Chapter Text
Regulus
“Dora, What’s my position?” Regulus calls into the earpiece, panting from the exertion of leaping across the rooftops of Poitiers. He has no light, bar that of the city lights and the moon, and is doing his best to keep his footing on the slippery rooftop tiles.
“50 metres south.” Pandora responds. Regulus jumps the final gap onto the ornate coving, landing deftly onto the stone roof, before running over to the dome shaped window at the centre.
“X” Pandora called through the earpiece. Regulus withdraws the silver glass cutter that Barty, his mechanic, has just finished with. He uncaps it, twisting the small bladed wheel back and forth, watching as the golden lights of la cathédrale saint pierre catch on the reflective metal.
“Alarm systems de-activated. CCTV looping.” Pandora calls through the headpiece, “Make it quick, I’d say we have about seven minutes before The Cleaners notice a disturbance.”
With careful movements, he presses the tool into the glass, listening for the soft click of the wheel breaking through. Once the glass breaks, he traces a circle with a large enough diameter for him to slip through. He pulls the cutter out and pushes the top of the glass softly, allowing it to swivel into his grasp. He removes it and leans it on the window, before pushing the tool into the pocket of his black cargo’s, and withdrawing his dagger. He jumps through the hole in the ceiling window, landing with a light thud in a crouched position on the floor.
“Watch for traps” Pandora says in his ear, making Regulus tense, “But you should be in the all-clear, there weren’t any attached to the mainframe.”
“Christ Dora you could have led with that.” Regulus sighs, relaxing his grip on his dagger.
“Sorry.” Pandora says sheepishly.
Regulus begins moving about the grandly decorated penthouse. The rooms look like they’ve been perfectly preserved from the 1920’s. Grand French woodwork, portraying religious scenes on every wall, tapestries and trinkets with handmade carvings, scattered about the place. Light seems to reflect on the ornate carvings, casting a silver glow about the place, it’s almost as if he’s stepping into the past.
From every ceiling in the place hang crystal chandeliers so large they look as though they could cause the roof to cave in. It takes about three minutes, which means Regulus has about four left, to find a clue. He knocks on the hollow wall.
“Who walls up an atrium?” He mutters more to himself than Pandora.
“Someone who value’s storage over natural light.” Pandora responds as Regulus continues to search for a way through the wall.
“She says a little too knowingly.” Regulus responds dryly.
“Don’t judge.” Pandora sighs, “I’m happy here in my dark little cave.”
Regulus is about to respond when the crystal sconce his fingers were just brushing shifts slightly from their absence.
He smirks, reaching up and pulling the sconce to the left, scoring his face neutral as the wall begins to slide into the ground, revealing a large circular vault door. He runs his fingers over the small pin pad on the wall beside it.
“Think you can hack it?” He asks.
“You need to connect me.” Pandora responds, “Check beneath the pannel, perhaps a USB outlet.”
Regulus pops the little keypad off using his dagger. He places the upload tool into the port and makes an affirmative sound into the earpiece.
“Got it. Give me a minute.” Pandora responds.
“Hurry.” He stands stationary, spinning the dagger in his hand in anticipation.
“Done.” Pandora calls through the earpiece. Immediately the wheel on the door spins and opens of its own accord.
Bright lights reflected off millions of pounds worth of gemstones, burn his retina’s. He squints into the room and sure enough, deep within the golden chamber lies the Eye of Vishnu. The target of this heist. He’s about to step into the chamber, when something else catches his eye.
He snaps his head around to look at the oak wood bookshelves outside of the vault, before approaching carefully.
“Reg? What is it?” Pandora asks through the earpiece.
“I’m staring at something I thought I’d never lay eyes on again.” Regulus breathes, lifting a hand to grasp the polished wooden surface.
“It better be more valuable than a sparkly blue gemstone the size of my head” Pandora sighs.
