Chapter 5
The first weeks of the school year pass in a blur for Regulus. Between his schoolwork, his meetings with Alphard, his own studies on Occlumency and the Quidditch practices that started again, there isn‘t much time for anything else.
To his annoyance, he is also making only mediocre progress in Occlumency. He meets with his uncle every week, but they have not made much progress so far. Alphard insists that this is normal with such advanced magic, but Regulus is not a man of patience. He cannot afford this luxury, at least not when it comes to this.
And to make his mood even worse, he now has potions, which means he has to endure two hours of Gryffindor‘s golden boy talking.
Is there no mercy in the world?
As he enters the classroom, McKinnon is beaming a smile at him. Almost as if Regulus‘ presence is actually something to look forward to. Merlin, he will never understand this boy. A few weeks ago, he had slapped him for insulting his family and yet in every potions lesson, he is acting as if talking to Regulus is the most important thing in the world.
He takes his place next to Dean, trying to avoid any eye contact. Not that that would help anything because Dean is starting to talk right away. Not even caring that Regulus tries to ignore him.
„And, Reggie? Any plans for Halloween yet?“, Regulus grits his teeth at the nickname. Only his brother and his own friends dare to call him that.
„I don‘t think you should be using that name on me, McKinnon“, he gives Dean a cold look but the other boy just grins at him. „Oh well, what would you like to be called by me? I could think of a few pretty names.“
Before he can say anything in response, Slughorn enters the classroom. Much to Regulus' delight, because that way Dean can not explain in any more detail what he is implying again.
Slughorn puts his bag on the table and starts digging around in it. „Good morning, my students“, he says as he pulls out a small stack of parchments. „As you all know, Halloween is just around the corner and, like every year, I will be holding the school's most exclusive party.“
He walks through the rows and gives everyone one of the parchments. As there are hardly any students in the class, he goes through them quickly and places two of them on Regulus and Dean's desks.
‘42nd Slug Club Halloween Party’ shines at them in bright orange letters and Regulus suppresses an annoyed eye roll. He probably has to attend to stay in Slughorn‘s good grace.
While Slughorn goes on about how great this night will be and how much fun his parties always are, Regulus can feel Dean leaning closer to him.
„We should wear matching costumes“, he whispers in his ears and while that is the most ridiculous request Regulus could think of, he still can feel goosebumps just from feeling the other boy‘s breath on his ear.
„Every time I think you could not get any stupider, you prove me wrong, McKinnon“, he whispers back. „I don‘t wear costumes, I‘m a Black, I still have something like class and honor.“
Dean doesn‘t pay this any attention and just continuous, still way too close to Regulus. „We could go as characters of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. You could be Frank N. Furter and I could be Rocky.“
Now this time Regulus actually turns to Dean in confusion. „The Rocky what?“ He has never heard of any of this before.
Dean smiles at him, looking like he counts Regulus finally reaction as some sort of win. „Rocky Horror Picture Show. It‘s a muggle movie and came out in summer. Me and Marlene went together, it‘s fun. You should watch it too.“
„Muggle movie“, he repeats in disbelief. Where did this guy get the audacity from, telling him, a fucking Black, to dress up like muggles would.
„Yeah, you would be great as Frank N. Furter, a bit of Make-Up and you kinda look like him. You have the right hair for it.“
Regulus just shakes his head. „I will not dress up and I will definitely not dress up like a Muggle. I‘m the heir of the House of Black, I have a reputation to uphold“, and Dean just yawns at him.
„Boring, have fun for once and ignore that fucking ‚I‘m the heir thing‘. Nobody cares, believe me.“
Who does this boy think he is? Regulus turns away, actually a bit in shock that he dares to talk like that with him. „Maybe ask some of your bloodtraitor friends or even my brother. Bet he would love that.“
„You are no fun Reggie.“
°°°
It‘s friday afternoon and Regulus just arrived at the Hog‘s Head Inn. He is wearing a dark coat and has a hood pulled far down over his face so that he is barely recognisable. The last thing he wants to do is start rumours.
He goes up to Alphard‘s room and knocks shortly. „Coming“, his uncle calls from the inside and he can hear the steps coming closer.
The door opens and Alphard looks at him with a grim expression. „You're late“, he deadpans. „When someone is blackmailing you, you could at least expect some sort of punctuality.“
Regulus just squeezes past him in the small dark room. The rooms here really weren’t very welcoming.
