The Missing Letters
There was water leaking onto his windowsill. Outside, the wind and rain battled, crashing against the trees and the street lamps, making them sway. It was shut away, like a muted painting; raging, screaming without a sound to be heard.
Somehow, though, the storm had got in.
Running a finger through the water, he brought his finger up to the window. With his finger the paintbrush, the water the paint, and the window the canvas, he carefully drew on a face. Two eyes and a downturned mouth. Drops ran down the glass panes from his drawing, joining the puddle once more.
It was around midnight and he was meant to be sound asleep, but he could never rest during a storm. Sirius always noticed his tiredness the next morning, assuming the storm had scared Regulus from sleep. When asked, he agreed, preferring to accept the harmless assumed-truth as fact rather than correct his brother.
Sirius had rarely understood him and Regulus could tell trying had always caused him frustration.
In truth, he stayed up to watch the storms from the safety of his window because he found it calming to see the chaos unfold as he remained untouched. It was the level of detachment he longed for in his own life, one that he couldn’t achieve no matter how much he screwed his eyes closed or pressed his palms to his ears.
The only thing he didn’t like about the storm was the absence of the stars. The storm made sure to eradicate them from view, to somehow outshine them with its violent sparks of lightning, to steal them away from him when he needed them most.
In the growing puddle, he looked at his reflection. His face warped with the movement as the water began spilling down the wall. Ghostly, was how he’d describe himself. A presence so unnoticeable that he might as well be invisible. A confidence so lacking that he was starting to wonder if there was anything to him at all, or if he was just a shell where a person should be.
In the water, his reflection morphed. A face looked back, his father in one light, his mother in another. Same dead eyes, same downturned mouth, same piercing glare. Regulus watched the reflection’s mouth move as his own remained firmly shut, outlining words with no sound to come out. He was no more alive than his rebellious reflection, he thought.
Before he could figure out what was being said, his door opened and he snapped around to face the intruder. It was only Sirius, looking sheepish noticing Regulus’ uneasy, frightened state.
“The storm scaring you? I wanted to check when I heard the thunder,” Sirius whispered, clicking the door lightly behind him. “Had to wait for Mother and Father to be asleep though.”
Regulus glanced back to the puddle as Sirius walked in to sit on his bed, but it was gone. Not a single drop of water in sight. On the window pane remained a slight smudge from his fingers outlining the sad face he’d drawn.
The House was playing tricks on him again. It wasn’t the first time. It happened often, in different ways, and each time he fell for it as though it was the first time being played.
Once he’d gone to have a bath. It had been normal to start, the water gushing out of the tap and filling the tub. But suddenly the tap had spluttered, and rather than water, torrents of blood had begun streaming out. Regulus had shouted out, run away. Once he’d returned dragging Sirius along with him, all there was to see was a bath overflowing with water, the bathroom tiles soaking their socks.
Another time a dreadful knocking came from his door, laboured breathing sounding through the cracks. Regulus had hid under his covers, rocking with palms to his ears but not being able to escape the sounds of scratching on wood. After a while, the thing had shuffled and left. The next morning, he had found wet footprints leading from his room to the open front door. He had believed something had broken in, but when he asked Kreacher to clear up the mess, they were gone. Sirius told him it was a nightmare, Mother had told him he was an attention seeker, and it had been Father who had told him of the games the House liked to play.
“I can’t sleep,” Regulus said to Sirius, walking over sullenly to sit with him on the bed.
“Neither. Do you think the train will still run in this weather?” Sirius asked, gaze fixed on the window, a rare thoughtful expression on his face. Usually, Sirius was never uncertain. “Suppose it must.”
“What train?” Regulus asked. Sitting cross-legged, he fiddled with the elastic of his sock, needing something to do to calm his body as the adrenaline subsided.
“The train to Hogwarts, silly.”
Of course. Today was the 31st of August, and tomorrow was Sirius’ first day of first year at Hogwarts. Tomorrow, Sirius was leaving. Just the thought alone made him miserable. He wouldn’t meet Sirius’ eye, in fact he’d been avoiding it for a while now. He just couldn’t bear to see the excitement, the anticipation, the joy at the idea of leaving him.
