The Letter

By Tree of Willow Heights

A/N: This was written for a homework assignment of the Mugglenet Fanfic Boards. We were told to strive for the dark and angsty. Since I'm currently obsessed with Regulus, this is what I came up with.

He ran, in the end, to the only place he could. He ran to his only safe haven; the one place where he was not known-not known but as one of the few nightmares that occasionally invaded in the worst of times.

There was no safe place now-that he knew. He would be found, and then he would be tortured, and then he would be killed. It would all have been in vain: the years of struggle, the years of self-loathing, the years of attempts-such vain attempts, in the end-to quell the shreds of humanity he still harbored, clung to like a precious toy.

But everything had been given up on now. There was nothing left to cling to; only the brief glimmer of self-righteousness, only the knowledge that he had done one thing that might be remembered as good, as pure, as hopeful-hope for a better world that he would never see.

The room was bare; the desk was bare, but for a quill, a pot of ink, and a stained, shredded piece of paper. He did not even know where it came from. He found it blowing on the street, and there was nothing left to use.

In the end, his legacy, what would be told of the last survivor of the House of Black, rode on this letter, on a brother who had long ceased to acknowledge his existence, on the chance, the faint chance, that it would even be found.

It is a lie that Regulus Black was killed by Death Eaters. Such was considered the only possible end for him-a coward could only wait for death. But in the end, he was not a coward.

Regulus took his own life, and left behind only an unmarked, unblemished body. The letter was never written.