the view between villages

october 31, 1981

regulus

isn’t it funny how quickly times change? weeks ago, regulus was clawing his way out of certain death, and now here he stands, in james and lily potter’s living room. the carpet caves beneath his feet as he enters it, a cup of tea settled in his palms. lily, james, and sirius are scattered throughout the room, wands in hand, faces pale.

it’s understandable, really. he wouldn’t let his guard down around a death eater either, even if said death eater claims to have defected. death eaters are known for being double crossing, betrayal in the flesh, ruthless killers without a conscience. he knows them well, runs with them in the dark of night, hiding behind masks and cloaks. 

“so, what’s the plan?” sirius asks. his voice is hard, cold, and it resembles regulus’ so much that his heart sinks a little. he never wanted this for sirius. he spent years picturing sirius as the happiest man alive, shrouded by love and care, everything he deserves and nothing he doesn’t. 

“i’m going to kill voldemort, and possibly your disgusting rat of a friend if he’s brave enough to show his face,” regulus responds in a deadpan. he can’t afford to be weak, to show the turmoil boiling beneath his skin. he must be harsh. he must be cold. he must be detached. anything can happen tonight, and his care cannot get in the way of his end goal. 

“and if it goes wrong?” lily dares to ask. her voice is soft, frail, frightened, though she does a good job at hiding it. lily is the type of witch regulus aspires to be. she’s fierce and unforgiving, carries her wand like an extension of her soul. her magic is entirely hers. it bows to her will, obeys her every command in a way regulus has only ever seen in himself. she’s dangerously in control. she’s admirable. 

“you take the child and you leave. leave me behind. there’s a safe house in the hills. i’ve linked a port key to it,” regulus explains. it strikes him then that they haven’t a clue what the port key could be, and he feels a bit foolish. how could they know? regulus is a mastermind, a genius. he’s good at hiding things and good at keeping them hidden. “third clothes hanger on the rack. there’s a blue shirt hung on it.” 

“you’ve really thought it through,” james mutters. regulus has to hand it to him. he’s doing a good job at keeping the facade of bravery, but his trembling fingers betray him. 

“the dark lord is a formidable enemy. i’ve considered every possible angle, including my own demise. should i fail, keep yourselves hidden. the house is stocked with polyjuice potions. it’ll last for a few months.” regulus has considered every possible aspect. he truly has. anything can go wrong, and he’s taken every angle into consideration, and he’s fully prepared for every situation that can possibly arise tonight. 

“i can’t believe you defected,” sirius whispers. his eyes are unseeing, a hazy grey resembling a storm cloud. there’s a raging mind hidden behind those grey eyes and a deep wound etched into the very fabrics of his soul. sirius is a broken man, mangled by the wand of their mother, torn to shreds by regulus’ unwillingness to run away with him. it’s a wound that’s years in the making. a wound he may never receive closure to. 

“you should have more faith in me than that. i am lord black. i bow to no one.” sirius’ head shoots up, eyes wide and mouth dropped open, and regulus feels he’s fucked up. had sirius not known their parents are rotting in the floorboards of grimmauld place? of course he couldn’t, regulus realizes. he’s kept the news hidden. kept the truth buried in the brittle hardwood floors and the dust coating the walls. nothing regulus hides can be found, and he’s made sure of it, so it only makes sense that sirius never found out. 

“lord black? so… so they’re gone?” the unbridled hope in sirius’ voice is going to get him killed. it’s weakness, a show of emotion, and it’s an easy target. he’s lucky that regulus has zero intention of hurting him, but others do, and if sirius doesn’t reign in his vulnerability, he’s going to wind up dead and cold like their parents. 

“did you kill them?” lily asks in quick succession. she puts pieces together quickly and reg is impressed. he’s always known she’s brilliant, a formidable enemy, but her intelligence never fails to impress. 

