some princes don't become kings

Marlene was always taken aback, somehow, by Regulus’ blunt and often harsh tone, no matter how many times they heard it. They supposed, although they had no evidence to support the idea, that it was their differences in upbringing that made them so obviously opposed in so many ways… He was hard in all the same ways they were too soft, he rejected the very comforts they had always relied on from their family and from others… They didn’t know how to imagine his parents, but they couldn’t picture them as the kind and loving type that their own had been, especially not after Sirius’ account of things. And they couldn’t help but wonder how different Regulus would be if he’d escaped them like his sibling had, or if he’d been treated with a little more softness when he was young. Marlene tried their best to live as their own parents had taught them, but what good was it now, when faced with someone who rejected all the love and care they tried to give him?

But, that wasn’t entirely true either… just because he didn’t return their careful touches and their open sympathy didn’t mean he didn’t want or need to be looked after… He’d stayed this long, after all… there had to be something he was getting out of all this besides the security… But then again, perhaps he stayed simply because he truly had nowhere else to go… Marlene couldn’t pretend to know his true intentions or feelings, and it was clear that he withheld them on purpose. Whatever was in his head, it wasn’t something he wanted them to know. And it hurt, in a way, that after all this time there was still something in them that he didn’t trust… that he’d rather sit there in silence burying any apparent emotional reaction to what they said, even when it was about people he cared about, or had, once upon a time…

The weight in the pit of their stomach solidified and dropped as they sat there and watched him not eating. The energy between them had always been… nervous at best, but this was something else… There were needles in the air, electric and with a slightly charred smell… It reminded Marlene of missions with the Order at night, when the only sign they had of any action taking place was that same smell and the faint glow of spells cutting through the darkness. It was the distinct ambiance of discomfort and worry, they had felt it often enough to know for certain. What they weren’t sure of was whose discomfort they were feeling, although looking at Regulus for another long moment, they managed to piece it together. They got up abruptly and then, as if looking for an excuse, they crossed back to the kitchen to retrieve their coffee which they’d left on the counter. When they returned, they sat in the chair nearby rather than next to him on the couch, and sat their untouched plate in their lap. Taking a deep drink, they watched him for a moment, to see if some kind of release of tension occurred, to see if they really were the problem here… and then they finally ate some of their breakfast, as nonchalantly as possible, although they didn’t feel hungry anymore in the slightest.

Their stomach flopped at his question, unsettling the food they had just swallowed and making them regret ever making it, ever putting it on a plate for Regulus to not eat, and for them to gag over at the slightest provocation. They managed to finish chewing without incident, but that particular bite went down hard, and they had to chase it down with another swig of coffee before answering. And perhaps they needed that time as well, to consider his question, and the potential consequences of what helping him would mean… They could tell he wanted out, that he wanted to be free of this place just as he had for all the years he’d been captive here, but Marlene couldn’t bring themself to ask if that was what he wanted their help with… How could they, when it would mean giving up everything they had lived for, for the past ten years?

“Of course,” they said instead, keeping their voice quiet in the hopes that he wouldn’t hear how it wavered. “I want to do anything I can to help you, Regulus… What do you need?” They were almost frightened to hear the answer, couldn’t quite chase their pulse back down to a normal level now that the proverbial axe seemed about to fall…

He could tell they were upset, as he said it, and he let out a quiet, resigned sigh when they reacted by standing, moving away, making physical distance between themself and him, like they needed literal, physical space in order to handle whatever came next. He couldn’t blame them, and he understood -- after this many years sharing their space, relying on them, he understood Marlene’s needs and reactions almost instinctively, as much as he couldn’t intellectualize them. He’d never been the type to run away from things, and the one time he had, it had led him to this-- but Marlene ran away the second they started to lose control, always did, like a bomb trying to minimize the collateral damage they might cause if something went wrong. 

It was why there was still space, between them, even after ten years. It was why he’d withdrawn quickly when they risked things getting complicated: he couldn’t afford for Marlene to feel like they needed to make space between themself and him, not when they were his only lifeline, the only reason he was still alive, still hidden, still had somewhere to go where he wouldn’t be found by any of the myriad disparate groups that wanted him dead for any variety of reasons, Sirius or the Death Eaters or Evans’ administration.

But he couldn’t live this way forever, tiptoeing around Marlene at the expense of his own opportunity to be something, to make something, to have a life outside the walls that had trapped him for ten years. 

And besides, if this one favor worked, if he could play his cards right, he wouldn’t need their protection for much longer.

