Give up your nights, Dig your graves.

Being left stuck with Sirius is something she should have expected to be honest.

She knew Regulus wouldn’t let Sirius into the cave with him, and goodness forbid Regulus doesn’t get his own way.

She knew Sirius wouldn’t leave her with Regulus either, ever since she told him she didn’t trust him with Reg, even before then when he first found out that Pandora had been hiding a comatose Regulus from him for a week.

The point being, she knew Sirius wouldn’t let her stay with Regulus- stubborn, and she knew Regulus wouldn’t let Sirius come in the cave with him- stubborn.

So that left James and Regulus together and Pandora stuck outside the cave with-

“This is ridiculous.”

“So you’ve said.” She doesn’t even bother to hide the roll of her eyes as she leans her back against the entrance to the cave.

“Oh, so you’re just fine with this?” he scoffs back, eyeing her up with a glare she is sure he learned from his brother.

“Peachy.”

“How can you-“

“Reg can take care of himself.”

“Really?” she hears the sarcasm dripping from the other boys voice, “So was the Basilisk just a blip? Or did he end up locked in a fake hospital room for a week because of you?”

“Black-“ she starts, letting him rile her up is way too easy. She has so much control over herself, but the Chamber, that’s a sure fire way to raise her guard. She was too worried for the other boy to put it all easily behind her, she remembers the seconds where she forgot about the spell he put on their eyes prior to going into the cave, she forgot that they had a safety net.

So she remember the few seconds her friend was dead. At least to her.

Remembers the moments she was dragging his body away from the Chamber, risking her life to do so, thinking it was a corpse.

She remembers not caring if she was lost to the Chamber too, how she had thought Regulus was dead, and she had dragged him out anyway.

She remembers not getting a moment to grieve, because she thought he was dead, and she was running, a dead weight pulling behind her.

She remembers realising he was alive, and then in the same breath discovering that he was bleeding out, and all she could think about was saving him. Again.

She got him stable, and then James Potter was crying in front of her, and she was trying to assure him.

Then they were working in shifts, and she remembers spending all her time either keeping up appearances, or too scared to take her eyes off of Regulus to do anything but focus on his steady form.

She remembers him waking up, getting the boys in on the plan, keeping an eye on Regulus, keeping Barty and Evan in the dark, not confiding in Dorcas, even though she was sure the other girl would listen, even after everything, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide it from the other girl.

And Dorcas had just gotten out, she wasn’t going to drag her back in.

She remembers pushing it all down, everything, pushing it out, locking it away.

And the moment she truly lets it flood her mind, lets herself feel her almost loss, is not going to be in front of Sirius fucking Black.

“No, no tell me. Were you trying to get my baby brother killed?” he spits out again, clearly not done. And for one of the first times in her life, Pandora snaps.

“He’s not a child, Black.” She snaps out, immediately on the defensive, stepping forward to cut him off when his mouth goes to open.

“Maybe if you hadn’t left him in that house, you would’ve realised that sooner.  Maybe if you hadn’t make him feel like he had to hide every single part of himself just so you wouldn’t take more punishments for him, you would’ve realised you’re the reason he fits so well into our parents world. You’re the reason he adapted to it. Maybe if you didn’t make him feel so guilty for his own existence. Maybe if you took 5 seconds to stop blaming me, you would realise your ‘baby brother’ did go against a Basilisk, and he survived, because he had planned, because I made a potion, because James showed up. Maybe if you remember that you would realise that he didn’t ask you to help him for any of that. Because he’s not your brother, he’s mine.”

She finishes the last bit with a heaving breath, forcing the shaking her body is doing to even out, masking the tears that her eyes want to let out with a glare. Because she knows Regulus’ tricks, because she grew up with them too, just like Sirius, just like her brother.

“He is my brother.” The protest comes out weak.

“Is he?” she asks, her composure back in mere seconds.

“Yes.” He speaks up again, his voice slightly stronger this time, glare slowly working its way back onto his features.

“Prove it.”

But before the argument can continue on, before either of them can dig themselves into a deeper hole than they can claw their way out of, their silence is interrupted by a bang and a shake running through the floor beneath their feet, causing them both to stumble slightly, falling back into the walls.

