Anything For You

Regulus would never tell Sirius but he doesn't hate the summer holidays as much as he does, not because he particularly likes being at home, but because there is no James Potter to take Sirius away from him. 

Their parents don't allow Sirius to stay at the Potters, and without permission from their parents and a risk of the Potters being sued for abduction, Sirius can't go and be with James like he is all the time at school. And that means Regulus gets to have him to himself, no matter how little that truly is.

Sirius can only interact with his friends through owls and even that is to be done very discreetly, because their parents don't like 'blood traitors' and 'half-bloods' and 'mudbloods' and the last time Walburga found a letter by Peter Pettigrew detailing the differences between how muggles travel and how wizards do, she incendioed the letter and blocked all owls for the rest of the summer of Sirius' third year. Walburga only allows it now as something to leverage over him and keep him in line, because there isn't really a lot that Sirius cares about enough that she can use against him at this point.

Regulus knows it's selfish because for at least the whole of first week Sirius seems so miserable and low-spirited about being back home that he does start to feel a bit guilty about being glad that he can't stay at the Potters, but not enough to actually want that for him.

It also means Sirius isn't really all that up for playing Quidditch with him in their backyard, or talking to him much, or anything really which, frankly, makes Regulus frustrated and upset and hate Potter even more. The bastard seems to have a way of taking his brother from him even when he's not here.

Eventually however Sirius does begin to settle in, and talk to Regulus more, and plays Quidditch with him in his backyard. It's not quite happy, he doesn't smile or laugh all that much, so it's just like last year, but at least it's not like the year Regulus got sorted into Slytherin when they were hardly around each other even in the summer holidays. That year Sirius ignored him almost completely, and spent most of his time in his room writing owls to his friends and his better shiny new brother.

Things calmed down a bit next year, though to say it got better would be debatable. It's mostly indifference, passing time, flying together without talking about anything real. Regulus has come to understand that they will never be what they once were as children, and they will mostly spend time together due to a lack of options in the summers and to hold on to their sanity whilst in social isolation and a house that suffocates them, but Merlin it's been hard to accept it.

These days Regulus misses his brother even when he's standing right next to him. He misses him so much it leaves him sick and aching.

But he would much rather die than show it.

*

Something rather — incredible — starts to happen.

Sirius appears to be in a great mood, to the point where he even starts to make jokes with Regulus. Still not what they used to be, but much better than it's been in years.

"You're in a mood," Regulus says, trying not to smile, somewhat bemused. "Has something happened?" Mentally he goes through all future events. It could be about their parents leaving for a week, which does tend to put Sirius in a better mood, but never quite like this. 

He regrets asking when it occurs to him that it might be something related to James Potter, something he might have written in his owls.

The question alone seems to put a damper in Sirius' mood, as if he is suddenly conscious of it, as if he didn't mean to be so obvious. Regulus regrets asking for that reason too. "It's a nice day. And I suppose it's not the worst thing in the world, flying with you." He's subdued now but still smiles slightly, in a way that charms all the professors and the elderly and the nicer relatives, the girls and even some boys. Regulus should be immune, as his brother, and often he is, but sometimes he isn't.

Regulus doesn't really believe him, but some stupid tiny part of him still hopes it's true, that Sirius might still actually like being with him more than he thinks.

It's only when he walks in on Sirius hunched over something that same day, what reveals itself to be a mirror with Potter's face and his broad and bright grin all over it, that he learns his suspicions were correct. Sirius' good mood didn't really have anything to do with him.

For a good minute he just stands there watching them interact through the mirror. They gel so well together, firing off of each other, laughing. They seem more like brothers than Sirius and Regulus do these days. In a way maybe that's true, as much as it hurts.

Whenever he sees Sirius with James, he sees him smile and laugh in a different way than he ever has, a bigger and brighter way; a way that makes Regulus think, I don't think he's ever looked like that when he was with me.

Not even when we were the closest we had ever been.

Regulus is startled when James' eyes light up upon seeing him, sending him a wave, "Reg, hey!" 

Sirius on the other hand is not as excited upon his entrance, clearly, muttering a fuck, shite! and frantically hiding the mirror under the sheet as if Regulus hasn't already seen it. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I was just—" looking for you, but he stops himself, clearing his throat and trying not to let Sirius' glare get to him, "What is that?"

"You can't tell anyone about this," Sirius says firmly, as if willing him into agreement with his eyes. Regulus wonders what it is he did that made Sirius stop trusting him. Maybe it was being sorted into Slytherin. Maybe it's the way he chooses to adapt to their family's rules instead of resisting and acting out. He knows it rubs Sirius the wrong way. But he doesn't understand.

He just doesn't understand. Regulus isn't brave like him, nor does he particularly care to be, if it means he survives. Regulus can't be brave because he is not strong; mentally, but also physically. 

You have a wand, Sirius once said to him last year, him in his third year and Regulus in his second year. He said it rather coldly, as if he didn't appreciate Regulus making excuses for not fighting back, for being, what the Gryffindors would call it he supposes, a coward. You always have a choice, Regulus.

Sirius has been heavily influenced by that house. Or maybe he has always been like that. A fighter, valuing courage more than wits.

"I won't tell anyone," Regulus tells him. But Sirius still eyes him distrustfully. "It's not as if I have anything to gain from it." 

It would make Sirius miserable again, and angry with him, and unwilling to give Regulus the time of day in said misery and anger. A rather pathetic agenda, frankly, but one he can't help.

Sirius scoffs, "I'm sure you don't."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever, just — keep your mouth shut. I mean it. I won't forgive you if you go and tell mother or father, and I'll know it was you."

Regulus blinks, bemused. "Okay. And I told you I won't."

"Oi Sirius! It's pretty dark in here, I'm getting scared," Potter says from under the sheets, making exaggerated shivering noises. "Get me out of here!"

Sirius laughs, reaching in for the mirror and getting it out, "Wanker." Potter laughs too, his amber eyes crinkling with it, his grin all perfect and white. And Regulus feels as if he doesn't exist.

He thinks, not even the summer hols then, I suppose, as he begins to slowly step back. For all his silent desperation, he would rather die than show himself as chasing his own brother's attention.

"Reg? Where you going?" Potter asks, "don't you want to know what this is? Sirius told me you've always been a really curious kid— "

"I'm not a kid, I'm only a year younger than you, arsehole!" Regulus snaps at him, even though he is curious. Sirius shares an amused look with Potter, which greatly irritates him.

Potter just laughs. "I know, I just meant, you were curious as a kid. Now, listen, you wanna know how this is working, right? It's a handy bit of genius by me and Rem, and also my dad."

Regulus folds his arms, trying to seem intimidating and uncurious. He tries to maintain the scowl and glare as he, embarrassingly, stays to listen to Potter talk about the magic woven into the mirror that's allowing it to work this way.

It was interesting. But in the end, Regulus just scoffs, "that's it? That was even more boring than I thought it would be."

Potter smiles, always seeming so annoyingly unfazed and—handsome. "Yeah, Sirius did say you were intelligent too." Regulus tries to keep his cool at the smile and the compliment, and especially the thought of Sirius talking about him that way, even though it was probably from a time when Sirius liked him a lot more than he seems to these days. "I thought it might not be as impressive to you. But I thought I'd tell you anyway."

Somehow Potter was the icebreaker between them. Regulus ended up staying, for some reason, listening to Sirius and Potter exchange stories and experiences and jokes, and paying a little too much attention to the way Potter includes him just by looking between him and Sirius as he speaks, or throwing Regulus a smile or onesidedly sharing a reaction with him; wide eyes and a gaping mouth out of shock, a delighted laugh, at Sirius' stories.

After the call ends Sirius seems relaxed. They're both on their backs on Sirius' bed. Regulus, for once, feels something other than jealousy about Potter, because it was sort of nice. And it was nice because Potter made a clear effort to include him, although it didn't quite seem like effort. Maybe Potter just has a way of making it all seem natural.

Regulus knows tomorrow he would have all the same feelings again, but for now he feels okay.

*

Over the next few days Regulus hangs out in Sirius' room mostly. Maybe it's their father being away on a business trip and their mother off to their grandparents leaving them behind, but a tension has temporarily been erased between them that Regulus knows has been there for years. The tension being their parents, of course. Maybe it's also the nice time they had with Potter on the mirror. Maybe it's just Sirius being in a good mood because he got to talk to Potter. Regulus can't pinpoint the reason but frankly he is trying to soak it up as much as possible.

Because there they are, on the floor with their heads almost together and their feet up on the bed, laughing.

"You did not," Regulus says between his laughter.

"I did!" Sirius says, turning his head and his crinkling eyes into his. "You should have seen it."

"You do know your grades are in his hands," Regulus tells him with a drawl, an arched brow.

Sirius waves him away, "I make it up by being among the top students, so he can't fail me or drop my grades even if he tried his hardest. My answers are far too good. Though our parents would never acknowledge that, since it's not the son from the Slytherin house."

Regulus feels like that's a jab of some sort at him with the tone he takes, but they're actually having a good day so he ignores it. "I suppose they're just not the praise type. They only like to yell if we fall below their standards, but don't really say much if either of us do particularly well."

"Well, can't argue with that. So, fancy a game of Quidditch?"

Regulus nods, trying to act as if it's still everyday that Sirius asks to fly with him. He pushes himself to his feet. "Sure, just don't throw a fit when I beat you."

Sirius feigns offense as he follows, drawing himself up with a grunt and into his feet with a hop, "Oh? We'll see who's the sore loser when I crush you."

*

The week without their parents is brilliant. But then it's no news Sirius is in a much better mood when Walburga and Orion aren't home. Even when they're not in front of their eyes, their presence in the large house is suffocating, a constant awareness in the back of their minds that saps at their energy. Without that things are better, Regulus supposes.

He almost forgets it; the strain on their relationship last few years. Regulus has never quite been able to work out where they went wrong. Just that with every small interaction, Regulus slowly grew to realise they are not what they used to be. 

Everyday for hours Sirius talks to Potter on the mirror, sometimes with Regulus and sometimes without, depending on the kind of day Regulus is having. On the bad days it just hurts and makes him sullen, seeing them together. On the okay or better days he joins them.

Potter always seems to include him whenever he does. Regulus doesn't know if he's more irritated at the thought of Potter including him out of pity or whatever it is, or more drawn to the way he pays attention to him, even waves Sirius into silence and leans in keenly in the mirror on the rare occasion Regulus tries to say something or tell some story of his own, which is frankly something that has never happened to him.

It's never even something to the caliber of the Marauders' chaos and insanity, sometimes downright mundane even, but Potter still seems interested and asks him questions, as if it really matters. And it never looks forced somehow, the way Regulus often imagines it is. Maybe Potter is just a naturally curious or easily amused person.

They talk until Potter has to go for a meal, or visit some relative, their grandparents or maternal aunts and uncles, or family friends (which the Potters apparently have many of), or someone visits, or Potter has some other plans like a 'moovee' night with his parents -- Potter described a moovee as moving pictures in a box that tell a story that lasts hours. There was once a time he even showed one to them on the mirror, even though the mirror doesn't do a good job of 'transmitting' moovee audio through it, and Potter explained what was going on every few minutes or made some commentary, and Regulus frankly enjoyed it but he was too scared to try it again.

"It's just," he tells Sirius, as Potter is on the mirror, realising he is fidgeting and quickly breaking his hands apart, feeling the phantom hex on his hands that his Mother casts, "what if Maman uses Legilimency on us and finds out?"

"Don't be such a coward," Sirius says with a roll of his eyes. Regulus flushes with anger and embarrassment, darting a glance at Potter that's too quick to register anything more than a vague unhappy expression. "We learned Occlumency for a reason, didn't we?"

"We're not always good at it, you pillock. Even using this mirror can get you in trouble if she finds out."

"Regulus, if you're really that scared, no one's forcing you to be here."

"Fine. Let's see how you'll like it when she doesn't let you talk to Potter," Regulus tells him with a sneer, "I'm sure you'll enjoy having your friends' owls blocked for another summer."

Sirius glares at him, "what's that supposed to mean? Are you fucking threatening me right now?"

Regulus goes silent, taken aback. "It's a warning, you arse."

He stands up to his feet and walks away.

*

The only thing Regulus can put it down to is that noble, bleeding heart, goody two shoes Potter said something to Sirius because then Sirius is in his room, arms folded. Regulus is on his stomach on the bed doing his summer homework, refusing to look up.

"I suppose you had a point," he says to Regulus. "Or so James thinks."

Regulus gives him a derisive snort without looking up. Of course it's only a point if stupid Potter agrees.

Sirius sighs, dropping on the edge of the bed.

"Look," he says, "it's just... it's the only thing that's getting me through the summer. This fucking house. I feel like — I can't breathe sometimes here. Like I'll throw up any minute."

Regulus has stopped writing, listening.

"And talking to James feels like... like air, right now. I didn't want to give it up I guess by having you say all that in front of him. And you know, he really was about to stop calling on the mirror because he didn't want to get us into trouble. I had to beg him not to stop."

It's been a long time since Sirius shared something so vulnerable with him, even if that too has to do with stupid Potter, even if it churns his gut to hear him say he's the only one getting him through the summer when Regulus is right here in front of him.

He tries to ignore the pang in his chest, and focus on how to comfort his brother. It feels like he's handling an injured baby bird in his hands as he tries to figure out what to say, how to navigate this. He ends up not saying anything at all.

"Can you just — promise me you won't tell her or Papa? About any of this?"

Regulus isn't entirely certain why that's a question given he's never even done anything of the sort, unless either of them were at their mothers' wandpoint he supposes, and she told them the punishment would be less severe if they said it with their mouths rather than finding it out herself by Legilimency. Sirius has always perceived that, too, as a betrayal, thinks Regulus should have kept his mouth shut and done his best to hide it through Occlumency.

He supposes that did make Sirius lose trust in him.

"Why would I tell her?" Regulus asks, "if it puts you at ease, I'm just as involved in using that mirror and watching the mooovee." 

Sirius nods, and seems to be trying to hide a smile, likely at the way Regulus accidentally dragged out the word and rounded his lips clumsily in trying to pronounce it correctly, "Just, even if she uses Legilimency can you try your best to block her out? Can you do that for me, Reg?"

What Regulus should say is that he can't promise that, on the chance that she does find out and he needs to keep the punishment to a minimum, because it fucking scares him already.

But he's looking at Sirius' face, his pleading and desperate face, and Regulus' heart caves. He can't say no, especially as it feels that maybe he and Sirius are somewhat mending right now.

"Okay," Regulus says, "I'll do that."

Sirius breathes a sigh of relief, a laugh, and then he grabs Regulus' head and kisses the top of it, to Regulus' wide-eyed shock, "Thank you! Thank you, Reg. Really."

Regulus tries to look very normal and unaffected and as if the corners of his mouth aren't twitching, keeping his eyes on his work as he picks up his quill and continues to write, "Hmm, sure."

"So," Sirius says, shifting down to lie across his bed with one hand under his hair, as if he is here to stay; also another thing that Regulus has missed and that he is trying to look very normal and unaffected about. "What are you doing?"

A sarcastic retort is on the tip of his tongue, I'm juggling, Sirius, what does it look like I'm doing? But Regulus deliberately keeps his mouth shut. Before when they were close, snark like that would have made Sirius laugh. Nowadays he can't say that for sure so he goes for a much tamer response, "Summer homework which, need I remind you, you have too."

Sirius laughs, "Well, I won't do it until the last-minute panic sets in, you know that. But even then I can always charm my way out of trouble."

"How you're the top of class with your study methods, or lack thereof, is beyond me. And you try that with Professor McGonagall and tell me how it goes." Regulus throws him a sarcastic smile.

"You just wait and see, I'll crack her yet. Everyone has weaknesses, Reggie, you've just got to find them."

He used to hate that old childish nickname but now his heart skips a beat, hearing it after so long. 

"Now you sound more like a Slytherin than a Gryffindor."

There is a pause at that; at which Regulus realises rather suddenly that he said the wrong thing, and now he's certain he's fucked up and Sirius is going to leave.

"Good lord, a Slytherin, me?" 

"Hmm you're right," Regulus says, an attempt to rectify, "you're too reckless and chaotic for that."

Sirius grins, reaching out and ruffling his hair hard, which Regulus shakes off with a grimace as part of his younger brother requirement. In truth something in his chest is bursting at all the attention, even though he knows it's likely just because stupid Potter said something and that's what got through to him. "Now we're talking. You know, that reminds me, did I ever tell you about the wank prank we did on Mulciber?"

Regulus stares at him for an infinity.

"The fucking what?"

Sirius barks a laugh. He sits up straight up on the bed, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "Alright here goes."

*

Whatever Potter said to Sirius was magic because the rest of the week is brilliant. The best Regulus could say he has had in years really. They play Quidditch a lot, they banter and make jokes and laugh, they even go to their old treehouse and lie there for hours talking about all that they've missed out in each other's lives, and at night they sometimes fall asleep together in Sirius' bed, under his night sky ceiling that Sirius learned to charm against their parents' permission, and he put such a strong sticking charm on it that neither of their parents could get rid of it. Sometimes Regulus even wakes up curled up into Sirius' side like when they were kids, and Sirius doesn't seem to mind.

It's like the way they used to be. 

The day their mother returns, their father still away on some business trip, is when the tension comes over the house all over again, and Sirius is irritable and in low spirits again, but somehow even then he is okay with Regulus. He doesn't ignore Regulus, or snap at him to go away or leave him alone, or throw underhanded jibes at him every now and then. Paradoxically it hits home the fact that Sirius did not seem to like him at all before this.

Regulus finds himself rather adamant to maintain it, to not ruin it. He thinks he may even be ready to face their mother at this point as long as it would mean he gets to keep Sirius like this. Not in any extreme way, of course, but at least to maintain his promise of doing his best to protect knowledge of the mirror.

"What did you both do all week?" Walburga asks as she slides her leather gloves off, her eyes empty and uninterested. Regulus has long ago learned this is not mere small talk but an assessment, catching out anything suspicious in their answers.

"Played Quidditch," Regulus says, being conscious of not wringing his hands together, folding them behind his back, "I did my summer homework. I'm nearly finished."

"I see," Walburga says. "And you, Sirius?"

"I mostly flew in the garden, either with Regulus or without," Sirius responds, his head held high. "Or spent time in Regulus' room, or slept."

Regulus does not understand the way that catches their mother's attention, as she raises her brows. Has the distance between him and Sirius really been so blatant that someone so uninvolved in their lives noticed? But even so, it's never seemed to matter to her much. "I see. Not even attempted your summer homework, as expected."

Regulus expects Sirius' snap back to point out his outstanding grades, but to his bewilderment —

"I shall start today, Mother."

Walburga's eyes are sharp and assessing over him. Regulus wonders if it's because Sirius is being so well-behaved, and he fears what's coming next, the question she will ask. Is there something you would like to tell me?

Will you tell me yourselves or shall I dig it out of your head?

"Very well," is all she says, then turns around and makes for the stairs as the house elves carry away her leather gloves and coat. Regulus does not know what they did to bring fortune on their side but he breathes.

*

"Your cousins will be visiting. They will be staying over the weekends," Walburga announces rather suddenly over dinner.

Regulus holds himself very still, feeling Sirius also tense next to him. Neither of them truly like any of the cousins except for the estranged Andromeda and Narcissa, though that is an understatement. Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus and his brother Rabastan all seem rather hellbent on teaching them the Unforgivable curses. 

"There is good news," Walburga continues, "Lucius will be accompanying them this year. As you know he has been abroad in France for the last two years to complete his higher studies, and now he will return to work in the Ministry — "

Regulus can't hear anything anymore.

He has frozen completely, all the blood in his veins gone cold. His face feels cold too, and so do his hands. He is frozen for a good minute, unable to move even if he wanted as the horror and terror bears down on him. He can't breathe. He is shaky all over, wishing he could stand from the table and excuse himself into his bedroom, because he can feel the air escape him and his head spin and his heart pounding hard and fast, but his mother is still speaking and he cannot leave in the midst of it.

When his mother excuses herself for bed is when he could finally stand up to his feet and stagger to his room hastily on wobbly legs. Sirius' eyes burn onto his back, but he does not follow him or say anything.

The nausea and anxiety follows him into the night. Regulus lies in Sirius' bed, and he holds back the urge to curl into his ribs again like when they were kids, like the little brother he has missed being. He doesn't want to push it, since they're still only in the process of getting better, but there's a restlessness under his skin and he craves the calm and comfort that only his big brother's arms and warmth have afforded him.

They lie side by side on their backs as Sirius whispers into the dark, "You just have to fight back once, Reg. Just once, give it all you got, and they'll think twice next time they try to fuck with you."

Regulus isn't as brave as him, but he tries not to say that to Sirius. He doesn't think it really made them stop going after Sirius, but he knows it's a lot less compared to how often they go after Regulus, and it's because Sirius lashes out once he's had enough. They used to laugh about it, laugh at Sirius, whenever he'd start throwing curses and hexes left and right going absolutely mad. But that was before he went to Hogwarts, when he didn't know many curses or hexes at all, and now that Sirius has a ton of extremely creative and troublesome curses in his inventory, he supposes it does make them think twice about messing with him.

"In third year I found this book full of hexes and curses. They're not dangerous but they fucking hurt. You know what I did?"

"What?" Regulus asks, though he knows where it's going.

"I used all of it on them. Each one of them, whatever I could remember I just used it all. I made sure they regretted fucking with me. I don't know if you remember, I suppose we weren't around each other all that much at the time, but Maman really hurt me for it. That bitch never bat an eye all the months they'd use unforgivables on us, but the moment I do anything to those bastards she crucios me until I can hardly move."

Regulus does remember. He did not know that was the reason but he remembers, of course he does. Sirius looked so terrible, crying as he painstakingly forced himself up the stairs, bruised and battered. He locked himself in his room for weeks. Regulus could hardly sleep not knowing how he was doing or why he was hurt, but he sent Kreacher constantly to help him and take good care of him.

He told him just as much, tentative and quiet, feeling like they were on such terms once more, and yet hoping to circle around whatever the causes of the strain in their relationship were. Regulus was afraid of reminding him, of dredging up things that might end up throwing them back to square one.

There is a sudden shift, a rustle, as if Sirius has turned his head towards him, followed by a very long silence. In the dark when he forces himself to meet Sirius' eyes, he can somewhat make out Sirius staring at him with what looked like bewilderment.

"Yeah?" Sirius asks, nearly breathing it out, as if he couldn't believe Regulus had actually cared. 

"Yeah," Regulus says. "I didn't know how else to help you."

Sirius is quiet again.

"Go to sleep, Reg," he says, and Regulus might be imagining it but he thinks Sirius sounds rather softened, "And try not to worry about tomorrow. It's just two days, right? 'Sides, I'll be with you. We'll make it through."

There couldn't be any other words, or anyone else, that would make Regulus feel as safe. He slept through the night, without waking from the nightmares he feared.

*

Both Regulus and Sirius are made to stand by the entrance of the Black Manor, ready to greet and welcome alongside their parents with impeccable posture and manners. They would both rather be in Sirius' room playing Exploding Snap. Bellatrix comes first, then Rabastan, then Rodolphus — all, too, with impeccable posture and manners in front of his parents. Then Narcissa, who hugs them both and smiles.

Regulus tries to focus on his brother's warmth next to him, and not on the cold feeling that takes over him at the mere sound of that voice. Hello, it greets his mother, then his brother. I've come to take you apart, I've come to ruin you once more.

It is right at that time that Sirius, having finished his greetings, goes to Narcissa, a smile on his face as he loops his arm with hers and begins to converse with her. Regulus feels the loss of him, his grounding presence, like a limb.

Regulus holds himself very still as he comes in front of him. Mostly he stares past him, his shoulder, hands folded behind his back the way his mother expects of him.

"My, my," he whispers, in his silky, smooth voice, "you've grown since the last time I saw you."

"Lucius," Regulus says, neutrally, as a way of greeting. Mentally he traces the lines of the portrait behind him on the wall; their great grandfather. 

He puts his hand on Regulus' shoulder. Regulus holds himself very still, clasps his hands behind him tightly so as to still them too. He does not breathe, as Lucius pats it three times in a way that feels very deliberate and spaced apart. He can feel his grey eyes boring into him, roving over him. He does not look back at him, makes sure of it, as if doing so would awaken some slumbering beast. He does not breathe even as Lucius lets go of him and moves on to his father.

He takes a full breath only when he is finally alone, stumbling into a deserted corridor with a gasp, a heave, falling to his knees with a hand on the wall. The heave sounds dangerously close to a sob. He clutches at his shoulder, crushing the shirt of it with a trembling hand, his wild eyes fixed on the middle distance where the memory plays over and over. The hand is still there, the weight of it, the heat, the —

The hand is still there, and it doesn't let go no matter how hard and how frantically he scrubs at it in the shower. It only gets a bit better when it's red raw, when he can imagine he's scrubbed away a full layer of his skin cells, the layer touched by him.

*

The rest of the day passed with the two of them locked in Sirius' room, playing Exploding Snap, talking to James and Remus, who is staying over for a week, under a Muffliatio on the mirror, and napping in the afternoon. Regulus spent it on edge constantly, waiting for one of the cousins to come and torment them. But only Narcissa came by in the evening, talking to them until dinner. 

"Rodolphus, Rabastan and Lucius have been with your father all day," Narcissa says, when asked about it, "Some Ministry-related business perhaps. Bellatrix and I spent most of the day together. But I think what you did a year ago has made them rather wary of you. They are convinced you should be locked up at St. Mungos."

