Seventeen
They return back in silence. Barely looking, barely touching for the apparition to work. Side glances from Sirius that Snape never returns.
It feels like defeat. After everything. Like a collision that led to collapse.
Sirius still feels him, ghost touches that linger on his skin. Breaths that he almost hears. A man who makes his presence known even in his silence.
"So you decided to return, after leaving without any explanation." Regulus is sitting on the couch. He wants to seem angry and imposing. The bite on the inside of his cheek betrays his anxiety, the fear of their disappearance.
Maybe that was Sirius's problem all along. He talked before he observed, too eager to attack, too desperate to speak before his voice could be drowned out. He never took the time to observe the things left unspoken.
He looks at Snape, who doesn't care to reply. He's walking to the kitchen, opening a drawer. Instant, cheap coffee; a small cloud of warmth rising as he heats it.
"I forgot something at the house." Sirius replies to Reg.
"Of course." He responds as if he knew that it was his fault. Maybe it was. Maybe it is.
"Yeah." Sirius replies and he sits down.
Reg looks at him as if he's waiting for a fight that will not come. Sirius is exhausted. Too many fronts to fight. Too many thoughts.
"Well, I think I discovered something." Reg says, his voice slightly raised for Snape to hear.
Ah, yes, the world is still moving. The war is raging. They have monsters to hunt down, solutions that they still haven't discovered.
Sirius touches his neck, the ache of it.
Snape is standing behind Reg. He follows the movement. Sirius wants to say something, he parts his lips just enough, but he doesn't know what it is, what needs to be said, so he closes his mouth again.
Snape moves, he's holding two cups, leaving one in front of Sirius, as he takes the armchair across from him. A distance that feels like a choice.
"What is it?" Snape asks Reg with the same passive expression he always has in the face of new discoveries. Like he's preparing for disappointment beforehand, for a dead end that he will look at and turn around.
"The diary isn't blank." Reg says and he tries to contain his excitement. A small move on the side, a half smirk it's his telling for feeling proud, for being useful.
Snape frowns, leaning closer to the book in front of Reg. Focused on it, on the information. On the next step, the next plan. As if they weren't naked a moment ago, as if Sirius hadn't unraveled beneath his hands.
Like it doesn't matter. A moment that passed, never to return, a step along the way.
Perhaps that's it. For him. Snape said he had done this before. Implied that he had done only this. That Lily could never interest him.
James had spent years jealous of him. Of a man who could see her naked and just shrug, looking the other way. Of a man that loved her without wanting anything in return. Pure, in a way that's devastating.
Snape would be laughing at them. Back then. It explained some of his hostility. It explained why he thought they were idiots. They were. He proves it. Again. And again. A hammer that smashes Sirius illusions.
"If you write to it, it responds." Reg says and he has some of his light back. A glimpse of the child he once was. Of the brother Sirius had.
"Responds how?" Snape crosses his hands.
Sirius should be involved in this. It's a clue, information that would lead somewhere. That perhaps would end the war. That it will make him see James again.
He's the main reason he's doing all this.
"There is a name which it calls itself. Tom Riddle." Reg replies.
"Who is Tom Riddle?" He asks.
"I don't know." Reg answers. "But it's something. It means that he's someone important enough for the Dark Lord to associate with his soul. A friend perhaps? A relative?"
Snape brushes his frown, his face.
"A relative." He says, asks. "We don't know anything about him, who he was." He gets up. "He was someone, before he became the Dark Lord. Monsters aren't born, they are created." A quick side glance at Sirius, gone as fast as it came. "We have to find who this person is."
"The records in the Ministry. Perhaps they contain a log." Reg continues.
Sirius lights a cigarette, watching Snape think. Perhaps for him, it was nothing. He is already on the move. Perhaps for Sirius it's nothing too. A moment of pleasure, a new experience. A side of him that he didn't know. He started smoking on a whim. Drinking. The first time he cursed came to him unbidden. He left his house, when James asked, because he wanted to, without thinking about the future or anything else.
