Work Text:
Regulus had read so many stories like this.
A gentle child turned violent monster, turned angel- a martyr.
A martyr's death was as violent as they themselves used to be.
They died screaming, on their knees, pleading.
He had been aware of that as he stepped into the cave.
Regulus Black had always been doomed to die a martyr, then to be forgotten.
He had expected his last moments to be fighting, to be hatred and revenge, maybe love and betrayal.
He hadn't thought they'd be this… quiet.
He hadn't expected them to just be him, alone in a cave, drowning.
He didn't gasp for air or try to escape the hands holding him down, no. Instead, he welcomed the water in his lungs, poisoning him.
He welcomed the way the necklace James had given him pulled him down with its weight- just as much a death sentence as the claws at his waist.
He had taken his final breath almost five minutes before he died, and he had known it would be his last as his head came under the water.
As the oxygen ran out, it became clear that Regulus Black had died peaceful.
His friends' tears, his lover's anger and the heartbreak, everything Regulus Black would be remembered for- it wouldn't be; but his death had been gentle. There was no fight as the freshly seventeen year old closed his eyes and smiled as the sweet bells of heaven already rang in his ears.
The body would never be found.
The soul would never be remembered.
Regulus Black was truly gone forever.