Brothers

French south-west coast, september 1970

A year after Sirius and I met humans for the first time in 3 years, we had grown up and some of our desires had changed too. For example, our shelter no longer suited us because it had become too small. So for the whole summer, we slept in front of it, under the starry sky, and miraculously it didn't rain. One morning in September, Sirius woke up before I did and had an idea. But I was still asleep. So Sirius had to wake me up.

"Reggie" he whispered, putting his hand on my shoulder to wake me up. But it didn't work. "Reggie!" he breathed again.

I must have mumbled or moved a little, emerging quietly from the arms of Morpheus, but my brother was in a hurry for me to wake up instantly. "Come on," Siri continued. He might have waited a few more moments as I drifted back to sleep, but he was determined to make me follow his wishes. "I want to go for a swim", he said.

"I'm tired," I murmured back, as it was barely dawn and the water was too cold at that time of day.

"But it's in a special place, not the usual one!" he'd pleaded and he was starting to get my full attention a little.

"Where?"

As I said these words, I opened my eyes and saw my brother beaming, literally. He seemed to be tripping with joy and was about to explode. He ran his hand through my hair, which was shorter than his own. And he was smiling even wider.

"We're going swimming in the sea" and his voice was trying to hide all the excitement he was feeling, but I think it was complicated. Sirius, in his moments of happiness, could hardly contain himself and had to say everything. 

Sirius's words had awakened a completely unsuspected desire in me. Swimming in the sea was a strange idea for us, having lived in the forest for four years now. But unlike many forests around the world, ours was one of those bordered by the sea. Or rather by the ocean. The Atlantic Ocean. So, if we left the forest and walked a little, guided by the incessant noise of the seagulls, we'd come across a beach, and somewhere discreet, so that two boys who'd been missing for four years, from a family that was half foreign, wouldn't be spotted. So we got up quickly, all smiles, and ran down to the beach, Sirius always in front of me, of course. He was the taller, faster and better looking of the two of us, but at the time, far from the rivalry that our family would impose on us, I didn't mind. Because Sirius was my hero. So we ran around in our dirty, tattered jumpers. We didn't meet many people at that time of the morning, so we made the most of it, and I don't think I'd seen my brother so happy for such a long time. 

When we arrived at the beach, we found it empty. We took off our jumpers and T-shirts, went topless, and dived into the icy morning water. But none of us cared. We were in the sea!  We dived, we laughed, Sirius lay down on the water and tried to teach me how to do it (even though I'd always been less gifted than him in all things nautical). I'd get on his back and he'd suddenly dive in, and I'd scream and we'd laugh a lot. We'd tuck our hair behind our ears whenever it got in the way and sometimes Sirius would put his head under the water and come out with all his hair in front of his face. Then he'd wave his arms and scream strangely, like a monster, to make me howl with laughter. And it worked, because I'd never known anyone as funny as Sirius, even if I wouldn't have always admitted it. So we were having fun in the water and I noticed a sort of wooden boat on the sand, in a bad state of repair, which seemed to have been abandoned. Sirius and I rushed over to it. There was a huge hole in the bottom, but we couldn't find anything to fill it with. But we didn't really care, so we started dragging the boat across the sand and I could see that Sirius's expression had frowned a little and he was looking over my shoulder to our right. Glancing around, I saw three men, two young and one old, and a huge horse towing crates. The old man looked at us for a moment and then looked away to his colleagues, so not worrying any more, I forced Sirius to drag the boat faster and he agreed. We put it in the water and climbed in, but we always ended up sinking, which actually made us laugh. So we kept getting back on the boat, me first, then Sirius, and Sirius was the biggest and therefore the heaviest, so we'd tip over on his side and I'd fall on top of him before we fell into the water, which made us laugh even more. But at one point, both of us a little tired, we pulled the boat up onto the sand and took two minutes to breathe. The three men and the horse were still there and the oldest approached us. His colleagues behind him were climbing back up the dune with the horse, but he was walking towards us with a small bag in his hand. I soon realised that he wasn't that old; he must have been in his mid-fifties but looked to be in good physical condition. I felt Sirius come up beside me, all tense, and I could tell he was clenching his fists. He was about to turn eleven but he was ready to take on grown-ups, and sometimes, just for that, I admired him.

"What are we going to do?" I asked him just before the man arrived.

He didn't answer me, but from his fierce expression and clenched fists, I knew he'd be ready to attack if the situation called for it.

The man stopped in front of us, his short white hair and blue linen shirt blowing in the wind. He was wearing brown trousers and thick sailor boots. He also had a small black beard that faded to grey and white at the tip.

" You boys aren't at school?" he asked us, smiling and in a joking tone.

"We don't need to," replied Sirius, defensively.

The man laughed.

"I thought the same at your age. But it's important, you know, school. It's very useful to know how to read and count and calculate."

