House: Ravenclaw
Prompt: Regulus Black

Flying too close to the sun

He has never found this so difficult before but it seems to becoming more and more so as the days, weeks, months pass by and he feels a little like he is drowning in a web of lies wrought with confusion even though he doesn't know what it feels like to drown. He wishes sometimes that he was a child again because as a child he could escape the ideas and the fear that is growing around him, as a child he was innocent. Not anymore, not now he has blood on his hands. He tries not to think about it but his sleep pattern seems to be getting disturbed more and more by wretched images of those who have fallen as his hands. The tears of those hurt and the faces of the men willing to die for their families haunt his dreams night after night until he really doesn't want to sleep again. Then again he really doesn't want to stay awake. It's just getting too hard to face his day to day life now and it's been getting worse even since he took the dreaded mark. It could have all been very different but he refuses to think of that and he tries to lock his heart away to dull the ache that life has left on him with its cruel jokes. So he wanders the streets at night and tries to stay away from his family home because he just can't stand the pride on their faces and the requests to hear what he had done that day. It made him feel sick that they revelled in the idea of other people hurting and he knows what they would say if they could hear him thinking like this. "They're not people, Regulus. They're filthy scum." He doesn't really think that way and he's just been sucked into this pureblood mania because it's what his parents wanted for them and after the let down Sirius had become how could he refuses them. He should have stood with his brother and he knows that. It was too late now, far too late to turn back.

So in the dead of night he wanders the streets trying to escape the dreams and the images. He apparates all over the place so he never has to look at the same streets twice trying to drive the thoughts from his mind so that when he stood in front of the Dark Lord there was nothing in there for him to read. He felt cowardly. Surely he should be able to do these things and then face them like a man. He couldn't though and he just wanted to get rid of them. He couldn't though. They filled up every empty space in his brain filling his senses with the things he had done, what, accordingly to his parents, he had achieved. He wasn't Bella though. He couldn't enjoy the idea of human pain, of the pain of a father as he desperately fought them off with all the strength in his body trying to protect his wife and children. He can't bear the looks on muggle faces as they take their lives and they have no idea why or how. It's sick and twisted and he has allowed himself to become like them.

He doesn't quite know where he is but he's in an alleyway dressed in muggle attire so as not to attract attention and he slides down beside some dustbins shivering a little as the cold water seeps through his trousers. He feels a little crazed because he really does not know what to do and it's like he can't focus on anything. He puts his head in his hands and sighs wondering if he just sat here for long enough he would die from the cold and put an end to everything going on inside his head. He knows however that there was no way he would be that lucky. If he were to sit here all night the only thing that would happen would be that he would get sick and his mother would scold him terribly. It would an easy cure though and he would be back doing the same things he had been doing for months now. It wouldn't get any easier and anyway allowing himself to die was a coward's way out. In his heart he knew that was why he had chosen it. He was a coward.

A door opened somewhere nearby and he drew himself closer as he hear the patter of feet as them walked into the alleyway. Underneath his jacket he clutched at his wand wondering who on earth would be out at this hour. Whoever it was they were heading directly for where he was hiding and he tried to make himself as small as possible, trying to be invisible. There was a scrape of metal as someone lifted the lid of one of the bins and then a clang as they threw something into the bin and he waited until they replaced the lid. It didn't happen however and the next thing he knew a tall, slim girl had stepped out in front of him holding the lid of the bin in her hand.

'Hello,' she said in surprise, 'what are you doing out here?'

He looked up at her but he couldn't make out her features in the dim light of the alleyway. He suspected that it meant she couldn't see him either. That meant he could stun her and get away but the images in his head kept him from doing so. Attacking another helpless muggle wasn't going to help him put his memories to rest but he didn't respond.

'You look freezing,' she told him. 'Why don't you come on in?'

He looked at her in shock as she moved away and he heard the lid being place back on the bin. He sat forward a little to see her walking toward the house at the corner of the alleyway. For some reason he got to his feet and followed her. Maybe he was curious or maybe he was just too cold to sit in the street any more. Anyway, surely some company would help to drive the images out of his mind. He watched her disappear into the house and he followed her in. The house was very muggle, he thought. The hallway was yellow with what looked like wood flooring. There were carpeted stairs and he could see the kitchen through the back. The girl had gone into the lounge which was to his right and he followed her in.

She turned towards him and he almost gasped for the likeness was undeniable in his mind. She was probably about the same height her hair was the exact shade and curled delicately from the ponytail she wore. The only thing he noticed in that moment where her eyes, they were blue not green and he was almost disappointed to find they weren't so.

'What's your name then?' she asked in a soft voice and he knew that the accent was completely wrong but it made him feel a little crazy just looking at her.

'Regulus,' he told her blinking and glancing away aware that he was staring.

'Odd name,' said the girl wrinkling up her nose a little. 'I'm Amy. Would you like a seat? Some tea?'

Regulus nodded and she disappeared into the kitchen as he settled down on one of the cream leather sofas. It had been a while since he had been in anywhere as bright as this house and he perched on the edge of the sofa unwilling to get it dirty. She had been kind to him so far and he didn't want to ruin it by leaving stains on her suite. She returned after a couple of minutes with two steaming mugs in her hands. She handed his to him and he raised his eyebrow when he saw the words "sex kitten" written down the side of it.

'Oh sorry,' she said with a laugh as she sat on the couch opposite him. 'I'm afraid that my mugs are all a bit outrageous.'

'That's okay,' he told her glancing at her mug to see that it said Best Mum. 'You have children?'