“i did. i got my revenge. plenty of it, too. tom riddle is sorely mistaken if he thinks he’s the only cruel wizard in existence.” regulus finds it amusing to think about. tom riddle is a right fool, a buffoon in every way, shape, and form. his head is so far up his own arse he’s never thought to look beyond the surface of regulus black.

sure, riddle is a powerful enemy, a nightmare walking in a human’s skin, but regulus is far, far worse. he is his mother’s child, after all, and walburga black was one twisted bitch. regulus has shadows in his blood, spite curled in his lungs, cruelty etched into his marrow. he knows the dark arts like he knows how to breathe. he knows ruthlessness like he knows the ridges of his right palm. he is the darkness of death tangled in the pale skin of a young man. 

the doorbell rings. regulus settles his tea on a coaster, rises to his feet, and approaches. james, sirius, and lily are clambering up the stairs by the time his hand falls on the doorknob. he’s prepared. he’s prepared for this and he knows it. the final horcrux, mangled by a basilisk fang, sits heavy in his pocket. 

tom riddle’s face is marred by shock. peter pettigrew is a coward, a right, true coward with his mouth dropped open like a blithering fool. he’s dead with a single wave of regulus’ wand, bleeding from the throat and heaping on the porch steps. 

“funny i should see you here, regulus,” riddle drawls. reg knows he’s sizing him up, weighing his competition, and he must be nervous because he has time for conversation. 

“funny isn’t the word i’d use. expected seems more accurate. obvious, perhaps. you were a fool for underestimating me, tom.” 

the first curse is deflected easily, as is the second, and then tom riddle is dispersing in a cloud of black smoke. regulus grips onto the final tangible pieces of tom and holds on for dear life, grappling with the solid body beneath him. his wand spits a nasty hex, collides with smoke, and they’re falling through a window.

regulus doesn’t flinch as shards of glass bury beneath his skin. he tugs, pulls, uses all the strength in his arms and core to direct their spiraling back to the little cottage. the wood door shatters as they collide. his back hits the stairs and he wastes no time, springing to his feet with a heaving chest and a barrage of hexes sitting on his tongue. tom riddle stands no chance. tom riddle is not as twisted, as depraved, as regulus black and there isn’t a single universe where he is. 

there’s a shrill scream, and a hex is cutting through his cheek, and it’s over. the death curse collides with tom riddle, in the center of lily and james potter’s foyer, and he’s disintegrating. pieces of him are floating to the ceiling. his skin chips away and his lungs fall silent and regulus’ shoulders are suddenly loose, free. chains are falling to the floor. metal drops onto carpet and tears are rolling down his cheeks. regulus black is free. 

august 5, 1983

sirius

sirius is so unbelievably excited to see his brother. it’s nothing new, of course, as regulus black is his favorite person on planet earth. he tops remus, and especially james given the current situation with him and lily, easily. regulus is his second half, his reason for breathing, the missing piece to his fucked up puzzle. 

which is why, as he exits a billowing green flame, he knows immediately that something is wrong. something is fatally wrong. dread punches sirius in the chest, leaves him gasping for air and struggling to stand. something is so severely wrong he can taste it. the house is dead silent and unnervingly empty. there’s no magical essence, no body present in the abandoned hallways. 

the kitchen is a massacre. sirius’ heart joins his stomach in falling out of his ass. glass shards mar the hardwood floor, cabinets haphazardly left open and dishes notably absent. sirius is in the midst of cleaning the shards from the floor with his wand when he spots regulus’ on the counter. the next few things happen quickly, within the blink of an eye. 

sirius spots blood smearing the floor. he follows the trail to the door, red footprints shining in the afternoon sun. regulus is standing in the front lawn, his screams carrying into the house. if sirius’ heart and stomach weren’t on the floor before, they would be now. regulus is reserved. regulus is quiet. regulus is a bottle. he takes everything in and lets it fill him until he’s overflowing violently. like mentos dropped in coke. regulus is like a burning fuse, and sirius is lucky enough to find him before time runs out. 

