i’ll pay for my place
Becoming the new heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black does not make for a rejuvenating summer, as it turns out.
It’s not that Regulus thought it would be easy. He just didn’t expect to be tossed right in the deep end.
Sirius, despite his protestations, really was not a bad heir. He was charming, for one thing. Handsome, for another. Magnetic, too; he drew everyone’s eye when he entered the room, and he never shied away from the attention.
His words could be brash, but he moved with a confident grace that was as annoying as it was effortless. Any confrontation, he met with sharp wit, and an even sharper smile.
People liked Sirius. It was hard not to like Sirius. He was admirable by nature.
But Blacks are not trained to be admired, they are trained to be venerated. And what made Sirius venerable was not that people liked him. It was that people wanted Sirius to like them.
Regulus was polite and well-mannered, but he was not a leader in conversation. Before his stutter was corrected, silence was demanded of him. He was forbidden from speaking in public, lest he disgrace the family with his “ineptitude”, so he had become quite used to others speaking for him, as a rule.
He had broken the rule only once, at Bellatrix’s engagement party. He was eight.
“Aaaa-aren’t the Les-str-rrrange’s our c-hhh-ousins?” he had asked Sirius, the two of them seated on the floor, half-hidden by a bookcase.
“Yep,” said Sirius, offering him an ornate biscuit from the stack in his hand. Regulus took it.
“S-so is - - - mmmBellatrix.”
“Mhm. Barmy, right? Blacks tend to keep it in the family. They’re our cousins, they’re each other's cousins…” he waved a biscuit flippantly.
“Barmy,” Regulus breathed.
“Mother and Father are cousins too, did you know that?” said Sirius, stuffing the biscuit into his mouth. Regulus’s eyes had gone wide as saucers.
“Mmm-Merlin’s p-pants, can they not f-find someone to - - - b-b-bugger who’s not aaa-alreadyinvited to C-hhhChristmas?”
To which Sirius had responded with a shocked pppphhhhhhfffffftt that showered Regulus with crumbs. He squawked. Sirius laugh harder, choking on biscuit dust, giggling and coughing, and Regulus, consequently, had grinned, and —even more consequently— gone on.
“I reckon Mmm-Mother needs to revise that - - - sss-h-speech that she gives hhh-guests about the, t- tapestry . It’s not a f-family tree, it’s a, - - - b-hhhh-bloody circle—“
Sirius tipped to the floor in peals of teary-eyed laughter, and Regulus could no longer restrain his own breathless giggles.
I might be funny, he had thought.
It was so foreign a thing, to let himself speak and stumble, and to receive such a positive reaction. So rare, for someone to focus on his words— rather than the delivery of them— and really hear him.
Then his mother had ruined it, of course. She dragged Regulus off the floor by the hair and into the kitchen, which, consequently, killed Sirius’s laughter. Ever the buzzkill, their mother.
Regulus was punished. Lip-locking jinx. Three days.
He couldn’t speak, or eat, or drink, yet he still had to sit for every meal, a full plate of food placed right under his nose.
Three days of Sirius, watching him from across the table, trying to conceal his trembling hands and jagged breath. At ten, he knew he had no chance of swaying their mother if he lost his composure.
A Black must speak with dignity. A Black does not beg.
But the weaker Regulus became, the more Sirius’s composure thinned, and by dinner on day three, his composure had deteriorated to the point of near-collapse.
“Mother, just for a few minutes. At least let him eat. He isn’t going to say anything, he— he’ll be quiet, I promise. You’ll be quiet, won’t you, Reg?”
Regulus stared in his direction with unseeing eyes. He tried not to face-plant into his mashed potatoes.
“There are rules in place for a reason, Sirius. Regulus knows that he is not to speak in public until he can speak correctly. His disobedience could have jeopardized the reputation of the entire family. How we are viewed matters more than how other families are viewed. You’ll see, when you go to school, the kinds of filth— We are the Noble, the Most Ancient House of Black—“
“He’s about to pass out in his dinner, what’s noble about that!”
