A Solemn Silence (Pretty Boy)

"How did we end up like this?" Regulus whispered. Shy, low, beautiful. The little light that reflected from the moon over the stones in the walls of the cave made him look so much more graceful, like a painting, the lights and shadows framed him perfectly. He was perfect. And he felt safe with Alexander, his guard low, his muscles not tense.

"Well it all started when Lily made me promise not to drink tonight." Alexander enjoyed purposefully misinterpreting Regulus' words, the rise it got out of him made him giggle every single time. Regulus rolled his eyes but kept a grin on his face. He'd been wearing him down all night.

"So you wouldn't have talked to me if you were drunk?" He loved it when he challenged him. The back and forth. He never let him just get his way.

"I probably would've hooked up with Evan, or Barty... And Barty." But he loved it most when he was jealous.

"You're disgusting." Regulus rolled his eyes at him, a pretend puking. Alexander guided him towards the furthest part of the cave, where the music was just faint enough to remind them they were still part of the outside world, but muffled enough so that they could use this as their private little corner of the world.

"Please! You like me so much Regulus," Alexander teased him, poked at his feeling.

"What makes you so certain?" He was trying to keep up his poker face, but it wasn't working, he'd seen him look at him for once, how he doubled up on his occulumency every time he blushed or laughed near him, he didn't need to read his thoughts to read him like a book, "and where even is this?" He gestured around, at the cave they'd end up in. A little place Alexander and Evan found a few years before when they were having a sexually explicit love affair. It was just perfect for intimate meeting of any kind.

"For starters you followed me into a cave in Salazar knows where," Alexander was hopping along the dark path, not looking back at him until he said, "and then, you didn't correct me when I said you liked me. That was the biggest tell."

"That's all poppycock." POPPYCOCK! This was new. Even for Alexander, master of minds and gossipmonger of the age, he had NEVER heard Regulus use such expression.

"Did you just use the world poppycock Regulus Black?" Alexander couldn't help but laugh. Regulus was embarrassed enough when he said it, he needn't the reminder. The cave was dark enough for his blushed face not to show it but Alexander could feel him blush.

"What of it?" Regulus answered with a bit of a bite to it. He was feeling vulnerable!

"What of it? You're so taken by me." Alexander laughed again, a sweet laugh, not a mockery, "You lose your cool, you use the word poppycock." Regulus had the most extensive vocabulary of anyone in the castle, living or dead or in-between, he did not have to rely on poppycock. Alexander knew it. He didn't have to read his mind for it, he could feel it. He could see it.

"So what if I'm taken by you then?" Regulus stopped dead in his tracks, he didn't like to feel vulnerable and feeling safe for him was historically followed by pain for Regulus, he was pushing it too far, Alexander realized a bit too late, "I made a foolish decision following you here or what? You're just waiting to shame me and make a fool of me?" This was coming from somewhere new, fear, anger, expectation.

"You think I'd take you into an isolated cave away from a party to make fun of you Regulus?" Alexander tilted his head, back to the ground, reason first, then feeling, he could salvage the situation still, "You think that lowly of me?"

That seemed to stop Regulus in his tracks again, in another direction, a punch in the gut one for either. Balancing it out.

"What then?" Regulus whispered.

"Make an assumption." I'm also taken by you.

"I won't." Been for longer than a year.

"A wild guess." I'm also taking a leap of faith here.

"No." You have to be the one to say it first.

"Please." Please.

"You're taken by me." Regulus looked off to the side, his voice was firm though. It was reason overtaken by emotion. Regulus couldn't match Alexander's eyes, the impossibility of him being yearned for by someone was natural for Regulus.

"Have been, am, will be." Alexander's smile was relaxed now, natural. Not too big and bright like at the party, not loud like that. But a quiet, comfortable shine, like a candle in the dark, warm, enough light to make Regulus feel at ease sitting in his darkness.

"And you had to play this whole charade for it?" Regulus was a straightforward person, he liked things done quickly and clearly.

"Did you not enjoy the dance?" Alexander like the scenic route. He put his hand out forward. A simple gesture that could lead to so much if...

Regulus grabbed it, loose, risking letting it fall apart any second if...

Alexander held it fast and sweet...

Regulus pulled him closer by his hand until they were standing an inch away from more than just friends...

And Alexander closed the distance and made them much more than friends...

"Come on..." Alexander's breath lingered on his skin, "we're not there yet."

