Chapter Text
July
Time is a curious thing.
Ostensibly, it moves uniformly, each minute comprised of 60 seconds, and each minute inching a person closer to the Reapers's Sythe.
Yet it can behave strangely, with some minutes feeling like hours and some years passing like minutes.
On this balmy July afternoon, the seconds stretched into eternity.
Regulus's eyes blurred as he watched a blue bottle fly repeatedly crash into the window overlooking the garden, its iridescent body buzzing with desperation.
"Mr Black?" The reedy voice oozed over him like molasses leaking from a jar, slow and sticky, barely penetrating the fog of his thoughts.
With an effort, he tore his eyes from the window, only catching the tail end of the tutor's words. Swallowing his frustration, he nodded as the man dabbed a trembling handkerchief over his sweat-soaked brow.
"Your father has said it is imperative that you learn how to trade gold."
The words hung in the air, but Regulus felt as though they were meant for someone else—a different person who might care about such things.
The tutor's voice droned on, a distant murmur that mingled with the ticking of the ornate clock on the mantel.
His hand tightened around his quill, the nib digging into the parchment, leaving a small stain of slowly spreading ink creeping outward like a slow, tide.
Regulus's thoughts drifted with it, rising through the ceiling to the study above, where Sirius had once sat, receiving lessons directly from their father. The faint echo of Orion's pacing overhead was a steady reminder of the gap between them—of all that had been given to Sirius and all that was left for him.
Down here, in the parlour, everything felt smaller. The light was softer, diffused through heavy drapes that muted the room's colours. The furniture was comfortable but unremarkable, the air scented with lavender.
It was a room meant for afternoon tea, not for training the family's scion.
He shifted in his chair, his shoulders tensing as he tried to focus on the task at hand.
What use was learning to trade when the world outside was unravelling?
Regulus stared blankly at the ledger before him, the neat columns of numbers blurring into meaningless lines.
He pressed the quill to the page, but the ink refused to flow smoothly.
The parchment resisted.
His jaw clenched as the sweet and cloying scent of lavender filled his nostrils, almost choking him with its insistence on tranquillity.
What did gold matter when Mudbloods were polluting their world?
The thought sent a shiver of anger through him, his grip on the quill tightening further until it strained against his fingers.
The quill snagged, tearing a small hole in the parchment.
Regulus stared at the tear, its jagged edges fraying. He could almost hear his father's crisp and detached voice reminding him of the importance of maintaining his outward composure.
The Blacks had always believed in keeping a velvet glove on their iron fist—power was best wielded with a careful hand, from a distance, without sullying oneself in the dirt and blood of the battlefield.
As he watched the ink seep into the paper, spreading and darkening, something inside him shifted. The steady tick of the clock grew louder, each beat drumming in his ears, syncing with the pounding of his blood.
His fingers trembled as he set the quill down, the small gesture reverberating through the still air of the parlour.
He would write to Bellatrix.
He could almost see the words forming on the page and feel the weight of the parchment as he folded it, sealed it, and sent it off. She would know what to do and how to guide him to the place where he could finally take Mark and prove his loyalty to a cause that felt more real and urgent than anything his father had ever taught him.
Or paid someone to teach him.
August
The house lay shrouded in stillness as Regulus made his way upstairs, the salty taste of breakfast kippers lingering at the corners of his mouth. He slowed near the landing before his mother’s room, his steps hesitating as he considered paying her a visit.
His mother seldom left her room now, and even here on the landing, the mingled scents of sleeping potion and brandy wafted from beneath her door.
Regulus paused, his hand hovering near the doorknob, fingertips brushing the cool brass. He lingered there, listening, hoping for the soft murmur of her voice or the rustle of movement within. But there was only oppressive quiet, thick and unyielding.
A sigh escaped him, dissolving into the air as he continued up the stairs, past the array of ancestral portraits. The figures within their frames shifted as he passed, some cracking open an eye to regard him with vague disinterest, others continuing their rhythmic snoring, oblivious to the world outside their gilded borders.
