Regulus is the name he was given and it seems fitting because he was nothing if not a greek tragedy in the making. The lions heart, as is his namesake, in hercules tale. always the victim in a hero’s story. the rise to greatness and the inevitable fall to despair to be talked about by scholars for years to come. He was nothing special, but he could be. a soul destined to maybe be loved and forgotten and rewritten. His pain and trials glorified to make a beautiful painting hung in museums to be gawked at, his pain stared at.
Regulus was loved once. By his very own lion names James Potter. He was loved truly and deeply. But like all greek tragedy, he knew how it would end. He knew how his story was written and his love, his lion had left him. Or better to say Regulus left him. He felt no need to drag James down with him. Regulus had taken the dark mark to please his family because he saw no way out. James was his light at the end of a seemingly never ending tunnel, and that was taken from him the moment his arm was branded by the Dark Lord. Regulus knew it was wrong, he knew there was no coming back from the path he had started on. With James no longer shining the way out, he was lost. But he wanted to do one good thing, if nothing else in this world he would help destroy the dark lord and let James continue living and shinning on the world without him if it was the last thing he did.
Regulus stands in this cave, inky water surrounds him in all directions. The stark white rock he stand on the only thing keeping him from being lost to the cave as he image most things here are. The blood from where he cut his hand still drips down to his finger tips and the sting feels like penance for all the wrong he has done in this war. But he is making it right, even if he has to die trying.
The locket swing from deft fingers before he places in the bowl sat upon the rock, in a delirious pain from whatever was in that bowl he had consumed. He knows what’s next. He knows it’s over. He knows how his story is written and it is coming to a close. A tragic life filled with a family who had never really loved him, a boy who shined like the sun on even Regulus’ most dark day sat at his home alone wondering where he had gone wrong, and a brother filled with hate for him who still thought him a traitor. His life was never ment to be happy, he was never to get his happy ending, a tragedy from the first shining of his star.
He may have once shined bright, the heart of the lion, but he was about to be snuffed out by his own cruel hands. Resigned to his own demise, he makes for the water. He can see the inferi reaching out of the water as he gets to the edge of the rock. They grasp at him desperately, trying to pull him down. He sets one foot into the water and as they start to pull he is filled with panic. He had known what he was doing, he had planned for this. And at that moment the only thing Regulus could think of was the sun. How its bright rays warmed his pale cheeks and how warm and welcome it always felt. And right there, he decided that maybe he didn’t know how his story ended. Maybe he was worth something. Maybe he was something special to someone. Maybe he didn’t need to die.
In a fight that Regulus didn’t know he had left in him, he reached for his wand in his pocket against the inferi. As he grasped it, he thought of the sun.
At this point Regulus doesn’t really know what happened. From one moment he was being dragged to his death, and the next he was on the floor of James Potters home. He feels carpet beneath his back, water still dripping from his robes. His vision is then filled with the face of his James. Concern written across his features. Regulus sits up and grabs James in a tight embrace. Maybe this was what was meant to happen all along. Maybe when paintings of him are hung to be gawked at, it is of him and his lion.
Regulus does not know anymore how his story is written, but he does know that it is no longer filled with the tragedies of his past, but of light and hope for his future and the world him and James will create.