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He’d like to say it was the final straw as well as the first straw, and all the ones in the middle, for good measure. He’d like to say that Kreacher’s tale of pain and fear and abandonment, of horrible mistreatment at the hands of a master, was the first time the Dark Lord’s true character showed itself.
But Regulus wasn’t blind. Nor was he stupid. For a year now, he’d been silently cataloging all the little things that didn’t quite add up. And he’d been doing his research, too. Stacks of newspaper clippings about the Dark Lord sat around his bed and hung on his walls. Books on genealogy, on family lines, on the ancient, long-destroyed houses lay around his room, open, full of bookmarks and notes on scraps of parchment. Hanging on the wall beside a Slytherin banner was an old photo of the Dark Lord as a young man, a gift from his mother, who had been at Hogwarts with him.
Tom Marvolo Riddle. A half-blood with a deadbeat father and an insane mother. The last of the Gaunt line. The last of the British Slytherin line. Descendant of the Peverells. The names that cropped up in his past were every bit as impressive and ancient as the ones in Regulus’ own family tree... except for one. Tom Riddle. Muggle.
And Tom had made a Horcrux. He would, though. Horcruxes were the mark of a crude wizard, one not raised in a proper family. Regulus remembered sitting down with his father the summer before his third year and listening to a lecture on sex. There was a surprising amount of ‘be careful’ as opposed to ‘don’t do it,’ though Regulus supposed, with a grandfather who’d become a father at the age of thirteen and a brother equally as young when he first pulled a witch, ‘don’t do it’ would have been awfully hypocritical of the family. No, the concern was more on ensuring that there were no bastard Blacks. Regulus had wanted to assure his father that they had nothing to worry about, that the thought of touching a girl (or anyone, really) down there held no interest for him, but he hadn’t found the nerve, simply squirming a little and nodding along with whatever Orion said. And then he had mentioned the Horcruxes.
Horcruxes were, in short, the surest way to kill your family. That was the general gist of the lengthy lecture, which impressed Regulus more with how much Orion feared and detested Horcruxes than the actual dangers themselves. Orion was a powerful wizard, Regulus had known even then, and he had kept the family safe. He had fought off anyone and anything who tried to harm them, and, even better, had kept them from coming in the first place. And he had spoken of these things, these curses, with such disgust in his voice that Regulus knew it was important. If you made a Horcrux, if you ripped your soul, your family tree would rot and wither away within a generation.
The Black tree was weak enough, Regulus knew. He wouldn’t add Horcruxes to its dwindling branches.
Many pureblood families lectured their children on the dangers of Horcruxes, Regulus had learned. When they were old enough to learn about the birds and the bees, they were old enough to learn about the corrupting evil of the Horcrux. As Regulus grew older, jaded, he realized what this meant. The ancient pureblood families, the Sacred Twenty-Eight, often responsible for more dark magic than all of the other wizards combined, wouldn’t touch this magic. There was something genuinely wrong with it.
“But no one told Tom,” Regulus murmured, looking over at the young man’s picture on his wall. “You fool.”
Tom was a fool, and Regulus was a bigger one, for following him. He had listened to the Dark Lord speak, had heard his passion, his ideals, his dreams, and a part of Regulus had responded, had thrummed at a purely primal level, had said Yes!, and for once in his life, Regulus had skipped the rational-thinking step and jumped ahead, baring his left arm to receive the mark of his master the first weekend after his seventeenth birthday.
Tom had been like Sirius, Regulus thought bitterly. And years of living with Sirius hadn’t built up enough of a defense for Regulus to withstand him. Tom had been handsome... or had seemed handsome. His red eyes now troubled Regulus, but at the time, he had looked like a living god. He was truly silver-tongued, and the passion he poured into his rich words had worked his listeners up into a frenzy. This was a man who believed they were right. Who believed they could change the world. Who believed he would change the world. And they wanted to help, wanted to change the world right along with him. He had spoken with all of the grace of a true Slytherin, and all of the fiery gumption of a Gryffindor, all of the intelligence of a Ravenclaw, and all of the unity of a Hufflepuff. No one could resist...
Regulus sighed, shutting the book in front of him. That was ridiculous. Anyone could resist him, if they only tried. Regulus hadn’t tried. He’d been too tired to try. Tired of the Family, of the disgrace that had fallen after Sirius’ abrupt departure. Tired of Hogwarts and the petty inter-house politics. Tired, even, of chess, of his beloved uncle, Cygnus, who had been slowly dying in his own bed, his Death Eater daughters at his sides.