     ‘I need an audience with the Minister,’ he said, cutting to the chase, looking at them, really looking at them, as he said it, rather than avoiding eye contact like they might have liked him to do. He needed them to understand that he was serious, and that he wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise. 

He would go in disguise, he could reassure them of that. Not reveal his identity until he’d gotten himself a guarantee of safety -- not just safety, but protection from whatever Death Eaters remained, from Sirius...

But he had the one card Lily bloody Evans didn’t know to account for, the one thing she had no idea was in play. And he would have been a fool, now, not to use it, not when it might mean his freedom.

The days leading up to the change were always the worst. Each one that passed his symptoms would get progressively worse, until finally the rush of adrenaline that hit his system just before a change would wash it all away. Unfortunately for Remus that bit of natural pain relief was still a few nights off, which is what takes him into the more seedier reaches of Knockturn Alley that evening. The infamous street was not unfamiliar to him, there were not many apothecaries who carried the ingredients needed for his specific version of pain remedy, and far fewer who would sell him such strange herbs with complete discretion. 

But Knockturn Alley was no longer the place it once was. 

Although it’d always served the more sketchier of crowds, the ongoing war had brought a whole other brand of dark wix to the grimy streets. There was an eeriness that hung in the air that wasn’t there before, and a strange quiet that felt deafening when he let his paranoia take the better of him. It was in this headspace, the crumpled brown bag that contained his remedy for that night gripped tightly in his hand, when he walked head on into another wizard brave enough to travel the street alone that evening. 

“Oh, I’m so-,” Remus begins, cutting himself off when his eyes lock on to none other than Regulus Black. He stays like that for a moment, completely frozen, unsure exactly what to do or say- that was if he even should say something. 

“Regulus,” is all he manages to come up with, and quickly pockets the parcel he still had clutched in his hands. 

It’s probably, realistically, better that someone like Remus Lupin is who he’s run into while doing this than anyone else -- one of the other Death Eaters, or a family member, might have been to curious, might have asked what he’d been up to, in Borgin & Burkes, might have started asking questions around Knockturn Alley to find out what he was up to. The Death Eaters were loyal, but they weren’t a trusting group; sometimes, it felt like they were all trying to fuck each other over for the top spot instead of fighting a way against the kind of filth they were trying to exterminate.

Maybe that’s what happened when your enemy was no more of a threat than vermin, in the long run. It was hard to focus on setting the rat traps when you were already concerned about where at the table you’d be seated when they’d all been cleaned out.

He rolls his sleeves up as he speaks, a flash of dark and drifting ink splashed across his forearm making itself known as he moves, like a dare, his fingertips itching for a fight. Recklessness had always been Sirius’ forte, not Regulus, but his frustration is bubbling high today, and there are few faces he’d rather take it out on than the man standing in front of him now. 

      ‘Lupin,’ he all but spits at the other man. ‘Strange place for a respectable wizard such as yourself, this time of night. Awfully suspicious, isn’t it?’

Marlene felt something tighten in their chest at Regulus’ reaction, which although subdued had the distinct sensation of heartbreak to it that made them feel something similar in sympathy. They hadn’t known Barty well, for obvious reasons, but they couldn’t help but compare him to others they knew that perhaps had lost their way, done something unthinkable… They still weren’t quite sure what Regulus thought of their alleged crimes, or even the depth of his involvement, and that burned them somehow too… It was moments like this that they felt burdened most by their secret, when they couldn’t be sure of his guilt or innocence in any matter. It was on the worst nights that they considered what evils may have been committed by the very Death Eater they had chosen to shelter, and it was often when they suspected the worst. His apparent connection to Barty did nothing to alleviate any of these worries now… but at the same time his guilt or innocence didn’t matter. Because this wasn’t justice, and both of them knew that.

“I’m sorry,” they said carefully, and to their credit, their voice did sound genuinely soft as they looked on Regulus’ barely concealed pain. “The two of you are close, aren’t you?” Despite what seemed inevitably to come, Marlene refused to use the past tense when referring to their relationship, if only as a small way to deny the horrible reality of his capture. They studied Regulus’ expression and tried to see some way they could comfort him, but as they often did they hit a bit of a brick wall… Despite all the time they’d spent together there was still so much that Marlene didn’t understand about him, and his complete rejection of physical comfort was one. They knew he likely wouldn’t appreciate being touched or embraced, although that was still their first instinct when it came to caring for him.

