![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
spindleform.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
bait_backup*The loudest thing he can hear down beneath the hillside is the softly rhythmic rush of exhalation though his nose. The windy night he had left outside is muted as though it never existed, and there are the inescapable smells of mineral and soil in the air here, as well as something decayed long enough ago that its acrid stench has drifted away and left behind only a musty reminder. He's almost certain he can see the rush and scurry of insects attempting to avoid his foreign light. The crunch of an errant twig underfoot seems to mark the spot.
Over one hundred years ago they had found the fragment – later determined to have come from a skull – directly where Regulus stands now. The find has puzzled and perplexed wizarding archaeologists for centuries. The mound, impossibly ancient yet unadorned, had been a burial chamber, that much was clear. However, the facts never did mirror the findings. For one thing, there were no actual burials to be found, for another, the door, a massive stone contraption, only sealed from the inside leaving to the imagination a set of truly unsettling implications. While Victorian wizards had bristled their moustaches over this conundrum, the real answers have always been self-evident, hidden away in manuscripts, ancient lore and runic carvings.
What is now largely viewed with repulsion was once a distinct honour, a sign of loyalty and status. Sealing the tomb was a privilege and those who sacrificed their lives were rewarded generously in the next. For this particular mound, above all others, was a distinction, was different. It was a gateway, one in which the dead and the living alike could walk straight to the other side.
However, it isn’t some legend-spun heaven Regulus expects to find here – it’s something much darker and much more corrupt. He’s done this before – far too many times – not to be on edge, not to always expect the worst from this boneless, abandoned place. He waits warily for the inevitable moment when the door will drag itself to a close with him inside. His eyes dry from not daring to blink and his very breathing begins to unnerve him, but the door still does not move. He had hoped it would be simpler than this, just as easy as waiting for an ancient spell to sense his resolve. But though he is just as loyal and just as accepting of difficult choices as the people who had once sealed themselves inside for their spirits and their leaders, it is clear he must sacrifice just as they had in order to set his journey into motion. He almost exclaims something at this uneasy realisation, but merely opening his mouth to speak makes him feel foolish. His voice, he knows, would be much too young for such an old place. He has made his choice.
The door, ominous and finely carved, looks far too heavy for any one man to move, but when Regulus puts a single, bony shoulder to it, it moves into the doorway as though something greater than just his skinny body is behind it. As it falls into place, however, completely obstructing the only way back out, the stone melds seamlessly into the side of the wall and there is hardly a second's time to think before a great shockwave hits the chamber and slams Regulus against the stone. With a rumbling so loud and deep it is almost too much for his ears to understand, the floor beneath his feet shudders, and dried earth at the centre crumbles and spits then falls away impossibly fast toward the centre of the earth. Billows of upset dust fill the vaulted chamber, stinging Regulus' eyes. The floor collapses and descends with an endless series of cracks into concentric circles of stone. Each ledge is far too narrow to stand on and Regulus feels his centre of gravity being thrown toward the yawning centre of the hole. Desperately he scrabbles to cling to the sides of the walls, finding no real purchase. Sure enough, just as the roar of sounds stops, Regulus' balance is lost, and he tumbles down into the darkness.
Barty sets his teaspoon down lightly against the edge of his saucer, and its diminutive clink raises Regulus' eyes from the script. Regulus has never been one for the theatre himself, but if this play with Barty's name on the front page turned into a production it would mean the world to him - and therefore the world to them both. It is disturbing, its characters strange and its landscape rather ungainly and diseased, but somehow Regulus is smiling. He knows the end must be good yet. Still, too much of a day can be spent on words, so he marks his page and reaches for a biscuit instead. Kreacher's small gloved hands taking the book from him before he has a chance to set it down. Regulus offers the elf another slice of cake before settling – slouching, really – back into his chair to smoke.
Grimmauld Place's front windows are thrown open to the street outside, and a darkening London looks in at them, its skyline spired with the magnificent stone buildings that have remained standing since his family tree first put down its roots. He's painted that view many times, and it always turns out a little differently. His mother has insisted on keeping them all and Regulus gladly allows her to commandeer them, always trying for another, perfect version. Someday, he'll capture the beacon of St. Mungo's and the distant dome of the Quidditch stadium to the north as they truly appear. He has the time.
