Exeunt Omnes

by HopelessAndWandering

Summary:

All the actors leave the stage.

 

*Sequel to 'His Final Act'.*

Notes:

This is the last work in this series, thank you so much for being here so far and reading my story, I hope you enjoy this one as well.

Jegulus is already established, this work will have a happy ending but with a BUNCH of angst first. Let's aim for 16 sth chapters, and keep it there.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: 1. I had a vision that I was someone's child once and—

1. I had a vision that I was someone's child once and—

 

1995

Ron remembers the day he met Harry Potter, better than he remembers most essential facts about his own life. It's not common to claim such a thing, he was five after all. But when he closes his eyes, and calls the memory forth, it feels like he's back there again, in their small living room, and it's his birthday. He can smell the sweet slightly burned sugar glaze coating his cake, can hear his siblings and the children from the village running around in some game of tag, and he can feel his heart all over the place, as he's fiddling with his birthday hat. 

He could barely contain his excitement because The boy who lived was coming to his birthday party, and that somehow exceeded the limits of his childish perception of reality. Because Harry Potter was bigger than life. A myth. He and Ginny loved hearing bedtime stories about him and not only was he real, he was there, at Ron's Birthday. 

It almost felt like a gift. Ron never had much that was authentically his own. Most of what he owned were hand-me-downs, most of his parents' attention focused on his younger sister, whose one-year age gap with Ron really robbed him of a peaceful childhood. So this birthday was his and his only. Really special because his family couldn't afford to throw birthday parties every single year. It had to count. 

There was a catch, Ron's parents had warned him and the other kids, Harry Potter was coming to the party, but he didn't know he was Harry Potter. Well, he knew, he just didn't know he was famous. He was Ron's age. Only five. 

Ron had found that hard to believe, how could a hero not know that he was extraordinary? How could he not realise the godly magical powers that oozed out of his veins, enabling him to defeat a dark lord as a baby? It seemed ridiculous, like his parents were lying. 

Ron only had to take one look at him to be convinced. 

This kid had no idea who he was and what he'd done. He was plastered against a man's side, clutching a dog plushie, and quietly sniffing as Ron's mother pulled at his cheek and dotted over him. Ron spied on the interaction with wide eyes, his gaze stitched to the lightning bolt scar on the boy's forehead, running down one brow. He noted the red-rimmed eyes and the shuffling and he knew, yeah. This boy had no idea who he was. He was just a five-year-old. 

“—if he causes any undue trouble, please don't hesitate to firecall—” the man was telling Ron's Mother. His voice had a soft posh lilt to it, his hand firmly settled over Harry Potter's head, his hair looked incredibly soft, curling near the ends into soft waves; a huge contrast to the Weasley fizzy ginger heads. The boy too, had soft messy hair, sticking all over the place. They looked strangely alike, the man and Harry Potter. Dark hair, green eyes, the same intensity in their gazes. They were both the most beautiful people Ron had ever seen in all his five years of existing on this earth. 

When the man accompanying him left—with an oddly heavy sense of reluctance—Harry Potter tottered to the living room, ignored all the ruckus and young children running amok around him, and curled up in the nearest seat, using his plushie as a shield. His strategy to look as small as possible worked flawlessly. The other children, even the older ones, were too occupied with the werewolf tag game to even take notice of him. 

But Ron saw him. 

Harry Potter looked terrified. Ron remembers now that he'd climbed off his own seat, dodged past Ginny, almost knocking him over, being chased by the twins. Ron grabbed the nearest crisp bowl, somewhat heavy to his gangly toddler self, and made his way to Harry Potter. 

“What's your name, kid?” he asked, even though he knew. He knew all about him. He slept most nights thinking about Harry Potter and imagining he was Harry Potter and wishing he could meet Harry Potter…and here he was. 

“Harry,” Harry replied, maudlin and small, “This is my Paddie. He protects me.” 

“He's cool!” Ron hopped on the seat next to the timid boy, “I'm Ron! Today's my birthday! There's a troll in my room, wanna see?” 

And Harry uncurled with wide wary eyes, staring down at Ron's extended hand. Ron waited patiently, grinning at the boy and trying not to die of nervousness. The Harry Potter sniffed one last time, and grabbed his hand with a slight trembling, “Yes please.”  

Harry now stands by the foot of his bed silently. As he does most nights. Ron's learned to tell, just by the heaviness of the boy's gaze on his sleeping figure. No matter how many times they've talked about this, Harry seems stubbornly set on not waking Ron up at night, and instead opts to stand by his bed like a psychopath instead. 

He looks like he did all those years ago, his shoulders tense, his hair sticking up, his nose and scar slightly red. He cringes when he sees Ron awake and observing him in the dark, but doesn't move back into his own bed. 

Ron shifts back to make room and Harry mutely slips under the covers, smashing his face against Ron's chest with a hitch to his breath. He doesn't cry, he never does when he wakes up. But he never talks either. It's a very fragile balance between trying not to disturb the others in their dorms, and not breaking down himself. 

He mostly fails. Seamus wakes up most nights, silently staring at them from his own bed with a funny look on his face. It's too dark to tell whether his face harbours amusement or ridicule, but Ron isn't bothered to distinguish between the two as long as he doesn't bug Harry about it. He glares at Seamus watching them tonight too, quickly nods his chin at the boy to go back to sleep and reaches over Harry's body to draw their curtains close. 

“Was it the same dream again?” Ron mutters into his friend's hair, holding him just a bit more tightly. 

“Yes.” 

“It's okay. Just a dream, mate. Let's sleep.” 

“Okay.” 

Ron tries not to shudder or curl into himself from guilt. He can remember every single detail about the night Harry was taken too. If only, he always thinks, if only he'd looked after Harry like he'd promised himself. If only he hadn't been wallowing in his own misery. He didn't even notice Harry was taken. 

Now he can't let the boy out of his sight even for a moment. He and Hermione both.

“Now, I know you're lying,” he groans into the boy's ear, closing his own eyes, “You say okay, but you never sleep. Come on, close your eyes, we have charms first thing tomorrow morning.” 

“Ron?” 

“Hmm?” 

“Nothing.” 

But Ron knows, with Harry James Potter it always is something. And something heartbreakingly monumental and big that's trapped in the boy's chest, begging to be let out. 

Even though it's always the same dream. 

Chapter 2: 2. —And it angered me so deeply because—

Summary:

Leaf senescence, a sequence of complex degenerative processes leading to eventual leaf death.

Notes:

As a gentle reminder, this story WILL have a happy ending, meaning, no matter how certain things look all the ships get their happily ever after, and everyone will be FINE (mostly)

Chapter warnings for: explicit language, explicit depiction of violence, implied child abuse

 

Happy reading, folks, and really take care of yourselves. Tough times.

2. —And it angered me so deeply because— 

 

 

He wants to say that he remembers the day. He doesn't. It's all just the same anyway. The only difference is the location, the frequency of screams, the number of curses thrown his way.

Lily jumps in the way tonight, during that last attack, very stupid of her, she's pregnant. Her wrist gets injured or twisted or something. James gets mad at her, and he wants to mask it as anger manifesting over the unborn child, or her recklessness. But she knows it's not true. She knows he's just mad that she didn't let the flash of light hit him square in the chest. 

That's his new way of feeling something. It either kills him or fucks him up and either way…he won't lose. 

“I'm not letting you die that easily,” she snapped in response to his yelling. That had been that. They got to the safe house in more or less one piece. He wrapped her wrist for her in silence. Because she's his wife, carrying his child, and James is an arsehole. 

The safe house in Bristol is the one they frequent often. The property belongs to the Potter family. James doesn't know when he exactly handed it all over, but he did. It's big and furnished. They reserve the lower storey for the wounded. 

There's a meeting. The night of…. So he gets there. Lily goes off to find Poppy, and James wades through the rooms like a ghost, as he usually does, his eyes darting for a familiar face, mentally checking off a list. Who's horrifically dead and injured today? he muses in his head, dropping down in the nearest kitchen chair by Remus. 

They're alone. Remus pales visibly when he sees James walk in. James checks Remus' name off his list. Nodding at his friend. He's so tired, he just wants to go home and sleep already. Sleep. When he sleeps, he dreams about green eyes. Sometimes. Other times he just dreams about nothing.

“Hey.” 

“Hi, James. Where's—”

“Sprained her wrist,” James rubs a temple, taking notice of the vacant kitchen. It's always so crowded this time of the night, right before a meeting. Was there an attack? Are they all dead? 

“Where's everyone?”

“Here and there,” Remus takes a sip of his tea, avoiding James' exhausted eyes. 

Lily is alive. Remus is alive. That leaves…Peter and Sirius. Although, Remus wouldn't be sitting here, so calmly, had anything happened to Sirius.

“Where's Sirius?” 

“Out.”

“And Peter?” 

“Went with him,” Remus pushes his mug away, “They're fine.”

His friend Remus…he can be an arsehole too. He can be stubborn. He can be all stuffy and petty. James adores it. Well, not tonight. Remus is not giving him an attitude. His brisk and tilted answers are due to undiluted distress, not a possible gripe he has with James. Dread threads its needle, sinking through his skin.

“What is going on, Remus?” he asks. 

Remus opens his mouth. Closes it again. Rubs at his jaw and his eyes look strangely misty. James sucks in a quick breath, “Go on. Where's everyone?” 

There's nobody else left to die. His parents are dead. He has no relatives or family. His wife is here with him. Remus is here. Sirius and Peter are apparently well. 

“I need to tell you something,” Remus says finally, “And I need you to stay calm.” 

“I'm calm. A bit pissed and tired and definitely wouldn't mind alcohol but I'm fine.”

James is many things, has been many things, barring the word fine. 

“Prongs.”

“Remus—”

See, it all starts to get a little blurry from here. Because he remains seated, and Remus stands, caging him in, hovering as though terrified James is going to run away. 

“We received news. Some snitches have word that…we confirmed that…Number twelve Grimmauld Place burned down in a fire early this morning.” 

It's a bit blurry. But he remembers that he laughs a little. Exasperated and exhausted and a little irritated that Remus would even dare say such a thing to him in this state. He laughs. Does he? Yes. Yes, he laughs. 

See, there's this antic, Remus and Sirius have been pulling off for upwards of a year now. To get James to stay away. To convince James that he's gone. He's a lost cause. He chose his path. 

James has been doing so well, convincing them that he agrees. He hasn't said his name in months. Hasn't mentioned him. Looked for him. This is excessive. This…so their house burnt down. What a jolly little joke. Is this Remus' way of being like ‘fuck that little guy and his house that burned down. Probably deserved it, Death Eater scum.’?

But Remus isn't laughing. He doesn't look steeled with determination and grit. Something in his expression breaks. Grief on James' behalf. It's only then, funnily enough, that James understands what the young man is insinuating: 

“James… The house burnt down. And the neighbouring houses…the occupants melted…their flesh literally cooked off their bones—” 

“You're joking.” James breathes.  

“James—”

“This is sick, Remus,” James gets off the chair, “Tell me you're joking. This is just some…fucked up way to protect me from going after him—”

What is Moony even saying? That…that he —that he was there? That the house burned down with him in there? Is Remus crazy? That doesn't make any sense! Why would he —it's another trick. Another measure. 

“We're not sure yet, but we found three remains—”

“You're a fucking liar.” 

“His wand was there.”

It must have been the exhaustion, the headache, or Lily's close brush with death, but James' face crumbles and he shoves at his taller friend, feeling the rushing blood in his veins turn into ice, his hands are numb, “I said fucking stop it! This is not bloody funny, Remus, I just got back from a damn raid and my wife nearly died—” 

“Jamie—” 

“You're a fucking liar!” 

“That house is gone.” 

But that's not what he wanted to say. He wanted to say Regulus was gone. 

Maybe it's the way he said it. The tone that jolts James into the grim reality that…Remus would never lie about this. Sirius might. Pete might try. But Remus… if Remus says the house is gone, it's gone. And if he says his wand was in the house then—

“That…that doesn't mean anything, Remus.” 

He hated that house. Why would he stay there? Why would he burn down with that prison? He never wanted to stay there. That boy didn't want to die. He wouldn't stay in a burning house, he wouldn't—

“They confirmed three bodies—”

“Shut up. You're lying. You're lying to me—”

“I'm sorry, James,” there's a hand on him, steadying him, helping him stand maybe, “Sirius and Peter went on the scene…there was nothing left. Just some teeth. The wands. His wand. Next to…a body in his room. Well, ashes belonging to a body.”

“Where is he?”

He feels Time going still beside him, pausing and holding its breath with him. The axis upon which the foundation of his flimsy life was set, thrashes in place, pulling anything solid from underneath his feet. Where is he!? His mind screams at him. 

He sure as hell is not in that fucking house in the rubble. Regulus wouldn't stay there. Regulus was—IS smart! He's nimble. He's a good dueler, one of the best James knows. He wouldn't burn in those flames. He would…

“We couldn't salvage the body. The Death Eaters have been through the rubble as well—”

“Where. Is. He?”

“He's dead.” 

It's that word, maybe. Dead. As in his friends who gave their lives to protect him and the cause. Dead as in his parents. Dead as in James' first ever good old pet, the family owl. Dead as in unmoving and removed from life. Regulus, with his vibrant eyes and long fingers and soft voice, dead. Dead. He repeats that word so many times in his head that it loses all meaning. 

Dead. Dead. 

Dead? 

No, surely not. Dead. Not Dead dead. Maybe… Well, living things might end up dead if they're not careful. Dead as in gone forever. As in James’ very last words were ‘I wish I'd never loved you like I did. I regret it. I regret loving you.’ 

Dead as in his pregnant wife jumping in front of a curse to spare his life. Dead. Dead. One syllable. One sound. One utterance. How is a life reduced to one utterance? It's not. Because he's not dead. 

Regulus is not. He's not that. He's not dead. Dead is for other things. Other people. They're hiding him somewhere. They don't want James to find him. They think he might get James killed. He'll be dead too then. 

Where is he? 

His mind is stuck but he knows his body is throwing a fit. He's hitting Remus, thrashing with his wand out, trying to break out, trying to find him. He'll go there himself! To the house. Reggie's waiting for him there, he bets. He's waiting! How dare they say he's dead. He's waiting there for James, probably annoyed that it's taking him so long. Probably a little cold. His hands always get a little cold. He's anaemic. 

The fire…if he burned in that fire, he wouldn't really be cold, would he? He'd be dead. Dead. 

“Where Is he—WHERE IS HE!?”

“James!? Remus, what—”

“Lily, stand back!” he hears over the sound of screaming. Other people too, in that kitchen. As though they were waiting in his wake, he sees Moody, glaring at him, sneering at the havoc he wreaks over a slimy little Death Eater. 

“James, don't make me stun you.” 

“YOU'RE FULL OF SHIT! A LIAR! Let me go! WHERE IS HE!?” 

“Dead. He's dead. I'm so sorry, James. I'm sorry—” 

 

He wakes up drenched in sweat. He wakes up, Reggie's hand in his hair, his voice softly calling his name in the dark. For a moment, James thinks he’s died. He pants, his open eyes, unmoving for a beat, his body paralysed and gripped by terror and grief. That wasn't just a nightmare, he thinks. It was a memory. 

“James?” Reggie calls again, shifting up on the bed to cradle his jaw, his face is so ethereal, so real, even in the dark and even blurry, “Are you awake?” 

“Reg—Fuck. Fuck. ” 

“Just a dream, my love.” 

“No, it wasn't,” James burrows his damp face into his husband's hand, unwilling to even blink, “It wasn't, Reg—I…you were gone.”

There's a beat, and then Reg moves again, pulling James against him in silence, “I'm back. It's been years, James. I'm not going anywhere. The year is 1995. September. It's a Tuesday, well …Wednesday now I suppose. I'm here. I'm alive, can you hear my heart beating?” 

Yes. Yes, he can. But still. 

“I've never—Fuck. Fuck, dead. You were—” James gulps in air, pushing his ear roughly against the man's chest. Feeling the steady thuds. He swears, then swears again, breathing in Reggie's citrus shampoo and his own unique earthy scent. He was dead. Burned to death. 

But no, he didn’t. He never did. He never burned. James has to remember that. 

Warm lips graze his forehead. James tries to savour it. Even though he knows Reg is not going anywhere. 

He was dead. He was actually dead. That was a memory that James had not revisited in fifteen years. His body is unused to the visceral weight of grief. 

“It's okay, it's alright—” Regulus' nails lightly scrape his back, “Just a dream. I used to have them too. I still do.”

James wills his arms to move, to hold the man back against him, don't take him away from me again, he begs an unknown entity, like a prayer. 

“Did I wake you?” 

“No,” Regulus reassures him, his hands cold on James' sweat-soaked face. James blinks his eyes hard, his fingers brushing against Reggie's burning mark. A quizzical glance, a sigh from his husband, “It's just a stinging sensation.” 

“You should've woken me up—”

“Just started ten minutes ago,” Regulus yawns, “I bet I can even sleep through it.”

James blinks hard again, a sinking feeling in his chest. The dream was so fucked that he has a hard time believing he's actually awake now. He grabs Reggie's forearm, gently peppering kisses over the hot, scarred skin. Reg clicks his tongue, “Don't do that, it's dirty.” 

“‘mells like soap,” James mutters against the skin, ignoring the clear implications hidden in Reggie's offhand whine. Nothing about Reggie is ever dirty or impure. No matter how hard of a time Regulus has, believing this. Even when the mark is alive and writhing on his forearm, even when that bastard torments him with it. He's cleaner than James could ever hope to be. And most importantly alive. 

Alive. He's alive. They're all alive. 

James just doesn't know how long that is going to last. 

 

…

 

He is so genuinely sick of this. 

“You are in a house.” 

“It's a manor.” He corrects the healer, but doesn’t know why he does it. What does it matter if it’s a house or a manor or a flat or a goddamn cave? It’s of no consequence. 

“Okay. Describe it to me.” 

And he has to commit to it now because he opted to clear his throat and start talking. He's sick of muteness and the second he opens his mouth he regrets it. It's a hopeless endeavour. 

Although knowing Margery, the man would force him to write out this stupid dream on parchment if Harry refused to cooperate any longer. And Harry supposes detachment is easier than resisting the narration. 

“I don't know,” he still snaps, immaturely, “It's posh. Polished floors, antique vases, flowers. Heavy drapes. Long windows.”

“Is it dark?” 

“Sometimes. Sometimes it's noon. Sometimes the drapes just…block out everything so I cannot tell.” 

“And what do you do in this Manor?” 

“I'm walking. On the first floor. There's a room at the end of the corridor. I'm headed there.”

He has to clench his hands on the armrests of the chair. McGonagall’s office is not really an appropriate place for an appointment, but since Harry's parents shucked him back here in Hogwarts to rot at the start of the academic year…it'll have to do, apparently. Harry wishes he had fought harder. No, he wishes he never recovered enough to be sent here again. That's a sick thought to have, the wish to stay sick. He still is sick. There's no recovery from what he went through. Harry is dead. And whatever ghost is in charge of his body is doing a shoddy bloody job. 

“What room is it?”

“It's a bedroom,” Harry mutters, trying to contain a shudder. It's not cold, he just doesn't like verbalising his dream. This dream. This recurring bloody nightmare. It's always the same dream. The same house. The same curtains. The same door. 

“—I stand behind the door, to let him know that I'm there, behind it. It scares him, and for some sick reason …I like that it scares him.” 

Margery does a really twisted thing, he leans over the edge of his seat, narrows his eyes at Harry, and he asks, “Who?”

Harry crams his hand into the pocket of his robes, digging his thumb into Anthony Graves’ figurine and its sharp edges. It's the only constant he has. The only thing he carries around everywhere. He feels the dull pain, and his shoulders drop, the panic subsides enough for him to glare at the man, “You know who. Can we not play this game?”

“Harry—”

“You know, Papa was right. You're so sadistic.”

Of course, Papa never said that to Harry in the context of Harry’s healing. When it comes to Harry, Margery is a saint. He can do no wrong. His word is gospel in their household. 

He said Harry needed to walk outside daily for five minutes, and Papa and Dad obliged like a tuned little toy, frog-marching Harry outside between the two of them, like he was some dog being let out to piss on grass for six fucking months until Harry gave up fighting them and just stomped out himself daily to get away from them, conditioned to lap around their house like some animal, he did so almost begging to be kidnapped again to spite them. 

Margery said he needed to sleep in his own bed, and Papa and Dad almost drove Harry to tears every night, trying to wean him off his insomnia. 

Margery said Harry needed to practise speaking again, and Dad took that so seriously that Harry was tempted to slap him in every interaction. He wasn't like Papa or his Godfathers, he couldn't take it when he was in the same room with Harry and things were too quiet. He just would have to talk. Say something. Would ask Harry a stupid, benign question and not move a single muscle until Harry communicated his thoughts somehow. 

And every time Harry dared open act out in protest, their answers would begin the same way: 

Margery said this. Margery said that. Margery thinks. Margery suggests. According to Margery. And so on. And so forth. 

And now he's asking these insipid questions just to torment him. Just to make Harry relive the nightmare. Just to make him cry and shiver and curl up in the chair, rocking back and forth like some nutcase. 

“You and your Papa only think that when you want to be uncooperative or feel too vulnerable,” the large man tells him now, unphased, “In order to control the interaction, you use verbal hostility. I wish it worked on me, but it won't, Harry.”

They have a staring contest. And Harry won't lie, the only person able to outmatch him in a staring contest is Papa, but Margery puts up a good fight. Harry glares at the man a bit harder, digging his thumb into the tip of Anthony's plastic head until he can feel it leaving a print, can feel the dull pain bloom into a new, sharper jab. 

“Who is in the bedroom?” 

What difference does it make if Harry says the name anyway? It's just a dream, he thinks angry at himself. It's just a fucking dream. He can just say it all in one breath, get the man off his back. If he's too stubborn, Papa and Dad are going to sit him down for a conversation again. 

And Papa would look all guilty and hold Harry's hands and tell him, “Oh, baby, you cannot heal if you avoid the pain.” Or, “You know I know how you feel. I know it hurts. I know it's easier to ignore it—”  

And so on. And so forth. 

One inhale, he promises himself. He'll just say it once. Margery cannot do shit then. He opens his mouth, already breathless.

“Draco Malfoy. Okay? Chained to a bloody bed. And I get there and he starts begging right away, but I walk in anyway, and I don't do anything. That's the crazy part. I just look into his eyes, that's all.” 

“And the dream ends?” 

Harry wants to throttle the guy and himself and the entire castle. The dream never ends. It never…how can Margery ask him that? Is that not horrific enough for him? The image of the emaciated boy, with matted hair and shaking hands, with his ankle chafed to the bone, shackled to the bedpost, looking up at Harry with wide sunken eyes, begging him, no please no please no no no no please you won't see anything please please please please please please please please— 

“I…Sure. It ends .”

“You've tried writing to him.” 

Harry might as well impale his thumb on the Quidditch toy.

“Hedwig cannot get in their wards or whatever. I've tried. I know what this is, a manifestation of guilt or…or whatever. I know he’s in Bulgaria. I know he’s fine.” No, he bloody does not, but who’s keeping track of this stuff?

Maybe guilt is not the right word. Anger, grief, heartbreak, loss. Most strongly, it's loss. Because Draco looked so sad and so scared and Harry was not strong enough to stop him. And now he's Merlin knows where (evidently Bulgaria), and Harry is here in Hogwarts without him. And nobody seems to care that he's just missing. Even Harry's parents…no one seems to understand. 

“Do you feel guilty?” 

“I feel…nothing.” 

It's true. Anthony the Quidditch figurine knows. Harry has to jab himself with Anthony just to feel something most days. 

“Well, your dreams certainly want you to feel something,” Margery says kindly, “You've made so much progress already. You're talking in sentences.” 

Harry sighs, long-suffering and retracting his hand from his pocket. He hates this. Actually, Margery is right. He is feeling something, when the man and others condescend to him like this. He feels… infuriated. 

“Don't patronise me.” he snaps. 

“Don't downplay your emotions and accomplishments,” Margery returns without missing a beat, “Harry, you went through something horrible and life-changing. And you survived that. It takes time. It took your Father a decade.” 

Well , Harry wants to say, too bad that what Papa went through was years of unimaginable torment and rape and what I went through was just a rough night, eh, Margery? 

He doesn't need anyone telling him how much of a pansy he's being. He doesn't need anyone telling him that he should've moved on. Should've walked it off. Should've recovered.  

Instead, he just says: 

“Okay.” 

“Do you want to talk more about your dream?” 

He shrugs. He's done talking today.

“Alright. Well, if you've reached your limit for the day…I can talk and you can try writing or communicating in some other way or —”

Or, Margery can just fuck off , Harry thinks and on an impulse, he stands, rushing out of his chair and reaching for his school bag. McGonagall's efforts are a waste of time. Nothing gets accomplished in her office. Harry has half a mind to tell her just that. Maybe someday. He'll get an earful about this later from his parents anyhow.

Margery stands with him, looking like he's a tad disappointed that Harry is leaving the session halfway undone. 

“Harry—”

Harry doesn't give a shit. He walks out of the office, and it takes a very considerable amount of energy not to slam the door shut behind him. He slings his bag over his shoulder and Ron's head snaps up from a candy wrapper he's got in his hands.

“All done then, mate?” He asks, annoyingly chipper, as he always is lately. Harry just starts walking away and the boy runs to catch up, “I'll take that as a yes. Shoddy weather. No idea why Hermione gushes over the rain so much. It sucks.” 

He always does this, ever since…well. Always trails after Harry like some lost puppy or guard dog, always chattering away in a one-sided conversation that Harry doesn’t even acknowledge half the time. And at nights, when Harry’s resolve has been sanded down to its barest elements, Ron knows to make room for him in his bed, drawing the curtains close and holding him in silence, knowing that Harry is alone and miserable and that he does not want to be here. 

Some days, Harry is rather appreciative of this. He knows his friends have better things to do, rather than babysitting him, making sure he doesn’t die or get taken because of his own stupidity again. He knows he’s difficult. He knows he’s not easy company. He knows that his friends are ostracising themselves, by keeping him company, and the guilt and appreciation and love bloom into a confusing composition. 

Other days, like today, Harry wants to punch Ron so hard into the nearest wall that the boy’s nose breaks. He wants the blood to irrigate his knuckles, he wants that rage seeded deep within his chest to make him feel something again. He wants Ron to hate him, as he should. He wants Ron to feel his exile as keenly as he feels it himself. 

“You look pissed,” Ron observes, “So, your pick, do you want to go hang out in the common room, crash on library chairs, or should we just skip potions and nap instead?” 

Harry gives him a look, not pausing in his stride and Ron flushes a bit with a shrug, “Yeah, yeah, Hermione will have our arses. It sucks having a bloody free period. Nothing to do between classes. Boring!” 

Harry clenches his hands into fists, quickening his steps, huffing out air like some iron bull that has been fed coals. Merlin, how he wants to wrench his own limbs so hard that his bones snap. He tries to walk faster, outpace Ron even though the idea of being alone in the castle makes him fumble in irrational panic. He wants to be unwell, he wants his parents to take him out of this hellhole. He wants to be alone. 

“Harry—” Ron calls behind him, thankfully in the empty corridor. 

“Alone.” Harry grits out, his jaw clenched so hard it hurts. 

“What do you mean? We're alone together.” 

Harry glares at the taller boy and Ron concedes, grimacing as he’s trying to somehow stop Harry’s manic stride without explicitly touching him. Harry dares the boy in his head to touch him, he is aching to beat the living shit out of something. 

“Oh, I see,” Ron muses, out of breath, “Well, no. Afraid, that's not an option, Harry. Where you go I go—”

Harry stops midstep, glaring at Ron, “I want to take a piss,” he growls. 

“I'll come with,” Ron says easily and it makes everything so much worse because Ron wasn’t like this before Harry’s mind got fucked over. He was petulant, he was stubborn like Harry, he never put up with Harry’s shit, “I need to wash my hands anyway. Fred handed me some funny taffy when he passed by. My jaw hurts from all the chewing—Hey!” 

Harry whirls and starts stomping away, shouldering a few younger Hufflepuffs that had appeared out of thin air in the narrow corridor. They yell out expletives and Harry faintly hears Ron apologising for him as he runs. Harry growls again, frustrated that he is verbally unable to describe this animalistic rage that churns in his stomach. 

Ron tries to grab his arm, holding him so Harry doesn’t stumble. Harry shoves the boy away, smacking him accidentally with his loaded school bag, “Alone!” he cries out like a child, “I want to be alone! Leave me alone!” 

They stare at each other for a single beat and Ron rubs his sore arm, having just been targeted by said school bag, “I cannot do that, Harry,” he says quietly, “You don’t want that either.” 

Harry rams his fist into his pocket, squeezing Anthony hard enough to elicit a wince out of himself. Ron takes a deep breath and nods, not minding Harry’s rather pathetic blowup. 

“Okay,” he says, “Sure. Let's find an empty classroom. You can be alone inside and I'll be outside, waiting till you're done brooding.” 

Harry follows him, because he cannot do anything else. 

…

 

He's usually in his dorm alone at dinnertime. 

“How are the classes?” Papa asks like he expects the answer to be finally something different other than: 

“Fine.” 

The image in the mirror shifts a little, Papa is in the Orangery, on the worn couch they keep there. No signs of Dad tonight, Harry thinks darkly, no idea what to think. He hates these nightly calls. He hates that Papa looks at him like he's afraid Harry won't pick up the mirror call every night. He hates that they've sent him back here with nothing but Barty and a bloody mirror. He hates that he's here and they're there, preparing for a war. It's like he's in exile. 

Papa looked the most heartbroken, when dropping Harry off here again. Holding Harry firm against him, muttering nonsensical comfort in his ears, and yet .. Letting go and asking Harry to stay here. To be good. To act as though life goes on. 

Harry hates him a little for that. 

“Fine?” Papa's eyes narrow because of the tone, he looks tired, or maybe it's the concern that's making him look that way, “Is anyone giving you trouble? You should tell us if—” 

“It's fine,” Harry mutters, unable to hold the man's gaze, “Nobody cares. They’re busy.” 

Ron would report any excessive bullying to his parents anyway. Harry hates him for that. There's no point in discussing the treatment he's getting from fellow students, many of whom believe Harry's bat-shit crazy, and that he and his parents made the whole thing up. 

Harry's never told them about this last part. His parents have their own shit to worry about. Who cares what a bunch of teenagers think? Who cares if they call Harry an attention-seeking crybaby in the corridors or glare at him from afar because his antics got the Triwizard Tournament cancelled at its zenith right before the third task? 

“Well …this is your O.W.L.s year,” Papa shifts a little, “I know things are hard, so don't feel the pressure to aim for the best. But you know, your father and I were talking and—” 

“I'm handling it.” 

“We could pay some people,” Papa says, “Speak to some officials to delay your examination. It's usually frowned upon but the extenuating circumstances—” 

Yeah, more biases. Because that's exactly what he needs. 

“I don't need that, Papa.”

He needs to be home. He needs to be with his parents fighting to raise people's awareness about the threat lurking underneath their feet. He needs to look for Draco, rescue him from his crazy parents. 

“You're right,” Papa's guilt is palpable, “You don't. You're smart and hardworking. But tell me if you feel like it's too much.” 

“What difference does it make?” Harry mutters. 

“What was that, son?” 

“Nothing.” 

“I know how it feels to be …” Papa sighs, looking over the mirror at something Harry cannot see, “...helpless. But we're not. I need you to know, your Dad and I are doing everything we can to—” 

Harry drags his eyes away from the man. They've been having this conversation a lot, but no matter what the man says, Harry doesn't think they have the higher ground. Not when no one believes them about what happened. 

“—to not let that monster touch you again.” 

“What about you?” Harry asks. 

“You and your Dad worry too much,” Papa waves him off, the mirror tilting as he gets off the couch, “Riddle cannot harm any of us.” 

Yeah , Harry thinks, because Papa threatened to fucking kill himself before Riddle could do anything. And he acts like that is not a big deal. 

Sometimes, well, recently, Harry has started to think that Papa is putting on a show for both him and Dad. He makes such an effort to look unbothered and unconcerned. He's admitted to Riddle using the mark to annoy him but is seemingly entirely unphased by it. Every time Harry frets about death and war and torture, Papa is there shrugging it off. 

The truth is, Harry thinks it's a performance, and it's such a good one, that he almost cannot be sure. If Papa was as unworried as he claimed, he wouldn't call Harry nightly like this, he wouldn't ask Ronald to trail him like a guard. He wouldn't lie to Harry about being tired and in pain. 

He doesn't say anything, letting the man take him around the Orangery as he goes on about their nightshade pot. Papa adjusts the mirror, giving Harry a faceful of the plant, his hand in the mirror holding up the delicate leaves and cluster of closed buds, “See the little blooms?” He sounds a bit excited, “It's a bit too early to tell, but I think these will be white. There'll be a cluster if we're lucky. I've been microdosing the soil with Essence of Dittany. Now before you call me barmy, it can be used on plants, it's actually a nice tonic, the salamander eyes—”

“Is your mark hurting?” Harry cuts him off, and Papa's subtly shaking hand stills. The mirror shifts to his face immediately again and he's frowning at Harry. 

“No, of course not. Do you think Riddle is sitting around all day zapping me through the mark?” He breathes a chuckle, “Honestly, child.” 

Yeah, that's exactly what Harry thinks. And it's probably true. Papa's shaking hands are always a tell. 

“Where's Dad?”

There's a pause. 

“We're preparing some documents to take with us to Scrimgeour tomorrow. He's going over those. Nothing you need to worry about.” 

How many times are they going to do this? Harry wonders. Fudge will never accept their story. Even with Dumbledore backing them up. Even with the memories and a pensive. Even with Veritaserum. No one believes them. And Scrimgeour cannot do shit about that. No matter how many conversations they all have. If they could've done something they would've eleven months ago. 

Harry wants to tear his hair out. How can…how can nobody believe them? How is he here? How are his parents so level-headed about this while Harry is going to pieces? How can they bear leaving Harry here all alone?

“What good will it do?” Harry snaps, “Haven't you seen what they're telling about you guys in the papers? Fudge—”

“Are you reading the Prophet again?” Papa cuts him off, his eyes narrowed in disapproval, “Harry—”

“They're dragging your name through the mud. Calling you all sorts of names—”

“And they're being fined and penalised for it,” Papa says curtly, “You know they're not allowed to write about us anymore. This is just a…Sirius is handling it. It won't stay like this. I know it looks bad now, but I need you to keep your spirits up and focus on your own healing.” 

Healing, how SICK Harry is of that word. 

“—I know things aren't ideal. I know you didn't want to go back to school and I'm sorry but—”

“You're not!” Harry drops the mirror with a growl, “You wouldn't have sent me away if you were sorry! You and Dad just wanted to—” 

“Just what, son?”

To get rid of me. To cast me away. Because I'm too much. Too troublesome. Too stupid. Too rash. Too much. 

He'll just get in their way, if he goes back home. They're trying to save people and prepare for a war, Harry would probably botch it all up by doing something idiotic again. 

“Whatever,” he feels his throat closing up again, that same old sign that he's not going to be able to talk for much longer, “I'm tired, so I'll turn in.”

He's such a disappointment. He's not a hero. He's not some boy wonder. He's just…terrified. The Wizarding World won't survive Voldemort if things stay like this. Papa might not survive Voldemort if things stay like this and Harry doesn't know how he's supposed to fix it. How is he supposed to fix the resigned fear in Draco's grey-purple eyes before he went missing? How is he supposed to fix Papa's mark and the public slandering them and—

He buries his face in his knees, turning the mirror over so Papa cannot see the desolation on his face. 

“Harry? I love you, you know that,” he hears Papa's voice, muffled by his arms, “Your father and I love you. So much. Things will get better.”

“Goodnight,” Harry calls, swallowing down the bile in his throat. He runs a distracted finger over the jagged scar on his forearm. 

There's silence from the other end and a small sigh, “Okay. Goodnight. We can talk again tomorrow. Dad and I are coming to visit on Sunday and you can always get Barty if you need us at night—”

Harry tunes him out. 

…

 

“It's really for the best.” 

“You're full of shit.” 

“It is for the best,” Barty repeats himself, dropping his correcting quill, “Do you know how embarrassing it is to almost crack your head open at a Quidditch practice ? Kid, you're off your game and it's hazardous. This is good. You'll take a break, get back on your game—” 

“You're full of shit!” 

A suspension. Harry woke up today, to an indefinite Quidditch suspension. Of course, they're not calling it that. They're calling it a temporary convalescence period . Angelina really tried to hammer in that fact. They're holding bloody tryouts for Seekers today on the field. McGonagall didn't bat an eye at him when she broke the news. Harry cannot take his anger out on her. But he can vent at Barty. He's a staff member. They all make decisions like that collectively. Or at the very least…this is not fair!

So what if he almost fell off his broom a few times when McGonagall came to observe their practice session? People die playing Quidditch. It's not like Harry actually fell. The twins were there. This is unfair! It's bullshit! And what's worse, is that Barty agrees with her!

“How can you say that!? How can you just sit there—”

“It's literally just Quidditch.” 

“You're full of—”

“I heard you the first time!” Barty rubs the bridge of his nose, “God, Harry. Pull it together. It's just one season off, not the end of the world. You're a liability. And not the team captain. And you have more important things to deal with.” 

“Like what?” 

Barty nods pointedly at the mountains of essays on his desk, “Like turning in the assignment I gave you three weeks ago. Like getting some sleep. Eating some food,” he scoffs at Harry, “This is pathetic.” 

Harry balls his hands into fists, scoffing back at the man's audacity to just sit there and tell him these things. He thinks he's so high and mighty? He thinks his own life isn't a disaster? And he just sits there and acts like Harry is being pathetic and unreasonable. 

“That's rich coming from someone who hasn't been home in three months.” Harry bites out. 

“Okay, you little shit,” Barty wags a finger at him, bolting out of his seat, “You wanna go there?” 

“Yes. Let's go there!” Harry screams. He's done pretending that he doesn't hate this guy's guts for turning down Sirius and Remus' proposal. He's sick of pretending he has a right to still be here, part of the so-called family, telling Harry off when he himself fucked Padfoot and Moony over for months after his father's death. 

“You have no idea what you're on about, Harry.” 

“What are you gonna do when you lose an argument, turn into a bloody Mink again?” Harry snarls. 

“I liked you a lot better when you went fucking mute, you little twerp,” Barty seethes. He rounds his desk, marching up to Harry, “I don't have to do this,” he snaps at Harry, grabbing his arm by the robe, “you have a bone to pick about losing your Quidditch team? Go snatch Minerva's collar, let's see if she puts up with your attitude.” 

Harry yanks his arm away from the man's pulling, “Maybe I will!” 

“Yeah! Please, be my guest! You think you're going to needle them into expelling you? No, kid. They're gonna make you just as miserable as you make them. You're not going back home. The sooner you accept that—”

“Screw you!” 

“—The sooner you'd stop acting like a brat!” Barty matches his screaming, “This is your prison. They're gonna keep you here! Stuck with me! You think I like being here?”

“You're gonna die alone and miserable because you broke my godfathers’ hearts—”

Barty's face turns livid, black with rage at the recurring mention of Sirius and Remus. The man stomps past Harry after a moment of pure silence. Harry knows he hit a sensitive spot.  But it's true. All that he said. Barty left. Barty turned them down. Barty never loved them to begin with. 

He was probably just using them, Harry thinks cruelly, glaring at the man's lanky back, as his tense shoulders suddenly relax, “I'm done with you,” Barty tells him, “I'm just done with you.” 

“Good.” Harry flings his bag over his shoulder, feeling the anger still bubbling under his skin with the same ferocity as before. Barty didn't give him the answer he wanted. He didn't fly off the handle the way Harry was praying he would. Harry despises him. 

“Come back once you've hit your head on a rock and got your fucking common sense back,” Barty opens his office door and shoves Harry out unceremoniously, “No Quidditch. No Prefect badge. No nothing until then! I have enough to worry about already. I don't have time for your attitude. Don't even talk to me unless it's an apology.” and then he closes the door in Harry's face. 

Harry kicks the closed office door for good measure before he leaves, ignoring the look Ron throws at him. 

 

…

 

There's this bitch in pink that's been at the staff table, eating meals two days in a row. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. 

Dumbledore didn't really introduce her. Maybe he did. Harry doesn't care. He vaguely knows her. She was at Papa's trial too. Wearing the same pink. She keeps staring at him. Her eyes are beady, bulging when she giggles, her hair coiled in a nauseating spiral. Her attire is a blinding pink, hideous from every angle. 

Her staring at him doesn't make her special. In fact, that makes her blend in so well. Everyone stares at Harry all the time. And staring is what he gets if he's lucky. Jeers and lewd comments about his parents, if people are feeling frisky. The occasional innocent shoulder slam, if they're feeling particularly bothered about Harry's existence. Not much more, with Ron present like the loyal friend that he is all the time. Anyhow…

She's no different, so Harry only thinks to ask about her when he walks into class on Monday and sees the grown woman, sitting there, in his Divination classroom. All prim and proper, a miniature clipboard in her meaty little hands. 

He throws an inquisitive look at Ron—Hermione dropped the course last year—and the boy makes a slight move with his hand, dragging Harry away from the toad-like gaze. 

“Observing the class,” Ron mutters by his ear, shielding Harry's body from view with his own as they settle down on the furthest bench from her, “She's from the Ministry. High Inquisitor Umbridge. Hermione’s seen her in every advanced course she’s taken. Don’t you remember her talking about it? ” 

“Why?” 

Ron shrugs when Trelawney wanders into her own classroom, her insectile eyes comically widening when she sees the mass of pink emanating from the corner of her class. Harry shrinks into his seat as usual, dropping his head into his arms and tuning out the class proceedings. He genuinely cannot be arsed to care. Ron will handle it if something comes up or they call on him. 

Nothing special happens until midway through the class. Every sentence Trelawney says about dark premonitions is interrupted by a little ahem ahem from the pink lady. Trelawney seems anxious by this at first, especially since the sound is followed by a harsh scratching on Umbridge’s clipboard, then as the class goes on, and the interruptions grow more frequent, Trelawney forgoes all inhibitions. 

“Are there any questions that you have, Inquisitor Umbridge?” She asks, cutting her own lecture off. Her bug-eyed look and rumpled appearance make this interaction infinitely more entertaining than it should be. 

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Umbridge's high voice rings from behind Harry, “Are you sure your curriculum is on the right track, professor?” 

“I'm sorry?” 

“The Ministry has clear guidelines and regulations against the propagation of dangerous ideologies—” 

Harry perks up, every single student is silent, observing Trelawney as she gapes at Umbridge. 

“I'm afraid I don't understand—this…this curriculum is the one I've used for—”

“Yes, I see on your records. How long have you been working here?” 

“Sixteen years.” 

“No wonder, this school has been subject to such unbound controversies,” Umbridge clicks her tongue, her heels clicking on the tiles, she makes her way to the head of the class, and settles down on Trelawney’s empty seat, giving her a smarmy smirk, “You may proceed, Professor .”

“Well, yes. Yes,” Trelawney clears her throat, turning away from the woman to the bewildered students. 

“Potter—you,” she clears her throat again, “How about you do a crystal reading for us? Try to channel your inner eye and—”

Harry gives her a beseeching look and once she insists, nervously, he reaches for the crystal orb he and Ron share. He hasn't been listening. He is not particularly keen to speak. 

And what is there to say? He already knows he is a harbinger of war. He's been trying to tell these people for months. And he's been ridiculed. Telling the same shit in this class might only make Trelawney happy and that's because she is a lunatic. 

“I…” he stares into the orb. 

“Hurry, Potter. It has to be spontaneous.” 

“Danger awaits?” Harry says because fuck it. 

“Dig deeper,” Trelawney creeps closer to their desk, “Danger, where is it coming from? A malicious spirit? A ghost—”

Harry looks at her like she's stupid.

“Lord Voldemort.”

The class breaks out into bouts of snickers and exasperated noises. And amidst it all:

Ahem ahem. 

Harry drags his dead gaze from his speechless professor to Umbridge's affronted expression. 

“You-Know-Who!” The woman exclaims, “Who put such ideas in your head, dear boy?” 

“Perhaps Potter wasn't the right choice to call on—” Trelawney feebly tries to cut in front of the woman, and Ron's hand darts to Harry's thigh at the same time, gripping it. 

Harry rolls his eyes, “No one put anything in my head.” 

“A classroom is no place for such fear-mongering and lies—”

“I'm not a liar!”

What does he need to do exactly to be believed? He still has the scars. He still has the memories. How hard is it to prove that he's not a liar?

“Madam Umbridge—” Trelawney stammers simultaneously as Ron calls Harry's name, silently begging him with his eyes not to drag this on. 

The Crystal orb Harry had on the desk starts shaking a bit. 

“Through no fault of your own, I'm sure, Mister Potter,” Umbridge is carrying on, “A child cannot be blamed for indoctrination forced upon them by inadequate parents, eager to sell a story—”

“Voldemort kidnapped me!” Harry bolts up from his chair, “He used my blood to resurrect himself and—”

“Many of you may have been told that a certain Dark Wizard has returned,” Umbridge addresses the class, ignoring Harry's harsh panting, “That is simply untrue, a narrative promoted by certain people —” 

“To what end!?” Harry cries out, “I don't benefit from telling people Voldemort is back! I'm not lying. He's back. He took me. He's out there!” 

“Potter, that is—quite enough—”

“There is nothing out there,” Umbridge maintains, addressing Harry directly, her voice shrill like a cat's, drowning Trelawney out, “You have been conditioned to believe certain things to mask your step-father’s abusive treatment of you or at the very least as a result of his promiscuity and instability—ARGH! ” 

“Harry!” 

Harry's crystal orb, which had zoomed into the air with the speed of an activated snitch, launched by Harry's accidental magic, as though a nail drawn by a strong magnet, slams into Umbridge's face, knocking her back heels up. The woman screams and cries, shrieking as the class erupts in chaos. Harry stares at her in horror, and everybody else stares at him, mirroring the same disgust.  

“Harry—” Ron is blocking his view of the bloody mess and the rushing of students towards the wailing woman. 

Harry clamps his mouth shut, his chest heaving, physically unable to say the words:

‘ I'm so sorry and I didn't mean to.’

Notes:

- Too early to point this out but the chapter titles will be syntactically and pragmatically connected (in fun ways)
- Look up "Selective Mutism" in order to better understand what Harry is going through at the moment. Selective mutism is more commonly seen in children but can occur in adolescents and adults as well after trauma.
- Also look up "Anger or rage" as a symptom of complex PTSD, we had a grain of this in the canon as well, due to the trauma and also Voldemort causing trouble through their connection, here it is more vivid due to plot reasons and also because I take trauma treatment in my writings moderately seriously. People with this symptom are often very distrustful of the world and the people in it, often even tending to lash out at loved ones and family.
- The two-way mirror has so much potential, to me it's almost like a video call. It IS a video call, and rather smart of Jegulus to keep an eye on Harry using it since they had no choice in sending him back to Hogwarts.
- In the canon, Harry's story was not believed even with the presence of a dead body. Here we don't even have that. There are only three witnesses, and their evidence keeps getting disputed due to reasons you will find out soon about. It's a scary concept because it happens in real life all the time. The masses tend to ignore a looming disaster as long as it is not immediately perceivable. If you want to see more of this, check out "Don't Look Up" (2021)
- Barty turned down Wolfstar's proposal because Slytherins are masters at self-sabotaging their own happiness, but it'll be fine I promise, I PINKY PROMISE, just stay here for the angst first it'll be great.
- Umbridge WAS in Reggie's trial, let me know if you caught her in the crowd and heheheee
- And again, one useful tactic in smothering "whistleblowers" or people trying to warn others of a great danger is discrediting them or accusing them of propaganda (ironically enough): we have the concept of "Zersetzung" which was literally practised to repress political opponents in East Germany in the 70s which in itself is a form of "Social undermining" and that happens when a group of people/government directs a barrage of negative emotions and discrediting towards a certain person to break their character. This can be used to serve political aims or just because one doesn't like a certain narrative in a given space. Anyhow, look them up if you're interested.
- Dunno if you guys noticed, but there is this recurring motif of Harry repeating the same curse words or phrases that his parents do in stressful situations (often in the same chapter). This is not accidental, he grew up in that household, so obviously he's bound to imitate them, in this chapter we had him and James both using the expression "You're full of shit", in the previous work, we had Harry and Regulus, sharing curse words and phrases, I'm too lazy to point out the chapters, but they're there. Look up "family-lects" for a better explanation of this phenomenon.
- Thank you so much for reading, have fun and take care and I'll reply to the comments pretty soon, I'm just a little behind. Love ya'll

Chapter 3: 3.—why was I forsaken then? Am I not—

Summary:

Two Potters lose it, and Regulus is done

Notes:

I would like to preface what I'm about to say with the warning that I'm not superstitious. I don't have any religious beliefs whatsoever, so this final-destination type of shit that happened to me has no spiritual value whatsoever, but:

I was applying for a second job (yes, in addition to my already-existing job and my studies), I was called for a job interview, I said fine. I got up at six in the morning to get ready. I spent an hour in the shower. My commute was fairly expensive and I had to teach a class on the same afternoon. So I got there an hour early. I decide to go to a cafe near the building to kill time. I get a chai latte. I pulled up my job application again and immediately I got this sense of "wrongness" in my guts. Now, might have been the chai latte, or maybe
a final-destination crossover, but the feeling was so strong, I called them while still in the cafe, apologized a bunch and told them I was no longer available. Finished my Chai latte and then walked all the way home and couldn't bring myself to feel bad in the slightest. I dunno, sth in my guts tells me I dodged a bullet or maybe something bigger is coming my way. or maybe it really WAS the chai latte and I'm losing my mind, but anyway.

Proceed!

Please check the tags and the warnings on this work and series carefully.

Also as a reassuring note, because someone asked in the comments; this work will NEVER be abandoned. Mostly because 2/3s of it is prewritten already, but also because I've done too much research to stop now, DW. This is my child, not gonna abandon it.

3.—why was I forsaken then? Am I not—

1980

 

When they asked James what he was doing with blood dripping down his nails and his wand discarded, by the folded pair of bodies under him, his answer was easy: 

“I'm de-feathering two crows.” 

When they asked him whether the Carrow twins attacked him and cornered him and forced his hand to take them down, James' answer was easy: 

“Sure.” 

He couldn't care less that it made them uneasy. That as he peeled his body from the dead bodies in the dusk on the outskirts of Devon, the congealed blood stretched between him and Flora Carrow’s blood-caked death eater robes like cheese. 

“Do you have a mission report, Potter?” One of them asked him, as James bent down to pick up his wand. James assumed it was Kingsley. He wiped the sticky blood off his wand with his trousers. 

“They were alive, they attacked me, now they're dead. That's your report.” 

He stepped on Amycus Carrow's broken hand with a boot, hearing an extra crunch, surprised that any bones were even left there intact to break upon impact. But well…these twins were full of surprises. 

They just didn't have much to offer James about his subject of inquiry. Who killed Regulus Black? James asked them so nicely. 

“The house burned!” They cried and James wasn't looking for the same run-of-the-mill bullshit. He had a headache and they made the mistake of attacking him first. James never sought them out. They were the ones who struck first. He just defended himself. That was the story, at least. 

Burned! Burned in that house fire! 

Like a symphony concocted between a murder of cawing crows, the twins echoed this answer, back and forth between them until one or the other just couldn't caw back anymore. 

“Potter, are you sure that was self-defence—” 

“Ask Albus about it.” James cut the man off and skulked away on the hill, his boots damp on the dry, grey grass. 

Sirius and Lily were going to be on his case about this; they didn't particularly like it when James went off on his own, but what could they do? James was only following orders, fighting a war. 

Who could blame a man for becoming an animal, fighting in a war?

…

 

1995

 

Dad makes ham on Christmas. 

He bastes it with a honey glaze, which he and Sirius whip up together. It’s all done in a flurry; they weren’t supposed to really celebrate, but Remus got the ham with Barty from the village and they already had all the gifts wrapped anyway. The winter holiday spirits themselves are the only things missing from this well-oiled and machinated celebration. It’s more of a habit than an inclination. Maybe a forced normality. 

Papa made him put on a ridiculous pair of pyjamas with little reindeer and bell patterns that morning, not for its design, mind you, it’s just that the lining is insulated with wool. It’s good to keep warm , he’d said. Harry can tell the man wants him to argue, to whine about the childish pattern on the garment, it was a gag gift from Dad after all. But Harry doesn’t. 

He watches as Dad bastes the ham, and Papa reads another muggle novel on his kitchen chair, idly conversing with Remus about one of the characters. He can hear Padfoot barking, distantly in the yard and as the evening creeps over them, an ominous dread pools in his stomach. This might be the last Christmas they all share, and Harry doesn’t know how they’re all so calm. Not jovial, far from it. He doesn’t think even a miracle can lift the sombre cloud over the household in Wimbourne, but the calm…the calm is unsettling too. 

Maybe it’s the lack of news. This self-made vacuum they’ve been in for the past week. Harry doesn’t know why he was expecting Voldemort to reunite his army and start razing England and Europe at large the moment he returned. He has no concept of war or great violence beyond what he endured. But the stories Dad shared…

Harry was expecting armies and death and starvation to be rampant already. He was expecting the collapse of society as he knew it. But in reality, Dad is basting ham and Sirius is trotting around the state as Padfoot with Barty. In reality, things are maddeningly normal.

He has three forkfuls of ham and some potatoes sitting heavy in his stomach like a lump of coals. His eyes flicker drowsily after as they’re all seated in the living room, his head leaning against Dad’s shoulder as he talks to Sirius about Barty…chopping wood outside? It makes sense, the man isn’t in the house with them, he finished his dinner first if Harry remembers correctly. 

“He knows we don’t need firewood, right?” Dad is saying, “We don’t even use the sitting room’s fireplace and where are we even going to store all that wood—”

“Let the man cope, James,” Papa calls from the other side of the room, exchanging a look with Remus, “A few trees are a small price.”

A price for what? Harry wonders in his dazed state. Sanity? Relief? Peace? 

He keeps thinking of Draco for some reason. He can't remember much of their last interaction, but the look he threw at Harry over his shoulder haunts him. They were not even acquaintances, Harry got into this mess because of the boy and yet…he looked at him like he’d known Harry for centuries; with a yearning that Harry had only seen in glances exchanged between his parents. 

It seemed like a lifetime ago when Harry broke into the boy’s compartment, offering him chocolate and getting insulted in return and leaving with an air of finality and as Malfoy described it “regret”. Did he know this would happen to Harry? Did he know he would leave Harry behind anyway?

“I remember when you were a wee little child,” Papa tells him when he’s in bed later that night, “I used to dream about horrible things happening to you. Because of me and my incompetence. We used to camp on the nursery’s floor, your Dad and I. I was convinced you were going to die somehow during the night.” 

Harry listens to the man like he’s telling a story. Did they open any gifts? Doesn’t feel like they did. 

“We could have taken your crib to our room,” Papa muses, looking around Harry’s dark room, at the shelves, the dresser, the old toys, “Could have put a couch in here. But your Dad never did that. He slept on the cold floors with me, right over there, by the door.”

Dad let Papa sleep on the floor? That sounds like a bloody fantasy. Harry rolls his eyes and Papa huffs a chuckle, “Don’t pull that face. He really did and he had a reason. He wanted me to be uncomfortable because he didn’t want me to get used to it.” 

“Your Dad asked Remus to get that ham,” Harry’s eyes snap to the man’s small smile, the way he shrugs, and in the near-dark, he looks like a grown version of Harry himself, having travelled back in time, “He doesn’t want you to get used to the pain. You and I tend to do that,” he brushes Harry’s hair back, “I’m sorry you grew up to be like me and not your Dad.” 

“I…” 

Is there really any way to explain it? Harry doesn’t think there’s a need. Because Papa gets it. No need for articulation. No need to utter it. He’s ashamed of being his Fathers’ son. Dad would never get why, but Papa does. 

“Your Father will do anything to save us from ourselves. I want you to remember that, if you’re ever stuck in a burning house…he’s crushing the world underfeet to come get you. Even if your mind is that burning house.”

“Would you change it?” Harry croaks, the memory of this night already fading in his mind, “If you could go back in time?”

“Not for anything,” Papa says right away, his voice starts to fade when Harry's eyes droop, “Not even for your Dad. I love him more than life itself, but you’re our kid. I would never change that. Not for anything—” 

 

…

 

“You know this won't change anything, James.” 

Regulus never thought he'd be sitting in this office, one leg over the other, for the third time in a single week, almost entrapped by what can only be described as cutthroat bureaucracy. 

When he was a child, learning about politics and the ins and outs of power play was a rather cut-and-dry process. His Mother's winning card was always blackmail and his Father's doctrine was always ‘ Throw money at the problem until it ceases to be a problem.’ Regulus hates admittin g that those methods actually work to an alarming extent in most circumstances. But here, sitting in Scrimgeour’s office with James, neither strategy can really help them. 

The man looks decades older than Regulus saw him last—it must have been Monday. Maybe it's the lighting or the weight of having to deal with James and Regulus, pestering him for the past ten months with nothing but zeal alone on their side. Regulus thinks that he’s seen Rufus Scrimgeor more often than his own son lately and finds a grim sense of humour in that. 

“They are just safety pamphlets—”

“Which Fudge sees as a threat. You may as well have the Dark Lord dancing naked in the Ministry's lobby and it won't change anything,” the old man sighs, flipping the pamphlet close, “Fudge won't accept it.”

Regulus and James spent a good five hours on those. Preparing a hundred copies of regular safety tips, warding, and imposter recognition. They had to do it by hand, the ink would be more durable that way, and it's not like they had a printing press in their house. If Regulus is being honest, after handwriting a hundred pamphlets, he doesn’t even need the Ministry’s approval. He and James might as well just walk in the streets and throw these at random people, hoping at least half of the people are smart enough to keep the leaflet. 

“It's not up to him to decide whether Voldemort is back,” he says because James is too frustrated to speak politely. 

“It is, Mister Potter,” Scrimgeour turns to him, “He gets to declare a state of emergency. That would officially make him a war minister. Fudge would not want to be the one—”

“Well, that's why we're here,” James exclaims, “While he's meandering, Riddle is gaining back his strength. If we have to display our memories in public—”

“Or take Veritaserum, so be it.” Regulus finishes for him but as always when the topic is brought up, Scrimgeour will have none of it. The man is shaking his head before either of them is even finished speaking.

“Both can be tampered with,” the Chief Auror says, “Memories can be altered, even in the masses, and Veritaserum only reveals subjective truths. That's how half your testimony was crossed off your trial, Mister Potter,” he throws a meaningful glance at Regulus that Reggie easily ignores. Scrimgeour sighs, disturbed by the couple’s stubborn silence, “Now, I'm just being a devil's advocate. Fudge will do anything to besmirch you.” 

That’s true. They both know that. They’ve known that for months. But the thing is, Fudge only has as much power as the ministry officials give him. Reggie looks at James, the man’s hazel eyes narrow in agreement and he stares at Scrimgeour with the same silent suggestion burning in his eyes. They’re at the end of their rope. It’s been nearly ten months. And they haven’t gotten anywhere. 

If something terribly tragic were to happen to Fudge in the midst of all this…well, they could get things done then, no?

“It’s a matter of position—” James starts. 

“James,” Rufus cuts him off sharply, “Are you honestly sitting in my office and suggesting I devise a coup? I better hope not.” 

“There’s gonna be another war,” Jamee snaps, his leg bouncing in distress and irritation, “If we're not prepared, we won't recover. We don't have time to play politics. Rufus, you remember what it was like.” 

“Albus Dumbledore is on our side,” Regulus supplies, “He can vouch for us—”

He knows Riddle is scared of Dumbledore. That is not without reason. The man is the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot for a reason. He has his own aura, his own reputation and indisputable power. He’s the closest they will ever get to a Light Lord. It’s true that Reggie hates his guts, and also true that he heavily mistrusts the man…but still. 

Regulus hides a wince, subtly pushing his arm down against his own thigh. That arsehole is at it again. It’s relentless. The stinging.

“Albus is in hot waters himself,” Scrimgeour rubs at his forehead, “Otherwise, there wouldn't be an inspector there at Hogwarts trying to get him expelled. This is just not going to work. Any action you take…you can take independently, but of course, it will have legal consequences.” 

James pulls a face, “Like joining a pseudo-Auror squad like the Order of the Phoenix.” 

Scrimgeour sputters a bit, fixing his collar, “The Order did some good back in the day.”

“Well, of the original members less than ten are alive.” 

“I cannot give you what you need. This is compelling to me,” he waves a hand at the pamphlets, “But not the Wizarding World at large. Not unless You-Know-Who reveals himself.” 

James looks at Reggie and stiffens. Regulus curses under his breath. Even the most minute expression gives his pain away where James is concerned. James' hand darts to his forearm, his warm palm heating Reggie's flesh through his sleeve. 

It's okay, Regulus tries to tell him with his eyes, it really is okay.

They've tried anything they could think of. Hot compresses. Cold compresses. The numbing creams. Pain relievers, muggle and magical potions. Short of amputating the whole arm, there's no other solution and even then there's no guarantee that the mark won't sprout on his body elsewhere. The magic used in the rune is too dark and unpredictable. And very permanent.

It must take a lot of energy, targeting Regulus and Regulus only, nonstop daily, for this long. Regulus is not surprised. It is a pointed and strategic anger. 

Strategic because if Reggie's mark is the only one hurting, the Dark Lord's return cannot be truly verified. 

Pointed because Reggie didn't finish their game. Didn't play like he ought to. Tom's anger is genuine and unmitigated.

And Reg has been on the receiving end of it before. This may be a different punishment, but it's still of the same breed. It has been non-stop. A fork drawn on the plate, nails on a chalkboard, nonstop for the past ten months. With respite coming in small gaps, unpredictable flashes of days and hours. Nothing Regulus hasn't dealt with before. And it does get annoying. But what upsets him so much, is seeing how it kills James to see him like this. 

“It's okay , I'm here,” he mutters aloud when the concern in James' eyes refuses to dissipate. It does hurt, of course, it does. But Regulus can't afford to show just how much. And maybe James knows that. No. He definitely knows that. 

“Potter?” 

“He tortures Reggie through his mark every day,” James seethes upon Scrimgeour’s wary inquiry, his eyes flashing amber in rage, “That can be proven, he’s not a God. People don’t need faith to believe he’s back, they just need their fucking common sense—” 

Regulus covers James' hand on his forearm with his other hand, stopping the man's rant. James deflates and Scrimgeour averts his eyes; maybe out of respect, maybe because the scene is too intimate for his office at eleven in the morning. Or maybe it's just because he's done with their antics. 

“Thank you for your help,” Regulus says, prompting the man to look up again, “Chief Scrimgeour.”

They should probably leave before the worst of the pain hits. It's a bitch when commuting. James reaches for their pamphlets and folders and Regulus stands as well, putting his coat back on, “Is it alright if we modify these pamphlets for you to review again? We can still alter some things.” 

“I don't think it's doable, honestly,” Rufus grimaces again and James clears his throat, clicking their briefcase shut and cramming one hand in his pocket. For the letter, “No matter how general, Fudge still won't accept the idea.” 

Regulus nods, “That's a shame.” 

People are going to get killed. And Regulus rues the amount of futile effort they're putting into legality, and yet has no other choice but to adhere to it. They've tried warning people. They're trying to save them. There's only so much they can do. Legally, that is.

“You may want to check this letter once we leave,” James tells his boss coldly, sliding the envelope drawn out of his pocket over on the desk. 

“I hope that's not your resignation letter, James. You're one of our best, and the tumultuous times ahead—” 

“Sorry to disappoint, Rufus,” James’ hand touches the small of Reggie's back, “You cannot help me and I cannot help you.”

They leave the man speechless in his office without another word.  

 

…

 

When one is aiming with one's axe, one has got to plan to chop along the tree trunk's natural grain because swinging against the grain at knots and gnarls is just silly redundant work; it won't split. It'll be harder to chop off rounds for a good log. 

Barty has the most unfortunate and distinct feeling that real life is really similar to preparing firewood. 

Barty Crouch Junior is also once again, straight up , not having a nice time because of this. 

“So, just so I understand this correctly,” James Potter asks him in front of Albus Dumbledore’s Office entrance in a hushed voice, “My son physically assaulted a Ministry officer who was observing his class.” 

How does one end up in this situation exactly? Barty's ruminated about this for a long time. When did he start chopping against the grain for this to happen? He's never gone against the grain his entire life. He never made any active effort to be good. He's just done what's easy. Joining Voldemort was easy. Killing people was easy. Being alone was easy.

Except that night he saved a tiny child named Neville Longbottom from death. Then immediately saved his formerly dead best friend, reuniting him with the love of his life. Then a decade later he came back. Then he decided to let his suppressed carnal desires get the better of him, and now he's here, at the cusp of another war, and James Potter is asking him about his son.

Barty wants to say he's done with this family and their craziness. Wants to slap some sense into this man and his insane husband and say: Yes, you fucker. Your son did indeed slam a five-kilo glass orb at the speed of a snitch into a woman's face upon the smallest provocation and no it's none of my damn business, I'm just a teacher here. 

The truth is, he's not just a teacher here. The truth is, it is his damn business and as much as Barty aches to be away from the Potters and their extended family, it's impossible. He doesn't hate them. He still loves them. The kid is still his kid too. Reggie is still his best friend. James Potter, for all intents and purposes, is still essentially his brother-in-law. It's just that…Barty feels he's going against the grain, swimming against the currents by their side. It was easier when he was a ‘bad guy’, when he was alone, when winning a war was easy. He’ll be honest, he never thought these guys would stick around, that he would want things to be difficult just because of them and their love and approval. 

They're still here, and they weren't supposed to be when Barty left. But they still are. And James Potter is still gripping his arm with wary eyes, asking about his son whom he still thinks Barty looks after. His bloody son, who shouted at Barty only yesterday, goading him on about…. The Incident. 

“Broke her nose and dislocated her jaw,” he says, a bit begrudgingly, “Blunt force trauma. Knocked a few teeth off.”

Barty had the immediate displeasure of seeing her face before it was put back together. And it was something right out of a battlefield during the first war. Harry really did a number on the woman. 

“And this is because—”

“Reportedly, she told him off for inappropriate fear-mongering in class.”

A dark shadow passes over James' eyes, and Barty gets it. He wouldn’t go so far as to say that Umbridge deserved the treatment she got, but she definitely did. Barty is not privy to the specifics of the fight but the bits and pieces Ron let slip were enough for him to get the gist of it. 

He clenches his own unfamiliar hand into a fist. It’s a bit funny, it’s been two months and he’s still not used to this new ‘alien body’. He gets why it drove Reggie a bit insane to disguise himself as Evan, to lose his own identity; when Barty used to wear…their skins, he felt loved. Like he was constantly being embraced by the only two people who loved him most. Now, in some random guy’s body, with sandy hair, lanky limbs and a long neck…he feels alienated from himself. 

“She did, did she?”

“She wasn't even supposed to be in his class,” He tells the man, hating his unfamiliar voice, “She was supposed to observe mine, but I guess she found out I was teaching the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaws. She actively sought him out.” 

Barty had been freaking out about it for an entire day or so when Minerva told him that Umbridge was observing his class first. He has no illusions about this, he knows that the woman is a hound out for blood, on a crusade to discredit Dumbledore and whittle Hogwarts down to its bare bones. It's not just losing his job he's scared of. It's how far Fudge is willing to go to deny responsibility. Voldemort is gathering his forces while they're all sitting idly by, and instead of preparing, these idiots are repressing the only voices warning them. 

Barty never had the chance to observe the light side harking on their forces to fight the first war, but if it was anything like this…they're all fucked. It's going to be a little too little and a little too late. 

“Fuck.” James says just on cue.

“This won't be the first or last time, James.” 

“I know, it's just—” 

Barty huffs, “Regardless of that woman's intentions…you and Reggie need to address Harry's rage issues. He nearly kicked my door down the other day.” 

It's a disturbing thing to be witness to. The child is obviously hurting, confused, and frustrated with himself. Barty has only been in Harry's life for a few years and the shift between the person he used to be and the one he's become is jarring, to say the least. And it makes Barty really wonder whether they—he and Reggie and Evan—were like that. Were they also pure once? Effortlessly innocent and happy? Because Barty understands the anger. What he never understood before was the lad’s stubborn and naive passion. His stringent loyalty and righteousness. Now, all but withered. 

“But it was his accidental magic—”

Barty tries really hard not to roll his eyes at the man. These damn Gryffindors , he thinks and says, “I don't think next time will be an accident. And it won’t matter anyway. It’s bad publicity. You just know Umbridge is going to ride the hell out of this.”

James’ face becomes positively ashen with guilt. And in the silence between them, Barty can sense an unease radiating from the man, “We cannot take him out of school.” 

“I know, but you gotta do something.” Before the kid actually kills someone, preferably. 

James does not answer him immediately, instead, he twists his neck to face the closed door of the office and throws a glance at a disgruntled Barty over his shoulder, “Are you joining the circus?” 

Barty clenches his fists again, shrugging a bit. 

He’s really tired, and he’s surely going to hear about the meeting anyway from one tongue or the other. The heavy stinging in his chest would only be alleviated by heavy usage of alcohol or… just drowning in work. Barty supposes it’s never too early to start devising quiz questions for the midterm exams on top of the weekly ones. Professor Robert Kettleburn , the young spry nephew to the freshly deceased Silvanus Kettleburn was nothing like the fun, easygoing Sirius Black. Weekly gruelling exams were par for the course he taught. Suffice to say, he was not as popular as he was before. 

“They miss you, Noodle,” James tells him and Barty hates the man for twisting the knife in his damn chest, “Just talk to them.” 

“You have bigger fish to fry, Potter . Stick to fixing up your own family first.” 

He walks off, not waiting for the bewildered man to respond to his sneering. 

God, he’s having such a fucking awful day. 

…

 

“—unacceptable and negligent parenting! Only evident in the boy's delinquency—”

James doesn’t want to say he gets it. He doesn’t want to justify his son physically assaulting another person, but bloody hell, this woman’s voice is shriller than a train whistle. They’ve barely been here for ten minutes, the aforementioned woman, just got her jaw relocated and yet she has been yapping a nonstop barrage of hatred at them for nine minutes out of ten. 

James throws a quick look at his son and spouse. Harry is not even looking at any of them and seems to be zoning out just staring at his hands in his lap. His husband has one leg crossed over the other, mutely staring at Umbridge and her blabbering mouth, completely unphased. On the other side of the office, Albus Dumbledore is surveying the interaction with a stoic expression, and by his side, stands Minerva, her brows pinched in disapproval and annoyance. It’s a look James knows too well, but it fails to produce a grain of nostalgia in this situation. 

“—lack of discipline! He is a danger to his peers! A danger to society at large! He ought to be mentally evaluated—” 

“Madam Umbridge with all due respect,” James finally cuts in, his voice brokers no politeness, “your position in that class did not dictate your involvement in class discussions as an inquisitor whose sole responsibility is observation —”

“That is no basis for physical assault!” her screech sounds even higher still, ringing loud and shrill in the office, “I will be taking this to the Wizengamot! You've rotted the boy's brain! With your lies—”

Okay , James narrows his eyes at her. Now, she’s getting annoying. Who does she think she is, threatening to take legal action? Her very presence here and actions in that class would land her a fine bigger than her entire year’s salary. James is not too well-versed in the dirty politics that dominate the ministry’s bureaucratic side, but he knows enough to see right through her act. She came here, not to observe shit, but to stir up trouble, fire a bunch of people and force ridiculous and inhibiting regulations down the school’s throat on the basis of discrediting Dumbledore, with the aim to shortly thereafter replace and prosecute him. And nothing is a better weapon, than Harry Potter and his looney and controversial family spreading ‘lies’ and contaminating the school.

“The legitimacy of my family's claims is an entirely separate conversation,” he says coldly and the woman baulks, shrinking back in her chair upon seeing the black fury in his eyes, “You purposefully harassed my son, provoking him into a response by—”

“Nonsense!” she cries out.

Regulus uncrosses his leg and the woman shuts up instantly as though gripped by his gravity; her eyes swivelling to James’ husband, daringly. Regulus settles one silent hand on Harry’s shoulder, and he flicks the wrist of his other hand, prompting a paper slip and a quill to gently float away from Albus’ desk. Minerva perks up and Albus’ eyes, James can see, shine with the smallest bit of amusement. 

“Dolores Umbridge,” Reggie drawls. The quill scratches elegantly upon the paper and James eases himself back in his chair, looking at the way Harry twitches under Reg’s unflinching hold. James is going to enjoy watching this. It’s not every day that he gets to see his husband tear someone apart verbally like what’s about to come. 

Regulus squeezes Harry’s shoulder once as he stands, plucks the paper slip from the air and marches to the dishevelled woman in pink. He offers the paper between two fingers as though physically repulsed by the idea of even accidentally touching the woman. 

Umbridge splutters, looking at Albus and Minerva who are observing the scene just like James, almost deliberately unhelpful.  

“What is this?!” she shrieks, shirking away from Regulus, “What is the meaning of—”

“Do not make me command you to take the note,” Regulus says, calmly. 

Umbridge stutters a bit more and yanks the note out of Reggie’s hand with the wild, paranoid look still rampant in her eyes. Her pupils bulge dramatically upon reading the figure on the note. Regulus towers over her, refusing to move or speak. 

“I—What! What is—” she tries to thrust the note back at Regulus. Regulus ignores her, beckoning the floating quill and another paper slip from Albus’ desk. Minerva’s frown deepens and James gives her a look, silently asking her whether she thought Umbridge was worth any other form of demonstration. Minerva sighs after only a beat, shaking her head in silent acquiescence, tinged by the most minute degrees of disapproval. 

Albus needs no convincing. The man settles back on his chair and reaches for his tin of sherbet, merrily watching the scene unfold. He has no incentive to help Umbridge out of the grave she just dug herself. Reggie is doing him a favour, getting rid of this bitch. She’s going to run for the hills and not look back once. 

See, Slyhterins have something that Gryffindors sorely lack in social interactions. The ability to slam a proverbial chair into their opponent's face with nothing but words. James does not get to see this often, because most of the time, Regulus has no reason to be impolite or to talk down to someone. He has an easy-going mellowness to him that often compels others to underestimate the man or in extreme cases, become absolutely besotted with him. But there occasionally comes a time, when Regulus meets a person unworthy of any shred of respect whatsoever, and he does not make that a secret. Their dinner with the Dursleys was one glorious instance of this. And this meeting in Albus’ office, is about to be another. 

“I know the likes of you,” Regulus tells Dolores, flicking his finger at the quill, “Another zero?”

“You—you—”

“Power hungry,” the quill adds another zero and yet another, “Kissing up and eager to please. Eager to serve anything on a platter for the sake of your own agenda, you'll dance to any tune.”

The new note, with a whopping number of zeroes floats down towards the aghast woman again and she snatches it out of the air, gasping for air as her eyes rove the room with a bobbing mouth, like a little fish out of water. James hides a smirk, leaning over Reggie’s empty chair to quickly rub Harry’s arm. The boy is still staring at his lap, completely disinterested and detached from the moment.

James worries for him. 

“This is preposterous! Bribery in broad daylight! You—You!”

“Not enough zeroes then,” Regulus muses, the quill darts down, making Umbridge squeal as it scratches another zero on the note in her shaky hands, “Now?”

“Headmaster Dumbledore—”

Regulus doesn’t even let Albus open his mouth. He glares Umbridge down, “Leave him and the school out of it. If I had the time and energy to take you to court like I did the Daily Prophet, you would be the one paying me right now,” he leans down right into her face, “Consider this fee as reparations.” 

“I—I—! There are regulations! Rules, I have rights!” 

“I agree,” Regulus drawls, crossing his arms, “And even though your master is slandering my name at the moment, that doesn't take away my rights in the Wizengamot. Hm?” 

This may not be the most appropriate moment, but James has never been more impressed and slightly turned on by his husband. He clears his throat, awkwardly avoiding Albus’ all-knowing gaze. This is not the time to revisit old fetishes, it’s a bloody school meeting because his son pummeled an official’s face in.

“I—” Umbridge looks at Minerva, speechless and imploring her incredulously to show the same outrage. Minerva tilts her head, and though still disapproving, tells the woman: 

“This will not be the first time a family decides to reach an agreement in a dispute by using monetary compensation,” She says primely, “It is not against any rules, Dolores. Unless you insist on an investigation that focuses on another angle or decide to reject Mister Potter’s generous offer.”

Umbridge falters, “He called me—he said—! Unacceptable! This is not…Minister Fudge will—”

“Will do what?” Regulus interrupts, “Tell me off for calling you things? Put me in a corner? Slander me more than he already is in the papers?”

James sucks in a quick breath, Harry shrinks further into himself and James sobers up too. Harry looks miserable, and though they almost see him nightly, somehow he looks more gaunt up close. James can't even be mad at him. He can't fathom what it must be like, for his life to have been ruined in the span of a single hellish year, to live in the centre of a war he has no choice but to face someday. But James is not thinking about that. He is not. 

He and Regulus never discuss it if it can be helped. 

“I think this amount has to be enough,” Regulus folds his paper slip and properly hands it off to the mute woman, his shoulders tense. James can tell the mark is starting to bother him again, “Take the day to think it over. I will provide you with an actual Cheque to deliver to Gringotts as early as tomorrow morning. You will take the money and zip your lips about the incident. You will never ever speak with my son again. Any disciplinary actions will be handled by my husband, the school, and me. Consider this matter closed. Unless of course, two million Galleons is not enough to buy out your righteousness?” 

Umbridge holds the folded paper in two hands, stammering under her breath and as she gets up she almost faints back into the chair, thankfully, Minerva sweeps over, holding the woman up by her elbow, “I'll see you to the infirmary again, Dolores.” she says and sets out of the office with a brisk pace, dragging a blubbering Umbridge out with her. 

Regulus stands perfectly still, his back to them, he watches as the door swings closed again. 

James knows this won't be the last they see of her, but gods, he's glad that she's gone for now. He doesn't particularly care what she's here to do as long as she stays away from Harry. Which she will, if she knows what's good for her. Having gotten a taste of Reggie's bad side, she's unlikely to try anything again unless she has a stronger agenda and in that case, they can deal with her accordingly with little remorse. 

Regulus turns the second they're gone and quietly marches back to James and Harry. His eyes are narrowed and James also stands, he knows that look, “Regulus—”

“Albus, pardon us for a moment please.” Regulus looks at the pensive old man.  

“Of course, I will check some records in the meantime,” Albus says merrily and a silencing charm forms a bubble around the son and Fathers with no further prompt. James raises an eyebrow at the man. 

“What were you thinking?”

 

…

 

“What were you thinking?” Regulus asks Harry, not quite sharply but close. 

Harry flinches violently, finally acknowledging the room as he lifts his head, “Papa—”

Regulus reigns in the anger bubbling in his chest. Fisting a hand, he looks at his reluctant husband with pursed lips. He knows he can't be too tough on the boy. Regulus knows it was an accident. He knows the child was trying to protect him, but that's precisely the problem! Can't he see what this is doing to him? Can't he understand that people are not on their side? Does he not get it? That the world is filled with the likes of Umbridge and Pettigrew and Orion Black? That they're all alone?

Regulus has been trying so hard, for years , raising this child, to make sure he's not stained by violence and pain like he was. Harry grew up feeding ducks. He grew up barefoot in prairies and tending to flowers. He grew up in a loving household. Regulus can't remember a single instance of him or James raising their voices at each other in their son's presence. 

And yet, from that young age still, Harry's response to the smallest provocation is extreme violence. Regulus doesn't want to connect that to the scar. He doesn't want to make a monster out of his teenage son. Even the thought of the smallest comparison with Riddle pains him. But there has got to be a limit. Harry needs more restraint. When you have the power to break someone's jaw off unintentionally, then it matters exponentially that you exert enough control over yourself not to do such a thing. 

Regulus doesn't know where they went wrong, in teaching Harry this. His mark throbs and Reggie hates all this. 

“You cannot just bodily attack someone in a classroom full of people,” he scolds the boy, withholding a wince as Harry shrinks more into himself on the chair, “You couldn't even attack them had you been alone. You are fifteen now, you ought to have more control over your magic and decorum. Just because someone does not agree with the objective truth, doesn’t mean you can knock their jaw off.” 

“I’m sorry,” Harry refuses to look into his eyes, his shoulders tense up, even as James turns to comfort him, “I was just trying to…She was insulting you.”

And isn't that the crux of the matter?

“Exactly,” Regulus snaps, “You are only allowed to protect yourself using any means if the offender means to cause you harm. Not me, not your father, and certainly nobody else who is not family. I assure you, Harry, I can defend my honour just fine,” he thrusts a hand at the closed door, “She is just a greedy ministry officer lapping up to her master’s orders for a piece of fucking meat like Rita Skeeter. These types of people seek out trouble and controversy. You cannot feed into them.” 

Harry's mouth twists and the boy looks up at him finally, defiantly, “Well, you just fed her two million galleons.” 

Oh, the nerve of this boy , Regulus rubs at his temple and James takes over, “Listen, Harry. We're not admonishing you—”

“That's exactly what Papa is doing—”

“You are allowed to be angry and protective of your family,” James tells him, and Regulus thanks Merlin that at least he is holding it together, “But you need to resolve that anger by discourse and conversation. It's hard to learn, but you have to.” 

Harry fists his hands on his lap, looks at his mirror image, his father, through smudged glasses, “She called him promiscuous and unstable. She called me a liar. She called him my stepdad.” 

James pinches his nose and Regulus looks at Albus, seemingly writing a note into his book, but of course …the man must have known. Regulus wonders why they are being prosecuted because of the truth. Why is it…that they are the villains? Why is it that people think themselves entitled to telling Regulus' fifteen-year-old such things about his father? About him. 

He knew, of course, he knew when the truth of it all came out during the trial, that he was about to be chained to a certain reputation. In spite of the truth of the matter, he knew it would happen. But…how can he tell Harry off for this? 

“Little love—” the old nickname falls off his tongue, it's second nature, “I'm sorry, but—”

“No! I couldn't just sit and—they were all jeering at me,” fat balls of tears roll down the boy's cheeks, “They…they hate me. They hate you. I hate being here. Take me home, please. Please , Papa, Dad, please .” 

“We cannot,” it's James who says this, gruffly, squeezing the boy's shoulder, “Harry, you need to adapt—”

“No!” The boy screams, rolling off the chair, “No! You just want to get rid of me! You! I hate you! How could you…pay her? Two million! She called you every name under the sun and—”

The words seem to lock up in Harry's throat. The boy's chest heaves and Regulus rushes to the boy, pressing his palm against his red scar, “You're okay.” He tells him. 

Harry can't answer. He glares at Regulus through the thicket of tears, and yet refuses to pull away from the touch. 

“We don't have time to deal with her,” James tells Harry from behind, “She definitely doesn't deserve that money, but Harry we have bigger things to deal with right now. That money will get rid of her. It is not an affirmation of her beliefs.” 

Harry purses his lips and looks away from Regulus. Stepping away from both parents. Regulus wishes so hard, he could communicate with the child somehow when he gets like this. They've tried so many things and none of them have worked. Not in writing, not in sign. Harry doesn't want to communicate back. 

“You've come a long way. But you're only fifteen, and there's more of the world that you need to see. You'll see the logic in our decisions…when you're a bit older.” 

“Why are we saving them? They're all awful,” Harry croaks, each word like a dragged-out cry of pain, “Awful and—Stupid!” 

Regulus recalls the meeting in Scrimgeour's office and asks himself the same thing. Is it truly a war if his family is the only one targeted by both sides? Wouldn't it be easier to just take the child and flee? No, not really. The old Regulus might have tried, but the old Regulus too…he stayed. Initially because of revenge, and when he got Harry and James back…because it was the right thing to do. 

“Because we're trying to be good,” he tells his son, “Harry, people aren't good by virtue. I know that. I'm not good . Your Dad's not good. No one is good. But we will try. Even if they don't understand. Even if they laugh at us or insult us…we have to try.”

Harry doesn't get it. The boy's stance does not shift a single bit. He looks away from both parents, drags a rough sleeve over his damp face, and leans down by the chairs for his school bag. Regulus knows James wants to say more, but he shakes his head. This is not something that can be taught. Harry gets there when he gets there. 

It took Regulus two decades. 

He waves a hand and the silencing charm dissipates. Harry walks up to Dumbledore's desk, obediently awaiting his ‘punishment’. Albus looks up from his note with a soft crinkle around his eyes, “Well, Mister Potter, I'm afraid that you will be seeing your Head of House for the following week in detention.”

Harry nods stiffly, and Albus’ eyes fritter over the boy's hunched head, at his resigned parents, “I'm sure Professor McGonagall will be understanding of your situation and predicament, but the school at large cannot make exceptions when it comes to discipline. You will, of course, apologise to Madam Umbridge verbally at a later time, perhaps an apology accompanied by a complimentary note.” 

Regulus rolls his eyes only because Harry can't see it. It's ridiculous but it's needed. They can't fall off the community's grace more than they already have. The hush money will shut Umbridge up, but people talk. 

“Well, if there are no questions, my boy, you can return to your dorms and report to Professor McGonagall’s office early tomorrow for your detention itinerary.”

Harry nods again and turns to walk off, not even looking at his parents over his shoulder once. Regulus' chest aches, and James grabs his hand, but they don't stop their son. 

“I will be frank,” Albus says immediately once Harry is gone, “I did not foresee this turn of events.” 

“Of course not,” James snaps, “She's a hound sent after your trail.” 

“And she is unlikely to leave before she achieves her goals.” 

“What do you intend to do then?” Regulus asks. 

“Let her,” Albus says easily, flipping his book shut and making a move to stand from his chair, “We have the element of surprise, just like Riddle. The best strategy at times is to appear to fall back.”

Regulus bites the inside of his cheek, holding his opposition to this strategy. He wasn't here during the first war. He doesn't know how these people did it the first time. And Dumbledore of all people, well Regulus hates admitting it, but the man has supple experience. Albeit, the bits and pieces Regulus remembers from the past paint too grim a picture. The dark side was winning right up until that night. The night. 

“You better keep your trouble out of my son’s life,” James continues, squeezing Reggie's hand, bringing him back to the present, “We don't want Harry involved in any of this.” 

“Trust me, dear friend,” Dumbledore says, stroking his beard, “I also do not want Harry involved with any of this.” 

The mark aches, pulsating violently and Regulus sucks in a quick breath, drawing both men's attention to his arm. Embarrassed, Regulus clears his throat, “It's fine. I'm fine.” He's been saying that for months. 

Even though it hurts, he reminds himself, he is still with his family. And they're all still here. This is a penance that Regulus is more than willing to pay. 

 “Before you leave, I thought I'd return these to you,” Dumbledore says suddenly after the ensuing silence. The man's desk drawer opens and a worn envelope flies out towards the couple, “Mister Malfoy's notes on Hephzibah Smith further confirmed my own suspicions.” 

“That Riddle killed her?” 

Regulus takes the envelope with a set jaw. The boy's elegant handwriting twists a knife buried in his chest. He blames himself from time to time, that he wasn't quick enough or willing enough to stop the lad from leaving. Not even Merlin knows where he is now. Whether he is alive or dead. 

He must be alive. He'd told Reggie that they'd do their best, the two of them, to save Harry. He never said whether they'll fail or succeed. 

“Not only that, but it seems that Tom was interested in her family heirloom. She was a distant descendent of Helga Hufflepuff herself.” 

Regulus frowns down at the words Draco had written down on the wrinkled paper, clearly in a hurry for the ink is smudged: 

Hephzibah Smith

Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley

Murdered 

House elf 

Horcrux 

Still existent

Not in the castle

“An heirloom belonging to Helga Hufflepuff?” He mutters and Albus' eyes narrow, looking at the gleaming silver sword behind a glass case in the far corner of the office. The one Regulus used to kill the Basilisk only three years ago. 

“Each founder has a relic. You destroyed the Slytherin locket in your youth. We have the sword. And Helga…she is rumoured to have crafted a golden goblet with great healing capabilities in her youth.” 

“So the Horcruxes corrupt magically profound objects, like the founders’ relics?” 

“It seems that way,” Albus confirms, “There is so little known about them that all we have are hypotheses at this point in time.” 

It would make sense, Reggie supposes. The locket and the ring were magically powerful. Nagini was never a normal snake. The diary could be an outlier but there's no way to tell. Not truly. 

“So we have to find Helga's goblet,” James muses and Regulus smothers the pessimist flame lapping up to his lungs.

They may as well have been looking for a needle in a haystack. 

“It's not in the castle,” Regulus folds the letter and crams it in his pocket, “Which leaves literally everywhere else in the entire world.” 

A single artefact that could be anywhere that they have to find before Voldemort starts recruiting an army. That's great. It's like outrunning time itself.

He's not even sure who they're trying to outrun anymore. The ministry that has it out for them, Draco, who could be beyond saving right now, or Tom himself, who's always unfalteringly a step ahead. 

“It will be found,” Albus vows them, “Our survival depends on it.” 

  

…

 

The night begins as most of his nights do. 

They have dinner. They say goodnight to Hermione at about ten thirty-something. They come back to the dorms. It's usually empty. Ron showers first while Harry has his nightly calls with his parents. They're not really ‘calls’  as opposed to Harry just listening to the men speak about their day. Harry showers next. Dean and Seamus get into bed right away, Neville trots in shortly after, one plant pot or another stolen from the Herbology greenhouses in his arms, nestled like a loved child. 

Harry doesn't spare any of them a single glance. He shrugs into his Pyjamas as he does. He doesn't talk to them. He doesn't look at them. Won't even answer Neville's nervous attempts at small talk. They turn off the charmed lights. They sleep. 

Ron doesn't sleep. Well, maybe he does a little. But he's usually keeping an ear out at night, waiting for the rustling of sheets coming from the bed adjacent, the silenced cries, until Harry has had enough and climbs out of bed to come join Ron, as he does every night. 

Ron's a bit knackered tonight; things have been too chaotic since Harry's incident with Umbridge a few weeks ago and between that and their O.W.Ls preparations, there's barely any time for rest or lazing around. So when he first hears the violent gagging, he thinks he’s still dreaming a little. 

He sits up groggily, locking eyes with Dean who is also blinking his eyes open. Ron frowns in confusion and looks around for his wand in the dark, and as he finds it by his pillow, he registers it in his mind, that the gagging is real, and it’s coming from Harry’s bed. 

Ron rushes out of his bed so fast that his legs tangle in his duvet, sending him hurtling down to the floor, he calls Harry’s name and Harry coughs, screaming…something. Ron scrambles up, and Dean wakes Seamus in the meantime. Ron lights his wand, tears Harry’s bed curtains aside and gapes. 

Harry’s face is covered in blood. In long rivulets, from the scar on his forehead and the boy is sat up on the bed with red-rimmed eyes in a puddle of his own vomit, letting out one fit of hacking cough after another. 

“Bloody hell!” a voice cries behind Ron which prompts him into action. Ron runs to the side of Harry’s bed, asking him: 

“Are you okay? Harry! Harry?” 

Harry’s blanched face pales further, a sheet of white underneath all the murkish blood, his hand darts out and closes around Ron’s wrist and he looks at Ron with abject horror. 

“Harry?” Ron looks over his shoulder at the other boys, standing flabbergasted behind Ron staring at Harry like he’s a dementor. 

“Go get someone!” He hollers at them. Harry pulls at his wrist. 

“Your dad’s dead ,” He croaks, gagging more, “Ron, your dad—”

Ron’s blood freezes in his veins. He hears the mad pattering of feet behind him as one of the boys runs out of the dorm. Another turns on the charmed lights and Harry flinches, his chest heaving, and blood just seeping out of him. Dad? Ron’s Dad? Why would Harry dream about him? And moreover, why would he dream about his death? Dread pools in his stomach and Ron flounders, unable to move a single muscle to help his friend. 

It should be a dream, just a dream. Harry’s been having them for months, always the same nightmare but something…some instinct in Ron rebels the idea. This cannot be the product of a dream. That scar…it shouldn’t be bleeding like that. Ron swallows, his throat dry and he softly tugs his wrist out of a crying Harry’s hold, gently trying to remove the soiled blankets off of him. 

“Help me get him out of bed,” he tells the boys behind him without looking, “Someone…someone wake my brothers—”

He drops the dirty covers next to the bed in a heap and Harry gulps, muttering an unheard string of apologies to Ron because…his dad is dead? Ron smothers his panic. 

“Mate,” he hears Seamus, “it's probably just a dream, it won't be his first time—”

“Seamus just do as I bloody ask!” with Percy having graduated only the Twins and Giny remain in the school now. This is nothing that cannot be fixed, they’ll just get an earful from Mum for bothering them this late at night and Professor McGonagall might take Harry to the infirmary for a few days and—

And funnily enough, Ron’s never been to a funeral before. He knows he must be hysterical thinking this because there’s no possible way that Harry just saw the death of Ron’s father in his bed but it’s hysterical enough to make Ron want to laugh and cry at the same time. He doesn’t even have robes formal enough for a funeral. He’ll have to wear his school robes and isn’t that…isn’t that just the funniest thing?

“He’s—I’m sorry!” 

“Come on, Harry,” Ron says, trying not to lose his fucking mind, “We need to get you to Professor McGonagall.” 

Dad got him his first broom ever. Dad told the twins off for harassing Ron and turning his bunny into a spider. Dad took him to chess tournaments in the town. Dad bought him a muggle yellow duck to play with in the bath. Dad invited Harry Potter to his birthday when he was five. Dad took him to the Potter house every single day this past year so he could keep Harry company. Dad worked for eleven hours a day nonstop just so he could feed them. Dad took him to see the Quidditch World Cup and bought Ron all of his knick-knacks. Dad doesn’t love him like he loves Bill and Percy, but he’s Ron’s Dad .

Oh, he’s going to have such a laugh over this, when he hears Ron getting all worked up over his best friend dreaming. 

Ron helps Harry out of bed, unheeding to the boy’s broken apologies, ignoring the blood that stains his pyjamas when Harry throws himself at him, “We'll figure it out, come on—” he tells the boy, still wondering whether this is a normal night or the night everything changes. 

Notes:

- "Pathos" by Ludovico Einaudi is a nice soundtrack for this chapter, I feel. I used it to flesh out the pre-written scenes.
- This contrast between James' past, unhinged persona, and his present, saner version is absolutely deliberate. In the story, we've seen the ways James has made Regulus into a better person, but the same is as equally true about James.
- I had to read an insane amount about firewood preparation and axing techniques ya'll, and I didn't get to use all of them, so here are some links in case you guys are interested anyway:
Offgrid Heat: Firewood 101
Cottagelife: Firewood 101
Firewood Tips Guide
How to cut firewood

- Regulus mentions sleeping on the floor of Harry's room previously in HFA, Chapter two.
- James saving Harry and Regulus from a "burning house" is too on-the-nose, I KNOW but let me have this okay?
-Many countries have "In case of crisis and war" Pamphlets, Scandinavian countries JUST updated theirs and the US, in particular, had several of these leaflets during the Cold War for nuclear emergencies. The movie "When the Wind Blows" (1986) also heavily features this. If you've seen it...well.
- Scrimgeour's reference to Reggie's "biased" testimony refers to his gaps in memory and how that essentially led to the discarding of evidence in his case. check HFA "The Trial II".
- What Riddle is doing by only targeting Reggie's mark is "Social undermining", since everyone already has a negative view of him, his showing the source of his pain will have no impact on society at large and might even intensify their feelings of hatred, as is the case with Umbridge.
- Robert Kettleburn is not the canon Kettleburn, but his nephew, ya'll. wink wink
- The idea of Barty projecting his post-breakup feelings into weekly quizzes is so funny to me, you just know his students hate his classes which fuels his own feelings of self-hatred and keeps the cycle going.
- the awarding of monetary compensation in disputes concerning schools is a legitimate thing, of course, it usually happens in a court, but Reggie doesn't give a shit lmao.
- 'Money Money Money' by ABBA wouldn't leave my head writing this, throwing 2 MILLION galleons at a toad like Umbridge is preposterous.
- How'd ya'll like the ending? heheehee, we'll see Draco soon, I'm excited about that.

Happy reading~

Chapter 4: 4. A somebody Who Belongs to Another Somebody—

Summary:

Draco is on vacation.

Notes:

Ya'll deserve a treat. But please hydrate, first of all, secondly, if you are in a mentally tough place...don't read this right now.

Warning!! This chapter has some very graphic and dark themes including but not limited to: explicit depictions of torture, explicit depictions of captivity, explicit descriptions of gore, dissociation, psychological torture, use of Legilimency on a person nonconsensually, and child abuse. Proceed with caution.

4. A somebody Who Belongs to Another Somebody—

 

 

The story of how Draco Malfoy's deranged aunt breaks out of Azkaban, along with sixty-five other imprisoned Death Eaters, starts with a Weasley. 

But Draco doesn't want to talk about that right now, so he won't. This is his mind after all. His mind, his thoughts, his visions, his rules. His body is a temple and he's the king—God…whatever. He's in charge, is the point. Actually, for ten hours per day, not counting the scant four hours of sleep he gets per night on average…he's in charge. 

It's a good deal. It's a shit deal. But the thing about deals is that it takes two to make one. And Draco didn't have much of a say in this one so it's not really a deal, which makes it a good one. A good deal is a deal that's not a big deal. 

So, yes. He's in charge right now. That's why he's sitting up on the bed. He's tired of the ceiling, and the bed sores on his hips and back and buttocks really make it a shittier view than it already is. So when given the luxury, Draco tends to his temple by rolling over on the bed, staring at his curtains. At the wardrobe. Sometimes, he stares at the door when he sits up and feels a bit fancy and cheeky. 

Naughty naughty Draco, thinking about the outside world. Looking at a door, expecting it to reveal his saviour and every single fucking time, it's his tormentor instead. Like the most fucked up game of peek-a-boo, he stares at the unassuming door, the shadow beneath, the presence, and he just…he falls for it. He thinks, ‘ This'll be the time, it's him. It's Harry. Because I saw it and so it has to be.’

But it's not. 

It's always those Weasleys. Every time some shit goes wrong. Well, not every time but…Draco doesn't have anything against Ronald's family. That poor man, well boy. Boy now. He becomes a man later as most people tend to do. That father of his though, what a mess. A mess the whole lot of them. It's always them. One could say they're a family of disaster initiation. One is Draco. Only Draco says that. 

When he was a wee little bugger, he used to have these scary dreams, you see. He didn’t know what they meant. He didn’t know it wasn’t normal. He couldn't even talk then. But the scariest dream among the plethora…it was this single one. He would dream of a pale vampire with red eyes leaning over him on the bed, reaching for his neck, lifting him up, and then a blinding shot of agony tearing into his mind through his eyes, like two smelting rods of iron, jabbed through each eyeball straight into his brain. He would wake up shrieking, he would wake up, and think he’d gone blind. He used to dream about the bed sores. He could feel the phantom pains on his body as a toddler before he even knew the word ‘ bedsore’. In the dream, he would look down at his left ankle, the heavy archaic chain around it, fastened to the bedpost, leaving his skin angry red and chafing through layers of flesh to such an extent that he swore he could feel the chains grinding against his bare bones if he thrashed too hard. 

He used to beg his Mother, ‘Please, oh, please, don't make me sleep on the bed, the monster is there. And he wants to chain me there. It's going to hurt.’

Mother…she never really did care. Well, she thought he was lying, as children do. There was no vampire, no chain, no torment. He was swaddled by luxury, the best money and magic could buy. Just a phase, they thought. When Draco was old enough to know better, he let them truly think that he had grown out of it. 

Dobby, now Dobby tried. Dobby held his hand. Dobby checked under his bed. Dobby let him sleep in his wardrobe before transferring him to his bed. For years. When he used to tell Dobby, that a tall boy with messy hair and green eyes was coming to save him from this hell…Dobby would look at him, and smile and say, of course, Little Master, of course, he will. 

Now his worst nightmare has become a reality, it has become a reality for three hundred and four days. Three. Hundred. Four entire days. 

And it’s exactly as wretched as he knew and dreaded it to be. He lay in the infirmary bed after Orion Black roughed him up, looking into his cousin’s eyes as he beseeched for answers, and he told him, “I know what will happen to me, I’m not a fan.” 

He should have screamed and cried the truth. He should have asked for help. He should have grabbed the man’s hands, looked him in the eyes and told him, “Please get me away from this hell, Regulus. Please, cousin, please. I’m scared.” 

He should have cried when Harry came into his compartment, chocolate bar in hand, sassy as one is, gloating about his first vacation to France, vowing that he would fix Draco, that he would take care of it. Draco should have spilt the beans, looked him in the eyes, cupped his face in both trembling hands, and told him, “Oh, you stupid boy, I will get you killed. You dummy, you’re gonna regret this.” 

But he never did any of those things. The things he did…he still spun his tale as he was ought to. He’s still here, in this fucking bed, chained and rolling in his own filth and insanity. 

In every version of events, he’s the one who leads Harry to the Dark Lord, he’s the one who takes him there, to that fucking cave, or the maze, or the graveyard. He leads Harry by the hand. In every version they grow closer, and they kiss. In every version, Harry looks at him in betrayal. In every version, Harry rescues him anyway. 

But not this one. 

This Harry saw his father pushing him into a wall, this Harry barreled into a fight with empty hands and ended up paying for it anyway. And Draco didn’t get a kiss or that look of betrayal. But he got this bed anyway, and Harry got the regret. The pain. The trauma.

He feels the tears on his face and it’s funny, he cannot tell whether they’re hot or cold on his skin. Just wet. He’s having so many silly thoughts today, this is what free will gets him. Feeling sorry for himself. He knows he’s getting out of here. He knows Harry will come. Even though it’s been three hundred and four days and six hours. He knows Regulus and James Potter will love him like their second son. He knows Harry will eventually too. He knows he will fight in this war and see his parents killed. He knows that he does all he has to save Harry. 

He knows it won’t matter anyway.

He has this hysterical moment as he shakily wipes the tears off his sweaty face that…maybe the Dark Lord should visit him earlier today, just so Draco can focus on the physical pain instead of the mental anguish. 

It's like his brain is made of soup. Or made into soup. Or something with soup. There are so many jumbled things and images and conversations, and all of them are happening simultaneously, and all of them are loud and brought to the forefront because…because Voldemort wants to see too. 

He calls it a puzzle game and cackles as Draco cries. He asks for Draco’s opinion sometimes, as he tears into the folds of his thoughts, he asks “When do you think this is? A year? Two? The passage of time is so fickle, isn’t it?”

Three hundred! Four days! How is he here!? How is time fucking fickle? How is this a life? What has he done to deserve this except be born!? 

Draco always suspects that he must have committed some great sin in a past life. He always thinks about that day when Father and Mother made him kneel in front of Orion Black’s towering figure, about how he's been called to pay his due. The night he warned the Dark Lord, that his ministrations would get him killed, he knew he was paying, little by little. 

Riddle came to learn that he was a seer. As he was ought to. As it was destined to happen. Draco handed it over to him. His parents learned of it too. They looked at him like he was some beast. Some mudblood. Some unknown creature wrecked with disease. They believed it right away, it made sense. All those crying, all those made-up stories. All those behaviours . 

At first, Riddle was a sceptic. It was the prophecy of another seer that landed him in hell in the first place after all. But Draco was different, Tom soon came to learn. Draco had already seen all he was supposed to see, there was no trickery in his visions, no chance of misinterpretation, or mistakes. They were sure things. It's only that they were out of order. It’s only that they were made of multiplicity. 

So Riddle made a game of rearranging the visions, shifting them like puzzle pieces, sifting them through a sieve, like flour…wait…he’s thought about that already. He’s described that already. But yes. He would request Draco's presence at first…before the bed and chains and his body back, to have conversations, and at first, he would just ask: 

‘Who did I leave the roses for, young Malfoy?’ For your consort.

It’s a loop. You knew he would come there because I told you he would, so you’d leave a gift. Roses. Because he smelled like roses that night and it’s all you can bloody think about. Roses and blood. 

‘Is my pet going to get the Dementor’s Kiss?’ No. My lord. Not a scratch on him.

He would have to tell everyone what you did to him, and that’ll give you such a rush that you won’t even mind his defiance in court. You won’t mind his overstepping, the lost Horcruxes. It thrills you when he’s humiliated. 

‘Is Potter going to be killed?’ Eventually my lord, through a series of other events.

Events that I try my damn hardest to stop but cannot anyway.

‘Will I regain my body again?’ It’s only inevitable.

No matter how hard I tried for it to be otherwise. 

And Draco would tell him, because he knows he's supposed to tell him, and it disgusted him, that it wouldn't make a difference. Telling him or him taking the answers by force, there's no difference. His compliance still ended up with him being here. His non-compliance would have done the same. 

It happened like this:

He got Karkaroff and Crouch Senior killed. His Father found out. The Dark Lord did too. The Dark Lord changed the plan. He did not ask why Draco had done it. Draco suspects he already knew, or just didn’t care. 

Draco warned Father, he knew it wouldn’t change a thing. Father slammed him into a painting. Harry cried out. Father pursued him, took him, and the deed was done. Draco woke up in his bed in a vacant house, Severus nowhere in sight, there was a note, on the nightstand, asking him not to leave. 

Draco scrambled up, Draco looked for a quill and parchment in the messy drawer by his bed. Draco wrote two letters. Hasty blotches of ink stained his bed sheets. He wrote, in the first letter: 

 

Hephzibah Smith had the Hufflepuff Cup, Riddle stole it and killed her and made it into a Horcrux.

Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley housed the cup for the entirety of Riddle’s sabbatical until Pettigrew retrieved it and brought it back to Malfoy Manor. You can find the magical traces still there.

The list of people Riddle personally Murdered between the years 1992-5: Druella Rosier, Orion Black, Peter Pettigrew, Narcissa Malfoy, Arthur Weasley, Cornelius Fudge, Edgar and Amelia Bones, every fucking guard in Azkaban on October 15th

House elf, my house elf, he’s only loyal to me, please for the love of God call on him, ask for me, ask for the cup. Please remember Dobby, save Dobby.

Horcrux, in order to destroy it, death of the soul needs to occur, there is no way to resurrect the host once the parasite soul has died. Harry…

Harry—Harry—

 

He paused and then he remembered exactly where he was headed after he delivered those letters. Voldemort was not going to ask him kindly anymore. This was the start of his end. If he gave away that he sent the Potters detailed instructions on how to win…they’ll just lose. These have not happened yet, they can change on a whim and not for the better. The outcome might be the same but the casualties won’t be. 

He crumbled the paper, threw it to the side. He wrote again, praying to any god that Regulus Black was smart enough to get it: 

 

Hephzibah Smith

Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley

Murdered 

House elf 

Horcrux 

Still existent

Not in the castle

 

He stuffed it into a wrinkled envelope he found rummaging in the drawer. He reached for another one. He wrote: 

 

02-05-1997

 

He cried when he finished writing that letter. He took the Anthony Grave figurine from his nightstand. Crammed it all in his pockets. He would sleep the night elsewhere and head to the House in Wimbourne (his second home) in the morning. He knew the route. And then back to this hell.

He’d never apparated before that night. But he knew how; he’d seen himself do it in the rapidly approaching future with enough frequency to know the basics. So he left his fears to the wind, closed his eyes and imagined himself on the outskirts of Wimbourne. He slept by the rigid Eye Bridge in town, with his school robes being the only protection against the harsh winds of winter. With dried blood caking his hair, and with his pink-hued fingers, clutching the letters and Anthony for meagre comfort. His heart beat like a rabbit’s the entire night. He only had enough presence of mind to clean the blood out of his hair, ignoring the pounding ache.

He already knew he would see Harry as a little child. And his heart ached when the boy cried his name and tried to run to him. It took everything not to start sobbing, not to snatch the boy and hold him until his arms bruised. He looked awful. Regulus, his cousin too. His cousin...he held Harry, his eyes round and yet resigned and he begged: “Tell me it’s not true.”

Draco couldn’t bring himself to lie. 

It happened like this;

He apparated back home. The house was no longer empty. 

“No! Please! Let me go! Father!” 

He was thrown onto his bed, immobilised. Voldemort came. He was enraged, his snake, his companion was gone. Hours, since his return, and he was already reeling. He had no patience for Draco. He strode into the room, lifted a paralysed Draco’s body with a chokehold on his neck, and tore into his mind for answers. 

“You wretched thing,” He’d seethed at Draco, seeing the images…seeing Harry, grown, reaching for Draco, kissing him, holding him and Draco trying so hard to hide the flashes, “You traitorous MUTT!”

He did not kill Draco. He needed Draco. He knew he needed Draco. 

He left him immobilised. For fifteen days. Draco couldn’t move, he couldn’t open his mouth, he couldn’t cry, his fingers wouldn’t twitch, any sustenance was forced into his stomach with a spell and any waste extracted the same way. His body was more useless than a vegetable. No one came. Not his parents. Not Voldemort himself. Only Dobby. 

Draco was going insane. Fifteen days. Three hundred and sixty hours. With no company but his own mind and his own thoughts and his own visions. 

He could lift a finger on day fifteen. By the same afternoon, he sluggishly slid off his bed. He opened his door only a crack with weak fingers, on his hands and knees. He knew he wasn’t going to get out. He knew they would put him back there. But after fifteen days…he wanted out. He needed an out, to all hell with the consequences. 

Father found him, rolling down the stairs into the foyer. With his silver hand, he dragged him back up the stairs, cursing him out under his breath, telling him, “It’s your fault, you foolish boy, your own fault. You could have had it all.”

They chain him to the bed. At least he’s not paralysed. 

He thrashes. He curses. He screams profanity. There’s something up with the chain, he cannot feel his own magic at all. Riddle cools down after the death of his beloved pet. He almost does not seem to care, because he’s seen it in Draco’s mind…the Potter brat will be killed. Regulus Black will return to him. He will continue to live. Who cares about the rest?

Draco dreams about a pale vampire with red eyes. But it’s funny, because his eyes aren’t closed when he’s dreaming. He’s wide awake. 

He knows when Mother dies. He doesn’t see it. But he knows. He knew. He’s known for years. He knew she loved him in her own frozen way. He just never could muster the same affection for her…for anyone but Harry and…well. 

Father’s posture was never the same. He’d become a slouching shrivelled thing. Draco catches glimpses of him. Glimpses of his voice as he passes Draco’s room, not a single pause in his gait. 

It’s like Draco’s been forgotten. Locked up in a room with the key thrown down a well. His curtains are drawn. Fifteen days turn into thirty. Then fifty-five. Then sixty-seven. Then eighty. Eighty-five. 

Three hundred and four days. 

Sometimes, he likes to pretend he’s elsewhere, with Harry. On a bed and Harry’s sitting on Voldemort’s—no…on just a random chair by the bed. They’re just talking. Harry is older, he looks older. More slender, taller, his hair tamer but still defying gravity, his glasses crooked. His gaze is kind, his lips tugged into a small smile. 

“I can make us tea,” he tells Draco, rubbing a thumb over the back of Draco’s hand. 

“I would love some tea,” Draco says aloud in an empty room, deluding himself, “It’s been so long since I’ve had…tea. Years.” How many years has it been?

“Ten months,” Harry corrects gently, huffing a laugh, “Plain?”

“With honey?” his fingers twitch on the sullied bedsheets, the odour sickens him, “And scones…the ones your Dad makes? With jam.” 

His tongue is dry and heavy in his mouth. Harry leans over on the bed, pushing Draco’s lanky hair out of his face. Draco imagines the warm lips grazing his grimy flesh and cries some more. Some days, in this delusion, Harry says nothing. Other days he promises he’ll head right down to make a cuppa. 

Riddle thinks it’s really funny.

He sees the delusions too when he visits. He thinks they’re hilarious. It amuses him instead of angering him. How adorable , he drawls. Pining for your saviour to come?

Fun fact: 

It takes an average wizard thirteen years to master Occlumency. It took Severus nine months but he has natural talent on his side. 

Another fun fact: 

Draco doesn’t have natural talent. But he’s a good storyteller. He’s good at it; his entire childhood was spent with him thinking that he had a boundless imagination. Before he knew the horrible tragedies in his head were reality, he thought they were stories.

Draco has a natural talent for making up stories in his head. And the secret is…Voldemort doesn’t know that.

So he comes, dilly-dallying, every single fucking day…or maybe every other day, he would stand behind Draco’s door, letting him know he was there, and Draco starts freaking out because who wouldn’t…Riddle comes in, he peers into his mind, to re-arrange Draco’s little visions, but what he doesn’t know, is that the visions are all mixed up with the stories . They’re so seamless. Some are obvious, like Harry sitting by his bed, offering to make tea. Some are not. 

Voldemort asked him: “Will I emerge victorious and immortal?” 

And Draco gives him the best fucking story he’s ever cooked up. And Voldemort eats it up. Every single time. 

Voldemort thrusts into his mind, looking for the answer to this question: “When will my followers come back?” 

And Draco gives him the story , tinged with ten truths and a lie:

The story of how Draco Malfoy's deranged aunt breaks out of Azkaban, along with sixty-five other imprisoned Death Eaters, starts with a Weasley. 

“I would love tea, Harry. I love you. I know you could learn to love me too…Tea sounds lovely.”

“You are so so lovely.”

Three hundred. 

And five days.  

Notes:

- Fredrick Jameson (WILD ass dude) when presenting his module for post-modernist literature, gives the term "Schizophrenic" to the style of writing most frequently observed in this movement. He means this to describe the "breakdown of the signifying chain" in the usage of the narrator's syntax to the point that "the schizophrenic is reduced to an experience of pure material signifiers".
In simple terms and without upsetting Saussure and Lacan, this means that in post-modernist writing, the language is broken, left dangling with no purpose or subjects, and most importantly, there is a multiplicity of simultaneous actions in the text that have no relevance to each other. You can see this in works like Beckett's "Lessness" for example and...I tried emulating it here, so that's why I mentioned this lmaooo.

- Draco made a direct reference to what was about to happen to him in HFA in chapter 15 in his conversation with Reggie: [“I know what will happen to me,” Draco says with a grimace and shudder. He looks truly twelve, small and resigned as he looks at Regulus, “I am not a fan. But things must happen as they must happen. You knowing about me now will help me in a few years.”]

- "Eye Bridge" is a real place in Wimborne, Dorset.
- Bed sores are caused by a lack of blood flow when the body is in the same stationary position for a long time (usually in a bed but can be any surface touching skin, really), comatose patients, those with mobility impairment, and the elderly are most likely to be affected by this.
- Google "SHU Syndrome" or "SHU Syndrome as a result of Solitary Confinement" to get a better grasp of what Draco is going through. Solitary confinement can have severe psychological effects that may even lead to psychosis and can cause extremely vivid hallucinations.
- I usually don't make use of formatting tools like strikethrough in my writing since they make reading difficult, but I felt that it was needed here. If you found it annoying, I'm sorry~
- Have fun~

Chapter 5: 5.—Left in a Graveyard of my own making—

Summary:

Things take a violent turn.

Notes:

I have two papers due this week but I HAD TO UPDATE. This chapter is being uploaded a week early because the wonderful "wtf_cash" sent me some shots of their fic binding process for THIS SERIES. It looks absolutely gorgeous and my mind is officially blown and I have never in my life been so enamored with sth more. Check them out here!! (OMG!!!)

Also, I need to warn ya'll things will be DARK from here on out. And I mean that very viscerally, please take the tags seriously, and be aware that the dove is DEAD DEAD.

Have fun!!

5.—Left in a Graveyard of my own making—

 

 

1980

 

Winter 

There was a hand on his back, gently moving up and down. He blinked in the dark, his head so heavy that it might as well have been melded into the pillow. 

“It's today,” she told him. 

He didn't answer her. He nodded his head, detached it from the pillow and closed his eyes as an intense wave of dizziness washed over him. He knew it was today. He'd known for an entire week. He dreaded it. Grieved it. Ridiculed the notion in his head. And here he was, getting off the bed to shower anyway. To be quite frank, James was a bit caught off guard, as it was morning already. It seemed as though he was staring at the wall the whole night in trepidation. 

Maybe he had done just that if the headache was any indicator.  

It was the only day the five of them were all together. It was getting hard to see them all in one place, James himself was rarely idle lately, when not on Order missions, he was off on his own looking for answers to a question that did not even matter anymore. 

They didn’t even have a body. 

They found a cemetery in Cumbria, the Lake District. It had no significance other than its nondescript location; Sirius didn’t want his little brother in the family crypt and any other magical location would be prone to damage and vandalisation. Lily suggested it. It was a peaceful place, almost untouched by the war.  

There was a tree on top of a hill, a drooping willow tree, with the leaves drawn to the gentle currents of the wind, like beads on a swinging rosary. It was a cloudy day. Lily’s hand was cold in his. She led him step by step. They slowly ascended the hill. The others were waiting already, devoid of any colour or energy. 

Peter noticed them first, his hands momentarily fluttering to alert Remus, whose head was bowed by Sirius’ face, muttering something to the inconsolable man. James couldn’t hold his gaze. His heart was so cold and inaccessible to sympathy. Sirius was a wreck, that was his little brother, James thought, looking at the empty polished casket by Peter’s side. They must have shrunk it to bring it here, small enough to probably fit in a pocket. 

Sirius’ shoulders shook and yet no sound escaped him. James walked past him to the tree. It should be here, he thought. Under the shade of a willow tree. He used to dream about him …reading a book under the shade of a tree near the lake, stroking James’ hair with his other hand. Years ago when he came to check on Sirius, James hugged him under the shade of another tree, his heart was beating wildly in his chest, pressed against James’. 

He could hear his pregnant wife behind him, talking to Sirius in a gentle tone and Sirius’ hacking sobs, finally breaking out of him between long intervals of silence. 

James stared down at the crisp grass and the soft soil and then again at the polished casket by Peter. He couldn’t fathom burying him under the earth, even though the casket was empty, he was already gone from this world, not even his ashes remained. 

It almost felt disrespectful, a mockery to devise all of this for him after all they did to him when he was still alive. It angered James, a beastly anger that was trapped in his chest. He turned violently to Sirius and glared at him. 

He couldn’t find his tears, and seeing Sirius cry filled him with envy and rage. 

He would never allow himself the right to grieve as a lover, and he didn’t think Sirius deserved to grieve as a brother either. He would never go so far as to say they could have prevented this. Regulus made his choices, that was true. But he was alone when he made them. But Sirius punched him when he found out. But James told him the most heinous things. He had no one. 

It felt insulting, to crowd that empty space in the boy’s life posthumously. 

“We should probably start,” Remus said to no one in particular. Sirius covered his face with one hand and James drew his wand, soullessly.

The soil was pliant under his wand, the wind swept his hair and he felt his friends and wife forming a circle around him, solemnly looking at the hole that dug itself.  

Deeper and deeper, the scent of freshly dug earth assaulted his senses; he was lost in the motions of the soil, rising into the air in piles, deposited by the grave; it was all rather ritualistic and simple when it came down to it. James closed his eyes to it, tried to conjure the boy’s face, his voice, his sarcastic words, the touch of his lips on his skin. There was nothing. 

Only a burning carcass that couldn’t even scream. His face was unrecognisable, covered in deep red welts, the flames lapping at his flesh and eating their way through, the muscles over his cheeks and jaw, melting off his bones like candle wax, something no longer human. 

How could they even bring themselves to stand here, trying to pretend that they cared enough to respect that poor fucking soul? He burned in that house because James was not competent enough to get him out. Because his own fucking brother left him in the same abusive home that was almost the death of him.

The digging stopped. James turned to Sirius and Peter, taking in his friend’s red-rimmed eyes and Peter’s pale face, “It’s pointless, no?”

“Jamie—”

“I mean, digging a grave,” James continued, “Why are we even here? Burying an empty casket? He would fucking laugh in our faces.”

James knew what this was, the closure was not for Reggie’s sake. Not really. It was for them because they had this carnal need to think they were good fucking people, that they respected the enemy , even in death. That they grieved the boy lost to war, not the one they pushed away.

“James,” Sirius tried, James was having none of it. The indescribable ball of agony in his chest was becoming a prominent thing. 

“We should bury a body,” he said, thinking how comforting it would feel, for him to climb into the empty casket, cradling empty air like it was the charred body of his dead fucking boyfriend as they buried him here. He wouldn’t mind being dead here. 

Lily looked at him, handing off the cloth bag she had to Remus, she walked up to him and grabbed his hand, she leaned close to his ear and muttered, “You don’t have to do this, we can leave.” 

But James did not want to leave. In fact, he wanted to stay here for eternity. 

“I’ll finish the digging charm, take a moment, Prongs.” Remus brushed past him, his wand already drawn and pointed at the hole. 

It was over much quicker when Remus took over, perhaps because James was already halfway done. He looked at the casket and imagined his body in there instead of Reggie’s. 

He couldn't remember vividly what happened next, in the myriad of blurry and suppressed vignettes, the day of the funeral was always a starkly striked-out montage.  

His breathing sped up the longer he stared at the casket, the longer he listened to the rustling willow tree and the sound of soil, dug out and falling into a heap next to them. There was a headstone he lovingly charmed, unable to bear putting in the deceased date, putting it on stone that is. He couldn't bear spelling the noble name with his wand. 

Loved. 

Numb, he didn't know when he started kneeling down by the edge of the grave, his nails digging into the pliant earth, overcame by an awful sense of vertigo and grief, as he stared down into the grave, the darkness, as he imagined Regulus burning away like the exposed wick of a candle, thrashed by the wind and tiny orange sparks of fire. 

“No,” a mangled cry, a drawn-out rejection of the abject truth. He cried the way hungry dogs howl, “No!”

And all the denial, all the anger, all the hate in his bones vanished, and in its place was an incandescent grief that overwhelmed all senses. Because it was only when staring down an open grave, that James Potter learned what the word Dead meant. 

Not when his parents died. Not even when he was the one doing the killing. Not when his wife almost lost her life protecting him. No. 

It was putting an empty coffin in an empty grave, that he cried and tore at the earth, ignoring the hands that meant to pull him back and offer meagre comfort, because he knew he didn't deserve it. 

If only he'd gone after him, if only he held him. If only he’d asked why. Why did you do it? Didn't I love you enough? Did I not want you sincerely enough? Was I selfish in keeping you in my arms? We were children. 

They were just children. 

James was nineteen. 

Regulus was a year younger. Mature beyond his years, but he was only a lad. 

And James would grow older, he'd have no choice but to. And Regulus never would. Regulus would always remain nineteen. And James would grow old. And the only testament to the fact that they shared something once was here, in a place that meant nothing to either of them. 

He cried until his dry throat was no longer dry. Slick with blood, he imagined what life would've been without a war. 

He hated it here. He hated being alive. 

…

 

1995

 

July 

 

 

Barty keeps ending up here. 

He hates summers. He hates July. He hates that he’s standing here and those two love buffoons are looking at him with wide wary eyes, as though moments away from placating him like a wild animal. He knew he shouldn’t have come with them when they suggested an ‘outing’. He knew, what idiot wouldn’t, that the outing was a mere mask for a talk. 

He’s been putting this off for a long time. He knows, okay?

It’s just that, Barty wasn’t expecting to end up here, in the Lake District again, staring down a new headstone next to the worn old “loved”. 

“What the fuck—” he cries out, lashing a hand at the headstone.

What is it with these lunatics!? What is it with their obsession with death and grief? Why are they here!?

“Hear us out, before you say or do anything…” Sirius rushes to say, his hands up in the air, “We know these few months have been hell and this is like really not the time to surprise you with anything and—”

“Sirius—” Remus cuts in, a gentle redirection. 

“Yes, yes, I won't digress. We have an unfinished conversation, Barty.” 

Barty crosses his arms, looking at the men and daring them to give him an explanation that…that will justify what they've done. 

“Do we now?”

“Yeah,” Sirius twitches, “I know your…that man's death changed the trajectory of our relationship for reasons beyond my comprehension at least but—”

Ugh, Barty thinks, there they go again with the inverted muskrat. Barty thought turning into a literal Mink for months would deter them from trying to talk about this. 

“But?”

“But look at us now!” Sirius exclaims, Remus nods along in agreement, beseeching Barty with his eyes, “We've survived that, we're here. And…well, Remus and I are getting kinda nervous, buddy.” 

“ Buddy ?” 

Sirius flounders, cursing, he steps over and tries to grab at Barty, “Shit, no. Listen. Listen , Barty. I'm going about it all wrong—”

Barty lets him touch his elbow, his breath rattling in the humid summer air, and the man's face is clammy with sweat and anxiety. Remus steps behind them as well, his face is ashen. Barty can't look into Moony's eyes. Because Remus knows what Sirius doesn't. 

He most probably knew before Barty turned back into his human form. He knew because of the lukewarm sex, Barty's inability to talk. This is probably not a confrontation for him, but rather a confirmation. 

“We thought maybe our original proposal was a bit fucked up and expired, so maybe we can renew the conversation and if there's a redo—”

“I'm sorry,” Barty interrupts Sirius, “but what does that have to do with the grave?” 

Three sets of eyes drop down to Evan's memorial grave. 

“You told me,” Sirius says, “Well I remember you told me…you always wanted one for Evan, right? We didn't know the guy that well, but you cared about him a lot, and he saved Reggie. He deserved a resting place. So, Moony and I—”

Barty cannot believe this. 

“You—how dare you ?” he snaps. His eyes sting as he glares down at the polished black stone, as his heart constricts and his gaze darts over the golden letters, lovingly etched: 

 

Evan Ellis Rosier 

1961 - 1980

You will be remembered. 

 

They did all this, not because of Evan, but for Barty. Why ? This is a show of utter devotion. This shows the extent of their love and thoughtfulness. Paying homage to Barty's first love. Affirming their love for him through this act of service. Not only that, but offering to propose to him again. It makes Barty nauseated. 

When he was a child…well, no. When he learned not to be a child at the age of seven, it was because his Father had drilled his very first lesson into Barty's head: 

‘No one will ever bother loving you.’ 

You, as in Barty. It's not that people, in general, are incapable of love, it's not that people don't have enough love to go around. It's just that Barty is undeserving of that love. Love exists, just not for him. 

And of course, any instance contrary to that lesson should theoretically prove the inaccuracy of the claim. But it never did for Barty. Because sooner rather than later, people who would come into his life waltzed right out of it. 

Evan died . 

Regulus left him for James Potter . 

His own Mother abandoned him. 

He cannot bear it if Moony and Padfoot leave too. Because that's what happens, people find out how shitty he is when they spend enough time with him. And Barty can't bear that. 

Now they're here. 

And now he's here, been here, for the past few years, and these two men stuck around, stubbornly clinging onto Barty, making him feel seen and heard and loved, and now here they all stand, before the biggest show of commitment a person could possibly make to another…and Barty is paralysed. 

“Is it upsetting you?” Remus asks him softly, his warm hand on Barty's back, “We can…well, we can't unmake the grave but—Noodle?”

Barty shudders in the July heat, stepping away from the comforting touch. 

“This is—this is too much,” he says hoarsely, barely hearing his own voice, “I mean, invoking Evan into our relationship like some sort of fucked up leverage—”

“What!?” Sirius yelps.

“That's not—” Remus starts, confusedly.

What is he doing? He knows that's not what they meant. He knows… he stops breathing. He thinks about the stillness that came over him every time he thought about marriage and the ring and his Father's death. He thinks about Riddle and how there will be a war and someone out to kill him most assuredly. He thinks about war, and how bloody it was, how he killed people. How people just died. 

He can't do this to them. 

They don't deserve to die just because they were stupid enough to love him. People either leave or die or realise how shitty he is. If months of near-silence and being a hassle didn't deter them, Barty needs to rip the band-aid off for them. He's a disease, his father always used to say. 

He takes a deep breath, looks away from Evan's grave out of shame, “Don't you guys fucking get it?” He mutters, “We can't do this. The big bad wolf is back, there's no point to a relationship anymore—”

“Barty, love—”

“Do not give me a pet name,” he snarls, batting the raised hand away, “I hate that.” 

“ Noodle ,” Sirius calls and Barty feels his guts twist in pain, “Let's talk about what upset you, I'm sure it's a misunderstanding—” 

“No answer is an answer on its own,” Barty goes on, “I thought you guys would get that.”

There is silence, the breeze rustling the grass underneath their shifting feet. Remus and Sirius look at each other, at the sky, at Evan’s grave and at Barty. 

“Where is this coming from?” Remus is the one who asks. 

Show your true self, Barty thinks, cynically. That should do the job. If he just rears his nasty true self to the men. He dragged this on for months because he was at a crossroads with himself and because he was unwilling to accept that he had not changed at all. So he lets his mouth open, lets the words spill out with minimal effort, he detaches himself from his body: 

“In less than a year, there's going to be another war. I don't have time for this domestic bliss bullshit. I'm glad it's working for you guys but can you imagine what would happen if they find out I'm alive? Or that I'm married? They'll get your arses. You'll be horrifically killed or tortured—”

“Okay,” Sirius holds his hands up, “That went from zero to a hundred in less than a second—”

“Are you saying no because we might get hurt?” Remus wants this to work so badly. They both do. Don’t they?

Barty hits them where it hurts. 

“I’m saying no because you dug a symbolic fucking grave for my dead boyfriend. It's just…can't you guys see it? It doesn't work. I don't find this endearing, I cannot be tied down in fucking marriage and we have—”

“Okay, so we won't get married,” Remus affirms encouragingly, abiding Barty’s ranting, “Thank you for telling us that. It’s good that we’re communicating—” 

“After five months.”  Sirius snaps, his pupils narrowed into dots, his hand going through his dishevelled hair.

“Sirius.” 

“That’s not…” Barty flounders, “I mean—for fuck's sake. Look at us! We look ridiculous. I don't…what we had was nice. I had fun.” 

Fun, now that’s a criminally underwhelming way of confessing to the men that the only reason he is currently alive is their love. That Barty is terrified of wielding it, of it being taken away. It’s easier, he forces the concept onto himself. He’s not a good person. He never was. He was a murderer, he forced himself on Reggie, and he tortured countless people because of his own pain and misery…Father didn’t make him do all those things. 

“ Fun!? Barty, we love you. That's not—we are dating! Don't you love us?”

He’s never told them that, has he? Never uttered the words “I love you”. Maybe that makes this easier. There is no audience in his head to tell on this particular lie. 

“All good things come to an end,” Barty crams both hands in his pockets, “I knew it the second my Father died—”

“Merlin's balls, so this is about your Daddy issues—”

“No,” Barty twists his face into a sneer, “I don't want to get married. Not to you guys anyway. I think—we can go our separate ways. That's the only way we'll survive this war with the least damage.” 

A strange dissonance takes over him; the younger version of him who fuels the hate, and the older, baked version of him who wants so desperately to be loved no matter the stakes. Barty can't do this to them, the Memorium just proved the answer he’s been delaying for months.  

“There's strength in numbers,” Remus says. 

“But not strength in foolish sentimentality,” Barty hurls back, viciously, “I'm bored, okay? This is…I'm done with it.” 

The sun is being so harsh on him, even despite the wind, it shines right into Barty’s eyes when he wants to avoid the men’s confused and conflicted gazes. They don’t get it yet, do they? They just think this is a tantrum, a simple domestic. They don’t understand what Barty is doing. 

“What?” Sirius breathes, taking a step towards him that Barty answers in kind by reeling back. 

“You guys were great but it's just the same bloody thing every day,” he curls his mouth, prunes his nose, the same look his father used to throw at him, “ It bores me to death. And I cannot, no I won't tie myself down in this! Not like my Mother did.” 

The gears click in Sirius’ head and the man scoffs, “You spent a decade alone in a shack by yourself, and you're calling us boring? Barty, if this is a stupid prank you need to stop—” 

“I don't know how Reggie does it. How can he just tolerate family dinners and doing laundry and hanging out with you guys and—”

“That's life, Barty,” Remus mutters, and there’s something in his tone that makes Barty pause, “A relatively peaceful one.”

A life Barty wouldn't have minded living. But not in this lifetime. 

Does Moony know he truly doesn’t want to do this? Does he know that Barty is undeserving of their affections, or at least he thinks he is?

“Well, I've come to find it's not for me,” he jeers, “It's unbearable. Boring. Plebian. I’m just over it. Over you guys. Again, I don't regret you guys, I just…I'm not what you need. I’m sorry it took me this long to say it but…it is what it is. You're not what I need.” 

They’re exactly what Barty needs. They made a relic for Evan, they took care of him for months when he was trapped in his head, they always matched his pace, they showed him a version of the world that was slow and domestic and thriving with warmth. They gave Barty a borrowed life. 

“I can't do this. This was the proof I needed,” he tells them quietly, nodding his chin at the headstone.  

“We can fix this, though!” Sirius exclaims, his voice thick, and Remus doesn’t stop him when he steps closer to Barty, short of begging him, “Tell us what you want! We can…no, Remus, tell him! We can change! I love you! We love you—you can't just throw that away!”

Barty hates this. He hates seeing Sirius so distraught. He knows…he knows about the man’s abandonment issues, he vowed never to exploit it, never to leave him. He knows what he’s doing to the man he loves is worse than outright stabbing him. He can't even bear looking at Remus as the man grabs Sirius by the waist, muttering something in his ear. 

Just as well, Remus is the smartest. He knows how it’ll turn out if Barty is foolish enough to stay anyway. Sirius is not alone, he has his brother, the Potters, and his actual husband. Remus will be fine too. They all have each other and who knows, maybe they’ll find another…person, who’s less broken. 

“I just don’t understand—” Sirius is saying back to Remus, fraught with dismay.  

“You’ll get over it,” Barty says curtly, “You guys are great and you have each other. You're already complete. Maybe someday you'll find someone good enough…I don't know,” there’s a ghostly pause, “I think I should move away for a while.” 

Moony’s head shakes with disapproval, “Barty it's not safe. We can empty the flat for you or—” 

“I'll be fine,” Barty lies, his fingers feeling numb as they close around the beautiful engraved ring he’s never even put on once. He carries it around though…that should count, right? Well, not anymore. 

He fishes it out, “I'll be in Bergen. Don't…call me. And um, you should probably have this back,” he holds out the ring, awkwardly waiting until Remus leans over to pluck it out of his shaking hand, “I'm gonna…leave.” 

Sirius looks away, his face ashen and his mouth twisted with rage, and Remus looks like a kettle brimming with boiling concern, almost as if it physically pains him to see Barty leave. You don’t deserve it, Barty thinks to himself. They’ll get over it. 

“Send us a note,” Moony begs, “When you get there safe. Or at least Owl Reggie…You always have a home with us—” 

“Sure.” 

He leaves the Lake District for the cold safety of the Norwegian woods.

 

…

1995

 

October 

 

October 9 is a bitter night. Maybe it’s the uncharacteristically premature blanket of snow that buries Great Britain under a stiff white shroud, maybe the biting cold that invades households in droves ahead of lit fireplaces. Perhaps one could say that bitterness is a humane quality given to a day devoid of any subjectivity. 

Or maybe it’s just that it is on this night that the second wizarding war strikes its snare drums, undisputable and faster than a thunderstroke. For a person like Percy Weasley, the paradigm shift happened much faster than a blink. In one instance, he was preparing to leave his assistant’s job for the flat he’s rented in Belsize Park, and the next he and his Father are attacked from behind. Later disjointed reports and investigations of the attack came up with the following account of the event: 

At twenty-two hundred hours, a masked lithe figure floo-es into the Ministry’s grand atrium using one of the employees’ fireplaces—which should be theoretically impossible, given their air-tight security—. The Ministry being closed and mostly vacant at the time, the masked figure faces no resistance. He then heads to the lifts, straight to the Minister’s office, and traversing the dark corridors, the cloaked figure then withdraws his wand, killing one Martha Jones, Fudge’s personal secretary, before she can even open her mouth to scream. 

The suspect procures two small gas canisters infused with Dementor venom, and blasts Minister Fudge’s office open, hurling the canisters inside, wherein Percy Weasley and his father Arthur Weasley were engaged in a heated argument in the Minister’s absence. The gas incapacitated the men. The masked figure reportedly entered the office and locked the door behind him, Arthur Weasley struggled for his wand, adamant to save his son. 

The Masked figure pointed his wand at Arthur Weasley for only a moment, and stared at the blubbering son, gasping for air and convulsing on the floor, neither a threat. He stepped over the son’s body, crushing his arm in the process, the figure leisurely shuffled in the drawers for folders and confidential documents perfectly labelled on the assistant’s desk. 

Arthur Weasley managed to get to his knees, perhaps aware that the attacker was after the ‘Release Charm Sequence’ that chained the Dementors to Azkaban, for only the Minister of Magic had direct access to them, the man pointed his wand at the cloaked figure’s back. The cloaked figure did not turn. Percy Weasley watched with wide terrified eyes as his Father began spewing up blood, his limbs spasming, the wand clattering out of his hand, as his skin started shrivelling off his bones. Percy Weasley watched his father die in agony. The masked figure did not turn back once. The scroll of parchment secured, he stepped over Percy Weasley’s flailing and aggrieved body again and simply pranced out. 

Percy Weasley only lived to tell the horrific tale, because, on the other side of the country, Harry James Potter woke up sick in his bed, hysterical and bleeding all over his sheets, screaming that Arthur Weasley had died and that his son was next. 

Harry Potter is rushed to the Headmaster’s office at Twenty-three hundred hours by his friends and Head of House, all clad in their nightwear. Harry Potter recounts the story in a broken language, pallid and struck mute by fear, his friend cajoles the words out of him by force; his own face drained of all blood. No one in the headmaster’s office takes the story to be a dream, the headmaster himself immediately heads to his floo to call on retired members, conversing with portraits in a hushed language, almost deliberately ignoring Harry going to pieces in a chair right in his office. 

Barty Crouch Jr. comes into the man’s office when summoned, frazzled in his disguise, he looks at the Weasley children, all frozen with stupefied grief except for Ronald who’s trying to talk Harry out of his paralysis. Barty looks at the twins hugging Ginny, at the tear tracks on their faces, the twins’ eerie silence, at Minerva’s pursed lips. 

“We’re trying to contact Molly,” she tells Barty quietly, “She is not answering her floo calls. We’re sending someone—”

“It should be a dream,” Barty rebukes her in a hushed voice, urgently, “The kid’s been having them for months, I’ve seen him freak out before. Minerva, there’s still a chance—”

But there are no chances left. Kingsley floo-es Albus back and tells him they found Percy Weasley near his dead father’s body, poisoned by an absurd amount of dementor venom and catatonic, still alive but on death’s door. 

The children cry out in shock, the twins looking at each other in astounded silence as their sister sobs into her hands. Barty staggers as the confirmation dawns on him. Harry didn’t really dream about Arthur Weasley dying, he was a witness. 

Harry looks up when Kingsley’s face disappears from the flames, he pushes past Ron and stumbles out of the chair, “What is happening?” he demands hoarsely, his face a faded copper, the blood not quite wiped from his skin. 

“In the dream were you standing next to the victim or looking down at the scene?” Dumbledore snaps curtly, his back to Harry. 

“I—” Harry falters, looking at his crying friends, “I don’t know—I—What is happening? He can't be dead, he…he’s not!”

“Answer my question, Harry,” Dumbledore demands and Barty steps closer to the boy, wondering why his parents haven’t been called yet, “Were you standing or attacking?”

“Neither!” Harry denies, shaking like a leaf loose in the wind, “Please just tell me what’s happening. I didn’t do it! I was here not there—he’s not dead—” 

No one dares touch him, not even Ron who’s retreated by his siblings’ sides, observing the scene unfold with acute shock. 

“What of the Mother?” Barty asks, but Dumbledore ignores him too.

“Nicholas, contact Everard, tell him to wake Pomona and alert the staff. The school might be in danger—”

“My Mum…is she—” Ron clasps a hand over his mouth. 

“She will be in safe hands,” Barty hears Minerva consoling the children, “We have already sent for her.”

“Sir—” Harry calls, his legs shaking. Barty nears the child, reaching out to steady him on his feet but Harry flinches back, crashing back into the chair he had collapsed into earlier. 

“Call Regulus now,” Barty demands, marching up to Albus, forcing the older man to look at him with an unreadable expression on his face, “This is insanity…Call them!” 

“No!” Harry shouts in disagreement, “No! Please! Not them. Don’t call them, just tell me what’s happening to me. Please someone—”

Albus ignores them both, paces about his office and after a beat turns to one of his larger portraits, with the robed man in the painting grimly staring down at them all. He tells the portrait, “Phineass you must head to your portrait in our main headquarters, and alert any members that may be residing there that the Ministry has been breached. Arthur Weasley is dead and his children will be arriving there soon—”

“Professor please,” Harry breathes, “Please, just look at me—”

The floo flares again and a woman with pink spiky hair pops her head out of the flames, calling for Albus. The old man hurries to the fireplace, nodding at her to speak up. 

“We’ve word of Molly,” the young woman tells Albus, out of breath, “She was staying the night with her cousin Margaret in Tinworth—”

“Look at me—”

The Weasley children deflate in relief and Harry’s shoulders stiffen. Barty watches the child’s neck crack as he tries to gather his composure. Barty frowns, taking an instinctive step back from the boy and his inflamed scar, his wand subtly shuffling down his sleeve into his hand. 

“Good, that’s good. We need a headcount of all members, the Ministry will be swarming with Aurors once word spreads and what of Minister Fudge, do we know of his whereabouts—”

“No word of him yet, apparently he wasn’t there during the attack—”

“Contact Rufus Scrimgeour at once and keep me updated on the investigations.”

The woman pops out of the flames, and the office is drenched in a silence only broached by Harry’s harsh panting. The boy looks confused and feverish, darting his eyes around the office and its occupants like a fawn teetering on the edge of a cliff. He’s wondering why they’re all staring at him with fear and trepidation, probably wondering why Albus is ignoring him and refusing to look at him.  

“I don’t understand,” he says, mostly to himself, “I thought—you know what’s wrong with me—”

“Minerva please escort the Weasley children to the infirmary, make sure they are safely reunited with their Mother before—”

“Why are you ignoring me!” Harry roars in anger, the windows rattle in their hinges and Albus stills, casting his gaze to the closed shutters of his office windows. 

“Harry,” Barty calls, his grip on his wand tightening, “You’re scaring your friends. Calm down.” 

Harry doesn’t listen, he stumbles closer to his friends, looking at Ron with glazed eyes, “No! I didn’t! Ron…I didn’t kill him I swear, I swear!” 

Ron nods but doesn’t say anything, too uncomfortable to hold Harry’s gaze. Harry whirls to the old man, not with fear but with something akin to outrage and anger, “You know!” He accuses him, “You know what’s happening!” 

“Mister Potter, that is no way to address your headmaster,” Minerva tries from the side. Albus continues to frown at the window shutters. 

“Look at me, goddammit! LOOK AT ME!” Harry screams and the entire office rattles with the booming of his voice. All the glass trinkets and little magical souvenirs, all the small statues and portraits hanging off the walls and even the iron chandelier swings violently, casting the light away from Harry’s twisted face. Harry strains his neck with a wince, screwing his eyes shut. 

Albus calmly holds the boy’s gaze at last, impassive. Harry heaves, “What’s happening to me!?” 

“Inform the boy’s parents,” Albus tells Barty without moving an inch, “Tell them to arrive prepared .” 

Barty stiffens, though he’d already guessed that this would be the case. They have been prepared for this scenario for months and now the ball drops. They thought they might have to implement their measures after the Umbridge incident, they really did, but that was just Harry himself. Whatever happened to Harry tonight though…that’s not the boy or his trauma. It’s something darker. His parents’ worst fears finally coming to fruition; as an eventual downward spiral as opposed to a possibility. 

Barty had warned them. He’d told James the Umbridge thing wouldn’t be the first or last. He’d told them sending the boy back to school was a bad idea. He’d told them not every outburst would be Harry’s uncontained ‘accidental magic’. And sure, no preventive measure would have stopped Arthur’s death but…

“What does that mean?” Harry whispers, looking at Barty for help, “Prepare what—”

“Come, children,” Barty hears Minerva shepherding the Weasley children out of the office behind him, “We must hurry. Your Mother will arrive at the infirmary soon—”

Barty looks over his shoulder to nod at them reassuringly, though that wouldn’t make anything better. Their father is dead. Nothing is going to be the same for them anymore. Barty abhorred his father and yet his death hit him like a freight train. He cannot fathom what it must be like, to love a parent and then have to deal with their death.

Ron, bless his heart, still looks at Barty, askance, “Should I stay—”

Barty shakes his head sharply, “Go, Ron.”

He hates how much of himself he sees in Ronald. The boy’s damn father just died and he’s worried about Harry. Barty sighs. He’s read this book before. The devoted friend. The loyal lapdog. How he is still willing to burn the world down for Regulus without being asked. He hates watching history repeat itself. He hates watching Ron learn a lesson that Barty learned too late. If things get out of hand, Harry might blow up and cause physical damage again. Barty knows the boy won’t forgive himself if anything happens to his friends, especially Ron. 

“What’s happening?” Harry begs Barty, forsaking Dumbledore for the comfort of the familiarity his ‘former’ almost-godfather can provide. Barty lets Harry approach him, grabbing onto the boy’s arms, he can pick up the faint acrid scent of vomit and blood and it’s all too familiar again. His gaze softens. 

But he sees the same thing Albus most likely did, the burst vein in Harry’s left eye, the inflamed scars, the straining neck and spasming hands. Harry is immune to the Imperious curse. What he is not immune to, is being partially or wholly possessed. How else would he have seen Arthur’s death?

“It’ll be okay, kiddo,” he tells the distraught boy, with the same soft tone he used to reserve for the boy’s father so many years ago, “I’m calling your parents.”

Shit never changes, does it? 

 

…

 

October, this cursed month. 

They get the call that Arthur Weasley is dead. Percy Weasley is on the verge of death. Harry saw it happen. He's acting awry, and James and Reggie should come prepared, ready for the worst. 

Regulus could lie and say that he was ready to weather those words, but the truth is his legs nearly gave out. The breath he let out was punched out of him by force, and the dormant pain in his forearm was in no way comparable to the way his lungs were seized in a death grip. It’s a good thing he wasn’t holding his garden shears. A good thing James was right there. 

They knew what this meant. They rarely discussed it, like a taboo word, the very concept was forbidden in the sanctity of their household and when they did discuss it…when they planned safety measures for worst-case scenarios, it was always when they were not in the House in Wimbourne. The matter of Harry being compromised was on the table the second Voldemort was resurrected. They know for a fact that Riddle can't do a full-body possession, because he would have done it ages ago. They know that Riddle doesn’t know about the Horcrux and merely thinks the scar is the cause of a mind connection because otherwise, he wouldn’t have tried killing Harry. But just in case, they planned. Just in case they have a trap. 

Come prepared meant Harry’s scar was compromised. That their hushed conversations had transpired into reality. That Draco was right. 

‘Come prepared’ means come with the intention to potentially imprison your child because he has been possessed. He watched Arthur Weasley die in a dream…and Arthur Weasley was killed brutally by a masked Death Eater.

Regulus wants to be sick, it’s a near thing. 

James is the one who keeps his shit together. He gets their coats, turns off their lights, gets Harry’s blanket from his bed. Gets the satchel with the Thing from the corner of their closet. Regulus set the trapping charms and protective shields himself on the thing , hating every bone in his body, knowing this was intended to imprison his son. 

He hates himself more now, knowing they're going to use it. 

They floo to Albus' office, it feels like they've been doing it at least once a week lately. 

James' arm is secure around his waist, but the man himself stumbles when he sees the wrecked state of the office. Regulus' eyes widen, taking in the thrashed furniture, overturned shelves and broken glass everywhere. 

Albus is by the far side of his office, wand in hand, and in the middle, there's Harry, glaring at the headmaster with narrowed eyes and held-out hands. Barty's behind the boy, trying to keep him still. Reggie's hand tightens on the satchel. 

“What is going on here?” James asks incredulously. 

Harry turns to his parents slowly, his eyes immediately darting down to the satchel and Reggie's frozen expression, “Don't come near me!” He screams. 

Regulus knows the look in his eyes, Harry is afraid. 

“Harry, it's okay.” He says slowly, letting the satchel fall to the ground, “You’re alright.” 

He sees it. He looks at Barty and the man shakes his head. 

“No!” Harry glowers at him, the window shutters rattle, “I'm not! You… he thinks I'm dangerous! You all think that! I didn't kill Ron's Dad—I was just—in my—my bed!”

His left eye is all red, so is his scar, faint traces of dried blood are still staining his face. Albus points his wand at the satchel, Harry’s back to him, but Regulus shakes his head. Not yet. 

The only one Harry can hurt in this state is himself. 

“We can talk about it then,” He tells the child, “There's no need for violence. Lower your hands.” 

James breaks away from him, making a move towards Harry and the boy resists it only for a bit before James hugs him. The flames roar behind Reggie and the shutters rattle in place again, they can even hear the wind howling outside. 

“Harry, no one is going to hurt you, son,” James settles a hand over the boy’s head, “Just settle down for a moment.” 

Regulus looks at Barty again and the man is shaking his head vehemently. He wants them to use the trap and use it now. But Reggie hesitates again. Harry is just scared. Albus and Barty don’t know Harry like Reggie and James do. They don’t need extreme measures. They just need to look for people who can do Occlumency. People who can stop this from happening again. 

