My first memory is of him being born. The nurse was the same one who delivered me. She showed me him and said, "See? He looks just like you!" The next thing that I remember is my mother growling at the nurse to "Get my precious Regulus away from the blood traitor!"
I was only two, but my thoughts were not of why she thought I was a blood traitor, but of how she knew. For I was sure I was different even then. I hated everything about Grimmauld Place. It smelled of rot, and nothing felt right. My crib was always cold, and when I cried in the night, no one came to help me.
I used to talk to Regulus when my mother was out. He was a beautiful baby, and my parents fawned over him, but from the baby pictures I saw, he looked exactly like I did when I was little. I would tell him about how someday I would go to Hogwarts and then I would be free. I learned how to talk properly by talking to him, because whenever I tried to say anything to anyone else, they would glare at me.
Once, when I was three, Andromeda and her sisters came over to play. Bellatrix and Narcissa stayed in the drawing room staring at the cabinets, but Andromeda, who was eight at the time, came up and talked to me and Regulus. She knew how I felt, and we called ourselves the "Good Blacks." We used to poke and giggle and "Reggie" and hope that he would join us in our little group.
But by the time Andromeda went to Hogwarts, we knew it was not to be. Regulus was the treasured son, who always carried a sweet from Mum in his pocket, and a smug smile on his face. But I still loved him, for he was my brother.
When I found out he'd joined the Death Eaters, I was furious. I knew what Voldemort was really trying to do, and he didn't. But there wasn't much I could do about it. I had moved out already, and Mother refused to let me near her precious son.
His body was discovered somewhere in the North. When they went through his robes, there was a heavy silver locket in his right pocket that had a large S on the front. No one could open it. Mum thought it was pretty, and she put it in one of the cabinets in the drawing room. I suppose it's still there.
I think of all this while in my cell in Azkaban. They are sad thoughts, and the dementors cannot rip them from me. I am proud that he fought back, proud that he had good inside of him. He was the favorite, the one who was loved over me, but he was my brother, and I loved him very much.