Day Twenty-Seven
“HARRY? HERMIONE? RON?”
Harry jolts upright in a panic, as does Hermione. Ron rolls over grumpily. “What the hell is my dad doing here?”
“Dizzy must have let him in,” Hermione groans. “Your dad. You take care of it,”
“Fine,” he grumbles, pushing himself out of bed.
Harry sinks back into the sheets, wincing against the sunlight casting through the window. “What time is it?”
Hermione casts a tempus charm. “Nearly noon,”
“Bloody hell,”
“Harry? ‘Mione? You better come down,”
“We’re never going to get a moment’s peace, are we?” Hermione laughs sarcastically.
“Probably not,” Harry grimaces. “Come on, let’s go see what the fuss is about,”
They stumble downstairs and into the kitchen, still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. “Morning, Arthur,” Harry yawns, heading straight for the coffee machine.
“It’s nearly noon, you lot! We’ve been trying to get a hold of you all morning!”
“Why?”
“Maybe because there’s a rumor going around that Regulus bloody Black has come back from the dead? And you wreaked havoc on the ministry until they let you bring him home?”
“Well, you’d be right then. You want coffee, Mi?” he asks, already pulling three mugs down. Then he pulls a fourth down because maybe Regulus would like some.
“Oh, yes, please,”
Arthur stares at them all, flabbergasted. “Nothing phases you three anymore, does it?”
“No, not really, Dad,” Ron laughs.
“So… so he’s here? In the house?”
“Yeah, probably still asleep, for good reason. He was dead and then a prisoner,” Hermione shudders.
“And why did you three insist on bringing him here?”
Harry sighs. “Can someone else explain the life-altering information for once?”
By the time he’s made all their coffee Arthur looks even more shocked. It would almost be amusing if Harry weren’t so tired.
“And you’re sure it’s safe?”
“Trust me, I asked him stuff that no one would have known except me and him,” Harry explains. “He’s the real deal,”
“Well, then… that’s quite the turn of events,”
“I mean, it’s a bit run of the mill at this point, really,”
“I- I suppose so,”
“It’s not in the papers, is it?” Hermione frowns. “Goodness knows we don’t need that getting out yet,”
“No, thank heavens. Kingsley floo-called Percy this morning demanding to talk to you. You really should get yours hooked up, you know,”
“Not if it means Kingsley is going to be calling,” Harry grimaces. “I’m not making him go back if that’s what he wants,”
“Of course, that’s what he wants,”
Harry shrugs. “Ron’s an auror. I’m me. He’ll stay here,”
“Ron is an auror in training,” Arthur huffs. “And the fact remains that Regulus was a death eater,”
“At Dumbledore’s request,”
“It doesn’t matter! Severus was a spy, and he still had a trial!”
“And Regulus will attend his when the time comes, but he doesn’t need to spend his time locked up in a bloody cell. I mean, the Malfoys are on house arrest, aren’t they?”
“Well… yes,”
“Well, then it’s settled. Besides, Kingsley owes me a favor. Now we’re even,”
“I thought you already cashed that in?” Ron frowns.
“Nope! They already wanted you for the auror program, my favor aside,” Harry grins.
Hermione rolls her eyes. “You know I’m starting to see why the hat almost made you a snake, Harry,”
He smirks into his coffee. “Me too,”
“Alright, alright,” Arthur sighs. “I’ll concede. On one condition,”
“What?”
“Hook your bloody floo up,” he huffs before spinning on his heel.
“Nice to see you too, Dad!” Ron calls after him. It’s responded to with the slam of a door.
Harry sighs and braces his hands on the counter, groaning. “I should’ve known better,”
Hermione walks over to him and runs her hands over his shoulders. “It’s alright. It’s going to be fine,”
He scrubs a hand over his face as if he can wipe away the chaos of his life. “Yeah, um, breakfast?”
“It’s noon,” Ron laughs.
