Chapter Text
Marlene had not snuck in and out of Hogwarts much as a student. That seemed ironic to her now, that she had been so well-behaved, since she was spending so much time sneaking in and out as an adult after graduating. The tunnel was lit by dim and flickering lanterns, ensorcelled long before. Her arms brushed against cobwebs and her feet left imprints in the dust. Her task was made easier by the fact that school had not yet resumed for the year – although it was close enough to the start of term that many of the teachers were once again in residence, returning from their summer breaks and preparing for their classes.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t come openly – she could simply walk in as Dumbledore’s guest. But that would draw attention, and even if people didn’t think it worth noticing, since he had many visitors, it might be something they remembered after. And it might be just noteworthy enough that someone would mention it, or put the connection together that she was here far more often than she should be for someone who had no formal connection with the school anymore. And so instead, she arrived in secret, emerging from behind a mirror in a remote passage. She rapped it sharply with her wand and it shimmered into translucence, showing her an empty corridor. Reassured that the coast was clear, she entered the halls of Hogwarts.
It was an unusual situation, the Order of the Phoenix. They were a secret society, ostensibly, but every Death Eater and half the Aurors probably knew they existed, if not what they were called or who exactly was a member. Visits to Dumbledore from an artifact collector would immediately make her a suspect. And if she didn’t necessarily believe that any of the Hogwarts professors were spies for He Who Must Not Be Named? Well. She didn’t necessarily believe that they weren’t spies, which was a crucial distinction—and not one she was willing to risk her life on.
She had been skeptical of the younger members of the order – still was, in many ways – but she couldn’t deny that Potter and Black and their crowd had been immensely useful in their knowledge of the castle’s secrets. She was almost certain they hadn’t shared all the ones they knew. The mirror-passage from Hogsmeade very likely only scratched the surface of the things they’d learned about Hogwarts. But it was the one she needed most at the moment, and besides she approved of their reticence. No need to give away all their secrets at once—who knew when they might be needed again?
She made a face at the direction of her thoughts. Now she sounded like Moody.
He was on her mind tonight—Moody, and the kid he’d taken in. His ward? Friend? Trainee? She hated secondhand information, especially for something so curious. It was somewhat bewildering to think of Moody acting like this when the strict and uncompromising Auror she knew wouldn’t even have entertained the possibility of having someone in his home. She’d have thought he was cursed, if he’d been anyone else. Maybe he was going soft in old age.
She snorted. That was about as likely to happen to him as it was to Dumbledore—or less. Not a chance.
She passed through the silent, shadowed corridors. It felt surreal and dreamlike to be in the castle, alone at night, before any students arrived for the year. No one was awake in the castle except the ghosts and the madmen – or madwoman, as the case may be. No rest for the wicked, she thought dryly, so the people who fought them didn’t get any either. How inconsiderate.
She reached the gargoyle and spoke quietly into its ear. “Mars Bars”. It nodded gravely at her, and spun soundlessly to reveal the staircase beyond. She made her way up the steps and knocked once on the door. “Come,” Dumbledore called, and the door swung open.
When she entered Dumbledore’s office, he was sitting behind his desk, looking intently at a few scrap parchments covered in an untidy scrawl. He looked up to smile at her, offering her a handshake – and in a quick movement, sweeping the parchment away under the budget reports that littered his desk. She politely ignored this subterfuge. Wartime made for strange courtesies.
Outside his window, the moon hung in the sky, stars glimmering brightly against the darkness. Illuminated by their light, and the small lamp burning on his desk, the wrinkles in his face seemed more pronounced than usual, and the twinkle in his eye not quite so bright. His shoulders were bowed and his robes very slightly disheveled. Marlene might not even have noticed if she hadn’t trained herself in looking for every detail in her—alternative lines of work. But now that she had, she couldn't’ quite shake a feeling of unease. They all relied on Dumbledore to be a bedrock of strength and the pillar of their efforts.
She and Moody were two of the only ones who disagreed with him regularly, who would push back if they thought his methods insufficient or his judgement flawed. Most of the others believed without reseration he would lead them on the right course through this war. She didn’t doubt his skill—who could? Even his greatest detractors admitted the man who had fought in the last war against Grindelwald, who’d faced him directly and won, certainly had no lack of ability. And she didn’t doubt his intentions either. She would not prefer to follow anyone else—he had experience enough, good judgement, and a clear sight of where to draw the line. But even the greatest leader was not always right, and no one could fight an entire war alone. Sometimes the rest of them forgot that, or perhaps they just didn’t see it. He was a legend in their minds, not a man.
