- Text Size +
The One to Go


Regulus found himself in a stone passageway with lowly flickering torches. It was cold as ice and a draft blew through the corridor - explaining the flickering. Pale, barely existent moonlight spilled out out of an open doorway a few steps away, and he stood, gathering himself a moment as his head and stomach caught up to him from the rush of the disapparation. Kreacher stood beside him, looking up at him with wide, worried eyes.

“Is Master Regulus alright?” Kreacher’s voice drawled.

Regulus nodded.

Kreacher glanced at the door.

Regulus’s Dark Mark was still searing his arm and his teeth were still grit and he reached his hand up to his face and roughly wiped away the tears that were falling from his eyes with the sleeve of his jumper. He looked at Kreacher. “Go back and bring whoever has decided to come back with you.”

Kreacher nodded, staring up at Regulus as he continued to wipe his eyes. “Master is very brave,” Kreacher whispered.

Regulus looked at the elf.

“Just as Master’s medallion says,” Kreacher’s voice trembled, “Master is very brave.”

“Thank you, Kreacher,” Regulus whispered.

Kreacher nodded.

Regulus stood up and walked toward the open doorway. He paused as he reached the frame and looked back. “Go,” he breathed, and then he turned ‘round and stepped through the door.

Voldemort had his wand pressed to Walburga Black’s head. She was trembling, her face wincing, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, on her knees, her face coated with tears… “Avada ---

“WAIT.” Regulus cut Voldemort off. “WAIT. I’m here!”

Voldemort looked up, his eyes sweeping Regulus - and he smiled, stopping mid-spell. “Ah yes,” came a high, rasping voice. “You’ve arrived only just in time boy!” He lowered his wand and Walburga Black fell forward onto the stone, shaking, openly sobbing.

Regulus wanted to step forward, to comfort her, but he didn’t dare to as the Dark Lord stepped around her and started walking toward him, and he steeled himself and met the Dark Lord’s eyes.




“I’M GOING TO BE THE ONE TO GO!” Sirius shouted, “AND THERE ISN’T A BLEEDING THING YOU’RE GOING TO SAY TO CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE!” He pushed his way around Lily to where Kreacher was sure to appear back at any moment, standing in exactly the place Kreacher had been moments before.

“I’m going too,” Lily pressed.

“You aren’t! And Kreacher has to obey me, as I’m technically one of his masters. If I tell him not to bring you, he can’t bring you.”

“Regulus told him to bring whoever decides!” Lily shouted, “He’ll obey Regulus over you.”

“YOU AREN’T COMING LILITH JEMIMA EVANS!”

“I AM COMING, SIRIUS ORION BLACK!”

“Bloody hell, will you both stop shrieking? The entire school’s going to know we’re here!” Remus pleaded.

Sirius glowered.

Lily glowered back.

“Why don’t you both go?” Maryrose suggested.

They turned to look at her.

“What what about you two?” Sirius asked, his eyes moving from Maryrose to Remus.

“It’ll be a lot easier for me to explain Karkaroff wandering the halls with just one non-Durmstrang student than it will be to explain the whole group of us,” Maryrose replied.

“And I’m not really in any condition to be fighting the Dark Lord,” Remus ceeded. He looked at his shaking hands. They were getting worse. He looked up at Sirius. “And… and I s’pose at least this way, we’re split so none of us are alone.”

Sirius looked sick. He couldn’t imagine leaving Remus Lupin at Durmstrang castle to go off wherever the hell he was going to go… but he couldn’t imagine letting Lily Evans just go alone, either. And he certainly couldn’t allow it to be that nobody would go. After all, James Potter could be laying, dying on the other side. James Potter could be lying dead on the other side.

He shoved that thought out of his head, too painful to even think it.

“I’m going,” Lily said sternly. “Do what you want to, but I am going.”

CRACK!

They all jumped.

“Kreacher has returned as his Master Regulus has bid him to.” He looked warily up at Sirius and the others, his eyes untrusting and his ears flat with distaste. Lily held out her hand for the house elf and he looked mildly surprised. “The mudblood gets her wish to see the Dark Lord? Is it suicidal?”

“I’m not suicidal,” Lily said. “But it’s James on the other side and… and it’s my fault he’s there… and… Oh just take me to him!” And she grabbed onto the house elf.