"Where is there?" Regulus couldn't do with uncertainty and Alexander knew it, he enjoyed it, really enjoyed it. Not as much as what just happened, but it was one of the little pleasures of life,  poking Regulus with a stick, not as in an innuendo, but a metaphor. 

"Not telling." Alexander hadn't let go of Regulus' hand, he seized the chance to pull him through the cave, it was dark and moist and he kept singing the words to the music in the far distance to fill the silence.

He pulled out his wand. Ready for when he needed to light up the room.

He dragged Regulus along until there was light again. A blue glimmer that bounced off the obsidian dark rocks on the walls of the cave. It was a sort of chamber, and in the middle of it was a pond, from which the light was coming.

"You're not expecting me to get in there." Regulus said with absolute disgust in his eyes. Of course he wasn't, he wouldn't get in himself under normal circumstances. And there was another thing. It wasn't lit up last time he was here. He and Evan cast the light, it wasn't there before.

"For starters no I wasn't. I hoped to pull up our trousers and get out feet there, I'm not that horny. At the moment." Alexander glanced at him, devilish grin. Still, it was truth that the sheer quantity of potions and drafts Poppy had him drinking was not helping his sex drive. The price you pay for slashing black magic off your arm with a supper knife.

"How did you find it this place?" First of all he would not tell Regulus he found it with Evan when they were, well, horny. And second of all, there was a more important matter at hand? Why was it lit up? Also, third of all, he would tell Regulus about him and Evan later when he wanted to get him jealous and riled up.

"Tell you later," Alexander started looking around, there was not much to look at, but there had to be some source of light, "help me out for a second now,"

Regulus just made his questioning face. He shook it off, there was no getting answers of Alexander when he didn't want to. Regulus knew him enough to know that, so he pulled his wand, "what am I doing?"

"Where's the light coming from?" Alexander was peaking into the pond now, it was perfectly reflective, and clearly the light was moving up from there, the shadows of the outline of the pond crept up to the wall from there, it was being clearly cast from there.

"Obviously there." Regulus pointed his wand to the pond.

"Yes obviously," Alexander agreed, but the pond was empty. The water was crystal clear, the edges were black but there was nothing against it. The refraction was there. "But there's nothing there and water isn't known for it's luminous capabilities."

"No. It's obviously not coming from the water itself, it's the thing in the water."

"There's no thing in the water."

"There is." Regulus pointed his wand right at the centre of the pond. From where the light started to refract but there was nothing there.

Alexander gave a dramatic flick of his wand and made all the water rise up in a sphere and hang above the now empty pond. But the light was still coming from the pond, the water stopped refracting it. Still, the empty pond was, oh what's the word, EMPTY.

"You're playing a prank on me? One night with your brother and this is what happens?" Can't the gods have made Alexander mute?

"There's something in there Alexander." Regulus was sure committing to the bit.

"Then go fetch!" This was becoming frustrating.

"I can't swim!" Alexander blinked, twice.

"You can't swim?" Not the moment. But when it was he would have a blast.

"Accio." Regulus' wand acted like a whip and the light was coming from his hands now. No, what? Now it was a diamond in his hand? Alexander loved magic, so much he did. But sometimes if he had the anthropomorphized body of magic in front of him he would just choke it with his bare hands.

"That's..." Alexander was drawing blanks honestly, he considered himself was well read, still nothing came to mind, "what's that?"

"You remember Pandora's Prophecy?" Regulus stared at the gem between his hands.

They were hungover like they had never been before. Even sweet sweet Pandora was looking like shite. Her messy hair was... well, messier. She and Dorcas crashed with the girls.

Peter hadn't been back to the dorm. And James crashed on the couch.

Sirius thus, woke up very comfortably twisted between Remus' bed-sheets.

"You're awake?" Remus's husky voice looked down at him, he was wrapped around his chest. It might have been wrong of him, but Sirius loved how the scars on his body had texture, how they changed how his skin felt different every part of it he ran it though. He didn't like how he got the scars, or how they hurt him when they were fresh, it was something he could also understand. But he even had favourites. He loved the scar that ran all through his face, it made him look more dangerous and hot, so hot.

He had one on his shoulder, that Sirius liked to trace whenever he could. And there was one by his right ribs, a space above the scar from the bite. He didn't like that one. But that one above, it was a little over two other scars enough to look like a little star. It makes him feel like he can be close to Remus. On his skin.

"My body is." Except from his thoughts about Remus, everything else did hurt to think about. If he weren't looking at Remus' face, the light from the window coming through would have made him want to gouge out his eyes with a spoon.

