The Exhale of The Exiled
The morning after was not too kind to Regulus. He woke up with a horrible headache, to the sound of Evan and Barty bickering.
“You can’t do this all the time and expect me not to want anything back,” Evan said.
“I don’t even know what it is that you want! You won’t even tell me, and I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks, but you keep dodging me. I honestly don’t know what to do anymore, Ev.”
“Give me a fucking break, Crouch. You know exactly what’s going on. You can’t just show up every time you get your hands on a bottle of firewhiskey and expect me to come crawling back to you. I won’t do it anymore. I’m done.”
“But I-“, Barty said, and the sound of a door slamming quickly followed. He could hear Barty pacing as Evan’s steps became a muffled noise and then disappeared completely.
“Barty?” Regulus said quietly, feeling a bit guilty for listening in on this whole thing.
“Rise and shine, sweetheart. How’d you sleep?” He answered sarcastically as he opened the curtains to Regulus’ bed.
Barty’s figure was hiding the rays of sunlight that gently warmed their dorm room. He was smiling, but Regulus could immediately tell it was fake. He seemed to do that a lot these days, especially after his fights with Evan.
“What’re you smiling about, Reg?” Barty asked, “Anything special happened last night?” He smirked as his eyes went down to Regulus’ bare neck.
“Nothing happened, Barty. What’re you on about?” He said as he got up to brush his teeth.
“Oh, nothing. Might want to look in the mirror while you’re at it, mate,” he said mockingly as Regulus got into the bathroom.
Regulus rolled his eyes but did.
His eyes were shot wide.
Red marks were placed all over his neck. As he pulled down his shirt he could see they made it all the way down to his chest.
The memories of the previous night hit him suddenly.
“Bloody hell,” he mumbled before he could help himself.
“So,” Barty said as he leaned on the doorframe, “Who’s the lucky fellow? I’d have to meet him, of course. Give him the old talk. Tell him to bring you back by ten o’clock sharp on every date night and all.”
“Shut up,” Regulus said as he assessed the damage, his hands gently grazing his sore neck.
When he turned around he saw Barty staring at him in disbelief.
“Wait a minute. You’re blushing,” Barty said, accusingly.
“I’m not. In fact, I don’t blush. At all.”
“It was Potter, wasn’t it?”, he asked as he huffed a very amused laugh.
Shit.
“Shut up, Barty.”
“That’s not a no, Reg. God, he got you good, didn’t he?” He said.
“Fine. Yes. It was Potter,” Regulus said and put his hand on his temple to try and ease his pain. Barty’s whole facade wasn’t helping his headache.
“Knew it. Evan owes me five galleons.”
“Tell anyone and I will remove your head from your neck with my bare hands,” Regulus said, calm as ever, as he started putting on his robes, trying to cover as much of his neck as he could.
“No need to get so feisty, Reg. So, how did it happen?” He asked. Regulus was buttoning his shirt as he sat on the bed. Barty immediately sat beside him.
Barty had a very familiar and mischievous look on his face and after a few moments of silence Regulus knew he wasn’t going to budge. So he started explaining everything. Well, not everything. The PG version, if you will.
“I was really high from that potion Lockhart gave me, and I went to the astronomy tower and he was there. And he looked… really good, the bastard, and then I told him he did - “ he was rambling before Barty put his hand on his shoulder.
“Wait, you told him he looked good? What exactly did you say?” Barty asked.
“I told him he’s pretty,” he said quietly as his cheeks went flushed.
“You’re horrible. He’s gone and made you a Hufflepuff.”
“He just kept looking at me with his big I’m James Potter eyes and his lips, Barty. He was looking at my lips and then he just kissed me. And then… some more.”
“Jesus, Reg.”
“I don’t even know how I got here,” Regulus said as he put his head between his hands.
“Well,” Barty said as he nervously placed his hand on Regulus’ back, almost fearing the other’s reaction, “Evan said he saw some Gryffindor bloke carry you here. Said you were all passed out and everything.”
“Of course he carried me here,” Regulus said and got up, startling poor Barty, “Motherfucker.”
Barty cleared his throat and attempted to coax the clearly annoyed Regulus.
