The Little Prince Analysis

You are not mad.

Mad is when your cousin ( Bellatrix ) slaughters a hare in front of you, eager to see if your resolve would crumble and you’d call her out to be a beast.

Mad is when your mother ( Walburga ) wraps her long tapered fingers around your throat and squeezes, daring you to spill your bile, to oppose her at last just like her failure of a firstborn.

Mad is when your betrothed ( Laetitia ) decides to humiliate her sister in front of the Public, hoping to see approval glint in two ashen pools ( yours ), to see admiration flicker there briefly before it is extinguished, to see that ‘ connection ’ click into place just like it should the second you’ve spilled a laugh.

But no, you are Regulus.
And you, Regulus —
You are not mad.
She destroys everything in her wake, and it doesn’t take an hour before the drawing room collapses in anguish.

They shouldn’t know, she tells her husband in a desperate voice, gripping his forearms tightly ( clear nails digging into bare skin ) They shouldn’ttheyshouldn’ttheyshouldn’t—

She picks you up from your cradle to take you to another room and tuck you away.

❖

You’re raised with severe precautions and a band of Healers that constantly hovered over yourself ( closely scrutinising your every move ) and Kreacher is assigned to wash down the walls and floors of your room thrice daily. Though your Mother shrieks at the mere sight of a little smudge, it quickly becomes apparent that impervious mischief runs rampant in your blood — as soon as the watchful figures turn their eyes away, you’d be on your feet looking for Sirius ( he’s older yet none the wiser and still you long for his company ) ( ‘ You’re late, Reggie ’ ) ( ‘ They don’t
’
—‘ No ’

—‘ Then would you dare turn your back on our heritage and disgrace this family’s Sacred Name? ’
—‘ …No ’

Purity is superiority. You are a Black first and you are a boy second.

Therefore, predilection is not to be paired with the letters of your name.

❖

Reenact the errors of the past: in the standstill it was the choices the two of you made that encouraged the separation of your paths. You miss your brother, you really do — but when he locks himself away and you’re left facing nothing but a heavy oak door that places both of you on the opposite ends of the world ( and Kreacher inaudibly asks What would the young Master like for lunch? ) that’s how you catch yourself clenching fists out of—

—of what, exactly?

To be discarded is the same as being replaced.
( He’s had his fun and now— )
( —you are all on your own )

Why bother to reflect on it, Regulus?

You might as well give yourself a delicate, ladylike disposition.

❖

What if the conditions had been different?
( Why do you not let go, Regulus?