Regulus steps by the satchel and its dangerous contents and walks up to his family. He stares at Harry and thinks about how nothing is going to be the same again. An attack of this proportion is unprecedented. Even during the first war, Voldemort never broached the Ministry once. There is no denying his involvement. Not anymore. 

And Voldemort knew that. Why would he show it to Harry if not for the pleasure of seeing them all fumble? 

“Stop looking at me like that,” Harry growls at him with disdain, pushing James away roughly. 

Regulus masks his expression, holds his chin higher, “Like what?” 

“Like I'm a beast . You know they're wrong! I'm not a killer—”

“Harry, you never left your bed.” 

The boy falters, his eyes flashing momentarily and his shoulders dropping, the iron chandelier swings violently above them. Regulus looks up at the flickering orange lights and then back at the child who’s rounding the centre of the office like a cornered animal, shying away from his Father and Barty alike, “You never left your bed tonight,” Reggie tells him again, firmly. 

That’s not his child. He gets what Barty meant with his eyes before. The twitching, the spasms, the crass tone. Even at his wildest, Harry never behaved like this before. They talked literally earlier tonight using the mirror. And sure the boy was a bit glum and sulking, but that’s how he is now and Regulus and James had to make their peace with it. 

They’re never getting the naive sunkissed boy with the blinding smile back. 

But this…This reminds Reggie of the wreck he used to be from days he barely recalls anymore. Days before he was Evan. Days in which he was trapped in the monster’s claws. On the edge of insanity. 

What did Riddle exactly show their boy? 

“But he's dead—” Harry snarls, his voice sibilant and churned with disgust. 

“I know, sweetheart.” 

“And he!!” Harry thrusts a hand in Albus’ direction, at the man’s bemused face who is silently just observing the scene, “ He thinks I've done something! Tell him, Papa! Tell him I'm innocent!”

Albus does not answer but Regulus can almost tell what he is thinking. This is perhaps not what Albus envisioned when he vowed to protect Harry all those years ago because now no matter what…his hands are tied. He knows Harry is a Horcrux but cannot harm him in the slightest, he knows that there is a very thin line between what Regulus deems help and what he deems as an active threat. 

James looks at Regulus, with his eyes, asking him what they should do. Regulus doesn’t know. 

Harry looks between them, and then huffs an incredulous laugh, “You can't, can you?” he sneers. 

“You didn't kill Arthur,” James states, “But you are a witness.” 

“That's not possible! I—”

“And you never left your bed,” James finishes for him, “Both things are true.”

Harry pauses and then as though coming to his senses, looks around the dark office with mild surprise. Regulus frowns at the boy’s socked feet and the shards of glass. Harry’s eyes flutter from the damaged office to Dumbledore and Barty and quickly to his parents. 

“I did this,” he says, flabbergasted, looking at the broken trinkets and paraphernalia, “I didn’t even realise. I didn’t mean to do it like this. What's happening to me? Someone’s done something to me, a curse or—”

“Mister Potter, I believe you are being victim to the Dark Lord’s mental attacks,” Albus finally says, slowly padding behind his desk, “He projected the attack in your mind. You were perceiving the attack through his perspective.”

“But—” Harry looks down at his palms and the shards of glass around him begin trembling off the floor in a spiral around the boy. Barty and James reel away from the shards and Regulus readies his wand, “He wasn’t there. Vol…Riddle wasn’t there.”

“There is simply no other explanation, dear boy.” 

“No, you’re wrong—” the glass shards quicken their spiral around Harry. Barty quickly rushes to Reggie’s side, bending down to pick up the loaded satchel in both arms, he sends an inquisitive look at Regulus and Reg nods, albeit still with reluctance. 

“Harry?” he calls the child, “Statue.”

James points his wand at the ready but Regulus holds a hand up, calling Harry again. Using magic will only worsen the situation, Regulus knows the boy. Harry looks at him with narrowed eyes through the rising wall of tiny broken fragments and objects. 

“What? Statue?”

“Uhhum,” Regulus tries to keep calm as he approaches the boy. He hears James and Barty calling his name in warning, sees the way Albus approaches them from behind, ready to intervene, “We’ll figure it out. I need you to control your magic.” 

Regulus has never seen a person Harry’s age unable to control their magic to a large extent. If the boy is not doing this on purpose, if he didn’t attack Umbridge on purpose or as a learned response…this is concerning, “You’re not wearing any shoes. Stand still.” 

“Yeah,” Harry looks down at his sock-clad feet, “I—”

The wall of broken things shudders and falls to the floor and Regulus grabs hold of the boy, pulling him to his chest. Harry shivers, unable to hold Regulus back, but at least he’s calmer. 

What am I to do? Regulus thinks desperately, leaning his chin on top of the boy’s head. They cannot tell him what this really is. They can't reveal the truth about the Horcruxes. Harry won’t be able to comprehend it and any information given to the boy will have room for exploitation. They know that now. 

“Papa?” 

“Reg—” 

Regulus ignores both father and son even though he can tangibly hear the anxiety in both of their voices. For different reasons of course. 

“Are you hurt?” 

“No.” 

“Is your scar hurting?”

Harry drops his head, looking down at his feet, “Yeah. It hurt before too.” 

“Why don't you start telling me what happened after our call?”

Harry fidgets with his hands, a habit he stubbornly has picked up from James throughout the years. Regulus lets him take his time. He truly wishes things were not the way they are now. So convoluted and confusing and painful. Every breath they all take in this office feels like the drag of a wooden spear out of a wounded chest. 

“I slept. And then I dreamed…about Ministry corridors, the lift—I…there was a lady, I didn't kill her! The person killed her. And then there was gas everywhere and Mr Weasley—”

“Gas?” James muses behind him. 

“Concentrated Dementor venom,” Albus provides, “According to Kingsley, two canisters were used. That amount works as a paralytic.”

That is too systematic, Regulus thinks, frowning. Voldemort is not the type to work systematically. He overpowers the enemy with sheer magical force. And the thing Harry said about Riddle not being present—something is not adding up. 

“What happened then?” he asks the boy whose head is still ducked down, either in shame or discomfort. The tensed shoulders and the child’s white-knuckled grip on his writhing hands should be indicators enough.

There is another pause, and Regulus’ waning patience is wearing thin. He gently grabs the boy’s right arm, stifling a groan as his forearm twinges all of a sudden, “Harry?”

“Nothing much really,” the boy says in a strangely steady tone, “It was just a blood fest from there. Arthur Weasley was peeled open like a blood orange.” 

“What—Argh!” 

Regulus is thrust on his back, a sharp pain emanating from his cheekbone as the other men jump into action. Barty drops the satchel and launches the shining blue orb into the air, James snaps his wand at the orb and before Harry can even blink a large tent of shimmering blue is erected all around him, trapping him in the centre of the ruined office.

James drops down near Regulus, “Reggie!” the man gingerly wipes the blood away with his thumb. Both look at their son, who’s now openly crying and pounding on the magically reinforced shields. 

“No!” the boy screams, “Help me! Please! Papa! Dad! I’M SCARED—”

But the child’s terror has no impact whatsoever. Regulus lets the chilling words drown the rushing of his blood in his ears:

It was just a blood fest from there. Arthur Weasley was peeled open like a blood orange.

And the scratch…he touches the sluggishly bleeding cut with a wince, staring at James. They ignore the crying, only attempt to gather themselves. 

“I knew it,” Barty immediately mutters from the side, crowding the men, with his wand pointed at the blue pyramidal cage, “I knew the kid was acting strange. Albus?” 

“I sense a presence but—” Albus cuts himself off, tilting his head at Harry thrashing and pounding at the walls of his fists, “But it’s not fully taking hold. I need to peer into the boy’s mind.”

“Papa! Help me! Help !” 

“Careful,” James whispers as he helps Regulus to his feet. He tries to hold him in place but Reggie drags him along towards the cage, not breaking eye contact with the hysterical boy once. Harry is on his knees, his whole body shuddering with loud, exaggerated cries. 

It’s far from a perfect mimicry. 

The boy’s head is hung down again as he is heartily crying into his hands. 

It’s all wrong. The posture, the sobbing, the begging…the lack of resistance. It’s all wrong. 

“You're not Harry,” Regulus breathes and ‘Harry’ stops mid-sob. The boy drops both hands on his lap and smirks, lifting his face only a little.

“Oh, pet ,” the words are hurled out of the boy’s mouth, “You are getting so slow.” 

Regulus resists a flinch of horror. James goes rigid beside him and Albus rounds the cage to capture the boy’s eyes to no avail. Harry drops his head, cackling down at his lap, but the cackling is all wrong too, more akin to a wheezing sound. Like Harry cannot breathe. And the words again…

“Let him go, Tom.” Albus snaps, the walls of the cage tighten, getting smaller and smaller around Harry’s seated form, the shields buzz and glimmer with pure energy, casting their pale faces in a blue hue.  

“An eye,” Harry’s imposter pants, as though in a great deal of pain, “For an eye.” 

The anguished whimper that tears itself out of Harry’s throat next is no act, Regulus knows. Reg gasps, falling to his knees in front of the cage, gaping at his son in horror as small crater-shaped scars begin forming all along the boy’s arms and face, like snakeskin. 

Eye for an eye…Nagini. Is this because of the blasted snake!? 

Regulus is paralysed. They’ve taken every scenario into account, they’ve had every conversation imaginable and yet, they’re all just standing here, desperately watching the scene unfold with fuck-all to do! 

“Harry!” 

“Do something, Albus!” James roars, pulling Regulus away from Harry’s cage by force because he knows how close his husband is to tearing down the very cage he built himself. Albus shakes his head and they all watch in horror as Harry’s body contorts. 

“The game—” Harry groans with another pained laugh, “—is only be—beginning.”

“Harry!” 

Harry folds down into himself, his head hitting the ground with an audible ‘thud’...either unconscious or…Regulus struggles out of James’ arms, clamouring for his wand, “Take it off,” he demands no one in particular, crawling on the glass to the cage, “Take it off of him!” 

“Reggie—”

The fireplace roars and blazes, suspending the panicked men in medias res. 

“Albus!” It’s Kingsley again, his voice hoarse and out of breath, the man has no regard for the chaos in Dumbledore’s office. He exclaims in one breath: “It’s Azkaban! The attacker took the Dementor’s release keys and there are reports of their entire hive abandoning the prison—Sixty-five Death Eaters broke out of all sections, the inner and outer rings both and—everyone’s dead!” 

Regulus sits on the glass, dumbfounded, and in his old-grown age, he trembles in a juvenile fear of what Tom has in store for them, because his mind may have forgotten the memories of those good old days…but his body never did. 

Months of planning down the drain in a matter of a single night. A blitz attack…just like it started two decades ago. 

The game that is only beginning already has a clear winner. 

Notes:

Where to start:

- I had my reservations about some POV and narration choices in this chapter; particularly the merging of an "Objective point of view" with the "third person limited point of view" throughout the second half; I needed that sense of dissociation to be present in the chapter whilst simultaneously keeping all characters and voices present in the scene without them coming off as flat. I have NO idea if I pulled it off or not so I apologize if it's not your cup of tea
- Barty DID indeed mention that he wished Evan had a grave all to himself as well in HFA. Of course, that doesn't justify the way Wolfstar jumped him, but this is how the breakup happened.
- You guys have most likely seen "everything everywhere all at once", or at least this part where Waymond says that “In another life, I would've really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you,” to his wife.
I personally ADORE this quote for several reasons, but in the context of Barty and wolfstar mostly because...that's what life is and should be. For a character like Barty or Reggie who had so much going on since early childhood, who'd been through war and on the wrong side of things...life should be about enjoying the slow and small things. Anyways, lmao.
- I will admit, I was too lazy to look up Evan Rosier's middle name. Ellis is canon for me.
- The masked figure was present in HFA's penultimate chapter.
- Dementor venom as a bioweapon goes so hard, I will die on this hill.
- When I was a kid, like five or six, my cousin, that little shit who was like ten or sth, used to tell me that "blood oranges" were bloody because the farmers irrigated the trees with actual human blood. And to this day, I still cannot eat them because of that.
- I think ya'll can detect the exact moment when Harry shifts with a second reading, but to give you a hint, he didn't know what "statue" meant.
- I WILL reply to the comments soon, take care and happy reading~

Chapter 6: 6. —I decided to save myself—

Summary:

David and Goliath, the same old story.

Notes:

Surprise?

 

Important warnings: explicit language, explicit depictions of torture, inappropriate use of insects as a torture technique (this is a VERY IMPORTANT WARNING), explicit depictions of violence, gore, character death, suicide ideation (mild and vaguely referenced)

Please do NOT ignore the warnings, I mean it with my whole chest when I say that the writing is graphic. You have been warned.

Have fun~

6.—I decided to save myself—

 

 

 

1980

 

There was a shadow tailing him. 

Always in his periphery, always only out of his sight, but the presence was so heavy that James could feel it on his back. He knew it wasn’t real because at any given time he was the only one who felt the shadow, who kind of saw it in the corner of rooms. 

He was beginning to suspect, little by little, as every day marched on, that he was starting to go mad. 

He’d seen mad people, probably more than he would’ve liked. Those driven off their rockers because of the torture, because of the Crucio, those who were wrongfully kissed by a stray Dementor as there were no regulations nor restraints in place during the war. He’d seen them, blabbering, crying, laughing, numbly staring into space. He wondered whether they knew too, that they were mad. Rescued but not really saved. It did not seem like they did. 

It would be funny if James were to be a self-aware madman. 

Perhaps there was irony in it; that he would remember his sins and regrets even in the throes of madness. That he would pay for it even then. That he was going to be denied the very thing that made madness appealing…which was ignorance. 

The shadow had a wisp of a voice. James swore he could hear it, he could feel the tiny hairs on the back of his neck bristle, as the soft whisper always crooned near his ear and his only. Softly spoken words that were just echoes of a dead man. 

That feeling one got when they'd just missed a reply, when they'd normally say, “I'm sorry, my sweetest, can you repeat yourself again? I didn't quite hear you.” 

Maybe that was the point. James never heard. 

He considered telling his wife. His very pregnant wife. But what was the point, really? They were up to their necks in corpses and war and damage. She didn’t need to take care of him. She was already growing a life inside of her. A life that James put in there. 

As far as she was concerned—and she was, mind you—James was a good man who was going through a rough patch. A transitory period, shedding the skin of his old life with the death of the only tether that connected him to it. A new James might soon emerge, she probably thought. A good man, who fought in war, who was a father, a husband, and most importantly not mentally broken. 

“Why tell her?” the voice crooned in his ear, clearer day by day, closer every night James was out with his wand, with the intent to kill, “What’s the point if you die anyhow?” 

It was a good argument and though James knew that the voice…the nightmare, was just a delusion, he couldn't help indulging. He never imagined the voice saying sorry, or saying loving things, or even biting words like Reggie might have. 

The voice just existed as an extension of him. On the battlefield, in his bed, in every Order meeting. It was as though James had revived Regulus by burying him. 

“Just something between us two, you wretched bastard .” 

 

…

 

1995

He wakes up because he’s thirsty and cold. Opening his lids is a battle, and the air feels unfamiliar and brisk and chilly, burning his nostrils. Harry blinks hard, groaning and tilting his head away from the white light that is cast from the window on the side of the room. 

Not his dorm. Not Hogwarts. Nor his house. 

He can see the blurry outline of his glasses on the crowded nightstand next to the water pitcher and a half-filled glass, used tissues, some papers just stacked haphazardly on top of each other. The curtains have been pushed aside, the walls are wooden, the floor creaks but not because of a presence, it’s just air pressure. It's a draughty place. 

Harry notices that his hands are tied, both wrists in front of his body and then that's tied to the foot of the bed. Lazy , Harry thinks, pushing his body up with a grimace. He looks down at the rotten rope and then his surroundings again. He’s wearing his own clothes…but not the ones he remembers wearing before. 

“Don’t try to wriggle your way out of a rope,” Papa had taught him many many years ago, “You’ll just chafe your wrists. Find an edge or durable object that’ll wear it down. Any will work. Use your teeth as a last resort.” 

Harry knee-walks to the edge of the bed, over the many many piles of wool blankets and tartan throws, he settles his bound wrists on top of the rusted bed knob and impatiently shoves his body weight back to apply pressure on the rope. The rope’s not even a good one, so it snaps on the second try. Harry rolls his eyes and untangles himself out of the bundle of blankets and binds. He grabs his glasses. 

He knows he’s not in any danger, even though he doesn’t know his environment. The place is small, much smaller than the summerhouse in Quiberon. It’s more of a shack really. The floors are bare, the cold floorboards exude the chill through Harry’s socks. He ducks his head out of the small, shabby room. He notes the silence, silent as a fox, he shuffles down the corridor. A bathroom. The light doesn’t work. Harry has a horrible feeling that he does, in fact, know exactly where he is. 

He closes the bathroom door and heads the opposite way, and since there are no more rooms, he heads downstairs. The first landing is as tragic and desolate as upstairs. With one single armchair that looks like it is holding on for dear life, a coffee table that is littered with more parchment and empty bottles, and a wall of stacked firewood that reaches the wooden ceiling of the cottage. The curtains are drawn. 

Harry grabs an iron fire by the flickering fireplace and heads to the only other unexplored room, which is obviously the kitchen. He drags his feet as he sees the back of a person, hunched over an ancient iron stove with a whistling percolator on top. 

“Don't drag your feet.” 

Harry drops the iron fire with a clank, heads to the sad-looking chair. The only chair in the small kitchen, “You suck at tying people up.”

Barty doesn’t miss a beat. 

“Funny your uncles didn't seem to complain—”

Harry gags, rolling his eyes even when it makes his head hurt. He rubs at his aching forehead, glaring at the man’s back until Barty lifts the percolator off the iron stove, padding to the cupboards, “I knew you would wriggle out anyway. No point in wasting your time or mine,” he drags a mug out of a cabinet, “Coffee?”

Harry rubs his sore wrist and looks around the bare kitchen. 

“Where are my parents?” 

“What do you think?”

“That I somehow died and I'm in purgatory with you,” he snaps, and then when the man makes a face at him, Harry sighs and deflates, “Yes to the coffee.” 

Barty drags a second mug, perhaps the only remaining one, out of the cupboard, huffs into the cup and deeming it clean enough, tilts the percolator. Harry watches the bags under his eyes, his sagged posture, his wiry hair which clearly hasn't been brushed in at least a week. It would be the first time he sees the man without his disguise in four months. He wonders whether his parents have seen Barty like this too. He looks like death warmed over.

His parents…Harry’s eyes drop to his lap, to the faint scale-like scabs all over his arms. He reaches a hand towards his face, feeling the scabs there too. 

“Did I hurt them?” he mutters when Barty hands him the steaming cup. 

“You don't remember shit, do you?” 

Barty drops the percolator back on the stove and leans back against it, draining his own steaming coffee in large mouthfuls, as though the idea of burning his tongue doesn’t even occur to him. Harry picks at a scab on his forearm. 

“I remember enough,” he admits. He remembers what led to that night. He remembers the vision, the pain, the blood. He remembers the Weasleys’ blanched faces, his own parents, rushing out of the floo, and his Papa’s eyes, knowingly, staring into Harry’s soul. Harry contains a shudder of disgust, “I …he's…Papa is okay, right?” 

Guilt churns in his guts. God, he hurt him, he knows. He remembers the blood dripping down Papa's cheekbone. His fists slamming against the shields, screaming at Dad to let Harry out. 

“He’s worried about you,” Barty says with little sarcasm, “They were here last night. But had to leave. Damage control and all.” 

Harry looks around the kitchen, glares down at his coffee and then curses under his breath, “We're in fucking Norway, aren't we?” 

It’s a choice he himself would have made easily. Harry was compromised, a danger to himself but mostly to others. His parents needed him safe but also strategically out of the way as they handled the fallout. They were meant to come here once for the Winter Holidays, though Harry doubts the shack was in this state last year. He thought he was exiled before, cast away in Hogwarts and forgotten. This is a new brand of banishment though and Harry cannot even blame them. 

He shrinks into the chair, tightening his hold around the coffee. 

“Language. And you wanted out of Hogwarts,” Barty drains his mug dry, he raises it in a mock toast,  “Congrats, kiddo.”

“What are you doing here?” 

Never mind that it’s his house. Barty teaches at Hogwarts, he can't just up and leave his job on a whim to come and babysit Harry. Not to mention that the man was still mad at him and they weren't on speaking terms. That feels like ages ago.

“It's Sunday,” the man shrugs again, he looks dead inside, “I come home on weekends. Unfortunately.” 

He can imagine, being alone in this house sounds like a prison sentence.

Harry tips the mug, takes a tiny sip, and chokes immediately, “This has alcohol in it!” he exclaims, shoving the mug on the table. 

He twists his tongue in his mouth in repulsion, and regards the percolator with wariness. There’s no physical way Barty brewed the beverage with the alcohol, that's practically impossible, so he must have added it after. Merlin.

Barty looks down at his own mug and shrugs, “Vanilla vodka. And?” 

Harry opens his mouth but thinks better of it. He leans back against the fragile chair, his eyes trailing down to his scars again, “Sunday …how long have I been asleep?” 

“Four days. You didn’t sleep the whole time,” Barty reaches for Harry’s unfinished mug on the table, swiping it for a swig, “You were super loopy and out of it though.”

Panic seizes his lungs, Harry sits up, “Ron's dad—”

“Missed the funeral,” Barty cuts in, “It was a whole affair. I somehow doubt they wanted you there, but your dads sent a really nice bereavement bouquet.” 

“I was—”

“Possessed very briefly, yes,” Barty says in that annoying way of his, “Nearly fried your brains out, that.”

That's true. Harry can still feel the searing pain. Pulsating in his scar with his heartbeat all over the place. He can remember a fullness in his brain, everything was a blur and the dream …Harry's eyes narrow down at his hands. 

If watching Arthur Weasley die was not a dream, did that just mean that his other dreams were not really dreams either? 

Draco. 

He swallows thickly. He thinks about the recurring nightmare. About Draco's terrified eyes, his frail and emaciated figure, his bony hands trying to cover his face and eyes from the attacker. His shaking voice and high-pitched begging. The chain around his ankle that had eaten through the flesh. 

Is that real? Harry wants to puke. Because if that's real…then the attacker in the dream is Voldemort. And he's actually hurting and tormenting Draco and has been for months, perhaps even longer. Harry suddenly remembers how the boy had fashioned events in order to stay home for the winter holidays nearly two years ago. 

Is that why he wanted to stay? Is that why his father was so mad that Draco had damaged and devalued himself by being attacked? Harry wrings his hands, wishing more than ever that he had his Quidditch figurine relic with him. 

The look in his eyes, it haunts Harry. And like a kaleidoscope, the more Harry looks at it, the more it spins and spirals. That night when he caught the boy in the Great Hall, muttering to himself in the throes of an anxiety attack…when he saved him from the Basilisk, when they were on the train, every time the boy called him names but looked as though he was utterly unwilling. And that day…muffled in Harry's memories, of Draco patting him on the head, handing him Anthony , looking at him with those eyes. 

Resignation. Yearning. Frustration. 

Did he know? That he would be returning to a house of horrors and to Voldemort…

Just like Papa ?

“What's that look?” 

Harry startles, “My face?” 

Barty frowns, “No. That scheming frown…Reggie's got one. What the fuck are you thinking?”

Harry squirms in the chair, trying to regulate his breathing. The thought was sudden and stark and incredibly disturbing. Draco and his Papa, victims of the same monster…and Harry just watching it happen. 

“Just…a recurring dream.”

Barty looks like he can't be bothered, he dumps the half-full mug into the derelict kitchen sink and stretches his arms, “Uhhum. So, are you gonna be cool if I take a shower or should I tie you to the chair again?”

Harry worries his lips, regarding the man pensively. There's really only one way to verify whether his nightmare is an actual reality. The only man able to confirm it is standing right here. 

“You remember what it was like?” He asks before Barty can leave or fetch ropes, “Back when Riddle held Papa captive?” 

Barty’s shoulders immediately tense, the man throws him an affronted look, “What of it?” he bites out. 

“They were in the Malfoy Manor, weren't they?”

There's silence. An abundance of it, choking the two of them. Harry persists. 

“Sometimes,” Barty replies begrudgingly, “I managed to get him back home most nights. Why?”

Harry pushes the lump in his throat back down and closes his eyes, conjuring the familiar image unwillingly nestled in his head. 

“Polished floors,” he starts, “Dark grey curtains, almost black. Two vases by the foyer with charmed Alliums and Angel's Trumpets. The carpets are aged, and handwoven. There are two wings, three floors. The landing breaks off into one large sitting room and a study, and the west wing is separated by—”

“What the bloody hell?” 

“The first floor has a long corridor,” Harry taps his foot on the cold floorboards, “Last room on the left. There's a carving of a spiral dragon on the door. It's a bedroom, yes?”

“You've seen the place,” Barty breathes. 

“So have you.”

Barty blanches, “Yeah, no shit, kid. I served time there. Do you have any idea how many people I tortured there?”

Fuck . Harry thinks, nauseated. Fuck. It's real. The dream…it's real. And Draco is there on that bed, has been for ten months. 

Harry cannot leave him there. 

“That should make this easy then.”

 

…

 

He tells Barty everything. 

There was a time when he would have been willing to die than tell this man anything even remotely personal. In his eyes, Barty Crouch Jr. was an estranged lowlife who unsettled the balance of Harry's perfect life in a matter of hours. He was the embodiment of Harry's problems because everything started going wrong when this arsehole showed up at his house one day, wearing ridiculous clothes, and making Papa puke on Collin. 

But he's not that anymore. Or well, he is. But he's also Harry's Godfather in a sense. He is to Harry, what Sirius and Remus are but in a somewhat different sense. He might hate the man for what he's done to his Papa and his godfathers. He might even hate him because he's annoying and crass. And he will absolutely yell and scream at him and argue with him because Barty is full of shit sometimes. But when things start going awry, and his parents aren't there, Harry's first instinct is always to find Barty first. 

Because unlike Remus, Sirius, or his parents, Barty won't mollycoddle Harry. And he's the most likely person who'd agree to Harry's half-baked rescue plans. 

“No,” Barty says immediately once Harry closes his mouth. 

“They're going to kill him.” 

“Absolutely not,” Barty doubles down, scrubbing a hand over his face in disbelief, “Your parents sent you here away from the war. Now you want to get yourself kidnapped again?” 

Harry smothers the guilt before it has time to take hold. He knows where the man is coming from. He knows it's crazy to break into Malfoy Manor and kidnap their captive son. He understands that the Malfoy residence is where Voldemort is as well. He knows that the risk is not just huge, it's monumental. He's walking into the lion's den, again. 

“It's an ambush,” he argues, “You know the floor plan. You know the wards. I know the way. We'll get in, rescue him, get out.” 

He knows that as sympathetic as his parents may be, they won't ever prioritise saving Draco. They won’t ever exchange it for Harry's safety. He knows that telling them will do no good because there are bigger things to worry about. He knows they won't believe him anyway after his mind was compromised. It could be a trap, they'll say. Rightfully so. 

He also knows that they can't afford to wait. Draco might die. 

Barty huffs in disbelief, “Do you have a brain?” He exclaims, “You're not talking about a scavenger hunt. You're talking about infiltrating the lair which houses the man who wants to kill you, with his most loyal followers, and Rapunzel tied to his bedpost. Not to mention sixty-five loose death eaters!” Barty closes his eyes, “No. Nope . I am telling your parents.”

“If it'd been my Papa—”

“Don't bring your Father into this! You have no idea what you're saying,” Barty seethes violently and Harry flinches back in the chair, “He's different. He was always different. It's not the same thing .”

That may be so. Harry admits. He only knows about Papa from hesitant secondhand accounts. He only knows bits and pieces of censored horrors. It may in no way equate to what Draco is going through. But that's not the point. Suffering is suffering. 

“I watch him suffer every night,” he mutters, “He's terrified. He barely has any life left. His hair is falling out. Please …I can't just sit here knowing it's not a dream. It's happening to him.” 

Barty paces the small kitchen, erratically turning back and forth in the small space and shaking his head, “You're crazy,” he tells Harry, “Your dads will kill me for even indulging you in this rhetoric.” 

“I have to at least try or Voldemort—”

“No,” Barty rounds up on him, “You were possessed by that guy! Do you even get the gravity of that? He could've turned your mind into noodle soup. He can just dip in and out any time—”

“I’m not asking you to help me,” Harry snaps a bit carelessly, “You are free to help me. I am telling you that I want to do it.” 

His mind is made up. He really wasn't expecting Barty to bail on him like this. He knows it's dangerous. He understands the risks. He knows that if things go wrong the entire war effort is fucked. He knows his parents will be endangered again. He knows Riddle won't hesitate to kill him again. 

But would that really be a bad thing? A tiny voice mutters in his head. If he dies killing Riddle, all problems will be solved. That'll save Draco, his parents, everyone involved. 

Harry knows he's defeated the monster once, and though his body is paralysed just remembering his last encounter with the man, he knows he might have a shot if he has the element of surprise.

There was this story Papa used to tell him. Maybe once or twice this story was told as Harry always demanded new ones. It was from a poem book that belonged to Moony. Papa used to tell him that there was a little muggle shepherd with rocks and a sling, and his opponent was a weathered warrior easily ten times his size. In the poem, Papa said, the little shepherd does everything in his power and still dies. 

“But that's just a retelling of the actual story,” Papa had told him when Harry was bemused by the ending, “In the original, the shepherd felled the warrior. Even though he was weaker. Why do you think that is?”

“Because he was right?” 

“Being right doesn't always mean you'll win. I think that's why he loses in this retelling. In the original…Maybe it's the element of surprise that helps him. Just getting lucky.” 

Papa was never a fan of the original. He thought it was too idealistic. He much liked Robert Graves’ rendition of the story where the young shepherd failed because of course he would, he was weaker. But Papa had defeated Riddle so many times, being in that position. 

All he had on his side was the element of surprise. 

But was that truly the case?

“Your parents will throw a fit.” 

“You won't tell them,” Harry says to the man. His tone stops the man on the spot. Barty scoffs. 

“Like hell, I won't—”

“Why can't Papa conjure a Patronus?”

“What?” Barty snaps, confusedly, “ I've already told you.” 

Harry looks around the breezy kitchen and back at Barty again. When they argued at Hogwarts, all those weeks ago, Barty had basically told him that Harry was doomed to be imprisoned at Hogwarts. As Harry looks around the place, it's evident to him that Barty only said that because he knows how it feels. 

This is a place for self-exile. And people only do that shit when they're still guilty over something. Barty turned Sirius and Remus down because he still sees himself here. And it is all connected somehow, Harry bets. It's been bugging him a lot…why Papa can’t conjure a Patronus. 

Or more accurately, why the explanation Barty gave him never sat right with Harry. He knows he's onto something because Barty's face closes off. 

“You said why you can't conjure a corporeal Patronus,” he looks the man in the eyes, “There's something to it. You can conjure a light. He can't.” 

“Dark magic buildup—”

“Try again.”

“You don't want to know,” the man snaps at him, “Just forget it. Forget the whole thing. You're not emotionally manipulating me into helping you save the Malfoy kid—” 

“It's something Riddle did,” Harry says. 

He wonders, in the myriad of all the snippets he's heard, which one it could be. Was it one particular act that disabled Papa, was it just a collection of all things? Would it be the same for Draco? 

“Kid— everything wrong with your Pops is what Riddle did,” Barty deflates, there's a subtle anger in his tone that just simmers beneath the surface, “You think the man you know is the same as the one I did?”

Doesn't Barty get it then?

“Then you know…what he's doing to Draco.”

Barty's face twists in a leer, “Even if we succeed…” he says, “Even if we don't die—Even if we have the boy without fucking ourselves over …it's gonna make him mad. Don't play with the lion's tail. He could've killed you that night.”

“Why didn't he then?”

“Because you are emotional leverage. Riddle doesn't want you. He wants to hold you over your Papa's head. As long as you're alive your Papa's hands are tied,” he huffs a humourless laugh, “I bet he doesn't even care about the mind connection he has with you. He would've pillaged your thoughts long ago otherwise.” 

“Barty, please.” 

“He's already won in his head. You don't know that man …” Barty tries to hide a shudder. Harry doesn't try to mask his, “Your parents sent you here to spare you the image. It's going to be mad out there. Last time it was—brothers killing brothers, werewolves loose on the streets, people just killing each other on a whim, blood running rivulets on the ground—” 

“Draco has the answers,” Harry cuts in, “He can help us.” 

And he knows it's selfish of him to want to save Draco just because it's Draco. He knows that endangering so many people for one person who may not even have a tactical use is absolute insanity. But Harry cannot resolve the image of a younger Regulus and Draco together in his mind. Papa is alive today because, against all odds, he saved Harry and Dad. He had someone in this world who rooted for him.

Harry knows Draco can help them. He knows this goes beyond a selfish and unexplained whim. Draco showed up with two envelopes for Papa. Harry knows they are important. Who knows what sort of information the boy can give them? 

“Never trust a fucking Malfoy,” Barty tells him, “It's risky.” 

“Barty—”

“You're too innocent,” Barty grouses, “That's the problem. You haven't seen what happens. Your parents love you too much to tell you, boy.” 

Harry doesn't correct the man. He doesn't tell him that he, in fact, has seen exactly what Riddle is capable of. He went through it. He was tortured and almost killed by the monster. And that only adds to the urgency. 

Barty drops against the table, making the legs scrape and groan against the floor. He casts his gaze away from Harry, and Harry almost feels as though the man has travelled back in time. Something in his posture is different.

When he starts speaking, Harry doesn't dare interrupt him once. 

“There was this night—Evan and I managed to get Reggie alone in a broom closet the elves used. Just to feed him some grapes we'd taken from the kitchens. He was exhausted. He never slept around the guy. Hadn't eaten for days. He said it wasn't allowed. We forced it on him anyway. It's just grapes, Evan insisted. We kept watch while Reggie ate. There was a meeting. Half an hour later. And near the end …Riddle summoned Reg. It was like a ritual. No…like a circus show.” 

Harry purses his lips, looking down at his lap, so tempted to ask Barty to stop. But he asked, didn't he? He won't ever hear this story from anybody else. 

“Most nights it was the usual stuff. Crucio, stinging jinxes, and the like. Riddle would jeer, would keep going until Regulus gave in and cried. That night…he summoned Reggie. Your father knelt, waiting for his punishment . For the show to start. Riddle asked him whether he'd eaten anything. Your father didn't lie.” 

“What are you talking about?” Harry breathes and Barty ignores him.

“Evan and I were too scared to admit that it was our fault. Riddle said he could smell the sweetness on your father's breath. And then he said that all sweet things are spoiled by pests.” Barty closes his eyes, “Your dad was terrified, just watching Riddle, speechless. Riddle pulled a fucking cursed roundworm out of thin air. It was so large, the size of my hand. Silver and writhing.” 

Harry's limbs go numb, his jaw unlocks in horror as Barty goes on, his voice a forced monotone: 

“He called your Papa over. Tilted and held his chin with one hand. And I can remember…your Papa got it before we did. He started sobbing in sheer terror and begging Riddle not to do it …He fed that large worm in his ear. Cackled when Reggie started clawing at himself in horror. He threw up the grapes, he wailed, begged, tore at his clothes…” 

“Barty—”

“They left him there,” Barty looks at him, his own eyes glazed, his jaw set, “Writhing and screaming himself hoarse with a fucking roundworm crawling under his skin, all over his body for hours. I was there the entire time. He was so hysterical that his cries echoed off every single surface in that Manor. And you know what?”

He pushes himself away from the table, walking up to Harry with narrowed eyes, “You know what was so funny?” 

Harry drops his head, feeling sick to his stomach. He cannot even conjure the images in his head. A sudden lurching pulls at his guts and Harry hastily wipes at his eyes. He wants to throw up. 

“Look at me,” Barty orders him, “I want you to know.”

Harry obeys.

“The funniest part is that Reggie can't remember it,” Barty spits the words out, “Almost as if that nightmare never happened. As if…He can't remember how I had to cut him open to remove the cursed insect. He doesn't remember clawing at his ears and eyes trying to gauge them out. He eats grapes all the fucking time. He grows ivy in his own fucking house, he clears away pests from his own vegetable patch and doesn't blink an eye…and he doesn't remember. I remember that,” Barty drives his finger into his chest with great emphasis, “ I bathed him. I put him to bed, I had to stay by his side for days . That's just one instance of this insanity. He can't conjure a Patronus not because of the buildup of the dark magic he used but the buildup of dark magic he was subjected to. War isn't some bloody game. You don't know what you're dealing with.”

“Barty—”

“If Riddle gets you again, your Papa will do anything to get you back.” 

Harry's blood runs cold and the image of Dad pointing his wand at Papa, and Papa digging his own wand into his throat is brought to the front of his mind. 

If Harry is captured again, it's because Voldemort wants Papa to come. And Papa will, because it's Harry. 

Harry tries to take a deep breath and fails. The picture Barty painted for him is too stark and graphic. Against his better judgement, his better wishes, Harry can imagine bits and pieces. Every time he thinks he understands suffering, the rug is pulled from underneath his feet. 

He cannot imagine something like that happening to him and him just living on. He cannot imagine how Papa is not mortified and breaking down all the time. But of course, he's not. He cannot even remember. 

“I—” he tries to choke the words out. Sympathy? Horror? Pure unadulterated emotion?

That's the man who raised him. 

Barty rubs at his forehead with irritation, “Can you imagine for a moment…the type of horror I just described to you? Happening to him again? Possibly even triggering the old memories?”

“No! No, I don't want—”

“If you do this, you'll change everything and not for the better. The last time you tried helping the kid…Riddle was resurrected. I get that it's tragic, I get that you have a little crush—”

Harry twists his mouth, “He's going to die .” 

He cannot reconcile with the concept. With the story Barty just told him…maybe even because of it. Because it's made Harry realise one thing: the visions he's had are only a glimpse into the real horror. The entire image could be far more nefarious. More damning. 

“I'm sorry, Harry,” the man actually sounds slightly apologetic, “But I love Regulus too much to let you do this. I know you do too. This war is already taking its toll. There'll be casualties and people will die. You just have to get used to that.” 

Harry fists both hands, feeling his nails cut into his palms, maybe even enough to draw blood. 

He's never felt more helpless and desperate and alone in his life. He tells Barty: 

“Then just forget I mentioned it.” 

 

…

 

“You feel it,” Regulus settles a hand over Padfoot’s head, stilling the dog, holding him flush against his legs, “Can you smell anything?”

Sirius whines, and Reggie tightens his hold on his wand, darting his eyes around in the dark. Forest of Dean in autumn is a nude deadland; covered in the barest layers of snow and colourless leaves that camouflage the protruding roots of ancient trees, the place is too reminiscent of death and decay. 

Sirius licks his palm and Regulus makes a face, wiping the saliva off on his combat trousers, “Gross,” he complains.

Sirius does it again, inquisitively, whining and wagging his tail at Regulus. Reggie sighs, and though he knows he doesn't look like it , he tries sounding like he's fine.

“I'm okay,” he says, wiping his damp palm again, “I’m just trying to focus. I feel a presence too.”

It's everywhere. Maybe it's the forest, or James' absence at this particular time. But Reggie feels like they are being watched. It could be the wind howling and rustling the dead leaves, the moon obscured by dark, wispy clouds, or maybe that they truly are surrounded. 

They're here to hunt tonight.

This used to be a popular meeting point back in the day. Most of the torture houses have been secured, have been gone and boarded up for years now. In their glaring absence, the scattered death eaters would need a place to regroup. 

This and the Little Hangleton Manor are two potential places Regulus knew of. So this is what they do now, scouting the locations with bated breath, hoping to catch something, anything . All their efforts since last week to recapture the escaped convicts had been futile. It's as though every single one of them had melted and disappeared through the cracks. No killings. No kidnappings. No sightings. And no Dementors. 

There are sixty-five of them. 

The Order barely has twenty members, plus Regulus. 

Once upon a time, the overwhelming numbers would have rattled him, he who knew exactly how close Voldemort was to winning the first time, who knew that it was only his arrogance and oversight that caused his death. Once upon a time, Regulus would have been floundering, spiralling down a tunnel of doom and despair. 

Until last week. 

If Riddle possessing Harry proved anything last week, it was only that the man has not changed at all. 

He plays with his food. And that's what'll get him. 

If Regulus plays his cards right, no one else has to be hurt. His son and husband, his brother and family will all be fine. They can win a war with this underwhelming fighting force because the godly rage coursing through Reggie's blood is enough of an armoury. 

This bloody arsehole played Regulus all those years ago, dared him to go find a piece of his soul, and set off the events that led to his downfall. He could've killed Regulus after he was done with him that night. He could've killed Reggie himself instead of issuing an order. But of course, he never did. 

He likes playing with his food. 

He could have quite possibly killed Harry last week. It would've taken a lot of effort, but he could've. He could have torn into his mind with enough force to leave the boy's mind in irreparable tatters. But of course, he didn't do that. 

Regulus can see the beginning of the end even now. He knows the cards Riddle will play. The lengths he will go to, just to prove a point. This is a dangerous game and a personal one. Riddle has proved again and again, that his original goals are secondary to revenge. So long as Regulus and Harry are alive, Tom won't lay low or pave a different path. 

Sirius pushes his nose against Reggie's knee and then whines, “Stop being a baby, Sirius.” Regulus rolls his eyes, rolling his shoulders. 

“You should be home,” his brother growls the moment he shifts back. They start walking east, the leaves crinkling under their boots. 

“Says who?” 

“Your brother?” Sirius scoffs, pointing his own wand at the bare bushes and leading the path. 

Regulus makes a face at his brother's back, knowing that James' paranoia is what has bled into Sirius' mind. They argued earlier today, him and James. 

Regulus made the mistake of telling his husband that in his oath to Albus, he swore never to be actively involved in a fight. James freaked out, for obvious reasons. And then promptly said, “I won't allow you to join the scouting tonight. It's too dangerous.”

Regulus rolls his eyes, infuriated as he recounts the argument. As if Regulus needs his permission to do what he wants. He's the one who has James eating off his palm, not the other way around. He's not gonna sit in his house like some damsel when his son's life is on the line. He's been idle enough, passive enough. 

They sat by their unconscious son's bedside for days. Regulus has had enough. He's taking matters into his own hands. Oath or no oath. James can sulk all he likes. If he wants to choose between accompanying Reggie on missions like this, or being banished to another scouting group, now that's his decision. It'll serve him right. 

Regulus hates making the man worry, and looking down at his wedding band now, he feels slightly guilty that he forbade his husband from following them. But…it's ridiculous. 

And now the same shit…coming from Sirius. Reg is fed up with it. 

“ I'm the one who gave you guys the intel, are you kidding? We're getting these arseholes.”

“Regulus—” Sirius turns to stare at him. 

Regulus calmly returns the gaze with a glare of his own. 

“Sirius.” 

“Brother,” Sirius presses and then looks away with a groan, “Come on, you know what I'm gonna tell you.” 

Oh, Regulus knows alright. Harry's Brief Possession had precisely three outcomes: 

In confirming Albus' theory that the curse scar was a link of sorts between the two, they also figured that a full-body possession took a lot of energy out of Voldemort and would not be recurring too often. 

Secondly, they figured that Voldemort was threatened by James and Regulus' attempts to find the latest Horcrux after losing his dear snake, but not enough to actually target Reggie and James as of yet. 

And thirdly, they figured that the reason why Riddle was not sending killers after them, or attempting to kill them himself was rather clear. Riddle was still playing them. Riddle had a winning card. And he already told them what he wanted, or rather what he was going to take by force. 

Regulus. 

To say that this list of conclusions sent James into an overprotective rage, would be an absolute understatement. 

“It's like dangling a damn sweet in front of their noses,” Sirius is saying now, “No one is calling you weak. But tactically speaking, we can't just parade the main target out in the open—” 

“Tactically, Pads, shut up. I don't care what ridiculous reasoning James gave you all,” Regulus snaps, crushing the leaves with a little too much force, “My family is on the line. You guys are on the line—”

“They might have a target in mind is all I'm saying.” 

Reggie scoffs, “I can pull my own weight.” 

Sirius, in a rather sibling-like manner, makes a face at him, “I'm not scared of you being a liability.”

“Good,” Regulus pushes past him, “I'm not one.” 

“You felled a Basilisk. Duelled Riddle and survived. I just…”

Regulus stops. Looking at the way Sirius shrinks into himself a little. He deflates. He gets it. He understands. He knows that his husband and brother are worried about an array of things. Worried because they've never seen Reggie in war. Worried because they never saw what Reggie endured in a war. Worried that despite their best attempts, Voldemort is going to kill or take him again. Worried that no amount of fighting will be enough. 

And the thing with Sirius and Remus in particular is that their ex whom they have little control over is also a big target. Also on a shit list. And objectively speaking, if the escaped death eaters get their hands on Barty, they'll have no restraint as they would with Reggie. They will ravish him and tear him apart limb by limb. 

He reaches out, squeezing his brother's arm, “You just want me to be away from all this,” he pointedly does not mention Barty, “That's okay, Sirius. I don't think either of us particularly likes being here.” 

“We can do it right this time,” Sirius whispers furiously, “We can make sure they won't find you. I'll be the secret keeper myself.” 

“He entered Harry's mind twice in the same night. There's nowhere to run to, Sirius. And I'm not going to. He should be afraid of me.  I'm killing that fucker myself. Because he's mine to kill.”

He touched Harry. He harmed him and it's not even the first time and Regular vowed to himself that he will be the one who strangles the life out of Riddle for that. Not for all the shit he has done to him, only because he's harmed his child. Even if it kills him. Regulus will do it. 

Sirius looks away, “You scare me sometimes.” 

“We'll be fine, brother,” Regulus curls his cold hand into a fist, “I'll make sure of it.” 

The wind rustles the forest around them, almost as though making it shudder with the chill as well. Regulus feels that nagging sensation in his chest again, he looks past Sirius into the vast, twisted abyss of the forest. He has the feeling that it's looking right back at him. 

“Don't fucking die, okay?” Sirius tells him, “Never mind James or Harry…I won't be able to take it.” 

“I’m not the one you should worry about,” he mutters to his brother, peering into the abyss, “You just worry about yourself. Noodle and Remus will be devastated if—”

“Don’t say his name.” 

Regulus looks away from the deep glare of the forest to click his tongue at the bitter man, “Don't be a child. We've been over this. He's just confused. He needs time—”

“It's been four months,” Sirius spits, “We haven't seen him in four months. Remus…the Wolf can't tell why Noodle is missing during full moons. It's been tough.”

Regulus smothers a wince. He can't exactly tell his brother that the week he and James spent in Bergen with Harry has been hell. They technically only saw Barty for half a night before they had to come back to England, but even a mere second was enough to see the man was running himself into the ground. 

Had Regulus not been so worried about Harry’s well-being, he would've had more resolve to corner Barty and talk to him about this. The man has been so meticulous about ignoring Reggie and not being alone with him. Regulus is a bad friend for not trying harder, but in the same breath, there's nothing new he can give Barty that he already hasn't told him. 

He understands both sides. He knows that had he been in the man's shoes, and had he had a chance to spare James the pain of losing him again, he would've taken it. But he's too weak to completely reject James. James would never let him go anyhow. He can see the other side too, the worry lines on the men's faces, Sirius and Remus look as though they've withered. Reggie sees their desperation and confusion, their need to know why this is happening, their inability to cope with Barty's absence. 

He looks down at his boots, at the damp earth that is miraculously not blanketed by leaves. He's regretting sending James away. He cannot ever part with the man for more than a few hours. Even when he's mad at him. He misses the man's warmth, his reassurance. Even his anger. 

Regulus should apologise, once they reunite after the scouting mission. He should have addressed his husband's concerns differently. He sighs. 

He and Sirius both feel the air shift at the same time. Regulus snaps his wand up to draw up a shield exactly a second before a sharp silver curse zooms past them, hitting the tree trunk by Sirius’ side, blasting it off. 

Sirius draws his wand as well, his old Auror training kicking in, the man flings off one combative curse after another past the shield, into the murky darkness of the Dean Forest.

They see a shadow, a bundle of pitch-black robes, zooming away, breaking into a run. Sirius shifts into Padfoot and Reggie breaks into a run with him. They give the shadow chase, even though Regulus feels that something is wrong. 

They clearly missed their attacker, why would he alert them by striking and then running? 

Regulus darts over the protruding roots and the gnarly forest floor, leaping over fallen trunks, cursing branches and trees down to slow their assailant. He's fast, whoever he is, leading them deeper and deeper into the thick Tanglewood. 

“Stupefy!!” Regulus shouts, trying to keep his wand steady but it's so bloody difficult to run and aim at the same time. Sirius is faster than Regulus but still lagging behind the runner. 

“Petrificus Totalus! Goddammit!” Regulus ducks sharp branches and ignores his lungs tightening from the run. 

They chase the guy, deeper and deeper into the forest until the canopy above them completely hides the sky. In the near pitch dark, Regulus hears his own harsh breathing, Sirius' panting, and the runner. He stops, points his wand at the assailant’s back and takes a deep breath: 

“Stupefy!”

The figure crumbles on the forest floor, Sirius pounces on him immediately, closing his sharp teeth around the paralysed man's wrist and yanking his wand away. Regulus hurries over, wheezing for air and lighting his wand to check their surroundings. 

Sirius shifts back into a human, roughly turning the guy over and yanking him up. He pulls the black cloak’s hood off the man's face, revealing a scruffy beard, bloodshot eyes, and filthy hair that hangs around the man's face in a lanky pelt. 

“Mulciber,” Regulus breathes and then surprises himself. He wasn't expecting to remember the man's face so vividly in his mind. He can even dare say before this very moment, if he'd been asked to imagine Mulciber’s face in his head, he would've been unable to. 

The man's eyes rake over Regulus, widening as they catch his face under the wand light. Sirius binds the death eater in charmed ropes, making him kneel on the forest floor. 

“Call on the other team,” Regulus tells him immediately, fidgeting as he stares back at Mulciber's unflinching and amused gaze.

Sirius curses under his breath. Reggie turns to him, “What is it? Call them.” 

“I kinda…” Sirius curses again, “I kind of can't conjure a Patronus, currently.” 

“What!?”

Sirius throws his shoulders up, “it's been tough, okay!?”

Regulus gapes at him, kicking Mulciber down with the tip of his boot in frustration, “You're just telling me that!? Sirius, you should have said that before we left for the mission together!—” 

“Why don't you try!?”

“Because I can't, you imbecile! You've known that for years! So we're in the middle of nowhere with a death eater and no way to contact others—”

“It's fine!” Sirius snaps back with a flush, dragging Mulciber up again, “He's bound and paralysed anyway. We'll just haul him back to the meeting point.” 

Regulus pinches the bridge of his nose, looking around again. He has no idea where they are or where they even came from to get here. It'll be such a mess, finding their way back. Regulus should've let James join him. This wouldn't have happened otherwise. 

There's something unsettling in the way Mulciber is looking at him. Regulus holds the man's gaze again. 

“Lift the stunning spell.” 

Sirius frowns, “What?”

Regulus will never get a chance like this to talk to this git. It has to be now, “Do it. Keep your wand on him at all times.” 

It takes Sirius a moment to comply but thankfully his brother doesn't question him any further. He grabs hold of Mulciber, points a wand at his temple and Mulciber sags down. No thrashing, no complaints. He just jeers up at Regulus with a wolfish grin, showcasing his yellowed rotten teeth. 

“So it is true,” Mulciber wheezes, “You're still kicking!”

“Shut your damn mouth!” Sirius shoves the Death Eater down and Mulciber only laughs, a haughty empty thing. 

“It's you,” he cackles, “It really is you!” 

“You berk!” Sirius seizes the man by his long lanky hair, exposing his throat, “Years of Azkaban rotted your brain, have they? You're done for. Spewing nonsense won't get you anywhere—”

“Oh, this is funny now!” Mulciber throws his head back with a bark, “I didn't believe them—when they told me it's gonna be you!”

Regulus regards him coldly, ignoring the pit growing in his stomach.  

“What are you talking about?” he asks, his voice level, and seemingly unaffected. There's a certain glint in Mulciber’s dark black eyes, maybe accentuated by the light shining from Reggie's wand. 

“Hahaha!” The madman cackles, baring his nasty teeth at Regulus, red in the face by the force of his hacking laughter. 

“He's mad,” Sirius sneers with disgust, “No wonder, after so many years in Azkaban—” 

No , Regulus thinks. Mulciber is not mad at all. He takes an instinctive step back, feeling like an insect under inspection, a looking glass under the man's piercing gaze. 

“Rodolphus was right!” The man exclaims, falling back against Sirius' legs, “He's gonna—He’s gonna—”

He doesn't get to finish the sentence. Regulus feels and hears a loud whistle by his right ear, and before he can flinch or move or use his wand, the small stone that dashed by his ear has already reached its target, creating a small clean hole in the middle of Mulciber's forehead, a thin trail of blood runs down the man's frozen face. 

Regulus whips back and Sirius cries out his name, abandoning the dead body, “Reggie!”

Regulus stares into the darkness, his breath catching and his heart booming in his ears. 

They're not alone. 

Mulciber dies with a grin on his face. Having served his purpose. 

 

 

Notes:

- The plot thickens?? he hee
- If you are by chance kidnapped and bound, tense up your hands and tilt your wrists as the binding is happening, this way when you relax your muscles the ties will loosen. Also try to fight it as much as possible to make sure the bindings are hastily done. I read a disturbing amount about this when writing it and didn't get to use any :((
- Barty tied Harry up not because he was scared of him, mind you. He just didn't want the kid wandering around lmaooo. He just wanted to slow him down.
- A percolator is basically a type of coffeepot used a bunch in the UK during the 80s and 90s. You just brew the coffee over the stove, using this. I have a tiny version of this that I adore.
- vanilla vodka was also a thing in the 80s, and it goes well with the coffee Barty spiked, how mindful of him
-Angels' trumpets symbolize divinity and celestial intervention and Alliums signify fortune and patience, I just couldn't help myself here lmao
-The reason why Reggie cannot conjure a patronus!! This was set up allll the way back in HFA, check chapter 23 (The Tiptoe through the Tulips)
- roundworms are grape ivy pests. I wanted to use sth more gross like a centipede or sth but then the symbolism would've been lost.
- Robert Graves' rendition of "David and Goliath" is my favourite, because David prays to the lord and STILL loses and dies. So grim, so lovely.
- I think I did reference the gaps in Reggie's memories before a bunch too, I cannot remember specific chapters but the trial chapters in HFA should contain some stuff.
- James trying to tell Regulus not to do sth and Reggie immediately doing the thing is my favourite thing like you best believe that man would rather die than be ordered around.
- Sirius failing to conjure a patronus is absolutely tantamount to erectile dysfunction, you're welcome for that imagery.
- Can you guys guess what's going on? I think I've left enough crumbs for a good few guesses, go for it.
- btw just to reassure you all because I'm too busy to reply to the specific comment rn, if you see a typo that really bugs the hell out of you, TELL ME in the comments, I will fix it. There's no need to apologize, typos are bound to happen in 8k chapters no matter how many times I edit. Thank you for pointing them out, I fixed the "cannot"/"can't" thing~
- Happy reading!!

Chapter 7: 7.—Because I knew you couldn’t come—

Summary:

There is a dragon to slay.

Notes:

I'm sorry if this chapter has some typos, I've read it so many times that I've lost all sense of grammar and spelling. Tell me if there's anything that needs fixing.

 

Warnings for: explicit language, explicit depiction of violence and injury, self-harm is heavily implied, disturbing themes, past SA is implied, vomiting?

Who's ready for some BAMF regulus?!

7.—Because I knew you couldn’t come—

1984

His hand shook, cutting up the orange into little slices. He thought Harry wouldn't notice, but of course, he could, even with a height disadvantage. They were each other’s best friends, Harry was always watching. 

The urgency present in that menial act was more intense than the removal of a dead body. Harry's hold on Paddie was tight and unforgiving. He was lingering by the kitchen’s entrance, he could feel the distress rolling off Papa in waves. Even then, he knew he didn’t like it. He knew the man was forcing himself through the act of preparing food by the gnashing of his teeth alone. 

“Just a moment, Harry,” Papa told the child over his shoulder, briefly. Harry saw the way his small smile wobbled, how the knife nearly fell from his hand. He scooped up the orange slices clumsily, threw them into a bowl, put the bowl on a tray. He reached for the pantry, took out bread and three jars of homemade jam. The little jars clanked precariously against each other, disturbing the tense silence. 

Papa looked like he was running out of time. Harry bit into his lip, silently shuffling closer to the man. 

“Can you help Papa choose the jam, hm?” Papa leaned down, hoisting Harry on his hip, “Which do you like, my love?”

None , Harry wanted to say. There was this uneasiness in his chest that he did not yet know how to verbalise. He gripped his toy more tightly against his chest, and he could feel Papa’s heartbeat, fast and unsteady, booming right next to his head.

“I want—Um—I want—’picot.”

“Apricot?” Papa repeated, stifling the little hint of hysteria in his tone. 

“Hmm.” Harry looked around their kitchen, at the orange sun softly filtering in through the curtains, the pots of plants here and there, thriving by all means. Everything was in its place, everything looked okay. Because of his young age…he really couldn’t tell. Perhaps, it was a danger he could not see. But Papa knew best. 

He hung onto the man as he made him his sandwich and cut it into little pieces, even though doing so whilst holding Harry was slowing him down. Harry didn’t care. 

“Okay, little love. Let’s get you a bottle.” 

“Kay.” 

“Can you tell Papa what the time is?”

They paused in front of the clock on the kitchen wall. They had several; there was one upstairs, one in the kitchen, and one in the study. Papa and Daddy’s room had one as well. Harry’d been learning to read the clock for a few months now, something that his parents seemed extremely proud of.

“Um…one—two—and half. Two and half?”

“Half past two, there you go,” Papa said, he sounded winded; a tray of snacks in one hand, and Harry nestled over his other arm, “So Daddy will be home at four. How many hours is that?” 

Harry squirmed, shrugging a little bit and mumbling into Paddie’s soft fur, “Two?”

“Close enough,” Papa muttered and they were moving out of the kitchen with alarming speed, almost hurtling towards the stairs, “So we have enough food and snacks for almost two hours, yes?” Papa hurried to say, mostly to himself, quickly climbing the stairs, “And if Daddy doesn’t come back at four, do you know where to look when you’re hungry?”

Harry didn’t like this question because even then he knew that it implied that Papa wouldn’t be there at four. Harry could fend for himself; they had ‘secret’ food and water in every room, he knew Padfoot and Moony were in their fireplace, he knew that Daddy always came home in the afternoon while he and Papa were watering the ‘babies’ in the orangery. 

“Bottom shelf’s mine in ‘the cooler.” 

They reached the landing, and Papa, breathless again, prompted Harry, “Yes, and?”

“In my room, chest under my bed…’snacks in it?” 

“And your water bottles, good boy.”

The tray was more or less thrown on Harry’s play table, but Harry himself was lowered with care. Papa quietly urged him to sit in his little chair and flew around the room; plucking colour books and toys and Harry’s magical crayon—it changed colour whenever Harry told it to—from all around and arranging everything on the table with haste. 

Harry hugged Paddie to his chest, feeling his heart tighten with an unnamed emotion.

“Where you going, Papa?” his lips wobbled and he ached so much to ask for cuddles or even a little hug. But Papa, unlike always, didn’t seem to see that Harry was in distress. 

“Papa is just being a bit silly,” Papa handed him the crayon and flipped the colour book open, “So I’ll be in the loo for a bit, hm? You’re going to sit here, and be a good boy, and colour a little, and if you need to use the loo, you can use the downstairs loo, okay?”

“Okay, Papa.” but it wasn’t okay and Harry didn’t know how to say that. He also didn’t want to cry because Papa always got so upset when he did. He bit into his lip and idly dragged the crayon over the paper to please the man. 

“You’re my good boy,” Papa kissed him on the head, starting to stand, “I love you, Harry. Okay?”

“Stay?” 

Papa paused. He was gripping, pressing, and scratching at his sleeve, his breath mildly laboured, and Harry didn’t know what was wrong. He wanted Daddy here because this was scary. Was Papa sick?

“I’ll be back, I promise,” Papa promised, his voice low and almost inaudible. He looked so guilty and alone and Harry was right here! Harry didn’t like this at all. 

“—So these are your snacks and toys and water—”

“Okay, Papa. ‘ove you?”

“It’s fine, Okay? It’s all fine.”

The room’s door closed after Papa left, leaving Harry his tray of snacks, his toys, and Paddie behind. Harry mumbled a muted ‘blue’ and started colouring in the sky. In his head, he imagined his Papa preparing to battle a troll or a dragon. Maybe that’s why he was scared, there was a dragon stuck in their loo! And Papa had to beat the dragon so Harry could have his bath tonight. 

That made sense, Harry reasoned with himself, his shoulders relaxing a bit as he started to pay more attention to the colour book. He didn’t like the drawing. He decided that he wanted to draw Papa, battling the dragon, so he scrammed off his chair to find the sketchbook Papa had forgotten to fetch for him. 

“Scary dragon!” He excitedly told Paddie, pulling the sketchbook off his shelf, Harry raced back to his play table and picked at his sandwich even though he really wasn’t that hungry. Papa would be proud that he was good, and that he sat quietly in his room and didn’t sneak off into the loo to see the dragon for himself. 

He tried to draw it instead, so engrossed was he in the act of drawing the battle , that he didn’t even hear or see Daddy come into his room.

“Harry? Son?”

“Daddy!” he scrambled out of his chair, running right into the man’s legs. Daddy bent down, sitting Harry up on his arm. He was still wearing his work robes, the red ones Harry really liked because they were cool. 

“Hi, honey. Where’s your Dad?”

“Gone,” Harry muttered, looking out into the quiet corridor over Daddy’s shoulder, “He went to the loo ‘cause—um…’cause there’s a dragon—”

“How long has Papa been gone, kiddo?”

He could hear an undercurrent of something in his father’s voice. Maybe anxiety, maybe poorly-veiled concern. Harry was lowered to the floor, “Hm? Do you know? Did he go because he had to pee? Or has he been gone for a long time?”

Well, it had to be four now if Daddy was home and it was two-half something before, and two and two, Papa had taught him, made four. So two. But there was a half too…Harry hummed. 

“Two and a half on the clock?”

Something flashed through Daddy’s eyes. 

“Okay, I see, Harry,” Daddy said very very slowly, shepherding Harry towards the play table. He made sure Harry was seated down on his chair again, and continued, “How about you finish that drawing you have there, and I’ll go fetch Papa from the loo?”

“Kay.”

The memory started to fade from there, lost to the passage of time. Harry still saw the open worry and stress taking over Daddy, the same way that it had entrapped Papa. He knew he had to be good, he had to stay in his room. He stayed in his chair with Paddie in his arms, whilst Daddy quickly fished out his wand and hurried out of his room, and Harry could hear him, running to the bathroom, calling out Papa’s grownup name— ‘Regulus!’— with alarm, banging on their bathroom door.  

Harry shrank into the chair, pressed his ear against Paddie’s head and looked down at his drawing, at Papa and his wand in the loo, and the scary red dragon that breathed fire out of his huge maw. 

“‘s fine, Paddie,” he stroked the plush toy’s soft head, “It’s fine, okay?” 

…

1995

 

He blinks hard because someone shines the light of a thousand suns right into his face. 

Through the incessant pounding in his head, his dark surroundings, and the menacing and towering figure of his best friend over his body, with the crude light of his wand shining into his eyes, it’s not difficult to put the events together in a haphazard manner. 

Sirius rolls with a groan, hit by an intense wave of dizziness; he frantically looks around the forest floor, noting Mulciber’s dead body and James behind him again, his eyes shining a frightening yellow in the dark. 

“Fuck,” Sirius breathes, clawing at the dead leaves, thrashing around for his wand, “Fuck! Fuck!” 

“Where is my husband?” James growls at him, and Sirius scrambles up to his knees, clutching at his head, trying to remember the flashing whirlwind of events,  “Where the bloody HELL is Regulus!?”

“Lost,” Sirius croaks, feeling a sharp stinging behind his eyes, he looks up at his friend’s ashen face, black with rage, “I lost him, they took him—they just…out of nowhere! We were ambushed—Mulciber—I told him he shouldn't have come and we were talking and Mulciber said some shit—”

“Did they apparate!? Was there a Portkey!? Did he just walk off or—”

“I don’t know! I don’t know. I was passed out—”

“ Sirius .” 

It’s been such a long time since he’s heard that tone. A beast long gone has been awakened from its deep slumber. 

Sirius pauses his rambling and looks up at James’ trembling figure. He hurries to his feet even though his knees wobble like cooked noodles, he shakes his head and says, almost begging, “He has his wand, it mustn’t have been long, we can still trace his magical—”

“I entrusted him to you,” James wrangles a hand around Sirius’ collar, yanking him forward, “I told you what they would do if they got their hands on him! He’s your brother! He’s not a one-man army—”

“I know!” Sirius hollers, breaking out of James’ hold with an enraged, animalistic cry, “I KNOW! Kill me later! We need to find him now!” 

Merlin, he feels the same old swooping in his guts. It’s as if nothing has changed. Sirius still lost him, Sirius still couldn’t protect him. Again. It's so wild that this happened again! 

It’s quite taxing to remember how it happened after Mulciber was killed. Only a rapid barrage of flashing lights, of Reggie and the hidden figure in the wood exchanging fire, and Sirius, being deliberately struck in the head and Regulus calling his name in alarm. And that was that.

Mulciber was a red herring, just an excuse to get them deeper and deeper into the thicket of woods. This was a planned attack. They must have regrouped before tonight, they must have known Reggie would come one way or another…

Sirius feels sick. James promptly turns and dashes away from him and Mulciber’s dead body, his long robes billowing with the harsh stride as he snaps orders in a roar to nondescript flashes of lit wands in the distance. Search parties.

Sirius rubs his aching jaw with a shaking hand, “Fuck, Reggie. Fuck .”

They can't lose him again.

Sirius cannot lose him again. 

 

…

 

Regulus should have known. 

In retrospect, he really should have known better. The second Mulciber provoked them and started running, perhaps even sooner than that. He always ends up regretting it when he doesn’t take his sixth sense seriously. Or maybe it’s just that he was so intent on proving James wrong, or just itching so much for a fight, that he disregarded the blaring red signs. 

Regulus was tired of being a sitting duck. He was tired of bureaucracy, he was already fatigued by the piling number of bodies, of seeing Molly Weasley’s empty gaze at a funeral that was not meant to take place at all. That bastard hurt his son. The people Reggie cared about. Regulus wasn’t going just to sit and take it.

The rock that kills Mulciber is not the only projectile in the air. Regulus throws up a shield instantaneously, his blood pumping in his ears; the rock is followed by a dark red flash that ricochets off his shield. And then a bombardment of curses and projectiles follow. 

Regulus gasps, dropping down and rolling as his shield shatters. Sirius conjures another shield that is promptly broken and Regulus raises his wand to retaliate, flush with the forest floor and Mulciber’s body, he frantically whips his head in the dark. 

The attack is coming from all sides, an entire circle surrounding them. But there is only one attacker and no voices that cry out the curses. How in the bloody hell is the guy doing this!? Regulus has never seen something like this before. 

“Sirius!” He calls out, scrambling to deflect some of the flashes with a sharp twist of his wrist. His brother is whirling wildly, his old Auror training kicking in as he tries to out-match the all-encompassing assault. It's a futile fight.

“Stay down! Who the hell is this fucker!?”

Regulus pushes himself to his feet with one strong push. They can't just stay here, indefinitely defending. They need to break out of the trap. He clenches his fingers around his wand and darts from behind Sirius, whipping spell after spell in between Sirius’ attempts to defend, Regulus tries to run towards the fire. 

He hears Sirius crying out his name and then his body crumbling down, Regulus ignores it and pushes on, vaulting over a raised tree trunk, he collides with the figure in the dark. They wrestle momentarily, and though Regulus can't see the body trying to turn him over clearly, he can feel the lithe muscles on the man’s arms and gloved hands, forcing Regulus up with sheer brute force. And there’s the silver mask. A knee is brought up and Regulus is kicked away. He falls, the wind is knocked out of his chest. The figure jumps back, and points his wand at Regulus; their exchange is lightning fast, the light crackles in the air and trickles like molten gold, back and forth rapidly, back and forth as Regulus runs and ducks and tries to close in on the attacker’s personal space. The fucker won’t try any dark magic, if Regulus is crowding him, risking crossfire. 

They circle each other, strike and defend and evade the attacks. 

He’s trying to tire him out, Regulus realises, panting for air, refusing to back down. The figure creates as much distance between them as he can, rushing back and away after each strike, Regulus cannot decide whether it’s another trap or if the bastard is trying to run away. 

He follows, ducks the dark curses and feels his lungs tighten with adrenaline. They wanted him here, he realises. This was no mere incident. Regulus just walked into a snare. They duel for what felt like hours but must have been a mere five minutes and all of it was a setup.

Regulus spares a glance at his wedding band. How long would it take James to grow impatient and come check on them? He and Sirius should have been back a while ago. Regulus made a mistake, not taking the charmed mirror with him. He hopes that Sirius wakes up soon, he can hold his own in a battle like this, but his opponent seems like a war machine, not slowing down, with no signs of exhaustion, not even any hints of passion or hatred or excitement. 

The movements are sharp, precise, and almost evocative of something familiar. Devoid of any feelings.

Regulus hesitates, and maybe that’s all it takes. That single moment of deliberation.  

“Argh!” He cries out when the figure suddenly jumps on him, tackling them both down. He struggles in the hold and curses loudly when he feels a familiar pull behind his navel. He’s trying to apparate with Reggie. The bastard!

Regulus kicks, trying to break out of the crushing embrace. 

“NO!” He tries kicking, wriggling his arms that are pressed firmly against his sides. He knows that if he keeps struggling the chances of him getting splinched are exponentially higher. He jabs his wand into the figure’s thigh, yells out the blasting curse. Closing his eyes, Regulus waits for the mangled cry of pain, for spurting blood, for the weight on his body to ease off. 

Nothing happens. 

Regulus looks down at his wand, yells the curse again, jabbing the tip of his wand into the figure’s cloak-clad body. He renews his struggles, trying to overpower the larger man physically.

“Confringo! Confringo!”

Nothing happens.

“What?” Regulus breathes, looking up at the gleaming silver mask. 

The pull behind his navel turns into a sharp lurch and Regulus goes stiff as a plank, terrified of splinching himself in half in the unwilling ride. Side-along apparation, that's what the guy is trying to do. He curses himself in his head and braces for impact. 

It's almost over too soon.

They land on dry grass, and the sky is lighter and the wind that lashes at Reggie is like a frozen whip, harsh and sharp against his face. He pushes down his nausea and frees one hand, aiming a hasty punch at his assailant’s throat. 

The death eater springs back before the punch makes contact and Regulus whips his wand at him again. Again. And again. And again, as he scrambles to his feet. 

Their second duel is much briefer than the first. There’s no point or end to it and his opponent seems unwilling to harm Regulus seriously. While Regulus has no such reservations, his spells and curses seem to have no impact on the attacker. He disarms the Death Eater at the same time as the other guy disarms him and he doesn’t waste any time. He is no James or Sirius in physical combat, but he knows how to throw a punch. 

His wand wasn’t going to work on this…thing anyway. He dodges and blocks, trying to aim for the throat again; the man hits him on the arm and Regulus winces with a sharp intake of breath. That hurt much more than a regular punch would have. He tries to sweep the attacker’s leg out with a kick, aims and swings his own foot, Reggie throws his entire weight into the kick. 

His boot meets the Death Eater’s leg but… a sharp white pain blooms in his foot and vibrates up to his ankle and calf. Regulus drops down with a cry, “Fuck!” 

That’s definitely not flesh, he reels back on his hands and knees, panting in pain and exhaustion. The grass shudders beneath him with the wind and Regulus glares up at the bastard, “Just what kind of a freak are you!?”

The Death Eater prances forward, but Regulus is not just sitting idle. He gnashes his teeth, ignores the sharp pain in his foot and pushes himself to his feet. He’s shoved back, and he pants, on his knees, he throws his arms around the guy and pulls back suddenly, sprawling them both on the ground. 

Their struggle is brief this time too. The assailant’s hand closes around a rock over Reggie’s head, and Regulus sees the strike only a second too late. The rock is brought down on his head with force, knocking him out cold. 

…

 

Two hours and James already feels like he is losing touch with reality. 

When Regulus first saw him as Prongs in their youth, he had two astute observations; firstly that James was massive in this form and did have the capacity to overpower Remus easily if he wished to, and secondly that he looked absolutely adorable because of his antlers which he’d commented that can impale the thickest of flesh. 

And maybe that sums up all the reasons why James loves this man the way he does, because he sees the lethality and gentleness in the same breath and openly embraces both. He won’t lie, the desperation and abject fear that is injected into his veins verges on a familiar insanity. 

He’s felt this panic before, this despair, the fear that pumps in and out of his lungs like frigid air. He does not gallop the forest of Dean as Prongs, he razes it as Regulus once predicted that he could. 

It was faster, it covered more ground and James’ sense of smell as Prongs was about ten times stronger. Reggie’s scent is in his head, the faint citrus and his own earthy fragrance. And it’s the only thing missing in this godforsaken place. James previously tracked it about ten yards away from the scene of struggle, looked at the leaves that were disturbed…but there was nothing else. 

Sirius struggles to keep up with him as Padfoot and the human Order members in the search party have been left in the dust in their smaller clusters, led by Remus and a disgruntled Kingsley Shacklebolt. 

James feels the ticking of a clock with every clop of hooves that strikes the disturbed forest floor. James thinks about their slight argument, the way Regulus’ eyes had flashed over Harry’s bedside. 

“You want me to abandon my child?” he’d snapped at James, “In what world, does me sitting by this bed benefit our son!?” 

“You might die! You’re not allowed to come!”

Reggie, his beautiful, fiery beast rose to his full height with a threatening finger held out. 

“The day I’d allow you to allow me to do anything is the day I’ll bleed you dry on our porch!” 

James forcibly bodies his way through the broken and low-hanging branches, almost crushing Padfoot underfoot as they circle this region and make haste to the next. Something in James’ heart says that there is no point. 

“James!” a silver light cries from his right and the stag swings his antlers at the non-corporeal shape, “James come back now! This is useless!” 

Padfoot skids to a stop and whines, forcing James’ machinated gallop to slow against his will. Rage and betrayal cloud his judgement, but not enough that he’s beyond recognition. He shifts back to a human, and the ache in his legs is so acute that he almost falls. 

Sirius turns back as well, wisely keeping his distance from James as the flashing wands in the distance start catching up to them. They’re too slow, too useless, too far away. James has a horrible feeling that they’re already late. 

Please , he begs his husband in his head, please hang on until I can find you. 

But in the same breath, praying his husband to hang onto life is a purely selfish request, because if he’s been taken to where James thinks he’s been taken to…he shouldn’t remain alive to endure the horrors. Not again. 

He doesn’t know which thought nauseates him more. The thought of finding his husband alive, or finding him dead. 

Remus knows the grief in his eyes, he’s the first person to reach him and Sirius. He too, looks wrecked by concern and despair, “I don’t think he’s here, James.” 

All those years as an active auror, all those years training little shits to be Aurors one day, and what did it get him? Nothing. They’re here and they have nothing. 

“We need to form groups, cover likely locations—”

“Listen to me,” Remus’ shaking hands are on James’ shoulders, “They could be anywhere. It’s too big of a region for us to cover—”

“No, you listen to me, Remus!” James shoves him back, “We don’t have time to waste!”

He knows what Remus is saying, how could he not? He used to be head Auror…for over a decade. Any other case and he would have called it on the spot. It’s an impossible search, especially this late at night, and specially with these low resources. 

But his heart can't be reasoned with. Even the thought of stopping for the smallest moment fills him with dread. 

“If he has not been walked off to a location, then he’s either Apparated or Portkey-ed. It could be anywhere .”

“Then I’ll search everywhere!”

The others reach them then, haggard and out of breath, and looking at each other too, with a muted sense of aimlessness. They must think James has lost his mind and James won’t blame them for thinking that. He has lost his mind, all caution, all sense of reason. There is a voice in his head, a familiar shadow…and it’s crooning in his ears, “You’ve done it then finally. You’ve got him killed. You weren’t there to protect him. Again .” 

Again. 

James closes his eyes, listens to the sounds of the forest and his companions, shuffling their feet and muttering amongst themselves, “Any captures?” he mutters with closed eyes. 

Kingsley replies, “None.”

Of course, there wouldn’t be. 

“There’s only twenty of us,” the man continues, stepping closer to James, “We can't cover this overnight, Potter. We need actual reinforcements and the ministry involved—”

With his voice, others chime in as well, Podmore, Fletcher, Vance, even Hestia Jones: 

“There are the rogue Death Eaters to think of—”

“Not to mention the dementors rampant—”

“We need to focus our resources on collective interests and—”

James has half a mind to kill them all. He truly does, and he knows saying that or thinking that or even fathoming it, makes him into a questionable arsehole; it’s not that he doesn’t see the point, he knows what they’re saying. It’s just that…James failed again. And now these people are in his way. 

‘Again,’ the little voice cooes, so viciously familiar, almost as if Reggie’s phantom is standing right next to him, ‘I’ve come to harm, I will die, because of you, again.’

“We are not doing shit until he’s found,” he says, and without having to raise his voice all murmurs die. Sirius nods along and he tells the others, assuaging: 

“It’s not over, we’ll find him, we just need to be smart.” 

“We should call Albus here,” James tells the man and Remus frowns. 

“No, there’s no point. We already know he’s not here—”

“If he’s not here, then he’s elsewhere surrounded by Merlin knows how many wild fucking animals! Albus needs to track him!” 

But the question that lingers between the small group of ten is…How? How is Albus Dumbledore going to track Regulus Black Potter? Without a trace, without his wand, without any indication or sign that he’s been taken at all? There’s not even blood. 

“We need to narrow it down or wait until there’s word,” Sirius tries to cajole him, “We have snitches in their system, we just need—”

Useless, James rubs at his forehead, tearing his glasses off his face with a sigh. This is useless.

“You never learn, Potter. Do you?” 

James opens his eyes to glare at his old mentor, the crazy bat. He stares into the unwaveringly roving eyeball in the prosthetic socket. It’s been years since he’s seen the man, even longer since they’ve spoken. He was shunned from the ministry, discharged ‘honourably’ for his efforts. But they both know the truth. 

Moody was just as filthy as James used to be. 

“Is there something you want to say, Alastor?” he sneers, marching up to the man as others warily veer back from the duo. 

“Yes,” the man glowers up at him, almost spitting the words, “It was your fess-up that brought us here. You let him out on a mission, an untrained civilian. A target of interest, knowing full well, his reputation. You didn’t put a trace on him—”

“He’s not a dog in need of a leash!” James roars, feeling Sirius and Remus pull him back from Moody, holding his arms back, “He’s a grown adult! Of course, I wouldn’t—”

He’s disgusted by the implication, even though this is what he and Reggie argued about, more or less. 

“There’s no needle in this haystack then, boy,” Moody grunts, “It’s been two hours, if he’s not dead or ravaged already—”

“Alastor!” Sirius is the one who screams this time, enraged, “Control yourself! Shut the bloody hell up, will you!?”

And to James, he says, “It’s fine, he’s fine. You know Regulus. I bet he doesn’t even need our help right now. That fucker who took him? He’s dead as a nail.”

James hopes so, because if he finds this bastard himself, he’s going to make him wish he had died under Reggie’s wand.  

“This was planned,” he tells the group.

Remus hums, “So there’s an agenda.”

“Yes, their agenda is taking Reggie back to Voldemort.” 

“You have to promise! Promise me—you’ll get Harry and kill me, promise—” 

Those words still haunt him every night and now he doesn’t even have the option to keep that promise. James is sick. 

“Okay…so we just need to find and intercept them,” Sirius is telling the others, “If Mulciber knew about the plan that means the others knew too. If it’s like a game of tag for them, they’re probably scattered and don’t have word that he’s been found yet.”

“What are you saying?” James mumbles exhaustedly. 

“We need to make a lure,” Remus replies and Kingsley hums in agreement, “We need Reggie’s hair. He just needs to get kidnapped by another sod then, no?”

“I—”

“I volunteer. I screwed up, James. I’ll help. My little brother—”

It’s not a bad plan, and with the resources that they have, it’s the best they can do right now. But the question is…will they make it in time? Even if the decoy Reggie is captured, would they even be taken to the same place? What if this was not ordered by Voldemort? What if Reggie has already died and the bastard had rid of the body? 

James' hands are so numb that for a second he thinks he’s been paralysed. 

“We need to be quick,” he says when he realises that others are waiting on him to comment. That’s right, he recalls. He’s the mission’s team leader tonight. Well, was. 

“You need to secure Harry too,” Remus tells him as the others quickly start rushing back to the clearing with their supplies, “Warn Barty and—”

James wants to argue before he is struck with the same realisation that Remus had been insinuating. His eyes widen into saucers and Sirius curses beside him with a gag. 

“Fuck…if Voldemort has him…and he has a vision—if he forces a vision of—”

“Don’t spiral,” Remus orders him, grabbing his face with mittened hands, “We’ll find him before then. Go to your son, Sirius and I will take care of the polyjuice and capture. We’ll get him back.”

Oh God, James holds his wand with a trembling hand. How is he going to tell his son?

 

…

 

 

He wakes up in chains. Still in the same clearing he was taken to, close to the edge of a cliff that overlooks an angry sea that rages against a grey sky. The winds are harsher, his head pounds and he feels dried blood caking his skin. His head feels too heavy. 

He groans, his shackled hands rising to his eyes. He blinks, pushing past the blurred vision to look at the cuffs. He knows these. Heavy iron, infused with exhauriri crystals. They were mostly used by the Malfoys to restrain prisoners down in the west wing’s dungeons. Regulus knows these cuffs, he’s put them around countless bodies, unshackled them from just as many lifeless wrists. The more one struggles, the more magic is drained to retaliate against the ministrations. 

He pushes himself up, following the heavy chain with his eyes, which disappears underneath his body. He rolls back and finds that the chain is bolted down to the ground. It’s a relatively short chain too, he won’t be able to stand to his full height. 

He looks at the figure, comfortably sitting cross-legged in front of him about three yards away, barely out of reach. Regulus glares at the mask, wincing as the wind lashes against the open wound on his head. 

“Who are you?” he snarls coldly, darting his eyes around to see whether they are alone. He’d have expected the guy to have delivered him to the Dark Lord already. If he’s overpowered Regulus and Reggie has no wand, why would they still be here ? And why would he be chained down? The effort means that he’s going to be here for a while, which isn’t good. He has no idea whether they’re still in the country. 

“You're going to regret this. I’ll make you regret it.” 

The man watches him, passively through the mask. His eyes are barely visible through it or maybe the head bashing Reggie received is messing with his vision. They’re a murkish colour, his eyes, though the distance makes it hard to tell. Regulus stretches his injured leg and glares back at the fucker. He’s relieved that he still has his coat on, and thankfully still has his wedding band. 

Any idiot with half a brain would've taken both. Without his coat, the cold would make him sluggish and compliant fast, and the wedding band might as well have been a hidden Portkey. 

Would've been a nice idea to execute before I came on a mission, Regulus resists the urge to roll his eyes at himself. He just knows James is going to have the time of his life telling Reggie, ‘ I told you so.’. 

He suppresses a shiver from the cold, “How long are you going to keep me here?”

Nothing. 

Regulus doesn’t need him to talk. He recognises this arsehole, he was there that night in the cave too, and Reggie recalls that he wasn’t that difficult to defeat the first time around. Unless that too, was by design. 

Regulus is almost certain that he’s going to die here. Which really fucking sucks, because this is not the right time or place to meet his demise. He’s got things to do, a war to win, Riddle to kill, a son to raise and a husband to love. 

Regulus takes a moment to himself, he knows that there’s a real chance that he’s spiraling with panic and that’s not good at all. He’s been off his calming draughts for a few months now, and that was clearly another mistake. He cannot lose his head right now, because as he sees it, he’s defenseless here; he has no advantages. They can be here indefinitely for all Regulus knows. Freezing to death is still death, maybe this fucker has been meaning to do just that. 

No, that doesn’t make sense. Riddle wouldn’t want that. 

Regulus draws his body to his knees, ignores the throbbing in one ankle with ease and looks down at the cuffs. He’s got to try. He steadies his breathing and tries to summon all the energy and magic he can feel dormant and buzzing under his skin. His moves are slow and deliberate up until the very last second. Regulus lurches his body upwards, yanking at the chain and swinging his uninjured leg in a wide arch; a massive plume of fire, red and angry beams out of his raised kick, and the sweltering flame immediately burns through his own boot, the chain yanks him down and the masked man easily dodges the tapering flame. 

Regulus drops down, wheezing and glaring down at the cuffs. He knew this would happen, but he wasn’t expecting the cuffs to drain him so heavily as he was casting. Wandless and nonverbal casting was a feat on its own. He feels immediately fatigued, he feels as though the chains are heavier somehow. Fuck , he thinks. 

The figure does not retaliate, makes no sound or gestures to ridicule or punish Regulus. He merely sits back down on the scorched ground. Regulus rolls his eyes and sags down, his chest heaving for air. 

It is clear to him now, what exactly is happening. 

They’re waiting on something. 

“You tell your fucking master,” Reggie pants, cringing at the burnt bits of leather that are digging into his foot, like tiny bits of hot coal, he practically just maimed himself,  “—That I'll die a thousand times over before letting him touch me! I'll strangle myself with the chain—” 

The figure moves to stand and Reggie stops himself mid-sentence. The man rounds him and starts walking away. Regulus struggles to turn around, he darts his eyes past the death eater, at the wide expanse of grey and rustling dead grass. A sudden coldness sweeps over him and Regulus closes his eyes against the bitterly frigid gust that washes over him in elongated waves. 

He doesn’t have to open his eyes to see what is happening. He can feel them, even before he forces his lids to part. Rows and rows of rogue dementors are flying his way and the masked figure stands in their greeting, his back still turned to Regulus.

No , Regulus’ eyes widen. He digs his frozen fingers into the bolt, pulling the chain with such force that it erodes his palms. Regulus growls in frustration and drags himself as far as he can from the assault with the chain’s limited length. There’s nowhere to go, nothing to do. 

“What are you doing!? No!” He hollers at the man, his voice is like a whistle, drowned by the wind. He sees the cloaked dementors, the very light seems to have been sucked out of the sky. Regulus pulls at his chains and glowers at the man’s back, “Face me, you coward! What is the point—” 

Riddle wouldn’t want him dead. He could have had him dead months ago. He could have killed him the other week when he possessed Harry. This is not his modus operandi. It is senseless! 

The dementor swarm comes down upon them like a curse, parting for the figure as they fly towards Regulus. Reggie clenches his teeth and braces himself for impact. Either the cuffs will drain him first or the dementors. In either case, Regulus won’t take it lying down. 

The man’s boots crunch the hard earth as he marches back to Regulus. He seems totally unphased by the dementors, the freezing cold, and Reggie’s murderous gaze. 

“They shall prepare you for your glorious purpose,” he says, his voice is so low and raspy that it takes Regulus a moment to comprehend the words or the fact that the fucker is finally speaking at all. 

“Glorious purpose?” he breathes, feeling the fright in his heart traitorously germinating, “What?” 

And suddenly, it starts to make a semblance of sense. The thing Mulciber said about Regulus being “chosen” for something. So this death eater wasn’t disobeying his master. There is a grand plan, a sinister scheme. Regulus played right bloody into it. 

“There's no way Riddle asked for this!” he glowers, yanking at the cuffs with all his might, “He would've been here himself if he wanted to kill me—” 

They don’t really want to kill him, do they? That’s not what the Dementors are for. 

Regulus stifles a cry and swallows thickly. He casts a look at the sea and the cliff behind him, at the rolling clouds that have shunned the sun. He doesn’t know where he is. Nobody else does either. 

Maybe Regulus from a year ago or so would have thought that this was poetic justice. Maybe he would have thought that he deserved this, that he has to leave his family behind, his son and poor husband, but as he is now, he is only horrified and struck by the injustice. 

“Why!?” he snaps at the man, “Why would he want this?”

The stranger’s mask gleams even in the greyish dark. 

“For your glorious purpose.” 

And then he turns and walks away from Regulus. 

 

…

 

“You have to sedate him,” Dad is telling Barty. It’s funny because Harry would have thought the man to say literally anything else right now. 

He’s seen Dad lose it over Papa many times in his life, from the smallest cat scratch to beating his father into a bloody pulp. He’s seen the man at his absolute worst because of Papa, at his weakest and most vulnerable. 

It’s funny, he doesn’t think there’s a word to describe Dad right now. The calm that he has…it’s scary to look at.  

Barty is losing it. He’s pacing and screaming at James, raging at him and stuttering questions and demanding why James is here and “—NOT THERE, FINDING MY BEST FRIEND!?”  

They’re in the shabby living room, the one with the stacked firewood, and the worn armchair, with crooked floorboards and draughty curtains. Harry was awake when Dad floo-ed over. Barty wasn’t. Harry was reading in his room, and he heard Barty screaming, and he bolted down the stairs and he saw his father, pale as chalk, calmly repeating himself to the hysterical man: 

‘Regulus got into a duel with an unknown death eater, then he either left or was relocated by the unknown entity. They have nothing. He could be anywhere. He could be dead.’ 

He hugs Harry but Harry barely feels that. He rubs Harry’s back and tells him he’s not coming back unless Reggie is with him, but Harry barely feels that either. He is lowered on the armchair, struck frozen by the impact of the news. He could cry, he could rage or unleash the devilish anger and despair that has pooled in his stomach but he cannot. He’s mute once again. 

Only a week ago…Papa was right there, looking at Harry with pained eyes, blood dripping down one cheek, asking Riddle to let Harry go. Only the other night, according to Barty, Papa and Dad were both here, safely tucked away in the middle of nowhere, watching over Harry. 

“You need to sedate him, keep him unconscious somehow—” Dad is telling Barty. 

“Are you out of your mind? We’re not drugging your son!” 

“If Reggie’s taken back…” Dad pauses to breathe or swallow or maybe just to digest the words he’s about to let out, “Riddle might possess Harry again or show him a vision of—”

“Fuck,” Barty paces, holding onto his head with both hands, screwing his fingers into the tangled mess of his hair, “Fuck! James, what the fuck! What the fuck! You mean to say…”

It takes Harry a moment to understand what they’re both talking about. His hands clench on his lap and numbly, his lips part. Oh . He thinks.  

“Barty—”

“Fuck. No, I can't do this again!” Barty gasps and then gags into his hand and then bends over by the fireplace, coughing wetly. Harry looks at him, at the colourless bile that slickens the man’s hand and drips down to the floor in long rivulets. 

When he was a child he always used to think that Papa was always running ahead and no matter how hard Harry tried, he could never catch up with the man. Whenever they played tag, whenever they raced to the lakes to feed the ducks, whenever Papa left Harry in his room with a wobbling voice, telling him that ‘I’m just going to the loo, just being silly, and it’s fine, it’s all fine, baby.’

Harry could never reach him, he could never follow. Papa was always just a step ahead, an arm’s length away, even at his happiest. What does it mean? That he’s gone or taken? Harry doesn’t feel the man’s absence in his heart at all. It feels unreal, what Dad is saying. 

“We’ll find him, but I need this house on lockdown and I need Harry—”

“You have any idea—” Barty heaves again, retching into his hand with loud, wheezing gasps, “What’s going to happen! James Potter! Do you—” 

“I know,” Dad’s voice is almost inaudible, “I know. I was incompetent, I was foolish, I should’ve…”

He looks at Harry and Harry looks at him and it’s funny again because this reminds him of his childhood a little, of Dad coming home in his robes, hurriedly looking around and asking Harry whether Papa was being silly in the bathroom again. Asking him to be a good boy, and sit down in his chair and eat his food. The same look he gave Harry when Harry asked what a Dementor’s kiss was. 

“Malfoy Manor. He’s there, we have to storm it—”

“We cannot—”

“That’s your husband!” Barty rages, lashing his wet hand at the floor, “We need to do it!”

“Barty, listen to me, I want this. I would’ve done it myself, but as we are right now—”

“You have no idea,” Barty looks at Harry too with an empty, breathless huff, “They laid a trap?” 

“Yes.”

“Then he’s there. He has to be, James.”

“I need Albus on my side, If we want Reggie back with us, alive,” Dad says and Harry hates how much sense the man makes. Of course, they can't just storm a fucking house with no evidence, no way of knowing whether Papa is actually there. 

He might be dead already. 

Harry has been thinking about the man’s death for months now, about how ready he seemed to throw his life away just to spare himself the pain. How he pointed his wand at his own throat. How he locked himself in a fucking bathroom for six years. 

“We’ll capture a fucker, make him talk. Tomorrow morning at the latest. I’ll have him back by tomorrow night I swear on my grave, Barty. If this doesn’t yield answers, I’ll storm the bloody Manor myself to find him—”

“Is Sirius okay?” Barty whispers. 

Dad looks away, “He’s fine. Reggie is fine too. I’d know if he was dead. He promised.” 

“Promised what?” 

“I won’t outlive him.” 

Harry sucks in a quick breath and Dad looks at him with mild shame, “No, Harry. No, listen, I didn’t mean it like that. We love you too much to do that to you—”

“Just leave,” Barty cuts in, “You’re wasting precious time.” 

Dad hugs Harry before he does, promising him that Papa is fine and that he’s coming back and they’ll get over this the same way they got over all the other things that landed them here. Harry doesn’t tell him that he remembers the look he’s giving Harry, the one from the bathroom conversations. 

Harry wonders how different his life would’ve been…if he’d just followed Papa to that bathroom, stopped him from finding a razor, trying to dig something out that was never trapped under his skin, to begin with. 

Dad checks the house’s wards quickly and instructs Barty to drug Harry again and lock the house down until the foreseeable future. Harry hears Barty shuffling through empty bottles and paper stacks around him. He sees the man shrugging off his robe and changing into an all-black attire in absolute silence.

He disappears into the kitchen for some time and returns with a glass of water in one hand. He grabs Harry’s hand and closes it around the glass, basically forcing the water down Harry’s throat. Harry just takes it, thinking that maybe the water’s dosed with something. It really tastes like regular water though so Harry doesn’t have it in him to really fight the man. 

Barty drops the glass on the coffee table, he kneels in front of Harry, “Do you want to save your Papa?”

Harry nods. He feels a tight knot in his chest becoming a little undone. He nods again, this time with more desperation. He’s tired of this! He’s tired of sitting down and taking the news and letting bad things just happen to him. He’d done falling behind.

“Then get up,” Barty barks, “If I leave you here I know you’re gonna do some stupid shit, so I’m taking you with me.”

“Where are we going?” 

Barty helps him up, “We’re doing an extraction. Like you wanted.”

 

Notes:

- Any notes I have about this chapter will contain huge spoilers, so no notes for this chapter, but if you do find interesting tidbits, I'd be delighted to hear about it ~

 

- I will reply to all of the lovely comments this week! I've so many I want to reply to! Happy reading~

Chapter 8: 8. —The thought of seeing you again—

Summary:

I just want to see you again.

Notes:

Happy New Year, guys~

I've updated the tags, please make sure you check them and the overall warnings on this series, I won't add any chapter-specific warnings from now on unless necessary so yay~
Also, IF there was supposed to be a major character death I would have tagged that from the start, so don't WORRY, just read and enjoy the angst!

Happy reading~

8.—The thought of seeing you again—

 

 

1981

 

There used to be a time when Barty thought that pain was temporary and glory everlasting. 

The night he ran away from his parents’ house with Evan in tow, even though there was a gaping hole in his chest, even though he was terrified of dragging himself and Evan into the pits of hell, he’d thought that he’d withstand it. He’d withstand the pain of being marked, the sting of his Mother’s abandonment, the pain of being perpetually unwanted. It had to count for something in the end, he always thought.

It had to count, because if that weren’t the case then what was the damn point in all that damage? How come he was subjected to so much for nothing in return? That was not how the world was supposed to work. His life couldn’t have been a scam, that was not how life worked. 

The year was 1981. 

He tottered back to the flat he and Evan shared, soaked to his bones, dripping muddied water and murky blood and raindrops in his wake. He had no concept of time and in his head, he could still hear the miscellaneous roars of chaos and death and blood. His hand shook around the key that had miraculously remained on his person; he always had trouble with the damn lock. The key rattled in the lock for too long, testing his patience, and he shoved the door open with his muddied or bloodied or sullied—who cared, really?—boot in anger. 

Evan was not asleep as he’d been hoping. He rarely seemed to sleep lately. He was sprawled by the fireplace, with his back to their beat-up couch, engulfed by heavy plums of cigarette smoke.

“Smoking again?”

“As one tends to do.” 

Barty slammed the door shut, headed over to his partner, dropped down on the hard floor and laid himself down with groans of pain and exhaustion. He could not even bother unpacking the source of all the ‘aches’. He just had to figure it out later. He dropped his head down on Evan’s knee, his back to the fire, he gazed up at the young man’s trembling hand, the swirling cigarette smoke, the castaway gaze. 

“Fuck, Evan. I’m exhausted.”

“Lay your head down.”

But Barty already had. He rubbed his damp hair over the man’s clothed knee and winced as he felt a sharp jabbing into his cheek. It felt like Evan was getting thinner by the second, just wasting away before Barty’s eyes. His body was pointier, his joints visible, his body less comfortable to lean against. Maybe there was some metaphor in there, but Barty was too tired to parse it.  

“I swear your knees are getting jabbier every day,” he grunted, half-heartedly, “Have you eaten today?”

“Must have,” Evan muttered above him, his eyes not flickering away from the fireplace.

Barty dropped one arm over the man’s thigh as casually as he dared, “What’d you eat then?”

“Something,” Evan replied in the same detached, monotone voice, “I dunno.”

Barty figured he just had to go through their canned food to suss it out. He didn't think that Evan was lying, just…well.

He’d just almost recovered from his year-long cough. He wasn’t like this before, he used to have a healthy appetite even in the grimmest of situations, Barty recalled. But lately…ever since Reggie passed away, well Evan seemed to have followed. Barty felt guilt in the distance; he wanted to take care of his partner, he wanted to be there for him more often, but he was barely home. They didn’t have enough funds outside of what Evan could spare, they didn’t have access to a healer, to regular food or warmth. 

They were in the thick of it. 

Well, Barty always thought that the ‘thick of it’ was an ephemeral road with very clear margins and exits. Just something they had to go through because it was all temporary. Things were going to look up, he’d thought. Once they won the war. 

“Barmy twat,” he nosed the clothed knee affectionately, exhaustedly, “Bum me one.”

The cigarette between Evan’s lips was lowered to Barty’s face by two shaking fingers, tilting it the other way so that Barty could take in a puff. It warmed him up, inhaling the smoke; Barty could feel it travelling to his lungs, trickling like hot water. 

“Did you kill today?”

Barty chortled with the exhale of smoke, “Can you believe me when I tell you I’ve got no idea?” he muttered, “It was all a blur…so much muck and rain too, I couldn’t see shit.”

The cigarette was retracted, the silence was so acute that they could hear the scurrying of rodents under flimsy floorboards. It really was uncomfortable, lying on the floor like that, but Evan liked it. Barty indulged him when he could, maybe because he wanted to believe that he was a good person, deep down. 

“Barty?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you feel…” Evan’s hand was in his hair, and Barty’s eyes were closed, "What do you feel when we shag?”

What an odd thing to ask , Barty thought, forcing his eyes to peel open, as he ironically stared into his partner’s crotch. He shifted the hand he’d settled over Evan’s thigh, retracting it. 

“I dunno, good?” he nosed Evan’s knobby knee through the cloth, “What sort of question is that all of a sudden?”

Evan wasn't really the type for philosophical inquiries. Barty wondered whether the man had a point with the question, a subtle jab about Barty needing better hygiene or how he was a bit too selfish in bed. It seemed strange for him to bring it up, though, sitting in front of the fireplace, beaten down by life, etc. 

“Why'd you ask?” 

Evan squirmed minimally, his eyes downcast, “Do you feel dead too?”

Barty jolted up in alarm, nearly knocking into the lit cig in Evan's hand, “I—what the hell, mate? Evan—”

“Sometimes…I feel like I'm a corpse when we—when you and I—Does that make sense or—”

“All the bloody smoke has got to your head, Merlin,” he snapped, “Give me that cig!” 

He snatched the trembling cig out of Evan's hand and put it out on the full ashtray a bit savagely, silencing Evan's meek confession. He sat up properly with a groan and got to his knees. 

“You need to lie down.” 

“No,” Evan fought his touch weakly, pushing his body back into the couch “Let's not. Let's…keep me away from the bed—” 

Barty frowned and pressed his palm to Evan's clammy face, to his cheeks and then his forehead. He wasn't hot. Not running a fever. The cig didn't smell funny either. Did he see something at ‘work’ ? Was that it?

“You're not running a fever,” he mumbled to his boyfriend, “What's it with you?”

He must have sounded a bit too cross. He was tired, back from hours of bloodshed and screaming, home to his boyfriend who was sick all the time, who never ate and only smoked, and who said weird shit like this. 

“I'm sorry, Evan.” 

“I'm just horrible,” Evan never looked into his eyes, “Awful. I'm…I'm so tired of this.” 

He must be stressed, Barty thought. His shift hours were barmy: every night, he patrolled corridors in torture houses, cleaning up this and that. They didn't talk about their respective posts a lot; matters of security aside, it was just safer for their sanity that way. Could it be that it was getting to him? Barty sighed. 

“Come here. You idiot,” he slung an arm over Evan's shoulders, hoisting him up with a groan, “Getting all lost in your head. We can't afford that, mate.” 

He didn't know what it really accomplished, relocating his boyfriend from the floor to the couch, but Evan looked like he barely felt the difference. They couldn’t let this bloody shit get to them , he kept thinking. The truth was, when he was out there, obeying orders and killing and torturing and so on, he kind of turned his brain off. His body did not perceive those events as real things, Barty always thought he was lucky that he could do that. Maybe Evan just couldn’t detach the act from his person.

Barty laid him down and crouched by his head, running a hand over the buzzed blond hair, “You scare me, you big log. Must've lied about the food, didn't you?” 

“I miss being dead.” 

Barty frowned, leaning closer to the man's lips, “What was that?” 

“I miss—” Evan blinked, a bit more aware “I miss you. Missed you.” 

“I'm here now. Have you got a shift tonight?” 

Evan blinked again, and it was funny, because he looked at Barty with a confused frown and asked the darndest thing: “What day is it?” 

Barty had to think about it. 

“Tuesday,” he muttered after a beat, “It's Tuesday.” 

“What month?” 

“Month?—” 

Evan turned his head away with a huff, “I go every night, don't I? Time and date don’t matter.” 

“...You do, love. Yeah. Are you sick?” he definitely must have been, if he was blabbering like this. Barty repressed a sigh and eased himself to perch on the edge of the couch. He listened to the harsh crackling wood in the burning fireplace, staring down at Evan’s subtly trembling body. Yeah…he couldn’t let him leave like this. He would only get hurt or fuck something up. 

“Listen, let me contact Avery or some sod to let you off tonight—” 

“No need,” Evan croaked, struggling to enunciate the word all the way to its end, “I just need a quick shag—” 

His hand darted and settled over Barty’s leg and Barty gaped at the man, feeling horribly uncomfortable. “Are you out of your mind!?” he exclaimed, pushing Evan off, “No. You need water. Sit there, I'll be right back.” 

He scrambled off the couch, pretending that he didn’t see the way Evan almost fell over, leaning to touch him again. Their flat was shitty and small and so Barty still saw Evan looking at the fireplace over his shoulder as he fetched a glass. It was grimy. Coffee grains? Barty didn’t dare smell to confirm, he just rinsed it twice. Filled it with water. Every step he took back to the couch was unwilling. 

Evan held the glass with no help. They sat in silence and Barty ached for the sharp taste of whiskey, warming up his guts. He could see a bottle by the table’s foot. Not yet, though.

“Barty?” 

“Hmm?” 

“We're awful people.”

“Yeah, well,” Barty shrugged, “The world needs us awful lot too, Rosier. Drink slowly.” 

Evan took in the water in huge, overwhelming gulps; his throat clicked sharply as he drained the glass and cast it aside. His body slumped against Barty’s, all sharp edges and bones. Barty could feel the man’s hollowed cheekbone digging into his shoulder. 

“Don’t you think awful people deserve to burn?” 

“Not really. Not if we’re good at being bad.” 

“Do you think burning hurts?”

“I saw a fucker burn once…maybe I was the one who set him aflame. Dunno.” 

“I wanted to be good when I was small, I mean…” Evan floundered, “I thought I'd be—I wanted to be …a spirit or a faerie for the longest time. I really wanted to be good. Really.” 

“Uh-huh. Definitely letting Avery know you're off your shit tonight.” 

“I want you to know,” his breathing tickled Barty’s ear, “This is important—I lie a lot. I lied but I'm sorry now. I don't like it—but soon…soon—” 

“That's okay, Evan,” Barty kissed his temple, suppressing yet another sigh, “We're all liars.”

Well, not all of them. He and Evan were definitely not the purest of the lot. But their missing piece in the trio used to be…Reggie was so pure. Before he was ruined. He used to be untouchable, even from afar Barty thought that he would never see anyone with that character again. He didn’t lie. Even when the truth was biting and harsh, he never bothered to lie about it. He felt happiness scarcely, but when he felt it with the Potter boy…

No use to think of such things, he scoffed at himself. 

“Could you…” Evan twisted in his seat, turning to face Barty, “Could you just kiss me a little?” he mumbled, his grip on Barty’s hand almost bruising, “Lie and tell me it's a nice kiss and I'll let you use my mouth later—” 

Barty felt disgusted with himself. He silenced the distraught young man with a touch. He squeezed his knee, turned his face and captured the man’s warm lips between his own. He felt Evan’s tensed shoulders relax into the touch and so he brushed his fingers against the back of the boy’s neck.

“There you go,” he muttered when they drew back to breathe. 

“That was nice.” 

“Are you going to sleep now?” 

Evan shook his head with vehemence, he darted close and started kissing Barty’s neck and jaw, burrowing closer and closer into the nonexistent space shared between them, “More, please . I just—” He breathed against Barty’s skin, “I just want to forget you know—” 

A way to cope , Barty drawled in his head, tilting his boyfriend’s head up to capture his lips again. It was fine, they all had to do it somehow. He thrust a tongue into the boy’s mouth and pushed him on his back on the couch and just told himself that things were going to look up really soon. They had to. The pain had to be temporary.

“I need—”

Barty didn’t let him even breathe, “I know.”

…

 

1995

 

Harry wishes that Papa could see him now. 

Not that he thinks Papa would be particularly proud, maybe the opposite. When Harry was all fucked up in the head, Papa used to be so guilty, he kept subtly saying that Harry had grown too much like him. That he went to pieces like he used to. That the pain took him the same way. Harry understood what the man meant keenly, but he never really discussed with his father what that likeness entails. 

Is it the tendency to look a storm in the eye and shudder and head into it anyway?

Is it a deep-seated hatred that he reserves for his own shortcomings in matters that he could never possibly help in preventing?

Is it perhaps this belief that all the people around him never truly loved him to begin with?

Maybe it’s all of them. Harry can’t even delineate between them anymore. But he bets that Papa knows because Papa knows most things, except for one: he just never knows what self-preservation means. 

Maybe that’s what they have in common. 

That little voice in other people’s heads that tells them they shouldn’t hurt themselves was never really present in Papa’s head. Not through any fault of his own. But Harry is starting to think that that’s why Papa always seems to be running out of reach, headfirst into things that could get him killed. It’s not the desire to die, necessarily, just that lack of voice. The voice that warns of death and fatality. 

Maybe that’s what he hates so much about Harry too. The fact that he knows that Harry and Dad both know about the lack of voice. Maybe he hated that Harry ran into a fistfight with Lucius Malfoy bare-handed. Maybe he hated that Harry sought the philosopher’s stone, and dismantled his life by writing to Skeeter, and that he talked to snakes. 

Maybe he thought that the voice was absent in Harry’s head too. But the truth is that the voice in Harry’s head is Papa’s. And Harry doesn’t know how he will deal with that voice when its owner is getting kidnapped or hurt or touched by violence so constantly and consistently all the time. 

He wishes to tell Papa that when Dad looked Barty in the eyes and told him that ‘he won’t outlive him ’ something in Harry died too. He always knew the extent of Dad’s unending love for Papa; he’d seen so many extreme accounts of it in his childhood with his own eyes, but to hear those words, and to know that Dad had to live through that once and would go to any lengths to avoid it now—not even at the cost of leaving Harry all alone in this world. 

There are so many things that he wants to tell Papa, and all of them hurt so much. It’s not blame. It’s not some retributive scorn. He loves his father. Both of his parents, he loves almost equally. But did Papa always have to be so far away like this?  

“Why are you doing this?” he asks Barty as the man frantically runs around the shack, putting out the fire, cleaning up his sick from the floor, charming some boots for Harry to wear, “Why do you…”

Barty doesn’t pause. He throws Harry a pair of transfigured combat boots. 

“Why do I always follow him into the fire like some idiot, you mean? If you have to ask that after so many years, kid—”

“I know why, never mind.” 

And yeah, he knows. 

When he first met Ron, he was rather restless the entire time. He just couldn’t stop crying, his first time away all on his own. Ron asked why he was doing that, and Harry remembers saying, “I just want to be with Papa. He left.”

“But isn’t he coming back?” Ron had asked him, so genuinely confused. 

Maybe that’s why Harry feels this irrational thing in his chest. The thing is, other people know that their parents will always come back when they leave if they can help it. But Harry never knew whether Papa was coming back whenever he left . That’s probably it. Even when he was small, he was anxious that Papa would leave and never come back.

Barty and Dad must feel that too. Sirius and Remus even. Maybe that’s why Harry has been so terrified by war and by what Riddle did to him last time. It’s not the fear of loss in general. It’s not just about death and violence. It’s the irrevocable loss of his parents. Both of them. Without one there would be no other. 

Well, not if Harry has any say in it. 

“What’s the plan?” he asks Barty and drops back down on the armchair to put on the boots.  

The man doesn’t particularly look like he has a plan. He looks very determined and sure of his jerky actions as he hurries around, bordering the windows with his wand now. It takes Harry a moment to realise that all his scrambling is…cleaning. He’s cleaning the shack. 

“Barty.”

“The plan is that we break in.”

“What then?” Harry demands, tying his laces, “And how?”

“We’ll figure out the rest when I find your papa. And the wards should let us in just fine.”

Harry looks at the man and wonders whether all that alcohol has finally pickled his brain because how can Barty look at him and tell him that the wards will just let them in as if they’re going for tea?

“What are you talking about?” 

“I doubt they’ve changed things much,” Barty says distractedly. He’s picking up bottles for some reason, stuffing them into a rubbish bag. Harry wonders why the man bothers; it’s unlikely for them to return here or even return alive. 

“I need you to elaborate.”

Barty pauses with an exasperated sigh and straightens up, “The Manor’s wards let in anyone with a mark,” He taps his forearm irritably and bends down again. 

What? 

“But—I don’t have the mark. Barty? Barty! Can you just—what the hell are you doing!?” 

“What?” 

Harry gestures at him and the bags, “Can you stop cleaning for a second!? Why are you even—Is this like Dad’s manic cooking or part of a plan—”

“They might show up,” Barty cuts him off, “To look for us later.” 

“Who!?”

“Who do you think?” Barty snaps back at him, whipping his wand at the rubbish bags and vanishing them irritably. “I don’t want them to see all this.”

Harry stares at the man disbelievingly.

“Can we just return to the conversation for a—I don’t have a mark!”

Another exasperated sigh. Barty rubs at his temple, “Alright,” he huffs and enunciates the following words as though he is talking to a toddler, “Time for a history lesson. Back in the day, death eaters loved to abduct hapless little muggles and prisoners and bring them back to the Manor. Like a little playdate? Except the other party was horrifically tortured and killed.”

“Oh.”

Barty rolls his eyes, “Yes, oh . So as long as you’re entering the wards with another person with a mark, that should be fine. They won’t think twice.”

But that cannot be right, Harry thinks with a frown. When he first suggested that they break in to save Draco, Barty never pointed out that getting in would be so easy. And surely after fourteen years, they’ve changed things…right?

He says, “It can't be that easy.”

“Of course, it’s not. Death Eaters will swarm the place. Not to mention Riddle. If your Papa is there…Riddle would be too.” 

Both of them pause for a beat. 

“And do we have a plan for that?” Harry hates how afraid he feels. He hates that even the smallest chance of running into that monster is paralysing him. He doesn’t have a choice. If Riddle has Papa then Harry has to go and save him. Fear or failure is not an option.

“The plan is I’ll distract them, and you take your papa and run for the hills. I think. The plan is susceptible to change depending on the circumstances. I’m really counting on Riddle not being there.”

“How come?” 

Barty shrugs a bit, “If he were there with your father he wouldn’t be quiet about it. Or maybe it’s dumb faith.” 

It makes a little amount of sense but it is still a wildly imperfect plan. It actually isn’t a plan as opposed to an abstract concept of a plan. So what, they’ll just march in and run out? 

“There’ll be a portkey, don’t give me that look,” Barty grouses, withdrawing a hand with a folded note from his pockets, “That’s how they took you out the first time too, funnily enough.” 

Harry looks at him march to the coffee table, watches him drop the folded note with an air of begrudging finality. He wonders whether the note is for Dad but then figures all that cleaning must be because Barty thinks that Remus and Sirius will be coming by to look for them later. 

“There’s no way that’ll work twice,” he mutters to the man. It sounds ridiculous.

“You’d be surprised, kid,” Barty is looking at the note, “I’ll get you both out,” he vows, “You and your Papa both. I’ll get you out no matter what.”

He means it. 

“But what about you…”

“I’ll worry about that myself.”

Harry hates this. What he hates more is that they have no other choice. By the time Dad gets to round up people to break into the manor, it may be too late, by the time they wait for Dumbledore to do something himself, it’ll be too late. Even an hour’s delay will be too late. Papa can’t always save himself. 

The way Barty looks at him makes Harry think that the man does have a plan that he does not intend to tell Harry about. Harry wants to prod, wants to force him but there’s little point. Harry’s mind is compromised, he might give the plan away before it even has the chance to take root. Moreover, if Barty tells him that he plans a suicide mission outright…well. That’ll just suck. Harry cannot in good conscience allow that. 

But there is no good conscience in his silence either. 

“Barty, listen—”

Barty flicks his wand at a stray quill, Harry watches as the quill floats up into the man’s hand and is transfigured into a wide black cloth. He walks up to Harry with the cloth in hand and deftly starts tying it around Harry’s eyes. 

“Hey!—”

“You’re compromised, we gotta do the blindfold,” Barty tells him, and then once the knot is tightened he pulls the blindfold down Harry’s neck like a collar. Harry glares at the man mildly but cannot really argue with him. He’s right. It’s best if he doesn’t see much of what’s about to go down. 

“Do you have your wand on you?”

Harry nods.

“These are the ground rules; we’ll do this my way. If I tell you to run, you’ll run, if I say hide, you’ll hide, if I tell you to leave me, your Papa, or your boy crush behind—”

“I’ll leave?”

Well, he won’t really. But Barty doesn’t need to know that. 

Barty looks like he knows anyhow, “You got it.” 

Harry’s gaze drops to the note again, one fold in the middle, and the man’s usually neat handwriting looks jagged and hurried on the paper, bleeding through and smudged. Barty turns his back to him, fiddling with his wand, transfiguring random student essays into cloth again. 

Harry is tempted to ask why. This is clearly hurting Barty, living like this, leaving like this…leaving to save Papa, knowing he might never see Sirius or Moony again. Barty throws the long cloth over his shoulders and charms it tightly around his chest. Harry frowns at the cloth and the weird way it’s wrapped all around the man. Is it some sort of shield? 

Barty turns to Harry and says:

“Okay, now…turn into a child.”

“What?”

“Well, I gotta carry you,” his teacher and former godfather says as though it is the most obvious thing, “—and you’re massive right now so—”

“I can't do that on command!” 

“You’ve done it once!” Barty exclaims back, “Just think of some sad shit—I mean it’s not like you gotta try, your bloody father is missing and presumed dead, probably being horribly tortured right now—”

“Barty! What the bloody hell—”

“Don’t swear. Just…” he rubs at his forehead, “Shrink! Focus. If you can de-jaw a woman on command, you can shrink your body to the size of a five-year-old.”

“I don’t see why this is necessary—”

“I can’t haul and manhandle a teenager while on the run. I can a sack of flour. You roughly weigh the same as a sack of flour when you’re a kid—”

“I can just run with you!”

“What were the ground rules just now?” 

Right. Harry might have just agreed to the impossible. 

He takes off his glasses with an irritated acquiescence, folds them and slips them in his pocket. 

Embarrassingly enough, it doesn’t take him long to do it. He closes his eyes, scrunches his shoulders up and thinks of his Dad’s face a mere hour ago, when he burst through the floo, when he told Barty that he’d lost Papa again. He thinks about Papa, how mean Harry’s been to him lately. How alone he must be right now, trying to hold on. Would he try? 

Harry likes to think he would. He likes to think that Papa loves his life enough to hold on even if for just a few hours. Just to give Dad a chance. Maybe that voice in Papa’s head is now Harry’s voice, begging him to hold on. 

It’s strange, when he opens his eyes and the world around him is much bigger and scarier than before. It’s a good thing, that, unlike the last time, Harry has retained the mind of his fifteen-year-old self. Barty plucks him off the floor like the aforementioned sack of flour and tries to contort his body into the clumsy contraption. 

“Hey—”

“Just stick your feet into the sling, Merlin. Have you never been a child before?” 

Harry is tempted to bite the man’s fingers but refrains and gives him a dirty look instead. He is not exactly thrilled about having to be carried by the gangly man either. The blindfold is yanked up his eyes too and Harry sighs with exasperation. They must make such a ridiculous image. 

Harry feels them move towards the door and then quickly out of the shack. A bitter wind whips at him from behind and Harry unconsciously burrows further against the cloth holding him up. Barty pauses on the porch, maybe looking at his axe and all the unchopped firewood. Or maybe he’s just looking at the sky and surveying the weather. Harry hates not knowing. The man’s hand settles over his head, maybe to shield him against the cold, or maybe he’s just being sentimental. 

“Listen…” the man tells him, grimly, “there's a good chance that one of us won't make it. I'd rather that person be me, your dads will kill me anyhow if I return without you. So don’t do anything stupid, trying to save me.” 

“We won't die.” 

A laugh, “You know you're not that convincing as a five-year-old.”

“I'm not five.” Harry pushes at the man’s chest and Barty laughs again. Harry sobers up, worrying his lips. He is not quite as sure about this plan as he was before. Saving Papa takes priority over everything but Harry doesn’t know how willing he is to leave Barty and Draco behind if something goes wrong. 

They have to walk a bit to get to the edge of the property’s wards, Harry listens keenly to the sound of Barty’s boots, crunching the snow and small twigs, feels the man’s irregular heartbeat and feels a gentle snow falling over them. The darkness of the blindfold scares him, but not because of the dark. 

It’s the blankness of the pitch black. 

Dad was terrified of it. Of Harry seeing…

“Barty?”

“Yes?”

“What if I get…visions?” Harry pries the edge of the blindfold, pulling it down a little to look up at the man, “What if I’m possessed again and I hurt you or Papa or I see something—” 

“I don’t know,” Barty mumbles, he’s looking straight ahead at the snowy path, “But you have to remember, your life and Reggie’s are on the line. You can throw off the Imperius. You can summon a corporeal Patronus. You’re one powerful little shit. You can do this. Always remember, Harry…” his eyes flicker down, “Pain is temporary. It’s all temporary.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, fuck it. Let's go, kid.”

 

…

 

Regulus is tired. 

But after an hour of continuously doing this shit, he has the routine down. 

The hive that's attacking him is made up of roughly twenty Dementors. Maybe twenty-five, if his swimming vision and definite concussion are taken into account. So, he doesn’t let them near. The cuffs make it very difficult to cast any spells when standing or holding his arms up. So Regulus has to use his body’s momentum to his advantage. 

He throws his weight down and swings his unharmed leg up in an arch, and the flames make an impressive ring around him to ward the Dementors off momentarily, and using that single beat, Regulus has to throw his body up again and yank his arms up, forcing blue beams of light to bolt in the grey sky over his head. A light beam is as good a beacon as any, even if it attracts Muggles, it’ll make enough commotion to get traction fast. James will find him soon. He always will. Reggie just needs to hang on.

It’s exhausting. 

The physical exertion alone is taxing him rather quickly. His muscles are already sore and aching and cold sweat rolls off his face in long rivulets, making him shiver harder because of the chill. He cannot slip, not even for a single second. If a single dementor gets him, then that’ll be it. Regulus is going to fight this, even if the cuffs drain him first. 

It’s a strange thing, feeling his magic dwindle and drain into the cuffs. It’s like the very air is taken out of his lungs with every stroke. He wonders whether he’ll die if the whole core is drained or just made into a squib. He does not even have enough time to be horrified by either of those possibilities. Each ring of flame is weaker, each light beam tapers out faster. Reg is keenly aware that his time and resources are tragically finite.

Leg up in a kick, a ring of fire that dispels the hive, his body drops down, and Reggie yanks himself up and thrusts his hands up, squinting his eyes at the dim light beam that appears over his head like a beacon. 

A glorious purpose , Regulus can't stop thinking about it. And it’s rather difficult, thinking about such a thing and keeping himself alive so strenuously at the same time. He knew what Riddle had in pocket for him when he was resurrected, the monster never made it a secret. He wanted Reggie back and he wanted Regulus to stay as his submissive little doll. He was gratified by the idea that Regulus would be his to covet again, that Regulus had his rebellious streak but was obviously reared back into line by his benevolent hand. 

That’s why Orion wanted him. Riddle never hid that, to begin with. 

But he never called it Reg’s glorious purpose either. 

What could it be, that he has in store for Regulus that has all these Death Eater scums excited? Because Mulciber seemed gleeful by the prospect and the masked figure…Regulus shifts uneasily, pants for air, shivers in the frigid cold, and throws his body down again. 

He doesn’t know how much longer he can keep this going. The Dementors are unlikely to tire of him, and fire isn’t as effective a repellent as a Patronus. Not to mention other Death Eaters may show up. Riddle himself may show up before James does. What is Reggie supposed to do then?

He can probably suffocate himself with the chain with his last remaining strength because he'd truly rather die than hang around for Riddle to arrive when he's this helpless. But then again, he cannot do that either, James is looking for him. Regulus can't have James go through losing him again, not to mention their son. Regulus is not leaving his son and husband behind all on their own. 

It starts to snow. 

It’s hard to notice at first, mostly because he’s engulfed in a circle of flames of his own making, but the cold starts to worsen, little snowdrops whip against his face like little pellets with the wind, and it becomes much harder to see the dim light beam. The world rotates and warps in a whirlwind of blurs, and Regulus knows it’s the concussion. He loses his footing when he throws his body down.  

The dementors seem to notice that he’s slowed down, that he’s sprawled on the ground, they approach him, only one at a time, and Regulus cries out in frustration, yanking at his chain uselessly. He digs his bloodied nails into the bolts, trying to pry them to no avail and he feels the brushing of a Dementor’s deathly cloak against his back. 

“No,” he grits his teeth, closes his eyes and yanks again, hissing as the chain serrates his frozen palms, “You bastards! I’m not letting you! I’m not—”

One of the fuckers swims right up against his face, and Regulus doesn’t even have a second to gasp. 

He knows how these creatures work. They draw the worst memories to the forefront, draining him of the happy ones. He is so hyperaware of everything, of the odour of rot and decay, of a clawed hand, mockingly and lovingly reaching for his face, of his knees giving out. 

He’s standing behind a familiar doorstep, blood sluggishly dripping from his torn forearm. He is yanked inside, his body slammed into the wall, his brother’s fist lands by his face, his body thrown again, this time he lands on an expensive Persian rug, on his hands and knees, and a ring of masked people laughing at him. But nothing is funny, because his body is hot and it hurts! It HURTS! 

“Pick the rose,” the voice croons into his ear and he is standing again, trembling as his wand points at a man who is crying for his mother, for a god who does not exist. Regulus cries with the man too, and the voice in his ear laughs, the slender fingers tracing downward on his back, ghosting over his behind and thighs. 

Regulus tries to turn and bat the touch away, but it’s just pain, his nerve endings singed and fried and his body flails around him. There is a face looming over his, long sandy hair brushing against Reg’s quivering chin, the face is saying something, but the words are all wrong and warbled. A fish-eyed glare, directed down at him.

He lurches forward—

He can gasp. He falls onto his hands, wheezing and coughing up bile on the dried grass, he feels the tiny pinpricks of snow on his head and back. Did it stop? He thinks, groggily turning his head away from a strong shimmering blue light from his right. He squints at the light, trying to gauge what the mould the patronus takes. He sees hooves. James!? 

He darts up, but it’s not a stag that stands tall, protectively over him. There are no regal coats or antlers. It is bigger than a fawn but smaller than James’ patronus. A doe? Reggie blinks hard, panting for frigid air, he looks around at the shrivelling dementors in amazement. And then he stupidly thinks of dragging his body up to search the surroundings because a corporeal Patronus doesn’t just pop up from nowhere. 

There’s no one. The field is empty. Regulus shivers on his knees and looks at the doe again, it’s looking back at him, and there’s a warmth emanating from its glow. Regulus shuffles closer to the doe, closing his eyes in relief with a shudder. That was horrible, he thinks. 

And there was something…a wisp of something in the whirlwind of visions that Regulus couldn’t quite pinpoint. There’s a sharp pain in his head when he tries now. 

“Fuck,” he breathes against his wedding band. 

The patornus does not dissipate. It stays, seated next to him, keeping the dementors at a safe distance, somehow erecting a protective dome around them that even keeps the snow away. Regulus gathers himself from his prostrated position and sits up, staring at the doe carefully. 

Harry’s patronus is a stag too. And Lily’s is a doe. 

James always used to tell him that had his wife been more interested in becoming an Animagus, she most certainly would have been a doe. It was her pure nature, her fierce but innocent aura, her intuitiveness. Could this be her? He wonders. There’s nobody else here on the field, and not many people would have this patronus to begin with. An individual interested in saving him wouldn’t be hiding either. 

Regulus brushes his bleeding fingers against the shimmering light and shudders when the touch meets warmth. It could be her. She’s always watching over them; she helped them escape last time. Reg knows that her ghost could be lingering in this world because of them. Because of Harry. 

“Really—saving my arse, Lils—” he murmurs, “I appreciate this, really.” 

He swallows the bitter taste in his mouth with difficulty, his chest rattling. He looks down at the cuffs and frowns, another jab lurching in his head. That face…the sandy hair, those eyes, where had he seen that before? 

He sighs and closes his eyes, deciding that he should rest now before the dementors return. The doe tilts its head at him, and Reg exhales, “Just gotta hang on till our husband finds me. He'll be here soon.” 

He presses his lips to his fingers and looks at the snow, “Soon.”

 

…

 

Draco is starting to have really unpleasant thoughts. 

They started small, maybe a tiny snide bite here or there. Between the torture, the bed sores, and Riddle sorting through his mind all the time, there wasn't really much room for normal cogitation. So thoughts of death, of an undue suicide, of relief are all he can think about. 

He lost track of the days...about a week ago. Except he’s not quite sure it was a week ago because he’s not been keeping track of the days. They used to feed him once a day before. They’ve been skipping a few days for a bit now. Since his family’s reunion. 

Auntie Bella seems to be occupying the elves elsewhere with her wand, tormenting them surely. A decade is a long time to go without torturing a fellow. They have not been sanctioned to kidnap any poor muggles yet. No, this is not like the first time. This time around, their Lord is straitlaced; this time there are only a handful of objectives and roles meant to be followed to the dot.

Since Draco saw it happen that way and Riddle saw that happen in Draco’s head that way, then in reality it will all happen that way. Or something to that effect. 

Bella is privileged to be here. Or more likely contained, the wild animal that she is. Not all of them are in the house; the majority are out there, already having been deployed for their first mission. But some reside here with the beast. Bella and his father are here, Bella’s husband and his twin brother... some other sod whom Draco doesn’t know, the twat who killed Ron’s dad.  

But what does it matter? He’s hungry. He’s so hungry that he’s thinking about chomping down on his own emaciated arm, yanking on the flesh, and swallowing himself whole. He’s tried calling for help, of course. His voice doesn’t do much above a croak, but he’s voiced his hunger a few times. No one passes his room, the elves are being killed or toyed with. And Riddle, the little shit, he hasn’t visited in a bit. 

He has a plan, though Draco doesn’t really know what it is. Or maybe he knew in a distant past and now he just doesn’t anymore. It happens. His thoughts only make sense when Riddle is narrating them now, when he sees the vignettes and nods to himself…Draco knows that the image in his head is concrete. In the absence of that affirmation, everything is slippery and uncertain. 

He should probably be concerned about the plan. He should be concerned that he hasn’t eaten in a few days. 

Has he finally outlived his use? That’s not supposed to happen. Maybe Draco’s fucked something up again. It won’t be the first time. He keeps messing with the events, he keeps changing them hoping it’ll alter the outcome too. The outcome was always supposed to be his death. Maybe this time around, his death happens here on this bed, from hunger. 

The thought of not seeing Harry again feels like a mad rodent chewing its hungry little way into Draco’s chest. He moans in despair, fists his hands, and pulls at his torn and filthy bedsheets with long, jagged nails. What if he’s fucked up so much that Harry won’t come? Or maybe he will, but a second too late. 

What if he comes and Draco is dead?

“Don’t cry,” the voice mutters next to him. Draco opens his eyes, looking at the phantom a bit hatefully. 

“Where are you? Hum!?” He cries angrily, “Don’t you see... don't you see I’m hungry? I’ve been waiting—”

He doesn’t stick to his script, but Harry does. 

“You look so good today,” the boy tells him, smoothing a piece of lanky hair back in place, “practically glowing.”

He always says the same things. Stolen bits and pieces from different memories, sewn together like a fucked-up little quilt. Draco buries the rabid rodent in his chest with fluttering hands. 

“I am? Glowing?” 

He looks into the soft green eyes and imagines himself to be beautiful, maybe for half a second. He’s never seen what his future self would look like, whether he’ll even be human. But these words... they're real, unlike phantom Harry. They’ve been uttered by the boy. About him. About Draco. Draco finds it hard to see himself in a scenario where he’s glowing .

“Very pretty, have I ever told you?” 

“Not yet,” Draco dampens his cracked lips a bit shyly, he looks away, “You don't have to fib, I know I look like a troll with my face and hair like this—” 

The words aren’t real, he has to remind himself. Not in this context anyway. They’re not actually having a conversation. He shouldn’t be flustered over a compliment that’s not even real. This is just...pathetic. But he’s so alone, and he’s lost count of the days, and he’s hungry. 

“I’m hungry,” he voices it again, not knowing why he expects a hallucination to do something about this. He pushes down his sunken stomach, trailing his fingers up towards his pronounced ribs. 

“What do you want?” Harry asks with ease. 

The same script, in different orders. Draco sighs, looking away from Harry. 

“Tea would be lovely. With scones?” he says, staying true to his lines. 

“The ones my dad makes are the best.” 

“I know,” he imagines them, piled on a plate on the Potter’s kitchen table, hot to touch and delectable. His mouth waters just thinking about them, about how perfectly they’ll come apart under his fingers, how they’ll scald his tongue and palate, how warm they’ll feel going down his throat, “Buttery and sweet.” 

It’s been a hot minute since he’s had hot food. It’s been a bit since he’s had any food. 

James Potter’s cooking is sorely amiss, though Draco has never tasted a single thing the man’s made yet. Perhaps, he never will. With the way things are looking, currently, the chances of him dying seem more likely than him eating a homecooked meal. 

“I'll make you some jammy scones in a bit,” Harry says lightly, grinning at him like it’s all fine. Draco doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he’s not real and all is indeed not fine. 

“I was thinking we could fly this afternoon.” 

“Fly?” Draco forces his eyes to open, he squints at Harry with bleary eyes, “On a broom? Oh, it's been so long. I don't think my legs can—” 

“I'll hold you up, of course,” Harry cuts him off, and Draco frowns. That’s not really in the script now, is it? Draco narrows his eyes down at his hands and cranes his neck a little to look around. He sees the way his bed dips under Harry’s weight. That’s never happened before either. How vivid are his hallucinations about to get?

“That’s not…” Draco trails off, startled by the urgent look on Harry’s face. Gone the light-hearted grin, the boy is leaning over him with a grave expression. Draco leans away from him, warily flinching as the chain around his ankle rattles, protesting the movement. 

“Draco, you have to remember. It's important.” 

“Hm?” 

“Your broom,” Harry insists, “We're going to fly, remember?” 

“But my legs—”

“I know, Draco,” the hands reach out, almost as if they mean to touch Draco, “But I'll be holding you. You can hold onto me, and close your eyes, feel the wind against your face. Don’t you miss the wind?” 

Draco looks at the boy’s hands, at the tiny litter of scabs all over the back and his forearms. He settles down and feels a bit stupid that he’s freaked out. His head flops back down on the flattened pillow with disdain and Draco closes his eyes, and really does think about the wind. A gentle breeze against his skin would feel like the lashing of a whip right now, but in another world? 

It’s quite nice that he’s closed his eyes now. Harry has the right idea. It is a bit harder to ignore the gnawing hunger, but at least he doesn’t have to expend energy looking around the room anymore. Harry’s here too, when his eyes are closed, grimy and covered in blood with a crazed look in his eyes but he’s here, taller, his hair messier, his smile weary. It’s the last time they’ll see each other before the end. 

The end, Draco wonders if the end is as pleasant as the wind. 

“The wind. That'll be nice—” 

“No, not now,” the voice exclaims right next to his ear and Draco jolts, glaring at the boy, “You have to stay awake now,” Harry says again, “You have to wait for me.” 

“But I don't know when you're coming!” Draco shoves the phantom away with one hand, “I've been waiting—every…every day! I look at that door and I think about your silhouette but it's never you! It's always him! And it always hurts—” 

He trails off and cries like a little child. A cynical part of him warns him that he’s dehydrated enough as it is, that he surely does not have enough water to spare for tears, but the gnawing rat in his chest needs an out. He just doesn’t know why, why him? 

“I need you to stay awake,” Harry coaxes his hands away from his face, “Where's your broom?” 

“I don't know,” Draco whines like a petulant child. He hates it. He hates what he’s become. Who cares about the bloody broom anyhow?

“You do. Go on. Tell me.” 

“Um—wardrobe?” 

He didn’t really pack, did he? He was kidnapped out of school. He’s sure that Father had his things transferred or maybe Severus did. Or maybe they just never bothered because they both knew Draco wouldn’t be going anywhere for a very long time. His eyes rove the room, glancing past Harry at the wardrobe with its ajar door and dark insides. He used to sleep there a while ago, staring at his future self chained up on the bed. He doesn’t know which version he pities more, now.

Where is his broom?

“In your trunk. That's important, Draco. Your broom’s in your trunk in the wardrobe. Hm?” 

“What good is it?” his throat clicks when he talks, he really shouldn’t have shouted earlier, “I'm gonna rot here. I'm going to die, and you'll never know—” 

He’ll never know how much Draco loves him, how delusionally devoted he is to him, how in his head they have loved each other for decades, how he grew up imagining that he was loved. There is no other name for what plagues Draco but utter delusion. A madness. 

“That's not how it goes, Draco. Have you forgotten?” 

“As if I ever could,” Draco exhales, and maybe it counts as a laugh, “Maybe it'll be better if you never come. If I just die here…maybe then you'll…” 

“Draco?” 

Those damn tears again, he’s going to dry up like a shrivelled little plant. 

“It's not fair,” he dashes his fingers at the sluggish tears, “You don't even like me. And I love you like we've lived entire lifetimes together. It's not fair! We're so far apart and you’ll never know. It's not fair that I'm here.” 

“Life has been unkind to you.”

“My mum's dead,” and he never even saw her body, “And you're not here,” and he never might end up being here, “You don’t love me, wouldn’t matter even if you were here. And Reg—and—” and James Potter aren’t here either, “They're not here—I’m scared , Harry.” 

He’s scared of death. What idiot wouldn’t be? He’s scared that this is all he’ll ever be. In this room. On this bed. Barely fifteen years old. He could have lived so many decades. He could have lived half a century. Even more. He could’ve been kissed and loved and adored. He could have had children of his own. He could have spent leisurely hours in a bed, knowing he could leave anytime he wished. He could have rolled around in the snow, had an actual birthday party, a family dinner. A hug. 

Poor Hagrid, he thinks. The man really would feel guilty, wouldn’t he? Once he finds out about all this in a few years. Once they all win the war and find Draco’s decomposed body here, melted into the bed. 

“You've seen this happen,” Harry’s fingers trace the tears on his face, or maybe it’s Draco who does that, “I'll come. I will. But it's important that you remember what you have to do.”

Draco knows what he has to do. 

“Broom. Dobby. Broom. Dobby. Cup? Ferret?” 

“Dobby will know,” Harry promises him, his own eyes heavy with pain and pity…no not pity. Despair. Maybe Draco is too feverish to tell, but Harry looks as though seeing Draco like this pains him. 

“You just need to remember,” Harry says, “Where's your broom?” 

“Um…with me. We're flying. This afternoon. In my trunk.” 

The ghost of a kiss on his sunken cheek, “You are so lovely.”

“Hurry.” 

Notes:

I still cannot say much without spoilers, but:

- The first flashback takes place roughly a few nights before Reg finds James in HBT, Reg's in the process of planning the fire in the manor in that scene.
- I unabashedly plagiarised the quote 'By the way, you look unbelievably beautiful tonight. You're practically glowing. Maybe it's the lighting.' From Fantastic Mr. Fox in Draco's POV (only the "glowing part" tho). It's such a beautiful movie and I love that scene.
- Happy reading~

Chapter 9: [Split Scene] - Origins

Summary:

Origins

Notes:

Split scene: Cross-cutting (also called split-screen) is a drama technique borrowed from the world of film editing, where two scenes are intercut to establish continuity. In drama and theatre, the term is used to describe two or more scenes which are performed on stage at the same time.

[Split Scene] - Origins 

 

 

You become incensed. You go a little crazy when you see the worst of humanity plastered over everything you’re forced to touch. 

An ugly thing. A necessary but ugly thing; the dominance of one over the other. There is a sense of pleasure to it, an impetus that is perverse but almost exalting because pure pain crosses a line that almost captures the most sublime scenes. Something that is beyond a physiological response, an expression that facsimiles pure ecstasy, mirrors it, and just for a moment makes it seem like they can be equated to each other. 

It becomes a dance where one is complacent and helpless and the other complacent but enabling; through cowardice or depraved lust, who’s to say there’s a difference? They are both self-serving. 

His eyes are on the stage, but everyone is watching him, including the dancers, the dying, bleeding ones. No one can help it; the expression on his face is putrid but frozen in a moment that teeters between awe and nauseated revulsion. The languid tears make him look appreciative, no…angelic, but his rounded eyes, his agape mouth, the way his entire body trembles and contorts with Siobhan on the stage—it ruins the tears but elevates them too. 

It is strange how your life takes a turn overnight because of a single person. 

Siobhan wasn’t happy that they’d had to make a stop in England. War-torn was how she’d described it, dangerous, barmy, honestly a fuck-around bad idea. She had a foul mouth, normally unbecoming of a prima donna. They hadn’t performed in the Old Smoke for about two years now, since the whole thing with this Dark Lord started. A bit detached from the violence and reality of it all. It was funny how distant war was when you weren’t at the forefront. 

They were supposed to stay for a day or two until the Paris coordinator got them the halfway Portkey. They had a show on August 1st in Palais Garnier, and it was entirely too big of a deal, their biggest gig ever. Your first too. You and Siobhan entered the business together, and that was a whole affair. You didn’t know her too well but you were folded in the bunch together; there was a solidarity between the two of you, a respect that exceeded form, maybe a little spark on stage. It eased the acting. You were Marcus, The Witch’s lover, the Countertenor , the famous abandoner. The Witch was no good to you marred and so in a flurry of Falsettos and a concluding Aria that you know too well by heart, you left her to the wind. 

“ Droch chrích ort! Could’ve just taken the damn train.” Siobhan groused, you and she were sharing a room, a seedy little motel called The Leaky Cauldr on, was all the cast coordinator could afford, they’d really banked on the Palais Garnier show, “It’s not like it’s a continent away, we can literally apparate to the borders—”

“Makes you uneasy, doesn’t it? Staying here.” 

She was fixing up her hair. You were rehearsing that night in the Golden Snidget theatre; Some of the more weathered folks performed there regularly. It was a little bit of a warm-up and they might as well have done it; they’d been stuck in London for about three days at that point. 

“You barely see people on the street, scurrying about,” she’d clicked her tongue, pushing a pin into the fixed hair bun, “It’s a deadland. Art’s dead here, Paul. Just dead . It’s a shithole.”

That was the last time you two spoke coherently with each other. A man came by the moment you got to the theatre, with a gang of masked assailants, requesting to usurp the hall for a special show . They were upon you like flies, no, like vultures. They tortured you all on the stage, the hardwood was slick with blood and tears and piss, bodies were sprawled, some close to each other, within reach, and some far away, draped over the stage, like little ants. No one was trained or prepared for combat or resistance. They were just actors, dancers, poor sods. 

Siobhan got the brunt of it, her screams rang the loudest, her torment was beyond the torture curse. One of them had lodged a sharp silver skewer right into her abdomen, over the pale pink bodice, splattering murkish blood over her Bell Tutu. They were all so confused, you were too. Why was this happening? Why you ? Why here, why now, why her ?

They dragged your trembling body up with the others, cackling and jeering the entire time. They lit the halls, forced you all to push tables and seats close up near the stage. It all took so little time, but maybe it took an eternity and you were just not able to comprehend it. 

It was hard to come to terms with the fact that you were about to die. All over what? You weren’t even supposed to be here, you were supposed to be in Paris, performing the Opéra-ballet at Palais Garnier. You couldn’t divorce your fate from that thought. It felt a bit unreal. The war wasn’t supposed to touch you. You were just passing by. 

It was surreal, wearing tights and bedazzled bodices and tutus, the dim light reflecting off the sequins, the fabric stiff with blood and sweat and bodily fluids, the floor slick with it, the bodies that stumbled around you, lost and crying and shaking, calling for their mothers. One of the fuckers was leaning over Siobhan, over her curled, bleeding form, crooning something. 

You were going to perform. For a special occasion. A special guest. 

There is no orchestra , one of the older musicians was stuttering to a masked figure, beseeching, saying, you killed the conductor, there’s no orchestra, please.  

Instead of begging for their lives, trying to fight, to scream for help, to run, the cellist was wandering after one masked figure, then migrating to another when ignored, like a little child, crying in a thick French accent, in a broken English that you killed the conductor, there’s no orchestra, please. Please. Please. It’s a—a Da capo aria—you need—you need—

You were about to perform without a conductor and cellist. 

It was a scene plucked right out of a nightmare, no, a Comédie en vaudeville. Satire. It was satire. Your legs were shaking, your tights were wet, you were bleeding too. Your lank sandy hair stuck to your scalp, the cosmetics on your face smudged and perspired, your eyes roaming the halls, over the swarming assailants, over their jeers and sneers and silver masks. You didn’t even think about running. There was nowhere to run. You weren’t a soldier, you were a dancer. The war wasn’t supposed to touch you. 

You never even thought the world capable of this sort of violence, or yourself capable of being subjected to it. You are not even a civilian here. Merely a passerby.

You prepared yourself for a performance, running the libretto in your head, forcing the words through screams, forcing your knees not to give out, you noticed it right away when the guest of honour arrived. Young, thin as a rail, with eyes blown wide at the sheer display of violence, dragged along by two other masked figures behind their Lord . The guest was frog-marched, gingerly lowered onto a seat at the centrepiece table. He looked so young, or maybe it wasn’t that. He looked small, surrounded by broad-shouldered Death Eaters, by the towering figure of the Dark Lord, who had no attention to spare anyone but the guest.  

They roused Siobhan by force, she wasn’t moving on her own, the skewer was thrust further into her intestines when they yanked her up, she nearly fainted from the pain. The Lord paused his murmurings to his guest, you watched as he tilted his head and a slender Death Eater—the one who’d stabbed Siobhan—hurried towards him. They had to yank the silver rod out of her so that she could do the dance.

Your vision and memory went a little blurry; you could hear the orchestra clumsily picking up the tune without a conductor and the cellist. The supporting cast began the prologue, their voices shaking, their maddened eyes staring into the maw of the beast. The music was jagged, stilted, the entire hall silent. Pointe shoes frequently slipped on the slick stage, their spectators jeered when it wasn’t funny, taunted the guest over the music, Marcus could hear Siobhan’s voice in a breathless gasp, blood flicking off her skirt with each contrived Pirouette. 

You got it. Looking at the fluttering mouth of the horrified guest, the reason for your misfortune, it almost looked as if he was mouthing the words in tandem with Siobhan, but of course, that wasn’t the case. He was just trying to breathe, horrified, his gaze never wavered once from Siobhan’s movements; he was utterly unaware that every single person in the hall was watching him . 

They took him halfway through the second act, miraculously before you were due to start with the Allégro sequence. Siobhan was crumpled in the middle of the stage like a lifeless doll in a puddle of her own blood, her wheezing could be heard almost as clearly as the guest’s. The guest was so enthused that he'd fainted.

“Get rid of them.”

You heard the order, so did the others. The music croaked to a quick death, your toes gave out under the en pointe immediately. The Dark Lord swept over his guest, roughly seized him out of his seat by his elbow, and started dragging his pliant body away, slamming it into chairs and other bustling Death Eaters. Chaos ensued, with helpless screams, some of the dancers uselessly trying to pull their show wands—useless things— to resist the fusillade of hungry beasts, Siobhan’s head made a sickening sound upon impact with the ground and you…oh poor you—You prostrated, entrapped and dazed by the night, you began blabbering and crying and screaming like the others. You did not try to fight. 

It's not fair, you kept thinking. You weren't supposed to die! You were consumed by the flames that begged you to live. The indomitable urge to live despite the humiliation. 

You told them please, please, I’ll do whatever, I’ll do more shows, I’ll be whatever you want me to be—pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease—

They found it funny. As your acquaintances and friends fell down like birds plucked out of the sky, lifelessly around you. You swore allegiance to the opposing side of a war you barely knew of. All because of a little shit who liked the play a little too much. And the disgusting part? You got it.

You were repulsed but enamoured with the disgust, inexplicably fascinated by it. You began to crave it even as your friend, even as Siobhan faded away right in front of you. They thought it was funny because they killed everyone but you . 

They took you back. They stripped you of the bedazzled costumes; they threw you into a cell in a dungeon. They ripped out your tongue. It was hilarious to them. The Countertenor who couldn't sing. It didn't help that your blood was dirty. Spoiled and pickled in a muggle womb, they jeered at you. 

You were just a nobody. Not once had the thought of your parentage occurred to you. Not once did it matter that Mama couldn't cast spells. But in that cell, in that tiny, windowless cubicle, you began to resent it. To hate it. To hate her. 

They let you gurgle on the blood, and then when that healed, they dressed you up like a little serving monkey and paraded you around the manor, attending to their Lord. It seemed like weeks passed faster than the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings. Sometimes they kept you on a chain like a dog. They thought that was really funny. But what was funnier was that the guest was on a leash too.

You saw him more. His name was Regulus , and he was a nobleborn, a pureblood, a prodigy in his own right, reduced to an animal just to satiate the amusement of a petty man. In many ways, it was as though the roles were reversed and you were the one watching a show.  

There was this game, the one the Dark Lord frequently liked to play with the boy. The prisoners, the fresh ones, were usually rounded up in the sitting room, and you were always there with clasped hands and a hung head, sneaking glances at the way all colour was blanched from the boy’s face. 

The Lord had sadistic whims. He held out the game until the boy wailed to be let go of the torment, to be the subject of ridicule and humiliation instead. 

It was disgusting, but so satisfying to watch. To watch how his life was reduced to nothing like yours. To watch him bleed out his identity as you stood in the corner and rejoiced. Complacent. You had lost your voice, your future, your life, your tongue, but unlike this sod, you still had the smallest measure of agency. In a crowd and alone, Regulus Black was simply nothing. He was even lower than you.

Like an exotic treat, you began to anticipate it. And it never disappointed. 

You served the Lord his meals often. Your hands were always steady despite the torture, you had the grace and silence of a tenured dancer. You didn't fidget. You didn't complain. The boy was often there. Mostly to watch the Lord eat. 

The Lord would make him drunk on purpose most nights, raking his eyes over the boy's flushed face and body like a dragon ogling gold. You could tell this was something that had started long before you and your life fell apart. The boy couldn't see beyond his own tears. He never acknowledged anyone's presence in any room but the Dark Lord's. He always seemed as though he was trapped in a delirious haze.

