Faith in Fear | A Regulus Black Story.

Chapter 14 - The House of Gaunt

January 1st, 1981

Dear R,

I hope this letter finds you well. I know I have not spoken to you much these past few months, but I require your attention at your earliest convenience.

Please meet me in my office at midnight tonight.

Sincerely,

A.D.

Not spoken to him in months had been quite the understatement. Regulus had not heard a word from Dumbledore since he had destroyed the diary and that wasn't even directly by him, it was through what Sirius had relayed back to him. He had actually started to believe that he was never going to hear from him again. Sometimes he thought about just storming back into his office like he had after the night the Dark Lord had learned of the prophecy, but what more could he say?

Maybe he ought to finally tell someone about Peter... In the last two months since Peter had been introduced to the Death Eaters, Regulus had been carefully watching him, making sure that he was always within his reach. Every meeting, he listened to every word and if Peter ever spoke, he was the first to listen. He had promised that he was going to watch him and Regulus always kept his promises. The problem wasn't keeping an eye on him though, it was that he still hadn't said a word about it to anyone. How do you tell your brother that his childhood friend had secretly turned against him? He was already having a hard enough time, how much worse could he possibly make it?

Maybe Dumbledore was the person to tell... being the leader of the Order and all... but Regulus wasn't sure that there was anyone to tell and if he was being quite honest, the information Peter presented at meetings, Regulus could have told them himself if he wanted to. It was never anything really useful or truly important. It was always just about where Order members might be staking out or some relatively useless updates about the Potters, but it had seemed that even Peter wasn't very sure of his information anymore, like he was starting to run out of things to say. Regulus knew that ever since the Order became aware that they might have a spy, they had become that much more secretive and it didn't help that their numbers were dwindling. So, from what he had learned from Sirius and Remus, there was a good chance that there was a lot Peter didn't know.

Then, he had realized something - he couldn't tell Dumbledore, he couldn't tell anyone. The Death Eaters already suspected that someone was working against them and the Dark Lord would know for sure that it was one of his most trusted if Peter were caught. It would be too risky to tell anyone. He couldn't say anything. Not yet at least, but he was still going to go and find out what Dumbledore needed to see him so badly for.

When it was 20 minutes until midnight, he left into the bitter, winter air of the London streets, wrapped up in his cloak and layers of clothes, and apparated back to Hogsmeade again, careful to be sure not a single eye would see him. Travelling back through the Shrieking Shack, out through the passageway guarded by the Whomping Willow, and back into the school, he made his way through his old school's hallways, creeping through the shadows until he made it to the hidden staircase up to the Headmaster's office.

Before he even had a chance to knock on the door at the top of the stairs, it slowly opened as Dumbledore's voice called for him.

"Come in, Regulus, we don't have much time to speak of this." He said as Regulus stepped inside his office. Dumbledore was by his desk, holding onto a small, rectangular piece of paper and his gaze was on Regulus as he walked up to meet him at the desk.

"I haven't heard anything from you in months," Regulus said, "why did you ask me to come here?"

"I've heard that you've hit a bit of a wall recently finding these horcruxes," Dumbledore said plainly, "and it occurred to me that you may not know everything about Tom."