Regimentum ⪼ Sirius Black/OC

Auspicium melioris aevi

Welcome to Regimentum, the second installment of Vivicendium. As usual, a few things to note before you begin reading:

Some creative license will be taken with regards to the canon timeline in this story, as is hinted below. This is to lay down the foundations for the next installment of the series.

Most of the characters and plots that were left unfinished in Season 1 will be carried over to Season 2, including OC characters. It is recommended to read Vivicendium first in order to gain context.

This first chapter is a flash-forward scene that will connect to the center of this story. Then, as in Vivicendium, the story will move backwards in time. Regimentum will focus heavily on the First Wizarding War, the Order of the Phoenix, and Regulus's plot, which will have more significance in the second half of this story.

This story is rated M due to potentially graphic scenes of death, torture, and the overall consequences of war, as well as scenes of a sexual nature. Chapter warnings will be included.

Disclaimer to be thorough: I do not own Harry Potter.

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Chapter One | Auspicium melioris aevi

[An omen of a better time]

There is something irresistibly sweet in the darkness. Something that calls to her in the night. It is like wind rattling the windows on a stormy evening, impossible to ignore. She feels it wrap around her every thought, tainting as it goes, destroying with its icy fingers. It is a blank expanse that stretches beyond her vision, so far that it seems to cover everything in sight; every sentiment, every belief, everything that Vivian Blair is and was and will be, to the point where it is almost impossible to recall the parts of herself that ought to be there. The pieces of her soul that ought to be breathed in flame and happiness.

"You need to close your mind," he tells her, but it is not such an easy thing to do, when memory blossoms behind her eyes and turns them glassy with anguish, and the ice comes to rattle upon thought and consequence and leaves her gasping in the wake of it.

"I'm trying," she hoarsely responds. Her fingers dig into the upholstered armchair, nails scratching against the polished wood. She sees him there in her mind's eye, so vivid that it's unnerving. He is smiling at her from the corner of a photograph, dressed for once with certain care as he lifts a goblet and toasts to the happiness of their friends. He is there again, hair splayed over pillows, reaching for her with a laugh and pulling her into the warmth. And there again, concern etched within his eyes as he takes her hand and pulls her back, away from ricocheting spells and blasts of green light – and again, and again, and again, her name upon his lips, calling out with love and anger, accusing eyes and arresting smiles; a tormenting conundrum that had not been rectified, could not be rectified, until...

"Enough, that's enough," she gasps, slamming her head so hard against the back of the chair that stars swim momentarily through her vision. She wrenches her eyes open and sees a face studying her with a careful expression, just emotionless enough to showcase the barest hint of Regulus Black's own anguish.

"Your mind is still too weak," he tells her. His voice is bathed not with judgement, but with cautious concern. The iron of his eyes is softened in the dim light of the study. He shifts them away from hers as though it is difficult to look at her directly. "...I'll give you a few minutes to collect yourself," he murmurs, and strides to the fireplace to lean against the mantle. He stares into the flames that dance within the hearth.

Vivian doesn't respond. She merely sits there and clenches down upon the arms of the chair, knuckles blanched a stark, bone-white. The veins of her neck protrude from the effort it takes to compose her emotions, but the ice has melted somewhat and a burning fire has alighted in the back of her throat. She tries to swallow it down, but her mouth is too dry and it feels as though there is ash upon her tongue; memories taken out of place and stripped down, like a photograph sitting upon a sunny windowsill for so long that the faces within it fade into the background.