Chapter Text
Regulus was going to die.
Of course, everyone dies, but to him, it always seemed like some faraway prospect, some untouchable idea that he never bothered to contemplate. He was safe, he was capable, he was unafraid. He was an idiot, nothing but a sheltered child. He should have known this day would come.
Now, he knew his death was coming. He knew the moment that Kreacher came back and told him what happened. He knew the moment he realized what the Dark Lord was hiding. Sometimes, he thought that he knew the moment he’d let the Dark Lord brand him.
Despite all of this, the concept of his death didn’t fully set in until he felt the first brush of cold water against his arm. He’d thought that he'd accepted his death, could even feel comforted by it, but as nails tore at his flesh and water filled his lungs, he wondered if he should have fought to survive a little harder.
The Dark Lord asked to borrow his house elf only a few short but eventful months after Regulus graduated from Hogwarts. Regulus allowed the Dark Lord to borrow Kreacher because what other choice did he have? One didn’t say no to the Dark Lord unless they wanted to meet a painful end.
Kreacher was missing for a long time, two full days, but when he finally returned, he was shaking and vomited on his feet. Regulus had never seen a house elf get ill before, especially not to the point of retching. It disturbed him deeply. With limited skill, he did his best to care for the old elf while hiding him from his parents.
Once Kreacher was well enough to speak, Regulus asked him about what had happened. He hadn’t commanded Kreacher to do anything in a long time, always asking and waiting rather than forcing his actions. His mother always called him weak for that. He never knew if she was right.
"The Dark Lord took Kreacher to a cave, Master Regulus," Kreacher said in a shaky, grating voice.
"What cave?" Regulus asked. He almost didn't want to know, learning the Dark Lord's secrets could mean a death sentence, even if it was done by accident. Only the indignation from watching his house elf suffer pushed him to learn more.
"A cave so dark that Kreacher could not see the water. The Dark Lord summoned a boat from the depths of the water filled with the dead. They reached for Kreacher, but Kreacher escaped. The Dark Lord told Kreacher to drink the potion. It was dark, but Kreacher could not disobey. Master Regulus told him to do anything the Dark Lord asked."
"Water filled with the dead?" Regulus breathed. Only later would he understand that they were inferi, tugging at the body of his house elf. Kreacher looked up at him with dry eyes, fear like Regulus had never seen on his aged face. "What did the potion do?"
"It made Kreacher see the other elves. Their heads spoke to Kreacher, warned Kreacher that Kreacher would die."
Regulus could picture it perfectly, the decapitated head of the other elves speaking to Kreacher from beyond the grave. He must have been terrified.
"Kreacher was in pain. Kreacher was very thirsty. The Dark Lord left him. He placed a locket in the basin and filled it with more of the potion. Kreacher thought the Dark Lord would make him drink again, but the Dark Lord left. Kreacher was dying."
"Dying?" Regulus gasped. He'd known, distantly, that when Kreacher returned to him in such a horrible state that he was dying, but it was different hearing it confirmed.
"Master Regulus told Kreacher to always return to him, so Kreacher returned."
Regulus remembered feeling dizzy and lost after hearing Kreacher's tale. When he was slightly more grounded, he asked to hear it again, and Kreacher described it all willingly. Giving dark details about the cave, the water filled with dark creatures, and the torturous potion.
Many mysteries remained, but one thing was clear. Kreacher had been left there to die, discarded like a piece of rubbish. The Dark Lord hadn’t known that Regulus told Kreacher to always return to him, no matter the circumstances.
The Dark Lord had tried to kill Kreacher; he’d nearly succeeded, and Regulus couldn’t let it go.
Regulus spent the next few weeks attempting to identify what the Dark Lord was hiding in the cave. The Dark Lord had let it slip that it was an object of great importance, and based on Kreacher’s limited description, Regulus knew the object had to be something made of exceptionally dark magic. It couldn't be a weapon. The Dark Lord would have kept it nearby. It had to be something that could be kept out of reach, something that needed a permanent and safe place.
He divided his time between that and researching the potion Kreacher was forced to drink. This, he found quickly. The Black family library had books on all kinds of dark and dangerous potions.