“So?” he huffs, already determined. “It’s never too late for pancakes. Sit. Look pretty,”
They both laugh but obediently perch on kitchen barstools, exchanging soft good morning kisses. It’s all very domestic, and Harry feels his nerves settling as he works. Hermione and Ron chatter on about anything but the matter at hand until he’s made enough food to feed an army, and they all look towards the hall.
“Should we wake him?” Hermione asks softly.
Harry bites his lip, unsure. “I don’t know. If he’s still asleep, then-”
As if he heard them, the man in question appears in the doorway. He’s walking far too casually for someone in his situation, and the reason is clear when he lifts his head and stops dead in his tracks. Harry meets his eye and realizes that, for a moment, everything must have felt normal.
“Hi,” Harry says, clearing his throat. “I made food. You hungry?”
The steely Slytherin facade drops over the temporary shock and grief. “If there’s enough to go around,”
Sensing the awkward tension, Hermione chimes in. “Harry tends to make enough food for ten people,”
He groans. “It was one time!”
Ron laughs. “It’s every time you use that cookbook, love,”
He rolls his eyes in mock annoyance but stops when he sees a tiny smile twitching at the corner of Regulus’s mouth. “What?” he asks, wondering what could cause that expression.
“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head. “Just- Effie did the same. She always made too much food,”
“Effie?” Harry asks curiously. “Who’s Effie?”
The facade drops, and Regulus’s eyes burn with hurt and anger. “You don’t- no one ever- Merlin’s pants. I am going to raise Sirius from the dead just to kill him again. You don’t know the name of your own grandmother?”
Harry feels like the wind has been punched out of him. Because no, no, he didn’t know. “I- um, no,”
Regulus pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance and murmurs something that sounds vaguely French. Hermione and Ron look between them, clearly uncomfortable. Harry tries to swallow around the lump in his throat, but he can’t. His eyes start to burn with tears.
“I- excuse me,” he says softly, with a politeness that he hasn’t used in years.
He flees out the back door, shoving his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants to keep them from shaking. He tries to suck in deep breaths as he wanders down the path to a little table at the bottom of the garden that looks over the property. He sinks into one of the chairs and buries his face in his hands, unsure how to handle his crashing emotions.
More people to grieve. More things people didn’t tell him. It’s stupid of him to have expected everyone to tell him everything. But his grandparents? How did he not even know their names? He knew how much they meant to Sirius. He had told him that much but never their names. Only ever ‘James’s parents’ like they wouldn’t mean more than that to Harry.
A strong hand on his shoulder startles him, and he wipes away tears. “I’m fine, Ron, I’m not gonna ghost,”
“Not Ron, but I’m glad,”
He looks up against the afternoon sun to see Regulus smiling at him sadly. He immediately feels guilty. “I’m sorry, I- you shouldn’t have to-”
“Can I sit with you?”
Harry nods, his voice seemingly broken. Regulus sets a plate down in front of him before sitting down across from him with his own. He doesn’t speak so neither does Harry, and they just exist together, eating pancakes like it’s not the first meal they’ve ever shared together.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Regulus finally says.
Harry sighs. “I know. It’s not your fault it’s- well, it’s nobody’s, I suppose,”
“Debatable, but I won’t go down that route,”
He huffs out a laugh. “No, probably for the best,”
Regulus’s eyes search his face for something, though Harry isn’t sure what. There are so many things they should talk about, and yet he can’t bring himself to say any of it. His life feels like too much of a burden on his own shoulders some days. How can he just dump that on someone who already felt guilty about not being there to help him bear it?
Still, there is something that is eating at him. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,”
“What was it like… being dead?”
Regulus turns out to look at the trees, an unreadable expression on his face. “It wasn’t like anything. Not that I remember. It was like I closed my eyes and then opened them again,”
“No white room?
