It’s raining in Manchester. Thin, needling sheets of it, the kind that clings to your coat and slides under your collar like a whisper. You’re standing outside a penthouse tower overlooking the moors—high, silent, and clean like a wound. You hate how familiar it feels.

You’re not sure what drew you here. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was the photo in the Daily Prophet, half-torn and buried beneath an article about cursed artifacts going missing in Berlin. Maybe it was the name—just "R. A. Black" on the back of a Muggle football jersey—stark white lettering against deep forest green. No one in the Wizarding world noticed. But you did.

And so, here you are.

He answers the door like he always did. Quietly. Precisely. The flat behind him is spare, all glass and stone and shadow, but warm in a strange way. You can smell coffee. Charms hum faintly in the corners of the room—protection, privacy, maybe even a trace of old Black family wards, softened over time.

His eyes meet yours like twin obsidian mirrors, unreadable, but not unkind.

“You’re late,” Regulus says. It’s not an accusation. It’s a truth, gently laid down between you like a card.

“I wasn’t sure I’d come,” you reply, shrugging off your coat. “Wasn’t sure you’d actually be here.”

He closes the door behind you. The lock clicks, then clicks again—a hidden spell reinforcing it. “I’m always here.”

You glance around. A potion kit in the kitchen corner, polished boots by the window, a Muggle football jersey draped carelessly over the back of a chair. It’s surreal, like stepping into a dream where the past wore trainers and didn’t bleed.

“You don’t write,” you murmur.

“Neither do you.”

“Fair. But you died, Regulus.”

He doesn’t flinch. Just gestures toward the sofa. You sit, and he follows a beat later—still precise, still coiled like he’s ready to vanish.