Chapter 3

"No, please!"

Sirius and James both stiffened at the too-familiar cry, the plea for mercy. Except, it couldn't be. The girl was dead, all that was left was …

Sirius cringed as he realized how similar his adopted daughter had sounded to her dead (far too young) mother, however inadvertently. Voicing the same plea. Trying for a smile to soothe the two-year-old clinging to his leg, he crouched and ruffled her hair. "I'm sorry but the Order needs me now—I'll be home in the evening, okay?"

"NO!"

"Reggie." Sirius' temples throbbed with a swelling pulse as his daughter clung tighter around his neck. "You're safe here. Moony can't make it and Wormtail isn't allowed out of his safe house anytime soon."

"No—'ormy bad, sell 'em 'ut—'e's coming—gotta 'o—'ill us! Don't wanna stay!"

Her grey eyes implored him to understand, to stay. Sirius gently disentangled himself; Lily pulled the young toddler away from him. "No one's going to kill us," soothed the redhead, cupping Reggie's cheeks, turning her to face her as Sirius quickly slipped back into the foyer. "This house is under the Fidelius Charm; we're safe as can be."

"'Ormy tr'it'or. Sell us to 'ole'mor!"

"She knows a lot of big words, Padfoot. What've you been feeding her? The Oxford Dictionary?" James laughed. And stopped almost immediately. The sounds of Reggie's continuous resistance and her eventual tantrum reached their ears. "Did something happen this morning? She's never been like this before."

Sirius shrugged, as bewildered as James was. "No idea," he said honestly, pulling on his shoes and tucking his wand into his waistband. James offered his hand and Sirius, uncharacteristically, took it. Neither let go immediately even though Sirius was already standing. "Been acting weird since morning. It was a war trying to get her to the bathroom and she refused to eat. She just wanted to hide under her bed."

"Huh. I'll put some Sleeping Potion in her milk, ought to keep her sedated—I mean, calm enough. She's gotta be tired from screaming so much." James wasn't sure if it was legal but his mother had often threatened him with such when he got too hyperactive, so perhaps it was a viable option if Reggie proved to be a continued nuisance.

James blinked, hard, refocusing on his best friend, and with the focus, he sensed something knotting in his gut. He ignored it by scrutinizing every inch of his friend's face. "Well, I'll see you later," he finally said, unable to spin out their time any longer.

"Yeah." Sirius' hand tightened briefly before he let go. Halfway out the door, he turned and smiled at James. One last time.

"He'll be back," said James once the door closed; he wasn't speaking to anyone, except, maybe the door. Further inside the house, Reggie continued screaming.

Darker Than Black

"… As she fled, Cinderella left her glass slipper—or a birth test with result positive if I was writing this…"

In spite of her herself, Chara couldn't stop herself from laughing. Her laugh was reluctant but no less amused. She'd heard Cinderella all too many times but James' commentary made those fairy tales amusing in a different light.

James peeked over the hardcover book that had been a gift from Harry's late grandparents. "Ready for naptime now?" he asked. His hazel eyes slid to where Harry was asleep, breathing softly into his mother's bosom; Lily's breathing was as even as Harry's and the house was quiet except for the wide-awake Chara and James.

The scene made Chara ache something fierce, with the curse of foreknowledge: that such tranquility would be something lost to Harry for the rest of his life.

And it would happen in a few hours; it was already afternoon, night would follow through much sooner than should be allowed.

Unexpectedly, her eyes stung.

These people weren't real at first … but they were now. James was warm flesh and blood, a mass of compassion and bravery with the occasional sadistic streak that, nevertheless, made a man ready to lay down his life for his family; Lily was stern but devoted; Harry was adorable and unscarred; and Sirius was … too much for words to describe.

They were kind. The sort of goodness that Chara's original reality was lacking in oceans. The type of good Chara had been searching for her whole life.

At the beginning of her first life, Chara has been acquainted with kindness such as this too. Or, what she thought was kindness that had rotted into insincere obligation. Chara had survived thus far in her previous life before the van ended everything—the good, the bad—due to charity and kindness, however reluctant or fake or forced, of others.

