Love, Life, And Lies- Regulus Black

.st. mungo's.

.you can't sell dreams to someone who has walked through nightmares.

The darkness didn't last.

Instead, I found myself in the place I feared the most. The place that had tortured my dreams for years. The place where over and over again I lost everything I had ever cared about.

I cried out in agony as I found myself back in that dark, soulless cave.

The feeling inside was thick and oppressive and dark. More so than it usually was. Such evil, vile magic had created this place. And I wanted out. I would rather face the relentless heat and the suffocating smoke of that burning building.

I knew what was coming next, it was what always happened. Regulus Black detached a boat from the far bank and charmed it to move across the dark, unnaturally still water. Kreacher stood beside him, clinging to his robes.

There was one detail I hadn't noticed before. He was wearing his school scarf, and it billowed out behind him as they sailed across the lake.

What an odd detail to notice.

I watched the familiar scene, a sense of dread eating me up from within as they reached the island and approached the crystallized basin. The contents glowed an iridescent green. That horrible, abominable potion that brought about such terror.

I had to bite back a sob as I watched Regulus use a shell to scoop up some of the potion and drain the contents, while quickly instructing Kreacher to force the rest of the potion down his throat when he could continue no longer on his own.

I wanted to scream out to him. To tell him to stop. I'd had this dream enough that I knew he would never hear me. But it didn't stop the tears that streamed down my face, and the sobs that escaped from my chest.

I watched as his eyes grew wide, and the stormy gray was almost indiscernible against the pitch black of his pupils. Shudders started to overtake his body, and sweat beaded against his brow and hairline.

But he still pressed on.

I watched the man I loved fall to his knees, the world seeming to come apart around him. His breath became quick and labored as if every draw into his lungs was a burden he couldn't bear.

"I'm sorry. I'M SORRY." He started screaming. "I couldn't save them. They will die and all because of me." Distress was etched into every feature of his face. His eyes distant and hazy, almost as if he saw something that wasn't there.

This was the part I hated the most. The agony. The delirium. The guilt.

"Master must drink," Kreacher said, coming forward with another cup of the bloody Drink of Despair, forcing it down his throat. "Master made Kreacher promise."

"How could I leave her in his hands? He'll kill her." Regulus croaked, and the agony in his voice made every particle of my being ache. I could see the hysteria in his eyes. His skin was beaded with sweat, and his hands shook as he reached out and grasped at air. "CASSIOPEIA. NO, CASSIE. I'M SORRY. IT'S MY FAULT."

"Regulus. I'm right here." I soothed, reaching up to touch his cheek. Desperate in any way to make some type of contact with him. To force him to see me. But he was delirious; his soul was being tortured. And I was a ghost. A wisp of being that didn't exist in this moment.

"Please. Don't give him any more, Kreacher." I begged, as Kreacher came forward with the last and final bit of potion. Tears ran down my face as I watched the agony on Regulus's face.

Kreacher looked directly at me. For some odd reason he was always able to see me in these dreams. His eyes looked into my very being. "Mistress Black should not be here." He hissed, as he always did whenever I addressed him.