REG- Sunday 18th June 1978.
Regulus’ Pov- Sunday 18th June 1978
The chamber is cold, wet and miserable.
Regulus wants in, Regulus wants out.
His life has always felt equipped for danger, he grew up learning it, knows it intimately.
It feels familiar, so familiar it’s almost comfortable.
Except, this time instead of leaning into the comfort of a protector, cherishing it, clutching at it, he has now assumed that role.
Instead of cowering behind his brother, he is standing in front of Pandora.
The role of protector passed on to unready shoulders, a burden he is worried he cannot fulfil.
After all burdens are hardly ever asked for, they’re given.
And one conversation, one event, one moment in time- and Regulus was given the biggest burden any could face.
Now, despite Pandora insisting she isn’t backing down, the role of protect is attached to him still, he is locked in a chokehold he can’t escape.
Can’t escape without the crippling guilt weighing him down, the crippling guilt always lingering, a steady thrum beating through his body every moment, ready to break free, if he backs down, if he relents or if he even questions for a second saving himself whilst knowing that he alone had the key to salvation and was throwing is away. The damn will break. The guilt will suffocate him. And he will be lost in the unrelenting abyss of his mind once more.
Bravery isn’t his forte after all, without all the prejudices tied to the house of Salazar Slytherin, he would be a proud snake (as Barty would call it), but right here, right now, he wishes he had some of that Gryffindor bravery, that Gryffindor stupidity, to get him through the tasks ahead.
But for now, he is stood in front of the chamber, a protector, his mind should be on the prize, and yet, all he can hope for, is that Pandora will turn around and leave, save herself.
But she won’t, he knows she won’t.
He appreciates it, her undying loyalty, her need to do right. He admires it. But it worries him tremendously.
He doesn’t want Pandora hurt, that’s why he informed her of this whole problem in the first place, he needed her to know what was going on with this war.
He needed her to know what he knew so she could protect herself, make the right decision.
He told her to help her live her life the way she wants, however she wants.
Instead telling her has her here now, risking her life, the way she chooses.
Regulus is tempted to stun her, tie her up, leave her here for her own good.
But he won’t do that to her, wont betray her trust.
Trust is so fickle, so hard to earn, and he fears he will be losing enough of it in the foreseeable future. Selfishly, he doesn’t want to lose hers.
No, he will keep her safe.
Her life over his.
It’ll be ok, he’ll make sure.
He walks up to the second entrance into the chamber, the place being locked up like a vault, and for good reason.
Ever since he found this place, realised that the legends where real, he has been researching.
He has been researching the basilisk, it has been the height of his obsession recently ( his only obsession really- the only one he has time for) and can’t help but find it completely odd and infuriatingly stupid, that no one had yet to realise what creature lay within the chamber of secrets- the world renowned legend.
No one knew what creature was hidden in the chamber, the creature that took the name as the servant to someone whose whole life revolved around the aesthetic of bloody snakes.
A legend, one fascinated over by thousands of people over thousands of years, and no one put two and two together?
Especially with what happened last time the (evidently not a myth) chamber was opened.
Death, and people being petrified.
He is fascinated over the fact that so many extraordinary minds, ones he had respected for years, could’ve been so, quite frankly, dense.
So once he had come to the conclusion that it was, in fact, a Basilisk that lay in the chamber, making getting access to it and subsequently its venom all the more crucial to Regulus’ side of the war, he researched, like mad.
Not that he hadn’t before, but this time he was looking into Basilisks, there weaknesses, strengths, ways to get past them, ways to kill, ways to hinder, stop, stun.
He doesn’t want to kill the Basilisk, it is completely a last resort option for if Pandoras life is on the line.
But he refuses to go into this situation, a deadly situation in which his friend is joining him, unprepared.
And that means knowing everything, all the way down to the Basilisks dietary requirements.
Its extreme, but Regulus doesn’t care.
He is aware this mission (when he planned to go alone) was borderline suicidal.
But he didn’t care for a number of reasons.
- He just wouldn’t die. He is Regulus Black. He has researched, and as unfortunate as his life has been, and as unwilling to rely on luck alone as he is ( because he is not stupid) he can’t deny that there have been quite a few dangerous situations he has gotten into, each one he survived. So why not this one too? It may be stupid, but he genuinely just can’t see himself dying.
