Sirius kept turning his head around, looking for anyone who could possibly catch them entering the shack. Regulus did the same too, albeit he's unsure why he is infected by the act.
It did not take them long to arrive in front of a tree, the Whomping Willow, Regulus recognized it.
"Get in," said Sirius, pointing at the hole on the tree using his hand.
"What?"
"I said get in."
"In the tree?"
"Did I stutter?"
Rolling his eyes, Regulus walked to the hole. Before sliding in, he looks back at Sirius and said, "If this is one of your heinous pranks, I will make sure you will regret talking to me." If all of that was only for his laugh, Regulus would be shattered. He trusted him again, something he don't easily give even to his brother.
"Don't be dramatic."
"Says the drama queen." Regulus slides down. He braced himself for any impact and he thanked his past self for doing so. He bounced off where he was sliding and landed on the hard ground with his upper body first.
Regulus stood up without letting any groan of pain. Albeit his face said just how painful his landing was, his hand caressing his side that suffered the most. He watched as Sirius slid in and landed softly on his feet as if he had done that a lot of times. Maybe he really did.
Sirius led the way, from the cave-like entrance to the stone stairs, the wooden foyer, and the room where their secret was in.
"He's here!" said Sirius as he entered.
The people inside the room stood up to greet the younger Black. But he was not entering. Sirius noticed so he looked at him and motions his head to enter.
Regulus, unsure of all of this, took a deep breath and let it out along with those uncertainties. He stepped into the room and met three familiar faces and one unfamiliar one wearing his brother's shirt.
And Callie almost squealed but prevented herself too. She kept her lips tightly pursed, biting them by her teeth above and below. Her fingers dug in her palms. And she stopped breathing.
Regulus freaking Black is in front of her! Callie had no idea how she was stopping herself from screaming her heart out and telling gibberish about how much she loved him and how brave he had been... or would be in that timeline. But fortunately, she was stopping herself from embarrassing herself in front of her favourite character.
Remus faked a cough, snapping Callie out of her silent fangirling.
"Yes, right, umm Regulus, right, Regulus." Even just by saying his name in front of him felt surreal for Callie! Her mind was in shambles, squealing that he is real and is in front of her. That thought stopped the rest from flowing.
He is real, as much as the Marauders. And he will suffer, just like the rest. Something that Callie was dedicated not to happen.
Breathing deeply, in and out, she calmed her entirety and face everyone once again.
"Do you have the Dark Mark?" Her question did only not had Regulus taken aback, but everyone else in the room was surprised by her question.
"What are you talking about?" Remus asked.
"Callie, it's not funny," said Sirius with a light smirk, trying to convince himself that his friend was just joking. He could not bring himself to believe that his brother surrendered to that monster.
But Regulus kept his mouth shut looking at Callie with pure disbelief. How did she know?
"Do you or do you not?" she repeated the question.
"Reg could not," Sirius answered. "It's impossible." No, it's possible. And he knew it.
The tension inside the room heightens. The three others decided not to utter a word and just watch how things would unfold, be there if the fire became uncontrollable.
"Please, Regulus. I need your honest answer. We need you."
He didn't know why they need him nor what can he do. But seeing the stranger's seriousness and Sirius' before, he gave in. Slowly, he nodded.
The whole room was filled with silence. The three not knowing what to do, kept an eye on Sirius seeing him shaking. His hands were balled into a fist, his teeth clenched in his closed mouth, his eyes welling up with tears. They knew he could and would explode anytime soon. But Regulus ignored what he could see in his peripheral vision, he kept his focus on the stranger who knew of his Dark Mark.
Callie nodded, accepting the fact. She expected this answer long before. But hearing it coming from him, was still heart-wrenching. But she knew this has to happen, she knew they needed Regulus as a Death Eater. Callie looked over to Sirius, his shaking body and eyes staring at nowhere worried her.
"We need your help," she said, breaking the silence that's been going on for too long. "Going against Voldemort."
Confusion washed over Regulus. Not only did this girl call the Dark Lord by his name but she asked a Death Eater's help.
"You know where my loyalty lies," he said.
"I know. And I'm ready to change it."
"How are you going to do that? I've been looking up to him since I was young. My vision about the Dark Lord cannot be changed."
