Ever wonder what it’s like to drown?
Story of opposites.
There’s peace in water. Like it’s holding you, whispering in low tones to let it in, and every problem in the world will fade away.
But then there’s this… thing in your head, and it’s raging.
Lighting every nerve with madness. To fight. To survive.
And all the while this question lingers before you.
Have you had enough?
It’s funny. You could pass a lifetime without ever facing a choice like that.
But it changes you forever.
-Silco’s Monologue, Arcane
•••
He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when everything had taken a turn for the worst, but he was fairly certain it had been close to the start of his life.
From the moment Regulus first took a breath, he had been destined for awful and horrific things. He was a Black and Sirius’ younger brother. This was, of course, a volatile combination, so there hadn’t been much hope for him. He was doomed, right from the beginning. It was not surprising, then, to see where he had ended up and now there was no out. Not for him.
Regulus had considered that possibility from the second he realized what he had to do. As Kreacher told him of the task at hand, there was a small voice in the back of his head telling him how dangerous it would be, telling him to stay far away from that cave. From that moment Regulus knew he would have to ignore something, and it was his choice as to what. He could ignore what Kreacher had told him, what it had meant, or he could ignore the little, ever-present voice starting to grow louder and louder in his skull.
Somehow, strangely enough, the decision had been easy.
He had always tried to be a good son, a good follower. He had done what he was told, whatever he was told, and Kreacher had suffered the consequences of it.
It enraged him.
There was no better word for it. Hearing all the little details, all the things the Dark Lord had forced Kreacher to do. It made his blood boil. Kreacher was all Regulus had left now, and he had been made to suffer under the Dark Lord’s hand, so the choice was simple. Really it was.
Even as he stood on the outside looking in, or paid the price to enter, or even as he had stared at the crystal basin full of an unknown liquid, he had never wavered in the certainty that this was what he had to do.
Kreacher had begged, pleaded, fought. He wanted to drink the poison again himself, to save his master from a pain no man should have to bear. Regulus turned him down quickly and ordered the elf to force him to keep drinking no matter what the cost.
It was quiet as he stared down into the murky potion. He heisted for one moment, and then another, then took one drink and let it settle in him before he collapsed to the hard ground. Kreacher had done, as he always had, exactly as he was ordered. He forced Regulus to drink the liquid despite every desperate attempt he made to stop. He took sip after sip, wanting for anything to rid him of the pain he found himself in.
He hadn’t been thinking when he tried to take his wand as to slice through his own skin, attempting to bleed the torment from within him, but Kreacher had stopped him. The urge went as quickly as it came, sense finding its way back to him for just a moment, and he knew there was no logical escape from the poison sinking into his bloodstream.
He just had to suffer, and if Regulus was good at anything it was that: suffering in the face of death and pushing through it anyways.
Regulus could remember everything. He could picture every wrong thing he had ever done. Sirius came to his mind first, harsh words settled between them that could never be taken back and that final night where Regulus had watched him go and hadn’t followed. He could see all the happy moments they could have had if Reg had been just a little stronger. He never wanted to lose his brother, not really, but he had.
And he hated him.
He hated him more and more because of how much he really didn’t, but that didn’t matter. He pushed away any other feelings than hate because he couldn’t handle anything else now. He didn’t have the time.
He saw nameless faces filter through his mind, lives meeting their untimely demise in front of his eyes as he did nothing to stop them. He saw his friends waiting for him to come home but he never would.
He would never see them again.
They would wait for him, he knew they would. Pandora would wait the longest, wish the hardest, deny the truth. She would await the return he would never make. Maybe he should have spoken to her before he had made this choice. Maybe he should have done a lot of things.
And then, after eternity had passed, he felt this overwhelming sense of calm pass over him. The poison was finished, the basin empty, and the hurting stopped. He was left with this peaceful feeling he had never experienced before in his lifetime.
He was thirsty, more than he had ever been in his life, and he looked towards the lake for a second but there was no way he was drinking anything else in this fucking place. He trusted nothing in here.
Kreacher stared at him earnestly and Reg stared back.
“It’s alright,” he said, and he had meant it, “It’s okay, I’m alright.”
“Master,” he muttered. Regulus continued to stare at him through the darkness as Kreacher presented the locket. He took it and gripped it in his hands, feeling the heavy darkness settle over him.
He had done it. Regulus had actually done it.
And he had survived.
“We should go. Get back to the boat,” he ordered. Kreacher nodded his head and stumbled quickly over the uneven surface. Regulus pulled the false locket from his pocket and placed it in the basin, unable to keep himself from smiling just a little at the thought of Voldemort losing a piece of himself without even knowing, before he turned followed behind carefully. His body moved slower than he intended for it to.
When he got home he would have to see what all the effects of the poison were, see how likely he would be to survive it and-
Kreacher’s foot touched the water as he began to slide into the boat and a hand reached up to grab it, bursting out of the lake with no warning. Regulus didn’t feel so slow then as he reached forwards and pulled the elf from the grip, the boat pushing off from the edge and sailing towards the center of the water. A body climbed from the lake and set its sights on them.
Inferi.
