Chapter Text
A/N (messing with the timeline a bit and dragging the McKinnon massacre forward, and Reggie’s death back a bit)
1977
Regulus Black was going to be marked.
He was prepared for many things. He was prepared for imperios and torture. He was prepared for scalding comments and the scalding stings of nasty hexes. He was prepared for the scorn of his brother and heartbreak in warm, warm eyes. He was prepared to step up to the mantle and be the perfect son to protect his big brother. He was even prepared to die.
He was not prepared to see Evan Rosier fall into the dorm they shared, stumbling to his knees and grasping a bloodied arm.
He was not prepared for the asheness of Barty’s skin when he floundered in after them with Pandora, fear swirling in both their eyes. He was not prepared for Dorcas to join them, rage brewing in eyes so dark; neatly concealed heartache brimming beneath the pure, unbridled fury.
“He stalled,” she spat out, venom coating her voice something icy. “He wasn’t ready to take the mark. They punished him by massacring the McKinnons,” her teeth gritted through the words, and as unfair as she was being, no one would call her out on it.
No one would call her out, because she’d curl onto one of their laps later and cry it out. But she was furious right now. She was more than likely in shock. And she needed someone to pin the anger on.
All of them were ready to step up and take it. Be her verbal punching bag until she was ready to cry it out.
“He wasn’t ready,” her voice already had cracks in it and Regulus was right there to catch her when she finally collapsed.
Pandora crawled over and laid her head across Dorcas’ back, holding her as she shook apart.
Regulus held out a hand to Evan, Barty creeping over to them, also.
They held each other on the cold, stone floors of their dorm room, grieving and praying and plotting; savage frenzy mounting slowly beneath their very veins.
───
1980
Regulus had been ready to be turned away by his brother, and in turn James Potter.
Their last year with him, their last memory with him had been him brandishing his Dark Mark and hissing lowly that he wanted nothing to do with them.
He had needed them to hate him.
He had needed his cover to be rock solid.
He had watched them leave at King’s Cross knowing he was likely to never see them again.
He had stalked off with his head held high, walking over to his parents who –as complicated as their relationship was– he still loved, who greeted him gruffly and placed a hand each on either of his shoulders. In some sick, twisted, Black family way– he still loved them in a way Sirius never could.
Which was why it hurt that much more when he stared into dead grey eyes. The same eyes embedded in his skull, the same eyes that Sirius managed to make look so very warm, despite the inherent coldness of gloomy grey.
His hands still trembled with the aftershocks of the curses he’d used. More brutal than the killing curse, because try as he might, he could not mean it against his parents. At least the killing curse would have been painless.
There is no pain in a quick death.
Apparating home, he fell to his knees and threw up, after-images of his parents —his parents whom he loved— lifeless and bloodied on the floor of the Malfoy Manor, at the command of his own hands, how own fingers. Stained with blood.
Kreacher fetched him a basin and went about cleaning the sick, muttering in the almost endearingly crazed way of his.
There was no spell to heat the water enough to scrub the filth of blood from Regulus' sickly pale skin.
Not that he had time.
Before he could scratch new grooves into his own skin, some sort of mindless retribution for his sins, his Mark burned and tugged and instinctively he’d already apparated from his home —house— back into the company of the Dark Lord.
Kneeling was muscle memory, his head hanging limp –anything to avoid meeting red eyes that hadn’t held a shred of humanity since he’d first seen them.
“Well done,” praise from the sadistic creature standing in front of him never failed to make him feel slimy, disgusting in a way he couldn’t explain. Like he’d been rolling around in tar. “You know why I had to test your loyalty, don’t you Young Black?”
“Of course, Sire,” he was ready for the crucio. He screamed anyway, his body convulsing.
“As a token of my... appreciation,” cold metal pressed against the side of his face and he forced himself to look up, to accept the gift. “You are being trusted with this. You will protect it. You will hide it. It will not fall into the wrong hands. And I know exactly where to hide it.”
It was almost calming, slipping into the mindlessness of the Imperius, following orders without a thought in the world; letting himself be guided like a marionette on strings.
He longed for the day when his strings would be cut.
When he apparated back to the house this time, he fell flat on his face, clothes sticky from where he’d been spliced in multiple places —from apparating, without enough energy.
