Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His throat burned, his shallow breaths causing sharp pains to rack his body as he flinched away from his mother and the poison she poured down his throat.

“... must drink.”

“No more, please,” Regulus begged, but the House of Black wasn’t known for its mercy, and Walburga Black gripped him by the hair, roots stinging, and pulled his head back, dumping more of the liquid fire past his lips. 

“Kreacher’s sorry!”

Reg blinked once, twice; where was Kreacher?

The vague thought that something was wrong, that he was with Kreacher doing… something… filtered through his haze of pain. But his mouth was so dry, his whole body blazed with heat, he needed… water. Water would put out the flames inside him, burning him to a cinder from within. 

“She’s gone,” Sirius whispered, “but she won’t be for long. You need to drink before she gets back.”

Gravel bit into his palms and knees as he struggled forward at his brother’s warning. 

“That’s it, get to the water, Reg. You need to drink.”

Regulus blinked at the shoreline as it came in and out of focus; why was Sirius here? Why was Regulus here? He let out a whimper as his entire abdomen spasmed and twisted. 

“Now, Reg! Drink, she's coming!”

He unfurled himself and hauled himself closer to the lapping waves before him — closer to relief. 

“Master, stop!”

Reg’s arms shook as he raised himself up, turning his head to find Kreacher’s voice; where was Kreacher?

Where was he?

Another wave of pain as he drew breath reminded him he needed to soothe the burning, to slake his piercing thirst.  

“Come on, Reg,” Sirius urged, kneeling by the water’s edge. “To the water, now.” Sirius dipped his hand in and splashed him with cool water, the droplets shimmering temptation. So Reg crawled again, his dry tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, towards his brother, towards relief. 

His outstretched fingers brushed the ice-cold liquid lapping at the shore; it gave him the strength to pull himself forward, dunking both his hands in and cupping the water, bringing it to his dry lips. 

Crisp, cool water shocked his senses, relief cascading down his throat. He scooped another mouthful from the waves before his senses returned and the salinity of the water made him gag and sputter. 

A cruel laugh had Reg squinting above him, trying to make out the figure.

“And now, Reg.” Sirius grinned. “Precisely what you deserve.”

A splash was all the warning he had before bony hands reached for him, digging into his skin and pulling him towards the water. Reg flailed, skin breaking in the push and pull. He contorted and spun, legs kicking out. A shout was torn from him as still more hands latched onto his boots, his ankles. His skin ripped as he tried to kick, flopping over to grapple desperately with the sandy shore. Reg risked a glance over his shoulder to see animated corpses emerging from the water to grasp and pull, tearing him apart, dragging him to them—

He shouted, heartbeat roaring in his ears as more hands squeezed and scratched his legs, his back. They pulled with such force his face slammed into the sand. Reg fought to raise it once more, to keep his head up and scramble back, away from the shoreline. But his kicking proved ineffective and his fingers gained no purchase against the sandy ground while pain erupted across his body. The glacial water struck his thighs, his back; he jerked. Hands reached his chest, his heart, and Reg screamed before the rest of him was pulled under. 

Chapter Text

“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live.

Which of these two is better only God knows.”

Socrates

Regulus was positive he had ceased to exist. At least for a moment. Blinding pain, searing lungs, desperate gasps filled with water… then black. Relief had flooded him: the realization it would all finally stop hurting, that he could stop fighting. He’d been at peace. At least, for a moment.

His eyes snapped open at his flesh ripping open. Salt water stung his eyes and his vision blurred, the dim light around him illuminating blobs of stone grey as his head burst above water. He sucked in a breath as he rose from the Inferi-infested waters, a hand brushing against his ankle as he floated. Reg lay limp and heavy, but whatever kept him aloft moved him steadily towards land. He winced against the light of the nearly set sun in the purple sky as he emerged from the cave’s depths. Reg bit back a yelp as he was dumped onto the shoreline. Coarse, gritty sand scraped his cheek. He squinted at the island, now merely a dark specter in the distance. 

Regulus retched and his lungs burned as he expelled the water that he swore had drowned him. His waterlogged clothes dragged at his flesh like the claws of the Inferi. Violent shivers shook his body. 

He had been sure he was dying, that there was no chance, that he was doomed to a watery grave. But as he eyed the blood slowly seeping from his gashes, shuddered from the intense cold, and coughed up more water, he knew if he didn’t get help, he would indeed be dead soon. The copper of his blood mixed with the salt of the sea in his mouth; the smell of rancid flesh — his flesh — assaulted his nose, and he gagged again. He saw no sign of whoever had levitated him from the water’s churning depths.

“Kreacher,” he tried to call, his voice coming out a strained whisper.

A crack! and the familiar face of his old friend appeared. 

“Master?” The elf gaped, his eyes huge. 

“Help?” he rasped. The pain and cold were beginning to addle his brain, and anything beyond a desperate wish for relief was growing hazy. 

“Yes, good Master.” With a loud crack!, the world went black once more.

Hermione huffed. The old elf was never a fan of hers, but to disapparate mid-conversation was just rude. 

“Kreacher being the worst?” Harry asked, a sad attempt at a smile on his lips. 

Hermione softened. Harry kept saying he didn’t want to talk about it, but Sirius’ death two weeks ago had crushed him. Now, they were perusing the library at Grimmauld Place, and the fact that Harry had willingly followed her here told Hermione all she needed to know about how poorly her best friend was doing. 

“No more than usual,” she sighed and offered Harry a grin. “Find any good books over there?”

He shrugged. “They’re kind of dark, to be honest.”

Hermione heard a crack! behind her. “Honestly, Kreacher, I know I’m not your favorite but it’s rude to just—” 

She gasped.

“What— Is that—” Harry stammered, staggering closer. 

“Get Remus! Now!” she commanded, moving to kneel by the body Kreacher had deposited upon the rug. Harry rushed past her to find help.

“Kreacher, can you heal him?” she asked the old elf, who was weeping loudly.

“Master has cursed wounds, Kreacher cannot heal them! Oh, poor Kreacher, to have Master back and lose Master again!” 

Hermione leaned over the young man, repressing a gag at the combined smells of fetid water and the coppery tang of blood, running through her healing knowledge, which, while scant, did exist. The events at the Department of Mysteries had spurred her on to some light reading on the subject. Cold, clammy wetness spread across her knees; his blood and the water mixed to soak the carpet. Hermione did her best to calm her racing heart and focus. There was so much blood.   

“Kreacher, are there potion stores? Do you have any Blood-Replenishing potion?” 

Kreacher nodded, disapparating instantly. Hermione tried the diagnostic charm she’d learned, and on the second try an orange glow emerged from her wand.

“Too cold… Okay, okay, warming charm!” she murmured to herself, casting the spell over the soaked body — man — lying on the floor. He shuddered. She examined him and cast a drying spell too, followed by a tergeo to clear his skin of the grit covering his face and hands and sticking to his clothes. Blood — tinged black — seeped from his wounds: deep gashes across his torso, arms, and legs with scraps of fabric sticking to some of the cuts. His clothes were stitched-together rags at this point. Hermione bit her lip. She didn’t know what else to do, given the wounds were cursed. 

Kreacher reappeared, handing Hermione the potions without pause. She blinked once, the only second she could spare to marvel at his obedience before turning to her charge. She hesitated. Unsure of how to administer the potions, she cast a gentle rennervate.

The young man gasped, jolting as if to sit upright, but his battered body couldn’t handle it.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” Hermione soothed and the injured man turned wide, pain-filled eyes to her. Hermione was struck by their familiarity, even though she couldn’t quite place them. Panic was setting in. He was awake; he was a person — not a limp body — and he was bloody dying. Where was Remus? 

Breathe, Hermione. Do what you can. Keep him calm, give him potions. 

“I can’t imagine how much pain you're in, but we’re going to heal you, alright? I need you to take these potions,” she explained and he nodded slowly. She moved around and — just where could she touch him without making things worse? — supported his upper body enough so he could drink.

“Blood-Replenishing,” she told him and held it to his nearly blue lips as he swallowed dutifully. She cast a second warming charm. 

His dark hair dried from her spell into a tangled mess. Hermione’s eyes caught a drop of scarlet-black plodding a slow, deliberate path along the pale, clammy skin of his neck until it disappeared into the remnants of his clothing. 

“Pain relief,” she choked out, after glancing at the label of the additional potion Kreacher brought. She laid him back down.

Hurried footsteps pounded outside the library. The young man tried to sit again and let out a pained groan. 

“Shh, shh, lie back, help is coming.” She tried for soothing, taking his hand. Comfort, she could do comfort, right? She’d run through her healing knowledge at this point; she needed to keep him calm until actual, experienced help arrived.

His puzzled eyes found hers again. His brow furrowed, but he seemed to trust her and relaxed back into the carpet, gripping her hand in turn.

“Good Godric,” Remus breathed, halting in the doorway with Harry slamming into his back; Hermione felt a sliver of relief. 

“Remus, his wounds are cursed, do you know…” 

He turned on his heel, pushing Harry aside and cast a patronus. Hermione’s eyes bugged out as what was supposed to be salvation fled the room and presumably called for more help. 

“Well, then, any chance you know how to heal cursed wounds?” she asked, voice flirting with shrill as she fought down hysteria and glanced back at the man dying on the rug. She tried to smile.

He blinked at her. “Not these… not Inferi,” he replied, voice rasping. 

She wondered if he’d been screaming, or if the water dousing him had also been in his lungs earlier. “That’s alright, I’m sure Remus is calling for help,” she told him, hoping to convince herself more than anything, and the young man — Merlin, he might be no older than she was — furrowed his brow again.

“Remus? He wouldn’t…” he managed to say before coughing. Hermione braced him as his body shook, her hands becoming sticky as she gripped his shaking shoulders. Her hands slid, so she used her chest to steady her hold, black and crimson staining her shirt as rancid ocean water and copper assaulted her nose. He took another rattling breath as his eyes fluttered shut and his muscles went limp; Hermione let him go.

Voices from outside the library floated in.

“Lupin, if this is some sort of trick—” 

The man’s eyes blew open wide. 

“It’s no trick, it’s him!”

“This is absolute madness,” Professor Snape snarled as he entered the library only to stop short, like Remus had, at the sight of her charge — who was, once again, attempting to sit up. 

“Down!” Hermione scolded, pressing on his shoulder. “You are so hurt, just stay down!” He winced as he obeyed. When she peeked back at Snape, she found him standing still, his black, incredulous gaze fixed upon her stubborn charge; she’d never seen him look so astounded. 

“Sev?” the man whimpered, and his plea broke whatever hold was over Snape.

“After I heal you, I would like to know where you’ve been for two decades,” Snape muttered and kneeled next to the man, opposite Hermione. Snape spared her only a glance before taking out his wand and murmuring a spell. She heard Harry saying something in the doorway, but her eyes focused on Snape’s wand movements. 

“Miraculous.” Dumbledore paused a few steps into the room, staring in wonder and surprise. 

The hand in hers gripped tighter. He was attempting to take steadying breaths, but was clearly still in pain despite the potion. Hermione winced in sympathy; it hadn’t been too long since she’d been cursed and if she’d learned anything, it was that magical injuries hurt like hell. 

“It’s alright, Professor Snape is healing you and you’ll be alright,” she soothed again, rubbing her thumb across his knuckles, which felt a touch less hypothermic. All she’d wanted was her mum after Dolohov, and while she was a poor stand-in, she would offer whatever comfort she could. 

“Pro-professor?” he stuttered, moving his head to face Snape, who merely arched a brow and continued chanting, vulnera sanentur. 

“Yes, he’s the Potions professor at Hogwarts. Don’t tell him I said it, because he isn’t very fond of me, but he’s rather good at it,” she rambled.

“Sirius?” he asked before coughing hard again, and for some reason, the hopeful way he said his name broke Hermione’s heart. 

Snape’s movements paused before resuming his healing.

“He’s… well, he isn’t here right now,” she finally decided on, not sure it was really her place to inform him of Sirius’ death. The man’s eyes closed and nodded, his mouth tight. 

Snape let out a hard breath through his nose. 

Harry plopped beside her and Hermione nearly jumped. “What do we do?” he asked, and Snape answered at the same time as Remus and for once the two men were in accord.

“Leave.” 

“Harry, perhaps give them some room to work.”

Harry pouted, though he’d deny it, and scooted back a bit. “Do you recognize him?” Harry whispered, leaning first over her shoulder and then directly behind her. 

Hermione swatted at him with her free hand. Rotten meddler. 

“Harry, come over here with me,” Remus suggested; he was still looking at the young man on the floor, concern etched in his features. “Do you need any help, Severus?”

“Babysit Potter and let me bloody work,” the Potions professor hissed, eyes never leaving their patient, who grimaced. 

“Can you tell me your name?” she asked, hoping to distract him from the pain and ignore Harry, who was now pestering Remus.

His eyes blinked open again. “Regulus.”

Hermione paused. That name was familiar…

“Yours?” he breathed and Hermione pushed the thought from her mind.

“Hermione Granger. Pleasure to meet you.” She tried to smile, then caught another glance of his gruesome torso. “Though perhaps next time we can arrange for less blood?” she babbled, trying to swallow down bile as she re-focused on his face. 

He huffed a little laugh and winced.

She didn’t know what to do now, so she just squeezed his hand.

“How many Inferi were there?” Remus gaped as Snape moved from Regulus’ torso down to his thighs. Remus’ hands kept moving, as if he would begin to help. 

Regulus shuddered. “H-hundreds.” 

Hermione squeezed his hand again; the image horrified her and she hadn’t even been forced to live it. His eyes fluttered shut once more. Perhaps he’d fall asleep and could ride out the rest of his painful healing.

“Severus, you know I could help, he could be dying—”

“Let. Me. Concentrate.” Snape bit out through gritted teeth.

“Mr. Black.” The man jerked. Dumbledore had apparently been assessing them all quietly from the corner and was now making his way further into the room. 

The man appeared unmoved, but he gripped Hermione’s hand tightly. “Headmaster,” he replied, the sandpaper-sound making Hermione wince. Talking had to hurt.

“No need to fear, Mr. Black,” Dumbledore said with a disarming smile, but Regulus’ death grip on her hand didn’t loosen.

“No need to lie, Headmaster.” 

The older wizard sighed, wearily kneeling next to Regulus’ head. “I’m afraid there is no easy way to tell you this, Mr. Black, but you’ve been missing for quite a while. Years, in fact. We had presumed you dead.”

Hermione froze. Snape faltered, but resumed healing and Regulus’ hold on her fingers fell slack. His brow knit. “N-no. That’s not… How would…” his voice trailed off.

“Can you tell me how you came to be attacked by Inferi?” Dumbledore asked, his gaze intent. 

Regulus’ hand twitched in hers.

“Can you postpone the interrogation until he’s no longer on death’s door?” Snape drawled. “Turn him over, Ms. Granger, I’ve no doubt his back is as ravaged as his front.”

Shit. She hadn’t even considered that. Gingerly, she placed her hands on his shoulders to pull him towards her.

“Levitating might cause Mr. Black less distress, Ms. Granger,” he advised with a twinkle in his eyes. 

Hermione flushed. “Right,” she muttered and quietly levitated Regulus. “Trust me?” She grinned, hoping it wasn’t as deranged as it felt, and Regulus regarded her with serious grey eyes. He nodded once, and she gently turned him over. As she settled him down, she summoned a pillow and placed it underneath his cheek. He moved his arms, hissing in pain, to rest on either side of his head. Hermione peeked at his back and her throat caught.

His clothes were shredded like his skin, black-tinged scarlet smeared across torn flesh. Her stomach flipped. 

Snape swore.

“Well, get over here then,” he tossed over his shoulder with a sneer, then continued his healing spell and Regulus stiffened. 

Hermione watched, amazed as the black mixed in his blood began clearing while Remus settled by Regulus’ legs. He muttered a different spell. Hermione didn’t recognize the Latin. While eventually effective, as it caused more of the darkness to rise from his blood, Remus’ spell was slower and perhaps more painful as Regulus began to tremble, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. 

“I don’t know much about dosage, but can we give him any more pain potion?” she asked, her heart pounding. 

By the time a new potion was secured by Kreacher and she knelt to administer it in their awkward position, Regulus had tears leaking from his tightly shut lids. Hermione lay on her stomach perpendicular to him, holding the potion to his lips. 

His fists were clenched, as was his jaw, but he forced himself a little upright to swallow the potion. “Th-thank you,” he said, barely audible. 

In response, Hermione reached out a hand and with gentle fingers, pried his fist open to slip her hand in his. 

“Why… are you helping me?” he asked in a voice so soft only she could hear him. He’d chosen to lie with his head facing her, his eyes heavy as he struggled to stay conscious, and Hermione frowned at him.

“Why wouldn’t I? Who would let someone bleed to death on the floor?” she replied just as quietly. 

He regarded her for a long moment.

She could see the instant the potion took him. His muscles relaxed and he sighed. She watched him carefully until his breath evened out and the hand in hers released its hold. 

Hermione peeked at Snape, who was down to Regulus’ practically bare arse.

Biting back a squeak, she turned her gaze to Dumbledore, whose eyes were also focused on the prone young man. “You know who he is, Headmaster?”

Dumbledore’s focus remained on her charge as he answered. “Ah, I do, Ms. Granger. His name is Regulus Black.”

Hermione waited. 

Dumbledore chuckled. “He is the younger brother to Sirius Black and cousin to Bellatrix Black LeStrange, Andromeda Black Tonks, and Narcissa Black Malfoy.”

“Wait, the dead one?” Harry interrupted.

Dumbledore nodded. “He was presumed dead over seventeen years ago.”

Hermione’s face scrunched. There were no lines in his face to suggest he was in his thirties. “But then how… He looks so young.”

“I suspect he is, Ms. Granger. Kreacher?”

Kreacher grunted and looked to Dumbledore. The elf had been standing quietly, keeping a vigil over his… Master?

“Do you know how Regulus disappeared? Where he was?”

“Kreacher was sworn to secrecy,” the elf replied. 

“You said you thought he was gone earlier — can you tell us what you meant?” she tried. 

Kreacher let out a small wail. “Master ordered Kreacher to leave him! Kreacher thought Master died — the tapestry showed Master died, there was no way Master could have survived!” 

“Regulus isn't an idiot. If he sacrificed his life it was for something important. What were you two doing?” Snape snapped as he drew back from the body.

“Kreacher cannot say, especially as Master who gave Kreacher the order is ALIVE!” Kreacher protested, somehow both distraught and euphoric at the same time.

Hermione gently brushed her thumb over the unconscious Regulus’ knuckles. It was quiet as Snape and Remus continued their healing incantations, Remus finishing Regulus’ left leg and moving to his right. 

“Why does he think Dumbledore would lie to him? About not needing to fear?” she asked and the room stilled. 

Remus sighed, wiping sweat from his brow at the magical exertion and gestured for Harry to sit with everyone else on the floor. “Regulus is Sirius’ younger brother,” Remus began. “Sirius, as you know, was a bit of a rebel. Went Gryffindor in a family of Slytherins, fought with the Order of the Phoenix, eventually escaped his family to live with the Potters—“

“Abandoned would be an apt word,” Snape drawled as his wand continued, but Remus simply paused and rolled his eyes. 

Harry drew up to retaliate but deflated when Remus placed a hand on his knee. 

“Hermione, to answer your question — Regulus was Marked, and he died in the midst of the first war. Technically, Dumbledore and I were his enemies then.”

Hermione dropped his hand as if it had stung her. A Death Eater. She’d been holding the hand of a Death Eater.

He didn’t seem evil. That thought did nothing but make the disgust and anger stronger, flavoring it with betrayal. No wonder he’d been surprised at someone helping him. Perhaps she shouldn’t have. 

Harry suggested as much and Snape shot him a look of utter derision. 

Remus quietly picked back up his healing.

“Stop jumping to conclusions, both of you,” Snape sneered. 

Harry threw accusing eyes to the professor, silently fuming, and Hermione forced her lip not to tremble. “I’m rather familiar with how Death Eaters feel about my blood, Professor,” Hermione said, voice quiet but firm.

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, about to respond, but Remus cut in, his wand hovering where it continued to draw out what she presumed was the curse from Regulus’ blood. “Remember what Sirius told you, Harry?”

Harry blinked. “People aren’t sorted into good people or Death Eaters.”

“Exactly. Things were dark and complicated back then,” he said, focus returning as he uttered the incantation again. “I myself want to hear from Regulus where his true loyalties lay, why he took the Mark.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore mused, “these injuries, imparted on him by Inferi, lead me to believe the younger Mr. Black may not have been as loyal to Voldemort as we’ve heard.”

Hermione turned to look at the sleeping young man on the floor; the enigma that was Regulus Black.

“So let’s reserve judgment for now, shall we, and get him into a bed?”

“How is he here?” Harry asked, voice sharp with pain and Hermione stiffened. 

She knew exactly where Harry’s mind had gone. Oh, so we’re bringing people back from the dead now, are we? I have a list… she could just hear him saying it. Her darling, idiot best friend. 

“We don’t know,” Remus sighed with a look to Snape, who also shook his head.

The conversation stalled. Harry’s eyes were still alight with intent (to cause trouble) and anger (at everything) while the older men began to conclude their work. 

“We need information before you try anything stupid,” she murmured to him as Snape levitated Regulus’ unconscious form and began to transfer him to a bedroom. 

Harry sighed, nodding. 

She gave his shoulder a quick squeeze in sympathy. She swallowed hard. The emotions of the past two weeks were starting to rise and overwhelm her. The battle, Sirius’ death, her time in the infirmary recovering from Dolohov’s curse, and the entire year’s worth of trauma that was Dolores sodding Umbridge, all of it, gurgled in her gut.

Hermione shook her head to clear her thoughts, left Harry in the library, and followed Snape up the stairs and into a bedroom where he was gently depositing Regulus Black. 

She stared at his prone form for a moment before she spoke. “Can I help?”

Snape glanced at her over his shoulder. “You’ve decided he isn’t repugnant then?”

Hermione sighed. “He’s wounded; I’m helping. It’s not more serious than that for now.”

It was something to do , to contribute. She couldn’t do anything about the death of Sirius or the helplessness she felt when she closed her eyes and saw Dolohov’s curse coming at her, but she could do something for the injured man — boy? — who’d been literally dropped before her. 

He might be a monster, but she wasn’t. She would help save his life.

Snape nodded. “You could fetch clothes; I believe there are some in the wardrobe,” Snape suggested and Hermione obeyed. 

She blushed as she picked up a pair of pants along with loose trousers and a soft shirt, handing them to Snape. 

Kreacher appeared with some towels, one of which Snape tossed over Regulus’ hips before vanishing his ruined clothes. 

The heat in her cheeks from handling his underwear fled at the sight of his gashes, which were now deep scratches: all chaotic and when he breathed looked as if they were roaming over his chest.

“Ms. Granger, you were studying healing magic on your own, is this correct?”

Hermione startled, then answered him. “Yes.”

“Then what is the next step in treating your patient?”

Hermione blinked at her suddenly accommodating professor. “Dittany. To stave off infection, increase healing, and reduce scarring. In cursed wounds, it also assists in magically clearing the wound.”

Snape nodded, gesturing for her to sit next to Regulus. Hermione perched delicately beside his right side, Snape on his left, resuming their places from the library floor. Kreacher held a large jar of dittany aloft and Snape took it from him, glancing at Hermione.

“If you could manage his torso, I will take care of his lower half.”

The two worked in silence, passing the jar between them. While Hermione carefully rubbed the ointment onto Regulus’ wounds, she wondered about them… and him.

What had he been doing to get himself killed? What had been so important? She couldn’t remotely imagine how painful it would have been to be ripped apart like this. The purple scar across her ribs had felt like her organs were sizzling when the curse was cast, and that had been stopped within twenty minutes with a pain potion and a stunner. 

And how could someone who seemed so utterly ordinary be a Death Eater? She could see his Mark now, with his arm turned inward, faded and still, presumably from his death. His eyes had been bright, filled with pain and confusion, humanity screaming from them; and yet, he had been one of Voldemort’s faithful, someone who considered Hermione an abomination, who tortured and murdered innocent muggles in the name of ‘magic is might.’

“Master will live?” Kreacher croaked, standing nearby, wringing his hands.

Hermione hesitated, looking to Snape.

“He will live, Kreacher. You brought him to us in time.”

Kreacher sniffled and returned to his quiet vigil.

That was another thing — did Kreacher love Regulus Black for his pure blood and the ideals of his beloved masters, or for some other reason?

But as she dabbed dittany into the brutal wounds, she couldn’t deny that he was a person, someone whose life mattered by virtue of him living at all, even if he was one of those who denied her that same basic courtesy. His pain had been real, and she refused to be the kind of person who didn’t help someone in need. She was better than that.

“If you can manage it, Ms. Granger, I would recommend giving him the benefit of the doubt,” Snape said in a surprisingly gentle tone; it was still harsher than most people, but for Snape it was nearly compassionate. “There is more to a man’s story than a Mark on his arm.”

Hermione stared at her professor whom she had never expected to speak to her so candidly or teach her so willingly outside the classroom, and back down to the young man fighting for his life.

“We’ll see,” she decided, not committing one way or the other. Because despite the title of Death Eater, her instincts told her Snape might be right. Or, perhaps, a naive hope; regardless, she was curious. Furthermore, he was a mystery somehow related to the war effort and Hermione was intent on gathering as much information as possible. Research was something she could do in the midst of sitting and waiting, and the more she knew, the better able she would be to protect her best friend with a penchant for idiocy, heroics, and abysmal luck. 

And, most importantly, she had asked if he trusted her and he’d looked at her with his grey, vulnerable eyes and he’d said yes. She wouldn’t violate that trust, not until he was further away from death’s door.

And if he remained loyal to the Dark? Then Hermione would do something about that, too.

Chapter Text

“Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.”

― Rumi

His whole body ached. His breaths were pained and Regulus’ mouth was dry despite the veritable ocean he swallowed earlier. All of this discomfort led to one indisputable conclusion.

He was alive. 

One eye opened, then another, the world at first appearing in blue, brown, and green blobs. Squeezing his eyes shut, he reopened them, and his vision cleared to find the girl, the one with warm eyes and wild hair, tucked into an armchair. He tried to place her, to recollect the moments that led here, but the blur of potions and pain obscured his memory. 

The witch’s face was relaxed in sleep, her lips slightly parted, and Reg couldn’t help but stare. She’d helped him, healed him, with no thought for who he was, no pause to ask questions or look for the Mark. 

His eyes trailed to the brand, a few scratches marring it, and—

It’s faded. 

It was still black, sure, but the brand had always been a gleaming inky color, alive and oily and vile. It promised pain when the Dark Lord summoned and served as a constant reminder that no matter how far he ran or what he did, Lord Voldemort would find him. The Mark spelled doom, to the branded and to anyone unfortunate enough to lay eyes on it. To victims, it was fear. Death. 

But here she was, sleeping. Vulnerable in front of him. Regardless of what he could do once he, the Death Eater woke, even wounded and without a wand — choosing to remain near him if his condition changed or worsened — it was all so utterly kind that it took his breath away. War didn’t breed such compassion.

Though, if as much time had passed as they’d said… twenty years? Something close? Perhaps it hadn’t occurred to her to check his arm. Was it irrelevant in this time? 

His pulse drummed in his chest and ears, picking up time as he battled shock, a tingling settling into his bones. Panic, a hysterical voice inside advised. Observe, logic retorted, and it won out as Reg began occluding in earnest. He called for the mists of his mind to carry him to safety, forcing himself to regulate his breathing and calm the fuck down. 

Alright. He needed information, first and foremost. Were they at war, and if not, who had won? Presumably the Light, but how? When? Had his suicide mission been successful? Was that why the Mark was faded? Or because he had died? What was Sev doing with Lupin and Dumbledore?

“You’re awake.”

Regulus turned his head sharply at the voice despite his screaming muscles. Severus — the much older Severus — sat in a chair, legs kicked out in front of him, arms crossed.

“Apparently.” He winced, his raw vocal cords straining. Each movement of his muscles shot stabbing pain through him, making the simple rise and fall of his chest difficult. 

Merlin, dying was taxing. 

Severus observed, watching Regulus force himself upright, hissing as he did. He tossed him a vial.

Reg caught it — but only barely, and he had to bite his lip not to cry out. A familiar pale blue shone through the glass. He knocked back the pain potion greedily.

Pain potion was not ideal, given the number of details he needed to figure out what the hell happened, but his entire body had been fileted. The sting and throb of his injuries were difficult to ignore. Thankfully, the more pain the drinker was in, the less addled the mind usually; it was a popular choice for school antics as when one was healthy, the potion offered a pleasant and mostly safe high. In his condition, it should only have a mild effect. 

“It seems death wasn’t kind to you.” 

“Age hasn’t been kind to you,” he muttered back. Severus gave him a ghost of a smile, but his gaze remained heavy. Assessing. Reg took in the faint lines at the corners of Severus’ eyes, but the blackness of his eyes was the same. 

“What is the proper way to prepare hellebore for Impervius Potion?”

Reg’s brows flicked up. 

“The book’s wrong,” Severus explained to him in the abandoned Potions classroom. “It’s a subtle difference, but the efficacy of the whole plant being ground into the paste, not just chopping up the leaves nearly doubles—”

“Mortar and pestle.”

Severus’ lips curved into a smile, and he let out a quiet, incredulous laugh. 

“Welcome back, Regulus.”

Regulus flashed him the closest thing to a grin he could muster and let out a small sigh of relief as the potion took hold. The open wounds still ached, which was not a good sign for how dire his situation was — needing two pain potions meant pretty significant damage — but it siphoned away enough of the stabbing, stinging agony. This was manageable. Taking another certainly wasn’t worth the risk. 

“Back to when, exactly?” He frowned. “And how old are you now? Since I’ve been dead.” That’s absolutely insane. 

“The ripe old age of thirty-six in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six.”

Regulus let out a quiet laugh, then winced. “Merlin, Sev, go for a holiday, you look forty at least. Let Lily tell you what an idiot you are or something to bring you some bloody joy, mate.” 

Severus’ face shuttered. 

“I get it,” Lily grinned in one of her many futile efforts to get Reg to warm up to her. “Obnoxious older siblings are their own breed of stupid.”

“When?” he asked, shooting for something in the realm of gently. 

“Two years after you,” Snape replied, voice quiet.

“So… ‘81?”

“Mm. The Dark Lord killed her and James and then mysteriously disappeared himself when he cast the Killing Curse at their child.”

Regulus froze. Relief and disbelief warred within him, along with an infernal, wicked hope which dared to bloom. “So it worked? He’s gone?” he whispered. Salazar, let him have died for something…

“He was gone, yes, for fourteen years. A year ago now he was brought back.”

Regulus closed his eyes, a new wave of despair crashing over him. Well, fuck.

Severus continued to take his measure; Reg didn’t know what he was looking for, but he had nothing to hide as far as this was concerned. If Severus was in a house with Lupin and Dumbledore, he’d switched sides at some point — if not before, then certainly after Lily Evans had been murdered by Voldemort. 

“You defected, didn’t you? “Severus swung his legs gracefully to land in front of him and clasped his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. "And you aren’t foolhardy enough to get yourself killed for no reason, so what did you do?”

Regulus let out a humorless laugh. “Apparently a fat lot of nothing.”

“Reg—”

“Cast a muffliato," Reg instructed, glancing at the sleeping witch. He felt the magic ripple around him before speaking again.

“Do you know what a Horcrux is?”

Severus nodded solemnly. He seemed unsurprised. 

“I’d volunteered Kreacher for a task and when he came back, Kreacher…” Reg bit back the rage and terror he’d felt at seeing the elf writhing and whimpering from the potion. “He’d been tortured, clearly. He talked about some sort of ritual, a murder, a cursed potion, and an island… eventually I put together what happened, that the Dark Lord had made one and hidden it there. So I had Kreacher take me back, except—”

“Oh, God,” Severus groaned, a hand dragging down his face. He only let slip his muggle phrases when he was truly upset, but Reg couldn’t say he was sorry. He wasn’t. 

“You absolute idiot. Except you took the torturous potion because you’re a bloody martyr and you love that damn elf—”

“I do,” Reg admitted. 

“Tell me what happened,” Severus commanded. 

Regulus sighed. “We took the boat to the island. I had to order Kreacher to force the potion down my throat no matter what I begged or ordered after. It was… unpleasant,” he finished lamely. Like his insides were being twisted within him by a hand whose nails pierced his guts. “Then we found the locket. I made the replica with Kreacher — he guided me — but the longer the potion was in me, the more desperate the need for water… I was out of my mind, and once he was distracted finishing the fake, I crawled to the water. I got a sip.” His fingers bunched in the sheet. 

Reg cleared his throat. “The water, it both cleared my mind… mostly, I guess, and it triggered the Inferi. Beforehand, I ordered Kreacher to take the locket and destroy it and leave me if necessary, that the locket had to be the priority. He did, I guess, and I…” He shuddered. He couldn’t help it. All those hands reaching for him, grabbing him, ripping him apart, the water, the cold, all of it… 

“And you died,” Severus finished, his voice grounding Regulus. “You died to make the Dark Lord mortal.”

“Failing to make the Dark Lord mortal,” Regulus corrected. “If he was brought back, that means Kreacher wasn’t able to destroy it. I should have checked if he’d be able to before…” What did it take to destroy a Horcrux? Reg bit the inside of his lip. He hadn’t realized it’d be veritably indestructible, and he knew Kreacher would have done anything to follow the order. How many years had he felt like a failure, unable to complete the task, all due to Reg’s lack of foresight?

“It wasn’t that, necessarily. He wasn’t properly dead the first time.”

“Fuck, what does that even mean?” His mother would hex him for such a word, but she wasn’t here—

He glanced around the room, and his breath caught. Fuck, fuck, fuck… this was his bed, his room. He was home…

“Reg, what is it? Breathe,” Severus commanded, rising and perching at the edge of the bed.

“My…” His voice cracked with what he was sure sounded like pathetic amounts of horror.