At the top of the house, Regulus’s gaze flickered toward the larger room, which should, by right, be his but was instead kept as a shrine to Sirius.
For a moment, he considered stepping inside, drawn by the pull that room always seemed to exert on him.
Turning away, he grasped the knob to his bedroom, the familiar weight grounding him.
As he had instructed, Kreacher had placed this morning’s Prophet neatly on the bed, the parchment crisp and the ink glossy in the sunlight streaming from the window.
He sat down, the bed creaking under his weight, and unfolded the paper with a reverence akin to opening a holy text.
There, nestled between articles on Ministry decrees and Quidditch scores, was what he had been looking for.
A small, nearly unremarkable column detailing the unexplained death of John Ogilvie, the head of the Muggle Liaison office.
His lips twitched as a spark of satisfaction flared in his chest.
His grip on the paper tightened, the edges crinkling under his fingers as he leaned closer, losing himself in a reverie about the man's death.
The scene unfolded vividly in his mind: the Ministry official, seated comfortably in his office, surrounded by the trappings of power, feeling invincible in his position. Then, in an instant, that false sense of security shattered.
Regulus could almost hear the man's breath catch, could nearly see the widening of his eyes as the realisation dawned—the protections he had relied on were nothing against the Dark Lord’s reach.
The image was intoxicating. His heart beat faster, a thrill coursing through him as the scene played out in greater detail—the cold sweat beading on the man's brow, the sudden lurch of fear in his gut, the dawning horror that there was no escape. The Dark Lord was everywhere and nowhere, a shadow that could not be outrun, a power that could not be denied. And this Ministry official, with all his titles and influence, had discovered that too late.
His breath hitched, and he imagined what it would be like to witness that fear in someone’s eyes and know that he had caused it, that he held the power to shape their fate. The anticipation was overwhelming, and a hunger that had been growing in him for so long was beginning to consume him.
An image of Bellatrix formed in his mind, and a current of excitement ran through him.
His pulse quickened, a rush of heat flooding through him as her dark, intense eyes flashed before him—eyes that burned with a fire both mesmerising and terrifying—a gaze so reminiscent of his mother’s yet far more dangerous.
His skin prickled with a mix of fear and exhilaration, as if her presence, even in memory, had the power to consume him.
It was she who had first told him about the Dark Lord.
She who had valued him.
She who had seen something worth nurturing.
Worth guiding toward its full potential.
And it would be she who would be with him when he took the Mark.
The moonlight had transformed Bellatrix's beauty into something otherworldly, and he could not look away. His breath caught in his throat as she seemed to glow with a power that made his chest tighten.
She was no longer just his cousin—she was something more. A Goddess who had deigned to appear before her acolyte.
Without a word, she reached out, her hand cool as it slipped into his. The touch sent a tingle across his body.
The firm grip she held guided him into the shadowy depths of the forest, and he followed as eager as a puppy on his first walk.
Gnarled branches stretched out like skeletal fingers, their dense canopy creating a cathedral-like stillness. Star and moonlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, casting dappled silver patterns that flickered and danced on the forest floor as the branches swayed above.
The air thickened with the scent of damp earth and moss. Soft, yielding ground muffled their steps as they moved closer to the task that would prove him and make him a man.
The weight of his best dress robes pressed on his torso like armour, and a breeze, carrying a whispered promise of autumn, cooled the sweat pooling beneath the heavy folds.
The prisoners were being held in a clearing, deep into the forest, where their screams would be swallowed by the night.
Bellatrix paused, turning to him, her fingers stroking the back of his hand.
He drank her in. She seemed as though she belonged here as if the darkness and the trees were an extension of her essence.
“Are you ready, Regulus?” she whispered, her voice barely more than a breath as she leaned towards his ear, and the scent of her musky perfume filled his nose.
