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Broken trust and broken hearts, I know — I know.
The voices in his head are so loud, they overpower his own thoughts. He knows they’re lying, oh he knows, but he cannot escape the truths they wring from his heart. All of the buried memories, all of the secret glimpses he heard and promptly forced himself to forget. All the love that was never, ever for him. Impossible hopes that flittered between his fingers like butterfly wings.
The potion knows, it knows everything that burns in his soul. The aches roughly etched into his bones, the potion uncovers them. It does so effortlessly. Even Kreacher’s voice isn’t enough to make him come back to reality. The potion is a cloud of ice; his lungs cannot breathe, his mind is murky and cracking.
“Just one last cup, young Master,” the house-elf pleads.
Regulus Black holds onto the cup with shaking hands, the green and glowing potion smelling like despair and heartache. Errant tears drip down in the cup, but he ignores it and fills his belly with more poison. The invisible weight on his shoulders is too much, it’s too heavy, it makes him so thirsty. Does he deserve to drink, he wonders? Has he earned it?
A sob escapes from his lips and his vision blurs with unshed tears. Kreacher rasps another request to drink yet another last cup, just one more. Just one more. Just one more.
Everything goes dark and Regulus knows his heart is shattered. It sits out of his chest, lies on the wet rocks next to his knees. He bets, hysterically, that if he were to open his eyes, he would see it black and cut up and beating on the ground. It would whine and beg, as if to prove it was still alive. As if it could prove to still be valuable.
Regulus tries to laugh but instead another sob comes out. He needs water, he’s so thirsty, he might die of thirst. He wants to die, he needs to end everything.
Nothing is worth it anymore. Death would be welcomed. He is nothing to this world anymore.
James isn’t his anymore. He broke his promise to the only two people he’s ever loved, and now. Now, this is his only salvation. Kreacher would never disobey him, after all.
He drops the cup on the ground and the clang! is loud enough to startle him. But not enough to change his mind, and with a desperation he’s never experienced before, he makes for the Inferi-infested water. Some part of his mind, a sliver of rationality, screams at him to stop. To think and have Kreacher take him away.
But… Regulus isn’t sure anymore. He doesn’t think he wants to live. His heart, left cold on the stone, has made his chest so hollow. Water would fill this empty, bleeding space, wouldn’t it? And so what if he drowns; if his body fills with water, at least he won’t be so empty anymore. With the Inferi to keep him company, he won’t be so alone anymore.
Regulus crawls to the edge of the cave’s lake, the tears clearing from his eyes as his goal settles. He can’t remember what he came here for, the potion burned all reasons away. It doesn’t matter, nothing does anymore. The ice in his veins is turning him blue, and something tells him that this water will warm him again. This water is his punishment. He will live the rest of his life in Purgatory, he knows now.
It’s easy to accept, when he has nothing left.
He lowers himself to the edge of the lake and at last, his lips kiss the surface of the water. One blissful sip and everything goes black.
All my scars are open, tell them what I hoped would be impossible.
He dreams.
Time is inconsequential within the subconscious realm, so Regulus doesn’t know how long it lasts. He can’t remember how he got here either, or why he’s dreaming the same things over and over. It’s how he knows it’s not real; the same scene repeated ad nauseam, and no matter how much he tries to change the outcome, it’s set in stone. Inevitable.
Even his own bloody mind won’t allow him to properly dream something it has deemed hopeless.
It’s the end of Fifth Year all over again. He and James walk along the edge of the Forbidden Forest underneath his Invisibility Cloak. Even the herd of thestrals are the same, and every time he wonders if James sees them, and if he should tell him that he can. The same undergrowth sticks to their school robes, the same sun sets and leaves the sky a nostalgic pink and orange. James still smells like bergamot.
And everytime, James asks him the same thing. And Regulus, by the hundredth time, sorely wishes he could reply something else.
“What are your plans for the summer?”
