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#1
18 September 1964
When Regulus breaks a vase, Sirius says he did it instead.
They’re too young for the anger and frustration that will come in moments like this later. Regulus is hardly out of nappies; Sirius is still just learning to read. Sirius sees Regulus’s puffy cheeks and raw red eyes and says he did it, an instinct spawned in the way Walburga’s eyes flash from above, her long nails digging into the wood door frame. They sense something wrong.
Regulus doesn’t remember exactly what happens next except that Sirius is crying, wailing, even, the way that Regulus wails, and then Regulus can’t find him. He looks in every room, more tears flowing as portraits hiss and house elf heads loom.
He climbs and climbs and climbs until he finds Sirius in the attic, head in his arms.
In the final moments before he reaches Sirius, Regulus gives up on walking and stops just inches away from his brother.
‘Don’t feel bad,’ Sirius mumbles. ‘S’not that big a deal.’
‘Yeah,’ Regulus says, not mumbling exactly, but lacking the practice and palette to speak more clearly.
Sirius shivers. ‘I don’t want to be here anymore,’ he says.
Sirius is too young for thoughts like this; Regulus does not understand anyway. His chubby little legs hurt from the climb. He wants his brother to stop crying. He is hungry. Later, when he no longer has the luxury of incomprehension, he will look back and pointlessly ache for a moment like this, where he cannot be expected to know better.
‘I mean it,’ Sirius says, suddenly biting.
Regulus flinches and fails to stifle a sniffle. He doesn’t want his brother to go anywhere. Another sniffle, then another, and he’s crying again.
Sirius looks up, expression melting. He jerks his head towards himself. Regulus stumbles into his brother’s waiting arms, where Sirius rests his chin on Regulus’s head. Regulus is sweaty and too warm, but he likes the feeling anyway.
‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ Sirius says finally, before kissing Regulus on the forehead the way his foggiest memories tell him their mother once did for him.
From this moment on, they don’t need instinct anymore. The brothers know why they fear Walburga.
#2
24 February 1969
Regulus hears Sirius crying through his bedroom door.
He should have warned Sirius that trying on their mother’s clothes would be a bad idea, but it had been so much fun, and Sirius’s smile had been so big. He doesn’t remember the last time he smiled like that. Uncle Alphard’s last Christmas visit, maybe. So he hadn’t said anything, and Sirius had smiled and even laughed right up until their mother walked into the room.
They were too old for spanking, Walburga said, but Regulus knew Sirius would rather get a spanking over with rather than be confined to his room for days at a time, sometimes even longer. There were times Regulus felt himself understand where his parents are coming from: Sirius just won’t stop moving no matter how many times he’s told otherwise, and they all know he’s bright enough that he’s just not listening.
He swallows his frustration. If Sirius could help it, he would. He doesn’t want to be so angry all the time. And he always stands up for Regulus.
‘Sirius?’
‘Go away.’
His tone is biting, and the crying immediately stops. When his door flies open, Regulus blinks in confusion before locating his brother sitting on the floor with a large handkerchief in front of it.
‘How did you get in here?’
‘You opened– never mind.’
Inside the handkerchief lies Sirius’s favourite set of robes rolled as tightly as possible around his favourite issues of Marvin the Mad Muggle, several biscuits in a smaller hanky, the Falmouth Falcons pennant Uncle Alphard had given Sirius last Christmas and – something in Regulus’s chest squeezed – the card he’d drawn to accompany it.
‘Where are you going to go?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sirius says, crossing his arms and avoiding Regulus’s eyes. His jaw worked in anger as his gaze flitted from item to item in the room. If he didn’t run away, he’d have nothing but these dusty old antiques to look at for ages. Even the portraits were instructed to leave when Sirius was in trouble.
Regulus brushed dust away from a spot on the musty old carpet and sat down next to his brother.
‘Muggles leave children in the gutters to die.’
They hadn’t believed it at first when Great-Aunt Irma had first told them, but they’d read it in a Muggle book they’d discovered half-forgotten under one of the foyer settees. If the Muggle Dickens himself said it, then it must be true.
‘Not all children.’
‘But you’re a wizard. They’ll make sure to get you first.’
‘How? They don’t know about magic.’
‘They can sense our superiority. And you don’t have any Muggle clothes.’
‘Mother and father will use magic to find you. You’ll be in even more trouble.’
That got Sirius’s attention. A line appeared between his eyes and his lips turned downward.
‘Kreacher is making beef bourguignon tonight.’
‘It’ll be cold by the time it gets to my room,’ Sirius grumbles.
‘I’ll ask him to keep it warm,’ Regulus says, encouragingly. He puts a hand on Sirius’s arm. ‘I’ll keep you company. Next year, you’ll be off at Hogwarts, and you won’t have to deal with them except for holidays.’
