end the war
He gathered everyone at breakfast the next morning and slapped the worn book down on the centre of the table, watching as they all eyed the book and him with confusion.
“Oh I loved this book when I was a kid,” James eagerly said, hastily wiping his hands on his pyjamas and reaching over the heaping plate of toast and eggs to grab at it.
“You dragged me out of bed for a…kids book?” Remus questioned with a raised brow, still half asleep.
“ This is how we win the war,” he proudly informed them.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” Sirius asked slowly, eyeing the state of him.
“Irrelevant,” he pointed out, “But that book gave me an idea.” He had fallen asleep for one or two hours at most but his mind continued to work in overdrive, eventually waking him up and forcing him into action, reading and rereading the end of the book repeatedly until something had mentally slipped into place and he finally reached an understanding.
“Of?” Remus prompted.
“ Fiendfyre,” he said, waiting for a chorus of applause and for them to commend him on such a find but instead he was met with blank looks of stupefaction.
“What’s that?” Sirius slowly asked, spearing and biting into a sausage.
“It’s basically a sentient form of fire that destroys everything in its’ path and while it’s nearly impossible to cast and control, there’s a pretty high likelihood that it’ll destroy all of the horcruxes in one go,” he cheerily said, feeling a bit lightheaded now, bracing himself on the table to remain upright.
James slowly filled a plate for him, placed it in front of him, and pulled him into his chair, “Why don’t you eat, take a nap, and we can talk about this later?” His tone suggested he was talking to a confused child but Regulus didn’t argue, shovelling food in his mouth and already feeling his sugar rise as drowsiness began to take over him.
“It’s always something,” he heard Sirius mutter behind him but he was too sleepy to argue, already climbing the stairs up to James’ room, ready to fall asleep now that he had finally found the solution to his problems, even if the others’ didn’t realise it yet.
____________
After he woke up in a much clearer state of mind, he stated that he would do more research and then get back to them with the whole Fiendyre idea because they were still unconvinced and honestly, he wasn’t fully sure on the plan either.
He had seen Fiendyre in an academic setting maybe once or twice max , it was the only reason he even knew that it was a true spell and not just made up for the sake of the story but he didn’t quite understand the niches of it so he was fine to admit that he needed more time.
However, during the duration of his crisis last night, his thoughts flickered back to Grimmauld and what he should do with it in an endless cycle. He knew a timer hung above his head and continued to tick down till Easter, thanks to Evan, but still- he couldn’t properly sit down at his desk and focus on it. Every time he tried to pull open a book, his leg started bouncing and suddenly the ridges in his desk became more interesting than the actual words on the pages.
The heart palpitations and sweaty palms notified him that his sympathetic nervous system was working in overdrive- his instinct to fight or flight constantly at war with each other.
He was so motivated before- he spent endless hours doing research without even trying, risked his life repeatedly in his search for the horcruxes all in preparation to take down Voldemort. Though everything was easier when it was a hypothetical because whilst he was doing all that, he never had a clear end goal. However, now that he had an exact time and date in which they could face him- he became scared, suddenly unable to do anything about it because it was all too much and too real.
So, while everyone went out to do whatever it was they did for the Order for the day, he went to Grimmauld.
He apparated right in front of the house and stared for good long minutes at the grey-brick exterior. He eyed the bars on his window, the shabby front walkway, and the dark wooden door with the silver snake knocker in the centre.
He was almost lost in thought when he heard a high pitched ringing to his left. He turned and saw a muggle child on a bright pink tricycle, coming up on him. She grinned widely up at him, openly displaying her missing teeth, and at the last second he dodged her, stepping forward. She gave him a cheerful, “Fanks!” before continuing on her way. Her muggle parents came up behind her and gave him sheepish smiles that he returned.
He couldn’t imagine himself ever being that cheerful as a child. Never had he ridden a bicycle, or gone out for a walk with his parents, or even smiled so widely. He was always called a quiet child but maybe he was just an unhappy one.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers as he continued on, his boots clicking against the pavers as approached. Pushing the door open, he was hit with the scents and views of his old home so suddenly he had to stop, standing in the doorway and taking it all in.
Without Kreacher he realised how quickly the house could fall into shambles. Dust somehow coated every surface from the decorative tables and vases to the staircase and portraits. He shut the door behind him with a creak and click and wondered what exactly the use of this space could really be besides a depressing ancestral home.
