Chapter Text
Regulus felt that perhaps he had one moment of sanity before it slipped once more.
In that moment, he considered the strange fact that he couldn’t quiet recall when or how he had first lost his mind.
Perhaps it had been at his first meeting with the Dark Lord.
He remembered coming away from that meeting feeling particularly eager to please the man who Bella described as the future of wizarding kind. He had gone in hesitant and come out ready and pliant, fully believing in the cause that had been painted in his head.
But even still, he hadn’t signed up right then and there. Perhaps he had not yet lost his sanity? Or at least had some semblance of it.
Was it when then, after his third meeting, he agreed to go to war? It had seemed so rational – the Dark Lord was going to bring them out of hiding so that they might rule over the savage muggles. He had shown Regulus just how awful those muggles were, how mudbloods wanted to enforce their ways of life on the wizarding world.
Regulus remembered thinking that if the Death Eaters took over, would they be the same because what would they be but yet one more group enforcing their culture and views on the other. But as the Dark Lord promised they would be as benevolent overlords. They would let the muggles continue their harmless practices and modify those that did hurt others. They would show nothing but kindness to the poor creatures who could not comprehend a better world for themselves.
It sated Regulus and it pleased him.
He wanted to make the world better.
Maybe, he thought, the madness had set in when he agreed to go on his second raid. The first one had had him puking his guts up and dosing himself up on dreamless sleep. He had sworn that night to do nothing like that again. He would find other ways to fight for their glorious future because he wanted it more than anything, but he wouldn’t fight – he couldn’t.
However, then there had been the meeting and the Dark Lord had spoken so passionately and had pulled Regulus aside to personally (personally!) speak to him and address his concerns and fears, because he was their benevolent Lord. He had answered every little concern and built on each desire until Regulus had found himself near foaming at the mouth to prove himself. He wanted to make the Dark Lord proud of him, he wanted to prove himself and bring the world into their glorious future.
So it was that he went on raids. He killed, he tortured. He had watched screaming blood traitors beg for their lives, beg to exchange their loved ones so they might live and he had laughed at their pathetic attempts to prolong their miserable existences.
Then he went home and threw up. He stopped eating until hunger and the gentle protestations from Barty and Severus encouraged him to keep up his strength.
Over and over again.
Torture, throw up, starve. Repeat. It became normal, second nature.
Regulus liked specialised in the imperious curse. It was easy to control when he had been born to power and it felt less… uneasy in his stomach than torture and murder. He enjoyed the feeling of domination.
That was probably not a sane thing, Regulus could reflect now.
But it was easier than the killing.
Regulus was willing to admit his sanity had been long lost at that point.
The Dark Lord then asked for Kreacher.
The Dark Lord then nearly killed Kreacher.
Regulus wanted his vengeance. He wanted to hurt the Dark Lord.
He considered dying to get the horcrux and leaving a note. He would die in that knowledge, and it would be enough.
Until it wasn’t.
Doubts settled in.
He went to the ministry, to the aurors so someone would know.
Regulus laughed into the darkness to think that he had thought he had found sanity back then.
He’d gone to the ministry, and they didn’t even get to the part about the horcrux. As soon as he had admitted to being a follower of the Dark Lord, he was locked away, his trial brief.
He no longer felt like sharing.
And now he was here and after however long he had spent with his memories reliving over and over again, he’d finally come to realise just how insane he had become, and it was laughable.
Tears slid down his cheeks and his head thumped against the wall, laughter dying in his throat as the brief respite in the present faded back into his ever-present nightmares.
Regulus couldn’t remember what things had been like before Azkaban. If there was such a thing. There had to be, for that was where the nightmares came from. The ones that played over and over in his head. But he couldn’t remember them. Not the first time. Only the replays. Each time they shifted, becoming steadily worse. The last vision… (memory?) had a child, maybe eight, come back to life, it’s (her) head lolling as it (she) took his wand, cut his tongue, stole his voice and cast the cruciatus curse on him until he had woken up screaming with blood in his mouth. He’d bitten his tongue.
He couldn’t remember if that was an accurate memory. Or perhaps the torture was what he had done to the child – had he cut it’s (her) tongue and tortured her (it)? Or maybe something he had witnessed done by others? Or just another delusion of his mind.
What did it matter? His only world was this cage that he lay in. That and the nightmares that plagued him.
He shuddered but could not tell if it was cold.
He ignored the food shoved through the door but he did not know why.
He knew when food came though. The not-dementors delivered it. The dementors were sent away and the nightmares would retreat. Regulus could lie, staring at the wall. It was a nice change.
Some days, a not-dementor came in accompanied by his silver seal. The seal placed a head on his lap as the not-dementor gently held Regulus in his arms and carefully tipped water into his mouth until he gulped it down, eager to quench the thirst he discovered he had.
It was miraculous to feel thirst. Amazing to be able to quench it.
The not-dementor apologised to him. He sometimes spoke of what he knew about Regulus. It was nice to have someone tell him who he had been.
The not-dementor (guard?)’s daughter was in Slytherin.
She had cried over her sorting until a kind boy had helped her understand they weren’t all evil, that Slytherin was a good and honourable House to be in.
He’d been that kind boy.
The guard didn’t know what had gone wrong for Regulus, but he didn’t deserve this. He should be at school.
Regulus couldn’t remember school. He couldn’t remember the daughter. But he tried to see himself in that world and not here.
One day the guard brought him a small, knitted snake. It felt nice in his hand, so Regulus held it. It was soft and green. He remembered that he liked green. That was a strange feeling. To have once liked something.
As the guard went to leave, Regulus found his throat and croaked out a thanks.
When he left, his silver seal following him, the dead flooded back into his cell.
Their empty eyes, their shambling bodies, their chattering voices like bats. Each one stepped forward and placed their cold hands on his chest and Regulus felt everything he had done to them.
He didn’t have the energy to cry or scream or shout. He just lay there and let the pain wash over him.
He thought he deserved it.
The pain of their touch reached a crescendo and as he blacked out, Regulus fell back into his memories.