When the movement stops, they lock eyes for a mere second before legging it into the cave, one after the other.

When they make it inside, there is nothing to see, it is all eerily still.

She can see the island in the middle of the cave where the potion must be kept, where the two boys must be stood, but the way the island in question stands, she can’t see either of them from her viewpoint. 

She watches on as another shake ripples through the cage, the water shocking upwards as if a canon ball had just dropped in, Inferi being blasted away from the crash site as the rest of the cave shakes in aftershock.

She strains to hear what’s happening, but before she can even try, the pounding of feet on rocks makes her head whip around and she watches as Sirius runs towards the water.

“Stop.” She screams after him, darting forward before he can tumble head first into the now rocking waves below.

When she reaches him, she clutches one hand around his arm, dragging him backwards all the while keeping her eyes locked forward, looking for a sign of life, a sign of anything, just looking.

“Get off!” she feels as he rips away from her grip before she is back on him, yanking him back with such force he falls to the floor with a thud.

“Rosier, mov-“

She raises her wand to his face, a glare levelling her features, before looking back to her surroundings and around, trying to gather what is going on.

She hears splashing in the water, but no voices, and a lurch of fear, dropping in her stomach, allows her to think of all the reasons why she wouldn’t be hearing her friends voice right now.

The thought only enters her head for a moment before her leg is being shoved backwards and she is falling, shoulder slamming into the rocks below her, causing her face to contort in pain.

Just as she manages to jar her eyes open again, she sees Sirius running towards the water, raising her hand, she casts a quick lacero with her wand, and watches as the other boy gets bound together by invisible ropes, rooting him into place.

“Let me fucking go!” he spits, and she sees by the way his muscles tense in his body, he is trying so desperately to fight against the ropes holding him in place, but it’s to no avail. And he keeps struggling in place, his face contorting in a mix of frustration and pain, likely from the fall she caused him.

“Running headfirst into trouble doesn’t help anyone.” She spits, eyes back ahead of her as she tries to make something out in the cave beyond.

Looking for the boat, the boys, a sign of life, anything, she is desperate for anything.

“Neither does standing here.”

“Stop being a hero.”

“Stop being a coward.” She gets back in equal venom, and she pauses, her eyes not leaving the water in front of her.

“Not yet.”

Before he has a chance to protest, she sees movement ahead, a mirage, a piece of smoke wafting through the air, gathering speed the longer she looks, she steps back, wand coming up instinctually as she quickly lets Sirius go from the binding she had placed on him, and she moves herself into a duelling stance.

“James?” she hears a soft whisper to her side, and just as she goes to open her mouth, to reply, a scream rips its way through the cave, coming from the form above the water.

Coming from James.

They move in sync, rushing forward, working their way towards the edge of the rocks to get as close to the other boy as they can, both looking on in confusion as a body comes whizzing towards them, flailing around like a fish out of water, arms pinned to their side as if bound.

Another splash sounds from the water, further away this time. In the direction the flailing body is desperately looking towards, trying to get to.

“Regulus!”

She hears the scream ripped free from the boy next to her, abruptly verbalising her fears,  before she even has time to process what’s going on.

Even has time to process what the floating body means.

The faraway splash.

The agony in the Sirius’ voice, the fear she is sure she would find in his eyes if she could only bring herself to look at him, away from the empty mass of water before her.

Because James is nearly there, and he is still petrified.

Still sounds like his world is ending.

Because James is crumpled on the floor in front of them, his eyes going into the back of his head the second his feet touched the ground, and although Sirius has his wand on him immediately, some sort of spells falling in rapid succession from his lips,  his eyes do not break from the water.

The expanse of the cave.

Regulus.

Oh, Regulus, Regulus, Regulus.

And she is moving, before Sirius can even beat her to it, though he is hot on her tale, and they are both running to the water, any access point they can find.

Her eyes run over the expanse in front of her, searching for something, anything. And she sees the boat drifting.

Moving more like, with purpose.

A perfect straight line amongst the no longer calm waves.

It’s moving back to where it can be used again, sensing more willing victims waiting on the shore. And it views its old job as done, because Regulus is… Regulus is…

She is running to the boat before she even gets a chance to think, Sirius jumping in it before her, nearly falling into the dark lake below with the eagerness he clambers on board with.

