Fic: Lionheart (Regulus Fic, Rating R)
Title: Lionheart
Author: Gehayi
Rating: R
Warnings: Mention of slash relationship, character death
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: In which Regulus Black has to do the bravest thing he's ever done for a man who despises him.
Challenges:
Blackficathon: Regulus looks back on his life at the moment of his death.
Regulus Black Fic Challenge: 7. Regulus learns something new/dark/juicy/interesting about his family's history, preferably from a ghost.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my beta-readers, Underlucius and Polaris_Starz. Thanks also to Underlucius for Britpicking.
***
"Crucio!"
As the curse was spoken, he fell to the ground, his nerves and muscles convulsing with pain, bones and organs twisting in ways that the human body should not. Tsunami after tsunami of mind-twisting pain pounded through his blood, brain and body.
He opened his mouth to scream in anguish, but his vocal cords were as taut as steel cables. He couldn't make a sound.
Regulus, he thought dimly. My name is Regulus.
He clung to that thin strand of knowledge for the remainder of the torture session, as voice after voice flung spells at him. Silencio was cast on him, making it impossible for him to scream even if he had been able to do so. His body was lifted, slammed into walls, locked in stone-like paralysis and sliced with invisible knives. Strangely, Crucio was the only Unforgivable used.
Someone doesn't want me to die too quickly, Regulus thought as he struggled to ride out the pain.
He did not think of begging for mercy. Even in his disoriented state, he knew that wouldn't work.
At last, the waves of pain ceased. He felt himself dragged, none too gently, by his aching limbs into a small, empty room. It was little better than a closet, Regulus recalled. A picture of it skittered across his dazed mind: a cloakroom in some Muggle place of worship, with a dusty wooden floor, hooks for coats and jackets, a few stray maroon hymnals and one window emblazoned with a stained glass portrait of a sad-eyed man in scarlet and royal blue robes. The man's portrait had a name, but for the life of him, Regulus couldn't recall it, and he could not check now--Bellatrix had cursed him, yet again, with Te caeco. It had been one of his mother's favourite curses when he was a child.
Te caeco. I blind you.
Te caeco would wear off after a few hours.
Probably.
A day or two, at most.
Regulus was loath to admit even to himself that the curse did more and more damage to him each time that Bellatrix cast it--and she had cast it quite a number of times already, both during this session and others.. He dared not think that his eyes could only perceive light and darkness, blobs of colour and vague, fuzzy shapes…and that very likely he would lose even that shortly.
It's not worth thinking about, he scolded himself, half-dragging, half-crawling into the speckled white blob of warmth that he knew was sunlight pouring in through the stained glass window. Yes, I'm losing my sight. What difference does it make? I'll be dead before I learn what it's like to be a blind wizard, anyway.
He lay in the warm patch for a while, letting the comforting heat sink into his aching body as if it were a lover.
Sadly, he could not lie there for long. He still had something important that he needed to do. And who knew when the Death Eaters--his fellow Death Eaters--would return, and drag him away to torment--or, perhaps, this time, to death?
At least his wounds were still bleeding. He supposed he could thank Merlin for that small mercy.
He forced himself to his feet. Some rituals had to be performed while standing, and this was one of them. He staggered toward the source of the warmth, right arm outstretched like an antenna. A few moments later, he felt his over-sensitised fingertips brush the smooth, wooden windowsill. Then, slowly, cautiously, he turned, placed his left hand on the sill, and groped his way forward, the sill beneath his fingers giving way to cold, rough-hewn granite wall, and then to hard, curved brass coathooks on the eastern wall.
This was the place.
Regulus sank to his knees, placed his right index finger against a still-bleeding wound in his left hand and then, with deep concentration, began scribing runes in blood on the floor. Runes were no easy task to write at the best of times, and Regulus knew that these runes--part of the last spell he would ever cast--had to be perfect. He would never get a second chance.
As he wrote the runes he'd memorised, his mind turned back to the cause of this whole nightmare--the order that the Dark Lord had sent to him.
The order that he could never obey.
***
The order had been hand-delivered by a messenger to Regulus' flat, rather than to his official address of Twelve Grimmauld Place.
Regulus had supposed that it was simple practicality--after all, the Black townhouse was Unplottable, and would have been difficult, if not impossible, for a messenger to find. It was quite logical. Really.
No. The Death Eaters just want you to know that they always know where you are, said a little voice in the back of his mind--a voice that had been speaking up more and more often lately. That they can find you even when you're not at an "official" address. That you can never ever escape.
Regulus would have had an easier time dismissing the voice's suspicions if the messenger bearing the order had been Lucius Malfoy, or Bellatrix, or one of the Lestrange brothers. They frightened him with their zeal--which bordered on madness, in his eyes. They'd always frightened him. Nor did he trust them; he could not recall a time when he had trusted any of his kin, save for his brother Sirius.
But--they were family. Purebloods, like himself. And, unlike himself, fiercely loyal to Voldemort and to his cause. Seeing them would mean that Voldemort still had some hopes of him.
Regulus had no illusions about his skill as a Death Eater. He was a failure. Oh, he'd done his duty. He'd killed Muggles. Tortured. And...other things that his mind preferred to shy away from. But he'd done such things fearing what the others would do to him if he did not. His duty never bubbled over into sadistic enthusiasm, as it did for Bella, or to amused and lethal manipulation, as it did for Lucius.
And now he knew that the Dark Lord had noticed his ineptitude. The messenger was a shivering, cowering girl of eighteen or so. Though she claimed to be a halfblood, gossip said that she was Muggleborn and had thrown in her lot with Voldemort in hopes that it would save her. Everyone knew it would not.
In sending her, Voldemort was serving him notice: Fail me again, and your blood will not save you any more than her false loyalty will save her.
A chill ran through Regulus' body as he thanked the girl and courteously accepted the missive she'd brought. The girl gaped at him for a minute as if he were mad, then scurried away.
It can't be that bad, thought Regulus desperately, casting a Silencing Charm before cracking the poison green wax seal on the parchment. It can't.
Turn Remus Lupin, the parchment said, speaking the words in Voldemort's voice.
Turn him? thought Regulus wildly. How can I do that? How the hell am I supposed make my brother's werewolf lover turn traitor?
Even as he thought this, he realised that the terminology was wrong. He should have thought in terms of making Remus Lupin see the light, or recognise that the Dark Lord offered Dark Creatures more freedom than the wizarding world did.
He should not have thought in terms of betrayal.
Because that implied, didn't it, that changing over to the Dark Lord's side was somehow wrong.
He glanced back at the parchment, which immediately began speaking again.
Turn Remus Lupin--if you can. The voice echoed sardonically, as if there was no chance that Regulus could accomplish such a task. If you cannot, then kill him.
Well. That gave him some incentive to turn the wretched beast, didn't it?
Whether or not you turn Lupin, however, you must kill Sirius Black.
Regulus gripped the parchment tightly, staring at the parchment in horror and disbelief.
You cannot make an exception in Black's case, the parchment said. He will never permit his friend to change sides. And he defies all that we value. He must die in agony, as a message to those who would oppose us.
His stomach roiling and his head pounding, Regulus gazed unseeing at the parchment gripped in his hand, but the message spoke no more. At last, he crumpled the parchment into a ball and tossed it into a wastebasket, where it instantly burst into green flames, then turned to ashes.
Sirius. Oh, Sirius.
Regulus was under no illusions that he was one of his elder brother's favourite people. They had not spoken for years. They were miles apart politically; they valued nothing close to the same thing. They couldn't even be in the same room without shouting at each other. He'd managed to hate Sirius for years with a clear conscience.
But Sirius had been one of the few bright spots in a bleak childhood. Regulus' boyhood had bordered on something from a Gothic novel: a dark, evil, brooding house; a half-mad mother who shrieked in perpetual rage; a morose alcoholic father, whose cane was hard and whose words were even harsher; a treacherous servant; and, of course, haunted portraits. All I needed was a sickly sister locked up in the attic and a dissipated, debauched elder brother to complete the picture.
Well, there had been no ailing sister that Regulus could recall. But if present-day Sirius was debauched and dissipated (Regulus could not quite decide whether or not a monogamous homosexual relationship counted as debauchery), he had not been so in childhood. Regulus remembered Sirius' constant, patient attempts to teach him how to ride a broom, and the endless, laughing games of tag and hide-and-go-seek among the gravestones and crypts in the small family cemetery adjoining the back garden. He recalled the pranks they'd played on the house-elf, Kreacher, taunting and tormenting their mother's obsequious slave and spy.
He recalled nights when thunder had reverberated in his bones and lightning had seared his eyes with blinding whiteness, when his three- or four- or five-year-old self had crept from his own bedroom in the west wing, past the stuffed and staring heads of house-elves in the parlour, into Sirius' bedroom in the east wing. Sirius had always been grumpy upon awakening, and he had never understood Regulus' phobias or night terrors, but he'd been there, alternately scolding (you have to learn to fight your fears, Reg) and calming (it's all right, Reg, nothing to be afraid of, trust me) and comforting (go to sleep now, if anything happens, I'll be here to protect you).
How many times had he fallen asleep thus, his head pillowed on his older brother's shoulder?
Their mother had never liked her sons sharing the same bed, no matter that one was five and the other was three. It was wicked, she had shrieked at them. It was abnormal. It was unnatural. Brothers, she insisted, should not be close. He and Sirius had often exchanged looks of total bewilderment as she ranted and raved, wondering what the old bat was blathering about now.
They'd remained friends, despite their mother's best efforts, despite their father's stern insistences that boys needed to grow into strong, self-disciplined men, that it did neither of them any good to take the blame (or, as they grew older, the curses) for the other's faults. They'd been both brothers and sworn brothers for years.
Until Sirius went to Hogwarts.
Until that damnable Hat put him in Gryffindor.
