Regulus counted the days he was locked inside. He tried to, at least. It was easy enough at the beginning: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday—or was it Saturday? The days all blended together and being locked in was good for only one thing: he had already completed most of his summer assignments. Had he spent two weeks locked in? Three? He had no idea how much longer he could cope.
One morning, just as he was about to give up on getting out of bed at all any more, he found the door to his bedroom wide open.
He left his bedroom. Sirius' door was still closed, and he hesitated—was he to knock on his door, ask him if he was all right? No, surely not. Sirius wouldn't come for him either. Hogwarts proved that much.
He made his way downstairs to the ground floor and found the dining room doors wide open. Both Mother and Father already sat at the table; Father had a copy of the Daily Prophet spread out in front of him and Mother was staring at the wall in front of her as if it was more interesting than anything she'd ever seen before. Sirius wasn't there, but he didn't mind. Sirius could sulk in his room all he wanted.
He sat down opposite Father and filled his plate with some beans and toast. Part of him wanted to say good morning, if only to break the silence, but he couldn't bring himself to. What if he was sent upstairs straight away for it? He couldn't risk it. Sure, he had enough homework lying around to fill more days locked in his room, but there was more than enough time left to do the work at a later date.
He slowly ate his breakfast, half expecting someone to start talking or Sirius to join them, but Sirius never came down and neither Father nor Mother said a single word.
Then, just as he helped himself to a second scoop of beans and a few sausages, Father folded the paper back up and put it on the table. "Your Mother and I have to go out for a bit," he said. "Don't leave the house, and don't do anything stupid whilst we're gone."
"Yes, Father," he said diligently.
"Good boy. Walburga?"
Mother silently got to her feet and moved towards the door in a stiff fashion, not looking at him, not even once. Again, it made the hairs on his back stand up straight and he hoped everything was all right with her, with how strangely she behaved... she wasn't ill, was she? He hoped not. That was the last thing he needed.
Father gave him one final nod before going after her, closing the door to the dining room after him. Regulus didn't move, nor did he continue eating. He waited until he heard the front door close before he jumped to his feet and made his way over to where Father had sat moments ago, to the newspaper he'd been reading.
The front page caught his immediate attention:
Dark Days for Lower Flagley:
Death Eater Activity Intensifies, Muggles Pay the Price
Yorkshire — For three consecutive days now, Death Eaters have carried out attacks on the once quiet and peaceful town of Lower Flagley, transforming it into a warzone.
Reports indicate that 23 Muggles living in the mixed community have fallen victim to the Death Eaters, shocking magical and non-magical communities alike. 19 of them have been confirmed to be murdered by magical means; 3 have yet to be found and the last victim is currently being treated in St. Mungo's.
Muggle news outlets attempt to make sense of the chaos and their theories range from criminal gangs to mysterious illnesses, ...
He skimmed it, not caring much about what Muggles made of the situation and how the Ministry planned to help those dumb Muggles.
Further down the article he saw a new heading.
Tragedy Strikes the Sharp Family
One wizarding family from Lower Flagley met the same fate as the Muggles. The well-known Sharp family were brutally murdered in their home during the latest Death Eater assault. Julie, a Muggleborn, her halfblood husband Jonah, and their 12-year-old daughter Kitty will be sorely missed.
Kitty Sharp is the youngest known magical victim so far.
The Ministry of Magic has scheduled emergency meetings and Aurors are being sent to Lower Flagley to assess the situation. In the meantime, ...
Then came that same announcement of staying indoors and blah, blah, blah, all that nonsense.
He checked the date at the top: Monday, 24th June. Was this today, or old news? Was today really the 24th? That would mean he hadn't even spent a week in his bedroom—impossible. It didn't add up. It had to be old news.
He pocketed the newspaper and left the dining room, leaving the food on the table. Kreacher would clean it up when he had the time, he was sure. Or perhaps Sirius would come down to eat later. He didn't really care. He just felt… odd, after reading that article.
He trod heavily up the steps to the first floor, mentally going over the article again and again. Sharp, that name was so familiar, Kitty Sharp. Where had he heard that before? He just passed the drawing room when it hit him—Hogwarts. That's where he heard that name before. Sharp – Kitty – was one of his classmates. Suddenly, he felt rather unwell, and not even because of the realisation she was a halfblood. He had to lean against the wall as a wave of nausea overcame him. If Kitty Sharp, a Hogwarts student, was killed … who'd be next? If Hogwarts students weren't off limits...
He had to talk to Bellatrix. It was summer, he had the right to talk to her—she'd even said so herself! He steadied himself and entered the drawing room, staggering towards the fireplace. He had already scooped out some Floo Powder when he realised that he couldn't Floo to Bellatrix at all any more, for she no longer lived at home but at her own stupid tiny cottage in the middle of nowhere. He put the powder back in the tin and plopped down on the sofa. Whatever was he to do?
