Chapter Two: The Enhancing Solution

"Put on a cloak, Regulus."

"No."

Due to the loosened security spells (there was a celebration going on, after all) Sirius and his brother exited the party through the house to little notice or fanfare. Sirius felt for all the world like he was fifteen, and sneaking out in the dead of night to meet up with his friends, or perhaps a girl—not that he had ever done such a thing. The irrational feeling that he was breaking the rules settled on his shoulders like an impractically heavy collar. He tried somewhat exasperatedly to curb how many times he glanced behind himself at the fast retreating sight of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. The cold and empty visage of the supposedly abandoned house gave no hints that a raucous party was concealed behind its windows.

Regulus, for his part, was moving about with a practiced ease. From what Sirius had overheard talking to his parents in grown-up situations, Regulus had a bad habit of slinking around in the dead of night. To hear his father tell it, Regulus could be reliably counted on to have vanished from his bedroom nearly every summer night at two a.m. precisely, despite extended security at the house. This had taken Sirius by surprise because he'd never noticed it when he had been home. So either these occurrences were something new since he'd been married, or his parents were just now catching on. Sirius had a sneaking suspicion it was the latter.

Most every streetlight was broken or barely flickering. Regulus didn't seem to need any light, but Sirius felt strangely uneasy. He slid out his wand and with a practiced wave, set about himself and his brother an encompassing dome of soft sunlight.

Regulus shifted uncomfortably as they walked. Sirius smirked, a little satisfied that his light was making Regulus ill at ease. They set off at a brisk pace walking down the street.

"All right, Regulus, we're three streets from the house, I think you need to talk to me now," Sirius said a few silent moments later.

Regulus, who had been marching in front of him like a prisoner, stopped briefly and turned to him. "Talk to me?" he asked curiously before starting walking again. "What on earth about?"

Sirius growled and grabbed his brother by the arm. "You know well what about," he said through gritted teeth. "You've the mark of a traitor on your chest!"

"Hm?" Regulus pried Sirius's hand off him and encompassed it in his own. Sirius could feel an intense warmth radiated from Regulus's fingertips. "You mean this?" Regulus continued, sliding Sirius's hand inside the folds of his robes and up against the shockingly cold, metallic badge.

Sirius unconsciously gripped his (and by extension Regulus's) fingers around the cursed thing. It slid from his shirt with little resistance. Sirius tugged it out into the light to scrutinize.

If there had been any doubt before, now there was none. This was the symbol he'd seen shot into the sky, burned into walls, and carved brutally into the very skin of several of his Lord's low-ranking officers.

"Yes, Regulus," he scolded. "This. Do you have any idea what this is or what it means? Where did you get it?"

"It's nothing," Regulus commented blandly. He yanked the flaming phoenix from Sirius's hands and threw it casually into the street where it clattered noisily into the gutter. The panging sound shot through the air like a siren, echoing off empty alley walls and upturned garbage bins. "Just a trinket I got in exchange for some…blueprints. I kept it because I thought the metal might be worth something to me," he looked forlornly into the sky. "But it's a cheap alloy. I would have thrown it a way sooner only…"

Only what? Sirius thought. Only you wanted to use it to get my attention? Why?

Instead he asked in a harsh voice, "Who gave it to you, Regulus. Are you still in contact with them?"

Regulus took a step or two back. "Why?" There was that same curious innocence on his face that didn't fool Sirius for a moment. "It was just some lady. Some lady and her low, little friends."

Sirius surged forward until his was inches from Regulus's face. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "Don't you know how dangerous this is!"

Regulus scoffed. "I've heard Mom and Dad talking. Those pathetic mudbloods are of no consequence to you or your Ministry friends at all, right?" His tone was odd. Sirius couldn't tell if he genuinely believed the rebels were no threat like most purebloods did, or if he was being sarcastic and perhaps knew something more. Either way, it didn't change Sirius's reaction.

"You idiot," he said angrily. He raised his hand and brought it down forcefully on his brother's head, sending him to his knees. "They're not dangerous, but the Dark Lord is. Have you any idea what he'll do to me, if he catches word that you've been slinking around with those people?"

