one horcrux richer
“You stay safe okay? I mean it,” Sirius frowned as he worried over Regulus for what felt like the millionth time.
“Sirius, I’ve done this before, I’ll be fine,” he urged, stepping away from his grasp.
“Yeah well you didn’t have us to fret over you then so deal with it,” he frowned, eyes soft as they swept over him one final time. He felt impossibly younger under his gaze and despite barely more than a year separating them, he felt like they had grown years apart.
When it came time for James, Sirius was less stern, only smiling and pulling him into a big hug before saying, “Don’t do something stupid,” and clapping him on the back.
Remus still had wariness swirling in his amber eyes, but he wished him well, finishing with a, “Don’t be a hero, that’s why you have James with you- save the self-sacrificing to the experts.”
“If I pull this off, you’re dethorning the rose bushes for like- life,” he said seriously and was pleased at the laugh that pushed out from Remus. They had been working on the garden for quite some time here as it had fallen into ruin without Euphemia’s constant care and watch but it was proving much more difficult than the greenhouses at Hogwarts.
After Remus said bye to James, they were off, apparating straight to the small suburb of Hangleton. They arrived on a grassy knoll overlooking the small town and he and James immediately set off in search of something.
He had wanted to have a go of it alone, as per usual, but James wanted to come as well and when Regulus insisted that he didn’t need a protector, James confided in him- pled his case in a sense in that Voldemort had personally slighted him, resulted in the death of both of his parents on top of everything else that had happened to him.
He said his role in the Order simply wasn’t enough and that he was tired of constantly playing the defensive role- wanting to go on the offensive, so Regulus wasn’t about to stand in his way.
In a way, it was nice to have him with him. Whenever Regulus was faced with something dark, he willed his Occlumency in place, shut down all the warring in his mind, so much so that he sometimes didn’t even feel like himself, but having James to help hold up some of that extra weight helped him on this journey.
The sky was dotted with grey clouds, only allowing a hint of watery grey sunlight to peek through, leaving him a bit cold and he could scent the promise of rain on a weak breeze.
“Gods, this is just sad,” James sighed as he looked around the cobblestone streets, the old homes, and empty shop fronts.
He silently agreed.
There was barely any life in this small town and when they passed a space between houses, he caught sight of a young boy and girl idly kicking a tattered football back and forth. When they saw him, they paused, fearful, so he only hurried James along so they could continue.
“It makes sense that Voldemort would come from a place like this,” James murmured, tripping over an odd piece of stone.
“I don’t think he actually ever lived here but yeah,” he sighed.
“And there’s no chance of another Gaunt around here right?”
He shook his head, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he turned a corner leading to the fringes of the suburban area they were in.
When they finally made it out, he secretly pulled his wand out and cast a direction charm that nudged his wand left or right to direct him. They followed it along a small foot-wrought path from town and after a thicket of forest and over a hill, they had finally arrived.
He felt it the minute they passed the forest, the feeling that he had somehow gone the wrong way, that he and James should go back and start over, and he knew James felt it too from the way he kept looking back but the wand in his hand told him that this was the right way and magic was rarely wrong, especially with a simple charm like that.
Then when the wand had stopped tugging at him, they looked up and saw nothing.
“Are you sure we went the right way?” James asked.
“There’s definitely a Notice-Me-Not, but it’s weak,” he mumbled as he began walking forward, “Must be a ward here too.”
James began waving his wand in a large arc and nodded in confirmation to what he suspected, “There’s at least a couple. I think if we do it together, we can get it done quickly.”
They stood side by side then and systematically took down each of the wards, his magic mingling with James’, filling in spots the other might have missed, relishing in the satisfying sound of each ward popping as it fell. The wards were weak with age and he suspected the ease was likely due to Voldemort’s belief that no one would ever find this place so there was no need to expend too much energy on it.
When the last ward finally fell, it hadn’t gone like the others- instead of popping, it shattered like glass thrown against the wall, it was so heavy that air whooshed against them, pushing him back a step, and he felt something like acid spray back at him, burning his skin.