There was a stab of guilt at that thought, and Regulus slipped his hand into his pocket to touch his silver chess set, a gift from Cygnus. The older Black had taught him how to play, and almost all of Regulus’ happiest memories involved sitting across a board from him. He sighed, bowing his head, sinking his forehead into the palms of his hands. Cygnus was gone now, taken by the Family Curse. He was not here for Regulus to sit beside, to listen to Regulus untangle his problems. Orion was dead too. A heart attack, the Healers said. A quick and easy passing in his sleep.
A quick and easy passing that happened to come a week after a conflict between Orion and Voldemort. Regulus remembered that night, remembered feeling the ancient wards on the house thrumming to life. He had hurried downstairs to find a terrible expression on his father’s face, one uplifted arm pointing Voldemort toward the door. At the time, he hadn’t understood.
He did now.
Horcrux. Voldemort made one. And Voldemort had asked his Death Eaters who could provide him protection for his treasures. And Regulus had offered up Orion, just as he would later offer up Kreacher. Stupid, foolish child that he had been, not realizing what it meant. Not realizing the truth.
Orion had feared the Horcrux in a way most pureblood wizards didn’t. Everyone got the lecture, but Orion seemed to have the understanding. And now Regulus understood. As Kreacher had detailed the path he had taken, Regulus had recognized the hand of his father in the Horcrux’s defenses.
Voldemort had asked Orion to work with a Horcrux, and Orion had killed himself to defy the Dark Lord.
Regulus had no one left to turn to for advice.
He had sworn allegiance to a man with no regard for any life, not even the pureblooded wizards he claimed to champion. Regulus was playing a dangerous game now, and one wrong move on this board would cost him his life. But he could not just stand still. The Dark Lord was asking him to lie, a cardinal sin in Regulus’ book. He was asking him to kill, maim, destroy. And Kreacher... Regulus had promised Kreacher that the task the Dark Lord had needed a house elf for was not dangerous. He had promised his elf that he would be safe with the Dark Lord. But Kreacher had been left to die, writhing in agony. Only Kreacher’s own promise to return to Regulus had saved him.
First his integrity. Then his father. Then his house elf. What more could Voldemort take from him?
Regulus rose to his feet, pacing the room with his fingers pressed to his temples. He knew what he needed to do. This Horcrux—it could not be permitted to exist. He needed to destroy it. No. He needed to tell the Aurors—no, the Order of the Phoenix. The ones who reported directly to Albus Dumbledore. The Aurors were corrupt and riddled with spies. The Order, though... but Dumbledore was surely too busy to have an audience with Regulus, a suspected Death Eater and youngest of the Black family, who’d been a perpetual thorn in the old wizard’s side.
Sirius. Sirius was in the Order. Regulus snatched up his quill, scrawling his brother’s name onto a fresh piece of parchment before he paused, looking down at the word. Sirius. His former brother. Sirius didn’t believe in promises. He’d run away from Regulus when he got himself Sorted into Gryffindor and again when he fled the Family. Sirius had always made it abundantly clear that he had his new Gryffindor life, and his brat of a Slytherin brother wasn’t part of it.
Even if Sirius somehow managed to read the note without just chucking it into the fire, even if Sirius believed Regulus, he couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing. Regulus knew what his responsibility was, knew what he owed the Family, owed Kreacher, owed himself. Sirius didn’t believe in responsibility any more than he believed in promises. Last Regulus had heard of his brother, he was flying an illegal motorbike and consorting with muggles: hardly the right sort of person to be entrusted with the safety of the wizarding world.
The other Order members Regulus knew (or could guess at) were all out. Alastor Moody hated his family. The Prewett twins would mock any missive from a Black. Regulus wouldn’t ever stoop so low as to write to Sirius’ friends, and Lily Evans, former Head Girl, was just as bad these days.
None of Regulus’ acquaintances from Hogwarts could be trusted, either, nor his cousins. They were all following the Dark Lord themselves. They wouldn’t understand.
“No one would understand,” Regulus murmured, crossing over to his window to look out at the dark street. “They’d turn me in in a heartbeat. He’d kill me, and no one would ever know…”
No. Regulus couldn’t go to anyone else with this information. He couldn’t trust anyone else with this information. There was only one thing to do. He’d need to destroy the Horcrux himself. And then...
And then it would be out of his hands. Regulus gripped the windowsill tightly, leaning forward to touch his forehead to the cool glass, wrestling with the spasm of fear. A dark lake. A poison. A monster in the water. He would die. He was just barely eighteen years old, and he was going to die.
There was no other way.
“It’s like chess,” Regulus whispered, turning to look at Tom’s picture on the wall. “You’ve got to make some sacrifices.” He lifted his wand, watching those dark eyes slide toward him, looking curious yet bored. “Avada Kedavra.”