A brief look of shock and maybe deep hurt overcame Regulus's face, and Sirius began to circle around him like a predator. By the time he was in front of his brother again, Regulus's face was once again stoic. "Sorry to be such an inconvenience to you, Brother," he said, standing up. He didn't even seem to register that he had been struck.

"Don't give me that act. Are you still in contact with these people? Do they know who you are? Does anyone else know what you've done?"

Sirius was working himself up, getting into a frenzy. Then all at once, he felt a powerful calmness. Regulus placed a hand on Sirius's shoulder and set the other on his face, slowly rubbing the corner of his mouth with his thumb. "Easy," he breathed, looking up into Sirius's eyes. "There's no need to be frantic, Ani ki."

"Don't call me that," Sirius protested weakly. His whole body seemed to sag. "Regulus," he pushed his brother back a bit. "We need to go home now."

Regulus bit his lip. "Not yet," he said. "Let's stay out just a little bit longer."

Sirius shook his head. "It's dangerous to be out at night."

"No it's not," Regulus disagreed. "Because no one but us Purebloods ever goes outside anymore, especially at night. You don't get it, Sirius, we're the danger…" There was a fierce expression on his face, an extra darkness to his eyes. I am the danger, it seemed to say.

Sirius's eyes floated over to the completely deserted street. Not a single light shone from any window, and every car was dusted over, as though none had been driven for a very long time.

"Please, Sirius," Regulus leaned into his brother hard. "Come downtown with me." Sirius swayed back a little, overwhelmed once again by Regulus's strangely intriguing scent. His weight felt good pressing up against him, warm in contrast to the cool night air.

"Where did you want to go?" Sirius asked when he managed to pull back from Regulus and come up gasping for air.

"Around," said Regulus coyly. "There's really a lot to see if you just know where to look."

Sirius cocked his head. He felt a little dizzy almost, and his tongue seemed to work before his mind. "All right," he agreed slowly. "But not so long that anyone misses us. I need to speak with Narcissa some before she retires for the evening…"

Regulus smirked and stepped just outside Sirius's magic dome of light. "Let's go then," he insisted. "Walk with me for a ways."

He looked so tempting in the light glow of the dome's penumbra, with his head tilted regally and his arms crooked at his sides. His grey irises shone so vibrantly from out his black-rimmed eyes that Sirius felt almost hypnotized. He allowed his magic light to flicker out and followed blindly after his brother, who immediately led him down a crooked street to their left.

As they walked, the street got narrower; the buildings seemed to almost close in over their heads, encasing them in near-total darkness. Sirius relied mainly on sound, and the occasional glint from Regulus's silver family ring to keep him following his brother.

Sirius didn't know what Regulus was playing at with all this. This area of London was entirely non-magical. His heart stopped for an instant. Did Regulus have muggle friends? Did he sneak out at night to see them? To help them?

Sirius blinked hard, and followed Regulus through the tight gap between two dilapidated brick houses. (His brother seemed to know his route by heart). That was impossible. Regulus didn't have friends, and he would never sink so low as to help a non-wizard.

But could Sirius really be so certain? What did he really know about Regulus after all? The two of them had never been close, and it had been years since he'd heard Regulus string together so many words in his presence as he had tonight. Suddenly Sirius was worried. The badge, his intimate knowledge about this part of town…maybe Regulus had really been sneaking around with the resistance.

But then why bare all to Sirius of all people? And why tonight? There was a dull crunching in his heart as well; he felt a massive urge to apologize for hitting his little brother like he had. It had been uncalled for. He had been unnecessarily forceful. The moment had passed, though, and the more seconds ticked by, the more belated the prospect of an apology seemed. Sirius tried to let the idea drop.

What would he say, anyway?

Sirius stumbled and almost rammed into Regulus's back as the younger Black had abruptly stopped moving. Squinting, he looked around and saw they were in someone's backyard. The overgrown weeds reached nearly to his knees.

"Regulus—"

"Shh," Regulus pushed himself through the tangled plants and up to the crumbling fire escape. "I need to get something."

Sirius coughed. "Get what?" he demanded. "Somebody might still live here!"