“You’ll write?” Regulus asked, pitifully.
“Of course, Reggie. You didn’t think I wouldn't, did you? I’ll tell you everything, anything you want to know just ask,” Sirius told him.
Regulus was always bursting with questions. Ever since he was young, he had had so much more he wanted to know and no one to ask. Uncle Alphard had always humoured him but Uncle Alphard was long gone, exiled from the family and never to return. There was another question; why? No one had ever told him a proper answer. “He was a blood traitor,” they’d say, but how so? “He’s a disgrace to the family,” but what exactly did he do? Regulus never dared ask the questions out loud, but they collected like drops to a pool soon to overflow.
So, it was rare for him to have the ability to ask questions but not want to know the answers. Regulus found he didn’t want to know anything about where Sirius was going. He didn’t want to hear how happy Sirius would be, what he would be doing and how it would be so much better than home, his friends who would be better company than he had ever been.
But, he wanted to hear how much Sirius missed him, he wanted proof that he was valued, wanted, needed, so he asked Sirius to write to him.
“You’re not upset with me, are you?” Sirius asked quietly, having received no response from the sulking Regulus.
Regulus looked at him and shook his head. Sirius smiled, unaware of the lie. No matter how hard he tried, Regulus just couldn’t feel happy for Sirius. To be the second son was a curse; to be left behind, forgotten. The curse spread like a disease, leaving bitterness and resentment in all of Regulus’ being. It had been growing for a while now.
That night, Sirius waited with him until the storm had all but passed before creeping back to his room. Regulus didn’t go to sleep, but lay on his bed staring at the damp patch on the ceiling in the vague shape of a human being. It moved when he moved so he tried his best not to.
Awaking the next morning, that too was gone.
-
Regulus waited by the window for Sirius’ letters. The day Sirius had gone, Regulus hadn’t been allowed to accompany them. Mother was always convinced he’d embarrass her, so she forbade it even when Regulus promised he wouldn’t cry.
He didn’t do that anymore.
The evenings were getting darker. It was only seven but the darkness outside suggested long gone ten. Dinner would soon be ready and so before then, having completed all his lessons with his governess, he waited, watching the skies for the glimpse of an owl headed to his window.
All his spare time was spent this way. There wasn’t much else to do in that house other than wait until he got the chance to leave. For three weeks, at any time his parents left him alone in his room, he sat at his desk by the window alternating between watching the skies and scrutinising the parchment where he was writing another letter to Sirius that he would never send.
Regulus refused to send letters to someone who didn’t want them.
Sometimes, the ink smudged as though from a tear or from rain. But Regulus didn’t cry anymore, and there were no leaks in the ceiling. The drops blocked out words, great chunks of parchment wrinkled and ink dissolved to be illegible, making most of his sentences disappear, finding meanings anew.
Where he’d written in his latest letter ‘You’re probably busy, and I get that, but won’t you write to me? You promised. I wanted to go with you, it's not fair. you can’t just forget me.’ all that could be seen was ‘...you…promised…to…not…forget me.’
Other instances were more subtle - ‘Mother hates when I ask about you, she’s very angry’ became ‘Mother hates…you.’ In contrast, ‘Mother wishes I get better at piano, it was always you with the music talent,’ became ‘Mother wishes I…was…you.’
Sighing, he screwed up each page, each almost fully soaked where he’d left them laying on his desk. They all clumped together, unreadable, unsendable even if he suddenly had a change of heart and called for his owl.
He took out his wand. It was a family relic, having belonged to one of his great great grandfathers. He had only been given it that summer, by his mother, with the strict instruction to never use it outside his lessons with his governess. It brought him great joy, that his mother trusted him with it, since Sirius had never been given anything so important.
Out of all the extra lessons his parents had arranged for him, lighting fires was the one spell he had mastered. He hesitated before casting the spell, thinking of his mother’s disapproval, but decided she would much rather see ashes than see the words he had written.
