for valentina, who requested regulus black on tumblr.

wc: 450

. . .

Regulus wants Sirius to speak to him. Is it really so much to ask?

Sirius is too good for him. Sirius is not a Black like Regulus is, Sirius is brave and Gryffindor and he hates his own brother. Regulus is nothing to him, no one, someone to leave and never think about again when the time comes. They were never brothers. Sirius's brothers are his Gryffindor friends, his James and his Remus and his Peter.

Regulus is just the boy Sirius sleeps across the hall from — Regulus is the boy that enjoys pureblood supremacy and wants to be the perfect Black son.

Regulus doesn't want all that. He just wants his brother to love him. He wants someone to love him. But Mother and Father are too cold for things like love and Sirius is too rebellious to realize that Regulus is just here because he wants to survive.

It doesn't matter, he tells himself, and it won't matter in the end when Sirius dies at the hands of the Dark Lord and Regulus is the last one left.

. . .

Regulus gives up. He takes the role they give him and he wears it with resignation. He stops trying to talk to Sirius and instead starts trying to be better. He gets better grades, he gets better than James Potter on the Quidditch pitch, he gets better at pretending that he likes all this.

By the time he graduates Hogwarts he knows that he will end with a Dark Mark on his arm. He doesn't care.

. . .

The Dark Lord asks to use Kreacher. Regulus cannot say no.

Somehow, Kreacher makes it out alive. He tells Regulus his story.

Regulus knows what he has to do. He knows it will probably end in his death, but what does he have left to live for? It would just be one more among the dust of the dead. Sirius would be happy — one less Black to deal with.

. . .

Regulus drinks the potion and he makes Kreacher put in the fake locket and he is thirsty dear Merlin he needs water this place is damp where is the water —?

The lake. The water is glimmering, tantalizing, and Regulus knows he shouldn't but he is thirsty and his throat is dry and what else is left to do?

Regulus drinks.

When the Inferi take him, he hopes foolishly that Sirius might hear of this, that Sirius might feel something like a twinge of regret. He remembers Kreacher and he hopes the elf, at least, will make it. He remembers Mother and Father and the Quidditch team and the Dark Lord and James Potter and everything, everything —

Then there is nothing. Silence.