Chapter Text
Not every story has a happy ending. Regulus Black learnt a long time ago that the happily ever after of it all doesn’t exist for boys who grew up in halls of grey and know the taste of crimson. That’s fine, he once tried to reason with himself. It’s the tragedies that survive history better, anyway.
Not this one, though.
The funny part is Regulus doesn’t even remember getting pulled into the water. It all happened too fast for his potion-addled brain to process, let alone resist. His memory of this entire trip is spotty. Everything feels disjointed and wrong, like shards of glass reflecting oddly in his mind, cutting deep enough to stain a mosaic crimson whenever he tries to inspect them.
He recalls the importance of finishing the potion. Kreacher kept dutifully forcing it down his throat. However, between one blink and the next, Regulus wouldn’t be in the cave anymore, he’d be in his father’s office getting brutally hexed for - for what, he doesn’t know, but he’s sure he deserved it. Then he’d be back in the cave choking on what looked like blood. And it went on, and on like that for a short eternity. Regulus struggled to differentiate what was real and what wasn’t, switching between places in nauseating fluxes.
Cave.
Grimmauld.
Cave.
Grimmauld .
CaveGrimmauldCaveGrimmauldCave -
Regulus blinks, and he’s panting over a half-empty basin. Halfway there. Halfway towards what, he’s not sure anymore, he just wants it to stop - he wants it all to stop. It hurts so much. Everything hurts. Kreacher is trying to say something, but all Regulus can hear is Sirius screaming behind a door that won’t open. He blinks again, and he’s ripped out of the cave once more, landing in a spasming heap on the ground as the Cruciatus curse wracks through his body, the sound of his cousin’s manic laughter ringing in his ears. Then his knees are hitting stone (“Master Regulus must keep drinking” -) . There’s an ugly mark on his arm, blistered and branded, and James is looking at him - “You did it, then. You’re really one of them?” - (“I’m sorry - I’m sorry - I’m sorry -” ). Skulls and snakes. Eucalyptus and smoke. Regret that makes Regulus want to carve his chest open using the same knife he drove into the back of -
“Master can stop. It’s done. It’s all gone.”
Gone.
Gone, gone, gone.
Regulus blinks, and Kreacher is tearfully clutching an amber amulet. That looks important. Why is that important? Regulus wants to tell him that everything’s okay because he doesn’t like the idea of his house-elf crying (“Leave. Destroy it. Tell no one what happened here and don’t ever return. Not for me, not for anything. That’s an order. The Dark Lord cannot know you live.” ), but the next time he blinks, Kreacher is gone, and Regulus is staring at his own murky reflection instead, a rabid thirst grappling at his throat.
His head is spinning. The world might be trying to spin too, it’s all getting a bit melty at the edges, and he doesn’t think that’s quite right. But he’s thirsty.
He blinks (it’s cold), he blinks (he’s sinking), he blinks (it hurts), he blinks -
He can’t breathe.
It’s a shock of ice. He doesn’t remember getting pulled into the water. Nor does he really remember the decrepit, slimy hand that shot out of nowhere and latched onto his wrist because he didn’t even register that it was real. But he’s in the water now, and that is unfortunately very real. Kreacher warned him not to go near the water. Why didn’t he listen? He’d just been so thirsty. There are hands clawing at him too - all of him - and he’s too weak to fight back as they drag him down, down, down . He might be screaming. There are bubbles bursting outwards, and on the next inhale, lakewater floods into his lungs instead of air.
Oh, I’m going to die, he realises, because it does occur to him in a moment of precious, shining clarity, submerged in watery darkness with fire burning in his chest, that he’s not making it out of this cave.
That’s okay. Regulus doesn’t think he was ever supposed to. He already made peace with that.
…Did he?
No.
Yes.
Does it matter?
Suppose not. It would have been nice to see Dorcas one more time, though. Pandora as well; he wanted to make sure she boarded that ship to Greece. And Barty - fuck , he hopes Barty doesn’t come looking for him.
He wanted to tell James - what did he want to tell James?
Well.
That never mattered when it was supposed to, anyway.
✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧
Miles away, in a tiny London apartment, Sirius Black stares at the sky and notes that his brother’s star is practically glowing tonight. Brighter than usual, he thinks, but maybe that’s just because the moon is nowhere in sight.
“Everything okay?” Remus mumbles into the pillow behind him.
“Yeah,” Sirius clears his throat and shuts the curtains. He stares at the ugly floral pattern that came with the apartment for a beat too long before shaking his head and letting go. “Yeah, fine.”
Still, as he lies down on the bed and Remus throws an arm over his chest, he’s kept awake thinking about something his Gran used to say after she fell sick.
“Do you know why a dying star outshines all the others?”
“Why?”
“Because it explodes.”