unspeakable | jegulus

falling fast

chapter title: harvest breed by nick drake

"I'm not obliviating a muggle—"

"What do you think the Dark Lord is going to ask you to do in a week's time? Make him friendship bracelets? Braid flowers into his hair?" Antonia was breathing hard and fast. She backed away, and Regulus stepped behind her. Her back to his chest. He was taller than her.

"Barty's right, James. You should do it." His soft voice still sounded so gentle, so sweet, though he was showing his ugliest face now. The face that made James wonder if he might hate him. "Clean up your mess, and I'll tell the Dark Lord when we meet him. If you do it with her, you won't have to do it with Lily. It'll be like you already passed a test."

"You've been itching to do this ever since you saw me with her outside of your house. I know you have, because the first thing you told me to do with her was practice my unforgivable curses. You're a terrible person. I don't like you when you act like this—"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Antonia was staring at all of them with wild eyes, terrified, confused. "Curse me-?"

"You should have lied a little better, Tony." Barty took his wand out of his sleeve, a shortish, brutish, black wand. James stepped between him and her.

"She's a person, you can't just do whatever you want to muggles just because they're born different than we are—"

"You are on the wrong fucking side of the war, Potter. Grow a pair and get out of my way." Barty stepped closer to him, glaring, wand in hand. James took out his own. They were chest to chest, glaring hotly. "For a Gryffindor, you're a coward."

"If you think I'm a coward for not wanting to hurt the weak that says more about you than me, Crouch."

"I'm a bad person, we both know that—"

"I told you to stop fighting!" Regulus interrupted, incandescent with rage. "If James doesn't want to do it, I will. We can't just let her walk around with memories of this conversation in her head. We need to get rid of them. I've used the spell before, so I should be the one who does it. I wanted James to do it because he's scared his mudblood ex girlfriend will be part of his test of loyalty when he meets the Dark Lord."

"Everything is about that mudblood with you. Every single decision you make has nothing to do with Regulus, and everything to do with her. Why are you even here, Potter? Are you stupid? This is nothing compared to what I've heard Yaxley talk about in the common room. You want to be a Death Eater, but you can't even polish a couple memories off of a muggle's brain? You're stupid. You're so fucking stupid. You're going to get Regulus killed if you don't start taking this seriously. You have to be the one who does it, or I'm going to get rid of you myself—"

"Barty." Regulus' voice was icy. A warning burning in the cold. "I chose him for a reason. He's not going to become a different person overnight—"

"It's been months! I know exactly why you chose him, Regulus, and it has nothing to do with his nature. You like him for the same reasons everyone else does, and you're vain enough to think he likes you too, but you can't seem to see that he thinks you're some kind of project. He wants to fix you, and save you, because you're Sirius Black's little brother, not because he actually cares about you for who you are."

"How would you know a thing about what I feel for Regulus?"

"Because, if you loved him you would be willing to do anything for him. That includes ugly shit like this. You don't deserve him. I don't like you. You're weak. You're soft. You're going to get my best friend killed."