Unintended

Chapter Three: Unintended Questions

Regulus felt that he was losing his ingrained Slytherin side. He suspected it was something about this place, that it just drained all of the character out of him and left him a bit of a shell, or a girl's paper doll. He did not like that at all. Even not quite dead he felt he should retain what made him, well, him. The Hogwarts ghosts still kept their personalities after death, didn't they? He wanted to recapture his slyness, his intelligence. Hell, he was a member of the damn Slug Club for goodness sake.

It was then that he made a decision that would take all of his ambition and cunning in order to find out the answer. He wasn't going to tell Samantha just yet, not until he got some concrete answers. If it didn't pan out, then it was no big deal and they could just keep on moving. But if it did... He felt the grin spread over his face as he walked through the decaying streets. When it came down to it, he was doing this as much for Samantha as he was for himself. Seeing her lying in that bathtub, looking as horrifying close to a real death as he'd ever imagined had rattled him more than he liked to admit. So now it was time to stop being complacent and use some of that ambition that Slytherins were renowned for.

He was determined to find out which demon his mother shagged all those years ago in order to conceive him. And who better to answer that question than a fellow demon?

Regulus banged on the door to Monty's hovel, a residence that looked more like a decrepit pile of lumber than anything else. "Oi, Monty! Open up!" he hollered. The door was cracked just a smidge, and he could see the scowling visage of the demon through it. With a twist to his lips, he let his eyes slide into the slitted yellow pupils.

"What d'you want?" Monty grumbled in a voice that sounded like it was chomping on rocks.

"I've got a bit of a question for you, mate," Regulus said with his most disarming grin (he'd learned it from his brother. As much of an arse Sirius could be, he had a smile on him that made men and women weak in the legs). Unfortunately, disarming smiles didn't work on demons, or at least this one in particular.

"I'm busy right now, come back tomorrow." They both knew he wasn't really busy, so with a sharp kick Regulus forced the door open. "Hey, watch it, you bastard!" Monty said as Regulus walked in and made himself comfortable on a swaybacked couch.

'Bastard, that's ironic,' he thought, propping his legs up on the coffee table. "So how've things been going, Monty?" Regulus asked, flicking his yellow eyes around the room.

"What the fuck do you want, you arse?" Monty spat out, pushing Regulus's feet off the table and moving over to an armchair that was just as swayed and dirty as the rest of the place was.

"I need answers, Monty, and you are probably the best person in this godforsaken place who can help me," he said, leaning forward in what he thought was an intimidating manner.

"What's in it for me?" Monty fired back.

Regulus arched a black eyebrow. "I won't tell the angel about that little collection you keep in the basement of this place."

Monty flushed angrily--it wasn't a good look for him. "Fair enough."

"I thought demons didn't play fair."

"We don't."

"We'll see about that." Regulus sat back on the couch, steadily ignoring the creeping feeling that was going over his skin. He didn't want to know what was lurking in that thing... "Walburga Black. Sometimes she liked to go by the name Olympias in her more fanciful moods. I want to know if she summoned up any demons in the early 1960s."

Monty snorted. "I can try. Hell is a bureaucrat's wet dream or nightmare, depending on how you look at it. Their records department is vast and fucking disorganized; it's gonna take a long time to find that answer for you."

Regulus nodded. "Time is one thing I've got here."

* * *

"So what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" Samantha looked around from her perch on the boulder and found a young man sitting next to her. Deep dark hair, blue eyes with a certain sparkle in them, strong jawline...and something about him that spoke to both his teenage appearance and an age old wisdom.

"Who the hell are you?" she shot back, flipping a piece of hair off of her forehead. The wind was picking up, coming in from the sea and brushing against the shoreline they were currently staring at.

The teen shrugged. "Just a figment of your imagination at this point. That may change though, I warn you." He smiled with the corner of his lips, quirking one side upwards. There was something familiar about that smile, but she couldn't seem to put her finger on it.

"Great," she sighed. "Even my hallucinations are snarky."

"I wouldn't say I'm a hallucination. I exist." He pinched himself on his arm, leaving a red welt behind. "Yep, I've definitely achieved some state of existence. That did hurt, by the way. Although I've heard it said before that if you can feel, then you know you're alive."

Samantha smirked herself. Snarky he may have been, but there was something quite likeable there too. "So, you who exist, what are you popping up around here for?"

He smiled wide this time, revealing perfect white teeth. "Oh, this is just an introduction. You're going to have to wait a little longer before I tell you that."

Samantha woke up with a start, unsettling the blankets. "Bloody dreams," she muttered, punching a pillow and pushing her face down into it in the aim of getting some more sleep.

* * *

Regulus snorted to himself at the absurdity of the situation. However many years dead, the discovery of some demonic ancestry, and a little fact-finding and intimidation, and he still found himself stuck waiting in ridiculously long lines to pay for groceries. He gripped his basket and slouched against the racks filled with magazines proclaiming such scintillating articles such as "Recycling your life stories in a post-mortem world" and "Death and Dating: a spectre's guide to romance" while waiting for the line to move.

Finally the groceries were all paid up, and Regulus hot-footed it out of the market. In his haste to leave, he didn't realize that he slammed into another body until one of his bags ended up on the pavement. "Sorry, mate," Regulus hastily apologized, bending down to scoop up the groceries.

"Oh, it's no problem," a smooth and cultured voice said. Regulus looked up to see a young man, maybe only a few years older than himself, standing over him. They were both wearing long jackets, but that was where the similarities ended. Whereas Regulus was becoming more and more casual the longer he lived in the wasteland (who exactly was he going to get dressed up for here?), this man was impeccably put together in a well cut suit, slicked back hair, and wire-framed glasses. He held out a carton of strawberries that had fallen out of the bag.

"Thanks," he nodded, taking the berries.

"My pleasure." He smiled at Regulus, who felt a sudden chill creep down his spine. There was something off about the man's smile, like it didn't quite match up with the rest of his face. "It's not often that we get...people of your caliber here," he continued.

Regulus had the feeling that he wasn't talking about wizards. "Um, thanks...I think. He held up the bags, vaguely thinking that they made some pretty poor shields in case of a fight. "I really need to get these back."

The man stepped to the side and waved a hand out towards the street. "After you. If you're ever interested in a real challenge, however, just speak up. There are those of us here who would be more than willing to assist you."

Regulus gave the man in the suit a wary glance, then hustled out the door. Something wasn't right with that bloke, and he did not want to stick around to find out what it was. In the end Regulus took a roundabout route back to the flat, doubling back and covering his tracks until he was sure no one was following.