He'd barely spoken to his brother for the next two years. Their parents made certain of that. They intercepted Sirius' letters, forbade Sirius from coming home on holiday, and, when Sirius inevitably came home for the summer, watched Regulus with the chill gaze of cobras about to strike each time the two of them spoke.
Those two years had cost them a great deal of closeness.
Regulus being put in Slytherin put paid to it for good.
Sirius had never forgiven Regulus for ending up in Slytherin. Regulus had never forgiven the Hat for putting him there. Oh, yes, he was ambitious. His ambition was to survive…a lofty ambition in Twelve Grimmauld Place. Oh, yes, he was cunning. But it was the desperate cunning of an animal at bay. Even at eleven, he'd known that his goals and skills had nothing to do with those of his yearmates.
Sirius had seen his placement in Slytherin as a sign of moral corruption, as if the little brother he had loved had vanished and been replaced by a golem lookalike. Regulus, for his part, had been no less carefully watched at Hogwarts than he had been after Sirius' placement.
Avery. Goyle. Nott. Narcissa. All watching him with flat, cold eyes. All reporting the slightest transgression from conformity to his parents. All mentioning the slightest contact with his rebellious elder brother.
Regulus learned early that any violation of what his parents wanted would affect both him and Sirius. He also learned that his housemates were eager to redouble whatever punishment his parents had visited on him.
Remus Lupin had seen some of what was wrong, and had tried to mend it. He'd talked to Regulus, despite the fact that Sirius and Sirius' best mate, James Potter, had detested Slytherins and had condemned them all, loudly, as incipient dark wizards and future Death Eaters. He'd been kind to a desperately lonely younger boy.
It had bewildered Regulus for years. People were not kind without cause. They certainly were not kind without expecting any favours in return.
Then he had caught Remus and his brother together in an empty classroom.
Remus was using me, he'd thought, sickened. He just wanted me to like him so I wouldn't say anything when I found out.
He didn't want to believe that. But he couldn't think of any other explanation that made sense.
He'd said nothing. The pride of the house of Black was at stake, after all. And he had no wish to subject himself, as well as his brother and--what was Remus? A friend? A former friend?--to venom or ridicule. So he had kept silent.
Then Snape had learned the truth, and had spread it all over school.
Sirius had been furious, and had cornered Regulus in the hallway outside of the Transfiguration classroom. "I thought better of you, Reg," he'd said, white-lipped. "How could you tell Snape, of all people? How could you do that to Remus? I thought he was trying to befriend you, at least. Do you really hate him that much? Or was this just the best way you could think of to hurt me?"
He had stormed off before Regulus had a chance to answer.
Regulus had never found a way of telling his big brother that he still loved him--not then, when he was thirteen, nor ever after.
And now he was eighteen, and his brother was twenty. And he was a Death Eater. And he had his orders.
For lack of anything else to do, Regulus wandered into the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea. He sat down at the kitchen table and sipped the tea tentatively. It tasted bitter.
I can't do this.
Regulus had no doubt that the other Death Eaters in the family would leap at a chance to prove themselves to the Dark Lord. So what if the person who had to be killed was kin? The cause was what was important. This was a war, after all. In war, people died.
Not to mention that Sirius was very firmly on the opposing side. He'd fought and killed Death Eaters himself. Sirius was no innocent, any more than Regulus himself was.
I can't kill my brother.
Regulus had no doubt that this was a test of his loyalty, brought about by his own lack of enthusiasm. The Dark Lord had put him in a position where he had to do the unthinkable...or die himself in an unspeakably hideous way.
Neither choice appealed.
Warning Sirius would do no good. Too many years and too much mistrust separated them. Besides, telling Sirius that he was in danger would be the surest way of forcing him to face the Death Eaters...and, very probably, die.
As for Remus, he would not be warned, either. He believed in honour, and in standing by his friends. Besides, Voldemort regarded werewolves as Dark Creatures. Beasts. Remus saw, or chose to see, himself as a man. A person. He would never choose to serve a leader who viewed him as an animal.
I could run. I could flee to America or Australia--Antarctica, if that's what it takes. Change my name. Start a new life. Then I wouldn't die, and I wouldn't have to kill Sirius or Remus, either.
Except that the Death Eaters would find him, eventually. And they would set another Death Eater to track...and, inevitably, to kill...Sirius and Remus. Fleeing would solve nothing, and would save no one. And simple refusal would result in the same situation--torture and death for him, death by another Death Eater's hand for his brother and Remus.
No matter what Regulus did, his brother and his brother's lover would die.
And if he didn't kill them both--for there was no hope of turning Remus Lupin, and Regulus knew it--he himself would die.
There seemed to be no escape.
Commit suicide by Death Eater, or kill an old friend and his own brother. What a wonderful choice.
He bowed his head, nearly knocking the cup of cold, bitter tea from his hands. Hastily, he put it down on the table and shoved it away.
I can't kill my own blood, he thought wearily. The kinslayer is forever accursed; that's ancient magic. It would be true even I hated Sirius.
How long he sat, his eyes staring blindly at the coarse-grained wood tabletop, he never knew.
Eventually, a few words began knocking together, as if trying to remind him of something:
"I'll protect..."
Blood.
Ancient magic.
The direction that his train of thought was taking shocked him to breathlessness for a moment. Then he shook himself.
If he had to choose destruction in some form, he would rather it was merely physical. At least he would die human.
Whether they kill me or I kill Sirius, I'll be destroyed. But maybe...maybe I can save them.
He sighed, stood up from the table and walked into the living room. Grabbing a handful of Floo Powder, he flung it into the flames.
"Twelve Grimmauld Place," he stated loudly, and then stepped into the fire.
***
"You," said the portrait of his great-great-grandfather, "are utterly mad."
"Fine," said Regulus in an even tone, his dark blue eyes boring into Phineas Nigellus' painted pale blue ones. "I'm mad. Now, are you going to help me with the potion I need, or not?"
Phineas plucked idly at the acid green silk gloves on his painted hands. "Explain to me again why I should help you commit suicide?"
"Because for starters," Regulus said patiently, leaning against the largest armchair in the Black library as he gazed up at Phineas' portrait, "this will keep your other great-great-grandson alive."
Phineas glared at Regulus. "I do not particularly relish the thought of losing either of you."
"I don't particularly relish the thought of losing me either," muttered Regulus in a husky voice. He swallowed, and tried to speak normally. "If you can think of any method that will leave both Sirius and me alive at the end of all this, I would be extraordinarily grateful."
"I did not say that I found fault with your logic. I merely said that I do not wish to lose you. Or your thoroughly impossible brother."
So Phineas would mourn. Regulus was oddly pleased by this. At least someone would regret his death, even though Sirius and his parents would not.
"Just the recipe, Phineas," he said quietly. " We don't have much time. And I still have to brew the blasted thing."
Phineas stroked his black goatee for a few moments in silence. "Very well. Two ounces of powdered root of asphodel. Three tablespoons of frozen Ashwinder eggs. Six ounces of Devil's Snare, finely chopped. Three ounces of dragon's blood. And one raw dragon's heart."
Regulus scribbled down the ingredients on a piece of parchment. "Right. Thanks."
"The potion will not affect the power of the sacrifice, you know," said Phineas softly. "It will merely increase your body's production of blood--while simultaneously binding you to life and to sanity--until you draw the last rune of protection." He paused for a moment, then spoke in an even gentler voice. "The pain may be well nigh unbearable."
Regulus' mind supplied the sentence Phineas refused to say: And you have always been a coward about pain, Regulus.
He shivered.
"I--" He began to say, then stopped, uncertain of what he was about to say. I hate this? I wish there were another way? I don't know what else to do? I'm scared?
He bit his lower lip and closed his eyes. He was not going to cry, damn it. He would never be able to do what needed to be done if he started crying. He was eighteen and he was a man and he was going to face this like a man. He was.
He clenched his fists, took several deep breaths and made an effort to speak in a calm and level tone. "I wonder if you would tell me how you knew that spell," he said, gratified to note that his voice scarcely trembled at all.
Phineas favoured him with a probing glance, but did not comment on the non sequitur. "Dark Lords arise periodically. Voldemort is merely the latest. There were others who deserved the sobriquet, but who called themselves something different. You wouldn't have heard of them, of course. The wizarding world likes to pretend that corruption doesn't happen, or that it only happens to a select few. Our historians do all they can to reinforce that image. You've heard of Grindelwald, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Regulus, scratching his head in perplexity. "He was the Dark Lord during the nineteen-forties."
"Correct. Do you know what house he was in at Hogwarts?"
Regulus frowned. "Slytherin, but--"
Phineas crossed his arms over his chest and smirked. "Wrong."
"That's ridiculous!" Regulus snapped. "Everyone knows Grindelwald was a Slytherin, it's in all the history books--"
"And a million history books can't be wrong, can they?" Phineas surveyed Regulus sternly. "You really must learn to stop believing what everyone knows is true. Grindelwald was a Ravenclaw, boy. I knew him well. I should have, considering that he spent three years paying court to my granddaughter Taygete."
"Taygete." Regulus thought for a moment. "One of the Pleiades."
Phineas nodded soberly. "I was still alive then. I cannot say that I liked Grindelwald overmuch. Why, I cannot tell. He was bright, clever, independent, shrewd. He was creating his own spells from fourth year on. His family was not illustrious--he came of a minor German house of purebloods on his father's side and a respectable pureblood English yeoman family on his mother's--but I could not fault his bloodline. He simply had the mentality of a shopkeeper, eager to lay his grubby hands on whatever power and authority he could get." Phineas cocked his head at his great-great-grandson. "Remind you of anyone, boy?"
Regulus winced, for the description did sound uncomfortably close that of Voldemort. "But he was courting Taygete. Didn't she see what he was like?"
