Dark Marked

Regulus was uncomfortable.  Uncomfortable and bored, scratching at his wrist underneath the itchy sleeves he'd taken to wearing.  This new Dark Mark was really cramping his style, fashionwise.  He really thought wearing long-sleeves all the time made him look not only pretentious (which he was, but nevermind that) but was as obvious as a turtleneck to cover up a hickey.  It was the middle of July, for the love of god, and it wasn't as if everyone didn't already know, anyway.

Well... Present company excluded, perhaps.  That was the second source of his discomfort.  Sitting wedged between his brother and that James Potter and across from their half-blood friend and the Pettigrew boy in a cramped booth in a cramped Muggle pub watching some Muggle sport called football on some Muggle contraption called a television was not his idea of an enjoyable night out.

If he had not always been the sort of person who was out of place in all company he would have wondered what he was doing in his present position.

But Regulus was uncomfortable no matter who he sat with and the difference between various Death Eaters and Sirius and friends was negligible to him.  So he mused instead what would come of the meeting.  So far, he had nothing to go on.

The other four were scarfing down fish and chips like they were hunkering down for a long hibernation, and speech was out of the question.  Well, there was the occasional shout the half-blood aimed at the football match through a mouthful, but other than that the booth was as silent as the rest of the pub was loud.

Regulus was looking around disinterestedly, having declined to order food, but finding no problem with gulping down pint after pint of house lager as quick as he could get the harrassed waitress to deliver them.

This sort of establishment was not the type he liked.  Not for its lack of class, on the contrary, he recently preferred the very seediest of places, the ones so backwater, suspicious, or poorly located that they were unlikely to attract any sort of boisterous crowd.  In the past months he'd spent uncountable hours getting as drunk as possible in dark, smelly places with the only company he enjoyed.

He supposed he could consider himself the tortured artist type who did great work while drinking himself into an early grave if only he had some sort of art.

That was him.  An artless artist.  The polite term for just plain old drunk, he supposed.

Well.  At least he was... What?  He was a lot of highly useless things.  Good-looking and intelligent and bitter and inbred and egotistical.  And a Black.

That seemed like the only important thing.  His blood would be with him when his looks and his brain and his pride were gone.  Of course, he used to consider that a considerable asset.  Now it was more likely to get him picked up by Aurors just because, 'All Blacks are Dark anyway.'  Not that they'd be wrong, in his case, but all the same the social critic in him felt that there was something unjust about it all.

Maybe the unjust thing was Sirius.  After all, his aristocratic Black looks were just as likely to get him dragged in by militant Aurors and there was no one who'd spent more time scourging himself of any Darkness than he.

Of course, admitting that would mean admitting feeling empathy for his brother, which is something that Regulus would never do.  Sirius had never felt anything of the like for him.

And that brought it all back round to why he'd been cornered by his brother trying to get into Diagon Alley and dragged off in the opposite direction for what Sirius referred to as 'a friendly drink'.

Regulus could see nothing friendly about being trapped here against his will, but the drink was all right after all and if he got drunk enough maybe he wouldn't have to remember this encounter at all, later.  There was nothing to be done about suffering through it now.  He only wished they would go ahead and get it over with.  They couldn't possibly be that hungry.

'Sure you don' wanniny?' Potter had paused in his hunched, life-or-death scarfing to look up at Regulus, gesturing vaguely at his place.

'Quite,' Regulus answered, trying to tone done his superior sneer.  As keen as he was to destroy his liver by the end of the night, he wanted the rest of his body to remain in tact.

Potter shrugged and returned to his meal.

There was no accounting for some people.  James Potter might be of pure blood, but he acted like the most common Mudblood.  And Sirius... Regulus glanced sideways at his brother, inhaling chips soggy with vinegar, his nose barely an inch from his place.  Well, he might as well have been a pig farmer for all his social graces.

