Hello friends.

This is the sequel to my stories On The Fence & Part of Your World, so if you haven't read those, then you can go over to my profile and check them out or otherwise this story won't make much sense.
To those who have read the prequels: Welcome back. It's been a while, but here I am, so I hope you'll enjoy this final installment of Selene's journey ;)

I apologize for any linguistic mistakes, since I am not a native English speaker, so please bear with me.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters, locations, plotlines or whatever else you might recognize.

October 29, 1979

Considering it was end of October, the good weather was very surprising. While it was not exactly warm, the sun did shine brightly down on us while we walked past the first headstones. The good weather was also very ironic.

It had been almost a month since Reg had died. I could still see it every time I closed my eyes, how we had entered the cave, how he had drunk the poison, how he had been pulled into the water by the Inferi. I had always feared for his life, ever since Reg first told me that he had joined the Death Eaters. I had feared even more after he had found out about the Dark Lord's wish to become immortal.

Sirius and I had not talked much about what had happened, mostly because I did not know how to put it all into words. If I had just been a little smarter, a little more careful, then maybe Reg would still be alive. He had wanted to be so brave - Reg had been convinced that, should he go to the Order with just the vague information of Horcruxes, they would not welcome him but lock him away.
And while doing that, he had made the essential fault that usually only Gryffindors made - instead of being brave, he had been reckless and put himself in danger. Now he was dead.

Sirius squeezed my hand so tightly, it was bordering on painful. We had not been to the actual funeral, since neither of us fancied running into Mr and Mrs Black or any other relatives with possible Death Eater ties.

The Blacks had buried Reg on a Muggle cemetery in a small, secluded part of London. The story that had spread about his death was more fairytale than anything else. They said he had chickened out after he had gotten a taste of what it meant to be a Death Eater - and that he had promptly been killed for even attempting to leave their ranks.
If it was shame or fear that had convince the Blacks to bury him so far off, I could not tell and it did not matter much, either way. I knew the truth, and if I was the only one, then so be it.

I glanced over to Sirius. He looked older than he was right now. His eyes were sunken, his skin was of an unhealthy greyish colour. I was fairly certain that he had barely slept in the past weeks, much like me.
All throughout the last year, Reg and I had attempted to find out what the Dark Lord was planning to do and all throughout, I had not told Sirius what it had all been about. We had fought quite often about it - understandably, considering everything that had happened between the three of us.

Reg's headstone was rather plain, but I still wondered what the Muggles would think when they passed this tomb. What would they think about a name like 'Regulus Arcturus Black'. And then, they would look closer and find that the person with this weird name had died when he was just eighteen. Just out of school, barely a man.

"My mother must be close to a breakdown," Sirius mused when we stopped in front of the grave. "One son a bloodtraitor, one buried among Muggles. Not quite up to standard."

"Your mother should be proud," I answered, but my voice did not come out as firmly as I had intended. In fact, it was little more than a shaky whisper. "She doesn't deserve the sons that she has... had, whatever."

He laughed, though the sound was anything but joyful. It was a dry, sarcastic laugh, only due to the fact that the idea of his mother being proud of him was so ridiculous. It was something we both had in common - my parents did not talk of me, anymore, much less considered me their daughter. And Sirius had always been the black sheep of the family, anyway.

"Is it true?" Sirius asked suddenly. "That he wanted out?"

My heart clenched painfully. I had dreaded the question ever since the first rumours of Reg's death had been going around. Sirius had always been convinced that Reg was lost and a devoted Death Eater. I was not sure if telling him the truth would be a blessing or a curse.
If Sirius found out that the brother he had shunned for so long had been a good guy all along, he would only regret the past. Every harsh word, every bit of animosity would come back to haunt him. I knew exactly how that felt.

"Is that what all your meetings were about?" he continued, his voice rising with urgency. "You searched for a way out, so nothing would happen to him?"

"Your brother had the Dark Mark," I said. "There was no way out."

