Intrepid

Chapter Five -- Crimes of Past and Present

Monday, October 31, 1977

For her part, Madeleine Bourdelet, previously entitled Gale, was doing a very bad job of making the situation the least bit more understandable.

All that she had done in the several seconds since he had discovered her was give him the most unreadable expressions while he managed to stammer, "You were the one who was writing to me? You're Gale?"

Any fear or surprise that he would have expected to see from her was gone in an instant, replaced by a remarkably disgusted look and a haughty indignation.

"Terribly sorry to disappoint," she said acidly, and spun to crawl back out of the alcove. The folded parchment in her hand dropped and skipped into the shadows.

It was impossibly unfair that everything that he should have liked to say -- all the cutting comments and sarcasm that might have startled her into stopping -- had already fled his head and left him gibbering with all the eloquence of a nervous first year. Any real words at all seemed favourable at the moment, and he finally managed to get out the first thing that came to mind, which was, "What are you talking about?"

Unsurprisingly, Bourdelet didn't even bother to stop. Hopping down from the plinth, she stooped to collect her bag, shouldered it in one fluid movement, and gritted out between her teeth, "It's obvious you were expecting someone else. Someone better, perhaps?"

There was really no point to denying it; he had been expecting someone better. That, however, did nothing to staunch the flow of a million questions running through his head, and there seemed nothing better to do than follow her as she started off down the corridor at a ridiculous pace.

"Where are you going?"

"Does it matter?"

"No." The word came automatically.

Bourdelet whirled so swiftly that she almost ran straight into his chest. "Then why are you following me?"

He attempted to swallow the lump forming in his throat and failed miserably. There was no easy way to phrase it: he didn't really want her to walk away, at least not without giving him the answers he felt he deserved. The abruptness of their encounter left him feeling as though he were still waiting for something else to happen.

Hastily, he said, "I want to know what's going on."

This elicited a smile. A fleeting smile, so distorted that it was hardly recognisable. "We're at Hogwarts. The Ministry and the school governors are in a rift. You-Know-Who has taken over the country." She clicked her tongue wryly. "You're going to have to learn to be more specific if you ever want straight answers from anybody."

This was simply too much -- the nerve of her! His anger flared up momentarily, and he tried his best to keep the same condescension in his voice that Bellatrix employed so often. It was harder than he expected.

"I only want them from you at the moment, so I'll try to make it easy," Regulus said. "Why did you contact me? And if I was never supposed to find out who you were, then why did you write to me?"

"Well," she said, with an almost childish, surly reluctance, "You weren't supposed to find out yet."

"Are you going to answer the question or not?"

"Certainly not here!"

"Then where?"

She bit her lip, eyes planted firmly on the floor.

"Oh, come on, Bourdelet," he said, impatiently glancing down the hallway in either direction. On a surge of inspiration, he grabbed her elbow in a firm grip and dragged her to the nearest doorway: the Ancient Runes classroom. No light came from beneath the door, so there were no qualms in pushing it open and shoving her unceremoniously inside.

The torches sprang to life by magic, illuminating in dull yellow the empty rows of desks and her dismayed face. She was, evidently, still determined to squirm her way out of this. "Someone could walk in on us."

"Not likely," he pointed out. Steering her toward the far side of the classroom, Regulus pushed her with rather unnecessary force onto the nearest desktop, seating himself directly across from her.

"Now," he said, suddenly businesslike. "Start at the beginning. You've been claiming to have something to say to me for weeks, haven't you? This is your chance to say it. There won't be another, so get on with it."

With a face that was probably the result of a suppressed glare, Bourdelet folded her arms and took a deep breath. Her eyes found a nice spot on the ground to stare at, which was undoubtedly easier to look at than Regulus.

"It's just like I said in the notes. Things are happening--"

"What things?"

"Things concerning the future."

"Oh, are you taking Divinations?" he asked sardonically.