Surprisingly, for Regulus, it took but one try to set them alight, despite the water that soaked them. In the back of his head, he could hear Sirius’ voice; that’s because it’s not real, Reg, don’t be dense.
Daring not to think too much about it, he continued watching the flames. He felt the brief urge to let it rage, to allow it to spread to his desk, to never put it out, to burn down the house.
Maybe Sirius would come back for him then, maybe then he’d get his attention.
He put out the fire.
The smoke lingered but didn’t quite eliminate the smell of damp that hung about his room nowadays. No one else seemed to notice. Kreacher was surely thinking he was going mad, but there was no escaping it. It smelled like the house was rotting. Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps it was him who was rotting.
-
Regulus waited until the start of November before he made the decision to approach his mother regarding the lack of letters. Truthfully, he was worried for his brother. What if Hogwarts was awful and had him locked away somewhere in the castle dungeons?
It was a Tuesday, the day he decided on. Fridays were out of the question as she visited Druella for tea that day and always returned in a sour mood. Weekends weren’t for children, so he refrained from speaking those days. Wednesdays were for dinner parties, and Thursdays were for recovery and bad things always happened on Mondays.
It was on Tuesdays that his mother had no engagements, so Tuesday it was.
First, that morning, he performed exceptionally well during his lessons so that when he was done and his mother asked his governess for a report all was positive.
He heard to enter the library, shoes clicking on the floor, the second the clock struck four and his lessons ended. Turning, he saw her sweep into the room, expression unimpressed as she took in the slight disarray of books on the table that he hadn’t yet cleared.
“Afternoon, Mrs Seaworth,” his mother spoke, looking down at the governess with barely concealed disgust. Mrs Seaworth was a half-blood and had only been employed as a last resort since Sirius drove off their last governess.
His mother made sure Mrs Seaworth knew her status. Mrs Seaworth wasn’t allowed to touch, or use her magic on, anything in the house. Each book they worked from, Regulus would retrieve and find the page. At the end of each day, he dreaded having to haul each back onto the high shelves. Though she technically held authority over Regulus, she wasn’t allowed to raise her voice at him, and under no circumstances was she allowed to touch him.
Mrs Seaworth nodded her head to his mother with a smile that Regulus suspected was fake. “Good to see you again, Mrs Black.”
“Report.” His mother said bluntly.
“Young Regulus has done very well today. We have covered the theory of vanishing spells.”
“Can he cast it?”
“Not yet, his magic is not yet mature enough. Give it a year or so and he will be a natural.”
“Not yet matured?” His mother asked, her gaze latching onto him as though he was somehow at fault. “Practice won’t hurt,” she continued, talking to the governess, “have him try tomorrow.”
“Of course. We have also covered the theory behind warding, I believe his knowledge on the topic is well established.”
His mother hummed and that was as close as Regulus would get from receiving a ‘well done’.
Mrs Seaworth knew too that they were done and she stood, nodding to his mother, before leaving the library. Kreacher opened the doors for her as she went.
His mother too, was about to turn and leave, but Regulus spoke up before she could.
“Mother?” he asked, gathering his courage and standing up to face her.
“What is it, Regulus?” Regulus suddenly felt that this was a bad idea. “Is there a problem with the governess?” His mother enquired sharply once his lack of explanation dragged on.
“No, no, I just had a question.”
She nodded for him to continue, a gesture that said ‘if you must’.
“It’s about Sirius,” he clarified and her eyes narrowed. “I haven’t heard from him, I was getting worried.”
There was a moment of silence between them.
“That is not a question. Use your words,” she said sharply.
Regulus hesitated for a moment before asking what had been plaguing his mind, “have you heard from him?”
“If Sirius is not alright, it is his own fault, so stop your pathetic worrying, it's unseemly. Since you’re asking, yes, we have heard.” Regulus felt an ache in his chest, “is that all?”
Regulus nodded his head, not trusting his voice to sound stable. So Sirius had written to their parents, but he hadn’t written to him.
“Clear this mess,” his mother gestured to the books, “dinner is in four hours, keep out the way until then.” She then turned and left the room.