"You were wrong about him." That single sentence silenced him. "You were a fan of his ideals, yes, but not his ways of implementing it. He would go to greater lengths just to achieve his goals. Even go as far as splitting his own soul into pieces, killing anyone who gets in his way."
No one talked. So Callie continued, telling him the story of how Regulus discovered the Horcrux. The story of what should happen two years from now.
"You managed to get the locket and replace it but... but you were dragged by the inferi hiding beneath the lake inside the cave. You told Kreacher not to tell anyone what you did and the inferi dragged you down into the waters. And... that's how your story ended."
The silence that followed after that was unbearable. It was piercing in the skin. Sirius still stood silent and fazed but he listened to the story. He knew what would happen to his brother but he didn't know of the gory details.
Regulus was as fazed as him. If just minutes ago he was so sure where his loyalty laid, after hearing Callie's story, he was not. Kreacher, his only friend in that house, his companion when Sirius left, the Dark Lord let him suffer his defences, left him in that cave without showing any signs of humanity.
For a decade, he looked up to him. Saw his beliefs and stuck to them all his life. But with just a story from a stranger, his image was tainted.
"Proof. I need proof," he said. He will not turn his back to the Dark Lord if there was no proof he would do such an inhumane thing.
But Callie didn't know what to say. So this time, she could only rely on her gut feeling with little calculations. "Well, there's very little information about you. But you got your Dark Mark probably just this year."
The mention of his mark made Regulus realize that she knew of it even if he told no one about it. She knew Kreacher, and she was correct that he got his mark just that year so he accepted that the person he had been praising was a soulless monster.
"Fine then. What do you need from me?"
His response made her sigh in relief. He's turning his back to Voldemort.
"Are you close with Lucius Malfoy?" she asked.
"I'm acquainted with him, yes."
"Are you close enough that he will let you wander around his house?"
Baffled, Regulus nodded slowly. "Yes."
"Brilliant." She fished out her phone from her pockets and open her gallery. "I'm going to need you to retrieve something." She stopped in front of him as the curious boy looked at the alien device. After finding the image of Tom Riddle's diary, she raised it to let Regulus see. "This. I don't exactly know where this is but I'm sure it's in the Malfoy Manor."
Regulus eyes the image inside the thin rectangular box. "You're expecting me to look for something with that vague information?"
"It wasn't exactly specified in books and movies where Lucius Malfoy hid it."
"Books and movies? Who are you again and how did you know all of this?" He had been conversing with the girl but he didn't even know her name. Was he that shocked that she knew a lot?
"Right." Callie just noticed it too. "I haven't introduced myself. How silly of me." The girl blushed, scratching her head with a breathy laugh. The sight did not escape anyone's eyes, even Sirius' who had been staring on the wooden floor since earlier.
"My name is Caledonia Sinclair, Callie for short and you're a fiction." Callie had explained everything to him like how she explained it to the Marauders. "I know it sounds crazy but I'm telling the truth," she added, hoping not to taint her image to her favourite character.
"Obviously. You wouldn't know too much if not. Fine. I'll get that book for you."
"Also, I will need your cousin Bellatrix's hair."
If everyone was confused earlier, they're more baffled by then.
"What for?" asked Regulus.
"You'll see."
Regulus nodded unsurely. Having nothing else to do and wanting to avoid questions from Sirius, he walked to the door. But Callie called him, stopping him on his tracks.
"And Regulus?"
Regulus looks back.
"Keep this a secret between us."
One more thing that baffled him, why would a stranger who wants to fight the Dark Lord entrust him with such information when she knew he was a Death Eater? She sounded so confident in him. But he had no plan telling even a single soul what just happened. He had completely doubted the Dark Lord. Regulus nodded and left the room.
A few more moments of silence, Peter spoke.
"Can we really trust him? He's a death eater- no offence Sirius!"
"We can," Callie answered fondly, looking at the place where Regulus just left. "I trust him and so should you. I believe in Regulus."
They noticed the way she talked to him. And that smile she had. The Marauders has a suspicion that what they think is right.
"What's next?" James asked.
"We should move while Regulus is working too. Our next step is Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem."
"But no one knows where it is. How are we going to find it?" said Remus.
Callie smirked. "Are you forgetting who are you talking to?"
But all of them were startled when Sirius sprinted out of the room and run outside, following Regulus.