She was just a stupid halfblood. He didn't even really know her. And yet, he pulled out the newspaper again and stared at the small picture of the family it included. He did know her. He recognised her hair. He sat behind her in Charms sometimes. He once sat next to her in the Great Hall at breakfast. And now she was gone. Dead.
Kitty Sharp is the youngest known victim, it said. But why kill her? What had she done wrong? Yes, he didn't like halfbloods, but killing them was a bit extreme, wasn't it? Oh how he wished he could speak with Bella about this. Or even Father and Mother…
But he couldn't. Especially not now, in their current state—Mother's current state. She hadn't spoken at all, about nothing. There wasn't a chance she'd speak to him about this, and Father would probably just say he was 'too young' to understand things such as these.
He looked back at the picture. Kitty was only a few months older than he was, at most, and she had died. She wasn't too young to do so. Had her parents kept her in the dark as his had? Had they told her she was too young, and was that how she met her end, because she wasn't prepared? He skimmed the article again but it said nothing about it, nothing more about her age aside from her being the youngest victim, as if that was something of an achievement.
But then his eye fell on the warning at the bottom. Not the part about how everyone had to stay at home and prepare safety questions, but the part below that:
Should you feel that a family member, colleague, friend, or neighbour is acting in a strange manner, contact the Magical Law Enforcement Squad at once. They may have been put under the Imperius Curse.
The world around him started to spin and he went a bit lightheaded. He tried to focus his eyes on the text and read that part over and over again until the words made sense again and the letters were clear.
The Imperius Curse. Professor Blackthorn had briefly mentioned it in class, not as elaborately as they covered Polyjuice but he told them enough about it for him to know exactly what it was: mind control. And he did know at least one person who acted in a strange manner…
But no, that couldn't be right. Not her, not Mother. Who would want to put her under the Imperius Curse?! But then again ... the family had been targeted before. If they could send Aurors after them, why not an Imperius Curse?
He straightened his spine and put the newspaper on the sofa next to him. He knew what to do. But how was he supposed to contact Magical Law Enforcement? Could he just... Floo them? It was worth a try, wasn't it? It couldn't hurt.
So he got to his feet andlooked over at the open door, into the hall outside. It was empty (not that he expected anyone to be there) but for a moment he wondered if he should close the door, just in case. Would it help keep him from view?
He decided it wouldn't do much. Only Sirius was at home and he doubted Sirius would make much of an open door, and a closed one wouldn't stop him.
This was his one shot.
He took the cup of Floo Powder, stepped into the fireplace, and tried to sound far more confident than he was when he said: "The Ministry of Magic."
And off he went.
He came tumbling out at the other end, rolling onto the cold, hard floor as the fireplace seemed to spit him out. When he opened his eyes, all he could see was the peacock-blue ceiling with golden, moving symbols.
"A child?!" someone shrieked, and at once he became aware of four wands being pointed at him as he lay there.
Wands. Pointed at him. He tried to get up into a sitting position but the wands came closer—what on earth was going on?! This was the Ministry, wasn't it? He was supposed to contact the Ministry in these situations, the newspaper even said as much! They weren't supposed to be acting as if he was some kind of intruder!
His vision clouded through the tears that had found their way to his eyes. He tried to blink them away, but he couldn't think straight any more. He curled up into a ball and he squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to block out the sounds, he tried to get the green flashes out of his head. A familiar voice, laughing in the background to the loud thud of bodies dropping. Bellatrix.
"Bella!"
He couldn't help it. He refused to look even as he was forced to his feet by a pair of very rough hands. The man those hands belonged to said something, but he couldn't focus enough to hear.
"Help me! Mum—Bella!"
He opened his mouth to shout for help once more, but no sound came out. He opened his eyes, tears rolling down his cheeks and his vision was still troubled, but clear enough for him to see they hadn't moved. There were five or six wizards surrounding him and two of them held onto him; one on either side.
"That's it," the wizard to his right said, "just walk along now..."
Walk? Whereto? The dark wooden floor he stood on barely seemed to support his weight, or maybe his knees simply refused to work.
But somehow, he walked. He was pulled along the long hall up to a fountain which stood halfway down and his eyes slowly dried on their own as he managed to push back on the tears. He was almost twelve and in public. He shouldn't be acting this way.
The the huge, golden statues looked more intimidating than friendly, although the wizards didn't give him the time to examine them closely for they pushed him along to a set of golden gates at the end of the hall. Was that where they were going, behind those gates, to some sort of prison cell?
