Intrepid

Chapter Four -- Anonymous

Monday, October 31, 1977

Long before the day had any business arriving, it seemed, Hallowe'en dawned without a hitch on its rather unfortunate Monday.

Charms, Runes, and Potions lessons zipped by without incident, the teachers having apparently given up on keeping anyone's attention for a half-day of classes. The situation altogether was looking surprisingly upbeat, even when one was Regulus Black and therefore dreading the approach of the Founder's Day Festival.

As it turned out, Diana McKinnon, seventh-year Ravenclaw, had less than impressive alternate plans for Hallowe'en night. As a result, McKinnon had finally caved and agreed to be dragged bodily to the Arithmancy display table for the Festival. Her natural perfectionism had taken over at some point since then, and no one was expecting anything less than a spectacular performance on her part, reluctant though it was.

Before the Festival, however, a certain group of fifth-year students was hastily conducting their penultimate meeting in the Room of Requirement.

"You're getting the Amphisbaena venom from Vance's personal storage?" Phoebus demanded, still none too pleased with the state of things.

"Tonight," said Narcissa wearily. "Look, all I need you to do is fill this phial with your blood, or the potion isn't going to work anyway."

"Fine," said Phoebus sullenly, snatching the phial from her hand.

"Use this," said Grace, producing a small knife from her robe pocket. "It came from the Potions room, but I've cleaned it well enough."

"Where am I supposed to cut?" asked Phoebus distractedly, rolling his sleeve up to examine his rather pale left arm.

"Right across your wrist," said Regulus helpfully.

If looks could kill, Regulus Black would have been sprawled on the floor in the face of a hefty Avada Kedavra, but as it was, he remained cheerfully upright in the face of Phoebus' glare.

Fuming, Phoebus plucked the tiny knife from Grace's fingertips. "The back of your hand will do well," said Grace dryly, helping him adjust his sleeve.

With an uncharacteristic delicacy, Phoebus sliced carefully through a spidery blue vein. "Ow!" He winced, his fingers fumbling over the phial.

"Stop your whinging," said Narcissa carelessly, making an attempt at opening the phial for him. He wrenched it out of her reach, shooting her a venomous glare.

"Slice yourself open and then tell me not to complain," he suggested, managing to uncork the phial at last and catch a dribble of the velvet red liquid as it dripped messily down the back of his hand, a delta of dark rivulets. He held the phial steady as it slowly filled, before Narcissa managed to snatch it away and put the stopper back in.

"Let me see it," said Grace abruptly, grabbing Phoebus' bloody hand. She dug around in her robe pocket, drawing out a clean white handkerchief and pressing it to the wound.

Phoebus looked unabashedly content.

"All that's left to do is add the venom and the blood, and I'll do that later on tonight, as soon as I get the venom," Narcissa was saying as she wiped off the outside of the phial. "Is that good enough for you?"

"I suppose it will have to be," said Phoebus, as Grace tied the impromptu bandage around his hand. Narcissa pointedly ignored her.

"Do you want something else, or are we allowed to go?"

"Go ahead," said Phoebus, though he scowled at them all the way out the door.

"Twerp," said Narcissa in the safety of the hallway. "I hope that hand really hurts him."

"I think it's a wonder you agreed to make the thing at all," said Regulus with a small laugh.

"The Televoyance Draught is certainly valuable," said Narcissa, with such an odd, wistful tone that Regulus turned to look at her. She smiled wanly as they passed the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.

"You don't say," said Regulus absently. "I hope you didn't put anything wrong in that potion, it'd only make a huge mess if--"

"There's nothing wrong with that potion," said Narcissa, laughing as they descended the stairwell. "It's as perfect as I could make it."

"Then what are you planning?" asked Regulus bluntly.

Narcissa raised her eyebrows at him. "You think I'm planning something? I dare say you accuse me unjustly."

"I'll believe that when the potion works," said Regulus.

Narcissa was still smiling. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but there was something wrong with that smile.

-----

Unbeknownst to the fifth years' scheming, another group of students had convened in the considerably less comfortable Entrance Hall broom cupboard. Amidst upturned buckets and crates of Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover, four seventh years were crouching in the darkness.

"You could have at least chosen a better place to wait, Prongs, this closet smells like mildew--"

"Where would you have us wait, under a table in the Great Hall?"

"There would certainly be more room, wouldn't there?"

"Shh!"

"I'm quite comfortable, I'll have you know."

"It's a wonder, considering that you're sitting on my feet."

"Shh!!"