“No,” he hums. “But I wasn’t a Horcrux,”
He sighs. “I suppose that might have affected things,”
“Perhaps,”
Another silence falls over them, Harry studies Regulus this time, shifting in his chair. He feels the chain around his neck slide against his skin, and he realizes what he should say next. He slips it off his neck and holds it out to him. “Here,”
Regulus takes the ring from him with wide eyes. “Don’t you want to keep it?”
Harry shakes his head and holds up his hand. “I’ve got my own now. It’s yours anyways,”
He stares at the ring on his hand in shock. “You-”
“Ron proposed a few days ago, in bed, after I had an episode. We made copies of your ring,” he explains. “I thought- it made me feel close to you and to mum and dad. Getting married on the living room floor and whatnot,”
It’s the first spark of joy that he’s seen from the other man. “You mean there’s a life event I haven’t missed?”
Grief mixes with glee in a strange swirl in his chest, sparking a fresh set of tears. “I suppose so,” he says with a disbelieving laugh. “Wow- that’s- yeah,”
Regulus reaches across the table and squeezes his arm. “I’m happy for you. They would be too,”
“Thanks,” he sniffs. “Um, if there’s anything- I wouldn’t even know where to start. If you want to know things,”
His shoulders drop in relief like he had been worried Harry wouldn’t want to tell him anything. “I- I don’t either. I feel like you’ve told me everything and nothing about you. I know my son saved the entire wizarding world, but I have no clue what Quidditch position he plays. Unless you don’t like Quidditch, in which case we need to have a talk young man,”
Harry laughs, grateful for the easy topic. “Seeker. Youngest seeker in a century actually,”
Regulus's jaw drops in shock. “You’re kidding,”
“I swallowed my first snitch,” he snorts. “Played almost every match except for fifth year. And seventh, obviously,”
“Merlin, Jamie, and I had bets on what you’d be. I said you’d be a chaser like him, but he always thought-”
“I’d be like you?” Harry smiles wryly. “He told me in his letter,”
“I’m glad you have those,”
“Me too. Jamie?”
“Oh, yeah, me and your mum refused to call him Prongs,” he snorts. “But James always felt a bit… pretentious for him. At least for us, the ones who really knew him,”
“Snape said he strutted,”
“He- what?” he laughs. “Merlin, Sev always had quite the vocabulary. I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use, but he wasn’t wrong. He put on a tough guy act, especially around Sev,”
“Tell me about mum,” Harry says, barely a whisper. “I’ve heard so much about Dad. The most I’ve ever heard about her was from Slughorn,”
“Your mum is- was- she was brilliant, Harry,” he answers softly. “And I mean it in every sense of the word. She was talented beyond any of us. I’ve never seen anyone use magic like she did. And she was literally radiant. I mean, you just looked at her, and you felt better about life,”
“Her voice was nice,” Harry hums, his voice tightening with emotion. “The few times I saw them. In the graveyard and at the end, her voice was nice,”
“It was,” Regulus agrees. “She could sing, you know,”
“She could?”
“She was always humming some tune or singing. She used to bemoan the worst part of Hogwarts was that she couldn’t listen to her muggle music,”
“Maybe you can show me some of the stuff she liked sometimes,”
“That’d be nice,”
“Hermione and I went to a record store and bought a few things. She’s the same way, misses the muggle things,”
“And you don’t?”
Harry shrugs. “I might as well have grown up a wizard. My muggle childhood was… well, Hermione says it wasn’t normal,”
Regulus grips the arm of his chair a little harder. “I still can’t believe you got put with Petunia and Vernon, of all people. What was Dumbledore thinking?”
“Welcome to the club,” he says bitterly. The reminder stings, making him run through their conversations from the night before. Then he frowns. “What- what did you say last night? About giving yourself to death or something?”
“I gave myself to death willingly, so you didn’t have to?”
The words burn. They sting bitterly. They hurt in a way he hadn’t expected.
