Chapter Text
Regulus scrubbed a hand across his face as if it could rub all of the panic out of him. He gritted his teeth against the rising wave of nausea, fear and desperation coiling in his stomach. Kreacher...what Kreacher had said, what he had told his master of where he had been….
There was no way around it. The Dark Lord had used the most vile of Dark Magics, the kind that no wizard ought to be able to justify, never mind actually carry out. To split the soul...Regulus shuddered in the cool air of the library. He had read about such a ritual, a long time ago, when he hid between the tall shelves where no one would look for him. He remembered it, being ten years old and running his hands across the page as he read in the weak sunlight, remembered wiping his fingertips on his slacks afterwards, as if his hand was contaminated by even touching the words. He frowned at the brass lamp.
Kreacher had told him where he had been, what he had seen and been forced to do. Everything he would need to know, everything that could be known...he could go and liberate the thing, could send it off with Kreacher to be destroyed. He could order Kreacher to bring it back here, because if anyone would know what to do it would be Olwyn. Olwyn.
Regulus shifted in his armchair, drawing his legs up underneath him. Olwyn. She was probably asleep right now, in the guest bedroom a floor above him, her golden hair splayed out on the silk pillowcases and her expression softened by dreaming. He wrapped his arms around his knees. Olwyn would never forgive him, if he went to find the broken fragment of the Dark Lord’s soul in some forsaken seaside cave. But, he wondered humorlessly, would she forgive him if he did not go?
Olwyn, for all of her doubts, was good. She was bright and soothing and Regulus was fairly certain he could never survive without her. She had promised he wouldn’t have to. Regulus closed his eyes and thought of the flash of the diamond ring on Olwyn’s hand as she talked, gesturing wildly in impassioned speech. The intensity of her emerald eyes as they sought his in the flickering light of a single candle. The way she wiped blood from his skin without a question, never asking what horrors he had committed to be covered in the stuff. He buried his face in his knees.
All he had wanted to do was protect her, to take care of her, ever since that day in October of sixth year when he had realized he was in love with her. It was shocking, how little she had done to hold his heart, but he had given it away with such ease. Olwyn could change the world, if she wanted to, and he desperately wanted to be there to see it. He wanted to pledge his life to be shared, to vow his heart to her care, in front of the altar and everyone he had ever known. He wanted to have children with her, someday, tiny little Blacks with her green, green eyes and endless creativity. He wanted to call her Lady Black, to have her stand by his side when he took over the ancestral seat in the Wizengamot. He wanted to grow old and grey and grumpy with her. He wanted so much.
Regulus sighed and lifted his head from his knees. There was no point in thinking of the future beyond the war. He rubbed absently at the Mark on his arm, grimacing when it chafed against the cotton of his shirt. It was a reminder of all that he had done, of the other vow he had given. He could still see the faces of those who he killed, their terror burned into the backs of his eyelids. He could smell the blood and fear, hear the screaming, Bellatrix’s insane cackling, Bast’s lighter giggles, the way Evan’s breath caught right before he cast another Crucio on an innocent. Regulus scrubbed at his face again. What right did he have to want a future at Olwyn’s side, when this was his present?
There was a choice to be made here. He could go to the cave, as Kreacher had described, he could switch the locket with another and hope that his deception would not be discovered, and most likely, die there, with no one knowing where his body lay. He shivered. The second option was to do nothing. To tell Kreacher that he must hide the fact he survived and pretend that he knew nothing. He could do it, and he could marry Olwyn, and then what? This war would stretch on and on, and even if he did survive it, how could he have any of those happy, domestic dreams when there was still blood on his hands? Wasn’t it his duty to right at least a little of the wrong he had done? The Dark Lord was cruel and unforgiving and he would not stop until all of Wizarding Britain was ground to dust under his heel. It would not matter, in the end, that Regulus was a pureblood, that Olwyn was from the sacred Grove, or that any child they had together would be a treasure. Disobedience meant death.
Olwyn’s face floated back into his mind, smiling at him in the Hogwarts library as they talked about the places they would travel together, when they had the chance. Olwyn, who complained about having set mealtimes and hated to be indoors for too long and knew no boundaries in her pursuit of knowledge. She would not be happy, kept under anyone’s thumb, never mind that of the Dark Lord. Olwyn would want to be free, and as long as Regulus did nothing, she never would be.
Regulus stared at the words that detailed the creation of a Horcrux. The ink seemed to twirl and swim and distort before him. It was getting late. He’d locked himself in the library all day, desperate to come up with some kind of answer, some way forward, and here he was, still at a loss. He picked up his quill and dipped it in the inkpot. Perhaps writing his thoughts out might help. The nib of his quill scratched over the parchment, messier than usual, flecking his hands with spots of blackness as he wrote. Regulus frowned down at the page, trying to sort out his tangled, twisted thoughts, writing faster and faster, his scrawling becoming near illegible, squeezing his quill harder and harder until it suddenly snapped. Regulus fell still.
In this moment, covered in ink and panting into the gathering darkness, there were only three facts of which Regulus could be absolutely certain:
One, that as long as a piece of Dark Lord’s soul resided inside a locket, he could not be defeated.
Two, that this war would almost certainly cause the death of Regulus himself.
Three, that no matter what Olwyn promised him, she would not stay out of the war if and when he died.
He stared down at his ink covered hands and tried to imagine Olwyn fighting, raising her wand in self-defense. He couldn’t do it; as brilliant as his love was, she wasn’t a duellist. Her magic was not whip-quick and lethal the way it would need to be if she was to survive in battle. He thought of her lying on the ground, bloodied and broken and staring at the sky with empty eyes and a wave of nausea rolled through him. Regulus pressed a hand to his mouth and tried to breathe past the idea of Olwyn dying. She would not die. She would not be allowed to be in such danger. He would not allow it.
In the end, there was only ever one choice. Regulus breathed deeply, trying to still his mind. He would go to the cave; he had to destroy the Dark Lord. There was no other way for Olwyn to be safe, and he would not risk the love of his life. He refused. He closed his eyes for a long moment, releasing all of the beautiful times he wanted to have with her. Marrying her was not worth risking her life, he told himself sternly. Love was a powerful thing, after all, and Regulus Black would not be the first to die for it, and he certainly would not be the last.
Decision made, he rose to his feet, checking that his wand was still in its holster on his wrist. He grit his teeth, not even sparing a glance for the walls of his childhood home. He could think only of Olwyn, asleep upstairs, kind and intelligent and beautiful and deserving of far more than a future of war and death. Regulus steeled himself, and then summoned Kreacher.