The Killing of Regulus Black

Chapter Three

James Potter had the night off, and he didn't have many of those. The sofa and the novel waited for him in the sitting room. But, butterbeer in hand, he'd made a detour on his way from the kitchen into the nursery.

The nursery was quiet and dark, filled with expectancy, waiting for its occupant-to-be. He looked at the centerpiece of the room, the cradle Lily's father had made with Muggle magic: with a few simple tools in his skilled hands. Inside the cradle was a tiny mattress, covered neatly with a tiny white sheet. Soon a tiny human being would be lying there, looking back at him.

The doorbell rang.

The first move James made was to the inner pocket of his robe, to reassure himself that his wand was there. Auror's reflexes. They served him as well in the Order of the Phoenix as they had in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

The second thing he did was set his beer bottle down on the changing table. Why not? It was the twenty-third of May, two months, according to Lily's midwife, before anybody was likely to be changed on it.

Then James went to the front door and, after a peek through the window curtain, pulled it open.

"Sirius! Come on in--!"

With a sliding ripple of its features, Sirius's face began to change.

An illusion. Pulling his wand, James jumped backward into the hallway. He was about to slam and ward the door shut when a voice said:

"No, Potter! For Merlin's sake, let me in before somebody sees me!"

Aiming his wand at the screen door, James cautiously stepped forward.

"Regulus?"

The face and form glowing softly in the light of the porch lantern were Regulus Black's. This time, James saw nothing of the shifting and sliding of illusion. But he waved an Apertus Charm in Regulus's direction nevertheless.

The blue-white spell flashed, then faded. Regulus remained Regulus.

"Satisfied?" he whispered.

"Yeah, Regulus," James whispered back. He pushed open the screen door. "Come in."

With a glance over his shoulder into the soft spring night, Regulus scuttled over the threshold.

"Shut the door, will you?" Regulus whispered urgently once he was inside.

James shrugged and did so. "Why are we whispering?" he asked then in a normal voice.

"We don't need to, now," Regulus said aloud. "As long as we're alone." He glanced around the hallway and poked his head into the candlelit sitting room. "We are alone, aren't we?"

"Yes," James said. "Why?"

"Yes. Tonight's Tuesday. On Tuesdays, your wife takes the evening shift in the Accidents and Emergencies Department at St. Mungo's Hospital. On Tuesdays, you stay home. You like to be where she can get hold of you fast. And you know it's unsafe to leave the house untended."

"How would you know?" James said. Even if Sirius still spoke to Regulus, he'd never have told him all that.

Regulus looked at James. His eyes, James thought, were exactly the same color as Sirius's eyes. But James had never seen that odd expression in Sirius's eyes before.

"Look, Potter--James. I can call you James, can't I? And can't we sit down? I need to talk to you."

James felt a jolt of fear. "This isn't about Sirius, is it?"

Regulus blinked in surprise. "Sirius? No. This is about me. And you."

James stared at Regulus, then waved him into the sitting room. "Have a seat. I'll get us a couple of beers."

#

James got Regulus a fresh bottle of beer from the kitchen and retrieved his own open bottle from the changing table in the nursery. Carrying both butterbeers, he returned to the sitting room.

Regulus was in the chintz armchair next to the couch. James handed him his beer, then sat down on the couch, facing the cold hearth--cold because the night, even for late May, was unusually warm.

James looked from the fireplace to Regulus. "You had something to say to me?"

"I heard you'd given up the Aurors," Regulus said.

Yes. James had resigned from Law Enforcement. When he'd seen firsthand the results of Barty Crouch's new policy of loosing Dementors on the Death Eater prisoners in Azkaban. But Regulus didn't need to know that.

"I couldn't hack the schedule. So I took a job with my Dad."

"The Order of the Phoenix," Regulus said.

Ice crept down James's spine. "What do you mean?"

"We know. Or--they do. I'm not one of them any longer."

"One of whom?"

Regulus looked into the empty hearth, then back again at James. "Reckon there's no easy way to do this, is there?" Half-turned in the chair, he leaned forward and thrust his left arm toward James.

James shrank back into the couch cushions. He was afraid he knew what was coming. Regulus was a Black, wasn't he? James only hoped to Merlin and the Light Sirius didn't--

Regulus pushed up the sleeve of his robe to reveal the Dark Mark, deep and glistening black in the skin of his arm.

