CHAPTER SEVENTY
song of the chapter - "blood // water" by grandson
"a bloody good fake"
After Voldemort exited the ballroom sinisterly, there were instantly several swarms of motion of parents proudly rushing towards their children, many of the pureblood teenagers with haughty, arrogant looks on their faces at the new tattoos on their forearms. In the rush of black and dark green fabrics, not a single person noticed the two Slytherins artfully sliding out of the ballroom, two silent shadows.
Ducking down behind a vase nearly as tall as her, Hollis lifted up the bottom of her dress and slid off her dark green heels. With a careful toss as not to make any noise, the shoes landed on a small rug with dragons embroidered on it. Regulus followed suit, and they abandoned the shoes with haste. The marble floor felt like ice under Hollis's feet, piercing through her soles. Right behind her, Regulus was unintentionally sliding slightly with his black socks.
Both of them felt the unusual tension between them, but at the moment they needed to find a place to safely talk before either said anything. Neither of them had verbally communicated that they needed to talk or leave the ballroom at all, but this sort of thing passed unspoken.
Quietly poking her head around the corner, Hollis buried her fingers in the seemingly infinite folds of her dark blue gown and lifted them up so that she could jog without tripping.
Yea, so she's really good at sneaking around manors in ball gowns, thought Regulus as he had to almost break into a full run to keep up with the short girl in front of him. Let's just add that to our pureblood trauma list.
Finally, Hollis swung open the library doors and they entered the enormous room. The ceilings were three floors high with a mural painted at the top. Every single volume had a black spine with gold lettering. Even though Regulus had never been in this room of Rosier Manor before, he knew that this was no ordinary library.
Regulus frowned slightly as he ran his hands along a few of the volumes.
Secrets of the Darkest Art, by Owle Bullock, read one. The thick book right next to it was Magick Moste Evil, a text that had an infamous reputation among dark wizards.
This was a library of the Dark Arts.
A sudden thud made Regulus whip his head around to where Hollis was standing. There was a large piece of wood gripped tightly in her hands that had been part of a bookshelf a few seconds ago. Letting out a slight huff at the effort it had taken her to rip apart the shelf, Hollis shoved the sturdy plank through the loops of the handles to get into the library.
He raised an eyebrow; he definitely would not have thought of that to keep the huge room secure.
"Nice one," Regulus said with a slight smile, turning away from the securely shut doors and towards Hollis.
That smile instantly dropped as he saw her clutched her shoulder, her face twisted in pain. "Hol?" he asked softly, nervous as his smile dropped abruptly and he helped her over to a black leather cushioned bench.
Sitting down without her usual grace, it was obvious to Regulus that she was in pain.
Hollis had cleared her body of all darkly colored bruises and small cuts successfully, her skin completely smooth and evenly colored except for in three places. One of these was the scar from a year ago when she had eavesdropped on a Death Eater meeting, and another the white line from when her parents had discovered her disobedience over Christmas break.
The newest one was a cut as long as her hand ran from the corner of her shoulder to just below where her collarbone started. Her shoulder had only taken one glaring red beam of the cutting spell before the bloodroot was used instead. Although it was not as deep as the ones that had left the two pale lines risen on her back, it most certainly did not mean that Hollis couldn't feel it.
The stress that had been put on her shoulder while securing the library had made the cut flare-up in slightly dizzying pain, just enough for her to let it show.
If most other children received a cut like this, they would be very gentle with their arm for at least a week so it could heal properly, probably having the supplies to quicken their healing, make it as painless as possible.
Hollis didn't have those kinds of luxuries.
"What happened to your shoulder?" asked Regulus, slightly panicked as his gaze rapidly darted from Hollis's shoulder to her face.
"Spell," muttered Hollis indirectly.
"Yea, your fucking parents," Regulus exclaimed, his voice rising with anger.
She gritted her teeth through the pain and sat up straight, a posture that made her shoulder agonize less.
"I do believe we have more important matters on our hands," said Hollis sharply, staring down Regulus with narrowed brown eyes. "You are so fucking dumb."
"I know."
With a slightly shaking hand, Regulus gripped the white sleeve of his shirt and yanked it up to reveal his new tattoo.
"But I have a plan."
Hollis's eyes widened at the tone Regulus used. It wasn't a fearful voice like a way he could escape the mistake he had made, but instead, one that was determined and bold. This voice sounded vaguely like Sirius while they were creating the Map.
"What do you mean, a plan?" Hollis questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Taking a paranoid glance around the library, he blew air out of his lips for a few seconds before facing Hollis again. "I know about the supposedly secret Defense Against the Dark Arts club you joined with Dumbledore," he revealed, his tone steady.
Hollis's eyes widened more than she thought possible.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to say anything," reassured Regulus, and Hollis's jaw relaxed slightly. "I want you to become a spy."
She blinked a few times.
"You're mental."
"Yea, I know."
Standing up from the bench, Regulus began to pace as he talked with his hands to Hollis.
"Ok, think about this for a few minutes," he started, and Hollis nodded her head to show that she was listening. "So, Dumbledore runs the club?"
She nodded again, slightly nervous now.
"And if he knew what was going on within the Death Eaters, then he could take them down more easily," continued Regulus with ambition. "So what if I fed him information through you?"
A small part of Hollis was slowly becoming convinced that Regulus wasn't crazy.
"Wait, slow down," she said, holding up a hand. "I know you, Reg, the reason you joined the Death Eaters was for revenge. Where did all that go?"
Regulus smirked and lit a cigarette before answering.
"What better way to get vengeance than sabotaging the Death Eaters?"
While Hollis had gotten the revenge part right, just not who it was on.
She understood now. It was never about getting payback on halfbloods and muggleborns for contaminating the wizarding society for Regulus, or even protecting anyone else at all. It was about making sure that their parents paid for what they had done, for his own sake.
Eagerly, Hollis stood up next to him and returned the effort he was giving into this plot.
"But there's just no way that anyone will believe that I'm a Death Eater," pointed out Hollis as she took the cigarette out of Regulus's hand and took in a long draw. "They'll think the information you give me isn't real unless I have proof."
Thankfully, Regulus had already thought of an answer to this. He grabbed Hollis's hand while simultaneously pulling out his wand from the inside of his jacket.
Hollis watched skeptically as Regulus pressed the tip of his wand into her left forearm like Voldemort had done to him not so long ago. Ink blossomed from the tip of his hand and deep into her flesh like a black disease. After a few more seconds, a dark mark identical to Regulus's was on Hollis's flesh.
"Reg, please tell me that this isn't-" Hollis started, her voice breaking slightly with panic.
"No, of course, it isn't real. But it's a bloody good fake," Regulus grinned, and Hollis smiled back.
With a swipe of his wand, the dark mark disappeared. They had been placed in the Slytherin house for a reason, and ambition, cunning, resourcefulness were being used in their purest forms in this plot against the Death Eaters.
"You'll just have to use it at Hogwarts to convince Dumbledore that you're telling the truth," Regulus told Hollis, who firmly nodded back. "And just remember, they deserve it."
She thought of the scars lacing her back and cut on her shoulder.
"That much was never even in question," she said coldly as she thought of the crimes her parents had committed against her for just wanting to have free will. "I don't think those idiots created two dangerous weapons against them instead of scaring us."
The two teenagers sat in silence on the black bench for a few moments.
"We're really doing this, aren't we?" whispered Hollis, in slight shock of their own nerve for spying on the Death Eaters.
"I think you are officially the most rebellious pureblood kid ever," Regulus told Hollis with admiration. A long stream of silvery smoke blossomed from his lips before he finished his thought out loud.
"And hell yea we are."
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