The family regrouped on the slope beyond the graveyard.
Orion stood in front, Walburga half a step behind him, Regulus and Sirius bringing up the rear.
Sirius hadn't said a word all day. His face was set, and he looked at no one.
Crack, crack, crack, crack. Apparition, and they were back at Grimmauld Place.
They had barely found their footing when Kreacher pushed the door open from inside. Before the elf could bow, Sirius shifted his weight, glanced at nobody, and cracked out again, straight back to Hogwarts.
Orion frowned at the space where his son had been, then turned to Regulus.
Regulus shook his head.
His father's gaze rested on his face a moment longer than necessary before sliding away. He said nothing.
Walburga looked once at the patch of ground where Sirius had stood. Whatever moved behind her eyes stayed there. She turned and went inside.
Kreacher scurried out from behind the door, bent double. "Master, Mistress, young master, Kreacher has supper ready, hot soup and hot dishes and hot tea..."
The three of them filed in and went to their rooms to change. Nobody eats dinner in funeral robes.
Regulus shut his door behind him and tapped the inside pocket of his robes.
Baruk's head emerged. Recognizing the room, the spider climbed up Regulus's chest to his shoulder, then launched off all eight legs and landed on the bed.
He tumbled across the sheets a few times, dark red bristles fluffed out, chelicerae clicking open and shut in a steady rattle.
A whole day cooped up. Finally, room to move.
From the bed to the desk, from the desk to the windowsill, from the windowsill to the nightstand, patrolling every inch of his small territory again.
Regulus changed into a dark grey house robe and went down to the dining room.
Orion and Walburga were already seated. A dark green cloth covered the long table, and the candles in the silver holders burned even.
Kreacher had laid out a spread.
Sliced Roast Beef, roast leg of lamb with mint sauce, boiled peas, mashed potatoes, and a tureen of cream of asparagus soup steaming so thickly the whole room smelled of it.
The table stayed quiet. Cutlery against porcelain, the faint hiss of wicks burning. Nobody spoke.
Walburga ate little. Most of her plate went untouched. She took a few spoonfuls of soup, set the spoon down, and dabbed her mouth.
Standing, she rested a hand briefly on Orion's shoulder, gave Regulus a look, and went upstairs.
It had been a long day for her. An afternoon on her feet, her father in the ground, and composure held together from morning to dark.
Orion watched her go, then dropped his eyes, cut a piece of lamb, chewed, swallowed.
He lifted his teacup and was about to tell Regulus to get an early night when he saw that his son had also set down his knife and fork and was watching him.
Orion paused. He knew that look. A slight tilt of his head toward the study, and he rose and went.
Regulus followed.
In the study, the fire burned green, throwing a murky light across the whole wall of books.
Orion settled into an armchair, picked up the tea Kreacher had left ready, and watched Regulus take the seat opposite.
"Lucius asked me for a favor," Regulus said, going straight to it. "A job Voldemort gave him. He's going to see a werewolf. Fenrir Greyback."
Greyback's activity in Yorkshire had drawn attention, and the Ministry of Magic was laying detection nets. Voldemort wanted someone to pass word that Greyback should rein it in, and Lucius wanted someone along who could hold the room.
He kept it short. There was nothing worth hiding, not with his father, not at this level.
Orion listened, his expression unchanged, cup in hand, sipping now and then.
"I'm interested in werewolves," Regulus added, light about it.
Orion's brows drew together, barely, and smoothed again.
His view of werewolves needed no elaboration. Base, filthy, tainted blood. Walking contagion.
It wasn't a question of who was a victim. Werewolves simply weren't on the list of species a pure-blood wizard acknowledged.
A bitten wizard deserved pity, certainly. Pity wasn't acceptance.
Pure-blood or half-blood before the bite, it made no difference. Bitten meant changed. That simple.
Still, his son's interest didn't surprise him.
Mandrake. Whomping Willow. Every wizard who'd passed through Hogwarts knew both, and only Regulus had wrung a spell of that caliber out of them.
The boy found things worth digging into where everyone else saw the ordinary.
So Orion was curious rather than skeptical.
Was there something about werewolves he'd missed?
He set the cup down and gestured for Regulus to go on.
"There's a young werewolf at Hogwarts," Regulus said. "In the school, under Dumbledore's protection. I talked to Dumbledore about it once. About the nature of the transformation, whether will can override the animal instinct."
He met his father's eyes, one corner of his mouth lifting. "Dumbledore said will overrides instinct, and self-knowledge is the foundation of everything. Not long after that conversation, I ignited my soul."
Orion's expression shifted. The cup hung halfway to his mouth, forgotten.
Regulus had told him about the soul. He knew his son had done it. He'd never known how, or what the trigger was, what tipped the final breakthrough.
Now he knew. A conversation with Dumbledore about werewolves.
Orion was quiet for a moment, then brought the cup to his lips, drank, set it down.
Dumbledore's words. An old wizard's instruction on will and self-knowledge.
He put himself in that scene, tried to imagine hearing the same thing.
He'd have found it sound, filed it away, and gone on with his business.
