prompt: Story to be inspired by the lyrics below.
competition: The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, round one. [Keeper for Appleby Arrows]
thanks: Mittens for generally just being fantastic, and for putting up with me swearing and grumbling right through my writing process, and Jane (janeisnotonfire) for being a proofreading goddess even while battling the laws of time and distance and wifi, and for giving me more encouragement than I probably deserve.
Supernova
"And so it must be For so it is written
On the doorway to paradise
That those who falter and those who fall
Must pay the price!"
Stars, Les Misérables
If we were all just stars, scattered across the night's inky sky, Regulus should have shined the brightest. He was the good one. He was the favourite son.
If paths were predetermined, Sirius had stepped off his, and Regulus had simply taken his place.
He dedicated a lifetime in attempting to live the life others want him to live, to be the person they wanted him to be. He fought their wars and raised them up, and he never considered the sacrifice he'd be making on his own part.
He was just a boy with sad grey eyes, the doomed second son. Family pride inked black into his skin, supremacy in his veins.
Yet still, he was in the darkness, in a shadow cast by the brightest star our night's sky knows. This shadow, not black, but crimson and gold. In it, Regulus shivered. In it, he strived. In it, he fell.
Sirius wasn't anything he was supposed to be. He was a disappointment, a disgrace. He was a braggart, a Gryffindor, and a Muggle lover. Yet still his star shone on; brighter, brightest.
And he was Regulus's brother, and Regulus loved him even as he despised him.
When Regulus was a child his brother had been everything. But that was the way with idols; they could never live up to the heights you held them to. And Regulus had always had his idols.
He'd always been a sweet boy. That just wasn't a compliment in a family like his. There was no reward for trying hard. He wasn't supposed to need to. Everything was supposed to fall right into his worthy hand. Excellence was meant to be as easy as breathing. He was born into it, he was it.
Yet still he struggled to stand on his own two feet. Still he clung to others. Regulus was always trying to be everyone better than himself. Somehow, with all it entailed, being Regulus Black still wasn't enough.
Lessons drilled into young heads, over and over and over-
Family comes first
and
You are better than the they are.
-that was the way it was.
You put your family first because they're the ones that will always be there and, once you're gone, it's only your family that lives on.
But Sirius had put himself first, and Regulus was left carrying the weight of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black upon his skinny shoulders. It was a wonder he didn't snap.
The years passed like a shooting star, crossing the heavens in a blink of an eye.
A wand in his hand and the instruction to kill. And for the first time, it came to him, the realisation that he may be something less than a god.
All Regulus had ever wanted was to make the world a better place, not tear it down around him. He'd clung to his beliefs like a lifeline, but they were meant to do more than make himself feel better. They were meant to be more than validation for his actions. They were meant to be all there is. That was the way of the world.
It was black and white. It was light and dark.
If everything you've ever been taught, all your ideas about what the world was and what it meant, if that collided with the reality of the world outside...
Nothing could ever be the same after that.
He realised that he'd dedicated himself purely to chasing the dreams of others. He didn't know who he was when you took away everyone else. He was a Black, but he wasn't sure what that meant anymore.
In the end, all you're left with is yourself, and you have to be able to live with who that is.
He'd always had the dreamer's curse. Far fetched ideas, grand ambitions. No thought of the consequences. When everything is done in the name of someone else, you'd think you would be free of any blame or guilt. But he couldn't bear to look in the mirror because of the judgement in the eyes that stared back.
They're stranger's eyes. They're his brother's eyes.
When did those two very separate ideas become one?
Could there ever be bravery in saying no?
When his brother turned his back on him, Regulus turned to someone else.
The Dark Lord was what they called him, and Regulus was glad to be his servant.
He'd worshipped him for as long as he could remember, and then he was given instructions in his name that had him bent over in the bathroom, retching out the bad he never thought he'd catch from him.
There was a feeling in Regulus's heart. A heavy feeling, a separate feeling. A feeling that said-
There's all these questions in his head, but he's not meant to be thinking, not like this. He's a soldier in an army, fighting for their beliefs -ones that the more Regulus thinks on the less solid they seem and he hates this because if he doesn't have this certainty, what does he have? Nothing but the slowly sinking realisation that everything he's ever stood for may be a hollow lie, constructed by a mad man intent on a rise to power and the downfall of everyone who stands in the way- he's not meant to have his own mind. He's working for the bigger picture.
Could there ever be bravery in someone like him?
He wasn't a star, he was only named after one. He was a cog in the machine, an expendable weapon in a collection of other weapons.
But it was never about him. It was never about glory.
It's not about being remembered, it's about creating something that outlives yourself.
Growing up, it was all about family. Serving the family, serving the name.
But it's his name, and it's time to serve himself.
Bravery can't be reserved for Gryffindors. He was a Black. There wasn't anything that wasn't his for the taking.
People whispered, people spoke, people avoided him in the corridors.
He wore his sleeves long, covered what he'd once been so proud of.
His brother smiled at everybody but him.
In the company of his 'friends', he shuddered and recoiled.
In the mirror, he couldn't bear to meet his own eyes.
When the discovery hit, it was like he'd known it all along.
There was a feeling in Regulus's heart. A heavy feeling, a separate feeling. A feeling that said this is wrong.
The only comforting thing was that Regulus had always believed in right and wrong.
Regulus may have finally found something to die for; the destruction of everything he'd ever lived for.
This could be the price he has to pay for falling from the path made for him; seventeen and stone dead, remembered for all the wrong reasons.
Or maybe it's this; he's returned to the stars once more and he is Regulus and it is simply enough that he can shine at all.