Everything was dark.
Were your eyes open? Closed? You knew it wouldn't make a difference: there was no light. There never was.
You knew your fate the moment you worked out the Dark Lord's secret; your only chance of glory scribbled on a scrap of parchment hidden in a fake locket at the bottom of bowl containing only pain sequestered in a cave carved of death.
You're surprised at the length of that last thought, but you shouldn't be. Bitterness courses through your veins, not entirely because of the wretched potion. Bitterness and regret: old friends now, although you're barely twenty-one.
Your limbs are being pulled down, down. The hands that drag you no longer feel clammy, their grip indistinguishable from the cold water's embrace. It's everywhere, the water. It billows your hair, presses your skin, invades your nostrils. How long until it conquers all of you? You can't hold your breath forever.
You don't want to hold your breath forever.
You gasp. Coldness rushes in. Your limbs thrash. Not even the Inferi care now. They never care for their own.
Your body tries to save you. You sputter. You wish that you could stop your body trying. The time for saving has long passed. It is too late.
And still you fall. Down, down.
How deep is this lake? You reason that it must be deep; it is home to many of the undead after all. But perhaps they're packed close when no one disturbs their treasure. It's your treasure now, forever out of the Dark Lord's reach. There's a fleeting sense of smugness at the thought. You hope it hurts when the locket is destroyed. And to think the Dark Lord deemed himself worthy to taint such an heirloom of his House. But no more. Kreacher would destroy it. Its ugliness would be no more.
Your lungs are filling with water. You are sure that this is happening. Why else would you feel yourself splintering? The distance between you and your body yawns into a chasm. The distance between you and your earthly life is already a distant shore on the dark side of a choppy sea.
You still drift down, down. Was this death? An endless fall? You could imagine worse. It could get monotonous after some time, but endless boredom was preferable to endless pain.
This is it, you think. This was Death. This was what lay in the great beyond. Maybe you'd eventually meet someone during the drop – you wouldn't see them, obviously. But you'd meet. And then you'd fall together. You hoped for a certain someone. If not in Life, than perhaps…
Perhaps the fall would stop, and she would be waiting.
You close your eyes – your soul's eyes, you suppose. And you drift into nothingness.
It's warm. Too warm.
Polished hardness under my palms. Worn socks around my toes. Ghostly breeze along my nape.
My eyes snap open.
Brightness. Colour. Sharpness. Clarity.
Person.
"Welcome to the afterlife, Regulus Black."
Not the end.