“reggie,” he finds himself shouting as he crosses the lawn. his brother, practically his twin, bears an expression he’s never seen before. it’s raw, unfiltered, pure agony etched into the wideness of his weeping eyes and the curl of his quivering lips. sirius doesn’t have the time nor the mental capacity to thank the heavens for the fresh knowledge of being a pretty crier. regulus is speaking before he can, fallen to his knees with a pained howl one can only associate with an animal. 

“use it, siri,” he’s rushing out. sirius is utterly confused for a moment. then it clicks. he wants sirius to… no. he won’t. he can’t. he can’t because he doesn’t mean it. he won’t because he’s not their mother. he has a heart, bleeding in his chest, and it runs only for regulus, and he could never turn his wand on his baby brother. 

“i- i can’t,” sirius responds. it’s broken. raw. two words he should never have to speak in these circumstances, and two words he has to force out. he knows how regulus feels. he knows the unbridled agony coursing through his veins, the pain woven into the muscle of his beating heart, the numbness eating him from his soul outward. he knows this feeling. he knows the road regulus is bounding down. and he knows the road regulus intends to take, because he had spent many years begging for the same. 

“you can, sirius. you can,” regulus is begging. he’s looking up at sirius with those wide, doe eyes. it’s taking everything in sirius not to break. not to give into regulus’ demands. but he’s only a man, and he’s a man who loves his brother more than he loves the very earth he stands on, and if regulus tells him to jump he’ll ask “how high?” 

“i won’t,” he says instead. regulus is weeping. begging. pleading with him to put him out of his misery. to gift him a sort of pain that travels along the skin rather than the marrow. the sort of pain that exists on the outside rather than within. he knows this road regulus is walking along, because he, too, trekked it for years. there are marks along regulus’ chest, backfired spells that stain his skin with red. there’s blood pooling in the grass beneath his feet. and there’s so much pain, such unbridled and unguarded misery painted in his eyes. 

“please, siri. i need to feel something.” regulus is whispering now. he knows sirius will crack. he knows which buttons to press, which words to use, and sirius hates that it’s working. he hates the hairline fractures spidering through his porcelain resolve. he’ll do anything for regulus. if regulus asks him to kill, he will without blinking. if regulus asks him to cry, tears will fall in a heartbeat. this isn’t anything new. this is a simple truth, written into their fate, painted on the mural of their life story. sirius would give anything to please regulus. 

his wand is held in shaking fingers. regulus is smiling, free and relieved. he’s smiling at sirius, and sirius hates himself for what he’s about to do. he doesn’t want to. god, does he not want to. but regulus is begging him and he knows no better. 

“crucio.” it’s a singular word, punctuated by the howling scream of a hellish fate. sirius doesn’t mean it. he can’t mean it, not truly. yet, here regulus is, writhing in the valley, screams echoing in the empty hills. and regulus is laughing, shrill and high and pinched. he’s laughing through the skin-peeling curse puncturing his heart. sirius is laughing too, he realizes, through the tears on his cheeks and the bundle of cotton in his throat. they really are fucked up, aren’t they?

memories are an oozing wound, filling the chest cavity with black sludge, and the only remedy is a forbidden curse engraved deeply in the bones its crushed more times than he can count. sirius can’t bring himself to hate regulus for this, and he knows regulus won’t hate him either. this was needed. it was a desire harbored in the inky blackness of regulus’ soul long before this moment. 

“thank you,” regulus is spitting through his cries. “thank you, thank you, thank you.” it’s a mantra, a record skipping. each repetition buries itself deep within sirius’ darkened bloodstream, puncturing further and further until he knows nothing but gratefulness. regulus is thanking him, not cursing him, and that fact alone lifts a heavy burden from his shoulders. regulus needs this, he reminds himself.

he has to tell himself three times before the self hatred melts out through his tear ducts.