Kreacher knew what to do. He sliced into Regulus’ palm, drawing fresh blood and rubbing it across the runes already carved into his skin, near his waistband. Runes that had taken multiple years of research to manipulate into what he needed them to be.
Pandora appeared in a puff the moment he’d gathered enough strength to right himself. Try as he might, he couldn’t fight off the Imperius of the Dark Lord.
Kreacher presented Pandora with a letter.
The mind still trying to scratch to the surface in his head, but unable to break free watched pale, pretty eyes scan the words. Words he’d written and rewritten hundreds, if not thousands of times.
Whoever Reaches First,
I’ve been Imperioed and am heading to my death. Follow me if you will, and attempt to save me. If none of you get here in time, I still love you all.
If none of you will risk following me, I ask that James be informed of my death. Sirius as well, should he wish to hear. And should Lily and James’ baby reach after my death, I wish only that my name be mentioned to him.
Please remain alive.
With as much love as I can muster in my cold, Black heart,
Regulus.
“Oh Reggie,” she breathed out, hands hovering about him in that nervous way they did. “You really can’t break it?”
The tears sliding down his face seemed answer enough.
“How much longer can you wait? You know I’m not the best back-up.”
His knees were already jelly, a thin stream of blood flowing from his nose as he tried to fight the pull. He’d already stalled longer than he could. His tears streamed blood across his sallow skin.
The tears forming in Pandora’s eyes doubled —im pure relief— at the sight of more smoke, Dorcas emerging in her battle ready glory.
Pandora barely croaked out a feeble “Go,” Dorcas just catching his sleeve as he apparated to the area Imperioed behind his eyelids.
Dorcas could only watch, helpless as Regulus waded into the lake, morbid white hands of the inferi pulling his already spliced to hell body underwater.
Trusting as much as she could in her transfiguration prowess, she made a rope, and wildly charmed it steady around Regulus’ waist, a steady grip on the anchor while she started her battle with the inferi.
The first scream nearly made her drop the rope, the strangled stream of pure hurt ripping through her usually so quiet friend’s throat more than she could bear.
She held steady through the tears blurring her vision, trembling as she demolished inferi after inferi.
His throat burned, his lungs burned, his eyes burned, the blood singing beneath his veins burned. He could taste the iron in his throat as he swallowed; or maybe it was the rusty taste of every other poor sod who’d fallen victim to the lake.
But he had to get it to the centre. He had some vague idea in his agony crazed mind.
There was a podium there. He couldn’t just lose the locket, because lost was not destroyed, and he had to destroy it.
Tears seared even through the waters of the lake as he reconciled with the idea of someday having to revisit this wretched place.
His vision was blacking out –maybe from lack of blood; maybe from lack of oxygen. He was half sure those could be the same thing.
The last thing he remembered was the locket slipping from his fingers into the altar at the dead centre of the lake and a sharp tug around his midsection.
───
His limbs were sluggish and heavy when he finally came to, a familiar hand keeping his body still as he started into consciousness.
“Easy now, baby,” Dorcas’ voice was rough, but just as soothing as he’d always known. He leaned greedily into the touch.
“Whe–” he gasped at the pain, writhing before being held down even more firmly.
It was Evan now, the warm green of his healing magic was like a blanket, wrapping him in warmth.
“Easy now Pretty Boy. I can only do so much with my minimal training.”
Regulus wanted to grunt out that Evan’s training was most definitely not minimal considering some of the stunts he’d had to pull for them.
He was always more of a lover than a fighter.
He kept his lips sealed obediently, but gestured for a quill, parchment of some sort.
Reluctantly, breathing heavily through his nose, Evan helped him sit up. Pandora scurried off to get parchment just as Barty slipped into the room.
Regulus blinked through his daze, wondering if he really had died in that lake.
The last time all of them were together was the year Dorcas graduated Hogwarts.
“Yeah buddy,” Barty seemed to read his mind. “As much faith as I have in your brilliance, as the resident brain in our little group, I didn’t think your runes would actually work. Hurt like hell though.”
Regulus winced, but Barty just laughed. “A little pain was worth going through to keep your sorry ass safe. You’re spliced to hell you know.”
