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His mother used to tell him that it was the valuable things that were worth being afraid for. Regulus didn’t get it. He never really believed her. His mother clearly didn’t understand fear like he did—did not understand how paralyzing, how debilitating it was.
After all, it was her sharp anger which he feared. That, and his father’s heavy wrath, and his brother’s snappy tongue and loud tears, and the way it all crescendoed like an inescapable storm. Obviously his mother did not understand how his fear got him nowhere but the cold stagnation of his room as he listened to his brother be torn apart a wall over. His fear got him nothing of value. His fear held no worth. It was embarrassing, useless, and shameful. It was cold, and cowardly, and unforgivable.
Regulus huddled beneath his blankets because that’s where he was safe. Under his blankets, his fear was snow instead of hail, fog instead of rain. His room was a bomb shelter. His blood was the bomb.
Regulus Black stood still, and the fear settled around him instead of poking and stabbing. He stood still and watched as fear lay motionless over his life, dust on an untouched bookshelf. If he remained curled up, silent, in his bed for the rest of time, his brother’s cries would not grow louder, and his mother would not shriek, and his father’s voice would not boom throughout the house. Regulus could be decorative, noticed briefly before being accepted as a fundamental part of the environment, and he would not be moved. His body would not hurt, his tears would not fall, and nobody would come to take him away. He lived like a catatonic depressive and nothing could hurt him and the fear became static in the back of his mind, imperceptible most of the time.
He lived his life always afraid, subtly, the feeling dormant under his skin, and he pretended it wasn’t there. People believed he was never afraid, because his scale had been zeroed out there at his minimum.
Anything more than that base fear was unacceptable. More than what Regulus lived with on the daily was simply too much. Certainly not worth anything. Certainly not the precursor to anything of value.
So Regulus Black stood still. He lived life in the safe way—no risks, no sacrifices. Until he didn’t.
Regulus sat on his bed, a hardcover book in his lap, a piece of parchment in front of him, a quill in his hand. By now, he had the order of operations memorized. Write the message, sign his initials, fold the paper. It was never good enough. The issue with doing something over and over again like this, to the point of invoking muscle memory, was that error was more likely to occur on autopilot.
To the Dark Lord.
It took him ages to figure out how exactly he wanted the note to go in the first place. He loved poetry, embarrassingly. Sirius always teased him for it. Maybe it should have been easier to compose this because of that, but it wasn’t. It was probably more difficult. He wanted to communicate everything in this—these would be his last words after all, in a way. He wanted to write an essay. Alas, he couldn’t give the Dark Lord an essay, because there was no way in hell that he would read it, and if he did, he would not care about Regulus’ reflections on death and dying, or life and living.
He had to make this short and sweet. Concise, and straight to the point. He had to pour his entire soul into just a few words, because it would be his last chance to reach anyone. So, it took ages to get correct.
I know I will be dead long before you read this-
He spent a lot of time thinking over that line. The decision was complicated, deciding whether or not the Dark Lord needed to be told that Regulus was sacrificing himself for this, or if he could infer it by the presence of the note at all. Regulus did not want to insult his intelligence, except that he totally did. Either way, he wanted to say it. He wanted to say it to that bastard’s face. He wanted it spelled out for him, that Regulus cared so bloody much that he died for it. He needed them to know that he cared.
-but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.
Maybe his ego was too big for his body, but he was dying, so he thought he deserved some bragging rights. Let it be known that a Black took down an immortal. Regulus loathed the man more than he could express—to try and cheat death in this way? It was stupid, and immature, and just so wrong in a way that twisted at Regulus’ gut. So let it be known that the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black bore a child willing to do this. Let it be known that Regulus was proud, so desperately, achingly proud to be part of the Dark Lord’s eventual demise.
I have stolen the real Horcrux-
He did smile when thinking about the trick of it all. He was a true Slytherin, in the end. A fake Horcrux, oh, how he loved the thrill of a lie.
-and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.