Above the rooftops, an influx of traffic begins to crowd the sky as homeward bound commuters begin making their evening flights home. The silhouettes of their booms crisscross the clouds in a perfect chain, tiny rectangular briefcases hanging beneath them by their handles, but Regulus hardly takes note. Instead, his mind is at rest, watching the way Barty's perfectly combed hair is never upset by the breeze. Of all his friends, there’s always been something particularly dear to him about Barty, and he finds himself consciously noting this affection for some reason. Perhaps it’s nothing more than the way he eats sugar cubes directly from the bowl, that he always buttons his robes just so, and allows Regulus to see all his projects at every stage, before they are ever blessed with anything so finished as endings. Whatever the reason, he beams broadly at Barty's flushed and freckled face, and tries to pay attention to his current stream of lyrical waxing.
Though Regulus’ limbs grow more comfortable and complacent with every moment, there’s something implacably wrong and he finds himself passively searching it out. Kreacher looks all in order apart from having some cake crumbs on his miniature tie, and for his part Barty just smiles back at him and takes such a petite bite of strawberry cake that it makes Regulus laugh aloud from the absurdity. The chair is deeper than he remembers it being, and as he continues to relax his head falls back so completely into it that his next breath of sweet smoke billows directly upward and he follows its passage. Staring at the ceiling until it grows overwhelmingly flat and peculiar, the view turns as misplaced as his own smile. He's stopped listening to Barty talk completely now, but the grim quality of his script rattles around inside Regulus' head, troubling him. There is something unnatural in the pleasantness of the moment.
He tries to lift his head to shake the feeling away, to double-check that Kreacher had in fact been wearing such small and perfectly pressed clothes that he can't remember ever giving to him, but he finds he can only twist to one side to stare at the woven wood of the chair's frame. His pipe is gone now and so is the scent of strawberries that always seems to accompany Barty. Regulus feels pinned to the softness beneath him, only just managing to ask if the people in the play had ever been real at some time, perhaps very long ago. The idea of their world being overpopulated with a lower class of people devoid of any magical power seems impossible, and the idea that wizards might have to hide from them to protect themselves from disease is so ridiculous that it takes the form of something distinctly probable in his mind. He has to ask.
Of course they aren't real, is the floated-in answer in dull tones. Regulus feels shockingly betrayed by such reason and logic coming from his only friend. Barty's words have been muted for years now, but Regulus is sure he used to speak more clearly and less clearly than anyone else he knew. He is certain that he remembers the sound of Barty coughing desperately in just the smallest amount of smoke, nothing near like the ever-solidifying tendrils twisting all around them both now. He is even more sure, however, that he can't feel his own leg or even move and that Barty would have by now finished his cake properly, leaving behind large craters of bites and a edible artistic masterpiece on his plate. Sure that by now Barty would have helped him to sit up in his chair so he could breathe. He can't breathe.
Like coming out of a waking dream, his surroundings make no sense to him, and the last light and warmth of his home is sucked from his flesh faster than if he had been plunged into ice water. There is no smoke to be seen now but his eyes burn and his vision swims through a sticky secretion. It's pooled on his eyelids, weighing them down. He hadn't blinked, hadn't closed his eyes for even a moment, but the curving arm of the chair he had been staring at has darkened to a noxious black-green. Living vines have woven a casing around him; he can smell their sickly, organic skin - sprung up from the earth so many years ago to feed on wizards, to trick them as convincingly as Venus fly-traps do bugs. Loop by loop it rolls pressure up and down each latticed limb with meaty creaks, tenderising his numbed muscle. It's sensual, stinking, digestive, and he still can't breathe. His skin and his organs feel thin and watery, almost too delicate to risk moving, but he's screaming at his hands until they twitch in response, then clench, then claw.
He pries the cocoon apart with wretchedly slow fingers, using all of his energy to birth himself out onto a cold blanket of botany. He coughs for air and gags up a trail of half-swallowed digestive enzyme in a hysterical, terrified laugh, the kind that had been missing from the unnaturally healthy and saint-like Barty of his hallucination. He cannot tell which way is up and where to find the path back out, but the tip of his wand flares to life as he finally gulps down much needed air.
In the glow, slithering vegetation grows around him from all sides, heavy and ancient and twined possessively around the stark white of bones. Skeletons of people more hopeful and accepting than Regulus are woven into the very walls, their remains as thin and frail as glass. There are centuries worth of them by his count, stripped of all of their nutrients by their cunningly dissolutive host. Their hollow faces stare out at him as he tries to stand though numbing pain, but only manages to push himself up with his arms. Ropes, some thicker than his body, all scarred and ugly black without sunlight, writhe in the light like the backs of tortured beasts.
