Caught
Everything felt soft. Nothing hurt. Behind his lids was light. It smelled like peppermint and chocolate and spring. He was free.
“Welcome back, Mr. Black. I was afraid we’d lost you there for a minute.”
No. No. No. NO.
He could not be alive. Tears stung his eyes, threatening to fall and shatter the already fragile composition of the Regulus that was fine, that was capable, that could do this. He failed at everything, and this was further proof. He’d failed at the one thing that was supposed to be so easy, people did it by accident.
“You have a visitor that’s been waiting for you to wake up.” Madame Pomfrey seemed to not notice Regulus’ inner conflict over surviving. By the sound of her steps, Regulus thinks she goes to the door of the infirmary. “He’s awake now, you can go to him.”
“Regulus!” The voice sounded broken; hoarse and breaking halfway through the word. The scream finally breaks Regulus’ determination to not cry, and he feels endless tears roll down his cheeks. Regulus can barely hear Sirius’ hurried footsteps as he runs to the bedside of his brother. Sirius grabs Regulus’ hand in his and Regulus feels like his fingers could break with the force. “Oh Merlin, I was afraid I’d lose you, please don’t ever leave me again.” Regulus can barely make out the words beneath the tears.
Regulus moved his free hand to grip Sirius’. Sirius was here, Sirius was crying, Sirius cared. The sobs Regulus had tried so hard to suppress fell from his lips as he pulled Sirius closer. Sirius’ arms moved to encircle Regulus. For a while there wasn’t a sound besides the two brothers crying in each other’s arms.
“I’m sorry.” Sirius finally broke the silence, still not letting go of Regulus. “I’m so so sorry,” he kept repeating. “I should have known, I should have asked.” His words were separated by sobs. It felt odd, but oddly comforting to see Sirius so broken, so sad. It felt comforting to know he wasn’t alone.
“We haven’t talked since you left, you couldn’t have known.”
“I’m sorry for that too, I swear, I –”
Regulus had spent far too much time thinking about Sirius leaving, how it happened, why it had happened and if he had asked to go with, or had been asked to go with. It never ended well. “You had to leave, and the both of us knew I wasn’t coming with you.”
“Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have tried. That house – it sucks the life out of you.”
“Please –” Regulus wasn’t sure what he was asking. For Sirius to stop, but stop what? Stop apologising, since it was never Sirius’ fault? Stop apologising, since he couldn’t have done anything about it, Regulus and life were just incompatible? Stop talking because Regulus wanted to stop thinking about how he failed, stop thinking about Grimmauld, the darkness, the pure despair that oozed off the walls?
“Did you know Cissa cut off a chunk of Bella’s hair last month?” Sirius’ change of topic was welcome. Once again he had managed to know at least a little how Regulus’ mind worked.
“What? How can you still be more knowledgeable about family drama?”
Sirius let a half grin make its way to his lips. It’s the first time Sirius had smiled since coming. It made something warm happen in Regulus’ chest. “Because I am simply a slag for drama.”
Regulus can’t help but grin too at his brother’s statement. “You just can’t let that go, can you?”
It had been one of their more explosive fights. It had ended the moment Regulus had uttered the now infamous words.
‘How can you be such a – such –’
‘How can I be what, Regulus? You can say it.’
‘Such a slag for drama!’
Regulus hadn’t appreciated Sirius laughing in the moment, far too heated up to even properly realise what he’d said. Not until Sirius had repeated it back to him.
‘Such a –’ Sirius could barely manage a word between his wheezing. ‘Such a slag for drama, really?’
Regulus had tried to keep his composition, he had, really, but it had proven impossible. He too, started to laugh at the preposterous choice of words. ‘Are you going to deny it, though? Is it not exactly what you are, Sirius?’
With the shared positive memory, the topics of conversation turn to more positive things. They cover classes, Sirius’ pranks, Regulus’ favourite literature, which he could talk about for hours. In that short conversation, he felt closer to his brother than he had in years, even closer than before Sirius had left.
“Why?” Sirius asked, when all other questions had been asked. All other conversations had been had. It was the only thing left.
Why indeed. There were so many different things, different reasons, different excuses, Regulus didn’t know where to start. Maybe he should start at the core of it all.
“I don’t think I matter.”
“I’m sorry”, Sirius says, like he hasn’t said it a million times since that night. He said it like it was all he could be, like whatever Regulus was, was his fault. It wasn’t. Regulus was broken, but it wasn’t Sirius’ fault. “I’m sorry I ever let you think that. You matter, Regulus. You matter so much. I’m sorry I let our parents get in the way of you knowing that.”