“Define valuable,” Regulus says quietly, cupping the little nesting doll in his hands, “They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
“Are you gonna tell me what it is? Or am I gon-”
“INTERPOL! OPEN THIS DOOR!” Pandora is cut off by a very loud man pounding on the wooden door to the penthouse in a very thick, very fake, French accent.
“Bag the gem and get out of there!” Pandora hisses.
“I SAID OPEN. UP.” The man grunts as he bursts through the door. He stumbles forward before stopping short in front of Regulus, just as he’s closing the drawstring pouch on his nesting dolls.
“Potter. I didn’t know you were French. MI6 ditched you, have they?”
“Well, the British secret service doesn’t usually make themselves known.” Potter grins, brushing a strand of hair back into place, and adopting his regular British accent.
“And the accent?” Regulus raises an eyebrow.
“For your benefit” He winks. Regulus backs away, placing himself under the hole in the ceiling window.
“Well, it’s been lovely, but I really must be going.” He shoots the small grappling hook through the window and watches the frustrated look that crosses Potter’s face with a satisfied smirk. Once he springs through the window landing deftly on the floor, he retracts the hook back into the little handgun which retracts at the wrist - compliments of Barty -below the sleeve of his black hoodie.
For the second time that evening Regulus finds himself racing across the rooftops of Poitiers, only this time with a tail. He sighs inwardly. In the two years since his defection from the Death Eaters, James Potter has been attempting to catch him day in and day out. If anything it’s been rather entertaining to watch him fail so dismally.
“When’s the next train to Paris?” Regulus calls through his earpiece.
“Could catch it heading northbound in about twenty minutes. I’ll purchase tickets. Hurry though, it’ll be under you in no more than fifteen.”
Regulus does a double check to ensure Potter is still behind him. The man is clearly not used to rooftop chases. He has the agility of a hippo and makes an audible sigh of relief every time he clears a jump from one building to the next. Regulus could just throw a dagger at his leg, and render him immobile for a little while, he’s certainly done it to him before, but Barty’s just developed a new trick for him, so he’s excited to piss the man off a little. Regulus throws back a smirk, before jumping right off the edge of a building, pulling his glider at the last moment and watching as the wind carries under the triangle shaped wings, carrying him up above the city, and leaving a certain crest fallen agent behind.
“Dora? How’s that train doing?”
“Under you in three.”
He hears the whistle of the train approaching, and lowers himself just enough to make a swift landing onto the roof.
James
“Where would he be headed next?” Lilly hums, having perched herself on the hood of the car. “Do you think we ought to radio for assistance?”
“No. He is in my jurisdiction now.” James mutters, trying desperately to think of where Regulus wou-
“Paris” He gasps, “He didn’t have a getaway vehicle, and the only train which leaves at this time is to Paris.” James leaps into the car.
“Shall I assist?” Lilly asks.
“No. Remain here, secure the crime scene and deduce what was stolen.” James doesn’t hear her response, slamming his foot onto the peddle and racing in the direction of the train lines to Paris. Depending on how many stops the train makes, he could reach it in Vendôme.
Regulus
“First class?” Regulus raises his eyebrows even though Pandora can’t see as he makes his way into the little train compartment. It’s luxurious, with randomly dispersed flowers, and two opposite armchairs on either side of an oak wooden table.
“Cas suggested I ‘Sugar Momma’ you, though I’m still a little unsure as to what it means, I assume she meant to pay for first class.”
Regulus feels his mouth twitch, “Are they still set for rendezvous?”
“Barty and Evan are already in position.”
Regulus takes a seat, crossing his legs, as he waits. It’s not a long wait as it turns out. Not five minutes pass before the door Slams open and none other than Rabastan Lestrange walks in.
“Oi, Oi” He grins as he lifts his ‘Crackle Rod’ at Regulus, “Blast from the past, eh?”, then sends the current at regulus, cutting off all of his devices. He imagines pandora must be panicking, he probably should have informed her about his impromptu plan when he found the doll.
