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The potion is bitter against his tongue, too thick and half congealed as he chokes it down. It burns. As hot as the sun they used to lie beneath. Hot as the golden boy, housing galaxies in his eyes. Housing him in his heart. It was warm there too. But different. Brand new. So much like nothing he’d known since or before. Nurturing enough that his brother managed to find a home there too. A place to grow the roots they’d spent their entire lives searching for. He’d give his life, just to keep it. Just to keep him. To keep them.
And so he would. He would keep them both. Would confess his love to James as soon as he’s able. Would press more kisses and share the heat pooling low from the poison or the love or the lust. Even the thought is enough to grant him the strength he needs to pull another sip, to cough around the lava searing down his throat. Even as his vision blurs, hand shaking as he fills the shell once more, spilling poison down the sides. Spilling what’s left down his throat. His thoughts drift to him. To sunny days and heat.
To Sirius too — long lost, now an ally in this war — he longs to see him again, to bridge the silence time and fate and family had carved between them. It lights a different type of fire, something fragile beneath the burn, a fierce pulse of life and love. Of long nights on the terrace, of whispered promises of forever.
He takes another sip. And another. And another. Until the basin is half empty, the room spinning, and all he wants is to cry out — to curl up on the damp stone and lap at the salty water until the fire’s extinguished. Only he doesn’t. He can’t. Dumbledore warned him of this: of the pain that would rack him, drive him mad, and make him doubt. He promised that he would be strong enough — to do what needs doing. To survive and save his love. To survive and save Sirius. To survive and end this bloody war. So he summons the rest of his will into doing just that: lifting a hand back to his lips. Back to the heat, burning and scraping down his throat.
His mind warbles and cracks under the blaze, even as he fights the dark creeping in. Trying desperately to stay beneath the sun. He stares up until it burns. Held in hands so steady they soothe his own. Till there’s no more shaking, just him tracing the constellation of his namesake into those broad shoulders. A promise. A declaration. Mine. Home.
He mumbles it between kisses shared and gifted, answered with a laugh, deep and bubbling — tinkling like a stream. Nothing like the waves lurking, threatening. Promising to drag him down — into the dark.
He forces more fire down, only for it to come back up — just as hot. Red, sticky, metallic. Trickling from his nose and eyes.
And for the first time since he set out on this mission, a cold shot of dread rushes over him, because something is very wrong. For just a moment, he can’t help but wonder: what had he agreed to?
Even still, he pushes through it. Takes another drag until there’s only one left and his legs are numb with the effort. All the heat roasting him alive has turned to ice in his veins.
He should feel afraid. Should be shivering against the cold, or at least cursing Dumbledore’s name for the truth nagging on the edge of his subconscious, hiding just on the other side of the pain.
Only he isn’t. Can’t find whatever it is that keeps others clinging to life.
Can’t see past the golden galaxy boy, smiling up at him — saved and safe.
Well worth the price he didn’t understand he’d be paying.
Well worth that final sip that sets his bones ablaze. It earns him a trinket on a chain — sending him sputtering down to his knees, painting the damp cobblestone dark with even more blood — toomuchtoomuchtoomuch.
He knows it. Feels the truth loud and clear in the fire still swirling, the dark easing further in, dancing in his vision. Only he still isn’t quite ready. Not to name it. Not to know it. Not yet. Not yet.
He tightens his grip, turns the damned thing over, searching for the clasp — trying, failing, fumbling — until finally, a click.
He rips a scrap of parchment from his pocket. Yanks out his cloak pin, pressing the point into his palm until blood bubbles up, pooling across pale lines.
His hands shake so hard as he fashions the pin into a quill. Somehow manages to tuck it between thumb and forefinger, like that lock of curly hair that kept falling over — eclipsing those galaxy eyes.
And he’s so beautiful that it hurts. It burns.
It fills him up with a fire, a longing so strong that even though he doesn’t know the why, he surely knows the rest.
Even though he’s run out of time, surely someone must know.
That, in the end, he was more than just a name on a wall.
More than some Death Eater scum, prodigy son to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
More than the good-for-nothing coward they all thought him to be.
Nearly all of them but:
James, his too-sweet, too-kind, golden boy with galaxy eyes.
Sirius, his good-for-nothing, good-natured big brother.
Perhaps they’re the reason he can find his strength —
Signing three wobbly, half-illegible letters into this nothing scrap of parchment with a dab of nothing’s pure blood.
Perhaps it’s all in hope that they’ll see. That they’ll know.
That he’d been all right all along. That he’d done whatever it took to right his wrong.
That hope sends him back again — back beneath the sun,
Back beside the golden boy with galaxies in his eyes.
So beautiful. Breathtaking and pure, crafted just for him.
By his hand and for his pleasure — a sculpture to gaze upon, to tuck against.
Something to claim forever, since letting go never seemed like something he’d survive.