James stared. Please don't let Sirius know. "Why are you showing me this?" he asked quietly.

"Because you're a member of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Does Sirius know?"

"He should. He's a member, too, isn't he? Look, they know about all of you. That's one thing I need to--"

"No, not that." James lifted his hand and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "Does Sirius know you're a Death Eater?"

"God, no! What do you take me for? And look, Potter--James." Regulus's voice took on a wheedling tone. "You don't have to tell him, do you?"

James went limp with relief. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes wearily, then ran his hands through his hair. "Why are you telling me?"

"Because you're in the Order, like Sirius is. And you've got connections there, like he hasn't. Like no Black would."

"Connections? What connections?"

Regulus gave a bitter little bark of a laugh. "Come off it, James--!"

"I think I like 'Potter' better," James cut in.

"Fine, then. Potter it is. Well, then. Potter. Take Alastor Moody, for starters. You were team leader in his Special Unit for the Dark Arts, in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. You were the best Auror he had in the Subministry of Criminal Investigations, before you joined the Order. Now you're the best Auror he's got in the Order of the Phoenix.

"And there's Professor Albus Dumbledore. Heads up the Order like he heads up half of everything else in the wizarding world. Like the Wizengamot. Dumbledore's Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. And Harold Potter--your Dad--is Second Warlock. Nice place to be, when you're one of the links for the Order to the upper echelons of the Ministry. Yeah. Second Warlock'll do."

James stared at him. People might guess that Dumbledore was operating a private and semi-secret organization that fought Voldemort. There were times, James thought, when Dumbledore might want them to guess it. But nobody was supposed to know about Dad.

"The Dark Lord knows every member of the Order," Regulus said quietly. "Every one."

"So I've heard," James said. He remembered Ruskin, the first and only Death Eater he had interrogated in Azkaban, telling him that and precious little else before the Dementors had sucked his soul.

Every one. Why shouldn't that include Dad, come to think of it? Why should James Potter's family be safe? Nobody else's was.

"What I haven't heard," James said, "is how he knows."

Regulus gave him the strangest look. "Are you sure that's something you want to hear?" he asked. "There has to be a traitor in your Order. Someone very close to you. Given what the Death Eaters know."

Why should Dad and Mum, why should Lily and the baby be safe?

"He knows them, Potter," Ruskin had whispered on the day he'd lost his soul. "And he will kill them. Every one."

"Who is it?" James said sharply.

"Think they'd tell me?" Regulus said. "They haven't. And now they never will. I'm getting out."

"Getting out?"

"Getting out, running away, quitting, whatever you want to call it. I'm leaving the Dark Lord's service."

"You're leaving Voldemort's service?"

"Don't say his name!" Regulus's hand stole to his left arm and nearly touched it before he pulled it away again. "Don't you know it isn't safe!"

"Sorry," James said. "I mean to say, has anybody ever done that before? Quit the Death Eaters?"

"Don't know. But it doesn't seem the kind of outfit where you can just hand in your resignation, does it?" Regulus smiled weakly, as if he'd made a joke. The smile faded at once. "That's why I'm here. You're in the Order. And you're connected. Your father. Moody. Dumbledore. Besides--" Regulus hesitated, looking away for a moment. "Besides, Sirius always said you were the only person in the world he trusted."

"He didn't mean it," James said. "Sirius has plenty of friends."

"Yeah, well, when he said it, he was with his family, not his friends."

James couldn't think of a diplomatic answer to that. So he said nothing.

"Anyway, I'll take Sirius's word for it, that you're trustworthy," Regulus said. "He has a way of scenting out his friends. And his enemies. So I--I was wondering--" he faltered. Then, gathering up his nerve, he plunged ahead. "No, I'm asking. Begging. Please. Talk to Headmaster Dumbledore. Get me your Order's protection. If the Death Eaters--if He--if they find out I've run for it, they'll kill me. They'll think I've betrayed them."

"You'll have to, won't you? Betray them, I mean?"

"Yeah, yeah...." Regulus scrubbed his hands over his face. "Reckon so...."

Sirius had done the same thing in Dumbledore's office the morning after Moony had nearly killed Snape. Scrubbed his hands over his face, scrubbed tears out of his eyes....

