Sirius Black is about a year and a half old when his brother is born. Children don’t store long term memories until they’re about three to four years old, but for over 20 years Sirius will be convinced this is his first memory. The recognition that he had a little brother. He remembers the exact moment he first laid eyes on his brother and had the barely coherent thought that he was an older brother. That he would do anything for the small bundle in his mothers arms. (He nearly did, at least for a while)
Regulus is not an easy baby. Sirius had been, Walburga praised him for it. When Sirius sat patiently waiting, Regulus had tantrums. Sirius was polite to guests and Regulus cried when people looked at him. Sirius had started walking before he turned one, Regulus would rather be carried everywhere, and when their parents didn’t give into his wishes he’d scream and crawl after them. Sirius is fascinated by him from day one, he has a hard time imagining that the little boy will forever be his brother. Everytime Regulus screams and Orion silences him or Walburga locks him in a room, Sirius is terrified they’ll tire and get rid of him. So Sirius does his best to help Regulus by himself, so that their parents don’t grow bored of the screaming. Sirius doesn’t love how much time Regulus spends screaming and throwing a fit, but he’d rather have that and a brother than no brother at all.
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When Regulus takes his first steps he does it in an attempt to reach Sirius. The urge to be near his older brother was as natural to him as breathing was and walking would be. You take a deep breath in and then out, you put one foot in front of the other, you look for Sirius and then you find him. As simple as that. Loving Sirius was as easy as breathing, maybe even easier, at least at first/for a while.
Regulus thinks Sirius is the most interesting thing on the planet, he could spend all his time watching him. For most of his childhood he does. Sirius teaches him to read books, and every night they read together. Sirius teaches him to call on Kreacher, which he does, endlessly. The first thing Regulus disagrees on with Sirius is Kreacher. Sirius hates him, says he’s mean, and cruel, but Regulus knows different. Sirius doesn’t come everytime Regulus calls on him, but Kreacher does. Kreacher is kind to him, he plays with him, reads books with him, makes food for him. Sirius does all of that too but not always. Supposedly Kreacher does none of that for Sirius, that’s why Sirius doesn’t like him.
It’s the first conflict Regulus encounters, he believes everything Sirius says, except what he says about Kreacher.
Regulus doesn’t stop to think about what that means. He can believe everything else Sirius says is truth, and he does.
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Sirius spends his childhood being an older brother. He helps raise his younger brother. Learns to read to read him bedtime stories, learns how to navigate the house to sneak food and snacks for his brother, learns to swim to teach Regulus. It’s very easy to learn things when you do it for someone else.
Sirius learns to lie for Regulus. It should be hard, every book he’s read says lying is bad, and you should never do it, but when it comes to Regulus, Sirius doesn’t struggle. He lies easily, Sirius says he broke the vase Regulus hit, Sirius cut Regulus hair despite the scissors resting in Regulus hands, Sirius drew on the wall while the pens that did it sit on Regulus desk. Sirius takes punishment after punishment. Regulus never thanks him. Sirius forgives him for it.
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Sirius was born perfect. Walburga has said it over and over to everyone she meets. She named him after the brightest star and he never stopped shining. Sirius is perfect, the exact heir they needed. He’s silent, he learns quickly on his own, she never needed to hold his hand to walk, he stood up and walked to her one day and that was it, she never needed to read to him, he picked up a book one day and then never stopped. Kreacher helped of course but not much, he did not like children. Neither did Walburga, except Sirius. Her perfect boy. Her brother was jealous, he’d had three daughters by then, and given up on producing an heir after the third. Walburga got a son on her first try, and a perfect one at that, smart, beautiful, strong. Then Orion said they better have a spare, just in case. Walburga had thought him crazy, as if she’d ever let anything happen to her golden boy. But Orion was set on it, and Sirius was perfect, obviously his sibling would be too.
Then Regulus was born. Too loud, too unhappy, too slow. Walburga wants to love him, he’s her flesh and bone after all, he’s the same as Sirius and she loves Sirius. She doesn’t feel much about Orion but she supposes she likes him enough and Regulus is just as much him as her. Regulus doesn’t learn by himself like Sirius had. Regulus is not silent like his brother. Regulus is not strong like her first born. Regulus is not perfect, there’s nothing she likes less than imperfections. Strangely enough, Orion likes Regulus. He never liked Sirius much, she’d put it off by assuming he didn’t like children, but he likes Regulus. He lets Regulus crawl around in his study, a place neither Walburga or Sirius is allowed in. Walburga does not understand his liking for the screaming brat, but she allows it, for she needs to see him less when Orion cares for him.
