The Astronomy Tower was quiet at this hour, save for the howling wind and the three boys standing in its cold embrace.
Regulus had known this moment would come, had felt it looming over them like a storm. But knowing didn’t make it hurt any less.
James stood between the Black brothers, tension pulling at his frame. Sirius, wild-eyed and furious, glared at Regulus like he was nothing more than an infestation to be removed. Regulus, by contrast, stood stiff and composed, his hands clenched behind his back, nails digging into his palms.
“This has to end,” Sirius bit out, voice sharp and unrelenting. “You can’t have both of us, James. It’s me or him.”
James sucked in a breath, his gaze darting to Regulus for just a moment, hesitant, unsure.
Regulus said nothing. He simply held James’ stare, waiting. Choose me, he wanted to say. Just this once, choose me over him.
But Sirius wasn’t finished. “Do you know what you’re doing, James? Do you really think you can love him, a Slytherin, a Black, and still call yourself my best friend?” His voice cracked slightly at the end, and Regulus hated how much that mattered.
James shook his head. “Pads, it’s not that simple—”
“It is that simple!” Sirius snapped, stepping closer, face lined with anger and something dangerously close to desperation. “You can’t have it both ways. You have to pick.”
Regulus knew the exact moment James broke. It was in the way his shoulders sagged, the way his jaw tensed as if trying to keep the words inside.
Then James turned to Regulus, and in his eyes, Regulus saw the truth, saw the answer before it was spoken.
“I’m sorry,” James whispered.
It was almost funny, how predictable it was. How expected.
Regulus inhaled slowly, forcing himself not to react, not to feel. This was Sirius. This was James. Of course James would choose his best friend. Of course he would never pick Regulus over Sirius.
Still, something inside him shattered.
But he didn’t let it show. Instead, he lifted his chin, masking his agony in cold detachment. “Don’t apologize,” he said, voice like glass. “You’ve made your choice.”
James flinched. Sirius let out a breath like he had won.
Regulus had never felt so small.
Regulus turned on his heel, walking down the stairs of the Astronomy Tower without another word. He moved through the corridors like a ghost, his chest tight, his hands shaking. He didn’t stop until he reached the Slytherin dormitory, and even then, he barely made it inside before he collapsed onto his bed, pressing his face into the pillow as a broken, silent sob tore from his throat.
He let himself grieve for exactly five minutes. Five minutes of shattered breathing and aching pain, of curling in on himself like he could somehow make himself smaller, more invisible, less capable of feeling.
Then he stopped.
He forced himself up, wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe, and took a slow, steady breath. He looked in the mirror across the room, staring at the boy in the reflection. He looked tired. Hollow.
Good.
Regulus had been a fool to think he could have something that was never meant for him. James Potter belonged to Sirius Black, in every way that mattered. Regulus was just an afterthought. A mistake.
Never again.
He would not love like that again. He would not feel like that again.
So he took every piece of James Potter, every stolen moment, every whispered promise, every aching hope, and he buried them deep inside himself, in a place where they could never touch him again.
And then, finally, he let himself go numb.