"Why'd you decide you had to leave, Regulus?" James asked quietly.

"Because I've done murders, all right?" Regulus said in a queer, harsh voice. "And I don't want to do any more. All right?"

"Your first?" James said.

Regulus nodded. His eyes were very bright. Somehow that made him look younger than Sirius by much more than two years.

"You know Marlene McKinnon?" Regulus asked.

A faint nausea settled in the pit of James's stomach. "I'm in the Order. She was in the Order. Yes. I knew her."

"I--I--" Regulus drew a long, trembling breath. He looked at James with a sort of haunted longing. What did he think James could give him? "I--"

"You killed her," James said.

"No. Travers did." Regulus blinked and swept his sleeve across his eyes. "But she had a husband. He ran out from the kitchen while Travers was busy with Marlene in the hallway. I killed him." Regulus stopped. "And there were these two little kids. Boys."

Bill's and Marlene's sons. "I know," James said.

"I killed them. Because Travers was too clumsy to do it right. But I'm good. I'm a Black, aren't I? And, see, the Lord said, leave bodies as well as the Dark Mark. Don't hit them so hard you bring the house down and bury them in dust. Let the Mudblood-lovers see what could happen to them.

"So you calibrate your curse, you know. A strong Avada Kedavra for the adults. You want to kill them first; you don't want them watching their kids die. Unless, of course, that's what the Lord wants. Because you don't know what they'll do."

Regulus paused, panting for breath. James waited. In the silence, he felt himself shuddering.

"And then a weaker Avada Kedavra for the kids." Regulus stared straight ahead at nothing. "After you pull their dead parents off them. A weaker spell, yeah. But it was too weak." He turned that horrible, empty stare on James's face. "They were still alive. They could still...feel. I had to hit them again. Like hitting mice with a broom. Squirmy, squealing little--"

Regulus bowed over his lap, burying his face in his hands. His shoulders shook. His breath came in squeaking, hitching gasps.

James stood up and looked down at him. He supposed Regulus was weeping. He wasn't sure he cared. Marlene McKinnon been one of the most powerful witches he'd ever known, in both the Special Unit and the Order of the Phoenix. He'd known her husband. He'd known her boys, Tim and Mike. Always running, always laughing, always wrestling on the hearthrug. Marlene, who had grown up with brothers, had assured Lily and James it was what they were in for, if they had boys. James, who was an only child, and Lily, who had one sister, had taken her word for it. And had laughed.

He and Lily had done a lot of laughing with the McKinnons. Marlene and Bill had been happy people. Their home had been a happy place.

James looked down at Regulus. And he wondered whether Barty Crouch didn't have the right idea after all. Maybe those Dementor-maddened Death Eaters he'd seen in Azkaban deserved exactly what they'd got.

No, no! James turned away from Regulus and paced in front of the fireplace, running his hand through his hair. You couldn't even think anybody deserved that. Or you ended up with the Dementor-sucked husk of Olaus Ruskin sitting squarely on top of your conscience.

The sound of Regulus's weeping faded into silence. James turned back to him. Regulus still sat slumped, with his elbows braced on his knees.

"Buck up, will you?" James said uncomfortably. "I'll call Chief Moody, all right? He vets all the Order's informants. And it's safe; both his house and his office fireplaces are warded."

Regulus lifted his head. His eyes were wild with terror. "I don't need to be vetted! I need to be protected! You're Harold Potter's son, for God's sake! Can't you put me straight through to Dumbledore?"

James looked at him coldly. "Wouldn't matter if I was Merlin's and Vivien's son. Sorry to be the one to break it to you, Regulus, but the Order of the Phoenix doesn't operate on bloodlines and privilege. Nobody contacts Dumbledore unless Alastor Moody clears him first. Not you. Not me. Nobody."

Regulus looked back with Sirius's eyes: deep-set, cloud-gray, fringed with black lashes. He answered after a moment in a calmer voice.

"All right. Call Chief Moody. If he wants to talk to me, I'm here."

The armchair Regulus sat in was out of sight of the fireplace. Maybe that was just as well, James thought as he took the Floo powder down from the mantel. He had to break the news gently to Moody, of the very first Death Eater ever to betray Voldemort, because he had no idea how the eccentric old Auror would take it.