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The dampness echoes around Regulus, dripping from the walls and ceilings and the whole atmosphere seems to speak with ancient words.
Leave, it whispers, the ghosts of words unspoken raising the hairs on the nape of his neck at his arrival. He knows better than to brush off his instincts, but this is not something he could abandon. He can never go back… he can never leave.
Stay, it hisses, the eeriness forming sweat along his upper lip. Come closer, it croons, come closer to me, the seductive lure beckoning him further into its chamber, as though the cave itself were a wet dripping mouth that would swallow him whole.
His stomach drops as he retches again, but somehow the poison is in him no matter the heaving. He cannot free himself from it.
“Master Regulus, you must keep going—”
The words are nothing until the quiet sets in— until Regulus can wipe the vomit from his chin. There are no words as Kreacher lifts the shell to his lips and the cold syrup seeps into him again. I can do it, his soul vows as his body contradicts him, as he begs for mercy, for relief, and he brings himself to his knees at the edge of the water.
“Master Regulus, that water is cursed, you mustn’t leave me—”
“It’s all cursed,” Regulus mumbles. “Knew it from the start, didn’t he? Always the righteous know-it-all. Handsome know-it-all.”
He doesn’t know why his thoughts drift the way they do, but soon the memories are falling into place: Remus, with his stubbled face over breakfast. Remus, with his rough hands offering guidance through the dark. Remus, Remus, Remus, who knew believed Regulus could still be good.
“Master Regulus—” Kreacher calls out to him from the podium. “There is more still.”
He must, but it eats him every time he swallows. Every sip stains his body, his mind, his soul— so much that he cannot trust the things he sees or hears or feels. There ought not be a breeze, but he feels it on his face. There ought not be music, but he hears it humming— waiting for him. It ought to be the end, but Regulus thinks he can feel something stirring. It ought to be the end, but Regulus thinks he can feel nothing. Once upon a time the wind might have carried the aromas of distant flowers, the smooth keening of ocean air, but all Regulus can smell now is the stale stench of stagnant wet shale as the poison consumes him.
Crunch, as it cracks through his filaments.
Snap, as its teeth bite into his soft belly.
Chew, as though he’ll never be whole again. Half a man… a mere mortal...
One more sip and his head swims drunkenly as fragments of reality shatter and reform, and inside them, a mystery unfolds like an origami crane. Reaching out to disturb the universe, Regulus thinks he might see the truth in it at last.
Him, here, with his heart desperate for bravery, he lifts his face to the hot breath of the dragon now curling its tail around him, its black eyes assessing his virtue meticulously. Its breath is hot and the creature snorts in disdain, echoing over the still surface of the lake, and it is there for only a moment before dissolving into night and shadow and dark.
Regulus closes his eyes and in the empty space beside him, he imagines he is not alone. He imagines a hundred beautiful things in the absence of the only thing that would have made a difference and as he swallowed that last sip, Kreacher heaved a sigh of relief and pulled the locket from the bottom of the bowl.
“Kreacher will be back,” he says to Regulus before he Apparates away with the necklace, but Regulus is lost in the dream. Regulus is lost in the Why and the How and then When and in the stillness of emptiness, finally, he appeared.
With his dripping sandy hair and knowing grin, Remus pulls himself from the lake and holds a hand out to Regulus and it doesn't matter anymore if there are no flowers, if there is no sunlight, if the emptiness inside him never filled… In this moment there was no cave, no hallucinated dragon, no poison.
“You’re here,” Regulus says, his voice cracking from a sudden breath of hope he’d spent so many years suppressing.
“Come closer,” Remus offers, his open hand waiting. “Come closer to me.”