Brothers

Summer 1974, 12 Grimmauld Place

Contrary to what I had thought and hoped, the situation hadn't improved by the summer. At least not as far as Sirius was concerned. He hardly spoke to me, hardly looked at me. He walked ahead of me, getting further and further away. Was I condemned to seeing my brother only from the back of his head?

Yet things had seemed to be on the verge of improving. It was the butler, Maurice Kreacher, who had come to pick us up at King's Cross, alone. Our parents hadn't shown up. After a brief goodbye with my friends, he took my luggage and we headed for the Sirius platform. Kreacher hadn't taken his luggage from him, as he had from me, and Sirius must have noticed. But he said nothing. Nothing at all. And I didn't say anything either, still angry about the unanswered letters. In the car, even without consulting each other, I knew that Sirius and I had a common fear: would we go back to Bellatrix for the summer? But neither of us wanted to flinch and no enquiries were made. However, when we parked in a nice street with houses all similar, away from the flat, Sirius and I had a look for each other, imperceptible but filled with relief. But neither of us had the intelligence to put our egos aside, so that look didn't lead to conversation and it only lasted a very brief moment.

We were welcomed by our mother, who gave me a brief embrace but did nothing for Sirius. She then asked Sirius to empty his luggage in front of her, to check the contents, and confiscated some music records. But she didn't ask me to do the same and said in a firm but gentle (?) voice:

"Up to you, I trust you, Regulus."

And perhaps I should have seen through her strategy to divide me and my brother. But I was so relieved to please this woman who terrified me that I decided not to see anything. But Sirius had seen everything and had already thought, enraged. But he said nothing, remaining silent, cold to me. On the stairs he jostled me and that was the only interaction we had for the first two weeks of the summer.

We were two boys with misplaced egos, convinced that the other had ignored us for a year. So we did nothing. We didn't try anything. Sirius avoided me. He stuck to the wall when I walked past him in a corridor. He would stare at the spot above my head whenever I was in front of him, always a few centimetres taller than me. He never turned towards my room. He no longer played some of the music he knew I loved during his piano lessons, and I no longer played the songs he loved when I played the violin. It was I who first broke this bitter, mutual anger. It was a night in mid-July and I could hear Sirius walking around his room, from one side to the other, in the room right next to mine. And I don't know why, it made me think of his vinyl. I had it in my suitcase and as no one had seen it, no one had taken it away from me. I jumped out of bed, still silent, and pulled the suitcase from under my wardrobe. The vinyl was still there. David Bowie in all his glory. I grabbed it with both hands and before any doubts could creep in, I dashed down the corridor and knocked gently on Sirius's bedroom door. His footsteps stopped immediately but he didn't open the door. So I knocked again. I waited a second or two and he came and opened the door. I knew he thought it must be someone other than me when his eyes widened for a brief moment. But he soon frowned again and crossed his arms in disdain. I kept the vinyl firmly behind my back.

"I'll stop making noise."

I looked at him, silent. Did he think I'd come just for the noise?

He waited but I still couldn't find my words. Then he moved away from the threshold and started to close the door when I blocked it with my foot.

"Wait," I whispered.

He opened the door again, his eyebrow arched in surprise.

"What?"

Terse, furious. A bit interrogative.

"I've... umm..." I didn't have the words. I couldn't find them. So I pulled the vinyl out from behind my back and handed it to him.

He took it gently, as if he were holding the most fragile thing in the world. His eyes sparkled and I knew that Pandora had made the right choice.

"It's Ziggy Stardust," he whispered, full of love.

"It's... your .... Hmmm, you know. Your birthday present," I murmured, hiding my eyes behind my stupidly short hair.

Sirius looked at me in amazement. Then, remembering who he had in front of him, he frowned and lowered the album.

"Yeah, thanks. Bowie's pretty cool, I've already listened to the album. Potter, a guy in my dorm, has a record player and Lupin, another guy, has a really good collection. So of course I already know this album."