Sighing, they had turned back to the kitchen, resolved to finish making breakfast, when they heard Regulus’ nervous question. For some reason they wanted to make a joke along the lines of, ‘why yes the first thing I did after ten years was to blow your cover, how did you know?’; but that seemed unfair somehow, too cruel of a thing to say when he was clearly so vulnerable right now. Instead, they turned back to quirk an eyebrow at him and say “Of course not,” as if it were really so simple. They didn’t feel the need to mention that it had been their first instinct, to confess everything to Sirius in an attempt to reconcile the two of them. It wouldn’t have been helpful to the situation at hand in the slightest.

It was clear that there was more still eating away at Regulus, and they wanted so much to help that for a moment they were suspended between returning to the kitchen and going back to him, to give him whatever comfort he might accept.

“Just… just hold on a minute and I’ll tell you about it,” they said, finally making themself step fully into the kitchen again, and taking a hearty sip of their still scalding coffee before they set to work. They figured a little time for him to think to himself might be helpful, especially if he wasn’t interested in sharing his thoughts with them. All things considered, it didn’t take them long to whip up breakfast anyway; nothing fancy of course- an omelette split in half, sausages, and toast with orange ginger marmalade filled a pair of plates in no more than a few minutes, and then they were returning to him.

Marlene handed a plate over and sat down beside him, close enough that their leg pressed softly into his, so that they were right there in the rare event that he wanted some kind of physical comfort. They knew it was unlikely, but they made it available to him all the same, as they had always done. It was only the once that they’d ever engaged in anything truly physical as a way to cope, far too close to the deaths of their family to even bear thinking about right now. But afterwards he had made it clear that he wasn’t interested in that with them, so they were willing to accept whatever level he was comfortable with, even if all they could provide was a comforting gesture or simple touch.

“Now ah… I guess I should preface this by explaining that I’d already been up drinking all night when I ran into them so I wasn’t really my most coherent… But I don’t think they suspect that I even know you, and the subject didn’t come up at all… we were too busy comparing old wounds… although I was obviously far more of an emotional mess than them…”

     ‘Were,’ he corrected them on instinct -- he wasn’t close to anyone, anymore, not after ten years of living like a caged animal, slowly losing everyone he’d ever been close to and unable to be there to see it. He was barely even close to Marlene, had done his best all these years to keep his distance. There were parts of himself he knew Marlene would never understand, never be able to accept, and he had done all he could to hide them. 

If he hadn’t been, there would have been more he could have said, about that. We joined up, together, would have been the first among them, his strongest memory of Barty, the way Barty had clung to him, in the months leading up to his leaving Hogwarts, desperate for news of the Death Eaters, the second hand things he heard from Bellatrix over family dinners and in the extensive letters she sent him. They hadn’t been close, before that, orbiting around one another in some strange way, but news of the Dark Lord had brought them closer, and he still remembered the day they both took the Mark.

But he wouldn’t say any of that, to Marlene. In a way, he felt he owed it to them to pretend he hadn’t been a part of the very group they had spent their post-Hogwarts years fighting against. He had turned his back on the Dark Lord, that was all Marlene knew, and all Marlene needed to know. Any more than that, and he was fairly certain even they -- as far as one could get from Lily Evans’ sick brand of so-called justice -- would have put him out on the street and called the Aurors to collect him in chains. 

There was a part of him, too, that wanted to hear about Sirius, something like tearing off a scab or pressing your fingers into a deep and aching bruise just to watch how many colors it could turn. How were they doing? What were they doing? Were they anything now like the person Regulus had grown up with, had admired, had relied on? Were they anything like the person who had betrayed him, abandoned him, chosen another family over him?

Or were they something else, altogether, the way he was. A hollowed out thing, scraped empty and raw. 

He felt sick, just thinking about it, and the food in front of him, Marlene’s leg pressed against his own -- these small things, meant to be comforts -- only made it worse. He held the plate in his hands, looking down at it for a minute while he considered their words, considered where to navigate this conversation from here that didn’t tangle him in unwanted feelings, unfinished business. 

     ‘I need to ask a favor, of you,’ he said, instead. There was no good time to ask them this, so he might as well do it when they were already having a conversation bound to upset the both of them. ‘I know I’ve already asked a lot, but I think it’ll help things.’

He took a step back instinctively when Marlene spoke again, something about their tone changing completely, to the point where they barely even sounded like themself. The words were no different. He couldn’t think of a time he had ever heard Marlene sound so venomous, which only made him realize that he must’ve fucked up even worse than he had thought, somehow, by trying to explain things to them. It made him feel a lot like just going back home to his flat and not leaving for anything other than work for a long, long time.

