This story is for The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

Team: The Wigtown Wanderers

BEATER 2: Lyrics - Coldplay - Trouble
"A spider web and I'm caught in the middle

So I turned to run

The thought of all the stupid things I've done"

Additional Prompts:

Notebook

Picture frame

I had only just arrived home from the school year, however I desired to get all of my summer homework done quickly, and thus out of the way. As I scribbled references in my notebook, flipped through various textbooks, and carefully composed the introduction to my Charms essay; I discovered that the steady 'Whack, thwack, smacking' from the next room was an excellent rhythm to work to. My brother was receiving yet another beating. Really, would it kill him to behave for once?

Weeks later I heard mother screeching; apparently Sirius had escaped the cellar. There was a loud and sudden bang, and I knew he had just been disowned. I scrambled as I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, my eyes lit on a picture of two young brothers, one laughing, and the other fighting a grin. Well, they weren't brothers anymore, but I didn't want to lose that moment. Surely the house would quickly be purged of all his memory. I threw the picture carelessly under a loose floorboard, heard the crack as its frame broke. Shattered glass. My door opened as I went to pick up a locket Sirius had given me, my father stared, "You are my only son." He reached out his hand, and whilst hiding my regret, I gave him my locket.

I don't know where he threw that locket; all I know is that he took Kreacher with him to do it. Bless that elf, though he agrees with mother and father about Sirius; he knew how much that locket meant to me, and betrayed his master to retrieve it. On the first day of September I found it in my trunk. I wore it every day for the entirety of my fourth year, hoping that Sirius would see it and know that although I disagreed with his politics, I would never forget that he shared my blood.

Two years later I wished for the first time that I had run away with my brother. Cousin Bellatrix had been convening with mother and father for weeks leading up to that night. The night when we had a guest over for dinner, he was nearly mothers age, and even older than father, yet he smiled coldly at me and claimed that I would be perfect for his cause. His cause, of course was to wipe the world clean of mudbloods; a cause that any well-bred person could understand. I was almost disgusted by the way my mother knelt to and flirted with this Dark Lord, only almost, because I could feel the power radiating off his person.

We brought the Dark Lord to the dungeons where my parents were pleased to display my magical aptitude. "Initiation" he had called it. I called it three muggleborn girls chained up for me to torture and destroy.

The first was a seventh year Ravenclaw, she cried and screamed as I steadily increased the temperature in her cell. "Please Black!" she pleaded, "Please, it doesn't have to be this way." She didn't understand; it was her, or me. If I failed to kill her, they would kill me, and then her anyway. It was best that I ended her life myself, and spare my own. When her whimpers grew too loud I ended them with a green light.

The next was a girl I had seen sorted to Hufflepuff less than a year ago. She was bright and sweet, I was sure that if not for me, she would have become a very capable healer one day. But, it was her or me; so first I sliced off her fingers, and then I cut off her toes. Unfortunately these first cruelties would not be enough to end her; so while she sobbed and bled little crimson puddles on the floor, I boiled the blood in her veins as it sought its way out.

It was an initiation designed to display my magical prowess after all. I couldn't just send green light after green light, whilst effective, it would not be impressive. I nearly faltered when I saw the third victim; she was so tiny, curled up neatly in a corner, shaking with silent sobs when she saw me. This, was what terror looked like, I decided. Briefly I wondered what it would be like to sit in her place. How old was she anyway? Four… maybe five? I remembered being four and flinching as Sirius took 'Crucio' after 'Crucio' for refusing to torture a muggle woman. Yet here I was, already having murdered, standing ready to torture a little girl. I felt sick.

My father coughed, clearly waiting on me to deliver. I sent out a little stinging hex, and watched as she curled herself even tighter. I could almost feel mothers raised eyebrow burning into my back. I gave the child a tiny little cut, on the tip of her thumb and she pulled her hand in to suckle on the tiny slice. Now I could feel even the Dark Lords impatience at my methods, almost out of rebellion I sent a tickling charm at the child. My father barked at me, "Regulus! What in Merlins name are you doing?"

I tilted my head back and laughed, "Can't you see father? I need not abuse the idiot child myself; she tortures herself out of anticipation for what I may do!" I bent towards the little girl and smiled serenely at her tear streaked face, "It's alright little mudblood," I whispered with a grin, "You'll smile before you die." I tried, very very hard to sound menacing. But all that flashed through my mind, was how I wished the hat had sent me to Gryffindor, how I wished my brother had taken me with him when he ran.

Killing the other two had been so very simple, but when I looked at this child I saw that she was loved by her parents, parents who even now were panicking and phoning the muggle aurors for help. Parents who had never hit her, or yelled at her; parents who would never shove her into a fire, or sear open her flesh for not sitting straight. When it came down to it, it was knowing that her parents loved her far more than mine had ever loved me, that enabled me to cast two more spells. First was a cheering charm, I had after all, promised the child a smile. Then was the green light that took the light from her green eyes.

I hated myself. The Dark Lord had called my methods, unconventional, yet delightfully effective. As if that man had ever experienced delight. I hated myself as I displayed my unmarred forearm for his brand, and I hated my parents for letting him claim me as his servant.

For the next two years I hated myself in every moment. As I snuck out of the castle to attend Death Eater meetings, and as I went with my cousin and her crew to kill muggles and torture blood traitors. I knew that my cousin would torture each of her victims to insanity before granting them the sweet release of death, I considered the green light I delivered them to be almost… merciful. How disgusting that murder could be considered a mercy next to the other horrors we displayed.

