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“Grandfather Arcturus? You wanted to have a word with me?”
Regulus slipped inside the library at the Malfoy Estate, where the annual Christmas party was in full swing.
Arcturus, the head of the Black family, was standing back towards him, looking over the tall shelves stocked with books and notebooks covered in a layer of thick dust.
“Yes,” Arcturus replied, his voice carrying through the room.
Regulus slowly closed the door and walked over to his grandfather, trying to hide his nervousness.
“I heard you are about to take the Mark,” Arcturus said almost in a casual tone as he picked a book up to take a closer look at it. Ignoring Regulus’ presence next to him.
“That’s right.” Regulus nodded and slowly hid his hands in suit pockets, not wanting to show the sign of distress as he kept picking the cuticles on his fingers.
“Since when do Blacks bow down to someone and serve?” Arcturus wondered out loud, “When did our family fall so low as to kneel in front of a man who spills so much unnecessary wizarding blood under the disguise of pureness?”
Regulus stayed silent, not sure if he was meant to answer or not. He wasn’t sure if this was a test, a way to see if he deserved the Mark. Was he supposed to prove his loyalty to the Dark Lord, or was Grandfather playing some other game?
“I obviously can’t tell you not to do it,” Arcturus continued, and he slid the book back to where it belonged and reached for a different one. “If it was Sirius standing here, the conversation would be much more interesting,” Arcturus sighed.
Regulus stayed indifferent, but inside, the constant noise in his mind went silent aside from two words: Not enough.
Again and again, he was being reminded of how less he is like Sirius.
“At least he had the guts to go after what he wants,” Arcturus continued, either oblivious to or not caring about Regulus’ inner growing irritation. “You should grow some spine first before getting marked like a pig for slaughter."
“Is this why you asked to talk to me? To remind me just how much you all wished it was Sirius in my place?” Regulus bit out. The library fell silent for a moment when Arcturus slowly put the book down and turned to face Regulus. His eyes measured the boy from head to feet, studying the pale ghostly skin, sunken cheeks, and tired look in his eyes.
“Tell me, Regulus… how many of your beliefs are truly yours?” Arcturus asked with his piercing look locked into Regulus’ eyes. He watched his reaction, the way his eyes widened just a bit and the crease in between his eyebrows showed up as he thought about the answer.
“All of them,” Regulus replied, but there was confidence missing in his tone. Arcturus gave him an unimpressed look, and with a sigh, he motioned him to sit down on one of the chairs, Arcturus himself taking the sofa opposite to it.
“You are still just 16, freshly 16, that is.” Arcturus leaned into the backseat of the sofa. His eyes were digging into Regulus’, and the boy couldn’t help himself but avert his gaze under the piercing glare.
“And I just have a feeling that you don’t truly want to do it. You think you do, but the moment you see what it takes to be one of his followers… I am not sure what you think now will be enough for you to do it.”
“Do what?” Regulus looked back up at his grandfather.
“Kill. Torture. Spill wizarding blood. Lie—you have never been a good liar. Sirius was, yes, that he was…”
“Can we not talk about the blood traitor—”
“You don’t really think that,” Arcturus interrupted harshly. “I heard about the letters your mother confiscated from you. Sirius never answered, did he?”
Regulus deflated after hearing the harsh truth. No, Sirius never replied. Regulus wanted to see him. He sent multiple letters to him, but Sirius never arrived at the meeting spot from the letter. Sometimes they even returned to him, unread.
“We have to talk about him, Regulus, because you are nothing like him, and if you are about to take over the family one day, you need to be like him. Charismatic. Strong, not crumbling under pressure like a house of cards. Loud and dominant in letting your opinions show, you have to be a strong person to do it. And you’re not, and you have never been,” Arcturus said, his voice rising with each word.
Regulus’ irritation reached its peak.
“Is this about you wanting to talk to me or just reminding me what disappointment I am?” Regulus snapped, for a second forgetting manners and who he was talking to in the first place.
“Your parents were so focused on Sirius; oh, how stupid!” Arcturus continued his monologue, ignoring Regulus. “Sure, you were always the shadow, but they should’ve tried harder and sooner…”
“Grandfather,” Regulus said in a louder voice to get Arcturus’ attention. “What is the reason you wanted to speak to me?”
Arcturus grimaced.
“I told you already, Regulus. Taking the Mark and serving someone is not worth the name of Black. Nobody else from the family but Bellatrix has it, and I simply do not think you are ready and know what you’re doing.”
Regulus internally rolled his eyes.
“You say I don’t embrace the ideology enough?”
