Running in the dark

Chapter 67

Sirius and James had an assignment together. It was just to surveillance Diagon and Knockturn alley and look out for anything suspicious. Sirius was currently walking down Knockturn while James was going around Diagon when it happened.

It was a loud sound and James' first instinct was to grab his wand which he did pulling it upwards. There was a loud chuckle and only then did he realise what was happening, there was some sort of fight happening in Knockturn and he ran, a shop had exploded and James could make out the figure of Sirius laying on the ground.

Many masked people were around now fighting with other witches and wizards and James pointed his wand at one and used the stupefy charm. They flew back knocking into one another and James turned going to the next person in front of him. He had pushed down about three when he was knocked back into a wall.

Everything was a bit hazy and he could see the smoke around, but he stood back up. Some of the death eaters around were apparating away but one had frozen, looking at Sirius who lay unmoving.

James wiped his eyes, trying to blink away the blurriness and he raised his wand at the person.

The death eater, who James had his wand pointed at had lost his mask, it lay discarded on the empty streets, and all nearby witches and wizards had long fled.

And at that moment James wanted to stop. The order meetings, fighting, the war. He wanted to stop as his wand was raised at Regulus.

Regulus turned his gaze away from his brother to look at James. "Kill me," the words came out harsh and like a command from Regulus. "Do it," he urged.

James was shaking, he was going to be sick, it had been so long, too long since he had seen Regulus those eyes that held a thousand secrets, a thousand secrets he used to be willing to tell James and now here he was, hoping that James would kill him.

There was no one around. No one to hear him. "No," James said and he was shaking, Regulus just bowed his head before apparating away.

James did not know how but he managed to move his feet and get over to Sirius. Sirius's head was bleeding and his leg was under a slab of stone but he was breathing. James pulled Sirius up and instantly apparated to St Mungo's.

After two seconds of being there, someone ran into him not seeing him as he had just appeared.

"James what are you," Marlene began and she looked from James to Sirius who was slumped against him and went quiet guiding them to a room as James pulled Sirius along telling her what had happened.

Mary came in a few minutes after and looked at Sirius who Marlene was mending the leg off and then to James.

"Let me fix your head," she said coming over, not sure of what had happened.

"My head?" James asked looking at her, the only thing that was wrong with his head was that he couldn't get the words Regulus had said out of it.

"You're bleeding James," Mary said coming over and beginning to flick her wand at his head.

"He wanted to die, he wanted me to kill him," James muttered.

"Who did?" Marlene asked wrapping a bandage across Sirius' newly healed leg.

"Regulus," James spoke and before he could say more the thump of a stick was heard and Alastor Moody walked in.

"I heard what happened, they caught two death eaters you knocked out Potter, I know one is Kakaroff, how's Black doing," he asked.

"He'll be up in an hour or two," Marlene told him and Alastor nodded leaving a few moments later without a word.

"Regulus was there," Mary asked continuing their earlier conversation.

James nodded. "He was just standing there after everyone left, he was looking at Sirius and then he just looked at me and he asked me to kill him," James said.

"What if he wants out?" Marlene asked, James didn't want to believe this, he didn't want to believe that Regulus was stuck there without a choice, it sounded horrible.

"I think it was guilt, he didn't want Sirius hurt," James replied and it was silent.

Sirius woke up an hour later and told them his side of the story, he had been passing the shop when the death eaters appeared and he tried to fight them but then the place blew up and he was thrown back and knocked out. He wasn't happy to hear that Regulus was there and wasn't at all happier to hear what he had said to James.

The two soon apparated back to Sirius' home where Remus was cooking up dinner. There was a soft limp to Sirius' walk but that would be gone in a round a week. They told Remus what had happened and the whole time Remus held onto Sirius' hand, hating the thought that there was a chance that neither of them would have come home today. It was already November and he still hadn't had an assignment he kept having to be the one waiting to hear the news that his friends were safe after their only assignments.

"Reggie, it'll be alright," Pandora whispered softly taking his hand in hers.

"He just said no, I knew he wouldn't do it, but that's all he said," Regulus told her fighting back tears.

"It's not your fault that happened to Sirius, it was the wrong place and wrong time and you should want to die from it," Pandora told him. The room they were in was quiet and they could talk freely there.

"Dora, if I do die, make sure it goes as planned alright, it can't go wrong, Barty and Evan will help you, but it can't go wrong," Regulus told her.

"It won't go wrong and you're not going to die anytime soon, not on my watch," she told him.