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Entering the Gates


The bay was as rough as the sea and a wind like none they had ever felt chipped at them like daggers as they stood on the shore. Remus clutched his jumpers ‘round himself as tight as he could, and still he doubted whether he would ever feel truly warm again or if the air of this land had completely stolen heat from his bones for all of eternity. His teeth chattered and, even more disturbingly, so did Sirius’s - and Sirius was never cold. But as they walked from the Twisted Trunk through the sparsely laid out village, what little bit of light was dying away along the horizon and before they’d reached the shore of the bay - before half past one in the afternoon, according to Sirius’s pocket watch, the night had fallen completely upon them and they were plunged into frigid darkness.

Regulus stood, holding his wand high in the air as they reached the end of a pier and the water licked the bottom of the wood, clapping around the support beams that kept the pier up. Lily stared down into the black water as it moved and drifted and Maryrose bit her lip as she watched Regulus moving as close to the edge of the wood as he dared, reaching a hand out into the apparently empty air before the pier.

“Karkaroff just…” he muttered as he fished about, his hand feeling into the dark. “Somewhere about here…”

Sirius said, “Reg, c’mon, we’re just standing there - what are we waiting for? I’m freezing my balls off.”

Remus murmured, “Not that.”

Sirius turned to look at him with a smirking grin. “Even in the frozen tundra, your mind still goes there, ‘ey, Moony?”

Remus flushed.

Suddenly, Regulus’s fist seemed to close around something invisible in the dark, his fingers tightening, and Lily’s eye widened as Regulus waved for them to step back and tucked his wand between his teeth, the glowing light reflecting off his long black hair, which was nearly as long and impressive as Sirius’s. Both hands on the great invisible something, Regulus pulled and backed up until the water was moving and rippling and curving about, rushing over the sides of a tiny rowboat, connected to a black iron chain with branches of seaweed clinging onto it. The boat popped from the darkness and floated atop the surface of the water, old and worn, as though it had been there for hundreds of years.

“What the bloody hell is that?” Maryrose whispered, staring, wide-eyed at the little vessel.

Regulus dropped the chain onto the pier at his feet, coiling and heavy. He wiped the wet, sea-weedy fingers on his trousers and answered, “Our ride.”




Walburga Black was taken to Havmork by Abraxas Malfoy. She stood before the Dark Lord, her chin level, her eyes dark, the terror in them shining bright as her lip trembled. Voldemort paced before her in the dark of the mid-afternoon. Out the window, she could see that it was just beginning to snow and she watched the flakes as they fell slowly from the clouds just as the tears that slid across her cheeks did.

“Where is your son, Walburga?” Voldemort asked silkily, his voice rippling around her like ice water.

Walburga shook her head, “I do not know, my Lord.”

Voldemort was seething. She could hear the frustration and the anger in his breath. “It taxes me that I summon and summon and summon him and he refuses to answer my beckoning,” he said. He drew his wand. “Why would a boy refuse to obey his Lord, Walburga?”

“Perhaps he cannot come for some reason, my Lord. Perhaps he has been somehow detained.”

“Is he not at home for the holiday, Walburga?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“When where is he now?”

Walburga stared at the snow.

“Where is he now?” Voldemort repeated.

Walburga’s voice trembled. “I do not know, my Lord.”

“You do not know where your own son is?” Voldemort hissed. “What kind of mother are you?” He stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders and she stiffened at his touch. “Ask your elf. He will know where your son is, will he not?”

Walburga whispered, “He… will not tell me.”

“Will not?” the Dark Lord asked, his voice sharp. “Will not?”

Walburga’s jaw clenched and she winced at the edge in the Dark Lord’s tone.

“Call your elf,” he demanded.

Trembling, Walburga called out, “K-Kreacher. Kreacher come to me.” There was a long pause and then a great CRACK and the house elf had appeared before them. He looked around the stone room and his long, wrinkled ears went flat. He stared up at Walburga and then bowed very, very low, so that his nose touched the stone floor.

“COMMAND IT TO BRING REGULUS BLACK TO ME!” Voldemort shouted.

Looking into the round eyes of the house elf, Walburga Black’s voice shook as she commanded, “Kreacher, bring your Master Regulus Black to us.”

Kreacher lifted his head to look into Walburga’s face. “Kreacher’s Mistress knows already that Kreacher cannot bring Master Regulus to her, nor bring Mistress to Kreacher’s Master. Master Regulus has commanded Kreacher so.”

Voldemort glared at the elf, “YOUR MISTRESS’S COMMAND IS MORE POWERFUL THAN A CHILD’S!” he shouted.

“Kreacher is wanting to help Mistress, Kreacher’s heart is broken he cannot help his Mistress. But Master Regulus is Kreacher’s Master.” He bowed low, apologetic, and his ears trembled with fear. “Kreacher is bound by magic! Kreacher is begging forgiveness!”

