Disclaimer: Anything recogizable from the Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K. Rowling. This story is for entertainment purposes.

Note: Constructive reviews are very much appreciated. I'd love to hear about how I can improve.

Within an often-overlooked room on the top floor of 12 Grimmauld Place, a hidden compartment beneath a loose floor board can be found just in front of the large poster bed. In the hollow slot sits a box made of dark wood, plain but for intricately carved silver clasp bearing two ravens—a small keyhole set between them. Inside, the box holds a few petite trinkets and a small stack of letters, the top-most dated October 7th, 1989—its recipient unmentioned.

Are you safe?

Are you happy?

I hope you are safe. I hope you are happy.

Things, here are getting worse.

But you already knew that. They've been getting worse for a long time now. It's only me that has just realised they were. It's only after I'm in too deep that I've realised that.

There are deaths every day. In the most horrifying ways one can think of. When I think there could be nothing more horrible, someone always manages to prove me wrong. Just last week… No, I'd rather not recall that—not here.

The dead are no longer just those who were fighting.

You foresaw that long before. Right after the Prewett brothers' deaths you told me so, but I didn't believe you—I didn't want to believe you. We got into an argument that day, do you recall? You had called me naïve, and I called you cynical. And we didn't talk for that entire day after—until I needed help with my Charms essay.

When that Muggle-baiting happened a few months after that, we fought again. I had refused to see anything wrong with that. It was one of our more serious fights—at least for me it was. We didn't yell—we didn't even raise our voices. But it felt dreadful when it ended with you calling me heartless. And after three days of not talking, I swallowed that damned Black pride to admit it was wrong. You forgave me pretty easily—you didn't even wait for me to say that long speech I prepared for you—, and we hadn't talked about Muggle-baiting ever since, but it still weighed on my mind. I never got to tell you the real reason I fought so adamantly was that I was ashamed of the Muggle-baiting my ancestors have done.

I suspect you already knew, but I was too much of a coward to bring it up after that. Sometimes, I feel like you've spoiled me just by not confronting me all the way through. You probably thought it best not to push me too much—lest I stopped listening to you altogether. And perhaps I would have if you did, considering how deeply ingrained all of my blood purity beliefs were.

But now, I wish you had pushed more. Then maybe I would have opened my eyes sooner.

For weeks after, I simply told myself that the innocent deaths in the Muggle-baiting incident happened because of a few radicals among the Death Eaters and that they wouldn't actually harm wizards and witches. Annie Grover proved to me otherwise.

It made the first real crack on that little happy delusion I lived in. She was a witch—Muggleborn, but a witch all the same. She could be inferior, but that didn't call for her to be killed. She wasn't even anyone significant, just a plain shopkeeper.

I was quite shaken when I'd first heard it. I couldn't eat for a while, and got you worried. You got even more worried when I refused to say anything. I'm sorry I never said anything, but I couldn't at the time. I couldn't bear to hear anything that might further that crack in my beliefs—not when I knew it was my very own cousin who did the deed.

Even after that I'd reasoned that it was because Bella had always been rather extreme and prone to the curse of madness that haunted our line—rather like those ancestors of ours who went Muggle-baiting, I'd told myself. And I kept telling that to myself until I finally joined the ranks and saw for myself the truth.

I still remember the fight we had over that, as if it happened only yesterday. I still remember clearly that pure fury on your face when you found out. I'd never seen you so angry before. I had felt like cowering when you started yelling at me right after you casted the Imperturbable Charm on the door. Instead I stood straighter and sniped back at you about blood purity and duty to the cause—both of which I now realise are stupid and misguided. That ended with you socking my jaw—I spent a week nursing a bruised jaw since I was too proud to go to Madam Pomfrey.

I became uncomfortably aware of the contradictions within the ranks of the Death Eaters almost immediately, but I didn't want to admit you were right and told myself that whatever flaw was there was fixable—that I could fix it if no one else would. I had been so sure that I could find evidence that not everything about the cause was a bad as you made it out to be. Then, Julian Fawley was killed.

He was a Pureblood and his family had some influence with the Ministry. He wasn't a Blood-traitor as far as anyone could tell, but he wasn't supporting the cause either. We—Yaxley and I— were supposed to talk to him, to convince him to join the cause. When he refused, without so much as a warning, Yaxley cast the Killing Curse on him.

I was too stunned at the time to say or do anything.

When the news reached the school, I couldn't even look at you. His daughter was in your house. She was your friend. Her father was killed because he refused to join the cause. And I was there to watch it happen without ever lifting a finger to stop it.

