Regulus stepped in through the mouth of the cave, the very last traces of sunlight turning the rock face into golden gates.

It was pure darkness beyond.

"Lumos maxima."

The wand shone, bright white light filling the cavern, illuminating the jagged walls and ceiling. The water was rising with the tide outside and Regulus heard a peal of thunder echo in from across the sea. His palm moved against the cold stone as he walked, scraping along the surface.

Kreacher's fist balled around the hem of Regulus's coat, his ears flat, and eyes wide to help him to see in the dark.

Every step they took echoed off the walls of the cave.

White caps of waves broke against the stone, washing over some of the lower ones, dampening the layer of algae that had grown on the top and making some of the steps slippery so that Regulus felt his foot slide periodically. His stomach twisted each time it did, and he would steady himself, catching onto one of the hexagons quickly. "Careful," he said to Kreacher, and he was surprised how loud his regular speaking voice sounded once it had echoed back from the cavern walls.

"Kreacher is very much not liking this, Master Regulus," the elf murmured.

"I'm not liking it either, Kreacher," Regulus said quietly, "But sometimes you have to face things that you don't like in order to do what is right."

"Yes Master Regulus," Kreacher said.

Regulus let go of the rock wall and held his wand in the opposite hand, extending his arm down to offer Kreacher his other. "Here. Hold on to my hand, Kreacher. I promise there's nothing here that will hurt you."

Kreacher trembled. "But last time we were here, Master, last time there was such a lot of things that hurt Kreacher and Master..."

Regulus paused and knelt down. "I promise nothing will hurt you Kreacher, if you listen to every command I give you. Promise me if I give you a command you'll do it right away, whatever it is, without hesitation."

"Yes Master Regulus, Kreacher will obey Master, of course."

The next part of the cave was a six foot drop down, and he scooted across the stone to the edge, letting his legs hang over and looking down the drop. The water was high enough to leave a thin layer over the stone, just enough that it would get the bottom of his shoes wet.

His eyes moved over the surface slowly. The water was still somewhat clear and when he held his wand out at arm's length, he thought he maybe could see the floor of the cave through it. His heart beat quickened.

"Shall Kreacher go first and see if it is safe below, Master Regulus?" Kreacher asked.

"No," Regulus answered. "I will check if it is safe." He paused, still sitting on the ledge. "Kreacher, if anything happens to me... you must go home. Do you understand?"

Kreacher looked at Regulus.

"Promise me."

"Yes Master, Kreacher promises."

"That's even stronger than a command, Kreacher," Regulus told him. "A promise is based on our friendship."

"Yes Master Regulus, Kreacher understands."

"Alright." 

Regulus inched forward and took a deep breath before he plunged over the short drop. His feet splashed into the water, which had already risen to be ankle-deep, just in the time he'd been hesitating on the ledge. He stared at the water as the ripples moved outward from his feet, waiting, half expecting something to happen.

When nothing did, he turned back, moving carefully to disturb the water as little as possible. "Come on Kreacher." He held out his hands to catch the elf.

Kreacher whimpered, but he rolled onto his belly and slid back so his bottom half hung over the ledge, his arms gripping onto the stone, his legs flailing for holding against the wall. Regulus plucked him down and pulled the elf into his chest. "I've got you." 

Kreacher nodded.

Regulus's arms wrapped around Kreacher's small body and Kreacher held onto Regulus tightly as Regulus moved through the ankle deep water. The waves coming in were becoming stronger with each inward push. The smell of stagnant water assaulted Regulus's nose, brine and algae and a heavy mildew scent mingling together with something else... The water ripped against itself, and Regulus could feel the exhale as the cave seemed to breathe water - in and out - the current dragging against his legs.

Despite all that, the inside of the cave was rather beautiful, Regulus couldn't help but admit it. The light shone against the walls and the cave seemed to glitter back at him a bit. He ran his hands over the stone and looked down at his palm. Specular hematite, he thought. Geological glitter. 

Just the shape of the cave was enough to make it breath taking, with the staggered pillars that climbed the walls. High above, bats hung from the ceiling. They moved restlessly, some stretching and flapping open their wings as they started awakening for the night. Regulus felt rather uneasy, seeing them up there. He'd never been terribly fond of bats. 

The water was up to his mid-shin now.

The stone started moving upward, though, and Regulus was climbing upward, one arduous step at a time, the weight of the water that had soaked his clothes and shoes making him move slower. Soon, he was climbing up out of the water, and he put Kreacher down onto the ledge above to make use of his arms as best he could, the pain in his left bicep echoing through his nervous system. Kreacher put his hands on Regulus's arm and wrist as he pulled himself up, as though even Kreacher's entire body weight could possibly help to brace Regulus's.

