more about Regulus than she suspected. He told her though he was an 'angry soul' that he rarely showed his anger. According to the other vampire, his moods ranged from cold and intense to caring and warm. He was private, arrogant, congenial, but forever hidden under a mood of bitterness and sarcasm. He also said there was no one else he trusted or liked more.

They spent several hours in the attic, talking, rummaging through antiques and Black family memorabilia. When they finished, they walked back down the stairs, and Cain said, "Black came from a pureblood family, and he's still haughty in many way, but he's eager, to the point of alacrity, to prove that he's not a bigot any longer. He's the most intelligent man I've ever met, and a talented wizard, but I think, well…"

She turned on the stairs to look up at the vampire. "What?"

Picking a stray cobweb from her mass of brown curls he revealed, "He's lonely, Miss Granger. He's sad. He's insecure in many ways. His anger has eaten away a part of his humanity. He would have you believe his vampirism is the cause for all of this, but his vampirism didn't take away his humanity, or his morality, or his empathy. They're still there, it's just it's all buried underneath his anger."

"Perhaps he's angry that he's a vampire," she remarked. She was given the impression, both from the journal entry that he made when he was young, and from Sanguini, that Regulus sought the life of a vampire, but Hermione was no longer that was certain.

They were almost to the first floor when Cain replied, "His anger came long before his vampirism." That cryptic response didn't answer her curiosity as to whether of not this was a life he wanted, or if it was thrust upon him.

They walked back into the sitting room and he offered her some tea. "It surprises me that you have such a well stocked kitchen, and house elves, seeing as you're vampires."

"Another myth, which I would have thought Sanguini would have already overturned. We do eat and drink food you know?" He handed a cup of tea to her.

She laughed and said, "Among other things."

He laughed as well and said, "Well of course, among other things."

"Are you answering all of her questions, Cain?" Black asked the other vampire as he walked into the large parlor of the old mansion. Hermione was sitting on one end of a refined sofa, Cain at the other. Regulus was standing in the hallway, waiting for a lull in the conversation to show himself, but when none was forthcoming, he walked through the archway from the hallway just as he heard her lilting laughter.

"Yes, he's answering my questions, and he even told me some funny stories today," she said as she folded the small red notebook and tucked it under her thigh. She placed the pen on the table by her teacup. He recognized the journal right away, even though he thought she took pains to conceal it.

"Funny stories?" Regulus asked, with skepticism. He threw his long body in a chair near the pair, crossed his legs and said, "Cain has no sense of humour, and he's never regaled a funny story to me in the twenty years that I've known him."

"Perhaps you're the one with no sense of humour and you merely don't think my stories are funny," Cain bit back with a smile. He turned back to Hermione and continued to talk to her. Regulus stopped listening and watched them instead. Hermione's eye lit up as the other vampire spoke. She asked questions, laughed at the appropriate spots, inhaled her breath at certain moments, smiled at others.

Regulus felt a wave of jealousy shoot through him. Cain was an affable fellow. He was in life, and he was in 'after life'. When he was living, he always had plenty of women swooning after him. The same could be said for his brother, Abel. Women used to flock to the blond man as if he was the only man alive, and now that he was no longer living, women still flocked to him.

Then there was Regulus. He was an awkward, socially inept teenage when he became a Death Eater. Sirius had all the charm. Sirius had all the friends. Though both considered handsome, Sirius was comfortable in his skin and Regulus was not. The one thing Sirius didn't have was his mother's favour, which was held exclusively for Regulus. Still, Regulus never had a way with women, due to his age, then he became a Death Eater and he didn't have time for women because he was serving the Dark Lord, and then he became a vampire shortly after that.

Leaning back in his chair he regarded the pair before him through half-closed eyes and thought about his experience with women. He had plenty of women after becoming a vampire. Women were drawn to him like bees to honey. He knew he was every bit as handsome as his older brother used to be, even if he was socially shyer, but now that he was 'undead', he could compel women to like him, desire him, and sleep with him.

The problem was that he hated that. He didn't want a woman to want him because they viewed him as dangerous, or to want him because they were compelled to want him due to his vampirism. He wanted a woman to want him for him, who he used to be, who he thought he still was inside, whoever that might be. He wanted a woman to laugh at his jokes, ask him question, gaze into his eyes, but all of that was taken from him. The only thing he had left was his anger, which he had in spades, and no woman wanted a man full of wrath and anger.

"Did you hear me, Black?" Cain asked.

Regulus looked up. "No. Were you speaking to me?"

Hermione and Cain laughed again. Cain turned to Hermione and said, "See, his mind is always on something else, just as I told you. I asked you if you would entertain our guest for a while, as I have other guests to look after on the second floor."

"Oh, oh, yes, of course." Regulus stood from his chair and pulled down his jacket to straighten the edge. He moved to the window and peered outside while Hermione remained on the sofa.

Cain left the room and Hermione asked, "What's on the second floor? Cain gave me a tour of the place, but last night and then again today, he told me to avoid the second floor."

Regulus looked over his shoulder and said, "Then I would avoid the second floor."

Hermione stood up, placed the leather-bound journal in the pocket of the long robes she wore, and walked toward the window. "It's only, usually people want you to avoid the basement, because it's spooky, or the attic, because they hide things in it." She tried to smile to show she was joking, as he was looking at her reflection in the window. She continued, "But the second floor is an odd place to avoid, when the ground floor is used for living space, and the third floor for sleeping."