- He just doesn’t care, although he is convinced he won’t die, he also doesn’t really care if he does. And if that is concerning so be it- people only need to be concerned if they find out, they won’t find out if he’s alive, and if he’s dead it’s no longer his problem.
The only reason he cared about living in the slightest was his friends.
His friends and his brother.
And what would happen to them if he failed.
Not if he died, he is sure they wouldn’t care if he died, but what would happen to them if he failed, if the dark lord won.
If they were left in a world full of danger and threats.
Sirius wouldn’t be safe.
Pandora wouldn’t be safe.
Lily and Remus and Dorcas wouldn’t be safe.
And then Barty and Evan, winning side or not, the dark side isn’t safe.
They won’t be able to breathe freely if they become victorious, no one will breathe freely, they will be on edge constantly, walking on eggshells, looking for an escape and not finding one, knowing that if they run it will be worse. Just taking this hits, accepting the pain, accepting a life of misery they had been condemned to, they had no way out of- no way out of alive that is.
The dark side would purge all the unwanted people from this earth before turning on their own.
Essentially the world would get a taste of Regulus Blacks life.
Maybe he wouldn’t be forgotten easily after all.
But that brings him to point number three of not caring about whether he dies in his previously entitled ‘suicide mission’
3) Someone already knows about his plan if he does die. It won’t all be for nothing. Pandora will tell the right people, ever trusting (or at least able to trust-unlike Regulus who views any level of trust as too trusting.) and Pandora will be alive to tell everyone, because she won’t die in this chamber, she’s not allowed.
He lets out a slight huff of laughter, causing Pandora to turn next to him.
He can’t help but think, how there is only 2 people on this earth that he really wants to have to suffer with a reflection of his life.
But in order for that to happen, for the world to experience his life, the dark side would have to win.
And if that happens, one of the two will be leading the world and the other will be dead.
So it would be pointless anyway.
And it’s not like he wants anyone else to feel his pain.
Not really, even if he daydreams of it slightly, wishing his friends, sometimes even his brother, could feel his pain, just for a second, just for a minute.
He doesn’t want to condemn them to it, he never would.
But he does want them to understand, understand what was at stake, understand he was hurting, understand the pain and the risks and the reward.
Understand that he survived, he survived it all. He was strong enough, brave enough and he did the right thing.
And he suffered.
He wants someone to feel it, to understand, and tell him it’s not his fault.
The only person who can currently do that is his brother, but he won’t tell him he’s feeling like this.
And one day, when the war is won and done, because Regulus will win (survival isn’t winning, winning is winning. And he will win).
But when he wins, he and his brother won’t even be slightly the same anymore.
He won’t have a single person on earth who understands, who can tell him he’s good.
He wouldn’t be on earth to hear it anyway.
So what’s the point?
He may as well die anyway.
There is a cough next to him that brings him back to himself yet again, Pandora has turned to him, eyebrows furrowed slightly, a look of concern covering her features.
“Reg?” she reaches out to brush his arm slightly, before he flinches back slightly.
And he freezes, he has never flinched from Pandora before, but before he can even start sputtering out apologies, she is reaching out again- slower this time, and looking him in his eyes.
“It’s alright, you’re alright, shall we go in?”
Her eyes don’t leave his for a second as she gestures towards the door with her head.
And she’s giving him an opening, giving him an out.
And he grabs it with both hands, walking towards the door again.
And maybe, if he had taken another minute, regulated his emotions, been smart about the whole thing.
Maybe…
As he whispers the opening to the chamber, he hears Pandora muttering a spell behind him.
It’s one he half found, half made after his rounds of intense research.
A spell to defend their eyes.
Almost like a film, a layer of glass, a layer of water, passed over their eyes, reflecting the light slightly, making it slightly harder to see, but impossible for the Basilisk to kill them.
It will still be able to petrify them, but with a huge snake moving around the chamber, they both decided to take the risk of being petrified, as long as they are still able to see. Both determining petrification as more manageable than being flattened or bitten by a flailing snake because they couldn’t see where it was.
So quickly, as the chamber door begins to open, he places the spell over his own eyes.
The light reflects, and his vision goes slightly hazy before settling, and everything feels slightly off, slightly to the left, or wiggly.
But its good enough, good enough to keep them alive, good enough to distort their vision to stop them from dropping dead with the slightest look.
As the stone snakes that keep the door locked in place coil through the locks of the door, he hears a thud with each snake, almost pulling back in on itself to unlock the door.
