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Entry for the Monthly Oneshot Competition (prompt: regret)

Tempus Fugit

"There is never enough time, unless you are serving it."

dedicated to DolbyDigital

Regulus Arcturus Black.

He'd read books about his middle name in the night sky. The fourth brightest star that foretold tempestuous weather. There used to be volume after volume of old encyclopaedias of magical astronomy catching layer after layer of dust on the shelves of the attic in Grimmauld Place. No one ever paid attention to them – so he had.

The books had his grandfather's name in them scrawled in rushed handwriting. Arcturus Black III.

He'd made up his mind to live up to his middle name ever since he found the decaying books as a young child. Now, ten years later, he knew every crease in the pages, every stroke of ink, every constellation that existed between the leather spines of the books. He understood the night sky better than he understood himself.

It was strange to think that at Hogwarts the only things people had admired him for were his Quidditch skills. He was sure that it was thanks to them that he'd gotten a direct membership in the Slug Club – he was a pureblood Slytherin student with great sports skills and an even greater mind. At first some of his friends had mocked his interest in astronomy insisting that the Astronomy Tower was only a place to hide midnight liaisons, not to study the stars; but their murmurs had soon died out after his ten outstanding O.W.L.s: Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, DADA, Herbology, History of Magic, Potions, Transfiguration. He'd been the best in his year, and they'd loathed him for it. Especially the Ravenclaws (it did not help that his catching the Snitch in the first two minutes into the final match against them had given Slytherin the Quidditch Cup).

It's not that he did not have a social life, that he didn't interact with people, because he did; it was the fact that he believed that there was something better to his time than spending his years between stone walls when there was so much life going on out there. His quick wit had helped him gain access to the crème de la crème of groups, and he started to spend the holidays in the Lestrange mansion as his friendship with Rabastan Lestrange grew stronger.

His parents had always emphasized the importance of being pureblood, of being loyal to the Wizarding community and protecting it against muggle filth, and his childhood had therefore been spent decorating his walls with star charts and newspaper clippings about Voldemort, the man who was so much more than a man, who was the leader in the fight against the fall of the purebloods. Voldemort became his hero, his inspiration. He and Rabastan would often try to listen at doors whenever Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Lucius Malfoy had meetings with Voldemort's other followers. They'd caught them once, just as they began to discuss the plans for the next small-scale muggle purge, and Bellatrix had wanted a glass of water.

They'd hear it all, of course, so his cousin dragged them into the room, and Regulus found himself face to face with Voldemort himself.

"What have we here?" the Dark Lord had said slyly.

He was not the way Regulus would have imagined him at all. He was a strong looking man in his early fifties, but his blue eyes echoed the beauty that he was sure to have possessed earlier on. His greying hair did not make him seem fragile, but rather imposed years of experience and earned him a look of respect. He was a handsome man, but one whose very presence terrified the air in the room, made Regulus' breath tremble in both fear and awe.

"I caught them listening at the door!" shrieked Bellatrix, looking viciously at her younger cousin. "They have heard it all, my lord; they know of our plans!"

Lord Voldemort got up from the emerald leather armchair that he was sitting in next to the fireplace.

"Were you now? And why is that?"

Regulus did not dare look up, and yet he could feel the man's eyes bearing into his forehead like daggers of aggressive power.

"Speak up, boys!" cried the Dark Lord. Then he laughed. The fireplace trembled. "You were listening to us, spying on us, weren't you?"

He mustered the courage to look up.

Rabastan was still petrified; Regulus could feel him trying to calm down, wondering what crazy fate laid in store for them, knowing that they had eavesdropped the most ruthless man anyone knew.

"Yes, my lord," he whispered.

"Look up, boy," Voldemort snarled, taking his wand out of his robe pocket and pointing it straight onto Regulus' forehead. "And tell me why I should not kill you."

The sixteen year-old looked at him straight in the eyes, and in them he saw not wrath, but provocation.

"Because we are more use to you alive than dead, my lord."

Voldemort moved his wand slowly from the boy's forehead, tracing the side of his face and down his shoulders onto his left arm.

"Pull up your sleeve." Regulus did as he was told. Next to him Rabastan still had not spoken, and was breathing heavily giving pleading looks to older his brother Rodolphus, who was avoiding his gaze.

The room was thick with apprehension, and the seconds seemed to come one after another in a gluey motion, time seem to wind in and out while Regulus folded his sleeves up to his shoulders.

"Morsmordre incarnate," whispered the Dark Lord, pressing his wand into the boy's forearm.

Regulus felt as though his blood were on fire, as if his arm had turned into an inferno from the skin to the bone, from flesh to vein, and from arm to mind. A jet-black skull started to form itself and a snake emerged from the mouth and slithered around his skin. His ears were burning with the hiss of snakes, with cutting shrieks of Parseltongue and the taste of rotten blood and dry scales taking power over his tongue. The pain was almost too much to bear and his surroundings were fading from him, all he could see were Voldemort's blue eyes staring at him through the growing blur, and he held onto them fighting for consciousness. The snake settled around the skull on his skin, and the agonizing sensation vanished.