Phineas shot Regulus a tired glance. "For pity's sake, boy, she was no older than you. Younger, in fact, when he started paying her court."
Regulus licked his lips, which had suddenly gone cold. " She didn't know what she was getting into."
"Most assuredly not."
"What happened?" Regulus asked, trying to ignore the icy lump that seemed to have settled in his stomach.
"They eloped."
"What!"
"Eloped. Wed. Got married. Call it what you will, Taygete became his wife." Phineas snorted, as if to say what he thought of that. "And in case--just in case--you were thinking of this being true love, rest assure that it was not. Taygete was besotted with Grindelwald, yes, and why not? He looked regal, all wavy blond hair and soldier blue eyes and imperial bearing."
"Taygete..."
Phineas shrugged. "She looked like a Black. Dark hair. Heavy-lidded grey eyes. An eagle's nose, which I fear she got from me. She was not pretty. She might have been called handsome, but only by a pathological liar. The one thing she did have was intelligence. A pity that she did not have any sense to go with it. He treated her with the neglectful kindness one would bestow on a rather stupid dog, and she worshipped him for it."
Regulus squirmed uncomfortably. Taygete sounded a bit too…familiar. "I never heard any mention of her in the history books," he said lamely.
"She was not particularly important, in the eyes of historians," said Phineas. "She bore Grindelwald one child--a stillborn boy--and lost another before it was born. He became more vicious after each child perished, as if he wanted vengeance on the whole world for those deaths. Starting with the death of his wife."
"He killed her?"
The word rang out, hollow and chill, in the library.
"Yes."
There was an uncomfortable pause.
"Why didn't she do anything?"
"She did," said Phineas, looking away from Regulus for the first time. "But not when she was threatened. When his vengeance threatened others as well--her kin, some friends--then she used her ingenuity, and, after a number of false starts, created that formula you hold in your hand. Very Dark Magic---it has to be, to bind body and soul together, despite lethal wounds, and to compel sanity on a mind that would otherwise shatter--but it does protect those that the caster wishes it to." Phineas stopped and stared off into space, looking, as much as a living portrait could, drained, ill and exhausted.
"How well does it protect?" Regulus asked, after waiting what felt like an extraordinarily long time for Phineas to speak again.
"It protects against the Killing Curse, and the other Unforgivables," said Phineas in a weary, grey voice, as he fiddled with his silk gloves. "It provides an immunity to poisonous or lethal potions, such as the Draught of Living Death. Spells cast in malice and spite can injure, but cannot bring about death."
"Provided--"
"Yes. Provided."
"Always a catch." Regulus tried to smile; the best he could manage was a tense rictus.
"You can't cast this spell expecting something for nothing," retorted Phineas. "Something for everything...perhaps."
Another awkward silence reigned.
"Are you sure she used the potion?" Regulus asked at last. "After all, you were in England and she was in Germany, and you didn't see her d-…"
"No," said Phineas, his face tense and taut. "I didn't. But she sent me the formula, along with a coded letter. She told me what she was going to do--though of course by the time I received the message, she was long dead. My son Corvus never forgave her for contacting me instead of him and his wife. I never forgave her for not talking to me beforehand." He glanced at Regulus. "Have you spoken to your brother yet?"
Regulus shook his head. Talking to Sirius would be futility itself; his brother had long since convinced himself that Regulus hated him, and regarded him as an enemy. At this point, Sirius would find something suspicious in a statement like, "Hello."
He thought of asking Phineas to tell his brother someday. Yet what good would that do? Sirius would never go back to Twelve Grimmauld Place, not voluntarily. And Sirius had never managed to befriend the crotchety old portrait, anyway.
"Thank you," he said instead. "I-I guess I'd best be going…brew up the potion…"
"When do you expect to use it?" inquired Phineas, in the same offhand tone he might have used to request that Regulus pass him the table salt.
"Tonight. There's a meeting." Regulus marvelled at how calm his voice was. Then he drew a long, shuddering breath, and his shoulders started to shake. He could almost feel a helpless wail building up in his throat.
He would not disgrace himself. He would not.
He bolted for the door.
"Regulus."
Startled by the use of his name--Phineas normally addressed him as "boy" if he called Regulus anything at all--Regulus turned around, making an indescribable sound of acknowledgement that was something between a grunt and a sob.
Phineas looked at Regulus with a very serious expression. "I'd like to give you a piece of advice, if I may."
Regulus shrugged, as if to say it made no difference to him.
"Never take a deep breath when you're trying not to cry."
***
The potion took far less time to brew than Regulus had expected. Of course, he dared not go to a public potions laboratory and rent a work table and cauldron for ten Sickles and twelve Knuts an hour, but the kitchen in his flat did well in a pinch, even though the reek of the completed potion could have strangled a hippogriff.
On the other hand, it wasn't as if he was ever going to use his kitchen again after tonight, was it?
It would probably be better if he didn't think about that.
He examined the orange-brown potion he'd been thinking of as Taygete's Tears. If he hadn't been able to smell the foul odour emanating from it, he would have sworn that it was pumpkin juice.
He brought the vial containing the Tears to his lips, and was very nearly sick on the linoleum.
Blast.
He tried again. This attempt fared no better than the first.
On the third try, he gripped the potion with his left hand and pinched his nostrils shut with his right. Only then did it occur to him that he didn't know how much he was supposed to swallow.
Well, it was too late to ask Phineas that now.
He opened his mouth, swallowed the contents of the vial in one gulp...then, as his gorge rose, gritted his teeth so that he wouldn't spit it out again.
He was surprised, and not a little disconcerted, to discover that the potion had no effect. No immediate or visible effect, anyway.
Maybe it just took some time.
Despite the fact that he knew that he'd never use the place again, he cleaned up the kitchen. It wouldn't do to leave traces of the potion anywhere; the Death Eaters might well find a countercharm to it and then Sirius and Remus would be right back in the same mess they were in now. If he had to do this, he'd rather that the protection spell work, and continue to work.
He wasn't sure when he started thinking about going to see Sirius and Remus, or why it suddenly seemed like a good idea.
There is no point to this, he told himself as he donned his cloak and walked out of his flat.
They won't even want to see me, he thought as he cut through wizarding London.
The two of them are being spied on, he reminded himself as he drew near their apartment building and saw the telltale flashes of shimmering light on rooftops, across the street and near the building which indicated that agents using Shield Charms were watching.
They'll never let me in their flat, he thought, knocking anyway and wondering who would open the door.
It was Remus.
"Regulus?" he said incredulously as he ran long fingers through his grey-streaked hair.
Abruptly, Regulus felt ridiculous. What had he come here for, anyway?
"Hello, Remus," he mumbled, his cheeks flushing as he lowered his eyes.
A long pause followed those words. Regulus waited for Remus to speak, but the latter said nothing. At last Regulus grew weary of waiting. "May I come in?" he demanded, pointedly.
Remus' brown eyes opened wide, and his jaw fell. His face was almost a parody of astonishment. "Why?"
Which, Regulus reflected, was a logical question from Remus' point of view. After all, estranged Death Eater brothers didn't drop by Sirius' flat every day.
"I just want to talk to my brother," he said. It sounded weak even to him.
"Regulus..." Remus stared at him for a moment and then shook his head. "You've chosen your side. There really isn't anything to discuss."
"This isn't about politics," Regulus insisted. "It's just--it's been ages since I've talked to him. I wish I had a Time-Turner so that I could go back and start talking to him again, all those years ago. But I don't, and I can't."
"But why the sudden impulse?" Remus asked, gazing at Regulus in perplexity. "You've never got along, either of you."
The words were pulled from Regulus with great reluctance. "We were friends. Once. Before Hogwarts." He sagged against the door frame. "I doubt if you'll believe one of my political persuasion, but I..." He hastily substituted another word for the one he'd almost blurted out. "I...miss...my brother. More than you can possibly imagine."
Stern, intelligent brown eyes scrutinised Regulus. A minute passed. Two minutes. It felt like a thousand minutes.
"Perhaps you'd better come in," said Remus at last, and stepped away from the doorway to let Regulus in. "Though mind you, this is against my better judgement. And if you hurt him--" For a moment, something feral peered out of Remus' face.
"I won't. I promise," said Regulus, and stepped across the threshold. For a second, he wished that he'd had the foresight to bring breadcrumbs and a few sprinkles of salt in the inside pockets of his cloak, so that he might cast them to the floor of the flat. Bread and salt, once given and not returned, created its own enchantment--guest-right magic. The magic not only kept both host and guest safe as long as the guest was present, it also kept all hostile forces out.
Too late now.
"I'll go get him," said Remus, as he reached deftly behind Regulus to close and lock the door.
"I don't think you'll have to," said Regulus, closing his eyes and bracing himself for the worst as a shout resounded from the kitchen.
"Oi, Moony! Need some help dealing with some Jehovah's Witnesses, do you?"
"Amazing how his first thought is that whoever's at the door has to be got rid of," Regulus commented dryly. Remus took no notice.
"We have a guest, Sirius," he called.
A moment later, a shirtless, dark-haired figure--who was wearing Muggle jeans that fit so tightly that they had to have been enchanted with a Shrinking Charm--emerged from the other room, gripping a coffee mug in one hand and a slice of what looked like sausage, broccoli and pineapple pizza in the other.
"James! We weren't expecting--" Sirius broke off abruptly as he spotted Regulus. "Bloody hell."
"Yes," Regulus said sardonically. "Hello. Nice to see you too."
Sirius glared at Remus. "What the hell did you let a Death Eater in for, Moony?"
Regulus ignored Sirius. "Did you come here to proselytise, Regulus?" he asked in a low growl that was a savage mockery of his brother's voice, before switching back his normal tone of speech. "Why no, I didn't. I suppose you had a good reason for visiting after all this time? Yes, I thought so. So what was the reason? I'm not sure if I should tell you. I don't know if you'd believe that a Death Eater could have feelings..."