A fantastically long drip descends from the woven ceiling onto Regulus' back, and all around him surfaces become slick with poison wetness as the plant realises he’s escaped, realizes that he has seen the mistakes in his fevered ideal and rejected them. He hasn't come here for tea and a perfect London and to make Barty well and good and not himself or to give Kreacher independence that would break his heart as well as Regulus'. His trip to the drug-induced other side fades quickly from memory as he stretches his wand out in every direction. He's looking for escape, but what he sees is a flash of gold.
One leg has finally begun to spasm back to life, but still the best he can do is to roll himself toward that little glimmer of yellow hope. It takes all his strength to pull his own dead weight over lumber-like vines but when he does he finds it, cradled in the dying grasp of someone who could easily have been a king or servant. The Cup is small but shining, completely untarnished. He shoves his wand closer to inspect it and the engraved badger on its side seems to stare in sinister satisfaction at his waxy reflection. He fumbles to brush the ancient skeletal hands aside, seizing his real reward before any more surprises can manifest themselves, hoping that perhaps the Dark Lord had enough faith in ancient traps to not build his own.
Without wanting to linger any longer and with his voice is too sore to shout, his spells arrive in violent, panted silences. The plant twists and recoils as he slashes through its beams and squeezes himself and Hufflepuff's cup through layer after layer of bleeding greenery. His nostrils flare at the bitter reek of freshly mangled vines, and he gets so deep and so lost that he gives up on vision and closes his eyes to rely only on his magic and his worming body to get himself out. The air is so close and heavy that he only notices when the vines turn to dirt when he sucks in a mouthful of it. His body jerks as his airway is blocked once again, and with one final push of trembling legs he climbs upward and his fingers clench onto grass.
Like something rabid and cornered, he tears at the earth until the hole big enough for his arm can fit his head, then shoulders. Gravity surprises him and spills him out into the morning air only to tumble and skid several feet down the side of a hill and onto a footpath. Once he has come to a stop he can hardly think to move, merely lies staring at the massive expanse of clear, brightening sky, sputtering out soil in muddy tracks down his cheeks. His moan of pain and exhaustion and pyrrhic victory is interrupted by a scream, and Regulus can do nothing but stiffen in alarm and turn his head to watch as a young girl races away from him back along the path. She looks back over her shoulder twice before she disappears toward her family, and screams again both times as Regulus stares motionlessly after her.
She's left behind a plastic bottle of water and a guide map to visit the mounds. Regulus wheezes for a quiet moment, for once feeling safe in the great outdoors, briefly prays he doesn't catch anything, then disapparates away with the Cup in hand.*
Over one hundred years ago they had found the fragment – later determined to have come from a skull – directly where Regulus stands now. The find has puzzled and perplexed wizarding archaeologists for centuries. The mound, impossibly ancient yet unadorned, had been a burial chamber, that much was clear. However, the facts never did mirror the findings. For one thing, there were no actual burials to be found, for another, the door, a massive stone contraption, only sealed from the inside leaving to the imagination a set of truly unsettling implications. While Victorian wizards had bristled their moustaches over this conundrum, the real answers have always been self-evident, hidden away in manuscripts, ancient lore and runic carvings.
What is now largely viewed with repulsion was once a distinct honour, a sign of loyalty and status. Sealing the tomb was a privilege and those who sacrificed their lives were rewarded generously in the next. For this particular mound, above all others, was a distinction, was different. It was a gateway, one in which the dead and the living alike could walk straight to the other side.
However, it isn’t some legend-spun heaven Regulus expects to find here – it’s something much darker and much more corrupt. He’s done this before – far too many times – not to be on edge, not to always expect the worst from this boneless, abandoned place. He waits warily for the inevitable moment when the door will drag itself to a close with him inside. His eyes dry from not daring to blink and his very breathing begins to unnerve him, but the door still does not move. He had hoped it would be simpler than this, just as easy as waiting for an ancient spell to sense his resolve. But though he is just as loyal and just as accepting of difficult choices as the people who had once sealed themselves inside for their spirits and their leaders, it is clear he must sacrifice just as they had in order to set his journey into motion. He almost exclaims something at this uneasy realisation, but merely opening his mouth to speak makes him feel foolish. His voice, he knows, would be much too young for such an old place. He has made his choice.
