The Source
Regulus remembered every trial he has to go through.
The Road doesn’t seem to like him because he double-crosses her to open it. So, when the first trial come, the Road doesn’t spare him. She makes him suffer like hell and she seem to love it.
In the first trial, Regulus was in the basement of the Black Manor. At first, he thought that’s is gonna be easy; he survived during the nights when Orion and Walpurga punished him. But this time was different because the Road doesn’t want him to reach the end. Barty and Evan were the ones to torture him, they say awful words to him, they push him at the edge of death, and to win this trial, Regulus has to kill them.
The second trial was as heartful as the first, because he was the persecutor, and Pandora was his victim. He tried so hard to stop his gesture, but he couldn’t stop to cast Unforgivable Curses on her. She was crying and shaking at his feet and there was so much blood, the floor was practically crimson. Regulus was crying too; he couldn’t stop and Pandora’s screams broke him. He knows he had to do something the help her, to free her. The only way to save his best friend, was to kill her.
The third one was, at first, different.
Regulus was on the Road and he first though that it wasn’t a trial, because he was exhausted; he just killed Pandora and all he wanted was to sleep. So, he lies down on the floor and look at the dark sky above him. He was only on the Road for a few days and even if he wanted so much to go back home, he knew he couldn’t, he had to succeed the Road.
When he wakes up, something has changed even if he couldn’t say what exactly.
And then, he saw it.
The Source.
He stands up and starts to run to it. But, when he gets close, the landscape changed and he was back at Hogwarts. He was confused for only a few seconds and then he understands what’s happening; he was on a trial.
The Road mock him well, and it was only the beginning of the worst trial Regulus had to do.
After the third trial Regulus understands the functioning of the Road.
Regulus wanted revenge on the Dark Lord because his all life falls apart because of him, because he was force to fight against his friends, his brother, his lover. Because even if Evan and Barty were Death Eaters too, they weren’t friends anymore.
The Dark Lord deserves to die, but Regulus wouldn’t plan to offers him a quick death, he wants him to suffer so much that he would cry to be killed.
And the Road understands his thirst of revenge; but Regulus doesn’t respect the rules by open the gate with the ghosts of past witches, so she played with him. In every trial, Regulus had to kill someone he loves, the Road slowly shape him to became a killer.
And he knows he did.
Sometimes, Regulus had the impression that he was absent for a long time even if he knows he didn’t. They weren’t clock on the Road so Regulus couldn’t know exactly how long he has left his family, but he doesn’t have the impression to have left for a long time. His body doesn’t feel old or tired to be on the Road.
But his mind, it was a different thing.
Regulus’s head was so messed up that some nights, he couldn’t sleep. He looked at the dark sky, remembering many memories of his life.
He knows he wasn’t the best brother for Sirius, but they weren’t the same person. Sirus was extrovert, always enthusiastic about the things that weren’t for him, things he left his house and family for. Beside everything he’s gone through at the Black Manor, he was always smiling and laughing, but not for Regulus.
Regulus wasn’t capable of pretending to be happy when he was physically abused at home, when some night he couldn’t sleep because of his father’s outburst. He wasn’t capable of acting like everything was normal when everyone in the family know that Walpurga beat Sirius to death when he came back after his first year of school and telling her that he was sorted in Gryffindor and share a room with the child of Euphemia Potter.
Regulus never knew why Walpurga hated so much James’s mother and to be honest, he didn’t care, because he was in the process of being broken. And the coup de grâce was when Sirius sneak out of the house and never returned.
He wasn’t like his brother, he kept all his pain in him by hoping that someday, it would disappear. But even if, at that time, doesn’t talk to each other and even if Regulus act like he didn’t care of him at Hogwarts, Sirius was everything to Regulus.
Regulus never told anyone but, he misses his brother a lot.
Actually, one person knows this secret.
James.
But he promises Regulus to not tell Sirius about it, he told Regulus that he should have a conversation with his brother but Regulus didn’t. He was occupied by finding a way to destroy the Slytherin’s Locket and thought that the big conversation with Sirius should wait.
Enough memories for the day.
Regulus has certainly to fight another trial and wanted it to be done as soon as possible.
Like always, the Road present to him a way made of rocks cover in blood. Around the path, was water. Dark water, to dissuade Regulus to withdraw from his quest. He doesn’t know why, but he had a strange feeling about this water since the first day on the Road. It was like the water claim him but for nothing good and Regulus didn’t have the time to fight some evil water, he needs to find the end of the Road. He never steps outside the path and doesn’t plan to, even if sometimes, he heard voices calling him; Pandora’s voice, Evan’s voice, Barty’s voice, James’s voice.
Like always, Regulus walks.
The forest around him was strangely quiet but he was vigilant, he knows the Road well even he she surprised him sometimes.
He doesn’t need food; the perception of time was different here. He was never hungry or thirsty; he was only tired after a trial but never exhausted of simply walking on the Road. His gesture was mechanical; he wakes up, walk through the Road, win a trial, sleep and do this again and again.
Suddenly, something grabs his leg and make him fall. Thanks to his reflex, Regulus take his wand blow the mysterious thing up. He only had the time to see a scrawny arm returning in the water. Regulus stands up by keep a look on the water, it was the first time that something ever came out of the water.
The path was surrounding by a little of water and a forest, but the trials never came out of the landscape, it was always because Regulus had to open a door.
That, was not normal.
Regulus continue to walk, but a strange presentiment cling to him. If the landscape starts to wakes up, it wasn’t good for him.
