Chapter 1
I made a Playlist <3
"Come home. Just come home,"
Regulus groans into the phone, seriously debating tapping the red ‘end call’ button. "I am home, Sirius."
“Grimmauld Place is not a home , Reggie, it’s a house. ”
“Well, if that’s true, then I don’t even know where home is- ”
“Don't you get it? It's anywhere I am, Reg."
Regulus pauses his pacing in his bedroom and sucks in a sharp breath. “...No.”
Sirius’ voice is laced with unresolved anger, but there is also an undeniable hint of desperation. “Come on, Reg, you don’t seriously think-”
“Yes, I do think , Sirius! Why do you think that calling me after you vanished in the middle of the night could change anything?”
Regulus can hear his brother sigh deeply over the phone. “Please, just come visit. Please . I don’t want to beg, mainly for my own ego, but I will if it means you will come, even if just so we can patch up any cuts. The Potter’s even said you could stay forever-“
“Sirius, you know I can’t.
Over the phone, Sirius’ voice is rising, and Regulus can practically picture his older brother pacing the floors, one hand tangled in his shoulder-length hair while the other holds the phone to his ear. “Why are you refusing to leave? It’s like you want to be Mamans little puppet. ” He spits out the last word, pure disgust dripping from his tone as if the very thought tasted horrendous. “You know what, I don’t know why I even tried. You've always chosen them over me, and I’m sick of it.”
Regulus knows all of this already.
He knows that he is a puppet for his parents' schemes, he knows that he will always have a soft spot, even when his skin is barely recognizable under the bruises.
Yet, foolishly so, he still has a flicker of hope that his Star will change his mind. Will choose him. “They’re our family, Sirius. I’m your family-”
His voice is low, brimming with barely-restrained anger as he spits into the other side of the phone. “Our definitions of ‘family’ are very, very different, Regulus. I’ve found my real family now. You stay with yours, I’ll stay with mine. Now, I need to go, my brother is waiting. ”
The line cuts out.
Foolishly, in a haze of desperation, Regulus drops to his knees on the cold, unforgiving floor of Grimmauld Place, his breaths shallow as he dials his brother's number. With trembling hands, he presses the ‘speaker’ button and waits.
Prays to a god he never believed in.
The soft ringing reverberates off the suffocating walls, waiting waiting waiting, until a cold, robotic voice cuts through the air; ‘The number you have dialled is no longer in service. Please try again later.’
He hangs up. Perhaps he typed the number wrong. He types it again, his hands trembling so violently that his phone clatters out of his hands and falls to the floor.
‘The number you have dialled is no longer in service. Please try again-‘
Regulus claws at his chest, begging for air as his breathing comes in heaving gasps. He feels like his chest is caving in, constricting his lungs and suffocating his throat as the soft, almost teasing sound from his phone plays, every new ring a reminder of the empty room across the hall.
‘The number you have-‘
This time, he lets the message play out, feeling each syllable as it pierces through him like a knife, tearing open the wound he’d tried so hard to close.
‘-please try again later.’
The light on his phone slowly darkens, almost as if offering him one last shot at calling the number again, before it shuts off completely, leaving a black surface in front of him.
The screen before him feels like a mirror, showing him everything he’s tried to ignore for years. A reflection of failure, of abandonment, of being a boy unworthy of love. Of a brother who no longer exists.
Regulus slumps forward, his face in his hands. His chest tightens with the weight of it all. The loneliness. The aching absence. His tears fall quietly, as silent as the house around him
Deep down, buried beneath the countless layers of lies, regret, and pain, Regulus realizes that he had known the minute that the first call had been rejected.
Because Regulus can recite his brother'sSirius’ phone number in his sleep.
Sirius had promised that no matter what, no matter how frustrated or upset he was, that if his baby brother called him in need of help, for anything, he would answer.
Regulus had never used it in need of desperation until now.
But for some strange, twisted reason, all Regulus wants is his brother to hold him, even if it means that every touch burns his skin, that a single hug is just a chance to be stabbed in his back.
But the thing is,
Regulus will always choose Sirius in a crowded room full of every single person he knows. He will hug him, even if it means that he gets stabbed in the process.
It kind of reminds him of a made-up curse he had read about named Hanahaki.
