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Chapter Text

The phone was already ringing inside when Regulus forced his key into the lock.

It was one of the few Muggle relics he'd kept from his time with Sirius. For a year after the war, he'd lived under his brother's roof - learning, by slow degrees, what it meant to be alive again.

Each day had brought its own small restorations: steady doses of dittany until the finger-shaped welts on his abdomen faded into thin, silvery scars, and regular infusions of gallows humour courtesy of Sirius, whose laughter sometimes rang just a little too sharp.

Sirius could have done with a dose of something himself - but there was no dittany for night terrors, and they both suffered from those.

In sleep, Regulus was torn open anew - cool, clammy corpse-claws rending his flesh like wet tissue paper - and always, he awoke with his breath caught in his throat, suspended somewhere between a gasp and a prayer.

Of course, two years on, Regulus was making slow, piecemeal progress. Some nights, he even managed dreamless sleep, coaxed by a draught. It helped that the black blemish on his forearm had faded too - no longer the vivid oil spill it had once been, but a dull gunmetal grey.

Regulus still wore long sleeves.

There was no hurry to reach the ringing phone.

It would be Sirius, as always, leaving a message in that falsely buoyant voice of his - as though nothing had ever gone wrong in either of their lives. Sirius had taken to Muggle contraptions with unholy delight, but some habits died hard; Regulus still turned up his nose at anything that wouldn't bend to wand or magical will.

He tumbled into the hall just as the machine gave its final, solitary beep. There was a faint rustle on the line before it cut out, and Regulus thought little of it, shrugging off his cloak and hanging it by the door.

He was still lamenting October, a most troublesome month - shops gone frantic in the lead-up to Halloween, and those sidelong, suspicious glances that followed him wherever he went, no matter how many times The Prophet recounted his so-called redemption arc.

Trips to Diagon Alley were no joy: polite shopkeepers with stiff smiles and small talk that flinched from warmth. Knockturn was worse - those vendors didn't even bother with civility, shuttering for "lunch" the moment he crossed the threshold - even if it was barely past eight in the morning.

Whatever.

Regulus could stomach the brittle courtesies of Diagon Alley; they were too well-mannered to tell him to piss off, though their eyes said plenty on their own.

It hardly mattered. He'd picked up nettle essence, restocked his potions kit, and now had no reason to set foot outside again until Saturday - when Sirius would, inevitably, insist he come out and indulge in a social life.

Can't lock yourself away forever, can you, Reggie?

Regulus was already composing a suitably cutting retort as he drifted down the hall toward the kitchen when the phone trilled again, catching him mid-stride. The sound cleaved through the silence, and his pulse lurched in his ears.

He reached for the receiver with a huff. "You're such an impatient -"

"Hello?"

The voice that answered was low and distorted - a drag of gravel wrapped in static, as though it had forced its way through the line just to reach him.

It certainly wasn't Sirius.

"Yes?" Regulus frowned, shifting the paper-wrapped parcel beneath one arm and tucking the receiver against his ear. He leaned halfway into the kitchen to drop the package onto the counter; the coiled cord stretched to its limit, taut as a nerve.

"Who is this?"

Regulus hesitated. "Who are you trying to reach?"

A low hum bled through the line. "I don't know…"

"Well," Regulus scoffed, "you've probably got the wrong number then, haven't you?"

A pause - then, softly: "Have I?"

Muggles - fucking idiots.

Regulus slammed the receiver down and stepped into the kitchen, drawing his wand to slice through the brown string and free his ingredients. Yet even as the twine fell away, the faint hiss of the dial tone seemed to linger - patient, persistent, and somehow, still present.

The next ring felt inevitable.

It took a pronounced effort for Regulus to steady his breath and rein in his nerves before leaning back around the wall to lift the receiver, tucking it beneath his ear without a word.

Someone was breathing on the line.

"Ten seconds," Regulus warned, stripping sprigs of lavender from their stems. "Then I'll tear the bloody phone from the wall."

"But I only wanted to apologise," the stranger rasped, sounding half affronted by Regulus's lack of warmth. "I'm just... so very sorry I got the wrong number."

"All right then," Regulus rolled his eyes. "You're forgiven. Goodbye."

"Wait!"

The word wasn't panicked - it was furious.

For some reason, the sound lodged in Regulus's throat, his pulse thudding high and tight.

He swallowed hard. "What?"

A faint rustle followed - a sound like paper tearing along a blade. "I... I only wanna talk to you…"

There was no reason to entertain some strange Muggle. Only Sirius and his inner circle even had this number - but every Muggle had a phone, apparently. It had been a mistake to join them in that particular custom; there was no sense in indulging something that still faintly revolted him.

Mother had always said Muggles were like insects. All his years away from Grimmauld Place hadn't quite purged that reflex - that faint, crawling prickle beneath his skin whenever one drew too near.

Of course, Sirius had made a very valiant effort to teach Regulus better manners. So, it took a measure of restraint for him to draw a steady breath and attempt:

"No…" he grimaced around the rising pleasantry. "Thanks."

"That's very rude," the voice sighed. "Do you have something better to be doing?"

There was something in that tone - something familiar, almost playful - that stirred a memory he could sense but not seize, sand slipping through his fingers.

"I don't know you," Regulus muttered, rising onto his toes to reach the pestle and mortar. The cool stone was just out of reach; his fingers grazed it - then, with a small bounce on the balls of his feet, he caught hold. "What could I possibly have to say to you?"

"Oh, I see," the stranger murmured, a low hum threading through the words. "Your parents taught you that stranger-danger thing, did they?"

"Uh-huh…"

"That was very good of them," the voice murmured, dipping into something that might have been approval. "What other tricks did they teach you?"

"All the essentials," Regulus said, voice flat with disinterest as he began to twist his wrist, grinding the roots into a fine powder.

"Fetch?" The stranger's voice snapped back, bright with laughter. "Roll over?"

"Sure."

A soft crackle swelled on the line.

The stranger lingered, breathing faintly through the static before speaking again - quieter now, almost conversational. "You know what clever trick my parents taught me?"

"What's that?" Regulus sighed, tapping the excess from the edge of his bowl.

It laughed - a dry, papery sound, like sun-bleached brush catching fire.

"Play dead."

Chapter Text

Someone was pounding at the front door.

Regulus had only just coaxed his heart back into an even rhythm; something in that phone call had unsettled him - though he'd never have confessed it. Muggles were the least frightening creatures he could imagine, but that didn't mean he wanted one too close.

And now, with that incessant pounding - furious fist against wood, the handle rattling in its socket - his heart had surged back into his throat, beating hot and frantic in his ears. Wand drawn, candles snuffed, he stood in the kitchen doorway, lit only by the low simmering flame beneath his cauldron.

Only a Muggle would try the handle, wouldn't they?

Easily stunned - in self-defence, naturally - though the Ministry wouldn't see it that way. Regulus was fresh from trial and already skating on terribly thin ice. If he started stunning Muggles now… what might they accuse him of next?