But that was Walburga Black talking.  Hadn't Regulus himself concluded etiquette was useless ages ago?  Wasn't he the one who'd scandalised the entirety of his overlarge family by putting a little too much tongue into Narcissa's receiving line kiss (it might have gone unnoticed if he hadn't grabbed her breast at the same time)?  Hadn't he woken up in a gutter just this morning?

Well, that was different.  At least he wasn't a blood traitor quite yet.  He shouted at the waitress as she passed to bring another pint and keep them coming and there was a chorus of agreement from the other four.  More like grunts between bites, but... Semantics.

Regulus stretched out as much as he could in the booth, sinking down with his quickly vanishing pint until the top of his head was surrounded by shoulders on either side.

It wasn't long until he heard the scraping of metal on ceramic and knew the food was running low and soon Sirius would get down to exactly why he'd brought Regulus here.

Sure enough, after a few seconds and a sound that might have been Sirius slurping the excess vinegar from his plate, his brother flopped back on the booth next to him and clapped his shoulder, dragging him back up to eye-level.

'I reckon you've gathered that we need to have a discussion.'

'Well, I don't know about "need", but it seems that we're going to and I'm in no position to argue...' Regulus might know when he was beat, but it wouldn't stop him from dispensing snark as usual.

'That's right.'  Sirius smiled in a way that could only be described as victorious.  'We're going to.  It's for your own good.'

'Strange, when a speech is prefaced with that little disclaimer, it always turns out to be rather for the speaker's own convenience.'

Sirius's friends had all gone slightly too still to be casual.

'Good thing this isn't a speech, then.  It's a discussion.  Or, a frank exchange of ideas, if you'd rather.' Sirius was unfazed, however, which seemed to keep the rest of them in check.  He was used to Regulus, he knew it was all normal - or what used to be normal for them, anyway - banter.  'You should be enjoying this, Reg, it's all about you and I know how you like talking about yourself.'

'I don't know how you ever managed to glean that little fact about me, seeing as you never shut up about yourself.'  The waitress finally returned with another round and the tension in the booth eased tenfold as everyone reached for a new pint.

'Then consider this your golden opportunity: An entire evening devoted to you.'  Sirius smirked, before disappearing behind his mug.

'Is it time for a group hug yet?'  Regulus shot a disdainful look around the booth.

'Not quite,' Sirius said jovially, wiping the foam off his upper lip with a quick swipe of the back of his hand.  'First.  To get down to business.  I, as a caring family member, am concerned about my darling baby brother's future.'

'Do we have a younger brother I'm not aware of?'

'Quite possibly, but I'm talking about you.'

'And is there any reason all your Muggle-loving friends have to be here for this?'

Sirius's face hardened slightly but he seemed determined not to let it bother him.  He had obviously set his mind to something tonight.  Regulus had about decided he would exploit this to push the most extreme limits of his brother's patience when he felt James Potter's breath on his neck.

'Watch what you say, Black.'  Oh.  Maybe that was why they were here.  Regulus remained frozen for a second after, then looked back over his shoulder suspiciously, but Potter had returned to his pint and to chatting light-heartedly with Pettigrew across the table.  The half-blood was watching the television fixedly.

'Moral support?' He asked Sirius snidely, though in a quieter voice.  'Listen, can we just get to the point so I can go home?  Or rather, so I can go pass out in someone's garden?'

'Nothing would make me happier,' Sirius agreed.  'Look, Reg.'  He leaned in almost hesitantly, bracing himself on the back of the booth and the table.  His eyes left Regulus and wandered out, like he was thinking hard.  'Let's take a walk,' he said finally, sliding out of the booth.

Regulus was about to complain about leaving his pint, but the opportunity to escape Potter's presence was too good to pass up.  He compromised by shoving his drink into his jacket and exiting the booth in one smooth motion.

'We'll be back in a few minutes, mates,' Sirius announced.  Regulus saw him shoot a meaningful look at Potter that clearly said, 'And if we're not, come break up the duel.'

That wasn't like Sirius; he usually didn't like his fights interrupted.  Regulus frowned.  Sirius must have been taking this very seriously.