Admittedly, he had shrugged some of the pressure of this mission off of himself and onto Kreacher. He did not know how to destroy a Horcrux and he did not have the time to find out. If any creature could uncover that mystery, he believed it would be a house elf. If any house elf could do it, he believed that surely, it would be Kreacher.
He could concede that his resignation of this particular task was cruel. Already, he was the cause of so much of his dear friend’s suffering. That initial trip into the cave with the Dark Lord, which had left Kreacher traumatized, was Regulus’ will, after all. Still, Regulus couldn’t hold it against himself too harshly. He was giving his life—was that not enough?
I face death-
He was going to die for this. He was giving up the rest of his life. He was only seventeen. He was going to die.
-in the hope that when you meet your match,
Hope was weak. It was fleeting and flimsy. Hope had never helped Regulus before, had never truly gotten him anywhere. Maybe invoking hope in his final message was less than clever. He did it anyway. He was feeling quite contrary, as of writing this.
-you will be mortal once more.
As all things should be. Regulus was of a strong belief that nothing was meant to last forever. People came and went, as did cities, and societies, and cultures, and souls. He would die for this belief. Maybe he was making an example of himself.
R.A.B.
He ended up with a few copies that were sort of good enough to pick through. He put those on his pillow, but ultimately did not use any of them. This couldn’t just be ‘good enough’.
His floor was covered in dozens of discarded papers, scrunched into balls and thrown off and out of mind. He tore some of the worse ones apart, so those lay shredded and dispersed somewhere lost in the sea of his bedroom. He kept getting it wrong—he’d write the whole thing out but forget a word, or the flourishes of his g’s and y’s would be of imbalanced heights, or his signature would be wrong, or the whole thing would be off-centered on the paper. He couldn’t half-ass this. It had to be perfect.
The fake locket was Kreacher’s handiwork. This—his fingers covered in paper cuts, his duvet stained with ink, his back aching, his eyes strained—was his.
When Regulus was a kid, he would sit and watch as Sirius got ready in the mornings. He always took longer than Regulus did, so the whole family would inevitably be waiting on him at breakfast. Eventually, their parents learned to tell Sirius to be ready earlier than he actually needed to be, so that when he was ultimately late to this call time, he would actually be punctual to the real one. Regulus learned that he could get up and start getting ready at the same time as Sirius, and that way, he could finish earlier and get to sit and watch his brother do his hair.
Sirius was very meticulous about the way he presented himself, which was probably something trained into him by their parents. Even then, some of it had to be his own personality, because he took longer than anybody else in the family. Not even Narcissa took so long, and she was named after the guy who died staring at his reflection. Regulus only learned how extraordinary Sirius’ prep time was once he got to school, since Barty and Evan loved to complain about how long Regulus took to get ready.
As a kid though, Regulus couldn’t understand why his parents got so annoyed at Sirius for this. They called it vanity, and self-obsession. Maybe it was because they never watched it that they couldn’t understand how magical it was—the ritual of it. Sirius would sit there in front of his mirror with his collection: a mix of muggle cosmetics and copied down spells that he was not really supposed to be practicing so young. But he was a gifted child, and their family was powerful, so it didn’t matter. He’d straighten his curls, and then curl them again artificially, and then sigh and straighten them again, and repeat and repeat. Sometimes it took almost twelve cycles of this until he got it to look right, and other times he reverted it back to his natural waves, and only then was he satisfied.
Their parents called Sirius neurotic. Sirius called himself a perfectionist. He held himself to a higher standard, was what he told Regulus. One should always present themselves as well as they possibly can, after all. Especially when representing something bigger. Like their family, Regulus had finished. Like magic itself, Sirius corrected.
Regulus tucked his final message into the interior of the replica locket. He then strung the locket around his neck and slipped it under his shirt so that it would not be seen. Kreacher stood silent next to his bedroom window, waiting, as still as the solemn night. He waited as Regulus took one last look at his home, his family’s home, where he had laughed and cried and slept and woken up, and where so many before him had done the same.
His hand caressed the wooden railings of the stairs, and he faltered at the top step. He stood here, like this, just a few years ago. And Sirius stood at the bottom, about to change their lives forever. That moment chilled him, wrapped around his torso like a rattlesnake and drained him. It came to him every time he took these stairs. He took a seat on the top step, just for a moment, and gasped as he was hit by a completely different memory.
