Moonlight glowed through the window of the third floor of St. Mungo's Hospital, casting a blue glow over the beds that lined the ward. The forms sleeping in each bed were lined in silver and purple shadows. A mediwitch had fallen asleep at a squat desk, and it was with great care that the coming footsteps moved silently past her, toe pointed inward to quiet the tread. A shadow poured slowly over the sleeping form of Walburga Black.
"Ennervate," a voice whispered, and a wand pressed against Walburga's chest.
With a sputtering gasp of pain, Walburga Black's eyes snapped opened and she stared up into the eyes that loomed in the darkness above her. A bottle was held aloft - a clear liquid inside - and Walburga felt a shiver of panic.
Veritaserum.
The bottle was uncorked and lowered to her lips - there was nothing she could do about it, she realized she was under a body bind, cast silently - and she felt the liquid slip over her tongue and into her throat and hot tears trickled back from her eyelids as she imagined the danger that she was about to inflict upon her son - upon Regulus - and with no way to warn him that she, Walburga, was about to reveal their secrets.
"What is your name?" whispered her attacker.
Walburga felt compelled - controlled by the potion - to answer. She opened her mouth and the word formed upon her lips, but -- but no sound. No noise came from her throat. She tried again, still compelled by the potion, but still, nothing would come out.
The attacker's eyes narrowed, their face hidden mostly by shadow, only their eyes and the bridge of their nose was visible in a slice of the silver moonlight, the rest hidden by shadow and cloak. "I said what is your name!" the voice was more of a hiss than a whisper now.
Walburga struggled. She wanted to answer now - the potion made her want to answer so very badly, the words burned in her, the desire to tell the truth was as strong as any craving, any insane need that could obsess and take over a person - but she couldn't speak the words. They simply would not - could not - come out. No matter how her mouth moved. No matter how she tried.
"Your name!" the attacker persisted. "Dicere!" But the counter-curse for the silencing charm did not do the trick. "Dicere! Dicere!"
Walburga was gurgling, choking on her desire to speak, and her inability to, her face turning red. She was panicked internally, worried about the pain that was rising in her chest, a combination of the wartcap powder's effects and also the inability to release the sounds fighting to escape her chest. Had her voice been taken? Was this side effect of the wartcap as well? Would she go through life forever mute?
"Is somebody there?"
The voice echoed down the ward and the attacker looked up.
There was a hiss, and the eyes that had stared down at Walburga disappeared, the cloak pulled tighter about them, and the figure was gone, disappearing into the shadows.
The mediwitch, who had been awakened by the attacker's voice when it had risen in annoyance, came down the ward to find Walburga convulsing with the withheld words and she worked quickly to help her. But even the mediwitch was confused to why Walburga could not speak - for there was no reason that the wartcap powder should have had that effect. Even if it had gotten onto her vocal chords, which their scans of her throat had not shown any of the powder there, it should have been repaired by now... Walburga's silence was puzzling at best...
But deep, beneath the pain of the truth serum being denied, Walburga was thankful for whatever it was that kept her from saying too much.
"It seems your mother has been rendered mute," Horace Slughorn looked apologetically at Regulus Black.
Regulus was sitting in the plush chair by Slughorn's fire again in his office. He stared into Slughorn's face, eyes showing no emotion. "Mute?" Regulus asked. "How do you mean?"
"I mean that she is mute, my boy," Slughorn said, "As in she cannot speak."
"And how did that happen? Because of the Wartcap Powder?" Regulus questioned, sitting forward. "Is it a side effect? Is it temporary?"
Slughorn was pouring himself a glass of mead with a shaking hand. He held the bottle in offer to Regulus, but Regulus shook his head. Slughorn sighed and tipped the bottle a bit heavier into his own glass, then put the stopper in the neck of the decanter and sipped his mead, thinking, putting off answering. Finally, "It's... not a known side effect of the Wartcap, no. Not when the scans showed no damages to her vocal chords previously. And still. The mediwitch and healers are questioning whether it was done magically, if someone hasn't silenced her."
Regulus's brow furrowed, "Who would do that?"
"Someone who did not want for her to speak," Slughorn said. He stared into his mead, then looked at Regulus. "My boy," he said quietly, coaxingly...
The tone made Regulus's stomach clench. Though he did not show it outwardly, he could feel his heart rate begin to quicken ever so slightly. Was Slughorn suspicious of him? Did he know?
"I know -- the rumors -- about your father and mother," Slughorn said. "I'd be deaf not to have my suspicions, of course. Orion Black was quite public about his... beliefs... and I remember him in school myself, when he was younger... in Hogwarts, ourselves..."