The Emerald Potion, or the Drink of Despair, caused extreme physical pain and thirst, as well as hallucinations and fear. It caused the drinker to grow weak and powerless, though it was unclear how long these effects would last. Kreacher was able to fight off the side effects due to his elvish nature, but a human? That part was unclear. Worse yet, there were no details on survival. At least it seemed like most poor souls that had taken the potion in the past died shortly after, usually by the hand of the person who made the potion—a pity killing.
Regulus tried to come to terms with the fact that he could die if he went ahead with this plan. At the very least, he tried to come to terms with the immense suffering he would have to endure just to get to the object. He had never been good with pain. If he survived, it would be a long road back to health.
Once he discovered what a Horcrux was, he knew he would never make it out of that cave. The blood sacrifice, the potion, the inferi; it was all meant to keep a thief there permanently. The Dark Lord wouldn’t set a trap without preempting all possible means of escape, and Regulus wasn’t one to underestimate someone so powerful. He knew he would have to go into the cave and drink the potion to steal the Horcrux, and after that, he would succumb to the potion or kill himself to escape its punishment.
There was a small, shameful part of him that wanted Kreacher to drink the potion again, but he shoved that aside with all the self-hatred he could muster, a considerable amount given the last few years of his life.
He thought, briefly, that maybe Kreacher could pull him out of the cave, but he knew from the off that anti-apparition wards made by the Dark Lord himself would keep him there. Not to mention that if he made it out, he would be hunted down for his betrayal. Killed, if he was lucky, but more likely tortured into insanity. His family would follow, no doubt. When the Dark Lord learned of the betrayal, his mother and cousins would be tortured and slain.
And who knew when the Dark Lord would stop, who else he would go after to punish Regulus? The thought twisted in his stomach like a deadly poison. Regulus couldn’t risk it. He wouldn’t risk it.
In the end, it couldn’t be helped. That was the thought that Regulus settled on, at least. He briefly considered contacting his brother, but it had been so long since they last spoke, since that last night before Sirius escaped. Sirius would never believe him, and even if he did, Sirius thought he was beyond help, beyond saving. Of course, Sirius was right. Regulus had lost his chance at salvation a long time ago. He thought about telling… well, he mostly tried not to think about telling him.
There was no guarantee that either of them would even listen long enough for him to explain. With this war waging, they would probably kill him on sight. No, he was alone, just like he thought he'd always wanted, and his death was on the horizon.
It can’t be helped. He repeated this in his head as he inched closer to his death.
It can’t be helped. He tidied his room for the last time. He wouldn’t be returning, but he couldn’t bear to leave a mess.
It can’t be helped. He steadied himself to write his final letter.
To the Dark Lord, he scrawled, grateful that his hand wasn’t shaking.
I know I will be dead long before you read this, but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more. - R.A.B.
He wondered if the Dark Lord would even know who ‘R.A.B.’ was or if he'd have to ask Severus to remind him.
It can’t be helped. Kreacher apparated him to the entrance of the cave. The cold ocean air cut through him in an instant. He hadn’t worn a cloak. The warmth wouldn’t save him anyhow.
It can’t be helped. He cut his hand and summoned the boat to take him over the water. It was truthfully impressive how the Dark Lord was more dramatic than Sirius.
It can’t be helped. He gave Kreacher his final instruction.
“You will force me to drink the potion, then you will take the Horcrux and go.”
Kreacher shook his head violently, tears in his eyes. Regulus didn’t like forcing Kreacher to do things, but there was no room for error here. Kreacher needed to follow through. “Tell no one what happened here tonight. Mother will ask you where I am, but you are not to tell her. Destroy the locket, please.”
Kreacher made an awful choking noise. Regulus ignored it.
He took a steadying breath and drank the first sip of the potion. He was surprised by its almost pleasant taste; he expected that a potion of such torture would taste bitter, but instead, it tasted like a floral tea. It only took a few seconds before the potion’s effects took hold of him. He was only able to drink one more cup of it before his hands shook too badly to do it himself. Kreacher forced the next cup down his throat.
“Please,” Regulus begged against the ache in his bones. Kreacher was gone, though; in his place stood Orion, Regulus’s father.
“Be thankful that you are not smart enough to disobey me,” he groused. “If you disappoint me, Sirius will suffer for it.” His father spoke in the stern voice that always filled the room with a dark cloud. His father was like smog, the way he permeated every space he entered, never screaming like his mother, but lingering as a constant reminder of what he could do.
“Please, no more,” Regulus begged him.