"The past has a way of repeating itself," she said sharply. "I'm counting on it to, anyway. I wrote to you because...I need your help."

"With...?"

Another deep breath. Obviously, she was struggling for the right words. "You...know...that Bellatrix and I used to be friends."

He did remember that, in a vague recollection of his younger years at Hogwarts. A Christmas party she'd attended with Bella at Grimmauld Place came to mind, but he'd hardly known or paid any attention to her then.

"Best friends," he conceded, staring at her forehead intently. "What did you do to her?"

Her jaw was set. Of course she'd not tell him as many answers as he wanted from her. "I made a mistake, that's all. She thinks I betrayed her just because I did something she didn't like."

"And now you want to change that?"

Here she faltered, the nervousness a thousand times more obvious. Her shell was cracking. Perhaps if he pushed...?

"Be frank," he suggested, on an impulse, "you seem to be good at that. And, incidentally, I doubt that there's anything you could say to convince me that you're any madder than I think you are now, so you might as well say it."

The desk nearly overturned as she leapt to her feet, nostrils flared, visibly collecting herself. For a moment he quite forgot why he had reasoned it would be a good idea to upset her, but these thoughts were quickly abandoned as she had already begun berating him.

"Here's frank for you," she spat, looking remarkably intimidating for all her short build, "Bellatrix has spent two years destroying my life, largely for her own enjoyment. I want it all back. Do you think that I like being the laughingstock of the seventh year? I want you to help me get it back."

"And how do you expect me to do that?"

Hesitation, again. This time it appeared to be out of embarrassment, as though she could hear the words in her mind and found them so foolish that she could barely stand to say them aloud. She said them anyway, with all the dignity she could muster.

"I want you to help me convince Bella not to hate me any longer."

Regulus snorted derisively. How exceptionally unsurprising. "So that you can stab her in the back again?"

"So that I can make the right choice the second time around!" There was an odd moment, in which Bourdelet's eyes found his face and watched him with such intensity that it was unsettling, especially from someone like Bourdelet. In a somewhat softer voice she added, "Please, Regulus. I need this chance."

He avoided her gaze; it felt like ice. Ice, there was another thing he was refusing to think about. He changed tack. "What do I get out of this? You can't very well expect me to help you out of the goodness of my heart."

To her credit, she managed to keep from rolling her eyes. "What is it that you want?"

That was always the question, wasn't it? With it came an overwhelming assortment of images, half-thought ideas. What was it that he wanted? The answer was easy, in abstractions. Dignity, praise -- power, maybe. He wanted attention, someone who cared...More specific were other wishes: he wanted to pass Transfiguration, to find out who had hexed him almost an hour ago at the Founder's Day Festival. Though he'd never mention it, there was also the vacant wish that he'd never discovered Gale's identity. It was ridiculous, he thought; the answer he'd so badly craved turned out to be the next moment's nightmare.

"Probably nothing that you could give me," he replied finally, noting sardonically that she didn't know much about salvaging reputations.

"Try me," said Bourdelet steadily.

Quite honestly, he had no desire to try her. He very much wanted to return to his common room, forget that any of this night had happened, and ignore Bourdelet for the rest of eternity. On the other hand, dangling an impossible price in front of her face was exactly what she deserved -- and the perfect justification for refusing her help.

Mentally, he recalled the recent past. He'd felt utterly rotten, certainly, but what could make it better?

What did he want?

Then, suddenly he knew. It was as though his mouth was speaking without the direction of his brain.

"There's a fourth year girl in Ravenclaw called Leigh Harrington. D'you know her?"

"Yes," said Bourdelet. There was almost a defiant edge in the set of her chin. "The girl you were with in the Library two weeks ago."

Of course she'd been watching him, how foolish of him to think otherwise. How long had they been in contact? Just like her to be spying on him. But there was no time to think on it as Bourdelet smiled craftily. "She's a friend of my sister's. Claire Bourdelet?"

