Survival Instincts
For the next couple days, Regulus pretends he is in his perfectly constructed life whenever he can.
If he is walking down one of Grimmauld Place’s many hallways, he pretends Sirius is in his room, or on his broom in the backyard or out for a walk in the shops.
While eating breakfast in the morning, he knows the house elves made his food, but Regulus pretends his mother made it for him lovingly.
He can’t help but feel happier whenever he is pretending to live in his perfect world. But reality always comes crashing down on him whenever he sees his parents arguing, or the portraits that line each hallway snap at him. He especially gets woken up whenever he sees his mother, when he sees her, he immediately forgets about his perfectly constructed life, and survival instincts kick in.
He stays quiet, with a neutral expression, and agrees to whatever she is talking to him about, despite how he feels, or his opinion on the matter. Over the years he has perfected how to stay in his mothers good-books and seldom an outlet for her rage.
Sometimes Regulus wonders why his mother is the way she is. He has always thought of her as cruel and to be feared, and he still thinks she is. But now he wonders if she had always been this way.
He recalls the painting he saw yesterday, she wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t as angry as she always is now either. She never talks about her youth, not in detail. She has mentioned her father, and how he expressed his views of pureblood supremacy and she immediately agreed with his views.
She sees muggleborns, half-bloods and blood traitors as lesser, claiming their blood is dirty, and taints the wizarding world.
Regulus believed this for years, believing it to be true. But a couple years ago his views changed, and he realised that his mother isn’t always right. He wishes he could express that to her, but he knows what will happen if she learns he doesn’t have the same mindset she does about blood purity.
Regulus knows his parents had an arranged marriage, they aren’t happy so Regulus knew they didn’t marry for love. He also knows that they are cousins, because once when he and Sirius were younger, Sirius noticed something on the family tree. He called Regulus in, because he was confused about the branch placement connecting their parents, and then they realised the truth, and never spoke of it again. Regulus tries not to think about it for too long.
Other than that, he doesn’t know too much about his mother, besides the fact that she has two younger brothers, his Uncle Alphard, and Uncle Cygnus.
Regulus and Sirius always liked Uncle Alphard, he’s what Regulus considers the most bearable to speak to at family gatherings, other than Andromeda and Narcissa. Uncle Alphard never had any children, but always treated Sirius like his son. Walbura doesn’t approve of Alphard, he doesn’t feel as strongly about blood purity as she does, he is the black sheep of the black family.
Uncle Cygnus on the other hand, Regulus never felt strongly about, he’s heard stories about him from his cousins, Bellatrix, Narcissa and Andromeda enough to know that he and Walburga are very alike. They share the same blood purity values, as well as the same punishments.
Regulus has grown close with Narcissa, she is like a big sister to him, whereas Sirius and Andromeda spent more time together. Over the years, Bellatrix has started expressing her views on blood supremacy to him, how she believes that Purebloods are better than other wizards and witches, and he should be proud to have “clean” magical blood.
Regulus isn’t sure how “clean” any of the family’s blood is, due to all the inbreeding, but he just administers the same responses he does when his mother talks like this back to Bellatrix.
His mother’s childhood is a topic that doesn’t come up much around the dinner table, so he can’t think of anything else that would cause her to be so cruel.
Regulus gives up on figuring it out, and he continues thinking about his perfectly constructed life. His mother is making dessert for him to eat after dinner, his father is gardening in the backyard, calm and happy. He pretends Sirius is in his room drawing on his arm while listening to his muggle music, and Salazar is waiting in his drawer back in his room.
Regulus is aware none of those things are happening, but he likes to think somewhere, they are for another Regulus.
He can hear the distant sound of rain start outside and decides to grab the daily prophet from the front steps before it gets too wet. He takes his favourite black coat off the rack near the front door and puts it on, as well as his shoes.
He opens the front door and is greeted with the smell of rain as he walks down the steps to collect the paper. The sky is grey and the grass is more yellow than green.
He doesn’t care much for the news, other than the recent quidditch instalments. He reads them as he walks back inside, and leaves the paper on the coffee table in the living room for his father. It's become almost a routine. The house-elves insist they can fetch the Daily Prophet for his father, but Regulus enjoys the small walk.
He passes Sirius’ room and starts humming one of the songs he remembers, so he can pretend Sirius is actually in there.
He is almost to his room, but he doesn’t want to enter it, because when he does, Salazar won’t actually be there, and his charade will vanish. So he instead goes through the other rooms in the house.
Grimmauld place has way more rooms than 3 people can use so there are lots of abandoned rooms throughout the house. Sometimes Regulus explores them, looking at furniture dating back who-knows-when worth -who-knows-how-much. He finds heirlooms and knickknacks that he pockets, stuff no one would notice is missing from the room if they went inside.
The rooms are all dusty, with cobwebs, and occasionally a bit of mould in the corners. The wallpaper is peeling and the paint is chipped on the walls. The rooms are all in bad shape, as though no one has used them in over 50 years.
Except for one.
As far as Regulus knows, nobody sleeps in there, his parents have their respective rooms, and it wasn’t Regulus or Sirius’ room. It's not one of the guest bedrooms that the house-elves keep clean in case anyone stays the night after a family gathering. So why is it spotless?
Regulus rarely goes in there, it feels different in there than the rest of the house, but he can’t pin-point why. But oddly, he felt a pull towards the room. As though the universe wanted him to walk through the door.
So, Regulus grabbed the door handle and pushed the door open with a slight creak. The room had emerald green walls with black trim, a four poster bed with black sheets and a matching duvet. There was a nightstand with a lamp on it, and a dresser against the opposite wall.
But most strangely, there was a doll on the bed.
There aren’t any young children at Grimmauld Place, and neither he nor Sirius had ever owned a doll quite like this one.
The doll had black hair, a green shirt with a black coat over top and black pants. But most peculiarly, the doll had buttons for eyes.
The more Regulus looked at the doll, the more it dawned on him.
He has black hair.
He was wearing a green shirt with a black coat over top and black pants.
The doll was meant to look like him.