Percival
Regulus woke up on the carpet in the living room of Grimmauld Place. He must have fallen asleep there sometime after Kreacher had finally forced him to eat something. Regulus was used to waking up to the sound of his mother’s nagging, which was almost always directed toward Sirius, but this time the only sound in the house was the sound of Kreacher padding across the kitchen floor nearby as he worked nearly silently to make breakfast for the people in the house.
Sirius wasn’t awake yet, he was curled into James who was half awake, carding his fingers through Sirius’ hair and muttering something, most likely just kind words to keep Sirius calm. He’d always been good at that, Regulus knew.
“Morning baby black.”James whispered with a gentle smile.
“Shut up, only Potter.”Regulus replied sarcastically as he sat up and stood to head to the kitchen.
“Awe, already sassy this morning?”
“Oi, piss off. You’re just here to help my brother. I don’t need your bright shiny bullshit at seven in the morning.”
“You’ll warm up to me eventually.”
“It’s been twelve years, I don’t think I’ll be warming up to you anytime soon.”
Regulus walked into the kitchen with the intent to help Kreacher, Kreacher only grumbled something and waved Regulus away, motioning for him to sit down at the kitchen table.
“Kreacher, it’s alright. You’re not our slave, we can help-”Regulus began.
“Master Regulus, if I may speak freely?”Kreacher replied.
“Of course.”
“Master, you have suffered a terrible life so far. The least I could do for you in this moment is to allow you the healing time you require after last night. Perhaps you should take that time. I see no problem with ensuring you eat and ensuring the house stays in good, working order. You begin school soon. You should be allowed to enjoy the last part of your childhood, sir.” Kreacher explained, not stopping his duty to make a simple breakfast.
“I just don’t want to put it all on you. You don’t deserve that either. Honestly Sirius and I have had it better than you have and it’s not fair for us to not help you.”
“Sir, you and your brother have done more for me than I could have ever asked for. You shouldn’t worry yourself with the fear that you don’t help me enough.”
“I just worry about you, Kreacher, you know? You’ve spent your whole life a servant to one of the worst families known to this world, you should get a break sometimes.”
“You’re very kind, Master Regulus. But I am grateful to have served you and your brother. I will reserve my feelings about your parents but I will not allow you to believe that you haven’t treated me well.”
Regulus could hear Sirius get up from the couch where he fell asleep against James’ chest. Kreacher turned his full attention back to the pot of oatmeal in front of him.
“Did you sleep at all?”Regulus asked.
“Apparently I slept a little while. But I couldn’t seem to calm down. I never thought I would be so emotional about something like what happened last night.”
“You nearly watched me drown, Sirius. I’m sure that wasn’t a great start.”
“But we got away from them.”
“Yeah, we did do that. But, they were our parents. You’re allowed some emotional attachment to them.”
“Doesn’t feel like I am.”
“Sirius you’re taking too much on, you always do. If you need to be emotional, be emotional. Nobody’s going to stop you anymore. You’ve always been very dramatic about everything else. So let yourself be dramatic about this.”
The comments seemed to calm Sirius down a bit and Sirius walked out to the front porch, most likely to finally have a cigarette. Regulus stayed seated for a minute longer before following Sirius outside. Out of what was probably just a habit, Sirius handed his twin a cigarette and his lighter. Regulus took it without saying a word, set the stick between his lips and lit it, taking a breath and allowing the calming feeling of the tobacco in his lungs to overcome him as he leans against the railing beside him. Sirius is leaned against the brick wall, half a cigarette between his lips and eyes closed. Despite the night he apparently had, he looked as calm as Regulus had ever seen him.
“Were these some gift from Remus?”Regulus asked.
“No, we haven’t talked much since the end of the year last year. I did something stupid and almost lost him as a friend. He asked that we don’t really communicate this summer because he needed a break.”
“Where’d you get these then?”
“I got them from another friend of mine. His name is Percival Dumbledore. I call him Percy. But, after mom and dad kicked me out, he tossed a pack of fags across the common room. He said that he figured I could use a pick me up. So we started talking after that and got pretty close that last month of school before you and I were allowed to talk again.”
“What’s he like?”