Ah, Claire. He'd seen Claire before. Popular, talkative, and vaguely pretty. Obviously family resemblance was unaccounted for, but as a fellow fourth-year Ravenclaw, of course Claire would know Leigh Harrington.

"Well--" started Regulus.

"I knew it!" declared Bourdelet, as close to excited as Regulus ever expected to see her, the grim smile putting some perverse light in her eyes. "You want Leigh Harrington's attention, and I can get it for you."

"Wait a minute!" said Regulus. "How do you think you can guarantee that kind of thing?"

"She's a fourteen-year-old girl. I know what to say to her." A brief pause; Bourdelet bit her lip. "And you know what to say to Bellatrix, for that matter."

She was right. It was a chance for a chance, one person for another. There was no real betrayal in helping someone make Bella's friendship, was there? Bourdelet wouldn't hurt her, would she? No, something told him that she wouldn't. Not on purpose, anyway. It was obvious from Bourdelet's manner that whatever had ruined their friendship before -- that undiscussed event -- it had been accidental.

But it was still a strange secret. Regulus felt close to Bellatrix, and even then she'd never been exactly free with personal information. But just because Bella and Gale -- no, Bourdelet -- shared a secret, it didn't mean that the secret impeded on both of their relationships to him. With Bella, her past didn't matter. It wasn't relevant.

Here, now, with Bourdelet, this was something different entirely. She needed something from him. This wasn't friendship being offered, it was strictly a business arrangement. It required trust of a different kind, trust that could never be given without the whole truth. Not a blind trust.

No matter how he looked at it, Regulus was still sitting on a desk in the Ancient Runes classroom feeling utterly lost in the midst of the night's events. Drawing in a deep breath, he collected himself for a decision. The words were deliberate, and slow. "Tell me why Bellatrix doesn't like you, and I'll make her like you again."

Bourdelet looked as though she meant to bore a hole in his skull with her eyes. "You can't ask that of me."

"You're in no position to refuse."

Several moments passed in which nothing happened. Bourdelet was sitting motionless, but her eyes drifted slowly back to the floor, staring again with that startling intensity. They seemed clouded.

"No," she said faintly.

Regulus stood and cleared his throat. Be decisive. Don't look back.

"Then don't bother me again," he said, and turned and left the classroom.

-----

"Lumos."

At the sound, the entire hallway flooded with light. Narcissa stood with her wand outstretched, the unearthly white light illuminating her features in sharp contrast to the shadows.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

Regulus was standing in the entrance to the common room, where he'd been while she investigated the hallway. The search had yielded nothing to fear, but that did not account for his qualms about standing in the open, lighting half the dungeons.

"Put down the wand," hissed Regulus, his hands fumbling in his pockets for his own wand. There was no sense in running amok through the school hallways unarmed, especially at this time of night. The clock had chimed one not long ago, which -- to Narcissa -- meant the start of their planned nighttime excursion.

"Are you ready to go?" Narcissa repeated, having reluctantly dimmed the wandlight by magic. Now the only things visible were a portion of the wall, the hand holding her wand, and her impatient face.

Go. Short for, go and steal potion ingredients. How irked he'd been to return to the common room to find Narcissa waiting for him, sure that he would accompany her. He, on the other hand, had completely forgotten about the Amphisbaena venom. The venom that Narcissa had promised to steal tonight.

Worse still than the planned theft was that rumours regarding that blasted Festival had already begun to circulate. Narcissa had dragged him off immediately for a profuse berating, which largely consisted of reprimands for being unobservant. Yes, he was sorry that he hadn't been watching the ground when he walked -- would she be equally peeved if he'd been watching for spectacular great sheets of ice on the floor and then been hit in the head with something else?

All through it, though, he never mentioned to her his encounter with Bourdelet. He meant to, really -- he was going to tell Narcissa as soon as he got back, to get it out of his system. Narcissa would have told him to be practical about it, that he shouldn't have exchanged letters in the first place, and that it would have been better to tell Madeleine Bourdelet right off where exactly to shove her ideas about winning Bellatrix's approval. Narcissa always knew how to handle these things.

