The Kingmaker's Crown

Regulus jerks awake to Kreacher shaking him slightly. 

“Sorry, Mister Regulus, Prince Tom is here to see you.” Regulus feels foggy, there isn't enough light in the room for it to be morning yet and the poison is running thickly through his veins. The Prince? Regulus forces his body up. Staggering over to a water basin, he submerges his face in an attempt to wake himself. It works well enough and the sluggishness seeps away as adrenaline floods him. 

Regulus quickly pulls a hoodie over his dad’s shirt, shoving his feet into his britches as he tumbles out the door. The slaps of his bare feet on the cold floor echo through the house in the silent darkness as Regulus rushes to his father’s office. The door rushes open as he pushes through it in earnest, his eyes landing on his lord in front of him. 

“Sire! Did something happen, what do you need me to -” The fist connects with his cheekbone before the door has even clicked shut behind him. An involuntary sound escapes him as his body staggers back. 

“Did I not grant your every wish?” the Prince hisses as he looms over Regulus. No, he thinks. But he knows better than to say that. 

“Yes sire,” he gasps, head spinning from the poison and the punch. Tom scoffs and strides away from Regulus for a moment before whirling back to face him again.

“And yet,” he spits, looking at Regulus with such disgust it makes him shiver. 

“You risk everything I have built!” The Prince exclaims and Regulus remembers. James had seen his cuts, the ones the peacocks had left on his legs. Regulus hadn’t put two and two together but of course James would know what caused them, he lives at Potter’s Hall after all. 

“Sire, I-” Regulus tries, moving closer to the Prince with pleading hands. 

“Luckily, the boy was not badly hurt,” Tom continues and Regulus hesitates, holding the moment, allowing for the Prince to elaborate. “The wound was superficial thankfully. But do not for a moment think I don't know you wished that it had been fatal.” 

This is about Peter. Regulus strides closer with a frown now.

“My Lord, he was trying to enchant me to- “ Regulus begins.

The Prince cuts him off with a scoff. “Oh, so he knows you cannot be enchanted now too.”

“- to throw myself from the window! He was trying to kill me.” Regulus, perhaps, should have been less naive. Rather than react with enlightenment and understanding, as he expects, the Prince lashes out again. 

He grabs Regulus by his hoodie, forcing him back against the wall, while pulling a knife from his scabbard and holding the blade against Regulus’ throat. 

“You are nothing,” he growls in Regulus’ face. “Without me, you would be nothing. You would scuttle your pointless mortal existence along, unable to take the spotlight because you would burn up like an ant under a magnifying glass. You are a bug. Worthless alone. I have taken you. You will live or die at my whim. I own you. Soon you won’t even have a name.”

Regulus feels when the knife breaks the skin, he isn't sure if he’s in shock or if it's the toxins still running through him but he doesn't register the pain. His body feels like it’s turning to ice, so much so that for a moment he thinks the blade on his skin is cursed. He feels it spreading through him, such a shock of cold that he can’t process his own feelings anymore. 

“Under no circumstance, ever, do you reveal that you are invulnerable to enchantment. Do not reveal that you are trained to be a spy. Give nothing away, no matter the cost.” Regulus breathes slowly. The words clunk into his brain through his ear like a penny into one of those money spinner charity boxes. They enter his brain and begin to spin around his head, swirling in tighter circles before clunking down into comprehension. The delay between hearing the words and accepting their meaning allows him to have no reaction in the moment. Regulus just blinks solemnly at the Prince. 

“Do you understand me?” The Prince asks him after a moment.

“Yes, My Lord,” Regulus rasps. 

The Prince pulls the blade away slightly and Regulus breaths a bit easier. “Tell me.” 

“I am,” Regulus breathes in, the ice inside his lungs makes it hurt. “Nothing. I am your creature.” 

The Prince lets go of his front, reaching for Regulus’ wrist and dragging him over to Alphard’s desk. Tom slams Regulus’ hand down in front of them with a sickening crack that makes nausea roll through him. The Prince presses his dagger into Regulus' other hand before moving it until it’s hovering above the one on the table.

“Prove it,” The Prince demands, releasing Regulus entirely. Regulus hesitates for three entire heartbeats. The Prince is crowded behind him, watching closely. The part of Regulus that is currently subdued by poison is screaming. Begging him to turn the dagger on the Prince himself. The part of Regulus in the room knows there are only two ways for him to leave it. He lets his foggy eyes drift up and locate the dog star in the night sky out the window, then he pulls his hand up and plunges the dagger straight through his hand.

