I do not own Harry Potter.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone that reviewed this all along the way: TRF-Chan, True, Cam, and DemonSan. You guys are fantastic. Unlisted thanks go out to anyone else who will ever review it, because gasp it is over! Also thanks to my little brother, who will never read this on the site but let me beta-read him a few chapters-- and then inadvertantly gave me a compliment (and an insult) by saying he didn't know I wrote it.

I graduated from Hogwarts that June, a hardened Death Eater. I looked around at my classmates, and no one besides Barty had done anything near as important as me. Sure, the Head Boy and Head Girl were honored most, followed by the prefects and Quidditch captains and Most Valuable Players of the Year and even the top class rankers. Yet those things had only shaped Hogwarts. Barty and I, decent at grades but never on top due to other time constraints, in trouble for blasting the Dark Mark into the Great Hall, were ignored. We received our diplomas, and that was it.

Mummy couldn't have been prouder. She had not come to Sirius's graduation, of course. The first Black son of this generation to graduate, at the same time the last of the children. Narcissa came with her new husband, Lucius, but Bellatrix did not.

"There are things more important to attend to," was all she had said. I read about it in the papers the next day, but I still couldn't help being disappointed. Another family, another terror, another death. It was so much more important than my graduation, but when standing up before all those people, I certainly didn't feel that way. I felt left out and unimportant.

I did not feel that way for long.

At the next Death Eater meeting, I was called up personally to the Dark Lord's side. Shocked, I approached him, trembling. I barely heard the words for the power of his voice as he spoke to the crowd.

"Death Eaters, a Prophecy has been made . . . a Prophecy about me.

"There is a rival to be born, born to enemies who have defied me three times. He shall be born at the end of next month, and we have little time. For Dumbledore knows of this; the Prophecy was to him, and my source has only provided me with limited information."

He stepped aside, sweeping his cloak to reveal Avery, cowering in the fetal positon, shaking in recovery from what must have been a severe Cruciatus.

"Yet we know what actions he has taken already to protect those that might apply. Two members of our opposition, two couples, both members of each in the Order," his breath grew heavy with the word, "are with child. Children due at the end of July. Both couples have defied me . . . three times.

"They shall not defy me a fourth.

"One couple has taken no action, yet. The second, however, is rumored--" he turned slowly and motioned to Peter Pettigrew, who stood, grinning a proud, smarmy grin, "-- to be preparing for a Fidelius Charm to hide themselves from me. We must ensure that the secret is divulged to us . . . by making our very own Pettigrew the Secret-Keeper himself."

"What couple is this?" Bellatrix burst out in high, breathy tones.

The Dark Lord held up a thin, white hand to silence her. Only she was permitted to speak out of turn without punishment; he favored her. "Why, Pettigrew's very idol of his schoolboy days, the unmatchable James Potter, and his wife . . . a filthy Mudblood, no less."

"Surely no child born of such could match you, my Lord?" Bella cried.

"Silence, Bella," he insisted, a little more impatiently. "It is as has been Prophecized. Now . . . Pettigrew informs me that there are only three wizards in the entire world with which Potter would entrust such a powerful secret . . . Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and himself. All we must do is ensure the others are unfit to serve, making Pettigrew the only option left.

"Black!"

I shuddered with the sound of his voice, right into my vulnerable neck as I bowed to him.

"Yes, my lord?"

"Both you and Bella are related to Sirius Black."

"Were . . . " I heard Bellatrix whisper sharply in offense.

"And though your ties have been broken over the years, the blood remains," he insisted. "The blood remains enough that you may approach him without suspicion. You, Regulus . . . for you are closest to him, and youngest, and least suspicious . . . you shall seek him out, gain access to him, close range to him . . . and then, you shall kill him."

The words struck me hard in the pit of my stomach. I had killed before, yet this was so unexpected.

I heard Bellatrix suck in a gasp of breath. I tried not to stammer, for I had already hesitated. "Yes, my lord."

Bellatrix accompanied me on the mission, leading me to the apartment complex in which Sirius lived. I had never seen the building before, but I could tell by the vehicles parked outside-- one of which was Sirius's signature flying motorbike, most likely the only non-Muggle artifact-- that it was integrated with Muggles. It was clear, too, from the patched paint and concrete that it was not of the highest standard.

"You will go in alone," she told me as we approached the main entrance, a steel door with a window, within which we could see a Muggle electrical light fixture hanging from the ceiling. "I only came to ensure you are safe. Death Eater though you may be, I wouldn't want you to walk among these parts alone. Besides," she sniffed. "I have too long dissociated with the boy. He knows all too well what I stand for. It would be suspicious. I vowed never to speak to him again. He would know. You--" she smiled down at me, the fanatical gleam in her eyes absent in exchange for a rare tenderness she reserved only for me, "--however, have not broken off with him, officially. Your mother has disavowed him, your father has disowned him . . . but you, Regulus . . . you are still," she smirked, "his family."

