The little prince

“All this time” Sirius lamented, his voice muffled as his head burrowed into his hands “all this time I thought he was one of them…irredeemable.” 

It was a month and three days after the battle of Hogwarts and finally Harry and Hermione had sat Sirius down to tell him of the sacrifice that his brother had made. To tell him about how Regulus had died in the pursuit of destroying what he had believed to be Voldemort's only Horcrux. 

Harry put his hand on Sirius’ shoulder “you didn’t know” he said gently “no one did.”

Sirius looked up and Hermione’s heart panged as she saw the way his eyes were rimmed with red, tears glistening “I should have taken him with me” Sirius looked down again, voice laced with shame “when I got out and went to James’...I should have taken him with me.”

“Would he have gone?” Hermione asked, finally speaking after letting Harry explain the story. 

Sirius paused, a heavy weight settling over his shoulders before he finally shook his head “no” he said eventually “he wouldn’t have.”

“He did it for Kreacher” Harry told Sirius “and I think -” he paused and seemed to think over his next words carefully before he spoke “I think he did it for you too, he didn’t know where to find you so he tried to give you the best shot at killing him - Voldemort I mean.”

Sirius sighed “I guess we’ll never know all of his reasons” he said and picked up the glass tumbler of firewhisky behind him, swirling the amber liquid around a few times. “All I know is that he loved that bloody elf, it was the one thing he would argue with my mother about, she thought he treated Kreacher too…” he paused searching for the right word “kindly for a servant.” 

Sirius sighed again then raised his glass in the air, seemingly pulling himself from a deep spiral of thoughts. “To my baby brother” he declared “a man I thought I knew.” and then he downed it in one, stood up, patted Harry on the shoulder, nodded at Hermione and disappeared upstairs. 

Later on that night Hermione couldn't sleep, she tossed and turned in the bed, watching the lights of cars passing by through the narrow gap in the curtains. It seemed that all she could think about was Regulus Black, the boy who had sacrificed himself for a house elf, she found that she wanted to know more than anything his real story. 

Before she knew what she was doing she found herself putting on her slippers and padding silently down the hall until she reached his old bedroom door. She traced the bronze lettering on the heavy oak wood ‘Regulus Arcturus Black’ and thought about what that name meant. ‘Regulus’ referred most likely to the star in the Leo constellation but it had another meaning, Latin for ‘little prince’. Sirius had called him that once, the summer before her fifth year when this had been the order headquarters and Sirius had been stuck here. “The little prince of the noble house of Black” he’d said sarcastically, pointing at the tapestry. Then there was ‘Arcturus’, the fourth brightest star in the whole night sky and finally ‘Black.’ Black of course referred to the house of Black and a shiver went through Hermione’s spine as she thought about the house motto “Toujours, Pur” or ‘Always pure’.  

She pushed open the door, eyes immediately falling to the crest above the bed, the motto staring right at her. It was hard to reconcile in her mind that the two conflicting images of Regulus Black were the same person. That he could be both the boy who had loved his house elf so much that he would try to take down the most evil dark wizard in the world and the little prince, the golden boy of one of the most prejudiced families in the wizarding world. 

“Hello Hermione.”

She jumped almost out of her skin, swivelling round towards the voice, her wand already in her hand.

“Oh” she said, turning slightly pink with embarrassment “hello Sirius.”

He didn’t ask what she was doing here, in his dead brother's room in the middle of the night, instead he just gestured for her to sit down and she did so. She perched precariously on the end of the bed, facing the armchair where he was sitting in the dark. 

They sat in silence for a while, neither of them willing to break it quite yet until finally Sirius said “I should have known you would be curious about him.”

“How?” Hermione asked hesitantly and he sighed. 

“When I first met you” he said “you reminded me of someone and I couldn’t quite figure out who. My head was a bit frazzled back then. 12 years in azkaban will do that” he joked and Hermione attempted a weak smile.

“I know who it is now.”

Hermione swallowed and looked up to meet his gaze “Regulus?” she guessed and he nodded. 

“He wasn’t always like -” he seemed to be struggling to phrase himself “like this” he settled on eventually, gesturing around them to the slytherin drapes and the family crest.

“What was he like?” Hermione asked Sirius, and despite it all he smiled. 

“When he was seven and I was nine, he tried to adopt a stray cat…mangy flea ridden thing he found in the gardens but he loved it. He brought it back inside and had Kreacher bathe it and then he hid it in his room for two whole weeks.” Sirius laughed, “he used to read the thing bedtime stories and the cat would sit there and look at him as if it understood.”

Hermione smiled at the imagery and thought about getting crookshanks when she was thirteen. “What happened to it?” she asked.

Sirius looked down at his hands “mother killed it” he said sadly, “I knew she’d go crazy if she found out Regulus had brought it in…I didn’t want her to hurt him so I told her it was mine.”

Hermione was mortified “that’s that’s -”

“Horrible?” Sirius finished for her “I know. I told Regulus I let the cat out and it had run away…he never quite forgave me for that but I'd rather he thought it was out there living a full life than know the truth.”

Sirius sighed “he liked to read” he continued “I used to tease him for it. When we were really young I told him he was gonna end up in Ravenclaw if he carried on and he’d say that they were going to make a new house just for me - the house of stupid trolls.”

Hermione laughed, partially because she didn't know what to say. It had never occurred to her that the Black brothers had once been close but of course as children they were all the other had. 

He stood up and walked towards the window and Hermione could just see the side of his face reflected by the moonlight. He looked older, worn out, the shadows under his eyes deeper somehow. 

“He was proud” he continued “to be a Black. He liked being the little prince and at one point he really believed in all of the death eater stuff.” He was looking out of the window although Hermione got the impression that he was seeing somewhere else, seeing the past. “He liked the stars” Sirius said, his voice dropping even quieter and softer “he liked being named after one and he knew where all of them were by heart. When we were really young he was jealous that I was named after the biggest star.” 

Hermione didn’t say anything, she didn’t think that Sirius wanted her to, she simply listened and digested the information. Piecing together her mental picture of Regulus Black. 

Finally Sirius divulged the last piece of information that he would give that night. “He got the dark mark as a sixteenth birthday gift. I know because even though I'd been disowned my mother sent me a letter to brag about it. It was the first time I'd heard from her in years and all she had to say was how proud she was to have at least one son who wasn’t a disgrace and to confirm that I was dead to her.” 

Sirius finally turned to look at Hermione “I thought he’d been proud too, though I guess now I'll never know if that was true.” He turned and walked towards the door frame pausing to say one last thing to her before he left the room. “Don’t chase ghosts, Hermione” his voice was soft and Hermione knew he was thinking about all of the people that he had lost “it won’t change what’s happened” and he turned and left the room.