Hogwarts Express: Time Travel

CXIX. The rescue

CXIX. The rescue

A green eye shimmers in a shard of slivered glass, then a strand of silver white hair shines in the same shard, Anastasia Potter's eye, and hair. Sighing when she only sees her reflection she tosses the mirror inside a lumpy rucksack, then she adds the locket she'd gotten the previous year, a Daily Prophet clipping entitled "Dumbledore Remembered", above which is a photograph of its author, Elphias Doge with Dumbledore, she throws in a notebook filled with scribblings on Horcruxes and, in large block letters, the initials "R.A.B." Knowing Regulus Black was alive, changed everything. Well, almost everything.

She gives the rucksack a shake, then glances about to see if she's forgotten anything. The room looks as if it's been bottled up and shaken. Dresser drawers turned out, floor covered in detritus. Outside, she could hear her uncle and cousin talking, they were leaving.

Sirius glances at his younger brother then back at the screen, more specifically the letter he wrote, the dramatic letter he wrote to Voldemort "You know, Reg... We still haven't talked about your involvement in all of this and the letter"

Regulus smiled "That would be because it never came up... Until now at least"

Sirius rolled his eyes at his younger brother's sarcastic answer "I'm being serious"

"I know you're Sirius, you don't have to assure me"

"Not the Sirius joke" groaned Remus, having heard it thousands of times, he was so done with it. Regulus pushed back some black curls and sighed, he knew he'd have to tell his brother at some point "Well, since it comes to this, then you must know, professor Dumbledore asked me to join his secret society... I volunteered myself as a spy" he explained, too quietly, he wasn't sure anyone heard him. But they did, all of the marauders heard him, loud and clear.

Sirius barely contained his anger, Dumbledore asked his younger brother to join this war and he didn't even tell him? He involved his beloved younger brother and he didn't even mention it? He thought about those words, Regulus had written on that letter 'I face death in hopes that when you meet your match, you would be mortal again....'. He knew what that meant. He died. His younger brother died doing Dumbledore's bidding

Lily couldn't believe it, she didn't want to think about it before, but now, she couldn't run from it any longer. She thought Dumbledore involved Annie in all the Order stuff because, she was mainly in danger, and she needed to know those things, but what reason did he have to involve Regulus? She couldn't think of any good reason...

Regulus sighed as he addressed his brother "Sirius... I know what you're thinking... It was I who begged Dumbledore to let me join, I once caught you lot sneaking into the office, so I followed you, and overheard some of your conversation, and he knew, he knows everything... I didn't even think about it... I told him that I wanted to be part of it... He refused, believe me he refused, but I'm rather very convincing when need to be..."

Sirius clenched his fist, of course, he'd want to join "Why?"

"Because, I couldn't stand the fact, that everyone was trying to make a change, while I just stood on the sidelines, I wanted to fight as well" he explained

Sirius almost choked hearing those words, all this time, he thought his parents managed to break him, that they planted evil in his younger brother, how wrong he'd been, all this time he'd spent avoiding him because Regulus refused to leave when he left the house... It was hurt, he realised, it was hurt that made him cut his relationship with his younger brother. He shouldn't have, maybe then Regulus wouldn't feel the need to be part of this war... Maybe, then, he'd have succeeded as an older brother.