She never repaid the deeds and maybe it was because of that she was rarely ever blessed with compassion. Only luck had visited upon her, both good and bad.

"No." That said, she slid off the couch.

"Reggie, c'mon, kid—don't be like this." James sounded very put-upon. "I'm tired; you need rest; can't we all just snuggle up until your dad comes home?"

Chara responded by pulling out Harry's coloring book. "Oh, you're going to draw a picture of the magnificent James Potter? Now that is something worthwhile enough to miss out naptime."

His vanity made her ogle him in disbelief for a second before she went back to the crayons and paper. She took a moment to marvel at her laterality: she used to be right-handed. Now her left hand was more inclined to take on the majority of work.

And drawing was something this body happened to excel at. Chara couldn't describe it but the composition and execution of bringing imagination to life was good for a toddler.

"You drew Wormy instead of me?!" cried James loudly, in mock hurt, once she showed him what she'd drawn. "Ah, a story. Nice art, Reggie." He flipped the pages. His brows furrowed deeper with each page turned.

A rat biting a key, handing it to a skeletal monster of a man that was so obviously Voldemort you'd have to be blind to not be able to tell. James and Lily, dead. Harry, alone and crying in his crib, orphaned. Obviously not that accurately; she was not that uncoordinated even though Sirius could gush about the wonders of her artistic hand.

"…Spooky imagination, Reggie." Then, much to Chara's horror, he tossed the book aside with more force than was necessary and flopped back onto the couch. His voice was rough as stone. "Now go over to Lily and just take a nap already."

She opened her mouth to protest, to make him see the magnitude of her warning but James' eyes narrowed into a dark glare. "Just go!"

A line read from the seventh book from so long ago echoed in her head: I think you are like James, who would have viewed it as a height of dishonor to doubt his friends … and Harry's own reluctance to believe there was a traitor in their midst, and it was, according to Lupin, a complete mirror of James …

Chara swallowed the lump in her throat, sidled over to Lily's side of the couch, and sat down, quiet and sullen.

Her first attempt (in a long, long while) to reach out a hand of compassion, to help, and it was spat back in her face so cruelly.

Anger and frustration curdled in her chest, hot and slick.

She buried her face in Lily's side, clutched onto the hem of the woman's woolen sweater, and tried to imprint her scent into memory before the rushing green ripped Lily away forever.

Darker Than Black

"Boy, you really like this graveyard, don't you?"

When in danger of facing imminent death, rushing to a graveyard full of dead people to seek refuge was highly ironic. Chara was well aware of this fact but it didn't stop her from coming. So here she was, crouched beside the slab of stone that depicted Ignotus Peverell's name.

James stepped on his ancestor's grave, which was really rude, and crouched. Above them, the night was starry and stars began to twinkle in mockery of what was to come. Despite her reservations, Chara had nodded off to the heartbeats resonating beside her: Harry and Lily, at peace.

She'd woken up at seven, to Harry's yodeling and the Potters' cheerful chatter, as dinner was served and the delicious aroma permeated the air. She'd scarcely eaten and had fled the moment Lily and James turned their back on her for a second.

Cowardly? Most definitely, but realistically, she couldn't do anything. If she died, it'd do her no good. And she wasn't ready to die; no one was ever ready.

Sirius wasn't back yet. For his sake, she hoped he wouldn't be. She was evading the whole confrontation but knowing Sirius, he wouldn't have hidden away; he would've fought to his death to defend his best friend and godson and a woman he considered a close friend.

"Look, Reggie, I'm sorry I yelled at you earlier." James took a deep breath, throat bobbing. He must've had a hard time apologizing, even though it was to a toddler he believed wouldn't completely understand him. "It was uncalled for … and it's very funny to think an adult would speak a toddler like the latter understand but … you're no ordinary baby, are you?" James touched her chin, tipping her head back so their eyes met.