There was a scrambled moment of resituating, punctuated by a few choice exclamations, undoubtedly the result of being squashed, elbowed, or stepped on -- intentionally or otherwise. When everyone seemed satisfied with his new position, or at least convinced that further violence would be too obviously deliberate, the conversation started up again as though there had been no interruption at all.

"Easy with the shushing, Moony, no one can hear us."

"I'm trying to hear them," said Remus, "Entirely unsuccessful with you lot jabbering on, I might add."

"Sorry to hear it," said Sirius, who did not sound sorry at all. "Next time, Prongs can sit on your feet, and we'll hear you be quiet about it."

"James, hit him, will you?"

"Peter's closer."

"I'm not hitting anyone," said Peter loudly, frowning so deeply it was almost audible. "And I want it known that I did not agree to coming here, so you can all tell them when they catch us."

A chorus of sighs broke out.

"These are Ministry people, not just anyone," said Peter, unperturbed. "We could really get into trouble for this one."

James bit his lip, as either a gesture of thoughtfulness or to keep from laughing -- it was hard to tell. "Think of it this way," he said, "It's not just a prank, it's...it's our moral obligation."

"It's our moral obligation to attack Ministry of Magic workers?" asked Sirius, smiling faintly in the darkness.

"No, of course not, I wasn't finished. We aren't attacking them, Sirius, we're making a statement against that last decree. Werewolves can't play Quidditch professionally, indeed!"

"I don't even play Quidditch," said Remus, shifting uncomfortably. "Let's just leave, I hold no grudges with them. I'm sure they have their reasons."

There was little truth to his last statement, but no one was paying it much attention anyway.

"What I don't understand," said Sirius amiably, "is why we don't just get out there and do it. What good is sitting in a closet and waiting?"

James smiled beatifically. "Patience is subtlety. And subtlety, my friend, is brilliance."

Everyone in the broom cupboard groaned.

-----

Diana McKinnon was in a high temper by the time Regulus arrived in the Great Hall.

"Lovely of you to turn up, Black," she said frostily, waving her wand to rearrange a stack of charts on the table. "I had to do all of the set up myself. Bourdelet told me specifically that she would be here to help, but who can trust a word that comes out of her mouth..."

Regulus looked down at the display table, which was, to his amusement, bright mauve. "Anything you need?" he asked, knowing well that Control-Freak McKinnon would rather eat dragon dung than let him put a finger on her work.

"Don't even think about it," said McKinnon, looking venomous.

"Then what am I supposed to be doing here?"

McKinnon blew out her breath as she straightened her tie. "Let me handle the talking, all right? All you need to do is answer questions and show them the charts. I'll be going over basic Numerology and Thaumaturgy."

"Right," said Regulus, seating himself several feet back from the table. McKinnon had no objection to this.

Around them, a plethora of tables had been set up. The main attraction was a luminescent revolving projection of the solar system, orbiting in the centre of the room, surrounded by a delighted group of pointing second years.

Beyond the projection, tables were scattered to the far end of the room. Many of the students had taken the opportunity to abandon the strict Hogwarts dress code, and the Hall was a swirl of colour and light as people swarmed between the rows, chattering loudly.

Regulus sat back in his chair and stretched out his legs. McKinnon was ignoring him and sending an overly harsh glare at a group of first years poking around at the Arithmancy equipment.

The worst part of the evening, so far, was the waiting. Far across the hall, Regulus caught a fleeting glimpse of a group of adults, lavishly robed -- no doubt the Ministry workers. He decided against pointing them out to McKinnon, who was already so nervous she couldn't rest more than five minutes without standing up to obsessively straighten the table.

When McKinnon made to get up again, Regulus dragged her back down in her seat.

"The Arithmancy charts aren't moving, McKinnon."

"Not that," said McKinnon, slapping away his hand, "They're coming over here..."

She stood nervously, smoothing her skirt. Regulus followed her, eyeing the group of curious Ministry officials as they meandered toward the Arithmancy display.

McKinnon stopped pinching her lips together and sent them a winning smile. "Hello," she said, a bit too forcefully. She leaned ridiculously forward to shake the hand of the foremost in the group, a silver-haired man with narrow spectacles and a supercilious demeanour. He gave them a calculating look; it was odd, but Regulus thought he seemed somehow familiar.

"Ahem," she said, her voice fluttering nervously. "Thaumagurty, the study of the production of magic in living beings, is based on a series of mathematical equations..."