James cursed as he hastily used his wand to spray water at his own face then at Regulus’ and that dissolved whatever that liquid had been but when he looked down at his clothes, he saw that they had been burned through in places, their skin slightly red but otherwise whole underneath those patches.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered, pushing back his wet hair.
James only grinned widely back at him.
“What?” he moaned, still in disbelief at his constant positivity.
“We’re one step closer,” he winked and surely enough, the house, or rather shack, was visible now.
The shack was incredibly small, covered in a layer of grime and decay, and the one window visible in the front had a hole through it allowing dust and debris inside. When James pushed open the creaky door that was barely hanging on two hinges, it revealed only more dust- the air inside stale despite the window.
All of the furniture in the two-bedroom shack was either broken or moth-eaten and Regulus truly didn’t want to spend any more time here than necessary so they split off into the rooms, looking on their own.
He took in the main room which was connected to what could really only serve as a kitchenette. The dark Lord certainly had a humble background.
It wasn’t just the shack as the area around it was also unkempt, the grass overgrown, weeds spreading over the land, and it was so far from the nearest house he wasn’t even sure that this was allowed to have been built here.
The room had a darkness to it as well though and he had to imagine it was from the horcrux but he couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the rest of the Gaunts that had lived here before and what their story might have been. He didn’t miss the big spot of some mysterious dark substance over the carpet and while he hoped it wasn’t blood, he wasn’t naive enough to completely dismiss the idea.
He rifled through drawers in side tables, cabinets in the kitchen, and on the dusty shelves for any sign of that ring. The horcrux could have been anything certainly but the ring had stood out so starkly to him in Slughorn’s memory that he felt it would have been an obvious choice to make into a horcrux.
He heard a bit of a commotion in the other room so he called out to James, “Any luck?”
No reply.
He repeated himself, this time a bit louder though the small space didn’t exactly warrant it.
Again, he was met with silence so he stood up from where he was crouched down, looking under the furniture, dusted off his trousers, and went into the makeshift bedroom.
When he entered, he realised he was looking at himself as if through some broken mirror. It was him, soaking wet, water dripping from the side of his mouth, crying. His skin was grey and pallid and when he looked closer, he realised his eyes were not his own but instead covered by a milky white film. He continued sobbing, louder and louder, wailing and clutching at his own throat.
He turned, dumbfounded, to James, who only stared in horror. He didn’t move, he didn’t even look like he was breathing.
He quickly tried to connect the dots and one look at the open armoire had him thinking a boggart must have taken residence in there.
The boggart turned all too familiar eyes onto him, head slowly cocking before his own face tore into a wide grin, the ends of his mouth stretching up his cheeks, nearing his ears, but he didn’t give it a chance to finish whatever nightmare it was conjuring itself into because he pulled out his wand and shouted, “Riddikulus!”
The boggart suddenly had on goggles, a snorkel, and foot paddles, awkwardly waddling around before he pushed it back and into the cabinet, slamming the doors shut and locking it for good measure.
“Oh love,” he breathed, stepping up to him and resting on a hand on his cheek, swiping away errant tears with his thumb. He was frozen, his skin practically ice cold, and Regulus just used his other hand to pull James’ hand up to his waist, to hold him, feel the life thrumming under his skin.
James was still traumatised from that day- he knew it when he felt James’ eyes on him late into the night and in the early mornings, every time he woke up before James, he left a note telling him where he was, even if it was just down to the kitchen. In every offered arm and idle touch, he knew James couldn’t let him go too far out of his eyesight without worrying.
It would only make sense that that had been his greatest fear- him drowning to death, begging for help, when he watched it happen in real time.
“It was just a boggart,” he whispered.
He turned watery hazel eyes onto him and exhaled slowly, dropping his head down, “I hate this place,” he murmured before huffing a weak laugh.
He ran his fingers through his silky hair, “Me too,” he answered in equal measure.
They continued to work then, albeit much faster, and after having thought of looking under the sofas, he knew he was on the right track and took to ripping out the floorboards and that’s where he found his treasure.
He lugged the large wooden box out from under the floor and placed it on the rickety coffee table. It stank of dark magic and if he focused hard enough, he could hear the characteristic high pitch ringing of the horcrux inside.