He never begged his father for anything. Once, as a child, he witnessed Sirius begging for food after his mother locked him in his room for several days without it. His father slapped Sirius across the face so hard that Sirius blacked out. Regulus ran toward him, but one look from his father stopped him in his tracks. He froze under that dark glare and knew then never to beg, not that Sirius learned the same lesson. But now, he had no choice but to. The potion made him feel like his veins were fighting to disentangle themselves from the rest of his body.
He burned and shivered and ached, and finally, he gasped, “Please.”
“You must understand,” Orion responded. “You are the heir now. You are the next Master of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Act like it. If you do not, I will make sure you never make the same mistake again. We cannot afford another misstep. We cannot afford to lose another heir.”
“I don’t want to be the heir,” Regulus said pitifully, choking as the potion was tipped into his mouth. “I don’t want to be head of the family. It’s Sirius, he should be the heir.”
“DO NOT SAY THAT NAME! You do not have a brother,” his mother spoke; his father had now vanished. “If I hear you mention his name ONE more time, you will not leave this room for the rest of the summer. He is dead to you, to all of us.” His mother was always so combative with Sirius. Not that she wasn’t combative with everyone else, including Regulus, but Sirius seemed to spark a unique form of hatred from within her.
“I’m sorry,” Regulus said, hoping she would leave him be. Sometimes she would follow through on threats even if he didn’t do anything else wrong.
“Anything the Dark Lord asks from you, you must give him. Do you understand?” his mother asked, forcing another cup of potion into his mouth. Regulus sputtered at first, but eventually managed to swallow it. “Anything.”
Regulus felt bile rise in his throat. The look in her eye when she spoke was so demented that Regulus felt like he was being skinned alive.
“He’s crazy,” Regulus whispered. He didn’t want anyone to hear him. The Dark Lord could never hear him. “I can’t do what he asked. He’s insane.”
“You’re just like the rest of them,” Sirius spat.
“Please, brother,” Regulus begged. His mouth was so dry, his voice croaking painfully when he tried to speak. Sirius had to understand, that he was trying to do the right thing, he was trying to fix it.
“James is my brother,” Sirius said, a look of pure rage marring his face. “You are nothing to me. Nothing but a waste of my time.” Regulus could feel hot tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Please, no,” Regulus begged. “It’s me, I’m your brother. Please, Sirius. I’m sorry.”
“I can’t even look at you,” James spoke, his voice low with betrayal and hurt, his eyes both glassy and hard, resolute.
“No,” Regulus said weakly. Not James, please, not James.
“I loved you, Regulus. How could you do this?”
Regulus felt like those words had once been spoken with great sorrow, but now they were said with anger, with hatred. Loved. Past tense. The worst word in the English language.
“I’m sorry,” Regulus tried to say, his voice coming out as a raspy whisper. “Please.”
“It’s not enough, Regulus,” James said fiercely. “You’re not enough, not anymore.” Regulus didn’t want to hear anymore, and the potion had stopped coming. James was gone then, and Regulus was alone. Thankfully and horribly alone. He was so thirsty, desperate for water. He crawled and crawled, dragging himself along the stone floor.
But the water brought only pain. Dead hands began to claw at his skin, dragging his drained body deep into the depths. The scratches along his cheeks and into his eyes caused him to scream out, but he couldn't produce a sound. Water filled his lungs, a painful burn that destroyed him from the inside out. In his final moment of clarity, he wished he had fought harder, that he had run away with Sirius, that he had stood up to his parents, that he hadn’t taken the mark, that he had let James save him.
He woke to the feeling of nausea rolling through him, his body shivering against the cold. He'd barely moved before he was forced to vomit up what tasted like water, blood, and bile. He began to drag himself along what felt like rocks, the room black and empty. He was frozen, his body drenched in icy water, and his muscles throbbing painfully. He collapsed, thankfully not in his own vomit, and let the exhaustion hold him there for a while.
He didn’t know where he was or what was going on. He tried to think about what he was doing before this, but all he could remember was pain, fear, and water. He searched through the dark, but he couldn’t even tell if his eyes were open or closed; only blackness greeted him.
“Kreacher,” he tried to say. His voice was scratchy, and his throat raw from the salt, it stung to speak, but he needed help. “Kreacher,” he said a little louder. “Kreacher, help me.” He wasn't sure he'd actually made a sound. The blackness was all-consuming, blocking his senses. If it weren't for the sharpness of the rocks pressing into his skin, he couldn't be certain gravity was still in play.
