Assignment #7 - Transfiguration: Write a fic from the POV of someone in some form of captivity.

Extra prompt: "He's gone, but he's everywhere."

Malawi - Muggle!AU

Haunted House - Civil War!AU

Black Cat Day - Aslan, (word) noble

Count your Buttons - (object) keychain, (character) Rabastan Lestrange, (word) heritage

2,349 words

Thanks to WritingBlock and The Lady Rogue for betaing!

'Let's see if some time in the stocks will loosen your tongue, filth.'

Regulus couldn't be bothered to point out that he had been telling the truth; he had no idea where "Kreacher", the name of his partner in crime, was. After all, they had planned it that way.

The gate swung open with a clang, making Regulus wince despite himself. The next thing he knew, Rodolphus had thrown him to the floor, a cloud of dirt sending him into a wracking coughing fit.

Rodolphus scoffed under his breath, as if Regulus hadn't met with him as equals barely two months earlier, and turned on his heel, his boots echoing through the hallway until Regulus was left alone with his thoughts.

'So which are you? Traitor or rebel?'

Regulus's muscles groaned as he picked himself up off the ground. It was a testament to how tired he was that he hadn't even noticed there were people sharing the cell with him. He looked to his left first, where the voice had come from. He was met with the sight of a begrizzled man about twenty years older than him, with a wooden peg where his left leg should have been. With great effort, he prevented himself from staring, and instead focused on the man's face.

That was a mistake.

A huge chunk had been torn from the man's nose, leaving it gnarled and shiny where the skin had haphazardly knitted over in whatever way it could. The man's dark eyes narrowed, and Regulus could tell already that he was not impressed.

'That depends on who you ask,' he replied eventually, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a smirk, cracking his parched lips.

'Guess it doesn't matter all that much in here, anyway,' the man gestured towards their location, nearly hitting one of his fellow occupants in the jaw in the process. 'None of us are getting out. Not even pretty boys like you.'

Regulus might have once had a tailored tunic and hair carefully slicked back with expensive wax, but those days were long past. His clothes were torn and damp - they had never quite dried since that fateful day - and his hair was as messy as his brother's.

What he wouldn't give to see his brother one last time.

Regulus eyed the cell's occupants. There were nine of them in total, packed into a room that was clearly not meant to hold such a large capacity. Two women huddled against the corner of the wall, finding comfort - or maybe just warmth - in each other's arms. The man who had spoken seemed to be their leader, as he had been given one of the two wooden beds that had been slid against the wall. The other housed another three people, all of them lying still.

Regulus liked to think that they were sleeping.

The rest of them seemed to be sitting or standing aimlessly, their features gormless. Of course, Regulus knew what had happened to them. He had witnessed Lord Voldemort's torture chambers in action more than once.

Suppressing a shudder, Regulus looked back at the man who had spoken. Perhaps there was some use in making a friend here, after all. In any case, he was the best bet on finding out what happened to Regulus's brother.

It would be ironic, to have been saved by drowning in a pool of dead, only to die huddled in a dungeon with the living that had already given up hope. He wasn't sure which was worse.

'A traitor,' Regulus announced, hoping that the man would appreciate the truth of his words. In any case, he was his only hope.

He knew that the rebels usually stuck to their own. Hell, he had seen the brutality his brother had been treated with when he had stolen medical supplies and food for the rebels in their dungeon. They had cursed him, spat at him, until Sirius had turned away with a grim smile.

That hadn't stopped their mother from having him flogged the next day, just to be sure he had learnt his lesson... Sirius had returned the next day.

He always had been the braver of the two of them.

The man rose awkwardly to his feet, favouring his right side. Regulus tensed, ready to defend himself if need be. Instead, he found himself blinking in surprise as the man proffered a hand.

'Constant vigilance,' he growled, as if it were his name. 'That's what I used to say. Now I know that I can't afford myself such luxuries. You wouldn't be here if you were one of them, and that's good enough for me. The name's Moody. Alastor Moody.'