He followed his brother out the door, wondering about his motivations in staging this abduction.  He didn't care, surely, he hadn't cared in years.

Regulus fell into step beside Sirius as they set off down the street, pulling his drink back out of his jacket.

'When did you become such an alcoholic?' Sirius asked distastefully.

'You're a fine one to talk,' Regulus replied.  He remembered one summer when Sirius had raided the drinks cabinet at Grimmauld Place and filled every spare inch in his trunk, including the insides of his shoes, with bottles.  Of course - Regulus smirked at the memory - about a week into school a Howler had arrived at breakfast and exploded in Sirius's face with shrieks about common thievery and dishonouring the family name with public debauchery and so on and so forth.  If Regulus recalled right - and he knew he did because it was one of his fondest Hogwarts moments - the entire Gryffindor fifth year boys' dorm was not-so-secretly searched and Sirius had put his House in negative points as well as himself in detention with Filch for the rest of the term.

Sirius remembered too, it seemed, and he was smiling nostalgically.  'It was worth it.  That was the best week ever.'

'The rest of the term was quite enjoyable for me,' Regulus rejoined.

'As if I don't remember your incessant jabs about my janitorial skills.'

'You had a promising future is all I was saying.'  Regulus laughed and was surprised when he heard Sirius join him.  They hadn't laughed in unison in years, either.  'Of course, none of us have futures now,' he added.  That was too strange to be allowed to continue.

The comment succeeded in sobering Sirius significantly.  'That's what I wanted to talk to you about.'

'And we get to the nitty-gritty.'

'Well it might have been easier if you weren't so -' Sirius stopped mid-sentence.  He took a deep breath and started over, 'The point is that I know if they haven't already, soon the Death Eaters are going to come recruiting you.'

'Oh.  'S that so?' Regulus snorted into his drink.  Sometimes his brother was just so thick.

'Yeah, look Reg.  I know you don't particularly like me anymore, but you're my brother.  You're my little brother and... Well, I just wanna make sure you're okay.'

'I'm perfectly fine.'  For all Sirius was sounding so sincere and a little pitiful, he wasn't going to soften.  If there was one thing he'd learned growing up a Black (other than blood supremacy), it was that the only way to keep his world from changing uncomfortably was to withdraw as far into himself as possible.  He didn't stick his neck out for anyone.

Sirius huffed into the balmy air.  'Have they yet, then?'

'What?' Regulus feigned ignorance.  Just to be contrary.

'You know what I mean,' Sirius snapped, sounding annoyed for the first time.

Regulus took a long drink to give himself time to think over his response.  In the end he still couldn't come up with anything adequate. 'Yes.'

'And?'  He could feel Sirius's sharp gaze on him.

'Why don't you ask our cousin and her charming husband?' Regulus retorted, his lips curling.

'Her?  I told her to fucking leave you alone -'

'You're talking to Bellatrix about me?  How familial of the two of you,' Regulus interrupted.

'I was trying to protect you -'

'I don't need you to protect me, Sirius, I'm perfectly capable of ruining my life on my own terms.'

'Which is why we're having this conversation in the first place.  What'd you say to them?'

'What the fuck do you think I said, Sirius?  Like I had a choice.'

'So, what?  You're just a Death Eater now?  You just kill people because you're intimidated by Bellatrix and Rodolphus?'  Sirius sounded disgusted.

'Do you have a better reason?  If you were me, you'd be intimidated too.  They just kill people because it's fun.  They wouldn't bat their eyes at killing me if I said I wouldn't join up.  Protect me from that.'

Sirius looked furious, and Regulus knew he was pushing all the right buttons.  Really, he wasn't nearly as scared of Bellatrix as he put on.  She was mad, but he was far cleverer than she was, though he supposed she might have been more intelligent if her fanaticism didn't consume her so fully.  And besides that, it wasn't as if he put up a fight when she and Lestrange had showed up at his doorstep with an invitation to join the Dark Lord.  He'd known it was coming.  He'd known what he was going to do since before he even left school.  It was his choice alone, he wouldn't let Bellatrix take the credit for corrupting him.  But right now he was concentrating on directing his brother's fury at her.  A feud between the two of them would draw attention away from Regulus and allow him to slip further into the shadows, where he might be able to stay alive long enough to drink himself to death.