Sirius scoffs, "That's rather rich coming from them."

As the three make their way to the dining table the seats have all been mostly filled, but for three. Sirius and Narcissa sit before he does, and when he looks to the remaining seat, he finds that it's five seats down where Sirius sits, next to his father.

And right across Lucius.

"How does it feel seeing your favourite boy again, Lucius?" Rodolphus says, nodding at Regulus somewhat with a sneer.

Regulus continues eating as if nothing has been said at all.

"I could never tell what you saw in him," Rabastan says, "he's too dull and boring."

Still yet Regulus pretends not to have heard anything. It's easier and better that way.

Lucius sighs, "I can't say really. I must have been out of my mind."

Regulus can feel all the eyes on him, but he is most vividly aware of his parents, the thing that breathes between them all, but even more so, Sirius. His hand trembles around the spoon.

"Merlin I remember the way he used to cling to you," Bellatrix pipes up, "laugh at your every joke, smile at everything you say, wanted to sit near you at the dinner table. I suppose that hasn't changed. It was like he was in love with you." She cackles.

"Well for the most part I was merely indulging him," Lucius says, "he was young, and it was my first stay with his family after marrying Narcissa. I didn't want to create a poor impression."

Regulus' feels sick to his throat. He tries not to think, but he ends up doing so anyway; the way Lucius smiled at him, called him smart and funny and interesting, chuckled at his jokes, the way he would caress his hair, and his back, and put his arm around his shoulders. He would praise him in ways Regulus craved. He was just lonely, just wanted someone to like him, someone to want to be around him. He had thought, this almost feels like being with Sirius. He had thought, maybe he could be my new brother. If Sirius has Potter then I could have Lucius.

And then —

"Regulus," Bellatrix says, snapping her fingers in front of his face. Regulus flinches back into awareness. She seems annoyed, as if she has been calling him. "Are you just going to sit there looking dead? Say something!"

Regulus is so blank he can think straight. It's taking everything in him to keep his head together.

How could you have seduced him like this?

You disgusting whore.

You will keep yourself to yourself from here on or I will crucio this filth out of you, do you understand boy?

"I... I wasn't in love with him," he rasps, blinking hard and fast, trembling, trying to think. "I-I was — I was young, I only — I only looked up — to him, I — "

The entire table bursts into laughter. Next to him he can hear his father's sharp inhale of disgust.

"Merlin Regulus, learn how to speak. And is that what you took away from the conversation? I was only joking but now I am wondering if you weren't truly in love with him. Narcissa you ought to hide your husband from this one!"

Then Rodolphus pointedly looks at Regulus, smirking, "perhaps if you had stayed any longer, Lucius, he might have even called you into his bed."

Regulus feels the jolt of ice run through his entire body. Feels his stomach lurch.

"For Merlin's sake he was a child!" Sirius snaps from the other side of the table, slamming a fist down hard with the clang of the cutlery and plates, "What the fuck is wrong with all of you?"

"Sirius!" Walburga snaps sharply. She lifts one finger, gesturing at him, "Get up."

"Are you joking? You don't mind all these sick jokes about your son and a man but — "

"Get up! Get up and go to your room. Cussing at the dining table and disrespecting your cousins! You will not be allowed any meals for two days."

Sirius is quiet, deathly quiet, for a full five seconds before he abruptly stands to his feet and furiously storms out of the room, padding quick and loud up the stairs.

Regulus waits for some time, even if all he wants to do is go be with Sirius. But he waits for some time so it won't seem as if that's where he will go, endures their insults and lets the topic change so he is out of focus, and then he excuses himself quietly for bed and slips out.

*

Regulus knows Kreacher as well as all house elves would be under orders not to give Sirius any food, so he asks Kreacher to give him some food.

"But Master Regulus is just eaten," Kreacher points out.

"Yeah but I just— I could eat a little more? It was so loud there I had to get away, and you know I don't like my cousins," Regulus says, putting a small whine to his voice that always gets to Kreacher.

"Why's you standing outside Master Sirius' door," Kreacher asks with narrowed eyes.

"Yes I will be eating in his room," Regulus says, giving him a pleaful look.

Kreacher sniffs, "Fine. Kreacher be bringing MASTER REGULUS some food."

Regulus breaks into a smile and hugs Kreacher tightly to his chest, "Thank you."

Kreacher adjusts his table cloth by the hem, seeming covertly pleased by the affection from him as he always does. Regulus laughs slightly, endeared.

He waits outside Sirius' door until the food comes.

It comes around the time he hears footsteps on the stairs. Heavy, familiar footsteps that grip his throat with terror, his heart shrivelling inside his chest. He has heard them come into his room. He has heard the door shut and lock. He has heard them move towards his bed.

Regulus and Sirius' rooms are the only ones on the fourth floor. The cousins stay in the floor below, where all the guest rooms are, and their parents on the second.

There is no reason for anyone — especially for him — to be coming up here.

There is a pop. Kreacher hardly has the time to hand him the food before he is taking it from him, managing another thank you and hug. Quickly he opens Sirius' door and shuts it as quietly as possible behind him. He locks the door, hand shaking around the knob for several seconds as he tries to catch his breath, closing his eyes.

The lights are out. But Sirius is scrambling up on the bed, wand in hand.

"Sirius?"

"Oh," Sirius says, relaxing. He casts a Lumos.

"Who did you think I was?"

"I don't know, could be any of them arseholes, couldn't it?"

Regulus, briefly, has a horrifying thought that shrivels his heart up. He quickly moves toward Sirius.

"Sirius did they ever—did— " Lucius, he hardly stops himself from saying, "did any of them ever come into your room before?"

"No," Sirius says, sounding bemused by his reaction, though Regulus is not sure what it is, "fortunately for them. I would have hexed their faces off. But you just never know with them do you? Why, has anyone ever — "

"No," Regulus says, trying to sound normal, clearing his throat, "no, it's just... yes, you never know. I would hate it if they didn't leave you alone even in the night." He looks down at the food in his hand, taking the cloth off of it, "I brought food."

"Oh Merlin, Reg you're a godsend," Sirius breathes out excitedly, taking it from him, "I was bloody starving! I hardly got to eat a quarter of it before that bitch sent me here. I love you you sneaky little bastard."

Regulus smiles.

It feels like the old times.

It feels like the way they used to be.

"Don't thank me, thank Kreacher."

"Ugh, never," Sirius grumbles, but then he takes a bite of the sausage covered in gravy and moans happily, "Alright maybe I'll consider."

Regulus tries not to think too much about the way he humiliated himself at the dining table, hoping Sirius would forget it too. He tries to think of a topic of conversation that's light and easy.

"I can't believe what that sick bastard said," Sirius says in a low voice, still clearly angry. "Where the fuck did it even come from? What could possibly possess someone to make a comment like that for no reason?"

Regulus swallows hard, hearing such protectiveness in Sirius' voice, his heart twisting with something bittersweet. His fists twist the sheets of Sirius' bed. It's been so long.

There is a moment, just one, where Regulus feels the words come up in his chest, his throat. Even his tongue. He thinks he could tell him.

Sirius is angry, but he is angry at Rodolphus for saying that. He is angry on Regulus' behalf. He stood up for him there.

He doesn't quite manage to, in the end.

We're only just getting better, Regulus thinks. He can't take any risk ruining it.

Because what if he's wrong? 

Because he knows what the story sounds like.

You clung to him, you acted suggestively, you called him into your bed. What was he supposed to think, Regulus?

"No idea," Regulus says in a quiet voice. "You can't put anything past them can you? They'll say just about anything."

"I never noticed it," Sirius says.

"What?"

"You and Lucius that year. Were you really, you know...doing all that stuff Bella was saying?"

Regulus can't say why he goes cold. In his mind it feels like Sirius is asking him, were you really seducing him?

How could you seduce him in such a way?

"It wasn't like what he said though," he tells him, hands fisting into his lap. He feels his throat tighten. Not Sirius too. Anyone but Sirius, please— "It wasn't — it's like I said, I only looked up to him like a brother, I wasn't — "

"Woah Reg," Sirius says, hands up, "I know all that shite they said's gotten into your head but that's not what I meant. I was just asking, did you really think Lucius was such a great bloke?"

God he doesn't want to talk about this. He doesn't want to think about it. He would do anything to not.

But he can't say that. Sirius would ask why.

"I suppose," Regulus says, "I was young, and he seemed kind at the time." I was lonely. I wanted you. I thought he was just like you.

"What happened? You don't seem to like him much anymore?"

Hands gripping him tight. Bruises on his body. Hot breaths and heavy weight and painpainsomuchpain—

His own sobs in the room, muffled into his arms. The bed creaking.

"He wasn't what I thought he was," is all Regulus manages to whisper, his eyes afar. He is not here anymore. He is in that memory again. In his room. His bed that is no longer his bed.

*

Regulus ends up staying in Sirius' room lying next to him, hearing his snores that, for once, soothe him. They remind him he is here.

It's there that he realises something.

All that time he spent with his stomach curdling and his throat tight with fear, trying to come up with all the ways he could save himself from Lucius, and the answer is so simple, and right within his grasp now.

He stares at his brother's sleeping face. He looks so stupid with his mouth agape, drooling at a corner, his arms and legs spread spaciously like that sea creature Regulus once saw on Potter's mirror, when he went to the beach with his parents and showed them all these things at the edge of the sea. Starfish, was it? (Regulus wished to be there so badly, watching so keenly his nose was almost in it.)

Sirius always takes up too much space when he sleeps, but Regulus supposes their beds are so large he hardly covers half of it even then and that's why he has such a habit of sprawling out. Regulus shakes his head with a huff of a slight smile, feeling bizarrely fond at the sight.

Lucius has always come into his room in the dead of night. 

He just needs to make it through tomorrow. And all he has to do is stay with Sirius until then.

With Sirius here he isn't panicking in the darkness, isn't checking a hundred times that the door is locked and the protection spells are all up; protection spells that he doesn't even know if they would be enough against Lucius. He learned about them weeks after Lucius left for France. He never managed to sleep without them since, but at least he was able to sleep. Without the wards he spent the nights anxious and restless, with his eye trained on the door, crying at times from the terror that bore down on him. He would think of going to Sirius, but Sirius hardly seemed to like him anymore and Regulus always lost his nerve right outside his door.

*

The day Sirius comes back from his first year at Hogwarts, he finds his mother waiting for him with a pile of letters in his hand.

He doesn't recognise them immediately, confused for a good minute, before he sees the name written in his own handwriting. Regulus.

"How..." he whispers, his mind running through all the things he told Regulus in those letters, stories of Peter's muggleborn family, and James having all these muggle things like a fellytone, and Remus, who he spoke a little too differently about, called him pretty 'in an objective way I mean' one too many times.

"Regulus is a very good boy," is what Walburga says, "He tells me everything I ask and does as he's told."

It ends with Walburga ordering he cut contact with all his friends. It ends with him refusing, and her hexing him until he's limping.

There's a gasp. "Siri, you're home!"

Regulus is running towards him with the biggest grin on his face, moving to hug him — Sirius dodges him, not even waiting to see his smile fall, his eyes go hurt and confused; the way he stands still, staring at him.

Regulus never comes after him. Sirius figures he understood. He comes out one day to find Regulus sitting at his door, looking like he was about to cry and Sirius is still all wrapped around his little finger enough to sigh, overcome in that one second. He is so much smaller than him despite only a year difference, with the sweetest face and these doe eyes, and Sirius has never been able to bear seeing him cry.

Even though the burn of betrayal never quite heals, he's taking his little brother in his arms and willing to look past it, telling himself Regulus just gets scared easy, and their mum is scary and Regulus has never been alone.

Even though the burn of betrayal never leaves, even though he acts normal with Regulus, he can see the changes in Regulus over the year, the things he says to Sirius, you shouldn't fight with them, Sirius. You should listen to them. Just tell them what they ask, please Sirius. If you just do whatever they tell you they won't hurt you!

Regulus is a good boy, his mother's voice goes through his mind every time. He tells me everything I ask and does what he's told.

And then next year, as Regulus gets sorted; the hat hardly touches his hat before it's calling out, Slytherin! Sirius has been praying he would be in Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff — anywhere but there. He is such a smart kid. He is so sensitive and sweet, even if too easy to manipulate.

That was what he thought anyway.

Seeing Regulus in Slytherin without an ounce of remorse — the hat sorts people by looking thoroughly through your mind, and that means Regulus has many things that make him just like them.

And the betrayal; he can still feel the hexes stinging him, the fear and threat of being forced away from his friends, even though he knew he could never. Now that he has had a taste of the Marauders, the safety and comfort and joy and freedom of being with them, he would rather die than give it up.

But the betrayal of last year feels so different. It is no longer, maybe he was just scared, that's why he sold me out, and it never really takes the sting away and the first thoughts of, I get hurt for him, I give him everything I have, and this is what he does to me? started taking root inside his mind, but at least it didn't mean he was like them.

But seeing him in a sea of green made that betrayal become, he was trying to please her. He was trying to win favor from her by selling me out.

He chose them over me.

He lets me get hurt for him because he doesn't care. Because he thinks it's better me than him.

He would give me up in a heartbeat to save himself.

He thinks it's my fault I get hurt because he would rather see our parents as the ones in the right.

But okay, he thinks. Okay. He's still my brother. It isn't quite as easy to let go of that. He still worries and beats up anyone that looks at him wrong and tries to spend time with him. He knows Regulus noticed things weren't the same. But he wants it to be.

But then the summers; what really tips him over the edge. He is summoned by Walburga, and she was holding that owl of Peter in her hand, detailing the differences between muggle and magical things. It was supposed to be in Sirius' room, his drawer. In front of Regulus he had, stupidly, taken one of James' letters out of that drawer to make him read one of his funny anecdotes at the grocery store.

"Regulus," Sirius asks through a dry mouth, "did Regulus — "

"Your brother is only looking out for you," she says, throwing the letter onto the nightstand, "he only wishes you spent time with the right people. I will be blocking all your owls from here on. If you won't listen while at school, then I still have power while you're under my roof."

It is the hardest summer of his life. His friends' owls are the only thing that help him through these months in this house, that make him feel like he can take a full, proper breath that reaches down to the end of his lungs, and now it was gone.

All because of Regulus.

He ignores Regulus the rest of the summer. He can not stand to see his face, or bear his presence. If he had any doubts that Regulus was on their side and not his, he does not anymore.

The next year Sirius is more careful about his owls, more secretive. He hides them in a place only he knows about. It means he is able to do it less openly, which means he has more time to kill, and one day he asks Regulus, rather boredly, if he wants to play Quidditch with him in their backyard. He is going insane by that point, and it's the only thing that explains why he asks after years of either ignoring or fighting with Regulus.

Regulus, to his credit, takes it in stride and says yes. He has always been better at being alone, between the two of them, even if they have both always been alone in their own ways. But Sirius supposes that, surely, it must drive him up the wall too eventually, being locked up in this house.

Walburga keeps the floo restricted and doesn't allow them to go anywhere except to their relatives', which isn't something that appeals to either of them, so nearly bashing their heads into a wall from the boredom it is. At least it's big enough that they're left alone here enough by people they don't want to be bothered by, including their parents. That's the case for Sirius anyhow. He can't say Regulus has any qualms about their parents paying attention to him, what with him being an asskisser and the favourite son and everything.

At school they ignore each other, Sirius having Remus, James and Peter that he'd rather be with, and Regulus — doing whatever it is he does in his own House. Most of the time Sirius sees him reading alone. He doesn't even know if Regulus has any friends. Midway that year though he does see him hang around two boys on occasion, those Crouch and Rosier brats, though he doesn't seem to engage in the conversations much.

At home they talk superficially, mostly about the games they're playing like Catch the Snitch and Quidditch and Exploding Snap, and not much about their lives or anything real and important and fun. Sirius can't help the jibes and underhanded comments every now and then. Regulus is cold and snippy and rolls his eyes at a lot of the things he says, and not in the funny way.

Then Regulus finds him with the mirror. Sirius is terrified out of his mind, and angry already about what he knows will happen — that Regulus will run along and snitch to mommy that Sirius is talking to his blood traitor best friend again, and this time on some magical mirror where he can see his face.

But for whatever reason James starts including Regulus, talking to him. Sirius never really told him what Regulus did to him, but James (and Remus and Peter) must have noticed he stopped talking about his brother the way he used to, that when he sees him at school it's always with flat and uncaring eyes.

And for whatever reason, Regulus actually ends up staying. There's a part of him that's initially annoyed and jealous at the attention James gives Regulus, but in the end James is his best friend and that's still clear. And so Sirius eventually, as he always does with James, does fall into the flow of the moment and conversations, and there's a part of him, a very small part, that thinks I wish this was the way things turned out. Me, Regulus, James, Remus and Peter.

I wish he chose me.

But Sirius never acknowledges this thought, pretends he never even had it.

When Regulus threatens Sirius very subtly, saying, I'm sure you'll enjoy another summer with all your friends' owls blocked, the way he gave Maman Peter's letter the last time and got all his friends' owls blocked, Sirius feels an anger so strong he is surprised he manages to control himself the way he does.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Are you fucking threatening me right now?"

Regulus, the little bastard, has the audacity to look taken aback. "It's a warning, you arse."

Which doesn't take away from the feeling that it's a threat much. He watches Regulus leave with a fury that's blazing in his chest, and God he is so close to just tackling the little shite and pulling his hair out.

"Well that was tense," James pipes up with an exaggerated puff of breath, which is the only thing that pulls Sirius back. "But um...Pads, he's right you know. I — I had no idea that your mum — "

Sirius looks at James, who seems speechless with a brewing anger furrowing between his brows.

"She fucking forces herself inside your heads?" James manages, "I mean, what the fuck?"

"Prongs," Sirius says, with a sigh, "I don't want to talk about this. Can we just— "

"Okay," James says, and there's heartbreak all over his face, his voice a bit like he can't breathe, "Okay, I'll let this go. But Pads...I need you to know, you can come to mine any time alright? Hell you say the word right now and I'll come and get you this minute. My mum would be okay with it I swear it. She already loves you so much just from meeting you at the station. My dad wouldn't mind either."

Sirius' eyes sting at the words before he could stop, to his own horror. He tchs, quickly swiping a hand hard across his eyes, "oh fuck off. You're really gonna make me cry right now you prick?"

"Is it touching your heart enough that you'll consider?"

"I'm always considering it," Sirius whispers, with a sad laugh, "I'm always dreaming about it. Running away from here. Living with you, Moony and Pete in a flat when we grow up."

"Okay," James says, nodding, smiling in a way that wavers at the corners, "Okay. Then, whenever you think you can, whenever you're ready, you come right here okay? Or just call me on this and I'll come and get you with my mum."

"Okay." Sirius nods, and nods, pressing the heel of his hand to his eye, "Thanks. Fuck. I don't know what's happening right now, why I'm..."

"It's okay. It's okay Pads." His voice is soft and soothing. "Hey, listen I mean it okay? If you say right now I'm coming right now." James repeats it like he's still hoping Sirius might actually say right now, and God he thinks, to think that he actually means it, that it's something James wants. That Sirius matters that much to anyone at all.

He knows he has loved. From Regulus. He knows the feeling of love, that feeling that he could burn the whole world for someone, or tear himself apart, that fire in his veins like rage to see him hurt, the warmth to his bones to see him laugh.

But, James is the one who really taught him what it means to be loved. To be safe always no matter what he says or does or how he acts or how fucked up he is. To know someone thinks the world of you even when you're not your best.

Maybe Regulus loved him like that once. Sirius doesn't know anymore. It's hard to believe these days he ever did.

But he knows James is the one that really taught him what it means, what it really should be.

Sirius thinks he should. Sometimes the words are there on the tip of his tongue, when they're at the station, in the train together, the night before they have to leave. Can I come with you?

But, fuck his stupid mind, because all he sees is Regulus all alone in this house, left completely to the mercy of his parents.

Then he thinks, isn't he the favourite child? Would they really hurt him since he does everything they ask anyway? Doesn't he want to be with them? Then he thinks, we barely even look at each other anymore. What's the difference if I'm gone? What does it matter anymore?

Aren't we both already alone anyway?

but then there's something else stopping him.

What if I do go, and then I fuck it up? 

"Yeah," Sirius says, smiling, "I know you mean it. Couldn't say things you don't mean even if it saved your damn life."

"Hey," James says, puffing up his chest, making a lot of offended huffing noises, "I so could. Look I'll do it right now." He clears his throat and rolls his shoulders, "Sirius, you are the handsomest and the coolest marauder out of all of us. How could I ever compare to the godliness of your looks and charisma?

"Yeah, nope," Sirius says, smirking, "my point still stands. I could tell you meant that."

"I absolutely did not, you cocky arsehole."

Sirius makes a show of his eyes glazing over, then he blinks and shakes his head hard, "I'm sorry all I heard was cock and arsehole."

Jamea laughs, facepalming, "Jesus, Pads. Is your mind ever out of the gutter?"

Sirius grins, "Every now and then, to see the sunlight. Then it skitters back into the dark and dirty."

"Hey gimme a second, nature calls," James says.

When James comes back, picking up the mirror so Sirius isn't faced with the grand view of his ceiling anymore, and settling down into the cushions of his couch with the mirror in front of his face, he says, "hey, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah?"

"Why... what happened with you and Reg?"

Sirius stills. He did see James' unhappy face when he was sniping at Regulus before, but thought he may have let it go. 

"It's complicated," he says, mostly to get out of it.

"You know he still loves you?"

Sirius rolls his eyes, "you don't know anything Prongs, so let's end this here."

"I could see it clear as day, you know. He doesn't talk much but whenever he does he's looking at you, and whenever he makes a joke he always checks your reaction. He's trying not to smile half the time he sees you laughing, I mean some days. Other days he looks like he wants to kill me for some reason but - maybe that's just his resting face."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"Of course it does. I don't think he even realises he's doing it but, he clearly still looks up to you. Wants to impress you and make you laugh and — all that other stuff I've heard little siblings want to do."

Neither of them say they're all things that younger siblings want to do as kids mostly. Teenage siblings would probably beat the shit out of you for touching their favourite shirt. But Regulus and Sirius have never really been normal siblings to be fair, closer than most. That's why it hurt even worse, to lose him, to be betrayed. Regulus was his entire universe once, all the stars wrapped up in a tiny being and given to him as a gift; the only reason he was still alive and sane to the day he met James, Remus and Peter and found more reasons to live.

But James is... the best person Sirius has ever met when it comes to reading people, understanding them. He sees right through you at a glance, if you give enough hints away.

So that's why Sirius is inclined to believe him, no matter how hard it is to believe Regulus actually feels anything about him. Actually cares.

"Look," James says, "I just think, he's the only one you got in that fucked house for however long you stay there." He sounds like he's very sure Sirius will actually make it to him one day, "and I think he's worth holding on to. I know you adored him. I know he still adores you. Whatever happened between you two I think he'll make it right if you ask. I — I just feel like he'll do anything you ask. I mean it seems to me like... he really wants you to be his brother again, like he's just always trying to get you to see him again."

"For fuck's sake. Why do you even care so much about Regulus anyway?"

"Well," James says slowly, "I care about you. And I think he... doesn't seem like he's any better off than you."

If only you knew.

"Look um," James says, suddenly looking away, down, as if he can't meet his eyes, "I just think...you and Reg. You've got to stick together. But hey I could be wrong. It's not like I know what went on between you two, and I'm well aware I'm butting my nose into something that's not my business." 

Sirius doesn't deny that, making a shrug with his face that says clearly, yeah you are. So maybe you should fuck off. James raises his hands in surrender.

"Alright. Alright, I'm done. But um...I guess I'm worried about you being alone? Because...I feel like I should stop calling you on this thing. If there's a chance your mum will find out about it and...hurt you both. So. Yeah. I-I think...I want to be there for you, and I just I wanna talk to you all the fucking time really, but I also don't...want to cause any trouble or anything for however long you stay there."

"Wait what?" Sirius jumps upright, panicked, "No! James—"

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, but God I can't - I can't fucking bear the thought of her hurting you because you're talking to me on this—"

"James please, please don't, fuck I think — I can't... I-I'll deal with it okay? If it happens. But I need you to stay with me because the only reason this summer feels bearable, the only reason I'm not constantly thinking about jumping off the rooftop right now is because I'm talking to you—  "

"Okay!" James says, "okay okay okay. Okay. God. Fuck, Sirius. Do you seriously think about— "

"Sorry," Sirius says, pinching his eyes, feeling ashamed, "shit I didn't mean to."

"That's not the point. Sirius, do you really...think about stuff like that?"

"Hard not to in this house mate."

"Okay okay," James says, "well... I'm here then. I'm always here. You ever have thoughts like that again the first thing you do is call me, even if it's 4 in the morning, alright? Please."

Sirius wouldn't ever, to be honest, but the offer alone warms him like nothing else. He smiles. "Yeah, alright."

As it always does, the whole conversation follows Sirius for hours after James has to run for some outing with his parents, letting him greet Effie and Monty's bright and excited faces before he ends the mirror call; the words that comforted and warmed him, the hope they gave him. But also all the things he said about Regulus.

He doesn't think James of all people could imagine so much. James is for the most part very spot on when it comes to people, not in the way mindreaders are obviously, but more that he's extremely quick to catch cues and microexpressions and connect intentions and actions together. Yeah Sirius finds it hard to believe, and frankly he'll have to see it for himself to really believe it, but...