He cast a glance over his shoulder. The kitchen sat in shadow, a dim tableau of pewter and glass. His eyes caught on the heavy pestle he'd used to grind roots - a crude weapon, clumsy compared to a wand, but a weapon all the same.

Regulus stepped into the hall with the weary restraint of a man trained to expect the worst. His grip tightened around the pestle like a dagger, poised to strike - until a filament of light bled beneath the door, and the lock sighed open under the touch of some quiet, learned magic.

Without thinking - and with all the graceless tact of a Seeker, far better at catching than he'd ever been at throwing - Regulus hurled the pestle like an unwieldy dart. It struck the shadow in the doorway squarely on the shoulder, thudded off solid bone, and clattered to the floor with a hollow, sickly thunk.

"What the fuck!"

That was no assailant.

Recognition hit, and Regulus bent double, breath leaving him in a rush; relief bled out until he went weak, air escaping like a punctured tyre.

"Salazar…"

"Jesus, that hurt!" Sirius hissed, clutching at his shoulder. "You absolute dick..."

"How exactly am I the dick in this scenario?" Regulus snapped back, fumbling for the light switch - he seldom used the electrics. "You're the one sneaking into my house like a -"

"I was - Merlin, if you've broken my collarbone I swear I'll fucking murder you - I was trying to be subtle."

"Why?" Regulus demanded, throwing up both hands, the very picture of incredulity.

The question sobered Sirius instantly.

Colour drained from his face - not from pain this time, but something far heavier. He crossed the room and shot the deadbolt home with a sharp, anxious click; it landed like punctuation on a horrible secret.

"You should come through to the kitchen," he said, stooping to retrieve the fallen pestle. His smile was taut as he straightened - an old mask of bravery he'd long since outgrown, frightened edges peeking through. "We need to talk. And I could really use a drink." 

Igor Karkaroff was dead - a name that meant little to Sirius, though it had sent cold tendrils of dread coiling through Regulus, like untamed Devil's Snare. Sirius had brought a copy of The Prophet; the grainy photograph of Durmstrang had been taken in the early hours, crossing the continent just in time for the evening edition.

Regulus couldn't look away from the image of the fortress caught beneath a bruised sky. Just above the turrets, a ghostly spectre floated; a skull with hollow, cavernous eyes that seemed to draw the gaze inward, slow and inexorable as a black hole.

The mark on Regulus's arm had begun to itch.

When Sirius turned to refill his glass, Regulus stole a furtive glance. The mark was still the colour of old ash - dull and lifeless - yet dread crept steady up his spine. It would only be a matter of time before it burned again, hot as a brand.

Moody had arrived not long after Sirius, armed with a sheaf of grisly crime scene photographs sent over from Europe. He'd refused Sirius's offer to sit, standing by the hearth instead - rigid and blackened by shadow, like an iron poker left too long in the fire. The air around him crackled with suspicion, a taut current of storm-static, while that uncanny, restless eye tracked Regulus's every movement with grim exactitude.

Few believed in the possibility of a Black redemption arc - least of all Alastor Moody. It certainly didn't help that he was an Auror with the authority to point fingers, rather than a mere gossip wagging tongues.

Officially, he was there to ask questions, to establish an alibi - and Regulus knew he'd done no wrong. Yet reason offered little comfort; the nest of snakes in his gut refused to settle.

Sirius had persuaded his brother to look at the photographs - convinced, not without reason, that Regulus remained a reluctant well of Dark Arts knowledge. The images themselves were enough to make his stomach turn twice over - even without Moody's hovering gavel.

"It's definitely The Mark," he muttered, forcing a tight grimace in Moody's direction. "Not the sort of thing you can fake, I imagine."

Moody gave a derisive sniff. "Seen enough of those in my time to know that, Black."

"Right," Regulus looked back at the photographs, drawing the stack closer. His throat tightened as he tapped the corner of a particularly grisly shot. "But that - that's not us. That's not magic. It's not our - their - style."

The scene was gruesome.

Someone had caught Karkaroff in his office - a large, circular room in a high turret, lined with rows of books and portraits of solemn, well-dressed wizards. A generous fireplace yawned across one wall, its stonework blackened with old soot; the sort of room meant for brandy and quiet vanity, not death.

Regulus had seen Dark Magic before - seen it scorch and blister, the way it made flesh bubble and faces freeze in that final mask of terror - but this was something else.

Blood.

So much blood he couldn't tell where it began, or where it meant to end. It slicked the floorboards, climbed the walls in a painter's frenzy, fanned out in deliberate arcs across plaster and ceiling - as though some mad child had taken up a brush dipped in red and set about remaking the world.

"It's curious, isn't it, Black?" said Moody. "The same man who turned in your little friend ends up dead. Doubt many people still know how to send up the Mark - the list of suspects is pretty damn short."

Regulus didn't answer.

He was still staring down at Karkaroff's twisted face. By all accounts, the man had smiled - that same awful smile he wore now, both corners of his mouth carved into an eternal grin - when he'd turned in Barty.

Pulled his name from his sleeve like an ace.

And Barty…

He'd never been a gracious loser. Never saw the blow coming. Regulus hadn't been there, but he could see it in his mind - that wounded, bewildered look, like a dog that couldn't understand why it was being kicked. Barty was clever - so fucking clever - and so fucking naive where it counted most.

He could see him now - balancing like a reckless child on the ramparts as they made their way back from Hogsmeade, fifteen and stupid - and how Regulus's heart had lurched into his throat when Barty had spun on his heel on rain-slick stone and nearly toppled. Regulus had thrown out a hand, caught the hem of his robe; Barty had steadied himself, then turned back with a grin - like he'd tasted death as a lover, and couldn't fathom the fear on Regulus's face.

And in another life, Regulus hadn't been there to catch him.

And he'd fallen.

And they'd dragged him away - on his father's orders.

And he would have howled at the injustice of it - Regulus could hear that too - though he wasn't sure it was unjust, if the rumours about the Longbottoms were true. Regulus couldn't bring himself to believe that Barty had orchestrated it, that he'd acted of his own free will.

Bella - that he could believe. Rodolphus. Rabastan, at a push.

But Barty?

Oh - who was Regulus to say? His own judgement was warped - and -

"I said - do you have an alibi, Black?"

Regulus swallowed hard, forcing down the lump in his throat. He blinked against the sting behind his eyes, trying not to picture the wide, wounded eyes of a boy long dead, and drew a ragged breath.

"I - I've been here all morning. Bought the paper at nine. Went out around noon, into town. I was at the Apothecary at five. I got a…" he hesitated, tugging his sleeve down over one hand to knuckle at his eyes. "Sirius, what's it called when I don't answer the phone fast enough?"

"Voicemail?" Sirius offered, glancing absently toward the hall. "Like… someone left a message? It's a Muggle thing, Moody - we use it to stay in touch. Kind of like a two-way mirror."

Moody grunted, though whether he'd taken any of that in was anyone's guess.

"Yeah, that," Regulus agreed, worrying his cheek between his teeth. "Then… another call just as I got home - around five-thirty, maybe. I've been brewing that sleeping draught ever since. You can check if you like; it's still on the boil. Another hour to go."

