Commons
September 1st, 1975,
Regulus Black did not keep friends.
Sure, the Slytherins aligned themselves in some sort of grotesque family reunion in the common room, as it wasn’t hard to find where bloodlines converged in such a place. But as lovingly taught by their parents all of them hated each other at least a little bit.
Regulus sat in the corner, as far away from the hearth and large congregation of people as he could get, the green of the flames casting an ill ease across the room.
The place where the ceiling fell away into an opulent glass dome was dark, ink-like water rolling over the structure. Sometimes if you gazed up long enough the occasional eel would arc over it, body long and graceful. There were rumours of a squid but Regulus had never seen such a thing swim by.
Somewhere under the great lake, rumours spewed like putrid flies, and this year eager eyes were turned towards Regulus.
His mother had tried her best to quell the news of his brother’s departure from their home, but it proved hard to kill the weeds once they had taken root.
“Surely he'll come running back.” This was Barty, nonchalant as ever despite himself, draped over a velvet settee, “Princes don’t survive long in the wild.”
And that’s exactly where everyone in this room was wrong, Regulus's brother had never been their prince, not since the moment he was sorted into Gryffindor.
Sirius had begun his escape a long time ago.
“He won’t.” Regulus tells him, “He’s too proud.”
He can't, they'd removed him from the wards.
“Sounds like a damn waste to me,” Barty mutters, but Regulus shrugs him off.
The evening Sirius had left, Walburga had torn the house apart, Kreacher at her heels, Orion nowhere to be found.
She’d brought Regulus into the drawing room and made him watch as she burnt Sirius’s name from the tree. A mark of shame, not all that different from Uncle Alphard’s.
“Nothing will become of that boy now.” She'd spat, “A war is coming, and I will see my family among the right-side Regulus.” Her features ever birdlike and estranged in the candlelight.
“I will not have this family threatened, certainly not by blood traitors.”
The word Potter had long since been barred from their household.
“Of course, Maman.” Regulus is careful with his tone.
“Your brother has hurt this family, and forfeited his place in these walls, here he is dead. You will not talk to him at school or return his letters. Are we in agreeance?”
“Yes, Maman.” He’d echoed, letting his eyes fall past her face and onto the family tree. Green and twisted so intricately, a woven web of stars.
He doesn’t understand how Sirius could leave something like this, something so ancient. And for what, for whom?
James Potter had been Sirius’s favorite word when he had returned for Christmas during his first year at Hogwarts. Like a broken record, James this James that, Walburga had jinxed his mouth shut at one point.
Then Regulus had come to Hogwarts the next year, ready to see what all the fuss was about but it had only perturbed him more.
James Potter the mystic figure painted so gracefully in his head by Sirius was honestly quite a simple creature.
Regulus had never been able to place what it was about Potter that Sirius had taken such a liking to.
Though Regulus supposed there was a lot to Sirius he didn’t understand these days.
Or rather never had to begin with.
He stands up, tired of the whispering that floats around the common room, and how sometimes he can't tell if it's in his head or not.
Tired that no matter what it came down to the whole world revolved around his brother.
Regulus’s world. When he’d rather it didn’t.
“I’m going to bed.” He tells Barty, not waiting for his response.
It's not even been a day and Regulus already dreads the year ahead of him.
Alone in the dormitory and glad for the quiet, he sits on the edge of his bed. Sagging as all the tension falls away from his body.
Behind lidded eyes he can see Sirius's burning letters in the fireplace back home, Walburga hovering over his shoulder, she hadn't even opened them.
“C’est mieux comme ça, s’il vous plaît comprendre.” She'd whispered, she always sounded lighter when she spoke French, like his mother.
“Je sais.” He utters now to empty air. “C’est mieux, il est content.”
Sometimes Regulus practices the things he would say to Sirius if he ever got another chance, in pitiful scenarios he'd crafted in his head.
Stumbling into his brother in an empty hallway, snaring his attention mid-Qudditch match, discovering him in the astronomy tower, preferably alone.
Regulus was searching for the impossible words that could make his brother stay.
He wonders that if he found the right ones would they change anything between them?
Could they?
An unwelcome image of James Potter presents itself, captured mid-laughter, an arm wrapped around his brother like he was born to be there.
In his head, Sirius is always with James.
Regulus palms his face, forcing the scene away,
No, probably not.
And for some reason that’s comforting.