Years before that, Sirius had chased him up these stairs with a bug in his hands as Regulus squealed. His brother’s hair lay shorter then, wild and loose. His brother smiled at him wide, cackling and teasing. Those older memories caught up with him all at once, as if his impending death had taken a sledgehammer to some wall in his mind. His father’s warm laugh had echoed up from where he watched on the ground floor. Their ancestors in picture frames had cooed and awed and tsked at the boys, endeared by their youth. Had things really been that bright? Regulus felt like his vision had gotten worse, or maybe the world physically had dimmed.
The intensity of the memory faded, and Regulus tore himself from the stairs to chase that nostalgia. He let himself dance through the hallways, remembering the way he did when he was half the size he was in the present. His fingers trailed the walls, and he knew with a wave pressure behind his eyes and in his nose that sometime far in the past, his brother’s fingers had done the very same.
He could only stand to enter Sirius’ bedroom for a moment. The creak of the door shocked him out of his reverie, and the stillness of the air in there killed the momentary brightness of that old, childish world. His brother’s bed was just as he had left it that fateful night. If Kreacher had not still been keeping this room in order, Regulus might have seen dust gathered on untouched posters, records, old brooms. Regulus had grown up in this bedroom, possibly just as much as he had grown up in his own. And yet, here it sat, ever in wait, like an empty grave.
Regulus shut that door and returned to his own room. He wished that he could bury himself here, but he couldn’t. Kreacher tilted his head and Regulus nodded, taking his friend’s outstretched hand. At once, the world shifted beneath his feet, and to the world as he knew it, Regulus Black died.
He stumbled as they landed in the cave. Regulus never got good at apparating—he was too young to get to do it himself, and he always would be. He inhaled and sputtered. The air in the cave hung heavy and oppressive.
Kreacher’s hand trembled in his. With one shivering hand, his wrinkled finger pointed Regulus’ attention to a small boat. “T-there,” he started, curling into Regulus just slightly. “We m-must take the boat to that island,” he stammered. Kreacher raised his finger just slightly, revealing a small island in the distance.
Regulus squeezed Kreacher’s hand and nodded, his limbs feeling light, his chest a tad cold. “Okay,” he said. They approached the boat together, but Regulus faltered before they could get in. The waters around this piece of land he stood on were perfectly motionless, more like a dark pane of glass than a liquid. In such a dark cave, the contents of the water remained a mystery, as the surface reflected the pitch black of the cave’s roof. Regulus wondered if existence within the depths of those waters even counted; if nothing and nobody could perceive a sunken object, was it even real?
Kreacher cleared his throat, and Regulus blinked. His friend helped him as he stepped into the boat and the thing slipped off the shore. If the water bent with the weight of the vessel, if it draped from its tension, then Regulus couldn’t see it. No form could be made out of that black hole he floated on.
Regulus was never quite sure what it was, but he found something about water extremely poetic.
Maybe it was birth—being born, soaking and crying. Wetness was natural, maybe the most natural thing in the world. Blood, tears, sweat, saliva. The human body was made to be wet, to absorb, to take in and let out. Evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and so forth.
He found swimming to be something deeply personal. As a kid, he never really got to swim a lot, but the act of being submerged in liquid was one he couldn’t simply gloss over. Sitting in the bathtub, his mother’s hands in his hair, washing him. Bare and small and clean—there was something personal, bodily, vulnerable there.
When Sirius and him were infant, his mother would bathe them together. She would warm the water to a solid warmth, the type of warmth that matched the human body. Regulus would sit in that warmth and not know where his body stopped and the water began. He would sit in that and not know where he stopped and where Sirius began.
The idea of swimming, in liquid with other bodies, was difficult. Bodies that were not his, not Sirius’, did not belong so close to his own.
Of course, it was Barty who got him in the water. When they were in fifth year, that boy—oh, his wicked, devoted boy—dragged him out of his dormitory and around the castle. Barty was a Prefect of Ravenclaw that year, and was overly excited about some Prefect laboratory that he had gained access to through it.
