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Chapter Text

Outside the windows of the Slytherin common room, a grindylow was ripping apart a fish that it had snared in its tentacles, filling the water with blood. Barty watched in fascination, barely looking at his Arithmancy homework, all his attention fixed on the monster of the deep floating there in dark, sharp teeth and webbed fingers.

“I think, if you take into account the magical properties of the numbers seven and thirteen…”

Regulus’s voice was echoing off the walls of the dungeon as he sat there across from Barty, his quill in his hand and a sheet of parchment covered in formulas laid out on the table before him. Barty reluctantly looked away from the window.

“What?”

“You weren’t listening, were you?” Regulus asked with a sigh.

“I was,” said Barty, a defensive edge to his voice. “I just… got distracted.”

Regulus looked at him with piercing gray eyes, a frown on his lips, his brows slightly furrowed. Then, after a moment of silence, he set down his quill and put the stopper back in his inkwell.

“Okay, what’s the matter?” he asked.

Barty stared at him.

“What do you mean?”

“You love Arithmancy,” said Regulus. “If you can’t focus, there’s got to be a reason.”

Barty wanted to tell him there was nothing. But that wouldn’t be true, would it? He could tell him to shut up, to leave well enough alone, but that wouldn’t help much, either. Regulus was his friend, had been his friend since the very beginning of their first year, and if he couldn’t trust him, he wasn’t sure who he could trust.

He sighed and shut his book.

“I think Evan’s keeping something from me,” he said. “Ever since Christmas, I’ve gotten that feeling. I asked him, and he said there’s nothing, but…”

He watched Regulus’s expression, half hoping Regulus would laugh and assure him that he was making a fuss over something mundane and insignificant. Perhaps Evan was simply busy with his schoolwork, or —

“What is it you’re worried about?” Regulus asked in a steady voice. Too steady. Too careful. “Specifically. What do you think he’s hiding?”

Barty hesitated. A flood of possibilities came to mind. He singled out the least terrifying of them.

“I wondered if maybe his parents were trying to find him a wife,” he said, not meeting Regulus’s eyes. “I don’t think – I know he doesn’t want that, but they might insist on it, and if he didn’t want to be disowned, then…”

He allowed his voice to trail off, searching Regulus’s expression. Regulus smiled in obvious relief.

“No, don’t worry about that,” he said, shaking his head. “The Rosiers are a big family. They don’t have to micromanage their kids’ love lives just to make sure the family name gets passed down. All they really care about, I think, is making sure nobody marries a mudblood.”

There was a note of bitterness, maybe even envy, in Regulus’s voice. Barty could understand that. He was his family’s only heir now that Sirius was gone. His parents would want grandchildren, and they would only accept grandchildren born from a marriage to a pure-blood witch, regardless of the fact that their son had never found a woman attractive in his life.

Barty felt bad for Regulus, but he couldn’t help letting out a sigh of relief.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

Regulus nodded.

“Yes. Very sure.”

He was glad to hear it. And yet, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

Barty loved Evan with all his heart, and he fully believed him when he said he felt the same.

So why did he feel like they were balancing on the precipice of something that would change their lives forever?

Barty knew, as soon as he saw Walburga Black’s screech owl soaring through the Great Hall at breakfast, that there would be trouble. He and Regulus had many things in common, and one of those was that they both hated getting letters from home.

Regulus showed no emotion as he broke the wax seal and unfurled the parchment, scanning it with narrowed eyes.

“What is it?” Evan asked, looking over Regulus’s shoulder.

“She thinks I’m not doing enough,” Regulus muttered. “As the future heir, I mean. I ought to be — I don’t know. Focusing more on networking with the right sort of people.”

Barty frowned, glancing at Evan and then back at Regulus.

“Aren’t we the right sort of people, then?”

He actually wasn’t sure what the Blacks thought of him. His father was, after all, a sworn enemy to anyone who practiced the Dark Arts. But he was fairly certain they approved of Evan, who they had hand-picked to be their son’s friend long before any of them had arrived at Hogwarts.

“She means the people Slughorn invites to his parties,” said Regulus.

“Slughorn’s a blood traitor,” said Evan, rolling his eyes. “She wants you rubbing elbows with that Cresswell bloke and Lily Evans?”

Evan pronounced the final sound of Lily’s surname clearly, the way he always did, as if he found it a personal affront that she had a name so close to his.

“It’ll be the former students he invites,” Barty said. “All those politicians and business owners and whatnot. My father keeps asking me why I don’t go. Even with all his Ministry connections, Slughorn is – well, he’s got a lot of influence. Not that you’ll ever find me at the Slug Club.”

He said the words derisively, as if that would hide the fact that, despite his influential family name and academic brilliance, he had never been a favorite of Slughorn’s.

“It’s not just that,” Regulus said. “There’s something else, too.”

Barty could tell from his tone that whatever it was, it was far worse than anything Regulus had already said. He leaned forward, curious in spite of himself.

“She doesn’t want me playing Quidditch anymore.”

“Merlin! No.”

Regulus said nothing, a confirmation — as if one was needed – that he was being completely serious.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Evan. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who loved Quidditch like you do. She can’t possibly expect —”

“She says it’s demeaning to answer to a half-blood captain,” said Regulus, scowling at the letter as if he was trying to set it on fire just by looking at it. “As if the captains haven’t all been half-bloods, the whole time I’ve been on the team. And that I should focus on more important things. And - oh, yes, look at this: she’s worried I’ll take a Bludger to the head and leave her without an heir.”

“Nah, you’re too good for that,” said Barty, trying to keep his voice casual.

He figured none of Mrs. Black’s worries about Quidditch were actually genuine. She just wanted to control every aspect of her son’s life, even if that meant ruining one of the things that made him happiest. He could relate, seeing as his father was a control freak, too.

“Are you going to listen?” Evan asked.

Regulus shrugged.

“I’ll talk to her at Easter,” he said. “Convince her I can’t possibly abandon my team this far into the season. It wouldn’t look good to neglect my responsibilities, she’ll understand that. But next year…”

He let his voice trail off, and Barty felt a sinking sensation in his stomach at the idea of Regulus watching from the sidelines while a new Slytherin Seeker took flight, a year too soon. Or, more likely, hiding himself in the library while the rest of their classmates flocked to the Quidditch Pitch, unable to stand the thought of joining them.

A few days later, when The Daily Prophet arrived, Barty glanced over it, raising his eyebrows at the large photo of the skull and snake on the front page, hanging over a house left in ruins. The headline said three people had died.

“Huh. Another one,” he observed.

It seemed like there was another death or disappearance every few weeks, these days. No doubt the Death Eaters’ work.

Evan was reading the paper over one of his shoulders, Regulus over the other, both of them with an odd look in their eyes that Barty couldn’t quite place.

Not the same look, though. Far from it.

Regulus looked intrigued. Fascinated. That was no surprise, Barty thought; for years now, he had been collecting newspaper clippings, tracking the Death Eaters’ activities. No doubt he would soon snip this story from his own copy of the newspaper and add it to his collage.

