It had always been important to acknowledge in their chambers, in the circle of people they share their lies and deceit with, that ancestors’ words -mostly- rang true. Never those about mercy or the like, but those about vengeance and grief were, without doubt. Like the apples fallen from a growing tree, none of them ever fell far away from its soil as their family persevered and prospered through centuries; and those who did -well, those who tried to- were long rotten and forgotten, only burnt marks on the tapestry.
Lessons. To be taught, to be learnt, to be acted out consequently.
Regulus learnt.
Four years old, with his brother six. Floating dark feathers up in the air with bare-handed magic to not leave a trace should the outsiders attempt to look, dust and dirt rising along with the artificial wind his brother created. The crow from which the feathers came laid bloody under the oak tree, small hungry chirps waiting for her up in a nest between the thick leaves. Regulus watched the event with fascination, the way his brother’s hands weaved the magic, making a show and ripping an orchestra out of it at the same time.
Lesson: necks are fragile and feathers look prettier when they’re slicked with blood.
And another one just later: if you want to dispose of the evidence, wash your hands first before burying the body. You can’t hide forever that something is dead, but you can hide who did it- that’s what matters more, Reggie. His brother helped him clean the crimson stains from under his nails as he whispered lessons into his hair, Regulus listening to him with reverence worthy of a god.
Regulus learnt.
Six years old, with his brother eight. Mother taught them the best. Regulus didn’t like what the spell did to their elf but the elf didn’t seem to mind. It looked like it was hurting, when it was begging for forgiveness, but it stopped whimpering as soon as mother lifted the curse and went back to cleaning the attic without a word of complaint. Mother scolded the youngest for grimacing halfway through the ordeal, unable to stop his fidgeting when the sounds became hard to bear. He looked to his right as mother left from the corner of his eye. Unlike Regulus his brother hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time the elf was convulsing in front of them, face stoic and collected like they were taught prior. Exemplary.
Regulus was used to being the second. His brother always learnt his lessons first.
Seven years old, with his brother nine. It had been raining relentlessly for the past week, confining both of them to their bedrooms. House elves brought them whatever food they asked for, whatever book they might want. No one ever knocked on their door, not mother nor father. Their only instruction was to keep quiet and out of sight.
He should’ve stayed there.
Unfortunately, he was seven.
He wanted an excuse to stop the itching that came with being tucked away.
When he saw a crow fly under the oak tree in the garden to hide itself from the spring shower, he found it. It was perfect. Feathers were pretty. Regulus could make them fly now too, but he accepted it without questioning that his brother would make it better. It had been so long since they last played. The itch gave way to excitement.
He went out with a stone in hand.
…He should’ve learnt his lessons better, but he was only the second.
It was true that feathers looked pretty when they were slicked with blood, but not so much when they clumped together with water. Rain fell down his fingertips onto the mahogany floorboards. Blood and water didn’t make them shiny like the crow; it only served to make them look wet and messy, getting dirtier until Regulus felt bile rise up his throat at the sight. He should’ve learnt by now to stay in his room and only follow his brother outside, should’ve left the stones and blood to him to handle.
He knocked hurriedly and heard it echo back in another corridor: mother’s footsteps.
His brother looked at him confused for a moment from the door ajar; looked at the tacky feathers crumpled in his hand, at the frightened gray eyes of the younger begging for a lesson. With another knock from their mother, he understood.
Give them to me, he said, stepping out, and watch and learn.
Mother came, bringing a storm inside. Such hypocrisy, after saying she didn’t like the rain. Such hypocrisy, after raining down that same spell from before upon his brother in exchange for the mess he made. Such hypocrisy, Regulus thought and thought and thought as he silently watched his brother fall down to the floor from the keyhole, body bloody like those raindrops dripping from his fingertips, while his own boots were the ones stained with mud, hidden behind the closed door.
His brother taught him a lesson that day, and Regulus learnt.
And later when they buried the second crow next to the first with mud soaked hands shivering from the cold, while the rain was still pouring over them mercilessly, he found out his brother taught some things even better than their mother.
Nine years old, with his brother eleven.
With his brother leaving.
