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Waves lap at Regulus’ feet as he stares out at the sun hanging low over the horizon. James sits on the rock beside him, both enveloped in the comfortable silence. He takes a deep breath, preparing himself to be the one to break the beautiful silence that stretches between them. He needs to do this. James deserves this much.
“It all started back at Hogwarts; the summer Sirius left.” He breathes. James doesn’t react, he’s waited patiently for Regulus to drop his guards, to finally give James the whole truth. To be vulnerable. He’s waited a lot longer than the last half hour. He’s waited six years.
“Dorcas and I discovered the horcruxes together, from the ghost of Ravenclaw. The Grey Lady. We believed we were the only living souls who knew about them. When we discovered them we…she was scared, she insisted that we go to Dumbledore, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t allow it.” The memories of the arguments, of the curses cast from both wands, the screams and shouts as muggles fled the park grounds, the land beneath them shaking from the combined power of them both flashed before his eyes.
“I didn’t trust Dumbledore. For lack of a better term, he was too trustworthy. No-one who possesses the powers which he did could be trusted with the fate of our world.” He says gravely. James is still silent, staring at Regulus with an intensity he can feel burning into the side of his face.
“In the end, we arrived at a compromise. The secret would remain with us. We would attempt to destroy the horcruxes and Voldemort himself. And if one failed. If one died. the other would pass the information Dumbledore as a last resort, in the event their own life was at stake. We made the unbreakable vow to that effect” He sighs, now for the hardest truth. Tears prick at his eyes. He instinctually goes to swallow them down, before realising there’s no longer a reason to.
“I loved you. I loved you more than the air I breathed. I loved you more than Dorcas, and Evan, and Barty, and Pandora. I loved you so much that I had to do what I did. I had to let you go. Your happiness was my happiness. Your grief was my grief, I wanted you to be with Evans, to have a home with Greek mosaics above the kitchen counters, and a white picket fence like they have in the American movies, I wanted you to have two children, who you’d raise to be quidditch players, but not seekers, chasers, and to not feel guilty that you’d promised those things to me.” He chokes on a sob. James’ hand reaches out to wipe the tear from his face, and his calloused fingers feel exactly as they did at seventeen, behind the quidditch stands. They ignite the same warmth inside regulus, and if he still had one, he knows he’d feel the flutter of his heart through his chest.
“So I left you, I let you go, I took the mark and used all the strength within me to refrain from ripping the wretched ink from my skin.” Once again the memory’s flash before his eyes. Short visions as though watching the previews before a muggle film.
“The first horcrux we found was a ring. Dorcas… we tried everything. But deep-down, we both knew there was only one spell which could overpower an entity so sinister as a horcrux. Dorcas did it. I begged her not to. I even went as far as to imperio her, but she threw it off without me knowing. She used fiendfyre, she destroyed it, and she died along with the fragment of Voldemort’s soul. Engulfed by the embodiment of her fears, animated through flames stronger than those from the depths of Tartarus.” Tears continue to glide down his face, hot and itchy on his skin. Perhaps, for the virtuous, the afterlife is a gift lacking reverence for the life one has led. But not for Regulus. Regulus was never a good person, no matter how much he fucking tried.
“I thought Dorcas died by Voldemort’s wand.” James responds, tears flooding his own eyes as he dutifully wipes those from Regulus’.
“A fabrication. Dumbledore wouldn’t have wanted those loyal to him to know the truth. Similarly, I presume he will fabricate a story as to how the ring was apprehended and destroyed.” Regulus sighs, though he found that despite what the land of the living hold so dearly, legacy is not a thing one holds much reverence for in the afterlife. He can not bring himself to care what has been made of his memory now.
“The second horcrux was how I died. To this day, I believe I could have completed our mission, but as the war waged on and the shadows of those lost grew larger, lingering in the crevices of my mind, I found myself compensating with the foolish notion that maybe, just maybe, it was perhaps a blessing to allow dumbledore to continue my task. For what did I have left to live for. I stole the horcrux, but the price was… high. Too high for the state I was in back then. Kreature was with me in the cave as the Inferi dragged me closer to the lake. I gave him the horcrux, told him to destroy it, told him to tell Dumbledore everything, and told him to leave me. That I wanted to die. For the only way to destroy the heir to the most noble and ancient house of Black, was for him to destroy himself.” He chuckles to himself at the irony.
“In the end I died alone, and in vain. For selfishly, and perhaps irredeemably, the purpose of my entire mission, my entire existence, was for you and Sirius. For you to live the lives that I was never destined to live. To be happy, and carefree. But alas, here you are with me. Alone before a wide-wide sea.” He chuckles wetly again at the reference. “I always did like Michael Morpurgo. A story may be sad, but I lived my life believing that a happy ending can make up for that. He believed that too. Yet regardless, we always cry at endings.”
He turned to face James now, who was looking at him with wide, doe eyes. Beautiful and brown and glazed with tears. Regulus wishes he could have met his son. He wonders if he’s as beautiful as his father.
James cups Regulus’ face with both hands and looks at him with eyes filled with the kindness, and wonder they had before the terrors of war. Regulus feels as though he could fall into them, drowning in warmth rather than the cold of the icy lake. The marks of the Inferi are etched across his skin even now, and somehow he loves them. The marks and the scars. Because they remind him, tell him, promise him, that it’s over. Everything. Success or failure. Happiness or sadness. Light or dark. It’s all so irrelevant now.
“I loved her, Lily. I loved her with everything I had left. But it was not like you. I could never have loved her like I loved you, so fiercely and painfully that it tore me apart as I watched you tear yourself apart. I wanted to leave. To leave everything behind and join you once I heard, but I had to stay, for my son. For my family. But I never stopped loving you Regulus, never. Through it all I loved you, and even now, wherever we are, I’ll never stop. You’re so brave, my love, so brave.” James is still crying heavily, though he’s smiling though it all the same.
“Don’t cry.” Regulus whispers. Pleads more like. He hates seeing James sad. Seeing that beautiful smile glistening with tears he never got to shed in the land of the living.
“I can’t help it.” James chokes out, “I always cry at endings.”