He inwardly cringes, its loud and reverberating through the half of the chamber he is in, and he can’t imagine a scenario where the snake hasn’t heard it yet.
The signal of their arrival, a warning that they’re coming.
It’s the loudest they’ve ever been in the chamber, not knowing they were in need of a silencing charm, that their presence would be alerted to so loudly.
Because they had never opened the door before, not wanting to do so until they were fully prepared.
He semi regrets it now, feeling fully unprepared for a whole other reason, as the door swings open in front of him he turns to look at Pandora, he inspects her eyes which now look like they are submerged in water.
But the spell must be working, so he nods his head and they enter the chamber for the first time.
It’s cold and ominous, and if the chamber itself could feel you with a feeling, Regulus would pick dread.
But he continues to walk forward, he is in this now, there is no way back, and hesitation will only put their lives at risk, and he will not be risking Pandora.
He feels a hand on his shoulder as they walk steadily through the chamber, it gives a light squeeze before relaxing and resting there, as if her hand is happy to reside within his comfort until it has no choice but to leave.
He doesn’t understand how he would provide comfort, he feels like he is about to start shaking, the only reason he isn’t is because he has a task to focus and a person to protect.
Therefore his focus is taken off of him, it is the only reason he is not spiralling right now.
He relaxes his shoulders slightly, trying to provide comfort through the illusion of being brave and dependable, but he does not relent in his pace as he continues to stride forward into the chamber.
The floor is wet, but there isn’t much water around, he sees little side passages along the walls, almost like big sewers, he takes note of them as he continues to walk forward, trying to note all possible escape routes.
He fights the sudden urge to walk through the tunnels, to map them out, he doesn’t feel prepared enough, he doesn’t understand where he is and it is unnerving, but he also doesn’t want to keep Pandora in here longer than he has to.
He walks up towards the closest tunnel, just to have a quick look, a last ditch attempt at trying to gain a further understanding, and he sees the length of it run out until it takes an almost sharp turn at the end, making it so that he can’t tell where it leads without going further forward.
However, he sees a slight light halfway through the part of the tunnel he can see, and he can assume that all the paths are linked up, that a sharp turn to the right would bring you into the depth of another tunnel, and another, and another until you just keep going- if you want.
Regulus does not want.
That can work for or against them. He hopes for the prior.
He hopes more they won’t be necessary, that they can just get in and out.
He turns slightly, and begins walking back down the main path towards the main part of the chamber, moving them back into the centre of the path, leaving all options open- equally in reach, but still not too close to the tunnels in case something comes out of them.
Ready for anything.
But what worries him the most, is that they are serpent sized.
They have to be, in order for the Basilisk to get around.
He knew Basilisks get big, he has done an abundance of research on them, but seeing a height in person is very different to reading one off of the pages of a book, a roof of a tunnel towering high above his head showing how high a Basilisk can reach, is different than Imagining it curled up in a chair in a warm library.
A tunnel that needs to be big enough for the serpent to get through towering what seems like miles above his head, well, its unnerving.
The entire tunnel is.
But again he pushes through, in and out.
They just need to get in and out.
He clutches tighter to the one of the empty viles he has kept in his hand, the other two having been placed safely in his robes despite the protection spells covering them.
He looks back at Pandora briefly, her eyes already firmly staring where the back of his head was, clearly not having taken her eyes off of him since they walked in, she nods briefly and Regulus turns his head back again to look up at the big serpent head shaped entrance to the biggest tunnel furthest away from them, deeper into the chamber.
He closes his eyes briefly, just for a second, just for a breath.
Before opening them again, no fear, be brave.
He raises his wand and aims it at the wall above the tunnel, casting a far reach wordless bombarda at the wall just to the side of the main carvings surrounding the tunnel.
Despite how necessary this task is, destroying history isn’t necessary, just like killing the basilisk isn’t necessary, and Regulus can’t bring himself to do either.
Its history, but he still blasts the main part of the wall, listening as a loud bang echoes though the chamber, followed by much quieter crumbling sounds as smaller pieces of the wall fall to the floor.
He flinches internally at how loud it is, his body externally maintaining a perfect composure, he is a Black after all.
The wordless spell he performed had come easily to him after all.
He had started practicing and perfecting certain wordless magic when he was much younger, around 13, just a simple accio, a simple healing spell.