Well, he'll see it.

For a while he starts to believe it. Regulus actually listens and agrees not to tell their parents about the mirror just because he asked, or maybe he just agrees because he was also involved. But then Sirius catches him trying very hard not to smile when he kissed the top of his head, and trying to act very cool when he stays in his room and calls him Reggie. Regulus tells him about sending Kreacher to him last year to take care of him— he had never understood why bloody Kreacher cared about him all of a sudden, but it makes sense now. He brings him food when Walburga sent him to his room without dinner, when the ages old protectiveness overcomes him and his mouth works quicker than his brain once more for his little brother.

He starts to believe it.

He starts to feel the hope brewing in his chest again.

And then the next day.

*

Sirius takes the morning to walk in the garden by himself. He rather enjoys it today as he waits for breakfast, and before all his bastard cousins wake up. He supposes he's enjoying it because he is being sufficiently socialised nowadays. Not quite the amount he really needs, but between his brother and James (and occasionally Remus and Peter), sufficient.

In the end he jogs back inside the house, taking the stairs two at a time when his mother isn't here to watch him climb them all prim and proper, and to his bedroom.

He has to slow as he finds Walburga outside of it.

It takes him a few seconds to really process what is in her hand.

And when he does —

Sirius staggers back, eyes wide.

"Maman... what—why—"

"I've never seen this before," Walburga says, inspecting the mirror, a handful of his friends' owls in her other hand, "but your brother tells me you use it to contact your friends. Is that right?"

No. Fuck, no.

Not again.

"I'm proud of him. All I have to do is ask him, and he tells me the truth."

Walburga then puts her wand to it, along with the letters.

"Incendio."

"No!" Sirius yells, hand reaching out for it.

"Haven't I told you, Sirius, that you will not contact your filthy, worthless friends while you are in my house? Haven't I told you? And yet here you are."

He can't breathe. He can't breathe, his throat closing tight.

Can you just — promise me you won't tell her or Papa? About any of this?"

Just, even if she uses Legilimency can you try your best to block her out? Can you do that for me, Reg?

Okay I'll do that.

Was it all a trick? Is that why he's been spending so much time in his room, so he could see where Sirius keeps the mirror and tell Walburga? It was only yesterday that Sirius actually put the mirror in the secret place right in front of him.

Why does he keep doing this?

Why does he keep falling for it? Trusting him?

Are you that desperate to believe in him? To have him back you fucking idiot?

"I hope this will be enough to teach you a lesson." Sirius feels her hand in his hair, claws more like, gripping it tight enough to make a point, "And you will never cross me again."

He still can't breathe, tears stinging his eyes as he stumbles his way into his room. He hurts, to have the one thing that makes his life feel bearable ripped away from him.

He hurts because he was wrong again. Because the betrayal burns worse this time. Because he is a fucking fool.

Because Regulus would still choose them over him every time. He has seen that time and time again, but he never learns.

*

In the mornings Regulus leaves Sirius' room before everyone wakes up, because his parents would, of course, have a problem with him crawling into his brother's bed like a child. And they will also punish Sirius for that.

He brushes his teeth and showers quickly when the first lights of dawn are coming over the sky, because the bathroom is outside the room and he is paranoid that Lucius would try to come inside.

His fear isn't so disproportionate considering Lucius did try it once three years ago. But he stopped when someone came. Regulus doesn't know who exactly but likely someone Lucius wants to look good in front of considering how formally he was speaking, so it may have been one of his parents.

Then around the time Lucius would have woken, earlier than the others, Regulus goes to the backyard to fly.

In the air Lucius couldn't get him he imagines. In the air no one could.

No one could hurt him.

Then around the time everyone starts to wake, including Sirius, Regulus goes to the kitchens to keep Kreacher company. There is another door in the kitchens that he can leave through if one of the cousins — if Lucius — finds him here.

No one comes though, to his relief. Most of his cousins aren't the early bird type anyway he supposes but it never hurts to be careful.

*

Sirius is ignoring him again.

He doesn't know what could possibly cause Sirius' change of heart in the short time until breakfast, but when he tries to follow Sirius and catch him in the corridors to ask if he wants to play Exploding Snap with him, Sirius tugs his arm roughly away from him and goes inside his room and slams the door shut in his face.

There's a loud click from the inside. He has locked it.

Regulus tries to remember if he did something wrong. All he did was sleep, wake up, freshen up and eat breakfast. Maybe it's because he didn't stand up to Bellatrix when she hexed Regulus on the way to the breakfast table with a jelly legs curse, before his parents came. 

But even so Regulus can't understand why it would matter to him so much that he'd act this way.

Regulus feels his hands start to tremble, curls them into the stomach of his shirt, blinking fast, swallowing hard. The terror is boring down on him like a tidal wave as he thinks of the day ahead, without Sirius at his side.

The night, above all.

*

Somehow the day goes by. Half the time the cousins are busy with his father. Regulus doesn't really want to know with what exactly. He spends many hours in the kitchen, and flying outside, and hovering outside Sirius' door at times. He spends some time with Narcissa from evening until dinner. Anywhere but in his room. Anywhere he won't be alone or vulnerable or where it will be easy to escape.

Sirius ignores him at dinner as well. His eyes are downcast at his empty plate, forced to show up even if he is forbidden from meals, the world moving around him. Regulus can't think of what would put him in such a foul mood since breakfast. The only thing he can think of is that perhaps Potter hasn't been able to talk to him today. As irritating as it is that Sirius' mood is so contingent on that stupid Potter, he finds himself worried.

I feel like — I can't breathe sometimes here.

Like I'll throw up any minute.

*

Regulus tries to maintain some pride and dignity after ignored all day, making sure he heads up the floor before Sirius does and straight to his room, so he doesn't end up looking like he is chasing or seeking him out or as if he is following him.

He tries, really. He tries to just stay there but the protection spells he puts up don't really seem to help much knowing Lucius is in the house, that he will come right outside the door any minute now.

He can feel the panic begin to set in, fray at the edges of his mind, his heart pounding fast and hard and his stomach so tight and knotted it feels like he's going to throw up the little dinner he ate, hardly hungry from the anxiety. He lies there twisting his shaky hands into the stomach of his shirt, his sheets, spending all of three minutes before he picks up his pillow and gathers up his blankets and finds himself standing at Sirius' door.

He gets some food from Kreacher and knocks twice lightly, something Regulus never really does, before he rests his hand on the doorknob. He expects it would be locked again but to his surprise it turns easily. He opens the door enough to slip past the gap.

Sirius is awake, sitting at his desk, probably writing to his nitwit friends again, or his beloved Potter. He turns his head to see his visitor and — as soon as his eyes land on Regulus they turn away, closing his eyes, as if trying to push back against a sudden and violent onslaught of anger and annoyance, which makes Regulus think he should maybe fuck off right now really, but then he thinks about his room, about Lucius coming into it. About —

"Hey Sirius, I'm going to sleep here okay?" Regulus comes in and closes the door behind him, his back to the room letting him gather at least some of his composure.

"Get out of my room Regulus," Sirius says, sounding empty.

Regulus takes a good minute to let himself turn around, laughing mirthlessly, "Well you're in a mood again."

"And it's getting worse having to see your fucking face. Get out of my room."

"So you said," Regulus says as he puts down the dinner on his desk, busying himself with that to not look at him, "Look I'm sorry you didn't get to talk to your precious Potter all day but — "

And that gets Sirius whipping to his feet and turning and getting all right in his face. "Is it really that funny to you?"

"No," Regulus says, sobering up as he is now looking at him, clearing his throat. "That's not what I meant, though to be honest I can't help but feel it is ridiculous just how contingent your mood is on whether or not you get to talk to him. But I digress."

Sirius' hands twitch at his sides, which is...Regulus sees that only with his cousins or his parents, as if he has to try to control himself and not hurt them.

"Okay," Regulus says, "Look I — I'm just going to sleep here okay? Just one night. If you're really that angry right now I'll keep my mouth shut. I'll even sleep on the floor instead of the bed if you're that bothered."

"Why?"

"What?" Regulus is startled by the question, perhaps because he would do anything to not answer it, was hoping it wouldn't be asked at all.

"Why?" Sirius says, tilting his head. He looks dangerously cold. He looks the way he does when he is looking at anyone else in this family. Regulus is not sure he has ever looked at him like this, even when they were hardly talking. "Are you scared Regulus, that one of them's going to come into your room and do something in the middle of the night?" 

Regulus knows he can't possibly know, that he probably means the hexes and curses, the physical torment that at this point Sirius is too used to to feel all that sensitive about towards Regulus. Because I'm handling it, I'm fighting back, why aren't you? 

But it still sounds like that, and the way-too-close-to-home, the unintended truth of it, still keeps him frozen where he stands.

"Are you hoping I'll be the one to get in their line of fire for you again and save you? Is that it?"

"No," Regulus says. Contrary to what Sirius is implying Regulus has never really felt all that great about letting Sirius take the hits, yet never brave enough to take it himself, hence his constant pestering about how Sirius needs to stop acting out and just do whatever they say, just so they won't hurt him, and Regulus won't hate himself for not being strong enough to do anything about it. "No that's not — " When he doesn't know how to answer it he opts for honesty instead. "I wouldn't expect you to take anything for me but, I do feel safer when you're around."

Sirius stares at him in a way that feels rather unbudging, unaffected, flat.

Regulus bites his lips and looks down, feeling like this isn't going anywhere. Like Sirius is still one hair away from throwing him out. "It's just one night. I won't bother you again after tomorrow if that's what you want."

Which...hurts, to think about. But whatever gets Sirius to let him stay tonight.

Lucius will be gone tomorrow morning along with the rest of their cousins. He just needs to stay with Sirius until then.

"You know who Maman's going to curse into oblivion when she sees her teenaged sons sleeping in the same room like a bunch of kids? Me. Because why do I fucking coddle you. And you know that? I really don't give enough of a fuck anymore to take that risk for you."

It's a fair point, the first part. The second part cuts through him, to think Sirius just lost all that love and care for him but then, Regulus supposes he already knew they haven't been close enough anymore. 

I thought we were getting better, still the thought quietly, sadly threads through his mind.

But it's something that, as a Slytherin, he understands. Self-preservation and everything. Though he supposes it's less self-preservation for someone as reckless as Sirius and more an outlet of his anger.

But God he can't.

he can't.

He can't go back there.

"I think you're taking your anger out on the wrong person," Regulus says in a low voice.

"Oh am I?"

"Just because you don't get to talk to him for one day — "

"One day? One day?" Sirius repeats, and seems to be so furious he is struggling to find the words. In the end he laughs, through his hysterical breaths, "You bastard. Get the fuck out of my room."

Regulus rolls his eyes, trying to hold back his sharpest retorts that are sure to send Sirius over the edge, "I'm going into the corner. Feel free to pretend I'm not there." He makes to move past Sirius.

"You know not fighting back is a choice too?" stops him short.

Look at you, just taking me without even a fight.

Why are you crying, Regulus? You know you wanted it. You didn't even struggle.

Sirius has his arms folded, all his rage under the icy ground that are his eyes. That's the worst. At least when he's blazing and wild and lashing out it means he can still feel something. He's not quite past the point of reasoning and empathy. And Sirius is, empathetic that is, to a sickening fault. But it's hard to remember that right now.

"There's a certain point where," Sirius goes on, "it means you're choosing it. If you're not fighting back, you're accepting it. You're letting it happen to you."

Did I?

Accept it?

Did I choose it?

I didn't fight back. I did let it happen to me.

Sirius unfolds his arms and steps closer, towering over him all of the inches he has on him in height.

"So if you're weak and too much of a coward to tell them to fuck off, Regulus? That's on you. If you like just lying there and fucking taking it, that's on you." The last words are punctuated with a jab in his chest. "It's not my goddamn problem. Stop being so pathetic and needy."

and Regulus — just goes cold all over. Feels his face lose all its blood at the words.

If you like just lying there and fucking taking it, that's on you.

you like just lying there and fucking taking it, that's on you.

Lying there and fucking taking it—

The tears come with a whole lot of rage, trembling through him. They sting his eyes and his nose red, hands curling into fists at his sides. But he doesn't have any sharp retort, anything to give right back with, his head too full of nauseating images, full of emotions he doesn't know what to do with. 

"Fuck you," is all Regulus manages to bite out, thick and hissing, staring Sirius hard in the eyes. His vision is beginning to swim, to his further fury and embarrassment.

And then he turns around, hurls the door open and walks right out, feeling like an idiot.

___

Regulus walks back to his room, like a lamb moving to its slaughter, or a prisoner to his execution. That's what it feels like.

He made the mistake of not bringing his wand either with him, on the chance he runs into Lucius in the corridor on his way. He turns into his room, walking inside and throwing his pillow and blankets onto the bed.

For some reason — perhaps with his mind so consumed by everything that just happened, and subconsciously trusting the protection spells he has been putting up as a child — it didn't occur to him that he could already be —

"Trouble in the Black brothers paradise?"

Regulus whips around, wild-eyed. His breath hitches, the voice confirmed by the sight to belong to him.

He left his room without a Lumos, didn't think he'd have to come back here. So he didn't see Lucius as he passed by, leaning a little away from the doorframe inside the room.

The good news is his wand is on his nightstand.

The bad news is he's too far away to actually reach for it before it's thrown out of his hand with an Expelliarmus.

"Your brother didn't bother to put up a Silencio," Lucius says, arms crossed, "and the walls are rather thin." He pushes off the wall and moves towards Regulus with a smirk. Regulus staggers back a step, frozen. Always frozen. "Tell me Regulus. Do you really, hmm how did he put it, 'like lying there and just fucking taking it?'"

You know not fighting back is a choice too?

It's still dark enough that Lucius might not have noticed his wand. Slowly Regulus makes small shifts of his feet in the dark until he is in front of it. Lucius casts a Lumos with his wand and looks around his room, running his fingers over his desk as he walks around, touching his summer homework, picking up a framed picture of him and Sirius, as if everything in here belongs to him.

"What do you think he'll say, if he ever finds out about... us?"

"There's no us," Regulus bites out, the feeling of his wand in his hand behind him giving him the courage, "You know that. You know what you're doing."

"Oh?" Lucius says, pausing, then turning around to face him slowly, "and what am I doing?"

"Get out of my room." The echo of Sirius' voice, nauseatingly, in his head, "or I'll scream."

He's bluffing. Of course he's bluffing.

Because who would even take his side in any of this?

You clung to him, you acted suggestively, you called him into your bed.

What was he supposed to think, Regulus?

It's not my goddamn problem.

Stop being so pathetic and needy.

"For whom?"

And Lucius knows that.

Of course he knows that.

"Are you going to scream for Sirius? To come and save you?" Lucius smirks, "you and I both heard what he thinks. And in a way, isn't he right?"

Regulus whips out the wand from behind him, "Expelliarmus!"

But Lucius is quicker, throwing it off with a protego. Regulus throws all the curses and hexes he can think of, every single one, just like Sirius told him to. But Lucius is a better wizard, stronger, faster, with a lot more in his inventory because of all the years and experience he has on him.

All Regulus manages to get in is one curse that cuts across Lucius' cheek, and then he stills, for some reason the terror coming over him heavier than ever. This is the point of no return. There is no going back. It's either he wins or succumbs to a fate he does not want to know of.

Because he can see it in the way Lucius' head is snapped to the side, the slow way he turns back, with the cold rage brewing in his shoulders.

"Oh," Lucius says, his grin lazy and unnerving, "little Reggie took his big brother's words to heart. How charming. Tell me something, by the way, were those cute little protection spells all for me? It took me less than five seconds to dismantle."

Regulus casts more hexes and curses, more and more panicked in his hands and flicking, despite the determined set of his face, his shoulders as they point the wand at him. Lucius keeps throwing them off, and Regulus has never been a fighter. And he is already way past deserving mercy in Lucius' eyes, crossing all limits.

An unforgivable. He needs to cast an unforgivable if he truly wants to defend himself. Everything else he knows is just childish tricks.

He needs to mean it, he knows that much. He stares at Lucius, thinks, how hard can it be? as he remembers it all from when he was eleven.

The hatred and anger surges up to his throat like poison.

"Crucio," Regulus grits out.

But nothing happens.

The Cruciatus curse, in theory, requires that it comes from a place of pure and unadulterated hatred. That's what it means when it is said you must mean it.

It means there is no place for doubt.

No place for shame.

All things that are already in the way of his rage, tainting it with weakness.

He has never quite been able to shake off the feeling that it was his fault.

And now with Sirius' words fresh in his head...

It will be the death of him, because the next thing he knows his wand is in Lucius' hand. And he is advancing down on him in long, fast strides. Regulus shakes his head frantically, staggering back, before Lucius grabs him by the throat tight enough to bruise, Regulus' hands shooting to his grip with wide eyes and fast choked breaths. He is shoved down onto his back, his hands grappling to grip both his wrists above his head and press him down into the mattress. 

Lucius' cheek is bleeding, and he is wild-eyed with rage. Regulus can hardly think, shaking, jerking and thrashing against his weight with a gasp. A sob.

There is sharp pain shooting across his face, twice, thrice, the collision of the back of a heavy hand. Regulus has never been good with pain, and he goes quiet, all the fear and noises trapped in his throat and chest, unable to move from the fright. Frozen again. Always frozen.

"If you're going to fight me I might as well just crucio you through it," he hisses into his face, Regulus turning his away with his lips pressed tight and eyes clenched shut, tears leaking past as he begins to cry silently, "then you'll remember not to cross me again. So if you don't want that, just shut up and stay still."

That's where he stops fighting.

Where he lets it happen to him.

Because it's going to hurt. Lucius never holds back on that, cares much about how much he cries or screams. He doesn't want it to hurt any more than it already will.

When Lucius forces him roughly onto his stomach, and he is so scared out of his mind, it comes out of him without a thought. A pathetic sound. A terrified whisper, almost a whimper and a sob, "Siri..."

Because it always does when he is scared. That's who he thinks of first, the person that has always done all he could keep him safe, to protect him.

But then Sirius' words are going through his mind, and he remembers he won't ever save him, even if he knew.

So if you're weak and too much of a coward to tell them to fuck off, Regulus? That's on you.

If you like just lying there and fucking taking it, that's on you.

Regulus is eleven again, in this room. This bed.

he is just

eleven, all over again.

*

Sirius knows he was a total arse. He also thinks he reserves the right at this point, after all the betrayals. He has never really been good at full on lashing out at his brother, hence the ignoring, the underhanded comments, the passive-aggressive jibes. He'll fight with him in school over stupid shite but lashing out the way he did, without it really feeling like it was on equal ground — is different, feels wrong, when it comes to Regulus. Because his dynamic with Regulus has always been different. He swore to himself once that he would never hurt him the way everyone does, the ways everyone hurts them.

But well, that's long broken.

And it was a promise he made when Regulus  was this soft and sensitive kid, this smart tiny boy with too many emotions and too gentle hands picking up injured baby birds. It's hard these days to see him as that.

The wound is still too fresh, and seeing Regulus, trying to force his way into his room with the audacity of hoping Sirius would still take the hits for him after everything he did, and ignore his anger and invalidate his enotions and fucking pretend he didn't do anything wrong, that he didn't sell him out and betray him and give up the one thing that's helping him in this house even after Sirius, like a fucking idiot, trusted him once more and told him with such vulnerability how he felt. After Sirius made him promise not to.

And he just went right to Maman about it. Fucking spied on him in his room and pretended that he wanted to be his brother just as much as Sirius again, and then he went to her.

So yeah he doesn't want him in his room anymore ever, and for once he just doesn't care what happens to Regulus, thinks he needs to learn to protect himself anyway. He doesn't care that he was cruel. He's tired of caring, hoping, trusting. He's tired of being betrayed, of being chosen over for the same people that ruin his life every day, of being angry and hurting.

Regulus' face drained of all its color when he said, you like just lying there and fucking taking it that's on you. His eyes filled with furious and hurt tears.

And Sirius, for once, just doesn't care.

He doesn't care.

Even if there's something nagging at him about the way Regulus behaved; desperate and afraid, as if he knew something was going to happen. Some annoying old instinct that just won't die, telling him, you need to check on him.

You need to make sure he's okay.

He doesn't care though. So he doesn't. He doesn't check on him.

Until he's letting out a hard breath of frustration, getting up from his bed, and storming out the door.

The door is locked when he reaches Regulus' room. This is stupid, he thinks. Why am I even here?

Why do I even care about that little shite anyway?

But there is a dread growing, the closer he gets to the room, and it's only then he realises that the feeling of wrong he keeps having is more of a gut feeling than overthinking. Vaguely he hears sounds from inside the room. They are not very clear, as if there's a muffliato over it, but Sirius' ears have grown sharp living in a house where all his senses need to be on edge, so he hears it clearly in a way most people wouldn't.

He thinks they sound like cries. Like a child.

Is Regulus actually crying over their fight like this?

Merlin fuck his heart but Sirius —

He hasn't seen Regulus cry in ages. Not this openly.

But there's something else.

There's someone else.

When he presses his ear to the door he crosses the bubble of muffliato over the room, and now he can hear it all, and now that he can hear it all —

Something cold, hard as a heart attack, jolts in his body and down his spine.

Grunts. Fast moans, caught on a cuss word. All the while his little brother is crying under those sounds. And now that he's closer he can hear it, that they are cries of pain.

It all comes together in that moment. 

Hey Sirius, I'm going to sleep here tonight okay?

It's just one night. I won't bother you again after tomorrow if that's what you want.

When Sirius will remember it later, it will be in between gaps of black in his memory. There's an explosion in his head, white hot rage like nothing else he has ever experienced in his entire life. The violent slam of the door banging into the wall, rattling the whole room. His own footsteps striding loud and fast across the room like thunder.

He doesn't see who it is, can hardly see anything in the dark but he notices all sounds stopping except for Regulus crying, the sudden silence just seconds before his fists are into cloth and hauling the body off of his brother, throwing it hard against a wall, fumbling with frantic and furious hands to get his wand out and pointing it at him. He can see the silhouette fall to the floor, hear the choked noise of pain.

"What the fuck?" the man groans, and he recognises the voice immediately. Lucius.

Sirius says nothing. If one could see his eyes they would be as red as his vision, wild and wide with that white hot rage and hatred blinding him and driving him mad. He could burn down the whole world with the flames set to his insides.

"Crucio," Sirius says, the word coming out easy and thoughtless in a way he never would have thought it could, working just as easy. He feels it flow from the boiling rage in his blood and into his hands, this dark and ugly magic. Feels it feed on the screams that begin to choke and burst out of Lucius, under his own muffliatio.

And when that doesn't feel satisfying enough he throws his wand aside and drops down to his knees over him and jerks him up by the collar so he could use his fists, diving them into his face over and over until he can feel the blood and bruises hot on his knuckles, some strangled and inhuman sounds that he realises too late are coming from himself with every push of his fist into Lucius' face.

Lucius, too weak from the crucio, does not fight back, curled up pathetically on the floor. Maybe he is trying to plead through the thick blood in his mouth but Sirius hardly registers it or cares.

"you touched my little brother, I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you you sick fuck!" he yells, he screams, he likely calls him every swear word and name he knows, hardly even hearing himself anymore through the ringing and his loud, hammering heartbeat in his ears.

And then again he fumbles to pick the wand up and clumsily pushes himself back up on his feet, just to crucio him again.

He thinks, in that moment, that nothing he does will ever be enough to kill this rage and loathing inside of him, to scrub the sight he saw and the sounds he heard in this room out of his mind. He doesn't know what to do with it all. He can't figure out what to do with it all. He beats him and crucios him and screams, but he can't settle on one thing and figure out what to do with it all. He thinks, in that moment, that he truly understands what it means to go insane.

He loses track of time. It could have been hours for all he knows. When he comes to Lucius is bleeding from his nose and mouth, unconscious, battered and bruised all over his face. He doesn't know if he's dead. He doesn't care to find out; apathy but also exhaustion. All the fire in his insides have poured out of him, and now he is just exhausted, and about to cry.

Because it's all still there.

It all still happened.

Regulus.

God, Regulus.

not my baby brother, he pleads, as if that would reverse it somehow, dropping to his knees from the exhaustion and grief and tears next to the bloodied body of the man who hurt the person he has loved before he could even perceive anything, not him. Please. Not my baby brother.

but it all still happened.

and it's all still there.

*

Am I next?

that's the thought that threads through Regulus' mind, watching Sirius go berserk on Lucius. He can't tell what it is; fury and vengeance on his behalf, or just — pure rage, disgust.

You disgusting whore, his father's voice goes through his mind. No matter how much Regulus tried to explain it to him it didn't matter. In the end, hardly able to walk as he was, he ended up hardly able to even move. 

His only saving grace was Kreacher, who didn't really understand what happened, but still stayed beside him. He was unable to even cry by that point as he fell asleep, comforted by his friend's gentle pets on his hair. 

Regulus doesn't know if he won't be next, so he knows he needs to move. Sirius hardly seems to like him much these days. Hates him, if anything. So he needs to hurry and get out.

It hurts. Everything hurts. Lucius threatened to crucio him through it if he didn't stop fighting. And then he did it after anyway. 

It didn't matter.

Nothing he does ever matters, ever stops anything.

But the panic, the adrenaline, all push him to act nonetheless. He reaches painstakingly for Lucius' wand, a weak, strangled noise of pain leaving him. His incantation is a garbled word,  Lumos, and it takes him three tries before it works. He hopes desperately it wouldn't catch Sirius' attention.

