Intrepid

Chapter Three -- Unexpected Happenings
Friday, October 28, 1977

The Slytherin common room had always been a draughty, poorly lit chamber, facts that had sparked more than their fair share of rumours about the Slytherins themselves. The dungeons were grim and their inhabitants grimmer, or so the other houses believed.

Personally, Regulus was disgusted with both the state of his common room and the state of the attitude toward his house. However, there was little to be done about it on an unremarkable Friday morning break, as long as he was planted on the couch before the fireplace. It was the ideal place for brooding.

On the whole, the day had been uneventful. Most of his housemates had abandoned the common room for the Great Hall or library, but quiet figures were scattered throughout the room, amid the low rustling of page-turning and the occasional piercing cough.

Regulus had spent most of this free morning seated where he was now, lounging on a couch; there were a million thoughts running through his head, and none of them were particularly welcome.

For a week and a half, the phenomenon of the statue notes had continued. He checked there daily, and was always rewarded with a page of faded, spindly ink. Gradually, the content changed. Hints of impending doom had been replaced with musings on human nature; there were discussions, long parchment conversations, about life. Secrets were shared.

In truth, Regulus still knew little about the identity of his anonymous correspondent. It had almost stopped bothering him. As days dragged by, the austere, clean hand had abandoned the ambiguity of his former label -- "A friend" -- and had given himself a name, something to relate his character to: Gale.

It was a fitting name. Short, clean, and simple.

For Regulus, the adventure had turned from a fancy to a necessity -- where before it had been inconsequential, it was suddenly profound. For Gale, it had turned from a necessity to a fancy -- urgency and fear replaced with a rare sentimentality.

Regulus was resolved to put the matter to rest; there was little use worrying his mind with maudlin rubbish of little use to his life in Slytherin. Instead, there was the hearth, couch, and common room -- all bleak and unappealing.

Colleen Fletcher was seated on a table, behind Regulus' couch, building a card castle with her large hand of captured Exploding Snap cards. It was more or less a success as card castles went; she'd certainly had enough practice. The flimsy structure tottered slightly when she moved, but each movement was purposeful; her wiry, ginger-coloured bob barely shifted as she sat back to survey her handiwork.

"You've been odd lately," said Colleen, not taking her eyes from the card tower.

Regulus tried not to start in surprise -- unsuccessfully.

"I have a lot on my mind." He slouched lower against the couch, as uncomfortable as it was.

Colleen looked unimpressed. "Oh, really. The details of your existence are dreadful, I'm sure."

"What do you mean?" he asked, frowning.

She lifted her eyebrows a fraction as she gently added another crosspiece. "Face it, Regulus. You're a Black. You don't have anything to complain about."

"You try it and see how much you like it."

"I wouldn't if I could," said Colleen lightly.

"What's your diagnosis, then?" he asked, looking at her wearily over the back of the couch.

"Too much time spent thinking about problems rather than solving them."

Regulus snorted. "It's a good job you know everything. Otherwise, people would have to take care of their own lives."

"Calm down, Regulus, I'm trying to help," said Colleen, frowning at him. She turned back to her cards without further comment.

"Sorry." He paused. "Colleen."

"Hmm?"

"What do you think about secrets?"

She shrugged loftily, but not so much that it disturbed her delicate construction. "I dunno. Does the secret matter much?"

Regulus bit his lip. "I'm not sure."

Further probing was interrupted by the grating of the stone door, which swept open to reveal a very disgruntled-looking Bellatrix. Without so much as a glance around the room, she strode toward Regulus' couch.

"Regulus."

"I thought you were in Amburn's room," he said, watching her sit beside him on the couch. "All right?"

She made a face, sweeping her hair back with one hand. "We can't find anyone willing to stick around the Arithmancy table at that blasted Festival."

"No one? What about Christie Thompson, from Hufflepuff?"

Bella wrinkled her nose. "Says she's got Gobstone Player's Club. Rubbish, if you ask me."

"What about that Ravenclaw, McKinley? Judith Whitley?"