That didn't seem to satisfy Moody. The loose floorboards groaned under his weight as he finally uprooted, one gnarled hand extending toward Regulus.

"Mind if I examine your wand?"

"Oh, come on!" Sirius snapped, teetering on the edge of a scoff. "My brother stopped that freak, Moody - he's got nothing to do with -"

The last thing Regulus wanted was to touch that scarred, blunt-fingered hand - flesh mottled and calloused by battle, by years spent pointing a wand at his friends; his friends who'd taken pieces out of the old bastard in turn. But saving face meant drawing his own wand delicately from his pocket.

"It's fine," Regulus sighed, passing it over with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I've nothing to hide."

Sirius met him with a glare - all big-brother warning, dark and simmering, a reckoning postponed - but Moody had already seized the wand.

His good eye narrowed; the other - that dreadful, spinning relic - whirred and rolled with mechanical hunger, sweeping the room in slow, deliberate arcs. Each time it clicked back to Regulus, the sound landed like the cocking of a trigger.

"Prior Incantato…"

A shimmer rose from the wand's tip, unfurling its secrets - ghostly shapes coiling and dissolving in the air, translucent and wavering. Nothing more sinister than a breath of pale steam: the lingering trace of the draught still simmering in the cauldron behind them. The soft click of a lock earlier that morning. The ghost of a summoned coin purse - too lazy to fetch it by hand.

Nothing that could have left a thousand weeping welts.

Regulus was in the clear.

Still, the air felt heavy. Moody's good eye had narrowed again; the other spun, restless - as though he half-expected Regulus to don a mask and start flinging curses the moment his back was turned.

Regulus could hardly blame him; he was still shedding the old beliefs, slow as a snake sloughing skin. He could admit, however grudgingly, that no one deserved death for the accident of their birth. And yet, buried not all that deeply, a trace of the poison remained - the quiet conviction that his blood was different, special in some ancient, omniscient way. 

Much to Sirius's endless chagrin.

But thoughts weren't crimes, and Moody had a long list of other redeemed sinners to interrogate - before Sirius burst a vein railing against the injustice of it all.

Chapter Text

Regulus hadn't yet connected the calls and the killing.

The following evening found him seated at the kitchen table, lazily thumbing through the latest edition of The Prophet, while the owl that delivered it dozed beneath his idle fingers.

There was a front-page piece on the Karkaroff murder - tactless, feverish journalism - but it was the image that held him: that familiar skull leering against the night sky above the cliffside fortress, its hollow eyes seeming to glimmer even in print.

The phone's sudden trill didn't startle him quite as much that evening; the radio was on, turned low as it was most nights - murmuring company for fractured nerves.

Regulus scarcely lifted his head as he reached for the receiver, drawing it toward him and hooking it beneath his ear. "Hello?"

"Did I get the wrong number again?"

That voice was back - heavy, rasping, unnaturally deep, as though someone were dragging steel wool across the receiver.

"You must be bored," Regulus sighed, pressing his thumb against the paragraph he'd been reading to hold his place. "My brother told me all about prank calls."

A pitiful Muggle tradition, in his view - no imagination, no artistry. A shame, really, for Halloween had once been his favourite of all the holidays. It had been miles better than Christmas - at least, it had been when he'd had friends of his own, not ones on loan from his brother.

As if the caller had reached into his thoughts, the line gave a soft, knowing hum.

"Three days until Halloween," it crooned. "I'm just practicing my haunting."

Regulus snorted. "You're not very good at it."

"Then why don't you give me a few pointers?"

"Wouldn't know where to start," Regulus sighed, leaning back and stretching the stiffness from his shoulders. He offered an apologetic smile to the owl, who had stirred with his movement.

"No?" asked the voice. "Isn't that what Halloween is all about?"

"Hauntings?" Regulus asked, rising to his feet. He crossed to the sink and turned on the tap, beckoning the bird closer to drink. "Suppose that's part of it."

A soft crackle filled the line; a close, staticky breath. "What's your favourite part?"

As a child, it had been his parent's annual masquerade - the thrill of sneaking canapés and crawling into secret worlds beneath the banquet tables, wrapped in linen folds and candlelight. The gleaming grin of jack-o'-lanterns, the whisper and crinkle of colourful sweet wrappers, the giggling guesses at which pair of shoes belonged to which passing grown-up. Bonfires in the garden, sparks spinning skyward, smoke clinging to his hair long after he'd gone to bed.

Later, it had been the first weekend in Hogsmeade - frost-bitten cheeks, new scarves, and, if they were awfully lucky, a thin dusting of snow. Stocking up on sweets, then sneaking into The Hog's Head to gawp at the lowlives. Common room nonsense - collapsing into laughter over outlandish dares in the dark, Evan's arm firm around his waist, Barty's flask filled with no one knew what. A low-burning hearth, and a long night stretching endlessly ahead.

This year would be pitiful.

Regulus swallowed. "I don't like Halloween."

"You dirty little liar, Regulus Black."

Well… that couldn't be a prank-calling Muggle.

But concern didn't come to Regulus at once - only a faint prickle of irritation. Probably some Muggle-loving agitator, eager to provoke him. Someone who'd got hold of his number through one of Sirius's loose-lipped friends.

"Why don't you send me a Howler?" Regulus asked, shutting off the tap once the owl had drunk her fill. He scratched behind her ear, then leaned to open the window, watching as she hopped onto the sill. "That would be much more creative."

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" the voice growled. "You do so love writing letters…"

Regulus rolled his eyes and turned back to the table, reaching for The Prophet.

"To the Dark Lord…"

He froze.

"I know I will be dead long before you read this…"

Regulus opened his mouth - wordless.

The line hissed with a low, mirthless laugh. "You got that part wrong, didn't you?"

Regulus seemed to have inadvertently transfigured his own tongue - it sat heavy in his mouth, leaden and useless, no longer an appendage he had any captaincy over.

The low murmur of the radio began to twist in on itself - syllables slurring, the voices multiplying, spilling from the box on the counter to whisper through the walls.

"Would you like me to remedy that for you?"

Regulus spun, slamming the receiver down hard.

At once, his heart surged upward - a hot, metallic tide flooding his throat. He felt it then: the gaze of the unseen listener. The certainty of being watched, being heard, being mocked.

He lurched to the window, slamming it shut, checking - then rechecking - the latch. The blinds came down hard. The radio dial twisted under trembling fingers, until the sound died in a thin, strangled whine.

Silence fell, vast and throbbing.

Inevitably, the phone rang again - and, just as inevitably, Regulus strode out to tear the wire from the wall. He stood in the hall, the silence now ringing louder than the call itself, a sick, sour taste spreading across his tongue.

There was a vial waiting on his nightstand - half a measure of sleeping draught, dark and patient - and it seemed to be screaming his name.

The night was a damned write off.

Sirius would need to hear about this - and Regulus was already regretting sending the post owl back. He really ought to invest in one of his own, though he seldom wrote these days; his list of correspondents was painfully short. Even if Azkaban permitted owl post, he doubted his old acquaintances would be eager to hear from him.

