The ice cold water took Regulus's breath away. He could feel the current pulling him first further out to sea, then pushing him in toward the land, a rocking motion that sucked him down, even as he kicked.

Kick you son of a bitch, he scolded himself. KICK!

The surface seemed ten thousand million miles away, as far away as the sky usually looked from the ground, as though you could kick and kick and reach forever and never really reach the top of it.

Precious seconds, Regulus.

He couldn't answer, the water pressed around him, and if he opened his mouth he feared all the air inside him would rush out and he'd fill up with water and be ended.

Perhaps it would be easier this way.

Just sink into the sea and never be heard from again. The Dark Lord and his Death Eaters couldn't do anything to him if he was dead.

You are not dying. But you will fulfill a prophecy given long ago. Before you were yet born, this moment was foretold.

Regulus, relax my boy. Relax. The key to getting to the surface is to relax. Let the current carry you.

He released the fight from his muscles. He floated there in the water, still, and unmoving, suspended by only the water, hair swirling about his face as the tides moved in... and out...

And he became weightless... it was as though the ocean itself was pushing him up... up... up...

Regulus's head came through the surface just as his lungs felt fit to burst. He gasped air in great, desperate gulps as he bobbed and jolted with the tide.

The sea was no longer teal. As he looked about, it had become a horrible dark grey that seemed to stretch away forever in every direction, all the way to the horizons.

To all the horizons except for one.

In the distance there loomed a hellish, formidible tower of white stone, brash against a pitch black sky. He stared at it in horror, slicing up into the night, standing in a crude island of jagged rocks. Rain so heavy he could see it even from the distance sliced through the air, pelting the island, and the thickest black clouds he had ever seen circled and surrounded the top of the tower so that the tower itself couldn't be seen through them. Lightening flashed and even over the tide Regulus could hear the thunder clap.

What a horrible place, Regulus thought. If he had thought a moment before that he would rather be anywhere but in the sea, he now realized he would rather take his chances in the frigid water than set foot on that terrible shore.

Especially when the lightening flashed and he realized the things he thought were black clouds were indeed black clouds... clouds of dementors, that is. Hundreds and thousands of them, swarming so thick that they'd appeared like a single mass.

His heart struck up a panic again.

"Azkaban. Yes my boy, it's Azkaban."

He kicked and turned, scanning the horizon again. "Who's there?!" he shouted. "Who is that!"

He could barely hear his own voice over the sound of the storm and waves, much less another's... but it was so clear, so close...

It must be in my head, Regulus thought. It isn't real.

"Of course it is in your head... but why on earth should that mean it is not real?"

It just seems impossible.

"Not everything that seems impossible is actually impossible. Many things we call impossible are actually quite possible should the circumstances favor them. You cannot say for certain it is impossible without being God himself. No time now, boy, but you must do what you have come to do... and when we are finished here we shall talk again."

A bright slash of lightening cut the sky, seeming to reach the very ground of the island in its descent, and for a split second Regulus saw a form silhouetted against the white stone tower, standing on the rocks... and he stared, perplexed and in awe of the sight.

Who would be fool enough to be on the rocks outside of Azkaban?

Surely they were slippery.

They would certainly fall into the sea.

But the sea was preferable to that ghastly tower, even Regulus believed that.

Thunder and lightening - a strobe light of bright daylight like light and the plunge back into darkness - and he saw the figure again, rail thin and staggering... and into the water it plunged.

Regulus couldn't tear his eyes from the figure because something had flashed in his mind, as clear as the lightening... a memory... of a dark dungeon corridor, and a mysterious old room...

The old divination chamber.

Searching through clocks... hundreds of them... sifting through one at a time... and the small glass ball on the shelf by an old leather chair... the Dark Lord looming behind him as he stared into the glass... and saw...

This. This moment. He had seen himself in the water! But - no it wasn't himself he had seen at all. It was --

"SIRIUS!" he screamed the name into the night. The water threw him about and he found himself slammed against a stone and he caught on, holding himself up, his eyes wildly searching the shore in the distance. "SIRIUS!!!!"

That figure. It was his brother! But he had just seen Sirius - just seen him in the alley outside the flat in east London. How was he here? How was he here and why was he in this horrible place?

Prophecy, Regulus remembered Voldemort calling it a prophecy - that ball, which he had broken - it had been a prophecy. The future.

This was the future, then?

And that voice, the voice he kept hearing... it must be  the Blind Seer - Kostos Mopsus.

Precious seconds.

Lightening flashed and Regulus, clinging to the rock for dear life, searched the sea for his brother.

The tide grew ever more violent, great waves knocking over him, crashing in heavy white foam capped thunder rolls of their own, slamming his chest against the rock again and again and --

There he is!

Regulus had spotted the lighter grey of the striped Azkaban robes as the water plummeted Sirius against the rocks of the island and he saw his brother's limbs flail about in desperation, trying to purchase stability, trying to stay atop the water.

Sirius was struggling so much - and he knew how to swim! Regulus felt a panic rise up in him.

"What am I here for? To watch my brother drown?" he spoke into the dark, "Because I haven't seen enough of my loved ones die before my very eyes yet? You cruel bastard!"

The water slammed him from the back, getting into his mouth, and he spluttered. Even clinging to the rock it was too hard to survive for long.

