REGULUS BLACK + MARLENE MCKINNON
ROUGH WEEK = STRANGE DRINKING PARTNERS
G | COMPLETE
The pub was a little more posh than Marlene generally preferred. That probably should’ve been enough to keep her away, but she’d felt like doing something different for the night. Away from her regular crowd. Maybe try and pull. It wasn’t usually how she liked to do things but it had been a bloody awful week (and a verifiable dog’s age since she’d gotten properly shagged).
Of course, ten minutes in, she spotted Regulus Black at the other end of the bar and her half-formed plan fizzled out and died. It had only taken that long to see him because the woman next to him was a giantess. Alright, not a proper giantess but at least half of one. She was handsome, but Marlene doubted that mattered much to Regulus, especially when she was yammering his ear off. Marlene could only catch every fourth word or so, but she was mostly sure the woman was talking about chopping down trees and single-handedly building a house.
Marlene’s off kilter smile slid into place. She propped her elbow on the bar, gave Regulus a little wave, and then rested her chin on her hand. Maybe this wasn’t a total bust. At least now she might get a good show.
Regulus had been trained from birth in the art of feigning interest in a topic when it left the realm of ‘intriguing’ due to society balls and nattering relatives, but the woman enthusiastically comparing oak to cherry wood was really straining even his skills. It wasn’t that building houses from scratch was an inherently dull topic, but she’d been at this for nearly fifteen minutes, launching in to a thorough discussion of foundation-building without so much as a ‘hello’ and ‘do you mind company?’.
And he did! He minded company! He’d come here to have a drink and feel sorry for himself, a hobby he was truly excelling in lately, and now he’d been cornered and Marlene McKinnon was laughing at him.
Regulus had his pride, but he also was a Slytherin who looked for opportunities at any given moment. With a sudden apologetic smile, he pointed out his dear friend that had only just arrived, but very good luck on your plans, goodbye! And fled to the empty seat next to Marlene with an equally fake show of kissing either of her cheeks fancy-prat style. “Pretend we tolerate one another,” he hissed lowly, eyes flicking to the giantess who seemed to be weighing whether or not to join the pair.
The very last thing Marlene expected was for Regulus to come over and greet her the way he did. She was a little slow on the uptake in her surprise, but she caught up by the second cheek kiss and made a show of returning the greeting. Curse her instincts for wanting to give him just the tiniest of breaks. To spare the woman’s feelings only. And okay maybe a little to see where this went. Curiosity was a terrible thing.
“I should hex you instead,” she said through a pretty shark smile as she lifted her glass in apology to the woman. He’d brought this on himself, which was why she had no qualms slinging an arm over his shoulders and turning to whisper into this ear. “Regulus Black: cornered by a muggle and forced to flee.”
The giantess gave up, returning Marlene’s drink salute, and Regulus’s shoulders relaxed. A fraction. He was still sitting next to Marlene McKinnon, one of his brother’s loyal friends if there ever was one, and that had been enough to get his back up by default in the past. “I’ve already brought shame to the family,” he answered lightly, attempting to reclaim his pride, and pulled out a pack of expensive-looking cigarettes that he offered one to her. “What’s a little fleeing in compa--”
“No smoking,” barked the bartender.
Regulus sent him a look that might freeze molten lava before pocketing his cigarettes once again. It occurred to him belatedly that Marlene was somewhat… misplaced. “Are you supposed to be slumming it by being here or am I?”
With a roll of her eyes, Marlene withdrew her arm and returned to propping her chin on her hand. She knew enough about what he’d done to know if he hadn’t been there to do it, everything might have gone entirely different for future generations. But she was still disappointed. Her own fault for thinking maybe Sirius and Regulus weren’t so violently opposite people once they were both free of a toxic environment. She wasn’t entirely without hope, but where there had been warmth to her teasing before, there was now mostly guarded uncertainty.
“There are honest-to-Merlin tablecloths over there so it definitely isn’t me.” She nodded past him to the artfully lit tables and then brought her watchful stare back to him. “Are you here to get properly knackered or will this be a delicate sipping of brandy affair?”
Regulus drew his chin in, returning suspicion with suspicion evenly. Marlene had always been one of the friendlier people in Sirius’s circle, or at least not overtly malicious. He had a good feeling that she’d been someone Sirius had trusted with the whole horcrux story, but the last thing he wanted to talk about tonight was that ruddy necklace.