One night, he was allowed to eat with the Dark Lord. He was too sick to touch his lamb. The dark lord requested dessert. You delivered the dish, the dessert, arranged in delicate orange peels, your hands shaking around the tray, your jaw hurting from the sheer gnashing of your teeth. It was chocolate and blood. You lowered the plate in front of the boy’s twitching body. You retreated to your corner, and you bet that Black couldn’t even tell you apart from the curtains or Death Eaters or even the Dark Lord. 

Your escape was through him. There was no physical escape from this, but mindless menial work made it easy to forget that you used to have a name, friends, parents, you were supposed to be in Paris.

You got involved in the games once. The one the Dark Lord liked playing a lot. Malfoy thought it’d be funny to shove you into the row of rounded-up prisoners, cackling as the silver tray clattered out of your shaking hands, a Dumb little bug was almost as good as a muggle, right?

“Pick the rose.” 

You were Regulus Black’s favourite rose. Because you couldn’t scream profanities. Because the screams were too guttural without the aid of a tongue to resemble anything humane. It was easier for him to pick you as his rose. Just as he picked the play for his birthday present, and just as he picked you and Siobhan. 

He could have just died. Just yielded. Instead of inflicting that pain on you, instead of humiliating himself, he could have just chosen death instead of his infantile wailing and begging, instead of pointing his quivering wand at you and letting you take the brunt of his torture. 

But he, like you, had that urge to live. That yearning, that pushed through the dehumanisation. It was weird that you resented him for the same thing you wanted for yourself so badly. 

One night, maybe it was a Saturday, maybe it was a month after you were taken, brought here and made into a show monkey, one night he tired of the same old game of rose-picking. Bellatrix Lestrange, his unbound hound dog was recounting or reporting or rejoicing in her night’s kill, tittering her way through the words, accompanied by a childish mirth. She’d taken two muggles, she was saying, a mother and daughter, and she made them fight to the death, with the promise to horrifically torture the remaining victor. Losing was winning, she was giggling, and the Dark Lord was regarding her with unmasked amusement, as she detailed the mother bashing her own daughter to death and the daughter fighting just as hard, giving it all, to grant her mother a quick death. 

You could see Regulus Black, seated on the floor by the Dark Lord’s throne, having gone white as a sheet, staring at the mad woman with dead eyes. Everyone else was standing, even Bellatrix, who should have been kneeling by the throne, had taken the centre stage of the room in long dramatic strides, her frizzy hair and layered skirts unbound, her arms waving about to mimic the pathetic fight. You, the servant, were standing to the side with clasped hands. 

“I want to see it,” the Lord’s croon cut through the woman’s manic ranting, and she cackled along in agreement, and you could see the malicious look she threw at Regulus Black, a twist to her mouth. 

“It would be a sight, my Lord! A sight! Wouldn’t it be just grand, just so grand, my Lord, to see my pathetic cousin fight like that?” she’d said, her smirk as rancid as a hyena’s. The Dark Lord’s gaze…Everyone’s gaze fell on Regulus Black and his glazed eyes. 

Tonight’s entertainment. 

Regulus Black didn’t put up a fight, he seemed not to comprehend fully what was going on. He looked up at the Dark Lord’s face, leering down at him, sluggishly, curled his hands over his lap, and ducked his gaze away. 

The Lord’s hand was lowered on the boy’s head, tugging at the hair in the guise of a caress. He had the sitting room cleared, you and the elves, getting the expensive furniture and useless paraphernalia out of the way. 

You were anticipating it. That disgusting, lethargic excitement was filling your lungs, fuelled by your hatred for this boy, for all he stood for, for his torment, most importantly. He chose you as his rose after all; why couldn’t you do the same?

It became alarmingly clear as the sitting room was prepared that the boy was meant to fight someone with his bare hands. A few of the masked figures in the usual crowd squirmed, not at all excited but forced to comply with the fickle whims of their lord. Bellatrix was the loudest by far, singing some nonsense rhyme in French to her cousin, yanking at his arm and pulling him around, shoving him to the centre. 

The Lord’s throne was untouched, the man upon it, usurping it, crossed one leg over the other, and he said, he looked at you, at you, and he said, “How about the mangled cripple? How about him? Lucius, drag him here.” 

A hand seized you, the nails digging into your arm, and the disgusting excitement turned into instant terror. You were paralysed by it. Why you, you kept thinking, why was it you? Why were you a companion to his pain? Why were you chosen to bear the brunt of his incompetence!? 

When the Lord ordered for the dirty fight to start, the boy hesitated, but you, you didn’t. You threw yourself on him, pinning his body down with shaking arms, you fisted your inexperienced hands, the hands of an artist, and you pulled your punch back, and you cried the same guttural cry; and you struck him in the face, again, and again, and again. Siobhan’s face was behind your eyes, lurching with each punch. 

Black wasn’t defending himself, he was flinching, he was coughing up blood, a tooth knocked out, his lip busted, his nose running, his feet kicking out. But he was not fighting back. That made you more angry, how dare he? 

Your vision was red, all that pain, all that suffering, your tongue, your voice, your entire being—was behind those punches and kicks, and your hands, your knuckles, grazing the harsh bones of the boy’s face, became bruised, red by the force. Your fingers ached to close around the boy’s throat, and after all, why not? Wasn’t this a fight to the death? Was this not a demonstration? You were an actor, a Countertenor, you were born to be in the centre, born to shine. 

This could be Paris, and you could be Marcus, if you just pretended hard enough. 

Your body was yanked back by an invisible force, slammed into a masked Death Eater who shoved you back with a cry of revulsion. Your vision cleared and you looked at the Lord, gazing down at the bloodied, unmoving body of the boy. 

“Fight back, pet.” He whispered to the boy, menacingly, “Need I remind you what would happen if you were to disobey me? Do you want that? Do you crave it? Do you need to be punished?”

The boy whimpered, no, he keened like an animal, shaking and rolling back, trying to push himself up. The lord’s smirk widened, and you fisted your hands again, bracing yourself as the boy jumped you, his body now on top of yours, scratching and punching and yanking your hair for all it was worth. You writhed on the floor on top of each other, he yanked your half-face mask off with crazed eyes, his gaze stuttering as he saw your face, your eyes. You rolled over him, taking advantage of that moment of weakness, you slammed his head into the floor, feeling the languid flow of blood down your chin on the boy’s bashed face. Your hands went around his throat again, your thumbs pressing down, you could kill him, you were allowed. You could hear the jeering and the cheers all around you, you could feel the Lord’s gaze on your back, fixated on the boy. 

You pressed down harder. 

The boy’s eyes snapped open in a sudden panic, his hands flying up to yours, scratching and trying to yank them away, he wasn’t gasping for air, he was crying . Like a cloud in springtime, his cries, stilted gags, were loud and unaware, almost infantile. You reeled off of him in shock, your gaze dragging upwards as the Lord clicked his tongue, and a masked figure broke out from the circle of spectators, rushing to Black with hasty but ginger strides. 

“My Lord—”

“Shut him up,” The Lord growled at the masked figure, yanked his wand out of his sleeve and started walking away, out of the study, his face fixed in a sneer as the masked figure gathered the crying boy, holding him on his lap, his arms tightly snared around the thrashing body, murmuring in his ears. The other death eaters jeered, filing out of the study after their Lord and you remained, staring at the real spectacle, your head swimming with the adrenaline, your hands shaking in rage and shock. 

The show was spoiled. 

You served them again, dinner, dessert, blood in an orange peel. The boy was going slowly insane, and you saw it, because you felt it happening to yourself in your chest. You slept, curled like a rodent in the corner of the kitchens, the place reserved for elves, and you shivered and you thought of the boy, unwittingly. 

The Dark Lord never spared you a glance beyond your function. But a night came, and he looked at you, and he said, “Stand by the door and do not move.” 

You could see the boy behind him in the room, through the crack in the ajar door, quivering and squirming on a chair, shaking and panting audibly for air. Maybe you knew what would happen, maybe you felt nothing. Humans feel sympathetic, they have to feel sympathetic when one of their kind goes through this kind of pain. 

But you weren’t really human anymore. You were a show monkey, a mute little servant. You were lower than an animal because only animals have the instinctive drive that you had to live, and to survive. 

You stood rigidly by that door, and you tuned every little voice out, the loud ones too. You stared at a fixed point, at the curtains, at the long corridor and its dizzying expanse and you stood for hours, playing your favourite arias, your favourite operas, your favourite pieces in your head, alienated from them as you were, you still remembered. 

The door was yanked open so many hours later, maybe more than four, but less than six. You were so tired, you were rocking on your heels, trying not to fall asleep. The door was yanked open and the boy rushed out in a flurry of cries and clumsy movements, limping off and running down the corridor. You stared, unsure, at his back until he disappeared. You craned your neck, staring into the room, there was the Dark Lord, fastening his robes around his body, not even looking at him. 

“Follow him,” the Lord addressed you again, peering right into your eyes, into your frenzied mind, “Bring him back.” 

You didn’t even think about escaping. You knew how to apparate, you knew that you couldn’t do that in the manor, and you could not exit the manor to do so, you could not even try. But now you had the explicit permission of the lord to leave. To escape, to Paris, or maybe to your parents in München, back to oblivion. You would never dance again, never travel again, never set foot out of your childhood room again.

But curiously, you did not escape. You were handed a portkey, allegedly to the same location the boy had fled to, and you went, wandless, defenceless. There was a cliff, an angry sea, and an entrance to a cave. You stood by the entrance, in the early hours of the morning, feeling the crisp wind shifting through your sordid robes, tickling your emaciated flesh beneath. You stood undecided, and maybe it was a little bit later that you decided to venture inside, maybe it was less time. The boy was drowning, gurgling on the water, weakly fighting off the grabbing hands. You watched him, he could not see you. 

You were so tempted to let him die. You did not know why escape did not occur to you again, maybe it did and it was just a distant thought. You watched him splash in the darkness, crying a name, “ James! ” over and over, anguished and desperate and young. 

You were the one who yanked his body up, and he couldn’t see you, he saw through you, he looked out of his mind, maybe drugged, whimpering the name over and over. You pulled at his elbow, dragging him behind your body, trying to find your way out of the cave, feeling the phantom hands of the inferi still on your own body. 

When the light hit your eyes, the boy started to understand that you were touching him. But he was still delirious. He thought you were this James person, he shoved you away with a cry, he fought all your attempts at recapture, and you were both physically weak, but his adrenaline-drugged haze gave him an advantage. He pushed you into the jagged rocks by the shore, apparating away. 

You let the waves wash over your body, the blood, your gaze, until you were found by the Dark Lord himself. He was accompanied by Bellatrix again, the deranged woman. 

“Death on sight,” the Lord hissed to her, “I want his head!” 

And to you, he said nothing. He did not kill you, nor torture you, nothing else. You reeled on your knees, and Lestrange was the one who seized your body and dragged it back to the manor again. 

And then he died. Burned. It seemed like with his death you died too. They discarded you. The war was too big again, too present, too real . Show monkeys were no longer amusing, the theatre was no longer held. It was all about blood now. About death. 

They didn't just let you go. You weren't delusional enough to think they would. You knew you couldn't escape, but you would've done anything to stay alive. Anything. 

So when they threw you into the cell again, when they cut off one leg, neat from the thigh down, and let the wound fester, you didn’t struggle. Maybe it was a sick triumph, to know that you’d outlived the reason for your ruination, perhaps you were a little incensed, forced to touch the violence. 

You were forgotten in those cells. There was no company, no torture beyond your lost leg and your loose tongue and your scraped nails. You were filled with an emptiness that time could never touch. Food came and went, you ate and you breathed and you slept and that was life. In or out of a cell, on stage or beneath it, that was life. 

They didn’t move you for a long time. Days turned into weeks, into months, into a year. Into a year and days, a year and weeks, a year and months. So far removed from war, in a way that you never expected. 

Some days you thirsted for war, like a deranged animal, a caged predator. You wanted the blood, you wanted the pain, you wanted your hands closed around that dainty fucking throat, pressing down until everything, bones and all, gave away. 

They’d forgotten about you. That was another thing about war, the masses for the sake of the individual, even if it meant torture. You had no voice to talk to yourself, no mental or physical stimulation. The food was charmed into the cell, and maybe even automatically, you started to forget your family, your own language, your name. Was your name always ‘YOU’? Was your Marcus? Was it Regulus? Was it just ‘THING’? 

Marcus sounded right. Marcus was not touched nor seen by anyone for a year and some months. Maybe two years. Who knew? Marcus didn’t. 

The next time Marcus was perceived by another human being, they’d complain about his rank-smelling stench. Like death, a rotten corpse infused with shit, no embued in it like a capped bottle of wine left to brew. They could have just killed Marcus. But they didn’t. 

He was moved, to the other wing. This wing was being closed, the dungeons…well, the prisoners were all clearing out in herds, being killed, that was the euphemism. Cleared out. Cleared out meant killed, no? It meant being discarded. Like rubbish. 

“Some entertainment for the boys later,” the nameless faceless death eater smirked at him, wrangling him into a new cell, a new dungeon, new chains. He couldn’t walk you see, Marcus lost one of his legs because…well, that sort of thing tended to happen. Same as his tongue. It just tended to happen. 

The new cell had a metal door, no bars. Taking it in was different. Huddled under his cloak, Marcus peered at the stained stones, at the chains rattling around his wrists, making such a lovely noise. He kissed the cold chains, felt them against his chapped lips. He was so excited. 

It all started to get a little blurry from there. Some things Marcus never entirely put together. One night he thought he heard someone gagging in the corridor, not from the cell adjacent, the one with the lady who had a shrill voice. No, before that, Marcus could hear someone slamming his fists against a metal door, screaming about a baby. What a ruckus, he’d thought, curling into himself, his back to the door of the cell. 

He slept. And then he woke up to loud noises, and a lot of banging, and a hoard of red men, no…people in red robes and cloaks, banging his door down, yanking him out of chains. Marcus was scared, he fought them, in his head, he was thinking of ways to beg for his life. He wanted to live! Was this a new war? Was there a new lord? 

They took him to a white room, with more people, and they were looking at him like he was human, they changed his clothes, they took a look at his leg and said, “Well, that’s no good, can’t really regrow that, can we?” 

And they asked his name. And they looked at his chopped tongue again, and they said, “Well, that’s no good either, it’s been seared off with a dark hex, can’t really regrow that either, can we?” 

He didn’t give them a name, because truth be told, Marcus wasn’t sure that Marcus was a name. It sounded a bit too strange to be a name. They thought he was barmy, they put him in comfy robes, wheeled him off to a little white cell with a bed. The guards there gave him really good food, he was so calm and quiet all the time. He was so bored. 

Sometimes, Marcus would get a glint of consciousness back. He would remember Paris, but he wouldn’t know why it was so important. He’d remember Regulus Black, and he knew exactly why. He wasn’t really mad or barmy. Not really. But without the old war, there was no point in pretending otherwise. 

They asked about his parents, the kind guards in white, about his home town, about his missing wand and missing leg and missing tongue. They couldn’t find his records anywhere, but it was funny, because Marcus wasn’t missing. He was right there. 

They charmed for him, a little clanky prosthetic that filled in the space for his missing leg. He used to dance, back in the day, to stand on the very tips of his toes and twirl and jump and prance around a stage. He could barely hobble from his bed to the bathroom on a good day. 

One day, he was roaming about the halls, making fun of the barmy army of morons around him, who were giggling at themselves and blabbering and so on, and that was when the monotonous rhythm of his life broke into a hundred shards. Because there he was, Regulus Black, the same as before, peering into the ward with a haunted look in his eyes. 

Oh, Marcus thought. There he is , he thought. There, right there. 

It sparked a little life in him, seeing that face, that miserable little face, framed by the miserable hair and the shaking hands. The war came alive in his chest again and he thought about leaving this place.

He wanted to leave, chase the boy, bring him back. Was that not the mission he failed at? That’s where his leg went. 

It was easy, he just walked out of the hospital, it was a hospital, he figured only after leaving. The prosthetic was a bit of a problem, but Marcus had the grace of a dancer, he managed. He searched for Regulus Black and could not find him anywhere. He could not find his voice either. He wandered into a dark alley of sorts, and he wandered into a little shop and begged for a scrap of bread. 

And then he kept coming back to the little shop and the clerk gave him a broom. Borgin & Burkes was a terrific place to venture in, and unlike what the sneering clerk thought, Marcus was not all that barmy or stupid. He was mute, that was true, but he wasn’t stupid by any means. Little by little, with every customer that passed by, with every little interaction, every sneer thrown his way, he was ignited. 

This was why he was alive, why he wanted a life to begin with. 

Mr Burk figured he’d been an old disowned death eater, and Marcus didn’t really correct him. Mr Borgin ranted on and on about the thrums of an old war coming back and Marcus adored that. The Lord, apparently he was on his way back to Britain or some such. 

die Heimkehr. Homecoming. 

Marcus was excited. He searched for the boy in every nook and cranny, and he found a shop one day out while he was wandering about, Oleander’s Herb shop, right by the charmed china shop in Diagon Alley. And he was just passing by, weaving his way between the shelves, inspecting the little vials and little pots and there was a young man with a scar on his face, behind a counter and another man leaning heavily against a cane, and the name…

“—I’ll run them by Regulus this Saturday, he should have some—”

The universe was so small. 

The whole deal with Orion Black happened somewhat concurrently with Marcus’ plan to reunite with this dark lord in some way. It was not his desire to be reunited with the man himself, really, but more like…exposing Regulus Black, putting him out there in the centre the same way Voldemort would have. 

There were already murmurs. He could see in the papers. Long tangents about Orion Black and his death and so on. Marcus wanted them everywhere, he wanted the slander shouted from rooftops. 

He had a little fun with the shop’s storefront glass. The paint, blood red, he dug out of the storage in Borgin and Burk’s, and the brick he just conjured with his new wand. Burks gave it to him, said it was some secondhand junk wand he would have thrown out otherwise, they didn’t really give him any wages, so this counted. 

Marcus, from what he could remember, was never really magic-oriented if he did not need to be. He did have a wand, and he did go to school, but knowing magic for show and dance was a lot different than combat and…whatever he was trying to learn. The wand was his kin. He conjured a heavy brick. With the paint. 

FILTHY DEATH EATER SEED SCUM! DIE!!!

The thrill he felt. 

He stuck around later, seeing the blanched look on the boy’s face, well…the man’s face. It was uncannily the same. And it aroused the same feelings of ecstasy and grim fascination within him. He knew those words would do it.

And then he thought he really wanted to light this candle. 

He wrote a letter. He'd missed writing a lot. It had been so many years. His grammar was a bit rough, English was always a second language. His handwriting was atrocious. But he got it. He used the shop's owl. He wrote this…this journalist. The one with the tangents in the papers.

He said I know the truth about Regulus Black. 

She took the bait like a tiny fish in a little pond. He never had to be there explicitly. Never had to be the one moving the puppets. One move from him and the castles fell on their own. 

He'd given Skeeter the details of that night. That night. He described the dead bodies, Regulus Black's trembling lips, mouthing the songs, his face shining in awe and gratification. He told her, via the letters about the torture, the murders, how he cried like a little bitch. How his relationship with this Dark Lord was just …wrong. 

The boy helped too. Black's child, or maybe…a child who was just there. Skeeter said he'd paid off the entire thing, all of the printing and distribution costs and so on. She told him there would be justice.

He found a little rat in the shop. A little rat named Pettigrew. He didn't tell Mr Burk or Borgin. He trapped the rat in a little cage. And he thought about a reunion. The rat had made his way to shop through the London sewers. So close to slipping away, if only he'd stayed away from the shops. 

Marcus knew his way to his old prison. He knew for his service, he would get something in return. A taste of the new war, maybe. 

He came back into the fold with the old crowd through dishonest means. Karkaroff, a man whom Marcus faintly remembered from before came to speak with Mr Burk. Things looked a bit ugly because he almost killed the guy. Something about a dark artefact. 

It turned out that both he and Pettigrew were after the same thing. The only little thing that would help them escape the Dark Lord with no repercussions. Some mask of some sort, it melded into their skins, reshaped their bodies forever. Mr Burk wasn't willing to part with it for any price. In fact, he had no idea how Karkaroff—and unbeknownst to him, Pettigrew—became aware of its existence at all. It was a contingency for himself, he'd told the Bulgarian angrily. Not for sale. 

Marcus came into play. He told Karkaroff—well, no. He didn't tell him. He gave him a note. Like he'd done with the journalist.

Take me to the Dark Lord, I will give you the mask. 

Karkaroff called him barmy. But he didn't ignore him. He didn't think Marcus was stupid. He needed him. 

He also didn't know Marcus had the rat in the fold of his robes. Of course, he didn't take him at first. He was not stupid. 

It all came to happen a bit simultaneously. 

Marcus had a plan. He really thought the Dark Lord would enjoy having his toy back. That was why he got into Orion Black’s body If Karkaroff’s bitter ramblings were anything to go by. Marcus could give him to the Dark Lord. 

He didn't yet know in exchange for what. Maybe life. Maybe so that he could see a show again. 

An audience with the Dark Lord came to overlap with plans to capture the Potter Boy. Marcus didn't know why that was significant, but apparently it was. It was all Karkaroff was fretting about. It was why he wanted to run away. His old friends had found him again exactly for this favour. For this plan. 

He turned the rat over a day before Regulus Black was publicly arrested. It was like Christmas. 

The dark Lord didn't recognise him as they met. Maybe it was his shrivelled, sickly state. Maybe it was that Marcus was not the same man at all. Maybe it was just that Voldemort didn't care. 

He liked Marcus. He praised him when he turned the rat over. Though, he was simmering in rage over the news that his pet was taken. That made Marcus feel slightly guilty too. Had he known the dark lord had plans to acquire the man himself he wouldn't have gone to the journalist. 

Voldemort really liked Marcus. He definitely preferred him to Lucius Malfoy and Karkaroff. Marcus was silent, efficient. He was smart. In a matter of days, Marcus became clad in nice, thick robes, he was the one primarily taking care of the lord, just as he'd done as a show monkey. 

The day of Regulus Black's Trial came.  

He got into the ministry. He didn't get a front-row seat, but he got in without anyone even checking his wand or asking him to put a pin on himself. He was mute, disabled, invisible. And he was excited. He'd been anticipating a show for so many years, more than a decade now. Regulus Black in the centre again, shackled and helpless and weeping. 

Marcus shed a few tears, thinking of his past life, of Siobhan. A lashing that did not come to be. That was it. All that pain. That night, fighting with their bare hands, all the times Marcus was the rose. For a lashing. A lashing that didn't even happen. 

Marcus knew Britain's Wizarding World was a sham. He knew their judicial system was a joke. But nothing, not even a lashing? 

He threw himself into caring for the dark lord. The man was more verbal with Marcus around. He appreciated that Marcus seldom—never talked and always listened. He'd promised Marcus a nice body. 

“—legs and arms made from Goblin-forged steel, infused with silver and gold. You will be an unstoppable force.” 

He promised to give Marcus his tongue back. 

“I might even grant you your flailing tongue. You are brighter and more efficient than all of these morons combined.” 

The snake liked him too. There was really nothing even slightly bad about his predicaments aside from trivial struggles. 

The Malfoy child for instance, who disliked Marcus severely, went out of his way to avoid him. He got himself banged up just to get away during the holidays. Away from Marcus and the Dark Lord. 

Marcus had figured the boy had something to hide. He mentioned this to Lord Voldemort who recalled a strange interaction with the boy as Orion Black. 

“A seer,” he later chirped at Marcus, smarmy and satisfied, having torn his way through the boy's mind for the first time, “You were right, Marcus. Brilliant as always.” 

That was odd. He was never a brilliant anything. He wasn't a brilliant dancer. A brilliant prisoner. Or a brilliant man. Being a brilliant servant was good in his books. 

He and the Lord began to forge a plan. With Karkaroff and the school staff. They wanted the Potter boy kidnapped. His Lord had a ritual to revive his own body. They needed the blood. They needed a great many things. But the blood and Regulus Black were nonnegotiable. 

He cradled his Lord in his arms when the time came, that fateful night. He lost because his body was imperfect. He lost to Regulus Black. He failed to kill the boy. He failed his Lord. He failed to save the snake. He really liked the snake. 

Lord Voldemort was bedbound again. Marcus was there again, taking care of him. 

His recovery was swift. His rage was not as swiftly assuaged. He began to torment the man …Regulus Black through his mark, daily. Grousing about him under his breath, roaming the manor, torturing the Malfoy boy for answers. 

He gave Marcus a new leg. Not Goblin-forged steel infused with silver. But it was still much better than the pathetic prosthetic from before. He had his agility back. Some of his grace. The prosthetic was pure copper, making it essentially resistant to magical curses, making it sturdy. 

He finally took the mark. Not because he had to. He just really wanted to. 

Lord Voldemort intended to make a return and Marcus was done being a helpless little animal. The dark lord began training him in his spare time. Teaching Marcus how to kill. How to torture—he’d made Malfoy's wife scream a nice bunch—he made Marcus learn how to fight with his body. 

Marcus had never loved being alive more. He wanted it to be perpetuated. He wanted this forever. He wanted power, control. Even if it hurt. He wanted perfection. He wanted to be incensed. 

The Dark Lord had a plan. 

“I need my old servants back by my side again, Marcus. We need Azkaban deserted.” 

He had another brilliant plan. 

“I need the ministry. The Malfoy boy isn't forthcoming with the outcome of this war. I need strategic control.” 

“And I need my pet,” he'd added, a bit bitterly, “Pain alone is not wearing him down as I'd hoped.” 

Marcus had thought about this a lot. So he'd asked the lord whether he intended to keep Regulus Black only until he outgrew his use and beauty. 

Voldemort had looked at him very very carefully, his red eyes peering into Marcus’ open and pliant mind. 

“Only good for ten years, you think…” 

Twenty, if he retains his looks and spirit. 

Voldemort tilted his head at Marcus, “And so?” 

Don't you want to keep him forever? You just lost one companion to his whims. Shouldn't he be punished? 

The truth was. Marcus wanted to live. And Marcus was afraid of growing old. And Marcus knew he more than anyone else deserved a life. Not the bullshit drudgery he was subjected to before, but an actual life. 

Voldemort was immortal. He could raze the world down countless times and build it right back up. The truth was Marcus wanted that. He wanted to be a part of him. Like the snake was. 

But the truth was that Marcus was afraid. 

Kill the Potter boy, my Lord, he let the Lord read his thoughts, but to keep the finch you must give him a piece of yourself. 

“I am done creating Horcruxes out of living things,” Voldemort dismissed him, a bit too quickly but Marcus was insistent. 

He stepped into the man's space, perhaps overestimating his boundaries. 

Give him a purpose, my Lord. Drain his body of the rebelling soul and grant him your own. He will remain by your side forever. He will choose to remain forever. 

Marcus was the only person who knew. About the cave. The Horcruxes. The deviances. Marcus knew Lord Voldemort better than himself. He'd nursed him for a year. He'd felt his grief, his triumph, even his arousal and urges. 

Marcus wanted to live forever. Marcus wanted to remain by the Dark Lord's side forever. Marcus just needed to run an experiment first. And what better subject than his rose?

“The Dementors—”

Yes, my Lord! He'd cheered in his head, smiling at the man with crinkling eyes, I will release them. Your followers will return to you. We will drain him of his soul with The Kiss, and deposit yours in his body. He will be young forever. Yours forever. Preserved forever. 

“A glorious purpose,” Voldemort mused, eyeing him with amusement, “You have thought about this.” 

Of course, he had. Thinking was all he could do, trapped in this damn body. 

And maybe after a while, Voldemort would do the same to him too. Teach him how to split his soul. Or even better, give him a part of himself. 

Marcus just really, really wanted to live. 

“I will give you your tongue back, my faithful servant. You have earned it.” 

Marcus smiled at him, a twisted smile. 

Notes:

- For a full appreciation of this chapter and for the sake of continuity, you can check the following chapters:
His Brightest Tragedy: chapters 1, 4, 7, 12
His Final Act: chapters 11, 17 (the fragmentation), 18 (the shitty day), 28 (masque of anarchy...), trial chapters

- "Old Smoke" slang for Britain.
- "Palais Garnier" one of the oldest opera houses in existence, built in 1875 at the request of Napoleon III (I wanna go there so bad it's so beautiful pls)
- Countertenor= Male classical singing voice equivalent to that of a female's contralto. One of the rarest voice types to come by.
- Falsettos = unusually high pitch when singing, usually used by male singers
- Aria = a long accompanied song for a solo voice, imagine soliloquy in song format
- Droch chrích ort! = Irish curse, "Bad ending upon you" (this is a very cheap play on words on my part, since the play does end badly for her)
- Bell Tutu = look these up, they look so beautiful
- Opéra-ballet= an opera in which ballet dancing constitutes a principal feature.
- a Da capo aria= prevalent in the baroque era, soloist accompanied with an orchestra
- Comédie en vaudeville= this is difficult for me to explain, I don't fully get it myself. Like a travesty, a lyrical comedy with no intention or meaning. Imagine like... John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera" if it didn't have any political and social connotations.
- Pirouette= a whirl while on toes. Sometimes one leg is up I think.
- Allégro= music or dance sequence with great speed or movement
- I had to read my own work very thoroughly to set this up and I'm slightly nauseous but I feel like it was worth it. ( For the plot~)
- I will reply to your lovely comments very soon. Happy reading for now and take care!

Chapter 10: 10.—it drives me insane—

Summary:

Everyone losing their minds a little.

Notes:

I know this has been a long wait, my life has been a BIT busy but almost 10k~ that's nice, huh?

Please heed the warnings and tags: for this chapter in particular, be aware that there is explicit depiction of violence and suicide ideation (not at all explicit)

Have fun~

10.—it drives me insane—

1995

 

It starts snowing rather heavily by the time Harry begins to realise that they’re completely fucked. 

Maybe it's an emotion aroused by the principle of what they are attempting alone, and maybe a general result of having been raised by the Regulus Black, but Harry has gleaned a keen sense of these things. He and Barty don’t talk, not because they don’t need to communicate—Merlin knows that they do—but because both of them are too tense to really say anything. 

He burrows his head against the man’s robes, listening to the wheezing of his lungs as they trek a march of doom towards the Malfoy property. They simply apparated here with little fanfare. Harry can't see much of it, but he gets the sense that, unlike Wimbourne Manor, it is not located by any villages or wisps of civilisation. It sounds rather secluded, actually. His senses lead him to the inference that the property must be surrounded by a densely wooded area. Even with his sight impaired, that much is easy to guess. Harry hears Barty's boots crushing snow and stray branches, hears the rustling of leaves overhead with the wind. 

They walk for quite a bit. Perhaps more than fifteen minutes at least. Barty's arms are tightly wound around him, either in a restricting manner or a protective one. With the man, it's hard to tell. 

Harry expects them to hide for quite a bit. Maybe lie in wake by the property, never approaching it directly, maybe observe the manor from afar, to lay a proper plan, to choose a window or wing to break in through. He expects them to scout for hours. To wait until sundown. He expects Barty to do something other than breathe. He certainly doesn't expect them to walk right up to the gates. 

He listens as the crunching snow turns into the sound of boots striking cobblestones. He feels an unhomeliness in his chest, and wishes that his parents weren't so direly in need of his help. He is not equipped to be here. Of course, he wants to be here. He suggested it in the first place. He is the sort of person who just runs headfirst into things. But now being here…means being unafraid. It means that they might find Papa in a lethal state. It might mean seeing Voldemort again. Fighting him. Maybe dying. 

Harry tugs at Barty's robe silently, because he is afraid of making a sound, giving them away. Barty doesn't pause in his stride. In fact, there's no hitch to his movements. They are not sneaking in the woods, they are making no attempts whatsoever to be quiet or discreet. 

When they pass through the wards, Harry feels it like a cold shower, a slimy one, passing through his body like a ghost. There is no way in hell that whoever erected those wards didn’t feel them just passing through. There’s no way. He holds his breath, terrified that they have been discovered. But Barty doesn't pause. Doesn't make a sound. Harry tries to wriggle one hand out of the man's protective hold around him, he grunts in protest, an inquisitive sound. He needs this blindfold off, he thinks. 

They keep walking. No, it's a march. 

Are they going to the front door? Harry panics a bit, tugging at the man more insistently. 

“Barty!” He furiously whispers, struggling a bit more. 

They snuck in, sure, but…but why are they walking right up to the property? Is Barty fucking nuts? Surely, his suicidal tendencies don't extend to taking Harry along with him. This place is filled to the brim with Death Eaters and Merlin knew what else. 

Barty doesn't answer him. Harry hears a faint birdcall from afar. A shrill wail. They're approaching the stairs. He's climbing stairs. Harry gasps. 

“Barty—what are you—What are you doing!?” 

The man does not respond. His arms around Harry now feel more like a trap and less a parental hold. Harry feels the sinking in his stomach as they ascend the few stairs, as they walk right up to the door. 

No , Harry thinks in horror. Surely not. Surely, Barty isn't about to…Barty might not love him, but there is no living soul who would believe the man to betray Regulus Black. Barty loves Papa. Sometimes, it's a bit dangerous, the way he loves Papa. Barty may have no alliances with any particular sides, but he is loyal to Papa! Papa loves him back. They're…

He could scream. Maybe cry. Maybe try his best to thrash out of the hold. His body is paralysed by the pure shock. 

Barty needn't knock. Harry can't twist his neck to see, but he hears the loud groan of old wooden doors, cringing open. He goes tense, screws his eyes shut and tries to stifle the panic that flaps like a trapped bird in his chest. He has his wand. He is outnumbered but he has his wand. 

This can't be happening again, he thinks. He feels so stupid. He feels betrayed, cheated. Barty was his family. He stares up at the man, though he can’t see through the blindfold. Instead, he imagines his firmly locked jaw and his cold gaze that pierces through the opened door over Harry's head. Horror dawns on him like an old chum, that derelict slimy feeling. 

“No,” Harry breathes weakly and feels the stinging betrayal of tears glazing over his blurry vision. He doesn't struggle, he is too shocked. 

They never had a plan, did they? There was no plan. The plan was that Barty would walk right in. This wasn't an extraction, this was a handover. Harry didn't question it. He was too trusting. Too blind. Barty fed him a story about faulty wards and Harry bought it. He knew…he knew there was something wrong, that something didn't add up, but this?

“Some nerve, Crouch.” Harry hears a putrid voice drawl behind him, “Showing up here.” 

“Rabastan,” Barty sounds as though he is smirking, a rancid smirk, “You don't look a day over rotten forty .” 

Harry struggles with newfound terror, He screws his eyes shut, wishing his body back into its former size. He can still run! They're not inside yet! Barty's hold is unforgiving. His magic is not cooperating. Is this what Barty wanted? To manhandle Harry like this? So, he can’t fight back?

“You—”

“I don't have time to chat,” Barty cuts the man off, “Be a darling and call the man of the house. Is Lucius in?” 

Harry hears several sets of boots, running towards the door behind him. Barty's arm is roughly seized, and they are dragged through the threshold. Barty's free arm is over Harry's head, pressing him into his robes. He doesn't fight the hold, or the shoving. Harry can hear muttered jeers from at least five people around them. 

“Crouch!? You!” That's Lucius Malfoy. Harry muffles a horrified gasp. He can still see the man's cold gaze down on him, his hands around Harry's throat, the way he lashed at Draco, shoving him into the wall, watching him crumple. It’s like his blood runs cold, hearing that voice again. A jolt of reality, that this is real, they are truly in the Malfoy Manor and Barty is truly about to stab him in the back.

“Careful, Lucius,” Barty snarls, “You don't want me dead yet.” 

“You are in no position to make demands, traitor! ” Lucius snarls, and there are sounds of shuffling. Harry can't see, but it sounds like a group surrounding them, pointing their wands at them, “I will serve your head for our lord on a platter—”

“I come bearing a gift,” Barty cuts him off calmly, “Our lord will be furious if you do away with me before I hand it over.” 

Harry is presumably the gift. Oh, God. He’s going to be handed over to Voldemort. In exchange for…for what? What could Barty possibly want that he didn’t have with them? Why would he do this? 

Harry figures that it doesn’t matter all that much. He's going to kill this bastard, he feeds the rage bubbling up in his chest. He's going to kill Barty. The audacity of him, to act like he cared. To cry over Papa. To seduce Moony and Padfoot. To act like he cared about Harry. The gall of him, to comfort him when he cried, to scold Papa for not taking care of himself, to look at Moony and Padfoot like he loved them. 

It’s hard to believe that this is happening. But it is. There’s no secret plan, there’s no agenda that was discussed beforehand. This is happening. And Barty is the one doing it. 

Maybe it was all just a game to him from the start. Maybe he's been waiting for the golden opportunity, the prime time. Maybe he fooled Papa and Dad, with images of innocence and goodwill. Maybe he did kill his father while Harry was knocked out after all! Maybe he wasn’t the person everyone advocated he was. 

Harry doesn't struggle. 

There's no point. He's in too much shock. 

He's already here. He came to save Papa and Draco, and even if he dies, it'll be the last thing he'll do. If Papa were in his place right now, he wouldn't waste time panicking even though he would be distressed. Harry's folly the last time was losing his shit with Malfoy. He knows he should be willing the shock away, he knows. But…

He hears another voice, gruff coming from their right. 

“Disarm him.”

But before any hands can seize Barty's body again, Harry hears the clattering of a wand against floorboards. Did Barty just throw his wand down? He wouldn't do that unless he thought the bargain was worth it. Is this it?

After months of rumination and nightmares and headaches and trauma and dread…is this how they lose the war? Well, not if Harry succeeds. He's never duelled extensively before. He's not sure whether he can take five people—from what he can hear—out with him but…if he doesn't then he'll just be handing himself over to Voldemort. He tenses up his muscles and feels his fingertips brushing against the handle of his wand in his pocket. 

“This house has seen better days,” the traitor drawls, mockingly innocent and unassuming, “Is Cissy on vacation?”

“Shut your mouth. You foolish worm!”

“This is not a warm welcome,” Barty clicks his tongue, “I came with good intentions. I want to fold back in with the old crowd. I am eager to see our lord—”

“Our Lord knows all about your treachery. He saw you with Dumbledore,” another man drawls from their other side, his voice eerily similar to the first man, “You're wasting time with a performance.” 

There is a moment of bone-chilling silence, and Harry hears Barty’s cold voice then utter: 

“Performance?” 

“You sabotaged Pettigrew,” Malfoy spits out, “You hindered our lord's plans to extract Black. You hid in a hole like a rat. Snape told us everything.” 

“Pettigrew was in my way,” Barty doesn’t miss a beat, “He was about to harm Black . I'm sure, the Dark Lord has dealt with him personally. And anyway, what does it matter?” He takes one step forward, “None of you have served him faithfully. If anything, I am just like you lot but better. I never renounced our lord, like you did. And I certainly didn't rot away in an arse-kissing gesture of commitment uselessly in prison. I bided my time.” 

“Yet, you failed to answer his calls.” 

“I was curating his gift,” Barty lowers the arm that covered Harry from view, “He'll understand. Didn't Snape do the same? Where is he, by the way?”

The boots creep closer, the circle tightens around him and Barty, “What is that on your chest?” Malfoy asks. 

Barty’s hand takes to the tied blindfold, tightened behind Harry’s head. He begins to untie the knot simultaneously as Harry finds enough strength to start struggling and thrashing for real. Harry growls, yanking his legs out of the tight slings, and begins punching and scratching at Crouch with bared teeth. Once the blindfold is ripped away Harry cringes at the barrage of light and pants in rage, “HOW COULD YOU!?” he screams, feeling his throat strain. 

Barty scruffs him like a kitten, unphased by his screaming and kicking, he twists his hand in the back of Harry’s shirt and lifts him for the spectators that circle them. Without his glasses, and maybe because of his panic, Harry can’t decipher much about the men, but the fact that they’re all clad in death eater robes, their wands are pointed at them, and that two men, flanking Barty on either side are burly and similar in feature. Harry sees the telltale white wisps of Malfoy’s hair, and Malfoy wrenches his mask off, twisting his lip at Harry and his crying. 

“Behold,” Barty lets Harry dangle in the air, “My gift.” 

Any shred of doubt that prevented Harry from fully believing the betrayal leaves his body in a demented whirlwind. He’s actually turning him over. To Malfoy. Who choked Harry, who beat Harry, who tied Harry down. Malfoy, who according to Dad’s stories tormented Papa for years. There is no hesitance, no humanity. Harry can see Barty’s face now, his hollowed cheeks and the repulsed look in his eyes with which he regards Harry, and the apathy with which he regards his old mates. 

Harry toils to break free, he growls, he scratches at the hand holding him up by the shirt, he kicks his feet in the air, “Let go! Let me go! Barty!”

“That's a child,” the only remaining masked figure, who’d been burrowing behind Malfoy, coldly utters. He has a portly figure, and his voice is deeper than the others. 

“That's Harry Potter,” Barty corrects coldly, “The boy who lived.” 

Malfoy begins to skulk towards them in an eerily familiar way, “Do you take us for fools, you cur?” he snarls and Harry reels back, screwing his eyes shut with a gasp. This man shouldn’t hold this much power over him, but Harry is too broken and too scared and too angry to school his features right now. He can't—he can't—

His panic-ridden eyes flutter from Malfoy, there's a shrill scream catching and stuck in his throat, begging to be let out; in his Periphery he sees, one wand raised at him and the shriek dies in his throat. His limbs become heavy and still, falling to his sides. He’s been stupefied. Harry’s head lolls down too, and his eyes tempestuously narrow at the floor.  

“Rude,” Barty grouses at the man with the wand, “He is regressed. His magic is wonky, all over the place. The whiny brat he is, his body can't handle all those big-boy emotions. He's trapped like this.” 

“Hand him over—”

“No.” Barty snaps. 

“We'll kill you—”

“And take him. Sure, you'll have Potter then. But what about all that intelligence that I brought along? About the plans? The Order members? About Pet? Potter is just an appetiser for our Lord. If you kill me…well, you're throwing your own life to the wind, because you best believe our diligent Lord will watch these memories later. You best believe he will be displeased.”

“We have Snape—”

“Snape wasn't in the Potter household for four years,” Harry is flung over Barty’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes, “He doesn't have a decade's worth of information. I do. Listen, Lucius. Are you really willing to lose another hand? Over a whore and his whelp?”

Harry stares at the closed door, at the outside world waiting just beyond it. 

Should he have listened to Dad? Been drugged and then dragged here? Should he have just uselessly sat around and twiddled his thumbs while they kidnapped and defiled his father? While Dumbledore did nothing!? How is he to blame for this? How could Dad bring himself to leave Harry with Barty? How could Papa bring himself to leave Harry’s side to fight an aimless war? 

And now that he is in the maw of the dragon again, there is no one to come and get him. It doesn’t matter that he was willingly on this ride, and it doesn’t matter that Barty just fucked them over. It only matters that Harry failed. And James Potter failed. James Potter failed to protect his son and husband. 

Dad left him with Barty and told him to drug Harry. And if Harry had listened, he would’ve been here anyway! What if Barty is the one behind Papa’s kidnapping too, huh? When they took Harry back from that cave, they promised Harry that no other security breaches would endanger them. And now here they are again. 

“Take them to a cell.” 

“Lucius—”

“Our lord returns tonight,” Harry hears the man begrudgingly admit, “He shall deal with the traitor and Potter as he sees fit.”

“We'll kill the bastard and—”

“No,” Malfoy snaps, “Don't touch them till then. He'll be a chunk of meat to play with later. Maybe a gift for Bellatrix.” 

“Ah, Merlin knows I've missed the bitch,” Barty cackles darkly, his shaking shoulder jostling Harry, “The greatest skank who ever lived, is that still what you call her?” he turns his head towards one of the burly brothers. 

“Shut it.”  

Barty lowers Harry from his shoulder just as Malfoy skulks up close into their space, “I know what game you’re playing, Crouch,” his venomous gaze is burning holes in Barty's face, “The only reason why I’m indulging it is because I want to savour the look of agony in your eyes when our Lord kills you like the pest you are. Walking here empty-handed…You’re a fool. Those little helpers of yours can’t reach us here. You know that as well as I.” 

“Careful Lucius…The war you could have been fighting for decades I am about to end overnight,” the traitor seethes back, “You know the mudbloods…they have this story about an exhaustive ten-year war fought over a single wench. But we do rise above them even in that regard. Or we’re about to. I am saving us a lot of resources. I might even outrank you soon.”

His arm is tight around Harry's middle, and Harry has no choice but to watch as Malfoy slithers back, turning to walk away, his gestures at the remaining death eaters with a silver hand:

“Take them away.”

They start moving. It's a trudge, with one Lestrange brother leading the way into the Manor, and one Lestrange brother trailing behind them. Harry would have expected them to be tortured first, maybe separated. He can't lift his neck to look at the stairs that lead to the second storey. And it occurs to him, Draco's here. Papa might be here too. They're all under the same roof. Prisoners all of them. 

They're taken through a long corridor, to a study room that seemingly has been untouched for many months. Barty was right, the whole place is dark, covered in dust and grime. Wouldn't the elves take care of the upkeep of the place? 

It's rather derelict. Only four people confronted them. Are they elsewhere? Do they have other bases, safe houses? Of course, they wouldn't house all seventy runaways here. But still.

“I see the old crowd is missing,” Barty muses above him just on cue, “What an empty house. Regrouping, aren't they? Are we doing battle plans yet?” 

Rodolphus Lestrange growls at Barty over his shoulder, “I can and will sew your damn mouth shut.” 

Harry knows where he recognises the guy from. That newspaper archive that Ron showed them about two years ago…the man looks about the same. Without his mask, even with his back to them, there's a beastly gait to the way he moves his body. 

“Jeez, I thought you guys missed me. I'm getting the backstabber treatment,” there's only the sound of their boots muffled into the carpet, the floorboards, the carpet again. They're moving out of the opulent study into another corridor, this one narrower and even darker. 

“You know the Longbottom boy?” Barty sounds peppy, a rhythm to his steps, “The one whose parents you and your wife fucked? I've seen the wretch—barely lifts a wand. You broke him.”

Neville , Harry pales. These guys are the ones who killed Neville's parents? But…no, Neville's parents aren't dead. They're in the hospital. He feels queasy. 

“Enough yapping.” 

“I'm just admiring. Think of all the shit you can do to Potter. Once he learns his brat is here,” Barty swivels his body around to face the other brother, “Didn't he put you in Azkaban, Rabastan?”

His face is scarred, the other brother. Harry hadn't noticed before, but there are long deep lines, scarred over his face, twisted into gnarls and bumps over his nose and cheeks. Harry's breath catches. 

Rabastan doesn't acknowledge him, but Barty doesn't need him to. Harry exhales through his nose, through the fear as Barty hums cheerfully, “Oh, I remember that! You killed those twins, right? And Potter found you…hunted you down like a dog. Those scars on your face…his handiwork?” 

Dad? Harry's eyes widen at the floor as they head towards a trapdoor. Dad did that to Lestrange’s face? Children of war, Dad had called them once. Harry never realised how grim that description was. 

Rabastan’s mouth twists, and before Barty can turn and face the trapdoor, Lestrange shoves Barty back, “Do you want handiwork of your own?” He hisses through yellowed teeth, “Our lord needs you alive. A cripple still breathes.” 

“Rabastan, don't bother,” Rodolphus calls, “He's dead meat anyway.” 

The trapdoor cringes open and Barty and Harry are pushed down the precariously narrow and dusty stairs into the dark. Barty wheezes and coughs faintly, “He's right, Rabastan, don't bother. What's done is done after all.” 

At first, Harry thinks they're in a crypt. The air is musty and damp and the stone tiles rough under their feet. He can't raise his head to look around in his immobilised state, but he can see enough. They are in a dungeon. A rather spacious one, by the sound of it. He can see metal bolted doors in his periphery, and a cold trepidation crawls up his back. The stains on the stone, almost dark brown with age. That's blood. That's blood. 

Fourteen years ago, Papa was here. 

“You know he gloats about it all the time, right?” Barty keeps on, “About how he fucked you over. It's dinnertime conversation. How he knocked you on your arse, slashed your face. Did it with a knife, didn't he? You don't want anybody else getting their hands on James Potter, before you do, that's for sure.” 

If Harry could've frowned he would've. What Barty is saying is blatantly untrue. This is the first time Harry is hearing of this story. The first time he is confronted by his own father's brutality. Well, no. Not the first time. He saw Orion get beaten to death after all. 

Why would Barty want to rile this man up? Doesn't he want to be in their good graces?

“Rabastan—” Rodolphus warns his brother who breathes down Barty's neck with fisted hands and the flaming eyes of a behemoth. They stop walking and Barty rounds up to glare right back at the giant with a twisted grin. Harry can hear it in his voice. 

“You know he always says that it was easier than taking a piss,” Barty spits, “Roughing you up. He says you cried for mercy like a little bitch. He says you begged for your mother and wet yourself like a baby—” 

Rabastan’s gigantic hand darts out and closes around Barty's throat; they're slammed into one of the cell doors. Harry gasps, falling forward, he would've crashed into the ground hadn't it been for Barty's iron grip on his body. Harry's eyes are level with Rabastan's heaving stomach, and he feels the man's hands squeezing the air out of Barty.

“Rabastan!” Rodolphus drags his brother away and Barty slides down to the ground, wheezing as he laughs.

“I'll cut your tongue out!” Rabastan screams, thrusting his wand at Barty. Rodolphus pushes Rabastan back, forcing him away from Harry and Barty. 

“That's your speciality,” Barty croaks with a pained chuckle, “I wonder if Potter still has that dog in him. Whether he'll come to finish the job.”

Rabastan falters. For less than a second, but Harry sees it, from where he's crumpled against Barty’s chest. His scarred face twists into an inexplicable emotion that is immediately replaced by a bleak rage. 

“Are you afraid of him? Scared he'll get his hands on you again? We both know you're just scared like a—” 

Rabastan descends upon them again, like a maddened troll. An enraged bull, he drags Barty—and Harry—up, grips Barty by his hair, slams his face into the wall. Harry hears the sickening crunch of a nose breaking, and it is Barty's arm that puts that little space between Harry and the wall. Lestrange pulls them back and punches Barty in the face again, sputtering curses at Barty's face, strangling him with his other hand, Harry feels a warm trickle of blood landing on his hair, dripping down Barty's chin. 

“Let him go!” Harry hears through all the chaos, “Are you crazy!? Just stuff them in a cell!” 

Rabastan is yanked back, not by his brother, but magically. Barty rasps, hunched over Harry and coughing blood on the aged stone tiles. Harry even sees a tooth being spat out. 

Why? Harry's thoughts swim incoherently, made mute by his fear and stress. Why is Barty doing this? 

He already turned Harry in. He already has a chance to repeal his loyalty to Voldemort. Why would he willingly take a beating from Rabastan Lestrange? Why would he protect Harry from the blows? 

“James Potter is a dead man walking!” Rabastan’s voice rattles the air around them, “You hear that!? Dead man walking!” 

“Pathetic,” Barty gags, he drags himself and Harry up, his voice sounds wet with blood, his throat raw, “Getting your face disfigured by a mudblood lover? Every time you look in a mirror, which you rarely do by the looks of things, you'll remember, a Gryffindor mudblood arse kisser drew your blood—Argh!” 

Harry's vision goes dark too.

 

...

 

They took him to a cell that is vaguely familiar to Barty. Maybe one he's used to torture a sod before, it's hard to tell with certainty. Every cell looks the same. The amount of spilt blood might differ, but they all look the same. 

He's left there, bleeding with a broken nose and a split lip, a swollen eye, with Harry still with him. They didn't even chain him up. They didn't even search him. They didn't take Harry away. Morons didn't even reinforce the Immobilisation spell on the kid.

Rodolphus was too busy restraining his psychotic brother from pummeling Barty and Harry to a pulp to really care for prisoner regulations. They will be back soon, but Barty is glad that the beating paid off. The plan is more or less working so far. They could've been utterly fucked at so many intervals in the past few hours.

It is a miracle that they're here, mostly alive and most importantly, unsearched. 

He feels Harry stir by his side and braces himself for a more rigorous beating from the boy. He admits, there are merits to the plan , but also the kid must've been terrified that he was being handed over to Voldemort. He is allowed to freak out. 

Barty will never tell him this, but he was counting too, on the off chance that he could trade Harry with his own spot back within the forces, just so he could keep an eye on Reggie like the old days. He hopes that it won't come to that, Reggie will never forgive him. But it's an option. It's one of the reasons why he brought the boy along anyway. 

It's always been Barty and Reggie. If his best friend is back in this hell, Barty is coming with him. Even if it's at the expense of his own life, the Potters, and Reggie's own unnatural inclination to stop being alive. 

The plan is: save Regulus Black.  

If getting out of this fortress isn't an option, then Barty will just stay here. 

But it won't come to it. They're here and things are going smoothly so far. 

Harry startles himself awake, scrambling on his hands and knees to rush away from Barty. His eyes blindly survey the cell, and Barty can see a faint bruise on his chin. He cringes. He really didn't want the kiddo to take any physical damage. 

Harry's eyes land on him and narrow in a shrewd kind of anger. He doesn't hit him immediately. He crams his hand in his pocket for his wand and glasses. 

“Good morning, star shine,” Barty drawls sardonically.

“So this was your plan?” Harry shoves his glasses on his face, “Selling yourself out!?” 

“Of so little faith.” 

“I'm not stupid! You don't care about Papa! You just care about yourself! You want to be on the winning side so—”

“The winning side? This is not the winning side. Arguably, there is no winning side to begin with.” 

“You brought me here!”

“You came here.” 

“To rescue my father! Not to be your bargaining chip!”

Barty shifts gingerly, he touches his tender ribs with a suppressed wince and glares at the child. It's not really intimidating, being scolded by a fifteen-year-old, trapped in the body of a toddler. 

“Are you quite done?” 

“No! You’re selling me to them!” 

The boy screws his eyes shut and raises a hand to his temple, obviously trying to restore his former physical state. A bit annoying, that. Barty barks at him:

“Don’t turn back, you moron.”

“I’m going to beat your fucking arse until there’s nothing left and—”

“Harry,” the boy pauses. Maybe it's Barty's tone, the gravity of their situation finally dawning on him, or maybe just the exhaustion. Harry opens his eyes and Barty reaches into his inner robes. He feels around until his fingers find purchase around the vials. Thankfully unbroken by the lashings. Thankfully undiscovered by his mates. 

Harry's eyes widen once he withdraws the vials, three of them to be exact. Two are filled, and one is empty. 

“Has your Papa ever taught you how to kill a man?”

The boy staggers, “What?” 

Barty sets the vials down, then reaches for his pocket again, this time for the stupid vodka bottle cap he'd snuck into his pocket when cleaning earlier that day. 

“There are seven ways you can kill a man with your hands,” he tells Harry passively, “I taught him that. When you’re at a height disadvantage, you need to go for the back of the knees and the jugular after. If you get the vein, the guy will bleed out in less than a minute.”

“What? We’re in a cell! We’re going to die because of your idiotic—”

Barty settles the cap next to the vials, “They’ll come back to separate us once Rabastan is calmer. He’ll take you out of the cell. You can’t let him take you out of the dungeons.” 

This only works if they're in an isolated space under the ground. If Harry makes it to the landing, there will be too many variables, too many people. If someone asks him later, he'd say that he'd taken everything into account, that he's not panicking right now. But he knows the truth. 

This could go horrendously wrong at any given moment. 

“You…You're not betraying us?” Harry stumbles towards him, Barty has to smother a cringe. He looks like a child. He is a child. Regulus had that look in his eyes once. Barty saw it die a little as every hellish day crawled by. 

“I need you to focus right now. Do you want to save your father or not?”

“I have my wand—”

Barty traces the deep aching cut on his lip, “No. He’ll overpower you magically. Even Regulus had a hard time with him, back in the day. You need to kill him. You’ll drag him back into the cell, wear his clothes, I have some polyjuice you can use—”

“What?” 

“Wearing his skin,” Barty carries on, “You’re going to look through the cells first,” it's like an instinct to him, like an old routine.

“There are two main dungeons, the one we’re in now is in the east wing, there’s another in the west. If your Papa is there, you’ll get him out as one of the Lestrange brothers. If not, you have to search Voldemort’s personal wing.”

“Barty—”

“You may either find him in the study or in the bedroom. He may not recognise you, he may be drugged, unconscious, beaten, dissociating, terrified, crying…doesn’t matter. Even if he struggles, you’d be bigger as Lestrange. Remove him from Voldemort’s wing even if you have to force him. And Leave.” 

He nods at the bottle cap, “Use this. I doubt a Portkey will work in the foyer like it used to. So you need to walk out of the building at the very least. You need to run.”

And Barty will be here, he will probably get the full brunt of Riddle's rage once he returns. But it doesn't matter. Reggie will be safe, that's all that matters. Barty has said his goodbyes anyway. He left them a note. That should count. He won't be remembered fondly, maybe he won't be remembered at all. 

Maybe that's fine by him. He's not a good person. He's actually a really really fucked up animal. And the world might be a bit better off without sods like him in it. 

“This was your brilliant plan?” Harry sounds indignant and sceptical. 

“Are you dead yet?” Barty grits out, “We made it into the manor and none of the death eaters are on our backs. They didn’t even search us.” 

“This is the stupidest—”

“There won’t be many of them by the looks of things. If Voldemort returns tonight…we don't have time. Do you know how to kill a man?” 

“I’ve never…I’ve never—”

Barty sighs irritably and beacons the boy over. Harry stumbles, and Barty grabs his small hand, pushing his palm against his own bruised neck. Harry’s eyes widen and only now he seems to be understanding the implications of what Barty is asking of him. Barty

“Do you feel this?” Barty mutters, “This is the jugular. You need a sharp object, just jab it through the vein and yank it out. Don’t leave it in,” he lets the boy pull himself out of his hold and grabs the empty vial with a glint in his eyes. He breaks the head off against the stone tiles and holds the sharp, jagged end out at Harry. Harry takes it mutely. 

“Since you’re smaller right now, you need him on his knees first and you need him to be quiet. Stab him in the back of the knee, in the meniscus, even one knee would do the job. Then you’ll stun him with your wand. Stab him. And levitate him back in the cell. Don’t pull your wand at him immediately. He’s a fast fucker.”

“I can’t do that.” 

“Well, clearly, I can’t either.”

“You gave us away!” 

“It was the only way!” Barty’s breath catches as he moves, he gasps in pain and reels back against the wall with a wince, “You don’t know these people,” he says, “We needed a bargain. Sneaking in would have never worked.”

“You could have told me beforehand!”

Or Barty could have left him back at the safe house. He could have thought of another way. He could have worked with James and the others. He could have brutally forced his way into this fortress. But those things would have never guaranteed Reggie’s safety in this reprisal. The only way to save Regulus in the lion’s den, is to be there with him, placating the lion to have mercy on his food. And regardless of all that, leaving Harry behind would have meant that Barty had to leave this place with Reggie. 

That’s not currently the plan. 

“Your reaction wouldn’t have been as authentic,” he mutters to the boy and supposes that his opinion doesn’t matter anyway, “Tell me how to find Reggie.”

“The cells. In the east and west wing.”

Barty closes his eyes and he can almost pretend he can hear those old screams, haunting the demented halls of these dungeons, “And if he’s not there?”

Harry’s pause is apprehensive and uncomfortable, “Vol…Riddle’s wing. The study or the bedroom.” 

“No matter how bad he looks, I need you not to panic. Injuries can be healed, but you need to get him out first.”

There’s a longer, more uncomfortable pause. Harry stares down at the broken vial in his hands and then the cap. 

“But what about you?” he asks.

He’s not totally an idiot, Barty knows. He’s actually one of Barty’s best students. Was, one of his best students.

“You remember the rules, no?” he can hear the cold brutality in his own tone as he addresses the child, “I say jump you say how high. Got it?”

And the thing is, Harry does it beautifully. 

Rodolphus comes just as Harry pockets the Vodka cap and one of the vials. He curls up in the farthest corner away from Barty, and gets that damn betrayed look in his eyes again, and with his face somewhat buried in his knees, Barty has a harrowing image of Reggie looking at him like that. 

Rodolphus sniggers at him when he opens the door of the cell, calls him something Barty doesn’t quite catch and reaches to yank Harry’s body off the floor with an uncaring roughness. Harry struggles, as he was instructed and Barty can only hear them once, despite the screaming, Harry is taken out of the cell. 

“Come on, lad,” Barty closes his eyes, intensely sharpening his ears to listen to the corridors. He counts the moments that last eternities in his head. 

He hears a mangled cry. A body, too heavy to be a child’s, crashing into the floor. And he curses the fact that Rabastan has broken one of his damn legs. He tries to scoot himself up, against his better judgement. He listens some more to the shuffling in the corridor just behind the door. He doesn’t dare call Harry’s name. 

The cell’s door opens and a huge body floats in. 

Not dead or spurting blood. Just unconscious. It drops down on the ground like an animal’s carcass. 

“Harry!” Barty hisses. 

“We can force the Polyjuice down his throat,” Harry ignores him, “I’ll take him to a separate cell and petrify him. It’s the same as him being dead.”

It’s really not though. 

Barty closes his eyes and gently slams his head back to the wall behind him. This soft-hearted boy. He’s too…Just too much like his parents. 

“Take his wand when you leave. Don’t use your own.” 

They do a quick job of disrobing Rodolphus and extracting his hair. Harry steps into the man’s robes as he takes the Polyjuice. Barty forces the other guy’s gullet, trickles the potion with Harry’s hair down the unresponsive throat. 

“How’d you bring him down?” he asks Harry, now wearing Rodolphus’ body. 

“Like my Papa taught me.”

 

...

 

An hour passes.

Barty’s guts twist in discomfort and anxiety. He wonders if Harry’s found Reg yet, whether they left, whether he’s been discovered and killed.  

He thinks he must be seeing things. But then again, hallucinations don’t tend to be this luminous. The light basically reflects off the chains in the corner. And before Barty looks at her, he hears her. 

“I knew one day, one way or another, my cousin would be the reason you wind up here.”

“Shit, Narcissa,” he croaks a laugh and lifts his head, “That vacation of yours is way more permanent than I thought.”

She scoffs at him and well, Barty won’t take being scoffed at by a ghost personally, seeing as strategically and physically speaking he has the higher hand in that given interaction. She’s not particularly a lively ghost either. Most ghosts retain their last appearance before joining the dead, the moment they were killed, mostly. It’ll explain the blood on her robes, her sallowed face, the rumpled look about her hair. Yeah, Narcissa Malfoy would not have been caught dead looking like this. Barty cackles at himself. 

Caught dead . Well, she did die, didn’t she?

“Whatever you plan on doing will fail.”

Barty sobers up, thinking of Harry immediately, “Are you about to rat me out?” 

She huffs at him, turning her nose up, “I do not owe my husband and his friends anything.”

“They don’t even know your ghost lingered, do they?”

She ignores him once again, floating to the other end of the cell, her back to him, “He’s not here. You are wasting your time.” 

“What?”

“My cousin,” she spits out, “The Dark Lord does not have him. He is not in the manor at least.” 

Well, fuck. Barty represses a groan and just exhaustedly lets his head hang limply instead. That means he just sent Harry Potter disguised as Rodolphus Lestrange, up in the Manor for no reason. If Harry is smart, he’ll leave once he doesn’t find his father in the building. But the boy is a fucking idiot, so of course, he won’t. They’re already running the risk of Harry being discovered, and now that there’s nothing to find…

Everything was going so smoothly. Maybe too smoothly. 

“Where is he then?” 

“I am bound to this place, Crouch. Your guess is as good as mine. I do know that the Lord wants him here, it is an eventuality and they are preparing the house for his arrival…but—”

“Fuck,” he breathes, raking a hand through his lank hair, “Well, great.” 

“You’ve always been rash.”

“Well, who’s the dead one in this conversation?” He snaps immediately and as she turns to face him again, they both share a moment of residual and mutual resentment that speaks of history. They do have a faint one, mostly on the grounds that she was a bitch and he hated her for it. He knows familial bonds mean nothing in pureblood societies, but Regulus was her cousin, they were kin, blood. 

“Arrogant, insolent and rude,” the ghost grouses, “I’ve hated you rightfully.”

“I hated you too,” he snarls, pulling his body up, “You stood aside and let that monster rape Reggie!” he wags a finger at her and she flinches back in repulsion, as though afraid that his blood will splatter over her skirts, as though she’s not dead or drenched in old blood, “You knew…You knew what was happening in your house. I’ll never forgive you for that.”

Her response is terse, her hands fisted on her skirts, “I don’t need your forgiveness.”

Has she been here the entire time? How long could it have been? Weeks? Months? She seems accustomed to being a ghost, so it must be a considerable time. Does she know her own son lies in a similar state in this very house she is bound to?

“Don’t you need your son’s?” he accosts her, “The kid’s seen your boy, chained to a bed, withering away. Don’t you feel…any responsibility towards him? He doesn’t even know you’re dead, does he?” 

This question does seem to bristle a reaction out of her. Narcissa’s transparent figure flickers with rage and despair. This is the most open that he’s seen her. She was always closed off and inaccessible, always turning her nose up and twisting her lip. Now she looks like the frail woman that she truly is, she looks dead because she is dead. There is at least pain and affection in her eyes, agony even.

“I haven’t been able to see him,” she tells him as though the very admittance pains her.

He can’t feel sorry for her, not really. He feels sorry for the kid, but not her. She made her bed. She’s lying in it. And that poor kid had no choice being born in this hellhole. Barty knows all about incompetent parents, broken adults, undeserving guardians. 

“You haven’t even tried?” he mutters, letting disdain colour his words. She should feel bad. She should feel horrid. She is a horrible person just like Barty but unlike him, she never tried to be better. Not even for her own kid. 

Complacent to the end. The true end, because death was the end for her, and presumably will be for her son.

“His room is heavily warded. Even elves cannot enter without permission. What is a ghost to do?”

She does sound desperate and Barty hates how this lights up his insides in a justified satisfaction. Now she’ll get it, how Barty felt all those years ago trying to save Reggie, trying to get them out of here. She’ll feel the same desperation, the same hatred, the same helplessness. 

“This should be some great irony,” he jeers at her, “When you could help, you didn’t. When you can’t help, oh, how sorely you want to.” 

“Potter needs to rescue my son,” she says suddenly, ignoring his taunts, “That’s why I even bothered showing up. He needs to get him out of here.”

“Any other orders, your majesty?”

“Regulus isn’t even here anyway,” she insists, floating closer to him, “You don’t plan on getting out either. I can direct him to Draco, help them escape.”

She almost sounds like she’s begging. It is a foreign thing to see on her, Barty bets she never had to lower herself enough to ask or request anything before. She used to order things into existing and now…what good is her maternal love? He thinks. What good is it now that she’s dead? He bets she didn’t even die to save the boy. No, it must have been something trivial and ridiculous and utterly devoid of meaning. 

“Was it a punishment?” he asks her with a smirk, “Over the cave? Lucius lost a hand and you…”

“It was that boy,” she shakes her head, her gaze cast over Barty’s head, “Not our lord who killed me.”

“Oh? Boy ?”

“An old servant, the king of rats. That monkey on a leash we had some years ago. Do you recall?”

“I hate riddles, Narcissa,” he sneers, “Which family? What name? What lineage? And why?”

“Some German boy with no lineage,” she says frankly, surprisingly compliant, “He is just as obsessed with your precious Regulus as our lord. He and the Dark Lord bond over it. This was all his plan,” her dead eyes trail down at his again, “The Dark Lord taught him to wield a wand again. He tortured me, killed me on accident—”

“Riveting story,” he brushes her off, “I have no interest.” 

She is too blabbering of a ghost, he thinks with disgust. And her words are meaningless either way. So, there’s a new recruit, he’s just another shit for them to deal with, another rag-wearing little orphan thinking Voldemort can grant him the world. It’s hitting too close to home…Barty rolls his eyes. 

“He is dangerous,” Narcissa snaps, “More dangerous than my sister, I dare say. You know him!”

Does he? It feels like a random guy to Barty, of no consequence. If he’s no family name then it almost doesn’t even matter. 

“I have a horrible memory, Cissa, you need to be—”

“That fight,” she cuts him off, shaking her head at herself, “The slave with the tray and chopped tongue. Dear Regulus tormented him a bit, didn’t he?” she sighs a mirthless chuckle, “I dare say the slave gave as good as he got. Made him cry once, surely you remember that.”

Barty had gathered his friend on his lap that night, one hand over his ear, one around his middle, crooning comforting nonsense in his ears to stop his cries. He was so scared of Riddle suddenly turning and torturing them both, taking a wand to them. He was scared for himself and yet gripped by a maddening sense of duty and instinct to protect Reggie. 

He was staring into the air, but no…he was staring through the half-mask into the eyes of the other fighter. The prisoner, the other servant. The savage beast with the build of a dancer. The servant was looking back at them with enough hatred to fuel the sun.

“And now…” he breathes out. 

“And now he wants to make him cry again, I suppose. Revenge is a funny thing.”

“I’d wager,” Barty exhales again, and the force pushes on his bruised ribs, “He’s the one who took Reggie, isn’t he?” 

Another one, Barty rubs at his eyes. There’s always another one popping from the woodwork. This sod wants revenge? From Regulus? Over the fact that he was forced into hurting him? It sounds absurd. It sounds like a blatant lie, but just ridiculous enough that it might be the truth. 

“It is a decent guess. He has been absent from the Manor with our Lord for a few days now.”

“Merlin, I swear…” he laughs the laugh of a beggar confronted with gold, disbelief, “He attracts these arseholes, doesn’t he?”

It just never ends. It’s always something more, someone more. 

“Moths to a flame,” she adds darkly, “My mother always thought he was the prettiest of us. Shame, the way that turned out.”

“Shame.” 

What shame, though? The world seems to be all out of shame. It’s a hollow word. It bears no consequence or emotion. Shame? Regulus is being hunted again. And Barty landed himself in a cell. Barty led Reggie’s son to wander enemy’s territory alone, equipped with one flimsy portkey and nothing else. Shame? 

They both perk up when the trapdoor cringes open from afar. Barty tenses up and Narcissa flicks an eyebrow at him. It’s not Harry, no. They both know it’s Rabastan, here to have his retribution. Here to have a little fun. 

“You are about to have some fun of your own,” Narcissa comments dryly, wandering towards a wall, to float through undoubtedly. 

“Protect Harry, he wants to save Draco,” Barty braces himself, “They might need help getting out—”

She leaves him with a parting comment: 

“Have fun, Bartemius.”

 

...

 

Prior to Regulus’ kidnapping, the Order and the Ministry Aurors failed to detect or arrest a single one of the escaped fugitives. There simply was no sighting, no victims, no violence rampage. 

Once Sirius had the brilliant plan to disguise several Order Members as his brother and have them run through the suspected regrouping locations again, it took them ten minutes to catch one. 

Only ten minutes. 

James doesn’t know which fact is more horrifying; the fact that the Death Eaters have had enough time to organise and have a clear itinerary or the fact that they were chasing Regulus like hunting dogs out looking for game. The rage that he feels while thinking about this is just about enough to consume him. He doesn't want to let it, of course. He knows that the more irrational he feels, the harder it will be to find his husband;  James understands that he needs to be methodical, he needs to force his body and mind to adapt to the way they used to be, during the war. 

Avery is pathetically easy to take down. Sirius mimics Reggie’s mannerisms and movements with ease, they’re on the outskirts of Bristol in a group of five. There is him and Remus, James, Bill Weasley, and Maya, his old trainee. 

Avery is too greedy in his pursuit. Sirius outmatches him in a duel without breaking a sweat, and this seems to wildly surprise the Death Eater, though James wouldn’t know why. Regulus was always a skilled fighter and though Sirius had Auror training, the change wasn’t that dramatic. But he didn’t ponder on it too deeply. 

Once the man was down, James was the first one upon him. He grabs Avery by the lapels of his robes. He drags him on the harsh terrain, feeling something beastly in his grip. Sirius, now back in his own body, shadows him, fuming more or less in a similar manner. 

James doesn't waste time asking questions. They couldn't get a dose of Veritaserum from Albus, but that's fine. James doesn't need Veritaserum. He kicks Avery in the ribs with enough force to break at least two of them. The air is punched out of the man's lungs. He can hear Maya’s and Remus’ murmurs in the back, and Sirius’ voice barking, holding them in place. 

James slams Avery into the bark of an old birch tree with enough force to dislocate at least one shoulder. Bill Weasley silently surveys the beating from the back, his aggrieved face mulling and grim. The man of the family after his father’s untimely death, he is the only one who does not protest the beating. 

“You're—not even asking! I'll—Argh! Uh! Stop! Stop! Please!” Avery cries under his fists, crumbling down against the tree, his knees shaking with the urge to give out. James slams the man’s dislocated shoulder back against the tree trunk, holding his weight up, and with the other he rams his wand so harshly against Avery’s throat that the man chokes.

“Plea—” Avery gurgles, his limbs flailing like a helpless child’s. There’s a thin trail of blood streaming down into his left eye. 

“I'll ask you only once before I move on to another prick, and trust me, there won’t be a shortage. If you don’t give me what I want, I will chop off your cock and feed it to you,” He growls and barely recognises his own voice.

Avery nods fearfully, his chest rattling to draw in the frigid air, “Yes! Ye—Argh!” 

James stomps down on his foot to shut his blubbering up. 

“Where is my husband?” 

“I don't—I don't! Please—”

“Where were you ordered to take Regulus Black?” he rages, “Avery, I am not as attached to keeping you alive as you think! Speak, you wretch!”

Avery whimpers and closes his eyes, yowling like a wounded animal, he shakes his head and cries crocodile tears. James closes his eyes to get his bearings, to dispel the shadow in his periphery. 

“No name!” he sobs, “He has no name! We—Dementors—and get Black the kiss so—” 

The blood drains from James’ face, and his fists hang limp by his sides. Dementors? They’d involved the damn rogue dementors? 

Those creatures and his husband in the same sentence immediately sets something off in his guts. No , he begs the universe. Don’t let it be that, Regulus can endure anything but that. 

“Dementors!?” Sirius snaps from the back, murderously, “Where is he, you fucker!?” 

“I don’t know!” 

“Where were you taking him?” James asks, oddly calm. He stares the blabbering fool in the eyes and repeats himself calmly again. 

“To the…guy. The git. No name.”

“No name, you say?” 

Avery nods frantically, whimpering again but this time not in pain, “His idea! The whole thing! Please! I’m just…Just under the Imperious again! You set me free! You—”

“Where?” James cuts him off, “Give me a location.” 

Avery flounders, unbelieving that the torment has stopped, “Uh…He said, he said to notify him using—the mark!”

James stares daggers into his eyeballs and the more intense the gaze gets the more alarmed he becomes that they’ve taken his husband, his precious jewel, his Regulus, with their filthy hands and they’re going to let the dementors loose on him. 

“Avery?” he tries to keep his composure, tries not to crush the man into Smithereens. 

“Y...Yes?”

“You’re going to take us there,” James enunciates his words carefully and slowly, “And I swear to Merlin himself, if you lead us astray, if you waste my time, if there is a single hair missing from my husband’s precious head, I won’t kill you.”

Avery’s eyes widen into saucers, the man struggles some more because this brief encounter made it exactly clear that being dead was much superior an experience to being alive under James Potter’s care, “Please! I’m telling you! I—”

“I won’t,” James repeats himself, easing his hold back on the fragile insect squirming under him, “I won’t turn you in. I’m going to keep you, and make you bloody pay. Do you understand me?”

Show them, you are a beast, he can almost feel Regulus breathing the words in his ears, his lips peppering his jaw, almost halfway a phantom, his beautiful, flawless partner. His reason for sin. 

Show them you are on my leash, he can feel Regulus in his blood, his long fingers tracing his bare skin, show them you’re mine. 

“Yes!” Avery cries, “Yes! Please!”

James lets the man flutter and fall, drawing back with a barely veiled sneer. The faces surveying him are grim as he turns back. Sirius and Remus’ faces are set in an identical stern glare, surely letting their thoughts wander where James’ dare not. Bill Weasley and his old trainee both look a bit peeved by James’ performance but either don’t feel brave enough for a confrontation, or obliged enough to save Avery. 

“Everyone here can conjure a patronus, yes?” 

Sirius’ head whips to his and James shakes his head at him. There’s no need for spoken words between them. 

This is not a punishment, James tells his brother-in-law with his eyes, this is not some fucked up revenge amid absolute chaos. It’s just that once they get there James won’t be able to focus on anything or anyone other than Reggie. Sirius is a liability . 

“James—”

“Sirius, you and Remus should join Harry,” James puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder, “I’m not sure what state we’ll find Reggie in…maybe have Poppy on standby—”

Sirius’ breath catches and James closes his eyes. They’re both thinking the same thing. Regulus is a great fighter, he’s smart, he’s nimble, he’s brave. But he can’t conjure a fucking patronus. There is no circumventing that. And if kissed…there is no cure. No reversion. 

But James isn’t allowed to think like that yet. 

“Maya, Bill,” he barks, “With me.”

“Yes sir,” Maya falls in line behind him immediately and Bill trails along, hands crammed in his pockets. 

“Should we call the other teams off?” Bill muses as Maya hefts Avery’s dead weight up from the grassland. 

“No,” James looks up at the grey sky and then gazes down at his wedding band. Soon , he promises his husband, I’m coming soon, love. 

“Have mercy! Please!”

James yanks the man’s arm up and tears his sleeve off, revealing the dark mark in the open air, he nods as Remus hands him Avery’s wand, “You better pray Regulus is unharmed,” he tells Avery, “You better fucking pray.”

The wand is shoved to the mark. The inked snake begins to writhe. 

Notes:

- The bird cry that Harry hears in the first POV belongs to the canonical peacocks that roam the Malfoy property.
- Harry still doesn't know that Karkaroff killed Crouch and vice versa, that's why he makes the comment about Barty having possibly killed his own father.
- Malfoy mentions that Voldemort has "seen" Barty with Dumbledore, which refers to the scene involving Harry's possession, Barty was in the office as well without disguise.
- The ten-year war Barty refers to is a reference to the Trojan War, wherein through a series of godly fuckery and mythological plot devices, Paris of Troy kidnaps Helen (daughter to Leda and God Zeus) from her husband who happens to be the king of Sparta. It's crazy how well the parallels work.
- "The twins" that Rabastan killed are indeed "Gideon and Fabian Prewett", and James indeed slashed the guy's face up for it.
- Rabastan threatening to "cut Barty's tongue out" is also a reference to the previous chapter, wherein "Marcus" describes his tongue being taken from him by one of the death eaters. Rabastand was said death eater, this is confirmed when Barty affirms that "cutting tongues is his speciality"
- "Good morning Starshine, [the earth says hello!]" I shamelessly stole from Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Interestingly it is also a song by William Oliver Swofford.
- My biology teacher traumatized an entire class of ninth graders by confirming that yes, in fact, if stabbed in the jugular vein in the "correct circumstances" you will bleed out in single-digit minutes, like a fountain. She was a creepy lady.
- Barty blindfolded Harry on purpose to fetch the vials AND the Vodka cap, man had a PLAN.
- There are a lot of grey areas concerning ghosts in the canon, but for the sake of this fic: 1. the deceased chooses to stay behind because they have unfinished business 2. They are bound to the location of their demise 3. The death has to occur suddenly or in an untimely fashion.
- The chapter count MIGHT increase, it won't be anything crazy but do expect a 2-10 chapter increase (10 being the MAXIMUM), I have to go over the drafts to be sure.
- I also legitimately forgot Maya's surname and couldn't find it, if there are any new readers here with a good memory, that would be SUPER appreciated lmao.
- Draco, Reggie and reunions next chap! Happy reading!

Chapter 11: 11.—That I need you, with me, here with me—

Summary:

I need you with me.

Notes:

I have increased the chapter count to 26 chapters, I will not be doing this again, as this increase gives me ample space to proceed with the plot the way it deserves.

This chapter is 12k, lmaooo.

 

!!!!!!!! Chapter-specific warnings!!!!!!!: This is not included in the tags as it occurs only in this chapter but please BE AWARE: The beginning of this chapter contains heavy and explicit allusions to body dysmorphia and eating disorders. If these are triggers, please skip the first section of this chapter.

11.—That I need you, with me, here with me—

 

1984 

 

[‘Dolohov was solely responsible for delivery of the pints of drained prisoner blood for Pet’s meal preparations—This consisted of a rotatory draining usually from prisoners in the higher brackets—’]

He found the first sealed packet in their study lodged strategically under a loose floorboard. It was completely by accident. He wouldn’t have found it otherwise. Maybe it was a thing of fate that he was so clumsy that day. He was exhausted. He’d been poring over the documents for hours. The cases had been Owled to him just that morning; he’d already been inundated by the previous batch.

He knocked his wand over with his elbow as he was scrubbing his face with tired hands.

He bent down to pick it up. 

He thought it was bird food, something left over from a childhood adventure and the odd trip here or there. Maybe something his father had left behind. The packet was small, nondescript, and rather tightly sealed, and it was plastic so James could see an assortment of grains and nuts. Almonds, macadamia, peanuts. And dried fruit. Raisins and apple chips that James knew for a fact he’d bought last Tuesday. 

He found more. 

He found two packets in the sitting room in completely different locations. He found several along with water bottles in the newly built Orangery and the last drawer on Harry's dresser was positively packed with baby food and preserves. 

James put them back where he found them. He checked the pantry and saw that yeah…the nuts and grains and the dried fruit tins had been very carefully and indiscriminately pecked through. James probably wouldn't have even noticed if he hadn't known. He probably wouldn’t have found the stashes if he hadn’t been looking for them vigorously while Reggie was occupied with Harry. 

Seeing as his sixteen-month-old son wouldn’t be able to make and hide such stashes, James came to the rational conclusion that Regulus felt uncomfortable or perhaps compromised by openly taking food out of the pantry. It was so unlike him. But then again, James didn’t really know this version of Regulus or the horrors he had endured. Food safety seemed to matter to him. 

James wanted him to know that it was safe, that he had bought those things for Reggie, and that everything in the house was his. He didn’t need to hide stashes of food in every room. 

“Just for the record…” He’d told the man later that night over dinner, “You do know that the food in the pantry is for you, right?”

Regulus paused stirring his soup, his head snapping up to James, “What?”

“The pantry?” James cleared his throat, he wiped Harry’s mouth with his bib, trying to sound nonchalant, “The cooler too. I bought the food for you. Not just Harry. Food isn't…for meal times only. You gotta eat.” 

Harry babbled around his plastic spoon and Regulus stiffened in his seat, “Do I have to?” he muttered. 

James paused because what did that mean? Of course, James wasn’t forcing him to gorge himself on the food in the pantry, he just wanted to assure him that he didn’t need to sneak around for food. He was rail thin already, he needed the nourishment, and that was why James went out of his way to keep the pantry stocked at all times even amidst all the craziness outside. Did Reggie have to? Of course not, he wasn’t forced to do anything. But it would be preferred if he actually tried snacking from time to time. 

James shook his head quickly, baffled by the stiffness in Reggie’s posture. 

“Er…no. No. But you have the option. You always have the option. Food is not off-limits,” He panicked a bit more, “I mean…nothing is off-limits. Everything in this house is yours.” 

It was just that James thought that was obvious. He hit himself mentally then, because sure that would have been obvious without him having to explicate it in normal circumstances. This was anything but normal. He couldn’t get it out of his head, feeling every bone, every rib while he held Regulus that first night after they…well.

“Okay. Thank you. That's very nice of you, James.” 

“Nice?” 

The way he said it, Nice …as if it was not just common sense. As if Regulus had not quite comprehended that this place was now his home and that he was entitled to everything in this house. It was not some favour that James was granting him, it was literally his. James thought about bringing up his discovery, the stash and all once again to reassure the man that he didn’t need to hide his stored food. He could have them if he wanted to, but there was no reason to think James would ever in any universe withhold food from his beloved. 

But before James could question Regulus’ wording or ask him about the stash, the man bit his lips some more and then looked him straight in the eyes. 

“Did you put something in the broth?” he asked rather timidly, his knuckles white from the sheer force he had around his spoon. James frowned and then his eyes dropped down to the nearly full bowl of soup in front of Reggie. He was so busy stirring and playing with it, that James hadn’t noticed that he hadn’t eaten any.

“Ah, some of the supplements Madam Pomfrey sent along,” he’d actually forgotten that he’d done so until Reggie asked, maybe the texture was a bit more grainy than usual, “You need some meat back on your bones and they're good for Harry too so I just put a vial in the pot—” 

Regulus lowered his spoon and scooted away from the bowl with an affronted and…terrified look in his eyes, “You put something in the food.” he repeated again, rasping the words.

“Yeah, the supplements Poppy gave you,” James looked down at Harry’s empty bowl and then his own. It hadn’t actually tasted any differently, “You were there when she prescribed them, and you weren't taking them so—” 

And they’d been gathering actual dust on their kitchen counter. It wasn’t like they were enhancers or anything. They were literally food supplements. The same as any ingredient, they only helped their bodies receive more nutrients. 

“You can't do that,” Regulus snapped at him, sounding more scared than mad, pushing his chair back from the table, “Please never do that again.” 

Oh , James wanted to fucking hit himself. Of course, it was a big bloody deal. He didn’t even think to consider…that was the problem. James didn’t think. He wasn’t thinking. Shit, he kept thinking to himself. Shit, stupid James, He admonished himself, so damn stupid. 

“I'm sorry. I won't. I'm so sorry,” he stood too, his hands held up in surrender, “I can make you something else, give me like a minute.” 

“I'm not hungry.” 

“Regulus.” 

Regulus shook his head, “Thank you for the meal.” 

James closed his eyes as the man quickly left the kitchen and Harry smacked his lips, innocently asking for his next spoonful. 

 

...

 

[‘Nightly entertainment consisted of prompted altercations between captured prisoners and Pet. Neither liked to be closely observed which made the Dark Lord reportedly enjoy them more.’]

About two months after Reggie’s decision to venture outside the manor alone with Harry, once the trials were in motion and everyone in the thick of it, on a random Saturday, he rushed home, out of breath, red in the face, shoving Harry into James’ arms. 

He ran to their downstairs bathroom and James followed after him hastily, frantically asking him what was wrong. Things were fine that morning. Regulus had just gone out for some pastries for a leisurely weekend breakfast, and to take Harry to see the ducks and the pond on the way. 

Harry noticed the skirmish and struggled a bit in James’ arms, calling for his ‘Pa’ with a whine. But Reggie was hunched over the bathroom basin, madly gurgling water and coughing it out. 

“Did you ingest something? Should I get someone?! Reggie?”

“Mrs Turner looked at me .” 

The words were choked out, stilted and infused with terror. James could see the man’s eyes in the mirror, could see his hands fisting over his shirt, pushing the fabric and the flesh in roughly. James resettled Harry on his hip and put a hand on Regulus’ shoulder. 

“She what?” 

“She looked at me,” Regulus ducked his gaze. “Like I'm some meat on the market. She said… life at the Manor is treating you well, huh? And she reached to pull at Harry's cheek and looked down at my body and—”

Regulus sounded winded; as though the very act of breathing was a great labour. His chest heaved and James, though still confused about the interaction, tried to rub his back comfortingly. They remained silent in the backdrop of Regulus’ wheezing and Harry’s hesitant whines. 

James pursed his lips, “It's okay.”

He didn’t know what it was exactly, that was okay , but…well, apparently it wasn’t that okay at all. Regulus was doing fine. He had no trouble talking with the locals before, and in fact, he and Mrs Turner who ran the pastry shop were on amicable terms, last James had asked. She always included two extra blueberry muffins with James’ order whenever he went down to the village himself. 

“For your lovely sir and your little one,” was always accompanied by a giggle coming from her. 

Whatever she’d done to upset Regulus, both he and James knew was not done advertently. She wasn’t really the mean-natured type. None of the locals were, even though they didn’t really understand the way James’ family worked. To be honest, James wasn’t quite sure what the problem was at all. Was it that she made a comment? That she’d merely looked? Did she look at him salaciously? In a suggestive way? 

“It's all this,” Regulus shoves his fist into his flat abdomen, pushing the flesh and organs inward with a disgusted curl to his mouth, “It's—I wore a tee shirt and she saw this, all this —”

Something in James’ chest broke like porcelain. He quickly closed a hand over Reggie’s wrist and softly tugged at the forceful shoving, “Those are your organs, Regulus.”

James had never heard someone talk about themselves that way with such pure hatred and contempt pouring into each word. 

Harry called for Regulus again and Regulus looked at the boy and then up at James. His fists uncurled from his shirt and he reached for Harry, whom James silently handed over. They stood in silence some more and James wished that he knew what to say or how to make it better. The enormity of the self-loathing Regulus had just exhibited over his own body was too big for James to digest because how could he? How could he not see that he was actually still severely underweight? And that he was beautiful no matter what any bastard had to say about it? 

James opened his mouth and he didn’t know what to say.

“I don't want to talk about it,” Regulus said unhelpfully, shifting a fussy Harry in his arms, “I think I scared him,” he continued, nodding his chin at Harry guiltily as though he were just not going through a breakdown himself. 

“Alright, should we go into the kitchen? Make something for Harry? I think getting out of here would help. I'll talk to Mrs Turner.” 

Regulus’ eyes suddenly widened as they moved to get out of the bathroom, he stilled, “I forgot…I left all the groceries in her store—”

“It’s fine, love. It’s okay, I can go down to the village later and I’m sure she’s kept them in the back or something. I’ll talk to her.”

“You don't need to,” Regulus replied curtly as they made their way into the corridor, “I don't want that. It’s just…Is it okay if you're the one who takes Harry outside for a while?” 

No, it wasn't okay. James wanted to ask so many questions. He wanted to know why. He wanted to chase this loathing out of Reggie's flesh with his lips. He wanted them to be okay. He wanted to know exactly what had happened to Reggie in those years. What horrors could propel him into these reactions?

But James bit his tongue. It wasn't the time. The memories Reggie had were too raw. James wouldn't force him to recount them. So he nodded and pressed his lips against the man’s temple, breathing him in, “Yeah. Anything you need.” 

 

...

 

[‘If prompted or taunted, the Pet could be persuaded to readily inflict harm on anyone the Lord deemed worthy of punishment, this extended beyond nightly entertainment and was considered a legitimate method of penalisation.’]

 

“I guess I get why Reggie wanted to kill this damn snake so badly,” James was telling Sirius over the kitchen table, they were pouring over Dolohov’s confession still, pages upon pages about this ‘Pet’. From feeding schedules to its interactions with the corpses and the bodies and the blood extracted to the nightly entertainments, to the Dark Lord’s fondness of it. 

James honestly never knew that the snake was this significant of a player in the war. 

“It’s everywhere, mentioned at least once in every confession,” Sirius said in return, shaking his head as he gathered up the parchment piles together, “And it’s nowhere to be found. Wasn’t in the Malfoy Manor raid either…Bugger must have gotten away.”

“I just don’t understand why it was so bloody important. I mean…it was an animal. They had weekly schedules to deliver extracted, refined blood to feed an animal that can hunt by itself?”

“You’re starting to sound like Moody. So what, you think it was involved in some conspiracy or something?”

“I don’t know. I suppose we can ask them about it in later interrogations—”

“James there are droves of actual human dead bodies,” Sirius cut in with a roll of his eyes, he looked utterly exhausted as he stuffed the pages into a folder and tied it up with a string, “We don’t need them blabbering about some house pet.”

“No, I suppose not.” 

But it never sat right with him. 

 

...

 

[‘Yeah, I saw the bugger around, always trailing after You-Know-Who. They were inseparable. Everyone knew the pet had privileges other sods didn’t.’]

 

It was so captivating when some information was so innocuously out in the open, so frequently mentioned in passing, in broad daylight for days, months, and years, and not one person would give it enough value to connect the dots. 

It occurred to James that he could ask Regulus about it all once Dolohov’s trial came and went. Regulus had been very deliberately keeping himself distanced from the entire ordeal, even going so far as to avoid being in the same room when James opened the Daily Prophet or worked on case files, but surely this type of information was benign enough?

Something prevented him, maybe an instinctive notion that made the topic seem too sensitive to broach. After all, Reggie had almost planned to die in his pursuit of the snake. 

The snake, who seemed to be as sadistically targeted as Reggie was himself. 

The snake, who was not allowed outside. Not allowed to hunt. Was fed human blood from men it had not hunted itself. Blood that could certainly not sustain it. 

The snake, who was used as a means of entertainment and punishment. Flung at adversaries and cheered on when it gave in to its baser instincts and tore them apart. 

The snake, who was tied to the Dark Lord’s side and never seen without him. The snake who…

The lines started to blur, because this account about the fucking pet was starting to sound a lot like Barty Crouch Jr.’s recalling of Reggie’s treatment under that monster;

Targeted sadistically by Riddle. 

Not allowed outside. 

Not allowed to leave or eat or sleep unless given permission. 

Used as entertainment. 

Maybe it was the insomnia, the fatigue, his grief over Lily or his stress over the trials. Maybe he was bloody insane for drawing inferences, maybe he was a horrible person, comparing Regulus to a damn animal…but…none of the reports ever mentioned Pet being the snake. They never referred to the pet as the snake. 

They referred to the Pet as the Pet. 

Regulus' face rushed to the forefront of his mind, his eyes pruned, shyly smiling, the picture of the man sitting in the next room, and it seemed to be marred by another version, this one merely a few months old, of a starkly different man with gaunt cheeks and an empty gaze.

“Oh no,” James buried his face in his hands, alone at night in his study, he could faintly hear his son and Regulus in the other room, laughing and playing. And he thought of the hidden stashes of food. Of Regulus’ terror that his food was tampered with. Of his terror at the thought of being perceived. The way he pulled and pushed his own flesh with disdain. 

James pushed his nausea down. He didn't need confirmation. He didn't need to check those trials and confessions again. He was morbidly wary of this wild suspicion becoming a reality if he ventured too far. If he read the words again with this in mind. He wouldn't know what to do with the information. Not if it's not Regulus, trusting him with it. He stood on shaky legs and followed the sound of muted laughter in the other room. 

It would take him nearly a decade to confirm this. Even more. It took him thirteen years to hear that Monster call the love of his life that horrid, dehumanising name: 

 

Pet. 

 

...

1995

 

Papa isn't here. 

He's not in the dungeons in the east wing. Harry's checked every cell almost twice. He’s searched the study, lurked in the corridors, even looked through the empty sitting rooms and studies that seem scattered in the singular eastern wing almost sporadically. There’s nothing. More accurately…there is no one even here. 

Rodolphus Lestrange lies in a locked cell, chained and knocked out as a little Harry, and there he will remain for at least ten hours. Rabastan Lestrange wasn’t in the dungeons when Harry was there, but he was heading down there once Harry was hiding in one of the studies behind an almost closed door. Harry prayed that the man would stay away from the decoy Harry. 

He was most likely heading down to rough Barty up some more, as they seemed to have a history. 

Barty had mentioned a dungeon in the west wing and also Harry was supposed to look through Voldemort’s wing, which is funny because Harry sort of forgot to ask where that was and Barty never specified. This place is too big. Easily four times the Winbourne Manor. Harry is fairly certain that in addition to the eastern and western wings, the main wing itself can be separated into parts. Every corridor leads to other corridors and rooms which lead to more corridors and rooms and they all have more or less the same exact decor. With opulent and polished furniture, aged rugs, and vases with wilting flowers. The curtains, where there were windows to peer outside, were a dark and heavy fabric, and there were a myriad of wooden stands with decorative and expensive objects and heirlooms settled on top. Harry feels like he is in a freaking museum. 

In his dreams, Harry had only seen the path to Draco’s bedroom with absolute clarity, and now he can’t even find his way to the foyer again. 

In one of these demented corridors, and blissfully away from the dungeons, Harry sees a woman approaching from afar. Her face is small but pulled, her eyes narrowed at him and her hair a mane of unkempt curls. Her eyes are green. But not like Harry’s. No, they’re green, the same shade as Papa’s eyes. In fact, her hair colour too, is the same shade of dark brown—almost black—as Papa’s hair. The look in her eyes makes Harry pause in trepidation. There’s a crazed abandon in the look she throws at him. 

She looks like she could easily be Papa’s and Sirius’ sister. Actually, she looks more similar to Sirius in terms of bone structure and overall build than Papa. She walks towards him with the same lethality a leopard possesses once it corners a prey. Harry wants to turn and run away from her. There is something about her. An air of eerie abandon. 

Once she is close enough, her mouth is pulled in a leathery and twisted smirk, and expectantly, she raises an eyebrow at him, “I just heard from Lucius, tell me, honeybun , is it true?”

Harry dampens his lips, feels the hammering of his heart against his ribs. Oh, right. He’s under disguise, and Rodolphus obviously knows this woman. And the only news that Lucius could possibly give her would pertain to Barty. 

“Crouch …the fool turned himself in.” it’s a struggle, not making it sound more like a question than a statement. It is even stranger, to hear the gruff voice vibrating out of his mouth. It makes him hyper-aware of the fact that this is not his real body, these are not his clothes, and he is not this tall.

“Ah!” she throws her head back in delight and cackles, “The moron! I never thought he had it in him.” 

“Why?” 

Her unsettling smile disappears immediately, morphing into a terrifying scoff, “Why? Don't you know, Rodolphus?”

Harry understands in this moment, that if he’s found out right now, by this woman, he is unlikely to make it out of this manor alive. Not even with the aid of fucking divine intervention can he get away. Not even if Albus Dumbledore himself drops out of the roof. This can’t be Draco’s Mum. But the semblance leads Harry to immediately believe that he is meeting an aunt . 

Why is Papa’s side of the family bat-shit insane? What is it with these people!? 

“Er, I mean yeah, the wimp that he is—” he coughs into his fist to mask the breathlessness. 

“The chicken is a runner,” she sneers, her teeth bare, “He obviously has a scheme. Too bad he's too stupid to pull it off. We should ask our Lord for him! We can finally show the brat . The punishment for leaving us behind.” 

Harry wonders what exactly Barty has bloody done with these people, judging by the way they’re all thirsting for his blood, it can’t have been anything good. He pulls at his collar. 

“We should,” he coughs again, “Yes.”

The woman extends a hand, presumably to grab at him and Harry nearly has a heart attack as her long and claw-like nails scrape against his clothed arm. He flinches back and she stills, narrowing her eyes at him, “What's with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Is it your damn brother again?” 

The one who beat them to a pulp? Yeah, he seems to be the problematic type. Harry clears his throat and then nods a bit timidly, desperate to grasp any excuses that might expedite the conversion’s end.

“Rabastan…”

“Is a loose canon, my dear,” she seizes his arm and pulls his body down with surprising strength for a woman her size, when she continues, Harry can smell something rotten on her breath, something like death, “He's a useful dog to have around, but we've talked about this. Masters don't befriend their dogs. Hm?” 

“I…I suppose.” 

He straightens back up hastily and frees his arm from her iron grip. He wonders whether she can feel the mad thrumming of his heartbeat or smell the sweat on him. He’s so fucked. She definitely is a Death Eater. Maybe this Bellatrix person that Barty was talking about earlier. Definitely one of Papa’s cousins anyhow.

“Where are you off to?” she snaps as he tries to move, “Don't you want to see the Potter boy?”

So, that’s where she was headed. Shit , Harry curses in his head and quickly whirls around to face her again. If she goes down to the dungeons, she’s definitely going to torture the decoy, and that definitely will mean that Harry’s cover will be blown. 

“Little shit’s passed out in a cell,” he grunts, trying to keep his voice even, “I wouldn't touch him until…our Lord can have a taste first.” 

She pouts at him, except that the expression twists her face into something vaguely animalistic, pulling at the lines of her face, “Oh, but I just want a look.” 

She tries to brush past him but Harry is the one who grabs her this time, closing a hand around her bony wrist, “Don't you want Crouch?” he snaps, trying to sound intimidating, to tower over her, “We need to be on the Dark Lord's good side to ask for favours. I'm sure he'll let us play with Potter in due time, given a few hours.” 

Harry is sure that given a few hours, he will be dead. With the way things are going. This was possibly the worst plan that Barty could have come up with. If they get out of this alive, Papa and Dad are going to pull Barty apart with their bare hands. 

She seems like she wants to glower back at him but then relaxes her shoulders with a disinterested hum, “Oh, I suppose. I shan't be out too late then,” she pats her bodice with a free hand, “I wouldn't want to miss this.” 

She turns, this time as though she wants to walk the other way. Harry, like the idiot that he is, doesn’t let go of her immediately and instead asks, “You're leaving?” 

“Yes,” she sneers at him, her demeanour switching from a calm playfulness to a sour and rigid rage, “You have such a short memory, gods, it's pathetic, Rodolphus!” she seethes at him, yanking her arm out with a growl, “I just told you this morning—”

Harry is going to die. He is going to die and it will be by this woman’s hand. 

“I'm sorry!” the fifteen-year-old stutters immediately, “I…uh…I remember now. About the thing.”

She stops bristling and shoves at him, her lip curled down in displeasure and suspicion, “You're sorry?” she repeats as though the words were something scandalous. 

Right, Harry is supposed to be a Death Eater, who happens to be an arsehole. Their sort doesn’t really seem prone to apologising or politeness. The real Rodolphus certainly wasn’t, from what Harry saw in their brief encounter. 

“I meant…” he locks his jaw, leering down at her the same way she just leered at him, “I asked you a question. Where the bloody hell are you going?” 

Her body relaxes into an annoyed slump, “Cornwall, you limp cock . As our Lord had ordered,” Her voice is shrill and yet raspy, she shoves a hand beneath her bodice and yanks up a small object with a golden glint out of the folds very briefly. She throws a meaningful glance at an uncomfortable Harry and stuffs the thing back in the bodice. 

“I've been organising our groups all morning,” she hisses at him, “You're so useless. If you slip in the meeting tonight, I swear, Rodolphus—”

“I'm leaving,” Harry says, casting his gaze away. He can’t wait to get away from her, “Do whatever you want.”

He starts to walk away and he actually manages about a few yards before he hears her voice again, calling out in the corridor, “Lucius called for you, by the way. Something about our nephew.”

Harry stills, uncurling his hands and after a moment’s deliberation, he looks at her over his shoulder. She has the same slanted, disinterested posture, smirking at him with that same rank aura. 

Their nephew? Draco? She means Draco . 

“Dra…the kid? What about him?” His heart starts ramming into his ribs with such velocity that it hurts and suddenly Harry remembers the boy’s emaciated face again, his eyes brimming with fear, his thin skin mottled with bruises and sores. They’re in the same house now. 

Why would Lucius Malfoy want to talk about his son with another Death Eater? Even if they are related through marriage. 

She shrugs, “Go ask him, don't waste my time,” she walks up to him, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly, “God, he's a piece of work, just like my sister. Lily-livered puppies. I reckon he won't hold out for much longer.” 

Harry schools his face in a way that would have made Papa proud. The rage he feels is hot and vermilion, threatening to creep up his neck and flash behind his eyes. How vile can these people be? To rejoice in someone else’s misery and pain? To gleefully condon their torture? Is this how they talked about Papa? Is this why they’ve taken him again?

Harry hears the windows rattle behind their curtains, and fists one hand. He sneers down at her some more and imagines her jaw coming apart the same way Umbridge’s had a short few weeks ago. Alas, she doesn’t notice the rattling of windows, nor the way Harry’s eyes have narrowed at her in pure abhorrence. 

“I see.”

“Perhaps he wants you to prepare the boy for tonight’s reunion,” She muses, shifting her skirt, and Harry can see a long ebony wand sliding down her sleeve into her hand, “Too much of a coward to tend to his own offspring. I swear, Lucius is no better than that traitor Crouch when it comes to—” 

Harry walks away without indulging or acknowledging her mad ramblings, letting her rancid voice drown under the storm thrashing in his own ears. 

 

...

 

Draco is about to do something horrifically stupid. 

Holding himself up is a challenge, his head is too heavy to remain upright, his neck hurts, his backside is on fire but Draco gnashes his teeth and whimpers through it, and it is because of a series of actual miracles and the sheer force of will, that he manages to pull his body to the edge of the bed. 

It's a bit funny, he doesn't remember his bed being so gigantic before. 

Had this been ten months ago, a simple fall from this meagre height would have been nothing. Maybe a small bruise, maybe he would have cursed loudly and admonished himself over his clumsiness. Maybe he would have even been in a bad mood for the rest of that day. Maybe he would have even seen it coming and then cursed himself for falling anyway. 

Draco is not quite sure whether he will survive a fall from his bed in this state. He’s all skin and bones now, his muscle mass is a joke, and he is very likely to break a few limbs by flinging himself off, though the fear of more pain does not dissuade him. 

He doesn’t know why he has this urge to do it. His ankle has been chained to the bed, even if he gets off the bed, he won’t get far. 

Hunger, that old angry rat writhes in his guts and Draco fists his hands over his threadbare sheets, feeling his nails clawing into his own palms through the fabric, “Fear is the mind-killer,” he croaks under his breath, shaking his head to rid himself of the vertigo. 

Fear is the mind-killer. You have to strangle the fear lest it causes your downfall. Kill the fear. Or it will kill you first.

There is this need that fuels him. This urging voice in his head is like a buzzing bee, maybe a perverted excitement in his chest that gives into the fluttering of rapid images and encourages his delusions. Maybe if he manages to tumble out of bed, maybe Harry will come sooner. Maybe if he can actually make it to his wardrobe, he can get his trunk, maybe there’s food in there. 

His stomach turns but there’s nothing for him to throw up, he closes his eyes and grips the edge of the bed knowing that must have a death wish. He shuffles his legs closer and thinks about gently lowering himself, legs down first, but the moment he swings his legs down he realises the fatal flaw that, firstly, his legs do not have the capability to support his weight right now, and secondly, the chain pulls at his chafed ankle and his vision goes white in absolute agony. His hands slip and he hurtles down face-first, thrusting his hands out to break the fall has the opposite effect, as he hears the chain rattle and pull on his ankle again, and his hands twist with a sickening crunch against the harsh floorboards. 

Draco muffles the beastly scream trying to claw its way out of his throat. Winded, he turns on his back, whimpers as the sores brush against the cold floor where his shirt has ridden up and closes his eyes, waiting for the pain to pass.  

When his eyes are closed he can see flashes of a sunny sky through the canopy of leaves above him, and as his chest heaves for air, he can feel phantom fingers carding through his hair. It’s so easy, creeping into his own head and staying there.  

“Not yet,” he pulls himself out of the vision with a groan. His ankle is on fire, no it actually feels damp. Blood? 

“Fuck. Fuck, Draco.” 

He lifts his head once the double vision goes away and instead of sobbing in horror at the state of his ankle, focuses on the length of the chain. It’s not long at all, but he can try and see how far he can crawl with it. Definitely not to the door, but maybe a bit closer to the wardrobe than he thought he'd be. 

He rolls to his side and starts the herculean slithering on his floor. He moves barely a few inches with every breath-taking drag, but through some unnamed thing, maybe adrenaline, he sees his wardrobe getting closer, getting a little bigger and he exhales mirthfully. He can’t really laugh in this state and his chapped lips hurt when pulled in a smile but…he feels it, that resurrected little bird in his chest. 

He hears his own wheezing, the chain rattling, and his ankle digging into the chain as it is being dragged across the floor. He’ll make it, he thinks, pushing the fear away. 

He’ll make it to the wardrobe, he just needs…he stretches his arm out, straining his fingers, begging for them to at least brush against the wardrobe’s doors. The chain pulls and his vision goes white again. He drops his head and bites down into the forearm holding his body up. 

Kill the fear, kill the pain, he begs his mind. 

But begging does little when physical pain is involved. The chain is too short. No matter how much he stretches his body, and grits his teeth and yanks at his eroded ankle, that’s not gonna change. The chain is too short. 

He lies down for a while, maybe a long while, panting and sweating out the nonexistent moisture in his body. When was the last time he even had water? He hasn’t relieved himself for a long time, so that should probably scare him. 

Does it even matter? 

Draco lets his thoughts take their dark, sour turn again. He closes his eyes and imagines death and imagines Harry too, hunched over his body in horror. 

His eyes flutter as he hears someone messing with the doorknob. The doorknob on his door. The door to his room. His room. 

Draco can’t kill the fear again, because from this angle he can’t see the door, can’t see the shadow lingering. He’s going to die here. There is no killing the fear that comes with that.

The door is violently pushed open.

 

...

 

He knows he’s too broken to ever conjure a Patronus. 

He knows and he still closes his eyes in the damp and the cold, shivering under the sifting layers of snow covering his body and he thinks about good memories. 

Regulus can imagine the weight of Harry as a baby in his arms with such clarity that it feels as though he’s actually holding the child again, he can hear the babble in his ears, those tiny feet digging into his sides on early mornings. He can trace the smile on his face, the way he toddled after him in the garden barefoot, playing in the soil. He can remember lazy days spent by the pond as they fed the ducks and Harry, shrieking in delight with every delicate quacking of a duck. 

He can smell James’ cologne, his natural scent, the pads of his fingers tracing Reggie’s skin, running over the scars reverently, as though he was worshipping them. Regulus remembers James the way he remembers how to breathe, effortlessly. James is everywhere, with his molten hazel eyes, his smudged glasses, his flour-dusted hands when he bakes, the way he flops his body over Reggie’s, hugs him from behind, kisses him like he wants to drink him in. Regulus sees himself, not chained in the snow, but cocooned in the man’s arms, almost stifled by his heat. He imagines the soft graze of his beard sometimes scratching his cheeks and the man’s softness when they are intimate. 

Regulus doesn’t know whether this remembrance is just a coping mechanism or his last attempt at cherishing the life he had. He knows he does not have infinite time. The Dementors are back, he feels them. 

Lily isn’t here anymore. Regulus isn’t quite sure when she left, he must have drifted off to sleep at some point, but when he awoke, coughing and the frozen air burning through his nostrils, her light was gone. 

So the Dementors are back, creeping into his periphery, exacerbating the coldness and Regulus imagines his brother’s sunny smiles and rambunctious voice, his hands and face that were constantly smudged by motor oil and his messy and long hair, which he refused to brush or keep tidy. He remembers Sirius and Harry together, crouching by a motorbike, by its tank fuel, while Reggie and Remus stood by the side and exchanged amused glances. 

He's lived a good life. A fulfilled life that he never would've had hadn't it been because of James. 

If the Dementors don’t take care of him in the immediate future, the nameless Death Eater will. He left him here some time ago, he is coming back eventually, and Regulus doesn’t know if he has enough strength to strangle himself with the chain anymore. 

He wants to ask the James in his memories, ‘Where are you? You’re taking too long. Come sooner please; I don’t want to break my promise to you.’ 

But the James in his memories is too precious to be marred by this acrid desperation. So Regulus sniffles and looks down at his knees and up at the sky. He thinks about his son, and the panic takes over him, because what is Harry doing now? What if Voldemort is back in his head again? What if…

Why did it have to be like this? Regulus has been asking himself for months now. Why his son? Why did it have to be Harry? What is Regulus going to do once he even gets out of here? Fight in a war that has a clear ending? Hand his child over for slaughter just to destroy the monster? 

He doesn’t have the answers; he didn’t have them ten months ago, and he doesn’t have them now. 

He wants to try fighting again, he really does, but looking down at his hands, red from the cold, trembling because of the strain… Regulus doesn’t know if he has it in him to keep fighting for long. He looks up at the sky again, at the telltale floating black shrouds that creep closer with the snow and the cold wind. 

Regulus takes a deep breath and struggles to stand on creaking knees, he has been really feeling his age these past few hours. The Dementors have no face. Only a hole with shards of teeth sneaking through the burial shrouds, but Regulus feels as though he is staring them down. The Dementors are not intelligent creatures; they do not sense anything but despair. They crave nothing but despair. 

Regulus likes to think that they feel his spite too, his bitterness, the desperation oozing out of his veins and pumping through his blood. He likes to think that he is staring them down. 

“Do your worst,” he croaks, bracing himself for the nauseating pull as a clawed hand reaches for his throat again, he feels an entire herd of them, behind him. Starting to circle him again. 

He closes his eyes and James is there again, cradling his face in both hands, his eyes lovingly running over him, his breath hot against his face, and Regulus purses his lips, allowing the prickle of tears into fruition as he imagines himself kissing the memory back. He can’t believe these beasts want to take this away from him. 

James. His James. 

The tears are cold against his feverish skin and he gasps when he is thrust back into the dizzying whirlwind of wretched memories again; of scrubbing innards off the harsh stone, of Riddle holding his forearm steady, of a red gaze burning into his mind, of a revolting touch, usurping his body. 

Regulus thinks that he hears the clomping of hooves rattling the ground underneath his feet. He falls to his knees again, forced into visions of pain and a man with sandy hair leering down on him, his hands closed around his throat, pressing down just like Maman used to. 

He gasps when the Dementor is abruptly and forcefully torn away from him. When he falls, he falls into a strong pair of arms and a larger body enveloping him. For an embarrassing moment, Regulus thinks that perhaps his memories and reality have mixed up again, that perhaps he is hallucinating. 

He hears his voice, in his ear, gently calling his name. The warm hands frantically maundering over his body to brush the snow off, “Regulus? Regulus? Reggie, love? Are you here?”

“ Here. ”

His eyes open and he sharply inhales James’ scent, the strong and musky scent of prongs and James’ own fading cologne. His eyes dart up to James and he sees the man’s wide and distraught eyes staring down at him helplessly. Once James sees the recognition in Reggie’s gaze, his grip becomes impossibly tight around Regulus, and Reg breathes a sigh of relief. 

“I knew,” He coughs into the man’s coat, feeling his warmth seeping into his flesh, “I knew you’d come, I knew—I knew, what took you so long—”

“I’m sorry,” James keeps breathing into his hair, his hand on Reggie’s back, “I’m sorry, I know I’m late, I’m sorry—”

When the tension leaves Reggie’s body, it does it all at once, and Regulus would have crumpled had it not been for James holding him up. The man’s hand travels to cup his face, rubbing the flesh rigorously to aid the blood’s return to the dead cold flesh. James asks him questions with the speed of a shooting star, and Regulus is a bit too disoriented to answer him at first. He watches as James hastily takes off his heavy coat and drapes it over Regulus and then his gaze darts down to the chains and Reggie’s bloodied nails. 

It is then that Regulus, still a bit disoriented, notices the presence of other people. James looks over his shoulder and calls out for help, his hands shaking around Reggie’s. Regulus tells him, “It’s okay. I’m okay, it’s okay—” He looks down at James’ frenzied attempts at cleaning the dried blood off his chipped nails and shudders as the warm glow of James’ patronus emerges from behind, having dispersed the herd. Prongs, the Patronus, massive even in this form, lumbers next to Regulus from the side, almost as if trying to lean into him. 

Regulus’ eyes soften at Prongs, and he looks up at James again, his dishevelled hair, his smudged glasses, the breathless flush to his cheeks. 

He hears running, and James looks over his shoulder again. “Hurry!” he barks at a tall woman racing up the cliff toward them.

“Are you okay?” He asks Regulus again, “Are you hurt? Can you smile? Nod your head?”

“Oh, you’re here.” Regulus feels relief finally in waves upon seeing James’ old underling jogging towards them. It’s not a hallucination. It’s real. James is here. 

“Reggie? Maya, hurry. We’re getting these shackles off of him—”

The poor girl tries the best she can, she hastily nods her greetings at Regulus and ducks her gaze, dropping to a crouch to take care of the chain bolted into the ground. 

Regulus dampens his lips, “Is Sirius—”

He feels the shock setting in, wracking his body, making him shake.

James squeezes his hands and forearms, as though he literally wants to direct the blood back into his limbs, “He’s fine. We’re all fine, Merlin, Regulus . Oh god, you’re alive. You’re alive—” 

The bolts come loose and Maya stands, awkwardly trying to dangle the twisted chain free as it is trapped between James's and Reggie's flush bodies. 

“Sir, you need to let me—”

James detaches himself from Reg only long enough for her to take a look at the chains around his wrists. Regulus tries to help her, “Heavy iron. They have exhauriri crystals—”

“Yeah,” she nods at him, “These need to be broken. Boss, can you step back for a stitch?” 

Regulus pushes James a bit farther back and holds his arms out. She summons a bolt cropper with her wand and lodges it between his bound hands. She grunts as she closes the cropper and the lock snaps. James nods his thanks and wriggles the cuffs off his wrists. 

“He wanted me,” Regulus tells him when Maya steps away, “Something about—” he feels the itch of a cough suddenly taking over and turns, hiding his mouth against his sleeve as he breaks into a fit, “Glorious—glorious—”

Staying in the snow for so long hasn't done him many favours. 

“That sounds like a nasty cough,” James mutters, guiltily, “We’ll get you a Pepper-up soon. And some chocolate.”

Did James know that the Dementors were no accident? Is that how he found Reggie here? Regulus allows the coughing to subside before lifting his head, “The dementors were here for me,” he rasps, James holds him by the elbows as Regulus steps away from the bundle of chains and cuffs, “They attacked several times—I thought…”

He thought this would be it. The way he'd die or…lose his soul. If James had been even one second late, maybe Regulus really would've been Kissed . All his memories and love, his life and family, all of it would have gone with the wind, never to return.

He looks back over his shoulder, at Prongs floating protectively by the cliff, pushing back the insisting herd that was attacking Reg just a few minutes ago. Luck won’t even begin to describe this turn of events.

James embraces him again as Reg turns his head, “I know. We managed to get one of the fuckers to talk. I was terrified. Reg, I thought it was too late and—”

“I'm sorry,” Regulus holds the man back, tightly, “I'm sorry. I should've been more careful—”

“No. They were out to get you. Nothing would've prevented this,” James presses his lips against his forehead, peppering his face with small pecks, “I'm just glad you're okay. Oh, thank all bloody hells you're okay—”

“I love you.” 

“I love you ,” James closes an arm around his waist, “Let’s get out of here. We need to get you somewhere warm.”

“Where’s here?” Regulus asks, limping a little as his bare feet strike against the dried grass. He'd forgotten that he scorched through his leather boots. 

“Étretat,” James waves at Maya or…Prongs over his shoulder to join them on their path down the slope, “Albus couldn’t track you, we had to kidnap Dolohov—”

“Dolohov? Fuck, he's alive?”

“Weepy fucker spilt the beans right away. They're all out to get you.” 

Regulus very much doubts that Dolohov willingly gave the location away. If James was involved in the extraction of information, Dolohov probably met his maker and lost a few limbs in the process. He huddles closer to his husband with a relief that is too immeasurable to be described. 

His suspicions about Dolohov are readily confirmed as they approach a duo down the slope, a red-headed young man and a whimpering mess by his feet, curled into himself on the ground. 

“Hi, Bill.”

The young lad nods his head at him, “Wotcha, Mister Potter. Glad to see you’re okay.” 

Regulus smiles at him. He's known the boy since he was a small child, and he knows firsthand how the death of his father is sagging down his shoulders. It's good to see him on his feet. Though, he knows that Molly would have a thing or two to say about the ponytail and piercings. 

“Thanks, William.” 

His gaze trails down to Dolohov who regards him with disdain and James with abject terror in the same breath. There are not many things that Regulus recalls where Dolohov is concerned. None that he remembers anyway. The man looks beaten and filthy, bloodied, as Reg had expected him to be. The man opens his mouth, but as his gaze hastily darts to James, he audibly clicks his mouth shut again, burying his head into his robes instead.

Regulus side-eyes James and the man shrugs unapologetically, nodding his head at Bill again as he attempts to drag Regulus away from the Death Eater. 

“You and Maya should wait here until others arrive. Secure the captured Dementors and Dolohov. Can you handle it?” 

“No worries, Boss,” the woman says from behind them and Bill nods his acquiescence, “Weasley and I have it covered.” 

Something tells Regulus that even if that hadn’t been the case, James wouldn’t have lingered here with them anyway. Bill and Maya wave their goodbyes and James mentions that they should get away from the premises before apparating. As they limp a bit farther from the young duo, Regulus frowns a bit, “I didn't know she was in the Order.” 

“Recruited her last night,” James replies, “She wanted to help find you.” 

Regulus grunts in acknowledgement, and James pauses, rolling his eyes at him as he bends to sling a hand under his knees. His movements are swift and unobliging, he sweeps Regulus off his feet. 

“James—” Regulus' complaint is muted once his husband lifts him up. He hangs onto James' neck with a glare and muffles another cough into the man’s collar. 

His husband starts walking again, this time with a faster and more stable pace, “There’s dried blood on your head. Also, I saw the limp, Merlin knows what you’ve done to your feet. This is happening. I will be carrying you no matter what and will be a miserable overprotective git for the foreseeable future. Do you really want to argue about it?”

In light of all the shit he’s put the man through? Regulus sighs a bit irritably in resignation. No, he should probably choose his battles. Besides, he’s too relieved to be near James again to be in a disagreeable mood. Away from the wandering eyes of the others, when it’s just the two of them, it’s easy to press his lips to James’ jaw and close his eyes, his pulse lulled by the comfort of the familiar touch.

“I guess I owe you one after the last domestic.”

“You scared me, you madman,” James pulls him closer as they prepare to apparate, “You scared the fuck out of me, I thought—”

Regulus knows exactly what the man had thought. He was thinking that too. Death, cold and unforgiving, at his door again, and James so many worlds away. He’s getting a bit warm again. 

“Safe,” he smiles lazily, “I’m safe with you.”

James held him and Regulus breathed him in, hanging onto him just as tightly. 

...

 

Harry keeps Malfoy waiting for perhaps longer than is considered safe. He finds that the west wing of the Manor mirrors the east, at least in its pathway to the dungeons. He holds his breath, climbs down the stairs through the trapdoor. Finds rodents and old blood and the dust. Empty cells and shackles. Damp. 

His father is not here either. Harry checks every cell, walks in each and paces around and shudders as he thinks that maybe he and Barty should have gone through the trouble of taking Harry’s invisibility cloak with them, even though it was still back in his trunk at Hogwarts. But Papa isn’t here. Harry leaves the harrowing site behind and wanders to the rooms he finds in the wing, though none of them are locked, nor do they particularly indicate that they belong to Voldemort. 

He finds Malfoy in the library on the second floor in the main wing, though not because he particularly sought him out. He sees the man sprawled on an armchair by the fireplace, inspecting his metal hand with a haggard look on his face. His hair is lank and unkempt, and now that Harry notices, without the impaired sight, he can see the patches of uneven facial hair, struggling to grow on the pale skin.

Harry figures the arsehole deserves this and much worse. 

“Lestrange.”

“Malfoy.” 

Harry contemplates hurting him. He has the physical advantage; he has his wand, the element of surprise. He can easily kill Malfoy, the bastard and be done with it. But he’s not done searching the house or even trying to find Draco yet. Not to mention, Papa wouldn’t want that for him, killing people. He wouldn’t want Harry’s hands dirtied.

Malfoy doesn’t waste any time on chitchat or gossip, he ashes his metal fingers at the low table by his armchair, the silver tray with a steaming bowl of…something on it, “Take this to Draco's room. I just found out your dear wife has massacred the entirety of my kitchen staff again . Including the elf tending to him—”

“Take this to him?”

Harry’s blood boils; he steps fully into the room, and in Rodolphus’ boots, the weight of his anger becomes known in his gait. Malfoy’s eyes snap from his hand to Rodolphus’ scowling face. 

“Are you deaf?” The Malfoy patriarch sneers, “Yes. Force-feed it to him if you have to. Can't have the boy die yet, our Lord is not done with him.” 

This sorry excuse of a man is just begging to be punched, Harry thinks to himself, barely containing the rage bubbling in his chest. He takes one deep breath and grips his wand more tightly. Merlin, what he wouldn’t give to pour that boiling soup down the man’s head. Harry knows that he needs to be smart, that Papa would certainly caution him to use his head instead of his damn heart. 

The element of surprise , Papa would tell him, you need to preserve it, detached from sentiment and morality. 

“Fine.”

“What, no resistance?”

Harry grits his teeth and once he withdraws his wand from his sleeve, he points it at the tray, instead of Malfoy, even though he sorely wants to, he has to prioritise his father and Draco, “I'm not up for games. Do you want the boy fed or not?” 

The tray floats over to him and Harry tries to keep his breathing even, he’s going to find Draco and he’s going to take him as far from this place and these people as he can. They’ll never touch him, or talk about him, or even get to look at him again. And maybe it is solely that thought that allows him to accept the tray of hot food. He turns to stomp away, but pauses momentarily. 

“He's the only prisoner?” he asks Malfoy, trying to sound casual, “That we gotta feed?” 

If Papa is here, Malfoy would know, and surely they won’t starve him. If there is no elf to tend to Draco, then there would be none tending to his Papa, even as a prisoner. The glare Malfoy throws at him is downright diabolical. 

“Don't tell me you want to stuff Crouch's gullet as well—” he growls at Harry. 

“No,” Harry snaps back, “Definitely not him.” 

Malfoy rubs at a temple and closes his eyes, “Well, then who else is there?”

“Never mind, Malfoy.” 

Harry walks away with the tray and tries to think of something on his feet before the situation becomes dire. His time on Polyjuice is not infinite, and they have a very limited time. Malfoy didn’t refer to Papa and he wasn’t in the two possible locations where Barty promised he would be. This might be the only chance they get to even enter this place. 

Harry disposes of the tray in a random room and heads down the second floor to the first. He can see Draco’s room from afar, his door at least, at the very end of the corridor but he can’t bring himself to go over without having searched the entire house first. He heads the other way, to another set of wooden doors that lead to the other side of the main wing. Harry tugs at the doors and they’re locked. 

Could this be Riddle’s wing? 

Harry tries the unlocking charm ‘ Alohomora ’, but is hesitant to try anything else when that spell fails to procure any results. There may be wards on the place, and they might alert Riddle himself or someone in the household. 

“Your parent is not here,” a voice calls from behind him and Harry nearly has a heart attack. He whirls around and muffles another gasp at the sight. That lady who just said that is a ghost, exactly like the kind that roams Hogwarts. 

Her entire body is translucent and glowing, her hair coiled but dishevelled, and there are darker patches on her that look suspiciously like blood. 

“You—”

“You need to take Draco and flee immediately,” the lady tells him, urgently floating closer to Harry, “Regulus is not in this manor.”

Harry has to fight the urge to double-check his disguise. He knows he’s still Polyjuiced as Lestrange. Does she see through it because she is a ghost? Harry tightens his hold on his wand, even knowing that his magic will do nothing against an already dead person. 

“I know who you are, Harry Potter,” she snaps, “We don’t have time for this.”

“You’re a ghost.”

“You need to leave and you need to leave with my son—”

“I don’t believe you.” Harry walks up to her, snarling in her face, “What if he’s here and you’re lying?”

It’s not as though she particularly liked Papa. What if she’s working with Voldemort? None of Papa’s family except for Sirius really gave a shit about him. They’re all bloody crazy, bloodthirsty beasts. Harry wouldn’t believe their words even for a second. 

“What do I have to gain?” she curls her mouth at him, “I’m dead. You have searched the place already. Regulus is not here.”

“Then where is he?”

“Not here,” she snaps in a way vaguely reminiscent of her sister a few hours ago, “Do you want to die or be captured, boy?” 

“Then what is behind those doors? It’s Riddle’s living quarters; he may have Papa—”

“Trust me, child. If the Dark Lord had my cousin in his possession, the entire world would know about it,” she seethes, and Harry pauses again, glaring at her sceptically.

This changes things drastically, namely, the fact that Harry and Barty just broke into this place under false assumptions. And that they may very well die, while Papa may be somewhere else in need of help. Dad is so going to bloody kill him if they get out of this.

Harry worries his lip, “I should head back down and get Barty first—”

“A waste of time, he’s too injured to be moved, you need to—”

“Listen, ghost lady who is clearly my aunt—” Harry snaps, frankly done with these people, “I don’t take orders from you. If Papa isn’t here, then we’re heading down and getting Barty.”

“You’ll blow your cover.” 

Harry starts to head for the main staircase with fisted hands, stubbornly keeping his gaze away from Draco’s room, “Then I guess we’ll be seeing more of each other if I die here.” 

He hears a loud, exasperated sigh behind him before Draco’s mum passes through him to the other side. Harry gasps and clutches at his chest as the woman glares at him.

“Not through there,” she says, nodding her chin at an innocuous still-life painting by Harry’s right, “Open the frame.”

She then passes through the canvas to the other side, not waiting for Harry to hastily slip inside the entrance behind the painting. She glows in the dark, faintly lighting the damp passage with her aura.

“This damn house. Of course, there are secret passages.” 

And precariously designed staircases. Harry holds onto the cobwebbed walls as she leads the way down a seemingly endless spiral of twisted and small stairs. Harry mostly keeps to himself, only cursing under his breath in silence as he slips; Rodolphus’ body is massive, it’s not as easy to manoeuvre on surfaces like these. 

“The world has gone mad,” Mrs. Malfoy mutters more to herself, “My cousin has raised a loud-mouthed hooligan.”

“The nerve of you!” Harry nearly slips on another step, “Do you even know how your husband treats Draco? How Riddle has been tormenting him for months? You don’t get to have an opinion about my Father’s rearing abilities. Got it?”

She doesn’t reply or acknowledge his rant and Harry nods to himself with a grumble, “Thought so.”

The secret passage leads to another painting in the study that leads to the trapdoor to the eastern dungeon. Harry quickly shuffles down the steps, expecting to hear Barty’s smart-mouthing Rabastan again, but the cell is eerily silent. The ghost does not allow him to walk to Barty’s cell. 

“Rabastan still remains in the cell,” she mutters to him, a silent urge to get away and return to Draco perhaps. 

“Drag him out.”

“What?” 

“Do you want your son rescued or not?” Harry narrows his eyes at her with all the coldness he can muster, “Distract Rabastan or drag him out so I can stun him.”

He expects her to put up a fight, but she doesn’t. Harry braces himself once Mrs Malfoy begrudgingly floats towards Barty’s cell. Harry points his wand at the door and she calls the man’s name, several times, loudly and insistently. There is no reply from the cell, but Harry creeps closer, and the moment the cell door cringes open and he hears a faint groan of surprise, Harry screams, “Stupefy!”

Rabastan Lestrange’s unit of a body tumbles to the floor harshly and Harry rushes past him, ignoring Mrs. Malfoy pruning her nose in disgust as she peers into the cell after him. Barty…is doing a bit not good. 

Harry doesn’t have to hide a cringe as he kneels by the man’s head, his face is bloodied and scarred and Harry stifles a gag. There’s a long gash over his left eye that is profusely bleeding, which is probably not a good sign. Harry ignores the clearly broken bones, the twisted limbs and the bleeding, and the way Barty is not even vaguely recognisable beneath all the blood. 

He taps Barty’s bruised cheek, “Barty—”

Barty comes to himself with a strangled gasp, his bloodied hand whips up to close around Harry’s wrist and he strains to raise his neck, “Reg—”

“Not here. I know,” Harry says and Barty groans in pain, “I know. Listen, I know this is not a good time, but I need you to turn back into Noodle. I can’t carry you out of here otherwise.”

“Hmn.”

“No, not that. Come on, you bastard,” he tries shifting the man to his side, “I’ll slip you in my pocket. Barty! We need to get out of here.” 

“It is useless, child,” the ghost interjects over them, “We need to leave him.”

“I am not explaining this to his lovers,” Harry thrusts a hand at Barty’s mangled body as he glares up at her, “We’re taking him, lady.”

“Mrs. Malfoy.”

“Really? After he got you bloody killed?”

“Narcissa.”

Harry pinches his nose with bloodied fingers, “Happy to meet you, Aunt Narcissa, now hush! Barty!”

Barty groans some more and Harry fishes for his wand, hastily trying to remember the man’s classes and whether there is anything he can do to jolt Barty into action, just enough that the man transforms into his Animagus form. 

“Right, Iactatio !” 

Barty’s body stiffens and his untouched but swollen eye slams open; he grunts in pain and glares up at Harry, “Turn to Noodle. Now.” 

It doesn’t take more cajoling than that. Barty closes his eyes in irritation but then seems to reach the conclusion that abiding by Harry’s request is easier than putting up with more torture. His body goes rigid once more, and he spits out a considerable amount of blood in his attempts to breathe. Harry veers a bit away from the man and sighs in relief once Barty’s body shrinks, stiltedly morphing into the mink form. 

Harry looks down at the curled, beaten, and bloodied mink with a grimace, “Finally.” 

“He looks like a mangled fur scarf.” 

“Thank you for your input,” Harry rolls his eyes at Narcissa and gingerly scoops Barty’s unconscious form in his hands. He slips him in his inner coat pocket where he’s less likely to be jostled much, Barty will just have to hang on long enough for them to make it out of here, “Is there a secret pathway to your son’s room?”

“No. We need to take the main entrance, but we need to hurry,” Narcissa’s hands flutter timidly, “My sister is roaming the house again, looking for you.”

“She’s lovely, by the way.” Harry steps over Rabastan’s stupefied body back into the corridor. 

“Trust me, you do not want to be under Bellatrix’s wand. She is the most dangerous entity you may meet aside from the Dark Lord.”

“I outlived Orion, so we’ll take our chances.” 

 

...

 

The door opens and walks in Draco’s uncle Rodolphus. Draco’s eyes immediately widen into saucers and he weakly struggles, trying to gather his sprawled body into a seated position. His hands give way under his weight, and Draco miserably shakes his head at the approaching man, begging under his breath. 

He doesn’t know why his uncle is here, but it’s not Harry and it’s not Riddle and, and Draco is too scared to kill the fear anymore. He hasn’t seen this before. This has never happened before. 

“Shit,” Rodolphus says upon seeing him and cranes his neck to look outside Draco’s room, “He’s here. You still can’t come in?” He calls out to a presence outside, and Draco keens, scrambling on his aching and surely broken hands back into the wall, even as it pulls on the chain. 

“Please,” he breathes, but the warbled word more sounds like a whimper, “Please, no.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Draco. It’s me,” Uncle Rodolphus moves to kneel by his side and Draco closes his eyes with a muffled cry, he turns his face away with closed eyes and struggles to breathe, “Please,” he begs breathlessly; through his chapped lips, the word sounds like a prayer. 

“Shh, it’s me. It’s Harry. Look, open your eyes.” 

Draco shakes his head and gags as the action ramps up the nausea trapped in his throat. He feels fear-induced tears streaming down his grimy cheeks and bares his neck to beg for mercy nonverbally. He thinks about how good he’s been all these months, all this time because he was holding onto the flimsy hope that at the end of the day he would be rescued and whisked away. The pain would stop, he thought. He wanted it so badly. Sunny days. Homecooked food. Hands that traced his skin but not with the intent to harm. The warmth of parental care. He’d yearned so badly for them all. He was being scammed because Draco used to think that…that all this would pay off. 

He really is going to die today. And here. Like this.

He knew he was going to die in this room, that the possibility was huge, but he didn’t want to die like this because his uncle got bored and wanted  to torture him and—

“—a village in Quiberon, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you, so I bought a chocolate bar and preserved it for months, just so I could give it to you—”

Draco’s throat clicks and he thinks what death would feel or taste like. He already knew. He knew about the eternal darkness. The nothingness that was a prolonged vision waiting at the end of the line, a vision abruptly cut into the void. 

“Draco? We don’t have time, come on, I need you to at least look at me for a second.” His uncle’s voice is incredibly soft, and though Draco had never interacted with the imprisoned man before, he never imagined him using his voice like that. 

“Your Anthony Grave from Puddlemere United is still with me,” his uncle says, not as a bait or humiliating tactic, but openly, a bit desperately, “I hold it at night; I couldn’t part with it since the day you left. Come on, fuck, I wish I had it on me. Shhh, please stop crying like that, come on—”

Draco feels a gentle touch, over the back of his bruised hand. A curled knuckle brushes over his skin. His eyes open and he looks down at the soft caress and the keening stops, his eyes drag up to meet his uncle’s soft gaze and Draco’s breath catches. 

“That’s better,” Rodolphus mutters, “I’m sorry about my looks. It’ll wear off in a few hours. Are you with me?” 

“Uncle?”

“Harry, actually. This is Harry Potter, you know…Gryffindor idiot you have a vendetta against—Listen, Draco, we need to get you out of here.” 

“Harry?” he croaks, confusedly, “But…”

But that’s not how it’s supposed to go. When Harry waited behind his door, when he opened it in the visions…it was him. Older, a bit taller, but it was him. Draco feels a pounding in his temples and winces, closing his eyes and letting his head roll back against the wall. 

“—Uncuff your ankle but it might hurt.” 

“No,” Draco protests the movement but Harry…Uncle Rodolphus’ arms are already gently lifting him up and settling him back on the bed. Draco thrashes weakly, “No, please.” 

“I’m sorry, I just don’t want it to hurt,” Harry hushes him, “I just need to get this off; give me a second,” and over his shoulder he calls out again, “Yes! I am hurrying! Either get in the room somehow or stop your chatter!” 

Draco has gone mad. 

This is it. All that starvation, torture, his mind being taken apart. This is it, he thinks, staring at his uncle shouting at an invisible thing right outside his room as he fiddles with the chain. Draco curses inwardly and lets his eyes close in resignation. He waited for so long, for endless months, maybe more, maybe it has been years, only to succumb to his own lunacy. 

“Are you with me?” A knuckle is brushed against his old, hollow cheek, and Draco’s eyes flutter, “There you go. Listen,” his uncle tells him, “This might hurt a bit, but I think I can get it off. Okay?”

Okay? What can Draco do? Tell a hallucination ‘No’?

“Kay,” he gruffly breathes. Exhaustedly, he casts his gaze to the side, looking at his wardrobe again and shifts uncomfortably as he feels a painful pressure right above his chafed ankle. Draco presses his lips into a thin line and looks at his wardrobe and almost shoots up in the bed with remembrance. 

“Cup!” he suddenly cries out and Uncle Rodolphus pauses. 

“What?”

“Cup and broom! And broom in the wardrobe. You gotta get them.”

Uncle Rodolphus gives him an uncertain look, “Okay, um… alright. Let’s just take care of this chain first and I have a Portkey we can use.”

“No! No! It has to be the… and the cup. We need to get them. Uncle, please listen—”

“I am listening, trust me. But you’re a bit…sickly right now. Just let me get the chain off and—”

Draco groans in frustration and yanks his leg out from under his Uncle’s delicate hold. The pain is so acute that his throat closes up. His uncle curses loudly and looks over his shoulder again, looking at or listening to the invisible spectator.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck—Not her!” Uncle Rodolphus cradles Draco and pushes him to the centre of the bed hastily, quickly rushing off to get his wand, “That bitch I swear—I’ll take care of this. Draco?” he shrugs off his long coat and lowers it over Draco’s body, “Don’t look, I won’t let her hurt you.” 

The hand quickly brushes his hair back and then Draco’s eyes roll to the back of his head before he can hear the first hex, like a projectile, flung violently into his room. 

Notes:

- The chapter's title is a reference to Mitski's "Once more to see you"
- "Food hoarding" or "Secret Eating" are both a trauma response that can arise as a result of severe trauma, starvation, lack of food security, anxiety disorders or OCD, this overlaps with body image issues as secret eating tends to be a response to internal or external dysmorphia and family-related body bashing. Regulus' self-consciousness over others' perception of his body is a response to Walburga's frequent comments concerning weight and appearances, and obviously, Voldemort micromanages him in the process of grooming/tormenting him. These are some useful sources you can check to read up on this:
What is Food Hoarding?
Food Hoarding Disorder: Signs, Causes & Treatment
Hoarding Food and Secret Eating
-I can't directly cite this but old castles had a convoluted and confusing interior with many secret passages on purpose to confuse those attempting to capture it. Others had passages to circumvent sieges or to let people hide, google "Priest hole" to read up on this. This is why I got inspired to design the manor to be difficult and confusing to navigate.
- I hope I captured Bella's fickleness and instability accurately, she was so difficult to write.
- Also yes, you can hide things in the bodice of a dress, the equivalent of hiding things in a bra, really. Though it may press down and compress your skin if it has sharp edges as the cup does, Bella just doesn't care lmao.
- "Iactatio" is not an actual, canonical spell. I just poorly conjugated the latin verb "to agitate".
- Fox fur scarves used to have the real heads and limbs still attached to the fur, I'm not sure if that is still a thing in this day and age, but do look them up.
- Leaving ya'll on a cliffhanger huh?
-If you saw a typo that really bugged you pls let me know, this chapter was 12k, I physically can't go thru it more than thrice :((
- Happy reading!

Chapter 12: 12.—to watch me open my eyes—

Notes:

Enjoy~

Please read the tags and warnings carefully, be aware that if a tag has been included it will be exploited to full effect.

12.—to watch me open my eyes—

 

 

 

1997

 

The sky is muddied, the air stilled, and ash is raining down in thickets over them, but it's hard to delineate the tiny motes from snow. 

The cold is bitter and chipping away at his endurance. He stares up at the sky with his breath held, trapped preciously in his chest, perhaps because he knows the exhale that is about to come may very well be his last. 

He hears someone screaming his name, a shrill warning, and as he turns his head over his shoulder, the small glint of life disappears from his eyes, perhaps concurrently with the hurtling jet of light towards him. 

He remains still, motionless, just as the ash, as the burning odour of wooden beams and just as the dead bodies sprawled around him. He catches a glimpse of wide, maddened eyes, and his chest becomes heavy with resignation. 

His lips tremble when he lets the air out of his lungs, and the curse slams into him from the back, thrusting his body into an arc, towards the heap of bodies and debris. He falls with a gasp, the impact is harsh, his wand clattering out of his hand, and though it's hard to feel anything but pain and the tacky warmth of the blood in the biting cold, he catches blurry figures, running towards him, groups of pretty lights, screaming for him, though he can't see their faces, their eyes, can't hear their voices over the whistling in his ears. 

It was really a rotten war, I'm glad I'm done , he thinks first. But then, the closer the lights get, he starts to only think of the words, I'm sorry, in a mantra instead. 

He shudders as he fails to inhale again. 

 

...

 

1995

 

People thought it was weird that a five-year-old boy knew how to safely wield a knife. Molly Weasley always used to be peeved, by Harry's uncanny ability to silently sneak up on people. People never understood that being raised by Regulus Black was like being raised to avoid being hunted like prey. 

His Dad, too, had his fair share in his upbringing. He knew how to throw things, how to punch, how to bite, how to kick, how to break things, and how to protect his fathers at any cost. 

He knew how to beat Draco without even having to think about it. 

In his entire lifetime, Harry's only been hurt through his own ignorance and lack of foresight. Not for any lack of physical or magical training. Though his magical duelling is not much to write home about, Harry can hold his own. 

He thought that he could hold his own, prior to being kidnapped that is. He thought he could face the likes of Orion and walk out unscathed. 

This past year has been rather humbling for him. It made him angry, the injustice of it, it made him want to do more, be more, become an actual Figther, a man worth something . He lost to Voldemort because he was weak. Because he didn't have the foresight. Because he cried like a little baby instead of using what his Papa had taught him. 

And since that night, Harry's sworn to himself, no more. He shall be afraid no more. Be it the end of him. Be it through death and despair. Be it through sheer idiocy. 

Harry thinks that he's found his match in Bellatrix Lestrange. Gone the stilted pace and crazed eyes, the leaning, drunken movements of a woman on the brink of madness. Bellatrix is sharp, almost lightning-fast. 

Harry gets minimal warning of her assault. He is so overwhelmed by Draco's dire condition; by his chapped lips, his shrunken flesh and jutting bones, his panicked begging, that damned chain around his ankle, that it's almost hard to detach himself and realise that they've been discovered. Caught off guard, like he was by Malfoy senior ten months ago, Harry is frozen for a moment. 

But Harry seldom makes the same mistake twice. 

He leaves Barty in the coat, draped over Draco. Narcissa’s ghost, restrained outside of Draco's room, hovers dangerously away and Harry lashes his wand before Bellatrix can even cast. The curse slams into his shield and sizzles and Harry has no time to ponder the dark nature of her magic, because she rains down a barrage of spells and curses from outside the room, entrapping him inside. 

Harry knows that in this state, he'll have the physical advantage over her, but he can't really let her enter the room. So he backs towards the bolted windows and tries to think of ways to barricade her outside, even temporarily.  

She's laughing at him. A manic cackle that crawls its way out of her throat. She doesn't saunter into the room immediately, but she is taunting him, from the outside, fully aware that Harry is not her husband. 

Harry counters her attack and breaks into a sweat doing so. She's too fast, too nimble, and her spells are harder to deflect. He doesn't even know what half of them are. Their back and forth is rapid and merciless. A real fight. Because she's fighting with the intent to kill or badly maim. 

Her minimal aiming gives Harry the advantage though, because he has the whole room, and she only has the entrance. Harry tries to block her march, he can't allow her inside the room. And so he curses the dressers, the dust-covered chairs, hurling them at her and the door, creating a messy blockage in front of Draco's room. It all happens so quickly.  

Bella dashes the chairs and dressers into smithereens whilst also deflecting Harry's attacks, and as Harry whips his wand in a wide arc to force her away his aunt pauses. 

She looks elated at his wand work, because she stills and her eyes widen in amusement. 

“Is it you !?” She shrieks, she sounds delighted really, her skirt twirls in the air like a dancer's with the mad movements of her wand, now more vigorous than before, “Itsy bitsy pet!?” 

Harry ducks a rather nasty-looking curse and vaults his body over Draco's on the bed. He slides down and pants, throwing another shield over the bed. This isn't going to work, he thinks, desperately looking around the scarcely furnished room. 

“I know this is how you fight!” The madwoman giggles, and Harry remains out of her sight, pressing his back against the wardrobe, “What do you think sister mine!? Hm? Cissa tell me! What a reunion!”

“Draco's inside!” Harry hears Narcissa's ghost exclaim outside, “—Please be careful—Bella!”

“Come out, little Reggie!” Comes the guttural cry, “ Come on out now! You wretch! I knew it was you, the moment you lifted your wand, cousin—”

She thinks he's Papa, Harry holds his breath, stunned as his shield shatters yet again. It must be because of his wand-wielding. Papa taught him the majority of what he knows, so of course…well, fuck. He closes his eyes and curses. 

“It's not him! Bellatrix, stop!”

Harry darts down and exasperatedly launches a conjured coffee table through the door at the assailant. The woman bares her teeth at him, snarling like a starved mutt, in her eyes burning a new rage, a familiar hatred. 

She really really hates her cousin. 

Merlin knows what she'd do to the actual Regulus Black if she gets her filthy hands on him. Harry bares his teeth back at her, a familiar wave of protectiveness and anger washing over him. She's another Umbridge to him. And Harry is quite done with her. Though he needs to act now.

It won't be long before the others come, racing as reinforcement. They need to get out of here, and they need to do it now. 

“Should’ve known when that loon Crouch walked in here empty-handed!” Bellatrix rages at him and a jet of red light, which Harry knows to be the torture curse, flies over his head by sheer miracle, “Is your body itching for a taste again?” She taunts him, struggling to blast her way through the door, “Have you missed it!?”

Harry twists his neck and lets his magic trickle down his fingers. The furniture and the bed rattle next to him, and the door, having been jammed back now swings violently out of its hinges, flung at Bellatrix and forcing her out of the room. Harry fists his hand and the debris rises in the air in bulk, and using his wand he aims the angry surge of sharpened and broken wooden furniture at her. 

Her shield is strong, but the severity of his anger forces her through the door back into the corridor again. There is a moment of reprieve as Harry abandons his own attack and rushes towards the bed, to Draco. 

He can hear Bella cursing loudly at him as she's trying to deflect and break away the flood of broken furniture that is attacking her. Harry fuels his anger as his eyes find Draco's limp body on the bed, almost huddled under the heavy duster Harry's been wearing, his chest wheezing as he breathes and his eyes gaze right through Harry. 

“We need to go, we gotta go,” Harry mutters, more to himself than the boy and jams his wand into the chain that is wrung around the footer and the bed's leg. 

There's a commotion behind him, a loud argument between sisters. Harry tries to ignore them for now. Narcissa will hold her back, hopefully for as long as she is able. 

Draco's eyes follow him deliriously and Harry twists his wand, hearing the iron chain roll and hiss as though doused in acid under his wand, with a simple blasting curse. It was just a normal chain. It comes off just as Harry hears Bellatrix scream, “I will vaporise your damn ghost myself! You pathetic traitor! Out of my way!”

Harry gathers up and rolls the chain, dropping the heap gingerly on Draco's lap, there's just no time to untangle it from his mangled ankle yet. They need to get out first. Harry cups the boy's face with a large hand, “It's okay,” he tells the boy hushedly, “It's okay, just breathe. I'll get us out.”

He just has no idea how to do so yet. That Portkey is not getting them out of here.

Draco's hand slithers from underneath the coat, and as Harry wants to turn and confront Bella again, it closes around his wrist, suspending him.

“Cup’s with her,” his chapped lips utter, each word takes monumental effort to be enunciated, “Dobby can get it.” 

“Draco—”

Harry has no idea what he's talking about. Maybe Draco does not either. He doesn't seem entirely lucid. This is all he's been talking about since found. Something about a cup, a broom and—it sounds gibberish. Harry should probably parse it as such.

But then he remembers that in his earlier interaction with the woman, he did see her hiding a little golden cup in the bodice of her dress. He narrows his eyes down at Draco, still sceptically. How important could this cup really be? 

Surely not more important than their lives.

