#✦ ┆ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴏɴɢ ʙᴇғᴏʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴛʜɪs —— headcanon.

[facingdeatha-blog]

never forget that the blacks grew up in a place that had a row of house elves’ heads mounted by the stairs like some messed up trophies, and i do wonder if the one of the reasons kreacher stayed on so long (except of course working exceptionally well with this messed up family), was because regulus grew attached to that house elf, because as you know, caring was scarce in that house, but someone had to do it.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

regarding what would regulus do post war, had he survived. so obviously he does end up being broke, since up until walburga dies he’s cut off from any family money. that leaves you to get a job and although he’s deeply messed up for a long time after the war, you gotta do something with your life, and not sit around with the very few relatives that take you in, such as andy for example.

at first i think he does few odd jobs to just scrape up something, but then, by pure accident involving his former teacher, slughorn, he does end up playing quidditch professionally for a couple of years. it’s never something he plans on doing forever, obviously, but it’s therapeutic for the time, and since he’s good, it pays well.

however, towards the end of his quidditch career, he begins to work towards a new sort of job, which is something that would be the wizarding world’s lawyer. now, i cannot believe a job like that doesn’t exist, and i refuse to believe it, so essentially that’s what he ends up doing after the first part of his life ends, even after he inherits all of that family money.

basically, he becomes the elle woods of the wizarding world. good looking, fashionable, and really bloody good to what he does. someone who comes in looking bomb, and probably wins your case with class and style. ten years later, and people would love for regulus damn black to speak for them when they get in trouble that requires court.

i refuse to believe there is no such profession, so there is going to be.

[facingdeatha-blog]

CHARACTER  FLAWS

absent-minded  |  abusive  |   addict   |  adrenaline junkie  |  aggressive  |  aimless  | alcoholic  |  anxious |  arrogant  |  audacious  |  bad liar  |  bigmouth  |  bigot  |   blindly loyal  |  blunt  |  callous  |  childish  |  chronic heroism   |  cheater  |  clingy  |  clumsy  |  cocky  |  codependent |  competitive  |  corrupt  | cowardly |  cruel  |  cynical  |  delinquent  |  delusional  |  dependent  |  depressed  |  deranged  | disloyal  |  ditzy  |  egotistical  | envious |  erratic  |  fickle  |  finicky  | fixated  | flaky |  frail  | fraudulent  | foul mouthed  |  guilt complex  |  gloomy  |  gluttonous |  gossiper  |  gruff  |  grudge holding  |  gullible  |  hedonistic  |  humorless  |  hypochondriac  | hypocritical  |  idealist   | idiotic  |  ignorant  |  immature | impatient  |  incompetent  |  indecisive  |  insecure  |  insensitive  |  lazy |  lewd |  liar | lustful  | manipulative  |  masochistic  |   meddlesome  | melodramatic | money-loving  |  moody  |  naive |  nervous  |  nosy  |  ornery  |  overprotective  |  overly sensitive  |  paranoid  |  passive-aggressive  |  perfectionist  |  pessimist  |   petty  | power-hungry |  proud  |  possessive  |  pushover |  reckless  | reclusive  | remorseless  |  rigorous  |  sadistic  | sarcastic |  senile  |  selfish  |  self destructive |  self-martyr |  shallow  |  sociopathic  |  sore loser |  spineless  |  spiteful |  spoiled  |  stubborn  | suspicious |  suicidal  |  tactless   |  temperamental  |  timid  | thief  | tone-deaf  | traitorous  |  unathletic  |  ungracious  |  unlucky   | unsophisticated  |  untrustworthy |  vain  |  withdrawn  | workaholic