He pulled out his wand and cast it in a wide arc across the foyer but it was as if the dust had been purposefully stuck there as the charm cleared away absolutely nothing. Grumbling, he cast a charm at the wooden floors to clean them and similarly nothing happened.
He took two steps in and his foot went straight through the floor as though the floorboards were made of mere parchment. He grumbled and pulled his foot out, thankfully not tearing his trousers or anything. He cursed and the house groaned loudly in reply somewhere in the general direction of the west wing.
Ancient houses like Grimmauld were rumoured to have magic embedded into them whether through a sort of magical osmosis or direct imbuement and it was clear Grimmauld had gained a distant sort of sentience and was currently having a sort of attitude with him.
Growing up, he knew odd things happened around the home, for example, on particularly cold nights, his room would suddenly warm up and lull him to sleep, or if he was hungry and locked in a closet, a bit of food would appear at his feet, ready for him to quickly snatch up and satiate himself. Though those occurrences were rare and he chalked it up to random happenstance but he now wondered if the house had been responding to him and his needs.
It was odd how it was openly responsive now when it had never necessarily been before- its’ help always more subdued but he supposed now that all of its’ old occupants were out and he was back after it was left empty for so long it was asking for…help? He made a mental note to ask Kreacher and Sirius if they had had similar experiences with the house.
“Are you going to fix yourself or?” he asked aloud.
No response and magic did not fix the problem either so he conjured a notepad and quill and balancing it across his arm, he started walking deeper into the house to take note of all the issues because changes needed to be made to it before he could do anything else.
He wasn’t about to start ripping out walls and throwing things away, that would defeat the purpose of keeping the house, but at the same time he wasn’t going to keep the elf heads on the walls or the portraits of dead and supremacist ancestors on the walls. He ticked off certain portraits of his more…outspoken family members, sure not to wake them, and pointed out walls that needed redoing after years of staining and neglect.
After a bit of dawdling, he finally entered the drawing room and stared at the sprawling emerald tapestry that wrapped around the walls of the room. He strode past the hundreds of long-forgotten Blacks to the current generation where he was, easily finding it. When he was younger, he would often come into this room and trail his fingers along the tapestry until he found himself, having had some odd fascination with the celestial names and portraits overlapping and intertwining with each other.
“Does it ever run out of space?” he once asked his father who was walking past the room.
He paused at the door and looked at him seriously , “So long as the Blacks continue doing their duty to their house, so shall the tapestry.”
Regulus turned over his shoulder to look at the empty doorway, cringing.
Sirius had a blast mark over his name and he had a skull with cobwebs covering what used to be his portrait. To the left were his mother and father, both with the same illustration over their names and pictures.. There was no sapling waiting to sprout beneath him and Sirius, no union lines, nothing- it was an entire line seemingly ending with them. He knew the tapestry never changed when it came to life and death and he wondered what that meant for him now that he was still breathing when he technically shouldn’t be.
He turned to look out the window and upon hearing crunching, looked down to see shattered glass on the floor. It looked to be the crystal his mother preferred for her drinks. His lip twisted as he turned away.
Every corner of this house held some dark memory or story but when he attempted to vanish this mess, it did go away and he felt a bit of pressure ease in him at that.
He didn’t know why he did this next or what the point was, but he waved his wand in an arc and unstuck the tapestry from the wall, tearing down the years of magic that kept it in place with barely an effort. It drifted to the ground as though it were weightless, the edges rippling before settling.
He slowly rolled it up, watching as ancient celestial names wrapped over one another before he bound it tightly with a strap to keep it shut. He sent it through the floors downstairs to take with him on his way out. He had nowhere to keep it and didn’t know if he ever wanted to display it but leaving it here also served no purpose- might as well keep it in James’ attic than in here.
He ended up clearing all the blockades off Sirius’ door and his father’s office, went up to the attic to take a good look before promptly turning around and leaving because it was far too much work, and started quickly scribbling on his pad which objects in the house still carried a bit too much dark magic within them. Surely everything in this house was infected in one way or another but some objects were too much even for him.
When he finished with the third floor and went down to the second, he realised he had never gone into his parents’ room before, the simple door suddenly imposing. He almost didn’t want to go in and stay ignorant of whatever lay within but he had half a mind to want to reclaim his power over this house and that room remained his final obstacle. He had nothing to be afraid of…not anymore.
He pushed the door open and was met with no resistance at all. It was a large room, being as it was the master bedroom, and it was dressed in jewel tones, emerald and sapphire and ruby decorated the space from the thick and heavy drapes to the opulent bed spread to the tapestries strung on the walls.