"Unlikely," commented Regulus idly. He stepped gingerly on the first rung of the ladder. When he was satisfied it would hold his weight, he surged up to the small balcony. "Dead bodies are bad luck. People don't like to stick around if they start seeing too many."

"Huh?" Sirius stared uneasily at the iron fire escape. It had supported Regulus, but he was a little bit larger, and didn't much feel like slicing his leg open and getting tetanus. "Somebody died here?"

"An elderly man, about a month ago, yes," said Regulus humorlessly. Sirius could barely see him crouched at the far end of the balcony, leaning over what looked like a flowerbed. Throwing caution into the winds, he scrambled up the ladder and approached him.

"I didn't kill him, if that's what the unpleasant look on your face is for," said Regulus without even glancing back at his brother. "I just made it a little difficult to find his body. I imagine it horrified his neighbors by the time they finally saw through my glamors."

Sirius looked into the raised bed. "What's in here?" he asked suddenly.

"A little of this, a little of that. I suspect the nomenclature wouldn't interest you much," Regulus plucked a strange orange, spiky stem out of the soil. "I planted them here in early April. They grow superbly well in areas permeated by a lonely corpse."

Sirius shifted uncomfortably.

"Look, the second crop is ready."

Sirius leaned closer, and was met with the strong scent of cherries and weeds. Now he knew what it was Regulus had been working with in his room earlier.

"You can plant flowers at your own house, Regulus," Sirius pointed out.

Regulus shook his head. He yanked a few more orange thistles from the bed and then stood up. "The ambient temperature isn't right, nor is the altitude. This was the ideal area."

He turned and slid down the fire escape and back into the jungle of a backyard with a clatter and a crunch.

"The difference can't be more than a few degrees!" argued Sirius, who followed him after a brief period of shock at his sudden movement.

"In cases like these, a little change can make a big difference!"

Sirius watched in awe as Regulus removed a small flask from inside his robes and unscrewed the cap. He soaked the top half of one of the orange stalks in it for about forty seconds before discarding it. Sirius's only solace was that, if Regulus was spending his nights casting glamors over corpses to drain their resources and growing what were likely illegal plants on abandoned properties, then he was at least not a mudblood— or muggle—sympathizer.

In fact he was downright psychopathic.

"Here," Regulus held out the silver flask. "Take a drink, Big Brother."

"I would rather die," Sirius responded bitterly. He grabbed Regulus firmly by the front of his robes. "Now enough of all this; we're going home."

Regulus wriggled free. "Just try some," he insisted. "Here, look, I'll go first!" And before Sirius could stop him, he chugged a huge swallow of the sweet-smelling liquid.

Sirius stood stock-still, waiting for something to happen. When it didn't, he allowed his eyes to flicker down to Regulus's left hand gripping the container.

"It's only an enhancing potion," explained Regulus. "It just makes everything a little clearer, is all."

"I've never heard of such a thing."

Regulus shrugged, and held the flask out again. This time, Sirius took it. "Because I've only just started making it. It's a variation on the Drought of the Seven Senses."

"Since when have you been good with potions?" asked Sirius bitterly. "Father is constantly on you for failing Slughorn's classes…" Since when have you been good with anything? Sirius cautiously inhaled the fumes spiraling outwards from Regulus's potion. Immediately his focus sharpened. The night seemed…brighter. The outlines…the edges of everything got crisper, and a multitude of extra sounds surged towards him. Intrigued, he decided to try a taste.

He took a long, careful drink and Regulus continued to explain his concoction.

"It heightens everything," he said while Sirius drank. The potions tasted strongly of the flavor Sirius imagined a dandelion would possess. "Your five major senses, your equilibrium, your mind, your…feelings."

Sirius coughed.

"Do you like it?"

"The taste or the effect?" Sirius found himself nearly choking. "Because that's two different things."

"How do you feel?" asked Regulus. He stepped up face to face with Sirius.

"Like my mind is on fire," Sirius reached his hands up to rub his temples as a surge of disconnected emotions racked through his body all at once. Disgust, self-loathing, loneliness, lust…each one shot to the front of his mind before disappearing long enough for another to take its place. He couldn't connect any of the feelings to actual persons or events.