Regulus nodded a greeting, shaking the rebel's hand. He knew that he should offer up his name, but it was too well known to risk it.

'Do you know a Sirius Black?' he asked instead.

If he had been talking to anyone else, he might have expected them to miss the omission. The glint in Moody's eyes told him that he would be naive to think so.

'Aye,' Moody replied, less friendly this time. 'He's around somewhere. Are you that lordly friend of his?'

By "lordly friend", Regulus suspected that Moody meant James Potter. The Potters had thrown their support behind Duke Albus Dumbledore, the main instigator of the conflict. He had been King Grindelwald's greatest supporter in the Great Reform — meant to bring happiness to peasants and nobles alike — but had turned against him at the last minute, declaring the king unfit to rule and seceding from the kingdom with all of his vassals.

Needless to say, King Grindelwald hadn't been pleased.

The Potters had been one of the rare families of high nobility to follow Albus Dumbledore, along with the Weasleys and the Bones. Technically, they were rebels, as had they sided with Dumbledore from the very start of the war, rather than joining him part-way through, but to anyone directly under Dumbledore's rule, that didn't seem to matter.

At least now Regulus knew where Moody stood. He filed the information in his brain for a later date.

'Yes,' he replied simply to the older man's question. It was not the truth, but it was not technically a lie. He had been friends with his brother, once upon a time.

The older man's shoulders sagged, just a little, in relief. Regulus had made the right choice.

'Black is at the siege camp,' Moody answered, more animatedly this time. 'He's advising Catnip on how to best approach this castle.'

'Of course,' Regulus said softly. Though they were at the Lestrange castle - how could he forget the home of his childhood friend? - Sirius had been here often enough to know the layout, what with their cousin's marriage to Rodolphus. That had been back when Sirius was still being groomed to be the heir.

The dubitative look must have shown on his face, because Moody felt the need to defend their plan. 'Catnip's old, but tough. If anyone could take down this castle by sheer willpower, it would be her. And she won't let this go, not with so many of our own lives hanging in the balance.' He waved a hand at the cell's pitiful occupants. 'You'll see.'

Privately, Regulus thought that Moody was being a bit optimistic. He had seen Rodolphus in action, and had trained in guerilla warfare with Rabastan, who was a master at weaving traps for the enemy. This Catnip, whoever she was, wouldn't stand a chance against the Lestrange's.

'Why do I have to go and give the prisoners their slop?' Rabastan whined to his father. 'Why can't we just get a servant to do it?'

'Because, son of mine, you were outsmarted by that peasant wench the Potter boy insulted his heritage to marry,' Lord Lestrange replied, not even looking up from the latest battle plans Voldemort had sent them. 'It's a disgrace.'

'Come on, even King Grindelwald said that she was talented!' Rabastan pouted, looking at the old, stale bread and watered down ale in disgust. 'I have things to do, maidens to woo!'

'We can't trust the servants, Rabastan,' his father said, sighing. 'Rodolphus told me we have a new prisoner that the servants look up to. They might stage something. You can never trust the slimy maggots. Just look at the Malfoys! Uprooted from their family home by that Donovan. Do you know what the rebels call him? Dobby. Dobby!' he cried again, incredulously. 'We are not going to go down in history as having lost our ancestral home to the likes of another Dobby.'

Shaking his head in revulsion, Lord Lestrange finished editing his map, sprinkling sand across the paper to make the ink dry.

'Oh, and fetch Mary on your way back,' he added, almost as an afterthought. 'I need one of her best pigeons to get this back in time for the updates to be useful.'

Rabastan knew a dismissal when he heard one. Grumbling under his breath, he snatched up the tray and brought it downstairs. He hated the toxic atmosphere the war had brought upon them. He had been about to finalise his betrothal to a Miss Lucinda Rosier, when a temporary halt had been called on all official engagements. Not by the king, but by his father. Lord Lestrange was nothing if not paranoid.