The bed was perfectly made, not a single crease on the covers, and he knew the right side, the one in which the side table held a bottle of perfume oil, a crystal glass, and a pair of pearls, was his mother’s side. It was the side of the bed she had died on that night. He eyed her space and saw, laying on its’ side, an empty potion vial and felt nauseous.
His father’s side was completely devoid of any items and the rest of the room was filled with two sofas and a small table angled in front of the hearth. He imagined a happier couple would sit together in early mornings or late nights, speaking to just each other in those chairs, but these seemed untouched- purely for decorative purposes.
Even so, he couldn’t imagine him ever taking over this room or any other room for that matter, it just didn’t suit him anymore.
He made to leave but not before he was stopped in the corridor by a suddenly awake portrait,
“You boy!” he heard raised from behind him and he slowed, turning on his heel and going back. It was his great grandfather Castor Black.
He stopped in front of his portrait, eyeing his salt and pepper hair, his hard steely eyes, and rough face. He wore an extravagant set of gaudy robes in a style long since dead and held a staff in one hand as if he were some ancient warlock. He scrutinised him from within his portrait and his distaste was made clear without the need for any words, “Your mother killed herself in these walls and only now you return to claim your birthright.”
“I’m not claiming anything and that was her choice,” he evenly replied, not wanting to have to get into an argument with a bit of paint and parchment. He didn’t know why every ancestor had to be animated- in his opinion, it was best to just leave them be. He knew he didn’t want to be animated, yelling after James while he hobbled around the house until he too was a mere painting and he’d have to hop frames.
“You’ve let it fall into ruin and your blood traitor brother was certainly never going to bring respect to our ancient house. You’ve done your fair share of traitorous deeds but it may be possible yet to-.”
Regulus was truly and genuinely not interested, so much so that he immediately froze Castor in his portrait, unstuck it from the wall, and sent it up to the attic where he was unable to bother anyone anymore. He really had to make removing these portraits his number one priority.
When he made it back downstairs, he made sure to pick the family tapestry up gently and he tucked it under his arm to open the door but when he pulled, it didn’t give. He even checked that the door was unlocked but still, it didn’t budge.
Looking up and around, he said uneasily, “I’ll be back soon.” When he was met with silence, he continued, “I promise?”
The door clicked and this time it opened uninterrupted.
Gods this house was as dramatic as its occupants.
____________
“Fiendfyre,” he introduced again the following evening.
“Reg, look, I read the books you gave me but I genuinely don’t think it’s possible for any of us to cast it- it’s a long shot even for Dumbledore,” Remus tried, sighing as he leaned back on the sofa and pushed at his hair.
“But the problem isn’t in the casting, any generally skilled wizard can do it, it’s just about controlling it which if we control all extraneous variables, it could be possible,” he pointed out again, tired of the roundabout conversation they had all found themselves in.
“You literally can’t though- there are so few real life instances in which someone has cast the spell and it’s a miracle they didn’t burn down entire countries with it,” he argued again, not angrily, but defeatedly.
He continued to pace, unable to sit, “I can control it,” he shook his head, fighting again.
“You can’t ,” he protested.
Rapidly getting fed up, “I can because there is no other option . I have no choice but to master it because without it, we have no way of defeating these horcruxes. I don’t mean to be difficult but unless you have any other solution, I am doing this.”
Sirius had the gall to enter himself into the conversation now, “Oh you are doing this now are you?”
“Yes I am because in case you’ve forgotten, I’ve been doing all of this on my own now for years, letting you all in on it was a courtesy but if you’re not going to work with me then I don’t know what to tell you because this is it.”
“You read about the spell in a fantasy book, you don’t even-,” Sirius scoffed.
Regulus, not allowing him space to finish, “I am tired of you acting like I’m dumb for having found it that way when that doesn’t even matter and I spoke to Dumbledore about it already actually and he agrees that it’s viable.” He didn’t want to have to invoke Dumbleodore’s name to give himself credibility but clearly it has come to that point because they weren’t believing him no matter how hard he fought.
“You did?” Remus asked after a beat as if only now actually considering him.
He nodded, “Yes I did and in the spirit of transparency, he had the same protestations you had.” He dropped down onto the sofa next to James, hooking his arm into his for comfort. “But I really think this is it and if it’s not, well what’s the harm in trying?”
