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The Old Divination Chamber


Regulus Black’s body pressed against Maryrose Jenkins’s. They were in one of the cells of the dungeons, where the light was low and the shadows concealed them. They had knicked blankets from the laundry, piles of duvets that they’d thrown upon the floor and now lay on in the dark together, their limbs twined about each other and kissing hungrily, Regulus leaning over, his shaggy black hair hanging over his temple. She ran her hands through his hair, the softness of it running through her fingers like strands of velvet. She gasped as his mouth travelled over her chin to her neck and one of his hands slid over her hip, the other supporting him up so he did not crush her…

His mouth had never travelled from her face and his hands had never slid along her body like this before and the sensation of it was taking her breath away and she gasped as he undid her tie and kissed along the neckline of her loosely buttoned oxford uniform shirt, his lips touching the skin of her collarbone, the exhilaration of it taking her breath away, making her chest heave for air. Regulus smiled at the effects he was having on her, loving the power it made him feel, loving the fact that he was making her sound so happy…

Suddenly there were footsteps in the corridor outside and Regulus looked up.

In the doorway of the cell in which they lay, stood Professor Gaunt.

Regulus sat up quickly, handing Maryrose back her tie as she scrambled to sit up, too.

“Professor,” Regulus said, doing up his own tie as he spoke, “Hullo…”

“Mr. Black.” Gaunt said levelly. He glanced at Maryrose, then back to Regulus, his eyes burning.

Regulus felt his cheeks turning red.

“Although I wasn’t seeking you out, you may prove to be rather useful to me now. Will you assist me?” he asked.

Regulus nodded, getting to his feet, “Yes, sir, of course.” He reached out a hand to Maryrose to help her up and Gaunt let out a scoffing snort and turned away from the doorway of the cell, into the corridor, clearly irritated by Regulus’s thoughtfulness.

Maryrose looked suspiciously at Gaunt’s turned back and then to Regulus, “Are you okay? With him?” Her eyes searched Regulus’s.

“Yeah, go, I’ll find you later,” Regulus whispered back.

Maryrose ducked around Gaunt and down the hallway, carrying her tie and her robes over her arm, her blue hair a bit tousled. Gaunt’s eyes watched her go and he turned around to face Regulus. “You’re wasting your energies, Mr. Black,” Gaunt said, his voice slowly creeping higher from the facade to the tone that Regulus was used to. "They would be much better spent alongside Lyra Greengrass."

Regulus didn’t know what to say, so he stayed quiet.

Gaunt stared at him for a long moment, then, “Come.”

Regulus followed down the hall, past the cells, back toward the Slytherin common room and they were in the hall by the Prefects toilet when Gaunt paused and turned to face a portrait of an old man with a haggard appearance - a grey beard and milky white eyes, clutching a cane that looked like the roots of a dozen trees twined together. Although he’d walked by it hundreds of times since beginning at Hogwarts, Regulus recognized the portrait for the first time. It was the blind seer, Kostos Mopsus. His heart rate picked up at the realization.

Gaunt stared up at the portrait and whispered, “Forsooth.”

There was a moment’s pause in which nothing seemed to happen but then the portrait nodded slowly and then slid to the left, revealing behind it a door.

Gaunt stepped forward quickly and he pushed the door open and disappeared into the dark within it. “Regulus,” he called from inside. “Come.”

Regulus glanced down the hallway and then stepped inside as well and Gaunt closed the door and he heard the portrait slide back across the door, sealing them into pitch darkness.

“Lumos,” murmured Gaunt and his wand tip ignited and Regulus could see his face was changing slowly, his nose flattening a bit, his eyes darkening from greenish-brown to a burnt reddish colour, spreading further apart, shadows collecting beneath the eyes, the hair shortening… And soon before him was no longer Professor Gaunt, but the Dark Lord, Voldemort.

Regulus tried to hide his surprise at the transformation. He’d known that beneath the mask had been Voldemort, but he’d expected it to be an act of transfiguration, of spell work, but the way the features had melted back so gradually without any use of his wand...

