Reggo My Eggo

Chapter 37

Orion's body was left in the bathtub as the rest went back upstairs, trying to avoid the stench from the dead corps. The main part of the house reeked of bleach from when Kreacher had cleaned and disinfected the top of the stairs from Walburgas blood. 

It would have been around three pm but Sirius, Remus, James and Regulus had no way of telling the time at the moment so they could only assume.  

Throughout their trauma of the past two days, Regulus had forgotten all about their Thursday night plans. 

Cygnus and Druella had been invited by Walburga and Orion to arrive for dinner on Christmas eve-eve. The plans were for them to arrive around three pm although it's expected for them to arrive fashionably late. 

Bellatrix and Narcissa were originally supposed to come and Narcissa had planned on bringing Lucius Malfoy but they had all cancelled. Instead, Lucius and Narcissa went to spend the holidays with Lucius' family and Bellatrix went to France with Rodolphus Lestrange.

Had Regulus remembered that his aunt and Uncle were planning on showing up for dinner he may not have been as surprised when he heard a crash and a scream coming from the entranceway of the manor, but considering the circumstances, he was not expecting a high pitched scream to appear in the silence of the house, and clearly, nor were the others. 

The four boys had looked at each other with a ghostly look on their faces. The lot stayed quiet but as they continued to hear the loud shrieking from a room over, Sirius and Regulus had begun to recognize that loud cry like the one of their aunt Druella. 

A look of relief washed over Regulus. It was a normal thing in their family to hear high-pitched yelling by the women in their family. Even though he had figured out the source of the ruckus, his heart didn't stop beating out of his chest. 

He had now remembered that they were supposed to be expecting her and their Uncle Cygnus for dinner but the loud screeching of the woman wasn't stopping. Regulus had a bad feeling and so he rushed out of the dining room where he and the others had taken refuge and ran into the entrance hall which was right through the door. 

"Are you crazy!?" James squeaked out, rushing out after Regulus.

Sirius and Remus followed their friends but they stopped at the right in front of them. 

Druella Black was hunched over her husband's body in distress. Beneath her, Cygnus Black laid there motionless. Unlike it was with Walburga, Cygnus' head was still in place and there was no blood in sight. 

"Aunt Druella?" Regulus whispered. Until then, Druella hadn't noticed the others in the room. She was too focused on her dead husband. 

"Regulus, oh Regulus," Druella was shaking. It reminded Regulus of when his father was hunched over his mother's dead body just the day before. 

"How," Sirius splutter out. "How did this happen?" Sirius approached his aunt who he hadn't seen in years. Shurley had it been any other circumstance, Sirius would be getting yelled at by the strict lady but no one knew how to behave anymore. Death does that to you. 

"We apparated here like we told Walburga and Orion we'd do and," Duella sobbed. "and when we landed I suddenly felt oddly dizzy and Orion collapsed," 

"Maybe he just got caught in the apparition process, it's not unknown for that to happen," Remus whispered in a calm voice from behind the group. Of course, he had known that it probably wasn't the case, two people and five owls had already been murdered, and it wasn't hard to believe that the second death of the day was also murder. 

"We've been married for 22 years," Duella said quietly. "22 years and not once have we had a problem with apparation. Not once,"

"You apparated here!" Sirius exclaimed, gears turning in his head. "Like with a wand, you have a wand!"