“Well for one, you may possibly burn down all of London,” Sirius snorted.
“We don’t even know if there are more horcruxes yet,” Remus reminded him annoyingly enough- that was another thing he couldn’t tolerate.
“Remus, if he doesn’t fucking die when Dumbledore duels him then we’ll know there’s more and regroup but really, I don’t think there’s any more,” he shook his head, then went to Sirius, “I never liked London anyways.”
“There’s just nowhere secluded enough for you to try this out, neutralising all outside variables or whatever,” he tutted.
James had been quiet and contemplative this entire time and Regulus chalked it up to him simply not knowing what to do which was valid because really, none of them knew, they had just taken to outwardly arguing instead of stewing over it. It was why he was so surprised when he suddenly spoke,
“I know where you could go.”
All eyes turned to him as they waited in heavy silence.
James threw him a wary look before speaking, “The cave.”
“Absolutely not,” he said, unlinking their arms and standing back up as if he could put space between himself and the words that had already spilled from James’ lips.
“Reg, just think about it” he posited and the fact that he even suggested it meant that James really believed in his idea given that he never spoke about the cave so openly. The thought of going was enough to scare him as well but deep down, he had to admit that he hated how much he liked the idea.
The cave was in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, carved into a cliff face far from any village or town, it could clearly tolerate dark and powerful magic, and while water wouldn’t do anything to the flames, it provided him enough space to make something happen.
He chewed on his thumb nail as thought and thought about what he should do.
Just now, he blew up at Sirius and Remus saying he needed to do whatever was possible and now that he had a perfect location- he couldn’t bring himself to use it. Not after he’d died there- he couldn’t go back.
He hid his fear far deeper than James did. For him, he was relatively…fine now, it wasn’t like he was perfect or anything but he had gotten over it in a sense. He dealt with so much during the daytime that he didn’t have time to linger on his fears and at night, he had admittedly been taking Dreamless Sleep, perhaps a bit too much now but nonetheless it still suppressed everything else. He went in the shower fine and could watch James swim in the pool but he had yet to go himself and James never pushed him to.
But going back there, to relive his final scents and sounds and sights, was crossing a line.
“I’ll go with you,” James continued and Regulus couldn’t ignore the tremble in his voice even as he said the words.
He threw a hand up, slicing through the air, “Absolutely not.”
“He’s right Reg, I- I don’t know about this cave but from the way you both described it, it sounds like a good option,” Remus said slowly.
He turned slowly onto him, “I said no . We’ll find another way .”
The conversation came to a halt, no one breaking the tense silence that had enveloped them and they each were left to their own devices following it.
____________
“We thought you would be best for the job,” Dumbledore said evenly in the low-ceilinged basement, water dripping from some pipe in the corner and suspicious sounds crawling through the walls.
“And why would you think that?” he questioned sharply, already on the defensive. He crinkled his nose in disgust as he heard water rushing through pipes above him, clearly someone had just used the toilet. They must’ve picked the worst house for him which was deserved but it didn’t mean Regulus wanted to see all this.
“You know more than anyone here what Voldemort does, how he operates, all of his previous plans- you will save time and energy extracting information out of him rather than if we were to try. I also fear no one else wants to take up the mantle for it is hard for one to question their old partner and friend- you harbour no such sympathies,” he explained.
Regulus’ eyes darted to the door behind Dumbledore as though he could see through it. When he’d been called over here, he hadn’t realised it would be to interrogate Pettigrew- he’d forgotten all about him really besides the casual throwaway thought that he was probably suffering wherever he was. He didn’t want to do it but he supposed information was objectively valuable so using him as a potential resource could prove worthwhile.
“I can’t guarantee he’ll even say anything to me,” he replied, crossing his arms.
“You can still try?” he proposed and Regulus just shrugged- any chance he had to fight with Pettigrew, the better.
He stepped forward but Dumbledore turned in place and continued speaking, “Also, as you are already here, I figured I’d let you know ahead of the meeting that there was a skirmish last night in Knockturn.”
“Really? How many dead?” he questioned.
“Four,” he replied grimly.
Any hit to the Order, whose numbers were starting to pale in comparison to the DE, was bad, “I’m sorry to hear it, I imagine the funeral will be soon?”
He cleared his throat and clarified, “I mean four Death Eaters were lost.”
Relief flooded him, “So that’s good then?”
