Black Rose [Regulus Black]

58 - intriguing hypotheses & good advice

Alessandra was sitting on the couch in Sirius' house when she felt another vision coming upon her. The visions were usually disguised in the form of nightmares while she slept, but today, it happened while she was awake.

A flash of green light.  The unhinged jaws of a snake.

A dead body falling to the floor. Another dead body falling to the floor. And another.

A flash of fangs. A writhing snake. A writhing snake-like man.

Scared blue eyes. Unseeing brown eyes. Glowing red eyes.

After what seemed like eternity, the mayhem seemed to end, ash and dust floating in the air around a robed figure crouched on the ground. Alessandra held her breath as a small ball of white light floated around the figure. It was just that, a ball of light, but she could've sworn she saw it wriggling, resisting the invisible force that was dragging it away from the crouched figure and towards the snake.

And then the crouched figure's red eyes locked on her.

There was a loud screeching as he lunged for her and she pressed herself against the wall-

"Ow!" there was a roar of pain as her hand made contact with something bumpy, and she was harshly thrown back to reality to see a pair of grey eyes peering her in concern.

"What happened?" Reg urged. "You were writhing and shrieking, I thought someone placed you under the Cruciatus Curse."

Behind him, Sirius wailed, "She broke my nose! My beautiful nose!"

Nobody paid him any mind.

"Nagini," she gasped. "He made her a Horcrux."

"He made a Horcrux for her?" Regulus' eyebrows knit together.

"No, she is the Horcrux."

"Are you sure?" he asked, uncertainly. "I didn't even consider the possibility of the Horcrux being a living person."

"I think so? I think he killed Rodolphus and made Nagini the Horcrux." Alessandra wracked her brains, trying to recall what she saw, but the paralyzing fear she'd felt towards the very end had shrouded the entire vision in a veil of uncertainty.

He swore. "On her own, that snake was deadly. How the fuck are we going to kill her now that he's going to put more protection around her?"

"What's going on?" Evan popped his head in, followed by Dorcas. "I thought it was a girl that was yelling. Why is he screaming like an unhinged lunatic?"

"He is an unhinged lunatic," Marlene muttered, walking in and shoving Sirius.

He flopped down to the ground. Nobody paid him any mind.

"Are you fine?" Dorcas asked. "You two look very shaken up."

Alessandra explained everything she saw.

"It could be because of the Imperius curse," Evan said thoughtfully. "Maybe the Dark Lord controlled you for so long that some of your consciousness seeped into his, and you can see from his perspective."

"Is that even possible?" she frowned. "If I were to use the Imperius curse on you, you'd have permanent access to my mind?"

"I actually never thought about the implications of that," Regulus said. "Maybe because he controlled you for months on end, you formed a sort of permanent link with him."

"But if this happened to anybody else, the connection wouldn't be as strong," Evan added. "Another factor is the blood rel-" he choked on his sentence, suddenly shutting up.