There was silence and I looked down at my feet, clenching my fists.

"But," he continued. "Thanks."

I looked up at him a little and held his gaze for a few seconds. But my brother finally cleared his throat and lowered his eyes too.

"I didn't have time to buy you your birthday present."

Oh.

Oh...

"I didn't expect you to get one," I said quickly before turning on my heels and hurrying to my room. Sirius was calling my name but I didn't turn around.

I'd then spent a week or two avoiding my brother even more than usual. Why was that? I don't even remember. Pride perhaps. Shame too, at having made a present for a brother who couldn't care less about me. Yes. I was ashamed of being so weak in front of him, for him. At the beginning of August, one evening, I heard a knock at my door, which I took a long time to answer. When I opened my bedroom door, the landing was empty. Except at my feet, where there was a magnificent chess set. A small note had been written on it: "Happy belated birthday". 

After that, I ignored Sirius a little less. I didn't talk to him but I didn't do anything hateful either. We were there and we knew the other was there too. That was more than enough for us. I helped him heal when they hurt him. I bandaged his wounds or brought him clean sheets to replace his own bloodstained ones. I helped him hide his vinyl. Services for which we only thanked each other in silence. No more words, just glances of understanding between two boys going through the same thing. Even if I didn't support the fact that he did stupid things on purpose in public to enrage our parents, like when he insulted a minister's daughter in the middle of dinner or when he intentionally messed up his piano part when we were playing a piano-violin duet to impress my father's colleagues and he threw me off so much that I ended up messing up too. But in a way we were there for each other without being at our brother's side.

Finally, when the day came to go back to school, on the first day of September, I boarded the train for Aranshire with a light heart, convinced that my brother would suddenly start writing to me that year. And if he didn't, I could always blame him the following summer. And that almost comforted me.   

However, the following summer, Sirius did not appear at King's Cross. When Kreacher and I had gone to his quay to wait for him, he wasn't there. He had disappeared. The disappearance alerted our parents, but they heard nothing of Sirius. Nobody had seen him. No one had heard from him. There was no news.  My brother was gone. He had run away. On his own. Without me.

At 12, Grimmauld Place there was an outpouring of people who had come to help in the search for the black sheep. Cissy and her husband. Bella and Rodolphus. Cygnus and his wife. Distant aunts and uncles. Third cousins or colleagues, friends of the family. But nobody knew anything. Yet I knew that two people, only two people, could have known where Sirius had gone, but they too were not invited. So I didn't see Andromeda and Alphard. And so I didn't find out any more about the missing man.

I had begun to sleep badly, aggravating my insomnia, which I spent in his room or in the library. As soon as I passed the piano, my heart sank. Father and Mother had had his chair removed from the dining room, so that there were only four left and I had to eat in front of the zombie that was Vega. The more she grew, the less human she looked. Sometimes I even swore she was following me around the house to spy on me. 

It just made me more bitter and angry over the days and three weeks that passed before I finally heard from my brother. 

At first, I was convinced that I'd been dreaming. It was a hot afternoon, I'd heard a pebble banging against my window and when I got closer, I saw him downstairs. Sirius. Only he wasn't alone, of course not. Sirius was never alone. He was with a gangly boy who seemed to be limping. Moreover, Sirius was dressed in a way that my parents would have considered impious. His hair had grown out again. He looked like a girl. Or a... whatever. I remained hidden behind the green curtains. They finally left after several minutes.

Two days later, the scenario had repeated itself except that this time Sirius was with a girl whose red hair could not have been matched. But once again I didn't show myself to them. I preferred to seethe in my anger alone.

Two weeks after his visits, one evening when I was having yet another sleepless night reading in bed, I heard a creaking noise outside. It sounded like it was gradually climbing towards my bedroom. I was just getting out of bed when someone knocked on my window. Knock. At. My. Window. To. Fourth. Bloody. Floor. And there was only one prick to do it.