Regulus rummaged through the nightstand for his two-way parchment, brushing aside lint and spent quill tips, his other hand groping absently across the sheets for his wand - still in the kitchen.

He'd have to fetch the ink pot himself, then.

As he shifted to the edge of the bed, the springs groaning beneath his weight, something thudded through the wall.

It might have been his imagination - always stretched too thin, like his nerves - but Regulus went very still, every muscle locked, ears straining against the hush. He knew too well that if one listened too closely to the silence, it would start to whisper back.

And Regulus wasn't frightened.

He'd just… feel considerably better with his wand.

He rose, careful not to break the quiet, and slipped back into the hall. The house seemed to breathe around him - old wood settling, pipes sighing - but the unease didn't fade.

The kitchen was colder than he remembered, the air edged with October's bite, drifting through the room in slow, invisible currents. He must have forgotten to close the window behind that damned owl.

Except… he had closed it - hadn't he?

And he'd checked the latch. Twice.

There was no good reason - none at all - that the blinds should now be shoved aside, hanging crooked and half-torn, framing the inky void of the open window.

The night sky beyond seemed to stare back at him, alive and watchful, the cold, distant stars glittering like frantic eyes, blinking and flaring as if trying to speak. The darkness itself leaned closer, mute and desperate, its icy fingers seizing his cheeks, the silence thick with warning.

Regulus stared back, pulse hammering, brow furrowed in confusion. It felt as though the whole world was straining to tell him something - something urgent and terrible - yet it could find no tongue to give it voice.

But - filtering through the panic, slow, splintered - came the obvious answer: his wand.

That was it - he needed his wand.

He turned - too slow.

A thick arm lunged from behind, clamping around his neck and wrenching him backward. The breath tore from his lungs; the world tilted and spun. His shoulder slammed into the doorframe with a sharp crack, pain blooming white behind his eyes.

Regulus thrust an elbow back, striking a solid wall of muscle; whatever had caught him only seemed to grunt. A gloved hand seized a fistful of his hair and yanked - his head snapped back, neck giving a sharp, splintering protest, and -

His own startled face stared back at him.

The mask was silver, ornate, gleaming - and in its polished curve he saw himself reflected; wide-eyed, bloodless, lips parted in silent shock.

For a breathless instant, the mirrored face seemed to stir, as though the metal had turned liquid, reshaping itself around his hot terror - rippling and reforming like a pebble dropped into a still pool.

Regulus knew that mask - had worn that mask - though he couldn't have guessed who hid behind it now. The eye-sockets were deep, curved to preserve anonymity, yet he felt the weight of that unseen gaze, heavy and unblinking, fixed squarely upon him.

He raised a hand to pull against the arm looped around his neck, but when it didn't tighten - didn't crush his windpipe as he feared it might - it seemed almost foolish to fight. Foolish, when they were locked there together, staring into each other's very souls.

That uneasy peace lasted no more than a heartbeat.

The cloak shifted - a sharp rustle, a billow of black as the sleeve flared like a twirling ribbon caught in the wind, spiralling as the figure drew back its arm - and struck.

It felt like a punch to the gut. A punch, not a stab - yet the sound that tore from Regulus's throat was unlike anything he'd ever made before: raw, strangled, dragged from somewhere deep and primitive.

The wet suction as the blade withdrew was unmistakable, followed by a thin, shuddering gasp - his own - that anchored him to the awful certainty of the moment.

It was warm, whatever pooled against his hip. Warm and spreading quickly, seeping through cloth and skin, trickling in fine rivulets down the bone to patter softly against the tiles below.

And it occurred to Regulus, at last, to fight.

The knife arced up again - he caught the flicker of light along its edge, a pale flash in the dark - and instinct overrode thought.

He twisted hard, throwing his weight sideways, wrenching free of the arm at his throat. Something tore in his abdomen - he felt it, hot and sharp - but he was already falling. His knees struck the tiles first, then his palms, sliding through what he knew, dimly, was his own blood.

The world shrank to sound and breath - the rasp of his lungs, the grind of bone and effort as he turned to drag himself backward. His palms slipped across the tiles, smearing red as he clawed for distance until his spine struck the cabinets. He pushed, gasping, trying to heave himself upright.

The cloaked figure loomed in the half-light, unhurried.

It was enormous - broad-shouldered, easily six-four - with its head tilted to one side in what might have been amusement.

"Use your wand," Regulus hissed, pushing himself up on one elbow, voice oddly raw. "Use your fucking wand, you blood traitor."

The stranger gave a low, breathy laugh and lifted the knife, tapping the blade once against his chest - me? - before letting it swing, lazy and unhurried, to point directly at Regulus.

Regulus swallowed hard, the taste of iron sharp on his tongue. One quivering hand pressed to the gash in his side, hot blood seeping through splayed fingers. "I'm not - you've got no idea what you're - I'm not a traitor - I've never -"

The figure began to move - slowly, almost languidly - but with a precision that made Regulus's stomach twist. Each step was measured, soundless, a predator's glide, tracing the bloody breadcrumb path he'd left to follow.

Regulus tried to press himself back, spine grinding against the cabinets, palms slipping in the blood that slicked the floor; the thing in the cloak kept coming, its shadow bending over him like the rising tide.

"Aren't you turning into quite the little liar, Regulus Black?"

The voice beneath the mask was low and guttural - but without the static that had bled through the line, it sounded almost human.

Almost familiar.

And... there were so few Death Eaters built like that.

Dolohov, perhaps - though he was wasting away in Azkaban. Rodolphus too.

Mulciber was still unaccounted for, though Regulus had barely exchanged ten words with him in his life. That man had never struck Regulus as capable of organising a piss-up in a brewery, let alone a sustained campaign of terror.

Which only left Rosier.

Evan - who was he kidding, it had always been Evan - Evan, who would smirk whenever Regulus addressed him too formally; tall, broad, the closest thing to a human Beater's bat he had ever known.

But Evan was dead.

And yet -

Evan had always had that sure, practiced way of throwing his leg over an opponent in a fight.

Regulus had watched him do it a hundred times - climbing atop his prey, pinning them down as if it cost him nothing. And each time, Regulus had felt that quiet pulse of sick adoration - like one might feel for a beloved family pet gone feral - awed and horrified by the power he could exert when let off the leash.

And now he felt that same swoop of recognition, that same electric dread, as the cloaked stranger tightened his grip on the blade and reached for his ankle with the other hand.

And - stupidly, dreamlike - as though it were some grotesque vaudeville act that could not possibly end in death, as though he were watching the love of his life reanimate before his very eyes, lovesick and homesick all at once - Regulus let it happen.

Let himself be dragged - slick and bleeding - across the tiles; let his skull meet the floor with a dull, ringing crack.

Let the stranger straddle him, weight crushing, the wound in his side tearing wider, hotter, wetter.

Let the stranger tilt his head, almost curious, as the knife's tip traced a patient, burning line down Regulus's flushed cheek.

Regulus could only stare, transfixed, suspended somewhere between terror and awe. He lifted a shaking hand toward the mask and barely disturbed the air between them before his wrist was struck away.