She knew he was scrutinizing her just as carefully—even more now that they’d lost Edgar, Anna, and the children the week before. He knew she and Anna had been close. Marlene had taken that wound and buried it deeply. Over the course of the war, anger and grief had both grown day by day, and become so intermingled as to be inseparable: a knot of scar tissue that was reopened over and over again. It sat like a stone in her chest, ever-present and growing with every new loss. She clung to it, and let it drive her forward, until some days it was all she cared about. It drove her onward relentlessly, and she made choices now that ten years ago, or even two, she might have found unconscionable. Dumbledore didn’t only watch her out of concern for her grief; he watched her also out of concern for her anger, and what she might do because of it. But she hadn’t yet crossed an unforgivable line, and so far, that had been enough. He hadn’t mentioned it, and she didn’t intend to bring it up.
Tonight, they were in accord as much as they ever were. Her methods were very different than his, but he recognized their necessity. She might be more pragmatic, more willing to push the boundaries of what was acceptable, but Dumbledore was not naive. Even idealism could only go so far when faced with the realities of wartime. She sat, and he pushed aside his notes.
“Dorcas, Sirius, and Peter got into Lestrange Castle. We are certain it’s occupied. They were seen, and had a fight to get back out again, but they all made it back safely—if a little rattled. I don’t know if You-Know-Who himself is there. If he isn’t, taking out one of his strongholds might go a long way. If he is, it might go badly for us. Still, I think it’s worth risking.
She grimaced. Even Dumbledore had bowed to the necessity of the taboo. If they could figure out how he’d done it, and break the curse on his name, it would help with far more than just morale. Every accidental slip was another death, as wards were torn down and those who resisted Voldemort were picked off one by one.
“We need more information, and we need someone on the inside to get us in if we’re going to attack. We were able to sneak in a few people through the wards, but even the best gap we can make would last only for a little while. We can’t pull this off unless the Order and the Aurors can get in, stay in, and get out if the battle should go poorly.
“We need the wards gone, not compromised.” Marlene said. She propped her head on one hand and stared out at Dumbledore’s curiosity case, thinking. “I’ve been chasing a lead on dark artifacts—there’s sellers who got tangled up with Death Eaters but would prefer a less volatile customer base. But there’s one artifact in particular that the Death Eaters have been chasing, and they’ve been trying to hold onto. Harry Ignotus got mixed up in the last scuffle over it, at the London docks. If I get that, it might be a way in—wards are always easier to take down from the inside.”
Dumbledore’s eyes sharpened at that, and Marlene watched him carefully. She was curious, desperately curious, to know what he thought of Ignotus . After all, she’d already entangled him in her subterfuge by accident. If he was a liability, she’d have to find a way to extract him from this mess without getting him into trouble with her employers. If he had the potential she thought he did, she might be able to get a partner in this job. Having someone watching her back was a luxury she didn’t often get to have.
“What do you think of him?” Dumbledore asked.
“Inexperienced,” she said. Then she hesitated. “No, that’s not quite true. In my kind of work, entirely inexperienced. He has no subtlety. But his instincts are good, in a way that only comes with getting in over your head and having to figure out how to get back out again. He’s been in fights before, and he knows which end of a wand is which. School spells mostly from what I’ve seen, but he can apparate, and he can hold his own in a fight. Most of what he’s missing is training, not aptitude.”
“Most?”
“You know as well as I do that spies aren’t always given the luxury of morality. I know you don’t like it, but you know the lines get blurry. And deception doesn’t come easily to some people. No matter how good their training or what kinds of skills they learn, not everyone is suited to that kind of life. I’m not sure yet where he falls. He didn’t shy away from following his instincts, or spying on me at the docks just to satisfy his own curiosity. But there’s a lot of habits that would need unlearning before he’d be able to keep a cover under any real scrutiny—and some people are just too straightforward to take to that kind of work. I’d need to test him first. In the field undercover when it’s just you, surrounded by enemies—there's no fighting your way out of that if they catch on. Your cover is the only thing keeping you alive. I’m not prepared to risk anything on him yet. But you’ve met him too.”