"Reggie open up!" said Sirius, banging even more against my window.

I rushed to the window to open it for my brother, even though I was appalled and completely furious. As he struggled to get into my room, I looked out onto the street. Down below, under a lamppost, stood a boy I assumed to be really gorgeous. He had fiery hair and a build bigger than mine or Sirius'. He was staring at me, as if he could see right into my irises. I looked away very quickly.

Sirius was behind me, smiling a smile of embarrassment, as if he knew he had no business being here.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him abruptly.

"Well, I'm the heir to this family, aren't I? More than you, anyway."

I said nothing to that, angry at my stupid, stupid brother. I headed straight for my desk, which I leaned on for strength to talk to my brother.

"What are you doing here?" I asked again, my tone even sharper than the previous time. Sirius caught the change in my voice and suddenly stopped smiling.

"I'm staying at a friend's house."

"The one waiting for you downstairs?"

"Yes."

He paused.

"Come with me, Reg," he said, mumbling pleadingly. And I hated him for that, for that voice, for that behaviour, for his lack of decorum. I let out a laugh in response, a coarse, horrible noise, now that I thought about it. A laugh without joy, just anger and frustration. And before I knew it, I was ramming my fist into Sirius's nose and he hiccupped in surprise as he fell back on his buttocks, his hand on his nose. 

"You're joking, right?" I asked. "Tell me you're joking, Sirius. You can't be serious."

He turned his eyes to me. His nose was bloody and I think he was about to cry.

"I've already told them, Reggie, they've agreed to take you in," he pleaded. "James's parents are super nice. They want you safe and will pay whatever it takes to make you comfortable in their cottage. You can go back to your school if you like, or you can join us at mine. My friends all want to meet you-"

"Shut up."

My voice wasn't as flat and cold as I wanted it to be. It was pleading.

"Wha... what?"

"Go back to your weenies Sirius. I don't want anything more to do with you," I paused, took a breath. Before thrusting a dagger into his back, striking directly at his heart. "I agree with Mother. You are a disgrace. You stain the name of our House. You don't deserve to be a Black. You are nothing like us. You are vermin."

The hardest thing to bear was the look in his eyes. His wounded eyes, like those of a dog whose master had just hit him for the first time. The incomprehension, the pain. But not anger. Never anger. Pain, just perfidious pain. 

"I know you don't mean that Reg, they're manipulating you to-" but he couldn't finish his sentence because I cut him off again. I pushed the knife in, a little deeper, a little faster, a little harder.

"I'm weighing my words, Sirius. And I mean them. You're not my brother. You're not the heir to this house, not for much longer anyway. Mother will disinherit you. And she'll be right. You're a disgrace to us all."

He got to his feet slowly, tired as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. But my brother wasn't Atlas, he was just a temperamental, self-centred little boy.

"Come away with me Reg."

"No."

"You think what you have here is love but it's not true Reg, they're manipulating you. When you're with me at James's, you'll discover the true love of a mother and father."

I sneered. Mean. I wanted to hurt my brother. I wanted to bite him and watch him cry. I was fifteen and I wanted to hurt him. I wanted revenge. Revenge for all my unanswered letters, for his abandonment at school and at home. I was angry with him and I wanted to taste blood.

"Haven't you figured it out yet, Sirius?" I asked him with a sneer. "Father and Mother hate you, just you. Not me. They understood which of us was worth loving. They were right to choose me. You've never been loved, Sirius, and you never will be. That is your curse. Unloving, unloved."

Sirius had the expected reaction. He looked straight at me, his shoulders weary, as if I'd just murdered all his friends but the world would find him guilty instead. Sirius was short of breath, made worse by the blood still dripping from his left nostril. 

"Now go," I ordered him, without respite. I stared at him as he turned and walked mechanically to the still open window. He stepped over the sill and grabbed onto the gutter between our bedroom windows, which he had used to climb up just a few minutes earlier. But before slipping completely into the night, without even looking at me, he said in a faint voice:

"I'll send you James's address by letter, just in case."

