Icarus Rewritten

When Regulus was younger, he and his brother ruled the world. Just them. Even if they were bloody, they were kings. The blood that was spilled in that house was their crown. The cuts, their sword, the broken bones, their throne.

But it still wasn’t enough. How can a king want more? Regulus asked himself. But Sirius didn’t want more, he just didn’t want Regulus.

So when Sirius ran away, tears in his eyes, and Regulus begged him to stay, it wasn’t enough, because he had another brother.

When Walburga found him bloody covered in his brother’s blood in an empty room. She asked him, softly but her voice was rough and she hissed like a snake.

“Where is your brother?” She looked at him like he wasn’t anything like he was nothing.

Regulus blinked, a mask falling over his face and he calmly said, “I don’t know, mother.”

She gripped his jaw harshly, making him turn around. His grey eyes matched her almost blue ones.

Ice met water.
Regulus was never a fan of water, meaning he was never a fan of her eyes. He always felt like drowning.

And it is said that water carries memories but looking at her eyes he wonders, does it also carry pain? My pain? Does she know how she makes me drown? Does she remember?

He was distracted and his ears were ringing, but he heard her next words clearly, “Crucio.”

He fell to his knees and doubled over in pain. Hot tears streaming down his face. He tried to scream but nothing came out.

Hard to scream when your mouth is shut. Hard to scream when water was filling up his lungs faster than his tears could come. Hard to scream when he felt an icy hand touch his heart.

He opened his eyes and she was gone, the spell was broken and Regulus slumped against Sirius’ bed.

He cried all of his tears, and now all that was left was anger.

————————————

Regulus always loved the muggle cinema. When he needed to disappear— which was more often than not— he went to the French cinema.

Regulus had long managed to remove the telltale crack of an apparition so he moved like a corpse in a graveyard. Silent, solemn, ethereal almost ghostly.

Because of this, Regulus managed to sneak out of his house and out of Hogwarts to a small town in France called Marseille.

He had a country house there. Not his family’s just his. He inherited from his grandfather Arcturus. He loved the big library and the echo when he played the piano or violin, but what he loved most was that it was so very close to a cinema.

Regulus sat there now. At the back of the room, hearing the clicks of the projector and looking at the heads of all the people watching the movie. He wondered did someone observed him too.

He was drawn to the thought—the thought that someone observed him like he was someone —like a moth to a flame. Always so willing to burn.

Maybe Pandora was right when he called him Icarus.

Regulus’ lips curled up at the thought and continued to watch the movie.

‘je t'aime tellement que ça brûle, ça fait mal et je pleure,’ the boy in the movie said, the girl watching him with unfiltered adoration in her eyes.

Regulus checked his watch, it was time to go. So he closed his eyes and simply disappeared.

—————————
It had been two years since Sirius had run away, and now Regulus was sixteen and a death eater.

He wanted to get rid of that mark. That ugly mark that said ‘pure’ in big bold letters. But he only felt dirty when he thought about it.

When he finished dressing,Regulus dipped his hand— until his wrist, like a glove— in poison.

It was a poison Regulus himself invented, a mix of basilisk poison with few others creating this mix, he liked to call, Death’s tears.

It didn’t show any symptoms or anything, it was undetectable. A few hours after infected, your heart would simply stop.

It wasn’t painless, but it was much less than they deserved.

The poison itself was transferred by touch, he was inmune because he had dosed himself regularly since he was fourteen. But for anyone else it would be deadly.

Everyone knew that Regulus hated being touched, so if they did, they would die of ignorance.

What a stupid way to die.

Regulus knew about the horcruxes, the fact that Riddle’s soul divided into many parts.

Regulus walked the halls of house, his footsteps silent same as his cane.

He hated his cane, reminds him of Lucius’. His cane was made of black wood, protection spells woven into it, with intricate design carved into the wood and a silver, metal, crow’s head as a handle.

At the inferi infested lake, after Kreacher shoved the potion into his mouth and Regulus greedily went to drink water at the lake— which in Kreacher’s defense he really tried to warn Regulus to not go near the water, but alas, he wanted to drown.

And as the inferi dragged him down, with no way for him to escape, Regulus kicked the hand of him. But the scratcher the leg deeply, its humanoid hands cutting the flesh, breaking the tendons and separating his bones.

The inferi’s hand was buried in his leg and pulled.

His face was impassive as he walked through the crowd, standing beside Bellatrix.

While he may have looked up to Sirius, Bellatrix had been his mentor.

She taught him how to duel, by getting cursed. She taught him how to keep his shields up, by breaking into his mind. She taught him everything. She molded him.

Too bad he started to crack.

The house had been decorated with everything silver and green. He wondered what would have Sirius done if he was here.