Regulus heard it and lit his soul.
Dumbledore had a share in that, no denying it. Most of it belonged to Regulus.
The same seed in different soil grows into different things.
Sirius came to mind unbidden.
If Sirius had come to him and said there was a young werewolf at Hogwarts, what would he have said?
Stay away from it. Don't associate with that kind of thing.
Orion's mouth twitched, and he let the thought go.
"So you want a look at Greyback." He pulled the conversation back. "Compared to the one at school, he'd be the more extreme specimen." Then: "How do you intend to go about it?"
"Observe first. Get close. Study his mind and the structure of his magic."
Orion nodded.
Safety didn't concern him. A werewolf, even the largest of them, wasn't going to overturn anything in front of Regulus. Not one, not a hundred at once. A wall of Fiendfyre, or the second form of the Decomposition Curse, and there wouldn't be ash left.
The werewolf was not the problem here.
"Lucius asked for you," Orion said. "You know what he's after."
"Building a connection. Putting me in his debt."
Orion nodded again. The boy saw it clearly.
Lucius himself was tolerable at worst, and the errand hardly required muscle. Delivering a message, not clearing out a den.
Choosing Regulus was about the name, not the wandwork.
"Involving yourself in Voldemort's affairs is fine." Orion set his cup down, tone easy enough. "But keep the proportions right. This is Lucius's assignment, given to him by Voldemort. You going along may read, on Voldemort's end, as the Black heir cooperating with his arrangements."
He held his son's eyes. "That impression cuts both ways. Good in that the Blacks appear willing. Bad in that the Blacks appear available. So when you get there, let Lucius lead. He says what he's meant to say, he delivers what he's meant to deliver. Once that's finished, you do your own work."
Regulus nodded. He'd thought the same.
Orion drank again. Something in his voice changed, and in his face.
"And..." The contempt came through undisguised. "Werewolves are filthy things. Mind yourself."
"Greyback belongs to Voldemort, so don't kill him." The same careless disdain. "Anything else, if one of them offends you, handle it as you see fit."
As far as he was concerned, a werewolf laying so much as a finger on Regulus, even on his robe, was a desecration.
He knew his son would be fine. But the boy was the age he was, going to that sort of place to deal with that sort of creature, and a father says a few words regardless.
"Understood," was all Regulus said.
Orion studied his face a moment longer.
Then, ordinary again: "Get some sleep."
Regulus stood, crossed to the door, and pulled it shut behind him.
Back in his room.
Baruk sprang out of the fireplace and skittered a lap across the floorboards, up onto the desk and off again, twice around Regulus's ankles, chelicerae clattering.
He ran the length of the room and back, desk to windowsill to bed, eight legs churning, a rubber ball that had been boxed up too long.
Regulus watched him tear around for a while, then called out. "Kreacher."
Crack.
The elf appeared, bending low. "What does young master require?"
"A plate of dragon meat for Baruk. Hebridean Black. Cut into strips."
Kreacher's great eyes flicked toward the spider, and the corner of his mouth gave a small twitch. His feelings about the creature were difficult to name.
He bowed. "Yes, young master."
Crack. Gone.
Two minutes later, crack, back again with a silver platter, a row of dark purple strips laid out on it.
He set it on the desk, bowed, and vanished.
"You did well today," Regulus said, sitting down at the desk. "Eat something good."
Baruk came thundering over on all eight legs, pedipalps spreading, and began tearing into the meat.
Regulus watched him eat.
When the last strip was gone, Baruk scraped the bottom of the plate twice to be sure, then raised his head and turned eight amber eyes on Regulus.
A heartbeat later he launched off the desktop, shot up to the mantel, touched down once on the stone edge, flipped his whole body over, and dove into the fire.
A sharp hiss. Dragon juice, grease and threads of blood on his bristles and pedipalps charred crisp in an instant, sputtering, a smell of cooked meat rising with a thin curl of white smoke.
Baruk rolled over in the flames, toasted his belly, kicked a few times at the air, rolled back, and spread himself into a comfortable dark red rug.
Regulus looked out the window.
Grimmauld Place was quiet at night. The streetlamps burned a dull yellow, throwing down just enough to outline the pavement.
Now and then a car passed the end of the street, headlights carving a white arc across the glass before it went.
A cream Ford Cortina rolled slowly past the square, two beams cutting through the fog, the engine noise coming through the window muffled and low.
London, 1974. The Muggles were still fretting over the oil crisis and the strikes, the papers full of inflation and unemployment.
Tomorrow he would meet a werewolf.
He remembered Dumbledore asking him outside the Shrieking Shack: "What do you make of werewolves?"
"Too ugly," he'd said.
Though in truth he'd met few of them.
Lupin counted, but Lupin was a cub, and the young of most animals are appealing. Werewolves ran the other way. They were never anything but hideous.
And whatever else you said about Lupin, he was domesticated.
Dumbledore watching over him, the school shielding him, his friends beside him, the Shrieking Shack waiting every full moon. A comfortable enough life.
Tomorrow was the wild kind.
His mouth tugged sideways.
Time to see how ugly it got.
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