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Please, No More


”In. Get in. Hurry up, Regulus.”

Sirius’s hand was firm on Regulus’s back, pushing him into the little clubhouse in the attic. Regulus landed in the sea of blankets they’d arranged over the ancient oriental rug. Sirius knelt down behind his brother, facing Regulus, illuminated by the triangle of light coming in through the flaps of the old duvets they’d made into doors.

Regulus wanted Sirius to come in, too.

“Please,” he begged, extending his arms to his brother, “Please.”

“Father and Mother are really upset, Reg, you need to stay here, alright? Please just stay here,” Sirius’s voice was as firm as his hand had been.

“Come in and tell me about Snuffles,” Regulus pleaded.

“I can’t Reg,” Sirius replied, shaking his head. “Promise me you’ll stay here.”

Regulus choked on the air that fought its way into his lungs as Sirius backed away on his knees, letting the flap swing shut, and the light cut out. Regulus hugged his knees and listened as the attic door closed and the stairs creaked under Sirius’s weight… and though he couldn’t really hear the spells being cast from the attic, he’d heard them enough from his bedroom or else from the stairs all summer. He knew what Mother did to Sirius in the library… She’d been using the torture curse on him ever since Sirius’s funny obsession with the little muggle boy in the park had started tearing the family apart, ever since Mother started saying There Was Something Wrong With That Boy and that Sirius’s Thinking Had Gone Funny….

And though he couldn’t hear the curse, he could hear his brother’s voice crying out…

And it was because of the Dark Lord. It was the Dark Lord’s fault. Oh what a scary thing the Dark Lord was, not someone to be crossed or else you would end up tortured - like Sirius - and Regulus was very, very scared of being tortured… He was scared of anything that made his brave, strong older brother cry out like that…

And still, he could hear Sirius’s voice...


Coming to slightly, Regulus clutched the stone table, his knees gone from beneath him as he gasped for air. In his fist was the small black vial.

His mind might have been in Grimmauld Place just now, but his body was still firmly in the cave in the sea, before Voldemort, who knew where on a map. And Regulus looked up at Voldemort with pain in his eyes. “My Lord,” he pleaded, gasping and choking for air, “My Lord…”

Voldemort reached over and put his hand around Regulus’s gently and, as though he were doing a good deed, the Dark Lord guided Regulus’s hand up so that the bottle lay against his lips once more and tipped it so that more of the Dementor’s Venom slid into Regulus’s throat and he let out a gasp as he felt the liquid strike his tongue with a sensation not unlike the purest, coldest ice water.

“Please,” he begged, “Please, no more.”

Sweat poured over Regulus’s forehead.

“No more…” his voice was but a whisper as the next wave of horror struck him...




“Please! No more,” Sirius said, tossing down the handful of muggle playing cards Lily had been teaching him how to play a game called Rummy with. “You’ve beaten me enough!”

Lily smirked. “Oh come on now, Sirius, it isn’t so bad…”

For you, perhaps, you’re winning!” he complained. He tucked his knees into a pretzel shape before himself and reached up to twist his hair into a knot.

Lily smirked and swept the cards up from the mattress of the bed they were sitting on, keeping a watch on James in the very next one, the moonlight flooding the Hospital Wing. “You’ll get better at it the more you play.”

“I never got better at Gobstones. Even filthy Kreacher can beat me at Gobstones,” Sirius pointed out. Lily started to deal the cards again. “Lilith!” he complained.

“Persistence, Black.”

“IS FUTILE, Evans.”

A sudden groan from the next bed made them both look up. Lily craned her neck in worry, studying James longer than Sirius had, who had merely glanced that direction for a moment. Sirius raised an eyebrow at her. She caught him staring and flushed, “Stop. I know what you’re thinking.”

“Do you?” he asked.

“Yes, you’re thinking --” Lily stopped short, then took a deep breath and changed tack. “Why do you even want him to be with a jinx anyway, Sirius? Did you enjoy all of the - the hell that we’ve just been through? Do you enjoy him looking like - like that? All tortured and beat up and --” her voice caught in her throat. She shook her head.

Sirius said, “Evans. If you were a jinx, then how come he’s back? How come he’s alright?”

“Because he was rescued,” she said.

By you,” Sirius pointed out.

Lily bit her lip and continued dealing the cards, carefully keeping her eyes trained on the illustration on the back of them as her thumb slid over the smooth coated paper. “Besides,” she added, “We don’t know he’s alright, there is any number of horrible things that could still be wrong with him… just because his body’s in one piece…” Her voice choked up a bit and she stared extra hard at the cards. “Barely in one piece.”

Sirius murmured, “Too many.”

“What?”

“You’ve dealt too many cards.”

Lily blinked and realized he was right and scooped them up again, sweeping a fist over her cheek. She took a deep breath, looked at James, then up at Sirius. He was still staring at her with those intense grey eyes, like he was waiting for something, and she let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding in a long, streaming sigh. “Sirius, I don’t even know how to --” she paused.

He tilted his head.

“Will you please, just play cards with me? Okay? Just forget about it while I work out how it works in my head a little?”

“Alright.” Sirius watched her dealing the cards a second time, and then he cleared his throat, “You know, I once knew a guy in exactly this same position…” Lily didn’t look up. “The same position in which you find yourself, Lilith Marsupial Evans.”