He nodded, though his heart pounded in his chest. This was the moment he had been dreaming of for so many years. The moment he would prove his worth, his loyalty. He had been chosen for this, and the pride that swelled within him was almost overwhelming.
Her lips brushed against his cheek, hot and searing, as she kissed him three times, each touch sending a jolt through his body. His free arm twitched involuntarily, a desperate urge to pull her closer, to hold her there, to keep the warmth of her mouth lingering on his skin.
But then she drew back, her full lips curving into a smile as sharp as a blade.
“Bring the body to him, and you will be one of us.” Her words were both a command and a promise.
He had become death itself as he moved through the forest—merciful, righteous death here to collect recompense for a man’s sins. The man had been given a ten-minute head start, but it had hardly mattered. Regulus advanced with a calm, unhurried stride, his wand resting at his side.
No need to rush; the prey was already broken, his strength sapped by months of starvation in the Lestranges' dungeon.
Just ahead of him, his quarry staggered through the dense undergrowth, his frail body swaying with each uncertain step as though a mere whisper of wind might topple him.
Twigs snapped beneath his bare, blistered feet, and his laboured breaths echoed through the woods like the rasping gasps of a dying animal.
Regulus felt almost disappointed by the ease of it, as if this task should have been more challenging, more worthy of his skills.
A twisted root ensnared the man’s foot, wrenching him forward. He crashed to the ground with a pained yelp, leaves, twigs and dirt clinging to his tattered clothes as he clawed his way back up, desperation gleaming in his sunken eyes as he looked back at his hunter.
The acrid scent of his fear hung so heavy in the air that Regulus could almost taste it.
Minutes later, Regulus had stepped over the same twisted root with effortless grace.
As the man's pace faltered further, Regulus felt the moment settle around him like the hush before a storm.
He lifted his wand and uttered the incantation in a clear, steady voice.
"Petrificus Totalus."
A burst of light shot forward, striking between the shoulder blades.
The man's body seized, limbs locking in place as he pitched forward. A sharp crack resounded as his face collided with a low-hanging limb, followed by the dull thud of his body meeting the forest floor. The impact sent a flurry of dried leaves into the air, their brittle edges whispering against one another.
Regulus approached schooling his face into a mask of cold indifference.
The man's chest heaved beneath the remnants of his soiled robes, each breath shallow and ragged. In the moonlight, the protruding ridges of his ribs cast stark shadows across his bruised flesh, and the stench of an unwashed body and stale blood permeating the space between them.
But as Regulus raised his wand once more, the incantation of the killing curse poised on his tongue, a sudden paralysis gripped him.
One that jarred against the righteousness he had clung to moments before.
The man's gaunt face lay before him, eyes closed, chapped lips trembling as he fought for each breath.
The seconds stretched into an unbearable eternity, and Regulus found himself rooted to the spot, unable to move. Every fibre of his being screamed at him to finish it, but his body refused to obey.
The man began to cry.
His tears cut clean paths through the grime that clung to his skin, tracing the hollow curves of his cheeks as they fell.
“Please—” the man croaked, his voice cracking with a desperation that clawed at Regulus’s insides.
Regulus’s mouth went dry, his heart pounding against his ribs with a force that left him breathless. His raised arm began to cramp, the tension building as his fingers tightened around the wand, knuckles whitening.
“Please—”
The repeated word hung in the air.
”The man is filth and scum. A vile stain of dishonour,” Regulus thought with the desperation of a prayer.
A tremor ran through him, starting in his arm and spreading through his entire body. His wand, once so steady, now shook as if trying to escape his grasp, and he could feel the sting of tears burning at the corners of his own eyes, threatening to spill over.
The man's sobs grew louder, more desperate.
“Please...” The man’s voice was barely more than a whisper now, his strength spent. His eyes fluttered open, glazed with pain and fear.
The man’s eyes were cornflower blue, bright and striking even in the dim light.