"Too bloody right I wouldn't!"
"Then talking to you is going to be very difficult, since I'm not going to be living up to your favourite negative stereotype." Regulus was momentarily horrified by the bitter words pouring from him, then unaccountably weary. It was always this way. No matter what he planned on saying to Sirius, the two of them inevitably ended by arguing, or worse.
Sirius was sneering. "Don't play the injured innocent, Reg. It's not a part that becomes you. What did you come for? To suss out the apartment? To charm the door and shatter the wards so that your friends can walk in any time they like? Cast Imperio on Remus and me, perhaps?"
"Merlin's balls! If that's what you think--" Regulus snatched his wand out of his robes' pocket and flung it across the room. It struck the wall and clattered noisily to the floor. Remus glanced at it, then walked over and picked it up. Neither of the Blacks paid him the slightest attention.
"There," Regulus said, panting, his face near-scarlet with fury. "I'm disarmed. Now you don't have to worry that I'm going to kill you or Remus, or turn you into puppets. You're safe, all right?"
Sirius applauded slowly. "Oh, very dramatic, Reg. Really, you should be on the stage."
A feeling of lassitude swept over Regulus. "What do you want, Sirius?" he asked in a tired voice. "What would it take to convince you that I'm not here to destroy you? That I just want to talk to my brother?"
Sirius turned away. "I don't have a brother. He was killed by Death Eaters. By you, the minute that you accepted that...that Mark on your arm."
You have an uncomfortable talent for Divination, Sirius, Regulus thought, as he fought for control.
"Now go. " Sirius' back was still facing Regulus. "Whatever you were planning on doing isn't going to work, so just go."
"I just wanted to talk," Regulus repeated patiently. "I'm going off on a mission pretty soon. It's...rather a long journey. Don't know when, or if, I'll be back."
Remus frowned, and spoke for the first time since the conversation between the two brothers had begun. "Is it dangerous?"
The wolf scents trouble, Regulus thought. Now if only Sirius would hear what I'm not saying, as well.
"'Dangerous' is, perhaps, not quite the right word," he said, striving for a light tone. "However, I definitely expect it to be a life-altering experience."
Remus' eyes narrowed. Regulus gazed back at him, his face a blandly innocent mask.
At last Remus looked away, and headed for the kitchen--still carrying Regulus' wand. "Talk to your brother," he said over his shoulder to Sirius, in a tone that managed to be both plea and command.
An awkward silence swelled and filled the room. Regulus said and did nothing to shatter it.
"So Voldemort trusts you more now," said Sirius in a dead voice. "Sending you on secret missions and all. You must be thrilled. Who did you have to kill to get on his good side?"
For one mad moment, Regulus considered telling Sirius the truth about why he was truly here. Then he realised that Sirius would only interpret anything he said as a threat, not as a warning. With difficulty, he kept still.
"Cat got your tongue?" inquired Sirius in a falsely solicitous tone. "Or don't you want to talk about the people you've betrayed?"
"That's not fair!" Regulus shouted, his patience at an end. "I've never betrayed anyone, never!"
"You betrayed me the minute you got that damned Mark on your arm," Sirius muttered, crossing his arms and glancing away from his little brother.
Regulus opened his mouth, intending to say something sensible like That had nothing to do with you, and can't we stop fighting for two minutes and talk? Instead he heard himself saying, "Thank Merlin you have me to blame for every single thing that's gone wrong, or that might go wrong, in your life. Without me a scapegoat--why, I don't know what you'd do. Grow up, perchance?"
Sirius flushed an ugly brick-red. The veins in his neck bulged. "Regulus..." he snarled.
Exhaustion swept through Regulus. One word. All I wanted was one word. And all I got were accusations and blame. Phineas was wrong. I shouldn't have come here.
"Remus," he called out.
Remus stepped from the kitchen so swiftly that he seemed to have been waiting for a cue. He surveyed Regulus and Sirius, then sagged a bit and sighed. "What is it going to take to make you two talk to each other?"
"I have nothing to say to him," said Sirius bitterly. "In fact, if I never see the little bastard again, it will be too soon."
Regulus flinched as if he'd been struck. But all he said was, "May I please have my wand back, Remus?"
Remus handed the wand over without a word. Regulus mumbled something that might have been, "Thanks."
He turned to Sirius, whose face was still resolutely turned away. "Goodbye, Sirius."
"Goodbye," said his brother coldly. "And don't come back."
Regulus swallowed what felt like a very large toad in his throat. "I won't," he whispered.
He opened the door of the flat and staggered out, hoping against hope that his brother would call him back, and knowing that Sirius would not.
He walked for what felt like hours, not really going anywhere, just…going.
He walked through wizarding and Muggle London alike, not even noticing the Dark Mark searing his arm. Only when it began to throb and ache did he realise that Voldemort had been summoning him for some time.
"Goodbye," he said softly to nothing in particular, and then closed his eyes and Apparated to the last Death Eater meeting he would ever attend.
***
Lynwood Churchyard betrayed the Dark Lord's fancy for atmosphere. With ancient tombstones leaning every which way like rotting, jagged teeth, with twisted and contorted willow trees writhing against a cloud-shrouded half moon, it was perfectly designed to raise the spectres of isolation, Dark Magic and terror.
But Regulus paid little attention to the location, and more to the snake-faced being before whom he was kneeling.
"Did I hear you correctly?" said the Dark Lord, his crimson eyes ablaze in his bone-white face as he glared at Regulus. "You are refusing to obey a direct order of mine?"
Regulus nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
"May one ask why?" inquired the Dark Lord with poisonous courtesy.
"He's my brother." Never mind that Sirius wasn't acting very fraternal at the moment. "I can't. I can't."
"Ah, yes," said the Dark Lord. "That fetish of your kin. To the Blacks, family is everything."
Regulus nodded once more, grateful that the Dark Lord seemed, against all odds and all expectations, to understand.
Voldemort smiled down at Regulus. Not a pleasant smile, but, Regulus reminded himself, the Dark Lord did have the face of a skull and it was difficult under such circumstances to appear pleasant.
He began to wonder if he might get out of this more or less intact.
Voldemort placed a skeletal hand on Regulus' shoulder in almost a paternal gesture, and spoke a series of names. In a matter of moments, Regulus was encircled by Death Eater kin--his first cousin, Bellatrix Black Lestrange, her husband-cousin Rodolphus Lestrange, his brother Rastaban Lestrange, their cousin Faustine DuLac, her daughter Melisande DuLac, Regulus' cousin and cousin-in-law Lucius Malfoy.
"Show him," the Dark Lord commanded. "Show him what family is worth among us. Now."
And then the pain had begun.
***
How long the pain had lasted so far, Regulus didn't know. Time had long since ceased to have any meaning. There had been breaks in the pain, he knew that; evidently the Dark Lord did not want his suffering to end too quickly.
Not that his agony could end, now. Taygete's Tears would bind him to life until he had drawn the last rune of protection. After that…well, he might live through another torture session. Or--if he had been sufficiently injured--he might die on the spot. Either way, he would not survive long once the last rune had been drawn.
Once his life had ended--Regulus was not certain if that meant he had to shed his last drop of blood or not--then the spell of protection would begin to form around Sirius, around Remus. They would be safe. Completely and utterly safe from Killing Curses and Death Eater attacks and cruel vicious Dark Lords.
No one would know where the protection had come from. No one would even suspect. Not him. Not soft, malleable Reg, the personification of obedience. Dumbledore would probably get the credit.
And without knowing the source and the nature of the magic, the Death Eaters would not be able to counteract it.
Sirius and Remus would be safe forever.
Once he drew the last rune in his own blood.
Once he died.
But as he lay on the dusty wooden floor of Lynwood's church, blind, bleeding, crippled and shuddering in pain, he realised that he didn't want to die, didn't want to even think about dying. He wanted surcease from pain, soft cool cotton sheets whispering against his skin, the sight of a bright blue October sky, the sound of Sirius, at nine, trying to play hot jazz on the harpsichord that their mother had insisted they both learn to play, the scents of sautéed onions and spicy Pakistani takeaway teasing his nose, and the taste of a loving woman's hot sweet mouth against his own.
A pounding started in his head. Too late. Too late. Mentally, he agreed. It was stupid to be having regrets at this juncture. It was certainly pointless.
And if he waited, he might not be able to draw the rune at all.
All of this hellish agony would have been for nothing.
And Sirius would die. Along with the man he loved. It would be a betrayal indeed, if Regulus let that happen.
Ignoring doubts and fears, he brushed his right hand against his bleeding left, and drew three lines: a diagonal left-to-right slash, a vertical line and another diagonal left-to-right slash. Eoh. The rune of death, immortality and the spirit. The symbol of that which endures.
He drew back, stared blindly toward the spot where the final rune was and waited for something to happen. (As he had while drawing the rest of the runes. He supposed that he had been fortunate that no one had come into the room and seen the runes written in blood on floor and walls.)
Heat, like the warmth of a stove, flared from all the runes at once, making them glow with bluish-white light.
Abruptly, the pain pervading his bones and body vanished, and the cessation of pain was like the swift, hungered-for embrace of a long-lost love.
I'm sorry, he thought, not sure who or what he was apologising to-- perhaps Sirius, perhaps those whom he had idiotically, foolishly murdered. I shouldn't have hurt you. Please forgive me.
A dazzling sunburst flared. He couldn't tell if the blaze of light was being emitted by the runes, or if the light was only within his mind.
Sirius, I love--
And that was all.
***
Three days later, two Aurors, one named Moody and the other named Shacklebolt, found the tortured body of Regulus Deneb Black sprawled across an ancient grave in Lynwood Churchyard in Dartmoor.
The Aurors never did learn why a young man who had plainly perished in agonising pain nevertheless was found wearing a peaceful smile.