Their mother sawed at a bloody piece of meat. Regulus could empathize with the meat.
“We are noble, because we are superior. The purity of our blood, our magic, is what distinguishes a family of repute such as ours, from the endless hordes of mudbloods and philistines who are foaming at the mouth to see us dethroned. Think of our ancestors, our tapestry, everything we have built over centuries of devoted, meticulous breeding— besmirched! They would lay waste to us! They would sully us with scandal at the drop of a galleon, and your brother— dares— to disobey me! Dares to speak in his uncouth manner, before the elect of wizarding society, with blatant disregard for the fact that all of that— all of us— hang in the balance!”
“At least let him drink some water,” said Sirius.
Their mother clicked her tongue. Her knife squeaked against the fine China as she sawed away.
“Need I remind you, Sirius, that you are the heir. The time will come when you will be the foremost representative of this family. And when it does, the consequence of Regulus’s— ineptitudes— should they become public— would fall, immeasurably, to you.”
“It was my fault. You know he wouldn’t have ever talked if I hadn’t talked to him first. If anyone should be punished, it’s me!”
“It’s a relief to us all that you recognize your culpability. Though, I had hoped you would be perceptive enough to also recognize, that this is your punishment. Regulus knows that being spoken to is not, in his case, permission to speak. If you had corrected your brother’s behavior, as is your responsibility to do, he would not be suffering how he is currently. You are the heir, Sirius. It’s time you learn that your carelessness has an effect on those around you.”
Sirius stood.
“Nothing happened! No one even heard him!”
“Be grateful for that,” she snapped. “Don’t let this happen again.”
Sirius’s face was red, his lips pressed tightly. He sank back into his chair, gave a heated sigh, and went silent.
A ball formed in Regulus’s throat. He worried that he might cry. He knew he wouldn’t have the strength to stop it. But it seemed he was too dehydrated for tears to form. Lucky, that.
He felt terribly ashamed for being such a bad brother to Sirius, who was the only person in the world who had ever loved him. Well, the only one who had ever said it, anyway. If Sirius stopped loving him because of this, he didn’t know what he would do. He’d probably never talk again.
Though, really, that wasn’t such a bad idea, if this is what talking got him. A note would be better. His writing, at least, was not uncouth. Regulus had beautiful penmanship. As his parents ate their food, and Sirius pushed potatoes around his plate with a shaky fork, he crafted the note in his head
I’m so sorry, Sirius. I never meant to threaten your reputation with my ineptitude. I only wanted to make you laugh.
The room went a little dark. He blinked once, then twice. It cleared a bit. Then it went dark again, then fuzzy, then tilted. He blinked a third time.
When he opened his eyes, he could feel his heartbeat in his face. His head was on the table, wetness pooling around his cheek. His senses crept back to him, the heartbeat in his face sharpening to a throbbing ache. The lights were too bright. Someone was shouting through water.
“—enough! Mother, let him go! He needs food!”
Regulus gave a rasping little gasp through his nose, and as he did, wetness trickled down the back of his throat. He tried to swallow, lifting his head. The trickle turned to a rush of liquid that overwhelmed his airways. He choked.
Panic gripped him. He tried to cough. His lips wouldn’t part. He pushed upright on wobbly arms to see Sirius, standing again, turn quickly towards him and lose any and all composure that he may have been clinging to.
“Reg—“
Sirius made a desperate sound and scrambled around the table, shoving at it in his haste, clinking silver and china.
The flood in his throat filled his mouth with liquid copper. Regulus tried to cough again. His nose sputtered blood. His chair slid back as he clawed at his messy face, uncoordinated, suffocating—
“—Reg, hang on, just—“
— Sirius’s hands were on his face, moving his head. He was drowning, drowning in his own blood. His lungs burned. He convulsed, eyes half lidded, his grip white-knuckled on his brothers upper arms—
“He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe! Mother, let him go!”
— convulsing, lungs bursting, Sirius, screaming—
“ Let him go! He can’t breathe! Let him— Mother! I’ve learned my lesson!”
