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20 Facts About Regulus Black (HP, 1087 words, 12+)
Title: 20 Facts About Regulus Black
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1087 words
A/N: Written for the Harry Potter Random Facts Fest

20 Facts About Regulus Black

1. His clearest memory is standing in his father's study, refusing to cry or react or do anything but stand perfectly still and breathe steadily, while his father rages.  It's being handed his pens and brushes and being told to break them, and doing so, one by one, listening to each creak before it snaps.  It's saying, "Thank you, sir," perfectly calmly, and waiting to be dismissed.  It's the pain in his chest that hurts so much it's hours before he notices the splinters digging into his hands, before he notices the bloody palms and the marks he's been leaving on everything.
    
2. Dried blood, even pure, is the colour of mud.
    
3. Regulus Arcturus Black was born at the tail end of winter, 1961, pale as the snow, eyes and hair the colour of his name, just handsome enough to be unremarkable; a quiet, rather plain child of no particular affectation.
    
4. "Names are important," Walpurga told him.  He was five, and it would be eight years before he started to hear the rumours about how his grandfather was little more than a boy himself when his mother was born, how the Blacks always grow up strange and die young, twisted around each other like choking vines.
    
5. His mother taught him the history of the family as if it were holy writ, the two of them sort worshipping at the tapestry while she brought the dead to life in stories of magnificent cunning and insurmountable ambition.
    
6. He tried to draw them, blotching ink again and again until he could get the lines smooth, can make them flow with ease, shaping thought into picture.  He mentioned them once, accidentally, during a piano lesson, and Uncle Alphard smiled; the next morning, an owl brought brushes and a note that said, "Talent alone is nothing; one must take time to find the right tool to use it with."  Regulus kept the note long after the brushes were kindling.
    
7. "You'd do much better in Ravenclaw, you know," the Sorting Hat said, and Regulus said, "Don't be ridiculous;I'm a Black."
    
8. Sirius wouldn't raise his head and Regulus thought, "Oh; that's how it is," and never looked back again.
    
9. Except once, there was a day when he ended up far too early into the Great Hall for dinner, and sat by himself at the Slytherin table, idly doodling caricatures of his teachers in the margins of his history notes without meaning to.  He didn't notice Sirius until he'd chuckled in his ear, and, for a moment, Regulus almost thought they could talk.  Then James had come in, and Sirius's smile had turned cruel, and all Regulus could think was how much it made him look like mother.
    
10. And later, Remus had sat down next to him in the library and said, "Sirius doesn't mean--" and Regulus said, "Yes, he does," and, "Slytherin; Gryffindor; you know how this works," and Remus had said, with unexpected steel in his voice, "I'm a prefect; I'll sit wherever I damn well please," and they'd studied, side by side, for an hour, though Regulus never admitted that it had made him feel better.
     
11. He stopped smelling of pumpkin juice long before he gave up trying to work out how the bucket had been charmed look that, and even longer before he forgot the exact hurt sound of Sirius savagely whispering "Stay the hell away from Remus" in his ear.  Sirius, on the other hand, appeared to have forgotten the incident entirely by the time the holidays came around, and seemed genuinely sad and confused when Regulus flinched at being offered a drink.
    
    
12. Regulus spent much of the holidays (except when forced to put in appearances at the various gatherings of family, friends, and wealthy, influential people) studying in his room, which was entirely different from hiding from his parents rows with his brother.  Kreacher brought him thick steak sandwiches and iced-tea and occasionally filled Sirius's bed with snakes and grackles.
     
13. At one such gathering, his cousin, Bellatrix, looked him slowly up and down, said, "You'll do," and dragged him into the nearest bedroom.  It was awkward and strange and warm and, for a moment, like dissolving into slow, swirling ink.  Afterwards, he tried to kiss her and she laughed and hit him, knocked him down and stood over him and said, "Your mother thinks you should meet some friends of mine."
     
14. "He is a little... radical," Orion said over dinner one evening, and Walpurga pursed her lips and looked pointedly at Regulus, who was pushing congealed carrots around his plate, his hand white-knuckle fisted around his fork, thinking about the very real difference between 'failure' and 'not to the highest standard' and about the long term effects of Crucio on the human mind.
     
15. And the Dark Lord, he understood suddenly, valued nothing but longevity.  So long as he went on, the world may burn around him, and all of them with it, be they scum or be they Black; it mattered not to him.
     
16. After Kreacher was taken, Regulus tried to send a letter to Sirius.  There was no response.  But then there wouldn't be.  Walpurga had tried the owls well.
     
17. He had little talent, but he understood loyalty, and propriety, and that insult must be answered in kind.  He had little talent, but he understood little details were not to be overlooked, that everything had its worth, in the right place, at the right time.  He had little talent, but he had the right tool to use it to maximum effect.
     
18. It did not occur to him that the message left in the fake locket, when discovered, would have been an instant death sentence to his entire family.  Bellatrix would have recognised the handwriting.  Snape would have recognised the initials.  As it happened, it mattered little.  Less than a year later, Sirius would be the only holder of the name left.  This ancient and most noble house had frittered itself away, unloved, and unmourned. 
     
19. He wanted to cry, but he couldn't.  He'd dried up inside.  Dried up to nothing.  He wanted Father to instruct him, stern and solid.  He wanted Uncle Alphard to chuckle and hold his hand and guide his drawing.  He wanted Mummy to hold him and tell him stories about all the people like him.  He wanted Sirius to thump his shoulder and laugh and mess up his hair.   He wanted Kreacher to bring him a long, cool, iced-tea.  He was so very, very thirsty.
    
    
20. When his neck broke, it sounded just like a paintbrush snapping.