Who is the lamb and who is the knife?

𝕰lspeth McKinnon died brutally, they said.

  A long and painful death—teeth gritted, pearl bone drenched in blood, glistening like rubies in firelight as the McKinnon family home was burned to the ground. The Death Eaters, behind their ornate doors and black masks, say that she begged for mercy and wailed her lungs hollow. The Order, in desperate need of a martyr, preach that Elspeth dug her incisors into her tongue, set her jaw, and said, "Let it be." The harrowing truth, unspoken by both sides—a matter of remorse, or perhaps disgust—is that before they cut out Elspeth McKinnon's tongue, she did in fact beg for her life. She begged for her entire family's lives; thinking, for the last terrible moments, that they were next.

  And they might've been, if it wasn't for a sensitive stomach and a boy wracked with ripe horror. Hidden behind his mask, suddenly questioning everything he had ever believed in, Regulus Black watched as his comrades murdered Elspeth McKinnon with his heart in his throat. Her family home reeked of kerosene and black smoke; the stench of blood stayed with him for the rest of summer. The splatter of her tongue being severed—viscera on the very same carpet where her children took their first steps—the dislocation of every bone in her body, Travers's hex carving the word Bloodtraitor into her flesh, her children's cries. It was enough to make a foolish boy sick; and he was.

  Guts churning, Regulus had to reel away, throwing up in the fireplace. This was his first mistake. In a split moment of weakness, Regulus Black's hold on Elspeth's husband slackened, and Angus McKinnon thrashed free.

  The Dark Lord's orders were simple: Get rid of the McKinnons.

  They might've done it, but Regulus's lack of stomach threw them on the sword. As Elspeth McKinnon lay choking on her own blood in the middle of her burning house, her husband and their children fled. Regulus and the other Death Eaters returned to the Dark Lord with nothing but Elspeth's tongue and their own hung heads, and Regulus would never heal from the scars his punishment left him with. They run like twin cicatrixes with the ones from his mother—one a bruise of honour, another of ruin. He carried them in the same shaking hand that gifted Elspeth McKinnon's tongue to his Master.

  The poison always drips through with House Black.

  Elspeth McKinnon was dead, but the rest of her family were incensed. Travers, still delighting in his kill, the art of murder painting him all shades of red, insisted to their Master that Elspeth was enough—the family were in pieces, they had no home, nowhere to run, and no Mother. He received an entire hour of the Cruciatus Curse for the very sin of questioning. Get rid of the McKinnons, that was the order. All of them. Every last one. Even the soft-hearted father, left weak and wanting by the death of his wife. Even Marlene McKinnon, whose greatest sins in Regulus's eyes were being friends with his dim-witted brother and enjoying ABBA. Even the youngest, the boy child, because the Dark Lord didn't want a single bad seed left. He wanted them uprooted from the soil, their bloodline extinct.

  And yes, Regulus came to realise, even June—the ill-fated girl of bad temperament but good heart, whose hair smelt of peaches and perfume of vetiver. Even her.

Hannah Dodd ♰ June McKinnon

A two-faced sinister and saintly woman.

Lilith.

Timothée Chalamet ♰ Regulus Black

Who else could say that?

Morningstar.

Phia Saban ♰ Pandora Rosier.

Cailee Spaeny ♰ Maude Greengrass.

Savannah Smith ♰ Dorcas Meadowes.

Suki Waterhouse ♰ Marlene McKinnon.

The McKinnons.
♰

Andrew Lincoln, Angus McKinnon
Rosamund Pike, Elspeth McKinnon (Dead.)
Callum Turner, Ronan McKinnon
Imogen Waterhouse, Isla McKinnon
Walker Scobell, Logan McKinnon
Tom Hardy, Alastor Moody
Kristin Scott Thomas, Agnes Moody

Nicholas Galitzine Barty Crouch Jr., Tom Blyth Evan Rosier, Camilla Morrone Julia Riva, Josh O'Connor Severus Snape, Freddie Fox Silas Greengrass, Dominic West Thaddeus Travers, Tony Goldwyn Barty Crouch Sr.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

    i. Welcome BACK to "Rabbit Heart", named after my favourite Florence & The Machine song, and born from my incessant need to write a Regulus Black fan fiction that I do not despise (RIP Shallow, you are not missed).

    ii. I know my track record on Wattpad isn't the best for continuing and finishing books (IKTE/Sydney Sommers glares), but on Quotev, I'm currently like well into Act II of this fic, and decided I want to share what is currently my favourite book I've ever written (second perhaps to its in-the-works sequel, "Morning Star".....). So, I promise if you stick around, I will do this one/June McKinnon justice ... sort of.

    iii. In terms of inspo, there's a very small 'Dune' thing going on here with the Regulus x June x Maude dynamic which is almost reminiscent of the Chani, Paul Atreides, Princess Iruna thing. But not really because June isn't known as a concubine, she's just a bit of a homewrecker. Which brings me on to a prelude kinda for the content warnings: this story's main relationship (June & Regulus) is literally built on infidelity. Regulus is engaged to Maude Greengrass, and that spurs on a lot of the conflict in the story, but not all of it. We see that the betrothal between Regulus and Maude is not all it seems, and how Regulus felt very much forced into it. But still, this isn't me excusing affairs! June makes a lot of mistakes, and I fear a lot of you may wind up hating her for them, but she's a girl who experiences so much loss, and I can't help but loving her. So no slut shaming here, please!!! She is a homewrecker, but she's also my love.

    iv. Content Warnings ♰   This story will contain detailed violence, gore, and murder, Death Eater activities, e.g. ethnic cleansing, mental health issues, the aforementioned infidelity, substance abuse, pureblood practices (e.g. interbreeding, arranged marriages), etc.

    v. Dedicated to all my friends from Quotev who encouraged me to cross-publish this, and my friends on here too! And to wulfhall, for republishing Noble Lot, aka one of my fave reads ever.

LOVE, DANI
EST. April, 2024.