His clothes are too close to the commotion. So he gathers up the bedsheets around himself, his whole body, moves slowly out of bed, and then limps and staggers his way out, catching on walls and the corners of furniture, falling against the doorframe.

Every steps hurts, every press of his feet into the ground stumbling him forward rips through him with anguish nauseatingly, so he already knows he won't make it very far like this, so he just turns into the next room. He makes sure to close the door behind him as he drops more than anything at the enteance of the room, and no longer able to walk, he crawls the rest of the way towards the dusty closet.

He climbs in and closes it, curling up sideways against the corner to make sure to keep all the weight off where it hurts the worst.

It's quiet now, here, and with the adrenaline leaving him, the agony of his body is clearer than ever, the weakness coming over him heavily and threatening to make him unconscious.

Sirius saw me like that, is the first thought, which is pathetic and stupid all things considered, or maybe it's just easier to think about and hurt over compared to everything else. It's not the first time he has felt numb and as if he was consumed by the worst pain all at the same time.

Regulus lets his head rest against the closet wall, pulling the covers higher over himself, over half his face. He's shivering, feels cold even though it's summer. He closes his eyes, and in doing so a tear drips down his cheek, doesn't know if it's a stray from before or new.

The more he thinks about it, about everything, the more he feels like it could have been him next, under Sirius' wand and fists. 

There's a certain point where, you're choosing it. If you're not fighting back, you're accepting it. You're letting it happen to you.

So if you're weak and too much of a coward to tell them to fuck off, Regulus? That's on you.

If you like just lying there and fucking taking it,

that's on you.

To Sirius it would be like that, wouldn't it?

He would think Regulus wanted this, that he let it happen to him, that...maybe he liked it, even. Especially if he remembers all that stuff his cousins said, about the way Regulus acted around Lucius when he was eleven, and creates some kind of connection between all of it.

It's just that —

It's just that they were getting better. Regulus thought... 

and he doesn't really know what happened to make Sirius hate him like that again. Maybe he remembered something. Maybe Potter said something, because apparently a lot of Sirius' state of being is contingent on him. Or maybe he simply just — realised Regulus wasn't...worth it, that he really didn't like him after all.

And now, well...

If there wasn't already no chance of them ever being brothers again, then certainly there is no chance now.

I think I'm still bleeding, he thinks, rather numbly, though he's not truly ready to check. He doesn't... he doesn't want to see the blood, or feel it, doesn't want to make it real. He wants to shower, be clean, scrub his skin until it's red and raw and he stops feeling the weight of all the filth, but he can't. Not right now. He can't get out of here right now, if Sirius is out there, if his parents possibly wake up at some point, though he doubts it if the muffliatio is holding, which he hopes for both his own and Sirius' sakes it will. He would have been hearing it from here but the house feels silent.

A while after, Regulus, slumped against the inside of the closet, notices too late that he closed a part of the bedsheet out of the closet, from under the door, a big enough part that it would likely be immediately obvious to anyone from the outside.

He tries to tug at it, but it's rather stuck, and it's shaking the rackety old closet despite his weakness. So he carefully opens the door, pulling the sheets back inside the closet.

Just as he is about to close it, the door is pulled open. He startles violently, a horrible jolt of terror moving through him in the next second as he jerks and tries to scramble away and back deeper, only to find he is already as far as he could go.

"N-no no no no no no no please, please, sorry sorry désolé, désolé s'il te plaît— Regulus gasps, heaving, babbling as a thousand horrors pass through his mind in a second, Lucius has come back, it's his parents furious after finding Lucius in his room and blood on his sheets, it's Sirius come to—as someone grips his biceps and pulls him out of the closet. He writhes against the grip, sobbing, now crying all over again, "s'il te plaît, je sera bon please—"

Someone's pulling him out, someone's pulling him out, they're going to hurt him, they're going to —

It takes him too long to realise that there is no more pain other than what's already there. It takes him too long to realise that when he was being pulled out of the closet it was right into someone's arms. Someone is whispering kind things, gentle nothings, shh shh it's okay, it's okay, it's me it's just me, I'm going to take care of you okay? I'm here, I'm here, I'm right here, it's just me, there's a hand on the back of his hair pressing it to a shoulder, another arm holding him to a chest, softly rocking them back and forth. A press to the top of his head that feels like a kiss.

This feels familiar, something lifelong, long forgotten but an easily revived memory. Instinct, perhaps, more than anything.

Sirius.

*

When Sirius turns frantically, beginning to stride fast towards his brother to check on him, he finds that he isn't there anymore.

Sirius doesn't dare call out for Regulus but when he looks down at the floor, it's with a lurch in his gut that he realises he won't need to.

Regulus has left a trail of dripping blood on his way.

For a moment he just — can't breathe, seeing the blood. His knees are going weak, he's gripping the edge of the desk beside him to hold himself up tightly. He clamps a shaky hand over his mouth, the waves of nausea and dizziness and panic passing through him.

hey Sirius, I'm going to sleep here okay?

I do feel safer when you're around.

He tries to breathe through it all.

In

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Get the fuck out of my room.

In.

In.

In.

You like just lying there and fucking taking it —

Sirius falls frantically to his knees and throws up everything, breakfast and lunch and dinner until there was nothing but bile. When he drops back against the desk drawer, wiping a shaky hand across the back of his mouth, he still can't breathe. Not really. His throat is burning, acid and tears.

It's only when he regains himself after a few minutes that he pushes himself up to his feet, following the blood trail to his Great Aunt Francesca's room. He casts a Lumos, turning the doorknob very quietly, opening it quickly to stop the creaking of the hinges; things you learn in a family that hurts you for making a little too much noise. It's habit at this point.

He stills when he sees the closet door open, a part of the bedsheet being pulled in. 

Regulus.

Sirius runs the rest of the way, opens the closet door, relief so strong it hurts to feel it as he reaches for him inside and pulls him out and right into his arms.

In hindsight he thinks, he should have controlled himself, been calmer, thought more, and Merlin been much more careful with him, especially when it turns out he's just scared his little brother from the suddenness and franticness of it. 

He can hear Regulus' pleas, switching in babbling panic between English and French— something he has only ever witnessed a handful of times, because it means he's so out of his mind with terror he doesn't even know what he's saying anymore, just saying whatever he thinks would keep him safe. He can feel the way he's trying to push off him and twist towards the closet, hear the way he's crying rather hysterically against him, and Sirius holds him tightly and tries not to cry into his hair and whispers whatever soothing nothings come to mind, and he thinks, it wasn't enough.

Everything I did to that bastard, it wasn't enough.

After a very long time, Regulus tries to pull away from him, and Sirius lets him go, though his hands stay on his brother's arms. That's when he really gets to take a good look at him, at the bruising all over one side of his face. His thumb trembles as it runs featherlight over his cheek, trying to swallow the rising anger all over again.

"Siri, I-I think I'm bleeding...a lot," it's a whisper through a crumple of his mouth, scared and impossibly, impossibly young, and Sirius is struck by the memory of him when they were smaller, running to him with rosebud lips twisted and tears running down baby fat cheeks, showing him his blistered hands caused by their Maman's punishment.

Sirius didn't know how to heal anything at that age but he saw a mother kiss her child's scraped knees once, and so he would kiss his baby brother's smaller palms and for some reason, for some reason, it never failed to soothe his tears away.

He wished it was still scraped knees and blistered hands, which he supposes would have sounded insane to any normal person. Maybe it wouldn't.

Sirius doesn't really know what he's doing anymore, his eyes wide, glancing at his baby brother and drawing him back into his arms, pushing a hand at his spine to look down his back, and his mouth falls open in a horrified gasp, suppressed into silence, because there is blood on the sheets, because it's his baby brother's blood and it's from— and he doesn't know what to —

Oh God is it supposed to be that much? 

Please. Please, I don't know what to do, please, I need someone older and wiser —

Sirius sniffs roughly and pulls back quickly, putting his hands to his face, pushing his hair behind his ear, "it's alright, it's not that bad. We — we can fix it. I can fix it."

He means to be reassuring but Regulus doesn't seem reassured, still seems so fucking scared, shaking all over.

"N-no, I think m'... m'bleeding a lot. He — he said he wouldn't do it... through a cruciatus curse — " his face crumples, and Sirius feels like he's just been thrown in an icy lake, "if I stopped fighting and so I — fuck, I-I know you'll think I'm a coward b-but I — "

"No," Sirius manages, chokes out more than anything, blinking fast and hard, "no you're not, you — it's okay. It's okay." He's still reeling from the panic and horror of what he's just heard. He can hardly even think anymore and he has half a mind to just, to fucking go back and crucio him even more until there's no doubt he's insane or dead. "It wasn't your fault, okay? You — you just did whatever you had to, it's okay."

"But he did it anyway," Regulus forces out, clear that he's trying to sound even, not succeeding very much. It's only then his tremors look more like cruciatus spasms than fear, though there is a lot of that too surely. "S-said he wanted to...try it."

And Sirius.

Sirius just —

He thought he couldn't possibly feel it to that extent again at this moment, after how much of it he's let out, but there it is, all over again, and he's pushing to his feet with that same white hot fury and loathing, hands clenched and tension and rage vibrating through him —

"Sirius?" Regulus chokes out, panicked, catching his sleeve, and that's all it takes for Sirius to stop right there and fall back in front of him and gather the smaller boy back up into his arms, chin to his shoulder and his hands gripping the back of his head to his chest. He squeezes him in tightly against himself, closing his eyes.

"Okay," he whispers, shifting his chin against his shoulder, pressing his cheek to his, "Okay."

It's silent for a moment. 

Sirius doesn't know why it ever enters his mind. He knows it's fucking stupid even as it does. But maybe it's desperation, the ever vivid awareness of the blood and wounds, the painful and sickening need for an adult, for someone older than him, someone who knows how to heal. Maybe he thinks that they would be kinder to Regulus, they would treat him in a way they could never possibly treat Sirius if he were ever hurt, because in the end they do seem to love and care about Regulus, don't they? They can't even go to Narcissa considering what Sirius just did to her bastard husband.

There's no one in this house that he would ever really go to for anything unless the world was ending, and in a way that's what it feels like.

"Reg," Sirius whispers, small and hesitant in a way he is not used to, but then, the situation is like nothing he would have ever thought he'd see, would have given anything not to, "I think, we need to go to Maman and Papa."

Regulus freezes, and then slowly pulls away from him. There is something in his eyes that Sirius can't quite read.

"Because... I-I don't think I really know how to heal any of this, if I'm honest. And — and I think they would, they would put a stop to this, if Lucius ever..." if he's even alive or sane, but on the chance he is, and he recovers and comes back and it happens again.

For one, Sirius won't ever let it happen again. But —

Surely. Surely. At least this if nothing else, if they have never truly been there and useful in anything else ever, at least in this extreme kind of situation, or hell even if it's just out of disgust, and isn't it so clear who got hurt? Who deserves the punishment? And —

There's something in the way Regulus' eyes raise up slightly, then on his face. Something in the haunted way he looks.

"Oh," Sirius whispers, half-whimpers it out more than anything maybe, his mouth crumpling, "oh they know."

The hurt tightening around Regulus' eyes, the red-rimmed and heavy grief, say it all. Or perhaps the story is even worse than he could imagine. 

Idiot. Fucking idiot, for ever thinking for even a second that their parents could...

All the shite he gives Reg for being their parents' favourite. But what does it even get him, in the end? Nothing of worth.

Sirius wraps the sheets tighter around his baby brother, puts his arms under his knees and his back, and lifts him up as he stands to his feet. He carries him towards the bathroom.

***

"Sirius?"

"Yeah Reg?"

"I fought... back...this time."

The water is turning pink. Sirius is putting shampoo in his little brother's hair, was almost done but he takes a little longer now. He can feel Regulus' eyes on him, as if he is waiting for some reaction to this, but Sirius doesn't have anything worth giving because all he really wants to do is cry. The water is turning pink and his brother is, in the smallest voice, telling him he tried to be brave in the worst situation, all because of Sirius and his stupid fucking words that were more teeth than anything true.

"No... I guess it doesn't really matter," he says, when Sirius doesn't say anything for a long time, looking down and away. "since I couldn't... stop him in the end."

"I was just being an arse," Sirius says, his voice only slightly tremulous for someone one wrong breath away from breaking down, "I shouldn't have said those things. They don't, God... they really don't apply here, Reg. I was just being an arse because you sold me out, okay? Like when I was eleven and you gave Maman all my letters to you, and then when I was twelve you gave her Pete's letter about muggle travelling and got all my friends' owls blocked and now the mirror and I just— I — " Sirius clamps his mouth shut. He closes his eyes. Shut the fuck up, he thinks, now is not the time. "Forget it. Just... it doesn't matter right now. Let's just get you — "

"I don't remember any of this," Regulus says, and when Sirius looks up, the confusion is painfully real on an otherwise frayed and exhausted face. He looks too young and too old at the time. Sirius doesn't know how he's even talking to him, even as wispy and frail of a voice as it is, "I never... I never did any of this, I — you never...sent me any letters, in your 1st year." Regulus swallows hard, as if it's taking his energy just to even speak. "It hurt...that you forgot."

Sirius thinks this is what it must feel like, to a glass that shatters.

His world, it shatters.

Regulus is still trying to talk, saying something about how he didn't know he lost his mirror, and Sirius is sitting there staring at the wall.

Years.

I took it out on you for years.

I ignored you, pushed you away, hurt you, I --

I let you get hurt.

All of it, for things you didn't even do.

All of it, because of her.

Because oh God it's so clear now. It's so clear.

Because of course, they will always be more vulnerable divided than united. Especially Regulus, who could hide things from her and lie to her if it protects Sirius more than it hurts him, betray her at some point if it ever comes to Sirius. But also Sirius, who has little to fight for if he doesn't love Regulus more than anything in the world.

"Fuck," Sirius whispers, hands shakily running up into his hair, clenching his fists into it. They are still soapy and wet. He stands up to his feet, turning away. For a long moment nothing, just frozen, running through it all. The tears are on the very edges of his eyes, darting back and forth as they remember everything. He turns around and abruptly kicks the wall, yelling, "Fuck!"

After a long time, when he has composed himself, he turns and makes his way back to Regulus, taking his smaller hands in his and presses his forehead to them. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Reggie. I can't believe I ever..."

Regulus isn't saying much. When Sirius looks up he thinks he looks even more drained, paler, slumped further in the bathtub. Time keeps passing, wasting, and nothing is really getting fixed or taken care of. Sirius doesn't know what to do. He's tried the basic healing spells, but they're no good for cruciatus curses or anything that's not just superficial bruises and cuts, and he's not skilled enough for the better healing spells; the ones that could go badly wrong if casted incorrectly.

It's the dead of the night. Sirius doesn't even know how he'll get to Godric's Hollow, it's not like he knows the way or anything. The floo is restricted by their parents and they are not old enough to Apparate. Regulus is so hurt. Sirius doesn't know how they'll make it.

But it's all he can think of.

"Reg," Sirius whispers, tapping Regulus' cheek, "hey, Reggie, stay with me. I know you're exhausted and hurting, but... I just need you to stay with me a little okay?" The best thing after Cruciatus curses is just passing out, sleeping. But then, this isn't quite that.

"M'tired...and in pain..."

"I know baby brother, I know, but... I'm going to get us to James' place okay? They'll... they'll know what to do."

"No..."

Fuck.

"Reg," Sirius says, desperately, kneeling beside him by the tub. He's holding his hands, forehead to them again, "Reggie please. We can't stay here you know that, not after this, after... after everything I learned today. Not with you so hurt. And... fuck, I don't know if Lucius is dead or what but, I think they're going to kill me when they find out."

"You...go. I'll stay."

"Are you fucking joking? You think I'm going to do that? How are you going to heal? What the hell are you going to do with our fucked up parents and cousins when they find out everything?"

Regulus' head is back against the tiled wall. He stares at Sirius, his eyes half-closed from weakness, but his lips press together tightly, quivering. "I don' know."

Sirius nearly falls apart right then and there, his desperation growing worse and all over his face as he turns his twisted face away, closing his eyes. After a while he turns back to Regulus, his breathing not quite right, "I'll stay, if you do. I'm not going to leave you like this, I'm not going to leave you ever again. But you know they're going to kill me. They're going to crucio me to death for doing the same to their precious fucking political ally."

It does seem to get through to Regulus, quiet and staring at Sirius, looking so tired and small.

"I don't...want them to know...what happened... to me."

Sirius has many things on the tip of his tongue, you have nothing to be ashamed of and they're good people, they won't ever use it against you or think less of you for getting hurt but there was a time, before he really got to know James and Remus and Peter and how good people can be, when Sirius couldn't bring himself to trust anyone with the things he went through, afraid that he'd be seen as weak or they'd think it was his fault like everyone in this family does, and maybe it's something like that for Reg too.

"We'll work around it," Sirius says, and then realises as much as he might try his best he's not sure he can promise it, not if he'd have to tell them so they could heal him, but for now he says it mostly to appease Regulus, "I'll... I'll work around it."

If Regulus were any sober and okay he might have seen through it. But now he melts against him with absolute trust, head to his shoulder. It's bittersweet, but mostly bitter, to think he still does even after everything, even if Sirius doesn't deserve it.

"I'll...slow you...down."

Sirius shakes his head, pressing his cheek to his hair, taking one of his hands in his own, "I'll figure it out. I'll take care of everything. Just -- please tell me you'll come with me."

Another long silence.

"Okay." It's quiet and exhausted.

Sirius breathes, relieved, smiling weakly as he turns his head to look down at him. He can't help the kiss to the back of his baby brother's hand, "yeah? Okay?"

"Okay." There is a wan, barely there quirk at his lips that could just be Sirius' imagination, faded by the next blink and the frail whisper.

*

Sirius helps Regulus dress in fresh and clean clothes, light and loose pyjamas and a thin sweatshirt. He packs up their bags, only the necessities so they would be easy to carry along with Regulus.

Making it out of the iron doors is the hard part. They can't use any magic on account of being minors and alerting the authorities. Regulus is struggling to walk, and halfway through Sirius has to carry him with a hand under his knees and back, so that it won't hurt him anymore. But that proves difficult even despite only important items in their two bags; wands, a few clothes, toiletries, some pictures of theirs. Sirius still manages it until they get to the main street and Knight bus point, where he nearly collapses to his knees and lays the smaller boy across his legs and waits for the Knight bus.

On the knight bus Sirius pleads the driver to go slowly because his brother is hurt.

"Shite. Take him to St. Mungos then, yeah? I'll get you there."

"No!" Sirius says quickly, "no please, they'll alert our parents. Can you take us to Godric's Hollow instead?"

The driver doesn't ask any more questions for which Sirius is grateful. He supposes there's something to be said if there's a kid who's hurt and none of them are going to their parents about it.

He lets Regulus lie with his head on his lap through the ride, curled up across the seat. He is shivering.

"Cold?" Sirius asks in a whisper, leaning close, running a hand over his brother's hair. Regulus nods, barely there as it is, through another tremor. It scares Sirius if he's honest. The night is cool, but not enough for such chills.

Still he shrugs his favourite trademark leather jacket off and drapes it over his form, only his shoes visible. Sirius adjusts it over his shoulder, then rests a hand on his hair, looks out the window and pretends he doesn't see his own reflection looking like he is perpetually trying not to break down, red puffs under his eyes and a stiff face holding something back. Looks back down every now and then at his sleeping little brother's face and brushes his hair back.

The Knight bus stops at the end of the street, where the row of houses are, and it's then Sirius realises he doesn't even remember which house it is. He knows James told him, but it was so long ago and he can't remember.

Sirius' holds onto his brother tight at his side as they begin to walk, trying to keep Regulus steady and make sure he's on his feet. "That's it, you're doing good, little star. That's good." There's a lot dividing his focus, the exhaustion, the two bags on his shoulder, trying to pay attention to the houses, waiting for something to strike his memory, the fear that his parents may be awake and coming for him, and above all his injured little brother. He feels like his head is being split in a hundred directions.

And yet he is acutely aware that it's nothing compared to what Regulus is feeling at this moment, the kind of pain he must be in.

He wishes he had the mirror, so he could call James the way he said he could. James would be coming here in a heartbeat if he just asked.

After a certain point, Regulus' steps stutter, and a pained noise leaves his throat. "Sirius..." his breath hitches, and Sirius has to look at him only once to understand. His legs give up, going under him, and Sirius holds him tight and collapses with him, as Regulus frantically folds over at the other side to throw up. Sirius holds his hair back, watching him with darting, worried eyes.

Sirius draws him back when it's over but Regulus isn't able to stay upright anymore, slumping against him. Sirius' hands flutter over his bruised face, panicked, "Reg, Reggie hey — "

"I can't," Regulus whispers, weakly, into his shoulder, "s-sorry, I can't..."

Sirius is quiet, as a kind of despair and dread breaks over his head. Maybe he goes too long without saying anything, staring at him, because the next thing Regulus mumbles, rather resigned to the thought,

"Are you...gonna leave me?" 

His first reflex is to ask him, how could you think that? but then he remembers all the last few years, all the ways he ignored and abandoned and hurt him, and then he feels like he doesn't have any right.

"Of course not," Sirius says. The fear is swelling up in him, every second Regulus is getting worse, being forced to exert too much of himself in spite of it. He brushes a shaky hand over his brother's cheek, blinking hard and fast against the dread tight in his throat. He needs to be strong, needs to stay calm, forcing a reassuring smile on his face, "you can't walk anymore, huh? That's okay. That's alright. I'll take care of everything. You — you don't worry about a thing, okay Reggie?" He pulls Regulus in gently against him.

"I think... m'gonna fall 'sleep." Pass out, is what he means, but he says it like that to make it sound less alarming. Sirius knows because he fucking learned it from Sirius himself.

"Okay," Sirius says, petting his hair like when they were kids, putting his baby brother to sleep after a nightmare. All of this. All of this, maybe it is just a nightmare. "That's okay."

Wake up.

Please wake up.

Regulus passes out against his chest. Sirius looks around desperately, frantically, as if he might see someone around who could help.

But there's no one here at this time of night, the entire street asleep. The clouds are dark in the sky. The first drop of the rain falls on Sirius' hand and darkens on the pavement in front of their curled forms.

He looks down at the bags hanging off his shoulder.

"Fuck it," he mumbles, shrugging it all off. Thinks maybe he shouldn't have bothered to bring anything except his brother, but maybe it would have been inconsiderate to force the Potters to spend any further energy, time and money on them than they will already have to.

But selfishly, he doesn't care anymore, as long as they'll help his brother.

Anything for Regulus. Anything.

Sirius pulls his leather jacket tighter around his brother, picks him up in his arms by under his knees and back again, and runs through the street, reading through the plates on the doors displaying the family surnames. The rain grows faster and harder, makes it harder to see, but —

He stops in front of a house, feels something familiar about it. Like he's seen it in a photograph.

my mum loves hydrangeas and summer tulips.

Our entrance is full of them, along with these tower of jewels, like these long cones with little flowers all over them. They can grow in very specific places but, cheating with a little magic never hurts anyone you know. Bet if you ever come by you'd be able to tell where we live right off the bat.

________

The first time James saw Regulus was when Sirius brought him into their compartment on his first day one year later, but he'd heard everything about him already from Sirius.

What he didn't expect was how pretty he would be, like a cherub in a painting. Also how small, a whole head shorter than everyone in that compartment despite only a year difference.

At twelve years old it was mostly a passing thought, words like cute and pretty. He felt a little too happy on the inside when Regulus, avoiding eye contact and constantly scowling, did shake his hand and said, "hello." in a rather grumpy tone. In the end it didn't change much of the fact that Regulus didn't seem to like him very much.

At one point he tugged at Sirius and whispered something in his ear, and then Sirius, ever so adoring and attentive to the boy he called his star and the center of his universe, brushed a hand over his hair as he leaned his ear close to listen before murmuring something to him and tugged him gently to rest his head on his lap, Regulus coming easily to him and shifting on the seat as if readying himself for a nice nap through the ride. That is until he opened his gray eyes to Peter's curiosity at the unusually close sibling dynamics, Remus' slight smile, and James staring at them with the biggest, most endeared grin, and then with a sneer and a scowl, he haughtily rolled around on the seat to face away from them.

It was mostly funny, all three of them trying to repress their snickers, only somewhat afraid of the prospect of baby Black's wrath.

Still there was a fascination that, in hindsight, threaded through James' interactions with him, whenever he saw him anywhere. Mostly though he was still just Sirius' pretty little baby brother. There were a few incidences where James came across Regulus being bullied by Snape's lot, Mulciber and Avery.

When it wasn't Sirius hexing the shite out of them, when he wasn't around, James took on the role, except he went straight for a punch to the face. Partially this was because he was Sirius' brother, someone dear to someone that was dear to James, but also perhaps for unrelated reasons, like, he would just think Regulus was so tiny, and there was a kind of vulnerability to him that made James want to keep him safe from all the darkness in the world. 

He knew Regulus would kill him if he ever heard these thoughts in his head, but something about him just made James want to wrap him up in bubble and hide him away from the world.

The need to protect him never went away, because, well, again, Regulus would kill him if he were able to read his mind, but he...didn't exactly ever stop being small? And that vulnerability never went away either, so often hidden behind a mask of cold and stiff, and only ever broken out in extreme situations, like being bullied or something to do with his parents, cruel words in letters or something he was afraid of being punished for and he would come running to Sirius, and that time Sirius got hit by a bludger or pretty much every interaction related to Sirius.