“It’s Polyjuice,” hissed Voldemort. “Polyjuice with a bit of hair from a long dead relative of mine.”

“And the name? Is that your dead relative’s too?” Regulus asked, curious.

“Gaunt is, but Pleiades is a creation of my own,” murmured Voldemort, The pale face cracked into a smirking grin, a triumphant smile, proud of the brilliance of the plan. “A cluster of seven of the brightest stars in the sky.“ He stared at Regulus’s awed face for a long moment, pleased with the expression on his face - he had impressed the boy, it was clear. Basking in his, Voldemort turned and walked further into the tunnel that they’d stepped into, leading the way through a passageway.

Regulus followed, wondering if Sirius and his friends knew about this passageway, as they seemed to have knowledge of several secret tunnels and rooms throughout the castle. Though he’d never seen them venturing about in the dungeons, other than to go out to the underground docks, so they probably did not. He followed the pale glow of Voldemort’s wandlight, through the bowels of the castle, down a steep flight of stairs that descended down-down-down in a corkscrew pattern, like the opposite of Dumbledore’s office staircase. Nervous of tripping on crumbling steps, Regulus pulled out his own wand. “Lumos,” he muttered and he held the wand in his teeth as he walked, dragging his palms on the walls, balancing himself, staring downward at the glow of his wandlight illuminating the stairs.

Finally, they reached the bottom and Regulus took his wand from his teeth and looked around as Voldemort lit lanterns.

They were in what appeared to be a sort of parlour with cushions and curtains and lanterns and books in stacks and clocks. So many clocks. They lined the walls and were stuck ot the ceiling and on shelves. Watches and alarm clocks and hourglasses. Cuckoos and grandfather clocks… Amongst the clocks on the shelves stood other items - crystal balls of varying fogginess on silver or wooden stands and crystals, gemstones, dice, and even bones. The skull of a creature that looked half bird half human stood on a spike and in a clear jar there floated a heart - an actual human heart, suspended in some sort of fluid. The heart was beating.

“Where are we?” Regulus asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“This is the old divination chamber,” Voldemort answered lowly, and he crossed the room to a fireplace, which was dark and covered with ashes.

There were cushions, little seats, all around and Regulus lowered himself down onto one. “They taught divination down here? Way down here?” He looked back at the stairwell.

“The vibrations of the earth, the fates, are much stronger either closer to the core of the earth, or closer to the fathoms of the sky,” Voldemort muttered, “The darkness aided the art of charging the crystals and lighting the moonstones. This was the layer of Kostos Mopsus when first he taught within this walls.” Voldemort stared around the room. “And it must be here that Mopsus now hides.”

Regulus asked, “Hides? But… but Mopsus is dead. You killed him, didn’t you? That’s what Mother said. And father. You killed him in the Lestrange Manor, before it blew up, nearly two years ago.”

“Death is an illusion for those who have made the proper arrangements,” Voldemort murmured.

Regulus watched as Voldemort moved around the room, slowly lifting the timepieces and inspecting them, lifting them up and turning them over, gently shaking a few, or reaching for the hands and moving them about the face before replacing them down. He turned over hour glasses and wound watches…

“What are you doing, my Lord?” Regulus asked.

“Searching. FInd one that does not stop, Mr. Black,” he hissed, “Hurry. Find one that does not stop.”

Regulus moved to one of the shelves and began imitating the Dark Lord’s motions, picking up pieces and fiddling with them, and putting them back down when he managed to move the hands or still the tick-tockings. He didn’t know what he was doing it for, didn’t know what purpose this would serve, but a funny feeling began to build within him, a sort of… knowledge… and he suppressed it, shoving it back, deep into the strongholds of his mind, to be thought of another time, another place, when he could think freely.

It must’ve been an hour at least, that’s how many timepieces cluttered the room, but soon they’d exhausted each one and there were none there that would not stop.

