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Language:
English
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Published:
2025-03-23
Completed:
2025-03-25
Words:
23,215
Chapters:
67/67
Comments:
4
Kudos:
30
Bookmarks:
7
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292

Letters to Sirius Black

Chapter 67: Letter Thirty-One: I’ll Always Love You (June 25, 1979)

Notes:

Themes of grief, regret, posthumous letter, and emotional resolution. Emotionally intense and introspective.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Reggie,

I don’t even know how to start this.

I’ve read every one of your letters— again and again and again— until the ink blurred and the pages smelled like my hands.

And still, I don’t know how to say goodbye.

If I had known…

Gods, Reg, if I had known who you were beneath all that silence, beneath the mask, beneath the cold voice and perfect posture—

I never would’ve left you.

Not like that.

Not alone.

Not in that house.

You let me believe you hated me. And I did the same.

We were both so good at pretending, weren’t we?

You wore your pain like armor. I wore mine like fire.

And in the end, we burned in different corners of the same room— never looking back.

I’m sorry.

For not seeing you.

For not staying.

For not coming sooner.

You shouldn’t have had to carry all of that. Not alone. Not at that age. Not ever.

You were just a boy.

My boy.

My baby brother.

And you still tried to save everyone else.

You saved Kreacher. You tried to save me. And in the end— you saved the world, didn’t you?

With no applause. No glory.

Just water in your lungs and love in your hands.

I held you at the end. I hope you knew that.

I hope that when everything faded, when the dark came for you, my voice was the last thing you heard.

My arms the last place you rested.

Because you were safe. You were home. I promise.

I don’t know what to do with all this now. The guilt. The ache. The silence you left behind.

I still hear you, you know.

When it’s quiet.

When I can’t sleep.

When I pass a mirror and think for half a second that you might still be standing behind me.

You were braver than me.

I hope you know that.

You were better than me.

Even when they tried to carve the softness out of you, you still loved.

Even when they made you a weapon, you chose to be a shield.

Even when you were dying— you left me every part of yourself in the shape of your truth.

I don’t know what happens after this.

But if there’s anything beyond this life— if you’re somewhere quiet now, somewhere warm, somewhere without pain— then save me a spot, yeah?

Somewhere we can just be boys again.

No blood. No masks. No expectations.

Just you and me. And peace.

I love you. I never stopped.

I see you now.

I see all of you.

And I am so, so proud to be your brother.

–Sirius
(Your Sirius. Always.)

Notes:

This story was never meant to be easy.
It was meant to be true.

Regulus Arcturus Black deserved more than a name burned off a wall, more than a whispered footnote in someone else’s story.
He deserved to be known.
To be seen.
To be loved—
not in spite of the things he did to survive, but because of what he gave up so others could.

This story was for him.

For the quiet boys with sharp minds and softer hearts.
For the children who were never protected.
For the ones who never got to be just that—
children.

If you read this far: thank you.
Thank you for sitting with the pain.
For honoring the silence.
For grieving someone who was never meant to be a hero— but chose to become one anyway.

This is my love letter to trauma survivors, to siblings, to those who kept going even when no one saw them.

This is Regulus Black’s story.
And I hope you carry him with you.
Like I do.

With all the love in the world,
🕯️