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“I’ll need to borrow one of your house elves.” the Dark Lord had said.
Which should have sent up alarm bells in Regulus’s head in itself. If the Dark Lord actually cared about house elves he would have asked one of them himself, or asked if there was anyone Regulus would recommend for the job, he wouldn’t speak of borrowing one as if they were not people. But it was far from the first warning, far from the first glaring sign that Voldomort’s vision for a magical utopia was far different from Regulus’s. Regulus should have known, a thousand times over, that the thing he believed in so fervently was a lie made up solely in his own head, but Regulus believed in magical supremacy, in the inherent goodness of magic and nobility of the past. He had built for himself castles in his imagination, strongholds for his broken hope and tattered dreams, and he stayed within those walls, not daring to step out, trusting tradition and the strength of Slytherin’s greatest magical genius, Slytherin’s heir. Because it had to be worth it eventually, all the sacrifices and cruelty, it had to be something better, in the end, something kinder, because strength was magic and magic was harmony, and in the end, if they followed the magic, then all the evil muggle influences would be expunged and all the magical creatures could finally live together in safety and peace.
So Regulus only agreed, and trusted The Dark Lord with Creature, the oldest elf of the house of Black, bound to the line itself, and to the property and home at Grimmauld place, rather than any individual, the being who had, more than any other, raised and cared for Regulus.
Regulus agreed, and Creature went away. Regulus sent him.
And Creature came back shaking, shaking, half dead.
Regulus doctored him, and Creature recovered, though perhaps he seemed a little older than before.
“Tell me what happened,” Regulus commanded at last, though he hated to command. Creature would not have felt the need to keep the secrets of this stranger at all if Regulus had not given his loyalty away so carelessly in the first place.
Regulus commanded, so Creature told him everything, about the locket and the old, dark magic, and how the Dark Lord had made him drink poison, slowly, down to the very last drop, and then left him for the inferi so that there would be no witnesses.
Regulus listened and felt all his dreams collapse, castles crumbling like sand before the tide.
What sort of wizard would do this? What sort of wizard could leave a house elf to die alone ?
Regulus felt something cold and hard creep along his spine. His family had always called him soft, he thought perhaps it was the softness dying.
Decision came like fact, with certainty.
“Where was this cave?” Regulus asked.