There was the sneaking suspicion that something else must’ve been bothering Marlene to make them snap like that, so aggressively, when usually their anger seemed to teeter more on the emotionally vulnerable side of things. He wanted to ask what was going on, what it was that was bothering them, but they were right, weren’t they? He shouldn’t have assumed that maybe they could figure out some sort of halfway deal between them, where they could start to slowly build up to a friendship, not a strictly physical fuck buddy situation. But he couldn’t deal with all of their problems on top of his own right now, as selfish as that was. So maybe it was fair for them to hit him so hard, maybe that was the only way they thought they to get through to him.

So instead of trying to stop them again, Atticus just let out a deep sigh, and stood there watching them go towards the counter. He couldn’t even remember what he had come into the shop to get in the first place, mind now full of guilt and regret that he had no way of doing anything about.

It was telling that his first thought was that he could really use a pint or two now, have a bit of a think over things at the Leaky Cauldron. Seemed like Marlene had rubbed off on him, whether he had wanted them to or not.

It was harder to find information about horcruxes than he’d thought it would be.  Once upon a time, it might have been as easy as sneaking into the restricted section at Hogwarts and pouring over books all night until he found what he was looking for, but apparently even the shadiest booksellers, dark artifact dealers, and authorities on dark magic weren’t going to be as forthcoming as he’d hoped.

Every time he brought up the word, no matter how whispered, how secretive, whoever he was speaking to shut up like they’d been leg locked, immediately changed the subject or denied any knowledge at all. And his options were limited -- he couldn’t let any of the other Death Eaters know what he was looking for, and risk that word get back to the Dark Lord that he knew what was happening, that he intended to stop it. 

He was starting to get frustrated. His patience was wearing thin.

He was just making his way out of Borgin & Burkes, where he’d had zero fucking luck finding any information he needed, when he bumped into another wizard on the street. He had already put his hands on the other man’s shoulders to steady them both and then started to move past him, when he suddenly recognized the face he’d just seen and stopped in his tracks, stiff and furious.

What was Remus fucking Lupin, his brother’s pathetic friend, doing in Knockturn Alley?

Atticus knew they were right. He was the one who was making things harder than they should’ve been now, but it felt unfair to lay all of the blame on him. He hadn’t been trying to let things get personal, but it was nearly impossible not to with them, considering the state they were in, the way they were always trying to run from their demons, something that felt impossible. So instead he had just cut himself off completely, because he couldn’t afford getting his head all clouded with someone else’s worries, not now when his life was still very much on the line, when fucking Ted Tonks looked at him with that vicious smile every time he had to run and deliver papers to the Minister’s office.

So even if his letter had been a little harsh, if maybe he had misconstrued things a little bit, he wasn’t going to be the only one to blame here, not considering what they had done, too, nothing to make any of it any easier or any more sensible.

“Not really, you didn’t. You talk about wanting to escape, about dreams where everything’s on fire, and then you offer to help me. I don’t know, Marlene…I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that?” he sighed. The only reason he managed to keep the annoyance from his voice was because of that little sniffle that went straight to his damn heartstrings, making him feel like the villain, when they had both agreed not to get involved with each other past the physicality in the first place.

“I think we both made this complicated. And I’m sorry for thinking we need a bit of time and space before we can un-complicate it and start fresh.”

This wasn’t going anywhere, that much was becoming increasingly clear. If he’d hoped for any kind of conversation about Rookwood’s father, or the deal he’d made with Evans, or anything even remotely useful, it was becoming increasingly clear that Marlene’s face was the wrong one to use: he’d need to find someone else’s, to get the information he wanted. 

For a split second, he thought about admitting to the facade, leaning close and whispering to the kid who he really was, telling him something he’d have to believe, and seeing what he could get out of him that way. But the kid was a rat, that much he knew: he’d turned over his own father to the Ministry and watched him die and as sad and confused as he seemed, he didn’t seem to regret it. Regulus had no way to guarantee the kid wouldn’t turn around and do the same thing the second he found out Regulus Black was still alive. 

He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t risk it, not yet. Not with the bargaining chip he still held, the one he only needed an audience with the Minister to use, to get himself his freedom back, his life back.

     ‘Then fucking pick,’ he said, his voice sounding less like Marlene now than it had when he’d started, not putting the effort in to mimic their tone. ‘You want space? You want time? You’re the one who approached me. You don’t get to have it both ways. You take all of me, or you take none of me, yeah?’

He grabbed a bottle of lacewing flies off the shelf and tucked them close to his chest, pushing past the kid and heading for the till, not letting Rookwood grab his arm to stop him this time. Marlene could have the rest of this conversation themself. 