Their mother flicked her wand. Regulus’s dry lips parted. Blood poured out.
Sirius tipped him forward by the shoulders and Regulus spluttered between his knees, still choking, Sirius thumping his back until finally he coughed, and gasped— and gasped— and convulsed—
“Oh, fuck — come on, Reg— fuck —“
—and threw up, through his fingers, what he had swallowed—
“Language, Sirius!” said their father.
— and coughed some more, spitting blood and sobbing dry tears—
“That’s it— breathe, just breathe, you’re alright — “
— until finally his lungs didn’t rattle, and he could sob without coughing. Sirius pulled him upright, clutching Regulus savagely, babbling reassurance. Regulus buried his battered face in his brother’s robes. Sirius was panting like a cornered animal, stomach heaving beneath Regulus’s ear with each desperate inhale.
Their mother said something else about lessons and the importance of learning them, and Sirius, with half minded urgency, agreed with everything she said until they were finally dismissed from the table.
Regulus wrapped his arms around Sirius’s neck. Sirius crouched to grip beneath his legs, still gasping. He carried Regulus all the way upstairs.
In their room, Kreacher healed him, and revived him with some water and bread. Sirius went back and forth from the adjoining bathroom with a rag, alternating between wiping blood from Regulus’s face and scrubbing his own hands raw, crying the whole time.
Once Regulus was clean and sat on the edge of his brother’s bed, he remembered the note he had been crafting before he busted his face on the table. He was too delirious to recall the whole thing, and too weak to write it, but he knew it was important. He had to tell Sirius. His voice was wrecked, but he tried anyway.
“S-sorry,” said Regulus, when Sirius returned from the bathroom with pink hands and a blotchy face. “Oooo-only wanted to make you - - - l- hhh- l-laugh.”
Sirius looked worried, then confused, then devastated, then he dissolved, once more, into tears.
He didn’t let Regulus out of his sight for a week after that. They slept in Sirius’s bed, Regulus on his back, Sirius curled on his side to face him, one hand resting on Regulus’s chest so he could feel it rise and fall. It was awful, seeing his tough older brother so drained and frightened.
The ceiling of their bedroom was charmed to show the night sky. For a few days, Regulus lay awake, mapping constellations with sharp focus so that he didn’t fall asleep before he was sure that Sirius had. For a few days, he could have sworn, their stars were nudged closer together in orbit.
The whole ordeal had left Regulus violently shy and withdrawn. Even when his speech improved, and his mother lifted the rules, speaking up never stopped feeling dangerous. He was more than content for Sirius to take the spotlight, while he tucked himself into the shadow that his brother created. It was safer that way.
Regulus spent the summer before fifth year being carted to various events and social obligations, where his parents urged him to mingle, and network , despite how sickeningly anxious each interaction made him. It also didn’t help that everyone in their social circle was a huge dickhead. He had no desire to talk to them, nor did he care about anything they had to say.
There was no one to hide behind anymore. No way to conceal his ineptitudes, which were made glaringly obvious by Sirius’s absence. Every room was dimmer without his brother, and Regulus did not — could not — shine brightly enough to replace him. He was not charming, or handsome, or magnetic. He inspired neither admiration nor veneration. He was a skittish fifteen-year-old, thrust into a role he was never meant to play. He was—
“—an embarrassment,” said his mother, hysterical.
Regulus scrambled from the floor of his father’s study. His ribs protested.
He said what he always said. Well, wheezed it, really.
“I’m sorry. I’ll try harder.”
On the wall, the painting of Pollux Black scoffed. His mother flinched, too prompt a reaction to be anything but instinctual, and swiveled to face him, eyes wide, waiting. But her father said nothing more. It seemed he didn’t need to.
Regulus knew what came next.
With an absentminded motion of her wand, Walburga flung Regulus into the wall. He hit the floor with a dull thud.
“You are a disgrace, Regulus,” said his mother. She wasn’t even looking at him, really. “A disgrace. You’ll ruin us.”
