"No, not overly. I'm sensing it's going to just be rather ... depressing. To put it mildly." Barty looked like that so something probably went badly. He had a lot of questions but he feared the answers to all of them. He smiled without humour or joy and tried his best to face this all head on. He had to, didn't he?
"Let's start from the very beginning. Namely, because I have to know, do you know the circumstances of my death?" Did he know what Regulus was trying to do? He was a traitor to their cause. He didn't know Barty would take that or had taken it but he felt like it had to be put out there.
"I do." Barty frowned, licking his lips and looking aside. "I don't think he knows yet. I can't tell you how I found out either. I had time to think." Maybe that was the easiest way to put it. What conclusion exactly he arrived on, he didn't expand on that. "I know you. Now and then. Maybe better than you know yourself."
A noble suicide mission. That sounded like Regulus. "Your house elf. Kreacher. He is alive. Still at Grimmauld Place."
"Good." He had hoped it wold have gone that way. Well, no, he hoped he would have lived but if he hadn't, he made Kreacher swear to go on without him. He felt ill with the knowledge that the Dark Lord was spoken of in present tense - so he wasn't defeated. He wasn't sure if he liked that. "So he did it, did he? Got his way and all?"
Fuck. It wasn't that he didn't think Voldemort had a point but -- a man like that did not deserve to have the power he did. Not when he treated his lessers as he did Kreacher. "You must be quite pleased."
"You speak too quickly." Barty felt he should point it out, even if he was smiling. Anyone else... Well. This wouldn't have ever happened with anyone else, so it was useless to so much as think about it. "There was a prophecy. A child born who would take down the Dark Lord. So he went personally to take care of the matter and he was defeated. For a while. That was two years after your death."
He held up two fingers, leaning his head back. "Most left the cause then. Cowards, sycophants." He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I tried to keep my cover too, but--" What did details matter? He just waved his hand. "Azkaban."
That was not a casual thing to just throw out there! Barty went to Azkaban? With a low exhale, Regulus just tried to process this. Two years after his death, the Dark Lord fell for a while and Barty went to Azkaban? Well. Great. Just great. It made him feel so uneasy and horrified that it was just easier to be angry than it was to be sad over it. "Well, you got out at least... are you all right?" He had to ask. He looked at Barty, swallowing hard. "I dread to ask this but how long?"
Barty frowned. All right. It was an interesting question. Not really something he had asked himself in a while, not really something that seemed important, even. But everything was different with Regulus. No one had ever been in a position to care about him like Regulus. He leaned forward, gently stroked Regulus' hair back from his face. Caught his eyes and smiled. "You'd be amazed how resilient I am."
Maybe that, then. He pulled back again and shook his head. "I wasn't there that long. My mother was sickly. Dying. She talked my father into swapping places with me, polyjuiced, and I went home with him." Horrifying on so many levels, but it seemed easiest to just get it over with. "That was no freedom, of course. I spent most of the remaining years under Imperius. It's a toss-up, I reckon, what's worse."
Regulus' face showed too much, more than he wanted to. It broke his heart to hear this and he didn't know how to react, not really. His mother died? His father controlled him? It was like a nightmare. Barty's actual nightmare. How was this possible? The world he'd come back to was not a world he really wanted. One where nightmares could come true.
Swallowing hard, he leaned forward and placed their's foreheads together, closing his eyes and just breathing. "Oh Barty." What horror show was this? Leaning in, he kissed him on the lips, gentle and sweet. He didn't want anything but to comfort. "I'm so sorry."
Barty's fingers found his way into Regulus' hair again and he smiled. It seemed so surreal. It was, wasn't it? "You are sweet."
Those words barely even seemed like his. "I'm sorry, darling. I've missed you, but it seems like... I'll have to remember. Learn how to be with you." Because there hadn't been anything like this in his world, for longer than he had even been alive before it all started. Some people were born for war. "I'm all right. I'm still me."
Clinging on to sanity, but maybe that had always been true too.
"It's all right, I can teach you. You know it all deep down, you just need a review." Regulus reached out to idly trace along Barty's face, just fascinated with how well he'd aged. He looked tired and exhausted, older than he probably should have, but he could see Barty underneath all his suffering and he wasn't much different. "We have to learn a lot together. I have eighteen years to learn."
He looked down at his own hand studying Barty's face and then pulled away, touching his own curiously. "How do I look?"
Given he hadn't seen himself yet, he did wonder. He felt older, somehow, so did he age while he was gone? Did he change? "Same or different?"