Now, though, there was something more.

Anticipation?

Nervousness?

Barty wasn’t quite sure, and he didn’t want to think too hard about what that might signify.

Evan’s expression was wary. Hesitant. Like he wasn’t sure whether what he was looking at was good or bad news, like he was trying very hard not to let a reaction show. He saw Barty watching him and gave him a timid half-smile, which was odd, Barty thought, because Evan wasn’t usually a timid sort of person.

Barty turned back to the newspaper, looking closer at the text that accompanied the photo. The victims, he learned, were a witch and her Muggle husband, along with their oldest child, who had left Hogwarts the year before and was still living at home. Two younger ones, apparently, had been at school and thus spared from the attack.

He glanced across the Great Hall and spotted a cluster of Hufflepuffs gathered around one of their classmates. A little Ravenclaw girl had joined them and was hugging her brother tightly.

Three guesses what they’re all so upset about, he thought to himself.

The Dark Mark floated there on the page before him, and while he knew he ought to be horrified, Barty couldn’t help feeling intrigued instead.

What must it be like to have that sort of power? To be able to kill, to destroy, to bring pain and suffering to whoever he thought deserved it. To hide his face behind a mask and blend seamlessly into a crowd of his allies, his true identity obscured. To point his wand at the sky and watch people flee in fear as a skull and snake loomed overhead.

His father had always said the Dark Arts were a temptation that must be resisted. Barty wasn’t so sure he would be very good at resisting.

Chapter Text

The halls of the castle were dark and quiet this late at night. Perhaps it should have been creepy, but after nearly three years as a prefect, Remus had long since gotten used to patrolling the empty corridors.

He glanced sideways at Regulus, who was walking along beside him, saying nothing. That wasn’t unusual. Regulus wasn’t a very talkative person, usually, although he would go on for hours if you got him talking about something he was really interested in. Typically, their nighttime walks together consisted either of silence, or an extended monologue on problems in the translation of ancient runes.

Or, in the past few months, snogging in dark, quiet corners of the castle.

Today, though, Regulus was quiet, and had responded to Remus’s attempts to start a conversation only with brief answers of “yes” and “no.”

They walked along in silence, side by side, in the quiet of the dark corridor. Cautiously, Remus narrowed the gap between them, allowing his fingers to brush against Regulus’. Not turning to look at him, Regulus slipped his hand into Remus’. It was soft and warm, and Remus felt his heart flutter as their skin touched.

“Is everything alright?” Remus asked softly.

“Yes. Fine.”

Remus nodded in silence. He didn’t want to pry, but he wanted Regulus to know he could talk to him if he wanted to. A moment passed in silence, and then Regulus spoke again.

“My mother wrote to me,” he said quietly. “About the… family responsibilities she wants me to take on now that – now that I’m to be the heir.”

“Ah. I see.” Remus glanced at him cautiously, uncertain whether he ought to ask.

“I didn’t want it, you know,” Regulus said. “They always tell me I ought to be grateful. I was born to be the fall-back option, the spare – and now, someday, I’ll be the family patriarch. But I wish…”

He shook his head as if trying to clear it.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Remus asked.

“It’s not worth wasting time wondering what might have happened, if things were different,” said Regulus. “I’ll get a job at the Ministry, one that they’re no doubt already using their connections to secure for me. I’ll learn from my grandfather to manage the family’s affairs. And if – if that isn’t what I’d choose for myself, then – it’s a privilege to live such a life, and it would be foolish to complain.”

Remus considered. It was true that the lives of the pure-blood elite were, in many ways, very privileged ones indeed. Regulus would have wealth and power beyond anything that Remus could dream of. And yet, he knew how much Sirius had hated the thought of exactly the same future.

“Humor me,” he said. “What would you do, if you could do anything?”

Regulus was quiet for a while. Remus almost thought he wasn’t going to respond, and they would continue the rest of their patrol in silence, or, perhaps, one of them would finally change the topic, and his question would be forgotten.

“I’d play professional Quidditch,” said Regulus at last, his voice soft and furtive, as if he barely dared to say the words.

“Quidditch?” Remus asked.

Regulus nodded.

“I’m good enough to play in the league,” he said. “Everyone says so. I’d play for a while – a decade or two – and then I’d retire and live in the countryside, where you can fly whenever you want without any risk of Muggles seeing you. Maybe do rune translations or write history books.”

“That sounds nice.” Remus smiled. “You should do it, if that’s what you want.”

Regulus glumly shook his head.

“They’d never let me.”

“You’ll be of age in a few months,” Remus reminded him. “You can do what you want after that.”

Regulus muttered something about it not being that simple, and Remus didn’t reply.

A while later, as they made their way through the corridors, they did indeed find a couple of students out of bed: Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadowes. Remus called out their names and they stopped, sheepish smiles on their faces as they realized they had been caught.

“Out for a nighttime stroll, are we?” Regulus asked in that lofty tone of his, as if he thought he ruled the world simply because he had that badge on his chest.

Or, more likely, because he was Regulus Black.

“What business is it of yours?” Dorcas snapped, crossing her arms, glaring at him.

Oh, Remus realized. This is personal.

“I’m a school prefect,” said Regulus, his voice calm but tense in a way that Remus had learned to recognize, a carefully controlled facade. “Of course it’s my business.”

Dorcas rolled her eyes, and Remus placed his hand on Regulus’ arm. To his surprise, Regulus listened to his unspoken request, grumbling and scowling but letting Remus take the lead.

“Ten points from Slytherin, ten points from Gryffindor,” Remus said, feeling very tired. “Are you going to go back to your common rooms now, or do we have to walk you there?”

Probably, they should be escorting them anyway. But Remus didn’t care to go any closer to the Slytherin part of the dungeons than he had to, so he nodded when Marlene assured him they would head back to their dorms right away.

She pulled Dorcas close and gave her a good night kiss right there in front of the two prefects, until Regulus cleared his throat and they broke apart, not looking the least bit embarrassed. Dorcas met Regulus’s eyes and glared at him for a moment before turning and stalking off in the direction of the dungeons. Marlene winked at Remus and gave him a cheeky grin before she, in turn, set off towards Gryffindor Tower.

“Five galleons says we see them again before the night’s over,” said Regulus when they had gone. “They’ll loop back around and meet somewhere else.”

Remus shrugged.

“Maybe, yeah. You think we should’ve walked them back?”

“No.” Regulus shook his head. “Doesn’t seem worth it, does it? Even then, they’d just sneak out again once we left. In any case…”

He fell silent, and Remus watched him cautiously, hardly able to believe it when he dared to speak.

“What happened?” he asked tentatively. “Between you and Dorcas Meadowes.”

Regulus shrugged, saying nothing for a moment.

“She’s half-blood.”

“Ah. So you’ve insulted one of her parents.”

“No, it’s not like that.”

“Then…”

Regulus jerked his shoulders in a rough approximation of a shrug.