“Father wishes for me to maintain my social connections. I’ll be visiting Cousin Cissy and staying with them for a few weeks at Malfoy Manor.”
James clicks his tongue and sighs. Every time Regulus hears it, it sounds more and more like the creaking glass holding them together. Hairline fractures inlain next to one another in a complicated web of youthful hopes and delusions.
“Reg, I don’t think you should go there. You know what kind of wizards Malfoy mixes with. What if he’s there?”
Regulus wants to cry for forgiveness, for absolution of his childish pride.
“I’m the kind of wizard Malfoy mixes with. We’ve talked about this before, James. I believe in our cause. Why can’t you see it the same way I do?”
It’s the wrong thing to say, and even when this happened for the first time outside of this infernal dream, Regulus knew that. The tightness in James’ jaw, the shuttering of his eyes. The extra inch of distance between them. He can feel James’ robes brushing his fingers, but it seems like it would take a lifetime to reach between them to clasp his hand. The way they used to.
James’ hands are always warm, but in that moment Regulus always thinks he would feel cold and unwanted. Unloved.
Just the spare.
“I don’t think you truly believe in that rubbish, mate.” The regret in his voice makes Regulus want to sob. But his face doesn’t even twitch with a hint of emotion. “Come stay at mine instead. Sirius has his own room, you could have yours too. You know mum and dad wouldn’t mind. In fact, I think they’d be pretty happy, after Yule last year—”
“They don’t understand, James. I don’t think you understand either. Mother wants what is best for us.”
They both know it’s a fucking lie. Both Sirius and Regulus bear too many scars as proof that none of this is for their benefit. Yet these lies are so practiced, so easy, they slip from his lips more easily than the kisses they’ve shared.
In the dream, Regulus wishes they could kiss, at least one last time.
Because after this, when they return to the castle and their dormitories, everything changes. They leave for London the next day. Regulus spends most of the summer holidays at Malfoy Manor. Regulus meets the Dark Lord.
James spends the summer at Potter Manor. James meets with Lily and her friends, with his friends. James and Lily will share a separate dorm next year.
Lily Evans is a flower that blossoms in the sun that is James Potter, and Regulus Black is nothing but a distant star in the night. Far and out of reach, and impossible to see with the sun.
The dream replays and Regulus despairs.
And now, when all is done, there is nothing to say. You’ve gone and so effortlessly you’ve won.
His mouth tastes like iron and peppermint. Everything feels heavy and foreign, his limbs both numb and tingling with the last dregs of pins and needles. With great effort, he manages to twitch a finger. To his distress, this shoots up a sharp flare of pain all the way to his elbow.
This tells him exactly three things:
He isn’t dead.
Kreacher disobeyed him.
He’s been unconscious for a very long time.
Regulus isn’t sure how to feel about all this. Because he was supposed to have remained in the bloody cave. He’s not supposed to have another chance to live. He’d forfeited it, because nothing was worth coming back to. Frustration burns vividly in his chest and heats up his cheeks.
He tries to curse but his lips refuse to obey him. And this causes him to realize that he hasn’t managed to open his eyes yet. His body appears to be weaker than he’d previously assumed. Regulus tries for a deep breath, and at least this seems to work well enough. The ice that was in his chest, back in the cave, has melted. It still feels hollow. It doesn’t give him any pause, though, because he’s sure that he saw his own heart on the wet stone back there.
He’s always been a heartless bastard, so, what does it matter if it’s not just metaphorically now?
Time goes on, and he drifts in and out of sleep. Someone must be looking after him, because he hasn’t eaten in Merlin knows how long, yet he still lives. He hasn’t heard Kreacher either, nor anyone else for that matter. In fact, has he heard anything besides his own breathing?
It’s absurdly easy to hyperventilate and drive himself to panic. It happens at least once every time he’s awake long enough for his mind to wander. His chest constricts and his body burns, burns, burns to jump out of this damnable bed. Yet he can’t. There’s nothing to do about it. At least, while he was dreaming, there was something . Now, all he has is his wandering mind and darkness.
