Regulus Black stood at the edge of the lake on the grounds of Hogwarts, staring out into the water, the full moon reflecting off the surface. His pyjamas hung loose - he'd been losing weight all term long, he was so stressed he could barely bring himself to eat, and here it was, mid-November and he could scarcely put a scrap of food in his mouth the past week, he was so anxious.

Despite Slughorn's talking-to, Regulus had been out of his dormitories every night that week. More careful, of course, and no where near the Transfiguration wing, either. He knew better. They never would've put the portrait back where he had taken it from. They weren't completely stupid.

Though he had made sure of it, asking Kreacher to go and have a look-see.

Every time he laid down to sleep, he heard voices now, and it terrified him. Not voices like the kind the mad people hear that aren't real or anything, but voices like memories that wouldn't shut up and get out of his brain. Nightmares that wouldn't stop returning again and again and again until he'd gotten up and walked it out.

So he'd been pacing, really, pacing every which way, every night, glancing at the paintings, hoping to see Cadmus Peverell, but he was never anywhere. Wherever they'd put his portrait, he wasn't able to come out into any of the other paintings anywhere. Or maybe he reckoned he'd told Regulus all he needed to. Maybe it was just Regulus was thick and he didn't know how to connect the dots that would tell him what he had to do now that he knew about horcruxes.

One of the voices he heard in his head when he closed his eyes was Alabaster Jackson's.

The other was the Dark Lord's.

"That which is contained in this locket is most precious... It is among my finest achievements. You might say that it means so much that it has sort of... become a part of me."

Become a part of him, yeah, and of who else? Regulus thought, feeling sick.

He'd been obliviated, the memory wiped from his consciousness... but it lingered in the dark bits of his mind, the part of his mind that felt as dark and fathomless as the depths of the lake. He stared into the black, unbroken surface, and he replayed the words over and over, the little bit his nightmares had brought back to him.

Suddenly some strange urge overtook him. He didn't know what made him do it, but he walked boldfaced into the lake.

The water was ice-cold and it soaked through his pyjamas, his bare feet feeling jagged little stones threatening to pierce them. He'd already been feeling positively frozen and mad for having been pacing the castle barefoot, and all the more for having gone out doors where the frost had made his toes ache and then numb. The water felt like that too, except all over his body, like a million knives stabbing into his flesh. He could feel his skin so acutely, feel his eyes flooding with tears.

Murky depths, dark waters. They haunted him constantly. Dark crevices, blacked out bits of the mind.

"You don't want to disturb what is under those waters, boy."

He was up to his waist.

He could hardly move, he felt so cold all over, and he staggered, tripping over a stone, and fell head long into the water, slamming into it on his belly, a terrific splash and the water closed over him and absolute panic overtook him as it did.

"How is it brewed?"

"...Liquid Nightmare is not simply brewed, it is extracted. It is the results of when the venom of a dementor is sipped and then extracted from the mind..."

Then a strong hand had him by the robes and was pulling him back up to his feet, and he felt the air smack him and his whole body felt blue with cold.

Regulus couldn't think, he couldn't move, couldn't react. He was just so cold and so wound up with panic and echoes of memories he barely had left.

They were extracted, he thought.

He felt warmth and strong hands and he choked grabbed onto the robes of his rescuer, thankful to be pulled out of the madness he had fallen into. Walking into the lake! In mid November! In the dark! What had he thought it would accomplish? Obviously nothing.

"Take a nip off this, it'll help yeh." The voice was rough and low, and Regulus felt a bottle brought to his lips, and warm liquid poured into his mouth. He recognized brandy with a sweet rose water taste to its undertone, and just a pinch of butterscotch. It burned going down, but the heat of it filled up his belly and some of the cold seemed to evaporate, his focus returning to him a bit.

He realized he was tucked into a jacket, pressed against a chest, a very large broad chest, and a hand held him firmly in place as he sat on a giant knee. "Thaaar, if that ain't a bit better'n you was, I'll eat my shirt." The voice was friendly, rumbling, and he could hear a beat deep in the chest he was leaning against, and could feel his own steadying alongside it. "Here yeh go, one mo' will do the trick, I reckon..." and there was the bottle, another sip of that brandy filled Regulus's mouth and, sure enough, the warmth seemed to fill him and the last bits of panic drifted out of him.