"Ev…?"

That was enough.

The stranger went still, the blade hovering a breath from breaking skin.

It couldn't be Evan - couldn't be, couldn't be - and yet Regulus's breath came short and sharp, heart fluttering into his throat as if it were.

His hand rose again, reaching for the mask.

The stranger caught his wrist.

The squeeze came sudden, merciless - bone gave with a faint, sickening crunch - and the knife fell, forgotten, as the gloved fist struck him hard across the face. His head snapped sideways; light burst behind his eyes. For a dizzy instant, the base of the kitchen cabinet shimmered with black stars, drifting and swimming like oil on water.

Two fingers, cool in their leather casing, traced the underside of his jaw. They coaxed him gently back around -

Only to close around his throat.

The grip tightened, twisted, lifted his head an inch from the floor before slamming it down again, as though trying to rattle the sense back into him.

And the sound - the wet, gasping, retching sound - was foreign to Regulus -

But it was coming from him - from his own throat -

And if this was, by some impossible mercy, truly Evan -

There was one reflex he might yet count on.

A we-were-boys-once instinct. An escape clause built on we've-played-these-games-before.

Regulus raised a wavering hand and tapped Evan's thigh - three times - their old signal for enough.

And - by some miracle, some flicker of buried muscle memory - the grip on his throat faltered. The stranger shifted, rising onto his haunches - only for a second, only for a heartbeat.

But it was enough.

Regulus surged upward, shoving with all he had left, driving the mask back with the flat of his palm - silver met bone and cartilage with a dull, sickening crack. He pressed until he felt resistance, until the figure reeled, jerking away to shield its face.

Long enough for Regulus to twist, roll clear, and drag himself free.

He scrambled onto his hands and knees, then to his feet, half-collapsing against the kitchen table. One hand clutched the wound in his side; the other braced on the surface as he stretched, reaching for his wand.

Long enough for the stranger - not Evan, it couldn't be, Evan wouldn't - to lunge. The knife flashed past, so close Regulus felt the air split over his shoulder before he staggered back, bolting into the hall instead.

He should have Apparated, of course - but -

If it was -

Regulus wheeled around.

"Please, Ev-" Regulus tumbled into the hall, wand raised like a shield as the figure straightened behind him, slow and pointed, one gloved hand lifting to adjust the silver mask. "Please - please don't. Not like this. Not like -"

"Blacks don't beg," the stranger sighed, lifting the blade in mild reproach. "It's so unbecoming, Regulus."

"I know - I know -"

"But perhaps you're not much of a Black these days?"

Was it Evan?

Hard to tell. Hard to tell with his heart slamming in his ears, with the mask, with the years stretched thin between them.

"I don't know," Regulus whispered , eyes darting to the wound that still bled warm between his fingers. "I don't know - but I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I -"

The thing tilted its head, watching him.

Evan would have sighed, shoulders softening. He would have clicked his tongue, held out a hand for Regulus to come closer - would have crouched, folding all that height to examine the wound with that impossible gentleness his size never suggested.

Regulus was still waiting for it - waiting to be forgiven, to be his again, to be safe again -

But -

"Sorry doesn't cut it, Reg."

Regulus closed his eyes, back pressed to the wall. "Ev…"

The thing lunged -

And Regulus twisted, vanishing into the sick, suffocating squeeze of Apparition.

Chapter Text

"Impossible. Rosier is dead."

Regulus could've mouthed the words along with him. Moody hadn't said much else since stepping out of the fireplace, trailing soot and suspicion. He'd grunted through Regulus's account as though every word were an insult to common sense, and disbelief was written all over his face at the tail end of it.

Regulus couldn't summon the strength to argue. He sat folded into the armchair by the hearth, glass in hand, watching the slow amber spin of firewhisky instead of the flames. Sirius had pressed the drink on him - as he always did - because in his brother's simple world, firewhisky was the cure for all ailments.

Sirius had done his best to patch Regulus up, of course - working with little more than shaking hands and a handful of household charms.

It was all terribly nostalgic.

Regulus had never once set foot in St. Mungo's and he wasn't about to start now; Blacks cleaned up after themselves. When he'd voiced that quiet worry, Sirius had only smiled - a terribly thin thing that passed for reassurance - and promised that it wasn't time to break with tradition just yet.

Only a scratch, he'd said too brightly, as if the right tone could make it so.

Only a scratch that had swallowed half a bottle of dittany and another favour from fate. Sirius never thought twice about bending the rules if it meant keeping his brother breathing - but that tenderness ended with Regulus.

Moody didn't get the kid gloves.

"Have you been to see it for yourself?" Sirius asked, all haughty would-be heir. He'd been born for it - that sneering, seething entitlement. It fit him like a tailored coat, always finding its way back over his shoulders no matter how hard he tried to shrug it off. "Or are you just here to interrogate the victim?"

"I've been," Moody grunted. "I've got a team over there now. Potter and Dawlish."

That took some of the bite out of Sirius - James usually had that effect. He still looked down his nose, eyes narrowed, but the outrage had dulled around the sharper edges.

"And…?"

Moody cast a brief glance at Regulus before reaching into his coat. He drew out a small stack of fresh photographs and handed them to Sirius without a word.

Regulus raised his glass for an unsteady sip - though it tasted like iron. He didn't need to look at the photographs; he could still see the blood slicking the kitchen tiles. Could still smell the sharp copper smack of it. Whether the blade had been left buried in the wall or had vanished with the intruder was the only detail left to the imagination.

He wasn't in any hurry to find out.

But there was something else nagging at him - a quiet concern Regulus couldn't shake off.

"How do you know he's dead?" he asked abruptly. "Evan, I mean."

The question landed wrong somehow; Moody bristled, and even Sirius glanced up, brow arched. Regulus supposed it was one of those mysteries he'd never grasp - the wounded pride of the one-time soldier, perhaps.

"I'm the one who killed him, Black," Moody said with a short, humourless scoff, rubbing absently at the tip of his misshapen nose. "He wouldn't come quietly, would he?"

"Evan never would," Regulus agreed, turning his glass to watch the amber catch the firelight. "But what exactly did you cast?"

Moody turned sharply, his wooden leg thumping against the floorboards as he crossed the room. He leaned in close, peering down at Regulus as if studying a bird in a cage.

"I aimed to stun. He aimed to kill. He caught his own curse on the rebound of my shield - sent himself tumbling from the ramparts of that wretched estate."

"And you saw the body?"

"I saw the damn body."

"And you're sure he was dead?"

"As sure as I'm standing here now."

"And you left it to the family?"

Moody's good eye fixed on him, the prosthetic whirring restlessly. "It wasn't much use to me by then, Black."

Regulus nodded, gaze returning to the fire.

He could feel Sirius watching him - both of them circling the same unspoken thought.

Old blood. Old magic.

No one survived a Killing Curse. But a fall? That was another matter. In the right hands, a little blood magic could work wonders - and in the chaos of a siege, how certain could Moody really be that the curse had found its mark?

They'd been six and seven the first time.