Chara went as stiff as brick. She felt no mental prod, if she would even know how it felt like, and she doubted James was a Legilimens. "You're not Regulus Arcturus either." James rocked back and forth on his heels. In the darkening light, she missed how his face contorted with conflicting emotions. "You … the drawing—is it real? Or you're just having fun? I get this feeling that…"

"Real, 'm not ly'in. 'Ormy tr'ai'or." She cupped his cheeks, imploring him by eye contact. You're going to die.

Something clicked in his hazel eyes; at long last, he believed her. "Then let's get out of here." James had barely snatched her off the ground when, in the distance, the green of the Killing Curse burst into the night sky and turned the silver stars mint.

Darker Than Black

Apparition was something a toddler's body couldn't take: as Regulus found out the hard way by retching upon arrival by James' violent, disheveled Apparition the split second after they saw the telltale sign of the Avada Kedavra. "Stay here!" James ordered, placing her on the ground beside her DIY puddle of sick.

Regulus winced at that but it barely registered through James' shout as he hurtled, flat-footed, towards his house where Harry's shrilling wail reached outside. Something on the top floor exploded; the glass windows shattered.

Regulus scrambled to her feet, sick to her stomach, and dizzy beyond belief. She glanced dazedly around for reinforcements but none came. An old Muggle man was gaping at the commotion but he was of no use. Regulus' mouth parted as the shock and terror finally caught up with her brain—that, up until then, had been taking its time squeezing through space to reach her—and she was ready to scream.

But the green swallowed her voice.

She felt the shockwave of the rebounding Killing Curse even from here, at the gates that led up to the cottage.

Her grey eyes widened: like a mint green veil had been drawn on the Potters' top floor, it evaporated from sight, blasted into pieces. The shrapnel had begun falling before she realized she could be injured by collateral damage. Something like an electrical discharge shot up her veins as she flung her arms up to shield her head: the wooden beam that flew towards her was flung away but something small and fluid slipped through her hazardous magical barrier: Regulus cried out in pain as foreign particle invaded her right eye.

Glass, please let it not be glass, I don't want to be blind!

Regulus rubbed her eyes furiously, wetness trickling between her fingers, and even after the pain had dulled and the speck of glass was carried away by her excessive tears, relief was still a foreign thing to her.

Regulus scrambled for the gate, to run, but there was no longer any need to.

Silence had descended; a blanket smothering noise. Her breathing was loud to her own ears. Regulus swallowed thickly, afraid. She didn't hear further noises of battle and she had not seen anything running past her but maybe Voldemort was gone…?

It took her a few minutes to come to a decision: she walked up to the ruined cottage, breathed deeply, and headed in.

Contrary to what had happened, James' body was not at the foot of the stairs. Knowing from memory that it had all taken place in the upstairs nursery, Regulus climbed the stairs hurriedly and rounded the hallway.

The sounds of quiet sobbing, of a baby's sniffling, made her pause. Those sounded like it came from two people, and not just an infant.

She peered hesitantly into the ruined nursery, the rooftop of which had been blown away, and to her shock, she saw James Potter cradling the body of his dead wife.

He lived.

Darker Than Black

For the rest of her life, the fact that James survived the night would be what amazed her—beyond the fact that Harry had survived the Killing Curse. She knew Harry would survive it either way so it did not stun her as it did the rest of the Wizarding World. But James—he was proof that her existence mattered, that she was real in this world, that she had the ability to change things.

Yet, she was unable to alter the fact Lily Potter laid dead, eyes glazed over and unseeing, on the ground, in her crook of her husband's arm. She could not change the fact that Harry was now motherless.

Regulus stood and stared for a long time. Only Harry's petering cries indicated that time did pass for James seemed as stunned as she; he had not moved, merely stared in shock down at his wife and time might've been frozen from just looking at his stance.

Regulus moved away, to give them privacy, and started down the stairs to wait for Sirius.

He would come for her, she knew.

The certainty she placed in Sirius was absolute; to her, he was safety. The mere thought of him coming soon was comforting, lulling her into a false of security. Which was why she didn't anticipate danger until Peter Pettigrew himself stumbled into her.