“There are three options,” he said, “if you’re a half-blood in Slytherin. Some of them try to pass themselves off as pure-blood, with varying degrees of success. Most just want to be accepted, and they are. They’ll never be at the top of the hierarchy, but they’re still our fellow serpents.”

“How generous of you,” said Remus, a hint of sarcasm creeping into his voice.

“But a few…” Regulus frowned, looking down the corridor rather than at Regulus directly. “A few are more ambitious than that. They don’t try to hide their heritage, but they expect it not to matter.”

“So she’s smart enough to see how stupid all the blood purity bullshit is.” Remus glanced at Regulus, raising an eyebrow. “That’s why you two don’t get along?”

“We used to,” Regulus said. “We used to get along really well, when we were kids. But she thinks our House hasn’t done enough to speak out on – you know, everything that’s going on.”

Meaning: the Death Eaters. The war. The rise in pure-blood extremism.

“Then, one day, she just decided she was done with us. Barely even talks to her roommates anymore. She said she didn’t trust anyone in Slytherin, and I told her that’s stupid, because she’s one of us, too, whether she likes it or not. And she said…” Regulus grimaced, like it was painful to repeat the words. “She said she wished she could go back and tell the hat to put her anywhere else, because nobody in their right mind would want to be in Slytherin unless they’re a bigot or a total doormat. So we fought about that. And now we don’t talk.”

Remus considered that.

“Did you ever think of apologizing?” he asked.

“For what?” Regulus asked. “She’s the one who was being ridiculous.”

“For not taking her seriously,” said Remus. “But then, I guess you can’t apologize for that, if you still aren’t taking her seriously.”

Regulus looked at him like he was honestly confused.

“Things have been getting bad, Reg,” Remus said softly. “Maybe you haven’t been keeping up with it, because you’re not the sort of person they’d ever go after. But for Muggle-borns and half-bloods, what’s going on is – well, it’s scary.”

“But I never…” Regulus frowned, chewing on his lower lip for a moment. “If I ever made her feel like she wasn’t safe around me, I didn’t mean to.”

“Yeah.” Remus nodded. “You don’t strike me as a mean-spirited person. But I wouldn’t feel safe in Slytherin, either, if I’d ended up there somehow. I’m not scared of you, but I reckon I might be if I hadn’t gotten to know you. And your House scares the hell out of me.”

Regulus grimaced. Remus carefully pulled him into an embrace, loosely at first, so that Regulus could pull away if he wanted to. But instead, he leaned into it, resting his head against Remus’s chest, his hair tickling the side of his neck.

“You’re not a bad person,” Remus assured him. “Things are just complicated. But it won’t be like this forever.”

Regulus didn’t respond. Remus held him for another minute, then let go.

“We should keep patrolling,” he said.

And so, they fell into step beside one another again, walking through the quiet corridors of the castle.

Chapter Text

“Dumbledore’s got this group,” Marlene was saying. “It’s called the Order of the Phoenix.”

Dorcas looked up at her with raised eyebrows, a bit of butterbeer foam clinging to her upper lip, standing out against her dark skin and deep red lipstick. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, saying nothing for a moment while the chatter of the tables around them continued.

The Three Broomsticks probably wasn’t the best place to have this conversation, Marlene knew that. But where else could they do it? In Defense Against the Dark Arts class, right in front of their classmates and teacher? During one of their nighttime excursions, sneaking out after curfew to see one another?

No, now would do as well as any other time.

“The Order of the Phoenix?” Dorcas repeated.

Marlene nodded.

“Yeah. To fight against them .”

There was no need to specify who they were. Of course she meant the Death Eaters. She saw in the way Dorcas’s gaze hardened that she understood.

“And you think we should join?” Dorcas asked, a wary note in her voice.

“A lot of the Gryffindors are going to,” Marlene said. “James, Sirius, Remus, Lily. I’m not sure about Peter, and Mary’s not, but …”

Dorcas’s jaw clenched, and something very much like jealousy surfaced in her eyes. Marlene could understand that, awkward as it was. She was willing to bet that nobody was talking to the Slytherins, inviting them to join the Order or even letting them know it existed. For good reason, seeing as so many of them were planning on joining the opposite side. But it would suck, Marlene figured, to be judged for the failings of others, simply because the Sorting Hat grouped you together at age eleven.

“Dumbledore said I could ask you,” she told her. “He’d let you join, if you wanted.”

The hard look in Dorcas’s eyes didn’t fade, but she nodded.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

Marlene couldn’t help feeling a flicker of disappointment. She hadn’t really expected Dorcas to agree right away, but that would certainly have been nice.

“You’ve got time to decide,” said Marlene. “They don’t let anybody join until after graduation.”

“Well, kudos to the Order for that,” said Dorcas darkly. “The Death Eaters don’t have any such reservations. I’ve even heard sixth years talking about joining, and not in some distant future.”

Marlene wanted to ask if that might just be empty bragging, but the look in her girlfriend’s eyes told her it wasn’t. Marlene felt sick to her stomach at the idea of Death Eaters – real, official Death Eaters – at Hogwarts, sitting in class with their Muggle-born peers.

She could easily imagine it, though. Mulciber, Avery, Rosier, Snape – there were plenty of Slytherins who would no doubt jump at the chance.

“See, you’d be able to tell us all sorts of stuff like that,” Marlene said. “Not quite the same as having a spy, I guess, but you’ve heard a lot in your common room, haven’t you?”

That didn’t seem to make Dorcas happy. She took another sip of her butterbeer in silence.

“Is Dumbledore going to think I’m the enemy, if I say I won’t join?” she asked at last, her voice calm and steady but trembling with well-concealed emotion that Marlene would guess few people would be able to identify.

The question took Marlene off guard.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s not like – I don’t think he expects anyone to get involved, really. It’s not like he gave anyone an ultimatum. But James found out from his parents, and we all agreed we wanted to if we could. Well, not all of us. Like I said, Mary –”

But Mary was in Gryffindor. People might question her bravery, if she chose to stay out of the war, but they wouldn’t question which side she would prefer to see victorious.

“Yeah,” said Dorcas. “Well, like I said, I’ll think about it.”

She fell silent for a moment, then reached across the table to take Marlene’s hand. Their fingers intertwined, soft and warm. Dorcas was wearing fake nails, Marlene noticed, long and rectangular, the same dark red as her lipstick.

It was a common enough color for nails. Most people didn’t paint them their House colors, unless they happened to be in Gryffindor and happened to like red. It didn’t mean anything.

Except that it probably did, because in their first few years at Hogwarts, Dorcas had painted her nails emerald green.

“You know I’m on your side, right?” Dorcas asked. “If I don’t join the Order, I’m still on your side. I’ll still be working at the Ministry, and it’s not as if - I’m not one of them .”

Marlene nodded, gently squeezing her hand.

“It’s just Dumbledore. And the secret organization part. I’m not sure. I know you all think he hung the moon, but…”

“It’s alright,” Marlene reassured her. “I get it.”