Sirius had fallen from the highest branch of Alphard's great oak, too startled to slow himself before he hit the ground. Regulus could still see it - the dreadful stillness, the hush that followed, Sirius lying so still he might have been sleeping. Then came the gasp, ragged and raw; Alphard's grateful laughter, the firm squeeze to his shoulder, the quiet joy of getting it right.

It hadn't taken much.

Just a little blood - and Regulus, who loved him the most, had given it freely.

It had happened again when he was ten - when Mother had one of her turns. She'd locked herself away again, and Father had forced the door with magic. He'd found her at the foot of the bed.

And again when Cissa was fifteen, and that fight with Bella had turned nasty - Druella, once a Rosier, had brought her back.

Again when Regulus was seventeen and -

No. Best not to think about that.

But it was possible - wasn't it?

To come back.

Not that it was worth saying so; Moody would never understand.

Not their creed. Not their kind.

It was just as well that the fireplace chose that moment to roar to life.

James stepped out, one arm crooked awkwardly around a Muggle telephone, the cord looped tight around his elbow. His gaze flickered first to Regulus - offering the uncertain shadow of a smile - then to Moody, where his back straightened and his shoulders squared.

"Just came from Reg's place," James announced, setting the handset down. "I left Dawlish there - he's putting up wards, sealing it off. Thought I'd better bring this; it wouldn't stop ringing."

Moody jerked his chin in acknowledgment - permission enough to stand at ease.

James let his shoulders loosen, some of the Auror slipping away. "How are you holding up, Reg?"

Regulus didn't look up.

"Fine," his gaze had fixed on the fire as if waiting for it to flare back to life. "Did they leave a Mark?"

"Not this time."

"I suppose that makes sense," he muttered, letting his head tip into one hand. "He didn't get his kill."

Moody made a low sound - part sigh, part scoff - and in the silence that followed, Regulus understood: Moody thought him quite mad.

Idiot that he was.

"You'll see," Regulus murmured, raising his glass. The faint tremor in his hand came as no surprise, though it hardly helped his case. "Evan always was rather persistent."

"Merlin - it's not Rosier!" Moody snorted, limping forward to jab pointlessly at the handset with one gnarled finger. "We'll follow other leads - plenty of living suspects, Black."

Sirius had turned his back to the room, hands braced on the side table in a poor disguise of composure - no help at all, though Regulus hadn't expected him to speak candidly on a family matter.

Regulus turned back to the hearth, pressing his glass to his temple and hoping the cool surface might ease the rising headache.

"Well - whoever it was," James started, his eyes darting around as he tried to take the measure of the room, "they left a message."

Regulus's head came up at once. "What was it?"

James's hand twitched toward the handset before he caught himself.

"It's… it's on there," he said, his brows knitting. "But I don't think you really want to hear it, Reg."

Regulus leaned forward, setting his glass carefully beneath the chair so he wouldn't knock it over in his haste to stand. "Of course I want to hear it. It's for me. Sirius?"

Sirius glanced back, worrying the inside of his cheek. His eyes moved between James and his brother, weighing something unsaid. The flimsy silence stretched thin - then gave way with barely a sigh.

"Probably better he hears it," Sirius muttered, leaning down to pull the cord from his own phone. He held out a hand for his brother's. "Might convince him to stay put for once."

It took a minute - Muggle appliances always did. Too many wires, too many buttons, too much coaxing before anything agreed to come to life. Then, at last, the machine stirred with a low mechanical hum, a dull red light blinking on like an eye.

Three messages.

Sirius pressed play.

"Pick up the phone - pick up the fucking phone, Black!"

Regulus jerked, the sound landing too close - as if the voice hadn't come from the speaker at all, but from somewhere right behind him, hot against the back of his neck.

It wasn't the voice he'd expected.

The tone was wrong - pitched too high, cracked at the edges, fraying through the static. This voice was wild, feverish, burning with a fury Evan never let show.

"That's - that's not him," Regulus breathed, edging closer. His brows drew together as the machine clicked over to the next message. "It sounds wrong."

The voice burst through again, breathless, rasping through the speaker as if trying to claw its way out.

"Should've let him get you, Reg. Should've let him take you out - nice and fucking easy! Would've been quick. Would've barely hurt. It won't be so quick when it's my turn…"

Sirius moved in, a steadying hand settling at Regulus's hip - meant to ground him, to remind him where he was, but Regulus didn't feel it. His gaze stayed locked on the machine, wary and unblinking, as though it might spring to life and bite the moment he looked away.

The third beep came, high as his own quickening pulse.

"I wanna see what your insides look like," the voice spat, spilling into a sawtooth laugh. "See if you're still so pretty when you're sliced in two. I'll make the Inferi look like puppies, Reggie. I'll gut you - just you wait. I swear I'm gonna - "

Even through the distortion, Regulus knew that voice. It was the laugh that gave it away - half snarl, half tease, as if he couldn't take himself seriously, even in his fury.

He'd known that voice all his life.

Another voice that couldn't be.

Chapter Text

Minister's Son Dead in Azkaban

That had been the headline - blunt, unadorned, and ruthlessly efficient. Barty would have loathed it; he would have wanted something grander, crueler - Youngest Convicted Death Eater, as the papers had once christened him, back when the wounds were still fresh and the title carried weight. But in the end, he was only the Minister's son - and that, Regulus thought, was punishment enough.

No one had mourned for him - not aloud.

Regulus had watched the muscle in Sirius's jaw tighten as he'd read the article, and he'd known what his silence had meant - good. The word was never spoken, but it seeped into the room, heavy and poisonous, curling over the breakfast table like bitter incense. Regulus had sat across from his brother - ribs still bruised, breath shallow beneath the bindings - and wondered how easily he might say it.

That Peter could be next.

That would have smothered his brother's righteousness, wouldn't it? Not so easy to condemn when it's your own traitorous friend on the pyre.

Of course, he'd said nothing - but Regulus had saved that paper. He'd fished it from the burn pile and cut out the article with careful, reverent hands - folded it into the back of an encyclopedia, pressed flat like a wilted bloom among his small reliquary of the dead.

Evan hadn't earned a headline - his name was buried among dozens in that week's casualty roll:

E. Rosier - 19

That had been maddening.

Regulus could have penned pages in praise or damnation but perhaps the brevity was fitting - Evan had always been sparing with words. At times, Regulus had wondered if he'd ever crossed Evan's mind at all - if anyone had. If Evan was nothing more than a self-serving creature, ruled by appetite and impulse. And then, without warning, he would say something quietly profound, and Regulus found his convictions returning, foolish and full.

Regulus could be a faithless thing, sometimes.

He had drawn a thin line of ink beneath the name - a small act of defiance against forgetting. From time to time, he would take the clippings out and study them, their edges curling, the ink fading beneath the wear of his touch.

They were the first things he'd gathered when he'd returned to his flat to collect a few essentials.

Only the important things, Sirius had said.

And the last time his friends had appeared in print was important.

It was proof - however fragile - that despite the sick churn of instinct screaming to the contrary, they were really, truly dead.