She laughed glancing at the mug and then back at him.

'No,' she told him. 'This is my mum's mug. She left it here.'

He nods a little and smiles at her because she is hard not to smile at and he is still slightly mesmerised by her resemblance to the girl he had long been trying to push out of his mind.

'So Regulus,' she said with a smile, 'what do you do?'

Regulus floundered for a moment. How did he answer that? "I'm a wizard that tortures other wizards and kills them for information and for fun I like to slaughter your kind." It was hardly polite conversation and would probably terrify her.

'I'm in security,' he answered thinking that it was stretching the truth to the limits. 'What about you?'

'I write music,' she told him with a smile, 'and I suppose I play a little as well but not very well.'

'Play me something you have written,' he asked her curious about what kind of music muggles listened to. He had heard some rather odd things coming from passing cars as boys his own age drove past.

'No honestly that'll make your ears bleed,' she said blushing a little.

'I'm sure it won't,' he argued persuasively.

She needed very little persuasion from him and she leapt up and came back with an instrument that he vaguely recognised as a guitar. It was nothing like a magical guitar but he forgot all about it when she started playing. The tune was very relaxing and he could feel himself sink deeper into her couch as she played. He focused on keeping his eyes open. It wouldn't do for him to fall asleep on her couch.

Once she finished playing they talked and Regulus was pleased to find that he could hold a decent conversation with a muggle even if he had to lie or stretch the truth to breaking points sometimes. He told her about his dreadful home life leaving out the vital points like pureblood mania and she in turn told him about her father who had died too young due to a drunk driver and how her mother had died due to liver failure from drinking. He felt comfortable with her and he liked to make her laugh because she seemed to light up the room when she did so and it remind him so much of that other girl whose name he couldn't even think.

At her invitation he returned time and again always staying later than was healthy for either of them but at her house he didn't have to be afraid. There he was just Regulus and nobody else. He wasn't a dark wizard, he wasn't a wonderful son, he wasn't an ignorant brother, he wasn't a coward, he was just Regulus. Of course he found it difficult when he had to return to his own world because he had to keep all thoughts of Amy from his mind but he found if he concentrate hard enough he could pull up that other side of him. It felt like two people, the dark wizard Regulus and Amy's Regulus.

'Stay,' she said to him one night as he had been preparing to leave and he turned to look at her and she threw herself on him kissing him with a desire he hadn't felt for a while. He kissed her back with passion and they ended up in bed together where he could only marvel more at the beauty of her before he sunk in unconscious lust.

Before he knew it he had fallen for her hook, line and sinker and it scared him a little. She was so perfect and so willing to be his and he was terrified of losing her. She understood when he explained that he never wanted her to meet his family because they were just too messed up and he wasn't a part of them anymore which was more or less true and she said that she didn't mind because she didn't have a family left anyway. So they became each other's family and for a time Regulus lived in bliss and occasionally wishing that he was a muggle because then it would be perfect. He wouldn't know what was going on at all and he and Amy could be together with no fear. Life doesn't work that way though.

He spent his days lazing out in her back garden when the sun was out and she always wore a big, ridiculous looking sunhat that he hated but she loved it so he didn't complain. She drove him to the beach and was amazed that he couldn't drive. They made love on the sand and it felt amazing to him to be so free. They didn't eat out but preferred their own company eating at Amy's. She tried to teach him how to cook but decided to give up when he was disastrous at it. He listened to every new song she wrote and applauded very loudly when she had finished every single time which made her laugh hysterically. He'd lie beside her at night and watch her sleep sometimes when he couldn't and he loved the way she muttered in her sleep. When he woke sometimes from a nightmare sweating and screaming she would hold him tight and soothe him with calm words. They were meant for each other and he'd have given everything for a life with her.

His other life was something else and every day the fear mounted. He was terrified a lot of the time and fought his hardest not to think about Amy whilst "at work". He couldn't stomach murdering any more innocent souls and tried to find some other way to be useful so he wouldn't attract attention. The more time he spent in the Dark Lord's presence the more he became suspicious about what the Dark Lord was doing but he knew better than to pry. He just eagerly waited until he could return to Amy.

Then the request came and Regulus volunteered Kreacher for the job. He was due to be at Amy's that night but instead he waited at home for Kreacher to come back. He'd had an inkling in the back of his head the moment the Dark Lord had requested the use of an elf and the moment Kreacher got back he confirmed it. Regulus knew what he had to do but it tore him apart. He never wanted to leave Amy but she was in danger, as all muggles were, if he did not try to stop the Dark Lord. So he ran to his room and he wrote her a letter trying to explain to her but not really knowing how. He gave it to his owl and gave strict instructions for the letter to go through the letter box before he left with Kreacher a locket clutched in his hand.

As the inferi pulled him deeper into the icy water Regulus tried to picture Amy's face and it blurred sometimes into the face of that other girl, the one whose name he could not say but mainly it was just Amy's face. He hoped that he hadn't caused her too much pain and that somewhere out there was someone who could take care of her properly and love her like he had loved her. That was all he wished for because she had loved him as he had loved her and that was worth everything, especially his life.

Dearest Amy,

I wish I could explain but I can't.
I told you that life was difficult for me
but I understate it a little. I'm gone &
I'm sorry but remember that I love you,
more than my own life.

Regulus
X

Oooh I hope it's good.
I also hope you lot like it.
I'm not sure myself.
That might be because it's 0120 hours here.
I should be in bed.

Kerr X.