That was his grand, Slytherin life's ambition.  He'd realised some time ago he'd either be killed by Aurors, fellow Death Eaters, or his own self-destructive habits, and he knew which he'd prefer.

Of course, he wasn't sure he really understood the concept of his own mortality to the point that his decision was very well-informed, but if he didn't, Sirius certainly seemed to.

Sometime during the course of their conversation, they'd stopped walking, and now Sirius was standing under the glow of a streetlight, gnashing his teeth and lost in vengeful thought.

Regulus sat down on the sidewalk, back to brick wall and legs stretched out in front of him, and tipped the last drops of lager down his throat.  He put the mug down at his side and went fishing in his jacket, coming out with a pack of cigarettes.

'Worked over m'liver well enough for one night, 's time for the lungs to start earning their keep,' he announced as he stuck his hand back in his pocket and produced a lighter.

The comment seemed to bring Sirius out of his own mind.  He looked down at Regulus as he lit up with a blank expression.  'You look like shit,' he said finally.

'Not true,' Regulus argued, shaking his head.  'I may not look my best, but I'm still far and away more attractive than ninety-five percent of those you meet on the street.'

'Cocky little git.'

'Ask yourself who I learned it from.'

'Yes, but my ego is backed up by reality while yours is conjured out of thin air.  I don't know how you manage it, you barely passed your Charms O.W.L... Hey, gimme one of those.'

'Don't be ridiculous.  You and I could be the same person if only you had a stronger jawline.  Clone-like looks must be one of the products of generations of Black inbreeding,' Regulus replied, unfazed as he lit a cigarette for Sirius.

'Makes family reunions quite confusing.'

'Yes, but then it's always such a pleasant surprise to spot some unknown relative who looks exactly like you in a crowd.'

'Well, at least I've always found it makes them easier to avoid.'

'Cheers to that, then.  Or I would say, but we've left the supply of drink, for some reason.'

'We'll go back soon, don't worry your darling little head.'  Sirius sat down on the sidewalk beside Regulus.  'What do you suppose Mum would say if she saw us now?  Her well-groomed, pure-blooded, and indecently wealthy sons -'

'- Drunk on the street in Muggle London like two common blue-collar slobs.'  Regulus grinned spitefully.  'I don't know, mate, and I don't fancy finding out.'

'Well, I'm not quite drunk yet, I don't think,' Sirius said thoughtfully.  'I'm far too coherent.'

'I, on the other hand, am quite plastered, but am also a rather eloquent and insightful drunk.'

'A vast improvement over your personality when sober.'

'Really?  I don't remember, I haven't been sober in months.'

'Now there's one thing.  I'd like to see what Voldemort thinks of his minions coming in to work drunk.'

Regulus was inwardly struck that Sirius was already making my-brother-the-Death-Eater jokes, but he wasn't going to let on that he could be so easily surprised.  'I try to find things to lean on.  You know.  Walls, chairs... Piles of dead bodies.'  He wondered briefly if he ought to tell Sirius that he hadn't been 'in to work' lately, either.  He was waiting for someone to find him and drag him back on his hands and knees and he was working on an excuse involving a kidnapping scheme and a heroic, daring, and elaborate escape from captivity deep in the bowels of Auror headquarters.

'You enjoy it, then?'  There was that accusatory tone again.

'Work's work.'  Regulus shrugged dismissively.  It wasn't that he disliked being a Death Eater, exactly.  He rarely felt guilty about the killing and the costumes had a kind of mysterious charm, but it was the politics, you know?  He couldn't seem to commit himself to the obsessive pure-blood mania with the same zeal of the others.  He used to have to stifle his laughter during the Dark Lord's many and lengthy speeches on Taking Back Society From the Mudbloods and Muggle-Lovers.  It was all just too 'sieg heil!'  Did no one else see the humour in it?