Sirius had made a valiant effort to support that notion, but he hadn't convinced Regulus. He'd paused just a beat too long when - after Moody and James were gone - Regulus had asked whether he thought Evan had really returned.

Maybe had almost slipped out - before curdling into a scoff. Sirius had waved his hesitation away with a lazy flick of his fingers, insisting that revival was a Black tradition - that Druella had only come by that sort of knowledge through marriage, and Crouch Senior had never struck him as the black-magic type.

That there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

Judging by the way Sirius hovered in the doorway now - chewing at his thumb, and watching Regulus like he might combust if left unsupervised - that had been a lie.

"I'm not coming," Regulus insisted, gaze still firmly on the page.

"Only for an hour or two."

"No."

"Then," Sirius huffed, slumping against the frame with all the theatrical despair of a man freshly shot. "I guess I won't go either."

Regulus only rolled his eyes, turning the page so it fell over the folded clippings like a curtain. "Yes, you will. James would never forgive you for missing his stupid little party."

"You're invited."

"Lucky me."

That would be quite the spectacle, wouldn't it? Fitting, really - inviting someone like Regulus to a Halloween party. James was fine; he'd read his file, knew where he stood. But Remus still eyed him with a healthy dose of caution, even if he was courteous enough to conceal it.

And what about the others? Strangers who knew him only through headlines and hearsay?

It would be Diagon Alley all over again.

"Reg," Sirius said with a quiet huff when he still wouldn't budge. "I can't just leave you here."

"You've got wards up, haven't you?"

"Yeah, but…" Sirius shifted his weight, the heel of his boot rasping against the floorboards. "It's Halloween. I don't want to leave you alone tonight."

Regulus opened his mouth - primed to say that's never stopped you before - then shut it again promptly. Of course, they both knew what he'd been thinking; the fragile warmth between them guttered out like a dying candle.

There was no rescuing Regulus from a mood like this; the best anyone could do was walk away. 

Sirius ran his tongue across his teeth and patted the doorframe, as if his hands needed something to do. "Just - call me if you need me, won't you?"

Regulus nodded, still staring at the page. The words had stopped meaning anything some time ago, but he was hoping that if he stared long enough, he might melt into the page and disappear into a safer story.

When he finally looked up, Sirius was gone.

Through the wall came the muffled clatter of movement, the low murmur of his brother's voice - then the rush and roar of the Floo.

After that, silence.

Silence, and the patient ticking of the clock.

For the better part of an hour, nothing happened.

Regulus began to think that nothing ever would. For a while, he let himself hope - that he might really be safe behind his brother's wards. That whoever was playing this game wasn't clever enough to find him. That perhaps they'd never known him at all.

And then, as the clock inched toward ten and the first fireworks split the sky outside, his arm began to prickle.

It was nothing at first - an idle itch his cool fingers found beneath his sleeve without thought. But the irritation grew - hot, restless, hungry for air. When he finally shoved the fabric back, the mark beneath was searing like a fresh brand, alive with some unnatural heat.

Instinct drove him to clutch at the burning skin, as if he could wring the pain out with his hands - but the moment his fingers touched the mark, the world split wide, and he was yanked through a blazing white void.

It lasted only seconds -

Regulus tumbled through, weightless, wandless - the quiet comfort of the sitting room falling away behind him - then the darkness snapped around him like a shroud.

He struck tile. Hard.

The impact jarred his bones, breath bursting from his lungs. Of all the places to fall, tile was the least forgiving - save, perhaps, for gravel - and the sound that escaped him was half whimper, wholly pathetic.

Wherever he'd landed, it was silent - but for a steady, patient drip somewhere in the dark. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the tile felt slick beneath his fingers, like cool, damp scales. The air was thin with an autumnal chill, and something sharp caught at the back of his throat - something distinctly chemical.

There was nothing left to do but lift his head.

He'd landed in a darkened sunroom - cavernous, walled in glass and skylights, built around a rippling pool. Moonlight splintered through the tall panes, breaking the water's surface in winding silver veins - as if something had recently disturbed it.

Regulus scrambled to brace himself on his elbows, searching his pockets and hoping against reason that he'd stowed his wand there - only to find nothing but folds of fabric.

Just his luck.

His gaze roved the room and caught on a shadow in the far corner, which sent his heart lurching into his throat - but it was only a dry robe, hanging from a hook too high to be human.

The dark was playing tricks on him - but there had to be someone lying in wait.

He'd been summoned, after all. 

Regulus released a shaky breath and pushed himself first to his knees, then to his feet. Every movement felt precarious. He tested his balance, his ribs, his limbs - each answering with the dull promise of a bruise by morning.

Once on his feet, he stilled - listening to the ringing silence.

It pressed in from all sides, alive and sinuous, like some great slinking cat winding between his legs, brushing close enough to scent him. The glass seemed to hum faintly, thrumming with unseen life; there were eyes in every shadowed corner - patient and unblinking.

But no one came.

Inevitably, his gaze found the pool.

Moonlight skated across the surface like quicksilver, serenely deceptive. And he knew, with a terrible certainty, that he would end up in there - thrashing beneath that pale glow, a firm hand at his neck pressing him under.

Because Regulus had cheated fate once before - hadn't he?

Perhaps this was the price of it - slipping death's grasp only postponed the reckoning.

Perhaps the same law held true for his friends.

Perhaps they would all have debts to settle tonight.

Regulus took a cautious step toward the pool's edge. He meant only to crouch, to make its acquaintance - to dip his fingers into the water and test its warmth, half-hoping that, this time, it wouldn't freeze him through.

But something moved.

A shape - swift and soundless - darted from the far left corner of the room to the right.

Regulus straightened, following the motion.

This was it, then.

Again.

Nowhere to run.

And it was so unfair - so fucking unfair - that he should have to die twice.

Regulus had meant to stand his ground - to take whatever came, stoically, silently - but something shifted to his left: a breath, a rustle, a second shadow, and instinct betrayed him.

He flinched toward the sound. "Ev?"

"Guess again."

The reply came from the right - close enough that he felt the whisper of breath. The hairs at his nape rose in answer, and Regulus pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until stars burst behind them.

"Oh, don't cry about it," Barty murmured - so close the words warmed his cheek. Something hovered at his side - hand, blade, shadow - it made little difference. "It's only me, Reggie."

Of course - if not Evan, it could only be one other.

"M'not," Regulus breathed. "M'not - m'not gonna -"

"Not gonna…?"

"Not gonna cry… "

A soft laugh followed - almost gentle, almost kind.

"Liar."

The word slid through the dark on the softest of breaths -

- and the hands at the small of his back shoved.

Regulus pitched forward - predictably, helplessly - crashing toward the water in a blind spill of motion, hands thrown out to break his fall. Before he could go under, fingers caught the back of his shirt - knuckles white in the fistful of fabric - and hauled him up short.

They held him there - suspended on his knees at the pool's edge, sputtering against the moonlit surface - and for one breathless moment, as his fingers curled around slick tile, his instinct was to laugh.