She wanted to beg, to plead, to demand to know what reservations she could possibly have about Dumbledore that weren’t dramatically outweighed by the fact that he was standing up against Voldemort. But she knew Dorcas well enough to know that pushing too hard would only lead to an argument.

“Just think about it?” she asked.

Dorcas nodded.

In the meantime, they had a Hogsmeade weekend to enjoy. When they finished their butterbeer, they walked together through the streets, embracing the feeling of the warm springtime breeze against their skin.

A smile danced across Marlene’s face as they walked along, hand in hand, down the narrow cobblestone path.

In all likelihood, this would be their last weekend in the village. Their N.E.W.T.s were coming up, and after that, they would both be moving on to something new: to careers, to the war, to a life much bigger than these school outings that, even now, were already starting to feel childish.

Childish, but still enjoyable. So they went to Honeydukes and loaded up on their favorite sweets, boxes of chocolate frogs, bags of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans. They lingered near the shrieking shack and speculated, once more, about what sort of vicious ghosts might be living there. They sat together on a bench, hand in hand, watching the younger students walk past.

“We should get a place together when we leave school,” she said softly.

She turned to Dorcas, suddenly feeling timid, wondering if the answer she would find there was a “no.” Or perhaps even a look of surprise, a sudden revelation that this was never meant to last, to extend outside Hogwarts and into the real world.

Instead, Dorcas smiled.

“Yeah, that would be nice,” she said. “As long as you don’t mind me bringing a whole library’s worth of books.”

“Sure. That’s fine.” Marlene grinned at her. “You know I’ll be blasting the radio as loud as I can, yeah? And putting up posters all over the walls.”

“I can live with that,” said Dorcas. “London, do you think?”

Marlene nodded.

“That would make sense, if we manage to get jobs at the Ministry. Though I guess we’ll apparate to work no matter where we’re living.”

Her parents would probably encourage her to stay under their roof a little longer. After all, the commute from Scotland wouldn’t be any worse, given that she could, in fact, apparate. But the idea of going back now, sneaking out to go on Order missions, having no privacy if she wanted to bring her girlfriend home – well, it felt stifling. Getting a place together felt right.

They returned late in the day, just in time for dinner. Dorcas ate at the Gryffindor table most of the time now, which she probably wasn’t technically supposed to be doing, but nobody had bothered to call her out on it. If anyone questioned why she preferred the company of Lily, Mary, and of course Marlene over the junior Death Eaters in her own House, she was more than willing to have that conversation.

Afterwards, though, she reluctantly made her way to the Slytherin common room, dreading the dim green light and creepy dungeon aesthetic even as her footsteps took her closer.

She spotted Barty, Evan, and Regulus huddled together by the fire and felt a pang of something that might have been jealousy or bitterness. Not regret. She might be thinking that there was a time when she would have gone to join them and been welcomed with a smile, but she was not longing for that, halfway wishing she had never decided to walk away.

Oh, who was she kidding? Of course she was.

She took a seat in the corner and watched them from a distance. They seemed to be working on some sort of homework, Ancient Runes judging by the large dictionary open on the table in front of them. Evan had said something, a grin on his face, and Barty was laughing. Regulus, too, gave a slight smile, his eyes gleaming with quiet amusement.

What was it he had said?

No doubt a joke of some kind. That didn’t take a genius to figure out. Evan’s sense of humor had always been a bit dry and sarcastic, and lately his once-lighthearted jokes had become outright morbid. Maybe whatever he had said would make her skin crawl, if she could hear it.

She imagined his eyes gleaming behind the facade of a mask, sharp and dangerous. His body cloaked in the black robes of the death eaters, taking on a dueling stance, wand raised.

She imagined drawing her own wand and fighting against him.

That was what it would mean, she knew, to join the Order of the Phoenix. She didn’t know if all of her old friends would join, but Evan had been a foregone conclusion for years now. His father was a Death Eater, one of the first to join if the rumors were true. She knew he could duel. She knew he wasn’t afraid of the Dark Arts, wasn’t afraid of using them to his own advantage. And if all that wasn’t enough, she had heard him imply, many times, that he would be signing up just as soon as he was old enough.

Barty was another story, she thought. His father was high up in the Ministry and strongly opposed to anything Dark Arts. Of course, Barty absolutely despised his father, but what sort of idiot would you have to be to choose joining the Death Eaters as your preferred method of teenage rebellion? He wouldn’t have the same influences as the others at home; he wouldn’t have grown up hearing about how great the Death Eaters were. If he was smart, he would stay out of it.

And Regulus?

His parents weren’t Death Eaters, but they were just as bad. She remembered how they had looked at her the one time she had met them, as if she was scum simply for having a Muggle grandfather. Regulus himself had never looked at her that way, but she knew he had been following the Death Eaters in the news for years, collecting clippings from the Prophet , whispering about them in a tone of awe.

She couldn’t do anything to change their minds. She knew that. It broke her heart, but she knew it.

Could she actually fight them, though? Not just by opposing what their side stood for, but actually raising her wand and trying to hurt them? Trying to kill them?

She wasn’t sure. But she knew she was going to have to decide, and she was going to have to do it soon.

Chapter Text

Evan Rosier had never questioned what his future would look like. He had known early on that there was only a limited set of options, and he’d never had any doubt as to which one suited him best.

As a member of a large magical family, he wasn’t the heir or even the spare. That role fell to his older cousins, and they could bloody well have it, he thought. He didn’t envy them, or Regulus, or anyone else whose future would be defined by counting the gold from various investments and micromanaging the lives of their grandchildren.

He could go into politics, but he didn’t have quite the temperament for that. He wasn’t the sort who won debates, or even cared to have them. He didn’t want to spend his time quibbling over the finer points of a proposed law or dealing with infinite red tape.

He had a great-aunt who had made a career as a historian, always surrounded by stacks of dusty books, bent over handwritten primary sources from the middle ages. That wouldn’t suit him, either. Perhaps he could specialize in something more interesting, like potions or transfiguration, but even so, his interests leaned towards the darker side of magic, which could not be investigated so openly.

He was good at dueling, but he would never in a million years become an Auror. It was one thing to work at the Ministry, another thing entirely to take up arms against your own flesh and blood - and Evan’s father, of course, was one of the very people the Aurors were meant to be fighting against.

So that left one option, really: he would get some sort of boring office job, positioning himself to aid the Death Eaters from within the Ministry and to rise in the ranks once they took over. When he wasn’t working, he would be fighting, or else experimenting with the Dark Arts, crafting cursed artifacts and brewing deadly poisons.

He had always known that was what his future would hold, and he had always been okay with it. More than okay, really - eager for what lay ahead. But Barty changed things. He didn’t come from the same world as Evan, and Evan didn’t quite know how to tell him. Didn’t know if he would understand.

“I can ask him for you, if you want,” Regulus told him. “At least I’m not his boyfriend. And at least, if it turns out he feels the way his father does, I can honestly say I’m not involved.”

“Yet,” said Evan.

“What?”

“You’re not involved yet .”

Regulus was silent for a moment, then nodded.

