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He was standing at the entrance to the cave, as waves slammed into the rock below him.
He was hesitating. Should he have told someone, anyone else about this? Should he have brought someone else to do this with him, besides his loyal companion? He had a sinking feeling in his gut, like a stone in his stomach. He clenched his jaw, Blacks didn’t hesitate. Ever.
Regulus slit his palm, thick rivulets of deep crimson splattering onto the rock before he swiped his bloodied hand across the rock. The blood looked like a burnt red on the black of the stone, ominous like a warning of what was to come, before the hidden entrance grated to the left, sliding open to form a narrow passageway. Regulus went first, then Kreacher behind him. The walls crowded in, barely a meter across from wall to wall.
The pebbles lying on the small strip of land around the lake crunched like bones under the feet, enough to send the slightest prickle on his arms. The water was clear, but you couldn’t see the water after a point where it clouded, like paint in water. Kreacher whimpered as he stared down at the lake, moving closer to Regulus.
“Kreacher thinking this not being a good idea, Master Regulus,” Kreacher croaked, tugging at his master’s cloak. Regulus stopped the tugging, grasping Kreacher’s small, wrinkled hand in his own smooth young one.
“You have to trust me, Kreacher. I have to do this.” Regulus’ voice sounded hard and firm, but to anyone who knew him at all, it was so much shakier than he held up at school or home. He took a deep breath. Blacks never showed uncertainty. Blacks never showed fear. Blacks didn’t hesitate.
He spied what he was looking for in the middle of the unearthly lake, a large-ish stone with a basin on top of it, with a green glow coming from inside. He looked for something to get across, and as if summoned by thought, an old, rickety boat with algae growing up to the water line on the boat bobbed up onto the surface, the water inside the boat vanishing.
It was the only way across.
Regulus could feel the anti-apparation wards pressing in on him, and whatever was in that lake. And he knew one thing.
He wasn’t going to make it out.
He would never see Evan or Barty again, never braid Pandora’s hair out by the lake in school, never see Siri- he choked back a lump of emotion forming a tight knot in his neck. His brother would never know it was all fake, and that he would do anything for him still if he asked, because he was his brother. He was never going to be a loyal death eater like their mother wanted. And god, he could never hate him for leaving that house, no matter how hard he tried to. They were going to kill him there, and he was better off with Jami- Potter’s family. They were a better family than his, and Potter was a better brother than he could ever be. But god how he hated that he couldn’t say it.
That’s why he wrote all of the letters, hidden in his room through the concealment charms that he and Siri made, that not their mother could get through. He would know. He would find them. And Sirius would know he was sorry, for everything.
But Regulus didn’t have time to spare in his head, so he took a breath, and unraveled the rope tying the boat to the post.
As he sailed across the last place he would ever lay eyes on.
Kreacher knew his orders. This would work. He would make Regulus drink the potion, and then Kreacher would swap out the lockets. Then he would get out before the Inferi got him. Regulus had planned everything. It would work.
It had to.