The Cup, like the locket, is destroyed by the Basilisk Venom Regulus had left.
"Is there more?" Dorcas asks, regarding the Horcruxes, frowning at where Hufflepuff's Cup had laid before.
"For all we know, yes," Regulus replies softly, unable to keep the frown out of his voice.
Dorcas shakes her head. "I need to get back to Marls," she murmurs. "She won't know where I've been and I certainly can't explain all of this on my own."
"I'm not coming with you," Regulus states firmly, knowing what she implied.
"Cowardly," Dorcas sighs. She eyes Regulus narrowly. "Your brother has been sick with grief lately. He won't admit it, being as stubborn as you are, but everyone can see it clear as day."
Regulus shrugs. "So let him grieve."
"For a younger brother that's, unbeknownst to him, still alive?"
"I would have grieved all the same, just like him."
"... But I don't think he knows that." Dorcas gives Regulus a disapproving look. "Make it right, Reg. Make it make sense."
"He's an idiot, he doesn't know a lot of things."
"Regulus, I swear to Merlin, I will throw a punch if you do not visit him in the next few days. He deserves better than that and you bloody well know it."
Regulus shifts on the spot uncomfortably. "But who'll take care of the factory I'm starting up while I'm away?"
"That boy, and Kreacher," Dorcas supplies, shrugging. "Besides, everyone takes a vacation."
"Charlie is just a kid! And Kreacher is unfit for the job — he's only an Oompa Loompa — and he doesn't even make for a good one."
Dorcas huffs. "You're being ridiculous. I can have Remus look after this place, if you really want it well-kept."
Regulus raises a disbelieving eyebrow. "Remus? As in Remus Lupin? Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously, your brother's chocolate-besotted boyfriend. Still with me?"
"Unfortunately."
"Come on, Reg, we need your help. I don't want to lie about things to my girlfriend either."
Regulus considers this reluctantly. "What makes you think Lupin would ever agree to looking after my factory?"
"Um, he loves chocolate?" Dorcas reasons. She grimaces and reddens at her lame attempt to provide a good reason. "Look, Remus is a great dude."
"Who is also a werewolf."
Dorcas stops short, mouth hanging open. "How... and how do you know that?"
"The traitorous rat, remember?"
"Ah, Pettigrew. Right. Well, we'll just avoid putting him on the job on the day of the full moon."
"Not that easy," Regulus argues. "He'll be ill-tempered the day before and much too broken for work the day after. Maybe a few days before and a few days after. Who knows."
Dorcas grits her teeth and stays quiet. In the end, she resorts to a confidently delivered plea. "Please, Reg. I need you. Sirius needs you. Hell, the war — everybody — needs you."
Regulus looks away. He recognises the disappointment in his chest all too well.
What about James? He can't help but wonder.
He thinks, if James Potter was the one who needed him, he would have gone without a second thought.
•••🍫•••
"I'm leaving," Regulus tells Charlie and Kreacher. "Dorcas needs my help. A lot of people do, apparently," he mutters the last bit bitterly under his breath.
Charlie, in the past few days, seems to have made a friend, who he decides to introduce that very moment. "Oh, alright. Kreacher and I can take care of your business for now, while you're gone. This is Noodle, by the way."
Noodle grins and outstretches an arm. Regulus realises she wants to shake hands with him and follows through with it as quickly as he can. "Hello, Noodle."
"I hear you're the best chocolatier in town," Noodle chirps. She's a very pretty and kind-faced girl, dark skinned and with curls that remind Regulus of the way Mary MacDonald styled her hair in school.
"Well thank you very much." Regulus lay down his top hat and shrugs off his famous Willy Wonka coat. "I may be gone for... a while." He looks at Kreacher meaningfully, who swallows and scrunches up his orange face with disapproval. "Until then, whether I send over a friend of mine to help you or not, please keep our little chocolate factory running smoothly."
"Sure thing," Charlie responds with a blinding smile.
"Of course, Young Master," Kreacher sighs, reverting back to the title Regulus is still indecisive of liking or hating.
"I will also help," Noodle chimes in, smiling sweetly.
"Thank you," Regulus says, and he means it.
Without much else fuss, Willy Wonka disappears for a so-called 'vacation.'
•••🍫•••
Grimmauld Place has always had a dooming presence. The door itself is always uninviting, and indoors the temperature manages to stay almost icily cool at all times, no matter the season.
Revisiting it makes Regulus's old wounds open and his aged scars to itch. One knock. Two. The door swings open in that eerie way it always does.
Regulus barely has time to register who could be behind that door before he's enveloped in the warm arms of Dorcas Meadowes.
"Thank Merlin you're not as cowardly as I claimed," she giggles.
"I better not be wasting my time coming here," Regulus grumbles.
Dorcas doesn't answer, because all too soon, there's a familiar voice Regulus has dreaded hearing.
"Reggie?"
Regulus sighs, squeezes his eyes shut, and doesn't open them when he whispers, "Sirius."
His brother's name rolls off his tongue as if Regulus has said it a million times before; it's familiar, more familiar than it should be considering their parents' effort in separating them.
Regulus opens his eyes and has to take a very deep breath.
Sirius stands there, almost right behind Dorcas, frozen with shock and face going through multiple expressions Regulus can't quite place; surprise, horror, relief, grief, maybe hatred? Regulus doesn't want to decipher them; because you're a coward, Dorcas's voice echoes in his head.
"You're here," Sirius blurts. "... You're alive," he says next, as if the fact that Regulus is here is more shocking than Regulus being alive.
"Surprise," Regulus drawls in a dry, bored voice. He hates himself for it. He hates the idea that Sirius is standing there with hatred on his mind even more.
But Sirius doesn't punch him, or kick him, or scream, or do anything that logically yells 'Sirius.'
Instead, when Dorcas backs away and shoots the two brothers a wary look, Sirius steps forward.
Sirius, brave and charming and daring and so much unlike Regulus, that Sirius, goes up to his brother and hugs him.
"I'm sorry," Sirius apologises. Neither of them know what for. "I missed you, holy fuck, I missed you."
Regulus knows they could stay there all day, apologising and hugging and trying not to cry and pretending the past didn't hurt as much as it did, but the possibility of doing exactly that vanishes when (and this time Regulus can't take a deep breath because all the air leaves his lungs at once), another figure too painfully familiar steps forward.
"Padfoot," he mumbles, but Regulus is horribly aware of the man's eyes on him and only him. "Come on. Dumbledore's asking to see... him."
Sirius steps away at the same time that Regulus stumbles to do so.
Regulus is staring downwards, then the next second his gaze is moving up, and up, and up.
"Potter," he chokes out.
James — no, Potter — smiles, though it's sad, and Regulus is burning, burning, burning...
"Hey Reg," Potter murmurs. His next words are a punch more painful than the one Regulus was expecting Sirius to give him:
"I thought you were dead."