Initiation

Even when they were little, he wasn't like Sirius. For one thing, though Sirius hated it, Regulus always liked going into the drawing room just before bedtime, to be cosseted by all the ladies in their pretty robes and to hear Mother talk about how he'd grown or how clever his tutors thought him.

"What did you do today?" Mother was always sure to ask before sending him off to bed.

And Regulus would always tell her. Today he had found a slow worm in the garden. Today he'd learned his multiplication tables. Today he'd gone to Grimmauld Green with Uncle Alphard and Cousin Andromeda, to ride around on Uncle Alphard's broom.

And it was all good, whatever he had done, even riding with Uncle Alphard. Because he wasn't like Sirius.

****

It had been a month since Regulus had received the Dark Mark from its Maker, the Dark Lord. By now, all the Blacks who mattered knew Regulus was a Death Eater.

Sirius didn't know, because Sirius didn't matter. As Mother had reminded Regulus often enough, no true Black spoke to Sirius. Or of him.

"You are the only son I have left," Mother had said to Regulus. "The other died to me when I burned his name from the tapestry. You are heir to the Black family name now. You are the embodiment of all that it means to be a Black."

There were other things of which Regulus didn't speak. Lucius Malfoy, his sponsor, had ordered him to keep quiet. But no one had needed to tell Regulus that. Whom would you tell about choking on the Lord's death as he shoved it down your throat--?

"So to speak," Lucius had said, preparing him. "But you'll get used to it."

As though anyone could get used to the eating of death.

No, in this, practice did not make perfect. It was the Dark Lord's power which made his death delicious. His power, the sweetest of wines, the perfect digestive.

So to speak.

But how could you speak of it to anyone who wasn't a Death Eater? What would you say?

Red power, red as none had known it since the days of the ancients, who had sought to merge with the essences of animals in order to gain immortality. The essences, in particular, of the wolf and the serpent.

"There are your failures, like the werewolves," Lucius had said once. "They pay too high a price for life. And there are your successes, like our Lord. Others pay the price for him."

Not that the Lord didn't show his gratitude.

Regulus had heard his enchanting whisper, even through that ecstatic agony which was the burning of the Dark Mark. "You are precious to me, Regulus. The only new branch on a once-mighty family tree. An otherwise leafless tree, I am afraid, and beginning to rot from within."

Red. That was the colour of the Dark Lord's power. Red power, surging in Regulus's veins like fiery blood, flowing to his magical heart, bursting from his heart to his brain, affecting his sight, so that the world seemed bathed in red.

Including Cousin Bella and the bed and body she had offered him afterward. That memory, too, was framed in Regulus's mind with red fire.

The Dark knew no limits, Regulus reminded himself. And both he and Bella were the purest of purebloods. They were Blacks.

"'S all right, you know," Rodolphus had said the next morning, apropos, seemingly, of nothing. "It hits her that way sometimes. Most times, actually."

"Yes," Regulus had answered. "It's all right."

It was all perfectly right.

But his Initiation was not complete. Regulus knew that much. For a Death Eater did not merely receive death, power, the Dark Mark. A Death Eater also gave.

****

The day came when Regulus would complete his Initiation, with a Death Eater whom he knew only by the name of Travers.

On that day, Travers took Regulus to Middlesex, to a prosperous suburban street of brick and pebbledash houses. They Apparated in at twilight, into the shadow of a tree, close to what looked like a stone wall twined with climbing hydrangea hiding a side garden from the street. Travers tapped the wall three times with his wand. Then he walked through it.

Regulus followed him, not into a secluded garden, but into another street. This street looked as neat and comfortable as the one they'd left, but the houses were stone, not brick, with broom sheds beside them instead of garages. Plots of potioning herbs were interspersed among the grass and flowers in the gardens.

"Feverfew Road," Travers said, indicating a nearby street sign.

Regulus looked around. Despite the softness of the spring evening, Feverfew Road was quite empty.

"Everyone's indoors by nightfall," Travers remarked. "We live in dangerous times, after all."