Barty’s palm was warm against Regulus’ own. It was past curfew, but Barty was a Prefect and both of them were favored by their teachers, so neither were too concerned. The hallways echoed with their footsteps against tile and carpet; the bodies that would usually fill these passages and absorb the sound, nowhere to be seen. This—the grandeur of the space against the littleness of themselves, the moonlight basking through tall arched windows onto the floors and bouncing up to opposing walls, the lack of eyes where they tended to linger, the total control of one’s own actions while running through a structure that typically disallowed it—was Barty and Regulus’ castle.
They winded through corridors until Barty suddenly slowed them to a stop in front of an adorned door. “It isn’t exactly a secret entrance,” Regulus pointed out, words under his breath and hushed.
“I never said it was a secret entrance-” Barty replied, voice as booming as it was in the day. Regulus startled, slapping a hand over Barty’s mouth. He could feel Barty smile against his palm; Barty’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and his cheeks pulled and lifted. Regulus held his breath, trying to ignore the skip of his heartbeat. “Sorry,” Barty said, quieter and muffled. Regulus removed his hand and wiped it off on his shirt.
Barty made Regulus place his hand on the door and try to push it open himself, only for the purpose of emphasizing Barty’s shiny new position of power as it swung ajar for his lightest knock. Regulus made a show out of rolling his eyes, only smiling once Barty’s back was turned.
The door closed behind them on its own. Barty squatted down by the large pool of water in the middle of the room, dipping the tips of his fingers in. “Isn’t this brilliant?” he asked, looking up at Regulus, his head tilted.
Regulus sighed, hands floating uselessly at his sides. “I… suppose.”
The Ravenclaw grinned, all cleverness in his mouth and fondness in his eyes. That look—that boy—made Regulus want to hide. Of course, he would never do such a thing in front of an audience. He made his way to Barty’s side, the heels of his shoes clicking in the echo chamber of the room, and knelt down properly on the tile. Barty kept smiling at him, so Regulus flicked him on the forehead. “Stop making that face. You’ll get wrinkles.”
Barty yelped, falling back on his butt. “So vain!” He did not stop grinning.
“I’m only being truthful,” Regulus said. He touched the surface of the water himself. It was… certainly enchanted. Cool enough to not be unsettlingly close to body temperature, but warm enough not to hurt. This school was truly a masterpiece of magical innovation. That did not make Regulus any less hesitant to submerge himself in water with another person.
Said other person must have seen his hesitance on his face, because he cleared his throat and said, “You don’t have to get naked or anything.”
Regulus' head snapped over, eyes wide and neck flushing. “Pardon?”
Barty was entirely red. His mouth hung slightly agape as if he was shocked at his own words. “Oh- um. Y’know. It’s a bath- but you don’t- just- you can stay in your clothes, yeah?” he stuttered, waving his dry hand around in circles like it could shoo away the awkwardness. “I didn’t- y’know- never mind.”
Regulus just stared, paralyzed and flustered as Barty began to empty his trouser pockets and took off his shoes. He barely processed it as Barty perched on the ledge of the pool and toppled himself in. He only returned to himself when the water Barty displaced splashed up into his face, soaking the front of his shirt and his trousers and the tile he sat on. He jolted back a little, blinking the shock away, his hair dripping.
Barty surfaced and guffawed before slapping a hand over his own mouth. “I’m sorry!” he squeaked, giggling behind his hand despite his words. Regulus took a moment before he could narrow his eyes and huff.
“No you aren’t! Sorry people don’t make that face!” he snapped, suppressing a grin.
“What face?” Barty asked, voice round with laughter.
It was difficult to be angry when Barty looked like that—like nothing in the world mattered but the two of them in a garish bathroom, like Regulus was the most precious thing in the world—with his teeth bared and his shirt and hair sticking to his skin. Regulus cleared his throat, averted his eyes, tried to compose himself. Barty kept giggling. Regulus could feel the blood rushing to his face but he was unsure if it was the humiliation or the unrelenting urge to laugh or the way Barty looked or the way Barty looked at him.
