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Barty knew a lot of things. Barty knew the dates of every goblin uprising in Wizarding history. Barty knew arithmancy and how the numbers came together to create the future. Barty knew how to work a crystal ball, why Pandora’s potions were never as good as Severus’, how to cast the prettiest charms, how to turn a dime into a house. He knew why blood curses worked the ways they did, and how to talk to a troll, and how Olivander made wands, and why the physics of flying on a broom were so unique. He knew how to kill people, how to not kill people, which people to kill, and why he did it.
Barty didn’t know Regulus until it was too late.
They were seventeen. Their last year of Hogwarts was ending. They had matching tattoos on their left wrists. Barty always wore a black marble ring on his left ring finger, and he knew Regulus kept every braided bracelet Barty ever made him in his trunk. The Dark Lord loved them. The Dark Lord was going to save them.
Barty knew when Regulus started to be… not okay. Well, Regulus hadn’t been truly okay since Sirius left, but he’d been treading water well enough, and when he couldn’t, Barty or Evan or Pandora could swoop in and tread for two. When Sirius graduated, and Regulus finally had Hogwarts to himself, he seemed to flourish. He climbed the ranks of their cause, and his parents were proud, and he smiled at Barty more times in that one year than he ever had before.
And yet, even with Pandora’s Sight and Evan’s knowing of Regulus since the two of them were practically infants, neither of them could know what Barty knew. The summer was coming and Regulus was dying. Barty wasn’t sure why. Barty wasn’t sure he wanted to know why. Everything should have been fine. Regulus was getting better. Regulus was doing more than treading water for one solid, beautiful, cathartic year. Barty wasn’t sure he wanted to know why Regulus was beginning to die here. But Barty loved knowing Regulus more than anything.
It was on the train back to King’s Cross when Barty realized. Evan had gone to the bathroom and Pandora was with Xenophilius in another car. It was just the two of them, and Regulus was smiling and Barty was staring at him and then he knew.
“You don’t want to be a part of this anymore, do you?” Barty asked, although it was less of a question, and more of a clarifying statement. To anyone who didn’t know Regulus, he didn’t react at all. But Barty knew Regulus, Barty saw the way he suppressed a flinch, the way his eyes narrowed, the way his breath hitched. Barty understood.
“Pardon?”
“It’s okay,” Barty said next, half-panicked, because what were they supposed to do? Regulus was too far in—there was no getting out now. But Regulus wanted out, and Barty loved Regulus getting what he wanted nearly as much as he loved knowing him. “That’s okay. I mean- fuck, Regulus. Why?” His hands floundered in his lap and his mouth floundered with his words and his mind was racing all at once. He knew. There was no unknowing.
“Barty, what the fuck are you talking about?” Regulus played dumb, but he wasn’t dumb, so Barty couldn’t bring himself to find it convincing.
“Why don’t you-? Let me help you,” Barty insisted suddenly. “Did he hurt you? You want out. I just- Why?”
Regulus stared at him, calculating in his mind. His lips curled a few times, as if he had to check that his mouth still worked before he spoke. Barty remained vigilantly silent. “Tom Marvolo Riddle is named after his Muggle father. Did you know this?” Regulus eventually asked.
Barty wasn’t sure if Regulus was asking if he knew or if he Knew. On this train, at this moment, Barty wasn’t sure of a lot of things. Regulus was throwing him for a loop and he didn’t appreciate it. “No.”
The sky darkened outside, clouds swooping in to curtain the sun. The curtain of their compartment was pulled down over their window. Nobody else existed; only Barty and Regulus breathed this air, only Barty and Regulus could hear each other. Only Barty and Regulus would know this conversation ever took place. But Barty knew Regulus was dying, so he knew he was talking to a dead man, so he knew in the end, it would only really be him left in his compartment with these memories. Barty hated knowing sometimes.
“Horcruxes,” Regulus said. “Do you remember when I was telling you about those?”
“Yeah,” Barty muttered, playing with the buttons of his shirt. “Because you had that scary book from your dad’s study in your room. Disturbing shit.”
“Horrific, soul-destroying, disturbing shit,” Regulus agreed, leaning against the back of his seat, gazing at the graying sky. “Vol-” Regulus cleared his throat, “The Dark Lord. I believe he has made one.”
Barty’s eye twitched. He vaguely registered his tongue tic, but his mind was moving too quickly for the physical world to process. “Why would the Dark Lord want to make a Horcrux?” he asked breathlessly, like he didn’t want to know the answer. Regulus grinned at him, sharp and cunning and victorious. Barty genuinely might have forgotten to breathe.
He knew Regulus was a strategist; he was brilliant at chess because while Barty knew people, knew possibilities, knew truths, Regulus knew the game. Barty never really thought about how to win. Regulus on the other hand, when he put his mind to it, was fascinated by the prospect. It was why he was good at quidditch, good at winning Slytherin the House Cup, good at being the perfect son, good at climbing into the Dark Lord’s inner circle. The thing about Regulus was that those things were very selective. Regulus hated being told what to do, or what to win. He never did anything he didn’t need or want to. Outside of chess, Regulus was more of a passer than a winner; he simply didn’t complete school work that wasn’t graded, and Barty had witnessed how he existed in his own home as more of a ghost than a person. All of this to say, Regulus was choosing a battle against the Dark Lord’s mind as a battle he had to win. This was a game he wanted to play. Why was Regulus playing chess with the Dark Lord?