“The former,” he said, and motioned to the bartender to order a set of shots. They weren’t his usual, but he was still in a self-loathing spiral, and it was easier to pretend you were being social with shots than with whiskey tumblers. “One’s yours for playing along with that lady carpenter, but if you’d prefer to take it and sod off, don’t let me stop you. I’ve got--” He rummaged through his bag and solemnly pulled out a tattered book about black holes, “this sexy little number to enjoy in the event of your departure.” Because getting knackered with astronomy was fun and cool, not sad.
“Well.” Her eyes lit up and she sat up straight to watch the bartender fill four shot glasses. “I was going to offer to buy you a round of something posh and then give you shite for it, but I like this much better.” She pulled the first of the too full shot glasses closer to her as her gaze was snagged by the book he’d pulled out.
“Astronomy?” There was no judgement in the soft lilt of her voice, just her natural curiosity taking over for skepticism. She lowered her head to take a distracted sip from the top of the glass so she wouldn’t spill it all over herself when she picked it up. “You said you wanted to get drunk. If you can read that and it’s not completely gibberish, you haven’t fulfilled the brief. Give me it.”
She reached out to snag the book, intent on putting it face down on the bar.
Regulus made a face and considered objecting, but instead he just pulled his shots closer so they wouldn’t get knocked over. “I want that back before this is over,” he warned, as if a raggedy astronomy text was an enviable possession, and picked up his first glass. “To…”
To what? Anything too sentimental and she’d laugh at him, and besides, he was too down at the moment to bother with sincerity. Being a prat at this moment would likely guarantee him drinking alone, and while that’s what he’d set out to do, now that he was talking to someone, he didn’t quite want to ruin it.
“To adventure and far-off places,” he decided, and clicked his glass against hers and hoped she wouldn’t think it was lame. Then he hoped she thought it was lame, because who cared what anyone thought.
Marlene had expected a fight for the book, and certainly not this. Whatever this was. He was practically acting like a normal person. She had to be squinting pretty hard, but what could you do? With the book carefully set on the opposite side of her, she picked up her shot and met the clink of glass with a surprised little lift of her eyebrows.
“I’m shocked that’s a thing worth toasting for you.” She knocked back the shot and immediately picked up the second one. Of course, it was overfull too and since her clumsy arse hadn’t take her time with it, some sloshed out over her hand. “Bloody--ugh. Whatever. To a shite week and feeling a little useless all and all,” she sighed before downing the second shot.
Regulus gave her an unimpressed expression but didn’t voice what had riled him - it had been on the tip of his tongue to snark something about how what, Death Eaters couldn’t pine for the fjords too? But he was sensible enough to hold his tongue, and, more importantly, her second toast was enough to root him in the present. With a sigh, he took his second shot, making a face that ultimately melted into something more pensive.
“I shouldn’t have been bloody useless,” he said, and perhaps it was arrogance that made him think so, but he also thought it accurate. “When I first got here, I looked at the warding that was being used to protect the base. A chunk of it was other magic, so I can’t verify it, and of course I can’t make hide nor tail of the Muggle stuff. But the wards done in our magic? They were excellent. They should have kept out whatever spellwork the COS types had in their arsenal, much less sleeping spells that called on neverending… boggart attacks, or whatever it was.” Sure, Chloe had woken up, and Eliot had been saved from his kidnappers, but… well, Marlene had said it accurately: “what a shite week,” he found himself agreeing, and signaled for the barkeep to keep the shots coming before he could change his mind.
It was odd hearing so many words come out of him at once, let alone genuine ones. Ones she could relate to in her own way. Were he an actual mate, Marlene would’ve pressed a hand to the back of neck and given him a comforting squeeze. She frowned instead and pushed her empty glasses over to the bartender for refilling.
“I’m not sure any of us are properly equipped for this fight. It seems we’re always on the back foot and very rarely bringing the fight to them.” Her years with the Order and her own personality made her want to be on the offensive instead of always defending like they were now. Spinning her stool a little in his direction, she leaned against the bar top and gave his ankle a little nudge with her foot. “I’m sure your wards would’ve kept away anything from our world without trouble, Regulus.”
He glanced at her sideways, assessed her vocal tone to be sincere, and smiled. Just a little. Regulus had always been easily affected by compliments, and knowing that he was did nothing to keep them from landing. Besides, it was a novel relief to speak of COS openly - he had grown too used to fretting silently about Voldemort back home that the notion of having war talk with another person was an inviting one.
