𝗜𝗩𝗬

𝘎𝘏𝘖𝘚𝘛𝘚 𝘍𝘙𝘖𝘔 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘗𝘈𝘚𝘛

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( trigger warnings: mentions of blood, death )

Winter almost couldn't believe her eyes. The only thing that reassured her this wasn't one of her dreams in which she finds him again was the undeniable ache she felt in her chest as she looked at her former lover.

Time hadn't been too kind on him either; he looked tired, but it wasn't the type of exhaustion that could be remedied with a good night's sleep. His icy eyes had rarely sparked lively, but now, they looked so mature, so phantom, yet piercing nonetheless. For the first time since she stepped on the crime scene, Winter shivered.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, trying not to let herself give in to the hypnotic way the pale moonlight illuminated his face. Regulus was no longer just a teenager, he was a grown-up man. But so was she.

He raised both of his eyebrows. "I'm your newest partner and consultant," he said with such simplicity in his voice, as if he just pointed out the most natural thing.

Fate, oh, how cruel it could be at times.

"Excuse me?"

"You're excused. I'm here to help you solve this case, Winter—Detective Swift," he quickly corrected himself, his words sounding slightly taunting. "So, what are we looking at?"

"You aren't allowed to look at anything, Consultant Black," she snapped back. His politeness had always annoyed the hell out of her. "I've had five consultants giving up on this case in less than a month, I'm not taking applications for any more."

"Do you think I can't handle it, then?" he asked, casually tilting his head to one side.

"Can you?"

Regulus noticed a change in the girl he used to hold in his arms too. To begin with, she was a grown-up woman now, but that much he expected. Time didn't wait for anyone. Winter was just as beautiful as he remembered. She aged gracefully, just like he thought she would, and she still had that glimmer in her eyes that he had always adored.

What struck him was the coldness of her voice, and the harsh aura she had. Sure, Winter had never been the warmest person in the world, but there was something different about her now. She seemed more closed off. He never expected a grand welcome, but he didn't think she'd frown like that at the sight of him. Particularly not when he had a faint smile on his face. He couldn't help it, though. After all these years, laying his eyes upon her felt like coming home, but it seemed his home was not quite as he remembered.

Maybe he should have expected it. She was the one who broke things off, she had no reason to be glad to see him.

"That's what I like to believe, yes," he finally replied, forcing himself to snap out of his daydream that seemed eternal, but only lasted for a few seconds. "Do I have your approval to proceed and join the case, then?"

She didn't like this one bit. It wasn't that she didn't want him here for personal reasons—it was a harsh slap across the face for her to see him again, and in a graveyard out of all the places in the world, but she would have gotten over it. What bothered her was that she couldn't understand how he ended up here, as a consultant for the Ministry of Magic.

No other wizard with the same background as him would have been accepted anywhere near the Ministry, let alone be hired. Whether they liked it or not, his connection to the House of Black didn't look good on him right now. With his Death Eater parents and cousins, and his brother being sent to Azkaban for several crimes, the situation wasn't exactly in his favor.

Besides, the Regulus Black she knew would have never came this close to a murder case unless he had something important to gain out of it, and she obviously didn't know what he was really after. She couldn't show him she was wary of him either, but none of this made sense. He wiped all of his tracks for years and now he was back in London, snooping around on crime scenes? Something didn't add up.

"Consider yourself on probation." Winter sighed, then looked back at Barney Lacework, still bent right above the ground, with one knee touching the snowy patch, sustaining her body weight. Not that she had much to look at, Barney Lacework was still dead, just like he was five minutes ago, when she arrived at the scene.

"I won't disappoint," claimed Regulus. "May I?"

"Go ahead. Tell me what you think." She didn't move one inch. He had plenty of space to examine the body if that's what he wanted to do.

Regulus walked over to the victim and bent down to the ground, casting a light charm off his wand too. His attention was now no longer on his bewitching ex-lover, but on the unlucky dead man whose blood ruined the pure whiteness of the snow.