Pop.
A faint sound, indiscernible in direction or distance. Maybe it was a rock slipping between his ribs, and he wouldn't have to fight it much longer. He could feel the exhaustion claiming him and surrendered to it again, desperate for respite from the torture he was experiencing. The last thing he heard was a shaky voice saying “Master Regulus” right into his ear.
The next time Regulus opened his eyes, he was at home in his bed. He had never felt so grateful to wake up at Grimmauld. He often felt claustrophobic in the house after Sirius left, though he kept that specific opinion to himself rather than risk the ire of his parents. At that moment, though, there was nowhere he would rather have been than at home.
He tried to move, to sit up, but his body rebelled against him. He was made of pain.
“Kreacher,” he called, and was shocked to hear the voice that came out. It was more high-pitched than he expected, too high-pitched. “What?” he spoke again. Why did he sound like that? He tried to recall what he was doing before he went to bed, but his memories were fuzzy, like he was trying to access a dream. The harder he tried to remember, the more the memories slipped away.
Pop.
Before he had too much time to spiral, Kreacher appeared next to him. Kreacher looked old, older than the last time Regulus had seen him, more tired and worn out perhaps. He had always been a wrinkly thing, old by the time Regulus was born, but now he looked like age had eaten away at him. Like the very act of living was too much for his small body.
“Master Regulus is awake,” he said in his gravelly voice.
“Will you bring me a pain relief potion?” Regulus asked. He cringed at the high-pitched voice that came out of him, but for the moment, his physical pain took priority. Kreacher popped away and popped back a second later with a small vial. Regulus gulped it down quickly, already feeling the potion work to soothe his stressed muscles. With the painful cloud clearing in his head, he finally had a chance to wonder about what was going on. “What happened?”
These seemed to be the magic words to crack Kreacher's exterior walls because the moment Regulus asked, Kreacher broke down in tears. He was blubbering and shivering violently, his small hands gripping onto Regulus’s arm as he stood at his bedside. Regulus thought he caught the words “poison” and “locket” and “dead,” but it was difficult to make out most of it through all the crying.
“Kreacher, calm yourself and tell me—” Regulus cut himself off as the memories of the cave flooded back into him. The Horcrux, the potion, the pain, his father, his mother, Sirius, James, the thirst, the water, the hands, it all came back in a flash, and Regulus suddenly understood why Kreacher was so upset. “How am I alive?”
“Master Regulus told Kreacher to leave him behind, but then he called Kreacher back. Kreacher listened to Master Regulus,” Kreacher said, around a few more sobs. Kreacher was clearly distraught. Regulus knew he would be, being forced to leave his master to die could not have been easy.
“How? I didn’t think that you could apparate me out of the cave."
“Kreacher could not apparate an adult,” Kreacher answered and gave Regulus an indecipherable look. Yes, Regulus was young, only eighteen when he went into the cave, but he was still an adult. Yet the look Kreacher was giving him made him wonder if maybe there was something he wasn’t being told.
“What?” Regulus asked, his brain still working too slowly to form a full response.
“Master Regulus is not how Kreacher left him,” Kreacher said mysteriously.
“What do you mean, Kreacher?” Regulus reached his hands up to feel his face. He remembered the feeling of the claws against his eyes and the skin of his face, but he didn’t find wounds beneath his fingertips. His skin was soft and unmarked.
“Master Regulus must look at himself.”
Regulus sat up immediately, thankful that the pain relief potion had done its job so that he could move freely. He jumped out of bed and made his way into his bathroom. The moment he looked in the mirror, he understood what was wrong.
He was much shorter than expected, for one, though that was hardly the most pressing issue. He was young, far younger than he should be, maybe ten or eleven. It was hard to gauge exactly. He had always been small for his age, much shorter than his classmates and Sirius; he hadn’t hit a growth spurt until he was fifteen.
“Kreacher, I don’t understand,” Regulus whispered, touching his face in wonder. His tiny fingers brushed against his skin. He looked down at his hands in wonder and confusion.
“Kreacher does not know, Master Regulus. Master Regulus has been gone for a long time.” Regulus whipped his head around to look at the elf, who was rubbing his hands together anxiously, the way he did when Regulus would ask Kreacher to disobey something his mother had explicitly told him to do. It wasn’t something he had seen Kreacher do in a long time, and it immediately put Regulus on edge.