Even later when they stopped talking for reasons unknown to James, he could see the way his eyes followed his brother in the corridors, the hidden pain behind the stiffness of his face. Brittleness more like, as if he was holding something back.

But at thirteen was when James got the big fat crush on him, when he came to school having lost all the baby fat in his cheeks and clear cheekbones, longer curls of thick black hair, prettier than anyone James has seen. By fourteen he was beginning to understand respecting the limits other people set in regards to themselves, as explained by his parents, and began to accept that Lily might never change her mind about him. He was beginning to move on, perhaps somewhat glad to be rid of the intense and near-unbearable feelings at times that made him humiliate himself in ways he could only see in hindsight. James has never been able to half-arse through anything.

So he was rather glad to be able to just focus on his life, his studies, his friends.

Enter Regulus Arcturus Black with his angelic beauty and biting sarcasm. 

Good God. Here we go again.

Although by this time, of course, James had learned a lot from his time falling all over himself for Lily. 

So, he fell all over himself for Regulus, but a lot more secretly.

Which was all for the better because, well, he was his best friend's brother after all. Sirius might actually punch him in the throat for drooling after his little brother, regardless of whatever went on between them, while at the same time seeing it as a betrayal of sorts because James really had no idea just how bad whatever went on was. But James could tell Sirius did love Regulus, because it couldn't hurt the way it did if he didn't.

Regulus didn't try out for Quidditch either until he was thirteen, and it didn't take long for him to become an absolute star on the Quidditch pitch, known by all as a seeker to watch out for. By fourteen (and fifteen for James) he couldn't call it just a crush anymore.

He liked Regulus. Really liked him. The few interactions they had by accident was enough. Being on the other end of his biting sarcasm and snipes was enough. Seeing him on the Quidditch pitch being gorgeous decked out in his gear and absolutely brilliant at flying and catching snitches was enough. Seeing him day after day after day in the corridors and the Great Hall, being his neat and impeccable self with his starched shirts and creaseless slacks was enough. Learning the little things about him was enough, like the way he had a major sweet tooth and ate caramel pudding like it was the last thing left to eat on Earth, and the way he elegantly rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in thought when he was reading, and just the way his hands looked? Holding brooms and books like they were sacred. And the way he looked when he was drunk after a party, all flushed and wide-eyed.

He was an adorable drunk, surprisingly, rather than an angry or mean one the way James expected. James once caught him drunk on the wrong way to his rooms, and when James asked him how much he had to drink,

Regulus blinked blearily as he frowned at his moving fingers, as if he couldn't coordinate them or figure them out (he was very drunk and underage and James was rather close to finding out who gave this boy any alcohol and beat the shit out of them but — anyway), then stuck up two fingers in James' face with a lazy little smile before promptly passing out against him with his chin to his chest, and James' heart was hammering and he was flushing up his neck from how cute that was while also thinking about killing whoever gave him these drinks while also carrying him to the Slytherin commons in his arms.

For a good part of the walk he was probably smiling down at him with all the adoration he was usually careful to hide now that he wasn't being perceived. 

Then there were the moments on the mirror. He loved them. Loved the days Regulus was there. Loved hearing him talk about anything, even if it wasn't as much. He loved hearing his thoughts, his commentary, his snipes, his sarcasm, the way he rolled his eyes at their antics like he thought they were idiots. But he loved it best when he could see him hiding a smirk, a smile, rolling his mouth to a corner against it or biting it back. When he couldn't hide it and it broke out against his will.

James' heart went crazy that one time Regulus actually laughed at something he said. He thinks about it every day. Every fucking day; brushing his teeth, in the shower, at the dinner table. It would come to him suddenly and he'd feel his heart squeeze and he'd have to try to stop himself from bodily spasming because of his emotions in front of his parents, or acting like he couldn't not breathe just from the memory.

He traces every detail of that memory; the way his gorgeous eyes went crinkling and his hand shot up to his face, as if half caught between trying to hide it, his lips spread in a grin, teeth slightly caught against it, before it closed into a lingering smile, then a quick clearing of his throat as he wiped it clean and looked away, as if that would make it seem it didn't happen. He was wearing a pale blue button up with beige slacks, had one side of his hair tucked behind an ear in the prettiest way, maybe he did it thoughtlessly. 

By fifteen he is aware he is well and truly obsessed with the boy.

*

James walks to the door, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He can't think of why anyone would ever come to their house at 1am in the morning, and in this heavy rain too.

But that is until he looked through the peephole.

He sobers up pretty fast, seeing a face that looked a little too much like a drenched Sirius. 

He would only see Regulus when he flings the door open. 

He would see Sirius standing there in the rain with his brother limp in his arms, with the most wrecked and helpless face James has ever seen on anyone. He looks, more than anything, like a child on the verge of tears.

"Oh God," James whispers, "Pads, what..."

"My," Sirius manages, chokes, "My brother..." his voice depresses, pained, as if he has to force the words out, "is hurt."

James sees the side of Regulus' face only then, bruised up to his eye. He is frozen for a total of six seconds, sick to his convulsing throat, his heart shrivelling up tight and painful at the sight. 

And then on shaky legs he runs inside, yelling, "Mum! Dad!"

There is such panic and fear in his voice, and strangely it makes Sirius feel a bit better, because — he's been feeling so scared all this time, not knowing what to do, and seeing James feel scared just from a few seconds of this makes him feel like maybe that's okay, that he's been so clueless and stupid the entire time. And also just the prospect of having people who would know.

Effie and Monty are dishevelled in their pyjamas when they run downstairs, James running up behind them at their shoulder with his eyes wide behind his glasses, "What's going on love? James told me — " and for a few seconds they too are frozen at the sight of them, the two of them drenched and a bloom of bruises on a sleeping face and another torn, terrified face; the two of them so similar in some ways, so different in others.

"Let's take the two of you upstairs," Effie says, in a soft and calm voice.

They're all hovering behind him as Sirius rushes Regulus into the room — the guest room that Effie leads them to and lays him down on a bed, very carefully, with his palm under his brother's head and letting him go only to lay his hand over his hairline again. Monty accios a towel and puts each across Sirius and Regulus' shoulders for the time being.

"James, can you check for any visible injuries dear? And be gentle with him."

"Of course," James says softly, almost absently, as he settles beside Regulus. He thinks he doesn't know how to be anything but with this boy. 

"Sirius can you tell us what happened?" Monty and Effie say as they go out of the room, gesturing for Sirius to follow him. He catches sight of Sirius then, hovering anxiously and watching them, his hands twitching. Like he can't stand anyone else being near his brother or touching him. James opens his mouth, not quite sure what he'd say to reassure him. This fear and anxiety feels strange, for it to be towards James, but he can also tell Sirius is understandably rather out of it and feeling overprotective.

"It's okay," he eventually settles, softly, "I'll be careful. Sirius he's safe, okay? You both are. He's in good hands with my mum and dad."

A second too late Sirius nods shakily, and follows after his parents as they're heading towards, supposedly, their own bedroom where they will get their wands and then the necessary potions based on what Sirius tells them happened. They can accio their wands but the potions need careful handling, lest one comes out from behind the shelf and topples the rest of them out, as well as to be chosen appropriately.

The fading word James hears is crucioed. His entire body goes cold and stiff.

His hand is trembling. He swallows hard around the fear and anger tight in his throat, in his chest. He reaches out and very gently wraps an arm around the smaller boy's back, pulls him up against his own chest sideways so he can take the leather jacket off him and lift his shirt without it pressing or rubbing up against any possible injuries.

"Hey let me look at you," James murmurs, mostly talking to calm himself perhaps. He lifts his shirt up to his underarms, finding scars that leave him still for a good few seconds. But he tries to breathe through the rising anger and ache in his chest, because now's not the time and he needs to keep a clear head, stay as clinical as possible.

There are cuts on his back, scratched down his skin like nails, and handprints on his throat, his wrists, and he catches sight of the very edge of bruises on Regulus' hips, above his waistband. He hesitates, not quite wanting to check anything lower than the waist, where there are not the most vital organs, without him being awake and aware of it. Did someone kick him there? Hit him with something?

James swallows, lowering his shirt down.

"Okay," he murmurs, "no internal bleeding. Just some bruises and scratches so far."

Though of course that means nothing.

They used the fucking cruciatus curse on him. How many times did they? And Sirius, too, they must have —

How is this going on with no one to stop them? How is that fucking possible that someone's using unforgivables on their kids or cousins and no one's doing a thing about it? God if James had his way they'd be fucking dead on the ground right now.

"God, what did they do to you Reg?" James whispers, putting his chin to his hair, waiting for Sirius and their parents to come back. He carefully pulls him away, beginning to lay him back on the bed.

It's as he almost does that he sees it.

A patch of red, what looks like and now even registers as the smell of blood, on the back of his pyjama bottoms, and maybe it only looks like it's that much because Regulus is drenched wet from the rain, blood spreading in water, but the panic and terror is setting in, James' heart pounding wildly, a strange churn in his gut.

He can't tell how there could possibly be blood there.

James shakily lifts Regulus up against himself again, hands a bit frantic and feeling too big on him now; God he's so small, all James wants is to hold him close and keep him safe from everything in the world. He raises his shirt again, looking for the source of blood even though it doesn't really make any sense, not really, because if he was bleeding like that from anywhere on his torso it would have been through his shirt first, and it would have been obvious.

Then he hears voices in the corridor coming nearer, and Sirius is coming inside throwing glances at his parents, and James, unable to handle this ever-consuming fear, finds tells his parents shakily as soon as he sees them, "Mum, dad, he's — he's bleeding, there's blood on his pyjamas, a-and it looks fresh, but I can't — I can't find any open wounds?" 

There is a baffled silence throughout the room. And then broken by a gutted sob that takes up all the air in the room.

All eyes raise, turning to Sirius. The sound comes from somewhere so deep it may as well be right from his soul, and he's standing there trembling, one hand holding onto the desk that is beside him and the other clutching against his own stomach, holding together an anguish that looks more physical than emotional despite the crumple of his face, the tears down his face.

His parents seem to take a few seconds, and then they understand something James doesn't, his mum's eyes wide, lips turning into an 'o', shuddering and watery and a little gasping. "Oh, oh sweetheart."

"He was..." Sirius tries, and seems to have swallow down against something very hard, "my baby brother was...r—"

He never manages to say it, the word. In the next second he's on the floor, frantically moving for the bin and throwing up into it. Effie runs at his side, putting a hand to his back. By the time he's done he's hyperventilating, his hands shaking so hard, some kind of wounded and hysterical noises coming from him that feels like he's been keeping everything together too long.

James — sheltered James who has perhaps not quite seen enough of the darkness in the world yet — takes a while to connect all the dots together. 

And then he does.

"No," a small, mournful whisper, through a burning throat, his eyes burning too as he stares into the smaller boy's face.

It's not that he didn't know things like that happened. It's just that it seemed impossible that it could happen to Reg, to anyone he cares about. 

His hands trembling, needing to do something with them or to look like he isn't going to fall apart, he shakily puts the towel across Regulus' shoulders over his wet hair, drying it by rubbing the towel in gently. But then he can't, hands falling, and he gives up to let his forehead falling to his briefly, closing his eyes against his heart tearing apart.

"Reg," Sirius manages, forces out, "can you — I'm fine, can you check on — "

"It's alright, Monty's taking care of him." Effie strokes Sirius' hair, pulling him onto her shoulder. "You don't worry now, okay?"

His dad's there with his wand, casting some diagnostic spells, which make him look sick, his wand movements faltering, upon whatever it is that he viscerally learns from magic. Then he casts some complicated healing spells accordingly; the one better at it between his parents, even if not to the level of actual Healers. The bruises on Regulus' face fade completely, skin as smooth and porcelain as it has always been in school.

He's very quiet. James doesn't know what it is that he felt upon casting the diagnostic spells but his dad never looks like that, the deep furrow between his brows, a little wide-eyed, staring at the small boy in his arms.

"It's not a complete fix," he says, to the whole room, sounding steady and well kept together, "I've healed the wounds as much as I could, but the cruciatus curse effects are harder to heal even for healers, so a lot of rest and care." He turns to Sirius, "we'll take care of him, okay? You did well bringing him here."

Effie nods, brushing a hand over his hair, Sirius' breaths only just starting to calm into her shoulder, looking exhausted and deflated more than anything. They're still on the floor. "You did so well," she whispers, kissing his hair blindly, "I promise, he'll be so well taken care of here."

Sirius nods, some weak, hitched sob passing through him.

"Let's get him in the shower and changed," Monty says softly, reaching for Regulus. He looks like his heart is breaking. His dad never looks like that either.

That's when Regulus' eyes start to open slowly, only a quarter way; a glimpse of those pretty grey eyes that James is only getting to see now since they came here.

"Hey," James whispers, as softly as if to a baby. For a few seconds Regulus stares up at him, still half-drowsed with his eyes not fully open. His dad's reaching to take his arms, bent down slightly, but as soon as he touches Regulus he just —

He cries out, shrinking back against James. His eyes dart onto his dad, now wide and scared. Immediately his dad stands with his hands up, seeming to understand, "okay okay okay. Alright. I won't touch you."

"Sirius..." his breath hitches on the name, his eyes are roving around, head moving against James, restless and agitated and still so, so scared. His voice is a shaky whisper.

"He's right there," James murmurs to him, turning them both a little so Regulus could see Sirius, "he's a bit sick right now, but you don't worry because my mum's taking care of him. He just needs a minute and then he'll come back to you. Think you could stay with me until then?"

James doesn't really expect it to work if he's honest. Regulus still doesn't know James all too well beyond the numbered interactions they've had, most of them through the mirror, so he's still at least half a stranger to him. 

But the way Regulus is staring up at him again with his cheek to his chest, and the way he, for some unexplainable reason, just absolutely melts against James with trust in his half-disoriented state — nearly kills him, curling sweet and warm around his heart over the other aching emotions. James pulls him closer just a little and rests his chin to his head very lightly, whispering in relief, resisting the urge to kiss him on his forehead, "thank you."

Sirius then draws away from Effie, wiping his hands down his face. "I'm okay now," he tells her, letting out a shuddering exhale, "I...sorry, Effie, and thanks."

"Nonsense," Effie says, patting his cheek. "You're family, you know that. You and Regulus will be a part of us now."

Sirius smiles wanly at her, not so clear as to how much he believes it. She smiles back anyway. He seems to struggle back to his feet, stumbling towards Regulus, and his hands go so gentle as soon as they touch him, his face, his hands.

"Hi," Sirius whispers, "hi little star. How are you feeling?"

Regulus' hand squeezes around Sirius', the tendons of his wrists and knuckles tightening. 

It's as he shifts slightly that something changes in Regulus' face, freezing, a tremor running through him. Slowly, his eyes raise up to James'. Then, clumsy and hasty and heavy in his movements, he begins to push off of him.

James doesn't really understand it, his stomach clenching. He doesn't know if he did something wrong. Regulus keeps glancing at him with his eyes a little wide, an unreadable look on his face.

Regulus falls against Sirius, who carefully pulls him close against his chest again, letting Regulus rest his cheek to his collarbone, the top of his head under his chin. With fluttering and shaky fingers Regulus reaches for the closest thing, the leather jacket James put aside to check his injuries, and pulls at it to cover himself up from the waist down.

And then James understands. And then his heart breaks.

And the place where Regulus just moved off of is stained too, the rainwater having made it seep through and spread. Regulus hasn't noticed it yet, and James reaches for the blankets when Regulus isn't looking to cover it up. 

Sirius did notice, was staring at it with a kind of fear until James pushed the blankets over it. Then his eyes raise to him, and he looks like he might start crying again, and James doesn't blame him, thinks he himself could too, and this happened to hisbaby brother.

Thank you, Sirius' lips shape in small words, the next second distracted by Regulus' quiet, anxious whimper of his name, his fingers twisting Sirius' shirt, his struggle to tell him what was happening without being obvious. He doesn't know that everyone knows what happened by now, and until he's in a better state of mind he won't.

"Shh," Sirius soothes, pushing a kiss to his temple, letting his lips rest there as he continues murmuring, "you're okay now. You're okay. Monty fixed you up as much as he could. You'll be okay now. I'll take care of you."

James looks to his parents, who are off to the side talking.There was something almost fearful and alarmed on both their faces, seeming drained of color and glancing at the brothers every now and then. His mother has one hand on her hip and the fingers of the other trembling over her lip.

"Let's get you cleaned up yeah?" Sirius' voice brings James back, murmuring to Regulus as he's tying the jacket around him.

"Do you have your clothes? I don't think I saw a bag...?" James asks.

"Left it on the street," Sirius says, "Reg couldn't walk anymore."

"I'll go get it," James says. "But first, I'll get you both something from my closet."

"Yeah, thanks," Sirius says, smiling at his best friend, as weak and tired as it is, hardly reaching his eyes, "Really. For everything. I've got to say it to Effie and Monty too."

"That's what we do for family," is all James says, smiling back, before he gets up and runs to get them both pyjamas.

He knocks on the bathroom and lets Sirius take the clothes, then he goes to the guest room, strips the bed bare, replaces it with new sheets, blankets and pillows, and takes the bloody ones for washing in another bathroom.

There's something about the quiet that brings his emotions closer to him, as he stares down at the water and blood on the sheets. When it was busy and hectic and there were more important things to do, when there was Regulus and Sirius, he could focus on them. Put his own feelings aside. But now that he's alone and his thoughts are loud and clear, it bears down on him. He holds on to the edge of the washing machine, trying to breathe through it.

Then he goes out, when the rain stops, and goes to gets their bags where he could see them.

James knows he won't be able to sleep tonight, haunted already by the blood on the sheets, on Regulus' clothes, his pain and fear. Sirius' pain and fear. He puts the rain and mudsoaked clothes in the bag down for washing too, cleans and salvages whatever else he could of all their things.

At the bottom of the bag he finds the pictures, spends an hour into the dead of night smoothing and drying them with spells because they seem important, because they must be if even with all that was happening Sirius remembered to take them with.

He does it until they look almost undamaged, but for a few waterspots and creases, and he holds them up and looks through them; a small Sirius and Regulus, pictures of them growing older with each one he puts at the back, slinging their arms across each other's shoulders, smiling or laughing in many of them, sometimes in the bright sun behind them, sometimes Sirius catching him in a headlock and giving him a noogie. In one of them, Sirius has his arm around his neck in a near headlock with the most shite eating grin and kisses Regulus' cheek in what looks like a loud and obnoxious smack, and Regulus grimaces and ducks while pushing his face away, wiping his whole hand down his cheek and looking down at it and wiping it on his slacks, to Sirius laughing at him from the side. James laughs too, a bit watery, because they look so happy, because right now he can feel their sadness stifle his breaths even from the next room. Or maybe it's just his own.

___

The next day when they catch him downstairs after dinner, Effie and Monty sit him down in the living room to talk to him. They let him and Regulus have the day, giving them as much space as they ned, but Sirius could tell this was coming, and it makes the inside of his skin itch with discomfort. He likes Effie and Monty, he really does. They're the best adults he's ever met, the best parents, the best people along with Regulus, James, Remus and Peter.

But he has never in his life been sat down to talk. Maybe about some mischief or misdemeanour in school by professors, but not about anything personal or painful. And frankly he just wants to get back to Regulus right now. He thinks it's going to be hard for many days now, maybe weeks; letting him go, letting him out of his sight.

"Do you know," Monty starts slowly, with his hands clasped, after a good minute of silence, "what really happened to him?"

Sirius clears his throat, uncomfortable. He doesn't think it's his to tell, even if they already know more than half of it due to unforeseen circumstances.

"Yeah, he told me," Sirius says, which is all he says. 

It's just that it's not easy to talk about, even if he knew he could. He told Regulus he'd try to work around it, but he meant it only to the point where it wouldn't help him. Because he'll do anything if it means the best for Regulus, if it makes things better for him or protects him or saves him. 

He's not sure right now how telling them anything more could help Regulus, thinks he's already going to struggle with the thought that anyone else in this house knows anything about it. Maybe even with the fact that Sirius does.

"Okay," Effie says, "I... I understand that it's not easy to talk about." Sirius expects a but to come, "I also understand that...we technically have no right to know any of this unless Regulus wanted us to himself, that it happened due to circumstances. But I can't... I can't say it's not a good thing that we know, baby, because I can't bear the thought of either of you dealing with this all by yourselves, and this way we can figure out better how to help you."

"Yes, if... if you can't talk about it, that's alright. We're never going to ask Regulus about it unless he feels ready and comes to us, because we don't want him to relive what he went through. And we're asking you only because..." Monty trails off, glancing at Effie, and Sirius has never seen a man so confident and well-adjusted lose his composure this way. 

"When Monty ran the diagnostic spells on your brother," Effie takes over, not very composed herself, speaking through shallow breaths and stilted words, "there was... a lot of damage. It's... that sort of blood loss was... it wasn't stopping on its own, and you said he was crucioed. So putting two and two together, we think that... these things might have happened at the same time."

Sirius' hands tremble in his lap. He blinks hard and fast, staring ahead. He still remembers the sounds he heard through the door, the way Regulus cried, the choked off and intermittent screams. The image in the dark, only for a few seconds, but branded into his mind.

His silence must have confirmed it for them because Effie nods, heartbreak all over her face, and says softly, "okay." 

Then she gets off the couch, kneeling before him.

"If you need us to stop asking or you want to talk later you can always say so, okay?" Effie says, putting her hand on his. He feels like a child. He always feels like a child, like he doesn't know what he's doing. He felt like all of his fifteen years last night, watching Regulus get hurt and bleed and cry, not knowing what to do except hold him and kiss his hair and say nonsense.

But he doesn't tell her to stop. Maybe he doesn't feel so comfortable, maybe it feels impolite, maybe it's because she's so gentle and Sirius craves it. Craves being cared for and touched kindly and spoken to softly all the time.

"How are you feeling?" she asks him, her eyes kind and open.

Like it's all my fault.

Like I hate myself.

Like I all but threw my baby brother to that bastard.

Like I don't understand why you're here asking me this, why you care, in the face of everything that happened to Reggie.

"I'm fine," is what Sirius says, clearing his throat, looking down and away, "I...can I go back to my brother now?"

It's the only thing he needs, to hold him, to feel him warm and well and safe. To keep him safe.

"Okay," Effie says, "but just two more things we have to ask, and then we'll let you go, unless you'd rather talk about it later."

Sirius just wants to get back, but better to get it over with than have it hanging over his head.

"No, you can ask."

She glances at Monty, communicating something between them silently. Something Sirius sees them do a lot.

Monty nods, "can you tell us who did this?"

"Lucius Malfoy." 

"Okay. Lucius Malfoy, I've heard of him. Do you and Regulus want to file a case against him? And your family too?" He stands to his feet, kneeling before him like Effie is. "We'll help and handle everything. It won't be easy, as you know. Your family is..."

Sirius nods, not looking up from his hands on his lap, "Yeah... so you know there's no point then. They have all the money in the world to bail themselves out, or bribe the Wizengamot. So does that bastard."

"I have connections," Monty says, "I can request the case be handled by someone I know to be very impartial and just. Sirius, you and Regulus just say the word. We'll be right by your side fighting with you, we swear it."

Through the numbness that's been pervading him since morning, the warmth takes him over. He swallows hard, because it means a lot that they would, that they've done so much and that they'll still do so much more, that they truly act like family, even if Sirius has a hard time letting anyone in.

"Thank you, for everything," Sirius says, as he meant to say since last night. "I mean it." He feels Effie squeeze his hand, and they're still waiting for his answer, "I... I don't know if I want to put Reg through it. It's his call, but..." his eyes dart around, "I already... handled that bastard I guess."

Monty blinks up at him, bemused, "handled him?"

Sirius nods, a dark kind of satisfaction in his chest. Wonders if he looks as crazed as he suddenly feels at the thought, "beat and crucioed him within an inch of his life. Honestly I don't even know if he's alive for us to file a case against after that." He wonders if they're scared of him after hearing this, but he doesn't bother looking, "and I don't regret it one bit."

"Good," Monty says, "you shouldn't. I'd do a lot fucking worse."

Sirius' head snaps up at him. Neither of them seem alarmed or scared somehow, which is insane to him -- these well-adjusted, good, kind, normal people. Even Effie seems rather indifferent.

"And about your family?"

Sirius doesn't know. Thinks maybe it's a bad time to ask, because right now he just doesn't feel a fucking thing except an itching under his skin, a need for his brother. He just doesn't care about anything else.

"I guess I just — I'd rather just forget about them entirely if I can. Maybe if they come after us I don't know. If they try to hurt Regulus."

Effie nods, rubbing circles over the back of his hand. The silence is still an open space. There are things on the tip of his tongue. Maybe it's Effie's eyes now that he's looking at them, the soft way she's soothing his hand he doesn't know, but suddenly it's spilling out of him, one of the many things on his mind, make it feel like it will explode from thinking and thinking about it. 

"They knew," Sirius croaks, "about what was happening to Regulus. And they didn't do anything about it."

There's a sharp inhale, a squeeze of his hand. 