“Get the cup,” Draco insists, hoarsely, they both flinch as Bella screams some more, she's trying to axe her way through the door blocking her path and attacking her, “ Dobby . Call Dobby. You cannot—summon him in the room.” 

Draco coughs painfully, dryly, and Harry turns towards the door with a troubled look in his eyes. He needs to step out of the barricaded room then. If Dobby can't be summoned in the room, and if Narcissa can't enter either way…

“Come out before you make me mad! You're making me really cross, baby Reggie . Now, you wouldn't want that, would you!?”

He rolls his shoulders and marches towards the entrance with a gait that terrifies even himself. He points his wand at the damaged door and sends it hurling into the corridor. Bella screams in rage and the wood is slashed in half, falling apart midair. 

“Impedimenta!” Harry screams, and she easily deflects the curse with another of her own. Bella's hair is frazzled and her chest heaves heavily as she snarls at him. Harry blocks Draco's room with his body, his boots teetering on the border of the warded room. 

It is a miracle that the ruckus has not attracted the others to this wing yet. Harry narrows his eyes, letting his muscles relax, he's going to play Slippery Slug. 

The popular companion to hug the rabbit is only one of the many games Papa taught him when he was a child. In this large a body, it may be harder, but not impossible.

“Reducto! Furnunculus!”

“Sectumsempra! Crucio! Crucio! You shit!”

Harry barrels forward, slipping past the violent curses by the gnashing of his teeth and prayer. The key to winning this particular game is moving in a zigzag, closing in on the opponent, right up in their personal space, rendering them unable and unwilling to risk hurting themselves—

Narcissa slips through him into the room, for some reason, enabled to do so now, and Harry jumps at Bellatrix, tackling her to the floor, his large hand closing around her wand, hissing as it burns his flesh. They roll around on the carpet, and Harry's winded; surprised once again by her strength, Harry cranes his neck to get her hair out of his mouth.

“Just your style, cousin!” She leers at him, trying to slam her head back into his face. Her free hand grapples towards his arm and her long nails dig into his flesh, through the cloth, with enough force to draw blood, “Rolling on the floor like a dog, baby Reggie baring his belly—”

“Shut your damn mouth!” Harry exclaims, raising his elbow to push against her head, “You don't deserve to say his name! Shut up, you filthy hag!”

The anger flooding his veins is simply inhumane. Harry smothers the urge to throttle the woman. He cranes his neck and calls, hollers really, “Dobby! Dobby!”

Bella stiffens under his touch immediately, realising that she is not fighting her cousin after all. She draws one leg up and drags a silver dagger out of her boot, slamming it into Harry's forearm with a growl. Harry yelps, shoving her away from him, he yanks the dagger and rolls away from another hurled jinx. 

“Dobby! Goddammit!”

Has she killed him? He wonders, suddenly remembering the conversation he had with Lucius. This woman's killed all the elves already, even those tending to Draco. Could it be that Dobby's dead? 

His forearm throbs and Harry hisses, panting as Bella puts space between them, glaring at him coldly, “An imposter,” she spits out, “I’ll make a rug out of you! Drain your blood and—” 

There's a loud pop behind her and a small, angry elf appears. Dobby does not question the nature of the altercation, nor the reason why Rodolphus Lestrange has seemingly called on him; in fact, he appears as if he knows exactly what he's meant to do, and what Draco precisely wants from his presence. 

The determination in his gaze catches Harry off-guard, and he can only watch as the following events transpire. 

The little elf charges at Bellatrix from behind and Bella turns with a confused frown, making a sound in disgust as Dobby in a series of rapid pops, apparates around her, dodging her quick curses, pulling and tearing at her clothes, shoving her and unbalancing her stilted posture.  

“Why, you scoundrel!” She blasts jinxes into the floor, even killing curses, missing Dobby by mere half-seconds, “I'll kill you!”

“You hurt Dobby's master! You are foul! You killed Dobby's family! Friends! You hurt Master Draco! Starved him! You!” 

“You—”

Harry tries to aid the elf by attacking from behind, he points his wand at the woman's hand and disarms her, relatively easily. She turns like a cornered predator and lunges at him with inhumane speed. Harry tries to curse her, to overpower her physically, but he falls back again, and Dobby is there, he snaps his fingers, and Harry hears a rattling chain and Bella cursing again, trying to kick the elf off. 

She reels off Harry with another dagger procured from her other boot, intending to attack Dobby with it. Harry closes his arms around her, caging her as Dobby's magic compels the chain to snare tightly around her legs. 

He hisses as the dagger leaves long lashes all over his arms, and behind him, he can sense Narcissa's light, “You need to leave! Before Lucius comes!” 

“Kinda—busy!” Harry pants and Dobby’s chain now fully bind Bella's legs in place. Dobby snaps his fingers again, and with a spark, she is yanked off Harry by the chain and dragged across the corridor. 

“I'll skin you! You wretch! Vile creature—Uhnm!” a rag is magically shoved into her mouth and Harry curses under his breath again, scrambling to his feet. The chains finally reach to wrap around her wrists, restricting them to her front. He means to stun her, maybe tell Dobby to throw her in one of the cells in the dungeons, but she seems utterly impervious to any type of bondage.

He looks at Dobby and tries to push his annoyance at the elf's existence down. Their last meeting didn't exactly end amicably. 

“Dobby, Draco said something about a cup—”

“Dobby knows!” Dobby exclaims loudly and with another snap of his fingers Bella is lurched forward, her screams and rage muffled, as a small golden cup is retracted from her bodice. The cup lands in Harry's outstretched hand and he almost drops it. 

His scar tingles with pain and he sees a spoiled darkness exuding from the artefact. Dobby nods at him once and says, “Master Harry Potter is late! Dobby has been waiting for months! Harry Potter sir needs to save Master Draco now, there is not much time—”

Harry closes his agape mouth and recalls that Draco is still on the bed, still on death's door, and they're still very much trapped here. 

“I know—I know I'm late and—”

“Master Draco called for you, Harry Potter sir! Every day, Dobby could hear through the walls—”

Harry's heart squeezes into itself and though it is quite surreal to be scolded by a house elf, and Dobby at that, Harry finds himself mute in response. Bella's figure goes still against the wall and Harry catches her shrewd gaze, with his identity revealed, there is an entire change to her posture. Not one of indignation, but rather an eased smugness. As though she is the one standing over his defeated and bound body. 

Over the rag, her lips pull into a lewd smirk. Harry looks away from her with disgust. 

“Dobby—”

Dobby is surveying Bella too, wringing his scarred hands, his large eyes dragging over to Harry. Bella cackles behind her rag and rams her nose into her forearm. She starts speaking incoherently into the rag and Dobby scrambles back from the Death Eater. 

“Stupify!” Harry stuns her, “What did she do!?” He demands, turning to Dobby, “What—”

“Dobby wasn't careful! Dobby—Mistress called on the Lord just now, Dobby should have killed her, Dobby—”

A prominent ache immediately becomes known in his scar and Harry's hand flies to his smooth forehead. 

Leave. They need to leave. Now. 

“Take her away! Don't let her escape!” He calls to the elf over his shoulder and rushes back into the room over the debris, ignoring Bellatrix’s savage giggling, echoing through the halls behind him. 

The cup feels heavy and rancid in his pocket but he gives it no mind. He almost runs to Draco's bedside, where his mother has been already hovering worriedly, leaning to mutter in her son's ear, though Draco doesn't seem to acknowledge her. 

He's looking at Harry. 

“Cup—”

“I have the cup,” Harry promises him, looking around the damaged room and biting into his lips. He feels the insistent pressure behind his scar and curses repeatedly in his head. Voldemort may be mere seconds away from the manor. They can't use the Manor's interior to get outside. 

“Broom,” Draco croaks again, his hand too weak to close around Harry's wrist again. 

“He won't last much longer,” Narcissa whispers to Harry, urgently and in despair, “We need—we need a safe passage—”

“Your sister just called on Riddle,” Harry cuts her off, “You need to go and delay them somehow—” 

The ghost's pale face blanches further but she remains unmoving, rooted by her son's side, “No, oh no—”

Harry looks at the windows, the drawn curtains and quickly eases himself off the bed to yank them off. Heavy dust rises from the fallen curtains and Harry covers his mouth with a sleeve and inspects the bolts. They're just simple locks. They really chained Draco up here for ten months with the barest of efforts. 

Harry blasts the locks off and pushes the window open, greeted by a gust of a freezing breeze and snow. Draco moans on the bed and Harry quickly closes the windows again. It must be so cold for him, he thinks hastily. 

He takes the coat off Draco's figure, gingerly checks to see if Barty's still in the pocket—he is—and eyes the wardrobe as Narcissa whispers some more to her son. 

“Mum?” Draco mumbles incoherently, his eyes fluttering at the ceiling, still unable to find her. 

“Can't you see me, Draco? Draco—”

“I found his trunk.” And his broom. 

Draco is a damn genius. They can just use the broom to fly out. Harry will need to support his weight but in his current condition, that'll be easy. He quickly drags the broom out of the trunk and strides out of the wardrobe. The throbbing in his scar worsens but Harry pushes through; he sits Draco up as carefully but as hurriedly as he dares and hastily slips the coat (and Barty) safely around his frail body. He'll catch his death without a coat in this snow. 

Draco is compliant mostly because he's passed out cold again. Narcissa stares at him in an aggrieved silence as Harry carefully lifts the boy's light body in his arms, shifting him so that his head is positioned on Harry's shoulder comfortably. He's so small in Harry's—well, Rodolphus’ arms that Harry wants to weep. He pushes his matted and dull hair out of his burning face and holds him closer, only to quiet down the roaring of enraged protectiveness surging in his blood.  

Harry's body is almost too large for the broom. He shifts and Draco groans in pain again, his head lolling on Harry's shoulder. Narcissa's hand hovers above the boy's face, unable to touch her son's sickly flesh. Harry whips a hand at the unlatched windows, opening them again.

“Once Riddle gets here, you and Dobby need to—”

Narcissa shakes her head, “You can't worry about that,” she urges firmly, “Leave now. Fly north and—” 

“What is the meaning of this!?” A voice hollers from the room's ruined entrance, “Rodolphus—” 

“Go!”

“Why you blasted—” 

“Lucius! Let them go! Let them—” 

“Narcissa?”

The broom lifts and Harry doesn't look back at Lucius Malfoy’s aghast face, he grips Draco with one arm and the broom with his other hand. The broom zooms out of the room through the windows, into the open frigid air with enough force to break the air, leaving the Malfoys and the Manor behind. 

The Firebolt cuts through the edge of the Malfoy property just as the ache in Harry's scar makes his vision double in agony. Harry grits his teeth, holding onto the broom and Draco in the snow with a stubborn singularity. 

An oversized man, a malnourished boy, and a Mink hidden in a coat pocket all mounted on a broom:

They disappear in the hail.

 

...

 

“You know exactly how I feel about this,” James attempts to sound grouchy and Regulus guiltily tries to huff the cigarette smoke faster out of his lungs. He can’t help it, it’s the only thing properly heating him up from the inside. 

They’ve been sitting on the steps of their porch for about seven minutes, much to his husband’s immediate displeasure. James thinks that Reggie has seen the outside world for quite enough now and that they really need to address that cough . James even suggested letting Reggie smoke ‘ in the damn house near the fireplace ’ but Regulus is fine right where he is. He needs this reprieve before he has to face Pomfrey, Dumbledore, and the reality of what he just went through. Because the more he thinks about it, the more sense it all makes. Riddle wants him, even mindless, even without a shred of autonomy. He wants it to happen. 

James was kind enough to begrudgingly fetch his cigarettes from the Orangery along with a cup of hot chocolate that quite frankly seemed to be just a melted block of chocolate in a cup rather than an actual liquid. 

“I thinned it out with milk,” James defends as Regulus slurps on the overly rich beverage pointedly between pulls of smoke. 

“How much milk? A teaspoon?” Regulus tries to lick his upper lip but James reaches over, grabbing his chin softly with his thumb and forefinger, he swipes his tongue over the chocolate smear and smooches him loudly on the mouth. 

“We need to see a healer—”

“Just one more, hush. Did you put a Pepper-up in this?” 

“Yes.”

“I figured, it tasted minty.” 

“Well, since a certain someone doesn’t want to see a healer after being exposed to—”

“Hush, I will,” Regulus smothers a cough, “I just need a minute with you. Just us, James.” 

James flops his head down on his shoulder with a huff and Regulus turns his head, pressing his lips firmly to the dishevelled head of hair and breathes him in. He leans his cheek against the man’s head and when James makes a gesture for his hands, Reggie willingly surrenders the one not holding a cig. 

James plays with his fingers and Reggie smokes in silence; he relaxes his shoulder as he feels the meagre nicotine warming up his lungs. The spiked hot chocolate and James are both helping in equal measure, but there is an itch that only the cigarette is enabling him to scratch. Poppy definitely won’t let him smoke if she gets her hands on him first. 

“Drink,” James says, thrusting the chocolate concoction up at Reggie as though intending to waterboard him with it. Regulus puts out the cig and reaches for the mug, gulping it down, mostly for James’ peace of mind. 

“It's the first snow,” Regulus suddenly says, “It is, right?”

“Maybe,” James squeezes his cold hand with both of his, “Can’t really remember.”

“You and Harry usually build a snowman when it first snows each year. We missed last year too.”

Such a trivial thing, and yet Regulus’ heart aches as he sits in the tranquillity that only snow can offer.

“Oh, what am I going to do with you?” James mutters, raising Reggie’s hand and pressing his lips to his fingers as though uttering a silent prayer. Regulus wriggles the last remaining cig in his old packet and lodges it between his lips. He has a muggle lighter. He usually uses wandless casting to take care of it, but he feels how drained his core is. He won’t be casting for a good few days. 

“I scared you, didn’t I? I’m sorry, James.” 

“I was terrified,” James looks up at him and Reggie sees the faint lines on his forehead, the worrying crease around his eyes. He lights his cig and drops the lighter aside. His feet are blessedly numb on the crunching snow and his sluggish limbs compliant when he turns to face his husband because it’s James and of course they would. 

“I was scared too,” he admits. 

“They almost took you,” James’ voice is hushed, almost as if the topic of conversation is taboo. 

“The man who took me, I think I knew him, he knew me too,” Regulus adds, taking a long drag out of his cigarette, “I don't exactly remember how but…I think I know what they plan to do with me. It’s good that we know what they want now.” 

And grimly, Regulus also thinks that it may be a blessing in disguise. If Voldemort devotes all of his attention, time, and obsession to Regulus, the light side can get a move on, avoid devastating casualties. If he’s the only one who’s hurt as long as possible, as long as they can stretch it before Riddle realises he’s being played…they might just win this thing. 

He looks down at James, knowing his husband is going to abhor the plan forming in his head. 

“ No name ,” James grunts bleakly, “That’s what Dolohov called him, the bastard.” 

“I doubt that’s his actual name,” Regulus rolls his eyes, “His limbs…definitely weren’t made of flesh. He’s not anyone we know. But it was all him. This whole thing. They want me.”

There is no need to elaborate on what purpose and to what end. James snares one arm around his body and huddles impossibly closer to him; the hold is desperate and protective. The man’s regal and frightening composure is now replaced by a reluctant timidity—a refusal to admit the words neither of them wants to speak. 

It’s not just that Riddle wants revenge or to win the war. He wants his war prize ahead of his conquest. It can’t be simpler than that. What James just rescued him from was no joke or trivial kidnapping. It was systematic and efficient. 

Regulus is too tired of this; he definitely wouldn't mind going inside for a scorching bath and forgetting the whole ordeal now. 

“We need—”

But whatever James is about to say is immediately cut off. James hurries to his feet, alert with his wand pointed at the sky. Regulus scrambles to his feet with a wince and drops his cig down in the snow, “James?”

“Something just entered the wards.”

Regulus instinctively means to reach for his wand before he remembers that he doesn’t have it on him anymore. He curses in his head, so soon? How can they already be here after him again? It can’t have been more than an hour since he’s been rescued. 

James pushes him back towards the house and Regulus reluctantly backs towards the steps, there may be weapons in the house that he can use; they don’t have any extra wands but Regulus can work with a knife, or maybe his garden shears if he can make it to the Orangery. James raises his wand at the sky, squinting his eyes at the faraway flying heap that is hurtling toward their property. 

Regulus pauses just as he’s by the door and peers at the grey, cloudy sky like his husband, “Is that—”

“Harry!?” James exclaims, his voice fraught with such raw shock that Regulus almost stumbles too. James starts running towards the descending broom and its…occupants. The cold air rattles in Reggie's lungs as he also tries to limp along to the edge of their wards where the broom had gone down. 

Harry landed the broom admirably well for someone who must have been flying for at least a few hours. Reggie can see him as they run, brushing off thick layers of snow off his own body and a coat-clad bundle in his arms. 

“Harry James Potter!” James yells and Harry's head snaps up, the boy shoots up to his feet with the bundle still miraculously in his arms. He's swaddled in a familiar garb and Regulus' heart almost stops. Those are Death Eater robes. 

“Papa! You're okay, oh fuck—”

“Harry?” 

Harry's round eyes, now tinged with relief switch back to James again, and like a Niffler caught by wandlight, their son’s limbs freeze up. 

“Hi…Dad. I'm glad you guys are okay.” he fidgets awkwardly, hoisting the bundle higher up in his arms with a huff. 

Alright , Regulus thinks. He turns to his husband with pursed lips and accusing eyes. 

“What is going on?”

“You're asking me?!” James lashes a hand at the bundle, “Who is that!?”

“Funny thing. Haha,” Harry chuckles breathlessly, “Wow, you found Papa so quickly, where was he, by the way?—”

“Where is Barty? And why are you dressed like that—”

“Barty is…that's actually a valid question…”

Harry opens and closes his mouth like a dumbfounded fish quite a few times and then hastily reaches into the pocket of the coat covering the unconscious person in his arms. Regulus and James watch, aghast, as Harry withdraws a bloodied and mangled critter and presents it in an open palm. 

“We might need healers. He's totally alive but he's been a bit banged up.”

A bit banged up? 

That is a dead animal, Regulus thinks in abject horror. There is no way that creature is still alive. 

Regulus' hand flies to his mouth, “Merlin be damned!”

“I know it looks bad!” Harry exclaims back, hastily dropping the mink on the snow to resettle his hold on the body in his arms. James and Regulus gape at their son, and then at the bloodied roadkill he'd just dropped in the snow.

“I know! I know how it looks! He's definitely alive though. The snow cushioned his fall, it’s happened before, I may have dropped him more than once on the way—I’m sorry I'm really tired. We've been flying for like five hours now—”

“From Bergen?” James demands angrily. 

“Erm…no?”

“Harry James —”

“I swear it wasn't on purpose. I got lost for a little bit there because I couldn't find London and—”

Regulus, rooted in place by the sheer shock of the scene he's being witness to, detaches his eyes from his son's frantic shuffling to the morphing mink on the snow. James also looks down at the wheezing and curled-up body of Barty Crouch Jr, now in his human form, as shudders wrack his whole torn and bloodied body, and with one eye slashed, and his remaining eye almost swollen shut, Barty coughs and groans.

“Barty,” Regulus breathes and doesn’t know how he quite feels underneath the utter disbelief paralysing him. Relief? Rage? Confusion? 

“Reg, hi .” Barty croaks and then chokes as he tries to roll on the red-stained snow to his side. 

“What—”

Before Regulus or James can aid the man or interrogate their son any further, there is a loud gasp. Regulus looks on, as a tangle of long and emaciated limbs emerges out of the coat, and a very familiar albino cranes his neck up at Harry with saucer-wide eyes. 

Draco Malfoy, almost unrecognisable in his state of undress, covered in bruises and sores, and most certainly on the verge of death, shoots both hands up to a bewildered Harry’s face and leans up, “Oh, Harry, Harry ,” he breathes against the skin desperately, “I knew. I knew I knew I knew you'd come!” 

And then, in a burst of uncharacteristic strength, the boy smashes his face—or his lips, Reg figures— against Harry’s. Harry’s eyes blow even wider and his arms release Draco’s body seemingly out of pure shock. Regulus gasps as the boy falls down by Harry’s feet in a broken heap, apparently having passed out again. 

Harry looks down at the unconscious boy sprawled underfoot with his arms still stuck out and his face frozen in astonishment. 

“Ha!” Barty barks and then immediately groans in pain, “Oh, shit.”

Regulus closes his eyes for a beat and then once he opens them, he only utters two words, “Inside. Now .”

James is startled into action first, the man quickly shuffles and roughly drags Barty’s body up to lift him out of his own puddle of blood while Harry stands, still staring down at the Malfoy heir with utter confusion and flushed cheeks. 

“Lift him up, son,” James orders him sternly, “And follow.” 

“Can I—”

“Nope. One arm under the knees, one under the shoulders, lift with your knees, not your back.” 

James turns with Barty begrudgingly held in his arms and prompts Regulus to fall in pace with him. Harry rushes to obey his pissed-off parents with loud groans and limps in the snowy field after them towards the house. 

“Dad listen—” Harry pants. 

“Nope. Need to see if my brother-in-law is dead yet because I'd hate not getting to kill him myself. Also your rescued prince looks half dead and we should probably prevent that. And let's not even mention—”

Regulus shakes his head at the man’s pointed look. It is simply preposterous to think that he’s the worst off in this situation. In fact, he’s most likely the least injured and he was the kidnapped one. 

“I am fine.” 

“Case in point,” James doesn’t miss a beat, “Careful on your feet, Reg.” 

Regulus circles an arm around his husband’s waist, definitely not because he’d hate to prove the man by stumbling, but only because of moral support. He looks at Harry over his shoulder with a confused frown and then shakes his head again. 

He doesn’t even want to know what his son and best friend have done. 

Looking at the state Barty’s in makes it quite clear what has happened here, though. 

“You are in so much trouble,” he says to the group when Harry opens his mouth again, struggling to keep up with them. 

“Who is that directed at?” the lad asks meekly. 

“Everyone!” James snaps, “Get inside!” 

 

...

 

He watches from afar, a habit that like a cocoon, he’s grown too comfortable with. 

Severus never quite fancied taking a vacation to the cliffs in Étretat, not as a babysitter that is for sure. But he is not one to complain about having to spend less time with the rest of the degenerates at the Manor. He watches comfortably from his hiding place, huddled by the woods, as one of the Weasley boys—perhaps the eldest—and a tall blonde woman bicker and round up the rogue dementors. There is not much to observe or intervene with. He can outmatch them if needed, but Dolohov is barely worth the effort. 

Not to mention, he didn’t waste all that time preventing a Dementor’s kiss just to attract attention to himself like this. When he pockets his wand, he feels the annoying presence, creeping behind him. 

“A sheep in wolf's skin,” the voice is like gravel, gritty and unused, “is what you are.” 

“Waxing poetry now?” Severus is vexed by his charge, “Every day, you reveal a new talent.” 

“Our Lord will punish you.” 

“It's no fault of mine that your plan was unstable,” Severus turns away from the duo by the cliff and starts venturing farther into the thicket of woods, aware of Paul creeping in the trees and bushes around him, conveniently out of sight, “ That is your problem, you only see the ground underneath your own feet.” 

“And you are compromised by sentiment.” 

“For Black?” Severus pauses to look at the tree the man is leaning against, “Hardly.”

“We could have had him.” 

“ No. You could have sent James Potter on a bloodied rampage with trails all over the place. It is not as simple as just taking Black. If you want Black, you need Potter dead first. Both the son and father.” 

“He had nothing. He only had Dolohov—” 

Oh, the idiocy of this boy, Severus thinks to himself with a sneer and rounds to face the masked man with narrowed eyes, “Dolohov, the mutt will give it all away, and that is your fault because you called open season on the Dark Lord’s property . You didn’t layer the information. You didn’t divide the ranks, and now you have a captive filled to the brim with sensitive intelligence the Dark Lord had imparted to you .”

The masked figure surveys him for a beat, and as the wind rustles the leaves around them, he shakes his head, “You only have your own interest in mind. You saved Black.”

“I gave them a bone, so they don’t run after the meat you left out,” Severus brushes past him, out of all patience or decorum. He feels the man falling behind him, once again obscured by his surroundings. Severus can keep track of him most of the time, but it’s not feasible to let the brat know that he can. 

“We need damage control before more members are captured and safe house locations leaked because of Dolohov,” he curtly informs him, “Our superiority in position is of utmost priority in the war effort. And that's how you strategise a war, Paul.” 

“I am a patient man, Severus Snape,” the grainy voice croaks at him, making him pause, “Clothe this mishap however you want, but I will be waiting for you to stumble.” 

“You speak loftily for a man who was nought, but rubbish cast aside less than a year ago,” Severus’ eyes trail down to his suddenly burning mark, “Our Lord calls, do restrain yourself today. He will be most displeased by you.” 

There is a sharp snap of apparation behind Severus, scaring a flock of birds overhead. 

Crows, how fitting. 

Severus sighs.

Notes:

- I am a bit (really) self-conscious about my ability to write action scenes, and unfortunately for me, these past few chapters included many instances of "action-y" things going down, I tried my best folks, rest easy knowing each action scene was written at least twice. I'm sorry if it's not hitting the right place lmao.
- Also keep track of the things Draco can and cannot see. That's gonna matter.
- The scene with the spiked hot chocolate is in contrast with Reggie's food insecurity in the previous chapter. Growth and healing~
- Not much else going on in this chapter. Have fun till the next update hehehe

Chapter 13: 13.—At last, my Sun rises—

Notes:

This chapter is a behemoth, almost bordering 12k so hydrate well before you start~

Also, it has come to my attention that there is an inconsistency in the story (I AM HORRIFIED). Some kind commenter asked me about the significance of Harry "not" having a strawberry allergy in the previous work. Now, I originally intended for this "allergic reaction" to have concurrently occurred with Reggie destroying the ring, but of course, that can't happen because Harry wasn't a Horcrux yet. I am NOT going back to fix it, as I rely heavily on making future plot points work with what I already have. I will never edit the work I've already posted content-wise. That being said, I can address and fix it in future chapters, so it'll smooth over, lmao.

Specific warnings for this chapter: Suicide ideation, implicit threats of sexual violence, child abuse and neglect are very heavily alluded to and somewhat graphically discussed; please proceed with care.

13.—At last, my Sun rises—

 

 

1997

 

Harry was about eight or nine when his Dad first taught him how to fly on a broom. 

It was an entire ordeal, he remembers now. There was an anxiety surrounding the action that gripped both his parents rather strongly, particularly his Papa, who was not fond of flying to begin with. Harry used to have a toy broom before, when he was just a baby, and Mum used to adore chasing him and the cat around, as fast as a zooming snitch, giggling along with her child. She was the sort who loved chaos, according to Dad.

He remembers being bundled up in so many protective bubble charms that the very air around him seemed suspended and sluggish. Papa kept reminding Dad to ‘take it easy on him’ and ‘hover nearby, he can’t fall!’ whilst also exasperatedly standing guard on their lawn with his wand drawn, ready for any threat that ranged from suicidal birds to random projectiles that might be in the air, just because. Papa was a bit silly like that. 

Dad humoured Papa in that he didn’t allow Harry to really fly above ten feet off the ground at first. His broom was level with Harry’s, and his hand kept a loose but careful hold on the end of Harry’s broom. The sun reflected off of his father’s glasses, and his voice was a firm but soft croon, gently instructing Harry to hold his broom a certain way and tuck his legs back to avoid imbalance. 

When Harry flew a lap around their property with his Dad the first time, he almost swore he saw the man tear up, but Harry was too busy grinning at him and down at his Papa to notice the tears. 

“Did you see that!? " His smile was mostly toothless, and his heart was pumping pure adrenaline through his veins. “Dad! Papa! Did you see me!?”

Dad ruffled his hair. Papa gave him one of his warmest hugs. They had thin mints for tea that afternoon, and Dad even dug up an old Quaffle from their shed to toss around. Papa stood with his feet firmly planted on the ground, grinning up at them as the referee, rigging the game obviously in Harry’s favour. 

His Dad looks at him now, and Harry wishes he weren’t. He sees the same glazed eyes on a face that is lined with worry and age. His Dad’s hand shakes, cupping his face, and Harry wants to melt into the ground. He looks so old, and Harry never thought he’d see his parents ageing like this right before his eyes. No child ever thinks of their parents' ageing past their prime. Not in a war. Not like this. He didn’t want things to end like this. He didn’t want his parents to go through all this. 

He wanted the sunny days with thin mints and his grinning parents back. He wanted his Dad to look at him with that same light, carefree, and proud smile. 

“I’m a bit scared, Dad.” 

He feels bad verbalising it, as though it is a direct shot at the dam Dad is trying to keep over his emotions. But he is just scared and he needs his Dad. Harry feels like he hasn’t been able to feel his age for a long time now. 

“Oh, Harry.” 

“Do you think it’ll hurt?” 

There’s a pause and Dad’s arms envelope him. Harry wants to pull away, he’s covered in grime and soot and mud and Dad…Dad is perfect. He breathes in the man’s familiar scent, feels the harsh beating of his heart in the throbbing of his pulse against his neck. 

“For your sake, son,” Dad’s lips graze his hair, his voice shakes just like his hands, “I hope it’s faster than falling asleep.”

…

1995

 

In the span of three hours, on a seemingly random Monday in October 1995, Sirius Black's body experiences the full range of human emotions in such extreme, precipitous valleys that, even years later, he is still fully convinced that he had three consecutive heart attacks as a result. 

It's not everyday that your baby brother—regardless of the fact that he is thirty something years old—is kidnapped by a bunch of arseholes who intend to get his soul drained from his body so that the resurrected Dark Lord who was obsessed with him could lay claim to him like some piece of land. Not every day that your godson is the Boy-Who-Lived. Not every day that you and your husband travel all the way to bumfuck middle of nowhere in Norway for your ex-lover who was babysitting your godson after he was possessed by the man who wants to kidnap and imprison your brother and commit continental genocide. 

And then you get to Bergen, and the rundown shack, much to your genuine astonishment, is empty of said ex-lover and godson. The entire property looks deserted and abandoned. But it's really not abandoned in that sense, because there's a suicide note folded on the coffee table. 

Remus finds it. Always the more observant of the duo. As Sirius is tearing the property apart with a very concerned Poppy Pomfrey on his heels, Remus calls his name softly, suspending Sirius in place, his eyes widely staring down at the scrawled note. 

“Remus?”

Sirius hadn't seen Remus cry in almost two years. His husband is not a sentimental man in general; to him, any conflict that can be resolved by logic doesn't need the involvement of tears. His no-nonsense temperament is one of the things that makes their partnership so deliciously balanced and healthy after all. Because once they saw that the shack was empty, Sirius was the one who was panicking, running amok, and slamming doors open and close. And Remus was the one who saw the neatly folded parchment. 

Remus almost falls; he would've, had Sirius not been there to catch him before he could crumble. His hands shake violently around the note, and his breath catches tremulously in his throat. He looks at Sirius, his breath catching, and he passes the note over to him as a single stray tear trickles down his cheek. 

“Moony?” Sirius tries to hold the man, but Remus fights his embrace, trying to stumble away towards a confused Poppy. “Remus?” 

“Read it,” Remus’ voice is strangled in his throat. He sinks down on the worn armchair away from Sirius and Poppy hesitantly walks over to him, still expectantly surveying Sirius. 

Sirius only has to read the first paragraph, really. His eyes dart over the words so numbly that for a moment, he can’t even make sense of what they’re saying. His prior crippling distress over Reggie is reignited with a gasp as he scrubs at his face and drops the parchment. 

“Sirius—” he hears the old matron call him, gingerly trying to make her way over and Sirius scuttles back, clumsily knocking into some bottles and he looks over his shoulder with horror, taking note of all that firewood stacked up high towards the ceiling, and the dried blotches of tears left on the note now laying on the floor with the delicacy of a fallen feather. This, topped with the dusty surfaces, the heaps of clothes and bottles and scattered students' essays, instil him in place. 

It's so grippingly haunting. It reeks of solitude and desperation and agony. 

Sirius can't breathe. 

Maman is in his periphery, and it is as if one hateful glare says it all. Sirius lost his precious brother, lost his Godson, and now Barty is gone. Sirius hides his face from the world, it seems, in shame of what a wretch he is. He dillydallied. He waited for too long. He thought that all his troubles would just wash away and solve themselves with time. 

Barty is gone. He took Harry with him, promising his safe return. But this is a goodbye note. A suicide note. Because there's no return from where he's going. Barty. His Barty. Their Barty. The name already sounds foreign and tinged with grief to his ears. 

The floo in the shack is not directly linked to the one in Wimbourne. They’re in no condition to Apparate such a long distance again and so it takes them a hot minute to actually gather themselves for a hasty return to Britain. 

Sirius doesn’t cry, he feels the panic, augmented and stifling, caught in his throat, inhibiting speech and movement. He holds onto Remus’s waist, and the man limps. There are sharp intakes of breath, pained gasps drawn out of his husband’s chest and Sirius doesn’t know what to do. 

They floo over to a safehouse in Düsseldorf first and then use the connecting floo to their own flat in Soho and then immediately use the floo again to rush over to the Wimbourne Manor. Sirius can honestly say that he's never travelled this long a distance with such breathtaking urgency and speed. 

He and Remus fall out of the floo together, covered in soot and sweat, desperation stitched on their faces. They almost crash into each other in their clumsy attempts to dispel the dizziness to stand and run. 

Sirius hears the front door being slammed open before he sees it. He and Remus run into the corridor and that's when Sirius has his second heart attack of the day. Because fuming in front of him, there is James holding a bloodied and beaten Barty, a rattled but relatively healthy- looking Regulus by his side, and behind them, a haggard Harry with a long-limbed figure in his arms. 

“Barty—”

Regulus is the one who catches him when he stumbles forward. “He's alive. Sirius, it's okay, he's alive—”

“Regulus—”

His brother pauses and ducks his head, and Sirius is lurchingly confronted by the fact that Regulus, his recently kidnapped brother who was almost Kissed by a Dementor, is the one comforting him because the love of his life appears to be quite deceased. 

The shadow of war befalls them like a sudden eclipse, something that Sirius had forgotten existed, an existential dread that this will be their ruination. 

He was one of the first who heard of Reggie’s death all those years ago. One of the first on the scene, inspecting the burnt remains of his prison, one of the last to know that Regulus was still alive. He squeezes his arms around his brother and the relief he feels clashes with concern, rage, and terror. 

“I'm alright,” Regulus breathes in his ear when Sirius locks him in a bear-hug. “It's alright. I’m okay—”

“I’m so sorry they took you, I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough in protecting you, I was so scared I’d lose you again, I can’t do this again—” All he can see is Reggie’s grave back in the Lake District, harbouring an empty casket. All he remembers is having to physically remove James’ thrashing body as the man clawed at the fresh earth and protested in heartbreaking wails that Sirius could never facsimile. 

Regulus hushes him, his hand fisting the back of Sirius’ coat, “It’s okay. We’re all okay. We’re okay, I’m okay—But we sort of need medical attention, so do you by chance know where Poppy—”

“His face, his eye—” Sirius hears Remus exclaim beside him, his voice uncharacteristically shrill with panic, “What's happened to his eye!? James what the fuck is going on—” 

Sirius peels his body away from Reggie, and then his heartbeat spikes into a crescendo again; Barty is limp in James’ arms, and his face, just as Remus exclaimed, is bashed in, a long gash over one eye, and his other eye swollen shut, his nose definitely broken and his lips split. 

“Remus, it's okay, mate—” James is trying to say over Remus’ panicked ramblings and questions, “He's alive. I know it looks bad and we’re gonna address everything, but do you guys know where Poppy is right now? Because we need to take them to a hospital—”

Sirius’ eyes trail from Barty’s body to his godson guiltily squirming behind his fathers, with a certain white-haired boy in his arms and it becomes glaringly obvious to Sirius exactly what had led to the state Noodle is in right now. He opens his mouth to interrogate Harry, or assuage a frantic Remus, or even voice his own grief, but before he can, the floo flares behind them in the kitchen. 

Oh right , Sirius looks at a disgruntled matron over his shoulder. They did sort of leave Poppy in the flat in their hurry to get back here. The matron hurries out of the kitchen towards them in the corridor, and there is a dead pause as she takes in their rotten and bloodied appearances.

“What on God's green earth is going on here?” she asks, breathlessly.

Regulus squares his shoulders and holds his chin up with a dimmed smile as he sidesteps Sirius and limps towards the woman, eerily at ease, even as his face is caked with dried blood. “Hello, Poppy. Really sorry to be a bother, but I believe we require medical assistance. You may need to call some colleagues for help. Would you care for a cuppa in the meanwhile?”

 

…

 

Harry is shaking. 

His entire body is just buzzing on the kitchen chair, his leg bouncing madly, his hands wringing, red with the cold and maybe the blood and the pressure he's applying to the flesh. He feels the bile in his throat, harkening the urge to go mute again. 

He feels relief and shame in equal amounts. Seeing his Papa with nothing but some minor injuries and a cough and his Dad also unharmed but black with rage calms his erratic thoughts. The knowledge that Barty is almost at death's door but alive, that Draco can get the help he needs, they all make him want to weep with relief. 

But then there's shame, pure distress, and disbelief at what he's just done. 

He broke into the Malfoy Manor, he duelled at least two death eaters, met Draco's mother as a ghost, kidnapped Draco, and then just flew for five hours across the country to get home. 

Papa is looking at him, silently with his eyes blown wide; there is a slight tremble to his folded hands on the table next to the untouched chocolate that makes Harry want to die of shame and mental agony. It is quite apparent that Regulus Black Potter doesn't know how to digest or deal with the story he’s just heard. With Harry. 

So Harry gets as far as telling them about disarming a Lestrange brother and stealing his identity before the stretched aura of disbelief and shock forces him to shrink farther into the chair. 

“Are you harmed?” Dad asks him, his tone a balanced mixture of disbelief and contained rage. 

“Just some cuts,” Harry mumbles, “from scuffles and knives.”

Nothing to interrupt the matron in the Orangery with, honestly. He doubts that Bellatrix’s dagger was poisoned with anything potent enough to kill him. No reason to interrupt the healer while she sorted out Draco’s injuries, pulling him back from death’s unwelcome doorstep. Harry was quite unwilling to part with the boy at first but he also logically knows that he's in good hands. 

Barty, on the other hand, had to be shipped out straight to the Hogwarts infirmary, where Albus Dumbledore awaited with a few discreet healers in tow, much beyond Poppy Pomfrey’s overwhelmed hands. 

So the cuts are fine. No urgency whatsoever in treating them. 

“Knives?” Papa breathes, trying to sound calm.

“It's a long story.” 

Dad, who is standing over them like an overprotective bear, huffs indignantly and yanks his glasses off his face in frustration. "Well, good thing we have all the time in the world right now, son,” he snaps. “I have one question for you: what the fuck were you thinking?”

Harry tightens his grip on his hands and ducks his gaze as Papa snaps back at his husband. 

“James!” 

Dad is unmoved by the quip and instead turns to Papa, the rage like a sizzling halo around him, “The heir to the Malfoy family is unconscious and on the verge of death on a couch in our Orangery right now. I think we should curse just the appropriate amount, my love.”

There is a tense silence between them, and Papa is the one who finally pushes his chair back and stands. He throws a severe look at Dad and then one at Harry. His tensed shoulders and fisted hands are indication enough of his true feelings regarding this whole mess. 

“I think I should do the talking,” Papa tells Dad, stiffly. “Please drink some water. Harry doesn’t need this right now.”

“Reg—”

“James. Drink some water.” 

Harry holds his breath, unable to look at the scene unfolding before his eyes. He’s seen his parents mildly disagree before; it’s nothing new. But he’s never seen them argue in such a tone or with this intensity before. And over him too. Harry purses his lips and stares down at his lap as the tense silence drags on, and Dad finally yields, quietly backing towards their cupboards to fetch a glass. 

“Please look at me,” Papa orders and Harry’s head snaps up, his body once again flooded with relief that the man is unharmed and alive and here, “Why did you exactly do this, little love?” 

“I wanted to find you. I didn't even know what happened to you or—”

“What made you—” Papa stops himself, closes his eyes, and grips the edge of their kitchen table, “What made you think that this was a good idea? Your father wanted you to stay put and safe from harm. You were in Norway to be away from all this. Instead, you abandoned the safe house and jumped straight into danger with no thought about the repercussions—”

“They kidnapped you and Barty said he was sure you were there! If Riddle had taken you, you would have been…Dammit, Papa! I didn’t have time to wait around for Dad to get his act together—”

Papa’s face pales even further and he opens his eyes, staring Harry down with a piercing gaze. Harry, feeling like a chastised toddler, shrugs his shoulders. He doesn’t feel remorse or regret that he’s done this. He’s not sorry that he went after his Papa, and he’s not sorry that they got to rescue Draco. He could not have lived another day in that hell hole. And yet still, when he wants to open his mouth and tell his fathers that, his tongue twists around itself.

He looks at Dad; the man is hunched over their kitchen sink, draining his glass of water with tense shoulders and a slanted curve to his back, as though the act of supporting himself is greatly taxing.

“So you overpowered and stunned a Lestrange brother.” 

Harry nods at Papa. 

“Which one?” 

“Rodolphus,” Harry clears his throat, “But I took care of the other one later too.”

He throws a timid look at Dad as the man narrows his eyes at the glass. Recognition. It's all the confirmation Harry needs that the story about his Dad and Rabastan Lestrange is one hundred percent true. 

“—Show me the cuts.” 

Harry is unwilling to comply at first, but Dad also turns to look at them from the kitchen sink, silently waiting, and so, agonisingly, Harry goes about the process of peeling back his shredded sleeves to reveal the long gashes on both forearms. The blood has dried; there wasn’t much bleeding to begin with, and they are very shallow wounds that lightly throb because of movement and yet Papa’s eyes widen some more and his jaw trembles. 

Harry sees the man’s stoic mask fall just a little. 

“Are those from Bella’s dagger?” Papa mutters, but almost as if to himself. He seems to know the wounds personally, as though they are engraved in his own skin rather than Harry’s. 

Harry is sick with the realisation. Bella’s mannerisms, her utter hatred for Papa, and her manic taunting all make him think that maybe all those faded white scars on Papa’s body are her marks, if not all, then maybe the majority. Her dagger, her hatred for her own blood, her sadism.

After all, Harry hasn’t told the men that he encountered Bella yet. Papa recognised those marks on his own.

“Yes.” 

Papa’s chair clatters back to the floor. He surges up and yanks Harry’s forearm over the table, “Why didn't you say so sooner!? Did she torture you!? Did she touch you otherwise or use Crucio—”

“No! No. No, Papa. She didn’t. She didn’t; we were just duelling and—”

“Just duelling.” Papa lets go of his arm and looks at Dad with a haunted expression pasted on his face. Dad holds his gaze steadily, and they seem to have one of those nonverbal conversations that they often do when their eyes vault across rooms to find the other. 

Harry doesn’t know what to say. The silence is damning enough on its own. 

“You just duelled Bellatrix Lestrange.”

“Yes.”

“To ‘save’ me.”

“Yes.”

Papa looks at the cuts as though they've personally offended him. It's something that Harry recognises because when he attacked Dolores Umbridge a few weeks ago, the man had looked at him the same way. Getting hurt in the name of protecting Regulus Black has no stronger contenders than Regulus Black himself. 

“Those won't go away,” Papa tells him, still staring at the long bloodied lines. “Her blade is infused with dark runes, those marks aren't going to go away—Harry what have you done, dear Merlin—”

“Look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? But Draco was withering away, and Barty realised that my visions were real—”

“Your what?” 

“Visions.” Harry swallows, and the man goes so impossibly rigid that Harry thinks that he’s been stunned for a moment. Dad’s face is drawn, and Papa curls a hand over the back of his chair. 

“You were gone,” Harry says, beseechingly to his father, “I thought Vol—Riddle had you again and Dad was freaking out and Barty was freaking out—”

He's making it worse, Harry knows, because the more he speaks, the more blood seems to drain from his father's face. 

“Look, I don't care about the scars, okay? Don't worry about the scars, Papa—”

Harry rushes out of his chair and throws himself at the man as though a strong gust of wind would pick him up and yank him away from them.  

Papa holds him back wordlessly, his chin settling over Harry’s head, and it is then when Harry drops his gaze to the floor that he suddenly realises that Papa has to go on his tiptoes to do it, to prop his chin on the top of his son's head. Harry’s grown almost as tall as Papa. He’s not a little child anymore. 

It’s a devastating thing to become suddenly aware of. When did he grow so much?

“I’m sorry,” he mutters into the man’s neck, his throat laden with emotion, “I’m sorry, Papa.” 

“I'm going to the Orangery for a second to check on Poppy and Draco,” his father says as he draws away from him, looking at Dad over his shoulder, unmoored. “I'll be back. James, clean his wounds. Please just don't kill each other.” 

Harry wants to beg the man to stay, to apologise more, to fix this somehow.

The image of the man walking away from him is traumatising. He was always so out of reach. Too far away. 

There is a wall between them now, one that Harry realises grows taller every time he tries to protect Papa and fails. A disdain, that Papa seems to hold for himself, over the fact that Harry tried to save him, that he needed Harry to save him in the first place. Or no, the knowledge that he didn’t need Harry to save him but that Harry tried anyway. 

“I didn't mean to do that,” he tells Dad as the man rinses his glass, “I didn’t want to upset him.”

“Upset him?” Dad reaches for a small medical kit they keep under their sink. “He’s terrified. It seems like you have no idea what the gravity of your actions entails.” 

“His life was in danger.”

“Exactly.”

“This is what you raised. Both of you! I was raised to protect, to fight for what’s right—”

“Harry.”

Harry shakes his head, and all the rage and distress and frustration building up since last night boil over, right out of him.

“I know the implications of my actions. I know that rescuing Draco wasn’t smart. Handing myself over to Riddle wasn’t smart. I know all that, but you taught me that Papa’s life came above all else and—”

The kit lands on their kitchen table with a sharp clang and Harry suppresses a wince, “And I told you I made a mistake!” Father screams at him. 

Harry knows it’s out of desperation. Something irrational still twists in his chest anyway. 

“And you wanted to kill him in that cave just so Riddle couldn't hurt him!” he hollers back at the man, truly his father’s son. “You can’t blame me for the way I am. I am what you raised me to be! What did you expect me to do?” 

“You think it's as simple as that?” Dad yanks his glasses off his face, throwing them next to the kit, “Just popping in and out of the Malfoy Manor with no consequences with their only heir in your arms—”

“Listen, Dad. The whole thing with Papa and Draco was unexpectedly timed but not wrong! Draco would’ve died. If Papa had really been there—”

“Do you have any idea how precious you are to me?” Dad cuts him off, “And I almost lost you! How could you do that?”

Harry stills. 

“What?”

“How do you think I'd feel when my son! My child, my baby!—Tells me he's run off to the very place where every single rotten rubbish on earth wants to kill him? The same bloody place that imprisoned and tormented your Papa for years! You could've died! Actually, no, death would've been the best thing to happen to you in that place! What would I have done? You are my child. What would I have done if they got you or tortured you or killed you?”

Oh. 

That’s not what Harry thought the man would say at all. To be quite frank, he didn’t think that was why Dad was mad at him in the first place. It’s not that Harry doesn’t know his father loves him. There’s no need to reiterate or reinforce this love when it is always so blatantly evident. It’s just that past a certain age, their relationship had morphed into more of a…well. It relied rather heavily on performance and expectations. 

Dad adored his magical capabilities but fully expected him to excel at conjuring a Patronus even at this young an age. 

Dad was proud but certain that Harry would be a top-notch seeker. 

Dad understood his inability to immediately move on after being kidnapped and tortured but expected him to have a swift recovery after it was all over.

Dad always loved that Harry was more studious like Papa but always expected him to be a prankster in tandem with his studies. To be more lighthearted. To enjoy life. Parties. The limelight. 

Dad loved all of his flaws but expected him to be flawless.

“Dad, Papa was in danger.” Harry lowers his voice, uncomfortable with his Father’s eyes and the way they are overfilled with vulnerability and outright terror, “You didn't have time to cover all the bases. I had to do something before—”

“You are fifteen years old,” Dad grabs his shoulder, “Meaning that I managed to keep you alive for fifteen years. You were born at a time where even the thought of having a child was ridiculous, yet your mother carried you, we had you, we kept you alive. Lily died to keep you alive! That's not your burden to take but you can't just throw your life away! You can’t just bloody run off and take that for granted. I treasure you, I love you, and you are my legacy. How dare you be so reckless with yourself? Can you even imagine the grief I'd feel? The grief Regulus would feel? Even the thought that my son was exposed to the very thing that hurt Regulus…”

He’s dragged and almost suffocated in Dad’s arms. He feels his own throat close up and shame trickle down his guts. He realises that it’s true, once again, that Dad is mad at him for being a bit of an idiot, but he’s more terrified of Harry having gotten hurt. 

“I'm sorry, Dad.”

“I went to hell and back when Riddle possessed you. I went to hell every single night you woke up screaming and crying because of that bastard.” Dad pulls back to look at him intensely. “You are my life. You and Regulus are my entire life. You can't do that. You can't just run off! I'd already lost your dad, I wanted you to be safe!”

“I thought I was going to lose you.” 

“What?”

“You said…” Harry flushes, shrugging a bit, “You said if Papa died, you'd follow. And you were gonna leave me all alone, and you'd both be dead, and I'd have no one—”

“Harry.”

“I don't want Riddle to hurt Papa anymore.” Harry looks at his father and realises that this is the first time in many months that he’s actually speaking his mind. This is the first time he remembers Dad, just dumbfounded and looking at him, as lost as Harry feels, “I'm sick of it. And I just thought…I don't know what I thought. I wanted him to be safe, I wanted you to be happy. I can't bear hearing you two accept death so easily—”

Dad looks down at Harry’s crisscrossed and bloodied arms and the tension in his shoulders bleed into a resigned melancholy. He shakes his head, not in denial, but in shame,  “Oh, Harry. I'm sorry.” 

Harry shrugs again and purses his lips. Dad silently gestures him towards a chair, and they hobble over as Dad wandlessly summons a clean cloth from the drawers and damps it under their drizzling faucet. 

“You should fasten that later,” Harry comments meekly, and Dad hums, both overwhelmed by the lump of emotion lodged in their throats. He lets Dad gently dab the dried blood off his forearms, lets him click his tongue and attempt to disinfect the inflamed but shallow cuts with his wand. 

Papa was absolutely right, the scars aren’t budging with normal healing charms that Dad tries on him. 

“I get that I'm young.” Harry looks down at his arms, not able to bear his father’s burning gaze on his head. “I know nothing about war or pain or horror. But I didn't choose this life. I didn't choose for Riddle to kill my Mum and torture Papa or—When you hide things I have no choice but to do this shit because if I don't I might lose everything . I still don't know what happened to Papa and Draco was dying. I had to do something—”

“I can't lose you,” Dad tells him frankly, putting the smudged wet cloth away. “I'm sorry you had to see those things. And I'm sorry you felt the need to do this on your own. I failed as a parent—”

“Dad, no—”

“I don't know what to do,” Dad admits with an empty chuckle, a gust of air beaten out of him, “Reggie doesn't know what to do. Lily would’ve and I’m so so sorry your Mother isn't here. We just want to take you and run, and we can't. I can't lose you, but there’s nowhere to run either.” 

His thumb traces Harry’s inflamed scar, and there is something ominously yet implicitly present in what he is confessing to Harry, but concurrently, it is comforting. Harry feels as though it’s the first time Dad is telling him the uncurtained truth, the ugly thing. It’s heavy, and it makes Harry want to cry and deny its existence. But it’s here. It’s always been here.

“You were the size of my forearm the day you were born, even smaller,” Dad smooths a hand over his messy hair. “I swore to your mother I'd die before I let anything happen to you. I swore to Reggie I'd die before anything happens to you. I failed. I keep…you can't do that. You can't die.”

“I promise.” Harry lies, and then immediately, to disperse the heavy tension between them, he clears his throat.

“Where was Papa?” he asks. 

“France, Étretat. Left with a herd of rogue dementors. We both figured it was a red herring, though.”

Harry chews his lower lip. “Was Riddle there?”

“No.” 

“He wasn't at the Manor either, but Mrs Malfoy said they were preparing the house for Papa, so that means—”

That means that this is only the beginning and things are about to get much, much worse. Especially with Draco here, with Papa rescued, and with Harry having broken into the Malfoy Manor. Riddle might not be able to possess him or torture him through their evident link immediately, but he won’t need to. He will bide his time for a response, and Harry already knows it will be devastating. 

“We’ll handle it. Whatever it means. I’m proud of you,” Dad kisses him on the head. “You’re right. You made the right call, we don’t leave any lives behind. Bringing Draco here was the right decision, kiddo.”

“What about the aftermath, Dad?”

“We’ll figure it out together,” Dad mutters over him and Harry stifles the crushing sadness in his chest. He knows things will be going downhill from here, and he knows that the likelihood of their survival is not all that high. But Dad is here, and Papa is here and Harry is here. 

The cracks in their family can be mended with time. As long as there’s any family, that is. 

“Does your scar hurt?”

“It hurt a bit before on our way here, when I was flying,” Harry replies honestly, “But it stopped a few hours ago. There’s nothing now.” 

Maybe it is concerning, but Harry is too tired to care. Even if it hurts, even if it kills him. He’s glad Papa is safe, and he’s glad that Barty is alive and that Draco is here. Even if that bliss lasts for a single hour, it’s still worth it. 

“You're going to tell me and your father everything, Harry. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

He stands, feeling a bit wobbly, but strangely at peace. 

“Please change out of these robes.” Dad makes a face at him, “You reek of dark magic, that’s what peeved your Papa, I think—”

Harry’s eyes widen and his hand darts to his pocket, where the cup has been staying until now, in its soft and safe nest. His scar twinges and Harry fumbles a bit, trying to yank the cup out of his pocket. It feels as though the gold makes his skin crawl, burning to touch, but Harry lifts it in the air anyway.

“That may actually be because of this, so Draco was very insistent that I should steal this from—”

Dad yanks the cup out of his hand and launches it across the room, where it slams and sizzles against their wall and clanks against their pantry’s door. Dad pulls him back away from the cup and shoves him behind his own body and Harry stumbles, grabbing onto the man’s heavy robes for support. 

“Dad!?”

“Oh, fuck, fuck I can feel it,” Dad cranes his neck over his shoulder with one apprehensive arm still blocking Harry’s movements, “Regulus!” Dad calls for his father, his voice so loud it rattles their walls, “Regulus!” 

His Papa runs to the kitchen with thunderous steps, striking their floorboards, the door slamming open as his eyes almost instantly zero down on the fallen dark artefact with no prompting from his husband. 

“Bloody hell,” the man breathes, “That’s it. That’s the cup. it’s—” he covers his face with his sleeve and turns his head away. 

“The cup?” 

His parents lock gazes, and Harry pinches the back of his hand to see if this is real. 

It’s unfortunate to realise that he is wide awake. 

 

…

 

Bartholomew Crouch (Jr) is straight up not having a good time. 

One would expect that two severe beatings from those who indubitably wanted him dead would've done the job. In his barely lucid moments, Barty treated each stroke, punch, and kick like a kiss or loving touch from an old lover. 

Maybe hysterically, he even thought that Sirius and Remus would get him a grave too, nestled right next to Reggie's and Evan’s and maybe they'll put aside their disgust and anger for him and engrave it with something nice. Not Loved, Barty isn't that delusional, but maybe at least, He wasn't so bad. Not too bad. Tolerable Twat. A nice shag. 

It sounded too good to ever be true. He died a cheap death, and he lived a cheap life, and that was the end of that. There would be no grave, no resting place. 

He has a lot of regrets. And when one thinks one is on the verge of death, inadvertently, one's mind swerves towards those mounds and heaps of remorseful mistakes. Barty regrets not saving Evan when he could've. He regrets not saving Regulus from Voldemort even at the cost of his own life. He regrets all the people he's hurt and killed over a cause that he couldn't give a singular fuck about. 

In many ways, he regrets walking back into Reggie's quiet and domestic life and turning it upside down. He regrets ever opening his legs and setting foot in Moony and Padfoot’s marital bed. He regrets needing them. He regrets letting his long-buried emotions and vulnerabilities boil to the surface. He regrets finding a job that he enjoys. 

Pain is temporary , used to be his mantra. And it feels a little bit too permanent right now. Maybe he was wrong about that, too. Pain has nowhere to go, it is a whelp borne of him, it'll never leave. It'll die an old mutt, only when Barty follows.

He knows he's not dead. Not really. He's been through worse and lived. He hears frantic voices, even feels the very magic that washes over him in ripples, attempting to heal his broken body. So many lacerations, broken bones, torn flesh and muscles. He smells strong antiseptic potions and some familiar scent, hovering next to him, chocolate. 

It hurts, when he tries to open his remaining eye to the white ceiling of the Hogwarts infirmary. Figures , they can't actually take a presumed dead Death Eater to St. Mungo's. The light is annoying and the pain in his eye sharp, but Barty only winces when he turns his head and sees two impassioned, doleful eyes glaring at him. 

“Shit.” Barty turns his head back with a cringe. 

“Close, but not quite.” 

Barty fiddles with the white sheet over his bare chest. He feels every rib protesting his quickened breathing. He is a hideous beast put together with nothing but spit and blind faith and it's so bloody horrible, to be this open and vulnerable when Remus is right here. Barty can't hold his gaze. He can't look. 

He turns his head, stares at the privacy curtains instead, white and untouched and uneventful. 

“Does anywhere hurt?” Remus asks him. 

Does it even matter? Barty thinks crudely. 

He winces as his chest heaves, “What do you—think?”

He thinks the jab might prompt Remus into a harsher reaction, the man might even storm off. What he doesn't expect is his former lover voicing a chuckle with the cadence of a wail in despair. 

“Well, Barty,” Remus shoves his chair back and rounds the bed, making it impossible to escape him, “Personally, I think you are an ungrateful, hysterical, arsehole who feels exuberance at the prospect of giving us grey hairs. How do you feel about that, Barty's suicide note?” 

He dangles said note in the air as he addresses it with enough force to shake the ink right off the parchment. 

“‘s not a—”

Remus cuts him off, the letter remaining untouched and clenched in his hands as he narrates it from memory:

“Dear Moony and Dear Padfoot, I write this letter with the unequivocal intent to say goodbye with the utmost certainty that there is no return from the hell to which I'm headed—”

“Okay, fine!” Barty gnashes his teeth, a harsh flush dusting his cheeks, “I get it.” 

He may have been a bit flamboyant, writing the note. He didn't quite anticipate living through Sirius and Remus actually reading the letter. Remus seems to have memorised the words actually. Barty is clueless as to why he would do that. 

“Do you get it?” Remus hisses at him, “Do you!?”

“Ow!”

Remus slams the note into his shin—the one with the unbroken foot—repeatedly and Barty glares at the man through the sharp pain, “I get it, stop!” 

“I mean—you utter—! You moron! You lunatic! You menace! What were you thinking?”

“Save Reggie.” 

“No,” Remus shakes his head at him vehemently, stuffing the note in his jumper, “You took my godson. Our godson,  yours too, you arse,” his finger jabs Barty in the cheek, “—to a dragon den! With no intent to emerge back with him. I mean that's why you took him right? Because you knew, you weren't getting out of there with Regulus.”

“Stop, Remus.” 

“You know, Sirius thought we needed to press you more, follow you home. And I, the idiot that I am, gave you the benefit of the doubt. I told him, ‘No, Pads, let's wait. Let's wait until he's ready to talk. Until he's ready to understand logic. Until he's ready to heal. To learn what love is.’ And lo and behold! That shack in Bergen looks like a muggle drug den.”

“I cleaned up—”

“I saw your room,” Remus’ response is savagely quick, “You let Harry sleep there!? With the bottles and all that alcohol and broken wooden logs and Merlin knows what else—”

“Jeez, Remus. I get it,” he seethes back at the man, even when it hurts his jaw to speak at all. He gets it, he knows he fucked up. He knows he was given a responsibility. He knows he was supposed to keep Harry safe. And he did, didn't he? The brat was the only unscathed, bloody thing walking out of there. 

It hurts, alright? It hurts that Remus is only here to chastise him over endangering Harry, even though that's exactly what Barty did. He can't even fathom what beastly force is holding Regulus back from demolishing his way in here. 

“I fucked up,” he tells Remus, “I hurt your kid. Drop the act, will you? Stop pretending—it’s anything more than that.”

Remus gives him a withering look of utter disbelief, and Barty wants to strangle himself, when his lover’s eyes glaze over and a singular tear cascades down his scarred cheek. Merlin, Barty is a monster. 

Remus never cries. He didn't even when they broke things off. He doesn’t even during full moons. He didn’t, not once Barty told him about his rotten childhood.

“Why you—You know the last time I cried over a boy was almost fourteen years ago!” The man irritably swips his nose with his hand, looking away as though ashamed of his tears, “How dare you scare us!? How dare you—just leave a note ? How dare you take such poor care of yourself and claim you don't need us?”

Remus’ shoulders shake, from anger and…the crying both. Barty cringes as he realises that he can't lift his right arm. 

Now, see what you've done. A voice weirdly similar to Evan's snaps at him in his head. Now he's crying. Good job, you utter clown. 

“Lupin—”

“Bartholomew, for the love of Merlin himself, what do you want from us?”

Barty’s heart drops. “What?”

“What act of love, what crazy show of commitment will it be?” Remus demands weakly, “Would cutting out our beating hearts suffice? Wrenching it out of our chests? Just plopping it on your hospital bed? Would that make your dad's fucked up voice in your head go away?” 

“Remus, what the bloody hell—” 

“I'm serious! What does it take? What more do you want? How can you…so carelessly fling your life away as if it's worthless? How dare you endanger the man me and my husband fell in love with? What gives you the right?”

“Remus—”

“You used the bloody suicide note to say I love you for the first time?”

Well, ouch. 

Barty may have actually forgotten that he did that, but now with the harsh prompt, he can recall quite clearly, all choked up, hunching over his letter, signing off with…those three cursed words. He did write that; that’s true. And it would be the first time that he told them outright. That is also true. 

“How dare you!” Remus growls at him, his hand suddenly grasping for a vice grip around Barty’s bicep. “And look what you've done to your eye!” his fingers trace the air over Barty’s scarred eye, “Your beautiful eye, you almost went blind, you moron, gods I was terrified—” 

“Shh—” 

“Don't shush me!” Remus snaps back with a pointing finger, “You were going to die! You were going to take yourself away from us. From me! How can you bear being away from us when you love us? How can you write this letter and then willingly leave? Do you have any idea how worried we've been for months? And what if Greyback had been there!? What would've happened then?!” 

Barty’s stomach drops, and he figures that yeah, he really didn’t think about the possibility of Greyback being in the Manor at all. That would have changed everything. The werewolf’s heightened sense would’ve given them away before they had any shot at all. Harry would have been captured and most definitely bitten, and Barty’s death would have been all the more horrific for it. He cringes as Remus hyperventilates by the bed, unkempt and uncomposed in a way that he’s never been. 

Barty is the one who’s doing this to him. He is the one resuscitating the man’s old traumas and fears back onto the surface. This is what they get, both he and Sirius, for trying to cuddle up with Barty, for treating him as they do other humans. 

Now they’ve been poisoned. 

“Don't you see it yet?” he mutters to the man. 

Remus stills beside him, “See what?” 

“The poison. I'm poison. I'm made of poison. Can't you see it yet?” 

The air around them becomes tense and curdled. Remus drops his hand from his face and looks at Barty with a bemused expression. Genuinely and entirely clueless. Almost not comprehending.

“What?” 

“Father always used to say…well. Just a matter of time, he used to say. And he was right every time. I mean…fuck. Reggie went through hell. Evan died. Look at you guys now—” 

“Are you barmy?” Remus cuts him off, his voice cracks. 

“I taint the things I touch,” Barty explains, wincing as his ribs protest. “It's an entirely cynical truth. My parents knew the monster they bred. I'm wrong. Wrong in the head, wrong in the body and—” 

“Barty, you were five .”

Barty’s lips press together. Those four little words render him mute for the first time in his life, because Barty realises that it is the first time, truly the first time, that they have been spoken, left in the air, and addressed to him. He’s always been to blame, always the one receiving the short end of the stick because he was poison, foul. He was a runt of this world and meant to be treated as such, and he was, by his parents, by others in their social circles, by the Purebloods he so badly wanted to mimic, by the Dark Lord and even by his friends at times. 

No one has ever pointed out to him that he was a child once. That he was only five. 

“Remus—” 

“The first time, he laid a belt on you,” Remus pushes, “That you told us of. You were five. Weren't you?”

He’s sure he was even younger when it really started. But he remembers being five and sneaking into his father’s office with a glass of chocolate milk. He remembers struggling to climb his father’s leather armchair, curious and eager and immature. He wanted to look at the cases, the funny photographs of crimes and squiggly lines of reports that he couldn’t read yet. 

He knew not to touch. He just wanted to look. 

The spilled milk could have been spelled right out of the parchments and photographs. In fact, now that Barty is grown, he knows that the effort his Father put into berating and then beating him was at least ten times more than a drying spell. 

Two decades ago, and he still remembers the welts on the back of his hands and on his behind. He remembers the inverted muskrat’s monstrous and bleak face, screaming at him and scolding him for crying. Calling him a waste. Poison. Tainting everything like the spilt chocolate milk on his work desk. 

“A sickness! You get your grimy fingers everywhere!”

“—Barty?”

“Yes.” Barty blinks back to the present and swallows the childish lump in his throat. What is he even emotional about? He’s not a damn kid.

“You think a five-year-old is poison?” Remus asks him, “You think you're tainted? I was bitten by a werewolf when I was three.” 

“Remus—” 

“I was a baby. You were a baby. That man had no right or parentage over you. How old are you now? Fuck. Thirty Four?” 

Barty swallows again. He avoids Remus’ desperate eyes as it dawns on him that he is really thirty four years old, and his father is dead, and yet still, Barty’s entire being is saturated and vititated by the man. But his presence is necessary. Barty knows it is necessary. 

“He's never going to leave, Remus. He's the only thing that keeps the poison at bay.” he knows how stupid it sounds, but he believes it to be true, and it is. “Look at yourself. The mess you've become because of me. Merlin knows what's become of Sirius—” 

“He's dead.” Remus’ tone brokers no argument. “Dead as a darn nail. And you're using a beaten dead horse to justify your own fears and insecurities. Because somehow in your head, it's impossible for you to be loved. And anyone who even tries is either an idiot or just doesn't know the real you yet. Sounds about right?” 

So what if it does? Barty feels ridiculous and petulant. 

“This won't change anything.”

“No. It won't change the fact that you wanted to die. And that you told us you loved us. In a suicide note.”

“I saved a kid.” 

Remus grunts, but not in agreement. He circles Barty’s bed again to get to the other side and drops down on the chair he’s been sitting on. They look at each other for a long beat, and Barty tries not to wince every time he blinks and his scars twince. His left eye is bandaged over, and his right eye very swollen, by the feel of things. 

Rabastan, that bloody bastard. It’s true that Barty was used to recieving a thrashing, but that arsehole didn’t need to go at him so hard. He’s lucky he still has his tongue. 

“We're taking you home,” Remus tells him finally. His hand reaches and covers the side of Barty’s head, a heavy albeit comforting weight on his ear. “And you're not allowed to run away again. Sirius was right, I'm afraid. If you're too stubborn to accept it like a normal person. We'll just force it until you believe us.” 

It sounds so wildly ludicrous that Barty is waiting for the punchline of the joke or for Remus to start cackling at him. He even considers the cocktail of potions he’s been on to be responsible for his skewed understanding of the words. But Remus looks dead serious. He pats Barty on the cheek and leans back in his seat, crossing his arms. He looks at Barty with a determined fire burning in his eyes. 

“Force me?” Barty repeats after a long moment. 

“Guess what, you bastard?” Remus smirks at him with fake mirth. “We're getting married. And you're gonna love it. And we're burning down that shack in Bergen, and you're never leaving our sight again.” 

“Am I hallucinating or—”

“Nope. This is painstakingly real. You asked for it.”

Barty’s mouth closes with an audible click, and his heart constricts in a way that none of his physical wounds do. He wants to say that he feels indignant at being subjected to this treatment. He wants to say that he doesn’t care what Black and Lupin do and that they’re no longer together anyway. He wants to point out the tactical and physical danger he poses for those around him, Harry being one of his most frequent victims. He can be cruel again, cite disinterest again. He is not a horse that needs to be tamed and tied down. 

Not even once in his life had anyone staked a claim to him as such. Not his parents. Not his friends. Not even Evan. The feeling is so entirely foreign that he doesn’t know whether to be mad or to start bawling. He cannot recall even his mother taking charge over his distressed state throughout his derelict childhood. He was never claimed by anyone. Always unbound or rather abandoned on a whim. As ephemeral as the very pain he felt. As temporary as a twinge. 

Maybe that’s why he didn’t mind dying that much to begin with.

Does Sirius know about Remus’ intentions? Does he even agree? And does Barty agree with this arrangement? He’s had his reasons for breaking things off in the first place, even though everything is foggy, and he can’t quite remember his reasoning now. 

His one singular eye starts glazing over like a Hufflepuff idiot’s. Barty’s hands clench the sheets so hard that he feels his nails digging into his palms through them as he begs for something to mitigate this absurd overflow of emotions. But nothing comes. 

Barty drags his heavily bandaged arm up and over his eyes, eliciting a harsh wince from himself. Merlin, he needs alcohol. And he needs it right now. 

“Oh,” he laments. 

As though reading his thoughts, Remus tuts at him, “Close your eyes and go to sleep now, or so help me God, Bartholomew .”

He is so tired. 

“Jeez,” Barty breathes, and after a heavy pause, he removes his arm from his eyes, “I meant it.” he admits, like an idiot, “That I love you.” 

He wanted them to know when he wrote the note, as a finality and not actual declration. He wanted  Remus and Sirius to know, that when he thought Rabastan was going to kill him with his fists, he was thinking of the men. When he’s finally about to die, may it be decades from now, Barty wants the men to know, they would be his last lingering thought. The last faces fading from his memories. Maybe that’s what love is truly about. No matter how sappy it may sound.

“We know,” Remus lets him know, not unkindly. “We've known for quite a bit. You are apparently the last one to find out.” 

“Do you still…”

Remus throws him an aggravated though fond glare, “We just talked about how we're about to domesticate you forcibly. Yes. I love you, Bartholomew Crouch—but hopefully soon to be Black-Lupin . We love you. Romantically and sexually and platonically and all of the other subtypes of love included.”

Barty’s eyes are too heavy to keep open, so he lets them flutter with a ghost of a smile, “Good, just wanted to check.” he mumbles. 

“Sleep.” 

“Cuddle?” Barty mutters just to test the waters; his mind is already halfway gone and his limbs heavy with the realisation that he is indeed safe, not in charge of himself anymore—and boy was he doing a poor job of it—and that he can finally relax. Merlin, he thinks, it’s been months. 

“No, no cuddle, you're being punished,” Remus says. Barty whines, and Remus immediately relents, “Oh, fine, you log.” 

Barty hears Remus’ chair scraping the floor and his sheets being gently lifted. Remus is a slight man, and though the bed is not that big, he manages to manoeuvre Barty’s body gingerly and lay him back down on his chest, grumbling all the while under his breath about Barty being an idiot. Barty smothers any winces or cries of pain before they even have enough presence to take root and pushes his ear against the man’s chest. His heart is racing. Barty presses his lips into a thin line. 

He probably shouldn’t worry them like this again for a while. 

Remus’ hand is in his neglected hair, carefully untangling the plethora of knots with his fingers, and Barty almost purrs like a cat under the ministrations. It has been months since he’s been touched like this or had any substantial human contact. Maybe being beaten by Rabastan was worth it a little bit. 

He falls asleep for a bit, though he doesn’t know for how long. It must be at least an hour or two later because he wakes to Sirius and Remus speaking over him. He doesn’t open his eyes and keeps his breathing steady and slow. 

“—How are they?”

“Reggie is okay, thank Merlin. And Harry, Merlin, that boy’s something else—”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Sirius echoes, and there’s a ghost of a brush over Barty’s hair. “Did he wake? Was he in pain?” 

“High off his arse on pain relievers. He just whined for a bit. We talked. He's fine.”

The ghostly touch now hovers over the bandage drawn over his eye, the very tips of his fingers a soft caress, “Look at his eye,” Sirius grieves under his breath, “Oh, god.” 

“That healer…Thornelove, was it? He said it'll heal, it'll leave a scar, but hopefully no lasting damage.” 

There is a hum, and Barty feels Sirius’ soft locks of hair brushing against his cheek as the man lowers his lips over his head for a gentle peck. His hand brushes Barty’s hair back and Barty almost wants to lean into it. He can smell the man, the faint motor oil and cologne, now intermingled with chocolate and Barty’s own wretched metallic tang. He’d missed it for so long that his heart aches in remembrance. 

“Never letting him go again, right?” Sirius muses to his husband. 

Remus’ arms tighten around him, “Right.”

 

…

Draco dreams about soft hands holding onto his fingers, about a heavy blanket draped over him, the pressure compressing his body in all the right places, helping him sink back into a comfortable cot. He smells a hint of toffee and a fragrance he has intimately come to know as Harry’s natural scent, deeply ingrained in the blanket.  

He dreams about a familiar voice, either reading to him or reading aloud to the room, about soft lights casting rays over his pale face, and the warmth of sunshine filtering through glass, caressing his flesh as though he’s the chosen one. He dreams about smelling flowers and hearing the clinking of trays and cutlery. He dreams about smelling tea and coffee and feeling the softness of cool water traveling down his parched throat. He dreams about murmured conversations and cold washcloths, running over his blazing skin. 

He doesn’t think much of it at first, mostly because he doesn’t seem cognisant to think about anything at all. A dream is just that, a dream. And the more aware he becomes of the dreams, the more he thinks that maybe he’s died and this is the afterlife he gets. It’s not too bad. His eyes are too heavy to open, his ears muffled, his limbs aching and his organs twisting madly in his body as though seeking an escape. But it’s not too bad. He likes the blanket a lot; it smells like Harry, like the Quidditch changing rooms, like the boy’s robes, faintly like sweat, but not really repugnant. Mostly familiar. He likes the warmth and the cold, the sensation of air brushing against his body as though acknowledging his presence. 

It’s not too shabby of an afterlife, he thinks. 

He thinks he wakes up a little once. A poisonous sort of panic rooted in his chest, flaring up and strangling the air in his lungs, propelling his aching body upwards and out of its safe nest, but there is a reassuring hand, pushing his chest down immediately, cupping his face, the thumb swiping over his sunken cheek, “Shh, it’s okay,” the voice mutters in his ears, smooth like butter, the accent posh in a familiar way. The voice helps him down again, pulling up the blanket to tuck around him, “Go back to sleep. It’s okay.”

The voice reminds him of Mum. 

He dreams about Mum. 

He never dared call her that. He always abhorred calling her Mother. It was too formal, too stiff, it only served an arbitrary function and little else. He only came to know that he could call his Mother, Mum , after hearing it from other children at Hogwarts. A common noun he’d never used and never will. He always wondered what it’d be like to see his Mother’s eyes light up, hearing him call her that. She’d probably scold him and call him a commoner. A mudblood lover. A peasant. But at least she’d do it fondly, Draco likes to think. 

She did love him a little, and he loved her more than he ever could even like himself. 

He dreamed that Mum was here, not here , but in that other place, in the living world, telling him to kill and strangle the fear because he couldn’t breathe. She called his name and told him that fear was a mind killer. He couldn’t really see her, and her voice was little more than a wisp, but her presence was indisputable. 

The second time he wakes up from his dreams, he thinks that he’s alone. He knows that he is awake because the back of his eyelids cast an angry red that overwhelms his vision. Like closing one’s eyes under direct sunlight. He feels its warmth, too. He actually feels a bit too warm. He tries to kick off the blanket tucked around him, but he can’t even lift a finger, and there’s a very heavy weight around one of his feet. Maybe the chain, but Draco doubts the chain has followed him in the afterlife. 

The third time, he manages to open his eyes a little crack because he hears a soft humming. His vision is horribly blurry, and it’s difficult to register anything but an abundance of soft yellows and diverse shades of green in the room he’s in. It’s not a bedroom, he figures. A place with a lot of greenery and glass walls and ceiling, because a softer light is cast over his face, much dimmer than before. Maybe the soft blue light of an approaching sunset or an inevitable sunrise.

He recognises a bleary shape, a humming figure with his back to Draco, spraying the leaves of some plant pots mindlessly. It takes a lot of effort to keep his eyes open, to avoid blinking or succumbing to another bout of unconsciousness. He eyes the humming boy bemusedly, and he’d recognise him anywhere. He could even tell by his posture alone if he couldn’t already decipher by the messy and upturned hair, or the slouching shoulders, or his gritty voice. 

Draco really won the gold pot of all afterlives, it seems. Even if the boy is always blurry and out of reach, even if he’ll never get to be alive anymore, he wouldn’t mind spending eternity here, in this greenhouse with a beloved phantom. 

The humming stops, and so does the soft drizzle of water spraying the leaves. Harry looks at him over his shoulder, and when they lock gazes, something dim in the back of Draco’s mind prompts him that he may not be as dead as he previously believed. 

“Here you are,” Harry says simply, dropping the spray bottle on a random table away from Draco’s peripheral vision. “Can you hear me?”

Draco is too tired for an outright glare, but he frowns faintly, and Harry chortles, shrugging his shoulders as he pads over to the cot, “Yeah, fair enough, Malfoy. Are you in pain?” his hand brushes over Draco’s forehead with an eased familiarity. Draco holds his breath as he feels the warm touch over his dead flesh, pushing under his hair to presumably take his temperature. 

His hallucinations of Harry never touched him so authentically. This feels quite grounded in reality. 

Draco’s dry throat struggles to swallow a gulp and his chest flutters as Harry withdraws the touch, furrowing his brows a bit, “You can probably sleep some more. Your eyes are barely open.”

“Wa’er.”

“Water? Oh, shit. Okay, yeah. Hang on.” 

Draco follows Harry’s movements sluggishly as the boy scrambles for a pitcher and a glass by a low coffee table at the foot of the couch. Draco’s fingers slowly grip the blanket over his body, and he closes his eyes for just a moment. He can’t feel the gruelling presence of the bedsores anymore, nor the heavy throbbing around his ankle, just a weird pressure. The gnawing hunger pangs are also oddly absent. Still, he’s so tired and dizzy. 

He’s not really dead, is he? 

Harry tilts the glass for him, and water, that blessed thing, makes Draco’s insides almost croon. He can’t even remember the last time he drank water by himself without someone either charming it straight into him or waterboarding him with a mug. 

“Any more would make you sick. Take it easy.” 

His voice , Draco wants to almost cry. Oh, how Draco had longed to hear the boy’s voice, so close to his ears, so caring and soft and devoid of rivalry. The way he always imagined it to be in his dreams and delusions, the way his visions treated him sometimes.

“Harry.”

“Yeah. I should probably get my Dads. You can nap a bit more if you want.”

Sleep some more and give in to the possibility of losing his grasp on this tantalising vision? Draco would rather die. He frowns some more, and as his head is delicately lowered on a fluffed pillow, he looks around some more. So many pots and plants and leaves and flowers. A wall of ivy to the side. Even a few small trees. He has a vague memory of this place even though he’s never been here. 

“I thought you might be uncomfortable on a bed. We’re in the Orangery. Kinda transformed the couch for you so it’d be more cosy. Do you need anything? Can I get you anything? Does anything hurt? We can relocate you to my room if that feels like a better alternative—”

It takes Draco an embarrassing amount of time to comprehend Harry’s frantic rambling. He blinks owlishly at the boy and marvels at his face, at his crooked glasses and the worried line pinching his brows, at his soft hair, at his eyes, so green and round and glittery…Draco frowns, estranged from his thoughts. When did he start thinking in such a ridiculous manner? He must be high on some sort of potion. If he’s alive, that is.

“Not dead,” he mutters hoarsely and feels surprised at how much easier it already is to speak. His throat still hurts a bit, and he feels breathless, but the words make sense, and his tongue is moving the way he wants it to.

“Er…No. Neither of us is dead.”

“Oh.” 

Harry fidgets a bit more by his cot, awkwardly rolling on the heels of his feet and looking around the Orangery. “Can I get you anything?” he asks a bit uselessly again after a lapse. Draco thinks this must be at least the fourth time he’s asked that since Draco’s eyes opened. 

Draco raises a hand very slowly and with monumental effort to his own face, feels the unscarred but malnourished flesh with a confused groan. How long has he been here exactly? Physical wounds don’t normally vanish overnight. And the thought, that precise thought, is what makes him panic properly. 

He’s here . As opposed to there. Back in his room. He is here , as in, outside the Manor. He’s here and not dead and Harry is right there standing over him and he just gave him water—

“Woah, no! Shit, no you should probably not move like that—” 

Draco lurches, craning his neck over the cot, over the side of the couch to gag. A pounding pain takes up behind his eyes and his fingers weakly grip the edge of his beloved blanket. He feels Harry’s body over him, holding him tenderly by the shoulders and hollering something, maybe calling for his fathers. 

Not dead. Not at the Manor. He’s in the Orangery. Regulus Black’s Orangery. 

He knows this place. He’s seen this place. He and Harry will be spending a substantial amount of time in this place. Draco’s ears whistle. 

Nothing comes up when he gags, not even the water he just drank but the energy it robs from him is too much to bear. He collapses back on his pillow just as he hears two sets of footsteps rushing in, and sees Harry’s blurry figure, turning to face his fathers. There’s a cacophony of voices over his head but the only thing Draco can follow with his eyes is Harry, dazedly, cast in the morning or afternoon or whatever’s light like he’s the actual Sun . He thinks he giggles, there’s a burst of suppressed air rushing out of him in a flurry. A sharp exhale. 

Here you are, that’s what the boy had said to him first thing. 

Here I am, Draco wants to tell him, but his mouth doesn’t cooperate, and his eyes grow heavy again. 

Yeah, you numb-brain git, here I am. 

Notes:

-The next couple of chapters are my absolute favorites! So I'm excited about those~
- I've been attempting to keep Remus' character somewhat aloof and level-headed up until now. This helps balance out Sirius's chaotic temperament and the overall 'waves of emotions' that other characters go through. So writing him crashing the fuck out, was very strange and weirdly satisfying. I hope it is still consistent with my characterization of him.
- Bella's cursed dagger being the cause of Reggie's scars is consistent with their presence still on his body. Check HFA, chapters 5 (The Fruit’s Fervent Fever), 11 (start of the past), 16 (the aftermath) and EO, chapter 11
- I couldn't mention this in the chapter but the presence of the horcrux on Harry's person during their discussion absolutely exacerbated the situation.
- Also, let's briefly talk about James here; his character has long been established as a caretaker in my story. He takes on his friends' problems and burdens; he takes people from all walks of life under his wings, and he is rather protective of them. This, of course, clashes with his own tendencies to become angry and violent when he feels those he loves have been threatened. Now, when you marry the two ideas, as was the case with what Harry did here, you will have James bashing himself and his own son as a consequence. He thinks he is inadequate because his son felt the need to endanger himself to save his parents, and in the same breath, his expectations of Harry have been undermined because Harry subverted the need to be taken care of by his parents.
- Making a segue into actual child abuse here. I did some readings on the long-term effects of child abuse while writing Barty's POV, and you might find them interesting as well:
Long term consequences of child abuse and neglect
The Long-term Health Outcomes of Childhood Abuse
Signs you may be dealing with lingering effects of childhood trauma
Webmd adult survivors of child abuse
- Harry telling Draco "Here you are" is a recurrent motif. In HBT chapter 12 (Act III. Scene III), Regulus says the same thing when he finds baby Harry, and in the penultimate chapter, James tells Regulus the same thing once they reunite. The concept of presence and "being here" is also repeated in HFA and even engraved inside Reg and James' wedding bands.
- You are about to be witness to the most hilarious one-sided/slow-burn love stories of all time in the following chapters, so prepare accordingly, lmaooo.

Chapter 14: 14.—And your all-engulfing light is wasted on me—

Summary:

The beginning of the end

Notes:

Almost 13k.

Before you read this chapter, please make sure you've read the tags on the work and the series, take care of yourselves first.

I would also heavily recommend listening to the following songs to really get into the mood for this chapter:
- "Sweet Heat Lightning" by Gregory Alan Isakov
- "It Ain't Me Babe" (NOT THE BOB DYLAN ONE) by Joan Baez

 

14.—And your all-engulfing light is wasted on me—

—Stretched out on her bed, she could feel the hostile, alien, freezing dark pressed to the wall like the ear of a listening enemy. In the utter silence and solitude, she lay watching the mirror, waiting for her fate to arrive. It would not be long now. She knew that something fearful was going to happen in the soundproof room, where nobody could or would come to her rescue. The room was antagonistic as it always had been. She was aware of the walls refusing protection, of the frigid hostility in the air. There was nothing she could do, no one to whom she could appeal. Abandoned, helpless, she could only wait for the end.”

 

-Anna Kavan, ICE

 

...

...

1995

 

“Do you see now, how you’ve crippled me?” The words are torn out of him with the air that rushes out of his lungs. The pressure in his eyes, he feels, has not let up in days. 

“Do you see what you’ve done to me?” 

The eyes watch him prance through the dark room in wide strides, a cornered and caged animal on the verge of breaking. He can hear his own harsh breathing, breaking the tepid air, disturbing the unassuming motes of dust. 

“In a game of your making and his, I’m a pawn!” He is stuck in that moment of dysepiphany. Of a wretched, horror-struck moment of bleak realisation that never ends, “Nothing but a damn pawn! What’d you expect me to do now?”

He had to wait two days to let this rage out in rivulets. Two entire days with the words simmering and brewing in his guts like poison, rancid behind his teeth. It wasn’t like he could blurt it out in front of his son or to his unconscious cousin. Not like he could saddle James with it when the man was in over his head already. It's not like James didn't know. James knows. James knows everything that Reggie does and maybe even more. 

The aged man, his spectator, is standing behind his desk, his wrinkled hands settled on the back of his chair seemingly for support. His eyes do not gleam; they are as dull as the stabbing in Reggie’s guts, piercing him through his half-moon glasses.

“You knew the terms of our oath,” Albus tells him, bemusedly, “You agreed to them.”

“My child shares scars with me now. This is the relic I passed down to a son. From the same dagger, the same poisoned woman. I am being hunted like an animal, and I can’t defend myself! You caged me! You told me I can’t fight! Now my fifteen-year-old thinks he should do the fighting for me!” 

“It was an even exchange.”

“We need to annul it.”

Albus shakes his head at him, “You know as well as I that the Unbreakable Vow is only annulled through death."

“I don’t care—”

“Well, will it be my death or yours?”

The question is posed almost as a dare. And Regulus stills his maddened pacing, and there comes an immediate understanding that he is alone not just in the man's office with him, but alone in the dynamic that they have with each other. All those years ago, Reggie agreed to a deal with abandon, thinking that it didn't matter since he got to be with James and Harry anyway. 

Fourteen years later, he is reeling from that careless choice. 

Whose death will break things first?

“You tell me, Albus,” Regulus curls a shaking hand into a fist, “You promised me a peaceful resolution. You said he’d be weak. You said if we destroy his shit he won’t even come back and now he’s…”

“—he is on the verge of defeat,” Albus finishes for him, “And we are one step closer to his destruction. Harry came back with a Horcrux. This may be one of his last.”

No . Regulus looks at the man with utter disbelief. Dumbledore isn't an idiot, he knows the roots of Regulus' concerns.

Is he just pretending otherwise? Is he that blasé in the face of actual ruination and blunders? Or is it just that he hopes by downplaying the severity of Regulus' panic and its foundation, he can get his way quicker? 

Regulus is being played. Again. 

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Your concerns are valid, not unfounded. But Regulus, you need to understand that we have the higher ground. We are almost through with the Horcruxes with minimal casualties; we have secured a seer—”

It's not really that, Regulus thinks. No, Albus is not indifferent. It's just that things are going swimmingly for him. They may not be for Regulus or his family, but for the war effort? 

“You don’t need a seer for what will happen next,” Regulus snaps, lashing a hand at the man, brick upon brick building unsteadily on his mounting rage, “Do you want to know what he’s gonna do? He’s going to burn everything to the ground until he gets me again. And you’re going to sacrifice my fucking son like a lamb because he’s a Horcrux too! The only thing, holding you back from slaughtering Harry is your vow with me!”

Of course, it all makes sense now. Every little piece tucked together, a puzzle completed and yet deserted, up for interpretation and a grey space, muffled with the unspoken. He feels almost dirty, spitting the words out. Because this is exactly what Albus would want. He is playing a game with Riddle, and Harry and Draco and Regulus and James, they're all pawns up for grabs. 

Albus is not fighting a war. He is playing at it. 

“It all makes sense now! Of course, you wouldn’t mind me...  your burnt agent, your used rag, getting conveniently swept out of the way. You didn’t help James find me because you wouldn’t mind Riddle taking me again, giving me The Kiss, reaping my soul, raping me and torturing me and—”

“Regulus—”

“Because even a mindless, bloody match burns out eventually, right!? It’ll be a waiting game. Either he kills me in a moment of passion, or I bloody kill myself, yes? And then the vow is annulled, and my son, the very last Horcrux, can die while you live. And that’ll be that. Case closed. You’d end a war, just like that. We don’t have the higher ground. You have the higher ground. And if that's the light side's winning card, go on and tell me there’s any sense or goodness left in this world!”

His harsh breathing ricochets against the tense silence of the office. Albus has not ceased looking at him even once. His fingers twitch on the back of the chair, and he only looks away once Regulus glares at him dolefully. 

“I would never do that to you,” the man's voice is frail, quieter, than Reggie's anger, “You are more than an ally. You are a dear friend.”

Regulus doesn't believe him. In fact, he can't believe anyone; he can't take anyone at their word anymore. This stopped being funny the moment Riddle possessed his son. Everything that came after was a catalyst for a breakdown. 

The goblet, the Hufflepuff cup, sits gleaming gold in the near-dark of the office. A blazing ignition lay coyly between them. Regulus can smell the darkness stinking up the air around it.

“We made that deal—I made that deal before I knew Harry was detrimental to the outcome of this war. It's not fair! You—”

“I was as unsure as you were, we took a gamble—”

“No, you're Albus fucking Dumbledore, you don't gamble! You’re the most powerful wizard of our time,” he has no control left, “If you can’t annul a damn vow, what even is the point of you? If you can’t remove that wretched thing out of my son’s flesh without killing him, then what is the point of you?!”

“We had this conversation months ago as well, Regulus. My answers have not changed. You cannot burn evil with sheer magic alone. We can, however, take our time. We can keep the Horcrux, experiment with it. The Order promises you full protection in the meantime. Do you think that lowly of me? That I would let you be taken advertently?”

Yes . In fact, Regulus has been closer to distrusting and deploring Dumbledore than he ever was to the contrary. Any medium of control given to the man would be sheer lunacy. He knew that the moment he shook hands with the devil. 

Men with a following of any sort, were wolves in sheepskin, leading a bleating herd to their pack of ravenous compatriots. A bloody end either way. 

“I don’t want the Order’s full protection,” he bites out, “I want to fight a war that has my son in the centre. I don’t want my teenage son to feel like I’m a helpless damsel in need of his fucking heroism. I want you to fight that monster head-on like you did Grindelwald and win.”

“That is not possible, Regulus. As long as the Horcruxes exist, he will prevail.”

“So you're unwilling to do anything and you're telling me if I take any active part in what’s to come—”

“The magic will act accordingly.” The words are grim, firm, and almost irrevocably damning. It's not even a threat. It is a promise made nearly fourteen years ago, waiting for its fruition.

“Your death or mine, you said.”

“Things don’t need to be like this, Regulus. We are allies; we have a common cause.”

“You haven’t protected my son or my husband,” Regulus almost laughs, “You didn’t get rid of Quirrell or the Basilisk, or Pettigrew or Malfoy when he kidnapped my child right from underneath your nose. The only thing this goddamn vow is doing is keeping you from actively trying to kill Harry.”

These past two days, he'd been laying his head down on his pillow, looking at himself in mirrors around the house, restless with the need to acknowledge the impossible, tracing his scars and thinking of the words he is now hurling aloud. The truth, so blatant and unflinching has made its presence known, and just as it was ten months ago, when Draco uttered it for him, it is unfathomable.

The look Albus gives him is severe; he seems resentful of Regulus' judgement, “Harry’s decisions are his own, Regulus. Every single thing that you just mentioned is a consequence of his own choices. The terms of our vow were very clear in that regard.”

And it's true once again. 

“You don’t even need to kill me then to get me out of the way,” he says, bitterly, “You can just…persuade my son to kill himself right in front of my eyes.”

And Harry, sweet, unassuming, disgustingly innocuous, unaware of the world's cruelties, even after having been exposed to it…Harry would. If he's convinced that it'll end the war, that it'll make everything better, that it'll save his family, he would. He would apologise to Regulus and James, call himself a bad son, and cry and seek comfort in their embrace and he would still do it. A boy once so small, that Regulus could hide him from the world in his arms.

He can still hear James' wavering voice, reverberating against his eardrums, as he was scolding Harry for his carelessness, his tone fraught with the most genuine, unadulterated terror. 

“It does not have to be as such,” Albus softens his tone as the silence drags on, “You are frightened now, perhaps wrought with emotions, for good reason. We can always revisit this conversation when you feel calmer and more at peace. I am not the person you think I am, and you know just as well—”

“I’m pulling him out of school.” Regulus says, and all the fight in his tensed shoulders leaves him in a flash. 

He's glad he could convince James not to tag along for this visit. He's glad the man stayed with their son back at home. He would've never allowed himself to spiral like this had James been here, in fear of upsetting the man. 

So the decision, as pointless as it seems to be, comes to him easily. Harry had begged them so many times to stay home, he was so resentful that Reggie and James decided to send him here anyway. It was sapping the life out of him. 

Regulus should've done this years ago. 

“Regulus.”

He doesn't flinch, holding the man's gaze, “You’re never seeing him again.”

“I would suggest against this course of action. Perhaps we should consult James on the matter as well before you make any rash decisions.”

“I assure you, Albus,” he sneers, “I am not out of my mind with fright. And I’m not just keeling over. Because you’re as dangerous as Riddle when it comes to Harry's safety and life. You don’t care about us. You never did.”

If Regulus dies warding off either Albus or Riddle from harming his son, so be it. He is not just rolling over and letting these men play catch with his son's life. This was something that he made abundantly clear the night he left his old life behind. Albus knows that given enough incentive, Regulus will kill him. No matter the price he ends up paying, be it his own life. 

“I can call your husband for you.”

Regulus's sneer expands, pushing his cheek up and narrowing his eye, “I'm not some hysterical madman in need of a sedative or my partner. I am of sound mind. You know that.”

He's gone against this man once, empty-handed. He didn't even know Harry then. Regulus will slay any monster, of man's kind or otherwise, with his bare hands.

“You are accusing me of—”

“I’ve played these games before,” Regulus closes his eyes briefly, “You're not getting them. Harry and Draco both, they’re staying with us. Under our full custody. Even if I’m taken or killed. You’re not allowed to touch them. You’re not even allowed to look at them or sway them a certain way—”

“If Tom possesses your son again, you will need my help. Not to mention Draco’s unstable predicament. I can help you.”

Regulus shakes his head and fixes up his jacket. He's back to wearing this old thing again, the jacket James so lovingly got him to weather the storms. It's a stupid and small comfort, but Regulus needs it.

“I am done with you and this conversation if you can't help me annul the vow. It's pointless, talking to you is pointless,” he says and lifts his chin, “You will study that damn thing,” he gestures at the cup, “And once you have answers, maybe then we can revisit this conversation. I don’t want anyone at our house; I don’t want you meddling in our lives, I don’t want the Order castigating us over Draco's rescue. That poor lad is here to stay with us. That's it, Albus.”

“There’s something else.”

Regulus, who'd started to head back towards the floo stills. He throws a careless look over his shoulder. 

“What?”

“Something that has unsettled you,” Albus clarifies, “Perhaps pertaining to your past—”

Regulus ducks his gaze even though he knows the old man isn't reading his thoughts. There is a very specific feeling when one's mind is being penetrated. A forceful push, a physical tug. 

“Regulus, I will never read your thoughts or violate your mind,” Albus says, attempting to make his way to him, “Please, just sit down for a moment. Tell me what happened at Étretat.”

Missing memories. Giant gaps. Purely black spots. Familiar faces. A familiar hand, closing around his throat with murkish eyes. A glorious purpose that would go beyond being a pleasure slave. 

“Nothing for you to exploit.” Regulus looks at his feet and then defiantly up at the headmaster, “You are not entitled to my thoughts.”

“Well, I don’t see a point in continuing this conversation, dear boy. Not if you are unwilling,” Albus doesn't quite sigh, but he has the cadence of disappointment weighing down on his shoulders. 

Regulus reaches for the Floo Jar fixed next to the man's fireplace, “Not until you can get me what I want, Albus. I want to fight. And I don't want to be held up in a one-way vow. If you're truly my friend, you'd do that for me.” 

“You will get to decide when to come to me for help in the future, and I will be more than happy to oblige and respect your wishes,” Albus says instead of acknowledging his words, “Send my regards to young Draco. I fully suggest that he take advantage of his peculiar disposition to spread awareness about Tom’s return. Fudge will have to at least investigate the matter if Draco puts his foot down.”

Regulus fists his hand around the floo powder and steps into the fireplace, “If he makes such a decision, it will be his and his only.”

Albus nods, again, with a dimmed gaze, “I know. Take care, Regulus .”

Regulus' wrathful face seems to haunt the old man as the green flames lick at his body and he disappears in the whirlwind of fire. 

...

 

Regulus Black looks at him like he is a mirage, something not entirely tangible. 

Something mingled with guilt, with relief, and with the smallest amount of confusion. Draco finds it easy, being in his company. He’s known the man for a long time, even if the stretch of linear time and space begs to differ otherwise. Draco knows his cousin and his bouts of silence. He knows the weight in his clenched hands. The deliberation in the stiffness of his back as he sits straighter than a taut fishing line. He knows the weight of his seated body, containing a generation's worth of anguish. 

“It should stay in the cast for a few days, Poppy said,” his cousin utters, nodding his chin at Draco’s propped-up and cast-clad foot. “The flesh around the chain was badly deteriorated and infected, so now it needs time to regrow. Not to mention, the majority of your muscles have atrophied.”

Draco's body feels much lighter than the last time he was lucid, and in fact, he finds it rather easy to push himself up into a seated position. He is no longer dizzy and his vision is no longer impaired. The Orangery is lively around them, an overflow of pots and plants of all sizes, crowding them in the middle, and the scent of freshly watered soil pleasantly overwhelms Draco's senses. His cousin has been sitting here for a while, waiting for him to wake up, probably contemplating what the heck he should do with Draco hereon out. 

Draco looks back at the cast around his ankle and foot and then drops his gaze to his bare forearms. Unblemished skin. Almost painfully thin and skeletal, but unblemished. 

“How long was I out?” His own voice sounds unfamiliar, almost alien to his ears. 

“Five days, give or take,” Regulus responds calmly, “You are having a surprisingly swift recovery.” 

“You used magic to heal me.”

“There were hardly any other alternatives,” the man informs him dryly, “I assume your parents inhibited the medicinal use of magic. Poppy mentioned a prior incident with a hippogriff.”

It's very endearing, to hear the restrained rage in the man's tone when he refers to Draco's insufficient care. Almost as if Draco's parents didn't essentially sell their son to the Dark Lord. Almost as if Regulus' parents didn't do the same. 

Draco suffocates a smile and nods instead, relishing in the freshness he feels in his blood. Only magic can do that. 

“Yes, they were very insistent on purity ,” Draco swallows, surprised that his mouth is not parched, “Before…well, before. So the bed sores—”

“And the bruises and shallow cuts were healed as well,” Regulus confirms, though Draco didn't need him to. Bed sores are hardly dismissible. Their lack of presence was noted immediately. 

Draco traces his face with hesitant fingers, and Regulus clears his throat, “You also had a broken arm. Some intestinal and digestive damage, along with your kidneys. You are severely malnourished and dehydrated.” 

“Yeah, I was in a bad way,” Draco wants to laugh at himself. This is the worst understatement in the history of all understatements. 

Regulus raises a delicate eyebrow at him and his ironic smirk, “You had a high fever that worried us out of our wits for a bit. And a concussion that I think my son caused when he dropped you in our yard after you kissed him.”

His cousin's tone is very matter-of-fact, and yet still Draco's eyes widen a fraction, and he has to put every ounce of self-control into maintaining his calm demeanour. He feels a surge of blood, rushing to his cheeks as blurry memories of looping his arms around Harry's neck and deliriously kissing him lurch to the front of his mind. For the first time in his life, Draco had felt warmth against his lips. 

He pushes the pads of his fingers, gently down against his lips as though trying to facsimile the pressure, the warmth, the feeling, “Harry, right.” he says. 

The name is an entire sentence. It is made of multitudes. It has so many years and layers under its belt. So much love and adoration and anguish and even humiliation.

Harry did save him. This is real. Harry came and he scooped Draco out of his rotten grave and he brought him back here. 

“Rather heroic of him, yes,” His cousin still sounds rather bemused by the whole affair, “But you knew that already.” 

Draco shrugs a bit, smoothing a hand over Harry's blanket, still by his side in the cot, “Yes, maybe.” 

Did he know? Well, he'd seen it and that should've been enough. But Draco remembers the madness, the starvation, the wish he made there, wanting to die in the bed before Harry could see him. Near the end, Draco wasn't sure at all. And to be quite frank, he's been fabricating visions to fool Voldemort for so long, that even those old ones feel fake and unauthentic to him now. 

“You were very reckless, I don't quite understand how your sight works, but even still,” Regulus tells him, “You should have stayed with us, to begin with. You almost died. Had it not been for your magic, dehydration would have killed you long before the starvation. Harry was just in time. It almost came at a great cost.” 

There is something underlying in his tone. Not anger, exactly, but maybe lamentation, regret and—Draco ducks his gaze again, feeling his heart squeeze a bit because of uncertainty. 

Would they still keep him here? Logically that's the way it should happen. But the way Regulus is speaking…what if they decide to hand him over to Dumbledore? To hand him off to somebody else to deal with? Regulus doesn't sound pleased that his son was endangered to save Draco. Could his displeasure overpower his empathy?

“What will happen to me?” Draco asks meekly, and hates the way it sounds. He's not some pathetic child, terrified of being abandoned, but maybe in a broader sense, he is, “Are you guys going to get rid of me or—”

“Don’t you know already?” Regulus asks blankly. 

Draco shrugs again, blushing for a different reason. This is the third time he is speaking to his cousin in person in real life, and it's catching him off guard. The man is not exactly imposing, but there is a cutting edge to his tone and poise. Draco, who has grown up around other pureblood aristocrats, can not only mimic this demeanour, but also add his own brand of arrogance to it, as he has been for years. 

But Regulus is different. It's not for show. It's very naturally occurring and very prominent. It's also unmistakably intimidating.

“I'm not—” 

“You are safe with our family,” Regulus interjects before Draco can embarrass himself any further, “You will stay here as long as needed and no, we will not be handing a child over to the Order for exploitation, no matter how noble the cause may be.” 

Draco opens his mouth but Regulus lifts his hand very briefly from his crossed legs, “You don’t have to say anything.”

“Thank you for your kindness, cousin,” Draco says anyhow, and it's so hilariously strange. He can't remember the last time he thanked anyone for anything. 

Regulus acknowledges him with a nod and then stands from his chair, stretching his arms over his head with a groan, “You should stretch your legs too, lad.”

His shoulders notably drop and the intense frown on his face eases into an easy expression, even a soft one. It's almost as if an entirely different person has replaced his cousin in a matter of seconds. 

Draco startles at the change in his demeanour, but his cousin carries on, leaning over to shift the heavy covers off of Draco's body, “I assume by now you would want a shower first thing; we already made use of washcloths and cleaning charms but nothing like a shower will help wipe away that wretched place. Do you want to try walking?”

Draco's wide eyes follow the man's gentle hands, “You mean it?”

“Can I touch you?” 

Draco nods numbly as the man deftly helps lift and lower his legs over the side of his cot. Draco pushes himself over to the edge of the cot with fragile arms but he feels his cousin's arm, steady and surprisingly solid, supporting his back. 

Regulus leans towards the end of the cot and then bends to pick up what Draco immediately discerns as a cane. It's not like the ones Draco's Father owns; not made of harsh silver and overcrowded with elegant carvings. It does not exude power and intimidation. 

It has an arm support and a handle. The end is padded with something. It actually seems tall enough to accommodate Draco's height. 

“Poppy left this cane for you to use while the cast is on,” Regulus lets Draco touch the cane with care, “This bit will support your upper arm,” he shows, “And this is the grip. The rubber end will help prevent slipping. You only need it while the cast is on.” 

Draco's feet touch the soft rug, and he puts the smallest bit of weight on his cast. There is no pain. Just a weird pressure. He takes the cane from Regulus hesitantly and the man steps back, his hands fluttering almost like he wants to catch Draco from collapsing even though the boy is not even standing yet. 

Draco holds the cane while still seated, his grip is weirdly strong, this is the first time in months that he's sitting up and grasping something with this much strength. He feels weirdly human. 

“You can use it but if you don’t want it, James and Harry can carry you to places. I would but you are taller than me and my back usually doesn’t like lifting. It will be an all-around shoddy experience for us both.” Regulus says with a small huff. 

Draco tightens his hold on the cane, “Cane is fine. Thank you.” 

Regulus nods back at him with his lips pressed into a thin line. He helps Draco stand, and as he wobbles, he feels Regulus' arm on his back again, steady like a support beam, taking on his meagre weight. 

“Let's try walking, whenever you're ready.” 

Draco swallows, embarrassed that he needs help at all, but obliges when the man briskly yet gently instructs him to use the cane in tandem with his slow steps. Regulus was right in saying that Draco is half a head taller than him, but he still makes a genuine attempt at bracing Draco's awkward weight with his own body. 

Draco is astounded that he still knows how walking works, as absurd as the thought may sound. His feet still know how to strike the floor, how to balance his weight, how to give him gait. His throat closes up. One foot, then the other, though it's heavier, still follows. 

“We have a bathroom on the first floor, a bit past our study,” Regulus tells him as they slowly make their way out of the Orangery, Draco's heart is booming in his ears as he sees the corridor, registers the warm colours, and cosy decorations, the well-loved rug, “There’s another upstairs that the boys usually use. You can have this one all to yourself. I already started the bath for you and took the liberty of covering up the mirror,” they pause on the threshold of the corridor that leads inside the house, “I would recommend not checking the mirror in your state.”

Something familiar in his tone. A knowing pain. Draco wonders how horrid he must look for the man to remind him of himself. 

“Speaking from experience.”

“I am,” the man admits, helping him along the corridor into the main house, “The way you look now is not representative of the person you are. Just clean what you can, and we’ll figure out your hair afterwards.”

The last bit is said with a bit of reluctance and Draco pauses his hesitant stride, his hand flying up to the back of his head. It feels bare. Too bare. His fingers drag on a few stringy strands but—oh, he really has turned into something inhumane. Is this how he looked when he kissed Harry? No wonder the boy dropped him. Panic and disgust flare in his chest in waves.

“My hair…”

Regulus throws him a knowing look, not quite pitiful, but understanding the depth of his grief: “You were trapped on a bed for ten months, forced to lie in one position for the majority of it, so naturally, the back of your head took the brunt of it.”

“The hair’s gone.” Draco's breath catches, and his hand clutches at the remaining hair again, with dismay, he can only imagine how weird and disgusting it must be. Perhaps the castle keeper, Filch, would look better in comparison. 

“Not completely,” Regulus soothes, his own hand travels to Draco's head and carefully detangles Draco's fingers from his remaining hair, “—And we can regrow it. I am already starting on the base for a hair-regrowth potion; it should be ready by dinner tonight.” 

The heaviness in his chest doesn't lessen, but it occurs to him that it may be the first time an adult is commenting on his childish and vain concerns. The first time that they're being acknowledged. Draco grips his cane more tightly the rest of the way because if he doesn't, he might fall into a puddle and bawl. 

The Winbourne Manor is large, albeit both tidy and cosy in equal measure. The decorations are done mostly in warm and inviting colours. There are more plants than should be considered normal, lining the corridors and crowding the rooms. They pass an occupied kitchen, though Draco doesn't care to see who's inside, and then they walk by the living room. 

“There's only one of everything. We have three guest rooms upstairs, Harry's room and ours, with an additional bathroom. The house is not separated into wings,” Regulus explains when Draco frowns, “We own the property surrounding the house as well and it's very heavily warded. You can explore later.” 

Draco feels a mixture of deja vu and faint recognition. Because funnily, this is the place he'd always associated with the sense of homeliness. He doesn't need a tour. He doesn't need to explore. He knows the general layout of the house already, he knows the Orangery, the worn threads in the couch in the living room, the attic that stores most of Harry's toys and baby furniture. He knows the grounds and the property, the steady barks of trees. He even knows what the village looks like. Every room they pass is a reminder, a fond relic that has been rediscovered in his buried memories. 

They pass the study and stop by the bathroom; the lights are already on, and the door is ajar. 

Regulus opens the door fully and holds it open for him, “Here we are.”

Draco looks into the steamed-up bathroom and then over his shoulder, “Where’s Harry?” 

He knows it's not quite normal to enquire about it right before he is about to get naked and clean himself, but Draco can't contain the urge anymore. He feels anxious when Harry isn't near. Is he even in the house right now?

“On a firecall with his godfathers,” Regulus tells him easily, ushering him into the spacious bathroom. The tub, as mentioned by the man, is already filled with warm water; there is a shower attached and a curtain that has been pushed aside. Cleaning products neatly line the other side. Draco is so delighted by the sight he can weep. He sees the covered-up mirror too, fixed over a sink with a black cloth draped over it. It’ll fall with a simple tug, but Draco is glad the choice has been left up to him. He thinks his cousin was right in telling him not to check his appearance for now. 

He already hates himself more than he probably should. 

“Here are some clean towels, and those are Harry’s clothes,” Regulus points at a stool with the aforementioned paraphernalia, “I charmed them a bit bigger so they’ll fit you better, but if they still feel a bit snug or short, I can get some of James’.” 

Draco hobbles over, compelled to grab Harry's clothes and hold them near. Though, in his filthy state, he probably shouldn't sully the clean clothes with his grimy and bony and disgusting fingers. He's already ruined the ones he's wearing. 

Regulus straightens back up and steps away to clear up the view. “Here’s a step for the tub and a bar so you won’t slip,” He pushes a little foot-stool towards the tub with the tip of his foot and waves a wand over the edge, casting non-verbally, “Here’s the bar,” he gestures at the newly charmed bar installed over the edge of the tub, “And we’ve charmed the tub itself, so you can adjust the water’s temperature with a voice command, since you don’t have a wand.”

No one has ever gone to such an extent to ensure Draco’s comfort before. Draco closes his slightly open mouth with a silent snap and surveys the tub with misty eyes. He grew up in the lap of luxury, was treated like more of a commodity than a person, and had more money than he ever knew what to do with, and yet, this small bathroom with its charmed tub and foot stool is what gets him. 

“Thank you.” he says because he doesn’t have anything else to offer.

Regulus’ shoulders drop some more, and the man’s hand squeezes his arm, “I’m glad you’re safe. I really am. I wish you hadn’t gone through this in the first place.”

Draco squirms, wondering whether he should apologise again, “But you understand—”

“The cup has been secured for now,” Regulus cuts in, his eyes suddenly hooded with a bleak expression, “We had it for a few days, and then I…transferred it to Dumbledore.”

“It hasn't been destroyed?”

Regulus pauses, his fingers ghosting over his clothed forearm, he avoids Draco’s gaze, “Did you see us destroy it?” he asks, quietly. 

Draco doesn’t know what the man wants to hear. In all honesty, he’s not even sure the shit that he has swirling around in his mind makes any sense at all. If the man wants reassurance and certainty, Draco can’t afford to give it to him. That’s why he left them a letter in the first place, instead of just outright telling the man everything he knew. Every step he’s taken so far was one out of bounds, overstepping a line. 

“I’m not quite sure. The images in my head…are all over the place.” he worries his lip and hopes to Merlin that they won’t force him to recall things or put what visions he still has in any certain order. That won’t be any good now, will it? He’d still be a captive, still chained, still persuaded and coerced. 

If it would save Harry’s life, Draco would have done it at any cost, even his own life a thousand times. But it won’t. Draco’s hand trembles a bit on his cane and his cousin detects the movement instantaneously. 

“Don’t think too hard about it now,” he quickly reassures Draco, smoothing his face into a seamless mask once again, “Do you want me to stay?”

Draco wants Harry, quite frankly. And he’d take Regulus too. The man exudes a comforting and nurturing maturity that Draco never found in his own parents. He makes Draco feel his own age. Only fifteen. In fact, he finds that he wants to be acknowledged by his age around his cousin. But of course, he doesn’t tell the man that. 

“No, it’s fine,” he says, a bit unwillingly, “Thank you, Regulus.”

He doesn't need to hold his chin up, he doesn't need to put on a performance, he doesn't need arrogance like a cloak, hiding his true self. There is no true authentic self, and in the absence of Draco the performer, there's a clean slate and little else.

“You will overcome this,” the man tells him, “This won’t define the rest of your life.”

But it kind of does. The same way that all the shit that happened to Regulus is still dictating his life. Draco, of course, would never say this to his cousin’s face, so he just nods. 

“I know. Recovery and all that.”

He really wishes that Harry were here. What is so important that he needs to call his godfathers? Draco reckons that the boy doesn’t even know that Draco is awake. He seemed very invested last time Draco opened his eyes. He gave him water, fixed his blanket around him, told him ‘Oh, here you are,’ and assured him that no, Draco indeed was not dead.

He looks down at his dry cast while thinking of Harry, assuming that Regulus would sort of step out himself eventually, but the seconds drag on and his cousin is still in the bathroom with him. Draco lifts his head briefly and is startled to see Regulus’ piercing green eyes, staring into his.

“Regulus?” 

“I need to ask.” Regulus says. He doesn’t clarify. He doesn’t elaborate any further. But he doesn’t need to. Draco ducks his gaze, his face hot and his knees almost knocking into each other. He knows exactly what his cousin intends to ask.

“It wasn’t like that,” Draco whispers, looking down at the tiles, “They didn’t touch me like that.”

The only thing he did not have to endure. And what a blessing it was, that Riddle violated everything, took everything, but not even once had the inclination to take anything from Draco bodily. Draco knew that his parents weren’t exactly preparing him for such an occasion, but his Father’s mentality always was that it wouldn’t hurt. It wouldn’t hurt to be appealing, to entertain. It wouldn’t hurt to be an option. Draco knows that Lucius Malfoy once also said the same thing to a much younger Regulus. 

He’d asked whether Regulus preferred the torture to being desired. 

Thankfully, of course, Tom Riddle’s interest in Draco was far more pragmatic than his baser instincts. No, those instincts laid elsewhere, had been elsewhere for more than a decade now. 

“Are you sure?” Regulus sounds sincerely desperate, disgusted by the topic of conversation and yet forcing himself to have it, “You can tell me, Draco. I know exactly how isolating and even shameful it may feel but it's not your fault and—”

“I’m telling you the truth,” Draco says honestly, “It wasn’t like that at all; he just…wanted the visions, and he had easy access to them. So there was no need for force or, you know.”

There’s a beat and then his cousin’s shoulders, relax a bit more. It’s somewhat endearing and strangely familiar. Draco realises that this is a posture Harry also frequently copies. And then the realisation makes him miss the boy once more. 

“That’s a form of violation on its own,” he mutters and Draco fidgets, squeezing his cane.

“I suppose.”

And Draco thinks about what Regulus must feel right now, knowing that all those years ago there was nobody there, asking him whether he was defiled, reassuring him that he would heal and survive, that he wasn't alone. Draco bites his lip as he looks at his cousin, “I promise. Thanks for making sure,” he says. 

It's more to comfort Regulus than himself. He wishes the man had someone, a person as caring and as genuine and as inherently good as himself that night. Merlin knows it would've helped him exponentially. 

Regulus nods once, to himself, and then clears his throat,“We don’t need to talk about this if you don’t want to. I’ll let you be, shout if you need anything; I’m only a room over.”

“Cousin?”

Regulus hums absent-mindedly looking at him over his shoulder, half turned. Another gesture that Harry had adopted as his own, “Yes?”

Draco shrugs a bit, feels like an utter fool and decides to fling the rest of his nonexistent dignity to the wind, “Can you tell Harry I’m awake?” he asks, “He may want to see me before dinner.”

Regulus looks utterly unfazed by the pathetic request. He throws him a small smile and the corners of his eyes crinkle warmly, “Once you get out of the bath, I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see you moving around.”

Draco ducks his flushed face and clears his throat, “Yeah, thanks.”

The tub awaits him, almost mockingly, once Regulus steps out. 

...

 

It takes Draco about two and a half days to suss out the Potters’ family routine in its entirety. 

He realises that the household itself is experiencing some turbulent and unprecedented times, but he thinks that his observations so far don’t really point to any deviations from the routine he assumes to be the convention around here. 

James Potter is the first to wake in the house. Draco hears the man moving about the house at around five in the morning, he feigns sleep when he hears him dropping in to check on Draco, and is not that enthused to follow the man outside or to seek his company. It’s not really to avoid him, no. James Potter is not necessarily more intimidating than Draco’s cousin, and in fact, seems very harmless in comparison. It’s just that the air he exudes in Draco’s presence is rather meticulously neutered. 

He still seems unsure as to how he should feel about Draco being in his house and the circumstances of his arrival. He will warm up, that, Draco knows for a fact. 

James Potter is the man of the house, so to speak. He is the one who cooks and cleans, the one who hollers at Harry about emptying the laundry basket and the one who prepares the array of vegetable and bone broths for Draco’s meals. Draco, who is wildly unaccustomed to seeing a wizard physically fix a loo basin with a Muggle wrench—as was the scene that occurred right after his first bath the other day—finds James Potter quite intriguing, actually. James Potter is a man the way Lucius Malfoy isn’t. He is the sort of man any pureblood moron would call a countryside squib or a Mudblood-infested peasant, but this is not to say that he is a brute or a mindless muscled up idiot. He is actually quite smart, he’ll have to be, with the job he used to have and all. 

It’s not that he’s a different sort of man than Lucius Malfoy, Draco reckons. Perhaps, it’s just that the man emanates ‘Safety’ in a way that other Pureblood men just can’t. 

He stays out of James Potter’s way, and James Potter stays out of his. 

The mornings officially start only when his cousin wakes. Regulus, in contrast to Draco and James, is not at all a morning person. 

Once he does wake up, though, James Potter becomes surgically attached to his hip until the day is over. They either occupy the same space or are merely one room apart; when Draco is in the Orangery or the study, he hears the men’s muffled conversations, his cousin’s muted chuckles and James’ deep voice, instigating the jokes. He sees them in the corridors, and on his second afternoon here, watering the plants in the Orangery together. When Regulus brings Draco’s meals over to the cot, he sees James hanging by the entrance, observing his husband carefully. 

Draco wants to say that Regulus is sick by the constant attention and company, but no, Regulus, for his own part, seems to actually bask in every second of it. 

Draco hates that it makes him green with envy, seeing the men interact. His parents were never like that, no adult that Draco knows is like that, and he and Harry…aren’t like that. 

He hasn’t seen Harry at all. And it took him about an hour after waking up to figure that this was by design. 

The night of his first bath, as he was aimlessly wandering the house at the pace of a snail with his crutch, Draco heard James Potter from the kitchen, shouting, “Harry bring that damn laundry basket down! It’s been four days!” 

And from upstairs, he also immediately heard Harry shouting back, “Merlin, FINE!”

And his heart seemed to squeak in excitement and fear and pure exuberance at the boy’s voice. He couldn’t bring himself to brave the stairs alone and collapse and embarrass himself, and so he deigned to eagerly wait on the boy by the foot of the stairs, also anticipating the boy’s appearance with said laundry basket. 

He saw Harry’s bare feet striking the floorboards and then the stairs carelessly, a large overflowing basket masking his upper body and face as he raced down. Draco braced himself on the cane, reeling back with a tentative smile beginning to take shape on his ruined face. 

“Ha—”

Harry zoomed right past him. 

It’s not that he didn’t seem him, he side-stepped him quite cleanly, and it’s not that he was in a particular hurry seeing as that damn basket had been festering upstairs for four days already. The small smile froze on Draco’s face, and his shoulders dropped. He surveyed Harry’s back as it disappeared into a room by the kitchen. 

Harry has not made any attempts to look for him or speak with him since. He seems to dominate the second storey as it is out of Draco’s reach, and only emerges at mealtimes, rushing to the kitchen. Draco hears his voice from the Orangery, and every single time, it’s like the knife in his chest is being twisted. He rends his hands into his clothes, which are Harry’s modified clothes, and messes with his balding head, and wrings his fingers and pokes at his cast and feels the weight of the entire world crushing his back. 

He didn’t really sleep. He cried the first night after Harry did that to him, but the morning after and as the day progressed, he tried to distract and bash himself instead of pathetically weeping. Regulus showed him to the study and said he’s allowed to venture and choose any book he wants. 

Draco found a dried bug in a jar and some Muggle pens in the desk’s drawers, and some Muggle books lining the lower shelves. Draco chose a nonsensical poetry book and he has resigned himself to reading it even if it kills him.

That would be until this morning, when Regulus entered the Orangery a bit before nine and asked him whether Draco wanted to eat at the table with the others. Draco chucks the stupid book back in his cot and ignores the buzzing in his head. 

Potter senior has already set the table; there are numerous plates with fried bangers and bacon and scrambled eggs, nestled between them, rolls with the steam still swirling over them, scones that look just as bloody delectable as Draco had imagined them, and even a small saucer with cream, their scents are so tantalising and maddening that Draco almost regrets his choice. 

He is currently restricted to a very strict diet of broth and inhuman quantities of water.

Regulus pulls the chair back for him and pecks his husband on the mouth, muttering a disgustingly sweet good morning before slipping into his own chair. James Potter has a frilly blue apron on and a cuppa in one hand. 

“Morning, Draco,” the man greets casually, and Draco nods back, looking down at his knees instead of the food. Merlin, how he wants to savagely attack the table like an animal and tear into everything with his dulled teeth. 

James Potter hands the cuppa to Regulus and then deposits a bowl of porridge with syrup in front of Draco. It honestly looks fine, and so Draco resigns himself to tiny spoonfuls. Harry is yet to come down. 

Regulus tells James that he heard in him in the shower. And James mused aloud that he should probably make the boy his tea. 

Harry’s tea. 

Draco knows that. 

Harry’s tea. The smallest cube of sugar imaginable, with a dash of cream. Not more. Not less. It’s quite frankly ridiculous the number of times he’s seen himself make a cuppa like that. He’s not one to favor cream or sugar at all, and so the natural inference has to be that the smallest sugar in the world with a dash of cream is the way Harry likes it. 

James Potter deftly reaches for the sugar tin and takes out three cubes. Draco’s eyes widen.

“That’s not right,” he blurts out before he can stop himself.

“Pardon?”

“You’re sweetening it too much,” Draco says, lowering his spoon. “He likes it with less sugar and cream. Three is too many.”

Next to him, Regulus arches a brow and sips at his own disgustingly sweet concoction. 

James Potter looks affronted, “I’ve been making this tea this exact same way for at least thirteen years now—”

“And he never likes it,” or so Draco assumes, “He’s just too lazy to make a cup himself.”

This is not an assumption as much as it is an astute observation. Harry is too lazy to put any effort into taking proper care of himself. Weasley is the one who passes him food and dishes half the time they’re in school. Something that is seemingly a learned habit, if Regulus’ readymade plate is anything to go by. 

“And what makes you so certain about that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Potter. Maybe because you’re talking to a literal seer who also happens to be your son’s—”

Soulmate? Dare he say, significant other ? The love of his life ? Boyfriend at the very least?

“For the love of god. Just let the boy make his tea; I’m sure Harry will survive the experience,” Regulus cuts in before James Potter can snap back. Regulus sits up a bit in his chair and snatches the sloshing cup of tea from his husband’s lax hand, “Here you go, lad.” he slides the cup over to Draco with the sugar tin and cream, “Go crazy.”

James huffs and settles on his own chair, only silence because of the look of warning his husband darts at him. 

Draco takes the hot cuppa, and procedural memory takes over, he rummages the tin for the smallest cube he can find, a dash of cream, and then furiously stirs the tea with a tiny spoon, creating a small storm in the cup.

The only empty chair is the one next to Draco and he can hear Harry approaching, just as he deposits the cup in front of the vacant chair. 

He hears the heavy steps, padding into the kitchen, right behind him, a loud yawn, “Morning.” 

“Cover your mouth when you yawn, Harry,” Regulus tells the boy without looking at him, “You weren’t raised by wolves.”

“Well, technically—”

“Don’t get smart with me.” Regulus glares halfheartedly over Draco’s head at his son. 

Draco is gripping his spoon so hard that he swears the metal is going to bend. The chair next to him cringes against the floorboards as it is pulled back, and Harry plops down, a damp towel around his neck. Draco stuffs his mouth with the hot porridge, still unwilling to look at the boy.

Harry yawns some more and stretches his arms over his head. He even leans over to pinch a piece of bacon off the towering pile, and his father clicks his tongue at him again, “We use cutlery in this house, Harry.”

Harry grumbles and reaches for the cup of tea, tilting his head back for a long swig. Draco forces another mouthful of the porridge down his throat, staring at the boy from the corner of his eye. 

“How’s the tea?” Regulus asks his son amusedly. 

“I don’t know... good?” Harry shrugs, and then takes another appreciative sip, “Oh, nice, actually. Not saccharine at all.”

“Draco made it for you.”

Harry chokes on his tea immediately, banging his hand against the table as he hunches over and coughs, his face red from sheer effort or the choking maybe. Draco looks at Harry with wide eyes, and Regulus reaches over to pat his son on the back.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Regulus asks, about to stand. 

Harry grunts and holds up a hand, still coughing as he straightens back up, “Fine,” he croaks and clears his throat, “Sorry. Ehem.”

“Alright,” James says very slowly, and exchanges a funny look with his partner. 

Draco notices that Harry avoids the cup as he piles up his plate. Now, instead of being sad, he’s actually angry. Maybe Harry should have choked on that tea. Honestly, he would have deserved it. 

Now that Harry isn’t actively dying anymore, Draco’s mind actually strays to all the good food laid out in front of him again. He knows the Potters aren’t exactly forbidding him, or actively tormenting him by withholding food. He hasn’t eaten anything particularly solid in about ten months, even a single bite would make him hurl for hours, he is quite aware. 

But Merlin be damned, did James Potter have to be so good at cooking?

It must be at least five minutes after the ordeal, as Regulus tries to reach the plate of bite-sized berry muffins with his fork. Draco watches as James intercepts his husband’s attempts, lifts the plate of muffins and picks one up, “Here, let me get that for you, love.”

And then he brings the muffin over and holds it for Regulus to eat. Regulus takes the bite and hums his thanks at James, who throws him a smitten grin, reaching for another muffin. Draco’s mouth falls open, aghast, as he gapes at his cousin. 

“What was that?” he exclaims. 

Regulus, still chewing the muffin, looks at him with wide eyes, confused. “What?” he asks while chewing.

“He's not an invalid.” Draco addresses this to James, who seems just as wildly surprised that Draco is speaking up, “Why did you do that?” 

“I—”

“They hand-feed each other for fun,” Harry cuts in, “Welcome to our family meals.” 

“Oh, wow.”

“Yup.” 

“What!?” Regulus protests. 

“That is so unbecoming of you, cousin. Dear gods. I don’t know whether to be enamoured or outraged.”

“Well—”

“I call it the rainbow vomit effect,” Harry muses darkly over his eggs, “Adorable but also gross.” 

“Well, I’ll have you know, lad,” Regulus says hotly,  “You’ll understand once you find someone you love, it’s an act of service—”

“See,” Harry rolls his eyes, pointing at his dad with his fork, “The harder you want to justify it, Papa, the worse it gets.”

An act of service. Draco leans back in his seat, musing down at his porridge. Now in his cousin’s place, he imagines himself and Harry, over this very breakfast spread, maybe a lazy morning, with the brisk winter sun filtering into their kitchen just so, with the tea made the way Harry likes it. Draco imagines Harry picking up the plate of muffins, teasing Draco with it. 

Draco wouldn’t mind that at all. He’s earned this, hasn’t he? It’s an act of service. Harry can be attentive and loving. He can get him scones. Well, maybe not the buttery scones yet. 

He eyes the plate of fried bangers longingly. 

“Now, son—”

“Can you pass me a banger, please?” Draco interrupts James as he turns to ask Harry this, forcing himself to look into the boy’s striking green eyes.

“Why?” Harry returns his fragile question with an indifferent confusion, and turns to his plate, “You can’t have any yet.”

Draco smothers the urge to hit the boy with his cane. 

“I just want one.”

Harry drops the fork on his plate. “You’ll get sick!”

Draco slams both hands against the table top, rushing to his feet to tower over the boy, “Just hand me a goddamn banger on a fork, you git! I’m not asking you to turn a pebble into gold!”

“Get it yourself, it’s literally within reach!” Harry rages back at him, “You don’t even have to lean over anyone—”

“Urgh!” Draco cries out and shoves his chair back, he reaches for his cane in a flurry, “Forget it! I’m leaving!” he screams and scrambles away from the table, awkwardly limping towards the Orangery.

“What did I do!?” is the last thing he hears Harry exclaim behind him as he storms out. 

 

...

 

Draco’s trials and tribulations with Harry are not over, because the same afternoon, as he painstakingly makes his way to the second floor and towards Harry’s room, he sets out on a mission. 

The boy wants to be a git? Fine. he wants to be an ignorant little twat who doesn’t respect or even like Draco? Great. 

Draco can make-do with the boy’s clothes and casual belongings until he hits his head on a rock and is ready to be in an actually committed relationship. They don’t talk, he doesn’t even look at Draco, and when he does talk to him, all he does is yell like some hooligan. 

Draco just wants a shirt, the blanket is starting to lose Harry’s scent and Draco can’t sleep at night and Harry is being a twat right now anyways. So a shirt. A singular shirt. He doesn’t ask for much. He misses being…near Harry. He only remembers bits and pieces from his rescue, he barely remembers flying in the air, with his head nestled against the boy’s neck. He misses it. 

And Draco doesn’t care if Harry regrets saving him, and if that’s why he is ignoring him now. He can pretend. He grew up thinking he was insane. He knows how to daydream. How to lean his head against the cot and imagine that they’re still in the air, and Harry is still holding him. 

He expects the room to be empty because he hasn’t heard Harry moving around in the house all day. James and his cousin are off in the living room…doing whatever, and so Draco is undisturbed in his journey. He takes in Harry’s messy room with a bitterly fond smile. His hip hurts a bit, limping all the way up, but this is worth it. 

He doesn’t disturb Harry’s rumpled and unmade bed, and as much as he wants to, doesn’t approach his study desk either. He heads to the chest of drawers where Harry keeps his everyday clothing and sets out on his quest.

“What are you doing?” he hears the moment he opens the first drawer. 

Draco stifles his hammering heart in the guise of a sneer, “What does it look like, Potter?”

“It looks like you’re rifling through my clothes.”

Yeah , Draco rolls his eyes. He will not be embarrassed about this, and his cheeks definitely aren’t flaming, and he is entitled to these clothes if anything. His cousin and his giant hunk of a husband share clothes all the time. And it’s not like Draco has anything else to wear. 

“Well, terribly sorry that I left my house with nothing but my uncle’s stolen, dirty coat off my back, that was my oversight; should’ve packed before we left—”

Harry snaps his mouth shut, his own cheeks flushed, “Okay, I get it.”

“I want to shower,” Draco lies, “So I’m picking out clothes, if you don’t mind. My cousin said you were fine with it—”

“You showered this morning, though."

“Yes, after having not done so for ten months, you’d also find that washing the copious amount of filth off your body ought to take more than one wash.”

Draco returns to the heap of unfolded clothes bulging out of the drawer to avoid Harry’s eyes. Why does he have to be so damn insufferable, he thinks and his heart twinges both in annoyance and also sorrow.

“Okay, whatever, Merlin.”

Harry moves behind him, standing watch over Draco’s shoulder as though Draco is attempting to rob him. Well, he technically is, but still.

Draco tries his best to ignore the boy’s presence behind his back as he rifles through the clothes, his hand grasps a bit of torn fabric, “What is this?” he pulls it out by the collar.

“An undershirt?” Harry rolls his eyes.

“It’s in tatters! Dear Merlin—”

“Just!” Harry rubs his forehead and takes a deep breath. “Get your things and get out!”

Draco makes a face at the boy and drops the so-called ‘undershirt’ to snatch a pair of…

“And these pants…why does it have so many holes—”

“You’re doing this on purpose. Put those back in!” 

Flabbergasted, Draco chucks the pants in favor of the blotchy and black-stained trousers, “What even is this? Did you physically assault a squid?”

“My bike trousers—That’s motor oil.”

“You just put it in with your regular clothes—”

“What are you, my Mother?”

“No, because if I were, this wouldn’t have been the state of your room!” Draco screams and throws the questionable jeans at the boy as he fumes. 

“Get out of my face!” Harry yells back at him, balling the jeans up with both hands.

“Fine!”

“Brilliant!”

“Fantastic!” Draco stuffs both arms in the drawer and pulls back a pile of wrinkled clothes in his arms. He doesn’t even want to sort through them anymore. Screw Harry Potter, he drawls in his head and heavily leans on his cane, feeling awkward and tilted as he manages the mound of clothes at the same time.

“Enjoy your shower!” he hears Harry shout at him as he shuffles out of the room.

“Maybe I will!”

 

...

 

Regulus knows James is up to something. It’s not that James is doing anything frivolously over-the-top to prevent Regulus from knowing that he’s up to something. After fourteen years of domestic life, there’s very little that they can actually hide from each other. 

“They’re going to kill each other,” Regulus comments, wiping Collin’s leaves with a small, damp rag and looking up at the ceiling where the shouting is coming from. 

James waves it off, pushing a Sudoku booklet with a pen in Reggie’s hands instead, “They’ll be fine! Friends, in no time. Malfoy’s offspring probably even saw it coming.” 

“Uh-huh.”

James takes the rag from him and throws it over his shoulder, where it pops into nonexistence with a small shower of sparkles. Regulus takes the Sudoku with a smile, “Are you being sneaky?” 

James puts an offended hand to his chest, “Me? Sneaky? Do you even know your husband?” he starts ushering Regulus back in their living room towards the couch, “Why never in my thirty years—”

“You’re thirty six—”

“That’s essentially the same.” 

Reggie smirks, “You’re closer to forty than you are to thirty.”

James playfully bumps him back into the couch and flips the booklet open, “Just—Do your puzzles until six thirty.” 

He thrusts the pen back at Regulus and drapes the folded quilt they keep on the cushions over his lap.

“What’s happening at six thirty?”

“You’ll see.” James drops a kiss on his head and saunters out of the room, “Stay though! Please.”

Regulus appreciates this. Things have been quite strained as it is this week, their fallout with Dumbledore and the war aside, they’ve been so busy handling Draco’s health, they barely had any time for each other. Regulus can’t even remember the last time he had a session with Margery. 

It’s probably not a good thing. 

But this is nice. Regulus likes the Muggle number puzzles, and he can’t hear the boys shouting bloody murder at each other anymore, so no one is dead, hopefully. He hears James shuffling around in their kitchen and then going outside a few times, but the puzzles occupy him exactly until around six thirty before he starts to feel peckish and therefore a bit curious. 

“Hey,” Harry ducks his head into the living room, “Dad is doing a thing again, he said go check your room and then head out.”

Regulus shakes his head at the boy and then slips out of the living room with ease, “Don’t torment that poor boy,” He calls over to Harry, who waves him off and drags his feet to the kitchen. 

New clothes on the bed. A crisp white button down, ironed moleskine trousers, and even Regulus’ barely used cufflinks. The note lovingly laid on the clothes reads: Head down to our oak tree. Do NOT sneak a look through the curtains.

Something in Regulus’ chest aches as he obediently changes out of his house clothes into the outfit. He doesn’t think about how this may be one of the last times they get to do this. He slips a little surprise into his pocket for James and puts on his socks and dress shoes, because why not. 

He can see the glow of the floating little lanterns even before he opens their front door. He smiles at the orange glow that lights the path straight into their yard, past the vegetable patch and towards the oak tree. The snow’s been melted, the grass looks crisp, and Regulus can’t actually feel the winter’s biting chill at all. 

He never walked down the aisle with James. It’s not a wizarding tradition to begin with, as opposed to a Muggle one. But when he sees James waiting for him by the tree and a table he’s charmed and set under the tree’s shade, he feels as though he is walking down an aisle. As absurd as it may sound.

“Hi.”

“Hello, you,” James grins back, his hands clasped behind his back, “You look gorgeous tonight.”

“Someone left these on the bed and asked for them to be worn, so I suppose I don’t look too shabby. Are those—”

James retracts the flowers from behind his back and holds them out. 

“Carnations.”

They are carnations. Red-tipped white carnations. Carnation Olympia. These are his absolute favourites. Regulus inhales their spicy scent, they almost smell like cloves. James ushers him to a chair—one of their kitchen chairs—and Regulus muffles a chuckle at the boyish gait his husband has as he circles the table to deposit the carnations in a vase already filled with water. 

“Already put in your sugar and vinegar concoction and a stabilising charm on the vase, before you ask. These will not wilt under my watch,” James flashes him with a blinding smile and slides into his own chair. The lanterns congregate around them in a circle now, and Regulus drops his chin on his propped-up palm.

“Candlelight dinner and Carnations. You haven’t changed one bit, Potter.”

“We haven’t had a date in a hot minute,” James defends, shifting the vase carefully so he can see Reggie’s face, “Is it a crime now to spoil my husband? Do you like them? Ran back to the village in a stitch to get ‘em. But you know I did notice something, love.”

Regulus picks up a fallen petal and turns it over in his hand, “Yes?”

James leans over his elbows, closer to him, his hair has been combed and mussed back, his own shoulders straining against the formal shirt he’s wearing, “You never grow these things in the Orangery.”

“Well, if I do that,” Regulus shrugs, his head is a bit light already, “You’ll have no excuse to get them for me.”

It’s true. He loves it when James gets flowers for him. He used to do it a lot more when he went to the office, but Regulus can make some concessions. Their lives have been crazy lately. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over receiving things from James. 

“Genius ploy, worked wondrously,” James chortles, he leans over the rolling trolley he’s got parked next to their small table, to fish out two wine glasses and a bottle. 

“A drink?”

“White wine,” Regulus hums, narrowing his eyes, “We’re having fish.”

“Cod in a bed of lemon and thyme,” James confirms, two platters with silver cloches float over the table from the trolley, “I am becoming too predictable.”

Regulus takes his drink from James and takes a generous swig. “Do the boys have dinner?”

“Yes, yes. Broth on the stove, and I did fillet some fish for our own brat.”

“Good,” he lifts the cloche and closes his eyes in delight, “Oh, I’ve missed fish. You know I love cod.”

Of course, James knows. It’s redundant to even utter it aloud. Regulus can appreciate and savour a good drink, but the cod truly sounds heavenly. He has to force himself to refrain from rubbing his hands together eagerly like some thief or fruit fly. 

James chortles into his drink as Regulus readily digs in, moaning at the way the flavourful white meat melts on his tongue. It has a strong lemony and herbal taste, and there’s a dash of black pepper. This man truly does know him too well.

“Moaning over the fish,” James sighs, “Clearly, I’m doing something wrong in bed.”

“You’re right,” Regulus washes the fish down with some wine, “You should also marinate yourself with lemon and thyme. So,” he glances at the man teasingly, “What occasion did I forget about?”

The smile becomes a bit stale on his face as he refers to his own dodgy memory. He lowers the fork but perks up before James can ask. He won’t ruin the moment, not tonight. 

“Life has been too hectic recently,” the man tells him, knowingly, “I’d missed the slow moments. You adore the slow moments. Now, a war is no reason not to get your husband flowers and dinner.”

The last dinner. The last date. The last month. The last year, that they get to do this. This is their final slow moment. The last dance. 

Regulus feels the fish almost coming alive and writhing in his throat. James is right, their lives have not been slow at all recently, and they will never be from here on out. He extends a hand over the table, and James readily takes it, playing with the wedding band that shines under the lantern’s light.

“You know exactly what I need when I need it,” he smiles, memorising the plains of the man’s face, the wrinkled corners of his crinkling eyes, the smile lines and the subtle grey that dusks his hair. 

“I’ve had years to watch and learn,” James kisses his fingers and cranes his neck over the table, “Now what’s that in your pocket?”

Regulus wiggles his hand free and pulls out a tiny square tin that was crammed in his pocket. It’s a container that his husband knows quite well and quite fondly, and one they make use of approximately every three weeks,  “Well, I saw the outfit on the bed and figured my husband needed a little treat.”

“Did you, now?” James snatches the tin from him with a cackle. 

“Why won’t you find out?”

“Don’t mind me if I do—”

The lanterns brighten James’ face in the most beautiful light as he smiles. Regulus makes sure to memorise that too. 

 

...

 

He’s crying into a shirt like a little bitch. 

He has no emotional connection with said shirt other than the fact that it is Harry’s. He has no reason to cry other than the fact that Harry hates him and wants to avoid him and probably regrets saving him. And he can see the boy’s parents outside on their little date from his cot, and it’s making him think about hallucination Harry , and how he misses him and how this real Harry will never look at him like that. 

Because nothing is the same as it was supposed to be, and he’s not seeing anything new, and he can’t even tell if the old images are the real images or the fake ones he fabricated to avoid ruination. 

The shirt doesn’t even smell like Harry. It’s a scam. 

He wipes his face and nose with the red tee-shirt and to his mounting horror, he notices the sound of footsteps, approaching the Orangery. He quickly stuffs the shirt under his butt and pulls the blanket over it, sniffing and wiping his nose with the collar of his other stolen shirt which he is wearing. 

“Draco?”

“Oh, great.” Draco burrows his head into the shirt and rolls his eyes. 

“You’re crying,” Harry states the obvious, the moron, “Does anything hurt?”

What does he expect Draco to say? That yes, he has a skinned knee? That he didn’t like the way his broth was seasoned, that he felt the breeze against his almost-bare scalp? 

“It’s fine,” he says, playing with a frayed thread sticking out of Harry’s blanket. He expects the boy to be satisfied with his lacklustre answer, or to grow frustrated again and leave. But Harry steps fully into the greenhouse, fidgeting with his hands. 

“Have you had dinner yet? Dad left you some broth on the stove; I can heat it up for you.”

“It’s fine.”

“I know it sucks,” Harry is almost close enough to touch him, if he reaches out a hand, “But you can probably move to solids in a few days and the cast will come off in two or three days too. Sorry about the banger today."

Is that why he thinks Draco is upset? Some stupid sausages? 

Draco glares up at Harry and twists his mouth, and the gestures come to him so easily that it’s laughable, because he did spend nearly four years bullying Harry and vehemently refusing the idea of even entertaining the possibility of having him as a friend. Now the second he started losing his shit and wishing to be saved by the boy, Harry suddenly has realised that he doesn’t want it anymore. 

“What are you doing?” he asks Harry.

“What do you mean?”

“What is this?” Draco throws his hands up, “Do you think you’re comforting a child? My mother is dead . I was tied to a bed and…for ten months!” 

There’s a beat, and Harry dampens his lips, awkwardly dragging his gaze away. Draco hates that he can’t even be mad or upset at him. He is so delusionally in love with him already that he can’t even do any wrong in Draco’s eyes. Against all reason and all logic, and even sentimentality. 

“Ah, I see.”

But does he? 

“I’m ruined! And I look hideous and my hair all fell out and I’m alone and have nothing to my name and no wonder you—”

“Do you want a hug?” Harry cuts him off. His voice is soft, non-combative, and as Draco looks at the boy’s face once again, he sees something faintly alien in his eyes. Something akin to regret but heavy with grief. 

“What?” he breathes. 

“Do you want a hug?”

“You want to touch me?” Draco feels revolting, he wouldn’t even touch himself if he had the option to avoid it. Showering and bathing himself three times a day is not enough. Nothing can erase the monster he’s become. Regulus was wrong, this will define the rest of his life. 

Harry’s brows pinch in a frown, “There’s nothing wrong with you; why wouldn’t I? I carried you in my arms for like six hours, and you were just fine to touch.”

A hug. Draco wasn’t entirely lucid the first time they hugged. He’s draped his body over Harry’s before, taken a beating from him before, was knocked out next to him in the Chamber of Secrets before, but never hugged or embraced by him. 

“Yes,” he drops his arms and closes his eyes, waiting for the arms to come, trapping him in place, grounding him when the entire world is spiraling out around them, “Yes, a hug. I would appreciate, really—I want a hug.”

Draco really, truly, needs that fucking hug.

Notes:

- The quote is from Anna Kavan's novel "Ice". It's a wonderful book, if you guys are into surrealist and post-apocalyptic works that dabble in eco-feminism, this is the book for you. The reason why I chose this quote in particular was not to allude to SA itself, but the anticipation of something horrifying yet inevitable. I fully recommend reading the novel.
- I don't do character bashing or cheap villain arcs for characters, including Dumbledore. He is a manipulator; he will do whatever it takes to end this war, but he would be an idiot to outwardly reflect such a thing. His argument with Regulus is Reggie's moment of realisation, where he sees the humanity and also the "inhumane" cloak surrounding Albus.
- Also the word "Dysepiphany" I suppose is a word since Google is showing results, but I don't think it's an actual word. The meaning, as I utilized it, is a moment of horrible realization, when the dawning realization is bleak and very negative.
-Annulling an Unbreakable vow is only possible thru death and I am SO damn excited to fully use this plot point lmaoooo
- Regulus' reference to mirrors comes from HBT where he also has a severe reaction after seeing his own face in the mirror after so long.
- "Telogen effluvium" is the name of the condition that Draco has and the cause of his hair loss.
- James over-sweetens Harry's tea because that's the way Regulus takes his tea.
- There's more stuff but they may be spoilers for future chapters so, have fun digging thru those lmao
- I LOVE all your comments and will reply to them very soon!
- Happy reading~~

Chapter 15: 15.—Yet, you are blind—

Summary:

Awakening, of various kinds.

Notes:

A short (8k), fluffy chapter with a pinch of impending doom on the side, the calm before the storm, so to speak.

I wanted to originally update on April 1st but my OCD had other plans.

Check the tags and the warnings, please, though there's nothing too harrowing in this chapter.

15.—Yet, you are blind—

...

 

By hardihood to rise and fear to strike,

And fitly to rebuke his sins decrees,

That, hide from others with what care he please,

Night sha'n't be black enough nor earth so wide

That from himself himself can ever hide!

Hard fate indeed to feel at every breath

His burden of identity till death!

No moment's respite from the immortal load,

To think himself a serpent or a toad,

Or dream, with a divine, ecstatic glow,

He's long been dead and canonized a crow!

 

-Ambrose Bierce, A Vision of Doom, Coward

...

 

 

...

1995

Two things can simultaneously be true. 

Draco Malfoy is feeling better than he has arguably ever felt in his entire goddamn life. 

And he has been avoiding sleep or lying down for so long that he feels like his head is going to pop like a balloon. 

There is this thing that has been happening with his body ever since it registered that all was truly well and that he no longer had to be running on all fumes just to survive. Now that mere survival is not the only thought clouding his mind and actions, now that he no longer has a fever, infected wounds, or is not on the verge of drying up like a prune, his body is starting to feel all the pent up trauma barrel into him, full-force;  a pulled back punch that rams into his chest with little restraint or mercy, again and again until his ribs and lungs cave in. 

He can’t sleep because he’s been lying down and chained to his bed for ten months, even the mere idea of conceding to the act of lowering his body in a horizontal line throttles him now. It’s almost like he feels the pain and pressure on the back of his skull. The panic is overwhelmingly present and against reason. It is stifling, all-encompassing. He feels it in the dusty crevices of his broken body as intensely as he does at the forefront. It blooms in his chest and then immediately mutates into something monstrous. 

He tries to self-soothe, tries to reason with himself; his cot isn’t even technically a bed, and the Potters certainly aren’t chaining him down. He has his own space, and they are very respectful about him feeling safe in said space. He has his own bathroom, Harry’s clothes, he has access to the kitchen and the pantry, he can do the whatever the fuck he wants. Regulus even allowed him access to his and Potter's bedroom: 

“Any time that you feel like you need something, don’t hesitate to knock and wake us. We’re light sleepers.” 

They cannot be louder or clearer in embracing Draco into their home. There are so many wards surrounding the place that Draco can feel the thick viscosity of magic in the back of his damn throat. He can even sleep on the porch or by the vegetable patch for all these people care. 

And yet, he can’t. 

Every time his head hits the pillow, he’s back in that hell again, and the door is closed, and he can see a sinister silhouette, sneaking in from underneath and stretching its claws towards the bed, crawling up his ankle, up his torso and putting pressure on his throat. And there is that sharp and familiar pang through his eyes, and it feels like every single thought is being scrutinised and rifled through. 