So he could heal his brother without anyone hearing anything when their parents punishments were going too far and he was forced to watch.
So that when his brother was about to pass out mid punishment he could stop it, after all passing out wouldn’t save him- his parents would view him as weak, so he would quietly heal his brother with miniscule bouts of wordless magic to keep him conscious, just so their parents wouldn’t have a defenceless body to attack further than before.
So he kept his brother strong, after all Sirius always pushed them too far, to the point they littered his body with scars, blood, broken bones until he was shaking, it was so bad, so bloody, they never noticed his few healing spells working their way through Sirius’ body at the same time as they were breaking him in other areas.
It was so subtle, and he was so broken, their parents never noticed his help- neither did Sirius.
He couldn’t do much for his brother, but he could do that.
He never tried to heal himself though, he tended to do things less extreme than his brother, accidents and mistakes instead of outright rebellion.
He still got hurt just not as bad.
It would be more obvious if he healed himself after all, and he was too scared to try, so he took the hits and didn’t bother healing himself afterwards.
But it didn’t matter, Sirius was safe now.
The point being, wordless magic wasn’t a new thing to him.
But after easter, he took it on himself to perfect it.
He knew the basics so it wasn’t too hard.
And it’s useful, especially now, as he hears almost a rumble coming from the ground, shaking it, as the snake mouth at the end of the chamber almost rattles.
Knowing now where the snake is coming from guaranteed, he pulls Pandora further behind him and into one of the smaller tunnels to his left.
The spell made a bang, but it was wordless, the snake knows they are here, but not immediately where they are, all their movements being quieter than the initial explosion.
He knows that Basilisks have a good sense of smell, based off of all the research he has done, but with their eyes as their primary weapon, he tries not to be too worried about that just yet, regardless he and Pandora both reach into their respective pockets, and he quickly replaces the vile he was still holding in one hand with a stink bomb, ensuring his wand stays in the other. Pandora does the same.
He hates to admit it, but he got the idea from his brother, he and Potter constantly throwing stink bombs everywhere, including the day when he was sat sequestered in the corner of the library, reading up on the basilisks sense of spell, James had offered a slight grimace of apology when they locked eyes through the room, and although Regulus’ first response was to scowl it had quickly shifted to an involuntary smile, as he had a revelation he had been stupidly stumped on for a few days.
He of course didn’t just want a natural stink bomb, that was his brothers influence, and regrettably James’, however he could develop it, improve it, do better.
He didn’t need help, he could do it better.
So he altered the stink bomb to let out a more strengthened, and much wider spreading version of his and Pandoras scents, figuring if they fill the chamber with it enough, the serpent would be less likely to find them based on the smells attached to their body being a much less potent version of the smell filling the chamber, and allow them to knock their opponent down one sense without the risk of prolonged damaged to the creature.
He releases one now, casting an altered disillusionment charm, so he can still see it when he throws it through the chamber without the Basilisk seeing where things are being thrown from and thus alerting it to their location, when it reaches halfway he flicks his wand again, another wordless spell ( them being the only spells he plans to use in here) to set if off, and another explosion echoes through the chamber, this time mixed in with floral scents, smoke, and spices filling the chamber, along with a combination of their sweat, in order to fill the room with their natural body odour.
The explosion causes the basilisk to flinch back slightly, not too sudden but enough to once again rattle the walls of the chamber, and he can’t help but to wonder what kind of spells Salazar had once placed over this place so that the rest of the castle can’t feel it.
Because he knows they can’t, he had researched the last time the chamber was supposedly opened in the 30’s and there was no reports of any ominous shaking in the castle.
The smell overpowers the room, reaching Regulus and Pandora, and by the way the Basilisk is frantically shaking its head, he is sure it has reached it too.
He knows it’s not enough to cover the whole area, but it’s enough to start, and they have more stink bombs to cover the rest of the chamber, if need be- if they get to the rest of the chamber.
But it’s enough for now.
Until the basilisk abruptly stops shaking its head, stopping with its eyes directed firmly just to the left of where Pandora and Reg are still slightly hiding behind the wall.
And he knows the Basilisk is going to begin to revert to its other senses, so they need to start working on taking them out.
He goes to quickly step out of his hiding place to try move to the next one in front of him- he needs a better aim if he is going to take out the Basilisks eyes, they may not hold the threat of death any more, but they still give the basilisk the advantage of being able to see him.