"It's no good!" She threw up her hands and fell back into the couch, staring listlessly at the ceiling. "No one's willing to do it, not even McKinley. She got pretty defensive when I asked her, though I suppose it didn't help that Ilian Neven looked ready to pounce on her."

Regulus cast pensive eyes around the common room, hoping -- over there, that would do it. By the windowsill, Madeleine Bourdelet was bent over a flimsy paperback novel, her bored, haughty face unreadable.

"Can't you make Bourdelet do it?" he asked, turning back to Bellatrix.

"Can anyone make Bourdelet do anything?" she retorted, throwing a disgruntled glare at that familiar blonde head.

"Well, who are you going to--" realisation dawned, as he recognised Bella’s anxious expression. "Oh, no. I'm not doing it."

Bellatrix sighed. "Please, Regulus, I don't want to spend all evening standing around some stupid display table and showing off for uptight Ministry of Magic workers."

"Neither do I!"

She looked sour, turning back to the fireplace with her arms folded tightly across her chest.

Regulus heaved a sigh. Experience had taught him that being set between Bellatrix and whatever she wanted was not a good position to be in. That did nothing to diminish his frustration.

Mentally cursing himself, he said, "Wait."

Bellatrix turned toward him cautiously, without letting a trace of appeasement creep onto her face.

"If you can get one more person, then I'll do it," he said, grimacing nonetheless.

"You will?" Bellatrix looked immediately mollified, flinging her arms unceremoniously over his shoulders.

"I don't have any intentions of speaking to these Ministry people," he warned her, as his head was pulled forcibly against her throat.

"I'll see what I can do." she promised; though he couldn't see it, she was no doubt wearing a familiar mischievous smile. "Maybe one of the Ravenclaws will crack -- Thanks, Regulus, I suppose I owe you a favour?"

"You owe me a million favours," he corrected, faltering slightly under the weight of her hug.

With a laugh she released him, leaping to her feet with her usual poise. "I'm going to go find Rodolphus," she announced, "I'll let you know if we can get anyone else for the Festival."

So saying, she left the common room with Colleen Fletcher’s discontented eyes boring into her back.

"She always gets what she wants, doesn't she?" observed Colleen neutrally.

"What's your point?" asked Regulus, glaring at her over the back of the couch.

"No point," she said, turning back to her card castle with a noncommittal shrug.

Regulus couldn't quite bring himself to believe her.

-----

"I'm beginning to think that we're going to have to rob Professor Vance's personal storage room."

Judging by the determinedly nonchalant expression Narcissa was wearing, she expected some kind of reaction to such a statement. Regulus, seated across the sputtering cauldron in the middle of the otherwise-unoccupied Room of Requirement, refused to give her one.

"For Amphisbaena venom?" he asked evenly, flipping over another page of his Transfiguration textbook. "And how do you propose to do that?"

Narcissa smirked and reached over to stir the unsavoury concoction. "I'm sure we'll be able to think of something."

Over the past week and a half, she had boiled, stirred, and brewed the Draught into what they could only assume was the perfect consistency: a dark, murky green bubbling thickly in their simmering cauldron. Phoebus hadn't felt the need to say much to them about it, except when he paused after class the previous Friday to announce that he expected it to be done in a week. This had brought about a heated discussion of how he intended to find their missing ingredient; in the end, he told them lightly that it was their own affair (with a hand resting casually on his wand), and the issue was never brought up again.

Regulus had no real feelings on the matter. If Narcissa was willing to risk expulsion from the school for a damned phial of venom, then she would be more than welcome to do so. It wasn't really his potion at all. He admitted with a stinging distaste that he was more often than not dragged into these kinds of adventures against his own will.

Which was really what things had been, recently -- adventures. Anonymous stalkers and illegal potions were no longer frightening or foreboding in the least. It had started out that way, at least -- an adventure, with nothing at stake to lose. He had no idea when that unidentifiable moment had occurred, but realised with a jolt that at some point, he had begun to care about things.

It was unsettling. Suppose, for instance, that things changed again -- what would this adventure look like in retrospect? What would happen when it was over?