“Alohomora?” James murmured weakly and to their mutual surprise, it opened, exhaling a deep breath like it had been a living thing, sealed deep inside.
He cracked open the lid and in the centre, was the exact ring he had been looking for.
Eternally pleased with himself, he reached in, but he shouldn’t have been so overzealous for the minute he had crossed the lid, something clamped around his hand, digging in and drawing blood.
He instantly panicked, James trying to get a look at what it was but there was nothing visibly there. There was no mistaking the small punctures across his hand, drops of blood splattering over the ring and the interior of the box though.
Shit out of luck, James snatched the ring from under his hand, and just warned, “I’m going to destroy it.”
“What? No!” Regulus cried, convinced his hand was about to be ruined with it.
“It’ll be fine just- lean back,” he rushed, already levelling his wand at it.
There was no choice now, the pain becoming unbearable, so he just leaned back and looked away as best he could, screwing his eyes shut.
James cast and the box shook before exploding into sand that slid through his fingers onto the floor, blending in with the rest of the dust.
His hand was, mercifully, whole.
“You ought to have more faith in me,” he grinned and Regulus only smacked at his shoulder.
James ended up tearing off a piece of his already ruined shirt and used it to wrap his hand up before quickly grabbing his other one and dragging them out of there.
After a quick conversation, they deemed it fine to leave it in the condition it was as it was entirely unlikely that Voldemort would ever come back here himself. However, they did put the wards back up, for the muggles’ sake.
Once far enough away, they apprated right back home, one horcrux richer.
____________
“What happened to you two,” Remus asked, jumping up from his spot on the sofa to give them both a look over, “Sirius can you run a bath for both of them please?” he hastily asked.
Sirius, gawking at them, did as bid, running up the stairs to get them ready.
“None of it matters because we got it,” James smiled tiredly, pulling the ring out from his non-torn pocket.
Regulus wondered what might’ve happened if he put it on but also knew that the horcruxes were temptresses and didn’t trust himself to not even try it like he had with the diadem so he just carefully handed it off to James who was admittedly less sensitive to dark magics than he was and also because he just didn’t want the responsibility of it.
“Wow,” he breathed, turning the ring over in his fingers under the light in the room. “Amazing how something so innocuous really holds a piece of his soul,” he muttered.
“Well I say we all take turns saying ‘fuck you’ to it,” Sirius replied once he came back, “Baths are ready for the both of you, we can talk about what happened after, you look like you need a wash.”
“Gee thanks,” Regulus replied but he knew Sirius wasn’t wrong, he felt horrible and knew he likely looked even worse.
He walked up the stairs first with James on his tail and they needed only to share one look before smiling and heading towards James’ room with the bigger bath. Honestly, the idea of doing anything apart these days was laughable.
They entered together and when they got into the bath, neither of them wanted anything more than to just hold each other, bask in the feel of the other, whole and healthy after the day they had. So James sat at the back, one arm luxuriating over the side, and the other wrapped around his waist as he kept Regulus lying flat against his back, fingers slowly popping the jasmine scented bubbles that drifted across the surface.
“What’s the first thing you want to do when this is all over?” James suddenly asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean after You-Know-Who is gone and this is all over, what do you want to do?”
“You seem confident,” he murmured.
“After today I am,” he countered and Regulus had to admit, today was a win, about the biggest one they’d had in quite some time.
“I want to travel,” he finally answered, “I can’t stay here any longer, I want to just…be free.” He couldn’t help the hope swelling in him at the idea of travelling the world, like his Uncle had done. He never understood his insatiable need to travel at first but now he craved it.
“Where do you want to go?” James nibbled at his ear after asking.
He squirmed but breathed deeply, “Paris, Portugal, Pakistan…”
“Are these actually places you want to go or just all places that start with a P?” he laughed.
“Maybe both,” he quipped, not even realising he had done that. “What do you want to do?”
James hummed, deeply considering, before settling on, “I’m not sure but I know I don’t want to be an Auror.”
That was news to him, “Really?”
He could feel him nodding at his side, “I thought it’s what I wanted to do but after this…no, I never want to do anything like it again.”
“Maybe you should be a potter,” he chirped.