But horror would be his new reality if his mother got even the barest hint of him betraying the Dark Lord. Not to mention if said Dark Lord found out, and — Merlin, she nearly worshiped Voldemort, if she gave him over—

“Walburga is dead, Reg,” Severus said sharply, eyes filled with understanding. 

Regulus blinked. “Dead?”

“Yes.”

Dead. “When?”

“Seven or so years ago now.”

Dead. Regulus slumped, head falling into his hands. He worked to calm his pounding heart and ragged breathing, sending all the rising responses to Mother and dead away on mist into the forest of his mind. The only relevant piece for the moment was that she wasn’t a concern. “Oh. That’s, ah, helpful. I’m sure Sirius is thrilled.”

“About… about Sirius…” Severus began and Regulus sighed once more, peeking out from behind his hands.

“Doesn’t know I defected, horribly disappointed and disgusted with me, couldn’t be arsed to come?” 

“He died, Reg.”  

Regulus straightened up, his arms falling limply to his sides as he gaped at his friend.

Sirius?  

An image of his older brother laughing, head thrown back and delighted, flashed through his mind. Something within him cracked.

“No…” Regulus shook his head, a near hysterical laugh wrenching its way out of him. “No. If I just survived… whatever the hell happened to me, death or whatever, then Sirius… it’s not possible.”

His mists ebbed and the grief flowed back into his conscious mind with vicious clarity as tears stung his eyes. A deluge of memories drifted forward, lurking. Reg grit his teeth. He quickly sunk into his magic and yanked, drawing the mists forth once again and shoving the feelings back. 

“I’m sorry, but it is,” Severus said and Regulus hated the gentleness in his tone — gentle was for the weak, for the grieving. This couldn’t be possible. 

“When? The war?” His voice broke and he cursed himself.

“No, though his fate wasn’t much better. He was convicted of giving away James and Lily’s location to Voldemort as their Secret Keeper and murdering Peter Pettigrew along with several muggles. He went to Azkaban for twelve years before he escaped, and his name was cleared after the fact. He died two weeks ago.”

His mists evaporated. Regulus blinked once. Twice. Then he was lurching to his feet, ignoring the pain shooting through his legs and hobbling to the door, throwing it open.

“LUPIN!” he roared. He wouldn’t have left. Regulus leaned heavily against the wall as he made his way to the banister, which he used to hold his weight as he limped down the stairs. His entire body screamed, but he was too angry to give a damn.

“LUPIN!” Regulus could hear voices below, along with another, higher voice.

Severus swore behind him.

Remus, much older and more weary than Regulus remembered him, strode towards him from the dining room, a dark-haired young man just behind him, when Regulus grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him into the wall.

“HEY!” the kid yelled but Regulus’ furious eyes remained on Lupin, whose lip curled. 

“You let him rot in Azkaban?”

Lupin’s enraged face fell slack. 

“You knew he would never betray them and you let them send him there?” he snarled. “I thought you lot were meant to be the heroes and you abandoned him in Azkaban?”

“Let him GO!” Neither Reg nor Lupin spared the kid a glance. 

Lupin slumped against the wall. “I tried to testify, but…” he hesitated while Regulus pressed harder against his chest, ignoring the sting of his cuts. The young man’s furious gaze left Reg and snapped to Lupin, wide and fixed.

“You should have tried harder,” he hissed. “He kept your secret, he fought with you, he would have done anything for you, he bloody loved you, and—”

“My secret is secret no longer, though I am surprised you are already aware,” Remus replied steadily, visibly collecting himself, “but as I am a werewolf, I was neither permitted to give testimony to the Wizengamot, nor was there an actual trial. I couldn’t find a way to do anything.”

“Then you should have fucking tried harder!” Regulus spat. 

“I should have,” Remus said softly, his eyes wise and somber and understanding, like he’d thought all of this before and arrived at the same conclusion that Reg had. 

Tension seeped out of the air. Regulus deflated. Regulus hated it. Hated him .

“You said he died. How?” he asked anyone who would answer. His anger was fading to numb awareness.

“Bellatrix,” answered the young man standing off to the side, spitting her name. Regulus properly looked at him. A couple years younger than himself, probably, messy hair, olive skin, and green eyes… 

“Holy fuck, are you James’ and Lily’s spawn?”

The kid’s eyes narrowed.

“Harry,” he sullenly introduced himself. 

Regulus’ mind was whirring from new information and from seeing someone he knew hadn’t been born when he’d… died?... died… now nearly his own age.

The rest of what Harry said filtered through and his gaze grew flinty again.

“Bellatrix killed him?”

Mini-Potter’s lips flattened. “Cast a curse at him and he fell through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries.” He said this as if it were Reg’s fault — all clenched fists and accusing eyes behind ugly glasses — but the details of his brother’s death distracted him from the surly teen. 

Regulus' arm fell to his side, releasing Lupin as the revelations ricocheted about his skull. Suddenly, the stretching of the wounds all across his body and the protest of injured muscles hit him, and he swayed with a wave of dizziness before centering himself. He needed… fuck, he didn’t know what he needed. He needed to occlude and get his shit together and figure out what was going on. 

“Well that’s enough of that.” A stern, female voice came from behind him, followed by a tawny hand at his elbow. He glanced at it, feeling familiar, then to her; the witch with the wild curls and bronze eyes. 

“You shouldn’t be standing,” she chided and he blinked at her. He looked at his arm, the Mark still stark against his skin, though it wasn’t the vivid black he was used to — and back to her.

Her own eyes were now fixed on his arm, but when she looked back to him she merely arched a stern brow at him, other hand coming to rest on her hips. 

“He might as well eat while he’s down here. Apparently it’s been seventeen years since he’s had a meal,” Severus suggested, entering the room properly now that Reg didn’t have Lupin up against the wall, and Reg tried to sort his thoughts, to send them swirling with the mists to their respective places. But whether it was the pain potion, the grief, the shock — or all three — he couldn’t manage it. 

“How am I here, by the way?” he asked as he was tugged toward the dining table.

Reg’s eyes darted over the fading wallpaper of their main dining and entertaining space; what had once been shimmering constellations in the night sky were now peeling, grey splotches. The table sat only six, the round table they used for only the family; it, too, had seen better days. Chips and warped wood created a texture he almost wanted to run his fingers against. Grimmauld looked wrong. Macabre, it had always been, but it had never been dingy. 

“Your guess is as good as ours,” she answered as she gingerly pushed him into the seat. A particularly dicey gash on his arse stung smartly as he sat, but he kept his face impassive lest he be sent back to bed. Food sounded better than anything else right now and he had no idea what to expect going forward; he should get it while he could. He was, however, immensely grateful for the pain potion because this was all unpleasant enough.

“Sirius died two weeks ago and now you’re here. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence,” Harry said in a caustic tone and Regulus spared him another glance. He looked angry behind his round glasses and tousled hair.

“You knew my brother?” he asked, voice softer than he would have liked. 

Harry responded with a sharp nod. “He’s my godfather.”

His voice held a reverence that struck Reg. Sirius as the boy’s godfather made sense at least. That was something James would do. 

Merlin, he’d hated Potter. But this boy with Lily’s eyes who seemed to love or at least respect Sirius… he might be harder to hate. 

“How’d you hitch a ride back to life on your brother’s soul?” Harry spat. 

The witch — Granger? Was that it? — quickly scolded “ Harry! ” 

Regulus corrected himself. It would be plenty easy to hate mini-Potter.

Reg started to bite back his protest; it’s not like it would do any good. Opinions were always already formed when it involved the House of Black. But Sirius was dead, and Regulus never had gotten the opportunity to tell the truth. So he took the chance. 

“I don’t know how I’m here, but if it were a choice between the two of us, I’d have chosen Sirius.”

“That’s a lie! You’re a Death Eater!” Potter yelled. 

“Am I?” Reg asked in faux shock, making a show of checking his arm while he brushed off his own ill-advised bout with honesty. “Well, damn, how’d that get there?”

Lupin sighed heavily. 

Mini-Potter’s face screwed up in outrage. Or disgust. “Your whole family was wretched to him — you would have used him no problem!”

Reg’s jaw ticked. 

“You know nothing of what went on in the House of Black,” Severus said, voice low and thrumming with threat as he came to stand behind Regulus’ chair. “Your godfather would never suggest Regulus would do something so low.”

The implications of their words took a moment to filter through, but when they did, they pierced him to his core.

That was how Sirius remembered me.

Treacherous tears stung his eyes; he occluded rapidly, forcing them away, dissipating into mist. So his brother hated him, he’d known that. It had been no secret.

No, only Regulus kept secrets. 

“Here, eat,” the witch commanded and he flicked his eyes to hers. She frowned, seeming to notice the subtle signs of occlusion, which was frankly a sign he was doing a piss-poor job of it. He glanced down at the bowl of warm oatmeal, topped with cinnamon and berries. His stomach growled, but he couldn’t find the energy to lift his fork; it had all flown out of him.

“Harry’s just upset Sirius is gone,” she muttered in a quiet voice as she sat next to him. Her lips were pursed and she was staring resolutely at the placemat in front of her. That suited Regulus just fine.

He berated himself for being transparent enough for her to notice. He probably had to look a bit pathetic for her to speak words of comfort to a Death Eater. Even if they appeared to be dragged from her good conscience. 

What an odd witch, to bother with it. 

“The timing does seem suspicious,” Lupin said, sitting at the table as well. Mini-Potter followed, glaring alternately between Regulus and Sev. “But I doubt Regulus could have done anything to have returned from death. Someone else had to do it.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

“A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't even be worth reading.”

― Yevgeny Zamyatin

“So, Occlumency,” Hermione began with a warning look to the scowling teenager. Harry was obviously going to try to weasel information out of her, but she’d signed the contract, and — the part he would hate the most — she agreed with the adults on this one. The scar and the link between Voldemort had been used to deadly effect and she couldn’t, wouldn’t risk that again.

When she’d awoken this morning to Regulus making a jibe at Snape’s age, Hermione feigned continued unconsciousness. She’d hoped to hear some of what Snape seemed to think was worthwhile about the Death Eater at death’s door — though, frankly, she wasn’t sure she much trusted a character assessment from Snape of all people .  

But Regulus had indeed surprised her; the hesitant relief at the thought of Voldemort’s demise before he had Snape cast the muffliato was intriguing (note to self: learn that spell). It was enough to pique her curiosity, at any rate.

Hermione peeked at him from behind her hair, evaluating him once more. It was a bit hard to believe that the young man sagging in exhaustion at her side had possessed the energy to throw Remus against a wall in rage. His willpower was something, to power through all of this. 

Hermione winced. She needed to sort through all this. But “this” wasn’t finished; it was rolling right into a lesson. With a resurrected, repentant, rogue Death Eater as her instructor.

“Right.” Regulus nodded, interrupting her reverie. 

She found Harry had seated himself across from her and was looking at Regulus, unimpressed. It was hard to blame him, given his previous lessons with Snape, but she shot him an encouraging smile nonetheless. Harry made a face at her in reply. Hermione responded in kind. Hopefully that meant he wasn’t too angry. 

Or, she sighed quietly to herself, more likely he thought she’d come up with some clever way around the enchantment. Honestly. Usually she followed the rules. Unless a certain someone’s life was at stake. 

“There are several elements to Occlumency, but essentially it is the use of your magic to categorize, hide, and morph your mind as necessary. There’s an element of control and patience to Occlumency that can make it difficult to master, but otherwise it’s fairly straightforward.”

“You’re making a particularly difficult branch of magic sound easy,” Hermione noted, dubious, but Regulus shrugged.

“I was never a great student, and I mastered it.”

Hermione frowned. Regulus seemed rather bright to her, and — with his explanation of events around Voldemort and discovery of the Horcrux — she’d imagined a potential ally in him to help her learn about the Horcruxes, but perhaps she was mistaken. She’d found few as committed to learning as she was. Definitely a negative—

Hermione brightened and began a mental tally. One point in the negative column. Perhaps this would help her keep track of the mountain of data she was accruing this morning. She added it as a point against him in her ongoing tally on the Death Eater. 

“The first step is to access your mind with your magic, which can be tricky,” he continued. “You know the feeling when you pick up your wand, like your core is channeling through it?”

Hermione and Harry both nodded.

“Close your eyes, think of that feeling,” he instructed. “Slow your breathing; you need to center yourself in your body and magic.” 

Hermione closed her eyes and did as he instructed. At first, her mind wandered. It bounced around all the new things she’d learned in the past hour. She shifted in her seat. Scratched her elbow. At his suggestion, she started counting her breaths until she felt she was in a rhythm, settling deep into her body. She heard Regulus instructing Harry in a low voice to count as well, explaining not to empty his thoughts but rather to focus them on his magic and his body. She tried that, too. After several false starts, where she cycled through a) thinking she’d gotten it, then b) in her rush of pride realizing she’d booted herself out again — her awareness finally shifted to flutter atop her focused, corporeal consciousness. Thoughts hummed in her blood, glancing off her bones.

Her magic pulsed, thrumming with energy. As a child, she hadn’t known what it was, this fizzy drink that ran through her veins; she’d imagined it as bright, a mixture of blues, pinks, and purples sparkling inside her. She reached. It danced. 

Hermione smiled. 

“Have you channeled your core?” 

Regulus’ voice filtered through, like sunlight underwater, and she nodded slowly. The motion caused waves and ripples through the muted light, gently lulling against the shore of her skin.  

“Good. Now imagine you’re entering your mind; what do you see?”

Hermione, buoyed by her effervescent magic, rode the waves to a door, opening it to find…

A laugh escaped her. “Godric, I’m predictable.”

“It’s a library, isn’t it?” she heard Harry ask, eyes still closed. 

“A glorious one,” she replied happily, her voice humming in her skull as she surveyed the massive floor-to-ceiling shelves within her mind. Warmth radiated from the room, reminiscent of the Hogwarts library, with rich woods and red overstuffed armchairs dotting the open spaces and a roaring fireplace. A large table with chairs sat between the stacks for perusing and studying.

“Potter, have you accessed yours?”

“Yes,” he breathed, and she wondered what it was, but Harry didn’t volunteer it. She could pester him later. 

“Very good, both of you. Now, what you’re seeing is an illusion of your mind; from here, you’ll need to organize your thoughts and memories. For Granger, she has a built-in form of organization with her books. Potter, you’ll need to create a system if your mind hasn’t given you one.”

She could hear Harry’s frown in his voice. “If it doesn’t, do you have any suggestions?”

“Some use filing cabinets, drawers, or boxes.”

“What do you use?” she found herself asking.

“Trees.”

Hermione leaned forward in interest, bracing herself against the table. Then she frowned. “Bugger,” she muttered, back in the dilapidated dining room.  

“That’s alright, you’re doing very well for your first time,” Regulus told her. Hermione gave him an attempt at a smile in return, but it might have been a grimace. Returning to her body meant returning to the stiffness of her muscles. Chairs, let it be known, were not suited for ideal sleep.

“Will you tell me later about the trees? That sounds fascinating,” she asked. 

His brows raised. “It’s not as interesting as it sounds, but yes,” he demurred.

She shrugged lightly before settling in; she’d be the judge of that. Closing her eyes, she once again accessed her magic and then her mind.

Regulus guided them through siphoning a memory and storing it within their system of organization. 

“How is it so slippery? It’s not even really real!” she huffed. 

Reg coughed delicately into his hand and Hermione shot him a scowl. 

It wasn’t until his dark brows arched and she met his silver eyes that she realized she’d evicted herself from the mindscape once again. 

By the time she finally extricated the memory, sweat had made her shirt damp. But now, the day McGonagall had visited to explain her magic, clear as if she’d just heard the woman’s steady knock against her door, rested in a leather-bound book. It sat in a place of honor in the middle of a table, to encourage her when she tried for her next one. She opened her eyes with a groggy blink.

“You’re a much better teacher than Snape,” Harry complimented. “I made more progress today than I did in weeks with him.”

Regulus gave Harry a solemn nod while Hermione rolled her shoulders. “I have to say, I’m surprised he became a professor.”

“He just kept telling me to empty my emotions,” Harry muttered sourly and Regulus paused, cocking his head in thought.

“You may want to present yourself as empty of emotion, eventually. But it’s also possible to distract with emotions that differ from the ones you hope to hide, and that can often be the better tactic. If you had trouble with his method, perhaps doing a bit of diversion will work better for you.”

Harry frowned thoughtfully. 

Hermione’s eyes flitted to the clock, the hands straight at attention on the eleven. She knew it to be an hour slow — it irked her constantly — but Kreacher rejoiced in leaving it as it was. They had practiced for over two hours.

“I didn’t realize how long we were in there — are you alright? Do you need to lie down, or are you hungry again? I’m starving,” she admitted, looking over Regulus. Thanks to Dolohov, she knew just how taxing a curse or cursed wound could be; she still got the occasional twinge from the purple scar on her ribs. He seemed weary, in the tightness of his eyes, and his pale skin was particularly wan, but he waved her off. 

“Yeah, who knew sitting around doing nothing could be so draining,” Harry agreed, calling for Kreacher.

Kreacher appeared, grumbling, but Harry ignored it. “Kreacher, would you please fetch us some lunch?” 

She knew the manners were for her benefit, for while Harry valued house elves, he had little to no patience for Kreacher himself. But he tried, for her, and she appreciated that.

The elf reappeared with a hearty lunch of succulent roast chicken, golden-crisp potatoes, and roasted Brussel sprouts in some sort of delectable smelling sauce. Hermione gaped. Yesterday he’d burnt their toast on purpose. “Kreacher, this looks amazing!” she gushed, beaming at the crotchety elf. But he had eyes only for Regulus, whose full lips were quirked into a half-smile.

“Thanks, Kreacher,” he said in that soft, velvety tone of his. She wondered if that was how he usually spoke or if his battered vocal cords needed the softer sound. 

The group tucked in, all reasonably famished, and after several minutes, Hermione made good on her request for information about his organizational system.

“How do the trees work?”

Regulus swallowed and took a sip of water. His hand shook, and Hermione frowned. 

“After you eat, bed,” she said sternly. 

Regulus turned bleary eyes on her before nodding. “My mindscape is a forest,” he answered. “I know it intimately, so I can tell the difference between each tree. I imbue each one, each leaf if necessary, with a different memory. It’s exceedingly difficult for anyone invading my mind to find what they’re looking for.” 

Hermione blinked. That was brilliant; the subtleties between two trees of the same species would be near impossible to an invading Legilimens . How vast was the forest? He could get so specific the leaves were different? How long would that have taken—

“That’s clever,” Harry said, startling her from that train of thought. Hermione narrowed her eyes at him across the table. He was being a bit too agreeable. 

Regulus hesitated. “Thank you.” She didn’t miss how his brow furrowed, if only for a breath, before his features had smoothed themselves again. He’d noticed, too. 

They fell into silence, Hermione reviewing the steps of Occlumency they‘d just learned, committing it to memory. Regulus was right, conceptually it wasn’t all that difficult — at least, not the way he’d explained it — but the challenge lay in the execution. Remaining in her mindscape while isolating a memory and tucking it into its book felt like trying to grasp water with her fingers. 

And that would be times hundreds (thousands?) of memories. She bit back a groan at the prospect of how long that was going to take.

“Well you”—she motioned to Regulus—“need more healing, let’s get you upstairs. Will you allow yourself to be assisted rather than storming angrily and hobbling the whole way this time?” Hermione chided, quirking an eyebrow. 

Regulus blushed. 

Death Eaters, blushing. How banal. 

She almost snorted as she tucked a curl behind her ear. And Muggleborns scolding Death Eaters for not taking better care of themselves. How mad!

“They left my brother in Azkaban, I was justifiably angry,” he grumbled. 

Hermione let out an exasperated sigh. This was confusing. 

Harry looked at him, assessing. “How are you feeling?” 

Hermione and Regulus both turned to him, stunned. Harry squirmed under their wide eyes, but Hermione quickly relented. Hopefully, it was an olive branch. At minimum, they needed Regulus — he was their ticket into being taken more seriously by the Order, and on top of that, he presented access to the arcane Occlumency. 

“Um, fine. Been better, obviously, but—” Regulus shrugged slightly. She offered him a hand and his eyes flicked from her hand to her face and back before he took it. He winced as he rose, and she gave his hand a squeeze in sympathy. He moved slowly, allowing her to take some of his weight; though his face betrayed little, every so often his hand would spasm around hers. 

“Professor, could you look over Regulus?” Hermione reluctantly called out, unsure where Snape had gotten off to. Perhaps they should’ve levitated him again.

“I’m fine,” Reg protested, out of breath and sweat beading on his brow, the grip on her hand tight. 

Hermione scoffed at him. Boys. She steadfastly ignored her own past protests of I’m fine, I can return to classes, when she was in the infirmary just recently.

“Last night you were nearly torn apart,” she reminded him. “Even with magic, your body can’t recuperate that quickly from something so traumatic. You’ll need several more healing sessions. I frankly can’t believe you’re up and moving.”

“That last bit would be because he’s a terrible patient,” Snape commented from atop the stairs. Her nostrils flared at the sight of him. 

“That’s not true,” Regulus muttered and Snape arched an eyebrow.

“Really? The quidditch match against Ravenclaw your fourth year when you had broken how many bones at practice? And yet there you were on the pitch the next day.”

Regulus gave a pained grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

 “We won, it was worth it.”

Snape sighed. “You see my point, Ms. Granger.” 

Hermione chuckled nervously, still unsure what to do with the Potions professor being remotely amenable. He’d acknowledged her skill and her ability, but still didn’t trust her enough to forego the contract. He’d both advocated for her and threatened to obliviate her, all in the same breath. 

Her jaw clenched as she remembered that. Like hell he’d play with her mind.

She flexed her arm to keep Regulus stable as he wobbled. There he was — the one who ought to be her greatest enemy, or at best, a reluctant ally, the one with the Mark on his arm — yet he was the one to promise it wouldn’t happen, that he’d teach her well enough. She’d ensure he did, of course, and she’d study and excel as usual. But it still surprised her, his quiet reassurance.

And really, Professor Snape ought to take that as rather damning evidence on his character.

They were just cresting the top of the stairs when Hermione noted the empty master bedroom that was much closer than Regulus’ room down the hall.

“We could move you into this bedroom so you don’t have to walk so far,” Hermione mentioned. 

Regulus tensed. “I can make it,” he said, voice firm.

Hermione frowned. “It’s no trouble.”

“I can make it,” he repeated and kept his eyes straight ahead, focused on his destination. 

Hermione sighed at his stubbornness; another Black family trait, it seemed. Snape attempted to keep pace with them for a while before giving up and striding to the appointed bedroom. 

“I think I preferred storming angrily,” Reg gasped out once they were halfway down the hall. 

Hermione snorted. “Adrenaline’s a powerful drug.”

Reg glanced at her, curious, and Hermione went ahead and explained the hormone (since wizards were hopelessly behind on scientific discovery). He listened attentively, and by the time she was done, they’d reached his room.

“Take your shirt off,” Snape instructed Regulus as she eased him onto the bed. He winced and obeyed. Hermione’s heart stuttered. The chaotic slashing lines, each one cutting deep into his muscles, created a grotesque portrait across the canvas of his pale skin.

“Well, you’d probably like privacy,” she began, backing toward the door.

Snape rolled his eyes. “I thought you were hoping to learn healing, Ms. Granger?”

She paused. “I am, yes.”

Her professor regarded her and his lips twitched upward. “Then let’s aid you in that endeavor, shall we?”

Hermione certainly wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity, but she was starting to wonder if they ought to ensure Snape wasn’t the victim of polyjuice.

“How likely am I to look like I was sliced and diced for life?” Regulus asked with a grimace as Snape tossed him a potion. He glanced at the label and then drank it obediently.

“A few will certainly scar, but overall we will have to wait and see how the dittany takes,” Snape answered.

Hermione drew closer, settling into her inquisitive mode to ignore the part of her that wanted to throw up a little at how brutalized his body was. His story that culminated in his death flashed through her mind; this was no clean, storybook sacrifice he’d made. It was pain-filled grey eyes, almost-blue lips from hypothermia, racking coughs to free his lungs of water, and blood, tinged black. 

Snape had removed the curse and gotten most of the cuts to close enough to no longer be life-threatening, and the dittany had helped — but they were still deep and painful looking. 

“Merlin,” Hermione muttered. “I have no idea how you moved.”

“Reckless disregard for his well-being,” Snape said at the same time Regulus replied, “Pain potion and adrenaline?”

“And you sat there, teaching us! You should have said something!” Hermione scolded, tugging at her hair. 

Regulus tipped his head back. “You needed to learn.”

“Focus, Ms. Granger,” Snape drawled. 

Hermione grimaced. “Right. I suppose what I mean is thank you. For teaching us anyways.”

He blinked up at her, but she was done potentially wasting a rare chance to prepare herself for whatever their next near-death experience with Harry would be. 

Magical healing was incredible, but it had limits. That’s what she had read, anyway, but in practice, she’d never really seen it. Healing drew on energy from the patient's physical stamina and the healer’s magical core, both of which were finite resources; as a result, only so much could be done. 

Broken bones? Easy. Stomachache? Insignificant. Fixing teeth? Quite manageable.

But Regulus had been ripped to shreds of skin by Inferi, and each of those wounds was cursed. It made sense Snape would need her help today, really. It was unlikely he could heal Regulus with only his own core, given the extent of the damage and how much magic he’d used the night before.

Hermione frowned as she drew closer. “Should we have stitched some of these?”

“If they weren’t cursed, that would have been correct,” Snape instructed, drawing up a chair. “But because they were, we needed to let the dittany do its work further into the wound. I’m going to do another round of the spell I did last night, which I will teach you after applying more dittany. Then we will assess if any of the lacerations require stitching. If so, I will teach you that spell as well.”

Conflict raged within her. On the one hand, she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want the affirmation of all her professors — even him. On the other, he’d just threatened to have her obliviated, so…

She indulged a brief fantasy of imperius-ing Snape to give 1,000 points to Gryffindor, and parroted a polite, “Thank you, Professor.”

He had her describe the wounds, advising her on ways to know if remnants of the curse remained. Hermione gathered her curls and tied them in a knot on the top of her head to keep her hair from sticking to the dittany when he proffered the jar.

“I can apply it, you don’t have to—” Regulus began to protest.

“Nonsense.” Hermione folded her leg beneath her and sat beside him, beginning the process with a gash running from his right shoulder, near the neck, down his pectoral. Hermione gulped as she gingerly dabbed dittany into the wound. 

The cost of what he’d done to help defeat Voldemort was laid grim and bare before her. Did that earn him forgiveness? It was one thing to learn from him, to tacitly accept his presence and what it gave her, but could she ever trust someone who’d been willing to accept the Mark? Could he be a proper member of the Order without that trust?

“So you’re the brightest witch of your age?” Regulus asked and she looked up in surprise.

“It’s been said about me.” She shrugged, despite internally preening. 

“That clever, are you?” 

Hermione winked and he huffed a little laugh; she moved to the third gash.

“You said adrenaline was a hormone and how it reacts in the body, but… what are hormones in general?” he asked. 

She added a point in his favor for inquiring about muggle science and explained the role of hormones, along with some of the more common ones. She was no expert, but her parents did drill her over the summers in some of the subjects Hogwarts didn’t cover. ( It’s biology, honestly, that curriculum is nearly negligent! — Dr. J. Granger, DDS.) 

It took her the better part of an hour to apply the dittany to all his wounds on his torso and arms and Hermione marveled again that he’d lived at all, let alone been up and walking. The wounds — mostly open — had yet to scab, and his skin was scarlet latticework. 

“The words are vulnera sanentur, but there’s a proper cadence to the spell,” Snape instructed once she’d finished. 

“It’s like a song,” Hermione murmured, and indeed Snape spoke the words gently, like a caress, so it almost made a simple melody going up on the second syllable of both words. 

Snape nodded. “The wand movement is simply to trace the wounds with a slight turning of the wrist.” He demonstrated on the first wound she’d begun her process with. “Once you master the cadence, this spell is less complex in its execution than in its drawing upon your magical core.”

She watched, eyes following his wand.

“Now you.”

She repeated the movement and the incantation and on the third try she felt her wand tug on her core and his skin began to knit together. Hermione had to peer closely past her wand, but she could see red-pink tendrils from each side weave together, closing like a zipper.

Regulus’ eyes fluttered closed. His breath stuttered often. Hermione performed the spell with a bit too much vigor on a particularly nasty gash near his left hip, and his muscles twitched and jumped near the tip of her wand and he winced. After she’d seen to the ones on his chest, she moved behind him to begin the spellwork on his ravaged back.

Godric, Rowena, Helga, and Salazar, it’s a miracle he’d lived. Each time she saw his back, it hit her all over again. 

When she finished, Snape gave Regulus another Blood-Replenishing potion, followed by a generic healing potion, meant to supplement the magical work of the healer, and another pain potion. 

“Regulus, I believe your bottom half is also shredded?” Snape inquired and Regulus stiffened.

“Right.”

“Ms. Granger, you may leave us now,” Snape dismissed her. Hermione bit back a sigh of relief. Snape hadn’t been kidding, the vulnera sanentur took quite a bit of her stamina, particularly after their Occlumency lesson earlier that morning. She was ready for a nap.

“Rest up,” she encouraged and left with a tired smile before it occurred to be less supportive to a rogue Death Eater.

Harry was lurking just outside the door and she made a face at him.

“Nap before my interrogation?”

“Nope,” Harry said, grabbing her wrist.

Chapter Text

““But I still couldn't figure out what it all meant. The more I found out, the less I understood.”

Jonathan Safran Foer, from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Harry tugged her to her room, Hermione dragging her feet. “I signed a contract, Harry, I can’t break it.” At least she could lie on her bed. She yawned, flopping onto the full mattress. 

“Right, but surely there’s some parts that aren’t protected by it,” he reasoned, giving her a grin that almost reached his eyes. 

Hermione groaned, gripped her pillow, rolled onto her back, and used it to hide from Harry. He huffed loudly until she pulled it down enough to peek up at him.

“We have hope, Harry. Things are serious, but Regulus… his presence I think forced Dumbledore’s hand. Or gave Remus and Snape a way to force his hand.” Hermione frowned, thinking of the two of them. It’d been odd, how they’d worked together, insisting she be included. Perhaps there was some dissent within the Order despite Dumbledore’s leadership. 

“And?” Harry prompted. 

Hermione sighed. “And that’s all, Harry, but only for now,” she said, trying to be gentle. How well she succeeded was up for debate, given the exhaustion from her late-night, poor-chair sleep and drained magical core. She watched the realization dawn across his features. 

Like she would actually spill magically-bound Order secrets!

“How can you keep this from me?!” His face fell, eyes all hurt and sad and tugging on Hermione’s heartstrings. “I thought you had a plan but all you’re doing is—”

“For you! I’m keeping it from you for now , but I’m doing it for you, Harry!” she snapped. Blood rushed to her head from sitting up quickly. She made a vague effort to level her tone. “This was never going to be told to us, or if it was, they were going to wait too long. We have a goal now: we learn Occlumency together, pass the test, and then you can know everything you need to know! I know you hate it, but this is our best option.”

Harry’s emerald eyes, brimming with emotion, bored into hers.   

Hermione’s shoulders slumped. “And that best option is you trusting me, trusting that I am always on your side and will use the information I’m holding to your benefit until you can learn it yourself. In the meantime, you learn Occlumency from Regulus, protecting yourself further, and we move forward; we do something besides letting the chips fall where they may!”

Harry’s chest was still moving too rapidly, but she could see the ire leaving his eyes. They were silent as he sat near her knees, and she let herself fall back on the bed.

“I always trust you,” Harry eventually admitted and she smiled at him. Harry frowned still. “But do you trust him?”

Hermione cocked a brow. “The Death Eater?”

Why did it feel wrong to call him that?

Harry nodded. 

She sighed, thinking of the veritable mountain of information from this morning alone. “Kind of, yeah. I can’t explain it because of the contract, but Regulus… he tried to do the right thing, and he died for it. I don’t know about the rest, but I think we can trust him for Occlumency, at least.”

“He was good at teaching. I almost forgot, I got so absorbed. I get it, you know. Why I need to learn.” His lip wobbled and Hermione was upright in an instant.

“Harry James Potter, don’t you dare blame yourself,” she scolded, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at her. 

“If I’d gotten better, or maybe told Dumbledore that Snape was too much of a prick to teach me—”

“You did your best, Harry. Snape — jury’s out on him — but you did your best. That’s all you can do. Voldemort is responsible, Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix are responsible, but you are not .” He nodded and she released him. 

She wasn’t sure he really believed her. They sat in companionable silence, Hermione slipping her hand around his bicep, running a soothing thumb in circles while Harry stewed. 

He stared hard at the floor. “He’s not much older than us,” he finally said in a quiet voice. 

Hermione released her hold on him and flopped back down, pulling the pillow back into her arms. She hadn’t thought about that, not since she’d learned about the Mark, but Harry was right. Regulus wasn’t much older than they were.

“Does that make a difference?”

Harry sighed. “I dunno. Kind of. It’s either better or worse, isn’t it? Either he was young and naive, didn’t really know what it meant, or he really hated Muggleborns, enough to join up immediately.”

Hermione hummed in thought: Why he was such a young Death Eater would reveal quite a lot about what sort of person Regulus Black was. Though she doubted he’d just up and volunteer his reasoning.

“I’m sure I’ll find out soon, get a ‘mudblood’ or two hurled at me,” she muttered, heart sinking, and Harry’s head shot up. 

“I’ll hex his arse into the ground if he calls you that.”

She offered Harry a bright smile. “Oh, Harry. We’re not at school. I’ll hex him if he says it.” 

Harry smirked. 

She nudged him with her knee. “We’re in this together, Harry. Always,” she promised and he nodded, taking a deep breath.

“This is your ideal situation, isn’t it?” he grumbled. Getting access to top secret information and bribing me with it to study.” 

Hermione laughed. “Caught me.” She winked, then rapidly squeezed both eyes shut as something came at her; cool fabric popped against her face. Hermione grabbed at it but it was tugged back. Hermione opened her eyes to find Harry with the weaponized pillow in his hands before he whacked her with it once more.