Regulus fought against the urge to look away, to flee from the unbearable weight of those eyes.
But he knew he couldn’t. There was no turning back. He had to finish it, had to prove himself—if not to the Dark Lord and Bellatrix, then at least to himself.
But the Killing Curse would not come.
Instead, a different spell tore from his lips, the word ripped from him like a desperate cry for release.
“Diffindo!”
The slicing charm slashed through the air, a blinding flash of light that cut through the man's throat with a sickening ease.
Blood misted the air.
Falling on the leaves like copper-scented rain as the man’s body convulsed, his eyes widening in shock and pain.
Regulus watched, frozen, as the light in those cornflower blue eyes flickered and died, leaving them glassy and lifeless.
The nausea him like a tidal wave,
He barely had time to stagger away from the body before he doubled over.
The bitter taste of bile burned his throat, mingling with the metallic tang of blood as he bit his lip.
His body convulsed with each heave.
All he could do was kneel among the moss and decaying leaves, the cold earth seeping through his robes.
His body trembled, the aftershocks of his retching rippling through his limbs. With a trembling hand, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the remnants of the celebratory meal Kreacher had prepared him across his chin.
He looked down, only to be met with the sight of the mess he had left behind—the vile evidence of his own weakness splattered across the ground.
A wave of self-loathing surged through him, his stomach churning once more at the sight of it. He couldn’t stand it, couldn’t bear to look at the physical manifestation of his failing resolve.
The image of Bellatrix’s approving smile flashed in his mind, a stark contrast to the pitiful state he found himself in now. He was supposed to be stronger than this, more controlled. But here he was, on his hands and knees like an animal.
With a desperate breath, Regulus reached for his wand, his grip unsteady as he pointed it at the mess before him. The word formed on his lips, a whisper tinged with desperation/
“Evanesco.”
The vomit vanished, leaving only a dark patch on the ground where it had been. But the taste still clung to his mouth, the sting of acid clawing at his throat like barbs.
A tightness gripped his chest.
He couldn’t breathe.
He was suffocating.
The world around him began to blur at the edges.
The erratic rhythm of his heart vibrated through his entire body.
It felt as if his chest might burst open.
His fingers tingled, growing numb as if the blood had drained from them entirely. His wand slipped from his grasp, hitting the ground with a soft thud, but he barely registered the sound.
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, trickling down his temples and into his eyes, blurring his vision further. He wiped at his face, but the sensation of his own skin against his fingertips felt foreign, disconnected.
His mind raced, thoughts spiraling out of control, tumbling over one another in a chaotic swirl.
He couldn’t focus, couldn’t grasp hold of anything solid.
The air felt thick, heavy in his lungs, as though he were trying to breathe through water.
His mouth opened and closed as he struggled for air, the panic rising like a tidal wave, crashing over him again and again, each wave more powerful than the last.
Time lost all meaning as he lay there, half buried in dead leaves.
He was drowning, and there was no way out.
But slowly, yet agonisingly, the tightness in his chest began to ease. His breath came in shallow, gasps, but it was air, sweet and life-giving. The pounding in his chest slowed, the thundering in his ears fading to a dull roar.
With a monumental effort, Regulus forced himself to sit up, his limbs weak and trembling, his entire body drenched in icy sweat. His hands still shook, but the wild terror had ebbed, leaving only a cold numbness in its wake.
He fumbled in his pocket for his handkerchief. The cotton a carress as he scrubbed as his chin and lips.
He had to finish this.
He had to prove himself.
Regulus opened his eyes, the forest coming back into focus. The body lay a few feet away.
He took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he had to do next.
With a flick of his wand, he cast the Levitation Charm, watching as the body lifted gently off the ground, suspended in mid-air like a grotesque marionette.
The man’s head lolled to one side, his eyes staring unseeing, and Regulus’s stomach churned again, but he swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat.
There could be no more weakness.
No more hesitation.
