Black Rose [Regulus Black]

15 - intrusive halfwits & unexpected truces

Regulus' heart hammered and his breaths were unsteady as the tingling in his right hand grew steadily worse. Perhaps it was the conversation he'd just had with his mother, or the fact that he saw his brother after years, or that Alessandra could be in danger, but his entire body was wracked with this horrid sense of foreboding that seeped through all his blood vessels and caused this ringing sound to build up in his head.

He swore under his breath as he apparated in front of her residence and tried to squint through the dark window of her house, the panic in him rising with each passing second. It had taken a while for him to rip away from his mother, who was suspicious and had questioned him incessantly, refusing to let him go until he had provided her a satisfactory explanation. Despite every molecule of his being raging and screaming and itching, he had answered calmly, telling her that he had gone to see the Rosiers. It wasn't technically a lie, because it was Alessandra Rosier, so if his mother got mad, he could tell her that he did say he was going to visit a Rosier.

Of course, technicalities wouldn't stop his mother from wreaking havoc about it, but that wasn't his top priority then. His main concern was that Alessandra had been signaling him through their shared mark for half an hour now, and because of his incompetence and his mother's stubbornness, she could just be dead.

His mind raced with possibilities as he quickly climbed up the steps to her flat, his feet fueled by adrenaline and racing of their own accord. Had his mother found out and then decided to remove her from the picture? Worse, had the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord been told? He couldn't figure it out because it was so sudden and unexpected, and all rationality had abandoned him. He slowed down as he neared the landing to her flat, and cast a silencing charm on his shoes. He crept towards the door, tapping his wand on the doorknob to see whether it was cursed. Satisfied, he flicked his wand to make the door open, only to be greeted with a sight that looked like a scene straight out of a comedy show.

It looked like a natural disaster had hit the room, with a strange red substance smeared over the walls. A man with messy, dark hair was draped over the sofa, his limbs splayed out and tied to the four corners of the room with what Regulus presumed was a skipping rope. Pettigrew was whimpering under the table, covered in a variety of foods ranging from cakes to curries. The werewolf was pinned to the wall with two wooden sticks protruding out of its arms, and he realised that the dining chair was missing two legs. The best vision, however, was of his brother sprawled on the floor stomach-down with an egg cracked on his head and his limbs bent backward by Alessandra, who was sitting on top of him with a visibly enraged expression on her face.

"What is going on here?" he asked slowly, unable to prevent the smile spreading on his face. He was probably just being vindictive, but he didn't care, because it was the most enthralling thing he had ever seen.

"These halfwits," she snarled, pausing to tug Sirius' hair when he wriggled under her unyielding grip, "broke into my house, and then tried to assault me."

"We weren't trying to assault you," Lupin spoke up, his voice slightly strained. He wasn't really in pain because his werewolf genes were trying to heal him and minimize the ache, but it was mostly just uncomfortable, like an uncontrollable itch. It didn't help that he was slammed against the wall with no support to his head.

"You shut up!" she roared, her voice echoing with pure fury. "You fuckers even had the audacity to raid my fridge!" She pointed one finger at Pettigrew, who seemed unharmed but also looked like he was about to piss in his pants. Regulus slowly walked over to one of the smears on the wall and ran his finger through the substance, noticing that it was different in texture and smell and coming to the conclusion that it was probably jam and not blood.

"We weren't planning to," he countered weakly, trying to make himself appear as small as possible. "I just happened to see that you had nice food in your fridge."