[From Samhain to the Solstice]: A New Creation, Regulus/Harry, R, 8/8

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of the story.

Part Eight

It’s hard, afterwards, to describe the things that Regulus knew he understood and experienced that night.

He stands at Harry’s side, and watches Harry raise the Elder Wand. The Cloak is draped over it, shimmering, but not turning Harry’s arm or the wand invisible. The wind around them is rising, and Harry opens his left hand, and the Resurrection Stone ascends to hover above their heads like a star.

“Harry?” Regulus whispers.

Harry gives him a small smile. “I know what I’m doing, Regulus.”

Regulus hopes so, but he’s not entirely certain of that. He just watches as the Stone begins to make wide circles around Harry’s head, like a planet orbiting the sun in a model Regulus remembers from Astronomy, and bedtime stories.

The Dementors are pressing closer and closer now. This close, Regulus can make out individual ones, if he wants, but there’s not much point. They’re identical: dangling grey robes, hooded heads leaning forwards, and cold, scaly hands reaching out.

What is different is that Regulus can’t feel the despair or see the memories that normally would have come from being this close to any Dementors, let alone this many. He turns his head to see that Harry’s own head is tilted back, and he’s whispering something in that language that Regulus thinks summoned them here, the language he doesn’t understand but knows.

What Harry is whispering right now is, “Come to me.”

The Dementors move closer as a mass. Regulus shivers and braces himself.

Harry takes a step backwards. Regulus steps back with him, to keep their shoulders pressing together. The air around them is heavy and sluggish with power. He knows that some of it comes from Harry, but he also suspects a large amount is radiating from the stone behind them, the facets picking up an extra glimmer from the stars or the ground or Harry or who knows what.

“Come on,” Harry whispers.

Those are about the last words that Regulus wants to hear Harry speaking, but he holds steady, his eyes locked on the Dementors floating towards them. The Dementor that’s nearest them on the left abruptly dodges at them, and Regulus can see its mouth open, a tunnel to horrors he can only imagine.

“Come home.”

Harry speaks the words in a voice that resonates beneath Regulus’s feet and crawls inside his bones. He finds himself leaning forwards, gasping, and all his memories of the lake disappear for a moment, as though blotted out by a light more brilliant than a Patronus.

The nearest Dementor—

Changes.

One moment, it’s nothing more than a drifting cloud of murky nothingness. Then it’s blossoming and splitting apart in a starburst that sinks claws into Regulus’s chest and tears something else out of him, some doubt or fear at the bottom of his soul.

And the white rock glows.

The light blows out of it and through the Elder Wand and into the crowd, transforming every Dementor it touches. They turn blue and white and black and gold, every color except the dusty grey they’ve been up until this point. And Regulus can see through them, and can see into them, and he closes his eyes to keep from weeping.

They’ll be with every creature who dies here from now on. Regulus is glad that he lives in his own world and not the night world, but for just a moment, he envies the creatures of this world, Nundus and birds and whatever else lives here, for being able to die in the presence of compassion.

The ripple of light and shock and power goes on and on and on. Still the ground shakes; still the magic funnels through the Elder Wand; and Regulus can hear Harry’s low chanting, his frantic clinging to sanity and reality. Or maybe it’s not so frantic. Regulus stands close enough to Harry that he would feel if Harry trembled with pain or fear.

He never does.

But eventually, he does fall.

Regulus tears open eyes that he long ago closed against the light, and blinks. His first thought is that some of the Dementors haven’t been transformed, because there are still a few grey shapes hovering near them. But then he sees the depth of their color, the dove-shade, stormcloud-grey, and realizes they are simply transformed creatures who have taken on that shade, which is still different than what he thinks of as the “normal” hue of Dementors in their world.

Regulus stoops down beside Harry. For a moment, he thinks that he’s unconscious, and prepares himself to shake Harry to wake him up.

A reaching hand stops him.

Regulus looks up. The former Dementor is fading even as he watches, becoming less and less like the being it was, and turning invisible. But it manages to catch his eye and shake its head, human gestures it must be making solely because he will understand them.

It goes against Regulus’s nature to sit there and do nothing. Even during the years when he was so bored that he wished for some other Dark Lord to show up, he went to parties and danced and dueled and spied on people and spread rumors. He hates sitting beside Harry now and not touching him, not waking him up.

But he does, watching as the Dementors fade and change and become other than what they were.

*

“Gulus.”

The sound of Harry slurring and abbreviating his name is sweeter than lovers moaning it. Regulus immediately turns so that he’s touching Harry’s chest, his drawn wand nearly rolling out of his hand. Regulus drew it after the transformed Dementors left. Obviously they were no threat anymore, but this world does hold Nundus, as Regulus has cause to remember.

(He fixed his arm with a healing potion last night, but it still twinges).

“I’m here, Harry,” Regulus whispers, and strokes the silky hair back from Harry’s brow.

Harry twitches and looks around for a second as though searching for something. Regulus looks with him. The Stone is resting on the ground beside Harry, the Cloak draped over his arm, and the Elder Wand tucked into the holster at his waist.