“Watch it, Pottah!” Hermione sneered in Draco Malfoy’s voice as she retaliated, thwacking him once in the side before bringing the pillow down upon his head.  Harry’s eyes brightened all the way when he laughed. 

Hermione grinned and renewed her promise to herself, the one she’d made at twelve years old when she’d realized exactly what their adventure with the Philosopher’s Stone had meant and what was on the back of Professor Quirrell’s head.

She was going to protect Harry Potter from Voldemort at whatever cost. 

After her pillow fight domination and eventual nap, Hermione went in search of Remus. He was sat in front of the Black family tapestry, lost in thought with a glass of what looked like firewhiskey. 

Hermione bit her lip; she hated to bother Remus. Remus, the professor who hadn’t made fun of her boggart during the final exam, calmly explaining he understood the fear that failure would mean a world without Hogwarts. Remus, who’d merely arched a brow at her odd timetable. Remus, who let her hide in his classroom after an altercation with an older Slytherin who called her a mudblood. Remus, who had knelt, taken her hand, and with tears in his eyes told her thank you for saving Sirius. Remus, who not only wrote Harry but also Hermione. There had been a reason, after all, that Hermione had kept his secret until that fateful day at the Shrieking Shack. 

She cleared her throat to make herself known. 

Remus startled, then gave her a tired, fond smile. “I’m guessing you have questions.”

“Several,” Hermione confirmed and he gestured for her to join him. She sat in the armchair beside him. 

“Where would you like to begin?”

How about a Complete History of the First War and a volume on the most recent generation of the Black family?

“Is he usually violent?” Hermione asked with an arched brow. So much had happened that morning; she’d nearly forgotten the outburst at Remus, but she doubted her former professor had. 

Remus let out a snort. “No. Regulus is usually difficult to rile, if I recall correctly. But a general rule of thumb with the Black family — they have a temper.”

“And you didn’t fight back,” she stated rather than asked and Remus hummed in thought, his eyes drifting down to the liquid in his glass. Drinking and morose — not good.

“He said nothing I hadn’t already thought myself, Hermione. It is a terrible thing to realize you’ve betrayed someone you love, and Regulus was right to be angry with me. 

Hermione blinked. “But you tried, you said—”

“I did, but I should have gone to Dumbledore.” His voice twisted and he scoffed at himself. “Should haves keep me up at night, and every time Sirius awoke panicked he was back in Azkaban I was more and more certain I should have done something.” His thumb traced the rim of the glass. “I never even visited; after a while I figured it had to be true… he had to have done it, what else made any sense?” 

Hermione sat back in her chair, a frown tugging at her lips and brows. Could she ever believe Harry or Ron capable of cold-blooded murder and betrayal? They had her trust, without a doubt. She’d even anticipated betrayal when she wrote the Dumbledore’s Army contract (hope you enjoy bangs, Marietta) — but Hermione couldn’t fathom her boys turning on her. Not really, anyway. They could certainly gang up over a Firebolt. But join Voldemort? Slaughter a dozen muggles? 

Remus’ grip around the glass was tight, his eyes watery and trained steadily on the tapestry. On one particular spot on the tapestry.

“What else, Hermione?” he asked, finally looking at her with a sad attempt at a smile. 

“You said last night — and Dumbledore did today — that there were rumors Regulus had defected. What were they?”

Remus’ smile grew just a bit, pleased with her line of questioning. “Sirius knew Reg had been Marked. It happened before his sixth year was even out, and Sirius always felt like he’d failed him, failed to see that he’d be brought to You-Know-Who so soon. James thought they might as well arrest him, get one Death Eater off the streets, but Sirius refused. He insisted Reg would be doing wards and curse-breaking at most, but I think he was buying himself time to find some way to… save him, despite everything.”

Hermione fiddled with a loose thread on her shirt as she listened. Regulus proved to be a puzzle; even though some of the pieces were becoming clearer, the picture still felt foggy. Blurred. 

“Regardless, beyond Sirius’ sentimentality, the real suspicion began with the Ban family. Have you heard this story?” Remus asked and she shook her head.

“The Bans were a remarkable family, well known and well liked throughout Britain. Ban Ae Cha was the heiress of a prominent pureblood line in Korea and her husband, Ban Hyun-jung, was Muggleborn. Korea isn’t as staunch in their ways as the British; Muggleborns who marry into pureblood families always relinquish their family name for their partner’s. Anyways, they were a famously mixed-blood couple, and they’d moved to Britain for Ae Cha to study with Ollivander in wandmaking. She was comparing styles for her mastery.” Remus’ voice got a bit nostalgic and she wondered if he’d known Ae Cha. “Her husband joined the Aurors, as he had done in Korea. They lived here over a decade, I believe, and had two small children.” 

Hermione pulled her knees to her chest as she listened, a sinking feeling in her chest about the fate of the Bans.

“The Death Eaters raided,” Remus continued, face grim. “Ae Cha and Hyun-jung were both murdered. But the strange part was who reported the crime. You see, it was the children themselves who arrived at the Auror Office. Apparently their parents had always made sure they knew how to use the floo in an emergency. It was a miracle. Death Eaters never left survivors.”

“What happened?” she breathed. Voldemort and his followers had massacred so many families – McKinnon, Prewett, Bones. If people were present, they were killed. 

“Dae, the older of the two, explained that their home had been ransacked and that she and her little brother hid in their closet. A Death Eater found them, but before she could scream he took his mask off and held a finger to his lips. He promised he would ward them in, so no one could find them, but they had to be quiet. He did, and when another Death Eater came to question him, he lied and said the floor was empty. She said the Death Eater who saved them was younger. She even told Sirius he looked like him.”

“Oh.”  

A fond smile took over Remus’ features. “She clung to Sirius, actually. He thought he was so awkward with her at first, but he was amazing. They were best buddies for about three days. Let her ride around on Padfoot and everything; almost blew the animagus secret entirely.”

A wet nose in her palm, the headbutt on her thigh to get her to bloody scoot over so he could see Harry during the tournament, Padfoot leaning into her side when she had a bit of an anxiety attack—

Of course he had. Of course Sirius nearly blew his secret for the sake of a small child’s sanity when her whole world had been shattered. 

“Sirius kept the report logged but confidential, not wishing to have his brother killed by Death Eaters or Aurors, whichever was first, which was his fate if anyone had learned. But that gave Sirius hope, and between that and his odd disappearance… we wondered. But we weren’t sure, and Regulus was hardly the topic of much discussion when he died. So many were dying then,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes. 

So many were dying that the heir of a Sacred Twenty-Eight family dying wasn’t discussed? Seriously? 

She’d read all the books she could on the First War ages ago, and sure it seemed bleak, but… it was hard to imagine so much death. 

“And the children?” Hermione asked. 

Remus smiled. “Returned to their family in Korea. The magical don’t recognize the border between North and South,” Remus added as he saw her mouth open in question. “Dae actually returned to Britain last year. She works with the Aurors, said she came to seek justice for her parents now that You-Know-Who has returned. She and Tonks are inseparable on bar nights.” 

Her gaze roved over the tapestry, weighing what he’d told her.

“Do you trust him?” she finally asked.

Remus blew a raspberry, startling her. Hermione let out a surprised laugh, and Remus’ lips twitched up.

“To a point, I think so. We’re not precisely fond of one another, as you may have put together with his outburst this morning—” 

“That only showed me he doesn’t like you,” Hermione countered. 

Remus sighed. “Well, we didn’t… see eye to eye on things in our youth. But our interpersonal issues aside, Hermione, I’ve seen quite a bit, and what happened to him, the Inferi…” Remus shuddered. 

Gruesome indeed. And a stark reminder of what he was willing to sacrifice. 

“So yes, I trust him to an extent. But I don’t know why he didn’t come to Sirius,” he mused, swirling the liquid in his glass. “Still, his Occlumency must be excellent, for him to have betrayed You-Know-Who, and Sirius always said Reg was much better at it than he was. He will teach you well.”

Hermione hummed, rolling around the family dynamics in her mind, along with the story he’d told. 

In Regulus’ favor, he’d saved the lives of two children at risk of his own, he’d died to retrieve the Horcrux, and he was willing to teach them Occlumency and aid the Order. Sirius had thought he’d been too young when Marked and he’d held out hope for him, hope that seemed to have paid off, though he hadn’t lived to see it. Regulus had seemed genuinely curious about muggle science. And he was downright polite to his house elf. Affectionate, even.

Against him, he had the Dark Mark, he’d shoved Remus, and he’d clearly participated in some Death Eater activity to be in the situation of helping the Ban children. What else had he done for his Dark Lord before he reached the breaking point of rebellion? 

His stubbornness was neutral, and his friendship with Snape… hard to say.

“What’s with him and Snape?” Hermione asked and Remus’ nose wrinkled. 

“They were close friends in school.”

“And you and Snape suddenly teaming up to include me in the Horcrux discussion?” she tacked on. 

“I agreed with Sirius, that you all should be kept informed. When Severus suddenly seemed amenable, I joined him. Albus has some sort of close relationship with him.” He sneered in disgust and shook his head. “It’s never made sense to me, but he trusts him in ways I would never imagine.

“So if Severus was pushing, that was the best shot at you actually being included. You’re quite right, Hermione. If I had it my way you’d all be safe and happy, and away from here, but war doesn’t operate that way. It doesn’t wait for you to be of age, particularly you three.” He took another sip of his drink. “We would know. Severus and I aren’t fond of one another, but disappearances, not knowing whom to trust, threats — none of it waits ‘til you’re old enough.” 

He swirled his liquor once more before a soft smile bloomed on his face. “I was quite proud of you, actually, to see you advocating for yourself and for your friends.”

When she beamed at him, Remus chuckled fondly, patting her hand before settling further into his chair and gazing once more at the tapestry. 

Hermione sat back too. Dumbledore’s relationship with Snape was confusing, but it made sense with what she’d observed. Remus’ support tracked with what she knew about him, but Snape’s behavior was still a wild card. And Regulus Black…

His motivations were the missing piece, the one that would make the others snap into place, revealing the picture of who he was and whether or not he could be trusted — but she wasn’t sure how willingly he’d give them up. 

“Quite the mystery he presents,” Hermione mused, eyes roving over the tapestry, the faces of centuries of witches and wizards. Had they all been as hateful as Walburga Black? How many had the playful spirit of Sirius or Tonks? Or the fire in Andromeda’s eyes? And where did the younger Black brother fit into it all?

Remus thumped his head once against the armchair. “On multiple levels, doesn’t he? This sort of spell…”

“You know Harry wonders if—”

“I know,” Remus agreed with a nod. “Look, I am obviously tempted by the idea, but what would be required to retrieve Sirius, if even at all possible — he wouldn’t want it. This sort of blood magic comes with steep costs. And before that, we’d have to figure out how the hell she managed it.”

Hermione frowned. “You’re sure it’s their mother?”

Remus bit his lip. “I can’t think of anyone else. If the Death Eaters had access to this sort of spellwork, I can guarantee Voldemort would be using it by now. But a pureblood family grimoire… that would be the sort of thing he wouldn’t have access to, and Walburga Black certainly would have.”

“A grimoire?” Hermione asked, swinging her legs back down to the floor and leaning her elbows on her knees. 

Remus grimaced. “Basically an old book of family magic. Most families are considerate enough to leave copies to multiple children, but the most sacred of the Sacred Twenty-Eight — it’s usually one old tome, warded to high heaven. Whatever Walburga did with it, it wasn’t here. Sirius looked for it.”

Hermione cocked her head. “I thought he didn't want anything to do with his family?”

“Well.” He sighed, a soft smile making his lips curl. “Sirius didn’t, for the most part, but I think it’d be hard for any child to grow up with this legacy and not care at least a little bit. And it's not all Dark Magic. Quite a bit of it is simply useful warding.”

Did the Weasleys have one of these? Bloody rude, to keep such knowledge private!

“Trust yourself, Hermione. I meant what I said to Albus, you’re an exceptional witch and I think it is right to prepare you with more information and responsibility.”

Hermione shot him a grateful smile. “Thanks, Remus. And I’m sorry again. About Sirius.”

Remus’s eyes glistened. “It’s a tragedy for him to finally have been free only to die so soon.”

She nodded, tucking her knees against her chest once again. She wasn’t as close to Sirius as Harry, but she’d thought he was amazing. Clever and capable, resilient and fierce. He laughed easily. Whenever anyone commented on her big hair, he’d defend her. 

She smiled at the memory of him waltzing into breakfast one morning last Christmas break, his hair all absurd and chaotic bedhead, and bowed to the room. His twinkling grey eyes had found hers, and she’d giggled. And then she’d demanded he show her the smoothing charm he must use, that kept his waves but calmed the frizz. She knew everything they did was magical and all, but that spell was its own sort of magic.

Never let them tame you, kitten. That includes your hair. 

A tear rolled down her cheek. 

“Yes. A tragedy,” she agreed quietly. 

Chapter Text

“To make you want me I can fabricate the truth; I'll give you easy, it'll keep me destitute.”

― "Change" by Churchill

Reg bit his lip, weighing his options. 

You’ve lied to the Dark Lord and lived. 

Right. He could do this. 

You survived an Inferi-infested cave after drinking cursed torture poison. Chin up.

Reg stared hard at the shower head.

You’re being dramatic.

He needed a shower. Desperately. He’d been covered in blood, ocean, and enough dittany to heal a hippogriff. He couldn’t even run his fingers through his hair, the tangles were so bad. This was far beyond a scourgify.

Reg grimaced. He needed to teach Mini-Potter and Granger Occlumency soon, which meant he really ought to be properly presentable. Yesterday he gave himself a pass for being newly resurrected — Reg’s nose wrinkled at the thought — and overwhelmed with information while on pain potions. Today he needed to prove he was a worthwhile investment for the Order.

On the other hand, he had literal scores of cuts all over his body. Showering was going to bloody hurt.

Bracing himself, he flicked his wand. Reg shucked off his clothes, wincing, and took the quickest shower of his life. He tried to shield his torso with his head as he shampooed and conditioned, cursing his stupid, curly hair for needing conditioner in the first place and thus prolonging his suffering. Shampoo dripped into a slice on his right shoulder; he choked back a gasp. 

Reg had almost let out a sigh of relief that he’d figured out the procedure when the shower sprayed his side and back and burning pain racked through him. He let out a few colorful swears that would’ve gotten him hexed silent as a child. 

His feet, thanks to his boots, were uninjured, as were his armpits. His face had escaped mostly unscathed — just a few scratches from getting dragged to his death along the ground, and while his hips bore claw marks from the Inferi, his ancestors could rest easy that Reg could continue their oh-so-pure bloodline. 

But that was it. The rest of him was a nightmare. 

He stopped the water’s flow the second he could and with slow, deliberate movements, dried and dressed. Thank Merlin for charms. A towel would have been agony.

Reg glanced in the mirror, the string in his spine pulling taut on instinct and eyes narrowing at his thick, unruly hair in chaotic waves and curls . He cast the charms to wrangle them into submission ; without Sleakeazy’s, it took three hits of the spell. He muttered a shaving spell.

He checked his progress and frowned. 

The perfect pureblood heir, exactly who he’d been crafted to be, stared back at him, all straight lines and sharp angles. 

For one, brief moment he’d been a rebel instead.

He let out a slow, steady breath and wondered who or what exactly he was meant to be now.  

Reg shook his head; that was a thought for after he figured out what he was dealing with and how to continue being a good little ex-Death Eater that was too useful to throw in Azkaban. He exited the washroom only to stop short. 

“Good morning.”

Hermione Granger stood by his neatly made bed, warily taking him in, a pale blue pain relief potion between her fingers. A few curls had escaped her braid to frame her face, some frizz suggesting she’d slept in it. She wore casual muggle denim with trainers along with a top that had too long sleeves the color of an early morning sky. He hadn’t seen her since the afternoon before, given he’d slept through dinner — a fact his stomach reminded him of sourly. Silence lay thick and heavy between them.

Finally, she cleared her throat. “I can’t believe you’re up again,” she said, shaking her head. “You should be resting.”

“You need to learn Occlumency,” Reg countered with a shrug that he promptly regretted, gritting his teeth against the pain. 

“So you don’t need this?” she asked innocently, holding the little vial to the light. 

Reg’s eyes followed it. “I’d certainly prefer it.” 

She smirked. “Catch.”

He did. 

“Quick reflexes,” she commented as he downed the potion. The words were a compliment, but she was frowning. 

“Seeker,” Reg replied. They stood facing one another, a fresh, awkward silence descending.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Granger began. 

Reg cocked his head at her to continue.

“You died to help the Light,” she said slowly, as if giving him time to contradict her. 

“Correct.”

Ah, there it was. The potion relieved the ache of his muscles and the sting of his clothes over his cuts, a soothing balm running through his veins. 

“But you were a Death Eater. So I suppose I want to know why. Why switch sides.”

Dying to help the Light wasn’t precisely the same thing as fighting the Dark, so he wasn’t sure switching sides was precisely what he’d meant to do. He was a Black; Dark magic — which was a bullshit classification anyways — was in his blood, or rather through his blood, central to the spells and the wards of their family. 

But, yes, he supposed he was opposed to the Dark Lord. He’d already rather boldly declared a side, but he hadn’t really thought he’d be around to see that pan out.

He sighed, his hand itching to run through his hair . It was a fair question, and one he’d have to answer at some point. Granger was bright; she’d of course want to assure herself that he was worth the risk of bringing him near their Chosen One. Whatever he said, it needed to be enough to ensure she didn’t insist he go to Azkaban post-haste. 

“Yesterday, you said you were at the center of this fight. Protecting you was futile; you were going to be a part of this war no matter what anyone did,” he began. 

He paused, weighing how much of the truth he ought to give her. 

“I thought the same, I suppose. That there was no point in fighting what was decided for me, no point in really questioning it either. I told myself the cruelty, the ultimate goal of his regime, that they were propaganda used to woo purebloods. I was sixteen, stupid, and when I was brought before him and told I was being Marked… I didn’t say no. I let them do it.” 

Granted, he’d been planning to seek said Dark Lord out after graduation, but sharing that didn’t exactly work in his favor at present. Regulus fought the urge to check whether or not his little ‘shrine to the Dark Lord,’ as he had always imagined Sirius would refer to it, still remained on his wall. He really hoped Kreacher or Sev had had the good sense to remove that, but his room hadn’t changed much at all since his ‘death.’  

She frowned. “You didn’t say no?”

He nodded.

“But you didn’t say yes, either?”

His brow furrowed, trying to remember. That was actually a good question. “I assume I said a requisite ‘yes, my Lord’. I blacked out from the pain. It’s a bit fuzzy after the arrival, to be honest. Anyway, I… was expected to take it, so I did.”

“And what changed?”

Reg gave her a bitter smile. “Well, it turns out it was precisely as evil as advertised. Moreso, even. But it was too late, I was Marked. So when I discovered a way to help defeat him, I tried to do the right thing.”

Not that it had done any good, apparently. He’d died for nothing, alone and forgotten. 

Reg called upon the mists before he could feel any sort of way about that. One could argue he was over-relying on his Occlumency; it was meant to help with emotional regulation, not suppression. But between his brother’s death, his parents — he’d confirmed his father’s demise from Sev yesterday before he’d passed out — and his own, along with coming back to life, it was too much for now. 

“You were sixteen?” she clarified.

“Yes.” 

“And how old are you now?” Granger’s lips were pursed.

“Eighteen.”

Something clearly was bothering her. He arched a brow rather than spoke; even his throat was sore, though it was mild compared to everything else. 

She let out a quiet, frustrated huff. “But you weren’t of age.”

He scoffed, lips twitching upwards. “Neither are you, and evidently you’ve done battle.”

“Yes, well, I sort of thought I had an exemption as the Chosen One’s best friend,” she retorted, still looking at him as if he were an Arithmancy problem she could solve.

She’d be one to watch out for. 

“I’m not sure war much cares how old you are,” Reg replied.

She gave him a wry grin of her own. “Fair point.” 

Reg awaited judgment as she appeared to mull over what he’d told her. 

“You regret it?” 

“Deeply.”

There was chatter coming from downstairs, faint but present, along with footfalls as the house’s occupants gathered for breakfast. 

“You don’t have to forgive me for it,” Reg said eventually. “I don’t expect you or anyone to do so. I haven’t forgiven myself.” He’d faltered as he said it, amazed he’d let that out. He blamed that one on the potion. “Use me, use what I can teach you, what I can offer to help defeat him.”

Her bronze eyes were large and thoughtful, fixed upon his face. Then she shook herself, vibrant curls dancing with her , and strode towards him, hand outstretched. 

“Hermione Granger, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Regulus Black,” he answered, taking her hand in his as relief overtook him. He would work on tamping down the idiotic hope later. Granger’s approval was important, and while that approval was something he’d likely never earn, tolerance would work for now. “And look, less blood.”

Her eyes lit up in surprise and she laughed. “Er, right. Very obliging of you, thanks.”

“Trust me, it’s my pleasure.”

Her shoulders shook as he released her and gestured for her to lead the way, which she did. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Mini-Potter was looking at them skeptically. Their eyes met.

Reg assessed him more carefully. Severus had filled him in with further detail on the two decades of history he’d missed, including the prophetic element of the Potters’ murder and the destiny of the Boy Who Lived. He’d also been updated on Mini-Potter’s journey thus far, along with his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. It hadn’t been an entirely flattering tale about the Chosen One, but he had a knack for not dying, which was a start. Reg had rolled his eyes because of course James Potter’s son was the fucking Chosen One. 

Said hero had dark circles under his eyes, eyes which were green like Lily’s — not that he’d have particularly noticed if a certain lovestruck Slytherin hadn’t nattered on about them — and a coiled frame, like he was ready to fight or flee. Based on their brief acquaintance, Reg assumed ‘fight.’

Just then, said besotted Slytherin breezed by him and unceremoniously plopped a large cushion onto one of the dining chairs. 

“Seriously?” Reg hissed under his breath, but he was sure Severus could hear him. The cushion was horrendous. A floral monstrosity, and it looked utterly ridiculous sitting there, too large for the seat of the chair. 

Sev arched an unimpressed eyebrow. “Don’t be a martyr again. What are you, a Gryffindor?” 

Reg sneered and bought himself time, pulling out Granger’s chair for her. She sat, eyes darting between them, evidently confused about the cushion.

Precisely why he didn’t want the stupid cushion advertising— 

“So, the Inferi got you on the arse, huh?” Mini-Potter snickered.

Reg sighed and shot an unhappy glance at his friend, who shrugged. He didn’t want to seem incapable of even sitting on a fucking chair. His freedom was dependent on his service to the Order. 

“They got me everywhere,” Reg grumbled in reply as he sat on the wretched thing.

Granger actually shuddered next to him. “That they did.”

Reg realized both she and Mini-Potter had seen him nearly naked and promptly occluded that thought away before he could be embarrassed by it.

Breakfast was awkward, but Granger extended her compassion once again and suggested they practice Occlumency in the parlor, where the stupid cushion belonged. Yesterday, sitting on the dining room chair had been agony, but he wasn’t going to tell Sev that. 

Sev pulled him aside in the hall, running diagnostic charms.

“Are you afraid to leave me?” Severus and ‘sentimental’ did not often go together, but he cast each diagnostic twice.

His face pinched in disgust. “Of course not.” 

After a beat, he tacked on, “But I just got you back, I’m not letting you bugger off again. You’re not out of the woods yet.”

Reg hummed, feeling oddly touched. He’d gotten the speech last night about blood clots as Severus settled in to monitor him. That much Blood-Replenishing potion coupled with the amount of accelerated healing he’d undergone left him vulnerable to a thrown clot. 

“No reckless heroics,” Sev said severely, black eyes boring into his and Reg looked away.

“Hardly heroic or reckless,” he muttered. There’d been a rather detailed plan, in fact, and he was pretty sure one had to succeed in order to be considered heroic. 

“No? Martyring yourself and going it alone didn’t seem heroic or reckless to you?” Severus replied, voice dripping sarcasm. 

Regulus’ brows drew in. “It wasn’t reckless, Sev, I was betraying the Dark Lord, I couldn’t trust—”

“Me,” he snarled. 

Reg closed his mouth, teeth clacking. 

“You died because you wouldn’t trust me.”

The two were silent; Reg bit the inside of his cheek. 

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know we can’t do this now, but you know where my loyalties lie this time. I’m not the angry, emotionally stunted twat you thought would choose the Dark Lord over you.”

“You’d leave me alone in angry, emotionally stunted twathood?” 

Severus glared, though his lips were twitching up. “Reg, I mean it. You’re not alone.”

Regulus tried to ignore the tightness in his throat as he choked out a ‘thanks,’ while ducking his head. 

Mini-Potter’s voice drifted to them from where he talked loudly in the parlor. “Merlin, where’d they get off to? Snogging you think?”

Reg coughed a laugh while Severus smirked and held up a finger to his lips. Snape moved on silent feet. Mini-Potter faced the stairs away from them, peering up. . 

“Looking for something, Potter?” he drawled and Mini-Potter yelped, spinning to face him. Sev put all of his surliness to good use and had some sort of back and forth with Mini-Potter, but Reg moved to the center of the parlor, where Granger was sitting cross-legged on the couch reading a book. 

Her eyes flicked up as he approached. “Have a nice romantic tryst?”

Reg huffed a quiet laugh, sitting across from her, clenching his fist as his cuts stretched and moved. 

“Yes, I’ll never recover from this all-consuming passion, yet my lover shall depart,” Regulus replied with mock sincerity. 

Granger chuckled lightly. “He’ll write, I’m sure. Wax poetic about your ‘glowing silver orbs’ or something,” she quipped and Regulus snorted, surprised. 

“I’m not sure my name rhymes with much, he’ll have a hard time with his composition.”

“Hmm, Regulus. Perilous, querulous… perhaps not enough for a rhyming sonnet, but certainly a limerick.”

Reg laughed. It bubbled out of him and his hand strayed to his chest to steady himself. Granger smiled at him, wide and a bit pleased with herself; it lit up those lovely bronze eyes of hers. He hadn’t noticed, with the nearly dying and everything, that she was pretty with her huge brown eyes, amber skin, and full lips. 

Harry Potter flopped into the seat next to Granger on the sofa, crossing his arms, and Reg heard the floo activate, signaling Sev’s departure. 

“Do you remember how you isolated your memory and stored it?”

The Boy Wonder grimaced and Granger’s brows knitted in concentration, but neither replied. 

“Focus on the memory,” he prompted. Nothing. “Isolate it from the others, then draw on the magic of your mind to simultaneously siphon it off while creating storage for the memory.”

“Not difficult at all,” Mini-Potter muttered. “Especially times a thousand.”

“Millions, most likely,” Granger automatically corrected, then gulped. 

“While you do have millions of experiences, memory doesn’t work in that way, precisely, because you weren’t an Occlumens previously. Most of those are flashes of color, feeling, scent. The ones that you can truly recall, the ones with details, are significantly fewer.”

She straightened. “Wait, so are we also perfecting our memory by doing this?”

Reg tilted his head in a sort of shrug. “Yes, if you Occlude regularly, you’ll be able to truly relive your memories. For better or worse.”

Granger’s eyes shone with a wonder that indicated she thought it would be better. They settled in to access their minds. 

Reg tried to help them through each step, but he wasn’t sure he was doing a very good job as Granger cursed mildly under her breath every time she slipped from her mindscape. Kreacher popped in with a mug full of steaming coffee for him, startling them both and forcing them to start again.

He reassured them that they were doing well — many couldn’t even access their mindscapes so quickly, and that wasn’t all hot air — but by the time they stopped for the morning, both looked ready to fall asleep and deeply frustrated. 

“All that time and only one memory stored. Honestly,” Granger grumbled. Mini-Potter slumped into the couch.

Reg’s fingers tapped against the porcelain of the coffee mug, the warmth comforting in the face of the shame rising in him. Merlin, it’d only been a day and he was already disappointing. That didn’t bode well for him. 

“It’s a difficult branch of magic, you really are doing well,” Reg said to Granger who huffed and began piling her dark chocolate curls on the top of her head. 

She offered him a tired smile. “Thank you. I know you’re right. I’ve just been known to have high—”

“Impossible,” Mini-Potter cut in. 

“—standards,” Granger finished, with a glare at her friend. 

Fantastic.

“Well, I’m going to lie down. Lunch at one?” she asked, with a look at the boys to confirm. They agreed and she trudged up the stairs, leaving him alone with Mini-Potter. Such a treat.

“I was wondering…” the younger wizard began, then paused. The boy had no filter, and Reg watched his face shift as he summoned his resolve.

“I’m a target, I’m sure someone’s informed you,” he began again, bitterness seeping through his words. “I want my Occlumency to be good. I want to protect the people I care about. I don’t want a filing system or something obvious, like you said yesterday — I want something like your forest.”

Potter’s eyes flashed with sincerity and Regulus found himself just a bit impressed. 

“Would you help me figure something like that out? How to do it, what to use?” he finished. The words were filled with passionate honesty, but his jaw and tight posture told Regulus exactly how much he hated having to ask him.

Reg inclined his head. “Can you tell me more about your mindscape?”

“It’s our common room.”

Our, like there was only one House, but Reg knew what he meant — Gryffindor’s common room. “I’ve never been up there, you’ll need to describe it for me.”

He hesitated, gulped audibly. “It would be best if you saw it, wouldn’t it?”

Reg blinked. Yes, that would obviously be easiest, but he hadn’t expected to be invited in. “It would, if you’re comfortable with that.”

Mini-Potter was clearly not comfortable with that, but he plowed ahead with a yes anyway. 

Reg retrieved his wand. “You’re sure? We can try you describing it first—”

“I’m sure,” Potter cut him off, face set. 

Reg twirled his wand between his fingers. “Access your mind, so you’ll be there, too,” he instructed and Mini-Potter closed his eyes. After he’d had time to settle, Regulus began. “Legilimens.”

He sent his magic through softly, politely requesting entrance. Legilimency could be painful, but it didn’t need to be. Potter had no mental defenses. Regulus placed his hand on the doorknob, and stepped into the Gryffindor common room. There was a roaring fire in the fireplace, with overstuffed couches and armchairs dotting the room, rugs in warm patterns making the stone walls of the room somehow inviting. Every inch of decor was a tacky shade of red.

“Cozy,” he commented, the best he could say, really, and Mini-Potter followed behind him. “How familiar are you with this room?” Reg asked. 

Harry shrugged. “Well, I’m in here a lot, but it’s not always the room I’m focused on.”

Reg’s eyes roved over the space. It was easier to move here since his mind bore no injuries and he walked around, observing closely as he opened drawers and inspected the mantel.

“I would use the stones of the wall,” Regulus finally said. “They will expect you to use the knickknacks and furniture, and you should — but with useless memories. The patterns of the rug are another option, but with the interconnected nature of the pattern, it could get unnecessarily difficult for you, particularly as a novice. Eventually you could build another decoy, but for now, your task will be to grow so familiar with these stones you can find what you need and use it.” 

Mini-Potter bit his lip in thought, coming to stand beside him and face the wall. 

“This is going to be hard,” he sighed.

“Most things are,” Reg shrugged. 

Mini-Potter snorted. “Yeah, they really are,” he agreed. “So I just… stare at this wall until I know the difference between the stones?”

“Not just stare. Run your fingers over each one, figure out what the room looks like from its vantage point.”

“How long did it take you for yours?”

Reg shrugged. “Certain magical families are more inclined to certain branches of magic. The Blacks are usually inclined towards magics of the mind. I was doing some Occlumency naturally as a child so I was already familiar with the forest. But when I really started working on it… a year or two. But it wasn’t my sole focus, like it will be yours. You might surprise yourself with the progress you can make.”

“So your mind was just… the forest?” he asked, brow furrowed. “That’s how you thought as a kid?”

Reg shook his head. “No, I’m not regularly in my mindscape. I slipped there more easily I guess.”

He’d needed to hide, and his mind had been the only place available. But Mini-Potter didn’t need to know that.

“So I guess this is the wax-on, wax-off montage,” Mini-Potter mused, placing his hands on his hips as he surveyed the wall.

“What?”

He waved a hand. “Muggle thing, nevermind.”

Reg wanted to protest, wanted to know what muggle thing and how that applied to their conversation, but he kept his mouth shut. “Do you want anything else from me while I’m here?”

The Boy Who Lived shook his head. “We can both go. I’ll start after lunch.”

Reg agreed, but before he could retreat, Mini-Potter said something else.

“My mind. It’s the reason Sirius died.”

Reg paused, even his heart feeling as if it stopped for a beat. 

“Bellatrix is the reason Sirius died,” he said as evenly as he could. Severus had explained earlier how Sirius was killed, the ploy that had brought him there to rescue his godson — who’d thought he’d been the one doing the rescuing. He’d felt the beginnings of a cave-in, the chasm cracking open in his chest that he’d firmly stopped, occluding powerfully so he wouldn’t break down here in his childhood home, surrounded by people who could determine his fate.

But now the tight grip he had on his mists wavered. 

With a deep breath, Reg got himself under control, refocusing on Harry, who crossed his arms tightly across him as he stared at the wall past Reg’s shoulder. He extended the Legilimency, noticing the emotional cast to the mindscape. Guilt, pain, anger, grief. 

Reg stopped himself from snorting. They had something in common after all.

“Voldemort tricked me. He sent me a vision of Sirius hurt, and I rallied the DA and we went… but it was a trap. Snape called the Order based on what I said and what I saw. Sirius came to help, and that’s how he dueled Bellatrix.”

Reg stared at him in silence, listening. 

Mini-Potter gulped. “Just, uh. If you need to go ahead and do your slamming-people-into-walls thing, you should know it’s my fault.”

“It isn’t.”

Harry frowned. “But—”

“Bellatrix killed him. The Dark Lord’s trickery killed him. You did not.”

Mini-Potter looked unconvinced, guilt swimming in his green eyes. 

“You went to defend him. That’s what you did, Potter. What happened after, that’s not on you. You don’t need to be punished for it, and you won’t be using me to do it.”

Potter’s eyes widened. “That’s not —”

“I’m a better Legilimens than you are a liar, Potter. Stop blaming yourself and channel all that anger at the Death Eaters.”