Well, he was glad he hadn’t tried to drink that water.
And then, predictably, the horror hit him all over again. He had known that he wouldn’t survive this. In some way shape or form, this was where he would meet his end. His brief hope had been shattered.
“Take the locket and go,” Regulus said, pushing them back as far as they could go as more bodies came up, before shoving the locket toward the elf. Kreacher took it carefully and Regulus turned away from him.
“Master-“ the elf tried, but Regulus could not hear it. He didn’t have the time.
“It is not a request. You can leave here as you did the last time I ordered you to return home, I cannot, and this can’t be in vain. You will take the locket, and you will go,” Regulus interrupted, holding his wand outwards towards the bodies, not looking back.
“Please, Master-“
“Kreacher! That is an order! You will leave here and do as we discussed, and you will not say another word about it!” He shouted, turning to look at Kreacher again.
Despite the impending doom, they sat there for just a second and Regulus could almost see the final light flicker from Kreacher’s eyes.
Then he bowed his head, and Regulus could have sworn he saw tears in his eyes, before he finally followed his last order and apparated away.
And now Regulus was alone, heart pounding as he pressed his back against the basin. A particularly rough edge pressed into him. He let go of his breath before his knees buckled and he collapsed onto the jagged floor. A long scratch made its way down his back as the material of his shirt, and subsequently his skin, tore under the pressure of his own weight against the crystals.
The figures were growing in number, inching closer and closer, and for all the fear he felt he couldn’t bring himself to regret what he had done because just this once he had made this choice all on his own and it was right.
Sirius would likely never know, but he had a reason to be proud of his little brother. It had been right, and worth it. Regulus had never done this for fame or recognition and he definitely hadn’t done this for forgiveness. He did this for Kreacher and for himself and for nothing else. No one else had earned a thing from him.
He wasn’t even sure he himself had.
Regulus looked around as they continued to him, and he couldn’t help but be glad this was where he got to see his end. He had seen some horrifying places in his life, lived in them too, but he had to admit this place was beautiful. There were far worse places to die, he knew that better than most.
Regulus took another breath before putting his hand on the ground and forcing himself to stand once more, staring at the end that was coming so near, looking at the hallow corpses coming towards him. He wasn’t going to fight it, not really. He had suffered enough, choking on his own failures for far too long, and he didn’t want to suffer anymore.
This time he hadn’t failed and that was enough. Regulus could face this end.
He moved forwards, taking a few steps downwards towards his timely death. A few steps away from the edge a cold hand gripped his ankle, and Regulus fought the urge to pull himself away. Another, and another, and they tugged at him. He shot out a few spells, getting the ones close to him off long enough for him to make it to the water.
If he was going to do this, he was going to do it on his terms. He wasn’t going to let them throw him against the hard ground, he was tired of that, he had spent his whole life on the cold floor under someone’s thumb.
No, if he was doing this, he was throwing himself over the edge. He was sacrificing himself for something better, he had that right.
He used a few different spells to keep the bodies at bay, and as he used his final Incendio, he realized that would be the last spell his wand ever cast, the last spell he would ever cast. He made it to the edge, looked into the dark water that was meant to be his end, and forced himself not to cry. The fire fell away. He turned, holding arms out before he could second guess the choices he had made to get him to this moment, and several bodies reached up at once.
They yanked him down and towards the water, submerging him in the cold, and Regulus let them. He let them tear into his skin and drag him in through the depths. They took and took as Reg gave and gave, and that was okay.
It was okay.
It was okay.
It was okay.
Until it wasn’t.
It only took half a minute for the pain to start, his body fighting back against the inevitability. He could feel his heartbeat growing faster, heavier, making its way toward his head.
And it wasn’t that he wanted to live, no, he had made his peace with the end, but to die suffering this way? To die and become a hallowed shell of himself waiting for the next victim at the top of the lake?
There was no peace in that.
Perhaps he had done this all wrong. Perhaps he should have ended his life before he could have made it to the water, but even Regulus knew he would never be strong enough to cast that final curse onto himself, no. This was the only way it could have gone. He was going to become one of those things no matter what, the way he ended didn't really matter. Nothing really did, not anymore. It was far too late for any doubts now.
It felt like it had been ages, like he had been here his whole life.
He jerked and fought, his head pounding. His body wanted to survive despite Regulus' mind wanting otherwise.
The moment came then, the one that really secured his end. Without thinking his mouth opened and he inhaled far more water than his lungs could possibly contain, drawing the cold into him until it settled into his bones. He had thought that would be the worst part of all of this, taking in the water, but he had been wrong.
Because then, surprisingly, his body stopped fighting like it had caught up with what he had already known. He didn’t feel afraid anymore. The pounding in his head had begun to subside as his eyes fluttered closed and he pictured Pandora again, pictured his friends, pictured Sirius. They were all smiling this time. The guilt of his life waned away.
He had done this right. Reg had gotten this one thing right. Sirius could be proud.
Death, in the end, was exactly as he expected. Gruesome and final and a relief. He held his eyes shut and waited and waited and waited and-
Regulus Black hit the bottom, and he was gone.
•••
Have you had enough?
Yes.