“I’ll tell you what, we should go down and get breakfast before Pandora will drink all the pumpkin juice. And then we’ll go up here and talk about all of this. Or plan a revenge quest for James Potter for making your neck match the Gryffindor house colors. Whichever suits you better.”
“Fine,” Regulus said as he finished tying his tie.
Barty was walking towards the door as he noticed Regulus wasn’t standing beside him. He was looking at the mirror and smiling, gently pulling down his tie and opening a button on his white shirt.
“Admiring the view, Black?” he smirked.
“Shut up. I want to see his face when he sees me.”
“Well that’s no way to make him pay,” Barty said and walked up to Regulus, ticking his tongue in dismissal and opening another button on Regulus’ shirt.
“That’s more like it.”
When they sat down their friends greeted them with stern looks, and Regulus could tell something was wrong.
He sat down between Pandora and Evan, who was clutching today’s paper in his fist.
Wrong.
Regulus let his eyes wander around the great hall. People were watching him. Some had their eyes on his neck, but most didn’t. They were looking him in the eye, whispering.
Wrong.
Pandora’s glass was still filled with pumpkin juice.
Wrong.
His breath hitched. He looked at Evan, who wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“Give it to me.”
“Reg, I don’t know if you should -” Evan started explaining, but it was too late.
Regulus took the paper out of his hands, and right there, on today’s edition of the daily prophet, his name was displayed in big, black and bold letters.
Regulus A. Black, heir to England’s noble and most ancient
house of Black was disowned earlier this week
RITA SKEETER
Regulus A. Black, Fifteen, was disowned earlier this week by
Walburga and Orion Black due to the young gentleman's “sexual preferences”,
as stated by his mother, Walburga Black. We at The Daily Prophet can’t
help but wonder if these “preferences” are somehow related to
the disownment of the couple’s older child,
Sirius O. Black, Sixteen, earlier this year.
A Slytherin boy who chose to remain unnamed
said that the rumor about Mr. Black’s disownment have been
circling around Hogwarts during the last few days, and adds that
he “wouldn't be surprised if the same goes for his older brother.”
READ MORE ON PAGE 6
Well.
This would have happened sooner or later, he thought to himself as he tried to keep calm. His expression fell blank and he tried to distract himself by looking to the Gryffindor table, only to find James Potter staring at him.
Even from the distance between them he could notice the red flush on his cheeks. He had a Gryffindor scarf on (which was put on rather tightly), probably in an effort to council the marks Regulus left. Regulus smirked at him, amused at the thought, and watched as Potter broke their eye contact and looked at the ground as if he was waiting for it to swallow him whole.
He never pegged James Potter for a prude.
Interesting.
From the corner of his eye he could see his brother staring at him. Today’s paper was in his hand and their eyes met as Regulus noticed he was still clutching Evan’s copy. The front page had a moving picture of him and Sirius. It must have been taken right before Sirius left.
Sirius’ hand was on his shoulder and he smiled at the camera, but his eyes were filled with the usual amount of mischief. He held his chin up high as if everything around him was beneath him. Regulus’ expression was blank and he remained stiffly in place when the photograph was taken. To someone who didn’t know him well it would seem as if he was scared.
For a moment he wondered what Sirius thought. If he could tell which of the two it was.
Sirius’ eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly ajar. He looked like he had just been slapped. His eyes were still tightly fixed on Regulus, as if he was trying to fit what he had just read to the boy sitting across the hall from him.
As soon as Regulus broke eye contact with him, he suddenly became very aware of everything around him.
His friends were still looking at him, waiting eagerly for a response of any kind. They were all quietly staring at this wordless interaction between Sirius and Regulus.
He got up from his seat next to Evan and with a sealed expression existed the great hall. The large door slammed behind him as he took a deep breath.
He remembered what Pandora used to tell him when he came back to school after a particularly terrible Christmas at Grimmauld, in which Sirius and Walburga would constantly fight. She wasn’t pleased to find out that Sirius was still friends with Remus Lupin after she told him to cut off all contact with him.
She claimed he was sickley, weak. That his blood was dirty. This made Sirius’ own blood boil, and he tried to fight back, so she locked him inside a cupboard for days and forbade Regulus from bringing him any food.