"I...I mean I should have known that they'd... I don't know why I ever thought, or hoped they would..." He's not making any sense any more. He sniffs, running a hand down his face, a shaky breath leaving him, "I told Regulus we should go to them, because they would — they would know how to heal, right? And surely even if they've never been good for...fucking anything really, they would — at least for Reggie, and for this, just for this I thought, I hoped... they would stop it from happening. I don't know why I did. I'm a fucking idiot I guess but..." his voice breaks, lips quivering, pressed tight as he rolls his eyes heavenward for a moment, can't fucking believe himself, "but I really wanted them to. I wanted... I just wanted someone older than me."

"Of course baby," Effie says, "of course you did, and you're not an idiot for that. All children need someone older than them, it's not your fault if you didn't have anyone worth needing in that house. And I — I don't even know how you handled it the way you did, how... you're just a boy yourself. But you did so good baby, you brought Regulus all the way here even though you must've been so scared seeing him like that. You saved him. He's alive and well because of you. And now we can take care of him, help him heal from it in every way."

Sirius nods, wiping the flat of his fingers under his eye, coming away wet. He nods again. There is a kind of embarrassment and shame coming over him. Here he is crying, making everything about him, when he is the reason all of this even happened.

"Thank you," he says, and it's only that he says it that he realises how much he means it. He doesn't feel much better because he just doesn't feel anything right now, but it means a lot that she's so good to him. He smiles slightly down at her. "I can't say it enough times I suppose."

Effie laughs, "then stop saying it, and just let us take care of you. Be like James."

"A spoiled little brat?" it's a weak joke, trying to lighten the mood.

Effie nods, her nose scrunching up through her smile, "yes, you and Regulus could be a little more spoiled I think. But that should be easy for me."

*

Regulus sleeps most of the day away, or lies in bed through them if he can't sleep at all, just as he does with the worst ones. He hasn't spoken a word since morning, with James and Effie coming in a few times to check on them, bringing them meals and snacks and potions for Regulus. For most of the day Sirius wraps himself around his brother from the back, face buried between his shoulderblades, and loses himself in his own head.

James pops by to say goodnight, catching Sirius on his way to the guestroom by the door. He hovers a little, awkwardly, as if there's something he wants to say.

"Hey you know I'm just a room away? If you -- if there's anything you want to talk about or need, anything at all, or even just, you know, to hang out a bit? If you ever wanna just come to my room, I could set up the TV there. You could bring Reg too and we could all watch something together."

Sirius supposes it's been a bit unnerving, how withdrawn and weird and distant he's being. It's not what either of them expected whenever they talked about living together, about Sirius running away to stay with James. He knows logically it's just James trying to be there for him, reminding him he can ask for help, even if the negative thoughts inside his head say, you're being weird. He doesn't like you like this. He wants you to just be normal again or he'd want you gone.

it doesn't make sense, he tries to remind himself, because James is the sort of person who would stand by you even at your worst if he loves you, to the point where it sometimes scares Sirius, that someone undeserving might take all of that love and use it against him. Worries that that someone might be him one day, all that Black blood in his veins.

"Yeah I know that," Sirius says, roughly, clearing his throat. He manages a smile.

James nods, smiling back, "good. That's good."

Sirius nods. "Good night Prongs."

"Night Pads."

Sirius turns to go back into the room.

"Pads?"

He stops, looking back at James.

But James doesn't say anything, just looks back at him quietly for a few seconds. Then he steps forward and wraps his arms around him, putting his chin to his shoulder. Sirius hugs him back.

"He'll be okay, you know that, right? And you know you're doing good with him?"

If only you knew, Sirius thinks, to both the statements. James doesn't even know the worst of it. James doesn't know what he did.

"Neither of you are alone anymore."

Sirius nods, and lets him go a little too quickly because he can't stand it anymore; people cradling him so gently, or giving him this love he doesn't deserve.

James steps back, his hand staying on his shoulder for a few seconds, before he lets him go with a pat. He glances into the room, where he could likely see Regulus.

Sirius goes back inside, closing the door behind him. He looks at Regulus, knees curled slightly, back to the room. The bed is right against the wall so he's facing it. His slighter shoulders are rising and falling, and Sirius can tell he's awake. All day they just laid together without saying a word.

He crawls into bed behind his brother, putting his arms around him, shifting to get a comfortable position before he settles, his cheek to his back.

"You don't have to stay with me if you don't want to."

Sirius is startled by Regulus' voice, the first words he's said since morning.

They're quiet, a bit croaky from disuse, from something sad and trying not to be, "I know you've been wanting to spend the summer with Potter." 

And not with me, are the unspoken words.

"I've done it alone before, you know. It... it was hard," and for a very long time there's a silence, choked off, and it holds all these things that Sirius doesn't know, that a few words can't even begin to encapsulate, that spill over only slightly in the painful strain of his voice, the way his words are forced out, "it was really hard... but then I was...okay."

Sirius is struck by the words, the thought of him doing this all alone before, that there was a before to this all the while Sirius lived on obliviously through it. It's not that it didn't occur to him, that he didn't wonder if it something had happened before, but to hear it confirmed is something else entirely.

He can tell Regulus sincerely thinks this is reassuring, God knows why, because all it does is make Sirius want to scream and rage and cry again. He can feel it, swelling in his chest, into his throat, stinging his eyes and nose and quiver through his lips. He holds it back, pressing them tightly together, his eyes numb.

"How old were you?" he asks, glad that they can't see each other. Maybe it's the only reason he can control himself any.

Regulus is breathing, Sirius can feel it and hear it, how hard he has been trying to control himself, to sound like he means it all.

"I was... eleven," he says, slow and still forced out, like it's taking him everything to even speak. For all his misguided attempt at reassurance, he sounds like a strange mix of strained and numb and tired more than anything.

For a moment it's okay, like he might not completely fall apart at that answer. All of him is okay, for a moment.

And then it comes; the twitch between his brows, before furrowing completely, dolefully; the harder sting across his nose and eyes, blurring, the downward twist of his mouth, his chin, against his will.

"Okay," he says, all he can manage, sounding rather incredibly steady for the tremors held tightly together in his shoulders, his body, the way his face is fighting to crumple in on itself, "Okay." But the tears are falling, as silent and still as he could.

"I'm saying you don't have to stay...just because you feel bad for me." His voice is whisper-thin, drowsy. "M'not..that needy...and pathetic."

Stop being so pathetic and needy.

There are many things Sirius wants to say, to tell him, I'm staying here because I want to. I'm staying here because I'm the one that needs you near. I need you. I'm the one that's needy and pathetic. But he's crying in earnest, crying too hard now, can't even breathe from how much. Not a sound or tremor leaves him.

It's only when he feels Regulus' breathing change, deep and even, that he lets the tremors of his crying run through him, violent wracking and soundless.

There were days that year, when they were eleven and twelve, that Sirius can remember now. He had hardly bothered to look at Regulus much, and maybe that was where his failure began, but there were glimpses he caught by accident, that he never bothered to learn more about.

That time he saw Regulus at the dinner table, looking exhausted and unbearably sad. That time he found him sleeping at Sirius' door, and when he'd woken to find him staring down at him he'd just scrambled up quickly to his feet and ran off, mumbling something about sleepwalking. The one time he found him in the library poring over books of protection spells, that he'd later walked into on the occasion he was made to go into Regulus' room and call him to their father's study or to their mother.

The way he got anxious trying to explain to his cousins, to Sirius, that he didn't have feelings for Lucius. 

Hey Sirius, I'm going to sleep here okay?

I do feel safer when you're around.

Last night — that felt like forever ago — when he came into his room —

he had hoped to be kept safe by Sirius' side, until the morning when Lucius will leave.

There was the way his face drained of colour, where it hurt the worst, when Sirius said — when he —

if he thinks about it again, he might throw up.

On the verge of sleep, when he can't cry anymore and only the tears are falling down his still and exhausted cheeks, he wonders if Regulus would have come to him the first time, if Sirius was there, if he didn't ignore him. He thinks of him sleeping by his door and wonders if the answer is yes, if Regulus ever stood outside his room needing his big brother, and then dropped his hand from the doorknob and walked away, believing it wouldn't matter to him. If he slept outside his door that day, and more days than that, after crying from fear, from loneliness, from bearing the weight of it all by himself.

He wonders if it wouldn't have even happened in the first place, because then Sirius would be paying attention, and he'd notice the way Lucius wasn't quite right, that there was something off about him, and he would make sure to keep Regulus away from him.

*

When Regulus wakes up in the middle of the night he's alone.

"Sirius?" the whisper still comes out of him, looking around, as if hoping he might have just missed him. It's dark and silent.

I guess he didn't really want to stay.

He heard Potter talking to him outside the room, and wondered if Sirius wouldn't prefer hanging out with Potter the way he wanted all summer, rather than spending entire days next to his silent and depressed brother out of pity.

He also didn't want to continue proving to Sirius that he was needy and pathetic. Didn't know that was how he was coming across all this time. He knew that was what he felt like internally but he at least thought he controlled it well enough that it wasn't obvious. So he told Sirius it was okay, if he didn't want to stay, because maybe that would show him he isn't as needy and pathetic as he thinks he is.

Even if he doesn't truly think he can do it again — go through this alone a second time. Even if all he wants is for Sirius to stay because he wants to.

Don't go, he was thinking, even as the words were coming out of his mouth, please don't go. Please stay. I don't think I can do it without you this time. 

Please don't go.

Regulus stares up at the ceiling. He's gone now.

It's too dark.

And the door is open a crack.

There are no protection spells.

It doesn't take long for the fear to start creeping in, his breaths starting to take on a shallow and erratic pattern. Regulus pushes himself up on the bed, hands trembling. It still hurts. His body still hurts, partially from being unmoving for most of the day. The cruciatus curse isn't easy to heal, as Fleamont said. But now that he's moving he can feel how less relatively painful everything is, how less painful moving is, and he can't figure out how they healed...

at least not without them knowing.

Because surely they don't know. They can't.

Sirius said he would work around it didn't he? And surely Regulus managed to hide the blood on his pyjamas before anyone saw it. Surely.

Sirius said he would work around it, that he wouldn't tell anyone. He tries desperately to believe in that.

He pushes himself painstakingly, fumbling for his wand on the nightstand, casting a Lumos.

But it's not enough.

The door is still open, and there are no protection spells. So anyone can come in at any time. So it's not safe. There is a whole space outside the door, that nothing is barricading Regulus from, protecting him from.

He staggers to the door, closing it fully and locking it. He casts the protection spells.

And it works for a second.

Only a second.

Tell me, by the way, were all those cute little protection spells for me?

It took me seconds to dismantle.

For three years they kept him safe, mentally that is.

For three years they kept him sane, under the illusion that no one could get to him as long as they're set up.

And with just a few words Lucius made it all feel so foolish. So rudimentary. So pointless. There was never really anything keeping him safe all those years.

Regulus' hand shakes around his wand, wide eyes staring at his door. He collapses to the floor, gasping, the air not quite reaching his lungs anymore, and his heart hammering so fast he thinks he's about to die from it. He is eleven years old again, before he found the protection spells, never able to sleep at night from the terror, never feeling safe, the world outside his door too wide and unpredictable and dangerous. Irrational thoughts of Lucius coming back.

Unwanted by the only person that ever made him feel wholly, thoroughly safe, sleeping at his door and leaving as the first light comes.

*

Sirius goes to the restroom, and then the kitchen for a glass of water, before going back to the guestroom he and Regulus are sharing. When he returns it's to the door locked, which, no problem, he unlocks with an Alohomora, assuming the locks are faulty. 

But when he tries to enter the room there's some fucking barricade.

And his brother is on the other side of it, curled up and hyperventilating into his knees under a Lumos, clearly in the throes of what he learned from Moony was called a panic attack, because Moony had a lot of those, and so he was the first person that knew what to do with Sirius when he was having them, and then Sirius finally knew what to do with Regulus having them.

"Reg!" Sirius calls, trying to push against the barricade, feeling his heart climb into his throat over not being able to reach him. "Reg please, let me in!"

Regulus raises his head, eyes wide, drained of colour and clammy with sweat and chills. He grabs his wand at his side, shakily pointing them at the barricade, and thickly says some incantations that bring them down. There were far too many, and it's a miracle it worked considering how off Regulus' pronunciations were.

Sirius rushes inside, kneeling before Regulus. He grabs his hand and puts it to his chest, "Reg hey, breathe. Breathe for me little brother. Can you do that?"

"The protection spells didn't work," Regulus gasps out, thick and fast, working himself up, "h-he broke through them — in seconds, he said. They never worked. I was never safe, I was never safe—" he's crying, shaking his head with his free fist tugging at his hair, rocking back and forth.

"Please, please breathe with me," Sirius says, fear swelling in his throat, because he can see Regulus going long seconds without breathing now, and technically Moony says the worst that happens is you pass out but for someone who spent years of his childhood terrified it could actually kill, it still freaks him out, "Reg please."

"I can't do it again," Regulus says, in a way that sounds like he's pleading with him, and his voice is high and tight and breaking in wheezes, through the painful crumple of his mouth and chin, crying through his teeth, "I thought I could — but I can't. I don't — have anything — to make me feel safe 'nymore."

"You have me," Sirius says, his voice cracking from desperation. He lets go of his hand, frantic, to hold his face with both his hands, pulling it so he could look into his eyes, shaking it, willing this understanding to sink inside his head, and something about this, the words, make Regulus go quiet and still, "you have me. I'll protect you. I'll keep you safe. I wasn't there before I know that, but I'm here now, and I swear to God, I will fucking die before I let anyone touch you ever again, do you hear me?"

Regulus is looking at him now, face between his hands. His nose is pink, his eyes and cheeks too. Sirius wonders if he'll ever stop looking so little to him. "You don't even like me," he says, so small it's a croak.

"You are my star, my whole universe. How could I not like you?"

Regulus' face twists again, silent tears down his cheeks. Then he turns his head away, with a wry and humorless snort, as if he doesn't quite believe him.

"I lost my way," Sirius says quietly, thinks that's an understatement, "believed the wrong things when it came to you. But even when I was trying not to love you, when I didn't want to, I couldn't stop. There were days I missed you until I couldn't breathe, when I wished things weren't the way they were." He swallows. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for abandoning you.

Regulus looks back at him, as if trying to gauge his honesty.

After a while, "Really?"

His voice is tentative, thick like he has a cold.

"Yeah, really."

Regulus' throat convulses, staring at him for a minute.

Then his body twitches forward slightly, hands raising, as if he might try and hug him. He stutters to a stop, fingers curling back, as if he just lost his nerve.

Sirius understands it. He doesn't think he'll ever come to him on his own anymore after all these years, not for a while at least, so he tugs at him until he's in his arms, tucks his head into the crook of his neck with a hand to the back of his hair. Regulus clings to him, first light, and then firm, then desperate. Sirius clings to him right back, closing his eyes.

*

"Sirius?"

"Yeah Reg?"

They're back in bed but neither of them can really sleep even after a half an hour. Regulus is on his back, Sirius on his side facing him, one arm under his cheek.

"How did they heal me? Even without...knowing...?"

Sirius doesn't answer for a minute. He thinks of lying. He doesn't want Regulus to feel the discomfort, the infringement, that everyone knows something so painful and personal of him against his will, even if it couldn't be helped.

When there's no answer, Regulus looks at him. Sirius can feel the suspicion come over him.

"Sirius?" his voice is a bit breathless, "did you..."

"I didn't say anything," Sirius says. He doesn't say anything more, hoping Regulus wouldn't ask anything further and leave it at that.

"So they don't know? Then how did they heal me?"

"Reg," Sirius sighs, trails off again. He shakes his head. "I don't think we could have avoided it."

There is not a sound in this house, except for perhaps the vague noises of James' snores from the other room. 

"Does..." Regulus' voice is as if he is speaking through a dry mouth, "does Potter know?"

Sirius swallows, "you were bleeding," he tells him very softly, feeling as if he is handling some fragile artefact with his words. "He was... he was the one that...saw it first."

It's curious to him why he asked specifically about James. Maybe it's because it's different, when it's your brother's best friend, when it's someone close to your age, in school with you. Maybe adults are on a different plane to him. Or maybe he sees James as someone who would...

Regulus puts his hands to his face, facing the ceiling. His breaths shudder. "Fuck," it's muffled into his palms. His voice is thick, tight. He laughs derisively, a bit hysterical, "It just keeps getting better and better doesn't it?" 

"You know he won't ever hurt you with it?" Sirius tells him, "he's a good person. They're all good people, Reg, they're all so good. You don't ever have to be afraid that they'll hurt you or think less of you or — or whatever it is you're scared of. You have nothing to worry about with them."

It's like Sirius is saying all these words but none of them are hitting. Regulus still has his face buried in his hands.

"What is it that you're worried about, Reg?"

"It's fucking humiliating."

That —

"Are you fucking serious?" Sirius says. It makes him angry, and in some ways he can understand why, in other ways he doesn't know if he's supposed to be getting angry at something that, he imagines, many people who go through what Regulus did feel. 

He scrambles up on his elbow, casting a Lumos, so he could look into Regulus' face, pulling his hands away a bit roughly.

"You were hurt, Regulus, hurt so fucking badly it scared me out of my mind, you could have died, that sick fuck could have killed you with what he did if I didn't find you and you think that was fucking embarrassing?"

"You don't know what this feels like," Regulus whispers, "how ashamed and — and dirty it makes you feel. How weak. And Maman and Papa didn't make it easy not to feel that way after they found out. And honestly neither did you sometimes, even if unknowingly, when you say all those things about being weak and a coward for not fighting back."

All of Sirius' anger drains right out of him, in its place a shame and regret that he doesn't think he will ever shed, and a need to hold and comfort and soothe. He doesn't know if he'll ever stop feeling that way when it comes to Regulus.

He reaches for Regulus' arms, pulling at him until he's tucked up against his chest, wraps his arms around him with his chin to his forehead.

"I shouldn't have said those things," Sirius murmurs. "But God you need to know, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Not for anything. I mean that bastard gallivanted around France not feeling a fucking thing about it for three years, so — I can't stand the thought of you bearing this shame that's not even yours to bear."

Maybe it gets through to Regulus, with the way he clutches at him a little harder. He hopes it does. He shifts, holding him tighter back, but not enough to hurt him. He is still healing after all.

Sirius casts a Nox. It's dark again. It's silent. Still yet he does not feel sleep coming over him. He thinks of asking what happened when their parents found out, but worries it'd be one heavy conversation too many at this point.

"Sirius?" 

"Yeah?" he squeezes him briefly, to tell him it's okay.

"I think I like him," Regulus mumbles. For a good minute Sirius doesn't understand who he's talking about.

And then he does.

"James?" he has to be so careful to keep the incredulity and bewilderment out of his voice. He probably doesn't do a good job of it.

"Yeah." Regulus clears his throat, a long pause, "is that... does that bother you?"

Sirius mostly just wants to laugh if he's honest, because there's poor James thinking Regulus hates his guts when he's been likely just being an arse to him to hide his own feelings. "Ah...it's not...something I could have ever expected."

Regulus looks up at him, narrowing his eyes, "Why does it sound like you're trying not to laugh at me?" 

"Sorry. I'm just — I'm pretty sure there was a time in our second year where it actually broke his heart that his best mate's little brother didn't like him. Like he was sitting there moping for about an hour after you snapped at him or something. So yeah it's — a little funny, that you like him now."

"Oh," Regulus actually sounds a bit guilty.

"How long?"

"...I don't know. Maybe last year when it started, but — mostly when we were talking on the mirror."

Sirius somewhat figured. For one he has eyes, and James grew handsome enough to have all the girls swooning over the last two years, and during the mirror conversations he was real fucking sweet with Reg. Though he supposes that's just how he is, how he's always been. It's what drew Sirius to him too, that little boy with the big golden-framed glasses and a grin bigger and brighter than the sun itself.

He thinks that's the end of the conversation, with how long the silence persists afterward. But a moment later,

"I guess that's why it...hurts...that he knows."

Sirius frowns, "Why's it hurt? You know he really won't think anything bad."

"I know. But I don't want him to pity me."

"Well if there's one thing I can tell you about him it's that that boy doesn't know how to pity anyone. He just... cares, a lot. At least in my experience."

"Well," Regulus says, "you're you. That's different isn't it?"

"What's that supposed to mean? It's not about me, it's about who James is."

"I don't know. I'm tired now." He sounds weary and sad. Sirius wants to push, to change what's making him feel that way, but it also seems like he's about to fall asleep and he doesn't want to ruin that.

*

In their mirror conversations once Regulus talked about his favourite painting, insisting it was not fully muggle. He found it so beautiful he couldn't believe there wasn't some kind of magic to it that affected his emotions the way they did, that enhanced the vividity of the painting.

At the time Sirius seemed annoyed by it, this implication that muggles couldn't possibly create something that beautiful all by themselves. But James sort of understood where Regulus' mind was at, because there are many muggle things James sees that he thinks have got to have at least some magic to them, though it's often that it's all mostly magical due to their minds and ideas. Muggles are rather creative and think in more nuanced ways, making up for the gaps filled in by the ease and complacency of magic for wixens.

James finds a muggle shop that sells printed versions of painting like small framed pictures and searches out that painting, and the shopkeeper, a young lady in her early twenties, tells him about a relevant book whose name he frankly already forgot.

This leads him to the bookshop.

"Do you have that book of Achilles and, uh— Patrowlus? Patrocus?" he asks, the bored clerk on the other side of the counter staring at him rather judgementally, "ugh Patro-whatshisface, you know what I mean?"

"Patroclus," the clerk says, then straightens with a sigh. So he knew and he was just watching James fumble about for nothing huh? "We have it, the Illiad, over at that section."

"Uh yeah okay, thanks." James goes over to where he pointed, looking through the books with fingers running over their spines. "The Illiad, the Illiad, the Illiad...ha!"

He hands the pounds at the counter, picking up the book and framed painting.

On his walk home he feels the flutter in his stomach at the thought of giving these to Regulus. He doesn't know if it would make him happy, if that's even possible right now, but he hopes it would at least make him smile a little, and that the book would give him something to keep his mind off everything.

He stops by one of the best sweets shop he knows, Cece's Cakes, and picks up some creme caramel and chocolate mousse, Regulus' and Sirius' favourite respectively.

He puts the desserts under stasis in the fridge, something they do if they want to maintain the exact same freshness, planning on giving them after breakfast. He has been trying to give the brothers, and especially Regulus, the space they need. They all have been. But it won't take longer than a minute or two he thinks, to give him the stuff, say a few things and leave.

"James baby, could you take these up?" Effie says, after she's done plating Regulus and Sirius' breakfast.

"Yeah sure," James says, putting the book and framed painting down on the dining table.

"What'd you bring?"

"Just ah, some stuff...for Reg..." James has no idea why his face is heating up just by saying that. It's not like he's doing anything embarrassing. His mum just smiles at him and goes back to finishing up the garnish, then levitates them over to him, and if James didn't know better he'd think it seemed knowing.

*

Regulus tries his best to pretend Potter isn't even there whenever he comes in to give them his meals and potions, which he knows is impolite but he can hardly look him in the eye. Potter doesn't seem to notice or care much anymore, however, which he supposes is a good thing.

He doesn't remember much about that night, after they left Grimmauld Palace. He'd been out of it by then, hardly able to stay conscious, and in so much pain it consumed his mind and left little room for anything else.

But slowly it begins to come back. Some memories are vague, so vague he isn't certain they're even real, but he remembers...

Talking. Someone talking to him very softly, and he got the feeling it wasn't Sirius, but it was so gentle that it didn't scare him, or maybe he just hardly registered it. 

Someone holding him, too, someone not Sirius. He has glimpses of memories like that, at least a single clear glimpse that let him know it happened, when it comes to Sirius. But not that someone else who held him and talked to him.

Then it comes to him, seeing Potter's face looking down at him, his arms around him.

Hey.

Think you could stay with me until then?

Thank you.

But the things he didn't remember, his mind filled the blanks with terrible imagination.

You were bleeding.

He...he was the one who...saw it first.

It breathes in the house now, this knowing that everyone knows. It breathes, and makes the air so thick Regulus feels suffocated by the awareness of it. He feels like an exposed nerve, too easy to burn and sting with even the slightest brush against it, too naked and easy to see through.

So it's a bad time, his mind filled with memories and imagined moments that only keep feeding more and more into this terrible awareness clenching his chest. Sirius isn't here either, off to take a shower. He doesn't realise just how much his brother's presence keeps him sane until he's not there anymore.

So it's a bad time, when Potter does come, opening the door a crack and rapping his knuckles against it a little to let him know he's there. He's smiling, and it's clear that, for whatever reason, he's not here for Sirius. There are things in his hand but Regulus hardly registers it.

"Hey — "

"Get out," Regulus says, eyes wide, panic and distress swelling into his throat alongside anger; the terrible awareness, breathing between them.

Potter's smile falls there, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face. "Okay I — yeah I'll — I'll go but can I just — "

But the longer Regulus sees those eyes on him, knowing he knows, knowing he saw — the harder it feels to get air in his lungs, the walls closing in on him. "Get out!" he yells, louder. He reaches for the closest thing, a pillow, and throws it at him, his eyes stinging and his chest tight and the worst itch under his skin, the filth over it. 

You disgusting whore.

It's the first time he's ever seen Potter hurt. All those snipes in the school corridors, and all he ever did was smile at him, as if it never bothered him, found it amusing at best.

Everything in his head goes quiet then, except for the sound of his own heavy breathing, because now it's all he can see; Potter's eyes wide, like a kicked crup, darting away as he closes the door quickly.