“I am saying that I don’t think you embrace it at all, or just on a surface level, which won’t be enough,” Arcturus replied harshly. “You say you do, and you act like you do, but if it came down to it, you wouldn’t kill a wizard or a witch of muggle heritage. Not only because you aren’t strong enough to murder, but also because you don’t see the reason why.”
Arcturus stood up and started pacing the room.
“For years I’ve seen you parroting anything to please your parents, acting on it, so desperate to not be just Sirius’ brother… and I understand that. I admire your persistence, actually. But it’s all so shallow… you are too young… think it through. I know your parents feel proud that you are promised to get it, but it isn’t always just about our parents.”
It isn’t always just about our parents. It isn’t always just about our parents. It isn’t always just about our pa-
But it has always been about them to Regulus, hasn’t it?
Their approval, their praise, their love. The love that was given to him under the condition of agreeing with them. Being shown what happens when you refuse to agree, and when you go and disappoint them.
“It has always been about parents,” Regulus muttered, his voice barely above a whisper.
Arcturus’ face softened at that.
“I know. It isn’t your fault, Regulus. You were raised under the threat of being burned off a tapestry, and no child should grow up under such a condition. No child deserves that,” Arcturus said.
No child deserves that…
Arcturus sighed and walked over to Regulus, setting his arm on the boy’s shoulder. Grounding him. A gesture reminding him he is not completely alone in it.
“Be your own person, not who your parents want you to be.”
It was too late for that, though, wasn’t it?
***
The night before the day he was promised the Mark, Regulus couldn’t sleep.
He ran out of sleeping potions, and he was pacing the room in circles, trying to calm his nerves and tire himself.
Grandfather’s words kept replaying in his head on a loop: It isn’t always just about our parents. No child deserves that…
Regulus was scared. He knew he was. He was excited, but his grandfather’s words made him wonder if he was excited to get the Mark or excited to see his parents’ approval and pride.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to kill a person. He wasn’t strong, and Grandfather was right. He wouldn’t know why he should kill another wizard just because of who their parents are. At the same time, however, he wouldn’t just decide to go hang out with muggleborns at school and would stay loyal to Slytherin’s pureblood traditions… He was a hypocrite who couldn’t differentiate between what he really thinks, what he tells himself he thinks, and what he is told to think.
Freshly sixteen, on the edge of choosing a side with no way out, Regulus Black got scared. And for the first time, he was able to admit it to himself.
Fear was paralyzing. Fear brought doubt.
And Regulus knew he wasn’t supposed to doubt and wasn’t supposed to be scared.
His eyes flickered towards the newspaper clippings on his wall that had been there since he was only fourteen.
“You are a kid having collages of a murderer of innocent people on your walls! You are only fourteen for Merlin’s sake! You are completely out of touch with what is going on outside, hiding in the dungeons with all the other brainwashed kids!” Sirius yelled at him the evening he left Grimmauld Place.
Sirius was so angry that day. He went for all the sore spots. Regulus had dug the knife and twisted it deeper with no mercy.
His entire childhood, he’d been told Muggles are straight-up filth walking the same ground as wizards, but then he’d see boys his age playing outside of Grimmauld Place and laughing, having more fun than he’d ever had. He’s been told muggleborns are the ones who ruin magic, yet one of the best students in his year has muggle parents. He’s been told the Dark Lord is doing the right thing, keeping the blood pure, but he is doing so through murder and torture.
Regulus felt like he was standing on top of the cliff, looking into the distance where the war was in full swing… and all he ever thought was right didn’t feel so certain anymore.
He wished he could just take a step forward, fall, and never have to worry about it anymore. No more war, no more blood purity, no more worry. No more.
***
Regulus Black took the Dark Mark on January 5th, 1978. He was only a few weeks into his 16th year of life, and he took it with a smile on his face, warmth spreading in his chest as he saw his parents’ proud expressions.
The warmth that was soon to be exchanged with cold water as he’d drown in the lake in Crystal Cave after months of addiction to calming and sleeping potions. After weeks of shaking hands and not enough food to keep him going.
He’d die alone, unloved, and still not enough.
But for just a moment, he could be proud and happy to serve. Even after all the time, parents’ approval meant everything to him.
For once, he was in the light. First to Sirius. He was the one who Walburga hugged. He was the one Orion said the words, “I’m proud of you, son.”
All it took for a sixteen-year-old boy was a tattoo on his forearm.
Seventeen-year-old Regulus knew that it didn’t only take a marked forearm. It took his future too.
He could never live with the consequences of his past actions. Right before his body gave up, he remembered Grandfather Arcturus’s words: No child deserves that.