Diptych

Chapter 28

Regulus didn't know how cold it had to be for somebody to get frostbite, but he was seriously considering that he might have succumbed to it when he woke that morning. His hands hurt, and he couldn't feel his nose, though when he came to think of it, he wasn't sure he could ever really feel his nose. Potter and Sirius were still slumped on the other side of the fire, which had all but died out by that point, and their extremities all seemed to be intact, which he took as an encouraging sign. The only part of his body that didn't feel the bite in the air was his chest, where the diary had been resting beneath his shirt for several hours. The leather had warmed with his body, and though he knew all of the evil it promised, the warmth radiating from it still had Regulus' fingers clinging desperately to it underneath his clothes. Potter and Sirius didn't notice his stirring right away, so he glanced around to his friends. Edwin was still sleeping soundly it seemed, but Willa, who had also slept through the first watch, was awake and staring off somewhere into the distance.

"D'you sleep alright?" Regulus asked her, voice soft and still clumsy with sleep. He licked his lips as she sat up, tensed her shoulders and turned her neck this way and that until he heard a click.

"Well, it's hardly the most luxurious night's rest I've ever had, but..." She shrugged. Of all the girls in their house, Willa had always been the most practical, the least likely to complain. Regulus should have known that she'd be the most suited to the task. Their little murmurings alerted Potter and Sirius at last to their having woken up. Potter stood and fumbled his way over to them, stepping carefully over Edwin's sleeping form, so as not to wake him too.

"I don't think the fire's going to last much longer, if you've anything to cook in that bag of yours, we should probably get to it now." He said. Regulus didn't know what he ought to address first, the fact that he or Sirius could quite easily keep the fire going with one flick of their wands, or the suggestion that he might be carrying some sort of raw meat in his satchel as they walked, ready to pull out and smoke for breakfast.

"The house elves weren't exactly prepared for there to be so many of us when they agreed to help me, you know?" Regulus muttered, but reached to the bag he'd been using as a pillow all night. It was sort of bunched up in an awkward way, and he'd have to flatten it out again before he could comfortably carry it, not that it was an urgent concern with Edwin still sleeping. He had nothing to cook in there, but there were a few pastries that would only go bad if he left them much longer. They could break them up and take half of one each for breakfast, and Potter could warm his on the dying embers if he so wished.

"Is this you saying that we're going to run out of food?" Potter asked. Regulus handed him his half, and rolled his eyes.

"Obviously not, Uncle Alphard will give Sirius food, at the very least. He won't see him starve. That will help things."

"I don't think he'd see you starve either, Reg. Not if what Sirius has told me about him is true."

It was irritating, to say the least, that this boy, this practical stranger, knew so much about Regulus' life without his consent. Sirius had left them, and it didn't feel fair that he got to go on telling whoever he liked about them, in any which way he liked. He'd clearly painted their uncle out in a favourable way, but there was no telling what Sirius had told Potter and the others about their parents, about him. If he hadn't sealed his own fate with his actions of late, he might have been more annoyed by that latter fact.

"My name is Regulus. I'm sure it's not beyond your capabilities to stretch to the full three syllables." To that, Potter huffed impatiently. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but didn't. Instead he gave a dismissive shrug, didn't argue. Regulus supposed he would have to wait until the next time he uttered his name to see if he'd listened.