But he didn't tell Narcissa about it. No one knew besides him, and Bourdelet -- and Bourdelet wasn't likely to go about spouting the story of their grand adventure, either. Why did it feel like telling Narcissa would ruin the secret?

Narcissa, for her part, looked exceptionally uninterested in any of his secrets. Presently, she was glancing impatiently from him to some spot up the corridor, her face wearing a clear expression of agitation. "Come on," she said, "if we stay here for long we're bound to catch someone's attention."

She had a point. Sighing, Regulus banished thoughts of the drama he'd already been through that evening, and steeled himself for the drama that was certainly to come.

Narcissa beckoned to him -- rather ominously, he thought -- and started off down the corridor, lifting the hem of her robes with one hand so that they would not swish against the stone.

He would have sighed, loudly, but it did not seem wise to make unsolicited noises at this time of night, especially when one took into consideration that he and Narcissa were out of bounds. Instead, Regulus followed his cousin's wandlight down the dim hallway, wishing very much that he was back in his dormitory. It was only fair, in his opinion; he'd suffered through enough already this night.

The actual stealing didn't faze him. It was only the prospect of being caught that tied an impossibly heavy knot in his stomach. Well, there was certainly nothing to be done about it now.

Narcissa, evidently, had no fears about traipsing around Hogwarts at all times of day and night. She led the way, Regulus trailing rather closely after her on the basis that if they were caught, so be it, but it was a much better deal to be near the light than lurking in the shadows -- where who-knows-what horrors could be lurking beside him.

Luckily, it took them no time at all to reach the Potions classroom and Professor Vance's office, both located in the dungeons. They reached the classroom door after a short, tortuous walk, dimming the light further as Narcissa pointed her wand at the glinting keyhole.

"Seven Sickles Alohomora isn't going to work," whispered Regulus sarcastically.

Narcissa ignored him. Instead of trying Alohomora or any other spell, she procured a heavy, gold-coloured key from the pocket of her robe, holding it in front of the lock as though in hesitation. Suddenly the gold brightened, glowed hot as it shrank, and magically reformed to the appropriate size and shape.

Inserted into the lock, the key opened the latch soundlessly.

"Where did you get that?"

Narcissa's mouth twisted in a smirk as she wiggled the key out. Creakily, the door swung inward, revealing the gaping hole of the entranceway.

"From Bellatrix," said Narcissa, shifting the wand to light up the doorway. "You'd best not mention it to her, thought. I nicked it from her trunk at the beginning of summer and she's been hunting madly for it ever since."

"Not a word," promised Regulus, following her into the dark classroom. The torches lit automatically, flooding the room and dazzling their eyes. Regulus snapped the door shut behind them to keep in the light.

Walking into the potions classroom was like entering a world separate from the twisting dungeon corridors behind them. It looked eerily bright when empty, but Regulus had no time to wonder at it as Narcissa was already on the other side of the classroom, trying the magically changing key in the second door.

"We haven't got much time," she said, as she hastily jiggled the doorknob. "The last thing we need is an untimely interruption from Peeves -- or worse, Filch."

Regulus hurriedly joined her in the second room -- Vance's office. It was a very plain room, dully lit by torches, every paper and quill exactly where it was meant to be. Along the back wall was another door, and sitting just in front of them was a plain wooden cupboard, undoubtedly where Vance kept her potion ingredients. Wasting no time at all, Narcissa crouched next to it and jammed the key into the lock. It sparked, crackled, and refused to budge, no matter how she twisted it.

Narcissa grimaced. "It's not working!" she cried, rather obviously Regulus thought, but now did not seem like the time to mention it.

"Why not?" he said instead.

She twisted the key feverishly; it didn't move. "The key removes basic spells, but Vance must have put something stronger on this."

