r.a.b.
At the age of 17, Regulus Black defected from the Death Eater legion and turned himself into the Order. The younger (but technically, only) son of Orion and Walburga Black, Regulus took the Dark Mark at the age of 16, two years after his older brother had run away from home—if he was honest, he didn't entirely agree with his parents' values, nor did he approve of the way The Dark Lord was going about achieving his aims. But Regulus had seen the way Sirius had suffered for being different, for being himself, and decided it was easier. Just before his seventh, he abandons Hogwarts and in an attempt to foil Voldemort's plans, acquires Salazar Slytherin's locket, and subsequently turned himself into the Order.

His relationship with his older brother, despite this, is strained. Regulus harbours an unhealthy amount of animosity and resentment towards Sirius, even though once he'd done nothing but admire Sirius's courage and will. After Sirius had left, Regulus was dealt an incredible amount of Walburga's mental and physical abuse, despite having once been the benchmark for a perfect son.  Regulus suffered (and still suffers) with anxiety and PTSD. He still has his Dark Mark - it has been severely scratched up, so it stays bandaged and Regulus does not expose it at all. 

Reintroduction to wizarding society has posed to be Regulus' greatest challenge - the Black name, when not in conjunction with "Sirius" is hardly taken well, and any standing and any friends Regulus may have acquired disappears. It's with the help of the order that he even finishes his NEWTs through private tutors (all of which lament the loss of such talent in the wizarding world) but he has no intent of rejoining the rebuilding society - since his mother and father didn't end up changing the will after he'd defected, he's still left with a bountiful vault of old money that is more than enough to sustain him until he dies. Gideon's guidance is what brings him to rediscover his childhood passion for art, first with messy doodles in the sides of his history papers and then to charcoal on thick and rough sketch paper. It, as cliche as it sounds, becomes an outlet, and though he's still figuring things out, he thinks that he could make quite the living selling anonymous illustrations should he desire to rid himself of any of his pieces. 

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