“Really?” He says, rubbing his wrist, trying to rid it of the pins and needles. “Static cling?”
“Side effect of the directional EMP, so you can forget about reaching for your little toys, they’re dead.”
“I know how an electromagnetic Pulse works, Bas, you weren’t the only one who passed Druella’s class. And did you really think I’d take your bate without checking for tracking devices?” He says, raising the draw string pouch, and delighting in the way Rabastan’s eye’s widen a little, “That’s right. I wanted you to find me, it’s time we tied up loose ends.”
Rabastan’s face grows smug again, Regulus doesn’t remember him being this slow. “You were the only loose end, until just a moment ago when I managed to capture the elusive Regulus Black, or should I call you … Blink.”
Regulus smiles at the nickname; it was the codename he had picked for himself back on the island after Rabastan had compared his swiftness to the blink of an eye. He had never heard many phrases or idioms, having been raised at the castle, so whenever Rabastan or one of their friends would use one, he’d secretly harbour them.
Rabastan sits across from him, keeping the rod directed at his face.
“What are you doing?” He grits, “Foiling our heists, pissing off the faculty, what do you get out of it?” Regulus realises that Rabastan is still disappointed, well that makes two of them, “Why didn’t you just leave quietly if you were so against the cause, why try and stop us?”
“Worried about me were you, Bas?” Regulus mutters dryly.
“Yes. If they had have caught you, you would have been lucky to be given a painless death.”
“So, what. You’re going to kill me now and I should be happy it was quick” Regulus responds sharply. It’s comical that Rabastan thinks he’s a match for Regulus, but he’ll play into the fiction. He missed him.
“I’m giving you a chance to explain. Then yes, I’m going to kill you.”
“Oh? So much for worrying about me.”
“It’s either I kill you now, or they torture you until you’re too far gone to feel pain, and then kill you.”
“You could just let me go?” Regulus responds with a cocked eyebrow.
“And what happens then? They kill me first, and then eventually, they find you and do the same.”
“Your dedication to the job is admirable.”
“Why are you doing this. Why not come back.”
“And be in league with murderers? I don’t think so.”
“Oh please, you lost track of your kill count at nineteen.”
“Before I understood what I was doing. Before I rid myself of the notions I had been brainwashed to believe since birth. Before I understood what the Death Eaters were doing! How can you be ok with this?” Regulus bites out.
“It’s survival.” Rabastan grits. “I’m a thief, and I’m willing to do what it takes to survive.”
“Survival shouldn’t cost lives, Bas” Regulus responds softly.
“It does in our world.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“You’re a hypocrite. What are you trying to do? Convince me to join you?”
“No. I know you’d say no.”
“Who are you, Blink? I don’t understand. We trained together, we were- were-” Rabastan cuts himself off before continuing, Regulus knows he’s bluffing, Rabastan doesn’t have the guts to hurt him, “and then you left, you left so suddenly, and then there was a bounty on your head, and all of a sudden my missions revolved around finding you. Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m a professional thief, just like you.” He responds, gritting his teeth.
“No. You weren’t like the rest of us. How did you ever wind up in crime school.”
“You want the whole story?” Regulus raises an eyebrow.
Rabastan stares at him for a moment, considering, “Your clock runs out when we reach Paris. make it count.”
Regulus takes a breath, gathering himself, this is gonna be quite the monologue.
“Sirius and I were born on a rain-soaked island we were taught to call home.
We were the children of Walburga and Orion Black, two faculty members at the academy. They were the first members of staff ever permitted to have children and raise them on the island. Most faculty dedicated their entire lives to the cause, and any agent who became pregnant was executed. My parents were granted an exception because of their status and because they promised to raise children who would one day become Death Eaters themselves.
The academy was considered a form of higher education, and because no one was permitted to enter or leave the island, Sirius and I were homeschooled. Our mother oversaw most of our education. She was not a nurturing woman.