“Crucio!” Voldemort hissed and the spell hit the house elf hard in the back, knocking him forward and making his tiny, withered old body shiver and tremble and he elf cried and grabbed onto his knees, curling into a tight ball as the spell wrecked through his nerves. Walburga closed her eyes, unable to watch as Voldemort tortured the elf for several long seconds before releasing the spell. He spat, “THEN BRING A MESSAGE TO YOUR MASTER, BRING A MESSAGE AND TELL HIM THAT I WILL KILL ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING THAT HE LOVES IF HE DOES NOT COME TO ME WITHIN THE HOUR!” And he turned to Walburga and waved his wand, knocking her to her knees on the stone. “TELL HIM I WILL SEND YOU TO HIM WITH THE BLEEDING HEART OF HIS MOTHER IF HE DOES NOT COME TO ME WITHIN THE HOUR!”

Kreacher’s eyes were wider than ever and his hand trembled toward Walburga, hating seeing the look of panic and fear in her eyes that now resided there.

“AND TELL HIM THAT HE BEST HAVE A MOST DECADENT REASON FOR HAVING IGNORED MY SUMMONS,” Voldemort continued, raging so violently that his face was turning red, “OR HE WILL JOIN HIS FATHER IN THE DEPTHS OF THE DEAD THAT I HAVE LAID TO REST!”

Kreacher was shaking as he disapparated, his hands trembling.

Voldemort turned to look at Walburga. “You may be having a family reunion tonight, my pet,” he hissed.

Walburga stared at the snow outside the window, falling… falling, and felt the tears slipping across her face.




“Well this is just lovely,” Sirius said, his voice annoyed. “A lovely little boat ride. Like it wasn’t freezing enough on the shore, you’ve got to haul us out into the middle of the blasted sea and expose us to the elements!”

Regulus clutched the sides of the boat as it rocked in the unsteady water, his wand to the rippling waves to motor them forward, trying desperately to recall how Igor Karkaroff had done this when they’d come to visit Durmstrang. He was just praying there hadn’t been some silent spellwork that Karkaroff had done…

“Stop being nasty to him!” Maryrose snapped, turning about on the little seat she had taken, facing Sirius, her elbow brushing against Lily’s, who sat beside her, facing Remus and Sirius sitting side-by-side on the third bench. “He is the only one really doing much of anything in this effort. What use have you been? Complaining, making jokes about your freezing balls and acting like a giant child! If it was up to you alone to rescue him, James Potter would never make it out of this alive!”

Sirius’s eyebrows knit together.

“He’s just nervous,” Remus said defensively. “It’s his best mate that’s missing, alright? He’s nervous.”

“That’s not a reason to be acting like an absolute ---”

“HERE!” Regulus shouted, interrupting the argument.

Lily turned to look at Regulus, her eyes wide, half expecting to see Regulus had pulled James Potter from the water or something - something horribly irrational - and she felt her heart race with fear only to find that Regulus was grinning, gripping the wood of the boat even tighter than before. “Lot,” he announced, “I recommend that you hold onto your knickers. It’s about to get rather bumpy.”

“Bumpy?” Sirius asked.

But before he could be answered or even ask anything further, the boat was caught up in a current, swept about in a loop, violently spun about, the bow being tugged downward as the stern lifted and Sirius rushed to grab hold of the boat and of Remus Lupin, who swayed dangerously, his grasp on the boat not able to be as tight as he needed it to be, his joints sore from the approach of the moon, which seemed closer and more powerful because of the polar night… Lily and Maryrose were both shrieking in surprise and Regulus squeezed his eyes shut, his stomach turning nearly as hard as the boat was in the water…

There was a dropping sort of pulling, similar to the jerk behind the navel that a port key would cause, and suddenly the boat felt to be falling down from a great height - a rather ungraceful sort of feeling compared to how it had gone when Igor Karkaroff had steered the boat - and suddenly the bow of the ship was up and the stern was down and they were emerging from a whirlpool very similar to that which they had fallen into and then with a pop they were sailing on a bay identical in every way to the one they had just left except for two things:

First, they were underground, the walls of thick rock were evident on each horizon around them, stretching up high over their heads, where the ceiling of the ginormous cavern had been bewitched to look like the sky outside - but a normal sky - lit up with a sun that shone brightly down upon them as it normally would… and there, on the shore, where the cliffs lifted up and away from the water of the sea in which they sat, stood a small, black castle, with sharp turrets that reached toward the enchanted sky.

The waves rippled out from their little ship as they sat in the center of the water, bobbling there.

“Holy fucking hell,” Sirius breathed.

Lily was shaking, “What was that?”

Regulus replied, “The gates of Durmstrang.”

Maryrose leaned over the edge of the boat and threw up, nauseated from the spinning and the falling, and Regulus leaned forward to put a hand on her back, attempting to comfort her, nervous as he bit his lip. “I’m sorry. I should’ve warned you,” he said, shakily. “I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head.

Sirius stared up at the castle looming over them, dark and terrifying, and he pictured James Potter within it. Pictured Voldemort’s high voice and silky actions - he pictured the wand lowering, and the sound of Voldemort torturing... just as he had done to Orion Black… except in Sirius’s mind’s eye it was now James who lay tortured upon the floor and the thought of it made Sirius feel even sicker than the jerking and the spinning and the falling had done.

Somehow, staring at this castle, at this school known for it’s darkness… suddenly it became much more real, the reason they were here, the purpose that they had come for.

Sirius’s eyes met Lily Evans’.

Tears were streaming over her face.

She’d had the same thought as he Sirius had:

Somewhere in those walls lay James Potter - broken, alone, frightened, and being cursed within a breath of his life.