Dumbledore steepled his fingers together and peered at her over them. “He’s a very interesting young man. I admit I find myself concerned. He is very tired, and rightfully so—he has been fighting for a long time. I wish we didn’t need to ask anything else of him—but then, in the end, James Potter was right. It was not our decision to make. I think, though, that you may find him better suited to that work than either of you expect.”
She gave him a sharp glance at that, but he said nothing more. Their conversation turned to other things; Dumbledore’s concerns about Peter Pettigrew, and his interest in any news, whether substantiated or mere rumor, about dark objects associated with Voldemort.
“That will be a long list,” Marlene told him dryly, before she took her leave.
“I know,” he said. “And I can’t tell you why, or what I’m looking for. But if you hear anything-”
“You’ll know if I do.”
Harry hit the ground hard. The stone was freezing cold, and he felt the impact all the way through his bones. He rolled, ignoring the ache in his shoulder, and got his wand up first as he regained his feet. He had made it up on one knee when he had to drop again to dodge the spell flying at him. The room was much too open—there was nowhere to hide, nothing to block his opponent’s view.
As soon as it passed, he launched himself to his feet again. Then he was moving, running a wide circle around his opponent and keeping his body angled towards them. They turned to match him, wand up and ready.
He cast a shield to block their next spell, but it hadn’t been aimed at him. Instead, it hit the ground beside him and he jumped backwards—not in time. The wall-beams behind him morphed into sharp splinters of wood, which then reared back like snakes before shooting forward and entangling his feet. The next spell that came at him was a brilliant green light, and he knew his shield charm was useless.
It splashed against his shield and dissipated.
“Never let your opponent get control of the battlefield,” Moody snapped. “We’ve been over that! The second I’m attacking and you’re defending, I have the momentum. All you can do is dodge and block. You need them on the defensive! If they’re pushing you back, don’t let yourself get pinned down. Dodge and cast! You don’t need your wand to block if your feet are moving.”
“I know!” Harry shouted back. Sweat was running down his face, and his arm was aching from holding his wand at the ready for so long. They’d been at it for nearly five hours now, with only a few short breaks. “I know! I’m trying.”
“Death Eaters won’t wait for you to be well-rested before they come at you in a fight! They’d much prefer you weren’t, in fact. Cowards and opportunists, maybe, but it’s also just good tactics. Now, again! And this time move faster!”
Harry resisted the urge to let out a groan. He wanted nothing more than to fall over into his bed. But he had asked for this—he still wanted it—and he would stick it out.
They went one more round . Harry started sending spells the second Moody raised his wand, not waiting for him to start or say go. He got an approving nod for that. Very soon after, he lost his momentum as Moody side-stepped a spell and shot off a series of wordless lightning-fast hexes. From the ones Harry recognized, he thought they were intended to disable and incapacitate. Moody had fired them in an arc so Harry couldn’t get to either side. He was forced to shield, and he lost his momentum again.
“Less blocking, more casting! Put me back on the defensive!”
This time, when Moody followed up, he kept his movements smaller. He dodged the next two spells, while moving his own wand. The concentration it took to keep dodging while casting was a strain, especially when his mind was already foggy, but he managed to turn the tables for a moment. Moody blocked with a shield Harry had never seen before. When his jinx collided with it there was a clear ringing sound, and then the spell seemed to shatter, and each little point of light returned toward Harry, with a fraction of the speed and force but with innumerable vectors. Harry was hit by his own stinging hex twenty times over. Each one felt no stronger than a fly-bite, but all of them at once was enough of a distraction that he didn’t move quickly enough to dodge Moody’s stunner. He woke up to find he was lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. By now the rafters were a familiar sight—another day or two of training and he would probably be able to draw them in his sleep.
“Alright. That’s enough for today.” Harry breathed out a sigh of relief. He stayed sprawled out on the floor and tipped his head back, closing his eyes. Moody laughed—an oddly alarming sound, all the more so because it was cheerful.
“Come on, up. Walk around a bit, stretch it out. Your bones will thank you for it tomorrow.”
Harry opened his eyes and glared up at his teacher, but took Moody’s offered hand.
