The Chain|Regulus Black

Her Slytherin's

Dolohov's grip on the back of her neck burns as they're dragged down the corridor, to the doors she's seen in many nightmares.

Because the thing behind them is more than a nightmare.

It breathes.

Before she thought maybe it was love, maybe that burning sensation that ran through her when He touched her was resembling that need for affection. For proximity.

And there it was again, burning all over her skin as the doors swing open. Death Eaters, her comrades line the wall, the Malfoy's standing tall, Goyle with that stupid grin, LeStrange with the cruelest look of them all.

Then there were her friends, Evelyn staring straight ahead as Zenith stood unnaturally still. And Alec, with the same bored expression as always. Delilah thought about the hours they spent together, their laughter echoing in her head, their smiles burning against her mind.

Was it all a lie?

Because when she looked at them she felt safe, she felt at home, she felt, that if it all went to shit, when they helped her on her feet again everything would be right as rain.

Regulus groaned as Evan shoved him to the ground. Where was their brotherhood? Burnt and forgotten along with the towns they destroyed?

Along with the families they killed. Maybe you couldn't wash that blood away, blood is thicker than water after all.

But they felt like blood. So when their eyes go cold and their smiles fade, that was the greatest agony of all.

Regulus felt it as she did. That isolation, looking for one face to help you, and for him Delilah was that face. She was that ray of light that burnt the shadows away. Reaching across, he grasps her hand. He would not die in this world without holding her one last time.

"How touching." Voldemort spoke lowly, "the one thing you crave, the thing you live for, it will kill you."

He moved like smoke towards them, before his hand is around Delilah's jaw tipping it up to him and Regulus feels that string snap in him. The one that held him back for so long, the belief that he could rescue her from this fate.

The string that held him back when she was screaming his name during the Crutiatus. When her nightmares came more frequently than day, when fear was easier than eating. He wouldn't turn his back on her anymore.

Because he finally understood, Delilah never wanted saving, she didn't need rescuing.

She needed someone to fight for her. For someone to stand and beat at the world with bloody knuckles, and Regulus finally found that difference, he would fight, he would fight, he will fight.

Regulus grasped onto Voldemorts wrist, snatching it away from her. Delilah turned to him, expecting to see fear stricken by his own action, but instead, there was rage. That's when Delilah understood, the burning feeling under Voldemort's touch wasn't love. Love was Regulus. Love had always and would always be him.

Love was idiocy in the face of danger, they wouldn't find salvation after their acts, they wouldn't find redemption, there wouldn't be a place in heaven waiting for them.

But wherever they were destined for

They'd go hand in hand.

"Do not touch her." And there he was, that school boy who scowled at people for smiling at her, the boy who placed a hand on her at dinner, the boy who told her she was pretty under the cover of darkness, who told her she was magnificent as light scattered over her face.