Regulus pointed a finger towards Barty’s chest to emphasize his words. “Because the Dark Lord doesn’t care about our cause. The Dark Lord is using blood purity to form an army devoted to him. He doesn’t care about muggles or wizards or our perfect society- he doesn’t care about any of us. He’s using us because he knows we’re desperate. He’s using us, and our bloodshed, and our devotion to become immortal.”
His words felt like a bucket of ice over Barty’s shoulders. What was happening? “What are you going to do?” Barty felt knowledgeless, forcefully ignorant. It was a hopelessly helpless feeling.
Regulus faltered, like he wasn’t expecting that to be Barty’s question. But Barty didn’t need to know anything else. Regulus was dying—Barty could see it—and they were running out of time. “I’m going to do what I have to,” was what Regulus replied with. Barty whimpered and fell back in his seat. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tell Regulus that no, he didn’t have to do this. That no, he was dying, actually, and that everything could go back to normal if he just forgot about it instead.
The clouds parted just slightly, and the sun cast a light through their window. Everything became a bit brighter.
Barty wasn’t stupid. Regulus knew something, and Barty knew better than most what it felt like to know. There was no going back. No unknowing.
Regulus was staring at him with soft eyes. His gaze felt like a pillow held over his face, a comfortable yet dark and insistent way to die. He could choke on Regulus’ emotions. He wished that all Regulus needed right now was someone to tread water for him. He wished he could change the things he knew.
“Okay,” Barty said after a long time. Regulus smiled at him, and God, how could Barty feel anything but helplessly grateful to receive that smile for his actions? How could Barty feel anything but grateful to get to see a sliver into Regulus’ thoughts? How could Barty feel anything else when he got to know what nobody else could?
Barty knew Regulus. No matter how grounded he presented himself, how practical and effective, Barty knew. Barty knew his daydreams, knew the faraway look, knew his theories, his philosophies, his values, his aspirations. Regulus lived a whole other life in his mind, and while Barty never would get in there, he at least knew it existed.
Regulus was not a man of action. His fear response was to freeze, and Barty had needed to pull him out of the way of danger on multiple occasions. Regulus did the work he was assigned and never more. Regulus could not be convinced to leave his bed unless he had made a commitment beforehand. He slept more than he had to most days, simply because he ran out of things that he was obligated to do.
He stayed even when he should have left. He was loyal even when he shouldn’t have been. He loved Sirius more than anything, even after everything, even beyond that. He loved Barty despite all his flaws. He loved Pandora despite her eccentricities. He loved Evan despite his callousness.
Barty always hoped that one day, Regulus would learn to act. He would die in his passivity, he thought. Regulus would get stuck in his house, or freeze in battle, or give up when faced with his brother trying to arrest him, and then Barty would lose him forever. Barty, throughout the years of knowing Regulus, on multiple occasions would wake up and think, Regulus needs to get up and act.
So, when Barty visited Grimmauld Place while Walburga and Orion Black were off at some important pureblood socialite meeting, he knew that the time had come. And he wasn’t sure he knew how he was supposed to react. Suddenly, for the first time in his life, Regulus was acting, and he was using it to die.
Barty saw it in his eyes. Regulus smiled at him, face sunken, gray eyes usually the color of a cloudy sky now the quiet ocean underneath a pitch-black night. Barty knew Regulus.
Barty couldn’t actually remember much of what happened after that. Maybe they kissed. Maybe they plotted. Maybe they talked about everything from before the war. Maybe they talked about growing old, and all those other impossibilities that could happen after. Barty wished he remembered. Alas, he left and woke up and could only think, Regulus is going to kill himself for this. And he could only think, I have to let him.
Regulus always got what he wanted. And Regulus, now and only now, wanted to act. Regulus had a position and was going to fight for it, to swim against the waves that pushed and prodded him his whole life, to do more than tread water for once. And it would drown him, but he would be doing it on purpose. And it would kill him, but he would be killed for a purpose.
Regulus was always passive. It was his defining trait. This activeness, this one instance of subversion. Who was Barty to deny him that? Who was Barty to deny Regulus anything?
Regulus didn’t show up to a Death Eater meeting one day. It was then when Barty knew. Evan apparated into his flat, collapsed on his lap, wailing incessantly, with a tear-stained letter from Orion Black crumpled in his hands, and Barty knew. Pandora passed him on the street in London one day, quiet despite the war raging blindly under Muggle pavement; she gave him the most miserable look he’d ever seen, and Barty knew that she Saw that he knew. Sirius Black himself cornered Barty on the battlefield, screamed, cried, shrieked like his mother, marched like his father, cursed like his brother, sent hex after hex at Barty’s spasming body, and Barty let him, because Barty knew.
Who was Barty to know, and still let Regulus die? Who was Barty to know, and dare try to stop him? Who was Barty to know, and attempt to control Regulus Black’s fate? Who was Barty to know, and to act on that knowledge, when all Barty ever seemed to do was act, when Regulus had never before chosen to take that chance? Who was Barty to know Regulus Black was going to die when nobody else did? Who was Barty to know Regulus was going to die at all? Who was Barty to know Regulus, who Barty knew must have been the most important person ever born? Who was Barty to have the right to know?