Every night when I returned to Hogwarts, I wrote exact recordings of my actions; who I had killed, where they had died, the spells I used to kill them. Occasionally I would flip through my notebook and read each name; dozens of them, and most of their lives were ended with my green light. This evil almost became routine.

It would have, had I not run into my brother. Apparently he now fought for Dumbledore's Order, how I envied him. He recognized me by my posture almost instantly, and pulling me into a secluded corner whispered, "Shouldn't you be in school?"

His wand was on my throat as I replied honestly, "I wish I was."

How like my ex-brother to only hear what he wanted, "So you could have free pickings of the helpless firsties?" He shoved me away and was about to cast when Bellatrix got him with a Crucio.

She was about to cast a second, more final spell, when we heard the telltale cracks of multiple apparations. Quickly, every Death Eater escaped. I almost stayed to plead for protection, or if not, a quick death. However my cousin must have seen the flicker of indecision in my eyes, as she grabbed my hand and we were quickly transported to a field. "He is not your brother anymore."

"I'm aware." I snarked back.

She nodded, and once more grabbing onto me, she apparated me to one of many secret tunnels back into Hogwarts.

Sirius was free of this tyranny; free to choose his own fights, to believe what he wanted. I desperately wanted the same for myself, yet I was already in far too deep. I'm such an idiot, I could have asked the hat to follow its whims; whims that had once terrified me, they would have sent me to Gryffindor. Or, I could have run away with my brother, perhaps even left after him. I could have refused to kill those girls, it would have earned me my own death, but even that would be more desirable than my current position.

All those "what if's" got to me. Yet I still had a chance, I knew that I could simply walk up that spiral staircase to Dumbledore's office and beg for mercy. I knew that I could sell all the information I had to him, in exchange for my life. But I was held in place by my Slytherin companions; they were all so proud that I was doing this, they wanted to join as well. I was held in place by my familial obligations; I didn't want to disappoint mother, truly she was to be feared over any Dark Lord. So I stayed in place, murdering for a fickle Lord; killing innocents in exchange for my life. How long would it be until I failed to please and was killed myself?

I wrote another name in my notebook and beside it the words 'Green Light'. I was so pathetic, too weak to even name the spell I was casting. If I couldn't even write two little words, how could I ever manage to defect? If I was too pitiful to go out and earn my freedom from the tyrant, did I even deserve it?

When I graduated from Hogwarts, I foolishly believed that this would be the chance I seized to escape. I was woefully mistaken, almost immediately after I returned home I felt the telltale burning of my dark mark.

As I appeared in his chambers I was instantly entered by his legilimency, I crumpled to my knees as he tore through my mind. I had long ago learned that my limited skill in occlumency would never be enough to hide from him. Instead I stared miserably back into his eyes as he rifled through my head. He found the memories of my notebook and instantly flipped through all the remembered pages, his perverted and mirthless smile grew at each name. Finally he removed himself from my mind, and I was left kneeling, desperately attempting to re-order my thoughts.

"You are weak, Black." He droned out for the room to hear, "Yet if the number of names in your little diary is truthful, you have eradicated us of an adequate amount of filth."

Thirty-seven. I knew that number horrifically well; it had been the same for the last two weeks, at the end of tonight it would be forty.

The summer passed quickly as the number went up, now out of school, I had more free time to devote to his cause. Forty-two, forty-four, forty-seven, fifty-one, and on, and on. One evening in late August I wrote seven new names into my notebook, it was the most I had ever killed in one night, yet every last name of tonight was pureblood; bloodtraitors. It seemed almost backwards to kill the pure, and every so often one of our own would be killed in a fight. Often it seemed as though the Dark Lords goal was to eradicate the world of purebloods. As I wrote the last of tonight's names into my book I forced myself to admit what I was doing, beside the last name I wrote in shaking calligraphy 'Avada Kedavra'.

As I gazed long into my notebook, the words gazed also into me. I snapped the notebook shut, my notebook was far from being an abyss; it was much more akin to a mountain, being so full of dead names. How silly of me to be thinking about muggle philosophers anyway. I lifted up a floorboard to toss the offending book under, and was immediately met by the mocking laughter of my brother.

I faltered, before reaching down to the long broken picture frame. I began to stare at the depiction of my giggling brother, how invincible he must feel to be doing the right thing. I had almost looked long enough to bring myself to resolution, when my mark once again flared into a call. I tucked the picture and its broken frame under my pillow.

This time the Dark Lord requested my elf, and so I sent Kreacher with him, on orders to return when the Dark Lord's business was done. I sat thoughtfully in my room for hours awaiting his return, looking longer and longer through the, now repaired, picture frame; down to the memory trapped beneath.

When Kreacher returned at four in the morning, gasping and crying his apologies; apologies for reading the books in our family library, books that he had no right to, I was confused. When he continued on that in those books described a process for immortality, a process the Dark Lord had followed, and that he had left Kreacher in a dank cave surrounded by inferi beside the foul feeling 'soul container', Kreacher had called it. I paused in thought, wondering, recognition strikes quickly, "Horcrux" I whispered.

"Yes Master Regulus sir, a Horcrux very looking likes to your locket, foul master Sirius gived you."

A plan began to hatch in my mind, a plan that would finally free me from the Dark Lord. Once more I looked at the picture of my brother and myself. Then I dug under the floorboard and retrieved my notebook, leaving the picture frame in its place. I flipped through seventy-six names before I found a blank page; never had an abyss looked so redeeming. In the bottom most compartment of my old school trunk I found my locket.

On the blank page of my notebook, after so many pages of blood I wrote, "To the Dark Lord- 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."

Folding the note tight into my locket, I grasped Kreachers hand and asked him to bring me to the cave. I would never return.

There is no freedom quite like death.