He finds himself naturally tending to avoid even entertaining certain thoughts. He finds himself ducking his gaze in conversations like a timid animal. He finds it difficult to speak cohesively or keep a stream of thoughts in his mind. He finds himself altering and purposely changing the trivial memories he has as they form. It’s driving him insane. 

And the nightmares are self-explanatory. 

When his body was too weak to protest sleep, it came easily and painlessly; it came in thickets and swaddled him whole. 

Now it wants to seduce him again, and he, the burnt child, is terrified of its inevitability. 

He’s been attempting to sleep upright, sitting up with his back firmly braced and his hands closed into fists, ready to struggle and fight. He tries it with the couch in the Orangery, with the armchair in the study, and the loveseat in the living room. He’s tried it on the kitchen chair, over his porridge during breakfast; he’s tried it in the bathtub, staring down at his hatefully emaciated and gaudy body. 

It’s not working; sleep won’t come while he is upright and he cannot lie down. He knows it’s not working. He knows he’s going to run himself into the ground and cause more trouble for his ‘host’ family, so to speak. He knows.

But in tandem with this problem, there are perks. 

Harry is no longer avoiding him. When he hugged him the other night, Draco felt safer than he had in years. They fit, he knew, he belonged there; he remembered the warmth of the touch as it closed around him in an embrace. He knew Harry’s scent, he knew what it would feel like for his cheek to lie perfectly atop Draco’s head, almost caressing it. Harry gave admittedly good hugs. Draco never had the heart to tell him that he’d never been willingly embraced before. Being embraced is only something he surveyed from afar with envy, even in his own visions and deluded daydreams. It was something entirely intangible and unattainable. And yet, here Harry was, drawing Draco’s body against his own as if it were made to be folded into a hug. 

Granted, it lasted about ten seconds, but Draco cherished every moment of it. 

No words exchanged between them. Just that touch. A hug. 

And things have been good since, concerning Harry. Sure, the boy still doesn’t quite know how to act around him, oscillating between adopting a fidgety and agitated stance that he was accustomed to in Hogwarts and being awkwardly caring and attentive, as he is here in the comfort of his own home now. He seems to be under this impression that his social contract with Draco no longer consists of a charged rivalry as it did in Hogwarts and, in fact, seems to presume that the Draco in Hogwarts was a different entity than whatever form his character is comprised of presently. 

Draco is in no particular hurry to correct him; he is relieved that he is no longer part of a performance. He is elated that Harry doesn’t seem to hate or regret saving him. Draco is content to be whatever Harry wants him to be.

Now, two days after the fateful hug, and the morning after Draco’s cast was finally taken off, Harry is the one who walks in on Draco in his fatigued state, as he is trying to make sense of the gibberish poetry book he’s been slaving over to understand. He couldn’t sleep the whole night—not even a wink. He was busy, either jittery because of the embrace or outright terrified of falling asleep for obvious reasons. He kept watch of the faded red ring of agitation around his ankle where the chain used to be. He thought about how things weren’t quite right.

It must have been more than a week since he was rescued, and yet no response comes from the Dark Lord. Nothing that Draco can predict either. In many ways, his silence is worse. He is waiting, holding his breath. It’s something that only he and Regulus seem to share. Draco is scared and Regulus seems resigned, but at the end of the day, there’s no difference between them. A brave man is no better than a coward in outrunning the unescapable. Draco doesn’t have the heart to tell the man that valour won’t mitigate the carving on a stone. Nine days pass with the cadence of a decade, and his relief and dread go hand in hand. 

Harry doesn’t comment on the notable bags under Draco’s eyes and doesn’t throw any snarky remarks about Draco looking like he’d just climbed out of a rubbish bin. When they walk to the kitchen together, Harry takes one look at the breakfast set on the table and turns to his father. 

Now Draco doesn’t want to sound vain, but he thinks in his heart that maybe, just maybe, Harry does this because he sees the way Draco’s face falls seeing all the delicious food. This is somewhat like a test, for Draco. Maybe one of endurance because he has been told time after time these past few days that he needs his stomach to get used to solids again. It’s nothing personal. It’s no big deal. Nothing they can speed up with potions or some such. 

Regulus actually spoke from experience when relaying all this to Draco. He also couldn’t have solids for a good few weeks after he was found.

It’s actual torture. 

Draco has enough decorum not to voice his complaint, because what is one to do? Argue with logic? Eat the rich, delicious food anyway and then purge it all back up? There’s little to do but wait. Draco has been waiting for so long. 

“Dad, do we have any porridge left?” is what Harry asks his father. 

“Stove.”

Harry turns to Draco as he heads towards the pot, “Do you want some nuts and berries on yours?” 

Regulus perks up seeing his son prepare a bowl of porridge for himself. He looks at Draco with sympathetic eyes, “It's been a few days,” he says, “Maybe you should try a little topping. See how you can keep things down.” 

Anything to escape this syrup-ridden nightmare. It’s been either this or broths. He can’t remember the last time he actually chewed something. 

“Okay.” 

His cousin shares a quick glance with his husband, and James Potter surveys the breakfast spread with narrowed eyes, “I made plenty of porridge actually,” he waves a hand over the table, casting non-verbally and wandlessly as though it’s not bloody impressive, “We can save these for later.” 

The numerous plates and bowls of food, the eggs, the meats, the breakfast rolls and jams all start packing themselves up and floating towards the cooler, which Harry opens without even looking over his shoulder. All that remains on the previously set breakfast table is now Draco’s bowl, Regulus’ tea, and James’ newspaper along with a stack of mysteriously untouched and unopened letters. 

“Harry, son,” James calls, “Two more bowls, one for your Papa and—”

“Yes, and one for Collin. Honestly, Dad.”

“He inherits that sass from you,” James leans to mutter to his husband, “It’s all your genes there.”

Regulus snorts in his tea, “Try telling him that.”

Draco squirms a bit in his chair, “You guys don't have to do this—”

“Trust me, they're no martyr,” Harry ungracefully deposits three bowls of piping hot porridge with two glass containers on the table, one filled with an assortment of nuts and the other with dried berries. “Papa actually kills for Dad's porridge and berry compote. Here.” 

He’s sprinkled a fistful of nuts right over Draco’s bowl, sliding into the chair next to him, which is now considerably closer to Draco’s. If Draco imagines it just right, he can even pretend their thighs are touching. 

“Thanks.” 

Meal time with the Potters is always as entertaining as a spirited Quidditch match. The banter is quick and mindless, their movements are funnily out of sync, but also somehow congruent with the flow of their conversations. Draco notices that Harry and James eat quickly and without preamble, whereas Draco and Regulus had been taught to pause deliberately between each bite. Harry and James eat with little difficulty or comment, but Regulus takes his time, making sure each portion is equal in size. Harry and James argue and talk loudly over each other, but immediately fall mute once Regulus tries to interject with a comment. 

They try to include Draco, which is nice, but he just doesn’t have anything to contribute to this well-oiled machinery. He's a bit of an extra. An outsider.

“I was thinking, Draco,” James tells him once Harry gets up with the empty bowls, heading towards the kitchen sink, “After breakfast, we can head down to the village, you and I. We're running low on groceries, you can stretch your legs a bit—”

“He's got to bundle up, though,” Regulus muses, looking down dispassionately at an envelope, “It's cold outside—”

“I have a few coats and jumpers here at home,” Harry calls over the running water, his hands busy in the sink, “I should probably write to Ron to send my trunk and Hedwig over—”

“Why?”

“I'm not going to school anymore.” 

Draco’s stomach drops. He darts his eyes over to his cousin, who still does not meet his gaze and is busy going through the stack of unopened letters with disinterest. Feigned disinterest. 

“Is this not a temporary arrangement?” he asks Regulus, more sharply than he intends to, and the man’s shoulders tense up. 

“No. I—James and I decided not to send Harry there for a while.”

Draco’s stomach twists, and he leans over the table, resting his weight on his elbows. The silence between him and Regulus is visibly tense, and Draco shakes his head, feeling queasy and somewhat ill. This won’t end well, he thinks. Harry has to be in Hogwarts; that’s how it all has to be. Granted, Draco isn’t quite sure of his own place in these visions, but he knew Harry’s. It’s not here in this house. 

Another deviation. This will not end well. It won’t. And Merlin knows how the catastrophe will shape itself now, mutated once again, the golden thread of fate is yanked out of its path. Draco swallows down the bile rising up in his throat. 

“Cousin, we spoke about this—”

“I'm aware.” Regulus’ tone brokers no argument, no continuation to the topic at hand. It is decisive, final. Somewhat intimidating.  

Draco wonders what the man thinks he’s doing. How could he possibly think there’s a way to run from this?

“It'll be fine,” Harry breaks the awkward silence with a small smile, “We can always go back and take our O.W.Ls together.”

He squeezes Draco’s shoulder and then helps him out of his chair to take him upstairs, promising to find him a nice coat for the outing. 

Draco’s legs become so numb that he nearly stumbles every step of the way.

 

...

 

Regulus is having bad nights again. James can’t do anything about them. They’re as inevitable as they always used to be, a bit less severe in intensity, but still the same. There's this thing, tormenting him: 

“I feel that there's something pivotal that I cannot remember. I know some memories are repressed but—but it's scary, James. I just can't remember .” 

“Do you suspect foul play? A curse? Obliviate?” James had been terrified, asking this. Regulus looked more terrified at the prospect of not having the answer.

“No. I don't know. It's just a blank.”

So there is that. 

Regulus is not answering the numerous letters his brother and Barty send him almost daily. He burns most after breakfast when the boys aren’t around. He keeps a few, seemingly at random, in their nightstand drawer with little comment. James doesn’t ask him whether he wants to see or speak with Barty; he knows Reggie won’t. At least Barty is not suicidal enough to attempt actually coming over to the house as things are. 

Regulus thinks they should discontinue any engagement they had with the Order altogether. James is normally inclined to agree with him, but he doesn’t think that isolating themselves will help their long-term cause any more than an alliance will. They’re already in bad waters with the Ministry. They already know there’s a hit out for Regulus and that he is in danger. Regrettably, they need help, they need the numbers. Not that the Order is particularly happy with them now, after Harry’s latest stunt, they're scrambling to regroup, to brace for impact. 

Regulus is terrified of Albus. The old man has written as well, once or twice. James saw his neat scrawl on the back of an envelope addressed specifically to Reg. He saw his owl lurking about. Regulus burns those immediately. He told James about their ‘argument’ in stilted pieces, and James didn’t push him for more. 

Regulus is scared that Draco is lying to him. About his visions, and about what Voldemort exactly did to him during his captivity. He is almost overly careful with the boy, his eyes following the lad’s movement from room to room; he can’t seem to decide between nurturing the abused child and distrusting him fully. James knows that the nurturing side always prevails. 

James can’t do anything about any of his husband’s concerns. He can throw him little dates, get him little gifts, tease him and kiss him and smooth away the lines on his face, but at the end of the day, there is little else to do but sit back and watch the storm wreak its havoc. 

Little else to do but play house. The sky's too blue for war, he knows from experience, it will soon turn ashen. 

“Now you’ll know they’re good if they’re firm to touch,” he spins a grapefruit deftly for Draco, “If it’s mushy inside, it’s no good, it’s started to spoil. The colouring should be uniform too, the patches mean it’s too ripe.”

The day market in Wimbourne is awash with festivities, preparations weeks in advance for Halloween. James doesn’t let this bother him, he enjoys the village, he enjoys the autumn produce and the market. And he subtly enjoys the way Draco navigates and holds himself in interactions with Muggles. It's amusing.

People are immediately curious about the newcomer. And James has to concede, Draco doesn't exactly look like the sort of person Muggle villagers see regularly. He's too tall. Too gangly. His skin is too transparent. His albinism itself is self-explanatory. They ask James who the lad is, as they stop by each stall, and James introduces him as a relative staying in the countryside for now. 

The boy himself is skittish but not out of prejudice or fear of muggles. He seems utterly clueless as to why James would bring him down here. James has noticed that Draco seems to long for company but is reluctant to seek it actively. He seems to yearn for approval, verbal approval especially, but becomes easily flustered when Regulus and James compliment him on small accomplishments. He seems besotted with Harry in a way that James finds entirely familiar. Something that James saw in himself all those years ago when he first laid eyes on his husband. 

And yet when Harry throws him the smallest bit of attention, the boy becomes impossibly shy and quiet, blushing to all heavens where not only two days ago they were at each other's throats, screaming the house down. 

“It should weigh around the same as a quaffle,” he urges Draco to hold the grapefruit, and hands him a paper packet, “We need about five of these, I’m going to make a salad with them later.” 

“Okay.”

The boy meekly glances around at the unassuming muggles before leaning over to look at the assortment of fruit nestled next to each other in large crates. He's swaddled in a charmed winter coat that belonged to Harry, which is still a bit short on him, and James' charmed winter trousers and boots. The tips of his ears are a sharp pink from the cold, as are the tips of his fingers. 

The parent in him chides James for not getting the boy gloves or a hat. They'll have to shop for him soon. Though the boy seems in no hurry to stop wearing Harry's clothes.

Despite it all, Draco actually looks fine. Much better than he used to, that's for sure. His hair has been regrown and taken care of, his bruises and sores healed, the gauntness in his cheeks fading with each passing day.

Still, it's too reminiscent of Reggie's state all those years ago. James still shudders thinking about it. 

“Now with Clementine, it’s kinda the opposite,” he snatches one from the crate in front of him, “The firm ones are sour, the sweet ones feel mushier to touch, the peel is also a deeper orange, the green ones have seeds.”

Draco narrows his eyes at the clementine in James’ hand and then the grapefruit he's picked out on his own. James nods at him approvingly and Draco ducks his head with a mumble, “I understand.” 

James wants to resent the kid. He really does. He's the reason Harry got taken by Voldemort in the first place, he's behind the murder of at least two Death Eaters and Crouch Senior—which James would've loved taking care of on his own—Harry endangered himself again, trying to retrieve him, and the boy has all but foretold their doom in explicit detail and probably turned it all over to Voldemort under duress. It's easy to resent that, easy to write him off as a nuisance. 

But James is a parent. And this boy is just a kid. A tortured, lonely little kid. 

And James knows Lucius and Narcissa. He knows the sort of parenting his own husband suffered under. This boy has never been shown actual parental love. It's hard to resent that. 

He patiently waits for Draco as the boy picks out the citri one by one after thorough inspection and gingerly deposits each in the paper packet. James nods his approval, eyeing the flower stall next to the fruit stand. 

He should get Reggie something , he thinks. The nerines and dahlias look good today. The man behind the flower stall throws him a wide grin, waving him over, fully aware that James will likely walk away with all of his freshly delivered flowers for the right price. He nods at the man with a small smile. 

Surprising Regulus with flowers sounds like a good idea, no matter the overpriced flowers. James always has had the privilege to care less about money, there was no reason not to exploit it. 

But then again, it's hilarious how folks forget about prejudices and heterosexuality the moment money is involved.

“I'm done,” Draco clears his throat, carefully distributing the weight of the produce in his arms, “Anything else?”

“Those potatoes look a bit gnarly,” James nods his chin at them, “but they’re fine, the mud will wash off and as long as there are no sprouts sticking out they're safe. They should also feel firm to touch, go on, give one a try—”

“Why,” Draco states after a beat. He observes the potatoes as though they've personally offended him, “I mean, I appreciate this, but why are you…teaching me these things?”

“I’m assuming your parents never taught you,” it surprises James as well that he doesn't have to think about the answer for long. He knows for a fact that Draco's parents didn't raise him to survive on his own. That's the cruellest thing a parent can do to a child.

“There are some things a man’s gotta know to fend for himself or care for others,” James continues, “Sometimes it’s getting grub, other times it’s fixing something in the house, cooking, the basics, you know. You shouldn’t be too reliant on magic. It’s great, it’s a blessing, it makes life easier…but sometimes this is living. At least until we can get you a wand.”

It's different from his experience with Harry. Harry grew up rather dependently, he grew up taking his time learning how to defend and fend for himself. Harry whines about having to learn new skills, but is sharp when it comes to execution. He experiments with James’ and Reggie’s teachings to find his own way around things.

Draco, James has learnt, is mellower when taking instructions. Very similar to Regulus in that regard, Draco listens fully once and then acts, a perfect execution. As opposed to Harry's fuck around and find out attitude. 

It's refreshing. 

“Oh,” the boy says finally, staring down at the fruit in his arms like he doesn't quite know how else to react. 

“I mean if you don’t want to know—”

“I do,” Draco quickly cuts in, “I want to learn, thanks.”

“You got it, kid. Now I want to buy flowers for Regulus before we head to the bakery. Is anything catching your eye?”

“For my cousin?” 

James gives him a withering look, “For Harry.” 

Draco's face morphs into a perplexed frown, and his cheeks become mottled with a harsh flush. “Oh. Umm. I'm not sure.” The boy stutters, and then defensively glares at James, “Why should I get him anything? Potter has legs, he can come here himself.” 

James suppresses a grin and only shrugs amusedly, reaching for some potatoes, “You seemed eager to make his tea the other day—” 

Not to mention the looks. And following him around. And wearing his clothes, even though they don't fit all too well. And above all else, there's the kiss and the kid being like, oh Harry, Harry, I knew you'd come—

James snorts a little to himself, his shoulders shaking as he recalls Harry's clueless fumbling in response to these behaviours. It is exactly as though he is seeing his own youth play out in front of him.

“You were making it wrong,” Draco feebly defends and James cackles. 

“Sure, kid. Sure. We can pretend you don't have the most massive fancy known to wizardkind on—” 

“Potter,” Draco growls, and James chortles as he reaches for his Muggle wallet. 

“Right. No fancies and flowers then.” 

...

 

In the nicest way humanly possible, Harry thinks that Draco Malfoy has never been hugged as a child. 

Exactly two days ago, Harry would have used this assumption as an insult in a heated exchange and been proud about it. Embracing the shuddering and emaciated body in a moment of pure vulnerability, though, when Draco was at his lowest, crying into a shirt, a cast around his bony ankle, with his hair all gone…well, it makes Harry sick for even fathoming the idea. 

It’s not as though he and Draco don’t know each other. They have spent years as rivals, years tormenting each other verbally and physically and possibly emotionally. It’s not as though Harry doesn’t know the sacrifices Draco has made for Harry to be here. He defied his father, he did everything in his power to ensure Harry wasn’t taken. He endangered himself, coming all the way to their house, to warn Harry and his parents. 

They are less than acquaintances and somehow more than friends. 

Nights when Harry couldn’t even stomach the idea of sleep, Draco’s Quidditch figurine was there, clenched in a sweaty palm. Every time he dreamed about the boy, he felt viscerally sick to his bones that Draco was suffering. 

When Harry hugged the boy to his body, he could feel Draco floundering. Like a newborn fawn unsure as to how it should use its dangling limbs, Draco’s arms fluttered in the air before wrapping around his own stomach. He sat paralysed, barely even breathing, as Harry embraced him. 

Not something people normally do. 

Harry finds himself unsure about the inner workings of their relationship now. They could be friends, Harry supposes, it is definitely something that Draco himself prefers. Harry is not sure whether he agrees with it. But no matter his feelings on the matter, Draco makes for good entertainment and good company when he’s not screaming at Harry. 

After months, Harry finds himself feeling like he wants to be a teenage boy again. Going through what he did, Harry truly thought, up until exactly two weeks ago, that he was irrevocably broken, lesser than boys his age, perhaps not even worthy of his parents’ love. Quidditch, laughter, jokes, even playful banter, were as far from him as a desert tends to be from the ocean.

“Do you want to see Norton Jr.?” He asks Draco a bit shyly. The boy looks tired from his trip to the village with Dad and has been lethargically flipping through a book, sprawled on a couch. 

“Pardon?”

His eyes are so uncannily focused on Harry all the time. It’s something that Harry’s noticed now that the boy lives with them, when he looks at Harry, he takes him in aptly, and in his entirety. Like Harry is giving a speech. His eyes are pale grey, Harry knows, but the more he looks back, the more he sees the subtle tendrils of red and sometimes purple. Maybe it’s an optical illusion, that his eyes remind Harry of Muggle playing marbles, like the ones Ron’s father used to collect. 

It doesn’t make Harry uncomfortable, just wholly seen. He doesn’t think he’s ever been subjected to such undivided attention.

“Well,” his throat is so damn dry, “You’ve been cooped up in the house and the snow’s all melted, so we can—”

Draco hasn’t been cooped at all, actually. He just came back from the village two hours ago; Harry shuts his mouth and clears his throat, scratching the back of his neck with a huff. Draco slowly closes the poetry book and sits up. 

“What is a Norton Jr.?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Harry can just show him instead of embarrassing himself, he thinks, “Come on.”

Draco stumbles a little once he gets off the couch, and Harry has to fight the urge not to reach out to steady him. His ankle still seems a bit faulty, but Draco doesn’t comment on it; he just leans on the couch’s armrest and pushes himself up, “This better be good, Potter.”

His arm brushes against Harry’s and lingers, and Harry stifles a squeak. This is simply ridiculous, he thinks, angrily at himself and turns to stomp out. So what if Harry gets goosebumps over every visible surface from a simple touch? 

“It’s good, I promise.”

“What, is it another family house plant you and your father imprinted on?”

“What? No.”

“Imagine my shock and dismay,” Draco responds dryly, “When I found out Collin is—”

“Norton Jr. is not a houseplant, and Collin is basically my aunt, my Mum bought her.” 

“You guys are so normal.”

Harry resists the urge to snap back at the boy. He hates to admit that Draco has a point and so he decides to just clamp his mouth and not incriminate himself any further. They head down the corridor, pass the kitchen and almost make it out of the door before being intercepted. 

“Where are you off to then?” Papa calls. 

Harry suppresses a cringe. It’s not that they were sneaking out; Dad already helped him get Junior out of the shed and has been fully briefed on their plans for the afternoon, but Papa is going to give him that teasing look again. Every time he catches Harry and Draco together doing the most mundane thing, he gets that absurd smile on his face.

“Just the grounds,” Harry says over his shoulder, itching to hurry outside already, “I want to show him Norton Junior.” 

“Harry—”

“I’ll be careful! Dad already knows. We’ll just do laps around the house; maybe ride down to the pond for a bit—”

“That damn motorcycle,” Papa grumbles, lifting a heavy-looking vase with a grunt. He throws a faintly disapproving look at Harry, “You know I ought to scrap it and sell the parts down in the village.”

Harry’s shoulders drop and he smiles, quickly sliding his feet on the floorboards, he shuffles to the man and hugs him from the side. Papa rolls his eyes but doesn’t protest the embrace, “I love you.” 

“I love you too, you menace. Be careful, take precautions and—”

“No speeding on the mud road,” Harry plucks a white dahlia out of the vase in Papa’s arms, “Got it.”

The look Papa gives him signals that he very much doubts that Harry ‘got it’ but then the man lets it slip. He looks over Harry’s shoulder at a timid Draco and asks: 

“Do you want a hug?”

Draco’s mouth falls a bit open, “Er…”

Papa motions him closer, handing the heavy vase off to a protesting Harry, “Come on, Harry got one, you’ll get one too.” he opens his arms, waiting for Draco to approach him. 

And it is then that Harry thinks again about how alien the simple act must be to Draco. Because the boy looks at Papa like he’s grown a second head, and limps over to him with his arms, straight as a rod held out in front of his body. Papa pats the boy’s back, not minding Draco’s sticking out awkwardly.

“Nothing will happen,” Draco assures the man almost inaudibly. 

“Good, still be careful. Harry?”

“Yes?”

“Take the mirror with you and your wand!”

A bit offended, Harry drags both the mirror and his wand out of his jean pockets, and Papa nods, acquiescing, “Be back in an hour or I’m sending James down.”

Harry hands off the white dahlia to Draco and grabs the boy’s sleeve, positively dragging him towards the door. 

“They’re letting you out of the house?” Draco stumbles a bit behind him, “After everything—”

“The property is warded and the pond is a five-minute walk away,” Harry rolls his eyes, steering Draco towards Junior, “Barely a minute with the motorcycle. Thank Merlin, they aren’t being unbearable; you should have seen them last year. I mean I wasn’t any better; I could barely use the restroom without a guard standing by the door.”

He doesn’t give himself any time to wonder about the past, and instead points at the motorcycle, like a proud father showing off his kid, or more accurately, the way Papa treats his plants. Draco treats Norton like a wild animal. It occurs to Harry that with the sort of upbringing Draco’s had, the only piece of Muggle transportation he has seen is the Hogwarts Express, which is a piss poor example since the train is actually not all that normal. 

Harry grabs the red helmet Dad had placed on the cycle’s seat and holds it out for Draco to take, “Wear this helmet.”

“Protective headgear, wait—We’re riding it?”

Harry hides an amused smirk, “It’s just like flying, Malfoy.”

He takes the red helmet from Draco’s hands and carefully lowers it on the boy’s head, fastening the strap. He grabs the dahlia and stuffs it next to the boy’s bemused face. Draco reaches to yank the flower out, but Harry bats at his hand. 

“It looks dangerous,” Draco complains.

“It’s just like a broom. Even safer, arguably.”

“Did you just compare this metal contraption to a broom?”

“You’ll see,” Harry almost bounces on his feet, he pats Junior and gets settled on the seat. “Hop on. Just sling your leg over and slide behind me.”

Draco doesn’t move at first, and Harry presses his lips together to hide a grin. Draco glares at him and drops his crossed arms, he rounds Junior several times with judgmental, narrowed eyes and finally sighs. Harry spares the boy his dignity by holding his arm out to steady him as Draco attempts to vault one leg over the motorcycle. 

Draco drops down on the seat with a harsh ‘humph’ and wobbles. Harry grins like an idiot, ducking his head as the boy turns to smack him. It’s objectively hilarious because, as much as Harry loathes to admit it, Draco is a good seeker, and he can hold his own on a broom. Seeing him struggle with Junior is both satisfying and strangely endearing. 

He feels Draco uncomfortably shifting behind him, Harry tilts Junior a little bit to jolt the kickstand and Draco yelps, hanging onto Harry’s shoulders with a death grip. Harry steadies Junior and laughs, “It’s fine!” 

“It’s not fine! We almost fell—”

“I learned from the Sirius Black. The day I fall off a motorcycle will be the day he disowns me,” Harry eases back in the seat, checks Draco’s pale face through the mirror and adjusts his grip on the choker as he flips the ignition to the open position. Junior hasn’t been used in a long time, but still rumbles obediently when Harry switches the engine on. 

Draco jumps up from the seat behind him and Harry looks at him over his shoulder, “Sorry, yeah, it makes a lot of noise! But don’t worry. Don’t worry, hey, come on!”

Draco is attempting to climb off Junior with shaking hands, “Harry, I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” Harry darts one hand behind him and grabs Draco’s arm, pulling him down into the seat gently, “You’re a damn good seeker, it’s the same, I promise. Just hold onto me. I won’t let you fall.”

Draco plasters his body to Harry’s back, his arms snared around Harry’s middle with a grip that almost hurts. Harry pats the boy’s hands and shakes his head fondly. He twists the choker close and opens the throttle slowly, he shifts into first gear and Draco gasps, screwing his eyes shut as they slowly start moving. 

“We’re gonna die.” Draco snaps at him. 

“Have some more faith, will you?” Harry shifts the gear again and revels in the adrenaline pumping in his chest, “Just close your eyes and enjoy the wind. You’re not gonna die from a fall like this, at most you’ll break a leg.”

“I don’t want to break a damn leg!”

“Hold on more tightly, keep your legs flush to mine; don’t stick them out. I cannot stress this enough; it’s exactly like a broom, and I fully know what I’m doing—”

“It feels weird—Aaa!” 

Harry laughs and speeds up, the rumbling of the motorcycle drowns out Draco’s cursing as they start rounding the house in laps, Draco’s arms remain tightly wound around Harry the entire time, and his helmet-clad head digs into Harry’s skull, unfortunately reminding him that Malfoy is currently a head or two taller than him. He doesn’t ease his hold on Harry and doesn’t open his eyes even as Harry rides out of their property towards the mud road that leads down the hill, though Harry is proud to observe that by the time they make it to the duck pond, Draco’s face has morphed into a smoothed calmness, lax against the cold winter breeze nipping at their skin.

Harry slowly holds the brake levers towards the handlebars and slows Junior down, prompting Draco to open his eyes and renew his hold on Harry’s jumper. “We’re here?”

“We’re here. See?” Harry shifts the gear back into neutral. “You can still see the house,” He points over his shoulder, and Draco slowly relaxes his hold around Harry. Probably overwhelmed by the quacking of the ducks paddling in the pond and pattering about, Draco doesn’t even flinch as Harry tilts Junior again to lower the kickstand back down. He gets off first, and then holds out a hand for Draco again to climb off safely. The boy clears his throat and bats his hand away, stomping towards the ducks haphazardly with the helmet and dahlia still on his head. 

Harry joins him, looking at the small pond that is miraculously not frozen over and the loud ducks, unfettered by Harry and Draco’s presence. It’s been a long while since Harry’s been here, he spent a large majority of his childhood with Papa coming here, sometimes even daily. He remembers feeding the ducks, kicking the water with bare feet, rolling on the grass on lazy spring afternoons. 

“I named that one Larry when I was like six,” he points at a mallard to break the silence between them. It’s not an uncomfortable silence, merely a natural one. 

Draco twists his mouth at him, “There is no way that is the same duck.”

“Well, mallards live up to ten years.”

“That is a relatively young duck.”

Harry scoffs, “That implies that old ducks look any different, and I just don’t know if that’s a thing.”

“What, do you expect him to have a receding hairline—” 

“Oh, alright,” Harry groans and drops back down on the cold ground, “We’ll call him Larry the third.”

“You skipped a generation.”

“You said he looks young.”

“Not that young.” 

“What do you know about the lifespan of ducks? Alright fine. Larry the second.”

“Still dumb,” Draco grumbles as he joins him on the grass, hugging his knees to his chest with a shiver. Harry twists his mouth, slightly mad at himself for not grabbing a coat to bring along for the boy. Papa will undoubtedly give him an earful about it later. 

And as he tries to predict his father’s scolding, Harry really starts paying attention to the way his companion looks sitting next to him. The setting sun has cast its sharp orange rays over them, casting Draco in a halo that almost turns him luminescent, bouncing off his paper-thin skin and white hair, framing his face like he’s in a painting or a muggle photograph. Harry notices that though Draco has taken the red helmet off, the Dahlia is still tucked behind his ear. He looks a bit unreal.

Harry’s mouth goes incredibly dry, and Draco huffs, glaring at him sceptically, “What?” the boy snaps at him. 

“Nothing.”

“What is it, Potter?”

Harry wrings his hands and lowers his gaze, “You’re just…glowing. Must be the lighting. Sunset and all.”

He feels a dumb fluttering in his stomach and swipes a hand over the back of his neck, wondering why he feels so hot in October. Draco goes completely still beside him, his eyes wide like saucers, he seems distilled in a moment of grand realisation or remembrance. 

“Oh,” Draco says after a beat, his cheeks mottled red. His mouth opens and closes a few times, and then the boy tries to shuffle closer to Harry, “Oh, so this is it.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Er, nothing,” the boy muses, looking away, “Listen, about the kiss and what I said—”

Nope, Harry scrambles to his feet with such force that it scares the ducks. He loudly dusts off his jeans and checks his empty wrist as though there’s a watch to be checked, “Well, would you look at the time! Gotta go now before my parents lose their minds! Goodbye, Larry the Second, you will be missed. Come on Draco, it’s gonna be a noisy ride back—”

Draco just stares at him, aghast, still framed angelically by the sunset. 

It’s the stupid lighting , Harry furiously crams his hands into his pockets. Stupid sunset, he thinks. Stupid sun.

 

...

 

“You haven’t been sleeping,” is what Harry tells Draco before lunch the next day, and it comes as a surprise that it’s taken him this long to notice the noticeable purple bags nestled under Draco’s slightly red eyes. 

Draco glares back at him from his cot, clad in a T-shirt he’d stolen from Harry’s drawers and comfy pajama pants that are entirely too short for him, “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Potter.”

“Yes, I do,” Harry pads inside the Orangery and closes the door a little behind him for meagre privacy, “I know the signs. I’ve been there myself.”

Draco twists on his cot and rolls his eyes, his chest heaving for air as he turns away from Harry, bodily hiding his fatigue. Harry settles by the chair Papa usually uses and looks at Draco’s curled back, “Are you actually hiding?” 

“Go away,” comes the muffled reply, and Draco reaches to pull Harry’s blanket over his head. He sounds a bit winded, now that Harry notices the faint wheezing.

He clears his throat, and shuffles to the edge of his seat. “Are you alright?”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“I can stay if you’re anxious to sleep alone.”

Draco flips the blanket covering his head and glares up at him over his shoulder, “I’m not a child,” he says, rather petulantly. 

“Papa also has anxiety,” Harry says easily, “It doesn’t make you childish or weak.”

He doesn’t mention that he himself had the same problem about ten months ago after he was first rescued from Riddle. Not because he particularly feels embarrassed, but because if he starts thinking about it all too much, he’ll start panicking too and that’ll be no good. If there’s one thing Harry has learned from his parents, it is that in a moment of crisis, only one party is allowed to lose it at a time. 

“It’s fine,” Draco says, a bit more amicably, “I just…have a lot going on.”

Harry raises an eyebrow, and Draco huffs again, his chest stilling and catching in the action. A familiar motion comes over Harry as he stands and settles next to Draco on the couch, his hand hovering but not touching the boy, “I can call my dads.”

“No, it’s stupid.”

Harry very much doubts that having a panic attack after the ordeal Draco’s been through is stupid, but he holds his tongue, remembering the way Dad usually deals with Papa’s bouts of anxiety. It was a bit different for them; Dad can usually even detect early signs of an anxiety attack before Papa himself ever admits it. He’s spent years trying to tame that beast, they have known methods that work, methods that are extreme but efficient depending on the occasion. 

Harry faintly remembers those; he was way too young when they were needed on a daily basis. 

“There’s this thing,” He tells Draco, inching towards him on the couch, “That Dad does for Papa sometimes.” he closes a hand around Draco’s forearm and squeezes the flesh. He gives Draco ample time to pull away or tell him off, but the boy just looks at him with slightly unfocused eyes. He’s definitely been skipping sleep for at least a night or two. Harry squeezes his forearm again, this time pressing down his thumbs on the flesh and pulling them down towards Draco’s wrist.  

“Do you feel that?” he asks the boy, and Draco is as still as a statue, looking at Harry, shocked.

“Yeah,” he breathes, his shoulders relaxing. 

“The pressure’s supposed to feel nice.” He takes Draco’s other arm, repeating the same firm movements methodically, the way he’s seen his Dad do for years, “Compression in general. Dad said something about Chinese medicine, but I can’t remember, to be honest. It just works.”

Draco goes limp under his touch, swaying a bit, he breathes a faint laugh, “I wish you could do that to my whole body.”

“Oh, I can,” Harry tells the boy without really thinking, “Lie back down, and I can just flop over you, if that’s okay.”

He doesn’t know why he exactly makes the suggestion, but he knows that he doesn’t like the look of discomfort on Malfoy’s face and is willing to do anything to make it go away. It is too reminiscent of his state in captivity, of his state in Harry’s dreams. Harry doesn’t think he ever wants to see that look of terror on Draco’s face again.

Draco looks a bit unsure, and Harry opens his mouth to rescind the offer, but the boy nods at him, shuffling to lie down, “Okay.” 

Harry gets off the cot, and as Draco hesitantly lowers his body down, he climbs over the cot, looking down at Draco’s face, and at his unruly hair, which has grown a bit wild after he took the regrowth potion a few days ago. It’s not at all like the Draco Malfoy Harry used to know, the one with the slicked-back hair and overly expensive attire, the arrogant pose. 

Draco holds his gaze intently, like he always does, and Harry’s breath slightly catches as he settles his hands by the boy’s head, on both sides, to steady himself. He huffs a breathless chuckle, and Draco huffs back at him, and they are suspended in the moment, detached from all sense of time or their surroundings. He watches as Draco’s breathing slows, and even though there is no pressure or compression, the boy looks slightly at peace, lying down, that is, until Harry hears a loud yell:

“What the hell!?”

“Papa?”

Harry scrambles off Draco and drops to the floor, wincing as his knees take the brunt of his fall. He looks up, and his father stands, horrified, looking between Harry and Draco with eyes that are aggrieved and equally wrought with terror, “Why does this keep happening to me?” the man laments loudly, smacking his forehead. 

Harry hurries to all four, trying to get to his feet, “It’s not what you think! Papa, I swear I was just—”

Papa’s glare is so damning and sharp that Harry flinches, silencing himself as he stands. It’s not often that he sees Papa this angry. 

“Harry James Potter,” Papa seethes, “A word.”

He yanks the door open and waits for Harry to scurry past him before briskly asking Draco to stay in the Orangery while he and Harry have a ‘conversation’.

Harry lowers his voice, looking at his father with desperation, “Listen, I really mean it, he was having a panic—”

“I thought your father already had the talk with you,” Papa interjects sharply, waving a hand over them to cast a silencing charm. 

Harry’s mind draws to an immediate blank and he stares at Papa, searching his face for any clue, any indications as to what the hell he is talking about, “What.”

“I mean, I understand, you’re at that age when you feel certain urges—”

No , Harry’s jaw becomes undone, and he feels his heart stop in his chest in horror, “Oh my god.”

“—And it’s absolutely fine and natural, but you can’t just jump a poor boy—”

“This cannot be happening.”

Papa wags a finger at him, looking severe, “Your father should have already told you, a way to gracefully deal with the urge, so to speak, is to conduct yourself in private—”

“Papa, stop.”

Papa, indeed, does not stop. He actually looks quite offended, “I know I’m not exactly the best person to have this conversation with. But honestly, Harry.”

“I am willing to pay you to stop.” 

Harry wouldn’t mind dying. As a matter of fact, he wouldn’t mind a Muggle car crashing through the ceiling and crushing him, just to save him from this conversation. 

“This just won’t do,” Papa chides him, “I thought you’d know better by now, having been in a boy’s dorm for a few years, but evidently you need another refresher on safe sex etiquette and gentlemanly behaviour—”

“Draco was stressed out!” Harry exclaims, “It wasn’t like that! I just did the thing to help him calm down, the one you and Dad do—”

“How do you know about—” Papa pinches the tip of his nose, “Regardless! There’s nothing wrong with that if you both consent to it. It’s your age, you’re a teenage boy and he’s a teenage boy, but being safe takes precedence in these matters, no matter how young you are so—”

“I…What are you talking about?”

Papa pauses, glaring at him, “What are you talking about?”

“I was not trying to snog Draco!”

“I’m sure you weren’t, lad,” Papa says, looking entirely unconvinced by Harry’s shrill exclamation, “No one starts out like that. I mean your father and I started out chaste as well, actually I must have been twenty five the first time we took things even a margin further—”

Harry grasps his chest and looks away, trying to prevent the visceral gags fighting their way out of his body, “I do not want to hear about that—”

“I will spare you the details,” Papa tells him dryly, “Keep your paws off that poor boy. I didn't raise a philanderer.”

“I—Papa!” 

“At the very least,” the man sighs, defeated, “Be safe about it. I know pregnancy is not a possibility at all in this case, but think about diseases and hygiene and Merlin knows what else, not to mention you are entirely too young for any adventures or sexual escapades, you’re not yet sixteen and—”

“I…” Harry shakes his head, uncomprehending, “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Papa narrows his eyes at him, blunt and unforgiving and even unwilling to hear any excuse Harry might come up with, “You will be telling your father to get you a box of Muggle rubbers from the village apothecary first thing—”

“This is the worst day of my life,” Harry mutters to himself, thoughts of Draco and calming him down and his insomnia are so far out of reach. 

“Oh,” Papa rolls his eyes irritably, “The woes of being reminded about safe sex. Honestly, lad.”

Harry fists his hands and smothers a scream, “Why are you even here!?” he shouts. 

“To call you to lunch!” Papa almost shouts back at him, “We’ve been calling you two for—”

“I don’t think I can eat anymore.” Harry leans against the closed door of the Orangery, trying to breathe under the immense weight of embarrassment that is traveling through him in waves. He is just going to pretend this is a dream. He is never going to look the man in the eyes again for the foreseeable future, and he would be less than a dog , if he touches Draco in any capacity ever again. 

“It's nothing to be shy about, child,” Papa says as if he just didn’t obliterate Harry where he’s standing, “It's okay, you're just at that age, and puberty is nothing to be upset about—”

Harry stumbles away from the man, his face vermilion, “I'm leaving! I don’t want lunch anymore.”

He doesn’t think he can bear ever being in the same room as his parents anymore. Dear Merlin, is this what he gets for trying to help Draco? 

“No closed doors from now on!” he hears Papa call behind him and wants to scream.

Notes:

- The Epigraph is a poem by Ambrose Bierce, he's mostly known for his "Devil's Dictionary" but I adore his collection of poetry "A Vision of Doom". Do read up on him.
- Also to confirm, this is the same poetry book that Draco is attempting to read, but I couldn't fit it in the chapter itself. He's a 19th-early 20th century poet and writer so it matches with the timeline of the series.
- The stack of unread letters belongs almost entirely to Barty, whom Reggie is ignoring for obvious reasons, more on this in future chapters.
- Draco had previously urged Regulus not to take Harry out of school (HFA epilogue), and that is what he is referring to in the first scene.
- How to tell if the fruit you're buying is good? Check out the University of Tennessee's ultimate guide to buying fruit and vegetables here
-I forgot to mention this in the previous chapter but pay attention to flower imagery! In the previous chapter and in HBT James got Reggie Carnations: symbolising pure love, devotion, and fascination.
as opposed to the Roses that Riddle associates with Regulus, which usually symbolise sexual desire and death. William Blake has a poem called the sick rose that heavily alludes to this:
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

-White dahlias which James buys for Reg and Harry later on hands to Draco is a symbol of rebirth, purity, and innocence and Nerines, or spider lilies are very commonly associated with death and grief :))))
- I had to do a bunch of reading about motorcycles for this chapter, I TRIED okay, I'm sorry if the order of the functions is not entirely accurate. I've only been on bikes as a passenger.
- Mallards DO in fact live up to ten years, and Larry the second is in fact, the same original Larry.
- "You're glowing, it must be the lighting" is a line I unabashedly stole from the Fantastic Mr. Fox and also if you guys remember, it belongs to a vision that Draco regularly referred to during his captivity.
- Compression DOES help soothe anxiety, we have weighted blankets and clothing in modern life, and also in traditional Chinese medicine, massaging the pressure points soothes ailments. Check here for a more thorough explanation. Also this article.
- James DOES regularly do this for Reg. Usually, the pressure is applied to his scarred forearm. Check previous chapters in EO, but particularly the first three chapters.
- ngl I laughed so much with the last scene I most definitely almost cried.
- Harry's sexual awakening being a nightmare for everyone including Harry himself>>>>>>>>
- That's a wrap for now! We have Ron, Barty, and more drarry goodness in the next chapter so stay tuned!

Chapter 16: 16.—to my Imperfections—

Notes:

This will be the last time ya'll see these guys happy for a WHILE

16.—To my Imperfections—

1995

 

 

His boots strike the cobblestones with confidence; an unbound glee twists within him that he has not felt in decades. The cadence of his pace is a learned movement, an obsessive tick that he repeated until perfection. 

The buildings are narrow and twisted here, unsteady stories stacked on top of each other, staggering with the crisp beckoning of a storm. Upon the ground where he once limped, Marcus now prances in his boots, his eyes trailing along the shrewd little shops with amusement. The eyes that follow his stride narrow in distrust and a wary respect. 

Respect , Marcus never thought he would receive such a thing in this lifetime. 

When he stands in front of his old home, he smiles at the old man Burk. The old geezer glares at him through his shopfront glass. 

“You're flying too close to the sun, boy,” Mr Burk tells him in place of a proper greeting once Markus enters the shop. 

“Hello, nice weather. No?”

He looks around the derelict shop, at the dust gathering atop the piles of junk, the putrid assortment of dark objects. 

“I don’t have what you’re looking for, so you may as well quit looking.”

“Not really polite, Mister Burk.” He smiles as he turns, and it must unsettle the old man because Burk reels back, his wand gripped in a fist, “That’s not very nice.”

He looks at his broom. His old broom, the one he was beaten with, the one he used to clean with, the one he used to walk with and sleep with—his eyes move to Burk again, “I was just passing by.”

“Then pass. Leave, boy.”

“Come now, Mister Burk. I wouldn’t mind some tea.”

He flashes his teeth at the cowering old man and rakes his eyes over the shelves with a satisfied warmth in his chest. “Say, Burk… Do you still sell your off-the-shelf items to the highest bidder?”

“You buy what you can see,” Burk snaps at him, limping back as Marcus turns to walk towards him. 

“No,” Marcus shakes his head with an unbothered smile, “I don’t think that’s how things are supposed to work. I have a very small order that I know you can fulfil.”

The weather is just so damn lovely; he almost can’t bring himself to taint it with a jet of blinding green light. 

But he asked nicely. And he didn’t receive that kindness back. 

 

...

 

November Tenth finds them in a familiar place. 

The preparations made for them to be here is, without any exaggeration or stretch of the imagination, monumental. It involved sleepless nights, pacing in front of the fireplace as the children slept, communication with strings that James had to pull with all his might for any progress. It involved hushed vows on paper and all the evidence they’d gathered from Draco’s injuries. 

When it comes down to it, even the fear of Fudge’s retribution is not a strong enough rebuttal for Auror Scrimgeour. Draco Malfoy had been found in his home, chained to a bed, supposedly with the explicit consent of his parents, and tortured by an entity who may have fabricated his identity and fooled Draco for months. This half-arsed story that Rufus agreed to base his investigation on barely changes the essence of the horror. Though, it is unlikely that they will even find a shred of evidence, Tom is smarter than that. If he wants to remain evasive, he will, and if he cares little about the diplomatic consequences, he’ll just kill anyone sent there to the scene of the crime. 

Scrimgeour fashions three groups, comprised of his best Aurors, a total of twenty people, half of whom had been trained under James himself. Rufus strangely allows Draco and Regulus to tag along under the unequivocal condition that they will leave if any skirmishes were to occur. 

Regulus withstands the biting cold, looks dispassionately at the rusted gates of his old prison. He looks beyond it at the flatland, and the dry grass that howls with the wind. Behind him stands Draco with a cane, James and Rufus, and lined behind them, the grim faces of twenty Aurors. Regulus drowns his bitter disappointment in the cramming of his hands in his coat pockets. His eyes fritter up to the cloudy sky and he has this ridiculous urge to fall to his knees and laugh. 

“It's gone.” Draco breathes, touching the cold gate with trembling fingers. He shakes the closed gates with a white-knuckled grip and looks at Regulus with wide eyes. 

“I swear the last time I was here it didn't look like this, I know I haven’t seen the exterior but—” he trails off, lost, staring at Regulus. 

Rufus Scrimgeour adjusts his robes behind them, clearing his throat, “The Fidelius?” 

“No,” Draco turns to the man, his face blanched, “I would have still had access to the Manor as heir. We're not confused about the location, it's here. The gate is here, I can see our peacocks and the rose garden—But the rest…It's just gone. I can't see it or feel it.” 

He’s right. Regulus can’t take his eyes off the empty, barren land. Where there used to be a Manor as vast as a small castle, there is now nothing. Where there used to be the house of horrors, innocuously laid beyond a rose garden and a maze, stylised shrubs and strutting peacocks, there is now nothing. 

Regulus hates being right about Tom’s silence having a price. 

“Potter, I have had enough of these games—”

“This just proves our point!” James rages at his former boss, “Where the fuck is the Malfoy Manor? Just uprooted and moved elsewhere?” 

“Our contacts in Bulgaria—”

“Told you what?” Regulus cuts in tersely, glaring at the men over his shoulder, “That a Lucius Malfoy decoy is running around? That still doesn't explain the missing house and Draco's testimony.” 

“The identity of those who kidnapped young Draco here is still in question.”

“We recorded everything, Rufus,” James continues heatedly, “They tormented this poor boy for months in that house. Voldemort or not, this is strange,” he throws a hand to gesture at the gates.

The Aurors behind Rufus shuffle on their feet, narrowing their eyes at their chief and throwing uncertain looks at Regulus. Regulus disregards them as he fully turns. He clasps a firm hand over Draco’s shoulder and squeezes. 

A Manor of that size doesn’t just vanish without evidence overnight. It cannot be masked easily by any spells or wards. Even if invisible, its presence would be recorded. There is nothing here.  

This is more damning evidence than an empty Manor would have been and yet they all stand, blind as though Regulus and James are the demented ones. 

“Well, what will you have me do?” Rufus rubs his forehead, “Arrest thin air?” 

“Is it even possible to get rid of a Manor this big and leave no trace behind?” 

The question is raised by a young Auror who is standing closest to Scrimgeour. His timid voice is accompanied by a series of nods and grunts from his colleagues, and Regulus holds James’ gaze intently as his husband twists his mouth. It is a good question and worth mulling over as this gaggle of people will likely soon realise that even if possible, no ordinary wizard is capable of such a feat single-handedly. 

“I—perhaps,” Rufus admits after a beat, his face pinched in an exhausted frustration, “If they used The Undetectable Extension Charm.”

“On what?” James demands, “What is possibly big enough to fit an actual Manor and the surrounding properties?? Rufus—”

“If he is back as you and your husband claim,” the man cuts in irritably, “Would he not be able to do such a thing? Create a pocket of space solely for this purpose?” 

This last bit is addressed to Regulus as though Scrimgeour expects him to have all the answers in the folds of his winter coat. Regulus can’t tell the man what he wants to hear. He can’t negate him. Because as much as he hates to admit it, as much as he wants to say that this would be too much, even for the Dark Lord, he can’t. 

Whatever Tom has done since his return has bolstered and solidified his strength, even in the absence of Nagini, his beloved Horcrux, and even in the absence of Hufflepuff’s cup, which, granted, has not yet been destroyed, but still remains out of the Monster’s clutches.

“He can,” Regulus drops his head, “It explains his silence. A feat of this proportion would be greatly taxing.”

Scrimgeour curses, Draco goes completely rigid beside him, perhaps with remembrance, and the ashen faces of the young Aurors contort into a horrified frown that is tinged with disbelief. Regulus strangles the juvenile fear taking root in his own guts and inhales deeply, “Only a hypothesis, of course.”

“It's a safe haven for the fugitives and Dementors,” Scrimgeour grouses, “Undetectable and impenetrable as a fortress. A void, a vacuum in space. I've never seen anything like it.” 

Regulus allows his numb hold to fall from Draco’s shoulder, “And part of their preparations.”

It would be vain of him to think that Tom did all of this solely to make sure that once in his claws, Regulus cannot break free again. Maybe it is vain of him to guess that this is not merely about strategy. It is psychological warfare. There is no denying that if not entirely for Reggie’s sake, it has been partially done with his pain and humiliation in mind. A gilded cage suspended in the abyss, and him, roaming nude in it. 

“What's that, Mister Potter?” 

“If he gets me,” Regulus looks square into James’ knowing eyes, “There is no way in hell for you to find me again. Not if the Manor is hidden in a damn artificial pocket that has been infinitely expanded and doesn't abide by the rules of time and space,” he breathes forcefully, a small puff of constrained air, “How could he even do such a thing?” 

Maybe he is asking the wrong question, it’s not really about how , is it? It’s got more to do with ‘why?’ and ‘when?’ and less to do with methods, runes, and spells. 

James steps closer to him, his warm hand grabbing onto Regulus’ limp and cold fingers, “We need to consult Albus on this.”

Regulus yanks his hand away, “Albus has nothing to offer us.” 

“Reggie—”

Regulus brushes past his husband and cousin, he steps willfully into Scrimgeour’s personal space, “You need to warn the public,” he demands, “Go against Fudge. This is a time bomb, Auror Scrimgeour. It concerns matters much bigger than myself and Draco's justice.” 

“We need a thorough investigation,” is what Rufus tells him reluctantly, leaning away from Regulus’ fisted hands, “That is for sure.” 

“A thorough investigation won't save people from massacres once they start!” Regulus’ shoulders shake with the force of his voice, he can’t remember the last time he shouted like this, “This means they're done regrouping!” he screams, loudly enough that all Aurors lining up behind their chief take a step back, “They have a stronghold for captives and torture houses and they're waiting on a mere order from their Lord, and you need to act now!”

“I understand your urgency—”

“You don't understand shit!” Regulus pants, “I've been there!” he thrusts a hand at the gates, at the empty land, at the devastating emptiness, “This is just like last time! He's going to kill droves of people, and—This time I can't burn it down.” 

Maybe his fear originates from an innate sense of learned helplessness. When he was nineteen, he was forced into being less than a man, forced into being helpless and stupid and falling apart at the seams. The fear he has now, is of the repetition of that learned helplessness, thrust upon him as a result of others’ incompetence.

“I can only do what I am sanctioned to do, Regulus. I understand your worries and concerns. Your husband and I were in the trenches together. We've seen the devastation and war firsthand—” 

“The magnitude of his rage will be much worse once unleashed this time around,” Regulus steps back, “Mark my words, Auror Scrimgeour. If we do not act now, we've already lost.”

Rufus’ blue eyes darken the longer they hold Regulus' gaze and the old man sighs, shaking his head as he turns to face his men, “Round the grounds and make sure there are no signs of a masked or illusioned property,” he snaps, “I want an actual Auror sent to Bulgaria to apprehend Lucius Malfoy and I will be personally asking Albus for help on this case,” he throws Regulus another look, “He is the Chief Warlock, he ought to be involved in cases such as these. This type of magic—this is no ordinary feat, if true. Even unheard of.” 

There's nothing more that he can offer Regulus to assuage the raging bull of emotions in his chest. There's nothing that he can really do. They can harken their men, they can raise armies, Fudge could very well accept Riddle's return this instant, and nothing would change. Because they're late. 

Draco steps a bit closer to Regulus, swayed by the harsh beckoning of the wind that promises an incoming storm. Regulus shields the boy's body with his own; he avoids the boy's tepid gaze and opts to inspect the gates again. Not that it would change anything. 

The Aurors break into groups of twos behind them and they are ushered aside as the gate is opened and the wards forced to dismantle by the force of the men's wands. Rufus stands to the side with them, and Regulus allows James' protective hand, touching the small of his back as he stares at the Aurors that march into the barren property. 

“Never in my fifty years…” Rufus shakes his head, looking at the sky, “This wasn't how things were the first time around either. Right, James?” 

James exhales, “No. They weren't like this.”

“What happens to Draco now?” Regulus asks, his hand once again itching to close comfortingly over his cousin's shoulder. He doesn't know whether it's the cloudy sky or their predicament, but the boy looks too pale, too petrified. 

Rufus looks at Draco with an apologetic grimace, “We have to see what result our investigation yields. You better stay away from the public's eye till then. You are already targets. Merlin, I need a smoke,” Rufus shakes his head, he then wanders off after his men through the gates and leaves James, Regulus, and a panicked Draco outside. 

Regulus loathes to stress the boy any further. But now that they have the smallest semblance of privacy, the first thing he finds himself asking is:

“Did you not expect this to happen?” 

Draco flinches. And James looks away from them with guilty eyes. Regulus and James decided the moment they had the boy in their custody, not to pester him about his sight or visions as much as humanly possible. Draco's been captive for ten months, badgered and tortured because of his visions after all. But this…Regulus forces himself to look stoic. 

“No,” Draco denies vehemently, “I never saw this. Not even glimpses of it.” 

“What did you see, after your rescue?” 

“Um, not much—” 

“Draco,” Regulus closes his eyes briefly, he tries to strangle the fear before it bleeds into his tone, he thanks Merlin that Harry is not here, “If you can tell us, then you should. If not, it's fine. We're not going to force you.” 

Draco shrugs and ducks his gaze, but Regulus doesn't need him to say anything more. There's this look that the boy gives him, one of utter devastation and pity. Whatever is on the way, will not be benevolent or forgiving.

“I'm sorry, Regulus,” Draco tells him, “I really am.”

It is with this apology that Regulus becomes extremely aware that this was a mistake. He shouldn't have brought Draco here, he shouldn't have come here himself. Even in its absence, the Malfoy Manor is haunting them both. It's a taunting, a promise that it will entrap Regulus and Draco again, given time. 

James presses his hand more firmly into Reggie's back and his lips ghost a mutter into  his ear, “Hush.” 

Regulus’ shoulders fall from their tensed poise and he swallows the trapped bile in his throat with a resolved frown. 

“Let's get back to the house. Nothing for us here.” James tells them both, and neither of them argues. 

 

...

 

Sirius comes to babysit Harry in his grown age, and he comes bearing both a bundle of Muggle sweets for Papa, and a letter from Barty that is almost exaggeratedly addressed to Harry. 

Harry doesn't mind the man coming to keep him company. His Godfather always has this uncanny ability to dissipate anxiety from the air with his tomfoolery, and so Harry has no time to worry about Draco or his Fathers heading to the Malfoy Manor for a confrontation.  

The truth of it is, that Harry didn't want them going there, even though they all knew that the Manor most likely would not be occupied any longer, and even though they were going to be accompanied by a ridiculous number of aides in case of any trouble. He understands why his parents asked him to stay behind, even with the safety measures in place. He understands and still worries. Well, before Sirius came over, that is. Harry can't remember the last time he had been babysat. His parents seem to be under this entirely valid impression that if given a chance, Harry will break out of the house and do something foolish again. Which is…fair of them. 

Sirius teases him about it. He comes shortly after Harry's parents and Draco leave for Dad's office in the Ministry via the floo in the morning. And he comes, bearing the aforementioned sweet treats and a letter. 

Harry takes the opportunity to get outside the house with the man over, and they both skip lunch in favor of walking down to the village on foot. The path to the village consists of a mud road that is flanked by trees and greenery, now a bit bare since it’s winter, Harry still finds some solace in their familiar presence. He strangely doesn’t mind the cloudy, grey sky, or the brisk wind picking up around them. They pass the pond, the ducks, the different landmarks that have withstood the testing weather and time. Even decades from now, Harry will only think of Wimbourne as home .

Sirius chatters on about Barty as they walk, and Harry begrudgingly opens up the letter while they’re still on the muddy path, only to see a one-line, half-hearted ‘apology’ scratched out with vengeance upon the parchment:

 

Glad you’re not dead. Sorry, I almost got you killed. This is a formal apology . 

 

“He doesn't sound all that sorry here,” Harry dryly folds the note back up and crams it in his coat pocket. 

Sirius’ cheery grin doesn’t budge an inch. “This is him trying, give him a shot, kid.” 

“Yeah, but I wasn't mad at him in the first place.” 

It’s hard to be mad at Barty for something that he had an equal hand in. Not to mention, had they not done what they did, Draco would have been dead, and Papa perhaps still in peril. As much as Papa likes to think that what Barty did was just sheer idiocy, Harry doesn’t agree with him. 

“I think he's doing it more for Regulus' sake than yours, no offence.” 

“None taken.”

“So do mention it to your Papa that he apologised and really emphasise that he meant it, maybe even show the note to him,” Sirius ruffles his hair and Harry rolls his eyes, “That's kind of the point. He’s being a bit…well, you know how it is when friends argue. He's actually been all over the place recently and since my brother is not on speaking terms with him, he’s getting a bit antsy at home. Ever since he found out who his replacement is.” 

Harry’s stride hitches a little as he looks at his godfather with an inquisitive frown, “Replacement?” 

“One Dolores Umbridge,” Sirius drawls the name like it’s a tainted cloth, “Endorsed by the Minister and the school board and officially now a professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

“You're joking.” 

“Well, no,” comes the quick reply with a wince, “Albus thinks Barty needs to take a rest after your latest stunt. His injuries have barely healed.” 

Harry pauses completely, his eyes wide as he registers the news. All these days, he’d been in his own little protective bubble, blissfully unaware of the world outside, and now the reality of it slams into him full force. He doesn’t know why he thought that everything would be the same as before. But Umbridge, as a Professor? Teaching a class that is supposed to prepare others to fight when she herself does not believe in its necessity? And Professor Dumbledore expelling Barty to replace him with…her?

“So he fired him?” he is aghast as he asks this.

The wince on Sirius’s face grows into a full cringe. “Not in so many words,” he tries to mollify him, “I believe paid leave is a better term to use here.”

“Oh.” Harry suppresses a wince himself and feels a bit guilty that he’s brought these circumstances forth for the man. So not only has Barty lost one eye and speaking privileges with Papa, but he just lost his job to that pink abomination. Harry feels his guilt twofold and he maintains that maybe he should make a case on Barty’s behalf for Papa to go easier on him.

“I’m sorry about that,” he tells Sirius honestly, “That’s just…insane.”

He’s glad that he’s not going to Hogwarts himself currently; it would have been a miserable affair. He might have either killed himself or maimed Umbridge again, and though he certainly wouldn’t mind breaking her jaw again, he thinks that maybe his parents would very much have minded it.  

“He’s going through it, but I'm glad he's home,” Sirius admits, he looks lighter and more at ease now than he’s looked in months. Harry is a bit reluctant to accept that maybe Barty is good for his godfathers after all. “I like to think that he’s becoming really open to accepting help from us, so I think he’ll be fine. He deserves the world.”

Harry tries not to gag at the man’s dreamy tone, “Uh-huh.”

“Anyways, that’s all the gossip on my part, Kiddo,” he looks at Harry and then at the village they are approaching. “What are we doing here again? I haven’t heard you complaining about not joining your Pops and Dad once yet.” 

Harry shrugs with a flush and stuffs both hands in his pockets. He hates that Sirius can tell that his reasons for being here are not that altruistic. He also hates that Sirius can tell that he doesn’t mind staying at home because he may have ulterior motives. It’s not like he was plotting for things to happen like this. He just didn’t want his fathers or Draco himself to think anything particularly odd was going on with his decision to do this.

Because there is no particular reason. He already kind of regrets it. 

“Nothing special at all. Just wanted a stroll and…maybe if it’s not a big hassle… to get something for Draco,” he mutters this last part very quickly under his breath and shrugs. 

Sirius, the fiend, clocks him immediately and gasps, throwing a teasing arm around Harry’s shoulders, “Ohhhh, getting things for Draco,” he muses with a cackle, “Is that a code name for something?”

“No,” Harry snaps, trying to wriggle away from him as they start walking on the cobblestoned road, “I don't know. I just … he mentioned that his birthday passed when he was still, you know, and then Papa got all upset and promised him cake and I thought since they're out today I can get him a present or something—”

And he’d looked so utterly alone and heartbroken and Harry felt bad. He couldn’t stop imagining it; Draco spending his birthday alone, unloved, chained to a bed and starving. And then, judging by Papa’s reaction to this revelation, it’s not hard for Harry to fathom that Draco has never had a proper birthday party, period. 

Harry isn’t barmy for thinking that’s horribly tragic. And he’s not barmy for trying to be a nice fellow and remedying that situation. 

“It’s not a big deal,” he insists to his godfather, feeling his cheeks heat up, “It really is not!”

“I don't need all that, you’re not in trouble, kid,” Sirius waves him off, “Been here before.” 

“What do you mean?” 

The look Sirius gives him is an unimpressed one, “Your father took me on a trip like this once. Got an absurd number of baking trays and flour packets, went through five stores just to find the right brand of chocolate and not to mention that damn biscuit tin—Merlin it took him ages, your grandparents were sick of it, the entire house stank of dark chocolate for weeks —”

“What are you talking about?” 

“How your Dad started courting my brother?” Sirius says as if it’s the most obvious thing, “Pretty standard stuff. So hopefully, you don't have that level of insanity in mind—”

Harry stifles a squeak and scrambles away from Sirius’ arm, “I'm not— it's not like that!”

Two muggles who were heading the opposite way pause as he shouts and Harry yanks his glasses off his face with an embarrassed groan. He’s lucky the village people have better things to do than listen to him lose his mind in the middle of the street; his family is already the only thing these people gossip about. Merlin forbid that Harry gives them more material to work with.

“Harry.” Sirius raises an eyebrow at him. He doesn’t seem to share Harry’s reservations about the Muggles around possibly tuning in on their conversation.

“What!? I'm not—” 

“You know Barty took great joy recounting your first kiss the second he was off the pain relievers,” Sirius snorts, a certain mischievous gleam in his eyes as he prompts Harry to start walking again. Harry does so, dragging his feet on the pavement, “I'm cool, you don’t have to be ashamed or anything, I mean you can do better than Malfoy’s spawn, and you should still definitely experiment with a girl. Your teenage years are the best for experimenting, so don’t tie yourself down like my brother did. But you don't have to be shy—”

Mortification , is a good word to describe Harry’s feeling at this moment. He doesn’t know what force compels all the adults around him to think the way they do. There was Papa last week, who went on an entire tangent about safe sex after walking in on them, there was Dad, who’d keep throwing amused glances at them whenever he caught them doing something together, and there was Barty himself before and during the rescue process, and now Sirius! 

They’re just friends. They’re not even friends, they’re just trying to be friends. Harry doesn’t know why people think it’s strange that he wants to hang out with Draco, or give him food, or help him sleep, or, Merlin forbid, buy him a gift. 

“It’s not like that! I’m not shy!”

“And I'm not gay. I'm glad we had this conversation.”

Harry throws him a withering glare and Sirius gives him a shit-eating grin in response, “So, what do you have in mind?” 

They weave their way through the scant swarm of people farther into the village; Harry usually doesn’t come down here alone by himself, and he really doesn’t pay much attention to the people or the shops when he does, so walking here with Sirius purposely on a random stroll feels a bit surreal. 

He gives in to Sirius’ prodding with a sigh, “I was just showing Draco some of Papa's old photographs a while back when his hair was longer… He had these hairpins?”

There is not much that has been salvaged from Papa’s youth. The majority of what he owned burned in a house fire many years ago. Some things he lost a bit after, like the letters he and Dad shared. There are relics that he willingly let go of, like most of the properties he owned around the continent. And there are things he didn’t even know survived, like the photographs Dad had of him. 

Dad has three pictures of Papa from before . 

Two of them had been stolen from Sirius at various stages of their friendship. Papa might have been about fourteen or so in the first one, and it’s clear that he was at some ball or the other when the photograph was taken; he has his hair carefully fixed with said hairpins, his back is straight, and he is clothed in a set of expensive-looking robes. He is not smiling in the photo; he’s not smiling in any of them, but there is a graceful twitch to his mouth, a polite acquiescence. 

The second and third photos were taken without his knowledge; he has his hairpins in the second picture as well, and he seems to be quietly observing someone from afar in another gathering, again, his back is straight and his face pulled taut. Papa didn’t even know this photograph of him existed, and as for the third one, he’s in his Hogwarts robes, about seventeen, much older and once again unawares that he is being photographed at the King’s Cross station. Dad maintained that he took this last photo himself from a borrowed camera he took from a sixth-year student who later became an Order Member. It would be a year after that last photo that they’d stop seeing each other until after the war.

When showing this to Draco, he had a rather peculiar reaction. His eyes had trailed the hairpins, curiously, his lips pursed in concentration. He’d asked Harry whether his father still kept his old things, and when Harry told him about the fire, Draco had nodded irritably as though unwillingly reminded of something he’d rather forget, ‘Yeah, yeah. You’re right. Burned in the fire.’

Maybe Harry is just looking too much into it, but it’ll be a nice gift. 

“Hairpins?”

“Yeah, Papa’s hairpins—”

“Oh, he loved them,” Sirius suddenly exclaims, nodding his head in recollection, “Had an elven-made collection from Paris that our cousin Ara bought for him before he and Uncle Alphie were exiled. Reggie adored them. No one in the family could pull those off like he did, not even Bella. At first, Maman was the one who insisted he wear them, you know, to soften his looks since he was grouchy all the time, but he secretly liked them.” 

“He never mentions them,” Harry says quietly, “Or wears anything like them.”

In fact, now that Harry thinks about it, Papa rarely does anything to maintain or even enhance his looks. Even the clothes he wears Dad usually gets for him, because Papa himself can’t be bothered. Harry wonders why that is, but then figures that he’s better off not knowing, for the reason could be tragic or nefarious in nature. 

“Well, they belong to a past life,” Sirius says after a small pause, they begin passing by the bakery and fruit stalls, long past their chaotic hustle and bustle in the morning. “He probably outgrew them. It’s not exactly something you wear every day. His original collection is unlikely to be found nowadays anyway. It was just one of those things,” Sirius sounds rather taken by nostalgia, he has a small grin on his face, “All ornate jewelry and antiques. I remember he had one that had a dragon pattern with rubies and beryl gemstones. He only used that one for the opera house.” 

“So it's not a pureblood thing?” Harry asks to make sure, “Only a Papa thing? Maybe I should rethink this.” 

Sirius smirks at him, “You want to get one of those for Draco?” 

“Don't look at me like that!” Harry snaps, he curls his hands into fists and glares away from him, “It's not crazy. Since he took the—his hair is longer, okay!? It’s just all over the place, and he does nothing to tame it, and he doesn’t want to cut it. I just thought he'd be into rich-boy things like an elaborate pin or whatever.” and because there was that glint in his eyes when he was looking at them, an expression that Harry had never seen on his face. 

“You're not exactly a dirt-poor boy , yourself, you know.” 

“You know what I mean.” 

“You should go for it,” Sirius finally tells him, his tone now surprisingly devoid of any ridicule or teasing, “At its very worst, he will laugh in your face and throw the thing away.” 

“I don't even know if the village has anything posh like that.” 

Sirius gives him a look, “That sort of upscale jewelry…yeah not many places have that, kid. I can take you to London, though your Pops wouldn't like that. It's not safe. Maybe you can just get a regular hairpin here, and I'll fix up the rest with magic for you. We should have some gemstones lying around back at the flat.” 

He adds this last bit as though it’s a casual and random fact about the weather. Harry pauses, making the man stop his lackadaisical pace to face him. 

“Are you joking? The bit about the gemstones—” 

“Barty loves shiny shit as Noodle,” Sirius brushes him off with a shrug, again as though just having gemstones lying around the flat is a normal thing to claim, “We had to keep him calm somehow, you know, during the mink phase. So I scoured Uncle Alphie’s vault and found a treasure chest—it was an entire ordeal, kid. We just have a bunch of crystals and gemstones lying around.” 

An old muggle woman passing by them gives them a weird look and Sirius bursts into a hearty bout of laughter, “It’s the truth!” he wipes the tears from his eyes, “We do. I had to go all the way to Gringotts and shuffle through the vault for hours—”

“Sirius, for the love of Merlin, people are watching us—”

“And then he made a tiny little nest for himself in the chest, gnawing on pearl necklaces that were worth an entire building, it was so fucking funny—”

Harry shakes his head at the laughing man and chuckles himself at the absurdity of his story, “I've missed having you around, Padfoot.” he says and he really does mean it. Lately, his life has been so hectic that these little harmless moments seemed an impossible faraway dream. 

Sirius makes it so easy to enjoy life, he really does. Sirius makes it easy to forget that things are not awful right now. Harry had truly missed that about him, “I missed you.”

Sirius stops laughing only long enough to ruffle his hair again, “I missed you, too, kiddo. Good to see you’ve got your light back,” his eyes crinkle at Harry. He takes a long, deep breath and rights himself, “Now, let's get your boyfriend a hair clip.”

“ He's not—”

 

...

 

After the untimely death of his Father, being witnessed first-hand by his best friend, there are not many things that can sway Ron one way or the other. 

He finds that life moves at a much faster rate than he had previously assumed, and that the adulthood he kept throwing under the rug and attributing to a distant future was not all that distant to begin with. He was extremely lucky that he was still in school; he could not imagine putting up with Mum’s grief the way Charlie and Bill ought to on a daily basis. He’s glad the twins and Ginny take their grief elsewhere instead of trying to smother him with it. Ron has found, that he is not good at comforting people or even himself. He only used to be good at comforting Harry. 

What can one do? What can one even say? 

Dad’s just bloody dead. There is no reversal, or second chances, or even logical reasoning. Dad was just trying to get Percy to come back home, Dad was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Dad only wanted to keep his family whole. Ron was ashamed that he couldn’t think of Dad in a more familiar light. The cold, hard truth, is that Ron doesn’t remember the last time he and Dad even spoke, but boldly remembers the Potters, thanking him for keeping an eye out for their son. He doesn’t remember much from the funeral, with all the crying and raining and black robes, but remembers Regulus Black Potter giving a bereavement bouquet that he personally made over to his crying Mother and offering his condolences in a heartbroken voice. 

The truth is that Ron gets abandoned on a pretty regular basis, even by his own parents, and that the moment he gets attached to another person, they abandon him too. 

And when he was a kid, he used to get really worked up about that. He remembers that he loved Harry more than he loved breathing; he was attuned to Harry in a way he never was with any of his siblings, and every time he saw Harry with his parents, a little pang went through his heart because he wanted that. He wanted two parents to dote over him, to be the centre of their undivided attention, to be cherished. 

He couldn’t for the life of him villainise his parents, but he could only long and be disappointed in the end. 

Not having word of Harry for this long is torture. 

Ron tries writing to them, he tries badgering Hermione to help him break into Barty’s empty office with him to use the Floo, he even tries asking Professor McGonagall whether his friends were okay. The answers differed greatly, and became particularly concerning when Dumbledore announced that Barty will not be returning for the rest of the school year and would be replaced by Umbridge instead. 

Others around them thought that Harry had been expelled, that his family had kidnapped him and taken him out of the country. Ron is inclined to believe them as time goes on, even when Hermione disagrees. But Hermione didn’t see Harry like Ron did. She didn’t see him come apart.

He was so terrified in Dumbledore’s office, so utterly unlike himself, shaking and bleeding and shouting at everyone like a cornered and injured animal. Even if unconsciously, Ron had been brought up very protective of Harry, seeing him like that and then learning that his Dad was dead…The grief and pressure become immense. Ron seeks escape through doors that lead only to more questions and concerns. 

And then finally, Harry writes him a letter, in which he discloses nothing but a simple request. Ron has been kindly asked to pack up Harry’s trunk and belongings along with his owl this coming weekend, and then to come see Harry for lunch with Hermione if he ‘wishes so’. 

Ron, at his wits’ end with worry and the wretched, crippling sense of abandonment, feels heartbroken by the letter but dutifully packs Harry’s things in hopes of finally seeing his best friend after…three weeks. Three entire weeks. Ron had grown so accustomed to following him around, and even sleeping in the same bed as him, that these three weeks felt like torment.

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for it,” Hermione tries to comfort him once they head to the Owlery to collect Hedwig. “His letters may get intercepted; it’s only natural. We should be glad he’s okay, Ron.”

Ron grunts in agreement, and by Friday night, he even starts believing Hermione’s heartfelt attempts at comfort. She’s right. Harry must have gone through an entire ordeal; the very fact that he was alright enough to write a letter and invite them over had to be a cause for celebration. 

On Saturday morning, he and Hermione take Harry’s things and head to Professor McGonagall’s office. She briskly purses her lips at them and lets them know how privileged they are to be let out of the school for no occasion or holiday. She gives them a strict deadline of ‘not a moment later than dinner time’ and then lets them use the Floo to the Wimbourne house. 

The sight that greets them is a blissfully familiar one; Ron has had many happy memories in the Wimbourne house and bashfully knows himself entitled enough to feel at ease in the place. The familiar kitchen is busy as it usually is; upon his arrival, Ron immediately sees pots and pans on the stove in various stages of preparation, presumably being their lunch. He sees the vibrant flowers in different vases tracking almost every surface, the soft curtains rustling with the winter breeze and James Potter, standing with a spatula in his hand to greet them. 

“Ron, Hermione!” James Potter beams at them, ruffling their hair and patting Ron on the shoulder as he usually does. Ron mumbles a greeting as Hermione thanks the man for inviting them over. Ron figures that if James Potter is this peppy, then Harry shouldn’t be too crabby. 

The last time was horrendous, Ron recalls. Coming to Harry after he was kidnapped. Harry was terrified of company, close to tears in every interaction, paranoid and snapping at anyone who dared approach him, and that was only when he dared open his mouth to verbally communicate. 

He was effectively mute for so long that Ron had forgotten the sound of his voice. 

Regulus joins them in the kitchen only a moment later, a plant spray in his hand. “I heard the floo,” he smiles at them; he looks more tired than Ron had assumed he would. “Welcome, children. Did you have a nice trip?”

“Is he—”

Regulus nods his head at him, his eyes soften, “They’re in the Orangery. Hermione, can you help me with something for a second before you join the others—”

Ron leaves Harry’s trunk and Hedwig’s cage in the kitchen as he races to the Orangery. His heart beats in his throat and he can hear only his blood rushing in his ears, and only as he reaches the threshold of the glasshouse does he recall that Regulus mentioned a ‘they’ being inside. 

If given a hundred guesses, Ron would have never even thought about coming up with the sight that greets him once he sees his friend. 

Harry is flipping through a Quidditch magazine with one hand idly, sitting on the worn couch that Ron had napped on countless times in his childhood. The sight on its own shouldn’t be astounding the way it is. If it were not for Draco Malfoy’s body curled up on his friend’s lap, with his long legs draped over Harry’s legs and extending down a cushion, with one arm thrown over Harry’s neck, and his loud snoring croaking by Harry’s ear. 

Ron, like any normal fucking person, announces his presence by shouting, “What the hell is this!?” 

Draco jolts himself awake, almost smacking Harry in the chin with his nose and Harry scrambles up as well, his eyes darting to Ron, widened in surprise, “Oh, Ron! When did you get here?” 

Ron’s mouth opens and closes. He stares at Malfoy, gobsmacked, as the boy stretches his arms over his head like a spoilt feline and mumbles to Harry under his breath, shuffling off Harry’s lap as he rubs his face and yawns. Harry rolls his eyes at the boy and rushes towards Ron. 

“Ron—” Ron holds the boy back, shakily staring at Malfoy, blinking his eyes open after a second yawn, “Hi, Merlin, hi. I’ve missed you so much, gods—”

“I—” Ron leans away to look at Harry; he feels a bit crazy, as though he’s the only one who can see Malfoy scratching his neck sleepily on the couch. “I brought Hedwig and your stuff. Hermione’s come over too—” 

“Come here.” Harry pulls him into another tight embrace, and gods, Ron has missed the boy so much, like a damn limb. He was the only one Ron could think about at the funeral, he was all Ron worried about for weeks, whether he was eating or sleeping or brooding in his own misery. And now here he is, looking relatively healthy, grinning, his arms tightly wound around Ron.

“I'm so sorry about your dad.”

“It's okay,” Ron pulls back a bit awkwardly, “I mean it's not okay. But it's…you know. Not your fault. What—what is happening?” 

Harry follows his gaze over his shoulder and upon seeing Draco trying to wake up, he looks back at Ron with a wince, “Well, Barty and I kind of broke in—you know what,” he sighs, rubbing his forehead, “It's a long story. I'll tell you and Hermione together. Draco sort of… lives with us now.” 

Ron swallows his outrage and blinks, “And you're not coming to school anymore.” 

“No,” Harry drops his gaze, squirming a bit, “Not anymore. At least, not for a while anyway.” 

“And he’s real. That’s actually Malfoy. I’m not hallucinating or—”

“As if your imagination could be apt enough to think up my glorious face or body, Ronald,” Draco is the one who hoarsely croaks, and Ron feels a red, hot rage bubbling in his guts. 

“Why, you bastard!” 

“Alright!” Harry pushes Ron back gently with his hands, holding him in place as he glowers at Draco, “Draco, behave,” he says over his shoulder, and to Ron, he says, “I know. I know, trust me. I’ll explain everything.”

“Right. Well,” he glares at Malfoy over Harry’s head, “I don't think Hermione will be too happy to see your ugly mug—” that’s probably why Mister Potter held her back, to explain the monstrosity that he’s housing. 

“Ron—” 

“You know I'm right and you know my reasons,” he snaps at Harry and feels rightful in his anger. Because the last time he checked, this little twat had fucked off to Bulgaria with his Daddy . Last time that he checked, he was the reason Harry was taken by Voldemort. Last time Ron checked, this arsehole was the one who called Hermione a slur, twice . 

Draco hobbles to stand and leans over to pick up a cane that Ron had not noticed before, leant against the edge of the couch. “I'll be in the study while your friends visit,” he starts limping with the cane, “Have fun, Harry.” 

He pats Harry’s arm as he brushes past them and Ron scoffs at the boy’s audacity, “What, cosying up to the house already? He's treating you like he owns the place!” 

Harry grimaces again and they both turn away from Draco exiting the glasshouse. Ron feels his ears and cheeks turn red in disbelief and Harry shifts a bit nervously, scratching the back of his neck as he usually does when he’s nervous, “He’s not too bad.”

“Harry!”

“It's a long story and a bit complicated,” Harry scrambles to say, “Let's just go find Hermione for now.” 

“Whatever.” 

“How is Percy?”

“Can’t talk,” Ron grunts, misery twisting in his guts again as he remembers the wretched way his older brother had looked at the hospital. “It’s not that anything’s wrong with him physically; Mum said the healer told her that it’s…you know, your thing. Shock.”

Shock that he no longer seems to have, Ron thinks cruelly before he can stop himself. 

“Oh.” Harry’s eyes drop and he squeezes Ron’s arm empathetically, “I’m sorry, mate.”

“You look better.” Ron looks back at the cosy cot on the couch and at the vibrant plants and blooming flowers around them; it’s as though winter doesn’t even exist here. 

“I feel better.” Harry admits. 

“Yeah, but what the hell happened to you?”

“Let’s find Hermione first.”

 

...

 

James makes the mistake of suggesting that they all have lunch in the yard; the weather is peculiarly nice and since the Orangery has been repurposed to serve as Draco’s temporary bedroom, James doesn’t want them to infringe on his space either. 

Regulus takes care of plating things as Harry catches up with his friends; their son already knows not to mention the cup or any subsequent consequence of Regulus’ kidnapping, and so they’re not exactly worried about any information leakage. 

James transfigures a nice table and chairs by their porch under the shade of their oak tree. Everything looks good; things are nice—well, as nice as they can be given the circumstances. The missing Malfoy Manor, their uncertain predicament, and Regulus’ overall anxiety loom over the couple like thunder-bearing clouds. Still, both Regulus and Draco manage to mask their anxiety well around the guests.

James realises pretty much the moment that the table is set that what occurs next is a hilarious and twisted rendition of ‘History repeating itself’ . And it starts out innocuously enough. Hermione and Ron, despite having been debriefed by Harry, are rather blasé about Draco’s misfortune. Hermione, perhaps less obviously so, but Ron is outright hostile. 

They sit next to each other, engaged in a whispered argument as Harry saves a seat for Draco next to him. James pinches Reggie’s arm and raises his eyebrows at the glaring duo and Regulus shakes his head subtly into his drink. 

Draco joins them shortly, and the meal starts in relative peace; the utensils handed over, the food plated, the drinks poured. Draco nudges his chair closer to Harry’s and starts pecking at the boy’s plate instead of getting his own food. This is not a strange occurrence; James catches them doing this at almost every meal, either one way or the other. He’s gotten so used to it, actually, that when he sees Ron glaring at the blond, he takes a double-take. 

“What are you, a bird?” Ron jeers at Draco and Draco pauses his ministrations to glare back at him mildly. James sees Regulus masking his startled chuckle with a loud cough. 

“Do you have something to say, Ronald?”

Ron sets his jaw, stabbing his chicken savagely with the fork in his clenched fist, Hermione mutters something in his ear and Ron shrugs her off. Harry throws a wary look between the boys and shrugs when James throws him a knowing look. 

James wants to say that he tries to assert his authority as an adult to prevent any further skirmishes from happening, but that is a lie. He is too mentally exhausted to chaperone a bunch of hissy teenagers. No one would get grievously hurt from a bit of banter; James and the boys certainly didn’t back in the day. 

Well, except for that one time that things went horribly awry and Sirius got stupidly drunk and spilt the beans about Moony’s little furry problem to the wrong person and that derailed the entirety of their sixth-year experience for quite a while. 

James cringes as the harsh memories are forced on him and Regulus raises an eyebrow at him again, nudging his foot under the table. Right , James raises his glass and clears his throat at the kids. He prompts them to talk, asks noncommittally about school and their O.W.Ls and Hermione, bless her soul, tries to keep the conversation civil by contributing to the discussion. 

Draco, in the meanwhile, does not break eye contact with Ron even once, and at some point during their meal, the boy reaches over, takes Harry’s glass from his hand and drains it before handing it back off to a confused Harry. 

James purses his lips and before he or Regulus can say anything, Ron slams both hands on the table and stands, “Okay, this is getting ridiculous!” 

“Ron!” Hermione stands as well, indignantly trying to calm the boy. 

“He's eating off your plate!”

“So what!?” Harry exclaims. 

“So what!?” Ron parrots back with an incredulous laugh, “Have you gone mad? He was sleeping in your lap earlier and now he’s eating off your plate! He is clearly trying to coddle up to you to betray you later, he’s draining you like a leech—”

“Ron, stop.”

“No, I won’t stop! His entire family is made up of liars and bloody Death Eaters, you risked your life fighting half of them, the likes of them killed my DAD—”

“Why so sensitive, Weasley?” Draco’s voice cuts into the boy’s tangent, smooth as butter, and James is eerily reminded of Regulus’ arctic rage, the same brutal look flashing in his eyes, “Is it because he did it for me?”

“Shut up.” 

James wonders whether he should intervene but Regulus throws him a quick glance, sinking back in his chair silently to let the argument unfold, aghast. James reluctantly does the same. 

“Why? Because you know he’d never do it for you?”

“Draco.”  Harry snaps at him. 

“He bit me first,” Draco grits his teeth, glaring at Harry, “Are you just going to let him talk to me like that?”

“Yes!” Ron jeers, “I’m his best friend. Who the hell are you?”

“Ron, he’s a guest and he’s been hurt, and he’s my—”

“He’s not yours,” Ron screams, “I AM!” 

The outburst is jarring, distilling the table in an astonished silence that Hermione breaks, as she bursts into tears and storms off. Regulus’ mouth falls slightly open, watching her run towards the back of the house. 

The others barely seem to have noticed. 

“Well, he’s not choosing you!” Draco seethes.

“I’m not choosing any of you!” Harry forces himself out of his seat, “God! LET ME GO ALREADY!”

“Fine! Go rot in a bed with that racist rat!” Ron shoves his chair back into the grass, “See if I care!” 

“Why Weasley—”

“Both of you get lost! LEAVE! LEAVE, BOTH OF YOU!” 

And the hysterical thing is that they do. Both boys vacate their chairs and storm off in different directions, leaving the Potters at the table. Harry pants, his face still twisted in a harsh scoff as he stares off into space. 

“Harry, son—” James starts. 

“NO!” Harry screams at him “Don’t talk to me!” 

“Okay,” James reassures the boy quickly, his eyes widening in concern as Harry also takes off, stomping out towards the edge of their property. James and Regulus sit, their silence accompanied by the chirping of birds above them and the rustling wind. 

“What just happened?” Regulus asks with his drink suspended in the air. 

“Well,” James cringes and pushes his hair up, “To my understanding, and it may be flawed my dear, Draco and Ron have the hots for our son and Hermione has the hots for Ron, and if it was not obvious by Harry’s reaction just now, he’s got the hots for no one.”

Regulus closes his eyes as he sips at his drink, “This is what we get for putting four hormonal teenagers under the same roof.”

“Yes, only teenagers get caught up in miscommunication.”

A look of warning is dished his way, “James, don’t even start.”

Yeah, James knows better than to start a futile war. The stack of unopened letters in the kitchen serve as the warning that if pushed to the limit, Regulus will make the offending party fall to their knees and weep with regret. James doesn’t particularly fancy sleeping in the living room over his son’s abysmal love life. 

“I won’t, my love.”

“You should check and see if Hermione is okay,” Regulus picks up his plate as he stands, “I’ll go sort out Ron.”

James kisses the back of his husband’s hand, “I’ve got it.”

 

...

 

Regulus finds Ron sobbing at their kitchen table over his folded arms and he feels like utter shit even though he is in no way involved in their drama. 

The kid just lost his Dad, and is apparently in the midst of an identity crisis over Regulus’ son. He’s had a rough childhood and while his parents were in no way abusive…he had a hard time fitting in. Regulus understands that on a personal level.

“Do you take honey with your tea, Ronnie?” he gently asks the boy, heading to their cupboards for two mugs and teabags. 

Ron lifts his head with a sniffle and wipes his face with the sleeve of his Weasley jumper. “Mister Potter, listen, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have yelled in front of you like that. Once Hermione comes back, we'll just leave, get out of your hair—”

“Nonsense,” Regulus gently cuts him off and sets the mugs on the table, “Honey?” 

“Yes, please.”

Regulus settles on the chair next to the kid with a sigh and waves his hand distractedly over the mugs. Both watch as the mugs lethargically fill up with steaming hot water, “The property is protected, so don't worry about Hermione. James went after her. She can cool off a bit before coming back.” Regulus pushes the honey jar towards Ron. “Here you go; it’s good for your throat.” 

Ron drags his mug close and dumps two spoons of honey into the cuppa, “Thanks,” he mutters miserably. 

Regulus lets the boy sit in silence for a minute to calm down, he stirs his own tea and thinks how absurdly insignificant this entire ordeal must be in the grand scheme of things. But then again, to a despondent fifteen-year-old who just lost his parent and seemingly lost his best friend, maybe this is a bigger deal than war.

“I understand, Ron,” he tells the boy once he’s taken a sip of his cuppa, “It's jarring to see Harry or Draco like this. We are living in difficult times. But you know…compassion is one of the few things we should offer each other amply.” 

“Yeah, I guess.” 

“That shouldn't make you question your place in our family. You could never be replaced.”

The boy’s bloodshot eyes widen at him and he scrambles backward with his tea as though the mere idea is preposterous, “I'm sorry. I know I overstepped when I called Harry mine and—”

“James and I think of you as our own son,” Regulus tells him frankly, because he knows that this is what the kid needs to hear, and it’s the truth, “I know you have wonderful parents; nothing can replace the love of a father, and I'm so sorry Arthur isn't here anymore. I know your mother is doing the best she can, and I know even still, it feels like sometimes you are…less seen.” 

“I—” Ron cuts himself off, hiding his face in his mug. Regulus understands his embarrassment, his horror at being discovered. 

“You were seen by us. You're frankly the best thing that's happened to our son. He doesn't appreciate that enough. But James and I do. You're family, Ron. You're our boy. Even if you feel like you're not Harry's brother.” 

Ron shrugs, sipping his piping hot tea with a pained wince. Regulus takes a tentative sip from his own mug. He can’t help but remember his own friends in Ron’s shoes now. Evan and Barty bickered all the damn time. They were explosive and loud and passionate. They were loud in everything, particularly their love and their hatred for others. 

Little children, who sobered up too soon in the midst of a war. 

Regulus doesn’t want that to happen to Ron or Harry’s other friends. It’s true, what he just said. These kids are his kids; he considers Harry’s friends to be as much his responsibility as his own son. 

“I just feel like I'm being replaced.” Ron mumbles, his face red and his lip turned in loathing and sorrow, “I love him. I do; I don't know in what way, but he's… I don't want him and Malfoy all cuddling up with each other! I've been worried sick about him! About whether he's sleeping well or eating well or coping, and now here I come and he's all better without me… I know that makes me horrible, to say such a thing, but—”

“I understand,” Regulus nods, validating the kid’s despair, “It feels like he's forgotten all about you.”

“Well, yeah. Like my parents. I'm always an afterthought.” Ron wipes at his tears again; he seems ashamed of them, resentful of his own emotions. “I'm only acknowledged by someone when I'm in their immediate presence! No one ever asks for me. No one ever misses me!” 

“I understand why you may feel like that.” The words are like mush out of his mouth; he tries to shake himself out of it, caught between his sincere desire to help the lad and his crippling anxiety. He drinks his tea more urgently and tries to focus his eyes on Ron.

“He told me what happened to you, and what he's done to get Malfoy back. I know I wasn't exactly a top priority—”

“Ron. You don't have to be cruel to yourself,” he tells the boy comfortingly, “It's okay to be upset with Harry. He should take accountability too. He should have sent you a letter sooner.”

He wishes that there was someone, when he was younger, who could sit with him as he cried, who would stroke his hair and tell him that it was okay to be mad at his brother and family, that he wasn’t stealing James Potter from Sirius, and that he deserved a family and happiness. He knows that given time Ron will understand; he and Draco have a lot of things in common aside from their concern for Harry. But until that day comes, the boy needs someone to tell him that it’s okay to be angry and petulant too. 

“I appreciate what you've done for me,” Ron says sullenly, “You and Mr Potter. You know, treating me like your own kid, buying me things, keeping an eye out for me—Mum and Dad never…well there's seven of us. You made me feel like I was worth the trouble.”

Regulus feels his heart constrict. “Taking care of you was never trouble. And no matter what future lies down the line for you and Harry, you always have a place in our family,” he squeezes the boy’s shoulder and leans back, “But you know, arguments always happen between best friends. It's normal.” 

“You and Barty argued a lot?” 

How funny of him to ask that . Regulus thinks, his eyes dragging over to the untouched letters stacking up near their kitchen window. He can’t even bring himself to burn them anymore. 

“Oh, yeah. Yeah,” Regulus clears his throat and detaches his gaze from the letters, “We do argue. He's strange. Somewhat like you and Harry.” 

Exactly like him and Harry. Barty too, laid undue claim to Regulus and his welfare. Barty too, would drop everything if Reggie so much as asked. Barty too, unfulfilled by familial ties, would flee anywhere Regulus took refuge in. 

“I just want to protect him. I have a lot of siblings and I never…that's not how I feel about them.” 

“You're fifteen. You're too young to commit to a label or feeling. It's enough that you love him in your own way. He's just overwhelmed right now; give him a few days and he'll get over himself and apologise. And he should, mind you, he acted in an ungentlemanly way. I'll have a chat with him—” 

“No, that's okay,” the boy cuts in quickly, “I'm glad he's okay. I'm just…terrified of losing him again. He looked so small and so hurt. And I couldn't protect him. I don't want to see that again.” 

Regulus frowns, feeling like he’s had this conversation before. He shakes himself mentally again, “Me neither. You're a good friend, Ron. You're a good person.”

He stands, looking down at his almost-empty mug with no recollection of having drained it, “Do you want us to take a stroll in the yard? I can show you the vegetable patch—you and Hermione can take your unfinished lunch with you before going back to Hogwarts.”

Right , he suddenly remembers. The kids are going back to Hogwarts. Why did he forget about that? He resists the urge to rub a temple. 

“Mister Potter?” 

“Hm?” 

Ron is standing suddenly in front of him, wringing his hands and wiping at his damp eyes, seemingly unaware of Reggie’s inner turmoil. “Thanks. Seriously. It's been difficult without Dad…but having you and Mister Potter around—it helps.”

“I'm glad, Ron.” He smiles at the boy and pats him on the arm, “Never question your place in our family. You're our lad just as Harry is.”

“Thank you.” 

“Not needed. Now, let's go. I want to show you the green peppers I've been tending to—” 

His sixth sense screams at him, and he pushes it down, catches his breath, and leads the boy outside, where James awaits him. 

 

...

 

Ron and Hermione leave without properly saying goodbye or finishing their meals, and that makes Harry more aggrieved than actually mad. It jolts him into reality; it makes him realise the life, the routine he has built around Draco, is as artificial as the boy’s supposed feelings for him. 

It’s making everything so difficult. He’s done with this charade. 

He finds Draco by the ducks’ lake, sitting tailor-style, even though Harry knows it must hurt his ankle, sitting like that. Harry can already feel his anger dissipating, and he struggles to hang onto it with desperate hands. Because in the absence of that anger, he has nothing left. 

He drops down on the grass next to the boy, feeling his guts writhe and his clammy hands slightly tremble. Draco is twisting a blade of grass between his fingers. “I didn’t want you to argue with him.”

“I don’t get why I had to argue with Ron over you as well,” Harry snaps, not quite yelling yet. “What’s the deal with that? Why does everyone act like you and I are star-crossed lovers or getting things on—”

“I understand.” Draco looks at him; his hair falls a bit in his eyes and Harry is infuriated by this. Because how dare the boy look at him like that, with those eyes. “Harry, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. It’ll sort itself out either way.”

“See? This!” Harry exclaims, thrusting his hands in the air, “This is what I mean! You don’t know that! I don’t know you!”

“Okay.”

“See!? That isn’t you! You’re snarky, you’re mean, you’re fucking arrogant; I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sound meek or look meek in my entire bloody life! What is wrong with you?”

Draco raises a sardonic eyebrow at him, “You just said you didn’t know me.”

“I just—Argh! Why did you have to kiss me?” Harry huffs, “Why do you keep looking at me like that? Why do you only sleep when I’m around?”

Why would anyone do any of those things for another person? How could Draco act like he knows everything about Harry? How could he so confidently look at the mess Harry has become and think himself the only one capable of loving him? 

The ducks paddle away from them and Draco brings his knees up to his chest and looks away, allowing the silence to elongate between them. “I’m sorry, Potter. I’ll stop.”

Harry hates it. He hates this easy, resigned acceptance. He hates that it fills him with rage. He loathes that he sounds like a monster. He hates the way Ron looked at him with betrayal. The way Draco skirts his gaze and refuses to look at him now. He hates the way the boy sounds. He hates how easy it was to embrace him before, to help him before, to touch him before. 

“You’re a bloody seer.”

“Okay?”

“So, that means…like Trelawney, right? Is that it?” Harry sneers, “Did you prophecise that I’m gonna fall in love with you or—”

Draco looks at him with a sneer reflected back on his face, “It’s not like that.”

“Then tell me.”

“It wouldn’t change anything,” the boy tells him, resigned and exhausted and disillusioned. “You’re not forced into anything, Harry. And no, I’m not like that demented bitch. It’s not like I saw us in the tea leaves in a cup.” He actually looks ridiculously insulted that Harry could even insinuate such a thing. 

“Then what are you like?”

“I…It doesn’t matter.”

“I just feel like there’s so much pressure on me already,” Harry draws his own knees to his chest, forces his arms around them in a bruising grip, “I mean… People around me always end up endangered or dead. Why would you want to be involved with that? What is so redeeming about me that you look at me like that?”

“I’ll stop.”

Harry hates it. The way Draco says he’ll stop . It’s so small and fragile and frayed around the edges. Harry detests it. And maybe he detests Draco because of it. How could he stop when it seems to come so naturally to him? Why would it come so naturally to him? Has he actually deluded himself into developing these feelings for Harry? Does he think he owes Harry something because Harry rescued him? 

Is it because he doesn’t have anybody else in this world?

“Well, I don’t want you to stop. I’m just confused,” he rubs his eyes beneath his smudged glasses, “I don’t even know you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Draco,” Harry sighs, “I don’t know the first thing about you.”

Draco shakes his head like Harry is being an idiot. When he looks at Harry, his eyes are narrowed. “I like green apples,” he tells him, “I know you never watched me as keenly as I watched you, but you must have noticed. I’m left-handed. Which I’m sure, again, you have noted, even if absent-mindedly. I’m too tall and that makes me feel awkward unless I’m on a broom. I’m not… I’m good at putting on a show.”

The last bitter sentence seems like a jab pointed at himself, and Harry remembers a distant past, when he did in fact call Draco out for being ‘fake’, for putting on a show for other people and hiding his authentic self. Harry drops his eyes and ignores the pain blooming in his chest because the more he thinks about what Draco just said, the more he agrees that, yeah, he may have noticed that Draco favours certain food, and he obviously knew he was left-handed, and he knows how uncomfortable Draco feels within his own skin due to his height. He knows the boy snores. He knows he doesn’t know how to deal with his hair. He knows he is quick to anger. He loves bread; he adores baked goods. He knows he liked the hairpins Papa used to have in his hair when he was young. 

“I knew that, yeah.” Harry exhales. 

“You don’t have to resign yourself to whatever vision that’s stuck in my head.” Draco continues, his voice is subdued, noncombative. “Who knows? Maybe one day it’ll stop being so inevitable; maybe I’m just crazy and making things up. If you like Ron, you should tell him—”

“I don’t,” Harry hurries to say, “I don’t, I mean I haven’t liked anyone, ever. I don’t even know what it’s like. When you have the life I have, well, have you seen my parents? That’s the kind of love you just don’t find every day.”

“Oh.”

Harry shrugs, fighting the urge to laugh at himself. He knows how childish it sounds, but growing up as he did, every day he was reminded of what actual love was supposed to look like, and every day he woke up, knowing that he would never find it. He knows anything short of what his parents have will never fulfil him emotionally. And he knows with the way things are going, he may never live long enough to even attempt finding someone who might love him like that. 

“I don’t know why I expect that sort of life or love for myself,” he tells Draco, “It’s hard to concede to anything less when you see true love like that , for years growing up.”

Draco doesn’t quite laugh at him, but there’s a look in his eyes, a far-away sense of irony, “I suppose so.”

“That is not to say that you’re not a good person,” Harry swallows thickly, “I’m sure, well, I am certain that you are. I just don’t want to waste your time. You deserve what my fathers have, and you’ll get it one day.”

He will most likely outlive Harry; he shouldn’t be too emotionally attached to him, the sooner he can wean himself off Harry, the better. And Harry has already resigned himself to a lonely existence. He already knows that as long as Voldemort lives, he would never want to give him the satisfaction of loving someone. 

“Yeah. You too.” Draco nudges him with his shoe. 

He doesn’t quite sound like he’s accepted Harry’s rejection, but at least he’s not mad like Ron or devastated like Hermione. Harry takes it. 

“Doubtful, but oh well.” He smiles a bit bitterly and then lays his legs flat to get to his pocket, “I might as well give you this. I’ve been hanging onto it for a few days.”

He hands it off to the boy and leans back on his hands on the grass. Draco scoots closer to him, squinting down at the round little thing in his palm with a confused frown. Harry looks at him, marvelling at the stone, his chest fondly tightening at the way Draco’s dimple shows when he’s frowning in acute concentration.

“What’s that?”

“Well, I know your birthday passed and Dad’s gonna make the cake next week but, I got you a little something.”

Draco pokes the small stone shyly, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, now that I think about it, it was a bit…too much,” Harry thinks about Sirius’ teasing with a horrified blush, “But you can still take it if you want. A relic from a friend.”

“Oh.”

“I really didn’t know what you’d like,” Harry tries to catch his breath so he doesn’t sound like an idiot, he thinks that he fails. “—But your eyes lingered on the photo album a few days ago when you saw Papa wearing those pins. I couldn’t find an exact replica. Or hairpins. But I found—”

“Amethyst.”

Yeah, like his eyes , Harry had thought when he was done rummaging through Sirius’ chest of precious gemstones. The palest of Amethysts, like Draco’s eyes, caught under sunlight. 

“It’s small,” he mutters, “Just something to slip into your pocket. Why are you laughing??”

Draco’s not just laughing. He is grabbing at his sides, and peals of loud laughter burst out of his lips in rounds. The boy falls back on the grass and giggles, trying to catch his breath as he holds the amethyst up to the dimming sun,“It’s nothing, it’s nothing—” he wheezes. 

“Is it stupid!? Wait, why are you laughing!?”

Draco rolls on the grass to face him, grinning so wide that his face is split in half, “Did you find this somewhere?”

“No!?” Harry shoves him in the shoulder, getting to his knees as the boy keeps laughing, “It’s from my godfather’s treasure chest! I dug in there for a good few hours—”

“So,” Draco giggles, “Like a magpie, you returned with a shiny, stolen trophy.”

“Well, if you don’t want it—” Harry almost tackles the boy, but Draco brings his knee up, threatening to kick him in the shins. 

“Too late, Potter,” Draco throws him a haughty smirk, “Keeping it.” He pats the small amethyst to his chest, almost like he wants the precious stone to meld into his skin. 

Harry stares at the boy’s long and elegant fingers, tapping the stone on his chest to an invisible rhythm; the twine around his lungs loosens as the boy playfully winks up at him. “Does this mean you’re going to dive in the lake and find me more shiny shit, Potter?”

“Oh, whatever.”

Draco cackles and then sighs. They lapse into a companionable silence as the sun starts to set, and Draco purses his lips, “Hey, Potter?”

“What, Malfoy?”

“Can you help me up?”

Harry looks around and figures that Draco had forgotten his cane in his haste to get out of the house. He rolls his eyes at the boy and pushes himself to his feet with a groan, “‘Course.”

He drags the boy up by his hands, held up extended towards the sky, and for half a second before Draco steadies himself, Harry feels the boy’s weight entirely leaning against him. His heart flutters and his eyes sting, and he doesn’t know why. 

“I’ll help you back to the house,” he tells Draco and slings an arm around the boy’s waist, helping him walk. 

 

...

 

It only takes two weeks and a day for things to fall apart. If asked later, Draco would probably say that the day started like any other normal day at the Potter household. He woke up first in Harry’s arms on the couch in the Orangery, he padded off to the kitchen and waited for James Potter to wake up. He showered while the man prepared breakfast, he obsessed over his imperfections and his ugliness in the mirror for far too long. He pretended to forget about the Manor and his cousin’s anxiety and the war. 

He tucked the amethyst Harry had gotten him safely in the pocket of Harry’s charmed pyjama pants. Harry woke up right before breakfast too, and groggily mentioned that since he had his broom back, they should take turns flying laps around the house if his Papa allowed it. 

Draco urges Harry to sweet-talk James as he heads upstairs himself, trying to talk his cousin into allowing them to play ball in the sky for a few hours, even though it definitely is not safe to do so. 

Draco will say that the horrid visions of bloodied floors and stained walls and dead bodies didn’t curiously flash before his eyes as he made his way down the corridor towards the bathroom. The bathroom with its door ajar. He would say later that it happened so suddenly. 

“Cousin, Harry was wondering if you'd let us—” he starts saying and then falls mute once he catches a glimpse of the man, bowed over the basin, “Regulus.” 

Regulus cracks an eye open, oddly silent, his face covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat, with one arm stretched over the basin under the running water and his other arm curled around his middle, trying to hold his body up. 

“Draco.” 

Draco is too scared to open his mouth, to ask, he stumbles closer, “What's wrong?” he asks like a little child. 

Regulus turns his face away and his body oddly contorts in a shudder, his arm trembling under the water, “You should know… It's not—your fault. Not your fault. This isn't—your fault.” 

Draco puts a shaking hand over his cousin’s trembling shoulder and his eyes trail, bit by bit until they reach the bold, pigmented ink that madly writhes under his cousin’s skin, like a trapped worm trying to eat its way out of his skin. 

“No,” Draco breathes, his eyes are glued to the dark mark, “No. Shit. Tell me what to do, Regulus! No, please—” 

“Papa, Draco?” Draco hears Harry’s voice from the corridor, and yet is too paralysed to call out, to urge him to come running, “I got Dad’s permission, where are you guys? Are you guys—” 

Harry runs past Draco’s numb body before he’s even fully inside the bathroom, calling his Papa and trying to get the man to respond. Draco watches numbly, as Regulus tries to push himself to his feet and fails, his lips pressed together and his pale face blanching as another wave of pain hits. Harry holds onto the man, calling his name, his tone tinged with an acrid fear, a little child calling out for help in a crowd.

“Get—James,” Regulus gasps, “James. Please .” 

“Stay with him!” Harry foists the man on Draco and starts running, his feet thundering on the floorboards. Draco can hear him calling, hollering the walls down really, “DAD! DAD! ” 

“Not your fault,” words that will haunt him forever because they were the last words Regulus Black uttered to him coherently in agony, “It's not.”

Draco has nothing to say back, he stares into the man’s terrified and pain-ridden eyes and listens to the faucet as it leaks, in tandem with the man’s laboured breathing, and the cacophony of feet, striking the floor like the lashing of a whip to hurry over. 

Each second passes like an hour.

Notes:

No notes for now, there are too many spoilers lmaooo.

- I will reply to all of the wonderful comments very soon, love ya'll take care until the next update!

Chapter 17: 17.—I starve, gluttonously—

Notes:

I'm sorry.

I have nothing else to say. I'M SORRY FOR WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ.

The early update is a birthday gift, so HAPPY birthday, Pookie. AND I'M SORRY

Is this the darkest thing I've ever written, not at all, but omg guys take care of yourselves. Every single warning and tag on the fic comes in use here.

!!! Trigger warnings: Explicit depiction of blood and vore, explicit depiction of torture, explicit description of bodily functions, explicit descriptions of FORCED EDs (eating disorders) and starvation, explicit depiction of dehumanisation, explicit depiction of violence, insects !!!

 

There's a one-shot added to the series, use it as a palate cleanser after this nightmarish read :D

17.—I starve, gluttonously—

...

 

The cause of death seems to have been

starvation—his throat closed

 

& so he was no longer able to swallow. On his

deathbed he was editing The Hunger

 

Artist , which, perhaps ironically (perhaps

not), he'd begun working on before he was

 

felled.

 

-Nick Flynn, Kafka

 

...

...

 

On fine days the cage was dragged out into the open air, and then the hunger artist was put on display particularly for the children. [...] As he sat there on scattered straw—spurning a chair—in a black tights, looking pale, with his ribs sticking out prominently, sometimes nodding politely, answering questions with a forced smile, even sticking his arm out through the bars to let people feel how emaciated he was, but then completely sinking back into himself, so that he paid no attention to anything, not even to what was so important to him, the striking of the clock, which was

the single furnishing in the cage, merely looking out in front of him with his eyes almost shut

and now and then sipping from a tiny glass of water to moisten his lips. [...]

 

-Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist 

...

1979

 

“I cannot.” His eyes were wide, stitched to the open palm held in front of him with a hushed urgency in his voice. He looked so skeletal that a stiff breeze would have done him in. 

He looked unrecognisable. Even to those who saw his rapid decline, from the beginning to this point in time, the difference was jarring, an unspeakable horror. Every breath seemed torn out of his chest, every word accompanied by a childlike paranoia. 

“It’s just grapes,” Evan told his friend, not quite snapping at him, “Literally only five of them. You’re gonna fall over, mate.”

He and Barty must have lost count of how many days it’d been since their friend was given permission to consume anything. Their disobedience was striking, in that they were driven to it by a humane compulsion that seemed crude and incongruent with their environment. 

Everyone in this wretched hell had pretended for so long that Regulus was not a human being that Barty feared deep down that even they were beginning to believe it. It was astounding, that in this heart-rending bout of conditioning, Regulus himself was the first victim, the first one to fold, having so little regard for his own body or identity. He was the most compliant. 

“He doesn’t want me to eat—”

“He certainly doesn’t want you dead,” Barty snapped irritably, looking around to see whether there was anybody else witness to their little meeting in the corridor. This bloody place was like a convoluted maze, crawling with all sorts of vermin. “He won’t even know.”

Regulus shook his head, his face prematurely lined with fear. 

“Regulus, please,” Barty closed a hand around the boy’s. “You’re wasting away.”

It was revolting to look at, quite frankly. Barty and Evan felt guilty for thinking so, but it was on purpose. The Dark Lord rejoiced in it, as each day robbed a strip of humanity away from the formerly regal and beautiful young boy who was their friend. They were not allowed to entertain treacherous thoughts, but they were frustrated, at the end of their ropes. 

Regulus was teetering on the edge of death, almost daily, as he had been ever since he was imprisoned here. Like something grotesque on display.

Barty watched Regulus’ inner conflict, his hunger-crazed eyes, bearing holes into the supple flesh of the round green grapes lying atop Evan’s open palm, so temptingly and so sinfully, “I’ll just have one.” The voice was hushed, in a rush to be completed. Regulus seemed terrified of even uttering it.

“It’s just five.” Evan’s voice was mollifying, crowding Regulus against the nearest wall. “You can have five. It’s from the kitchens; it’s safe food.”

Barty watched as Regulus fought and lost the inner struggle to reject the food. It must have been actual days, that Barty and Evan knew of. It wasn’t that they were short of food. That it wasn’t amply offered at the Manor to anyone who chose to seek it. It was just that Regulus wasn’t allowed any. And it had been like this for so long that Barty felt wrong that they were feeding their friend now, as though they were actually in the wrong, as though Regulus couldn’t even digest the food they offered. 

“Not here,” Regulus muttered quickly, his chapped lips trembling as his eyes followed Evan’s hand, the grapes. 

Evan threw Barty a look and it took him a moment to understand the silent request. Right , he thought to himself, his guts churning. He looked around the corridor, this time with a keener eye and then nodded his head at a broom closet a bit away by the vase stands. 

“Alright, there.” He grabbed onto Regulus’ arm and gently swerved him towards the closet, “There’s a closet over there—”

Evan and Barty shielded their friend’s smaller, emaciated figure with their own, quickly ushering him into the dark supply closet, like he was a secret to be kept, as though it was shameful to even bear witness to his desperation and hunger. 

Evan held out the grapes one by one, because Regulus’ hands were seizing from the previous night’s torture, and the grapes were almost a bit squashed as they were handed over. Regulus stuffed one in his mouth quickly, snapping his jaw closed and clasping his juice-stained hand over it as he tried to chew, like Barty and Evan were just waiting to wrench his jaw open and take the grape out.

Barty couldn’t hold his composure; the sight was downright hard to watch. He turned his head away, towards the empty corridor with narrowed eyes. He could feel his mark, subtly burning, denoting the Lord’s desire to join him for a meeting at their earliest convenience. Except, it was not about their convenience. 

“They’re gathering in the lounge by now; you better hurry, Regulus.” He quickly told his friend, and Regulus flinched a bit back into the brooms and buckets propped up against the narrow walls. 

Evan shoved at him, “Don’t rush him.” He snapped, turning to hand Regulus another grape. 

Four now. How long did it bloody take to eat five grapes?

“I’m not rushing him—” Barty then shook his head, “He should be rushed! Don’t you feel the mark burning? It’s just a fucking handful of grapes; how long can it even take?! We can’t be late for a meeting; are you barmy—”

“Don’t listen to him,” Evan was telling Regulus, and Barty was so resentful of his partner’s compassion, of his calm demeanour. Evan was not as targeted by the Dark Lord, but he was still tortured because of Reggie, to glean information about him, and Barty always thought that maybe Evan would feel at least a bit resentful about that, being the grapevine . “Here. Take this one. There you go. Eat slowly, it’s okay.”

Regulus was trying to shove Evan’s hand away, with two remaining grapes, and Barty fought the urge to close his eyes and sigh. It felt like gluttony, something that they shouldn’t be doing, or maybe it was just that Regulus was treating it in this manner, and Barty was influenced most easily by it. By the sense of repugnant complicity and agreement, the feeling that they truly were in the wrong for feeding their starving friend. 

“That’s enough—”

“No,” Evan pushed the grapes into Regulus's shaking hand, helping him raise his hand to his mouth. “There are just two more. Pop ‘em in, lad.”

Regulus did, chewing and trying to breathe through his panic, “He’ll be mad,” he whispered to Evan with glazed eyes as he swallowed. 

“No, he won’t,” Barty could hear the uncertainty in Evan’s tone as he replied, even as Reggie didn’t. “It’s just grapes.”

A sword remained hanging over their heads, tied around it a strained thread. 

...

1995

 

Draco reckons that the worst part about it is the silence. 

There is no worse sound than a silence unprompted and uninvited to a scene of torture. As he holds onto the man he will come to know as a parent, perhaps down a dreary lane of delusion after a war he won’t outlive, Draco is most struck by silence. 

Regulus is silent, at a moment when he should be anything but. 

Draco hears other things. He hears the running water; he hears his own panting, his own stuttered apologies—to whom or for what sin he apologises to his cousin for, he is unaware. He hears Regulus’ harsh breathing, his words, his last words echoing in Draco’s hollow chest; he hears Harry shouting so loudly that his voice reverberates in Draco’s head. He hears two sets of footsteps. 

He stares at the writhing ink, the scarred forearm, damp and mottled by drops of water that are meant to assuage the pain uselessly but now only resemble stray tears, streaming down the shuddering tattoo. They’re on the floor; Draco’s ankle is on fire and Regulus’ weight leaning against him is immense. Draco sees his clammy skin, can feel the coldness seeping out of him, the fluttering of his eyes, the way his lips are pressed so tightly against each other that the flesh is white and blanched.

Draco has never seen anything like this before. 

The way his…visions work, he’s always tried to explain it to himself, to justify it, to find a formula or a recipe or some measure of sanity in it. He always felt like it was as though he was sitting in a room by himself, and staring at a door that was ajar, and through it, he could only glimpse and hear and touch senseless vignettes. Nothing of value, perhaps, but actions and their consequences. Draco hates admitting it, but Riddle shuffling through his head, putting those senseless vignettes so meticulously in order, had been nauseatingly helpful. Even though the most important frames were fabrications, it granted him perspective. 

Enough perspective to have a tentative outlook on the longevity and result of this war. 

The disappearance of Malfoy Manor was never included in those frames. 

And neither was this: this scene of sadistic torment. 

Both feel significant enough to have been included; that has been the trend for most things occurring in the past. Seeing himself trying to stop Orion, seeing James Potter kill Orion, seeing Harry in a graveyard with a dead Cedric Diggory. Seeing Voldemort lean over him, more beast than man, and assault his mind over and over again, a shadow cast against a wall. Seeing the minister and Chief Scrimgeour die, seeing the world succumb to a panicked chaos, to piles of innocent bodies and carnage in the purest sense. Seeing himself reflected in the boy’s anguished eyes as they fall in love, as he tells him goodbye, as it all goes blurry and then drifts into a blank nothingness.

Scenes from the room next door, which he spent his entire childhood trying to decode. Only for it to turn out like this, with Regulus Black wheezing and curling into himself, his body seized by a pain that nothing can stop.  

Not supposed to happen , Draco keeps on thinking. This was never supposed to happen. This is an anomaly. This means that Draco’s fucked something up again. The events have changed, gone astray from their original path, down another convoluted road, not for the better, but maybe for the worse.

James Potter tears into the bathroom and Draco turns his head to look at his haggard face before he is roughly shoved aside. He watches, transfixed, as James Potter tries to gather Regulus in his arms, still clad in his apron, his fingers smudged with the dough batter he was taming for breakfast. Potter taps Regulus’ clammy face until the man’s eyes flutter open, his breath catching, “Reggie! Regulus!? Regulus, open your eyes! Draco what happened—” 

Draco covers his mouth. He swallows down a gag and bites out, “Look at his arm .” 

James Potter had neglected to notice the blaring writhing of the ink in his haste and panic to hold his husband. Draco watches as Harry bursts into the bathroom out of breath, looking over James’ shoulder at his father’s bared forearm. James’ hand darts to steady the shaking arm, “Fuck. Oh, God. Bloody hell, oh God, it's happening—” he presses his lips to Regulus’ temple, rocking them back and forth on the floor and Harry falls next to them, mute with round, terrified eyes. 

Draco’s mouth is dry. “He needs—” help. 

He needs help that no one here can give him. 

“Dad, Dad what should we do—Dad—”

Before either Harry or James can voice their panic any further, Regulus’s body arches up and out of James’ arms, his limbs shifting as though they are trying to be yanked into a funnel by force. James hangs onto Regulus with a cry, gathering him in his arms, “What! What is happening, Reg? Regulus!”

“James,” is not really enunciated fully, as it more resembles an incoherent, animalistic groan, yet James’ eyes dart down to Regulus, his hand cupping one clammy cheek. Regulus screws his eyes shut, croaking once he can breathe, “He’s—don’t. Don’t let him take me, please, please-pleaseplease—Please!”

Draco frowns, watching as Harry also mirrors his confusion. But James, James isn’t confused in the slightest; his face pales and he tries to scramble to his feet with the man in his arms, jolted all at once into action. Harry hurries, helping his father, “Dad! Dad, what’s happening!?”

“He’s trying to force him to apparate! The damn mark!” James exclaims and Regulus cries through pressed lips, his body contorting and arching again. “Reggie, Reg, stay, don’t! Don’t! I know, I know, stay with me, please stay with me—”

Everything is propelled into action seemingly all at once. Draco sees Regulus’ right leg twist and crack as it would have had, had he been apparating, except that it’s only his leg that disappears, leaving the rest of his body with him, nothing below the knee, tearing the fabric of his pyjama pants, leaving behind a deluge of blood. Regulus muffles a harsh cry against James’ chest and before he can scream in agony, his leg reappears again, is wrenched back in its place with another resounding crack; a bucket's worth of blood sloshes down the poorly reinfused leg onto the clean tiles through the torn pyjamas and all over James, who gasps as though the crimson stains are his own. 

Harry and Draco are speechless, barely able to grasp what just happened. Splinched , Draco’s mind unhelpfully provides the term. Regulus’ leg just got splinched. 

It all happens too fast from there. James hefts Regulus up higher in his arms and turns to run out, his socks slick with blood and leaving prints on the floorboards. Harry runs out next and Draco bites his lip in frustration, pushing himself up with a cringe to hobble after them. He has working legs; it’s only his stupid ankle that burns as he tries to run, like a lame horse. He hears James’ voice, trying to soothe and contain the suppressed cries emitting out of Regulus on their way down the stairs and then as they thunder towards the kitchen. 

Draco almost slips on the slick stairs and can see the back of Harry’s head, and the boy breathlessly calling his Papa, confused and freaked out and desperate. Draco shoves himself up using the stair bannister and stumbles into the kitchen, numbly watching as James tries to fit himself and Regulus’ body in their fireplace; Harry’s hand is twisted in their floo-powder jar, his shoulders shaking. His mouth is opening, but no words can come out. James is trying to urge him to speak. 

Draco races over and quickly takes the jar from him, throwing an askance glance at James, “Albus! Shout out ‘Albus’ office’!” James urges him, bringing Regulus flush against his chest, the man thrashing in his arms, one hand tightly clasped over his mouth.

“You and Harry follow me!” And then the man presses his lips against his husband’s damp hair, “You're okay. You're okay, I've got you, Reg. It's okay. Shh, it's okay.”

Draco hurls the floo powder into the fireplace and screams, “Albus Dumbledore’s Office!”

The jar tumbles out of Draco’s hands as the couple disappears in a plume of green flames. He turns to Harry and grabs the boy’s face in his hands, “We need to go. We need to leave right now.” 

Harry’s eyes stare into his and his mouth opens again, but no sound escapes. Draco frowns mildly, and then just decides that they don’t have time for this. He pulls Harry by the hand, bends down and gathers a fistful of floo powder from the floor and rushes into the fireplace with him. 

 

...

 

James can feel the shifting bones of his husband in agony, contorting in his arms, and he's too terrified of breaking them, as though he's handling a delicate bird, already crushed by the constricting jaws of a hunting hound. 

He doesn't know what else he could have done. He knows Regulus abhors being here, in a lion's den of another kind, but James is desperate and the only man able to stop his forced removal is Albus Dumbledore. The old man is thankfully there when they arrive in a heap of limbs, amidst rearranging his Pensive cabinet, once James stumbles out of the Floo.

James is too breathless to explain, Regulus is too silent in his arms, only twitching and panting, but Albus knows. He rushes over, wand in hand, and looks at James, “When did it start?”

James shakes his head. He doesn't know. He was making breakfast. He wanted to make scones, because Draco had been craving them for weeks and he hadn't even checked on Reggie that morning after his shower—

“James—”

“I—now—I don’t know what to do!” 

He is so utterly unprepared for this. He can feel the warm blood, dripping down his arms onto the floor from Reggie's splinched leg, and he can't breathe. He can smell the blood, tangy and metallic and entirely too present.

Regulus doesn't open his eyes, doesn't lean into the touch. His nails are digging into the skin around his mouth, his knuckles white, his entire body tensed. 

“What happened to his leg?”

“Riddle tried—” James pants, “Pulling him through the mark, but he resisted the pull—I figured Hogwarts has better—”

“Anti-Apparition wards.”

They have anti-apparation wards back at the Winbourne Manor too. And yet still, Riddle managed to almost pull Regulus away through them. The wards here at Hogwarts would be infinitely stronger in that regard. But that doesn't mean Riddle still isn't trying. 

James hears the Floo roaring behind them again, and his son and Draco tripping out of the fireplace. Albus’ eyes flicker to the boys only for a moment. 

“We had wards too.” James pulls Regulus closer. “I thought… Only his leg was splinched, oh God! But if we didn’t have those wards, it would have been his whole fucking body, Albus—”

Albus' hand settles over Reggie's sweat-coated forehead, and his husband weakly struggles against the touch, trying to push his face into James' chest. 

“He’s still cognisant.” Albus’ eyes bleakly follow the limp arm with the mark. “I will alert Poppy to prepare a private room—”

James nods quickly. He knows the room, it’s the one Remus used to take when he was at Hogwarts; the infirmary is only one floor down, and if he runs he can make it there more quickly—Albus’s hand darts out, settling around his shaking arm. His adrenaline is such that he doesn’t even notice his arms and back straining against Regulus’ weight. He’s not the same young man he used to be before, it’s not that easy to pick his husband up and carry him around. He looks down at the man’s pinched face, at the red splotches around his mouth that will bruise. 

Why would this happen now? They had been waiting for so many weeks for it to happen, and why now? James forces his bloodied feet to work, trying to resist Albus’ firm hold on his arm. 

“James.”

“I know the room!” He snaps, “The one Remus used to have! I know where it is. I can just—”

“James, I understand. But you cannot take Regulus using corridors bustling with students to an infirmary that may have occupants.” He takes a step back from a haggard James and waves his hand at an empty corner of his circular office, by the bookshelves and the steps. A narrow, floating stretcher appears, and James stumbles over, “Settle him there for now,” Albus encourages him, “I promise this won’t take long.”

He then turns towards Harry and Draco, who are standing frigidly by the fireplace still, their eyes tracking James as he hesitantly lowers Regulus’ unwilling body on the stretcher. James takes note of the twisted leg with a broken heart, looks down at his own blood-covered hands and the blue apron that Regulus used to adore.  

“Mister Malfoy, Harry—if I may, dear boys.”

Draco is the one who pulls a dumbfounded Harry out of the way, letting the old headmaster access the fireplace. James drags his eyes away from them and pushes Regulus’ hair back from his face, watching darkly, as his chest trembles and his feet kick to fight off the pain. If Regulus is fighting the pain as such, then it must be truly unbearable. His husband’s pain tolerance is frighteningly high; he tends to overlook small cuts and scratches, never bats an eye at being burned by hot liquids or a scorching bath. Hell, he burnt his own damn feet through leather boots, and he was walking on them like it was nothing. 

For him now, to show this constrained reaction, it was enough confirmation that he was undergoing pain that would upend a normal witch or wizard, driving them to the edge of insanity. It didn’t take much for Alice and Frank after all. 

He feels Harry walking up to the other side of the stretcher, and Draco reluctantly behind him. James looks up to say something, anything, even empty comforts. They can hear Albus’ low voice by the fireplace, likely instructing Poppy to prepare that old room. 

Regulus’ eyes flutter like half-closed curtains; the green in his eyes is muddied with confusion and pain, but they hold James’ gaze, and James slowly tries to detach his iron hold on his face. Regulus purses his lips more forcefully, his arm seizing and his neck straining. 

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” James lies to him and feels wretched. Nobody says anything else. The silence is striking. Harry seems to have reverted back to his muteness. Draco’s face is drawn. They look like mourners standing over a dead body. Funnily, James finds himself thinking of that grave in the Lake District. 

He won’t die, James thinks to himself. Riddle, that disgusting beast, wouldn’t want death. No. 

This is punishment . 

“I will accompany you,” Albus says after a minute or two or maybe an eternity, “Lift him gently. Poppy has that old room prepared for him and the Infirmary cleared out for now—”

“We need to call his brother and others,” James finds himself saying, though his body feels too far away. “If his mark is like this, then Barty’s—”

“I see.”

James nods. He presses Reggie’s head to his shoulder once he lifts him into a bridal carry. “Please,” he begs the barely conscious man, “Please don’t leave me. It’ll be okay.” He feels like a disgusting liar. 

Regulus cannot respond to him. The hand he has clasped over his mouth falls in exhaustion, leaving his face red, to be bruised; now the nails are digging into his marked forearm; the silence is still strangely with them. James watches as Albus’ Patronus, a blue phoenix, takes form over them. 

“Please alert Sirius Black that he and his partners need to come to the castle immediately,” Albus orders the Patronus. “Direct them to my office at once. It is urgent.”

James catches Reggie’s half-lidded eyes gazing at the phoenix, almost brazenly. 

Albus nods at him, and James doesn’t need any other indicators. As the phoenix disappears in a harsh blue flash, he runs towards the fireplace, faintly hearing his boys behind him being ushered in, “This way, Harry, Draco,” the old headmaster instructs them. 

Regulus turns his face from James, either in pain or shame; James cannot decide. 

 

...

 

Things get progressively worse at an alarming speed. 

In all his ten months of torment, not once did the horror that unfolded before him now even occur to Draco in his vilest and most depraved dreams. He’d made the mistake of assuming that the scene in the bathroom and the subsequent one in Dumbledore’s office would be the worst of this affair. 

It takes all of two minutes to put his cousin down on a pristine bed in a private room attached to the matron’s office, in a spot that Draco personally didn’t even know existed. The matron assures them that the room has been proofed with silencing charms, that she’s trying to give Regulus every measure of comfort she has at hand. 

But there’s no measure for what occurs next. 

Draco never pondered too deeply about what Riddle had done to him. This may be because he knew that there was going to be an end to it, that he had a meagre life past the torment, and truly speaking, Riddle couldn’t give a flying fuck about him. His torture was methodical; he visited daily, that was true, but he never lingered beyond need; he never had the sadistic urge to inflict pain beyond what was essentially his method of extraction. 

Draco was having a horrible time, that’s for sure. He still can’t sleep, can’t eat properly, can’t walk properly; he may never do any of those things. 

But seeing Regulus’ body on that bed, almost about to break in half from the force of its torsion, like a toy that had been snapped in half, is sickening. This is what true torture is. There is no single source of the pain. There is the mark, the black ink crawling under the skin, glaringly dark against the pale scars. There is the pull within the mark, the tug that wants to force Regulus’ body out of a fortress that rigidly opposes the act through wards that are centuries old and will not yield. It doesn’t matter if they do yield or not, because Regulus’ body isn’t going anywhere; it is just straining itself beyond all odds to try against his will anyway. 

And that is the real torture. Because Riddle has to know that the only reason why his persistent torture has not yet borne any results is that Regulus is here at Hogwarts. That there is no way to take him by force as long as he remains here. And yet, not only does the torture not abate, it intensifies. 

The matron and the headmaster flutter around the bed hurriedly, a hushed back-and-forth between them as they try to alleviate the bone-chilling agony: 

“The wards will prevent any undue apparations. But the toll it may take on his body—” Dumbledore drifts off. And Draco wants to jeer at the man, that the toll is already taking beyond what it is owed from his cousin’s body. 

And there’s still that wretched silence. Regulus isn’t crying out. He’s not screaming. He only tries and fails to breathe. His eyes are screwed shut, his lips perhaps mouthing a name, or maybe trying to find James again. 

But James Potter is right there, at the head of the bed, trying to hold Regulus down as gingerly as he dares while he argues with Poppy Pomfrey in a panicked tone, “Why can’t you do something!?” he is exclaiming.

Poppy looks aged, her face is lined and the wand in her hand shakes uselessly. “This is the first time I have encountered an aggressive dark mark. I’m sorry, lad, but even a hospital may not have the resources we need—”

“Do you know anyone?” James is beseeching, “Please, anyone! Any healer from St. Mungo’s who may specialise—”

“Severus would have been the best person for this,” the old woman says, shaking her head regretfully. “I can try and make some calls. For now, we just need to make sure he’s in less pain—”

Draco looks at Harry, who remains unblinking and as silent as his father, steadfastly staring at the bed. Draco looks down at his hands, tightly clasped, the fingers pressing down on each other hard enough to break each knuckle. He appears much younger than Draco’s visions had promised. He doesn’t have the eyes of a weathered soldier, the drooping shoulders, even in spite of the scars on his arms and all he’s gone through to save Draco, he still used to have a shred of innocence left in him. 

Draco is watching as it is being stripped away layer by layer. 

He grabs the boy’s shaking hands, blocking his view of the bed even as he himself still hears the silent struggle, the choked cries. He grabs Harry’s face. “Look at me,” he tells the boy, covering his ears with both hands. 

Harry’s eyes catch his, and his mouth opens like he wants to cry, but nothing comes out. Draco hasn’t seen that before. “We can get out of here. You need to catch your breath—”

He might as well have suggested a heinous deed. The way Harry recoils. 

Harry is shaking his head, already trying to push Draco away to approach the bed, restlessly just watching. Draco curses, looking back on as James Potter and Poppy Pomfrey argue over what the hell they should be doing. They’re trying to give him something, a purple vial, a pain reliever? That is really unlikely to work. 

This prolonged struggle goes on for longer than Draco had thought possible. Minutes pass so excruciatingly and he expects there to be an end, a reprieve at the very least. But there is none. 

Like an orchestra of discordant symphonies, every action is jerky and tainted by panic, and the figure on the bed can only shudder and struggle against an invisible enemy. The limbs jerk and pull, his body like a broken doll out of a puppeteer’s command, bent out of shape. It's a game of rope that Regulus seems to be playing with his whole body. 

“Fuck,” James Potter groans under his breath at some point, fisting a hand stained crimson by dried blood into his hair, “Fuck. Oh, Merlin. He's not gonna make it.”

Draco agrees. It must have been almost thirty minutes. Hard to think this eternity has only been pocketed in thirty minutes. 

Barty Crouch Jr makes it to the scene with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin soon after. Sirius doesn't hesitate and rushes to the bed with a loud curse. His face is as lined by the horror as James'. Draco watches as Remus quickly makes his way towards Harry and Barty in the middle, looking at his friend with a stoic face. With one eye covered with a black eyepatch and his face still healing, he looks almost villainous.

“Have you given him anything?” he snaps at Pomfrey. 

“Nothing,” she shakes her head, her hair unkempt now, “We tried to give him some pain relievers, to at least fix his leg but he can't keep it down—”

“Wouldn’t work,” Barty interrupts her, striding into the small room to the bed. “Potions don’t work.”

James looks up from Regulus at him, his eyes are bloodshot. “What does? Have you encountered this before?”

“Nothing will,” Barty seethes, “There are no potions. No spells. No tropical solutions or numbing. If you knock him out, he’ll still be in the same amount of pain. Just trapped with no outlet. This is the most humane way to deal with it.”

Draco wouldn't call this humane , in the slightest. It's more an innate helplessness, an inability, rather than mercy. 

The small room is now almost too crowded, with Sirius desperately trying to comfort his brother, to make him open his eyes, flanked by his other side James, numbly trying to do the same. Barty stands by Poppy's side, and Remus is trying to cajole Harry into a verbal response. Regulus seems almost pushed out of the frame. 

“Your mark?” 

Barty shrugs at Dumbledore and pulls the sleeves of his jumper up. “Not even a sting. This is…only for Reggie.” 

“A punishment?” 

“A reminder.” Barty corrects grimly, “If I had to guess.”

“Out.” Poppy Pomfrey suddenly declares, “Too many people in the room. Out, please. You can wait in my office. He doesn't need an audience—” 

Remus tries to remove Harry and the boy fights it savagely, growling a litany of ‘No’s, begging his father to let him stay, but James is shaking his head at him, “Please, Harry. You shouldn't see this. You shouldn't be here—”

“Dad—” Harry can't choke out anything else. Draco helps Remus, grabbing onto an inconsolable Harry's arm and pulling him away from Regulus, weakly flailing against invisible bounds. 

Draco doesn't want to leave either. He has this irrational fear that once he steps out of the room, Regulus will cease to exist, that his pain will overcome him, engulf him more than it already has. 

He doesn't know how it is possible for a person to endure this, for even a second. Much less thirty minutes. 

“It's alright, kiddo. They'll take care of him, Barty can help, we need to get out of the way—”

Sirius Black joins them as well, his complexion pallid, and urged on by Barty, who Draco faintly hears comforting the man, “I have him. You shouldn't watch. He doesn't want that. I have him, Sirius.” 

They're only a room over. They can still hear the desperate conversation. They can hear the ragged breathing. Harry collapses onto Pomfrey’s office chair, and Sirius starts pacing. And it's just Draco staring through the slightly ajar door, right through its people, at the bed, where Regulus’ pinched face is facing him. 

He thinks about a valiant Harry, tall and slightly more broad-shouldered, his hair wilder, his hands coarse, as he came to rescue him from Voldemort’s clutches. 

He thinks about Malfoy Manor. About the decadence of his own entrapment. Harry didn't come to rescue him as himself. He didn't come, bursting through the door, covered in dirt and dripping blood. He didn't come, already in love with Draco, he didn't. He came disguised as another person. He fumbled every step of the way. He almost lost a duel to Bellatrix. He wasn't even supposed to encounter Bella at that point. He came all wrong. He doesn't love Draco. He doesn't even know Draco. 

And now they're here. How could it be that the images and his reality are unsynchronised? This never used to happen. Even prior to Voldemort's resurrection. Things happened the way he saw them happen. 

He sees Regulus' body convulse on the bed; he sees everyone rushing over and Sirius coming to a harsh stop in front of him. Harry tries to fight his way back into the room. Remus is stronger than him. 

This wouldn't have happened had Draco still been captive at the Manor. Draco realises this in a moment of horrid epiphany. This is happening because all of the other things that were supposed to happen didn't happen that way. 

Harry is in pieces because Harry was supposed to be older when he rescued Draco. Draco was supposed to stay there for longer than a meagre ten months. Because in that universe, Tom Riddle never had enough power to torment Regulus like this. 

And Regulus knew. Or at the very least, he suspected this to be the case. Because he looked at the vanished manor and then at Draco and said it was okay. Because he looked him in the eye in that bathroom before losing all lucidity and told him it wasn't his fault. 

But it is. 

The only person with enough force and foresight is Draco. The one who kept walking off a predestined path. The one who refused to let Harry's name fall into that Triwizard Cup, the one who killed Crouch and Karkaroff. He's the one who told Dobby about the Horcrux when he shouldn't have. 

He never saw Harry taking the Cup when he came over to rescue him. He fashioned it that way. Like a screwed-up little shortcut. He knew Bella was there, and the cup was with Bella, and Dobby could take it, and Harry wouldn't have to fight for it anymore. He wanted to avoid that hunt. Harry starved for over a year, only to find a Cup fighting a dragon in the belly of Gringotts, to no avail. Crossing Britain on foot to no avail. 

Draco loved him too much to let him go through all that. So he told Dobby … Was it that? Was it some other minuscule delineation? Something else that he did to ease the weight of a war off Harry's shoulders?

His face becomes stricken with horror, and his heart hammers against his ribs. He slams a hand over his mouth to stifle an aggrieved cry and looks away from the blurry, ajar door before it closes. 

A moment later, the first genuine scream tears its way out of his cousin's throat behind the closed door. 

Draco didn’t know it could get even worse. He’s so bloody wrong. 

 

...

 

Procedural memory kicks in more easily than Barty wants to admit to himself. His approach is deft, his hand firm as he grasps Regulus's shoulder and pushes him back into the bed. James reels back next to him, furious. “What the bloody hell—”

“The only way is through, James.” Barty looks down at his friend’s face, at the cold sweat, the stringy hair, his eyes as they’re screwed shut, “Let me help him with it. I know how.”

And it’s not as though the man can refuse. He cannot physically fight the pain for Regulus, he cannot kill its source, he cannot soothe the pain with potions and such. There is little to do but watch, and Barty reckons that’s the entire point of this. He smooths his thumb under Reggie’s left eye, pressing down. He looks at the red, finger-shaped bruises, and it’s weirdly funny because it’s nostalgic . 

They’re back here again, after nearly two decades. Back to the stifled cries and endless torment. And though they are in a room full of people, it’s just the two of them. Because Regulus recognises the touch even in the throes of this suffering. 

“He's been so quiet—” James laments next to him. 

Barty lightly pinches Regulus’ cheek and the man rolls away, curling into himself, his feet kicking as his chest heaves, another wave overtaking his limbs.

“He's being an idiot.”

“Whatever do you mean, Mister Crouch?” He hears the matron behind him. He grabs Regulus’ shoulder. The moron is going to damage himself further like this. Because contrary to what many may believe, the world doesn’t dissolve with the spiking of the pain for Regulus Black. He has been conditioned to remain conscious and aware. The silence may preserve an illusion of his dignity, but it will eat at his psyche. 

This silent game of tug…it always starts like this. And then the torment ramps up, endlessly, gradually, until a tooth cracks, the jaw becomes locked, the bruises become scattered over his lips and mouth. Just to suppress the cries of pain. To avoid giving the audience any satisfaction.

“Reggie, you fucking idiot. Enough.”

James tries to stop him. But Dumbledore’s hand is on his shoulder and Barty puts both hands on his friend’s face, forcing his eyes to open. There’s a gasp as Reggie reveals one bloodied eye—the strain must be immense already for a vessel to have popped only after thirty minutes—the man’s tears stream angrily over Barty’s hands, one streaked with the crimson blood, and the other, only a singular tear. 

Regulus closes his eyes, tries to shake his head, shake off Barty’s hold. “ No .” he bites out through gritted teeth.

It’s an order. The bloody sod is still mad at him. Barty wants to laugh, wants to slap him, wants to turn and walk away from this insanity. 

“Put aside your damn grudge for a second,” Barty snaps at him, his own heart is starting to pick up pace, “Cry out, please. You’re going to mince your damn teeth. Do you remember how we did it? If it hurts, you cry,” his voice is a hushed whisper, a furious thing only between them two even though others can hear, “That’s how you keep your head. You cry when it hurts. Please, mate. Come on. He's not here. You're not denying him satisfaction by not screaming when it hurts. Please, Reggie. Please.”

“His blood pressure is too high,” Poppy mutters next to him, her wand held to Reggie’s arm. 

Regulus’ lips are white, devoid of any blood through the sheer pressure of him pressing them together. Another wave hits, this one strong enough to make the man’s chest and upper body jerk and vault upwards. His breath hitches again. 

“Regulus—dear Merlin, this is bad,” Barty slaps his friend’s damp face, the crimson tears splatter over the skin, “Please cry,” he’s begging the man, “It's okay, cry. You're going to pop another vein, cry. Hate me all you want, hit me all you want. Are you going to let him win? Does your pride smart that much? He’s not here to hear you scream. Cry out if it hurts. CRY OUT, GODDAMMIT!” 

The dam breaks with a piercing wail that makes every single person in the room violently blench. His lips unsealed, Barty can see the faint line of blood running down the man’s chapped lips. The idiot’s bitten his tongue. Barty pushes himself back and Regulus cries; each scream rings louder than the other. 

Familiar bells that toll. Every single hair on his body stands on end. Barty turns to James as the man collapses down on the nearest chair, his head in his hands, flinching with every sharp cry. 

This is what Riddle covets. The one currency Regulus had always stubbornly refused to deal in. The only scrap of flimsy power he held in his hands all those years ago. Prolonging his own torture, refusing to give in. But in the end, he had to. 

“Merlin.”

“Let it out, it’s okay. It’s okay—” He turns from his friend’s incoherent cries to look down at James, “When did it start?”

“I found him in the bathroom. Riddle has been hurting him through the mark for quite some time,” James continues, his voice wavering over Reggie’s howls of pain, “Never with this severity. He tried to drag him through the mark this time.”

They flinch as the door is shoved open and Harry, against Sirius's and Remus’ desperate attempts, is trying to break back into the room. James hurries off his chair, both father and son blinking violently through another cry. Poppy opens her mouth to tell the boy to leave but Barty shakes his head at her. 

Regulus doesn’t just scream like that if it doesn’t hurt. If it hurts this much, if it is hurting so much that he popped a damn blood vessel again… this may be goodbye. 

There have been so many instances of Barty thinking this in the past. That surely, surely the human body is not built to take on this much. That surely his body will disintegrate or explode, or maybe it will implode, falling into itself. Many times he stayed standing or kneeling, terrified that Regulus’ body was going to give in. 

“Please,” Harry is fighting Remus’ arms, “Please do something! I can’t listen to him cry, please!”

His begging is drowned out under Regulus’s sobs, deafening them. Barty doesn’t think the lad has ever heard his father cry like this in pain. Judging by his reaction, he’s been lucky enough. Had Regulus been more aware of his surroundings, or his son’s voice begging him to stop, he would have been horrified. But Regulus, as they know him, no longer exists at this moment. 

Barty rounds the bed, grabs a piece of the discarded sheets and Reggie’s forearm, and holds the man down as he roughly drags the fabric over the mark, like trying to scrub a stain away. Regulus gasps, his cry catching and his legs kicking out—

“What are you doing—”

“Do you want him to choke on his own damn tongue screaming!?” He shoves his elbow out to keep James away, “This distracts from the pain.” 

“You’re just hurting him more!”

Barty scrubs the flailing forearm with emphasised force, “It’s already scarred and he’s already in pain! Just back off and let me help him through it!”

“Are you sure amputation is not an option?” Poppy asks from the foot of the bed, though she already seems to know the answer, “I have no experience with dark magic such as this—”

“No, I saw a fucker try that once,” Barty grimaces as he feels Reg’s muscles shift under the cloth, “The ink is bonded to the blood. It’ll just reappear elsewhere. On his damn face or skull. You can’t bloody decapitate him then, can you? As I said, the only way is through.”

“What if there’s no damn way through ?” Harry exclaims, marching into the small room with his godfathers and Malfoy behind him, “Riddle can keep this going for days! Papa won’t be able to—”

“You have no idea—” Barty cuts in, “about the things he’s had to endure. No bloody idea. If he has to, he will.”

Barty should know. He was there for almost fucking all of it. In the thick of it, in all that mess of innards and broken bones and jinxes and cursed objects and all the spit and blood and other bodily fluids. He was there. Either a witness or a carer. Never a protector. He isn’t one now either. 

There’s never been any way to save Regulus from this. 

It’s so sudden when things, already damn horrible as they are, take a sudden turn again. Regulus’s cry begins to sound different, more alarmed, as though a new pain has begun to take over him. Barty takes a step back from his friend, Sirius and James hurry over and Regulus gasps, his mouth opening wide and the words half-eaten, are pulled out of him, “MY! MY—”

“Why is he clutching his stomach like that?” Harry exclaims, and Barty looks down and he’s right. Regulus is digging into his stomach through the fabric of his shirt, his legs trying to curl up. 

“Could the mark be—”

“No, the ink is still on his forearm.” Barty pulls the sheet off the angry and writhing ink. Poppy takes over quickly, trying to prevent Regulus from curling into a foetal position. Regulus fights them tooth and nail, his free hand flying to his middle with a harsh yelp. 

“Help me raise his shirt.” the matron urges and Barty obliges her.

“What the hell?”

“What the hell is that?”

There is something, something moving under Reggie’s skin, right under his ribs. Twisting its way downward towards the stomach. It looks extremely excruciating, a foreign thing that shouldn’t be there. And Barty is almost paralysed by the memory it resuscitates. 

“That looks like a worm.” Harry’s the one who says it, now strangely calm and entranced by the scene.

“What?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Barty pales, reeling away from Reggie’s body, “That was years ago! I cut it out of him…that same night. It’s been sixteen years. It can’t be—”

He still remembers how warm the blood felt on his hands, how it felt to stuff two fingers into his friend’s flesh to dig out the creature, hurling it away across the hall as his friend passed out from the pain. There was no doubt about it. Barty had gotten rid of that thing the same night it happened. But the look Harry throws at him is accusing, causing everybody else to turn and stare at Barty. 

“What is he talking about?” Sirius demands.

Barty rubs his eyes; he shakes his head and flinches at Regulus’ anguished cry, “No. It can’t. Fuck, No! I swear I cut it out of his thigh myself. I—there was only one! Only one—”

It felt slippery; it was silver and crimson because of the blood, it resisted Barty, trying to tie itself to Reggie’s flesh. It was a parasite that had gotten a taste of heaven. Barty had to pull, had to tear and bear the disgust as he removed the worm. He’d stitched his friend back up with his wand right after, pulled him up, took him to Grimmauld Place. He stayed with him there for two days. 

There was no way. He looks at the coiling mass under his friend’s skin and he purses his lips. There is just no way. It has been sixteen years. Maybe even fucking more. 

“We need to remove it.” Pomfrey says after a beat, “Whatever it is, Albus—”

“Allow me, Poppy.” 

No one protests the impromptu surgery. It’s not like the pain can get any worse for Regulus. Poppy waves her wand over him, temporarily petrifying him to help him remain still. Barty almost doesn’t want to watch, he can feel Remus’ body hovering close behind him, but he is so wracked by the anxiety that he doesn’t even turn to look. 

He took it out. That night, he knows that he did.

Albus makes a small incision on Regulus’ stomach with the tip of his wand, using his hand to nonverbally yank at the parasite that was chewing away at Regulus’ flesh. Barty can’t breathe. It looks so familiar. 

“Dear God. What the hell is that?” Sirius breathes. 

Harry gags and turns away but James is staring transfixed as Poppy patches Regulus back up. The man looks at Barty next and Barty shakes his head, his throat is closing up, “It can’t be the same one—”

It really bloody looks like the same one. 

“One of these things had been in him before?” James asks him, horrified.