“Harry,” Regulus says softly. “I know what you’re thinking. It doesn’t change anything,”
“But you did what Mum did,” he whispers, eyes stinging with tears. “You did what I did. It’s the same magic- the same meaning. It could have changed everything,”
“And yet we’re here, and we can’t go back. The fact that I was pulled from that cave means it was different. Was I really dead? Maybe I was just in limbo,”
“Yeah, but-”
“You said yourself last night. It does no good to go down that line of thinking,”
He swallows thickly. “Yeah, I know,”
Regulus reaches across the table again and squeezes his arm, though this time he keeps it there. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair what you’ve been through and I’m sorry. But I’d rather spend our time making up for it rather than wishing it had been different,”
Harry exhales shakily. “You’re right,”
He smiles at him softly. “She seems like a clever one, your Hermione,”
The change of subject helps. “She is. Brightest witch of our age,” he says proudly.
“And Ron?”
A soft laugh bubbles from him. “My best friend. I never thought- we never thought this would happen. I mean, I always thought there was something between them, but-”
Regulus laughs. “I know the story well. Let me guess: You spent ages watching them pine after each other until they finally got it through their heads.”
“Merlin, it was so annoying,” Harry groans. “Mind you, I wasn’t much better. I had to have my ex-girlfriend point it out before I realized,”
“Well, that sounds like quite a story,”
“You have no clue,” Harry rolls his eyes. “Ron’s little sister, no less,”
Regulus stares at him incredulously. “You are your father’s son,” he snorts. “Are you ever not in some complicated web of events?”
“Er…” he thinks for a moment. “No, not really,”
“Must be exhausting,”
Harry shrugs. “I’m used to it,”
“What did your mum’s letter say?”
“I… I haven’t read hers yet. It just hasn’t felt… right? Does that make me a bad person?”
“What? No! Of course not,” Regulus says quickly. “I just wondered,”
“I mean, I’ve read what she wrote to Remus and Sirius. I skipped Peter’s… not sure if I’ll ever read that one,”
“How come?”
Harry winces, a flash of Wormtail’s death brushing across his mind. “I mean, isn’t it obvious?”
“I suppose,” he shrugs. “But you don’t seem like the kind of person not to have another reason,”
“I’m afraid it will make me angry. Or maybe even that it will make me sympathetic,” he sighs. “Wormtail gave me something logical as to why they died. Voldemort did horrible things, but they weren’t personal. He didn’t give a damn about Mum and Dad, but Peter did. He was their friend,”
“I see. You’re afraid it will change your perspective,”
“No,” Harry shakes his head. “Not of Peter, at least. Of mum and dad,”
“Oh?”
“There were some things mum said that implied she knew that Peter might betray them. I suppose it was just the logic that if we were reading those letters, they were dead, and Peter was secret keeper. But if it was more than logic? If she suspected? And they did it anyway…”
“It puts the blame on them,”
He swallows hard, a well of emotions threatening to spill over. “Right,”
Regulus sighs, a contemplative look on his face. “All I can say is that no one is perfect, Harry. Even your mum, as amazing as she was. James was always a bit too trusting, and Lily was a bit too quick to snap. I already told you I kept too many things secret. As much as I’d love to have all the answers for you- I was… I wasn’t there,”
Harry feels a bit stupid, realizing he must be making Regulus feel like he has to be some perfectly competent father. “I don’t need you to. Have all the answers I mean,”
“You don’t?”
“No,” he laughs. “No, not at all. I just- it’s nice to have someone to talk to who might understand how it feels to miss them. And to be scared of learning things about them that might make me annoyed with them or angry or sad,”
Regulus gives him a pained smile. “You know, for me, it’s only been weeks, maybe a few months. I keep thinking Jamie is going to appear from the trees with an arm slung around Sirius,”
Harry looks out over the landscape, the way the sunshine is pebbling the ground with soft golden specks of light. “Me too,”
“We could read it together, you know,”
He looks at him surprised. “Mum’s letter?”