As he inspected the body, Winter hadn't been able to take her eyes off him. She was curious what he had to say about the victim, but she was more curious about the real reason why he was here and since she couldn't ask, she tried to figure him out herself.

"Isn't this peculiar?" Regulus asked, wiggling his wand as he drew an imaginary circle around the area Mr. Lacework was stabbed. "The wound is unlike anything I've seen before. I assume it's deep, and it looks like someone used a scoop or something similar after he cut him."

"There's no need for a scoop. If you're determined enough, you can do this with a regular knife. You just have to.." She moved her hand in the air, making scooping movements. "You know, like this."

Regulus frowned when he saw her reaching her hand forward. Winter pressed two of her fingertips against the dead man's wound, tapping around the area before she finally pushed them inside for a short moment. And when she did, a flash of concern sparked in her eyes, like she just made a step forward towards catching the culprit.

"Do you need some tissues?" he asked as soon as she retracted her now bloodied hand out of the wound.

"Scourgify," Winter said, casting a cleaning spell upon her hand to get rid of all that blood.

He expected her to comment something, or to at least complain that she had to stick her hand in the wound of a dead man, but she didn't say a thing about it, making him wonder how she became so used to the sight of blood and death.

"Anything else you found odd?" she asked as she cleaned her hand, paying attention to what she was doing in order not to miss any spots.

Regulus nodded. "The cause of death. It's not everyday wizards get stabbed and die. There are more effective ways to take the life of a wizards, such as the killing curse."

"Indeed," she agreed. "He's not the first one killed in a strange manner lately. We've found wizards who died because they fell off a high places, others who drowned, one who was strangled and so on."

"Strange, yes.." Regulus said, frowning upon hearing the news.

Then, almost as if she read his mind and voiced his thoughts, Winter said, "What's even stranger is that they could have avoided their deaths if only they used some basic defensive spells. Look at him, he's holding onto that wand as if his life depended on it, and yet he didn't use it to save himself. He hadn't been disarmed, his fingers are tightly clenched upon his wand which means he was gripping it just as tight when he died."

"None of the others victims used defensive spells?" Now that was odd. "Is there anything else these bodies have in common?"

"No and no," Winter said, answering both of his questions at once. "As far as we know, they're unrelated. We found no evidence that they might have been killed by the same person."

Regulus tried to think of a time when this happened before, but failed to do so. They were looking at something unprecedented. with all these wizards dying like Muggles. "Any theories, then?"

"None so far."

He scoffed. He was starting to have enough of this cold shoulder she was giving him. "You're only making things harder for both of us if you keep information to yourself. I saw the look you had in your eyes earlier, what was that about?"

"I'll tell you when I have something worth saying. For now, it's irrelevant," Winter said.

As much as he wanted to find out what she had in mind, he knew better than to argue with her on that. Many years may have passed but he still didn't forget how stubborn Winter could be when she put her mind to it. "Very well, then. I trust your judgement."

Although she didn't comment on it, she was taken aback by his words. He trusted her judgment. Why? After everything she did, after she left him on a rainy day without even hearing him out, without even giving him a proper reason, how could he trust her judgement? Had the roles been reversed, Winter would have thought twice before saying that to him.

"We're done here," she said, giving a final look to the lifeless body before she gestured for the rest of the team to start clearing up.

"Already?" Regulus asked, surprised she wanted to leave so soon. She found something, he was sure of it. Otherwise, she wouldn't leave the crime scene so quickly.

"I didn't say we're done the for the day," Winter was quick to point out, shoving her hands back in the warm pockets of her clothes. "I'm going to check the nearby wizard bars, feel free to tag along if you wish."

"Lead the way."

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hi everyone! sorry for dipping again, i got super busy with school and work, but i'm back with a couple more updates to make up for the time i was away. please love me still