Lightening flashed.

Thunder.

So loud it shook the house tables.

"Slytherin!"

For a split second, Lily Evans had seen it - the disappointment in Regulus Black's eyes. He got up and took a deep breath and turned, a different boy as he swaggered off toward the table at the far side of the room. "We aren't really close," Sirius's voice echoed in her mind.

But they could've been.

Lily's hand shook as she copied runes, one stroke at a time, meticulous, careful, her mind weaving a tapestry of the complexity that was Regulus.

"I just didn't think you were that much of a half-breed lover! I'm sure the pups will be quite lovely."

"Alium!"

Regulus's head snapped as though he'd been slapped violently and a look of shock came upon his face. Unlike his brother, Regulus had never been physically reprimanded before. It surprised him, and when he looked at Lily, she could see it there, mixed in with the darkness.

"Apologize you little skunk!" she yelled.

Hurt flickered to anger behind his eyes, though even that anger was faulty - she felt it quivering, even as his words spoke otherwise. "Make me," he hissed.

It was a challenge, a plea almost. The sort of plea that children with no boundaries often had... children who were left to their own devices, who were overlooked in that strange way where they were looked after too much, too spoiled, too coddled. Regulus looked at Lily the way a rebellious child looked at their mother.

"Do you REALLY want to play at that game, Regulus? Don't think for a moment I won't. I'll hex you so good you'll be crying for your precious Mother."

A stunned stare... a muttered apology... a quick exit... Regulus knew she wasn't kidding.

"Bloody little prat!" she said, voice ripe with frustration and anger. "How in hell does he have your blood running through his veins? I'll never know." Sh turned to Sirius, breathless from anger as Regulus retreated, a wounded child running to his room.

Oh and how bloody terrible he'd been - how rude he'd continued being to Sirius, to James, to Remus, to Peter... but when he was unguarded...

At the battle at the Lestrange mansion, way back in fourth year, she'd seen him, gripped at the shoulder by his Mother, her hand so tight on him that he couldn't have moved. She kept him still, facing forward, even as his eyes winced and gave away the way he felt, watching the carnage and the fighting. The sparks of green and red flashed in the reflection of his eyes as they flew every which way, his tie tight at his throat, his mouth gaping in horror. His Mother could stop him from looking away, but she couldn't stop his heart from turning.

Lily saw it in his eyes later in the library at Hogwarts, when Regulus came over to her table.

"What do you want?" Marlene Makinnon had demanded, glowering up at Regulus.

"May I speak to you in private?" Regulus asked Lily, ignoring Marlene... The matter was so important to him that he refused to give it up so easily.

"The pureblood wishes to speak to me, a filthy little mudblood?" Lily asked, throwing Regulus's words back at him.

His eyes met hers and she could see the regret. "Yes," he said in as close to humble as his tone could ever be called, even as Emma told him to sod off. "Please, it's important."

She'd gone with him, walked across the library with him, listened to his concern, and it was the first time she'd seen in him a concern for someone other than himself. The first glimmer of hope.

"You're not serious?" the words echoed in her head, followed by his reply: "No, he's my brother." The joke that never got old or left out of any conversation, no matter how critical the conversation. He'd been hearing it all his life. And now, he still made it. Did Sirius know that Regulus made the joke, even after all the years apart? Did Sirus have any idea that despite all the things he said Regulus was or wasn't, that Regulus still was his brother through-and-through?

"My brother's not like me," Sirius said lazily. He was laying on the couch in the common room in Gryffindor, some late night in fifth year, his head hanging off the cushion upside down, hair draped to the floor like a thick dark curtain. Lily was sitting on the floor beside him, his shoulder against hers. "He actually believes all that nonsense Mother and Father tried to in-grain into us when we were small... Shoved it down both our throats, of course, but I saw it for what it was... rubbish... all that stuff about mudbloods and purebloods and all that..."

"Maybe Regulus doesn't believe it, either," Lily said, and she stayed Sirius's hand as he'd reached for the bottle of Firewhiskey on the floor. "You've had enough, Sirius."

