❝𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐭 𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡, 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐠𝐨? 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐩𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞?❞

꘎♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡꘎

I feel that it's strange how what hurts the most leaves no physical sign of it ever being there. No one else can see that it's happened to you, but you remember the pain you experienced while it happened to you.

It's like it's a ghost over our mind, the pain. Instead of leaving a scar there for you to remember, it haunts you even after it's passed, for the mind never forgets.

What they did to your mind, it will forever remember, even if you forget what it did to your body. Your mind will enliven and embolden the pain long after the scar on your body has faded, for the mind is restless and anxious. It shall loop the same scene of pain in front of you until it burns on your retinas, and makes you want to scream at it to stop.

And I, Regulus Black, was the one to feel it the most. 

Pain is funny in that manner. It shall forever change you, and the more you feel it, the more you differ from your old self.

It had done that to me. No matter how hard I racked my brain, I could not remember who I was before it changed me. It turned me inside out, made me find out the hard way what hurt actually feels like.

And no, I talk not of the pain that I felt when he pointed the tip of a stick of wood with infinite powers in it and uttered that one word to make me flail, scream and cry out.

I am talking about the pain that I felt when they fed poison-coated words to me, twisted my mind, and played with my emotions and feelings. It was all a game of words, a spider web of sentences and riddles that were impossible to decode.

They only led to your mind spinning and replaying it over and over again till you felt like you could never live until you decoded it.

It was a topic I could forever mull and lament over, but I had not that time. I had long learned that it is better to let go of things you feel are hurting you.

As I broke out of my less than cheerful thoughts, I saw her on the Slytherin table as she walked in with her friends. Leora Greengrass, the betrothed of Avery.

I supposed he was lucky to be married to her. She was, after all, a very beautiful girl. She walked with a kind of experienced grace that I had never seen in anyone else. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with a hidden secret.

The sparkle that we had all been warned of, yet I supposed it hid in every one of our eyes. It was omnipresent, the glimmer of danger and lies that hid in the eyes of every single pureblood, regardless of their age.

It was there in my eyes too, the sign of breakage. I knew that the glimmer was in fact a residue of the scars on our minds and the cracks in our souls. When they harmed our minds, it all became a secret that we hid under the folds of poker faces and cold glares.

Only the eyes told the truth of our damage, but many didn't know that.

She sat down, her eyes seeming distant as she was zoned out of the conversation that her friends were conducting.

I took her distraction as an opportunity to study her face. Wide-set and light green eyes. The color was so rich, I could get lost in it. It seemed to be endless, a type of never-ending I had never seen before.

Her hair was long and blonde and fell down her back in light waves. It seemed to have a darker shade that almost seemed like a light brown in the sea of gold.

Her skin was pale and dotted with freckles, light brown spots that seemed like a map of stars across her face. I had a feeling that if I could trace the freckles across her face, I would find so many new constellations that no one but me could see.

Her body was skinny, unhealthily so. I wonder if she ever even ate, but then I remembered what Aunt Druella did to Bellie, Cissa, and Andi when they did eat at our place. The cold, sharp glares, the screams, and the shouts.

But the malicious laugh was what I remembered with vivid clarity, and something told me that the same thing happened to her too.

I tore my gaze away from her and looked down at my food, picking at it as I thought.

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I watched the star-spangled black sky, a cigarette held between my fingers. The moon above me was a beautiful crescent, the kind that haunts you and renders you to a hopeless romantic all at once.

The smell of tobacco tingles my nose hairs and smoke from the destructive tube in my hand floated into the chilly air from my lips. I blew rings of smoke, trying to get a shred of masochistic entertainment from something that would eventually kill me.

I didn't fancy smoking much, but it was a route to death, according to a muggle book I had once read. That, and the fact that it helped me feel closer to my runaway brother, who was forever in possession of a few boxes of these and a few bottles of firewhiskey.

I imagined that the ash from the fire was coating my lungs, and at some point, it would stop my breathing. It would suffocate me, and I shall die a death I cause to myself instead of the Dark Lord rewarding me with it.

And maybe, for the first time, someone would find the bruises, welts, and scars on my body and question where I got them. I wasn't a fool; I know that nobody would once suspect my parents, but it would be nice to die an enigma. Nice to have people wonder what was it that happened to me, what was the secret I hid behind the mask of the Slytherin Prince.

The smoke rose upward, and the frigid air caused it to twist into spirals.

The top of the Astronomy tower was my favorite place to be, regardless of when I was here.

I tossed my head back and parted my lips.

More smoke came out of my mouth as I sat in that position, my neck dangerously exposed for anyone to slit.

I lifted my left hand to wave the smoke away from my face, and the sleeve of my robe fell down.

There it was, my destruction, the worst decision in my life.

A pitch-black skull, darker than the sky above me but in no way illuminated, with a snake coiling out of its mouth.

I hated it, but there was something about it that drew me to it. The sharp curves of the skull compared to the soft ones of the snake, and the sheer power the black held.

My eyes drank it in, but my mind wanted to scream in fury. Why, why had I let this taint my life?

Sometimes, it feels strange to have tears flowing down your cheeks as cigarette ashes lay scattered across the floor and your body moves back for your back to hit the cold, stone floors.

I cherished the warmth of them down my cheeks for a few seconds, before I picked myself up and wiped them off.

There was no crying or regret now. The only way out of this was to sacrifice my life doing it, or be hunted down for being on the run.

And I chose to have blood stains on my hands than to live a life where I had to hide in fear. For once, I felt that the silver and green that ran in my blood was instead scarlet and gold as I walked down the staircase and snuck into the Slytherin common room.

But it was all an illusion, for which braveheart did not have the will to fight against what he did not want to do?

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Adhara's Letters!

Another terrible chapter courtesy yours truly, and I'm honestly really sorry for putting you through this. 

But, anyway, QOTD TIME!

QOTD: How long did it take you to guess that this was Regulus' POV?

AOTD: Honestly, I'm sorry for not mentioning this at the top. But seriously, I'd love to know!

I have to go, I'm so sorry, bye!

Loads of Love,

Adhara!