The sentiment was getting rather redundant, and at this point, Regulus knew better than to reply. It was rule #12. Do not apologize repeatedly. Wait, he had amended it last week, what was it now…
- Do no apologize repeatedly for the same infraction.
The day after Sirius left, Regulus had sat down at his desk and begun a list of punishable mistakes. Each morning, he read it over, and each night, he added to it. It began predictably—
- Do not beg
- Do not cower
- Get back to your feet if you are knocked down
- Do not talk about Sirius
— and was often adjusted, when a change was demonstrated —
- Do not talk about Sirius unless asked explicitly
— and though the changes made it difficult, the maintenance of the list was imperative. It was the only way to avoid further demonstration of the rules. It was the only way to survive this.
Tonight, if he could manage his quill, Regulus would add a new rule—
- Do not avoid eye contact with guests
— right beneath yesterday’s rule —
- Do not scream for Sirius
—which he was currently reminding himself as he observed the mad gleam in his mother’s eyes.
Not that the reminder would help much, when it came down to it. It isn’t as though he meant to scream for Sirius yesterday. It had been involuntary.
Rule #3, thought Regulus, and he rose to his feet. His mother lifted her wand again.
A lip-locking jinx would come in handy, now, thought Regulus. He prayed he would be able to stay silent this time around. Silence was the safest option, until he figured out the correct response.
He wondered how long the list would be by then.
—
“On a scale from stinging hex to Cruciatus, how painful do you think my Christmas break will be if I come home with a mullet?” Barty asked, admiring himself in the large round mirror fixed to the stone wall.
It was dirty and warped with age, and escaped the notice of most, but no reflective surface could ever hope to be safe from Barty’s vanity.
“ Barty,” Evan groaned.
“Not this again,” said Dorcas.
“Enough about the mullet, mate,” said Evan.
The four Slytherins and their token Ravenclaw were comfortably occupying a landing in one of the lesser used stairways that lead to the dungeons. The spot had become their territory, though Regulus wasn’t sure when, or why.
Perhaps it was the mirror. Barty was the one who alway led them there.
But that could also be because his legs were so freakishly long.
Regulus was slumped against the wall opposite the mirror, a charms textbook opened across his bent legs. He fiddled with the pages as he wondered why the fuck he had thought he could get any work done around these dolts.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Barty cried. He tore his eyes away from his sepia-tinted visage to face them. “I thought this was a safe space. A place where freethinking minds meet to contradict the limiting effects of authority and convention.”
“What is he on about?” murmured Dorcas from her perch on the stairs, a few steps up from the landing.
“Who ever knows, really,” Pandora sighed beside her.
Undeterred, Barty continued his tangent, pacing and waving his arms around like the tortured genius he fancied himself to be. Regulus just thought he looked like a dick. He said as much.
Barty scoffed.
“My visionary conceptualizations are being undervalued in what is meant to be a safe space.”
“I think you will find,” said Regulus, “it is actually a stairwell.”
Barty mercifully stopped his pacing to loom over Regulus.
Merlin, was he lanky. He must have grown six inches over the summer, five of which were leg alone.
“To you, perhaps, Regulus, it is a stairwell,” said Barty, raising his eyebrows pedantically.
“And what is it to you, a jar of jam? It’s a fucking stairwell.”
“Yes. To you. I’ll give you that. But for the rest of us—“
“What is that supposed to mean, to me ? It’s a stairwell, Barty—“
“I’m glad you asked. See, you,” he absently jabbed his wand towards Regulus, his other hand splayed on a cocked hip, “are no longer capable of free thought. What with the future of your bloodline relying solely upon you, and all that. Ergo, sure. A stairwell is a stairwell, to you. But for the rest of us pioneers of—“
“Salazar’s sake, it’s not a prison sentence!” Pandora scolded.
Barty hummed.
“Isn’t it? I believe it was Salazar who wrote—“
“What is your line of thinking free of, exactly Barty?” growled Dorcas, rising swiftly from her seat beside Pandora. “ Tact?”
Barty waved a hand.
“Confirmation bias.”
Dorcas opened her mouth to retaliate, but Pandora was already tugging her back onto the stairs, muttering something along the lines of don’t encourage him.