A hand tugged at his hair to drag Regulus’ attention back to the water and the boy standing in it. Regulus clicked his tongue in disapproval because he wasn’t sure what else to do. Barty at least had the decency to shrink in on himself, letting go of the curly lock and throwing his hands around nervously as he spoke. “Hey- well- you’re already wet now, so…”
Regulus glared at him. Barty pouted and batted his eyelashes. Regulus scoffed. Barty sighed, dramatic and forlorn. Barty’s eyes fell down to the water, his chin dropped to his chest.
Regulus splashed a wave of water over Barty’s head and Barty shrieked. “Regulus!” Barty coughed and sputtered, wiping water off his eyes with the back of his hand, splashing more water as he flailed his arms. Regulus laughed and Barty’s cheeks grew red. Regulus kept laughing and then yelped as Barty grabbed his forearms and yanked him down, into the water.
The water ran over his head and Regulus held his breath. Under the liquid, the world went quiet.
The splashing of the water grew muffled and heavy. Everything became slow. Barty’s body heat seeped into the liquid, and his hands on Regulus’ arms were firm and solid, and Barty became all-encompassing. The water wrapped around Regulus’ whole form, and it was more like Barty himself was taking him in, winding his body like a blanket, or a hug. Being submerged was more comforting than being just partially wet. Regulus could see his hair floating in the blue, smooth and alive like seaweed, or smooth and dead like the wispy smoke that ghosts emitted. He wondered if this was what death might feel like, or maybe if this was what it was like to be in the womb.
Barty’s hands moved around his chest and onto his back, hefting his head up and out of the water. Regulus gasped and the world snapped back into its usual pace. Barty was grinning again, if a bit bashfully. Regulus panted, catching his breath, blinking away the luminosity of the air. They just stood there in the water for a moment, soaking and heavy and light and giddy and pissed all at once.
Eventually, Barty broke the silence. “Hi,” he said, the corners of his mouth softly tipped up.
A broad shiver trailed down Regulus’ back, past his elbows and over the backs of his knees. “Hi.” Regulus sighed. Barty smiled.
In a passing moment, unremarkable, definitely, Regulus might have kissed that other boy. He could imagine his lips on Barty’s, soft and surprised and just barely parted. He couldn’t quite remember, if one were to ask him. His nose might have pressed into Barty’s cheek, and he may have relished the squeak that jumped from Barty’s throat in surprise. Barty’s hands fluttered, still wrapped around Regulus’ waist, before settling again. Barty leaned into Regulus, and Regulus may or may not have pushed into Barty. They were both wet and warm, so their bodies practically became one. Or, well, they would have, if this happened. Maybe it did. He really couldn’t recall, you know? Totally insignificant. Absolutely trivial.
Once they got out of the water, they were both flushed, probably from the water growing cold, and probably nothing else. Regulus made Barty dry his shoes for him because he had been pulled into the water with them on, which was Barty’s fault. Regulus loathed the way they squelched when he tried to take a step, and Barty was brilliant at charms anyway. It was the obvious course of action. It was only reasonable. And Regulus? Oh, Regulus was always reasonable. And that day was entirely unimportant. Just like any other day.
Sitting on the boat, floating through the water, felt like nothing at all, really. Regulus wasn’t sure how the little wooden thing was moving at all. Well, certainly, it was magic. There were no waves to push it forward, and the water seemed more like a vitreous tile of ice than liquid. It was as if a string was tied to the front of the boat and dragging it onwards in the direction of fate. Regulus could feel the same string tied to him. The force of tension unnerved him. He could feel as the length of it grew shorter.
A little island in the middle of the waters appeared larger as Kreacher and he approached it. As they did, Kreacher grew twitchier and more anxious by the inch. Regulus held Kreacher’s hand and they trembled together.
This whole thing was absurd. What was he thinking? Why was he doing this again? The string pulled him forwards like he was a marionette. Merrily, merrily, merrily.