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The thing is, living in a household where your brother is the favourite makes it very hard not to resent him. Regulus carries his resentment quietly, in the back of his soul where no one can ever see it. Sirius is the best person, the best thing, just the best, in all of Regulus' life. He’ll never meet anything that is better. Regulus loves him for that, but he hates him for the way their parents see it too. He knows he shouldn’t, Sirius deserves recognition for being the best, but in the dark of his room he wishes Sirius wasn’t. Wishes he was a little bit less best, let Regulus be a little bit better. In the morning glow he’ll sneak into Sirius room and watch as Sirius makes up a story using his toys, Regulus will hang onto every word. He’ll ask questions such as “But where did the stars go when the sun woke up?” and Sirius will answer that they simply went home, to return the next night. Regulus will point to the small figure in Sirius's hand and ask where it’s magic came from, and Sirius will make up another story about a well of magic.
As the midday sun shines on them, they’ll sneak into the playground a block from their house, Regulus will swing and watch while Sirius climbs higher and higher on the jungle gym, then he’ll watch as Sirius befriends every child in the park.
When the sun sets he’ll watch Sirius tell their mother he forced Regulus with him, and Regulus will be quiet. He’ll stay quiet until Sirius sneaks into his room later with bruises forming. He’ll ask why Sirius befriended mudbloods, Sirius won’t answer, but there will be a look in his eye Regulus won’t forget.
When the stars are up again, and Sirius has returned to his room, the creeping jealousy will return. Why can’t he make up stories like Sirius does? Why can’t he befriend everyone easily? Why is he never brave enough to speak out? Why must Sirius always take the blame, and why is he always forgiven so easily when Regulus wouldn’t be?
He loves his brother. He thinks of him as the most interesting being in the world, the best person to ever exist and possibly the worst person to compete for attention with/share parents with.
-
Years pass like that. Her beautiful golden boy Sirius, and her spare Regulus. She notices the difference in Sirius after Regulus starts to grow. He’s less perfect every day he spends with his younger brother. She tried to separate them, but they always found their way back to one another. Sirius starts taking after his brother, it starts small, not getting to bed in time, because he’s saying goodnight to Regulus. Then he starts misbehaving, he spills tupperware, he accidently ruins a vase, then he’s suddenly drawing on walls and running into things to break. Then he starts sneaking around. Her golden boy stops shining as brightly. There’s one to blame, but by then he has calmed. Regulus grows out of many imperfections, just as Sirius grows into them.
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Regulus grows out of whining. Sirius is so magically thankful for it. Their mother has stopped looking at Regulus with disdain, but the price of it was having her stop looking at Sirius at all. He thinks it’s a price he was willing to pay, a brother or a mother to love him? The answer was easy. Regulus is his best friend. Walburga would have never been his best friend, though he misses having a loving mother. She’s stopped calling him her golden boy.
By now Regulus has stopped causing issues, but Sirius has just started. He was never allowed to when he needed to put all his focus on protecting Regulus, but he’s felt every punishment for every mistake Regulus has made. He’s never actually caused any issues himself, but he has scars littering his body to imagine he’d have burnt the house down. Because of it he thinks he might as well try to cause trouble himself for once, to see if the punishments make sense when his hand commits the crime.
It’s addictive. He spent his first years in life caring for Regulus, living for Regulus, he’s never done things for himself before. But this is it. Pouring water on the floor, causing his parents to slip, moving books around the house which makes them run around searching, changing the clocks in the house to wake up the house multiple times, waking up Kreacher at night and giving nonsense requests.
At first he asks Regulus to help him, he does a few times, but Regulus isn’t very interested. He’s been growing more cautious with the years. Less fun, a little less of the boy that worshipped the ground Sirius walked on. He knows it’s fine, Regulus is allowed to be his own person, Sirius just got used to him being his adoring little brother. He misses that. They still read every night together before bed, and they sneak to the kitchen and ask Kreacher to make them things their parents would never allow, pancakes, bacon, ice cream. But Regulus doesn’t search him out every hour of every day like he used to. He doesn’t follow every one of Sirius's plans blindly.
It’s why one summer morning he sneaks out alone. The playground has a few kids on it, he recognises none. They don’t leave the house very often, mostly they only travel to his cousin's house, or the diagon alley. A blonde boy asks him to play and he does. They pretend to be pirates, though Sirius is unsure what a pirate is; he gathers they live on the sea and fight monsters. The boy is a muggle. Sirius' parents believe muggles are stupid and worthless but Sirius quite likes this one. Andromeda pops into his mind, she’s told him not to listen to them, that muggles and muggleborns are cool, he supposes she could be right. This one seems alright, and so do the other kids that eventually join them.
Sirius is locked into his room for days as a punishment, Regulus is pissed and doesn’t come to talk to him, so he’s pretty much alone for days on end. He has nothing to think about but the nice muggles, and Andromeda.
-
Regulus will never forgive Sirius for leaving without him. He repeats this to himself for days, until Sirius is let out from his room and immediately knocks on Regulus' door.
