Regulus didn’t die in battle.
He died each time he was ignored while screaming in silence.
He died each time he asked for love and was handed expectations.
He died when, as a child, he looked up at his parents and thought that if he just tried a little harder… maybe, just maybe, this time they’d look at him with kindness.
But what he received were empty words, poisoned praise, affection laced with demands.
“You’re perfect,” they’d say, when what they truly meant was:
“You’re useful.” “You’re exactly what we need you to be.” “Don’t shame us.”
And he tried. Merlin, how he tried.
He stayed quiet when it hurt.
He stepped back when they grew cold.
He broke himself into tiny pieces, just to be easier to carry.
He loved them.
Yes, he loved them in that cruel, aching way one loves those who hurt them, yet still longs for their warmth.
He missed them when they weren’t around.
He yearned for who they could have been.
He excused them, even in his own mind, just so he wouldn’t have to admit the truth.
But they never truly saw him.
They simply shaped him.
Made him clever by force.
An heir. A symbol. Never a son.
And Sirius… Sirius had the fire to run.
Regulus made the fatal mistake of staying.
He stayed, hoping. Enduring. Performing.
And no one came back for him.
When Sirius left, he took the last bit of home with him.
And Regulus, the boy who didn’t know how to stop loving, kept calling from the shadows.
But no one listened.
He didn’t die alone.
He died surrounded by names that never named him.
By parents who moulded him with cold hands.
By a brother who vanished without turning around.
By a world that never once stopped to ask if he was all right.
And now…
the space he left behind cannot be filled with memories.
There aren’t enough.
Because no one ever looked at him long enough to have them.