“As Master Regulus has wished,” the elf agreed and he lifted his fingers to snap and Sirius leaped forward, grabbing onto Lily’s arms just as the CRACK and --

Remus stared at the spot they’d been.

They were gone.

And they hadn’t even said goodbye.

He looked at Maryrose, wide eyed.

Maryrose stared at the spot they’d been, too, her jaw dropped, Igor Karkaroff’s ridiculous beard hanging against his chest as she stood there, shocked by the fast departure of more than half of their little rescue party.

Remus felt sick. If something were to happen to any of them…

Maryrose was thinking the same thing.




Sirius and Lily landed in the same corridor as Regulus had done, Kreacher holding onto Lily and Sirius tripping onto the stone, completing his leap forward on the other side of the disapparation, landing flat on his chest, knocking the wind out of himself. The moment they’d landed, Kreacher disapparated away, leaving Lily and Sirius there in the corridor.

Lily grabbed onto Sirius’s shoulder, pulling him up to his feet and Sirius gasped to regain his air, looking around at the dark corridor they were in, as Lily steadied him. They stood there for a long moment, neither certain what to do…

And there came a shout from the room that opened close behind them.

CRUCIO!”

And there was a strangled cry.

“Reg,” Sirius whispered and he turned instinctively toward the door, his eyes panicked.

Lily caught his arm, stopping him, and Sirius looked at her.

“HOW DARE YOU IGNORE THE SUMMONS OF LORD VOLDEMORT!” the Dark Lord shouted, “HOW DARE YOU DISOBEY MY COMMANDS! Crucio!”

Please!” Regulus’s voice wailed from beneath the hissing and crackling of the spell as it struck it’s target and Sirius’s fists balled in shared agony, knowing what his brother was going through.

Lily touched Sirius’s shoulder and he looked to see she was motioning for him to stand with their backs pressed to the wall in a shadowy area where the light from the nearest touch failed to reach the light from the next one... He joined her, and when he did, she grabbed onto his hand and squeezed.

Suddenly the sound of the spell stopped and there was a shuddering silence…

“Tell me, Regulus Black,” came the rasping voice of the Dark Lord, “Why have you defied me?”

“My Lord,” Reguuls’s voice was weak, quavering from the spell he had just been struck with, but the simpering in his tone turned Sirius’s stomach and he winced down at his trainers at the sound of it. “I was unable to come sooner, my Lord, for I was… I was doing… work… for you, my Lord. Doing work for you.”

“What work were you doing for me?” hissed Voldemort.

Regulus’s voice shook as he replied… but Sirius and Lily did not hear the response because down the hall there had come footsteps - heavy footsteps and they’d scrambled the direction opposite of the steps, eager not to be spotted, scurrying as silently as they could away, into the dark that seemed to extend on and on and on, away from the room where Regulus was being tortured…

If that’s what he’s doing to Regulus, his follower, what has he done to James? Sirius wondered as Lily pushed him along…




In the room, Evan Rosier stepped ‘round the doorway and into the chamber. Regulus was sprawled upon the floor and struggling to push himself up. Evan paused in the frame of the door. “My Lord,” he said, breathless.

Voldemort looked up. “What is it, Rosier?”

Rosier staggered to his knees as Voldemort looked upon him and he stammered, “My - my Lord, I have come at the bidding of the headmaster of Durmstrang. Your enemies come to Havmork, my Lord, and they seek the boy.”

Voldemort looked quite angry. He glanced at Regulus Black, then back to Rosier. “Go and tell Karkaroff to curse to kill any who have dared to come.” He paused then and his eyes widened and he turned to look at Regulus, whose thoughts had gotten away from him, whose closed mind had been weakened by the cruciatus, who had errantly allowed himself to think of Sirius. Voldemort hissed, “Go and search the corridors! Quickly!”

“Y-yes my Lord,” Rosier said and he rushed out the doorway again.

“They come for James Potter, do they?” Voldemort hissed, forcing his way into Regulus’s mind, and Regulus tried desperately to push him back out, but the Dark Lord’s legilimency was much stronger than it had been even a year before, and in his weakened state, Regulus was unable to fight it hard enough. “Then by all means… let’s give them a show.”