Author: Gehayi
Rating: R
Warnings: Mention of slash relationship, character death
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: In which Regulus Black has to do the bravest thing he's ever done for a man who despises him.
Challenges:
Blackficathon: Regulus looks back on his life at the moment of his death.
Regulus Black Fic Challenge: 7. Regulus learns something new/dark/juicy/interesting about his family's history, preferably from a ghost.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my beta-readers, Underlucius and Polaris_Starz. Thanks also to Underlucius for Britpicking.
***
"Crucio!"
As the curse was spoken, he fell to the ground, his nerves and muscles convulsing with pain, bones and organs twisting in ways that the human body should not. Tsunami after tsunami of mind-twisting pain pounded through his blood, brain and body.
He opened his mouth to scream in anguish, but his vocal cords were as taut as steel cables. He couldn't make a sound.
Regulus, he thought dimly. My name is Regulus.
He clung to that thin strand of knowledge for the remainder of the torture session, as voice after voice flung spells at him. Silencio was cast on him, making it impossible for him to scream even if he had been able to do so. His body was lifted, slammed into walls, locked in stone-like paralysis and sliced with invisible knives. Strangely, Crucio was the only Unforgivable used.
Someone doesn't want me to die too quickly, Regulus thought as he struggled to ride out the pain.
He did not think of begging for mercy. Even in his disoriented state, he knew that wouldn't work.
At last, the waves of pain ceased. He felt himself dragged, none too gently, by his aching limbs into a small, empty room. It was little better than a closet, Regulus recalled. A picture of it skittered across his dazed mind: a cloakroom in some Muggle place of worship, with a dusty wooden floor, hooks for coats and jackets, a few stray maroon hymnals and one window emblazoned with a stained glass portrait of a sad-eyed man in scarlet and royal blue robes. The man's portrait had a name, but for the life of him, Regulus couldn't recall it, and he could not check now--Bellatrix had cursed him, yet again, with Te caeco. It had been one of his mother's favourite curses when he was a child.
Te caeco. I blind you.
Te caeco would wear off after a few hours.
Probably.
A day or two, at most.
Regulus was loath to admit even to himself that the curse did more and more damage to him each time that Bellatrix cast it--and she had cast it quite a number of times already, both during this session and others.. He dared not think that his eyes could only perceive light and darkness, blobs of colour and vague, fuzzy shapes…and that very likely he would lose even that shortly.
It's not worth thinking about, he scolded himself, half-dragging, half-crawling into the speckled white blob of warmth that he knew was sunlight pouring in through the stained glass window. Yes, I'm losing my sight. What difference does it make? I'll be dead before I learn what it's like to be a blind wizard, anyway.
He lay in the warm patch for a while, letting the comforting heat sink into his aching body as if it were a lover.
Sadly, he could not lie there for long. He still had something important that he needed to do. And who knew when the Death Eaters--his fellow Death Eaters--would return, and drag him away to torment--or, perhaps, this time, to death?
At least his wounds were still bleeding. He supposed he could thank Merlin for that small mercy.
He forced himself to his feet. Some rituals had to be performed while standing, and this was one of them. He staggered toward the source of the warmth, right arm outstretched like an antenna. A few moments later, he felt his over-sensitised fingertips brush the smooth, wooden windowsill. Then, slowly, cautiously, he turned, placed his left hand on the sill, and groped his way forward, the sill beneath his fingers giving way to cold, rough-hewn granite wall, and then to hard, curved brass coathooks on the eastern wall.
This was the place.
Regulus sank to his knees, placed his right index finger against a still-bleeding wound in his left hand and then, with deep concentration, began scribing runes in blood on the floor. Runes were no easy task to write at the best of times, and Regulus knew that these runes--part of the last spell he would ever cast--had to be perfect. He would never get a second chance.
As he wrote the runes he'd memorised, his mind turned back to the cause of this whole nightmare--the order that the Dark Lord had sent to him.
The order that he could never obey.
***
The order had been hand-delivered by a messenger to Regulus' flat, rather than to his official address of Twelve Grimmauld Place.
Regulus had supposed that it was simple practicality--after all, the Black townhouse was Unplottable, and would have been difficult, if not impossible, for a messenger to find. It was quite logical. Really.
No. The Death Eaters just want you to know that they always know where you are, said a little voice in the back of his mind--a voice that had been speaking up more and more often lately. That they can find you even when you're not at an "official" address. That you can never ever escape.
Regulus would have had an easier time dismissing the voice's suspicions if the messenger bearing the order had been Lucius Malfoy, or Bellatrix, or one of the Lestrange brothers. They frightened him with their zeal--which bordered on madness, in his eyes. They'd always frightened him. Nor did he trust them; he could not recall a time when he had trusted any of his kin, save for his brother Sirius.
But--they were family. Purebloods, like himself. And, unlike himself, fiercely loyal to Voldemort and to his cause. Seeing them would mean that Voldemort still had some hopes of him.
Regulus had no illusions about his skill as a Death Eater. He was a failure. Oh, he'd done his duty. He'd killed Muggles. Tortured. And...other things that his mind preferred to shy away from. But he'd done such things fearing what the others would do to him if he did not. His duty never bubbled over into sadistic enthusiasm, as it did for Bella, or to amused and lethal manipulation, as it did for Lucius.
And now he knew that the Dark Lord had noticed his ineptitude. The messenger was a shivering, cowering girl of eighteen or so. Though she claimed to be a halfblood, gossip said that she was Muggleborn and had thrown in her lot with Voldemort in hopes that it would save her. Everyone knew it would not.
In sending her, Voldemort was serving him notice: Fail me again, and your blood will not save you any more than her false loyalty will save her.
A chill ran through Regulus' body as he thanked the girl and courteously accepted the missive she'd brought. The girl gaped at him for a minute as if he were mad, then scurried away.
It can't be that bad, thought Regulus desperately, casting a Silencing Charm before cracking the poison green wax seal on the parchment. It can't.
Turn Remus Lupin, the parchment said, speaking the words in Voldemort's voice.
Turn him? thought Regulus wildly. How can I do that? How the hell am I supposed make my brother's werewolf lover turn traitor?
Even as he thought this, he realised that the terminology was wrong. He should have thought in terms of making Remus Lupin see the light, or recognise that the Dark Lord offered Dark Creatures more freedom than the wizarding world did.
He should not have thought in terms of betrayal.
Because that implied, didn't it, that changing over to the Dark Lord's side was somehow wrong.
He glanced back at the parchment, which immediately began speaking again.
Turn Remus Lupin--if you can. The voice echoed sardonically, as if there was no chance that Regulus could accomplish such a task. If you cannot, then kill him.
Well. That gave him some incentive to turn the wretched beast, didn't it?
Whether or not you turn Lupin, however, you must kill Sirius Black.
Regulus gripped the parchment tightly, staring at the parchment in horror and disbelief.
You cannot make an exception in Black's case, the parchment said. He will never permit his friend to change sides. And he defies all that we value. He must die in agony, as a message to those who would oppose us.
His stomach roiling and his head pounding, Regulus gazed unseeing at the parchment gripped in his hand, but the message spoke no more. At last, he crumpled the parchment into a ball and tossed it into a wastebasket, where it instantly burst into green flames, then turned to ashes.
Sirius. Oh, Sirius.
Regulus was under no illusions that he was one of his elder brother's favourite people. They had not spoken for years. They were miles apart politically; they valued nothing close to the same thing. They couldn't even be in the same room without shouting at each other. He'd managed to hate Sirius for years with a clear conscience.
But Sirius had been one of the few bright spots in a bleak childhood. Regulus' boyhood had bordered on something from a Gothic novel: a dark, evil, brooding house; a half-mad mother who shrieked in perpetual rage; a morose alcoholic father, whose cane was hard and whose words were even harsher; a treacherous servant; and, of course, haunted portraits. All I needed was a sickly sister locked up in the attic and a dissipated, debauched elder brother to complete the picture.
Well, there had been no ailing sister that Regulus could recall. But if present-day Sirius was debauched and dissipated (Regulus could not quite decide whether or not a monogamous homosexual relationship counted as debauchery), he had not been so in childhood. Regulus remembered Sirius' constant, patient attempts to teach him how to ride a broom, and the endless, laughing games of tag and hide-and-go-seek among the gravestones and crypts in the small family cemetery adjoining the back garden. He recalled the pranks they'd played on the house-elf, Kreacher, taunting and tormenting their mother's obsequious slave and spy.
He recalled nights when thunder had reverberated in his bones and lightning had seared his eyes with blinding whiteness, when his three- or four- or five-year-old self had crept from his own bedroom in the west wing, past the stuffed and staring heads of house-elves in the parlour, into Sirius' bedroom in the east wing. Sirius had always been grumpy upon awakening, and he had never understood Regulus' phobias or night terrors, but he'd been there, alternately scolding (you have to learn to fight your fears, Reg) and calming (it's all right, Reg, nothing to be afraid of, trust me) and comforting (go to sleep now, if anything happens, I'll be here to protect you).
How many times had he fallen asleep thus, his head pillowed on his older brother's shoulder?
Their mother had never liked her sons sharing the same bed, no matter that one was five and the other was three. It was wicked, she had shrieked at them. It was abnormal. It was unnatural. Brothers, she insisted, should not be close. He and Sirius had often exchanged looks of total bewilderment as she ranted and raved, wondering what the old bat was blathering about now.
They'd remained friends, despite their mother's best efforts, despite their father's stern insistences that boys needed to grow into strong, self-disciplined men, that it did neither of them any good to take the blame (or, as they grew older, the curses) for the other's faults. They'd been both brothers and sworn brothers for years.
Until Sirius went to Hogwarts.
Until that damnable Hat put him in Gryffindor.