"Really?" Regulus looked up at Slughorn. He'd never heard anyone speak of his father when he was young before. But it occurred to Regulus suddenly that, of course it made sense the teachers now instructing at Hogwarts would have either been just beginning their teaching or might have even attended the school at the time when his father and mother were here as well, and he stared up at Slughorn, suddenly quite eager to hear what the old man had to say. He imagined hearing tales that might make him laugh and remember his father fondly. He imagined running and telling Sirius and being able to bond over the stories of Slughorn's memories of Orion and his friends from school. Perhaps, he dared to dream, Orion had even once been a member of a group similar to Sirius's now - similar to Marauders?
Slughorn looked abashed at Regulus's eagerness and he took another long sip of his mead.
"Did you know him then?" Regulus asked.
Slughorn finished the glass and stared into it. "I taught him."
"Tell me?" begged Regulus, "Tell me about my father?"
Slughorn lowered the glass and stared down into it, regretting that he'd brought it up at all, and also regretting that the mead was nearly gone already. "Orion was quite the advocate of the agenda. Member of the Knights of Walpurgis, of course, and one of the closest to old Tom, next to Abraxus."
"Malfoy?" Regulus asked.
Slughorn put the glass down and lifted the stopper off the decanter again. "Abraxus Malfoy, yes."
"And who was Tom? Not the Leaky Cauldron bloke?"
"No, not the Leaky Cauldron bloke," Slughorn answered, and he poured his mead again.
"Who, then?"
Slughorn shook his head, "The Tom who I taught does not exist anymore," he replied simply, then, "What matters is that your father ended up one of the first and most vocal followers of You-Know-Who, and it would surprise me very much to find that Orion Black was anything but a close follower, even today." He looked at Regulus, "And therefore very much if his wife was anything less than that as well. And... perhaps the son as well."
Regulus's eyes met Slughorn's.
"I'm not judging, my boy, we all have our beliefs," Slughorn added.
Regulus felt as though he were in the center of a chess match, as though every word was a move and he could lose a great deal if he took the wrong track. He cleared his throat, "We do," he agreed.
"It would explain rather a lot about the discord between - between Sirius and yourself."
Regulus didn't answer. Didn't dare to.
"And, I think perhaps, might answer the question of who might have silenced your mother, and why." Slughorn stared directly into Regulus's eyes.
Regulus didn't know if Slughorn new legilimency, but he felt himself putting up the walls in his mind, closing up like a proper occlumens, blocking out anything that might be reaching in.
Then Slughorn broke their stare and finished, "Any one of the Dark Lord's followers might have done it, on his command, to keep her from telling secrets to the mediwitches and healers, I suspect."
Regulus nodded, "Any one of them."
"I feel confident that it's a bit of magic worked upon your mother and that she will soon speak again, very confident that you needn't worry much on it, but I felt you ought to have been informed of the development. And ho! At least she's awake, at least she's up! On the track to health once again." Slughorn cheersed Regulus, raising his glass to his mother's health before sipping the mead once more. He paused as he lowered the glass and swallowed the drink, then looked at Regulus sidelong. "Might I make a - a small request?"
"Yes sir?" Regulus asked.
Slughorn hesitated, his jaw quivering slightly from old age. Then, "You'll remember me, should the time ever come? You'll remember how I didn't judge you?"
Regulus wasn't sure what Slughorn was asking of him. "Sir?"
"Only that you'll put in a good word for me," Slughorn said, not wanting to directly speak the words he was trying to say. He paused, "That you'll remember I was neither here nor there, that I support neither side in the great war fully, but rather existing. I support the peace of all of us being in agreement with one another and if that means looking the other way to rather unpleasant things... if I must..." He paused, then, "Just that you'll remember me, Regulus."
Regulus felt sick. He wanted to scream at Slughorn that not fighting for either side was just as evil as fighting for the wrong side... that being in the grey area, that merely existing and looking the other way was just as wrong as committing the crime at hand... But he held it back for he realized that it was what he, Regulus, was doing as well. Existing in the grey area between good and evil. But at least he had the decency to keep it to himself, to keep from begging teenagers for favors of protection.
In that moment, Regulus Black hated Horace Slughorn because here was a man who had the freedom to stand up without losing a single thing, not even a single comfort would be stripped of him here in the dungeons of Hogwarts if he were to denounce the Dark Lord fully and publicly. Yet he was too afraid to, too afraid of what might happen if Voldemort rose to power. It wasn't like Regulus, who would lose his home, what was left of his family... Who was in too deep so young that he had no freedom without a target being placed upon his back.
"I couldn't ever forget, professor," Regulus said lowly.
And he meant it. But not in the way that Horace Slughorn might have hoped. For, Regulus thought, if the time ever came, he would remember only what a coward Horace Slughorn really was.