The air in the cave was getting harder to breathe, stuffier. It was still cool, but felt hotter because of the lack of breeze, and Regulus paused once he'd gotten up the ledge and he shrugged off the coat that was his outer layer, folding it neatly. He reached into the pocket, removed the locket, which he hung around his neck, and turned to lay the coat down on a stone to one side. Kreacher stared at the locket as it hung, heavy and large against Regulus's chest.

He looked around, examining the area they'd found themselves in. The cave sort of tapered down here until the ceiling met the floor and it appeared to be the back wall. 

Kreacher whispered, "Master has reached the back of the cave, and look, nothing is here!" Kreacher said, and his ears raised slightly. "Kreacher can take Master home now and we can never talk of this nasty cave again!" 

Regulus shook his head. "No, Kreacher." He paused, looking around. Regulus pressed his palms to the wall, feeling for some crevice he could not see. The shadows from his wand cast funnily across the jagged pillars and it was possible that something was blending into the walls, some narrow space to slip into... There didn't seem to be anything.

Regulus kept feeling. He'd been through here once, so he knew somewhere in this cavern there was a rock wall that turned into a door.

"Oh what was the spell," he murmured, trying to recall Professor Flitwick, talking about a charm that revealed places where magic had left it's trace in the natural world. It was similar to the one which revealed hidden persons... "Revelio... oh what's the second bit." Regulus knocked his fist to his forehead. It was a latin-based spell... not magus, no it was the other... "Revelio medeis?" he tried, rapping his wand against the stone. He tried changing the emphasis so it came out made-us instead of mede-us, and again so it was me-ade-us and ma-dee-is. 

It was the last which worked. 

The wall flared up and a golden light traced the arched outline of a doorway cut through the stone. The light moved quickly, and when the shape of the door was completed, it turned brilliant silver, stayed for a moment, then flickered... and faded back out of view.

Regulus stared at the place where it was.

He pressed his palm to it and pushed.

Nothing happened.

"Revelio medeis," he tried again, and again the trace of the outline, gold, silver, then faded away. He tried pushing while the door glowed bright and he felt as though his palm was burned and he drew back quickly. 

"Blast," Regulus muttered, and he tried again with the spell... and again...

It was the fifth or sixth attempt before he noticed the writing on the curved arch of the outline.

"Montrez votre valeur dans le sang," Regulus read, and he sighed, staring at the lettering. "Show your worth in blood." He sighed. "Alright." He paused, then looked down at his arm. He pulled the bandage from his arm. Blood was still seeping from the stitches for all the strain he'd put on the wound and he winced as he ran his palm over the places where he was sewn together, scooping the blood into his fingers.

Kreacher watched with wide eyes as Regulus reached out his blood soaked hand and scraped it over the rock face.

At first, it seemed nothing would happen.

Then the gold outline began to trace the way across the stone once again, though twice as bright as before - as though the version conjured by the spell had been but a shadow of the true outline of the door as it broke through the rock. It glowed bright gold, then faded to silver... and while it was silver, the whole door lit as though made of the surface of the moon and Regulus reached for it, pushing it and the stone slid aside easily.

"Lumos," he said, reigniting his wand as he stepped through and he saw the familiar cavern within. It wasn't a terribly huge cavern. It was dank and dreary and terrible, though, and there was a horrid, thick smell to the air that made it hard to breathe deeply. Regulus thought that it smelled like death and rotting seaweed. Death - that was the other scent that had tinged the air before, when he couldn't put a name to what it was that lingered in the air. Here it was, concentrated and distinguishable, heavy, and consuming.

Even Kreacher recoiled at the scent of it.

Regulus carefully picked his steps, moving around a narrow ledge that lined the cave. Here, the water was still as stone and so pitch-black that it looked like a void.

Nightmares - or the memories of them, at least - bubbled beneath the surface of his skin.

"Be careful, Kreacher," he whispered. "We don't want to awaken whatever it is that's under the water. Be very careful." Kreacher stared at the surface uneasily, nodded, and followed Regulus's lead of pressing back-to the wall of the cave. The cavern was pitch dark.

"Illuminae," he whispered and he shook his wand, a ball of light flying from the tip of it like a signal flair, flying in a great arch across the cavern before landing in the water far-off, put out by the blackness.

There was a rippling in the water where it had landed.

Regulus shivered.

For a moment before it had gone out, he'd seen the little island that he remembered, a cropping of heavy boulders stacked together and, at the pinnacle, what he knew was the stone basin.

Carefully, he leaned forward and felt in the air. His finger brushed something solid, invisible but there, and he knew it was the chain for a submerged boat. He closed his fist around the invisible solid and gently, slowly, terrified what might be stirred up, he pulled. Hand over hand, he drew the invisible chain to himself, and he felt sweat beading on his forehead. 