“The last time…James, I swear on Evan’s grave. I cut it out of him myself. I don’t know how—”

“This has happened to him before,” James repeats himself, indignant, “That thing's been in his body—” 

“It can't be the same! That was almost seventeen years ago—” 

“What if it's—That’s why he did it.” James cuts him off, his eyes now gazing at Regulus’ face, his closed eyes, the way his chest flutters like a rabbit’s. 

“What are you talking about?”

“His scars,” James exhales, running a hand through his hair again, he looks maddened by the realisation that has suddenly dawned on him, “If that thing had been dormant under his mark for years—He kept saying…that it was itching. For years. I thought—he said that he wanted to dig it out. I thought he meant—I thought he meant the mark. I thought it was all in his head. But that—that thing! That’s been in his body for—”

The bloodied thing shines under wandlight, twisting and coiling into itself in the air, suspended and yet agitated. “It’s metal,” Dumbledore observes with his wand, “Either silver or lead.”

“That has been in his body for—”

Albus shakes his head, “We can’t know for sure. Not until we can study it further. He was kidnapped very recently, James—”

Barty snaps out of his stupor once Pomfrey removes the stasis charm from Regulus. 

“Aargh!” 

Barty grabs onto his friend's forearm and keeps it down on the bed. There is no stopping the pain. And now they find out that not only was he being fucking tortured by Voldemort…there was a damn parasite in him. For at least these few weeks after his rescue, perhaps it’s been there this entire time. 

“DO SOMETHING!” James screams at him. 

“How!?” Barty hollers back at the man, “What! Do you expect me to apparate to bloody Voldemort and ask for a reprieve!? A ten-minute break!?”

There’s a moment of absolute silence as Regulus tries to wheeze and open his eyes. Barty almost wishes that he wouldn't. 

It’s the Malfoy kid finally, who reluctantly shrugs, “There’s the Cup. right?”

James goes still and Dumbledore’s eyes flash. Harry turns to Draco with narrowed eyes, “The Cup? What about the damn cup?”

“It hasn’t been destroyed.” Draco is staring right into Albus’ eyes, almost as if daring him, “If we…if we do it, that should give Regulus a rest.”

James’ head swivels to Albus as well and the old man is shaking his head slightly, a gesture that looks almost uncharacteristic of him. “Albus—”

“James, Regulus expressly maintained that he didn’t want the Cup touched or—”

“We don’t have a choice,” James interjects heatedly, his entire body is shaking. “I can’t watch him like this. Do it. Do it now!”

Barty watches the old man make an irrevocable decision, “Come with me.”

 

...

 

This is not the first time that this message has been heard. 

Every station on the Wizarding Wireless Network suspends their ongoing programmes; every single one broadcasts the grainy message preceded by three relatively short yet damning declarations: 

‘At nineteen hundred hours, in the Ministry today, Tuesday, November fifteenth of the year nineteen ninety-five, the body of the sitting Minister of Magic, one Cornelius Fudge, was found dead in his office, suspended from the chandelier. I repeat, Sitting Minister Cornelius Fudge has been found dead in his office at—’

Five ginger heads crouched over a table, their wide eyes staring at nothing in particular. Around them are others, dumbfounded by the chilling voice of every station, repeating this all in the same sequence. 

‘Chief Scrimgeour and Chief Warlock Dumbledore have not responded to enquiries about this matter at this time. The Ministry has been evacuated for the time being; measures to appoint a replacement for the Minister are underway—’

A few people laugh in disbelief. A few cry. Most stay silent; a room of thirty people only has one man pacing in it. The rest have been petrified, stitched to their seats or standing spots; one weakly demands to know where Dumbledore is:

‘A tape has been found in the minister’s Magnetophon, which we will now play. The identity of the individual speaking has not yet been confirmed and no authority has verified it at this time.’

And every time the grainy voice starts to play—for this must be at least the fifth time they’ve sat through it—it takes them all by surprise. The youngsters wouldn’t know the voice; many of the older ones who weren’t in the other don’t recognise the voice either. But the rest do.  

“Many have denied my return and existence,” silky and sibilant, filled to the brim with hatred, it croons, “Dismissed me as a ghost story. My message here today is to dissuade the puny voice of my disputants that questions my power and authority.”

“This now will be addressed to the wise people who will truly listen and pay heed to every word. I ask for basic niceties at a time of political turmoil. Our world as it is now is in a rapid decline. Our kind is threatened by vermin who intend to usurp what is ours by birth. I am heartbroken. I am concerned and so should be any sane and mindful witch or wizard present for this speech. This is what the likes of Fudge and Dumbledore will have you believe is your life's purpose! Your highest meaning! This demeaning squalor is the state of our lives! And yet, I am still obliged to a peaceful transfer of power.”

A few stare at their laps, some cover their mouths to silence their harsh breathing, and many narrow their eyes at the wireless, in the middle of an empty table, in a safehouse in Bristol. In Dumbledore’s absence, as the words play, they all seem small and insignificant. Alone. 

“To amend a wrongfully paved path, I am willing to concede and agree to the mere registration of half-blood individuals instead of a total removal. I am willing to concede to the expatriation of all Mudblood kinds from our world instead of their permanent eradication. I do not ask for much in return. The essence of my request does not concern your precious Dumbledore or your livelihood. It concerns one person.”

The first time the message was broadcast, there were gasps and outcries. There were outraged voices yelling over the other, some sod by the fireplace who kept trying to contact Albus Dumbledore via the floo and failed. Minerva McGonagall notably, commented that the man was unavailable and dealing with another emergency. 

No one could quite understand what other emergency would trump this .

“For every single day that goes by, and Regulus Arcturus Black is not returned to me, hundreds will die. If I do not see the complete surrender and transfer of Regulus Arcturus Black into my custody, I will assume noncompliance. I will take and reshape our continent's wizarding world by force. Make no mistake, bloodshed will be a guarantee. No one shall be safe from my wrath. It is a decision that one easily makes, is it not? The surrender of one for the betterment of many.”

The first time, it sounded ridiculous. 

The second time, it started sounding petulant and unreasonable. 

By the third time, a few people could be seen shaking their heads in resignation. By the fourth, no one had yet uttered it verbally, but if one looked really closely, one could see a few people, pursing their lips in acquiescence. 

“This is as far as I am willing to concede. This is not an unconditional and untimed offer. I will unleash my followers upon your houses, your stores, and your livelihoods. Nothing has to change for a common, decent wizard. Not much will have to change for the impure half-bloods. The Mudbloods are few and far between. Too minuscule to lose everything over, no? All I ask is for my property to be rightfully returned to me. We have a bright future ahead of us. A way to be saved from this doomed existence that the likes of Dumbledore have exiled you to. And for now, the choice will remain with Regulus Black. Not with Dumbledore, not your corrupt little politicians.”

So many little people across Britain, bowed over a small wireless, and a selfish little tug in their hearts pulled, as the name Regulus Black rang clearer in their heads, again and again with each reiteration:

“The question is simple. Which does Regulus Black prefer? The lives that can be spared or his pride?”

 

...

 

There is a familiar bitter aftertaste in his mouth, like he’s swallowed mouthfuls upon mouthfuls of poison. His limbs are stuffed with cotton and yet so heavy that he can’t fathom moving them. 

He’s felt this ache before. 

His eyes blink open, blearily, to a nearly dark room. It could be dusk, the same day, or perhaps days after it started. It’s always so hard to tell. He dislikes that he’s alone; irrationally and childishly, he feels a lump in his throat swell. 

His entire arm is numb, bandaged from the elbow down, wrapped delicately even around his fingers. Regulus ignores his parched throat, glares down at his arm hatefully. He can’t feel it hurt, or actually it would be more accurate to say that he can’t feel anything. Not even his own lips and torn throat. He wants to rest before allowing his mind to wander, to think coherent and tragic thoughts. 

He only remembers himself, screaming and thrashing on this bed, James’ face swimming in and out of his vision, Barty holding him down, hollering at him to scream, to put on a show. Or no…that last part was from another life. All the images have become the same in his head. 

They did something to his stomach. Regulus’ eyes wander down; he’s clad in a shirt, one of his own, a loose white shirt. He lifts his uninjured arm weakly, prods his fingers over the shirt and smothers a wince. He feels a thick bandage around his middle. And his leg hurts – the right one, now that he’s more aware. What exactly have they done to him?

But no, Regulus thinks to himself wretchedly. He’s just playing dumb with himself. Oh, he’s a dummy . No, that’s not the question he should be asking. The correct question is…why did the pain stop?

Tom is unlikely to grow bored until he gets to the end of a performance. Reggie wasn’t done. 

He’s in a small room, a private one. There are two chairs on either side of the bed. A dim light is shining through a small window near the…ceiling. Regulus narrows his eyes with remembrance. He’s in Hogwarts. He’s not exactly sure where in the castle, but he’s inside. He turns his head and looks at the door, left only a bit open; a dim orange light filters through. Candlelight. 

He almost closes his eyes, he almost goes to sleep and the day almost ends. But the door creaks open before he can turn his head or allow his heavy lids to droop. James’ eyes catch him immediately, his hair matted to his head, he’s wearing a shirt crusted with blood, his glasses are missing. 

He looks at Regulus mutely. 

Regulus drops his gaze, his throat hurts, he wants to ask questions. James pads over, he sits perched on the edge of the bed, his hand shakes as it settles over Regulus’. 

“Harry?” Regulus flinches at the way he sounds. He’s almost completely lost his voice, and what comes out is a strained croak. Barely anything left of him. It always used to be like this, he recalls. There would be barely anything left of him. 

James pinches his brow and Regulus’ heart drops. His eyes sting, he tugs at the man’s hand, “What?” he struggles to force the word out. What did you do? He wants to demand. 

“He’s got a fever.” 

Regulus’ hand falls limp from the man’s knuckles and his chest tightens. His eyes roam around the room, and he wants to see if this is another game, another form of torment, he wonders for a stupid second whether he’s dead. Harry has no reason to have a fever. Unless…

“You said—” Regulus shoves at the unresponsive man with a useless hand, “You’ll choose him!” There’s no weight or air behind the words. His voice is so strained he can barely articulate, “You said!” 

They’ve destroyed the cup. That’s why the pain’s gone. His son has a fever, that’s why the pain’s gone. Regulus feels like he’s woken up in a nightmare. What are they supposed to do now? They have no other chances, they have no other Horcruxes at hand! They have nothing to experiment with. 

“You promised!” 

James nods, in this dim a light, Regulus cannot see his tears but he can hear him sniffle. “I know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Reg.” 

He should have let Riddle just kill him. James should have just let it end. Because he’s basically just signed their son’s only fucking way out away. He’s signed his death warrant. His literal death. Regulus can’t breathe, his chest heaves and James tries to tell him something but Regulus’ hand curls into a fist, looking around for something, anything, to hurl at a wall. 

“What did you do?” his voice barely carries the words, “What—”

“He was going to kill you.” James’ fingers card through Reggie’s hair and Regulus tries weakly to fight the touch. “You came so close, I had to. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

Regulus stares at the high window as despair fills his lungs, James’ voice keeps fading away in the background of a loud thrum that begins its current in Regulus’ ears. 

He can imagine Tom’s red eyes, the gleeful tug of his mouth, a sneer, bending over Regulus like he always used to do, a mocking tilt to his head, “You’ve lost, pet. Lost.”

One step closer to the demise of that wretched monster, and Regulus and James remain rigid in a small, dark room, grieving a son they have already lost. 

 

 

Notes:

Let's talk:

- Kafka's short story "A Hunger Artist" is a highly symbolic and expressionist work and nearly has nothing to do with a literal hunger. The hunger he describes in the short story is that of unfulfillment and dissatisfaction, a misunderstood artist who has no audience, a dancer who performs for an empty hall, so to speak. It is a great work and I highly recommend you guys read it. The PDF is readily available online for free.
- The memory scene starts advertently in media res, in the middle, because the audience knows the beginning, and the end (check chapter six) and so what remains is this dormant sense of dread (HOPEFULLY if I did my job right) and builds suspense for the relevance of the scene in relation to the rest of the chapter.
- Societal Complacency is a REAL thing. When put in a hostile environment, people often become complacent and non-aggressive in the face of the oppression and marginalisation of others. They become so used to it, in fact, that they PARTICIPATE in the process of dehumanisation and oppression themselves. This is a very interesting phenomena, you can check out an article on it, here
-The thing that Barty does, pulling the sheet over the mark even as the area is hurting Regulus is an actual thing: "The Gate Control" theory maintains that if you supply any type of stimuli to the area hurting, the nervous system basically becomes overwhelmed with it, and the pain is somewhat decreased. I explained it very badly, lmao, check the wiki page here
- What do we think of Draco's visions? So, this will be elaborated later in the story but essentially, Draco's choice to spare Harry the discomfort and difficulty of going on a Horcrux hunt topped up with his prior decisions have knocked the events out of their original path. So here we learn that Harry is two years early. He indeed saved Draco as a 17 year-old during his canonical capture in the Malfoy Manor. More on this later.
- "Procedural Memory" refers to the automatic display of a repeated action. It's a very interesting concept, look it up.
- I have been setting up that damn insect story for AGES: Here's the receipt bitches:
HFA: start with (Chapter: 6. Engraved - Loved: Regulus clearly tells James that he doesn't want to hurt himself, it's just that he feels that something is ITCHING under the mark.| Chapter 14 - The Aftermath: he mentions his mark itching again in the last scene| Chapter 15 - The Fragmentation: he tells James the mark is not "itching" as it usually does/he usually has the tendency to scratch the arm when feeling discomfort|Chapter 21 - The Trial (Part II): search the word "itch"| check EO, the chapter pertaining to Barty's recounting of the worm incident)
- This is not to say that Regulus' SH or his body dysmorphia over the mark was all about the parasite. as we will see in future chapters, only part of his reactions can be attributed to the lead parasite and the rest is in fact due to a Psychogenic itch. You can read more about it here
- There are other stuff but they may contain some spoilers lmaooo
-ONE last thing: notice how Regulus in this chapter is present in almost every scene but has no voice or agency. He has become that object of pain and desire even in Riddle's absence. LOVE that for myself. anyway, ya'll cope with this however you feel is appropriate
-Make sure to check out the one-shot palate cleanser I added to the series for some funny fluff!

Chapter 18: 18.—for your touch, because I know—

Summary:

War, death, etc.

Notes:

This might be my personal best, almost 15k.

Grab your tissues and hydrate well before you start please.

Please check the warnings very carefully and be aware of the chapter-specific warnings below. You are responsible for your own safety:

Trigger warnings for: explicit depictions of violence, explicit depictions of death and torture, discussion and depictions of war-related themes, frequent allusions to possible SA (very important tag), mild references to suicide ideation, minor character deaths.

*I recommend listening to Radiohead's "KID A MNESIA" while reading this. My particular favourites would be "Everything in its right place", "How to disappear completely", "Untitled", "You and Whose army?", "Dollars and cents" and "In Limbo"

*Also I will reply to all of your lovely comments very soon, I promise~ I just adore every single one, old and new, I've just been terribly busy lately, but know that I see and cherish and freak out over every comment and I WILL reply to all.

18.—for your touch, because I know—

 

 

...

 

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”

 

-Richard Adams, Watership Down

...

 

...

1995

 

-0-

 

He used to think that he was prone to sickness.

Harry has always been an all-around healthy kid. Never quite sickly, but he’d always assumed himself susceptible to the follies of autumn or springtime allergies. He’d never been allowed strawberries. And it’s always been one of those things: fever spells that are hard to tame with fever reducers, nausea that he has to sleep off, flare-ups that lasted about a week and then left as though they’d never been here to begin with. It happened perhaps once a year, with more frequency ever since he started going to Hogwarts. 

It seemed innocuous. There was always a reason, a precursor to his marginal discomfort. He never thought much of it, or it would be more accurate to say that he didn’t have time to think of it. Only last year, he became oddly aware of it because his parents perceived the illness to be something peculiarly separate from the rest of his injuries. He was aware of it because his sickness and injuries coincided with Draco risking his life to come over to Wimbourne, two envelopes and a Quidditch figurine in his hands. 

Draco knew about his sickness. 

This time, he catches it too, before Harry does. 

Dad hurries out with Dumbledore to destroy the Cup Draco had been so insistent about, the Cup that no one curiously mentioned once it had been disposed of, and only minutes later, Papa’s body fell limp back on the bed, his face soaked with sweat and his restless limbs finally unmoving. No cries, nor writhing, nor twists of pain. He’s unconscious at last.

Harry opens his mouth and stumbles by the bed, grabbing at his Papa’s hand with the man’s name on the tip of his tongue. That is when the first dizzy spell hits, and his scar twinges. Harry expects to fall as his knees to give out, but Draco is right behind him, grabbing his middle and taking on his weight, and Harry frowns at Papa’s slack face, and then at Barty, who sharply looks away from him. 

“Let’s get you home,” Draco tells him, and Harry pushes himself out of the boy’s arms. 

“No,” he snaps, “I’m staying with my father. What happened to him? Why did it stop?” His words slur together, and he feels a fire lapping up inside of him. Harry clasps a slow hand over his forehead and blanches at how hot the skin feels. 

Draco’s pale eyes narrow at him, and even as he steps away from him, Harry feels the concern radiating from the boy in waves. Harry settles on the bed next to Papa, screwing his eyes shut as he tries to breathe. He was feeling fine only a moment ago. Well, not exactly fine, but he was physically okay. 

This fever feels familiar, just as he felt after he killed Quirrell and just as he did last year, after being rescued. And now. Harry looks at his father’s face and raises a clumsy hand to his forehead again, dimly aware of the voices behind him. Sirius and Barty speaking. Harry tunes them out, squeezing the hand over his scar. It occurs to him suddenly, as he is thinking about the reason behind the fever, how strange a role the Cup suddenly played in all this. Harry had forgotten all about it until Draco mentioned it just now. 

He recalls his father’s putrid reaction to the Cup as he first encountered it in their kitchen, at the way the gold burnt his hand, at Nagini’s pained hissing and Riddle exclaiming, as the waif left Orion’s body, and as his hands sizzled against Quirrell’s skull. He thinks about being possessed and the connection he shares with Riddle through the scar, and the longer he looks at Papa’s face, the more his face drops. 

Why wouldn’t Papa want the Cup destroyed? Why would he give it to Dumbledore in the first place? Why would Draco risk his life, trying to get the Cup before they left the Manor?

The thing is, Harry is not a moron. Being raised by Regulus Black has many perks, or curses, depending on who one asks. He’s been brought up to put the puzzle pieces together, to infer the impossible, to read the people around him and to notice when they lie. All those secretive and knowing conversations his fathers had about him during the summer make sense, removing him to Norway, freaking out over him possibly being captured. 

Harry doesn’t know why, but he has the most horrible feeling that whatever that Cup is made of, it shares an essence with him. And the snake. And Orion. And Quirrell. Their destruction harms Riddle, cripples him; their existence harms those around them, as Harry continuously does so to Papa. 

He leans down on the bed sluggishly until he can press his feverish cheek against his father’s frigid, clammy face; his breaths rattle the air next to the man’s ear and Harry screws his eyes shut as a raging headache begins pulsing behind his eyes. He knows this wretched feeling. 

He turns his cheek just enough to peck his father near his closed eye and then pushes himself up on shaking arms, his vision swimming, and Draco is there again, his long fingers grabbing onto Harry’s shoulders, his touch cold through Harry’s pyjama shirt. They wanted to play Quidditch earlier today. Such a mundane, childish thing to do. 

He’s not really prone to being sick, is he? 

When he lifts his head, Dad is back with slouched shoulders and a defeated look on his face. Sirius replaces Barty by Papa’s bed, and Harry holds his father’s gaze. Dad does look at him; they’re both still covered in blood, their ears still ringing even in the absence of the cries.  

“I think I have a fever,” Harry tells his Dad, and the man’s blood-crusted hand comes, covering his scar, flat against the sweltering skin. Dad didn’t need Harry to tell him this, Harry figures. He can tell by the way the man is looking at him. He already knew before he made that choice to destroy the cup. 

Papa must have known too.

Harry doesn’t wait for Dad to respond; his head is getting too heavy for him to remain upright. 

“I think I should go home,” he tells Dad blankly. 

“Okay,” Dad brushes Harry’s hair back and nods over Harry’s head at either Sirius or Remus, “Yeah, okay, son. You go rest. I’ll stay here with—”

“I’ll take him,” Draco’s voice chimes from the side. 

Harry is a bit confused, seeing as he’s already in an infirmary, but curiously, Pomfrey and Barty become occupied by the foot of the bed and Remus is the one who looks at him as Draco grabs a hold of Harry’s arm, “I’ll join you guys in an hour or so,” Remus says to them kindly, “Just get home for now. Make sure he cools off and changes out of those clothes.”

Dad nods and before Draco gets to drag Harry away, the man hugs him again, mutters that he loves him, but something in his voice is so deeply vacant. Harry nods because he knows the man means it, because he loves his fathers too, and if Dad had to make a choice between Harry having a slight fever for whatever reason and Papa not being in pain, then he chose correctly. He looks at Papa over his shoulder and lets Draco walk him to the floo as the world begins to distort and his body becomes uncomfortably hot. 

He and Draco nearly fall headfirst out of the floo again, but the boy has a strong grip on Harry and the fireplace. Harry’s eyes track the floor and the coagulated puddles of blood that look like maroonish spots on their floorboards. The entire kitchen smells metallic, the broken floo jar still remains on the floor. 

Harry and Draco sidestep it. Harry breaks out of Draco’s iron hold and begins dragging his socked feet over the puddles, feeling the friction as the sticky, coagulated blood drags onto his socks, leaving a trail behind every step. He sees his Dad’s bloodied footsteps too, the stains are horror silhouettes, like a photograph, they are evidential, capturing the terror in the hurried movements hurtling towards their fireplace. 

Harry pauses on the threshold of their kitchen, his fever makes it difficult not to sway where he stands, he looks at Collin, fallen on the floor, her pot cracked and the soil spattering into the blood. He didn’t even notice it falling or breaking this morning. 

His scar aches, and Harry rubs at the blistering flesh irritably. 

“I think you should have a bath,” Draco tells him, his hand again, annoyingly on Harry’s back, like it’s always been there, “And then we can just sleep this off—”

“Did you know, then?” Harry mutters, his dark eyes rolling lazily to the boy’s pallid face. 

Draco’s hand hesitates over Harry’s shirt, and for half an instant, he seems confused as to what they are talking about. Harry doesn’t elaborate. There’s no need. Not with all the blood and the macabre and his Papa’s agony still plastered all around them. 

When he does get it, Draco reels back with an affronted gasp, “No, what the hell, Potter!?”

“No?” Harry cocks his head at the boy, “You didn’t know that Voldemort was going to torture him—”

“No.” 

Harry hums, nonplussed and Draco pales, withdrawing his hand from Harry with an air of insecurity suddenly aroused around him. Harry doesn’t believe him, of course. Because Draco knows about many things, he just chooses to lie about them. He lied to his father about Harry beating him all those years ago, he lied about not killing those two men, he lied about the cup’s importance. 

Draco Malfoy is a known manipulator. He’s been raised a liar, he can put on an act that everyone will fucking buy. 

“Harry, I swear,” his voice shakes, and his eyes are so innocently blown wide. 

“I see. Well, let’s have it then.”

“Let’s have what?”

Harry breathes a lifeless chuckle, his body radiates his heat and anger in equal proportions, “The end of this whole thing,” he laughs again, “I’m not a moron, Malfoy. It’s got to be good, right? Because otherwise, what’s the damn point?”

“Harry.”

“What do you know exactly?” Harry drags his feet, walking towards the taller boy, “What is it precisely? What war secrets do you have lodged in your third eye? Let’s have it then. Share it with the rest of us!”

Draco counters his glare with pursed lips, “I’m not going to do that.”

Of course , Harry drawls in his head, past the blazing in his scar and the stifling headache. Of course, Draco isn’t going to do it. 

“So, you didn’t know about the torture,” he counts off with a shaky hand, “You didn’t know about your house disappearing off the fucking map, you didn’t know about Ron’s dad, you didn’t know about my Papa getting kidnapped—And you call yourself a seer.”

“It doesn’t—”

“It doesn’t what?” Harry cuts him off, rushing into his space and making the boy flinch back into the wall, “It doesn’t what? Work like that? I see. Yes, that’s the shit you shoved down our throats,” he twists his mouth, he can hear the thundering of his heart in his ears, “ Oh, Harry you’ll fall head over heels in love with me, because I’ve seen it!” he screams, mocking the boy, “Oh, Harry, you have to go back to Hogwarts, or vaguely disastrous things will happen! Oh, Harry, pretend you don’t know about me bloody killing two men, or bad things will happen to us! I have these visions, so leave me alone because you’ll regret it! Oh, Harry, Harry, I knew, I knew, I knew you’d come because I’ve seen it!”

He pants, and Draco presses his lips together, his own chest heaving even as he tries to hide his distress from Harry. Harry hates how he looks, he hates how the taller boy is acting as though Harry is the aggressor, as though Harry is attacking him out of nowhere, like he’s some helpless little critter. His father’s anger has been one relic handed down to Harry usefully, because he can feel it as a literal thing, a separate fire of its own, churning alongside the fever. 

“I didn’t know. It’s the truth,” Draco mutters, not meeting Harry’s eyes. 

“But you knew about the cup,” Harry shoves a finger into the boy’s chest, “Everyone knew about the cup but me and you fucking told them! I remember last year! So tell me, and you better tell the fucking truth. How does it end? Hm? All this bullshit. All this pain and endless desperation have to yield something, right?” Draco tries to step past him but Harry shoves him back into the wall, “Tell me! Do I kill the bastard? Will my dad finish the job? Is Riddle going to just fucking take my parent away or kill him or just drive him insane or wear him down—”

“I can’t tell you.”

Harry can’t believe his eyes, he stands, incredulously with glazed eyes, as he recalls every single vision, every single nightmare, every single sleepless night he spent worried sick about Draco, all for him, to just look at him now and stick so loyally to his plethora of lies. 

“Harry, you’ve got a fever. Just let me—”

“So you’re telling me Riddle had you chained to a fucking bed for ten months for nothing!?” Harry hollers right into the boy’s face, “You’re telling me I risked my father for nothing!? Yeah!?”

Draco’s hands shove into his chest, sending Harry stumbling back, “Don’t shout at me!” the boy screams back at him. 

“What was the bloody point!?” Harry rages, “What was the point of saving you if you can’t say shit!? What’s the point of my damn father suffering on your account!? Does Riddle win? Is he going to kill us!?”

“I don’t know!” Draco screams, fighting Harry’s raised fists with his arms. 

Harry tackles him to the blood-stained floor, smacking the boy’s head back into the floorboards. They squirm and roll, fighting each other, and though Harry has a fever, he has the superior stance. Harry tries to lock his legs over Draco’s knees, to trap him in place, but the boy thrashes, landing heavy but clumsy hits on Harry’s fevered face and bare arms, screaming at Harry, in a mantra that he didn’t know anything.

“Yes, you do!” 

“NO I DON’T!” 

Harry grabs onto the boy’s hand and twists it back, eliciting a harsh cry and a raised leg to kick him in the shins. He rolls over Draco, “Stop lying to me!” he shoves Draco down onto the tacky blood puddles, “You don’t know!? You? A seer who doesn’t know anything? How bloody fitting. You don’t know about my connection to him, or the cup, or—”

Draco shakes his head, panting, his chest lurching, “I’m not lying, Harry! I would never lie to you. I mean, I know I did before, but I had to! I would never now! You have a fever. Let’s just—”

Harry sees blood. He sees Papa’s face, contorted in pain, that bloodied silver worm dragged out of his stomach, his hand clasped over his mouth bruisingly, just so Harry wouldn’t have to hear him cry. Harry sees Orion Black’s skulking figure, racing towards Papa, saying wretched things, his Papa chained down in Étretat with a hoard of Dementors sweeping down towards him. All of that useless suffering, and for what? For Draco Malfoy to manipulate it, to use Harry’s father for his own gain and safety. 

“I’ll tell you what you are, Draco,” Harry twists the boy’s hand back above his head, only a small push away from snapping the wrist bone clean, just as Papa had taught him when he was small. Draco kicks and curses in pain, trying to throw his weight off, “I’ll tell you! A damn liar. Maybe Ron was right. You needed to secure your escape from that hellhole, and what better story to help you out than divinity? You are—”

“That’s not true—”

“THEN TELL ME!”

Draco’s face screws into a cry, “I’LL BE DEAD!” he screams so loudly that Harry’s ears ring. Harry reels back, releasing the boy’s wrist. His bleary eyes note the outright terror shining in Draco’s eyes along with the pained tears. Numbly, Harry shakes his heavy head.

“What?”

“I can’t tell you shit!” Draco cries, “Because I’ll be DEAD! DEAD!” He knocks Harry off his body and scrambles on his knees, nursing a hand and crying, “DEAD AND DECEASED! Before I see any end or resolution! Before I see your downfall or his! It’s just pitch black, Potter!” 

He bows over his hurt wrist, sobbing like a child, in such an open and vulnerable way that catches Harry off guard. Harry looks at the scene in utter confusion, having this urge the comfort the boy and inflict more pain at the same time. It takes a beat for the words to make sense in his head. 

Dead and deceased. 

“What?” Harry breathes again. 

“Do you want to know what I see?” Draco bares his teeth at him, “Myself and heaps of dead bodies! You kiss me goodbye and run off to fucking Merlin knows where and it’s just me! Me and the dead bodies! And then—my vision just goes black. I hear you calling and I fall onto the corpses. I become one with them! That’s it, Potter. It ends. It all ends.” 

They’re both smeared with the old blood, both of their chests rising and falling rapidly with the overfilling of their lungs. Harry watches Draco cry, curling into himself with shaking shoulders. He watches as Draco resentfully drags his damp eyes from his hurt wrist to Harry’s face again.

“Do you know why Riddle liked keeping me there?” he sneers, “Because I’m a storyteller. He wanted a story about conquest and triumph, and I gave it to him. I gave him an ending that doesn’t even exist. That’s how I survived!” he lets of his wrist and thrusts a hand, grabbing onto Harry’s jaw and yanking Harry forward with a growl, “I lied to survive! And I would have for two more years! You’re the one who came early,” his nails dig into Harry’s face, “You’re the one who walked off the predestined path, you’re the one who walked in on me that night with Crouch and Karkaroff. You’re the one who fucking walked in on me in the Owlery before I could fling myself off the tower and kill myself! Nothing matches my visions because YOU decided to take matters into your own damn hands!”

He pushes Harry back and drops his head onto his folded arms on his knees. Harry’s hand shakily shove against the kitchen floor to keep him upright, he feels the toxic fever, long tendrils clawing up his throat and fists pounding behind his eyes. Draco cries, loudly and unabashedly, heartbreakingly. 

He’s telling the truth, Harry knows by the way he cries. No one can cry like that as an act. No one can feign heartbreak this authentically. The heartless, racist, arrogant pureblood aristocrat, as he was known to the world, was now to Harry just a simple boy. Harry starts to feel guilty immediately, his own throat closing up.

“Draco—”

“I wanted to spare you the pain.” Draco’s face is red, almost mockingly matching Harry’s blazing fever. “Every bad decision I made, all because I wanted to spare you. If I’d let you go on a damn hunt yourself you would have starved, almost killed, fought a damn dragon and Merlin knows what else. Your friends would have all died. I just wanted to make things easier for you because I don’t want you to be hurt!” he scrubs at his face roughly with an arm, “I just wanted you to love me! That’s all I ever wanted! Because I know I’m living on borrowed time. Because I knew about my death before I even knew what death was! Pain and a vast nothingness! I’ve always been alone! Even in death, I’ll be alone! I just wanted…just wanted a proper life before I had to face that dance. I just wanted to know what it was like to be liked by you.”

“Am I and the Cup the same?” Harry asks once he finds his voice, “Is that the secret you share with my parents?”

“Regulus had known about it for years,” Draco sniffs, uncurling his knees and tiredly closing his eyes, “He just chose to live in denial. For someone like me to come and change his mind. There’s a prophecy about you. They all know about it,” he looks straight into Harry’s eyes bemusedly, “All of those people in that infirmary, they all know—that’s why your Mum died. That’s why Riddle killed her. That’s why it hurt you when the Cup was destroyed. Or the snake. Or the diary. Or Quirrell.”

“Is it yours? The Prophecy.”

“No,” Draco laughs at him exhaustedly, wiping his face, “No, it’s not mine. I wasn’t even born. Not every bad thing in your life is my fault. I’m just the bearer of bad news.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t tell you what you want to hear. It’s not like you can confront your parents,” Draco looks around at the mess they’ve made of the kitchen, the old blood, the open window, the winter chill and the untouched batter on the counter, “Letting them know that you know…I mean, you saw what happened today.”

“What should I do then?”

Draco shrugs, “Keep the monkeys dancing,” a hitch to his breath, “Give your parents some peace of mind before the end. I mean, that’s what they want to give you. A fulfilled life. Might as well let them have it. That’s all you can do unless a miracle happens, you know.”

“That prophecy—”

“It’s either him or you,” Draco cuts him off, “And for your Papa’s sake, I sure hope…well.”

“No. I shouldn’t tell them,” Harry blinks, numbly feeling the tears on his own cheeks, his chest deflating because he finds no lie or deceit in Draco’s confession. Only an inevitability. And now that it’s in the open, every look thrown at him by his parents or Dumbledore starts to make sense. Every hug. Every gesture. Every loving word. Every nightmare. Every time his scar was touched. 

His admission that he knows about this will only drive his parents further into the mess they’ve created, trying to protect him with all they have. Because they think of it as their duty as parents, because they’ll do anything for Harry, even if it comes at the cost of ruination. It’s best if they think he doesn’t know. If they think he has failed to connect the dots. 

“Well then, I guess you’ve just got a fever. Maybe a seasonal bug.” Draco bleakly mutters into his elbow, and they both look away from each other, disillusioned. 

“Yeah, I suppose I do.”

They help each other off the floor with bloodshot eyes, and Draco helps him into the downstairs bathroom, where Remus finds the two, an hour later, as though no scuffle had taken place at all. 

 

...

 

-0-

 

He's got lead poisoning. 

There is no harsher truth to it. Plain and simple and methodical and utterly devoid of convolutions. He has been poisoned for seventeen years by lead. As in the metal. 

His brain muddled, his memories torn through and eaten by the parasite, his body left a barren land, and his magic has been straining against the dormant harm for years, trying to keep the poison away from his most vital organs, the soft tissue. 

‘Lucky to be alive,’ was what a young, timid healer told him once Poppy and James forced him to be examined. He was allowed to look at the lead worm, in its little glass container, still stained by his blood and rusted, and Barty stood by him with bated breath, in his eyes, uncertainty pointed its arrow at Regulus, accusing, as though trying to force remembrance upon him. He kept the memory brief in recounting it. Calling it another sadistic punishment. Recounting how he had to dig into Regulus’ thigh with bare hands and sew him up afterwards.

This has happened to you before, his friend had first admitted, I thought I cut it out of you. It must have spawned in your body. 

It must have spawned in his body. It must have stayed there, coiled under his mark, dead, for all it matters under his mark, becoming one with his flesh, letting veins and nerves and muscle grow their tendrils over it, and once perturbed, once the ink in the blood started to act, the parasite was awakened after its slumber. 

Regulus mutely looked at it until they removed it from his sight. He leaves Hogwarts with a limp, his right leg still not quite healed after being splinched. James does not dare protest his decisions; he does not dare challenge the silence. 

They return to an empty house even as Albus urges them against it. He thinks Regulus should remain at Hogwarts, should a similar incident occur. Regulus only throws James a look, half a look, before James nods and rejects Albus’ offer. 

Sirius and Barty flutter around him, prompting him to talk, to sip on warm water to help his throat. They return to an almost empty house, where Remus has just finished cleaning up the blood splattered all over the house. The man takes one look at Regulus and says that the kids are fine, Harry’s fever is manageable, and he’s just sleeping it off in the Orangery. 

Regulus checks on the boys himself, and Draco ducks his gaze, avoiding his eyes. There is a prominent red, sore ring around the boy’s wrist, but Regulus doesn’t comment on it. He looks at Harry’s flushed face, fitful and delirious even in sleep, and turns to walk away in silence. His arm remains in a sling, the torn flesh dabbed with thick layers of numbing salves and then bandaged, even though it doesn’t do anything. 

Sirius insisted on it, oddly. His brother gets him a flask with hot water and honey and sits with him silently on the steps of their porch. His large hand a constant warmth on Regulus’ back in James’ exile. Regulus’ head drops on his brother’s shoulder, and the man quietly urges him to sleep, but Regulus fights against it. He can only see the lead worm, feel the sharp pain in his stomach, lament the damaged memories that had been purged because of the poison.

Regulus spent fifteen years, thinking he was finally clean of Riddle’s touch. And the joke’s on him. Riddle never left his body to begin with. 

Sirius doesn’t prompt him to speak, he sings a bit, that old lullaby, and wards off Barty when Regulus stubbornly turns his head away from the man. 

When the sun is about to set, Regulus asks his brother and his partners to leave. He doesn’t know if he does it politely or even verbally. But Sirius doesn’t fight it, even though he looks like he wants to, even as it seems to pain him to depart from his brother. Barty throws him a remorseful glance, and they are both ushered away by Remus and James. 

Regulus stays on the porch. 

When the news comes, he's still standing on the steps, watching as thunder rolls overhead; the wind is unforgiving. His arm limp by his side, his ears numb to the words, to James and Albus heatedly arguing back in the house, the wireless has been playing the same damn tape for hours. Ever since they found out. 

His voice sends a shiver down his spine, every word, devoid of its meaning. Every syllable. James and Albus argue over it, but instead of them drowning out Tom’s voice, Tom inundates them with his drawl. Regulus would know that voice anywhere, in the sinews of every nightmare and rubbish memory. The intimidating hiss. 

Regulus goes inside once Albus leaves, pads over to the kitchen where James sits with his head held in both hands. Regulus walks past him, into their pantry, shuffling through the shelves with a lethargic hand, his other still in a sling.

They have a few wine bottles but Regulus is not a damn lightweight. He crouches, pushes the bottles away, trying to peer in the back for any contraband alcohol. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t protest the lack of alcohol in this damn house more frequently. It’s not as though they’re toddlers. It is extremely unlikely for Regulus to kill himself with a bottle of vodka. And yet, their damn pantry is empty of it. And sure, it may be because Regulus and alcohol don’t usually mix, and he ends up horribly working himself up into bouts of consecutive panic attacks whenever he’s drunk but who gives a shit?

Innocent lives or his pride , Regulus almost wants to roll his eyes. The bastard’s still playing 'pick the rose'.   He actually never stopped playing it. It’s always been either Regulus’ nonexistent pride or innocent lives. The word ‘or’, of course, serves as more of an ornament than a conjunction. The innocent lives and Reggie’s pride both end up in the gutter, there is no picking one over the other. 

“I just talked to Albus, there’s been a meeting with the Muggle Prime Minister, and they want us to release a statement—”

“Is wine all we have?” Regulus asks him without looking over his shoulder, knocking the bottles about and reading the labels with a curled mouth. 

“Regulus.” 

“Surely you've stacked some whisky or gin somewhere,” he rises from his knees with a muted groan, it’s not really recommended to kneel over a splinched leg like that, “I’ll even take Sherry over fucking red wine. Brandy, or even—”

Cognac. 

Regulus stares blankly at the shelves of nonperishables in the dark pantry, aware of the stark light of their kitchen casting James’ shadow over his back as he thinks of the word ‘Cognac’ over and over again. 

“Did you know,” he tells James, “A good cognac has a rancio grading of Hors d'age ? The rest is shit. The youngest brandy they use in the blend has to be at least older than six years old in a barrel, oak ageing. It’s an aged drink. You won’t find good cognac younger than thirty years, but when you open the bottle…it never ages. It never goes stale. It never ferments. The flavour stays the same.” 

It’s strikingly easy to remember that fact now that he thinks of it. Regulus closes his eyes briefly, “See, the process takes about thirty to forty years, they use—”

“Regulus.”

And what is Regulus supposed to say to him? That he’s furious with James over the cup? That he’s resentful of Albus for listening to him? That he is sick with anxiety because their son has a raging fever a room over? That Riddle has blatantly and publicly asked for him to turn himself over like some misplaced child or petty thief? Or shall he tell him about the urge, the itch underneath his skin, begging him to take himself apart with the sharp edge of the nearest blade? 

He’s scared because he thought that he could remember the pain, but the pain came back, and it was so much worse than Reggie had remembered it being. He popped a damn vein in his eye, for Merlin’s sake. And yet still, James shouldn’t have chosen him. Not where Harry is concerned. 

Regulus doesn’t know how to forgive him for that. Or speak with him about it. Or even argue and shout and yell at him, beat him with his damaged hands. 

What can he even say?

“I need you to push his voice out of your head,” James tells him, knowingly, his hand respectfully raised but not touching him. 

Regulus shakes his head and turns from the man again, knocking the bottles into place, “Do you keep the good stuff in the study then? In the drawers with Rita Skeeter’s shrivelled up corpse or—”

“Regulus.” 

“Is there any bloody alcohol in this bloody house or not?” 

A pause.

“No.” 

Regulus nods curtly and turns. “Great. I'm going over to the Soho flat.” 

He tries to walk past the man, but James blocks his path, and as Regulus looks at him and the desperation and distress that is plastered on the man’s face, in his amber eyes that Regulus fell in love with all those years ago, his guts twist. The stark light makes the lines on their faces so apparent, the harshness of war and the welts it’s left on their skins. 

“Listen to me—This is not a bargain!” James’ hands hold Regulus’ face in place, “What he's asking for! It's demented; no one in their right mind would even consider this. I don’t want you to think about it. I don’t want you to panic. It’s just psychological warfare! He wants to unsettle you! It’s just rubbish. It’s a recorded mess, he’s probably writhing in pain, licking his wounds right now! We just destroyed another piece of his soul. We can find the last Horcrux, I will search this world inch by inch myself, you and Harry will be safe—”

Regulus used to believe anything coming out of his husband’s mouth. Even blatant lies. He’d let himself believe it. He’d let himself be comforted by it. But there’s no comfort in James’ words now, there is only fear, and desperation, and trembling. 

“James,” this single utterance silences the man, and he waits patiently for Regulus to speak. “I really, truly, sincerely need an absurd amount of alcohol and a room to lock myself into, or I’m afraid I’m going to terribly inconvenience you by hurting you or myself. Please .”

James takes the request…or rather, the statement, with a quick nod, his thumb softly running under Regulus’ eyes. Their silence holds a familiar tension, and Regulus knows how close the man came once again to losing him in the span of a single day. 

“I’ll put some dinner on the stove for the boys.” James nods at him, waiting for a response. 

“Okay.”

“I have some whisky in our sock drawer, you never check it.” The warm pads of his fingers press down on Regulus’ clammy skin. 

“Great.”

“We can retreat to the bedroom and stay there for as long as you need,” his lips ghost over Regulus’ forehead. 

“Alright.”

It’s not alright. Nothing is alright. He knows already what state he’ll be in as a drunkard. Nothing is in its rightful place, and Regulus only wants to disappear. But he nearly died, the parasite in him, left there as a relic, almost killed him, his mark almost killed him. And now Regulus has to contend with the fact that Riddle might soon, hurt him like that again, perhaps in person, or publicly, or in front of James. 

“You broke one promise to me,” Regulus mutters against the man’s hand, and James shakes his head, opens his mouth to respond. Regulus grabs onto his hand, “You can’t break another. James, say it to me again, please.”

“He won’t get to you.”

“That’s not the promise I want,” Regulus swallows down his shame and terror.

James’ face twists and the man smothers a sound in his throat, “I’ll kill you,” he says, strangled, his eyes downcast as though ashamed of uttering the words, “I’ll never let him touch you, I’ll kill you before he ever gets the chance—”

Regulus should make sure, should ask for a vow, an unbreakable one. He should scold James and scream at him, and tell him that he doesn’t trust him because Harry’s chances of living are now nonexistent. So slim that they are nonexistent. 

“I love you so much,” he says instead, accepting the oath as it stands on one flimsy leg. 

“I love you, too.” A kiss on his lips seals the promise, “I’m sorry.”

 

...

 

-50-

 

Regulus already knew this would happen the moment he heard the tape play. Actually, he knew this would happen the moment he saw his son cradle an unconscious Draco Malfoy in his arms in their yard. 

The safehouse in Bristol is a cosy little place. James had told him that they used to have another safehouse in Bristol during the first war, a Potter property that had later been put out of commission due to some unmentioned circumstances. This one is smaller, apparently, a repurposed cottage integrated into the local Muggle population that the Order has been using for half-arsed meetings. 

The meetings, evidently, had not consisted of much; there were no troops, no organised groups to handle crises, no sense of order or hierarchy other than the fact that Dumbledore ran the whole operation. Regulus’ warning to Rufus about them being unprepared rings hollow in the walls of this safehouse. Especially in the face of the evening news. 

Sirius and Remus usually attend the meetings, but Regulus asked them to stay with the boys. He and James are supposed to give a statement to the public about Riddle’s claims. It’s good to be on the same page, except…they sit at the table quietly, and there are at least two dozen people regarding Regulus in an odd silence. It’s not exactly odd. 

Regulus already knows the news. He knew about it before even hearing of it. 

He doesn’t check his surroundings much, beyond the bustling kitchen, the aged rugs, and the creaking floors; there’s not much to tell. His arm is out of its sling, and he’s already smoked two cigarettes before they walked inside. He made James promise not to lose his head, and the man is wary of breaking his promises lately. 

He nods his head at Molly and the older Weasley boys, at Maya Leeds and some junior Auror members who used to be under James’ wing. There is Kingsley, Minerva McGonagall, two other Hogwarts staff members whom Regulus can’t recall by name, Hagrid, and Alastor Moody, who does not hide his disdain for Regulus in the slightest, and some stragglers already in the house. 

They all congregate in the kitchen automatically. In a terrorised silence. Regulus makes himself comfortable on his seat, with James by his side; he swiftly takes out a cig and a Muggle lighter, it’s the only thing that calms him down, and the only thing he can bear putting James through. He takes in a long drag, exhales the smoke in long huffs and rings as each face grows paler, as hands start to wring, as small eyes roam and search the room for ‘like-minded’ folks. 

“He was not fibbing,” one of them curses. 

Such sombre faces, Regulus thinks, a tiny, ironic smile tugging at his lips as he keeps on smoking. It’s like these folks have never seen dead bodies before. 

“Are we sure about the numbers?” another asks.  

“We could be underestimating it, if anything,” Kingsley says, “For now the report remains. Fifty dead. All Muggles. Bodies show signs of torture and mutilation prior to death. No, our records match,” he tries to be clinical, the weathered Auror that he is, but it seems that the sheer shock of what he has to report has stripped every ounce of professionalism once in him.

“This is insanity—” Molly covers her mouth. 

“Albus said he might slow down! This is—”

Regulus restrains a sigh, glancing down at James’ hand on his knee, a touch that unfortunately keeps him tethered to the present.

“We weren’t expecting them to mobilise so quickly.”

“No, we weren’t expecting him to make good on his word immediately—”

“We can’t catch up with him at this rate—”

“We need to slow him down in any way we can, that’s where our focus should be—”

Regulus takes in a long drag and reaches for his fourth cigarette, just to have it ready on the go the moment he’s done with this one. Several people prune their noses at him, some subtly trying to stifle a cough. James does not speak and nor does Regulus. It’s not that there’s nothing to say; it’s just that Regulus has said all he wanted to say months ago to anyone who’d listen. And nobody listened. 

Why are they exactly aghast? That the monster who hates muggles and wants to kill them, went ahead and carried out his promise and killed the muggles just like he said he would? That he killed fifty of them instead of giving them a warning shot? Do they think this is a playground? Did they think Riddle had Fudge killed and left a love note only for shits and giggles? 

Regulus was expecting more bodies to be honest. He was expecting a children’s hospital, Diagon Alley, or who knows, London? Merlin knows it won’t be his first time. 

He realises rather suddenly that James’ hand on his knee is gone and he looks up from his cigarette butt, first at James’ sneer, directed at the table and then at all the faces staring at him, askance. Regulus needs less than a second to infer what those looks mean. 

At first, he is shocked. Rightfully, so because Molly makes an exasperated noise and rushes out of her seat, “Mad! All of you! Disgusting to even suggest such a thing—”

James opens his mouth, poises his body, ready to pounce on the table and tear into his people with nothing but his bare hands, but Regulus shakes his head at him. Gently, he puts out his cigarette on the wooden table, grimacing at his uncouth conduct as he spies the black singed spot on the oak and then lodges the cig he had prepared in his mouth. 

He lets the people sit in silence, left with nothing but their own lewd nudge, he lets them stew in the unspoken words as he lights his cigarette and thoroughly enjoys the first drag. 

“Every war has a sacrifice. You-Know-Who already said what he wants.” The voice that stammers belongs to a middle-aged man whom Regulus is not particularly familiar with. No one says anything to the man, no one bolsters or advocates for his argument. They all just stare at Regulus, and Regulus stares at the man, impassively as he smokes. 

Regulus contemplates him for a beat longer and then decides that yes, he is indeed shocked that a person sitting at this particular table would even voice such a thing. These people are supposed to be guardians of the people, of the light side. Of everything virtue seems to represent.  

“That won’t stop him,” it’s the second eldest Weasley boy who snaps first at the unnamed man. 

“He doesn’t have to stop him!” the guy protests, “Just slow him down enough until we can get our shit together! You-Know-Who is going to pummel us otherwise, these casualties are too high—”

James starts to stand, his wand in his other clenched hand. Regulus shakes his head again, balances his cigarette on the edge of the table with the tip tilted up—as he abhors wasting a good cig—and starts to meticulously unravel the bandages wrapped around his fingers and forearm. 

The action jostles people into another astounded silence, and they all watch, transfixed as the bandage slowly becomes unbound, loose around the damage it was trying so hard to mask. Regulus pulls the bandage off, not holding anyone’s gaze in particular as he holds up his shredded arm, as he withstands the wave of gasps and ducked eyes and muttered curses. 

“This is what he did to me the other day,” he says calmly, “I wasn’t even in his presence. Take a good look,” he raises an eyebrow at the sputtering man, “This is what you are agreeing to.”

“That’s not at all—”

“That sickness you harbour in your mind is so wretched that you cannot even utter it aloud to my bloody face,” Regulus holds his forearm out on display, letting the red skin shine a bright pink under the dim light, “Look. Look at it. This is what you are agreeing to. What you've become resigned to.” 

“I’m sure Albus, once he arrives, would agree that your services as a spy would be priceless. You will be closest to him, to finish the job, to find out information—”

Regulus laughs startledly. He can’t believe that he has to look at these people and justify the reasons why he can’t turn himself over to Voldemort as a slave . 

“Services as his bedwarmer. Yes, I suppose so,” He seethes, he thrusts his arm out and people flinch back, “Look at it,” Regulus demands, “Or better yet, look into my eyes and repeat aloud what you all just thought in your heads. Word for word, repeat yourself.” 

Nearly every single head hangs down in shame; they all remain quiet as mice, gingerly withdrawing their folded hands from the table. Moody glares at him brazenly, and Regulus glares back. 

The man, stubbornly stutters, “No one wants you to get hurt, Mister Black. It’s just semantics. I’m a muggleborn myself! I’ve got a little girl. You have a son yourself, so you know, don’t you? He’s going to kill—War's got a price. We all pay it. This won't stop him. No one's saying that. But it can help our cause—”

“Have you no shame!?” James thunders, finally, unable to contain his rage any longer. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses, the man’s voice rattles the very chandelier above their heads, “Merlin be damned! Johnson, we should have you expelled from the Order for this nonsense! Watch what you say very closely, or I won’t be held responsible for what I do next—”

“Oh, don’t bother, love.” Regulus picks his cigarette back up. “They’re all thinking it.”

Several voices erupt around the table in protest, and Regulus gathers up his bandages in his fist and drags out his cigarette from his mouth with the same hand. James stands with him, and as they turn to leave the meeting, at the very least, Albus suddenly appears by the door, his eyes slightly widening at the sight of Regulus and James being present. He did ask them to be here tonight, so they could speak about the Ministry’s statement and whatnot, but Regulus supposes that the man didn’t exactly expect them to show up. 

“Have you heard the news?” Albus asks them calmly.

“Oh, heard all about it. Fifty killed, very sad.” Regulus moves to exit the kitchen, “Had a rather nice conversation about it just now. Why won’t you ask Johnson?”

Albus’ eyes shift to the man and then quickly back to Regulus, his lips briefly pressed against each other. 

“Sir, I didn’t mean anything by it, I just—” Johnson starts defending himself, and Albus shakes his head. It doesn’t take much Legilimency to suss out the situation unfolding here, prior to his arrival. Not with the unravelled bandages, Regulus’ unkempt appearance, and the ghostly silence ruling the kitchen anyhow. 

“I would never allow that to happen to you, dear Regulus. I did not call you here to subject you to this conversation—even entertaining the thought is absurd—”

“This was a mistake,” Regulus drops his cigarette and cruhes the butt under his boot, he grabs James’ hand, “Take me home.” 

James’ hold around him is immediate and protective. The man is shaking with rage, with the urge to stomp back and turn Johnson into mush. Regulus doesn’t want that for him, because he sincerely thinks that there is no point in exacting any type of revenge on a nervous nobody who can’t be faulted for his own stupidity. 

Regulus, for his own part, will not allow this to linger in his mind. This dredge, this unfathomable rubbish. A small part of him wants to scream, a bigger part wants to ask James to burn this entire place to the ground. And yet, just as Maman had taught him, moderation wins in the end. 

He chooses not to say anything. He chooses silence as his final answer. He wrongly chooses to walk away.

Regulus ignores the voices calling his and James’ names behind them as they both leave the cosy safehouse in Bristol, clad in their winter coats and nothing else against the brisk winter hail. 

In the flurry of pain, panic, and anger, Regulus seems to forget a very crucial fact: 

A tiny flame if not snuffed out, if not throttled in birth, will rebel into an inferno. 

 

...

 

-175-

 

One hundred seventy-five people. 

It takes three days. 

Regulus knows because he counts the hours. One hundred seventy-five souls upon his shoulders. Scattered over seventy-two hours. 

It seems hardly believable to a normal person, to claim that Riddle’s Death Eaters have effectively killed more than a hundred people with little resistance or pushback, only in a span of three days. Seventy-two hours. 

The Wizarding World forcefully exits its era of secret warfare, a period of only ten months—less than a full year—only to be thrust into a full-frontal assault, a war by all means, from all sides, like the folding of a surging wave upon a sinking boat. The war James and Regulus spent months warning people about has begun and already descended into utter chaos. 

The latest killing spree not only robbed the lives of poor, clueless Muggles, but also two Muggleborn families as well. The new Minister, one Rufus Scrimgeour, is a War Minister. Already outnumbered. Already out of his depths, with no clear vision. He has to answer for these deaths, not only to the Prime Minister, but to his own people.

Seventy-two hours after the untimely death of Cornelius Fudge, Rufus Scrimgeor calls for the press to gather in the main lobby of a vacant Ministry. Hurried boots squeak on the phthalo tiles of the Ministry floor, timid glances are exchanged between the scant group of reporters, the photographers, and the common employees alike. 

Bursts and flashes of light surround them from all sides; the War Minister stands with a severe face in the middle of a small group. By his right side, stands his personal guard, and Auror Kingsley and on his left, James and Regulus, tense and unwilling.

Regulus is looking down on the piece of parchment in his hands, ignoring the blinding flashes of light, the bursts of the camera in his face, James’ hand on the small of his back. It was Rufus’s idea. He seemed to think that their literal presence would yield more sympathetic reactions from the public, and Regulus would have normally argued, but after one hundred and seventy-five people dead, even he has begun to lose his cool. 

He can’t stop thinking about those faces at the Bristol safehouse. About Johnson. A random stranger, whose words Regulus finds himself thinking of almost every waking moment. And of course, when it’s not that, there are the nightmares to think of. 

With the horseman comes the cavalry. 

With the burning of the mark comes the nightmares and old anxieties, the sleepless nights, a decade of healing, left to the wind in a matter of mere days. The guilt returns. Something he was so adamant about leaving behind. 

These deaths aren’t on him. That’s what Riddle wants everyone to think. But Regulus shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t. But there is such enormity to the number one hundred seventy-five. It will push two hundred tomorrow. And it will only rise indefinitely until Riddle either runs out of people, gets bored, or Regulus does something. 

How quickly did the people turn into numbers again? Regulus is sick of it. He knows he shan’t think of them as numbers, even if it’s easier that way. They were people. With families. With futures ahead of them. They could have lived. They would have. 

No matter how much Regulus likes to think that he’d prepared himself for this. He has not. 

“These are dark times, there is no denying,” Scrimgeor’s booming voice echoes in the mostly vacant hall, “Our world has perhaps faced no greater threat than it does today. But I say this to our citizenry: We, ever your servants, will continue to defend your liberty and repel the forces that seek to take it from you! Our duty is to our citizens, no matter their origin or blood. This government shall not compromise on your safety! No lives shall be traded! No concessions to be made. If certain individuals seek to pose a threat to the sanctity of our society, then they shall be prepared to weather our wrath in the face of their terrorism! The Ministry will not go quietly!”

A smattering of applause. More cameras flashing. And then a group of people, pushing against the line of Aurors with their wands raised, begging to ask questions. Rufus throws Regulus a side-glance, and Regulus can’t stop staring down at the parchment he has folded and brought with him.

He didn’t even write this. James did. 

“We are incredibly short on time—” Rufus is saying to the reporters. 

“You spoke of resistance!” A witch in blue robes screams more loudly over the others with the cadence of a journalist, “What of the ultimatum You-Know-Who has put forth? Is Regulus Black willing to provide a temporary relief for the war effort with his surrender, or—”

“There are no ultimatums to be made,” Rufus cuts the woman short sternly, “Regulus Black is not a trading chip; he is a lawful citizen with rights and autonomy. We do not have the authority to treat him like a commodity—”

“You-Know-Who threatened excessive violence and mass destruction! He has already managed to annihilate—”

“And what of his previous crimes against the war effort?” a man shouts over the reporters’ voices, “He is a marked Death Eater who admitted to the wilful massacre of at least eighty individuals—”

James’ hand presses against him with a protective vigour. Regulus raises his eyes from the piece of folded parchment in his hands and passively gazes out onto the swarms of people and cameras merely a few paces away. He is not intimidated by them, not really. He just finds the entire ordeal so genuinely baffling. 

These people know what happened to him. If not the specifics of it, then at least the bare minimum. They are all adults, they should at the very least infer Riddle’s intention from his nefarious message alone. Why is this hatred pointed at him instead of the enemy? 

How come these people hate him more than the Dark Lord? Why is it that they think his suffering will mitigate theirs in any way?

“Let me make it very clear!” Rufus exclaims, struggling to control the crowd, his wand jabbed into his neck to increase his volume into a deafening holler, “Regulus Arcturus Black Potter has been acquitted of all the charges brought against him, and even fathoming the notion of a political trade is unthinkable for my administration! It is a dehumanising act against our tenet as wizards and shall not be tolerated—”

“Well, does Regulus Black himself have any statements to make about the matter?” 

The hall is reduced to a momentary silence as all eyes turn on him. Even Rufus looks at him with a mildly beseeching glare. James lowers his mouth to Reggie’s ear, muttering, “We don’t have to do this.”

But they do. 

“He’s standing right there!” comes the outcry. 

“Someone hand the wand over!” comes the demand. 

“Let him talk!”

“Yeah! Let him talk!” 

Rufus shifts his body aside, allowing Regulus to take the centre stage. And Regulus does, he leaves James behind, he opens the folded parchment in his hands. Scrimgeor presses the tip of his wand against Regulus’ throat, and Regulus has a weird moment of nostalgia, for he recalls his old speech tutor, forcing him to the centre of the old living room, holding him down until he could enunciate the words on his pages perfectly. 

The ink swims on the paper in his hands, but this comes to Regulus with an eased familiarity. The key is to keep looking down, to pretend this is not real. He takes a deep breath and opens his mouth:

“I, Regulus Arcturus Black Potter, have come to the Ministry for the sole purpose of making an official and recorded declaration once and for all. Under no circumstances will I willingly yield myself or my body to the Dark Lord. I will not be coerced. Not forced. I would never imagine convincing any other living person to do the same,” not a single soul dares breathe. “I believe that instead of infighting, we must unite our forces and exert our focus on throttling his movement before it has the momentum to take hold. Riddle rejoices in our conflict, he thrives when we augment our differences. I will never be his prisoner again. I have no other comments.”

A final lingering moment of relief lasts as his last words are taken and registered by the public, and then chaos erupts all around him. The photographers lower their cameras, the reporters begin pressing against the line of Aurors, protests rolling off their lips in loud and jagged bursts. Regulus is dragged to the side by James, and his husband tells him something, but Regulus can’t really hear him over the loud screams and protests. They seem to come from every corner, from every nook, loud and overwhelming and so alarmingly impassioned: 

“You could save countless lives—”

“Traitor!”

“There is no cost to your surrender! You are dooming thousands of—”

“He’s gonna kill us! What's the worst he'll do to you!? You pureblood harlot!”

“ Open your legs and think of England! ”

“Think of England!”

Regulus’ eyes slightly widen, and he numbly stares into the faces of the crowd, running over each expression one by one, so eerily reminiscent of the subdued, suggestive gazes of the Order Members who already felt afraid and beaten down. These people need someone to blame, and they’ve found their battering ragdoll. 

“You need to remove him from here,” Rufus tells James urgently, “The crowd is becoming hostile.”

Strangers he’s never met before in his life hurl insults at him in the air like projectiles. He looks at them, at their brown eyes, at their wild hair, at their dishevelled robes, at their—his slack face tightens and he has to stifle a gasp. Amongst the screams and cries, there lies an exception. 

A wide smile. In the crowd. Green eyes. 

“Think of the Innocent!”

Regulus chokes, forcefully breaking away from James’ hold around his arm. He can hear the man shouting, immediately chasing after him, but Regulus is running into the mob, following a Cheshire grin. He shoulders his way past the overwhelmed Aurors into the crowd, elbowing them away to chase after the figure he saw. The mob mistakes his desperation for an attack, and they start bashing at him, pulling at his robes and flesh, screaming at him from all sides: 

“Think of England!” 

“Think of the Innocent!”

“We’re all gonna die!” 

Regulus raises his arms to protect his head and face from their assault, trying to follow after the vanished phantom with a call strangled in his throat. His heart squeezes into itself, and Regulus begins to gasp for air, smothered in the centre of at least a dozen bodies pressing against him from all sides. He can’t believe his eyes, he tries to claw his way out, fumble for his wand, or the dagger he’s come to hide in his boot, but all he hears are the chants, all he feels are the hands pulling at him, angrily demanding his surrender. 

“Think of England!” 

A hand grabs at his collar from behind, and Regulus thrashes, trying to fight it off, but it only takes him a beat to recognise the touch as James’. The man’s wand is raised, lashing it at the crowd around Regulus, and he can hear the mob around him hiss and scream and scatter, can see the Aurors rushing over to control and disperse them. James’ arms close around him as Regulus tries to find…

“Reggie? Reggie!” James shakes him by the shoulders, his concerned eyes darting to where Regulus is staring off into the hall, at the empty fireplaces. He can’t have just vanished… the only way in or out of here is through those fireplaces. Regulus’s throat becomes dry. He hears the chants again as though he’s underwater. 

That smile. Those eyes—

“Regulus, what the hell!?” James cups his face, turning his head away, “Did they curse you? Hit you with a spell!? Regulus? Love?”

“Did you…” Regulus croaks, darting a shaking hand at the crowd, “Did you see that ?” 

“See what!? Why did you do that!? Regulus, gods, you’re bleeding—”

“I thought I saw—” impossible , he thinks to himself, stiltedly; it’s impossible, what he saw, “I’m so sure I saw—”

“We need to get you out of there.” James begins to move him, lashing his wand at anyone who dares even stumble near them, making them reel away with angry cries, “Get out of my way! Don't touch him! I'll cleave your hands off! Get away!”

Regulus trips over the phthalo green marbles, so dark that one could mistake them for the abyss. 

...

 

-211-

 

“Can we go see Mum?” his son meekly requests once Regulus blinks himself awake from a horrible dream. 

The nightmares always mess with his sleeping schedule. He can barely differentiate between the horrors he has to face in his waking hours with those of his dreams. He’s taken to napping on the couch in their living room or study for lack of a better thing to do. 

There’s nowhere to go. No one to fight. He can either anticipate the new bout of torture, go out there and be shamed for not turning himself over to be tortured, or pretend all is fine by sleeping this off like a horrible bug. He begins to think of Maman a lot, bound to the house as he is. 

In fact, when Harry asks him about Lily, Regulus is surprised by and paranoid of the question. He rubs at his face to will the fatigue away and pushes himself up on the couch. Harry sits back on his knees, obediently by the side of the couch as though he’s been sitting for a long time, perhaps watching Regulus sleep. 

Like father, like son , Regulus fights the urge to roll his eyes, “Yeah. Yeah, of course we can, son.” 

His hand travels to Harry’s cold forehead; even though he knows he won’t find it blazing with the fever there any longer, he still has to check. The sickness never lasts long. The longest was the snake’s fever, which lasted about a week. But circumstances were different then; Harry was injured otherwise, sleep-deprived, and traumatised. 

Harry is now incredibly calm, even as news of death and mass destruction travels through their floo like clockwork, even as he and Draco seem to take turns stalking Regulus and James’ door, listening for any signs that might denote Regulus losing his damn mind or something. After the whole affair with the incident at the Ministry, that seems to be his family’s general consensus. That Regulus is somehow losing his mind. 

Mildly frustrating, and insanely patronising, to say the least. 

Regulus considers himself one of the only few sane people left in this madhouse. 

“The fever's gone,” Harry says unhelpfully. 

“I know.”

“We should get some lilies from the Orangery,” Harry adds as Regulus doesn’t fill the silence, “Make a little arrangement for her.” 

“Yeah.” 

It’s not a bad idea. Christmas is right around the corner; it might be the last chance they get to see her without anyone attacking them or attempting an assassination or something. Regulus figures that he might even enjoy the outing himself. He misses the thought of Lily being around for their protection. He misses the idea of her watching over their son.

He should ask James whether there are any burial plots available in the same graveyard. It would save James and Harry the unnecessary trips, certainly, in a few years. He doesn’t even know where his own original resting place is. He recalls asking James about it years ago, and James responding, of course, but oh well, maybe this has been eaten by the parasite as well. 

“You know,” Harry suddenly says, “I’m really glad you're my dad.” 

“What's brought this on? You think I'm dying?” Regulus asks this jokingly, making a piss-poor attempt at light-hearted humour, but Harry reels back like he’s been slapped. 

“No!” he snaps at Regulus. “No, don't say that. Just wanted to mention it.” 

Regulus pats the boy on the head, noting with dismay that he seems even taller than he used to be a week ago. “I'm really glad you're my kid, then.” 

“Is it hurting?” 

“Nope. I promise. I'm right here with you. Where's Draco?” 

“Dad took him to get some clothes before things get worse,” Harry shrugs. “You've been asleep all afternoon,” Regulus hums noncommittally, trying to keep from closing his eyes again. “Dad also said that Margery wrote. He asked whether you wanted to meet him tomorrow.” 

Regulus peels one eye open. “We can't go to St. Mungo's.” 

He knows it’s a lousy excuse to deflect only the inevitable, and he might feel slightly childish for pulling such an antic on his son, who should be the one acting immaturely, but he’s so tired and so detached from the reality of their lives that he barely cares. 

“Dad said he'll come here if you want,” Harry replies, again unhelpfully. 

He purses his lips and curses James in his head for throwing Harry under the wheels and removing himself and Draco from the battlefield subsequently. He can’t exactly snap at his own son over a well-intended inquiry: “How about we go see Mum tomorrow morning, and then if there is any time left, we can see about inviting Margery for tea?” 

He’ll probably just check the new casualties and drop down on the couch until it is time to water the plants or some such. He can’t even stomach the idea of seeing what Margery has to say about all this. It’s not as though he needs an excuse to be in a bad way anyhow; there is a literal war going on, and he’s just sitting in his house like a bum, very pointedly, NOT thinking of England. 

“He's not coming here for tea, Papa.” 

“So you have become part of the damn conspiracy,” Regulus snaps at the boy, “I can’t even bloody wallow in my own bloody house.” 

“I'll tell Dad you said yes, then. Love you!” Harry says with a nod and then scampers off before Regulus can yell at him. 

Regulus pulls his fleece blanket over his head. 

 

...

 

-245-

 

He’s realised that his entire life seems like a fever dream now. 

“You are quiet today.”

Margery ends up coming over. Actually, he ends up coming over first thing in the morning. Regulus would put up a fight about it, but he knows James is concerned. He’s always been willing to do all it takes to assuage the man’s worries, as insignificant as they may seem in the face of the far-away massacres. 

That’s the thing about war, Regulus reckons. When it is not in one’s immediate presence, within the man’s immediate senses and reach, it becomes funnily intangible. Even laughable and unreal. So what, one begins to think, so what if hundreds of people all died horrifically today? Thousands, hundreds of thousands die daily anyway. Why is that not called a war, and this is?

Ridiculous thoughts to have. 

“Just thinking,” he tells Margery. They have tea and biscuits. 

Regulus’s staunch insistence on having Margery for tea terribly backfired in that the man did come over for morning tea before Regulus could derail their graveyard visits with any time-consuming distractions. The many wonders of his husband, knowing him as he does, Regulus figures. 

“Yeah?”

“You know I was almost betrothed to Rabastan Lestrange,” he says, “My brother Sirius was trusted to continue the bloodline. Marry my cousin Andy and have a child. My mother never expected that from me. I don't know why. She wanted me to have…political influence. To fortify our position within the circle. Of course, that fell through.” 

“Regulus—” 

“But it's curious,” Regulus pokes at his biscuit, crushing a bit of it on his plate to make it seem like he’s at least nibbled at his treat, though he is more than sure that Margery will mention this to James in passing. He might not even need to, James always used to have this insane instinctive knowledge of Regulus bullshitting his way through things, “The night Riddle came over she wasn't prattling off about betrothal or money or position. She was silent. She was just muttering to herself. She was scared, or at least I'd like to think she was.” 

It’s odd that he wants to talk about her. He never does, and he realises that this is throwing Margery off a little bit. But he’s been thinking about her, the past few days. 

“I heard the news,” Margery tells him instead, “I saw your … at the Ministry. I am so sorry, Regulus.” 

“ Open your legs and think of England,” Regulus exclaims with a harsh bark of laughter, “Never heard that one before. Not even from Maman.” 

And that should be saying something, he thinks crudely, seeing as his Mother had always been his harshest critic, she always mistook him with herself. She always thought he was ugly, that he needed to starve himself, that he needed to be physically desirable to be of any use. She wanted him to be someone’s tool. Who cares what the difference is between Rabastan Lestrange and Tom Riddle? 

Both of the same breed. 

“That's just horrid.” 

“I mean, for God's sake,” he rushes out of his seat, gallivanting around the room in long strides, the words just burst out of him, his rage spills over the brimming cup in his chest, “People are telling me to hand myself over… I told them what he's done to me and they just expect me to—they're justifying my rape . They're angry at me for refusing it—how can they do that?” 

This bit has been driving him mad for days. Because when he closes his eyes, he doesn’t think of the bodies and the poor Muggles who are dead now. He thinks about those reporters, those arsehols in Bristol. He thinks stupid things, about his own memory, about virtue. 

Could it be that all these people are right and he’s in the wrong? Is he selfish for just sitting in his house? 

“They're afraid.” 

“This is his game,” Regulus shoves his hair out of his face, “He wants people to hate me; he wants people to hunt me—” 

“Regulus—” 

“Open my legs and think of the people!” Regulus knows that he’s shouting the words now, but he can’t bring himself to stop, “These people are mad, Louis. I swear, they're mad! Do they really believe him? Are they gullible enough to think that he'll stop!?”

“Regulus.” 

“That he'll stop his life's purpose?” he lungs constrict, “He’ll stop an entire genocide for the sake of a shag? Don't they get it? That I'm a conquest just like his other political whims?” he grips at his hair, vaguely aware of the Mind Healer approaching him, “Don't people understand that the moment he has me…he's going to kill everyone anyway?” 

“I need you to breathe.”

“Breathe?” Regulus shakes his head, “Ordinary people, I can't blame. But Order Members, I went there Louis and they were …they want me as a spy. They were glorifying it and considering it and mulling it over—”

“Regulus, breathe .”

Regulus pauses his rant with a loud gasp. Gulping in the fresh air in mouthfuls as Margery waits for him to calm down. Regulus rubs at his temple irritably. This is the reason why he didn’t want to see Margery. The man didn’t even have to prompt him, and yet Regulus spat up the ball of amalgamated hatred and anxieties out of his chest like a particularly stubborn cat coughing up a hairball. 

He rubs a firm hand over his chest and paces back to his seat to plop down ungracefully. His fingers tap on the armrest, itching for a smoke. Margery settles into the seat in front of him, reaches into his robe silently, and after a moment’s deliberation, he delicately posits a small vial on Reggie’s biscuit saucer.

He leans back in his seat, and Regulus looks at the vibrant yellow vial, much smaller than a normal potion’s vial, innocuously on his suacer next to the crushed biscuits. 

“What is this?”

“Poison.”

Regulus blinks, “Poison.” 

Is this a test? He wonders. Would the man slap him on the wrist if he reached for the vial a bit too eagerly? Is Margery actually an impostor? Or do his thoughts align with all those people out there who want Regulus gone?  

“You are one of my favourite patients,” Margery clears his throat, trying to make himself as small and non-intimidating as possible in his seat, “I consider us friends. I have always wanted the best for you, the best possible outcome, and long-term healing. I have always believed in you to overcome your past trauma because I know that you are a strong man. One of the strongest men I know.”

“Louis.”

“But I have also been privy to the horrors that your husband and others…simply are not. You trusted me with that information, and based on that, I have made a calculated decision. I do not intend for you to misuse this vial. But in light of the current circumstances…I would like you to have that choice. To have the freedom to make that choice.”

Regulus searches the man’s face for any deceit, and even as his instincts scream against it, he reaches for the vial a bit numbly. 

“Don’t you think it’s a coward’s way out?”

“Respectfully, Regulus…” Margery pauses to sigh, shaking his head for a beat, “I don’t know if I can be selfish enough to ask you to endure that torment a second time. I would understand and applaud you if you did; I would help you heal again after this whole ordeal. I would make it my life's mission, but this is simply giving you the agency that you didn’t have the first time around.”

Regulus closes his mouth with a quiet snap, raising the vial over his eyes to watch it lethargically move from one end to the other. It’s certainly potent enough to be poison. Small enough to be easily hidden. Margery is not joking in the slightest. Regulus’ heart skips a bit as a rush of relief courses through his veins. 

He thinks back to that wide smile in the ministry, to his Mother’s pained face all those years ago, to her nervous fluttering as Regulus was being handed over. Would she have wanted this for him? Regulus’s throat closes up. 

“The poison is the one we use for patients in St Mungo’s,” Louis tells him quietly, “Sometimes their relatives consent. Either Dementor victims who’d been given the Kiss, or the ones who’d been Crucio-ed for too long. It’s humane, fast-acting, instant and painless. Just like falling asleep.”

“Thank you.”

“They’re not likely to detect it on you,” the man continues, before Regulus even has time to ponder, “It happens too fast for them to attempt a bezoar. You can transfigure the vial into a pill. Just break the pill with your teeth. I can help you position it. It won’t break accidentally; a bit of magic needs to be involved either externally or...”

Normally, had this been simply a week ago, Regulus would have rejected the offer. He would have thanked the man for his thoughtfulness. He would have been slightly put off by the lengths his Mind Healer has gone to, in order to secure this vial for him, perhaps even risking his job to do so. 

But now he takes the vial, and he thinks that Margery’s sacrifice to procure this vial is the ultimate escape. The only way out, as he put it. Because he’s right. When Regulus was helplessly screaming himself hoarse on that bed, when they pulled that metal worm out of him, he was feeble. He had no say in anything, no choice in anything. 

If Riddle wants it so bad, then one day he might not ask for him to return so nicely. And Regulus is done being a pathetic, helpless victim.

“James wouldn’t understand,” Regulus whispers, as a way to perhaps prompt Margery to guilt him against taking the vial, even though the man supplied it in the first place. 

“I doubt anyone else would.” Margery tells him instead, “Regulus, I never fathomed myself making this choice either. They love you, your family. Even against all odds, they would want you to live even through the vilest of horrors. It is selfish of them, but they cannot be blamed for that. It just can’t be helped.”

Regulus looks down at the vial in his hands and bows his head, overwhelmed by all the emotions he’s been trying to forget since that wretched day. He can’t dissociate from it anymore, he can’t ignore it or push it down. Because Margery is right. The only reason why he’s dragging this process out, is only because he knows his family loves him. And he loves them. And so selfishly, he doesn’t want to leave them behind, even at the cost of innocent lives. 

This is an impossible choice, and maybe that’s why other people are so mad. They don’t understand that Regulus’ fears do not stem from an aversion to death or agony in general, though that would be any human’s first instinct. It’s from a place of love. An unwillingness to detach himself from his life. 

“What should I do?” 

What would his Mother choose, faced with this impossibility? She always seemed so imposing, all-knowing. What would she have him do if she knew that Riddle would mistreat and kill him? 

“Run,” Margery says gravely, “If you have the option, if it is something even vaguely tangible for you. Run .” 

“But he's marked me,” Regulus frowns down at his arm, the weight on his chest becomes so much heavier, “There's nowhere to run. And Harry—oh, God. I can't just leave my child here, and I can't take him with me.” 

Had it been him and his own Mother, he wonders grimly, would she have left him behind? Regulus cannot even imagine ever making that choice. Not ever, but he thinks…if the choice had been with his mother, if she hadn’t been so sick…couldn’t she have just taken him and run that night?

“I am so so sorry, Regulus.” 

“I just want my Maman.” Regulus is ashamed of saying the words, and so he buries his damp face in both hands, still holding onto the vial, “I know she was a horrible person and hurt me and Sirius and—I don't know. I know she never loved me. I know she might have even hated me.”

Despite all the pain she’s caused, Regulus still wants the woman around. He feels as though she should be able to fix this, because if not her, then who would? If she could only be here, hug him, even if she didn’t mean it. Even if she forced Kreacher to do it instead. 

“I just really want her here right now,” Regulus finally breaks down into tears, “I want my Mum.”

Margery’s hand settles over his back as the man silently gives him the permission and the privacy to cry. 

 

...

 

-246-

Papa helps Harry make his arrangement of flowers with a clear single-mindedness that he seemed to lack for the past few days. Having moved past his bout of brain fog, Papa helps Harry pick and prune the madonna lilies, snipping a decorative leaf or flowers from other plant pots. He even transfigures a light green ribbon and ties it into an elaborate bow. 

He helps Harry spray it with water and set it aside under a stasis charm. 

Papa’s and Margery’s goodbye seemed cordial but with an air of finality. Dad, who almost never asks about how Margery’s sessions with Papa go, asked the man about it, but Papa shrugged with a relaxed smile, “I guess I needed that,” he’d told Dad and kissed him on the cheek. 

He and Draco leave the men be in the house. They walk by the duck pond to kill time after lunch. They don’t really crowd the air between them with conversations, and there’s not much to say. Harry doesn’t mind Draco’s company, he was the only one there this entire time that Harry’s been sick. 

He’s the only one who knows that Harry knows . And as he curls up into Harry’s side at night to sleep, they throw each other a knowing glance, knowing in the sense that they are both aware they are drowning, and drowning together. 

Truth be told, Harry really wanted to see Mum to make amends with himself. With what he plans on doing. 

Dad and Papa are almost eagerly willing to take him to see Mum, even though Harry barely remembers a time when all of them went to visit her as a family. They travel in duos: Dad apparates with him and the flowers, and Papa closely follows with Draco.  

Godric's Hollow is oddly empty of people as they arrive, and Harry can see piles of snow, shovelled aside to clear the frozen roads. They have to walk for only a minute or two to get to the graveyard. Every single house they pass by seems to be empty of its occupants. Draco hurries over to hold his hand as they walk, and Harry relays this to him. 

“They must’ve run,” Draco comments sagely, looking at the battered doors and the curtains blowing out of broken windows, “Good for them.”

It makes Harry slightly concerned about their security, but Papa and Dad don’t seem worried at all. They stroll to the graveyard, with their wands tightly held in their hands, admiring the blue hour and the eerie halo it casts over the snow. The entire thing is a bit surreal. 

When they do make it to the graveyard, Dad leads the way to Mum’s resting place with ease, muttering in Papa’s ear about something as Harry and Draco trail behind them. Dad leans down when they arrive and begins to clear the snow from her headstone with a gloved hand. 

The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed Is Death. 

Harry digests the words maybe in a new light. He huffs out the cold air trapped in his lungs and shifts the flowers nestled over his arm. 

“Can I have a moment with Mum?” he asks, startling his parents out of their reverie. 

“Sure, kid,” Dad shares a glance with Papa, “We'll be standing by that tree.”

“Are you sure?” 

“I just want to pay my respects,” he nods at Draco comfortingly, “We don't really come here.”

The boy squeezes his hand once over the glove and then moves away, “Alright.” 

Harry watches the trio slowly retreat to the edge of the graveyard, towards an old oak tree, conversing amongst themselves and not looking over, maybe to grant Harry the authentic privacy he wanted to a helpful extent. 

Harry turns to face Mum again and feels slightly awkward. He shuffles on his feet, huffs again and leans down to put the flowers at the foot of her headstone. He scoots a bit closer to her on the tips of his toes and clears his throat, “Hi, Mum,” he starts, gulping, “I got you flowers. Well, we grow these in the Orangery, and Papa arranged them for you. These are his favourite lilies.” he flushes and wonders what an absurd image he must make, crouched over and mumbling like this. 

“First of all…um..Christmas is coming up, so happy holidays. I hope you have fun in…the ghost realm,” he shakes his head and bites his lips, and figures that she doesn’t have all the time in the world for him to fumble through this whole thing. Well, she might have more time than he, but still. 

“See, the thing is I don't know when I can come here again, or if I ever will,” he looks down at the fresh lilies and tries to attribute the stinging in his eyes to the cold breeze, “But I know I'm on my way to you soon. Sooner than you'd like. I just want…this is so stupid, Mum,” he closes his eyes and pinches the tip of his nose to mitigate the tears, “Can you just watch over them until I get there?” he mutters, “Things are not okay here. I'm worried about them.” 

He pauses for a bit, as though waiting for her to reply. He understands how inherently stupid the act is, but it makes it easier to feel like he’s actually speaking with her. 

“I’m worried because I don't think they know that I know . Or maybe it's just that they want to pretend for a bit longer. You know how they are…I mean, of course, you’d know,” he almost smacks himself on the forehead, “They still think I'm a little kid, as most parents do, I guess.”

He looks at his parents over his shoulder, watches them eyeing the mounds of snow with playful grins, clearly about to urge Draco to join in their conspiracy to rush Harry. Even in the depths of misery, they don’t really change. They always try to make Harry happy. 

“I'm a bit scared,” he tells Mum and shrugs, “Scared of death, I know that's not what a Gryffindor would say, but—Were you scared too? I guess you were scared for me. Because I'm also kinda scared for Dad and Papa. And Draco, too. They all deserve better,” he takes a deep breath because he figures that he doesn’t want to ruin his parents’ snowy surprise with his pathetic weeping, “Once I—that monster will die with me, okay?” he promises her, his fingers grazing against her gravestone, “They'll be safe. They'll move on. Papa will be heartbroken. But at least he'll be safe. I just wish—” he takes one last deep breath, “I just wish you were here so you could hold my hand through it, Mum.” 

He feels a gentle breeze against his face and closes his eyes with a smile, “I love you, okay?” he pushes himself to stand and swipes at his nose with his scarf, “See you soon.” 

He walks back towards his parents and pretends he doesn’t notice the snowballs hidden behind Papa’s back. 

Notes:

First things first:

- the quote is from Richard Adams' "Watership down", I FULLY suggest you guys also watch the animated adaptation or at the very least its opening sequence on YouTube to fully appreciate this quote.

- Did y'all notice the casualty count at the top of every POV? talk about tacky lack of subtlety :(

-Blood coagulates more rapidly than you'd think, particularly when taking into account that /TYPES/ of blood loss from different parts of the body play a large role in this as the amount of oxygen differs. I found some really cool articles on this but be wary of you're squeamish.
- I fully invite you to Google the long-term effects of lead poisoning; it's gruelling! Long-term memory loss, cognitive issues and damage to soft tissues and kidneys just to name a few.
- Any references to cognac are actually references to Regulus' captivity, but fun facts about alcohol incoming because I did an absurd amount of reading for this:
- Not all brandy is cognac but cognac is a type of brandy. The origins actually go all the way back to 16th century France. Particularly the Dutch coming to France with their insatiable desire to get hammered without keeling over undrinkable wine.
- Rancio refers to a characteristic most poignantly occurring in cognac as it develops its peculiar aroma. There are four stages with the fourth stage being what Reggie is referring to here.
- Not my first time yapping about scapegoating, but do feel free to look up social scapegoating prevalent in 1930-40s Germany
- "Open your legs, lie back and think of England." An ACTUALLY historical quote attributed to Queen Victoria if my memory serves well.
- The burden of influence, public panic, and the political use of this quote really REALLY tickled me in a fun way.
- Mysterious figure in the crowd?
- Scrimgeour's speech was taken from the movie. The half-blood prince.
- Return to the womb OR the urge to call to a parental figure in moments of pure distress, is a real phenomenon. Many WW soldiers tended to call nurses "Mama" before they died; there are online records of Alzheimer's patients and trauma victims doing the same. The desire to return to that initial state of protection and security, and nurturing is what causes this urge.
- I could say more but spoilers. Have fun till the next one!!

Chapter 19: 19.—The weight of my decisions—

Notes:

I'm truly sorry.

For maximum effect, you may listen to "Stand by me" by Ben E. King while reading the chapter.

All the warnings and tags apply.

19.—The weight of my decisions—

1996

 

“I remember we found an injured cat once, on the mud path to the village.” his fingers rake through the soft hair, fine white silk. Each thread is long and tenable, the head on his lap barely shifts.

“Yeah?”

“It was a small tabby, limping by the shrubs, mewling his head off. Papa ran back to the house with me the moment he inspected it up close. Scooped me right up and started rushing home without a word. I remember thinking he was scared at first. You know, the way children think. But I saw him shuffling in the pantry, furiously looking for canned fish, rummaging through our kitchen. He ran all the way back to the shrub with me and the canned fish in his arms.” 

“Oh. So he's always been like that.” 

Harry shrugs down, “He opened the can. He knelt next to the tabby cat, but that stupid cat…I don't know why; he wasn't even sniffing the fish. Like it was resigned to his death.”

Draco's hands idly play with Harry's glasses, his foot dangling off the couch, “A cat that refused fish?” 

“Papa picked up the little thing, he looked at it up close, and he turned to me, right? And he said, surprised, ‘his eyes are infected. It can't see us or the food, I reckon. Poor thing's been abandoned.’ But the bastard must've smelled the fish on Papa's hand or something, y’know.”

“Ouch.” 

“Papa didn't let go, is the thing. He looked down at the cat scratching his hand up, biting down on it, and all he did was reach for the fish. Smearing it over his fingers, so the cat could bloody eat while he gnawed, I guess.” 

Draco settles Harry's glasses over his own eyes, prunes his nose up at Harry, and there's a confused frown pinching his brows. “Did the cat live?” 

He looks so beautiful that Harry is almost jostled out of the dim memory because of it. His fingers ease the frown on the boy’s face. He looks older, too, his hair long enough to be braided, his eyes a bit smaller, and his hands more dexterous. He looks older; Harry guesses they both do. There seems to be an entire decade lodged between the ages of fifteen and sixteen. 

“I don't know,” Harry shakes his head at himself. “Well, I guess I do. Papa didn't bring him back home. Just fed him the fish, and we walked back empty-handed when the cat limped away. Papa looked despondent, but I don't know why he didn't bring the cat home with us if he wanted to heal him. We just left. He’d also forgotten to heal his hands, though. I remember Dad freaking out about it when he came home. He wanted to actually find the cat, teach it a lesson.” 

“Harry,” the voice is sombre, his listener knows that this memory has nothing to do with remembrance. “Not everything is a lesson. It was just an arsehole cat. A sick, blind cat.” 

“He still bit the hand that fed him. I guess I've been thinking about it recently.”

That’s what one does in the absence of loved ones around, he figures. Ruminating and remembrance. Grief. Yeah, that’s it. 

Some scars twinge on his body restlessly in grief . On his forehead, his arms, and the long, red, unhealed gash on his neck.  

 

...

1995

 

War in bite-sized pieces. 

Sirius is barely a stranger to it. He’s known war since he could toddle on two legs. The war in the household, the war waged against him by his own Mother, the war within his soul and body whenever he had to look in the mirror. The war that ravaged him with every welt and every hurled insult. The war churning in his head when his little brother showed up at his flat with a fresh mark, struck mute by the weight of the action. 

And the war itself, he barely has to speak of. The enormity of it is something that he doesn’t miss. Because he finds himself unable to say one thing and leave another horror unsaid. Even Remus didn’t dare tease him about it, because Sirius was a good fighter, he was a good Auror, finished training early with James. He was in the trenches, he was covered in blood and viscera, and he wore them like a second suit; he was there, in heaps of missing limbs and the singed odour of human flesh fighting for what he believed in. 

He’s seen his fair share of dead bodies, bodies that were previously alive and belonged to his friends. He’s seen James driven to the absolute edge of lunacy over grief, he had to be the one who confirmed his own brother’s death. Sirius is no stranger to War’s shadow. So he doesn’t miss the obvious obscenities now, so many years later. He's not even surprised by them.

He’d always remember the encompassing element to war, but what always gets him more, are the little things about war. It’s the tensed muscles, the discontent in his stomach, the constant worry and fidgeting. The anxiety he has over the smallest things, the nonstop whizzing of their wireless, the endless and useless Order Meetings that run in circles. 

They’re small ruinations, little fires everywhere. 

They have to leave the Soho flat behind. 

“I’m fine. It’s just the new house.” Barty snaps at them as he wakes up in a cold sweat at nights in their new safehouse, cursing under his breath and scrubbing his face. He dispels any attempts at comfort before either man on his side has a chance to wake up properly. He's thankfully not so painfully thin anymore since they dragged him back, but some injuries have still lingered. His scarred eye remains a brisk reminder of what Sirius and Remus could have lost, and Sirius finds himself staring at the man as he sleeps more often than not. 

At Barty and Remus both. 

And then he thinks about his brother. His stubborn, single-minded, and at times, even straitlaced brother. 

Sirius is quite aware that he and Regulus saw and lived through two different wars. And he is aware that Barty, when he wakes up, clenching the sheets, when he wakes up with a locked jaw or a curse under his breath, was in a third hell, culminating from the previous two. He presses his lips silently against the man’s damp head even when he grumbles and protests, sharing a grim glance with a groggy Remus over Barty’s head. It’s been happening nearly every night, it’s become a ritual. 

War in bite-sized pieces, meaning that the Muggles have become paranoid and aware of some unknown danger lurking within their populace, plucking them, brutalising them in masses, explosions, abductions, terrorist attacks, and unexplained mass killings. Every single day. In harrowing numbers. A secret war? The Cold War on our shores? That’s what they mutter to each other hushedly over the morning paper, Those damn Reds or some governmental conspiracy? They tut, shaking their heads at each other in passing, their eyes roving at the cloudy sky and the grey weather, incessant. Aliens? Any saucers in the sky? Except it’s something much worse and nefarious in nature. 

Sirius has heard it all before. 

“It’s okay,” he breathes against Barty’s face, and Barty shoves at him half-heartedly. Remus squeezes his hand from the other side. They’re used to sleeping like this. Barty in the middle so he can’t run, Sirius against the wall as he always used to, since he feels safer that way, and Remus, on the other side, where he can shift more easily and get out of bed if any chronic aches and old pains yank him out of sleep. 

“I know it’s okay,” Barty rolls his eyes irritably, and Sirius concedes and Remus hums, even though the three of them all know that it’s not okay at all. 

Sirius is no moron. He used to be an Auror for a good few years. His reputation used to precede him back then; he was high up in the ranks, he had his own people and his own battle missions, driven by this absurdly righteous need to correct the universe since his brother turned out to adhere to the family values. In his head, it was just a sacrifice, to fix a familial wrong. 

He was absolutely deluded back then, but not a moron. 

“We can check in with them again,” he suggests, and Barty shakes his head vehemently, even though his fingers twist the sheets more harshly. Sirius has come to know his little tells. He gestures at Remus to reach for the mirror on their nightstand. 

“It’s the middle of the night, they’re asleep.” Barty protests, trying to hold Remus from craning his arm over the bed.

“Is your mark hurting?”

“No. Why are you being a bloody Mother hen?” a sneer, “I said It’s fine.”

It’s not fine, though. The dreams, Sirius knows what they’re about. And despite Barty’s resolute refusal to recount them or talk about them, Sirius can fill in the gaps himself. Because the more bodies start to pile and hurtle towards three-digit numbers, the easier it gets for Sirius to bring forth the image of his brother, helplessly writhing on a bed in agony, unable to do anything to stop it as a parasite is being removed from his body. One instance is enough for Sirius and Remus to imagine the rest of the horrors, put the ill-chopped puzzle pieces together by mashing them and screwing the edges. 

But Barty doesn’t have to do that. Barty can just remember. Where Regulus has been given the ironic luxury to shut out the unspeakable, Barty remembers everything . It’s his curse, he’s said once, to remain a witness. 

“I’m sure they don’t mind.”

And Sirius can’t help the rising anxiety that roars in his own chest now, making his heart race in the middle of the night. The urge to check on his brother hourly has turned into a compulsive tic. Last year, when they moved into the Wimbourne Manor for a few months, it was easier to tame his urge; he had easy access to Regulus and James and the kiddo at all times. It served a mutual benefit for all of them. Harry needed to feel safe in a crowd; he needed family to heal, and the Potters needed the extra hands to take care of him. Sirius and Remus needed physical proof of James and Reggie’s safety. The system worked. Of course, until it all fell through and burned to smithereens once Barty left them, but that’s irrelevant. 

They do not have the option to move back in with the Potters again. 

The more frequent their trips to the Manor, the more exposed the occupants would be. That's how it was during the first war as well. Visiting James and Lily at the safehouse in Godric’s Hollow was a rare treat, especially after Harry was born. Because even with the Fidelius in place, the risk was too high. 

It took James the longest to agree to another Fidelius erected around the Wimbourne property. He's been burned by it once. But of course, the urge to protect his family prevailed. Not having the same faith in the wards wouldn't mean that he can't admit their usefulness. 

There were no arguments about the Secret Keeper this time around. 

James didn't even have to ask. Sirius had to be the one. Righting a past wrong. Protecting his little brother and Godson. The choice was a no-brainer.

He can't endanger them through reckless acts anymore. This means if Sirius and his little family decide to move to Wimbourne again, they'll be moving in permanently, and they have to sit the missions out. They have to forgo the blood and viscera and the grit and the ugly side of war. They just can’t afford to do that. There are barely any fighting numbers and ranks to begin with.

“I can’t sit this one out,” Barty had said the night Fudge was killed, “I caused so much damage in the last war. I have to make up for it.”

Not something Sirius liked to hear, personally. 

“No one will judge you,” Remus had reminded the man gently, “If you do decide not to fight.”

“I have to,” Barty’s eye had darkened, “Evan would’ve wanted me to. And I want to. I won’t be a coward again.”

And now in bed, there's that same bleakness in his eye, “You don’t need to wake them.”

“I don’t think Reggie is asleep anyway,” Sirius grumbles, balancing the mirror in one hand to squint at it, “If it helps.”

Barty huffs and pulls the sheets over his face. “Well, I don’t want to see him or talk to him.” 

Sirius rolls his eyes at the man a bit fondly. True Slytherins, him and Regulus. So damn resistant and stuck-up. Sirius tugs at the sheets with his free hand, and Barty resists, grunting and kicking him under the blankets, “I don't want to see him.” He denies vehemently again, finally yielding but stubbornly keeping his eyes closed once the sheets are pulled off. 

“Sure, you can just feign sleep,” Sirius shakes his head and tilts the mirror, “Show me Regulus Black Potter.” 

The mirror shows a patchy darkness, the rustling of sheets and a low snoring that Sirius vaguely recognises as his brother’s. There’s some shifting and Sirius can see James’ fatigued face, blinking in the mirror with a confused yawn. 

“Pads’?”

“James?”

“Has something happened?” James mutters furiously, his eyes half-lidded.

“No, no. We just wanted to check in. Everything okay? Is he asleep?” 

James doesn’t smother his yawn, “Yeah. Only just. It took ages for him to drift off. Shall I wake him?” though, something in his tone indicates that he is utterly unwilling to do as such.

“No, it’s okay.”

“Is Remus awake then?” James mumbles, and as Sirius turns the mirror in the bed, he perks up, “Hi, Moony. Noodle.”

Barty harrumphs more loudly, screwing his eyes shut with an irritated air. 

“Just wanted to check in.”

“Wandlight blue, mate. I can check on the lads too. Tangled up somewhere on a couch or some such, Merlin forbid they use a bed.” 

“No, it’s fine,” Sirius manages a small smirk, he’s so damn tired, he doesn’t even know what time it is, he didn’t even think to check before calling James. “Don’t get out of bed. I’ll let you rest.”

James gives him a look that Sirius has long etched in his memory as a knowing, piercing glance of a sibling. It drives him barmy sometimes, that he’s known James for so many years, grew up alongside him, fought shoulder to shoulder with the man, was there when he got married both times, was there when his parents passed, when Reggie died, when his baby was born. It’s not that they’re simply friends, or close friends. They are extensions of each other. 

And so Sirius knows, only by that look on James’ face in the dark, without his glasses, that James can feel the worry seeping out of every word that comes out of his mouth like syrup. He knows that Sirius aches to be constantly near; he knows that he will worry and overthink and drive himself crazy with the need to keep his brother and family safe. 

He recalls how it was when Lily and James used to throw all care to the wind, fighting as they did. Sirius was so terrified of their deaths, of his own inevitable solitude, that he couldn’t breathe. He'd already lost a sibling.

“Keep the mirror on you, and be careful,” James tells him hushedly, eventually, “I’ve heard you’re going out this week.”

Sirius exchanges a look with Remus, who arches a brow, “Who the hell tattled?”

Some more shuffling in the dark, Sirius figures that James is fixing up the blanket around Regulus’ sleeping figure, though it’s too dark to say for sure, “Draco,” James whispers, “A Christmas-themed fiasco is how he described it, and no, he didn't elaborate. He’s scared of things going even more wrong if he does.”

“He’s a very inconvenient seer,” Sirius rolls his eyes, “It’s not this week. It would be next week at its earliest, depending on the attack patterns and casualties. See where we’re needed. Dolohov isn’t coughing up much anymore, but we might need to move north.”

There’s not much for them to do currently; all they can do is defend, not retaliate, and even their defence fails in the face of the sheer number of the opposing forces. The attacks, as they occur, are too widespread; there is no rhythm, no logic, no sensitive or important locations as of yet. It seems as though Riddle is just pruning the hedges of his ideal society, just biding his time for the right prize. Only killing for the sake of torment.

“Just be careful, mate. I would’ve joined but—”

“No.” Sirius cuts him off, “No. You have to stay and protect my brother.”

A snort, “Someone needs to protect me from him. He's one bad day away from decapitating me with the garden shears.”

“You’d most likely deserve it.” Barty chimes in meanly, still with his eyes closed. 

“Pleased to see you contributing, Crouch.”

Sirius tilts the mirror away before his feisty fiancé can consider verbally decimating the poor man through the charmed artefact. He takes a deep breath and finds marginal comfort in seeing his friend opening his mouth for another eye-watering yawn. Safe and alive for now. 

“Alright, let’s not have a hissy fit.” He dodges a kick aimed at him under the covers. “Take care. Keep the fort down,” He nods at James, “We’ll check in again soon.”

If it were up to him, they’d check in hourly, though Sirius is quite aware how pissed off Regulus would be about such an arrangement. The man already feels suffocated by the barricade he and Harry have been forced under. Sirius knows his brother; he knows that the man yearns to fight, to protect himself as he rightfully should and is able to. But Voldemort’s aim was never about any agency that Regulus could have for himself, no matter how capable he truly was. 

Disarming him was the point. Humiliation was the point. And Sirius knows, sitting on the sidelines now is as much torture for Regulus as Riddle’s filthy request and threats. A limbo does not necessarily promise a better fate than Hell. 

“Glad to hear your voice, Sirius. Don’t die, please, lads. Goodnight then, I’ll send your regards.”

And the mirror reverts to its old self, reflecting Sirius’ pulled face back at him. He sighs, looking down at Barty’s uncurled figure, still stubbornly refusing to admit that the call had been helpful. He already looks more at peace. 

“We can visit before we leave,” Sirius suggests, “Albus hasn’t confirmed any battle stations yet and—”

“No. If Regulus doesn’t want to see me, then he doesn’t. Once I die—”

“Merlin. No, shut up.” Remus cuts in sharply, rubbing his eyes with a wince.

“Alright, fine. If I die, he’ll regret it, the bloody sod,” Barty flops down. “He’ll mop around with the guilt for years and don’t think I’ll be too broken-hearted about it this time. I’ll haunt his arse and remind him of how childishly he acted—”

“You need to sleep,” Sirius says quickly because even the mere contemplation that Barty might die, as in die permanently, after all the shit they went through to get him back here is horrific. Remus in particular finds the topic very sensitive, as he was the one who found Barty’s ‘NOT-A Suicide note’ in the Bergen shack, “Yeah, definitely sleep.”

Barty wriggles a little, mulling the concept over as if it’s a mere suggestion, and then he shakes his head, kicking the sheets off in one swift move, “No. I definitely need a nice fuck .”

Remus starts to get out of bed. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

“We aren’t having a tea party, Moony.” Barty hooks an arm over the man’s middle and yanks him back on the bed, and Remus follows, scoffing fondly at him, “Sit your bum down.”

“Barty, it’s three in the morning—”

“Should’ve thought of that before ‘chaining me’ to your beds then, gentlemen.” Barty leans up, capturing Remus’ lips with a sigh. Sirius stifles a laugh, and Remus makes a sound of complaint into the kiss, grabbing onto Barty’s neck begrudgingly as the man shifts his knees up between Remus’ legs. 

“It’s not fair!” Remus exclaims once they draw back for air; he looks at Sirius, “Well, do something!”

“I’m enjoying the show,” Sirius admits with a shit-eating grin, and Barty snorts, reaching up to grab at Remus’ chin again, darting his tongue into the grumbling man’s mouth; he dares to throw a side glance at Sirius, and Padfoot looks back at him amusedly. Remus tugs at his hair, Barty moans exaggeratedly, pulling back with a sharp laugh at Remus’ flustered flush. 

“Well? Is this not more fun than sleep?” He pants a bit. 

“Are you about to weaponise sex to avoid a conversation again?” Sirius asks just so Remus will have an easier time overcoming any misplaced guilt. The thing with Barty is that he gets what he wants, and he is fully capable of refusing what he doesn’t tolerate. Even if he does weaponise sexual intercourse at times, Sirius has learnt through experience that the man fully enjoys it without any lingering burden behind the action. 

“No,” Barty rolls his eyes and drops back down on the pillows, wriggling a hand into his pants, his hips hitching up, “I just want a bloody shag. Any volunteers? Because my hand is just as capable of getting this done. Unless you two are gonna just watch, like world-class perverts, while I wank—”

Sirius growls, dropping the mirror to the floor to yank Barty’s body under him as he climbs over, “It is a shame that you even have to ask.”

He slowly guides Barty’s hand out of his pants, and as the man’s hands join at the wrists, Sirius holds them over his head with a firm hold, smirking down at Barty’s sultry and amused eye. They both hear Remus quickly shucking off his pyjamas before he joins them. 

“So hard to please, what a brat.” Sirius rolls his eyes, pushes the fatigue away, and dives in for a bruising kiss. It’s easy to lose himself in the warmth of the arms that embrace him back, in the throes of pleasure and a whimsical and breathless forgetfulness. Barty turns out to be right; sex is a long-forgotten solution to a disaster unfolding out of their control. The intimacy, the comfort, and the assurance that it carries with itself are immense. 

The week that passes, passes in a blink.

The weather is harsh. Britain is seldom known for its sunny days, but December becomes a wet, brutal beast. The streets all clogged, the torrent and hail alternating, the bitter cold biting through the charmed robes, their eyesight blurred and shattered by the harsh rain and snow and sleet—it’s a nightmare to fight in these conditions. The weather seems to be a fighting force too, as imposing and as inevitable as the onslaught of Death Eaters that crawl out of the woodwork like death flies. 

Barty decides to let go of the forged identities as he joins the Order properly, even as it exposes him, even as everyone hates him, even as Moody openly threatens to kill him. Barty persists. This decision, their first proper mission, and their first bout of reliable intel on an upcoming attack coincide in a badly meshed soup. Sirius wants to pinpoint later, when it all suddenly goes wrong, every tentative step they’d taken becomes infused with a Muggle landmine. 

A snitch gives them the piping hot report that, on the coming Tuesday, there will be an ambush on the scarce Muggle population of Nether Green, in Sheffield. Remus refuses to let them be separated or assigned to lead different groups. Even though it is a tactical error. Even though they are more vulnerable and more susceptible to human error. 

This war has a different taste, and Remus is adamant that if he or any of them is to get injured or die, the others should be there. Albus oddly doesn’t argue with this logic. Sirius is given command of a group of Muggleborn volunteers. It goes about as well as one would expect in Sheffield. It’s cold; sleet bombards them in vicious thickets, they can barely see a thing. 

The snitch wasn’t wrong; an ambush had been planned on that Tuesday in Nether Green, Sheffield. An ambush clearly meant as a trap for hapless Order members, that is. They come upon them like a swarm of bees whose nest has been disturbed. Sirius and Barty barely have enough time to throw up their shields. 

Some poor sod named Dave dies right away, just plopping down in the snow like he was a doll with its strings cut. 

The old days, the old methods and movements, the old war starts its engines in Sirius’ muscles. He doesn’t have to think; he already has his training. He merely needs to survive. But at the end of the day, the more he wants to speak of war, the less he has to say. 

There was the sleet storm. The figures in black Death Eater robes. The panicking Muggles who ran amok or right to their deaths; there was Sirius, frantically trying to keep track of his partners as they duelled the overwhelming, masked forces. One hurled curse after another, dark magic so putrid it hung heavy in the air. Each blinding shot of green almost took his breath, because in his head he had to multitask between surviving, wondering if Remus and Barty dodged a stray killing curse, and dealing with the immature grief of what he could possibly do if Remus and Barty—now out of his sight and reach— hadn’t dodged the killing curse after all. It really was a horrible idea, all three of them in the same group.

Because that’s the thing about war in bite-sized pieces. It is so incredibly selfish. 

Sirius knows that they should retreat before there are any more casualties; he can already see three bodies strewn on the snow, marking it with streaks of crimson. The hail makes his ears whistle, and he finds himself duelling two masked figures at once. There is a loud explosion to the side, and the force and sudden heat uproot him from the slippery ground. Sirius falls with a harsh grunt, covering his head as flaming debris joins the sleet in the whirlwind. 

He can hear distant screams, the slashing of wands, curses screamed from every direction, and flying lights above his head. The fight miraculously moves away from him, and another explosion sounds. Sirius can squint through the snow and watch the black plumes rising from a Muggle store and hear the agonised shrieks following the wretched green dark mark, hanging above the flames.  

Sirius pushes his elbows into the snow, thrusting his body up from lying prostrate into a kneeling position; his ears ring with the screams as he stumbles to his feet, trying to make his way to the fire. It only looks like it’s a street over. Sirius finds himself funnily thinking of Muggle music, the harsh riffing of an electric guitar, synchronising with the screams and cries. His boots stutter over the slain bodies of his men, and his eyes dart from one bloodied face to another, trying to find Remus or Barty and hoping they’re not there. 

He hears an arched, shrill screech behind him, an oddly familiar cackle, and he whips around, following the manic laughter, even as the hail obscures his vision and the scent of smoke burns his eyes. He’d know his cousin’s laugh anywhere. Madwoman that she is.

A body shoulders him from behind, and Sirius gasps, turning only to see Barty racing past him with his wand held out in a wide arch, in pursuit of Bellatrix. Sirius runs after them before he even thinks about, his boots slamming into the snow; he twists and turns with the path, the alleyways, the narrow paths; Barty and Bellatrix’ faint figures get farther and farther away, no matter how fast he runs. 

He turns onto the street with the burning buildings and sees Remus there with another woman from their group, trying to contain the flames lapping up to the nearby buildings, as a youngster Auror helps the confused and hysterical Muggles out of the fire. A few hang onto her, badly burnt and crying, begging for the firemen and the ambulances to come. 

Neither of them will, Sirius knows. They’ve been sequestered from the rest of Sheffield. 

“Where is he!?” Sirius yells over the screams at Remus, who turns with saucer-wide eyes. His wand shakes. He felt them too, Sirius knows. Barty was running past them on Bella’s heels.  

“I can’t let go of these flames!” He hollers back, “I think he followed her! Sirius, please—”

“I’ll go get him! Be careful!”

He cannot believe Barty would be stupid enough to pursue Bellatrix alone. The man is barely a stranger to the woman’s lunacy. He knows exactly how dangerous she is, how lethal and unhinged she can be. He worked with her for years, from what Sirius remembers. He pants as he runs, craning his neck to wildly peer into the empty alleyways frantically, hearing another distant explosion behind him. Sirius ducks into an alley and covers his nose as a surge of smoke rolls with the wind, blowing right into his eyes. 

He notices he’s not alone; he’s taken cover in a dead-end pathway, snowed-in from the other side, and near the very end, a bloodied figure is crouched with their back to Sirius. Sirius wants to run off, to go after Barty… but he can’t leave the fella here. He can at least direct the guy to Remus before he attempts to find his cousin and partner. 

“Hey, you!” He hobbles towards the bloodied and cloaked person, “Do you need help—fuck.” 

The leg’s missing. He can see a puddle of blood under the silent figure. He grasps the guy’s shoulder, shaking him a bit. “Hey mate, help is that way. Let’s… Fuck—Do you know where you left your leg?”

“Hey, hey!”

The cloak’s hood falls off, and Sirius stumbles back, his heart stopping in his chest. He staggers and almost drops his wand. “What are you doing here!?” His mouth opens and closes, bobbing like a fish’s. “Where’s James!? Where's your leg—Hey—Argh!”

...

 

A dark room, a rugged man forcibly seated on a chair, his hair matted to his face with sweat, he is panting and grinning from one ear to another. The dim light of a Lumos hovers above him tantalisingly, as though its snuffing out would coincide with the man’s one last haggard breath. 

Regulus bursts into the darkened room with a brisk pace, startling Kingsley and a wary Bill Weasley, who stands a bit away from the occupied chair, inspecting the fresh catch. 

“Get out,” Regulus growls at them both, staring squarely into the captive’s face that leers back at him in remembrance and recognition. 

“Mister Potter—”

“GET THE FUCK OUT!”

The walls shake with the force of his voice, and Bill flinches back, his eyes darting to the looming figure behind Regulus as though for confirmation. He and Kingsley duck their heads and rush out of the room. Regulus faintly hears the door snap behind them.

“Do you remember me?” The voice croons at him, the eyes follow him from across the room, “I remember you.”

Regulus is not playing games. He strides fully into the room, out of the darkness, with a fisted hand. He yanks the fucker out of the metal chair, hoisting him up by the collar of his robes until he’s on the tips of his toes. “Where is my brother!?” he roars into the man’s face, his nails digging into the cloth, into the flesh, drawing blood under the robes. 

The man they’ve captured has a slight build and a vaguely serpentine figure, a face that is narrow and swarthy, eyes that are small but piercing. Under the Lumus light, the man’s dark irises reflect the light eerily like a salamander’s. Regulus doesn’t know him. Doesn’t think him to be a Pureblood or anyone remarkable within the ranks. Though he certainly is old enough to have been around for the first war as well. This fucker is the only one Remus and Barty could capture since the arsehole splinched his leg and couldn’t apparate away from the rubble and bodies. 

“Yeah,” the insectile man cackles, “I do remember you.”

James is behind Regulus like a shadow, tensed and ready to strike with his wand in hand, awaiting but hesitant to interrupt, and rightfully so. Rage has blinded Regulus to such an extent that he will hurt any living being standing in his way, between him and his brother’s location. 

“Your brother, though? Hmm, no bells—” Regulus drops the man, reels back and punches him in the jaw, sending the fucker sprawling into the metal chair, and then crumpling to the dusty floor of the safe house.  The guy curses, grabbing at his jaw, “Argh! You’ll pay for that, you bloody git!” Regulus kicks him in the chest, “Argh!”

“You’re the one at my mercy!” Regulus rages, relishing in the lethargic blood that trickles from the man’s broken nose, “You slimy creature. I know the ambush was a dud! You were camping out to get him! Why?”

The bastard wheezes, swiping at the blood with a cackle, “Why not?”

Regulus is too tired of these games. Weeks he had to dread the inevitable, every hour that crawled by and every single grain of sand that was added to the pile of the dead, he felt with enormous intensity. This war is about to snap his back in half, and his brother , his only family and blood kin, has been snatched. He knows it’s been a miracle for his friends and family to have remained untouched for as long as they have. He knows that every day has been a blessing because he has so many people he cares about now that, even statistically, the survival of them all would be impossible. 

But his brother? His kin? His blood? Sirius? 

Regulus has been playing along for weeks. He has been the proverbial ‘good boy’ . He’s stayed home like a damn hermit crab curling in a burrow, like a turtle retracting into itself as the shell cracks within the jaws of a carnivor. He has exercised every protective measure, he has resigned himself from the frontlines to watching over cauldrons and brewing medicinal potions. He’s spent every night sleeplessly, feeling a phantom something writhe under his flesh, resorting his organs, burrowing deep in his lungs, keeping them from fully expanding. 

Every breath he took, he did with dread, every mouthful he swallowed, every potion he vialled, every scratch on the wall that was another death added to the mountains, to the many. He’s been abiding and forthcoming, and dancing to every tune that keeps his family safe. 

But he should have known. Of course, he should have known, and perhaps he did, in the faraway corners of his cobwebbed mind, that Riddle might get desperate if Reggie doesn’t comply, that Riddle has ample time along his quest to conquer the world under his fist to track Regulus down like prey. That he will use a bait, a familiar bait. Because if threats do not yield, and nor does his conditioned response to pain… then the Rose will have to do. 

They fed them false information, they lured out his brother, who wanted nothing in this world but to live a peaceful life with his family, who was inherently good, who didn’t have to try, to struggle to be a decent person like Regulus had to. Sirius, who has overcome more than many have at his age. Sirius, who’s already fought one war and survived. 

“I won’t play nice like them,” he pushes the tip of his boot over on the man’s delicate cheekbone, pressing down, “Tell me while you’re still lucid. Do you want to see the way Dolohov chirps like a bird now in our custody? It’s not fucking pretty.”

The body under his foot contorts, and though there is pain evident in the man’s features, it is accompanied by a rancid sense of entitlement and condescending amusement. Which is an odd thing to exhibit, seeing as he doesn’t look like he is particularly familiar with Regulus as a person, as opposed to a cognisance he only has as an audience who has witnessed Regulus as something other than merely human. 

“Oh, I’ve seen exactly how you play, Black,” he chuckles, his bloodied teeth glinting a bright red under the harsh light, “Every strike on my face, I’ll remember, and I’ll ask our Lord for retribution! He’ll whip you bloody! Just you see!”

Regulus’ blood, already rushing in his ears and obfuscating his vision, now boils upon hearing the taunting words, and something very deep and primal within him, something alive that harbours his familial pride, seems to snap its jaws. This creature, this insect, this piece of utter cow shit , sees himself above Regulus; enough to tease him, enough to threaten him, enough to treat him like he’s lesser.

Every strike, one lash of a whip from Riddle? Regulus takes an animalistic gait, raises his boot ever so slightly before slamming it full-force against the man’s face, right over his eye. The man lets out a strangled whine of agony, and Regulus gulps in a big breath, before raising his boot again, and slamming it down on the same spot, another high-pitched moan, and the cracking of a cheekbone caving into the face. 

“Regulus—” he hears James behind him. 

“Every strike a lash of a whip!?” he brings down his boot again, this time on the fucker’s jaw, “For a scum like you!? A nameless mutt like you!? Then I better earn every damn lash!”

All that pent-up anger and grief needs an outlet; all these mindless, clueless, brainless people have been marching over his body for years, and he let them. And now they’ve taken his brother, his brother who may already be dead, his brother paying for Reggie’s sins again. Their childhood playing back all over again. 

The man under his boot doesn’t relent, “He was an easy meal—ONE!”

“Tell me!” Regulus hollers over the blood, whistling and roiling like thunder in his ears. 

“TWO!”

“I’ll rip your teeth out one by one, you —”

“THREE! He’ll whip you—bloody! I’ll count then too!”

Again and again and again and again, again, again, again, again, again. 

A hand on his shoulder, stilling his bloodied boot that hovers over the man’s throat now. Regulus curls both hands into fists, snaps his head to catch James’ blanched face in his periphery. James doesn’t need to say anything; they haven’t exactly been authorised to be here. They are not Order Members, not official ones anyway, they are not active combatants. They’re only here because Barty let them into the safehouse, only here because it’s Reggie’s brother, and because Albus has not arrived from the highlands yet. 

If Regulus kills their only captured attacker from the ambush, there will be no chance, no clues left. Sirius will be tortured to death, perhaps even executed publicly. 

Regulus retracts his boot, and as he lowers it gingerly on the floor, it slips on the slick blood a little. He looks down at the ruined face, covered in most of the blood, the eye screwed shut, the wheezing of a chest and a mumbled number, that is accompanied by a metaphorical arching of a whip midair. A whip that has already crisscrossed its wrath upon Regulus’ body. 

He takes a step back as James crouches by the body, lifting the guy’s head by his hair, “Bellatrix Lestrange led your little adventure in Sheffield, no? Thirty innocent deaths. That’s on you.” 

Regulus looks over his shoulder at the flashes of light underneath the closed door that have shrivelled away because of the darkness. He saw Barty when rushing in, saw his red face, his scarred eye, his hands that shook around his wand. Remus, nowhere to be seen but safe somewhere within the house, locked up in a room, and already grieving. It’s too close to a Full Moon for him to lose a mate. 

The man mumbles his numbers even as James shakes him weakly, “We can be nice too,” James tells the fucker, “Get you all healed up, get you food and water. A cuppa—Something to loosen you up. It doesn’t have to hurt, mate. I just want the names and location.”

Regulus narrows his eyes down at James and huffs out the trapped air in his lungs, “I’ll force the truth out of him either way. He’s fucking talking either by force or otherwise!”

It's not as if he doesn't know the limits of the human body like the back of his own hand. Not like he hasn't tortured people before. 

“My husband can make it hurt,” James affirms, “And I can make it hurt more. Why did you take Sirius Black, and where are you keeping him?”

“Twelve,” the guy croaks breathlessly, “Hit me—twelve—times—”

Regulus laughs; he can’t help it. He crouches down next to James, leers right into the fucker’s face, “Twelve times you say,” he jeers, “I’ll make sure to relay the numbers to Voldemort myself. Hell, I’ll hand him the whip.”

The dark, salamandar eye looks back at him in the most wretched and disgusting way and Regulus rubs at his jaw, shooting up to his feet, pissed at himself and the world. Veritaserum is not something that a fucker just stumbles by. The ingredients are too rare, too expensive to just be lying around. There is too much red tape and too many hurdles involved in acquiring each. He has no means of procuring it himself. Not now anyway. Scrimgeour and his cronies would be the ones having access to the locked-up potions vault in the Ministry now. 

It would take at least half a day for them to get their hands on a vial potent enough to get this monster to talk. Their best chance is to wait for Albus’ return, for Legilimency to yield any results. If the guy they’ve ‘trapped’ is not an Occlumence. 

If the guy truly got taken, and has not merely handed himself over. Because at the end of the day, there is no guarantee that he even knows anything. He can be a red herring, just a burnt pawn, wasting their time. 

Because he was right, Regulus doesn’t recall having ever met this man. And this man could so easily lie to him about knowing him and remembering him. It’ll take at least an hour for Albus to find his way back here from Scotland, if he uses a Portkey. This fucker can lie for at least an hour, and Sirius might die in that one hour. 

It’s not as though knowing him is an outlandish claim. Regulus is barely an unknown figure nowadays. He might just be the most hunted and sought-after fucker in all of Britain at the moment. 

And even if he is not lying, what difference would it make? He’s probably some Muggleborn, a foreigner, or a Half-blood, just a pair of boots in an infantry. Merlin knows some fuckers would actually join the Death Eaters willingly, their damn eyes blinded by the promise of protection and prosperity. It’s not a rarity; it happened all the time, even back then. The oppressed serving against their own interest, lending a helping hand to their executioner, wilfully stomping over their own people and lineage for a scrap of meat. And they would only realise too late that the meat being served out is chunks of their own flesh. 

“It’s pointless,” Regulus turns away, rubs at his temple now to nurse the headache pulsating there. 

They’ll have more of a shot by searching…everywhere on foot themselves. 

They’ve tried the Mirror. Remus has already tried tracking his scent. They’ve tried making this fucker talk. Barty’s tried every tracking spell and ‘Accio’ variation known to man. Albus is at least an hour away. A Veritaserum vial is at least half a day away. This man thinks he has a claim to Reggie’s body. 

Twelve strikes and twelve lashes. Retribution. What a joke. It feels like he’s been dead for the longest time, and this is hell.

Regulus is so bloody tired. 

James stands, leaving the twitching body on the dirty floor, and they both head to the closed door with its little gaggle of people, having gathered behind it, yet too fearful to actually barge in on them. 

 

...

 

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever maintained such an intense eye contact with anyone so frequently as Draco Malfoy. 

Draco, who has acquiesced to their mutual ruination in this war, who seems to have silently accepted that things have long been derailed from their original path. The centre cannot hold, and they are in a wildly spinning cyclone, hurtling toward the end so excruciatingly near that Harry’s breath catches when he merely thinks about it. 

Even behind closed doors, war is terrifying. 

There’s not much Harry and Draco do behind these closed doors with Harry’s parents. They try to help where they can; Papa has taken to manically brewing medicinal potions and shipping them off to Merlin knew where with Hedwig. He’d bullied Harry and Draco into helping out, and though Harry’s favourite subject in school was never potions, the same cannot be said about Draco, who seems to have slipped right back into his comfort zone when brewing with Papa. 

They find their own nooks and corners to curl up in at night, to sleep. Harry has come to learn that Draco dislikes being in anything that can be classified as a bed. They take to strange places. To the window seats, the couches, the cot in the Orangery. As long as it helps Draco, then there’s no room for complaint. Harry himself, interestingly, hasn’t had any nightmares since this arrangement of theirs began to be the new normal. 

The new normal is a strange way to describe their lives now. 

There is a tension in their household that Harry is alien to. Not a tension necessarily between his parents, but the trepidation that comes with their circumstances. Papa hates hiding here, Dad hates it too. Harry is not at all a fan of being cooped up here while people are dying outside, not in the light of what he knows now about himself and Riddle. 

There was the initial disgust, the uncertainty, the fear, with coming to learn that a piece of Voldemort’s soul has been stuck to his body. He used to look at himself in the mirror, trying to find the monster, the wretched part of him that doesn’t belong to him . 

Maybe it’s the part that constantly hurts Papa. Though, thinking such a thing would naturally diminish Harry being a shitty person in general. But he kept thinking, as people died, as the numbers rose, and war began to take a new meaning in his head. Maybe he was turning into Voldemort. Maybe he was a bad person for all the things he’s done. His actions have been a catalyst in this cataclysm after all. 

But when Draco looks at him, and he does quite often, whenever he thinks Harry isn’t looking, Harry finds it hard to think of himself as a wretched monster. 

There is something warm in his eyes when he looks at Harry, when he stumbles on his own feet and darts a hand out in the air, believing that Harry will catch him before hitting the floor. There is something so foreign and familiar in Draco Malfoy that makes Harry forget about all of his anxieties. 

It’s not that he has the sight or that he particularly seems to know the way ahead. He doesn’t, he is just holding Harry’s hand through it. 

Sirius goes missing. 

Papa and Dad lose their minds and storm out of the house in pursuit of a phantom. 

But Harry kind of already knew what would happen. He knew his own symptoms. When Ron’s dad was brutally murdered, he had felt he same stutter in his heart, the same nausea, the same dizzying pain in his scar, jolting him out of sleep before it started bleeding. The scenes would play out behind his eyes by force, along with the jabbing pain. 

He waits for it all day. Even after his parents fail to return that evening. Harry waits for it, for the moment the vision will inevitably hit him. And he doesn’t know how to brace himself to see his Godfather…hurt. Or worse, horrifically killed.

The first of many familiar casualties to come. Dad used to talk about this a lot. Friends and familiar faces just…dying in war. 

Harry doesn’t need to justify his love for Sirius, he can’t justify the way his chest tightens, and the way he keeps thinking of childhood memories with the man, Sirius lifting him on his shoulders, teaching him how to sit on a bike, ruffling his hair, gossiping with him, forcing Muggle music down his throat. 

Harry is sick merely imagining his demise.

He waits for it , and it’s just as the sun has set, in the darkness of a quiet, grieving house, when it hits him at last. 

It’s just him in his room, and Draco, who is always there, who is staring at him, waiting, almost as if he knows what is about to happen and is merely waiting for it to start. Like he did with the fever. Harry finds a strange comfort in it even as he crumples to the floor, gently lowered in the boy’s arms.

A dark room with endless rows of shelves, atop each an illuminated orb, casting its eerie blue light over the pale, clammy skin of the screaming man. A chair, wooden, in the centre of the darkened hall, and Sirius chained upon it, writhing and screaming. Straining against the air, against the wand that lays one Crucio over his convulsing body after another. He has already been beaten, his nose broken, a trickle of blood smearing his chin and running down his mouth and beard. Long lines along his clothed arms, the coat that he adored, now ripped and smeared in blood. The assailant is not even asking him anything, but he knows that Harry is watching. 

Because the screams seem to ring more loudly, Sirius thrashes more frantically. Harry cries out, he knows he flails and tries to call out to his Godfather. He knows Sirius can’t hear him. 

When his vision clears, perhaps merely seconds after, he’s on the floor, panting and crying, and he can feel the warm blood in rivulets from his scar. Draco is staring down at him, his hand holding onto the side of Harry’s head, he looks blanched of all colour. His hand shakes, and his eyes. They’re so intense to look into.

Harry pants on the floor, and Draco tries to breathe with him. The silence is so loud that it deafens them both. His room has been stilled, no longer guarding him and his childish youth. To be honest, it hasn’t done that in well over a year. 

“Was it real?” he croaks when it’s over. 

He doesn’t need to elaborate, and Draco doesn’t ask him to. 

“I saw everyone in the Ministry, the Department of Mysteries. But I don’t know if we're going there after or if he’s there now,” his fingers brush away Harry's hair from the bloodied forehead tenderly, “Are you feeling faint?”

“We need—Sirius was—I saw myself torturing him and—”

And just like it was with Ron’s Dad. He felt the glee, the satisfaction, the sickening joy in inflicting that pain. 

“I told James to warn him and he still wasn't careful, Merlin,” Draco snaps at no one in particular, sighing as he helps Harry sit up a little. 

“Did I make any noise?” Harry looks at his closed door, listens to the quiet house, through a blinding migraine that takes over his body. 

“Not much noise, but it doesn’t matter. They’re still not home.”

He wipes the blood on his face with the sleeve of his shirt, sniffing and rubbing at the aching forehead with a suppressed wince. He’s not new to torture now, not new to images of torment, but still, seeing Sirius like that…Harry holds his breath and tries not to panic. 

“Sirius is alive, but he doesn’t have time.”

“Harry—”

Harry cuts him off, “We should go.”

Something strange is thrumming in his veins. An anger, a thirst for retribution. Because he knows what Riddle is now, and he knows that a confrontation between them is inevitable. He will only stand to hurt Harry and those he loves. Sirius might die if they wait around, and Harry still feels a bitter taste in his mouth whenever he is reminded of the way Riddle tormented Papa not so long ago. He’s right. They should go. Now that the man is alone, now that the Cup has been destroyed recently, and he is not as strong. 

They can go, and they can get Sirius, and even if there is a duel, a confrontation, Harry might manage to have the upper hand if he does as Papa had taught him. Even if he destroys Voldemort’s body, that will delay this war for some time.

Not a long time, but enough for Harry to be older, stronger. 

“What?"

“You saw us there.”

“But that’s different,” Draco shakes his head, a conflicted expression on his face, “That’s a different—Harry, we can’t go alone.”

“Why?” Harry demands, “Will anyone die if we do?” 

“I don't know.” 

“Well, Sirius will if we don't!” 

“How do you even know it's real?” Draco fidgets with the amethyst stone in his stands, rolling his eyes irritably at Harry, “I mean…I had the guy in my head. He knows everything I do, he knows what I fed him anyway. He's possessed you. It's not safe—” 

“Because he was torturing him! If he wanted him dead, he wouldn't have taken him there—”

“What if he wants the key to the Fidelius ward?” Draco grabs his arm, cringing at the drying blood on Harry’s flushed face, “You can't just hand yourself over. This house is only safe if you remain in it.” 

“He doesn’t want the house. They were in the Ministry. He wanted something in the Ministry.”

“How do you know that? Just because I said so?” 

He’s looking at Harry intensely, as he always does, his pale eyes with their subtle tendrils of purple and hues of red, seeking something on Harry’s face that he doesn’t want discovered. If Draco even suspects that Harry is hoping for a direct confrontation with Riddle, he will chain himself to Harry and Harry will never see the light of day. 

So he pulls away and shrugs irritably, “Well, there were shelves and orbs on them. I thought it looked governmental—”

“The Hall of Prophecies?” Draco breathes, andd then drops his gaze, “Ah, fuck.” 

“So he wants something?” 

Draco remains silent, merely shaking his head and fisting a hand around the precious stone. 

“Listen,” Harry knows it’s mean to change his tone like that, he knows that it’s not fair to Draco, and it’s not fair of Harry to manipulate him, but he softens his voice anyways, “I still have the Floo Key to my Dad's office in the Ministry. I don't think he's changed it. If we go now—he was alone, and Sirius doesn't have time—”

“What about your parents?”

“I don't—We don’t have time for them to get here!” Harry tries to reason, “We don’t even know which safe house they’re at. Besides, I don't want Dad and Papa to duel Riddle again—”

And the entire point of confronting Riddle alone is that his parents cannot interfere with what fate had in mind. If Harry is bound to die at the end of the day, that’s fine with him; if he’s bound to take Riddle with him, just to help his parents along the path of defeating him, that’s fine. And if he gets to save Sirius doing so, then there is no excuse for him to be sitting here idly, waiting for his family to die or be killed. 

Draco looks unmoved by Harry’s reasoning, and of course, he would be, he’s not an idiot. “So just us two, against Riddle? Harry, we'd be laughably outmatched. He’s gonna bloody kill us like it’s nothing—” 

“We don't have to fight him,” Harry knows that Draco will not let him leave alone. But that’s okay, Harry will make sure Draco remains unhurt and returns with Sirius. He just needs the boy around long enough to get where he needs to be. “We just need to get Sirius and get back here. We'll take my Invisibility cloak, and I have some dung bombs left in my trunk, we can take the mirror with us—”

“Harry, I'm not sure about this.” 

“But you've seen it. We do go there.”

“I've seen many things,” Draco scoffs, “That doesn't make any of them even remotely valid or true. I've never even seen one event fully to its end, not even my own death—”

“Am I going alone then?” 

Harry lets the boy stew in the silence that follows, and as wretched as he feels about it, he knows that he cannot let this opportunity slip. Papa surely wouldn’t have. That’s how he’d destroyed two Horcruxes on his own, even at the cost of almost losing his life. Harry can’t stand and do nothing as Riddle terrorises his Father, as they inch closer to losing every day. This may be his only chance. 

“No, of course not,” Draco sighs finally, rubbing a hand over his eyes as though they’re hurting him, “I'd never leave you even in the throes of your stupidity. But this is a horrible idea. Harry, this is a fucking awful idea and—”

“We don’t have time to wait.” Harry grabs Draco’s hand and squeezes, prompting the boy’s eyes to widen at him. “I’ve done it once for you, and now I need to help Sirius. Okay?”

A small, hesitant pause.

“Okay, but I need a weapon, and we’re leaving your parents a note.”

Harry has already written them a lengthy letter, though, hidden under his pillow, in his bed, where he rarely sleeps anymore. He knows either Dad or Papa will find the folded paper eventually. He’d learnt from Barty’s mistakes. Never to leave his Goodbyes in plain sight.  

He is going to save everyone, even if it kills him.

 

...

 

Draco knows he has just been played. 

Yet he follows Harry into the floo, through the empty office, into the vacant department. It seems as though the entire Ministry has been either abandoned or barricaded, which makes sense, with two assassinations and counting, they have no means of actual protection for this place. There’s not much worth to a single building, no matter what it represents.  

The desks have been left with their stacks of parchment, the doors left ajar, and as they head towards the lifts in the eerie silence, Draco keeps sneaking glances at the shorter boy next to him. He sees the resolute set to his shoulders, his firm fingers around his wand, the stoic frown on his face as they descended to the Department of Mysteries. 

Harry may not know this but Draco has learned that particular frown on his face means he is conspiring to do something wildly moronic that ends up hurting him. 

It’s the frown he’s got on his face, the last time Draco sees him in his visions. 

Harry could have asked about the Room of Prophecies, could’ve enquired more about Draco’s version of accounts, but he doesn’t. It feels pointed, his silence. It’s not that he even expects Draco to expand on it himself. It’s almost as if it doesn’t matter. And Draco supposes that it doesn’t. 

It doesn’t matter that he saw his Father in the vision, or that he saw Auntie Bella, and Sirius duelling and Sirius being shoved back through an archway. It doesn’t matter that the Prophecy is destroyed before it can be fully heard by either Harry or Riddle. And it doesn’t matter if the vision was or wasn’t real in the first place. 

It matters that Harry thinks he has a plan, and it matters that Draco should stop him no matter what, whilst also trying to save Sirius Black.

The lifts chime open, a feminine voice declares, “The Department of Mysteries.” 

Draco has never been here before himself, but his Father used to have many dealings in this department. He feels a bit wretched, falling behind Harry as he surveys the tight and suffocating corridors, the dark tiles, and the grim sense of unease that coils in his stomach. 

The door leading into the department is dark with a prominent, golden knob that somehow looks malicious. Harry looks at him over his shoulder and gestures at Draco to open the Invisibility Cloak they’ve brought along. 

He has to crouch, for the cloak to hide them both entirely, but as they pass the threshold into the Department, it really seems irrelevant whether they’ve been hidden or not. He can’t help thinking that no wonder Unspeakables in the Ministry have been stereotyped the way they’ve been; the department itself leads to nine doors. Harry heads to the one in the centre as though he’s been here before already. If his vision has even a shred of accuracy, perhaps he has. 

“No one here either,” Harry mutters to him. They both cringe as the door snaps shut behind them. Draco holds his breath as they look through the sheer cloak at the dust-covered shelves, the dim blue glass orbs, and feels a headache building behind his eyes. He rubs at his temple and blinks to dispel the blur covering his sight. His hand grabs onto the hem of Harry’s jumper, and Harry steadies him. 

“You okay?”

No. Draco is not okay. Because now he is realising that the reason why Sirius Black has been taken is not at all related to tormenting his brother, or to get the Fidelius key to the Wimbourne house. Riddle wants to verify the Prophecy he saw in Draco’s head, and there is no other reason why they should be headed to the Hall of Prophecies.

Harry knows this is a trap, surely. Draco knows it too.  

“Listen, maybe we should leave.”

“Let’s just find Sirius. The hall is vacant.” 

Their steps are muted upon the dusty floor, and Draco keeps his eyes averted from the thousands of little whispers that emanate from the orbs as they pass. He feels a faint tug in his gut as they pass each, and he swallows the bile in his throat. 

Harry’s illuminated wand is pointed at the floor, and so when they approach the bloodied streaks near shelf number ninety seven, they both pause without preamble. Harry shrugs out of the cloak before Draco can stop him, and Draco gasps, hissing the boy’s name, “Harry!”

“That’s fresh blood,” Harry circles himself, darting his lumus in a wide circle around them, a bit frantically, “I was right! He was just here and he’s bled on the floor—”

The strike of a cane against the floor. 

Draco closes his eyes with a curse and turns towards the sound behind them. Harry is behind him, having trailed off, inspecting an orb keenly, as though gripped by fascination, trapped by the orb. It’s a small one, and it shines a bit brighter than the other ones the closer Harry gets to it. 

Draco drops the cloak and curses again, “Harry.”

Harry, orb in hand, turns to him, and now they both hear the unhurried sound of footsteps. One step. Then another. Then the striking of a cane. 

Father is masked. Unhurried, languid in his movements, even. 

Harry shields Draco’s body with his own, pointing his wand at the approaching man, “Where is Sirius!?”

“I would say this is a surprise,” The man behind the mask drawls, his own wand loosely held in his hand, “But it truly is not. You still cannot tell the difference between the truth and your little dreams.”

“Hello, Father.”

Father’s mask melts into thin air upon a touch of his wand, and Draco sees the aged face, resentfully regarding him, “Draco.” 

“Where is Sirius Black?” 

“You know it is not too late for you, Draco. Our Lord will be benevolent. He will punish you accordingly, of course, but—”

“You’re here for this,” Harry thrusts the orb in the air, tauntingly, “Hurt us and I will break it.”

Father curls his mouth at Harry and probably at his insolence. His eyes narrow at the Prophecy, and behind him arises a shrill and low cackle. Draco closes his eyes momentarily as a shiver runs down his spine. 

“He knows how to play,” the shrill voice croaks, and Draco can swear that he hears the woman’s skirts running and rustling through blood before he actually sees her. 

“Itty, bitty, Potter!”

“Reducto!” 

Harry grabs his hand and yanks him into a run, and they stumble along the maze of shelves, their lungs rattling, and they can hear over their own breathing and pounding steps, the pursuit behind them. A dark wisp in the air, chasing them. Every turn they take, there is a masked face in the shadows, blocking their path and joining the army of dark smoke, propelling through the air. Draco turns and lashes a wand at the shelves behind them. 

They hear the rolling and breaking of a thousand prophecies, and Draco has to double over as he hears their agonised cries and murmurs turn into a crescendo in his ears. Harry drags him forward, they still manage to run quite a bit before they are cornered from all four sides. 

“Nowhere to run now, you rat!” Bella shrieks at them, her hair frazzled, her heels streaking the blood on the floor, over the shattered glass as she approaches them. And the closer she gets, the more clearly Draco can see a strange glint in one of her eyes. 

Harry smothers a gasp beside him as they catch the glass eye lodged in place of her actual left eye. It seems that the loss of the Cup has been a heavy one for her. Which is not a good thing for Harry or Draco, given that they are definitely outnumbered and definitely fucked. 

“You have already dug one grave,” Lucius croons to Harry, extending a hand, “You are already dead, Potter. I can show you the truth, hand it over, and it will all stop hurting—”

Harry doesn’t back down, they don’t have the option to back down, “I won’t talk to you, Malfoy. Go get Riddle—”

“You insolent brat,” Father sputters, attempting to close in on them. 

“Where is my Godfather?” Harry snarls back, threateningly raising the orb and gripping it more tightly. 

“Where all the Blood traitors will be!” Bella rages, slashing her wand at them, though no curse or spell comes out, hurling. 

Rationally thinking, Draco understands Harry’s stance. The prophecy is the only leverage they have but their time is not infinite here, so Harry should probably hurry the fuck up and either break the thing already or Draco should cause some sort of chaos or distraction for them to run away. He can see eight people surrounding them, counting Father and Bella. Those are not good odds, as there could be more swarming the building. 

“Harry—”

“Baby Draco, crying like little Mummy , are we!?” The red light of a Crucio zooms in the air, and Draco braces himself for impact, but Harry counters the curse midair, bringing down the shelves on either side of them with a loud crash. 

“Stupefy!”

His father and aunt dodge from the exploding orbs, like smoke, like shrouds in the air, they swirl around them, opening a pathway. Draco runs. Harry follows. 

“Stupefy!”

“Levicorpus!”

“That’s the door!” They run with an army behind them, Draco ahead of Harry, both of them lashing their wands blindly behind them as they run towards the door with its ominous knob. Draco shoves it open, and he and Harry hurtle down as though falling from a cliff. 

 

...

 

They see Sirius, crumpled on the floor but breathing heavily, immobilised with his hands tied behind his back on the jagged floor of a vast, circular hall. One of the rooms, they stumble into. 

There is no one guarding him, which is a good sign, for it means that the eight people chasing Draco and Harry were the only people here, or maybe just that they don’t see Sirius as enough of a threat. Harry pants, falling to his knees next to the man, whose eyes widen once they open. Sirius makes a loud, keening noise in his throat, and Harry fumbles with his wand, trying to undo the stasis charms on the man, “It’s okay! It’s okay! Sirius—”

“NO!” Sirius roars at him the moment the spell is lifted, coughing up the blood trapped in his throat, his body arching as sensation returns to his limbs. His eyes catch the orb by Harry’s crouched body, “No, Harry—”

“I know, I know we’re gonna get you out of here, Draco! Help me—”

Draco numbly obeys, gingerly trying to lift the injured man, still very much aware that they’re being pursued. Though thankfully, their chasers seem to have lost track of them for now. But there are only so many halls in this damn department. 

Draco feels every hair on his body stand on end, as he looks up at the stone archway, a veil that he’s seen before. He closes his eyes as he hefts Sirius up and Harry rushes ahead of them, fumbling for the invisibility cloak to drape it over them, “Hide in the corner,” he is ushering Draco and Sirius away from the veil.

“Harry, no.” Sirius mutters, “Get the fuck out, what are you doing—”

“Trust me,” Harry says and Draco averts his eyes from the boy. 

They can hear shouting from outside, harsh flashes of light and Bella’s loud screeches, hurling orders and insults at Lucius, “Hide under the cloak, I’ll draw them away—”

Harry pauses suddenly, looking back at the veil and then down at the orb. Sirius struggles to break free from Draco’s hold around his waist, “You kids need to leave—”

“Do you hear that?” Harry mutters, and Draco reaches for the boy, trying to pull him away from the veil.

“Harry—”

“It’s calling me.”

Harry doesn’t move, and Draco has this terrifying moment of alignment where, for the first time in his life, the vision of this moment instilled in his head, is matching a grim reality. Because they will be captured by Death Eaters if they linger here, and Sirius will die. That veil…is dangerous and unknown. 

“Harry, there’s no voice, we need to—”

Sirius shoves them both down as a vibrant jet of green light zooms past them. Sirius shields them with his own body the best he can, ushering the boys to the centre of the Hall, towards the veil, as the Death Eaters break into the Hall in a flurry of shrouds and dark smoke. 

Draco feels his father’s vice grip on his arm as he is torn away from Harry and Sirius. He cries out, trying to fight the grip, but the man’s grasp on him is bruising, and he is yanked away from Harry, his wand clattering on the ground. 

Sirius, he can see, has been dragged back by a pissed off Bellatrix, and the man stifles a cry of agony, crumpling on the ground under her boots, his body wracked by the convulsions of a Crucio. Harry clambers up to his feet as Draco is foisted upon a masked man, and his father strides towards Harry.

“You foolish boy,” Father spits, “Did you truly think that you stood a chance? That you could walk away after stealing my son, after intruding in my home, you thieving whelp ?”

Harry does not respond; his eyes travel between Sirius and Draco, struggling weakly in the Death Eater’s arms. Draco feels the tip of the guy’s wand digging into his neck and he holds his breath, his mind stuffed and replete with the images of what will occur, and the sight before his eyes now. 

Harry stumbles back towards the veil, the orb clenched in his hand. 

“Give it to me,” Father enunciates, and Draco cries out, thrashing against the man’s wand. 

“Harry, no!” in tandem with Sirius crying out the same words, somewhat incoherently. 

Harry shakes his head at Lucius, his wand wavering, raising to point at Father and Draco curses under his breath again, because he knows less than ten seconds from now, help will arrive. But it won’t do anything. It won’t fix anything. The events are already in motion. He struggles against the disgusting man holding him, and Harry resists Father’s orders once more. 

There’s a loud crack outside, and a blinding light floods inside. Draco ducks down as a red light is hurtled his way and covers his head as the Death Eater drops him with a groan, whipping his wand at the assailants. 

Chaos breaks out. 

Draco can’t see much of the action. He hears curses and spells, flung over his head with alarming speed. He sees Harry cry out and whips his head up, trying to crawl towards him, and there is this primal fear taking root in his guts, as his vision blurs and the lights become achingly overstimulating. He covers his head and calls to Harry. 

And his eyes track Regulus Black the moment the man breaks into the Hall in his long coat and dishevelled hair. Draco sees the man as he finds his brother first, and starts to race towards him and Bellatrix, not yet aware that Harry and Draco are exactly in the middle of the crossfire. 

Draco sees the man, only deflecting spells and fighting when they are directed at him, crashing on the hard floor next to his brother, and patting him down frantically. 

Behind him, he can hear Barty Crouch Jr. crying out Regulus’ name. Barty vaults over Draco, slashing a wand at the fucker who had him hostage, “Draco!?”

“Get Harry!” Draco cries out, and they both duck another attack. Draco can see Harry’s figure, kneeling over the crushed orb, in the corner, hidden by the veil’s arch from his father. Barty cranes his neck back and barks a shout at someone who Draco presumes is James Potter. 

James Potter duels like a beast, and though Draco can’t catch much of it, he hears the moment James sees Draco’s father next to Harry, entangled in a heated exchange. Barty’s hand drags Draco away from the centre of the fight, and the man races past him, “Take cover!” he shouts back at Draco. 

Regulus Black sees his child then, just as James engages in a duel with Lucius, the man’s pale face blanches, and Draco watches as his hands slip from his brother’s body, as he snatches his wand from the ground and begins pouncing towards Harry. 

Harry is fighting alongside James, admirably keeping up with his father even, and Draco scans the ground for his own fucked-up replacement, but he can’t find it amidst all the fighting and mayhem. He watches instead as Regulus seizes Harry mid-battle and starts screaming in his face:

“No. No! What are you doing here!?”

“We found Sirius first and you weren’t home and he was dying!”

“No!” Regulus wrenches the boy back and forth, out of the way, yanking him down as a black smoke flies past them. James covers for them, engaging Lucius and a masked man at once, as he opens a pathway for Regulus to get Harry out of the crossfire. 

Draco can see Remus trying to help Sirius to his feet, Barty and a large man trying to contain Bellatrix, and the scene is so violently familiar to him because he’s seen it before, this exact moment, captured in his head like a painting, a Muggle film, like the erratic fluttering wings of a hummingbird when slowed. 

“Papa, I had a vision—”

“What the fuck are you doing here!?” Regulus screams in Harry’s face, and on his face, fear and rage are the main contenders. Draco had never before seen his cousin so unsettled, so openly panicked and at once angry. 

“I just—”

“You cannot be here right now!” Regulus shoves Harry down, turning to raise a shield, and an astray curse ripples off the shield with a loud crack. He turns to Harry, “You can’t be here right now! We don’t have a backup! Go back home!”

Draco stumbles closer to them, like a man wandering a desert and Regulus curses under his breath once he catches him, “Draco!? Oh, for God’s sake! How—Why are you here!?”

“We wanted to help!”

“No! Get back home!” Regulus grabs at Draco’s arm, pulling him down next to Harry, “You can’t fight!”

“You can’t fight either!” Harry rages at his father. 

And it’s true. Regulus can’t fight anyone here unless they attack him or Harry first. He can’t engage in any battle voluntarily unless it either threatens his life or Harry’s. He himself, had hurried over here, knowing that he was a liability, that they were short on numbers and hopelessly out of their depths, knowing that he couldn’t contribute. 

“Do not tell me what I can or can’t do!” Regulus yells back, “I’m the damn parent! How did you even get out of the house!? Don’t answer that! Just… stay close to me, I’ll get you to a floo in the main hall and you will return home immediately. Harry, I will kill you if there’s a scratch on you!”

Harry hangs his head, and Draco rushes to hold the boy’s hand. Regulus shepherds them both towards the entrance of the Hall, erecting shields, firing back and breaking the barrage of dark spells sent their way. He is manically fast, almost vicious in his defence. He looks frankly terrifying, fully capable of killing the people he is trying to deflect. 

Sirius is on his feet now too, circling the veil as they try to contain a burly Death Eater with Remus. Draco gasps, intending to shout a warning as Bellatrix’s eyes flash at Sirius, even amidst her duel with Barty. Draco opens his mouth, but Barty is quicker; he yanks his injured partner down, roughly into the ground, and the green light is launched in the veil. 