I suddenly saw red. A letter. A LETTER???!!! Was he taking the piss? He who had ignored every letter I'd sent him for two long years.

"Go fuck yourself Sirius!" I shouted as he slid down the gutter. "What are you playing at, you treacherous bastard? Are you enjoying this?!"

He looked at me, stopping halfway down the gutter. He looked straight at me, sad but not wanting to fight any more.

"Good night Reg..."

My fingers were gripping the edge of my window, so hard my knuckles were white. But I took a long breath and answered him in a flat, cold voice:

"It's Regulus."

And before I could meet his watery eyes and bloody nose again, I closed the window and went to bed.

That was the tipping point for everything. After that evening, everything gradually went downhill. I was faced with the consequences of all the things I'd said to him. And the things I hadn't dared say. I had no one to blame but myself. I had deliberately hurt Sirius. Physically and verbally.  I was angry at everything. I found happy things dumb, unsophisticated. I had bad blood, a twisted mind, a precarious decorum. I argued with my parents, I got angry and I behaved badly. I'd get hit, I'd get scars but I never really calmed down. Not mentally at least. I blamed the world. I was becoming like Sirius, according to Mother. So I kept quiet but I was furious. I'd pass Vega in the corridors, my own little sister, and I'd feel like I was being followed, spied on. I was becoming paranoid, always on the lookout. I spent my free time playing the violin. My head was full of scores, partitas and pieces that I hated more than any other. I was bubbling away inside my skull and I thought that maybe finding my friends back in Aranshire would help me. But once again, I was fooling myself. I argued with them and they were surprised, sad and disappointed. Then I didn't have the strength to look at them, to face them. I didn't apologise because one day I wouldn't have enough excuses left. They cared about me, of course, but they didn't understand me any more. To be honest, I didn't really understand myself either. Barty was frowning and walking on eggshells. Pandora was trying to change my mind and telling me about her discoveries or the things she liked. Dorcas was angry too, I think. She was the one who confronted me the most, but I didn't blame her. She was much more reasoned than I was. Only Evan didn't take anything into account. He assimilated in silence. He stayed with me or left when I needed him to. He understood. Evan understood me. He didn't know everything, but he didn't seem to care.

On my good days, I hadn't explained everything to them, but I had said certain things. Sirius hadn't come home. He'd abandoned me. Then he came looking for me and we had a fight. I didn't go into all the details because I knew they wouldn't understand. The broad outlines suited them and that was fine. 

The worst was the summer holidays. Every year, everything was worse than the year before. Father had fallen ill, so we had to look after him. I had to learn my role as heir as quickly as possible to help Mother and relieve her of a major burden. I spent most of my holidays with Kreacher, who had always liked me. He gave me driving lessons before my time, taught me to recognise different alcohols and all sorts of other things that my father couldn't teach me. I attended family debacles, parties and weddings in particular. I presented myself to the social world as the new Black heir. I obeyed my obligations over the summers and gradually gained more freedom. In the summer of 1978, I was allowed out on the town from time to time. I took the opportunity to join Dorcas when she was there or to go to bookshops or museums. I kept up my culture as best I could, the only thing that kept me from my anger, which was finally beginning to subside. Sometimes I'd come across people with long black hair and fair complexions, and deep in my heart I hoped it was Sirius. But it was never him. It was never my brother. 

But the peace didn't last long and I relapsed into my anger and the throes of my thoughts in January 1979. Vega and I were brought home from Aranshire. Father was dead. It made the headlines, of course. Orion Black had left this world and it seemed that although he was little appreciated during his lifetime, his death was still resounding. After his funeral, which Sirius had obviously missed, I had a long talk with my mother. Neither of us knew whether I should finish my year or not. But in the end we agreed that I only had five months left and that Mother could cope with that. I went back to school, avoided the pitying looks of my friends and teachers and graduated with flying colours. Dorcas, Evan, Pandora and Barty too, of course. And the summer had begun in a beautiful light, far from the mourning. The air tasted of freedom and adulthood. I refused to see the responsibilities that would fall on me after the summer. At the time, I was just an 18-year-old boy enjoying life with his friends.