"You think it's right funny, do you? Abandoning me here to die with him?"

But Mopsus had said they would talk again...

You must do what you have come to do.

What he had come to do? He hadn't come to do anything. He had fallen and found himself here when he broke the surface.

Lightening flashed and the sea lit up again, and Sirius was being thrown by the waves, and Regulus saw him spitting water and twisting and being pulled below the surface.

Save him!! Please - Mopsus, somebody, anybody please! Save him! Save my brother! Please. Send somebody who can save him!

Another flash and Sirius was no where on the surface.

"SIRIUS!" Regulus screamed... and he let go of the rock he clung onto. He let go and he dove beneath the water.

He had no idea what made him do it, or what was to be done once he was below... but he kicked and waved his arms, his eyes open and burning as the water touched them, searching through murk and blurry darkness...

There. A lighter patch. A narrow patch of gray striped linen, sinking...

Regulus used all his strength, fighting against the water, kicking, grappling...

He had never been able to control which way his body went in water before, much less in water moving as violently as this, but there was Sirius, falling, going down - down - down... there was Sirius, struggling, fighting...

There was Sirius giving up...

There was Sirius letting the air out of his lungs in great streams of bubbles...

Falling through darkness...

Regulus reached out.

Sirius's eyes opened.

Their hands both searched the water for one another's, and Regulus's fingers closed 'round Sirius's... just as the light was leaving his eyes...

His skin was gaunt, pale, hanging like wet gauze onto the frame of his skeleton... like he were made of paper mache coming undone.

He could be dead already for how ghastly he looked.

Regulus pulled his brother to him, every fiber of his being screaming for Sirius to just hold on, to just hold on. Don't give up...

I have you. I just got you back, don't go giving up now... don't go giving up now that I've just got you...

And Regulus looked up through the water to the surface, clinging to his brother.

He would never know how he did it. He wondered for the rest of his life. But their heads broke the surface, and he dragged Sirius with him... back to that rock... clinging on... the storm raging... Sirius's body limp and weak beside his own... lightening...

Thunder crashed, loud and shaking the whole world...

You're not the first Black I would have sorted into Gryffindor.

Regulus stared into the darkness of the brim of the hat.

Or was it the darkness of the sea?

Rare, when someone asks to be sorted Slytherin.

But I saw in your mind why. You thought that they might disown you like they disowned him.

Regulus looked down at the limp form of his brother as they crashed against the rock together, treading water, hanging on by only one weak arm. One weak arm against a raging ocean.

Did you know that he wanted you to go to Gryffindor?

Sirius slid and a wave clapped over the rock, covering his head a moment and Regulus struggled to push his brother further up the rock than where he himself hung - wanting more to keep Sirius safe than he cared even for his own safety. At least he was awake, at least if the water clapped over his head he could see to know to hold his breath.

His fingers gripped onto a crevice in the stone. He could feel the skin of his knuckles broken and scraped. The salt in the water burned as it mingled with the blood.

He couldn't let go. It would mean both their lives.

If I'd put you in Gryffindor, things would be so different...

Flashes of the way things could've been went through Regulus's mind. They moved through the way the waves moved around him, blurry and full of motion, up and down, highs and lows... Hugs and laughter and tears and late nights... Full moons and feasts, battles and fights... There were stars that fell from the sky like comets - no they were fireworks, bright and brilliant over valleys and campsites with warm marshmellows and roast heated on sticks. There were flashes of the other lads, of James's chocolate eyes and Peter's watery ones. There was Remus Lupin, bent over double in mirth, and Sirius yelling, beckoning, waving his palm. Come on Regulus, catch us up little brother! Come on! And there he was, Regulus himself, following along after them, always a little behind because that's where little brothers always were... just a couple steps back... and there was Sirius singing and his arm flung over Regulus's shoulder and the whole world was warm and bright and good, like a warm fireplace on a cold dark night.

A wave pulled Regulus under and the bitter cold filled him up as he was plunged under. He only just managed to keep his grip on Sirius and on the rock, grappling... it was so slippery and his fingers so tired... He didn't know how much longer he could hold on.

But he would hold on. Until his fingers broke he would hold on. He refused to let go, no matter how scared he was.

Sirius needed him.

"I've got you big brother," he said into Sirius's chest as he was slammed face-first into him by the unrelenting tide.

...but if things were so different, you wouldn't be here now to save your brother.

It was the moment that Regulus's strength gave out and he passed out against Sirius's chest... cold and hard... but suddenly warm... and soft... and he didn't dare to open his eyes.

You're so brave.

That was a different voice.

But a voice Regulus knew all too well.

"Maryrose?"

Hang on, Regulus.

"Maryrose!"

Where would you be if you could be anywhere in the world right now?

"The shore."

Open your eyes, Regulus.

He was laying on a beach.

Sirius was beside him, on his back, gaunt and tired looking, his eyes closed. But his chest rose... and fell... and rose... and fell...

He was alive.

Regulus struggled up from the sand, kneeling beside his brother.

"Sirius!" he cried, and his lay his hands on Sirius's chest, pushing down and Sirius spat a mouthfull of the terrible water, coughing and spluttering and falling back into the sand. "Tell me the story Sirius."

Sirius's mouth moved. "Once... once..."

"Tell me the story."

"Once..."

And there was a jerk behind Regulus's navel.

And the beach was gone.