Regulus Kills Again (One-Shot)

Regulus followed Barty up the stairs. They had been warned that this family had kids. A boy and a girl, if he remembered correctly -- aged nine and four, respectively. The tortured screams of their mother followed him up the stairs, but grew more muffled and distant the higher he climbed.

"I'll get this one, you go get the girl," said Barty, pointing down the hall. Reggie saw him move toward a door on which blue painted wooden letters spelled out the name Adrian. Farther down was a door with pink letters that spelled out Olivia. He started toward it.

"Olivia?" he whispered, prodding the door open quietly. No answer. He stuck his head inside, and saw a room strewn with dolls, a doll house, a tea set, and other little girl's toys. The girl herself was asleep in a canopy bed by the far wall.

Regulus started to pick his way over the toys littering the ground, just able to make them out by the moonlight filtering in through the thin, veil-like curtains that covered her window.

"Olivia?" he said softly, kneeling by her bed. This time the girl moaned a little and opened her eyes; she squinted at him, then frowned.

"Who are you?" she mumbled groggily.

"The tooth fairy," said Regulus, with a faint smirk.

"No you're not," Olivia informed him, rubbing her eyes. "Who are you really?"

Reg had to admire her courage; he would have expected a girl that age to scream or cry out for mummy if a stranger showed up in her room at night.

"My name is Regulus Black."

"What're you doing here?"

For a moment, Reg was about to say, "I'm here to kill you." But he didn't see the need to scare her unnecessarily -- yet.

"I'm here to take you downstairs. I can't tell you why, it's a surprise," he said, standing up.

"Reg, what the hell's taking you so long?" Barty yelled from down the hall.

"I'm coming, just go on," Reg yelled back. "That's my friend Barty," he added to Olivia as she sat up, still rubbing her eyes. "Come on, we don't want to keep everyone waiting."

"Did my mummy and daddy send you to get me?"

"Of course, how else would I have gotten upstairs?" Reggie smiled warmly as Olivia opened her arms. He bent down and scooped her up, and she threw both arms around his neck.

Very trusting, this one, Reg thought to himself, picking his way across the floor again. Shame we have to kill her. She was kind of starting to grow on him.

They went back down the stairs. The mother's screams started to reach Reg's ears once more.

"What's that?" Olivia asked, twisting in his arms and trying to look down. Reg didn't answer. Why don't those damn idiots just kill her already? The noise was really starting to grate on his nerves.

Of course as soon as Olivia laid eyes on her mother, twitching and screaming on the ground, under the Cruciatus curse, she too started to scream.

"Mummy!" she cried, trying to break free, both arms reaching desperately toward the lady on the floor.

Reg pulled out his wand, feeling greatly annoyed with his fellow Death Eaters. "Avada Kedavra!" There was a blinding flash of green light and the woman's screams stopped, though Olivia's turned to howls as she fought even harder to free herself from his arms. Reg reached the bottom of the stairs, and saw that the boy Adrian had been put under the Imperius curse and was staring blankly ahead, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his mother had just been murdered.

"What'd you do that for?" Rabastan demanded peevishly. "I was having fun with her."

"That's why I did it," Reg answered in mild disgust. "And the noise was giving me a headache. Silencio!" he added, pointing his wand at Olivia, who had just started beating his chest with her tiny fists. She fell silent but didn't stop hitting; Reg stroked her hair almost reflexively to calm her.

"What should we do with this one?" Barty asked, eyeing the young boy with a disturbingly hungry expression on his face.

"You know," Rabastan said thoughtfully, "I think I saw a tub in the bathroom back there."

"You're saying drown him?" Barty asked, his excitement obviously intensifying.

Reg had a brief vision of them holding the struggling kid's head underwater and felt nauseous. "You guys are sick," he muttered as they started to march the boy away.

"Not coming, Reggie?" Rabastan called.

"No, I think I'll sit this one out."

"Your loss, you're gonna miss all the fun!" Barty sang out.

Reg sighed and plopped down on the couch. He should probably have gone and just killed the boy before they could torture him, but he was feeling a bit drained out from having killed the woman. It would only be a few minutes before the kid drowned anyway. Only a few minutes of pain. And then he'd be dead, he wouldn't remember a thing.

Suddenly, Olivia started trying to scratch and bite at his face, and he remembered he still had her in his arms.

"Hey, cut it out!" Reg yelped, trying to fend her off. He felt around for his wand and then cast a mild Sleeping Spell on her. For some reason, he didn't feel like killing her just yet. He kind of liked having a warm body there for company.