“Right. There you go. As you’re walking, answer this.” Moody clapped him on the back. Harry groaned at the impact on his sore shoulder muscles—and at the realization that done for the day with sparring didn’t mean Moody was through with him quite yet. “You get a call from the Order. There’s a raid at someone’s house. Unknown number of Death Eaters, unknown who else from the Order is responding. All you know is they got a Patronus out to say they were under attack. What do you do?”
“Apparate to their house-” Harry started.
“No!” Moody slashed his arm through the air. His sudden volume made Harry jump. “Constant vigilance! You don’t know if it’s safe to apparate in, you don’t know if the Death Eaters have anti-apparition wards, you don’t even know if anyone else is going to make it there in time! This is why we have rendezvous points. You apparate there, meet up with whoever else is able to respond. Then you show up—not to the site of the attack, but somewhere nearby. A block or two away, maybe.”
“But every moment matters!” Harry argued. He thought of his parents, facing down Voldemort in their home. If they’d been able to get out a call for help, would they have survived? It had taken minutes—seconds, maybe—for Voldemort to kill them once he was inside. “Slow responses might get people killed!”
“You know what does get people killed? Having more people to rescue. Search and rescue principles—it's no different with what we do. You can’t help anyone if you make yourself another target. Another person in danger means a harder job for everyone still standing. Rushing in does nothing to help if you find yourself alone and outmatched. And there are far more of them than there are of us. Your job is to stay alive. Everyone’s job is to stay alive. We can’t help anyone if there’s no one left to fight.”
Moody gripped Harry’s shoulder and shook him, firmly. “You got that?”
Harry nodded. He hated that it made sense.
“You think on that,” Moody said, softer. “Remember it. It’s easy to die for a cause, but that’s no use to anyone, in the end.”
Moody ran an arm across his face and grimaced. Harry had the small but petty satisfaction of seeing that at least Moody was as worn out and sweaty as he was. “Well, I’d best go get some sleep before work,” he said.
Regulus was at a crossroads.
He was used to being overlooked. By his parents, in favor of his brother- at least until he’d been Sorted and rejected the rest of the family. By the Death Eaters, who mostly seemed to see him as an extension of his cousin Bella. And now, it seemed, even by the Dark Lord himself.
He had been in Lestrange Castle along with many of the Dark Lord’s followers, and heard something that wasn’t meant for him He fled—and as he did, the bitter memory of his brother’s voice calling him a coward echoed in the back of his mind.
The Dark Lord had called Bella in to speak with her. Regulus had been walking the halls idly, as he often did, thinking. The castle didn’t hold many good memories, but there were some, and familiarity went a long way. Rather than sitting and speaking to people he would rather not talk to—he preferred to be moving. He knew, though he had not yet been able to face it, that he had chosen badly. He had followed the path laid out for him and found himself in the midst of horrors. While his fellows reveled in their power, he recoiled from the excesses of their movement. Pureblood supremacy in theory was far removed from the brutal reality of the Death Eaters. While he hadn’t been ready to contemplate seriously what that would mean for him, still he preferred to avoid the others—and no one would accost him for a conversation if he was in the hidden ways and secret passages that adorned the castle walls. Servants’ passages and spyholes abounded in the ancient stonework of an older age.
And it was in one of those that he had heard the Dark Lord pull Bella aside. He had heard the fiercely sibilant tones, as the Dark Lord said that he had a task for her, an important mission that was to be entrusted to her alone, and a secret that she must defend with her life. She swore she would, breathless and eager, falling to her knees and staring up at him as she vowed her devotion. Regulus was disgusted—both by the eagerness and mindless devotion she showed their lord, and by the simpering servile facade she put on around him—she who had once threatened her family with a blood boiling curse if they ever dared to tell her what to do. But could he really criticize? He himself served out of fear now, not devotion, and because he couldn’t see another option. That might be a worse reason than hers.
He knew the moment the Dark Lord began to speak that he didn’t want to hear this—didn't want to be party to a secret the Dark Lord would kill for that he was clearly not meant to know. And yet he dared not flee. His feet were rooted to the ground, and he hardly dared even to breathe. If he was found now, his life was forfeit—Bella wouldn’t protect him from this. Instead, he listened as there was a rustle of movement.
“A cup?” Bella’s voice was confused.
“A treasure,” the Dark Lord replied. “Take it, and guard it for me. Tell no one that you have it, tell no one where you hide it, except myself. But guard it with your life. It is... valuable to me. And it is important.”