Regulus tuned out the sound of her voice as he carefully studied the group before him. There was a thin-faced woman clutching a clipboard, standing next to an inattentive, balding man, whose eyes were wandering critically over the mauve tablecloth. Behind them, several other well-dressed wizards and witches pressed closer to the table for a better view, their polite, inquisitive faces trained on McKinnon. Front and centre in the group was the silver-haired man, whose head nodded severely in poorly conveyed encouragement. McKinnon's overly practiced speech continued to tumble out breathlessly as she fiddled with the edge of the tablecloth.

So absorbed was Regulus in the scene before him that he completely missed the cue McKinnon had arranged for him, which was only to hold up her pre-made chart and point at each equation as she spoke. Indignant and embarrassed, McKinnon delivered an inconspicuous kick to his shin, and he scrambled to find the Wand Thaumatic Multiplier equation and point it out with a very fixed smile.

The woman with the clipboard set it down on the edge of the table while she picked up another chart detailing the magical-to-mathematical equivalents of various wand cores, smiling faintly. McKinnon looked very pleased with this.

"Thus, a truly powerful wand is composed of well-balanced elements," McKinnon was finishing, not bothering to disguise what was by now an outright smirk.

The woman holding the chart favoured her with an indulgent smile. "Arithmancy was always my favourite subject when I was in school," she said, replacing the chart and looking rather wistful.

"Yes," said McKinnon, the brightness of her eyes making her look absolutely absurd, "Isn't it breathtaking?"

-----

Across the hall, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs had abandoned the safety of their closet and were milling about the Gobstone Players' table, much to the indignation of the students running it.

"Set those down -- you could ruin them!" a red-faced Christie Thompson shouted at Sirius, who was attempting to juggle three of the largest gobstones without much success.

Peter narrowly avoided being hit in the head by a flying gobstone and ducked over to where James was standing. Completely oblivious to the rest of the world, he peered at the Arithmancy display across a large expanse of tables and noisy students.

"Where's the best angle?" asked James, more to himself than to any of his friends. Peter shrugged indifferently but allowed himself to be pulled by the wrist several more table-lengths toward the centre of the hall, leaving Remus to disentangle Sirius from the gobstones.

"This is it," said James, almost giddy with the joy of the task at hand. He crouched beside the nearest table, eyes trained down the aisle.

"What's that?" said Sirius, jogging up behind them with Remus in tow.

"Right here."

From where they were standing, they could see directly down the aisle to the Arithmancy table, where the Ministry workers were poised. A girl, vaguely recognisable as Diana McKinnon, was chattering non-stop, a nervous smile plastered on her face. Beside her was Regulus Black, wearing the look of perpetual boredom that James had become quite acquainted with, even though they didn't know each other well.

"Perfect," he breathed, pulling out his wand.

Remus rolled his eyes, but looked genuinely agitated. "If I knew why you insisted I accompany you in this madcap scheme..."

"Hurry," urged Peter, "You're going to miss your chance!"

"Right," said James decisively, nodding. "Remus, Peter, you'll watch them from the other side? In case they move too far out of the way."

Remus gave a lengthy sigh but made no effort to oppose the decision; Peter grinned eagerly and tugged on his friend's arm. "Come on, Remus--"

"See you in the common room," called Sirius at their retreating backs. He smirked, kneeling down beside James, who was apparently preparing for some kind of spellwork.

James' wand was pointed directly at the stone floor. Both boys watched it with a surprising intensity, and James cleared his throat for the incantation.

"Might I ask what you're doing, Potter?" interrupted a very exasperated voice from behind them.

They turned, bringing the usually pleasant face of Lily Evans into view. The red-haired girl was standing, hands on hips, the sceptical cocking of her eyebrows enough to make her look distinctly frightening.

"Careful, Evans, your face might get stuck that way," said Sirius, grinning cheekily up at her. She did not look at all amused.

"I asked a question," she said pointedly, turning her steely green gaze back to James' face.

"Ah, but the answer has nothing to do with you, so you've no reason to loiter," he said, very nicely in his own estimation.

Evans looked incredulous. "If you're doing something you shouldn't, then of course the answer concerns me. You promised that you'd at least pretend to be respectable after you became Head Boy--"

"Funny, I thought being respectable meant standing up for things that you believe in."

"Not if you're doing something unruly."

"Tell me, then," suggested James, "Exactly what are we doing wrong?"

At that moment, though, it became very obvious to both of them.

Faintly at first, and then in growing speed and size, a thin trail of ice formed over the stone where Sirius was crouching. It crackled and sparkled as it spread farther down, widening and stretching to the size of a sidewalk, larger, coating the path with a thin sheet of ice.

Sirius stood up, wand in hand, smiling down as his handiwork bled quickly down the aisle.

