King Of My Heart | R. BLACK

33 | picture perfect

Regulus stared at himself in the mirror. It felt as though he were a completely different person. But he wasn't, he was the exact same as he had always been. A coward. A phony. A synthetic robot made just for his parents. A mailable piece of meat for everyone to pick at and use in whatever way benefits them the most.

"Your tie isn't straight." He jumped at the sound of her voice. He closed his eyes for only a brief moment to pull himself back together. Upon opening them, the blank, lifeless eyes glistened with a false sense of content. Because that's what he was supposed to be. Content. "Here, let me help."

Adhara stepped forward as Regulus turned around. She reached up and moved the tie slightly before tightening it. "There," she said with a small, pitying smile as tapped right over his heart, "Perfect."

"Right," he muttered and he couldn't bring himself to smile, "Perfect."

"The reporters will be here soon," she reminded him as she stepped away from him. "You'll want to fix the bags under your eyes," she suggested, "You look as though you haven't slept in weeks."

"I'll see to that," he replied simply and she let out a sigh of defeat before leaving the room.

He turned back to the mirror as soon as he heard the door close. She was right, of course. He looked as though he hadn't slept in weeks. The bags under his eyes were almost as dark as his eyes and it certainly didn't help that his complexion was so pale.

But it was because he hadn't been sleeping at all.

Every time he closed his eyes, he could hear the screams of Angela and her friend. Daisy, he scolded himself. The least he could do was remember his name.

A coward is what he was, and he knew that. And the worst part was that he chose to live with it. He chose to accept that he was a weak coward and that he wasn't going to change. He couldn't.

He couldn't help but think about the end of term when Angela spat at Crouch. She said she would kill him, but not yet. It felt as though she were truly talking to him and he couldn't help but feel as though it were called for.

But that was a very stark contrast when compared to the night that he had found out it was Angela that his family had been torturing. She had begged him to end her life, to get his mark. Which meant she knew what it took to get the mark that was permanently embedded on his left forearm. She would know just how much of a coward he truly was, if she didn't already.

He raised his wand and waved it across his face, successfully vanishing the dark marks under his eyes. He hardly recognized the boy staring back at him. A few months ago, he had felt a glimmer of hope. But that was quickly stamped out when he saw the girl on the floor of his drawing room. It had been his fault.

He tried to distance himself when he realized people were growing suspicious but she had been so damn persuasive. And then she humiliated Crouch and there was no coming back from that.

He could only hope that after everything, she would finally keep her head down. But even he knew that it would take a lot of hoping for that to be the case.