They walked past several houses before Travers stopped. The streetlamps were just beginning to flicker on. By their light, Regulus saw a house with a well-swept path leading to the front steps and daffodils blooming in the garden.

Travers moved behind a large rhododendron that grew near the street. He beckoned to Regulus to join him. Then he gestured toward the house. "The McKinnons'," he said.

Regulus looked at him quizzically.

Travers's mouth curved. "No. You probably don't know them. They're both half-bloods. Not on the Blacks' guest list, I'll wager. I hear the husband's not much. Some clerk or other in Broom Regulatory Control. But Marlene McKinnon...." Travers looked at the McKinnons' front door.

"Yes?" Regulus said.

Travers answered without taking his eyes off the McKinnons' house. "Marlene McKinnon is one of the most powerful witches alive and one of the Lord's worst enemies. She's an Auror on Alastor Moody's Special Team against Felonious Dark Magic. Now that Potter's resigned, the only person who's sent more Death Eaters to Azkaban than Marlene McKinnon is Moody himself."

Regulus waited uneasily.

"There's more," Travers said. "The Lord has recently discovered that Marlene McKinnon is a member of the Order of the Phoenix."

"The Order of the Phoenix!" Regulus said.

At last Travers turned. "Yes. So we're here to kill them. All of them. Marlene McKinnon, her husband and her two sons. "

Regulus's mouth went dry.

"You're here to earn your place with the Dark Lord," Travers said. "And this is how you do it. First you take death. And then you give it. But you knew that."

Regulus didn't try to deny it.

Travers's gaze turned again to the McKinnons' house.

"I'd prefer to get in with a minimum of fuss," Travers said. "Unfortunately, there's sure to be an Anti-Apparition Spell around the house and probably part of the garden, too. But I think we can handle that. All we have to do is persuade someone to open the door."

"Oh, sure, right," Regulus said. "What could be easier than getting an Auror to open the door to people she's never seen before?"

"Very little, perhaps," Travers said. He straightened his shoulders and put a smarmy smile on his face. "You and I are collecting for the St. Mungo's Hospital Appeal for the Spellbound. That should be a cause close to Mrs. McKinnon's heart." The smile vanished. "Her aunt worked on retainer to the Ministry, trying to refine the Jellylegs Jinx for Law Enforcement. Aunt transformed the jinx mid-incantation into a Muscle-melting Curse, and it backfired on her. She's in long-term care now at St. Mungo's. Spellbound, the Healers say. No matter how hard they try, they can't lift the curse."

Travers pulled a couple of cards out of his pocket and handed one to Regulus. Regulus's face smiled up at him from a photograph on the card. The card's official Ministry stamp identified him as Mulberry Hawk, a representative of St. Mungo's Appeal for the Spellbound.

"I'm Roger Stout," Travers said, pocketing his own card again. "Now, if only the lady of the house will open the door."

They stepped out into the street and approached the McKinnons' garden gate.

"We're to keep it subtle," Travers continued, muttering out of the side of his mouth. "The Lord wants the house left standing and the bodies whole."

Too light-headed with fear to trust his voice, Regulus nodded silently.

They went up to the McKinnons' front door, and Travers gave it a couple of brisk knocks.

The porch lamp came on. The door had a peephole, and Regulus saw the opening slide back.

Travers waved and smiled at the peephole. He pulled his identification card out of his pocket. Regulus followed suit.

"Good evening!" Travers called. "My name is Roger Stout. My colleague Mr. Hawk and I have come on behalf of the St. Mungo's Hospital Appeal for the Spellbound. May we--?"

The door opened slowly. A woman a few years older than Regulus stood on the threshold. She had dark brown hair wound around her head in a thick braid. Though she looked very tired, the eyes she swept over Travers and Regulus were warily alert. And her hand, Regulus noticed, hovered close to the wand sticking out of a sheath clipped inside her right robe pocket.

"I give to the Appeal every spring," the woman said. But she didn't move.