This is worse than death. It has to be. And Regulus is positive that if this keeps going on, he will go insane. Give into the famed Black Madness.
Even when he sleeps, it is dreamless. Like someone’s spelled Dreamless Sleep right into his belly, and left him to rot in a forgotten room. It’s the most painful existence that he’s ever known, and that says a lot considering he was desperate enough to drown along with the Dark Lord’s Inferi army.
It goes on and on. On and on. Regulus repeats to himself that he will go mad next time he wakes. Next time he panics. Next time he falls into slumber.
Next time, next time. On and on.
Regulus forgets how he got here. He’s been here his whole life, he thinks. Nothing moves, even the finger he knows he can twitch at a great price. This existence of nothingness is, perhaps, what he deserves. The Purgatory he will forever lay in while his sins are judged. It’s a long list, after all, and he’s sure the gods want to be thorough with someone as wretched as him.
He broke James Potter’s heart after all, and broke every promise James tried to make him agree to.
That, above everything else, above the blood he’s spilled, the innocents he’s cursed, that is his worst crime.
James Potter was the sun and Regulus Black was nothing but a star in the night sky and he should never have tried to claim what was never his.
Regulus wishes he could weep, but his body is not his own. So, he waits.
I remember years ago, someone told me I should take caution when it comes to love.
One day, after a hopeless number of them where it was nothing but darkness and something worse than despair, Regulus feels the sun on his face.
It’s such a benign thing, yet he cannot remember when was the last time he felt it. Days upon days of no longer having any control over his body, of hearing nothing but his own heart, he doesn’t even try to open his eyes. He doesn’t need to see the sun to know it’s there, gently caressing his (surely) deathly white flesh. There’s even a gentle breeze that rushes through his hair.
It tickles his neck and Regulus could cry if—
A single, lone tear travels down his cheek.
His heart suddenly races and his breath is shallow. Then, as though it wasn’t a monumental act at all, Regulus blinks. The tears clear by slipping out from the corners of his eyes. And he feels them, their tender heat caressing the sharp panes of his cheeks. The blinding brightness of the sun though causes him to shut his eyes again. It will take time for him to readjust to light, he realizes.
“Hey, Reg.”
Oh. This voice…
Regulus takes a shaky breath and clears his throat. Hopefully his tongue won’t be as lethargic as the rest of his body feels. “-’ames?” It’s a bit embarrassing, but he can’t seem to have enough strength to pronounce harder consonants.
“Hmm, I’ll get you a potion for that later.” He doesn’t deny Regulus’ claim though, and slowly more memories come floating to his mind. After an eternity of nothingness, this feels like being born again. “Welcome back to the living, by the way. I know you want to ask questions and all that, but you’re still recuperating, yeah? So I’ll just talk for a bit, if that’s alright.”
Regulus hums and attempts a nod, but this too seems a bit difficult. At least, it’s not the excruciating pain from before.
“Brilliant.” James sighs and shifts around, presumably to get more comfortable. “I bet you’re thinking, why is this prat the one telling me everything, where’s my brother, oh probably skirting his duties again . And, well, Reg… You’d be right, a bit. I wanted to do this and Sirius agreed.”
Regulus knows all the different tones and inflections and secret undertones of James Potter’s voice, and right now he knows James is absolutely uncomfortable but determined. So Regulus hums again and James continues.
“You disappeared in winter 1979, during the Yule break. Even darling Walburga thought you’d ended up in a body ditch somewhere, for having failed You-Know-Who. I think it drove her a bit further into her insanity, especially since her only remaining house-elf disappeared with you.” There was something there in his voice that Regulus couldn’t identify, but James plowed on like the Gryffindor he is. “Anyway, she’s proper insane now, no one can call at Grimmauld Place anymore.”
Regulus interrupts him with a questioning hum, and thankfully James seems to get it.