Evans fought for words. "You're -- you're freezing the--"

"The floor? The Ministry workers? It'll all be the same in a minute or so," said Sirius, laughing.

"Speaking of, we ought to get out of here," said James, his eyes trained on the quickly spreading ice. It looked thicker by the second, gleaming white sprouting from the stones at an alarming pace.

Lily Evans' wand was pointed directly at his nose before he could take so much as a single step. "You know the counterspell! Use it!"

"No," said James evenly. Sirius' smirk widened a fraction.

"Don't make me hex you," spat Evans, her outstretched wand trembling slightly.

"Expelliarmus!"

Evans had already thrown herself forward at James, knocking them both to the floor with an impressive force. Sirius' disarming spell vanished harmlessly in the Astronomy display as Hogwarts' Head Boy and Girl landed in an uncomfortable heap on the floor, scrambling apart with much kicking and swatting at each other.

"Get off of me!" said James loudly, painfully aware that people were beginning to stare. Sirius sprang off in the direction that Remus and Peter had disappeared, darting through a crowd of startled third years to get away. James leapt to his feet to follow, resolving to let the spell alone to finish its job, when a well-placed tripping jinx from Evans laid him sprawled out on the floor once more.

Evans stumbled to her feet, wand at the ready and trained at James' chest. She was looking livid, completely oblivious that something of an audience had formed around the two of them.

"Look around you," shouted James, panting where he lay on the floor. "People are watching you now. Is this the way a respectable Head Girl behaves, then?"

Evans' green eyes widened in surprise; accordingly, she finally turned a fraction of her attention to the people standing around them.

It was enough. Whipping up his wand, James yelled, "Confundo!", scrambling upright in the same instant and making a mad dash for the exit.

His Confundus Spell hit Evans square in the face; a look of utter confusion crossed it as she toppled backwards. A split second later she realised she'd been tricked; still reeling with the weight of the spell, she levelled her wand at James' retreating form with the first hex that came to mind:

"Rictusempra!"

Amid the chatter of the busy Great Hall and the murmur of her astounded audience, no one noticed when the spell shot wildly off its mark, whizzing down the still spreading pathway of ice.

-----

Only moments before, Diana McKinnon had mad an irksome discovery at the Arithmancy table.

"She's left her clipboard," McKinnon wailed, brandishing the thing at Regulus. "That woman who was looking at the Arithmancy charts..."

"So go and give it back to her, then," said Regulus, who, after spending an entire evening by her side, was tiring of her company more than ever.

"You give it back to her," snapped McKinnon, suddenly venomous. "I didn't see you doing anything helpful when that horrible man in front was asking questions--"

"You told me not to answer questions!"

"It's not my fault you can't be trusted with important jobs," said McKinnon nasally. "Go give that woman her clipboard. And hurry! I think they're about to leave."

Regulus took the clipboard and ran off in the direction the Ministry people had taken, thinking bitterly that this nightmare was what he deserved for agreeing to this silly extra curricular project. He was trying to be helpful, not made into Diana McKinnon's slave!

Well. He wasn't actually trying too hard.

Regulus was just thinking how nice it would feel to tell McKinnon where exactly she should stuff her Arithmancy charts when abruptly, the floor gave way beneath him.

With a splitting crack! his head hit the ground, jarring a sharp wave of pain through his skull. In a moment of confusion he felt himself skidding along the floor -- was it really so cold? -- badly scraping his elbows as he tumbled forward.

Without warning, he slammed into something heavy.

He ducked his head by instinct when it came crashing down, a muffled exclamation and an ungainly tangle of limbs. Scrambling away from it, Regulus clenched his eyes tightly shut as he made several unsuccessful attempts to get up.

Finally, he opened his eyes. Slowly.

The first thing he saw was the wide-eyed expressions on the faces of the people around him, accompanied by the hiss of startled whispers. His forearms were stinging and badly scraped; one look down at them shocked him so badly he nearly fainted. He was sitting on a massive sheet of ice.

What in the world?

Ice, though, immediately became the least of his troubles. Another look at his surroundings brought something one million-and-a-half times worse into sharp focus.

He had hit someone else. One of the Ministry men.

The silver-haired man haughtily straightened his spectacles, looking past them at Regulus with such affronted surprise that Regulus had to swallow several times, painfully aware of the choking lump that had formed in his throat.

Abruptly, something else hit him. A tingling sensation in his spine. It was warm, though, compared with the ice beneath him -- a spell?

There was no time to wonder at it. The man was getting to his feet and brushing off his robes, looking aghast. He turned back toward Regulus to glare down --

At which Regulus involuntarily broke out into a fit of giggles.