Regulus knew another lesson was coming. He was getting better at predicting their arrival. From the moment they buried the second crow under the oak tree, digging with the storm still pouring over them, to the evening he threw a china vase to the face of an annoying portrait of their great-grandmother; from all the nights he listened to his brother scribble and write and swallow his whimpers as whichever punishment he took upon his shoulders paid out that particular day. Everything comes with a price, he learnt: Sometimes you have to pay it with three days’ worth of hunger when there is a witness to speak of your crime, as his great-grandfather’s portrait did to Regulus’ father; or with fifty pages of handwriting their family mantra when he shied away going hunting at the woods because he had learnt his lesson about blood before, about what happens when you let someone see it on your hands. Although sometimes, he learnt, that you didn’t have to pay the price at all if you have an older brother- sometimes, his brother paid for them both and ate the rabbit their father killed raw so Regulus wouldn’t have to touch the blood. Those times his only punishment would be listening him through the walls; and Regulus knew it should be horrible, should leave a terrifying guilt (according to his brother, who told him not to worry each time and patted his hair thrice) or a prideful satisfaction (according to his mother, because what is better than committing a crime and not pay for it- better, make another person pay for it instead?) He never felt the pride but even then it didn’t feel like a complete punishment like his brother thought, because more than the pinching ache in his chest he felt another thing twisting his heart; twisting it into something unrecognizable and indescribable for him, something he was never taught of. Something that felt like it could be taken and given in return, without a piece of it getting lost in between. That thing that he felt his brother give him with every punishment he took the blame for, Regulus gave back gave back gave back with all his heart, willing his brother to understand it in the other room, a silent plea of I do, brother, I do without knowing what it was.
On the platform Nine and Three Quarters, his brother taught him another lesson by whispering it in his ear, patting his head thrice: I love you. Don’t forget me. Chin up, Reg.
Away from their parents as they posed to the other purebloods in their own bubble, Regulus heard them in the forefront of the mindless chatter of people around. Regulus heard, fingers white from clutching at the plain black silk robes of his brother like a pitiful newborn instead of the second heir to the House of Black, and he learnt.
His brother pried his fingers away with a soft touch on them that instantly made his hands give up on trying to hold him here, and whisked away in a second without expecting an answer, mixing with the crowd before their family came back. Regulus followed him with his eyes to the train, trying to etch the path his brother took between people onto his retinas; the way his head was held high, face not betraying any emotion about his escape from home. The proper first heir to the House of Black.
He drew his gaze away as he felt the body heat of his mother return to her place behind him, heart thumping in his chest like he was caught doing something he shouldn’t. A hand landed on his shoulder and he was whisked away as well, in the opposite direction. Regulus held his head high like him as they left. Chin up.
Chin up- and he learnt, he acted it out, and he waited for another lesson. For his brother’s letters to return. For him to return, and teach. Regulus was a good student.
He learnt the hardest when his brother actually came back for the summer, nothing like he used to be.
He learnt that while he didn’t mind his brother’s whimpers of exhaustion when they were younger as he was paying off his punishment, he didn’t like the scream that tore out his throat when their father shouted curses and obscenities alike. This didn’t bring out the butterfly-like twisting in his heart, nor the stabbing pain in his chest- these were the kind of screams that made you nauseous and wish you were somewhere else far away instead.
Regulus wasn’t brave enough to make them stop. Wasn’t even capable of wishing them to stop, fear locking his limbs stronger than a jinx. He couldn’t will himself to repeat those three words silently in hopes that his brother would feel them through the wall like when he was a kid. He was taught his lesson well and mercilessly.
Everything had a price, most of all choices. Everything had a price and one year’s worth of payment was due now. It was not Regulus’s this time, so he didn’t say anything.
Lesson: His brother sounded prettier when he was paying Regulus’s share of the blame. So he should always continue to do so and should never have to pay a price for his own choices, should never sound like that ever again.
For the first time in forever, his brother failed his lessons.
And so Regulus became the new favorite. The first.
…Lesson: Regulus was never born to be first, but he tried his best.
Eleven years old, with his brother… absent.
Regulus boarded the train on his own, not looking back at his parents.
He saw him on the train though, heart twisting at the sight once again. There was a snake wandering in his veins since the morning, making his hands tremble, making sweat bead on his forehead, making his knees weak with nerves. He was leaving home at last and yet was more scared than ever. He stopped at the train’s entrance, waiting.
His brother came in a flurry of black and red and gold and carried his suitcase to a closed compartment without a word. Regulus did what he knew best and followed.
It was an empty one, with four vacant seats.
His brother sat his suitcase down in the middle, smiled crookedly, wished him luck. He didn’t seem to notice Regulus’s uneasy silence. Regulus felt the twisting in his heart turn into a painful and ugly grip as he watched his back, walking to the door hurriedly, walking back to his friends in another room. He didn’t say those words.
His brother stopped at the doorknob, suddenly like he remembered something just now. Reaching into his pocket, he picked out a bunch of sweets, putting them into the pocket of Regulus’s plain black robe, and patted his hair thrice. The next moment he was gone.