With good reason. There were certain fifth-year students that were too ambitious to be trusted with Amphisbaena venom. Fortunately for him, he was clever enough to pass the responsibility of getting it on to someone else; unfortunately for them, Regulus and Narcissa were the ones who were kneeling before the supply cupboard at one in the morning with no idea how to go about getting inside.

At least, Regulus had no idea how to go about getting inside.

"Right," he said levelly, as Narcissa whipped the key out of the lock with more force than strictly necessary, "How do you go about removing a ward like this?"

"Some kind of counterspell," said Narcissa. Suddenly, she pounded her fist against the wood -- a motion that yielded nothing, but probably felt good in her frustration. "Oh -- We don't have time for this! Not with Filch and that filthy cat of his -- Regulus, do you know any counterspells?"

"Not for anything this weighty," he admitted. He bit his lip. "I do have one idea."

"What's that?" said Narcissa slowly, eyeing him.

He drew in a deep breath. "We could...blast a hole in the side."

It had exactly the effect he'd been hoping it wouldn't.

"Regulus!" stammered Narcissa, looking incredulous, "What d'you mean, blast a hole in the side? Not only would Vance know someone was here, she'd be absolutely rabid for weeks -- and really, blasting up her furniture--"

"Think about it," said Regulus, cutting her off. "What if the ward is only on the lock? Hoping, of course, that we don't blow it to bits, we can just as easily get the venom without using the door. So what if it doesn't work? We're no worse off than we are now."

Narcissa stared, with her mouth open -- the least composed Regulus had ever seen her in his life. He took this as an opening to continue.

"Even if we opened the lock, Vance is too meticulous not to notice if the venom was missing," he said, swallowing. It was a bit unsettling to have her gaping at him that way.

Finally, Narcissa blinked and looked as though she were digesting the information. "You're mad," she told him seriously, and picked up her wand.

"Does this mean we're doing it?"

"I'm doing it. Stand back."

Smirking, Regulus did as he was instructed. Narcissa climbed to her feet as well and levelled her wand at the cupboard's side panel.

"This is going to be loud," she said, frozen in place. "Be ready to run for the Room of Requirement as soon as we have the venom."

"Wait," said Regulus abruptly, though she wasn't yet moving. "If it doesn't work...?"

She grimaced. "We'll deal with that when it happens."

"As long as we're being optimistic about it," said Regulus.

Narcissa ignored him. Calmly, she aimed her wand, visibly collecting herself. Then, with a rather elaborate swish-and-flick she cried, "Reducto!"

A split second later it was already obvious that it was working. The silver jet of her spell hit the panel in a shattering bolt, blowing away half of one side of the cupboard in an explosion of splinters and the sound of tinkling glass. A cloud of dust billowed upwards and Narcissa went into an immediate coughing fit, throwing one arm up to shield her face.

"Are you all right?" asked Regulus, rushing forward again.

Narcissa dropped to her knees before it, blinking profusely through streaming eyes, and immediately began sifting through the shards of wood. "The venom," she reminded him hoarsely, tossing aside a bundle of herbs and trying to get at the back of the cupboard.

Hastily, he helped her panicked hands clear away the remains of the cupboard's panel, reduced to little more than splinters by the force of the spell.

"Oh, there are a million phials back here," wailed Narcissa, attempting to clear away slivers of a shattered beaker and cutting her hand in the process. "Ouch! Get your wand, Regulus, I need some light!"

He scrambled to comply, whipping his wand from his pocket again and aiming it into the cupboard over her shoulder. A quickly muttered Lumos dazzled their eyes with a blinding flash of light, but Narcissa didn't seem to mind as she frantically dug through several racks of phials. Grabbing hold of one, she pulled it out and thrust it at Regulus' stomach with a command to look for the venom.

The phials were poorly labelled, but Vance was shrewd -- trust her to have the contents memorised, anyway.

"What does it look like?" Regulus asked at Narcissa's back.