In the time it took to put all the books back in their respective places, he thought over what he had just learned. With the first book, he felt upset. With the second, he felt angry. With the third he felt indifferent.
He stopped looking out for the letters and the days dragged on just the same as they did before and he felt just fine, as he had before.
There was no place for feelings at Grimmauld Place.
-
Sirius came back for the winter holidays. When he walked through the door, suitcase dragging, shoulders slumped too much for it not to be intentional to annoy their mother, he looked up for a second at Regulus. He looked miserable and Regulus dared hope it was because of his time at school, though he knew better.
Mother didn’t speak to Sirius, simply walked in, letting the door almost shut on her eldest son, and disappeared into the depths of the house. This was unusual; usually, she only ever ignored Regulus.
Regulus, who had been standing awkwardly on the stairs, walked down cautiously to meet his brother at the door. He was unsure of what to say.
“How was school?” he asked. It was simple, neutral.
Sirius looked at him and then scoffed, “as if you want to know,” he said pushing past to get to the stairs and jogging up, leaving his case in the hall for Kreacher to take up later.
“What do you mean?” Regulus called after him, following him up, running.
Sirius stopped suddenly at the top of the steps, making Regulus almost lose his balance. Sirius turned and stared him down with daggers for eyes.
“Send me letters, Sirius, tell me everything,” he said in a whiny voice.
Regulus cringed. Did he really sound like that? Needy, pathetic?
“Fucking begging to me all that time just to go ignore me? Really, Reg?” Sirius said, voice high with incredulity.
Regulus watched as Sirius ran a hand through his hair, angrily. Sirius had always had a short temper, never directed at him though. Regulus could almost feel the heat radiating off of him, intensifying with each second Regulus remained silent.
There were puzzle pieces falling into place in his mind, a realisation he knew he should’ve figured out sooner. Sirius always called him naive and Regulus had never understood what he meant until now.
“You hate me now? I get it. You’re just a narrow-minded little shit, can’t think for yourself can you. So, what’d you do with the letters, huh? Did you even read them?”
So many assumptions, so much contempt. Regulus saw the water in his eyes, glistening a reflection of himself. Not spilling, never spilling. Had Sirius’ resentment been growing just as much as his own? Reflections in a puddle, in a tear.
“No, I burned them,” Regulus answered, evenly. Better Sirius hate him than hate their mother. Better Sirius lash out at him than at her. Better Regulus suffer by his hand than Sirius by hers.
Sirius scoffed again. Disgust marred his face as he seemed to see Regulus in a new light. A false light. Turning away, to his room, he said no more.
“Did you write to mother?” Regulus called to him, he couldn’t help himself, as he climbed the remainder of the steps to keep his brother in his sight. The only response he got was an incredulous expression sent his way over a shoulder as Sirius’ bedroom door was slammed shut.
Regulus was left on the landing, staring after him and wondering why his first lie had been to his own brother. He had never seen reason to lie before, saying nothing always seemed enough.
It didn’t feel nice.There was an ache inside that the false words had caused. There was a need to put it right.
Regulus found the letters his mother had stashed away in the hiding place beneath one of the bookcases in the library that she didn’t know he knew about. It took him two days of checking every nook and cranny of the house before he found them.
The letters were tied together, neatly by his mother’s hand. Why she had kept them, Regulus couldn’t fathom. He took them to the fireplace in the library, took out his wand to light it.
Staring at the flames, his fingers itched at the opening of the letter where the seal had already been broken. Resisting, he threw it in. The next and the next and the next. Sirius had sent him six letters before he’d given up. Was Regulus really only worth six letters?
He did not read them, and he burned them all.
And yet, the ache still remained.
-
If his mother ever noticed the missing letters, she never mentioned them. To speak of them would acknowledge that she had kept them for a reason; a reason Regulus assumed she didn’t want him to know.
The letters remained a mystery for both, though they each had their suspicions.
-
Another family dinner, another evening wasted in silent submission. Regulus sat, agreeing and pleasantly responding to questions. Never had all the attention been on him, but his mother seemed determined to ignore her eldest son.
