The Floo powder makes the fire turn brilliant emerald, and Lily sticks her head in. "Padfoot," she says, and the universe swirls around her. She is tired-she has not slept since their argument, and it's evening now-but this meeting is important, and it cannot happen soon enough. It is bad enough that it had to wait till this evening, when Severus ran his errand for more ingredients to mass-produce the poison, and no matter how much she wishes she could sleep, she must persevere.
The emerald flames bring her to rest in an expansive and beautifully appointed room. Regulus sits at a desk across the room, and the huge black dog-Sirius-sleeps on the dishevelled bed.
Lily coughs, and both start. Sirius comes to her first, transforming as he comes such that he is fully human when he comes to the hearth.
"Don't, what if someone comes in?" Regulus hisses to him as he approaches, but Sirius waves him off.
"Have you done it?" Sirius asks, his sallow face brilliant with excitement.
"Is this hearth secure?"
"Yes," Regulus says.
"Have you done it?" Sirius hisses again, looking starved for good news.
"I've done better. Come through and see."
The brothers looked at one another. Lily withdraws her head, and, after a minute's pause, a dog and Regulus stepped through the hearth.
Instead of looking at the carpet and curtsying, she smiles at the dog and pats his head. He lets out a whine.
"I'll call Severus." Pulling out her wand with a flourish that raised Regulus' eyebrows and made the dog wag its tail furiously, she sends a brilliant patronus galloping along toward him through the open door at the other end of the room. He just got back a minute ago, she heard the door open and shut; he should be done putting away the potion ingredients by now. It's thoroughly unnecessary, but it makes her point quite well.
Regulus is holding his sooty cloak at the end of an arm extended toward her. Reflexively, Lily takes it and shakes it free of soot, hanging it on the rack. Regulus settles himself into a chair.
"So, what is it you've done?" Regulus asks.
"I've convinced him."
"You're kidding."
"I have my wand, don't I?"
The dog paces before the hearth in a remarkably human way. Even his head turns when Severus steps over the threshold of the doorway.
Severus takes a moment to get his bearings, and assumes the mask he always uses for Death Eaters. "Regulus."
Regulus fumbles for only a moment, and then gets to his feet and inclines his head. "Severus."
"Oh, quit it," Lily snaps. She points to Regulus and Sirius. "They've been running resistance and helping Muggleborns for a while now." She points to Severus. "He's agreed to help you."
The grandfather clock in the corner ticks away sixteen solid seconds before anyone moves.
"It's been you?" Severus says slowly.
"Your servant's gone mad." It's obvious he's scrambling, that he doesn't quite trust her, not nearly enough for this.
She rounds on Severus. "Were you lying earlier? Are you going to help us or not?"
For a moment, he flinches, but he watches her face and then turns to Regulus. The word us seems to ring in the air. "I am going to help her."
Regulus stays still as more seconds tick away.
Lily is tired of this game already. "Show yourself," she commands Sirius, pointing a finger at him. "I'm tired and I want to get these games over with as fast as possible."
The dog whuffs once.
"Tell me in people words or don't waste your time, dog-breath," she snaps.
A slightly sheepish Sirius emerges from the carpet and stands. "What I meant was that I forgot how bossy you are, Lily."
"Good to know it's not a quality that's gone off with age," she says.
Severus is looking at Sirius with a look of disgust. "You were supposed to be dead."
"And you were supposed to have dissolved into a puddle of your own grease by now, but we can't always get want we want, can we, Snape?"
The disgust turns to loathing on Severus' face, and his dark wand is pointing to Sirius when Lily steps between them.
"I'm sure we're all very impressed with each other and I'm sure this could turn into a very entertaining and unproductive duel," she says, looking between the pair. "But if you two insist on quarrelling like school children, I will hex both of you until you stop."
A triumphant smile breaks like a wave across Sirius' face. "Go for boils on his-"
"If you think I'm on your side in this argument, you will find yourself very mistaken."
Sirius looks taken aback, and then motions to the man behind her. At least Severus put his wand away. "Lily-surely you don't trust him."
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"Why?" Sirius smirks. "Did he spin you a pretty lie about why you can't remember your marriage to a man he loathed?"
"I believe what he told me, if that's what you're asking."
"Yeah, and what did he tell you?"
"It's none of your concern."
"It bloody well is," Sirius says, his ire rising.
Regulus puts his hand on Sirius' shoulder. "Enough," he said coolly.
"We are going to work together, and you are going to behave yourselves." She shoots Severus a warning look over her shoulder and the faint smirk playing around his mouth dies. "Both of you. We share a very important goal and arguing helps no one."
"And what, pray tell, is that goal?" Regulus asks warily.
"To bring down the Dark Lord," she says.
The two Death Eaters shudder slightly.
"That's what I've been telling him," Sirius grumbles, jerking his thumb at Regulus.
"It's not so simple as either of you make it sound," Regulus snaps, as if this is an argument they have had many times.
"Yes, it is," Sirius continues, his voice rising. "We hold onto our bollocks and do it. What's so hard about that? Surely between you and Snape we can get through his security twice as easy, now."
Regulus purses his lips and says nothing. Lily looks at Severus and his unblinking eyes are on Regulus. Severus' dark eyes flick over to meet hers. Understanding crackles between them.
"What aren't you telling us, Regulus?" Lily asks.