"But he tried, didn't he?" Sirius continued. His hands gripped my shoulder and he turned me around to face him. "That's what you did that night-"

"There was nothing I could do," I told him honestly. "We got into something that was too much for us... and Reg paid the price."

Sirius sighed heavily and raked a hair through his messy hair. As he turned away slightly, my eyes watered with unbidden tears. I really should have known better than to encourage Reg on his suicide mission. I was a lousy excuse for a Slytherin.

"I'm just so sorry," I choked out while the tears ran down my cheeks. "This is all my fault..."

Sirius turned around again, his eyes widened in horror at my tears. He swiftly pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly to him and I clung to him with equal force. His fingers tangled in my hair while I sobbed into his chest.

"It's not your fault," he whispered, accompanied by assuring strokes down my back. "It's not your fault, Selene."

But it probably was. I could have done a lot to prevent this, including just going to Dumbledore the moment I had learnt of the Dark Lord's plan. There was no changing the past, though. Reg was dead and buried, I was still alive and back inside our flat, hidden in the cover of my pillow, was the Horcrux we had managed to steal.
Reg had wanted to stop the Dark Lord - in fact, he had been willing to die for the cause. He had died for the cause. He would have trusted me to find a solution to this problem now. The problem was, destroying a Horcrux was close to impossible, at least for me. And who would believe me that I had a piece of Voldemort's soul at my disposal?
So here I was, Reg was dead, the Horcrux indestructible at home, and me unable to tell the truth to anyone. Perhaps it was finally time to do something good and useful.

I pulled back and Sirius' hands carefully trailed down my arms. I blinked the tears away and wiped at my nose, which was probably not very ladylike. "I want to join," I said.

His eyebrows drew together. "Join what?" he asked.

"The Order, of course," I told him.

"That's... no," he said, shaking his head. "No way."

I scoffed at that. "What do you mean no way?" I asked. "Like, I'm just a girl, or a Slytherin, or am I just - incapable?"

He huffed, clearly annoyed at me. It was just like us, I figured, that we would fight here of all places. Sirius and I had a talent for such things - most notably, we had both been convinced of the end of our relationship during all of James' and Lily's wedding.
Still, I would not let him tell me no on this. Reg was dead because he had wanted to oppose the Dark Lord. I would not back down now - I wanted to fight, if only to honour Reg.

"It's dangerous," Sirius argued.

"You've joined as well," I shot back at once.

"Yes, but... Merlin, Selene, if anything happened to you-"
He shook his head and then turned back to the headstone, inspecting it closely. This time, I stepped forward to take his hand, squeezing in reassurance as he had before. I did understand, of course I did - because I worried about him as well and was incredibly afraid that I would lose him just as we had lost Reg.

Maybe I truly was a lousy Slytherin, but I did not want to hide away just to stay safe and sound. The time for waiting around and keeping in the shadows was over.

"Yes, perhaps something will happen to me," I admitted. "And perhaps something will happen to you. But, honestly - would you rather it went down any other way? Because I prefer to go down fighting over living under You-Know-Who's rule."

Sirius sighed slightly and pulled his hand free. I echoed his sound while he turned away and picked up a tulip from a nearby flower bed. I watched him closely as he returned to the grave. In his hands, the flower bloomed and changed colour - the bright yellow turned jet black.
He stared down at the ruined flower and then bent down and laid it down in front of the headstone. Sirius remained kneeling on the ground, staring at the inscription.

"You know what?" he asked, without taking the eyes of his brother's name. "You are right. Voldemort tries to take everything from us. He took my brother. No more. I'll talk to Dumbledore. We'll see what he says about your joining."

I knelt down next to him ignoring the dirty, hard ground beneath us and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. Together, we remained sitting in front of Reg's grave until night fell dark upon us.

Please tell me if you enjoyed this chapter, I would very much like to hear from you guys.

Also, if you're into the Hunger Games (and who isn't, really^^?), why don't you go over and check out my story for that. I'm still in the process of updating, though it's gotten quite long already and I like it rather well, so... I'd be happy if you gave it a chance.

Being done with self-promotion, I hope y'all have a great day :)