He tried not to think about the nine-year-old boy who was probably struggling to breath under water in the nearby bathroom right then. Olivia curled up in his lap and started to doze off.

"That's a good girl," Reg said soothingly, stroking her hair once more. "You know why we're doing this? Cause you're a dirty half-blood."

Of course that didn't mean anything to her. When he was four, it hadn't meant anything to him either. Even now he wasn't sure it was the real reason he was doing this --

He wondered what Sirius would think if he could see what was happening right then. He'd be utterly repulsed. Truth be told, Reg was a bit repulsed himself. He wondered if his parents would still be proud of him, if they knew.

This wasn't what he thought he'd be doing ... wasn't what he'd signed up for....

Barty and Rabastan came back ten minutes later, looking mightily pleased with themselves. Reg stood up, lifting the Sleeping Spell from the girl, who clasped her arms around his neck again, looking fearfully at the other two.

"Looks like you've made a new friend," Rabastan snickered.

"What do you think we should do with her?" Barty asked, an even more fanatical gleam in his eye.

"Nothing," said Reg quietly. He shifted her to one arm and pointed his wand at her with the other. "Sorry," he whispered. Then, a little louder, "Avada Kedavra." Her body went limp in his arms; he set her down on the sofa with a shudder.

"You're no fun," Barty whined as Rabastan rolled his eyes.

Reg shrugged and walked over to the door. "Drinks, anyone?" he asked casually.

"You're buying," Barty informed him.

"Sure, whatever."

They stepped out into the chill night air, sent a glowing green Dark Mark up into the sky, and with three loud cracks, Apparated to the Serpent's Tooth pub in Knockturn Alley, where Reg proceeded to get stinking drunk.

******

Nerissa Flint could think of only one person who would be pounding on her front door this insistently at two in the morning. Still, she kept her wand at the ready as she approached and pulled it open.

As she had expected, the caller was Regulus Black, her boyfriend of three years. He looked a mess.

"You've killed again, haven't you?"

"Can I comin?" he slurred.

Nerissa stepped aside to let him in. "You're lucky my parents are out."

"Why?" he hiccuped. "They like me."

"Not when you're banging on my front door, falling down drunk in the middle of the night they don't," Nerissa muttered, shivering and pulling her silk bathrobe tighter around her as she shut the door.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Come here." She took his hand and lead him to the sitting room sofa, where she conjured up a goblet of water and made him drink it. "You want to talk about it?" she asked as he lay down, resting his head in her lap.

Reggie didn't answer. He was trembling slightly, and an aura of death was clinging to him as strongly as the smell of whiskey. His sleeve had fallen back just enough to expose the Dark Mark burned into the smooth white skin of his forearm. Nerissa ran a finger over it gently, imagining what it must feel like when the Dark Lord did the same. The thought gave her a tingly feeling all down her spine.

"She was only four," Regulus said abruptly. He turned to look up at Nerissa.

"Who was?"

"The girl I killed tonight. She was only four."

Nerissa felt caught off gaurd. She didn't know what to say. Reggie almost never talked about his killings. She could always tell when he had killed, of course -- the two of them had been close friends since their first year of Hogwarts, a bit more than friends since their fifth -- and she had a feeling he was going to propose any day now -- but usually he would just become moody and distant for a few days, insisting it was nothing, that killing didn't really bother him.

"Was she a Mudblood?"

"Half."

"How come you had to kill her?"

"Her father was speaking out against the Dark Lord. We were told to do the whole family, man had a wife and two kids."

Nerissa sighed. "Then you did what you had to do," she said.

"Yeah, but -- it wasn't her fault, she didn't do anything wrong," Reggie said in a pained voice. "She seemed like a sweet kid. And I just killed her, just like that." He sat up with some effort, set his feet back down on the floor, and covered his face with one shaking hand.

"There's nothing else you could have done," said Nerissa quietly. "It's not like you could have left her there alone, with all her family dead. Or taken her anywhere else, for that matter." She reached out to rub his back comfortingly. "There's nothing you can do about it now either."

Reggie looked sideways at her. "I made it quick at least. Quick and painless. Before the other guys could get to her."

Nerissa nodded. "I know it's hard -- but remember, you're doing it for a good cause, and I'm proud of you."

"For murdering innocent children?"

"For serving the Dark Lord faithfully, in whatever he asks of you." She stood and extended a hand to help him up. "Come on, let's get you to bed. You'll feel better about it all in the morning, I promise."

She could tell he didn't believe her. She didn't exactly believe herself either. She could practically see his soul coming apart at the seams, and wondered how much longer she would be able to help him keep it together.