Dear Little Crow

“Barty, will you shut the fuck up, please, before you get us caught.”

“It’s fine, no one’s going to know, they’re all too busy talking about fancy shit.”

“And what exactly does ‘fancy shit’ constitute?”

It was the winter solstice, which meant all the wealthy and pure families of the forest came together for a grand dinner. Both Regulus and Barty had been going to each solstice party since they were thirteen years old. No younger, or they ran the risk of embarrassing their parents.

At thirteen years old, Regulus had looked around in a crowded room full of scary adults and tried to figure out what to do with his hands, or where to guide his eyes. He tried to focus on the delicate chandelier high above, made of thin branches and glowing purple mushrooms. The branches twisted around each glowing mushroom as if to cage it in, to keep it from flying away on the wind. Thick trunks of dark oak, two feet in diameter, stretched up at symmetrical points all around the room to support the arched ceiling above. His mother had hit his arm, telling him to go make conversation. Apparently, she did not notice that Regulus was unfamiliar with everyone in the room, and had no idea where to start.

He had turned his head around desperately, looking for anyone that looked even mildly approachable, and let out a startled breath when he caught sight of a boy far in the corner, staring at him. His hair was dark brown, not nearly as dark as Regulus’s to the point of being black, but dark all the same. His facial expression read as nervous, and Regulus wondered how old he was. He thought they must be around the same age. He took a chance, and walked towards the boy quickly.

That was the first time he had met Barty Crouch Jr.

Now, they were seventeen years old, standing outside and looking into the party through the window. They were absolutely supposed to be inside and socializing, but they had decided to sneak off and see what they could do when all of the adults were wrapped up in their own business. That’s what Barty wanted, anyway. Regulus was just there to make sure Barty didn’t burn anything down- or worse, get caught doing it.

Nothing much about the actual party had changed. The lighting was always dark, the food ridiculously posh, the clothing intricate and embedded with all types of gems and jewels. The people hadn’t changed much either, although the roster had, if only a little. Regulus’s cousin Andromeda had run off a few years ago, even before Sirius. It was a disgraceful bash on the Black family name, having not one but two witches “disowned”. As well, the gaunt family had recently had a newborn, although Regulus didn’t know the details. He didn’t really care.

Barty and he had their eyes trained on a pair of twins with matching dark skin and blonde hair. Evan’s hair was combed and gelled, which Regulus was sure Barty would tease him about later, even though right now Barty could barely tear his eyes away. Pandora’s hair reached all the way down their back, interwoven with little flowers they probably picked themself on the way here. Evan wore a dark suit, hands clasped behind his back, looking by all means serious and business-like. Pandora’s dress fell around their feet in a pool of black satin, no ruffles or frills to be found anywhere along their body. Instead, gray laced around the bottom of their dress in beautiful patterns, crawling up to their torso.

Pandora was leaning into Evan’s space when their head snapped up in Regulus and Barty’s direction. Their eyes were blank- literally. There was no pupil, just an empty white that pulled you in as if it were a void. They smiled and waved, only Evan glancing to see what they were looking at. It would not have been unusual in the slightest if Pandora had been waving to something only they could see.

Everyone that had met Pandora more than once was quite accustomed to their odd ways. Pandora was one of the very few witches who were so-called ‘graced’, born perhaps once every thirty or forty years. Graces had a range of gifts, from seeing the future to hearing the dead. As a result, they were known to be quite often tuned out, lost in a world no one else could comprehend. They also always had empty eyes and pointed ears, although why that was, no one really knew.

When Evan looked where Pandora was waving, he broke into a grin that seemed to make him an entirely different person than the boy who nodded to acquaintances across the room so seriously. He looked around to see if anyone was looking, then grabbed Pandora’s arm and started walking nonchalantly towards the window. The Rosiers had arrived quite late, so Regulus and Barty had no choice but to smuggle the twins out.

When Evan came near the window, he turned to appear facing the room, and rested his back against the wall.

“What the ever-loving fuck are you two doing out there?”

“Nice to see you Rosier, you’re looking quite nice this evening. Have you done something to your hair? It’s looking extra- well, flat, isn’t it?” Barty was evidently over his few moments of staring hopelessly at Evan, which yes, of course Regulus had seen. It probably had something to do with the fact that Evan had rimmed his eyes in kohl for the event. Actually, scratch that, Barty would’ve been staring anyways. Before Evan could snap back however, Regulus cut in.

“Barty wanted to sneak out and cause chaos while everyone’s in there, I came with him, you two weren’t here yet so now we have to sneak you out.”

“Won’t someone notice we’re gone?” Evan asked. Everyone stared dead at him, even Pandora. “Right, stupid question, ignore that. How are we getting out?”