He was so angry, but at who? Himself? No, maybe Narcissa…and then he was lonely, so very lonely, but how could be when Regulus was right here?

Regulus. Sirius lurched his arms down and grabbed Regulus roughly by the arms. "Regulus," he breathed, staring at him as if seeing him for the first time. His brother's pale face was so encased in shadow it was hard to look at him properly. Especially with that large shadow spot above and around his left eye. Sirius tried to brush the darkness away but his nails scraped only tender skin.

"Oh," he murmured. "That's where I hit you. You're getting a bruise."

Regulus tried to replace Sirius's hand with his own, to feel the mark for himself, but Sirius wouldn't let him. He pinned Regulus's arms to his sides and pulled him forcefully down into the grass. They both disappeared beneath the long stalks. Distantly, but clearly, Sirius could hear water trickling down somewhere. Perhaps there was still a functioning garden fountain around here somewhere.

"Sirius," Regulus whispered from somewhere beneath his brother. He shifted uncomfortably against the dirt and rocks. "I think you might be overly sensitive to this kind of potion right now. You—you haven't been taking any prescriptions lately, have you? For your…I mean…"

"Hush, not important," Sirius pressed his forehead against Regulus's. "What I take at the manor, not important. You, though, you're important. Shouldn't have hit you."

"Am I?" Regulus said. "To you? Am I really?"

Sirius stretched his whole body out over Regulus's, trapping him. "Now, yes."

Regulus seemed to relax a little, although Sirius was very hot and heavy. "That's…good," he breathed.

"You make a lot of this?" asked Sirius, pressing his face into Regulus's shoulder and inhaling deeply the now intoxicatingly attractive potion scent. His lips twitched and he debated whether or not he'd be able to taste any more of the substance in Regulus's mouth. "How long does it last?"

"Usually an hour or so, but you're…Sirius you're reacting harder than I do."

"Yes," agreed Sirius, and a hand slid gently to Regulus's throat. "Because I'm not you, am I?"

"I never said you were," said Regulus carefully. Very much aware that he would have a hard time throwing his brother off, he eyed cautiously Sirius's fingers, which were closing determinedly around his neck.

"I'm the opposite of you, so much better than you, so much more wanted…so why the fuck can't I be happy?"

The lust, the fascination, they were gone from Sirius's eyes as his emotions swiveled around again and a random anger—probably originating from Narcissa or their parents, but now unrestrained—took place. A little frantic now, Regulus pushed up at Sirius's chest and groped at his hands, trying to free himself. For a minute, there was only his exhausted panting and the crunching of the dying grass stalks until Sirius spoke again.

"I'll hit you again, you know," he growled. "For dragging me all the fuck way out here so you could pick your goddam flowers. And then what? So you can test your useless potions on me? You're a freak, Regulus. I think you need another little stay at that hospital—stop fucking thrashing!"

He raised his hand high, but before he could follow through, it happened. It started with a light tickling down near his elbow, but that was all Sirius needed to feel before he convulsed so hard he threw himself off of Regulus and onto his side. He frantically hit at his sleeve, but it did little to abate the flood of spiders spilling out of his cuffs.

He was yelling nonsense, and scrambling to stand up when he felt a warm hand on his forehead. The last thing he saw before he passed out for a little bit was Regulus kneeling over him with an expression of depressed acceptance on his face while gleaming black widows crawled over him like he was made of spider silk.

When Sirius came to, the first thing his mind latched on to was an immediate panic that his parents would be missing him. How long had he been gone? He staggered into an upright position and looked around blearily.

"Regulus?" he demanded. His head was still pounding as some kind of side-affect to that potion his brother had cooked up, and in between mind-blanking painful throbs he remembered to be angry about it. He didn't see his brother anywhere, though; in fact, it took him a moment to realize where he was. He had been dragged underneath the fire escape he and Regulus had climbed up earlier and nestled up against the crumbling brick wall.