He hugged Narcissa even if he hated the way his skin touched hers. The way his nerves felt burned. The way he could feel the poison leaking to her skin.

His sickly father looked better than ever.

His drunken mother looked almost sober.

She grabbed his wrist and pulled him along, “Behave Sirius,” she whispered at Regulus, as her breath reeked of wine.

Regulus didn’t mind that she called him like his older brother what did bother him is that when she did it was the only time she had a hint of pride in her face.

Dinner was uneventful. Regulus made himself invisible, except when he asked for something, or his finger touched someone else. Everything was going perfectly until the others left and the only ones who remained were the Black’s or variations of them.

Voldemort asked to see Regulus in Orion’s study. It wasn’t uncommon, he was his prodigy after all.

He started to follow after the lord when his father grabbed his wrist, similar like his mother had done before.

“After you’re done, come back home,” he said, a threat lingering in his voice.

Regulus nodded and Orion removed is hand. The boy had to stop a grin, death by ignorance. So fucking stupid.

When Regulus reached the study, closing the door behind him, Riddle was setting up a game of chess.

Regulus sat down without any preamble.

Riddle moved his pawn, Regulus played the game. The silence was comfortable, until it wasn’t.

Tom Riddle liked Regulus Black, they had a father-son relationship, mentor-mentee. He liked the boy because he saw himself in him.

Blessed by dark magic, betrayed by family. But most of all, he could see the hurt in his eyes when Dumbledore didn’t help him.

He met this young man, after his brother ran and he was fourteen.  A blaze so vicious in his eyes that Riddle had to hid a shudder.

Tom made him into a weapon, but a thing about weapons is that they are so easy to wield.

“Do you remember what we talked about when you were fifteen?” He asked moving his bishop, eating one of Regulus’ pawns.

“We talked about a lot of things when I was fifteen,” Regulus says, his voice monotone, unbiased.

Riddle chuckled, “Do you remember what we talked about living for ever.”

Regulus blinks and finally meets his eyes, “Of course,” he says eating Riddle’s bishop.

Riddle moved his queen, “You were afraid, of fading into death, of not being remembered.”

Regulus smiles, it’s too much teeth to be a nice one, “You told me to not be worry about that. That you would fix it.”

“I did,” Riddle says, child like wonder in his voice as he continues to play the game.

“You found a way to cure death?” Regulus asks wariness in his tone, looking up from the board.

“Not cure it,” he reached into his pocket, “prevent it,” he says pulling out a small box.

“Do you remember what I told you?” Regulus asks, “when you told me that. I said that you should play with what the gods made and you laughed,”

“You said that people ignore gods until they need them. You said that they wouldn’t heed my prayers. Well, guess what, they did.”

Regulus looks at him with curiosity in his eyes, a thirst for knowledge that Riddle matched. He hands the boy the box.

Regulus opens it. Two viles sit there. One with liquid gold. Shining brightly, yelling life. One silver, it look liked death.

He grabbed the gold vial, read the Greek inscription, Ichor, it said.

“Ichor?” Regulus asked, wondering how the fuck did Voldemort get a gods blood.

“Yes,” he whispered, in parseltongue.

Regulus sighed, this wasn’t natural.

“If you do this there will be a price to pay.” He said,

“Isn’t there always?” Riddle replied.

Regulus looked at the vials once more, he knew how they worked, they link lives. One of them drinks the sliver vial, and they die while the other thing the gold one and becomes inmortal.

Regulus agreed.

Riddle grabs to goblets, they both slash their hands, pouring each vial into the receiving goblet.

Before drinking, Regulus looked around, his father’s desk, the one he used to hide in with Sirius. A window overlooking the streets, everything made of a dark wood, not as dark as his came mind you, but dark enough.

Regulus circled his fingers around the goblet, letting the poison seep into the metal before handing it to Tom.

“To live…” Riddle toasted,

“For ever,” Regulus replied.

They both drank the liquid, but Regulus kept it in his mouth, not going to die like this.

He stumbled without his cane. Riddle went over to grab him, setting him down on a chair thinking it was a side effect of the potion.

Regulus hands gripped his cane.

“Your sacrifice will not be forgotten,” Riddle smiled, almost sorrowfully, “You will not be forgotten. In many ways you have shown me what it is to have a son.”

Regulus smacks his cane over Riddles face, the goblet he was holding falls to the floor along side of Tom.

Regulus spits the potion into the fire place as he murmurs, "Fides est periculosa ludum,” trustis a dangerous game.

“Don’t play it with someone who knows better.” He told the dark lord’s unconscious body.

He would wake soon, they would both duel, the house would glow green, then burn and Regulus would walk out.

————————-

How far am I going to fly with broken wings? Is it too late to fly when I’m already drowning? 

——- Does Icarus’ freedom taste like ashes too?