The door, ominous and finely carved, looks far too heavy for any one man to move, but when Regulus puts a single, bony shoulder to it, it moves into the doorway as though something greater than just his skinny body is behind it. As it falls into place, however, completely obstructing the only way back out, the stone melds seamlessly into the side of the wall and there is hardly a second's time to think before a great shockwave hits the chamber and slams Regulus against the stone. With a rumbling so loud and deep it is almost too much for his ears to understand, the floor beneath his feet shudders, and dried earth at the centre crumbles and spits then falls away impossibly fast toward the centre of the earth. Billows of upset dust fill the vaulted chamber, stinging Regulus' eyes. The floor collapses and descends with an endless series of cracks into concentric circles of stone. Each ledge is far too narrow to stand on and Regulus feels his centre of gravity being thrown toward the yawning centre of the hole. Desperately he scrabbles to cling to the sides of the walls, finding no real purchase. Sure enough, just as the roar of sounds stops, Regulus' balance is lost, and he tumbles down into the darkness.
Barty sets his teaspoon down lightly against the edge of his saucer, and its diminutive clink raises Regulus' eyes from the script. Regulus has never been one for the theatre himself, but if this play with Barty's name on the front page turned into a production it would mean the world to him - and therefore the world to them both. It is disturbing, its characters strange and its landscape rather ungainly and diseased, but somehow Regulus is smiling. He knows the end must be good yet. Still, too much of a day can be spent on words, so he marks his page and reaches for a biscuit instead. Kreacher's small gloved hands taking the book from him before he has a chance to set it down. Regulus offers the elf another slice of cake before settling – slouching, really – back into his chair to smoke.
Grimmauld Place's front windows are thrown open to the street outside, and a darkening London looks in at them, its skyline spired with the magnificent stone buildings that have remained standing since his family tree first put down its roots. He's painted that view many times, and it always turns out a little differently. His mother has insisted on keeping them all and Regulus gladly allows her to commandeer them, always trying for another, perfect version. Someday, he'll capture the beacon of St. Mungo's and the distant dome of the Quidditch stadium to the north as they truly appear. He has the time.
Above the rooftops, an influx of traffic begins to crowd the sky as homeward bound commuters begin making their evening flights home. The silhouettes of their booms crisscross the clouds in a perfect chain, tiny rectangular briefcases hanging beneath them by their handles, but Regulus hardly takes note. Instead, his mind is at rest, watching the way Barty's perfectly combed hair is never upset by the breeze. Of all his friends, there’s always been something particularly dear to him about Barty, and he finds himself consciously noting this affection for some reason. Perhaps it’s nothing more than the way he eats sugar cubes directly from the bowl, that he always buttons his robes just so, and allows Regulus to see all his projects at every stage, before they are ever blessed with anything so finished as endings. Whatever the reason, he beams broadly at Barty's flushed and freckled face, and tries to pay attention to his current stream of lyrical waxing.
Though Regulus’ limbs grow more comfortable and complacent with every moment, there’s something implacably wrong and he finds himself passively searching it out. Kreacher looks all in order apart from having some cake crumbs on his miniature tie, and for his part Barty just smiles back at him and takes such a petite bite of strawberry cake that it makes Regulus laugh aloud from the absurdity. The chair is deeper than he remembers it being, and as he continues to relax his head falls back so completely into it that his next breath of sweet smoke billows directly upward and he follows its passage. Staring at the ceiling until it grows overwhelmingly flat and peculiar, the view turns as misplaced as his own smile. He's stopped listening to Barty talk completely now, but the grim quality of his script rattles around inside Regulus' head, troubling him. There is something unnatural in the pleasantness of the moment.
He tries to lift his head to shake the feeling away, to double-check that Kreacher had in fact been wearing such small and perfectly pressed clothes that he can't remember ever giving to him, but he finds he can only twist to one side to stare at the woven wood of the chair's frame. His pipe is gone now and so is the scent of strawberries that always seems to accompany Barty. Regulus feels pinned to the softness beneath him, only just managing to ask if the people in the play had ever been real at some time, perhaps very long ago. The idea of their world being overpopulated with a lower class of people devoid of any magical power seems impossible, and the idea that wizards might have to hide from them to protect themselves from disease is so ridiculous that it takes the form of something distinctly probable in his mind. He has to ask.
Of course they aren't real, is the floated-in answer in dull tones. Regulus feels shockingly betrayed by such reason and logic coming from his only friend. Barty's words have been muted for years now, but Regulus is sure he used to speak more clearly and less clearly than anyone else he knew. He is certain that he remembers the sound of Barty coughing desperately in just the smallest amount of smoke, nothing near like the ever-solidifying tendrils twisting all around them both now. He is even more sure, however, that he can't feel his own leg or even move and that Barty would have by now finished his cake properly, leaving behind large craters of bites and a edible artistic masterpiece on his plate. Sure that by now Barty would have helped him to sit up in his chair so he could breathe. He can't breathe.