Deal with them. He’ll regret those words; they make Sirius think he’s on his side. He’s on everyone’s side. It’s his parents who don’t know how to deal with Sirius, really, and he’s stuck in the middle playing a balancing game he never asked for.
For now, he helps Sirius pack up his bindle.
#3
1 January 1972
‘Being a Gryffindor isn’t the end of the world, you know.’
Sirius doesn’t stop furiously stuffing his things back into his trunk. It’s almost impressive how many items he’s managed to strew across the room, considering he’s only been home for a few days.
‘You didn’t get all the Howlers about breaking tradition.’
‘The family will understand eventually. You just have to show them.’
‘Sure,’ Sirius mutters, but he doesn’t stop packing his trunk. ‘I knew I should have stayed over break with Remus, even if he is sick.’
Regulus has no idea who Remus is. One of the amorphous mass of dorm mates vaguely mentioned in Sirius’s increasingly short letters, probably. Jealous stabs through him like a stake, but, as always, he resists the urge to act on it. It’s better to calculate his response; to show Sirius why Regulus is still worthwhile. After all, Sirius has done nothing but model how ineffective expressing yourself directly since the day he was born.
Sirius stands up. When he first got home, Regulus searched his face for ways Hogwarts has changed him in the last three months, for the softening of baby fat or a growth spurt. It was almost frightening when he couldn’t find any. The differences are subtler – confidence where before there was only bravado, references to a life he doesn’t know.
‘Don’t go. I want to spend time with you.’
‘Oh, please,’ Sirius huffs. ‘You’re better off without me here.’
An insidious, niggling part of Regulus agrees. He can’t deny how calm the past few months have been without the near-constant rows between his brother and his parents, so he sticks with the other half of the truth. Doled out appropriately, it was often the most convincing weapon of all.
‘I’m lonely without you.’
Sirius’s eyes flit up, and Regulus feels as though Sirius is finally seeing him for the first time since he stepped off the platform.
‘I missed you too,’ Sirius says finally.
A heady mix of pleasure and frustration rushes through him. Regulus will show Sirius he’s worth his attention, but he doesn’t understand why he has to earn it to begin with.
Sirius pulls several chocolate frogs out from under a dishevelled jumper and sits down cross-legged. He beckons to Regulus, who joins him, and they unwrap them together.
‘I didn’t ask to be put in Gryffindor,’ Sirius finally. ‘Is it so dreadful of me to make the best of it?’
Regulus bites off a thousand words along with a chocolate frog leg (Cliodna; Regulus has three). He gets the sense that the family points about blood purity and intermingling with Muggle-borns will send Sirius straight back to packing.
‘I want to hear about Hogwarts,’ he lies instead. It’s not like he has anything to talk about, just three silent months in a quiet dark house.
His heart still breaks when Sirius’s face lights up.
#4
31 July 1975
Regulus stands between Sirius and his bedroom door, a magazine he’d rather not exist clutched in his hands. ‘You’re a—’
‘Just say it.’
‘You’re a homosexual.’
Something relaxes in Sirius’s expression. For a moment, Regulus is confused – what could be worse, outside of compromising their blood purity? – but he realises Sirius likely thought he was going to use another word. A chill spreads over his body as he instinctively thinks: that’s fair of him. In other circumstances, with other people, he has.
But Sirius is his brother. A stranger with windblown hair and ripped Muggle clothes, yes, but his brother nonetheless.
‘You don’t need to go.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Sirius says, grey eyes flashing just as they have a thousand times before, and Regulus thinks: you’re right. What could be worth risking every person they’ve ever known, the only family they’ve ever met?
‘Just don’t tell them. Think of your inheritance.’
‘Bugger my inheritance.’
Their lips both twitch, and there’s a moment when Sirius’s choice of words almost brings them to laughter.
‘It’s only a few more years,’ he adds. ‘A few short months in a few short years.’
The rest of the time, Sirius will be the laughing Gryffindor golden boy that so quickly fades in this Black house. He and Regulus will never speak, not even passing each other in the hall, and Regulus will wait once again for these moments, these few short months in these few short years, that Sirius has no one better to turn to.
He opens his mouth to cajole, to convince, but it clicks, and something else comes out.
‘It’s that prefect. The sickly one.’
Far from making him a stranger, the tension flaring in Sirius’s jaw is the most familiar sight Regulus knows. A twisted part of him, less deep than he’d like, finds comfort in it.
Finally, Sirius exhales. ‘You always could read me a mile away.’
Pleasure sparks in his stomach.
‘He doesn’t know, does he?’
Hopefully, Sirius doesn’t think about what the question implies about how much attention Regulus pays to his brother for oh-so-many months of the year.