Wormtail was more frightened and worried than she'd ever seen him. He was pale, sickly so, and he trembled so badly that his teeth clacked together noisily. Her eyes widened upon seeing him. The moment in which their gazes clapped lasted for what seemed to be eternity.

Then Regulus gathered her wits and she cried out for help: "'Ames! Uncl' James 'elp! 'Ormy going to—" And abruptly, her voice was lost. She gasped, soundlessly: Wormtail's trembling wand arm remained poised, aimed at her; he had Silenced her with a spell.

"Reggie!" James' shout was distant. His voice that of a man finally coming to his senses.

Wormtail jumped as if James voice was an electrocution. Flabby hands flew to mouth as Wormtail's terror doubled: he knew if James lived to tell the tale, he would be doomed. "James … he's alive?" His voice was barely a hushed whisper.

James' footsteps had just thudded on the first step downstairs when Wormtail lunged and Regulus tried to dodge aside.

Wormtail seized Regulus by the scalp of her hair: she screamed and though her throat flexed and ached, no sound escaped her: the next second, the fabric of the universe was knotted and Wormtail forced Regulus to suffer through another bout of gut-wringing: they'd Disapparated and James skidded to a landing devoid of his goddaughter.

Regulus' cry was lost to the spell and to the cruel wring of distorted space.

Darker Than Black

Papa will come; he will.

And this time, Sirius wouldn't be thrown into Azkaban, Chara reassured herself. James was alive, James would clear his name should he be accused.

These thoughts circling her mind were what kept Chara grounded; the one beacon of light in the hazy darkness of her ever-consuming fear.

She could not move; Wormtail had Stunned her. She could not even grind her teeth. To little relief, Chara could still utilize volatile magic but explosions wouldn't free her legs, wouldn't allow her the freedom to flee. Only her eyes retained freedom: her gaze darted around as best as she could, trying to take a shred of information in despite the darkness.

Wormtail had not turned on the lights. She had never been here before but the sofa she was laid upon implied this was a living room, in where Wormtail's lived during his short tenure as Secret Keeper. Bet that must've been a big job for him, she thought mutinously.

Chara found her position numbing; she couldn't feel anything. And she was propped on her side, arms splayed stiffly before her—her right arm dangled off the couch. She couldn't feel her legs at all.

The sounds that permeated the air were of Wormtail's heavy, labored breathing and his mutterings.

"… can't … yes, that's it … gotta hurry …"

Chara couldn't discern what that madman was going to do at all. Just when she thought she was making headway in deciphering his hurried mutters, the door to Wormtail's apartment crashed open.

It was not her father's voice that rent the air with rage: it was a woman's shrieking conundrum: "WORMTAIL!" Chara was nearly deafened by it, the voice was so sharp and high that she initially assumed it was Voldemort himself. She struggled to shift for a better view but to no avail.

"Traitor!" roared another's voice; a man, a deep baritone.

Wormtail yelped. Chara watched as he sped past her and flung himself to, presumably (judging from the splay of his legs on the floor), prostrate before the intruders. If he dared to willingly approach them and yet had to scrimp and grovel, it had to be Death Eaters.

And there was only one female Death Eater that came to mind. Chara's gut churned with fear but she could not express it with even tears or a scream or a flinch. She wasn't sure if she should be grateful for this or not. Her eardrums must be prickling within, struggling to catch every word.

"No, you've got it wrong! I passed the right information—I was there with our Lord all the way—I just barely escaped!" wailed Wormtail. "Listen to me," he added in a plea.

"Do you know what they are saying?! That our Dark Lord has been vanquished! By an infant!"

"Is that true, Wormtail?" a third voice; another man, but his voice was not as harsh as the first, more urgent.

"What—happened—?!"

"It was a trap," sobbed Wormtail. From the sound of disgust that cut the air and the yelp that followed, Wormtail had tried to rub his face in the hem of someone's robes and he was promptly kicked away. "The Potters' baby was just a trap—bait, yes, bait! They ambushed my Lord—and it was all I could do to get away with … with her, yes!"