This was certainly not the time to be thinking of such eventualities. For one thing, Narcissa was talking again, filling the silence with insignificant chatter about the happenings at Hogwarts (Regulus had never thought himself unobservant until he had discovered the full range of Narcissa's capacity for gossip. Now there seemed no end to the riotous rumours, none of which were particularly important and all of which were insatiably interesting).

More important than Narcissa's prattle was the fact that his Transfiguration grade was slowly but surely making a downward plunge. This last resort -- a scant twenty minutes in front of his textbook -- was dwindling quickly.

Far too quickly, Narcissa was back on track with their relatively single-sided conversation, and the bell was ready to signal the start of McGonagall's regular torture.

"As for the venom -- we'll need a definite plan," said Narcissa glibly.

"When?" asked Regulus, chewing carefully on the tip of his quill.

"Two nights from tonight," she answered, after a moment of swift thinking. "That will be our only shot; the venom will have to be added as soon as we get it."

"And the blood?" asked Regulus, grimacing at the thought. Besides the venom, the Draught's prime ingredient was the blood of its intended user -- Phoebus Ahlman.

"We'll get it before the Festival," said Narcissa, unconcerned. "That's one day in advance. It will stay fresh enough, I hope."

Regulus made a face.

-----

In Regulus' personal opinion, Professor McGonagall's fifth-year Transfiguration class could be described with a mere handful of words: dull, dreary, and uninteresting. Narcissa had never agreed with him on this front, something that he didn't understand in the least. Nonetheless, it was his grade that was falling, and skiving off in favour of life's more interesting tasks -- a walk around the lake, for instance -- was no longer an option.

These resentful thoughts were banished immediately when they arrived to an unpleasant surprise: standing upright on the rows of desks were empty glass cups, spaced at regular intervals. McGonagall's chair was empty, but that wasn't incentive for any unruly behaviour among her students. McGonagall was famous for both appearing without a moment's notice and handing out strict punishments without second thought. No one seemed ready to cross school rules even without her present.

"What's going on?" asked Narcissa sharply of a Hufflepuff classmate, who shrugged in a nervous sort of way.

"Hands-on demonstrations, I should think," replied the Hufflepuff. Narcissa smiled wanly; whether it was at the sight of his rumpled shirt collar or at the implications he might be capable of thought, Regulus couldn't tell.

"Come on," sniffed Narcissa to Regulus, shaking her hair away from her shoulders. With her white hand looped firmly through his elbow, she led him back to more familiar territory: the Slytherin side of the room, to their usual seats. Colleen Fletcher was sitting nearby, listening sceptically to a rumour Maddox Prewett had overheard from the seventh-years. Regulus decided to ignore her.

Mysteries about their unorthodox new supplies were put aside when McGonagall strode impatiently through the door behind her desk, immediately hushing all conversations. She looked the same as ever, straight-backed, her hands bustling with papers on her over-organised desk.

At the sight of their teacher, the students hurried to their seats, the talking on both sides of the classroom dying to a low murmur. McGonagall turned toward them with a stack of parchment that she immediately handed to a plaited Hufflepuff girl to dole out among the students.

"Thank you, Lydia," said McGonagall, turning brusquely to the chalkboard, where an eraser was lazily wiping the remains of last lesson’s notes off the dusty green surface. With a stiff wave of her wand, a piece of chalk rose swiftly and began tapping out a long list of instructions in stark, yellow strokes.

"Today will be the first of a series of practical demonstrations on conjuration," said McGonagall, her spectacled eyes following the Hufflepuff Lydia’s slow progression through the room. "Your task will be to fill the glasses I have provided with water, using only your wand. You may work in pairs. I dearly hope that the notes you have made during our past sessions prove adequate."

Lydia handed a small sheaf of parchment to Narcissa and moved onward; Narcissa groaned as she read over the instructions.

"This is impossible, I can’t believe she’s starting us on this already," whispered Narcissa fiercely to Regulus, handing him a paper.

He passed the others to Maddox and Colleen before reading it over. Apparet Aqua, it said at the top, A Study of Beginning Conjuration.

With little ado they set about practising, the scrape of moving chairs adding to the din as the students divided into the required pairs. Colleen snatched Narcissa by the arm and flashed her a remarkably wolfish smile. This left Regulus with the prospect of Maddox Prewett, who was sitting back from the quick claiming of partners in resignation, his arms folded across his chest.