“I don’t know, Marley. I don’t know,” he nearly hissed, as if they were accusing him of being clueless, which granted, he felt. Because he didn’t know what he wanted, not from them or from anyone else. He didn’t want to feel soul-crushingly lonely constantly, but he didn’t want to put himself in any more danger than he already accidentally had. Why was trying to be good so fucking hard? Wasn’t he supposed to be rewarded for doing the right thing? Shouldn’t he have been celebrated, loved by the public? And instead here he was feeling like he couldn’t even talk with someone, for fear that he might say or hear something damning, something that could put his life in even more danger than it already was by virtue of being who he was.

Atticus shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Maybe he did know what he wanted, even if he knew that it wasn’t something he was likely to get from Marlene or anyone else after making the choices he had. 

He glanced around, to see if anyone had noticed that too-intense conversation happening between them, but no one seemed to be paying them any mind, thank god. When he went on his voice was quieter.

“I just don’t want things to be so complicated. Everything in my life is so complicated. I wish this one thing just could’ve stayed simple with us. It was supposed to be simple. And even this had to get complicated. Why can’t we just be friends?”

Merlin’s bloody arsehole, he was out of his depth here. Maybe he’d overstepped -- he wasn’t exactly in a position to be dealing with Marlene’s personal and romantic drama, not after he’d made a point of distancing himself from it so many years ago, ensuring that the lines between his gratitude and debt to them didn’t blur with any other kind of obligation. Maybe he should have left it, let Marlene deal with their own problems and sated his curiousity about the kid elsewhere. 

But he didn’t have much of a choice, now, couldn’t just walk away from this. He might as well get as much as he could out of it. 

And if anything, seeing Rookwood in distress was... interesting, maybe, wasn’t the right word for it, but telling, in a way. Is this was his freedom had cost him? 

     ‘You’re the one complicating things,’ he said, even though he had no idea whether or not is was true. It sounded vaguely like something Marlene might have said, and even more like something Rookwood would have trouble refuting from his clearly unstable emotional state. ‘Thought I made myself pretty clear.’

He added a slight sniffle, for good measure. He’d never been much of an actor, but melodrama didn’t take much talent.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise that Marlene seemed less than keen to talk to him, but it hurt nonetheless. Hypocritical, really, considering that he was the one who had told them that he didn’t have enough to give them emotionally right now, that he had himself to think of. And yet here he was, wanting something from them again.

“Come on, Marlene, don’t be that way,” he sighed, as they moved past him through the aisle. He didn’t know why he felt the need to follow them, to try any harder than he already had when he was the one who had said that he needed a bit of distance at the moment to focus on keeping himself safe, but here he was. Something about all of the stress brought on from Crouch’s capture and impending trial was just reminding him of how completely alone he was in this bloody world. 

Whatever it was, it propelled him to go after them, to reach out and put a hand on their shoulder to stop them, to make them at least have to listen to 

“You know that letter wasn’t meant to hurt you. I just…I’m afraid that this trial’s gonna fuck with my place. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you still, though, I swear. But I have to be careful not to get distracted, you know what I mean? And it’s not healthy to keep running from the past, as hard as it is to face.”

The instinct to flinch away from someone else’s touch on his shoulder was almost too strong to resist; muscle memory had him almost reaching for the wand at his side to curse the kid’s hand off, but he just managed to stop himself. Marlene wasn’t prone to violence the way he was, and he had to remind himself for a moment that he was still wearing their face. Any trouble he got in came back to them, and he owed them better than that, owed it to them after everything they’d done for him.

He didn’t know what letter Rookwood was talking about, but apparently whatever it was, it was something the kid was worried had hurt Marlene -- that rightfully might have -- and that he seemed to be regretting already. Regulus was torn, for a moment, between wanting to defend Marlene from whatever this guy had been up to that might’ve hurt them, and wanting to have a conversation with him, wanting to understand why Rookwood had made the choice he had, about what it was like to be a pureblood like him and walk free. 

A better person would have felt bad about using someone else’s face to have a conversation they couldn’t have.

Regulus didn’t.

     ‘What do you want from me?’ he said, keeping his voice low, hoping it would come off at not wanting to cause a scene in the store, hoping the low volume would keep the kid from realizing that he didn’t sound all that much like Marlene. ‘If you don’t want me to distract you, what do you want?’

Of course, he would manage to run into Marlene not a few hours after replying to their owl, telling them that he couldn’t help them or be what they needed when he had his own future to worry about. Practically telling them that he couldn’t deal with emotions at the moment, not with the Crouch trial pending and his own future so fragile.

