By midnight, he would be a Death Eater.
He didn’t know if the feeling that gripped his chest was fear.
Regulus rarely felt anything anymore, so the emotions coursing through him seemed so foreign.
Regulus returned to his task at hand. The sound of burning parchment was flat and numbing to his mind. He didn’t think twice as he tossed the letters, one by one, into the fire - letters from the girl who had compromised so much of his time, the girl he refused to think of anymore. She was the one to give him the final reason to go ahead and listen to the advice of his cousins and align himself with the Dark Lord.
The storm picked up its power, sending a howling wind through the streets and around the houses of London. Regulus continued dropping parchment into the fire. Only stopping when something appeared, rising out of the ash and flame. It was a snake, acid green and hissing.
It was a summons.
Those who had yet to take the Dark Mark upon their arm were called to the Dark Lord by the serpent in other ways such as this. Regulus spun on the spot and Apparated to the place he had acquired a blank familiarity with. It was just the place he was required to go.
The next second, Regulus stood face to face with the Dark Lord. The man only spared enough time to throw the young Black a chilling smile, more a baring of unnaturally white teeth than a gesture of happiness, before delving into his mind. The cold, red, merciless eyes bored into Regulus’ grey eyes, moving past the stormy surface into the dark interior of his memories.
Regulus tried not to tear his gaze away. It was important that he endure this, even if he felt it was pointless. He had closed off and locked away so many of the memories that it didn’t matter if his future master felt like digging around.
For a moment, there was a flicker of light in his mind, and a swish of long hair, and he felt a pang in his soul. He closed that door again swiftly.
“Regulus,” the cold whisper carried powerfully through the large room, “what has your brother been doing lately?”
Regulus put all of his effort in keeping those thoughts of her locked away as he struggled to answer the simple question presented to him. “I no longer have a brother.” He wouldn’t let her seep into his thoughts again, especially not now.
“Who is the girl?”
“No one.”
The intrusion into his mind lasted only another agonizing minute, but Regulus didn’t let one flicker of what he was feeling show. When the intruder left his mind, he didn’t change his expression or his stance.
This was not the time for weakness. The Dark Lord stared at him, and Regulus lowered his eyes and head slightly. The action was not done in fear, merely to roll up his sleeve. Bellatrix and Lucius had hinted, nearly to boasting in their assurances that they knew privileged information, that tonight would be the night he was marked and brought into the group. Once his forearm was exposed, he met the man’s eyes again.
The Dark Lord looked away, twirling his wand in-between his skeletal fingers and then caressing its length reverently. Regulus silently noted that Narcissa’s claim was true: there was little human left in this man. Patiently, Regulus waited to receive the Dark Mark, but when Voldemort turned his attention back to the young man, it was merely to ask a question.
"What special knowledge or service do you hope to offer the Dark Lord for giving you the honor of being among his followers?"
Regulus thought through quickly, yet thoroughly. He could easily find out the truth of any boastful claim I could make, and it seems quite certain that an unsatisfactory answer will result in a grievous punishment, so you must choose your answer carefully, Regulus. It must mean something. It must be useful. It must appeal to someone in power.
Regulus continued to meet the cold, red gaze head on with his grey eyes. “I do not ask questions, nor do I talk.”
“That is wise. I may have great use for you, Black.”
As the Dark Lord had spoken, the room changed, and by the time he finished speaking, he vanished, leaving Regulus alone. Surely this was a test. Regulus waited in silence, eyes and ears alert for any sound or change to his surroundings. After a few minutes of nothingness, finally there was a change, but there was no sound. All Regulus felt was a tingle along his skin, a change he wouldn’t have noted if he hadn’t been concentrating completely, standing motionless.
Regulus lifted his head and saw black smoke forming letters and words against the ceiling.
Enemies grasp futily
When facing one’s foes
Next thing Regulus knew, he was enveloped in darkness and surrounded on almost all sides by noise. There was a clanging of metal in front of him, the snarling of some beast on his left, the screams of a girl on his right. Which to face?
Regulus knew he was only to choose one direction, and that the riddle held the answer. Regulus didn’t light his wand, not wanting to draw attention from his marks before he was ready. As he continued to think, he heard more things appearing around him.
The cold voice that only belonged to one person rang softly through the din. “Time is of the essence, Black.”
The room didn’t seem to crowd as more obstacles made their presence known. Silence comes and silence goes...
Regulus quickly turned and walked toward the only silent place in this strange room. As he reached the wall, he ran his hand along its surface. He knew he hadn’t seen a door before the light went out, but this was the answer. It had to be. He drew his wand and set its tip against the wall.
