Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (unfortunately, since I could do with a couple million dollars), and therefore anything you may recognise belongs to the brilliant J.K. Rowling.

Some days I wanted to be like my brother: strong, stubborn, free-willed, dependent upon no one. Like him, sometimes I longed for freedom, love, and passion. As young children we would make up elaborate escape plots, oftentimes including a dragon, broom chases through the skies of London, and breaking into Gringotts.

When Mother got particularly nasty we would sneak up to the attic and share our dreams about Hogwarts. Sirius would dream about being the first Black to ever be Sorted into Gryffindor, and I would dream with him. I wanted to do whatever Sirius did, and if that required breaking tradition then so be it.

In my childhood imaginings we would be the dynamic Black brothers, two halves of a whole, unstoppable, pureblood princes of Hogwarts. What I didn't realize was that the nature of my dreams compared to Sirius' was what made us so different.

As the years passed my dreams grew more defined, until it was quite obvious that Sirius and I were anything but alike. He wanted to have fun, I fantasized about power. He longed for freedom while I desired control. He desired life, I wished for the world.

When Sirius went off to school I was left to my parents' influences, and without Sirius there to divert their attention I was slowly seduced by their promises of power, adulation, and unimaginable wealth. Even when Sirius returned for the summer, I did not return to being the boy he had left behind. Never again would we share secrets in the attic or abuse our parents in the safety of our rooms.

I will never forget the day my brother ran away, or the repercussions known only to intimate family members. The afternoon before, Sirius had come home for the summer holidays dressed in full Gryffindor regalia. A burgundy and gold Quidditch jersey, muggle style sweat pants with 'GRYFFINDOR' emblazoned down one leg, and his Gryffindor scarf draped casually around his neck.

Mother went ballistic, cursing him in both senses of the word, shouting, throwing things, threatening to disown him, everything. Finally Sirius had locked himself in his room and for the rest of the night loud crashes could be heard through the door. In the middle of the night after even Father had retired, my brother crept out of his room dragging his trunk with one hand, clutching his broom in the other. He levitated his trunk down the stairs, through the hallways past all the ominous portraits of our distinguished ancestors, and out into the night. Not once did he look back.

If he had, he might have noticed a small part of the shadows followed him through the house, all the way to the front door, then returned to the room across the hall from Sirius'. I had kept a silent vigil on the stairs all night long, unconsciously knowing that that was the last night my brother and I would live in the same house. I cried until dawn, missing what I had never in actuality had. My brother had been my hero, but I had never been more than that hero's sidekick.

That night I lost my brother, the boy who I had once been willing to do anything for. That night, I locked up any part of me that might have still doubted my parents' beliefs. I convinced myself that I hated Sirius, that he wasn't worthy of our family name. But a minuscule part of me still wondered, the same part that had schemed with Sirius in the attic years earlier.

For years after that I ignored the existence of my brother; I was totally consumed by the Dark Arts and what they seemed to offer me. In my juvenile, naïve way I believed that I was helping to make the world a better place. In my opinion – or what I was led to think was my opinion – I was helping a group of enlightened thinkers put the world back into the natural order of things.

Occasionally I dreamed about what life would be like if Sirius was next to me, fighting to re-order the world into what it was supposed to be. In my fantasies we were both beautiful and terrifying, alight with power and justice; we were the pureblood princes, second only to Voldemort.

The day I was branded with the Dark Mark was the day my doubts resurfaced, for with the Mark came my first serious assignment. As a naïve seventeen year old, I was supposed to prove myself through the ultimate triumph: killing one of Voldemort's enemies. The enemy assigned to me was one of Sirius' house-and-year-mates, Marlene McKinnon, who was just nineteen at the time.

When the time came for me to do the deed, I couldn't. She lay there incapacitated, staring at me with her big brown doe eyes, and I had to wonder how she could seriously be a threat to Voldemort. We both were just children playing at being adults, but unlike her I wasn't completely sure that everything I did was justified. She believed, I allowed myself to be used.

So that day when I could have killed someone and therefore cemented myself in a position of power, I lowered my wand, turned my back, and walked away. When it was just talk, sabotage, verbal insults, and skirmishes in the hallways, I was fine. But the minute I was instructed to take a human life, I recoiled.

As the months passed and the fights became fiercer, the deaths more frequent, and the assignments more cold-hearted (I was once part of a group instructed to terrorize a muggle primary school), I became more and more convinced that what my associates and I were doing was wrong. However, I was in too deep; there was no going back from where I was without being killed. I thought about contacting Sirius and begging for his forgiveness and help, but I wasn't entirely sure that he wouldn't kill me himself.