"You look older. Not as much as I do." Just to reassure him. He inspected Regulus, tried to pinpoint the differences, but it was difficult. "You are still beautiful, in case you are worried about that." In his eyes, at least, Regulus had always been beautiful rather than handsome. Not that it was wise to point that out. Beautiful and his, that was what he wanted. He cupped the side of his face, running a thumb along his jaw. "I will get you a mirror later. It will be like that time you claimed to have a beard."
"I did have a beard. The startings of one. Everything has to start small." Regulus huffed, not willing to let that one go because no, it wasn't over - he had stubble. Very vague, very patchy stubble. "Suffering or not, you're still a frustrating bastard, you know?" Or maybe he was just easily frustrated. Either way, he smiled faintly because, well, Barty made him happy too. Made him want to smile and laugh.
So few things did. "Good to see nothing changes you." It was reassuring.
"Oh, I know. I believe, if nothing else, I know myself better than ever." Barty laughed, leaning in to Regulus' lips, just for the tiniest flick, immediately kissing him after, then kissing him again, because he could. Much better to focus on than the details of what he'd told Regulus already. Was there anything good to say? "I was a professor at Hogwarts. DADA. In disguise, naturally, but still. How grown up am I?"
"I mean... I can't say you're not qualified but I question your commitment to educating children." It was a funny mental image though. He laughed to himself, smirking a little as he imagined Barty teaching a class full of snot-nosed brats. Well, he supposed it was better that Azkaban. "I should hope you got good pass rates that year."
Knowing him, he probably did. "It's so weird. You're such an adult." And he still felt so very young... it was a bit strange to imagine he was a man now.
"Not too bad. Turned a student into a ferret, that was fun." Well, he didn't have to tell him that had been his cousin, he just enjoyed the mental image. "McGonagall didn't approve." And it was all so funny to imagine. McGonagall never much approved of him as himself either, back in school. Not that Barty had been a troublemaker. At least not openly. Maybe that was the problem. "Slytherin has really gone downhill since we graduated."
"Well, do you remember the sort we were in class with? Those people reproduced, God help us. I don't fancy seeing what they brought into the world, honestly." He was imagining nothing good, frankly. And those were the current death eaters, he assumed? Good. That was just great. "There was a time when being a pure blood and a Slytherin meant something but I feel the value slips year on year. Quite tragic, really."
He says having missed many years being dead but he was a pessimist - he doubted it got better, only worse. He idly thought of Sirius and he knew he had to finally ask the question he'd been dreading to ask.
"As far as I'm aware--" Barty frowned, looking at Regulus. Where to start with that? Good news first. At least he would assumed that he would consider it good news. It was hard to tell, his relationship to Sirius was complicated. But then, Regulus' first attempt at actual speech, it had been Sirius' name. "Your brother is alive. Recently he survived a duel with Bellatrix. Almost fell Behind the Veil in the ministry. Punched Dolohov."
Sounded about right for Sirius Black, so at least some things hadn't changed. "I can't say how well he is doing."
"Well. He's alive. Good for him." That was something. Regulus was unsure how he felt but he did know that the relief that washed over him said a lot. Sirius was alive and that was ... something. He wonder how Sirius had taken his death or what he believed had happened but he knew he'd likely never know unless he saw him again.
And he wasn't sure how possible that was.
"Am I allowed to leave this room ever or am I here for good?" Seemed like a fair question to ask.
"For now-- No." Barty supposed that would put a dampener on things. Was Regulus his prisoner? He didn't like thinking about it that way. "I have to see what is the smartest way to proceed."
He shifted, ended up stretched out on the bed, but slung an arm around Regulus, looking up at him. "Right now, whether the world realises or not, the Dark Lord is on the rise. I can't take you to their side, if that was what you wanted. I couldn't risk you."
His soulmate. His humanity, or so it felt. How could he ever be without him again? "I have decisions to make."
"I wouldn't defect but-- I can't serve the dark lord either." And if Barty hated him for it then he didn't know what else to do but he couldn't pretend that he could be something he wasn't. He tried and failed at eighteen, it wouldn't change now he was older. "I don't know what I'd do because I never had to -- to consider any of this."
His parents decided his fate. He did everything he could do to be perfect for them, followed everything they said, did all he could and yet he still couldn't convince himself to follow the Dark Lord. He didn't believe what he was told any more and that made it harder to play along.
"This wasn't supposed to happen. Neither of us is supposed to still be around. That's what we get for defying fate." An intriguing concept in theory, but very difficult to figure out in practice. What was he supposed to do? "All I know is..."
He turned his head, looking up at the ceiling. That made it easier. "I love you." A love that he had buried for so long, because he had to. But it was still there, painful and unrelenting. "I love you and it seems to outweigh all else. Even my loyalty."
Blasphemy, wasn't it? To so much as say that. "I don't know where there's space for us in this world. But I'll make it, if I have to. I won't die without leaving my mark. And I'll keep you safe. I failed once. That's enough."
