Lost Legacy
Summary: Slight AU In a world where Regulus escapes the inferi only to be caught by the Ministry, and sentenced to death by Dementors' Kiss. The day before Regulus dies, he has a last request. But Sirius has closed his ears, and the future doesn't change as much as it could have. A "What If?" story.
Theme Song: Por Una Cabeza – Carlos Gardel
Kreacher was a good house elf. He was a bit off in the head, and a bit sadistic, but he loved his family; and so, his wrinkled, withered little heart was in the right place. Kreacher: who used to sneak Regulus phonograph records of the old, muggle composers, like Bach and Mozart and Wolfgang, when Mother and Father were out; and noisily obeyed when he disagreed with something, or someone; and was bitter and sour and prickly all over on the outside, but sweet enough if you bothered. Kreacher would do, and did do, anything for Regulus, whom he loved as much as any House Elf could love his enslaver.
But, good intentions did not mean good outcomes.
Regulus had stolen one of the Dark Lord's Horcruxes—a locket to be precise, once belonging to the great Salazar Slytherin, the Dark Lord's ancestor—and he escaped its holding place by the thread of his cloak. Though, it would probably have been better if he'd died in that inferi-infested cave. Kreacher had apparated Regulus' stumbling, poisoned body, not into the hands of his fellow Death Eaters, but to St. Mungos. It was a death sentence, either way. His fellows were undoubtedly singing for his blood by now—no one turns his or her back on the Dark Lord and lives to tell the tale, no one—and under St. Mungo's care he is now in the center-stage spotlight of the Ministry of Magic, who sentenced him to death as soon as he was healthy enough to leave the hospital.
There had been no trial. And though it was wrong, unjust, biased and everything a government shouldn't be; and everything he set out to fix, and make right, when he allowed the brand to be burned into his forearm: Regulus didn't ask for one. He is beyond redemption. Although his heart and soul cries, begs, for it; it's not a possibility. Not anymore. He's a betrayer to both the Dark and the Light and he knows, with a resigned, aching sort of sadness, that no one will come to his rescue at this point. Not his mother, not his father.
Not his brother.
Not his Lord.
…
Kreacher might try.
He is sentenced to death by Dementors' Kiss. Justice is swift in the magical world—If "justice" it can indeed be called. A twisted, laughing, heartless mockery of what history paints her as—Justice is supposed to be blind, but these people are wide-eyed and deaf— and the number of days he has left to live is fewer than five.
He waits in Azkaban, which is almost—almost—hell on earth, but it's nothing if not safe; and he fears being crushed under the Dark Lord's boot more than anything else. It's a small consolation, as his soon-to-be executioners drift outside his cell and tear every happy memory from him; until nothing is left but mourning for his lost hopes and broken dreams, mourning for the knowledge that he is to die young—not yet 19, barely old enough to drink—and alone, mourning that the Lord he thought could bring the world to a golden age was, and is, and continues to be, just a gypsy who fools gods with his crown of polished tin and glass emeralds.
At least the Dark Lord and his minions cannot touch him here.
When the officials come to grant him his last meal and last request, he barely manages to resist twisting a smirk at them and asking how it feels to make a martyr out of a monster.
He has only one request and it comes reluctantly.
"Sirius," Regulus rasps, his voice already dry and lifeless.
His brother is standing by the other end of the table, looking as if he'd rather be anywhere else but in a room with his blood-loyal sibling despite the fact that Regulus' dues are demanding payment and soon; despite that this will be the last time he will see Regulus alive. Their blood runs deep, but so does their hate. Though, Regulus has detached himself from that now—for what is the point of wallowing in hate and anger and despair when the end is nigh?
Sirius looks healthy and hearty, if not happy. His eyes are sunken and tired, and his hair looks as though it has gone a few days too long without a wash—this is war, after all—But there's life in him. An old, old part of Regulus wants to run into his brother's arms and sob until he dries up, like the voice of a soprano past her prime, but he resists, shaking, and sits down.
"Sirius," he repeats.
Still, his older sibling refrains from looking at him, and Regulus wonders if it is because of disgust or fear.
"I don't have anything to say to you," His brother states. "I'll hear out your last request, but I have nothing to say."
It hurts, but Regulus can accept that. "It has to do with the Dark Lord…"
Sirius coughs up a short, barking laugh barely a heartbeat long. It's mocking, portraying in its single note all that is on his mind: "I shouldn't be surprised."
Regulus swallows, his Adam's apple feeling swollen and suffocating in his throat. "You can't defeat the Dark Lord."