Their whole thing––because it sure as hell hadn’t been a relationship––had been about mindless fun, a bit of stress relief. Fuckbuddies is what he would’ve called it if pressed. It wasn’t meant to be anything emotional, and Atticus had done everything he could to make that the case, something he was a pro at considering his parents. But Marlene had shown him a bit too much of themself, given a little too much honesty, and in turn he had stopped hanging around abruptly upon realizing the danger. It was cruel, really, and he knew that. Selfish and cruel and exactly what he was sure the world would expect from someone like him, someone who had been raised to be just those things, but he had his own life to worry about. And he wasn’t sure he could handle being someone else’s escape while he was trying to save his own skin.

It was a lonely life, really, and he genuinely did care for Marlene, but not in the way that they needed now. If it had been another time, it would’ve been easy to be friends, to get drinks casually, exchange sorrows without letting it bleed over into everything, but he had to look out for himself, not them, just now.

“Er…hi Marls, Marlene…you alright?” he asked tentatively, hoping they wouldn’t be too hurt by what he had said in the letter, that they could still have something friendly. Maybe a small part of him hoped they would refuse to accept the distance he was trying to create. Maybe a part of him just really needed a friend just now.

It took him a minute to even recognize the Rookwood kid. 

His picture had been in the papers, though, that was what did it. Atticus had been just that, a kid, when they’d been at Hogwarts together, a first year when Regulus left Hogwarts for the last time, in September of his seventh year. But everyone knew who Atticus Rookwood was, now, a traitor to the Death Eaters and having gotten nothing for it except, for now, his life. 

Everyone had their own reasons to treason, he knew, but he would never understand Rookwood’s. Augustus would have made it out, maybe escaped for good, had gone so many years with no one the wiser, if it hadn’t been for his damn son.

He didn’t realize the kid knew Marlene.

     ‘Yeah, cheers,’ he said, noncommittally, pitching his voice up just a little, trying to take on the gravelly sound of Marlene’s voice when they were just a little hungover and didn’t want to be bothered, and then turned back to the shelf, picking up a jar of lacewing flies and tucking it into the pile gathered in his left arm, moving past Rookwood in the thing aisleway of the shop and towards the till. He hadn’t gotten everything he needed yet, but there were other potions shops along Knockturn Alley he could duck into for the rest, places he was less likely to run into someone who might recognize Marlene.

Marlene froze in the middle of sorting out ingredients; completely and suddenly, hands hovering over a carton of eggs as if they’d been hit with some kind of freezing jinx. In reality it was their mind that stopped them, not because they didn’t know how to answer his question but because they were so exhausted simply by the idea of dealing with it all again after just doing so, after dredging up so many old emotions and reopening so many wounds. It took them a long moment to bring themself back from the edge of dissociation, from just flinging themself into a numbing abyss that would help them ignore the overwhelming feelings they were faced with. But this wasn’t about them, right now. They couldn’t ignore that, not when they’d already behaved so selfishly in regards to this particular news. They couldn’t decide to drink the day away now that they were already here in Regulus’ flat; now that he’d already asked the question.

Oddly enough, the first thing they did upon collecting their thoughts was grab an egg and crack it in a waiting saucepan on the stove. The yolk cracked and bled out, swirling into the transparent uncooked whites, and stupidly, Marlene felt grounded comparing themself to that egg. In the very least, it distracted them from the void that was constantly looming overhead, threatening to rip them out of their body at any moment.

“They captured Barty Crouch,” they replied succinctly, after what had clearly been far too long of a pause. “The trial will be closed, but they haven’t said when yet…” Weakly, they found they couldn’t look at Regulus when they said it, although they deserved that kindness, in the very least. At least he’d lived with them long enough to have seen this strange mood and behavior before; Marlene was sure they couldn’t stand any questions about it just now, not when all their defenses has already been wiped out. They busied themself with making breakfast as a distraction, their hands naturally drawn to the correct places out of habit, working as they always did with little conscious input from Marlene. At some point, they took out their wand and gestured with it at the muggle coffeemaker, which bubbled to life and began percolating. The smell of coffee was another thing they latched onto, to keep their footing in reality, and it became easier to keep talking as the scent permeated the air.