"And 'tis the season once again, Mrs. McKinnon!" Travers said, beaming. "I am speaking to Mrs. McKinnon, aren't I? May we come--?"

A child's shrill voice yelled inside the house. "Tim! Give me back my butterfly! Mum, make him give it back!" The voice rose a notch. "Tim, don't let it go, it'll fly away--!"

A man's voice loudly intervened. "Boys! What did I tell you? Put your toys away! It's time for bed!"

A butterfly then appeared in the hallway, fluttering over Mrs. McKinnon's shoulder. At first, Regulus thought it was a peacock butterfly. But it was about three times the size of a peacock. And, though it lacked the false eye markings, it had wings even brighter than those of a peacock butterfly, wings of ruby red, sapphire blue and emerald green. Each colour blended at its border with the others, making the butterfly wings look like twin rainbows glowing in the sun.

The butterfly was a toy animated by parental magic. Regulus knew it because he'd had the same sort of toy himself, from Taliesin's Toy Box in Diagon Alley. Only he'd always liked the tropical lizards best.

"Mum, catch it!" the boy yelled.

"Mike," Mrs. McKinnon said distractedly. Half-turning, she saw the butterfly, reached for it and missed. It flew out the door over Regulus's head and disappeared into the deepening darkness.

At that same moment, Travers hurled himself at Marlene McKinnon. He knocked her to the hall floor and landed with his feet over the threshold, inside the house. Regulus rushed in after him.

Marlene had her wand out. She shot a Stunner at Travers, then leapt to her feet and fired off another.

"Bill, it's Death Eaters!" she shouted. "Take the boys and run!"

"Get them, Hawk!" Travers snapped as he parried Marlene's spells. "Don't let them out of the house!"

The hall way, Regulus saw, extended to a kitchen at the back of the house. Doors on either side opened into a pair of rooms, and off the hall a staircase led to a first floor landing.

Avoiding Marlene, Regulus dodged through the door at his left into a sitting room. He dashed through another door at the rear of the sitting room into a dining room. Here he saw a door, additional to the hallway entrance, which connected the kitchen to the dining room. That door was open, so that, inside the kitchen, Regulus could see Bill McKinnon scooping up one little boy while clutching another to his chest.

The boys looked so much alike that Regulus was sure they were twins. He saw the first boy embracing a toy butterfly identical to the one which had flown out the front door.

Regulus entered the kitchen and aimed his wand at McKinnon. "Let them go," he said in a shaky voice.

McKinnon gasped and turned. Both boys looked up. For one long moment, three pairs of sky-blue eyes stared at Regulus.

"Expelliarmus!" Marlene's voice rang out, full of power. Travers yelled in pain.

We're for Azkaban if we lose this! Regulus thought. His hand trembled enough to make the tip of his wand waver.

McKinnon saw it, and his eyes gleamed. He thrust his children behind him.

"I said, let them go!" Regulus shouted in fear and rage. He struggled for self-control and felt something within him come to his aid, something shifting, elusive and dark. He took it into his magical grasp.

"You want to let them go, McKinnon," Regulus said then. His voice was calm. He held his wand steady. "You want to be first. You don't want to watch them die."

"My God, Bill, get them out of here!" Marlene shrieked from the hall way, over the banging and cracking of spells. Travers hadn't lost his wand yet.

McKinnon released the twins. "Run, boys! To Mr. and Mrs. O'Hare's house!"

The twins ran straight for the back door, as if they'd been drilled and knew exactly what to do.

With a flick of his wand, Regulus shot the back door bolt home. Then he snapped round to McKinnon.

McKinnon, looking coldly at Regulus, made a slicing movement with his wand. "Exanimo!" he said, and the purple fire of a Breath-taking Spell leaped from his wand straight for Regulus's chest.

So, this Light Wizard wasn't above killing.

"Protego!" Regulus cried. The Breath-taker boomeranged back toward McKinnon. McKinnon ducked the spell. The purple flame shredded and disappeared just before it struck the wall behind him.

Then Regulus heard a deep, hollow roar, like the rushing of a great wind in a tunnel. Along with it came the sound of Travers's voice:

"Avada Kedavra!"

