The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

Where Are We Going, Master Regulus?

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was dark and dreary even when it was sunny out, but it was even darker and drearier when it was rainy in the square.

Streaks of rain water ran in bulbous lines of droplets across the window in the library.

Cadmas Peverell stared at the spot where the house elf had stood moments before. If he had still had a heart, it might've been stopped in anticipation. The elf only ever left if Regulus had called on it...

CRACK!

Kreacher and Regulus suddenly appeared there before his portrait frame.

"Oh blessings be!" Cadmas shouted, seeing Regulus, "Blessings be - you're alright. You had us both in a right turn about here, not coming back for so many days - not calling the elf. The elf was having a terrible fit of it, kept pacing about muttering the entire time --" 

The truth of it was, it had been Cadmas Peverell that had been pacing and muttering. Kreacher had dutifully gone about his work, returning to the library periodically to make sure Regulus hadn't found some other way home - even though Kreacher was the only way in and out of Number 12 these days, with all the protective charms set on the place...

Cadmas continued on, "Where have you been? Surely a trip to the Riddle House didn't take three days and nights! Today's the fourth day since you departed and --"

Regulus's voice was flat, "I had other things that held me up." And he turned to kreacher, facing in the direction that Cadmas could see the immense bandages on his left arm for the first time. "Kreacher," Regulus said, his tone never changing or inflecting at all, "Go and fetch my pendant."

"Yes Master, Kreacher will go and fetch Master's pendent." Kreacher scurried from the room. "Master's most precious object, Kreacher shall fetch it for him, Kreacher will go and get it for Master!"

When the elf had gone, Regulus turned to the books on the shelves, searching for something.

"What happened to your arm, boy?" Cadmas asked.

"Got bitten," Regulus answered simply. He struggled with one arm to climb the library ladder, selected a volume, and pulled it down from the wall. 

"Bitten?! By what?" Cadmas asked, incredulous.

"Fenrir Greyback," Regulus answered. He lay the book he'd selected down on the desktop, flipping it open. It was a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. 

Fingal's Cave, he read, Most famous of the sea caves in the basalt southwest coast of Staffa, an island of the Inner Hebrides, western Scotland. Estimates of its length vary from 227 feet (69 metres) and 270 feet (82 metres), and its arched roof is said to reach between 66 feet (20 metres) and 72 feet (22 metres) above sea level. It is about 40 feet (12 metres) wide. Its floor is covered by about 25 feet (7.6 metres) of water.

There was a photo of the cave and if he wasn't entirely numb he might have felt something like fear arise in him for there was no mistaking it. The shape of it, the way it was a simply gash in the rock face, and the squared-off, pillar-like stones that made the floors and the walls... Never had his memory of the place been more acute than at that moment.

Voldemort had taken him there, taken his memory of it away, and now Regulus had gained it back.

He could even remember the smell of it as he stared at the photo.

He nodded, tapping the page, "That's it." He tore the page out of the book hastily.

"Did you just -- tear that book?!" Cadmas was incredulous. "You have no respect for the written volume, sir!"