A/N: This story was written for season two, round six of The International Wizarding School Championship Forum.
Words: 943
School: Mahoutokoro
Theme: Trackleshanks Locksmiths
Main Prompt: [Character] Regulus Black
Additional Prompt(s): [Genre] Horror
Year: 6
A/N 2: Features dark topics.
In. Out.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. This isn't what he signed up for.
In. Out.
Regulus tried to act like he wasn't seconds away from hyperventilating as he stood with his fellow Death Eaters.
They were laughing - practically cackling - as they looked about themselves, their satisfaction and glee so great that they didn't notice that Regulus wasn't joining in with their euphoria.
In. Out.
'This wasn't what I wanted,' Regulus thought to himself desperately, his Death Eater mask covering his haggard and ashen face. 'This isn't what I wanted to do!'
Regulus had been so proud to become an official Death Eater after he graduated from Hogwarts. So pleased to be alongside others like him that also thought that Muggles and Muggleborns were a threat to their world and needed to be dealt with.
He jumped in with both feet.
But now he's hanging on tightly to a rope over the edge that's starting to fray, able to snap at any moment.
This wasn't what he'd thought it be.
In. Out.
He had to breathe through his mouth. If he breathed through his nose he'd smell the evidence of the things he and his fellow Death Eaters had done that night.
He felt sick. His palms were sweaty and the hand gripping his wand was so tight his knuckles were white against his already pale skin and his fist was shaking from the force of it.
In. Out.
He could still hear the screams in his ears, the pleads for him and the others to stop. To leave them be.
To let them live.
But Regulus hadn't had a choice.
He tried to make things as quick as possible.
But his fellow companions held no such restraint.
He couldn't get the images out of his head. The horrifying deeds that were done to those muggles, some because it was fun to those who wielded the power to hurt - to kill - them.
The images painted behind his eyelids weren't fading - in fact, they were becoming sharper the more he tried to expel them.
Alecto Carrow using the Entrail-Expelling Curse on an old woman.
Barty Crouch using Reducto on a muggle father that had refused to step aside and give easy access to his children.
Rabastan Lestrange using Fiendfyre to burn down several muggle houses before shaping the flames into terrifying creatures that went after the ones that were lucky - or unlucky enough - to escape the burning homes.
Mulciber using the Imperius to make a mother kill her own children before releasing the woman to see what she had done.
Evan Rosier dragging a teen girl down a dark alleyway.
Regulus squeezed his eyes shut as the memories flashed into his mind and he fought the urge to expel the contents of his stomach.
In. Out.
He had thought that they were just going to teach the muggles their place. Maybe kill a few to show that they meant business. If they showed that wizards and witches weren't those to just roll over and sit, then they'll survive long enough to find ways to keep muggles and their muggle-born spawn from invading their world and threatening exposure; They have technology that could easily destroy them.
But what he just witnessed…
What he had just participated in…
What he, in a way, had just condoned…
This wasn't about survival.
This wasn't about prolonging the existence of the Wizarding World.
This was just carnage.
Bloody, messy, unnecessary, carnage.
As his fellow Death Eaters began to talk, compare notes, and - Merlin help him - congratulate each other, Regulus turned and walked away, his calm and easy footsteps fooling those around him to his true feelings.
He couldn't stay. He was moments away from breaking down, and he needed to get away from here.
To get away from this small village that had once been peaceful and so full of life, but now was practically a ghost town with the stench of fear and decay practically hanging in the air like a fog.
As he walked, his shoes stepped in a puddle of blood; one of the many that littered the ground.
His ears heard the cries and moans of the few still left alive, whether it was from injury, despair, or hopelessness.
His eyes took in the fires still burning a few homes, the orange-red light from the flames that must be reflecting cruelly off his Death Eater mask, and his nose smelled the nauseating smell of burnt flesh emitting from there.
He saw many bodies of muggles scattered along the street. Some were dead - painlessly or otherwise - some were alive but with serious injuries to their body or mind, and some were on the verge of death.
But he kept walking.
In. Out.
Away from the injured, dying, and traumatized muggles.
In. Out.
Away from his fellow Death Eaters that were sickeningly proud of themselves.
In. Out.
Away from the horror that he, to his shame and guilt, had contributed to, no matter how small it was overall.
In. Out.
'Just breathe', Regulus thought almost absentmindedly.
He passed by a dead muggle laying in the street, their internal organs lying outside their body haphazardly.
'Just breathe.'
A small child - likely no more than nine years old - was huddled in the doorway of her house, her small arms wrapped around her legs that were pulled up close to her chest, and a haunted facial expression shaping her features.
'Just breathe.'
A couple were clutching each other in terror as they watched the cursed fire consume their home.
But Regulus just kept walking.
Just keep moving.
One foot in front of the other.
In. Out.
Just breath.