Regulus suddenly realised that he had clenched his right fist with such power to withstand the pain that his fingernails had dug into the flesh of his hand, and were now wet with drops of blood.

"You are, and will always be, my faithful servant," the Dark Lord had declared. "From this day on you are mine."

Yet here he was now, Death Eater, murderer and traitor at the front of a cave.

Time, he had heard one of his professors say, is relative. Its power is a dark force: it changes us all, it makes us forget, it makes us forgive, it makes us realize, and it makes us remember. And nothing but time makes us regret – the more time passes, the more we regret. Instead of taking the time that is left. Taking it and changing it and transforming it into what we want it to be.

So he had done.

His beginnings as part of Voldemort's army had not lasted very long, after demonstrating his skill, loyalty and determination following many attacks and operations he had soon climbed his way into the Dark Lord's most inner circle. Indeed, sometimes they had meetings alone, and discussed matters that Regulus felt were of great importance to the Death Eater's cause. It had more or less been then when Regulus had started to suspect of the Horcruxes. Dark magic leaves its marks, and with his 10 outstanding O.W.L.s, 6 outstanding N.E.W.T.s and an intense passion for the Dark Arts that had turned into an obsession in his last Hogwarts years, Regulus was no stranger to these.

Every time he went on the front lines and led an attack, he came back with a sickened stomach. They killed children, they killed grandfathers, they even killed a pregnant woman lying in bed next to her husband. They killed her husband afterwards.

He tried to stick to the more ideological and tactical field, but could not refuse any of Voldemort's orders. From the moment the Dark Lord's wand had touched his skin, he had submitted to him, and sworn to obey him. It was their death or his own.

One day Voldemort had told him he needed a house-elf, so Regulus had talked to his parents and they had been enthusiastic to help the potent wizard by letting him borrow the Black family house elf, Kreacher. They underlined that it was an honour, a privilege, and a landmark in their recent family history, to be so close to someone so truly powerful. Someone who was going to change the future.

But all that afternoon, after sending his house-elf on the Dark Lord's mission, Regulus could not forget the intense look of fear on Kreacher's eyes as he had left him with the wizard at the Malfoy mansion.

Since he was a young boy, Kreacher had looked after him and cared for him, and his politeness and respect for all elements of pureblood society, not just the wizards themselves, but even the house-elves who constituted such a vital part in the lower hierarchy, earned him Kreacher's admiration and loyalty. And now, he felt like he had betrayed him. But his loyalty to the Death Eaters was more than flesh and blood, it had possessed his very heart and his very skin: his fate was branded on his forearm.

That very night they had carried out another attack led by Rabastan Lestrange. It was one of the few times since leaving Hogwarts that Regulus had seen his childhood friend, only months had passed but there were rumours that Voldemort had sent him abroad to Greenland on some sort of secret mission. Rabastan had never been particularly skilled, but had a slightly weak character due to an inferiority complex developed through his relationship with his older brother, and had turned into a true loyal servant of the Dark Lord.

They had targeted a family who lived in a small village in Scotland. The usual routine: fire and flames, force them to leave the house and then kill them one by one. There were some who enjoyed seeing them suffer beforehand, the Cruciatus Curse or other mind and body bending spells were not uncommon in a Death Eater attack. Regulus couldn't stand the screaming. He admired their power, he admired the strength of what they stood for, but he could not bear the thought of the sky looking down on him, the stars judging his actions as he cast people into darkness and stripped them of their right to observe the constellations.

Once they had killed the muggles, some of the Death Eaters would cast fireproof charms on themselves and step inside to search for any valuable belongings. Lucius ordered Regulus to follow them in, and the latter obeyed.

Inside the house, everything was going up in smoke. Picture frames, sofas, a roast chicken on the dinner table, everything was scorching itself and everything was alight. Lucius beckoned him up to the first floor, and the Black found himself amidst falling walls and broken bedside tables.

"Lucius, let's go back!" he cried between the flames, his voice barely audible among the tumble of furniture and floors. "Lucius, there's nothing here!"

The Malfoy nodded, and apparated, leaving him alone in the room. He took one more look around him, and but just before joining the others outside, he caught a glimpse of a heavy book bound in dark leather about to topple off one of the subsiding bookshelves. The walls were dark with smoke and he could smell the stringent tang of burning flesh and paper, and yet he stayed and summoned the mysterious volume towards him.

Almagest by Ptolemy.

The book from which astronomy had developed, the root of all anyone knew of the sky and the stars, and the planets and the heavens and all that could be out there, falling apart in his hands.

He opened the cover to the front page. For Denebola, may your love for the unknown forge your very destiny.

They had killed a star-gazer.

The room was burning down around him, but Regulus stood still unharmed under his charm, holding the book in his hands. The triumphant outcries had died down outside, and he assumed that the Death Eaters had gone back to celebrate.

There was a sudden whimper from the shadows, and he turned around, alarmed.

"Who's there?!" he called, his voice thick through the destruction.

"Help… please…"

His eyes widened in shock as he realised that there was someone trapped underneath a fallen table. Their eyes found his, and slowly moved down until they set themselves on the book he still had under his grasp.