Dumbledore cleared his throat as he shifted his weight, “In any other circumstance it would be however, no mission was approved last night and no one in the Order that was stationed in Diagon has any clue what exactly happened- none of them were even there.”
“Are you sure?”
The old wizard’s blue eyes darted across his face before settling, “You didn’t know?”
“What you think I did this?” he replied, affronted.
“I merely asked because I’m afraid none of us know who did it and the perpetrator is still loose.”
“Well they did us a service so I guess it doesn’t matter,” he finished and turned around, pulling the door open and entering the small room, leaving Dumbledore behind, though the thought about some vigilante out there was amusing.
The room was cramped and uncomfortably warm. It smelled stale and Peter was folded up on a bed cot in the corner in a drab brown clothing set. His head immediately lifted upon his arrival and when their eyes connected, he only sneered and turned away. There was no sign of the meek and shy boy from school, he looked more like a feral animal that had been locked up and left to rot.
“You’ve got yourself in quite a sticky situation haven’t you?” he questioned, leaning against the opposite wall, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Never thought I’d see the day you did Dumbledore’s bidding,” he frowned back.
“Who says I’m not here of my own volition- besides, it’s not everyday you see someone like you become a traitor,” he shrugged.
“Someone like me? Don’t you think you ought to get off your high horse so we might speak as equals?”
“Well I’m free to walk out of here at any time, you’re not- so we’re not really equals are we?” he smirked.
“I don’t know what he ever saw in you anyways,” he shook his head, narrowing his pale blue eyes. Of course he brought up James to bait him but it wasn’t going to work.
“Well it’s a good thing we’re not talking about him then. I’m more interested in what you have to say actually, bet you’ve never heard that one before,” he sniped. He had to admit that he enjoyed taunting Pettigrew, throwing these snide comments at him simply because he could, it wasn’t as though he could go run and tell anybody on him about it. If anything, he deserved worse than a couple of insults really. “When exactly did you switch allegiances?”
Regulus’ eyes drifted down to his hands that slowly bunched into fists in their magical shackles. They were entirely transparent except for a slight glint in the air and while he could walk around in his cell, he was unable to get anywhere near the door to ensure he had zero chance of trying to make it out of here though it was unlikely Pettigrew of all people was to going to stage a breakout. He was angry, that was true, but his fear and anxiety was visible under all of it and he knew that he hadn’t shown nearly this much attitude to any of his friends that had tried to come in here and talk to him- Regulus was to be his punching bag so to speak.
He remained quiet so he spoke again, “Look Pettigrew, either way, you’re stuck in here so you might as well get in as much human interaction as you can with me before you’re left alone again and do you not think you owe it to them? You killed people who thought you were their friend. Will you not at least try to do something good with what’s left of your worthless life?”
He remained quiet for a long time before, “Are Crouch and Rosiers traitors too?” he asked at a normal volume with less of his sneer now too, defeat was finally weighing down on him.
“What do you think?”
He huffed and shook his head, looking away again.
“Alice, Frank, Gideon, and I were all out to get supplies for one of the safehouses we’d just set up when Frank decided we should also forage for some Potions ingredients as well. We broke off then- Alice and I were to go to a forest a little ways away and Frank and Gideon to the shops in the muggle village nearby, it was meant to be less than an hour and after we’d all have dinner together. Turns out the forest had a coven of vampires living in it and they’d been waiting for us- how they knew we’d be there? I had no idea but I did come to find out they were spying on us the whole time in their creature form. It was three of them against two of us and I did nothing. There was nothing to do while they taunted us. They had already gone dark, pledged their allegiances, and Alice and I were about to either be turned or killed. Do you know what it’s like to be so powerless?”
Regulus, against his own wishes, was enthralled by his story, so much so that he hadn’t realised he’d stopped and asked him a question. He supposed it was rhetorical when he continued,
“That’s what The Order is- powerless . They face loss after loss, hooraying over the most miniscule of victories and hiding in their little safehouses when they don’t even realise that the Dark Lord has taken over everything - ministries across Europe have fallen to him, he has placed himself at the head of everything and I don’t even mean this as his follower but from an objective point of view- what do you think the resistance will do? Say you manage to take down Voldemort, I assume that’s what you’re doing anyways, what is there to do after it all? Place Dumbledore in the seat of the leader? Well I say that’s just the same thing only you’re all fooled by his act of pretending to be ‘good.’”