“How long have I been gone?” Regulus asked.
Kreacher gave him a long look before answering. “Kreacher left Master Regulus twelve years ago.”
Regulus suddenly felt very disconnected from his body. Twelve years. He had been in that cave for twelve years, and he came back as a child? None of it made sense. He felt his knees buckle below him, but he barely registered it, falling to the floor and curling up in a tight ball. How was this even possible? How could he have survived at all? Was this some bizarre afterlife? It felt so real, but he wondered if this was a punishment or perhaps a hallucination right before he succumbed to death.
Kreacher forced a calming draught down his throat, and it was only then that Regulus noticed that he was having a panic attack, his breathing dangerously close to hyperventilation. Regulus had a lot of them the year following his breakup with James, and Kreacher had become exceptionally equipped to help. Once he swallowed the potion with Kreacher's help, he slowly began to feel semi-normal again.
The sound of Kreacher saying ‘twelve years’ kept playing over and over again in his head.
What must everyone think? Surely, he was declared dead after he went into the cave. He expected that to happen, the family trees would update by magic, but did they update if he came back to life? Did anyone look for him? Did the Dark Lord ever discover how he died or why he went missing? What became of everyone he'd left behind? And most importantly, what became of the Horcrux?
“The locket?” he asked first, trying to limit the scope of how much he didn’t know. Kreacher immediately burst into tears again, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Kreacher tried to destroy it, Master Regulus. He tried everything he could think of, but it could not be destroyed.” His words were difficult to understand through the painful crying.
“Where is it?” Regulus asked distantly once Kreacher had stopped wailing.
“Kreacher has kept it safe, Master Regulus. Kreacher has hidden it.”
So if the locket was not destroyed, that meant that the Dark Lord was most likely still alive. Like a knee-jerk reaction, Regulus shoved up the sleeve of his shirt, a pajama shirt he noted, though he had no memory of dressing himself in it, and found nothing but smooth, unblemished skin. He hadn’t been marked. Of course, he wasn’t. He didn’t receive the mark until he was sixteen.
Would the mark reappear when his body turned sixteen again? Would he even continue to age? Was he permanently stuck in his eleven-year-old body? The answers seemed too far out of reach to access, and there was nothing he could do about them yet.
“Kreacher, I need to know what has happened since I left.”
There was so much that Regulus didn’t know. What became of his mother? Did the Dark Lord target his family after he was gone? What happened to everyone else? Were they still fighting against him? Was Sirius? Was James?
James. What had James thought when Regulus disappeared? Did he mourn him? Unlikely, a snide voice said in his head. He was probably just relieved, if he even thought of Regulus at all. Would he be surprised to find out that Regulus was still alive? Regulus forced the thoughts away; he had no way of knowing yet, and the questions were doing his head in. Kreacher looked just as overwhelmed as Regulus felt.
“Is Mother here?” he asked. It seemed a more pressing question than whether the Dark Lord had looked for him. Surely, he wouldn’t know that Regulus just reappeared, unless his mother had contacted him.
“Mistress died many years ago. Kreacher tried to help her, but she took ill once Master Regulus disappeared.”
So his mother was dead. He was surprised that he felt no sadness. Yes, his mother was a monster in many ways, but she was still his mother. Yet, all Regulus felt was relief that she was gone. The thought that she grew sick after he disappeared was surprising to Regulus. It was likely that the death of her last heir brought too much shame for her. He doubted it was because she cared about him. He had given up on that notion a long time ago, nothing but a foolish boyhood hope that his mother might love him as a mother should.
“Who owns this house then?” he asked. He had tried not to think about it before, but now it seemed pressing. He was unsure of who would take his place as heir after his death.
“The filthy blood traitor was made heir after Master Regulus left,” Kreacher answered, his voice venomous and hateful.
“Sirius?” Was his brother restored as heir? Had his mother been that desperate? Surely there were others in line behind him. He wondered what his brother thought when he disappeared. He must have found it hilarious when Regulus’s death led to his reinstatement to the family. Though Sirius was always quick to shed the weight of the Black family from his shoulders, Regulus always did wonder if he would regret it one day. Turns out that Sirius never needed to behave, or fall in line—Regulus only needed to die.