"That's what happens when you insist on a Hooker's toothbrush before going to sleep." Remus judged him, but Sirius knew behind that eye-roll was a smile. "What even is that?"

"Okay, it's a muggle thing for after-party hygiene according to this girl in Muggle Studies, so you have to gargle with Jager, specifically, which is a muggle alcohol, but we both know that after yesterday."

"Oh enough." Remus tried pushing him out, but Sirius clung closer each time Remus tried to get him off of him.

"There's a lot of other Hooker stuff I've know." Remus almost choked.

"You man-whore." He laughed and started playing with Sirius' hair, it made him melt. Fully, totally melt. He was the only one allowed to touch his hair.

Sirius could die right now and die happy, in the arms of Remus.

Then, because neither luck nor fate had ever been on his corner, the door was slammed open by Mary, who always seemed to get between him and Remus. Yes, maybe that had been Sirius' fault at the moment, but he was having a moment right now!

"It's Pandora, come. Now." She stopped for breath, eyed them up, "Dress. Then come." She closed the door as quickly as she had opened it.

Sirius let himself have thirty seconds more, he counted each one, and Remus let him have them, he enjoyed them just as much.

"It's horrible." Pandora was gasping for breath. Dorcas was wrapping her arms around her. Lily was holding her hands.

"It's alright. It's just a vision Panda." Dorcas shushed her, she hummed to her.

"No! No! No!" Panda was having another one. Her eyes lit up and she didn't say anything she just shrieked.

James was the first in. Hungover or not, he would be there if someone he cared about asked. Even if he had to be there in yesterday's clothes.

Sirius and Remus made it just a few moments later. They stared in horror at the shrieking girl.

There were no words for it. It was horrible. She sobbed after each vision.

It was all done when there had been ten visions. It stopped.

She had one of everyone.

Marlene was first.

Then Alexander.

Regulus.

Dorcas.

James and Lily.

Mary.

Evan.

Herself.

Barty.

Sirius.

Remus.

And Peter.

Everyone of them. Dead.

Well, their death.

She managed to explain it through sobs and pants. But she refused to say it any of it twice. She waited for everyone, so it wasn't until the middle of the night, she asked everyone to meet at the astrology tower, and you couldn't deny Pandora.

"Marlene will be killed in two years. The war, after graduation. Her whole family will be murdered by Death Eaters as an example." Marlene swallowed hard, she was shaken but she wasn't there yet. She would fight it however she could.

"Alexander was betrayed first. Evan will stab him in the back with a knife. Again and again and again." He looked at Evan with a suspicious grin, not a judgement of the future but a judgement of the past. He rubbed his back like he could feel it already.

"Regulus will drown after betraying the Dark Lord." Regulus froze. His face didn't change, but he was unequivocally still, "After he hurt Kreacher you couldn't follow him anymore."

"Dorcas will be killed by Voldemort himself, she tries to go after him alone and gets cursed by him." Dorcas gives herself a little hug, Marlene squeezes her hand.

"James dies first. An unforgivable curse from the Dark Lord himself." Pandora looks at him, hesitating to say what came next, "He tried to slow him down so Lily could go protect their baby boy." They had a baby?! Sirius was the most shocked at those news ("I'm going to be an uncle?!" was the exact wording.) Lily and James just stared at each other and both turned about one or two shades above her red hair.

"Mary will not die physically. She will obliterate herself after running away to another continent. Make herself forget about everything magical even us. She died inside." Mary looked at her want, she considered it, but looked in defiance. Of course she did, she didn't know that pain yet.

"Evan will be killed in a duel against Alastor Moody." She stared at her twin, disappointed, "And go down in history as one of the cruellest Death Eaters in the Dark Lord's army." He looked away from her eyes.

"I will die by my own hand. An spell gone astray." Pandora smiled just the tiniest bit and shed the shiest tear, "In front of my daughter."

"Barty will be sentenced to death by dementor's kiss by his father." He spat in the floor and cursed his father's name.

"Sirius dies at the hand of his cousin Bellatrix." Pandora looked at him with a sad smile, "She makes you fall back into The Veil in battle, you won't feel any pain."

"You died that day as well, spiritually." Sirius wrapped himself in Remus' arms, he was taking Remus' vision worse than his own, "but physically, you died the same day as Peter, in the same battle, two years later." 

"You were the last Peter." Pandora looked at him.