“I swear it,” Bella said.
“Good.” Then, footsteps.
He had waited there in the dark for another hour before he risked leaving the passage. He’d felt every heartbeat of that hour, dreading discovery.
A few days later the Dark Lord pulled Regulus aside and asked to borrow his elf. Regulus’ heart sank, but he could not refuse. He ordered Kreacher to go with the Dark Lord, to do whatever he commanded, and to return. When Kreacher came back, he was shaking, half-dead, and raving mad. Regulus had fled with him to Grimmauld Place, and not returned to the castle since.
Now, he was faced with a terrible choice. He sat alone at the kitchen table in Grimmauld Place. The evening light cast beams and shadows in through the windows, and the sun sank lower and lower outside. He traced the wood grains of the table with his fingers as he hesitated. Every path forward was fraught with uncertainty and danger. But coward or no, he had his obligations, and his own kind of loyalty.
Kreacher had nursed him through his childhood illnesses, seen him at his worst, and still gave him all his devotion. Regulus had never before been called upon to return that loyalty. Now he carefully—and secretly—nursed him back to health. When Kreacher told him the whole story, he knew the Dark Lord had never meant for him to return alive.
He had made his way to the Black library—not quite at a run, but frantic and panicked. There were books here that would tell him what he needed to know—he was sure of him. They would tell him what he’d just begun to suspect, even as his mind recoiled from the thought. He had read long ago of objects that could grant immortality—the Dark Lord had sought many of them, sending servants out to seek for them and listening eagerly to any rumor or whisper that reached his ears. Regulus had been part of that—his connections had gone farther than skill or dedication for some of the tasks the Dark Lord set. He had sought cures, relics, and artifacts—anything that promised extended life, eternal health, or a cure to the ailment of mortality. All were fake, lost, or somehow inadequate, but still the Dark Lord searched. Until one day, he stopped, without explanation.
Now Regulus thought he knew why. But even the Dark Lord, surely, would not dare?
In his heart he knew that wasn’t true. What had he not dared? He had tortured, murdered, warred against the Ministry, and torn the wizarding world asunder. What further crime would he think it to tear asunder his own soul as well?
Regulus searched the shelves frantically, mindlessly. He knocked over a stack of books in his haste and when he bent to pick them up he saw his hands were shaking.
He couldn’t do this alone. But who could he ask for help? His parents were absent, visiting relatives in France. Even if they were here, he couldn’t tell them. They’d encouraged him to join the Dark Lord—and he’d seen how they reacted to Sirius’ disloyalty. Narcissa couldn’t help him. Andromeda and Sirius had long since abandoned them, and Bella—Bella would kill him herself, before she heard a word against their Lord.
But there was one person who might help him still. One whose loyalty Regulus trusted beyond all doubt—the one person in his life who had never failed him or betrayed him.
“Kreacher,” he said softly into the stillness of the library. With a soft crack, his friend appeared.
“What does Master wish of me?”
“I need you to help me find a book. It was about Dark Arts and soul magic. It would have been in father’s private library, and it was very old.”
“Kreacher can do this for Master Regulus.” Regulus hated to ask this of him—or to see him like this. His voice croaked now where before it had been more of a squeak, and his limbs seemed frailer than ever before. Whatever potion the Dark Lord had made him drink, it had left a lasting mark.
It took him only a moment of thought. Then he snapped his fingers, and a book floated down from the top shelf. Secrets of the Darkest Art by Owle Bullock – a leather-bound volume. Regulus hesitated only a moment before plucking it out of the air.
If he did this, there was no going back.
“Master Regulus?” Kreacher sounded unusually hesitant.
“Yes?”
“Master Regulus does not seem well,” Kreacher said. “Master Regulus should lie down, and Kreacher will bring him whatever he should wish. Reading these books at such a time-”
“No.” Regulus’ voice came out harsher than he meant it, and he regretted it at once when Kreacher’s face fell and he sunk into a deep bow.
“As Master wishes.”
“Kreacher, I have to do this,” he said, more softly. “And--I may need you to do something else for me as well.”
“Anything.”
“Not yet. I still don’t know for sure.” But in his heart, he knew he did. And he knew he’d just found his line—and at last found the courage not to cross it.
He opened the book and began to read.