He closed his eyes, clung tighter to the body holding him, and felt himself... drifting.

"Awww, poor thing you're right tuckered out ain't yeh? C'mon Fang. Let's go. Done our rounds fer the night well enough..."

Regulus woke to the smell of cooking sausages and eggs. He was under a blanket - a thick patch work quilt of clumsy, uneven sewing - and a lumpy mattress was under him. He opened his eyes a small bit more and found himself staring into the eyes of an enormous, gray, drooling dog with droopy features, whose hot breath blasted his face.

"Awwh Fang let'im sleep yeh pesky dog."

Regulus looked up and saw Hagrid, the groundskeeper of Hogwarts, stoking a fire and holding a kettle.

"Faaaaang. Lookit wut yeh've done yer great mutt, yeh woke 'im up!"

"S'alright," Regulus said sleepily.

"Still, yeh shouldn't be nosin' 'round when people are havin' a lie in!" Hagrid pulled the dog back, and looked at Regulus. "I reckon yeh look a sight better'n yeh did when I found yeh last night. Yeh shouldn't be tryin' at swimming in that lake at night, yeh never know what's in there in the winter time."

"I wasn't swimming," Regulus said, sitting up, bleary eyed.

"Yeh certainly wasn't! Looked more like drowning." Hagrid held out a giant sized tea cup and saucer. The cup was larger than a bowl. "Here yeh are. Breakfast will be ready in a mo'."

Regulus sipped the tea careful not to spill any of it out of the huge cup. "Thank you," he said.

"Yeh welcome," Hagrid said, poking at the sausages. He pointed to the table. "I set yeh a place there, yeh could use a good brekkie by the look of it."

Regulus got up and went to the table. His clothes were still damp, and he paused to cast the drying spell on them before climbing onto the chair. The sausages smelled more delicious than anything and when Hagrid plopped them down on the plate before Regulus, he was generous about the helping and there was some eggs and beans and a slice of tomato to boot. Regulus eagerly tucked in, his mouth watering and hands shaking. It was the most he'd been able to get down in days.

"These are so good, Hagrid," Regulus said.

Hagrid chuckled, and speared his own breakfast with a fork. Even Fang had a couple bangers on a platter, and they all ate until they'd had their fill, then Hagrid cleared up and started washing dishes like a muggle.

"Hang on, I'll do it for you Hagrid," Regulus said, waving his wand to set the dishes to doing themselves.

Hagrid smiled and settled back down on his chair.

"Now I don't want yer playin' 'round in that lake at night again like that yeh hear?" Hagrid said in about as stern a tone as he could muster. He wagged a finger at Regulus. "If I hadn't come by that instant, yeh could've drowned, could've been pulled under by the grindylows! Only reason yeh weren't is on account of the spells Professor Kettleburn set to protect them Kelpie eggs!"

Regulus remembered the twinkling moon reflection on the surface and what Oni had said about the kelpie eggs, how they looked like the diamond reflections and he laughed because even he had been foolish enough to fall for the kelpie disguise.

"I won't go near the lake again," Regulus said.

"Good!" Hagrid shook his head, "Jus' lucky my rounds took me up that'er way - I was wantin' ter see the kelpies, mind, but usually I'd be checking on the forest not the lake at that hour! And you, out of bed. If it was Filch what found yeh, yeh'd be in a lot more trouble than yeh are wi' me!"

I'd be expelled, Regulus thought.

Then he wondered if Hagrid thought he was being stern and if he was under the impression that giving a lad a proper English breakfast was in anyway conveying that a lad was in trouble at all?

"Now yeh've finished yer breakfast I reckon yeh should be gettin' back up ter the castle. Me 'n Fang'll walk yeh up."

The three of them walked up to the castle across the grounds, and Hagrid made sure they were right in the entrance hall before he so much as considered letting Regulus out of his sight.

Regulus hesitated at the doorway to the dungeons, pausing to look back at Hagrid, who was guiding Fang back to the door.

"Hagrid?"

The groundskeeper turned around.

"Thank you."

Hagrid smiled. "Yer welcome, Reg'lus."

Regulus watched him go.

He rather liked how Hagrid pronounced his name. It sounded a bit like "reckless", and honestly it was the most seen he had felt in years.