“Don’t even know how you managed to apparate back home much less to the lake,” Evan grumbled, warm palm still pressed to his back. “And I’m not ready to even start talking about your throat. The only thing that might work is Dittany and fuck knows where I’m finding that right now." He very clearly did not mention the scars Regulus could feel cutting grooves into his skin, even through whatever was used to numb him. It wasn't the neat, almost elegant slices of being splinched. Regulus could feel it; jagged edges and rough cuts where gnarled fingers and dug in to him and yanked.
But Regulus was alive.
He grunted a silent laugh, nudging his head into Evan’s shoulder.
He felt Dorcas’ fingers twine into his left hand, Barty’s reaching for his right when he dropped himself on the floor at the side of the settee.
Pandora returned just then with the parchment, squishing herself onto the settee with tucked up legs, leaning into Regulus and letting him lean back against her.
“Alright Reggie. Let’s see what you’ve figured out, sweetheart.”
He was well aware they were all babying him.
For once in his life, he readily accepted the comfort.
It was difficult, even with Evan’s impeccable work, to retain his mobility; every movement pulled on probable stitches hidden beneath bulky bandages.
The scratches he managed to get on the paper were barely legible– a far cry from his usually perfect penmanship.
Soul Splitting
Pandora’s eyes went wide. “Are you sure?”
“Do you know how many times?” Barty asked.The tension in the room was palpable.
He shook his head, hands teeter-tottering in a so-so gesture. He finally settled on six.
“It wouldn’t be six,” Barty murmured from where he’d gotten to his knees.
Everyone stared at him waiting for him to continue. He rolled his eyes. “Six is numerically weak from a magical aspect. The Ancients saw unease in the even. It would either be five or seven if those are the numbers we’re working with. What were you hiding in the lake?”
Slytherin Locket
“Slytherin’s locket,” Pandora’s voice trembled as she read from the parchment. “He’s insulting the Ancients. Touching what isn’t his.”
They rarely ever heard Pandora’s voice laced with quite so much venom. “Making a mockery of the greater powers,” she hissed in a way similar to that snake she’d once adopted. Regulus couldn’t quite remember the name at that moment. He thought maybe it started with a Z.
“We know he was a Slytherin,” Evan spoke in a way so as to not startle. “And from what we’ve been digging into, he might very well have been the heir. Was there any way for him to access the other Ancients’ artefacts?”
“Dumbledore would have Gryffindor’s sword under lock and key,” the temperature of the room seemed to drop with the mention of the old wizard’s name.
“The cup and the diadem have long since been lost,” Dorcas mused aloud, hand tightening and loosening in Regulus’ rhythmically.
Trusts Bella
Check vaults?
“How would you?” Barty asked. “You’re supposed to be dead, remember? The Prophet article already came out.”
Regulus’ eyes widened so much and so quickly he was scared they’d pop out of his head.
I’m dead?
His penmanship was even worse, hands shaking too badly for it to have been any better.
“Very,” Barty assured, grinning like he hadn’t a care in the world. Regulus smacked him with the parchment.
Unconscious
How long?
“Nearly two weeks. Stop it,” Evan reprimanded. “You won’t be quite as pretty if those eyes of yours fall out of your head.” He flicked Regulus in the centre of his head.
Regulus closed his eyes and took deep, deep breaths.
Anything happened?
“Hmm? Oh, old Voldy’s much less suspicious of us than usual seeing as we aren’t torn apart by your death.”
“Lily gave birth.”
Barty and Dorcas said at the same time and Regulus swore his vision actually blacked out for a moment.
The baby’s okay?
Lily's okay?
Pandora nearly fell off the couch from how heavily Regulus slumped against her, his relief a tangible thing. “Come now Pretty Boy. I thought we’d gotten past swooning at this point.”
Regulus’ fingers were not bandaged.
Evan yelped, rubbing at his quickly bruising thigh.
“Bitch.”
Regulus grunted the equivalent of a rebuttal.
They all just sat together for a minute, finding a comfort in each other they hadn’t in years.
“Alright Reggie. You need to rest and I need to find some Dittany. Barty, you go back to the Manor. Dora, stay with Reggie. Dorcas head back to the Order and report.”
Barty disapparated with a mock salute, ruffling Regulus’ hair one final time.
Dorcas left him with a peck on the cheek and Evan laughed after smacking him one last time.
Pandora was the one who laid him back down, tucking his blanket up, and sweeping the hair from his forehead, kissing the skin there gently.
“Rest my brave one. I’ll be right here when you wake.”