“No, the one to Peter. Your mum’s letter is for you. But if you’re worried about reading Peter’s. We could read it together,”
“Now?”
“If you’d like,”
Harry nods nervously and pulls his wand out of his pocket. “Accio,” he mutters. A moment later, a familiar envelope zooms out the open kitchen window. He plucks it from the air and stares at it nervously.
To Wormtail
He cautiously opens it, and out falls a single piece of paper.
How could you?
Harry checks the envelope again to be sure there’s nothing left.
“That’s all,” he frowns. “Nothing from dad,”
“Knowing Lily, she probably burned it,” Regulus sighs.
“So she did suspect him?”
“I think your original theory is closer to the truth. Lily was smart enough to know how Fidelius charms work in great detail. She would have known that if these were ever it opened, it would have been because Peter betrayed them,”
Harry takes a moment to think it over. “You’re right, I think. Or at least I’m going to choose to believe that,”
There’s a commotion behind them and he turns to see a fuming Kingsley barging towards them, a panicked Hermione chasing after him. Harry rises to his feet quickly, stepping in front of Regulus.
“Afternoon, Kingsley,” he says with a fake politeness. “How can I help you?”
“So it’s true,”
Harry’s surprised at the simple words. He expected a lecture. “It is,”
Kingsley pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Do you know how much bureaucratic nonsense I’ve had to deal with today because of this? You can’t just take supposedly dead death eaters out of ministry custody!”
“Then why did Robards let me?”
Regulus snorts behind him, clearly holding back a laugh. “Uh, hello, Minister? Is it now? You’ve gotten quite the upgrade, Kingsley,”
“Oh, don’t you start, Black!” Kingsley fumes. “You come back from the dead, and I don’t even find out til the next morning!”
“Well, it’s not exactly like I could owl you from a cell now, could I, mate?”
Harry watches in shock as Kingsley’s angry expression fades to one of amusement. Regulus steps around him and hugs the other man.
“I missed you,” Kingsley mutters.
“You’re so old now, look at you!” Regulus grins when they pull away.
“I’m sorry. Are we missing something?” Hermione asks, looking just as surprised as Harry.
“Kings and I are old friends,” Regulus laughs. “He was the unfortunate fifth member of the marauders dormitory. He befriended me out of necessity,”
“It got under Sirius’s skin that I got along with his little brother more than him,” Kingsley grins.
“I still think you should’ve been a Slytherin,”
Kingsley puts a hand to his heart in mock offense. “You wound me,”
The tension drains from Harry’s shoulders. He forces himself to relax, pulling his hand away from his wand in his pocket. “Well, glad that’s all sorted then. I thought I was going to have to hex you, and then where would we be,”
Kingsley lets out a deep chuckle. “I’ve told you, Harry, that I am on your side. I don’t mean to make your life harder. It’s just an unfortunate side effect of my position,”
“Well, stop trying to make me an auror, and then maybe I’ll believe you,” he quips, though there’s no malice in his voice. “So you’re not here to try and get him to go back?”
“No,” Kingsley sighs. “Once it became clear I couldn’t get a hold of you, I pulled the strings needed. Regulus can stay here until his trial, though I don’t recommend being out and about,”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,”
“Well then,” Hermione lets out a great sigh. “Would you like to stay for dinner, minister?”
✦✦✦✦✦
“You look exhausted,” Ron laughs as Harry flops onto the bed.
“It’s been a long few days,” he mumbles into the pillow. He feels the bed dip on the other side, and cool fingers brush against his neck.
“Are you okay?” Hermione asks. “I was worried you might have an episode today,”
“No, ‘m okay,” he sighs. “Didn’t like that I hardly saw either of you, though. The first time that’s happened,”
“Probably won’t be the last,”
Ron’s arm drapes across his back, a familiar and comforting weight. “How was it? Talking to him?”
“It was… nice,” he settles on. “It’s overwhelming but nice,”
“I think, all things considered, that’s perfectly fine,” Hermione chuckles.