Perhaps it's like that.
Every decision that he ever took came without thought of the consequences.
Now the aftermath stares down at him, and his pulse quickens.
The consequence is a man that lives his life in the exact opposite way of Sirius. Measured. Calculating. Thinking of several steps ahead, not just one.
A man that lives his life with the same ferocity.
A man who Sirius spent seven years despising, only to show every ugly side of him in mere months.
And isn't that laughable? Isn't it a wake up call to stop rushing forward without thinking?
This means nothing.
Perhaps it's the defeat that he feels. A proper punishment. He can say it -it's nothing- he can agree to it, behave like it is. He can. It's not hard. And it still would be a lie.
The conversation has drifted away. Sirius has missed it. The exchange of thoughts and ideas of people smarter than him.
"Why don't you ask him?" Sirius says and they both turn at him.
"Ask who?" Reg says, but Snape looks at Sirius-just a stare, and then he's already moving.
He sits back on the couch and starts writing-an understanding without words
Sirius smiles. He's fucked.
_____
Sirius looks at the answer as it fades. Tom Marvolo Riddle is apparently a student at Hogwarts, or so he perceives himself to be. He asks whom he is talking to.
Snape is up again, arms crossed, thinking. They know the name. Marvolo.
"Just reply with anything. Whatever." Sirius proposes.
"Whatever." Reg mocks. "What if it can understand the lie?"
"Say one of our names. Say mine." Sirius tells Snape.
"Heroic." Reg mutters.
Snape is staring at him. Sirius holds his gaze.
"This is a piece of his soul. We can learn something out of it. It isn't like the others. Use me." Sirius tells him.
"It is a piece of his soul." Snape tells him. "We don't know what kind of power it holds. What it can do. Offering our names, even something simple as that, is risky."
"Let's do nothing then." Sirius almost groans.
"I'm thinking." Snape replies irritated. His lips a simple line. Sirius stares at them just long enough before falling back into the chair.
"Perhaps we could write something else instead. See its intentions." Reg proposes.
"I'm sure it wants to be our friend. It has the best intentions in mind." Sirius says.
"Can you stop being impatient for once?" Snape says.
"The day you stop overthinking." Sirius tells him.
"My overthinking got us this far." Snape crosses his arms. And isn't that true?
"Sorry I've been such a dead waste." Sirius takes a drag of his cigarette, sits straighter.
"Your apology would be better if it was followed by actions resembling one." Snape replies and Sirius groans.
"Ask him in what house he is in." Snape says.
Reg nods. A moment later, the reply comes.
"Slytherin." Reg informs them.
"Of course." Sirius says, two glances at him, but he doesn't give them time to answer. "Do you know someone with that name?" He asks.
Reg shakes his head, glancing between Sirius and Snape.
"Perhaps it's lying."
"Maybe he is someone he killed to make the diary." Sirius tells him. "You said that Horcruxes could be anything, even living things."
"A diary is not a living thing." Snape says.
"A soul is." Sirius responds. "Maybe.." Sirius starts, but Snape closes his eyes, a raised finger to stop him.
He needs a moment to think, to process.
Sirius gets up, he needs to do something while Snape is thinking. He can't just sit and watch him. Coffee, his mind provides.
Reg looks at him, a frown on his face, a slight tilt of his head. He gets up too, follows him.
Sirius fills three mugs. Turns around, rests on the counter. He observes Snape, as he frowns, as he stares at the floor, a pace around the table, a raise of his wand at the diary, a deeper frown as he sits down on the couch.
He still wears the clothes from before.
His hair needs fixing; stray locks need to be straightened.
"He will figure it out." Reg says.
"He will be insufferable after he does." Sirius replies. "All, only through meticulous process do results come. And, if you used your head, Black, perhaps you'd manage a single worthy thought." He tries to mock, he does, and it comes off. He should stop looking at him. He should stop trying to find answers in turned backs.