They made their way through the bustling crowd; here and there people came in Apparating, others were shuffling past carrying piles of parchment and other such things only grownups would care to bring along, but just before they reached the gates the wizards pushed him to the left, towards a desk labelled Security. The witch behind it motioned for them to come closer.
"What have we here?" she questioned.
"An intruder, Ms Albain," one of the wizards behind him answered.
Not an intruder, Regulus thought. He wasn't there to intrude, they literally asked for him to do this! How else was he supposed to get here, by foot?
"Fairly young to be an intruder, isn't he? What are you, ten?"
"I'm nearly twelve," he protested.
"Do you go to Hogwarts then, boy?" she asked.
"Of course I do!"
"Feisty, that one, watch it," one of the wizards behind him laughed.
"What's your name, son?" the witch asked. She was far nicer than the wizards who stood around him.
"Regulus Black."
"If you would stepoverhere, Regulus Black."
He did as asked, mostly relieved the wizards released him. She smiled at him and picked up a long, golden rod from one of the drawers. She pressed it softly up and down his front and back until she was satisfied with whatever it was the thing told her.
"Now, Regulus Black, if I may have your wand..."
His wand? Right. He patted around his robes, but they were empty. His wand still lay on his bedside table. "I haven't-"
"You haven't got it with you, eh?" one of the wizards laughed, "you sure you're not 'nearly eleven'?"
"I am nearly twelve! I'll be a Second Year in September. I just left it at home. I'm not supposed to do magic anyway and, well—I'm in a hurry, I had to-"
"Had to what, rob the Ministry? Be a spy? Gather intel? You're a Black, come on, what's your secret?"
The security witch cleared her throat. "Ahem, I think it is best if you all go back to doing your own jobs," she said sternly in a tone that reminded him of Professor McGonagall reprimanding Manning for not doing her job properly. She'd be a good teacher, this 'Security' witch.
The wizards seemed to agree with his assessment, because they all scattered out of the way at her words.
"Now what's so urgent you didn't take your wand?" she asked when they had all left them alone.
"I..." now that he was here, he was a lot less confident about his sudden revelation, but there was no turning back. Besides, it couldn't hurt, could it? He told her of his mother's strange behaviour. "In school, Professor Blackthorn, he warned us you couldn't be too sure about this," he finished his story. There. Now if he for some reason had accidentally falsely accused his parents, he had a reason to do so. It wasn't just him reading something in the newspaper, it was a teacher instructing him to do something.
The witch smiled at him. "Well, that's certainly a very brave thing of you to do, Regulus. Have you ever been here before?"
He shook his head.
"Well, I'm going to give you your very own visitor's badge," she said, rummaging around in the drawers once more before coming back up with a square silver badge that had his name on it. "Pin that to your robes—there you go, looks very smart. Do you see those gates over there? There's lifts behind them to take you to the floor you need to go. Listen very carefully, you need to get out on Level Two, very important you remember that. You think you can do that?"
He nodded. Of course he could. Level two. That was easy enough.
"Very good. If you get lost, just ask, there are plenty of people willing to help you out. You need the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. You think you can manage?"
He nodded again. Of course he could. He was nearly twelve, after all.
"Good luck, Regulus Black."
"Thank you," he said, and he left the desk. He pushed through the crowd and made his way towards the gates, went through them and found himself in a small hall with about twenty or so golden grilles which opened every so often – with far more noise than was pleasant – to let some Ministry people into or out of the boxes behind it. Then another noise filled the hall, a clattering he couldn't place but seemed to grow more distant overtime. And that for twenty of those grilles.
What it did, he didn't know, but he decided to follow the rest. He joined a group of wizards and witches that stood queued in front of one of them and waited for the grilles to glide open. The clang it caused briefly startled him but he followed the others into the box nonetheless. More and more of the witches and wizards looked at him, stared at him. He knew they were staring because he was younger than them. He was the only child in the box, after all. But he didn't let that make him any more nervous, oh no! He had just as much reason to be there as them. He was no intruder.
A sudden jerk made the floor he stood on tremble slightly and he nearly grasped hold of the nearest person to steady himself—but that would've been ridiculously childish and very unbecoming of a Black, especially one his age.
He startled again when it appeared they landed somewhere with a thud, and there was a cool female voice that called out to them: "Level Seven, Department of Magical Games and Sports, incorporating the British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club, and Ludicrous Patents Office."
Next came "Level Six, Department of Magical Transport, incorporating the Floo Network Authority, Broom Regulatory Control, PortkeyOffice, and Apparation Test Center", but he was more prepared by then and barely jumped when the box rattled on further.