“Kreacher has not seen him. He is locked away with Mistress Bellatrix.” Kreacher’s voice took on an air of sadness when he said Bellatrix's name. He almost sounded wistful.
“Locked away?” Regulus asked, his eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t like to think about Bellatrix, especially Kreacher’s love for her.
“In Azkaban, Master Regulus.” Kreacher sounded regretful and sad while saying it, but Regulus was sure that sadness only extended to his cousin, not his brother.
“Bellatrix is in Azkaban? Sirius is in Azkaban?” Regulus could hear his voice rising in panic again, but the calming draught seemed to ground him enough to keep going. “Why? What happened?”
“Kreacher does not know. Filthy blood traitor returned to the Dark Lord, Mistress said.” Had his brother turned sides? When and how did that happen? His brother had spent so much of his life opposing everything the Dark Lord stood for, and then he went to work for him? Was he forced? Or perhaps imperiused or tortured into it? Was the draw of reclaiming his position in the family enough to sway Sirius?
“When did this happen?” Regulus asked, his voice taking on a nervous, anxious tone despite the calming draught.
“Many years ago, Master Regulus.” This seemed to be Kreacher’s designated answer. Regulus wondered how long the house elf had been alone in Grimmauld and how long it had been since Kreacher had spoken to another living being. Regulus put that aside for the time being as there were more pressing matters.
“And the Dark Lord?” Regulus asked regretfully, he almost didn’t want to know.
“The Dark Lord was destroyed.”
After that, Regulus lost the plot again. It took him far longer than was proper to return to any kind of coherent thought, and by that point, Kreacher seemed too fearful to answer any other questions Regulus had. In the end, Regulus requested that Kreacher bring him every copy of the Prophet that they still had in the house, which ended up being just about every single one published up until the death of his mother.
It was reading through those that made Regulus wish he had never crawled out of that cave. The Dark Lord had targeted James’s son and had gone to their house based on information given by Sirius. Sirius, who was James’s best friend. Sirius, who called James his brother. The Dark Lord killed them, James and Lily, but he could not manage to kill their son. The Boy Who Lived, they coined him. James was dead, his James was dead. Or not his James, he corrected. Lily’s James.
He thought of the last conversation he had with James, that night in the Astronomy Tower when Regulus confided in him about the cowardly choice he’d made, when Regulus showed him the mark branding him for life, and James had yelled at him for the first and only time. He thought of the look in James’s eyes as he broke Regulus into tiny, little pieces.
James went to Lily after, which Regulus knew was coming. James had always been infatuated with Lily, and once he was free from Regulus, the two of them came together, as they were always meant to. Regulus remembered watching them from afar, his heart falling into the soles of his feet as he watched James kiss Lily’s cheek or watch Lily laugh brightly at something James whispered in her ear. He knew they had gotten married, that happened before he went to the cave, but he didn’t know they had a child, a son. Harry.
A son who apparently had destroyed the Dark Lord, at least temporarily. There was no way that he was truly gone, not if the locket still existed. Regulus found it later in the house, following Kreacher's directions to where the locket was displayed in the parlor. It was cold to the touch, so cold that it almost burned his skin, and in the first moment he held it, he could hear James yelling again.
He put it back in the parlor eventually, deciding to keep his distance until he knew what to do with it.
It took just over a week for him to recover from the cave, not nearly as long as he'd expected, considering how terrible he felt when he first returned. He spent most of that week reading up on everything that happened after he disappeared, which likely prolonged his recovery. Reading about Sirius’s betrayal was the worst of it all, somehow worse than discovering that James was dead. Sirius had betrayed his best friends, then attacked Peter Pettigrew, killing him and twelve Muggles in the process. How could he have done that?
He stared at the picture of Sirius’s manic laughing face for what felt like hours. The Sirius that Regulus knew would never have betrayed them, let alone killed innocents. He felt sick to his stomach every time he thought about it, and then, eventually, when that faded, he felt only rage. It was easier to be angry than to be consumed by the wretched desolation that came with knowing that, in the end, Sirius was just as bad as everyone else in their family. He wanted to strangle his brother. How dare he kill James? Easier, but it was still nearly too much to handle, and Regulus felt like he was drowning in the anger.