Sirius sat opposite, a glare directed right at Regulus. It was a glare he had never been on the receiving end of before August 31st. Sirius had never confused Regulus as much as he did at this moment.
Never had Sirius enjoyed the dinners, or the constant questioning, but now he seemed almost jealous. Did he miss the passive aggressive remarks that became increasingly frequent as the night wound on? Did he miss mother constantly pointing out his flaws for all to hear? Regulus had never imagined he would.
Perhaps their mother was right and Sirius thrived upon attention and sought to gain it in any manifestation he could.
Regulus would trade positions happily. All the eyes on him made his skin crawl, the expectation that came with it made his head ache. All he wanted was to sit in the corner of his room, book in hand and mind unbothered by family matters. However, with Sirius’ drift from family values, Regulus thought his wish was becoming rather childish. Family matters were, of course, his matters now.
Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Regulus bored them all. The more he watched those around him struggle to find questions to ask, the more he realised how uninteresting he was. When quiet would fall, Regulus would fidget as he waited for the next question, only to say five words and leave the room in a much denser quiet than before.
No wonder Sirius was so excited to leave for Hogwarts.
There were nine at the table, including himself. Cygnus and Druella had arrived first, followed by Narcissa and her new fiance, Lucius. Bellatrix always made a point to arrive late, uncontrollable as she was for the family.
Regulus mourned the missing, briefly. Before the meal, he took a moment to imagine Andromeda’s jokes and Alphard’s stories intertwined with the mundane chatter around him.
He hoped he remembered their personalities right, he couldn’t quite picture their faces.
The dripping was sounding again; a tapping of water into water, droplet into puddle, body into lake. Cutlery scraped on plates; knives against porcelain, branches against windows, nails against rock.
Still, he ate. If he ignored the House, perhaps it would stop its games. So focused he was, that he didn’t realise he had been addressed until a heavy, expectant, silence descended.
Looking up, all eyes were on him. Strange how, with everybody’s cutlery frozen, poised above their plates, the scraping continued.
“Sorry, what was that?” he asked, politely.
“Were you not paying attention?” his mother demanded, eyes narrowed, voice almost hopeful at the thought of catching him out.
“Sorry, mother,” was all he could think to say, anything else would only make matters worse.
“I was saying,” spoke up Cygnus, “that you’d better hope for a better outcome at your sorting. No heir of the Black family should be anything but Slytherin.”
Regulus nodded vaguely, not quite sure what was being said. A better outcome? He looked briefly to Sirius, who’s vicious glare was now directed at their uncle.
“He will be in Slytherin,” his mother said, bluntly.
“You were sure about the other, Walburga,” Cygnus challenged.
“He will be in Slytherin,” was her response once more.
Conversation moved on. There was no flow to them. They were disjointed, jagged, never linking and always ending like a cord cut halfway. One moment, they talked of Narcissa’s wedding and the next of what dark magic Bellatrix should teach her young cousins.
Around him the dripping and scraping continued. The House was unrelenting. He wanted to ask Sirius about the sorting, about what key detail he must have missed in the pile of ashes in the fireplace, but Sirius wouldn’t meet his eyes.
It was only when dinner was finished, and they had been excused, that he could approach him. Up the stairs, he followed Sirius. His brother never turned, just evenly walked up, one hand on the bannister and one at his side. Across the landing, he followed.
Only when they reached Sirius’ door, did Regulus tap his shoulder in an attempt to get his attention.
Sirius turned, slowly, and Regulus had to take a step back when he saw his face.
His skin was sliced, peeling away from his face as water dribbled down his cheeks, pouring out from his eyesless sockets. His mouth was gaping, teeth absent from his gums. Regulus had never seen such horror and he knew it would haunt him in his dreams. Sirius’ mouth moved, forming words, and Regulus screwed his eyes shut.
Hands to his ears, he tried to block out the noise, the clamour, the dripping of water falling to the floorboard from his brother’s mangled face.
“Reg? Reg, are you alright?” said a voice as a hand grasped his shoulders. “You can open your eyes, what’s wrong?”