“Ted doesn’t want a trial,” they continued. “They just want him executed… And so all anyone could talk about yesterday was if we really needed to have one, it was inescapable, everywhere I went…” A bit of agitation came through in their tone, and with it came a wave of nausea and pain in their head that the potion hadn’t quite alleviated yet. They paused again, not as severely as before, almost as if their brain needed a moment to reboot, as if they’d simply forgotten what they were doing. And then the coffeemaker whistled a tune… not the mark of a muggle coffeemaker to be sure, but entirely sensible for a magically enchanted one. They automatically retrieved two cups from a cupboard and poured each of them a mug. It was only as they were crossing over to him that they finally looked Regulus in the eye for the first time, and a striking familiarity made them remember that there was something else they needed to tell him.

“Also, I spoke to your brother,” they admitted, handing over one of the cups.

     ‘Barty,’ he said, before he realized he’d said it aloud. 

It wasn’t that he couldn’t process it -- it was that he didn’t want to, not after all these years of staunchly denying himself the chance to dwell on what might have happened to the other Death Eaters, the ones he hadn’t seen in the news. Who had escaped, who was in hiding, who had died alone and unnoticed. 

He’d known the other Death Eaters who had been executed. The Lestranges, Dolohov, Rookwood... he’d known every one of them, had felt the pain of their deaths as he read each one in the paper, trying to keep his face neutral at each piece of news for fear of Marlene understanding where his sympathies still lied. Many of them had been family. Some of them had been friends. Barty, though--

He and Barty had been at school together, joined up at the same time. Thick as thieves, the two of them, through and through. They hadn’t just been friends, they’d been-- more, in varying increments. Sometimes almost brothers, sometimes more than that. He finally managed to glance down at the newspaper on the sofa next to him, to see Barty’s face staring back out of the page and into him. He looked pale, hollow; he looked how Regulus imagined he would probably have looked after all this time. 

Ted doesn’t want a trial. They just want him executed.

People like Barty, these days, didn’t deserve a trial; he knew already that Barty wasn’t going to get one, and even if he did, it wouldn’t be a fair one. It was like looking his own future square in the face. 

It was almost enough to eclipse the news that they’d seen Sirius. But he latched onto that, rather that than admit to Marlene the surge of nausea that had hit him in the wake of trying to understand that Barty Crouch Jr would be dead within the week.

     ‘You saw Sirius? How--’ How are they died on his lips, replaced with something else. ‘They don’t know, do they?’

After Azkaban, when they realized how different everything and everyone had become, it had occurred to Sirius to leave London.  To leave England, even.  They could have gone somewhere else, America maybe, where people didn’t recognize their face on sight.  Where they weren’t always faced with the chance that they would or could run into phantoms of their past.  It would have been easier, certainly.  It might have been preferable to be able to walk the streets or go into a shop without knowing that there was a very good chance they would run into someone they knew, without the chance that they would be forced to confront their own past.  

At the end of the day, though, Sirius loved London.  It was their home.  They had grown up walking these streets and as much as they wished it weren’t true, they couldn’t erase the memories of summers in Diagon Alley with the Marauders, shopping to go back to school and causing general mischief while they did.  It was familiar and comforting in a way none of the people in their life were anymore and so, they stayed.  

And occasionally they ran into shadows of the people they used to know.  It was the used to that made Sirius pause when Marlene said nothing and only laughed.  The laugh was different, it wasn’t the sound they were used to hearing from Marlene’s lips.  But then, it had been nearly a decade since Sirius had heard that laugh.  The Marlene they had seen two days ago wasn’t anything like the one they remembered and maybe that accounted for the strained sound in their laugh.  

“You’re feeling better, then?”  When they had seen the wix last, content and peaceful had been the last thing Sirius would have described them as.

He’d already fucked this up about as much as he possibly could have, but he didn’t foresee it getting any better, no matter what he tried to do. Bloody polyjuice potion, Marlene had warned him that going out in public, even disguised, was a stupid bloody idea, and he’d been so eager for a breath of freedom that he hadn’t listened, and here he was: Sirius was going to realize what was happening.

And then, Sirius was going to kill him.

He’d heard what they did, to Pettigrew -- to someone they’d considered a brother, someone who had betrayed them. He know how they felt about people who had sided with their family in the war. He had thought being faced with his brother again might bring up something else -- the resentment, the betrayal, the emptiness of abandonment he’d felt years and years ago, but it turned out all it did was make him afraid. 

The bogeyman in his dreams, the shadow around every corner.

If Sirius killed him, right here and now, did he deserve it? Would it have been the better fate than everything else he stood to face?

