9At the start, everything is perfect, and life for both of them is better than it's ever been. They're young and powerful and they feel as though they've got the world at their feet, two ambitious Slytherins and nothing to hold them back.
Regulus says "I love you" first, and he almost regrets it when he sees the stricken look in Barty's eyes, which he quickly replaces with one of disdain.
"You're so sentimental, Reg," he replies, and the affection in his voice is the closest he will ever come to a heartfelt declaration. Regulus knows that Barty is broken, in ways neither of them can identify nor explain, so he takes those precious words for what they are and folds them away deep inside.
(Even then, their differences are impossible to miss, drawing them together as though they are magnets, inseparable polar opposites.)
It's by unspoken agreement that they keep their meetings between the two of them. It makes life easier for them both – Barty Senior just might snap completely if he knew the truth about his son, and Regulus isn't sure the Black family name can endure the scandal their relationship will cause. Regulus kind of likes the secrecy of it, the way that he knows something no one else does, the way he can read Barty's face like a book, while those around him are fooled by his many and varied masks.
Most of all, Regulus thinks, secrecy makes it special. For those few hours, Regulus belongs to Barty, Barty belongs to Regulus, and their differences are forgotten amidst the experience of companionship neither believed they'd ever find.
The Astronomy Tower becomes their place, somewhere they can be themselves, hidden and briefly free from the rest of the world and the pressures that come with it. On cold nights, the wind is loud, battering the ancient walls and ramparts, placing another intangible divide between them and everyone else.
Their whispered words are lost almost as soon as they escape their mouths, disappearing into the ether before they've even had the chance to live. Regulus reflects that people are like that too, given a flash of time in which they try to fashion a worthwhile existence, whatever form it might take, and inevitably snatched cruelly away without leaving so much as a ripple in their wake.
He and Barty won't be like that, he thinks confidently. He knows it. He and Barty are going to show the world, and everyone who's ever doubted them, to dive straight into everything and never look back.
Regulus already has the Dark Mark, wearing it proudly on his forearm. He'd gone to the Dark Lord as soon as he was old enough and sworn his allegiance. The Dark Lord is formidable and Regulus had to swallow sudden fear as he looked into those red eyes, devoid of anything remotely human. Still, the admiration in Barty's eyes when Regulus tells him makes it all worth it, especially the way Barty's eyes are drawn again and again to the Mark, riveted by hunger and a hint of jealousy.
The notoriety of the Black name means that Regulus was able to get his Mark earlier than most, whereas Barty would have to wait, and it makes him frustrated and more irritable than usual, something Regulus watches helplessly, wishing he can change the way things are and knowing it's impossible.
The time will come for Barty to be initiated into the service of the Dark Lord, and when it does, they'll rise quickly through the ranks, rewarded for their unwavering loyalty. Barty's father will be forced to leave his son alone, and Sirius, his brother, will become a mere memory of a childhood, a painful reminder of a time to which he'll never return.
"Want a smoke?" Barty offers, shaking Regulus from his thoughts.
Unwilling to refuse Barty anything, Regulus nods, trying to hide his uncertainty, without success. "Your innocence is so amusing. Here, have some of mine."
Obligingly, Regulus leans forward and inhales the stick of tobacco, drawing back a second later with smarting, watery eyes. He coughs loudly, shamefully avoiding Barty's eyes. "I don't think I'll do that again."
Barty ignores him, walking dangerously close to the edge and looking down. He holds his cigarette in the open air for a few seconds, watching it contemplatively, then opens his hand and lets it drop. "Sometimes I think I'd love to fall off the edge, like it'd make everything clear and better. Falling – falling would be freedom."
Regulus wants to ask exactly what he means. The answer might frighten him, though, so he chooses his words more carefully. "Everybody falls in the end. And before we do, Barty, we'll be strong, you and me. We'll make a difference, we'll be the best servants the Dark Lord has ever had, and our names will go down in history. Can you imagine that?"
"We'll be unstoppable," Barty says with relish, and just like that he's back to his old self.
(They're two love-struck, power hungry children, and the big wide world is waiting for them, ready to tear them apart, and there's nothing they can do.)
"He's out of control, Barty, and he's dangerous. I just want you to be careful."
"You worry too much."
"But I love you!"
He sighs, whether with impatience or regret, Regulus isn't sure, but in the end it doesn't matter. "That doesn't change anything."
Frustrated, Regulus growls deep in his throat, and folds his arms across his chest, the very picture of defiance. Barty raises an amused eyebrow, a smirk dancing at the corner of his lips. "How long are you going to pretend to be mad at me for this time?"
With infuriating nonchalance, he takes one final puff of his cigarette, blowing the smoke into shapes that hover playfully around Regulus' head, before stamping it out with his foot.
"I'm not pretending," Regulus says softly, and he means it. The words force him to acknowledge something he's been trying to avoid for a long time, bring to light the cracks that have slowly formed between the pair that is Reg-and-Barty, jaggedly splitting them down the middle until they become the separate entities they used to be. Only it's different now, because they've got a love that's slowly turning toxic and a war that rages beyond the walls of Hogwarts, and both those things are uncontrollable and inconceivably terrible.
"Be angry then, there's nothing I can do about that. You know I love you too." Months before, Regulus would have been over the moon to hear those three words, but now he's just bitter because he knows the truth. Barty doesn't mean them, they're hollow, empty lies, intended to placate, and Regulus is tired of playing the same old silly games.
He's tired of pretending that he doesn't miss his brother, tired of acting like he agrees with the casual murders and atrocities committed every day in the name of a man more murderous and atrocious than any who has ever walked the Earth, and he's tired of pretending that Barty genuinely loves him, when what Barty truly loves most in the world, and will do anything for, is power.
(This is the deciding moment, the end of them, and Regulus understands that doing the right thing can also mean doing the most painful thing of all, and he does it anyway.)
The wind is loud outside the cave, amplified by the waves splashing against the rocks, and Regulus unwittingly remembers another time, when loud wind meant being alone with the person he loved more than anyone else in the world.
Kreacher has walked ahead, and Regulus takes a few seconds to stop and look around at the landscape, one of the final things he'll ever see. "Goodbye, Barty," he whispers, knowing that it makes no difference. They've been lost to one another for a long time, and he doubts Barty will even miss him, his death certainly won't hurt Barty as much as Barty's absence hurts him.
(Not all loves are meant to last. For a while they were Reg-and-Barty and they were brilliant, and for the rest they were two people whose differences drove them apart, and they don't go down in history, they simply fall, just like everyone else.)
One is dead and one is left without a soul. A lust for power was their beginning, their middle, and their tragic end.
Written for:
fan fiction terms category competition ! (write about someone warning someone else)
The Bookshelf Competition/Challenge: George RR Martin (write about someone who wants nothing more than power and would do anything to get it)
House Cup Competition - Round One