Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc. belongs to JKR.

AN: I wrote this aaaaages ago... Yeah. Tell me what you think.

I sit, knees drawn up to my chest, listening in silence to the heavy pounding of the rain outside. The noise shatters in my ears, engraving itself in my thoughts…Regimented they march. Step. Step. Step. So controlled but fuelled with anger and passion and bitterness… An army of icicle infantry, a downpour. And I am inside, detached from that world of heated emotion. I sit here and I wait, because there has been no use screaming or pleading anymore. I did wrong by Him and in my situation it turned out to be unforgivable.

So I sit here in silence and neither cry nor plead for mercy I know he does not possess. I sit and I wait for the time to come. I wait and I remember, because even though it will make me regret further I feel I owe them that at least. For all those times he tried to warn me… Tried lead me away, whether by subtle coaxing or full out arguments with lectures on morals only he seems to posses… He was my brother and he tried to help me, though in the end I spat it back in his face and now I sit here, in the dark, in the midst of the pounding rain, I think and I regret, waiting for the final blow to come.

He told me so many times and I just would not listen.

I've been told the day I was born was a terrible one.

When I was little Sirius would sit on my bed and tell me how there was snow and wind and rain and hail and horrible growling noises of werewolves and the evil looking ivy that grew over the window. He said that father had been pacing as though there was a legion of harpies on his tail, back and forth, back and forth, and he had been muttering about evil dark things like 'war' and 'famine' and 'pestilence' and 'muggles'. He told me the day I was born the sky had been dark and the candles flickered out so it was all done by wand light. He told me he had looked it up in a divination book and all these things were omens and it meant I would grow up to be short and fat with freckles and a limp. He said I might be a squib too, but that would require further research.

And I sat there, gazing in horror at my six-year-old brother (so old and wise because he could write out his whole name in quill and ink) and I believed every word. I would have cried had Sirius not told me crying was a sure sign of lack of magic. ("Crying is for muggles, Reggie, you don't want Father finding out you were crying, he'll feed you to them. They eat wizards, you know. They'll stick you on a spit and burn you alive if they get hold of you.") He had told me not to tell anyone that I knew though… They didn't want me to know that I was destined to be magicless and limping, he said there might be a cure so don't upset Mummy. ("I saw her, I did. Healers said she nearly died. Said you were almost the death of her. She was crying and all red and ugly. Ugly! You did that to her, Regs. Made her blotchy. So don't tell her you know, 'cause it gets her awful worked up.") And I was scared then. Three years old, curled up in my velvet and silk quilt, I was scared out of my mind. A Black with freckles? My father would throw me to the muggles for sure!

I had asked Narcissa, careful not to tell her I knew, what it was like the day I was born. She had looked at me kindly and smiled. "Well, it was April wasn't it. The beginning of Spring. It rained a bit I think (they took us to see you and Auntie, you know) but it was quite nice… You were born at night. You're named after a star, you know. Regulus the lion. I'm a flower and Andy's a princess, isn't it clever?"

"So I'm not a squib?" I asked, hope bubbling in my chest.

"A squib… Salazar, I hope not." She replied with a giggle.

All my life all I had ever wanted to do was make them proud. My family: everyone from Narcissa to Sirius. I wanted to stand out as the perfect Slytherin as Bellatrix did, to be popular in school like Sirius, as likable as Andy and as distant and regal as Cissa. But above all I wanted to be myself. I wanted to be my own person, so that when my name was heard it would not simply summon a image of my family coat of arms or my parents' faces, but trigger recognition, even admiration. I wanted to stand out and be respected for it.

Sirius and Bella made this seem so easy. Their personalities burned recognition into the minds of all whose paths they crossed, so similar and yet so opposite. Their tempers were legendary and they fought often. Tidal wave of ice meeting an inferno, lion meets snake, light battling with dark. They were both beautiful. Tall. Harsh. Proud. Aristocratic and arrogant. Dark features, dark hair and even darker souls, from the day they were born they were destined to battle. Born to fight for what they believed in, rather than the thoughts of others. Their strong-minded differences held everything I could never be.

"Sirius, give it back!"

"No!" Chirped the boy, scampering down the stairs with flushed cheeks and a mad grin.

"Mu-um," little Bellatrix whined, "Sirius took my doll!"

"Sirius, give her doll back."

"I don't have it ma'am." All innocent eyes and sweet smiles. "Reggie's holding it."

And typically, it was that moment that Mother chose to walk in, with Bella crying for her doll, Sirius looking innocent and concerned, and me clutching the china faced girl I'd been thrown a few seconds before.

"Regulus Cassius Black! What in Slytherin's name do you think you're doing?"

"I – erm. Sorry?"

"Sorry? You think sorry is good enough? You will be helping Sirius and Kreature dust out the attic tonight, no excuses."

