Only the Brave

Chapter 53: Alone

"Salazar's beard. Remus, take Barty to a pub or something," Regulus snaps at Remus one very late May evening. They can hear Barty making noise in the room above the lab, pacing back and forth and moving things around. It's driving Regulus up the walls. "He's distracting."

Severus, who is also bent over the cauldron where they're working, grunts his agreement.

The potions laboratory is quiet, most cauldrons simply stewing for the rest of the evening. Following the attack on the Ministry, May has been a busy month, and with the losses they've suffered, there's been some re-shuffling of resources. While Regulus still has a small army of potioners at his disposal, it's not as overwhelming at it was last summer.

"Why am I stuck babysitting?" Remus asks, scowling.

"Because I say so," Regulus replies, not bothering to look up.

The aconite he's pouring into the cauldron hisses as it merges with the rest of the potion. Severus stirs it almost immediately, following a rhythm that's not in the manual but Regulus knows is the optimal pattern. Severus brews potions almost as well as he does.

A couple of weeks ago and at the behest of Regulus, Remus moved on to recruiting new packs once he got all ten actively allied ones under his thumb. To Regulus' delight, he's been doing a brilliant job. There are now twelve packs working for Remus, and they respect him enough that there are no skirmishes to deal with.

Even Lucius is singing Remus' praises, especially after Remus helped him carry out a task Riddle assigned to him before leaving. Lucius had been wracking his brains trying to figure out how to do it when Remus simply volunteered his entire army to help him. Three days later, Remus and his wolves had successfully raided one of the Ministry's warehouses where the Muggle Artifacts department experiments. They burnt the whole thing down, much to Lucius' satisfaction.

When he's not busy with his packs, Remus spends a lot of time with Barty in the room where Evan is still unconscious. This concerns Regulus, admittedly. He has had some of the best healers in the country visit Black Manor to examine Evan, but they don't seem to have yet found the reason for his coma. He's otherwise alright, just... asleep, as it were. And while no one is worried for his life, nobody seems to know how to wake him up. Barty isn't handling it very well, especially because he's staying out of sight and being idle isn't good for him.

"Fine," Remus says, shoving to his feet. "It's not like I've got anything better to do."

It's a farce. They've been playing this game all month because Regulus can't be too careful. He knows Severus is always desperate to gain more favour with the Dark Lord, and Regulus wouldn't put it past him to bring gossip. So, he's been pretending to have a fraught, push-pull type relationship with the new leader of the werewolf packs. So far, Severus seems to have bought it.

"The Dark Lord will be pleased Lupin has made all the packs fall in line," Severus comments as he chops the next ingredient. "Progress has been made in his absence. You're sure to be rewarded."

Regulus doesn't dignify that with a response, instead grinding beetle eyes with a pestle and mortar. Severus has no idea Riddle isn't Regulus' biggest fan at the moment, which tells Regulus the information he's getting isn't widespread. That's a small mercy, because it means his political allies aren't about to turn on him just yet. Not at all, if Regulus can help it.

Riddle has been gone all of May. In that time, Bellatrix has thoroughly annoyed the fuck out of everybody. She insists on calling meetings for no reason, just to parade herself and the power she holds. It's a waste of time, but it does give Regulus ammunition to turn his allies against her.

Carefully, he's been making barbed quips about Bellatrix when talking to the people he knows don't like her already. And he's been conspiring with Lucius to strengthen their faction within the Death Eaters.