“Oh, right. It’s July 30th, 1981. You’ve been… gone somewhere for almost two years, Reg. When we found you… Well, for whatever reason, Kreacher must have gotten desperate because he showed up next to Sirius just after New Year of 1980, and used his own Slytherin ways to make Sirius follow him. I guess that even when you’re a house-elf, if you spend your life surrounded by Slytherins, it imprints on you. So Sirius goes with that grumpy elf, and just a few minutes later Apparates back looking like he’s seen a ghost. That ghost, Reg, was you.”
James’ voice cracks on the last word. Something in Regulus’ chest tries to reach for the warm feeling unfurling there, but then he remembers he left his heard on the stone floor of the cave.
“You looked dead, Reg. For real. Your lips were blue and you were all wet still and your breathing was so bad, I think Kreacher could sense you were about to die soon. That bloody house-elf adores you, I hope you realize that. He lamented for days that he’d disobeyed you and no matter what Sirius tried to say, he even praised the bloody thing for bringing you out of there and fetching us, there was nothing to it.” Something moves further to James’ side and the scent of bergamot fills his nose. It’s such a homely scent that more tears spill onto his cheeks without his permission.
Gently, like he’s made of porcelain and glass, James wipes his tears. His thumb trails along his cheekbone, along his jaw. Regulus wants to lean into the warmth of the familiar hand, and to his great surprise he manages to do just that. But it only lasts a moment before James removes his hand and leans away.
Of course, he does. James is the sun and Regulus is the night sky, his darkness would do nothing but swallow all of James’ light.
“We had to keep you under so many spells to keep you alive, Reg,” James continues, sounding so broken and utterly sad that Regulus lets out a quiet sob, his throat impossibly tight. “The Healer we let see you didn’t think you’d make it. With one of the monitoring charms, we could see when you were awake. There were little waves, sometimes great waves. But the longer it went on… The smaller the waves were. The Healer, she told us…” James sniffles and clears his throat. “She told us, Reg, that it was getting too difficult for you to hold on.”
And now James is the one crying, and his hand is gripping Regulus’ own cold hand. Somehow, perhaps by some divine intervention, Regulus is able to squeeze his hand a little. This only causes James to let out a broken sob, and the other man, the sun incarnate, pulls Regulus across his seat and holds him to his chest.
It’s an indescribable experience, to feel someone else’s heart and heat after so long. One moment Regulus is half-dead, cold and empty and with no reason to stay, and the other he’s questioning his own reasons for wanting to die so badly. James is the sun and even though Regulus is the void of the universe, James still wants to keep him warm and wants to hold him and and—
“Sorry, ‘ames,” he whispers in the crook of James’ neck. His voice is not much more than a croak. “So sorry. Sorry, sorry, ‘m sorry ‘ames.”
“Shh, stop trying to talk, you idiot.”
All those times he dreamed the same dream on and on, perhaps now he can finally tell James what he’s always wanted to tell him. When his tongue works again. James is with Lily Evans, there’s no way they can go back to what they were before, but at least they can be friends. James has always been the only true friend Regulus has ever had.
It takes long minutes before James is able to continue speaking. He tells Regulus about the war, that thanks to him finding the Dark Lord’s horcrux, Dumbledore was able to figure out that he had more than one. He’s managed to destroy it, and one more that was hosted in an old family ring. They have concrete ideas about what the rest are, and the Headmaster has a team of people he trusts on the hunt for them.
It’s almost funny that it’s easier for them to talk about the war. The erumpet in the room is loud and silently acknowledged by both of them, by the way James is still holding his hand and his other arm is around his shoulders. James doesn’t feel like the scrawny teenager he messed around with in Hogwarts; he has the body of a man now, solid and warm and with the safest aura Regulus has ever experienced in his life.
He can tell the sun is beginning to set when the air gets a bit cooler. He has so many questions for James, but no way to ask them. It’s infuriating.