Distantly, Regulus could appreciate what Barty was trying to do. Ever since Regulus had stepped into their train compartment two weeks ago, a ghost of himself, his friends had barely left a five-foot radius of him. They’d been treating him as though the floor around him were made of eggshells, ready to militarize against anyone who dared to crack one.
As nauseatingly thoughtful as it was, the dynamic was getting a little too habitual. Regulus was not about to fall to pieces.
Well. Not now, anyway.
He was fine. Having a constant circle of bodyguards would only make him look weak in the long run, and weakness — however momentary — was no longer a luxury that Regulus could afford.
Barty understood. That’s why he was trying to coax them to stop babying him, by making light of the whole wretched thing. Regulus could appreciate that, distantly.
But presently, intimately, Barty was a dick.
“I’m perfectly capable of thinking freely,” Regulus asserted. He returned his gaze to his textbook. “I’m just not capable of acting on it.”
Barty’s ridiculous, high-pitched snicker echoed off the stone.
“I’m well aware. Your hair is evidence enough of that.”
Said the man considering a mullet.
“What’s wrong with my hair?” Regulus snapped.
“Nothing,” said Pandora, at the same time as Evan said, “You look like a lesbian.” His eyes slid to Dorcas. “No offense, Dorcas.”
Dorcas shrugged. Barty cooed.
“It’s just clear they’ve tightened the leash, is all. You’re all groomed and trained. Proper pedigree.” Regulus swatted at his hand as Barty ruffled his hair.
“Leave him alone. He’s not a dog. You’re not a dog, Regulus,” said Pandora in what was probably meant to be a reassuring tone, but, given the circumstances, felt rather condescending.
“Isn’t he?” Barty mused. “He’s certainly treated like one.”
Regulus narrowed his eyes.
“Go for the mullet. You won’t look like a prick at all. And when your father is done with you, I’ll have him send me your pelt. A Christmas gift for myself.”
Barty slid down the wall, hip-to hip with him.
“I’d gift it to you personally, but I’ve already gotten you a chew toy.”
“I’m going to shave your head while you sleep.”
“Dreadful etiquette, that. Hardly befitting of an heir.”
“I resent that. You walking around looking like a matchstick would befit me greatly.”
Barty wrapped an arm around him and pushed Regulus’s head to rest on his shoulder.
“A matchstick, you say. That’s quite poetic. You always have held a flame for me.”
Regulus scoffed, but didn’t push him away.
“If by ‘flame’ you mean my recurring daydreams about setting you on fire, then yes. An inferno.”
“Must your conversations always come ‘round to threats of violence?” sighed Pandora.
“Yes,” said Regulus.
“Inevitably,” said Barty.
Evan snorted. He was sprawled rather languidly beneath the mirror, like he was posing for a salacious painting.
“You know who has great hair this year?” he prompted. “Your brother. Shame he couldn’t grow it out that way before. Suits him.”
Dorcas hummed, leaning back on her elbows.
“That and the muscles. Blimey. What is it about the Potter’s house that makes you come out looking like you’re carved out of marble.”
“They do look quite fit this year, the pair of them,” Pandora agreed.
“And happy. Sirius, I mean. Potter always sort of seems like he’s on Felix Felicis,” said Evan.
Barty extended his long ass legs in front of him and crossed his arms over his chest with a wistful sigh.
“It’s the self-actualized glow of the freethinking.”
“Or the relief of shirking your obligations onto the next poor sod. No offense, Reg.”
Regulus glowered.
“None at all, Evan. Who wouldn’t be charmed by this conversation. I, for one, delight in the reminder of how unremarkable I am in comparison to Sirius and his freethinking hair.”
“Great hair,” said Evan.
“Shiny,” said Dorcas.
Dolts. The whole lot of them.
Regulus huffed and went back to pretending to read his textbook. He did not want to talk about Sirius. He did not want to think about Sirius. He was thoroughly exhausted of the topic.
