Smile When You Dive In

Chapter 43

Regulus expected Professor Slughorn to have noticed his theft. The guilt weighed on him for approximately a week before he packed it away with everything else he had bestowed upon the 'other Regulus'. There was far too much to focus on to be worrying about things he had done in the past. Like what had happened to the missing pages in Slughorn's (now his) book. Regulus had searched both the Hogwarts library and the one at home for a second copy of the book, to no avail. When he smuggled it home over the Christmas holidays, he had considered asking his father about it, but never found the right moment. What would he have even said? That he was beginning to seriously doubt the Dark Lord's intentions and that his 'master' may well have been striving for immortality? It wasn't really the kind of thing one divulged over the breakfast table, which was more or less the only time Regulus spent with his parents.

From what he could gather from his careful inspection of the book and various other vague mentions of horcruxes in the Black family library, part of the wizard's soul would be encased in whatever vessel he chose, used to tether him to life in the case of accidental death. He couldn't envisage how that would work, or what the wizard would do in the meantime with part of their soul missing, but if Voldemort really had turned this locket into one of them, then the theory in the books could be transferred to practice. Regulus didn't find a single mention of the creation or destruction of a horcrux, only that they were extremely frowned upon for some reason. In the fifteenth century, a wizard named Matthias Dawes had created a horcrux and when the Wizengamot heard of it, they had led the witch-hunting muggles of a remote village to him. Regulus didn't know much about the Dawes fellow, but he wouldn't have been surprised if Dumbledore followed suite and led the muggles right to Voldemort.

It was easy enough to assume the worst. That Voldemort wanted to be immortal, and that as much as he denied it, that it probably meant he also craved power in some way or another. All of his previous suspicions piled themselves atop this new information, putting together a picture of the man that Regulus had refused to see in the past. The man who created a spell used only to claim murders, who marked those loyal to him and made sure that those who weren't were never heard from again. Instead of a man matching Dumbledore's intellect and with ideas far beyond that of the Chief Warlock's, Regulus saw only a man that matched Bellatrix's chaos and cruelty. It was a horrible picture, the thought of Bellatrix unearthing this secret weapon after his death to resurrect him. Would he retain his currently form, or would the transformation scar him further? Snape had once told Regulus that the Dark Lord was 'marred by his own greatness', and if he had once been handsome then rising from the dead was only going to drag him further from that moment.

But what if that wasn't the truth? If he only spoke to the Dark Lord, gave him a chance to explain. Perhaps he would have a reasonable explanation. The horcrux wasn't his own, but for somebody else. Slytherin, himself. Or a loved one. Perhaps Voldemort did want to become immortal, but only to see the greatness they had dreamed up together reach fruition. After all, how old was Dumbledore? He had to be pushing one hundred, at the very least. With Voldemort dead and Dumbledore dodging the coffin, what hope would any of them have? No. It wasn't fair to assume the worst of him, after he had seen so much potential in Regulus and listened to him so attentively.

Regulus decided that he was going to speak to Voldemort. He had to anyway, to get Kreacher out of the tasks he was involving him in. Though he had promised the elf that he would do so, he had been putting it off for longer than he would have liked to admit. He just wanted to have everything clear in his head before he did it, but his mind only became more muddied with each visit he made. For the first two weeks of 1979, Voldemort made absolutely no contact. No letters and no chance to speak to him at the meetings. Maybe he read his thoughts, knew that he was going to tell him about Kreacher and ask about the horcrux. Then one morning, after Regulus had returned to school, he received a letter. It was brief and to the point. The Dark Lord required Kreacher's assistance once more, and then Regulus' service would be rewarded. It pained him to inform Kreacher of this, to have failed in respecting his wishes, and in finding new information on the horcrux. Instead of an apology, Regulus gave Kreacher a request. He would wait in the cellar of Honeydukes on the night of Voldemort's proposed trip. Kreacher would report to him after the outing and fill him in with all of the details. That way, Kreacher wouldn't need to be involved further, and hopefully Regulus would have more answers.