“I was,” he growled. “But then you showed up—”

Reg cocked his head. “I was dead, do I get an exemption?”

Mini-Potter harrumphed. Evidently Reg was not exempt. 

No matter, he’d expected that. “Or, you could channel it into becoming a hell of an Occlumens, into killing the son of a bitch who orchestrated the death of my brother.”

“And Bellatrix?” Harry asked.

Reg’s face hardened. “Bellatrix,” he bit out, “is a family matter.”

And with that, he ended the spell. 

Reg left Mini-Potter, rising quickly as the boy blinked back into his body. He didn’t enjoy how similar some of Mini-Potter’s emotions were to his own, didn’t want to have another awkward silence or conversation after their revelations. While he didn’t want to slam the Boy Wonder into a wall, he did want to commit violence at the thought of his brother’s murder — at the thought of Bellatrix  — and he didn’t want to put himself in a position to lash out at the already guilt-ridden fifteen-year-old, even if he was James Potter’s son.

He’d aimed for the kitchen, where coffee waited, only to be cornered by Lupin in the hall. 

Merlin’s fucking beard.

“I was hoping for a little of your time,” Lupin said slowly, hands raised in a peace offering.

Reg took a steadying breath and settled into an expression of passive disinterest. He needed to please these people. He’d already gotten the pleasure of throwing Lupin up against a wall once. He could be civil.

“Oh?”

“I know I’m not someone you’ve ever cared for”—Lupin took his own deep breath—“but Harry and Hermione are very dear to me. I assume you would prefer me to leave your house, but I ask that you would allow me to remain for them.”

Reg blinked. As he’d understood it, Grimmauld belonged to the Order by Sirius’ will, but now that Regulus was back and heir by blood, would the will be invalid? But surely the werewolf knew that for all intents and purposes it remained the Order’s? Reg’s situation was perilous, and as Dumbledore mentioned, it would cause suspicion for the house to suddenly no longer be Order Headquarters. 

But, well, if Lupin hadn’t put that together, perhaps he could garner some goodwill. He’d need every bit he could manage. “Fine. While they’re here.”

Lupin nodded stiffly, but neither moved. His eyes strayed to Reg’s arm. “Why didn’t you ask Sirius for help? With the Horcrux?” he asked, voice hard. 

Reg scoffed. “You wouldn’t have believed me.”

Lupin’s head shot up, eyes alight with that fucking self-righteous look Reg hated. His fingers curled into a fist. “He would have—”

“And even if he had,” Reg continued, “you and James would have convinced him he shouldn’t. In the end, none of you were ever going to believe me.”

Lupin’s jaw worked and Reg watched as he swallowed his words, his rage. Like he had any fucking right to be angry. Reg was the one who had been entirely alone and facing his death at eighteen with no one to give a shit. 

“It devastated him to lose you,” Lupin finally bit out. “You could have tried.”

Reg’s hand shook and he tucked it into his elbow to hide it. “Don’t bother lying. We both know better. Two weeks, Lupin,” he hissed at the end and brushed by him. 

Lupin inhaled sharply, likely pushing down his misplaced ire so Reg wouldn’t revoke his permission to stay. Of course the werewolf loved James Potter’s son and Granger, loved them enough to bite his tongue. 

Reg walked to the kitchen and Kreacher, humming merrily, beamed when he entered. 

“Coffee, Master?”

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. 

Kreacher offered him a steaming mug and Reg took it, cupping it and letting the warmth seep through his hands. The Marauders’ cruelty echoed in his mind, culminating with it devastated him to lose you. 

He took a sip and it soothed his weary, raging soul. 

Affinity for the bitter brew was one of the  only things he and Sirius shared that hadn’t turned into a painful memory of a time when his brother loved him. 

“What have you been up to, Kreacher?” he asked, and the elf launched into a tale of the time he’d missed. Reg listened, smiling at his enthusiasm, humming in interest. His smile fell as Kreacher began to speak about his parents. At first he was talking about his mother, her reaction to Sirius’ arrest — apparently she’d actually spoken out against his imprisonment, which was decidedly odd — and Reg took another fortifying gulp. 

“Master Orion died the year you did,” Kreacher was saying. “Master Orion went looking for Regulus.”

Reg choked on his coffee, the hot liquid burning his nose as he sputtered. “What?”

Kreacher bobbed his head emphatically. “Sobered up and everything.”

Reg stared at the elf, eyes wide, ignoring droplets of coffee on his hands and dripping down his chin. “But… he…” Reg’s brow furrowed. His father wasn’t a cruel man, but he was a disinterested one. And the tapestry should have shown that Reg died, he would have known…

Reg summoned a cloth and wiped at his face. He’d been confused, Reg concluded. He had to be. Kreacher must be mistaken about him sobering, because that did not track. A sober man would have seen his son’s death on the tapestry and let it be. Where would he have even gone? “Wait. Looking for me, did he know? Did he suspect what I was doing?”

Kreacher cocked his head at him. “Kreacher thinks not. Master Orion went to the LeStrange Manor and asked around, but that’s all Mistress would tell Kreacher. Master died not long after, Mistress said of a broken heart.”

Reg snorted. “Not a viable cause of death. Do you remember anything else of how he died?”

Father waltzed into LeStrange Manor and died soon after? That was suspicious. And confusing, as the head of the Blacks and the LeStrange brothers got on well. 

“St. Mungo’s said Master Orion had a weak heart from all the drinking,” Kreacher amended. “Mistress said Master Orion gave up because of Master Regulus’ death.”

Ah. That made more sense. The two events were unrelated, though perhaps his confusion and Reg’s death had given him stress that his heart couldn’t take. He inhaled, focused upon the scents of pine, of his forest, then exhaled and let the thoughts of his father’s laughing, delighted grey eyes the first time Reg had performed accidental magic drift to his mindscape. His father’s death was another event in a long line of them he’d need to process. Eventually.

He glanced back up to see Kreacher watching him with concerned eyes. 

Reg forced a smile. “Carry on, sorry.”

So Kreacher did and Reg gripped his mug tighter as the elf began nattering on about Sirius’ redecoration schemes.

Chapter Text

““And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.”

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

Hermione trudged down the stairs, groggy from a too-long nap with a slight headache pulsing behind her right eye. Her body refused to rouse itself after all the commotion of the past few days, along with significant magical expenditure, and it was long past lunch. She needed food and tea. Posthaste. 

And to read. Something light. She winced against the lights of the hall. Ease back into existing. 

As she pushed open the kitchen door, she stopped short. Regulus, mug in hand, was leaning against the counter, his head bent low towards Kreacher. The ancient elf talked with his arms, eyes bright. 

Hermione couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips. Kreacher was wretched to her, but she suspected she’d be rather unkind if she’d endured slavery for centuries, too (not that they could get a read on precisely how old Kreacher was, nor would he tell them). In fact, his sanity seemed much improved since Regulus’ return. Kreacher hadn’t called her a mudblood once, nor gone off to complain to the shrieking portrait at the front of Grimmauld. 

She awarded Regulus another point in her tally for the improvement in Kreacher. 

The subject of said tally turned to her, where she was paused just inside the doorway. 

“I missed lunch…” Her voice trailed off as Kreacher snapped his fingers and a plate floated from the counter towards her. “Thank you, Kreacher!” 

Kreacher gave a small bow. He snapped his fingers again and the kettle moved to the stove, preempting her request for tea. 

Well, that was new. 

She came to stand next to Reg, who inclined his head in greeting. His eyes were tired, and that was at least his third cup of coffee nestled in his hands — and those were only the ones she’d seen him drink. “How are you feeling?” she asked after a beat’s hesitation. 

She wasn’t sure entirely what to make of this morning, snippets and pieces of their conversation niggling at her hours later; she knew he was hedging, of course. He wouldn’t tell a total stranger the entire story. But ‘I didn’t say no’ and ‘no point in fighting it’ suggested he hadn’t been an enthusiastic participant in his Marking. And that meant at least he wasn’t a rabid blood bigot. 

“Fine, thank you,” he replied. 

Hermione let out a snort.  

His gaze snapped to hers, a puzzled expression on his face.  

“You’ve got to be at minimum terribly uncomfortable,” she reasoned. They’d only been so successful in closing the wounds yesterday, and she knew Snape had plans of stitching at least a handful of them this evening, where he would teach her the spell. Honestly, she would’ve given him a week (or five) off, but alas — war. Horcruxes.  

“The purpose of ‘how are you’ is rarely to inquire after the actual well-being of the person asked,” Reg noted, looking back at his coffee. 

“Of course it is,” Hermione protested. 

He arched a skeptical brow. “It’s a conversational placeholder,” he countered. 

Hermione huffed. “Ritual small talk doesn’t negate the feelings of actual concern or interest in the other person’s well-being.” 

“Okay, Hufflepuff,” Reg muttered. 

Hermione let out a surprised laugh. “Oh, is that all it takes?” 

“Is what all?” 

“Common decency,” she teased. “To be in the House known for loyalty and goodness?”

“Again, to use your phrase, it is ritual small talk, that is hardly the same thing as common decency.”

Hermione couldn’t help a grin. “Still feels like a low bar. Besides, I’m your healer-in-training, practically.” 

Regulus sobered instantly, gaze dropping to the mug in his hands. “Thank you for that, by the way.”

“Oh.” Hermione lowered her teacup. “You’re welcome.” A heavy something hung between them, this reminder of life and death, of desperate spells and what had to have been for him brutal pain. Hermione had never been all that fond of those. “Besides,” she carried on, “your cousin is a Hufflepuff, and she is vicious.”  

Reg cocked his head. “Cousin?” 

Oh, right. “She’d have been born but a young child when you… died. That’s ridiculous to say,” Hermione chuckled in disbelief, tucking a curl behind her ear. 

“Yes, it is,” Reg agreed, rubbing his eyes with a hand.  

“Do you remember? Being dead?” 

Reg shook his head. “I remember being pretty sure I was dying.” 

“What was it like?” she asked as Kreacher slid her perfectly steeped tea towards her. She shot him a smile of gratitude that the elf didn’t see, eyes only for his master, concern wrinkling his forehead before he popped away.  

“What was dying like?” he echoed. 

Hermione flushed. “Okay, fair point,” she muttered. “Sorry. It’s just — the process of actually dying… no one’s ever lived to tell the tale, you know? You’ve experienced something miraculous, even for magic.”  

He eyed her for a moment and seemed to come to some sort of conclusion as he ever so slightly squared his shoulders. “It was cold and painful, and then it… stopped. I ran out of air and I had to breathe.” 

When he faltered for a moment, Hermione stilled her fingers tapping on her thigh. 

“Which burns. Drowning burns. But then, when the… dying started, I guess, there was this feeling of… floating in my body, if that makes any sense. I don’t know, maybe soul was severing from body then. And I was… almost relieved.” 

Relieved. The thought made her sad. 

His silver eyes met hers. 

“Peaceful?” she whispered.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

A shared moment passed between them, nameless and shapeless; it felt honest and real and it pulled at her. 

“Then I blacked out. I don’t know if that was death or it came after I lost consciousness.”

“Thank you. For telling me.”

Their gazes stayed connected for another moment before Reg’s dropped, and he shrugged, nonchalant now. “I’d be curious, too. Apologies I don’t remember more about actual death.” 

Hermione ate her sandwich and Reg drained his mug before pouring another. He didn’t sweeten it, but he did dump in quite a bit of milk. Having grown up on her grandmother’s milky tea, she approved. She gave him a point in her tally, and another for answering her question even though it was difficult for him. 

“Her name is Tonks. The Hufflepuff cousin,” Hermione eventually said. 

“Oh. Nymphadora.” 

And another point for knowing her name. “She hates her name,” she told him with a grin. “She goes by Tonks.” 

Reg’s lips twitched upwards. “Yes, Black names can be fairly hit or miss.” 

“How do you feel about Regulus?” 

He shrugged. “It’s my name. I’ve never had another one.” 

“That’s how I feel about Hermione. In the muggle world it’s quite odd, though no one bats an eye in the wizarding one. But it’s always been me.” 

His steel eyes sparked with a sharp interest before he schooled his expression, gaze returning to the mug in his hands.

Hermione’s nostrils flared. She knew exactly where his pureblooded brain had gone — oh, fascinating, which kind of inferior is she, I wonder! This exact interaction had happened too many times to count. “Go ahead,” she sighed and nudged him, giving him some Muggleborn exposure before he learned she was ‘dirty.’  

He hissed in pain.  

“Shoot! Sorry! I forgot, are you alright?” She looked for blood or any sign she’d reopened one of his only partially healed gashes, but the sleeve of his shirt showed nothing amiss. Regulus had paled and was taking what she assumed were counted breaths, since they were a bit too even. 

“I’m fine,” he reassured her, despite the higher pitch of his voice.  

Hermione grimaced. “Right, well, uh, go ahead and ask your question about my heritage.” She waved him on. Mentally she added five points into the negative column, grumpily drawing the tally marks in bright red. Being that predictably bigoted garnered him extra points in the ‘wretched Death Eater’ column. 

“That wasn’t—” 

She crossed her arms and raised her brows in profound skepticism.  

His gaze dropped, his jaw working.  

“No, if that wasn’t your question, what was?” she asked, pressing the point. She was positive he was going to ask which kind of inferior she was, half-blood or Muggleborn, and she wanted him to go right ahead! He’d phrase it differently, sure, he was a ‘gentleman’ after all — but the result would be the same. A loaded question about her family, a snide remark about her parents. It was time for him to show his true colors, and Hermione only wished he would have surprised her. 

“I wanted to know which names were common in the muggle world,” he said, resigned. “I’m sorry for insulting you, it wasn’t my intention.” 

Hermione blinked at him. 

Huh. Well, then. He’d surprised her. She quietly erased her angry red tally marks on her mental whiteboard.  

He made to leave but her arm shot out for his hand, clasping it at an awkward angle with him already past her. His eyes flicked to hers before settling on their clasped hands. Hermione’s cheeks burned. True, she’d meant to grab it so she wouldn’t hurt him again, but now it felt… weird. Intimate. It had no purpose, like it had when he was nearly dying or struggling up the stairs. She only wanted him to stay. And he had. 

“Harry is rather common. James, too. Rebecca, Gemma, Laura, Sarah, Jessica. Thomas, Daniel, Christopher. Several Bible names, as well.”  

His throat bobbed. “Do your parents like the Greek myths?” 

“Yeah,” she said with a small smile. “But I’m named for A Winter’s Tale.” 

His brow furrowed. “A Winter’s Tale?” 

And they stayed there, in their tentative truce, hand in hand as she told him about the playwright Shakespeare and specifically, Hermione. Her fingers drifted over the topography of his palm as they spoke; scabs and scrapes from his ordeal they had left to heal naturally in favor of more life-threatening injuries created little hills and vales. When she finally released him, he cleared his throat. 

Hermione rearranged her hair. “Well, I’m going to read for a bit, I think. Let myself catch up with the past couple days.” 

“Yes,” Regulus murmured. “You’ve expended quite a bit of energy.” 

He called for Kreacher, who returned with a smile and Hermione marveled again at the change in him as he happily obliged Regulus’ request that he make Hermione a pot of tea and deliver it to her in the parlor.  

“Or wherever else you wish to read?” 

“Parlor’s perfect,” she replied, adding another point in his favor.  

“Does Master want Kreacher to make another pot of coffee?” 

Hermione frowned. “Please tell me it’s decaf.” 

“I’m barely awake, it most certainly is not decaffeinated,” Reg scoffed.  

Hermione assessed him more carefully. His lids were a bit heavy, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Of course he was exhausted, he'd been undergoing intensive healing, not to mention processing an entirely new world. He was probably only upright and walking thanks to the pain potion.  

“Go lie down,” she insisted.  

Reg waved her off. “Potter asked me to check in on his Occlumency in another…” he trailed off, casting a tempus. “Twenty minutes.” 

“You’re exhausted, I’m sure Harry has plenty to practice while you rest. If I were working on it, I would have plenty to do before checking in with you. You need to heal.” 

“It’s just twenty minutes.”  

“I bet if you took a nap, you might even be awake for dinner,” she pointed out. 

He tilted his head, studying her. “I didn’t realize you took your healer training quite so seriously.” 

“Habit,” Hermione waved a hand. “My two best friends are absolute idiots so I find myself having to remind them to take care of themselves.” 

“Oi! Who drags who from the library for meals?!” Harry’s voice floated in from the parlor, where Hermione ought to be heading to select a book for the afternoon. 

“Clearly not in your mindscape, Potter!” Reg called back. 

There was quiet before Harry marched into the foyer in front of the kitchen. “I couldn’t hold it any longer,” Harry admitted. 

“Well, you’ve done a combined four hours or so of Occlumency, that’s quite a bit for a beginner. Try not to occlude so much as observe. Prepare for more tomorrow.” 

“Wax on, wax off,” Harry muttered. 

Hermione snorted. Reg’s eyes darted between them and she saw that flickering again and — oh , it was curiosity, though this time it came along with pursed lips of irritation. “It’s a Muggle movie reference,” Hermione explained. 

His brows furrowed further. “Movie?” 

Harry and Hermione glanced at one another before working together to explain movies. They’d had loads of experience between Ron, Arthur, Fred and George, and Neville. Lavender had quizzed her non-stop for an hour. She and Dean had commiserated, as had Seamus. Purebloods, even the more inclusive ones, were so cut off from the muggle world. 

Regulus followed along carefully, asking clarifying questions, but when Kreacher arrived with her tea and another mug of coffee she remembered that Reg was meant to be sleeping. “We’ll explain the Karate Kid specifically at dinner,” she interrupted Harry. “To bed, now,” she declared, vanishing the mug to the kitchen. Poor thing was going to have an acidic pit for a stomach if he didn’t slow down. 

“You feel alright practicing?” he asked, exhaustion threading through his voice. 

“I’ve got it. Wax on, wax off,” Harry replied, voice going somewhat meditative. 

“Is that your totem to not hate whatever it is you’re about to do?” Hermione asked, crossing her arms. 

“If it’s part of a movie montage with Mr. Miyagi, I am less likely to want to scream while staring at stones,” Harry replied, his voice comically tranquil. Hermione chuckled, shaking her head at him. “Good luck with that,” she offered. “And good night, to you!” she told Reg with a dismissive wave of her hand, following Harry into the parlor. She heard Reg’s footsteps fade as he went upstairs. 

“Awfully dedicated to your Occlumency,” she noted as Kreacher floated her tea behind her, settling it on a side table.  

“I don’t want a repeat of the Department of Mysteries,” Harry said. 

Hermione frowned. “Harry, I want you to learn this so we can share all information with you and so you aren’t vulnerable to Voldemort, not because you’re in any way at fault for what happened that night.” 

Harry sighed, flopping onto the couch across from her preferred armchair.  

“Maybe you’re right, it wasn’t my fault exactly. I don’t know what I think about that. But I’m not going to let it happen again, not if I can help it. Sirius died, you were cursed, Ginny broke her leg. I’m tired of people being hurt and killed because of me. If this will help, I’m going to do it and I’m going to get good at it. He used me, and I won’t let it happen again.”  

The fire in his eyes made hers prick with tears. “I’m so proud of you, Harry.” 

He made a face. “Remember that when I’m moaning about all my hours of practice.” 

Hermione shook her head at him and they settled in. Her to read and let her mind relax, and him to whatever ‘staring at stones’ meant. Presumably he’d tell her eventually. 

— 

The following morning Hermione was significantly less amused by Harry’s Occlumency progress as he outpaced her. He was siphoning and storing (relatively) easily — meaning he’d done two today — and Hermione was a jumbled mess of memories. They were just as slippery as the first day. 

“Do you think it’s the isolation of the memory or the act of storing it that’s troubling you?” Reg asked and she paused, reflecting. 

That was a good question. 

“Isolating,” she decided. “One memory of my parents is tied to all my memories of my parents, which is tied to love, which is tied to my friends, which is tied to Hogwarts and so on and so forth,” she explained. She couldn’t get her magical grasp around it; it belonged with everything else like it.  

Reg cocked his head at her, thinking, while Harry also studied her. 

“Do you think it’s because…” Harry started and then stopped, frowning. 

Hermione pursed her lips at him to continue. He hated that look, always said it made her look like McGonagall. It made Hermione use it all the more frequently. 

“Well, just, you’ve never had to… hide things about yourself, or what made you happy, right? I know you have to make up muggle versions of magical things to tell relatives sometimes, but you always describe you and your parents as really open with one another until recently. But I… definitely did a lot of, uh, compartmentalizing. Like having to cut off the magical part of me when I was with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.”   

Regulus was looking at Harry with an inscrutable expression. 

Hermione’s chest grew tight. She’d asked Professor Dumbledore four separate times if something could be done about Harry’s home, but he’d given her the same answer about his mother’s protective magic each time. She loved their Headmaster, but surely there was a middle ground? It left her angry and helpless, which had become increasingly common for her. She hated watching him suffer, and Hermione felt like she was always watching Harry suffer. 

“I’ll ask Dumbledore if you can stay with us or the Weasleys again,” she said softly, feeling wholly inadequate. 

Harry tried for a smile, but it fell flat. They both knew that wasn’t going to work. “Anyways, I guess what I mean is that what’s happy or sad or magical or muggle or love or hate… those are all kind of separate for me, because they were only appropriate in certain situations. So when I extract a memory from another, that makes sense, they’re different from one another, so keeping them apart is natural. Maybe your feelings are all sort of related so it’s harder to separate the memories out.” 

Hermione turned to Regulus. “Do you think that’s it?”  

“It’s possible,” he shrugged, his shoulder moving more than it had yesterday. “What if you classify your library by genre? You know, using Potions or DADA as specifications under nonfiction, or mystery or literature under fiction, except you have your personal classifications for your memories. Later you can jumble them up for defensive measures, but for now you simply need something to aid your organization. That way you don’t have to isolate quite as specifically?” 

Hermione blinked at him once. Twice. 

“Bloody brilliant,” she breathed and offered him a beatific smile before closing her eyes and returning to shelve her books according to the Library of Congress cataloging system. Dewey would simply not have the specifications for what she was intending. 

At each meal over the past two days, Reg had sat beside her, resuming their places from that conversation with Dumbledore, and dinner that night was no exception. He’d pulled out her chair, which half the time made her roll her eyes and the other half she thought was somewhat sweet — antiquated it may be, but Reg treated her the way he’d treat a pureblood witch. That’d garnered him another point in the tally.  

He and Remus had awkwardly circled one another. Reg’s jaw would tighten when the werewolf spoke and Remus would look at Regulus like he didn’t know what to do with him. Reg did not appear to appreciate it as his nostrils would flare, but neither said anything. 

That afternoon, a message from Gringotts arrived, followed by a goblin, to attempt to reconcile Sirius’ will. He had left most of his things to Harry or Remus, but with Regulus, a new branch of the family tree was restored, rendering much of the will invalid. 

“Aren’t we worried someone will tell Voldemort you’re back?” she’d asked when the goblins had written. 

He shook his head. “Gringotts is about the only place we can trust to maintain everything with utmost privacy. There are enchantments of their own design that are difficult to break around the vaults and identity.” 

The goblin read each portion of the will aloud, then informed them if the point was null. At this point, she would ask Regulus if he wanted to accept Sirius’ choice, nullify it, or modify it into his own will.  

To Harry, my dear godson, I leave Grimmauld Place, the belongings therein, the grumpy elf, and my fortune. As I write this, I hope I am an old, old man and we have had decades together, you and I. But fate is finicky, Harry. If that is not the case, do know how much I’ve loved every single moment of being your godfather. I am inexpressibly proud of you. If there is life beyond the Veil, know I am watching over you with James and Lily.   

The house was no longer Harry’s, nor was Kreacher, nor the fortune given that Reg was alive and well. Regulus hedged when asked whether or not that tenet would reflect into his own will, saying he would properly draft one in the coming weeks. 

However, Sirius had left Tonks a lump sum, and when the goblin asked, Regulus said to include the stipulation into his own will.  

Hermione’s eyes widened and she and Harry exchanged surprised glances. 

The goblin continued and informed them that Sirius left Remus 100,000 galleons, enough to leave him comfortable for life; apparently the entire liquid fortune was 748,972 galleons, which made Hermione’s head spin as she did the conversion into pounds. Remus swayed and made a little noise of distress.  

The goblin turned her unblinking, hawk-like eyes to Remus and began reading the rest of what Sirius had written. 

Moony, 

My greatest wish for you is that this money buys you freedom from those who would dismiss you for a condition beyond your control. That with it, you may make the world brighter, that you would be happy, that you live the life we once dreamed, do the things you once imagined. I so desperately wish for your happiness.  

Loving you was the highlight of my life. You loved the parts of me I’d been told were wrong, were broken. You helped me see a future, even when it was taken from me in the pits of Azkaban. And when I had no idea what to do next, you helped me start again. We missed our chance, Remus, and that’s alright. I forgive you for before. But I have not and never will stop loving you, and I wish you every good thing. May this financial security remind you of the security you gave me, and may the freedom it gives you remind you that is exactly how your love made me feel. Safe and free, able to do anything.  

With my eternal love, 

Sirius 

P.S. If you don’t ask her out, I will haunt you. And not in a fun way.  

The only sounds were the sniffles of Hermione crying quietly, along with Remus who made no effort to contain his tears; Harry’s hand gripped hers tightly and she squeezed back. 

The goblin cleared her throat. “Lord Black?” 

Hermione’s eyes flicked to Regulus, whose own gaze was fixed on the floor. His arms were crossed in front of him, fists tucked into elbows.  

“Give it to him.” 

His voice was flat, but clear. Remus’ jaw dropped, astonished, and Harry’s grip on her hand released in shock. Hermione looked at him as if for the first time.  

“But… this is your money,” Remus protested. He kept blinking at Regulus, as if his vision would clear and things would make sense if he did it enough.  

Regulus wouldn’t meet the werewolf’s eye. “Not the amount given to you. Do with it as you wish.” 

“But—” 

“Consider yourself a full-time member of the Order,” he shrugged. 

“And after?” 

“Fulfill his last wish.” 

Hermione felt her internal tally fall away as she watched him, Harry stunned into silence beside her. Regulus stood alone in the room, separate from the rest of them — eighteen, alone, and honoring his brother’s wish to give a seventh of his fortune to a man she knew he didn’t like.  

He couldn’t be summarized in a pros and cons list. 

Chapter Text

“I loved the feeling of discovery, of not knowing how much I wanted something until I had discovered its absence.”

Roshani Choksi, The Star-Touched Queen

“Could I speak with you?” 

Regulus cocked his head. He’d been exiting the dining room, the door still held open by his hand. 

Hermione tucked a curl behind her ear. “About the, ah… secret?” 

His lips twitched upwards. “Subtle.” 

She made a face at him, then glanced meaningfully at Harry over his shoulder, chomping away at the breakfast table. 

“I know why you aren’t using specific nouns for what you are referring to,” Regulus agreed, failing to contain a smirk. “But my point stands. He isn’t even listening, but if he were, there are some words that pique interest more than others, yes?” 

Hermione harrumphed. “Will you please escort me to the library to discuss nothing of any interest at all, whatsoever?” 

Reg ducked his head, unsuccessfully hiding his grin as he released the door. He offered her his arm. “Of course, Miss Granger.” 

“Oh, sure, make it charming,” Hermione muttered, ignoring the slight heating of her cheeks as she slipped her hand in the crook of his elbow. They’d had another long healing session yesterday evening and the state of his arms had improved dramatically. His back and legs were still pretty torn up as they’d borne the brunt of the damage — Hermione’s stomach had dropped at the thought of the Inferi pulling him to his death while Regulus scrambled for survival — but he was healing. He could do things like offer her an arm without the tautness of pain lining his  features.  

As they entered the library, Regulus released her and withdrew his wand. 

Hermione peeked over his shoulder at the wand movements since he was evidently casting nonverbally. “Silencing?” 

“And a light ward. Potter strikes me as tenacious.” 

“Accurate,” Hermione confirmed on a sigh. 

Regulus turned to her. “So you’d like to discuss the Horcrux?”  

“Yes.” Hermione squared her shoulders. “You said briefly that you’d deduced what Voldemort had done. How? Are Horcruxes… well, Remus didn’t know of them, so I reckon they aren’t common knowledge, but is this fairly well known in pureblood circles?” Surely? Otherwise, what were the clues that would lead someone to an archaic spell? 

Regulus shook his head. “They’re considered an abomination, really. A Horcrux is the sort of thing I’d heard whispered about once or twice — and I’m from the House that protects and upholds the oldest of our traditions and magicks with no distinction between Light and Dark.” 

“So even you only having heard of them in whispers and hushed tones is fairly indicative of not only how much of a no-no they are, but how rare the knowledge is,” Hermione concluded. 

“Precisely,” he agreed as he moved towards one of the tables before the shelves. He braced himself on the back of a chair.  

She cocked her head. “Why an abomination? I don’t think the Philosopher’s Stone has such connotations.” 

“How much do you know about the history of blood magic?” 

“Not nearly enough,” Hermione breathed, eyes widening. Was this what it would have been like, being a Muggleborn in Slytherin? Having access to the deep histories of magic not maintained in libraries?  

“Right,” Reg said. “I think Binns covers evolution of magical tools in sixth year; you should get his version soon. Anyways, ancient magical peoples hadn’t discovered magical core channelers — in Europe and Asia, wands. In South America, often staffs, for instance, and then African and Northern American peoples developed other ways of doing magic that didn’t require channeling in that particular way.” 

“I read some about Uagadou and their casting!” Hermione brightened. 

Reg’s lips twitched up. “Tell me about that sometime?” he asked, a little tentative. 

Hermione nodded so vigorously her hair bounced with her. This would actually be quite a fun rabbit hole to discuss with him later.  

“Anyways, in Europe at least, before adopting the first wand technologies, we used our blood as the magical object through which to channel our core. Wands are significantly more efficient, but blood magic is highly detailed and just as personal. That’s why most heavy-level warding involves blood. But all of this means the bodies of the magical couldn’t be viewed as particularly sacred. We were cutting ourselves up all the time.” 

“So the soul is,” Hermione finished for him. 

Regulus nodded.  

“Oh,” she breathed. “That’s why the Dementor’s Kiss is the wix equivalent of capital punishment — the worst thing you can lose isn’t your body or blood, it’s your soul.” 

He gave her a small smile. “Precisely. So a Horcrux, which splits the soul — it might gain you immortality, but at what cost?” 

“An abomination,” she murmured, repeating the word he’d used, turning it over in her mouth. Given she’d been referred to as an abomination once or twice by some of the purebloods, she didn't love the word or the concept — utterly forbidden, Wrong . Not in deed or belief, but in being. Hermione certainly believed in right and wrong, but she was pretty sure nothing created could be abominable. Not a Muggleborn or a magical creature, certainly. But mutilating your own soul? At the cost of someone else’s life? (And was the murder the sacrifice of a life or a soul or both?) Abominable seemed fitting. 

Hermione frowned. “Does that mean… what your mother did to you and Sirius…” 

Reg shrugged, his eyes going to the shelves. “Not sure what changed, if anything, in our souls beyond a link or a bond. But if so, that’s more commonplace. The most ancient and intricate of marriage vows is also a soul bond. Bonding is not to be entered into lightly, but it isn’t…” He sighed, shaking his head a bit. “Anyways, that’s why Horcruxes are considered evil; not only because it requires murder, but it’s counter to our culture’s understanding of what is sacred. So the knowledge is rare and the ritual considered foul.” 

Hermione let him steer them back to the original question. She couldn’t precisely say why, but she missed the barely-there smile and the light in his eyes before she’d brought up his mother. “So then how did you discover what Kreacher saw was the Horcrux ritual?” 

Reg’s hand flexed where it rested on the chair back, taking some of his weight. “I learned quite a bit about curses from our family, and I couldn’t think of any magical object that required murder to weaponize it. That meant it had to be some other sort of ritual, and since curses are around the object, I wondered if the object could possibly be holding something — especially with all the protections Kreacher saw him place. So I started digging into magical objects that weren’t cursed, but still… well, bad—” 

“Bad,” she echoed, grinning at the understatement. 

“Harmful,” he amended, not granting her the hint of a smile she found herself looking for. “And I couldn’t find anything except the occasional mention of a Horcrux. I located all the books our family had, read them and researched until I was sure. Made a plan to retrieve it, died doing so. I take it you’d like to look at my research, see what I missed?” 

“Sounds like you didn’t miss anything,” she admitted. “But yes, I’d like to do my own perusing. Can’t resist a good primary source.” 

“Go get settled, I’ll grab them for you and add a few enchantments to mask what you’re reading from Harry.” 

Hermione did so, returning to the sofa in the parlor. Kreacher arrived a few minutes later with a pot of tea for her. She gaped at the elf. “You… did this of your own accord?” 

Kreacher’s ears flapped once. “Master asked Kreacher to make sure Ms. Granger was comfortable for Ms. Granger’s research. Kreacher believes Ms. Granger as fond of her tea as Master is of his coffee.” 

Hermione beamed. “Thank you, Kreacher! I’m not sure it’s possible to be as devoted to a beverage as Regulus is to coffee, but I appreciate your thoughtfulness.” 

Kreacher’s ears flapped again, his large milky eyes trained on her for a long moment. “Ms. Granger is welcome.” 

Kreacher popped away, and Hermione stared where the elf had been, an odd yet warm feeling in her chest. 

She barely registered Regulus striding into the room, a small stack of five books in his hands. “Lost in thought?” 

Hermione smiled softly. “Miracles,” she murmured. “Just thinking about tiny miracles.” 

—

Hermione was once more perched in the armchair, but this time she’d transfigured the coffee table taller to serve as her work desk. She’d been reviewing Heinous Hexes & Malevolent Magicks, which, while the title was translated from Middle English, the rest read like The Canterbury Tales . Given the precision necessary for translation, she thus had two dictionaries beside her as she worked through a particularly interesting passage. 

So far the Horcrux research Hermione had amassed was mostly straight forward. They all agreed: you prepared an object to hold that much dark magic, performed the ritual (read: murder), and sealed the Horcrux with a spell. What went along with said murder to have it sever the soul and guide it into the object was often referenced loosely as ‘too vile to repeat.’

