Chapter Text
Cold and pain and darkness.
Air. He needs air. The hands pulling him deeper are scratching on his skin, carving into his flesh. Regulus is twisting and turning, a silent scream on his lips. The last of his breath escapes his lungs in shining bubbles. He sees them float upwards between the bodies trapping him. Cold fingers, colder than the water, close themselves around his neck. Regulus limbs begin to still. The panic in his veins is still very much there, but the cold and blood loss as well as the limited oxygen are stealing his will to fight back.
Regulus doesn’t want to die. He is only 18 for Merlin’s sake. There are so many things left he needs to do! People to protect. Barty and Evan joined the death eaters only a few months prior. They have no idea what a homicidal lunatic their Dark Lord is. He should have gone to warn them. Left a note. Anything.
Pandora. If her ability gets discovered by the wrong people… he hopes she will be safe.
And then there is Dorcas. His former best friend, who left them to fight alongside Dumbledore against an unbeatable Opponent. A pointless battle if the locket is still intact. And it cost her her life. He shouldn’t have said those things to her after he received his mark. How could he have been so stupid? She had only ever tried to protect him; he can see that now. Now it is too late. Maybe he will get to apologize to her in the afterlife.
And lastly Sirius.
His Brother. The original Heir. His Hero. The one that had abandoned him in a house full of monsters. The only one he had thought would always be on his side. Until he wasn’t.
Regulus has so many things to say about that particular trainwreck of a relationship, but the Inferi are not inclined to let him ponder.
Alas here he is. Drowning.
His last wish should have been for Kreacher to succeed in destroying the locket.
But his mind only notices the cold and the pain and the darkness. He wishes to see light one more time. To close his eyes and tilt his head up, feeling the warmth hit his skin. Regulus wishes for the sun.
Regulus Arcturus Black dies alone.
Do you know what it's like to drown?
#####
“REGULUS BLACK OPEN YOUR EYES!” His entrance to the afterlife is marked by the shrill sound of one Walburga Black and the familiar pain of a slap across the face.
He takes a sharp breath and chokes on air. There is no water in his lungs. Regulus' eyes fly open and are blinded by light. He winces, a headache starting to make itself known on the base of his skull.
“How dare you try to look away! I want you to take this as a learning opportunity. Pay attention!”
Regulus blinks up towards the figure of his mother, the Lady of the most Noble and Ancient House of Black, standing before him. He is looking up?! Why is he looking up? Oh, he is sitting down. The chair, he recognizes, belongs to the second floor sitting room in Grimmauld place.
Instinctually he croaks out a: “Yes Mother.” His voice sounds exactly like he feels. Scratchy and confused.
His mind isn’t fast enough. Wait…Grimmauld place? Hadn’t he been in a cave just now? What is going on? Is he dead? He must be dead…right?
Seemingly pleased, his mother turns back to the other people in the room. Regulus' eyes are jumping around trying to make sense of it all. His head is spinning.
He can still feel the Inferi touching every piece of him. Feel them rip him apart. But his clothes are dry. No sign of water. He is breathing air.
He hears her before he sees her. Bellatrix Lestrange is standing in the middle of the sitting room laughing maniacally. Hovering slightly behind her is his father. Orion Black has a blank look on his face hiding the disappointment his posture betrays.
What happened to him? His father hadn’t looked this healthy in ages. When Regulus left with Kreacher only hours prior he had left the man deathly pale, confined to his bed.
“I don’t think he understood your point yet. Why don’t you explain it to him again Darling?” The voice belongs to Rodoplhus Lestrange coming closer from the left side of the room.
For a split-second Regulus thinks they are talking about him. But then he hears someone groan and feels the icy water seep into his bones again.
The smell of blood hits him like a punch in the face. Metallic and familiar. It fills his nostrils and makes the pounding in his skull worsen. Memories well up, countless times he smelled that same smell in this house.
The man who was blocking his sight, Cygnus Black, his uncle, turns to Walburga and gives view to the body lying on the floor.
No. Not a body, a person, he corrects himself. Sirius! His brother is lying on his back, arms in front of his chest. His hair is shorter than it was when Regulus last saw him. He looks younger too. What is happening here?