The gentle cries of his older brother seemed to take over the house completely, even if no one but Regulus seemed to pay them any mind. They were quiet, almost nonexistent. The scratching against the door returned to him in dreams and during that Christmas he would wake in the middle of the night and sit in front of the cupboard, crying silently to the muffled sound of his brother’s pain.
As he got down on his knees he wondered if wizards believed in god. If they prayed to him when they were in pain and magic could not fix their problems. He never thought of it before that Christmas, but as the thought came to him he knew that a god cannot exist in the same world that a mother can cause this much pain to her own child.
When he was a boy, he would sometimes wonder if his mother was a god. He saw his father worshiping the ground she walked on and ignoring every mistake she ever made. He watched himself bow down to her by the force of her wand and apologize for wanting to have the simplest of childhood’s experiences. He watched his brother begging her, repeatedly asking her why he wasn’t enough. If he could do anything to make her proud.
But no matter how much he begged, she never acknowledged his presence. Her face remained harsh and her eyes were dark. “Please,” he would say, “Please, maman.”
She never replied.
When he came back to school he would sometimes wake in the middle of the night, just as he did at home, with sweat dripping from him and tears gently drying on his face and staining his cheeks.
Barty and Evan were very concerned by this, and would call Pandora in all hours of the night to come and comfort him.
“Breathe, Reg. With me,” She would say and smile at him, tears gathering in the corner of her blue eyes as she tried to calm him. She would count to three and tell him to close his eyes as he breathed.
So he did just the same now.
One.
Inhale.
Two.
Exhale.
Three.
Inhale.
The big wood door opened behind him.
He straightened his figure and breathed out deeply.
“Reggie?” asked the sound of a familiar voice.
He turned around.
Sirius.
His face was a mess and redness overcame his blue and gray eyes and surrounded them. The usual smile that seemed to reign upon his brother’s face since he left Grimmauld was there no longer. A gentle sigh was uttered from his mouth as he finally caught a glimpse of Regulus’ face and met his eye from a proper distance. It was as if he was saying oh, there you are. You came back to me.
This encounter was not surprising to Regulus. He knew that his brother would come and demand explanations. That he would want to understand what happened since he was gone to make Regulus, their mother’s favorite of her two sons, to be disowned and thrown out of their home, for Regulus never dared to antagonize their mother back and always did as he was told.
He didn’t think Sirius would open this conversation with this.
“Awful picture,” he said. “You look bored.”
He noticed.
Regulus kept looking at him without saying a word. Sirius swallowed and sat down against the wall in the middle of the corridor. He gestured to Regulus to join him.
“I don’t know what to say, Reg. I’ve had endless conversations with you in my head for months now and I don’t know what to say.”
“Me neither,” he whispered, his eyes fixated on his ring and he turned it around his finger in the hope that it would be easier to breathe.
“I spent most of my life hating you, you know. You were always her favorite. Her good boy. I never really hated you, though. I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried,” Sirius said. Regulus could tell he was looking at him but couldn’t quite bring himself to look his brother in the eye. It would be too much.
“You were always antagonizing her. I just kept wishing you would stop. There was no point, Sirius,” He whispered.
“There was always a point. She made my life a living hell, our lives. How could you not fight back?” Sirius urged him. He noticed a tear dropping in his brother’s palm. And then another one.
“I was a child, Sirius. I didn’t know any better. I’m sorry,” he said. He was tired. He felt as if he had had this conversation a hundred times, when in fact it was the first time in years that he and Sirius had an honest conversation with one another. It was terrifying for him.
“So was I! Did you think I wasn’t scared? That her voice doesn’t terrorize me in my sleep? I was a child too, Reggie. I still am,” Sirius said.
“I don’t think we were ever children. Not really. We didn’t have the privilege to be children,” Regulus replied quietly.
Silence hung tightly in the air for the next minute. It wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable as it would have seemed to an outsider.
There was peace in that silence.
He knew that he and Sirius were not simply throwing insults at each other as they have been doing for the last few years. They were talking, and more importantly - listening. He felt very deeply that his brother has spent every day since he turned eleven hearing every word Regulus said instead of listening to it. But he was listening, just now. Somewhere in the past an eleven year old version of Regulus was smiling sadly at the thought. What a beautiful sight it must be.