“Go through the window. No one’s going to see us.” Pandora’s voice was angelic and quiet, but sure. At this point, no one really questioned them.

The twins opened the window and climbed out, Evan first with Barty helping him through (despite Evan not needing help whatsoever), and Pandora following. Sure enough, no one inside batted an eye.

Pandora smiled widely and clapped their hands. “I’m excited! Tonight’s going to be quite interesting.”

Everyone exchanged glances, not quite sure what to do with that information. Regulus wasn’t even sure what they were going to do yet, but sure, it was going to be… ‘interesting’. That was fine, he was sure nothing would go wrong. (It is worth mentioning that if one were to listen to the stream of thoughts going through Regulus Black’s head, one would be accosted with a consistent amount of sarcasm they had likely never experienced before).

“Come on, let’s go east,” Pandora suggested. “We’ll probably come across Dorcas that way.”

“I don’t even know which way east is,” Barty muttered. Pandora had a point, though; Dorcas lived east of where they currently were, and it would be good to pick her up if they were all out anyways.

And so they went east.

~~~
After around half an hour of walking east through the forest, there was still no sign of Dorcas. They had even gone past Dorcas’s house, but had found nothing.

Barty and Evan had picked up sticks and were currently in a contest of who could poke the other the most. Regulus figured it wasn’t long until one of them accidentally got cut, at which point the game would be who could make the other bleed the most times. They were both psychopaths, in Regulus’s opinion, although he was pretty sure he was too, so no judgement.

They weren’t going to find Dorcas like this. Regulus stopped, reached into an inner pocket of his suit, and pulled out a small vial done up with a cork. The liquid inside was a light green. He made sure the cork was on tightly before swishing it around gently. Theoretically it should be stable, but you really never knew. One wrong motion and the entire forest could be on fire.

“What’s that?” Evan asked.

“Locater potion.”

Magic was complicated, to say the least. Lots of minor spells, like lighting a small flame or summoning a stick, one could do by the age of nine. Slightly more complicated bits of magic, like sending a person something on the winds or communicating (and then bargaining) with animals required a bit more effort and focus. Incredibly intense spells, like summoning a storm or controlling someone’s mind, often took at least half an hour to build up and use. The worst was necromancy. Raising someone from the dead was only possible by the greatest witches, and took anywhere from a month to a year to cast. Each spell required a witch to focus on their target without pause, often without movement unless the magic was guiding your motions. No eating, talking, (unless, as often happens, the words are drawn from your mouth in magic’s guidance), and certainly no sleeping. Of course, everything depended on how powerful a witch was. There is a certain extent to which practice and care could take you, and after that it simply turns to skill.

Potions were an alternate route that Regulus was quite fond of. They still required incredible amounts of skill and precision, of course, but they allowed one to prepare a spell in advance. Locating another witch, which would normally take around twenty minutes to cast, had now been reduced to spending half an hour creating a batch of such concoctions, and being able to use one and cast the spell in two minutes.

That is exactly what Regulus had done. He knelt down, palm to the ground, and poured the light green liquid into the earth. He felt a familiar tingle run through him, warm and soft. Every time, it made him think of being six years old and crawling into his older brother’s bed at night, where Sirius would hold him like he was the only thing that mattered. He almost smiled. As he felt the magic run its course, he started to chant. He didn’t know what the words meant, or in fact what he was speaking at all. The witches called it the language of the spirit, the one that took you when your soul was opened to the life of the world around you.

Within a minute or two, he felt the ground where the potion had spilled warm up, and suddenly a small light rose from under the earth. It lifted to his eye level, and started to move leisurely off in the direction they had been walking.

“Really?” Evan groaned. “More east?”

“Come on, pretty boy, east we go!” Evan flustered at Barty’s use of the name ‘pretty boy’, and his face went a little red. Of course Barty, the idiot, didn’t notice shit. Or at least, he chalked it up to nothing more than annoyance. Regulus and Pandora rolled their eyes with fondness. Actually, Regulus more with exasperation.

They moved after the light, Regulus and Pandora in front with Barty and Evan behind. As they walked through the trees, Regulus looked up to the night sky. It was barely visible beyond the canopy of needles and branches of the pines, but he could see enough. Instinctually, his eyes went to Sirius first, and then to Regulus. The Greater Dog, and the Heart of the Lion. Sirius’s namesake was quite fitting, he thought. He had always reminded Regulus of a particularly shaggy dog with his long black hair and normally rumpled clothes. Loyal too. He had left, and Regulus would always hate him for that, but until the end he had protected Regulus. He had always taken Regulus’s punishments if he could, only blaming Regulus when he would be particularly cold or judging, and never once making Regulus feel guilty for the pain that was caused. Sirius had tried, over and over, to get Regulus to see his ways. He had begged and pleaded and shouted and whispered, but Regulus could never really agree with him. Where would they go? How could they live away from everyone they knew? Sirius was an idiot, and that had never changed. He was an idiot for thinking they could leave, except of course Sirius had done it. He had gotten out. What a cruel trick that was, when that same night Sirius had even asked him- no.