“Fucking out of his mind like your friends are. Really reminds me of Pandora, honestly. He’s a Slytherin like you. But he detests his father so he’s always kinda out of control, he’s a spitfire like me, he loves the muggle world. But I suppose that’s to be expected since he was raised in it. He loves running around, causing as much havoc as he can. Really a marauder in that sense too. He’s just different than anyone I’ve met, I guess. Kind of reminded me that parentage means nothing.”Sirius took a breath and tossed the end of his cigarette on the ground, pushing a rock over it with his foot and using his heel to grind it down so it gets put out. “He’s incredibly smart, writes a lot like you do, he’s fun to watch in dueling lessons, he’s amazing at Quidditch, rather violent with a broomstick, breaks his wand all the time but seems to recover easily, great with hand to hand combat. Just incredible in all sorts of ways. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Sirius, you realize what you just did, right?”
“What’d I do?”
“You haven’t said much about our parents to me. But you just spent several minutes talking about someone you hardly know.”
“It’s easier than trying to process what happened. We sent our parents to jail. That’s more than I can think about right now.”
“What’s so special about this friend of yours? I mean, it’s not as though you spent a lot of time with him.”
“I did though. A month is pretty long. For me at least. I used to never see anything out past a night or two. Guess you could call it growth.”
“You never see dates out past a night or two. Friends you make your family. So tell me the truth.”
“There’s nothing else to it, Reg.”
“Tell yourself whatever you want then, Sirius.”
“Alright. So what do you think is going on?”
“I think that you picked up feelings for this guy and you would rather treat him as a friend than ask anything that might make him think you have feelings.”
“What makes you think I have-”
“If you’re best mates with someone, you don’t know as much about them as you talked about, and you don’t talk about their skills like you’re mesmerized by them. You just call them your mate, say you like hanging out with them and move on.”
“Why are you so observant and talkative? Only with me though. Seems like everyone else in our lives would find it appalling if I said that you were like this.”
“You’re deflecting, Sirius.”
Sirius only sighed in response and ran his fingers through his hair. Regulus finished the last of his cigarette and tossed the end of it on the ground, crushing it with his heel like his brother had done.
“You used to tell me that it wouldn’t matter if I told you that I liked a boy or a girl or both or none when we were kids. I guess what I don’t understand is why you don’t see it as okay when you have feelings for someone. I remember how you and Remus used to be. When you would tell me about the way you felt about him. You really felt deep feelings for him and you seemed happy to do so. Obviously that was immensely dysfunctional and clearly not what you should have had, but it was a step in the right direction. A year where you weren’t ashamed to tell someone how much you cared about them was nice to see. I never see it anymore.”Regulus explained, his emotions barely coming out from what he can tell though he knows that Sirius can tell differently.
“It’s different for me. I don’t know how to explain it without scarring you with my own problems but, it’s different and it’ll always be different. I’m proud that you believe that you can love whoever you want. That’s good, means that I did something right when I was teaching you. But, it will always be different for me. I’m not in the same position as you. You have every option in the world, you could do a thousand things wrong and nobody would bat an eye because you’re perfect and some sort of god to everyone in this world. I’m an object of desire, not an object of power.”
“Sirius…”
“I’ll be in my room packing for school and probably trying to catch up on sleep. I’m exhausted.”
“Sirius-”
“Reggie, this isn’t something we’ll talk about right now. You need time to heal from this current tragedy, you don’t need your brother to add anything else on your plate.”
Sirius walked inside without another word, leaving Regulus on the front steps alone. Regulus’ mind couldn’t seem to stop spiraling with terrified thoughts of what Sirius could have been referring to. It crossed his mind that he should ask James since Sirius may have shut the other boy out too. But that wouldn’t be enough. Sirius told James everything, but Regulus always knew more without needing to be told.
Even with his doubts about what James knew, Regulus walked inside to speak to his brother’s best friend who was still laying on the couch, looking positively drained. Regulus strode over and sat beside the bespectacled boy.
“I have a question and honestly I doubt that you have the answer but with this sort of thing, I assume you have more answers than I do.”Regulus said plainly.
“Ask away.”James replied sweetly as he always did.
“Sirius mentioned something earlier about our situations being different. Which I know that they are. But, he said that he didn’t have the choices and the freedom that I do. Did something happen that he isn’t telling me about?”
“Well you know how awful your parents were. You know that the rest of your family wasn’t much better. I’m sure that it’s just something to do with that part of things.”
“I don’t think it is. If it was just that, he wouldn’t freak out or keep things from me about it.”
“Well, what were you talking about that lead to him saying that?”
Regulus ran his fingers through his messy bed head. “This friend he made while he was at school, he was talking about him a lot and I said that it didn’t sound like Sirius just thought about this guy as a friend.”
“Alright. I can explain why that would upset him a little, maybe it’ll help you understand?”
“Go for it. I just don’t know why that would be so bad to say.”
“I assume you mean Percival, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what Sirius said his name was.”
