The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

What Kind of Brother

Regulus woke, gasping and reaching frantically about for his wand. He'd been an idiot for thinking about Orion Black's inferius the day before - absolute idiot! He clutched the wand in his fist, heart beating so hard he thought it might come right out of him, like a horribly grotesque cuckoo clock.

Easier for Voldemort to eat it, I suppose, Regulus thought. He shuddered at the thought. What if... what if Voldemort really did ever catch up to him? Would he make Regulus one of those awful horcruxes, too, like Alabaster?

He got up and walked through the safe house, checking all the windows and doors, peering outside. It was dark, but he could just see the sparkle of the starlight reflecting off the snow, and the sea beyond the cliff.

He thought of kelpie eggs, and school, and Oni.

The thought of Oni made his stomach churn.

What would she be thinking about now? She who had see what happened to defectors before? Would she recognize the sudden disappearance for what it was?

He pictured how he would feel if the tables were turned, if it was her that had gone suddenly missing from school, no trace and no word.

He felt cold thinking of it.

Cold because losing the things he loved was something he associated with the feeling of biting, ice-coldness...

"In cold blood, as they say."

And suddenly Oni was no long who he was thinking of.

"Do you know what love is? Answer me boy."

Regulus's fingers gripped tightly onto the window sill through which he now stared at the glistening on the sea. His knuckles were pale and white from the pressure of his grip.

"Love, Regulus, is weakness.... and if you do not kill love... you will be killed by love."

The sea glimmered in the distance, and under the stars, it suddenly seemed teal.

Teal like her hair.

It had hung about his face like a privacy screen that night in Diagon Alley. She had leaned over him, looking down into his face, a blurry haze of pale peach skin, wide eyes, and teal hair. "If you could be anywhere in the world right now... where would you be?"

"Here."

She had laughed, and he had noticed how much he liked her nose. He hoped she never changed it. Or anything else for that matter. What a waste of a special ability... why anyone as perfect as Maryrose should be gifted the ability to change... why fate was making a joke of itself, wasn't it?

"You'd be in Diagon Alley. Of all the places in the whole world you could be."

"Diagon Alley doesn't matter. I'd be with you, though. I'd be laying here, under you, like this. I don't want to be anywhere else. Or else nothing else matters about where I am."

She sat up straight. He felt her knees on either side of him, she was straddling him, seated on his abdomen, bent forward, his hands on her hips. Her teal hair fell around her shoulders, messy and tousled, but somehow falling just right, and she smiled at him.

"I would be in Paris. But I'd still be straddling you."

"Why Paris?"

"C'est beau, mon amour."

"Vous êtes plus belle," Regulus answered.

Maryrose's eyes widened and gleamed. "Tu parles françois!"