Some moments, he would drown in denial. Not Sirius, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. But then, who else? He would picture Sirius, his moving photo in the Daily Prophet. His brother had gone mad. That was the only explanation. In his moments of rage, he wished that he had never helped him escape. He should have let their mother kill him. Every time he thought about his brother, or about James, he disconnected even further from himself. He struggled to believe that he was alive and not just a ghost who’d returned in his childhood form. He hardly left his bed for the first few weeks after his meltdown. He felt weak and, admittedly, afraid of what the outside world held. He was just lucky that Kreacher was there to take care of him, otherwise, he would have rotted like the corpse he was.
The days began to drag after a while, and though his feelings about his own death and everything that had happened after were still loud enough to echo off the walls, he knew he would need to put everything aside if he wanted to move forward. Besides, there was an unending feeling of arrested development when it came to unraveling all the horrible things that had happened to him and seemingly everyone he ever cared about. There wasn't anything he could do for them besides grieve, and even that seemed useless to him.
He didn't want to dwell in it, not anymore. He'd spent so long mourning before he died, he didn't need to do it post-death as well.
So he decided he couldn't continue on as he had been. He did what he did best and set the strictest guidelines he could for himself, barriers he wouldn't allow himself to cross. He used his well-honed Occlumency skills to build up a wall between himself and what Sirius had done, a wall between himself and James’s death, a wall between himself and the life he’d sacrificed needlessly.
He put it all away and focused on what he could actually do.
The Dark Lord was still out there somewhere, the locket still existed, and he needed to destroy it. And if what he had read was any indication, then James’s son, Harry, was in danger. At first, he wondered if perhaps Harry had died later, at some point after his mother’s death, but when Kreacher brought him the most recent Prophet, he knew Harry was still alive.
It was front-page news that The Boy Who Lived would be attending Hogwarts that year. It was this information that helped Regulus create a plan. He had no idea why he had survived the cave and even less of an idea of why he suddenly looked like he was eleven years old, but regardless, he intended to use this to his advantage.
The Dark Lord must still be in hiding. It seemed his body was destroyed when he tried to kill Harry, and without the locket, Regulus wasn’t sure that he could be properly revived. Regardless, Regulus couldn't let the Dark Lord return, nor could he allow him to exist in any form.
Regulus needed to kill him.
The first time he left his room was a full three weeks after he returned from the cave. The house was dusty and dark. Though it had always been a dark place, the dust and dankness were new. He wondered why Kreacher had allowed it to fall into disarray, but decided not to mention it. It was clear that the decade had been very hard on the house elf, and Regulus had no desire to make that worse. His deceased mother’s portrait on the wall was the biggest shock, though. She spotted Regulus as he was coming down the stairs.
“Regulus?” she asked, her voice filled with shock and awe.
“Mother,” Regulus greeted politely. He was still dressed in his pajamas, he remembered his mother once locking him in his room for a full day because he left it without dressing like a proper pureblood. She didn’t seem to notice now, though.
“You’re alive,” she said with a sharp smile. “I should have known. My only son. You look so different from the last time I saw you.” Regulus felt unease creeping up his back, he desperately wanted the conversation to end. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, Regulus.”
Regulus forgot all his pureblood training at that moment. His mother had never been kind, even in a false way to lead someone into a trap like most Slytherins would. She would never have said she missed Regulus, even if she was alive to witness his miraculous reanimation. Regulus couldn’t stand another moment in her presence. He left as quickly as possible.
“Regulus,” his mother called. “Regulus, please come back, dear.”
Regulus had to suppress a shiver as he made his way into the kitchen. He wondered when she had the portrait made.
Portraits were only a reflection of who a person was when they were living, and even that was limited. When a magical portrait was brought to life, the person painted would be made up of what the painter knew about them. The more people who painted and animated the same person, the more accurate the portrait versions became. But if only one painter cast the spell, then that person’s portrait would be limited to only what one painter knew. It was clear that his mother was limited in this way. Even those who claimed to like her when she was alive would not have described her in the way she was presented in her portrait. He wondered how she would act in the presence of someone other than Regulus.
The first time he left the house was for a trip to Gringotts. He didn’t have any real clothes that fit him, but Kreacher had saved his wand, and thankfully, it still worked, so he transfigured himself an outfit out of one of his old robes, shrinking it down to size. He was surprised that his room and clothing remained clean despite the dishevelment the rest of the house was experiencing. He wondered if Kreacher had cleaned all his things when he came back or if Kreacher had kept them clean in the intervening years like a person worshiping at a shrine.