'Of all the demeaning tasks,' he complained under his breath, trudging down the drafty hallway — if it could even be called that. He could feel the chill of the stone through his winter boots. 'Lunch time!' he called down cheerfully to announce his arrival.

Hopefully, none of the prisoners would be ones he himself had brought in. Last time, it had taken five days for his manservant to clean out the shit from his boots.

What kind of savages even hoard their shit anyway? he asked himself, shuddering at the memory. King Grindelwald had been right to say that the peasants deserved their station. And he was beginning to think that Lord Voldemort was right in saying they should do away with them all together. Really, how hard can tilling a field really be? Not much more difficult than hunting, I bet. I wonder if they would be able to skin a deer in thirty minutes flat the way I could when I was fifteen.

Suddenly, Rabastan noticed an all too familiar figure standing near the front of the cell. The tray dropped from his hands, falling to the floor with a clatter that reverberated around the walls.

'Regulus?' he whispered, stepping up to the bars to clutch them tightly in his hands.

His best friend — missing and presumed dead for the past month and a half — was there in the flesh, but barely. He was skeletal-thin, to the point where his cheekbones — the pride and joy of the Black family — were pronounced to the point of obscenity, his cheeks sunken and hollow. But despite that, despite his bluish lips and the purple bruising around his eye sockets, Regulus looked alive. More so than he had for the past year. His grey eyes were glittering with resolve as he met Rabastan's horrified gaze, standing with his back as straight and proud as the day he had been made a knight of Walpurgis — the highest honour a soldier could dream of.

'Regulus?' an old rebel warrior asked from behind Rabastan's best friend, his gaze narrowed suspiciously.

'Rabastan,' Regulus replied, and although his voice was cracked, it was still as soft and certain as ever. He held up a hand to quieten the man beside him. 'I need you to break us out.'

'This… This is a dream… You can't-' Rabastan cut himself off mid-sentence as realisation dawned upon him. 'This is because of your brother.'

'It's not the only reason, but in part, yes,' Regulus admitted.

'But you haven't seen him in years,' Rabastan pointed out, trying to hide the betrayal from his gaze. He had always seen Regulus as his brother, in many more ways than Rodolphus was. 'He's gone, Regulus.'

'He's gone, but he's everywhere,' Regulus replied, his lips curving into that all-knowing smirk that had infuriated Rabastan on more than one occasion. 'I hear him doubting everything our families stood for every time we kill more innocents. I see him in my dreams, wearing that same disappointed look that Father always used to give me. I feel his presence, his trace, when the rebels pull off a win in the most inconceivable of ways. And… he's right. I don't have time to explain, Rab, but you have to trust me. Now, can you get the both of us out?'

'You lied to me about your name, and now you expect me to follow you?' the rebel asked angrily, shoving Regulus and pinning him to the bars, his arm across the younger man's neck.

Rabastan gasped, quickly fumbling with the keychain. How can Regulus take their side? How can he trust them?

'Because I'm your only chance. And you're these people's only chance,' Regulus choked out, somehow still calm as he waved an arm to the rest of the peasants in the cell.

They stayed like that, motionless, for a few seconds. To Rabastan, it felt like hours, and yet he was rooted to the spot, unable to interfere. Eventually, the man released Regulus, who crumpled.

Quickly, Rabastan got the gate unlocked, catching his friend as he slumped across the rusted bars of the prison. With a short nod of thanks Regulus rested his hand for the briefest of moments on Rabastan's shoulder as he got up, looking at him expectantly.

Rabastan wanted to hesitate, but he couldn't. He had become a soldier to help protect his loved ones, and he wasn't about to let something like ethics stop him from protecting them now. The choice had been made in his mind from the moment Regulus opened his mouth.

'Fine,' he said. 'But I can't protect you when you're gone. Just remember me, when you're on the other side.'

'I will.'