RULES:  bold the ones that apply to your character & tag some people. TAGGED BY:  @dcarest TAGGING:  @true-augurey, @pravvus, @halflxght, @betterrat, @aerlyth, @fairglenned, @lockhcrts. @enchantiinglynasty  and anyone else who wishes to do it.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

 a couple of things i want to address that i did sort of make a post for before, but want to clarify anyway for the sake of this blog:

regulus died for his houself !!!!!!!! no. no, he did not. it annoys me that people think he did, because ?? he did not. what you have to realize that no matter what one would like to believe, he was raised in a rich, pureblood family. those tended to own house elves, because they could afford it. a normal way of treating them was already presented by the malfoys with dobby, and specifically with sirius and kreacher. and while to me, this whole deal with kreacher and regulus was a little complicated, on which i don’t want to touch in this post  ——  while he did have a soft spot for him, he also was no hermione and did not want to free all house elves.

he secretly had the same views as sirius, he just hid them for his fam !!!!!!! no. listen, it’s obviously more complicated than that, but the deal with regulus was that he canonly, for the biggest part believed in what his parents said. the thing is, where sirius rebelled, regulus wanted to stay compliant, but overall he was heavily indoctrinated by this ideology since birth. he wanted to do good by his parents, of course, because their whole house was already messed up (and abusive) enough, but he was attracted to it. he was rich, and attracted to it, and that means he must have said and done some fucked up bigoted shit.

he was forced to take the dark mark !!!!!!! no. again, you have to remember that he came from a place where he believed what his parents say. pureblood mania, as sirius put it  ——  and he was deeply in it. i think sirius leaving did play a part in speeding the whole process up, and i think bellatrix played a huge part in getting him inside, but overall he joined voldemort willingly.

he was a monster !!!!! also no. he was heavily indoctrinated, and while no one can excuse anything he would have done, he also didn’t know any better. in the end, the way i see him is a person who wanted to do good by his own standards, and that was what in the end would work for people like him, as fucked up as it is. he was also sixteen when he had joined, and that leaves you until seventeen before he’s even legal to use magic outside of hogwarts, and then another year still in hogwarts. i don’t think he did much. i don’t think he ever killed anyone. and he canonly defected before doing anything serious, and then wound up dead.

he died out of spite. yes and no. the thing you have to know about regulus is that he had a strong code for himself. but the thing is. . .  the service to voldemort seemed like something grand at first. like he was doing not the wizarding world a favour, but his family. it was quickly proven wrong, but i think not exactly how people think. his doubts were original formed not from some extreme saviour complex place, but rather because he felt cheated. he felt cheated because this man who was almost like a god spoke of so many grand things, of how he would bring the purebloods to rule and stuff, but in the end all he cared about was himself. voldemort was a halfblood. voldemort did things that suited him, and not them. and he let things slip, so regulus picked them up because in the grander scheme he just didn’t matter. he slipped under radar. then there was added this complete fear, so similar to draco’s that he would feel. that suddenly made all those things he believed in not so fun and not so right. the kreacher thing was just a breaking point, some sort of a spiteful motive for messing with HIS house elf, offered in some sort of form of loyalty. but also. . .  also i think some sort of a test. all of it eventually lead him to find out his secrets, and eventually die.

he died to be a hero. clearly not. clearly not, since no one ever knew what he did until harry didn’t go to the cave with dumbledore. clearly not, because his views and ideas were completely scattered all over the place. it was all about voldemort, and his family. all because he knew he would have died, and all because he made a choice similar to narcissa’s. that voldemort ended up being a threat and a liar, much so that he’d rather die doing something that could possibly bring him closer to death. but it was never about the wizarding world. i don’t think anything regulus has ever done was for the grander scheme, but rather for the close knitted group of people he cared about. that’s why he never let any of his family know ; including his brother. that’s why he didn’t go to dumbledore, whom he neither liked or trusted.