No, he wasn’t doing that right now. He had spent enough nights spiralling, it was appalling that he could still trip and fall into the same thoughts over and over again. An infinite number of what-ifs. None of it mattered anymore. He had his friends around him, his real family, and he knew they would never leave him. They understood, and they loved him. He loved them too, although he had never said it. They knew, though.

They knew when someone who had called Pandora weird wound up unable to open their mouth for days (there was never proof to be shown), or when Barty crawled through Regulus’s window a few nights a week to escape his father. They knew when Regulus listened to Dorcas’s rants about the human village she was fascinated with, or when he spent an hour healing Evan’s leg after Evan had a particularly brutal fall, so no one would know. They knew he loved them.

As they spent longer and longer walking, Regulus began to become agitated. There wasn’t much forwards except forest and the barrier. He had the most dreadful feeling that he knew exactly where Dorcas was, and what she was doing.

Sure enough, they soon approached the shimmering see-through wall that stretched as high and as far as Regulus could see. Just a foot away from it, kneeling on the ground, was a girl in a dark green dress with deep brown eyes and long braids. Dozens of little designs were curled all over her skin in ink – images of eyes, vines, and who-knows-what. She appeared in the middle of something; her eyes were unseeing, her hands were raised up to the sky, and she was chanting under her breath. She had the faintest purple aura around her, like she was glowing. Regulus caught the faintest whiff of lavender. That was the thing with magic: it brought out something different in everyone. Regulus had often been told he smelled faintly of cedar when he performed magic.

No one dared interrupt her. The casting of spells was a dangerous thing to tamper with – the building of force just to be released without a channel or purpose could even be, on some occasions, fatal. Instead, they waited as her chanting slowly grew louder and louder. Her arms began to tremble in the air as she started shouting, until in a split second all of them were blown back.

Everyone was safe on the ground except for Barty, who had hit his back harshly against a tree trunk. While Evan rushed quickly to Barty, Regulus moved towards Dorcas. She had collapsed onto the ground, taking ragged breaths in and out. Her eyes started to focus, and she looked up at him. Her eyes were narrowed, and her braids were falling in front of her face. Today, they were intertwined with silver charms and strings.

“What in the dead spirits are you doing here?” Dorcas looked at him expectantly.

“I could ask you the same question. Dorcas, what the hell are you doing playing with the barrier? Do you know how fucked we could all be?” It was always a risk that some of the elder witches would feel it being tampered with, although no one could really be sure – it wasn’t exactly something that had been tested very much. They hadn’t been alerted to anything since the night Sirius left, but there was no telling what could finally do Dorcas in.

She was utterly fascinated by the human world, and the barrier by extension. She hated that the witches had cut humanity off, and was constantly making hypothesis after hypothesis about how one could get through the barrier. There had been a period where she was constantly asking Regulus everything about Sirius, about if he had ever said anything, had ever done anything, that could have gotten him through. It had ended with Regulus shouting, the only time he had ever done so. It wasn’t her fault at all; for a long time, he had become a little too good at convincing everyone he didn’t care about his brother. With his friends, that façade hadn’t lasted long. Nevertheless, he had worked through his pride (he was loathe to admit how hard that had actually been) and eventually apologized to her, and she had apologized for pushing so much. Recently, though, she had been getting restless. This wasn’t the first time someone had found her near the barrier, but it was rare, and it had certainly been a while.

“I’m getting closer- shit, Barty, are you okay?” She got up as she finally noticed Barty, who was sitting against a tree with Evan right beside him.

“He’s fine, he’s just being dramatic,” said Evan, before Barty could say anything.

“Fuck you, I am not fine, it hurts like I’ve just had your mother on my back!” At this Pandora leaned over and smacked Barty round the back of the head, albeit softer than anybody else would have.

“That’s my mother too, so watch it.”

Barty just sniffed, before getting up (with the ease of someone entirely unharmed) and walking to where Dorcas had been kneeling a minute ago. Evan got up too, and they all gathered around him.