Sirius was lying. He was lying in the way kind people do. The way that made stupid little basket cases like Regulus believe them. Believe that they could be something like Sirius or James. Believe they could be people that mattered. It was a lie, but it was trying to be kind. It never felt so kind when the truth came knocking again.
“I know. Thank you.” Regulus was a liar too. For his brother he would always be. He would play his part in this little play. Sirius would get his reassurances that he did everything he could, and Regulus would still kill himself. As soon as he could. He would find some other way to do it. “When can I leave?”
“Not for a little while. I need to be absolutely certain you’re alright before you leave.” Madame Pomfrey was kind. She was one of those truly good people, the ones that had so few tragedies of their own, they could get invested in those of others.
“I feel perfectly fine, madame. I think I’m ready to go.” Madame Pomfrey just spares a small smile for Regulus. It’s clear she has no intention of letting Regulus go. Not for a while.
“You all think I’ve never treated someone like you before.” Her eyes remain kind as she speaks, but there’s an edge to her voice. Like there are lessons she’s learned from mistakes she’s made. Lessons she never wishes to learn again. “I know you’re lying. I can see it in you. I know you don’t believe a word he says. I know you’re waiting for me to let you go, so you can finish the job you started. And because I know all that, I cannot let you go before I know you won’t try again.”
Regulus feels taken aback for a moment. But only for a moment, recovering quickly has been instilled in Regulus as a little boy. Never let anyone see beyond the persona you’ve concocted. Regulus may not have been the first but he will be the most patient. When his heart is set on something, he gets it. No one could keep an eye on him forever, and Regulus was excellent at disappearing.
-
Those first days after, in the hospital wing had gone by in a blur. Madame Pomfrey had talked, Regulus hadn’t listened. He could hardly wait for his release. He would not wait to be alone again.
Unfortunately, in the week after Regulus’ attempt Sirius did not leave him alone. Not even for a second. Regulus thought that Sirius might have some sort of tracking spell on Regulus, but even after looking, he couldn’t find anything. Sirius just appeared, as if out of nowhere, everywhere Regulus went. He had a suspicion that Sirius had bribed a first year to give Sirius the passwords for the Slytherin common room, because Sirius was there too. Even at night he felt Sirius’ presence.
At first Regulus was annoyed. He had a second attempt to plan, and even he wasn’t stupid enough to plan it in front of Sirius. He keeps going over it in his head whenever he can, every quiet moment. There were many things he could use. Potions, spells, hell even the great lake. Scratch that, Regulus couldn’t fathom dying by drowning. He had been drowning his entire life. He wanted his death to be exactly what it felt like to him. He wanted his death to be explosive, to be exhilarating, to be freeing, to be a beginning as much as it was an ending.
Sirius just never left him alone for long enough to research a proper way. He was, infuriatingly (or maybe, just maybe, thankfully), always there, save for classes and his, apparently mandatory, weekly meetings with Madame Pomfrey. He felt like he was drowning in those, too. He refused to talk. Talking wasn’t what a Black did. So they sat there, in complete silence for the first few weeks. Regulus had always been good at silence. As the second born, he had to be.
Regulus quickly found that the silences in Madame Pomfrey’s office weren’t the same silences he had been brought up in. They were not the silences Regulus felt like he controlled, nor the ones where he thrived. Instead they were suffocating. Silences, where his thoughts creeped up, whispering awful truths in his ears. Weakening his resolve and deepening his misery.
“I can’t exactly release you from these meetings if you keep not talking,” she says three meetings in, “I have to write a release for you, and if you went on to kill yourself after it would look terribly bad for me.”
So, Regulus resigns himself to talk. Slowly and incredibly mistrustfully, but steadily. A few words at a time he starts breaking through the silence that had been suffocating him.
-
“How are you feeling?” Sirius asks. The brothers had found themselves growing closer in the weeks following Regulus opening up to Pomfrey. Sometimes, Regulus regretfully has to admit, Madame Pomfrey has some adequate advice. Advice, that has managed to soften the walls around both boys. Now, they both find themselves sitting in some rarely used corridor, backs against the wall, next to each other, so they wouldn’t have to look at each other. Sometimes that made it easier.
Regulus shrugs at his brother’s question. It’s really not a great day, but Regulus really doesn’t feel like talking about it. He fears that it would all be true, what he’s feeling.
“Regulus, I need a number. Communication, even a little bit of it, like Madame Pomfrey said.” Sirius sounds tired too. Maybe caring for Regulus is too much for him. Regulus really had to be quicker with another plan. In the meantime, he could try to be truthful.
“Eight.”
Sirius lets out an exasperated sigh and looks to the ceiling. “Fucking same,” he mumbles, like Regulus isn’t really meant to hear it. Sirius turns his eyes to Regulus. “Anything in particular?”
