Because My Brother Could

Hey guys! This is a plot bunny that came into my mind a few months ago and I'm only just now finally daring to put pen to paper…

Summary: As Regulus Arcturus Black prepares to write that fateful letter to Voldemort, he reminisces on his brother Sirius and his own bravery.

In my version, Regulus writes his letter to Voldemort from the "comfort" of his own home (would that be Grimmauld Place?). According to the HP Lexicon, Regulus died in 1979, so, obviously, Sirius is still alive.

Everything that's in bold is taken directly from HBP.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I claim too. Unless you believe that some random high schooler from AMERICA is actually J.K. Rowling….

Enjoy and don't forget to review!

I take slow, calming breaths, but my hands still shake. The low golden glow of a single candle is just enough to illuminate the yellowed parchment. I'm idly swirling the tip of my quill in the shallow jar of ebony ink.

I know what I've decided to write. I know what I have to do, and I know that this may qualify as the most reckless, most Gryffindorish thing I've ever done.

It turns out that it will most likely also be the last thing I ever do.

Oh how sickly ironic that the last thing I'll ever do portrays the bravery my brother so often advocated, the same brother whom I had deceived myself into believing that I hated.

But deep inside I can't deny the truth.

I don't hate my brother, and even now memories of his bravery race through me again.

Sirius always was the brave one, always ready to stand up for what he believed in, even when he risked everything to fight. I had thought he was stupid to be so outspoken, but now…

Is what I'm doing any better? How insane must you be in order to willingly betray the Dark Lord, when painful death is a guarantee?

I don't have the bravery of my estranged brother, and yet I'm making an almost Gryffindor choice: an incredibly stupid, horribly brave choice. Here in my final hours, for the first time in years, I want to be more like my brother.

A strange old schoolboy feeling of rivalry wells up within me: if my brother could defy the Dark Lord, why couldn't I?

I resolutely turned my attention back to the parchment, determined to do what I knew I had to.

What my brother would have done.

To the Dark Lord

I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.

I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more.

R.A.B.

Setting my quill firmly back into its holder, I take the parchment and fold it into a very small square before putting safely inside the locket that would serve as a fake horcrux. I stare at it for one indeterminably long moment until the image of my brother floats through my mind again. I exhale deeply, and wish for the thousandth time that I been able to tell him what I'd found out, and that he would have believed me.

That he even would have listened to me.

I shake my head to rid myself of the what-ifs. I didn't have time to dwell on that. The Dark Lord required the use of a house elf, my house elf in order to hide the real horcrux.

It was time to finish what I'd started.

I picked up the locket and shoved it into my pocket. With a grave smile, I took a final look at the picture of my brother and I when we were children. We were grinning impishly and waving, and remembered that we had played a joke on Bellatrix just before the picture had been taken. Sirius's right arm was slung around my shoulders, in an expression of brotherly affection. I swallowed the lump in my throat at the thought that Sirius might never know the truth of how I died.

"I miss you, brother. Thank you for giving me bravery. I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry."

But there was no more time to think of that, and I reluctantly turned away from the photograph and called into the dark stillness:
"Kreacher!"

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