Regulus wasn’t sure if the cave was shaking, the boat, the water, or if it was all him. His limbs vibrated and his heart was light, never settling in place, jumping so consistently that it might as well have been levitating in his chest. He floated on air, sitting in an old hunk of wood, for what felt like an eternity. His pulse was more like a metronome, or a ticking clock, counting down the seconds left of his life. He wanted to go home more than anything. He wanted to lay in his bed and forget all of this. He wanted to hug his mother, and his father, and he wanted to run away and find his brother and hold onto him too. He wanted to hold onto him so tightly so he could never run away again.
The boat ride drawled on for an infinite amount of time, and then the bow of the vessel knocked into the shore of the tiny island, and it was over all too quickly. The front of the boat ran slightly up the shore of the tiny island, and Kreacher climbed out on shaky legs before helping Regulus onto land. Regulus couldn’t feel his hands. The whole cave was covered in crystals, semitranslucent and beautiful. At least it was beautiful. Life is but a dream.
The basin reminded Regulus of a pensieve. It was beautiful as well. Carved reliefs in the sides of stone imitated the shapes of ornate gems and metal filigree. The liquid inside of it glowed emerald, bright and unnatural, obviously concentrated with magic. Regulus knelt in front of the basin and wrapped his arms around himself. He wanted a hug. Kreacher silently came up behind him and wrapped his own arms around Regulus’ shoulder.
Regulus’ hands came together in front of him and he rested his elbows on the edge of the basin, as if he knelt at a pew and not the well which would administer his death. He closed his eyes and prayed.
His mother used to tell him, “Valuable things are the ones worth being afraid for.” To be worth being afraid for… the concept of it stuck with him. He thought about it a lot.
Regulus avoided fear as much as he could in his lifetime. The Lionheart. Sometimes his friends called him brave, but his friends were fools. Okay, that wasn’t true, but his friends were too biased to see the truth. Sirius called him brave too, when he was a little boy. He could never believe them, could never do more than play along with their praise, because he knew what they didn’t. He knew that he simply did not allow himself to be scared. To Regulus, nothing was worth being afraid for.
To jump into fear because you know that what you’re jumping for will be worth it.
Wasn’t that fascinating? He wished he had more time to ponder on it. He wondered if he would have time after to contemplate. He wondered if he would have anything after. He didn’t know. He feared what he didn’t know. He hated being afraid.
He was jumping.
He wondered if Sirius was afraid when he left. It couldn’t have been easy, falling without knowing if the ground beneath would be as soft as he had imagined. He wondered if Barty was afraid when he first kissed him. It didn’t feel like he was. He wondered if Narcissa was afraid when she got married. Losing her last name, losing her home, gaining something different, something else, something worthwhile? Worth it. Worth. Valuable things, to be free, to love, to be loved.
This was worth it, he had decided. It had to be. For his mother, he would at last follow her words. But no—it couldn’t be for her. It couldn’t be for anyone. It had to be for the act. The principle. For fear. For worth. For valuable things.
He needed to clear his head. He couldn’t die thinking the wrong thoughts. He needed to be scared.
Regulus Black died afraid. The whole time. The entire day. The entire week. The whole month. The whole year. He spent the last chapter of his life afraid. So terribly, dreadfully afraid. And he had never felt more alive. Bravery. Fear. Bravery.
The Emerald Potion, the Drink of Despair, causes pain, fear, thirst. Fear, what a lovely, addictive thing, and Regulus only realized at the edge of his life. He cried at the end, the entire time. They say that half the pain of drowning is the fear, the panic that shoots through one’s body as the lungs are violated, as the machinery of vitality is operated incorrectly. The fear was almost more physical than the water, than the hands of the dead. He almost wanted to laugh.
He looked death in the face and called it valuable. Worth it. He was dying. He was dying for the sake of his brother finding peace in his new home. He was dying for Barty, who would never find what he was searching for in Voldemort’s empty promises. He was dying for his family’s right to a future. He was dying for himself. He was dying for wizardkind. He was dying for magic.
Yes. His mother used to say to him that the valuable things are the ones worth being afraid for.