“I’m sorry” He says, looking sad. “I should have asked you to come with me. I will next time. I promise” He holds out his pinky finger. Regulus can’t help it. They shake on it. He’s excited. He loves the playground, they only go a few times a year, and they haven’t been in a year by now.
Neither of them know that they’ll never go to the playground again, the next time a perfect opportunity to sneak away appears, Sirius will be in Scotland, and Regulus will be too afraid to go alone. But they don’t know this yet so instead they make plans for what they will do when they’re there next time.
They’re older now. Regulus still thinks Sirius is the best person ever, but he thinks that maybe Sirius is getting a little lost in the world. He’s always struggled to follow their parents wishes but lately he’s been getting worse, as if he’s looking for punishment. Sirius has always been the favourite but recently mother likes him less, doesn’t praise his name like before. Regulus doesn’t know if she likes him more, now that Sirius takes up less of her heart. He hopes. Sirius acts out more than ever before, it’s getting relentless, Regulus has been good. He’s been good for so long, he’s only praying it will pay off.
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Sirius is ten when Walburga realises he’s too different. Too far from perfect it might not be salvageable. Cygnus and Druella comment on it everytime she sees them. She always mentions their middle daughters' outbursts and they quickly turn silent. It’s worse for Walburga though because Sirius is the heir that she was proud of when he was first born, she’s not felt that pride in long. She fears Sirius will run their legacy into the ground if he doesn’t sharpen up soon. Hogwarts is a year away, and she's instructed Narcissa to look after him. The school will straighten him out. This calms her, she’ll send him off, she won’t have to see him for long and he’ll return better.
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Winter 1970 they’re attending a ball at Cygnus and Druella. Sirius has been dressed in his best suit and he’s on a mission to find Andromeda or Narcissa and drag them away. Andy is his favourite but Narcissa is alright. He avoids Bellatrix, and he tries to keep Regulus away from her too. Problem with Regulus is that he doesn’t want to sneak around with Sirius. There’s children here their age and while Sirius has never felt any form of connection to them Regulus enjoys speaking to children his own age. Sirius has stopped reminding him he could speak to the children they meet when they sneak away to the playground a block away, Regulus doesn’t want to. He hopes it’s because Regulus is shy, but he fears it’s because they’re muggle. Sirius has decided he likes the muggles but he hasn’t successfully persuaded Regulus yet. It’s partly why he wants to find Andromeda, so that she could explain, because she explained to him.
He finds her hiding in her bedroom, Narcissa sat beside her on the bed. Andy wears a red dress and Narcissa blue gown. He thinks they’re pretty.
“Sirius, what are you up to?” Andromeda asks, leaning down to meet his eye.
“What can you tell me about hogwarts?” He asks in return. Andy will graduate by summer and Cissa will start her last year when Sirius starts his first. They’re the perfect people to ask.
They tell him about the long train ride, the castle, the houses, that he doesn’t need to worry about which house since every Black has been a slytherin since the start of the school, hogsmeade, the classes, the ghost teacher. Andromeda smiles when she talks about her friends and Narcissa smiles when she mentions Malfoy the year above her. (Andromeda rolls her eyes when he’s mentioned). They make it sound great. He leaves the room excitedly. To find Regulus by the end of the stairs
“You left me alone down there” He pouts.
“I told you i was looking for Andy and Narcissa” Sirius exclaims
“I said i didn’t want to”
“I know that but I still wanted to find them. I couldn’t stay with you when I looked for them, could I?”
Regulus remains annoyed for the night, but Sirius makes up a game to play with him safely from the corner and he calms. Sirius is gonna miss him everyday, a few years ago he knew Regulus would be scared without him but now he worries Regulus won’t miss him at all.
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Their parents complain about blood traitors over dinner. Regulus memorises the names. Wesleys, Potters, Browns more and more. Eventually Andromeda's name gets added to the list of blood traitors, and removed from the family tapestry. Sirius is mad about it. Regulus has never seen him like this. Completely distraught. Their mother gets mad at him, and for the first time, Sirius talks back. It’s the worst argument the house has seen. Regulus fears they’ll never get back to what it was before. Whatever love mother had for Sirius shrivels after that. It’s terrifying to see. She turns to him now, she says things like ,,You’ll never disappoint me will you darling?,, and ,, you’re gonna make me proud,,
His father doesn’t say anything about Sirius, but his father never has before.
Beside the arguments and the screaming.
Hogwarts is the only thing Sirius talks about for months. How excited he is, how much he likes his wand, how he’ll use all his money on sweets. Regulus hates him for it. How badly Sirius wants to leave, as if Regulus means nothing. Regulus hates Hogwarts for taking his brother away. Sirius tries to comfort him by saying it’s only a year. Regulus has never gone more than a few hours without his brother. Sirius might have had a year and a half without Regulus before he was born, but Sirius has always been in Regulus' life. He’s not okay with him leaving. He’s terrified Sirius will forget him.