"Fuck," he rubbed his forehead. Why had Regulus moved him? Then his hearing started to reassert itself and he heard the unmistakable wet patter of water crashing into the ground. It was that rare kind of warm, summer rain that wasn't all too unpleasant and tended to smell really nice, or at least Sirius imagined it would if he weren't crammed up against a rotting building and currently covered in muck, weeds and crumbled drywall.

And to think he could be home right now, nestled comfortably beneath the safe umbrella spell that his parents had placed above their property for the duration of their Beltane party. He could be dry and relaxed right now instead of trapped under a grated balcony that (as his brain was quick to remind him) had previously housed a rotting, dead body.

"Regulus," he called again, his anger rising. This was why he never spent time with his brother, because it inevitably revealed more about the boy than he'd ever wanted to guess, and usually ended with him abandoned on private property, sleeping off the after-effects of a prototype potion. "Where are you?"

Sirius's knees protested vehemently as he straightened himself out and stood up. After banging his already panging head on the fire escape's steps twice, he shuffled out into the rain. Glaring, he reached into his pocket, aiming to whip out his wand and cast a rain-repulsing spell of some kind.

His robes were, aside from filthy after being dragged forty feet through the rain-soaked yard, decidedly empty.

"REGULUS," he roared, whipping around to look in a full circle.

His brother didn't answer him, but there was a light rustle from the next yard over that caught Sirius's attention.

"I can hear you, Regulus," he guessed, praying it was actually his brother he'd heard. "Now where is my wand?"

A small light flickered on around Regulus, who was sitting at the base of a dilapidated old stone fountain underneath a dead London Plane tree. Perhaps it was the great distance between them, but he looked very small.

"First promise you won't kill me with it," he said. Sirius approached him rapidly and as he came into focus, he noticed Regulus had his arms folded pathetically across his stomach, and was shaking ever so slightly. Sirius stepped over the low, wrought iron decorative fence that marked the line between properties.

"I'm not going to kill you," he said slowly. "I'll probably hurt you, though."

Regulus looked up sadly. "I suppose that's fair," he admitted. He held out Sirius's wand to him. Sirius grabbed it and immediately felt whole again. A wizard without a wand was no more powerful than a muggle. Wandless magic was incredibly arduous and rare.

"All right…" Sirius looked down at his brother and felt most of his anger wane. In its place was only frustration and fatigue. Regulus seemed so dejected sitting below the chipped granite angel covered in rainwater as he hadn't even bothered to pull his hood up. Perhaps it was just that he lacked the needed energy, but Sirius couldn't convince his muscles to raise his wand.

"Let's just go home, Regulus. I don't want Mother and Father to know I was gone."

Regulus blinked. "Okay," he said shakily, and he stood up. Sirius tugged him gently by the sleeve out of his soft dome of flickering amber light and once again into the darkness of the yard. Sirius lit his wand and off they set via the same ruined path that had brought them there. Nothing much had changed except that they were both wet and depressed and Regulus's pockets were presumably still filled with orange, spiky contraband.

Regulus seemed to drag his feet all the way back. "Come on," Sirius urged him, never once letting go of his sleeve for fear he might run off again. As useless as Regulus was, Sirius would have a hard time explaining his disappearance to their family.

Grimmauld was as dark and silent as they had left it. Sirius didn't know for certain how long he'd been out, but judging by the moon and stars visible on the far horizon where there was a break in the stormclouds, it had been hours.

Sirius shook the light off his wand. Exiting effortlessly had been one thing, but he should still need to present his magical signature to enter the building. But he had barely tapped the doorknob when the whole thing swung open effortlessly, unlocked.

Regulus tensed immediately by his side.

"Cocky bastards, our family, aren't they?" Sirius laughed. He barged inside, pulling Regulus behind him.

"It looks like everyone's gone to bed already," he commented when he closed the door behind them. All the lights in the house were off. Casually he flicked the kitchen lights on and wandered down the hall a ways to look out the slider and onto the patio. There was nothing but a dark, damp lawn.

"Shit," Sirius muttered, returning to the kitchen where Regulus still stood, completely immobile. "If we were gone so long they went to bed then they surely noticed we were gone! Fuck I'm going to have some explaining to do in the morning," Sirius groaned.