Mistakes left us bruised. Disobedience was met with violence. Any thought, belief, or question that conflicted with Death Eater ideology was beaten out of us before it could take root. Sirius was two years older than me, but he was softer. Kinder. He never understood the importance of compliance.
Mother didn't educate us in the traditional sense. She trained us to become weapons. I was taught to wield a dagger. Sirius was given an axe. Private tutors taught us every form of combat imaginable—Karate, Taekwondo, Muay Thai, Boxing, Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, Wrestling, Sambo, MMA, Krav Maga, Hapkido, Aikido. We learned languages, infiltration, surveillance, and how to plan and execute heists. We learned emergency medicine and how to treat our own wounds in the field. By the time we were teenagers, we could kill efficiently, disappear without a trace, and survive almost anything.
Mother wanted us to inherit her and Father's positions one day. In that regard, she failed.
Sirius and I were eager to join the academy from a young age, but we were forced to wait. He was nineteen when he was finally granted permission to sit the entrance examinations—two years below the official age requirement. Given our unusual circumstances, an exception was made.
He passed every test. Until the Red Test.
At the time, I didn't know what that meant. Sirius and I had been raised to value no life except our own and each other's. He left the island for the first time to complete the final assessment.
He never came back.
I wasn't told what happened. Only that he had died during the mission and that there was nothing to be done. Grief was forbidden. Emotion was weakness. I buried every feeling so deep within myself that, eventually, I stopped feeling them at all.
Because of Sirius' failure, my own admission was accelerated. At seventeen, I took the entrance exams. That was when I learned what the Red Test really was. A test of morality. A test designed to ensure you were willing to do whatever was necessary.
My target was a woman named Charlie. She had a husband. She was sixteen weeks pregnant. She was attempting to defect from the Death Eaters so she could raise her child somewhere safe. I killed her. Then I stood over her as blood poured from the wound in her throat and watched the light leave her eyes.
People say killing tears the soul apart. At seventeen, I learned they were right. The damage is permanent. The stain never leaves. But after seventeen years of isolation and indoctrination, I couldn't fully understand what I had done.
I passed. I was admitted. I assumed Sirius had died the same way countless others had died—killed by the person he had been sent to eliminate. Any thoughts beyond that were buried beneath years of conditioning.
So I focused on my studies. I moved into the castle. Met my roommates. Met you.
Until then, Sirius had been the only person I'd ever been close to. Trust didn't come naturally to me. At first, I hated you for trying to get close. Eventually, I stopped fighting it.
We were assigned alongside Narcissa, Lucius, Bellatrix, and Rodolphus. We stole, sabotaged, and left no witnesses behind. And I enjoyed it. Every mission felt like revenge against a world I believed had stolen my brother from me. I craved the adrenaline. The violence. The bloodshed.
I never anticipated you. Somewhere along the way, you became what Sirius had once been—an older brother. A constant. Someone I trusted completely. For two years, I remained exactly what they had raised me to be: a loyal, obedient weapon.
Then I turned nineteen, and everything fell apart. One evening, I was hiding in the castle vents smoking cigarettes you'd stolen during a mission when I overheard Cygnus and Druella talking. They were discussing Sirius. I hadn't heard his name spoken aloud in years, so I listened.
They talked about his mission. His Red Test. And then one of them said something I'll never forget. 'What a shame we had to kill him’ they said, ‘He just couldn't comply’ they said. He never understood the importance of compliance
In that instant, everything made sense. Sirius hadn't failed. He hadn't disappointed anyone. He had simply refused to murder an innocent person. He was too good for that island. Too good for any of us, and they killed him for it.
The grief I had spent years suppressing surfaced all at once, twisted into something sharp and ugly. Rage.
I wanted revenge, not reckless revenge, not blind revenge, war. Unlike Sirius, I could compartmentalize. I could think clearly. I could be patient. I was observant, rational, and calculating.
