Nothing To Bury

Grimmauld Place is much colder without Sirius. The silence is a grave, and Regulus is the one left entombed within its walls.

The house breaths, but only in sighs and whispers. Ancient, suffocating. Dust and shadows cling to every corner, to every relic of the Black family’s legacy. The curtains hang like funeral shrouds over windows that haven’t seen sunlight in years.

Regulus stands at the bottom of the staircase, watching as Kreacher sweeps in the hall, his muttering echoing through the empty house.

Empty.

As if Sirius took the light with him when he left.

In his absence, the portraits hiss louder, their words sharper, their eyes darker. His mother’s voice rises and falls like the sea, but all he hears is the crash of a fate he cannot escape.

He is the new heir to the House of Black.

Sirius is gone.

Gone to them—to James Potter and his band of reckless Gryffindors. Sirius left him behind, in this mausoleum of old blood and cold names.

He ran, and Regulus is the one who stayed.

The one who remains.

There is a cruelty in that, he thinks. A punishment worse than any his father can inflict.

To be the last Black standing. Alone, like a statue at the head of a forgotten crypt, meant to guard the bones of those who came before.

He wonders, as he stares up at the family tree, burned faces and blank spaces, if he is already buried beneath the weight of this name.

Regulus Arcturus Black—it sits heavy on his chest, like earth waiting to be shovelled over a coffin.

“Kreacher,” He calls softly, his voice drowning in the silence.

The house elf shuffles forward, his thin limbs like twigs snapping under his weight.

"Master Regulus?" His eyes are wide, filled with a strange, unwavering loyalty that makes the wizard ache.

Kreacher is the only one left, the only one who will stay.

Regulus wonders if, when his time comes, Kreacher will be the one to bury him.

“Did Sirius leave anything behind?” He asks, though he knows the answer already.

Sirius always had a way of leaving without a trace, slipping out of this house like it was made of mist and not stone.

Kreacher shakes his head. “Nothing, Master. The blood traitor is gone.”

Nothing. Nothing to bury.

He feels it like a stone in his chest, sinking him deeper into the cold of this house.

He turns from Kreacher, from the blank spaces where Sirius’ laughter once echoed, and moves toward his bedroom.

The hallway feels longer tonight, like a tunnel with no end, the kind they say dead men walk in dreams. His feet make no sound on the ancient wood.

He opens the door and steps into the dark, his sanctuary of silence. The air in there smells like the lake behind their estate—still, cold, unmoving.

Water, waiting. The sheets on his bed ripple faintly, as if stirred by an invisible current.

He wonders, briefly, if this is how he will die.

Alone, sinking slowly into the depths of something he can’t fight.

Sirius is gone, and the silence presses heavier now.

He hears the clock ticking from downstairs, counting down the minutes until he follows him—not in the way he left, with fire and rebellion, but in the quiet, inevitable descent into the shadows.

He sits at his desk, quill poised over parchment, but his thoughts are tangled, trapped in this dark tide. His fingers tremble as he writes:

I am the only one left. The heir. The last son of the House of Black.

His handwriting wavers like ripples on water.

He can feel it—the pull of the dark, creeping in at the edges of his vision, filling the corners of the house like ink spilling across a page.

It’s the same darkness that clings to his mother’s voice, to his father’s heavy footsteps, to the hollow echo of Kreacher’s whispers.

And beneath it all, there is the weight of something more, something nameless that calls to him from the depths.

He thinks of the lake again—the one behind their house.

The way it looks at night, black and endless. Cold, unfeeling, swallowing the moonlight whole.

He wonders if his fate lies there, in those waters.

Sinking, silent, until there is nothing left to bury.

He presses the quill harder into the parchment, as if he can ground himself in this small act of defiance, but the ink only bleeds deeper, a stain spreading, swallowing his words.

A knock on the door breaks through the silence.

“Regulus,” his mother’s voice calls from beyond the door, sharp as always, but with an undercurrent of weariness that never used to be there. “Your father wants to see you.”

The walls seem to close in as he rises, the darkness tightening its grip.

There is no running away, not for him. He is not Sirius. He cannot leave this house, this family, this name.

He cannot run from what he is.

The hallway is a tunnel again, stretching before him like an endless path he has no choice but to walk.

His father’s study is at the end of it, the door looming like the mouth of a crypt, waiting to swallow him whole.

He steps forward, and the air feels heavier, like the weight of water pressing down on his chest.

Inside, his father sits behind his desk, a shadow in the half-light. The fire crackles faintly, but there is no warmth. Only the slow, steady burn of old power, old expectations.

“Regulus,” he says, his voice like stone sinking into the deep. “Come. Sit.”

He obeys, as he always does, and the silence between them stretches, thick as the fog that rises from the lake on cold mornings.

“You know what is expected of you,” he says at last, his gaze heavy on him, like the pressure of the water before it drowns. “You will not disappoint us, as your brother has.”

He nods. He doesn’t speak.

“You understand, don’t you?” he asks, though it isn’t really a question.

He understands. He understands that he will never leave this house, not in the way Sirius did.