He chewed the inside of his cheek, considering, though he didn’t let Pettigrew know he had struck him a bit, thrown him just slightly off kilter, “So you decided to betray all of your friends and turn dark because a couple of vampires gave you an existential crisis? You could’ve just, I dunno, practised duelling a bit more?” Clearly he'd made it out fine so Regulus wasn't sure why he was acting as though it were some life-altering event.
Pettigrew looked at him like he pitied him, “Do you fucking understand anything that’s happening Black? You’re privileged so you don’t know what it’s like but the death eaters are killing everyone and everything and I’m not going to apologise for not having faith in all the rainbows and butterflies Dumbeldore is feeding everyone else. I didn’t want to have to kill Fab or drug Sirius or every other bad thing I’ve done but atleast I don’t have to worry about losing my goddamn head.”
“But you ended up here and no one’s come looking for you,” he mock frowned, “You act like joining the DE was the solution to your problems but you still ended up at the bottom of the fucking chain of command. You were powerless in the Order and you’re powerless in the DE, so it was all a waste of time and you lost everybody that may have mattered to you before,” he finished, kicking off the wall and standing straighter now.
“You and Sirius are the same,” he sneered, his eyes red, “Smart, rich, entitled arseholes that have got James whipped and bending over backwards just to please you. I couldn’t stop Sirius from coming into our lives, I admit I was entranced by him too, but you, gods I tried to keep him away from you but he was drawn to you like a godsdamned magnet. You don’t deserve him.”
“Careful there, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were jealous,” Regulus seethed, unhappy at the turn in conversation towards James again- Pettigrew didn’t deserve to even think of him let alone speak his name.
He didn’t reply and instead a ruddy red blush creeped up his neck and to his cheeks and Regulus gaped, “Oh my gods, you liked him is that it? And he what? Rejected you so you did all this and-.”
“You don’t know what it’s like! Poor Peter always following round his “friends”, dumb Peter who can’t keep up, Fat Peter who doesn’t look like everybody else- you don’t know what it’s like to be the last godsdamned choice, to be forgotten until someone deigns to glance at you and remember you’re there- do you not even wonder how I got to do it? No one even fucking noticed I wasn’t at Order meetings or that I wasn’t at work. No one fucking cared so I made a choice on my own and it’s their fault for overlooking me,” he shouted.
Regulus let the silence stretch on, considering, until he finally said, “And now no one fucking cares that you’re going to rot in this cell for the rest of your life.”
He finally snapped and he launched up from the cot and tried to make for him but the invisible bonds pulled him back as he fought and thrashed against them. He was a mere five inches from his face and Regulus just watched as rage and anguish took over Peter, stripping away all that he was and leaving only madness.
“Goodbye Pettigrew,” he said before turning and walking out the door, slamming it shut and locking it behind him.
He left Peter to his madness- things could have turned out so different for him if only he had a bit of faith.
____________
He was laying on the sofa in the sitting room, staring up at the ceiling, throwing and catching a snitch in his hands when the floo roared to life.
He turned, bored, to see who it was.
Since his revival, James severely limited his floo access under the ruse of wanting to be safe when really, they just didn’t want any randoms to come in and happen upon him like right now. He expected someone like Dumbledore or maybe James and Remus since Sirius was still upstairs but it was none of them.
Dorcas tripped coming through the floo and he instantly sat straight up, pocketing the Snitch and hurrying over to her. Her blue shirt was soaked in blood and she looked grey, her normally rich skin fully leached of colour and life.
“Cas what the hell happened?” he asked, taking her arm and lying her down on the sofa.
“It looks worse than it feels,” she said, then cringed when she hit the sofa despite its softness.
Her hands trembled as she peeled back her shirt and revealed a gash that spanned from her left hip up to right above her belly button. Its’ edges were jagged and uneven but it didn’t appear too deep.
“I healed it last night and it was fine but today I think I ripped it back open,” she complained, looking down at it as well and that answered his questions for him.
He summoned a Med Kit from the downstairs bathroom to clean the wound and frowned as he kneeled beside her, “Cas what happened?” he repeated again. He had to school his face into one of neutrality but the wound was hard to stomach, even for him, and it was made all the worse by the fact that it was on his best friend.
She only looked at him, her black eyes like dark wells boring into him but he didn’t back down. He thought back to what Dumbledore said, about the attacks on death eaters, and further back to what Dorcas had said after Marlene was attacked. He knew exactly where she was but he wanted her to say it.
Her wound continued to leak blood but she was unfazed and he refused to help until she cracked.
“Snape happened,” she gritted through her teeth.