Green light lit the entire house for a moment. Then, there was nothing but ordinary lamplight and the whimpering of children in a corner.

Regulus had reckoned that Tim and Mike might not be tall enough to reach the bolt on the back door. And he had reckoned right.

"No."

Bill McKinnon spoke in a whisper. Tears glistened on his face. The wand he pointed at Regulus shook. But there was hate enough in his eyes.

"Avada--"

"Avada Kedavra!" Regulus cried, calling upon the power to kill.

The wind roared in his ears. Darkness born of the death he had eaten and the power he had drunk coiled in his magical grasp. It bled darkness into his own glowing white power, dulling it to grey.

That grey power now was his. Using it, he sent the brilliant green light of the Killing Curse from his wand. The tidy kitchen and Bill McKinnon's terrified face shone in its lurid glare. McKinnon collapsed to the floor and, like a snuffed candle, the green light went out.

In the ordinary lamplight which remained, Regulus looked down at McKinnon. He lay on his side, with one arm flung over his head and his wand resting on the floor beneath his hand.

Regulus squatted next to McKinnon. His hand trembled as he reached out to touch McKinnon's shoulder. McKinnon did not react to his touch, so Regulus gently rolled him on his back.

McKinnon's eyes were closed, the colour was gone from his face and he lay quite still. He was dead. For the first time in his life, Regulus had killed a man.

His whole body was trembling now. He turned the thought over in his mind in silence.

In complete silence. The McKinnons' children had stopped whimpering.

Regulus turned toward the dining room. "Travers!"

"Black!" Travers called at the same time.

No need to bother with the pretence of Hawk any longer, Regulus supposed. He ran into the sitting room to meet Travers. "Those kids--!"

"They're here somewhere, and we've got to find them fast. I threw up a Shroud of Silence as soon as I'd killed the witch. But the neighbours must have heard something. They'll cower in their houses, but one of them's already put in a call to the Aurors, you mark my words."

Regulus marked them while looking at Marlene McKinnon's body sprawled over the threshold between the hall and the sitting room. Her braid had come loose from its prim bindings. But her eyes, like her husband's, were peacefully closed.

"So we find the kids and sort them out," Travers went on. "Then we Mark the place and get the bloody hell out of here. You look downstairs. I'll go up."

Travers stepped over Marlene's body into the hallway and ran up the stairs.

Regulus stared silently down at Marlene McKinnon, at the dark line of her lashes against her pale and quiet face.

He thought of the woman who had opened her door to Travers and him, in the fond hope, perhaps, that they really were who they'd said they were.

How exhausted she had looked then.

She's finally getting some sleep, Regulus thought.

"Mummy?"

The voice--a child's voice--spoke behind Regulus in a tiny, tremulous whisper. Slowly Regulus turned. Behind him was a blue cloth sofa against the far wall of the sitting room. He went over and crouched to peer into the space between the wall and the sofa.

A little boy with sky-blue eyes and sandy-brown hair exactly like Bill McKinnon's knelt inside the cramped space. He hugged a magical butterfly from Taliesin's Toy Box to his chest. His chin trembled.

"It's Tim, isn't it?" Regulus asked softly.

The boy didn't answer. He slid backward on his knees to the farthest edge of his sheltered space behind the sofa and stared at Regulus.

Regulus didn't need an answer. He knew this was Tim. It was Mike's butterfly which had escaped out the McKinnon's front door. Tim still had his.

Suddenly Regulus heard a loud clattering upstairs, as of upended furniture.

"Ah!" cried Travers. There arose the shrill and panicky wailing of another little boy.

Travers pounded down the stairs. He held Mike by the waist, squeezed inside the crook of his arm. Mike squirmed, flailed and shrieked at the top of his lungs.

"Mummy? Daddy?" Tim quavered. Then he too began to cry.

"You've found the other one, then?" Travers said above the din. "Good. Get him out here and deal with them."

