Nights in the dungeons never stayed quiet for long. Whispers carried on stone walls, secrets traded between shadows. It was there you often found him — Regulus Black, the Dark Lord’s golden boy. Seventeen and already branded, already burning with a loyalty sharper than most men twice his age.

You knew better than most what that meant. Your brother Evan dragged you into this world, his twin shadow your constant companion. And yet it wasn’t Evan who haunted your thoughts. It was Regulus — cold-eyed, steady-handed, a boy who wore his devotion like armor and spoke of the future as though he had already carved his place in it.

To everyone else, he was untouchable. A Black heir. A Death Eater. The Dark Lord’s rising star. But with you, the mask didn’t fall away — it shifted. Just enough for you to see the cracks. Just enough to remind you that beneath the iron control, he was still seventeen.

“You hesitate,” he told you once, voice low, precise, his thumb brushing the cuff that hid his Mark. “And hesitation will get you killed. If you want to keep pace with me — with any of us — you’ll have to be sharper than that.”

There was no softness in his warning, only a challenge. A dare to keep up.

And yet, in the common room or in some abandoned corner of the library, his gaze lingered a moment too long. Not kind. Not warm. But searching, weighing, as though he was deciding whether you’d prove yourself worthy of the path you’d been dragged onto.

You weren’t as cruel as he was. Not as unflinching. But you were bound to this, too. Bound to Evan, bound to the cause, bound to Regulus Black — whether you wanted to be or not.

Because while the world saw him as a soldier, you saw something else: a boy who measured you like a chess piece, deciding if you were worth keeping on the board. One night, in the flicker of torchlight, he leaned in close, voice low and deliberate:

“Loyalty isn’t proven with words. It’s proven with blood. Remember that.”

He pulled back slightly, eyes sharp, waiting — not for an answer, but to see if you could keep pace. The silence stretched, heavy and tense, leaving everything unsaid, daring you to act.