He realised later that if anyone did, they'd probably just got bored of it like he had.  Now he spent speech-time pretending to take notes while instead doodling pornographic cartoons.

'But it's not as though you get paid for it, is it?' Sirius's question came after a long lull in the conversation and it took Regulus a moment to remember what he was talking about.

'Huh?  Oh, yeah.  Well, I'm not exactly wonting for money, am I?'

'No, I suppose Mum and Dad would take care of you.'

'Is that a hint of bitterness I detect in your tone, dear brother?'

'No.  No, it's not.'  Sirius caught his eyes with such a fierce expression that Regulus couldn't find his voice in time to challenge him.

They lapsed into silence and in that silence Regulus swore he could feel Sirius distancing himself.  He did it all the time and Regulus had learned that he never liked the outcome.  When they were little and Regulus annoyed Sirius by getting the bigger half of a split biscuit or escaping the blame for some misdeed they'd both been in on or any other little thing, Sirius always shut himself off and refused to acknowledge any kind of relationship with his brother.  It was a way of punishing him, Regulus knew, and as much as it pained him to admit it, it had always worked.

The worst had been when Sirius was sixteen and he felt the need to distance himself so much that he just left.  And never came back.  That time maybe it wasn't to punish Regulus, specifically - more their parents - but it hurt him the worst.  He was fourteen at the time, but he remembered feeling so ridiculously like a little boy, sitting at the windowsill wishing that Sirius would show up in front of the house again and sleeping in his bed at night for weeks, burrowing his face in Sirius's pillow until he couldn't smell his brother anymore.  And eventually, he didn't wait at the windowsill and he went back to his own room and he didn't want his brother anymore, either.

That time... Sirius leaving changed him.  Before that, every time Sirius shut himself off Regulus knew it was just a waiting game until he got over it, and they were brothers again.  Maybe they didn't have the closest relationship - they were not friends at school, they barely spoke, in fact - but Regulus knew they would still have each other's back.  Whether it was him having to sneak up to Gryffindor Tower to warn Sirius that Snape was planning to put sugar in his big Potions project - effectively ruining it - or whether it was Sirius telling him about a secret passage to Hogsmeade so that he could sneak out and buy Honeydukes chocolate as an emergency gift for his girlfriend's birthday the next day, they were there for each other.  When it really mattered.  Regulus had found that one of the few sources of real security in his life.  Until that night when Sirius walked out the door and forced Regulus to realise that nothing was secure, and at the core of it all he was alone.

Now he couldn't tell if Sirius was punishing him for being a Death Eater or for bringing up their family.  Whichever it was, he wasn't going to gain anything with his silent routine.  He couldn't change Regulus in that way twice.

He almost wanted to gloat, but of course that would mean admitting he ever had emotions that Sirius could damage in the first place, which was unacceptable even among drunk boys.

Which was why it took him very much by surprise when Sirius said, "You know, I miss you, Reg.'

'You what?'

'I miss you, yeah?  Remember?  We used to be friends.'

Sometimes Sirius had the uncanny ability to read his mind.  Another thing he'd never admit to.  What right did Sirius have to miss him, anyway?  'Yeah, when we were toddlers, maybe.  Anyway, shouldn't you be not-talking to me right now?'

'That was a long time ago, Reggie.  I'm not sixteen anymore.'

'How am I supposed to know?'  Regulus snapped, his voice more shrill than he would have liked.  This was not going well.  If only he knew how to stop himself.  'You may not be sixteen anymore, but how am I supposed to know?  That was the last time I ever knew you.  And maybe if you hadn't left -'  Regulus found out how to shut himself up, then, but it was too late.

'What, if I hadn't left... You wouldn't have become a Death Eater?'  Sirius had started the sentence mocking Regulus, but finished sounding... Almost guilty.

'Well, I guess we'll never know,' Regulus said shortly.