Sirius scoffs.
"I mean it. He is immortal."
The older Black begins to snarl out something, but Regulus cuts him off before he can start. "But, I've discovered his secret. He can still be destroyed. He's spilt his soul, broken it into pieces and hidden them. His Horcruxes have to be destroyed first in order to have any chance of killing him for good, Sirius, I—"
"Mad," Sirius says in disgust, "You're barkin' mad. I didn't come here to listen to you sing that bastard Voldemort's praises, you know. 'Immortal'? Impossible. If that's all you have to talk about, I'm leaving."
Regulus feels hopelessness wash over him, even drowning out the Dementors, and feels as though the despair might choke him.
"No, no, Sirius, please… Please listen to me! He can be defeated! I can't destroy his Horcruxes myself now, and I don't know how many there are, but you… you can do it in my place, you can tell the Order! Tell Dumbledore! Kreacher… Kreacher knows. He knows everything. Go and talk to him, he'll tell you!"
But his brother shakes his head, looking at him with a mixture of disgust and pity.
"As if I would go to Kreacher about your delusions. He hates me and the feeling is quite mutual."
"No…" he whispers. Where is Lady Justice with her blindfolded face? Why has his only brother, his last glistening shard of hope, closed his ears and opened his eyes? Regulus might as well be talking to a deaf man because Sirius sees only a traitor—ironic, because for years and years Sirius has been the traitor while Regulus was the liberator—and does not listen.
"I'm leaving it to you! This job to you! I have no one else! No one! There is only you!" But, it's too late, and it was long before this confrontation. He knew this, but only now does he realize it. That's the truth. And it is sweet, and it is sad; and when he sees that Sirius is still uncomprehending, he buries his face in his hands and weeps openly.
It's shameful. Blacks don't cry, but Regulus is above shame now. He can hear Sirius shift with discomfort, but his brother makes no gesture of comfort and when he begins to leave, Regulus makes him pause at the door.
"Sirius," his voice is hoarse, "Mourn my 'what if.'"
Somehow, Sirius understands, and then he is gone. Regulus tells the officials that he wants music to play for him in his last moments. He is denied.
Judgment Day has come for Regulus Arcturus Black. For the rest of the world, the Earth continues to turn, but, on this day, for this man, it burns. In chains of rusting, red iron—a morbid part of him thinks the rust looks like dried blood, like festering scabs—he is led to the chamber where he will receive the Dementors' Kiss.
In his mind, he can hear the violin playing the background: eking out its distressing, dooming ballad, as the bow is dragged harshly across strings screaming in protest; the Spanish opera diva howling her last, tormenting note, already in the process of collapsing to the polished wooden stage. But there will be no—there is no—audience watching with baited breath as he falls. As the black-cloaked face-less reaper descends on his fallen body, to suck his soul of his mouth like the kiss of a long-departed lover come home at last. The red curtains that fall are not made of velvet, but the backs of his eyelids. And the roar of the crowd is only the blood rushing in his ears.
The manacles on his wrists jangle like cymbals as he reaches up to welcome death—he's not shackled down, there's no point, there's nowhere to run, no escape, no hope—pressing bruised, cracked lips against an open, festering maw that smells of rotten meat.
The Kiss is slow and languid—the Dementor is taking its time, enjoying the torture, the emotional feast; how long until it receives such a generous meal again?—and Regulus relishes every agonizing moment because even though it is awful and painful and terrible to behold and terrible to experience, it is freedom and release and the end of all suffering.
—A scene flashes behind his eyelids: years from now, of a boy, not yet a man, finding Regulus' locket—the fake Horcrux—at the bottom of the basin. The boy's adored mentor is a sobbing, trembling heap of robes at the base of the rocky island...—
Regulus' last, trembling thread of consciousness strains and at last snaps free; and the red curtains fade to black.
End
A/N: The idea for this actually came to me while listening to the instrumental bits of El Tango De Roxanne, and I couldn't let it go unwritten. I'm not particularly a Regulus fan, but I couldn't help but wonder: how might things have changed if Regulus had told anyone about what he'd done (besides Kreacher)?
In this case: nothing.
I know Regulus' backstory is mostly a mystery, and it is partially because of that mystery that I can't help but picture him as the kind of person who enjoys and appreciates fine things, wherever they come from. Particularly music; thus, the plentiful metaphors here. But that's probably just me.
Anyone who wants to take this concept and make a multi-chapter story is welcome to it.
Read, review, and all that jazz,
Megii