Draco is mesmerised by the scene and yet at once horrified. He catches a last glimpse of his Father being overpowered by James Potter before Regulus whisks them away, grabbing onto both of their arms as they run out of the Hall. 

It’s peculiar, that no one chases after them. 

Regulus doesn’t slow down, and he doesn’t let either of them slow down either; he keeps throwing shields behind their backs even though no one is pursuing them. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t scold them, he looks too wary, too scared, it seems. It is an expression that doesn’t fit him. It looks too uncanny. Too unfamiliar.

“Once you get to the floo-es,” Regulus pants once they’re in the lifts, he only looks ahead, at the glowing floor numbers, “Floo to Dumbledore’s office at once, go and get a Professor, tell them to contact Albus, he’s somewhere in Ireland—”

“Papa, I’m not leaving you here—”

“Don’t argue with me!” Regulus growls, forcing Harry to look at him, “You have no idea what you’ve done! You broke in here, destroyed the Prophecy, you have no notion of what you’ve messed with—”

“He sent me a vision! He’s here—”

Draco shrinks away from them both, and with trepidation, he holds his breath as the lift stops, the metal doors creaking open. 

The atrium is empty of people. It is too vast to say that with any measure of certainty, and so even Draco’s casual observation of the empty reception Hall is strangely vacant and tinged with doubt. His hand finds Harry’s again, and they exit the lift before Regulus does. 

“Listen, Regulus—”

“Draco, keep walking,” His cousin cuts him off, his hand closed securely around Harry’s arm as they make their way to the giant fireplaces. Draco doesn’t know what it is about the lobby that makes it particularly gigantic or looming in this instant, but it is an insistent itch. Draco keeps looking around, keeps trying to keep up with his cousin’s fast pace, towards the fireplaces they try to venture, but they don’t seem to be quick enough. 

They are out of the realm of Draco’s sight. Draco has no idea how this will end, he simply has no frame of reference for it. And so it seems like an eternity for them to even approach the enormous statue and fountain in the centre. There is a large banner behind them, in remembrance of the former Minister, giving the hall a haunted feeling. 

Their stride hitches when Harry suddenly bends down, smacking a hand over his forehead. Regulus immediately eases his grip on the boy, peering down at him, “Harry!? Harry, what’s wrong—”

Draco’s heart beats in his throat as Harry screws his eyes shut in pain, his knuckles white around his wand, the boy gasps, “Papa—”

Draco would later say that he could hear a buzzing in his ears, a sense of complete wrongness casting a shadow over him as Regulus went rigid, leaning down over his son. Draco does not look away even for a second as a figure behind him appears. Regulus is the first to acknowledge it. Draco only turns when his Cousin’s gaze moves from his son to the figure behind him. 

“No.” Regulus breathes, his eyes stitched to where now a monster clad in dark robes stands. A face that tormented Draco for ten months, that has lived in the corners of his mind ever since he could understand the world around him as something tangible. 

A single word carries so much emotion with it. 

No. 

Regulus only whispered. And the single word carried with itself the disbelief, the horror, the awfulness. 

Regulus does admirably well, he tries to protect Draco and Harry first, even though Draco knows that Regulus can’t be the one who opens fire on Riddle. Even though he can not do much but defend, he still rushes ahead of the boys, shielding their bodies with his. 

“Run,” he urges them without looking over his shoulders, “Boys, run! To the lifts!”

Riddle’s gait towards them is slow and unhurried, even casual. He eyes them with a lewd amusement, Regulus particularly. He says, “You have finally crawled out of your hiding place.”

Regulus doesn't respond but Draco notices Harry righting himself beside him, and an intense fire burns in the boy's eyes, in tandem with his blazing scar. 

Draco ducks his head, unable to even fathom the idea of staring at Riddle. His presence is too prominent, too bold and horrifying. His feet are stuck to the ground. Even as his cousin begs them to run, to flee, Draco can't. 

All of his earlier attempts at survival fall short. Because Riddle keeps getting closer with his wand drawn, a smirk playing on his lips. A fire in his red eyes that is unnerving. 

“So fast, your little heart flutters—”

“It's me you want!” Harry screams over Riddle, and Draco sees the valour and the terror taking their turns in Harry's head. He sees Regulus' body, frozen, unable to even rebuke his own son. 

“I have to admit, child,” Riddle drawls, “Tricking you was easier than kicking a dog. You truly are pathetic.”

It's quite surreal, the monster speaking to them. And then Harry with his wand drawn, side steps Regulus, and begins marching towards Riddle, in a fashion similar to his enraged Father. 

“I destroyed it, that orb you wanted to get—” 

“Harry no!” Regulus follows after the boy and Riddle's filthy smirk widens. 

“So you have,” the Dark Lord sneers at Harry. “At my behest. Yes.”

Draco shrinks, wringing his hands as Riddle cackles, “ He knows, ” Riddle gloats, pointing the tip of his wand at Draco, “He orchestrated the entire affair, he showed me the way—”

Regulus's hand roughly seizes Draco’s arm, pulling him behind his back, as though to bodily hide him with his own figure. 

Draco watches, transfixed as Harry throws a curse at Riddle that Riddle deflects with his wand. Draco knows that Harry is quite aware that there is no winning this fight. 

This was the point. The entire point. Harry's plan from the beginning was to get stupidly killed. To destroy the Horcrux inside of him. Because Draco was the one who told him it existed. 

The boy he loves is about to die because of Draco. 

“Harry, no—” Regulus tries to call desperately but there is a loud crack and the glass fixings behind them shatter and fall. The glass runs through the memorial banner of Fudge in a lethal rain. Regulus quickly ushers Draco aside as curses fly over their heads. 

“Your insolence will cost your father his life, Potter!” 

“Leave them out of this!” Harry seethes, “Fight me head on, you bastard! Kill me if you dare!” 

“As you wish, The Boy Who Lived.” 

“Harry!”  

Harry makes the mistake of looking back at his dad when he screams his name. Riddle's foul magic tears into his neck, an immediate and fatal wound. 

Harry chokes, his wand clattering out of his hand. 

Draco falls to the floor at the same time as Harry, and the boy gasps, reaching for his neck, and blood spurts out of his gaping wound like falling crimson ribbons in a robe shop. 

Draco thinks he screams, but any noise he makes prior to passing out is drowned out by Regulus’ deafening wail of agony and grief, the man cries for his son with mortification. He runs to the boy with his arms held out, attempting to catch or break his fall. 

As though Harry was a little kid again, asking to be picked up. 

Riddle stands only one pace away, cruelly jeering down at them.

Draco falls, and his head hits the ground. 

...

 

The last time he got drunk was the night Fudge died. 

The whisky was a dim amber colour, sloshing in the bottle clumsily, as though the weight was too much to hold in one hand, even though Regulus knew logically that it was not that heavy at all. 

Drunkenness always found him in the same room with anxiety and self-doubt. Reggie was never a happy drunk. The room spun around him lethargicall, and he tipped the bottle up, his lips kissing its neck. Alcohol always made it easy to forget time and circumstance and their inseparable bond with Regulus. Alcohol once used to be the love of his life, badly filling a space that Regulus could not otherwise fill with horror. Its comfort was that of an old friend’s. 

He shifted his head on James’ firm thigh, trying to dislodge the man’s hand in his hair, as he frowned up at him. His frantic attempts at comforting Regulus had long given way to a contemplative silence. A comfortable silence. Regulus almost felt remorseful about throttling it. 

“What was it, then?” He pushed the bottle down. 

“Hmm?”

“You know,” Regulus muttered, his eyes narrowing up at James’ warm, amber glow, competing with the whisky’s allure, “What was it about me that made you want to ruin the rest of your life?”

The hand in his hair stopped briefly, and the man waited for Regulus to blink again. There was no hesitation in his movements as he slowly lowered his head, his face upside down, and his eyes peering into Regulus’s. He didn't question the occasion or the origin of the question; he did not point out the blatant insecurity churning in every syllable, even though it had no place here, in this room, in their bed. Not after sixteen years of constant reassurances and a mostly undisturbed domestic life. His hands felt calloused as they ran over Regulus’ chin and neck, sending a fluttering, warm tingle down his chest. 

“What value would that life have without you in it?” The man asked, “Whole or ruined?”

“Don’t be—”

“A flatterer?” James huffed, “Regulus, please.”

“I’m serious.” Regulus loathed to utter the words, and he felt his brain sluggishly scramble to suffocate the words in his throat before it was too late. He glared up at his husband, redirecting his anger and fear at him instead of the world, a nameless enemy out of his reach, with the assumption that, as always, James would weather his rage with him, “What was it? Because I see now… You never just wanted to be my friend. You wrote that letter…” he furrowed his brows as his temples stung, “Made those biscuits to trick me. Maybe. You wanted me. You led the way. Was it something physical? The temptation of having what you couldn’t have? Did I just look nice?”

That was always the point with other people. That was what Maman wanted from him. That was the twisted attribute that Riddle thought he had gifted to Regulus charitably. Could it be that his marriage, too, was based on—Regulus couldn't even finish the thought because it sounded downright absurd. 

“No, Regulus,” James still assured him, even though he didn't need to, and even though he should have been incredulous that Regulus broached such a ridiculous notion in their bed to begin with, “It was never any of those things.”

But what else was there? He found himself questioning, his alcohol-addled mind blind to years of devotion and pure, unstained love. What would compel this man to ruin his life, run it through muck year after year and still sit here, stroking his hair, looking at Regulus like he was a splendid, glittering jewel. He almost killed his son. Their son. 

“Well?”

“It’s hard to define,” James’ fingers grazed against his ear, “It’s like my soul wanted to surge towards you the moment it found you again. Our first meeting never felt like our first, you know.”

What does he even mean? Regulus’s eyes glazed, and he curled his mouth. 

“You’re taking advantage of my drunkenness.” Regulus shoved the touch away, struggling to sit up with the bottle unsteadily wavering in his hand, as the other lied uselessly in a sling, “To confuse me—”

“Well, you asked.” James helped him grab the tilted bottle, and Regulus glared at him, paranoid by the man’s open expression, his drooping shoulders and his restless foot, the grey streaks in his hair that seemed too premature. He was not even forty yet. 

Regulus loved him so much that his throat became tight with the bile of emotions. 

It didn't seem fair. That James Potter had been paying the price for loving Regulus Black continuously for more than two decades now. That ill-fated day, when they met, or more accurately, the day James found him alone, had cursed him. The boy who was sunshine and crisp as the sky, and whose favourite animal was a frog. The boy who took others under his wings like a patient mother duck, who liked the green grass blades and had a notch for cooking. The boy who had the perfect social life, the perfect friends, the questionable attitudes, a healthy teenage boy should possess and at once overcome. He didn’t need to taint himself with Regulus. 

And yet he did. And here they were now, in such a convoluted mess, and it wasn't not fair. The alcohol made it hard to breathe, and Regulus took a long swig out of his bottle again, to comfort himself with the bitterness. He’d hoped a bit immaturely to anger the man, questioning his love for him, but that would never work. 

James Potter had cursed himself, a malignant mass attached to his soul and heart in the form of Regulus Black.  

“Well, my soul didn’t surge toward you,” he told the man petulantly once he lowered the bottle, feeling the acrid lie like acid on his tongue. “It just ached uselessly, and I did nothing about it.”

Because this was who he was. Coarse and mean, petulant. He was never brought up to be kind and attentive. He never gave his love away selflessly, well…he didn’t always. 

His chest ached, and he wished to denounce himself, wishing to fling the bottle at the nearest wall. He’d come so far; he used to be nothing, and now he was something, and he was something because James Potter decided to love him. Regulus shouldn’t have been mad about that, “My soul just ached,” he found himself repeating the words. 

“Yeah?”

“Does it disappoint you?” he asked, needing the man’s anger directed at him, “That I didn’t immediately fall head over heels in love with you?”

It wasn’t love at first sight. It was love over insurmountable mounds of guilt, over hushed kisses and longing gazes and uncertainty, James’ split head, and his blood washing away under the rain, Regulus running to the infirmary after the cavalry with rattling lungs and the storm bashing down at him, as he restlessly paced the corridors, terrified of being seen. The realisation that he cared so much that he was willing to risk everything for the boy. 

“No, I’m not disappointed,” James told him, there was a soft smile, a soft, sad smile, playing on his lips, “It’s quite like you. You never half-arse anything. Not until you’re sure anyway. You see the little things. Do you remember the holidays we spent together? The summer before my parents died?”

“I—”

“It was so long ago,” James shrugged before Regulus could panic about the missing, bald patches in his memory. “Don’t strain yourself to remember. But I do. I remember the little things for both of us.”

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t fall head over heels in love with you either,” James grabbed at his free arm, pulling him back down on the bed, and Regulus let him, his balance tittering in a mad tango with his inebriated mind. He plopped down on their mattress and James’ fingers ghosted over his clothed arm, dragging a touch that barely felt like a trace, “You were just the most peculiar person I’d ever seen. Like a puzzle, I wanted to solve you, or maybe to cherish the layers and multitudes of you that only I could see.” Regulus was mesmerised by the words, his mind latching onto the man’s voice, he couldn't even blink, “I just wanted to be around you. You contrasted yourself and your upbringing even as you fulfilled your duties. You are fierce and smart. But you were never loud about either of those things. You are strong and so stable and real. When I was with you, I didn’t feel like I had to prove myself to you. I was a nervous wreck, don’t get me wrong, but…it was all those things about you. I wasn’t only thinking with my cock, you know.”

So many times they’d had this same exact conversation over the years. Regulus looked down at the almost-empty bottle, “But I’m not that person anymore,” he said slowly, “I haven’t been ever since… Do you think it’s worth it now? Everything that we’re going to go through? That worm…hell I'm not even the person I was five years ago.”

Because that was what it came down to, all this talk about devotion and love and the deliberation in their marital life. There were just some things a man shouldn’t have had to live through. When a Dark Lord asked for the unequivocal surrender of your husband, whom he abused, for example. Who would put up with that? Who in their right mind would tolerate that? 

He didn't gasp when James’ tired hands cup his face and the man scooted closer to him, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” he looked so ragged, he had been since Regulus woke from his bout of torture, “I have spent so many years loving you, Regulus,” his lips ghosted and peppered kisses over Regulus’ numb face, “Every version of you, so wholly and devotedly that I don’t want to fathom a world without that weight on my chest and in my heart. You don’t have to shove me away. We’re past that now. I know you wouldn’t find it in your heart to push me away now.”

“Don’t make me say it.” He closed a hand around James’ left wrist, the bottle forgotten on their bed, the whiskey dampening their sheets. He could smell the abhorrent tang of alcohol on his own breath as he mouthed the words. 

“Well, don’t,” James snapped at him, “Nothing has to change, Reggie.”

“But everything is changing!” he whispered urgently, his insides burnt with the whisky and the acrid fear, “Don’t you see? Everything is out of sorts.”

“Regulus—”

Had he not been drunk, he would not have uttered the words that blurted out of him now, in bouts of gasps and uncertain, unsteady, stilted exhales, “I just never assumed it would go on for this long, my life, you see. I never planned. I thought I could leave it on a whim,” he pushed his unkempt hair out of his face with a shaking hand and pulled away from the man, “I thought I could leave. But then I had the happiest years of my life with you. And now I’ve gotten too attached to it and I don’t want to let go.”

He was scared of Riddle. The drink made it easy to admit that. He was terrified of Riddle. Not because he could do the most vile things to him, but because he had already threatened to rip away the only good thing in Reggie’s life. The only good thing, Regulus had allowed himself to build and love over the years. His family was all that he had left, if Riddle took that from him, there would be nothing left. But if his family chose to leave, to put themselves first…wouldn't there be a fighting chance? 

“You don’t have to. You're just a bit drunk, Reg.” James told him. 

“You can’t choose me again,” Regulus shook his head, “Just stop loving me and be done with it. I mean, how hard can it be to stop loving me? For the sake of your family! You did it once—” his own breath caught and he grabbed at his head, ducking his gaze, “Sorry.”

He shouldn’t have reminded James of that. He shouldn’t have reminded himself. 

They’d long moved past it, bringing it up now would be redundant to the point Regulus was trying to make. And there was a point, his drunken self insisted. Of course, there was a point. There was a point to everything. 

“You already made me promise the unthinkable,” James said to him, accusingly, almost daring Reg to tell him off.

“James.”

“I can’t stop loving you. Simple as that. Can you stop loving me?”

Regulus couldn't lie. Even the idea might have just suffocated him. 

“No,” he gave up. 

Whatever happened, whenever it was bound to happen, he’d let it occur, knowing that he chose his family. He had the opportunity to let go, and he knew that if he chose to leave now, James wouldn’t have stopped him. They were at the precipice, of course, James would always value Reggie’s survival over his own. Regulus only wished that he were selfless enough to do the same. Naively, assuming that if he left then, Riddle wouldn’t hurt the remnants of his happiest years, the reason for his living, the air in his lungs. 

No, it wasn’t love at first sight. But when it hit him, it did so, wholly and irrevocably. 

“Well, that’s that,” there was a quick kiss on his damp forehead, “Are you done with the poor whisky then? Shall I get you a Pepper-up?” 

The bed moved under the man’s weight as he shuffled off the ledge to reach for their nightstand. Regulus looked around their room, their clothes haphazardly draped over a chair, their wardrobe left half ajar, their window sealed tightly against the winter chill. The warm colours, the small plants, the frames on the walls. Proof that he existed and that he was loved. 

He’d miss it the most.

“Okay,” he sealed his fate. 

 

...

 

“I’ll do anything,” A voice trembles from beside him, so small and so strangely vulnerable. The tone doesn’t belong to that voice, to the person, and yet it persists, “Please, I’ll be anything.”

It’s hard to hear his voice over the gurgling of blood, it’s hard to feel the man who raised him fall to his knees next to Harry’s body, his violently shaking hand clasping over the gushing wound in his neck, pressing down and begging. 

“Where is your dignity now?”

“Gone,” Papa gasps, and Harry can see through the tiny slits of his agony-filled gaze, the way his face shines with silenty tears, “Spare him. Spare him and I’ll never leave. That’s what you wanted, right? You wanted me to come willingly; that’s why you never snatched me. You wanted me to submit and debase myself. You knew I knew my way back to you. I’ll do it.”

No, Harry wants to rage and struggle and scream. His limbs flail, his body shakes with the rapid loss of his blood and he feels a coldness creeping up his toes as he convulses. The blood feels warm, Papa’s hand feels the same as always, Harry begs the universe, Harry feels tears of pain and horror rolling down his bloodied cheeks, onto the marble. He can only look at the impossibly high ceiling, the arched angles and the dark tiles. It seems like a dream.

“Oh, Pet . I do not wish to appease you into compliance,” Harry hears the Monster croon, “I do as I wish. I can take you by force. I could have.”

“I know,” Papa affirms desperately, devoid of any grace or respect, “I know. But I’ll vow it. Please don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him, and I’ll stay until the last flutters of eternity. An Unbreakable Vow. There can be no deceit in that. I’ll stay until you no longer want me.”

Harry’s blurry eyes fall from the ceiling to his father’s bowed head, his eyes flickering between Harry and the Dark Lord. Harry wonders where Dad is, and why no one is answering his prayers. Why is no one coming? Are they all still in the Department of Mysteries? Fighting for their lives. They shouldn’t have been here.

Papa wasn’t supposed to be here. 

If it had just been Harry and Voldemort, Harry could have died in peace, he could have died easily knowing that he was sticking it to the bastard. 

Papa wasn’t supposed to be here, breaking to pieces, begging for his life. Offering himself.

“That is a lofty claim.”

To the side, Harry can hear a familiar voice in the distance. A voice that he can place as Scrimgeour, exclaiming his surprise. There is no hesitation or deliberation, he tilts his face and sees as Voldemort lashes a hand at Scrimgeour and a flabbergasted Bones, without even looking at them, both fall back, lifeless dolls. Dead before they could even draw their wands. Dead before they could even cry out the Lord’s name. Voldemort turns to them again, to Harry and Regulus, both panting for air. 

“Please, don’t hurt him!” Papa exclaims, holding a bloody hand up once Voldemort wants to do the same to Harry, “I’ll do it! Whatever you want. I’ll come and I’ll never leave. He’s useless to you! He’s just a boy! He hasn’t done anything wrong! He won’t—”

Harry gasps along with the spurts of blood, rushing out of him like ink, flowing out of an upturned inkpot. He hears Riddle, too close for comfort, taunting Papa, “Do you think me not impervious to your tears?”

“He’s just a boy. He’s a nobody. Please, just leave him be,” Papa cries, “Let him grow. And he’ll die eventually. You’re immortal, what is fifty years to you? Please, I spent so many years raising him, I am nothing without him—”

“How you flap yourself about for him…fascinating. Nothing without him? You’ve attached your being to another’s. You have skirted my servitude. You have become abashed, arrogant! You think yourself a human when you are anything but! Now you see yourself fit to beg for the lives of others! Expecting me, Lord Voldemort, to listen to you?”

“You can’t kill him. He’s connected to you. He’s harmless. If I order him not to follow, not to disobey me, he wouldn’t,” the voice shakes, desperation reeks off of each syllable and it’s so foreign, coming out of the regal man, out of his parent, who wasn’t supposed to be here, “He will yield if I order him. I know you don’t owe me your mercy, My Lord . Please. An Unbreakable Vow. I won’t fight, I won’t whine, I’ll cry all you want. If they come to my rescue, I won’t leave with them. I just need him and—Please, spare him. ”

Harry whines because he can’t scream, he whimpers like an animal. His mouth is flooding with blood, and he is terrified because he is losing the light, his vision is going black around the edges, and it shouldn’t do that because Papa is not safe, because he’s in danger because of Harry and Draco is wounded and—

“His whore of a mother begged the same. I killed her.”

“If you kill him—you’ll kill me, My Lord,” Regulus Black breathes, “But he’s just a boy, he doesn’t even want to fight. If I leave willingly, he won’t follow.”

“He stole what wasn’t his.”

“Draco is…useless,” Regulus Black presses down on the gaping wound on Harry Potter’s neck with both hands, trying to keep the blood inside the boy’s body, his tears land on Harry’s face like rain droplets, ceaseless. “They’re both useless . There’s nothing left in them that you can take, please. You’ve already won. You’ll have me and they’ll leave. They will not interfere. They will age and die quietly—”

“Do you take me for a fool?”

“No! No! No! I swear!” Papa recoils, dropping his body over Harry as Riddle leers over them, hurling his hand away from him, holding his hands up in surrender, “An Unbreakable vow!”

It feels like dying, watching Papa like this, begging like this, on his knees like this, just to save Harry’s worthless life. Harry cries, the blood loss makes him senseless, so close to death and yet too far away from it. 

Harry watches as Papa gazes up at Riddle, his hand slipping off Harry’s neck as a quiet, pained groan escapes his lips. Harry’s scar becomes ablaze, and he whimpers again, choking on the blood and vomit clogging his throat. He can’t really breathe. The words become warbled, his vision fading in and out as he fights to remain conscious—

“—You are genuine.”

“—I am. I am!”

A force starts infusing his skin together and Harry’s last glimpse of his Father is the man crying in relief, holding his bloodied hands over his face as his eyes rake Harry’s body in horror. They look at each other for less than a second before Papa closes his eyes and tries to get to his feet, his head hung and his shoulders hunched. 

“Thank you—Thank you, Tom—”

And Harry remains on the floor, and Papa is fading away, step by step, moving farther and farther away from him. 

 

...

 

James tries thrice. 

The first thing they teach you in Auror training. Dark Magic only works with intent. The Unforgiveables only work because there is a genuine intent. It can’t be faked, the magic can seldom be tricked. 

People torture, people enslave, people kill because they need to believe in the act in their hearts. The Crucio won’t take otherwise, nor will the Killing Curse. And yet James tries. 

James rushes into the Ministry’s lobby, and it’s as though he is running into a crime scene moments after the occurrence of the crime. Rufus and Amelia lie lifelessly on the floor, their eyes frozen in that look of terror, their bodies frigid and cold. By the fireplaces, there is an inexplicable pool of blood, staining the dark green tiles. And his son is there, in the middle of the pool, unconscious, his scar a dark crimson against his pale flesh. 

James runs because he sees the bastard, and he sees Reggie, his head turning repeatedly over his shoulder as though waiting for James to arrive. James runs past his son, even as his heart is torn in half, he raises his wand, his mind so fatigued and his body so drained, and if only he were a minute earlier, if only Harry and Draco hadn’t been here, if only Regulus wasn’t under that stupid oath…

He raises his wand once, and he cries, “Avada Kedavra!” 

The thing about the killing curse. It can’t be blocked. It travels, it stays, it zooms through the confines of the liminal space within which it has been cast until it finds a victim. It ricochets off walls, like light, like a phantom.

Regulus looks at him as he is being whisked away. As Scrimgeour’s dead body is pulled from behind James by an invisible force and thrust in between the curse and Regulus, a vice grip around his waist. 

The jet of green light hits the dead man, and James hurls the body aside with his wand, crying out, “FIGHT ME, YOU BASTARD!” 

And as a wave of broken glass is unleashed upon him, James Potter covers his eyes and attempts to run again, so strangely aware that the Hall is too long, that Regulus is too far, that they’re leaving. 

“Avada Kedavra!” 

A second time. The strength it took to conjure the intent, the hatred, the love, this amalgamated ball of emotions for his husband. They lock gazes, again and again, and there’s a group of masked men, a new group of Death Eaters, floo-ing through the fireplace at the same time. Behind him, James hears their own people, Remus and Sirius crying out, rushing to Harry, and the jet of green light colliding into a masked woman just stepping out of the floo at the same time. 

James roars, his feet strike the floor, cracking the tiles as he shoves his way past the overwhelming deluge of Death Eaters, joining those attacking them from behind. 

He can’t lose sight of his husband, Regulus must have been urged to walk faster, as the duo make their way towards the main entrance, Reggie disobeys again, slowing down, looking at James, his green eyes and his billowing coat, distilled by horror and love and grief. 

And a third time, James cries, “Avada Kedavra!” 

Bodies and curses slam into him from all sides. James loses his wand, and he tries to run on all four, to overpower the numbers closing in on him. His Animagus form bursts out of him, and he tries so hard, to break past the upsurge of people blocking his path. 

The third killing curse, also brought on by the impossible ordeal, circumstances, by sincere intent, also finds another body to take that is not Reggie’s. 

Riddle pulls Regulus away, and James watches as they enter the apparation zone, until the very last moment, before he is overpowered, and before Regulus disappears alongside Riddle. 

Notes:

-No notes, I'm just going to let ya'll process this however you need to, but please remember, this fic will have a happy ending.

Chapter 20: 20.—Will cast a shadow, an eclipse upon your pure heart—

Notes:

Shorter than my usual but there is more to come, loves

Chapter warnings for; explicit language, explicit depictions of violence, war-related discussions, physical assault, injury, blood and gore, dehumanization

Please still check the tags on the work and series.

Enjoy~~

20.—Will cast a shadow, an eclipse upon your pure heart—

 

…

 

 

 

1995

The last days of

 

 

Most animals spring in fear. 

Rats scurry. Birds fly away. A deer freezes when cornered in a light. They burrow, run, curl into an invisible thing, shrink into the smallest bit of existence possible. 

There are some animals, on the spectrum of fear, that gnash their teeth instead. Snap their jaws. Animals that froth at the mouth when terrorised. 

A dog growls and bites. 

A snake strikes with venom.

Even something as insignificant as a bee manages to lash out with a fatal sting. 

It's how Regulus imagines the difference between his nineteen-year-old self and the way his thirty-five-year-old body reacts now. 

His response to fear is so wildly out of proportions in comparison to a dimmed past self. It still strangles him, it is still familiar to him, it still roils in his guts and pushes on his bladder. But strangely, the quickening of his breath, also pumps in his blood, a primordial rage. 

The touch around his waist is like steel. The pill lodged in the very back of his mouth grazes against his teeth, and Regulus has to strangle the urge to bite down and let the poison take him.

He'd feel too silly just bloody killing himself after begging to be taken. He has now tied Harry's continued survival to his own compliance. Which, for a fickle monster like Riddle shouldn't mean anything, but Regulus is now a beggar, and a beggar can't be a chooser as well as a pathetic vermin. Having his cake and eating it, proverbially of course. 

There's the firm touch around him, keeping him rooted in place when he stumbles once they Apparate.

He's still shaking. Harry's blood is still staining his hands crimson, and he can feel the tackiness of it on his face too. He can feel the tears. His chest heaving once he stumbles, in rage and fear. The Dark Lord doesn't allow him to fall. 

Regulus is dazed, he knows it's a horrid disadvantage, to be this dazed and disconnected from what's happening to him. Treating the moment as though it's happening to someone else. Harry's convulsing body, his warm blood, his wide eyes, are still burnt to the back of Regulus’ retinas. Along with it, there are premature memories of the three flashes of green, James' gaze, following him from across the atrium as the man raced after him. Regulus feels bad. He knows James will live with the guilt of having an unfulfilled promise. 

Riddle pulls at him, and Regulus stumbles again. He looks down at his boots and the rocky ground, before lifting his eyes to the surroundings. A peculiar sort of assiduity overtakes him because it's difficult to define the sort of place he is being dragged to. There's little light, barely enough for him to see where he's walking. 

His breathing is ragged. Riddle is silent. Every inch that his touch covers revolts Regulus, jolting him and making him squirm. Little light. Rocky ground. The sound of the earth crackles beneath his boots. They are fenced in from all sides—they seem to be exactly in the pit of a mountainous cliff. And embedded into the mountain itself. The Manor has been distorted, melded into the mountain, broken into sections; somewhat familiar to what Regulus knew and also alien in the same sense.

He knows the walls, the arched windows. He knows the grand, wooden double doors, the entrance. But there are now bridges, erected between wings, stairs twisted and wrung to the door, also between the wings again, like pulled glue, spiderwebs, back and forth, to the very top of the Manor’s remains. 

Regulus swallows, curling his bloodied hands into fists. Riddle remains mute, he is not even looking at Regulus. Regulus feels his mark burn as Riddle's hand closes around his forearm, releasing his waist. There's an unsettling sort of breeze, and Regulus is too numb to climb the stairs with any sort of decorum. It's a dizzying journey and no stair bannisters to cling to.

The panic is suffocating him, making him irrational. He knows Harry is alive, there were enough people in the Ministry to get him out. But with Scrimgeour dead, with the Prophecy destroyed—and James—the tip of his tongue brushes against the pill again, and as the gigantic doors cringe open, Regulus hears a series of rapid cracks behind him. 

He can't turn to look over his shoulder, he is dragged through the threshold of the Malfoy Manor with bated breath. 

His boots strike the same old rugs, the same old marbles. A march of doom back into the same old torture house. 

Footsteps behind him, at least three or four people. Heavyset, two of them and a light cackle. Regulus closes his eyes, holding his breath before a shaky exhale. 

Tom releases him and Regulus falls to his hands and knees, a more cheeky fucker would've called the position ironic, even salacious. But Regulus only looks down at the drying blood on the back of his hands, and his wedding band, coated in it. 

Riddle turns to address the people gathering behind him, “Chain him to a pillar in the main wing. Tire him out. Do not permanently damage his face or body.” 

He knows the hands that seize him again from the floor, Rabastan’s hands are larger than his brother's, and his scarred face leers at Regulus as he falters. He tries to thrash out of the touch, “Tom, Tom wait—”

Riddle does not turn, nor does he look particularly affected by the distress and anger in Regulus' voice. And of course, he wouldn't be. To him, Regulus is only a plaything, more of an object than a person, lesser than even a servant. 

Evidently, it's something Regulus has to get used to again. 

Rabastan forces him to move, lifting him slightly from the carpeted floor even and Regulus goes limp, gnashing his teeth; Rodolphus sneers at him as he flanks his brother's side. They take him to the main wing of the Manor. 

Regulus forces himself to breathe. This isn't his first time. And it's certainly not time yet to make use of the weapons he has on his person. He has two small daggers, one in each boot, a metal string carefully lodged between his body and belt, and a small sharp hairpin he had slid under his hair with the assumption that he can at least maim an eye if overpowered. He can't waste it on these people, at least not yet. 

Most of the rooms have been stripped of their furniture. Some carpets and rugs remain, but portraits, chairs, tables, anything signifying civilisation or normality has been removed from the interior of the household. All of the vases, heirlooms and charmed flowers. It makes it more daunting to face. 

A grey maze, a huge nothingness. Regulus barely keeps track of the corridors as they move. Bellatrix remains a pace behind them, more prowler than a guard, oddly silent instead of taunting. 

They take him to the ballroom. They usually never used to congregate there unless there was a big meeting. But now they drag him there rather casually. His boots drag on the marble because they're sticky with congealed, old blood. And Regulus can smell it, a metallic tang in the back of his throat. 

It makes him nauseous. 

Rabastan slams him into a pillar, the one in the centre, unkindly, and Bellatrix lashes her wand downward, a trickle of chains, like an agitated snake begins swaying in the air, making its way towards Regulus. 

“Not yet,” Bella snaps irritably before Rabastan can force Regulus' wrists together. She tames the writhing chain with the tip of her wand.

Regulus locks his jaw, noting her glass eye and the long scar that runs down that side of her face, somewhat hidden by her chaotic, frizzy hair, but not enough. Vindicated, that's what he feels seeing that on her face. 

She just tried to kill his brother. She hurt his son. She harboured a Horcrux on her with pride. She deserves every bit of misery she gets. Especially if the origin is a friendly fire, or a punishment dished out by their Lord.

“You!” Bellatrix shoves at a fourth Death Eater who'd tagged along, “Search him.” 

Regulus flares his nostrils and glares at her, and the fourth, unremarkable Death Eater steps up; he is a lanky man, with dark eyes and dirty blond hair that would've vaguely reminded Regulus of Evan mostly due to its short cropped style. Were it not for the look on his face, as he approached Regulus, of course. 

His lips pulled over his teeth, and his fingers thrumming, wriggling in excitement as he reaches into Regulus’s open coat and starts patting him from the chest down. Regulus bears it in silence, even as the guy snorts and leers at him, he glares at the man impassively, disgusted by the touch; Rabastan keeps a loose grasp on his arms, and there is a fifth guy just now entering the ballroom, a tall brute, relatively young. Regulus has the faint impression that he's seen him before somewhere. 

The hands are rough, the touch abrasive, it slides down his sides and Regulus feels the guy's hot breath on his neck. He stares at Bella looking at him over the guy's shoulder without a word. She refuses to hold his gaze for long intervals. 

The hands, those filthy fucking hands, reach his hips and pinch. A playful pull, an invasive grabbing of Regulus' flesh and the arsehole jeers at him daringly with a wink. Regulus' eyes flash at the fucker and before he even thinks about it, he pulls back and slams his forehead into the guy's face. A sharp pain blooms in his skull concurrently with the Death Eater reeling back with a yell. 

Regulus lets out a guttural cry, digs his elbow into Rabastan's stomach and as the man lets go of his arms in alarm, Regulus pounces on the Death Eater holding his sleeve to his bleeding nose. 

The Death Eater yelps as he falls, with a loud curse, and once more as Regulus pins his body down with his own weight. Expletive after expletive, but Regulus can't hear a single word. The fear, the indignation of having been breached and so casually assaulted makes him into a wild animal.

He hits and scratches and punches and it becomes gradually evident, when no one stops him, that they're all enjoying the entertainment. That they were hoping for Regulus to do this.

He doesn't care, he doesn't even look up at them circling him, at their cackles drowned underneath the rage and blood bubbling in his ears. He unleashes himself, the fear, and the rage onto the assaulter. He relishes in the way the head smacks against the marbles and he digs his fingers into the fucker’s neck. His hands are no longer only coated in Harry's drying blood.

Regulus' eyes flash, as the tip of Bella's chain darts in the air, closing around one wrist and yanking him off the guy. Regulus grabs onto the chain, a game of tug and his body is pulled on the ground, hurtling towards the pillar. 

“No! No!” Regulus roars, his back slams into the pillar again and the chain traps his wrist behind his back, winding itself around the column. Regulus rages at his cousin, “You wretch! Unchain me if you dare and I will gore you raw! You bloody fucking whore—” 

Bella clicks her tongue at him. 

“Always so dramatic, Baby Reggie—”

Regulus thrashes and he sees their amused faces leering at his struggle. The familiar face, the young lad that Regulus now can accurately place as Marcus Flint now approaches him once prompted by Bellatrix. Regulus narrows his eyes at him, yanking at his chain as he curls his other fist. 

There's a large hand, maybe Rabastan's again on his shoulder, pulling at the lapels of his coat and Regulus swings his fist into the fucker's face, suppressing a cry of agony as his thumb, unfortunately lodged in the fist, cracked unpleasantly by the force of the punch. 

Rabastan is unmoved, humoured even. He and Flint tear the coat off his protesting body and Regulus rages, flinging his hand, kicking up his legs. 

They tear the coat off. They take off his boots and the daggers clatter out along with them. Rabastan laughs right in his face, slapping him. Regulus spits in the man's chest and as he draws back and Flint walks up to reach for his jumper and belt, Regulus' eyes flash again. He hurls his body, stretching it as far as the chain allows and bites into Flint’s face. His teeth and desperation sink into the flesh, and Flint shrieks, and as he wants to pull away from Regulus a sizable chunk of his flesh is torn as well.

Warm blood fills his mouth and Regulus spits again, his mouth and jaw stained by the red. He pants as Flint rolls on the floor, pressing down on his wounded face. He sounds like a wounded dog and Regulus wheezes along with the animalistic cries. 

Bellatrix’ smirk turns ugly and the woman flicks her wrist, her eye manically widening as her all-too-familiar dagger materialises in her hand. Her skirts rustle as she steps over the writhing mess on the floor. 

Regulus flinches as Rodolphus grabs his free wrist and wrangles it back, using his wand to fix the chain around it. Bella presses up to him, and the manic abandon in her eyes seems to dim a little, giving into a putrid sort of hatred. 

“Thought you were clever, hmm?” She croaks right in his face. “Thought yourself untouchable. Better than us.”

The blade of her dagger is unnaturally cold against his feverish skin, threateningly laid over his cheek. 

Regulus doesn't grace her with an answer. He knows from experience, his volatile cousin is unbound to any type of restraint. 

“Auntie used to be sick of you,” she keeps on, “Dainty little cunt that you were. Guess some things never change.” 

“Guess not,” Regulus breathes, unimpressed. 

“No matter. You'd grown out of it once, remember?” She presses the blade a bit more harshly into his skin, not yet drawing blood, “You used to sob seeing this little thing.” The blade pulls his skin down, “Like a wee little baby, you used to wail ‘Belle, petite Belle! Plus maintenant, plus maintenant!’—”

“Uh-huh.” 

Her mouth twists, her glass eye eerily glowing in the relative dark of the ballroom, “I suppose we do have all the time in the world, pet—Will scratch you up like I did your decoy—”

“Pressed, aren't you?” He breathes, a subtle smile playing on his bloodied lips, “My fifteen-year-old bested you like it was nothing—”

“Why you!” 

“No!” Her husband immediately intervenes, his hand closing around her elbow and yanking back the blade from Reggie's face, “Not his face!” 

“Tighten the chains!” Bella barks, pocketing the dagger, she turns for a second and then her shoulders shake in a brief chuckle, “You know what would be great, Reggie boy?” She huffs, “We should muzzle you.”  

Her grin is sinister, and it sends an involuntary shiver down his spine. Regulus shrinks against the pillar and she keeps on cackling. A familiar sound. He grew up hearing it quite often. She used to torture Andy daily with her cruel antics. 

“A muzzle! Flint!” She snaps down at the groaning boy, “Get yourself and Thomas off the floor. I want a dog muzzle! Go see about getting a muzzle for our untrained puppy. Maybe a little piss bucket too.” 

She kicks at Flint and the boy roils, crying pathetically into his hands. She raises her boot again, but before she can strike the boy again there is a presence by the entrance. 

Bella immediately whirls. She drops into a bow with her husband and his brother. Even Flint and the beat up by scramble to their knees, prostrating before the approaching figure. 

“Already causing bloodshed,” Riddle announces, his red eyes tracking the drying blood on Regulus' face. 

Regulus ducks his head; the gaze unfortunately always makes him feel defiled. 

“My Lord—” Bella scrambles up. 

“Release his chains.” The order is firm, “If he wants to tussle like an animal, we shall let him.” 

Regulus remains terse and unmoving as Rodolphus steps close behind him to unlock the shackles. 

“Rather ceremonial, this gathering,” Riddle goes on, a cruel smirk upon the scarred, serpentine opening of his mouth, “Theatrical. As you tend to enjoy it.” 

He twists his hand and Regulus is pulled down to the floor again, rolling as the monster makes his way over, “Alas, you have yet to be domesticated again.” 

Regulus tries to get up, but he feels an external force pushing him down. He can only turn his head, his gaze level with Riddle's bare feet, faintly dusted red by the congealed blood on the floors. It's an odd feeling, because he feels and knows that he's been here before, sprawled on the marbles with Riddle peering over him. 

Timeless instances. In his dreams. In faint nightmares. 

 “An Unbreakable vow, you said.” Tom croons, tilting his head, “Yet you are already resistant. No true devotion whatsoever. Whatever shall be done about it?” 

Regulus skirts his gaze, and he makes the heinous mistake of looking down at his wedding band. It's a fleeting thing, barely a glimpse. Just a small comfort. James’ frantic eyes, what he couldn't say, what he never needed to say aloud. 

‘I won't let him take you.’

And he tried. He really did. He tried thrice and that means the world to Regulus. His promise was fulfilled and Regulus loves him so much that it hurts. So he looks and barely looks for a second. 

Riddle notices. Because of course, he would. 

Regulus watches miserably as the ring on his finger is pulled off, floating in the air before landing on the Dark Lord's waiting palm. Riddle weighs the ring, sardonically regarding it. It's as though nobody else is in the ballroom with them. Just the two of them, distilled in an impossibly tense impasse. 

“Claiming you want an Unbreakable vow, and you are still loyal to another.” 

“Please—”

Riddle’s foot presses down on his abdomen, teetering over the right side of his stomach. Regulus shakes his head, weakly, his breath hitching with the agonising burning of his mark. 

“Please, Tom—”

“Please?” Comes the sibilant taunt, “Spare you the ring as I spared you his whelp?”

“It's not charmed, no Portkey—” Regulus swallows. His chest heaves, his eyes track the ring, rolling between Riddle's fingers. Coated in his son's blood, the engraved gold, James' presence. All in Riddle's hand. “I won't wear it but please—”

Please. He begs in his head. That ring has been a part of him for so long. It was what redeemed him. What made him human. The only thing that might help him tolerate his grim fate. 

Riddle does not hesitate. White flash of pain knocks the air out of his lungs, as a magical force is jettisoned, thrust through the foot on his stomach, with the severity of a kick. An anvil squashing a tomato. 

A rupture. Something within his body immediately becomes wrong. Regulus arches and gasps, his wide eyes following the ring as Riddle begins doing something to it wandlessly. 

“You insist on violence. On abrasive insolence,” the molten gold trickles from his hand onto the floor, blinding like the physical pain, “Certainly an idea, Bellatrix,” Regulus stifles a strangled cry. “Perhaps a muzzle is needed.” 

“I'll see to it at once, My Lord—”

“Clean him. Thoroughly.” Is what Regulus hears through the haze of his pained rasping. His hand trembles as it settles over his tender stomach. There is a lurching, burning pain under his flesh that worsens with pressure. 

A pair of iron shackles snap over his wrists, and Riddle walks away idly. Regulus can see his fading figure through a narrow slit of his half-lidded eyes. The chains are too heavy for him to lift, or maybe it's just the pain, or the adrenaline leaving his body in droves. Rabastan leans down with a hefty groan, pulling Regulus up by the chains. 

He presses his lips together so tightly that they turn white, Rabastan or Rodolphus or someone jeers behind him. They shove and push him out of the ballroom. He can barely walk, and he doesn't. Flanked on either side by a Lesterage brother, they leave Bellatrix and her underlings behind. 

A grey maze, a huge nothingness. Regulus begins to lose time. Maybe it's the pain. Maybe the downward spiral of old memories long buried now being unearthed. Maybe it's just exhaustion. 

Regulus flutters between consciousness and sweet oblivion and pure agony, oscillates as they exit the main wing through a new entrance upon a bridge, erected and connecting to the a distorted right wing of the Manor. 

Regulus flinches as a sharp light flickers over his eyes. He pauses, and surprisingly, the Lestranges let him. 

He extends his cuffed hands over his head, towards the scarce light, and though light isn't a physical thing, he imagines its warmth, engulfing his hands. A murmur of freedom in an otherwise, otherworldly prison. 

Rabastan sneers behind him, pushing Regulus forward with a rough hand, and Regulus bares his teeth at the filthy touch. The light flickers over his eyes, but it is gone too soon as he is frogmarched away towards the adjoining wing to the Manor. 

That would be the last time Regulus Black Potter felt actual sunlight grazing his skin for long to come. 

 

 

…

 

1996

 

He receives no joy admitting this, but the life of an outlaw strangely becomes him. 

The stress of getting caught or fucking something up always keeps him alert and on his toes, barely giving him any time to think. And Harry needs that so desperately, not having the option to think. 

If he thinks, he reminisces. And that's not really a good thing with enough reminders around. 

It's good that they still have their house in Wimbourne. It's better that they've left it. They've done it rather recently. Harry wishes they did it sooner.

He couldn't keep on living there without his whole family. And his family is anything but whole right now. As has been the case for the last five months. 

The life of an outlaw is a perpetual punishment itself. Scarce resources, little food or sleep, blisters on his feet that don't get healed with a simple waving of a wand. The life of an outlaw means the scant sleep he does get is still restless, fraught with the anxiety of being ambushed from friend or foe. It means he has to hold onto Draco a bit more tightly, even when the boy grumbles in his sleep. 

It's hard being a celebrity after all. 

Undesirable Number One. 

As it tends to happen, when the government is toppled over, overnight, a puppet Minister is enlisted and a list of outlaws smacked on walls the very next day. Death Eaters, with their silver masks, get to roam the streets freely, with the license to kill, to torture, to investigate. 

It tends to happen, that most Ministry workers flee instead of fight as they see their dead Minister and Deputy strung up from the atrium of their governmental building, distilled as a lesson. 

It tends to happen, vendors leaving their shops in Diagon Alley, people panicking, scurrying into their homes when trouble comes knocking. After all, as long as you are a halfblood, or a pureblood, or a remorseful mudblood with a mark who knows how to find other mudbloods to prosecute, the trouble knocking on the door, isn't knocking for you. 

And of course, it tends to happen, that if you have been unfortunate enough to be a Muggle-Born in this climate and society, even a squib, or a Muggle relative of a Magically-abled individual, the trouble indeed came knocking for you.

Or if one were unlucky enough to be one Harry James Potter. Undesirable Number One.

The life of an outlaw, is the world shifting gears overnight. 

It is pure insecurity, constant fret. Though, Harry likes to think that he has been spared the worst of this. He can still close his eyes at night, it's not that he fears sleep for his bodily safety. It's the images he sees. The dreams. Those tend to be unpleasant. Not the gore or blood or dead bodies. Not the violence. Just a dream. 

The safe house itself is ironically firm, and iron-clad safe. With Dad around. 

Harry, prior to this entire affair, had little idea that his Father was the best protection he could have, despite all the wars and such. 

It's not that the man postures to be a force to be reckoned with, a terrifying demon worthy of the distress he causes only in moments of despair. It's just that Harry has found that Dad has always been bloody terrifying. It's just that the only person around to tame his rage is now gone. 

Harry is not new to his Father's violence. He saw him kill a geriatric geezer a few years back with nothing but his fists. And some sod might say that it's not that impressive to beat an old fucker to death. Harry begs to differ.

Dad gets to decide now, where they get to leave and stay, when they fight or run away. Dad is the man with the map. Dad is on a quest, and he is fighting an out-numbered and impossible war. Dad didn't blink once, after London fell, then Yorkshire and the Humber, then the East and Essex, the West Midlands, region after region. 

The entire country under a black shroud. 

The truth is they are way more outnumbered than one would like. Turns out, most people yield to avoid a war at any cost. Even if the cost is the removal of an entire generation of people in their community. 

But Dad has a vision. A vision Harry can't see, but he doesn't question it. It's not his place to question it. Not anymore anyways.

So where Dad goes Harry follows. He's learned to follow and not go off on his own, no matter how much he feels as though he should. 

Some lessons are learnt the hard way. Sometimes they have to be learned the hard way. 

Harry wishes so fervently that wasn't the case. But it is. 

So he goes. In his steel-toed boots, with his wand strapped tightly to his forearm, with some weapons hidden on his person, here and there in case of a scuffle. He goes with his scar hidden, his glasses conveniently charmed to alter his eye colour. The growth spurt has been unfortunate. A good tactical tool. It made him stronger, he has more grit in his kicks, more inches to his height. 

It's unfortunate because sometimes he thinks that Papa might not recognise the person he's becoming. 

But the thought fills him with too much anguish to ponder on for too long. So he doesn't. 

With winter behind them, the weather still rebels against their struggles. It's always either raining or fucking overcast. It's always wet. It's always cold. Harry can't honestly remember the last time he saw a sunny sky. 

The weather seems to know the gravity of their predicament. No sunny days, no soft breeze, the air is stagnant, the fog suffocating. The rain is like sharpened pebbles. Papa used to get frustrated with rain easily. 

Harry is in charge of scouting tonight. Usually there is an uproar against the boy-who-lived just casually sauntering and securing areas for raids, but with James Potter's wrath behind him there is little anything can do or say. Harry's managed to prove himself. 

He's unfortunately just as efficient as his fathers. 

Harry fights. Harry is there. Harry speaks very little, but listens keenly. Harry is an obedient son because being a little shit cost him everything. It's not really difficult; he's had all the training he needs.

Tonight is a bit of an important night. The night before any liberation attempt is actually the most important. More important than the mission night itself. This is something that both Barty and Dad have taught Harry thoroughly these past few months. Two different sides of the war, two different experiences, yet one very important lesson. 

Not every battlefield is worth fighting in.

Securing perimeters, setting up traps, clearing the area of any Muggle population discreetly enough that no snatcher will notice, those are the important stuff. His responsibilities. Sometimes they're too late. Sometimes the villages and towns have been pillaged for their Muggle-Born population already. Sometimes the areas are infested with one magical creature or the other. Sometimes it's just a lost cause. 

Bradford is being usurped by snatchers and werewolves. Has been for the past four months. But Dad thinks, for some mysterious reason, that Bradford is a good strategic win, perhaps even an attainable one. 

Again, Harry's learned not to question it. 

Sometimes, when the area or village is small, Harry does the scouting on foot under his invisibility cloak. Other times he opts for Norton Jr, charmed to noiselessly fly over the area. Sometimes when Draco gets to tag along, Harry even treats it like a date.  

It's hard, having time for romance in a war. 

Bradford is clear. As far as Harry is concerned. He has a dogmatic habit of meticulously running everything twice before a mission. Something ingrained that Papa taught him and Dad insisted on. Trying the ropes by tugging before one jumps, so to speak. 

Harry has been scouting this place for an entire week already. He's made sure that it's ready for a report for Dad. 

They have a tent by the Hirst Wood reserve. Warded and charmed to stay out of sight, not many Order Members frequent the tent, but Dad, Draco, and Harry have been staying in it for the past week while Dad was coming up with his brilliant plan.

Harry plays hug the rabbit a lot when the weather is crummy and the leaves and branches underfeet too damp. Sometimes he doesn't have the luxury of having the invisibility cloak on his person. 

The tent has a small exterior. As most magical tents do. But the interior is a completely different matter. There are several rooms—mlre appropriately dubbed as areas; two sleeping areas, Dad takes one, Harry and Draco share the other,a common area where the pole keeps the tent up, a kitchenette and a toilet, and an area with a sitting table that Dad uses for his maps and papers. 

Some are battle related. Most are not. 

Dad wants to find Papa, by searching the world inch by inch. Harry lets him believe that he has a shot doing so, because he wants to stupidly believe that they have such a chance. 

They have had their song and dance about this, father and son. Four months ago. Harry is too tired of fighting it. Too ashamed of fighting it. It's his fault. His fuckup. 

He parts the tent's entrance and closes his eyes in relief that the air inside is already much warmer than the dewy, biting cold outside. He can see Dad, scribbling on some paper madly with an inked pen. Sitting behind the table, there's also Sirius, mutely observing Dad with his chin propped up by a hand. 

Both men look haggard. Harry guesses that he does too. This Bradford thing has been grappling its hooks onto them for months. In Dumbledore’s absence the vacuum of power becomes glaringly obvious in situations like this. Everything has to proceed slowly. They're not gods. They're just wizards. 

And it's not like any of them gets much sleep. 

He straightens his back automatically when Dad and Sirius raise their heads to acknowledge him, Sirius more benevolently so. Harry has noticed that Dad always looks at him with grief. 

Maybe it's his hair growing to the same length as Papa's used to be. Maybe it's the death of that little light in Harry's eyes. Perhaps it's Harry being sullied by war. Or maybe it is the scar on his neck, pink and protruding and awful. 

Harry dutifully clasps his hands behind his back. He nods at Dad, “I checked out the premises. No snatchers.” 

“Werewolves, Hellhounds?” 

Dad drops his gaze to his papers again.

“Not any I saw,” Harry looks at Sirius very briefly then his father again, “I've been tracking movement for weeks, they've all retreated for the full moon. They won't be quiet this close to a full moon, so—” 

“Check again.” 

“Dad—”

“Check the perimeters again.”

“Alright.” Harry says first. There is a beat, and Sirius is still looking at him, maybe a bit pointedly even. Dad doesn't look up. 

Harry clears his throat, “I just think frequenting the territory will leave our scents behind on repeated trails, we might compromise the trap if they realised we've lingered—”

“Harry.” 

There is so much in a name. 

Harry purses his lips and then stops himself before Dad can see. It's something Papa used to do a lot. It's not that Dad ever even mentions it or gets angry at Harry for being like this. It's just that grief. So persistent. Too present. 

“Okay, Dad,” Harry guesses there's no harm in triple checking the stuff again, “Alright. I'll handle it.” 

He can do an early morning run. Bradford isn't too large, though it's not exactly a small region either. Harry already shudders, thinking about the casualties. They've tried so hard to prevent Muggle crossfires the last few times they've done this. With Exeter it really worked out well. With Cumbria, less so. Particularly the Lake District and Papa's resting place.

Dad made a lot of questionable decisions when cleaning up that place, erasing it from the Death Eater territory map. Harry was a silent accomplice. The rage was new to him too. So was the violence. 

Dad doesn't say anything else now and Harry registers that as a dismissal. Sirius waves at him warmly and Harry nods, quickly shuffling out of the tent to seek refuge in the damp Hirst Wood reserve again. 

He crouches inadvertently outside the tent, on the other side of Dad's domain. The wards make sure that his shadow doesn't fall on the tent. Harry's tested it before, countless times. He curls his knees to his chest, settles his arms on top and drops his chin on their familiar haven. 

“Don't say it,” Harry hears Dad on the other side, snapping at an unspoken prompt, “I'm sick of this conversation, Sirius.” 

“Reggie wouldn't want this.” 

“Well, Harry wants to fight,” Dad says, “It's not as though I'm forcing him.” 

Same old. Same old. Harry remembers Dad having this exact conversation with Molly Weasley, with Barty Crouch (Jr.), and in another reiteration, with Remus.

“No, but—”

“Every time I left him behind or out of the loop someone fucking died,” Dad says before Sirius can make a point, “If he wants to be here, he gets to be here. That's his choice.” 

There is a beat. Harry shuffled on his knees, looking down at the ground. With its dark soil. With its miasma of decomposed and fallen leaves and broken branches. 

“You haven't slept.” Sirius accuses James.

Dad has always been a creature of extremes. It's why Papa's tempered attitude was fitted to him so well. He used to cook a lot, Harry recalls, when he was fatigued but fidgety. 

Now when he's losing sleep, he turns into a war general. Which is good but also different.  

Harry doesn't think he necessarily minds it as much as other people think. Maybe he does need a firmer hand. 

“Have you slept, Sirius?” 

“James.” 

“Tomorrow night is a big night,” Harry imagines Dad lowering his pen, “If we can retake Bradford—merge it into our territory, we'd be one step closer.” 

One step closer, Dad does not clarify, to finding Papa or winning this war. Harry has learned enough to know that one doesn't necessarily equate the other. 

“Yeah, mate.”

Another pause. It's a longer one. Harry knows when both men pause like that they're usually thinking about Papa and grief and loss. 

“Any word on Noodle?” 

“Not in weeks,” Sirius sighs, “But you know how it is with undercover missions. Patience is of virtue.”

“He's too slow. It's been five months we don't have time for him to dillydally—”

“He's trying his best.” Sirius snaps at Dad, “We all are. You know you turn into an arsehole when you haven't slept.” 

“How can I sleep?” Dad sounds exhausted, “Do you have any idea what you're asking of me?” 

Another terse silence. Harry shifts on his knees and thinks that maybe he's not ready to hear this conversation again. With Molly Weasley, the impact was less significant. She saw him as a grieving spouse, a well-intentioned man who's a bit off track because of grief. 

Barty’s rendition of this conversation was less accusatory and more sympathetic to the woes of losing one's mind after Papa…

And this is where it gets funny. Remus sounded, like Sirius, a bit angry at Dad's choices concerning Harry. His concerns, unlike Sirius's, was that Dad was somehow punishing Harry for Papa's loss.

Which is not true. Dad absolutely has a point. Harry wanted to fight. Harry wants to recover the loss too. Harry knows he has adequate training and means to survive. He knows Papa taught him well. 

“He was my brother. My brother before he was your spouse.” Sirius stands from his chair, “And he's alive somewhere out there and you best believe he will fuck you over if he saw you and Harry right now. Your behaviour with Harry is appalling. The boy nearly died, he's clearly grieving—”

“Sirius, pick another bone to gnaw on.” Dad snaps. 

Harry gets it. He doesn't want to think about that day either. He doesn't want to think about Dad holding his body and weeping, or the aftermath of their loss. The shriveled and neglected plants. The drying flowers in their vases. The deep ache in his neck. 

“We're taking Bradford tomorrow night whether I'm a terrible father or not. Then Manchester. Then London.” 

Anywhere with a shred of chance. It could be anywhere, that's the issue, Dad had told him. They're looking for a pocket of space that can expand indefinitely, according to Dumbledore. Riddle is somehow powerful enough to create such a place. He was also powerful enough to take Papa there with him. 

 “I'll alert Kingsley's group to join us in an hour,” Sirius says, giving up, “We'll need the back up.”

“Harry and I can handle it.”

They can. It's true. Father and Son, common goal, fighting shoulder to shoulder, sharing atrocities, yada yada yada. 

If Dad has Harry on his side, then he can handle just about any altercation. Because between the animalistic urge to protect his baby and the knowledge that said baby can down an elephant if in the right mental space, Dad doesn't have to choose one or value the other. 

“Not if Greyback is here. If you want Bradford you can't half-arse it.”

“It'll be bloody.” 

“You're making Harry grieve two parents instead of one,” Harry can imagine Sirius shaking his head, "He'll only be sixteen in two months. That's too young for this bullshit.” 

“You think you can convince him otherwise?” Dad demands, “You're more than free to go and talk him down. He has training, Sirius.” 

“Training that you and my brother gave him to protect himself, not to—” 

And it's the same shit every time. The same desperate statement that is unfortunately viscerally true. 

“I tried, Sirius.” Dad is probably rubbing his temple, “I really did. If he's not sticking with me, he's out there on his own again on some idiotic mission that'll get him or other people killed. At least this way—If I die, he can handle himself.” 

Dad is too kind with Harry. 

Because the way Harry would've phrased it is that if Dad is not there constantly to keep Harry in control, Harry's going to fuck up again so colossally, that they will lose another asset, another person. 

Though, there's only one of Papa. And he's already been lost. Harry feels a sharp jab in his throat and stands, ignoring his aching knees.

“We were around his age,” Dad is saying now, even though he doesn't need to convince Sirius, “when we started fighting.” 

There's a peculiar pause, different from the last two. This one only James Potter and Sirius Black share. 

“We were seventeen, James.” 

“Yeah.” 

Harry stuffs his hands in his pockets, closing it around a packet of cigarettes he'd snagged from a Muggle guy while patrolling—the guy was a total drunkard, loon. Certainly didn't deserve cigs—and thinks about rerunning his pre-battle measures again. 

It's become an unhealthy habit, a tic, how little trust he has in himself. But he doesn't have to believe in himself to be methodical or to find Papa eventually. 

He just needs to stop being a fuckup. 

The art of dying properly.

Sirius is still talking when Harry walks away with the cigarettes:

“I'll see you after the bloodbath. Get some bloody sleep if this doesn't do you in, will you?” 

Harry wonders whether Draco would mind another sleepless night. A new date. Two dead people holding hands. 

 

...

 

He knows he's getting too good at pretending. He can actually feel the warmth next to him. 

Only on certain nights. Only when he's fatigued beyond sense, when he surpasses exhaustion and reality begins to bleed into his dreams, maybe vice versa. 

Only on certain nights. Only when he closes both eyes. Only when he is lying on his side. 

“I wish I knew where you were,” he tells the warmth, feeling a phantom something hovering over his head, like fingers ghosting over and tracing his skin, an old touch, “Whether you're eating, sleeping.”

“I'm right here. Don't worry, James.” 

He feels his cheeks dampen with tears and it's funny. He only cries now when he's pretending. This part of him is only for Regulus. How he aches to reach for the invisible touch to pepper kisses on the fingers, knuckles, and the soft scarred skin. 

He's known them for so long that he can recraft each fibre and cell from memory. And maybe this is what it is. A fabrication of the real deal. 

“I can't open my eyes, you know.” he lets the hallucination know. 

“I know.” Of course, he does. He's Regulus.

Regulus knows dimensions and layers and multitudes of James that James himself is often unlikely to visit. 

“What are you thinking about?” he asks the phantom with his eyes still closed. 

The bed, his bed in the tent is too small to accommodate two people. So James has to pretend he's on another bed. In a house. A home. Familiar covers. Regulus snoring, sprawled like a starfish or curled around baby Harry protectively. 

“Silly,” a light chuckle right in his ear, tickling his hair. He feels the lips grazing the shell of his ear, “I'm thinking about you,” the voice croons, “I'm always thinking about you.” 

James likes to think that's true. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Then come back,” like a pathetic child lost in the street, he feels desperation and separation anxiety in equal measures. A sense of a great and urgent loss, “Please just—You've done it before. You've escaped him before. I can't do this anymore.”

He can't grieve a second time. His body repels it. His heart yearns to walk out of his body. The guilt, the self-loathing. 

“You have to,” lips, the warmth, pressing down on his cheek, with its silly tears and wrinkles, “There's no end to it until we win. Harry's life is on the line.” 

“You're right,” his eyes start to grow heavy because they always do. He's always too tired to keep the show going for long, “I'm just so tired.” 

“Me too, honey,” an affectionate light flickers over his face, like a caress or a hug, “But I'm here. We'll be here. There is nothing that can separate us.” 

Except there is. But James doesn't want to ruin things for the phantom. 

“Yeah?” he mutters. 

“Yeah.” he hears. 

He is so incredibly tired.

 

 

Notes:

I have so many things to say and point out about this chapter and maybe I will one day, once I am safer mentally and physically.

Fuck war, you guys.
But do tell me if you found the Easter eggs/foreshadowing stuff~

Stay safe and well

Chapter 21: 21.—Because I'm a dog that bites—

Summary:

No one ever talks about War.

Notes:

Ya'll thank you so much for the well wishes, I'm okay rn but lmaoooo
The Universe decided a war wasn't enough and guess whose AC unit got fucked up for no reason and flooded the house with smoke last night at midnight. Your girl spent an hour in the apartment parking lot in shorts and a top, coughing out electric fire fumes.

The AO3 curse is a joke, I will crawl out of the depths of hell to finish this series.

*Kindly check all the tags on the work and series and please understand that the "Dead Dove" tag will amplify each tag into their full effect. The writing will be EXTREMELY graphic in terms of violence and gore.

- I used a completely made-up word in this chapter, kudos to anyone who can find it because it is NOT a typo. The word came to me in a dream, I literally wish I was joking. It DEADASS came to me in a dream and Idc if it’s not a word in the dictionary, I’ll be using it from now on within the context I just used.

!! HEY !! *If you made it here, I also wanted to mention that I’m taking one-shot requests for this series! As a tiny reward to you guys and also a writing exercise for myself! So if there are any scenes that you wanna see written out, or any ideas you have yourself, you can tell me in the comments* !!!!!!!!

21.—Because I'm a dog that bites—

1996

 

Siobhan was right, calling this place a deadland . A wet piece of nothing where art’s dead. 

She was right that in war, people here become lazy and self-serving, like little pigs, munching on anything, eating any carcass, even one of their own. It’s disgusting to him. It makes no difference to him, makes things easier even, but at the end of the day, it infuriates him that he comes in contact with it as regularly as he does. 

He is vexed by the entire ordeal of having to mind other people under him. He is annoyed that he no longer serves the Dark Lord directly, not since the wretch has been brought back into the Manor. It is so needlessly redundant to fight a war they have already and collectively won. 

The bird has been caged, a swinge upon his cage is struck daily to rattle the walls and he flinches out of terror, not the pain. It is over, as far as Regulus Black is concerned. They now have all that they need for a glorious transformation. They have no need for dwindling; to wait and meander is to be prone to folly.  

But the Dark Lord claims to know better. And perhaps he does, in his infinite wisdom, see no need to hurry along the path of victory. Their enemies are on their knees, they can take their time with the beheading.

And yet, Marcus has to exert restraint. He couldn't play by his own rules, couldn't make the alleys run crimson with blood; he had to please the Dark Lord if he wanted a part in what is to come. 

So he runs his packs of dogs, he lets the little snatchers get their scrap of meat. He lets village after village, shire after shire, fall. It's not just that he lets it happen. Sure, the dogs and snatchers do most of the terrorising, and sure, Threepenny sanctions most operations to occur and a certain number of people evicted . 

Nothing too crazy. Can't have the people panic. Can't have them see yet that they will be next. The Dark Lord was quite particular about that. He doesn't have the time nor the attention to deal with mass protests or riots. Can't have them all band together. 

The emptier Albus Dumbledore’s flank, the quicker and more damning this will be. And Marcus won't lie, despite the frustrations, he enjoys his new body quite a lot. 

He spends hours, looking at it in the mirror, admiring oeillades, tracing the skin with nimble fingers, stroking his throat and the moles. He imagines himself becoming the object of desire. Replacing a bird, not as a finch in a cage, but a hawk landing on an outstretched arm. 

He rejoiced in the man's pale face, when he caught him in a crowd. A face looking at itself when there's no mirror. He smirked over Sirius Black's body, who truly took him for his own brother despite all logic, bleeding out in the snow, bare and defenceless. 

And he figures, he might just parade the unmasked face and body around more, just to torment them a little more on the chance of an encounter.

Bradford takes him by surprise. 

But Marcus adores chaos and he would never say no to a good surprise. 

He knows he really shouldn't. He knows that the Dark Lord or Threepenny never explicitly told him he could do this. But Marcus lets the little hounds loose on a full moon. He won't be losing territory while having the upper hand. And Greyback had kindly given him command of the wolves anyway. His to do as he pleased. 

Potter's the one leading the little, valiant group. Marcus had only seen the bastard once, in Étretat once he rushed in to unshackle the runt Snape had kept alive. 

Marcus has to admit, the guy really fights like an animal. He watches the mayhem from a hill, a soft whistle vibrating out of his round lips. 

Really smart of them, Marcus gathers. They'd expected the dogs and wolves to fight back, even the snatchers. They must have scouted the area well, Marcus could see them use the terrain to their advantage, vault over the gable roofs, use harsh Muggle lights to confuse the wolves. Merlin knows, Windhill and Wrose has enough of them.

Marcus can appreciate a good, working brain. Though, it does inconvenience him that he has to call on more men to keep Wrose. Maybe some Dementors, to take these little rats off the roofs.

But in the meantime, he has to get his hands a little dirty. 

He turns to Crabbe junior, a sixteen-year-old Death Eater in the making, whose eyes are tracking the fires and lights with trepidation. Little fool actually thinks Potter is going to win this. 

“Crabbe,” he croons and reaches to dislodge his golden mask. 

“Um—yes—yes sir?” 

“Go get your Daddy and his herd of Dementors,” Marcus rolls his eyes, “Or are you just going to watch the fireworks?” 

An explosion in the distance.

“But they'll—they might take the—”

“I’ll keep them occupied,” he brushes his hair back, just the way he'd seen his weaker counterpart often do. “Hurry along now, Ratte. ” 

Crabbe runs off before he apparates with a clumsy crack and Marcus unsheathes his wand, strolling down the hill into the smoke and blinding lights with a smirk. 

He knows better than to go for the James Potter. The look of surprise and anguish would surely destroy him, but Marcus isn't in the mood for a serious duel. 

He knows better than to go for Sirius Black, who along with his werewolf mate is cleaning out the streets and helpless little Muggles trapped in their houses. 

But oh, he sees the prize from afar, duelling Scabior, fallen away from his little group. Wrose is a small enough area, and they were truly dumb enough to focus all their breath in one spot? 

He watches the boy fight with a perverse sort of amusement. He really does take after his little Papa. And Marcus would knows, he'd duelled the fucker himself. Bested him. 

The smalt sky lights up with flashes of harsh white and orange, and Marcus hears the yowling canines, the screams, and the slashing of wands and flying curses. The force of it all has created a sort of pleasant wind, blowing softly against his face. 

He stands, watching the boy and his rapid back and forth with Scabior. The Snatcher won't be able to hold out, so Marcus doesn't have to wait long. He hurls a flying wolf back as it's launched at him midair. The wolf drops back with a harsh whimper and Marcus watches as Scabior goes down in the same breath. 

The Potter boy has his disguise. He looks more prepared than he used to; he's taller than he was at the Ministry, better equipped to fight, judging by his black rain anorak jacket and boots. The scar on his neck stands out like a sore, raised and an inflamed pink. It won't heal. Marcus knows from experience.

He looks as Potter stills, stunning Scabior. They're too far apart for a duel, but he can tell when Potter's gaze falls on him. 

The boy staggers, his lips parting in instant shock, in abreaction perhaps. But then, as expected, the boy curls his hands into fists, and fury twists his face into a growl. 

Marcus apparates playfully, only a few hundred meters, still in the boy's range of sight. Just waiting and smirking at him as Potter runs towards him with a raised wand. 

Just like his father, he falls for the bait so easily. If Marcus had orders to kill him, he could've a dozen times. 

The wind picks up around them, the grass lashes with the force of it and as Marcus apparates closer to the edge of the woods, he feels magic dangerously crackling in the air. The boy is on his pursuit, his wand raised but hesitant to curse or harm him. 

Foolish sentiment. Surely the boy knows the man wearing his father's face and body is not really him. He will be, in time. But he is not yet. 

“You wretch!” The boy hollers, there's the red flash of a stunning curse thrown his way and Marcus apparates again, deeper into the woods. 

They'd warned the boy then, of Marcus’ presence. He must know that he's not his father, even as he hesitates, even as his face cracks in heartbreak.

Marcus rolls his wand between his fingers, poised to strike the son as he did the father less than a year ago. 

A storm brews over them and the trees are thrashed overhead, Potter takes a different stance in a duel with him than he did with Scabior; he sets fire to the grass, he deflects the hits but is reluctant to bodily hurl any back. 

“Give him back!” The boy screams, gutturally. “GIVE HIM BACK!” 

“Don't you recognise me?” Marcus throws his head back with a bark. They hear another explosion from afar. 

The boy's eyes narrow into impossible slits, and now that he has heard the unfamiliar voice his anger has accreted into an inferno. 

Marcus apparates into the woods, and the boy follows him, no longer on foot. He has to admit, it takes a lot of balls to Apparate so rapidly in such unfamiliar terrain. The boy could get himself impaled by a tree trunk easily. Yet, he follows, a silver stag shoots out of his wand, galloping back into the ward, and Marcus decides that he's played along for long enough. 

“Sectumsempra!” 

The boy dodges by the breadth of his hair, balancing himself on one leg as he leans his body away. The curse slams through a drooping pine tree and it groans as it falls. Marcus uses the momentum to close in on the boy. Potter dodges a kick, drawing in a sharp gasp. 

He fights with his whole body, even given his fairly built figure, it's not an optimal method of overpowering an opponent. It tells Marcus a thousand things, the way the boy rotates his entire body into a kick, holds his wand like he's holding a knife. 

Regulus Black didn't teach the boy how to fight, not really. He taught the boy how to mimic. 

Marcus can take him down just like he did Regulus Black. And what a symbolically profound scene it would make. The father taking down the son. 

He charges at the boy, and summons a rock from his side with an outstretched hand. Potter sidesteps him and ducks down as the rock, too smashes a hole through another tree trunk. 

Marcus scoffs, “You little shit.” 

Potter roars and as he attempts to charge back at him, Marcus feels a familiar cold breeze from behind, nipping at the canopy of leaves. 

The Dementors are here. That should get things handled nicely. Another devastating blow. Another loss. It really is only tragic for the losing side. 

He apparates just as the boy’s cavalry arrives as well, luminous balls of light darting in the air towards him. 

He watches from a rooftop on the other side of the town, as the Dementors sweep over the woods and the houses like a wave.  

What a shit show, Marcus rolls his shoulders, narrowing his eyes down at the fallen bloodhounds and a few wolves. 

No casualties on the other side, assuming that the Dementors won't fuck them over. 

A twinge in his mark. 

Finally, he thinks, gazing down at his burning forearm, throbbing under his cloak. A calling, beckoning. 

Perhaps it's not such a bad night after all.

Perhaps the fruit of his labours will be born tonight.  

Perhaps it's time. 

...

 

A moment in time slowed, excruciatingly stretched across an unforgiving expanse. 

Through the closed curtains, in a dusty and narrow corridor, a man is being pulled on the old, carpeted floor by long chains. His nails crusted with blood as he tries to yank back, resisting the pull. And though the action is soundless from afar, any spectator can hear the presence of a deep rumbling, or a high whistle as they survey the spectacle, like the boiling of a kettle, or the roaring of a volcano about to erupt, or even the congregation of death flies over a corpse. 

The body dragged by the chains, is mostly bare, the upper arms adorned by new welts, patches of burn, fury etched into the flesh. The man's mouth is open in a growl, and the chains rattle soundlessly in the air, as a masked man and woman cackle at him, as though they're all playing a harmless game of tug. 

The flesh around the chains is angrily chafed making it obvious that they've been there perhaps for weeks, and the struggle is beastly, the man's feet and hands digging into the carpets, an action that is almost rasorial. The capturers’ patience wears thin; the whistling reaches a crescendo as the large masked man lets go of the chain and stomps over to lift his prisoner in a restricting hold. The curtains rustle, not with the wind, but with the billowing force of the thrashing. 

Past each prairie arched window they move, and the fighting goes on until the masked duo come to a sudden stop in the middle of their stride. The man's eyes widen impossibly at the broken ghost, hovering midair in the middle of the corridor. 

The scene is new to him, it's evident from the way his face pales, blanched against the harsh, crimson scars, the open welts. The ghost’s mouth has been stretched open in an agonised scream, stopped in motion, the back arched and her bulging eyes staring into the ceiling as though calling for respite. She has been suspended in agony for months. Many long months. A ghost in decay is no pretty sight. 

The masked woman turns to him, cackles and taunts under the roaring of fire in his ears. He doesn't even seem to hear her fully, his chapped lips are parted, his eyes stitched to the ghost, mouthing a name,  his late cousin. He doesn't seem to comprehend how the visage is even possible. 

They round the corpse of the floating ghost and the man’s struggles anew, he seems to have sensed that this summoning is not like the others, merely for torture. No. They are taking him through new corridors, a new maze, to a new destination. He cannot protest, cannot break free. And only the walls have been his witness, these hellish months. 

They take him where no window has been hindered by a closed curtain. A large hall with wooden floorboards and an iron chandelier, that does not flicker with any sort of merry light. 

A latecomer to a ritual, it is now evident due to his struggles, they are the last to arrive. There is a choir of hissing, like sizzling oil raising all hairs on end, and the pungent odour of rotting fish and metal permeating the air.

A lanky man with deep, green eyes, with dark hair that curls at the ends, is masked, holding a fostered posture that does not belong to him. His mask is different from the others. His is an intricate, gold-encrusted pulcinella, rending the nightmarish scene into a surreal, childish arrangement in a doll's house. 

It's just him and the monster in his dark robes, whose red eyes seek the hall until they find the bound man, crinkling with delight. The monster orders his guards to drop the man to the floor and then to leave, and the contumacious thrashing that had been throttled out of the man by fear and shock reduces him to a docile spectator. He's been tired out already. His chest fluttering with quick breaths, he sees a moving bundle on the floor, a person in a sack, and a long blackwood table behind it, writhing on top, wrapped around the legs of the table, and underneath it, hundreds of garter snakes twist and contort in each other. 

The hissing rises as the Monster croons something to the air, and the man closes his eyes. When he opens them, he sees the sack now torn, and a woman wearing a familiar face crying into a gag; she blanches when she sees him, her cries draw out into long keens and he mouths her name, scrambling towards her on hands and knees. 

The masked Impostor chortles, and he strikes at the same time as the mass of snakes, he crosses the hall in big strides, kicks the woman in the head as he steps over her, and seizes the man by his hair, reeling him back:

‘No!’ 

The man fights the chains, the profusion of snakes crawl over the floor, past their Master, towards the sobbing woman, and Regulus rakes his broken nails over the imposter's arms, crying out to the woman, and even though it's been decades, her name rolls off his tongue with the same old familiarity: 

‘Andy! No!’ 

The Impostor draws out a long dagger, and Regulus is dragged to his feet, stumbling towards Riddle, and Andy shrieks under the incursion of agitated garter snakes. He can't tear his eyes from her, his throat raw as he screams her name, because it's been so long, and no torment even compares to the horror he feels in his chest as the Impostor drags him towards the bed of snakes on the blackwood table, and Riddle only watches with approval, stretching his scarred mouth.

“No! Don't do this to me! No! Please—” Regulus is pushed onto the table and Riddle cocks his head at him. 

“It won't hurt you , pet. Not one bit. Not yet.” 

The snakes swallow him, his cousin is torn to pieces on the floor, and his arm is shredded under a dagger that desires his blood for the ritual. He can't breathe, can't see, and his skin is abraded by the rough crawling of the creatures, their hissing so loud and enveloping that it's like they're sliding under his skin—

His wide eyes only catch the shadow of the Imposter, bent over his cousin, under the mass of snakes, his tongue darting over the bloodied dagger and Riddle smirking with his hand raised. 

“You shall be blessed,” he tells the imposter, “You are about to undertake the sin one commits for immortality.” 

“I am most honoured, my Lord.” 

A nightmare, Regulus gasps, as the dagger that was cleaned of blood is driven into his cousin's skull, silencing her shrieks with a putrid sound. The snakes hiss and scramble away from her remains. Regulus is too horrified to even scream. Because she's not dead yet. He can tell, with the way her body is wracked and the choking sounds emanating from her body. 

“Do not fret,” Riddle tells him before the ritual truly starts, “Your turn shall come as well. I would not risk hurting you first. He is merely my little rat. An experiment to see whether your body can host me well.” 

The snakes part, but Riddle blocks his view of the body and the Imposter, not as a blessing or to spare him, but merely to keep Regulus' attention: 

“A part of me burrowed deep inside you. Until the ‘last flutters of eternity.’ Is that how you put it?” a snort, a suggestive touch, grazing his cheek, and then Riddle turns. 

“And I suppose it is only fair, hm?” He muses, “You inflicted so much damage—how many Horcruxes of mine did you destroy? Let us count, my traitorous finch. My beloved Nagini, my cup, my diary, my locket, my family ring—”

Regulus shakes his head, struck mute by his cousin's body being debased by the Impostor. She is being consumed, bits of her. She is still alive. And the scene is so heinous that he can't comprehend it. 

“You fancied yourself the destroyer of my world. The knight that kneels over my slain body,” he gestures at her with an arm, “And what have I done for you in return? Bedded you, showed you more mercy than I ever had another living being, spared your whelp. I believe I shan't let you grow too arrogant again,” he looks over his shoulder with a mockingly benevolent smile, “Because unlike you , I do learn from my mistakes.” 

The scene that takes place immediately after will be one forever burned into the memories of those who stood witness to it. The impostor, with bloodied lips on a familiar face and a smirk kneels down in the centre of the hall. The Dark Lord, saunters towards the kneeling man, his wand drawn, his shoulders set in preparation. He has done this seven times before. There's a flash of green light, lighting up the dark hall. Andy dies, in agony. 

With his wand, he draws a squirming garter snake that was feasting from the pile. The impostor bares his neck, his eyes slipping close. The Lord stands unflinching, his red eyes narrowed at the hovering snake. 

“Brace yourself, my most loyal servant.” Riddle tells the servant merrily, “Put on a show for my pet.” 

“Yes,” croons the Impostor wearing his face, “My Lord.” 

“Don't do this—” 

“ Sacer sit,Vas,” A sharp, powdery red light begins to engulf the hissing creature, the mass of snakes around Regulus's body constrict almost as if in sympathy, “ Quod portat partem! Animae tenentis !”

The red light explodes, overtaking the hall once again and Regulus shudders, hearing the snake emit an uncharacteristic sound, so akin to a prolonged shriek. Riddle remains standing, even though it shouldn't be possible. Even though he shouldn't be able to split his soul again —the snake, writhing again, slithers in air, towards the masked man's open mouth. 

His jaw unhinged, Voldemort feeds the bloodied garter snake bit by bit into the open mouth, and Regulus only watches in horror, as the man wearing his body and face salaciously swallows the creature down, his throat convulsing, his fingers digging into the floor, his eyes closed. 

Regulus' eyes glaze over and the scene begins to melt under the frantic, sprawling bramble of terrified snakes, climbing over his body, swallowing him . 

 

...

 

“Papa never mentioned them.” James hears judgment, resentment and an odd accusation in his son's tone. 

He turns to look at the boy, and it seems he grows taller every second that goes by. His son is only a head shorter than him now. Taller than his Papa by a head and a half. The boy has crossed his arms, glaring at the duo across the room. 

He still has his little scars and scratches from the scuffle in Bradford. He refuses to let them heal, James understands. As long as it's nothing life-threatening. He's not strong enough to talk sense into the boy anymore. 

James shrugs, he looks at the duo too. A tall blond man with rectangular glasses and sharp brown eyes, who is conversing with Kingsley across the room. Next to him stands a shorter young woman, perhaps merely twenty years old, with shorn pink hair, ripped jeans, a leather jacket, and punk boots. She mirrors Harry's gesture, glares at her father, and though she has one arm in a sling and a busted lip, she still has the cadence of someone crossing her arms. 

James vaguely remembers the man, Ted Tonks, Hufflepuff Prefect and then Head Boy, he was about three years above them, if James remembers right. The details are hazy, it was so long ago, but he's the man Sirius' cousin and betrothed, Andy, ran away with. 

They got picked up in London just this afternoon, distraught, banged up, and confused.

“Some relatives they are,” Harry grouses again, meanly narrowing his eyes at the father and daughter. 

“Well, they cut contact first, moved to Austria, last I checked,” James is glad that the safe house is not too crowded yet, he thinks as he continues, “I suppose it was easier to abdicate fully. They weren't even in contact with Sirius.”

“What, so now they need us?” 

James wouldn't take it to heart. The boy has every right to sound snappish, after what happened in Bradford the other night. He found him on his knees clutching the grass, inconsolable in the midst of a storm, with a herd of thirty Dementors on their arses. 

Later after they return to their tent, James overhears his son crying in Draco's arms, saying, “I'd forgotten what he looked like, and the reminder was a stranger wearing his face but for a second I thought—” 

They'd secured Wrose but at what cost? 

He doesn’t know what he would have done himself, had it been him. He sees Regulus so often in his peripheral vision and dreams. He is already being haunted by him. He wonders what it would have done to him, seeing his face, his body and his eyes, but worn by another man, twisted into something nasty because it’s worn by another man who wants him dead. 

James shakes his head now, and before he can reply, Ted and his daughter start walking towards them. He nods at them, standing from the red couch he and Harry had occupied. 

“Ted Tonks,” The man introduces himself with a worn smile, shaking James' hand, “And that's—” 

“Harry.” Harry supplies blankly. James has to smother the urge to scold him. 

He can hardly blame him. Reggie used to be the same. A suppressed tone, a tensed body, and a chin held high. Barty received the same treatment the first time they met, James recalls. 

Ted seems to lock into the family resemblance right away. James wonders whether his wife was the same. 

“Nice to meet you, Harry,” Ted chooses to ignore Harry's tone, “I truly wish it was under better circumstances—Er… This is my daughter, Dora. Dora, this is your cousin Harry—” 

“I don't think introductions are needed, Dad, Everyone knows them.” she snaps. 

Ted winces, and almost like he needs to explain her behaviour, he clears his throat, “She was there when they took Andy—” 

“And I keep telling you it was him !” Dora exclaims, her eyes become immediately glazed, the tips of her hair a deep auburn, “I saw him! With my own eyes, hard to miss a face or body like that. It was Regulus Black—” 

“An impostor,” James cuts in kindly, “We're working on it.”

And by working on it, James means that once he gets his hands on the fucking animal who began abusing his husband's identity, he's going to dismember the fucker and feed him his cock, before drowning him in the nearest vat of acid he can conjure.

“I assure you, it wasn't him—” 

“I'm a Metamorphmagus myself and I'm telling you that there was no impostor,” she insists, “Potions and spells can't be that uncannily effective—” 

“Polyjuice can,” Harry interjects, openly sneering at her, “I saw him too, at Bradford. It wasn't him.” 

“Or maybe you just don't want it to be him . He could be under the Imperious or his memory could be wiped—” 

“His voice was different—” 

“Well, maybe you'd forgotten what he sounded like!”

Harry flinches hard. James hears a window in the kitchen slamming into its hinges, and for his own peace of mind, he pretends it's the wind, the impending storm. 

“Harry.”

“What about I turn into who I saw and you be the judge—” 

“It wasn't him,” Harry grits out like he’s trying to convince himself as well, “I think I’d know my father better than you. You've never even seen him up close!”

Nymphadora’s lips pull down in a vicious jeer, and James gets it, he really does. It must have terrified the girl, to lose her mother on the streets and wake up to bloodied cobblestones and confused muggles trying to drag her to a hospital. It would be disorienting for her to see her Mother’s cousin’s face as the last fleeting visage before she was bashed on the head. 

But the ache in his own heart runs deep, seeing the animosity on her face. Harry is right, at the end of the day, no matter how rude he chooses to be about it. She or Ted never knew Regulus at all.

“Whatever the case,” he cuts in before Harry can punch her, “We'll sort it out. Your Mother will be found. She's a Pureblood, so it's unlikely for them to kill her right away.” 

She looks away, not in acceptance, but in resignation,  “Great.” 

Ted opens his mouth but closes it with a grimace, and James nods at him cordially. There’s not much to be done, and the helplessness would be something that his extended family will just have to learn to live with. 

“You guys should grab some refreshments from the kitchen. There's a meeting tonight. We will discuss our options then.” 

Ted and his daughter walk off without preamble or useless pleasantries, brushing past them towards the rustic kitchen that Kingsley had just restocked this morning. He flops back down on the couch because his joints really bloody hurt. He’s too old to be running and fighting every day. Some days, the ache feels like penance; sometimes it feels like an apt punishment. But on days that his head is less cloudy, he gets to see rather cynically that it’s nothing but age. So much of his life was spent in war, and so much of it was spent trying to go after Regulus, knowing there were valleys he could not follow him into. 

Harry remains standing, glaring after his cousin and uncle with a curl to his mouth. His hair is longer. He’s still wearing Reggie’s jacket. Sometimes, if James looks at him from afar or behind, it almost looks like Reggie is standing in his place. The thought always brings a few unshed tears to his eyes. 

It used to be a joke, how alike they were, Reggie and Harry. Now it’s like a damn curse, haunting James. And Harry knows this, of course, but there is a childishness to the way he clings to the similarity, augments it. To soothe himself through the loss, perhaps. James can never bring himself to say anything about it. 

Not being around the boy as much helps sometimes. But mostly it just makes him feel like a shit father. 

“I'm going to find Draco.” 

“Harry.” 

Harry turns, a daring look in his eyes, “What.” 

Maybe he expects James to scold him for his behaviour. To tell him off about the win at Bradford, which is not really a win as opposed to a lesser loss. James knows exactly what goes through the boy’s head. The toxic guilt, the fresh grief, the undercurrents of resentment. 

“It's not your fault,” James tells him, “You couldn't have captured him at Bradford.” 

The Impostor, whoever he is, is a talented fucker. If he’d downed Sirius and duelled his way out of an encounter with an Auror in training, he’s no rookie. Not to mention, he had an unfair advantage, rearing the herd of Dementors, perhaps even wolves and hounds they’d encountered. Taking him down won’t be a one-man job. Not for Harry anyway. And the fucker probably knew that. That’s why he made an appearance. Psychological warfare, indeed. 

“I tried,” Harry says after a beat and glares down at his boots, “I really did, Dad. I almost had him.” 

An unuttered apology hangs in the air. James hates the shroud of constant agony that surrounds his son, and he wishes so badly, that he could reach across, to find the same innocent and cheerful boy Harry used to be past that shroud. But it’s been etched into his skin, along with the scar on his neck and the one on his forehead. 

No matter what James says or does, Harry will beat himself up over every little thing. Because that’s what Regulus used to do. Because the war is not getting any better. And because every day that passes, Regulus seems farther and farther out of their reach. 

James is glad for the empty room, for the moment they get to share in silence, where grief and anger are equally present, but chained with nowhere to go. 

“I think your cousin is wrong based on your descriptions and Sirius',” James says and means it as a comfort for them both, “Polyjuice is more likely. Reg’s recipe is particularly strong.” 

But James can never know. He didn’t see the guy himself. Maybe Harry has truly begun to forget Reggie’s voice, the soft lilt to his tone, and the way every word was so perfectly articulated as he spoke. It’s not something James can forget. But Harry has no reminders, nothing to grasp onto in his parent’s absence. Nothing tangible that could facsimile Reggie’s voice. 

Harry mulls this over for a second, “Which means they have direct access to him.” 

“Not necessarily,” James cautions, something in his heart restricts as an unwelcome image springs up in his mind, of Regulus being held down as his hair is being shorn, as his nails are pulled for the Polyjuice. The guy doesn’t even need to be in the same room as Reggie to have his genetic material, but James can’t worsen Harry’s agony by mentioning this, he has to shoulder the pain of his experience alone, so he says instead: “But it's a step in the right direction.” 

“Yeah.” 

Harry wanders out of the safe house, the door heavily slamming behind him and a beat after, there is a sharp crack of apparation. 

James stares at the door for a moment, wondering whether he really regrets teaching Harry how to apparate when he did. He had little choice, Harry would have been basically crippled on the field without the skill but still, something foreign grips his chest with the thought. 

Maybe it’s the grief, maybe it’s the war, but it’s like his son has aged ten years in the span of six months. 

James wonders whether Sirius was wrong, and for them, it was different. Had they aged as quickly during the war? It certainly felt like it. 

He pushes himself off the couch, wades through the overwhelming sense of emptiness to make his way to the kitchen. Not really to eat anything, but to check on their guests. The more information they have about the abduction the better, but Ted's gotta know that their hands are really tied in terms of extraction and rescue missions.

Especially if what James suspects is true and that they took her as a new way to torment Regulus somehow. Her chances of survival become exceedingly dim. 

Dora isn't in the kitchen, but James sees Ted cradling a steaming mug of tea in his hands, hunched over it on the table actually. He looks about as ragged as James feels. 

“Sorry about her,” Ted tells him, referring to his daughter, “She’s not really like this, but seeing her mother being captured—She was supposed to start Auror training next week. She doesn't like being helpless.”

“Which institute?”

“Helmut.”

James hums noncommittally and takes the chair in front of Ted's. There's a headache thrumming behind his eyes that James is all too familiar with. He can't help looking at Teddy Tonks and wondering whether their grief can in any way be equated with each other. 

Probably not. If Andromeda dies, it'll probably be quick. It'll be tragic, she might even die a horrific death, but it will end one way or the other. 

James has to live, has to breathe, has to exhale the stale air every second with the knowledge that Regulus has no escape from his torture. There's no abating, no mitigations. Because James failed to keep him safe, and he failed to kill him. And now he feels every day, in getting him back. 

“I'm out of my depth,” Ted finally says, burying his hands into his dishevelled hair, “I know we don't know each other too well, James, but I get it. I don't know how you've been doing it. She's been gone less than a day and I just, just want to die—”

James doesn't respond. He hates how he's good at restraining himself now. Not as abrasive in his grief, not the way he used to be, and not in the same way Harry is. His anger is hollow. 

“I'm not a fighter, James,” Ted swallows thickly, “I'm a damn muggleborn veterinarian. I use my magic to help animals, not to—”

“Why did you come back to England?” James interjects. 

Ted pauses with a mad shrug, he seems to question it now too, coming here. “Andy's idea. She saw the news and—we were only supposed to stay a few days. Dora didn't want to come, of course, Gods, I can't believe they've left her alive—”

He drifts off, blinks hard and pinches the bridge of his nose harshly. Probably to delay the tears. He looks at James like he is seeking a solution, or comfort. Two things James definitely can't give him. 

“Ted, I'm gonna be honest,” he clears his throat, and it's easier to say the words without the kids around,“They might have taken her because of her family name and relations. They have forces and snitches at all of the borders. Do you know if they were close? She and Regulus?” 

“Not too close, I think,” Ted confirms his suspicions, “She was much older than him, ah, I think by five years. She mentioned him when he was in the papers. She spoke fondly of him but—”

“I see.”

“Did he mention her?” 

The question takes him by surprise, because when Ted asks it, he seems to genuinely be curious. James swallows, raising a hand to scratch at his patchy jaw. Did Regulus mention his family with any fondness? No. Not that James can recall. Every time any name other than his brother’s was uttered it was accompanied by fear and something bitter. Though, he can't exactly tell the man that. 

“Regulus didn't—doesn’t like talking about his past. He talked about her in passing sometimes,” he purses his lips, “Sorry.” 

“It's okay,” Ted shakes his head again. There is another reprieve, both of them finding little to add to the conversation, “I just want her back. We should've stayed in Salzburg.” 

James doesn't contradict him, because yeah . Yeah, they probably should've stayed away. He figures that if they were cautious enough to leave the country just so the Black family stays off their back, they would've been vigilant enough to stay away during political unrest such as this as well. 

“How long has it been like this?” Ted asks him, desperately, “We had no idea things were this bad. ”

“Six months now.” 

Six months, five days. 

Up until three weeks ago, he used to keep count of the hours too. But James figures that time begins to lose all meaning in the absence of substance. His life has no substance. 

Every second that passes is a reminder that Regulus is not here. And he's probably in pain. And James is here, twiddling his thumbs and liberating cities one at a time like it's a game. 

“Six months,” Ted is floored, “Didn't expect much from the Ministry, but with the Albus Dumbledore around, you'd think—Where is he?” 

James rubs his face and takes off his glasses momentarily. It's a question they honestly encounter a lot, especially from new members and volunteers. James is never too keen to answer them because everything is so convoluted that there doesn't seem to be a right answer at all. Voldemort has not been seen or sighted in months, his high-ranking Death Eaters with direct access to the Manor have not been seen either, the Manor in which they're probably residing is hidden too well to be found. Probably because it's not even in a solid location to begin with. 

It's not as though Albus Dumbledore can challenge Voldemort to a duel and win. Not with the Horcruxes in the way. 

The man has to lead an army, find the last alleged Horcrux, and the Malfoy Manor. 

James wants to hate him too, for his inability, for this sluggish pace that doesn't feel like progress at all. He wants to hate that Albus arrived a minute too late, that Reggie was already gone. He wants to roar at Albus, curse him out every single time they’re face to face. 

But it's easy to hate someone else for his own helplessness. 

“It's more complicated than that. He's coming back tonight for a meeting too.”

“ Großartig .”

“It's safe here for now. We aren't running low on resources or water.” He pushes the chair back to stand, “So, it's a safe haven. I suppose you wouldn't leave here without your wife so you'll have to prepare for a long-term stay.” 

“Yes,” Ted scrambles out of the chair after him, “I'll do anything to help, though I'll be pretty useless. I can't use magic for combat—” 

“Any help is help. We even have some Muggle volunteers. Anyways, I have to leave, but Sirius and his partner are on the way, and I'll come back tonight. They're off the map, so it might take a few hours. Rest up. Just take an empty room I guess.” What else is there to say? Condolences and congeations aren't going to fix this mess.

He needs to isolate himself, because he can feel it, the thrumming of a headache turning into a tsunami. Rage pumping in his blood. And it's not the Tonks’ fault. Not really. Not even Dumbledore's.

James is just homesick and tired. 

“Will we find her alive?” Ted asks him solemnly. 

“I don't know, Ted,” he breathes as he walks away, “I don't know at all.”

He tries to imagine a distant future, where Regulus is back in his arms and there's peace again. He tries to imagine what recovery would look like, if Reggie would ever be the same. He tries to imagine Harry all grown up, grinning from ear to ear, his first day at work, his first proper date, probably with a certain blond. 

He imagines quiet afternoons in their greenhouse, leaning his body, pressing his front to Reggie's back, dropping his chin on his shoulder, breathing him in while he tends to his plants. 

But even his imagination is bitter. Even in his imagination, Regulus has been marred beyond repair. He's been stolen by the moon. 

And so James often looks at the sky, and he thinks: 

‘Moon, please bring back what you stole from me. I promise I'm willing to pay anything.’

Anything.

 

...

 

 “How sure of this are you exactly?” Words he honestly never thought he’d address to the person standing in front of him right now. 

There are several things that one would immediately notice about the odd trio standing in the middle of a field in Yorkshire Dales as the sun is about to set. The first is the queer location of this meetup, as they appear to be very pointedly in the very centre of the field, and have been standing so, for the past twenty minutes. 

The second immediately noticeable thing is the attire of all three. There is a tall man with acne scars dusting both cheeks, a long nose and thin lips, in black robes with a very specific cut and a cloak over it. The other two are clearly a middle-aged couple; the woman with shoulder-length frizzy hair and dark eyes and a taller man with an unfortunately premature receding hairline. Nothing that should draw attention to them at first glance, were it not for their haphazard clothing and the overall haggard sheen of dust and sweat coating them both. 

“Well, it's my first time making a bomb,” one Richard Granger replies sheepishly, “I usually fill in cavities.” 

Barty figures that it’s probably good enough. He knows from experience that usually when plans are too minutely laid, their derailing will just hurt more. Something as chaotic as what they’re about to attempt might as well lie on a house of flimsy branches. Gone with a wisp. It is really, as they say. The higher the risk the better the reward. 

He has come to realise, in the past few months, that he really should have pursued gambling as a form of addiction and self-harm nearly a decade ago. He’s certainly good at it. 

“Right,” he nods his head at them, “And you're both still on board with the plan? Are you sure? You do know that you both might die horrifically and the plan might spiral out of control at any given time—” 

“Yes.” Jean Granger cuts in curtly. 

She’s the type of woman that Barty can appreciate in terms of character. He can see where his student, Hermione, gets it from. She’s quite stern, confident, and oddly enough seems to be harbouring a yearning for danger that probably also got passed down to her daughter. 

When Barty approached the two last week, that certainly seemed to be the case. Because they jumped at the opportunity to help on the mission before Barty was even finished talking, went so far as to suggest the idea of bombs and a fake kidnapping themselves. Brilliant fuckers. 

“And your daughter knows about this?” 

“We left a will with Molly. Most of our properties are in her name anyway.” Jean tells him, “She has access to our accounts and she knows how to buy a plane ticket. We have cousins in Australia. She'll be fine.” 

She pointedly does not seem to entertain the thought that her daughter might join the fight as Harry had very soon. And Barty figures that no parent would typically imagine such a thing if they’ve put themselves in enough danger to fight in their stead. Everyone except James Potter, that is. But the child happens to be the Harry Potter, so Barty wouldn’t know what ethical and moral arguments can be at play here. 

“We’ll be fine, as we already said.” she says. 

Her husband perks up and reaches into his pocket suddenly, “ And we have this.” 

He brandishes a small silver toy with a hole at one end and a trigger below it. It’s a gadget Barty faintly recalls seeing once or twice in Sirius’ silly Muggle films, but not something he can place presently in his head.

“What is that?” 

“It's a pistol,” Richard cheerfully points the toy at the sky, “I found it in our attic with Aunt Bessie's things, who got this from her grandmother — fiery lady, she was rumoured to have killed her husband with this but—” 

“But we'll never know, Richard.” she chides him gently. It seems like they have this conversation routinely. 

“Yes, I suppose,” Richard winces once he catches Barty looking at them warily, “We're not really violent people, but well—”

“We'll do anything for our little girl and our friends.” Jean finishes for him.

It’s rare for Barty, seeing parents that actually love their child enough to go through war for them. Well, aside from Reggie and James… but Barty tries not to think about that too often. When he’s wearing another identity, another face, it’s not conducive to keep thinking about his best friend’s predicament. He gets enough of that at night when he can’t sleep. 

He almost reaches for his ring on the necklace he keeps hidden under his collar. He doesn’t, but it’s a near thing. Sentiment, it's like poison to a Slytherin.

He regards the pistol. 

“I doubt that's gonna do much against a wand,” he says slowly, reaching for the satchel they’ve handed over to him, “But as long as you guys feel good, I guess.” 

“I bet you Herbert Granger said the same before he was shot,” Richard informs him smugly, though he does pocket the weapon. 

“Right. So, the explosives—” 

“Well, Jean and I took as much Nitrous oxide out of the surgery as we could,” Richard quickly says as Barty shuffles through the little bottles in the satchel and little plastic baggies nestled between them, “You can spark it up with magic once we add the reagents, right?” 

Barty doesn’t look up, “Hmm. Yeah.” 

He shrinks the entire satchel with his pocket and advises Jean to keep it tucked under her hair or somewhere discreet—pointedly not making any allusions or references whatsoever to her undergarments—and she marvels at the minimised bag in her palm, “This is fascinating! Quantum physics will not be the same if—”

“Revolutionary, if there is an incorporation of magic into quantum physics—”

“Or if magic itself is capable of being explicated as a scientific system that coexists with—”

“Guys, I need you to focus,” Barty cuts in before she and Richard can become too fixated on their contraband. “Okay, alright. Remember, once we get there, you have to act tortured and scared. Like we practised.” 

Jean and Richard exchange a glance, “Right.” 

“As a matter of fact, hang on. Hang on. Get some dirt on your clothes. Ruffle your feathers. Come on—” he directs them to get on the ground and roll on the field, sprinkling dirt over their already wrinkled clothes. 

Jean in particular looks a bit disgusted but willingly smears some soil over her cheeks and tousles her hair, going so far as to tear the hem of her shirt a little. 

“Just to give you another rundown,” he says once he deems that they look tortured enough to start moving, “We'll get there, I'll tell the warden, the guy in charge, that I have Mudbloods of interest in my custody and I gotta see Crabbe senior. He's a high-ranking Death Eater—” 

“With access to the Manor.” Jean finishes. 

“With access to the Manor and according to my guy, he's gonna be at the torture house tonight,” Barty has not gained this information lightly. It took three identities and two weeks of ramming his way through different rat holes to even figure that Crabbe senior was in charge of the torture houses located in this part of the country. 

Took him five sleepless nights to formulate a plan that benefits not just Reggie but the Muggles that have been trapped in there. If they’re still alive that is. Barty knows from experience that the first twenty-four hours after capture are the most crucial. If there have been any fresh deliveries that coincide with the mission, the explosions they’ve got planned might just save those Muggles too. 

“So, I'll get you guys in a cell, we'll finish up the bombs there, and cause a distraction. Take as many muggles as we can and kidnap Crabbe.” 

The grassfield rustles with the wind against them as they walk. Barty feels a small prickle in his mark and wonders what’s happening to Reggie right now. There’s no word on him. Absolutely nothing. Barty would’ve thought his friend is dead but he knows better. Riddle would rather end the world than kill Reggie this easily. 

But the silence, the wall of bricks, makes it quite difficult to carry on. To believe that any of this has a purpose. Barty misses Regulus too intensely at times, because he remembers they did not leave things on good terms, and he’s so fucking upset that he didn’t try harder to amend that. 

He would’ve regretted not defecting too, had it not been for his partners and the enormity of war itself. He’d rather have stayed by Regulus’ side. He wonders whether there’s anyone with Reggie now, cleaning his wounds, protecting him even minimally. Anyone to keep him going.

Probably not. 

“Then we'll find Regulus?” Jean asks him and Barty is jolted out of his thoughts. 

“ Then, we'll torture the fucker until we find the Manor and then we'll find Reggie, yes.” he muses, looking over his shoulders at the blue hour creeping up on them from behind. 

“Right.” 

“Sorry if it's nasty. You guys can still walk out.” 

“No,” Richard shakes his head, “He's a friend. And we've already practised. And if we can save any of our kind…” 

Barty nods, takes a deep breath to steel himself and crams a hand in his pocket for the Portkey he’s charmed to go off at seven, exactly. It’s one of Sirius’ old nail polish bottles. Barty’s eyes lower as a pang makes his guts churn. He’s missed the man. He’s missed Remus. 

Atoning for his former sins really fucking sucks. 

“Wouldn't they find out it was you later?” Richard asks him, looking at the nail polish, Barty enlarges with his wand. 

“ Leonard Pachette , sure,” Barty shrugs, holding the portkey out, “But I'm a man of a dozen faces. I spent months finding my footing in their ranks and I have other burner identities. If we get Reggie back…it won't matter as much anyway.” 

Barty has sworn an oath to himself to either find Reggie and bring him back or die trying. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, whether he has to do this all over again. It won’t matter if he has to kill bloody Voldemort himself. He will find his best friend. 

“We'll get him,” Jean says, her hand joining her husband’s on top of the portkey, “ I'm sure of it.” 

Barty wishes he were as optimistic. Maybe optimism is precisely what they need in this shit show of a life, “I'm sorry for everything you're about to see, feel, and smell shortly in advance. Grangers, it's been a pleasure.” 

The Portkey delivers them about six hundred meters out of the wards that surround the torture house. The Grangers had been given firm instructions prior to the mission as to how they should act and hold themselves and it’s quite impressive to see them both become immediately shrunken in character. 

Barty jabs his wand into their backs, forcing them to stumble along the jagged limestone pavements of Orton Fells. They don’t really talk during their little trip down to the torture house. There’s not really much to say. Jean does her best impression of a woman trembling both in fear and as a result of a few strong Crucios , while her husband tries to hold her body and stagger along, pale in terror. 

The wards surrounding these places have become stronger than they used to be. From outside, it actually is not apparent that there are any buildings or instructors in the vicinity at all. But once they step inside the wards, the ground underneath their feet becomes scorched, the air more stifled. The snatchers are filthy creatures, Barty has found. He can see nauseating scenes before they even approach the tower. 

A pile of naked bodies off to the side of the building, around it a small mound of jagged limestone rocks, and a few snatchers, drunkenly jeering and laughing, pushing at each other as they piss on the rocks. Jean lets out a long whimper that Barty doesn’t think is entirely feigned and they are slowly shoved past the bodies through the threshold of the tower. 

Leonard Pachette is a snatcher with aspirations of making it big, becoming a proper Death Eater, he spends obsessively hunting the muggles and wixen he tortures; he has established his character as one purposely seeking attention. 

In order to prove his point, he’s had to do many unsavoury things. Things that he used to do in his youth easily, now he does with a twist in his stomach, with guilt bubbling in his throat like blood. He apologises to the bodies, the people, the numbers in his head, and vows to himself, that one day, he’s going to pay for all the pain he’s inflicted on humanity. 

Right after he gets Reggie back or dies trying. 

He leads the Grangers inside through the barrage of screams, shrieks, and begging. Merely a step past the threshold. Most snatchers wouldn’t bother looking for a cell when they can do what they want out in the open. So bodies pile in the corners of halls, tortured victims stunned or suspended in shock, most of them being Muggles or Muggle-borns; they have no idea or little idea of what is happening to them. They keep begging, their voices echo off the walls, drowned in the incoherent screaming and the flashing of curses. 

Jean and Richard stumble over the squirming bodies with wide, doleful eyes. They’re no longer acting as though they are terrified, they truly have been struck mute by the horrors of what they see, much of it too inexplicable to ever be laid upon any parchment or record. Barty would have closed his eyes in regret, would have lost his mind trying to save these people, but… not yet. 

He shoves the couple past the bodies to the other end of the hall towards the lifts; the tower is an unstable structure, held together with a doddery crackle of magic basically tantamount to spit and metal pipes. The flooring is a pastiche of stone and tread plating. Barty figures that it’s easier to clean the blood and guts off that way. He’s never been to Azkaban but he eerily feels that the snatchers had a specific model in mind when constructing the place. 

As they pass the scum of the earth and their victims, Barty and the Grangers hear geers and calls from all sides, following them:

“Fresh meat!” 

“I’d fuck ‘em—”

“Pachette’s been feeling frisky—”

“Mudblood twats—”

“Was this the best you could do, Pachette? What a—”

Barty pushes his wand into Richard’s back when the man pauses in astonishment and anger over the slurs hurled their way. Richard immediately sinks back in character and flinches, obediently slinking along with Jean. 

They’re so close, Barty can see the metal lift at the end of the hall, and the warden’s underlink, the pig called Fredrick Jones pompously leaning over the lever by the lift. Barty curses in his head as the wretch’s small eyes narrow at him and his prisoners.

“Oi, what’s this then?”

“My new catch,” Barty tries to sound casual, “Mudbloods of interest.”

Jones scratches at his mottled face with a grunt, his seedy gaze scrutinising the quivering Muggles with appraisal and disgust. Barty refrains from sneering at the creature as his eyes drag back towards him. “Interest, hmm? Whose?”

“The Dark Lord’s. I found them helping the Order. And they’re close to Potter.”

He hears more jeering from behind them, and Jones snorting like a pig, his nose puckering at Barty’s serious expression. Merlin, Barty wants to disembowel the fucker with his bare hands. Scum like him don’t deserve the freedom they’ve been granted. 

“Did they tell you that then? And I garner, your pansy-pants arse believed it—” he chortles and there are two or three of his cronies behind Barty, cackling along. 

The man’s meaty hand wanders towards Jean’s face. Barty shoulders past Richard and before the sausage fingers can find purchase, he grabs and squeezes Jone’s wrist, turning to glare at him with wrath and revulsion, “Don’t touch my damn property,” he bites out. 

He hears Jean stifling a cry behind him and Richard, breathing right down his neck.

“Why you—”

Barty releases his hold on the greasy flesh, “I just want a cell to keep ‘em so Crabbe Senior can take a look himself. I don’t want trouble, Jones.”

“And who’s told you that’s gonna be any time soon?” Jones spits back after a beat. His eyes sceptically narrow at Leanoard Pachette’s lanky frame, his dusty Death Eater robes, and his hard grasp around his wand. 

“Who fucking cares, Jones?” Barty sighs irritably, “Just give me a damn cell. I don’t want them touching the common vermin rolling on the floor. Crabbe Senior comes when he comes. I’ll have more information by then.”

“We got a dreamer here!” Jones exclaims to the fuckers standing watch and they all holler, closing around them in a tighter circle, their robes brushing against Barty’s back even. “Little boy who took a bite bigger than he could chew!”

“Or maybe that’s his cover!” a lewd voice cries from behind. 

“Right! He thinks he’s better than us!”

“—No love for the game itself!” 

Barty maintains eye contact with Jones and Jones only, not even blinking as the fucker grows exhausted and irritated by the encounter. A small bead of sweat forms on his forehead and begins its harrowing journey down his skin as the seconds pass. The portly fucker runs a hand over the scant oily hair matted across his balding scalp and shakes his head at them. 

“Take them to the levels below, any empty cell is yours,” he barks with derision, “If it’s just bodies, toss ‘em out and take it.”

“Great,” Barty puts a hand on Jean’s shoulder to push her forward, “Move—”

They take about two steps towards the lift, and Barty allows himself a brief reprieve to close his eyes in relief before he hears a voice from behind, and an odd silence. 

“Wait.”

Barty and the Grangers pause dead midstep. Barty opens his eyes, takes a deep breath and clenches his wand more tightly in his hand. He can’t take all of the snatchers here, but he can try. 

“What?” he snaps over his shoulder flippantly. 

Frederick takes a heavy step or two after them, and Barty can see Jean squeezing her husband’s hand in a white-knuckled grip. He stares back at Jones as the man plods forward, his boots striking the metal flooring.

“The bird,” Jones drawls, jeering at Jean’s blanched face, “I wanna hear her sing. She sounds like a screamer.”

“I don’t remember you having the authority to order me around, fucker.”

Jones’s rotten breath brushes against his cheek as the bastard leans close to his face, leering up at him because of his height disadvantage. 

“You want yourself a cell or not, boy?” he spits out. 

Barty tries to stare him down as he did before. He tries not to panic, not to show the way his heartbeat picks up pace. He turns very slowly from Jones, watching from the side of his eyes, how the other Snatchers are surveying them now, arms crossed over their chests. 

He looks at Jean. Not for too long. It'll be suspicious as fuck if he shows the smallest bit of care to his victims after all. Dirty Mudbloods he used to eviscerate in his youth without a single thought. Because he wanted his revenge and validation from them. 

There's barely a glance exchanged between them, but Barty delusionally wants to think that he saw her subtly nodding at him. So he whips his wand at her, and cries, “Crucio!” 

Jean goes down screaming. 

When Barty was instructing them on how to put on a believable performance, the Grangers had quite a difficult time, flailing their limbs and screaming. Richard likened his descriptions to being electrocuted, whatever that was, and Jean wondered whether they could actually stick it through and act well enough to look tortured.

Barty as a spectator has to confess that Jean put on a good show before. Because the way she screams and thrashes on the ground now is eerily similar to the way she pretended to be tortured. But it’s real, it’s absolutely real. Her eyes roll to the back of her head and her limbs jerk and her sound is grating down Barty’s soul. 

He lets up the wand after five seconds, because he can’t bear to do it longer. Jean cries into her hands and Richard scrambles forward, trying to help her up.

“There,” Barty keeps his voice from shaking as he glares at Jones, “That enough to jerk your prick with?”

“Get moving.” comes the grumble after a beat and Barty turns, kicking Richard and Jean to move more quickly as they get inside the lift. Richard’s arm rubs his wife’s back and as the lift croaks its way down, Barty pointedly stares ahead, a litany of curses under his breath. 

He gestures at them to step out once the scissor gates cringe open. The light is very dim in the lower storey and the air more rotten. The Grangers both gag violently and Barty grimaces even though he is used to the odour. They march from the lift, past the screams, emaciated bodies, past the whimpers and cells with their doors ajar. 

They’re lucky to find a cell that doesn’t need cleaning. Barty quickly shoves the couple in and slips inside, slamming the grill door shut with a harsh clang. His shoulders drop immediately and he whirls, rushing towards Jean. 

“Are you okay? I am so sorry, I’m so damn sorry, Jean. I had to or he would’ve—”

“It’s okay,” she says, though she looks ashen and pale, her hands slightly shaking, “I’m okay, you warned us. But dear God that was horrid—”

“I know I’m sorry.”

“And Regulus endured that for years? That was horrible!”

Barty pauses as the couple share a long glance, and he watches as the gravity of their plight dawns on the Grangers all at once. He’d warned them rather explicitly; he had been as detailed as he dared in advance and yet, they look bloody terrified of what they’d just seen. Not that Barty can blame them. He has a wand and he’s still terrified. They’re helpless Muggles with little advantage over these fuckers.

“Yeah.” he breathes and Jean raises her hand to the small braid under the top layer of her hair, where the shrunk satchel is hidden. She fumbles for a moment and then drops the tiny satchel on Barty’s waiting palm. 

“We have to mix up the reagents into the canisters,” Richard tells him and Barty nods, crouching down with the satchel in its original size, clinking in his arms. 

“I’ll install them all over the levels while you guys are in the cell. We activate them with a charm once I have sight of Crabbe. You memorised the path to your cell, right?”

“Yes.” 

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Barty takes out the canisters and little baggies and lines them up haphazardly on the bloodied floor of the cell, “Because you’re responsible for getting yourselves up to the main level. Grab as many prisoners as you can, if they’re slowing you down, let them go. There’s not much you can do if you’re dead.”

“Right.” 

“It’s gonna be a damn bloodfest.” Barty holds their gaze and drops his wand to the side. He looks over his shoulder once and takes a deep breath. “Okay, now you guys gotta start screaming and crying.”

Immediately on cue, Richard starts crying and screaming murder. Begging Barty to stop the torture as Barty and Jean quickly uncap the cannisters and open up the baggies. Barty notices his hands like Jean’s shake uncontrollably as he works. Maybe doing this with Muggle volunteers that he knows and went on vacation with was not the brightest plan. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if they die, but he’s already scared of the scar it’ll leave on his soul. 

Grief used to be so meaningless to him before Reggie’s death . Ever since then everything hurts too much all the time. 

“You weren’t exaggerating,” she mutters, her eyes narrowed in concentration as they work. 

“No. I rarely do, unfortunately.” he cranes his neck and shouts: “CRUCIO!”

“GOD NO!” Jean acts, now with a disturbing amount of accuracy, she quickly switches places with her husband, “NO! HAVE MERCY ON US PLEASE! LET ME GO!”

“There are thirty of these,” Richard mutters as he recaps the canisters. “Would that be enough?”

“HELP ME! GOD! HELP!”

“CRUCIO!” Barty screams again and then nods at Richard, “Yes, it should be enough. We don’t want the tower destroyed, just their shit rocked. ABRASIO!”

Thankfully, they’re quick with the cans. Barty quickly deposits them carefully back in their satchel, as the husband and wife take turns, crying and banging on the floor to create as much noise as possible. Barty wipes a thin sheen of sweat off his forehead and presses his hand to his chest, just to feel his ring and locket dig into his collarbone. 

He doesn’t know when he will see Sirius and Remus next. And he doesn’t know whether he will see them dead or alive. Looking at Jean and Richard makes him extremely uncomfortable, because he realises that at least they’re in this shit together, but if he dies while undercover, Sirius and Remus might not even find his body.

A nameless, worthless worm. Like Dad always thought he was. 

“I can't believe you used to do this for a living!” Jean croaks in a harsh whisper as he pushes the last canister inside the satchel. 

“Me neither but you know how life is!” he furiously whispers back, “Ups and downs. I swear I’ve changed! Now hush!” 

There’s a sudden rattle upon the gate door of the cell. They all freeze and Barty quickly pushes the satchel to the corner under his shed cloak. A fist strikes the metal door again, with insistence. 

“Get on the ground and roll!” Barty breathes over his shoulders and takes a deep breath. 

He yanks the cell’s door back just as Jean and Richard shuffle to hunch over the satchel and cloak, hiding it as they cry and hold each other in pretence. A lean woman stands when Barty pulls the door open. Her slicked hair gives her the impression of a lizard, and her sharp brown eyes peer at him and inside the cell.

“Yes?”

“Jones said you got an interesting catch.” she drawls, and Barty the way her long nails curl around her wand like a claw.

He doesn’t know her. He knows she is a snatcher, and she certainly looks the part, the sadistic twat. But he can’t put a name to her face. So he squares his shoulders and nudges the close; her sharp boot lodges the door in its place, “Rude to covet the goods, Pachette.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing to me,” her smirk is serpentine, “Warden wants to see you is all.” 

Barty looks at her for a beat, and she remains unbothered and relaxed, like she couldn't care less whether he takes her to her word or not. Which among this lot, probably means that she’s telling the truth. Fuck. 

Barty motions at the Grangers to stand and prays that they’re smart enough to somehow shuffle the satchel with them but she drives her boot farther into the cell, “Uh-uh. Not the Mudbloods,” her eyes narrow at the Muggles before she looks at him, “Just you.”

“And what happens to them when I leave?”

“This is a torture house, you dimwit,” she snaps back, “What do you think?”

Barty curses again in his head. He knows that he was expecting their plans to go to shit but he wasn’t expecting shit to go up in flames this early into their plot. He can’t ignore the Warden’s request without making himself appear too interested or suspicious. But on the other hand, he has no way of taking the bombs and installing them on the floors without going unnoticed now. 

He looks at the prisoners over his shoulder and sees Richard’s hand crammed in his pocket. Barty swipes his eyes away and figures that either the Grangers have this or they don’t. If they manage to overpower this snatcher, they’ll have to sneak around the tower and install the bombs themselves.

Not ideal. 

“What are you waiting for? A Royal fanfare?”  

“If I come back to them dead,” he seethes menacingly right into her face, “I’m going to fucking skin you.”

And it’s a promise he fully means to follow through with. And she understands it as such. She clicks her tongue and dashes her eyes away, an ugly smirk stretching her face as she steps inside the cell. 

“Don’t worry,” she croons, “We’ll just have some fun .”

The door closes behind Barty and he immediately starts rushing to the lift, barely a hitch in his step even as he hears the loud pop of a gunshot and a sharp cry, drowned under the screams. 

 

...

 

The water is murky. Tepid, a lifeless pink or rather a faded out red. Rusty, even. 

Regulus finds himself transfixed by it. His pruned fingers wade through and create little currents, tiny ripples on the surface, and it is so soothingly and oddly fascinating. He can change the water if he wishes to. He just doesn't see the point. 

Nothing stops bleeding, the water will never run clear. Not if he sits in it for long enough. But sometimes he thinks, if he sits in the tub long enough, the bruises and scars will give away to the water, the way tea bleeds into a cup when prompted by its warmth. The way the leaves seep into a kettle. Alas, his wistful thinking has not yet borne any semblance of fruition. The bruises do fade, admittedly, eventually, but even their absence is an ephemeral thing. 

Maybe, he sometimes thinks, he's just hoping for his own body to dissolve in the bathwater. Because it shudders in dread, his skin thin like paper, and his veins shrivelled, fearful, an exhibition of a learned response to pain. His body has become something entirely unstable. 

Silly thoughts he keeps having. It's all he has. He should under no circumstances think too deeply about matters of the country or the lives of its occupants at large. He might just scream his head off perpetually, let it ring through the mountains, hopelessly attempting to dismantle their usurpation of his autonomy. He should under no circumstances think about family. Old faces. An old life. 

He has no desire to entertain Tom doing so, as it seems that the violence burrows deeper into his flesh when he is thinking of the past. His screams, according to Tom, ring more sweetly, he tends to cry more in his sleep. Whether true or not, Regulus has no way of knowing. 

It makes him feel more pathetic than he already is. 

But the melancholy that comes with apathy, grants him a more comfortable skin to slip into. It's easier to dissociate, and easier to detach himself from the pain, the present. Days pass without him even truly understanding their arrival and departure. 

It is something he used to do as a child, now he recalls more clearly. Getting lost in himself. Ceasing to care. Losing himself to his silence and an empty reverie. He doesn't think about caring, or anything worth caring for. The melancholy aroused from that frigid apathy is merely the accompanying emptiness. 

He leans his head against the ledge of the tub, and casts his eyes to the ceiling. Bored with the murky water. It's always the same. 

He has to remember that this too, the ability to sit here, is a luxury itself. A few weeks ago, or days ago, or perhaps months ago—who was to say?—he’d been barred from bathing himself because—anyways, he found the act of being bathed by anyone else too violating and intimate and reminiscent of the past where James used to—so he threw a tantrum, as one does. Got himself all knocked around, blood running down his arms and so on and so forth. No baths. 

He stopped fighting it, earned the privilege again, and now he finds some refuge, in the act of wasting away in tepid bath water. 

The ceiling is coffered. 

Most Pureblood Manors have intricate interiors. Grimmauld Place did not, for it was a townhouse as opposed to the main Black Family Manor in Sussex. Regulus is not quite sure now why the Manor was never their main place of residence. He doesn't think it's even habitable at this point. Something about black mould. Or something. A feud between brothers over inheritance that was never resolved. Maybe. It's too distant for him to bother. 

Little leaves and liliums and swirls and lines carved into the ceilings and walls. Like that takes away from the filthy floors, the blood, the muck, the sticky stuff. The first few months, Regulus recalls staring at the intricate walls and reciting his favourite herbology book from memory. He'd imagine his own pots and plants, his own vegetable patch, his basils and peppers, his own jasmines and the countless vases around their house with James' bouquets. He'd imagine watering them, wiping their leaves, talking to them, seeing their growth and blooming to its end of the season. He'd imagined the pomegranate tree bearing fruit. 

James, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, hands stained red by the fruit's delicate juices, softly tapping the peels with the back of a spoon, letting the small rubies tumble into a bowl. He wouldn't let Regulus lift a finger.  

Some of the pomegranates, reserved in their own little bowl, are always for Harry. Some James saves for salads and trifles. But the majority, he sprinkles with a little salt and hands over to Regulus with a spoon. Kissing his nose, Regulus clicking his tongue at the pomegranate juices staining everything.

Lazy summer noons. Regulus’s forgotten what sunlight feels like. 

He's long given up trying to remember such things. But he looks at the stone vines and the little flowers on the corners of walls and on the ceiling circling the chandeliers, and he can't help trying to grasp at the shrunken straws. 

His knees splay open in the water, and his head sinks lower, the tip of his nose grazing the surface of his murky bliss. It's been a slow few days; Tom keeps having to leave the Manor more often. Fewer meetings where Reggie's presence is required. 

A storm brewing in the distance, but Regulus has given up fantasising altogether. 

All the better for him, since he gets to waste away for hours in the bathwater without having to entertain his capturer. Though it seems like today he is not so lucky. 

He notices his presence also in the bathroom a bit belatedly. So lost, in tracing the engravings with his eyes, Regulus doesn't hear or see the Monster until its red eyes are bearing right into him. 

Regulus doesn't turn his face from the ceiling, but does close his legs lethargically. Not out of some sense of displaced decorum or even fear. More of a natural instinct. 

“Robe yourself. I have a gift for you.” Riddle sneers at him. 

Regulus tracks his eyes to him with disinterest and then resumes staring at the ceiling. What difference would it make whether he's clothed or naked for any gift? He ends up in one state or the other without his consent anyhow. 

Today, he feels a smidgeon of daring pushing past the apathy. So he ignores Riddle's initial and barked request. Maybe it's not daring, just his desire to hurt and ache as deeply as possible. These walls have seen enough of his blood and viscera. Heard enough cries. Seen him bent over enough furniture. Nothing new. 

Pain is familiar. 

Riddle doesn't strike him as he normally would have. Nor does he repeat himself or force his body out of the water like some puppeteer. There is less than a terrifying beat, where neither of them makes a move. There is another subtle noise outside, a door clicking. 

Great , Regulus rolls his eyes away. An audience in his bathroom. Apparently, taking a bath has now become a public show. What next? He wonders, ironically infused with indignation. Will they watch him shit next?

They've already stripped away every layer of humanity off his back. What little dignity is there left?

“Dry him, clothed or bare, drag him out, and join me at the foyer.” 

“Yes, My Lord.” 

Two deft hands duck into the water and start roughly yanking Regulus out of the tub by his pits. Regulus doesn't fight, but doesn't make it easy either. He makes himself go limp, a dead weight. 

Severus wouldn't dare curse or bash at him in front of Riddle as the Lord stands watch. Even as he is drenched in the old bath water. 

But once he turns to leave briskly, Severus’ fingers dig into Reggie's bruised arms. He drags Regulus away from the tub, and water sloshes over its sides. Regulus stumbles but doesn't protest or fight against it. 

“There are others,” Severus informs him quietly, “You shouldn't be bare for this.”

He doesn't elaborate. Regulus rolls his eyes again and has to suffocate the urge to stomp out bare as the day he was born, dripping water everywhere. A stubborn streak in him that just refuses to die. 

Severus doesn't touch him any further but stands watch by the door, miserable that he's been asked to guard like a lowly servant. Boy, does Regulus have news for the bastard. 

He doesn't bother confronting him. He hasn't. There's little point to it. He doesn't dry himself. Just stands in front of the mirror and looks at his sunken face and wet hair. He should get it trimmed at least, though he's not allowed scissors. He's not even allowed to touch or modify his own body. It's ridiculous to even fathom the idea of a haircut. If Tom gets a wisp of it, there will be a new torment or game involved. Merlin knows what. His eyes become a bit unfocused, glossy with the effort to hurry himself down the lane of dissociation. The farther away he goes, the less he remembers later. Or it used to work like that. 

He remembers a disturbing amount now. 

“You may want to hurry, Black,” Severus informs him after a beat of Regulus just standing there. “You truly do not want to wait on this.” 

Regulus regards the man, unfazed, “What, will it melt?” 

“No,” Severus keeps his voice level, his gaze ducked as though he has an ounce of respect left for Regulus, “She might die.” 

Regulus reaches for the towel. 

Notes:

- The Pulcinella mask signifies Neapolitan culture and identity, it inculcates the "simple man" who faces life's challenges with humor and resilience. So there is the dualism of being both a trickster and a kind-hearted person, often associated with survival and reinvention.
- The jacket Harry wears is actually the same one Reggie wore in HFA, in chapter 3. Gentleness of the wind.
- No I didn't Google how to make a bomb lmaooo, so I'm making use of the fanfiction-made-it-the-fuck-up license when it comes to the boom boom stuff. That being said, dentists have ample access to Nitrous oxide, AND it does have explosive qualities when agitated with a reagent.
Several things to mention before we proceed with the following chapters:

-I read this quote by Richard Price over eight years ago that maintained something along the lines of, ‘the bigger the issue, the smaller you write’ and how one has to work off the resonance of that manageable chunk to make the writing more impactful and memorable. I have always tried to adhere to that and especially in a story where the primary focus is character introspection this takes precedence.

- So writing about the ways of war, filling up the chapters with fighting, and duelling and curses and a hunt is not what most readers would want to read, I bet. Having said this, we need those manageable chunks in order to have a cohesive and paced narrative and so I just wanted to explain my thought process behind the movement of the Second Wizarding War as seen from my perspective, totally feel free to skip this by the way, just gonna be me rambling on my hyperfixations lmao:

- Progression: not from the side of the resistance, but from the Death Eaters’ account. They hold the majority; they’ve already toppled the official ‘government’ in the Ministry and installed their own puppet politician in its place. So, having this speedy transfer of power would make the proliferation of violence or its prolonging a bit redundant, right? WRONG.

- Securing the Ministry would be the least of Voldemort’s worries. I am completely disregarding the canon here and going off based on my own characterisation and research but there are several societal priorities that Voldemort, would have even with the government under their thumb:

(a) Squashing resistance: even though Voldemort has a ranked army and more numbers, the scales are only slightly uneven, given the involvement of magic and the lack of artillery and finite resources. So every single person he gets to eradicate, the less chance of resistance. The locations that they have occupied do not serve any ‘land potential’ but rather make the entire area devoid of resistance forces. Reclaiming those areas would not only help the Light side gain back its numbers and new members but also give them the space to do so safely without being hunted.

(b) JKR’s lore is absurdly limited, Europe is no small piece of land and even statistically speaking the population would be spread out vastly, and assimilated to its Muggle population and even so the numbers would at least be in the tens of thousands; removing certain demographics from the diasporas is not just a matter of cleaning out a singular town or a village.

(c) All the resources: he fully has the intention and the means to go thru the populace with a fine-tooth comb, plucking out resistance and registering the ‘undesirables’ at the same time. This responsibility, of course, when allocated to lower ranks, would result in terrorization of these local areas.

(d) Keeping Order busy enough that they will realistically be unlikely to attempt going after Voldemort or any other Horcruxes; all of their resources has to be allocated to keeping the balance, preventing bigger disasters and a larger-scale genocide. For Voldemort, this serves not only as a measure that exhausts the other side, but also purely as entertainment and torturing Reg.

(e) Coveting Europe: he is a creature of desire and so the moment he has Britain in hand, he will undoubtedly attempt to expand his empire; this means he needs England to be a stronghold, socially and politically, before he attempts any other ventures, and seeing as how he is essentially immortal, he will be in no hurry to accomplish this.

2- The concept of the “Original sin”: Not always in a biblical or religious context but broadly speaking, the first heinous act of transgression that results in the suffering of the characters in that narrative. The original sin in this story was ofc the first instance of rape in HBT, as it shaped the entirery of the story that came after it.
-I am a fan of reserving the original sin because the impact and the first act of violation is what makes it so unspeakably revolting. I know that the readers are also incredibly smart and media-literate, so there will be a lot of metaphorical violence at play that pertains to the sin without besmirching it.

Chapter 22: 22.—Sinking my teeth into your tender flesh

Notes:

New chapter just in time for Harry's birthdayyyy
Thank you guys so much for reading. We're entering the last ride!
I will check and respond to all comments very soon, I'm just swamped with work and papers rn (I love ya'll)
-btw the word I made up is actually "congeations", and I take it as a synonym for "condolences" and no, I am not open to criticism or ridicule on this, it came to me in a dream for a reason.

Please check the warnings on the work and series and proceed with full caution. This chapter will include graphic warnings as well, but as they contain spoilers, you can click to reveal the warnings below. This chapter contains VERY GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND DESCRIPTIONS OF EXPLICIT MATTERS. If you want to skip this portion, skip over Reggie's first and second POV in the chapter.

Click to reveal

The POV will contain Minor character death of a woman in labour, a non-explicit birthing scene, an incredible amount of violence and vore, starvation of an infant, references to infanticide (SHE'S FINE, NOTHING HAPPENS), and Suicide ideation.

Happy reading!!

22.—Sinking my teeth into your tender flesh

1996

It’s all so wrong, is what she keeps thinking any time she’s even slightly off the sherry. 

She’s seen it in all the orbs and in the tea leaves stuck to the walls of little teacups and in her dreams. She’s tried telling them all about it. The dark omen in the sky, which just hovers over the school, unseen by the masses. She tells the ghosts, and they drift away from her. She tells Minerva, and she shakes her head. Nothing is new. 

She tells herself that this won’t change anything. Even though it’s all wrong. She knows she won’t be believed. It always used to be like that; other colleagues, her students who think she’s batty, her Mother, her brother when he was alive. The children at school, in this same school, when they used to leave dead toads on her bed, and taunt her for not seeing them coming: 

 ‘Silly Sybill’s in the tree, singing to the squirrels!’

But she knows. She always knew and she knows now, deep down. It’s all wrong , she tells herself, over and over again, breathing the words under her lips, and wonders whether it’s meant to be soothing. She shuffles her cards, her hands shaking on the sequin-encrusted tablecloths, the purple, gold, and silver. She knows it’s not the shaking of her hands that determines the cards that fall out of the stack. It’s destiny. It’s a curse. 

Each card induces a horrified gasp, her trembling hand clasped over her mouth in an empty classroom, writhing and squirming on the seat with distress as she stares down. Ten of swords. 

Then comes The Tower. The Devil. Five of Cups. Knight and Swords. 

Not a single good reading comes of it. And she does it again and again, and she dampens her lips with her beloved sherry, sloshing in the bottle, shaking with her. She shuffles again and again. The same cards. The same order, even. 

The castle does not crumble around her. Almost empty of its occupants. The world keeps its devastating crawl, the sky keeps spinning, and sure, she cries, but they all think she’s a damn loon, so no one cares to investigate the sobbing and horrified blabbering. It’s a performance that gets old quickly. She leaves the cards as they are on the table, reflecting back on an ominous orb. Sybill knocks her head back with the bottle to drink, feeling the last straining droplets of sherry melt on her tongue. 

She thinks about telling Albus. But what good did it do the last time? 

She gets herself her last bottle of sherry from her headquarters and has a brief window of clarity where she chuckles, clutching the bottle with bitter reminiscence. How fitting that she wouldn’t need to restock. 

She thought of giving the stars a shot. Astrology wasn’t her preferred way of divination, and it is unlikely to change anything, but denial has its ways. There’s a tug in her chest, pulling her out of the castle. 

Her skirts brush against the many stairs of the astronomy tower, she clutches the bannister with one hand, her bottle with another and she pauses to take a swig of the bottle every few steps as a reward. Liquid courage and all. She can feel a slight dampness in the air, the faint sound of a storm. A bit drunk, Sybill Trewlaney yanks her body up the tower patiently, staggering like a floatwood on uneasy waves. 

The air is cool against her face and Sybill closes her eyes, pushing down the stifling in her limbs. She knows the signs. She felt it the moment she left the castle. She trips over the railing, her vision swims and her body seizes up. She always hated the feeling. Her limbs locking, choking on her own spit, and feeling as though something in her lungs needs to be expelled. Her eyes roll up towards the clouds and her fingers dig into the frail railing. 

She never quite remembers the words yanked out of her mouth, when she becomes possessed by a vision, but she sometimes gets a feeling, an aftertaste of who they are meant for. That’s how she found out about the Potters, sixteen years ago. The phantom leaves her the instant it enters her and leaves her robbed, cold, and mumbling.

Albus. 

She cries, choking on her own saliva, she tears herself away from the rails, her boots uneven on the stone tiles, seeking the fresh air. It’s all so wrong. 

“Albus! I have’ta—Have to—”

Her body tilts to the left, her boots slip on the ledge of the balcony, and her skirts, layered and mismatched, a multitude of colours, whip in the air as she stumbles back and the words die on her lips with a harsh gasp. It’s a long way down; she’s too drunk to stop it. 

Hagrid finds her mangled body on the grass the morning after, still holding onto a broken bottle. 

The Fool, reversed.

...

He has this crazy idea that the sea is mad at him.

He watches as the waves lash at the shore; the wind whips against his face, musses his hair, licks his flesh with salt. In the dark of an evening like this, the waves look almost black, all-engulfing. Harry can’t tell whether the waves worsen the aches in his body or soothe them. 

The last time he was by the sea, he was too naive and immature to see its rage. Or maybe it was just that the waves were gentler to him when Papa and Dad were around. 

Harry wanted to protest when Dad left him and Draco here the night before; he was off on his own, following a trail. He’d grabbed Harry’s shoulders and told him to carry on with his duties and take care of himself until he returned. It would have sent him spiralling a year ago, but Harry has long learned to live with the panic of his father not coming back. 

He felt like roaring like the waves. But Dad doesn’t fucking care, and the Shell Cottage is a marginally better safe house than a tent anyhow. Yet, he can’t bring himself to go back inside once he returns from Cumbria. He sees the warm, orange lights lighting the cottage, the distant chiming of bells. His boots sink into the sand. 

And he stupidly hugs Papa’s rain jacket against his body as he stands on the beach, blanched of all its hues. He approaches the cottage with a concurrent sense of unwillingness and yearning. He hasn’t seen Draco since morning and is always bewildered to discover how much he misses the boy’s presence when they’re apart. Not that he will ever tell Draco such a thing, but still, it’s fine to think of it in private. 

He wants to avoid the front door and its silly windchimes, mostly because he’d hate attracting any attention to himself once he enters the safe house. He knows other Order Members frequent the cottage, and he is not particularly a chatty person. Whenever he’s alone with one of them, they just throw him pitying looks, or worse, glances filled to the brim with hope that the Boy-Who-Lived is going to sweep in and save the day. A bunch of entitled, audacious fuckers, as far as Harry is concerned. They only care about their own behinds, as they should, honestly, but Harry has no obligation to grant them peace if they don’t want to get their hands dirty. 

He knows Papa would’ve been mad at him for thinking like that. He knows the man would’ve wanted him to choose being good. 

He cringes when the windchimes softly clank together once he opens the door. He can hear voices from the kitchen, and he sees the back of Ron’s body hunched over Hermione and furiously muttering something. Harry feels like a damn arsehole, but heads to the stairs instead of greeting his friends, who are quite obviously there to see him. 

He needs to check on Draco first. And just…he needs a moment. 

The room they share in the shell cottage is much smaller than Harry’s old room used to be, and slightly more spacious than the space he and Draco had in the tent. The walls are white and rustic, encrusted with shells; there is no electricity, so they’ve had to make use of magic and oil lamps. Harry sees immediately upon entering the room that Draco has revamped the bed by pulling off the bedding and transferring it to the window nook instead. Where they’ll be sleeping, presumably, and all the closer to the haunting sound of the waves. Next to it, the little wooden writing desk and its chair sit snugly pressed against the wall. And sitting upon said chair and hunched over a book, Draco. Squinting at the words under the oil lamp, rubbing at his temple. 

Harry grunts in greeting, stomping his boots over the threshold, just so he gets some of the sand out before he steps inside. Draco hums back. Harry smothers a small smile as he stands and admires the view from his peripheral vision; it catches him off guard, only the most, when Draco is cast under direct light. Exhilaration shoots right through his veins as he looks at the boy, often caught in a halo of a sunset or sunrise, or now, embraced by the warm orange glow of an oil lamp, like snow caught under the sun. Harry would describe it more, would spend hours jotting down every single inch his eyes cover, had he loved the view any less. 

Glowing, should suffice. Warmth. 

Draco’s face twists again, and he rubs at his eyes. Harry feels bad and walks over, “You okay?”

He doesn’t like it when he has to leave the boy most days. Maybe it’s the codependency of having lived with him, attached to his hip for so many months. Maybe it’s the anxiety of losing him the same way he lost his family. Or maybe he just doesn’t like it because it’s Draco . And seeing him even slightly in pain causes him physical discomfort. Whatever the case, Harry can’t help but feel like shit every time he walks away from the boy to go on runs; sometimes he can take Draco with him, but not always. He can tell that the constant moving annoys him, might even be difficult for him because of his ankle. He’s wanted too, an Undesirable just like Harry.  

Maybe it’s a selfish part of him that insists Draco should be away from all this. 

“I think I might need glasses soon,” Draco huffs, “After all this reading.”

“You should see Hermione’s light reading.” There is a small pause, “She and Ron are in the kitchen.”

“I heard them downstairs, but I haven’t gone down yet.” Draco admits, and then whines: “My head is pounding.”

Harry makes a sympathetic sound in his throat and flops his body over Draco’s on the chair, closing his arms around the boy, “Take a rest.” he closes his eyes and feels the weight of the boy leaning back against him. Physical comfort is such a luxury to have at times like this.

“You stink.”

“I’ve been doing a run,” Harry draws away apologetically and figures that it’s extremely shitty of him to cuddle Draco with his mission jacket still on, “We might head North West soon. Dad wants me to scope it out.” 

He unbuttons the rain jacket and prunes his nose at himself. Yeah, running around Cumbria all day would leave him smelling like a dead dog left out in the sun. Dad is very insistent on Cumbira being their next target, and his reasoning to Sirius and the others, was that it’s closer to Hogwarts. Securing the location would mean it can function as a buffer when Voldemort finally decides to attack the school. 

But Harry knows the real reason. Dad wants the Lake District back. Because a part of Papa’s soul is there, trapped in the meadow and weeping willows, and a headstone that Harry himself had never visited before. Dad wants Cumbria because he wants that headstone, and because he talks to Papa when he thinks no one is around at night. 

Harry will do anything for his Dad to be even slightly better. It’s the least he can do before he finally dies.

Draco is looking at him over the chair, his face grim like he’s following Harry’s exact line of thought. “You know, it is extremely reckless of him to send you out there when there’s a poster with your face on it plastered on every wall.”

“I don’t mind.”

“No,” Draco turns to hide his face, “I think you’re even itching for a fight. He knows that, too.”

Harry rolls his eyes as he discards the jacket on the floor and kicks it towards the door to be laundered. He slips both hands into his combat trousers pockets to pull out his emotional support Quidditch figurine and the small switch knife he carries on him. He endures Draco’s disapproving silence for a beat longer as he runs a hand through his hair and scoffs, “It’s not that bad.”

“Wrose was a stroke of luck. We’re too outnumbered to keep fighting like this, and he keeps sending you out—” 

Harry looks down at Anthony Grave’s chipped figurine, “I’m too tired for this conversation, Draco.”

And it’s not as though they have better alternatives. What should they do? Just roll over, belly up, waiting for their eventual demise? While Papa suffers? What can they possibly do? Besides storming the land and overturning the earth to look for the bastard? And that fucker who’s stolen Papa’s face, they can’t just let him roam about. They can’t let him sully his father’s name any further. 

He stares at the boy’s purple eyes, engulfed by the orange light, shining in the near dark, and the boy nods his head before shaking it at him. Draco knows, if nobody else does. Why Harry needs to do this before he dies. 

“Harry,” Draco heaves a loud sigh, “This guy… You can’t hunt him down. He’s smarter than that. He won’t be prancing around anymore. If you find him out in the open, it’ll be because of a trap.”

“Dad said he might be close to Papa, in order to have access to his…” his breath catches, “To get his looks straight. If we get him, we might have a shot at finding the Manor.”

They hear a faint argument gathering momentum downstairs, the curtains rustle with the wind and the sea current. Harry has long grown out of crying over spilt milk, but he feels melancholy, actively trying to choke him, pressing down on the scar on his throat with its boot. 

“I know what you want,” Draco tells him, “I want that too. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

Harry decides not to grace the boy’s concern with any sort of response that would incriminate him any further. He slumps on the cot Draco has haphazardly arranged in the window nook, and wipes at his face with the collar of his black undershirt. Summer is terrible this year. It’s either fucking raining all the time, or it’s boiling hot. 

“Don’t get in the cot, shower first,” Draco groans at him, his mouth pulled as he shuffles out of the seat to stretch, “for Merlin’s sake.”

“I will,” Harry closes his eyes and tilts his head back until it hits the cool surface of the window’s pane, “My feet hurt right now and you’ve stripped the bed.” 

The air wheezes in and out of his lungs, and the pressure in his legs lessens a bit when he stretches them out on the floor. He doesn’t even want to know what they look like inside the boots. Hours of walking and riding Norton Jr. around rural England would leave its marks, no matter how much magic he uses. Not that he cares for his own health all that much. Repentance doesn’t exactly work like that. 

“Granger and Weasley aren’t here to see me, you know.” 

Harry twists his mouth, “Yeah, yeah. Just need a shut-eye before going down.”

He knows he heard them when coming up and he knows that they heard him enter the cottage. Thankfully, they are wise enough to let him be until he decides to go down. It’s nothing personal against them, and they probably know that. But every interaction is so painful. Because they want their friend back and Harry can’t contend with the memories and the attachments. He can’t stand it that they still love him and care about him. It feels like an abraded sore every time they send a letter or pass a note through an Order Member, or show up to see him. 

They don’t always talk. Sometimes they just sit and lean against him for an hour or two before leaving, but the encounter still leaves its scars on Harry’s body. 

He hears Draco fondly clicking his tongue, hobbling over to nudge at his boot with his socked foot, “Don’t grimace like this in their faces when they wish you happy birthday.”

“It was months ago.”

“It was a week ago, actually. You just forgot.” The tone is drenched with a fond derision. Something tragic. Because, of course, Draco knows that Harry didn’t forget. He just actually loathes the idea that he was alive to age for another year. 

Harry opens one eye, “Please tell me there’s no cake.”

“No, you miserable sod.” Draco shakes his head, his fingers deftly untangling his braided hair. “There’s no cake, just…ugh. You can stay here and brood, I’m going to make use of the roof we currently have over our head and clean.”

Harry watches as Draco turns towards the door and then trips on nothing, his hand flying out in the air to steady himself with a curse. Harry jolts up to catch him, but Draco waves him off.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Draco rubs at his eyes and holds onto the door, “Just been sitting and reading for too long. So, um—” there’s an awkward pause when the boy turns to regard Harry blankly for a beat, his lips purses and his hand fidgeting on the doorknob, “Do you wanna join me?” 

“In the shower? Why?”

The tentative hope on Draco’s face immediately fades into an unimpressed sneer, “What do you mean, why ?”

“To conserve water? I don’t think we’re that desperate yet—”

Draco opens his mouth for a beat and then snaps it shut, “Never mind,” he says, “God. Don’t dirty the sheets.”

Harry sits dumbfounded, watching as the boy slams the door shut on his way out. He feels tempted to follow the boy and either take him up on the offer or ask him more insistently about what he actually wanted. But there’s another part of him that thinks that maybe Draco shouldn’t want to be around him as often as he wishes so. Even though it hurts Harry himself. It’ll be harder to move on once he dies. 

He gets up to head downstairs with a groan, not because he’s not tired and certainly not because he wants Ron and Hermione to leave the cottage any faster, but irrationally because he knows Draco actually doesn’t like him getting the sheets dirty in the state he’s in. He changes out of his mission clothes into a shirt and his jeans and pads down the stairs barefoot. 

“We heard you come in,” Ron tells him once he walks past the couch into the cramped kitchen. “Come here” 

He opens his arms and though there is a small part of Harry that thinks he doesn’t deserve the embrace or worse, that he’s outgrown it, there’s a noticeable voice in his brain lashing against it, urging him to step into Ron’s hug. And he does. The boy is still a head taller than him despite the growth spurt, but Harry doesn’t mind. He breathes in his friend’s scent and leans his forehead against the solid chest and all the exhaustion begins pulling down his limbs again. He’d grown too used to sleeping in Ron’s arms and feeling safe from the world. It’s not fair. 