He’d signed his name then too — crooked and sprawling, clumsy as he laid claim.
Pressed it into the dimples dotting both cheeks.
Carved it along the sharp line of his jaw, beneath the hollow above his collarbones.
Let the ink dry in the cool summer breeze.
It sends him back — late nights sneaking between rooms,
Hiding from monsters on the walls.
Back to pillow fights and whispered comforts
From the only other boy who knew what it was to be a Black.
This ink, though, is already dry. No time left for more than this.
He presses it twice with a kiss, then tucks it gently into the locket with a click.
Just as another wave of pain hits, sharp enough to pull his spine taut, eyes wide.
Someone is beside him then, smoothing his hair with gentle, gnarled fingers. Brushing back the curls clumped along his brow. The touch is familiar, soothing — wrong.
“Young Master will rest and return to the Manor now. Kreacher will fix him.”
“No,” he says, smiling through the pain, summoning one last brave face.
He holds it out, the locket cool and solid in his palm. Testing its weight, smooth against his skin.
“You will take this home,” he whispers through gritted teeth, fingers unfurling to reveal it.
“And destroy it.”
Kreacher seems about to argue — seems about to weep and throw himself at his feet.
But he just wrings those mangled hands until he thinks better of it.
Just tucks his chin and takes a breath.
“Yes, young master Black.”
“Reg,” he corrects — not for the first time — rather for the last. His lips pull back over bloody teeth. His vision darkening evermore along the edges.
“Reg,” Kreacher concedes, reaching forward, ears drooping.
He’s glad, even as his surge of strength fades, even as the ground tilts up to meet him. Saved only by those mangled hands. Like in his youth. Like time and time again. Sparing him from the blow. The burn.
“Thank you,” he croaks out, ever grateful. Time and time again.
“Go now,” he tells Kreacher, “And don’t tell my mother of this.”
Even now, he worries for her. For a mother left with no sons. One burned from the walls — disowned for choosing exile — choosing life. The other buried far beneath them, having chosen duty. This.
Both choices left her all alone. Trapped in that cold, crumbling house. Bedmates with the devil himself. Orion.
He can almost smile at that. So much for the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
Kreacher lingers just a beat, studying his face, and sighs. He gives his hand one final squeeze. Presses a kiss to his cheek.
“It’s been a pleasure, young Master — Reg.”
“Yes,” he says, voice thick, nodding.
And then there’s a crack.
And then he’s alone.
Surrounded by the cold.
Left in nothing but the dark.
Trapped, traveling the path ahead — no need for a map to tell him what comes next.
He built this bloody road. Paved and carved it himself.
With bare hands, bad dreams, and the purest intentions.
He wonders if he’d known it all then — would he have done so willingly? Eagerly?
Would he have sprinted toward this bitter end?
He considers the trade —
His life, for this:
For the ruin of some cursed thing — meant to curse them all.
And supposes that he would.
Fueled by some stubborn hope, still burning.
Not yet overtaken by despair.
Not even now.
Not from poison overtaking his limbs — pain shooting and pooling,
sharp and hot in his toes and fingertips.
Not from that now-familiar fire lapping at his very soul.
Not yet. Not yet.
Not until the dark presses further in.
Not until the burn shifts, twists —
Into something too far gone to be fire.
Too far gone to be sun.
Can’t find the rhyme.
Or the reason.
Or the why.
It’s hollow. And hateful.
Enough to knock his breath away.
Enough to finally make him shake.
Not from something so simple as fear.
Not of death. Or the end. Or even what comes after.
But rather the absence.
Of meaning.
Of memory.
Of Sirius.
Of James.
Of something burning so cold,
he might not remember his face.
Golden and lovely and unequivocally his.
So he can’t stay here.
Not in the burn. Not in the dark.
Not with the memories already blurring.
So he moves. Because he must.
Because it's all he has left.
So he rises up onto hands and knees, pressing through the pain still set on blinding him. His progress is slow — unsteady as he crawls toward the dark, still water.
He reaches it, finally — lungs burning, head pounding when he does.
And the pain grants him one last bit of comfort. Of clarity. Here at the end. Lets him see the truth of the trade. The justice that’s baked into balancing these scales.
It’s a thing he’s always known — the law of equivalent exchange: his life for theirs: for Mother and Evan and Barty. For Sirius. For James.
James. The golden boy with galaxies in his eyes and constellations mapped across his back. The home he’d gifted both Black brothers, if only for a little while.
That deal seems far more than fair. More than he ever could’ve bargained for.
Even more than the cost of the loss. Of the possibility of the nothing that comes next.
The realization has him burning with something else entirely —
Sends him back to then and there, to fingers roaming, running through his hair. Back to burning in the heat of the sun.
Tucked up against the boy he loves.
And it’s a final blessed dream. So perfect and sweet.
So he leans in again, just for one more kiss.
Lets the warmth take him.
Lets the water rise as the hands embrace him.
Lets go.