This book had piqued her interest, though it was slow going, precisely because it didn’t seem to be about the three broad steps. 

O’ horcruxes, waltrot o’ woæ and dreaede 

Ŏutwending Þe medien, Þe sāme, 

Ought overrēden or the soule is blēd. 

Ayen-vŏuten Þe pouste leste halve Þe flaume 

Metfastnesse other elles ashāme. 

In-wẵrdes be overlitel an asseth 

Perduren echo - naught overlēveth.

Regulus had paused at the entry when he joined her, eyes taking in her admittedly unorthodox work station. 

“Is it alright?”

He nodded, moving to stand across from her. “I take it you somehow managed to make that chair comfortable if you’re so attached to it you’d make the desks come to you rather than use the library?”

Hermione let out a light laugh. “Sirius, Harry, Ron, Remus, and myself aimed a cushioning charm at the thing all at once. Haven’t you noticed the sofa is better, too?”

“Sitting isn’t my favorite activity at present,” he said quietly. “So no.”

Hermione tucked her lip between her teeth. “Still?” 

To give Regulus some privacy, she hadn’t been involved with anything below the belt, which nearly made her blush to think of — but she’d hoped his legs would be improving, too. 

“Nothing I can’t handle.” He sat, as if proving it to her. 

Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “When you’re well enough to properly sit in it, I’m sure you’ll see. It’s loads better.”

Regulus straightened further. “I am sitting properly?”

Now Hermione did roll her eyes. “Comfortably. Couches are for comfort.”

He snorted, the sound somehow posh from him. “Not this one.”

“Then what, pray tell,” she said on a laugh, “is it for?”

“Proving one’s postural resistance to such trifling things as comfort.”

“Oh, in that case, spot on.”

“Thank you.”

She shook her head, trying to focus back upon her translation. A part of her thought it wasn’t fantastic that a Death Eater could make her giggle like the school girl she technically was, but too late for that. 

“Did you translate this?” she asked, holding Heinous Hexes aloft. 

Reg grimaced. “It might be generous to call what I did ‘translation,’” he admitted. “But, yes.”

She started to turn back to her dictionaries but paused. “Do you think there’s a limit to how many a person could make?” Hermione mused, tapping the edge of the book with her index finger. 

“I think there’d have to be,” Reg replied, looking up from the parchment he’d just pulled from his pocket. 

She had no idea what he was working on, but he often was scribbling. She nodded, thinking, then sighed, moving onto the next line. 

Ayen-vŏuten Þe pouste leste halve Þe flaume. 

They sat in companionable silence for a while, Hermione battering away at her translation. When she finished, she frowned. 

Not nearly poetic enough, hold on, what if—

She scratched away with her quill, losing herself in her new poetry project, flipping between pages in her dictionaries until she let out a triumphant sigh.

“May I read you my masterpiece?”

“Certainly.”

Hermione cleared her throat. 

“Of Horcruxes, tales of rash woe and dread. 

Ripping the soul out and in half; the self 

Should be wiser, for the soul will be bled. 

Forswear the pow’r lest the flame be halved, 

Self-restraint retain else be shamed. 

The soul is much as one needs to retain 

Keep on halving and then naught shall sustain.”  

Hermione blinked once. Twice. 

“Reg—”

He was already leaning forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Half?”

“Horcruxes are a container for a piece of a soul, but how large a piece?” she asked.

“Half,” he repeated again. “It didn’t matter for only one, I’d forgotten — but with multiple—”

“If it halves each time—

“Then there is a limit to how many he can make. Otherwise he’d become effectively Kissed.”  

“Kissed?” she repeated dumbly, her eyes darting to his full lips and back again. “Oh, like dementors… Yes, exactly! Eventually there wouldn’t be enough of him left to function!” She bounced in her seat. “This means once we know how many… he might not be able to make any more! We already know of three, so that’s… 12.5% of his soul left in his body.” 

Reg’s eyes flashed with something like hope before he let out a hard breath. “We should confirm this before we get ahead of ourselves,” he said, voice even and frustratingly reasonable. “For one thing — how little soul can a person work with?” 

Hermione hopped to her feet. “You said there’s three more books here?” she asked, unable to contain her enthusiasm. His lips twitched upwards again as he rose and she followed him to the Black library.

Hermione squared her shoulders and tried to pace herself. Frantic, excited skimming was not the same as methodical, thorough research. She fidgeted with the ends of her curls,  resisting the urge to grab Reg by the hand and tug. The fact she didn’t know where the books were was irrelevant. 

Instead, her eyes darted about the library. Dark mahogany paneling swathed the room in regal darkness. The lighting was low and the shelves rose so high one felt entirely alone and vulnerable in their midst. Hermione was also fairly certain some of those books were bound with human flesh. One actually hissed at her the other day, and after jumping, she hissed right back. Between that and the rather fresh memory of her companion bleeding out on the carpet a mere week ago, it was an eerie room. It was beautiful in a noir sort of way, and quite vast given the expansion charms. But ultimately rather creepy. 

When she noted this to Reg, he agreed.  

“The library in France is best,” he told her and she perked up. “There’s a proper estate in Surrey that has a good library, but the one at the home outside of Lyons is gorgeous. It’s got shelves full of them to the ceilings and it’s at least three stories. I’ve never been much for reading, but Sirius loved it and it’s beautiful. Not like the one at school.” 

Hermione drew back and gasped, horrified. The Hogwarts library was a treasure, and Hermione promptly told him so. In great detail. 

He gazed at her, a little wide-eyed, and Hermione blushed. She’d gone on a full-blown rant. 

“I think I understand the predictability of your mindscape now,” he said with a teasing smirk and she swatted at him without thinking.  

“Git,” she muttered. 

Hermione moved her hair over her shoulder, thinking through what they’d need to review before they could determine the next steps. Reg was right, soul magic was the next arena of research, but she should finish off with the Horcrux texts. She still hadn’t seen how to destroy one, though that wasn’t surprising since Regulus hadn’t realized Kreacher wouldn’t be able to in the first place. And then the ritual itself, that middle missing piece, could still be illuminating. “Okay, so eight books are here in Grimmauld — how many others did you use at the other libraries? Could Kreacher fetch them, or were some at Hogwarts?” 

“There were eight books in our family’s catalogue, covering all our libraries,” Regulus clarified. “I kept them here after collecting them.” 

Hermione frowned. Only eight texts, in all of the ‘Most Ancient’ houses’ libraries — these Horcruxes really were esoteric. How did Voldemort even learn about them?  

But also, Regulus had explained it took him a period of months to go through these. 

He’d given her five books before and outside of being boring and riddled with older English spellings, were fairly straightforward, minus the oldest that she was slogging through. He’d said there were another three they were collecting now. Reading eight books shouldn’t have taken all that long. 

“You said you figured out what they were relatively quickly, right? And then you had to go through these books before settling on a plan?” 

“Yes.”  

“Could you not take them with you back to school or wherever you were? Or was there another step?” Perhaps he’d gone on his own rabbit hole of interest that could help.

He tensed. “What are you asking?” 

“I’m just trying to assemble the timeline correctly,” Hermione explained, rocking onto her toes and back. “And make sure I understand all the materials we have at our disposal.” 

“I’m giving you everything I have.” Reg’s voice was growing sharper. 

“I know,” she said, softening. “I’m making sure I understand, not accusing you of anything. You said you realized you were looking for Horcruxes specifically in April, right?” 

He nodded.  

“Okay, so then you found these eight books, and you formulated the plan in early October?” 

“Yes.” 

Hermione’s finger tapped against her elbow. “So only eight books from April to October? Or am I missing something?” 

His jaw worked as he came to a stop by a shelf and she drew up next to him. His eyes were fixed on the books in front of him. “You aren’t missing anything. I did only have partial access to the library, I wasn’t living here at the time. But I’m also not the brightest.” He shrugged. “It took me that long because I’m slow.” 

Hermione drew back, her brows furrowed deeply. She knew little about him, true, but he’d deduced enough to figure out what Voldemort had done. A rare bit of knowledge, and he was a master of an arcane magic like Occlumency, all at eighteen. She’d listened to his quick retorts, and Occlumentic theory — which she’d read up on since beginning, and it was absurdly complicated — he took it and made it digestible. His prior ‘poor student’ comment must’ve referred to his habits or interest, not his mind. She’d had plenty of conversations with him where they’d discussed the possibilities surrounding the Horcruxes, origins of Occlumency, even a touch of healing, though that she’d done mostly to distract him. He was plenty bright. 

“That’s obviously not true,” she countered. What was the false modesty angle?

Instead he took a deep, slow inhale. “I’m not very good at reading,” he finally said. “I’m slow at it. I did my best then, and I’ll do my best to help you however you need now, but you will outpace me. I’ll try not to hinder you any.” 

Hermione gazed up at him, curious. “What makes it hard for you?” Merlin, she couldn’t even fathom such a state of affairs. 

He bit the inside of his cheek before resuming an impassive expression with an unaffected voice. “I mix up the letters. I can parse it out, but it takes ages. Bit daft is all.” He reached up and grabbed a book, pulling it down, and then another. “The last one is a few shelves back.” He turned on heel and began walking towards the other book while Hermione’s brain fizzled and popped. 

She followed him as he continued to weave through the stacks. “That sounds like dyslexia, Reg, not daftness,” she said gently. 

He stopped short and she nearly ran into his back. He turned back to face her, his hand grasping her elbow as she wobbled. “Sounds like what?” he asked, voice almost a little desperate. 

She had to tilt her head back a bit to look him in the eye; he wasn’t much taller than her — she came just past his chin — but they were so close she had to make more of an effort. “It sounds like you might have dyslexia,” she repeated. “I don’t know all that much about it, truthfully, but it’s a bit of a neurological mix-up. It doesn’t impact intelligence at all. None of your professors noticed?” she asked, frowning. Wasn’t McGonagall teaching when he was a student? Surely she knew of it. 

He stared at her. She stood so close to him she could see the bob of his throat as he gulped, even as he otherwise maintained his lordly composure. “A neurological…” 

She sighed, cursing purebloods and their antiquated ways, and began a rough explanation of the most basic neuroscience. Reg listened, rapt. His eyes never left her face. 

“So basically somewhere the neural transmitting between your eyes and your brain just have a little miscommunication. I think, honestly, I don’t know loads about it, but I could find out for you, do a bit of reading up on it. I’ve really only heard of it in passing, but it’s not so uncommon. Children are screened for it regularly in muggle schools if they’re having trouble. Not one professor asked?” she asked again, growing frustrated on his behalf.  

“No,” he replied in a voice smaller than she was used to from him. “No one… they all thought I wasn’t… smart or I wasn’t trying hard enough,” he said, words halting. His grey eyes were wide and reminded her of when he had lain cut open, bleeding, and vulnerable, trusting her with his life. Good Godric, that was only a week ago.

Hermione’s rage sparked. Speaking with him, one could put together he was bright. And Reg had spent every day, despite being fileted by Inferi, teaching Harry and herself. He never complained, he was never the one to end their sessions. He wasn’t lazy. 

“My tutors growing up knew how hard I tried, so they… guessed it was the former,” he added, dropping her gaze again, looking at the books surrounding them. 

Hermione scoffed, righteous indignation singing in her veins. “Seriously? They didn’t… not a single one? Not one pricey tutor? Not one professor? Merlin, I mean, presumably your spellwork is fine—” 

She cut herself off, glancing at him. 

He gave her a sad attempt at a smile. “Yeah, it’s fine.” 

“Honestly, there are tests, to just write you off as lazy or unintelligent when clearly  you aren’t either of those things!” She was pacing back and forth in the cramped space, gesticulating, when she paused. Ready to be laughed at. Instead he was staring at her again. She met his steel gaze. He retreated from her, schooling his features again. 

“Reg, I know we aren’t… close or anything, but you don’t have to be stoic about this, it’s clearly something difficult for you.” 

His hand twitched as he brought his arms across himself, the two books tucked into the crook of his elbow. “And?” 

She drew back. “And… what?” 

“You’re forgetting,” he accused and her face scrunched in confusion. 

“Forgetting what?”  

Rather than answer he took a step back and roughly shoved the sleeve of his shirt up to bare his forearm, marred by the faded Dark Mark. 

It made her stomach flip. “I have not forgotten that you once were a part of a group that wanted everyone like me to die, thanks,” she bit out. 

Hermione took a deep breath to calm down, rolling her shoulders. “My memory is fine, but you died to fix what you did, and you basically said you didn’t even want it—” 

“Oh, I wanted it,” he snapped. “I never said I didn’t.” 

Chapter Text

““People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Hermione drew back from him as her jaw dropped. “Y-you…” she sputtered, rage temporarily making her incoherent. She shook her head, fighting to find her thoughts past her anger, fingers curling into fists. “You said ‘you didn’t say no’ like it was some sort of, of thing that happened to you!” 

“It did happen to me,” he said, voice clipped. “It was nearly two years before I was meant to make any sort of decision, Granger. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to be a Death Eater after graduation.” 

Shame bubbled in her chest. Had she been stupid, played too easily because she wanted to see the best in everyone? Had the Slytherin manipulated the naive little Gryffindor? She slammed a lid on those simmering questions and latched onto her fury. 

Hermione stalked towards him — he didn’t move — grabbed a fistful of his shirt and dragged him to her, summoning her wand into her other hand and jabbing it into his neck. “Tell me the truth,” she hissed. 

“I told you the truth,” he replied, nonplussed by the wand at his neck, even relaxing a bit. She’d told him about Marietta Edgecombe the day before, he really ought to know better. 

“No, you absolutely didn’t, you toad-faced liar!” 

Reg had the gall to laugh. “Toad-faced?” 

Hermione’s cheeks heated. Obviously he wasn’t literally toadlike, the stupid handsome git, with his piercing, intelligent grey gaze and graceful gait. Godric, that was embarrassing. Who was she, Ron? “My main irritant all year looked like a toad, but that‘s not the point. You lied to me and you’re going to tell me the truth. Now.” She punctuated her statement with a dig of her wand. 

Reg winced. “I told you the truth,” he bit out. “Yule, sixth year my mother told me to get dressed for a formal dinner and then surprise, it was my initiation. I thought after graduation it would be my only real optio—” 

“There are always other options!” 

“I know that now!” 

“You knew it last week when you lied to me!” she spat, her pitch rising. 

“I didn’t lie to you,” he countered. “I told you part of the truth.” 

“A lie by omission is still a lie!” 

“Is it? Because I don’t owe you all of the truth,” he said, steel eyes boring into hers. “You were owed an answer to my Mark, and you’re allowed to hate me for it, but you’re not due all the sordid details. I told you the truth of how I came to be Marked. I told you how I defected and why. I make no excuses for it. I didn’t see another option. I was willfully ignorant or…” He cut himself off, swallowing words on the tip of his tongue. 

She wanted to chase them and pull them out into the open. 

“Or what?” 

His jaw ticked as she twisted her wand. 

“I don’t owe it to you,” he repeated. “You know what you need to know, and those are the truth, but the story of my life is mine." 

She drove her wand in harder. “I’m owed an answer as to what the hell you meant by saying you wanted it. You deliberately made me think you weren’t bothered by my blood status, so you will tell me. Now,” she demanded. 

His eyes widened. “I am not bothered by your blood status,” he said, gentler. “That isn’t what I meant.” 

Hermione scoffed. 

“Sure, you definitely wanted the Dark Mark but didn’t hate Muggleborns.” 

“I am guilty of rationalizing,” he admitted, breath tickling her forehead. “I thought the goal of eliminating Muggleborns was merely rhetoric. I knew they attacked some, but they were also Order members. The Daily Prophet didn’t report the full details since the Ministry was trying to keep elements of it quiet.” 

Well, that sounded familiar. 

“I assumed that most of his agenda was an exaggeration, a way to woo radical purebloods. To really obliterate the Statute of Secrecy, rule over muggles, murder every powerful witch or wizard with a suspect blood status rather than woo them to your side — that’s insane. The Dark Lord wanted power, it was too impractical long-term.” 

“And too bad for anyone butchered along the way, is that it?” she asked, mocking. 

His face hardened. “Obviously I realized the error of my ways, Granger. I’m not making excuses for my actions. I lied to myself, it was wrong. But I didn’t particularly hate Muggleborns then, nor do I hate you now.” 

“Why lie to yourself?” she exclaimed, frustration pouring out of her. “Why not join Sirius, why not do the right thing from the beginning?” 

This was the main point that had bothered her over the past few days. Why not go to his brother in the Order once he was willing to face death to get out? Here’s a bloke who wasn’t evil, except maybe to his stomach lining with all that coffee. He was a quiet, diligent partner for Occlumency, patient with her questions. She’d thought she understood he’d been put in a bad situation, but still — why not go to Sirius?

Reg’s nostrils flared. “I am not an object of curiosity for you. Why I couldn’t go to Sirius isn't your concern. What is your concern is that I never did, nor do I now, find you an abomination to be eradicated. It might be worse, that I would have been willing to join without some fancy of fighting for the right — but it’s the truth—” 

“Then why join !? Why do anything if you don’t think it’s the right thing!?” 

She watched him bite his tongue, reining in his retort. 

“What is your concern,” he continued through gritted teeth, “is that I’m a good enough Occlumens to have been tortured while the Dark Lord searched my mind and he never found out what I knew or that I was going to betray him. What is your concern is that I’m on your side now. Your concern is that I’m sorry, I died to help the better cause, and I’ll die again if that’s what it takes. Your concern is how I can serve the Order, but the rest of me is not. ” 

They stood chest to chest, each breathing heavily. His breath was ragged, blood everywhere, sticking to her fingers, his lips were so blue, eyes dazed with pain—

She eased up on the wand in the juncture between his neck and his jaw. How he managed to be both regretful and angry at the same time was beyond her, but she’d seen the cost he was willing to pay for his sins. 

“And the Horcrux, that was your only rebellion?” 

She knew it wasn’t, thanks to Remus. The Ban children were alive because of another quiet revolt he’d staged. But would he use it, manipulate his role in their survival and lie by omission like he had before? Because as much as it made her nervous, everything indicated he was telling the truth — his eyes were fixed on hers, he didn’t take too long to think on his answers and they all tracked with the information she already had. But he was committed to being frustratingly vague. 

“No, not the only one. But it was too little, too late.” 

She released her hold on his shirt, fist flattening out to rest her palm on his chest before pushing him away. Hermione sucked in a large breath. Her heart pounded and her mind was swimming with too much information; she wished her tally system helped, but it didn’t. There was no equation to hold all his variables. 

The only result that mattered was that he’d played her for a fool, something Hermione distinctly prided herself on not being. 

She snatched the books from his hand, turned on heel and stalked away. 

Toad-faced, honestly, Hermione!

Dinner was an uncomfortable affair. Reg was tense, though polite, as he pulled her chair out for her. 

Hermione was seething. Logically, Hermione knew he hadn’t told her anything all that radical. A pureblood son of the Sacred Twenty-Eight wanted to be a Death Eater at one point — not particularly shocking, to be honest. If asked point blank, Malfoy would probably say the same — not out of any great trust, but because he was an awful git who’d enjoy telling her he wanted to see her erased from existence. 

No, the part that hurt was that he’d misled her. That she’d offered him an attempt at friendship, that she’d grown comfortable around him, that she had even begun to look forward to their time together. Whatever his intention with anything else, he’d said that he wanted the Mark for the express purpose of hurting her, of making her feel this way. Small and stupid.

Harry and Remus glanced back and forth between them, but Hermione had already decided not to clue Harry in. He was volatile enough right now to refuse to learn from Regulus, and that was a worst-case scenario. Not only was Occlumency direly important for Harry to learn, but whether Harry realized it or not, it was giving him purpose after Sirius’ death. The past few days Harry had done more than lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, tears leaking from his eyes until Hermione dragged him downstairs to eat. She wouldn’t take that from him. 

Remus simply looked on, his brow furrowed heavily. She anticipated a gentle conversation before bed. 

None of that stopped Hermione from spearing her potatoes with vigor or steadfastly ignoring the lying Death Eater by her side. Between Regulus being a false-hearted prick and the upcoming Order meeting she was forbidden from participating in because of a paltry two months between her and her seventeenth birthday, violence against her vegetables was warranted. 

She was cutting her lamb chop with vicious intent when the floo sounded twenty minutes early, the boisterous voices of Weasleys filtering into the dining room. 

Everyone at the table sat up straight. Regulus had to hide — she had just turned to tell him so when he vanished his plate and stood. They had precious few seconds before the Weasleys entered the dining room, and Reg was making them count, dashing on silent feet to the stairwell. 

“Let’s greet ol’ Wally, eh Forge?” 

Regulus leapt quietly past the open corridor between the dining room and the parlor. 

“Can’t not pay respects to the hostess, Gred!” 

The familiar screech the portrait made carried through the townhouse, high and piercing.  

Reg froze, one foot on the first step. 

“BLOOD TRAITORS AND FILTH! IN MY HOUSE!” 

“Oi, Wally, how are you faring these days?” one of the twins asked jovially and Walburga Black’s portrait wailed angrily in return. 

Reg remained in front of the staircase, unmoving. 

Hermione glanced at Harry, who threw his head towards Reg in a gesture that said deal with him. 

So despite her anger, she jumped to her feet and darted to the stairwell while Harry ran towards the entrance hall to distract the twins. Remus was already striding towards the parlor to greet the rest of the Weasleys. 

She touched his elbow. Nothing.

“C’mon Reg, you can’t be seen.” 

She found herself irritated again. Honestly, he had one job. Hide. Instead, here she was, tugging him up the stairs. He followed robotically with almost jerky movements. Three-quarters of the way up, Hermione slumped and let out a heavy sigh of relief. They were hidden now. 

Reg’s breathing lurched as they crested the stairs and she peeked at his face. 

His eyes were unfocused. Sweat dotted his skin. His breath was coming quickly in shallow inhales and his skin was ashen. She tugged him forward.

She tried for a gentle tone. “C’mon Reg,” she repeated, guiding him down the hall. She had no intention of coddling him after he’d been such an arse, but she recognized shock when she saw it. Hermione wondered what had caused it. The two years after Ginny’s possession by Tom Riddle had been interspersed with such symptoms. 

“Filth! Get OUT of my House, how dare you bring such shame upon the House of Black!”

Realization dawned . The portrait. Psychotic blood supremacist Walburga Black… mother of Sirius and Regulus Black. 

Right. Well. It would be reasonably disturbing to hear your dead mother’s voice. Fair enough. She opened the door to his room and paused to see if he’d go in on his own, but he stopped when she did. She moved forward and he followed. “Reg? You understand you have to stay up here?” 

He nodded but didn’t meet her eye, which was hardly reassuring. 

“Look at me?” 

There was a beat where she thought he hadn’t heard her in whatever semi-fugue state he had entered, but he moved his head up, his gaze focused on her face but not meeting her eye. 

Hermione let out a breath through flared nostrils. This was taking too long; her absence would be noticed. 

“How do I snap you out of this?” she asked, more harsh than was compassionate, but he was the one who’d pushed her away. His gaze dropped again. 

“Reg?” she sighed, hands floating to her hips. “I need to know you understand what to do here. You’re all… I don’t know. But I need to get down there, can you respond or something so I know you aren’t going to come downstairs?” 

“I’m to stay hidden,” he said, voice flat and barely audible. 

“Stay hidden where?” 

“Here.” 

“Aare wah,” she muttered, making to leave but paused. Damn her soft heart and her dad’s voice in her ear. With a heavy sigh she turned to face him. “Reg, are you… alright?” 

He nodded, not looking at her. 

Well, she’d asked. His mummy issues were his business. And he was not, as he’d so rudely informed her. 

“Okay. Good night.” 

“Good night,” he nearly whispered in return and Hermione paused once more at the door, casting another glance at him over her shoulder. He stood stock-still where she’d left him, staring at nothing. 

But she’d already asked and the memory of him sneering at her flashed in her mind’s eye, so she left him.

Chapter Text

“War." Gorgon spits the word. "That is what they call it to give the illusion of honor and law. It is chaos. Madness and blood and the hunger to win. It has always been thus and shall always be so.”

― Libba Bray, from The Sweet, Far Thing

“There’s our Hermione!”

Hermione had barely stepped off the last stair to the main floor when she was quickly scooped into four strong arms, knocking the air from her lungs and the worry from her heart. 

“Thought you were running away from us,” George said. 

“But then we realized you’d never make such a mistake,” Fred added. 

“And now here you are!” George concluded, beaming as he ruffled her hair. 

“Stop that!” she laughed, smacking his hand away and darting between them to the dining room. 

She was engulfed by the loving chaos of the Weasleys; enthusiastic hugs, beaming smiles, and questions asking how she was doing, fretting over her injury from Dolohov and wanting to know how she was recovering. Molly showed her the beautiful cake she’d made for dessert, insisting she have at least two slices before returning to her dentist parents a mere handful of days later. Hermione agreed enthusiastically. 

Tonks arrived soon after with her mum, who gave her a warm smile before moving to greet Molly. Hermione’s eyes followed Andromeda. She could almost hear Reg's voice, Ah. Nymphadora. How had Regulus known her daughter’s name?

Remus blushed a little as he greeted the metamorphmagus on his way back to the dining room, giving Hermione’s shoulder a squeeze as he passed. Tonks wrapped an arm around Hermione and she paused awkwardly, unsure of what to say to one of her private heroines, who meanwhile was turning her hair bubblegum pink and sending it cascading to her waist in chaotic curls that matched hers. Normally she’d pepper Tonks with questions, but her queries could possibly reveal the banished wizard upstairs. Horcruxes and Occlumency and the Black family were potential red flags, and Tonks was far too keen not to pick up on her sudden interest.  

“All right, Hermione?” Tonks asked, taking a step back to assess her. 

“I’m a bit frustrated at feeling useless,” Hermione replied, giving her a portion of the truth. The irony was not lost on her as she tapped into her irritation not only at Regulus but at being banned from the meeting. “I’m seventeen in two months, why can’t I participate? And Harry’s the sodding Chosen One!” she exclaimed, gesturing at Harry, who was in conversation with Mr. Weasley across the room. 

Tonks grimaced. “I know it seems unfair, Hermione, but honestly? I’d love it if you could just enjoy these last two months, you know? Once you’re in this… once this starts in earnest and there’s no avoiding it, there won’t be getting out of it. I understand that you’re frustrated and you’ve already fought the war, really, but try to have some fun this summer, yeah?” she challenged, her face settling into a hopeful smirk. 

Hermione rolled her eyes and grumbled but acquiesced. Spending time with her family and enjoying them had been her main goal for the summer once she was home anyways. It wouldn’t be hard to fit Occlumency and Horcrux research into her days while her parents were at work. 

Dumbledore, then Moody, McGonagall, and Kingsley arrived, followed by Snape, and soon Hermione and Harry were shooed out (to his great grumbling) where Ron was already waiting with a chessboard in the parlor. 

“Hey mate,” Harry greeted, sitting beside him on the sofa while Hermione fell into the armchair with a small huff. 

Ron chuckled. “Gee, Hermione, why so sour?” 

She shot him an unimpressed glare. They deserved to be included in that bloody meeting, Tonks’ reasoning be damned. 

A slow grin spread across Ron’s face as she delivered the rant that had been building up. 

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing I borrowed these from my brothers, isn’t it?” he asked, holding up an ear with a flesh-colored string. Hermione grinned wickedly as she recognized the Extendable Ear. 

“Ron, you genius!” she declared, giving him a quick peck on the cheek and taking the device. Ron’s cheeks quickly matched his hair, but Hermione paid little mind as she tiptoed to the closed dining room door and slid the ear under it. The boys followed, and the three of them lay shoulder to shoulder. 

“The Malfoy trial is consuming the Prophet ; there’ve been a few attacks and not a single one has gotten any proper coverage. It looks like Scrimgeour’s going the route of Fudge in denying there’s a problem,” she heard Tonks’ say. 

“You-Know-Who has basically declared open war and the new Minister is denying it?” Andromeda scoffed. “This is why we keep losing,” she muttered in frustration. 

“The Auror Office has its hands full with the prosecution of Malfoy and the other captured Death Eaters.” That voice was Mad-Eye’s. “We barely have the people to counter these attacks. There was a slaughter of muggles just outside of Glasgow last night. Four dead, two missing. They’re growing bolder.” 

“Our spies report that Voldemort is resuming his previous tactics of terrorizing Britain, muggle and magical alike, which it sounds like your experiences are confirming, Alastor,” Dumbledore said. 

“But what do we think is his next larger target? He certainly won’t be swayed by the defeat at the Department of Mysteries. He wants Potter,” McGonagall chimed in. “We need to be prepared to protect him.” 

Hermione smiled at her professor’s words. Protecting Harry was certainly her highest priority as well. Harry squirmed beside her. 

“His mother’s magic should protect him with the Dursleys and Hogwarts will be safe during the year,” Dumbledore replied, nearly dismissive. 

Really? The Triwizard Tournament doesn’t ring any bells? Hermione did her best not to growl. 

She must have failed, because Ron elbowed her in the ribs. Hermione kicked his ankle in retribution. 

“My concern is the financial backing You-Know-Who has amassed,” Shacklebolt cut in. “With the Malfoy vaults, he can vastly outspend us. We need to start thinking long term how to survive this war. Our personal vaults aren’t going to cut it if Voldemort is prepared to empty the Malfoy vault, let alone if he includes LeStrange or Nott. I’m sure other wealthy purebloods are also contributing to the cause.” 

“Do you have any ideas, Kings?” Tonks asked. 

“We need to identify the vaults on the side of the Light, for one, but I think even if we amassed all of them together we wouldn’t have enough to counter Malfoy alone, not to mention the others with theirs. I suggest we look to outside wix communities for funds. MACUSA was frustratingly neutral last time, but there was that anti-fascist magical group that dissented strongly. We may be able to secure donations from them. Alternatively, the French pureblood community, while sympathetic to blood supremacy ideals, is highly skeptical of Voldemort given the Death Eaters’ similarities to the Nazis. Their communities couldn’t avoid the muggle war and they could potentially be swayed. We would need to begin acting diplomatically though, which would require—” 

“The Ministry getting its head out of its arse,” Tonks sighed. Ron stifled a snicker. Hermione’s eyes narrowed in warning.

“Have we considered attempting to sway the Malfoys?” 

The three of them jolted, knocking into one another and exchanging bug-eyed looks while the ear reported nothing but silence at McGonagall’s statement. 

“Lucius is in Azkaban, Draco Malfoy is sixteen. He’s hardly a lost cause,” she insisted and Hermione’s breath left her in a whoosh. She’d never placed Malfoy in a strategic position. He was a bully and a Slytherin prefect, but picturing him on the chessboard of war— on one side or the other — was disturbing. She could see it, the black and white squares stark in her mind’s eye, and her stomach lurched; options flashed before her mind for Draco Malfoy’s piece — rook, pawn, knight, pawn, nearly dizzying as they potential paths and positions shifted and spun — but only in a handful were the pieces the same shade as her own piece. In nearly every one, he was her enemy. 

But still, just one or two — the shades could match. Probably a stupid hope that someone who’d shared classes with her for years wouldn’t wish her dead, but it was there — a possibility. 

“I would love to think my nephew would join us,” Andromeda said slowly. “But I do not think it likely.” 

“Well, Mum , the Blacks have plenty of rebels within, why not our dear cousin?” Tonks chimed in, and Hermione could imagine her mischievous grin. “That’d help the financial situation too, wouldn’t it? Not only does he have the Malfoy vault, but once he’s of age shouldn't he inherit the remaining Black vaults Sirius was denied?” 

Hermione and Harry shared a look. As it happened, they already had their Black rebel on their side, which meant they already had a massive vault. And, evidently, no matter how well they hid him, when Malfoy turned seventeen and the Black vaults didn’t transfer, the secret would be out anyways. 

“Severus?” Andromeda asked and Hermione pushed the thoughts away, focusing on the meeting. 

Snape sighed. “It is certainly possible.” 

Ron raised up on his elbows and started mimicking Snape while Hermione quietly threw a hand over her face to keep from laughing. Harry buried his face in her shoulder, his own shaking. “But this would be assuming Lucius hasn’t set the vault or the Manor such that Draco is unable to bar You-Know-Who from accessing it. Draco became acting Lord of the Manor when Lucius was escorted to Azkaban, but until the official ruling, the magic will recognize Lucius.” 

“And his character?” Shacklebolt asked. 

“Draco could surprise you,” he drawled. Harry quietly snorted, and both she and Ron kicked him. “He is young and very influenced by his father’s rhetoric, but Draco is first and foremost concerned with his family’s security, particularly Narcissa, his mother. He is a blood purist, as he was raised, but that ideology will never be as precious to him as his family’s lives. The trick will be that the Dark Lord already has a viselike grip over at least one of his parents, likely both.” 

Hermione bit her lip, her mind floating to the spells she’d read last term after Arthur Weasley stayed in hospital after the attack, spells she’d sought out wondering how to protect her mother’s flashing, delighted black eyes and her dad’s warm, tender smile. Draco Malfoy was, genuinely, a vile, loathsome, evil little cockroach, but one who rather obviously looked up to his (equally vile, if not more so) father. She frowned. They weren’t so different in this regard. Only children who adored their parents.

And also, children drawn into the fray of war. 

The meeting continued, and it was agreed that Shacklebolt would take a holiday to France in August to meet with potential contacts. Tonks had spent a summer in America and would reach out to her old friends to see if there were groups they could rely on for funding. Andromeda reminded them that the Korean wizarding community was fairly interventionist and could potentially be swayed, particularly with the death of the Ban family from the first war, and she would look into it. 

“Dae has returned to Britain,” Tonks cut in. Hermione did her best not to react. “She’s one of the only Aurors I trust to invite to the Order, and she might be able to rally the cause in Korea.” 

“I agree,” Moody added. “Are we all in accord to invite Ms. Ban into the Order?” 

How old was she now? And if she could rally support, it seemed like their situation was pretty dire—

Snape, naturally, was against it, but the ayes had it. 

“We need to begin amassing safehouses separate from the Auror Offices,” Remus said. “At some point we’ll need them, lest they become compromised.” 

