He’d tried to hide it for two days and now it had all fallen apart, and it was all for nothing because Lucinda couldn’t keep her mouth shut. And, he supposed, because he’d gone white and passed out when Evan had clapped him on the shoulder. Trust his friends to go running off to find Professor Slughorn at the drop of a hat.
‘So, it’s your shoulder, Mr Black?’
Regulus looked up to see the slightly puce face of his head of house swimming above it. He was slumped against a wall now, and the fog of his vision was proving to be rather a pleasant distraction from the pain in his shoulder that had been bugging him since Sunday evening’s quidditch practice.
‘Yeah.’
‘I thought you’d done something on Sunday after that bludger hit you. Why didn’t you tell any of us?’ demanded Talkalot. Regulus shut his eyes and tried to pretend the quidditch captain wasn’t there.
‘Wasn’t that bad.’
‘Wasn’t that bad!’
‘Mr Black, you’re in a lot of pain. Rosier, give me a hand getting him to the hospital wing.’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Nonsense, Mr Black,’ Slughorn’s eyes were on him now, kind but firm. ‘No more of this. Come on. No shame in it at all.’
He gave up and let Evan and Slughorn help him to his feet and along the corridors to the hospital wing. There was a reason he didn’t want to be poked or examined or questioned and it was a very good one.
Professor Slughorn rapped on the door of the hospital wing, waited a few seconds, and then pushed it open. Madam Pomfrey was striding towards them and didn’t so much as bat an eyelid when she saw Regulus.
‘Quidditch, I suppose? Get him on that bed there.’
‘It’s nothing.’
They ignored him, everyone always did. He found himself sat up on one of the beds. Despite the high ceilings of the hospital wing and the length of the room, he felt trapped. Was it too late to get up and escape?
‘Miss Talkalot says he was injured Sunday. Crouch came to get me when Mr Black collapsed in the corridor. He seems to be in an awful lot of pain but he was most reluctant to come and see you.’
The scrutiny from Professor Slughorn seemed absolutely nothing compared to how Madam Pomfrey looked him up and down. ‘I’ll have a look and let you know. Where is the pain, Regulus?’
‘Shoulder.’
He was sat on the bed he’d been assigned to and watched as the nurse retreated up the ward to go and get his records and some pain relief. Part of him was desperate to get his hands on something that would take away the stabbing sensation in his arm that was beginning to feel permanent, yet he was fighting a strong urge to get up and start running back through those doors.
‘Bludger?’
Regulus jumped as Madam Pomfrey arrived back at the side of his bed. ‘Yeah. It’s not that bad.’
‘Then you’ll be able to let go of it long enough for me to have a look?’
He didn’t like her. Reluctantly, he let go of his shoulder. ‘I’ll have to cut your jumper off,’ she warned him, pulling a thick pair of scissors out of her bag, ‘I’ll repair it, though.’
Even the feel of the scissors running just over the skin on his shoulder was far from pleasant. She shook her head. ‘Take this. Regulus. There’s no point being in pain. Come on, now.’
She was trying to be kind, but he didn’t need kindness from someone like her. He swallowed down what she offered him, he was no idiot, but it only took the edge off what he was feeling.
‘Can you lift it?’
Regulus shook his head, he’d tried and failed a few times and each time, the pain had been worse. ‘No.’
‘I’m fairly sure you’ve dislocated this. You must be in agony. I’m going to have to give you something much stronger because I’ll need to put your shoulder back in place and it will hurt more before it can get better. After, I’ll vanish the bone and regrow it once it is where it should be, as you’ve got a fracture, too, though it looks a little strange. You’ve not injured it before?’
So, she couldn’t tell. He tried not to look relieved as he shook his head. She didn’t suspect, did she? No, she’d have tried to stick her nose in.
‘Here you go, then. This one’s for pain, and this is a muscle relaxant to help me guide it back in. Calming draft. Don’t give me that look. I’m going to be as gentle and as quick as I can but it won’t be pleasant.’
‘You can’t just regrow it?’
She gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘Afraid not. It’s not in the socket where it should be, which is the main issue. These injuries are really nasty; Professor Slughorn said it’s been two days? That can’t be right?’
‘Wasn’t too bad at first.’
‘Drink these. I don’t know.’
The procedure of getting his shoulder put back in felt like the equivalent of the previous forty-eight hours’ worth of pain all administered at once. Despite the pain medication now circulating through him, it was unbearable. Just as a clunk echoed across the stone floors and walls of the hospital wing, Regulus saw his vision grey and realised he was falling forward. ‘There we go. Alright, now, sweetheart. Regulus? It’s back in. Regulus? Can you hear me?’
As she manoeuvred him back to a sitting position, he tried his best to keep his head up. ‘You’ve fainted for a second, very common. How does it feel?’
She summoned a glass of water for him. His hands were shaking too much for him to risk gripping it. Condensation was building on the outside of the glass.
The pain was a dull ache, now. It was such a vast improvement that he could have cried, but he grit his teeth and made to move off the bed. ‘Better. Thanks. Can I go, now?’