He merely continued to stare at her in the glass. She stood beside him. She placed her hand on the window, right on top of his reflection, and said, "I see your reflection. Another myth Sanguini shattered for me - vampires do have reflections."

Quickly his hand covered hers on the cold, wavy, frosted glass of the parlor window. He turned her hand over and pulled her from the window, so she faced him. He peered at her hand. "You've not had your hand healed yet."

"Oh, that," she stuttered. "Well, I cleaned it well, and tried to heal it myself, but the wound was a bit worse than I thought." She felt awkward standing next to such a large, powerful man. He was so handsome that she felt overwhelmed. She thought about what Cain had told her, that Regulus was 'social backwards' and 'insecure' and she found that hard to believe, even though she wrote it down after he said it. At that moment, she was the one that felt inept. She lowered her head and stared at her hand, still held tightly, palm side up, in the powerful grip of his.

Still holding one hand, he used his other hand to reach inside her pocket for the red leather journal. He held it in front of her and asked, "What are you writing in this?"

Nervously, she answered, "Notes, about this place, and you and the others. I told you I would, but I won't reveal what I discover if you don't want me to do so. It helps me to remember things if I write them down, or write out my thoughts."

He could sense that he made her uncomfortable. He deliberately kept her hand in his and opened the small book with his other. "I used to keep a journal, when I was young. It looked a great deal like this."

"I know, I read it," she responded, "and this is your journal."

That admission didn't seem to shock him. He had already assumed as much. Dropping her hand, he used both hands to hold her book open so he could read. She reached for it and said, "Please, give it back to me."

"No, you read it when it was my book, I'll read it now that it's yours," he replied. He snaked a hand around her waist, not wanting her to escape, and backed up against the window seat by the large window. He pulled her down next to him, his arm still around her, and the small journal opened on his knee. She was shaking and breathing hard. He wondered if it was his closeness that was affecting her. He didn't care. He moved his arm from around her waist and held her hand again, and read from her book.

When he got to one part he asked, "What did you mean by this section?"

She looked at the written word, then up at his face. "I think you know."

"Is that how you see me? You think I'm some sad, pathetic creature who's insecure and has nothing but his anger to keep him occupied?" He snapped the book shut and thrust it in her lap, even as he let go of her hand.

"That's not quite what I wrote," Hermione said softly. If he had continued to read, he would have read that she had written that she had thought she had fallen in love with him before she had even met him.

"Why aren't you married?" he suddenly asked. That question startled her and she started to stand. He pulled on her arm, forcing her to remain by his side.

"There is someone at home," she offered. "A boy I went to school with, and who fought with Harry and I against Voldemort."

Regulus felt some of his anger disappear, though it was once again replaced by jealousy. He held her hand softly, his thumb caressing the center. "What's his name?"

"Ron Weasley."

"Are you going to marry this Ron Weasley?" He wanted to ask if she loved him, but he didn't. Regulus turned her palm over and examined her hand. The cut in the middle was red and raw, the scratch jagged and barely healed.

"Maybe, but I doubt it," she answered. "He wants to marry me."

"He's a fool," Regulus suddenly said.

Hermione looked up. "For wanting to marry me?"

He stood. "How can he allow you to run about the city, chasing after vampires? Isn't he even concerned for you? You've been missing overnight, so why isn't he searching for you?" Regulus was shouting, pacing back and forth in front of her. Didn't she see how much danger she was in? He could have killed her by now! Those other vampires wanted to kill her yesterday! "WHY ARE YOU HERE?" he finally bellowed. "What do you want from me?"

Hermione felt something akin to fear. The vampire before her scared her. He was angry, and he showed it. He made her nervous. She felt hot, cold and bothered. She wanted nothing more than to flee, so she stood to do just that, but once again, he reached out for her, with his cat-like agility, and pulled her to him. Her slender wrist was trapped in his tight grasp, the feel of her pulse beating under his thumb reminded her what he was, what he wanted from her, but what she could never give. She could never give him back the life he had before Voldemort, or before becoming a vampire.

Wanting her even closer, closer still, he wrapped his arms around her and demanded, "Tell me what you want from me!"

She felt hot tears burn her eyes, but she didn't want to shed them. He wouldn't understand. No one would understand. She didn't even know if she understood. How could she tell him that she fell in love with a shadow of a boy from the things he wrote in a journal from a time so long ago? She finally glanced up at him, but in that brief moment his anger disappeared. His hand went to her mass of curls, his fingers threading through the chestnut locks. She heaved a heavy sigh and said, "Please." She didn't know what she meant by that plea, and neither did he.

Regulus reached for her cheek. His fingertips glided down her soft skin to the beating pulse of her neck. A tremor reigned through him at the steady throb of her vein. Her skin was pale, luminous, her mouth full. What would her lips feel like against his? What would her pulse feel like under his mouth? She seemed good, sweet, like a fragrant ripe, piece of fruit. Forbidden, like the apple was to Eve. There was an inherent sweetness to her, more than her scent. He had to have her, on every level, to appease his wrath, more than to sate his appetite.

An errant tear drifted from her eye. He brushed it aside with the side of his index finger, and then placed a lingering kiss on her cheek. Heaven help her, he wasn't a saint, he was a tortured soul, and he wanted her and would have her. He placed his mouth right above hers.

His hands felt warm and right on her body. For once in her life she was going to throw caution to the wind and give into the feelings before her. She would answer his question, the only way she knew how. What did she want from him? She would show him. She rose on her toes and closed the distance before them, placing her lips on top of his before she said, "I want you."