Voldemort cursed in his anger and in his rage, he waved his hands at the fireplace and set a burst of green flame into the hearth so strong that it raged like the sound that of a roaring dragon as it burst from his palms and when he stopped, he took a deep breath and straightened his clothes. He turned to look upon Regulus.

“Check every clock, every watch, every timepiece you see in this castle,” Voldemort demanded. “Do you understand me? It must be here somewhere. It must. Your worthless father never found it for me, despite my demands.”

“My - my father?” Regulus stammered.

“I commanded Orion to find me the clock that does not stop and he swore to me he would find it, and never did he find it!” Voldemort spat. “One of the many failures your family had brought upon my campaign. Oh the things the Blacks owe the Dark Lord! Oh the debt that you must pay, little Regulus, your father had dug you a hole of debts and failures to make up so deep that you could not see from the bottom of it.”

Regulus felt as though as weight were being put upon his shoulders.

“The son will pay for the father’s mistakes,” hissed Voldemort quietly.

“Yes my Lord,” Regulus whispered - because that was what the Dark Lord wished to hear.

Voldemort turned and was second-checking a handful of the clocks along the mantel, the green flames still roaring in the hearth, and Regulus hovered there, watching him. Suddenly a glimmer caught his eye and Regulus turned to look and on a small table beside a chair sat a crystal ball and in the ball, he saw something moving… ever so slightly.

Regulus was terrible at Divination - it was one of his least favorite subjects and he really couldn’t wait until after his O.W.L.s, when he could drop the subject, much preferring Care of Magical Creatures and Arithmancy, both of which he was taking along with Divination that year. But he knew enough about crystal balls to know that usually what one saw within them was not physical, it was mental, it was a like a deeply meditative state in which one’s subconscious would connect to the spiritual realm and one could “see” things in that way - seeing with an inner eye. But this - this glimmer, this movement - this was something he was seeing with his actual eyes.

He glanced at Voldemort, still busy with the clocks, and he inched closer and bent before the shelf beside the chair, pretending at attempting to wind a row of old fashioned watches again… but he looked into the crystal ball instead and he saw a sea… a dark grey sea… that seemed to stretch away forever in every direction, all the way to the horizons.

And in that sea, he saw his brother. Sirius. But not Sirus as he’d looked that morning, sitting at the breakfast table… Rather this Sirius was skinnier than he’d ever seen him, with sunken eyes and protruding cheek bones, his flesh hanging across his face like wet gauze where his cheeks ought to be full. His hair was long and straggly, his pallor gaunt and pale and his eyes flashing, desperate… The water was swirling, white capped and dangerous, smashing against the rock, trying to pull Sirius away from it, trying to drag him beneath the surface. And Sirius was crying out, though Regulus could not hear him, he could see his mouth shouting, could read his lips.

Help me, have mercy on me!

Regulus’s eyes strayed to Voldemort’s back once more - he was still engulfed in his search - and then Regulus turned back to the crystal ball.

Help me!

Regulus reached for the ball. He didn’t know what he was thinking. Perhaps that he would reach right through the crystal and grab hold of Sirius’s hand and pull him out or something. But of course when he grabbed at it, his fingers hit the orb and it wobbled and toppled from the plinth upon which it stood, rolled across the little table, and though Regulus scrambled to catch it, he did not make it quite in time, and the ball fell through his fingers and hit the floor and shattered into a thousand bits… whispers of smoke rising up from the floor where it had broken.

He stared at it for a moment.

No crystal ball would have shattered like that.

Voldemort turned around. “What have you done?” he hissed. “You’ve shattered a prophecy!”



“A prophecy?” Regulus asked, looking at the broken glass on the ground.

Voldemort scowled. “Out of here. Get out of here before you break anything else of importance!”

Regulus scrambled to his feet, dropping the watch he held to the shelf quickly, and he rushed to the door, more than eager to get the hell away from this strange room, with all those ticking clocks and the twisted, angry face of the Dark Lord, eager to get away from that shattered orb and the images of his brother it had held.