I died; I was born
“You will leave my amulet copy and take the original amulet out”, he repeats the plan again to calm his nerves. “Destroy it, if you can, but when we return, you will have to keep it hidden from everyone, especially Him. And even … Mother.” He pauses and looks away for a second, which his far shorter companion uses as an opportunity to object, again:
“Master shall not drink the evil potion! It brings a pain kind Master should never have to feel!”
This makes him chuckle slightly as he looks down on his palm, which is bleeding still, and he resists the urge to remind the other one of his less than sunny upbringing, which should both well prove that he can take a bit of pain.
In an attempt to erase the sense of hierarchy between them, he crouches down and looks his companion, no!, his friend, in the eyes. “You already had to go through all of this once. By Merlin, there is no way I will make you suffer through this again!”
“But the blood-cursed ward will not let Kreacher teleport the Master home, Master Regulus will have to leave through the entrance!”, the answer immediately sounds, as if he hasn’t been told this two times already. “I will do it, please stop arguing, Kreacher”, he shakes his head in determination. He has to do it. This is his one chance to make a difference, after all his years of just trying to comply and not raise attention, of watching everyone around him and himself doing everything to earn recognition from a false Lord.
He can feel his thoughts drifting off in reminiscence and questions of what-ifs, but he forces himself back into the present and tries his best to channel all of his built-up rage into determination, which he knows he is going to need for this.
Regulus turns around and pulls himself up by the edge of the cursed crystal basin, staring down at the liquid unwillingly, like he has been doing for the last half hour, it feels like. He has always found it easier to wait for inevitable pain and let it happen to him than to actively bring it upon himself.
"You know what to do, Kreacher", he says, so he won't be able to hesitate longer, "when I stop drinking on my own, ... force me. Until it is gone, or enough of it at least."
With that, he grabs the spoon, if you want to call it that, and takes the first sip.
It has the worst taste he has ever tasted, as to be expected, and it gets worse each time he swallows. He thinks it will be easier to take bigger gulps, but he doesn't get far before he feels like he cannot force down any more of the potion. He drops the spoon and stops hiding the gagging and choking.
He barely notices sinking to the ground between coughs that blurs out his vision. Enough of this, he thinks, he can try again another day.
But Kreacher has already gotten to work, following an order Regulus had made sure he could not negate himself, so the house elf will not listen to any of his demanding and begging and crying. He curses the elf, tells him that he will never forgive him for this. He sees the tears he causes with those words, and deep down he knows that he will regret them later, but right now, he would do anything, anything to make it stop.
He is clawing at his throat, pushing away from the spoon, but it's of no use. He can barely hear Kreacher saying that the potion is half empty, that it will soon be over, but he knows it to be a lie. This is a poison and the wretched elf is trying to kill him with it! At last, his only ally has turned against him, now he is forever alone in this world.
He thinks, he hopes, that forever is not too long in this case, that the poison will finally take effect and end his misery, but he knows this world to be unfeeling and merciless and his life refuses to end.
At some point, he no longer feels the burning fluid running into his mouth, and he eagerly sucks in air, even though it does not lessen the pain he is in. He may once have had ways to shield himself from pain which he vaguely remembers, but they do not work against this.
He can hear Kreacher from somewhere, implying things about the Dark Lord’s heritage that would have gotten him beheaded by Mother… yes, it was the Dark Lord who is at fault, he remembers, not his loyal companion and friend who did this. He apologises to Kreacher after he has managed to catch his breath. His voice is only an empty rasp now. It tears into his tongue and rekindles the flames in his throat, spreads them across seemingly his entire upper body, but he has to say it, that he did not mean any of those insults, that he does not blame his friend for this. He can feel a touch to his cheek as answer, but he does not hear any words over his loud coughing and the ringing it causes in his ears. He needs some healing potion, he knows it, but he does not have anything with him, not even water.
Water. Yes, he needs water. His throat feels as dry as sand, he needs to drink something. The thirst burns his throat and behind his eyelids and outside, shadows are haunting him. If only he could do something about this thirst!
He feels someone offering him a cup. No matter what that is will be better than this, so he drinks eagerly. He can only take two sips, since he spills the rest, but it does help a little.
He wipes some tears away. He thinks of licking them up for a moment, just to taste something other than that horrible potion. But the salty drops have already dried on his fingers and he does not want to get even thirstier.
Some mumbling makes him look up. Kreacher is still standing over him, worried.
He begs for another cup of water, and the elf collects it obediently. But when he turns, the water ripples. Regulus takes the cup with still heavily shaking hands, gulping down the soothing liquid eagerly.
A strong, thin white hand reaches out of the water now and he has to shuffle away, but at least he can breathe again.
„Go, Kreacher!“, he rasps, „I will come back on my own.“ Regulus can see in his sad eyes that the elf knows it is a lie, but he does not object. Instead, his oldest, and probably the only friend he could ever truly trust, grips his hand for a short moment, silently spits what Regulus knows to be well-wishes at him and then disappears in a loud pop.
With the horcrux in the safest hands he could imagine, he scrambles to the edge and reaches down, shoving the water into his face with bare hands.
