Okay, first off, this is not my idea. Or at least... No, it's not my idea. I just expanded on the idea and turned it into a fic. UnluckyAmulet ( www . fanfiction u / 779745 / UnluckyAmulet) writes these amazing twenty-fact fics for Harry Potter characters, and in the one about Sirius (Black blood, Red smoke), number thirteen, it says, "When he heard about Regulus' death, he locked himself in his room and lit a candle. He sobbed until the candle was nothing more than a puddle of wax." Then my best friend gave me the writing prompt "Candle Wax," and I just kind of ran with it. I own nothing.
A rectangle of light fell into the room before the man closed the door behind him. He had read several times, in old books, the description "plunged into darkness," and thought idly that it was a rather apt description for the sudden lack of light. He walked carefully forward and set the candle in his hand on the bedside table, then slowly lowered himself onto the bed. He fumbled in his pocket for a moment; there was a scratch and a muffled curse, followed by a hisssas the match in his hand caught fire. He held the match to the wick until it caught, then blew out the tiny fire on the end of the stick and shook it before dropping it on the table.
He sat there for several moments, hunched over, hands clasped loosely between between his knees and staring dully at the flame as it flickered.
So bright, he thought. So bright and small and it will last such a short time before it's gone... Before it dies...
Dead.
The word rattled around in his mind like chains clinking together, and a loud, ragged sob escaped him as he buried his head in his hands, rocking back and forth. So young, so young, too young, he couldn't be dead, his precious baby brother couldn't have died already. He was only eighteen, and it wasn't right, this whole thing was so wrong, so messed up, it wasn't fair.
The sound of his hoarse, aching cries filled the room, bounced off the walls and echoed back at him so that it sounded as though he were surrounded by invisible people, his inner demons come out to mock him with the sound of his own misery, and only the light of a single candle kept them back.
"I'm sorry," he whispered brokenly through his tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
He didn't know how long he was there, but finally the tiny light flickered and died, and the sudden darkness made him pause and look up. He could see now, the early morning light filtering through the windows revealing that the candle had melted all over the table and dripped down onto the carpet. Why had he picked a red candle? It looked so much like blood...
With a strangled noise between a shout and a moan, he stood and kicked the table over, blood red candle wax splattering across the floor.