he was actually a muggle lover. as stated before, it’s clearly not true. not even in his death. the thing is  ——  what you have to understand that while regulus was indoctrinated, dramatic, and clearly prideful as hell as suggested by. . .  i don’t know, even the sign on his door, or the way the note ‘to the dark lord’ was written  ——  regulus also had a pretty strong moral code. he didn’t want fights in his house. he knew how to play his role well so the amount of bullshit that was there (that he grew up in as much as sirius did) would be at least a little less bad. madness runs in the black family as much as good looks, so he was the person who would patiently wait out his mother’s fits. sirius called him soft for a reason, you know? and that’s besides him playing a part of a cold asshole well when he wasn’t much of one (and often about all the wrong things). so, of course he grew up believing in all this pureblood mania. until he was sat by that damn table, and he watched some awful things be done to those people. one thing regulus lacked to be a death eater was cruelty, and although he didn’t die a fighter for the rights, he also knew it felt wrong. that they all bled the same and it was wrong, and perhaps sirius wasn’t as wrong as he had thought, but it was. . .   all too late really. the most important observation would have been  ——  we all bleed the same. sadly, he died at eighteen, which ended entire potential for change. because he didn’t completely turn over a new leaf, but changing beliefs when you’ve been brainwashed your entire life is a long and hard process, that i think he would have reached eventually, had he not died, but i guess we will never have that. maybe if he had someone there like sirius had, the process would have been sped up, but he was completely surrounded.

he died a gryffindor. lmao no. listen, i know his whole entire name is a joke, because the whole etymology of it is alpha leonis, which is the heart of the lion star in constellation leo. literally lion mclion. and whilst i believe the sorting hat did spend a minute thinking about it and suggesting it, he never wanted to be a gryffindor. he always wanted to be a slytherin, he was a slytherin, and he died one. a person that pulled what he did just had to be one, and never was this house a house of rational thinking either. dude had his whole room themed with slytherin. he was a snake through and through, and he still died bravely. stupidly and bravely, and a slytherin.

he’s a draco 2.0. no. listen, anyone that has followed me long enough knows that i love the draco x regulus parallels more than anything, and i know narcissa was his fave, and he would have loved this boy. there is so much that ties them. but ?? he was also his own person. while they are similar in their stories and backgrounds, just because draco is one thing, regulus must have been too. for example, i think regulus was more timid. like, he was awfully emotional, but he wasn’t so vocal about it ; not publicly at least. draco had narcissa as some better factor in his life, rex’s parents were both horrible, and also cousins, and then there was also sirius as a factor. . .  it was instilled in him as a coping mechanism, to keep his cool and pretend, because being loud kind of revealed too much about you and that in itself was dangerous. while, of course, being awfully emotional and passionate, but u gotta keep that class(TM). probably quidditch did move him the most, but yes anyway. . .  they have so many great parallels but also are two people.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

 some basic outline, work in progress things for reg lives au:

he does die. in a way. treat that as clinical death, it’s enough to get him a death date on the magical family tree tapestry. good for faking your death. it’s a clinical death tho, because kreacher breaks his promise and uses his house elf magic to apparate him out of there. to somewhere not in great britain. where they help him to undrown. might have some zombie scars tho.

i’m a little shaky on that part actually, but until i think of something better, this has to do.

he wakes up, and ends up presumed dead, with a horcrux he’s not too sure what to do with. he doesn’t want to save the world, not really, fuck the world, but he does want to bring the dark lord down, so he tries destroying the thing. but as we know destroying a horcrux is not so simple, so it quickly becomes an unhealthy obsession of someone who had a Horrible experience and is influenced by a part of an evil soul, and really has nothing to live.

he can’t really go back to life since he has already defected and not showed up right before his death. he fully planned to die in that cave.

eventually he’s forced to make a choice. he doesn’t like or trust dumbledore, would rather keep his status a secret. order of the phoenix is literally the last thing he wants in his life, and reaching out to any of his family…  better not. finally, he finds slughorn, but slughurn isn’t too cooperative, not above guiding him slightly and finally convincing to go to dumbledore.

he doesn’t know how to do that, since dumbledore is pretty guarded, so eventually he has no choice but to go find his brother. that whole exchange is rather unpleasant, especially since regulus is presumed dead, but finally a meeting with dumbledore is arranged.

regulus still doesn’t like or trust dumbledore, and he’s no muggle lover, but obsession and mutual goal probably work in that favour. knowledge of horcruxes comes to light years before canon, and honestly that helps. that helps because there are more and the war is harsh.