Regulus looks mutinous. "It's one thing to help muggle-borns out of slavery. It's quite another to attempt to destroy the Dark Lord himself."
"If you're discovered doing that, you're just as dead as you would be otherwise," Lily says coolly, inspecting her nails but watching him beneath her eyelashes.
"This is different," Regulus insists, putting his head in one hand and slumping back into the chair.
"Tell them, Reg," Sirius says, almost pleading. "In for a knut, in for a galleon."
Regulus looks up at his brother for a moment, heaves a great sigh, and then says, "It's a long story. I should like a drink before I tell it." He looks expectantly at Lily.
"Sod off. We've got plenty of wine, summon it yourself. You've got a wand, haven't you?"
Regulus, shocked, turns to Severus, who merely tilts his head toward her as if deferring to her authority. Sirius is trying to hold back laughter and failing.
"Don't look at him," Lily snaps at Regulus, increasingly irritated with him. "I'm not a house-elf. I'm an equal partner in this venture now. Hearing what you have to say is rather more important than fetching drinks.."
He looks irritated. "I was trying to save you the trouble of hearing some ghastly truths."
"I'm not a child either."
He shrugs and flicks his wand. Wine comes soaring through the open door, along with a glass. With a tap of his wand, it begins uncorking itself. Satisfied that he would have his drink regardless of her insolence, he begins, "The Dark Lord seeks dominion over all things."
"That's not news."
He turns to her, looking cold. "Are you going to interrupt me, or do you want to hear what I have to say?"
She purses her lips and gestures, welcoming him to continue.
"He seeks dominion," he says, enunciating carefully, "Over all things. Not just the country, or the world, or all its people." He looks pointedly at Lily, daring her to ask what else there could be. When she does not interrupt, he continues. "He seeks dominion also over death itself."
Severus raises an eyebrow. "There are a number of ways. They all come with a high cost."
Regulus looks only slightly less annoyed to be interrupted by a fellow Death Eater. "And what cost do you think he's willing to accept, then?" he snaps, irritated.
Severus looks up to the ceiling, thinking. "Not the storage of memories-inelegant and incomplete, though the simplest-"
"Don't think he hasn't tried it," Regulus says.
"But he won't have stopped there."
Sirius snorts. "Of course not."
Severus shoots Sirius a glare. "If you have anything to contribute, kindly share your thoughts with us."
Sirius rolls his eyes. "Sod off, Snape. I never went in for any of the Dark stuff, and you know that."
Severus opens his mouth, ready to spit fire, Lily's cuts across him. "If you don't know anything, Black, perhaps you should shut it and let those who do know talk."
Regulus waits a moment, and Sirius doesn't respond, glaring first at Severus and then at her. Regulus turns back to Severus, and is blunt, as if he has had enough tiptoing around it. "He has made horcruxes."
Only Severus recoils. "You're sure?" he demands.
"He tested the protections for the horcrux on my own house-elf. Let slip enough that, based on his retelling, I knew what it had to be. He would protect nothing else so closely."
Lily watches them exchange an inscrutable look.
"That's not the worst of it," Sirius adds. "Reg thinks there's more than one."
"More than-" Severus is momentarily thunderstruck, and the mocking tone is not present when he addresses Sirius. "How many?"
Regulus responds, "We've been chasing them down for two years. But-based on the artifact the house-elf saw, and from other probable ones we have identified and sought out-they will most likely be artifacts of magical and historical significance."
"That does not narrow the field all that considerably," Severus says dryly.
Regulus holds up a finger. "It does. He made them all before he truly took power. Therefore, they would have been artifacts he had access to before his rise to power."
"Who's to say he hasn't made more in the interim?" Lily interjects.
Both Regulus and Severus turn to her, as if they are both surprised to find her still in the room. In their silence, Sirius picks up the slack.
"We don't know. But we suspect that he hasn't because-well-convenience and vanity, mostly. Convenience because the ceremony is complicated and horrible-"
"Like that would stop him," Lily mutters, but Sirius continues on as if he hasn't heard her.
"-and vanity, because how many artifacts can he possibly find that he thinks are worthy of housing a part of his soul?"
Lily's eyebrows shoot up. "That's what it is, then? A part of his soul?"
Sirius nods.
"And if he dies, these items will tie him to life?"
He nods again.
Lily considers this. "How does one make a horcrux?"
The Black brothers exchange a look. "Murder," Regulus says. Sirius is looking pointedly at the floor.
"That's not surprising." Lily narrows her gaze at Sirius. "What are you keeping from me."
"Nothing," Sirius says, too quickly.
Lily turns her steely gaze on Regulus. If nothing else, he will tell her the truth out of less misplaced concern over her feelings.
"We think the Dark Lord has selected the deaths used to create these artifacts as carefully as he has selected the vessels themselves," Regulus says carefully.
The clock ticks loudly, as if it is standing directly behind her and wants her to understand its meaning. Her blood runs cold.
"My son," she says flatly. "His prophesied destroyer."
It is to the young man's credit that he holds her gaze steadily even when Sirius cannot and Severus has blanched pale as porcelain. "We think so, yes," Regulus says coolly.
"You think that will make it more difficult for me? To destroy the thing he made with my son's death?"
The silence hangs in the room like a noose.
Lily bites off her words with ferocity. "It won't."