“Percival is a half blood wizard, he was born into the family of the headmaster of Hogwarts and was cast aside by the headmaster. So he’s a bit of a family outcast like Sirius is. Percival was raised the way that Remus was. Like he was nothing. So he became better than what everyone thought he was. Sirius thinks that it could destroy his life the rest of the way if he were to admit to any sort of feeling toward Percival because it seems like he’d be giving into what Orion and Walburga told him he was. So by hearing it from you, I’m sure that it struck him as that fatal ‘Shit, they’re probably right’ moment and he didn’t wanna hear it. Unfortunately your brother did take your parents’ words to heart a lot of the time. Even if he put up a front for you, it wasn’t that he didn’t really care. He convinced himself completely that he wasn’t allowed to care.”
“I guess I still don’t see why that would upset me. He said that’s why he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Most likely because he didn’t want to tell you that he felt like that. He didn’t want you to worry about how he was feeling when so much has happened to you both in the last few hours alone.”
“He really should stop being so damn considerate of my feelings. If he wants to talk about something, I would never stop him or be upset with him or see him any differently.”
“I know that. He doesn’t really know that. He assumes that it’s just something wrong with him if he were to tell you that something was wrong.”
“I’m gonna try and coax it out of him. I know that’s not the greatest way to go in your humble opinion, deer brains but, he’s my brother.”
“Why do you care so much about this, if I may ask.”
“Because, he’s worked his whole life to make sure that I was safe and happy and comfortable and knew right from wrong. He was a parent because ours sucked. So the least I could fucking do for him is help him find someone that cares about him as much as he does about me.”
“That’s a noble thing to do.”
“Oh shut up, Potter.”
James laughed at that and in that moment, Regulus was just glad that James never took his banter for lack of care. James was always friendly and sweet and caring even when Regulus didn’t give the same kind of energy back to him. Regulus couldn’t fully understand that.
Regulus got up from his seat, gently tapped James on the shoulder as a thank you for the insight on Sirius’ situation and headed upstairs to Sirius’ room.
Sirius was sat on his bedroom floor, scribbling something on parchment with one of those self-inking quills that he loves using now. Regulus plopped down beside his twin brother and gently nudged his shoulder.
“So you’re some stoic beast now that can’t have feelings?”Regulus laughed.
“Gee thanks, Reg.”Sirius laughed back.
“You need to learn something else because your old tricks only worked when we were kids. You don’t have to spare my feelings. I’m nearly an adult, Sirius.”
“It’s not your feelings I’m trying to spare. Why do you know that- You talked to James behind my back, didn’t you?”Sirius turned to Regulus, an eyebrow cocked in skeptical surprise.
“Yeah, I did. You wouldn’t tell me so I assumed that James would.”
“So what’d he tell you?”
“He told me that the reason you got all butt hurt and quiet when I told you that it sounded like you had feelings for Percival was that you felt like it would only solidify your position as a family outcast. I didn’t realize that you cared that you were one.”
“Wouldn’t you? Everyone with a pulse would seek their family’s approval no matter what. Even if their family was awful, they’d want even one moment where their parents actually cared about the person they were, not the person their parents were determined to turn them into. But that’s not why I’m not going to ask Percival out. Not the entire reason anyway.”
“What is it?”
“He’s the headmaster’s kid. It would put me in a far worse position if Dumbledore had that sort of power over me. I don’t believe in blind faith like everyone else seems to.”
“But he abandoned Percival.”
“Percival wants his father’s job. He wants power over the school because Dumbledore has separated the school so much that Percy just wants to fix it.”
“That’s noble at least.”
“It’s a death sentence for us both if I were to get involved.”
“I thought it was just cause it’d make you gay.”
“Oh I’ve never cared about that. I don’t preach what I don’t believe. I just don’t want to put myself in a position where Dumbledore could use me as a pawn.”
“Everyone’s always a pawn for someone. It could be worse. You could be a death eater.”
“Or I could die in a war that Dumbledore knows he could end but just won’t.”
Regulus stayed silent after Sirius said that. He hadn’t exactly been aware of what was happening. His parents always kept him shielded to a degree because they didn’t want another rebel in the family. Sirius was always considered the evil one for not wanting to be a part of a huge war on their world that he wasn’t even fighting for himself. Regulus always knew that Sirius would detest any sort of turmoil that included Regulus in it.
Even so, Sirius tearing himself apart over a guy was not going to slide. Not when the biggest barrier to their relationships was gone. War or no war, Regulus was going to find out what was going on with this Percival and he was going to do it the minute they got into the school.