Regulus didn’t want to, but he could never resist a request from his brother. With his eyes open once again, he met his brother’s familiar grey eyes, so similar to his own. They were filled with concern, absent of any of the contempt Regulus had seen earlier.
“What happened just then?” Sirius asked, tentative and unsure.
“The House,” Regulus replied. It was the only reply he could think of.
“The house,” Sirius repeated, his voice ever sceptical when Regulus talked of these things. “Are you sure it's- Nevermind.”
Regulus knew what he was going to say. Are you sure it’s the house? Sirius had questioned him before, and made it clear he didn’t believe it. But, no matter how much Sirius tried to convince him he was wrong, the weird happenings would not stop.
“Why’d you follow me anyway?” Sirius asked, eyes narrowed and recovered from his worry to adopt his anger once more.
“I have questions,” Regulus explained. “They said at dinner, about the sorting, what did they mean?”
Sirius scoffed, eyebrows raised. “No one told you?” Sirius barked out a laugh.
Regulus suddenly felt very embarrassed. He shuffled on his feet, contemplated turning and walking away. Regulus always hated being left out of important things, it made him feel stupid. Worse, it made him feel unworthy of knowing.
“But, what’s so wrong with it? Tell me, Sirius.”
“I got sorted wrong, Reg,” Sirius sign, shrugging dramatically, “Mother and father believe I got sorted wrong. They wrote many times demanding a resorting, but there’s nothing they can do. For once, they are powerless.”
Regulus couldn’t reflect Sirius’ triumphant grin. Instead, he felt a pit of dread fill inside of him.
“Sorted wrong? You’re not in Slytherin?”
“No, Reg,” Sirius raised his eyes to the heavens in exasperation, “I did not get sorted into Slytherin. Who in their right mind would put me in Slytherin?” Sirius scoffed again. “I’m in Gryffindor, house of the brave. No doubt you’ll be in Slytherin, don’t you worry.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Regulus demanded, because he could sense the insult in the reassurance.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sirius said before he stepped into his room, door clicking and then locking behind him.
Alone on the landing, Regulus stared at Sirius’ door until footsteps sounded. He rushed across over to his own room, avoiding his parents, or his mysterious monster, as they approached up the stairs.
-
Sirius returned to school and Regulus was alone again. In a way, it had barely felt like Sirius had ever been there.
Still, Regulus didn’t write, but he vowed to try to mend their relationship the next time Sirius came home.
He missed his brother.
Winter passed and spring arrived.
Sirius didn’t return home for the spring holidays.
On the 22nd day of April, Mrs Seaworth, the governess, was fired.
It had been Regulus’ fault.
They had started a new topic, one of curse breaking. The library contained many books on curses, all thick and worn, and the thickest of all was the one he needed. It was on the top shelf, far from his reach.
Regulus was a thin boy, weak was what his mother often described him as. Hefting the books from the shelves was manageable, putting them back was a challenge.
On this particular day, he stood on a small step ladder, cradling the book to his chest. Other books had toppled into the space the book once held. With one hand he pushed them away, and with the other he tried to hold the book on curses up and push it into place.
But he couldn’t hold the book with one hand. He wasn’t strong enough.
His mother stood with Mrs Seaworth, ignoring his struggles or simply not noticing.
Regulus lost his balance, the book pulling him backwards and off the ladder.
He never hit the ground, because Mrs Seaworth caught him. She had caught him and used her wand to stop the book from hitting the ground.
Regulus thought her brave.
His mother was furious.
Two rules broken. It was true that she had both saved Regulus from injury and saved the book from damage, but for his mother it wasn’t enough. Mrs Seaworth had tainted her son and tainted her belongings.
His mother had slapped her, shouted, forbidden her from ever returning. She had dragged Regulus upstairs and demanded he bathe and change. She had then dragged him to the fireplace to watch the burning of the book. She burned the clothes he had worn in the same fire.
“You should not have let that happen, Regulus,” his mother chided. “You will not make that mistake again.”
“Sorry, mother,” Regulus replied, guilty.
He never saw Mrs Seaworth again and, from them on, his lessons were taught only by his mother.
The year just kept getting worse and worse.