Harry hums in agreement, feeling sleepy under the comforting touch of his partners. He enjoys the silence until the silence becomes loud, and he can tell they’re silently communicating above his head. “You’re doing the thing,” he grumbles, rolling over so he can look at them both.
“We are not!”
“We were,” Ron laughs. “Come on, love, just tell him,”
“Tell me what?”
Hermione sighs, playing nervously with one of her curls. “We got a letter today. They’re holding a memorial at Hogwarts in a few days. It’s the one-month mark,”
It feels like someone twists a hot knife inside his stomach. “Really?”
“McGonagall asked if you would speak but that she wouldn’t hold it against you if you couldn’t,”
Sensing his distress, Ron curls around him a little tighter. “We don’t even have to go if you don’t want to,”
“I- I don’t know-” he stammers. “Do you want to?”
“I do,” Hermione says softly. “I think I need it. I need to walk the ground and remind myself that it happened, it was real. But also that good things happened there,”
“I agree,”
Harry squeezes his eyes shut, trying to clear the noise in his head. That had been the opposite of what he wanted to hear. Tears threaten to spill from his eyes. “Okay,” he finally croaks out.
“If you don’t-”
“No, I- I want to go, but also, it’s a lot,” he whispers. “But Hogwarts was my home. I don’t want to let another thing be taken from me,”
“Proud of you,” Ron murmurs, hugging him a little tighter.
He stares at the ceiling, absentmindedly playing with his ring, letting a wave of emotion rush across him. For a moment he thinks he might see white or the world will fade out of focus, but Ron’s tight grip and Hermione’s cool fingers brushing through his hair keep him grounded. Still, the mention of Hogwarts jogs loose some stray thoughts he had pushed to the side.
He sighs, not sure he wants to bring this up but he doesn’t want to stew either. “What are we going to do? About our N.E.W.T.S?”
Hermione’s eyes light up with hope. “You mean you’re going to take them?”
“Well, I mean, I assume I need to,” he frowns. “I doubt McGonogall is just going to give me a classroom and throw me to the wolves,”
She laughs. “No, I don’t think she would,”
“And Neville said you should reach out to her. I just wondered if there were any plans,”
“I did,” she nods eagerly. “And there are. Nothing solid yet, but we’ve talked about a permanent floo option for students like us who might not want to live at the castle, as well as correspondence courses,”
“Oh, thank Merlin,” Ron sighs. “I know I said that’s probably what would happen, but the thought of you two having to live at the castle without me was stressing me out,”
Harry laughs. “I don’t think I’d go back at that point. I like our house too much,”
Hermione chuckles in agreement and snuggles in closer, draping her arm across his chest like Ron’s. For the third time, silence falls over them, and for the third time, his partner’s touch anchors him to the world as his mind wanders. He finds himself running over the idea of stepping on Hogwarts grounds.
Briefly, he wonders if he should offer to get the stone for Regulus. But the sentiments he had shared with Ron about Fred still hold true. The stone had brought him comfort because he thought he was joining his loved ones lost rather than dragging them to the living world. Regulus had known he might not make it out of the cave. He had made his goodbyes. It would still take time to heal from having to live without them, but the stone wouldn’t make that any easier.
He’s still not sure if he actually wants to go to the memorial. It still feels too fresh, too painful, to think about walking the halls. He can’t imagine walking into the Great Hall and not see the sight of Tom’s body crumbling to the ground. He can’t imagine walking the halls and not hearing the echoes of spells and the thrum of running footsteps. Yet he knows he needs to.
The sound of Ron’s snoring jolts him from his thoughts. He glances down to find both of them fast asleep. Hands clasped across his chest as they do so many nights. The sight makes him smile, as it always does, but it also reminds him of how tired he really is. So he turns his thoughts to happier things, to the stories that Regulus and Kingsley had shared at dinner, to golden rings and beautiful dreams, and slips into his dark and cozy void.