they ought to do something about pacifying a dead man’s dark mark tho.

regulus ends up destroying the locket. he deserves this much. there are more to come too and well…  mutual goal, i guess? but it’s not so simple.

it changes things tho, so who’s to say something doesn’t happen? perhaps narcissa betrays voldemort sooner to save her son? perhaps alice and frank no longer go mad? perhaps lily and james don’t die and sirius doesn’t go to azkaban? who knows. it’s up to discussion really.

though in my head it fixes things by a lot.

they get few more hocruxes and the war ends. voldemort is still gone. the prophecy was there maybe, or maybe it wasn’t. perhaps it was someone else that did it. for a while he’s gone.

it’s unclear if all the horcruxes were finished in the war.

when it comes out regulus is alive, and what he’s done, he’s branded as blood traitor. his father has been dead for a while, but his mother burns him off the family tree anyway. no matter how many times he says voldemort didn’t care about any of them and needed to go, it doesn’t go through. walburga has made up her mind.

bella probably hates him now. he thinks at least. perhaps bella would probably try to get him, if she wasn’t sent to azkaban. he isn't sure. he cries about it too.

he does have a trial eventually, but everyone knows he played a part in bringing down voldemort, so eventually he’s released from his charges. he didn’t have time to do really anything under voldemort anyway, not in the two years when he was still at hogwarts. not that he’s too loved by either of the sides, not on the longer run.

he’s still broke though, as he was cut off from the family’s money. alone as well, and super messed up after everything that has happened.

at night he dreams about drowning, so he barely sleeps.

it does open him up to other family members. like andromeda for example, or perhaps sirius if some things wouldn’t happen.

eventually he learns not to be a douche, eventually he learns to be better, and not prejudiced and a person he had every potential to be, but wasn’t because of his death. he learns to work for himself, and learns respect, and it’s an awkward and painful process, but it’s there. he tries. still messed up though. he has a hard time recovering after everything.

if only narcissa would have him, he would have been a really kickass uncle for draco. he would be. perhaps lucius ends up in azkaban this time too. or maybe not.

eventually he gets a job. then ends up being a professional quidditch player for a while. he plays seeker as he did in hogwarts. that works bc even tho people know who he is and what he did, they have something else to focus on.

since he’s very pretty too, there’s a lot to focus on.

he does unlearn many things. the rest are too deeply ingrained into him. like for example allowing people to get close. but he tries.

eventually walburga dies too, and since while she did burn him off the tapestry she also never came to disown him, he inherits everything.

he moves back into grimmuald place and it doesn’t do him that well. or at all. alone in a big house with a house elf isn’t too good for anyone. but it feels like duty. kreacher will always be loyal to him. but he doesn’t want to sleep in his old room though.

fast forward…  perhaps they didn’t get all of the horcruxes. perhaps voldemort found out and learned. perhaps he still comes back.

perhaps this time he actually joins the order. perhaps he doesn’t.

in the worst case scenario, he dies as one of the first deaths. after the break out of the azkaban, out of angry vengeance. traitors are worse than opposition, after all. perhaps there is traitor cut into his skin, and he’s cursed to drown all over again. perhaps there’s a dark mark above where he dies.

perhaps he leaves grimmuald place and a part of his stuff to sirius. he knows what he’s doing. a part of his things to draco, if he had a chance to be around him. a part to tonks for sure, because he wanted to, and she needs it.

or maybe he lives.

i don’t actually know i know it’s a long ass post but it’s not as thought out as it may seem. or at all.

still, once a black, always a black.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

 also, i throw reg and reggie around like there’s no tomorrow, but i hope you all know he absolutely hates being called that. ‘it’s not that kind of G’ he says. ‘my name is regulus not reginald’ he says.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

 anyway as i was driving around unexpectedly, i realized had reginald lived, he’d probably have some uncool scars on his back left from that Incident with inferi, since they claw and pull you down, and he’d still take those more than the dark mark.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

