The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

A Bit After Two

"Cadmus?"

The portrait had fallen off to asleep, chin dropped to his chest, but he stirred at the sound of Regulus's voice... he'd been nervously waiting for Regulus to come back around after the sheer panic of the moment when he'd begun screaming about the locket...

"Yes?"

It was a bit after two in the morning and there was a long streak of moonlight that cut across the floor of the library, where Regulus had fallen asleep on the floor. Kreacher was curled up on Regulus's stomach like a cat would do, his big ears tucked around his body like a blanket. Kreacher, too, had spent the hours worrying and trying to console Regulus.

But Regulus had been inconsolable for hours, pacing and muttering, shaking, rocking himself, and losing himself in recounting nightmare after nightmare, remembering the horrible things the dementor venom had called to his mind that day in the cave... He had rattled on switching from English to Latin to French at times, and it had been so brutal that Cadmus had wondered for a bit if it would ever stop, it Regulus might have lost his mind completely. But eventually the boy had tired, exhausted himself, and fallen down to his knees, eventually sinking onto his back and fallen into a dead silent, nearly catatonic state, staring at the ceiling, fingers absently digging at the carpet...

Cadmus was just relieved to hear the boy's voice come in a level, measured tone again.

Regulus was staring at a point on the carpet a few feet away from where he was laying, one arm stretched out to touch a particular spot.

"May I ask you a question?" Regulus asked. "It's sort of personal."

Cadmus thought about it. "Yes?"

"In all the stories, you asked for a way to bring someone back from the dead. Someone you loved. And Death gave you the Resurrection Stone."

Cadmus was hesitant. "Yes."

"Who was she?"

Silence fell over them, silence gaping wide like an abyss.

When it had dragged on for too long, Regulus murmured, "Nevermind. I understand you don't want to talk about it. I know how the story ended, too... what you did. I mean, how you - you know - died." He paused. Then, "I don't blame you. I've thought about it before."

"Don't."

Regulus turned his head and looked at the portrait.

Cadmus wasn't looking at Regulus, but off to the edge of his frame, staring as though looking at something off the canvas. "Whatever you do -- don't."

"Yeah?"

"Yes." Cadmus's voice was firm. "I positively, radically implore you that whatever you do - whatever is done to you or however dark and hopeless you ever see a situation as being - do not ever do what I did. Don't even think about it." Then, in an impassioned tone, making sure his meaning was very clear, "Suicide is never the answer, Regulus. No matter how awful things seem."

Regulus stared up at Cadmus, a sadness in them. "I mean, I never really intended to, I - I don't reckon I'd ever be brave enough to --"

"It isn't bravery. It's the coward's answer. It's bravery to stay. Every step, every breath, from the moment it's even half crossed the mind of a person to end it is pure bravery."

"I suppose."

"Not suppose, no. What I say is truth. Who better to take that truth from than from me - as somebody who has actually done it themselves?"

Regulus murmured, "You regret it?"

"I do. I do more than I have ever regrettee anything in all of the time I have... existed. And you may think that you would feel differently, once you got to the other side of things, that I just don't understand because perhaps your situation is quite a lot different than mine was, harder than mine was... Maybe you think that you truly wouldn't be sorry for it and that I'm a soft old man, irrelevant and not as sorry or sad or hopeless as you are... But I assure you that I understand precisely the pain, that my sufferings were not mild, and I chose what I did because I truly - just as you may be thinking now - believed there was no hope in life."