     ‘A bit, yeah,’ he answered, pitching his voice up just a little, trying to take on the slightly gravelly quality Marlene’s voice always had. He had no idea what they’d talked about the other night, what they said. On what ground they stood with one another, at the moment, or how they were meant to behave around one another. ‘Sober, at least--’

There, that sounded a little like Marlene, the wry sound almost perfect. He was certain they’d been drunk, when they last encountered Sirius. He was certain Marlene had been drunk far more often than he wanted to think, lately. 

Sirius had been making their own tattoo ink since they were in Hogwarts.  It was based on the ingredients in regular ink but it was instilled with certain potion components and to achieve the magical effects, like the shimmering of the stars that littered Sirius’ right bicep in the shape of the constellations from which they and their brother got their names.  Other effects were achieved with charms, like the way the moon on their back changed phases with the lunar cycle and the way the lily on their left forearm seemed to be wavering in a breeze.  It was a proprietary combination of magic Sirius had spent years perfecting – despite the eight year break they had been forced to take.

It meant, however, that supplying the shop wasn’t as easy as ordering the ink and waiting.  They spent more time than they’d ever imagined they would in the Apothecary and if Lily and Remus had known in school how much time Sirius – of all of them – would spend making potions, they’d all have had a right good laugh.  Well, Remus would have.  Lily had helped Sirius come up with the ink in the first place.  Who else could Sirius have even thought to ask?  The charms, on the other hand, were similar to the ones they and the other Marauders had used to charm the map.  

By now, Sirius knew their way around the shop like they knew they way around their own flat.  It was easy work to go exactly where they needed, in an out in a matter of minutes.  When, of course, random people weren’t shoving their limbs into their back, knocking them off balance.  They prepared a glare designed to shrivel courage to nonexistence but seeing the culprit, the look softened and vanished.  

“Twice in one week, keep this up and we’ll be making this a habit, Marls.”  They tried the nickname out again.  It had slipped from their lips when they and Marlene had run into each other in the Leaky Cauldron but this time they tried to accompany it with the shadow of a grin.  

It was the voice that hit him first.

If the person in front of him hadn’t said anything, he could have pretended, could have been persuaded, that the resemblance was a coincidence -- after all, it had been almost twelve years since he’d laid eyes on his brother, and Azkaban was known to change people almost as much as time did, if not more. Their face was thinner, now, the facial hair a new addition. Their hair a little shorter than they had worn it during the war. There were wrinkles, there, small ones, that Regulus had never known. 

But the voice-- it was unmistakable. He could hear the charming lilt that always characterized Sirius, when they were young, a sound he grew so used to hearing through walls, or down the hallway. The sound of it nearly stopped his heart, a nauseating combination of panic and surprise, an acrid spike of fear running through him, and for a second he thought he might bolt until he remembered that he didn’t look like himself right now, that Sirius had no way of knowing it was him behind the guise of Marlene’s face. 

He still hadn’t perfected an imitation of Marlene by any stretch of the imagination -- couldn’t imitate their voice, though some of their mannerisms came alright by virtue of familiarity. He never ran into people who knew them when he was out, and when he did, he pretended not to notice, but... this, well, he couldn’t avoid this. 

Instead of saying anything, he laughed, in response, the light but restrained laugh he occasionally pulled from Marlene’s lips when they were just a little bit drunk. Would that be enough? he wondered, but it would have to do. It wasn’t the right time to try to impersonate Marlene, not when he was too busy being haunted by the very ghost that had haunted him most for the past ten years. It didn’t occur to him until afterwards to wonder what Marlene had been doing talking to Sirius, yesterday, probably somewhere around the time Regulus had been expecting them home. 

No matter how many times he used polyjuice potion to disguise himself and get out of the house, he never got used to the feeling of looking like someone else. Even Marlene, whose hair littered the back of his couch comfortably enough that he could feasibly disguise himself as them every day for the rest of his life -- it still felt wrong, his limbs too thin, his perspective seventeen or eighteen centimetres lower. The long hair, resting heavily against his back. 

But it was a necessary evil. He would’ve gone mad, confined to that basement forever, almost did even with his brief occasional outings while Marlene was at work. He’d been leaving more than they knew, lately, increasingly restless, and while he usually asked them to get him the potion ingredients he needed, he didn’t want them knowing how much polyjuice potion he’d gone through since the last time he asked.

Another jar of lacewing flies, a few hundred grams of ground horn of bicorn, he’d be able to tide himself over for another few weeks without them ever knowing he’d used everything they’d brought him. 

He pulled the jar down from the shelf, but, still unused to movement of Marlene’s long limbs, their bony elbows, he found himself bumping into the person next to him, his elbow digging into their back--

     ‘Shite.’