Atlantis’s medical ward was clean, quiet, and brightly lit, but it did nothing to assuage Regulus’s nerves. The light only illuminated the unfamiliar medical equipment, making the metal objects gleam in subtle threat. There were potions, yes, but also Muggle things (he assumed them to be Muggle things) and items so strange to his eyes that he doubted they were even Muggle at all. The aids had explained everything, and he thought he grasped it - as much as the concepts of ‘pocket universe’ and ‘different timelines’ might be grasped in the span of twenty minutes - and while his appearance here was out of the sort of adventure novel he might have hidden under his mattress at home, Regulus’s thoughts were scattered, vague. It felt like most of him was still in that wretched cave back home.
Side effects, they had said, from the Draught of Despair he had only started to imbibe before spotting the strangely out-of-place gold coin on the cave floor. He had thought it might have fallen off the necklace he’d stolen, or worse, the fake, but as soon as he’d touched it, he’d been whisked away to wherever this was. They’d given him chocolate and told him that he’d be under the weather for a few hours, but since he’d barely done more than take a gulp or two, he’d be fine with a light headache and a sense of gloominess.
Regulus took another bite of his chocolate, and wondered what they had meant by ‘alert your family’ he was here. He should have been worried about that bit earlier, but there were so many other things to worry about first, and now he wondered what he’d say to Walburga. That was the only family he had left, after all. The horcruxed necklace was carefully tucked into his side pocket, and Kreacher was muttering something about the rudeness of inadequately placed portals when he heard footsteps coming down the hall, and they did not sound like his mother’s.
Sirius had to admit that his brother's being here was a shock. Not that he expected Regulus to stay. He imagined his brother would take one listen to the spiel about saving creativity and be gone. Didn't he have better things to do, after all? Such as worship at the Dark Lord's feet?
So, he had come to Intake out of curiosity more than anything. He hadn't seen his brother since school and even that had been limited. They simply operated in different social circles at Hogwarts -- Sirius's being one of mayhem, Regulus's less so. It was with these thoughts in mind that Sirius stepped into the room where Regulus was being treated.
"Hello, brother. Have you come to spend the holidays with us?" He noticed immediately that Regulus wasn't alone. "And you've brought the family elf? Won't mother miss him?"
Regulus hadn’t anticipated Sirius to be the person they’d send to him, but in a way, falling back into old habits was comforting. They hadn’t gotten along for years now, if things like being on diametrically-opposed sides of a spiralling war fell neatly under the banner of ‘hadn’t gotten along’, and he took an angry bite of chocolate as if this situation was somehow its fault.
“That’s odd,” he said after a moment, as if genuinely pondering the development. “They said they’d bring by family, not irrelevant footnotes to wizarding history.”
As far as barbs went, he’d managed better, but Regulus was well and truly flummoxed. What was he to do? He’d been prepared to lie to their mother, but Sirius usually managed to annoy some semblance of truth out of him. The necklace felt heavy in his pocket and he regarded his brother with open caution and disdain. “I wouldn’t have expected you to come,” he finally said, and even if his tone was airy the implied question was tentative.
"Well, no need to worry," said Sirius, keeping his voice casual, "I've a family of my own here. I only wanted to see you before you decided to be off again. You are leaving, aren't you?" He looked at his brother disdainfully, expecting him to corroborate this truth.
It did not occur to Sirius that their might be a reason for Regulus to stay, just as it would never have occurred to him that they might not be as diametrically opposed as they seemed. Sirius had always viewed his younger brother as the perfect heir, and nothing in his lived experience spoke against this belief.
You are leaving, aren’t you? The truth was, Regulus hadn’t gotten that far. What was left for him back home? Best case scenario: a watery grave, and worst case he’d have to continue on serving the Dark Lord until his betrayal was discovered.
“Don’t like how it talks to Master,” Kreacher was muttering, casting foul glares Sirius’s way, and Regulus was pulled out of his consideration to say: “Kreacher, won’t you ask the healer for more chocolate?” The elf grumbled and shuffled off.
“I haven’t yet decided,” Regulus said as casually as he could once they were out of Kreacher’s hearing, as if it were a minor thing either way. “I doubt you’ll have any wisdom to offer other than a recommendation on the best trash piles to wallow in, but they mentioned that there were other magic-users here? Powerful ones?” If he could get some assurance that the necklace might be destroyed, that would be a mark in Atlantis’s favor.