"At least I fought with Remus until the end." Pete was looking for a shred of light, a silver lining.

"You were on the other side." His world shattered then, because betraying his friend like that was inconceivable, joining the dark lord was not something he would ever do.

"The war turns out that bad then?" James was the one who broke the silence. He wouldn't betray him? What force in the universe could make him betray him? They'd been friends all their life, the were neighbours, childhood friends, in no world would he do it.

But there was a tiny voice in his head. One that wanted to run away from the war and hide in his mother's kitchen like nothing ever went wrong. One that said that he was never as brave and strong willed as his friends. That little voice whispered something that made him hesitate.

But no. He would never betray them. He couldn't.

No one answered. "Is there any way out of that?" Peter asked. sheepish, they were all horrible. He was torn enough about his own, he couldn't start thinking about the other's. They were nightmares. Fates worse than just death. 

"No. Yes. No. Yes." Pandora was shaking her head, "Ah. No. But also yes."

Regulus approached her, his hands were in his pockets. Tension was already thick enough before she told them how they died for Peter to start factoring in their present issues. And he was on Sirius' side, so he was automatically against anything Regulus said, didn't even have to think about it.

"It has to do with the prophecy." Pandora looked at him. Obviously! He forgot the prophecy.

Regulus pulled a bright diamond from his pocket and showed it to Pandora.

"It has to do with the prophecy." She repeated after him. "Prophecies are weird." She said, a disclaimer for everyone. "But this one was weirder than the any I'd had before. Something started that evening when the prophecy came to me." She was trying to thread things together.

"You drowned in her vision." Lily connected the dots and proceeded to amaze Peter again, "The stone in the shadow of the waves. He who would not survive the depth. The depth of the waves, water? You can't swim and drowned. You found that stone in a body of water.

"A dark one. And it was casting shadows through it on the whole cave." Alexander finished her thoughts.

"It is part of it." Pandora confirmed. And as she said it, the doors of the empty classroom closed shut.

The diamond started emitting light. It was so much light. So much magic, you could feel it shaking in the air. It felt blurry. Time seemed to slow down. Peter saw Regulus drop the diamond and put his arm across Alexander. James threw himself in front of Lily, suspended in the air. Dorcas grab a hold of Pandora. Remus tightening his arms around Sirius. Barty reach out for Evan. Then light was blinding.

It was like staring at the sun.

Pure.

Light.

Magic.

White.

A flash.

And then...

James hit the ground with a loud thud. The light was out. There was nothing happening anymore. The diamond cracked and pulverized, it so thoroughly pulverized the air swept it away.

"Ouch!" James hit the complained.

"What was that?" Regulus was accusing the empty space or something. Always the judge.

"I don't know?" Lily was the voice of reason, but she had nothing either. Their two smartest.

"A prank?" Evan suggested.

"On all of us?" Sirius scoffed, "Be serious."

"You did not just waste our time for that joke." Marlene shot a dagger at him with her eyes.

"No, he's right, we wouldn't be targeted as a group by anyone. And think of the prophecy." Remus backed up Sirius, he'd done that a lot since long before they started with whatever they were doing now.

"It had to do with the prophecy." Pandora confirmed, she grabbed her head like she was having the biggest headache of her life, for the third time this week. Poor girl.

"Guys!" Alexander shouted like an alarm went off, "someone's coming."

They hid behind pillars, desks, the telescope and boards. The door opened and... no one? No one came in?

No. No Peter knew this one the moment he heard the footsteps stop. And James? pulled the invisibility cloak off himself. No, couldn't be him, certainly looked like him, but who were the ginger boy and the brunette girl?

"Harry we have to do something." She was pitchy as well, spoke with good enunciation though, Peter really appreciated that. "That witch will ruin the school. We're leaning nothing." Harry. It's odd they'd never met someone who looked just like James from the back in all their years here. They must have had confused him once at least.

No but that's no the only thing, because the cloak. James' cloak is unique, one of a kind, isn't it? And he was using it.

"I know Hermione." Harry was answering her, what kind of name is Hermione, "But what am I supposed to do?"

"You're the only one with actual experience defending yourself against the dark arts! You have defeated him once!" 

"He was a baby Hermione." The ginger replied.

"I know that Ronald." Okay, Harry, Hermione and Ronald. What an odd combination of names, Peter thought if Ronald would've gotten an H name it would be fitting.

Oh no. Ah-. Oh no. Ah-ah-. Fuck. "Achoo!"