Endings and Beginnings
When Sirius Black opened his eyes, he found himself in a white space. A figure stood nearby. An achingly familiar figure.
"Reg?" Sirius asks in disbelief. "But how...you are...you are really dead...?"
"Yes, I am afraid so," Regulus answers gravely. "Now I can finally tell you the truth."
"Truth? What truth?" Sirius' brows furrow.
"To begin with, I need you to know you were right," Regulus says. "Lord Voldemort is bad news. Unfortunately, by the time I realized this, it was too late to pull out. The only way to cease being a Death Eater was to die. My death was inevitable, but I wanted to go out on my own terms. I wanted to go out as a Slytherin would. So I started opposing Voldemort from the shadows. I discovered Voldemort's secret and managed to pull one over him, with Kreacher's help."
"His secret?"
"Horcruxes," Regulus explains.
And Sirius' world is upended. And yet, many things start to make sense. A sickening sort of sense.
"What made you turn against him?"
"He brainwashed my boyfriend into doing his bidding," Regulus says with a scowl. "Not to mention that he hurt Kreacher. Those are sufficient reasons, are they not?"
"Your...boyfriend...?"
A sofa appears in front of them and Regulus motions for him to sit. Once he does, two steaming cups of tea appear on the table.
"It's a bit of a long story," Regulus says. "Tell me, have you noticed anything strange about the Lestrange-Crouch trial?"
And Sirius' blood ran cold.
"Surely you can't mean Rabastan is your boyfriend?" Sirius says weakly.
"Why would you think so?" Regulus asks.
"Well, Rodolphus is married, so it cannot be him," Sirius says. "So that only leaves Rabastan."
"A decent conclusion," Regulus says, smiling slightly. "But my question remains."
"I wasn't there for the trial itself," Sirius says. "But I heard bits and pieces. The Lestranges were sentences to Azkaban for life by Bartemius Crouch, along with his own son. He would have been content to leave them to rot there. That, despite the fact that he pleaded for him not to, and insisted he wasn't there."
"He spoke the truth. He wasn't there," Regulus says. "I was summoned a few days later, along with the others, and the Dark Lord told all of us. He wasn't certain of his loyalty at the time, so he had him framed. He hoped that Azkaban would indocrinate him, so to speak. All in the name of getting a spy within the ministry itself. But his plan had backfired. By the time I was allowed to visit, it was already too late. My boyfriend was dead. And he...he didn't even shed a tear. He manipulated him by claiming he'd love him like a father, but he didn't even shed a tear! That's when I knew you were right. What he did to Kreacher only cemented my decision. I had Kreacher bring me to where his Horcrux was and I made sure that Kreacher would get it, and I made him swear he would destroy it. I let the Inferi drag me to my doom in hopes of seeing Barty again in the next world. But he wasn't there. It was a long time before his spirit finally showed up, and he told me his half of the truth. The fact that he was framed still remained true. I wasn't the only one to realize it, though. His mother did too, and she died so he'd be free. But it turned out that the combination of his imprisonment in Azkaban and being subjected to Imperius Curse for ten years took their toll on his psyche. He became convinced that he was the Dark Lord's most valuable follower, and the Dark Lord ensured that he continued to believe this after retrieving him.
Sirius took a long swig of the tea, and then looked up at Regulus.
"No wonder the trial felt wrong," Sirius muses thoughtfully.
And then, a third voice spoke up.
"I offer both of you a rare chance to make things right," it says. "A chance to go back in time and save your loved ones from dying, your boyfriends included."
"Should we, Siri?" Regulus says, calling his brother by an old childhood nickname.
"Definitely," Sirius says with a grin.
There is a flash of white light, and they close their eyes. When they open them again, they are in their childhood home, in their younger bodies."
And Walburga Black is looming over them.
Sirius tries to say something, but no words come out. Regulus, on the other hand, has his wand out. He binds their mother, seals her mouth shut and stuffs her into a closet.
"I was a Death Eater, at least for a time, remember?" Regulus says in response to his brother's shocked look. "And I am glad of it, because I wouldn't have met Barty otherwise."
There is a tender, wistful look in his eyes, one that he used to give Sirius when he was younger. The older Black brother is slightly jealous. Even so, he smiles warmly at Regulus.
Regulus smiles back, and they make their way upstairs.