“You stayed.”

Regulus glances up at Harry’s face and finds himself pinioned by those shining green eyes. He clears his throat, but doesn’t manage to get rid of the crowding, breathless feeling in his chest, which he dislikes.

(That’s a lie).

“Yes, of course I did.”

His voice comes out as husky and breathless as the feeling in his chest. Regulus leans over, slowly, watching Harry’s face. He’ll back off if he’s not wanted, but he can’t help finding out if he is wanted.

Harry shuts his eyes and raises his face, and Regulus’s mouth closes on his.

For a long moment, the kiss is agonizingly gentle, and Regulus would stir with impatience, but he’s never kissed anyone the way he’s kissing Harry. Sometimes things need to be gentle and take their time. And sometimes they need to be powerful and take their time, the way Harry did with the Dementors.

But then Harry abruptly lunges towards him and rolls Regulus to the ground. Regulus grunts as he falls over, and grunts again as Harry sits on top of him.

Harry smiles down at him, eyes shining. Regulus can still see in the dark the way he has been able to since they came to the night world, and he feels his own transformation thunder through him as Harry stares at him.

“You were with me,” Harry says. “I went to face my death at Voldemort’s hands alone. I—there was a Horcrux in my head, Regulus. That was why I had to die. It had to be the Killing Curse from Voldemort, or the Horcrux would have lived, and I would have lived, and so would he.”

Regulus reaches up and grasps Harry’s hips with shaking hands. He can’t find the words that would make the moment crystalline for Harry. He can’t find the right words, for the first time.

Finally, he decides that there are no right words, and that frees him to whisper, “I’m sorry that you had to endure that.”

“I was thinking as I walked that I wished I could live, but I knew I had to die,” Harry whispers back. “And then I found myself in what seemed like the afterlife, and I thought I would be going back to my friends. But somehow I wound up in your dimension.”

He traces his fingers over Regulus’s chest for a moment. Regulus trembles with holding himself back, not sure what will happen if he moves, if he might frighten Harry.

Then Harry looks straight at him, and smiles more widely, and says, “I’m glad I found you.”

He kisses Regulus again, but this time it’s as wild as thunder, and Regulus clasps his arms around Harry and gives in to the temptation that he’s been carrying at least since yesterday, longer than he’s carried any in years.

Harry grunts as Regulus rolls them to the side, so that they’re both lying on the ground, and flings one leg across Harry’s hips. Harry gets the idea soon enough, and opens his legs eagerly, thrusting up.

“I’ve never—”

“Neither have I.”

That would be a lie, but not the way Regulus means it, which is that he’s never done this before with anyone who mattered so much. Never done it with someone who gapes at him the way Harry does, and tosses his head back and moans.

Never done it with someone he’s so perilously close to loving.

And in the end, it’s not a miracle of sophisticated and subtle lovemaking, the way Regulus might have wanted to do with someone he loves. It’s just thrusting into each other, lunging up and down, Harry’s hands on his shoulders and his blunt nails scratching at Regulus’s face, Regulus leaning down so that he can capture Harry’s breathy cries with his mouth.

It’s loudness and thunder between them and messiness and stickiness and pleasure.

And goodness.

Regulus lies with Harry and thinks about how long ago he gave up on goodness. On good things, on happiness, rather than pleasure.

Now he can have both.

Harry stirs next to him and opens his eyes, and Regulus turns to him with a smile. Harry stares at him and then, incredibly, ducks his head and blushes.

Regulus laughs softly. “Who do you think saw us? The rock? The Dementors, whatever we should call them now? The Nundu?”

“Shut up,” Harry mutters.

Regulus smiles and leans close to nuzzle his way down Harry’s neck. He can’t help himself. “Maybe the stars? Maybe—”

“You saw me.”

Harry has known how to interest him since they first met. It’s not that much of a surprise to find out that he can steal Regulus’s words, as well.

Regulus leans closer and kisses him, long and slow, until they both understand everything there is to understand.

*

“Harry! You’re all right.”

Lily Potter flies across the Potters’ garden to embrace Harry when Harry and Regulus reappear in the circle of the candles. They’ve cleaned up, because Regulus doesn’t want to embarrass Harry in front of humans, and Harry smiles a little as he hugs the woman who might have been his mother in another wor—dimension.

“Yes, I am,” Harry says softly, and turns to Regulus as he speaks the next words. “And there are no more Dementors. They’ve been restored to their home. They’re back to what they were.”

“Wow.”

That’s Sirius, piling in for a hug. It might have made Regulus jealous to watch this yesterday, but he’s shared something with Harry that these people can never duplicate, and he watches in contentment as they appreciate Harry.

Besides, even as James pounds him on the back and takes his turn in the embrace, Harry’s eyes keep returning to Regulus.

Dumbledore asks questions. Regulus answers them with the same cryptic vagueness that he always hoped to have a chance to turn on the Headmaster, and watches as Dumbledore looks close to pouting.