Sirius finds him, breathing heavily, with snot, tears and blood all over him, on the floor of the office, a second after the Prince leaves. Tom didn’t speak to Regulus again. He simply freed his dagger and waved his hand over the wound. The middle parts had healed abruptly, knitting back together until he was left with a rather large cut on either side, as opposed to the hole he’d just put through it. The second the front door had slammed, Regulus had gone down. Lost all of his composure, his internal ice had split in half, cracking apart for all his scrambled insides to spill out. 

His brother burst into the room in his pyjamas, fluffy bunny slippers and feather lined dressing gown, Regulus had looked up at him from his position on the floor and laughed incredulously. 

“Was that Prince Tom?” Sirius had asked as he entered, stopping abruptly at the sight of his brother covered in blood on the floor. Regulus had laughed until they morphed back into sobs. Disappointment and shame run him down like an undercurrent. How foolish he had been. How betrayed he felt. He was so tired. 

Sirius fell to his knees on the floor beside him, frantically grabbing at him again, searching for the source of the blood once more. The noise of despair that escapes his brother when he finds the grotesque injury makes Regulus giggle again.

“Regulus, did the prince do this?” Sirius is pale, he always looks so sad these days. He used to be so bright, luminescent. 

“No,” Regulus sighs. “That's below him.” 

He giggles again and Sirius screws his eyes shut. 

“Are you high?” he hisses. 

Regulus shrugs, “I don’t think so, maybe I'm low.” 

“Maybe you’re in shock,” Sirius tells him. A sharp sound reaches them and the twins meet each other's eyes. It’s the sound of heels on tile. Narcissa. 

“She can’t know, no one can know,” Regulus implores and Sirius throws his hands up in exasperation. 

“You want me to cover this for you without telling me why?” he throws back at Regulus. They're both whispering, conscious of Narcissa’s fae hearing.

“Fiancé,” Regulus whispers back, something like shame flashes over Sirius’ face for a second and his eyes flick to Regulus’ neck. 

“Fine. But you need medical care, the least you can do is let me stitch you back up.” Regulus just nods back and Sirius stands. His brother exudes grace as he rises to his full height, letting his sleeves fall to their full cascade. His hair is twisted into a graceful bun but strands of it have come loose. Sirius has blood all over his hands but he sighs and smears it under his nose, glaring at Regulus as he slips from the room. 

Regulus dips in and out of consciousness for a while, only partly overhearing Sirius explaining a stress nosebleed to their step mother as one of those human things. When Sirius reappears he’s a lot cleaner and he’s swapped his robe for a jumper. Regulus recognises it as his own but can’t be bothered to argue. Sirius helps him up and lets him lean on his shoulder all the way to Regulus' room. His brother has already set up, there’s a bed of pillows in front of the fire with a bowl of steaming water, a candle, needle and embroidery thread.

Sirius helps Regulus lower down and pull the now ruined hoodie off. Sirius carefully cleans the wound while Regulus fights to remain awake. Sirius is chewing his lip but seems determined not to ask Regulus any questions. 

“You should just go to sleep,” Sirius tells him at last, breaking the silence abruptly, making Regulus jump. “It’s going to hurt. A lot. At least if you’re unconscious you won’t remember it.” 

“Will you embroider something beautiful on me?” Regulus giggled, the fairy fruit from his microdose still echoing in his veins. 

“Make me beautiful like you,” he mumbles. Sirius doesn’t reply. 

When Regulus wakes, someone is inspecting his hand, he wrestles his eyes open, expecting Sirius. 

“Morning Reggie,” The Wolf grins. He’s sat on his arse next to Regulus, there’s ointments and supplies laid out on the floor next to him. Regulus watches him without saying anything for a long moment before the Wolf sighs. “What do you want me to say, Reggie?”

“Don’t call me that.” The Wolf picks up one of the tinctures and drops some of it into the sutures. Smoke rises alarmingly but Regulus can’t feel more than a light sting. The pain is far worse in the cold light of day, recovered from his poisons. 

“I have to report back to him with what I see. You know that. It’s part of my agreement.” 

Regulus swallows dryly before rasping a reply. “You were watching me?” 

The Wolf somehow looks even more shifty as he shrugs.

“I wasn’t watching you, no.” He reaches with his free hand for a goblet of water and holds it up for Regulus to drink from. He does, glaring at the Wolf the whole time, but he refuses to meet Regulus’ eyes. 

“When you came down all covered in blood… You seemed fine but when Peter came down, bleeding everywhere like a little bitch…” The Wolf scoffs and Regulus has to resist the urge to grin with pride at that. 