Something was moving around the pool - boots, Regulus realised - but when he tried to lift his head, a hand came down hard on the back of his skull, forcing him back toward the trembling water, panicked breath skating the surface.

"Don't you look at him," Barty warned, trading fabric for a fistful of hair. "He's always been too soft on you - I won't have it this time."

Regulus heard himself laugh - someone else's faraway sound. "Didn't feel very soft on me last time - didn't feel very soft at all."

Evan was close enough to crouch now - close enough that Regulus could have caught him in his periphery, if he'd dared. But the thought of meeting those all-knowing eyes after everything that had passed sent panic blooming sharp in his chest, and he closed his eyes against it.

"I expect," said Evan - unmistakably Evan - his voice low and silken, using that precise diction he reserved for their parent's soirées, not the lazy drawl he used among friends. "He was rather put out to discover his baby cousin was a filthy fucking turncoat, Regulus. Might that not have put a dampener on the reunion?"

Regulus squeezed his eyes shut tighter, chasing the starburst behind his lids - breath held in his chest, afraid that even the smallest motion might drag him back into the present.

"Nothing to say for yourself, Regulus?"

Barty's hand tightened in his hair and gave a vicious jerk, yanking him out of the fog, out of the quiet place he'd been hiding. His lips parted before he even knew what he meant to say, but when the words came out, they were flat, and wholly listless.

"I'm - sorry."

"Yeah," Barty scoffed. "We've heard that one already."

"I told you this was a waste of time," Evan muttered, huffing in frustration as he straightened - rising high enough to disappear from Regulus's line of sight. "He's got nothing for us, Bee."

If Barty was his stand in, Regulus couldn't bear to watch him leave. He turned - just an inch.

"Ev -"

Barty's expert hand yanked again, forcing his head back until the blade kissed the hollow of his throat. "I'm sorry," he hissed, all vogue and venom. "Do you really think Evan is going to stop me?"

Evan's footsteps were already retreating, the furious slap of heavy boots echoing into the dark.

Just the two of them, then.

"No," Regulus whispered, head tilting back against Barty's shoulder, trying to ease away from the cool bite of steel at his throat.

Barty was still wearing the mask - that awful, expressionless thing - but Regulus would sooner face it than slip another inch toward the water. He tipped his head a fraction, searching for the eyes hidden beneath, wondering if the old puppet strings were still attached.

He swallowed hard.

"I - just…"

There it was - that old voice, soft and disarming.

"I just know I could never do this to you, Bee."

Barty hummed - a low vibration that resonated through the mask like a struck tuning fork. For a heartbeat, Regulus thought he'd hit something tender - that the old, doe-eyed, woe-is-me act might earn him a sliver of grace.

The blade slid up, pressing flat against his high cheekbone.

"You didn't have to do this to me, did you?" Barty asked softly. "You always were such a little saint - never a drop of blood on your hands. There was always someone willing to stain theirs for you. Even my father in the end, mm?"

"No," Regulus insisted, shaking his head - a mistake, given how quickly the blade bit.

"Yes," Barty fired back, teeth bared - the sight of blood beading on his cheek seemed to have ignited some insatiable hunger. "Yes, Regulus - that's what happened. That's what you did, that's what you wanted -"

"No, Bee! No, I was never against you, I swear - I was never-"

"Do you need me to read that letter again?" Barty hissed, breath hot against Regulus's ear. "How did it go? To the Dark Lord -"

"Bee, he was a fucking half-blood!" Regulus's voice cracked - a dry, desperate rasp on the edge of breaking. "I swear - his name was Riddle. Tom fucking Riddle. His father was a Muggle. I swear on my life, he was never anything more than - "

It was the wrong thing to say.

Barty's fingers tightened in his hair.

"Please, I'll prove it - if you just let me, I'll -"

The movement was sudden - clean, almost elegant.

A flash of silver, the soft hiss of tearing cloth, then the sharp bloom of pain as a gash opened on his chest. Before he could draw breath, Barty's hand struck him clean between the shoulder blades.

The world folded - water and air trading places, moonlight shattering into a thousand trembling pieces as Regulus plunged into the pool.

It was predictable, of course.

He'd known it was coming - but that did nothing to blunt the shock.

The water was already turning pink - blooming like spilled ink in slow motion - and whether it was a trick of the mind or memory, a hundred phantom hands were reaching up from the depths to drag him down.

It would have been easy to surrender to the blind panic -

But something hot hissed past his ear, and there was no time for disorientation - only the raw, animal instinct to move. Regulus twisted, kicked, forced his body off the wall - through the molten bursts of light that flared and died around him, through the thickening pink cloud that closed like smoke -

He couldn't outswim them all.

One errant curse struck him in the ribs - a white-hot burst that flared outward, racing up his spine through every trembling extremity, climbing his throat to the base of his skull. The pain was incandescent, total - for a moment, it eclipsed even the fear of the water.

Regulus opened his mouth to draw breath - and the water rushed in.

He tried to turn, to kick for the surface - he thought he knew which way it was, but the world had gone bleached and formless. Light fractured above him, tauntingly close, impossibly far.

He reached out - his hand struck tile, oil beneath his palm -

And a fist clamped around the back of his neck.

He was yanked through the looking glass - bursting upward in a spray of water and moon glass - his sharp hips struck the pool's edge before he landed on the tiles, choking, gasping, reborn into pain and air.

The red-hot light struck again, scorching the tile an inch from his outstretched fingers. Regulus scrambled, slipping in water and blood alike as he crawled past the boots blocking his path - somehow forcing himself upright, though the world pitched violently around him.

Evan was built for a duel - a creature of control.

Now he caught Regulus, still dripping, one arm locking firm around his waist to wrench him back against his chest. He turned sharply, placing himself between Regulus and Barty - a shield of flesh and will, granting him one fragile moment to catch his breath.

"Got your wand?"

Regulus struggled for air; his lungs seized, empty, uncooperative.

Evan clicked his tongue in quiet reproach, hauling him forward over his arm and striking him sharply between the shoulder blades - coaxing the water from his lungs as one might chide a child for choking.

"Have you got your wand, Regulus?"

"I…" Regulus's voice caught; he blinked through the blur. "No - no…"

"Right."

The sigh that left Evan was soft, almost wistful. He took Regulus by the arm, holding him steady just long enough to gauge his footing - a handler appraising a losing hound. He sucked his teeth, the sound small but biting - a verdict that left Regulus with little hope.

"It won't be a fair fight, then."

Regulus could have sobbed. He turned - a fawn on unsteady legs - hoping, against all odds, that his finest performance might still hold some sway with Evan, if not with Barty.

"Ev -"

But Evan knew him too well - knew every softened edge, every tired gambit in that worn-out old playbook - and he seemed to savour it, drinking in that docile vulnerability like a man starved. His head cocked - a parody of sympathy turned sour.

"Best I can do is give you a head start, Reg."

"A…?"

Evan's eyes caught the light, glinting with something that might have been pity before it cooled into resolve. His hand came to rest against Regulus's chest - careful, almost tender - then drove forward, sending him stumbling over his own slick feet.

"Run."