The curse causes plants to invade one's body, roots dig into the person's soul, flowers entwine their leaves in one’s throat and petals exit the body through coughs.
In the story he had read, the curse is based on unrequited love. Romantic, unrequited love.
If the person never truly believes that their love is reciprocated, then they slowly die, inside out, from their own love.
Regulus had never once wondered if the curse could be taken in a literal sense, as well as in a familial love.
The curse is not real, and the love he feels is in no way romantic, but the gnawing ache in his heart is most definitely related to this tragic story of two brothers.
One loved.
One undeserving.
He never called again.
***
Ten Years Later (Present)
Ten years later, Regulus still remembers the haunting tone of the automated message.
***
Regulus sighs heavily, dragging his legs and swinging them off his bed. His eyelids feel as if there are weights pulling them down as he blinks the sleep away slowly, attempting to gather his scrambled mind before he is forced to face the world.
The dark wooden stairs creak quietly under his socked feet as he enters the large bottom floor, which is already brimming with activity.
Pandora, one of his closest friends since he got too nervous to present his project in front of the class in the fifth grade. Luna, Pandora’s six-year-old daughter and Regulus’ goddaughter, is a force to be reckoned with—-her fiery personality and sweet, soft-spoken ways of caring for the world never fails to amaze him. Even at the crack of dawn, Luna seems to be bouncing off the walls, inevitably waking the rest of the house along with her.
Barty and Evan, the most chaotic duo around yet some of the most loving and caring people he knows, often start the day by thumping down the two sets of stairs, grumbling about how time is simply an ‘illusion.’
Dorcas, his go-to fashion expert with the funniest jokes and kindest heart, is somehow always awake first, something about ‘the best inspiration rises with the sun.’ Even in the most chaotic, loudest and stressful moments, Cas is an anchor.
And Regulus? He’s still figuring out who he is.
According to the articles and journalists, specifically a woman named Rita Skeeter—-who genuinely seems to have an uncanny ability for twisting words, Regulus is ‘a closed-off, stoic young man who channels his trauma through his studies—-his eyes glisten with the ghosts of his past as he presents.’
Well, maybe that’s because the sole reason he does what he does is because of his past?
Shocker, truly.
To his friends, Regulus is trustworthy, dependent, and intelligent.
He really tries, especially for Luna.
But Is that really enough?
A light, airy voice breaks Regulus out of his thoughts, and before he knows it, a small body crashes into him, causing him to nearly stumble back from the force. “Uncle Star!”
Regulus can’t fight the small smile that slowly makes its way on his lips. Every single morning, without fail, Luna barrels and jumps onto him with full force, trusting him to catch her in his outstretched arms.
And every single morning, without fail, she is caught.
“G’morning, My Moon. You excited for today?”
Luna pulls her head away from the crook of his shoulder and nods excitedly. “I’m so excited! I’m gonna ask Aunt Cassie to get more of those butterfly clips for my hair again,” She gestures wildly to her hair, which is currently tied into two French braids that reach her waist, the mismatched neon pink and purple elastics standing out in sharp contrast to her nearly-white blonde hair. “And after we get them, will you put them in again, please? Like you did before?”
Regulus schools his expression, furrowing his eyebrows in mock-seriousness to match her stern ( yet utterly adorable , he notes) expression. “Ah, yes, of course, the butterfly clips. I guess if you were already going to ask Cas, then you won’t want these ones…” He hoists her higher in his hip so he can have one hand free, slowly dipping it into his trouser’s pocket and flaunting a plastic container, filled to the brim with various coloured hair clips.
She squeals happily, lunging forward and attempting to snatch them out of his hand. With a laugh, Regulus sets her down and leads her hand-in-hand to the kitchen, where he knows Pandora and Dorcas will already be awake.
Upon entering, the sweet smell of fresh fruit and light, happy voices flow through the room. Dorcas shoots him a toothy grin from where she is perched on the counter with her legs swinging lazily beside Pandora, who is standing at the counter and spreading some sort of icing on a fresh batch of her newest cinnamon buns. In Dorcas’ hands is a large bowl of various fruits.
“Hey, Starlight,”
Regulus sends her a small smile before turning and gesturing for Luna to come sit in the seat in front of him.
