THE SOUL'S EXCHANGE

Dead Men Walking

Regulus Black had always expected death to be a final, all-consuming silence, a darkness that would swallow him whole. His last conscious memory was of cold water flooding his lungs as the inferi dragged him beneath the surface of the lake. He could feel their bony fingers pulling him down, could taste the brine and decay as he gasped for air that never came. In his final moments, his only thought had been of Kreacher-of the desperate order he had given the house-elf to escape with the locket, to complete the mission Regulus knew he would never finish.

But now... Regulus wasn't drowning. He wasn't dead.

He opened his eyes to a strange, unfamiliar cold. It was not the icy chill of death, not the numbing cold that had gripped him in the depths of the water. This was different-clean, sharp, and biting. He felt it seeping into his bones, the crisp air filling his lungs as he drew in a deep breath. Snow. He was lying in snow.

Panic jolted him awake, his mind scrambling to understand. He pushed himself up, noticing the crunch of the frost beneath his hands, the icy sting on his skin. For a moment, disoriented and confused, Regulus looked around, his breath catching at the sight of the red leaves and white bark of trees that loomed overhead. The faces carved into the trunks seemed to stare back at him, their ancient eyes watching him with silent judgment.

Where am I?

He staggered to his feet, confused and unsteady. The ground beneath him was solid and real, the trees towering above him unfamiliar, but unmistakably alive. And yet... how could this be? He remembered dying-he should be dead. The last thing he could recall was the darkness closing in around him, the inferi dragging him into the depths, and now here he was, standing in a winter forest he had never seen before.

As Regulus struggled to make sense of his surroundings, he glanced down at himself, surprised to find that he wasn't wearing the robes he had worn on his mission. Instead, he was dressed in a heavy fur cloak, thick and coarse, with a wolf sigil clasped at his chest. It looked medieval-ancient, almost-as though he had stepped out of time entirely.

He shivered, not just from the cold but from the disorienting strangeness of it all. Had Kreacher somehow managed to rescue him? Had he been brought to some distant, unknown place for healing? And if so, how long had it been? He didn't feel the stiffness in his joints he should have after having been submerged in water. His limbs moved freely, and the only pain he felt was a dull ache in his head from the confusion.

Suddenly, a voice broke through the stillness.

"Oh my Merlin!" the voice cried out, muffled beneath him as something, or rather, someone, shoved him off. "What the bloody hell-!"

Regulus looked down in astonishment as the figure beneath him sat up, just as bewildered. For a moment, they stared at each other, both too stunned to speak.

"Sirius?" Regulus gasped, his heart pounding. It couldn't be. His brother, his older brother Sirius, sat before him, rubbing his head and blinking in confusion. Sirius, who had been dead for years-who had died in the Department of Mysteries.

"Reggie?" Sirius's voice was rough, still trying to make sense of the situation. He looked as bewildered as Regulus felt. "Is that... is that really you?"

Regulus nodded slowly, unable to fully process the sight before him. Before either of them could say another word, they both reached out, embracing tightly as the shock wore off.

After a long moment, Sirius pulled back, his expression softening with the kind of sadness that only comes with loss. "I guess I've finally reunited with you, after all," Sirius said, his voice tinged with a strange sort of resignation. "In the afterlife."

"Afterlife?" Regulus repeated, his brow furrowing. "What do you mean, afterlife?"

Sirius frowned, taking a step back and looking at Regulus more closely. "You died, Reggie. Back in 1980, trying to take down Voldemort. Kreacher told us. I'm sorry, I thought... well, I thought you'd figured that out."

Regulus felt his stomach twist. "What? No, I didn't-I thought Kreacher saved me. I thought..."

Sirius's expression shifted from confusion to alarm as he glanced around at their unfamiliar surroundings. The trees, the snow, the distant mountains-all of it was foreign. "Wait, if you didn't know you were dead... then where the hell are we?" Sirius muttered, his voice now filled with uncertainty.

Regulus, still reeling from the revelation that he had indeed died, noticed something else. "You're wearing the same wolf sigil," he said, pointing to the fur cloak that draped across Sirius's shoulders. "It looks like... like the Grim."

Sirius glanced down, his hand brushing against the clasp. "It does, doesn't it? But what does it mean?"

Before they could contemplate further, Regulus's voice cut through the stillness once again, laced with confusion. "You said I died. But... what about you? What happened to you?"

Sirius's face darkened, the memories flooding back to him in a wave. "I died in 1995," he began slowly, his voice low and quiet. "We were in the Department of Mysteries, fighting Death Eaters. Sitara-my daughter-she was there. We were trying to protect her, keep her safe from Bellatrix and the others." His eyes clouded over as he remembered the chaos, the spells flying through the air, the heart-pounding fear as Bellatrix closed in on them. "There was a moment-Bellatrix was about to hit her with a curse, a Killing Curse, and I... I pushed her out of the way." He paused, his voice thick with emotion. "The curse hit me instead. The last thing I remember is falling-falling through the veil."

Regulus's heart ached as he listened to his brother's story. Sitara, Sirius's daughter. A daughter he had never known about. And now they were both here, in a place neither of them understood, with no idea how or why.

Before they could process the implications of it all, a voice called out from the distance, cutting through their confusion.

"Brothers! Where are you? Father is looking for you!"

The two of them froze, turning towards the source of the voice. A man emerged from the trees, his raven-black hair and sharp gray eyes eerily familiar. He was tall, muscular, and dressed in a similar fur cloak, with a wolf sigil on his chest.

"Who are you?" Regulus asked, his voice cautious.

The man frowned, looking between them with concern. "What do you mean, who am I? Did you both hit your heads on the weirwood tree again? I'm Cregan Stark, your brother. Father's waiting for you."

Sirius blinked, his face a mixture of disbelief and confusion. "Cregan... Stark?" he repeated slowly, the name not registering.

Before either Regulus or Sirius could ask more, a wave of exhaustion washed over them, the weight of everything they had learned and the strangeness of their situation pressing down on them. They swayed on their feet, their minds unable to process any more.

The last thing Regulus saw before darkness claimed him was Cregan's concerned face, his voice echoing in the distance as he called for help.

And then, everything went black.