„I‘m here now, so can we start? I doubt any of us wants to drag this out any longer than we have to.“
„Always so charming. I know why Sirius always was my favourite nephew. Sit down, I made tea in the time waiting.“ Regulus does as he says and sits down in one of the two shabby armchairs the room has. Alphard closes the door and sits down on the other. The tea is already prepared and is placed on the side table between the chairs.
„With just a splash of milk?“ Alphard just grunts in response and Regulus takes a sip. It‘s just how he likes it.
„So we need to plan our next steps. Autumn break starts next week and I assume you are expected to go home, am i right?“, he declares and Regulus nods.
„Mother sent me a letter. I will be tomorrow for Halloween still at Hogwarts and am supposed to take the train on Sunday morning. Then I spend the entire week at home and next Sunday I‘m traveling back. She also implied that we will have a special guest over for dinner and that she wants to introduce me to him. I guess you can assume who it most likely will be.“
Alphard makes a face. „That's not good at all. You're making progress, but you're nowhere near advanced enough to hide secrets from the Dark Lord.“
He takes another sip. The tea reminding him of better times is right now the only thing calming him when he thinks of his next week. He knows that his uncle is right. His skills are by far not enough to hide his secrets and his best chance would probably be the Dark Lord not even searching probably because he doesn‘t view him important enough for that.
But his mother also emphasised several times in her letter how important it is for Regulus to portray the perfect heir, and it sounded awfully like it was about the upcoming Death Eater recruitment. He swallows hard. He suspected that this would happen sooner or later, just not this soon.
His uncle gets up and picks up his wand. „Let's make the best of it.“ He steps in front of Regulus and points his wand at him. „Legilimens", he whispers.
Regulus is back in Grimmauld Place. He is trying to hide on top of the stairs. He can hear his brother screaming downstairs, he just took this punishment for him.
He is now fourteen, again in Grimmauld Place. His father is cursing him with the Cruciatus, he can‘t even remember what he did wrong.
He is seven and at his cousins‘s house. Bella convinced him to go into the dungeon-like basement the mansion has. She locked him up there for an entire day, until Andromeda found him.
He breaks out of the memories and realises that he is kneeling on the floor. His face feels wet with tears.
„Again“, he states and Alphard looks at him almost sympathetically. „You sure?“
He nods. „We have no time left.“ His uncle repeats the spell.
This time Regulus is in Hogwarts, it‘s his first year and Sirius just shouted at him that he does not want him any near.
Now he is back on the morning after Sirius left. He has never seen his parents as infuriated as they were that day. His father has used a spell to give him several heavy wounds and his shirt is already soaked with blood. His mother is screaming all the time, unable to do anything else and has thrown several vases around the house.
Next thing he is sitting in potions class, McKinnon is whispering in his ear and he can‘t concentrate on anything else as the goosebumps he gets.
Half kneeing, half laying on the floor he breaks out again.
„You‘re getting better, I can see less and less memories at once“, his uncle states.
Regulus pulls to his feet and falls back into the armchair, exhausted from all the pain. „And who is that boy? I recognize most people in your memories but he is new. Seems to be important to you“, Alphard questions him.
„He is no one important“, Regulus grumbles. „I don‘t know why he appeared there. I don‘t even like him. He is the most infuriating person I know. Bloody Gryffindor.“
„Yeah, I‘m sure. That‘s how it always starts“, his uncle let‘s out a dry laugh and Regulus looks at him furiously. „Don‘t get any wrong ideas. I‘m gay but I do have standards and believe me, Dean McKinnon does not meet them.“
„Just keep telling yourself that. You don‘t want to know how long I was in denial for Francis“, he has a smile on his lips as he thinks of his partner. „At first everything on him annoyed me and now I wouldn‘t want to change any of his quirks.“
„I do not want to hear any of this“, Regulus says harshly. Dean and him have nothing in common with his uncle and his lover. He doesn‘t even want to think of it. „Let‘s just concentrate on our work here.“
While Alphard gets up again to perform the spell one more time, he tries to structure his brain. He imagines that he locks all the dangerous memories up and tries to ban especially Dean as far back in his mind as he could.
„Legilimens.“
The memories flood his brain again. He‘s back in Grimmauld Place, he‘s back in Hogwarts. The only thing not appearing at all is Dean McKinnon and and although he is still far from real success, he considers this to be a a step in the right direction.