*

Sirius is making his way back to the room, a towel around the nape of his neck and rubbing his wet hair with one end, when James turns the corner with a handful of things and nearly collides into him.

"Woah hey," Sirius says, hands up over James' shoulders, "are you missing the train or something?"

"Shite I'm sorry Pads," James says, looking distressed and glancing back at the guestroom, "I just, I went into the room and Regulus got really upset when he saw me. I — can you tell him I'm sorry? And can you just — " he hands Sirius the book, the Illiad, and a framed painting from under his arm, along with a creme caramel and chocolate mousse under stasis on a tray in his hands. "Can you give him these? That's for you." He points at the chocolate mousse, and then quickly tries to move past him, but Sirius slides to get in his way.

"Hey Prongs," Sirius says, "you — you know it's nothing personal yeah?"

James shakes his head, "I know I just — I don't want to make him feel worse."

Sirius nods, staring at him intently, "it's not that he hates you, believe me. He's just — struggling with the fact that we know what he went through without him wanting us to. He's...ashamed."

"Ashamed?" James asks, the distress falling away from his face, now replaced with bewilderment and a kind of anger on his behalf, "he has nothing to be ashamed of. The only person that should be ashamed is the fucker that hurt him!"

"That's what I told him." Sirius looks down at all the gifts in his hand. He smiles a little, "Thanks for all this. I think he'll love them."

"Of course." James smiles back. "I hope the book'll give him something else to think about for some time. I know he's mad about that story of Achilles and Patrowhatshisface and I figured he'd like to read this, or reread this if he already has."

Sirius throws him a surprised look. "You remembered."

"It's like, one of the five things I know about him," James says, though he looks a little constipated as he said it, which is what he looks like when he's lying, which makes Sirius stare at him with narrow, suspicious eyes even though he doesn't fully understand it.

"Okaaay," Sirius says, dragging it out, making it clear he's not buying it even as he's letting him off the hook.

*

Sirius raps on the door, poking his head in. Regulus is lying on the bed, his eyes distant.

He goes in and perches carefully on the edge of the bed, putting all the things one by one next to him, and the tray of desserts on the nightstand.

Sirius sighs, climbing up so he can sit next to him against the headboard. He puts a hand on Regulus' hair, brushing it back.

"He said he was sorry for making you upset," he tells him, "And he wanted to give you these."

Regulus opens his eyes, as Sirius holds up the painting and the book. He closes his eyes again, as if it hurts, throwing an arm across them.

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah," Sirius says, "I talked to him."

"I don't know why he even cares that much, why he'd do all this. He doesn't even know me that well."

Sirius shrugs, "Yeah well, I guess he knows you well enough at this point to know your favourite dessert and, uh, painting? And James is pretty bad at not caring if that helps. Do you wanna look? And — " he reaches for the creme caramel, "eat this?"

"I'll eat it later," he rasps. Sirius puts it back on the nightstand, feeling his heart ache.

Regulus has never, not once, refused his favourite dessert like this in his life. Even on his bad days it made him feel a little bit better. It was one of Sirius' go-to, to cheer him up or get a smile out of him.

"I hate what he's made me into."

It takes Sirius a very long moment to understand the ambiguous statement.

Even the implication of that bastard makes his insides start to burn. Even without his name being used.

"And what exactly do you think he's made you into?"

Regulus laughs, wry and humorless, "a disgusting whore for one, if you ask Maman and Papa."

Sirius' fists clench, so tight they're white and trembling.

"Is that what they said to you?" his voice is miraculously even.

Regulus breathes. "Forget it. I don't know why I keep talking about all this."

"Yeah I wonder why, Reg. It's not like they were some of the worst fucking moments you ever went through, and that's really saying something in our family."

"I just need to forget and move on like I did last time."

"Yeah well sleeping behind twenty protection spells wasn't exactly the epitome of forgetting and moving on."

Regulus removes his arm from his face and looks at him like he's been slapped.

Fuck. Sirius is being a fucking dick again.

It's just — it's driving him insane that Regulus is beating himself up for being in pain.

But then he wonders if that's at least partially his own fault.

And he thinks Regulus never would have had to resort to twenty protection spells in the first place if Sirius hadn't left him alone.

Sirius swallows hard, glancing heavenward and breathing hard and slow, "Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not saying that to throw it back in your face, I'm — frustrated that you're hurting yourself just for being hurt. Regulus... if there's one thing I've learned — or am still learning from — well, here, from everyone in this house, it's that you can't forget and move on until you actually let it out, until you let someone help you. You can't just 'get over it' like you're expecting yourself to."

Regulus stares at him, red-rimmed and flat. Sirius feels like he's made a big mistake, like no explanation is going to get through to him anymore.

Doesn't he know better than anyone how words hurt? One vague, underhanded comment and it gets tangled up in all kinds of meanings inside the barb wires of your head, old and new. Sirius didn't mean it as anything malicious, but the way words get twisted up in the house of Black is how you learn to see all words, no matter how innocent, outside of that house too.

"I wouldn't want you to think I'm pathetic and needy by doing that," Regulus says, very carefully.

Another thing you learn in the house of Black, is how words can feel harder than a slap sometimes.

Sirius stares at him, his heart shrivelled in his chest like crumpled up paper in a fist.

"Just say it," he goes on quietly, "you think I'm weak and a coward, for trying to protect myself by putting up twenty useless protection spells and trying to hide in your room instead of using my wand and fighting him back, not until it was the only option left. And that too I failed at."

"That thought has never crossed my mind even once, Reg—"

"Hasn't it? Used to cross your mind all the time didn't it, that I'm weak and a coward, so what's so different this time?"

It is different. It's different because now Sirius knows better. It's different because Regulus fought back after everything Sirius said to him and all it got him was hurt even worse in the most horrifying way, and maybe Sirius finally understands that it's not quite as black and white, not as simple. It's different because he'll give anything, anything in the world to make it so that Regulus never cried or bled or screamed like that. It's different because it's Sirius' fault that he did.

He doesn't know how to explain it verbally in a way that makes sense, thoughts not quite fully formed, and his words and voice failing him.

Regulus snorts, a wry and sad triumphance, like he won the argument but it's not what he wanted. "That's what I thought."

"Reg, Reggie, you're wrong—"

"I want to be alone."

"I'm not leaving you alone while you're like this."

Louder, "I want to be alone."

Sirius hesitates, wanting to try and fix it. But it's clear Regulus isn't open to explanations right now, so he obliges, standing up to his feet and walking out the door. He wishes he kept his mouth shut, wishes things didn't go like this.

*

At night after dinner, Sirius returns to the room. No matter what Regulus says or how much he pushes him away, he will not leave him alone at night. When he curls around his brother, holding him the same as before when they weren't still talking quite yet, with Regulus' back to him, with neither of them being able to see each other but also feel they're there.

Regulus doesn't push him away so that's a good sign.

"Still angry at me?" Sirius asks softly.

Regulus doesn't answer. Still angry then, or hurt and sad, or all of it. He tends to shut down like that when he's hurt or angry or in pain. Regulus has never been all that loud in his expressions; always sharp, cutting and cold, like a knife. Sirius was the bomb, hot and explosive and loud.

"Okay," he says, and continues holding him close.

At night he soothes Regulus back to sleep when he wakes up gasping from a nightmare, trying to keep his own nightmares at bay two hours after that. He'll still be there, even if Regulus will pretend he isn't, won't look at him. He will never make the mistake of not being there ever again.

*

Another day goes by that way, with Regulus shut down, not talking to him, stewing silently in his own head. He seems to get more and more exhausted just from thinking, his face growing blanker and heavier, the furrow between his brows deeper, and the set of his mouth further down.

"Talk to me," Sirius says, leaning on an elbow and looking down at the side of his face, "please Reg, what's going through that gigantic head of yours?" He gives his skull a light knock, a habit from when they were kids.

"Go back to the brother you actually like, Sirius," Regulus rasps, clearly trying to sound flat and cold but sounding exhausted more than anything, "and leave me alone."

Sirius exaggerates a bemused face, "What, James? He's not my brother, he's my husband."

Regulus gives no response. He wishes he'd at least roll his eyes.

He puts his cheek to Regulus', looking down at him as much as he could, and tentatively, "You're my brother that I like."

Nothing. He's already gone back to ignoring Sirius. There's something particularly painful about the fact that Regulus gave him his trust just like that, after years, after Sirius failed him so horribly, only for Sirius to open his mouth and ruin it in just one sarcastic comment. 

There's so much he's not talking about. Sirius doesn't know what's going through his mind, what are all the thoughts that are hurting him so bad, and it makes him feel helpless.

*

Two days later it happens.

When Sirius comes back to the room after another day of being ignored, it's to find Regulus sat up in bed with tension in his shoulders, fists clenched on his knees. His breathing is shallow, his eyes raw and red-rimmed. 

"It's your fault."

Sirius freezes.

Regulus is trembling, staring down into the middle distance. His eyes raise slow to his chest, then to his face.

"It's your fault it happened to me," Regulus says, his eyes wild and burning with angry tears. 

Sirius moves closer to him. "I know," he whispers, his vision blurring.

"You let it happen to me. You let everything happen to me." His breaths are racing, coming out heavy and hardened with underlying anger, "it would have never happened if you were there."

"I know," Sirius repeats, his throat tight.

"I was so lonely," he says thickly, "I would have never even looked his way if you never stopped looking at me. I just — wanted you— and he seemed like — he seemed so kind, and I was so lonely. I thought, if you moved on and you hated me, if you had Potter then I could have — "

Fuck.

"Reggie," Sirius whispers, moving across the room. He tries to pull his brother into his arms but Regulus just pushes his hands away.

"You weren't there!" he screams, raw and roaring, "It would have never happened to me if you were just there! It would have never - happened if you let me — stay with you — " he's choking on his rage and tears, and Sirius is trying to pull at him as he begins to cry too, grabbing at Regulus' arms that he keeps wrenching away from him, "and then you sit there thinking it's my fucking fault, that I chose it and accepted it because I didn't fight back, that I let it happen to me and I like lying there and just fucking taking it — "

Finally Sirius manages to forcefully haul him into his arms, crushing him up tightly against himself and crying hard into his shoulder, "I didn't mean it, I don't think that. I don't think any of that, Reggie, I swear it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry — " he keeps whispering, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it — "

"But what about you?" Regulus cries, muffled, strangled and cracking, and hits his shoulder with a weak fist, "you let it happen to me."

Sirius rocks them back and forth, cheek to his ear. That's all he does, unable to even speak, until Regulus falls asleep against him.

*

James finds him crying at the dinner table at midnight.

"Sirius?" he asks, brows furrowed with worry as he kneels before him, a hand on his shoulder. Sirius tries to stop crying as soon as he sees him, putting the back of a shaky hand to his mouth and trying to straighten his face. "Hey, what's wrong? I, um... I heard yelling but I wasn't sure if I should — "

Sirius shakes his head, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hands. "No that's good, you — he wouldn't want anyone else seeing him like that."

"Did you have a fight?"

"Something like that. Or — I guess I said something I shouldn't have and it pushed us a few steps back. He got hurt and lost trust in me, fairly, and ignored me for days, and I think that got him really in his own head, and then he...broke down."

James nods, "It's all too much to keep inside for any person."

"Yeah," Sirius says. Seconds later his eyes go blurry again, face twitching, "God James, I can't stop crying. Feel like I haven't been able to stop crying since that night." His face fully crumples then, and he presses his heels to his eyes, folding over a little, "fuck."

"It's okay," James soothes, rubbing his shoulder, "it's okay."

"How do I live with this?" Sirius asks thickly, choked. "How do I live with the fact that my baby brother, the kid I swore I'd protect and never hurt, got hurt like that? That I hurt him like that? How do I live with the fact that I let it all happen to him?"

"Sirius," James says, softly bemused and shaking his head, "You didn't 'let anything happen to him'. I don't know why you two are so hellbent on blaming yourselves when the only person that should be blamed is Lucius."

Sirius looks at him questioningly.

"I overheard my parents talking," James says, rubbing the back of his neck. 

"Oh."

"Yeah. Back to what I was saying... what you're both dealing with, it's already so hard and so painful, and I just — maybe I'm simplifying it too much but blaming yourselves is just adding to that unnecessarily."

Sirius huffs, humorless, "Yeah well, if you knew the full story you'd think the same."

"Well, if you wanna tell me the full story I'm listening."

Sirius' jaw works, swallowing hard.

And he does, tell him all of it. Everything he could.

James doesn't seem to have the words after all of it. His eyes are red-rimmed, aching. But he doesn't let go of Sirius' shoulder and that's...a hopeful sign...that he doesn't think Sirius is a complete failure of a big brother, that he doesn't find him repulsive and horrible. Even if he is all those things and worse.

"Letting something happen," James begins, squeezing his shoulder, "means you knew about it, and you still didn't do anything like your parents didn't. And that's not you. You're the reason Regulus is safe now. You saved him from that sick fuck, you took him away from there. And — all that stuff before, it's more complicated than I could — but... your mum was manipulating you, and ideally yeah you should have believed in Regulus more, he's the one you really love and the one who loves you, but it's all hindsight now. It's not always easy to see it when it's happening I guess, but Sirius — you're both here, and that means it's not too late to fix your relationship, for you to love him right this time."

*

When James goes into Regulus' room the next morning, it's to find him awake and sat up in bed. He would have looked adorable with his bed hair all stuck up from one side and in James' oversized t-shirt if he didn't look so distressed, wide eyes staring into the middle distance. James puts the tray of his breakfast and his blood-replenishing potions, muscle pain potions and nerve damage potions on the nightstand, glancing at him.

"Everything okay Reg?"

Regulus turns to look at him, apparently too consumed by whatever was on his mind to remember he usually tends to avoid James. If James said his breaths didn't catch upon seeing those stunning grey eyes trained right on him he'd be lying. His fingers are twisting into the stomach of his shirt, such a strangely vulnerable nervous tic that James has never seen him do.

"Have you seen Sirius?"

"Yeah? He just offered to go do the grocery shopping, said it'd take his mind off things a little. Why?"

Regulus' eyes are everywhere, his chest moving shallowly, "did he look angry?"

"No? Just stressed maybe."

"He usually comes to see me in the morning," Regulus says. He's not looking at James, anxiously staring at the door.

"He's not angry, promise. I think — he might just be giving you some space if that's what you wanted, because he just looked worried last I saw him."

"No I think he's angry. I said awful things to him last night." His hands are trembling around the stomach of his shirt. "I think he hates me and he's ignoring me again."

James' heart breaks, remembering the full story Sirius told him, and he has to hold himself back from taking him into his arms, "Oh no," he says, "no Reg, that's not — you know I'm good at reading people, right? So I'd know if he was angry, and I'd tell you if that was the case. He's not angry at you, I promise."

It seems to lessen some tension but it doesn't fully reassure Regulus. "Can you get him when he comes back?"

"Of course, as soon as he does yeah?"

James keeps his promise, standing at the door waiting for Sirius. He comes back about five minutes later, and James quickly takes all the bags from him saying, "hey Reg's asking for you, I told him I'll — "

He doesn't need to finish because Sirius is already moving, all but rushing to the stairs and hopping them, skipping one or two steps at a time.

*

Regulus was reclined back against the fluffed up pillows against the headboard, but as soon as the door opens and he sees Sirius, he scoots quickly trying to straighten up, and his eyes start to visibly burn.

"Hey, little star, hey," Sirius is babbling, putting a hand to his cheek that Regulus immediately presses his own against. These three days were agonising, not being able to get Regulus to open up to him.

Regulus' face twists pink. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it."

"It's okay if you did, I mean I had it coming really. It's okay if you meant it."

He shakes his head, looking weary, "I was tired of hating and blaming myself. I just wanted to blame someone else to make it stop."

Sirius' heart hurts. He brushes a hand over Regulus' hair gently, a thumb under his eye.

"It was my fault." The words bubble out of him. He swallows down hard against something.

"Absolutely not," Sirius says, trying to stay calm this time. He hates hearing Regulus say things like that. "The only one at fault is that sick bastard."

"No but I think — " he shakes his head again. His eyes are everywhere, looking genuinely scared of what he's telling him, "I — I think — I made him think I wanted — I...acted suggestively with him that year — "

"Reggie—"

"I didn't mean to. It — it wasn't my intention but maybe it looked like that, when I laughed at all his jokes and — I tried to hug him or hold his hand, or smiled at him when he praised me and things like that."

Sirius closes his eyes, trying to breathe, "Reggie, you were eleven. You didn't even know what 'acting suggestively' meant at the time."

"I didn't," Regulus relents, and still yet he won't look Sirius in the eyes, as if there's more to it on his mind, "but Maman and Papa saw it that way, and so did our cousins, that's a lot of people that — "

"Our family is fucked in the head, I thought we knew that? What they think means nothing, and I mean nothing. Kids do that with people they like or think are cool. I did those things with Uncle Alphard all the time because I thought he was brilliant, he just wasn't fucked in the head to think it meant something weird."

"I called him into my bed."

Maybe if you had stayed any longer, Lucius,

he might have even called you into his bed.

Rodolphus' sick comment drifts through his mind, now hearing clearly the pointed tone he said it in, the way he leered at Regulus.

Regulus' hands are full out shaking in his blanketed lap now. Sirius moves, and Regulus' eyes snap up at him, panicked, following him closely as if he might be thinking Sirius is angry and leaving.

"Just going to hold you," Sirius tells him, settling up against Regulus' side and wrapping an arm under his shoulderblades and pulling him onto his own shoulder. Immediately Regulus relaxes against him, as he rubs his bicep soothingly. He feels like whatever the story turns out to be, Regulus needs to know in a solid and certain way that he's not going anywhere.

"I was just lonely," Regulus croaks, "that's all. That's why I asked him to stay with me, when he came into my room one night to — to say goodnight, I thought. That's what he said he came to do. I was just really lonely and sad, so I — clung to his hand, and begged him to stay with me, to sleep in my bed with me that night. But I swear I never meant it like — "

"I know," Sirius whispers, rubbing his bicep, kissing the top of his head. He clears his aching throat, tightening his grip around him and shifting to put his chin to his head, "I know that, I promise. It wasn't your fault."

Regulus nods. "Okay...good. I'm glad." As if it was ever a question, but after whatever happened with their Maman and Papa, Sirius supposes it would be to him.

"He came in knowing what he was going to do," Sirius tells him, trying to swallow down the acidic hatred in his throat for them all; their parents, Lucius, "you know that, right? You didn't make him think anything. You didn't provoke him or whatever. He always knew he was going to do what he did to you, no matter what you did or didn't do. I know that's fucking terrifying and painful but I need you to know it wasn't your fault, that you didn't bring it on yourself or whatever it is our shit parents made you think."

Regulus nods. Sirius can feel him trembling against his side.

"They — they said I seduced him... that what was he supposed to think if I clung to him, and acted suggestively, and called him into my bed? They were so angry, so disgusted, and Papa — " he trails off, haunted.

"Yeah? What did he do?"

"Backhanded me... um... then he crucioed me... I guess he told Maman and Papa all those things, made it sound like I begged him to do...that."

"Okay," Sirius rasps, about all he can manage to say with the rage that he's sucking down making him sick and dizzy. But his hands are still gentle as they hold his brother, rubbing up and down his back, squeezing him closer, "Alright."

After lunch when Regulus falls into a recovery nap, Sirius goes downstairs and tells Effie he wants to file a case against his parents.

___

Regulus is still recovering, both emotionally and physically. There are the nightmares every time, him and Sirius both having been prone to them since childhood, now both suffering from them. There is the way he spends hours in the shower some days, how Sirius finds his skin red and raw on the worst days, the breakdowns, the bad memories coming up suddenly.

He spends most of his time resting in bed; it's as much from depression, grief and lack of energy as it's healing from the cruciatus curse, the muscle pain and nerve damage, which also includes some physical exercises that Effie and sometimes Monty help Regulus with.

In their punishments the curse lasted seconds, bad enough to make them feel it for a week at least, but Monty said with the kind of damage to his muscles and nerves he was likely under it for full minutes constantly, which requires a longer time for recovery.

Any longer and the damage could have been permanent, or at least longlasting. But Sirius got there on time, and he will make a full recovery by the time they have to go back to school.

Walburga and Orion still have the power to pull them out of Hogwarts if they so wished, but Monty and Effie are going to try and help them both get emancipation from their parents. There is also something useful in the wizarding legal system where, in the event of an ongoing case regarding child abuse, the accused parents temporarily lose such powers, so this should certainly last them in Hogwarts until the case is won. 

That is how Effie and Monty speak of it, as if there is no doubt they will win, and it makes Sirius feel confident and optimistic about the case as well.

So often Sirius sees Effie and Monty talking amongst themselves. They fill Sirius in as much as they could as to how it's going and where they are in the procedure but for the time being keep it from Regulus, who does not need to worry about anything except recovering.

Last Monty heard, Lucius Malfoy is alive, but still in St. Mungos with severe injuries and under a coma. It's satisfactory, but Sirius thinks it would have been better if he were dead. 

Initially there was a concern that they will charge Sirius with assault but the wizard attorney they hired says that, since the Wizengamot court will require the use of Veritaserum and Pensieve memories and will also have the presence of reporters, the Malfoys, likely aware of what led to the assault, might refrain from bringing such a thing to attention.

Even if they win the case using bribery, the Malfoys just as all pureblood families prioritise their name and reputation, and even a doubt and the idea of such a crime associated with their family cast in the minds of the people can be enough to tarnish said name and reputation, especially if the victim is also highly notorious for his name. At the moment it appears the Malfoys' main concern is suppressing any news of this coming out. The common population of the wizarding world does not quite take such crimes lightly.

*

Even so, despite there being a long way to go in many aspects before they will be completely okay, Sirius slowly finds himself returning back to being the annoying and obnoxious big brother he used to be, and Regulus the ever annoyed little brother putting up with his antics, and yet not-so-secretly adoring; a sort of normalcy settling in between him and Regulus that he missed beyond words, that he still remembers missing until he felt sick.

In the morning Sirius stirs awake next to his little brother's back facing him, stretching all the cricks out of his body with arms and legs out, and like a habit from their childhood, rolls over and onto his elbow to peek if Regulus has awaken yet.

He presses his cheek down to Regulus' cheek, sleepily tucking his chin into the crook of his shoulder and still looking down at the side of his face. He senses the change in his brother's breathing pattern and puts his fingers into his ribs, wiggling them a little, "are you awake?" he mumbles.

Regulus just shifts a little, not quite awake. 

"Are you waking up?" he wiggles his fingers into his ribs again. "Are you?"

Regulus swats at his hands like they're flies, which they just about are at this point likely. "G'way," he mutters incoherently.

Sirius kisses his cheek hard with a grin that's half shite-eating and half-fond, as much to be obnoxious and annoying as it is because of his heart bursting with a lifelong adoration. He has loved this kid since before he could even remember, as if it's always been a part of him.

Regulus makes a noise in his throat, whiny and disgusted, as he wipes his hand down his cheek with a grimace. He's still half-asleep. Sirius is a bit offended.

"Why are you so grumpy?" Sirius scowls down at him. Then his fingers are wiggling into his ribs in earnest, "I think you need to laugh more, you grouchy little shite."

A loud, startled laugh bursts out of Regulus, curling up into himself and trying to elbow him off, "I think you need to fuck off!"

"no." Then proceeds to kiss his cheek in rapid successions. He catches Regulus trying to repress the twitch at the corners of his lips. Got you, you affection starved brat. He pushes his cheek off Regulus' face, now on his back. "Arsehole."

Regulus grabs the pillow from under his head and smacks him hard in the face. "You're the arsehole." But he's actually smiling now, seemingly unable to keep it off anymore. Sirius lives to make him smile like that these days.

*

Nowadays whenever James comes into the room, he finds Regulus always pretending to sleep. Once he walked in to find Regulus quickly closing his eyes as soon as he walked in, and met his bewildered eyes with Sirius', who was trying his best not to shite himself laughing.

"Why does he do that?" James once asks Sirius, whispering outside the door.

"No idea," Sirius says, still looking like he's trying not to shite himself laughing. So...yeah James gets the feeling he does have some idea.

James lets it go on for a few days, and then he can't take it anymore.

One morning, walking in with Regulus' breakfast, he sees Regulus do it again; closing his eyes quickly and going still as if he's still sleeping, nevermind that he's so stiff and completely straight on the bed unlike what someone would naturally look like if they were sleeping.

James stares at him with narrowed eyes. He catches Regulus peeking an eye open, sees him staring at him, and quickly close it again as if James did not just see that??

So James does the stuff he's supposed to; putting his breakfast and potions down on the nightstand, and then rather noisily makes his way to the door, clicks it shut, before soundlessly rushing over to the bottom of the bed as fast as he could.

He waits until Regulus fully reveals himself to be awake, his eyes open as he rolls over and cranes his head, as if to check James has really gone.

That is until his eyes drift down, catching on him lying on the ground. He startles violently.

"Hi," James says, with a hand raised in a wave and a grin.

"What the fuck, Potter?" Regulus has his hand to his chest, breathing heavily.

James sits up, and lays one arm atop the other on the edge of the mattress, putting his chin to it. Their faces are close this way, and Regulus goes completely still. There is a curl at his temple, in his pretty grey eyes, that James resists the urge to put behind his ear.

"You know, you're a really bad actor, which is shocking because aren't you supposed to be a Slytherin? Aren't Slytherins supposed to be sly, cunning and deceptive?"

