Regulus blinked. Tiny beads of moisture still clung to his lashes.
His vision cleared.
The dining room. The long table. The fireplace. The woman standing before him.
Bellatrix's face hovered inches away, eyes burning with something close to fanaticism.
He lowered his gaze to his own hand, to the bone box resting in it.
The runes on its surface had dimmed, settling back to their original dark gold, though the sense of wrongness hadn't faded.
Slowly, he raised his eyes to Bellatrix.
Exhaustion showed in them, and that part was real. Sustaining high-intensity mental manipulation drained enormous reserves of psychic energy.
The excitement, though, was fabricated. So was the longing for power. The awe he let surface without restraint.
"This..." His voice came out raw, threaded with a tremor. "This is the Dark Lord's power?"
"The barest sliver of it." Bellatrix's mouth split wide, her voice electric. "You felt it, didn't you? True power. Power free from the shackles of false morality."
Regulus didn't answer right away.
He looked down at the bone box again, letting his gaze linger as though savoring what he'd experienced.
Then he looked up, pitching his voice toward steadiness but leaving the aftershock audible beneath it.
"Vast," he murmured, eyes drifting slightly out of focus. "Bottomless. I saw things I'd never imagined before."
The words came out barely above a whisper, but in the silence of the dining room, everyone heard.
Walburga released a long breath. A smile broke across her face and her hands clasped together at her chest.
Sirius's expression was dark. He stared at Regulus, at the tired but exhilarated gleam in his brother's eyes, at the hand still wrapped around the bone box.
"Regulus," Sirius said, his voice scraped dry. "You..."
"Wonderful!" Bellatrix erupted into a sharp, piercing laugh that cut him off.
She stepped back and flung her arms wide. "Wonderful! Regulus, you haven't disappointed the Dark Lord!"
She turned to Orion and Walburga, triumph naked on her face.
"Uncle... Aunt... You saw it. The heir of the House of Black is worthy of this gift."
Orion said nothing. He looked at Bellatrix, then shifted his gaze to Regulus.
Walburga was already hurrying over, arms reaching to embrace her son, but Regulus turned his body just enough to deflect her with the hand holding the box.
"Mother, I'm drenched in sweat."
She stopped, hand suspended in midair, then redirected it to his shoulder. The clap landed hard.
"My son! The Dark Lord himself has recognized you! The glory of the House of Black!"
Sirius stood where he was, watching.
His mother's face, bright with pride and manic joy. Bellatrix preening in victory. His father's silence, fathomless. And Regulus.
Regulus with his head bowed, gaze still resting on the bone box, his profile caught in the morning light, wearing an expression of rapt fascination that looked like a stranger's face.
"Lunatics," Sirius spat. "Every last one of you."
He turned and crossed the dining room in long strides, wrenched the door open, and slammed it shut behind him.
A few seconds of quiet.
Bellatrix let out a derisive snort and shook her head, flicking away something distasteful.
Then she looked at Regulus again, her tone shifting toward formality. "The gift is yours. The Dark Lord looks forward to your deeper comprehension."
She stressed the final word.
Comprehension.
Regulus nodded, putting weight behind it. "I'll study it carefully."
"Of course you will." That uncanny smile tugged at her mouth again. "But remember, true power demands purity of resolve. Sometimes, casting too wide a shelter can dull that resolve's edge."
Regulus lifted his eyes to her.
Bellatrix met his gaze head-on. The message in her eyes was plain: I know you've been protecting those two half-blood brats.
"What does my cousin mean by that?" His voice settled into calm.
"I mean the Dark Lord values decisiveness." Bellatrix held his stare. "Cut what needs cutting. Choose what needs choosing. An ambiguous position helps no one."
Orion stepped between them. His gaze fell first to the bone box, then rose to Bellatrix.
"The gift has been accepted. You've seen his response. Tell the Dark Lord that the House of Black is grateful for his regard."
Bellatrix stopped. She said nothing more, turning toward the fireplace, the hem of her cloak sweeping across the carpet.
At the threshold of the flames, she glanced back one last time at the bone box in Regulus's hand.
"Use it well," she said. "Don't waste it."
Green fire surged, swallowed her whole, then shrank back into the grate and settled to its usual orange-red.
