Deer Jamie,
To James Potter,
I know I will be dead long before you read this but, I want you to know that it was I, who lived with our terrible secret.
I address this letter to you and you shall be the only one that knows the true torment that you have embellished on my soul.
You took everything from me since before I even laid eyes on you; stealing my brother was an unforgivable act of high treason I will eternally hold against you.if brothers is what we were.
But you selfishly steeling my malevolent, stone cold heart was an unforgivable curse that killed me far better, quicker and more painfully than Avada Kadvra or my mother's favourite Cruciatus ever could.
You consider me a dangerous blood purist, able of committing unimaginable horrors without flinching (and you would be correct), but you are the true nightmare. You took my impenetrable heart into the palm of your stupidly large hand and warmed it, without even trying! That I cannot forgive.
Because you, James Potter, made me feel. For the first time since Sirius lay in my bed -comforting me after the bloodbath he endured in my place- my heart ached with a foreign emotion some would call happiness.
I consider happiness to be a state of mind. A mental fortitude of idiotic glee that is deemed the societal norm. I can hardly count the number of times I remember the feeling on 1 hand. And even then, I wasn’t truly happy. Not really.
I’ve become an experienced actor- an award winning pretender. (With a family like mine it was either adapt, do or die. And I selfishly chose to live.)
It’s not difficult to deduce the appropriate moments to lift the corners of your your mouth upwards to mould your normally placid, glacial facial expression into something people would perceive as happiness or at least contentment.
I can light a temporary fire inside of myself on command and play the role of idilic spare turned dutiful heir. But that’s all it ever is: temporary.
We’re all temporary, and as much as it tears me apart to say it, even you. But we’re all also cursed to be eternally miserable. An insatiable black hole inside us never filled. I thought I would always remain an endless, empty black void until I met you.
I have found you have captivated my mind, body and soul with your innate disposition to possess this evasive emotion. When you smile, you are the sun- burning the cold out of my soul and replacing it with a foreign warmth that makes me want to douse myself in biting, polar ice just to feel that sense of normality you’ve replaced with your own.
When my winter eyes first got lost in your russet being, I was blinded by the pure joy you exuded into the world. I wanted more of it. I wanted all of it. I wanted to be the soul reason your eyes shone like the brightest star.
Throughout life, I was taught to maliciously plan for the worst to ensure that I was always the best. That’s why upon our first encounter I acted like- let’s face it- a bitch. The glare I stabbed you with was meant to scare you off, to fatally injure you once and for all, so that you would be prejudiced against me like I was against you. But you’re so stupid sometimes. I should’ve known that James Potter doesn’t bend to anyone’s will but his own. Well you did bend to me that one time
You were incessantly persistent on trying to weasel your way into my life, into my arms and into my heart. How did you do it? For lack of an answer, why on earth did I let you do it so easily?
Maybe you thought I was another charity case, filed under the name ‘Black’ and stored away until you shone your grace upon it and claimed it as your own. Your saviour complex reigns supreme when it comes to me and Sirius. But you cannot have both.
Thank you for saving him. But I am too far gone.
I feel a need to restate just how much I hated you, I know you love it. You were an enigma James Potter. I adapted to be curt, cold and outright rude as a survival habit. This was not only encouraged by my parents but demanded,as everything that wasn’t on that blasted tapestry was beneath us. Which is bullshit as I was beneath you most nights.
Everyone avoided me like a cursed blade. But for some reason- Merlin knows why- it only made you pierce into my side. I was prone to reducing grown men to tears with one stab of a comment, but when I cut you, you only pulled me closer into your warm orbit, smiled and refused to let go until you knew that I was okay.
I didn’t know how to be okay before you. I didn’t know how to be before you.
And everybody looks and talks to me like I’m the one. I’m the one who should change. I’m always too bad or never good enough. I’ve always been hanging from a blade, never allowed to find out who I truly am. Sirius labelled me as bad before I ever got to be anything- and how is that fair? He thinks I’m just like our parents, because I stayed. Me staying does not equate me with them. I’m better. I’m more! And yet I’m still never enough.
That’s why I never let us get any further than you and I. Because if you’re associated with me that means Sirius will hate you. And I know he means more to you than me. Always has, always will. I was just a fleeting story- a distant memory that you question the reality of- I always thought you were a haunting dream. But I will not haunt you. I will not think of you- so don’t you dare think of me. I will not come back.
But you, James Potter will live your life to the fullest, loving everyone you hold dear to your heart, giving their lives purpose. People gravitate towards you because you have this quality that demands to be loved. You cannot help but love James Potter. You even got the evasive Lily Evans to love you. Keep her. She’s good for you. Better than me
You’ve dabbled in both elements- played with ice and flirted with fire. But fire burns brighter, melting the ice forever, watching as the dishevelled stream of salty water runs and hides in the endless sea. That’s just the way it’s meant to be. But I think you’ll find someone and love them and you will live and die for them because that is your way and you will. And I won’t be there.
You were the only one who said goodbye -with a tear filled, anger ridden glance. I died a thousand times. You’ll go back to her and I’ll go back to the vivid remains of us.
Remember when you stumbled upon me at the astronomy tower, in an irrational attempt to get our futile dalliances to crossendo? You were beautiful under the starlight.Under my star. Under me. You said something that night that irrecovably changed me:
“There’s no point in hating someone you love!”
I hooked my eyes into yours and told you “I’d rather hang myself than realise this.”
The tears lining your screaming eyes were congratulating me on accomplishing my 6 year goal: I made you cry. I revelled in it- momentarily. Your tears filled me with the upmost satisfaction, until that leaked out of me and left me an empty void once again. Again! From the centre of my being, I felt wrong.
But I wasn’t the problem- it was you. And for the first time, I couldn’t bring myself to blame you. Watching you do the thing I had craved from you since the very beginning made me want to stop existing. Do you know how annoying the realisation was that making you cry didn’t satisfy my rage against you. It turned that blood thirsty rage onto me.
My foot shifted ever so slightly against the cold stone- you took that as a sign of me preparing to flee. I had to physically prevent myself from running into you, and pushing you- James- off of the astronomy tower. My arms would’ve wrapped around you for the last time, as we fell to our deaths. I would’ve smiled. I go alone now.
You are exasperating, James potter. You and only you managed to change my mind, my point of view, my pessimistically realistic outlook on life . Before you, I thought that’s what love was: if you love someone you have to hate them. It’s the only way that they can become the best, don’t get used to pointless affection, so that you can be proud of them.
You obliterated that belief- skinned it, turning it inside out,bled it dry, until the only thing plaguing my mind was you. My love of you. You idiocided the ideals I had grown up with. You showed me how demonic of human beings my parents were (if you could even call them that- I’m sure Sirius has come up with some rather creative variations for our cursed creators, so feel free to use one of them).
I think the majority of me already knew- just that part of me that was the most, well , me, refused to believe that people who were instinctually obligated to love you, used you for their political gain and despised you for ever being born. My mother and father were great at their duty. Almost perfect- receiving not 1, but 2 Black heirs. Indoctrinate them young and all that.
But that matters not. As if and when you’re reading this, it means that Walburga and Orion Black have been cheated out of their last project, their last hope. It’s probably one of my highest achievements. If someone remembers me enough to bother with a grave for my meaningless bones, please write “Bested Orion and Walburga Black’ on it.
I just want people to know that I did it. That I beat all of them- even Voldemort. That I- Regulus Architurus Black- won.
Yours in life and in death,
Regulus.