The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

Paris in Winter

"I reckon this gent was right cracked."

Regulus looked up from Breeding of the Basilisk.

Cadmus Peverell was leaning against his frame, looking like somebody sitting on a tree branch more than a painting in a frame, staring up at the top corner of the frame with a distant look on his face. "Mmm, he was a character," Cadmus mused.

Regulus sat on the floor of the library, the book on the floor before him, legs splayed out. He'd found a pack of Sirius's cigarettes left behind one of the times his brother had been home. He'd lit one and found he didn't like the taste, gagging on it but being oddly comforted by the smell, so he'd laid it on an old ash tray and let it smoke away like it was incense.

"Master is making the library smell," complained Kreacher.

Regulus ignored the comment, leaning forward to stare at the book. "Says here he named the basilisk Anastasia. What the bloody hell kind of name is that for a gigantic snake?" Regulus looked up at Cadmus Peverell's portrait. "It sounds like the sort of name that ought to be given a poodle more than a horrid fanged poisonous beast."

"And what does Anastasia mean, Regulus?" Cadmus asked in a bored tone. He looked like he was about to fall asleep or something the way he had his head leaned back.

"What?"

"The name. Use your Latin, boy. What does it mean?"

Regulus stared at it a moment, breaking it down into parts. "Up.. rising up... a raising of the dead - a resurrection." He paused. Then looked up, "Like what the horcrux does."

"Yes," Cadmus said. "Exactly."

"You reckon Herpo's basilisk was his horcrux?" Regulus asked, flipping forward a few pages to a detailed drawing of Anastasia the Basilisk. He stared at her ugly fangs.

"More than likely," Cadmus answered. "It was never confirmed. If Herpo actually utilized his horcrux is unknown."

Regulus stared at the horrible snake-monster again, then turned back to one of the pages without illustrations, shuddering.

"Won't Master please use a bigger ash tray?" Kreacher moaned suddenly.

Regulus realized he'd ignored the cigarette long enough it had started to molt ashes and he took his wand and cleared up his mess, repairing a small hole he'd burned in the carpet. "Sorry, Kreacher." He moved the cigarette so it was better positioned for the ash tray to capture the fallen bits, but he didn't put it out.

"Does the horcrux have to be something... alive?" he asked Cadmus.

"No," Cadmus answered. "In fact, it is rather rare that a living thing is made into a horcrux."

"You Know Who has a snake," Regulus commented. "Nagini."

Cadmus frowned, "She's less snake than you think boy." But he offered no more than that before his eyes went distant again.

"Do you think maybe he used Nagini as one, though? Symbolically, since Herpo did?" Regulus was excited, thinking he might've solved it already, but the wind was let out of his sail by the expression on Cadmus's face.

"That would certainly complicate things. Murdering in order to destroy a horcrux could create a paradox..." Cadmus mused, half to himself. "I say this because I believe in order to destroy the horcrux one's intention must be purely against the evil contained within, but indeed to commit a murder to destroy it would call into question the integrity of the individual..."

Regulus said, "Isn't it the same though that you're trying to kill You Know Who anyway, so you're already considering murder if you're going after the horcruxes...? Or is it because it's a - a 'noble killing'? Is there such a thing as a noble killing, though?"