"It's colourless -- it should say on the stopper."

Very helpful. They were all filled with transparent liquid, but Narcissa was too busy searching herself to be bothered with explaining.

The next few minutes passed in the flurry of their search. Regulus managed to narrow his rack down to three phials that looked as though their illegibly scrawled labels might have started with an "A". Narcissa had apparently exhausted the supply of clear phials with no luck whatsoever, and had taken to double-checking one last time.

"I can't tell which it is," said Regulus for the millionth time, comparing them in good lighting. "What if they're all wrong?"

"It has to be here. There aren't any more!" snapped Narcissa, spinning toward him. With one look at the three phials she deduced, "It's not that one, that's green tinted," knocking down the list of suspects to two. They were running out of time.

"We could just take them both," said Regulus, when Narcissa plucked both phials from his hand and examined them closely. She was in the midst of making non-committal shoulder movements when something happened.

There was a noise in the other room.

The Potions classroom -- the door, being opened, very slowly. It was still an utterly recognisable sound, the click of the latch and the long slow squeal of the hinges.

Narcissa's eyes went wide.

There was no time to think; they were both on their feet in a split second. Narcissa shoved both phials into her robe pockets before grabbing Regulus' arm and yanking him toward the back of the office. There was no place to hide in the sparsely furnished room -- but Narcissa didn't mean to hide, Regulus realised a split second later.

The second door, at the back of the classroom. Where did it lead -- to the hallway, or merely into a closet? The sound of approaching footsteps came slowly, methodically, as though the owner of the feet were trying to be as ominous about the business as possible. Abandoning all caution, Narcissa leapt for the handle, whipped the door open, and pulled Regulus through after her.

It was completely dark. The first solid object he felt was a brick wall, with his head -- not a comforting experience, but there was no time to clear his vision before Narcissa was dragging him to his feet again, stumbling down the hallway together in what was certainly not the best way to avoid being noticed.

They were in a hallway, that was one answer, but where they had come out, Regulus didn't know. It must have been adrenaline that propelled them through the darkened corridors, their footsteps a loud staccato on the stone. Narcissa refused to relinquish her grip on his arm as they ran wildly through the dungeon passageway, up a staircase, around several corners so sharply that he nearly slipped -- until they came to rest, finally, in some unremarkable doorway, their shoulders hitching with every breath.

For several moments neither of them spoke, trying as they were to breathe properly again. Narcissa was not satisfied with their hiding spot; she quickly set off to find a better one, walking this time, tugging Regulus after her by the sleeve of his robes.

"D'you think we're safe?" whispered Narcissa when they had come to rest in an empty stairwell, several flights above the dungeons.

"They haven't followed us this far." Hopefully. Better not to mention that possibility. "Was it Filch?"

"I don't know who it was. It could have been a Prefect, for all I know."

They stayed where they were sitting for several more minutes, cooling down, until Narcissa got to her feet.

"Come on," she said decisively, "We need to get to the Room of Requirement."

-----

The journey up several more staircases and through the darkened corridors seemed to last a lifetime, but they met no more obstacles. Regulus, having had more than his fair share of sneaking about that night, nearly collapsed through its doors.

"I never thought I'd be so happy to see this room," said Regulus, leaning against the wall for support. Every inch of his body felt as though the energy had been drained from it. What he would give to be back in his dormitory now...

During the course of their walk to the Room of Requirement, Narcissa had fallen into a deep contemplative silence. Now she walked to the centre of the room without comment, her glowing wand held out before her. A wave of it illuminated the candles set up around the cauldron, brightening the room somewhat -- enough to let her see what she was doing.

"How much longer for the potion?" asked Regulus, levering himself off the wall and stumbling toward the table.

She looked as though she hadn't even heard, pulling open the book and brushing her fingers lightly down the page. In the candlelight, everything looked vaguely yellow.

"How much longer?" repeated Regulus.