There was a beat before James laughed behind him, the musical quality echoing off the walls, “I can’t believe you remember that costume, it was so bad. We were so busy planning the party that we had entirely forgotten that we needed costumes too.”
“It was memorable,” he shrugged.
“So was yours.”
It felt like forever ago and maybe after some three years, it was.
“Can you believe how long it’s been?” he asked, interlocking his fingers with James’ free hand. James’ started tracing slow circles around the puncture wounds that had now faded to red spots thanks to Remus’ healing charms.
The water had slowly begun to cool so he hastily snapped his fingers and it rapidly heated up again, the soap and bubbles refilling along with it.
“Yes and no,” James whispered. “Do you want a family?”
He stayed quiet for a long time then, truly pondering the question as it’s not something he had ever really thought about or considered.
He had likely one of the most fucked up ideas of what a family even was. He certainly didn’t have any role models growing up, only ever really wanting to escape his family. None of his friends had particularly good families either, each of them blossoming when they were at school, far away from them for months at a time.
However he had seen Effie and Monty, had seen Evan’s mum, how kind they were to their children, how wholeheartedly they loved.
But was that enough?
He was a Black- insanity was practically bred into him. There was no guarantee he’d be able to be a father to any child, a proper one anyways. There was no way to ensure he wouldn’t end up as horrible as his own parents. He could just end up continuing the cycle anyways, he’d heard that hurt people hurt people…and he never wanted to hurt anyone, much less his own child.
“I don’t know,” he finally whispered, terrified of what James would say knowing that he’d probably want a family. He’d be a wonderful dad, of this Regulus was sure.
“That’s okay,” he easily replied, rubbing a comforting hand over his arm.
“Is it?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Do you want a family?” he dared to ask.
“I think I would like one, yes, but that's not all I want out of life,” he considered and the easy way with which he said it calmed him. “When will you stop worrying?” he sighed.
“I don’t worry,” he frowned and was very obviously lying.
“I could literally hear the cogs whirring in your head,” he bumped his head with his own.
“I just don’t want to hold you back.”
“You could never do that love,” he murmured.
____________
“Pete? What are you doing here?” Marlene smiled, pulling the door open further.
“Can’t a friend just come by to see another when he has a spare bit of free time?” he asked a bit tightly, trailing in after her and shutting the door behind him.
“He most certainly can,” she smiled, “D’you want any water? Pop?”
“No no, I’m okay,” he declined.
Marlene went and grabbed water for herself, leaving Peter behind, and wondering what exactly to do. Every planned gathering, even if just a pair, was supposed to be notified to someone else according to the new safety protocols and while she didn’t see the need to do that if Peter was just stopping by, she knew she was supposed to follow it regardless.
Still, no one would know anyways so she went back out.
“Is your family in?” he asked, dropping down on the sofa, albeit sitting along the edge of it.
She nodded, “Yep, mum and dad have already gone to bed and I put Elias down, it’s just a matter of whether or not he’ll stay that way,” she laughed, knowing her little brother would do whatever he could to stay up as long as possible, even if it meant driving her mad.
“Oh,” was all he offered.
She downed her glass and sat by him, “Are you okay?” He looked a bit pale and sweaty, his hands wiping down the front of his trousers, while the peaks of his ears had turned red. He was chewing the inside of his lip and his gaze darted all around the room, never quite landing on her.
She scooted closer, putting a hand on his shoulder and he abruptly jerked away so she pulled back, “Pete?”
Finally, he turned pale blue eyes onto her, the view striking because his pupils had shrunk to small pinpoints, “Marlene, you know I love you right?” he worried.
“Of course I do,” her heart squeezed. Peter had always been a bit insecure and she knew he could sometimes get lost in a sea of people, having grown up with him, she could pick up on all his mannerisms quite quickly and having broken up with Sybill, well she wouldn’t have been too surprised that he needed a bit of reassurance.
“And you love me?” he murmured.
She just hugged him tight in answer, his scent like fresh cut grass reminding her of the fields around his house on late summer evenings spent with each other, “I do.”
“Then you know why I have to do this right?” his voice finally wavered and she pulled back, arms still looped around him.
“Do what?” she whispered back at him.