To his relief, they sank into a blissful silence. This was what Regulus craved more than anything lately. Solitude. Tranquility. Just the scratching of quills on parchment, the gentle rustle of turning pages. Some kind of respite, however ordinary, however brief…
“Was it quite bad, after he left?”
Merlin’s fucking pants.
Regulus bit the inside of his cheek and read the same sentence three times. He refused to look up at Pandora and her huge, imploring eyes.
“Bearable,” he said. It wasn’t totally a lie. He was breathing, wasn’t he.
Barty bumped against his shoulder.
“Come off it. I’d hardly call your parents bearable, even at their best.”
“They’re mental,” Evan agreed. “I’m sure they threw a right strop.”
Traitors, thought Regulus.
“What I want to know,” said Barty, “is if they blew their top before or after the halfwit left. Or both.”
“Probably both,” muttered Dorcas derisively.
Regulus swallowed. His chest felt tight.
“Who even needs me here when you lot can speculate wildly.”
“Or you could tellus,” said Dorcas. It had been her ongoing effort lately, to strongarm him into sharing the morbid details of his summer.
But Regulus also had an ongoing effort: to be so infuriatingly evasive that her only options were to drop it, or risk her own sanity.
It wasn’t hard. Dorcas was not a patient person.
“Tell you what?” said Regulus.
Dorcas raised a sculpted eyebrow.
“The truth.”
Regulus clutched his chest.
“Dorcas, you wound me. Have I ever lied to you?”
“Yes,” said Dorcas. “Countless times.”
“Name one.”
“You told me that the signs on the bathroom doors were just for aesthetics, and that they were charmed to lead me to the girls room no matter which door I used.”
Regulus bit down a smirk, turning a page that he had not absorbed a word of.
“Did I?” he asked innocently.
“Yes!”
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
“It was you!” Dorcas cried. “Pettigrew was at the urinal! I saw his whole arse, Regulus!”
“Clearly, you’re confused. Whoever told you that sounds quite freethinking, and I’m nothing but a scrawny sycophant with bad hair, or haven’t you heard?”
Evan snorted. Dorcas clenched her jaw. Pandora put a placating hand on Dorcas’s knee and leaned forward.
“Regulus, please.” Oh, fuck. “We know it couldn’t have been easy.” She was using that voice. “We just want to know you’re alright.”
They all went quiet and serious, as they tended to do when Pandora used that voice. Guilt pinched his chest. Merlin fuck why did they have to care about him. It was so inconvenient.
Regulus sighed and tipped his head back against the wall.
“I’m alright. They just…” how to put this… “used their words with me.” There. Not a lie, really. “Quite persuasively,” he muttered, mostly to himself. He rubbed at his chest. “It wasn’t anything I can’t handle.”
Evan sat up slowly.
“Then what’s with the hand?” he asked, pointing.
Regulus went cold. He glanced down at the hand in question, crisscrossed with a white bandage. He snatched it from his chest and shoved it between his thigh and the textbook.
“Just a s-scratch.”
The other four looked to one another. They appeared to be having some kind of silent, invasive conversation.
“From who?” asked Dorcas, inching closer.
Regulus pressed his back into the wall.
“No one.” Stupid. “Me. I did it.”
“On purpose?” asked Pandora, her fair eyebrows furrowing.
Shit. He’d never know peace again if they thought he was trying to off himself.
“Not— no,” he amended, glancing away. “It wasn’t me.”
“Then who was it?” asked Evan.
Regulus swallowed.
“A cat.”
Great. So much for not lying.
Dorcas looked perplexed.
“You got a cat?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Regulus, doubling down, for some reason.
Barty narrowed his eyes.
“You didn’t get a cat.”
“Yes I did.”
“No,” said Barty. “You didn’t.”
“Sure I did,” said Regulus, defiantly. “I could have a cat.”
“Sure you could,” said Barty. “You don’t, though.”
“I do,” said Regulus. “I have a cat.”
Barty and Evan shared a look that filled Regulus with dread.
“What kind of cat,” said Evan.
“The black kind,” Regulus replied.
“Where’d you get it.”