He guided the body through the trees, the motion slow and deliberate as he tried to keep his mind blank, focused only on the task at hand.
The clearing came into view once more, and Bellatrix stood waiting, her dark eyes gleaming as she watched him approach.
Regulus floated the body to her, his expression carefully blank, his emotions locked away behind a mask that threatened to shatter at any moment.
“Here,” he managed to say, his voice hoarse as he removed the levitation charm, and the corpse fell at Bellatrix’s feet.
Her smile was sharp and satisfied as she took in the sight of the dead man.
“Well done, Cousin”, she purred, her voice dripping with pride and something darker. “The Dark Lord will be most pleased.”
He forced himself to nod.
“Leave him here,” she said before she motioned for him to follow, gliding deeper into the forest.
Regulus trailed behind her, his wand clutched in his hand, though it now felt like it was made of lead.
The trees began to thin, and soon, a clearing emerged, bathed in the flickering light of seven torches blazing in a perfect circle around a stone altar.
The heat from the flames twisting and writhing as if locked in a battle with the cold air.
And, at the head of the altar, stood the Dark Lord.
He was almost supernatural, his face seemingly carved by God’s own hand. Power radiated from him, an energy that pulsed through the air around him.
“Regulus Black,” Voldemort’s voice was smooth, almost melodious, but there was a coldness beneath it that made Regulus’s breath catch. “You have proven yourself worthy, and you may enter the circle.”
The words sent a thrill through him, even as the memory of what he had done twisted in his gut.
He forced it down, focusing instead on the man before him, the man he had pledged his loyalty to even before this moment.
Regulus stepped forward from beneath the trees. The heat from the torches pressed against his skin as he moved past them, and a strange intoxication overcame him as magic shimmered across his body.
"Thank you, my Lord," he said, the words he had rehearsed to Kreacher rolling off his tongue like a script. "I pledge my undying loyalty and devotion to your cause. I am yours to command."
Bellatrix’s approving smile flickered at the edge of his vision, but Regulus hardly noticed. His attention was locked on Voldemort, whose scarlet-tinged eyes seemed to pierce through him.
“Come,” Voldemort commanded, his voice a seductive whisper. “Kneel.”
The word struck Regulus like a blow, sharp and cutting, slicing through the core of his pride. The very thought of kneeling felt like a betrayal of everything he had been taught, everything his name stood for. But he swallowed the indignation that burned in his chest. This was a necessary sacrifice, a temporary submission for a greater purpose.
He lowered himself to his knees, the cold earth biting through his robes.
This was the moment, the culmination of everything he had done and sacrificed.
A gleam of satisfaction ghosted across Voldemort’s features, rendering him even more otherworldly.
“Roll up your left sleeve.”
Regulus swallowed a ball of viscous saliva that still tasted of vomit as he exposed his flesh to the air. Voldemort stepped closer, the hem of his robes brushing the ground as he pointed his wand at Regulus’s arm. The tip pressed against his skin, and for a heartbeat, everything was still.
Then the pain came.
It was like fire, running along his flesh, searing his very soul.
Regulus clenched his teeth, refusing to cry out, but the agony was beyond anything he had imagined. As the pain reached its peak, his vision blurred, his mind teetering on the edge of darkness. He could feel the mark, not just on his arm, but deep within him.
And then, as quickly as it had begun, the pain ebbed, leaving behind a dull, throbbing ache. Regulus swayed, the world tilting as he struggled to regain focus. He glanced down at his arm, where the Dark Mark now stood stark against his pale skin—a serpent coiled around a skull.
“Rise, Regulus Black,” Voldemort’s voice cut through the haze, commanding and absolute.
Regulus pushed himself to his feet, his legs unsteady, his mind still reeling from the pain. The Mark was there, branded into his flesh, a sign of his loyalty.
But as he met Voldemort’s eyes, saw the satisfaction there, Regulus couldn’t escape the feeling that this was the moment he had truly lost himself.