I purposely avoided you since then. You tried to reach out to me a few times. I knew you did—even if I didn't know why you had even wanted to after everything. In fact, I still sometimes wonder why you never gave up on me all those years since we'd met

You could have just washed your hands off me and be done with after all the times I've dismissed you and even insulted you—no one could possibly fault you if you did. Even my own brother did after the first argument we had. I still wonder how you could stay friends with me, stubbornly bigoted as I was. I know helping you escape two bullies back in First Year couldn't have been enough to earn that much of your friendship and patience—it was only once, and it wasn't as if you couldn't handle them on your own as I've found out much later. I know I never did anything else to deserve it.

I know you deserve better than me. And I would have kept avoiding you forever if I hadn't found out about what happened to your mother.

I still don't know exactly what I was feeling or thinking that night in the Forbidden Forest. I only knew I had to find you and make sure you were safe.

The look on your face when I found you still haunts me.

Those few weeks of summer felt like the worst period of my life. I never realised until then how much I would miss seeing you smile and hearing you laugh. I missed us joking around. I missed us arguing. I even missed the exasperated sighs you gave in the face of my stubborn naivety.

I hated seeing you so… lifeless.

I was so relieved when you finally wept—when you finally showed some emotion. I would have stayed with you that night even if you hadn't asked. I wouldn't—couldn't have left.

The months that passed after were both dreadful and wonderful. Most nights were filled with death and Dark Magic. I'd look forward more and more to the stolen moments we'd sneak in between classes—the few times we'd skipped lessons altogether to hideaway together in some forgotten corner of the castle, just finding comfort in each other. Those were the times where I could just forget the world outside the two of us existed. They were the only things that could take me through my days—the moments that were gone when you left.

And then there were nothing but the dreadful days left.

There were times when I'd mull over aiming an Avada Kedavra at myself and end it all. Or times when I wanted to just jump into the stray curses during battles, if it meant some form of peace. Because without you here, I can hardly bear deaths that happen—especially those by my very own hands.

The worst of those were the Abbotts.

We had been ordered to hunt John Abbott and his Muggleborn wife. Instead we found his brothers and their families.

They didn't think the Death Eaters would harm them. They all Purebloods. They weren't very significant other than that. But couldn't tell the Dark Lord where their brother and sister-in-law were and that was enough reason for him to order the slaughter.

Rowle and the Gibbons had no trouble following the orders. For them, protecting a Muggleborn and a "Blood-traitor" were no better than being one. A few of the others seemed bothered by that, but obeyed without a word. Even our dear crabby old bat seemed somewhat disturbed, but he hid it so well I doubt even the Lord Voldemort himself could have noticed.

Some of them were nothing more than children. That was perhaps what had affected me the most. I did it the most painless way I could, but I still feel so…filthy. I weighs so much on my conscience—the conscience you helped to waken over the years by making me see the cruel bloody truth.

Sometimes I hate you for that.

You made me unable to turn a blind eye to the inhumane acts and hide behind that flimsy armour we called 'Blood Purification'. You made me realise how inhumane the Dark Lord really is. And now I can't even bring myself to call him human.

How ironic now the title 'Death Eaters' sounds, where what their lord fears most is death himself, and in his fear he has delved in the foulest of the Dark Arts. The foulest has to be the splitting of his soul.

He's split his soul several times over in hopes of escaping death. He must think himself clever, vaguely dropping hints as he had me volunteer Kreacher's service in hiding one of it away—as though I couldn't possibly figure it out. He forgets I'm a Black, and any Black with half a brain would have enough Dark Magic knowledge to figure out as much from his few hints.

I don't know how many of them there are, but I know at least where one—the one Kreacher nearly died to have it hidden—is. It has to be destroyed if he and his madness are to be stopped. And that is what I know must do.

I may be no Gryffindor, but a Slytherin has a kind of bravery of our own. We don't see a point to risking our lives for most of anything—especially when there are other ways around it, but we don't deny when there isn't one. And when something is well worth the price of our lives, we willingly pay it.

To stop him I will pay it without regrets.

My only regret is that I'll never get the chance to meet you again.

I regret never saying yes when you implored me to go with you when you left.

I regret that I'll never again see you and all your lively expressions.

I regret that I'll never again hear your laughs and exuberant shouts.

I regret that I'll never again take in the smells of herbs and wild flowers that linger around you.

I regret that I'll never again feel your warmth beside me as we lay counting the stars in the dark.

I regret that I'll never get to properly say to you goodbye.

I regret that you'll never receive this letter because I don't know where to send it to.

I regret that you'll never truly know just how much miss you.

That I love you.

Always.

Regulus