Like usual, Sirius is too wrapped up in himself to notice. He shakes his head miserably. ‘He’s probably not even bent. It’s awful, honestly.’
All Regulus has to do is nod encouragingly, and Sirius is pouring out his heart.
By the time they’re done talking, Regulus has convinced himself that it’s fine that Sirius is a homosexual. There are homosexual purebloods, after all. As long as they do their family duty, no one cares what they do in their own time. Perhaps, as Sirius matures, he’ll see the freedom in that.
A nagging part of him – the worst and most sensible part – whispers that Sirius has always had a different definition of freedom.
#5
24 June 1976
Regulus slams the door; Sirius sags against it. They are quiet for a moment.
‘Well, that was a bloody nightmare,’ Sirius says.
‘Indeed.’
They share a rare smile, more meaningful perhaps because they disagree on so many of the particulars on why. Despite everything, they’re still in this together.
‘I’m leaving,’ Sirius says.
Regulus feels his arm hair stiffen. It’s different There’s no anger in Sirius’s tone, only exhaustion. He’s been lying in the four-poster upstairs, maybe even the red-and-gold four-poster beyond Regulus’s sight, and thinking about this. Sirius can be talked down, but never out.
‘You technically didn’t tell them. You can just pretend you don’t know what they’re talking about, and it’ll all be fine. Maybe they’ll get used to it.’
Regulus cringes as his own weak words. His racing heartbeat tells him he’s already lost. He still doesn’t expect the next words out of Sirius’s mouth.
‘It’s not about being queer, Regulus.’
‘It’s not?’
‘I can’t stand to be around these people. The things they say– the way they treat other witches and wizards. I can’t be witness it anymore. I don’t know how you can.’
Before Regulus can reply, Sirius shakes his head and adds softly, ‘I do, actually. That’s even worse.’
‘I don’t agree with them, Sirius. But they’re my friends. Without you, I don’t know what to think.’
You bring life to this place, he’s trying to say. You make me better, stronger, kinder. You remind me that justice is immutable, not malleable. It’s so lonely without you here, a maze of duty and tradition trapped between four walls, and I can’t find myself.
Whatever Sirius hears isn’t that – or at least Regulus hopes it isn’t, because the disgust on his face would hurt so much worse if it was.
His ire turns on Regulus, who flinches, never having felt its full force before.
‘You just want to stay ignorant forever,’ Sirius spits. ‘You don’t even care that I’m the one who pays for it.’
‘Of course not,’ Regulus whispers, horrified, not knowing if it’s true, only that he’ll die if Sirius keeps looking at him like that. He didn’t understand before how much Sirius was still carving a part of his heart out for him until right now, when he looks at Regulus like he’s something foul under his heel. It’s the way he looks at the rest of Regulus’s friends.
‘Are you going to do something about it, then?’ Sirius asks hotly. ‘Or are you just going to keep asking me to stay?’
‘I– ’
Sirius is looking at him like an equal, not a little brother, and Regulus is ashamed at how much he doesn’t like it. He swallows hard, unable to find words he’s sure will keep Sirius here will with him.
It turns out he doesn’t to. Sirius speaks first.
‘Look me in the eyes and tell me that you need me more than I need to leave.’
Regulus knows he’s right. Still, he says, ‘I need you more.’
Sirius sees right through the lie. He leaves anyway.
#1
12 September 1979
‘Catch them!’
It’s raining. It always seems to be raining on nights like these, when the Dark Lord sends his servants to carry out his terrible bidding. The are Order members waiting, and where there are Order members, there is bloodshed. His wand hand shakes; his vision is blurry with fear; his heart, unable to leap to his throat because it never left. Despite it all, somehow it’s never Regulus who goes down on the slick cobblestone beneath their feet.
He runs. He’s always running, but no one ever catches it. Maybe it’s the chaos, but Regulus thinks they’re all running all the time – sometimes they just catch each other in the middle.
Eventually, he catches Sirius in the middle. Regulus skids to a halt; separated from Potter in the confusion, Sirius has fallen. When Regulus approaches, he slips again in his haste – could it even be fear? – to face the enemy?
Sirius is a better fighter by far, but Regulus has the advantage. It’s just them. Regulus lifts his wand arm, looking down slightly to see his brother eye-to-eye. His grey eyes flash, but Regulus can’t read their meaning anymore. He stumbles back, lowering his wand. Sirius only hesitates for a moment – but for a man like him, a moment might as well be an eternity. He juts his chin out slightly and nods before turning on his heel and returning to the fray.
Tears prick Regulus’s eyes, but for the first time in years, something like pride unfurls in his chest.
It’s about time he finally let Sirius go.