Ron draws away too soon and Hermione, now a bit shorter than Harry, takes his place with a nod. Harry hugs her tightly, noting as he draws back that her eyes are red-rimmed and there’s a scrunched-up tissue in her hand that she dabs her nose with once she draws back. She kisses him on the cheek and Harry settles a hand over her head, “Hey.”

“Hi,” she sounds and looks like she’s been crying. And Harry feels fucking horrible. He hugs her again, and she sniffs into the tissue. He really should have come in here the moment he made it back to the cottage, “Happy birthday, Harry—”

“You okay?” 

She wipes at her blotchy face with the tissue, squirming away from Ron’s comforting hand on her shoulder to nod at Harry, “It’s fine. I’m fine.” 

“You really don’t look alright.”

Hermione tries for a moment to control her expression but then she bursts into tears, hiding her face in her hands, and her shoulders shake. Harry throws a wary look at Ron, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong!?”

“It’s just my parents—Oh God!”

“Bill dropped us off and he kinda let it slip that her parents are doing mission work for the Order,” Ron tells Harry quietly, “They’ve been gone for a whole day already.”

“No wonder they weren’t answering my calls!” Hermione breaks out of a hug and reels back, curling her hand into a fist and fanning her face with her other hand. Harry doesn’t think he’s ever seen her this shaken, “And they didn’t tell me! I could have gone with them! They’re only Muggles, they can’t protect themselves or—What were they thinking—”

Harry doesn’t have anything to say. He didn’t know the Grangers were seriously considering such a thing. Not many wizards and witches have; most Muggle-borns opt to just leave the country while they can and risk getting abducted instead of remaining behind to fight. For two Muggles without any weapons or advantage to undertake such a huge responsibility…Harry shakes his head. Somehow, he feels that this has Barty written all over it. But he can’t exactly prove it; he hasn’t talked to the man or his Godfathers in a long time. 

“I’m sorry.”

“We’ve been stuck in these houses or Hogwarts,” Hermione rages, “It’s useless! We need to do something, I can’t keep sitting here while my parents are out there!”

“Yeah,” Ron scoffs, side-stepping her to open a cupboard and rummage for mugs, “keep up that rhetoric around Mum or your parents. That’ll go swimmingly.”

“We should have run away like the twins did,” Hermione seethes back, and it’s as though they’ve had this argument at least a dozen times before without Harry present, “Your Mum isn’t the boss of us.”

Ron holds an empty mug under the kitchen faucet, and with his back to both Harry and Hermione, it’s hard to see the way his gaze darkens and his mouth pulls down, “I dare you to say that to her face.”

“Oh, go screw yourself, Ronald!” she shoves at him and races out of the kitchen, storming up the stairs. Harry stands in shock, glancing after her as Ron calmly fills up his mug and turns the faucet off to take a drink. Harry looks at him and Ron sips at his water. 

“I just don’t want her to get hurt,” he says eventually. 

“I didn’t say anything.”

Ron makes a face to differ but doesn’t push it, “What do you know about the plight of being a helpless sitting duck anyway. You’re out there fighting every day.”

Harry doesn’t assume the comment to be a bitter remark out of jealousy. Because Ron looks bloody devastated that he’s here, ruined that he’s idle and unable to help Harry or others. They’ve had this conversation before very briefly, but Harry was too swaddled with grief to give any mind to it. Because the lives Ron and Hermione live right now are exponentially worse than Harry’s. They have to be witnesses to the world deteriorating around them and yet not active participants in saving it. Maybe if Papa had been here, Harry would have been in the same spot. He never would have wanted Harry on the battlefield. He spent his entire life making sure Harry wasn’t fighting alone. 

But oh well.

“She’s a Muggleborn,” Ron keeps on, looking out the window, “You’ve seen what those animals are doing. Can you imagine her—”

“Ron, you either care or you don’t.” Harry interjects, “Just tell her that and let her decide. Her parents already have.”

“I care.” Ron snaps, shoving the Mug down on the table, “I lost my Dad too. My brothers are out there like you every day. Percy’s all fucked up in the head; he can’t even feed himself. I want to be out there too. But I have to think of my Mum. And Hermione and my sister and Percy—” and you. Goes unsaid. 

Harry drops his head, and he wants to say that he feels as deeply about this as Ron does but the truth is the world out there makes you jaded. Because he knows that Ron cares and he knows that Hermione knows that too but he also knows that they shouldn’t. Life is too short for them to keep skirting around each other. Life is too precious for them to be confused about why they love each other. Harry wishes he had enough energy left in him to start that conversation. 

“I know.” he says instead, “I’m sorry.”

“Girls are so confusing, Mate.” Ron rubs his face, “She’s got to know that I’m not a coward. That we’re staying here for her safety. That I don’t care if I die, I only care if something happens to you or her…”

Right , Harry can’t disagree with him. He actually fully agrees that there is a lot to be said about people that he just doesn’t understand. Like the reason why Draco would want to be around him all the time. Why would he snuggle up to him in his sleep, or play with the little amethyst Harry got him as a gift when he’s bored or why he wants to shower with him… “They don’t see that you’re drowning,” he affirms, “That you just want to get past the bloody storm. That your every thought concerns them. No, instead they want you to stay put and join them in the shower—”

“What.” 

“Why would he want to shower with me?” Harry groans again, digging his palms into his eyes in frustration as the back of his neck heats up, “I mean, what’s so special about washing your back naked in front of someone else—”

“Draco wants to shower with you?”

He sounds so utterly astounded by the notion that Harry drops his hands to look at his friend. Ron is staring at him with his mouth bobbing open like a fish and Harry drops down on the nearest seat in exasperation, “I can’t fathom why! Have you guys spoken today? Did he tell you why he would want something like that—”

“He asked to shower with you,” Ron repeats again, “And you’re standing here?”

“Yes.” 

Ron gives him a look of utter disbelief. 

“What!?”

“I didn’t say anything!” the boy exclaims, snatching his mug to refill it with water. Harry darts back to his feet and grabs at Ron’s arm.

“You know you gave me a look!” he accuses, “Why would I shower with him!? There’s no point, and you guys were waiting down here—”

Ron shakes his head with a choked laugh, fills up his mug and chugs the entire thing in one breath, fills his cup again and repeats the action all the while Harry is staring at him desperately. “Ron—”

“Because he asked.” Ron laughs again, a shrill hysterical declaration of disbelief, “He probably wanted to fondle you or something, oh Merlin be damned.”

“What?”

“And don’t get me wrong,” Ron turns to the window, puffing out the air in his chest, “I’ve seen the fucker in his Quidditch uniform. Once you look past all the blinding white, I’m sure there are redeeming qualities—Wow, you actually are that clueless.”

Harry is too shocked to say anything for a second. The audacity and hilarity of Ron to tell him that he’s clueless about such things is so monumental that he just stands there with an open mouth, stuttering and shaking his head, “You’re the clueless one!” he finally sputters, “Hermione is clearly besotted with—”

“Harry.”

Harry cuts himself off, looking at Ron, who’s lowered his mug into the sink, his eyes are fixed on the window, and he peers out into the dark. 

“What?”

“Is Draco planning on showering in the sea?”

Harry almost shoves the boy away. His heart in his throat, he quickly tries to get a glimpse of the shore. And sure enough, through the curtains and the closed window, they both see the lanky, albino boy, staggering in the waves, the water lapping up and soaking his pyjama pants. Almost up to his thighs. 

“What the fuck—” Harry’s heart stops, “Draco!” 

They both scramble for the back door in the kitchen, throwing it open to run out on the porch. Harry’s breath catches and his feet slam on the damp sand, his hands propelling his body forward and the wind whipping at his face and running down his arms, slowing him down. 

“Draco!? What are you doing!? Draco!”

Somehow, the distance between him and the water is too long a stretch. Harry’s bruised legs ache as they pound against the ground. 

“Get away from the waves!”

Draco is out there, in the water, his white hair glittering under the dim moonlight, his body swayed by the wind and the waves like a small boat, and no matter how loudly Harry yells, the boy does not turn or respond. Ron screams the boy’s name just as loudly and when Harry finally breaks into the waves, he has to smother a gasp. The water is too cold. He fights against the current, his feet digging into the sand, tiny little rocks that litter the sea floor, “Draco!? Draco!” 

Draco doesn’t turn; he’s only about a few feet away from Harry, and Harry rushes on, plunging deeper into the water until his hand touches the boy’s shoulder. He grabs and yanks the body back, a scream of indignation half-formed in his throat, a protest that dies on his lips once he sees Draco’s slack face. The trail of blood, steadily dripping from his nose and his eyes, rolled back to the back of his head. 

“Oh fuck me—” Harry breathes, quickly gathering Draco’s limp body closer to his own. 

“Go get Hermione!” he shouts at Ron and loops Draco’s unresponsive arms around his neck, alleviating his weight with the water’s help, “We need to call someone! Go!” Ron hurries back immediately and Harry presses his lips into Draco’s hair and keeps his eyes on the shore, the safety of land, and Ron’s body, thundering back towards the cottage, “You’re okay, I’ve got you,” he breathes against Draco’s damp skin, dragging them towards the cottage. 

“I’ve got you.”

 

...

 

The interior of the warden’s office is so laughably jarring compared to the rest of the torture house that Barty takes a moment on the threshold to savour its surreal absurdity. 

Truth is, right? Truth is, they were never this organised and bound together the first time around. There were cells and guards and some fucker in charge of cleaning up bodies. There was no warden, no system, no office in a torture house that looked like a pureblood puked opulent furniture all over it. 

His bloodied boots drag on the rug and he has to take a moment and rein himself in as a portly man inside, lumbering on a leather armchair flags him inside with a raised hand and a glass of scotch. Leonard Pachette closes the door behind and the screams die immediately, as though sucked in through a vacuum. Barty wills his boots to trudge over the carpet, and he looks around the dimly lit room, just to be sure, that it’s only him and Crabbe Sr. in the office. No warden. 

Barty is not used to being this lucky. 

“Sir,” he nods his head, swallowing back the bile of disgust that threatens to eject out of him. He hasn’t seen Crabbe Senior in longer than a decade, so he can’t exactly say that he’s missed the port belly, the nasty grin, his grey eyes, and his annoying scruffed chin badly shaved of the facial hair. 

“Man of the hour, I hear.” Crabbe chortles into his glass, smacks his lips and beckons him closer, “Heard all about you the second I set foot here.”

“I was told the Warden wanted to have a word with me.”

“Bah,” the fucker waves him off, “That old cow. He wanted to take the credit for your arrest, mind you. I sent him to yonder. I wanted to speak with you myself. Got here a little early.”

“I see.” 

“Trouble is, I haven’t got much time. See,” there is a slow pause as he guzzles on the glass, his lips sucking on the bits of ice, “You’re young. Only started out. It takes a while to become a busy man. You should savour it, Pachette. Pachette, is it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hmm, odd name. Half-blood?”

“Yes.” Barty holds his breath, avoiding Crabbe’s eyes by focusing on his leather shoes instead. Polished but speckled with blood. He can pretend and design his nifty little office as much as he likes, but it’s not really going to wash away the filth of his wrongdoings. It has become abundantly clear to Barty over the years, that these fuckers don’t like the blood and torturing any more than the next fellow. They just seek power badly enough to get someone to get their hands dirty for them. 

“Right then. Good that you’re cleaning up your blood’s filth.” Crabbe spits out but then shakes his head, “I was saying, yes. Yes. I haven’t got much time, so we shall wrap this up quickly. Maybe you’ll promote your rank at the end of the day. Who’s to say?”

“Really?” Barty honestly doesn’t remember it ever being this easy. And he came from a pureblood family himself. 

“I might give you this place,” Crabbe eggs him on, “How’d you like that? Hm? Your own little torture house. And then you’ll work some more and after our glorious victory, you’ll rise up the ranks again.”

“It will be an honour.”

Barty would rather cut off his own hand and jerk himself off with it before even considering such a thing. He shuffles on his feet, schools his features and very pointedly doesn’t think about the fact that he’s left Jean and Richard with that vile bitch in that cell. 

“You’ll be important. A busy man. Like me. See, Pachette I like scouting talent where I can.”

“Right.”

“I believe,” Crabbe fumbles with his wand to summon the scotch bottle, out of breath in his struggles. The ice bits in his glass clink and Barty bites his lip to keep from sneering at the bastard. God, he is just so incredibly exhausted by these low-life, pompous sadists. “See, I believe younger talent like you, needs a little taste of heaven themselves. A little motivation.” 

Crabbe gestures at him to sit on the armchair facing his and Barty swallows. He watches as the man fills a second glass in addition to refilling his own and levitates it towards him. His wand twitches in his sleeve, and Barty traitorously thinks about stunning Crabbe right now and taking flight. 

Jean and Richard knew what they’d signed up for after all. Had it been him, maybe about ten years ago, Barty would have done it without any preamble. But now he just sits, grabs the small glass and takes a sip while Crabbe ravages his own liquor. 

“Once you’ve earned your keep a little, you’ll get access to all sorts of things. No more writhing in this squalor. You get privileges, people under your command, invitations . Like the one I have for tonight.”

A lewd smirk plays on the man’s lips and Barty traps the gasp in his chest, dampening his lips with the scotch but not actually drinking any, “Invitation? To hold an audience with our Lord?”

Crabbe chortles, an ugly fucking sound, like a dog chuffing, “Amongst other things, yeah, Pachette. Sure, there are the meetings but see—” he lowers his glass and his other hand lowers to his thigh, pressing down suggestively as he leans to the edge of his seat, “I meant an invitation to a more exotic type of thing. A little heaven, so to speak.”

Barty lowers his glass, his fingers clenching it so hard that he’s scared of the thing shattering in the air. He takes a controlled breath, “Yeah?”

Crabbe hums, palming himself with a filthy chuckle again, “A private show. Only us older members get a taste, you see. Exotic little thing, he is. I won’t spoil it much for you, but dear Merlin, they call him the Dark Lord’s jewel for a reason.”

Barty’s brain is unpleasantly numb. A high whistling roaring in his ears and his eyes glaze as Crabbe goes on, lost in his lechery and drunkenness, “He gets whipped with chains and caned for hours on end, cries for them even like a wanton bitch! It’s not like torturing the Mudbloods here, no. See… how do I describe it? Bet you haven’t seen the guy but—”

Barty lowers his glass slowly on the side table, his heart strangely calm as rage floods his brain and his ears flush with anger. Strangely calm as his wand slips out of its holster, and the fucker is still going, groping himself in front of Barty with cackles and abandon, “—his buttocks and thighs! Merlin, if only you could see it, Pachette.” 

“But I digress,” Crabbe suddenly exclaims, leaning back in his seat as Barty’s fingers brush over his wand. “You’ll see for yourself once you rise up the ranks. It is an oasis that just keeps on giving. And I better not get excited before I leave. These Muggles you’ve got. What connection do they have with Dumbledore ?”

Barty doesn’t respond. All those lines he had practised in his head, all the restraint he had beaten into himself like a broken horse, taper down. He hates that he was right. He hates that Crabbe does have access to the Manor. He hates that his desire to kill and skin this fucker is threatening to overthrow his urge to keep the bastard alive as he had planned. 

His throat closes up, and he is so taken by devastation, horror, disgust, and grief that he can feel the flames lapping up to his cheeks. 

“What, Niffler got your tongue, boy? You better not have lied about this—”

“They’re Order Members.” Barty is lethally calm. His voice, even when he speaks, his breathing slow and paced, “Tracked them by the borders. They’re working with Dumbeldore. And they’re Potter’s Mudblood friend’s parents.”

“Are they now?”

Barty’s fingers curl around his wand as he nods slowly. His lungs seize and Crabbe rubs his chin, glancing down at his empty glass and pouting. He looks incredibly vexed by the idea of summoning the scotch bottle back over for a refill again. 

Barty withdraws his wand from his sleeve and points it at the bottle by Crabbe’s side, “May I, sir?”

His voice almost cracks. His chest almost flutters, and he almost breaks down with rage and grief where he sits. He can’t erase what he’d just heard. He can’t. Because Crabbe isn’t simply lusting over a stranger. This disgusting pile of horse shit, is palming himself at the idea of Regulus’ torment and—

Barty is going to pieces. 

“You know how to lick a boot, Pachette,” Crabbe snorts, “I like that about you, you know how to—”

The entire tower is rocked before Barty can attack Crabbe. They can’t hear any sound because of the silencing charms, but they feel another strong pulse, like an earthquake, hurled at the building. The glasses and bottles fall and break. Crabbe hastily shoves himself out of his seat. 

Barty stands up in alarm too, his mind races, and he wonders hysterically whether Jean and Richard are behind this before the thought is immediately confirmed. Crabbe throws the door open. Barty can instantly hear the sounds of a riot, gunshots, and another deafening boom going off beneath their feet. 

Smoke fills the corridors. Crabbe curses, whipping out his wand, “Follow me!” he snaps at Barty and charges into the smoke. Barty follows at the same pace. He is NOT losing this abomination, and he probably needs to save Jean and Richard before they do something more stupid. 

Another explosion tilts the tower and Crabbe reels back against Barty’s lanky frame. Barty can’t exactly hear the chaos on this storey, but he hears them very clearly from lower levels. Crabbe stuffs himself in the metal lift and Barty staggers along, not pointing out how dangerous it is to do such a thing in a building that is actively being blown up. 

Each floor that they descend is one of utter mayhem; harsh flashes of dark curses flung into the corridor, people, victims and snatchers alike, pressed against the scissor gates of the lift, yanking at the harsh metal with bleeding hands. Crabbe has pressed himself to the wall furthest away inside the lift, cursing under his breath and sweating like a pig. Barty looks at the discord and panic with a sick sort of satisfaction. 

The lift creaks, rocks, and shakes its way to the ground floor, where Barty watches the centrepiece of the pandemonium unfolding right before his eyes at once. It’s difficult to explain it, through all the smoke and harsh orange and red, the sprawled dead bodies of snatchers with a hole tearing through their flesh and a gaggle of victims, baring their teeth at them once the lift doors cringe open. 

The couple finds Barty before he sees them. He hears his name, his own name, being screamed out, “BARTY!” 

Barty whirls, grabs Crabbe by the collar and yanks him out of the lift, and the slob, confused and drunk and utterly terrified by what he is being witness to, comes along willingly. Barty sees the wave of angry, barehanded mob, rushing towards them and Jean and Richard from the back, screaming at the people not to. 

“HE’S WITH US! HE’S SAFE!” he can hear Jean hollering over the chaos and Barty slashes his wand at the group, safely driving them back with a strong gust of wind. The crowd flinches back and parts in the middle as the Grangers rush up towards them. 

“Do you have him!? Do you have him—”

Barty drags a dazed Crabbe in front of the couple and takes in their ruffled appearance, because they certainly look like they’ve been through at least two of the explosions they set off. Covered in abrasions, a fair bit of blood and dust, they pant as they check him over. 

“How the fuck did you guys—”

“We should get out of here, right now!” Richard interrupts him, he pulls him by the arm, and Barty looks as the group of injured and tortured Muggles in front of them is already in the process of evacuating and running out of the tower. The floor is rocked. A large portion of the ceiling begins to collapse over them. Barty joins the group running, erecting a shield over their heads as Crabbe hurtles along, his wand tumbling out of his hands. 

They run out of the courtyard, empty of snatchers and only haunted by the pile of bodies. Barty whips his head over his shoulder to catch the building collapsing onto itself, the precariously arranged floors of the tower crashing over each other and undoubtedly crushing the people still stuck inside. Fuck. 

Fuck. 

Jean and Richard pull him with the wave of fleeing people, and Barty pulls at Crabbe’s dead weight. They manage to move a few hundred meters before people stop giving up their haste, either too injured or too tired to run far. 

“How the fuck did you do that!?” Barty screams once they stop, leaning down to catch his breath. 

“Well, we had the pistol and you left the cell door open, so we got rid of the lady, made some friends and shot a bunch of the bad ones—”

“How the fuck did you do that with the bombs—”

“We have doctorates!”

“What does that even mean—”

“It means we didn’t need your magic to detonate the explosives! Though it would have been a great help—” 

“I know I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I got caught up with the bastard—”

Barty is too wary to investigate how they exactly managed to make thirty bombs go off at roughly the same time with no flame or spark, and he supposes that it doesn’t fucking matter at all, because miraculously, they’re all alive, they saved some people, and got Crabbe. They’re still alive. Barty has no idea how any of them is still fucking alive. 

Fuck, he keeps thinking. Fuck. Fuck.

“That’s him?” Jean nods her head at Crabbe’s body sprawled on the ground and Barty rights himself with a distracted nod. All the rage and grief return to his body at once. Crabbe blubbers, coming to himself and looking back at the fallen tower with an ashen face, trembling all over in shock as he gazes up at Barty.

“P—Pachette!? Pachette, the Mudbloods have rioted, they—Pachette!?”

Barty grabs at the fucker and hoists him up, holds a wand to his temple and sneers, “I am no boot licker, you pig. I’m about to be your worst nightmare.” 

“Who?” Crabbe whimpers, covering his head as a few Muggles around him leer and growl threateningly. Barty seizes him again. 

“I am Barty Crouch Junior, and I am about to make your life a living hell. Petrificus totalus!”

Crabbe crumbles to the ground, his wide eyes roaming the faces around him. Barty wipes the soot and sweat off his face and looks up at the group of thirty or so people meekly staring back at him. Right , he thinks wildly. 

They’re in the middle of nowhere, and there may definitely be some people left in the rubble, and he needs to get Crabbe back to the Order somehow but also can’t because of these Muggles the Grangers just rescued. Right. And he’s in charge. 

Fuck. 

 

...

 

Regulus would have loved to lie and say that every time his feet struck the floor of the Malfoy Manor, even in the depths of depravity, even when dragged unwillingly, they did so with grace. He would have loved the illusion that he had the slightest say about his own body and the manner in which it is presented to its entertainers. 

He would remember the day starkly, despite his best attempts to drown such things in a faraway pond, leaving them to fester. He would remember the way his bare feet brushed over the dusty and ruined rugs, limping, his knees unsteadily knocking into each other in his hurry, the way his damp hair clung to his skin, more paper than flesh, run-through and wrung out with the scars and lashes and bruises. He’d remember looking at the back of Severus’ head, at the way his robes billowed in the still air. 

Regulus would recount that he could hear her first. Long before seeing her. From the foyer, the blood-curdling shrieks of a woman, unmitigated like the keens of an injured animal. And he would remember that at first, he stupidly assumed that the woman was simply being tortured. 

They head up from the Foyer to a separate wing using the stairs, towards the many rooms on the second storey of the Manor. The first sign that something was not quite right. They do not head to the sitting room or the dancing hall, where he is usually kept and tormented during a show . They do not head to any other room within Riddle’s wing for a twisted game of defilement. It is an innocuous room, in what previously used to be the Malfoys’ old family wing. 

Severus has to help him with the stairs. Regulus gnashes his teeth at the deplorable man the entire time, a rare streak of defiance running through his blood as he yanks his arm out of the man’s gentle grasp and leans on the bannister, feeling his muscles seize. A thin trail runs down his thighs, sullying the marble, water or blood, who is to say?

The woman begs for mercy in intervals, begs in nonsensical praise, in drawn screams. It sets Regulus on edge, and he usually never allows himself the luxury of feeling horror keenly in his chest, but once they ascend the stairs, the closer they get to a set of large double doors, the harder it becomes to breathe. Snape stops him before they step inside, his gaze unreadable, but something in his posture screams discomfort and regret. Regulus sneers at him and hurls the door open unannounced. 

The sneer dies on his lips. Dead eyes, half-lidded eyes, take in the large room he steps into. A dozen masked Death Eaters stand stuck together like congealed blood at one end of the large furnished room with bowed heads. 

His eyes travel from them to Riddle, and the Monster stands, his red eyes narrowed back at Regulus, nudging the folds of his mind, his scarred mouth stretched in a mocking, benevolent smile once he detects the horror and disgust. He tilts his chin in silence at the bed in the middle, the origin of the screeching. Regulus almost doesn’t want to look. He skipped over it on purpose. But the longer he draws it out, well…

He clasps a hand over his mouth and gags, his sunken stomach turning at the sight. He gags and nothing comes up. Nothing can be expelled because nothing is there. 

There is a woman on the bed, and her lower half is bare. And all the white sheets beneath her body have been soaked crimson with an inexplicable amount of blood. And she is clutching and rending at the sheets, her legs closing and falling open, and sweat gathering over her face in large beads, her hair stuck to her face and neck, and her eyes crazed like an animal in agony. Over the swell of her pregnant belly, the woman’s hand trembles, stained by the blood, pressing down. 

Regulus turns away from the bed, almost crashes into Severus standing behind him and the man’s hands dart out, holding him firmly by the forearms, not allowing him to leave, to run, or to collapse. Regulus fights the touch; his laboured breathing matches the woman’s, and he shakes his head, at Severus, at Tom, at the bed. Maybe if he rebukes it, it will not develop any further. 

“MERCY! MERCY, MY LORD! I BEG—BE—BEG! PLEASE!”

That is no Muggle-born woman, no torture victim. She is a noble. Regulus can tell from the bloodied ring on her bloodied finger, she is a Pureblood woman, and she is naked and bleeding on the bed, and she is about to give birth. He knows her, though she is younger than him.

He feels an overwhelming presence behind his back, a shadow cast over Severus’ bowed head, and two strong hands seize him by the arms. 

Regulus shakes his head with a silent cry, and he begs in tandem with the woman, a litany of ‘no’s quiet and wrenched out of him by force, poison the air, as Tom marches him towards the bed effortlessly, his sharp nails digging and drawing blood from his flesh, his amused breath over Regulus’ head, brushing against his hair. Too close. An assault on the senses. Regulus doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want it. He almost never has to remember the sensations of being touched by him. But now he does. 

One of Riddle’s hands comes to grasp him by the chin, forcing his eyes back on the bed and the writhing woman. 

“Look,” he orders Regulus, savagely holding onto his chin, “ Look at her.”

There is quite a bit of force and magic drenching the command. Regulus’ eyes unwittingly find the woman’s again, and she regards him in utter disgust, agony, and reverence when they slip up to meet the Dark Lord’s. An interesting blend of expressions, not expected from a woman like her. Because she knows him, too. They have met before. 

“PLEASE! Please! Please! I repent! Please! My Lord—”

“Silence yourself,” Riddle calmly hisses at her, and she cries, clamping her mouth shut with both hands, her stomach heaving and her legs trembling. Regulus’s eyes narrow at the group of Death Eaters in the corner, silently standing witness. Could she be one of their wives? The Death Eater robes make it quite hard to tell apart their identities, but not one even dares lift their heads to meet his eyes. 

“Well, pet?” Riddle shepherds Regulus closer to the bed, until his knees are flush with the edge of the mattress, “Don’t you want to help her?”

“ Help her?”

Riddle shoves him on the bed, and Regulus breaks the fall with both hands, flinching as the woman shudders away from him, scrambling in the bloodied sheets, “Of course. Unwrap your gift.”

Regulus gags again at the repugnant odour of tangy blood that is not his own and the smell of something peculiar that he figures has to do with the poor woman giving birth; he ducks his gaze from her bare legs and stares down at the sheets and then catches the monster’s eyes over his shoulder. “I don’t understand.”

“Your name day came and passed,” Riddle drawls as though it is obvious, “No celebrations could be held, regrettably. You had that little episode of yours, remember? Raking your arms and throat, mutilating yourself without my permission…nasty business.” 

The woman moans behind her hands, rolling away and curling onto herself through a strong wave of contractions. Regulus feels Riddle’s touch, grazing over the recent self-inflicted scars on his arms. Some are self-inflicted, most aren’t. 

“But…you punished me already,” he mutters. He doesn’t understand. He truly doesn’t understand. He thought he’d already paid the toll. He thought the snakes and the bed…he can’t look at the woman in shame. He stares at Riddle with wide, doe-like eyes. He just doesn’t understand. 

“This is no punishment. It is a gift.” Riddle draws away from him, rounding the bed patiently, he addresses his followers as he gestures at her, “See, we have ourselves here, a picture of treachery.”

“My Lord,” she pants, breathless, blood seeps out of her in long rivulets, “I beg of you, please —”

“Mistress Dolohov,” Riddle continues, ignoring her, “I am quite sure you are familiar with her husband, no? Traitorous rat, cost us quite a few strategic advantages, cost us you, pet,” he croons once he looks at him, “Months of progress were up in smoke. Just because the Mistress’s husband could not sew his mouth shut!” 

The woman gasps as he turns to her, her limbs flailing on the bed and Regulus scrambles away from her torture, staring in astonishment as she screams and shakes under the Crucio. His hands fist the bed sheets and Amata Greengrass howls in pain. He used to know her, before she married Dolohov. She hated him. He knew her. “PLEASE! PLEASE!”

“And here, we are a family.” Riddle ceases the torture, pacing back to Regulus, “There is no reason why a familial wrong cannot be amended within the family itself. And of course, there is the matter of your name day. And what a beautiful coincidence that Amata Dolohov has exactly the right price to pay.”

He stares at Regulus as though he expects him to understand, to leap in joy, to fall to his knees and pepper the monster’s feet with kisses of adoration. Regulus shakes his head at him, “What?”

“And you, of course.” Riddle speaks over Amata’s pained roars; the woman cries, begs for his attention, beseeches mercy, roils from the bearing pains; she looks almost senseless with it. “You who saw yourself fit to go around raising orphans, staking your claim, rearing them as your own. I figured you would adore this.”

“That is no orphan—” Regulus protests weakly. 

“The whelp has to be born first,” Riddle condescends to him, nudging him back towards the bed, “The Dolohovs will pay with their lives and whatever monstrosity is in that womb shall be orphaned henceforth—”

Amata’s pinched face blanches, her mouth falling open in agony and fear. “NO! PLEASE! I WAS NEVER DISLOYAL! PLEASE NOT HER PLEASE I BEG YOU—”

A mother begging for the life of her unborn child, certain that she is going to die. A new low, a new depth and bottom discovered in the valley of depravity. This is not about Dolohov’s capture; everyone in this room knows it. It is a spectacle because Amata was unlucky enough to be pregnant, unlucky enough to be around the wrong crowd at the wrong time. She probably doesn’t even hold any regard for her husband, who was previously imprisoned in Azkaban. A double torment. 

Riddle thinks this is hilarious. 

“See,” he tells Regulus, “There is one thing I can never quite give to you . But bearers and surrogates, you shall get, as many as you wish. As long as the blood is pure…why not?” 

Reggie’s eyes glaze and he wonders, in a moment of miraculous clarity, whether this was it. 

Is this it? The thing that finally breaks Regulus Black's back? The straw that cracks the camel's back, they say. Is this how he will bite into the pill lodged in the back of his mouth, his body seizing, falling onto the bed next to the half-naked, screaming woman, foaming at the mouth. He'll die before Tom can stop it, before the babe is born. And that should put an end to it. Because frankly, hasn't it been enough? 

All his life, Regulus has been reared to bear. To tolerate. To just tighten his laces and drag himself by the bootstraps. He was never spoiled, never given even the pretence of a leeway. Sirius' punishments were his own. He endured this torture the first time, thinking death would bring him solace. The first time anyone even entertained the thought of pampering him was when James took him in. James, who never needed an excuse to take care of him, who never called him needy, or an invalid, or a damn baby for being the way he was. 

It's not fair, that he's back here again. And sure, he's fucking older. Sure, he knows he'll outlive the lashes, the curses, the torture, the rape. But this ? 

“I don't want it.” He croaks, and it is rather amusing for him to verbalise such a request. Tom doesn't care if Reggie doesn't want this. In fact, experience has shown that he'd always prefer it if Regulus were an unwilling participant. “I don't, I can't—”

“Very well, then they shall both die—”

“NO!” Amata arches her back, her hand flailing in the air to find purchase, to find Reggie’s hand, to beg, “BLACK PLEASE! PLEASE REGULUS PLEASE—”

“Why would you want this?” Regulus asks Riddle because it doesn’t make any sense to leave the child alive. Perhaps he would leave the baby alive to watch as Regulus is forced to bond with it and then kill it? Is this a long-term torture? An addition to the nightly shows? “An heir that’s not even yours?” 

Riddle’s gaze darkens, “I’ve no need of an heir, pet. You should know better. I am immortal. This is merely something to keep you lively, moored. A kept man, as they say, is a happy man. My mercy, upon your wounded soul. We do not want a repeat of your last little deviancy, do we?” 

The woman shrieks, her legs falling open and her head falling back against the pillows as she wrenches the sheets and though Regulus has never before seen a woman giving birth, he knows she must be close, her cries are tinged with a peculiar sort of agony, there is the scent of fresh blood, surrounding her, and the sheets darken so much they resemble the blackness of the night more than they do blood. He can’t even look at her. He can feel the old lashes still throbbing on his body, the pain within and his tired limbs, wasting away from lack of movement. And the punishment that came after…

“No.” 

“You yearn to nourish and nurse.” Riddle’s hand grazes against his damp hair, “I am aiding you along the path of fulfilment. A herald of new beginnings once we finally conquer the land. A little house pet to occupy your attention and keep you company. After all, what difference is there between a human child and an animal?”

“This is cruel. I don't—I can't.” his tongue brushes against the pill and his chest heaves, and he is caught in a moment of sheer helplessness, because he knows he cannot help himself, the dying mother, nor the child being pushed out of her. And Riddle knows that. Of course, he does, “Don't make me, don't .” 

He begs because he knows it will be something Tom wants to hear. It thrills the man any time he forces Reggie to his knees to beg and cry for something. And sometimes, sometimes if he wants to elongate the game, he pretends to go along with it. He pretends to grant Reggie the request, show him mercy.

But that doesn’t seem to be part of the game on this wretched day, no. 

“The choice is completely yours, Pet,” Riddle smirks at him, “As it always was. Either that child dies in the womb with that broodmare, traitor of a mother, or you pull it out.”

He looks into her feverish eyes, the way her chest flutters, and the silent begging, for she has given up on crying out her agony. She groans and writhes with the contractions, and he can see quite clearly, that she is far along enough to start pushing.

He swallows the bile in his throat and, with numb limbs, gingerly climbs on the bed, deaf to the Death Eaters’ applause and Riddle’s cackle behind him. It’s just him and the dying woman, already mourning a baby who has yet to be born and her own life about to be lost. She doesn’t seem to have enough strength to keep up with the labour. And Regulus has no comfort to give to her or himself. 

He doesn’t quite understand what happens next. Or maybe he just undergoes the horror and immediately forgets; it’s a blurred flurry of screams, and blood, viscera and wetness and nausea. An hour passes, maybe two. Maybe less than an hour even. One moment he is still heaving with the need to be sick, to flee from his own body and the next his hands shake around a warm, naked bundle. He pulls the baby out of her, his fingers touch and clamp the umbilical cord, maybe only some minutes after Amata stops screaming out of fatigue and blood loss, and he bows over the wailing, bloodied infant as a blinding green light zooms over his head, deafened by ear-piercing cries.  

 

...

 

“I absolutely will not agree to such a thing.” There is an amused weight to the words. Regulus snorts at his affronted expression and repeated himself, “No way.”

“I’m your brother, though!” Sirius exclaims back. 

“No way!” Regulus cackles, bashing his hand away when Sirius tries to snatch the open book out of his hands, “It’s so mind-numbingly idiotic—”

The sun is a bit cruel over their heads, especially for Sirius who has longer hair. Though the cooling charms and the natural summer breeze do alleviate the discomfort of lying on the grass outdoors. Sirius would take running around as Padfoot to being stuck up indoors any day, but it’s a rare sight seeing his brother out, enjoying his book under a tree’s shade. A rarity to see an indoor cat luxuriating in the yard with little complaint. 

“It will be so fucking funny,” Sirius keeps on negging, “Please, Reggie, come on!”

Regulus rolls his eyes at him, shucking the book down on his lap. He very obviously is enjoying the back and forth and torturing Sirius, “No amount of begging in the world would turn me.” 

“Just imagine.” Sirius draws out his wand to show him the design he has in mind in the air,  “I know you see the vision, Reggie. Listen—”

“Nope.”

“No, listen, listen!”

“Oh, I heard you alright,” his brother tries and fails to sound disapproving, “So you want me, to stitch every article of clothing he owns with a—”

“Giant rooster—” Sirius finishes innocently. 

“Vulgar, and childish, not to mention too much work—”

“It’s a play on words! Not an actual Cock—”

“It absolutely is. What do you mean.” Regulus points out, shoving at Sirius’ head. “It’s so impractical. He wears those robes to work every day.”

“Exactly! Just imagine, a huge rooster head on the back of his robes, except he can’t see it himself—”

“I think you’re the only person who’d find that funny.”

Sirius snorts, they both turn back to the sky and the breeze that runs along the long grass. From where they’re sprawled near an oak tree, Sirius can see his brother’s vegetable patch thriving, and little Harry running barefoot around the house with a long stick in his hand as one of the Weasley kids, probably Ronald, and Remus chase him. “It’ll be a missed opportunity.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Regulus smirks down at him, “Along with that other idea you had, what was it? Those little ceramic dog figurines you bought in bulk from downtown London—”

Something warm blooms in Sirius’ chest, seeing his brother smile openly and mockingly down at him. “All you had to do was hide them around the house and charm my voice on them—”

“Thanks,” The man cuts in dryly,“I don’t want your human voice barking at us every time we kiss”

“If it’s more than once a day,” Sirius says and pretends to be haughty, “There’s entirely too much kissing going on in this house.”

“Uh-huh.”

He stares up at the clouds with his hands behind his head as his brother silently goes on with his book, sipping on a bottle of lemon water James had made him and left in the fridge that morning. Sometimes Sirius wants to be flabbergasted by the way life turned out. The way James so seamlessly and easily fell for his brother, and the way their love is so quiet and yet continuous. It’s in the little things, he’s noticed, in the water bottles with lemon slices stocked in their cooler, in the way there’s no tense line on his brother’s face, and how the wind musses his clean and groomed hair. 

Sirius figures that he could never doubt the affection and utter love James holds for Reggie, and he can hardly be mad about it or even feel slightly too overprotective. They were just made for each other. Maybe the way the sun goes with the summer breeze. 

“Papa!” the eight-year-old runs towards them, waving the stick, “Padfoot! Papa!”

“Yes, little love?” Reggie’s voice is collected and soft, filled with patient adoration. 

“Ron and I—Found a snail!” Harry bends down to gasp for air, grinning with a front tooth missing as Ronald catches up to him. The boy slightly taller and lankier, and both covered in mud, “It’s huge and the shell’s all cracked and it’s so slow and Remus told us it’s called gas…gas—”

“Gastropoda?”

“YEAH!” Harry jumps up, waving the stick, “That! You heard that, Ron!? My Papa knows everything!”

The taller boy flushes, also grinning in disbelief, “Mister Potter you’re so smart!”

Sirius watches amusedly as Regulus flashes both boys with a vibrant smile and the kids giggle, jumping up some more before running back over to Remus by the house. Regulus rolls his eyes a little in his book and Sirius snorts. 

“Wow, it is so easy to impress those kids. Damn.” 

“We’re not doing the huge cock prank.” Regulus tells him, “No matter how good a flatterer you are, brother.” 

“Right, right. Mister fun Auror…”

 

Sirius crushes a snail’s shell under his boot on the steps of a safe house in Greenock, Scotland. The weather is barmy; it has been raining nonstop for the past two days, and something in the rain makes his bones hurt. 

He stomps his boots on the steps some more, casting a grim gaze over his shoulder at the lashing of the wind and the mud path running with water. He pushes the door open without knocking. He already passed a dozen wards; he knows the door’s not locked. 

It’s jarringly different, to walk into a safe house and not immediately be assaulted by the view of the wounded and dead, the bleeding, someone crying out their family’s or friend’s names, inconsolable and lost to grief as is usually the case in safe houses and bases situated closer to the centre of all the chaos. The cottage in Greenock, they mostly use for storage for now, in case Voldemort decides he has let them run around enough, in case things get worse, which they will. 

He still hears the rain pellets against the windows once he steps inside, and the house is not empty but scattered with people who turn to look at him once he enters. Richard and Jean Granger, blanched and a bit knocked over, sitting on a couch huddled next to each other. Ted Tonks and his daughter, also just as pale, standing by the windows, staring blankly at Sirius as though he’s the bearer of some great news. 

“Got all the Muggles Obliviated,” He tells the room quietly, “Returned some to their homes, dropped a few off at the hospital.” he clears his throat when Charlie Weasley pokes his head in from the corridor. 

“Any survivors?”

“People are still digging in the rubble.” Sirius mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “Is he here?”

Charlie nods his head at the back of the house and squirms a little when Sirius starts to brush past him. Sirius squeezes the kid’s shoulder and heads to the kitchen with its little trapdoor that leads down to a basement they usually reserve for perishable goods. 

Today the basement of this cottage will be housing more than perishable food. 

He finds Barty slumped on a kitchen chair with his wand pointed down at the trapdoor, his hair still damp, still clothed in his Death Eater robes, his back hunched. He hasn’t seen the man in weeks, and during the recall mission only barely saw him leaving with the Grangers and Crabbe. 

He drops down to land a kiss on the man’s head and Barty shudders under him, grabbing at his arm with his free hand, “Do you have it?”

Sirius hums, slipping a hand in his pocket to withdraw the vial. It’s a pain in the arse to get access to these things. They were a rare commodity before the fall of the Ministry, and now they’re even harder to get their hands on. “It’s a grade two. It’ll loosen him right up.”

“Bastard won’t even need it,” Barty says darkly, his scarred eye twitching at the silver vial, “He’s been bragging all the way here. Thank Merlin, he didn’t have his damn Dementor hoard nearby.”

He looks so exhausted and wrung out by hatred and anger. Sirius lets his touch linger, and he knows the man hungers for the comforting touch as much as Sirius thirsts for the reassurance that he’s here, and he’s safe and alive. Still, his bones creak when he moves in the chair. It’s like without Regulus they’ve all aged half a century. 

“Is Moony okay?”

“Helping with the rubble. We heard some cries so some may have survived.” 

There is silence, only the rain pattering on the roof and the windows around them. Barty takes a shuddering breath, “Sirius.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s bad.” Barty rubs a hand over his mouth and Sirius’ hand falls back to his side. Something horrible and cold spreads in his veins as he looks at his partner and Barty struggles to hold his gaze. 

“How bad?”

“I dunno if it’s because the sod is drunk or—” Barty shakes his head, “I nearly killed him. He was saying some shit about Reggie before at the tower too and now he’s just blabbering about it and fucking wanking himself while he spews the same things—”

“He’s doing what!?” Sirius seethes. 

“I’ll cut off his prick in due time, don’t worry.” Barty shakes his head again, and he looks green around the gills, “It could mean nothing. The fucker’s sick. Maybe he wants to provoke us but I just…I don’t think we should do this. You and I are too close to…Regulus to keep our cool. I almost bloody killed him, the only piece of evidence we’ve got after months and I just want him dead so bloody bad...” 

Sirius’ breath catches and he draws away from Barty completely, his thoughts spiral and disgust roils in his guts like a huge, swarming wave. He almost wants to collapse down on a chair just like Barty and weep into his hands. 

The depths of human depravity, for some reason, still take him by surprise. 

He can’t find any words to say and so he doesn’t. They both stare down at the closed trapdoor in silence, before there’s the faint sound of the heavy door opening and closing again. A presence that Sirius would know anywhere. Charlie’s voice, directing James back into the kitchen. And James’ shadow precedes him. Sirius knew James would be joining them, but the man was on the other side of the country, so he didn’t think it would be so soon. 

He doesn’t like looking into his best friend’s eyes if he can help it. They’re dead. There’s nothing left in those eyes worth saving. 

James doesn’t greet him or Barty; his heavy boots make the floorboards creak as he heads to the utensil drawers and pulls them out with a harsh clank. The sound echoes in the small kitchen, but maybe only because no one dares break the silence. Sirius can hear Charlie advising the Grangers and the Tonks family to retreat upstairs or go outside. 

The James Potter effect. As funny as the sound may seem, it’s an accurate one. James Potter transcends mortality, time and space when his loved ones are in danger. It’s best to avoid his wrath, clear out the vicinity when he is quiet and deadly, a single-mindedness and calculating rage behind his eyes. James closes the drawer with another harsh sound, and Sirius sees a heavy potato masher dangling from one hand. 

“Give me the Veritaserum.” James orders Sirius. 

Barty looks up between them, grappled with a faint helplessness as he catches the sight of the potato masher in James’ hand. Sirius wants to protest or withhold the vial, but then again, why should he? Crabbe is down there, safe from harm, blabbering and masturbating to the thought of Sirius’ brother being tortured, having the piss on them. Why should Sirius choose morality over this? 

He misses his brother, and he is so done with this fucking war. They only need the Manor’s location, and it’s the only thing Crabbe can give them. Who cares about how they get that information? Albus might frown down at them, but the man is past his idolising days. Sirius doesn’t give a flying fuck. He just wants Reggie back. 

“Don’t hurt his eyes or mouth. We need him to talk.” He tells James. 

“He’ll talk.” James states not as a promise, but a fact. 

“James. It’s bad, you need to be prepared before going down—”

“I’m coming down with you,” Sirius interrupts Barty. James doesn’t answer, and only pushes the sleeves of his jacket slightly up his forearms, pulling his glasses off his face to drop them on a table. He won’t need to see the bastard in order to beat the ever-loving fuck out of him. 

“Just fucking listen to me,” Barty snaps at them, “I’m telling you it’s fucking horrid and disgusting! We need to get someone else, Moody or Shacklebolt—”

James crouches down, withdrawing his wand to open the lock on the trapdoor. Barty stares at Sirius, begging him to spare himself the pain and trauma of what going down will entail. Sirius steps closer to the man, putting a hand on the locket pressing down on his chest. 

“We’ll find the Manor. We’re bringing him back.” He pecks the unresponsive man on the lips and turns away, “Remus is gonna be back soon. We’ll be done by then.”

James silently descends down the steps to the basement and Sirius can hear Crabbe laughing manically already upon seeing the man. Barty drops back down on the chair with a nod. 

“I’ll keep an eye out.” 

“Put a silencing charm over the floorboards—”

“No need.” Barty swallows, “I want to hear the fucker scream.”

...

 

He is beginning to suspect—a small speculation, really—that he is about to finally, traverse past the verge of going insane. 

The motions of going insane feel inane but weirdly ordered to him. The shock of holding onto a wailing child, the subsequent horror of the fact that he is holding onto a small child, and then followed by the devastation of being ushered out of the soiled bed while holding onto the bloodied child, moving onto the finality of being dragged back to his own prison still holding an orphaned child, and at lastly the dawning torment of having to hold onto a helpless child as he is thrown carelessly to the bed—he refuses to ever call the chamber of torment his bed—and left there. 

They lock the door, which is something they always do. His little quarters, his little room and the adjoining bathroom. His little cage, has a key he has no access to. He spends most of his days here and his nights elsewhere; suffocated by the bloodied and filthy sheets that are never cleaned, the stifling and heavy covers, the bedposts and the dark curtains, the nothingness past a small window with no view or sharp edges. No escape to find but within. 

Once upon a time, he would have tried, but there is no point in fighting a self-imposed exile. Maybe he can escape if he tries, if he stays present for long enough in his mind, but he is staying here not as a prisoner. It is a bargain. So no escape, because he never looks for any. 

But when they lock the door this time, trapping the hysterical infant inside the boiling room with him, he does not resign himself to the cage. He goes mad beyond logic. It feels like the touch burns, and his hands scramble and his throat closes around air, his vision blurring. 

He leaves the infant unattended in the middle of the bed and scurries away from her to the farthest corner of the room. He covers his head with stained hands, and he can smell the blood, the afterbirth drying on his hands, soaking the loose shirt he was given before…

He digs his nails over his ears, and slides down behind the door, pressing down to muffle the painful screeching. There is this strange moment in his head, where he oddly mistakes the crying for Harry’s. And he almost crawls and gets to his hands and knees, almost tries to make his way towards the bed, an old instinct before he suddenly recalls, through the haze and panic and the lack of air and utter madness that no…Harry wouldn’t cry like that. He’s too old to be crying like that. Harry’s not even here. 

He scuttles back to the door, hiding his face against the wood, and he closes his eyes, pushing the violent images of a screaming woman out of his head. He held her hand, and it felt like she hated him, abhorred him, and needed him at the same time. Like it was his fault. Like he put her there on that bed, to become less than human like him. Like he is the reason for her downfall. 

Perhaps he is.

But she cries. And after some minutes, he begins to wonder how much longer the baby can go on crying with such intensity. It is driving him over the edge. He punches the door, he begs to be let out, he calls for Tom in drawn-out keens over the sound of crying, he begs him, offers himself up, curses at him. There’s no one coming. He drags himself to the bathroom, and closes the door on her, sinks down inside the tub and lets the old tepid water from a few hours ago drown him. He submerges himself under water, but no matter how many times he does it, every time his head breaks the water, she is still there, and she is still crying, and she sounds exhausted and hungry. She sounds helpless and in agony. She sounds insane, like him. 

He drags himself out of the tub, soaked and dripping dirty water as he fumbles with the bathroom door and races to the bed. She sounds so exhausted. But he can’t pick her up. He can’t touch her. It’ll ruin him he knows. Because Riddle will come in a few hours, and the real torment will begin. He will make Regulus kill the child. 

He surely will. Regulus has no doubts about it. 

The baby cries herself to sleep as he hovers over her, panicking and wringing his bloodied hands and shivering in his wet clothes and cringing at the way they cling to his open wounds. He digs his fingers into his mouth, to feel the lodged pill, to see whether the seal’s been broken or if it’s intact. 

He thinks about doing it . One delicious moment. He thought it once during the labour. And he thinks about it again, looking at the restless infant, her entire body red and pruned, so small and fragile, her fists curled, the hair on her tiny head matted with blood and viscera. 

He gets on the bed, as far away from her as he can stand it and puts his head on the pillow and he has a hard time convincing himself that he is not hallucinating. The beautiful haze of dissociation has long been broken through; maybe it’s what Riddle intended. Because Regulus didn’t entertain enough, wasn’t sincere enough, didn’t give him the satisfaction of his suffering. 

He is jolted out of an uneasy reverie when she screeches herself awake again. Her tiny fists thrashing in the air, and her lungs seizing with the air she lets out to cry. Regulus clasps a hand over his mouth and cries, turning away from her. He doesn’t know what to do. 

He rushes to the door again and slams his hands against it, “LET ME OUT! PleasePLEASEPLEASE!” he cries, his fists slamming into the heavy wood again and again, the skin of his knuckles breaks and blood blossoms in tiny lines and circles. He knows what the baby wants. 

The baby has just been born. The baby is hungry. Her mother’s corpse is in another wing of the Manor, and there’s no one here to feed her. 

Is this what Riddle intends? For her to starve and for Regulus to watch it happen?

A lesson on gratefulness, perhaps. Maybe he ought to have thanked him for starving him, kissed his feet for the bathroom privileges, or…or something that Reggie forgot. He covers his head and slides to the floor as she cries. 

His fingers feel for the pill again and his eyes roam the room. Something frantic begins expanding inside his chest, exacerbated by the blaring cries. She sounds like a heartbroken alarm, like a tiny animal in pain. Like a hungry infant. 

He begs near the door some more. And retreats to the bathroom, he unplugs the bathtub, twists the faucet, hurriedly rinses his hands under the rush with the small bit of soap he’s given every week. He runs back to the bed to pick her up and he circles the room with her. His arms are clumsy; it’s been so many years, he’s really forgotten how to do this. She’s too light and too small. Harry was already a year old when he got him. 

She feels cold to touch, he sets her down, grabs the covers and tears them into patches and strips to wrap around her, sick and deranged by his own desperation because he knows there is little point. He can bounce her and keep her warm and hush her cries and he still will not be able to do anything about the hunger. He can’t protect her like he did Harry. 

And the funny thing is that he failed at that, too. He never protected Harry when his son needed him the most. 

He wants to spite Riddle, to leave her to perish, unattended and alone, because she is too little and helpless to stop him. He rounds the room in small limps and paces, holding her in the covers to warm her up, patting her to just stop the damn crying already. He looks at the bathtop, at the pillows, and he thinks about how easily and painlessly the child can pass. 

Why should she put up with this torment? She’s innocent; she hasn’t done anything wrong. 

He thinks about that little girl in Little Hangleton, and he figures that her death is still on his shoulders. He can’t do it. He can’t add another death to the mountainous piles of names already carved on his chest. 

He can’t do it. Not yet anyway. 

She seems calmer in his arms, but she still cries. And why shouldn’t she? She just came into this world and she is hungry and for her, there is no worse pain than hunger. Riddle is tormenting her already to punish Regulus, or to mock him. What was Riddle exactly thinking? That Regulus would be able to miraculously feed the child through mysterious means? No, of course not. He knew exactly what he was doing. Calculated son of a bitch. The monster. The devil. He knew. He knows. 

Everything is a game, everything a show. 

Minutes bleed into an hour. An hour bleeds into two. Regulus thinks that it would be a hilarious sight to any outside observers, to see him weep along with the child, apologise over and over, rock her in his arms and hate himself for doing so because that’s exactly what Riddle would want. 

By hour three, he settles her on the bed again, his head leaning back against the bedpost and his eyes stitched to the floral canopy, faded and old like him. His head begins pounding, and he hates when she cries, because she sounds small, and heartbroken and in pain and hungry. She is hungry. 

He’s hungry too. He feels the gnawing in his stomach too. He wishes someone had heard him cry too. 

He’s so senseless by the crying and the hunger and fatigue that he thinks he can see James’ shadow in the corner of the room, and he yearns for his comfort to such a manic degree that he scrambles out of bed to find the shadow, to trap him in his arms. But there’s no one there. Of course, there isn’t. It’s just him and a starving baby. 

Should he have left her to die with her Mother? Riddle gave him a choice, didn’t he? He chose wrong, and it wouldn’t be the first time. 

Five hours pass. 

And every second of it feels like someone is holding him down by force and pulling out his nails one by one. His ears are numb, his limbs lethargic, his eyes on the canopy because if he looks at her little scrunched-up face and the weak struggles, he knows he will bite into the pill just to escape it. He tries to imagine any sort of end for this situation, because there seems to be only one outcome. She’ll die. And she was always meant to die because that’s Riddle’s intention. He thinks Regulus hasn’t been broken enough. 

He hears the charms on the door rippling, and he thinks he’s actually going barmy. But then the door creaks open, catching on the fallen furniture and beddings, Regulus shifts with lightning speed, hunching his body over the child, narrowing his eyes at the door, even as his arm threatens to give out. 

Severus enters the room, and there is a leather satchel slung over his shoulder as he stands and regards him. Regulus eases back on the bed and turns his head away. 

“She's dying,” his voice is scratchy as he mutters, “You can tell him. She's dying. I can't give her anything, I can't feed a baby off my own fucking body, I am no woman. She's starving—”

“I hope you haven't given her any water.” Snape cuts him off, “You seem to have enough of your brains intact.” 

Regulus wants to laugh and sneer at the man at once. He watches as the Death Eater closes the door behind him and opens the satchel with one hand, his wand casually held in his other. 

“Is this the game?” Regulus taunts him, “Is he watching from somewhere? He wants to watch me wilt over—watch an infant die over my incompetence? Does he think it's ironic? Are you his little spy? His little bitch?”

Snape ignores him and withdraws a small bottle from the bag, half filled with an off-white powder. He uncaps the bottle and Regulus’ eyes widen as the man points his wand into the bottle, “Aguamenti.”

The bottle fills immediately. Snape dispassionately puts his wand away and shakes the bottle. Regulus watches him mutely, and something thrums under his veins as he feels the baby fuss next to him. He will tear out Snape’s throat with his bare teeth to get that bottle. He will lose an arm and a leg, to just get one bottle, and he doesn’t know why. There’s nothing slightly sustainable about the situation. Well, that is unless…

“Thirty bottles, pour water from the tap into the bottle and shake well.” Snape points his chin at the satchel, “I put some supplements in the formula. Don't drink any yourself, you’ll get sick. She shouldn’t eat a lot for now, but she’ll need it frequently.” 

Regulus gets off the bed slowly, and Snape doesn’t move an inch as he limps towards him until they are only about a foot apart. Regulus fights the urge to bow his head, the urge to spit in the man’s face and beat him bloody for his betrayal. He looks at him and he widens his eyes like Maman taught him he should whenever he wanted something. It’s an animalistic instinct. Everything is about animalistic tendencies. 

“You gotta take her, Severus,” he whispers to the man, “Get her out of here.” 

Snape raises an eyebrow at him, “To what end?” 

Regulus feels a singular tear run down his battered cheek. To what end? The man asks. To what end, asks the fucking traitor who hasn’t tasted torture for months on end, the bastard who doesn’t have a flying fuck’s idea about hunger and starvation and pain. The arsehole who doesn’t have a child, who could never understand the agony in Regulus’ chest. 

“I can't do this.” 

“Suppose you put that pillow on her head and let her suffocate.” Snape snaps at him, “Or suppose that I save her from here. What do you think will happen the very next day?”

He knows the answer but he can’t bring himself to even think about it. He reels away from Snape with a snarl, a sound of pure need working its way out of his throat. 

“Severus,” he outright begs, “If you have an ounce of honour left—”

“He'll line a dozen pregnant women and saddle you with a dozen more babies and watch with utter glee as each dies in your arms,” Severus’ voice is too loud, his words too firm. They feel like lashings of a whip, “Or better yet, he'll make you kill them yourself. You'll lessen the damage if you just keep her as is.”

“He's gonna use her to torment me!” Regulus screams at the man, because he has long stopped caring about the consequences, “This is utter madness! I can't! Not another child, I can't! He's already starving her!” 

“I don't have the answers you want. Keep her fed. That's all you can do, Potter .”

The name pushes him over the brink. And he can’t care about the intention behind the use of it because air breaks out of him in broken pieces. Potter . Only a faint shade of the person he used to be. A person who used to hold his head up, to fight no matter what. To persevere. And now here he is, downtrodden and filthy and disgusting and pathetic. 

“And what if I die?” he collapses on the edge of the bed, facing away from the bastard and the small baby, still fussing, still alive, and Regulus so meanly doesn’t want her to be. Because as long as she’s alive, she’s his problem. She’s his. 

“—He's just gonna go after Harry,” his mouth rambles and his nails dig into his abdomen, “He still might. I know what he intends to do to me—I saw it. I'll never be able to die. I'll be a husk. I'm already a husk he just fucks. Maybe it's inside me already. It was there once. Something writhing—”

“You have gone mad with the hunger,” he feels Snape lowering the satchel on the bed behind him, and the baby crying in protest as she’s picked up, “ Breathe , I'll feed her now. She should be fed every few hours or so. Don't rush her, she's been starved—”

“I can't do this.” he buries his head into his hands and yet his ears greedily rejoice as he listens to the cries, finally, finally stopping. He can hear her, hungrily gulping down the bottle and it makes him shudder in shame and horror. “I can’t. I can’t do this, Snape. Get her out, you know you can—”

“You sound like a broken toy. Get yourself together, you are no weakling. You are Regulus Arcturus Black.”

He curls his lips and drops his hands. And he lifts his head and Snape has rounded the bed and he’s looking down at him with scorn, “Is that name supposed to mean anything?”

“A name is as powerful as you make it. You ought to know better.”

He looks at her, and Snape is right. All that crying and fussing and screaming and she barely ends up drinking half the bottle. No crying. She doesn’t even shift when Snape removes the bottle’s nipple from her lips and sets it down on the nightstand. 

“She's gonna die.” Regulus laments, “She's gonna die in here, she's being punished and I'm being punished and—”

“I can't give you any potions on an empty stomach, you realise.” Snape says instead of disagreeing, “You keep this up with this insipid panic and you will pass out. Hold her.” 

The baby is held out in front of him and Regulus feels a shrill bell of panic go off as he tries to scramble away from the infant. 

“No—”

Snape clicks his tongue, “If he learns your aversion to touching her, there'll be another hell to pay. Hold her .”

“If I do, I'll end up loving her,” Regulus bares his teeth, “I can't do this again. I can't protect her, he'll just take her away from me—”

Because that turned out so great the first time around. 

Because if Riddle sanctioned Snape to come all the way here to unlock his door and to feed the child and bring thirty bottles along, he means to play this game in the long term. Regulus isn’t fucking stupid. The second he grows more attached than he already is, Riddle will prance in and feed the babe to snakes. Tear her apart like…Andy. Like Andy. 

Snape sighs over him and Regulus contains the rage simmering in his guts, forcing him to jeer at the man towering over him. He can take him out. He can kill Snape with his bare hands, use his wand and take himself and the baby out of here and run away. Far far away from this place. He’ll crawl into a hole so far that even the pull of the mark won’t be able to drag him back. 

But Snape already sees the thought, the temptation dancing behind his eyes, “Potter, just hold the baby. You won’t get far, not even out of the valley’s end, injured and starved as you are. It’s freezing out there.”

“But you’ll be dead,” and Regulus would at least feel good about something then.

“I’m the only one able and willing to keep this infant fed.” It’s not as strong a defence as Snape thinks it is. Regulus is not too attached to the child yet and he hopes he won’t be, because he can’t bear anything happening to her or hurting her already. 

He nearly lost his mind. And now his body sags down, boneless with relief and exhaustion. Snape holds the baby in front of him mutely until Regulus takes her. She weighs practically nothing in his arms. “This isn’t fair. I don’t deserve this pain.”

“No, you don’t.” Snape agrees. 

“What if I love her and he kills her? What am I supposed to do then?”

“He'll feed you soon enough,” Snape retracts his wand from his sleeve and waves it around the trashed cage, and the fallen furniture and mess begin to clean themselves, little by little. “He ought to if he let me bring her food. There are a few nappies in the bag, you can wash and reuse them. I brought a few extra bottles. You already know how to hide food. Hide a few bottles for her. Your body knows how to starve already. Drink up as much water as you can, limit your movement and lower your anxiety. Rest when she sleeps.” 

Irritation nips at his frayed nerves, and he glares up at the arsehole, “I don’t need your damn advice. I've raised one already.”

There is a long pause where he pointedly avoids looking down at the baby, and Snape avoids looking at him and Regulus thinks that the man is going to take his leave. But Severus doesn’t. He nods once and Regulus frowns at him, “What?”

“You did a good job,” the man looks like he loathes to admit it, “He is a menace. A stubborn menace like yourself.” Another pause, “He is taller now.”  

The scrap is thrown at Regulus almost too carelessly. He purses his lips and looks down at the sleeping child, and had this been…before, he would have immediately questioned the nature of this bit of kindness. He would have distrusted Snape, as he should have and as he still should. But he doesn’t question anything now, because the smallest confirmation that Harry exists, and he is alive and out there and still growing, even if it’s a lie, makes the air easier to inhale. 

“Are they all alive?” he mutters, because he’d hate for the moment to be broken, he’d hate for Snape to come to his senses and leave him in this damn hole with a baby whose mother he just killed today. 

“Yes.” 

He never thought a single word could grant him such relief. He knows Snape could be lying, he knows his senses have been dulled, and the pain has stripped him of most things that he held dear to his character. But a simple yes makes the pain worth it, maybe a little. It talks him off the ledge, pulls his teeth away from the pill. Until he forgets again, that is. 

“How long has it been? Years?”

“No, Black,” Snape clears his throat, “Ten months.” 

“Oh.” That doesn’t seem right at all, he thinks. “How much longer?” 

Before he can reprimand himself that the question he just asked is stupid and infantile in nature, Snape responds: 

“I do not know. I hope soon.”

He doesn’t specify any desired outcome, he doesn’t ask Regulus to explain himself, he doesn’t rebuke him for being idiotic and asking such a thing, because, of course, for a person like Regulus, an end is pretty much non-existent. Snape just sighs and turns to leave. The most expression and sincerity he had ever shown to Regulus in all these years. “Don't kill her. Her death won't be a mercy. It won’t bring you relief. It’ll be just another lash on your soul.”

“Snape—”

“Feed her.” 

Notes:

- I spent an inexplicable amount of time looking into Tarot cards and Tarot readings lmaoo. If you wanna read up on what Sybill's cards foretell (bc ofc I am foreshadowing's final boss) you can check hereee!
-Draco predicted her death all the way back in HFA, check the chapter "Tiptoe through the Tulips"
- I'm sure you guys have noticed the time gaps between Reggie's POVs and the rest of the text, these events are NOT happening at the same time, and have only been arranged this way to make the narrative linear.
- You may also notice a general overuse of coordinating conjunctions in this chapter, and that is not (I hope so) poor writing, merely an authorial choice to relay the panic and sense of spiralling (I'm hoping).
- I listened to Mitski's "Shame" and Radiohead's "Videotape" on a loop writing this chapter and I feel like it shows.
- The James scene is a cheeky and faint reference to the movie "Prisoners" (2013), the hammer scene specifically.
- Let's talk about the child! Several things I really wanted to include in this fic: the first is the extent of Voldemort's obsession with coveting what he conceives as his property and the second is his AVERSION to the status of motherhood. You may have noticed him being more of a monster to the women in this fic, regardless of their blood status, and that's on PURPOSE. By forcing a child on Reggie he perceives the process of coveting to have nearly completed, because he is providing for Regulus what his inferior, blood traitor partner did as well (and because he wants to erase those old traces altogether).
- There's a lot of metaphorical imagery going on, and I know you guys are brilliantly media literate, so I'm not gonna spell it out, but I'm a huge fan of freudian imagery in writing (NOT A FAN OF HIM IN PSYCHOLOGY), so you may see a lot of phallic imagery (like the last chapter with Marcus, wearing Reggie's face, and fervently swallowing a snake (a phallic object)/or the play with the witch and the muggles who 'beat the magic out of her' being armed with 'clubs' (another phallic symbol)/or the duelling scenes resembling a dance [intercourse] or wrestling), and there's a lot of Womb imagery as well (Regulus seeking comfort in a concave space like the bathtub/the Manor being melded into the concave valley of tall cliffs) there are more examples and these symbols are not always sexual and have different allusions, if you guys are interested you can check Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" or any relevant text.
- What's the deal with Snape? WHO KNOWS.
- See ya soon babessss~ Hope you enjoyed the chapter because it damn nearly broke my back

Chapter 23: 23.—The strawman’s fallacy, my love—

Notes:

Not now kittens, Mummy is going thru it lmao (I also cut my hand very badly today and bled everywhere)

 

I've been writing so many academic papers back to back recently, I fucking dream about that shit UGHHHH
Thank you so much for being patient with me, here's the chappp, 17k, you ENJOY

Warnings for: all the tags, but there are chapter-specific warnings as follows: infant endangerment, suicide attempt, torture and violence, underage sexual acts are briefly addressed and alluded to (Harry and Draco being teenagers), and yeah, that should be it.

Hold my hands and let me take you thru this one last time, hm?

23.—The strawman’s fallacy, my love—

1995

 

That feeling, when one takes in the rain and thinks that they’d already dreamed of what is about to happen.

Draco's never understood it, though he can confidently say that there were many occasions where he tried. His Personal policy of just waiting for things to happen as they should has only expired recently. 

It's raining heavily. And he supposes that's why he has that churning in his guts, because he glances away from Harry's drawn and pallid face on his parents' bed, and he looks over his shoulder, at the storm that lashes the curtains of the open window. He remembers this rain. He knows it. It's strange to claim that one can memorise the exact cadence and rhythm of raindrops falling in an exact, meticulous order. But he swears that he knows it. 

He used to be scared of the rain as a child. But now that he's grown, and at this moment, he realises that he wasn't afraid of the rain, he was afraid of the misery in his chest, when he looked at this rain and smelled it only and precisely at this exact moment of loss. 

And when the door creaks open behind him, Draco knows it's not gonna be James or Healer Pomfrey to change the dressing over Harry's neck. 

It's quaint. He feels as though he experiences a moment of epiphany almost daily now. Where he finally reaches beyond the door he's always been peering through. Past the frames he's already crossed. Albus Dumbledore takes a seat on a chair he conjures with his wand. No ostentatious or flashy armchairs, but furniture whose existence can be easily wiped and denied. It is a simple wooden seat. Draco swivels in his own. 

There's an enormity that should come with the old Headmaster that makes his presence automatically an intimidating one. The assumption that he would sweep in, go after Voldemort, instigate a grand battle and win, push back the evil for another decade or so, and return with Regulus in tow, surrounded by an air of indignation, causality, and flair. Because, of course, the Albus Dumbledore, of all wizards, should be the one to do it. If not him, then who? A man whose chocolate frog card is longer than most people’s list of lively accomplishments, the one who defeated the Grindelwald.

But the wizard sitting here now is the man Draco's father hated for being feeble and senile. The one whom Voldemort fears the most. And here he is, not helpless by virtue, but no victor either. 

He stares at the old man, and the old man gazes at him only for a beat before dropping his eyes to Harry. He's bound to wake up soon, Pomfrey said this morning. Only a day after…after. Draco and James both wish that he wouldn't return to the shitshow of things so quickly. Though, Draco hasn't heard James verbally express such a thing. He figures he wouldn't for a long time. 

“When he had me…” he tells the old wizard, weighed down by the years and the aghast nature of his failure, “There was this thing he really liked seeing a lot.” A longer pause, “Your death.” 

Dumbledore's piercing gaze finds him deliberately now. And Draco feels like crap about it because his cousin tried so hard to keep Draco safe from the influence of men like Riddle and Dumbledore alike. But he is no longer here to do such a thing. It is the morning after, and Draco still stupidly wishes for the man to somehow, miraculously return. Dumbledore's curiosity is vastly different from Riddle's; in fact, Draco barely feels a nudge past his eyes and pushing against his mind. A confirmation, just gently seeking and strolling past the thoughts. And it only takes a moment for him to ease back in his chair. Draco barely feels any Intrusion or aches. 

“I see.”  

“He watched and rewatched and ran it back and rewinded it with glee almost daily. It didn't take me long to figure he had a pattern.” 

There is a heavy pause, and Draco realises that he sounds harsher than he intends to be. Almost accusatory or gleeful. Which isn't what he wants. He just wants to stop feeling altogether. Dumbledore has both hands folded on his lap. “Death comes for us all,” is what he says eventually, kindly, “It is the one thing we should not have to outrun, young Draco.” 

Now, Draco knows those words are addressed directly to him. He warily wonders whether Dumbledore, in those brief, scant seconds, had the opportunity to retain all that Riddle pulled out of Draco by force. It would not be far-fetched for a man like Dumbledore to be capable of such a feat.

“Just so you know, I showed him what I wanted him to see. Not what I saw.” 

“I understand.” 

Draco curls his hands, with their sweaty palms and bitten nails, into fists, “You could've arrived at the Ministry sooner, couldn't you?”

The man's silence may as well have been a nod, a verbal confirmation. 

Draco has memorised this rain, and it plays behind them, like an accompanying Orchestra to the scene. 

“You know what the last one is.” 

This accusation, unlike the last, prompts a physical reaction from the old man. Draco himself has very little regard for the Headmaster, but when Dumbledore brushes his fingers, delicately over the back of his left hand, Draco can't smother the gasp choked in his throat at the sight. 

The flesh is rotten all the way to the bone. As though doused with a foul acid or flesh-eating curse. Draco's wide eyes, now glazed over, snap to the man's face, and his hand shakes. Because when he crafted the death of the old man and showed it to Riddle in his head, he didn't actually fathom a death to be imminent for him. 

Conveniently or not, Dumbledore was Draco's only hope left that things could be amended or pushed past from the edge of this point of no return. 

“I do not know where it resides.” Dumbledore says gently, peering down at his ruined hand as well, “But what I do know is that I will stop at nothing to find the last Horcrux and free your cousin.”

“But you already know and your hand—Oh.” Draco feels a sinking in his chest, “You used a time turner, didn't you? We've already had this conversation.” 

And then he wants to hit himself because of course. Of course, this has already happened. There's no such thing as linearity in this world. No such simplicity as the past or the present. The illusion of choice is only given sparingly, because each person's path had already been decided long before, concurrently with their present. Draco would be the one to know. 

“I would argue,” Albus smiles, “That we had it years ago.”

“That looks bad,” and painful. 

“To my understanding, it is.” Comes the easy answer, “I haven't encountered its source yet, but I assume it has to do with the Diadem. Wherever it is, it is protected. And whatever I've done must have been very foolish.” 

Draco, restless by the revelation, shoots out of the chair in tandem with thunder behind him. From a purely rational standpoint, it would be fascinating to ask the man how it feels, to know and not know something at the same time, to be aware that he has used a time turner to return to this point in time, to this evening, to this rain, and only have a fatal injury and his wand to show for it. But this is not something that occurs to Draco; it’s only the fact that Dumbledore is returning here because he will not be there in the future. He will be dead. Ergo: 

“You're not gonna lead this war.”

“There are contingencies in place.” Dumbledore replies, after a beat, “I seem to have thought ahead.” 

Harry, he means by the contingency. Harry with his slashed neck and buckets of blood. 

“Harry almost died! The only reason he’s alive is Re…Regulus’ sacrifice!”

“Dear boy, we will win. That is a fact as you have foretold. Whether I am dead or alive to see it is irrelevant. Harry is the chosen one.”

“You don’t know that! I don’t either! I don't know the outcome, remember!?” Draco exclaims, his chest heaving with the need to breathe in deeper. “I fucking die too! You can't just leave us to fight alone and take the easy way out and put it all on my shoulders or a flimsy prophecy—” he tapers off and looks down at his shaking hands, “If you die, no one’s gonna fight anymore.”

There will be little point or motivation. Dumbledore is the beacon of light and goodness, of order. The government has already fallen; if Dumbledore ceases to exist, then the meagre numbers who may follow the man give up altogether. Dumbledore, as much as Draco and apparently his cousin, is loath to admit, is more than a simple man with a wand. He is symbolic, something abject and detached from humanity. 

“Draco,” he hears the man’s voice, “Take a seat on your chair again, please.”

Draco drops down on his chair, and an insurmountable load of fear drops over his shoulders, over the grief of having lost Regulus. Lost everything in a matter of hours. A single bad day. 

“What happens now that you’re dead?”

“I am not quite dead yet, Draco.” Dumbledore’s eyes shine faintly with amusement. “Albus Dumbledore still breathes. Outside this room, I recall, with Minerva and Alastor on the other side of the country, we are securing the castle.” 

Draco shakes his head, his hand clumsily settling over Harry’s arm on the bed as he slumps over. Dumbledore gives him ample time to get his breathing under control, but offers little comfort that will actually assuage Draco’s spiralling, “What does this mean for the war? Are we about to skip ahead again?”

“I would rather we did not.” Albus agrees with the unspoken, “My death will be as you predicted, both a spectacle and an extremely quiet affair. Not many will know I have died until the time is exactly right.” 

“Wait, what?”

“I have contingencies in place,” Albus repeats patiently, “To delay Riddle and to preserve hope for as long as we are able to. I will die, but I will be replaced by a capable leader, who has agreed to wear my face. Regulus would approve of us being smarter, no? To retain the element of surprise. I would have never thought of it myself.”

“So the real you that I saw die was—”

“Not me in actuality, I fear.” 

“This is too confusing.” he grips his head in both hands and drops his elbows on the bed, and laments, immaturely in front of the old man, for a moment. His head swims with too many unstable images, with possibilities, fears, and emotions too big for him to decipher or label all at once. 

“I can hardly blame you. But you must know, Draco.” he leans closer to the bed as well, “I do not mind death. We only live in this world to love. And to love we sacrifice.”

Draco drags his sleeve over his face, “Are you scared of dying?” 

Because he is. He’s terrified of it. 

“I am more wary of not being able to make amends.” Albus eases a hand over his dark grey robes, “With my brother. With my own past. With my dear friend, Regulus. Who is, for now, beyond our help. As a matter of fact, if there was only one thing I'd wish for at this moment—” 

“It would be to leave him a letter.” Draco breathes. 

He turns in his seat and reaches for the nightstand drawer. He has no idea whether Regulus has kept the envelope here or whether he’d opened it long ago. Dumbledore watches on as Draco shuffles inside the drawers, pushing past the drawings, the bandages, and the cigarettes his cousin used to keep in his drawers. It’s there, underneath the packet of cigarettes. Draco withdraws the letter numbly and looks at the faded ink, his own handwriting:

 

02-05-1997

“But you don’t do it now,” Draco mutters to himself, passing the envelope over to the old man. Which Albus takes with his uninjured hand. Hard to believe that he wrote it only a little more than a year ago. Albus turns it over in his hand, and Draco can see that the letter has remained unsealed. Regulus was still waiting. 

“Oh, I see.” 

“You’d already written the letter.” Draco clears his throat, “Well, narrated it to me. It has already occurred,” or it will rather shortly if the man’s as close to death as he claims he is. Draco remembers being in the headmaster’s office when it happens, sitting on an armchair, as the man stands by the fireplace. And he does not ask Draco to write his words down, no. He merely says them. As though they’re Draco’s to hear and digest. 

Took him a long time to figure it was not the case. 

“At what age did you perceive it as something that needed to be written down?” Dumbledore asks curiously now, handing the unopened letter back to him. 

“Fairly early on, I'd say.” Draco mumbles, “I recognised your voice at eleven, only after I met you and saw your face. Though, I didn't put your words on parchment until last year because I couldn't recognise the subject of your letter until then.”

“And Regulus is none the wiser.”

“The letter looks untouched, so I'd assume he waited.” he feels a harsh jab penetrate his chest at the thought of the man and his dire circumstances, “Which complicates things, seeing as by the time this date comes and passes, he may no longer have any need for it.” 

Because he may be dead. He is as far from this letter as he is from life itself. And there he will remain, for who knows how long. However long it takes them to find the last Horcrux and defeat Riddle. Which, by virtue of what it constitutes, is too late for things to matter. Draco will be most assuredly dead, and Harry most likely will be as well.

“I am confident that he will see it,” Albus disagrees, “He is one of the only few who will benefit from my death the most.” 

“I guess,” he puts the letter near the pillow and decides that he might as well carry it on his person before James or Harry thinks of going through Reggie’s belongings. “What are we supposed to do now that you don’t know where the diadem is?”

“I'm afraid I must leave you with a heavy burden,” Albus says. He briefly dashes his fingers over the back of his ruined hand, and the seamless, aged flesh returns, an illusion. “It seems that I have already confirmed the diadem's nature. But you and Harry must be the one who finds and destroys it.”

“How the hell are we supposed to—”

“I've brought you a little gift that might help,” Dumbledore interrupts Draco’s rude exclamation. Draco squeezes Harry’s arm to comfort himself again as the headmaster waves his wand to conjure said gift. A small book pops into the air with a shower of small sparkles. It hovers near Draco, and the man nods his head at him to take it. 

Draco does. The book is old and frayed, the pages brown and eaten through. He inspects the title with a curled mouth, “This old thing?”

The Tales of Beedle the Bard. 

A children’s book. Draco bristles and drops the book down on Harry’s chest, “A children’s book! How am I supposed to find it from a children’s book! Why can’t you just tell me now!?”

Albus Dumbledore raises a singular eyebrow at him, and Draco pants, screwing his eyes shut as the rain worsens behind him. He hears the old man getting out of his seat, and the chair disappearing from the room with a small ‘pop’. So, this is why he hates the goddamn rain, Draco thinks to himself. 

Dumbledore is why. 

“Draco,” is the last advice the old man gives him, before walking away, “To love is to let go. To love is to sacrifice. But to love is also to linger. Sometimes in the periphery.” 

His gaze drops to Harry’s slack face, and Draco shakes his head. Scrambling out of the seat with the book. “You have to tell me, Professor. I’m not smart enough to figure it out, and I can’t ask the other you—”

“Of course, you will.” Dumbledore tells him, “I’m glad I saw you one last time, dear boy.”

“Time will never forgive you.” Draco casts out like a curse before the man can disappear. So gripped by the utter helplessness and anxiety of the moment that he can’t really bring himself to say anything else. 

“No. I suppose not.” 

Harry stirs on the bed and Draco stares at the spot where the old man used to stand, merely a breath ago. 

 

...

1996

Quite apparent that the affairs in Cumbria hadn’t gone according to plan. 

Regulus only knows because he is given clothes to wear. Not scraps and the filthy rags given to prisoners, not the sheer nudity he had to use as a cloak, not the blood that dries and cakes over his flesh in patches. He is given formal robes. Heavy fabric, a pureblood, traditional cut, embroidered with intricate designs in silver. Blacker than the night’s sordid sky. Regulus can’t remember the last time his body was shielded with anything other than his own shaking hands. 

They don’t allow him to dress himself; two lanky prisoners show up with the robes, silent and as terrified as him, but more compliant, and as Rabbastan Lestrange keeps watch, they forcibly drag Regulus out of bed and shove him into the bathroom. And Regulus fights it tooth and nail, because the little one is all alone on the bed, unattended and vulnerable to Lesterange’s sadistic whims. And she cries the moment he starts to fight the servants, startled awake by the scuffle. It makes him senseless with panic. 

Regulus downs a servant, his teeth gleaming a harsh red with his blood, before Lestrange rolls his eyes at him, whips his wand in the air, and Regulus goes down in a heavy set of pliable limbs. The downed servant is ordered to gather himself, wipe his bloodied hand off on his scant robes and get back to the job. Quite the humiliation, the way their clumsy hands run over his nude body, but Regulus barely cares because his ears ring with the baby’s cries in the other room and that’s really all he stands to care about. 

They drop him in the tub, scrub him from head to toe, open up his old crusted wounds and rinse him with water that is too hot, maybe as retribution for his earlier deviancy. The fabric feels wrong over his body. Regulus almost feels assaulted by it, and it's not even tailored. It's too big and gaudy on him; he's almost drowning in its folds. Lesterange watches him dispassionately, leering at times, while rolling his eyes at Regulus’ acute anxiety and discomfort. He makes no moves towards the Little One, which is a relief, but not that much of a blessing. 

“Bring the thing along,” He snarls at Regulus as he’s thrown to the bed again, this time clothed and pampered like some porcelain doll. He lifts the stunning charm off Regulus and Reggie scramps, trapping the baby in his arms and away from the trio closing in on him. Once upon a time, he would have felt sorry for the servants, for their missing tongues and shaking hands and the dead look behind their masked eyes. 

Empathy has long been a rare commodity in his body. A forgotten rarity that he can no longer afford. Because they’re all here to hurt him. Friend or foe. They want him on his knees. Regulus will not give them the satisfaction of caring. Not when it concerns others anyway. But her? The infant? As much as Regulus loathes to admit it, she has become a line not to cross. 

“She stays here,” he growls. It’s surprising to him, faintly, that he’s come so far making demands where the child is concerned. He gets to keep her in the room even when he’s ordered to hold an audience. He gets to keep her fed. Tucked out of the way. This may be the first time that she’s even been addressed. Noticed, so to speak. By the Lesteranges no less. 

The Lesteranges share a familial tendency that is hard to overlook when it comes to Regulus. Regulus always supposed that it was a family matter; after all, his husband was the one who mutilated Rabastan’s face and imprisoned his brother and sister-in-law. But ultimately, the leering look in the trio's eyes bleeds less into sadistic joy and more into a confused sort of envy. 

The look Rabastan throws at him now, only for half a second as Regulus shields the infant from their assailants in his robes. The only protection he can offer her, sadly. They have wands and the luxury to harm him, and he doesn’t even have his bare hands to fight. 

“You are itching for a correction today, aren’t you? You,” Lestrange barks at the bleeding servant, “Grab the whelp.”

“Stay the fuck away from her!”

A loud sigh, and the two servants, spindly and starved and twitching, fidget and shuffle on their feet, nervously ducking glances at Lesterange, who refrains from torturing Regulus, as he probably would not have, the servants, “Worse than a hysteric dog in heat. You either carry it or we’ll take it by force. Choose quickly, pet.”

That’s the thing about it, Regulus muses once they crowd him and lead him out of the room, is how quickly this has become his routine. The baby still weakly mewling in his arms, Regulus ponders as he stares at the back of Rabastan’s head, limping along, how other versions of him would’ve dealt with the disrespect coming from Lesterange and Riddle’s other hoard of followers. James would have killed the fucker for less, that’s for sure. 

Regulus has one glorious beat where he imagines his husband, over Rabastan’s body with a pair of scissors, driving it back and forth into the fucker’s skull, and then spitting on his body after it has croaked its last crickety breath. James would do it for him. Would have. 

He tries to tuck the little one against his chest, less for her comfort and more in order to muffle the sounds of her panicked shrieking. She's really not used to being moved around a lot. The most he can bring himself to do at times is just rock and bounce her in place. He bets his weary arms and the limping don't make for a safe and cosy ride down the corridor of horrors in this hellhole. He tries to detach himself from what Riddle’s torture entails, involving her tonight, and figures the worst thing he’ll make Regulus do is kill the babe. He’s not mentally apt enough to digest such a gruesome image, and so he just doesn’t. He doesn’t comfort her, and he doesn’t comfort himself. 

He's sick of being yanked on a chain, though and in a moment of sheer lunacy, Regulus picks up pace, limping past the servants who are hesitantly leading him by the chain. He sidesteps Lesterange as he limps, quite aware of the ridiculous image they must make: a leashed man with a baby leading those holding the chain. 

They head to the ballroom. He's traversed the way there so many times that he knows the worn carpets have his footprint singed upon them. He can go there blind and stumble his way back. 

A full house, tonight. 

The failures of the affair in Cumbria stare right back at him the moment he steps inside the hall. His eyes almost graze over it. Because he takes note of the Death Eaters present first. And sometimes it helps, gauging the crowd and correlating it to the sort of night he's going to have. 

The fewer servants and Death Eaters around, the more nude and humiliated he's gonna end up, whereas a sizable crowd still promises pain and shame, there's a mediocrity to the torture that doesn't necessarily always verge on sexual lechery. 

Tonight, the theatre is full. He can see at least about twenty Death Eaters scattered about the large hall, some with flutes of champagne, surprisingly unmasked. His cousin, Bella, stands closest to the throne, grinning manically at Riddle, Snape passively by her side. Bella's husband, Rodulphus and Martin Goyle sit side by side, and Rabastan promptly joins them. Regulus stands to recognise a few more faces, Malfoy’s among them before a sick sort of tar begins forming in his throat.

His arm tightens around the little one, and she seems to sense the heavy fear in his chest, because her cries settle almost abruptly. Riddle's eyes track him appraisingly, and he raises his hand briefly to halt Bella's excited chattering. Regulus holds the monster's gaze, refusing to shudder or flinch. And also vehemently refusing to look at the projection of a lewd memory, glimmering harshly in the centre of the hall. Right in front of him, actually. 

Riddle's eyes flicker to the faint blue hues of the memory, and Regulus’s eyes drop down to the broken pensive on the marbles first. He can see memory fluid, a puddle on the blood-stained tiles, and the silver, writhing wisps of an extracted memory, floating over the puddle. And above it, of course …the affairs in Cumbria. Reminding Regulus almost hysterically of a moving Muggle picture in the Telly Sirius and Remus used to own. 

The owner of the memory must have had a height disadvantage in the scene. Because Regulus is staring up at three floating dead bodies and their decapitated heads, suspended over the strung-up bodies. Regulus holds the gazes of the bulging eyes, first Alastor Moody's, maybe because the weathered veteran’s presence demands it. 

His fake eye is still madly roving in its socket in the memory, and he's missing a leg. Regulus wonders what sort of beast had managed to bring Moody down. It seemed unlikely to be the work of a single person. The figure in the middle of the execution row is a man with an unsavoury impression in Reggie's head. Johnson, who had in their only interaction insisted that war had a price and Reggie had to hand himself over, looked so mutilated that he was barely recognisable. His body looked like it had been mauled by a wolf and then dragged on harsh pavement. But Regulus knew the look in his eyes. 

“—shivering, my Lord!” A voice cackles behind him, but Regulus is transfixed, staring at the third corpse, at the decapitated head of a man who still had his glasses. His heart seizes because, for a moment, he thinks it's James. But no. This man has a smaller stature, though he is still tall, blond hair, glasses, and brown bulging eyes. Regulus can't say he knows the guy, but what an utterly meaningless and horrific way to die. 

The memory shifts into a hysterical crowd, pushing against the owner of the memory, crying in horror, begging for their lives. Children, men, and women alike trampled underfoot in mass panic—Regulus has to look away. 

Riddle smirks at him, and Regulus contains another shudder of disgust, reaching to adjust the long sleeve of his robes over the little one, covering her face so that she doesn't have to see. Or maybe so that Riddle doesn't get to see her. 

He knows the amusement in those eyes, and why Riddle has gone to such lengths to procure a pensive only to break it, to put on loss on a pedestal for Regulus to see. To fracture him further. Downfall, hopelessness, and failure manifest. Downfall and hopelessness, and failure walk into a pub. A rancid joke. Moody, Johnson, and a nameless bastard. 

The chain attached to his other wrist is tugged, and Regulus yanks it back, not giving any of them the satisfaction of the sinking in his chest. He already knew Cumbria was a lost cause. He was given clothes. He knew it was going to be a loss because Tom went into meticulous praise of the bastard who had designed the strategic trap in Cumbria while forcing Reggie's face down in the sheets. 

Marcus the bright. Marcus the immortal. Marcus the loyal. 

Had he had the smallest spark to live or be difficult, Regulus would have told Tom to fuck Marcus, if Marcus was so high and mighty over all the other beggars around. 

Regulus would relinquish the privilege gladly. 

“Another victory added to the hall of many.” Riddle drawls now, and Regulus circles the projection, his bare feet dragging on the tacky stickiness of the marble marred with his own old blood that never seems to dry. “Did I not promise you glory in its entirety?” 

A round of applause around him, the Death Eaters act like lapping dogs, raising their drinks and clapping their hands, their eyes excitedly shining in anticipation of the proper celebration. 

“Bellatrix,” Riddle croons, “Tell our consort here of our latest conquests. I am sure he is thrilled to know.”

Bellatrix, Regulus can tell, is not at all thrilled to be the one addressing him, and though she can't act as such in front of her Master, it doesn't really matter. It only matters that Regulus knows. And Bellatrix, past the haze of madness, probably knows that he knows. 

Regulus knows by now to lower himself on the hard floor, next to Riddle’s sitting form with little complaint, even though the throbbing in his knees sends a lurching warning through his frame, his face doesn’t as much as twitch. At least now, he has the luxury of padding his knees with the fabric of the robes. It’s good enough. He tunes in to listen to Bella singing Riddle’s praises, and as much as he knows that logically he should be actually listening to her before Riddle realises that he is still too absent, he can’t bring himself to. 

He’s seen what he ought to have seen anyhow. The rows and rows of suspended bodies take up the centre of the hall and adequately erase all those who stand near its presence. Regulus stares at the bodies instead of Bella, his arm numb around the fussy infant and his ears only tuning in when he hears his own name, being uttered:

“—managed to secure it, and only Potter and a few other rats got away. Yesterday, it was Cumbria. Tomorrow it will be Europe, My Lord. We have those filthy bastards already cornered!”

She pauses for dramatic effect, likely to see if the name Potter derails Regulus and sends him into a panic attack, as it usually does. But he’s not in the headspace to think about James Potter as a real human being whom he used to love. It’s easier now since he is fully incapable of love. To ignore the fire the name should spark in his chest. 

“—Indeed,” Regulus watches as Lucius steps next to her, his metal hand flexing around his glass, “We can even attempt to take over Gringotts fully as early as tomorrow. Do away with the seedy Goblins.” 

“And the puny hospital—”

“Already surrounded and monitored.” Goyle is quick to bumble behind them, “Say the word, my Lord, and we'll have it levelled!” 

“Closer to victory than we ever were.” Tom muses as the scattered Death Eaters in the hall tighten their circle around them. Another round of applause, and Regulus sneers because these morons have no idea that the sound startles the little baby and worsens the already deafening wails emanating from her. He holds himself back from comforting her because he knows the slightest bit of attention given to her will make her into a target. 

And so the little one cries, and the others laugh, jeer, and applaud their own depravity.   

It is the bastard wearing his face who breaks the cacophony of noises as he clears his throat. Regulus feels a deep, burrowing sense of discomfort whenever Marcus prances around him the way he does. It’s disorienting to see that look on his own face, to see the exposed, unblemished skin, the sharp green eyes and long lashes and the smattering of moles that he’s only ever seen in a mirror. 

“If I may be so bold, My Lord,” Marcus declares loudly, boldly, “I think this is nothing. We have the manpower and resolve to go after bigger fish.” 

Any other snivelling sod would have been spasming and writhing on the floor, taking that tone with the Dark Lord. That daring umbrage, the raised voice and jovial tone were not reserved for servants to address their Masters with. But Tom only regards the fool with an amused smirk, and a glance he throws at Regulus kneeling. He is always so immeasurably entertained when Regulus and the impostor are in the same room. 

“Is that so?” 

Regulus’ ears strain against the exhausted cries of the infant fussing in his arms, and he briefly allows himself to close his eyes. To spare himself the jarring image of Marcus and the disparaging whimpers of a terrified baby. Regulus doesn’t even know why she might be crying, if not because she is scared. He did feed her very recently. 

Then again, all sense of time in this hellhole is a mere joke. 

“Most Mudbloods are either dead or in our custody.” Marcus bows his head, sidesteps a begrudging Bellatrix to slither closer to Riddle’s throne, “Half-bloods are leaving in flocks or registering their blood status in the Ministry, cleansing their own filth; the only ones left are a gaggle of Morons led by a geriatric fool!” 

“Dumbledore’s days are numbered.” Lucius continues and Regulus bets it’s only because Voldemort looks mildly intrigued by the proposition being set forth. 

“The man's already crawled into a hole, My Lord,” Marcus carries on, his lips pulled into a crooning smile, “You shall see him through. Easy as breathing for you! Drag him out of his hole and show him the taste of true power!” 

It takes everything in Regulus not to roll his eyes to the back of his skull hard enough for his eyeballs to tumble out of their sockets. He usually spares himself the mediocrity of his impostor and the inane nature of the crap they all spew in meetings. If it does not concern him or does not inflict him pain, he is rarely mentally present for it. But this damn baby, he can’t really leave his body with her small, flailing, crying body nestled in his arms. 

Riddle considers Marcus for a beat, and all the Death Eaters except for the Impostor himself seemed to have trapped their breath inside their chests as they await a reaction. Bellatrix, in particular, Regulus notices, brushes a hand over her glass eye. He sees Severus as well, stoically nursing his own glass behind her. Regulus likes to think the man is as disinterested in this event as Reggie is. But even the thought of granting Snape, of all people, humanity makes him ill. 

“What do you suppose, Pet?” Riddle turns to him, “Shall I kill the old man for you?” 

Regulus blinks away from Snape’s brooding face, “For me?” 

He’s a bit taken aback because this must be the most involved he’s been in the conversations in a while. A long while. In fact, longer than he cares to admit. They don’t really think he’s intelligent or coherent or even willing enough to be a part of things. Not outside of the role he performs. But that’s the way Riddle’s been since the little one. Oddly interested in Reggie’s opinion on things. 

Merlin knows what game is brewing in the bastard’s head.

“I'll have his body prostrated in the Great Hall of the school he's ruined.” Voldemort carries on idly, “Everything he touches turns to rot, including you. Getting rid of the old man will facilitate our taking of Hogwarts.” 

“The final step to victory, My Lord,” Marcus affirms, raising his glass and like a gaggle of bloody sheep, all others except Snape and Bella raise their glasses with him. Bellatrix looks miffed by the man’s presence in general, which Reggie assumes is because he’s stealing the Lord’s attention, but Snape…Snape hates the guy too. Reggie is willing to bet on it. 

“In Britain. Yes, I suppose. But what do you think?” The question is pointed at Regulus. And Regulus drops his head to look down at the little one, swaddled within the folds of his long sleeves. She seems to have exhausted herself. Or likely pausing for a reprieve.  

“Whatever you see fit, My Lord.” 

What else is there to say? Does Regulus think that Voldemort truly can upend the wizard? He doesn’t know. Dumbledore is the one man whom Riddle is truly scared of, but if they have progressed this far, if there is little resistance in their way, and if Dumbledore is the only one standing between him and Hogwarts…he probably might try. And he probably might win. He is infallible unless another Horcrux is destroyed, but even that would be unlikely. Regulus doesn’t know how Riddle isn’t crumpling with every step, with only three Horcruxes left. In fact, he is thriving with them. Is there truly no limit to stretching the soul?

“Always lost in your head,” Riddle’s voice is tinged with amusement and disgust in equal amounts, “Something has to be done about that.” he then turns to his followers, “We shan't let the scramping few make a fortress out of our beloved Hogwarts, no. Severus, see to it that we schedule a meeting discussing this idea further. I do want you and other staff present—”

And there goes the crying again. Regulus’ breath catches unnoticeably, and he doesn’t dare sneak a glance down at her. She’s fine. She should be fine. Regulus had been panicking over it for days, the way she just cries when there seems to be nothing wrong with her. He thought she was sick. He thought she was hungry. He thought his magic or the environment or something was amiss, but no. This baby is just miserable to be here, and Regulus aches for her. 

“—Of course, my Lord.” Snape is lowering his chin in a nod.

“And you, Marcus. You shall be awarded for your ingenuity, of course. If all goes well, you might even take over Hogwarts yourself.” 

“Never had the pleasure of attending it, my Lord.” Marcus clambers forward and bows his head again, “But I will treat it as a second home—”

“Are you not going to comfort her?” Riddle cuts the fucker off to ask Regulus. And the hall seems to be suspended in an uncomfortable stillness once more. Regulus exhales slowly and looks up at him. 

“She's a baby, my Lord. She's going to cry whether she's coddled or not.” 

There’s an annoying intrusion behind his eyes, and Regulus flinches as Riddle burrows himself in his mind momentarily, likely seeking to see whether he is lying or trying to protect her from him. Which he is, but it wouldn’t change his response in the slightest. 

“So little compassion for something so small and innocent,” he jeers at him once he draws back, “Your heart has turned to stone,” are the mocking words. 

Regulus has to stifle an indignant laugh. What is that now? Is Lord Voldemort whinging because he’s beaten all emotions and senses out of his sex slave? He’s whining because Regulus has been beyond desensitised to human stimuli and feelings. Because if he feels anything even remotely other than melancholy, he will surely suffocate. And he finds fault with that, with the fact that Regulus cannot bring himself to get attached to a baby that was forced on him. And it’s nagging at him so much that he is mocking Regulus for it. 

“Is love not a weakness to you?” he asks, even though he anticipates being punished for it. Back-talk is not really appreciated in this place. There is no torture coming now. Riddle looks immensely pleased with himself as he had gotten a response out of Regulus that not even the dead bodies or the projected memory had. 

“Feelings were your little quirk. It was quite amusing.”

Regulus sighs, but the motion is drowned under the guffawing bellows of the Death Eaters around them. They apparently find this exchange hilarious. Or it’s just that they’re mindless clowns who fear for their lives if they don’t partake in the kowtowing. “I can't pretend I care.” 

“Shall we cheer him up, Marcus?” Riddle ignores his answer, waving a hand at the broken pensive in the hall, “Enough of that memory. How about a show? Bella, Lucius, have the Hall cleared, no more executions for tonight. It has been so long since we revisited old traditions.”

Regulus's heart sinks into his stomach. Imperceptibly, his hold tightens around the babe. Clearing the hall can only mean an array of limited things. And Regulus normally would've given it much thought, but with her here…

He's not really ready to tell her goodbye. 

“Yes, My lord!” comes the collective reply, and a hoard of robed servants stumble inside the hall, led by Rabastan and Lucius. Regulus watches, dispassionately, as the pensive fluid and the dead bodies are cleared out of the hall. The little one stops her crying right about then, and Regulus bites the inside of his cheek. 

There are three people staring at him. There is Marcus, the wretch, glaring and jeering at him and the babe with his arms crossed. There is Snape, who seems to be deep in thought or likely occluding his mind for what is about to come. And there's Bella. His older cousin. 

And there is that look on her face again; A familial disdain, cloaked by jealousy, but also an innate confusion. Perhaps a moment of clarity for her. She always loathed him. Though, there was a time when they were children that she got along swimmingly with Sirius. Despite the fact that the memories of that brief stint are too faded and distant now for an accurate recollection. 

Riddle gestures at him to get to his feet after the hall has been prepared, and Regulus keeps his gaze ducked. “What about the babe?” 

He shudders at the mere thought of her being in this rancid affair. Despite his earlier claim, Regulus can’ bear the idea of a single hair on her head being hurt. He holds her, and he can feel the way she senses his fear and anxiety. She begins squirming in his arms.

Riddle has no need to contemplate his response: “Put her down, you do not seem really inclined to hold her anyhow.”

It’s an order. And Regulus is quick to follow. Stubbornness won’t save her life or ease her death any more than it alleviates his torment. He unclasps the outer layer of his robe and takes it off, holding onto the bundle around her, which he quickly then lowers on the floor.

“If you kill her, I'll kill myself.” 

It’s the first time he has threatened to do this in Riddle’s face. Usually, his unbearable despair is in the subtext, something that is inferred instead of blatantly stated. Usually, all he dares himself to do is to feel the pill either with his fingers or tongue, not as a tangible solution, but a self-soothing promise. He means it. If this infant dies, either by his hand or through some other means, he will see to it that Riddle mourns the mistake he made. 

Riddle does not bristle openly at the threat—vow, but his eyes still narrow and his tongue still sibilantly darts over his lips. “I would love to see you try, pet,” is the dry reply, “Hurry along now.” 

He looks at her a beat longer, discontent at the proximity she has to the beast, but then has no choice but to let it go. Her fists struggle in the air and he backs away from her and Tom, stepping into the circle of the jeering crowd. If he does a good enough job tonight, they may not even notice her if she cries. 

In the middle of the manmade circle, Regulus is not alone. His lookalike counterpart, the lesser impostor, leers. Regulus feels like he’s looking into a warped mirror as he stares at him and Marcus’ eyes glint cruelly. What could it be? Regulus kept wondering for months. Why would this wretched worm hate him so deeply and intimately? And yet covet to steal his appearances and body through whatever means that he’s using?

It’s no polyjuice, Regulus knows that much. The first time he saw the man wearing his face, he nearly went mad with disbelief. He thought it a hallucination, a junctor of error in his mind, all that torture and rape must yield some otherworldly aftereffects. But no…the man just rejoices standing in front of Regulus with that face, and flaunting the unblemished body. As real as can be.

And here now he also stands, sneers at him for a beat and then shoves past him, addressing the Lord with open arms, like a jester to a king:

“Let us know, my Lord! What is in your fancy tonight! Shall it be a dance?” he pushes at Reggie’s body, grabs his unwilling arm and twists him around in the circle, a mockery of a dance, “A story? A fight!?” he shoves Regulus, stumbling towards Bella out of the circle, and Regulus goes partly because his body is too weakly to protest the lurching movement, but mostly just to go along with things to keep the little one safe, “I’ll have him on the chain again!” Marcus exclaims, “I will entertain no matter the essence. He’ll take it, whether a beating or a kiss.”

“I’d say we do drawings!” Bella seizes Regulus’ abused arm and hurls him towards the centre again, her skirts fluttering as she struts after him, “Get the branding iron,” her wand, pointed at the floor, crackles with a dangerous, charged sort of light, like lightning. Regulus doesn’t flinch but he can hear their cackles and laughter, Riddle’s among them, as she circles him menacingly, “One on your face—over an unruly eye—I implore you, My lord.” 

“A branding iron?”

“It’s to discipline,” Bellatrix calmly restates, her head respectfully bowed when she addresses the Monster over Reggie’s shoulder, “Itty bitty baby Reggie can take a little roughing, can't he, my Lord?” 

“He already stinks to high heavens.” Lucius is the one who adds lewdly from the side, his face and mouth twisted to the side in an expression of fixed torment, “Burning his flesh will add to it. We shall do something more tasteful—another flogging. He took my son without my permission, my Lord, if you permit it, I seek retribution—”

“You caned him just last week again!” Rabastan interrupts him, bolstered by a young lad’s enthusiastic agreement, the one who groped Regulus so long ago, “Have some creativity, Lucius.” 

“Our Lord’s taste is exquisite,” Goyle bumbles, “Cheap tricks like a whip, will not do to celebrate our victory. It has to be a magical sort of game. Pet takes to Crucio well, won’t he. Maybe the blood boiling curse—”

“Well, said.” Regulus hears Tom’s croon, amused, wretched. And the baby’s snuffling and inaudible whimpers. Regulus does not dare lift his head or turn back. All he feels in his chest is an animalistic sort of fear. He does not want to be branded like cattle; he has no wish to oblige these sadists. And why lie? The slightest idea of pain terrifies him. 

“—A high form of art.” Marcus grabs at Regulus again, his boot kicking into the back of Reg’s knees and sending him down, “The Greeks thought the highest form of art was tragedy, My Lord.” his hand fists Reggie’s hair and pulls his head up to face the Dark Lord,” Shall we perform one? The prince and the pauper, one doomed and the other saved by his grace—”

Ridicule and mocking laughter, but when Regulus’ cracked lips stretch him in a snort, all of it stops. Regulus rolls his eyes and laughs again. It’s a sudden urge, he can’t care to suffocate it. 

“What,” he looks up at himself, “You think you're the pauper?” 

More laughter, now directed at him and Marcus both. The Impostor curls his mouth and kicks at him again. He wrenches Reggie’s body upwards before it can hit the floor, “The pathetic, pompous prince, cast out,” he spits at Reg’s face, “Downtrodden, punished—seems about right for you. That makes me—” 

“A vermin.” Regulus spits up in his face, “A dog wearing my face.”

“Why you—”

Marcus reels back and Regulus summons the meagre bit of strength to lock his arms around the stumbling man’s knees, pulling him down on the tacky floor, and climbing over him with all the intentions to win. Riddle wanted a recursive performance? A glance back at tradition? Regulus can give him that. He can. 

He’s been starved, beaten, tortured, and humiliated, dehumanised to the depths of depravity, but by Merlin, he can still throw a punch. And he does. Marcus’s wand clatters out of his grasp with a curse, and the fucker’s nails dig in Reggie’s arms, into the open wounds. Regulus rolls and roars with the pain, but lands punch after punch on the man’s chest and face. No one stops him at first, but Riddle must have waved a wand, because Regulus’ body is yanked away and thrown to the floor magically. Marcus spits the blood pooling in his mouth and finds his wand. 

Regulus sidesteps a Crucio, pants and flexes his fingers. He can hear sounds, noises, talking, goading, and ridicule. His mind does not decipher a single word. If this fucker wants to wear his damn face, he should stand to see it ruined, too. 

Regulus' face, his body, neither were made to be preserved. They were made to be beaten and damaged, to be drowned in tears and blood. Marcus’ slashing curse gets him in the calf, and Regulus grits his teeth, arching the same leg into a wide kick. Marcus grunts once it makes impact, and Regulus dives forward; he knows he’s gonna go for the fucker’s throat. He’ll tear it out with his teeth. 

Though, he knows Marcus wouldn’t die. Not with the Horcrux curling in his belly. No, Regulus has to tear him open and disembowel him first. Images of blood, and a thirst of revenge cloud his vision, and he shivers with the force of it. He slams the heel of his palm into Marcus’ chin and bares his teeth, ready to strike at the naked flesh—

A cry. 

This baby has been sobbing nonstop, day and night, through feedings and changes, through Regulus’ resentment and misery. She cries so much that her voice grows strained and her face gets red and her kicking feet lose all strength. She cries so much that sometimes Regulus thinks he’s going mad because of it. She cries so much that he dreams about it. But this shriek—Regulus knows this is not the same. His head whips before his body turns and he falls immediately to his knees. 

“No!” he screams, hurrying towards her on all fours, “No PLEASE!”

When he was a child, maybe a year or two before Sirius started attending Hogwarts, and Bella was in her third year, an incident occurred. A family gathering was had, between the heads of the Noble House of Black. Three sisters, two brothers were cramped in the sitting room of a decrepit Manor. Bored out of their minds, mildly disgusted by each other, and pompously aware that they were the leading generation of their family, Bella, the middle child, decided that she was bored. 

All sisters had wands at that point, but the brothers were too young. All sisters knew that they should not be cast out of school. But Bella decided that she was bored. The youngest sister, Cissa, had a cat. It was a white, fluffy thing, as purely bred as her. Bella couldn’t stand the creature, Regulus recalled. And she was bored. And this unnamed cat, this miserable sod, was in the sitting room with them. Curled on top of the armrests of an ornate couch, while Cissa turned her nose at Sirius, cuddling Reggie to his side, and Siri was glaring back at her, while the eldest, Andy, had busied herself with a book. No one was watching. But Reggie was. 

Bella yanked the cat by its tail into the air with her wand, and the room exploded in startled cries and exclamations as she began to torment the cat midair. Blood and white fluff fell from the animal like a thicket of snow. Sirius had covered Reggie’s body with his own and Andy, the smartest and oldest, had run out of the room to fetch her parents, too timid to confront Bella when she was in one of her moods. But Cissa, Regulus recalls, she began crying at Bella’s feet: “No, Petite Belle! Arrête! Arrête!”

The baby is dangling in the air, held upside down by one leg, stolen out of her nest of warm robes. Bella shakes her tauntingly and Regulus’ breath escapes him in horror. He crawls faster than he can blink, his tone having taken a panicked and hysterical edge as the terrified baby cries for him:

“No, let her go! Let her go! Bella!”

He cries like Cissa used to for her dead cat. But the flailing infant is still alive. Bella’s smirk is sadistic and triumphant and she turns to Riddle, who observes them placidly, “There it is! Crying like he means it now, My Lord! Thought we had to break out the muzzle again. But all it took—” 

And she shakes her again and Regulus cries at her feet, too scared to reach and grab her because Riddle has not given him permission to do so. “Don't shake her! Let her go! Arrête! Petite Belle!”

“Bella.” is what stops her, not Regulus’ sobbing and begging at her feet. Riddle flicks a bored finger at her, “Cease tormenting him with his pet. It's a Pureblood child, you're dangling from a hand, not a Mudblood.” 

He nods at Regulus and Regulus doesn’t know how he stands to pluck the baby out of Bella’s grasp, but the babe is held against his chest, crying at the top of her lungs and so scared. She must have been so scared. Regulus sinks back down to his knees with her, his eyes manically tracking her to look for injuries and his chest heaves, and he can’t breathe and what if she hurt her, what if—

“Excuse my disrespect, my Lord,” he hears Bella’s apology and Riddle’s noncomittal dismissal of it. 

“Born of a traitor, but still.”

Regulus smooths a hand over the little one’s head, and lowers his lips to her forehead, and he begs all the gods out there that she’s okay. Because he doesn’t know what he will do if she is not. No humiliation, no torture, nor pain will ever live up to the pure, abject horror that consumes him now. He stifles his own cries and he doesn’t know what to do about hers, but his eyes track up to see his cousin, regarding him with jealousy and contempt. 

“You did that because I was winning.” Regulus croaks over the faint whimpering of the child. 

“Winning?” Bella scoffs, “What, our Lord clothed you and you mistook yourself for a person again? Is that it?” 

“An ungrateful pig,” Marcus’ voice breaks out behind them, “He can't help but oink oink his way to the top.” 

“Ungrateful,” Voldemort admits, his gaze is somehow both unimpressed and moved at once. He seems elated that the babe’s torment had finally broken Regulus out of his stoicism, but seems irate that the only emotion Reggie had expressed in weeks is because a lowly child and not himself, “You may have a point, Marcus. He barely looked at our gift.” he shakes his head at Regulus, “You barely celebrated with us.” 

“Congratulations.” Regulus breathes, his ears aching with the sound of the cries. 

“After all I gave you.” Riddle eases himself out of his seat, his tall, grotesque figure drops a shadow over Reggie’s body, “After all, I cannot help but bestow on you. Isn't that what our inferiors call love?” 

Something in Reggie’s mind stops. 

Love. 

Did this wretch, this erroneous misfit of the universe’s rubbish just stake a claim on Love? 

The same Love as warm hands, peeling an orange for him? The same Love as lips reverently caressing his skin, kissing the scars away? The same Love as the comforting presence that brushed his hair and uttered his name like it was holy? The same Love that meant unwavering faith? That meant wholesomeness and warmth and sanity? The same Love that held him in his sleep for years? The same Love that Regulus dares not name even in his head lest the madman who has kidnapped him go after him?

“Love,” Regulus mutters. 

His vision blurs and he feels himself go mad again, even the baby’s distress is forgotten and pushed aside in his mind. It’s only the word Love, and a blurry face, amber eyes, keeping him together when all he wanted to do all these years was to fall apart. The same love as blooming flowers and crosswords and sunny days, being taken in the same breath was pain, and torment, and the heinous rape. How dare he sully Love’s name?

“Love?”

Riddle stares at him unfalteringly and Regulus feels hot tears drip down his chin onto the infant’s head; his lips are stretched in a disbelieving smile as he repeats the word, just to make sure he heard it right. Love. Love. Love. Love? LOVE? Love. 

“Started again.” Bella sighs dramatically over his screaming, wordless and endless and hoarse. Regulus screams his fury into the void space between himself and Riddle. Uncaring of the scared child, “Boring cries,” his cousin moans, “Shall I Crucio him for you, My Lord? Give him something real to cry over—”

Regulus sees blood. He sees blood and he tastes it and he knows it’s beneath his fingernails, gathering rust, waiting for him to break and LOVE!? How dare he ruin the sanctity of love? How dare he drag his own filth into what saved Regulus, keep his head above water for years? 

“—Severus—Take him back to his quarters. He has broken himself again.”

He doesn’t know how, but a pair of arms wrangle him and the baby from the floor, and drag his screaming body out of the hall. And it all swims in his head, the executed bodies, the affairs in Cumbria, the warm clothes, the cold tiles, his own old blood, the prince and the pauper and Love. 

“You need to calm yourself!” 

He thrashes and his eyes snap open when the baby is removed from his arms. Regulus strikes blindly, and Severus draws back, “You were hurting her!” he exclaims, and Regulus pants, his throat dry and yet slick with a metallic tang. “Look.” Severus orders him and as Regulus watches, the Death Eater slowly lowers the baby back on the bed again. 

The bed. 

They’re in Reggie’s…The room. 

Regulus can’t even recall how they made it here. He gets to his feet very slowly, pushing the offered hand away, and limps towards the bed where she is, disgruntled but not shrieking like before. “She hurt her,” he croaks. 

“She’s fine. I’ll look her over, but she is fine, Potter.”

Regulus shakes his head. It doesn’t matter if she’s fine, he decides. It doesn’t matter because Regulus can’t do this anymore. This sick restlessness in his chest, this anxiety, this madness will never die as long as he is alive. And he can’t keep screaming about it. He cannot keep wondering what will happen next; he can’t keep anticipating pain and misery and getting it tenfold every day. He’s already done it once. Why should he have to do it again? They’re all gonna die anyway, who knows how many have died in Cumbria and how many will once Riddle kills Dumbledore? What if Harry and James die and Regulus is never told? 

He doesn’t want to stay here if that is the case. It’s okay to admit defeat, he thinks to himself. It’s okay to gracefully let it all go. And he can. He can, if he just—a rough hand grasps his arm. 

Snape looks at him barely for a moment, but he knows. 

“Black, no—” 

Regulus locks his jaw, prepares himself to break the pill for once and be done with it and he can see his family again on the other side. Because of course, there’s another side and he’s tired. Maybe James is already there, waiting for him. Maybe this little baby will join them herself soon. And Lily will be there and so will Evan and—

Snape’s hand almost bruises his jaw, his other arm trapping Regulus's hands against his chest, and Regulus fights it immediately, slamming his head back into Snape’s nose, his chin, his head. He tries to grind his teeth together, snap his jaw and struggle out of the hold, but Snape actually shoves his hand inside Reggie’s mouth, between his teeth. 

“No! No, don’t!” he yells at Regulus. 

Regulus bites down on the fingers and Snape hisses and curses, but does not draw away. Regulus growls against the hand and thinks that he does not want to expend this much energy merely to die. How did Snape even know about the pill? Did he use Occlumency? Is he selfishly thinking that as long as Regulus is held hostage here, he can do whatever the fuck he wants? That Regulus can appease Riddle and temper his wrath for all the others? 

He chokes and can’t breathe and Snape holds onto him. He’s saying something. Actually, the same thing over and over: 

“Listen to me! The big one's coming! Argh! Potter—STOP!”

The big one?

What sort of a name is that? Regulus pauses momentarily and coughs, choking on Snape’s bleeding fingers in his mouth. Snape withdraws his hand and Regulus keeps coughing. Wiping a disgusted hand over his mouth. He pants and looks over his shoulder at the dishevelled bastard.“What?” 

“The big one,” Snape repeats himself. 

“What are you talking about?” Regulus cringes at how breathless and hoarse his voice sounds. It’s barely him. He’s barely himself. “They’re all dead.”

The baby, unattended and fussy, grunts as Regulus drops down on the bed next to her. Snape is cleaning up the blood from his hand and face, and curling his lips at the bite marks imprinted on his fingers, “You idiotic fool,” he whispers, “Dying just as things are about to culminate?” 

“Do you like me ruined and tortured then? Does it make your prick dance? Is that why you want me to live?” Regulus spits the leftover blood and grime on the floor. The big one? What a joke. It’s another lie. 

Coming from a serial liar like Snape, Regulus should disregard the whole thing and still kill himself. There is no hope or revival at the end of this road for him. And Snape is a self-serving, back-stabbing snake who doesn’t know the slightest thing about what it feels like to be Regulus in this self-imposed exile. He’s been abandoned here and it’s been years. It must have been years. Any lesser time feels like a lie. 

“You really think they’d abandon you? Let you fester here?”

“What are you talking about?” Regulus lifts his eyes and Snape stares back at him, openly. It’s so sick of the man to do this. As though the earlier torment was not enough. He has to instigate this game of paranoia. An endless roaming of will they, won’t they. It’s cruel, doing that sort of shit to a mentally unwell fucker like Reggie himself. 

“It’s been in the plans for months. Since your capture. They are near.” 

“Months?” Regulus sneers. “Don’t fucking lie to me, no. How would you even know? It’s…” he stops himself, his vision swimming with the confusion and pain, “It’s been years.” 

“Eleven months—”

The audacity of this cur, Regulus’s eyes narrow and focus on him. And he raises his hand to strike him, but Snape swiftly subdues his attack. “Black listen to me—”

“You're fucking lying to me! You're a bloody liar! It has been years! Years!”

Snape lets out an irritated sigh, his arms close over Regulus’ shoulder and turn him over on the bed to face the little one, “Look at her.” he shakes him, “She's still an infant! How can it have been years!?”

“I don’t get it.” 

“The big one is on its way. And it is going to be soon.” 

“It's too soon.” Regulus stares at the child, at her cowlicked hair and red face, her little hands. Snape’s right. She’s too small, and he just got her. It can’t have been years. But if that means that someone out there is looking for him…no. How can they come looking for himat  a time like this? They’re losing the war; they’re all dying. Voldemort is still powerful and immortal. It’s too soon. Doomed to fail. “They're gonna fail. Everyone is dead—I just saw it! He'll go after Harry and James, and I'd done nothing, there's no point, I can't stay here anymore—”

On the cusp of spiralling again, his breath quivers and his jaw flexes, so tempted not to believe the wretched, traitorous man and chomp on the pill. Like a potions addict, itching for a fix, he aches to be done with it already, but…

“Regulus.” The man’s hands are on his face, holding it in place. Warmth against his dead, clammy flesh, “Listen to me very carefully.” Each word is said with great emphasis, articulated. “The Big One. Is. Coming.” 

Regulus sags down against the touch. 

 

...

 

There are bodies on gurneys wherever he dares to step. It makes Harry feel claustrophobic. he has to watch his step, and to watch his step he has to look down at the tense faces of those who are either dead or whining because of the pain. Covered in grime, soot, and blood. 

Only about fifteen people they managed to save, forty corpses that they extracted. Twenty bodies that they had to leave behind. 

Harry has started to comprehend the concept of loss rather acutely. Because on his way here, the first two bodies he saw were those of his schoolmates. Cedric Diggory and the Ravenclaw girl, Cho, were lying on two gurneys, side by side, flanked by their crying parents, who were injured themselves. They look up at him, the ones who are conscious or alive, it’s become hard to tell, and raise their hands to grab at him, like he was some messiah. Harry hated it. 

He nods a greeting at the Grangers, helping Pomfrey with Hermione, and a flustered Ron, sitting over a gurney with Charlie Weasley sprawled on it. The boy seems to be awake and mumbling to Ron, so Harry is not too concerned. He feels Ron’s distracted hand, brushing against and squeezing his limp hand as he passes them, and Harry swallows the bile in his throat. He squeezes the hand back before he steps away. 

The Bristol cottage is not at all big enough to accommodate this many people. He can even see some people stationed on the stairs and leading all the way to the second floor. What else is there to do? He thinks. Hogwarts cannot possibly become compromised with this many injured people. 

Harry makes his way to the sitting room, where his father is, behind a silencing charm, passionately screaming at Dumbledore by the looks of it, while the old man, reserved and uncharacteristically broken by age, barely gets a word in. This argument has a small group of spectators: Molly Weasley in the armchair farthest away, wringing an apron in her hands; she looks like she’s aged fifteen years overnight. A shellshocked Kingsley stands behind her, with a tall Auror whom Harry faintly knows by face. And Barty. 

Barty opens his arms for a non-negotiable hug and Harry burrows his face against the haggard man’s chest. He hasn’t seen Barty in a month or two, and the man looks like utter shit and Harry bets he feels it too. Barty drops his chin on Harry’s head and pats him on the back, “Good lad,” he calls Harry, “You’re growing like weed.”

“Barty, I gotta know…”

“It wasn’t your intel.” Barty quickly assures him and they both turn to look at James and Albus beyond the silencing charms, “Moony saw Fletcher join them. We had a rat.”

“Fuck.” Harry bites his lip. He was so close, they were all so close to losing their lives. Harry and his father missed the disaster in Cumbria by the breadth of their hair. It almost seemed surreal, how both Harry and James were too saddled to join the mission. Harry had to keep vigil by Draco’s side and Dad…Dad was busy with Crabbe Sr.. As he had been for the past few weeks. 

“Nearly sixty dead,” Barty muses and Molly sniffles into her handkerchief, “That’s more than half of us.”

Is that why Dad is screaming? Harry swallows again, cramming his hands into Papa’s jacket. He looks at his father and Dumbledore, then feels a prickle behind his neck, noticing the tall Auror staring at him intently. “You know what it means,” she tells him unprompted. 

Barty scoffs and Harry huddles closer to the man, “What are we gonna do now?”

“They’re gonna tighten the noose,” Barty says darkly, “Food and potion shortages. We’re too few to be as resourceful. Unless we recruit.”

“Recruit who?”

“Children,” the tall woman snaps, her boots stomping on the floorboards, “I can’t believe boss’s audacity to even suggest such a thing! Isn’t it enough that his son has been dragged into this?”

“Maya—” Shacklebolt warns but the woman shakes her head. 

“He has a noble cause in mind! I get it that evil has to be defeated somehow…But children?”

“It’s a voluntary call for those seventeen and older.” Barty says, but doesn’t like he really disagrees with her, “Legal adults by Wizarding standards.” 

Harry shrinks a little, and his eyes meet his father’s at that exact moment. He sees a desperate faltering in the man’s pose as he shakes his head at Albus. And it’s them both now, staring at Harry like he’s some freak in a circus show. Barty’s hand settles over his shoulder protectively and he pats him, “Your father is just…overwhelmed right now. There will be a major setback.”

“What?” Harry shrugs the man off, “What do you mean, setback?” 

There’s a sinking in his chest, and he catches his father’s glazed and desperate gaze again, beyond the silencing charm. Dad looks away first, ashamed. “No. What?”

“We don’t have enough people for—”

“The big one is still happening, though.” Harry protests, “He spent weeks interrogating Crabbe, and we are all set for—”

“Harry.” Barty’s hands settle on his shoulders, turning him away from Molly’s silent weeping and his father and the headmaster. “Listen to me.”

“No.” 

“I’m sorry.” Barty purses his lips, his stoic expression breaking into a look of crestfallen remorse. “There are just too many casualties, our situation is too uncertain. We don’t have enough people for a full-frontal assault like we did last week—”

“No! What are you saying to me right now? What!?”

All that he did. All those days, those endless drives through rural roads on his bike, on a broom. All that fighting, and wounds and the scar on his neck and restless nights. Harry only let himself feel a moderate relief after Crabbe’s capture. Because of one thought and one only: they were gonna try to find Papa and bring him back. They had a realistic chance at finding Papa and bringing him back. They had plans and people and snitches, and Barty went undercover for eight months, to secure an informant so that they could find Papa and bring him back. 

Harry hasn’t eaten a thing without the bile lodged in his throat in so many months at the mere thought that Papa was gone and being tortured. He hasn’t slept. He has denied himself every comfort, every act of love. He cries in the shower, in the rain, he screams back at the sea. 

He thought that had to mean something.

“No,” he repeats himself, “Barty, please—”

“Harry, baby—”

“No! They’re talking it out right now, right? We’ll get Papa and then regroup! We don’t need food or potions or whatever—”

His vision blurs with tears that he’s too ashamed of, and Barty hugs him again, holding him from the scene taking place between Dad and Dumbledore. Another deconstruction. True misery. Harry knows Papa would have loved the irony of it. “We’re not giving up.” Barty tells him, “We’re just waiting.”

“He doesn’t have time.” Harry breathes and draws back, scrubs at his face with the sleeve of Papa’s jacket, “No. No, come on! We have Crabbe, we can—he can’t wait. He’s been waiting for so long. He can’t wait!”

Shaking heads, wherever he looks. Harry’s chest heaves, and the walls seem to close in on him. He turns to his father, begging the man to let him within the wards, past the silencing charm. He can beg Dumbledore himself, make a case for it himself! 

“I need you to be rational about this.” Barty orders him softly, “Kiddo, I know. Trust me, I know better than anyone the hell he’s in right now. But we can’t rush it—”

“I waited.” Harry covers his mouth and shrugs Barty’s touch off again, “I waited. I did whatever you all wanted! I—I thought…what if he dies?”

“Harry—”

“He’s there and he’s waiting for us to go and get him! He gave himself up because of me and… and he’s alone and he’s waiting! What if he dies waiting and we don’t find him and he thinks we didn’t care and he’ll just be gone and what do I do then!?”

“Harry dear—” he hears Molly, getting out of her armchair. 

Harry shakes his head, he can’t look at any of them. “All of these deaths over a rat?” He shakes his head, “It’s not right! I did everything right! I ran that place ten times! I killed fucking hounds and snatchers and—”

“Harry.” It’s Dad. 

Harry clamps his lips together and steels his face before turning to face his father. Dad’s shoulders have dropped, and his hair is unkempt because he always does this thing where he runs his hand through it whenever he’s stressed. And his glasses are missing, and Harry feels like the world is ending. 

“Tell me it’s not true, Dad.” Harry demands, not daring to look at anyone else, even Albus, for confirmation. “We got the bastard, you’ve been working him for weeks! We still have members, twenty would be enough, or I can go alone—”

“You are not going alone.” not a rebuke or warning. A fact. One that Harry doesn’t dare to disobey, even though, for the first time since Papa went away, he feels the urge and desperation to do so. 

“Papa…”

James closes his eyes, “I know, son.”

“This is bullshit!” 

Harry storms out. Because turns out that he truly is a child, despite his many attempts at pretending that he is not. He doesn’t know which emotion is louder and closer to exploding in his chest: the agony or the rage. All these months, everything that he did. 

He rages out of the house and apparates in a flurry of rage and movement. Hearing the way the air cracks as he disappears. He feels too nauseous to move immediately once he lands, and there is a moment of suspension where he only stares at the sand underneath his boots and tries to breathe. 

The shell cottage is as desolate as it ever is. And Harry abhors that he knows the rhythm of the waves as intimately as he does. But Draco is inside. Harry has the most primal urge to be with the boy before he parses his emotions or breaks down. He trudges inside, stomps his boots to shake out the sound and the windchimes mock him on his way in. 

It’s cloudy again today.

Harry slams the door shut behind him, and Draco startles out of the couch he’s been confined to. Not that he adheres to anything even resembling peace and rest. He’s holding a book, as he usually tends to do whenever Harry’s sought him out lately. He lowers it when he sees the look on Harry’s face. 

“Was it that bad?” Draco asks even though he knows the answer. 

“They’re—they’re calling it off.”

“What?” 

 

...

 

“So a blinding blue light and static?” 

An irritated exhale, and Draco turned in the cot, bodily to face the boy with his eyes half open. They had had this conversation almost daily since Draco’s little nosebleeding incident a few days prior. Draco was honestly completely over it. 

“Like the wireless,” he mumbles and glares at the boy. “For the umpteenth time.” 

Harry picked up on the irritation bleeding into his voice. He huffed and drew his leg up with a huff. “Well, forgive me for freaking out—” 

“It happened ages ago—” 

“It's only been a week. You were bleeding and walking like an Inferi into the waves.” Harry frowned at him, “You almost drowned, mind you—” 

“And Pomfrey said I was just fine.” 

Draco was actually only sick of this conversation because every time he had to pretend that he was not just as spooked, that he was fine, and things were normal, and what happened was not a big deal. But it was. It kind of was. Like really. One moment, he was in the process of undressing himself and grumbling under his breath, and the next, he was up to his waist in seawater, bleeding out of two orifices. 

“Well, you never said that shit happens when you have a vision.” Harry kept on nagging, “You haven't had any new visions in like a year. It's weird. You should've seen Dumbledore.” 

Draco smothered the mountain of discomfort landing in his stomach at the mention of the old man. He knew the slightest sign of his discomfort would set Harry off. The boy was always watching him, always there, always catching Draco in the act of pretending. So Draco shuffled closer in the cot, pushing his face into Harry’s neck. 

“Try getting a piece of him,” he said quickly, “Come here.”

He took the boy in and almost groaned. Harry reeked of cigarettes. It seemed like every time Draco went to touch the boy or hug him, plumes of cigarette smoke burst out of him like disturbed dust. “You really should quit the stuff.” 

“If you let me.” Harry’s chest vibrated against Draco’s cold nose, “Just don't go crazy again when I'm not around, okay?” 

“Alright.” 

Draco shuddered, tucking both feet under the blanket and smashed against Harry’s bare leg where warmth was radiating. Draco squirmed some more, somewhat from the cold, but also from the unexplained arousal of a teenage boy in close proximity to his fancy. Sometimes he was good at controlling it, sometimes he wasn’t. Draco pressed his thighs together and breathed in the stale smell of cigarettes and Harry’s own scent. He had to be satisfied with whatever he could get. 

“You're shivering,” Harry mumbled, his eyes closed. “Are you getting sick?”

“No.” Draco lied, swallowing the stuffiness in his throat a little. It wasn’t really a type of sickness one could solve with spells or potions. “My head hurts.”

“You keep getting headaches.”

“Astute observation, Potter.” 

Harry dropped his arm over Draco’s middle and pulled him close. Draco tried to push back against the smothering touch, but it was too late. The boy’s eyes snapped open and he scrambled back, almost falling out of the cot. “Oh.” 

Draco flushed and shrugged. “Shut up.” 

It wasn’t that he was embarrassed or anything. He was not. It was just that Harry kept acting so awkwardly about it that Draco felt almost disgusted whenever he showed the smallest inclination that he was interested in the boy. Which normally would have been fine, the rejection stung, of course, but Draco was never about to force himself on the boy. Except… except Harry was looking at him, flushing a deep shade of pink but refusing to look away. 

“What?” Draco snapped, dropping his hand to his pyjama pants and reaching for the blanket. 

“Did I do something?” Harry asked. 

“Shut up.”

“It’s okay, I can leave the room—”

“Merlin’s balls, Potter.” Draco sneered, “It’s just a damn cock. Get over it.”

It was the only way he could deal with ridicule and humiliation. Always striking first. Harry’s face fell and his eyes widened in terror and it was almost funny because Harry was so broken by war and grief and yet so comically innocent in matters that most teenage boys in their formative years would not be. His idea of love was so pure and unshaken, Draco didn’t even think the boy knew how to kiss a sod back.

Harry’s hand reached out in the dark, his thumb swiping over Draco’s lips like he was testing to see whether it was moist. Draco let him, holding his breath and remaining perfectly still as an unfamiliar shadow took over Harry’s eyes. He drew himself closer and his breath shuddered in the air between them. Draco couldn’t contain himself any longer. He closed the gap and captured the boy’s lips. 

It was messy, Draco had to admit. It was in the middle of the night, and they knew they had to be quiet and things were horrible, but it was everything Draco ever wanted. He wouldn’t mind death, he thought, as long as he tasted Harry’s lips before he died. They were so sweet and bitter because of the cigarette and so disgustingly wet. 

Draco and Harry fumbled in the cot, their hands tugging at each other's shirts, their hair, their skin. Draco felt the ache behind his eyes and head dissipate as he snaked a hand toward Harry’s crotch, feeling it appropriate to dart his tongue in the boy’s mouth at the same time to deepen the kiss. 

Harry choked and broke the kiss immediately. His hand closed around Draco’s wrist, a vice grip, stopping him before the touch could ghost over his pants. 

“We shouldn't.” 

“But I thought you wanted—”

“No.” Harry looked away. “We shouldn't, Draco.” 

Draco chortled, shoving Harry away from him with a grunt of utter contempt. “Oh, please. You're that scared of a prick? I'm literally sitting on your lap.” 

“It's not that.” 

“Is it because it's me?” He hated himself for the way he sounded. So insecure and unsure of himself. And he had every right to be those things. Harry kept making it quite clear that they were only friends, but then Harry himself went around his own damn words and did stupid things like kissing him or saving him from drowning. 

Draco’s entire life lately was summed up, in either reading Dumbledore’s dumbarse children’s book or wondering whether Harry wanted to make sweet love to him whenever he returned from a mission, covered in scars and sweat. One had to wonder, maybe he was the problem. He must have been doing something for Harry to keep acting like this. 

“It's—no. No.” Harry stuttered. “It's not that either. I just—” 

“You haven't even tried it,” Draco said. “Are you scared of hating it?” 

Harry made a face and then slumped back in the cot. He rubbed at his eyes groggily with both hands and just as Draco started to think that this was the end of it, and that they were going to just ignore things and apparently never talk about them again, Harry smooshed his face against Draco’s knee. 

“I'm scared of liking it too much,” the boy muttered. “And I have wanked before, thank you very much.” 

Draco laid his body back down next to the boy. They looked at each other, embarrassed and awkward and knowing this was not the time nor the place for fooling around as they were. But thankfully, unlike the tents they shared with James, this place had walls. Enough security to be dumb boys. 

“Harry, we're both gonna be dead in less than a year.” Draco said finally, “What, you smoke but masturbating is where you draw the line?” 

Absurd Gryffindor with his absurd standards. He was going to drive Draco mad with it. 

“I care about you.” Harry, the silly git, admitted, “And I don't want anything to change.” 

“And it doesn't have to.” Draco rolled his eyes, “We both know what this is. It doesn't need to be love. And we both know the end. Now are we gonna wank or am I gonna have to shower alone again?” 

He tried to sneak a hand under the waistband of his pyjamas but Harry stopped him again, a dark sort of look overtaking his eyes, “I can help you, but get the blanket. It's too cold—”

Draco kissed him, “Shut up.” 

 

...

 

Much to his horror and dismay, Regulus has begun to contend with the Little one’s undeniable existence now. 

Ever since the shaking accident, which is still a bit too recent in his memory, Regulus finds himself a nervous mess whenever the babe lets out so much as a whine. He has begun to notice her, to make peace with the fact that she is alive, and not just an automated ritual that begs him to feed her and change her every few hours. He has begun to take in her small fingers, her dark eyes, her soft hair and rosy cheeks. 

“You're getting so big, aren't you?” he nudges the back of his finger against her cheek, that thank Merlin, is not sunken in with hunger like his, “Hmm?” 

Severus was right. She’s too small for it to have been years. And if what the man told is true, this baby is not even Dolohov’s blood child. They captured Dolohov long before his wife could have ended up pregnant. So this child, this baby, this miracle, may have been made just for him. 

The baby grunts and kicks her feet and shakes her little hands once she feels the gentle touch against her face. She’s so quiet now, has been since they woke up together. Regulus usually wakes up to her, in the middle of the night, about every two hours really, screaming her head off. But she was quiet when she woke up this morning. 

It worries him a little, even though Severus told him she’s fine. 

Severus told him a lot of things. Severus is also a fucking liar. Reggie trusted the man once, not too long ago, actually, now that he thinks of it. But he made a mistake. He knows that now. 

“I know, I'm so mean,” he says and scoots his head closer to hers, grazing her cheek softly with his cracked, unworthy lips, “I'm horrible, really, and I scared you, hmm? I'm sorry, petal.” 

He knows those crazy thoughts he got must have scared the baby. Except, the baby is too young to understand what those thoughts exactly meant or what Regulus intended to do. So in reality, the guilt and uneasiness he feels are inexplicably his own. He can’t believe he was about to leave her here and die. Who would have fed her or changed her, or stopped Bellatrix from hurting her? 

“It was scary, wasn't it?” Reggie mutters, but it’s more to himself than her, “I'll kill her for you. I'll tear her arms out of their sockets because she scared you. Scratch her up with that stupid dagger.”  

She wanted to brand him with iron, like he was some cattle. Regulus, oh, when he gets his hands on her, he will show her. She hurt his baby. Regulus very clearly remembers what the bitch did to Harry’s arms…a while ago. And now, with this little one. “You’ll see. I’ll make her cry.”

The baby can’t respond, but admirably gurgles when he has to pause and breathe for a minute or two. His head hurts and his body is numb. Whenever he catches himself feeling things again, he gets like that. His body begins to acknowledge all of the pain, and all of the scars, and all of the memories, all at once. 

“I'm sorry you're stuck here with me,” he says, “You deserve sunlight and good parents and food. And I'm just…a broken, wretched thing.” 

And it was his fault that she got to her, wasn’t it? Just like the cat with Cissa. It was his fault. He should’ve disobeyed the Dark Lord. Kept her safe and hidden in his robes, away from those horrid monsters. 

“And I set you down, I shouldn't have, bébé.” he laments, “I won't from now on. It's my fault you got spooked.” 

She grunts again. There’s not much else that she does aside from this and crying. Harry used to be more expressive, but then again, Harry was fifteen months old and this baby is…not. Regulus can’t be bothered with the maths. She can’t even move her head or find his gaze yet. It’ll be a while. She’ll be stuck here probably until she dies. Like him.

The big one, Regulus snorts. What a joke. 

“And the thing with the pill,” he explains nervously, even though he doesn’t have to. “Don't even worry about it. I wasn't gonna do it. I was just scared and you were crying. It gets a bit loud in my head and my brain goes all wrong…I used to be better.” 

He remembers being better. Being a little more human. He remembers taking big breaths, talking about his feelings, and regulating his emotions. A long time ago, he actually used to know how to live with this churning beast in his heart. 

He strokes her hair, and she’s such a good, quiet baby now. She whines a little, but no cries. Good.

“I hope I can get you out before I croak.” he hums, “You deserve the sun, and the wind. And a pond with little ducks. And pretty dresses and someone who'll do your hair—”

And lazy afternoons in Wimbourne, and homemade jam on toast. She deserves to grow up around sunshine and flowers. She shouldn’t be here, confined to this bed, to this room, like him. And who knows what Riddle’s fancy will dictate for her? Maybe Reggie can bargain for her like he did for Harry, maybe.

“Who knows, maybe James…maybe James finds you,” he tells the baby, because it’s probably something she should know. “Yeah. He's gonna find you. He'll be a great dad. He's already a great one. You gotta know, your dad's name is James Potter. And you have an older brother. Much, much older. He's a good kid. Really.” 

His throat closes up and Regulus lifts his head from his arm because it’s a rather shitty cushion. All boney and useless. He missed where he could just plaster himself over James and his firm, big, and warm body. It’s those Potter genes. Regulus always wondered when Harry was going to start growing into his own body and apparently, it has already happened. 

He’s taller now. 

“He doesn't know how to be a sibling, but he'll learn.” Regulus figures, “I admit James and I spoiled him a little. And he gets messy and leaves his clothes everywhere sometimes. But he's so kind, and he's just …such a good kid. Like his dad.” 

He gets up with a groan and slowly pulls the little one against his chest. Who knows when Riddle is going to call on him again? His breakdowns usually do mean getting to rest a little, but that time is fickle and determined solely by Riddle’s fancy. He should probably clean her up before she gets sick or something. 

“One day, you’ll see them.” He snorts at himself and how deluded he sounds. Like some old lady who’s lost her mind. Like Maman. “They’re pretty hard to miss. Glasses and unruly hair, and sun-skinned. I suppose Harry’s taller now. So when you look for him, you should probably have that in mind. He has green eyes like his Mum. You haven’t met her yet…I guess they’re a bit like mine too.” 

He knows he’s probably losing it, but he swears he sees her mouth tug into a little coo. He kisses her head again as they head to the small bathroom with its coffered walls. “I know you hate it here. But for now, it's you and me against them, okay? Trust me, I wouldn't leave you here.”

“I'll take you with me.”

 

...

Eilean na Moine, a place he never gets used to. But of course, there are a great many things he has been alienated from this hellish year. 

The grass is dry, and he’s early. It was by design, of course, he needs a moment to himself before duty calls, and no matter the origins, the dirty work has to be done by someone. It may as well be him. He looks down at the small slab of stone, sticking out of the dry land, the grass that has grown over it. He feels both chastised by the unmarked grave and at once vitalised by it. He really does hate it here, but it’s curious, Albus loved it. And who knows what that old man had brewing in his head? There’s something about the place, maybe, most likely. 

If Albus asked to be buried here, there must be something in the air. 

“An unlikely location for our rendezvous, Severus.” 

He doesn’t turn. It’s difficult to move around a lot in a fragile, aged body, as the one he occupies. He keeps on his staring match with the grave. “You are running out of time.” 

Minerva’s voice admirably holds and does not shake as she takes him in. She usually does not regard him the same when they are around others, for obvious reasons. 

“Is that so?” 

“He has it in his head that Hogwarts is next.” Severus turns his head, peering at her through the half-moon glasses, “And I have unconfirmed reports that he has formed another Horcrux. A living one.” 

“Unconfirmed?” 

Severus recalls the throbbing in his hand, and the ferocious teeth, tearing into his flesh. He flexes his mottled and wrinkled hand slowly, around the knobbed wand. “There was only one witness. He doesn't have much time either.”

Minerva stands beside him and they’re both looking down at Albus now. He was a good mentor, Severus can’t lie. He saved Severus’ life at a time when Severus would have willingly killed himself out of pure self-loathing and disgust. He saw in Severus a man worth saving. Even if their bargain is a cruel one. 

“You did not warn us about Cumbria,” she accuses mildly and he rolls his eyes. He figures how uncanny it must be for her to see her beloved headmaster usurped by another person, lying to everyone through her teeth, playing the cat, as she’d promised Albus months ago. 

“I did not know.” If he had, he would have spared himself the headache he got after arguing with James Potter for two hours yesterday. The truth of it is, he agrees with the man. In the past, he would have laid down his life rather than admit such a fact. But it’s alright now. He does not have to agree with James Potter as himself. 

“Then you see the crux of the matter at hand,” she bites back, “We have priorities. That is what you told us. To hold down the school at all costs.”

“At Albus’ behest, yes—”

“—And now here you are contradicting yourself.”

“I did not—” he cuts himself off. “I did not know they intended to go after me—Albus next. It doesn’t matter. Things have changed now. If you have any intentions of preserving Black’s sanity or life, he cannot remain there much longer. The Big One needs to commence—”

“You almost sound like you care.” 

Severus purses his lips. “And you sound like you don't.” 

She frowns the way she does when scolding an unruly student, the exact expression she used to have whenever Sirius Black’s nefarious name was so much as mentioned, rather. “Riddle is about to take an irreversible step.” 

“He's after the Elder Wand.” Severus nods his head at the wand, “Black…well, not much can be attributed to the words of a man a step past the verge of madness—he believes he will be next.” 

“But?”

“But I have a theory.” The wind rustles the grass, and the still water around them and Severus feels as though Albus is right behind them. “Riddle would not wait for no reason. I believe that the reason why the Dark Lord’s vitality has persisted is the willingness of its host. A living Horcrux has one advantage over an inanimate one—”

“The soul of the host continuously feeds into the parasite.” 

Severus honestly wouldn’t have attributed much logic or possibility to this theory, had he not seen Riddle’s demeanour towards Regulus Black after the Cumbria affair. Regulus is in no position of power, the only reason Riddle would hesitate in a complete takeover of his body or soul would be that at his current state, he is unable to do so. Meaning that if the Order intends to rescue their beloved Regulus, they have to do it now. “So in order to overpower Regulus's soul, making it compliant as a feeder—”

“He needs the Elder Wand.” Minerva finishes the sentence,  “And he has the means of securing it. And so your identity is on the line.” 

“The matter of claiming the wand is the least of our worries, Minerva.” Severus brushes it off, even though his heart constricts at the thought of his looming death. And how can he help it? He has become increasingly aware that he is only human. “The matter of fact is that Albus insisted we keep the wand intact for the Brat.” 

“But now that Riddle desires to seek the elder wand—”

“There will be a confrontation.” Severus says, “And I will most likely perish. He could also be done with it and use the Dementors. He was willing before, but now…he seems to see no need for a sacrifice. It could be any day.” 

She nods her head very slowly, and Severus, ever the humble student, grants her enough time and dignity to mourn the news in silence. The wind is their only accomplice. And Severus is so exhausted. She nods again once she is done, digesting his words, and retracts her wand from her sleeve.

“You do know, for the longest time, I really thought you had your back turned on us, Severus.” She is his teacher, and Severus might only admit it begrudgingly, but no matter his age, or his appearances, he will always be her student, “Albus took his time convincing me.” 

“The outcome of this war will always matter to me more than the people fighting it. It would be reckless to overlook Black's importance on the board. You need to remove him from Riddle's custody.” 

“You saw the disaster firsthand. Moody is gone, Albus is gone…Too many of us. There are fewer than a dozen of us left.” 

“You should really refer to what James Potter was screaming about then.” Severus sees the flicker of disapproval bleed into her expression but still continues, “Recruit your students. Anyone. We are in the battle of our lives, Minerva.” 

She doesn’t waste her time or energy arguing otherwise. The matter of fact is that to Severus, it will all cease to matter very soon. It is her responsibility now, as they knew it would be. If Dumbledore had a single merit, it was his forethought. They had explored quite a number of outcomes and scenarios. All with uncertain results but…few paths were left untrodden. 

“I will be sad to see you go, Severus. Really,” she tells him and they face each other. “Well, let's have it then, shall we?” She points her wand at him and he remains still. “Expelliarmus.”

The elder wand flies out of his hand and lands in her sturdy grasp. Minerva relishes in the transfer of its ownership only for a beat, weighing the wand in her hand before handing it over to him. 

“Remember, it won't matter if he takes the wand off my body after the affair is done.” Severus swallows, somehow stricken by Regulus Black’s image, mad with panic and screaming himself hoarse, eager to meet death like an old friend. Severus can only wish. “It will still belong to you until—” 

“Harry is in need of it.” 

“You always spoiled that brat senselessly.” Severus sneers and pockets the wand. Ready to leave. He’s already bid the old man goodbye in this place. 

“Well, he has his mother's eyes.” Minerva can’t help her last bit of venom. After a moment’s deliberation she stares at him, “Do they remind you of anyone else now?” 

“Nonsense.” 

Albus Dumbledore turns to leave his resting place, right before the storm starts. 

Notes:

Let's talk:
-I want you to meet two very important people in this story, Gill Deleuze and Henri Bergson. They complemented the theory of a time stream; it's extremely complicated and I won't even attempt trying to emulate an academic discourse for casual readers, BUT, their theory of time essentially constituted that there is no such entity or time as the "past" nor the "present". The idea was that both the past and the present are concurrently underway at any given moment, meaning that there are infinite instances of past/present happening at the same time at all times. Deleuze elevates Bergson's theory by adding the idea of voluntary and pure past, which we won't visit rn, but for the purposes of time travel and all the seer stuff in the final arc, ya'll needed to know about this very generally. If you are interested, check out Deleuze's "Proust and Signs" and basically anything by Bergson will do.
- I had loosely set up Albus' lack of participation since the very chapter Reggie was taken. If you go back to reread, you will see that Dumbledore is not at all present in these chapters AND his earlier argument with Reggie regarding their vow, he acknowledges an impasse that will only be solved thru a death. more on this in the next chapter
- The strawman's fallacy is to deliberately misconstrue the topic under discussion and to refute it.
- The reason why the baby cries so much is that she's a colicky baby. So babies with Colic are absolutely normal but have long, repeated periods of continued crying. Not to mention her physical and mental state is also a stand-in for Reggie's well-being and sense of self.
-Eilean na Moine is where movie dumbledore is buried btw
- Do check out the prince and the pauper story if you want a tiny spoiler on Marcus' demise lol
- There are a lot of things I won't mention since they're spoilers, but once the story is done, ya'll should come back here and see all the sprinkles and foreshadowing we have here.
- I hope you liked the chapter, take care and I'll see you soon!

Notes:

I do apologise for any leftover typos or grammatical errors, I tried my best~

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of His Brightest Tragedy