"Please, help me," came another fainter whisper, and Regulus dashed over and when he knew the person beneath the table could not see him, cast a spell to levitate the table and free them. There was an unexpected clash of wood as the ceiling began to collapse, so he grabbed hold of the person's arm and apparated to the first place he could think of.

It happened to be the middle of the Sherwood Forest. He had been there once with Rabastan in fifth year; they had gone to stay there and learn to survive in the wild without magic; it had been one of the challenges they had set themselves in order to feel stronger and ready to become worthy of being Voldemort's followers.

It was the first time he looked properly at the muggle he had saved from the crumbling house. It was a girl around his same age; she was wearing a thick silver nightgown now scorched in patches of sooty black, and her hair was seething with smoke still rising from the brown tangles. She was trembling in his grip.

"What… where are we…who are you…." she muttered, still in shock from the abrupt change in surroundings. Regulus let go and transfigured a fallen leaf into a long, heavy blanket, putting it around her shoulders.

"I believe this book," he said, stretching it out towards her, "is yours, Denebola."

She hesitated before taking it, but pulled it to her chest as soon as it was in her hands. "What happened to my family? To my house? Who are you?" she demanded, her voice changing from fearful to hostile.

"My name is Regulus," he started.

She looked at him with her eyes wide open, struck in both surprise and hesitance.
"Regulus? But that's –"

"That's the brightest star in Leo," he finished. "A constellation you and I share, Denebola."

They stood in silence for a few moments, the forest breathing huskily around them.

"Where do your closest friends live?"

"Greenwich."

In a matter of seconds they were in an alley close to Greenwich Station. Regulus had once gone there with his mother when he was about ten, when they visited a pureblood French friend of hers who had relatives there.

"How did we do that?" asked Denebola astonished.

"Do what?" Regulus replied, leading her out of the alley and out onto the street next to the station. "We came on the train."

Denebola laughed in disbelief. "We were standing in the middle of a forest two minutes ago–"

"Forest? What are you talking about? It must be the smoke gone to your head," he shrugged. "Your house was burning. I went in, found you, took you outside, asked you where your closest friends lived, and then you fainted. We took the train and arrived here at Greenwich Station and now you can go find your friends."

The girl wouldn't budge, and nor would her inquiring gaze.

"I'm sorry, Denebola, but there's nothing more I can do. Find your friends and you can go back and see what belongings may have survived the fire in the morning. You're in shock. It'll be on the news. Just go. At least you have the Almagest. Get some proper clothes."

She looked down at her scorched nightgown, and then back at him. There were tears in her eyes.

"Will you help me? Stay with me. Please," she asked.

The Dark Mark started to burn under his skin and he could feel the power of the Dark Lord pulling him out of reality. "I must go," he muttered, and ran back into the alley, just around the corner before the Mark induced an apparition and he found himself standing next to Voldemort in the living room at the Lestrange household.

"I am afraid your elf disappeared on our mission. But no matter, he served his purpose. Report to me tomorrow, we have matters to discuss."

"Yes, my lord."

That night, Regulus had found Kreacher hiding under his bed, and he'd told him about the horrible things that Voldemort had made him do, and how he had only managed to escape using his elf magic. Regulus felt betrayed and angered.

And so here he was now, Death Eater, murderer and traitor at the front of a cave. The cave. In his hands the fake locket of Salazar Slytherin.

Time, he decided, was relative. So many things had happened in the past few days, and so many of them echoes of what he had already done in the past. But splitting souls to kill again and draining the power of men using fear – Regulus did not stand for that.

He took a deep breath, and cut his hand to open the cave with his blood. They got onto a small boat once inside, and Regulus felt as though they were moving down the lake into misery. They reached the basin.

"When the potion is drunk, swap the lockets, leave the cave and destroy the original locket. You must not tell anyone, not even your other masters or mistresses. Not the Black family. It is a secret between you and me," he ordered. Kreacher nodded grimly, fearful of what could happen next. To his surprise, Regulus took the small goblet that lay next to it and began to drink. "You must force me to finish this, Kreacher. And then leave without me." The house-elf nodded.

His body started to shake violently, his throat burned and his Dark Mark seethed more than ever. He could feel his skin popping and pulling and twisting, his eyes seeing flashes of disturbance, as if his entire mind was collapsing and exploding at the same time, and his body undergoing a fierce drought that threatened to take over all of him. Kreacher gave him more potion, and he shook even more uncontrollably. When the potion was gone, Regulus lost consciousness and did not see the elf changing the lockets and casting one last sad look at him before disappearing as instructed.

When he woke up, all Regulus could think of was water.

He thought of rainfall, of cascades, of rivers. Of the taste of raindrops on his lips, skin and cheeks. He could hardly walk, hardly see. Stumbling across the rocks, he managed to reach the edge of the island.

Before plunging his hand into the water, he looked up and found only darkness. No stars, no light, no clouds. Just darkness.

He was barely breathing desperate gasps of poison air when a dead hand pulled him into the lake.

Regulus Black, your love for the unknown has forged your very destiny.