Sharp, searing pain, ratcheted through her side, crawling up her body and clawing around her very bones. She threw herself back onto the floor and saw blood seeping out from a wound at her side and when she looked back up at Peter, his wand tip was bloody and sharp.
“Wha- you-” she cried, holding a hand up to the pouring wound and desperately trying to staunch the bleeding.
Peter stood up then, and she hastily crawled backwards before using the sitting table to brace herself on to stand up, “Marlene you-.”
“Get the fuck away from me,” she seethed, holding up a pointed and bloody finger. Keeping her eyes on him, she knelt down and pulled her wand from her boot, levelling it at him. She knew now why they had security protocols, why they had had secret meetings, why Peter wasn’t even there.
Seeing the movement, Peter raised his wand again, clearly too scared to come back in close again and Marlene relished in it. He may have caught her by surprise but she knew she superseded Peter’s magical ability ten fold and could get out of this okay.
She advanced forward a step and he backed away and while she knew she could win this, a small part of her, buried deep under her will to live, begged her to just escape or give him an out. To not kill or maim one of her oldest friends in her own home, the same one they had laughed together in, cried in, just hugged in.
The pain was almost enough to let her ignore the iron coating her mouth, “Why are you doing this?” she hoarsed.
“I have to,” was all he said before firing again and she only narrowly dodged it, throwing herself to the adjacent wall as the one beside her burst, the picture frames hanging along the wall falling and a vase shattering.
To think that was what he wanted to do to her body was sobering.
She began madly throwing spells she could recall from DADA whenever they would duel- she tried to petrify him, blind him, burn, and cut him, but he hid behind each one with a shield charm.
“Fight me you coward,” she shrieked, spitting blood from the side of her mouth. She didn’t quite feel the pain anymore thanks to the adrenaline but she knew she needed to get tended to quick.
That seemed to snap something in him and she took her chance to shoot a Flipendo at him, taking his legs out from under him and knocking him to the floor.
“You bitch,” he growled as if upset at her for trying to live.
The fight descended from there, each of them throwing spells back and forth, her catching him, and him giving as good as she got, but the longer they fought, the more desperate they both became.
He threw a slicing hex right at her face, causing blood to pool from her cheek bone down to her jaw and she heard a muffled, “Marlene!”
The red cleared from her vision as she looked up to see her brother, Elias, watching from the landing of the stairs, tears flooding his small cheeks as he clutched a teddy bear in his small fist.
Eyes darting from him to Peter, each of them calculating what to do now that they had a witness. In the meantime, she grabbed the glass she had been drinking water from earlier and chucked it right at Peter’s head. He groaned in his response, rubbing at the fresh blood pouring from his temple.
Using that out, “Call James!” she cried out to her brother who ran back up the stairs.
She only had to hold out long enough to save her family now.
____________
He was already drifting off to sleep when he heard shouting from downstairs.
Regulus next to him stirred, “What is that?” he mumbled.
“I’ll go,” he replied, scrubbing his eyes and throwing the covers off himself, not bothering to grab his robe or slippers, annoyed enough at having been woken up right as he dangled on the cusp of oblivion.
The shouting and crying got louder the closer he came and it was urgent enough to force him to move quicker.
“Ja-ames!” the voice cried, drawing out his name as it broke between sobs.
He turned the corner into the receiving room and saw Elias, sobbing in the grate in front of him.
“Elias, what happened?” he rushed, dropping to his knees in front of him, wishing he could grab at him, the need to console him overwhelming.
“Marlene! Peter! He’s hurting her- he’s- she told me to call you- please” he sobbed then, and thinking quickly, James stepped through the floo and he heard rising commotion downstairs but he forced himself to step back into his own home, Elias in tow.
“Opal!” he called out and the elf immediately popped in. “Watch over him,” he ordered before running back up the stairs.
He yelled each of their names, Regulus already up and by the door, Sirius and Remus stepping into the corridor together only a moment later.
Hastily telling them to grab their wands, he ran back downstairs, filling them all in on what was happening as they did so.
Elias was now covered in a blanket, sipping from a mug, Opal right next to him when he watched them come rushing in, “James,” he whimpered.
“We’re going to help her,” he promised before they all stepped into the fireplace and floo’d there, no more than a heartbeat later.