His fate is written in the bloodlines of the family, in the darkness that clings to their name.
He is the heir now. The last son of the House of Black.

He bows his head.

“Yes, Father.”

And as the words leave his lips, he feels the weight of the water pulling him under.

Sirius arrived at the Potter house with nothing but a trunk full of memories he wanted to forget.

He stood in the doorway, wild and grinning, like a star streaking out of the night sky, burning and falling all at once.

James didn’t ask what had happened. Didn’t need to.

The Black family had always been a storm at his back, and he’d finally outrun it.

"Welcome home, mate," James said, pulling him into a hug. And it was that simple.

The Potter house is full of warmth—the kind that lingers in the walls and in the old wooden floors, in the smell of Euphemia’s cooking that greets you at the door, and in the sunlight that spills into every room, refusing to leave any corner untouched by light.

It’s not a grand place, not by any measure of old money or Pureblood pride, but it’s home. A real home, not a house full of portraits that judge you from the walls, or parents whose love is conditional, twisted by old ideas and darker ambitions.

Sirius had always looked out of place in Grimmauld. Like something too bright to be trapped there.

Now, in the light of the Potter’s front room, sprawled out on the couch with his feet up and Euphemia fussing over him, he finally looks like he belongs somewhere.

The fire crackles in the hearth, and James glances at him from across the room.

He’s laughing at something Fleamont just said, like he’s been doing it all his life.

James has never seen him so at ease. It’s a strange kind of thing, seeing him here, with them.

James’ family’s always been wide open—wide open hearts, wide open doors. But Sirius? Sirius always lived like a storm cloud was chasing him, never slowing down, never letting himself get caught by any of it. Not until now.

James leans back in the armchair, letting the warmth of the fire wash over him.

The house hums with it, this steady, golden warmth that seems to seep into your bones. Light pours in through the windows even as the evening settles outside, casting long shadows over the fields that stretch beyond the house.

And Sirius… he fits right in with it. Like he’s always been a part of this, even though James knows how hard he fought to break free of the darkness that tried to claim him.

It’s strange, though. James can’t shake the thought of Regulus.

His name presses at the back of his mind, like a smudge on an otherwise perfect picture.

He doesn’t say anything, because why would he?

Regulus is just another Black, isn’t he? Cold, dark, and full of whatever twisted ideas that lot pass off as family values.

James doesn’t know him, not really. He’s always been quiet, kept his distance, even in school. There’s something about him, though, that James can’t quite put my finger on.

But every time he mentions him, Sirius’ face hardens, his easy grin falters.

Regulus, as far as Sirius is concerned, is part of what he left behind. Just another shadow lurking in that old house. And maybe he’s right. Maybe there’s no difference between him and the rest of them, after all.

Still, James can’t help but wonder.

He gets up and wanders toward the kitchen, where the sun spills in through the window like liquid gold. His mum is humming as she prepares tea, the sound filling the space with the kind of warmth only mothers seem to know how to create.

She looks up as he steps in, giving him that same bright smile she’s given him every day of his life.

“How’s Sirius doing?” she asks, pouring the water into two mugs, steam rising in soft tendrils.

He leans against the counter, shrugging lightly. “Better. I think he’s finally settled in.”

She hands him a cup, her fingers warm as they brush against his. “Good,” she says softly. “He deserves to be somewhere that feels like home.”

He takes a sip of the tea, the warmth spreading through him like sunlight on a cold morning. “Yeah,” He murmurs, glancing back toward the living room where Sirius is still laughing with his dad. “I just hope he doesn’t feel like he has to prove anything. He’s got nothing to prove here.”

His mum gives him a knowing look. “People like Sirius don’t stop running just because they’ve found safety, James. Sometimes, they don’t know how to stop.”

He nods, but he doesn’t fully understand. Not really.

Because he’s never had to run from anything, never had to fight to prove who he is.

He’s always been rooted in light, in warmth, in love.

Sirius talks about his family like they’re a curse, a weight dragging him into the dark.
It’s hard to imagine, coming from the Potters. His mum, his dad—they’ve always loved loudly, without conditions, like the light that fills this house. You can feel it in every corner, this glow of acceptance, of belonging.

He wonders what it would be like to grow up without that. To live in a house where love is a shadow, something that comes with a price.

Regulus grew up in that same house, he reminds himself. But Sirius is the one who escaped.

That’s the difference.

Regulus chose to stay.

Back in the living room, Sirius catches his eye. “Oi, Prongs!” he calls, grinning as if nothing in the world could ever touch him. “Get over here before your old man beats me at chess again. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”

James laughs, feeling the warmth of his words sink into his skin. This is how things should be.

Light. Laughter. Love, easy and open, like breathing.

There’s no room for darkness in the Potter home, not with them.

And yet…

Some part of James wonders about the shadow Sirius left behind. About Regulus, alone in that house where the curtains are always drawn, and the silence is thick as death.

But it’s a fleeting thought. Sirius is here. With James. And that’s enough.

He drops into the chair beside Sirius, the fire crackling softly, filling the room with light.

And for now, that’s all they need.