Finally, something easing the pain; Finally, the fires are lessening; Finally some room for clear thought. The water tastes mouldy and old, but he knows it is a better alternative. He tries to struggle when the inferi drag him into the water, but he is too tired, too bloody tired of this world.
Perhaps it is for the best, he thinks as he is being pulled down to the bottom of the silent lake, away from his bubbling breath, no one would miss him anyway.
approximately 150km further north-east, in a small village known for it's nice neighbourhood
It is loud and screams, bright flickers of red and green light. Mother sounds very afraid. She looks very upset when she carries him away, but she protects him and he knows he can trust her. Then Mother is gone and he can hear her scream as well. He feels very lonely and cold now, so he calls for Mother, but Mother is silent and everything is silent and he is alone and cold.
He starts crying, now his mouth hurts and he is still alone and cold. Mother is still not answering. She must be sleeping, so he stops crying and starts chewing on his thin blanket while waiting for her to come and let him drink.
…
There is someone now, he looks up excitedly. There is a person he has not seen before, who has long, greyish brown hair like Mother, but it is also green like a plant. The person’s face is round, a bit like Father’s, but it does not have the funny spikes. The person’s eyes are friendly, but something about them looks a bit strange. He is glad that he is not alone any more, but he wishes Mother was there, so he starts crying again. The new person makes sad noises at him, but comes closer and shows him a funny spinny thing that makes him laugh a little. They smile at him and he smiles back, because Mother and Father are always happy when he smiles. The person gives him the thing and he starts chewing. It does not taste like anything, but it is cool and it makes the pain in his mouth go away.
Now, the person makes funny faces for him. He wiggles his feet at them, he loves when his parents do that. Thinking of Mother makes him a bit sad, so he calls for her again, but there is still no answer. Instead, the new person picks him up and carries him, hopefully to Mother. The arm is not as warm as Mother’s and not as comfortable as Father’s and it smells like nothing he remembers, but now he can reach the long hair with green in it, so he inspects it with his free hand, which makes the person laugh.
When he can’t find out where the green comes from or how to get it out, he starts crying instead, because he is still hungry. He asks the new person to feed him, but they just play with his hands instead. He is upset now, because he doesn’t like waiting, so he lets go of the thing and asks with both hands. He is not sure if they understand, because they tuck him under their clothes, where it is warm, but there is nothing to drink from. He is tired though, so he will have to ask again later, for now he falls asleep.
approximately 150km back south-west, now 165m asl., almost an hour later
He awakes to pain, horrible, searing pain everywhere. His lungs are screaming for air, but he cannot breathe, it feels like he swallowed too much water and like his lungs are filled with sand all at once, every time he gasps his lungs contract and have him retching and coughing the air back up until he sees dark spots behind his eyes. He wheezes and chokes and wills the air into his lungs and fights against his body to stay conscious. After several, agonising minutes, he remembers to count to calm his panic and to relax his lungs. It works, but only barely.
His eyes are still closed, but it feels like he has looked straight into the sun for hours. His head is pounding from brightness and he feels so faint and disoriented that he cannot tell for sure if he is lying down or floating above the ground. There is pain and pressure on every side of his body, he feels like he is being suffocated by something wrapped tightly around him, stopping him from breathing too deeply. Not that his lungs would let him. He throws himself around, clawing and struggling to get rid of it and relieve his irritated skin, that somehow feels too tight and too stuffed and like it will fall off him at any moment.
Regulus does not remember where he is or what caused this pain. His cursed mother’s doing? It would explain the headache. But he cannot, for the barely contained life in him, recall what he did to deserve it. The searing ache and the dullness both fighting over his skull painfully remind him of the threat of memory loss and insanity after too much contact with torturing curses, for a while he wonders if this is what happened. But, now that he is no longer trying to rip off his clammy clothing, he can feel different sores and wounds that are scattered over his body, where a cruciatus would leave his nerves screaming all over. The ghost sensation of finger nails clawing through his skin are not exactly comforting either.
Slowly, finally, his lungs start to relax slightly and when he does not feel like he is suffocating any more, his mental fragments of despair and danger, of watching his last breath escape from his lips and bubble away while being pulled by ghastly hands into every direction at once click together into memories of the cave and the silent lake, which he should have drowned in. Some of his sense returns to him and he feels warmth creeping into his deathly cold limbs, making them burn and worsening the pain, but also making him feel more alive.
When he finally manages to adjust to the brightness and open his eyes without aggravating his headache further, he sees the blindingly blue sky, dotted with soft looking white clouds and it looks so unreal in comparison to the nightmarish cave and the cold, corpse filled water he was in just a moment ago that, for a moment, he is convinced that he is dead after all.
With some difficulty, still shaken by coughs that burn his throat, he turns his head and recognises the windswept shrubbery near the coast above the cave.
Startling him with a shuffle, a person he does not know leans over him from the other side and guides a potion to his mouth. He hesitates in memory of the last potion he was forced to drink, but when he swallows, the sharp pain in his head and limbs lessen and he almost moans in gratitude. He has always prided himself with not fearing pain and the last months under the Dark Lord’s service have led him to believe that he would be prepared for even death, but now that he no longer feels the iron-like grip of clawed dead hands on his body and the freezing water in his lungs, he is so overcome with relief and exhaustion that he welcomes the dark embrace of unconsciousness.