Bellatrix raises her wand, a mad look in her eyes.
“Crucio”, the red light hit’s Sirius in the stomach and he screams in pain, his voice cracking. He is writhing on the blood-soaked carpet, convulsing. It looks grotesque. Maybe the icy water in his bones has frozen, because Regulus watches the scene without moving a muscle.
The buzzing in his head is getting stronger. Regulus knows this. He has seen it before. Maybe he is still in that cave, slowly drowning, being ripped apart by undead monsters. Dorcas once told him that when someone dies all their memories play in front of their eyes like a movie. She needed to explain what a movie was too. He wasn’t exactly sure how they worked but if it was this vibrant, muggles had earned his respect.
If that was really what was happening here, Regulus wishes it was a different memory playing. He really doesn't like this one.
Bellatrix ends the spell. The only sound audible is Sirius wheezing breaths. Probably a punctured lung. Orion is the one who breaks the silence, taking Bellatrix's place.
“What do you say boy? Has your opinion on the matter changed?” He sounds just as haughty as Regulus remembers. Nothing like the weak shell of a man he had watched him become.
“Fuck you!” Sirius coughs up blood, his eyes glowing with defiance and barely contained rage.
Cygnus gives off an exasperated sigh and turns to his brother. “I told you he wouldn’t see reason. Look at him! Is this what is supposed to be the next Lord Black? If he was my son, I would have gotten rid of those foule tendencies years ago.”
Walburga silences him with a viscous glare. “Too bad your wife wouldn’t supply you with a son of your own! Not that your daughters don’t suffice of course”, she mocks.
Rodolphus interrupts before curses can fly.
“If I may?” he points his wand at the boy on the floor. The others step back, making space.
He bends down next to Sirius face and whispers something that Regulus can’t hear from his seat on the chair.
“Do you understand? It is up to you, but you know what happens when you keep refusing.”
His brother spits him in the face.
That’s all it takes to remove any inhibitions from the adults in the room. Angry screaming ensues, jets of red and green light fly and hit their target. Time moves like a badly oiled carriage. Slow and creaking.
Regulus watches it happen. He feels numb. Every scream, every spell, every insult, he has them all engraved in his mind. It happens exactly as he remembers it. And just like last time they leave Sirius on the floor in a puddle of his own blood.
Walburga is the last to leave the room.
He doesn’t move. Somehow, he can’t take his eyes off his brother's broken body. The knife in his palm shines under the light coming from the chandelier. He knows what will happen now. His legs feel like he was hit with a jelly-leg-jinx. He should follow his mother. Go to his room. Instead, he puts one foot in front of the other on the blood-stained carpet. A Persian rug his aunt Cassiopia gifted his father on his 20th birthday, his mind supplies unnecessarily.
Sirius is still out cold. If not for the sound of his wheezing breaths, no one looking at him would think him alive. He is reminded of the time Cissa had fallen down the stairs of the manor. Her limbs spread out, arm and leg turned into unnatural positions. Just like that time Regulus just stares. Unable to look away.
The knife catches his eye again. It is pushed down to the hilt into Sirius flesh, pinning him to the floor. Blood bubbles out of the wound as Regulus pulls the dagger out slowly. The blade shimmers, dripping red liquid onto his shoes. The smell is overwhelming. He has to stop himself from gagging.
“REGULUS!” He is thrown out of his daze with a jolt, hiding the knife behind his back.
His mother stands in the doorframe, eyes flaming.
“What do you think you are doing?” her gaze pins him in place, making him squirm uncomfortably.
“Come now! I have some things to discuss with you.” She leaves, expecting him to follow.
Regulus' heart sinks, he knows what is coming. He stains his shirt, stuffing the dagger into his waistband and hurries to leave the room. A last glance shows him that Sirius is still unconscious, sprawled out in the middle of the room.
He leaves his brother behind, following Walburga’s footsteps. Heart pumping in his ears.
Afterwards everything goes down exactly as he remembers it.