Had she been able to use her voice, Chara would've cried out when Wormtail seized her by the back of her onesie and showed her stiff, unmoving form to them.

"Sirius' daughter!"

"My cousin's—?" Chara needn't the woman's incredulous cry to identify her: Bellatrix Lestrange, beautiful in her madness, and utterly lethal. The curls of dark hair falling into her eyes did not hide the shroud of madness gleaming. A wand was jabbed into Chara's forehead. "Avada—"

Wormtail threw Chara away. She crashed into the ground. Indignation and frustration reared like snakes to kill at the treatment, like she was a doll. Yet another part of her was hugely relieved; the rat had just stopped her from being murdered, he'd saved her life—but, why?

"No, I need the girl! We need her!" They did? Chara couldn't tense anymore than she was. All she could do was listen harder.

"How so?" Rodolphus Lestrange (or, at least, Chara assumed so) demanded roughly.

"Sirius will come for her, he loves her," gasped Wormtail, a sound of desperation, and Chara couldn't place why her heart smarted at the proclamation: he loves her. Really? Was it truly visible to others—the bond she shared with Sirius? "I'm sure of it! With Sirius away from James, your chances of reaching Potter are higher! He knows—James was the mastermind—he knows where they've kept our Lord!"

No, lies!

The couch's stubby leg, visible from where Chara laid sprawled awkwardly on the floor, exploded in her distress as she renewed her struggles to free herself. To flee, to not be bait, to warn her loved ones of danger.

How could he?

James knew nothing of anything. There was no plan. Wormtail was lying to get the Death Eaters out of his way and … Chara's mouth would've slackened in horror if she could move her mouth … Wormtail was going to sic the Death Eaters on James … to torture information he did not have out of him … to shut James permanently up …

And weren't the Lestranges and Barty Crouch Jr. sentenced to Azkaban for driving a couple to insanity?

"Where is Potter? Where is he?!" cried Bellatrix.

"Godric's Hollow … please… you have to believe me …" Wormtail's pathetic sobbing barely registered in her ears.

A couple that couldn't give satisfactory answers?

What if they went even further and kill him when he can't give a proper answer—?

No, please!

This time, the cry was voiced. Chara surged to her feet; the blast from her small, trembling frame knocked the couches aside; she turned away from them.

But she never stood a chance against fully-grown Dark Wizards: three out of four wands were aimed at her, "Stupefy!" "Petrificus Totalus!"

Slackly, Chara tumbled into a void darker than black.

Darker Than Black

Sirius came upon the end of the world, his basest instinct warning him that something had happened to the Potters.

Gone.

Lily was gone. Reggie was—Merlin, if that piece of shit laid a single, slimy hand on her—!

No, Sirius didn't have the time to mourn for the redhead; he had his daughter to find. James was exerting enough grief for all of them, even Harry who shed unknowing tears for a mother no longer there.

Sirius cast his godson a furtive look, uncertain about leaving all of a sudden. James had moved Lily and Harry downstairs, at the spot where he thought he'd left Reggie at before he charged in to check if his son and wife were alright and no, he had no idea where the Dark Lord was.

James had yet to let Lily go.

Sirius reached out to squeeze the man's shoulder. Kept his eyes off the ruins of the homey cottage this place they stood upon had once been. The state of the home reflected the state of its residents. "I'll be back soon, okay? Dumbledore and a couple of others will be coming once the skirmish in Diagon Alley's over with. We'll …" We'll move Lily, he did not say.

He could not bear to say it; saying it would seal the deal as surely as Lily's coffin would be sealed.

Grief was something Sirius could not handle right now. He fell back on handy fury; the ever familiar rage that would surge and consume every molecule of his being, the which that had erased his hurt and tears as a young child who did not understand why his mother screamed at him for every single mistake.

He had a rat to hunt.

He did not know where Wormtail would be. His only possible lead was Wormtail's hideout. It took Sirius only a second to Apparate there, veins pulsing with rage. He didn't bother with turning the knob; he blasted the door open, his roar of rage only amplifying when he noticed the state of—of chaos?