“I’d say we get about a third of the Aurors. The rest will go with whoever’s in charge of the Ministry,” Tonks said bitterly. 

“Keep at it, though, you’re well-liked in the program,” Remus encouraged. 

Arthur agreed to scout along with Remus while Andromeda and Kingsley would look into acquisition. 

“Bill, I believe you had something to share with us?” Shacklebolt asked. 

“Yes. The number of cursed objects showing up around Gringotts and other institutions is growing rapidly. Curse Breakers have been called in at record numbers the past month, even before the battle at the Department of Mysteries. It’s reasonable to assume You-Know-Who is planning on wielding more cursed objects this go-around, especially as Bellatrix is known to be proficient at them when she’s not running amok with the Cruciatus . My recommendation is as we continue recruitment, which I’m assuming is the same as it was at our last meeting, we need to consider basic curse-breaking skills, including detection and sealing them off, as part of training to be in the Order.” 

“Is our best bet really Hogwarts for recruiting?” Molly asked skeptically. “The children should be protected as long as possible.” 

“We lost many of our allies during the first war, and many are buying what the Prophet and the Ministry are selling — lies that everything is fine,” Andromeda sighed. “Perhaps as things become more dire we’ll have better luck. Diggory is willing to help, given what happened to Cedric”—Harry tensed and Hermione gently laid her head awkwardly on his shoulder while she felt Ron’s leg go over hers to gently tap Harry’s—“but I haven’t had much luck with others I’ve spoken with. They don’t understand how dangerous things are, how much worse things can become, and think I’m overly sensitive because of my husband.” 

Hermione didn’t need to see the eyeroll to know it occurred. 

“The McLaggens should join us,” Arthur reminded them. “Unfortunately, I think many families are most concerned about the safety of their children right now rather than fighting or choosing a side.” 

For the first time, one of the twins spoke up. “Recruiting will be easy out of Hogwarts. Dumbledore’s Army is ready.” 

Ron shot her a pleased smirk; Hermione nudged his shoulder, biting back her own grin. 

“And, it’d be smart to continue preparing them,” the other added. 

“We have secured an effective Defense Against the Dark Arts professor for this term,” Dumbledore said. “That should give them plenty to work on.” 

Hermione snorted before stiffening, praying she hadn’t been heard while Ron and Harry gave her wide-eyed, how-dare-you looks. 

“No offense, Headmaster, but… our track record isn’t great with that, is it? Why can’t Lupin come back?” the one who’d just spoken — Fred? — responded. 

“Or maybe he could give a master class to the DA?” suggested the other — George (?) 

“The Board of Governors, unfortunately, has barred Remus from returning, though he remains an excellent teacher. I am, however, quite confident in the next candidate,” Dumbledore replied, effectively silencing them. Hermione’s nostrils flared, and she felt both Harry and Ron go rigid beside her. 

Eventually they began to wrap up, suggesting formal training beginning in the fall for those of age. Hermione wanted to scream that they wouldn’t be included in the training when they had just admitted Hogwarts was their main recruiting source. They were lucky she had initiative and had encouraged Harry to start the DA! 

She heard chairs scrape as they were pushed back and Hermione retracted the ear as the boys scrambled upright and sprinted to the parlor. Harry and Ron stumbled into their former positions at the chess table, Ron quickly rearranging the pieces. 

“Check.” Ron beamed happily, and Harry rolled his eyes as they heard the door to the dining room open. 

“Wow, I lost to Ron at chess, how shocking,” he deadpanned. 

Hermione snickered, and Ron leapt to his feet to bow dramatically. Hopefully nothing would seem amiss, but so far the adults had remained milling about and chatting post meeting. 

“Harry, I wanted to ask, well… how are you doing with, you know, everything?” Ron queried. 

Harry fiddled with his shoelaces. “Better than I thought,” he replied slowly. “I feel like in some ways, I’m getting to know him in a different way now that he’s gone. I still… I still really miss him,” his voice cracked. “But I guess I’ve been trying to see the positive recently. A little less angry most of the time, until it just all catches up with me.” 

Harry glanced to Hermione, and she read between his words. As much as he had initially resented Regulus for being here while Sirius was gone, he’d given him something to do to fight against Voldemort in learning Occlumency. And he’d offered Harry another way to know Sirius. 

Too bad he was a sodding git. 

“That’s good, mate,” Ron said, giving him a reassuring smile. 

Harry nodded absently, running a hand through his wild hair. 

“How’s home?” Hermione asked Ron. 

“Same as always, though Fred and George say they’re going to move out soon if the business keeps going well. Ginny’s a riot as usual, but she’s visiting Luna this week. It’s nice to have Bill home, he usually comes by before Order meetings now,” he shrugged. “It’s the Burrow.” 

Hermione smiled fondly. The Burrow always smelled wonderfully, like whatever Molly was cooking or baking, and it exuded a sense of home, even if one was a stranger. The Granger residence was cozy, too, but it lacked the overwhelming comfort of the Burrow, which Hermione deduced came down to sheer number of residents. Every memory she had of the place was fond, and she would always be grateful to the Weasleys for being her wizarding family. 

“Alright, Ron, dear, time for us to head home,” Molly called before promptly fussing over Hermione and Harry again and delaying their exit by at least ten minutes. Fred and George followed, squeezing Hermione until she couldn’t breathe, and slowly the rest of the Order filed out with the exception of Snape, Dumbledore, and of course, Remus. Snape and Dumbledore were still speaking, heads bowed, and Remus checked in with Harry. 

She ignored them, focusing on the Potions professor. Severus Snape made little sense. He publicly loathed Harry, Hermione, and Ron, and yet he was an Order member. If he and Regulus had been close friends once, what had he been up to in the first war? 

“Hermione?” 

Remus’ voice drew her out of her reverie and she gave him a distracted smile. “Yes?” 

“Are things quite alright with you and Regulus?” Harry’s eyes zeroed in on her with intensity. 

Hermione did her best to lie well. “Yes, just a long afternoon of research. I’ve not been feeling the best. Women’s things,” she said with a shrug, and Harry paled in horror while Remus arched a skeptical brow. No matter how crazy her story, she was always able to derail Harry by mentioning her oh-so-scary uterus, but Remus wasn’t so easy to deter. 

“Er, right, I’m going to… lie down, yeah. See you in the morning, everyone?” Harry rushed out and after quick goodbyes, he fled. 

Honestly, the power she could wield with the mere mention of menses. 

“You know I’m here for you, right, Hermione?” Remus said seriously, and she shot him a more genuine smile. 

“I know. We… disagreed,” she settled on. “Nothing major. But I don’t want Harry to feel like he has to choose between learning from him and supporting me, so…” . 

Remus nodded. “Fair enough. May I ask what you disagreed about?” 

Hermione grimaced. Admitting she’d been naive was not something she particularly wanted to do. “Honestly, Remus, I’d prefer not to talk about it. We’ll settle it ourselves, it isn’t serious.” 

It was serious — a breach of trust — but her pride mattered and for all she was furious at him, Reg wasn’t a threat to the Order or to Harry. Just a right prick. 

“Very well,” Remus agreed, fixing her with a stern gaze. “But if that changes, you’ll let me know?” 

Her smile was soft in appreciation. “Yes, I will. Thank you, Remus.” 

He bid her good night and went upstairs. Hermione slowly made her way to do the same, but paused as Snape emerged from the kitchen, a plate in hand, also headed towards the stairs. 

He stopped when he saw her, each eyeing the other. 

“He’s not… quite himself,” she finally said. “Or he wasn’t. The Weasleys got here early and the twins antagonized the portrait—” 

“Ah.” 

Her brows drew in. “Ah, what? What ‘Ah’?” 

Snape cocked his head at her, assessing, though for what she had no idea. 

She tilted her chin up defiantly. 

“Would it not disturb you to hear your deceased mother’s voice when you awoke seventeen years into the future?” 

Hermione blinked. “I suppose, yes.” She glanced at the plate, filled with the dinner Reg had almost entirely missed. She hesitated, but the sight of him nearly catatonic… “There’s cake,” she muttered, irritated at herself. 

“Pardon?” 

Merlin, she was a sap. But when Gin got pale like that, sugar always helped. Biting back a groan, Hermione elaborated. “Mrs. Weasley brought cake. He was shaky, he could probably use a piece of cake.” 

Snape quirked a brow at her in silence. “Thoughtful,” he finally drawled, as if it was not a good thing to be. 

“Some of us are,” she replied, voice dripping with false sweetness. “Good night, Professor.” 

“Good night, Ms. Granger,” he said and she heard the door to the kitchen swing open as she stomped up the stairs. 

Reg’s hands were buried in his hair when Severus knocked at the door. Sev’s rapping was always distinctive: three sharp, impatient taps in rapid succession. 

He took another shuddering inhale; he’d been trying to even it out, but spiraling thoughts were sending his lungs mixed signals about whether or not it was safe. 

“Come in,” he managed to say, cursing the wispiness of his voice. Subtle, but still. Sev would pick up on it. The door opened, but Reg stayed seated, unable to meet Sev’s scrutinizing gaze. 

Black boots clicked against the floor and finally came into Reg’s line of sight where he stared at the floor. “Granger sent cake.” 

Reg’s head popped up, surprise causing his panic to subside briefly. “Cake?” She was angry at him, that seemed unlikely. Another inconsistency.  

Sev hummed and held it out to him, but Reg didn’t take it. His stomach was rolling, nausea clinging to him no matter how many times he tried to pace his breathing and close his eyes. 

Severus frowned. “She’s dead, Regulus,” he said softly. 

Reg swallowed hard. Was she, though? What was more likely, really — that he’d died and had been dead for seventeen years only to be resurrected into the future, or that he’d gone mental? That it was the same time, same place, and for some reason or another, Reg was hallucinating? And if he was, where was he and who had him? 

Severus knelt before him, a hand coming to clasp his shoulder. Reg tried not to curl in on himself. 

“Do you feel that?” 

“Your hand?” he asked, voice higher than usual. 

“Yes. Do you smell this?” He released his shoulder and put the plate with chocolate cake near his face and Reg could smell the cocoa. He nodded. 

“Name five things you see in this room.” 

Reg recognized the technique they’d developed with each other over the years and his heart steadied a bit at the familiarity. He rattled off the deep green duvet, Sev’s book — left on the dresser for the mother-hen vigils he continued to keep — the cake, the shag rug he hated but Kreacher had procured for him ( Master needs something soft in his room , he’d said) so he’d kept it, and the quidditch poster for the Welsh Wyverns. 

The two were silent as Sev surveyed him. His breaths had evened out somewhat, but his muscles were still coiled, tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

“There’s still something wrong.” 

Reg’s eyes roved over Severus’ face; the subtle lines by the corners of his eyes that hadn’t been there before, the dark circles that most assuredly had, the frown lines starting to frame his mouth. But his black eyes were focused, insistent, and concerned. Familiar. 

“What if this isn’t real?” he asked in a small voice. “What if I’ve gone mad? Or…” He shook his head. No or. If he were captured by either side, things would be significantly worse. This was practically a holiday compared to life before his death. 

Or his mental break. Reg gulped. 

Sev sighed, sitting on the floor beside his chair. A better person would offer the armchair, but Reg wasn’t sure he trusted his legs. 

“You don’t trust your senses?” 

“Senses can be altered,” Reg muttered.

“You’re too good an Occlumens to have an illusion painted for you,” Sev reminded him and Reg tipped his head to the side, allowing that. 

“If you’re a delusion, you’re a stable one,” Reg added. “And not all that exciting, really.” 

Sev snorted. “Let’s send you to spy on the Dark Lord if things aren’t scintillating enough for you.” 

“No, no. Nearly dying and residual spell damage are plenty, thanks,” he replied with a tired attempt at a smile. 

“Reg, I admit it’s… insane that you’re alive again. But there were rumors that resurrection is possible, and if any family had the magic somewhere in their grimoires—” 

“It would be mine,” Reg finished for him with a sigh. He was right. Reg knew Severus was right, he’d repeated the same arguments to himself a dozen times. But for Merlin’s sake, her voice… 

“Magic has limitations,” he said quietly. “They are meant to be hard and fast. Horcruxes are the only way around them, and only the person who crafts one can return, and I didn’t make one. Returning from death should have been impossible for me. I’ve been tortured, we have a pretty sordid history of insanity in the family, I’m even a little bit inbred—” 

“A little,” Sev muttered and Reg kicked him lightly. 

“It’s statistically far more likely I’ve lost the plot,” Reg finished. “That my mind broke somehow.” 

It’s not like he’d been that far from broken before… the right push, the Cruciatus held too long… 

“Yes, that is more likely,” Severus agreed in a tired voice, leaning against the bed. “But in this case, it isn’t the truth. You’re here. Really here. I can barely believe it, and I’m not the one who woke up in the future. But it’s true, Reg. You aren’t mad, she’s been reduced to nothing but a bitchy portrait.” 

“My father and brother are really dead,” Regulus added, his melancholy slipping out. 

Sev sighed, thumping his head against the mattress. “I am sorry for the pain their loss causes you,” he said. 

Reg’s lips twitched upward. “I’m amazed you said that with a straight face.” 

“I mean it,” Sev said sharply, glancing up. “I detested him, but I know how much you loved him. I am sorry whenever you’re hurt.” 

Reg dropped his intense gaze. “Funny how you’re the only one who ever believed I could.” 

“Could what?” 

“Love him,” he answered quietly. 

Sev huffed. “Anyone with half a brain could have seen that. The Marauders unfortunately only shared the half of one Lupin possesses.” 

Reg was quiet, weighing whether or not to voice the thought that leapt to his mind. “Lupin said…” he paused, swallowing hard. “Said Sirius was ‘devastated’ that I died.” Salazar, it was such bullshit. “Cruel little shit,” he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut. 

“You have a grave, you know,” Sev drawled. 

“Oh?” he queried, holding onto the unsentimental question like a lifeline. “Is it an ostentatious nightmare my mother picked out?” 

“Mmm,” Sev hummed in confirmation. “I ran into a black dog there multiple times when a certain convict was on the loose.” 

Reg’s breath caught in his throat. 

“I’d be walking up and he’d be curled up by the headstone. One time he had flowers in his mouth and laid them before it, using his nose to arrange them properly.” 

Tears stung Reg’s eyes as he pictured his brother. “He scurried off when I approached, but he always returned. When I ran into him as a man it was significantly less pleasant, but”—Sev shrugged—“he was there. He was shit at doing anything about it, but I am fairly certain Sirius loved you in return.” 

Reg swallowed back his tears. “Thanks, Sev.” 

He wondered idly if his best friend was lying to him. Figured he probably was. But it was the merciful sort of lie, the one that gave Regulus something nice to think of as he drifted to sleep or felt the spiral of panic curling within him again. He could think of his brother standing vigil over his grave, looking after him in death when he had let him go in life.

Reg pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes. If this… insanity was true, if he were really seventeen years into the future because he’d been dead, how was he meant to live now? He had no plan. The odds of surviving his betrayal were slim to none. He’d been terrified, his hands shaking the entire time he got ready for his trip to his grave, but he’d known it was the right choice. He’d known there was no other way. He’d known as he stepped into the sunlight, its rays warming his cheeks, that it was almost certainly for the last time. He’d had no backup plan. 

Since returning, the plan was: survive, avoid Azkaban, and stop the Dark Lord. But beyond it… 

He sighed, weariness settling into his abused body. His healing was mostly done, but curse damage remained with unfortunate side effects, and his muscles ached around the excessive amounts of scar tissue. Figuring out what to do with a second shot at life was really a question for after the war, anyways. 

There was no guarantee he’d survive any more now than there was during the first war. 

Chapter Text

“And you were not like anyone I'd known. You spoke with impunity, had nothing to atone.

And quiet evenings you told me what you thought about, servants and kings and how everyone is bought. ”

Radical Face, "Servants and Kings"

If Regulus had to summarize yesterday in a word, it would be fuck. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he’d chanted to himself as he lost his damn mind and volunteered that he’d wanted the Mark. 

He had one job. One fucking job — don’t get his arse tossed in Azkaban. Stay alive. Stay in the Order’s good graces. This was, granted, not necessarily easy, but he’d managed to blow it i n the most pathetically simple way possible. 

And, as if that were not enough , his mother’s shrill voice and fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—

Not now, Reg scolded, gripping tight the handle of his mug. Not again. 

Today there was no conversation over coffee at the kitchen counter, nor an inquisitive witch pouring over books and asking his opinions. So few bothered with it, assuming him stupid because of his grades. But she hadn’t known. 

And because he was an angry, emotionally stunted twat, he’d ruined… it. Whatever ‘it’ was. Reg sighed as he trudged up the stairs, the tingle of spell damage having informed him to make a swift exit to his room. But unlike the last few days , he hadn’t had to excuse himself ; he was already alone. Which was almost certainly better, even if it didn’t feel that way because, as previously mentioned, Reg was both an angry emotionally stunted twat and fucked in equal measure. 

Every time he found himself just a bit fonder of the Gryffindor witch. Fuck, you’re an idiot. Every thrill he got when she asked him a question. A big fucking idiot. When she considered his answer, when she treated him like a resource, like someone whose brain worked — Salazar, he knew he was fucked. 

Fuck. H e’d nearly groaned when she put the pieces together that he was nowhere near as smart as she’d thought he was.  

And then she’d given him some … bullshit, impossible anger not at him, but for him and… 

Well , he’d been fucked. His Occlumency was a mess, holding too many active feelings because there was nowhere in this damned townhouse to sort it out, and Regulus was, apparently, out of whatever ability he had to deal with impossible scenarios. Like , you know, being resurrected. Time jumps. The death of my entire family. A great deal of his life had been spent learning how to let life’s insanities slough off him , leaving a pretty high bar for what he could endure before acting like a fucking dumbass, but apparently Hermione had found it, and—

Fuck. 

A part of him berated himself for his anger, unsure why he’d lashed out at her beyond suddenly feeling like she was about to pry open a festering wound. But the rest of him was too tired to care. This was always how it was going to go, wasn’t it? Granger’s flashing bronze eyes and unending trove of smiles and brilliant mind had been an aberration. He was a Death Eater. He was her enemy. 

It was why he’d bothered to tell her about the reading anyways . He’d ripped the bandage off, rather than slowly lose her regard over time like he had with everyone els e. Better for her to know. 

Reg’s hand was shaky as he staggered into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. It wouldn't take much to lose what little ground he had left, even if Mini-Potter had been less openly hostile, and Lupin mollified by the gesture with the will. Goodwill was easily lost, as yesterday and his stupidity proved — utility was the real currency being exchanged, and Regulus would make sure he was as useful as possible. 

But Salazar, he just wanted to sleep. 

Not that hiding in bed had ever gone particularly well , but still . He longed for a warm place to sleep, rest, and be left alone . 

He scoffed at himself . Childish. Prefer to be left alone in Azkaban?

Maybe it was childish. But as Reg landed hard on the bed and the curse damage racked its way through his body, Reg wanted it anyways.

“Truthfully, you aren’t ready,” he informed Mini-Potter . “You should be focusing on organizing your mind; but you’re leaving in five days , so I’ll teach you the basics and you can return to it as you continue sorting your memories.”

The surly teen had, naturally, wanted to continue practicing the defensive measures despite being told he wasn’t prepared; Reg obliged him . 

Granger’s anger had been simmering beneath the surface; their meals were tense. The truly shocking part was that while Lupin sent him glares, Mini-Potter hadn’t screamed or assaulted him . He’d deduced that Granger had kept his poor behavior a secret. 

“Okay, but the levels—”

“ First is your outer wall, or a primary defense. It’s crude, usually a product of sheer willpower, but the more you practice, the better you’re able to hold it. ” 

“Right, which you said is probably the easiest one to focus on but isn’t the best —” 

“You really could’ve been in Slytherin, Potter. Going straight for the top,” he muttered and Harry made a face. 

“ So the Sorting Hat said.” 

Reg’s brows rose in interest, but Potter kept talking. 

“ Anyways, so the next one is like … fighting you in my mind?” 

“No.” Reg pinched the bridge of nose. “Consider that a last resort. It’s unwieldy and fairly ineffective. Part of the defense is your organization, hiding the memories in plain sight and scattering them randomly. Doing that well is critical.” 

Potter groaned. “I know, but I want to make sure I understand this part so when I’m with the Dursleys I can keep practicing.” 

“You can shift your mindscape,” Reg explained again . “You ultimately control it . Collapse the tower, expand the room away from the intruder, and yes, you can thwack me in the head with a chair and it will have an effect on me, but this kind of mental combat is different from dueling. You need to be concerned with using the space around you instead of your physical body. Which, incidentally, is not terrible dueling advice,” Reg added. “Don’t forget to use the room.” 

Mini-Potter nodded. “Okay. So you’re going to try invading and I’ll try blocking you?” 

Reg rolled his eyes. “No, I’ll get through nearly instantly. Build the wall later . For now , practice morphing your mind.” 

“Or we can see how it goes,” Mini-Potter countered. 

Reg sighed. 

“Fine.” 

Wonder Boy closed his eyes, settling into his mindscape, and Reg bit back the lecture on how an actual invading Legilimens wouldn’t grant the opportunity to prepare. He allowed a full minute before uttering the spell. 

A hastily erected, yet thick, wall separated him from the common room door this time. To Mini-Potter’s credit, it took an entire thirty seconds to blast through and an actual burst of effort. For the Legilimens, it really was just a surge of magic, at least at this point. Reg strode to the door of the common room and barked out a laugh. The door was locked. 

Clever, Mini-Potter. 

It took a touch more concentration, a bit of magical lock-picking, and Reg found himself enjoying the challenge. But after another few minutes, he’d opened the door. 

“To be fair,” he announced as he entered, “an enemy Legilimens probably would have smashed it open, but that was innovative. Well done.” 

Mini-Potter preened. “Thank you.” 

Reg smirked as he extended the spell, his magic reaching for a stone just behind Potter’s head. 

“I’m warning you,” he said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry’s, “I’m warning you now , boy — any funny business, anything at all — and you’ll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas.” 

This memory was interconnected with others due to being archived at a rudimentary level, strung together with instances of this large, overbearing man in a much smaller Harry’s face. Little Harry wore ill-fitting clothes and was shoved into a small cupboard, too small for a boy and rife with spiders, though it was clear this was where Harry slept. The man screamed at him not to ask questions, sneered that he needed a haircut, insisted he cook for their family. 

“Oh, come on!” Mini-Potter groaned and Reg released his hold on the stone. 

“Yield?” 

Harry’s face set. “Not a chance.” 

They sparred, Reg picking three other stones at random. One was rather sweet: a memory of who could only be Ron Weasley staying at Hogwarts during Christmas so Harry wouldn’t be alone . Another was of Harry pleading with a house elf named Dobby to be quiet so that his uncle, the man who looked at Harry with violence in his eyes, wouldn’t hear. A third was of Hermione, wrapping the long chain of a time-turner around Harry’s neck, the people and room around them spinning as time reversed. Harry kept throwing out an arm as he attempted to channel his core to block Reg’s magic pressing into the stones. Eventually he started trying to physically dart in front of it. 

“Never leap in front of spells, dumbass!” 

Harry used a timesaving , if rude, gesture to express his feelings. 

Reg simply slapped a few more stones with memories in response. 

“Urgh!” 

“Done?” 

Mini-Potter glared up at him from where he leaned heavily with his hands on his knees. “How… how do I keep you out?” 

“You’re just sort of flailing at me magically. Try moving that wall,” Reg said, gesturing. 

Harry frowned, but turned to face the wall at his right, scrunching up his face in concentration as he tried to make it bend to his will. 

“It’s less about brute force than understanding the material of your mind.” 

Harry gagged. 

“ That’ s absolute rubbish, those words don’t mean anything .” 

Reg’s lips twitched upward. “They do so .” 

“ It’ s my mind, isn’t it by definition not made of material?” 

“The soul can be sucked out by a dementor,” Reg returned. “Magic has structure to it. Why not the mind?”  

“Philosophical,” he said, voice dripping with disdain. 

“Whether it does or doesn’t, your mind is creating this with magic. Manipulate it . But to do so, you need to understand how it works.” 

Harry groaned. “ So more wax-on, wax-off?” 

“What precisely would you be waxing?”  

Harry ended their session not long after that , and Regulus exited his mind with about twelve follow-up questions regarding automobiles and their upkeep that he refrained from asking. 

“Reg?” 

He tensed as his eyes fluttered open, returning to their physical space in the parlor. He’d been fairly sure Mini-Potter wouldn’t have agreed to be taught by him if Hermione had revealed Reg’s transgressions, but he couldn’t be sure. “Yes?” 

“Hermione mentioned… well , she’s been surly, and I just figured you should know. She said it’s her, er… womanly time.” 

Reg stared blankly at Mini-Potter. Sweet Circe. He was an idiot. The Savior of the Wizarding World was an absolute dolt. 

“Sure,” Reg agreed, mentally raising his regard for Hermione Granger . If these were the brains she had to work with, she deserved a lot more credit for keeping him alive. 

“I just thought you should know. Since she seems ready to, you know… snip off your manhood,” he continued, making a little scissors motion with his fingers.

Reg paused. 

Harry’s green eyes were wide and honest, a bit concerned. 

Guilt, a familiar friend, stabbed him in the gut. “Thank you,” he said. And damn it all, Mini-Potter smiled at him . 

“You’re welcome.” 

Fuck .

A knock on her door, three quick taps, pulled Hermione from her book. The day had been painfully dull, and she was so irritated with how many times she almost spoke with him, almost asked for his opinion, almost broke and went to the damned kitchen anyways. Harry didn’t find her research interesting at the best of times and he certainly couldn’t know about the Horcruxes. Against all sane advice, she’d grown to enjoy her time with the Death Eater and sort of — just a little bit — missed talking to him, which made her angrier, but she’d chosen to hold her tongue. Harry needed to learn. 

Though getting Regulus alone and letting him have it was growing more and more appealing.  

She frowned as the knock sounded again and cast a quick tempus. It wasn’t so late, but it was past eleven. She stood, going to the door and opening it slowly, wand at the ready. When she caught sight of the person outside, she jumped. 

“This is NOT appropriate!” Hermione hissed at Snape who, to his credit, was facing away, his back to her. 

He let out a sigh of the long-suffering. 

“I have to leave, you need to watch Regulus.” 

“He’s not a puppy,” she muttered. 

“Are you decent?” Snape bit out and Hermione exhaled harshly through her nose, eyeing her shorts and quidditch jumper she’d lifted from Fred. 

“Yes.” 

“Then follow me. Bring a book if you must ,” he ordered and began walking away towards Reg’s room. Hermione huffed and followed, summoning the tome. 

“I thought he was doing better,” she grumbled. She didn’t want to be in the presence of a toad- hearted if not toad- faced liar.  

When Snape didn’t reply, she added, “Why not Remus?” 

Snape paused just before Reg’s door. “I am trusting you, Ms. Granger. Can you be enough of an adult to overcome your petty squabbling or not? He’s asleep and to be monitored for ten days according to Madam Pomfrey. The risk of death is low, but concerning enough to necessitate overseeing him. Am I clear?” 

Hermione’s nostrils flared wide. “Fine. I wouldn’t ever let him die. But neither would Remus.” 

“Would you want to sleep in the presence of someone you detest?” 

“But why—” 

“Do you ever stop asking questions?” he bit out, his right hand settling across his left forearm and gripping tightly. 

“No, it’s why I’m the brightest witch of my age,” she snipped, hands floating to her hips. 

Snape turned his full menacing glare on her . “ Whatever has happened between you two, get over it . I have to leave. You remember the spell?” 

She nodded. Distraho sanguine.  

“Do not make me regret this ,” he hissed before turning on heel with a swirl of his cloak and vanishing with the crack of apparition.  

Hermione stared at the spot he’d been and turned to the door with another harrumph. She silenced herself and the door ; if he was asleep she didn’t want to wake him and deal with his false-hearted self. Book and wand in hand, she eased open the door. Wordlessly she cast her bluebell flames, their light faint enough it shouldn’t rouse him . 

Regulus was sleeping soundly on his back, head turned to face the chair Snape had been occupying, where a blanket lay neatly folded across the armrest. Hermione tucked it around her as she observed him. Whatever charm he’d used on his hair had worn off and it curled over his forehead; his mouth was parted just slightly, his breathing even. He looked younger. Asleep with the divet between his brows smoothed out and the tension in his frame relaxed. She nearly wanted to muss his hair. 

Except she was angry at him , so Hermione ignored how handsome and sweet he looked, like an innocent fairy-tale prince. And so, preferring to imagine him as a toad (Godric, that was still embarrassing), she dove into her book, turning the page roughly. 

Absently, she waved a hand and the bluebell flames gathered over her shoulder. 

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed thanks to the jackal chasing Elleora being revealed as an animagus, when the rustling of sheets drew her from the novel. Hermione glanced at her sleeping charge, wondering if he’d woken or merely shifted in his sleep only to realize the divet had returned. 

His breath hitched and the divet deepened. 

“Reg?” she said quietly, placing her book on the side table. 

His body twitched. Then his face contorted in pain and he gasped in his sleep, fingers grappling with the sheet. Hermione was beside him in an instant, casting the diagnostic charm as his body relaxed. 

Reg whimpered. 

The sound was so unlike him . Normally he was careful, controlled — even his jokes were quietly told, and when he wasn’t those things he was angry and biting. The little whimper of pain, of fear, pushed her anger into the musty dredges of her subconscious and Hermione scrambled to help him . 

Clear. It was clear? She leaned forward to examine the Representation (though Hermione privately referred to it as a hologram). No clot, no other sign of issue. Besides the unnaturally large percentage of scar tissue throughout his body, but that was neither here nor there for the moment. Right? Right. Scar tissue couldn’t contribute to whatever this was.

She was still staring at it when a pink light flared across the Representation and Reg’s limbs began to spasm, jerking his body. 

Hermione’s heart hammered and her eyes darted to the brain portion of the Representation, but — no sign of trouble. Where were the spasms coming from? Was he seizing? She scanned it again and again but couldn’t find a cause. 

He fell silent, and with a frustrated cry she banished the diagnostic. His chest rose with another shaky breath and then his back arched painfully, his muscles growing taut as a bowstring. She cast the diagnostic once more . Clear.  

He collapsed onto the bed. Thrashed, then whimpered again.  

So it was a nightmare? It had to be, in the absence of anything medical, and yet she’d never heard of seizure symptoms caused from bad dreams. He took another shuddering breath and Hermione grasped his shoulders, letting her wand fall to the bed.  

She shook him, calling his name, willing him to wake up — if nothing else, maybe he could tell her what was wrong, and if it was a nightmare, would that solve the problem, him waking up? 

Reg took careful, measured steps as he followed his mother; darkness cloaked them , interrupted only by sporadic candles casting blurred orbs of weak light. At the center of the room, several hooded figures sat in large, ornate chairs around a massive mahogany dining table. His breath caught. She’d told him to follow, so he had to keep moving. 

As they approached the table, one of the figures rose, his hood falling to reveal the grinning visage of Lord Voldemort himself . He was the snakelike thing Sev had described since his return, not the handsome, charismatic man who had placed the Mark upon him , wearing an enchanting smile as Reg nearly passed out in agony from the burning of the brand. Now the outside reflected the monster within as his eyes glowed red, his nose nearly gone. 

“Welcome, Regulus,” he cooed as Reg came to stand beside his mother. She looked regal, her glossy black waves braided tightly on one side of her head and left to elegantly fall across the opposite shoulder, expression unbothered. No one spoke. The only sound Reg could hear was the pounding of his own heart as he bowed his head. 

But with a flick of the Dark Lord’s wand, Reg was disarmed and his mother’s hand was around his throat. Time moved too quickly, and he was slammed onto the table, the wood creaking and cracking as the breath whooshed from his lungs. 

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Voldemort asked in a velvet caress. His wand traced Reg’s face and the cold tip sank into his jaw. “ That you could betray me and get away with it ?” 

Reg was too terrified to speak; the wand continued its path down his throat, into the space between his collarbone. His clothes were gone as the wand scraped his chest. 

“Crucio!” 

His nerves seared into his skin and he screamed. 

The curse lifted. He panted while the witnesses sat at the table and watched. 

Again . 

His wails thundered through the room as agony ripped him apart. 

And again . 

He never got used to the feeling of being torn apart from the inside. 

There was a commotion, not that Reg could focus on it , but light burned his eyes as doors opened and colors danced in his vision — light spots or spells? — and he remained effectively blind as he weakly tried to tuck his head down towards the wood. Chaos ensued; the figures at the table leapt to their feet to combat the intruders. His muscles were trembling, but he forced himself to think. This was his chance to escape. He could leave, roll off the table, slip out. Body shaking, he turned on his side and nearly cried out as his muscles spasmed, but from here he could— 

Her cold hand encircled his throat, and he struggled frantically as her nails dug into his windpipe. Reg gasped in vain for air as sharp pressure points closed off his airway.

“You dare disobey me?” she hissed, and Reg whimpered as a different wand traced its path down his spine. “Crucio,” she crooned, almost a lullaby. His body arched, but she held him in place by his neck as he spasmed from the fire in his veins. 

The pain stopped, and he only had time for one tremulous breath before she cast the curse again . 

She released the spell; the wand tip dipped over his hip, drawing a pattern he couldn’t make out. 

“You know the consequences for disobedience, do you not?” 

A wicked glint in the eyes that matched his own . 

Reg squeezed his eyes shut, preparing to surround his mind in mist when a familiar shout broke through his pain-filled haze. He blinked open bleary eyes and there was Sirius. 

He couldn’t make out the conversation, but Sirius finally glanced at him . Shoulder-length waves pulled back , dashing in his crimson Auror robes. His chest ached, a wild hope causing his heart to swell. His big brother would save him . Help, relief was coming. “Help.” His vocal cords were torn from his screams. 

Then Sirius was drawn back into the battle ongoing, fighting back to back with James Potter, pursuing the other Death Eaters. Reg could make out a skirmish now , Order versus the Dark Lord’s army, the shouts of spells, the blurs of black hoods and the reds of Auror robes. 

