The Marauders: Year Seven Part Two

Without a Second Thought

The first thing Regulus heard when Kreacher deposited him in his bedroom at Number 12 Grimmauld Place was a scream. 

He immediately felt sick to his stomach at the sound of it, and had to take a moment to compose himself. Whatever he did, he couldn't let himself break his composure once he got downstairs. Whatever happened, whatever he saw, whatever was said. He swallowed back the bile as another scream echoed through the house, loud and piercing.

Regulus watched as Kreacher took down the box of gobstones, opened it up, and with drew the locket. So simply hidden, yet so brilliantly. No one would have thought to look there, Regulus thought, as he watched the elf coil his fist tight around the locket, look at Regulus with a worried expression, before he disapparated away.

One hour. 

Regulus got up from where he'd landed on his knees on the floor and he drew a deep breath and straightened his back, straightened the expression on his face, set it into a cold, dark stare, and went to the door. The stairs were dark but for the flickering of the lamps overhead, and the screams that echoed in the stairwell now were much louder, clearer, and filled with anguish... but also determination...

"Where is the locket?" The voice was low, menacing, rasping and dark. The Dark Lord's. 

"I don't know," this was sobbed, the voice broken. Regulus could hear the tears and the pain in it, even from two flights up, and he clutched the railing.

"You DO know --" the Dark Lord shouted, "You do know... I can see in your mind that you know... 

"I - I don't -- not exactly --"

"CRUCIO."

And the screaming resumed.

Regulus felt sick to his stomach, and he hurried down the stairs, down to the library door, which was open a jar and the pale silver of moonlight sliced out across the staircase, and he peered through the crack of the door. The Dark Lord was back -to, and the sparks of his wand lit the floor and the girl - lit he body, her spine curved in agony as she screamed, hung from the ceiling as though by a harness of some sort, upside down. Her red hair hung from her head, her tears running up her face as she spun there before the Dark Lord, who slowly lowered his wand.

He laughed as she trembled, sobbing.

"Rethinking?" the Dark Lord questioned. "Do you know where my locket is now? Or shall I generously offer up another round?"

Lily sobbed, "I don't know. And --" there was a pause as she summoned her bravery, "Even if I did, I would never tell you!"

The look on the face of the Dark Lord was one of pure loathing and he let out a long, low hiss.

Recognizing that sound as one that came just before the Dark Lord would have enough and begin to absolutely lose his mind, Regulus knew he had to step in now or else Lily wouldn't make it out alive. Regulus pushed open the door, interrupting the scene as Voldemort whirled about, wand raised at Regulus's eye level.

"Regulus!" Lily cried out.

Walburga stiffened. She was sitting in a chair by the window, her eyes wide with what Regulus recognized as sheer terrific panic, but anyone else might mistake as a cold, heartless glare. She was holding a tea cup, probably just to have something for her hands to do, he thought, as she wasn't seeming to be drinking from it.

Voldemort hissed at him, "Stop right there." Turning from Lily, who hung there, her face red from tears and being suspended upside down, the Dark Lord advanced on Regulus until his wand pressed into the soft spot just above Regulus's collar bone. His red eyes flashed with anger. "The girl says you have my locket. DO YOU?"