“I’ll talk to him myself,” Evan decided. “You don’t have to stick your neck out for me.”

He was pretty sure Regulus would gladly do so, but it would feel wrong to ask it of him.

Saying he would talk to Barty was one thing. Actually doing it was another. It was difficult, he mused to himself, to take a risk when you had something to lose.

And he most certainly had that. His relationship with Barty was something he had never expected when they first met, when Barty had peeked into their compartment on the Hogwarts Express and awkwardly asked to join them. At the time, Evan had just felt pity for the awkward kid who clearly didn’t have any friends yet, and a bit of wariness as he asked his name, wondering if there was a reason Barty hadn’t been introduced to other magical children. If he was a mudblood, for instance…

But, of course, that hadn’t been the case. Just a kid whose father scorned most of the other pure-blood families as bad influences, who hadn’t bothered to introduce his son to his future peers.

He could never have known, then, how much he would come to love Barty’s smile. Barty’s laugh. Barty’s sharp wit and clever schemes. And, of course, the feeling of Barty’s fingers on his skin, the taste of Barty’s lips, the warmth of Barty’s body pressed close to his.

The idea of losing that felt like pure agony. Grown-ups might talk about teenage relationships as shallow and fleeting, but he knew, with every fiber of his being, that Barty was the only one for him.

If Barty took one look at the Dark Mark and ran, Evan didn’t know what he would do. Fall into despair, probably. It would kill him to lose Barty now.

He didn’t really think that would happen. Barty knew about Regulus’s collection of newspaper clippings. He knew that most of what his father had to say about the Rosiers was true. And yet, he had chosen to be their friend. Knowing what he knew, he had chosen to say yes when Evan tentatively asked him out a year ago.

Still, Evan’s heart was pounding when he finally found himself alone with Barty. Regulus had made certain they would be alone, finding all sorts of excuses to get the rest of their roommates out of the dorm. One was busy taking a message to Slughorn, and another was with Regulus at Quidditch practice.

They were holding an awful lot of those, since his mother’s owl arrived; while Regulus wasn’t technically the captain and didn’t set the schedule, Evan couldn’t help assuming the two things were connected. Regulus could ask Lucinda for whatever the hell he wanted, and she’d do it, if only to keep the best player on her team happy. In any case, Evan couldn’t blame her if she wanted to end on a high note this year. Win the cup. Then, next year, if whoever replaced him wasn’t as good, at least they would have a recent victory.

(There was a problem with that plan. A problem by the name of James Potter. But if they wanted to spend their time trying to avert an inevitable Gryffindor victory, Evan figured that was their prerogative).

In any case, he was alone with Barty in the sixth-year boys’ dorm. Barty clearly had some ideas about what they might do with their momentary privacy, but as he scooted closer and pressed a kiss against Evan’s jaw, Evan stopped him, catching him by the shoulders and gently prying him away.

Barty looked at him with a frown, confusion in his eyes.

“Not right now,” said Evan softly. “Barty, there’s something we need to talk about.”

He felt the tension that emerged with those words.

“Well, that’s something no one ever wants to hear,” said Barty, his tone light but cautious, something nervous in his eyes.

“It’s not about us,” Evan said. “Our relationship, I mean. It’s… here, I’ll just…”

He rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm, breathing uneasily as he felt Barty’s gaze on the dark, twisting shape of the serpent and the hollow eyes of the skull.

“Is that what I think it is?” Barty asked quietly.

Evan nodded, daring to glance from his bare forearm up to Barty’s eyes. Immediately, he could breathe more easily. It wasn’t fear or horror he saw in Barty’s gaze. It was curiosity. Fascination, even.

“How long?” Barty asked.

“Since Christmas.”

“Oh, thank Merlin.”

“What?” Evan blinked at Barty in confusion.

“I knew you were hiding something, you idiot,” Barty said. “You think I’d rather it be that you were cheating on me or whatever?”

“I would never ,” said Evan fiercely.

Barty grinned.

“Yeah. I know. But that’s not the point.”

“You don’t mind, then?”

He watched in surprise as Barty’s smile widened. He laughed, giddy and exhilarated.

“Mind?” Barty demanded. “No. Of course not.” A pause, and then: “Have you met him? In person?”

“The Dark Lord?” Evan asked. “Yes. Of course. He gives everyone the Mark himself.”

“What was he like?” Barty asked.

And so Evan tried his best to describe it: the man’s charisma, the crimson red of his eyes, the way that he looked into Evan’s mind as if all his thoughts and memories were on display behind a glass pane. The Death Eaters behind their masks, silver glinting in the dim light, bodies concealed by loose, hooded robes.

Barty listened, and he smiled, his eyes gleaming.

“Who else is in on it?” he asked in a whisper. “Avery? Mulciber? Reg?”

Evan hesitated. The answer was yes to the first two and probably the third, but…

“I can’t answer that. Too risky, and it’s not my secret to tell.”

Barty scowled, but gave a halfhearted shrug. He looked more irritated than upset, Evan thought.

“Want to come and have some fun?” Evan asked with a sly smile. “Snape’s got a spell he’s going to teach us. Something we can use in a fight, he says.”

He watched Barty’s expression, waiting to see if he understood it for what it was: an invitation to far more than just learning one spell.

Barty grinned.

“I can’t wait.”

He scooted closer and rested his head on Evan’s shoulder, squeezing him tightly, as if he didn’t want to ever let go.

“You and me,” Barty whispered. “Together. That’s never going to change.”

Evan hoped he was right.

Chapter Text

There was blood spreading across the front of the third-year’s robes. Lily rushed to his side as he fell, catching him, reaching for her wand. Dorcas caught the note of panic in her voice as she spoke to the kid and understood the sort of deep and visceral pain that she must feel stabbing at her chest.

Dorcas understood because she felt it, too. It was Snape’s old spell, the one he’d been working on for years now, but it had been Barty’s voice that spoke the word.

Sectumsempra.

Dorcas had known, but a part of her still hadn’t wanted to admit he would do such a thing. The rest of their House, sure, but not Barty, who was still so young and so innocent that -

Well, no, he wasn’t anymore, was he? Young, maybe - younger than Dorcas, anyway - but not innocent. Not with Lily murmuring healing charms over some poor third-year lying in a pool of blood while Mary held the kid’s hand and tried to reassure him, while Marlene took her place beside Dorcas, wand drawn.

While Barty stood with his wand drawn, his words still echoing in Dorcas’s memory.

“What’d he ever do to you?” Marlene demanded.

It was a pointless question. This lot didn’t need an excuse to attack people.

“Vulnera Sanentur,” Lily was murmuring. The spell sounded almost like a song as she repeated it, again and again, her voice soft and musical.

Dorcas scanned the crowd of Slytherins with wary eyes. Mulciber and Avery - no surprise there. No sign of Snape, which, again, was not a surprise. He wouldn’t want to be at the scene of the crime when everyone already knew whose spell it was. He would want plausible deniability that he had anything to do with this.