He noticed Regulus was shivering again.

"Why is it so cold?" he wondered aloud. Absentmindedly he took off his own outer cloak and draped it over Regulus, who put it on obediently. "Told you you should have worn something heavier," he chided. "Still, it shouldn't be this cold in here. All the fires have to be lit with the remnants of the bonfire outside…they can't have all gone out."

"Sirius?" a voice drifted down from the second landing.

"Oh, Andromeda!" Sirius breathed with relief. "I was starting to get nervous."

He jogged over to the staircase and surmounted the first few steps. Squinting in the darkness he could just make out the dark form of his cousin standing at the top of the stairs.

"Is that you?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yes," Sirius answered. "We didn't mean to be gone so long, Regulus and I only stepped out for a minute, but," Sirius turned back to beckon his brother to him but Regulus had vanished. "…We, uh…got side-tracked," he turned back to Andromeda. "Think I can risk flipping on some more lights to find my way to my bedroom or is that tempting fate? I don't want to wake up either of my parents," he admitted fearfully.

"Just come up and go to bed, Sirius," Andromeda seemed to gasp. Her voice sounded awfully raspy.

"Andy?" asked Sirius with concern. "You sound sick. You okay?" He slowly felt his way up a few more steps. "All the partying take it out of you?"

Andromeda rustled slightly on the spot. Sirius took his wand out and almost lit it, but she rasped again, "Sirius!"

"What?" he demanded. "Andromeda, I—"

There was a god-awful slicing sound, a soft gurgle, and then Andromeda's body crumpled at the top of the stairs with a sickening thud. Sirius screamed and leaned backwards, toppling down to the bottom of the stairs himself. Horrified, he looked up. Andromeda lay slumped on the steps, but she also seemed to still be standing tall on the second landing. Fumbling frantically, Sirius slid up the wall and knocked the switch to turn the lights on.

A short woman with fierce red hair tied back low against her neck was standing over his cousin's dead body, a bloodstained wand in her hand.

There was far too much dark mask paint on her face to recognize much else, but she had unusually bright eyes and a crooked smile. "Been waiting for you, Sirius," she said in a voice much higher than Andromeda's.

Sirius looked again to Andromeda's twisted body. So it really had been her talking earlier. The blood sliding out from under her chin and dripping down each stair was new. Minutes ago she had been alive and talking but now…

Sirius stumbled backwards and dashed back to the kitchen, only to find it considerably more occupied than it had been before.

Three more people—a man, two women, and one so androgynous it was hard to tell—all with similar paint around their eyes and cheeks had him cornered at the foot of the stairs. Their wands were already locked on Sirius's chest, while his own hung limply at his side.

"Who the hell are you?" Sirius gasped, but he already knew…in theory, anyway.

"Just some people who think you and your little friends have been fucking the rest of us over just about long enough," said the only obvious man in the group. He towered over Sirius, who was not short to begin with, and had to be twice as wide. Despite having switched on the lights, Sirius felt almost encapsulated by darkness again with the muscled mountain of a man looming over him. "Now it's time to see just how well your master functions without his right-hand man. So if you'll be so kind as to cooperate with us as we proceed to rid the world of your wretched presence, then maybe not too many more of your disgusting family need to take a spill down the stairs as well."

He cocked his head nonchalantly in the direction of Andromeda and Sirius felt sick to his stomach. The sound of footsteps told him his cousin's murderer was approaching him from behind, but he didn't dare turn to face her.

"Right-hand man?" he asked, trying to sound more brave than he was feeling. "I think you've made a mistake…sirs. I'm a messenger boy. I'm not—it's just—I don't really do anything!" he insisted. "You're wasting your time! Voldemort won't care if I'm dead!"

"Of course he won't," one of the women stepped forward. Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Just like you think you're going to smooth talk your way out of this!"

"Not so clever now, are you, you slimy little snake. You let your guard down. Guess that's one lesson the Dark Lord doesn't teach at his murder school."

Sirius's whole body was tingling. His head was pounding worse than ever and all he could seem to think was no you've got this all wrong. I didn't choose to be like this, I was just going along with what was easiest!