"My brother and I can read," Sirius replied. He pointed to the boat, where a faded painting indicated the name of the boat. "Here, here, it says Le Petit Baigneur. You see, I can read. And so can he!" he said, pointing at me.

The man held his stomach and laughed a thunderous laugh. 

"Well! You've got a mouth on you, son!" he laughed. " What are you both called?"

There was a few seconds of silence.

"Reginald," I lied, instinctively. And that allowed Sirius to bounce off my lie. "And I'm Simeon."

The man looked doubtful for half a second, but I swear he understood that we were lying. However, he didn't reply. Instead, he pointed to the battered boat.

"Your dinghy's pretty good. I've seen you try to sail it, you were doing pretty well, despite the hole."

Sirius and I, who didn't know what to say, gave each other puzzled looks that didn't escape the man.

"But you'll need tar to repair it," he continued, pointing to his bag. He looked at us, and we grew ever quieter. "Do you know what tar is?"

Sirius said nothing but I, curious to know more, shook my head from left to right to say no.

The man opened his canvas bag, took out a kind of black stone and showed it to me.

"You heat it up, mix it well and then brush it on the ground to cover the hole," he said, putting the stone back in the bag after his explanation. He threw it at me and I caught it, which made the man smile. "Keep it."

There was another moment of silence, but the man couldn't stop smiling. A kind smile.

"Would you like to help me with the oysters and make some money?"

Sirius stepped sideways towards me, as if to protect me.

"Non merci, monsieur."

The man smirked, turned and waved as he left.

"See you later, kiddos!"

Following our morning at the beach and our desire to move around a bit, Sirius and I moved on to another spot, still in the forest, but closer to the sea. Along the way we'd come across a huge stretch of water, which looked pretty clean and which we could probably use at some point. Continuing through the green trees, we came across a tiny building. Not like a building you could live in, it was far too small. But I had no idea what it was. Why was there a building in the middle of the forest? Putting my hands on it, out of curiosity, I felt heat inside, as if it were a big radiator. Cables were coming out of the building and running in the opposite direction from where we'd arrived. Sirius was behind me, curious and suspicious. This morning's encounter with the oyster man had upset him a little, but he didn't want to talk to me about it.

"What do you think is in there? It's hot", I told him. All I got was an uncertain shrug.

I continued to examine the wall and its heat. 

"I could use it as a base to build our new hut," I suggested. And I could see in his eyes that he was confused, hesitant. "But it's almost in the village... Aren't you too scared?"

"I'm not scared!" he shouted, too fast, too loud. He was completely scared but he didn't want to tell me. And then he looked at his feet, at the sky, then at me, all hesitant about what he was going to say. "I think... I'm sick of hiding Reggie."

Between all the petty pilfering and marauding of no consequence, and the kindness of the man on the beach, I think Sirius was ready to let his guard down a little, even if he was still scared. I think he was beginning to think that maybe they weren't looking for him any more, even though he never stopped believing that he would end up paying for his crime. A crime that wasn't a crime, but we wouldn't understand that until years later. I believe, however, that Sirius' view of his crime had changed over the years. As a child he believed he had killed the man, so his crime was to be a murderer. As an adult, I suspect he believed his crime was not to have arrived sooner to save the man from his sinister desires. 

For days, we'd spent our time looking for materials for our new hut: long pieces of wood for the structure and pieces of iron that I flattened with huge stones or by jumping on them for the roof. I used them as tiles, layering them one on top of the other so that the whole thing was well protected. We'd used moss to cover the whole thing and insulate it well. On the front, Siri had made a point of putting two small pieces of wood that protruded a little to the outside to act as coat racks for our holey shirts or our big dirty jumpers when we weren't wearing them. And this hut, the fruit of our efforts and our desire to get closer to civilisation, was our last and most beautiful hut. It stood, proud and incredible, in the middle of the trees and against a building for extra warmth inside. My brother and I were so proud of it. 

Over the days that followed the raising of our hut, we returned to the beach several times. I knew that Sirius had been intrigued by the man and was trying to find out if we could trust him. The first few times, when the man spotted us, Sirius grabbed my arm and we ran off. But we kept going back. Endlessly. One day I went to see him, Sirius had almost wired up but he didn't have the courage to come with me. I went to see the man, but I kept quite a distance from him. Respecting the distance, he smiled at me without coming any closer.

"What's your name?" I asked him, out of the blue, forgetting good manners.

He smiled.

"Georges. Georges Léandri." He paused for a moment and moved a little closer to me. "And what about you? What's your real name?"  

This last sentence had frightened me and I ran off. Sirius followed me and we went back to the cabin. This little game lasted for a fortnight and then one morning he approached us and we didn't run away. He smiled at us, a smile of genuine happiness.