Those qualities had kept me alive. Now they would help me burn the Death Eaters to the ground. I waited and planned, while I did, I stole a phone. That phone became my way out.
By then, I was trapped between two worlds. To the authorities, I was a murderer and a thief. To the Death Eaters, I was about to become a traitor. Either way, I would be hunted, and disappearing wasn't enough anymore.
For the first time in my life, I understood what Sirius had died protecting. I understood morality. And once I did, I couldn't ignore the damage the Death Eaters were causing. I wanted to stop them.
A few weeks before my betrayal, I received a call on the stolen phone. A girl – my age- named Pandora had somehow breached twenty-seven layers of encryption protecting the castle's network. She introduced herself as a white-hat hacker and explained she was calling to inform vulnerabilities to the head of security. She was the first person I’d ever met who genuinely wanted to do good. She inspired something in me. She had no idea what kind of organization she had stumbled across, and we became friends, then allies.
Pandora, her partner, Dorcas, and I began planning my escape. As my plans took shape, you and I grew further apart. Understanding what Sirius had stood for forced me to understand the path you had chosen as well.
Christmas Eve became my point of no return. Pandora traced the castle’s location to an island off the southern coast of England in the Isles of Scilly. I stole a speedboat and prepared to leave.
I asked you to come with me. I begged you to. You refused. You tried to stop me. And I had to hurt you. Of everything I've done, that remains one of the hardest. It made me feel sicker than my first kill, but I escaped.
Pandora, Dorcas, and I established a headquarters and made a promise to one another. We would dedicate our lives to destroying the Death Eaters.
So if you think your little 'Crackle Rod' is going to stop me—You're mistaken. Because I've spent my entire life being trained to wage war. And now I've finally chosen my enemy.” Regulus finishes with a determined glare, and a hand twitching towards the dagger in his belt band.
Rabastan looks up at him, an emotion that Regulus can’t interpret flits across his face, “Did you ever wonder why The Cleaners didn’t pursue you in the helicopter?”
Regulus feels his eyes widen at the realisation, “You stopped them?”
“I let you go once” Rabastan looks up at him, raising the rod higher into his face. “I can’t do it again.” He powers it up to max, and perhaps Regulus underestimated him. “Bye Blink.” He says with a sad expression twitching his mouth downwards.
Regulus doesn’t give him a chance, he leaps off the seat spinning before kicking the rod out of his hand, straight across the cabin. Rabastan retaliates trying to throw a punch at him but regulus grabs his fist and throws himself up into a flying head scissors. Once they’re on the ground he elbows the back of his head, and watches as his friend goes limp. He props Rabastan onto the seat, before writing a note and sticking it to his forehead.
The train pulls up to the Vendôme station and Regulus snaps the rod just as Pandora’s panicked voice comes through the speaker.
James
James slams the car door shut and sprints through the station, making his way to the train. He jumps on, and heads towards the compartment booked under Regulus’ Alias. The train has parked to let people on but it will be moving soon.
He opens compartment 13B to be startled at the sight of an unconscious man sitting up on the chair. He goes to shake the man awake but is stopped by a sticky note pinned to his forehead.
Potter,
A souvenir. Enjoy Paris ;)
- R.A.B
James groans and smacks his head, turning to face the window, when he sees Regulus walking backward staring directly at him. His hood obscures most of his pale face, but James can make out the cocky smirk and wink before a passerby walks infront of him and he vanishes. James is about to race off the train after him, when it starts moving, and he realises this was Regulus’ plan all along, and now he’s on a train to Paris, with no way of getting off.
He's in the middle of cursing his life, when his phone begins buzzing, and Lilly’s name is displayed on the screen.
“Hello” James calls through the phone, looking out the window at the steadily accelerating landscape around him.
“James? Can you hear me?” Lilly calls through the phone.
“Yep.”
“You’ll never believe what I’m about to tell you.”
“What.” James says monotonously. His evening isn’t exactly shaping up very well.