Before he can move though, Pandora reaches out again clutching his shoulder, he knows what it is, a plea to let her go with him.
But they set boundaries before going into this chamber, Pandora has to listen to him.
And although he knows she would ignore him if he told her to leave without him, he also knows she won’t fight him on this, not in the middle of the chamber, not when the pressure is tense and weighing on them both.
Regulus is offence, she is defence, so she needs to stay back.
It’s hard to even focus knowing she is in danger down here with him.
He lifts his hand up to place it over the one on his shoulder, never letting his eyes stray from the body of the Basilisk, needing it in sight at all times to be prepared- he gives her hand a little squeeze before removing another smoke bomb from his pocket, raising his wand and moving forward to slip into the next little tunnel.
He manages to slip into the next section as the Basilisks head whips around, he keeps his eye sight down, focusing on the Basilisks neck in order to discover where it is looking.
He moves out of sight again, always staying just far enough forward to see a part of the Basilisks body- always prepared. He disillusions his next stink bomb before throwing it far out slightly to his left, and waving his wand to quickly blow it up, all entirely silent except for the inevitable explosion yet again.
He pauses as the bang fades, and the echoes stop, smelling the room as their scents get stronger, he takes this moment to listen, listen to the Basilisk, listen to Pandora, make sure he knows where all the other players are in the room, it’s just a chess game.
He is a queen aiming for checkmate, trying to protect his most important player, the king (Pandora) at the exact same time.
There are two more tunnels in front of him, and he knows it would be extremely dumb to try run to the tunnels on the opposite side to him and expect the Basilisk not to see him, so he rushed forward again to the next tunnel, leans back slightly, before throwing his weight forward to launch the next stink bomb as far as he can towards the right side of the chamber letting it blow up as late as he can, so he can cover their scents across more of the chamber.
As it blows up, he hears another bang from behind him and realises that Pandora has let go of one of her own smoke bombs, letting it go with a bang just seconds after he did, allowing her to speak the incantation without being heard.
He goes to turn around in confusion, before he hears another thud in front of him, and sees that the Basilisk has dropped his neck to the ground, his head now level with the last tunnel in front of Regulus.
Pandora was distracting it, he must have stepped too far out when trying to launch the last smoke bomb, or slipped, and she saw what he couldn’t, made it so that there were three different sounds in three different directions.
They have stopped the Basilisk from being able to use smell, and they are able to divert it with risks and stop its use of sound.
They are taking its senses out one by one, without taking it out.
He pulls himself back further into the tunnel slightly, to try and prevent himself from being seen, from making Pandora need to save him again.
Everything goes silent in the chamber for a minute, as all three of them seem to collect their bearings.
It gives him little time to re-evaluate, but Basilisks are smart creatures, and this time is giving the Basilisk time to prep too.
Without a master, it just wants blood- it doesn’t care whose, nor the so called purity of it.
If you can call incest purity.
He watches out of the corner of his eye, the corner of the tunnel, as the Basilisk lays there perfectly still- waiting them out, waiting him out.
But they haven’t taken out its sense of sound, so he uses that, he casts another silent bombarda over the head of the Basilisk, avoiding its eyes, allowing the Basilisk to turn its head towards the other wall as it crumbles yet again using sound as a distraction as Regulus internally mourns the loss of this well-kept piece of history.
As the Basilisk turns its head back to face where it seems to know where Regulus is, he shoots a spell at its eyes, he could go for hearing, but he is on the offence, and he has silent spells, and the ability to move silently after years spent in the house of Black.
So he can do silence, it’s not his priority to get rid of.
So he settles on sight.
After all the snake needs A sense, otherwise it is going to be an a thousand pound snake thrashing around the chamber, which will be even harder to predict and dodge than a snake with only 2 of its senses lost.
So he aims a swelling spell at the Basilisks eyes, not to hurt- not permanent damage, but enough to swell them shut, so he and Pandora can have more freedom with their own eyes.
And his aim lands true, swelling over one of the Basilisks eyes, but it still has its other.
And now he can tell its mad, it’s body thrashing around for a few seconds again before freezing its head suddenly, facing directly at the tunnel Regulus is hiding in before lurching forward towards him, clearly done playing the waiting game.
And he runs.
He distantly hears another explosion in the distance, whether another smoke bomb or a bombarda, he isn’t sure.