And then Evan died.

Evan.

Evan.

Evan.

Evan Rosier.

He was dead.

Murdered.

And my joy stopped. Responsibility incubated us all at once, very, very suddenly.

His funeral was horrible. We were inconsolable. But it was Pandora and Felix who saddened me most. Pandora had lost her twin brother, her better half. Felix, who was still very young, barely ten, had lost his hero, his big brother idol. Dorcas was devastated but realistic. Barty had gone completely mad.

And we all argued. Barty and I were looking for justice, revenge and a way out of our anger. Pandora and Dorcas just wanted to grieve. We moved away, the boys from the girls. And then I began to distance myself from Barty too.

I fell deeper and deeper into my spiral of anger and nothing made sense to me any more.

I was hard as granite, I leered at the sun. I trusted no man and especially no woman.

I was living a hell in small rooms, I broke things, smashed things, walked through glass, cursed. I challenged everything, was continually being evicted, jailed, in and out of fights, in and out of my mind. Women were something to screw and rail at, I had no male friends.

I changed jobs and cities, I hated holidays, babies, history, newspapers, museums, grandmothers, marriage, movies, spiders, garbagemen, English accents, Spain, France, Italy, walnuts and the colour orange. Algebra angered me, opera sickened me, Charlie Chaplin was a fake and flowers were for pansies. Peace and happiness were to me signs of inferiority, tenants of the weak and addled mind.

But as I went on with my alley fights, my suicidal years, my passage through any number of women - it gradually began to occur to me that I wasn't different from the others.

I was the same.

This realisation saved my life. After two years, it pushed me to get back in touch with my friends, my very dear friends, without whom life didn't really make sense. I accepted who I was, the responsibilities, the family and the life I had. I began to return home from time to time, but I also allowed myself to live far from that dark house that sometimes continued to terrify me. 

Cautiously, I allowed myself to feel good at times. I found moments of peace in cheap rooms, just staring at the knobs of some dresser or listening to the rain in the dark. The less I needed the better I felt.

Maybe the other life had worn me down. I no longer found glamour in topping somebody in conversation.

I could never accept life as it was, i could never gobble down all its poisons but there were parts, tenuous magic parts open for the asking.

I re formulated I don't know when, date, time, all that, but the change occurred. Something in me relaxed, smoothed out. I no longer had to prove that I was a man, I didn't have to prove anything.

I began to see things: coffee cups lined up behind a counter in a cafe. Or a dog walking along a sidewalk. Or the way the mouse on my dresser top stopped there with its body, its ears, its nose, it was fixed, a bit of life caught within itself and its eyes looked at me and they were beautiful.

Then - it was gone.

I began to feel good. I began to feel good in the worst situations and there were plenty of those.

Pandora was the first to forgive me. She might have been a bit weird, but she was incredible. I also met her boyfriend, an even crazier guy called Xenophilius.

Dorcas was a bit harder to convince that I'd calmed down. She was on her guard but I didn't hold it against her. We spent days together just talking. She revealed a little more about her life each time. And so I learned that she too had met someone. It took a little longer for her to admit to me that this someone was a girl. But I didn't care, she was happy. So I was happy for her and for the girl. It took her a month to make sure I'd really calmed down. Then one evening she whispered to me:

"I missed my best friend. I missed you."

I smiled at her.

"Me too. I missed you Dorcas."

As far as Barty was concerned, I knew it would be easy for him. But it was more complicated for me. I was afraid he'd sunk into his madness without ever being able to come out of it. So it took me a while to go and visit him, but eventually I did. He was now living in Camden and working as a tattooist. When I went into the shop, he hadn't even looked up when he said mechanically:

"If you want a tattoo, you have to make an appointment in advance."