'Reg, I...' Sirius looked completely stricken, as though he'd never considered this before.  Regulus wasn't surprised, it would have required him to think of someone other than himself.  'I reckon I owe you an apology.'

A what now?  This was a side of his brother he'd certainly never seen before.  Maybe he hadn't been kidding when he said he wasn't sixteen anymore.  Regulus took a long drag on his cigarette to think it over.  It managed to calm him down, which was exactly what he needed to remind himself that this meant nothing.  Changed nothing.  Fixed nothing.

'I reckon it's a little late for that, don't you?' he replied calmly.

'It doesn't have to be,' Sirius said, and there was a note of desperation in his voice.  This served to befuddle Regulus yet again, the sudden resurfacing of the brotherly affection he thought had disappeared years ago.  'Listen, Reg, that's why I brought you out here, cos I can help you.  We can help you.  I -- I don't want to see you get hurt.'

Regulus frowned and stubbed out his cigarette on the sidewalk.  'You think I wouldn't get hurt if I tried to leave?'

'That's what I'm trying to tell you.  We can protect you.'  Sirius had grabbed his hand, was speaking frantically, and Regulus thought, watching the way his eyes swam in the pale streetlight, that he was probably more drunk that he'd own up to.

'No, you can't,' Regulus insisted.  'Not anymore.'  He lit another cigarette, using the excuse to remove his hand from Sirius's grip.  'I don't know if you'd noticed this, but once you sign up with the Dark Lord, you're either in for a lifetime of servitude, or you're a dead man.'

Sirius kept looking at him with an expression of mingled helplessness and loss.  Well, it was better that he crush the thing now.  If Sirius thought there was any chance of reforming him, of 'making things right'... He would never give up.  He would put them both -- as well as anyone they loved -- in even more danger to satisfy that Gryffindor obligation to chivalry.

Regulus was not so foolhardy.  He didn't want to be responsible for harm that might come to Sirius, or even any of his blood-traitor, Muggle-loving friends, especially when he'd become certain of his own sorry fate some time ago.

Sirius didn't ask whether Regulus had signed up for life, or death, as it were, so he felt no need to tell him.

It was awkward, though.  With nothing left to say to one another, he and his brother were sitting in stilted silence.  They were finally relieved when the squeak of rubber on concrete announced James Potter's arrival on the scene.

'Oh, there you are!' he said, sounding very relieved himself.  'We were beginning to think... Well.  It doesn't matter.  Ready to come back and have one last round with us, or should I -- er...'

Sirius shook his head.  'I think we're done here, mate.'  He mustered a smile that Regulus thought almost passed for sincere as he pushed himself up to stand against the wall.  'Are you going to come have a round with us, Reg?'  He offered his arm to Regulus, who took it warily on the principle that he didn't think he could make it back to his feet on his own.

'I think I'm going to have to pass.  I really did have business in Diagon Alley, you know."

"Suit yourself," Sirius replied.  Potter had already turned back down the street.  Sirius glanced back at him for a moment, then said, "I'll catch up with you in a minute, Prongs."  Then he was staring at Regulus again, more collected now.  'Business in Diagon Alley," he mocked.  "Like you're going to talk business with anyone dead drunk.'

'I already told you,' Regulus quipped.  'I'm a very well-spoken drunk.  I might not be able to walk a straight line, but I can certainly do business.'

Sirius gave him a dubious, tight-lipped smile.  Perfect McGonagall impression, really.  'If that's it, then...' he said, slowly, 'then this is goodbye.'

'Yeah.'  Regulus hooked his thumbs into his pockets and suddenly found it difficult to meet his brother's gaze.

'And you know, if I see you again, I'm going to turn you in.'

Regulus nodded.  He was tempted to say, 'And if I see you again, I'm going to throw some Unforgivables at you,' since they seemed to be playing their parts, now, but decided Sirius wouldn't think the joke was very funny.  Not that that usually stopped him, but...

'You still have a chance, Reg, you can still come with me, we can still try...'

But they both knew that wasn't really true.