As he gently braids the butterflies into her hair, he can’t help but smile at the love he feels for the girl—-something so unlike his own childhood, and his heart aches as the dull fear of him turning out like his own upbringing rings and echoes through his head.
Regulus braids in the last clip and gives one of her braids a playful tug, signaling that he’s finished with her hair. Luna turns around, beaming, and wraps her small arms around his neck. “Thank you, Star! I love you!”
I. Love.You
The words echo in his ears long after Luna skips off toward Dorcas and the fruit bowl.
I love you.
How strange, how simple. How dangerously real.
Regulus lingers in the kitchen for a few seconds longer, hands resting on the back of the chair she’d been sitting in. The scent of cinnamon and sugar sticks to the air, warmth curling in his chest in a way that feels unfamiliar—like it doesn’t quite belong to him.
He can hear Barty shouting something from upstairs, Evan laughing in response, Pandora humming along to whatever record is playing softly in the background.
This is the kind of chaos that feels safe.
And yet, there’s a nervous current running under his skin like static. The conference is tomorrow. The people, the expectations, the judgment. The eyes that will dissect everything he says, and everything he doesn’t.
His biggest fear is that he will become his parents.
He worries that the blood that stains his mothers hands seeped into his, mixed while it drowned out the hard wooden floor. That the echo of her voice—cutting, sharp, dressed in silk though laced with poison—still lives in the back of his throat, waiting to surface, to strike.
But in some twisted way, deep down in the darkest corners of his mind, Regulus almost feels the desire to thank the man and woman he once called his parents.
If it hadn’t been for their abuse, their cruelty, Regulus wonders if he would have ever had the drive to pursue his research.
The thought sickens him.
He doesn’t want to admit it, doesn’t want to give them credit for shaping who he’s become. And yet, a bitter truth claws at him: their influence will always be a part of him, lingering in the corners of his mind, in the way he sees the world. No matter how far he goes, or how much good he does, he’ll always carry a piece of them with him. And that’s something he’ll never escape.
If he hadn’t been abandoned by the person he loved most—the only person who made him feel capable of receiving and giving love at the time—then he wouldn’t have been capable of the gentle love he showers his Luna with.
He doesn’t want to thank him, even if he is one of the main reasons he knows how to love.
There is a certain level of trust that grows between two people that have been through unimaginable things. A trust that is bonding, that ties a golden thread around each of their wrists, drawing them together.
Regulus once had a bond like that—-and oh, it shimmered golden, catching the light in even the darkest corners.
And still to this day, it shocks him, it shakes him to his core, that there are scissors capable of snipping such a string.
He had been sixteen when his brother left, cutting all ties with him and his family.
Sixteen and left with a dangling, withering thread that lost its shine.
The first three years after his brother's departure were nothing but dark.
It had taken a lot to bring himself to the light again—-the main problem being that he didn’t want to see it.
The darkened corners of his mind whispered that if he stayed in the dark, basked in the shadows until he became one himself, that he wouldn’t miss the return of his brother.
He had so deeply believed that by him staying in the dark, his brother could shine.
But that’s the thing—before he had been dragged into the light himself, he hadn’t believed that shadows like him could exist in the same way.
Sometimes, he still has these lingering traces of doubt that gnaws in the back of his mind.
He used to ignore them.
But ever since March thirteenth—six years ago—he had met her.
Luna.
Her arrival had been like the first flower pushing through the thick, stubborn snow of winter. So fragile, yet so bold in its defiance of the harshness around it. Regulus had looked at her, and something had stirred inside of him—a warmth, a shift in the landscape of his soul. Her small, trusting hands reached for him, and for the first time in a long while, he found himself reaching back.
There was something about the way her laughter rang like a bell in the dead of winter that made him believe again. That made him realize that perhaps the shadows weren’t the end of him—that maybe, just maybe, he could still learn how to shine. The softness of her hand in his was like spring unfreezing the earth, thawing out all the places he thought had died within him.
Every time he looked at Luna, it felt like the season was changing. He had never understood how one tiny person could hold such power—the ability to make the dead things inside him stir, the cold places inside him feel warmth. She was spring in its purest form, the first flower breaking through snow, her very presence proof that light could return, even after the darkest winters.
Because in a world that shadows him in darkness, he is grateful that he has finally found the light.