“Regulus didn’t steal anything. He opened a vault but left it entirely untouched, and when we inspected the crime scene, we took note of all the items within, everything within the vault has been the target of a recent theft, including, The Eye of Vishnu from the unsolved Morocco heist.”
“Impossible” James sighs, “I saw him. He had something in his little sack.”
“I’m not finished.” Lilly says sharply, “The owner of the apartment is an alias. An alias that has been tied to several of his heists over the last seven months, such as the Shanghai amusement park, and the art gallery in Cairo.”
“What are you trying to say.” James pinches his forehead, rubbing his sternum.
“I’m saying, what if Regulus Black is a thief, who only steals from other thieves.”
Lilly is cut off as the train goes through a tunnel. What an utterly ridiculous notion. She’s only been with the force for a couple of months, James has seen Regulus steal artifacts from all across the world, Artifacts which have belonged to museums or otherwise. It has been an extreme stroke of talent and luck that they have managed to recover them afterwards.
Regulus
“You didn’t take the gemstone?!” Pandora shouts through the earpiece.
“I left it in good hands, I knew Potter would get it back where it belongs, and that left my hands free to take the real treasure.” Regulus says, cupping the nesting dolls in his hands. He turns it over to reveal the slim tracking sticker on the bottom, before peeling it off and sticking it to the hull of a passing boat. “I have Bas to thank for using it to bate me.”
He looks up at Evan who’s standing at the helm of their little speedboat. He’s perched on the seat at the back, trying to keep himself obscured from any possible CCTV along the bank of the Sienne.
There’s a boat behind them that he suspects is a tail, but cant be sure. He risks a look, and sure enough he makes eye contact with two suits, standing on top of a pale blue speedboat behind them. He turns back around and pulls out his phone, trying to sneak a picture from his position with his back to them.
“Can you identify them.” He says through his earpiece after sending the picture through.
“Hmm.” Pandora hums, “To formal for MI6, not sleazy enough for the Death Eaters. Either way, they don’t look like good news.”
“Evan.” Regulus calls from his seat at the back of the little boat. He gestures to the boat behind them. “Shake the tail.”
“Aye, Aye” Evan grins, before accelerating so quickly Regulus has to hold on to stop himself from flying off the back of the boat.
“Dora, about that rendezvous” Regulus says quickly, keeping his eyes on the tailcoats.
“10 seconds.”
Just ahead of them, a barge begins to turn to the side, blocking the width of the canal.
“Step on it.” Regulus instructs to Evan. Evan presses down on the throttle, coming up to the small gap between the barge and the bank which is closing fast.
“3 seconds.” Pandora calls.
Evan shifts the boat, turning it as though it were a car with a handbreak.
“1 second.”
He skids the boat, across the water surface until its practically horizontal, just in time to pass the gap and leave the tail on the other side of the barge. Evan pulls them up until their stationary beside the barge. Barty hops off the edge, tumbling ineloquently onto the hull.
“Hey Reg” He greets breathlessly, before planting a kiss on Evan’s cheek.
“Dora, book us a redeye.” Regulus grins at the two of them.
“Cas will meet you at the airport.” She says through the earpiece, sounding pleased with her timing.
James
James parks the car in the airport multi-storey lot, its nearly three a.m. now that he’s finally managed to make it back to Poitiers from his impromptu trip to Paris. He dropped the witness off with a colleague in Paris to be escorted to the UK for questioning.
He hops out of the car and slams the door. Lilly’s already there waiting for him. She looks up at him through a hand pressed to her forehead as though nursing a migraine. He groans.
“I pursue Regulus Black all the way to Paris and back with nothing to show for my efforts apart from an empty gas tank, an unconscious, unidentified man, and a note telling me to enjoy Paris.” Lilly looks up at him sympathetically.
She’s about to say something in response when all of a sudden, a blue mist obscures her face from his vision. The last thing he see’s is Lilly toppling into someone’s gloved hands, before he blacks out.