He came to the horrible realization that he was about to be murdered. Murdered without having ever really been happy. What had he ever had in his life? A detached family, zero true friends, a job as a carrier pigeon, a loveless marriage to his own cousin and on top of it all he was probably still technically a virgin considering he and Narcissa had never managed to get very far.

There was a clatter and the sound of angry shouting from a distant corner of the house.

"Stupefy!" a voice screamed and Sirius saw the man towering over him slump sideways and fall to the ground, shaking nearly the entire house. He yelled and ducked away from the remaining four Phoenix members.

"Sirius, get over here!" the same voice yelled. Sirius recognized his Aunt's voice.

"Aunt Druella!" he yelled while around him a fight broke out. Druella had brought with her seemingly half the family including Rodolphus, Narcissa, Sirius's Mother and his Uncle Alphard.

"How the fuck did they get untied?" demanded the woman who had murdered Andromeda. She didn't seem to ponder her query for long though, and quickly leapt at Rodolphus, who countered swiftly and the two set about dueling.

Druella looked quickly to Sirius. "Regulus revived us and untied us, Sirius," she called over the sound of spells being fired rapidly. "Those of us who made it, anyway."

"Your father is down by the cellar entrance with Rabastan and Bellatrix," Sirius's mother explained while blocking an onslaught of attacks from several more Phoenix members who seemed to have materialized out of the very walls. "Sirius, honey watch out!" she yelled, sending him flying backwards with a jab of her wand before focusing on her attackers again. Sirius saw the offending spell fly past him and dent the wall.

"Go to them," his mother continued. Dinnerware and expensive kitchen trinkets shattered all around her in the background. "Make sure they're okay and then get yourself out of here."

"Mother," Sirius cried. "I'm not just going to leave—"

"Now is not the time to be defiant, Sirius, GO!"

Without another word, Sirius dashed down the hall, frantically listening for any clues as to where the rest of his family might be.

He found his father locked in a fight with two attackers. Bellatrix was lying either dead or unconscious at his feet and Rabastan was nowhere to be seen.

"Sirius!" his father yelled gratefully when Sirius was able to take out one of his opponents from behind. Together the two of them managed to convince the remaining one this was a battle not worth his time, and he fled back to the main kitchen presumably to fight with his group.

Orion was ready to follow him, but hung back long enough to grab Sirius's face in his hands.

"Your brother never fucking listens to me, Sirius," he said urgently.

"Huh?"

"Listen to me. He came back here, got us all out of the ropes, and when I told him to leave through the fucking window, to get out of here before those mudbloods came back and noticed what he'd done, he ignored me. He ran up to his room, I think, he took off up the stairs."

"Father, I—"

Orion shook him. "I've got to make sure your mother is okay. You need to—listen to me, Sirius. You need to go get your brother, and then get out of here, do you understand me?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He kissed Sirius quickly on the forehead and then released him. Years of knowing Sirius would do whatever he said without hesitation convinced him to take off down the hall before his son had even comprehended what he'd said.

When it sank in Sirius felt horrible. Regulus hadn't crossed his mind since he'd vanished from Sirius's side in the kitchen.

As though in a haze, Sirius, ran up the small, spiral staircase at the back of the house. It led to the opposite side of the landing as the main stairwell. He prayed he would run into no opposition on his route; he wasn't sure he had it in him to fight.

Regulus room was locked, and Sirius was in little mood for knocking. He didn't even raise his wand. Instead he rammed the door down with his shoulder, splintering it into pieces in his adrenaline and stumbling into his brother's bedroom. Just as it had always been, Regulus's ceiling was covered in drying plants and hanging reptile skins. Incense burned on nearly every flat surface and smoke constantly filed out from the crack under the closet door. Sirius hadn't come in here often as a child, but that was the sort of imagery that stuck with a person.

Regulus was just standing there in the corner, wide eyed and damn near petrified.

"Regulus!" Sirius ran forward.

"Sirius," Regulus croaked.

Sirius tried to urge him to move. "Come on," he said.

"Sirius," Regulus planted his feet firmly in the ground. "I saw…Rabastan and Bella. Sirius, they're dead!"

