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― "I love you more than life itself," ― Althea Potter had always been a light. Where James burned wild and reckless, she glowed warm and steady, drawing people in with her laughter, her kindness, and her stubborn belief that everyone carried a spark worth loving. She was the sister who brightened shadows, the girl who never let anyone feel unseen. Regulus Black, on the other hand, was born of shadows. Cold where she was warm, distant where she was tender, sharp where she was soft-he was a boy sculpted by duty, drowning beneath the weight of a name that demanded silence, obedience, sacrifice. They were opposites, orbiting each other in disdain. She saw him as cruel and unfeeling, and he saw her as naïve and foolish. Yet the world has a way of binding the unwilling, and war makes strange companions of enemies. Slowly, through whispered arguments and stolen glances, Althea discovered the boy beneath the mask, and Regulus found himself yearning for the light he had spent his life rejecting. But love in times of war is fragile. It does not always save. Sometimes it destroys, quietly, beautifully, tragically. And when the end came-as it always would-they both learned that hatred can turn to love, and love can burn into something fiercer still. Something unshakable. Something eternal. Something that could only be called devotion. ☽｡⋆