His mother cast the curse again. Reg screamed silently as every fiber of his body seemed to break; when it ceased, her wand traced his muscles back up his chest, leaving goosebumps of dread in its wake. She leaned over him , her red-painted lips ghosting the shell of his ear. Her hair fell across his chest and face, a smothering veil of her enclosing everything he could see , roses and lilies assaulting his nose. 

Her eyes shone with malice. “I promised you to Fenrir after.” 

Reg’s stomach lurched and acid burned his throat. 

“Usually prefers witches.” She spoke in that melodic cadence, with an almost indulgent smile but for the hint of cruelty. “But there’s exceptions to every rule. You are very pretty.” 

Her nails dug into his chest. “ For now ,” she amended, face shifting into a pleased smirk, as more hands joined hers, ripping at him , tearing him — 

Reg shouted again , this time for Sirius, though his throat made no noise. 

But help didn’t come as he watched the Inferi’s claws dissect his flesh. The copper tang assaulted his nose even as his mother sang the torture curse. His blood splattered upwards while he spasmed against their fevered grasps. 

A Death Eater staggered towards them , blocking Reg’s view before he or she dropped, taken down by a stunner. The blur of black was replaced by dark chocolate curls and burning bronze eyes. Hermione. 

“Please.” 

He had no volume, he couldn’t speak. 

No one could hear him . 

His mother’s hand grasped his throat, her wand skimming down his side. 

“Please, Hermione,” he tried again . 

She cocked her head at him , unimpressed as she glanced at his trembling, bleeding body. Completely disinterested, she walked away, leaving him to his fate. 

“Regulus.” 

Reg ignored his mother calling his name, his heart shattering into a thousand pieces, each shard tearing at his skin, at his soul, alone and abandoned— 

“Reg!” 

No one was ever going to save him, because he wasn’t worth saving. 

“Reg!” 

The curse started again . 

“Reg!” 

His eyes snapped open and he burst upright. Pain shot through his forehead as he knocked into something hard. 

“Ow! Shit!” 

Something fell into his legs and he grappled for it, tucking it into his body before realizing the some thing was a some one . 

“Oof! Reg, it was a dream, wake up!” 

Reg blinked and turned his head from side to side, trying to take in the dark room. 

“Oh, for goodness — lumos!” 

Light flooded the room, and he realized he had a witch between his legs. 

Reg froze. 

“Merlin’s sake,” Hermione muttered, hand pressed against her head as she struggled to a seated position. Reg’s hands fell. Her foot brushed the inside of his thigh as she hauled herself upright, curls flying over her shoulder. She tucked her feet closer to her and Reg relaxed a little , even as his heart pounded painfully. 

She turned her brown eyes up to his before offering him a half-grimace, half-smile. 

“Hi.” 

Reg swallowed, his chest still heaving. He glanced around , looking for some kind of clue as to what had happened. They were in his room. 

“You had a nightmare,” Granger said, moving some of her curls out of her face. 

A nightmare? He took another deep breath and tried to think past the blinding fear, Hermione’s closeness, the ache of his body. That’s right, his mother didn’t use the Cruciatus . She insisted it was an inferior torture curse given the risks of insanity. She and Bellatrix had gotten into a heated debate over it during Yule dinner the previous year. 

“Snape got called away and wanted me to watch you, in case of blood clots. You were having…” she trailed off, her eyes finding his again. “You were spasming,” she said softly. “The diagnostic didn’t show anything. So I thought it might be a nightmare and tried to wake you.” 

Reg’s head began to clear as his lungs managed to steady, although his heart pounded erratically. Nightmare. It was a nightmare. His mother was dead, the Dark Lord didn’t know he was alive. 

“I’m sorry if I overstepped, it’s just… you were whimpering in your sleep and thrashing. I didn’t want you to keep suffering in there ,” she said with a wince, tapping her head. “ Anyway , I can, uh, get off your bed now .” 

But, wait. Granger was angry with him . He’d made her hate him again . He still couldn’t say anything , afraid he’d find he couldn’t speak, just like the dream, but something was off, wasn’t it ? 

Granger scooted off the bed but paused as she stood. 

“Do you, um, need to talk about it ?” 

Reg’s eyes flicked up to hers before dropping again. Her gaze was soft and concerned and he didn’t know how to respond to gentleness, especially where there should be anger. This was wrong. Or was he still confused? He shook his head. 

Then she was sitting, beside him this time, and slipped her hand in his. “You’re safe, Reg. Promise.” 

He cast a wary gaze around the room. 

Then his eyes fell to her anchoring touch, to their hands, her smaller, darker one in his. A callus at her middle finger and the top of her palm. Her soft hand in his might be the promise that he could breathe more deeply. That it was over. Dream Hermione had abandoned him to his fate, but the real one had woken him from a nightmare, even though she was angry with him . 

He shuddered as the echo of the Cruciatus moved through him . 

“It’s alright,” she soothed and he bit his lip. She’d called him a toad-faced liar yesterday and now she was comforting him ? His eyes danced across her features, trying to find some sort of sign that this was an act or a game or some sort of delusion, a hangover from his terror. A red mark marred her forehead as she rubbed a comforting thumb over his knuckles, just like she had on the floor of the library. 

“I hurt you,” he breathed , eyes on her forehead, but she waved him off with her other hand. 

“If bonking heads constituted any real harm, I’d not be top of the class any longer. Ron and Harry are a menace under the cloak. No harm done.” 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, this time his vocal cords working a little further . He could speak. They weren’t torn from the curse, they were fine. He was fine. 

“You didn’t mean to, Reg, it’s alright.” 

“For before, too ,” he added. 

She met his eyes again , her gaze a bit harder. “Then why’d you do it?” 

Reg closed his eyes and his muscles spasmed again as his body remembered the Cruciatus , reacting to the memory of the Inferi. 

“Reg?” 

He grit his teeth and let it happen. The tingling shot down his limbs and he did his best to breathe through trembling muscles . It was nowhere near as bad as the original curse, whichever one was the cause. He could get through this . But damn, the pain potion had worn off. 

“What do I do? How do I help?” 

He couldn’t answer her or even shake his head as the pseudo-seizure continued. His arm flopped away from him and his abs spasmed, forcing him to lie down . Reg closed his eyes, starting to summon the mists when— 

Arms wrapped around him , holding him tight as his body shook. 

“I’ve got you. It’s okay.” 

It would be. It’d happened before . But it was nice to hear her say it . 

She anchored him, and he didn't let himself float away, something about this scrap of comfort worth letting himself stay rooted in his body through the pain. His left leg shook, beginning at his thigh and continuing down through his calf and foot just as his right hand began quaking. After another minute , the spasms subsided and Reg lay limp in her arms, his head falling against her shoulder. Her hand brushed his forehead, her cool fingers a relief on his hot skin as he took shaky breaths. 

“Tell me what this is, tell me how to help. The diagnostic was clear.” 

“Curse damage,” he rasped out. 

“From the Inferi, or…”  

Reg couldn’t do more than breathe.

“You said earlier, that you’d been tortured when Voldemort”—Reg twitched in her grasp as she said his name—“searched your mind. Was that with the… the torture curse?” 

He nodded weakly against her. Not that often, only a handful of times, like when he’d had to report the Ban children had conveniently been visiting relatives on holiday, or the first and only time he’d failed at dismantling the wards. Then there was the occasional training, or when the Dark Lord wanted to rifle through his mind for loyalty. 

“ Which one ? What do I do?” 

“ It’s… them together ,” he got out. “The body isn’t meant… to have this much exposure to dark magic.” He paused. “Curses have lingering effects, and the Inferi’s seem to be reacting with my exposure to the Cruciatus . It’ll fade, I just… had a lot of dark magic in me.” 

“Okay, okay,” she murmured, pushing her hair out of her face as she gently released him to lie on the bed. 

He wanted to sit up but the strain seemed too much for now . 

“So all curses — I don’t quite understand. Explain it to me?” 

“When we’re cursed, our bodies remember. It might be subtle, particularly if cured quickly, but it’s why cursed wounds often scar and repeated cursing can result in insanity or permanent physical damage.” 

“And how, I mean, are we all going to be like this after the war? Are the adults just hiding their…” she trailed off, gesturing at him. 

He shot her a tired smile, hoping to reassure her. “Practice your shield charm, but no, I’m an exceptional case. Most people don’t experience full-body exposure to Inferi.” 

She frowned. “But if one were captured and tortured extensively…” 

“Well, yeah,” he winced, pushing himself into an upright position. “But even then… it’s been two months. Or it was, since I was crucio’d, the… whatever they are, happening after all this time is because of the combination of the Inferi’s curse.” 

She crossed her arms, looking away from him . “Why were you crucio’d ?”  

“Routine brain rape,” he muttered, and she jerked beside him , twisting to face him with wide, horrified eyes. 

“What? Are you—” 

“No, sorry, I just meant he’d search our minds regularly, and because I’m a known Occlumens they used torture with it . It wasn’t a big deal,” he rushed out, kicking himself for scaring her. 

She needed to know the very real threat, if she was captured, but in the middle of the night and from him of all people probably wasn’t the best time. She was so brilliant and clearly experienced — it was difficult to remember she was still at Hogwarts, a rising sixth year at that; while she’d encountered much more than the average person her age, Reg had been in an elite murder squad at the height of the war. Horrors began to dull over time into a permanent haze of dread. 

Reg felt the tingle in his muscles, a weakness spreading down to his fingers and sighed. “ It’s going to happen again in a minute ,” he said quietly and she blinked up at him . 

“How often has this been happening?” 

“Nightmares seem to trigger them , but a couple times throughout the day , too .” 

“Why haven’t you said anything ?” she asked sternly. 

He cocked his head at her. “Didn’t want to both—” he cut off with a wince, the first tremor moving up his spine. Granger was behind him , hauling him up so he rested against her body, her arms circled tight around him as his muscles trembled and contracted. Reg tried to keep breathing as his lungs struggled to expand normally. His legs stiffened, his foot contorted like a bastardized ballerina’s, and his arms seized up as the witch behind him quietly murmured ‘you’re alright, I’ve got you’ over and over, her voice a soothing balm, before it all stopped and Reg fell back in her arms. 

A shorter one this time. Hopefully that meant they were ending. 

Reg lay in her embrace, exhausted. The spasming left him weak and desperately tired while his muscles ached, but otherwise, unharmed. He could barely think beyond trying to get air. 

“Is this ,” she paused, clearing her throat. “Is this why Snape stays?” 

He shook his head. “He’s afraid they’ll make a blood clot throw. Rubbish logic. But it’s apparently standard procedure.” 

“Did you have them before you died?” 

“No,” he murmured tiredly. “Only the days just after the curse. I hadn’t in… two months before I died.” 

“When was that , by the way ? I haven’t asked.” 

“The nineteenth of October. 1979.” 

“I was a month old ,” she said quietly. “ To the day .” 

“Mmm,” he acknowledged, heavy eyes closed, his head lolling into the crook of her neck. His mind was muddled and hazy and entirely too tired to deal with the fact she’d been a newborn when he’d gone to the cave. 

“I’m going to cast a diagnostic, Reg.” 

He hummed in reply. 

“I didn’t realize how much muscle scarring you had from the Inferi,” she mentioned, her voice small. She’d been excused from his healing by that point. 

“Sev’s good , but he’s not a real healer.” 

She smelled like warm vanilla and—

He stiffened. He was all over her, invading her space, suffocating her. He lurched forward, his abs screaming. 

“Reg, are you okay? What’s wrong?” 

Reg squeezed his eyes shut. “I was crushing you,” he gasped out, his muscles seizing. They did not appreciate the sudden movement. 

“You weren’t, Reg, it’s okay, lie back —” 

He flinched away from her, nearly falling off the bed and her hands closed around his wrists, tugging him back . 

“Reg, calm down , you weren’t hurting me, you’re okay. I’m okay.” 

He shook his head, tried to breathe. Needed air. 

“Reg, stay with me.” 

He needed out of the bedroom, needed out. A small, nearly hysterical voice found that oddly ironic given everything, given that was precisely what had gotten him into this mess, the desperate need to get out. 

His muscles protested, shocks of pain shooting up his legs as he staggered to his feet. 

“Whoa, whoa.” Granger sprung to standing, arms shooting out to steady him . The vanilla of her hair carried over, chasing away a phantom scent of cloying lilies and roses that turned his stomach. 

“You want to get out of here ?” 

Reg nodded, his muscles trembling at the effort of standing; he wasn’t sure he could speak. 

“Okay, come on,” she said gently, guiding him from the room, her hands in his.

Chapter Text

“With such a hell in your heart and your head, how can you live? How can you love?”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

—

He leaned on her more than he would care to admit. Gripping the railing tightly, he struggled to limp down the stairs with her arm wrapped around his torso. The spasms had left him weak, three in a row and apparently more in his sleep leaching the strength from him.

She guided him to the couch and he nearly collapsed. He let out a shuddering breath as he slumped against the cushions. He bit the inside of his cheek. Assessed. Count, he reminded himself.

One, Hermione’s armchair. It was less depressing to think of it as Hermione’s rather than his father’s. Two, the looming grandfather clock. His gaze sharpened to the constellations that replaced the numbers on the clockface. Forget counting—

Centaurus. Cassiopeia. Orion. Leo. Gemini. Ursa Major. Canis Major. Crux. Aries. Carina. Cepheus. Andromeda. Perseus.

His panicked pulse began to slow.

Hermione leaned over him, placing a pillow behind his head and summoning a blanket she tucked around him.

Reg blinked blearily up at her. “Aren’t you… angry with me?”

“Furious,” she confirmed. “It really isn’t fair to keep having medical catastrophes to distract me from my righteous ire.”

He looked down at the little nest she’d made for him. His lips curled up in a tentative smile. “Kind of you to give me a reprieve.”

“Mmm. You ready to be yelled at?” she asked, crossing her arms. Her defensive posture made her look decidedly less threatening.

Still, he braced himself. “Go ahead.”

But she didn’t yell; she regarded him with frustration, like a puzzle she couldn’t quite figure out.

Well, that made two of them.

“It’s hard to muster any anger when you look like a zombie,” she finally said, lower lip jutting out slightly.

“Are you pouting because you can’t scold me properly?” he asked with a relieved laugh.

She made a face.

“Keep it up and it’ll get easier,” she grumbled, and he cast his eyes down.

“Right, well, I’ve earned it,” he said softly.

“You used the aforementioned medical catastrophe to get out of answering why you did it,” she reminded him, voice sharp.

He sighed. “I’m not sure.”

With a harrumph, she sat on the couch with such gusto it bounced his cushion.

“Well, it was a shit thing to do! Honestly, I thought it was just Ron with the emotional range of a teaspoon, but I’m starting to think it’s the lot of you menfolk.”

Reg blinked once, twice. ‘Emotional range of a teaspoon’ was more eloquent, to be sure, but it sounded like angry, emotionally stunted twat to him.

“Um, well, that seems accurate.”

“I’m not being fair to Neville or Dean, or my own father, but for goodness’ sake,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.

He turned in his seat, tucking a leg to face her. “I’m sorry, Granger. You’re right. I…”

She pursed her lips and gestured for him to continue.

He was fairly confident there was nothing to say that wouldn’t make the situation worse, but there was no point in avoiding the truth.

“I…” he tried again and paused. He must be tired; he was swapping syllables. He needed to take his time to make the words come out correctly.

“I didn’t think about how it would sound. That it would seem like I lied about how I felt about you or your blood status,” he forced out. “I’m sorry.”

He had a feeling he’d be saying that phrase repeatedly.

“Seem like?” she rebutted, prissy. “You did lie.”

He bristled. Yes, he regretted his prior idiocy, but—

“Not telling you the whole truth is not the same thing as lying to you.”

Hermione harrumphed.

Reg’s aching muscles tensed in irritation. “I told you how I came to take the Mark, what I can offer you. Why do you need more than that?”

“Trust goes both ways! You want me to trust you, and I did with what you told me, but then you deliberately undermined that trust! You have to give me something!”

The cap on Reg’s anger popped. “What more do you want me to give, Granger? Was my body not enough, my life not enough?!” he laughed mirthlessly. “I’ve given the Light nearly everything I have. I’ve pledged my vault and my knowledge and my wand — what more do you want? Or was being torn apart not enough for you?”

Granger hopped up and sat back on her heels so she faced him properly, hair wild and sparking just a bit with her magic. Merlin, she was powerful; the only other person that sparked magic like that was Bellatrix.

“I thought it was! But then you deliberately contradicted everything you did!” she exclaimed, voice rising.

“It wasn’t deliberate!” he snapped.

Merlin, give him some credit, his intentional decisions weren’t usually quite so spectacularly stupid.

“Then what, pray tell, was the point!?”

“You were acting like I’m forgiven!”

“Maybe because I was in the process of forgiving you, you twit!” she snapped, arms gesturing wildly.

“You can’t, you don’t know everything I did!”

“Then tell me!”

They were nearly knee to knee, both breathing heavily, and the blanket had fallen to lie between them.

“Let me clarify,” he said, forcing himself to calm as he rubbed his eyes. “You’re furious at me and have lost what little faith you had in me over my not spilling my entire life story to someone I’d known barely twenty-four hours and yet you want me to give you a list of my crimes, something that could easily land me in Azkaban?”

“That bad, is it?” Mock sweetness dripped from her voice.

Reg barked an incredulous laugh. “Yeah, Granger, it was bad. Hence the dying.”

Forgiving him. Bollocks, that was. He was never going to be absolved.

Her lips flattened into a thin, angry line as her eyes bored into him. He didn’t back down from her righteous glare.

“Trust goes both ways,” she said again, this time a touch calmer. “I promise I won’t tell anyone what you did. But if you want me to trust you again, I need to know. Or you can tell me about all that cryptic nonsense in the library.”

Reg scoffed. “You promise, huh?”

Hermione fumed, hair sparking again. “What is wrong with you? Yes, my word. Mutual trust, you git.”

“The name-calling is improving, well done.”

Her eyes widened in fury and Reg tensed, waiting for a hex, but she kept her wand by her side.

“What would you accept, if not my word?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“Unbreakable Vow,” he offered, knowing full well she wouldn’t acquiesce to one.

He wasn’t sure if she read it in his face or if he’d been unsuccessful in curbing his sarcasm, but her features set in determination.

“Fine. Who’s binding it?”

Reg stared at her, and when she didn’t reconsider, he added, “You realize that puts your life on the line, correct?”

“Only if I tell. And since you’re in obvious need of a mind healer to work on your teeming trust issues, I’ll swear it.”

“You… you’re going to be one of the most important people to this war effort! You shouldn’t be entering Unbreakable Vows willy-nilly!” he protested.

She rolled her eyes and mouthed willy-nilly.

Reg ignored the heating of his cheeks. “The point stands,” he snipped.

Granger sneered. “Backing out, coward?”

Reg’s eyes narrowed. “You’re on, Granger.”

“Find the binder, Black,” she hissed.

“Kreacher!”

He popped in with a loud crack! and looked between the two of them, neither sparing him a glance. Their eyes remained locked on each other, bronze and silver.

“Kreacher, would you bind an oath for us?”

“An Unbreakable one, Master Regulus?”

“Unbreakable,” Granger confirmed.

Kreacher grumbled and Reg held out his arm. Granger stuck hers out, clasping his forearm in her hand, and his fingers settled around hers. With a snap of Kreacher’s fingers, a golden cord appeared, twining around their arms.

She was fire. Eyes molten bronze, burning with intensity and Reg refused to look away.

“Make your vow,” Kreacher announced.

“Will you swear to keep all information told to you about my crimes as a Death Eater confidential, to yourself alone?”

Granger squared her shoulders as her hand tightened its grip around his arm. “I swear. Will you swear to tell the whole truth about your crimes as a Death Eater?”

“I swear what I tell you will be the truth about my crimes as a Death Eater. I retain the right not to answer.”

Her fingers left indentions in his skin. “No deal, Black.”

His eyes narrowed, but he appreciated her angry sincerity. Perhaps she was right — if he couldn’t promise the truth with a vow, perhaps he did have ‘teeming trust issues.’ And though she clearly held onto her fury, she’d held him, helped him. That should count for something.

“Will you swear to tell the whole truth about your crimes as a Death Eater?” she repeated.

“I swear.”

The light, white-hot and blinding, settled over their clasped right arms and burned briefly before disappearing into their skin. Neither let go, the intensity of the magic swirling around and within, binding them with this promise, prompting them to keep the other in their grasp. Their chests heaved and for one, wild moment Reg wondered what it would be like to let her passion overwhelm him, what it would be like to burn with her, bury his hands in her magic-laced curls and breathe her fire.

“So. Your sordid history, if you please?”

He closed his eyes, shielding himself from her searing gaze. Of course she’d demand they dredge this up right bloody now.

“I take it I ought to start from the beginning?”

“You probably shouldn’t assume what I do and do not know.”

He huffed a laugh. “Fair enough. No one should underestimate Hermione Granger.”

“There you go. Teachable, you are.”

Reg winced. That he was.

“So does that mean you have my list of crimes handy?”

“Perhaps you should confess and I can cross-reference.”

He snorted. She hadn’t let go of his arm, nor had he loosened his grip on hers. Letting go felt like losing, and he’d lost enough.

“I’m skilled in wards and curses,” he said. His heart thudded, shifting from anger at the witch holding onto him to an executioner’s drumbeat. He was condemned. Now she would truly know it.

Reg swallowed hard and continued. “It’s what my mother advertised as my value to the Death Eaters. Once I was Marked, I was trained further. Then on spring holiday I was brought on a mission to take down the wards over a Muggleborn’s home.”

Reg took a steadying breath, occluding as the memory roared to the surface; it floated back, dissipating into mist and absorbing into the appropriate pine.

“And you took them down,” she finished for him. Her fingers twitched.

“They had three children.”

He deserved to be torn apart. He deserved to drown. He deserved all of it.

Including her wrath.

“And after?”

He opened his mouth to reply and no sound came out.

“What next, Regulus?” she asked, her thumb brushing gently against his arm.

“Summer. Four more. Nine people.”

“Couples instead of families?”

“One couple, three families. I botched one, they got all but one person out. The mother, she stayed behind to hold us off and…”

He flexed a hand, the one not holding her, and tried to push all the awful memories of that night, the woman’s screams, the slapping of flesh against flesh, the stench of sex that had sent bile coursing through him.

“Avery raped her before cutting her throat.”

Granger choked on her breath. Reg peeked at her face, and the horror he saw there had him refocusing on the hideous floral pattern of the couch.

“Botched on purpose?” she finally asked.

“Yes. It was my fault, what happened to her.”

Granger fell silent, her grip on him finally loosening. “What happened to you?”

Reg shrugged, pretending the loss of her hold, the disgust she likely felt at touching such a vile person didn’t sting. “You’ve seen the after-effects of what happened to me.”

She was quiet for a while before her voice, soft and insistent, said, “Then you returned to school?”

He buried the shame beneath his lungs, hiding it. “Yes. Yule was calm that year, no raids. I cursed a few objects, but I don’t know how they were used.”

“Then Easter hols?”

“Reinforced wards over our strongholds. The Dark Lord borrowed Kreacher for a task, and I learned about the Horcruxes. Or I learned enough to begin researching.”

“Summer?”

Reg’d shoulders slumped. “Mostly, more training. A senior Death Eater was teaching me to be a more lethal dueler. But I went on one other raid. Another family.”

“Casualties?”

“Two.”

“The Bans, then.”

Reg straightened, his brow furrowing. “How do you…”

She gave him a wry smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Cleverest witch of my age.”

“I would be dead if anyone had known—”

“You were dead,” she pointed out and Reg scowled.

“The children found Sirius. He was the Auror they went to. He kept the details from the public to keep you safe. The little girl said the Death Eater who saved them had grey eyes, and he knew it was you.”

Reg’s heart thumped in his chest as a choked laugh broke free.

Circe, maybe… maybe Sirius would have believed him.

He swallowed hard, shoving that thought down. Nothing good came of fantasies, and Sirius was dead.

“You saved them.”

“The Bans had excellent wards. I was brought in because the last person couldn’t break them.” He shook his head. “I condemned their parents to death and the children to walking past their parents’ corpses.”

He avoided her eyes, though he could feel them, boring into him like the weight of his sins. Merlin, he deserved all of it. He should refuse the pain potions on principle.

Except he was still selfish enough to want to avoid Azkaban.

“There you have it,” he said, giving her a farce of a smile. “The monster in your midst. So, no, Hermione, I will not be forgiven. I shouldn’t be.”

“Is that for you to decide?” she mused, leaning back into the pillow on her arm of the couch, gaze rising to the ceiling. “Because the way I see it, forgiveness is a gift. You can obtain a right to participate in society again, earn certain privileges by making restitution, but forgiveness between people is relational. It can't be forced, even by theoretically deserving it, but neither can it be rejected for the same reason. Even if on paper one ought to have ‘earned’ it, it being punishment or forgiveness, as the case may be. Forgiveness is like love, it isn’t transactional.”

Reg furrowed his brow, mulling over her words.

“Trust might be the same. Once fractured, can it be remade? Or is it a decision to forgive and try once more?”

“I don’t know,” Reg admitted quietly.

“Maybe forgiveness and trust go hand in hand. Even though we try to earn trust back, the wronged person decides whether to give it, like forgiveness.”

“Most of the people I wronged are dead.”

“One could argue that by baring that Mark, you’ve wronged every Muggleborn.”

He bit down a desperate laugh. “Fair point, Granger.”

Drawing his legs closer, away from her untarnished goodness, he mimicked her position and his muscles cheered as he partially lay down.

“But you’re sorry,” she sighed, like it was a terrible inconvenience.

“Does it matter?” he bit out, rubbing his eyes. “They’re dead. A woman was brutally raped, children scarred for life, all because I didn’t say no,” he spat. The self-loathing curled around his ribs. Constricting. “I obeyed.”

“But then you died trying to take him down, to do your part in making him mortal,” she said as if it were a lament, an obstacle she had to work around.

“And failing,” he reminded her. “I died and nothing changed. I didn’t even atone properly.”

They were silent a long while, Granger’s gaze still affixed to the ceiling, her overlarge Gryffindor jumper slid off one shoulder while her dark curls fanned about her face.

“What was your nightmare about?”

Reg startled before shooting her a confused glance. “My nightmare?”

She nodded and Reg sighed. “The Dark Lord finding out I’d betrayed him,” he said.

“What would he have done?”

He scoffed. “Everything. I would be begging for the pleasure of being ripped apart by Inferi.”

“So you risked a fate some consider worse than death.”

Reg shrugged. After all he’d done, all he’d seen, he had been nearly compelled to stop the darkness overtaking the world. He’d never been so sure of anything as he had been risking it all to make sure the Dark Lord’s reign of terror could only last one lifetime.

“What next? After the Bans?”

“That was it. Back to training. Then I died,” he finished in a wooden voice. His thoughts threatened to wander somewhere dark, so he found Sirius’ constellation in the clock face, tracing it with his eyes.

“Will you tell me?” she asked in a remarkably gentle voice. “What you meant by saying you wanted the Mark?”

He winced. No, he wanted to say. But he didn’t deserve the privacy he craved, the right to keep the vicious desperation to himself, no matter how badly he wanted to. So he didn’t say anything; he kept his mouth shut, clinging to the silence that had served him so far in his life.

“Is it bad?” she asked when he didn’t answer.

“Define bad.”

“Is it a reason that paints you in a worse light?”

Reg frowned. “No. The bad part is I wanted it. I thought I wanted it. I didn’t… I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t let myself know, rather. I could have.” He paused. “It is selfish.”

She nodded, tipped her head back to the ceiling as he bowed his own. They sat in silence, each heartbeat inching him closer to the edge of a pit of condemnation.

“When did you want out?”

“Almost immediately. The Mark is unpleasant to receive and it… I could feel how evil his magic was.” Reg winced at the memory of the brand searing his skin, the repulsive magic seizing him as he was ensnared. “I realized as it was happening that I made a mistake, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I felt stuck,” he sighed. “It’s a trap, Granger. For the fanatics, they covet the opportunity to serve, but… the only way out is death. So I thought I would make it matter, when I risked that. I thought at least I would have helped, somehow. I justified getting through training and the Ban raid with that mindset and in the end it didn’t matter at all. I could’ve just died then and spared them.”

“It would have been someone else if not you, would it not?” she queried.

How very Slytherin of her.

He gave her a humorless smile. “No, the Bans… their wards were something else. I barely could do it, and as far as magic goes, wards aren’t showy or interesting, not a lot of people wanted to become good at them. They had a real chance if it weren’t for me.”

His chest was cracking open. He used to hate his father for his penchant for alcohol, but since taking the Mark, Reg understood the temptation, and at that moment he wished he could drink away the shame clutching at his throat. He might have suffered the same fate as Orion Black if he could have afforded being out of his mind more often. Funny how utter terror could serve such a purpose.

“You’ve had quite a life,” Granger finally said and Reg huffed a little laugh. The Sorting Hat had said something similar, once, before it told him choosing Slytherin over its recommendation would seal his fate.

“Bully for me,” he muttered.

“Is it trust if we forced it from one another like this?” she mused, idly tracing a pattern with her foot.

“Probably not,” he agreed, the weight of the evening dragging at his back, his consciousness, willing him to fall back, fall into the precipice of soft, warm blackness, of dreams. His eyes were heavy, but sleep would only bring more nightmares. He preferred to be awake, even if it meant whispers of dread reminding him of how utterly reprehensible he was.

“You should sleep,” he sighed. He’d kept her up, his condition forcing her to keep watch over him — he and Severus would be having words about that. And then he’d rather recklessly had her make an Unbreakable Vow with him. She’d been through enough for one evening.

“But what if you throw a clot and die?” she deadpanned and Reg snorted to cover the sting of her sarcasm.

Perhaps the world had been better off without him.

“Then good riddance,” he said and Granger’s foot paused.

“I’m not… displeased you’re here,” she allowed.

“Gee thanks, Granger,” he managed, shooting for unaffected nonchalance.

But she’d rather have Sirius. As would Mini-Potter, Lupin, and everyone else. Only Severus preferred him to his brother.

Even Regulus wished it was Sirius who was in the land of the living.

She slumped further into the couch, hooking her foot around Reg’s ankle, and he had to repress the urge to jump.

“Don’t mope, Black, it isn’t appealing.”

She’d so blithely used his first name before, another sign of the trust he hadn’t realized she’d really given him before he’d destroyed it. But her leg was partially resting against his and it was something, even if he wasn’t sure what.

Reg closed his eyes, hoping to shut out the overwhelming emotions he’d been skirting and dodging the past week. The utter loneliness, the grief for his brother and father, even his mother, the confusion, the existential question of his sanity, the fear of Azkaban or worse, the pain of his shredded skin and the persistent attack of the Inferi’s curse. It was all too much, and he was not enough to withstand the deluge.

“If we don’t have trust, what do we have?” he asked, just a touch hesitant.

She hummed while she thought.

“A truce?”

“A truce,” he murmured.

Chapter Text

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

W.B. Yeats

Hermione wrinkled her nose at the sunlight coming in through the window, shielding her eyes as she buried her face into the pillows. Then she bolted upright.

She wasn’t in bed — she was on the couch. She slumped in relief. Right, she’d fallen asleep here.She grimaced at the taste of stale breath and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

With a yawn and a stretch, she lay on her makeshift bed, one blanket tangled in her legs with another gently draped over her, idly curious about the time. Her eyes caught on a gentle sparkle. She squinted. Peered at the air around her, the way the sunlight filtered through the room, causing the magic above her to glimmer.

A lump appeared in her throat; he’d warded her in. And not only that, but there’d been no blankets over her when she drifted off, meaning he had also tucked her in.

“You should sleep,” Reg said again, breaking up the long quiet; frankly, she’d been nearly there if he’d kept his trap shut.

“Snape will fail me at Potions if I leave you.”

Regulus snorted. “No he won’t.”

Hermione arched a brow. “No offense, Reg, but you don’t know him as a professor. He absolutely would.”

That thought seemed to trouble him.

“You can sleep though,” she told him and he grimaced.

“I don’t think I can,” he admitted quietly. Remorse seeped through the cracks of his impassive exterior;, she suspected despite himself. Hermione felt that irritating pang of sympathy that had been pestering her all through their conversation.

Hermione found herself deeply missing her lovely, organized tally chart. Orderly columns of pros and cons, yes and no, were much simpler than the young man whose character appeared as grey as his eyes.

“If I go to sleep, what will you do?”

He nodded toward the corner of the room behind her, at the baby grand piano.

“You play?”

“Passably.”

“Play me something.”

He heaved himself to his feet. The ripple of magic as he spelled the room silent just barely whispered past her. The piano bench scraped, and the room fell into silent anticipation.

She imagined him settling his fingers upon the keys, and then he began to play. The music was light, sweet. But it held a slight hint of mischief reminiscent of the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies from Tchaikovsky. The floating melody promised sweet dreams and playful days ahead.

One of her last conscious thoughts was wondering how someone who had touched so much death could make something so beautiful.

The click of shoes drew her attention to the stairs. He was, once again, the immaculate pureblood heir: curls smoothed, clothes neatly pressed; nearly everything about the night before was packaged away, including his raw honesty.

Hermione fought a frown.

“Good morning,” she rasped.

Reg gave her a barely there smile as he conjured a glass for her, filling it with an aguamenti. Hermione drank greedily.

“Thanks. For the blankets and the wards,” she said softly. It was a sweet gesture, one that recalled their afternoons in the kitchen re-caffeinating for the afternoon ahead, peppering him with questions and drawing his quiet laughs out of him. And yet, it felt so removed from the vicious intensity in his eyes as she’d questioned him, snapping like a caged animal.

He shrugged, glancing away. As if it were nothing.

And, he might believe that. He waved off his better nature — his attempts at something good in the midst of an overwhelming evil. Actions had consequences, yes. But didn’t motivations matter? He blamed himself for the rape of a woman he’d tried to save, but should he? Hermione couldn’t help (perhaps a naive part) of herself that thought that he’d attempted to buy them time, had been tortured for that defiance, that all of it mattered for something. Exoneration? Maybe not. And, really, Regulus was right — he’d been there. He’d ripped down the wards, even if he’d tried to subvert his superiors and his mission.