He knows Pandora is trying to divert the Basilisks attention back in her direction, but the snake has caught sight of him now, and he is not giving up access to such easily accessible prey, because Regulus is right in front of him, and the Basilisk is following behind quick.
He continues running down the tunnels, taking sharp turns every time there’s an opening in order to try slow down the creature behind him, and it works but not enough, it is gaining on him, slower than it would of, but gaining none the less.
He continues to take every right turn he sees, figuring it will eventually bring him in a full circle and he can get out of the tunnels, even though a full chamber gives the Basilisk much more range.
He hates himself- but he can’t help but hope that when he gets out of the tunnels, Pandora will be there, ready with a spell or something to help him.
You only want to live, when they only option seems to be to die.
So he keeps running, the bottom of his trousers soaked through from the water all through the tunnels, and he is getting tired, but he is a seeker, he was born to move fast, and Pandora is still in the chamber, he can’t die now, he needs to get her out.
His brother is going to fight in a war, he can’t back down now.
He runs and runs, trying to get more adrenaline to run through him, to course through his body, to push him faster than he is already going.
His lungs are burning, and he knows his body would be aching, but the adrenaline seems to be doing its job- numbing all feelings except flight to the best of his its ability.
Eventually he hears Pandoras voice, almost breaking through the fog his mind had become, all centred in on one thing, the monster running behind him.
Life or death.
But Pandoras voice breaks through, and she is screaming, her lungs probably burning, reaching the levels of pain his own are at.
He hears the desperation in her voice, along with the anger, almost like a beacon, she is calling him, calling him to safety.
And he follows it, it sends him down his next left turn instead of right, but he trusts it, one more left and then a right, and her voice is becoming louder and louder, his mind running faster and faster, his legs not able to speed up- but almost feeling the faint tickle of hope from the rest of his body, and managing to maintain their speed, until he runs straight into the clearing.
As he gets to the exit, there is a ridge he misses and he feels himself fall forward onto the ground, Pandora seems to go to lean forward to help him up, before backing up, averting her gaze, and shooting a spell at the snake behind him.
Regulus rolls his body to the left reaching out to grasp his wand at the last minute, before tucking it and his arm back into is body, before the Basilisks head thumps down landing hard where he had just extracted his arm from.
Pandora goes to grab him and help him up, just as the Basilisk lifts its head up again reaching out to snap its fangs at her, but Regulus pushes her away from him, getting her away just in time before his arm lands right back down on the floor, where a jagged rock had been waiting almost perfectly for his arm to impale itself.
A rock he had knocked off the wall earlier.
Karma for ruining an historic monument he guesses.
He lets out a piercing scream, his vision going black, his body rushing hot, trembling all over and feeling sick.
But his mind just repeats on a loop suck it up suck it up suck it up, you are a black suck it up suck it up, and he grits his teeth, ignoring the burning pain in his arm, shoving all thoughts and feelings to the back of his mind and trying to go numb, thinking at the back of his mind how funny he would find it that his mother’s voice is helping him defy Voldemort, helping him get back up.
He imagines her rolling in her grave, imagines putting her in one, and doesn’t know quite how to feel towards that.
But he pushes his mind to go numb, as he extracts his arm from the rock, glad it wasn’t his wand arm, and aims back at the Basilisk, aiming 10 stunning spells into its eyes at once, followed by a swelling spell, hoping they land properly, despite doing all of this out of his periphery, the Basilisks eyes still being a threat.
He doesn’t know quite how many are needed to stun a Basilisk, his reading weren’t quite clear, but it should buy him 5 minutes, and he needs to check Pandora got out of the way.
He hobbles over to her, his knees now screaming at him along with his arm, but he doesn’t bother to look down, he needs to see her first.
It’s quiet, so he hears her rattled breathing and speeds up slightly, making his way over to her quicker, shoving the pain further into his mind and using the adrenaline- forcing it to help him push himself through.
He finds her lifting herself back up off of the floor, her blonde hair, tinged red at the hairline, but otherwise she looks fine.
He walks over to her, slowing his steps slightly, allowing himself some reprieve with all the pain he is repressing, but still needing to check her, touch her, feel her pulse beating, that she is real and it isn’t some concussed illusion.
He reaches out and goes to grab her hand, but she stops him bringing her hands up to either side of his face, her thumb gently touches his chin, and he flinches.