A younger boy called Rowle was watching with a grin on his face. But Dorcas’s attention was drawn to the two boys standing on either side of Barty.

Evan, a defiant look on his face, as if daring her to question his presence.

Regulus, looking vaguely uncomfortable but saying nothing, doing nothing to interfere.

Barty between them, his wand drawn, a smile on his lips and a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

In her chest, Dorcas could feel her heart breaking, leaving shattered fragments piercing her deep below her skin. But broken heart or no, there were some things that couldn’t be forgiven, and attacking a helpless third-year was one of those.

She pulled out a sheet of spare parchment and her favorite self-inking quill, her hand shaking as she began to write down each of their names.

“What are you doing?” Regulus asked her.

Oh, wow. It was that voice of his, the one he used when he was trying not to let his emotions show. Most people would probably believe he was totally calm and indifferent, but Dorcas knew him too well for that. She knew them all too well to fall for their tricks.

He was worried. Frightened, even.

But he shouldn’t have been here, she reminded herself, if he didn’t want to get in trouble. There was no way in hell he hadn’t known what was going to happen.

“I’m making a list,” said Dorcas coldly, “to give to the Head Girl, in case any of you have made yourselves scarce by the time she’s done healing the kid you attacked.”

“I didn’t -”

“But you stood by and watched it happen,” Dorcas said. “That’s just as bad, you know.”

As she was jotting down the last of the names, a spell came flying at her from out of nowhere. She couldn’t see where it had come from, but it caught her off guard, slamming her backwards as if someone had shoved her.

Mary sprang to her feet and caught Dorcas, helping her keep her balance. Marlene shot out a hex in response, and as Dorcas found her footing, she reached deep into the pocket of her robes, drawing her own wand.

She hadn’t been sure, before, if she could fight against her old friends from Slytherin. Now, there was no choice. They had struck the first blow.

Had they? Or had it, perhaps, been Mulciber or Avery - people who had never meant anything to her - who had attacked?

But, no, they wouldn’t have used such a harmless spell. They would’ve left bloody gashes in her skin or had her screaming in pain. And it was Regulus who stood there with his wand drawn, shaking a little as he tried to hold it steady.

Another hex. She saw it coming this time and blocked it, then responded in kind. Jets of light flew back and forth in the corridor, accompanied by shouts and footsteps. Dorcas didn’t hesitate now, didn’t even think about who she was fighting. She had only one priority now: to keep these people away from the injured kid and the girl who was trying to heal him.

The sound of Lily’s voice still echoed from afar, soft and soothing, but shaking a little. She needed to focus, but Dorcas couldn’t even imagine how hard that must be at the moment. If these people managed to hit her with a hex or curse, or even something as harmless as stupefy, she wouldn’t be able to help the kid.

She couldn’t fight and heal at the same time, so Dorcas would fight for her.

They were outnumbered, but that hardly mattered. Dorcas had always been good in a duel, and she had practiced with these people often enough that she knew all their weak spots, all their flaws. She knew Evan’s curses were too powerful to block, but that his shield spells were weak and easily broken through. She knew how strongly Regulus favored his left hand over his right. She knew Avery was a coward who would run the moment he ceased to have the advantage.

Marlene didn’t know any of those things, but she was holding her own. She would make a brilliant Auror, if she managed to get into Auror training, and a brilliant soldier in the war against the Death Eaters.

And Dorcas would be right by her side.

The realization caught her off guard. But there was no time to worry about that now.

It wasn’t fair, Marlene thought, that Professor Slughorn had given them all detention when he found them fighting in the hallway - all except Lily and Mary, who he had congratulated for their upstanding behavior. After all, they hadn’t cast a single spell except Lily’s healing charm.

As far as Slughorn was concerned, his perennial favorite was to be held up as a shining example of how they all ought to have reacted. But healing magic alone wasn’t going to solve all their problems, Marlene thought. And Lily wouldn’t have been able to cast her healing charm without Dorcas and Marlene to protect her.

Sure, they’d technically been breaking the rules, but what were they supposed to do? Stand by and do nothing? It didn’t seem fair that for protecting an innocent third-year, they would spend their weekend writing lines.

It was worth it, though. It was worth it to see the looks on those smug bastards’ faces when two half-blood girls beat half a dozen of them in a fight.

It was worth it to walk the kid to the hospital wing, the bloodstains on his shirt now dried, the wounds beneath it sealed and scabbed over. To know that he would be alright.

It was worth it to stand with Dorcas on the Astronomy Tower that night, each of them with an arm wrapped around the other, the taste of kisses still fresh on their lips as they gazed out at the stars.

“I’m with you,” Dorcas told her. “Can you tell Dumbledore I want in?”

Marlene nodded.

“Yeah. Of course.”

The future loomed over them taller and more imposing even than the tower where they stood, looking out over the school. But it felt a little less terrifying, Marlene thought, knowing that they would face it together.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t until a few days after the incident that Regulus found himself alone with Remus again, patrolling the castle together by the light of their lumos charms and the crescent moon shining in through the window.

“Lily said you were there,” Remus said quietly.

Regulus nodded. There was no point in pretending he didn’t know what Remus was talking about.

“She said it was pretty brutal. They used that cutting curse of Snape’s, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

Regulus was careful not to say the name of the curse, not with his wand in his hand. Sectumsempra wasn’t like the Unforgivables. You didn’t have to particularly mean it in order to cast it.

“It takes a long time to bleed out from that,” Regulus added. “We weren’t actually trying to – it was just – and the kid was fine, wasn’t he?”

A silent nod. Then, after a moment, Remus touched his arm and looked at him with big, sad-looking eyes.

“It was practice, wasn’t it?” he asked. “For joining the Death Eaters.”

Regulus swallowed painfully, a lump in his throat. He said nothing.

“Yeah,” said Remus. “I thought so.”

He let go of Regulus’s arm and turned away, looking so disappointed that Regulus could hardly stand it.

“It’s not like you think. Things are going to be better. For all of us, everybody with magic.”

Remus glanced at him again, then shook his head.

“They’re not making anything better,” he said. “Not even for pure-bloods, really, and definitely not for the rest of us. If that’s really what you think, then you’re an idiot. And I’ve never thought you were an idiot, Regulus. So why?”

Regulus shouldn’t have said anything, really. He should have bit his lip and stuffed his emotions so deep down into the corners of his heart that they’d never show through. But the words came tumbling out anyway.

“Because they’ve got it all planned out for me,” he said. “My parents, I mean. They’ve already picked out what I’m studying, what I’ll do for work, probably who I’ll marry. All they have to do is write a fucking letter and I can’t play Quidditch anymore.”

“And they’re making you do this, too?” Remus asked, a strange, suddenly hopeful tone emerging in his voice. “Reg, you’ve got to tell someone, we can get you out, you can –”

“No, you idiot!” Regulus sighed, crossing his arms and slumping back against the wall. “You don’t get it at all, do you? My parents don’t even know I’m going to join.”

Remus stared at him in confusion.

“Then I don’t understand.”

