Chapter 1
Regulus sits at the back of a theater, watching absentmindedly how the actors spoke words that were not theirs, how they portrayed feelings that did not burn them, as it did the writer.
Regulus could have imagined the writer of this particular play, sitting down and writing. Writing a love so ugly, so inhuman, so raw, and almost cannibalistic in its efforts that could only be described as hate.
But it wasn't hate, it was something that did not exist on earth but instead, it had slithered from Eden, to ruin only you, to make you mad and hungry for something you never thought existed.
But maybe that was just Regulus' perspective, not even his mother could beat out the hopeless romantic out of him. It would be like baring him vulnerable and burning him alive, though these days he is more hopeless than romantic.
After the play ends and people pile out, Regulus walks down the stairs, into the stage like he meant for it. He took one of the orchestra's violins, nestled between his shoulder and his neck, and played. When the notes sounded and the instrument hummed, Regulus was at peace.
He closed his eyes and played. He pretended that people were here to see him only, to applaud him. Pretended that someone he loved was listening, their eyes glinting with pride. Pretended that after he finished, his brother waited outside. Pretended that he wasn't a son in the middle of the holy war at sixteen, who learned to play with his fingers broken but instead a prodigy who earned his place in this theater and bared his soul out for anyone to see but few to understand. He pretended a lot, but reality liked to keep him in his place.
As he walked home he thought about what he wanted to be if someone asked, if someone had given him a choice.
But no one would ask, maybe they would ask Sirius because he was the heir, while Regulus was meant to live in his shadow, never enough but always to much. At what point in his life Regulus would stop pretending, stop becoming something else, and just be? Maybe not in this life but maybe another. The thought oddly warmed him.
If someone were to ask, he would have said, 'a good son,' he has only ever wanted to make his family proud. But on the cover of night Regulus would have liked to say, ' a writer, a musician, an artist, an inventor, a potioneer.'
By being a writer being able to express what his voice would not say but his mind would always think, an artist by expressing something no words could convey, whether it be with a brush, clay, or an instrument. An inventor keeps creativity in a physical, tangible way.
But imagine that, his name is engraved in history as something precious and ever-lasting. Not because of who his brother was, or his parents, or anyone but for him. Not for the Black in the name but for the Regulus. A small little fantasy that would never happen but he still liked to pretend. Today he pretended a lot but like always he pretended it didn't hurt when he carried potential other lived so much his bones started to creak, that it didn't hurt that his dreams were simply that but nightmares hunted him to the ends of the world.
He apparated home after walking the snow-covered streets of Paris, the snow still lacing his hair, capturing for a moment, as a picture. He showered and came down for dinner, but his mind was still fixed on that goddamned play in France. Maybe the actor's love for each other was real and not just a mask, he foolishly thought but again, he liked to pretend.
He went home to the house that it's coldness burrowed into the marrow of his bones and the tender strings of his red, still beating heart. Waiting for the sun to bite in and thaw that vital organ. After dinner he goes to duel with Bella in Orion's study, they are both circling each other, two predators pretending the other is their prey. But in the end, Regulus falls to his knees, doubled in pain, as Bella continues to crucio him, she left him victim under the curse too long for his brain to come out unscathed.
" I suggest you stop," said a voice but Regulus was too far gone to notice, "I have no use for him if he is catatonic." The voice was raspy, like rocks hitting each other, a hand came to cup Regulus' face making him see who it was.
Walburga.
Bella cackled and Regulus jumped to his feet, even though unsteady he held himself proudly. He could feel the end of Riddle's wand poking his neck. "You are a soldier, Regulus," he informed him. Regulus wanted to yell that he wasn't but maybe it was time he stopped pretending.
"Yes, Mother," Regulus replied as if it were a fact, not something that made him sick.
"It's an admirable feat, to be loyal to a fault, to die for your cause," Walburga responded not moving his wand for Regulus' neck. "But it also makes you manipulable, a weapon for anyone to wield,"
When will the weapon be pointed at him? When will Regulus show him that they are both human, rotting and all, when will he understand that his blood is red and not god, that he isn't a god? That no one is, but no one knows, not until Regulus drowns. Regulus' lungs start to constrict making him choke. He can feel his mother's fingers prodding against his brain, Regulus lets her in.
Regulus learned occlumency after Sirius ran, but he was smart and used another technique, he let them into his walls to prove that he had nothing to hide but they only saw what he wanted them to see. A weapon is still a weapon it doesn't matter who grabs it, they will all bleed anyway.
He goes to bed that day, twitching from being under the curse, cuts and bruises from his fight with Bella, and even though he is tired, sleep slips out of his grasp. He manages two hours before he reaches for a sleeping draught in his bedside table drawer.
He tips the bottle into his mouth, gulping everything. He hates to drink a draught after an unforgivable is cast on him because it only makes the side effects worse.
In the next few days, his hands are broken and so is his left ankle, but he is not meant to fix them but to let them sit and if he does, the shadows that linger in his room would tell his mother.
How he hates this house. The way the shadows poke at his mind and sharpen his edges. He hates his bed and the way there the Black family crest with the motto "toujours purs" hand painted on on his walls to cover the dry blood on one of his walls, or the way there is a crucifix on the other wall, whilst Sirius had sat in his room pasting Gryffindor's color all around his room.
It doesn't take much time for Regulus to be back at Hogwarts, doesn't take him much time to pretend that he is here with his brother. A few classes pass before Regulus is sent to Dumbledore's office.
When he enters he sees his brother and his gang, including MacDonald, McKinnon, Evans, Dorcas, and Pandora. He sits in the only empty seat beside James Potter.
Dumbledore speHe wants them to act in a play and Regulus to produce it. When he asks why, Minerva intervenes, "I've read your essays for transfiguration, it was truly the only choice," she looks at him, and he tilts his head, before he says, "Essays and theaters are two different things."
"We have faith that you'll figure it out," Dumbledore says, firmly but not unkindly, he continues talking to the others as Regulus thinks about what would happen if he does it. Minerva says that they'll receive recommendations and extra credit if they do.
So if Regulus produces the play and takes the N.E.W.T's, he'll graduate a year earlier and even though he won't be here next year he'll graduate and all that effort won't go to waste.
At the end of the talk before they all pile out Dumbledore asks him, "What play are we producing?" He looks at the boy curiously, wondering what is going on in his head.
Regulus takes a moment to consider, he stretches the silence until he has an answer and when he does, he smiles a brilliant grin and says,
"Macbeth."