“I should bring you back inside,” James says, but doesn’t move. “I forgot to say, but you’ve been living at Potter cottage with me for the past six months. I hope that’s alright with you. We can figure out something once you’re back up on your feet proper.”
… He’s been living with James? What of Lily? Weren’t they engaged to be married just months after leaving Hogwarts? He wants to ask, so he hums in a way that he hopes sounds like questioning.
With the way James sighs, he thinks it worked. “Are you asking about Lily?” After an affirmative hum, James’ free hand idly plays with Regulus’ hair. Unless James has drastically changed in the last four years, it’s one of his nervous tells. It’s clear he doesn’t want to talk about this. “We did get married, summer of 1979. It was a small affair, not many people knew because the climate really wasn’t ideal then, if you remember. A few months later, just before Yule, she announced that she was pregnant.”
All the warmth James had managed to infuse into his body evaporates and his very soul seems to shatter. But he doesn’t give any indication that this news has upset him; James is a man so full of love, of course he’d be ecstatic about having a child.
“A few weeks later, that’s when we found you. I was… A real mess, Reg. A real bloody mess. You fucking broke my heart, you know that? You broke it and it didn’t even look like it mattered to you. Lily was, for me, my only chance at maybe fixing it. Fixing me and moving on.” He sighs deeply and buries his face in Regulus’s hair before continuing, his voice muffled by emotion. “But I had my duties, as her husband and the father of our unborn child. For the first couple months, it was Sirius and Remus who looked after you. I stopped going, because it… It was so hard, Reg. So fucking hard, do you understand that? To see you, looking like a bloody corpse, like you were barely wanting to fight hard enough to live? Like you had given up on life… Given up on… On… On me!”
James takes a moment to get his sobbing under control and continues in a thick voice. “Then Sirius told me, they didn’t know what was happening, your brain activity was declining severely, and there was no improvement for so long. I was torn, I had given my life to Lily, you sodding arsehole, to our child, but all I could think about was you. Do you know what that’s like? To live without your heart?” When Regulus nods minutely, James tightens his hold on him. “Of course you do.”
After sniffling and calming his breathing once more, James relaxes his grip and continues. “Sometimes, I think I accidentally cursed her, Reg. In my sleep, or while I was practicing stupid household charms, or while I was reading the paper. She was perfectly healthy. Then, when she gave birth on July 31st, something happened. The midwife said it was because our child was so magically powerful that he left her too weak to stay awake. Too weak to wake up again. She died. She fucking died, Reg, and her body was still warm when I realized I was relieved . Because I didn’t have to pretend anymore. How fucked up am I? How could I take care of a child, of my son, when that was one of the first things I felt after learning my loving wife died in childbirth?”
Even if he’d had better control over his body, Regulus isn’t sure what he could say to comfort James. It’s awful, and he’s awful for putting James in this position. For betraying him in the first place and breaking his heart. It’s all Regulus’ fault, and he will do his best to make it up to James.
Shifting his head to the side, Regulus inhales deeply the lingering scent of bergamot. Then he leans, ever so slowly, and presses his lips on the first bit of exposed skin he feels. James stiffens, for the briefest moment, before sighing heavily and pulling Regulus’ thinner and lighter body on his lap. James holds him like this against his chest for a long time. Long enough that the moon comes out and Regulus dozes off.
It might as well be hours later when James gently shakes him awake again. Without thinking, he opens his eyes. Now that the sun is gone, it doesn’t hurt his retinas. He takes a shaky breath and looks up at James, who’s busy looking at the sky.
“Look, Reg,” he whispers in awe, his voice sounding as sleepy as Regulus himself feels, “It’s you.”
He blinks slowly and tears his eyes away from the ethereal beauty of James’ face. It doesn’t take him long to find his namesake in the night sky. Somehow, it looks brighter than he remembers. They watch the stars for a long time, or so it feels. Time is a very strange concept to him now, where minutes could be hours and seconds could be days.
“You’re beautiful, even in the dark.”