“If I’m a Death Eater, everything changes,” Regulus said. “They won’t be able to tell me what to do. I’ll be free.”

Regulus thought he had made a good point, but Remus shook his head.

“You won’t be,” he said. “You’ll just have Voldemort telling you what to do instead of your parents.”

The words stung. He thought of Bellatrix; nobody had been able to boss her around or micromanage her life since she had taken the Dark Mark. Surely, if he held the sort of power that she did…

“They’re killing people,” Remus was saying. “Torturing people.”

Regulus nodded. He knew that. He had read every one of the articles in his collage, pouring over them for every scrap of information he could find.

“Is that really what you want to do?” Remus asked.

Regulus hesitated.

He thought of the little third-year lying in a pool of blood, gasping for breath and whimpering in pain. The kid was a mudblood, and yet it had still felt wrong to stand there and watch him suffer.

Could Regulus do that again, and again? Could he watch people die? Could he kill them?

“No.”

“Then don’t do it.”

Remus made it sound so logical, so easy, so right. And yet…

“I’m supposed to just stay where I am, then? Live like a puppet, let them all pull my strings and make all my choices for me until they die? I’ll be an old man by then.”

To his surprise, Remus laughed.

“Reg, you’ll be seventeen in a few months.”

Regulus frowned, unsure what that had to do with anything.

“In another year, you’ll be done with school. You’ll graduate and get a job. It doesn’t have to be what your family has planned for you. Do something you like. Professional Quidditch, or translating ancient runes, or whatever you think would make you happy.”

“They’d never allow it. They don’t want –”

“Screw what they want,” said Remus. “You don’t have to let them control your life. You can move out soon, get your own place – we could get a place together, if you want, when we’re both done with school. They won’t like it, but they won’t be able to stop you.”

Regulus glanced at him cautiously. What he was saying almost sounded too good to be true. Unfortunately, though, it probably was too good to be true.

“They’d burn me off the tapestry. Like they did to Sirius. They’d disown me.”

“Would they?” Remus asked, a shrewd look in his eye.

“Yes. Of course.”

“Would they, really, though?” Remus asked. “You’re meant to be their heir, aren’t you? And they haven’t got any more spares lined up, do they?”

Regulus considered that carefully. He had cousins, of course, but they were women. Their children, if they had any, would have different surnames and be the heirs to other families’ estates. He and Sirius had been the only boys in their generation, and with Sirius gone, that left only Regulus.

“They might still. They might rather make Bella and Cissy their heirs than acknowledge a blood traitor as family. And they would call me a blood traitor, if I ran off to live with you.”

Remus shrugged.

“Maybe. And I know it matters to you what they think. But it’s not so bad, you know, when you leave. It hasn’t been for Sirius.”

Regulus wasn’t Sirius. He had never been like Sirius.

“And you’d have me,” said Remus.

It went without saying, Regulus thought, that if he joined the Death Eaters, he would lose Remus. That thought hurt more than he had expected. After all, this was never meant to last. And yet, the idea that they would go their separate ways – become enemies, even – left him feeling like someone had clenched their fist around his heart and squeezed it until it shattered.

“Think about it,” Remus said. “Before you do anything you’ll regret.”

He took Regulus’s hand, and Regulus didn’t pull away.

Later, when he returned to his dorm room, Regulus slipped into bed, doing his best not to wake his friends. Evan’s soft snores filled the room, and by the dim glow of moonlight through the lake, Regulus could see drool dribbling down Barty’s chin.

He clenched his jaw. How could he possibly be thinking of listening to Remus? It wasn’t just his place on the family tree at stake, it was his friendships as well. Evan was a Death Eater. Barty would be one soon, probably. If Regulus changed his mind now, what would that mean?

Would he have to tell Dumbledore what he knew about them?

No. He could never do that.

But maybe, if he was careful, he could keep out of it. Maybe Remus was right; maybe he didn’t need the Dark Mark to make his own choices. Maybe there were other ways of obtaining power, other ways of getting what he wanted.

Maybe the Dark Mark wouldn’t be freedom at all.

He rolled up his sleeve and ran his thumb over the smooth, pale skin, imagining a skull and snake branded there. He thought of the injured third-year with blood seeping through his robes.

He didn’t want that. Not really. He just wanted to study Ancient Runes and play Quidditch.

In the morning, perhaps, he would write to his parents. Let them know he was staying at Hogwarts for Easter to focus on his studies. That would buy time, at least – enough time to come up with a plan, to figure out what to tell Bellatrix, and to start talking to Slughorn about his career options.

Perhaps he wouldn’t go home at all that summer. Perhaps he would stay with Aunt Lucretia and her husband. His parents wouldn’t try to prevent that, probably; the Prewetts were well connected and influential, and it would be worth his effort as the heir to become acquainted with them.

Or perhaps he would wake in the morning, more convinced than ever that the only way forward was with the Dark Mark on his arm.

For now, he was too tired to think it through. He lay down and was asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

There was something about the feeling of pointing your wand and hearing someone scream. Seeing them collapse to the ground in a pool of blood. Barty hadn’t known, before, that he would love that feeling quite as much as he did.

“Is it always like that?” he asked Evan in a whisper the next morning. “Like you’ve got all the power, like nothing could stop you, whatever you wanted to do?”

Evan grinned at him.

“It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?”

“Very. Don’t you think so, Reg?”

Regulus glanced up, then shrugged his shoulders, a slight, barely perceptible gesture.

“I suppose. I wouldn’t know, really. I’m not one of them yet.”

“But you’ve studied the Dark Arts,” Barty said.

Regulus nodded.

“Yes, of course.”

“Isn’t it brilliant?” Barty asked.

Regulus smiled weakly.

“I suppose. Curses like that one aren’t really… I suppose I prefer other sorts. Blood runes and poisons.”

“Oh, come on!” Barty made a face. “Where’s the fun in that? I want to hear people scream.”

Evan grinned and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“You’ll get to do that plenty if you join us,” he said.

Barty turned to smile coyly at him, a gleam in his eyes

“Well, then I suppose I’ll have to join you, won’t I?” he asked.

Evan leaned forward and kissed him.

Later that day, Evan was poking a quill with his wand, murmuring incantations over it.

“You’ve been messing with that for hours,” Regulus said, glancing up over the top of his Ancient Runes textbook. “What are you trying to do to it?”

“I’m cursing it,” Evan said matter-of-factly. “Whoever tries to write with it, their fingers will get stuck.”

“A childish prank,” said Regulus, not bothering to hide his disapproving tone.

“No.” Evan shook his head. “You see, we’re going to coat it in a slow-acting poison that soaks in through the skin. Whoever touches it, they won’t be able to let go, and slowly, very slowly, the poison will sink into their skin. It gets into their bloodstream, makes them feel like they’re on fire. There’s an antidote, of course – but we won’t give it until they’ve done what we want.”

Regulus stared at him for a moment, puzzling over what he could possibly be talking about.

“Oh,” he said at last, his eyes widening. “It’s for them. For the Dark Lord.”