My heart thudded hard against my chest as I swallowed. Was it not suspicious to her that I had not disavowed him? It was in pure ignorance, of course, and yet . . . why did I not cast him off now? For the mission? Yet I knew perhaps even free I could not.

"You'd better go in now," she said, pushing me forward. "I'll . . . " she gave a distasteful glance around, "wait."

I entered within, my footsteps echoing on the bare concrete. In my black cloak-- not the Death Eater attire, but black nonetheless-- I felt very out of place. I gripped my wand, hoping no Muggles would come out of their dirty apartments. None did.

I knocked on the door to that which I had been told was Sirius's; Peter knew the number, and there it was, in tarnished gold letters nestled in the white paint.

He opened it.

His eyebrows furrowed and I could hear loud music thumping from within-- but my heart thumped louder.

"Regulus?"

His voice sounded as if it were underwater.

I stared up into his eyes, the same brown eyes as mine, reflecting back into me. I hadn't seen them in years, but they were still the same chocolate-brown. His hair was still untidy and rather long, and he still wore the same mischeivous smirk. He was still Sirius.

He was still my brother.

Everything I had ever wanted to be, he once was, and I had taken it away from him. He had been the heir, I only second, and I had seen to it to kick him out. He had been Bellatrix's closest companion, I only the crybaby follower, and now she found me kindred in soul and mind. He had once been loyal to his family-- he had tried to help me, save me, and I would not listen, though I preached loyalty more than he ever had. I had forced his loyalty away by lack of mine shown to him. He had once been Mummy's favorite . . .

It hit me: I wasn't going to be able to kill him.

What was it I stood for? The cause was the preservation of family and Dark culture. Yet here I stood, face to face with my own blood, ordered to kill him for his degeneration. Sirius still had my blood and I owed him my loyalty. I had been told so all throughout my youth; Father had even punished me for trying otherwise. Yet now, by showing loyalty to my family, the very thing I sought to protect, I would be disobeying an even greater order.

What had this pureblood cause become? In my youth, it had become so idealized that it was too perfect to be possible. In fact, what I had wanted to be myself was too perfect to be. The Death Eaters got things wrong and sometimes lost. People within our society did not always believe in it.

I was disillusioned, drowned in my own thoughts against the grain and the realization that some of what I had always deemed true was entirely false.

"You don't have to obey everything they say, you know? You have to have some conscience of your own, too."

I had a conscience.

My master said purity was in blood and mind. Sirius possessed the blood but not the mind . . . and it seemed I had finally lost one myself.

My wand fell away from Sirius's face. His face scrunched up and he spoke words, but I did not hear. I turned away, the air around me thick like water, no sound in my ears except the pounding of my pure blood in my ears and the palpatation of my slow-drumming heart.

I came face to face with Bellatrix just outside. It took her a moment to read the meaning in my face, but she knew. Of course she knew. I expected her to show no pity. The cause was greater to her than blood; she valued purity of mind over purity of blood. She had never been tormented by the loss of the heir or her sister, as her lost father had said. She would not value my loss, either.

"You didn't do it," she spat in a harsh whisper, when she gained words. "You failed. You spared that piece of scum, that bloodtraitor! What is wrong with you? He's not worth it! He never has been! It means nothing that he was once your brother! That's-- " her eyes widened. "That's why, isn't it?"

She was silent for a moment. The tenderness within her gaze, the soft, wet glaze . . . it was changing, transforming rapidly into a hardened hurt . . . and a maddening glow.

"Ohhh, you're weak, Regulus," she whispered. Her voice was so soft it was almost expressionless. "Weak. A weak traitor. A snivelling, pretensive, conniving traitor. A traitor even more repulsive than the one you just spared." She swallowed hard and blinked. When her eyes opened, there was not even a trace of kindness left. "You disappoint."

She sucked in a deep breath and her dark lids came down further over her eyes. "Won't your mother be proud to know her favorite son died a traitor?"

I did not speak, standing soldier-straight before my cousin, just as I had at the beginning, back when she used to frown on my weak, crybaby ways, back when Sirius was the superior one, back when I wanted to please everyone and failed, back before I was Mummy's favorite.

Now I had become all I had ever wanted-- and all I wanted was to go back.

The wand came down, pointing straight between my eyes. Her eyelids lowered even further. Her eyes narrowed in on me, concentrating, taking aim-- and no pity or mercy.

"Avada Kedavra!"

I wasn't always Mummy's favorite.

FIN