He had no idea where they came from, welling up inside his mouth with such force that there was nothing he could have done to hold them back. His shoulders hitched with what should have been a strangled sob, and here he was, giggling!

The murmur of voices exploded, as though some charm had magically turned the volume up far too high. Above the noise, the scandalised mutter of the Ministry workers reached Regulus' ears.

"What is your name?" commanded the silver-haired wizard, who suddenly seemed a thousand times taller, now standing at his full height.

"R--Regulus Black, sir."

He was met with a highly disapproving glare. "Is this the state of things at Hogwarts?" asked the man of his companions. "I'll be speaking with Dumbledore about this at once."

The pit of Regulus' stomach gave a violent lurch at the expression on the faces of the retreating wizards. His mind commanded him to calm down but his body wasn't listening -- a million thoughts were running through his head in such quick succession that he could hardly keep up.

He was sitting on the middle of the floor and his face was burning, people were staring at him and that man had just asked his name and what was he going to do?

Nothing better came to mind, so he leapt to his feet and took off running, bursting through the crowd without looking back.

-----

He didn't stop running until he had reached the seventh-floor statue of the Brethren of Rhyfeddon.

It was odd that his feet had taken him there without a second thought. Perhaps because it was the one place in the school to which he felt some vague form of loyalty, which was sadly lacking within his own house. It was the Statue that he went to, in that poorly lit seventh floor corridor, not his dormitory, not his common room.

Gasping for breath, he hoisted himself behind the statue and crawled deep into the alcove, ignoring the dust and grime that stuck to his sweaty palms and robes. His hands found the far wall and he turned to press his back against it, resting his head against the rough stone and trying to calm the frantic racing of his pulse.

Behind the sculpture, the air was cool and dark. Dim torchlight filtered past the four huge figures, casting pale lengths of light amid the shadows. His hand struck out experimentally -- no, there was no note at all, not even the one he had left. Gale must have already come by to pick it up.

Out loud, he gave an improbable spurt of laughter. What was he doing, thinking of Gale when here he was, trapped in his own failure?

Wasn't it lovely. He was likely going to be skinned alive for attacking a Ministry of Magic worker, failing Transfiguration, and, worse beyond measure, putting yet another black mark on the family name. Mother would be furious; Father would stay out of it completely, retreating to the relative quiet of the upstairs study to leave his son to his mother's wrath.

There would be no end of that.

He would be lucky to ever regain what he'd lost in the eyes of his family, his house, and the rest of the school -- one quickly tarnishing reputation that would likely haunt him for what he could only imagine was the rest of his existence. He had laughed in that man's face, right after running straight into him and knocking him to the floor.

There was only one thing that could have caused such an incongruent spurt of laughter, something else that wasn't his fault. The warm, tingling sensation that had hit him a split second before -- it must have been a spell. He'd felt it before, usually from the wand of his brother or cousins. Rictusempra, the tickling charm, bane of the first year dormitories and children's wand practises.

Who had performed it? Was someone trying to make life difficult for him, or did it just seem to work out that way?

Answers to those questions didn't seem to be in any hurry to arrive, so he resigned himself to sitting back in his hidden alcove and wishing that he could find a way to redo history.

Possible, but not bloody likely.

That was exactly where he was when the sound of approaching footsteps shook him abruptly to the present.

He sat bolt upright, leaning forward to peer around Callaghan. No luck; nothing could be seen in the darkness beyond the statue. Pressing himself against the wall, he held his breath...three seconds, four, the footsteps continued.

Someone was walking directly to the statue.

As far as Regulus knew, there were only two people in the world that would have reason to care about the grimy old sculpture, and he was one of them.

The other was Gale.

There was a slight rustling out in the hall. Someone was digging in a book bag, perhaps. Then came the muffled sound of the bag being tossed unceremoniously to the floor, and the near soundless pant as the person hoisted themselves up and onto the plinth...

...And the dark alcove became darker as the last slivers of light were blocked by that someone's silhouette.

The moment was lost in a rush of movement. Regulus' hands darted forward and caught the stranger's wrists, without waiting to see if it was possible to tell its identity -- Gale let out a cry of surprise and wriggled backwards, struggling against him--

In one triumphant movement, Regulus hauled them both backwards, farther into the alcove. Gale's frightened breathing rang ragged in the silence.

"Let go of me!"

Regulus did, more out of surprise than any effort to obey. He recognised that voice.

In yet another moment of absolute shock that night, Regulus found himself staring, by the dim hallway torchlight, into the flushed and angry face of Madeleine Bourdelet.