He shook his head and tried to rein in his anger while he cleaned the wound, “Dorcas I told you this isn’t the right way to go about this- this- suicide mission .”
She didn’t reply, only threw her head back on the armrest and covered her eyes with her arm.
“The silent treatment? Really?” he asked and when she didn’t reply, he poured the antiseptic right over the cut and she hissed, shooting back up and levelling him with a look that rivalled Peters.
“What do you want from me? You’re just going to keep saying I’m in the wrong, I’m going to keep saying I’m right- this conversation goes nowhere. And you know what? Atleast I’m doing something. I took down three of those bastards in a night - do you even know what that felt like?” she burst out.
“You sound like Peter,” he scowled, not even bothering to explain that he went to go see him- if Dorcas was going to keep secrets then so would he.
Neither of them continued.
He healed her and she sat back up, casting a charm at herself to clean her shirt from her own blood though it looked like she needed a similar charm for her soul.
“Have you been using Unforgivables?” he asked quietly.
“I never asked you, so don’t ask me now,” she replied coldly, her jaw set. Her refusal to answer the question was as clear a 'yes' to him as possible. He noted, in a final sweep over her form, that she didn’t look like the same girl they were in school and he didn’t think normal ageing was to blame- this dark weariness went soul deep.
She slowly stood up and she nodded once, “Thank you Regulus.” She looked like she wanted to say more but she held back, nodding again and leaving towards the floo. There was so much he wanted to say too but he held back as well.
Why did he even care? What did it matter? Clearly nothing he said got through to anyone.
Sirius came a few minutes after the flames in the floo had died down and Dorcas had gone back to Marlene’s house where she was to stay for the foreseeable future. His hair was, for once, not tied back and left to flow in onyx waves around his pale face. His large eyes landed on him before narrowing and he stood across him not saying anything.
“It was Dorcas,” Regulus offered first and he turned to look next to him in an invitation for Sirius to sit down but he noticed some dried blood on the covers of the sofa. Sirius vanished it and sat down silently.
“You were arguing?” he asked.
Regulus shook his head- he didn’t want to talk about it. He instead asked, “Why are you still awake?”
Sirius leaned back, head lolling to the side, “Can’t sleep.”
“And why is that?”
Sirius made an airy gesture with his hand, “Thinking.”
Regulus dug around in his pocket and came up lucky, passing him a knut in an imitation of the muggle phrase- penny for your thoughts?
Sirius smiled, taking it nonetheless and turning it over between his black painted fingers, “I wanted to let you know that I support your plan- whatever it is you want to do, wherever you want to do it. I just want you to know that I’m always going to be there for you.”
“Where’s this coming from?” he murmured, eyeing him though he too remembered their argument from earlier, his own outburst.
“I just,” he struggled, pushing his hair back, “I don’t want you to think I’ve abandoned you again or that I’m being deliberately difficult. It’s only that I care for you and I don’t want London to burn down or for you- for you to get hurt but I know once you’ve got your mind made up, it’s impossible to change.”
Regulus nodded, he wasn’t sure what to say and when he was about to thank him, Sirius continued,
“And I also wanted to say that I know you think the Cave is the best place to do this too- I can see it in your eyes, despite how much you don’t want to go and…I want to go with you.”
“Sirius-.”
“No Regulus,” he put a hand out, “You don’t understand how much it tore me up to not have been there with you when you last went to switch the horcruxes but I’m not leaving you alone again.”
His heart rate skyrocketed, “You don’t understand what it’s like in there.” His voice was grave even to his own ears and it was reflected on Sirius’ face, “The inferi aside- it’s coated in dark magic and it’s cold and-.”
“Then I’ll bring a coat,” he pushed.
He glared at him, “It’s not funny Sirius.”
He sat up, bracing himself on his knees, “I know it’s not but Reg, this will make or break everything and I want to be there when we take this bastard out and I won’t argue with you on this. I’m going with you, end of story.”
“Alright then,” he shrugged defeatedly, dropping his head back to mirror Sirius’ previous pose.
“That’s it?”
He opened one eye to peer at his brother, “I mean, you said you wouldn’t argue with me about it so.”
“Well, I still expected one,” Sirius said, still fired up.
“Consider it a parting gift,” he replied.
“A parting gift?”
“Oh yeah, because this time we’ll definitely die in the cave,” he pointed out.
Unfortunately, with his eyes closed, he did not see the pillow Sirius flung into his face for saying that- apparently it was still too soon for him.