Evan grinned.

“Yeah. Of course. You see it, right? We’ve captured someone, we need information, we give them the quill and a sheet of parchment, and then, once they’ve picked it up…”

Regulus felt his stomach churn at the idea. He imagined his brother, one wrist bound to the arm of his chair and the other hand holding the quill, clenching his jaw and trying not to scream. He wouldn’t be writing, no matter how much pain he was in. Sirius would rather die than betray his friends.

It would be a horrible way to die.

“Reg, are you okay?” Evan asked.

Regulus tore his gaze from the quill, looking Evan in the eye. He didn’t think he had ever felt quite so sick to his stomach.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Good. I’d hate to think you’re going soft already.”

Soft. What a strange word to use, as if it was some sort of weakness not to enjoy hearing people scream. To not want to be the one to inflict such pain.

The thought occurred to him that Remus wouldn’t think it was a weakness. He would fight for the Order, because he felt it was the right thing to do. Maybe he would even kill, if it came to that – to defend himself, to protect his friends, or to save the lives of innocent bystanders. But he would never enjoy seeing people suffer, and he would never expect Regulus to, either.

Regulus tried not to think too hard about that, turning his attention back to his Ancient Runes book. But it was harder than he had expected to focus on his favorite school subject, when he felt as if his heart was being torn in two different directions.

Chapter Text

Remus had never told Sirius or the others much about his late night patrols with Regulus. They knew, of course, that the two of them were prefect partners. James and Lily had been the ones to sign off on that, as Head Boy and Head Girl – and they knew what Remus had told them, that he wanted to keep an eye on Sirius’ brother, that he thought he could be a good influence on him.

But no one knew how much Remus had come to care for the younger Black brother, and certainly no one knew their relationship had become so intimate.

That night, though, Remus told them everything. About the stolen kisses. About the whispered doubts and questions. He told them how close Regulus was to joining the Death Eaters.

“But I’m pretty sure he’ll regret it if he does.”

He watched Sirius’s face carefully as he spoke. It didn’t matter what James or Peter thought; it was Sirius whose reaction he cared about and Sirius who was most likely to care, though Remus wasn’t sure whether he would be furious, or worried, or –

“You think he’s not too far gone?”

Sirius spoke in a hesitant whisper, as if he was afraid to even say the words, brimming with easily-crushed hope.

“I don’t know what he’s going to decide,” said Remus carefully. “And I’m not denying he’s still got some messed-up ideas. But I don’t think he really wants to hurt anyone. He just wants… I don’t know. Power. Freedom.”

“Joining the Death Eaters isn’t freedom,” said James, raising an eyebrow. “Only an idiot would think it was.”

“Yeah,” said Sirius with an awkward shrug. “But Reggie is an idiot, so…”

Remus wanted to argue the point. Regulus was, from what he had seen, quite intelligent. But he figured Sirius wasn’t talking about Regulus’s school marks or his ability to spend hours talking about the finer points of his favorite subjects. When it came to the Death Eaters and the horrible ideas he had picked up from his family, Regulus was indeed being a bit of an idiot.

“If he decides he wants a way out…” Remus said tentatively.

Sirius nodded.

“We’ll be there for him. Of course.”

Dorcas was watching from a distance, at a table in the library with a stack of Arithmancy books in front of her. It really wasn’t any of her business what Remus Lupin was doing with Regulus Black. But they made such an odd pair that she couldn’t help staring.

They were sitting together, on opposite sides of a table nearby, just out of earshot. Regulus was talking – she couldn’t make out what he was saying, but she could see his lips moving. Judging by his tense shoulders and furrowed brows, whatever he was saying was something very serious. He was speaking very quietly, she thought, determined to let no one but Remus hear what he had to say and probably bracing himself for a bad reaction to whatever it was.

She hated that she still knew his body language so well.

Remus listened with a wary expression, but after a few moments, his face softened with obvious relief. He offered Regulus a slight smile and reached out across the table to take his hand.

Regulus smiled back, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes, wetting his eyelashes.

As she watched, Dorcas felt a tiny spark of hope in her chest.

She had told herself a thousand times that she didn’t care about the boys who had once been her friends, and she knew perfectly well that she couldn’t afford to. Yet, still, she watched Regulus smile as he held Remus Lupin’s hand from across the table, the tension easing out of his body, and she couldn’t help hoping.

Not believing, not trusting. Not yet. But hoping, just a little bit.

Remus squeezed Regulus’s hand tightly. An irrational part of him was terrified that if he let go, even for a second, Regulus might slip away again, taking back everything he had just said, returning to the shadowy dungeons and the crowds of sneering future Death Eaters.

But, of course, he couldn’t hold on forever. At some point, they would have to go their separate ways. At some point, Regulus would have to return to the dungeons, and Remus would have to trust him to return, to not get sucked back into everything that he had just promised to walk away from.

“We’ll have to be careful,” Regulus said softly. “For a while, anyway.”

Remus nodded, knowing Regulus had a point. His parents still held too much power over him, and even after his birthday, he would have to spend another year in Slytherin, surrounded by people who owed their allegiance to the wrong side.

“But in another year or so?” Remus ventured.

“I won’t join the Order,” Regulus said. “I won’t sell out my friends, or fight against them. But I can stay out of it. Play professional Quidditch. I think I’m good enough, if I stay on the team next year, and they can’t really force me to quit after my birthday, so –”

Remus grinned and squeezed his hand.

“You’ll be brilliant. What team do you want to play for?”

Regulus hesitated a moment.

“The Kestrels, maybe. Or Puddlemere United. Not the Chudley Cannons, though I do hear they’re looking for a new Seeker - better to start as an alternate on one of the better teams, I think, than the star of a team so terrible they’ll lose whether I catch the snitch or not.”

Remus felt his smile widen.

“You’ll be brilliant,” he said. “Whatever team you sign on with, you’ll be their star player before you know it.”

Regulus’s face flushed as if he didn’t believe it, but Remus was completely serious. He might not play Quidditch himself, but he knew talent when he saw it, and Regulus Black had it.

The three boys sat beneath a tree on the Hogwarts grounds. In his lap, Barty held an Arithmancy book, but he wasn’t paying much attention to the numbers and formulas in its pages. He had turned his head and was watching Evan attentively while the latter demonstrated the Unforgivable Curses on a small beetle that had been unfortunate enough to crawl past him a few minutes before. It writhed on the closed book Evan had placed it on, its tiny legs flailing and twitching.

Regulus turned away, watching the birds in the branches of the tree overhead. As one of them took flight and soared away, he felt something in his heart lift, as if he could feel himself taking flight alongside it.

He remained there on the ground, beside his friends, as they giggled at the pain they were inflicting on that poor beetle. But he felt, in that moment, that they were already on different paths, and that he wouldn’t follow where theirs led.

It hurt to realize what that would cost him.

But it also felt like something heavy had been lifted from his shoulders, and he managed to smile, even as he packed his books up and stood, making his excuses and setting off towards something unknown.