Dear brother,

Before you rip this letter up I beg you to take a moment just to read it. I know you probably don't care what I have to say but deep down somewhere I feel that you still care for me. I still care for you. You're still my big brother. I know how disappointed you are in me. I know how often I have let you down. Trust me I have felt all of your disappointments in me. It hurts to know that you would have given anything to have Potter as a brother instead of me. I know how much I insulted your friends and how much you hated me for it but it really did seem like the only way to get you to notice me. I was a coward going along with the family ideals and allowing them to manipulate me but after you had gone off to Hogwarts you were so different. You seemed to hate everything about our lives and I resented that. You didn't even want to spend that much time with me anymore. You shut yourself away in your room and barely spoke to me. I was so angry with you. You never wanted to talk anymore and spent most of your time arguing with mum and dad. When I came to Hogwarts I could almost feel your disgust when I was sorted into Slytherin. I'd have given anything for your approval but when all I received was a cold shoulder I had to find some other way to get your attention. I felt abandoned. Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew were your brothers now and I just watched from the sidelines like a discarded chess piece. That hurt and even now I still feel it like a knife in my back. You were my big brother, my role model, someone I looked up to but you didn't want to even know me. You didn't even care how I felt.

When you ran away I don't think I left my room for a week. I cried the entire time and I know you are now probably sniggering to yourself because I cried. I don't care anymore. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried because you left me. Maybe you could replace me with Potter but nobody could replace you in my eyes. I remember very clearly the morning I woke up to find you gone. It was mother who had discovered your vanishing act. She shouted all day long, cursing everything in sight. Father was much the same, owling the rest of our family to tell them what had happened. I just locked myself in my room. How could you do that to me? I couldn't believe that you had left me alone in that house. I couldn't believe that you had just left me. I hated you for that. When I returned to Hogwarts that year you seemed even happier than usual. You didn't even bother to insult me anymore. You just ignored me instead. That hurt more than cruel words. I saw how many howlers you received in that first month and I know you probably think that I was the one telling mother but I wasn't. I didn't know what to do with myself. I felt that finally I had lost you for good. Yet that was the year you broke my arm during my first quidditch match. Did you know I could hear you outside the hospital wing doors? It was nice to know that you actually cared enough to come down. It was good to know that you also checked up on me if something was wrong. Even if she forced you to apologise to me. What amused me the most was the fact that when she came in you introduced us? You were so oblivious to me most of the time that I bet you didn't even realise that I knew her. I used to talk to her all the time. I never told anyone and I know you are probably wondering why I am referring to her as her and not by her name. I'm not sure why but if I took a guess I would say its because I am in love with her. I've been in love with her since my first year. Since the first moment I met her.

I was so jealous of you all the time because you were always with her, always flirting with her, always making her laugh. When she was with me we would laugh and talk and I loved the way her eyes sparkled when she smiled but I didn't have her enough. You always had her. Yet it seemed you were no more than friends as you both dated separate people and in fact, you dated all three of her best friends at one time. I was hopeful. I don't know what sort of future I could have had with her but I knew I wanted one. Every girl I ever dated I compared with her and every one of them fell short of her. I would have given anything to have her. Yet I couldn't have her. I wasn't brave enough to go against our family for you, my own blood, how was I supposed to tell them that she was the only thing I would ever want? I remember trying to tell her how I felt about her but I couldn't get the words out. I tried to tell her so many times but I could never find the right words to explain exactly how I felt. I was terrified someone might find out about us and she knew it. She was always looking out for me. She never breathed a word to anyone and it almost felt like it was a secret love affair. I always wished it was. When she hugged me hello or goodbye my heart soared. I used to look forward to those hugs when I could hold her in my arms even if just for a few precious moments. I was so jealous of you who could hug her any time you wanted. You could give her piggybacks down the corridors, throw her over your shoulder, tickle her, chase her or feel her lips on your cheek whenever you wanted because you were so much braver than I. She kissed me once full on the mouth. So elated from her mother's progress that she ran down the corridor and threw herself on me. I wasn't sure what to do with myself as she pressed her lips to mine her arms tight round my neck and her feet not on the floor. I had to hold her to stop her falling. When she let go after just a few seconds she looked at me in surprise. 'Oh,' she said. 'I'm so sorry, Reggie.' I think she must have thought I was you. I forced myself into thinking that it was only a friendly kiss but I kept thinking about it. Every girl I kissed after that just didn't feel the same.