Later that night, Regulus stands in the middle of his room. His mind is racing. His body frozen in its position; he can’t do much more than watch the posters on his wall. Posters he remembers taking down years ago. The newspaper-clippings he put up instead are gone.
When Dorcas had explained the memories-before-death-thing he had thought it would be fast. A blur of colours and people going past your eyes, not this. It honestly doesn’t feel like a memory at all. He used a pensive before and it had been a very different experience. The thought of this not being a memory is even more frightening. Once again, he wonders what in Salazar's sake is happening here.
His internal questioning is interrupted by the door opening forcefully. Sirius looks terrible. Regulus completely forgot just how bad his brother had looked that night. He is dragging one leg behind, his face swollen and bruised, cradling his injured arm against his chest with the broken ribs. Not to mention the internal bleeding and nerve damage from the countless Cruicatus curses he was subjected to. Swaying, he is barely keeping himself upright.
“Reggie!” even Sirius's voice sounds beaten.
Regulus stands frozen.
“Reggie, we have to go! They aren’t…she’s goanna…we can’t stay here!” the one eye that is not swollen shut, is wide with fear. “There is no saying how far they’ll go. Look at me! I can’t do this anymore. Let’s run away, leave. We can go to the Potters, James won’t mind. It will be alright I promise!” The last part sounds like he is trying to convince himself rather than his brother.
Regulus just watches him.
“Reg?” Sirius takes a step closer. “Come with me. Please!”
Silence. It lasts too long.
Ever so slowly Regulus moves his head. It takes a gargantuan effort to keep watching his brother’s face. A bit to the left and back, a bit to the right, then faster. He is shaking his head.
It is painful to watch the life leave Sirius's face. It seemed impossible with the amount of blood he lost already but his face pales even further.
“Regulus do you not understand?”, there is anger in his voice now. “She is going to kill me! I can’t stay! We can’t stay!” His eyes are desperate, pleading.
Regulus keeps shaking his head. Frozen in the middle of his room. His hands are shaking from the effort, but he hides them in the sleeves of his sweater. He feels cold. The icy water sloshing around in his bones.
Sirius is standing in front of him, bleeding and battered. The torture taking its toll on him. All it takes is one word to finish him off.
“No.”
Nothing more than a whisper. From the look on his brother's face, it could as well have been another Crucio.
“Reggie…”
“No.”
Another whisper. This one makes Sirius stumble back. Out of the room, into the hallway.
Regulus manages to shake his head one last time.
That’s all it takes.
Sirius stumbles out of sight, down the stairs. He can hear the main door fall shut with a bang. He is gone.
Had he waited another moment he would have been able to see the tears glistening in Regulus' eyes.
#####
It took less than 3 hours for Regulus to come to terms with his new situation. Watching his brother drag his broken body down the street and out of Regulus life had set something loose in his chest. He is still staring out of the window. Grimmauld Place empty, Sirius long gone. The aching in his body is too real to simply be a memory. His hands are shaking hard. It took way too long for him to regain the control of his body and even now he can still feel the remnants of the magic course through his veins. It feels like bugs crawling over his skin. Like hands.
Regulus doesn’t make it to the bathroom. He throws up on the floor of his room, emptying his stomach until he is retching. The smell makes him gag more. He is on all fours, holding himself up with his arms. The sleeves of his sweater are pushed up, the pale skin of his arms visible. He inspects them more closely. No Dark Mark, the skull and snake are gone, just a couple faded scars. He doesn’t even remember where he got them.
Regulus gets up and opens the window. The night air is cold, making him shiver. He sits down on the bed, thinking.
If he truly returned to the past then there are a lot of things he has to do. He has knowledge of the future, knowledge no one else has. He knows about the Dark Lord’s plans, the names of future death eaters, Merlin he knows who is going to die and when. His head is spinning with possibilities. He can change the future. He can change everything.
And if this is just a dream? A cruel joke his oxygen deprived brain is playing on him? Well then he is dying anyway and there is no harm in trying.
He jumps up scrambling for a piece of parchment and a quill. He writes down the first line before halting. Maybe he shouldn’t write it down. If Lord Voldemort or someone close to him comes into possession of the information he stupidly wrote down, then there is no telling what he could do with it. Information is power and right now Regulus has the advantage. Of course he can’t be sure if he is the only one who came back to the past like this.
