Even to those closest to her, Althea was as much a mystery then as she is now. As a girl, she was driven by her ambition and thirst for knowledge to a place very few could follow, and she didn't hesitate to leave them behind. But now, after living a...
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"HAVE WE LOOKED AT THAT ONE YET?"
"There has to be something in this one, wouldn't you think?"
Althea and Regulus sat together in the Black family library, the room oddly cold despite the fact that it was mid July and one of the hottest days of the 1976 summer. Regulus claimed that despite the weather outside, the Black house was always cold, and it took only one visit for Althea to be convinced.
As they were unable to continue to use the Hogwarts Library for their research over the summer, Regulus had invited Althea here, baiting her with the idea that the Black Library had books dated even before the founding of Hogwarts. Two weeks had been spent in that dark library. Just today, hours had been spent searching through the most sinister books Althea had ever seen. She didn't think there was a single book in that room that didn't have to do with either Blood Purity or Dark Magic, and with each passing minute, Althea was becoming more and more anxious that she wouldn't be able to find a spellwork book powerful enough to guide her through what she wanted to do. With books stacked on either side of her, Althea looked up at her friend and nodded. "You would think."
Regulus brought down Magick Moste Evile and brushed his fingertips over the dusty cover. He shivered slightly, remembering the night he and Sirius, as children, had played hide and seek in the house. The game had ended when Sirius had found and scared Regulus in the library, resulting in a fair amount of books falling, including the book Regulus now held in his hands, which had screamed at him at the time. At six years old, Regulus had had nightmares for weeks following that encounter, but as he thought back on it, he was envious of those times; of the times in which his greatest fear was a book; of the times in which his brother still spoke to him.
He was torn out of his thoughts when Althea loudly groaned, slammed a book shut, and stomped over to the book shelves once more. Gently, Regulus set down Magick Moste Evile and stood beside his frustrated friend. "Everything okay?"
Althea let out a breath and looked up to the ceiling. "We've been going at this for two straight weeks, Reg," she told him, her voice defeated, "and we've gotten nowhere. I swear, we've gone through all of the books in this household at least twice - I've learned more about the history of blood purity than I ever wanted to, but I've found absolutely nothing."
"That's not true," Regulus reassured. "Last week - didn't you find something?"
Althea sighed. "There were a couple of things mentioned in one of the older books."
"Do you remember what book it was?"
She nodded in the direction of Regulus's stack of books. "Magick Moste Evile, if I remember correctly."
Althea hardly noticed, but as she nodded in the direction of the book, Magick Moste Evile flipped open as if by a gust of wind. Regulus watched this occurrence with wide eyes, as if he were seeing magic for the first time. He's never seen anyone use wandless, unspoken magic before, and the last person he would expect to have mastered the skill was his fifteen year old best friend. "Thea," Regulus began, amazement in his voice. At the confused look she presented him with, however, Regulus discovered something even more shocking - Althea had no idea.
Althea took another deep breath, crossing her arms defeatedly as she turned back to the shelves. Still amazed by her magic, Regulus turned his attention to the book he had just set down. Slowly, he began walking towards it. "I must be missing something," Althea was saying, but Regulus was hardly paying attention anymore. "There has to be something here that can help me."
"How closely did you read this one, Thea?" asked Regulus, unable to tear his eyes from the page the book was open to.
"If I'm being honest, I probably just scanned it," she answered, looking over to her friend. She watched with curiosity as he delicately picked up the dusty book, his eyes stuck on a phrase.
"'Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction - '" he read, and as he did, Althea shivered. As he met her eyes again, Althea was reminded of their conversation on the shore of the Black Lake less than a month ago. She took the smallest step back. "What d'you think of that line?"
"I don't even recall reading it," she said in a hushed tone. "Why did it stand out to you?"
Regulus looked back down at it, shaking his head. "I'm not really sure. Something about it reminded me of that line from Fundamental Laws of Magic. It seems like it would be considered one of the deepest mysteries of magic like Waffling was talking about - I mean, a book entitled Magick Moste Evile has deemed it too evil to write about - that's gotta be something, right?"
"I-I don't know, Reg . . ." Her voice trailed as her eyes wandered to the top of the bookshelf, settling on, in the furthest corner, a single, dusty book that she and Regulus had not yet explored. "Reg?" she suddenly questioned.
"Yeah?"
She pointed to the book. "Have we looked at that one yet?"
The two stood for a moment, dumbfounded as they wondered how they could have possibly missed that in the two weeks they had been practically tearing the library apart. Althea pulled out her wand, and uttered a summoning charm just moments before the two of them heard yelling from somewhere within the house. The blank-covered book in her hands, Althea curiously looked towards the closed door of the library.
"What's going on?" she asked Regulus, staring at the door, past which she could hear a familiar voice, screaming and fighting with the voice of Regulus's mother. She took a step towards the door.
"Sirius must be home," Regulus sighed. It struck Althea then that in the two straight weeks she had been coming to the Black household, she had never once run into Sirius. She ventured closer to the door. "Thea, that's not a good idea."
Her curiosity outweighed Regulus's caution, and she found herself turning the handle of the library door, and poking her head out into the narrow hallway.
Almost just as she did, Sirius, adorning Muggle clothes, stumbled into her sight, dodging a hex of his mother's. "Fuck you, too!" he yelled at her, slamming the door shut. In a single moment, the boy's grey eyes, still filled with rage towards his mother, looked down the hall to meet Althea's, and for that single moment his rage faded before it suddenly doubled. With clenched teeth, he swiped his wand at the girl, and she found herself being pushed back into the library, the door slamming in her face.