“Well, it wasn’t exactly subtle, Reggie. He was screaming his head off about you. If it hadn’t been for your Prince there, I reckon the little Lord would have gone straight to the King for your head.” The Wolf tuts and looks up at Regulus, “This is broken, you know.” 

Regulus had suspected. 

The Wolf begins to make a splint for his wrist as he continues. “He was vile. Going off about how you’re just human scum, that he’d pay with your head, all this shite about mud and dirt. I’m sure you’ve heard it all before.” 

Regulus wonders if the Wolf has heard it all before too, with his rounded ears and pop culture knowledge. 

“I don’t know what made you do it, but he probably could have demanded a trial and that wouldn’t have looked good for Tom, or us.” The Wolf ties off the splint on Regulus’ arm and lowers it carefully down again. 

“What did Tom say to make him drop it?” Regulus asks, adjusting himself on the pillows. 

The Wolf frowns up at him, “Tom?”

“You said, if it hadn’t been for your Prince there?” Regulus blinks at the Wolf, his head still hurts and so does his hand. He wants to go back to sleep. He cried too much, it always leaves him feeling wooly. 

“Ohh.” He grins wolfishly at Regulus. “Not Prince Tom, Reggie. Your Prince.” 

The Wolf tilts his head to the side. 

“James.” 

Regulus sits up straight, staring at him like he’s insane. 

“What are you talking about?” Regulus wants to reach out and shake him. 

“He calmed Petey down. He was all, ‘What will he say in court? Did you hurt him first? Threaten him? His father won’t let you hurt him, the General would wage war before he let you hurt his son’ and the little lord couldn't give him a straight answer. It was all very dramatic.” 

“That’s not true,” Regulus splutters and the Wolf gives him that look again. 

“Oh sure,” he deadpans and Regulus huffs.

“Just because you believe it to be true, does not make it so,” he throws back. 

The Wolf ignores him, leaning down to inspect Regulus’ stitches again. “Did you do this yourself? It’s very good work. I’ll let Horti know you’re good at this.” 

“Sirius did it,” Regulus tells him and the Wolf’s smile turns into something else.

“Get that look off your face,” Regulus demands and the Wolf laughs. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask.”

“You owe me for this,” Regulus pouts, wiggling his splintered wrist, the Wolf frowns but argues. 

“Well, I had to tell the Prince about Petey… I might have failed to mention that you are in the first stages of Mithridatism and therefore probably pretty high on fairy fruit at 2 AM.” Regulus bites his lip and watches the Wolf look everywhere, apart from at Regulus. 

“Why not?” he whispers. The Wolf shrugs.

“Knowledge is power, the only power you get in this life. Keep some for yourself. We deal in the currency of secrets, Reggie. Store them.” 

“Do you like your name?” Regulus asks him, the question burning into him as badly as the knife ever since Tom had uttered the words, soon you won’t even have a name. The way Bandit had almost slipped up naming his friend also sat in Regulus' brain like a rot. How many red flags had he ignored? 

The Wolf’s face goes flat. “It’s safer than the one I had.” 

He rises to his feet, picking up his bag and moving to the door. Regulus calls after him;

“I’m going to go see Horti later. I want to see if Bandit can do some training with me as well, so I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

The Wolf hesitates, nodding and glancing back at Regulus. 

“Look, I wouldn't ask you to lie to anyone but… Perhaps don’t mention to anyone I was here.” A warm feeling floods Regulus as the realisation lands. The Wolf isn't here on orders, perhaps he’s here against them. Regulus nods. 

“See you tomorrow, Nurse Nightingale.” The Wolf flips him off as he goes. 

Sirius Black wakes when his brother’s bedroom door is slammed shut, he lays in his bed as footsteps hurry through the hall. Sirius sits up with a huff and scowls at the door. On his bedside table is a black, fluffy, battery powered alarm clock that Andromeda had gifted him for Christmas, the time reads 02:35 AM. What on earth is Regulus doing? Sirius stays as still as he can, straining to hear anything through the house; he's so still that the tap on the window scares him badly enough that he scrambles out of bed. He fumbles to light his bedside candle and stands there in his pjs, breathing heavily. 

He stands there for a second before the sound comes again. It’s like a tree branch on the glass. A completely normal sound, if you had a tree outside your window. Sirius shivers, deciding to put his slippers on, he shuffles around the bed. His feet have just settled into the cozy insides when the tapping happens again. Sirius can’t keep ignoring it. Morbid curiosity drives him to look, he searches for a weapon and comes up with nothing but a hairbrush. 

