The Marauders: Year Seven Part Two

Claustra

"Muffliato," Regulus cast the spell at the door, keeping their conversation between the pair of them.

"He's here?" Lily asked in shock the moment he'd cast it, her eyes wide. "Voldemort is here? " 

"Observant, you are," Regulus said, unable to hold back the words.

"What is he doing here? He isn't supposed to be here yet!"

"I'm aware," Regulus said.

"Did Peter already give him the locket?" she panicked, "Did he already go to the cave? Am I late somehow? Oh gods." She'd just thought of James, of the curse, and worry filled her soul.

"No," Regulus said, "He's taken over Fallengunder castle."

"How?" Lily asked. "Where's Ned Veigler? Where's the Scamanders? Are they here? What about the other werewolves, all those people..."

Regulus hesitated. "Well... Ned Veigler... I, I think he's okay? He left - with Elphinstone Urquart... I dunno about Urquart, though... Greyback, he bit him and --"

"But it isn't the full moon," Lily said, "He isn't a werewolf right now, why would he --"

"That doesn't matter to Greyback. He will kill and eat his... erm... prey...  any time."

Lily looked sick to her stomach at these words. "He... he was eating...?"

Regulus nodded, "He's sick, Greyback is..."

"Bloody hell," Lily muttered, covering her mouth with her hands, feeling her stomach roll with disgust. Tears filled her eyes. She had always loved Urquart, thought him very interesting of a man, and she knew what he meant to Professor McGonagall... "But how did You Know Who take the castle? Surely Professor Veigler and Mr. Scamander are powerful enough together... and Mrs. Scamander an ex-auror..."

Regulus explained, "They had Mr. Veigler under the imperius curse. He let them in. And once he'd done, it would be easy enough for Greyback to control the werewolves, wouldn't it? More than half of them were... were created by him. The whole alpha-omega thing, you know? The werewolf army is twice as strong as it was before, and fully under Voldemort's control."

Lily was shaking her head in shock and disbelief.

"Voldemort plans to take them to the ministry," Regulus said, repeating something Walburga had told him earlier.

"What?"

Regulus nodded, "That's why he's here. To bolster the werewolf army. Lily, he has contacts with the giants. All the gorgs are on board with him. And the dementors, and the trolls, too. He's amassing a huge army... and he plans to take them all to London."

Lily sat heavily in one of the chairs at a long wooden table, dizzy from the overload of information, the news a terrible weight. "Oh my stars," she murmured. "This is it, isn't it? This is the end of everything good. Voldemort wins and we all suffer for it, we all die... Everything we love... everyone..." her voice caught in her throat.

Regulus pursed his lips. "Not... not necessarily."

Lily looked up at him.

"We can't just give up because a situation is bleak, or if the leaders of our world are corrupted and evil... It isn't a time to surrender, but a time to fight all the harder. We're living in a time of history which will change the future generations forever and ever - and we can be remembered as the ones who allowed the evil to spread, or as the ones who stood up to stop it, who fought it with every breath in our bodies."

Lily felt her heart swell at the words. "You're right," she breathed, "Of course you're right."

"Of course I am," Regulus agreed.

Lily couldn't help but smile at this. He sounded so much like his brother... Like a combination of James and Sirius, really. James's kindness and wisdom and Sirius's tone and smirking grin... Regulus, she realized, was a beautiful human and she felt a rush of emotion. Lily stood up and grabbed onto his shoulders, pulling him into a hug.

"What's this for, then?" Regulus asked, stiffening a bit in her arms.

Lily laughed, because it was exactly the way Sirius had once reacted so many years ago.

Regulus cleared his throat and straightened his jumper sleeves as she released him. "Anyways," he said, recovering from the surprise hug, "What do you reckon we ought to do about --"

He was cut off suddenly by the sound of an explosion that seemed to rock the entire castle. "Bloody hell," he said, grabbing onto a counter top to steady himself as Lily fell against the table and several plates and jars fell and smashed on the floor, a picture crashed down from the wall, and plaster loosed from the ceiling rained dustily all around them. Lily coughed as she breathed bits of the particles in, and Regulus stood up. "What the hell was that?" he wondered.

Lily rapped herself on the head with her wand, "Claustra," she said again. "Let's go find out," she said as she turned invisible from head to toes.