He needed Level two, but many others did not and the box emptied out more and more as they passed Levels Five, Four and Three. And finally: "Level Two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services."
He followed the only other wizard that was left out of the box and into a long corridor. On both sides there were doors and windows that appeared to let in sunlight—except they were underground, so it was a spell of some sort. He had to learn that spell. It reminded him a little of the Great Hall at school.
He continued to follow the wizard until he turned a corner and disappeared from sight. Regulus sprinted after him but the corridor only led to a heavy oak door with the inscription Auror Headquarters.
Disappointed, he turned back around and left the corridor. He needed the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, the witch at the desk had said, but where on earth were they?
He stood still in the middle of the hall, examining the doors on the right side and the inscriptions they bore, in search of one that said Magical Law Enforcement Squad but there appeared to be none, only all sorts of administrative services.
He turned around to examine the doors on the left but was met by a much different sight: Lucius Malfoy.
Lucius spotted him as well and took a few steps in his direction. "How did you get here? And before you answer, I'd like to add: why?"
"I'm looking for the... er, the Magical Law Enforcement Squad..." he said, trying to read the sign on the door behind Lucius. It was embarrassing he couldn't find the Squad on the Department dedicated to it.
"Oh, are you?"
He crossed his arms and tried to look as determined as possible. "Yes."
His lips twitched. "Whatever for?"
"None of your business."
Lucius smiled at that, and shook his head. "Ah, to be young..."
"I can ask why you're here," Regulus said, but his confidence was faltering.
"It just so happens that I am looking for the Magical Law Enforcement Squad as well," he said, "I'll tell you why if you tell me."
That seemed fair enough, he figured, so he told him his parents had been acting in a strange manner and he was told to contact the Department of Magical Law Enforcement if such a thing were to happen... so that's exactly what he was doing!
"And you?" he added.
"I am meeting Mr and Mrs Lang; both work for the Squad."
All right. "Where...?"
"Third door on the left."
Regulus nodded, but didn't move. "Aren't you going there, too?"
"After you; your situation is most urgent, mine a friendly visit."
That, too, seemed reasonable. Third door on the left... he turned around and counted the doors.
One. Two. Three—indeed, it was labelled Magical Law Enforcement Squad. How could he have missed it? But then again, it was a rather small door compared with the Auror Headquarters one. He'd expected something more, something better, something less... simple and bland.
Nevertheless, he opened the door. Behind it was an ordinary – but large – office room filled with cubicles and bustling workers. In the back there were eight identical doors which were numbered and occasionally opened for some parchment to fly in, or people to walk out.
Lucius patted him on the back. "Go on, in you go."
He took a few steps inside and Lucius followed, closing the door behind him. Where nobody had responded to seeing him (or perhaps they had not noticed), they reacted to Lucius all the more—a few witches in the front dropped their work at once and fled to the back of the room to those numbered doors and a wizard who had been directing a self-writing quill walked up to them.
"Ah, Mr Malfoy, to what do we owe the pleasure?" It was then that the wizard noticed him, for he bent down a little and said: "Hi there little fella, you can call me Brian. What're you doing here?"
He looked up at Lucius.
"Little Regulus is here because he has something to say about—your parents, was it?"
He nodded.
"Go with the man, Regulus," Lucius said. "Oh, and before I forget: I'm here to have a word with Mr and Mrs Lang, any idea where they might be?"
Brian's expression grew sour but he pointed towards a couple working on the other side of the room. "I hope they haven't caused any trouble?"
Lucius smirked. "Certainly not—this is a friendly visit, nothing more."
Brian didn't seem too convinced but Lucius was on his way already.
"Well, Regulus, what was that about your parents?"
He told the man the same he'd told the witch at the security desk, about how strangely and stiffly Mother had been behaving and what Professor Blackthorn and the Daily Prophet said.
Brian listened intently. "I see what you're saying, kid. If she truly acts unlike herself... You know her best. Your call."
"She's never this quiet. She's never been. She hasn't said a thing since I came back from school," he said. Of course, he didn't mention that he had spent most of the time back home locked into his bedroom, but it was still concerning. Very concerning. It wouldn't hurt to check.
"All right," said Brian. "Then we'll check it out. What's your name?"
"Regulus Black."
"Black? Interesting—Carroll! Inform the Auror Department we might have an Imperius on our hands!"
A witch – presumably Carroll – sprang to her feet in the front row and ran past them, no doubt to the corridor he had just been. Perhaps she'd even talk to the man he had followed. What a small world.
"Holmes," continued Brian, "research this boy's family—he's a Black."
"Are you sure?" asked Holmes.
"Certain." Brian turned his attention back to Regulus as Holmes went to work. "And you, young Regulus Black, are coming with me."