Harry answers them with a little more clarity, but given that the truth can’t really be described in words, that doesn’t seem to please the Potters or Dumbledore, either.

Regulus waits, and dreams.

*

“It occurred to me that since I have the power of the Deathly Hallows and they can apparently find me anything I want, then I might be able to use them to travel back to my own dimension.”

Regulus lays his toast slowly down on his plate, his appetite gone. Harry slept in late this morning, but no wonder. And he did ask, quietly, that they sleep in the same bed, his cheeks flushing that lovely rosy color again when he spoke of it.

Regulus was only glad that he could speak of it at all, feeling so lucky to be able to share this with Harry.

And now it’s being taken away from him.

He closes his eyes for a moment, and then watches Harry sit down to a veritable pile of bacon on his plate. “Okay,” he whispers. “I hoped you would stay, but I understand why you want to go back to your friends and your home. And defeat Voldemort, if he hasn’t been defeated yet.”

Already, though, Regulus feels a cascading wave of dread that no Dementors could ever have inspired in him. He doesn’t want to go back to the grey days he survived before Harry, the despair, the crippling boredom.

Harry snorts at him and says something through the bacon that Regulus can’t understand. Kreacher appears to poke Harry in the elbow and dump more bacon on his plate, more or less simultaneously.

“What was that?” Regulus asks.

Harry lifts his head, swallows a lump that makes Kreacher scurry around behind him to thump his back, and says, “I was thinking that you would—ow, Kreacher, I’m fine—come with me.”

Regulus stares.

“I understand if you don’t want to,” Harry adds hastily, probably wondering what in the world Regulus’s expression is. Regulus is sort of wondering himself. “But I think—you don’t have a counterpart there, but you could find a place. People to speak to and spend time with. And of course I could bring you back to this dimension whenever you wanted. We could even travel in between them. I’d like the chance to know the Potters and Sirius.”

Regulus stares at him, dazed.

“I want you with me,” Harry whispers, and now any trace of a smile is gone, his eyes wide and unhappy as he reaches out and lays his hand on Regulus’s. “I didn’t expect—I didn’t know if you would have to consider it before you jump at it, but—”

“Why?” Regulus whispers hoarsely. “I can understand why I care about you, but I thought at least some of it for you yesterday was the triumph over the Dementors, and—”

“You stood by me,” Harry says. “You didn’t let me go alone. You trusted me and believed in me, and—did I tell you they turned on me in my dimension, every chance they got? Oh, right, you were there when I told James and Lily.” He shakes his head, his mouth twisting with bitterness. “You didn’t do that. You’ve known me a few days, and you’re already one of the few people who’s ever supported me through everything.

“I do want to go back, for Ron and Hermione and the people who might be suffering under Voldemort. But I don’t want to leave you. And I don’t want to leave this dimension forever. I’d like—I’d like to be able to retreat to peace, if people start blaming me again.”

Regulus can feel himself smiling. To go dimension-traveling with the Master of Death…

To be at Harry’s side, no matter where he goes or where he eventually decides to live…

To perhaps face Voldemort again, and fight him, and be able to spare Harry some of that pain and responsibility…

“Regulus?”

“The answer is yes,” Regulus breathes. “Oh, Harry. You’ve offered me gifts that I never thought I would find. Yes, I’ll come with you. No matter where you go, no matter what decisions you make, I’ll be at your side.”

Harry’s smile is dazzling, and he leans across the table to kiss Regulus, which they manage to do for a few seconds only, until Kreacher appears beside them and clears his throat loudly.

“Harry is having tomatoes on his shirt.”

Harry draws back with a laugh and glances at Kreacher. “Would you like to meet your other self that lives in another dimension? I think you might be good for him. He was left all alone for years and went a bit mental, see.”

Sadness drifts across his face. Regulus knows that he’s likely thinking of the part that that Kreacher played in the death of Harry’s Sirius, but he extended the invitation to the Kreacher here anyway, because that’s the kind of person Harry is.

“Kreacher is straightening this other Kreacher out,” Regulus’s version says, his ears lifting to the top of his head. “Kreacher is making sure that he is not mental and is taking care of the House of Black.”

“Yeah, you’ll be good for him,” Harry says, and turns back to Regulus. He reaches his hand out. “I need a few days to rest before I ask the Elder Wand for something again, and I’d like to say goodbye to the Potters and Sirius and explain why we won’t be staying. But then we can go.”

Regulus takes Harry’s hand.

For so long, he hasn’t been part of any we. He stood alone, the Man-Who-Conquered, the Boy-Who-Lived, the object of praise and worship and damnation and envy and awe.

And here is someone Regulus is awed by, someone who saved a million dimensions from Dementors and saved a million Dementors from themselves, and who can talk about going back to his own dimension to defeat a Dark Lord so casually.

Regulus will never be bored again, and that is a gift.

He will be able to do many right and good things, and that is another gift.

But the best thing of all is being by Harry’s side.

The End.