The grip on Regulus’s heart eased back, deforming into bubbles in his throat.
He did not say those words, and yet Regulus had never said them back to him either, did he? It was enough, the three pats on the top of his head.
It had always been like this: His brother taught and Regulus learnt.
The papers of the sweets were in red and gold; a wish for him.
…But there had been a snake wandering in his veins since this morning, since way back when he first dug the grave of the crow with his bare hands. His brother managed to wash his hands properly before leaving home, buried his own crow well down six feet deep. However Regulus was only the second. There was still blood left under his nails, his crow still laying halfway open and rotting under the oak tree. There was still a snake wandering in his veins as a curse from home no matter how eagerly he left, because he didn’t pay enough to let it bleed out- his brother always paid for both of them when it hurt the most.
He burned the candy papers in the fireplace at night, feeling incredibly cold in the dungeons despite the fire rejoicing at swallowing his brother’s wishes up.
And so he was eleven, with his brother thirteen.
His brother didn’t look at him again, so he stopped looking back.
The following years were in pieces, memories like feathers floating in the dusty air: his brother and his three friends laughing at their table in the morning, the deep need to tell someone his first ‘outstanding’ at his transformation essay that he gulped down forcefully, his brother ripping up a howler from their mother, Regulus hiding his normal letter when he felt his inquiring eyes on him for the first time in months. At twelve years old with his brother fourteen: all his housemates’ hair a bright red, roaring laughter in the hall from everyone, detentions for the four. Regulus’s hair was still black, untouched by whichever spell they used, and it felt like a pat on his head, three times to be sure.
Even though his brother wasn’t there to teach him, Regulus learnt.
At thirteen years old, with his brother fifteen: the last summer they shared. It didn’t hurt when his brother was absent; when Regulus knew he was where he was happy, when he had only temporarily left but was never fully gone. Regulus had gotten used to it quite fast; liking the calm in the house, the neglect of their parents, the hours he spent alone in the library. His brother was energy, the kind that made all your hair stand on end, the kind of impurity their parents wanted to throw out of their lives. He always brought a storm for which Regulus was too weak for, prompting him to hide as words rained out in the living room. No matter how much he denied it, his brother was similar to their mother in that aspect.
His brother stormed in that night like he always did, hair a mess, cheek bloody. Regulus watched him collect his possessions from the doorstep with growing dread. It was time for goodbye.
Maybe he trusted too much for him to be back every summer, trusted too much that no matter how much he loved spending time where his friends were at, he would still come back to be his brother.
Another lesson.
His brother threw his bag out of the window without a care, breathing heavily. He must’ve been sucking all the air in the room because Regulus couldn’t breathe at all. He just stood silently behind the ajar door, thirteen and in the middle of being abandoned. His book still open on the page of necromancy, his crow buried under the oak tree. He washed his hands better of mud these days, but still not quite good enough to get the blood off.
His brother turned to lock the door and his eyes caught the identical gray ones.
Despite the ruckus he made earlier, he stepped towards him with a caution he had only shown on the train before. A tightening vice shut Regulus’s heart close, the sight so familiar and painful, so he kept his lips shut as well. They didn’t talk anymore anyway.
His brother raised his hand to his head, patting him three times.
Regulus kept silent, gnawing at the inside of his cheek to keep his composure, to keep away from hollering out for his parents to stop his brother from leaving. The window opened again and his brother left, in his place only the wind.
Lesson: If his brother wants to go, then he should get to.
Regulus didn’t sleep for days as he etched this particular lesson onto every corner of his mind, every blank page on books he got his hands on. When he ran out of sheets and memories and hurt still, he took it to his heart to lessen the ache.
At age fifteen, with his brother seventeen…
Regulus was no child.
Even though he was always the second he was never low on intelligence nor was he unaware. He saw and he heard and he knew. He knew.
He heard the half-blood from his house mutter to himself in his seat three people away from Regulus at dinner. He saw his brother split from his friends with the last of his laughter, walking to the tower alone. He saw the snivelling rat start to follow him, wand hidden in his sleeve, an ugly joy on his face; and prayed that he would truly die tonight during what he had been planning for ever daring to touch the bubble his brother carved out for himself.
It was no surprise that Regulus was mistaken. It was no surprise, yet it still wrung something inside his heart when he saw only three boys in the hall the next morning, his brother’s absence hitting a permanent soft spot on his underbelly. He knew without doubt that none of the friends and teachers of his brother attemped to investigate, accepting their shared blood as fact enough. He knew that the rat was still alive somewhere, pitied and protected, giving his rightful place in death to his poor brother.
