The Night With Kreacher
It was one of my quiet nights at Spinner's end. No missions from Dumbledore and no half-assed essays to grade from children who wouldn't know the difference between a bezoar and one of the nasty lemon treats from the headmaster. I was sitting on the old love set couch that had been there since I was very young.
There were unknown stains all of the ancient things but it was the most comfortable place in my childhood home. It was where my mother would read me stories when my father was out of the house. I was about to take a drink of my camomile tea. Then all at once, I heard a loud crack that sent my teeth on edge.
No one should be able to get past my wards. Was it the order ready to demand me to go on another insane mission that is more likely to kill me than anything else? Or was it some death eater ready to drag me into a mission to bring back the dark lord once and for all?
But all I saw when I looked at the source of the sound was someone I had thought I'd never see again. It was Kreacher, Regulus’s house elf who looked after him like a son. He took care of him better than anyone in that dratted house. Especially the mutt of a man who is his older brother who abandoned him to take his place as an heir. He's the reason that the one person who cared for me is gone. No that's not true it's my fault Voldemort must have killed him because he found I was protecting Lily. I don't even have a grave to go visit to mourn him from my life, I never told him how I loved him. But before I could get to last in thoughts of Regulus.
Kreacher spoke up to get my attention. “Mister Severus you must help Kreacher the nasty one is going to take it” In his hands was a locket with a snake in the middle that resembled an S. But before I could ask him any questions he started to speak in a desperate manner that seemed painful. It looked as though each word was a fight to get out.
“Master Regulus gave me the locket before he died'' he gasped.” he told me that I had to destroy it and Kreacher tried I did everything I could but nothing worked” The mention of Regulus' death placed a knot in my throat I couldn't have spoken even if I wanted to. Kreacher knows how he died.
“ Kreacher thought if he couldn't destroy it he could keep it safe but the nasty brother is going through the house throwing things away” The house-elf was screaming at this point. I needed to know how my Regulus died. I just need to know if I could have done anything to keep him safe.
I had fallen to my knees and I grabbed Kreacher's arm in a tight grasp. I was shaking all over and I said in a quivering voice “ Kreacher how did he die what happened to Regulus” Kreacher looked up with wide shocked eyes and said. “Mister Severus was to get a letter explaining what happened i saw master Regulus write it myself it was supposed to be given in the event of his death”
I gasped in a wet breath of air and closed my eyes. Black it had to be him he would be in charge of fulfilling Reggie's will. Why wouldn't he let me have this one thing so I could know what happened to him? I let out a hysterical laugh, I was on the edge of losing it. I needed a calming draft to get through this night. I reached into the pocket of my robe to get out some calming draft. I took a deep breath and counted to ten.
Then I told Kreacher “Start in the beginning Kreacher assumes I know nothing surrounding the death of Regulus” so he told him the whole tale. The night that Voldemort asked to use the Kreacher and of the cave with the drink of despair that had to be drunk to put the locket in the trap. How the dark lord thought that the potion would kill the house elf but the potion works differently on the anatomy of the Kreacher. How angry Regulus got when he saw how hurt Kreacher was in his state.
Regulus found out that the locket was a horcrux much to his horror. He grew determined to destroy the locket so all the pain and suffering could be put to an end. He went back to the cave and made Kreacher force him to drink the potion to get the locket. Then Severus learns of the nefri in the cave that dragged him down out of Kreacher's crip. The poor creature had tried everything to save him but he had to leave to destroy the locket like he was ordered to do so.
At the end of the tale, I was in a fury like no other. “ Take me there," I ordered in a yell. “ Take me to Regulus right now” Kreacher was shaking his head mumbling “No, no, no”. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, screaming in his face. And in a moment of weakness, the Kreacher apparated us there.
Kreacher cut open his hand and put it on the wall of the outside of the cave and once it was open I took out all of my rage on the lake below. I poured all of my hurt and anger into casting fiendfyre. I wanted to make sure that the things that took away my piece of happiness were destroyed. Kreacher shrieked and pulled me out of the cave and made the door to the cave close. I could hear the screaming of the neri on the other side of the door and the rumbling of the enchanted fire.
I held onto Krecher, the one person to have loved Regulus just as much as I did, and sobbing into the video all of my pain and loss. After a while the screaming and rumbling died down into nothing. I stood up feeling exhausted. I reopened the door and the lake had evaporated due to the temperature of the fire. I stepped in looking at the place that took Regulus from me when smoking at the bottom of the lake caught my eye. There was a large round growling object at the bottom of the empty lake.
I walked closer and to my dismay there lay Regulus frozen in time. I could see the gashes that went across his face and into his sides. “ Kreacher” I yelled for the house elf to help him get Regulus back into my house. When Kreacher saw Regulus he gasped and said “Master Regulus you is safe”
And in that moment the blue glowing barrier surrounding him flickers and goes out and Regulus gasps out a wheezing breath of air. I grabbed him and apparated back to my place.
I appeared in my room and placed him on my bed. I took over his clothes to see the damage the nerfi had done. There were multiple slashes from the claws of the nerfi pulling him down into the water. I told Kreacher to get my dittany from my supplies in the hallway closet. I started to use the healing spell my mother taught me after the first time my father hurt her enough to send her to the hospital. It was a song-like incantation that ran in the prince's family. I repeated the song over and over again til I could see the wounded nit themself back together. I forced blood replenishment potions down Regulus' throat. Kreacher appeared with the dittany cream that is used for healing and I rubbed it over his healing wonders that had closed up.
After what seemed like ages, Regulus’s breathing became more steady. I found some spare clothes and changed him out of the ripped bloodied one he was in. I pulled a chair from my kitchen and fell asleep watching his chest rise and fall.