Love, Life, And Lies- Regulus Black

.a merciful lord.

.i can wipe the tears in my eyes. but i can't wipe the pain in my heart.

As it would turn out, the Dark Lord didn't need to keep Regulus captive to torture me. Oh no. Instead, he sent him away on missions for an indefinite amount of time.

Two months.

It had been two months since I last saw him. Since I last felt his arms around me and lost myself in the steady beat of his heart.

It all seemed like some sort of sick joke. I had tried desperately to keep Regulus out of the Dark Lord's grasp, terrified that he would torture him to control me. But now, all I wanted was to have him near. To not go through the horrors I had been through alone.

And I wasn't even allowed to know what he was doing. Just that he was with Travers and Rudolphus Lestrange. Whatever it was they were tasked to do, I knew it couldn't be good.

Every day was like a walking nightmare. I felt like I was sleepwalking through life. Like all of the happiness I had briefly felt had been sucked out of my soul. The world was gray and bleak, and there was no light.

Day after day I trained Bellatrix in the art of Occlumency. Snape had grasped it relatively quickly. But because of some sick trick of the universe, Bellatrix was slow to learn.

Which meant that day after day, I had to dive into the filthy abyss of her mind. To wade through the terror of her memories. To see over and over again the vile, depraved things she had done. The appalling things she found joy in.

Every single time we finished a session, I threw up the contents of my stomach. I had stopped eating because of it, but still the dry heaves came.

I missed his arms around me at night. That was when the real terrors created in. When my mind was still and had time to wander through everything I had seen. The nightmares became indiscernible from the real world. I would curl up into a ball and sob until a restless sleep found me.

It was the same thing, day after day. And I had never felt more alone.

Sometimes I wondered where he was. Wondered what he was doing. My soul ached to have him near. But such thoughts sent me into a deep downward spiral. So I often forced them out. Forced them away.

It was easier that way.

The one consolation was that I no longer lived in Rosier Manor. I only visited for council meetings, and when the Dark Lord requested a personal audience.

When Regulus told his mother and father that he wanted to marry me, he had made a deal with them for their support. He would embrace the role as the Black Family Heir, something he had been reluctant to do before as it displaced Sirius. That meant we would live in the family home. And whole list of other things that Walburga had cornered me with.

Number Twelve Grimmauld Place was bleak, but at least here, the darkness didn't suffocate me.

In a small act of mercy, the Dark Lord had granted me permission to hold the lessons for Snape and Bellatrix at Grimmauld Place instead of at the manor house. I wasn't sure what sparked the generosity, but I wasn't going to question it.

But I still was expected to adhere to my responsibilities as a Death Eater. That meant I appeared when the Dark Lord called.

That was how I found myself in Rosier Manor one bleak, drizzly day near the end of November.

Snape showed up every week demanding to know if I had spoken with the Dark Lord yet. I was ready to cut him loose from his lessons just to get him to stop bothering me.