"You love more than you've ever given yourself credit, you know? To defy the world and bring a man back to life. You old romantic." He thought it was funny, personally. With a playful smirk, he leaned forward and stole a quick kiss, wanting to lighten the bleak mood and hell, he was riding high on being loved.
Like a teenager, his heart was racing and it may have been naive but what could be so bad if he could be so loved? He didn't think he'd ever get to feel like this and yet. Here he was.
"I'll keep you safe as well. Don't think it's all on you. I have to worry as well."
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"Let's start from the very beginning. Namely, because I have to know, do you know the circumstances of my death?" Did he know what Regulus was trying to do? He was a traitor to their cause. He didn't know Barty would take that or had taken it but he felt like it had to be put out there.
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A noble suicide mission. That sounded like Regulus. "Your house elf. Kreacher. He is alive. Still at Grimmauld Place."
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Fuck. It wasn't that he didn't think Voldemort had a point but -- a man like that did not deserve to have the power he did. Not when he treated his lessers as he did Kreacher. "You must be quite pleased."
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He held up two fingers, leaning his head back. "Most left the cause then. Cowards, sycophants." He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I tried to keep my cover too, but--" What did details matter? He just waved his hand. "Azkaban."
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That was not a casual thing to just throw out there! Barty went to Azkaban? With a low exhale, Regulus just tried to process this. Two years after his death, the Dark Lord fell for a while and Barty went to Azkaban? Well. Great. Just great. It made him feel so uneasy and horrified that it was just easier to be angry than it was to be sad over it. "Well, you got out at least... are you all right?" He had to ask. He looked at Barty, swallowing hard. "I dread to ask this but how long?"
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Maybe that, then. He pulled back again and shook his head. "I wasn't there that long. My mother was sickly. Dying. She talked my father into swapping places with me, polyjuiced, and I went home with him." Horrifying on so many levels, but it seemed easiest to just get it over with. "That was no freedom, of course. I spent most of the remaining years under Imperius. It's a toss-up, I reckon, what's worse."
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Swallowing hard, he leaned forward and placed their's foreheads together, closing his eyes and just breathing. "Oh Barty." What horror show was this? Leaning in, he kissed him on the lips, gentle and sweet. He didn't want anything but to comfort. "I'm so sorry."
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Those words barely even seemed like his. "I'm sorry, darling. I've missed you, but it seems like... I'll have to remember. Learn how to be with you." Because there hadn't been anything like this in his world, for longer than he had even been alive before it all started. Some people were born for war. "I'm all right. I'm still me."
Clinging on to sanity, but maybe that had always been true too.
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He looked down at his own hand studying Barty's face and then pulled away, touching his own curiously. "How do I look?"
Given he hadn't seen himself yet, he did wonder. He felt older, somehow, so did he age while he was gone? Did he change? "Same or different?"
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So few things did. "Good to see nothing changes you." It was reassuring.
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Knowing him, he probably did. "It's so weird. You're such an adult." And he still felt so very young... it was a bit strange to imagine he was a man now.
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He says having missed many years being dead but he was a pessimist - he doubted it got better, only worse. He idly thought of Sirius and he knew he had to finally ask the question he'd been dreading to ask.
"How's my family?"
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Sounded about right for Sirius Black, so at least some things hadn't changed. "I can't say how well he is doing."
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And he wasn't sure how possible that was.
"Am I allowed to leave this room ever or am I here for good?" Seemed like a fair question to ask.
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He shifted, ended up stretched out on the bed, but slung an arm around Regulus, looking up at him. "Right now, whether the world realises or not, the Dark Lord is on the rise. I can't take you to their side, if that was what you wanted. I couldn't risk you."
His soulmate. His humanity, or so it felt. How could he ever be without him again? "I have decisions to make."
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His parents decided his fate. He did everything he could do to be perfect for them, followed everything they said, did all he could and yet he still couldn't convince himself to follow the Dark Lord. He didn't believe what he was told any more and that made it harder to play along.
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He turned his head, looking up at the ceiling. That made it easier. "I love you." A love that he had buried for so long, because he had to. But it was still there, painful and unrelenting. "I love you and it seems to outweigh all else. Even my loyalty."
Blasphemy, wasn't it? To so much as say that. "I don't know where there's space for us in this world. But I'll make it, if I have to. I won't die without leaving my mark. And I'll keep you safe. I failed once. That's enough."
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Like a teenager, his heart was racing and it may have been naive but what could be so bad if he could be so loved? He didn't think he'd ever get to feel like this and yet. Here he was.
"I'll keep you safe as well. Don't think it's all on you. I have to worry as well."