Regulus never liked it as much as his own, it was yet another thing that left him at the mercy of the Ministry. Up to their judgement.
Of course, the judgement of the Ministry was hardly fair. Regulus knew what would happen the moment he'd confessed, that he'd said those words. I killed him. Those words had, undoubtedly, bought him a cell in Azkaban, alongside the mark upon his arm.
To an extent, he knew he'd regret it. That if he were stuck in Azkaban, there'd be consequences beyond what there would've been two weeks ago. But—Regulus couldn't bring himself to care much. It was the thought of James in one of these fucking cells—black-tiled and barren—that really made him do it.
He tried to convince himself it wouldn't matter in the end. However the Ministry went tomorrow (or was it today? Regulus couldn't be sure of how long it'd been, when he'd arrived), it wouldn't end well for anyone in the Ministry. And that would undoubtedly bode well for Regulus. Tomorrow, he'd be able to slip out in the chaos. Maybe join the part that way.
Then, there was that small part of him that also wondered whether James would find it valuable enough to come after him, or if he'd just let him go. Another lost cause, drifting out of his door. It was easy to tell himself it didn't matter much, that whatever had happened between the two of them was a moment of weakness, a passing thought.
But, really, that small part of him hoped, desperately, that he would. That even before the attack tomorrow, James would come and break him out of that cell, just as he had the very first time Moody had captured him.
"Meals every twelve hours," the guard said, though Regulus didn't know whether he'd even be there for twelve hours. The pattern seemed unbroken; a Death Eater was brought into the Ministry, sent to Azkaban without trial, and then, according to James, they'd stage a breakout. A pattern that'd started with his brother.
Of course, there was no-one to break Regulus out, if he went to Azkaban.
And even with the system, with the Aurors and Moody unrelenting in their arrests, the raids still happened. People still died. And more than anything, the world still seemed to be crumbling, no matter what the Aurors did.
Without that locket, with Voldemort still there, still a figurehead, it would continue to be. At the end of the day, it wasn't such a big deal. Maybe without Voldemort, they'd still find another person to surround themselves with, someone else powerful, someone else who generated enough fear for the public to revert to those old ways that Regulus had always been raised by.
The guard slid the door shut, and Regulus felt darkness overtake him.
* * *
The moments after Regulus left were a blur, all pulled together in his mind, twisted and warped and ugly. At first, there'd been the Order. Staring at him, watching for his next move, as though he were someone on the brink of explosion.
His parents had pulled him from the room rather quickly, into the house's entryway, knocking some sense into him with words.
"Beta, is it true? Regulus, did he kill that man?" Effie whispered, wary of the others listening from the other room.
"No," James insisted. "No, we were at the wrong place at the wrong time. There was a woman—an assassin. She killed Fawley."
"A Death Eater?" Monty said.
James shook his head. "Bellatrix, Mulciber, and Selwyn were there. They'd wanted to take him alive."
"Take him?"
He couldn't be focused on anything else but Regulus, though. Whatever the motivations of the Assassin were, he'd have to figure them out later. "Dad—someone else killed him."