He'd barely spoken to his brother for the next two years. Their parents made certain of that. They intercepted Sirius' letters, forbade Sirius from coming home on holiday, and, when Sirius inevitably came home for the summer, watched Regulus with the chill gaze of cobras about to strike each time the two of them spoke.
Those two years had cost them a great deal of closeness.
Regulus being put in Slytherin put paid to it for good.
Sirius had never forgiven Regulus for ending up in Slytherin. Regulus had never forgiven the Hat for putting him there. Oh, yes, he was ambitious. His ambition was to survive…a lofty ambition in Twelve Grimmauld Place. Oh, yes, he was cunning. But it was the desperate cunning of an animal at bay. Even at eleven, he'd known that his goals and skills had nothing to do with those of his yearmates.
Sirius had seen his placement in Slytherin as a sign of moral corruption, as if the little brother he had loved had vanished and been replaced by a golem lookalike. Regulus, for his part, had been no less carefully watched at Hogwarts than he had been after Sirius' placement.
Avery. Goyle. Nott. Narcissa. All watching him with flat, cold eyes. All reporting the slightest transgression from conformity to his parents. All mentioning the slightest contact with his rebellious elder brother.
Regulus learned early that any violation of what his parents wanted would affect both him and Sirius. He also learned that his housemates were eager to redouble whatever punishment his parents had visited on him.
Remus Lupin had seen some of what was wrong, and had tried to mend it. He'd talked to Regulus, despite the fact that Sirius and Sirius' best mate, James Potter, had detested Slytherins and had condemned them all, loudly, as incipient dark wizards and future Death Eaters. He'd been kind to a desperately lonely younger boy.
It had bewildered Regulus for years. People were not kind without cause. They certainly were not kind without expecting any favours in return.
Then he had caught Remus and his brother together in an empty classroom.
Remus was using me, he'd thought, sickened. He just wanted me to like him so I wouldn't say anything when I found out.
He didn't want to believe that. But he couldn't think of any other explanation that made sense.
He'd said nothing. The pride of the house of Black was at stake, after all. And he had no wish to subject himself, as well as his brother and--what was Remus? A friend? A former friend?--to venom or ridicule. So he had kept silent.
Then Snape had learned the truth, and had spread it all over school.
Sirius had been furious, and had cornered Regulus in the hallway outside of the Transfiguration classroom. "I thought better of you, Reg," he'd said, white-lipped. "How could you tell Snape, of all people? How could you do that to Remus? I thought he was trying to befriend you, at least. Do you really hate him that much? Or was this just the best way you could think of to hurt me?"
He had stormed off before Regulus had a chance to answer.
Regulus had never found a way of telling his big brother that he still loved him--not then, when he was thirteen, nor ever after.
And now he was eighteen, and his brother was twenty. And he was a Death Eater. And he had his orders.
For lack of anything else to do, Regulus wandered into the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea. He sat down at the kitchen table and sipped the tea tentatively. It tasted bitter.
I can't do this.
Regulus had no doubt that the other Death Eaters in the family would leap at a chance to prove themselves to the Dark Lord. So what if the person who had to be killed was kin? The cause was what was important. This was a war, after all. In war, people died.
Not to mention that Sirius was very firmly on the opposing side. He'd fought and killed Death Eaters himself. Sirius was no innocent, any more than Regulus himself was.
I can't kill my brother.
Regulus had no doubt that this was a test of his loyalty, brought about by his own lack of enthusiasm. The Dark Lord had put him in a position where he had to do the unthinkable...or die himself in an unspeakably hideous way.
Neither choice appealed.
Warning Sirius would do no good. Too many years and too much mistrust separated them. Besides, telling Sirius that he was in danger would be the surest way of forcing him to face the Death Eaters...and, very probably, die.
As for Remus, he would not be warned, either. He believed in honour, and in standing by his friends. Besides, Voldemort regarded werewolves as Dark Creatures. Beasts. Remus saw, or chose to see, himself as a man. A person. He would never choose to serve a leader who viewed him as an animal.
I could run. I could flee to America or Australia--Antarctica, if that's what it takes. Change my name. Start a new life. Then I wouldn't die, and I wouldn't have to kill Sirius or Remus, either.
Except that the Death Eaters would find him, eventually. And they would set another Death Eater to track...and, inevitably, to kill...Sirius and Remus. Fleeing would solve nothing, and would save no one. And simple refusal would result in the same situation--torture and death for him, death by another Death Eater's hand for his brother and Remus.
No matter what Regulus did, his brother and his brother's lover would die.
And if he didn't kill them both--for there was no hope of turning Remus Lupin, and Regulus knew it--he himself would die.
There seemed to be no escape.
Commit suicide by Death Eater, or kill an old friend and his own brother. What a wonderful choice.
He bowed his head, nearly knocking the cup of cold, bitter tea from his hands. Hastily, he put it down on the table and shoved it away.
I can't kill my own blood, he thought wearily. The kinslayer is forever accursed; that's ancient magic. It would be true even I hated Sirius.
How long he sat, his eyes staring blindly at the coarse-grained wood tabletop, he never knew.
Eventually, a few words began knocking together, as if trying to remind him of something:
"I'll protect..."
Blood.
Ancient magic.
The direction that his train of thought was taking shocked him to breathlessness for a moment. Then he shook himself.
If he had to choose destruction in some form, he would rather it was merely physical. At least he would die human.
Whether they kill me or I kill Sirius, I'll be destroyed. But maybe...maybe I can save them.
He sighed, stood up from the table and walked into the living room. Grabbing a handful of Floo Powder, he flung it into the flames.
"Twelve Grimmauld Place," he stated loudly, and then stepped into the fire.
***
"You," said the portrait of his great-great-grandfather, "are utterly mad."
"Fine," said Regulus in an even tone, his dark blue eyes boring into Phineas Nigellus' painted pale blue ones. "I'm mad. Now, are you going to help me with the potion I need, or not?"
Phineas plucked idly at the acid green silk gloves on his painted hands. "Explain to me again why I should help you commit suicide?"
"Because for starters," Regulus said patiently, leaning against the largest armchair in the Black library as he gazed up at Phineas' portrait, "this will keep your other great-great-grandson alive."
Phineas glared at Regulus. "I do not particularly relish the thought of losing either of you."
"I don't particularly relish the thought of losing me either," muttered Regulus in a husky voice. He swallowed, and tried to speak normally. "If you can think of any method that will leave both Sirius and me alive at the end of all this, I would be extraordinarily grateful."
"I did not say that I found fault with your logic. I merely said that I do not wish to lose you. Or your thoroughly impossible brother."
So Phineas would mourn. Regulus was oddly pleased by this. At least someone would regret his death, even though Sirius and his parents would not.
"Just the recipe, Phineas," he said quietly. " We don't have much time. And I still have to brew the blasted thing."
Phineas stroked his black goatee for a few moments in silence. "Very well. Two ounces of powdered root of asphodel. Three tablespoons of frozen Ashwinder eggs. Six ounces of Devil's Snare, finely chopped. Three ounces of dragon's blood. And one raw dragon's heart."
Regulus scribbled down the ingredients on a piece of parchment. "Right. Thanks."
"The potion will not affect the power of the sacrifice, you know," said Phineas softly. "It will merely increase your body's production of blood--while simultaneously binding you to life and to sanity--until you draw the last rune of protection." He paused for a moment, then spoke in an even gentler voice. "The pain may be well nigh unbearable."
Regulus' mind supplied the sentence Phineas refused to say: And you have always been a coward about pain, Regulus.
He shivered.
"I--" He began to say, then stopped, uncertain of what he was about to say. I hate this? I wish there were another way? I don't know what else to do? I'm scared?
He bit his lower lip and closed his eyes. He was not going to cry, damn it. He would never be able to do what needed to be done if he started crying. He was eighteen and he was a man and he was going to face this like a man. He was.
He clenched his fists, took several deep breaths and made an effort to speak in a calm and level tone. "I wonder if you would tell me how you knew that spell," he said, gratified to note that his voice scarcely trembled at all.
Phineas favoured him with a probing glance, but did not comment on the non sequitur. "Dark Lords arise periodically. Voldemort is merely the latest. There were others who deserved the sobriquet, but who called themselves something different. You wouldn't have heard of them, of course. The wizarding world likes to pretend that corruption doesn't happen, or that it only happens to a select few. Our historians do all they can to reinforce that image. You've heard of Grindelwald, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Regulus, scratching his head in perplexity. "He was the Dark Lord during the nineteen-forties."
"Correct. Do you know what house he was in at Hogwarts?"
Regulus frowned. "Slytherin, but--"
Phineas crossed his arms over his chest and smirked. "Wrong."
"That's ridiculous!" Regulus snapped. "Everyone knows Grindelwald was a Slytherin, it's in all the history books--"
"And a million history books can't be wrong, can they?" Phineas surveyed Regulus sternly. "You really must learn to stop believing what everyone knows is true. Grindelwald was a Ravenclaw, boy. I knew him well. I should have, considering that he spent three years paying court to my granddaughter Taygete."
"Taygete." Regulus thought for a moment. "One of the Pleiades."
Phineas nodded soberly. "I was still alive then. I cannot say that I liked Grindelwald overmuch. Why, I cannot tell. He was bright, clever, independent, shrewd. He was creating his own spells from fourth year on. His family was not illustrious--he came of a minor German house of purebloods on his father's side and a respectable pureblood English yeoman family on his mother's--but I could not fault his bloodline. He simply had the mentality of a shopkeeper, eager to lay his grubby hands on whatever power and authority he could get." Phineas cocked his head at his great-great-grandson. "Remind you of anyone, boy?"
Regulus winced, for the description did sound uncomfortably close that of Voldemort. "But he was courting Taygete. Didn't she see what he was like?"
Phineas shot Regulus a tired glance. "For pity's sake, boy, she was no older than you. Younger, in fact, when he started paying her court."