Sirius looked outraged. "What? I didn't do anything!"

"And if you honestly expect me to believe that Sirius, you're far more stupid than your father claims." She snapped before sweeping out of the room, her sister in tow.

Before Hogwarts I had in my mind a perfect image of what my life would be like when, at eleven years old, I would begin school. It was a wonderful picture; full of shining suits of armour and ghosts. I dreamed of my life as a proud Slytherin, with Slytherin robes, Slytherin friends and Slytherin family. I would be sneaky. I would be cunning. I would be proud and I would be respected. I saw myself in Slytherin quidditch uniform, chasing the golden snitch and catching it. I saw myself congratulated by my father for my perfect grades and beamed at by my mother for my excellent choice in a beautiful, pureblood girlfriend.

It was wonderful. Sometimes at night, while I listened to the grandfather clock in the hall chime away the hours, I would lie in bed and imagine standing from my sorting to walk (regally of course) over to the Slytherin table. I would picture sitting between my brother and cousin – Siri and Bella, the pride of our house, our blood – and be introduced to their beautiful, influential, pureblood friends. I saw myself eating with my brother in the mornings, to the envy of all my peers, watching him fly for the house team and then teaching me too.

We were Blacks, and something in the way Sirius would challenge everything, always fighting to better his situation, gave me reason to believe we would be the best. We could be better even than my father and his brother, the pride of our name and blood. Only eight years old, but I still had aspirations. Aspirations of dark and power, money and prestige.

But that all changed.

My perfect dream was suddenly shattered by that one letter received on September 2nd the year my brother started school.

I remember my father shouting and drinking, the usually icily composed man throwing chairs and kicking house elves. I remember my mother sobbing uncontrollably into the arms of her sister-in-law (because they were in it together. All Blacks. All tainted by that giant mistake). We had watched from the stairs, Bella and I, crouched in the shadows, wide eyed.

In those weeks following I had thought it better for my brother to have died. Gryffindor. The word was like bile in my throat. My mother was a wreck, unable to tear herself from her chambers for the shame of meeting the outside world. My father stormed into Hogwarts, demanding the headmaster resort Sirius, but the Professor confirmed our deepest fears: It had been his own choice, his wish to break away… I wondered if he realised that in breaking away he was breaking us down. But perhaps, father spat, that was his aim.

I thought saw it clearly then what for so many years I had missed. Sirius always had a wicked temper and a blunt honestly that made my cousins cringe, I had never seen before that he so often lacked the subtlety that made a Slytherin… His ambitions were on par with Bella, he wanted so much with his life – but never, never ever had I considered this. He could lie and lie well but personal gain was never top of his agenda. He held more compassion that even Andromeda, and the knowledge of this made me both love and hate him in the extreme.

His ambitions, a trait solely belonging to sons of Salazar Slytherin, had led his to do the unthinkable. Gryffindor. I was in shock. Horrified at what I could only see as a deep and personal betrayal. He had destroyed it. All I ever wanted for myself in life, it all centred on him being there, on him being that guiding big brother I had always seen him as. But Gryffindor. It was unforgivable. It would never ever be the same again. This I knew with such certainty I almost cried (but not quite. I was a Black. He may find it fine to back out of an obligation to his own blood, but I would never let my family down in such a way. Tears were weakness and weakness was not something a Black would tolerate).

It was then –as I sat in the parlour listening to the broken sobs of my mother– that I swore on the very blood that flowed in my veins, that I would never do this to my family. That I would not do what Sirius had done. I would never go against my blood.

That summer I dreaded the return of my sibling, expecting to see my childhood companion dressed in muggle clothes, singing Gryffindor songs while holding hands with dirty mudbloods. Standing on that platform, a proud son of Black in my freshly pressed black and silver robes, I longed more than anything to go back. To change time and find my brother again. My Slytherin brother who would sooner spit in his father's face than join the house of the Lion. I stood there and feared with all my heart what I would see as the train drew to a halt. What if he refused to come? What if he had found another family, a Gryffindor one? What if the Weasleys took him under their wing? What if he went home with a Mudblood?

But I did not see that. Any of it.

When the doors swung open and the students started pouring out all I saw was Sirius, my big brother, bounding towards us smirking as though he had just switched the sugar for salt in Grandfather's tea (though in hindsight that could have something to do with the explosion and foul smell that caused the platform to evacuate). He ruffled my hair, poked his tongue at Bella and strutted off after my parents as though he owned the world. The only evidence of any mishap was in the tight muscles in my fathers jaw and the way that just before we left the station Sirius turned and grinned at a dark haired boy with glasses and red lined robes.

I tried to hate him, truly I did. I told myself again and again that he was wrong and he was weak and he was not one of us, but when I saw him take beating after beating from father and still come to tell me about the food and the forest and the quidditch stands before he went to bed, I respected and adored him more than ever.

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