He should stop, in general.
"What am I looking at?" Reg puts a hand at the counter beside him.
"Nothing." Sirius replies and turns around. It's laughable really that he thinks for a second to talk to Reg about it. Like their paths never diverged, like they have the same familiarity they used to have ten years ago, maybe more.
"Sure." Reg replies.
Sirius holds onto the counter, palms open, as he compels himself to function properly.
"The problem is..." Snape says. Sirius closes his eyes, a breath, then he turns again. "That this thing is insignificant." He holds the diary between two fingers. A dark object, dark magic that he casually holds, making it seem meaningless.
"I wouldn't say insig..." Sirius starts with a smirk. Fake, an echo of a self that's lost.
"As you pointed out -and I agree with that idea- the Dark Lord would use items of importance, at least in his eyes." Snape cuts him off.
"My theory..." Sirius says. He had pointed out specific items, but none were proven.
"Your theory, the foundation of it, is correct." Snape tells him, takes a step in his direction.
"The ring, the locket, they are important artifacts. This..." He moves the book again. "Is nothing. No charms that hide a symbol of anything important. Nothing. So what makes it valuable?"
"Maybe I was wrong." Sirius shrugs under Snape stare.
"Use your head, Black. Self-pity doesn't suit you." Imposing even in mockery.
"I am using my head." Sirius takes a step too. "I told you to ask it, instead of searching in Ministry Records."
"So what makes a meaningless item important?" Snape says, walks a step, stops. As if the space between them is enough, as if he draws the line there.
Sirius wants to walk towards him, stand in front of his face. He wants to see what happens then.
"Its owner." Sirius replies and Snape smirks.
"Yes." Snape says and Sirius takes a step. His smirk vanishes.
"Who is important enough for the Dark Lord? Is there even a person that he views as valuable other than himself?" Reg asks from behind.
"Not that I'm aware of." Snape says, fixing Sirius with a look that feels like a silent command to stop moving.
"You think it's him." Sirius says. Another step.
"I know it is him. His middle name is the same as the owner of the ring. Marvolo Gaunt. I couldn't place the connection before. The Dark Lord and the Gaunts. But there is a connection. This diary proves it."
Perhaps it's the way his mind works that makes him compelling.
Sirius nearly closes the distance, taking the diary from his hands. His gaze lingers on Snape's grip, the veins in his palm.
A reaction at last. Something.
"So, let's talk to him." Sirius speaks as light as he can manage, just for Snape's gaze to harden.
"Not you." Reg says and he takes the diary before Sirius can react, sitting down at the kitchen table.
_____
The diary—the thing that responds to them—is a master manipulator. He speaks kindly, with care, prompting them to continue writing, without offering anything in return.
Just enough mystery, a touch of disappointment, a hint of concern, and unwavering attention to their every response.
It reminds Severus of Albus.
They shouldn't have offered it a name. But Black took the quill from his brother’s hands and wrote before Severus could stop him. Because he was eager for them to move forward.
Because Severus had hesitated to grab his hand.
The diary—the soul within it, which Severus suspects is Voldemort—asks about their worries, if he could help somehow, with just enough concealed arrogance to imply that only he can.
Severus thinks of a scenario—something that will satisfy its curiosity, something that will appear as vulnerable as possible, lulling it into a false sense of security.
Black taps two fingers on the table, ash is thrown around his hand. Regulus waits, arms crossed, for someone else to speak. He can't offer anything, not from the fear of the dark object, but because his brother will see it.
Black takes the quill. A smudge of ink that the blank pages absorb.
"What are you doing?" Severus asks, standing across from him, leaning down a little just to see.
"Writing something." Black says.
"Care to tell us?" Regulus asks.
"No." Black responds and this time he forms words on the paper.
Regulus reads, scoffs, then keeps reading.
"What are you, a fifteen-year-old boy?" Regulus raises an eyebrow.
Black doesn't answer.