“We are not about to just pass the fact that it’s an eight for you too, Sirius.”
“I’m fine, Regulus. I’ve got a handle on it. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“No, fuck that. Communication, like Madame Pomfrey said. It needs to go both ways for there to be trust. If I feel like you’re holding something back from me, I can’t trust you. I’ll feel like you have all this fucking power over me, and that’s terrifying to me, you know that.”
Sirius sits for a moment, hands running briefly over his face before settling under his chin. His eyes are trained on the floor in front of him. Regulus’ are glued to Sirius. After a while, Sirius lifts his eyes to look at Regulus. Regulus can’t help but notice how tired they are. “Fine.” He sits there for a while, just looking at Regulus. Regulus feels an urge to fill the silence, to coax Sirius into talking, but he knows talking takes time. After a while, Sirius turns his eyes to the wall in front of him. “You’re not the only one who knows what a ten feels like.”
Regulus feels his heart stop as panic floods his veins. He didn’t even want to think about what life would be like without Sirius. “Are you okay? Do I need to get Madame Pomfrey?”
“No, I said I know what a ten feels like, but I also said that I’m at the same as you. An eight isn’t something to really worry about.”
“So what was it? Your ten?”
“I fucked up last year. Like really, really fucked up. Like my friends weren’t talking to me for months fucked up. Remus hated me, Peter resented me and James was so disappointed he couldn’t even look at me. We’d been working on this potion before I fucked up, felix felicis. It’s fucking hard to make and even the smallest mistake makes the whole thing deadly. We’d started it before I fucked up and while they weren’t speaking to me, it was my solace. I never meant for it to be drunk. It was just something to focus on that wasn’t how much of a shit person I am. I’m not great at potions, so I wasn’t going to delude myself into thinking it was drinkable.
“I was already miserable when I got the letter telling me Alphard was dead. Mother’s kind note informing me I would not be allowed to attend the funeral didn’t help. I went to the potion, hoping to drown myself in the tired monotony of brewing, but the bastard had the audacity to be done. It had gone through its last brew and it was done. I sat there, probably for an hour, just looking at it, going through everything in my mind. How my friends hated me, you hated me, our parents had disowned me and the one relative that was at least kind of on my side was dead.
“I’d never felt so utterly hopeless. But I’d also never felt so sure about a decision. I was damn near certain I had made a mistake somewhere in the brewing process. I could take a sip and all anyone would say would be that I probably got overconfident in my brewing skills. An accident. Mother wouldn’t get the satisfaction of me killing myself, but I would still be dead. James, Peter and – and Remus would be free, and so would you. So I transfigured a cup and drank it. A lot of it, just to make sure it did its job.
“Unfortunately, or in hindsight so very luckily, I’d brewed it correctly. Also very luckily, a giant dose of a luck potion is just what you need for your friends to start forgiving you. That or the roughly eight months of separation, apologies and grovelling. It wasn’t immediate, after what had happened it couldn’t be, but it was a start. I felt guilty for months after, thinking they forgave me just because of the potion. I still do sometimes. Like today. I never told them I took it. I said I fed it to a frog that leapt out of the window and safely on to the ground on a fucking bird. They believed me.
“I still feel unloveable some days. Days like today. But I’ve never been at a ten again. I hope to fucking Merlin I never am.”
Regulus took Sirius’ hand in his, still keeping the respectable distance between them. “Me too.” He isn’t sure whether he’s talking about Sirius’ ten or his own.
“Taking care of you helps keep me lower. It’s something so familiar. If I’m of use to you, then maybe I have a purpose in this life.” Regulus feels like Sirius’ words could crush him alive. Sirius; sunny, perfect, confident, free, Sirius. Regulus would have to adjust his beliefs about his brother. Sirius hadn’t given up on Regulus after. Regulus now had to help Sirius.
“I think you should talk to Madame Pomfrey.”
Sirius looks down the empty corridor, head turned opposite to Regulus. Regulus knows the feeling well. “Talking about it makes it real.”
Regulus makes sure to emphasise each word he says to Sirius. Saying this wrong could end in disaster. “It is real. And I’ll always be here to listen if you need.”
Sirius returns his head to the middle, eyes still avoiding Regulus. It’s still a gesture of closeness, Regulus knows it. “Me too, Regulus.”
Regulus knows it’s his time to be brave, and brave he could be. Anything for Sirius. He sets his hand, palm up between them. “If you ever get to a nine again,” he says, eyes on the open hand. Hoping Sirius would take it. He tries to fight his heart, beginning to race, the first signs of panic.
Sirius looks at the hand from the corner of his eye. He takes what feels to Regulus like an eternity. Finally, he takes it and squeezes. “If you ever get to a nine again.”