Sirius' grey eyes narrowed as he took in the scene: the furniture was upturned and magic had clearly swept through the area.

He could almost believe the lie his mind was already conjuring: that Wormtail must've had information tortured out of him too.

But there, beneath the light of his sparking wand, was one-half of a friendship bracelet.

C-H-A-R-A

"What're you kids up to, today?" Sirius asked. His face felt stiff with the weight of his fake grin. There really was nothing to smile about—not when the McKinnons, Marlene, were dead, not when this war was ongoing—but he didn't want the kids to see his sullen face (too much like his father) and attribute it to his character.

"I just dug this up from the storeroom," Lily was the one who answered. Harry could not speak properly yet and Reggie showed no signs of acknowledging Sirius, focused as she was on the thread and beads she held.

Sirius squinted, catching the alphabets on each tiny square beads and feeling quite confused. "Oh, is it a Muggle thing?" The bracelet accessories he'd ever seen in his life were made of pure silver or gold, never lacking in his former home. And he'd never liked jewelry anyway; it wasn't like he had anyone special in his heart to gift it to.

"You could say that," said Lily vaguely, her attention on her son to make sure he wouldn't suddenly find the beads appetizing. Though Sirius was sure Reggie wasn't the type fool enough to sample a bead, he mimicked Lily setting an example of a good parent and kept his eyes on her.

Reggie had a good eye for color: she'd picked a bright light green thread to string mint, white and emerald beads, bearing H-A-R-R-Y in bold print; it would bring out the color of Lily's eyes in Harry's sockets. Harry was faring less creatively; a red thread that absolutely did not suit Reggie was chosen as the bearer to numerous colors that meshed loudly to sport her name—which he spelled wrongly.

Lily laughed as she made corrections to his spelling. But the fact remained Harry picked 'colorful' as a theme than compatibility.

"Ungh." Sirius was by his girl's side the instant she made a noise of discontent. Reggie was not coordinated enough to tie the thread together and her continuous failure was making the light overhead spark dangerously. However adorable he found her frustrated glare to be, he didn't want shards of glass to be showering them or for further destruction of the living room. So he reached round her, chin propped on her scalp, and took the separate ends, relieving her of the laborious job of tying a knot.

"Lovely," he proclaimed once he was done, grinning, "now go give it to Harry so you can get your half of the bracelet." At the mention of his name, his godson gave a whoop of joy, brandishing his handmade bracelet like a sword.

Reggie looked up at her father. Her highly expressive grimace told him what the picky girl thought of Harry's creation.

Looking at her expression, he couldn't help the bark of laughter from escaping him.

She accepted Harry's gift anyway.

C-H-A-R-A

Sirius brushed the bracelet away. It clacked against the cold floor. But the sound was nonexistent in the roar of his blood.

He'd recognize Wormtail's writing anywhere:

You remember the one time we went to a Muggle pub? You remember where the street was?

I brought Chara out there for a bit.

Disbelief struggled to wedge itself in the rolling kaleidoscope of negative emotions in him. How dare he? How … dare … Wormtail write this … this piece of crap?!

He brought Chara there? Written as if he was just a doting uncle bringing his niece out for a walk in the park, veiling the truth, of what he might've done to his daughter or what he planned to do with her. And how dare that bastard write that first bit? Remember that pub?—as if Wormtail had any right to mention the times they'd spent together when his continued existence and Lily's persisting death were not solid, undeniable proof that Wormtail had betrayed every oath of brotherhood, friendship and loyalty they'd had.

No, Wormtail wouldn't stop there: he had Sirius' daughter.

Wormtail was baiting him and Chara was bait. That was unforgivable.

Sirius snatched the bracelet off the ground, gripped it tight enough for indents to be cut into his palm—he'd get his daughter back, he reminded himself. He'd get the chance to put it round her small wrist again, for sure.

Harry Potter © J.K. Rowling

Chara - Riseha's writing
Regulus - GaleSynch's writing