The idea came to me one night when I was pacing my room, anxious about the spot I found myself in. The Death Eater's tried to take down all opponents either from sheer force, or through trickery, and since I didn't have any chance of forcing Voldemort to abstain from his campaign of terror, I would have to find some way to sabotage his efforts. Because if nothing else, I was a true Slytherin: cunning, sly, and willing to betray others' trust.

So I started searching for a weakness in Voldemort's seemingly impenetrable immortality. My quest made me delve into the deepest parts of the Dark Arts, taking me through obscure transformations, astounding potions, and even stranger – and more uncanny – spells. Throughout my search one thought kept me going: if I managed to bring down the Dark Lord, perhaps my brother would see me for what I really was. Perhaps he would realize that I was just a misguided boy who got in over his head; perhaps Sirius would actually be proud of me.

When I discovered the horrific things called Horcruxes, I knew that these were what Voldemort had used to make himself almost immortal. However, since the Dark Lord never does something like anyone else, I knew that he would have more than one, and each one would have a unique, nasty, and most likely fatal protection guarding it from anyone attempting to destroy it. Which is where the revolting – yet quite useful – house-elf Kreacher came in, for he could both search, question, and report for me without anyone wondering about his actions.

However, we didn't have to search for long before the perfect opportunity slid into my hands, courtesy of the Dark Lord himself. He needed a loyal house-elf for a task of monumental importance, and which no one would mind dying if it came to that. Both my Mother and I volunteered Kreacher, Mother because she wanted the recognition that came along with it, me because there was a possibility that this was the opening I needed to start the destruction of the Dark Lord.

The day Kreacher left on his task with the Dark Lord, I did my best to secretly prepare every kind of medicine that might be needed to keep the house-elf alive long enough to take me back to where Voldemort went. When Kreacher returned mumbling about unimaginable horrors, I knew that Voldemort had used him to bypass the security measures surrounding a piece of his soul.

After nursing him back to health – which took a couple weeks – I requested that Kreacher take me to where he and the Dark Lord had gone. With Kreacher there to instruct me, I got into the gigantic cavern, retrieved the boat, and floated safely over the lake full of Inferi. As Kreacher and I disembarked, I realized that this was what my whole life had been leading up to, because the moment that Voldemort found out that this Horcrux had been stolen, he would know that Kreacher had brought someone here, and I would be tortured then killed. I didn't really have any reason to live anymore as it was, and I honestly cared more about my outcast brother and our house-elf than myself, so instead of putting Kreacher through the torture again, I would do whatever was necessary to rid the Earth of this part of Voldemort.

When Kreacher told me that the only way to get rid of the potion and reach the locket was to drink the horrendous stuff, I knew exactly what would happen. Either the potion would kill me, or it would make me so delusional that I'd somehow disturb the Inferi and then they'd kill me. Either way, I would end up dead, which was honestly fine with me. However, I didn't want to go without leaving a last, gloating message to Voldemort telling him who it was that had discovered his secret.

Conjuring up quill and parchment I wrote out a short note, quite plainly stating my intentions and what my final hope was. Signing it with my initials – it'd be no fun if I just told him who I was – I conjured up a locket identical to the one at the bottom of the basin, put the note inside the locket, and handed both to Kreacher.

I instructed him to not do anything that I asked after I started to drink the potion, then told him that no matter what he must take the original locket and hide it away in some safe, secret place until someone else whom he trusted as much as me ask him for it. And whatever might happen, he must leave me here and never tell anyone about what happened here, not even my mother or father.

Secure in the knowledge that no one would know about my betrayal for years to come, I picked up the ladle and began to drink the potion. My last conscious thought was that if Sirius ever found out about this, he might smile our trademark conspiratorial smile and call me his little brother once more.

As I sank into nightmares of torture, deceit, and bloody murder, I thought that perhaps Sirius would be proud to know that I had deceived the most feared wizard of all time. I had contributed to his eventual downfall, just by paying attention to what a house-elf said.

It would be decades before the fake Horcrux was opened, but as I was consumed by the white light of death, I pictured the note tucked inside the locket.

To the Dark Lord

I know I will be dead long before you read this

but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.

I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.

I face death in the hope that when you meet your match,

you will be mortal once more.

R.A.B.

The white light faded into a bright ocean beach at sunset, with light reflecting off the clear blue waves. I sat down in the sand and waited for my brother, because we were finally going to be the brothers we had started out as. Happy, carefree, passionate, and independent; at last we would both be free from all the discrimination, hatred, and violence that had bound the Black family together for generations. I, Regulus Arcturus Black, was finally free.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading, please review and let me know what you thought of it!