And without a second thought, she clambers in after him. And they are off, rushing towards the middle island, the boat not moving nearly as fast as her heart is asking it to.

“James-“ she asks, because she has enough headspace to, because Sirius came with her, because he’s running to Regulus.

“He’ll be fine.”

“Is he fine now?” she asks, hesitation on her tongue.

“No.”

“Why didn’t you-“

“Regulus.”

“But if you could save him-“

“I can only save him if I get him home, so I will do so when we take them both home.”

The other boys voice is calm and clear, like mere instructions for a homework assignment, like they are not in peril, or sailing over it. No room left for argument, but she tries anyway.

“Sirius-”

But before the conversation has a chance to continue, they are seconds from docking, and the other boy is clambering out of the boat when it is still a couple steps away from the island.

But he does not falter, he hops slightly, barely skimming the water with his foot, before falling into a run again, up and over the island, out of her sight.

“REG?! REGGIE?!” she finds her footing and runs after the screaming boy, just making it over the top of the island when another scream rips from the other boys chest in perfect time with another splash of water. She barely has time to let her heart lurch before another splash is heard and there are two heads of black curls falling into the water, one frantically kicking and the other jerking slightly as it gets progressively weaker.

Before she can think it through, she is running forward, only barely managing to stop her momentum as she gets to the waters edge.

She can’t just dive in too, that’s already the tactic of one of the boys, she is the last one capable of thinking, she needs to actually use her brain.

Raising her wand, she fires out yet another lacero, catching the older brother by the ankle and yanking him back in a tug of war against the Inferi trying to drag him down.

She keeps pulling, even when she realises he is kicking against her, trying to reach his brother, she keeps pulling.

The other head slips under water as she does so, and in a burst of anger and fear, she yanks one last time, Sirius being pulled quickly from the Inferi’s grip, their claws scraping down his leg and tearing it open as they does so.

“Sto-“ he tries, his voice cutting off halfway through as he heaves over on all fours to cough up some water, before lurching forward to dive back in.

Reluctant to let go of her one chance as Regulus fades out of view, she throws another lacero on the other boy, around his middle, and this time a visible rope darts out of her want, she plants her feet in the ground, and when she sees Sirius turn around to level her with a glare she nods once towards the water.

“Go.”

No more command is needed before the boy is diving back in and she is stumbling forward before planting her feet into the ground again to be a steady tether.

She feels the tug of the rope in her hands, the pull of it trying to slip away from her quickly, and she grips tighter, slackening it just slightly when she sees the other boy held just out of reach of his brother.

Sirius pulls forward again a bit too quickly, and the rope starts to slip through her fingers, burning as it pulls, but she grips it tighter, bites down on her lip hard and fights to drag it the other way.

“Come on.” She keeps muttering under her breath until the other boy starts fighting quicker towards her, helping her grip on the rope instead of hindering it this time.

She steps back, fraction by fraction, covering ground as she watches the two boys drift closer back to her.

They are just about to reach the island, close enough for purchase, when an Inferi grips the rope again, snapping it.

Pandora starts to stumble back, the counter weight she was holding sending her falling quickly before she is caught, her gaze flicks up quickly, her heart starting to beat quicker in her chest and she sees a dog in the water, frayed rope caught between its jaws, and an ever so slightly conscious Regulus clinging onto its back.

Without giving herself a second to think about it, she starts pulling them in again. Her legs burning as she digs her heels into the ground harder, instead of walking back she pulls the rope through her hand this time, pulling and pulling.

As the boys crumple onto the shore, she shoots a jet of fire at the Inferi making their way up and to the island behind them, her aim so precise and practiced that she managed to get the one still clinging onto Regulus’ back without actually hitting the other boy.

Stumbling forward quickly she grabs the two, one still dog, one a bleeding mess on the verge of passing out, and drags, for all the times she refused to fly, to play quidditch, for all the times she knew of Regulus’ rigorous training schedules, she wishes she had been at them now.

She keeps pulling until they are on shore, sending more jets of fire at the slowly creeping up Inferi, keeping them at bay, bit by bit as she waits for the older brother to get back to himself.