Sirius leaned against the nearest door frame, watching as the elf shuffled off. He felt an impulse to kick the creature, but restrained himself. As far as current problems went, the house elf was the lesser of the two. He eyed his brother suspiciously.
"And why would you need to know that? Planning to find a new Master? Decided already Voldemort isn't good enough? Or…" He scowled at his next thought. "Thought you might bring a bit of glory home by bringing him here? The Atlanteans frown on that sort of thing, you know. I'm surprised they aren't already monitoring you for...evil scheming."
Sirius knew he could have worded that better, but he couldn't believe that Regulus was here and already seeking powerful magic users. It was just like his brother to want the best thing in the schoolyard, so to speak.
Regulus couldn’t help but look ill as Sirius said You-Know-Who’s name. He knew it was only his imagination that the words felt as if they made the mark on his arm twitch, but he glowered at his brother anyway. How very like a Gryffindor.
Still, the thought of Voldemort finding his way through multiple dimensions was a sobering one, no matter how many magic-users might be here. That settled it, didn’t it? If he destroyed the necklace here, it would only affect a Voldemort that was here; the one back home was still safe and unaware on a different timeline. But if Voldemort travelled here to where his necklace was destroyed, a certain percentage of his soul would be injured… right?
His head spun. He wasn’t certain he had any of this right. Regulus Black didn’t believe in asking for help, and certainly not from his brother, but he knew a rock and a hard place when he was in one. “I assume,” he said coldly, completely ignoring Sirius’s accusations of evil scheming, “that you were stupid enough to join that resistance group. The Order, or whatever they’re calling themselves. Are they here?”
Sirius laughed, a cruel sound given the circumstances. "If you think I am stupid enough to join a resistance, do you think I am doubly stupid to tell you?" It was as good an admission as Regulus was likely to get. Even with the differences across dimensions, Sirius wasn't about to divulge all of his secrets. Not to someone who, up until about twenty minutes ago, would have been considered the enemy.
"I ask again. What are you planning, Reg? And what do magic users and the Order have to do it? Your Master isn't quite forgiving to those who deviate from his path, or so I've heard…" He didn't have any confirmation that Regulus had joined the Death Eaters, but knowing his own family's beliefs, he suspected.
Regulus tried (and failed) to fume subtly. Nearly four months of sneaking around and half-expecting messy death past every corner had ingrained in him the need for subterfuge and implication, but he was exhausted and shell-shocked and overwhelmed. He took a moment to enjoy a mental image of bashing Sirius upside the head with the necklace before sighing dramatically and pulling out the horcrux from his pocket and offering it to him.
It was a massive risk, but at least he knew his brother would want it destroyed. “This,” he said, theatricality in his voice, “is a horcrux.”
When it became apparent that Sirius wasn’t going to ooh or ahh, he added: “A piece of the Dark Lord’s soul. Destroy it, and you kill that part of him. He started creating them years ago in a bid for immortality. I don’t right care if you believe me or not, just get your people I’m not supposed to know about on it and put this thing into orbit, will you?”
Sirius took the necklace, feeling the weight of it in his hand. What game was this? Here his brother was offering him what seemed to be a gift, a method of destroying part of the Dark Lord, if he understood him right.
"Alright," he said, doing his best to sound civil, "if what you're saying is right, I'll see what I can do. But --" He felt suddenly tired of this charade between them. A part of him wanted his brother back, even if that part of him knew how impossible that was. "If you play us false, I'll make sure the Atlanteans send you back to London faster than you can say 'Quidditch.'"
Regulus’s eyes flicked from the necklace back to Sirius, and he gave a brief nod. Deal. Merlin, he hoped he hadn’t made a terrible mistake just now. He didn’t think he had. Sirius may have made a joke of everything, but at least he’d always seemed sincere in his political leanings. He tried not to think of when they were small, and he’d relied on Sirius to save him from the creeping vines in what passed for Grimmauld’s gardens. This is just more of the same, he recognized, annoyed with the parallels.
“Don’t put it on,” he advised. “I don’t think it’s cursed, not in the typical way, but it…” how to describe that awful, nasty, creeping feeling he’d had when he’d made the same mistake? “It’ll give you the collywobbles,” he concluded, wrinkling his nose.
