The Locket

by JFae72

"I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more. That's the thing about men like you and I, Tom, us men who laugh with our mouths but not our eyes. We deserve the mercy in death." Regulus Black's final letter to Tom Riddle, spinning the final tale of death, betrayal and the fine line they dance between light and dark. WIP

I know that I will be dead long before you read this, but I wish you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.

I know everything.

Of the little boy with black hair, ashen skin and darker eyes. How he strung that white rabbit from the rafters, slashed twice across the neck, on the tips of his toes. Of Dennis bishop who danced- a marionette- across these white cliffs.

You brought him here, didn't you, Tom? You took their warm, pliable hands between your own, dragged them to the cliff face and smiled. Did you tell them to jump, or did you push?

Does it matter? They didn't land.

They are long gone now, fled away to Europe with your memory tainting each breath and with them is the orphanage. It burnt well, all dry wood and rotting hangings, bending in into itself as it collapsed. I can still taste the smoke on my lips. Its lingering in a thick bile at the back of my throat, behind my teeth and under my tongue. It was smoke that rose in dirty great plumes, painting streets a haze. It smouldered away until all that remained was a glowing skeleton.

Even in embers, it stank of you.

Perhaps, if I were not about to die, I could the appreciate the cyclical nature of life. The irony that I end just where I began. In flames.