He frowns at the fact he has another injury he hasn’t catalogued as she pulls back her thumb to show him the blood coating it, that is presumably dripping from his chin.
He scowls at the idea of how bad he looks, how unkempt, shivers at the idea of punishments he knows he would get due to this, and watches as Pandora laughs slightly at his expression seemingly knowing what he’s thinking.
But her eyes show the concern lingering throughout it all.
She goes to hug him before seemingly thinking better of it and pulling back from him, taking in his state.
“Are you ok?” she whispers, eyes raking further over his body as her voice comes out hoarse, seemingly from all the screaming.
“Fine, been through worse.”
“That doesn’t make it fine reg,” she responds frowning at him, that little frown she does when he doesn’t take care of himself, when he brushes his problems off, when he acts too self-deprecating for her liking, “being ok isn’t based on past experiences, it’s based on if you’re ok. Being better than you were once doesn’t make you ok, if I looked like you did right now, would you say the same to me?”
But he’s not in the mood for sweet sentiments right now, “let’s talk later ok, you can tell me how I’m worth more then, let’s just get the venom and go.”
She frowns at him again slightly before nodding and moving over towards the Basilisk which is still laying still, “I don’t want to hurt it,” she starts, clearly frowning again as she considers the Basilisk in front of her, “but I don’t think the amount of stunners you cast is enough.”
Regulus can’t help but agree, he would risk it, risk the Basilisk stirring once again when he is down here so as not to need to hurt it further, but Pandora is here, so he lifts his wand up slightly shooting a couple more stunner of at its blissfully swollen shut eyes, and proceeds to walk closer pulling out a vile to start extracting its poison.
“Hey,” Pandora reaches her arm out again to stop him, “let me ok, I know how not to hurt it and you need to stem the bleeding,” she nods down to his leg and arm which are both bleeding profusely, and he quickly spells a quick blood clotting spell at them, figuring he can take care of it all better when he out of the chamber and has his potions.
Once he is done, he looks back up at Pandora who is still looking intently at him, “yes?” he questions, holding her gaze.
“I need to borrow your wand to remove the tooth with less pain so I can get to the venom.” she informs him.
“What about your wand?” he questions furrowing his brow, before looking down to her hands to see them both empty as she raises one to point behind him.
“Broke,” she states bluntly, “when you pushed me out of the way, it snapped in half.”
“Shit panda I’m so sorry,” Regulus says, completely genuinely, but she doesn’t seem fazed at all.
“It’s just wood, I would rather it broke than you or me,” she smiles softly at him them, “But I do need your wand for the spell, I don’t want to hurt it, and would rather do this quicker, I don’t particularly want to remain down here defenceless.”
Reg quickly hands over his wand, silently planning to himself to teach Pandora wandless spells as well as the wordless ones he is close to perfecting, he doesn’t want her to catch herself defenceless in a bad situation either.
He watches as she collects the vials till they are all full, him handing her his three in exchange for the three of hers she’s filled so she can fill his too.
When they are finally done, she gestures to the other end of the chamber they had originally come through, “You go reopen the door, I’m going to heal its mouth and try reattach it’s tooth whilst it’s still knocked out and we’re down here.”
Regulus hesitates, he doesn’t want to leave her, but he wants the Basilisk healed too.
As if she can hear his thoughts, she speaks again, “it’s knocked out, I have your wand, and you are in no state to heal it when you are hardly healed yourself,” he frowns at this, but she continues, “I want to get out of here quickly, if we wait in here and it does wake up, you aren’t in a fit state to run, I’m not leaving you, and we won’t be able to stun in long enough to wait for that bloody door to open again, if anything you’re keeping me safe by opening it.”
He frowns again, but she just smiles at him and shoots a little shot of fire near his foot, not that she would hit him, but encouraging him to hurry up.
He laughs a little under his breath and heads to the door, whispering the parseltongue under his breath, hating to speak it- making him feel more like Voldemort than he is comfortable with.
As he waits for it to open slowly, he walks slightly back to Pandora, but he only makes it 5 steps before she is screaming at him to run.
“IT’S EYES, DON’T TURN AROUND REG RUN!!!”
She’s screaming as he turns back around and does just that, he hobbles to the door, feeling the chamber shake again and just as he gets to the door he thinks of Pandora behind him.
He turns around.
He looks.
Bright glowing eyes.
Orpheus and Eurydice.
Except he would disappear, not her.