I smiled.

"Do I need an appointment to see my best friend, Barty-whore?"

As soon as my words left my mouth, Barty turned his head to me and started smiling like it was the best day of his life. He stood up and ran towards me.

"Oh Reg! I missed you!"

And I knew instantly that I was forgiven. 

That evening, having spent the day with Barty, I was about to head home when, for the umpteenth time, the stars aligned for me. I was walking through the streets of Camden when a huge poster on a brick wall caught my eye. It was advertising a gig in a pub that very evening. Today. But that wasn't what really caught my attention, it was the faces above the band's name (The Marauders). On the far left was the face of a slightly chubby young blond man with the name 'Wormtail' above him. Next to him was the face of a boy with round glasses and amber skin, with the name 'Prongs'. On the far right was another young man with a freckled face and tanned skin who supposedly went by the name of "Moony". But it wasn't any of these three faces that attracted me. It was the one a little further down the middle than the others: a thin face the same colour as porcelain, steely blue eyes, long jet-black hair and a wry smile. On the poster he was called 'Padfoot', but I knew him as Sirius. My brother, whom I hadn't seen for three years.  

I quickly spotted the name of the bar and ran towards it, faster than my legs had ever carried me. In less than ten minutes, I had reached the bar, which was already packed with people.

On stage, Sirius. 

Sirius.

Sirius.

Sirius.

Sirius.

Sirius.

He sang like a God. He was a crowd-pleaser, had a lot of fun and sang with perfect pitch. It was the first time I'd heard him and I was moved. I'd missed him. I'd missed my bastard brother, but I wouldn't admit that to anyone. So I'd just stay in the audience at his concerts. I'd shout along with the crowd about who was known as Padfoot and not Sirius Black.

This went on for years. I'd go to their concerts, quite often, especially in the summer, always alone, and I'd enjoy them, admire them. I loved them. But I never went near them, never spoke to them. Talking to him. I never did. I drank and sang when I knew the words. No surprises, I knew them all. By day, I was Regulus Arcturus Black, heir to the famous Black family, student of architecture. By night, I was a face in the crowd, at the concerts of my disinherited older brother. And to his fucking friends who had made him happy. Wormtail the drummer, Prongs the guitarist, Moony the bassist. And Padfoot the singer.

I owed them part of my recovery, part of my rediscovery of happiness. And also something else, another person.  

I noticed her as I entered the pub. She was quite pretty in her own way. Long, smoky blonde hair. She stood out from the crowd of rockers and punks. I'd found her again when I'd gone out for a breath of fresh air, suffocating in the small, packed pub. She was smoking.

It was she who approached me.

"A fan of local talent?"

I looked at her, a sneer on my face.

"Not really," I lied.

"I think they're pretty good. Although they have weird nicknames. But the singer's pretty sexy."

I laughed. She was looking at me, cigarette in mouth.

"But sadly or not, he doesn't seem to be the straightest guy in the world," she paused. "You do look a bit like him."

I feigned ignorance and surprise. Of course I looked like him, I'm his brother.

"Do I?"

She nodded.

"But you seem... more uptight you might say."

"Is that a compliment?"

She shrugged.

"You just stand out from the crowd."

"You too," I replied.

She smiled and took a long puff of that lung-destroying stuff from hell.

"By the way, my name is Erica."

She was lying.

"Reginald."

She too had a sneer.

"You're lying."

"So are you."

She laughed.

"That's true. So what's your real name?"

I paused, uncertain. But I had to admit that she was rather beautiful in her way and that we seemed to belong to the same social spheres.

"My name is Regulus."

She hissed.

"The heir to one of Britain's biggest houses in Camden? Wow!" She took another drag from her cigarette and introduced herself. "Anastasia. Anastasia Timurovna Andreyeva. But you can call me Nastya."

And as stupid as it sounds, that's how I met my future wife.

Thanks to Sirius, although I'd never admit it to him.