Chapter Text
The water was always cold.
It lapped at the stone shore in slow, steady breaths. He remembered the fall. It wasn’t graceful at all. He had simply slipped against the wet stone, His trembling fingers losing the grip on the fake locket and letting it fall into its new home. His mind was reeling while he felt his body fall backwards and his throat was dry. He was so goddamn thirsty. Maybe he was meant to fall, to swallows gallons of the cold water, to get his throat working again.
The water hit like stone.
It was freezing, far colder than it had any right to be. Not like the Black lake water in autumn, that he and Sirius had been swimming in as children, while mother had still allowed it, before Sirius turned out be a Gryffindor. Not like ice. This cold went deeper. It felt like any warmth in him, was sucked out. Like the lake itself had never known warmth, like it had been waiting for centuries, patient and still, just to swallow him.
His breath was stolen instantly.
It wasn’t just temperature though, it was a chill that pierced through skin, through muscle, straight to bone. Every vein had been frozen the moment he had touched the water that engulfed him. The shock paralysed him for a moment, limbs locking in instinctive panic as his lungs screamed for air. He flailed, but the water clung, thick and heavy as oil, like it didn’t want to let him go.
There was no sound here.
No splash. No echo.
The weight of his clothes dragged him down. The hem of his cloak twisted around his legs like seaweed, pulling tighter as the blackness enveloped him. The light from the cave above fractured into silvery threads, and even those soon vanished.
Regulus’s chest ached. He opened his mouth—and cold rushed in.
It wasn’t like drinking water. It was like swallowing pitch and the thought that maybe his throat would feel less dry disappeared immediately. His lungs spasmed. The darkness pressed in.
Then the hands came, pale, clammy, skeletal fingers, grabbing at him. They seemed eager, like every single one of them wanted to welcome him, into their home. To his new home.
They reached toward him, and when he began to struggle they gentle touches turned cold and relentless, as though the lake itself was alive, hungry.
Regulus tried to pull back, but the weight of the water clung to him, thick and suffocating—like dark tar wrapping around his limbs, dragging him deeper. His breath came in ragged gasps, swallowed by the inky darkness. He couldn’t feel his legs, his arms, only the clutching fingers of the Inferi tightening around his wrists, his ankles, his throat.
He could feel their cold touch on his skin, their dead, unblinking eyes watching from the murky depths, waiting, as if they had all the time in the world.
Regulus’s chest tightened. His heartbeat became erratic. He couldn’t breathe. The weight of the water pressed down on him like a thousand hands. Every part of him screamed to fight back, but the only thing he got in return where nails, digging into his flesh, deeper and deeper. The pain of his ripping flesh let him cry out and slip out of his mindless thoughts.
His arm jerked free from one clammy grip, and he punched blindly into the blackness. His fist connected with something—bone, maybe—but it made no difference. Another hand clamped around his ankle, then another gripped his shoulder, dragging him backward into the freezing dark.
Regulus kicked, thrashed, screamed, though the sound was muffled by the water that filled his throat.
They don’t stop.
They just keep pulling.
The air was gone. The light was gone. Even thought was starting to slip away. Only pain and fear remained—pure, animal panic.
And then, something in him snapped.
His body shuddered violently, every nerve on fire. His icy bones snapping and making him wither in pain.
His limbs convulsed, and the shape of him folded inward, bones cracking, skin rippling like water as fur bloomed over his body. His spine compressed, ears shaping, vision fracturing and sharpening at once.
The hands slipped away.
The Inferi stopped.
Where there had been a boy, there was now a cat—sleek, black, trembling with shock. The Inferi, confused, floated still in the water, their rotting hands twitching, searching for something that was no longer there.
The cat kicked hard with its back legs and darted upward, claws scraping against the rock wall of the lake. It gasped when it breached the surface—tiny, sharp gasps—and dragged itself onto the stone ledge with what little strength remained.
Soaking. Shaking. Alive.
In the shadows of the cave, with the Inferi retreating into the depths, the black cat curled up in a crevice of stone—fur plastered to his sides, eyes wide and golden—and began the long, slow process of forgetting what it meant to speak.