Regulus pulled out the sofa and went behind it after Tim. But it wasn't so easy. Tim flattened himself on his stomach and wriggled under the sofa. He lost his butterfly in the process. Still lively with Bill's and Marlene's magic, the butterfly shot out from beneath the sofa and flew at Regulus's face, flapping its wings against his nose and cheeks.

"Got you, you little shit!" Travers said.

Regulus batted the butterfly away from his face and came round the edge of the sofa. Travers had Tim by the wrist and still held Mike under his other arm. Both boys had seen Marlene. Both boys strained for her and howled.

"Mummy! Mum! Daddy, where are you?"

"For God's sake, Black, shut them up!" Travers said.

"Silencio!" Regulus said, waving his wand over each boy's head. Their Adam's apples bobbed and their little jaws worked, but no sound came out of their mouths.

"Thank you," said Travers. "Now, then. I'll let them go, and you're to kill them."

Regulus stared at him. "I? Why do I have to be the one to kill them?"

Tim and Mike writhed in Travers's grasp. Tears coursed down their cheeks. The butterfly, meanwhile, was flying crazily around the ceiling, from corner to corner of the sitting room.

"Because you're the only one who can!" Travers said. "I told you, the Lord wants this house standing when we leave. He wants it untouched, with the McKinnon family's dead bodies inside. He wants the Mudblood-lovers to see, he wants the Order to know we can get inside their homes and end their lives any time we want! And I can't do it! Damn you--!" Travers looked down at the madly squirming Tim and gave him a rough shake.

"But you can," Travers said. "You've got the power. The Lord's got your Examiner's Certificate from your Naming Day, he's got your school records from Hogwarts. And you've got the breeding for Dark Magic. You're a Black."

"You're strong enough to do it!" Regulus said. "You just killed Marlene McKinnon!"

"With the help of the Lord's power in me! Besides, I'm not talking about strength. I'm talking about subtlety. I don't have the subtlety to calibrate the Killing Curse to five-year-olds. I'd bring this house down around our ears."

The five-year-olds pummelled and kicked. But few of their blows landed squarely on Travers, and those that did didn't seem to bother him. He had a firm hold on the boys now.

"That's why you're here," Travers said. "Didn't you know?"

"No," Regulus said.

Travers looked shocked for a moment. Then his face cleared.

"Of course not," he said softly. "The Lord didn't tell you. Because you have to decide now what you're going to do. Because--these kids. They're your Initiation."

Regulus stared at Tim and Mike. The sweat of physical terror collected on his face and began to drip slowly down the back of his neck.

Tim and Mike didn't look back at him. Still struggling, they craned their necks in the direction of their mother's body.

"I'm going to let them go," Travers said. "I'd say we have ten minutes at most before the Aurors arrive. By that time, these kids need to be dead and we need to be gone."

Regulus said nothing. Tim's butterfly thudded into the walls and beat its wings against the windows.

"They can identify us, Black. The Order will not stop until they've hunted us down and handed us over to the Ministry of Magic. We'll rot in Azkaban. With Dementors to wait on us, hand, foot and soul."

Regulus still couldn't speak. And he felt nothing inside him coming to his aid, nothing of his own power or the Lord's. Nothing but sickness rising to the back of his throat.

"Use what the Dark Lord's given you, Black. That's what it's for. And look here," Travers said. "You want to be Initiated, now you've got this far. Or else he'll have to kill you. You know too much."

Oh, yes. Regulus knew far too much.

"I'll let them go on the count of three, all right?" Travers said. "Pretend you're at school. Defence Against the Dark Arts. Seventh year. I'm the teacher, showing you how to summon your power to your magical grasp. Then you throw it out through your wand. With me so far?"

"Yes," Regulus whispered.

"Right, then. Here we go."

Regulus closed his eyes, so he would not see all that was around him for a moment. He cleared his mind, until he felt perfectly numb.

"One..."

Regulus opened his eyes. And, though he saw, he still felt numb.

"Two. Start summoning your power, now..."

Regulus summoned. In his mind's eye he saw his power, gleaming white once, now grey as thunderclouds, rushing to his hand.

