The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

Entering the Gates

Entering the Gates

The bay was as rough as the sea and a wind like none they had ever felt chipped at them like daggers as they stood on the shore. Remus clutched his jumpers 'round himself as tight as he could, and still he doubted whether he would ever feel truly warm again or if the air of this land had completely stolen heat from his bones for all of eternity. His teeth chattered and, even more disturbingly, so did Sirius's - and Sirius was never cold. But as they walked from the Twisted Trunk through the sparsely laid out village, what little bit of light was dying away along the horizon and before they'd reached the shore of the bay - before half past one in the afternoon, according to Sirius's pocket watch, the night had fallen completely upon them and they were plunged into frigid darkness.

Regulus stood, holding his wand high in the air as they reached the end of a pier and the water licked the bottom of the wood, clapping around the support beams that kept the pier up. Lily stared down into the black water as it moved and drifted and Maryrose bit her lip as she watched Regulus moving as close to the edge of the wood as he dared, reaching a hand out into the apparently empty air before the pier.

"Karkaroff just..." he muttered as he fished about, his hand feeling into the dark. "Somewhere about here..."

Sirius said, "Reg, c'mon, we're just standing there - what are we waiting for? I'm freezing my balls off."

Remus murmured, "Not that."

Sirius turned to look at him with a smirking grin. "Even in the frozen tundra, your mind still goes there, 'ey, Moony?"

Remus flushed.

Suddenly, Regulus's fist seemed to close around something invisible in the dark, his fingers tightening, and Lily's eye widened as Regulus waved for them to step back and tucked his wand between his teeth, the glowing light reflecting off his long black hair, which was nearly as long and impressive as Sirius's. Both hands on the great invisible something, Regulus pulled and backed up until the water was moving and rippling and curving about, rushing over the sides of a tiny rowboat, connected to a black iron chain with branches of seaweed clinging onto it. The boat popped from the darkness and floated atop the surface of the water, old and worn, as though it had been there for hundreds of years.

"What the bloody hell is that?" Maryrose whispered, staring, wide-eyed at the little vessel.

Regulus dropped the chain onto the pier at his feet, coiling and heavy. He wiped the wet, sea-weedy fingers on his trousers and answered, "Our ride."

Walburga Black was taken to Havmork by Abraxas Malfoy. She stood before the Dark Lord, her chin level, her eyes dark, the terror in them shining bright as her lip trembled. Voldemort paced before her in the dark of the mid-afternoon. Out the window, she could see that it was just beginning to snow and she watched the flakes as they fell slowly from the clouds just as the tears that slid across her cheeks did.

"Where is your son, Walburga?" Voldemort asked silkily, his voice rippling around her like ice water.

Walburga shook her head, "I do not know, my Lord."

Voldemort was seething. She could hear the frustration and the anger in his breath. "It taxes me that I summon and summon and summon him and he refuses to answer my beckoning," he said. He drew his wand. "Why would a boy refuse to obey his Lord, Walburga?"

"Perhaps he cannot come for some reason, my Lord. Perhaps he has been somehow detained."

"Is he not at home for the holiday, Walburga?"