“Chloe - Aurora, rather - thinks it might have been a distraction,” he said, and even though he wasn’t feeling anything other than warmth from the alcohol yet he nonetheless blamed it for the impropriety just then. “Or is ultimately intended to function as one. Perhaps it was a test run - put half of us in comas while the other half of us fret and are vulnerable. Or simply see how long we’d stay occupied with our fears, on average.” He paused, then added: “We certainly weren’t in a good position to send any backup to save those who were kidnapped.”
Marlene didn’t want to get her hopes up, but it was undeniable that Regulus was easier to be around here and now. Easier to smile back at even, small and smirky as it may have been. Maybe a hard week had lowered his defenses. She tilted her head into her hand where it rested but was knocked out of staring by the new row of shot glasses pushed closer to her arm.
“Are you not allowed to call her Chloe anymore?” Everyone had known about the Wilkes family, of course, but Marlene had never counted the girl as a friend anyway, so she steered clear of her now as she always had, name change or not. “Nevermind, I suppose that’s not my business.”
She knocked back a new shot, wincing through the process and making a blargh noise. “I think our defenses were sound as far as a direct attack, but we don’t have an organised plan for when these things happen. Everyone is too used to waving rubbish off as everyday nonsense. If we had some kind of meter that would tell us yes, this is likely harmless, carry on with your day! That would be great.”
“It’s not your business,” Regulus agreed, but answered it anyway: “but I don’t care. We were childhood friends.” Well, as much of a cryptic answer as that was. Chloe had been at best tolerated by the Black family, and he was still attempting to figure out how much of their old friendship could be salvaged beyond raw feeling. He took a shot then, pushing the thought aside, and reached for the second, his fingers curling around the glass.
“I suppose if we’re feeling cynical,” he said softly, “one could argue that perhaps none of it is harmless, if it’s deadening our perception of unusual goings-on. The magic that cried wolf, as it were.”
He was being too chatty, he decided. Too casual. It was one thing when it was Sirius, with whom he could go from acidic to protective in a half-second, but he didn’t know Marlene. Not like that. And Peter Pettigrew has proven that you never really knew anyone. And so he added: “Not every piece of evil wears hooded cloaks and sports skull tattoos, regrettably.”
“I mean, I assumed. Same house, similar…pedigree,” Marlene waved a hand dismissively. She didn’t clarify she still didn’t understand why he corrected himself from using the Death Eater daughter’s given name if they were “childhood friends”. That way likely led to a fight and if she was going to fight with Regulus Black, it wasn’t going to be about some girl she barely knew.
The next shot went down smoother. Although her words started to lose their edges as the liquor kicked in. “Shockingly, I am actually aware that evil isn’t always so easy to detect. I was being facetious about the meter.” It was getting hotter inside the bar, surely. How annoying. Marlene started to struggle out of her coat. “Is this where you go back to sniping at me and making insinuations about my friends then?”
Regulus took a shot in lieu of defending Chloe from a snipe she’d tell him wasn’t worth his ire. Marlene wasn’t wrong, after all, even if her question left him a little off-balance. Or perhaps it was the alcohol finally beginning to catch up with him. Either way, he regarded her with a nonplussed expression.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” he said. “And I’d prefer we not. It’s…” Boring, predictable, fake… all of those adjectives and while they all were true, they weren’t the full of it. He waved off the lack of appropriate word and continued: “I survived parties where the rules of propriety were so savage that if you put emphasis on the wrong word you’d be banned from polite society for eons. I can get on with you if I want to.”
“Aw,” Marlene grinned, halting her attempts to escape her coat long enough to reach over and give him a patronising pat on the face. “So you want to get on with me.” This was easier, teasing him and finally managing to dump her coat off on the barstool next to her. Easier than a fight she didn’t care to have just this minute, anyway. And yet...
“It’s too bad you don’t want to get on with Remus too. He’d be a lot gentler with you than I will.” She gave a sharp waggle of her brows, both judgement and innuendo in the way the words were delivered, then she took another shot.
As she patted his head, Regulus gave her a half-hearted glare that was made even less potent by his slumping onto the bar with a dramatic sigh. To be fair, he never needed alcohol as an excuse to be dramatic - he came by it naturally - but being several shots in by now facilitated the opportunity nicely. “I really bunged that one up.”
