Title: The Failure of the Little King of the Lion's Head
Pairing(s): reference to James/Lily; Regulus/Sirius if you squint.
Summary: Sleek blood, sticky and smooth and rich, pounds through his veins. / It is impure. It violates and therefore must be violated.
Feedback: Yes, please
Rating: PG-13, for references to murder
Note: I wrote this in 35 minutes on a quick whim. The title refers to the origins of Regulus' name. It is written in Regulus' first person POV. Once again, I am beta-less. Any mistakes are my own.
The room smells of death –old, fresh, living, decayed. Its warriors of blood, the metallic taste, assault my senses, my eyes, my nose, my mind. The scourge of magic hangs in the air, thick and suffocating, like invisible smoke to a fire that rages only in the mind of one mad man. It expands and infuses the properties of the blood smeared on the walls, the carpeted floor, becoming a bitter abrasive on my tongue, staining my teeth. I run my tongue across them in an attempt to rid myself of the taste.
Silence in the air burns my ears like his screams should; yet there are no screams, no pleas for mercy. The attack is not finalized. It waits for me. My vision is slanted. The room is quiet, breath for breath of sleep arising from the lungs and lips of my intended victim. He lays cornered in sleep, the smallest death in which man can be reborn, awaiting the inevitable. Rebirth is no longer forthcoming.
Yet the blood still lingers, still stains. I see it plastered to the wall, brown paint cracking across the white background, the putrid smell of pain and suffering radiating into my lungs like a toxin. Sleek blood, sticky and smooth and rich, pounds through his veins.
It is impure. It violates and therefore must be violated.
A man is asleep in the bed near the wall, the London breeze barely touching his cheek as it drifts through the opened window. The garish light from the street paints shadows over his outstretched hand. It appears as intimate as a statue in the yellow radiance, smooth and pale, as if carved from marble, the fingers loosely curled towards the palm. Silhouetted on the white sheets, he sleeps soundly, unaware of my presence, the presence of Death. It lies in wait in the darkness, ready to pounce as though the Devil himself.
I am the Devil. The mouth of the skull, of the snake, preparing to inject the venom straight to his heart with a flick of my wrist. My wand is clenched in my fingers, knowing the damage it is about to inflict, solidified to my side in defiance.
In fear.
His face is so young. The nameless, soulless face of those unworthy of this life, this mortal coil. It is my duty, my responsibility, to help him slither off, like the snake I have become. Like the snake I was born to be. The little king of the lion's head.
I stare at his complexion, the soft skin of youth, the sloping brow frowning into fluttering eyelids, the fleshy nose that perks up at the end, the mouth of slender pink lips, parted and releasing his livelihood. He is no more man than boy, my age or a few years older. Perhaps he has a lost brother, a failing mother, a dead father. Perhaps he has school chums he knows and yet is a stranger to, faces once so clear now lost behind masks of betrayal and pride and loyalty. Glowing white masks like the moon, shadowed by heavy black hoods, eyes that show sadistic murder and revenge, so young in comparison to the ideals they have come to represent.
This is a war waiting to be fought. This is a life waiting to be ended. But my arm remains at my side and instead of death I think of the Potters.
They were married last year, fresh from school, young and in love with only hope to live a victorious life. So naïve that even I knew. I, one who is not partial to their bliss or their glory, I who is younger but older in so many ways. Theirs is a battle waiting to be lost, a life waiting to be ended. It is no more than they deserve.
A trail of sweat trickles down the middle of my palm, running to wet my grip on the wood between my taught fingers. I cannot move; I am paralyzed.
Do they have a child yet, the Potters? A son or daughter with her chestnut hair and his cunning eyes? A face fresh, as naïve as his parents, sheltered from the evils that his parents' marriage only furthers. The bastard child of restricted love. Do they speak to him of fairy tales; invent a world of camaraderie and adventure and magic? Does he look up at them with wide eyes, eager to hear and to learn and to live, unknowing of the realities that plague his world? Are there stories of famous heroes, long ago school pranks, daring moves on a broom? Is he loved and touched and coddled, reassured that he is precious for being their son, not an heirloom, not an improper heir? Is he loved for simply being what he is instead of what he is not?
I can see his face in my mind; the sloppy grin he makes when his father stretches his face into a comical expression and his mother tickles his tender stomach. He looks like them, perfection of their traits birthed into one pristine being.
Will he be allowed to grow into his parents' little hero? The brightest star in his mother's eyes? Will he be their little king, secure in their lion's den from the snakes that prey on the cubs? He will be the forbidden fruit, the temptation even the Devil cannot help to resist.
The face of the little unborn Potter boy shifts and melts and changes into one intimately familiar. The image of my brother appears before me, as he was when he was a boy, no more than ten, when he was Black and not light. The cascades of black hair tied back from his shoulders, his eyes like silver mercury. His inbred arrogance is erect in his posture, shoulders not yet widen by puberty, yet firm and muscular from days spent in tussles in the yard. His head is cocked to the side, questioning, curious, yet demanding and challenging. He was not one to be trialed.
It is then that he was the star, the loyal Dog Star, Sirius, prepared to hate and love whom his mother permitted.
She stared at his portrait for two weeks after Father died, the same regal bearing apparent his strong features, the slender nose, the full lips. He was Father incarnate, his body belonging to heritage and breeding, though his mind remained his own. Even when he gave his body to me, his mind remained his own, distant and clever and hateful.
He was taught hate and never forgot it.
The man in the bed stirs, not waking but shifting to lie on his side, his marble hand now lost in shadow. I could kill him. I could kill him now and be done with it. Report back to my master and my heritage and forget this nonsense of brothers and children and love.
After all, hate is only love with its back turned, as they say. And I would hate my brother with the same chilling passion, if only I could turn my back.
I do not move. The night is bleeding into day, just as the man in front of me should be bleeding the impurity from his soul, but I do not move. There is a choice still waiting to be made, waiting like everything is waiting, waiting for an eternity and a movement that will not come.
It is so simple to choose. Why must I remain so indecisive, so distant from the task at hand? My brother's childish face wavers in front of my vision.
Then it is done; it is completed. A life is ended. The impossible choice is made, falling onto the logs of Fate like sand through clenched fingers. The man still breathes, dreams his dreams of Muggle stupidity, while I walked down the empty London streets. My battle has been fought and lost; my life has been begun and ended.
There is only now to wait for the inevitable, wait once more as everything in the world waits. Death, the skull, the snake burns on my arm and I know he knows. I, Regulus, the little king of the lion's head, have failed.