(2)

How long had he been here on his very own private beach?

Regulus couldn't remember.

Years and days blended together into nothing here. He had tried at marking the sunsets with divets in the sand, but as quickly as he made the marks, the tide came and washed them away.

The only way he knew time had passed for sure was through the changes in Albus Dumbledore's office and in the things that Dumbledore asked him about.

Once, he tried walking off the beach but it just kept going in every direction and he thought of the rats running on a wheel that he'd once seen the Magical Menagerie off Diagon Alley. Everything was the same in every direction. The only direction he refused to try was out - out to sea.

Now more than ever, he didn't dare to go in the water.

(3)

Sometimes, Dumbledore had a good question and Regulus would be engaged in the quest to defeat Voldemort, eager, helping to figure out the answer. He would find himself sitting on his beach alone after Dumbledore had sent him back and for who knew how long between summons he would be thinking and thinking... He would reappear at Dumbledore's Office next time he was summoned by the stone with an excited air to continue the discussion they'd started or to give some new insight he's thought up. Sometimes Dumbledore had already figured out whatever it was, or else he had long forgotten it and had no patience for Regulus's excitement.

Rarely, Regulus would have an answer and Dumbledore would praise him...

As much as he hated himself for it, those few words of praise filled him with purpose and he longed for the times he would get it right and he would find himself working all the harder on the next question, hoping to gain that praise again.

(4)

"I feel like I get smaller every time I come here," Regulus said once, "Or more transparent, perhaps is the better way to say it."

He was in Dumbledore's office for the third time in a week. Dumbledore had been hunting for clues about what Tom Riddle might have done after 1945. This, Dumbledore said, was the most ambiguous time because it was after Grindelwald lost touch with the young Riddle but before Voldemort had really come into power. A time of false peace in the Wizarding World, a time between dark lords.

"More transparent?" Dumbledore looked up from a book he was flipping through.

"What happens if you call me so many times that I become invisible?" Regulus asked.

Dumbledore never answered that question. Instead, he would suggest that Regulus consider becoming a house ghost.

Dumbledore didn't even look up from his book.

Regulus hovered, sliding downward into the chair opposite the Headmaster. He looked around the portraits in the room, already feeling rather invisible, even though he was at least 75% corporeal.

These sorts of visits (ones where Dumbledore mostly had him there for no reason while he read or mused over some bit of parchment or something) were the most frustrating for Regulus because he could almost feel time passing while at the Headmaster's office, at least more than he could at his beach. Regulus felt anxious when he could feel time passing because he didn't move with it. His heart didn't beat, his blood didn't flow, so the passing seconds could not be counted by anything except the second hand moving around the clock. It was irritating because the ghostly face of his watch did not ever change, and he would stare at it and beg it to move, but the number always stayed the same no matter how many times he pressed the button to make it glow.

2:13 AM.

The funny thing was sometimes it glowed without him ever pressing the button and he wondered what made it do that.

It must have short-circuited while he was under the water, he decided.

(5)

Dumbledore so wanted Regulus to become a house ghost, he asked him to a lot, but Regulus always said no.

Sometimes, he felt rather selfish for it and he would get down on himself back at his beach, pacing about in the sand and worrying himself up into knots over why he couldn't just stop hanging on in hopes of ever getting rest... Why should he get any rest, after all? He had willingly walked into his death. It wasn't suicide - no, he had realized how badly he wanted to go home in those moments standing over the stone basin, on the island in the dark, where there were no more beautiful sunsets like the one he and Kreacher had watched over the sea... But perhaps final intentions didn't matter since the outcome had been the same. Maybe it was still suicide. Maybe he could never rest, like Cadmus had said. Maybe could never see Maryrose again. Maybe he should just be a house ghost and make Dumbledore happy.

But those were an awful lot of maybes.

And he really, really, really wanted to see Maryrose again, if only for a second.

(6)

Sometimes, he would ask about Sirius.

"How is my brother, Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore would tell him, "He is doing quite well, Regulus," Dumbledore always told him, "Now about this cave you found...."

Once, Regulus worked especially hard at figuring something out between summons, and Dumbledore was incredibly excited about getting the answer so that the old man actually clapped his hands and Regulus plucked up the courage to ask to see Sirius.

As though getting to see his brother might be a reward.

"I'm afraid that cannot be done, Master Regulus," Dumbledore answered. "Perhaps if you were a permanent ghost at Hogwarts... You could take over as the House Ghost of Slytherin? And then when Sirius visited the castle, you could see him then."

"But I don't want to be a permanent ghost," Regulus answered. "I want to rest... I want to see Maryrose again. Someday. When I've finished with helping you, of course. When my work is done. I know I have a lot of work still, sir, I know --"

Dumbledore sighed and shook his head, and Regulus felt he was disappointed in him.

(7)

That was the only thing that tempted him to give and become a house ghost - the wish to see Sirius again. But he didn't understand why being a house ghost was necessary to see Sirius. It seemed there was something Dumbledore was keeping from him when it came to Sirius Black.

"Couldn't you summon me while he was here sometime?" Regulus asked, then, "Does he come here to Hogwarts?"

"Not frequently."

"Well any time he did come? Couldn't you just summon me then? Or - or maybe floo him up and have him come? Couldn't you have him come to see me? Just once?"

"No. I am afraid that would not be possible."

"Why?" Regulus pleaded.

And Dumbledore would change the subject every time.

Perhaps, Regulus worried, Sirius did not wish to see him? And he felt even more transparent at the thought of it.

(8)

Sometimes it was stupid things Dumbledore could've found out from anyone that he asked when he summoned Regulus, and he'd simply dragged Regulus back for no reason, and Regulus felt frustrated and stretched thin, as though Dumbledore was simply making excuses to keep him around, when he could've just been left alone.

"Why did you have to bring me here to ask me this?" Regulus asked. "Anyone could have told you about that. Why did you have to make me come?"

"I was wondering the same thing," said Cadmus Peverell from his portrait, and Regulus looked to see a very angry expression on the painting's face.

"I will bring you here to answer my questions so often as I have need to do so," Dumbledore replied.

"But why? Why? Why does it always have to be me? Isn't there anybody else in the entire world you could ask questions of? I'm so tired! I'm so tired. Please!" And Regulus had started to cry. "How much more do I have to do before I can rest?"

Dumbledore replied, "You will rest when your work here is finished, Regulus. And not before."

He sent Regulus back to his beach abruptly that time.

(9)

"Where is Cadmus?" Regulus asked the very next time he visited Dumbledore's office, looking about and seeing only two of the Peverell brothers' portraits on the wall. The space where Cadmus usually was located had been replaced by a painting whose frame was empty, a background with no focal figure.

Dumbledore had pressed the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully and peered at Regulus over the rims of his spectacles. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully.

"I am afraid that Cadmus's portrait was damaged."

"Damaged?" Regulus asked.

"Yes, damaged." And Dumbledore would answer no further questions.

But Regulus had a feeling that Cadmus had become damaged the same way that he was becoming transparent.