At age fifteen with his brother seventeen, Regulus watched him decay.
With every week he skipped dinners, his face looked gaunter the next, their mother’s trace on them shining through in the shape of high cheekbones and sharp chin. And with each word spoken to him, the voice he replied with and his tired gray eyes dropped lower and lower. Regulus used to catch his eye sometimes, some times before, when his brother looked lower than usual, lower than the highs he usually set his sights on. Now even Regulus stood higher than his view, which was unacceptable, unfathomable, and absolutely unforgivable. Regulus watched and watched as his brother climbed another set of stairs, lost in the shadows all the charmed candles cast, as his three friends laughed among themselves behind him carelessly. Absolutely unforgivable.
He knew he should support him somehow- except he wasn’t taught how, except he didn’t know what comfort to offer other than three pats on the head. He knew he should probably inform someone who knew better. Maybe those three old friends of his. Maybe their head professor. Maybe their parents, even, before his brother went too far and lost his way back, lost the reason to turn back, and Regulus lost him even harder.
And yet. And yet.
Regulus had learnt his lesson.
As he watched his brother climb another set of stairs, and another, and another towards the top of the highest tower, while his friends were laughing without him, he knew. It had been months of torture. It was nearing the end of the school year, and he and his brother had had a slowly decaying corpse in their hands for months now; he knew that it should be buried here before the warmth of summer back home made it rot into something worse.
It was time for goodbye.
Lesson: If his brother wants to go, then he should get to.
Regulus laid in his bed that night, tucked himself in up to his chin, and for the first time in years he concentrated all his thoughts in his head, willing them to tear through the stone walls and the rooftops, willing them to reach his brother and give him the ghost of three pats on his messy black hair at the end of his world: I do, I do, I do.
He waited unblinking for hours in the dark; for a sound, a sign to let himself sleep. A sign that it happened and he had no one to follow anymore so he could rest. Even though nothing reached past the cold serenity of the dungeons something must’ve shifted in the air because one moment he was awake, and the other he let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, tired eyes finally slipping shut.
As he walked to his table for breakfast the next morning he was jittery just enough to be able to hide it, a snake slithering in his veins once again, eating him alive from the inside out. He felt it calm down when an older student approached him in obvious panic.
There were three other students in the room he was brought to.
Regulus watched them crumble and fall as they were told the news.
Good riddance, was his only thought. He did not feel a sadness he could identify, only the feeling of his heartbeats hitting his ribcage, spreading numbing cold much like the snake did. The pressure on his chest was gone at last, after crushing him for months there was only the lightness left in its place that came from being hollowed out. Good riddance, he thought as the bespectacled boy shouted at their professor and slammed the table, good riddance while the scarred one cried out falling to his knees like a puppet strings cut, good riddance when the blonde vomited next to the chair.
Regulus sat prim and proper as they howled and denied and groveled. Chin up, Reg.
The bespectacled boy rose from the floor and slammed into him, the professor scrambling to his feet to hold him back. He continued shouting insults at him, spitting on Regulus’s face: heartless, ruthless, why are you calm when he’s gone, why aren't you doing anything? Look at us, look, you- why are yousmiling?
Regulus left them groveling on the floor with two demands to their professor: give me back my brother’s body, and give me time off for a funeral.
He was set to go with promises he knew would be kept this time.
Regulus went back down to the dungeons, skipping classes and lunch and dinner, exhaustion weary on his bones. There would be no lessons to learn today. He laid silently in his bed, tucked himself up to his chin. And for the first time in years, he cried.
He asked for permission to be responsible for arranging the funeral the evening he went home, his parents giving it with as much happiness as one could expect from them at ridding themselves of the burden.
He wrote to the authorities the next morning on behalf of their family, asking them to collect all of his brother’s possessions from wherever they may be, even those in the possession of other people and of their school. He wasn’t going to let a trace of him lay around where it wouldn’t be appreciated, certainly not in the hands that have ignored him to death before, no matter how remorseful they now may be. The laws were on his side, and so was their name and money. Since his brother hadn’t written a will (he hadn’t even written a note behind…) it went smooth like butter, under the professors’ unapproving gazes and more eyes than he expected staring at him with hate and crocodile tears on their cheeks.
And so, in the dead of spring, Regulus buried another body under the oak tree, next to his and his brother’s crows. He washed his hands clear off of the blood and mud just like he was taught to, checked under his nails with care, patted himself on the head thrice. Patted the stone on the tree thrice.
