Rising Sun

The sea expands for miles and miles, as far as the eye can see and more, like a heartbreakingly beautiful velvet of deep blue, the sun reflecting shiny diamonds on the watery surface. No words exist to describe such beauty – the beauty of the vast canvas of a horizon, painted pink and yellowish and it's the colour of the sunset, small, twinkling stars scattered on the sky like alien lights from another world. 

He sometimes wonders if the horizon can swallow him whole. 

Regulus pushes his scarred and trembling hands deep in his black robe's pockets, shaking his head. There is no time to waste on sentiments or doubt,no time to drown in his misery. No time to waste for weakness, for himself, for anything else than his quest, no time to live or die. (He remembers thinking, years back that he is seventeen and seventeen is too young to have the solo mission of bringing down a dark lord, but no one seems to care – will care – so he won't, either.) He can't afford it. The clock is ticking. Time is running short.

Water is repulsive the way physical contact makes him retch and tremble, hands shaking for hours and they won't stop and there is only one way to have a bath without the water sending him spiraling, so Regulus Occludes and Occludes and Occludes until he doesn't feel like he wants to die, to scratch his skin red, to push away the ghosts and disappear forever in memories – flashes, really – of a lake, a cave, lifeless eyes and corpses that move like puppets in a show, like marionettes pulled by a string. 

(Of a poison that burns in his throat and lungs, that makes him see and re-experience everything but make it worse – a Muggle woman screaming for mercy, a small boy crying, an old man bleeding to death in his living room, his mother, Narcissa, the family.)

His body trembles at the thought of even approaching the water (he used to love water, but maybe not anymore), of reaching out to touch the white foam (because even now, even years later, he still feels the phantom hands dragging him down, down, down, and maybe it's his sins that keep him in thebottom), of walking on the mud which cracks under his black boots as he limps there. But he won't (can't) get closer so there is no question if his bad leg will hurt on the way to the beach. He is much older now – the year is 1995, after all (right?) – and the pain from the old injury is something familiar, an expected and not completely unwelcome visitor. (When you only feel empty, even pain can be a bliss.

Perhaps Sirius would scoff at him, saying he's being dramatic, a coward and every bit insane, every inch his mother'sson, and all the usual dragonshit as well, but the fool got himself locked up in Azkaban back in – was it 1981? Has so much time passed? When did it happen?)

He does the math inside his head and realises in some six months he will be thirty-four. It makes him feel old and aged, even though he has no wrinkle tainting his aristocratic face – the pale skin, the high cheekbones, the sharp edges – only scars. (He has a whole collection of those, but if he won't think about it, they won't bother him much. His skin will crawl anyway.) But no one cares for Regulus' birthday, no one is left to remember – his not-brother is in prison, his friends ( – allies, companions, friends, friends, friends –) are one dead, one in the same prison with Sirius ( – and isn't that funny? – ) and sometimes he forgets too. There is no one to remind him, anyway.

A hand lands on his shoulder and Regulus fights not to flinch. He stiffens, hand gripping his wand, and whriles around, pointing it to the intruder, only to be met with his neighbour's raised eyebrows. 

"Are you alright, Richard?" the old and wrinkled man asks in French. 

(Richard is alright. Regulus . . . )

A sharp nod. "Of course I am, sir." He is always alright, always fine, always performing for an audience, because it's always the same question – are you alright? – and always the same answer, the same lie – I'm fine. 

The villagers suspect he is a war veteran, of course. No one dares to approach him, because he is that madman that lives in that remote house. Regulus is not sure how the rumours begun – it may have to do with him threatening to pull a man's eyeball out if he lays a hand on him again – but he is grateful for them nonetheless. 

The grey-haired man casts him a dubious look, blue eyes like the sea piercing through him. Too knowing, even when he knows nothing.

"You don't seem great." 

"Of course not. Great is average; dashingly handsomeis better."

"If you insist . . . "

Regulus thinks of the Dark Mark that taints his forearm, that twists like a snake slithering on the ground, thinks of the pain and the sorrow, of the shock, because the Dark Lord has returned and he is summoning his followers. Because somewhere out there is a Death Eater meeting taking place after almost two decades of inactivity and silence and something needs to be done.

He says, "Ido, in fact, insist." 

"I'm writing an autobiography, you know," the old man suddenly says, "want me to include you?"

An arched eyebrow. "How does any of this gibberish concern me?"

"Don't be a jerk. If it includes you, it concerns you. Anytips?" 

Regulus lets a crooked, wolfish smirk paint his lips. "Kill off the main character."

His neighbour throws back his head and laughs, a startled sound that reminds him too much of – 

(Don't think of Sirius. Don't think of the family. There is only the mission.

But it's always like that – the next mission, the next target or Horcrux (what's the difference, anyway?) and the next hunt, the next purpose and this is how it goes, next, next, next . . .)

He walks away, because somewhere in Britain his old acquaintances have gathered and are plotting genocide. He walks away, because there is a war brewing again in his homeland and the Blacks are going to be on the right side of it for the first time in history. He walks away, because he is going to do something about it.