Echoes in Eternity
Regulus wraps his arms around his legs and rests his chin on his knees. His robe is threadbare, almost silky against his skin. He shivers, but he isn't scared, just cold, cold and collected as death marches towards his doorstep.
He is not supposed to know this. He throws a glance at his watch. He should be cooking dinner right now, tossing a couple of tomato slices into a stew bubbling on the stove. He should be lifting the scalding liquid to his mouth as he reads The Daily Prophet report of ever more disappearances and deaths, chuckling all the while. As he is washing the dishes, they'll burst into the flat and tell him what an apostate to the cause he his, how apostates need to be eliminated. And he will be eliminated just as they say he will be.
Instead, he is huddled on the floor, his eyes every now and then flickering to the door and back. In just a couple of minutes, he thinks, he will be as dead as this room.
When the silent wand is pointed at him, he will make no noise, no protest. He will accept his downfall as he did his beginning: it was something that had to be done. In retrospect, Regulus sees that only a fool would fail to see that to turn away from the Dark Lord's service after penetrating its shadowy realms would result in nothing more, nothing less than a forfeit of one's life.
Outside, the bushes rustle and he snorts. They think they're being clever, don't they, sneaking and poking about before the final flash of green.
He chances a yawn. It'll be over soon.
Then he thinks of the locket.
"Regulus Black?"
"You came for me, then?"
"You knew?"
Yes, he thinks of the locket and reveals a small smile. His murderers must think him insane to be grinning at the face of death.
"Of course I knew."
He has played with fire and now pays with the scorches on his hands, but he has disturbed the bonfire so carefully constructed by the Dark Lord. He has laid the perfect trap, so perfect that when the edifice comes crumbling down, no one shall ever attribute it to poor, spineless Regulus Black.
Fame through anonymity. That, he says to himself as the wand point is lowered, is worth it all.