Time-Travel of this scale shouldn't be possible, not to mention not in this form. He is evidently back in his 15-year old body, a look in the mirror and the missing Dark Mark are proof of that. He will have to research how something like this is possible.
For now Regulus has other priorities.
“Kreacher!” he calls.
The elf appears in the middle of the room with a quiet crack. The appearance of his House Elf makes him wince, he can still hear Kreacher’s voice in his ears, crying his name. Master Regulus, Master Regulus, Master Regulus!
But that was a different Kreacher. This Kreacher has never entered the cave. This Kreacher was never forced to watch his Master drink a torturous potion. This Kreacher was never forced to leave him behind to die. This Kreacher is looking at him worriedly.
“Young Master Regulus calling for Kreacher. Kreacher is here.”
The elf looks around the room and vanishes the puke on the floor with a snap of his fingers.
“Yes, I called you.” Regulus' voice is hoarse from vomiting and he has to clear his throat.
“I have some errands I wanted to ask you to run for me. And I don’t want my parents to find out about it. Can you do that?”
Kreacher tilted his head at him.
“If Mistress and Master ask Kreacher for the errand Young Master Regulus ordering Kreacher to run, Kreacher cannot lie.” A small grin exposed the elfs sharp teeth. “But Young Master Regulus is not ordering Kreacher to run any errands, is he? He is asking Kreacher to run an errand.”
Regulus could feel a smile tug at his lips.
“You are absolutely right Kreacher, thank you.”
The elf bowed low, his ears nearly touching the floor.
“What can Kreacher do for Young Master Regulus?”
After receiving his instructions and insisting to heal Regulus' throat the elf disappears with another crack.
He sits back down on his bed, half baked plans and ideas twirling around each other in his head. He already decided he couldn’t write anything down, for the fear of it falling into the wrong hands. He will need to use a different methode. Regulus closes his eyes. He imagines his room, the one he is sitting in right now.
It is a technique he read about in a research paper on Legilimency a while ago, called the ‘Method of loci’ or the one he secretly preferred a ‘Mind Palace’. The witch that outlined it took her inspiration from an ancient muggle Philosopher which meant most Purebloods immediately rejected the idea. The spell was pretty easy to master, so Regulus had trained himself to use it wandless as well.
His room is not exactly something worthy of being called a palace but that is not the point. Regulus imagines himself standing in his room. To make it more immersive he gets up and stands in the same spot. Mind-Regulus takes out a picture, Lord Voldemort in the middle of a Death Eater meeting. He holds it up against the wall and it stays floating in the air. Next to it there are lists and graphs, everything he knows about the man, neatly arranged.
Regulus turns towards the other wall, his eyes still closed. He imagines a second picture, the locket in its basin. Around it all the information he collected. A silver string stretches out and connects the two pictures across the room. Words write themselves around them. ‘Horcrux!’ in big bold letters and ‘others?’ beneath it.
He keeps going. Everything he can recall from the newspaper clippings he once collected. It helps that they used to hang on the same spots on the wall.
He turns again. The window in his mind is bright, illuminating the room. Regulus didn’t bother imagining the view, instead he hangs another picture on the glass. It’s a group picture, one that was never taken but he imagines it anyway. It shows the Slytherin dorms, Barty and Evan sitting on Regulus bed, Dorcas and Pandora on the floor leaning against it, all of them smiling at the camera. Another string connects Barty and Evan to a picture of the Dark Mark.
Dorcas gets connected to a picture of Marlene McKinnon in a Gryffindor Quidditch jersey. Next to her is a list of everything he can remember on the attack of the McKinnons. The list is connected to another one, showing names and time frames of their deaths. There are a lot of blank spaces when it comes to details but it is not like he knew he was going to need all of this in the future.
More and more paper fills the walls, softly glowing strings stretched between them. Regulus stands in the middle like a spider in her web. A plan starts to form, a timeline drawing itself out in front of him. Seems like Regulus is going to be very busy from now on.