“Pet shop.”
“What’s its name.”
“Bar- na… far… nabus.”
The stairwell erupted in exasperated groans.
“Regulus,” Dorcas chided as Evan moaned, “mate, what.”
Regulus couldn’t help but wish he had gone with the suicide thing.
“Do you need me to heal it?” Pandora asked, reaching for his wrist.
Regulus held his hand to his chest, not at all suspiciously.
“I can heal a scratch myself, thank you.”
“So, why don’t you?” Dorcas challenged.
Evan appeared beside her.
“Yeah, why wrap it up? It’s been weeks, mate. Just heal it.”
His throat spasmed.
“I— did.”
Evan frowned.
“But it’s bandaged still.”
Sweat broke on the back of his neck. Regulus scanned his surroundings for an excuse.
“This castle is filthy. I’d rather not risk some strrr-h-range magical infection.”
And there went the ‘str ’s. Fuck. He’d have to avoid those, as he was currently too frazzled to work through them. Thankfully, no one mentioned it.
Dorcas crouched closer, trying to get a better look.
“Is it infected?”
He glared at her.
“ No. Because it’s bandaged. Do keep up.”
“No risk of infection if it’s healed,” Pandora said gently, like he was a fucking toddler.
“Thank you for that st- hhh -st-h- stroke of knowledge.” Fuck. He couldn’t have used any other word. Merlin, you’d think he was an amateur. “I’m well aware of how to care for a wound.”
“That’s true enough, at least,” Barty joked.
Dorcas would not relent.
“So which is it then? Healed, or not healed?”
Frustration shot through his fried nerves like a livewire.
“It is healed, alright? It’s healed. It’s fine. Salazar, can we drop this?”
He searched for an exit. They were surrounding him, sucking all the air out of the room. Or maybe that was him.
Sirius said, once, that he does that. Merlin, Reg, he had said, why do you always have to suck all the air out of the room. To which he had replied, reasonably, why don’t you go suck a dick, you muppet.
Fuck. Thinking about Sirius was not helping the whole ‘air’ situation.
“Take the bandage off,” said Evan.
Regulus set his jaw.
“No.”
“We are asking as a courtesy. Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be,” said Pandora. Regulus recognized the thinly veiled threat.
He let out a hysterical little laugh.
“First my free thought. Now my bodily autonomy. Merlin, what will I be strrr- ripped of next?”
Bloody fuck, Merlin fuck, stupid fucking—
“Compelling. Take the bandage off,” Evan repeated.
Regulus bared his teeth like the kept dog that he was.
“No.”
“Regulus,” said Dorcas, his last warning.
They were locked in a standoff. It was four against one. Regulus was under no delusion he would win this battle. But if Sirius had taught him one thing, it was to fight anyway, even when you knew you were going to lose.
What they want more than anything is your dignity. And they can’t take that, not if you don’t give it over.
Even Regulus had to admit, the philosophy was as Slytherin as it was Gryffindor. Wise advice, for Sirius.
Fucking Sophocles, he was.
At this point, there was only one way in which Regulus could preserve a modicum of dignity. He drew his muscles taut. He focused on his center of gravity. He pressed his palms to the stone and leapt from the ground.
The textbook in his lap skittered across the floor as he ducked around his friends. Dorcas cursed. Pandora’s fingers brushed his sleeve. Regulus hurled himself towards the staircase—
Predictably, he did not get far. Barty’s long arms wrapped around his torso before he even made it off the landing, hauling him bodily back to the ground. Barty grunted as he broke Regulus’s fall.
“Fuck! Barty!”
He wriggled. He kicked his legs. Evan threw himself across his lap.
“Evan, get off!”
“Sorry, Reg,” Evan said, looking, admittedly, apologetic.
“Can’t do that, mate,” Barty murmured in his ear.
He bearhugged Regulus from behind, pinning one of his flailing arms to his chest. The other, Barty offered to Dorcas. She wrapped her fingers around Regulus’s wrist and pulled it outward so Pandora could undo the bandage on his hand.