Marsupial isn’t even a name, Sirius.”

“Isn’t it?” He asked, then, without waiting for her to answer, he plowed onward, “This guy was a real gent, if you know what I mean. Popular, good looking, fucking brilliant, and an absolute ladies man… could’ve had any wee lass in the school.”

Lily raised an eyebrow.

“Well for all his smashing, charming, fucking brilliance, he was sort of stupid, too, because he could’ve been with this absolutely gorgeous man this entire time and he --”

“I knew this was about you,” Lily inserted.

“Lilith, I am trying to tell you a story,” Sirius reprimanded her.

“I know how it ends, Sirius. The smashing, charming, fucking brilliant boy gets the man in the end, yeah?”

“After so much idiocy and suffering and the sort, yeah,” Sirius answered. “But all of that could’ve been avoided if only he had been educated in the ways of love.”

Lily laughed, “Educated in the ways of love?”

Yes,” Sirius answered.

“Is that one of the classes you’re taking, then? Love 101?”

Sirius grinned, “Well, darling Lilith-Marie, I hardly need it any, do I?” He leaned back into the mound of pillow behind him, crossing his ankles and tucking his hands behind his head, relaxing into the pillows, “You’re the oune that ought to be taking it, I could fucking teach that class.” He’d started to close his eyes… but they sprang opened again and he stared at her. She was shuffling the deck of cards slowly, staring down at the movement of them from one hand to the other, and Sirius sat back up, rolling his legs off the side of the bed and he reached over and stilled her hand from shuffling. “Oi. Evans.”

She looked up at him.

“I could fucking teach that class,” he repeated, and his eyes glinted.

Lily stared at him a long moment.

It was at that moment in which the large doors to the hospital wing burst open and through them came Dora Potter, who had broken away from her husband’s grasp to run ahead, though he was not far behind her, and then Dumbledore and McGonagall and Urquart. Sirius sat up a bit straighter than he’d already done and Lily quickly tucked the playing cards into her jumper pocket as Dora and Charlus descended upon James’s bed, their eyes wild with worry and wet with relief.

“He’s alright, he’s alright,” Dora sobbed as she grabbed onto her son’s good arm, “Bleeding hell Charlus, look at him, he’s alright!” she pressed his palm to her cheek and cried into his skin, her hands shaking.

Charlus stood behind her, his palms on her shoulders, staring down at James with a rather traumatized look about his face. He turned to Dumbledore, “And we’re absolutely certain this time?” he asked, “We’re certain it’s him?”

Dumbledore turned to look at McGonagall and Urquart.

“Oh it’s certainly him, Flea,” replied Elphinstone Urquart as he adjusted his glasses. “We used a small spot of veritaserum at the shore when the ship arrived.”

Dumbledore shook his head, “When the ship arrived...” He looked at Sirius and Lily, who were both sitting, trying to be inconspicuous, and he cleared his throat.

Sirius looked up, “I suppose that you’ll be expecting me to promise not to pirate any ships without a helmet, then, sir?”

Despite himself, Dumbledore couldn’t help but smirk. “Mr. Black,” he replied, “I do not see the use in a helmet while pirating a ship, however, I must say that I don’t fully understand exactly what the lot of you were thinking, going on such a dangerous rescue mission as you’ve done - all the way to -- Durmstrang -- on your own…”

“We had to save James, sir,” Lily said simply.

“Ye could’a been killed!” Professor McGonagall said, her accent thick. “Or worse ye could’a been captured alongside him!!” Professor Urquart laid a hand on her shoulder to calm her.

“I’m sorry, Minnie darling,” Sirius sid, “But honestly it was a risk we were all willing to take.”

Dumbledore said, “Well unfortunately, your risk has caused a good deal of strain on the relationship between Durmstrang and Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic has been informed of the breach of etiquette. It seems Headmaster Karkaroff has requested for the law to step in and --”

“Karkaroff can go to hell!” Sirius interrupted, “Helping Voldie with doing rubbish like stealing James - he should go to Azkaban and rot his merry soul away.”

Dumbledore cleared his throat and said, “Headmaster Karkaroff claims no knowledge of the presence of Voldemort in his school and --”

“HE’S A LIAR!” Sirius shouted.

“Which is why the Prewett twins have issued a call to trial,” Dumbledore said. “A summons for Karkaroff to come forward and explain himself and the involvement of Durmstrang Institute with the will of the Dark Lord.”

Sirius snorted, “Like he’s going to attend that!”

Lily said, “If he doesn’t, they’ll have a reason to arrest him, wouldn’t they?”

Sirius looked hopefully at Dumbledore, who nodded. Sirius grinned, “Well bugger, they’ve got him then, haven’t they?”

“In the meantime, Mr. Black,” Dumbledore said, clearing his throat, “I have returned the ship to it’s home, along with the young man who you kidnapped --”

Sirius smirked.

“And seen to it that the presence of Miss. Evans has been requested at the Ministry’s offices where your mother awaits you,” he finished.

Lily went quite pale. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes, Miss Evans,” Dumbledore said, nodding.

Sirius looked at her. “Reckon she’ll just be happy to see you’re alive?”

“Yes, I reckon so,” Lily said, nodding, “Because if I wasn’t then she wouldn’t be able to kill me for what I’ve done.”