"I am sly, cunning and deceptive," Regulus says, irritated and affronted.

"Mmmmm," James says, scrunching his nose up, "but clearly it doesn't extend to your acting skills."

Regulus looks so offended that James has to fight back a laugh, his eyes crinkling with a grin into the smaller boy's eyes.

God he's missed him like this.

He knows it will be a long time before he's so himself like this all the time, that there will be bad moments and bad days more than not for now, but for the time being he'll savour him whenever he's like this, and he'll try whenever he can to bring this out of him.

The door opens, and in walks Sirius. James tries his hardest not to jump away as if he was doing anything questionable, even though he wasn't actually, forcing himself to relax and act natural.

"Am I interrupting something?" Sirius still asks, looking between the two of them. 

"I was just telling Reg he's a really bad actor, and that makes him very questionable as a Slytherin." James turns back to Regulus, who had in fac rolled away onto his back as soon as Sirius walked in. "Why are you always pretending to sleep whenever I'm here?"

Sirius comes to sit on the other side of Regulus, "Is it because he's ugly and you can't stand to see his face?"

James feigns worry, "God is it because I'm ugly and you can't stand to see my face?"

"Is it because he's annoying? Do you want me to throw him out?"

Regulus is pink all over his face, for some reason; has been ever since Sirius walked in. Maybe James' teasing really got to him. "Preferably out the window," he mumbles, sulking.

"Got it," Sirius says, then gets off and rounds the bed and pulls James by his underarms and then over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Ahhhh ahhhhh!!" James fake screams, flailing and exaggerating his reactions as Sirius carries him towards the wondow. Regulus rolls his eyes but it's clear he's fighting back a smile, a snort leaving him as he turns his face away.

"Out you go! Nice knowin' ya!"

James stops screaming then, putting his elbow to Sirius' back with his hand to his chin, as if he's swooning, "God this is actually kind of hot, you know. How are you carrying me like this? I'm like the same weight and height as you."

Sirius drops him on the floor -- which rather hurts his arse, and he does not hold back on his reactions -- just to show off his flexing bicep muscles, "Yeah but do you have big guns like these?" He drops a kiss to each of them.

Regulus is looking between them with a smile that looks rather against his will, and he puts his hand over his face as if he's embarrassed of it, or of them, before he takes it off again and clears his throat. "Idiots."

Sirius and James share a secret side look, a smile. They had both been aiming for the same thing in the end.

*

For the next hour Regulus is, for a rather nice change, thinking about James. Namely, the interaction he just had.

Namely, the way his amber eyes smiled into his, chin on his arms.

Regulus flushes whenever he thinks about it, and also feels a slight smile pulling at his face.

To be honest he didn't know what to expect about the way James would treat him if they ever talked properly again. This was the first time they did, talk properly that is, and Regulus was -- glad, and relieved, to find that nothing really changed. James didn't walk on eggshells around him and his eyes still looked at him the same, without any pity or sympathy or, as he imagines sometimes on his worst days, disgust.

He was still his same annoying, obnoxious, bright, beautiful and goofy self.

And it made Regulus fall a little more.

Regulus is suddenly rather conscious of the fact that he's wearing James' shirt, in a way he has been too out of it to the last many days. They have their old clothes, but they didn't bring quite enough so they're still wearing James'. Regulus isn't up for moving much, and Sirius doesn't want to leave him long enough to buy more clothes for themselves so that'll have to wait.

He smiles slightly as he clutches a handful of his own collar, and inhales it. It strongly smells like James, wood and subtle cologne and musk.

"Did you just inhale your own shirt?"

Ah. Fuck.

He momentarily forgot.

"I was just thinking I need a shower," Regulus says quickly, trying not to go red. He can feel it at the tips of his ears already.

Sirius stares at him, unblinking. Then he takes the collar of his own shirt, slowly without breaking eye contact, and closes his eyes as he inhales it obnoxiously loudly. "Yeah that does smell like James, doesn't it?" He opens his eyes again with the most shite-eating smirk to look at him.

"Ugh Sirius!" 

Sirius goes back to inhaling his own shirt, longer and louder and even more obnoxiously. "Mmm mmm mmm," as if he just smelled something delicious.

"Oh fuck you," Regulus whispers, burying his burning face into his hands up at the ceiling.

*

It happens again the next time James enters the room. Regulus pretends to sleep.

"Again?" James mouths, now truly indignant.

Sirius just shrugs. "I don't know, mate," he mouths back. 

*

Sirius supposedly said something to Regulus because, thankfully, that does not happen the next time James comes to give them dinner and potions. He looks uneasy and still avoids his eyes but at least he's not immediately closing his own as soon as he sees him.

"I see you're awake today," James says, looking amused.

Now Regulus does look at him, to throw him a glower. James bites back a grin.

"I want a shower," Regulus declares, with all the imperativeness of a boy who grew up in a wealthy family, and knew it. James grew up wealthy certainly but they lived rather moderately and his parents never made him feel it, humbling him wherever needed.

"Yes your highness," James says with false seriousness, bowing to him deeply.

Regulus rolls his eyes, "Sirius isn't here today," he tells him, "I'm sure you know. You wouldn't happen to know where he went?"

James has an idea from overhearing his parents, something to do with the case they're building against Walburga and Orion. But his parents have told him to keep it from Regulus if possible, for the time being, and they'll tell him once things are more solid and he needs to know about it.

"Not really," James says smoothly. "So, a shower huh?"

"Just help me get to the bathroom," Regulus says, looking a bit nervous. "You can touch me but only on my elbow. And get me some clothes. I can handle the rest."

"Alright," James says easily, "we'll do that."

*

James does his best to give Regulus the space he needs, reading his physical cues, not touching him anywhere except a light grip on the elbow unless Regulus asks or unless it's to catch him by his other elbow from tripping. He'd seen how scared Regulus had been when his dad reached for him, and can gather why he isn't comfortable with any physical contact.

In the afternoon James sets the TV up in Regulus' room, something he'd been meaning to do.

"Remember when we watched the movie together on this in the mirror?" James asks with a smile at Regulus, who seems fascinated seeing it in its full form right in front of his eyes. "If you or Sirius ever need to get your mind off things, you can just turn this on." And then he sits by Regulus, at a safe distance, to show him all the controls on the remote.

That's how some of the hours go by, with James just sat at Regulus' side, close enough to reach for but not touching, the two of them watching some rom-com. Regulus sometimes seems to need to retreat into his head, and James gets that he's not in the mood for talking much these days, so he lets the comfortable silence come over them. James is happy to just be basking in Regulus' presence next to him.

*

Effie comes into the room to talk to him about something. It's not the first time or anything. She comes by often to give the meals and potions and do the physical exercises, asks Regulus how he's feeling in a way that leaves him craving something he has never quite known. She talks to him about things, random mundane things, even if he's not the most interactive and engaging person these days. But she makes it feel like that's okay, like she doesn't mind.

Today when she comes to talk to him, however, Regulus feels the difference in energy.

"How are you feeling today baby?"

"Okay," Regulus rasps, his usual answer, trying not to fidget. As much as it opens up a hallow in his chest, it also makes him uneasy to be on the other end of such tenderness from anyone that's not Sirius.

"Okay," Effie says, smiling at him. She never tries to touch him, though sometimes he sees her hands twitch as if she wants to, as if she might, but knows better not to. "I -- wanted to talk to you about something. It's something I think you should know, but I also need you to understand that it's being handled and taken care of, so you won't need to worry about anything."

"What is it?"

"We have officially filed a case against your parents."

Ice drips down Regulus' spine.

"What?" 

"Yes," Effie says, far too calmly in his opinion, "Pensieve memories and Veritaserum statements even just from Sirius should be enough. I can tell you're worried, sweetheart, but I promise we can win this. There's a judge Monty knows, he's impartial and just, never swayed by wealth or status or bribery. It will be alright."

"But I don't want Sirius to go through that," Regulus whispers, "especially not all by himself."

"He's not alone," Effie says softly, "We'll be there."

"But - but he'll have to talk about all those things, he'll have to show them his worst memories he'll have to relive through them!" Regulus' heart is breaking apart. He can't have Sirius suffering through all that, and alone too because yes Sirius has Effie and Monty but the only person who can ever understand, who can really be there with him in this, is Regulus.

"I know baby," Effie says, sadness all over her face, "I wish he didn't have to either. But he wants to do this, for you and himself. He wants to be free with you."

That evening Regulus' eyes follow Sirius as he walks inside the room, shrugging his jacket off, looking tired. 

"Why?" Regulus asks, "why would you put yourself through that?"

Sirius looks up at him, mildly startled.

"I wasn't going to until I heard what they did to you," he finally says after a while.

"Just forget it Sirius."

"They still need an heir," Sirius says, "sure they could make another, but it's not easy in our family is it? They'd rather have at least one of us back so they could beat us into being what they want. So I'm also realising, we need to put them away. I mean it's not like they'll just let us go, and we can't hide away here forever, and what happens when we go back to school?"

Regulus is quiet, staring at him, following him around the room as he puts his jacket up on the hook, moves to the closet and digs around for more comfortable clothes. He notices Regulus' worrying eyes on him and then stops. Sighs.

He moves towards the bed, sitting down beside him. He's supported by his whole arm, cheek to his own shoulder in some relaxed, lazy posture.

"I'm handling it yeah? I can do this. I know I can."

His eyes say it all, the way he's looking down at Regulus intently. He knows he can, and the reason why is looking right back at him.

*

"When did this get here?" Sirius asks when he sees the telovision, scooting in and under the blankets.

"Potter set it up today."

"Ohoho, is that who you spent the day with little brother?" Sirius looks at him with a smirk.

"He was the only one here. We just watched the telovision together, which is the full name of it by the way," Regulus tells him, rather knowledgeably.

"Telovision huh? I'll keep that in mind. How do you work this thing?"

Regulus sits up carefully, reaching for the remote on the nightstand. Sirius doesn't immediately jump to his feet this time to help him as he has been for doing just about anything, because Regulus has snapped at him one too many times about treating him like he's incapable of simple things, but now that Sirius is not helping Regulus finds himself glancing at him, waiting to be fussed over.

"What?" Sirius asks him when he notices.

"Why aren't you helping me?"

Sirius looks puzzled, "I thought...you said..." then his eyes narrow, as something seems to click. "God you're such a little brother. Total brat. You do remember calling me an overbearing, overprotective motherhen last time don't you?"

He doesn't even bother rounding the bed to get it. He just leans over Regulus, who scowls at him for nearly crushing him, and grabs the remote. "Too lazy," Sirius says, by way of explanation. "Is this what you use to work it?"

Regulus forgets about his annoyance, leaning their heads together as he explains each button and control on the remote as James explained to him.

*

Nowadays whenever Sirius is gone, James is the one that keeps Regulus company, usually the two of them watching a moovee or reruns of something called cartoon, which are for children made in funny and strange drawings. Regulus notices James' back starts to cramp after hours of sitting against the headboard, and he's fairly certain James is bored out of his mind in his company.

"You don't have to stay with me," Regulus tells him, clearing his throat. "I'm okay being alone as long as it's not dark and...night time."

"I know, but I want to," James says, and Regulus tries to figure out if he even means that. But James is smiling a little, and he glances at him in a way that makes his breath catch in his throat. "I like watching TV with you." He shifts a little, grimacing as he rubs the back of his neck, "minus the cramps I mean. And also I think my mum wouldn't be happy about me ruining my eyes any more than they already are."

"You can lie down," Regulus tells him, still thinking of him saying, I like watching TV with you, and the way he smiled.

James looks at him, "Yeah, you sure?"

"Yeah. Just don't touch me without asking." But then Regulus feels like that sounds wrong. "I mean I don't suppose you will if there's no reason to, but I'm only saying it just in case."

"Okay," James says, not seeming to mind it much and smiling slightly as he scoots down and lies beside him on the bed with some space, flopping his hands on his stomach. He shifts some more on his back to get comfortable. "Ah, that's nice."

James falls asleep long before the next moovee finishes. Regulus rolls a bit to his side, carefully against the stretching aches in his muscles, so he could outline the way his eyelashes rest against his cheeks, long and thick. His breath softly flutters past his lips, a dark curl at his temple. Regulus reaches out a hand, pushing it behind his ear so it won't bother him or tickle his face, and then pulls his hand back to his own chest.

Pretty.

*

When Regulus wakes up it's morning, not remembering having even fallen asleep. He's burrowed up against Sirius' side --

Except, well, that doesn't -- the arms feel a bit different. Something feels different.

Smells different, familiar. Like the way his clothes smell these days; subtle cologne and musk.

Regulus pries his eyes open, brows furrowed against the daylight, to find glasses, bronze skin, long and thick eyelashes closed in sleep.

He finds that it doesn't feel...uncomfortable; doesn't churn his gut, or scare him, the way it did to feel Monty reaching for him. He knows Monty is a good man, a great man from what Sirius tells him, but somehow it's like his body doesn't know that.

With James it's different, at least right now it is. Maybe some days are like that where it's better.

His arms feel safe, warm as sunshine, as if something in him can sense the absolute lack of threat that is James Potter in every way.

Regulus isn't certain what it is that makes him stay in his arms like that. Maybe it's just how nice it feels, soaking up warmth that's comforting and pleasant and sweet. He also hates his own go-to habit of pretending to sleep whenever it comes to James, starting off as an avoidance tactic when he didn't know how to act or be around him, but that's exactly what he does when James begins to stir awake.

"Oh," James breathes, in a way that doesn't sound bad, but also not quite good. He very gently starts to untangle himself from Regulus, as if to be careful not to wake him.

Except well, Regulus is lying in a position that makes that very difficult, what with him lying completely on James' arm underneath his body, and his leg hooked around his hip, embarrassingly, but now he's too far in pretending to be asleep and he doesn't know how to go back, afraid James will see through his acting even if he does show himself to be waking up, horrified and moving off of him. So now he doesn't know what to do about it.

James deflates, eventually giving up, knowing he can't untangle himself without disturbing Regulus.

Which he'd think is strangely sweet, if it didn't make Regulus feel bad about it.

"Should I wake him?" James murmurs to himself. 

It's silent now.

"You know for someone so tiny, you're pretty heavy," James says to him, clearly certain he isn't hearing him.

Regulus' scowl breaks out before he could stop it.

James gasps, "Oh my God you're awake, aren't you?"

Fuck.

Out of sheer stubbornness and the fact that he has absolutely no idea what he'll say or do next, he refuses to show himself. For whatever reason James then relaxes into the bed, and continues to hold him like that, all the while unaware of the giant grin splitting James' face apart as he stares down into his face.

*

"You're welcome," Sirius says to Regulus when they're alone, grinning. He had come into the room last night to find Regulus and James asleep together in bed, then backed out silently to go and sleep in James' room.

He had seen the way Regulus was okay with being held by James -- that night. And he trusted James, with his life and with the most precious person he has. So he wasn't too worried.

Regulus glares at him.

"You looked so cute cuddled up like bunnies, I couldn't possibly ruin thaaat."

"I hate you."

*

"Potter?"

"Yeah Reg?"

"How are you...you?"

They're lying on the bed, facing each other on the pillow. The flickering light and colours from the TV casts its haze over them. James thinks Regulus has got to be the most beautiful person he has ever laid his eyes on, even without all his fancy attire and perfectly styled curls and the neat, straight set of his shoulders, even if his hair's a mess and he's just in James' oversized t shirt and pyjama bottoms all day long.

Or well, maybe especially when he's in James' clothes.

"What do you mean how am I me? I just am."

"I mean you must think of things a certain way. You must consciously conduct yoursrlf a certain way. Don't you think about how you should act?"

James' heart aches a bit, because it doesn't seem like Regulus knows how to just be. Except maybe with Sirius.

"I mean I guess, but not all the time?"

"Surely you do or think things a certain way to be how you are."

"Oh? And how exactly am I?"

"Brave." Regulus seems to be on a roll now. There's been something heavy on his mind. He'd seemed strange and sad all day. "Kind. Strong. Likeable and -- not needy."

James doesn't quite understand it, so he tries to laugh it off, "Wow Reg, I didn't know you thought of me so positively."

"I'm holding back very strongly on all the annoying and negative aspects of your personality. Can you answer my question?"

James thinks about it, his eyes fluttering. He shakes his head slightly, not quite having the answer, "I don't really try to be anything? I just...am how I am. I mean I do try, like when there's hard decisions to make or I have to do things that aren't quite natural to me, but I'm not trying too hard all the time. Reg, what's this about? Are you trying to be like me?" He narrows his eyes in mock-curiosity, amused. It was a joke, and James never would have imagined it to be true in a million years.

"No," he says, but his face goes so flushed and hot at the tips of his ears and his jaws that it gives him away. "I was only curious what it must be like to be such an airhead."

James is staring at him. He can't fathom how someone like him could possibly see himself as lacking. "But why?" he asks quietly, "You are so precious and lovely as you are."

That makes Regulus' eyes turn away, going even more pink. James' chest moves in a small noiseless laugh, even as on his lips it's only a smile. He's so pretty when he blushes.

He's now chewing at a corner of his lip, as if there is a bigger question at the tip of his tongue. His eyes are afar, haunted. 

"Fuck it," he eventually says, with a mirthless and somewhat hysterical laugh, "You already know about it so -- what's the point of circling around it? Um...what would you have done, if -- if you were in my place? How would you have fought back, and stopped him and -- and not been so scared?"

James is startled by the question, even as it makes this conversation a lot clearer. He doesn't know what to say. He looks down and Regulus isn't looking at him anymore, he's looking at his chest to avoid his eyes, and his hands are shaking. It matters to him, the answer.

Regulus breathes, "Sorry. I know it's a fucked up thing to ask, and I would -- God, I'd never wish it on anyone. Especially not you. Never you. I don't even know what I want from this, why I asked, I just -- I guess I just want to know what I should have done, but it doesn't matter anymore. Um...let's forget I -- "

"Who told you I wouldn't have been scared?"

Regulus' eyes raise to him. He looks like that was the last thing he expected the answer to be.

"You know I've never been through even a quarter of the things you and Sirius have? I don't think I've ever even been in danger except once. I'm scared of very few things yeah, but when I am I tend to freeze. Like this drunk guy driving his car right at me, would have hit me if my dad hadn't tackled me out of the way. I mean it was fucking terrifying, you know? But other than that...I don't think I've ever even been yelled at? Except by professors but that's just funny you know. I'd probably cry if my mum and dad yelled at me though, like if they were really angry and it was something serious?"

This seems to take Regulus aback, his grey eyes sharply roving up and down over him.

James laughs, "Jesus Reg, that was one judgemental look."

"You're... you're not what I expected."

"Disappointed?"

"That implies I ever thought of you highly."

"Ouch."

Regulus seems to contemplate something. Rather reluctantly, he confesses, "I suppose I cry sometimes too when I get yelled at, especially if I'm already in a poor state of mind."

"Yeah I bet it feels like too much on days like that," James says, serious. He pauses, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't know what it is you're expecting of yourself but, I get the feeling it might be too much. What you went through, Reg…"

James still remembers that night. It was fucking terrifying, and horrible, possibly the most painful thing he's ever witnessed. He remembers how small Regulus felt, how much it scared him to see him like that. How he cried that night, the pictures in his hand, thinking about it all.

And Sirius. God, strong and brave Sirius.

James' hand raises, without thinking, reaching for the curl at Regulus' temple. But it falls before it touches him. Regulus' eyes follow the gesture, in a way that makes him vaguely wonder if maybe he wouldn't have minded.

"You know Sirius is the bravest person I know? But the day he brought you here... he couldn't stop crying, Reg. You didn't see him; hear the sounds he made, like he was going crazy seeing you like that. He was so scared. I was so scared. And so were my parents... I never saw my dad look like that. My mum cried after they put you to bed... and you lived through that. What I mean to say is... please stop hurting yourself feeling bad for someone hurting you, for things you couldn't control."

Regulus seems to be taking that in. His eyes are far away. James lets him, and stops expecting any more of the conversation after the long minutes that pass.

"I know Sirius loves me," Regulus finally says, in a low voice, "but I don't want him to stop liking me ever again...because I'm not strong or brave."

"He won't. I promise he won't. Not for this, Reg, never for this."

Regulus' lips twitch, in a way that might be a smile, hardly perceptible as it is.

"Can I hold you?" James asks, his heart craving. He thinks Regulus might let him, after that morning. He let James hold him for a long time then.

Regulus looks at him, startled. But then he looks pained. 

"Not today."

"That's alright." James' heart dips, but he understands.

"It's... it's a bad day."

"Yeah, I get it."

"Can you ask me again tomorrow?"

That makes James smile. "Yeah okay, I will."

*

James asks him every day now.

Some days Regulus can't, but James alwaus takes it in stride. Some days he says yes and it makes James so happy and excited each time that Regulus wishes he could say yes and make James look like that all the time.

It's also nice that James wants to hold him that way.

"Okay," James says, carefully putting down the empty potions vial he just gave Regulus to down, and then quickly and carefully climbs into bed and shifts down against the pillows and on his back, and with the tenderest hands, he draws Regulus into his own arms, before holding him firmly. He's smiling so wide it makes his cheeks tight, a dimple at the left apples of them and the corners of his mouth, that's currently driving Regulus insane.

"You have dimples," Regulus points out, poking the one at the corner of his mouth, even though he noticed them in second year. It makes James smile even harder if that was possible.

"I do," he says happily.

Regulus wants to kiss him on each one. And at this point he knows James will let him, so he wriggles himself onto his elbow, looking down at his face. James' face smooths, as if not quite sure what's about to happen. Regulus brushes his fingers over the dimple on the apple of his cheek, then leans down to press a kiss to it. James' eyes are following him when Regulus draws back to look down at his expression.

He looks like he can't breathe, and his skin feels hot all over.

"Is that okay?"

"Yeah," he chokes out, "more than...okay, um."

Regulus hits his chest. "Breathe, Potter."

James does, exhaling out a laugh that's been forced out of him without warning, shaky as it is, "Okay. I'm breathing. More?"

Regulus smiles and shakes his head, before leaning down to kiss the ones at the right corner of his mouth, and then the left. James' eyes are closed, as if he is drinking the feeling of it in, one arm still around Regulus back.

Then, finally, a kiss on James' lips. Soft and chaste.

James' eyes stay closed, but Regulus can feel the tremor in his breaths, as if he is overwhelmed by it. Regulus never imagined he could possibly have such an effect on someone as bright and beautiful as him, but it makes something in his chest glow, and ache.

*

After that James holds Regulus and they watch the TV together. Or Regulus watches the TV and James mostly watches him with a face full of adoration, eyes crinkling and tender, a smile so sweet. He is overcome by how much he feels about the smaller boy, how precious he seems to him. James squeezes him close by the nape of his neck and kisses his cheek. When Regulus looks back at him it's with a slight smile and pleased eyes.

"I like the telovision," he says, as if just to say something to him, and James thinks his heart is about to burst.

"Okay," he says, smiling hard. He doesn't bother to correct him. Then proceeds to kiss his face thrice, a line from his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth, laughing softly into it. "I'm glad." He then puts one last kiss to his lips, before letting him go back to watching the TV, settling in against him. He thinks about the kiss more than he focuses on the film, the warmth and the way he gets to hold him more than anything on the screen.

*

"Everything okay?" James asks, running his fingers through Regulus' hair lazily. Regulus just turned his face very suddenly into his chest.

"Bad memory," he mumbles.

James draws him in close and kisses his face. "You want to turn the TV on?"

Regulus nods.

They watch the TV, and eventually James feels Regulus trembling against him.

"Hey," James whispers, shifting down so he's at eye level with him. He takes his hands and rubs circles with his thumb into the back of his head. "Look at me. Can you focus on me and my voice? See, you're here. You're here with me. You're safe."

"Safe," Regulus repeats in a whisper, looking at him as if he was the meaning of it, just as Sirius is to him.

"Yeah, safe." James leans in and kisses his forehead.

*

Over the rest of the summer Regulus gets better and better physically, though emotionally is still dubious, so Effie and Monty suggest to him to see a Mindhealer or a muggle therapist. Regulus goes through two muggle therapists and a Mindhealer before finding someone he manages to open up with.

He can take care of himself and perform the basic tasks without as much pain, only a soreness remaining that should also heal soon. He goes downstairs and sits at the table for meals, and Sirius and James often drag him outside to coffee shops and art museums and wherever they think he would like to go, to get him out of his head. 

*

At the end of the summer, Regulus is woken by a murmur of his name, wrapped around James. It was the day of the last court meeting in regards to their parents.

"Reggie?" Sirius' voice softly rouses him from his sleep. As soon as his eyes meet Regulus' open ones, he smiles, his eyes exhausted and a little red. "We won. We got them, 25 years."

Regulus carefully unwraps himself from James and sits up, now fully sober, eyes slightly wide. 

"Sirius..."

He can see the mixture of emotions going through Regulus; guilt, sadness - because he does love his parents, twisted and confusing and muddled as it is. Relief that it was over, in a way. Hope for the new and better life they will have. All of these emotions come together to make him smile, wet and soft, at Sirius as he leans forward and hugs him.

Sirius clings to him right back. Over his shoulder, he catches eyes with James, now awake, smiling at him slightly through his half-asleep state, but clearly having heard everything. He smiles back. 

"Thank you for everything," Regulus says, muffled into his shoulder.

Anything, Sirius thinks, clutching his baby brother tighter.

Anything for you.