Kreacher's eyes glowed incandescently in the dark beside him.

At last, the water was spilling away from a form that was rising up from the water and though Regulus's heart beat ferociously from the sound and the thought of it stirring the water, he was relieved to see the boat. He tugged it until the boat was close enough to the shore that he could reach it - for as the boat came up from the dark water it became visible, and the chain did as well, and he reached out and touched the helm, clamping his fingers on the edge.

"In you go, Kreacher," Regulus whispered.

Kreacher looked at Regulus tremulously.

Regulus raised his eyebrow, reminding Kreacher of the promise.

"Y-yes Master," Kreacher whispered, and he inched closer to the edge of the stone, looking down at the water.

Regulus remembered then how terrified he himself had been at the thought of having to climb into that boat, how even he would've had to jump over the water a little bit to reach the boat, and how he'd envisioned terrible things that might happen if he missed...

"Here." Regulus looped the chain around a rock, and he picked Kreacher up. "Climb on my back instead."

Kreacher looked thankful, and he came and clambered up onto his Master's back.

Regulus paused to unbutton the wrists of his shirt and roll the sleeves up to his elbows, his face broken in sweat. He swept his forearm over his browline and tossed back his neck, waving his palm to move the air across his skin. He should be cold, but the air seemed to be pressing against him, heavier and heavier the further he went.

Nerves, he thought. Fear. It's eating me alive from the inside.

But he moved forward none the less, regardless of the fear.

"Kreacher, hold my wand up so I can see," Regulus commanded, holding out the wand.

The elf took hold of it, his hands trembling, and he raised it up, the light illuminating the ground before them as Regulus reached out and took hold of the helm of the tiny boat. The wood was soaked, softened from being under the water. He carefully pulled himself, leaning heavily on his good arm, glad that he'd grown taller since the last time he'd been in this place and tried at climbing into this boat. 

The water rippled out from the boat as the weight of himself and Kreacher shifted the boat in the water and Regulus peered over the edge, but even with the light of his wand directly above it, he could not see anything below the pure-blackness of the water's surface. It was like looking into ink, he thought. He helped Kreacher down from his back and the elf handed Regulus back the wand. Regulus held the elf's hand to keep him steadied as he climbed opposite Regulus, sitting, his legs too short to touch the bottom of the boat from the bench.

The boat began to move on it's own toward the little island, floating forward across the water, as quiet as a whisper.

Regulus's heart was striking his ribs madly, and he felt dizzy from the anxiety pressing in on him as they moved further and further from solid ground. Something in him screamed to go back, to go back and never leave the shore again... He glanced back over his shoulder, but already the darkness behind them was so complete that he could not see the walls of the cavern anymore.

Ominous. That was the only word that flickered through Regulus's mind, and he suddenly yearned for that moment out on the rocks by the sea, when he'd looked out and seen the horizon, far off, where he could stare straight off all the way across the world and see where the sky met the sea. 

This was a far different sort of feeling small now, in this blackness.

"Do you realize my power, boy?" Voldemort had asked. "I am infinitely powerful, Regulus -- I cannot and will not be defeated. Many of the most powerful wizards in the world have tried against me... and they have all failed at it. You see, Regulus... the greatest weakness of being human is that mankind is susceptible to the effects of death - that they are forced by time and mortality to bow before Death. Unlike other wizards, who are content with being powerful in what Death has alotted them as their life, I have found a way to be more powerful than them - to be more powerful than Death himself. I, Regulus, have found a way to escape Death."

Regulus had murmured, "There's no escaping Death, sir."

"Death is an opponent that I fear no longer," Voldemort said. "I tell you now, I who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality, am more powerful than you have ever dreamed me to be..."

Something about that part of the Dark Lord's speech echoed in Regulus's mind... but what it was, he could not quite put word to.

Suddenly, the boat jarred and Regulus braced himself against the helm as Kreacher fell forward. "Are you alright, Kreacher?"

"Yes, Master," Kreacher said miserably as Regulus reached to pick the elf up, pulling him close to his chest again. He held him for a moment, just letting the poor creature shiver in his arms. Regulus felt terrible for Kreacher, who clung to him tight. 

"Kreacher does not like this place, Master, Kreacher hates it here, Kreacher is so afraid for Master."

"It's alright, Kreacher. We're nearly finished here... and then you never have to come back to this place again, alright? Never again."

Regulus stared at the form of the island, glimmering in the light of his wand. He stared up at the basin, looming in the dark over him, knowing what would be in it, and he drew a deep breath.

"We're nearly finished," he whispered, and he pushed himself up from the bench, carefully balancing himself as he climbed out of the boat and onto the rock where they were moored.