Three people remained.
Walburga was still riding the high. She gripped Regulus's arm and talked fast.
About the Dark Lord's approval. About the future of the House of Black. About how Regulus needed to seize this opportunity.
He listened patiently, nodding at intervals, his gaze drifting toward Orion more than once.
His father hadn't moved. One hand braced on the table's edge, head bowed, studying the grain of the wood. He hadn't spoken a word since Bellatrix left. The only voice in the dining room was Walburga's, running on and on.
"...so you should start immediately." She finally reached a pause and patted the back of his hand. "Begin your research today. The Dark Lord will be waiting to see your progress..."
"Walburga." Orion's voice was quiet, but she stopped mid-sentence.
He looked up at his wife. His eyes were very calm.
"Let Regulus rest. He looks exhausted."
Walburga blinked, then caught herself and released his arm.
"Yes, yes, look at me, getting carried away. Regulus, go to your room. Take a bath and rest properly. The research can wait. The Dark Lord will understand."
Regulus gave her a nod, then turned to Orion.
Father and son's eyes met across the room.
"Go on," Orion said. "Get some rest."
Regulus dropped his gaze without a word, gripped the bone box, and left.
Back in his room, he shut the door and turned the lock.
He walked to the desk, sat down, and tossed the bone box onto its surface with no more ceremony than discarding a spent quill. Hands laced together on the desk's edge, eyes closed.
He began to think.
First, the nature of the Dark Awakening.
A composite magical construct. High-density dark knowledge fused with psychic contamination and psychic temptation into a single vessel.
The artifact delivered genuine power, but its core mechanism was corrosion.
By displaying what power could look like, by gifting the user fragmented knowledge and experience, it coaxed the darkest tendencies buried in its user's heart, guiding them step by step toward self-destruction.
Second, Voldemort's intent.
The gift was a test on multiple levels.
A test of his ceiling. Could he withstand and process dark knowledge of this magnitude?
A test of his loyalty. Were his reactions to the offering sufficiently pure?
And deeper still, recruitment through the most seductive poison imaginable. Let him chase power, and he'd slide, inch by inch, down the path Voldemort had chosen for him.
It was also condescension dressed as generosity.
Voldemort placed the choice before you but forbade refusal. Acceptance was the only permitted response. Whether you could master it, whether the darkness consumed you, that was your problem. Voldemort had given an opportunity. Fail to grasp it, fail to endure it, and you proved only that you were unworthy.
The consequences were yours alone.
Third, his own performance.
The external display should have been convincing enough. Complete set of physiological symptoms, emotional progression in proper layers, the final show of awe and yearning perfectly calibrated to a twelve-year-old pure-blood heir confronting overwhelming power.
Enough to fool Bellatrix and Walburga. But his father had seen through it.
Orion knew him too well. Knew the coldness and control that lived at his core.
The trembling excitement, the open-mouthed wonder, might have been a touch overplayed. But that was fine. That was the point. The unspoken understanding between father and son.
He'd never intended to hide it from Orion.
Better if his father saw through the act. They'd talk properly in the study later.
For Walburga, his mother didn't need to know more. She only needed to see a son who had won Voldemort's approval.
Last, Bellatrix's warning about sheltering half-blood students. Voldemort's people had been watching, as expected.
Not a serious concern. It didn't even require action. He'd have Alex remind Lina and Samuel to keep their heads down.
Outside the window, the sky had brightened another shade. Sunlight was breaking through the cloud cover, casting a patchwork of light and shadow across the buildings of Grimmauld Place.
From the distant street came the hum of Muggle car engines and the soft rattle of a milkman's cart rolling over cobblestones.
Regulus stood, crossed to the window, and pulled back the heavy curtain.
He looked out at the world. That world woven together by magic and the mundane alike.
Voldemort expanding fast. Dumbledore maneuvering from the other end. Pure-blood families wavering between interest and allegiance. The Muggle world oblivious, carrying on with its ordinary, day-after-day existence.
And here he stood, holding a gift from the darkness, the day's performance behind him.
He let the curtain fall. Fabric dropped, cutting off the light.
The room sank back into dimness.
Regulus turned, peeled off his clothes, and headed for the bath.
He was soaked in sweat, and it was miserable.