Like coming out of a waking dream, his surroundings make no sense to him, and the last light and warmth of his home is sucked from his flesh faster than if he had been plunged into ice water. There is no smoke to be seen now but his eyes burn and his vision swims through a sticky secretion. It's pooled on his eyelids, weighing them down. He hadn't blinked, hadn't closed his eyes for even a moment, but the curving arm of the chair he had been staring at has darkened to a noxious black-green. Living vines have woven a casing around him; he can smell their sickly, organic skin - sprung up from the earth so many years ago to feed on wizards, to trick them as convincingly as Venus fly-traps do bugs. Loop by loop it rolls pressure up and down each latticed limb with meaty creaks, tenderising his numbed muscle. It's sensual, stinking, digestive, and he still can't breathe. His skin and his organs feel thin and watery, almost too delicate to risk moving, but he's screaming at his hands until they twitch in response, then clench, then claw.
He pries the cocoon apart with wretchedly slow fingers, using all of his energy to birth himself out onto a cold blanket of botany. He coughs for air and gags up a trail of half-swallowed digestive enzyme in a hysterical, terrified laugh, the kind that had been missing from the unnaturally healthy and saint-like Barty of his hallucination. He cannot tell which way is up and where to find the path back out, but the tip of his wand flares to life as he finally gulps down much needed air.
In the glow, slithering vegetation grows around him from all sides, heavy and ancient and twined possessively around the stark white of bones. Skeletons of people more hopeful and accepting than Regulus are woven into the very walls, their remains as thin and frail as glass. There are centuries worth of them by his count, stripped of all of their nutrients by their cunningly dissolutive host. Their hollow faces stare out at him as he tries to stand though numbing pain, but only manages to push himself up with his arms. Ropes, some thicker than his body, all scarred and ugly black without sunlight, writhe in the light like the backs of tortured beasts.
A fantastically long drip descends from the woven ceiling onto Regulus' back, and all around him surfaces become slick with poison wetness as the plant realises he’s escaped, realizes that he has seen the mistakes in his fevered ideal and rejected them. He hasn't come here for tea and a perfect London and to make Barty well and good and not himself or to give Kreacher independence that would break his heart as well as Regulus'. His trip to the drug-induced other side fades quickly from memory as he stretches his wand out in every direction. He's looking for escape, but what he sees is a flash of gold.
One leg has finally begun to spasm back to life, but still the best he can do is to roll himself toward that little glimmer of yellow hope. It takes all his strength to pull his own dead weight over lumber-like vines but when he does he finds it, cradled in the dying grasp of someone who could easily have been a king or servant. The Cup is small but shining, completely untarnished. He shoves his wand closer to inspect it and the engraved badger on its side seems to stare in sinister satisfaction at his waxy reflection. He fumbles to brush the ancient skeletal hands aside, seizing his real reward before any more surprises can manifest themselves, hoping that perhaps the Dark Lord had enough faith in ancient traps to not build his own.
Without wanting to linger any longer and with his voice is too sore to shout, his spells arrive in violent, panted silences. The plant twists and recoils as he slashes through its beams and squeezes himself and Hufflepuff's cup through layer after layer of bleeding greenery. His nostrils flare at the bitter reek of freshly mangled vines, and he gets so deep and so lost that he gives up on vision and closes his eyes to rely only on his magic and his worming body to get himself out. The air is so close and heavy that he only notices when the vines turn to dirt when he sucks in a mouthful of it. His body jerks as his airway is blocked once again, and with one final push of trembling legs he climbs upward and his fingers clench onto grass.
Like something rabid and cornered, he tears at the earth until the hole big enough for his arm can fit his head, then shoulders. Gravity surprises him and spills him out into the morning air only to tumble and skid several feet down the side of a hill and onto a footpath. Once he has come to a stop he can hardly think to move, merely lies staring at the massive expanse of clear, brightening sky, sputtering out soil in muddy tracks down his cheeks. His moan of pain and exhaustion and pyrrhic victory is interrupted by a scream, and Regulus can do nothing but stiffen in alarm and turn his head to watch as a young girl races away from him back along the path. She looks back over her shoulder twice before she disappears toward her family, and screams again both times as Regulus stares motionlessly after her.
She's left behind a plastic bottle of water and a guide map to visit the mounds. Regulus wheezes for a quiet moment, for once feeling safe in the great outdoors, briefly prays he doesn't catch anything, then disapparates away with the Cup in hand.*
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}