“I wanted to come back for you, you know,” Sirius said, “I really did.”
Oh.
“Before I left, I told you to come with me to the Potters. I left the floo open for you, Reggie. But you never came,” Sirius said. Tears were now dropping at a fast pace onto his palm. Regulus dared to look up at his brother.
“I waited for you, you know. For hours. The fire was out but I said to him, I told James - ‘You’ll see, he’ll come for me. He’ll come’. But you never did.”
“She burned the fireplace, Sirius. We don’t have the floo anymore since you left,” he said as a tear found its way into his cheek, “I wanted to come with you, I did. But I knew she would kill me if I walked out of that door. She would have killed us both.”
“Oh,” Sirius said, gently, as if a big piece of the puzzle had just found its way to him.
Their eyes met and Sirius graced his brother with a smile. It was a genuine one this time, not like the one in the picture. When Sirius smiled his eyes wrinkled and were filled with joy, almost sparkling. The tears were still present on his face, staining his cheeks and relieving him of some of the grace that came with their genetics.
They were all beautiful, each and every one of the Blacks. They shared a terror in their beauty which never ceased to amaze people around them, a sharpness to their features which was ethereal, almost inhuman in its power. But in that moment, when Sirius cried and smiled fondly at his little brother as if they had just rejoiced after spending years apart, nothing about him seemed inhuman. Nothing in his demeanor reflected Walburga back onto Regulus. He was gentle as she never was and human as she was never able to be.
“I’m glad this happened,” Sirius said, wiping his face with his hand, “I’m not glad that this is how it happened to you, but I am glad you got out of there. That we got out of there,” he corrected himself.
“Me too,” Regulus said. He didn’t smile back at his brother, but from the look in Sirius’ eyes he knew it didn’t really matter. What he felt, Sirius felt. Despite their time apart they were still one in some ways.
“I’ve missed you, Regulus,” Sirius said quietly. He looked at Regulus and eagerly awaited his response.
“Would you have done anything differently? If you could, I mean,” Regulus asked.
“You mean, would I have left had I known you wouldn’t be able to come with me?”
“Yes,” Regulus whispered.
“No,” he said, simply. “I love you, but I don’t think I would have. They would have killed me if I stayed. They would have killed me or caused me to end my own life. I became a shadow of myself in that house, Regulus. You have to understand that. I simply couldn’t bear it any longer,” His voice was gentle and he knew these words caused a great deal of pain for his little brother. Regulus closed his eyes and let his tears roam freely on his face.
“I wish you would have,” He said quietly.
“I know. I wish I could have stayed for you,” Sirius whispered.
They sat in silence for a few moments.
“I would love to see you, sometimes. If you wanted to. I would like to try and be your brother again. If you still want me to be,” he said, almost afraid. Sirius often resorted to sarcasm and was never really straightforward with his thoughts. Neither of them was. Regulus knew that Sirius had just laid his heart between his palms and waited to see if Regulus would mend it or let it slip between his fingers.
For a second he heard his mother’s voice, her eyes focused on his and her gaze more terrorizing than anything he has ever witnessed, as she said; “Il n'est plus ton frère, Regulus. Des choses terribles vous arriveront si vous suivez son chemin. Nous devons toujours rester purs, Regulus. À tout prix.”
He felt these words like a knife upon skin, gently grazing him and guiding him in his mother’s path. It took him a great deal of strength to belittle them and push them aside. He had done everything he was asked for his whole life. His fifteen years were spent in agonizing pain, awaiting for the sound of his mother’s praise and pleading for his brother to look at him as he used to when they were kids. No more.
Silencing his mother’s voice in his head he looked at Sirius and smiled the most gentle and faint of smiles. It was short, lasting a few seconds before it had disappeared from his face, but he knew Sirius saw it.
“Yeah, I do want that,” he said.
Sirius let out a sigh he seemed to be holding for a while.
“Oh, you do. That’s good. Really good,” he said and gently reached out his hand to Regulus, who was never very fond of people touching him more than necessary.
Touch has always been perceived as a form of punishment for him. The only hugs he received came from his brother. He grew up feeling foreign to the idea that touch could be solely an expression of love and does not come in an effort to console someone or hurt them.
