DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.
~ Northern Downpour Sends Its Love ~
He lies dying in a cell in Azkaban, one of the Dark Lord's most loyal, who refused to betray the Noble Cause in order to save his own skin. He would rather be punished for what the muggle-loving Ministry idiots call criminal activities than bow down to their ideals.
And yet he wonders if he accepted his fate so easily because he feels that he needs to be punished for something.
Something...
Regulus.
He needs to be punished for Regulus's sake. He is the one who pushed Regulus so hard to join the Death Eaters, when he should have known that Reg didn't have the constitution for it. Where the disowned elder Black brother was a hellion and a fighter, Regulus had always been the quiet one - a peacemaker, or at least a flat stone at the bottom of the ocean which let the raging tides roll over him without allowing himself to be washed away.
I shouldn't have pushed him so hard. I knew he wasn't up to it. He was never really a fighter. I don't think he even believed in the cause. He just went along with whatever his crazy mother expected of him, so he wouldn't get disowned like his blood traitor brother. He just wanted to be left alone... Why couldn't I just leave him alone? What was my obsession? What's wrong with me?
He knows these thoughts are most likely partially caused by the Dementors draining every happy thought and memory away, but it is not the monsters' fault that these thoughts exist at all. Dementors don't possess the ability to plant false negative thoughts in their victims' minds.
It is raining outside but he can't hear the symphony of rain cascading over the prison's stone walls. Even were he not so lost in his own tortuous thoughts, the sound of the downpour would be entirely drowned out by the cacophony of other prisoners' screams.
He died for the cause. He died in the line of duty, serving the Dark Lord. He died for a cause he didn't even believe in, all because I pushed him into it. He never let his father or that crazy old bat talk him into it. Even Severus could never persuade him to join, and he was his best friend.
A tear slips down his cheek.
It's my fault that he died.
A Dementor floats up to the bars of his cell and the tear track turns into stabbing crystals of ice against his already-ravaged skin. He turns that side of his face against the wall and rubs his cheek on the rough stone in order to rid himself of the physical discomfort, only to have a different kind take its place.
It's my fault because he never would have joined the Death Eaters if not for me.
The hot blood which now runs down his face is not so quick to freeze as the teardrop was, but slowly congeals into a macabre half-mask.
Because I told him, "If you loved me, you would."
~end~