I remember the morning that I'd finally decided to tell her how I felt. I was in my sixth year and she was in her seventh and final year. I kept thinking that we could keep ourselves a secret until I had finished Hogwarts and then we could disappear. I was sure that we could be happy. We could run to where no one would find us and we could have a life together. Yet my dreams were crushed that very morning. I had been so nervous that I was late for breakfast. I could hear our mother's voice as I reached the Great Hall. I thought you'd received yet another howler from our mother. I looked for you, brother and I could see the shock in your colourless face. I followed your eyes to where she sat at the Ravenclaw table her face burried in her knees and mother's voice screaming at her. At first I thought it was about me and that mother had somehow found out about our friendship but then she mentioned "blood-traitor". I knew it was you she was referring to. My heart sank. Mother had expressed her loathing before to you about your friendship with her but never had she sent her a howler. I knew something important must of happened. I couldn't even move as the howler finally stopped its torment and burst into flame. I watched her sprint towards me as the members of my house laughed at her and the rest of the school watched her run away. I saw her tears shinning on her face as she reached me. At first I thought she was going to throw herself on me but then she brushed passed. It broke my heart and I wanted to go after her. I looked at you pacifying your friends before you swept passed me in hot pursuit of her.

Almost in a daze I walked to my table and sat down. Everyone was talking and laughing at her discomfort but I just felt sick. Narcissa filled me in by telling me that you had asked her to marry you. She'd said yes. I don't think heartbroken begins to describe how crushed I was. I loved her. I was willing to defy everyone to be with her. You had won in my eyes brother. No matter what happened now you had been victorious. There was nothing that could touch me after that. I was fearless because since I couldn't be with her there was no point in existing. I became a Death Eater the same day you married her. When you found out that day in Diagon Alley I just didn't care what you said to me. I was numb. I didn't even care when you had me pinned against that wall. When she suddenly appeared by your side I was reminded of just how beautiful she was. I couldn't bear the look in her eyes and that was when your words began to sting. You were so lucky. I didn't think you knew just how lucky you were. You had the only thing I'd ever wanted. You had her and I didn't.

You are probably wondering what the point of this letter is. Why am I telling you all this now? By the time you get this I will be dead. The Dark Lord will have had me murdered. I'm telling you this so you understand how this transformation took place. They are trying to get to you, brother. I only found out in time to save her. Wilkes let it slip to me that they had gone after her and I went to her immediately. It shocked me to see just how pregnant she was when I reached her as she desperately fought off the attacking Death Eaters. I saved her by killing them, by finally fighting for her. I know she will have told you about the attack but she won't have mentioned me. Still trying to protect me. I know how much she loves you and if you love her even on tenth of the amount that I love her then you will have loved her well. I miss what I never had with her. I miss that life that I imagined that I could have had and I know that you are the enjoying the life that I always wanted.

So you see brother that I have always been jealous of your strength and courage. I wish I could have been like you and that you could have been proud of me instead of disappointed in me, instead of being ashamed of me. You see we're both so very alike and I have known this for quite a while now. I want to apologise to you because I know I was insufferable sometimes. I also want you to know that none of this is your fault. This happened because I finally stopped being a coward. I couldn't let them get to you but even more I couldn't let them hurt her. I wish she had been mine. I've wished that everyday. I love her and I will keep on loving her. If you could tell her that from me I would be extremely grateful. I'm sorry I never got to tell her myself.

So brother I just wanted to let you know all this before I died. I want you to know that I love you and that no matter what you're still my big brother. I will always look up to you. I hope that your life with her is filled with happiness. The happiness that I could never give her and I hope that you will tell my niece or nephew about the good times we shared when we were children. I hope you'll tell them that their Unlce Regulus would have loved them very much. I'm sorry brother for everything that went wrong between us but I hope that now I'm finally doing the right thing.

Goodbye brother.

Regulus A. Black

Sirius crumpled to his knees in the middle of his little brother's old room. He had so many memories of this place where they had played together and hidden from their father's wrath. Yet after he had gone to Hogwarts he had abandoned Regulus and when the news had come of Regulus' death Sirius had blamed himself. He had blamed himself for not dragging Regulus with him whether he liked it or not. He was supposed to look out for him. He was supposed to be his big brother. Yet now so many years later he had returned to the house that haunted his nightmares, the house he had grown up in. He had been wandering around feeling trapped and had decided to investigate his little brother's room. So different from his own. There in the top of the drawer of the desk he had found this letter. The letter Regulus had never sent him. A tear slithered down his face as the letter crumple in his fist.

'Sorry Reggie.'