He still despised werewolves, yes, and had no desire to be alone in a room with the man, but being fake came easily. Regulus knew he might have managed to avoid Remus thoroughly and subtly without getting the entire sodding family angry with him, but it seemed more important, in that moment, to draw a line of identity: I am not your kind-hearted and misunderstood antihero. “I spoke with him,” he said through the fabric of the elbow of his sweater, “and I think things will be less consistently interesting between us now. I’m already paranoid enough without having half the bloody island come at me for being a twat.”
Marlene hadn’t expected that at all, and it showed in the softening of her expression and her gently raised eyebrows. She’d been prepared to browbeat him into at least trying to find a middle ground for his own sake, but this left her gaping at him.
“Oh.” She propped her chin up with an elbow on the bar, although the steadily increasing buzz in her blood meant she was clumsy about it. At least her slouch meant she wasn’t towering over him where he was apparently trying to disappear into his sweater. “Well, good. That’s--I’m glad to hear that. For Sirius and Remus’ sake, obviously.” A faint little smile and a warm tone put a dent her attempt to sound dismissive. “And I suppose yours too,” she sighed.
“When did you find out?” Regulus asked, propping up his head half-heartedly, unconsciously mimicking Marlene. “About him being a -- you know.” ‘Werewolf’ wasn’t a dirty word around here, but Regulus already felt a little bit like he shouldn’t be asking the question, much like you wouldn’t revel in asking about someone’s unfortunate mental break and subsequent stay at St. Mungos. Half of his ire had been because apparently everyone was so cool with it that no one had thought to warn him, a fact that was still baffling to him even knowing how seriously Atlantis took both its potions-making and wards. Had she known in school? He could see Sirius keeping the secret - Sirius loved a good secret - but Regulus wondered if the Headmaster had known, if nearly everyone had known. ...He hated being the last to know anything.
She frowned and sat up a bit, putting some distance between them. It was tempting to say “that’s none of your bloody business” but it seemed counterproductive in the moment. And slipping-towards-drunk Marlene wasn’t good at pushing people away anyway.
“Not until I joined the Order.” There was one more shot available on her side, so Marlene picked it up. She paused with it held in front of her lips and glanced sideways at him. “And before you ask when that was, even though I know you don’t care, suffice to say it was after leaving school.” Knocking back the shot, she tapped the glass upside down on the bar and squinted at the bartender, busy on the opposite end. Chances were she didn’t need any more, and any second now she’d need to stumble off to avoid embarrassing herself, but still she waited for a chance to flag him over.
That got his attention. Regulus whipped his head up, peering at her in the manner of a hunting dog that had just got the scent. Damn his curiosity. “You didn’t have to tell me you were in the Order,” he said, and if he sounded like a concerned and chiding mum, he didn’t realise it. “That was dumb. What if... Death Eaters… happen here, and he uses his legilimency and they find out?” All right, unlikely scenario, but Sirius had deliberately destroyed the horcrux with his fellow Order members and not told Regulus who was who, and he hadn’t minded it then. It only made sense to hide the information.
The secondary part of her statement at least assured him that there wasn’t some sort of “We Know Remus Is A Werewolf” club at school that he had been excluded from. Unfortunately, the rest was disheartening: “The Order waited until after school to recruit you lot?” He’d gotten his mark on his sixteenth birthday. ‘The best present in the world’, Lucius Malfoy had said, and clapped him on the back as they apparated out.
Regulus frowned, and as the bartender headed over to them, shook his head against more alcohol; he no longer had the stomach for it. “Don’t let me stop you,” he added for Marlene’s benefit.
Marlene laughed humorlessly. “What are they going to do? Kill me harder?” Someone apparently already knew she was Order, otherwise why have Death Eaters come to her home and murder her entire family. While it was a weird relief to know that someone didn’t seem to be Regulus, she still frowned that he was passing on the liquor. If they weren’t drinking themselves stupid, what were they doing?
“One more for good luck, lad,” she said to the bartender. “And make it a double.” With her drink poured and paid for, she turned around on her stool and leaned against the bar with it in hand. “The Order recruited different people at different times,” she finally shrugged. “Think the idea was to approach people who were ready to fight, not manipulate unprepared kids into thinking they must. But what do I know?”
More than most. He didn’t say it out loud, instead observing her with the unsubtle curiosity of the practically drunk. She was, he realized, one of the few people he’d talked to that had died. He’d known it, academically - he’d read about it in his desperate catch-up when he’d first arrived, that she had been killed a few years after he had. But they weren’t friendly, not in the way that would have given him the go-ahead to talk to her about it. It was common,cruel knowledge that wars killed the young. What would they even say to one another about it, anyhow?
