The fallout
Regulus stood up and walked to the front, his feet moving faster than his brain.
Regulus wasn’t thinking. Wasn’t feeling. He didn’t even know he’d stopped moving until he felt Dumbledore’s hand on his back, ushering him to stand next to the other contestants.
The other contestants.
Everyone was staring at him and he was moved through a door to a room just off the great hall along with the other contestants. It was all going too fast and he lost himself completely, this was not real. He’d finally gone mad.
***
He was floating.
A blurry image moved towards him but no one could catch him up here.
He drifted, unblinking and unseeing as he tried to roll his brain into action. His ears muffled all sound and he tried to dig his fingers into his palms but he couldn’t move them.
“Regulus!” Finally a voice filtered through the cotton balls stuffed in his ears and he snapped out of it, coming face to face with his brother, he glanced around at everyone standing around him, varied looks of confusion, annoyance or sympathy on their faces.
“Regulus?!” Sirius looked worried until he spoke.
“I-“ regulus tried to force the answer out but he couldn’t arrange the words in his head, getting lost in his mind again, stumbling through a maze of vowels and consonants.
“Did you put your name in that goblet reg?!” Sirius sounded angry and regulus tried to break through the surface again but he was to stunned to swim, he tried to find something to grasp on to but everything slipped away from him as he blinked slowly staring at his brother.
“Well?!” All of a sudden Sirius went to put a hand on his shoulder and Regulus’ fear blasted him sky high as Sirius raised his hand, silver eyes that could be so easily mistaken for his mothers burrowing into him.
“No!” He screech- yelled , batting Sirius away with one hand and using the other to shield himself briefly before stumbling back as if he’d been struck.
He flushed with embarrassment as everyone looked surprised, some worried and sympathetic.
“Why would I put my name in the goblet Sirius?!” He said, trying to play off his reaction to the sudden gesture as an answer rather than an instinct.
No one bought it.
“Mr Black -the younger one- cannot be lying, it would be impossible for him to have put his name in the goblet. Nor for anyone else to have done it for him. I set the age barriers myself,” Dumbledore said, directing everyone’s attention towards himself.
“So, what?! The goblet just decided to send my underaged brother into the games for fun? Just for a fucking laugh?!” Sirius raged.
“Now see here m’boy-” Slughorn said with a disapproving frown.
“No don’t m’boy me, what the fuck is going on here?!”
“Sirius-“ Regulus said, getting a headache.
“Stay out of this Regulus.” Sirius’ eyes were full of warning and Regulus immediately shut his mouth. He’d met angry Sirius before.
James apparently had a similar idea as he took a step back from where Regulus hadn’t noticed him lingering close behind his brother.
“Sirius,” this time it was McGonagall who spoke, her voice the softest Regulus had ever heard it, “calm down, I’m sure this will be sorted,” her voice was kind but firm and even her appearance in the conversation seemed to soothe Sirius.
McGonagall now turned to Dumbledore, the minister lingering close behind still eyeing Sirius with distrust, “surely this can’t be allowed Albus, he’s just a boy never mind the fact that he never willingly entered the games-“
“We don’t know that,” Durmstrung’s headmaster spoke in a low gritty voice, “how do we know this is not just a setup so that Hogwarts will win?”
“Really Karkaroff? You think we would do that to a child just to win a game?” McGonagall said, clearly annoyed at the implication and the interruption.
“We all know this is about more than a game, Minerva,” this time it was the large headmistress of Beuxbatons who spoke.
“Nevertheless it must have taken some pretty advanced charms to get past Dumbledore’s age barriers, as he himself stated, it’s simply impossible for the boy to have done it himself,” Flitwick squeaked in, looking comedically small next to Madame Maxime of Beuxbatons.
“Unless you’re using dark magic,” Elodie added towards Regulus.
Regulus recognised her name as a relative of his from France, not of a branch they speak to of course but blood shared nonetheless. He believed she was his grandfather’s sister’s granddaughter, Regulus’ second cousin.
Sirius shot her a dark look but turned to eye Regulus for a bit, a hint of distrust in his eyes that broke Regulus’ heart, as if he was trying to find something. It seems he found it in the younger boys fear twisted features and pleading eyes because he hardened his jaw and turned back to the minister and Dumbledore, who’d been speaking in hushed tones through the entire interaction.
“Well?” Sirius raised his voice slightly, breaking their conversation, “he’s not participating right?” Dumbledore gave him a sympathetic look while the minister’s was nothing short of anxious, “He can’t. No. You can’t make him.”
“I’m sorry, but the goblet is a binding contract, the boy must participate. It’s bound by magic,” the minister said.
“I’ll participate instead,” Sirius said practically begging, “it’s just the same, yeah? The goblet still gets its stupid fourth contestant and Regulus doesn’t have to participate.”
“I’m sorry, Mr Black. It’s simply not possible,” the minister said, sympathetically now that Sirius seemed to have calmed down substantially.
But the boy of subject just closed his eyes and took a deep breath before looking the middle aged, pudgy man directly in the eye, “then you’re the one who’ll have to deal with the wrath of Walburga black.”
Regulus’ stomach dropped through the floor, his heart squeezed to bursting and his lungs filled with rocks. He couldn’t breathe. He started wheezing at the mention of his mother and her reaction to all of this.
The room turned to look at him as he shut down.
“Regulus?” He heard Sirius ask as his eyes blacked out.
“Reggie?” A hand on his shoulder as his knees buckled.
Everything went black.