Regulus licked his lips, which had suddenly gone cold. " She didn't know what she was getting into."
"Most assuredly not."
"What happened?" Regulus asked, trying to ignore the icy lump that seemed to have settled in his stomach.
"They eloped."
"What!"
"Eloped. Wed. Got married. Call it what you will, Taygete became his wife." Phineas snorted, as if to say what he thought of that. "And in case--just in case--you were thinking of this being true love, rest assure that it was not. Taygete was besotted with Grindelwald, yes, and why not? He looked regal, all wavy blond hair and soldier blue eyes and imperial bearing."
"Taygete..."
Phineas shrugged. "She looked like a Black. Dark hair. Heavy-lidded grey eyes. An eagle's nose, which I fear she got from me. She was not pretty. She might have been called handsome, but only by a pathological liar. The one thing she did have was intelligence. A pity that she did not have any sense to go with it. He treated her with the neglectful kindness one would bestow on a rather stupid dog, and she worshipped him for it."
Regulus squirmed uncomfortably. Taygete sounded a bit too…familiar. "I never heard any mention of her in the history books," he said lamely.
"She was not particularly important, in the eyes of historians," said Phineas. "She bore Grindelwald one child--a stillborn boy--and lost another before it was born. He became more vicious after each child perished, as if he wanted vengeance on the whole world for those deaths. Starting with the death of his wife."
"He killed her?"
The word rang out, hollow and chill, in the library.
"Yes."
There was an uncomfortable pause.
"Why didn't she do anything?"
"She did," said Phineas, looking away from Regulus for the first time. "But not when she was threatened. When his vengeance threatened others as well--her kin, some friends--then she used her ingenuity, and, after a number of false starts, created that formula you hold in your hand. Very Dark Magic---it has to be, to bind body and soul together, despite lethal wounds, and to compel sanity on a mind that would otherwise shatter--but it does protect those that the caster wishes it to." Phineas stopped and stared off into space, looking, as much as a living portrait could, drained, ill and exhausted.
"How well does it protect?" Regulus asked, after waiting what felt like an extraordinarily long time for Phineas to speak again.
"It protects against the Killing Curse, and the other Unforgivables," said Phineas in a weary, grey voice, as he fiddled with his silk gloves. "It provides an immunity to poisonous or lethal potions, such as the Draught of Living Death. Spells cast in malice and spite can injure, but cannot bring about death."
"Provided--"
"Yes. Provided."
"Always a catch." Regulus tried to smile; the best he could manage was a tense rictus.
"You can't cast this spell expecting something for nothing," retorted Phineas. "Something for everything...perhaps."
Another awkward silence reigned.
"Are you sure she used the potion?" Regulus asked at last. "After all, you were in England and she was in Germany, and you didn't see her d-…"
"No," said Phineas, his face tense and taut. "I didn't. But she sent me the formula, along with a coded letter. She told me what she was going to do--though of course by the time I received the message, she was long dead. My son Corvus never forgave her for contacting me instead of him and his wife. I never forgave her for not talking to me beforehand." He glanced at Regulus. "Have you spoken to your brother yet?"
Regulus shook his head. Talking to Sirius would be futility itself; his brother had long since convinced himself that Regulus hated him, and regarded him as an enemy. At this point, Sirius would find something suspicious in a statement like, "Hello."
He thought of asking Phineas to tell his brother someday. Yet what good would that do? Sirius would never go back to Twelve Grimmauld Place, not voluntarily. And Sirius had never managed to befriend the crotchety old portrait, anyway.
"Thank you," he said instead. "I-I guess I'd best be going…brew up the potion…"
"When do you expect to use it?" inquired Phineas, in the same offhand tone he might have used to request that Regulus pass him the table salt.
"Tonight. There's a meeting." Regulus marvelled at how calm his voice was. Then he drew a long, shuddering breath, and his shoulders started to shake. He could almost feel a helpless wail building up in his throat.
He would not disgrace himself. He would not.
He bolted for the door.
"Regulus."
Startled by the use of his name--Phineas normally addressed him as "boy" if he called Regulus anything at all--Regulus turned around, making an indescribable sound of acknowledgement that was something between a grunt and a sob.
Phineas looked at Regulus with a very serious expression. "I'd like to give you a piece of advice, if I may."
Regulus shrugged, as if to say it made no difference to him.
"Never take a deep breath when you're trying not to cry."
***
The potion took far less time to brew than Regulus had expected. Of course, he dared not go to a public potions laboratory and rent a work table and cauldron for ten Sickles and twelve Knuts an hour, but the kitchen in his flat did well in a pinch, even though the reek of the completed potion could have strangled a hippogriff.
On the other hand, it wasn't as if he was ever going to use his kitchen again after tonight, was it?
It would probably be better if he didn't think about that.
He examined the orange-brown potion he'd been thinking of as Taygete's Tears. If he hadn't been able to smell the foul odour emanating from it, he would have sworn that it was pumpkin juice.
He brought the vial containing the Tears to his lips, and was very nearly sick on the linoleum.
Blast.
He tried again. This attempt fared no better than the first.
On the third try, he gripped the potion with his left hand and pinched his nostrils shut with his right. Only then did it occur to him that he didn't know how much he was supposed to swallow.
Well, it was too late to ask Phineas that now.
He opened his mouth, swallowed the contents of the vial in one gulp...then, as his gorge rose, gritted his teeth so that he wouldn't spit it out again.
He was surprised, and not a little disconcerted, to discover that the potion had no effect. No immediate or visible effect, anyway.
Maybe it just took some time.
Despite the fact that he knew that he'd never use the place again, he cleaned up the kitchen. It wouldn't do to leave traces of the potion anywhere; the Death Eaters might well find a countercharm to it and then Sirius and Remus would be right back in the same mess they were in now. If he had to do this, he'd rather that the protection spell work, and continue to work.
He wasn't sure when he started thinking about going to see Sirius and Remus, or why it suddenly seemed like a good idea.
There is no point to this, he told himself as he donned his cloak and walked out of his flat.
They won't even want to see me, he thought as he cut through wizarding London.
The two of them are being spied on, he reminded himself as he drew near their apartment building and saw the telltale flashes of shimmering light on rooftops, across the street and near the building which indicated that agents using Shield Charms were watching.
They'll never let me in their flat, he thought, knocking anyway and wondering who would open the door.
It was Remus.
"Regulus?" he said incredulously as he ran long fingers through his grey-streaked hair.
Abruptly, Regulus felt ridiculous. What had he come here for, anyway?
"Hello, Remus," he mumbled, his cheeks flushing as he lowered his eyes.
A long pause followed those words. Regulus waited for Remus to speak, but the latter said nothing. At last Regulus grew weary of waiting. "May I come in?" he demanded, pointedly.
Remus' brown eyes opened wide, and his jaw fell. His face was almost a parody of astonishment. "Why?"
Which, Regulus reflected, was a logical question from Remus' point of view. After all, estranged Death Eater brothers didn't drop by Sirius' flat every day.
"I just want to talk to my brother," he said. It sounded weak even to him.
"Regulus..." Remus stared at him for a moment and then shook his head. "You've chosen your side. There really isn't anything to discuss."
"This isn't about politics," Regulus insisted. "It's just--it's been ages since I've talked to him. I wish I had a Time-Turner so that I could go back and start talking to him again, all those years ago. But I don't, and I can't."
"But why the sudden impulse?" Remus asked, gazing at Regulus in perplexity. "You've never got along, either of you."
The words were pulled from Regulus with great reluctance. "We were friends. Once. Before Hogwarts." He sagged against the door frame. "I doubt if you'll believe one of my political persuasion, but I..." He hastily substituted another word for the one he'd almost blurted out. "I...miss...my brother. More than you can possibly imagine."
Stern, intelligent brown eyes scrutinised Regulus. A minute passed. Two minutes. It felt like a thousand minutes.
"Perhaps you'd better come in," said Remus at last, and stepped away from the doorway to let Regulus in. "Though mind you, this is against my better judgement. And if you hurt him--" For a moment, something feral peered out of Remus' face.
"I won't. I promise," said Regulus, and stepped across the threshold. For a second, he wished that he'd had the foresight to bring breadcrumbs and a few sprinkles of salt in the inside pockets of his cloak, so that he might cast them to the floor of the flat. Bread and salt, once given and not returned, created its own enchantment--guest-right magic. The magic not only kept both host and guest safe as long as the guest was present, it also kept all hostile forces out.
Too late now.
"I'll go get him," said Remus, as he reached deftly behind Regulus to close and lock the door.
"I don't think you'll have to," said Regulus, closing his eyes and bracing himself for the worst as a shout resounded from the kitchen.
"Oi, Moony! Need some help dealing with some Jehovah's Witnesses, do you?"
"Amazing how his first thought is that whoever's at the door has to be got rid of," Regulus commented dryly. Remus took no notice.
"We have a guest, Sirius," he called.
A moment later, a shirtless, dark-haired figure--who was wearing Muggle jeans that fit so tightly that they had to have been enchanted with a Shrinking Charm--emerged from the other room, gripping a coffee mug in one hand and a slice of what looked like sausage, broccoli and pineapple pizza in the other.
"James! We weren't expecting--" Sirius broke off abruptly as he spotted Regulus. "Bloody hell."
"Yes," Regulus said sardonically. "Hello. Nice to see you too."
Sirius glared at Remus. "What the hell did you let a Death Eater in for, Moony?"
Regulus ignored Sirius. "Did you come here to proselytise, Regulus?" he asked in a low growl that was a savage mockery of his brother's voice, before switching back his normal tone of speech. "Why no, I didn't. I suppose you had a good reason for visiting after all this time? Yes, I thought so. So what was the reason? I'm not sure if I should tell you. I don't know if you'd believe that a Death Eater could have feelings..."