"Be quiet," said Narcissa absently, fishing through her pockets and extracting her ingredients. Pulled loose was the phial of Phoebus' blood, the two that had been stolen from Vance's office, and the tiny knife Phoebus had used to fill his phial earlier that day.

The decision between the two transparent liquids was made after a long comparison of their respective appearances and smells. Narcissa consulted the book continuously, a phial in each hand, while Regulus watched in silence.

Finally, she said, "It's this one."

"How can you tell?" asked Regulus, peering at the colourless liquid intently.

Again, Narcissa didn't answer. She was consulting the book once more, tapping the measuring marks on the outside of the glass phial. "The whole thing," she murmured, "Lucky we didn't need more."

It seemed foolish to try speaking to her like this, so Regulus contented himself with studying the enormous table of potion ingredients. He wasn't abysmal in Potions, but the idea of attempting a creation on this scale was enough to start him with a headache. No wonder Phoebus needed Narcissa to do it.

Narcissa had apparently reached the climax of whatever mental calculations she was making, for she dramatically flourished the venom phial, whipped out the stopper, and dribbled it over the bubbling potion.

The reaction was instantaneous. The moment the venom broke the surface, the entire mixture sizzled and spewed, turning from a pale and dreary orange to a blinding, brilliant white. Bubbles bobbed to the surface and burst violently. The light in the darkened chamber no longer came from the candle stumps planted along the edge of the table, but from the frothing cauldron itself. Narcissa looked strange standing over it, the gleaming white light throwing her face and hands into sharp patterns of dark grey and white.

"Where's Phoebus' blood?" asked Narcissa. Her voice sounded strange, too sudden a break in the silence.

"Here," murmured Regulus, passing her the small red phial.

She took it in both hands, examining it with such delicate attention, consulting the measurement. When she seemed satisfied, Regulus expected her to pour it in -- the last ingredient -- but she stopped short. Purposefully, she set it down on the table. Instead, she picked up the knife.

"What are you--?" started Regulus, but stopped. Narcissa's eyes, brighter than usual, were staring at him with such intensity that he was completely taken aback.

"Regulus," she said calmly, as though she were speaking to a child. She took a deep breath, perhaps to steady herself. "We've made too many mistakes this year, and you know it. I know what's bothering you. Don't deny it," she said, as his face must have looked as shocked as he felt, "You've been completely distracted lately! Even this evening--"

She stopped short.

"What do you think is bothering me?" asked Regulus sharply. How perceptive was she?

Narcissa shrugged; her shoulders looked so thin in the white light. "Sirius left you, Regulus. You've been so...different since."

The weight of what she was saying fell slowly; it was like lead in his stomach. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the probing look Narcissa wore, cast in stark shadows from that phosphorescent light.

"What does all of this mean?" he asked quietly.

Narcissa looked away, fingering the blade of the knife. Ever so carefully, she pressed it against her fingertip; the blade quivered against her skin before slicing cleanly through, gauging a slash in her flesh that was quickly filled with warm, red blood. She grimaced, but caught the spilling drops in the tiny glass container.

"I'm going to make everything right again," she said, without looking at him.

There was nothing he could do to stop her. He wouldn't have, if he could. He watched as she poured a full cup of the sizzling white potion into an empty beaker and added her blood.

It frothed even more, turning and stirring itself until the dark blood turned the entire thing a thick, murky red.

"Phoebus is going to kill you when he sees this," said Regulus. "He's going to murder you. You're stealing his potion--"

"He won't notice," said Narcissa, uncorking the other phial and pouring it over the considerably less full cauldron. Phoebus' blood churned in the mixture...

"...he won't even know that it's gone."

-- CH 2 --

One chapter left until we're a third of the way through. Yay.

Special thanks to puck nc, my fabulous beta reader, and to LaquetaL, who britpicks and listens to me whine, etc. People who give feedback are also bestowed with eternal and undying love, so look into it. ;)