Instantly the wall opened, and he stepped through, finding himself in the Dark Lord’s presence again. They were in a different setting, a darker room, with green walls and a floor of black marble that had small ripples of silver running through it. The Dark Lord stood in the center on a small, rounded dais.
“Not many find that way out. Come forward, Regulus.”
Regulus strode forward as confidently as he could. Voldemort was a man full of power and presence at all times, which gave him the perfect commanding air to lead his Death Eaters.
“Put out your arm.”
Pushing his sleeve out of the way again, Regulus offered his arm up for sacrifice. An offering of blood and allegiance was required. Narcissa had warned him beforehand, and so Regulus set his jaw as his almost-master lifted his hand, weilding a long, thin, shiny silver dagger. Voldemort quickly, without thought of pain or consequence, cut the flesh of Regulus’ arm open in one slick line, just below the elbow.
Voldemort cleaned the knife against the flesh just below the incision, then he smoothly turned and replaced the knife into a silver case, closing the lid of the box. Turning back to the young Black, Voldemort drew his wand and pressed the tip to the top point of the incision. Regulus felt it spreading an instant warmth upon his arm, rivers and darts of heat pouring across his skin, leaving harsh trails of green engrained in his flesh. The green heat was growing warmer more quickly than he could imagine, searing the emblem of a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth on his flesh. The only good thing about this was that when the mark was emblazoned on his arm and Voldemort removed his wand, the incision, which had been bleeding, was now healed.
The Dark Lord then pressed the tips of two of his icy fingers upon the mark. The searing heat doubled, and Regulus’ knees wanted to buckle in the pain, but then the hand withdrew from his arm.
It took less than a minute for the three doors to this round room opened and figures cloaked in black began drifting through the entries and took up different spots around the room, filling a circle, one by one.
Some of the Death Eaters carried torches, bringing more light into the dark room. No one spoke, and so Voldemort needed only whisper two names for the two followers he wanted to come forward. He motioned idly in Regulus’ direction, and Regulus found himself being led away a second later by two of the largest Death Eaters. He was escorted back to the room he’d just been tested in, and thrown unceremoniously back inside.
The room was empty now, and there was no light. Regulus didn’t bother to produce any light either. He sunk to the damp floor, his back against the wall, and dropping his head back to rest against the cool stone surface. There was only silence to surround him and infiltrate his thoughts. Time was irrelevant. He would be there until he was released. He knew, instinctively, that he couldn’t leave this room before Voldemort decided it was time.
His thoughts drifted in this eerie darkness. Eventually it began to infiltrate and tug at his mind. The idleness gave way to weakness of thought, and his mind drifted to her. She really was his one weakness, and he didn’t want to think of her now. The dull ache in his heart that had been almost completely extinguished flared. If he’d never spoken to her he wouldn’t be in this dark place right now. He didn’t lie to himself, though. It was inevitable for him tojoin the ranks of the Dark Lord, but perhaps he could’ve forstalled it.
“I can’t believe I’m with someone who thinks that way. I believed in the good in you, that it overpowered the dark side of your past and your family traditions.”
“I’m sorry I’m not the perfect wonderboy you seem to want. You can’t change me. I am who I am.”
“Then we obviously shouldn’t be together.”
“Obviously,” he replied automatically.
That was the end of her presence in his life.
With the absence of her, he’d fallen quickly into the company of his cousins and into the greatness he was destined to continue bringing to the family name. He was free of the weaker tendencies of humanity now, those matters of the heart.
No, he would not turn out as his brother, the Gryffindor fool that associated with filth. He could even deal Sirius a prank beyond his wildest imagination now. His knowledge of the dark arts was vast; and perhaps it was the acquisition of the Dark Mark and his destiny, but he now felt like the final piece had fallen into place. Nothing would ever stand in his way again, least of all a fool like Sirius.
Just as Regulus began tuning the finer details in his masterful plan to create a mortal fear of the color orange for Sirius, the door opened, and a shaft of light fell over him. He squinted into it, but he was unable to distinguish who could possibly be looking at him from under the dark hood of the black robes.
The man didn’t need to speak before Regulus stood and strode to the door, ignoring the stiff feeling in his body. There were few Death Eaters left in the room of his marking, but Voldemort was still standing on the dais in the middle of the room, watching as Regulus emerged and beckoning him forward with a small inclination of his head.
When Regulus stood close enough, Voldemort spoke above the small murmuring conversations of the lingering Death Eaters. “You have an errand to perform for me, Regulus Black.”