"I know," Sirius whispered, even though he hadn't. "But Regulus, I need to get you out of here."

Regulus shook his head. He looked so sad and pathetic, his face almost completely covered from black ash, Sirius's bruise, and a multitude of new scrapes and cuts. Sirius tried his best to be sympathetic, but he was increasingly aware that if these people had overpowerd his family once, they would likely do it again, especially with Bellatrix—their family's star duelist—dead in the hallway. Then they would come looking for him again.

"I know you're scared, Regulus, but I need to get you somewhere safe," he tried to pull Regulus by his sleeve, but the boy twisted completely out of his robes to get away. Frantically he backed up against the far wall by the shattered door.

"I don't deserve it," he muttered nonsensically. "Go, but leave me here."

Sirius growled. He dragged Regulus—who, now in just his shirt and his trousers was without loose, baggy clothing to slip out of—over to his bedroom window. Without even thinking of his wand, he smashed the glass in with his fist. "We don't have time for this shit, Regulus," he yelled, pushing out the rest of the window until there was a hole big enough to fit out. "You think Mother and Father would ever forgive me for leaving you here? They told me to keep you safe, I want to keep you safe. We're getting the fuck out of here. I'll come back with reinforcements once I can trust you're away from here."

"No," Regulus moaned. "Sirius, please don't."

"Shut up, Regulus!" Sirius resisted the urge to hit him again, knowing it wouldn't help and knowing he'd regret it later. "We're going to the manor. From there I can contact the Ministry."

Regulus's eyes widened. "No!" he insisted, but Sirius didn't listen to him. Harshly he pushed him backwards out through the cracked window. Regulus scraped himself up on the sharp edges of broken glass, and crashed painfully through the back garden grove all the way to the ground, but Sirius had little time to worry about that. He jumped out after him just as he heard the clattering footsteps ascending the stairs.

They were moving to come get him.

Sirius couldn't apparate within the property lines of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. It was one of the few security measures that hadn't been lowered for the weekend. He needed to get to the street, or a neighbors backyard.

He picked Regulus up off the ground and pulled him along, ignoring his constant stammering and attempts to change Sirius's mind.

"Get back here! Stupefy! Reducto!" Sirius could hear the redhead's voice. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her standing furiously in Regulus's window, a group of people behind her. Her curses missed him and his brother by inches, so he doubled his efforts and hauled Regulus to the property line.

They collapsed into the overgrown yard next door, and immediately the atmosphere changed and the view of Grimmauld Place vanished to be replaced by a glamor of a run-down duplex with a gravel pit for a backyard.

Terrified that their pursuers would any second catch up to them and burst forth from the fake scenery, Sirius gripped tightly Regulus's neck and wrist. He apparated them away with a crack and a second later they appeared, sprawled out like tuckered puppies, on the front walk of his and Narcissa's manor near the coast. The distant roar of the ocean was the first thing he heard.

The second was his brother's distraught breathing.

"Don't cry, Regulus," he insisted, hauling them both to their feet. He estimated he had a good five minutes left before his adrenaline high vanished and he collapsed. "I'll contact the ministry right away. I'm sure Mom and Dad are still fine. We'll get someone over there to help them, just…let's get you inside first okay? Then it's straight to the fireplace…"

Regulus was leaning so heavily on him that Sirius was debating just picking him up altogether.

"We need to leave," he brother kept repeating.

"Shush, Regulus," Sirius said, more harshly than he intended. "Quiet now."

Regulus only whimpered.

Sirius looked up for the first time at his house and was suddenly acutely aware of why they needed to leave. They'd been waiting for him here and Sirius briefly marveled how bizarre it was for Regulus to have thought of that fact, when it had taken him completely by surprise. From behind shrubbery and the statues on the front lawn crept seven or eight more Members, this time without the painted masks but it hardly mattered. Sirius only got a split second's glimpse of them all before a muted voice hurled a particularly heavy stunning spell directly at him and everything shorted out.

This was supposed to be longer than the last chapter but it ended up being shorter because I am a liar liar…maybe I can go back later and lengthen out that fight scene. :/ I'll check this for typos later.