  BITS AND PIECES ABOUT THE GHOST VERSE:

given the choice between moving forward and staying behind as a ghost, regulus would have chosen to move on, but much as it is for many souls that demise from their bodies in horrendous ways, the choice was stripped away from him. it’s due to the nature of his death, that left him in a sort of unfinished business state without his say in this.

that being said, he doesn’t manifest right away. i think for a while, he’s just floating, tied to the place he died, and not actually properly realizing what the hell is going on. not too fun, i suppose, but what can you do when you try to bring down voldemort and die in the most horrible way?

that is until one day something triggers him and he shows up somewhere. most likely somewhere he had known during his life, like grimmuald place for example. probably dazed and confused, not knowing anything after his death  ——  detail that’s probably confusing too. he was floating and it has been a while, right?

much like many other ghosts, he looks the way he did when he died. very much eighteen. in the same clothes, a bit torn up from his trip down the water. he’s very much drenched, which probably makes the nature of his death rather obvious.

i think he’d first and foremost be confused. remain a cryptid? then lose all fucks altogether probably. what else can you even lose, if you’re dead, right?

[facingdeath-a-blog]

 anyway it’s a good time as any to remind everyone narcissa was reg’s fave cousin and he would have absolutely loved draco had he not gone and died.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

 i spent quite some time reading those few fics that exist, and it’s time to like........ say something. about the hogwarts house thing, and the fact that regulus dying bravely apparently translates into he should have been in gryffindor, which naah bro. two things can be true.

so sure, his name is a bit of a punk’d situation, because it's applied to a star called alpha leonis in the constellation leo, which basically means the heart of the lion. does it translate into nobility and bravery? yes. does it translate into being a gryffindor? no.

that being said, i also believe that the sorting hat did consider putting him a gryffindor. he had certain possible qualities, and a brother there already, and the sorting hat is a fickle thing, as we all know. and i think it was a situation much like it was for harry, except flipped because regulus always knew he was going to slytherin. not even because of his parents, although majorly because of that also ; but his nature and values were primarly slytherin.

so, all in all the way harry wanted anything but slytherin and got gryffindor, regulus wanted to be a slytherin. which he became. which he was until the last day of his life. the slytherin pride in his room wasn’t some fake construct, you know?

gryffindors don’t have a monopoly for bravery, as slytherins don’t have a monopoly for being cunning, ravenclaws for being smart, and hufflepuffs hardworking. being a human being means you’re complex, and often times contradicting.

as bravely as regulus died, as much as he fashioned his death to leave one dramatic big fuck you to voldemort, do you think he would have done half the things he had done if his primary setting wasn’t slytherin? i mean, probably, but he still lived his life and died as a slytherin.

plus the kind of loyalty and bravery slytherins possessed is different. i bet no one expected someone like regulus to do a thing like that. and to say more, nobody even knew, because he made sure they didn’t, so his family remained safe.

TWO THINGS CAN BE TRUE.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

 i just forever accepted the fact reg’s favourite cousin will always be narcissa.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

it’s good to remember the subject of his brother is very touchy, so better to leave it alone.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

 you know, regulus really hates when people call him reggie. so do it.

[facingdeatha-blog]

tag drop #1

[facingdeath-a-blog]

 also, again about the very few fics that exist, but i think there is a fine line between being aloof and unemotional, and being expert at faking it. which i personally believe, regulus was the latter. there was a reason sirius called him soft. and i believe while he knew how to pull this perfect black son facade quite well, that kind of distanced him from many issues including those of making his family happy, in reality he was probably the most emo boy there was.

not to everyone, mind you, but he absolutely raved about quidditch, or got incredibly annoyed quite fast. you wouldn’t expect him to give someone a big fuck you, but that’s how he died. there was so much more to him than people knew about, because he only ever wanted to make his family happy, so of course he died and remained forgotten, without anyone ever actually knowing who the fuck he was.

and let me just say, the image of this emo boy pulling the biggest fuck you to his former boss is kind of my jam. too bad voldemort never got to bloody see it, but hey.

[facingdeath-a-blog]

tag drop #1