The words have been erased slowly, slow enough for Severus to watch them.
Black is offering a piece of him, a secret. His brother thinks it's a lie, a prank almost. But Severus knows it's not. He has seen it.
I keep looking at someone who isn't looking back.
The way Black bends his entire being to fit around Potter—to be funnier, crueler, braver, just for a smile, a laugh in his direction.
How unnecessary all of it is, when he could focus instead in his intellect, that's evidently there, when he takes a moment to think. The sharp way he reacts when it's needed, not when it's forced. The intensity of morals, stripped from performative cruelty. The loyalty expressed even in the oddest of ways.
The quietness that comes from genuine sadness.
He could show it all and Potter would still want him by his side.
Which makes it all the more confusing—how he never... how he chose to do what he did. How he let Severus...
An illogical trusting of sorts -an offering that makes everything more complicated than what they already are.
Severus can't afford to think about it.
It happened. It passed. There should be no more thoughts to it.
As to why and how. As to what Severus thinks of Black and everything surrounding him.
As to what he compels him to do. From that to everything else.
Black focuses on the paper, his grip on the quill tightens, as if he's waiting for mockery, as if it pains him, this revelation. A bouncing of foot that Severus knows it'll happen, before it does.
"It could work." Severus says. Because he got himself into a mess that it will take some time to fix.
The move of Black's foot stops. He raises his eyes at him.
"People talk when they think you're vulnerable." Severus adds.
"I want to see you pretending to be vulnerable." Regulus mocks Black. "It only saddens me that the evidence of it will disappear."
Black has his stare fixed on Severus.
"Vulnerability can be a weapon." Severus says, as if it's just a fact. "It has the potential to make people overcome dire situations. To behave in ways otherwise impossible."
"I partly agree." Regulus responds, with a fake laugh. "I just don't think Sirius..."
"It replied." Severus cuts him off. A mess. All of it.
Regulus is the first to look down.
"Perhaps you need to work more for it. Be braver. Do something grand. Is it love? You can talk to me. Nobody will know." Regulus reads from it. "Here, try to answer that." A roll of his eyes. "This is going nowhere."
Black breathes. Looks at it. Frowns.
"Then think of something better." He finally replies to his brother. Agitated, anger that's building up along with anxiety. "At least I’m doing something. It responded to me."
"Saying what exactly?" Regulus takes a sip from his coffee, a sour expression follows. "How you'll win over your imaginary crush?"
"Tell it that you don't know what to do." Severus says. "Tell it that you're helpless."
The quill touches the paper, but Black isn't writing.
"Do you need assistance in...?" Severus starts, but Black gets up.
"Write it yourself." He says.
"Is there a word you find troubling? A sentence?" Severus crosses his arms.
"I did my part. I got it to talk." Black drags his chair with force, he almost throws it down.
"You started this." Severus points at the table, at the diary. "Finish it."
Black laughs. Short. Angry.
"That's rich coming from you." He says.
"I always do." Severus tells him. "From start to finish, I always keep my promises."
"Right." Black tells him. "Of course." He takes the pack of cigarettes off the table and turns around.
"Black." Severus calls once. Black hesitates mid-step, like he’s ready to respond, to turn around, to fight some more. For something that shouldn't be discussed. That means nothing. That will lead to nowhere. That's a collision to a tension that's been building for months. That happened because they are here, alone, because Black is isolated. Because they are working on an impossible task.
Because this proximity, this reliance—it’s necessary, but temporary. If they win, if they survive until the end, they will return to their lives inevitably. In lives of people that loathed each other. That would never...
That from the moment they met, they moved in a path of destruction of each other.
This is nothing more than a false reality, false thoughts, false feelings. Wrong decisions -wrong and rushed- thoughtless. Like people getting married, having children in the middle of war. Like proclamations of love that are fleeting, because life is fleeting—because death breathes at their necks, in the air around them.
Because Black can't take a moment to think, not now, not ever.
Because Severus does. Constantly thinking of everything.