“You really did get close,” Barty said. He was looking curiously at the barrier. “You guys can feel it, right? The barrier’s – I don’t know – it’s almost like it’s bent? Damaged? Cautious? It’s off, somehow.”

Regulus actually didn’t feel anything, he wasn’t sure that Evan or Dorcas did either, but Pandora nodded. “It’s weaker.”

Barty reached his hand out cautiously towards the barrier before pausing, turning, and giving a long, shrill whistle. Evan reached up to cover Pandora’s ears quickly.

“Sorry, Panda,” Barty said, before looking into the forest and waiting.

No one ever seemed to fully appreciate Barty, because he never acted like it, but he was patient when he wanted to be. Smart, too, a little scarily if Regulus was honest. He probably knew a lot more about Regulus than Regulus was aware of, which he tried not to think about. He didn’t really mind what Barty knew, but still.

Finally, after a few minutes, a red fox came running through the trees until it tumbled to a stop in front of Barty. It had a few scars on its nose and one barley missing its eye, which was how Regulus knew it was the same one that often kept Barty company. They had collectively named her Ace – Regulus didn’t know why, he had simply agreed to it.

Barty cupped her snout in his hands, leaning her soft head against his. He held her for a few seconds before beginning to whisper under his breath. It took a moment for Regulus to realize he wasn’t understanding not because Barty was too quiet, but because the words were not understandable in the first place. His features were lighting up faintly from within, and Regulus became aware of a strong scent of mint. Holy spirits, Regulus did not feel like he was at his best today.

“Barty, Barty what are you doing?” Regulus stalked closer to Barty. “I can guarantee you this isn’t a good idea.” He was about to reach out and touch him when Pandora grabbed his arm, shaking their head.

“Don’t. This needs to happen,” they looked at him with an empty gaze that told him they weren’t all here right now. He remembered what they had said earlier, that tonight would be ‘interesting’. No, no no no, he did not like that at all. Anxiety began to curl in his stomach like a bear for hibernation, heavy and not leaving anytime soon.

“Shit, shit, shit,” was all he could manage before Ace pulled out of Barty’s hands and ran over to start biting at Regulus’s legs. He reached down to try and get her off, but as soon as he touched her, he fell to his knees. Suddenly he knew exactly what Barty was doing, pulled into the eye of the storm that was Barty’s magic. He was distantly aware that this wouldn’t end well, but all he could feel was the familiar tingle of magic running through his body. It was warm, and soft, and suddenly there was Sirius.

Sirius, with his long black dog-like hair. They were young again, not yet ten, and Sirius was holding him like nothing else mattered. They were going to be okay. He had his big brother, and his big brother had him, and they would get through anything.

No, no, no, no, he thought pleadingly, not right now, I need to get Barty out of this. But he was sinking, drowning, his conscience fading as he tried desperately to focus his will. It was futile; the magic had taken its hands and pulled him under. Everything faded away. He thought he felt a hand on his arm, but nothing stopped.

Finally, he was yanked out of his trance to find Ace a few feet away, looking back at him. She stood for a long moment, before launching herself at the barrier. Dorcas cried out, but Ace slipped through the wall of magic like she was going through a curtain. Regulus watched as, across the other side, she kept running without looking back.

“What- what the FUCK was that, Barty?! Regulus! What- holy spirits we’re so fucked, I’m dead, we’re all dead.” Evan was panicking and pacing quickly. “What the fuck did you do? How did you do that?”

Pandora was staring with an empty gaze at where the fox had run off. Dorcas was smiling open-mouthed in utter shock.

“They did it. And see, nothing happened! There was no burst of force, no light, the elders won’t know!” She turned to look at Regulus. “What did you do?”

It was Barty who spoke first, grinning with pride. Regulus was too shocked, filled with such intense dread he could barely think properly. Dear spirits, what had he done? He was a fucking fool.

“I got her through the barrier, that’s what I did!” Barty was practically shouting with glee. “If witches and humans can’t get through, it would probably be easy to send Ace, so I just-“

“No.” Everyone turned to look at Regulus.

“Reg?” Evan looked at him worriedly. After Regulus remained silent, he went on. “Reg, you look incredibly pale, which is saying something. Reg, what happened? Say something.”

Regulus turned his head from where he had been staring at the fox. “That’s – we didn’t just send her over. I got caught in it, I was influencing it, and I started thinking of-“ he choked up, tried to take deep breaths and calm himself. He was the master of his emotions, he had dealt with much worse, he needed to spit it out.

It’s just that he really couldn’t believe what he had just done. How stupid could he have been? This wasn’t good, this really wasn’t good, and if there was any chance his call would be answered, then his entire world might come crashing down around him.

“She didn’t just go through the barrier.” Everyone looked confused, Barty tried to protest, but he powered on.

“She’s going to find Sirius.”