The look he received in response was one of utter disbelief, and to his outrage, a little pity. He used his good arm to pull the blanket over his chest and cover as much of himself as possible. ‘Absolutely not, Mr Black. You need that bone regrown, and there’s a few other things we need to discuss.’
Panic rose up in his stomach. He swung his legs around. Who was she, anyway, to tell him what he could and couldn’t do? The fracture was fine, he knew it was mostly healed already given the time frame, and the last thing he needed was some nosy nurse sticking her beak into his business.
‘Sit back down, please.’
‘Madam Pomfrey!’
Both Regulus and the mediwitch turned to see two figures heading through the door. Well, to put things more clearly, one figure being half-carried by the other.
‘I told him to come earlier. Oh.’ Sirius stopped, mid-flow, as he caught sight of his younger brother. He stared at Regulus.
‘It seems nobody can accept my help too easily, doesn’t it?’ Madam Pomfrey said. Regulus watched her take the half-conscious Lupin from his brother, and drag the older boy to another bed, but pulled the curtains around it. ‘You’ll have to give me a minute, Black. As for you, err, Black. Regulus. I have an excellent sticking charm I can use to keep you in that bed if needed, but I’d rather not. Stay there.’
Regulus watched the curtains shut behind Madam Pomfrey. Sirius was left stood on the outside of the screens. He turned around slowly and looked at his brother sat in the bed opposite.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Shoulder. Quidditch.’
‘Slytherin didn’t have practice tonight. What were you really up to?’
‘I didn’t say it was from tonight, did I? Ask Talkalot if you don’t believe me.’
Sirius walked forwards and took a seat on the end of the bed next to him. His eyes flickered over to the cubicle opposite again. ‘So, what’s wrong with Lupin?’
‘Influenza.’
‘Again? If that bloke was a dog, they’d have put him down by now.’
‘Shut up.’
A silence hung between them. Regulus leant back into the pillows. The fug that the cocktail of different potions had resulted in was beginning to thicken. His eyelids felt heavy.
‘Does she know?’
He opened his eyes, to see Sirius’ boring straight into them. ‘Come on, Reggie, don’t play thick. Does Pomfrey know?’
‘No. And she won’t.’
‘So it isn’t quidditch-related?’
‘Some of it. It’s fine. I’m fine.’
Sirius dropped his voice. ‘What this time? Tell me. Nothing I can do to stop it, anyway. I’m hardly going to go and try and shout at Mummy for being mean to you, these days, am I?’
For a second, the pain of his dislocated shoulder seemed completely futile in comparison to the stab Sirius had just sent through him. Regulus shrugged, unable to speak.
‘Regulus.’
‘Father’s angry at the ministry. I didn’t do well in charms last term.’
Another silence.
‘You said it’d stopped.’
‘It had. And now it’s started, again. You know how it works. It’s a cycle.’
‘Unless you get out of the cycle. Do what I did. Alphard gave me the house. Once I’m out of Hogwarts, I’ll be there. Come too.’
It had been months and months of longing for a sentence just as sweet as that one, an invitation that was inevitable yet impossible. Now it had come it was heavy and unyielding. Sirius’ loyalty to his friends, their beliefs that were in such stark opposition to those of Regulus’ community. The home that they’d designed and believed in as children, a sanctuary made up of late-night conversations now built of brick and tangible. In him was still the child who wanted to run to the promises yet lived alongside the sceptic who knew that the structure would crumble just as soon as he touched the burning handle of the door.
He hadn’t actually given a response, yet. ‘They wouldn’t allow it.’
‘You’re seventeen in just over a year. Then they won’t need to allow it, and it’ll be your choice. Our choice, yeah?’
Regulus turned away. Looking into the face that uncannily resembled his own was a task that his brain couldn’t take on at present. The long, cold nights spent in their childhood bedroom were painted in full technicolour and suspended clear as day in the space around them. Lying hungry side-by-side as mad shrieks of laughter, raised voices and the occasional smash of crystal came from downstairs. Sirius’ fingers tracing the tears on his younger brother’s face before chasing them away. ‘When we’re bigger, we’ll have our own house. All the rooms will be warm, and there’ll be as much food as we want. It’ll be so warm you can run around in your pyjamas without feeling cold at all and you can have a proper hot bath whenever you like. All the colours on the walls, not just the dark ones. Nobody’ll tell us we can’t do anything and we won’t have any shouting unless it’s for fun. It’ll be just you and me, and I suppose you can bring Kreacher, too. We’ll have big, clean windows and there’ll be so much sunlight coming in that we almost won’t want to go outside.’
‘Can we have a treehouse?’
‘Ten treehouses. And a swimming pool, and a quidditch pitch.’
How could one hat, just scraps of fabric and magic, do so much damage? Red and green, which always mixed to ugliness, had divided a family. Sirius had promised him when they’d been younger that they’d always had each other and that that was the most important thing, but now that thing of such importance was lost and smashed, what would happen? What colours would be permissible to paint the walls of that fantasy home?
‘What’ll Potter say?’
‘You’re my brother. He knows how much you matter. It’s not a case of him or you, Reg. If I say you’re coming, you’re coming. I’m not going to let him change that, or anyone else, for that matter.’