____________
Three days until March 31st.
Three days until they would take down the dark Lord.
And all anyone could do was argue at each other across the long oak table in the dining room.
Regulus sat on one end, and watched as Sirius and Moody argued, Dumbledore tried to reason with Remus, and while James and some aurors argued among each other off to the side.
He tapped his fingers rhythmically on the table, waiting for it to end. He tapped his index finger once, then his middle, then his ring finger twice before mixing up the melody and starting again.
“Are you even listening?” Sirius asked, suddenly turning to him from his spot across the table.
“Oh was I supposed to?” he retorted with raised brows.
Moody grumbled angrily across from him and Sirius looked exasperated as he also tuned back into the events of the table to see all of the arguing.
Regulus, having had enough, hit both of his palms against the wooden table with enough force that it caught everyone else’s attention and halted their conversations, if they could even be called that, to focus on what he had to say.
He awkwardly cleared his throat, bringing his hands back to his sides after such an outburst, and stood up, “Look. We don’t have time to be arguing all day about this when there’s no point- the plan is simple…” And he went on to explain exactly what it was.
He tripped and fell over some of his words, blanking out at other times when someone brought up a hypothetical situation that he hadn’t thought of yet. He wasn’t at all confident but he had been ruminating over what to do about Voldemort for what felt like years now.
Some days it felt like this had just come on a whim, that this whole plan was half brained and he had no idea why he was considering it while other times it felt like this had just been slowly building since that day he was first presented to the dark Lord or maybe it was when he received his mark and was left crying on the floor of his study-
Regulus was no leader but now, standing at the table and speaking to those closest to him with Dumbledore to the side and not at the mantle- he felt like he actually had some power for the first time in his life. He was clumsy and didn’t know how to handle it but when he looked at James who had pride shining in his amber eyes or Remus who quickly took note of what he said, nodding along- he felt like maybe he was doing okay.
“And…well I don’t know how it’ll turn out, there’s dozens of things that could go wrong, but if we hit it just right- we may be able to end this in its entirety,” he stated, breathing hard, “We’ll be able to end the war.”
Everyone nodded in turn and he sat back down, tuning back out when they continued speaking to each other though it was much calmer now- more contemplative and methodic. He listened in and out of conversations as to what roles others would have, who would be included in this plan and how, where everyone would be though it wasn’t much- the less people involved the better.
His role was to destroy the horcruxes and that is all he wanted to focus on- everything else was extraneous for him. He had no desire to be the hero or to be the one to vanquish the dark Lord, he didn’t want glory nor did he even want vengeance in that way.
He just wanted peace and when he looked around the table- at James, Sirius, and Remus- he knew it was finally within reach.
____________
“Are you scared?” James asked him that night as he lay in James’ arms, facing him as he trailed constellations across his bare shoulder.
He thought long and hard about that question and eventually nodded. James’ face softened but then Regulus spoke, “Not for me- I’m scared for you . I want you to be okay,” he murmured, bringing his hand to his cheek, his thumb brushing his cheekbone lightly.
James turned to kiss his palm, “Oh come on, I’ll be fine,” he smirked in false bravado.
Suddenly, he had the urge to voice, “Your parents would be so proud of you.” And he knew it to be true. Fleamont and Effie would always be proud of James, no matter what he did, but he knew that if they could see him now, saw the man he had so quickly matured into- they would feel nothing but pure unadulterated pride.
James’ lips turned up in a broken smile, one that held too much pain for one person, “Thank you love.”
He committed James’ face to memory, each golden strand of hair that brushed the curve of his cheek and the slope of his nose. His plush lips and his sharp jawline- each and every detail that was uniquely him.
“And I’m so proud of you,” James murmured in turn.
To Regulus- that was all that mattered. He thought back to what Peter had said- to how unbelievable it was that James had ever chosen him and Regulus admittedly thought that on his darkest nights more than once or twice but when he spoke so softly and sweetly to him, knew exactly the right thing to say to him and how best to comfort him- he knew it was too right to not be real.
He knew James more than he could ever possibly care to know himself and it was okay because James filled in those gaps for him- when he floundered, James was there to slow his fall; when he worried, James knew how to help; when he felt alone, James wrapped him up in his arms to ensure that he knew so long as he was breathing- never would he feel a harsh wind or lonely night.
James was with him every step of the way and in two days’ time, they would put that, and every other relationship he had, to the test.