"Too bloody right I wouldn't!"
"Then talking to you is going to be very difficult, since I'm not going to be living up to your favourite negative stereotype." Regulus was momentarily horrified by the bitter words pouring from him, then unaccountably weary. It was always this way. No matter what he planned on saying to Sirius, the two of them inevitably ended by arguing, or worse.
Sirius was sneering. "Don't play the injured innocent, Reg. It's not a part that becomes you. What did you come for? To suss out the apartment? To charm the door and shatter the wards so that your friends can walk in any time they like? Cast Imperio on Remus and me, perhaps?"
"Merlin's balls! If that's what you think--" Regulus snatched his wand out of his robes' pocket and flung it across the room. It struck the wall and clattered noisily to the floor. Remus glanced at it, then walked over and picked it up. Neither of the Blacks paid him the slightest attention.
"There," Regulus said, panting, his face near-scarlet with fury. "I'm disarmed. Now you don't have to worry that I'm going to kill you or Remus, or turn you into puppets. You're safe, all right?"
Sirius applauded slowly. "Oh, very dramatic, Reg. Really, you should be on the stage."
A feeling of lassitude swept over Regulus. "What do you want, Sirius?" he asked in a tired voice. "What would it take to convince you that I'm not here to destroy you? That I just want to talk to my brother?"
Sirius turned away. "I don't have a brother. He was killed by Death Eaters. By you, the minute that you accepted that...that Mark on your arm."
You have an uncomfortable talent for Divination, Sirius, Regulus thought, as he fought for control.
"Now go. " Sirius' back was still facing Regulus. "Whatever you were planning on doing isn't going to work, so just go."
"I just wanted to talk," Regulus repeated patiently. "I'm going off on a mission pretty soon. It's...rather a long journey. Don't know when, or if, I'll be back."
Remus frowned, and spoke for the first time since the conversation between the two brothers had begun. "Is it dangerous?"
The wolf scents trouble, Regulus thought. Now if only Sirius would hear what I'm not saying, as well.
"'Dangerous' is, perhaps, not quite the right word," he said, striving for a light tone. "However, I definitely expect it to be a life-altering experience."
Remus' eyes narrowed. Regulus gazed back at him, his face a blandly innocent mask.
At last Remus looked away, and headed for the kitchen--still carrying Regulus' wand. "Talk to your brother," he said over his shoulder to Sirius, in a tone that managed to be both plea and command.
An awkward silence swelled and filled the room. Regulus said and did nothing to shatter it.
"So Voldemort trusts you more now," said Sirius in a dead voice. "Sending you on secret missions and all. You must be thrilled. Who did you have to kill to get on his good side?"
For one mad moment, Regulus considered telling Sirius the truth about why he was truly here. Then he realised that Sirius would only interpret anything he said as a threat, not as a warning. With difficulty, he kept still.
"Cat got your tongue?" inquired Sirius in a falsely solicitous tone. "Or don't you want to talk about the people you've betrayed?"
"That's not fair!" Regulus shouted, his patience at an end. "I've never betrayed anyone, never!"
"You betrayed me the minute you got that damned Mark on your arm," Sirius muttered, crossing his arms and glancing away from his little brother.
Regulus opened his mouth, intending to say something sensible like That had nothing to do with you, and can't we stop fighting for two minutes and talk? Instead he heard himself saying, "Thank Merlin you have me to blame for every single thing that's gone wrong, or that might go wrong, in your life. Without me a scapegoat--why, I don't know what you'd do. Grow up, perchance?"
Sirius flushed an ugly brick-red. The veins in his neck bulged. "Regulus..." he snarled.
Exhaustion swept through Regulus. One word. All I wanted was one word. And all I got were accusations and blame. Phineas was wrong. I shouldn't have come here.
"Remus," he called out.
Remus stepped from the kitchen so swiftly that he seemed to have been waiting for a cue. He surveyed Regulus and Sirius, then sagged a bit and sighed. "What is it going to take to make you two talk to each other?"
"I have nothing to say to him," said Sirius bitterly. "In fact, if I never see the little bastard again, it will be too soon."
Regulus flinched as if he'd been struck. But all he said was, "May I please have my wand back, Remus?"
Remus handed the wand over without a word. Regulus mumbled something that might have been, "Thanks."
He turned to Sirius, whose face was still resolutely turned away. "Goodbye, Sirius."
"Goodbye," said his brother coldly. "And don't come back."
Regulus swallowed what felt like a very large toad in his throat. "I won't," he whispered.
He opened the door of the flat and staggered out, hoping against hope that his brother would call him back, and knowing that Sirius would not.
He walked for what felt like hours, not really going anywhere, just…going.
He walked through wizarding and Muggle London alike, not even noticing the Dark Mark searing his arm. Only when it began to throb and ache did he realise that Voldemort had been summoning him for some time.
"Goodbye," he said softly to nothing in particular, and then closed his eyes and Apparated to the last Death Eater meeting he would ever attend.
***
Lynwood Churchyard betrayed the Dark Lord's fancy for atmosphere. With ancient tombstones leaning every which way like rotting, jagged teeth, with twisted and contorted willow trees writhing against a cloud-shrouded half moon, it was perfectly designed to raise the spectres of isolation, Dark Magic and terror.
But Regulus paid little attention to the location, and more to the snake-faced being before whom he was kneeling.
"Did I hear you correctly?" said the Dark Lord, his crimson eyes ablaze in his bone-white face as he glared at Regulus. "You are refusing to obey a direct order of mine?"
Regulus nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
"May one ask why?" inquired the Dark Lord with poisonous courtesy.
"He's my brother." Never mind that Sirius wasn't acting very fraternal at the moment. "I can't. I can't."
"Ah, yes," said the Dark Lord. "That fetish of your kin. To the Blacks, family is everything."
Regulus nodded once more, grateful that the Dark Lord seemed, against all odds and all expectations, to understand.
Voldemort smiled down at Regulus. Not a pleasant smile, but, Regulus reminded himself, the Dark Lord did have the face of a skull and it was difficult under such circumstances to appear pleasant.
He began to wonder if he might get out of this more or less intact.
Voldemort placed a skeletal hand on Regulus' shoulder in almost a paternal gesture, and spoke a series of names. In a matter of moments, Regulus was encircled by Death Eater kin--his first cousin, Bellatrix Black Lestrange, her husband-cousin Rodolphus Lestrange, his brother Rastaban Lestrange, their cousin Faustine DuLac, her daughter Melisande DuLac, Regulus' cousin and cousin-in-law Lucius Malfoy.
"Show him," the Dark Lord commanded. "Show him what family is worth among us. Now."
And then the pain had begun.
***
How long the pain had lasted so far, Regulus didn't know. Time had long since ceased to have any meaning. There had been breaks in the pain, he knew that; evidently the Dark Lord did not want his suffering to end too quickly.
Not that his agony could end, now. Taygete's Tears would bind him to life until he had drawn the last rune of protection. After that…well, he might live through another torture session. Or--if he had been sufficiently injured--he might die on the spot. Either way, he would not survive long once the last rune had been drawn.
Once his life had ended--Regulus was not certain if that meant he had to shed his last drop of blood or not--then the spell of protection would begin to form around Sirius, around Remus. They would be safe. Completely and utterly safe from Killing Curses and Death Eater attacks and cruel vicious Dark Lords.
No one would know where the protection had come from. No one would even suspect. Not him. Not soft, malleable Reg, the personification of obedience. Dumbledore would probably get the credit.
And without knowing the source and the nature of the magic, the Death Eaters would not be able to counteract it.
Sirius and Remus would be safe forever.
Once he drew the last rune in his own blood.
Once he died.
But as he lay on the dusty wooden floor of Lynwood's church, blind, bleeding, crippled and shuddering in pain, he realised that he didn't want to die, didn't want to even think about dying. He wanted surcease from pain, soft cool cotton sheets whispering against his skin, the sight of a bright blue October sky, the sound of Sirius, at nine, trying to play hot jazz on the harpsichord that their mother had insisted they both learn to play, the scents of sautéed onions and spicy Pakistani takeaway teasing his nose, and the taste of a loving woman's hot sweet mouth against his own.
A pounding started in his head. Too late. Too late. Mentally, he agreed. It was stupid to be having regrets at this juncture. It was certainly pointless.
And if he waited, he might not be able to draw the rune at all.
All of this hellish agony would have been for nothing.
And Sirius would die. Along with the man he loved. It would be a betrayal indeed, if Regulus let that happen.
Ignoring doubts and fears, he brushed his right hand against his bleeding left, and drew three lines: a diagonal left-to-right slash, a vertical line and another diagonal left-to-right slash. Eoh. The rune of death, immortality and the spirit. The symbol of that which endures.
He drew back, stared blindly toward the spot where the final rune was and waited for something to happen. (As he had while drawing the rest of the runes. He supposed that he had been fortunate that no one had come into the room and seen the runes written in blood on floor and walls.)
Heat, like the warmth of a stove, flared from all the runes at once, making them glow with bluish-white light.
Abruptly, the pain pervading his bones and body vanished, and the cessation of pain was like the swift, hungered-for embrace of a long-lost love.
I'm sorry, he thought, not sure who or what he was apologising to-- perhaps Sirius, perhaps those whom he had idiotically, foolishly murdered. I shouldn't have hurt you. Please forgive me.
A dazzling sunburst flared. He couldn't tell if the blaze of light was being emitted by the runes, or if the light was only within his mind.
Sirius, I love--
And that was all.
***
Three days later, two Aurors, one named Moody and the other named Shacklebolt, found the tortured body of Regulus Deneb Black sprawled across an ancient grave in Lynwood Churchyard in Dartmoor.
The Aurors never did learn why a young man who had plainly perished in agonising pain nevertheless was found wearing a peaceful smile.