He hadn’t cast an Avada, but he’d killed nonetheless.

Did gentleness matter in someone who’d done such things? Had there been gentleness in him the whole time, shackled by his shit choices?

They spoke little during her Occlumency training, and when Reg excused himself quietly during lunch, retreating upstairs, instinct had her following. She caught his bedroom door just as it was closing, sneaking in as he fell heavily on the bed, the first tremor rocking through him.

“I’ve got you,” she murmured as she settled behind him, holding him tight as his muscles spasmed and stiffened. He clenched his jaw. First his left arm, then his right leg shook erratically. When the tremors finally ceased, he released a shaky breath. She let him go.

“And here I thought all that coffee made you use the loo frequently,” she mused, easing away from him. Either that, or he’d needed a break from her and Harry. He’d never been gone long.

He snorted, irritatingly aristocratic.

“I’d prefer that, to be honest.” He hauled himself upright, and she had to stop herself from helping him as his arm wobbled, supporting his weight. He constantly inspired conflicted emotions in her; compassion and irritation, wariness and intrigue.

“Sleep, Reg. You were up all night.”

His brow furrowed, but he nodded as she rose to leave. He sank down, watching her go with half-lidded eyes.

Their truce was tense, but it held. Hermione missed the before. When she’d trusted him.

—

Two hours later, tea in hand, Hermione wasn’t sure precisely why she was in the kitchen, attempting to hold onto their ritual, but she was. Nosiness? That seemed a good reason. Just wanted to check in on the curse damage. Yes, that would do.

Not a hair out of place, Reg came into the kitchen. “Thank you,” he said, reaching for the coffee and the empty mug on the counter. She wasn’t sure if he meant for the mug she had pulled down earlier or for holding him.

“You’re welcome.”

They were silent as he fixed his coffee, it taking him longer than usual to properly grip the milk. It wobbled and her hand darted out, wrapping around his and steadying the vessel. He was so warm; sometimes it startled her, the visceral memory of his frigid skin the first time he’d landed in her lap and the contrast of his hot skin, the result of life flowing through him.

His jaw worked as he stared at their hands. “You’re a bit confusing.” He sounded almost breathless. Her fingers usurped his on the handle, pushing him away, and she poured the milk for him.

“And you’re so simple, my brooding ex-Death Eater?”

He huffed a little laugh as he flexed his hand.

“That happen often?” she asked.

“No, it’s rare. Might be the ‘very little sleep’ situation.”

“Something we could fix, I reckon. You could, I don’t know, go to bed?”

“Figured I ought to attempt normal hours,” he replied with a shrug.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “And what’s on the agenda for this afternoon?”

“Wards,” he replied, and after a glance at her nearly empty mug, flicked his wand at the kettle to boil water. Hermione straightened in her seat.

“The Black wards?”

“Noble and most ancient,” he said with an eye roll.

Hermione let out a little squeal of delight, all other concerns zipping away and stashed in her library. She had the opportunity to learn about ancestral blood wards!

“Teach me?” she asked, breathless.

Reg regarded her with quizzical amusement. “If you’d like, of course. But it really isn’t that exciting.”

“Not that exciting?” Hermione gaped at him. “Ancestral warding is blood magic, runic, and ancient! It’s incredible! And hardly ever written down!” she exclaimed, bouncing in her seat despite herself.

Not that exciting??? Maybe not to a pureblood, but to a muggleborn? The reason such magic wasn’t written down and disseminated in the first place was due to misplaced fear and prejudice. To someone like her it was a rare, precious opportunity; Hermione intended to seize it.

Reg’s lips quirked upward at her enthusiasm. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right.”

“Do runes give you the same trouble as letters?”

Reg’s mouth tightened, shaking his head. “Can’t read a runic text any better than an English one, but for using them in magic they’re essentially pictures. It’s not… it’s not images that are the problem... Er, usually. It’s the sound? I know it doesn’t make any sense,” he sighed, his gaze fixed on the mug in his hands.

“It does, actually. I’ll research it when I go home,” she said, tucking a curl behind her ear. Actually, she could just write Mum. Jas Granger knew everything.

“Forget the tea, wards first!” she declared, hopping off her stool and tugging him by the arm; with an incredulous chuckle, Reg directed her to the stairs to the roof. He had the presence of mind to stop the kettle as he staggered behind her.

The roof of Grimmauld Place felt twice as large as it actually was, and Sirius had been in the process of making most of it a training area for the Order. As a result, it was an odd combination (to put it politely): about half of it looked like a gym and the other half a rooftop terrace. Reg shook his head in dismay.

“Really, pick one or the other,” he muttered and Hermione made a noise of agreement. Sirius had a great deal of personal style, but he’d never shown much concern for the space around him.

“Wards can be as restrictive or open as you decide to make them,” Reg explained as he led her to the center of the open area. “Under Fidelius, of course, there is secrecy surrounding who is able to physically speak of or perceive the location of this place. But once they find it—”

“The wards determine who can get in and who can’t,” Hermione finished.

Reg nodded. “Precisely. The first thing I’m going to do is cast a ward detection spell, which will let me understand how Sirius chose to ward the house. I’m given to understand it’s fairly loose at present, meaning many people can enter if they were to be brought to the house.”

“Will you keep it loose, or close it down?”

“I’m planning to tie it to the leaders of the Order for the front door, while the floo, like in most ancestral homes, remains relatively open to those previously given a floo connection. I checked that yesterday, and it’s so far only merged with the Tonks, Shacklebolts, Severus, Mad-Eye, Dumbledore, and the Weasleys. I think removing access would indicate something was amiss. But I will also make the warding such that anyone not included specifically in the wards will be held at the floo access.”

“Are Harry and I… I suppose we haven’t really left while we’ve been here, and we arrived by floo, but could we hypothetically enter?”

“Planning to hang around, are you?” he asked neutrally.

Hermione paused.

“If you’ll have me and my muddy blood,” she said carefully. It was the one thing they hadn’t covered in his list of Death Eater crimes. But he’d never treated her in a way that made her feel inferior due to her blood status, and he’d claimed not to care. And yet — a Death Eater. A lying Death Eater, at that.

His head snapped up, eyes flashing like they had last night, honest and raw and real. There he was.

“I’m many things, Hermione,” he said slowly, almost as if he were testing her given name out in his mouth; it might have been the only time he’d said it on purpose. “And you’re within your rights to hate me for them. But I don’t think less of you for your parents. I swear it.”

“So I’m really meant to believe you wanted to be a Death Eater without hating people like me?” She covered the way her heart leapt by crossing her arms.

“You know, it’s probably worse that I didn’t,” he sighed, turning away from her. “The others believed they were doing the right thing; I didn't really care until I realized just how awful it was.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, something inside her sinking in disappointment, something that burned. “It really might be.”

Did it make it worse? If Dolohov were sincere, was it somehow cosmically less awful that he’d cursed her than that he’d done it believing it to be the right thing? If it had been Reg, would it have been worse? That it was almost arbitrary?

Hermione held herself, fingers digging into her arms to not flinch outright. Reg wouldn’t curse her, Hermione Granger — but he’d been in battle-like situations, on raids, and he’d have, if cast at, cursed in return. It could’ve been her. Did it make it okay that it wasn’t?

Did it make it alright that he was sorry enough to give the ultimate sacrifice?

His jaw ticked. He didn’t refute her, accepting judgment. “The truth remains, I’m not worried about your blood. In fact,” he paused, pulling out a handful of vials. “If you’re willing to part with some of it, we can give a huge two-fingered salute to the last few centuries of my ancestors.”

She frowned. “And how’s that?”

“You, most famous muggleborn Hermione Granger, will learn and have access to the oldest pureblood wards in Britain.”

A slow grin spread across Hermione’s face. “Well, in that case, you’re welcome to it.” The caustic, unsettled thing inside her eased up.

Reg gave her a faint nod of acknowledgement before casting, murmuring the spell Revelium custodiae. A domed shape in the air above them began to shimmer as all the hair on her arms stood straight.

“Will you teach me that later?” she breathed, eyes trained on the glimmering wards. Pressure began to build in her ears. Hermione tugged on an earlobe.

“Sure. These are more open than I‘d prefer, but reasonably protective,” he informed her. “Which makes sense as an Order meeting place, but given that I’m now an Order secret, we’ll close it in.”

Hermione's eyes widened as he used his wand to cut a large gash along his forearm, scarlet erupting as the invisible diffindo sliced right through his faded Dark Mark. Copper assaulted her nose. He guided his blood to form a tight circle around the two of them, the crimson droplets dancing in a merry parade as they followed Reg’s direction. The mounting pressure in her ears peaked, popping. Coupled with the metallic stench, Hermione swayed.

“That’s a lot of blood you’re losing,” Hermione commented, watching it flow freely from his arm before he sent it marching to thicken the circle.

“Blood-replenishing potion is in my pocket,” he replied, focused on the casting. Once the circle was complete, he pocketed his wand and cast another quiet diffindo and sliced open the skin on his right palm. Dipping the fingers of his left hand into the blood pooling from his other hand, he began to trace runes on the ground.

“Uruz,” he said.

“Strength. Often used to fortify magic,” Hermione recited and he nodded, moving to add another to a point on the circle. The air grew heavier.

“Inverted kaunon,” she breathed, watching him. “Confusion… and illusion?”

“Yes. The goal is for the spells to not only be strong but to confuse and distract those who would break them. It enhances the Fidelius as well.”

“Algiz, for protection,” he said as he began the third one. That made sense. Next he drew sowilo for victory and power, followed by ingwaz and othala together, reinforcing the magic around ‘home.’ As he stood, all the runes drawn in his blood connected by his blood circle glowed, more purple than red before settling into a deep mauve. Hermione watched in awe.

“Stellas porto. Dwy’n cario’r sêr o fy bobl,” he murmured in a low chant. “Ophe mīn lōth-folks, anéi ávoth canthu.”

The foreign words sent chills up Hermione’s spine. Magic in languages besides Latin was rare to learn in British textbooks, most of it so ancient it was lost. But (if she wasn’t mistaken) he’d just flowed between four.

“Voco stellas qui custodiunt lintlæ bihofþe th'hearth. Prête moi anath comme j’en ai besoin.”

The blood circle pulsed and Hermione gasped as she felt the magic ripple above and around her, seeping into the building. She felt its vibrations in her feet, shooting up her legs as she engaged her stabilizing muscles to stay upright. Regulus kept chanting the spell while his blood trickled down his hand, onto his wand, then dripped down into the circle. The metallic scent warred with something fresh and crisp, the sort of smell that threw Hermione back to climbing trees — sunlight filtering through the leaves to warm her cheeks, the fresh, loamy soil promising not too hard of a fall should she slip. It smelled like Reg.

Hermione wasn’t sure how long it had been when Regulus switched to another spell.

“Adib integumentum,” he chanted, squeezing his cut hand to bring forth more blood. He grew pale, but his focus was absolute. A faint humming began to emanate from the sparkling dome around them. After another few minutes he switched to ‘Et pour ceux que je désigne kith par la sang’ while he took the handful of vials from his pocket with his other hand. One by one he tipped the small vials of what Hermione could now see was blood into the circle. Each one smoked blue where it would have made contact with the ground, dissipating into the wards. Finally, he turned to her.

She extended her hand to him and cast her own diffindo.

Reg took her hand, and his touch sent a jolt of energy sparking through her. Her nerves were set alight and poised — for what she wasn’t sure. He tugged her gently closer to him and turned her hand over in his, so that her cut faced downward, and slowly, her blood — her ‘muddy’ blood — mixed with his pure blood and dripped into the circle, dissipating into blue smoke like the others. Up close she could see his blood reflecting the shimmering light above them, her own joining his as it continued to plop plop plop onto the circle.

His magic, the fresh forest, hummed in time with the power that had been pulsing around her, its depths hinting at the vastness of the cosmos. Together, as one, they practically purred and shifted as it welcomed her into the wards, darting through her hair like the wind and nuzzling her cheek. She laughed, tilting her head towards the sky as it zipped around her. Regulus glanced at her with a gentle smile, giving her hand a squeeze even as he continued chanting. His voice was deep and musical. When he finished, she hadn’t wanted him to stop.

His wand arm fell to hang at his side and he took a deep breath, closing his eyes while the wards settled around them.

“Thank you,” she whispered, afraid that speaking too loudly would shatter the fragile beauty of what they had witnessed.

“You’re welcome,” he breathed. His eyes flitted over her face, drinking her in.

She suspected she was glowing in the wake of experiencing this, having access to this. He likely couldn’t understand, because he had never been barred from knowledge like this, had never been the reason the old families locked away their secrets.

But the magic had accepted her.

He turned towards her, her hand still in his.

“Feeling woozy?” she guessed. “Accio blood-replenishing potion.”

It popped from his pocket into her clean hand, and she uncorked it, handing it to Reg. He drank it and soon color returned to his cheeks.

But the look in his eyes didn’t change when they returned to her face.

Was it magic or something else, rooting her to the spot?

—

That night, Reg awoke to a crack of apparition downstairs. He bolted upright, wordlessly summoning his wand, and crept towards the door, silencing his feet. He poked his head out into the hallway, wand aloft. Hermione, also clad in pajamas, peered out her own door. He adjusted the sconces to a dim lighting, just enough to make out one another.

Their eyes met. With a shared nod, both slipped into the hallway towards the stairs. Reg was grateful his room’s location meant he was in front of her, given how critical she was to the war effort. As they slunk down the stairs, Reg caught sight of the intruder first.

Severus Snape stood in the center of the room, blood spatters on his pale face, staring at nothing. Reg paused. Nothing else appeared out of place. He looked up at Granger, her face tight in concentration, likely doing the same check he had just done. She glanced down at him, and he tilted his head towards her room, hoping she took the cue to go.

Predictably, she did not. Her face set and she gave her head one harsh shake, bouncing her two braids. Reg sighed and motioned for her to wait.

He stepped off the stairs, and Sev finally looked up. His black eyes were flat.

“Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. “Isn’t mine.”

Reg cast a diagnostic charm anyways. It corroborated Sev’s statement.

“What happened?” he asked in a low voice. His friend remained quiet.

Reg turned. Hermione was there, watching, but when their eyes met this time, she gave him a slow nod of understanding — trust, really — and turned to head back up the stairs.

Reg faced Severus once more, ignoring the little flip of his stomach at her concession. “She’s gone. What is it?”

Severus remained, staring ahead of him. Sev could appear unflappable to many, a skill he’d developed after being bullied ruthlessly all through school, but Reg had known him since childhood. Even the intervening years couldn’t hide it. While others paced, drummed fingers against legs, toyed with hair, or shook a foot in the face of anxiety, Sev became preternaturally still.

But only when he needed the control.

“What do you need?” he tried instead. When he didn’t answer, Reg strode forward and gripped his elbow, steering him from the parlor into the kitchen, where he eased him down onto a stool. Reg summoned the firewhiskey, poured a glass, and slid it in front of Severus before grabbing a towel and wetting it.

Sev took the proffered rag and cleaned the blood from his face. There was something about physically removing blood that felt cleaner than using a tergeo.

“We’re friends, Sev. You can tell me,” he said, gently as he could.

Severus scoffed. “I’m twice your age now.”

Reg’ scoffed right back. “And?”

“Most friendships aren’t between generations. You’d do better bonding with your peers.” Even his biting, bad deflecting was weak.

Reg rolled his eyes. The thought had crossed his mind that Severus wouldn’t have much use for a friend of eighteen, but now that it was clear the worry went the other way, it seemed absurd. “Sev, I don’t want other people. I want the friend who bothered to tutor me when others said it was pointless. I want the bloke who yelled at me for twenty minutes straight when I snuck out of the infirmary to play quidditch. You’re stuck with me. You’ve got seventeen years to catch me up on, and I admit it’s unusual, but who cares? It’s still me.”

Severus was quiet, weighing what he’d said.

“It’s my godson’s. The blood,” he finally said.

Reg let out a long breath.

Who the bloody fuck could that be? Sev wasn’t that close with anyone else before, but—

Oh, right, you died. He probably had to make another friend or two.

Severus cast a muffliato. “He was Marked tonight. As punishment for Lucius’ muck up at the Department of Mysteries. At first the Dark Lord was furious with those who’d been there but weren’t arrested, but his ire has turned towards the Malfoys. Draco…” He cut off, his voice choked with emotion he rarely let out.

Reg’s arm twitched at the memory of his own branding.

“You have another cousin. Narcissa’s son. He’s Potter’s age,” Severus said instead, shaking himself.

“And another child sold to the Dark Lord,” Reg murmured, anger beginning to snake around his shoulders, pulling him taut, shoulders, spine, and soul. “He’s even younger than I was.”

Sev nodded and knocked back the firewhiskey. Reg poured him another.

“That’s not all, is it?” Reg asked.

Sev shook his head. “He’s been tasked with killing Dumbledore.”

Reg’s mouth fell open, and a strangled laugh wrenched its way out of his chest. “That makes no sense, how could a sixteen-year-old even hope—”

“He can’t hope, that’s the point.” Sev sneered in disgust. “It’s an excuse to kill the Malfoy line or on the off-chance a miracle happens, he’s eliminated Dumbledore. Either Draco attempts it and is killed or doesn’t and is killed, along with his mother and father.”

Reg frowned. “The Malfoys have the largest vault and have always been dutiful, why would he go to this extreme? Surely the others know it’s a punishment as well, wouldn’t that disturb the ranks?”

Reg blinked. “Also, Abraxas is dead?”

“Dragon pox.” Severus waved a hand. “Took out a lot of people, including your mother.”

He didn’t particularly want to think longer on that and refocused his attention. “Still, Lucius was always loyal — this seems extreme, like it could cause dissent.”

The Dark Lord was evil, but he was practical. Or he had been.

Sev sighed. “He is certainly not mad, but neither is he the wizard he once was. Not only in appearance but in temperament. More fear, less wooing.”

Reg tapped his finger against the counter as he mulled that over. Granger thought there was a limit; perhaps dividing his soul so many times had left him less and less himself to the point he made irrational choices. That could work for or against them in the long run. But Sev didn’t need to hear that right now. “Suppose most of us are already Marked, no need to court us into following.” Sev grunted in agreement.

“But Dumbledore… you’ve told him, right?”

“First stop,” he agreed, sipping his glass. “Says Draco has to make a move for help, but he won’t. He’s been fed all of this shit by his father for years and he’s a child — this war wasn’t real for most of them until last year. It’s not like when we were kids and it was looming, always there. Up until now he’s mostly been focused on making his parents proud and now he’s fucking doomed and I can’t help him!”

He threw the glass at the wall and it shattered, golden liquid and crystal shards shimmering over the kitchen counter.

“He doesn’t even know what this means, not really,” Sev whispered and cleared his throat. “He’s trying to see it as an honor, trying to rationalize it. Telling himself that Lucius would have been happy even as his arm feels like it’s burning him to ash. I carried him to his room and he just stared at the ceiling, trying to convince himself it was a good thing. And I had to pretend like I agreed, like I didn’t want to murder everyone in that room who watched or held him down, like I didn’t want to turn my wand on myself for letting it happen.”

For the second time in their eight-year friendship, he saw a tear slide down Sev’s cheek.

“And Dumbledore shrugs it off, all ‘it’s his fate,’” he spat. “Like he isn’t a person. I know he’s Lucius’ kid and he’s not easy, but he’s one of his Merlin-be-damned students — he should care! Hell, I care about Potter and I can’t stand the brat! Yet I’m the one who insists on bringing Granger further into the Order so she can keep him alive? Even when it’s the most obvious and logical option? It doesn’t make sense!”

Sev buried his face in his hands and sucked in a breath. Reg listened in quiet agreement. It hadn’t taken long to realize he should have slammed Dumbledore into a wall on behalf of Sirius, not that he was stupid enough to do so. Lupin had no power, but Dumbledore? Dumbledore could have saved him. And quickly done away with Reg had he done any slamming of any sort.

With a wave of his hand, he vanished the broken glass, summoned two more tumblers, and poured the whiskey.

“We’ll help him. However we can, we’ll help him,” Reg promised quietly. Draco and any other child stuck in this war, regardless of the side they served. Ambition perked its head up from where it lay curled up like a cat, always watching, always waiting.

Reg didn’t forgive himself much, certainly not the fervor with which he’d hoped for the Mark, but even he knew he’d been too young. Just like Draco Malfoy was now. They were meant to have time. He didn’t feel magically more responsible the day he turned seventeen or anything, but by now he certainly felt far removed from the child who’d been told to roll back his sleeve and say yes. Children were being forced into the ranks. And it was happening on both sides, as Granger and Potter could attest.

Maybe he could do more than survive after all. Perhaps he could make something right.

Sev raised his head, soul-deep weariness in his dark eyes. He grabbed the newly filled glass and clinked it with Reg’s.

“Cheers,” he murmured, and they both drained their glasses. Reg poured another round.

“To Draco Malfoy,” Reg said, lifting his glass and letting some of his newfound resolve seep into his words. Sev’s lips flattened into a hard line. He gave Regulus a single nod in acknowledgement of the steel promise.

“To Draco,” he managed, voice thick, and their glasses came together again.

Reg kept pouring the whiskey.

Chapter Text

“People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept.”

Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

With a groan and bleary eyes, Hermione trudged down the stairs, looking forward to her quiet, solitary morning tea—

And gawked at the sight before her in the kitchen.

“Morgana’s left fucking tit!”

Snape. Snape was swearing. His long, dark hair was pulled into a messy ponytail and he was wearing joggers with a long-sleeved t-shirt, rummaging through cabinets.

“How do you not have proper fucking potion stores?”

“Quit your whinging and move.”

Reg, similarly dressed down in the same flannel pajama bottoms and black t-shirt he wore the night before, shoved Snape aside.

“Sirius probably used them all up,” he sighed, a note of melancholy in his voice.

Her professor didn’t seem to hear it as he barked, “Of course he did.”

“Do you not drink anymore? I didn’t give you that much.”

“You gave me half the fucking bottle, Reg.”

“Exactly, that used to be nothing.”

“Yes, well, you got to die. I had to get old and I hate to inform you, but around twenty-nine the hangovers really start to detract from the experience!”

Reg chuckled as Hermione stared, unnoticed. Kreacher popped in, received instruction, and popped out while Reg shoved a glass of water at Snape.

“You’ll have to hydrate the old-fashioned way for now.”

Snape gave Reg the two-fingered salute and Hermione nearly collapsed from shock.

“You were sad, we drank,” Reg defended through a smile.

Snape sneered. “Sad? Sad?”

“Fine, fine, legitimately horrific night.” He waved it off. “Same remedy.”

“Why are we friends?” Snape groaned, rubbing his eyes.

Reg chuckled. “Because you’re an ace at healing charms,” he replied with a shit-eating grin Hermione had never seen. It lit up his entire face. His eyes crinkled and Godric, that was a dimple. The resemblance to Sirius was breathtaking. A warm feeling spread through her chest and her lips quirked up.

“Really only yourself to blame,” he added. “Could’ve let me mosey on back to my grave.”

Snape heaved a great sigh just as Kreacher returned, bearing a bright cobalt potion. Snape knocked it back immediately.

“Merlin,” he breathed in relief.

Regulus gave an aristocratic snort. “You’re acting like you were crucio’d.”

“Yes, well, I’m fairly confident you were a right pain in the arse after that night we snuck in the Russian veela vodka — and you didn’t have the excuse of aging another twenty years in the meantime.”

Reg laughed. “I drank the entire bottle, thanks; it was a bloody achievement. I could lament its effects all I wanted.”

“You vomited spectacularly,” Snape commented drily.

Reg shrugged. “Yes, but cleanly into a toilet.”

“Ugh, remember Avery when he drank?”

Reg’s nose wrinkled. “Yes.”

Snape sighed, tipping his head back. Godric, he was… unshaved. Utter insanity. “Avery isn’t any better, by the way. Growing worse with age, in fact.”

“And he was such a delight to begin with.”

Snape peered at the counter, which Hermione could just make out — it looked like their breakfast spread under stasis.

Snape curled his lip.

“Fuck no,” he grumbled.

“Not eager for the smoked salmon?” Regulus laughed.

“Bacon. And carbs. So many carbs,” Snape sighed, almost a little dreamily. Holy. Cricket. “Are you still too fancy and rich to cook?”

“Entirely.” Reg answered as Snape moved towards the range.

“Prat.”

“Get away from Kreacher’s stove! Kreacher remembers when boys were young and cooking!” the old elf nearly screeched, shooing them away.

Snape’s eyes bugged out. “It’s— you— sleep now?” he stammered.

“OUT!”

His jaw dropped, shocked and affronted. Hermione’d never seen Snape look so utterly undignified.

Reg lost it when he saw his expression.

Her breath caught; she’d never heard him laugh like that, free and unrestrained. It was infectious.

“When did we…” Snape trailed off as Reg tugged him further into the proper dining room by the elbow.

Hermione tiptoed closer to the door frame.

“We were high off that brilliant potion you concocted, just after Hogwarts. At your old place, Kreacher came to check on us.”

Snape’s eyes widened and Hermione barely contained a wheeze while imagining her professor doing drugs.

“I cannot believe we did that during a war. That was preposterously stupid.”

Reg sighed dramatically. “You’re old and no fun now.”

“At least I lived.” He arched a brow.

Reg rolled his eyes. “You’re the one who doesn’t remember anything,” he countered. “Besides, we warded ourselves in so we couldn’t do anything disastrous.”

“Even drunk off your arse, you always have eighteen contingency plans,” Snape muttered, gratefully taking the coffee Kreacher levitated towards the wizards.

Hermione decided it was time to reveal herself. She was going to enjoy every minute of this.

“Gooooood morning,” she greeted cheerfully. Both of their heads snapped up, wands drawn.

“How long have you been there?” Reg asked, lowering his wand while a smirk graced his features. Snape turned ashen.

Hermione beamed. “Since before there was hangover potion.”

Snape’s eyes closed as he took a measured breath.

Reg’s shoulders shook with mirth. “Granger, you are without doubt my favorite Gryffindor.”

Hermione grinned. He was nearly intoxicating like this, with a smile just as wild as his hair. It wasn’t unkempt like Harry’s — sticking out in a mess — but more like hers, where waves and curls were a part of him, alive and full. He was alive, and brimming with it. His silver eyes sparkled, no longer narrowed in suspicion, but open, his posture relaxed. He exuded warmth like this.

Okay, Hufflepuff, she wanted to tease.

Snape’s eyes snapped open at Reg’s comment. “If you tell a soul about this Gryffindor will lose four hundred House points.”

“It might be worth it, Professor.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’ll partner you with Goyle or Finnegan for the entire year.”

Hermione’s eyes blew wide.

“You wouldn’t,” she said meekly.

“Wouldn’t I?” he challenged, his trademark drawl in full force.

Hermione sighed in defeat, sinking into her usual seat. Reg moved from his spot standing near the window to sit at her side.

“So, veela vodka?” she asked with a sly smile and a glance at the wizard to her right.

He smirked.

“Impressive stuff.”

“Ms. Granger, trust me when I say—”

“Are you really going to tell me not to drink after that display?” she interrupted incredulously.

“No,” Snape bit out, irked at having been cut off. “I was saying that your Head of House is not the…” he trailed off, searching for the right word.

“Lazy?” Reg supplied.

Snape glared.

“Unobservant?” he tried next.

This time the professor harrumphed.

“Drunk?”

“Fucking Salazar,” Snape muttered, apparently leaving off all pretense now that she’d heard him.

“In his dreams.”

Snape choked.

“Navel gazer?”

Hermione lost her battle with laughter at Snape’s utter exasperation as he slammed his mug to the table before deflating.

“All of the above. Distinctly unlike your Head of House. You will certainly be caught if you try smuggling in any vintage veela vodka.”

Hermione straightened, both affronted he doubted her ability and a bit glad he was implicitly complimenting McGonagall. After that toad Umbridge, Hermione tolerated no disrespect towards one of her private heroes.

“Don’t challenge her, didn’t you say she snuck into a heavily guarded chamber as a first year?” Reg pointed out.

Hermione beamed while Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. “Minerva even caught the Weasley twins with their booze,” he warned her, taking a sip of his coffee.

Hermione blinked. “I didn’t realize she was so stringent about sobriety.”

Snape coughed delicately.

Reg grinned. “Ten galleons she confiscates it to drink it herself.”

Hermione bit her lip. “You’re on.”

“Pay up, Granger,” Snape commanded. Hermione gaped.

“No need to actually pay me, the joy of being right is its own reward,” Reg said good-naturedly, and she elbowed him in the ribs.

They ate breakfast, Hermione requesting stories of the shenanigans they had gotten up to as children. She was denied, but the light remained in Reg’s eyes and it compelled her. He’d been relaxing around her slowly before their row, but it wasn’t until now, in the presence of a friend (despite said friend clearly being a case of questionable judgment) that she felt like she was seeing him properly himself. His smile unlocked a part of him she didn’t know existed, though she’d wondered.

Snape stood, ready to escape. His clothes made Hermione snicker again. She’d never seen him in anything but all-black robes, and now he was in sweatpants. He nearly looked muggle.

“Goyle or Finnegan,” he hissed before disapparating with a crack, leaving Reg and Hermione alone.

“So whatever happened last night… it was bad?” she asked, hating that it had to be addressed. Reg paused, coffee mug halfway to his mouth. Sighing, he placed it back on the table.

“It certainly wasn’t good.”

“I really can’t stand him, but it was eerie seeing him in such a state. I’m glad you were there,” she admitted. Blood-stained teachers were not something she wanted to see very often. Another terrible sight added to her list.

Reg frowned. The joy had faded, but Hermione couldn’t help but be grateful for a less-vicious honesty than the night of their vow remained. “How is it you’re kind enough to tolerate me, help me with the curse damage even after knowing everything I’ve done, and yet you hate him?”

Hermione’s lip curled even thinking about Snape. “Well, he’s made it abundantly clear he hates me ever since first year. He ridicules me for answering questions and raising my hand in class. He flat out bullied me when Malfoy hit me with a hex instead of Harry.” She took another deep breath, picking up momentum. “He’s awful to Harry and I know he has some sort of history with Harry’s dad after their little Occlumency debacle but that isn’t Harry’s fault! He’s had a crummy childhood and for Snape to punish him for things that aren’t his fault is pathetic and childish. If he weren’t actually skilled at teaching I’d entirely hate him, but he’s an effective lecturer,” she finished with a huff, crossing her arms.

Reg toyed with the mug in his hands, running his thumb over the rim and tapping a finger on his other hand against the side.

“If it helps — and I don’t mean to excuse his behavior — but the way he treats you isn’t about you.”

Hermione’s brows drew in. “What does that mean?”

“You remind him of someone. I’m not defending him, just… it helps, sometimes, to know that it isn't your fault something’s happening to you. I thought you should know it isn’t anything you’ve done. Sorry,” he muttered at the end, still playing with his mug.

“No, I…” her arms fell to her sides as she mulled that over. “I suppose that is helpful to know. It wasn’t fun to feel that even some of my professors thought I was annoying at eleven.”

He glanced up at her with a tentative, barely there smile. The tension had returned.

“Well, that’s my side of things. How do you tolerate him?”

Reg blinked once, twice. “You want to know why we’re friends?”

“Sure. There must be some reason you’re relaxed with him and not the rest of us. He probably has a redeeming quality or two,” she offered with all the charity she could muster. It wasn’t much.

He turned to face her properly, eyes searching her face.

“You’re something else,” he breathed, shaking his head as he returned to his mug-fiddling.

“How’s that?”

“You’ve already formed your opinion, but you still want to hear someone else’s. It’s unusual. To want other sides of a story.”

Hermione cocked her head. “It’s not that unusual.”

A wry grin twisted his lips. Merlin, she needed to stop staring at his mouth.

“It’s not unusual to pretend so. For a well-researched opinion, of course you have to check your sources. But to actually open yourself to what someone else’s perspective or information could mean? Rare.”

Warmth spread through her chest. “Well, I’m trying. I can’t promise anything,” she demurred.

Silver stole her gaze again. “I’ve always hoped trying counted for something.”

There was weight to that statement, a weight Hermione wasn’t sure how to hold; but she tried for a few moments as their eyes held. Then she let it slip through her fingers and hoped he’d give it to her again one day, and maybe she’d be able to make out its shape more easily.

“Maybe call him Severus like you do. Help me separate Professor Snape from your friend,” she joked, giving him a gentle nudge with her elbow.

His lips twitched up like he might smile.

“Severus… is ornery,” Reg admitted and Hermione really deserved an award for holding back a snort, “but he’s fiercely loyal. He was one of the first people to see that I wasn’t totally stupid despite struggling with everything. I was in first year and he owed me a favor after… and anyway, he kept helping. Even after the favor was repaid. He’s about the only person to approach me for a reason besides worming their way in with the House of Black.”

Hermione was quiet, thinking that sounded a little sad when he added, “Besides you.”

“Is that why you’re always surprised I’m helping? It’s still absurd to me you asked why I was helping you while you were bleeding over the carpet.”

He shrugged. “No, I figured anyone with Lupin would know I was a Death Eater and not bother. But I guess there’s been peace for a while now. I just haven’t known it.”

“Lucky you, back just in time for round two,” Hermione chirped with dripping sarcasm and Reg made a face at her. She sobered. “If you two are so close, why didn’t you go to him about the Horcrux?”

Reg turned away and ran a hand through his hair.

“It was unlikely this mission ended with both Kreacher and me alive as it was. I didn’t want him to die with me.”

“But wouldn’t it have saved your life? To have someone else?”

His hand floated over the forearm with the Mark, though it faced away from her.

“Maybe, but with what Kreacher described, I wasn’t sure how likely it would have been, and I didn’t want to risk him. The more people I told, the more likely the secret would get out. And even if him knowing would have saved me, Severus didn’t hold any sway with the Order then. There was no one to protect me if what we were doing became common knowledge, or him. And you already know it would have been worse to survive and be caught.”

She straightened up. “Wait, so you… committed suicide via heroism?”