____________
They stepped right into the loft upstairs and rushed towards the commotion downstairs.
He spotted their muggle father, Alfred, passed out on the stairs and her mother, Evelyn, leaning against the foot of the stairs, her wand broken beside her, clutching at her leg.
Marlene was still standing however just barely and Peter had tears rolling down his ruddy face as he continued casting at her, spit flying and blood pouring.
As one, the four of them began duelling from the stairs and within seconds, Peter was down, tied down and immobile.
Marlene almost didn’t understand what was happening until she saw them and cried in relief, dropping to the floor and sobbing.
Remus ran forward, “Sirius, grab Alfred, we’re going to St. Mungo’s now,” he ordered, crouching down beside Evelyn and speaking in quiet tones.
Regulus watched as James rushed forward to meet Marlene, scooping her up and holding her close in his arms, “Elias is okay, he’s at home with Opal,” he heard him promise and another sob racked through Marlene as she grasped him and she left bloody handprints on his thin shirt.
Sirius and Remus were gone within seconds, getting both of her parents the care they needed, reminding James to get Marlene there as soon as possible.
“You fucking traitorous piece of shit,” Regulus murmured once he stepped closer to Peter’s tied up body and he stared wide-eyed at him, unable to speak, though his chin trembled as he beheld him and Regulus relished in the terrified look on his face.
He crouched down and spoke lowly, “I bet you thought I was dead didn’t you? I’m sure you were happy to hear of it, knowing your secret would die with me too but now, I remember what you did to me after that meeting- how scared you were to keep your little secret. Your memory spell was fallible, and after today, I want to see you die begging for mercy.”
Despite the immobility spells on him he could practically see the urge to flee flood Peter’s body.
He turned to see Marlene standing now and she looked at him once before leaving and mouthed ‘Thank you’ to him.
“She’s gone to St. Mungo’s with her parents,” James nodded solemnly. Then he turned to Peter and the look of pain and disgust warring on his face stole the words from his lungs.
He was angry yes but for James, this was life-altering. He could only compare it to if he had found it was Barty or Evan who had betrayed him, who had almost killed him and his family in his own home on someone else’s orders. They knew Peter had betrayed the Order for the DE but to almost kill Marlene was a new level of treachery entirely.
“Why?” James broke out through gritted teeth.
Regulus waved a hand to allow him to speak.
“James, oh, James you don’t understand- he- he said if I didn’t do it- he would kill me!” he cried out, the perfect picture of a hapless victim though the blood coating him only made him look more deranged.
“Why did you do it?” he only asked again, voice deathly still.
Peter looked to Regulus as if he would help, “I was so scared James, I only wanted to see if joining would- help save me, saveus!” he tried.
“How the fuck would it save us if you just tried to kill Marlene!” he shouted now, the veins in his neck sticking out painfully, an angry red blush creeping up his neck.
“You don’t know what it’s like James. The Order is losing, you cannot blame me for allying myself with them while we still had a bloody chance,” Peter now yelled back, apparently realising that simpering was going to get him nowhere.
“I trusted you, we all trusted you,” James said and a tear escaped his eye but he angrily wiped it away, not wanting to reveal how heartbroken he truly felt.
“You forgive Regulus and not me? How does that make any fucking sense?” he seethed.
“Regulus never pretended to be something he wasn’t,” he turned away.
“You’re lucky I don’t kill you right here,” Regulus murmured, readying to leave with James until Peter continued shouting,
“I should’ve killed you when I had the godsdamned chance,” he near-screamed, the spell on his body slowly wearing off as he tried to thrash.
“Clearly you don’t have the ability to do that,” he lifted his hands up to remind him of the room, of Marlene’s win over him.
“Ask Fabian about that one,” he spit.
Regulus’ stomach dropped when he said that and he could only look to James who turned back over with a look of pure anguish on his face, “What the fuck did you say?”
Peter, clearly descending into madness, replied, “I said I killed Fabian in the forest like the bitch he was and you all believed me. You all think me weak but I killed him,” he relished in it and Regulus could see the way his eyes glazed over as he remembered it, “He barely even fought back. Marlene fought back, I’ll give her that but she-.”