There were eyes looking inside all the time.
He knew they would be here when he made his choices known to the professors. Only family, meaning there would be only Regulus there. No uncaring parents, no old friends. He adjusted the wards with curses and ordered their elves to attack. He ordered them to let anyone if they ever came to try to watch without attempting to break through. His father would call it petty small victories, the kind children did. Regulus did not care. He only wanted to hurt. He wanted them to know they would never be able to cross, to get close. Never again.
Absolutely unforgivable.
And thought it would’ve been this. The end of it.
Except. Except when he got to school, the want didn’t end. When he saw three miserable boys sitting at the next table, everyone around them trying to chip in to take care of them- putting food onto their plates, pouring out water and juices, talking softly into their ears- all he thought was that it should’ve been his brother. These small mercies that were being thrown around by students and professors alike should’ve gone to his brother, not them. Not to those who did everything wrong yet were still considered victims.
Regulus turned his back on them, trying to control his shaking hands lest he did something inappopriate for their family name. He brought his fork to his mouth, tasting ash, and saw a hand reach for the last of the dish in front of him. The snivelling rat was seated across from him, black eyes watching the same circus play out over his shoulder with disdain. Regulus’s blood ran cold when those eyes turned to him. The rat smirked and took another bite, knife moving on his plate, sound reminding Regulus of his own knife cluchted in his fingers: cold and sharp and able to hurt. Able to kill.
Regulus’s hands stopped shaking.
He left the knife on the tablecloth, evaded people that may be a witness. He climbed the stairs he remembered his brother took. He climbed until he reached the top of the highest tower, until he stood at the edge where he could still smell the metallic taste in the air. Maybe if he deluded himself enough, he would be able to smell more pleasant things about his brother here: his shampoo, his cigarettes, the sugar of his favorite cologne. Maybe he should get down before instinct kicked in and he continued following him.
That was the point, wasn't it? The end. Except. Except, the point was standing right in front of him already in the shape of no one.
No one came after him. No friends, no teachers, no rats. No one took notice, even. They were still downstairs in the dining hall, feeling sorry for themselves, throwing a pity party; or watching the show with fake disdain to hide the glee they thought they could hide.
Regulus looked at the sky; the moon barely visible, the clouds swallowing the stars. He couldn’t see what his brother saw days ago. What he saw in them, promising and sure enough for him to leave his home behind, his only brother behind, all those years ago.
Lesson: If his brother wants to go...- Lesson, lesson, lesson.
Maybe, he thought after hours, contrary to whatever he believed about himself until now, he wasn’t that selfish at all in what he had been doing. Maybe all the lessons he learnt had been the acts that were expected of him, and never things he was supposed to perform on his own accord. Maybe they both had been playing a game where rules were set in stone no matter how they tried to erase it with curses and defiance. And maybe.
Maybe, just like him, his brother hadn't wanted to choose this. Maybe his brother hadn’t wanted to leave, but was pushed to plummet.
Regulus laid in his bed awake that night, tucked himself up to his chin. Thought about the people who helped lead the path. Thought about the hands that pulled him up to that point. Thought about how his brother hadn’t even left a note, hopeless in his fate.
And much like the night when he was waiting for his brother to die, he felt something shift in the air; shift in himself, an awry part sliding into place at last. The final nail in his coffin.
Regulus was born to always be second. Never only.
All this time he had always learnt: lessons, lessons, lessons. From his brother, from his professors, from their traditions and posh-up pureblood customs. He expressed them in appopriate situations, got praises, got three pats on the head. Although some lessons, he hid inside his mind from everyone: lessons from his mother, from his father, from the portraits of ancestors decorating their home’s walls. Lessons taught in the darkness of long corridors, lessons that spoke of vengeance and grief.
He thought about the snivelling rat sleeping four doors away that thought himself so mightier than everyone, thought about the bespectacled boy tackling him down in front of their professor screaming and cursing their family’s blood, thought about the scarred one that made his brother cave in on himself and run away from the kitchens before he even started his meal with one cold, merciless look sent his way.
It became pointless to think more then, as everything became crystal in his mind, as the faces blurred and mixed and yet it still couldn’t have been clearer what he should do. What he had always been meant to do. There had been a reason why he was the second all this time; after years he had finally figured it out, was finally ready to act out by himself.
Killing crows, burying them beneath the red-tinged oak. Washing your hands off the mud and the blood. Apples fallen from the same tree, rotting on its soil.
Everything that leads up to this.
I see.
Regulus had always been a good student indeed.
Now it was time for his exam.