He's thinking when he's talking about Horcruxes and Voldemort and the next plan, the next move.
Of what came before and what comes after.
He knows of the people Black chose to surround him, to want him. Of the person he is.
He was. At school. Later. Now. Of the person he will be when all this is over.
Better perhaps, more humble, but in a life, in an orbit different from his.
Whatever happens here, now, means nothing, because it can't be anything else. It will not be.
Because when Severus chooses, that choice is permanent -inevitable. It's his worst trait. It happens unconsciously, without his control.
When he chooses there is no now. Only indefinitely. It grows roots that cannot be cut, wrapping around his hands and his throat -around the thoughts in his mind.
Very little can happen for that to change.
Severus doesn't say anything and Black begins to walk again.
____
When the door opens, when Reg comes in and stands just a foot inside, Sirius has already smoked through a pack.
He is watching the sea, the stillness of it under winter light. Silver if the clouds move just enough, grey for the most part.
Regulus breathes, loud and fake, to capture his attention, to wordlessly express his displeasure. For Sirius to turn. He always tried to ignore the sounds of displeasure, he wanted words, space instead of buried disappointment under a spoon on a plate, a scoff, a breath loud enough.
He wanted words, even if he was as terrible at them as the rest of his family.
"So that's it?" Regulus asks. "That's the best you can offer? You stop here?"
Sirius scratches his chin. He knows Reg is not the problem. Merlin, not even Snape is the problem. He told Sirius at the start—again in the middle, when it was already too late—that this meant nothing, that they would never talk about it again.
He always keeps his promises.
And it's true and constant. No matter what happens.
It's Sirius, really, who's the problem—because he never learns to listen.
"Are you going to keep ignoring me?" Reg takes another step. A scoff. "I feel like we are children again and I'm charged for fetching you after you did something out of line."
"You are not obligated to do anything." Sirius tells him. More harshly than he wants to, that Reg deserves. "Give me a moment." He adds, as if a moment will restore the tilt at his core, the unbalance.
"We don't have a moment." Reg continues, an edge in his voice. Concern or urgency —anger perhaps, irritation—colour his words. "Your birthday passed nearly a month ago—another year—and you’re still behaving like a child."
Right, his birthday. He forgot about it. He can't even recall where he was, what he was doing.
Running perhaps, a race that he's always a few steps behind. Uncovering secrets, learning how to win a war he fights in a way so different from what he once imagined.
Not in the front lines, fighting with glory, destroying the enemy attacks, but in the shadows, hidden, the glory of it, only Snape there to witness it.
There, always, a constant.
"Don't you think it's time to grow up, to realise that you are not the centre of the universe?" Reg asks again.
Sirius turns, fixing him with a sharp stare.
"What do you want Reg?" He says. "Do you want a fight? Do you think you can handle it?" Sirius throws his cigarette down.
Reg fakes a laugh, making Sirius infuriated.
"Okay," he tells him. "Let's fight."
Reg frowns, just enough for Sirius to see, to observe it.
"You spent years trying to appeal to our parents, following their every instruction, their every whim and twisted belief, convinced they were right. You branded yourself for them, for a fucked up cause, for a monster that only wants to dominate and kill. You drank and ate and spent time in houses of people that torture and kill for fun." A pause, a breath. "You tortured and killed. You were like them. Until it dawned on you that this whole thing is wrong, until it affected you personally."
Reg is clenching the side of his robes. Like a child. Like Sirius's younger brother.
"And I'm sorry I left you. I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry I wasn't eloquent enough to convince you before all of this—that you had to figure it out yourself. But I fucking tried. It wasn't enough, but that's all I got at ten, at fifteen." Sirius breaths out, gripping the wood of the window frame. "So you can resent me all you want, but own your mistakes. Your faults. I own mine."
"I do." Reg raises his voice. "I put my life on the line to repent. And I know it won't be enough."
Sirius laughs -a sad, angry laughter.