“Crucio!”
Regulus gaped at James who held the curse, staring down at Peter with nothing but rage and malice in his eyes and while tears escaped, the sadness was only a secondary emotion to Peter’s tirade.
Peter on the other hand writhed on the floor, crying and screaming for help as his body contorted like a squashed bug. His arms and legs bent awkwardly as he continued crying and Regulus had an out of body experience as he stared at Peter but in a flash, it was like he was staring at himself under the curse.
“James!” he cried out, rushing forward and breaking his concentration, ending the curse. Peter deserved it, gods he deserved it a million times over, but he couldn’t have James bear the consequences of it.
“He killed Fabian,” James cried, staring at him as if begging him to understand. “I should’ve known- I should’ve, how did I not realise? He betrayed all of us,” he sobbed, collapsing in on himself.
“I know, I know,” was all Regulus could get out, feeling his own eyes prickle as James fell into his arms.
“It hurts Reg,” he whimpered brokenly against his neck.
He coaxed James to go to St. Mungo’s to be with everyone else and after a bit of protesting, he went. He would tell James to go home but he didn’t want him to be alone right now.
In the meantime, he used the token Dumbledore had given him to use in emergency situations to call him over. He answered immediately, bringing Moody in tow.
“The Order owes you all a great debt,” Dumbledore said to him once Moody and the Aurors he brought with him reprimanded Peter, taking him off to wherever they held their prisoners now.
“It was Elias who notified us,” he replied instead, “Without him, I’m not sure what would’ve happened.” That little boy was far braver than he thought he ever was.
The old man nodded solemnly and he was about to leave as well before he continued,
“We retrieved the ring. It was a horcrux,” he confirmed their suspicions and Dumbledore’s eyebrows raised,
“It was in the shack?” he wondered.
He nodded.
“I think we need to work on the next phase,” he pushed. With Peter now having been found out, Voldemort was surely about to start floundering now, clearly losing DE members left and right. Cornered animals usually tend to fight back.
“Destroying the horcruxes?”
“Yes. I’ll start researching how to destroy them but when it comes to actually fighting him, will you do it?” he asked.
Dumbledore didn’t reply as quick as he would’ve liked so he ploughed on,
“Look…Albus. I understand you and I had different approaches to this but we are now on the same side and I need to know whether or not you’re willing to stand up for us. I know you’re a pacifist or whatever but I want you to think about all the people you have lost under your command and how many more are at risk. While we may disagree on some things, I won’t say I can’t acknowledge how strong of a wizard you are. If you have the chance to end this war, will you?”
He quickly sobered and nodded only once, “I will.”
Then, in a rare moment of calm, he decided to make the first move, and stretched a hand out towards Dumbledore.
He would never forgive him, hell, he would never like him, but he would use this truce for what it was- a way to end this war.
The man across from him grasped his hand, shook it once, before leaving.
Regulus took one last look at the destroyed house and went back home, allowing those at the hospital to take care of each other- he didn’t want that many eyes on him anyways.
When he stepped back in, he saw Opal sleeping on an armchair, and Elias lying on his stomach on the floor, playing with a chess board. Or rather, he was just moving pieces around aimlessly, not quite knowing the rules of the game.
“Do you know how to play?” he gently asked.
He startled looking up at him and he quickly answered his unspoken question, “Marlene is okay- everyone is okay, they’re with the Healers now.”
He calmed down a bit, rubbing at his face, before turning back to his game, “No I don’t, Marls says I’m too small to understand.”
“Would you like me to teach you?”
Elias looked hopefully at him with big chocolate brown eyes and shyly nodded.
So, Regulus laid on the floor opposite him and began slowly explaining what each piece was, how it could move, and how many different ways to play there were. Elias caught on to each and every word he said, amazed as though he had created the game himself, and Regulus couldn’t help the way pride bloomed in his chest anytime Elias moved a piece the right way or tried to trip him up.
The night ended with Elias falling asleep curled up on the floor so Regulus carefully picked him up and took him over to the sofa, gently wrapping a blanket over him and he turned back to sit in front of the fireplace, watching the flames dance in front of his eyes before he too, fell asleep.