"Would you like to try some oysters?" he asked and, curious, we agreed. We followed him out onto the sand and sat down on a piece of wood that the waves had left behind. He took some oysters, opened them and gave them to us. And although they didn't look very appetising, Sirius and I liked them. He explained to us how he worked and my brother and I listened quietly to this kind man. We stayed with Mr Léandri all day and before we left, as night began to fall, Sirius and I turned to him.

"We lied to you," Sirius told him. "About our names."

"I know," he smiled calmly. "Do you want to tell me your real names now?"

Sirius had looked at me, I'd nodded, and he'd taken a deep breath, filling his chest with air to give himself courage.

"My name is Sirius."

"And I'm Regulus."

Mr Leandri had just smiled. He hadn't commented on our names, which I'm sure he thought were strange, or on our accents when we said our names, or on the fact that we'd lied to him. He just smiled at us. And he said, with his great serenity:

"Goodbye boys, come back any time!"

And so we did. We later found out that Mr Léandri had lost his only son, Ernest, during the war. He was the same age as Sirius. Perhaps that's why he insisted on forging a link with us. In the end, we went back to see him, once or twice, and Sirius finally agreed to let us work for him. He would never have admitted it, but that was all he wanted. A return to civilisation.  

We worked for Mr Léandri for two years, until the end in fact. We haggled with him not to pay us in money, but in food, especially oysters, or new clothes, which he accepted very quickly, no questions asked. Sirius and I really enjoyed our new routine, a 'grown-up' routine. Every morning we got up at dawn in our cabin in the middle of the forest, and afterwards we ran to Mr Léandri's oyster park. The fishermen quickly accepted us into their circle of colleagues and made us work a little less hard, given our young age. Sirius and I did our share of the work, but we still saw the oyster farm as a place to play and have fun. The new reality of our world suited us perfectly and Sirius and I were more than happy. The people who worked with us were discreet about our presence and didn't ask us too many questions. Around here, after the war, there were lots of children wandering around on their own, sometimes with siblings or in groups, pilfering left and right. They would also come across runaways, sometimes from far away, and they didn't ask too many questions because they suspected that these young children were not running away for the fun of it. They must have thought we were the same and didn't bat an eyelid. It suited them just fine, and it suited Sirius and me too. Anyway, anyone who had anything to say came across Mr Léandri, who was ready to defend us heart and soul.

People became curious, especially around the summer, when tourists came on holiday and saw two kids working. They'd stop along the oyster bed and stare at us, dumbfounded. And when they asked one of the oyster farmers, the most common answer was:

"They're the boss's kids. They help us during the summer".

The answer went to the onlookers and everything calmed down until the next onlookers arrived and the story repeated itself. Sirius and I had got used to it. So when, in June 1972, two men stopped during our morning work session, we didn't ask ourselves any more questions or pay them any more attention. We pulled one of the donkeys up the dune, without trying to meet the eyes of the two men. Maybe we were used to it, but it was still embarrassing. 

"Guys, can you go and get Cabotin, please?" asked Albert, the oldest oyster farmer after Mr Léandri and just as nice. We agreed and ran across the sand to fetch Cabotin, a carrier horse, the last one still on the beach.

As we almost reached the horse, Mr Léandri called out to us:

"Sir! Reg! Hurry up! We're all hungry and waiting for you!"

We laughed and hurried even more. In almost two years of work, Mr Léandri had taken us under his wing and started calling us Sir and Reg. It made us laugh, firstly because nobody had ever called us that, but more importantly because the pronunciation of 'Sir' was French and had nothing to do with the English word. As the horse and us made our way up the dune, Sirius and I came to a halt at the same time. The two curious men had moved, especially one, and were now right in front of us. It was impossible not to meet their eyes. One of them, the one furthest to the left, our left, didn't really matter to us. He looked at everything and nothing, with his blond hair and eyes that looked brown from a distance. But the other one... He was staring straight at us, mouth agape. His steel-blue eyes never left us. My blood ran cold as I looked at the man. He was wearing a beautiful white shirt that suited his physique, black trousers that fell perfectly to his ankles and leather shoes that looked as if they'd been polished that very morning. Behind him, a magnificent convertible: a white Jaguar E-Type Series 1 Roadster. But it was his face that paralysed me the most. Very dark brown hair, with eventual curls; very light blue, almost grey eyes; a thin, angular face, with severe features; slight freckles; a thin nose. Sirius and I were looking at a carbon copy of ourselves as adults, apart from a few details. 

"Uncle Alphard" whispered Sirius, as motionless as I was.

Uncle Alphard.

Uncle Alphard.

Uncle Alphard.

Uncle.

Alphard.

Alphard Black.

Suddenly Sirius grabbed my arm, hard, and it hurt.

"We've got to go, Reggie," he whispered in fear. But he didn't drop me. And as we were running away, a voice that wasn't one of the oyster farmers or Mr Léandri shouted:

"Sirius! Regulus! Come back!"

But Sirius and I didn't look back. We kept running.