Sirius tipped his head back and downed another shot. It was about his seventh one, maybe eighth, he didn't know. Sirius didn't know much of anything right now. All he knew was that his brother was dead. And it was his fault.

His mother always saw his brother as the perfect one, especially when Sirius himself started Hogwarts and was sorted into 'that mud blood infested sewer of a House.' But Sirius knew things about Regulus no one else did. He knew that when he had come home at the summer break, Regulus had smiled at him and said "I always did think you were rather odd" and they hadn't mentioned the sorting again, unless it was in teasing, like when Reg said " Gryffindor bravery? I suppose that's why you're terrified of heights." And Sirius would counter it with "Going to be a slimy serpent, Reg? How's that possible when you run from snakes?"

He knew that Reg loved to play pranks too, and that he was just as full of jokes and could be as infuriatingly annoying as him. He knew Reg listened to the Beatles and the Who and the Rolling Stones. He knew everything about him. Until Reg started Hogwarts and then he had no idea who he was anymore. And why was that? Why had he let a House of all things come between them and destroy the once most precious thing in his life- his relationship with his beloved brother? And so he saw his brother the same way his mother always had- blindly. But opposite his mother, he blindly saw him as flawed, unrecognizing of his many good qualities, instead of perfect without any faults.

In some part of his subconscious, Sirius always longed to know his brother again. And now he couldn't because he'd let, no caused their bond and trust in each other to shatter, to the point where Reg couldn't even come to him to keep himself alive.

Later that night, tears blinded Sirius Black's vision.