Regulus tried to catch his breath, squeezing his eyes shut, thrashing and jerking at his wrist. He felt the cold air hit his palm, but perhaps that was the vacuum of space, because surely there was no air left. Which was his fault, this time. Unquestionably. No air, no sound but his own desperate breath, until, finally, Evan broke through the gut churning silence.
“What the fuck.”
Regulus did not open his eyes.
He did not want to see his hand.
If he wanted to see his hand, he would not have put the fucking bandage on it in the first place.
“What is that?” Dorcas sounded so unusually feeble that it made his chest squeeze. He cracked his eyes open. Her slack, wide eyed expression was even worse.
Regulus worked his throat.
“Cat s-scratched me?”
“That is not a scratch!” Dorcas hissed, face twisting in anger.
Pandora winced.
Evan thought it was funny, though. Cheers, Ev.
“Used their words, eh, Reg?” said Barty, woodenly.
“Toujours Pur,” Evan read.
Regulus grit his teeth. He knew what it fucking said.
“What does that mean, toujours pur?” asked Dorcas.
“Always pure. It’s a pureblood thing. A mantra of sorts, only less meditative and more… supremacist,” Barty explained.
Evan looked somber.
“That cat has excellent penmanship,” he said.
Regulus sighed. The fight was draining out of him. He tipped his head back to rest on Barty’s shoulder.
“Yes,” said Regulus. “He values his education.”
Evan choked on a laugh, ducking his head.
“What was his sodding name?” he asked tentatively, his breath ghosting Regulus’s collarbone. “Bar-tar-far—“
Regulus cracked a tired smile, peering down his nose at Evan’s freckled face.
“Barbecue—“ he started, but then Evan let out a longer snort and broke into one of his silent, red face peels of laughter that shook his whole body and always set the three boys off.
Barty was shaking behind him, pressing his forehead to Regulus’s shoulder to hide his face from the girls.
“ Barbecue,” he choked out, high pitched. Regulus giggled, a little delirious.
Oh, this was so fucked.
“Evan,” Pandora said, settling her twin with a disappointed look.
“Sorry,” he wiped at his eyes.
Pandora ran her thumb across the scarred skin on the back of his hand.
“This isn’t funny, Regulus.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Not funny,” Dorcas concluded. Her brown eyes were glassy.
Regulus sighed.
“Well, if we can’t laugh now, my funeral is going to be a bleak affair.”
This joke did not land.
It wasn’t really a joke, was it.
Evan took Regulus’s hand from Pandora, brushing over the words just as she had. He shook his head, muttering to himself.
“Fucking nutters.”
They all stared at his hand a while longer, though Regulus didn’t know why. They could look any time they liked, it’s not like the words were fucking going anywhere. This wasn’t just one bad summer, this was his life now. This wasn’t going away.
His parents had left the door unlocked, and their first heir had escaped into the night. They wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Regulus would never be the heir they wanted, he knew that, they knew that, that’s why they were molding him into their perfect bargaining chip. Regulus was cannon fodder. Expendable property. Nothing but a dog in a cage; sheared, collared, muzzled—
Let go.
He tried to say it. His airway closed.
Let—
The word was stuck in his throat, holding his breath captive. He tried to force it out, eyes squeezed shut, jaw shaking.
It wouldn’t budge.
Total block.
It was the first block, in years, that Regulus could not work through.
For the first time in years , he had to completely reset, just so he could take a breath.
Relax. Reset. Try again. Stretch—
“Lllll- let go .”
They released him wordlessly. Barty let go of his arms, but did not move out from behind him. Regulus sagged against his chest, lungs heaving.
He considered a way to work the mullet into all of this, but ultimately decided that another joke would not be appreciated.
Barty had no such reservations.
He cleared his throat after a moment, hooking his chin over Regulus’s shoulder.
“So…” he drawled. “Your summer break. On a scale from stinging hex to Cruciatus…”
The other three at glared at Barty beseechingly, but Regulus could only laugh with breathless relief. It eased the tension, just enough for him to find his voice again.
“Blood quill.”