Regulus had never been on particularly bad terms with Maddox -- a surprise, considering Maddox's quick temper and unusual capacity for holding grudges. Now seemed as good a time as any to cash in on that record.

Maddox seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"McGonagall will end up pairing us with Hufflepuffs if we don't get a move on," said Maddox with a wry smile, rolling up his sleeves. "What do you say: partners?"

"Better than anyone else," mumbled Regulus, busying himself with the task of turning his Transfiguration guide to the appropriate page. "D'you actually know anything about conjuring?"

"Last I can remember, we were still turning matchsticks into needles," said Maddox blandly, pulling out his wand. "Somewhere in between there and now is, oh, four years or so?"

"Something like that," said Regulus with a smirk. "You first."

Maddox pulled a face of mock indignation and sniffed airily. "What's the incantation?"

"Apparet aqua."

"Right," said Maddox, clearing his throat. His wand at the ready, he addressed the empty glass and said, with a magnificent swish-and-flick, "Apparet aqua!"

The air around the glass flickered and crackled uneventfully. Not a drop of water appeared inside.

Maddox put his wand down with a shrug. "Your turn to try, Black. Make it count."

Try he did; in fact, over the course of thirty minutes there was much trying, and nothing that really counted. Not a single drop of water had appeared to anyone in the room. This didn't deter McGonagall in the least; she was still pacing the length of her classroom (with a very self-satisfied look, Regulus thought) and offering a few measly words of help to those who were floundering on the edge of giving up.

There were certainly many that were. Even Colleen Fletcher had lost her usual cool-headed composure, and several Hufflepuffs looked to be on the verge of tears.

"This is getting a bit pathetic," said Regulus, as he watched Narcissa poking at the glass with her wand. "No one'll finish the task at this rate."

"Mmm," said Maddox vaguely, who was paying his partner very little attention in favour of eaves-dropping on the group behind them, "be quiet a minute, would you--?"

"What?"

Maddox swatted a hand at him, pressing a finger to his lips.

Obediently, though reluctantly, Regulus listened. He immediately wished he hadn't.

On the row behind them, amidst inappropriate giggles and snickers, an intense gossip circle had convened.

"Just like that," Judith Whitley of Slytherin was saying, much more loudly than was wise, "In the middle of the summer, he just left. Ran away. He didn’t tell anyone about it beforehand, and there was nothing they could do about it afterward, was there?"

"Ran away?" tittered her friend, the ever-so-irritating Elizabeth Blakeney. "He had the nerve to run away, from a family like that?"

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Regulus caught on to what they were talking about.

Judith was laughing, waving her wand idly in the direction of their still-empty glass cup. "Sirius Black is a Gryffindor, not a Slytherin. A pity, too, he seems marvellously talented--"

Regulus' face burned what was presumably a very unattractive shade of red. He swallowed thickly, swivelling slowly in his seat to stare at the empty glass on his desktop, fighting valiantly against the unavoidable racing of his pulse and the pounding in his ears...

Maddox suddenly realised what was going on. Awkwardly, he straightened and turned nervously to Regulus, with a half-hearted, "We should really try again..."

A shrieking peal of giggles cut off his sentence.

"Ignore them," said Maddox quickly, "They don't know what they're talking about, they're--"

Regulus wasn't listening to him anymore. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he spun around to face the whispering group of his Housemates.

"Judith Whitley," he spat, ignoring Elizabeth's gasp of surprise, "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your ill-informed gossip away from my family."

"Ill-informed?" said Judith, with a lofty smirk, "I heard it from Peter Pettigrew himself!"

"You don't know what you're talking about!"

Her smiling lips parted, revealing crooked teeth. "Don't I? Why don't you tell us all the real story, then?"

It was completely intolerable, that self-assured smile.

Before anyone could stop him he was on his feet, completely oblivious to Judith's Galleon-sized eyes or the chorus of gasps that rippled down the row. No one had time to warn him just before--

"Mr. Black! Might I inquire as to what you're doing out of your seat?"