Sirius wrapped the necklace and put it in his pocket. He didn't know where this put them, exactly. What did it mean that his brother had willingly given him this object? It could just as easily be a trick, he supposed. A ploy to bring the Dark Lord to Atlantis? But for some reason, that didn't seem likely. He trusted Regulus.
He scowled. "I don't know what you've got yourself into," he said, trying to keep his annoyance at bay, "and -- if you're planning to stay, you may as well know, you've got a niece and nephew here. They're good kids. Do try to be nice."
Regulus’s brow furrowed. “Niece and nephew?” His cousin castoff Andromeda who had married that Mudblood had had a child; he had read as much from the letter she had managed to sneak him (one that he had never acknowledged, a fact that now bothered him). But what was her name? Nymphadora - she wouldn’t have been a niece or a nephew. He regarded Sirius with a dazed sort of confusion, and spotting Kreacher padding down the hall with a new bar of chocolate, stood. “Do you mean you ---?”
Sirius looked from his brother to the returning elf. He'd never been fond of Kreacher, and he thought the feeling mutual. "I do," he said, confirming the unasked question, "and I expect you not to fill their heads with nonsense. They are fully grown, which I don't entirely understand, but that's Atlantis for you. Always bringing the unexpected."
He included Regulus in the list of unexpected, if he were being honest. Regulus, his future children, Marlene. It seemed impossible that they should all be here now.
The one-two punch of Sirius having children and of said children being fully grown was enough to temporarily silence any judgmental sarcasm Regulus was attempting to brew up. Clearly there was more to Atlantis than he had previously determined.
Kreacher passed over the chocolate bar and Regulus attacked it with his teeth, manners temporarily forgotten. The Draught of Despair was a real pill. “I’d like to meet them,” he said, and he hated how meek he sounded, hated how he wondered if they were pureblood or… not. Old habits. “And I don’t have any interest in proselytizing the virtues of wearing a cloak and skull mask,” he added, and exhaled. “I’ll behave. As long as you’re not your usual self.”
Kreacher opened his mouth to say something nasty, and Regulus inserted: “Quiet, Kreacher.” The elf deflated and sent Sirius a look that would peel paint.
Sirius ignored the elf, focusing instead on his brother. He had long since considered his relationship with his family dead. That was how he thought they'd wanted it to be. Only now did he have the distinct feeling that maybe that wasn't how it needed to be here. At least not with Regulus. If Walburga showed up, he figured that then things would be different.
"I'll do my best," he agreed. "But I can't speak for the others. You should, you should join us for the holiday." He hated that he hesitated, but he still didn't completely trust that Regulus wouldn't do something stupid.
That took Regulus by surprise, and his face whipped up to peer at Sirius with the air of someone waiting for a reveal of how this was all a trick. It had been a very long time since he and Sirius had been in the same room together, and even longer since they’d celebrated anything without yelling at one another. The alternative was depressing to consider: sitting in his new flat with only Kreacher to wish a happy Christmas.
“All right,” he said, and he hoped he didn’t sound too eager. Merlin, what was he getting into? “Shame I didn’t gift wrap the horcrux.”
Regulus was getting dangerously close to saying things, some sort of mix of exhaustion and nostalgia inspiring him to - egads - talk, and so he hastily nibbled his chocolate and said: “They gave me a room assignment. I suppose I’d better find it. Merlin knows who or what I’ll be rooming with.”
Sirius doubted that anyone could consider the horcrux a gift, even if it were done up in fancy paper. He couldn't understand what the necklace did, not from merely holding it, but he knew anything with a wizard's soul had to be dark. That was though a thought for another time.
"Well, then, I suppose you should." Sirius had briefly considered offering to help his brother, but he doubted that Regulus would accept such assistance. They could only come so far in one afternoon. "And, if you need anything…" He didn't finish the thought. If his brother needed anything, he always knew where to find him.
Gathering his things - a damp cloak, his wand, A half-eaten bar of chocolate, and Kreacher - Regulus hesitated. He was staring into a vast sedimentary rock of things he needed to say, running from complicated confessions to simple affirmations. As much resentment was between them, Sirius was trying. Regulus knew that, because he’d seen what it looked like when Sirius wasn’t trying at all, and the difference was striking.
But oh, he was tired. And so he settled with a nod, his cloak clutched against his chest, and said: “thank you.” It was only two words, but they weren’t sarcastically delivered, which was frankly progress.