He was the embodiment of all that it meant to be a Black.

"Three!"

The boys bolted from Travers's grasp.

"Avada Kedavra!" Regulus shouted at Tim. "Avada Kedavra!" he shouted at Mike.

And since, like most purebloods, Regulus had spent years training with a duelling master, his aim was good. He hit both boys. But his summoning wasn't steady enough. His calibration was off. So they didn't die.

Still, as it always did, Avada Kedavra nullified all the other spells affecting its targets. The Silencing Charm was lifted from Tim and Mike. They sobbed aloud in pain. And, though stopped from time to time by the convulsive shuddering of their bodies, they began to crawl toward their mother. As if, once they reached her, she could make it all go away.

"What the--!" Travers said hoarsely. "Finish it, Black!"

"Avada Kedavra!" Regulus cried. "Avada Kedavra!"

Two winds roared, two green lights flared. When it was quiet again, when nothing but gentle candlelight lit the sitting room, Regulus saw Tim and Mike lying still, less than a foot from Marlene's outstretched hand.

Travers rushed to them and bent down. He felt the boys' wrists and, prying their lids back, peered into their eyes. "Ah, finally they're dead." Rising, he turned to Regulus. "Come on."

With the death of its casters, the Anti-Apparition Spell was fading. Regulus could sense that through his wand as he ran into the back garden behind Travers. Nevertheless, they went halfway through the garden, past the periphery of the spell, before they stopped.

"Just to be on the safe side," Travers said, somewhat breathlessly. Then he lifted his wand to conjure the Dark Mark.

Regulus looked up. He saw something other than the Dark Mark fluttering above him, something which glittered ruby red, sapphire blue and emerald green, like a jewel struck with sunlight.

It was Tim's butterfly, still brimming with life. As Regulus watched, the butterfly shot as true and bright as a message dart, over the roof of the McKinnons' house and into the night sky. In a moment, Regulus could no longer distinguish its light from that of the stars.

"Morsmordre!" Travers cried, and what flew from his wand was no butterfly.

Travers looked up at the Dark Mark with satisfaction. "Right, then. Let's get out of here."

****

A half-hour later, Travers and Regulus were seated in a quiet corner of the Devil's Snare in Knockturn Alley. Regulus was on his second pint.

"The first time's always hard," Travers said, not unkindly. "And look at this way. You're in. You're one of us now."

"That's nice," Regulus said.

"Don't you feel it yet?"

Regulus thought about it. He didn't know what he was supposed to feel. But shouldn't it have been better than the sick weariness he did feel?

"Your union with the Lord through the Mark," Travers said softly. "With all of us, your Death Eater brothers and sisters. You'll never be weak, you'll never be alone again."

Regulus said nothing.

"All right, maybe you don't feel it," Travers said, rather peevishly. "Maybe a Black wouldn't know what it's like to feel weak and lonely."

You're wrong there, Regulus thought. He stood up. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm not good company right now. Why don't I just go home?"

"Good idea," Travers said, clearly relieved by the suggestion. "Go home, drink a potion, get a good night's sleep. It'll be better tomorrow. And, Black, you will feel it. It will be better than it's ever been. I promise." A look of intoxication entered Travers's eyes. Regulus doubted it had much to do with the firewhiskey he was drinking.

"Right." Regulus turned to go.

Travers touched his arm. "Oh, and do go home. Don't go wandering the streets, gnawing it all over in your mind like some poor chap out of a Russian novel." He grinned briefly. Then his voice fell. "Seriously, Black, you've made it to the right side. Stay there. You don't want to end up at the top of the Lord's hit list, like your brother and Potter. And Marlene McKinnon."

"No," Regulus said. "I don't want that."

And so, when he left Knockturn Alley, Regulus turned his steps toward home.

****

"What did you do today, Regulus?" Mother was always sure to ask.

"Today, Mother, I went with my new friend to Feverfew Road. We murdered a Mum, a Dad and their two kids."

He wasn't like Sirius.