“Black.”

She sees the dogs head raise out of the corner of her eye.

“You need to get him on your back.” She lets the instruction fall off her tongue as if this is a completely natural situation they are finding themselves in. As if a (mostly likely illegal) Animagus hadn’t just been revealed right in front of her nose.

It’s silent for a moment before the dog whines again and she darts her gaze back quickly to see Regulus unconscious, his last grips of survival and adrenaline apparently having left him, meaning he is no longer of use.

She tries to ignore the eery similarity of the cave to the chamber.

Cold and dark, her best friend unconscious and bleeding. Once more unsure if he is alive.

She pushes the thought from her mind, throwing off more fire spells without looking.

“Can’t you transform back?” she tries.

Another whine and she looks quickly to see the dog raising one of it’s back paws, the gash would be unclear in the light if it wasn’t for the way the blood was slowly trickling down the island from the cut, enough blood spilling to let her know the cut is deep, a struggle to walk on with just two legs.

Right.

She moves back, keeping one eye over her shoulder and one on the two boys as she raises her spare arm, grabbing at her friend to lift his limp form, his body pliable and flopping like a ragdoll in her hold.

A growl sounds from her side and she forces herself not to snap at the other boy, so untrusting even when she is the very reason his brother is alive right now.

“Come here.”

And despite the tension in the dogs tears and tail, he listens, moving swiftly towards the boy on the ground, standing in front of him almost, guarding Regulus, and keeping an eye on Pandora the whole time.

“Ok,” she tries to force patience into her tone as she fires yet another spell over her shoulder, more heat filling the cave, “can you bend?” she tries, leaning down slightly, when the dog follows her lead, admittedly managing to portray a very judgmental look for a dog, she lifts Regulus up by one arm again, letting the dog step underneath it as she lays the boy out over the dog.

It's not the best position, Regulus is still all but hanging, but it’s all they have.

And the body is limp, she tries to let that fill her, relax her.

It may look dead, limp may be dead, but it isn’t petrified, and she will take the one win her mind will offer her, refusing to let her thoughts slip.

“Take him to the boat.” And for the first time, Sirius- because it is Sirius- starts to move, listening to her, without an ounce of hesitation.

She follows behind, keeping up her rapid plethora of spells, letting them loose one after the other as she keeps a slight eye on the boys in front of her to make sure neither are falling, they work their way over the island and she dips her hand in the potion pot briefly, scooping out a locket and repressing a shudder.

When they finally reach the boat. She drags it onto the shore, pushing away the Inferi with her wand, to allow them all to clamber into it as safely as possible, before shooting it with a spell towards the water, speeding up the movement and leaving the Inferi falling behind as they rush back towards the entrance of the cave where a limp form still lays.

When they get back to the cottage, it’s in a heap. They are all but falling over each other, 2 bodies limp, one injured and one exhausted beyond belief.

Without a second thought she sends a jet of light off into the night to a certain red head, a beg for help diving away with the dolphin ahead.

She manages to right herself slightly, slinging one of her friends arms around her neck before heaving herself all the way up and moving towards the house, calling for Sirius behind her.

Without turning around she begins to walk, and settles herself slightly when she hears another set of footsteps behind her.

“My rooms this way.” She starts moving down the hall as they get in the front door, a sound of dragging behind her.

“What about the guest room?” she hears the other voice behind her and keeps moving forward.

“I’ve sent for Lily, I can’t tell who’s more critical right now, and it’s better if whilst they’re being treated she has quick access to both of them, my rooms the biggest.”

“So they’re sharing?”

She shoulders a door open, turning slightly as she does so to see the other boy behind her, James wrapped round his shoulder as he leans slightly to his left, favouring one leg.

“Yeah.” She moves further into the room, nudging a door stop in front of the door so Sirius can get in easy before gently placing Regulus on the right side of the bed, letting Sirius do the same to James on the left.

She waves her wand one more time summoning a chair for the remaining boy to slump into,  and readies herself to have to push through her magical exhaustion to save the two boys until Lily gets here, but just as she moves towards their bedside again she feels a pull on her chest, feels the wards shift, and lets herself relax slightly, waiting for the red head to rush the room.