Regulus didn’t ask—he wasn’t sure he wanted to know—he only dressed and ventured out of the house.
He’d come to the conclusion, during the long days of his recovery, that attending Hogwarts was the only way to protect Harry. If he was going to protect the boy, then he needed to be where Harry was. Not to mention that outside of Hogwarts, he looked like an unsupervised child. He wouldn’t be of much use in the wizarding world, not yet.
But he didn’t think that he would show up in the registry again, which meant he had to work out a way to get an acceptance letter. The solution to this problem was brought up to him by Kreacher.
Kreacher told him that he was still part of the family magic, as Kreacher was still compelled to obey him. It was the only reason that Kreacher was able to hear his call in the cave. However, Kreacher told him that he had been removed as heir and may or may not have access to the family vaults and property. The goblins, Regulus knew, were experts on unusual magic, often having experiences that wizards could not even fathom. Regulus’s first task was to make his way to Gringotts to add himself back to the family.
“Hello, I need to speak to the goblin in charge of the Black family vaults,” Regulus said, his small voice sounding comical to his ears as he attempted to speak with authority.
“And who are you?” the goblin asked, leaning menacingly over the counter. The goblins had fascinated Regulus as a child. He often asked to visit Gringotts with his parents when they went, just so he could watch the creatures. Now, they just intimidated him.
“I am Regulus Black,” he responded, lifting his chin proudly.
The goblins in the main room sprang into action, guiding Regulus to one of the back offices and summoning the head goblin in charge. Regulus decided to trust the head goblin with his near-death experience, leaving out anything to do with the Dark Lord or his locket, but explaining how he had disappeared for twelve years, coming back in the body of a child. The goblin wouldn’t share his secret. Goblins hoarded secrets more intensely than they guarded wealth.
The goblin was stoic throughout Regulus’s explanation, but Regulus wasn’t surprised by this. Growing up in the family that he did, Regulus expected others to hold their emotions and information close to the chest. If anything, it made it easier for Regulus to confess the bizarre order of events that led him to seek help at Gringotts.
“I need to find a way to attend Hogwarts a second time,” Regulus said finally.
“It may be possible,” the goblin answered. For a price hung silently in the air between them. Regulus would need the goblins to help fabricate records of his existence, lying to the Ministry and Hogwarts. It was a difficult thing to manage, and it would not come cheaply.
“How?” Regulus asked, brushing passed the insinuation. If he had access to the family vaults, then he would have no problem paying them.
“You would need to be someone other than you were,” the goblin responded simply, like he was answering a riddle.
“Yes, that is obvious. But who?” Regulus asked, trying his best to keep his small voice even.
“Perhaps the child of someone in your family? Someone that others could not question?” The goblin had a particular glint in his eyes that Regulus had only seen when someone he knew had just come up with a dangerous scheme. It reminded him of Sirius when he was still young before he left for Hogwarts.
Oh no. The realization of what the goblin was implying was unpleasant at best, and downright horrid at worst.
“He is unreachable in Azkaban, and he is the head of House Black,” the goblin argued before Regulus could even respond.
“You want me to pretend to be my brother’s bastard child?” Regulus asked incredulously.
“I do not want anything, but you will need an identity in order to get a letter from Hogwarts,” the goblin answered. “And seeing as Regulus Black II has already graduated, it will have to be someone else. They will know who your family is regardless of your parentage.”
Regulus sighed deeply. His brother, the one who left him in that rotten, claustrophobic house, the one who disowned Regulus as his brother and replaced him with James, the one who betrayed James and led him to his death.
“Fine,” Regulus said unhappily. The goblin was right, no one else would be able to reach Sirius in Azkaban. If he were the only son of the Head of the House, then that gave him access to the vaults, which he would need in order to pay off the goblin to keep this all a secret. It was the only logical answer, and given Sirius’s reputation when they were in school, it wouldn’t be unheard of that he would have a bastard son. Of course, that meant Regulus would be known as a bastard by all the other pureblood children at school, but needs must, he supposed. He needed to protect Harry Potter.
Regulus left Gringotts that day not as Regulus Black II, born to Orion and Walburga Black in July of 1961, but as Regulus Black III, born to Sirius Black in July of 1980. He felt ridiculous pretending to be the son of his brother, but it did provide him with the perfect cover for who he was. By the time he next day dawned, he had his acceptance letter in hand for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.