With one hand raised to strike, Sirius yanks back the curtain. He has to rush to stifle a horrified gasp as he realises who is standing outside his balcony. Sirius opens his mouth to speak when he sees the paper in the male's hand. It’s the guy from Regulus’ room. Sirius takes a second to take the image in;

Don't speak, we’ll be heard. 

That’s not fucking ominous or anything, great. Sirius looks back at the male in front of him and finds himself being devoured with his eyes. A blush rushes across him and Sirius suddenly turns away, dropping the hairbrush as he rushes to tug his dressing gown on, feeling suddenly exposed. He turns back to find the male watching him with pure delight on his face. Sirius huffs and the feathers along his neckline ruffle. The guy looks away for a second, rubbing a hand across his face. His sleeves fall down to his elbows and Sirius can see burn tissue all over his forearms. 

The guy, Romulus he thinks, pulls out another piece of paper and holds it flat against the window;

Reggie needs help. 

Sirius frowns, Regulus rarely needs help, certainly never wants it. Romulus swaps the paper out;

He doesn't want to get caught. He’ll hear you coming 

Sirius hesitates, he can’t step in between Regulus and-. Maybe this man knows what Sirius has done because he shakes his head and looks at Sirius with nothing short of disappointment. He pulls a pen out and writes on the back of one of the papers. 

It isn't them.

Sirius still hesitates, any of his other siblings, he’d have been there in a flash, but he swore… The male outside holds his gaze for a long moment before his gaze flicks behind Sirius and he writes again, frantically flipping the paper, urgency in his eyes. 

NOW 

Sirius bolts, runs from his room, tearing through the house. Guilt burns through his heart, his own selfish choices making his body flush with shame and regret. But Sirius has long since made his bed. He didn't think it would go this far though. He hears the front door rip open just as he spills into the entry hall. The glimpse he catches of Prince Tom makes him stumble but he bursts into their father’s study. 

“Was that Prince Tom?” he asks, before coming to a halt, the previous flush draining through him so quickly he feels dizzy. Reggie. Sirius falls to his knees, clawing at his brother. 

Sirius sits with Regulus until the man breaks in. Sirius watches him do it, he probably shouldn't enjoy it so much. The way the lithe body climbs over the balcony, the way he crouches down to pick the lock. How he finally looks up to meet Sirius’ eyes halfway through and grins like a cat. The way it makes Sirius’ tummy swoop. 

“Thank you,” the man tells him. Sirius ignores him.

“Is he going to be okay?” Sirius asks, fingers still entwined with Regulus’ good hand. 

“Sirius.” The man has warning in his tone and Sirius grinds his teeth. 

“My brother is clearly in deep shit. You can at least tell me he’s going to be okay.” 

The male walks up to him, crouching down next to Sirius and reaching out to cup his face. 

“You made your choice baby, you sacrificed your brother to the beasts, you don't get to regret it now.” 

Sirius yanks his face free. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, I don't even know who you are.” 

“I know… everything. Reggie here is my friend. I’m going to make sure that he knows everything too, pretty one. I hope you beat me to it. He should hear it from you.” He reaches out and tucks a strand of Sirius’ hair behind his ear. “I’ll still think you’re beautiful when he’s done with you. Who am I to judge a scar?” 

“Reggie doesn't have friends,” Sirius spits back, unable to even consider the penance he might have coming. His brother would forgive him.

“I think it's pretty clear he didn't have any,” Romulus chuckles. He's still so close to Sirius that he can feel his breath on his cheek. “He does now.” 

“I’m going to tell him, after the coronation.” Sirius breathes. “I’m not enjoying this, you know. I didn't have a choice.” 

“We all have a choice, Baby, you chose to turn your back on your twin. You’re choosing to let him be the last to know, you’re choosing not to tell him until you have what you want.” 

Sirius turns back to him, furious. 

“You don’t get to judge me,” he hisses. Those amber eyes are watching him hungrily and the man laughs; 

“I promise, I'm not judging you. It’s an impressive game. I’m just rooting for a different outcome.” 

He shifts, rising to his feet before lowering a bag onto the floor. He extends a hand towards Sirius, “Thank you for your help, I’ll take it from here.” 

Sirius takes his hand and rises from the floor. His body is stiff and his heart full of ink. He can feel it sloshing around in his chest, oily and black. He hesitates at the door, just long enough to catch a glimpse of the male murmuring soothingly to Regulus.