Sex, of course, was different for him. It wasn’t always pleasant to be touched so thoroughly by a stranger, but sex had an aim. An objective. You suffered through the whole uncomfortable bit and then you got off. A touch outside of that context was something even more horrible. A deeper connection. The only aim here was love.
Nevertheless, he pushed away these thoughts and gently took his brother’s hand. He hadn’t touched him without fighting in years. Their arms were gently touching and he was surprised by how simple it all was. They were two strangers touching after orbiting one another for a lifetime.
“You should know that this isn’t going to be simple, Sirius,” he said. “We are very different, you and me. And this isn’t simple. We can’t just hug it out and forget the last six years of our lives. You know that, right?” he asked him.
“I do,” Sirius answered, “And I know this isn’t going to be easy, but I do want to try. I miss you, Reggie. I don’t want to be an only child anymore,” he whispered.
“You aren’t. You never were,” Regulus said.
Sirius closed his eyes and let a smile gently spread on his face.
It wasn’t one of his usual smiles, that came as if upon command when an act of mischief or a joke were involved. It didn’t fully consume his face as most of his genuine smiles did, for it masked a great deal of pain behind it. But pain, as Regulus tried to remind himself endlessly over the last few days, was a thing of the past. He needed to heal. They both did. Heal from years upon years of growing up in that house.
He knew that in order to do that he needed to mend his deepest wound and make the scab it had caused him to grow into flowers. He felt oddly free when he told his brother how he truly felt. He knew now that healing was the art of being truly innocent.
“We’re having a party next week. Me and my friends, I mean,” Sirius said and cleared his throat.
“That’s good, Sirius,” Regulus said.
“Would you want to come?”, he asked nervously.
The question was greeted with a surprised look from Regulus’ side. Sirius hurried to excuse his words.
“You don’t have to, of course. It’s just a stupid new year’s thing anyway. It’s totally fine if you already have plans or something,” he quickly added.
“I’d love to come, Sirius. Can I bring my friends?” he said.
“Oh. Yes, of course you can. I’d love to meet them. I hope none of them gave you these,” he gestured to Regulus’ neck and caused him to smirk.
“Oh, don’t worry. This wasn’t from any of them,” he said.
“Thank god. Because sometimes that Crouch kid looks at you like you’re breakfast. You two seem close, so I thought…” he said and was immediately interrupted by a laughing Regulus.
“Oh, no. We’re just friends. I fear Barty is… involved. He just doesn’t really know it yet.”
Sirius seemed relieved by this new discovery.
“Oh. That’s… good to know.”
The awkward silence sat between them.
“I don’t have a boyfriend, Sirius. If that’s what you were wondering,” Regulus said and rolled his eyes.
“Oh,” Sirius said quickly, “That’s cool. I’m not seeing anyone either right now. Nothing serious going on for me,” he smiled nervously.
It was clear that whatever was going on between Lupin and Sirius was uncharted territory for Sirius. Regulus has yet to regain his trust and he knew he wouldn’t talk to him freely about this. Even if he did want to, Regulus had the feeling Sirius wasn’t quite upfront with himself, much less with his estranged little brother.
“Don’t let her get to your head, Sirius,” he said to him softly. “You can do whatever and whoever the fuck you want. You don’t live there anymore. We don’t live there anymore.”
Regulus hoped he didn’t come on as too harsh.
“I know,” Sirius answered and smiled softly at Regulus. “You should know that too.”
“I’m trying,” Regulus answered.
I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying.
He hoped Sirius could tell that he really was.
“I ought to go, Reg. I think my friends might be worried if I don’t come back anytime soon,” Sirius said and got up from the floor. Regulus found himself looking up at him, as he did many times as a child, and smiling softly.
“Sure,” Regulus said.
“Will you be alright here? Do you need me to stay?” Sirius asked, a worried expression on his face.
“I’ll be alright, Sirius. Thank you,” he replied quietly.
Sirius looked at him for a few more moments and it seemed like he wanted to say something. He eventually smiled at Regulus and turned around to go back to his dormitory. Regulus watched him until his figure disappeared around a corner.
Faintly, Regulus could hear James Potter’s voice talking to his brother from around the corner. He couldn’t make sense of what they were saying.
He stayed there for a while.