Selenophile // Marauders

|133| Regulus Black

15th of December, 1979

A couple of weeks passed after the death of Euphemia and Fleamont Potter. Unfortunately, the Daily Prophet was now filled with new pieces of information: Regulus Black's death.

In the newspaper, it stated that the cause of Regulus Black was not identified yet, it was a big possibility that Voldemort had murdered him.

Riley used floo network to arrive at Sirius and Remus' apartment in the morning. The flat seemed empty, there was no sound coming from the rooms.

"Padfoot?" called Riley. "Moony?"

A door was opened by a very sleepy looking Sirius Black. His eyes were about to close, his head kept falling.

"What the hell are you doing here in the morning?" asked Sirius annoyedly. "It is eight AM for fuck's sake."

Riley didn't want to break the news first, because Sirius obviously wasn't aware of them.

"I—I thought you might wanna read this..." she said quietly and handed Sirius the newspaper.

BLACK HEIR DEAD

Sirius scratched his head for a moment, trying to understand the article. His eyes widened as he kept reading, then looked up at Riley again with his eyes shimmering with tears.

"I'm so sorry..." said Riley. "It came just now—"

"It's all right," said Sirius despite his eyes burning with tears. "It's all right. That coward wanted to be a part of them, and he did. Now he chickened out, that bastard. Good. I'm happy. One more of the death eaters is gone now, that's good, right?"

"Pads — he was your brother—" said Riley. "And, it is known that Voldemort now started killing off—"

"No. He was not my brother. He chose them, and he got what he deserved. I should be happy, we should all be happy," said Sirius as he tried to keep himself happy.

"Take your time, don't rush—" said Riley soothingly, trying to get Sirius to think a bit more clearly.

"No. I'm okay. It's okay. I'll go back to sleep, and you go back to your house, and we never talk about this. Because this is a good thing."

Sirius stormed off, with the newspaper still in his hands. He closed the door to their bedroom strongly, and the walls shook. It was opened once again by Remus, who looked confused than ever.

"What the hell happened?" he asked sleepily. "Why is he sobbing all of a sudden?"

Riley sighed. "Regulus is dead. They say You-Know-Who murdered him..."

Remus was paralyzed for a moment, he looked at the bedroom door, partly in confusion and partly in sadness.

"Oh..." said Remus. "But — I mean, why would Voldemort kill him?"

"He started doing that to prevent any betrayal he might face," said Riley. She thought about the mission, and how she might just end up like Regulus.

***

Sirius attended each order meeting consistently, and he had now joined it full-time, along with Remus. Sirius tried to look all right with Regulus' murder, but deep down he was far from okay.

Another thing which bothered Riley was the sudden disappearance of Lena Thatcher. She couldn't reach her, and even if she did, all she got back as a reply was, "I'm busy."

She tried not to dwell on it, she tried to think that she might really be busy. But she still informed Dumbledore about it. She never came to any order meetings, as well as death eater meetings.

At least Riley knew she was alive.

***

1st of January, 1980

A letter arrived from Lena.

—————————-

Don't send anything for a while.

From,

Lena.

—————————-

That was it. Riley didn't know whether to reply or not, seeing that she didn't want to receive any mail. The thing that bothered her was why Lena would say this?

She decided to show the letter to Dumbledore, in case something was wrong.

"Sir, what do you think this means? She hasn't shown up since last month," said Riley.

Dumbledore read the short letter carefully. "Miss Thatcher might be trying to act cautious, seeing that the death eaters might find about you being the moles..."

"But, sir, she hasn't been around since December."

"As you know, her father is a death eater. Gilbert Thatcher. So, he might be trying to stop her from sending letters to people," said Dumbledore calmly.

Riley left, after not hearing what she quite expected to. Something was definitely wrong with this situation, it couldn't be just Lena's father preventing her from sending letters.

Riley also noticed how Lena had disappeared right after Regulus's murder, but she couldn't connect the dots.

***

7th of January, 1980

Riley watched the death eaters getting fooled by the false information they were being fed. She had led Avery to almost die by sending him into the middle of the woods with a portkey. Of course, Moody was waiting to attack, but Avery just apparated without getting murdered.

Nobody suspected anything, Riley blamed it on Dumbledore, just like Dumbledore told her to.

"Dumbledore told them to use this exact portkey," lied Riley to Avery. "I don't know how that bastard Moody got in the way..."

"That bloody loser, Dumbledore..." said Avery grumpily as he brushed the twigs off his head.

On the other hand, she didn't see Ralph after that day, which was also a good thing to add on the list.

The only thing which bothered her was Lena's absence. She continued to send letters to her, without slipping out any information about the mission. Just casual things like, "How are you doing?" or "Do you wanna have tea sometime?"

But they were never replied to.