"I don't want you to put your life on the line. You might believe my love has conditions—maybe it does. Maybe I'm not bright enough to see it. But I would still cry for you. Even if I never saw you again. Even if you still believed in all the pure-blood shit. Even if you still were with them. Even if you were still everything I hated, I would still grieve you." Sirius tells him.
"Grieve a Death Eater?" Regulus says -the uncertainty in his voice, makes the mockery weak. "What would your friends say?"
Reg thinks his insults will hurt. They can't. He's second to it—Snape has done it all, said it all, left Sirius bare, raw, fervent.
"They wouldn't know." Sirius replies, truthfully.
Reg smiles as if he caught him.
"Is that what you wanted to hear?" Sirius asks. "That I'm shallow, fake? Maybe I am. I would still cry for you. You are my brother."
Reg scoffs, looking away.
"Blood means nothing to you." Reg accuses.
"You're right. But it's got nothing to do with it." Sirius stares outside the window. It's getting dark, slowly, bit by bit the weak sunlight disappears. "I'll get down in a minute." Sirius says.
No response comes, no steps that indicate Reg's retreat. Sirius looks back at him. He watches Sirius, from the mess of his hair, to the floor his shoes touching. Back at his face.
"What's your deal?" He asks. "With Snape. You both are in each other's throats and you still wait for every sentence that comes out of his mouth."
Sirius laughs. He can't help it. He laughs enough not to cry. He wants to kick the wall, break the window. He wants to ask Reg what's the deal when you sleep with a man. What kind of an explanation there is for someone that hasn't done it before, and still never hesitated. That he would do it again. That he still thinks about it, under the anger and the frustration -under all this confusion.
He wants to learn the significance of such an act, when it happens with someone that had pushed Sirius to his limits.
Enough to have such a conversation with Reg.
"No, really." Reg says, taking a step. "I know I trust him. I know that he sees me as valuable enough to hear my suggestions. And that's it. I can't seem to fathom how you convinced him to come to my rescue. Because I know what it means if he gets caught. He knows what it means."
Sirius turns his gaze at him.
"The Dark Lord resents Dumbledore," a sigh like he can admit it now, "perhaps even fear him. But he hates Severus. His existence alone is a wound at his reputation, in the image he has built. We all knew it, even if we never talked about it. Severus spent months in our circles, enough for the Dark Lord to notice him, enough for him to be one of his closest advisors. He would have been, closer than Bella, if he had taken the Mark. When it was revealed that he worked as a spy the entire time, that he fed us what couldn't be salvaged, only to take the most of the Dark Lord he could get, it was ultimate humiliation. Severus played him, in a way that no other has done. You understand what that means, right? What will happen if he gets caught. It won't be a death. It will be a fate far worse than that." Regulus stares at him, as if he waits to see if Sirius understands. "And he still came to take me out. And I fail to see how you convinced him to."
Sirius breathes. He hears his own breathing, outside and in. It's not that he didn't know, more that it was never laid out in front of him until now. He wants to tell Reg, it's because Snape is mad like him, a different kind of lunatic. That he works without any regard for his own safety. That he's skillful in everything else, but this. That someone needs to do that for him. He has to be someone's priority.
Sirius closes the window, drags the curtains to hide the view.
"I fail to see it too." Sirius says to Reg, taking a step towards the door. The stillness of before has vanished. The anger is there underneath, the confusion too. Maybe he doesn't need to understand what it means. Maybe it doesn't matter. Perhaps what he needs for now, it's a redirection, a cause to put all of this energy and the confusion, and the anger.
Perhaps what matters is that Snape can win this war, but he needs someone to help him survive it until the end.
A side glance from Reg. A cross of his arms.
Sirius is at the door, a foot outside. Maybe he will never find the words, the right ones, for Snape, for Reg, for himself. He turns around, looking at his brother who's staring at him.
"I want you to survive." He says. Because he does. Because what's right might be a lean towards a sentiment, a slight swift.