It was McGonagall. She was on them in a flash, eyes flaring, adjusting her spectacles with slender fingers as the whole class watched with bated breath.

Dead silence. Regulus had opened his mouth, waiting for the sound of his own voice, which never arrived. Maddox shifted uncomfortably as Judith Whitley looked triumphant, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I see," said McGonagall, with a raising of her thin eyebrows. "It would appear, then, that you've finished learning your spells? In that case, why don't you give a demonstration?"

No one spoke. It felt as though Regulus' entire body had seized up under McGonagall's stare, under the watch of so many familiar eyes. Ever so slowly he turned, fixing his eyes dazedly on the empty glass cup and drawing his wand with fumbling fingers.

"We're waiting, Mr. Black."

Regulus nodded mutely, raising his trembling wand.

Transfiguration was a curious thing. As hard as Regulus tried at it, there always seemed some elusive ingredient that was impossible to catch. Trying to turn one object into another -- or, indeed, trying to call the required stream of water from thin air -- invariably sent him spinning in a confusing, clammy state that was neither conducive to spellwork, as he knew all too well.

Presently, he cleared his throat and tightened a sweaty hand around his wand, sucking in a deep breath to clear his nerves.

The room seemed to shrink. Every eye was trained on him, the harsh echoes of snickering ringing in the background...

Closing his eyes, Regulus lifted his wand and said, "Apparet aqua!"

There was a singular, light-headed moment in which a tingling sensation shot down his arm and burst through his fingertips like a jet of lightning. It wasn't the usual spurt of energy required for Transfiguration, though -- it was wildly unnatural and left his whole right arm cold and numb.

His eyes snapped open in time to see it happen.

There was no gentle trickling of water from wandpoint, but an unstoppable, violent burst, exploding in a brilliant glow and gushing over the tabletop. The glass was bowled over and shattered on the stone floor in a wave. On either side, Maddox and Narcissa jumped out of the way, chairs tumbling over, as water ran across the desktops and splashed over their robes...

It stopped, just as suddenly, leaving him shaking, dripping, with his hands clutched in fists and his wand glowing hot.

Everyone was quiet for what seemed like several minutes. His throat burned; his cheeks must have been bright red. Shakily, he sat down at his seat, completely oblivious to the pool of water puddled in it already.

Without comment, McGonagall walked to where he sat and performed a drying charm.

"Mr. Black, please meet me after class at my desk," said McGonagall, giving him a very curious look over her spectacles.

He managed to nod.

After McGonagall swept away and the room broke out in a tidal wave of whispers, Narcissa turned toward her cousin. Her eyes were wide.

"What in Hades--?" She faltered. "Regulus, what on earth has happened to you?"

Wordlessly, he slumped face first onto his desk. His robes still felt wet. He had been completely drenched.

No one, not even Maddox, bothered him for the rest of the lesson. When the bell finally rang, he stayed in his seat until the classroom cleared around him, students leaving amid loud chattering and whooping to a free afternoon.

He stayed in his chair until waiting any longer seemed completely pointless; in abject defeat, he roused himself and walked stoically to McGonagall's desk, where she was scribbling furiously across a long piece of parchment.

He swallowed; it was difficult. "You wanted to see me?"

"Sit down, Black," said McGonagall, indicating the seat nearest her desk. He pulled it carefully over, deliberately setting it as far back from her desk as he could. She seemed to take no notice of this. Carefully, she set down her quill and gave him a hard, indescribable look. "How's your family life, Regulus?"

He was so surprised he nearly toppled out of the chair. "Excuse me?"

McGonagall ignored his outburst. "I know that things must be harder on you now that your brother is gone--"

"I don't have a brother," said Regulus quickly.

His throat was burning again. How many times today was this going to happen?

"--Very difficult, I see," said McGonagall, her thin eyebrows creasing. "You've never been a bad Transfiguration student, but I'll be forced to write to your parents if this continues--"

He drew in a ragged breath. "I'm fine. I don't need any help."

There were several moments of reluctant silence. McGonagall retrieved her quill and waved it in dismissal. "Very well, then. You may go."