Chapter 19
Regulus
“Imperio!”
He’s watching himself slam his own head into the stone floor.
“Imperio!” He’s tearing into his own skin.
“Imperio!” It doesn’t matter what he’s doing because it isn’t really him. He can’t really feel it. It isn’t really real.
“Fight it, you stupid, useless, piece of garbage!” She’s shouting again. She’s good at shouting. “How do you expect to serve the Dark Lord if any mudblood with half a wand can send you to your knees? Imperio!”
Why would he fight it? The spell feels so soft, so right. He wants to do these things. It’s best this way, giving up control.
The spell drops, leaving Regulus laying with his cheek pressed against the cold floor, a warm puddle of something sticky by his side. The old, familiar feelings of self-hatred and loathing slam back into him. He wishes he were dead. He wishes it were over. He wishes he dodn’t have to exist.
“Worthless!” She yells. “How did I end up with such pathetic, worthless sons! You are just as bad as him.” she spits the word like its poison.
Regulus is surprised she’s said it at all. She hasn’t mentioned him since he left.
“Just another disgrace.” She snarls.
She takes a step closer. For a moment, Regulus wonders if she might kick him. It would be a first, but not an altogether surprising one. She stops just short of his curled up body, bending down to look her disgraced son in the eye.
“What do you have to say for yourself, hmm? Anything?”
Regulus isn’t entirely sure if this is a rhetorical question or not. He’s not entirely sure he can say anything. He’s feeling a bit queasy. In truth, he kind of wishes she’d cast the imperious curse again, just so he can stop being in his body for a bit, so he can go somewhere else and watch it all happen. He’s not sure why it’s considered an unforgivable curse, it’s actually quite nice.
Unfortunately, Regulus must have either said some of that out loud, or in his pain let his occlumency wards drop, because his mother’s face twists into a horrific sneer of anger and disgust.
“Oh? Do you like being manipulated? Do you enjoy the unforgivables?”
Regulus doesn’t say anything. He just closes his eyes and waits.
That appears to be just the answer his mother is hoping for.
A cruel smile creeps across her lips. “Well, then, let’s try another. Crucio.”
Instantly, every muscle in Regulus’s body seizes. Burning. Freezing. Stabbing. Shooting. All of it. Every type and magnitude of pain all at once. He’s writhing on the ground. Real. This feels real. This is inescapable.
He’s crying now. Tears are streaming down his face.
He’s seen this curse before. Sirius used to get it all the time. Sometimes for minutes at a time, sometimes more than once in a row. Regulus would run and hide whenever it happened. He would try not to watch as Sirius writhed and grimaced under their mother’s torture. His eyes would bulge and his limbs twist into impossible positions, but never, not once, did Sirius ever beg for it to stop. Never once did he give her that satisfaction.
But Regulus isn’t Sirius. Regulus is so much weaker.
“Please.” Regulus whimpers. “Please.”
The curse lifts, the pain becomes less urgent, less pressing, but it doesn’t fade.
He can’t manage any more words. He can’t shout. He can’t even sound angry or desperate. His voice is just empty, broken, like there is nothing left.
His mother’s voice is softer now, more tender and caring than he’s heard it in years. “It’s for your own good, Regulus. To make you strong.”
“Mother, mother—"
“Crucio.”
Regulus’s vision goes completely black. There is nothing but his own screams.