"It's never enough," Sirius said, "It's never enough to drown it out."

"Well, at least you're not one of them," Lily said, and she moved the bottle out of Sirius's reach.

"Yeah, and a good thing I'm not, huh?" Sirius had said, "My brother, he's a real dungheap."

But he wasn't a dungheap. He wasn't. He never had been. He'd been a confused, scared, hurt little boy, thrown into a world far above his head by cruel, cold people who were misguided at best and dead evil at worst... He was a kid, tossed about by a terrible ocean of hatred and deception... He was just a kid.

Just a kid.

But he was a mighty brave kid.

And suddenly there were flashes of the change, the longing stares from across the Great Hall, and the quick whispered words when he had a moment he could sneak by. There was Regulus, resolute and determined, commanding his elf to help in saving James Potter from the depths of Havmork, even as he, himself, went to face the Dark Lord's wrath. There was Regulus holding the cuff of his sleeve to cover up the mark that stained his skin and using the sleeve to wipe away tears that fell across his face. There was Regulus Black, lit up by the light of Maryrose Jenkins, and Maryrose's face, flush and joyful, looking at him with pride and adoration. There was Regulus, running to help every time he was needed, and sitting awkwardly in on meetings for the Order of the Phoenix in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts. There was Regulus keeping a straight face, keeping his chin level, keeping his eyes stoic and still - tough as steel - ready to stand in the presence of pure evil in the name of feeding the Order the knowledge they needed to save lives, to change the tides of the war.

There was Regulus Black standing in the door way of the flat, exhausted and weak, falling into her arms, fear and anxiousness leaking from every pore into hers.

Lily surfaced from her copying, her heart swelling and her chest tight. She wiped her eyes with her hand and hugged her knees to her chest and stared at the writing on the parchment before her.

Love is patient, the runes read. Love does not give up. Love protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres through the darkest nights. There will come a day when the darkness will pass away, when the light will pass away, when hope and death and strength and weakness, when magic itself, will pass away but through even this love will persevere. Because no matter the hold that Darkness may have on the heart of a man - still Love is stronger. Still Love is more. Still Love can win out. There is no man too far gone into the depths of Hell that Love cannot rescue him out.

Lily hugged her knees. Anxiousness coursing through her entire body. She didn't know why the anxiousness was so strong, only that it threaded through her fiercely and she rocked herself for a moment before leaping to her feet and pacing quickly about the room. She couldn't stop moving, couldn't stop moving. If she stopped moving, something horrid would happen... something... something like drowning.

"James, wake up," she said, and she reached for James's shoulder, shaking him. "Wake up."

James grumbled into the pillow. "What is it?"

"Regulus," Lily answered. "There's something the matter with Regulus. Did he say where the Safe House was? Do you remember?"

James shook his head, coming awake, and rolling to reach for his glasses, "No... I don't reckon he did..."

"James, we have to find him. Something's really the matter. I can feel it."

"Evans, you've had a bad dream," he said.

"No, I haven't, I haven't had a bad dream. I wasn't asleep. I was --" Lily pointed to the desk where the books lay open in the pool of lamp light. She shook her head, and she got up again from the bed. "Oh gods, James, something's happened. I can feel it... I feel like -- Oh I can't hardly breathe." She knelt down on the carpet.

James leaped up and came over, "Evans."

"James - we have to find him."

"Alright, alright, come on, let's get dressed..."

They hurried through pulling on trousers and shirts, jumpers and coats. Lily laced her boots and James kicked his feet into his trainers and he shuffled about in his drawer and wrote a note for Sirius and Remus, shoved it in the crack beneath their door, and they snuck out, sneaking past the couch - not noticing that Peter was gone - and out the door, down the steps...

"Where do we even look?" Lily asked. "How do we find him?"

James said, "Well, Regulus said he was thinking of somewhere safe and magic brought him to Sirius earlier, yeah?"

"Yeah," Lily nodded.

James reached out his hands, palms up, taking hers and held on tight. "Go on and use your love magic, then. Perhaps it'll bring us where we need to go."