Apparently this: “I don’t regret it either,” he said, quite without meaning to, and then panicked about the honesty, clarifying: “anything I did that led to the… dying a lot. It was-- right.”
It was a good thing he clarified, because she definitely frowned and glanced sharply at him in confusion. Once the rest was said, though, the crease between her eyebrows disappeared and her expression turned intensely sad.
“It...was. It absolutely was.” Marlene downed her last shot in a few gulps and grimaced childishly. “That, on the other hand, was probably a terrible idea.” She set the glass back on the bar and turned towards him, unquestionably in her cups with the way she swayed on her stool. “This probably is too.”
Without any further warning, she pushed off her stool and hugged him. Liquor was the main culprit, of course, but empathy might have taken the reins anyway.
“I’m sorry you died trying to make things right,” she murmured. “Even if you were a certifiable shite beforehand.”
Hugs were not something that happened in the Black family household; Regulus was consequently ill-prepared to receive one in general, much less one from Marlene McKinnon. His natural instinct was not to recoil from one, being both a people-pleaser and intoxicated. Instead, he froze completely to assess the situation and determine what on earth she was doing. Oh. A hug. That he could do. (Why was he doing it?)
“I’m sorry you died as well,” he said, giving her a somewhat-awkward but nonetheless genuine pat on the back as he returned the hug, sliding forward and nearly falling off the front of his stool because judging distances was difficult. “Even if you’re... entirely too blunt and your music too peppy. Being a cautionary tale….” Normally he would have better, more appropriate adjectives to use here, but Regulus was at a loss: “sucks.”
Marlene laughed, steadying him with a hand to his chest as she stumbled backwards a step. The world was nice and fuzzy at this point, so it wasn’t a wonder that she smiled instead of dissecting the weirdness of hugging Regulus Black of her own volition. To be fair, even sober, she was prone to presumptuous actions and physical affection. And the Black family had always made her heart ache with the frigid cruelty of it all.
“Haven’t there been enough secrets in your life? Enough dark and dreary too for that matter?” She tipped her head to the side, tauntingly, then turned to dish out a tip on the bar. Her hand fell on the astronomy book next and she slid it over to him on the bar top. “Life shouldn’t be a black hole.”
“Oh, well done,” Regulus said, rolling his eyes over the setup and delivery of her pun, but even he was smirking a little as he took his book back. “Look at that. It all came together so perfectly.”
As far as secrets went, well, he was more used to having them than not. Regulus doubted he’d ever be the sort of person who said what he thought without consideration, with or without unhealthy amounts of alcohol. But keeping secrets and holding onto past grievances weren’t the same thing, and the latter was something to work on, certainly. “Thank you for going along with saving me from the house-builder,” he added with sincerity. “I wasn’t looking forward to extricating myself out of that.”
Shamelessly grinning and giving a little bow, Marlene grabbed her coat off the nearby stool. “Well! Now I know the liquor is kicking in,” she teased. It made her a little too warm, hearing Regulus Black of all people say thank you. Well, warmer. Bloody booze was catching up to her fast. That was really her cue to leave, before her spontaneous nature made her do something epically stupid.
“You’re welcome. Thank you for the shots.” Her grin eased into something more genuine and she squeezed his arm as she turned to go. “And for proving you might not be a lost cause after all.”
Regulus made a noise that was a cross between a sigh and a noise of frustration, even if his face didn’t reflect it. He was still undecided on whether or not he wanted any of these people to think well of him, but he couldn’t deny that it was by far more pleasant than the alternative. “Will you make it home alright?” He asked, not because he was any more sober than she, but because he was a Black and certain politeness queues were ingrained.
“Why?” Marlene laughed, turning to take her next two steps backward. “Are you going to offer to walk me home if I say no?” She made sure the ridiculousness of that question showed in the come now, don’t be daft face that followed. Bumping into a table as she moved didn’t exactly help support her point, but she straightened up and pulled on the coat that had been dangling from her fingertips anyway. “I’ll be fine, mother. Enjoy your book,” she added with a teasing nod.
He’d been about to answer ‘of course’ but the incredulous tone of her voice implied that it was for the best if he didn’t. And so he gave a nod, tucked his book back into his bag, and watched her go - no less perplexed than he had been, but at least a little less downtrodden.