The trees were calm and except the strange creature, the water too. Even the sky doesn’t seem agitate as usual.
Something was definitely going on, and Regulus had no clue what because when the Road want to play, she does it brutally, by taking him in a dangerous position, but before “today”, she never plays with his mind like that.
While he was walking, his leg was grabs again by something.
But this time, Regulus couldn’t take his wand, it was like he was paralyzed. Thousands of scraggy hands grab his body, he couldn’t move but he feels their hands all on his body and his face. They were cold and their bones were so slice that Regulus has the impression that all his face was being cut. He doesn’t want to scream because he knows he was alone on the Road, nobody’s gonna come to save him.
Again, he was all alone.
The hands draw him to the water.
It was everywhere, the hands keep him motionless and the water prevent him to see where he was. The water was so dark Regulus could not have discerned anything.
He’s starts to be out of breath and the hands keep getting him out of moving, his throat was fill with water and he stops to think properly.
The lack of oxygen weakens him slowly.
***
Regulus spit all the water of his throat. He was coughing so much that he starts to not have much oxygen. It feels like the water was knives who wanted to get out of him as fast as possible, not paying attention to his poor throat. His entire body was shaking and he saw with disgust that the creatures leave reddish mark on his arms. They didn’t hurt him, but they were proof.
“You betrayed me!” Regulus shouts by getting on his feet.
He had trouble breathing and his ribcage moved jerkily. He was alone but he knows that the Road was listening to him, it wasn’t the first time that he yelled at her.
“The trials are supposed to be behind doors!”
Regulus was enraged. He doesn’t know for how long he was on the Road and to be honest, he was tired. But now, the tiredness disappears, he was just fill with anger.
“You know what, I think you’re mad at me because I open the Road with a different way as usual. I think that you’re scared because you realized how much power I already have. And you’re right to be scared because I’m gonna drain all of your power.”
The silence of the Road gives him an answer, as usual. The Road loves to play with him, forcing him to be a killer, making him believe that he’s started to became crazy and angry, to let him shout alone.
Because that’s what he was, alone.
Regulus try to calm himself by finding where he was and let out a sarcastic laugh when he realized he was in the middle of a desert. He hates the heat and the Road seems to know it, to know everything about him. Which was, in fact, the case because the Road needs to know all of Regulus’s though to traumatized him with specific trials, just made for him.
The heat was unbearable but he had no others choices than walk, even if he doesn’t know where exactly to go.
The grains of sand reflected the hard light of the sun and hurt Regulus’s eyes. He was used to darkness and not only on the Road. The point of his entire life was to stay in the darkness, his mother often say that darkness was power, was the way to know everything about everyone to be able to used it against the others. But this light was purely evil, Regulus could barely see where his feet were. He doesn’t know what kind of trial the Road wants to surprised him, but this time, he was ready to do it quickly as possible.
Suddenly, Regulus stops walking. His heart was agitating and he could feel his blood run in his veins, something was up. He looked around him but only see an endless desert, with dunes which blended with the blue sky and a sparkle of white light.
White light!
Regulus doesn’t wait and starts to run towards the light. The sand doesn’t make his race easy and he almost fall three times, but it doesn’t matter. He had to know what this mysterious white light was, because he could feel something in him, something strange and he was sure it was because of this light.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been running, but the light was still at the same distance; he hadn’t come close to it. He stops himself and keep looking at the light far away from him. Regulus let out a sob and dropped to his knees; he will never succeed the Road; he should’ve known.
The Road wasn’t any kind of magic, she was a secret perfectly keep by the Black Family during centuries. At the times of the Witch Hunt, the Puritans murdered every woman who seem strange to them, it wasn’t the “justice” they claim to do, it was a mass misogynist murder against women who were more intelligent than the men. Some of them weren’t even witches, some of them were child but they all had a common point; they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. But, some of them were in fact, witches, and they were so angry to see innocent women get killed by a group of men who thought it was their duty to eradicated the “witches” for the good, for the religion. The witches weren’t just angry, they wanted revenge, so they searched a way to get it. They were tracked by hunters but they keep their research and one day, they found it. In a dark strange book, they find a way to acquire more power, to acquire all they wanted, a road to a source inexhaustible. They went on the Road, they succeed and when they return to their village, they get the revenge they were begging for; they kill of the witch hunter and they just leave, leaving behind mutilated corpses.
The Black Family were the descendants of one of them; Hekate Black, which was the one who kept the Dark Hold. And Regulus wanted the same thing; revenge.
Regulus gets on his feet and starts to run again, he wasn’t going to failed this trial, he was reaching the end, he could sense it.
He runs until he can’t breathe, he runs until he couldn’t feel his legs, he runs until his head starts to hurt really bad, he runs until his mind wasn’t able to think properly.
He runs until standing in front of the light.
Regulus stopped abruptly; the light came to him not the opposite. The light was moving in an orb, like she was locked in it. Regulus was fascinated, the orb was flying in the middle of a desert, she was so attractive, so...tempting. Regulus couldn’t think about anything else than this orb; he could barely hear whispers from it. It couldn’t be a coincidence, the desert was in a total silent, so the Road. Regulus leans down and brought his ear closer to hear thousand whispers. They were screaming something that Regulus doesn’t understand even if he tried, and then, a perfect scream.
Revenge.
Regulus knew he was in front of the Source he was searching for months. He grabs the orb and the world explodes around him.