Every Second Without You

2 hours 45 minutes

The duration it took for Regulus to enter his room in Grimmauld Place and wait till his mother called him down for dinner. The hours in which he was locked inside his childhood room that never quite resembled a home ever since Sirius slammed the door shut on that fateful night he ran away. If Regulus closed his eyes, he could still feel the tenacious downpour outside his windows, vibrating through his bones. The very night that divided his life into a before and after.

Before, when Regulus felt like he at least had a scrap of his brother within his grasp, when Sirius would take mercy on his little brother and hug him to sleep on particularly lonely days, or when they we little kids and Sirius would place his soft fingers over Regulus’ ears and cover him from the maddening rage their mother would go on in the dining room, throwing dinner plates and destroying everything within her sight.

After, like this very moment, Regulus sitting with his back to the antique dresser on the corner, head in his hands, trying to regulate his breathing like Sirius taught him to the first time he witnessed Walburga turn her violence towards Sirius in their father’s study.

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.

Repeat.

Regulus kept this routine for a while. Five minutes, ten minutes, an hour; he didn’t know how long he sat there in his misery, desperately trying to quell the panic rising within.

Ever since he returned for his summer break this year, Regulus knew something was up. The house, although always blanketed in a thick layer of gloom, seemed more melancholic than usual. The air was clogged with a sort of tension that could only ever be a premonition of tragedy. Though, at this point, he could bleed to death on the living room carpet and Regulus would take that fate over the shell of a life he has been living.

Roaming the haunted and creaking halls of Grimmauld, Regulus felt like a ghost, stripped of his humanity and all the brightness sucked off from his soul. He felt invisible, like with a wisp of wind, he would crumble into dust, nothing left behind other than a stain on the wood of the never-ending hallways of this cage.

The only thing he was grateful for, however, was the scarce presence of Walburga and Orion around the house. Usually, Orion would be locked up in his study doing god knows what, while his mother policed him around the house, nitpicking his every move. No matter what he did, nothing was enough to satisfy his mother’s insistent expectations.

Unexpectedly, in the past few days, she was nowhere to be seen in the house, always taking the floo early in the morning right when dawn broke out and did not return till twilight hit its peak. He was relieved to have a respite from her usual habit of breathing down his neck, but his relief was short-lived when he discovered the reason behind her absence.

---x---

1 hour 15 minutes

Regulus began to wonder if this was the day his destiny was set in stone.

And what he did not know was that this was the day the first domino fell; what set in motion the fate of not just Regulus but the entirety of the First Wizarding War.

It started out like any other day in this house ever since he came for his 5th-year break. Quiet and plagued with a ringing silence. So, Regulus, once finished with his morning routine, descended the stairs to grab some breakfast in the kitchen.

His trek for some food was halted immediately though, when he crossed the dining room and heard the distinct sound of his mother’s sharp drawl. Hiding behind the slightly ajar door, Regulus peaked into the room through the slim crack to see his cousin Bellatrix and Walburga engaged in a rapid conversation.

“This is an incredible honour to fall upon our family, dear Auntie,” Bellatrix cackled in her shrill voice with a frankly maniacal grin plastered on her face.

“Little Reggie should be falling over his knees to get into The Dark Lord’s graces”, she continued.

Regulus shivered hearing his name fall out of her lips.

He did not like where this conversation was going, especially since he had heard a bit about this so-called Dark Lord, who had been recruiting people to rid the world of muggles and their likes.

Walburga, on the other hand, seemed to be brimming in pride with the chance to join this pureblood cult.

“No child of mine shall be submitting on his knees to anyone. However, I do agree that this provides a prime opportunity for Regulus to prove his allegiance to take his place as the heir to the Noble House of Black.”, she concluded, with a sharp, graceful nod.

Bellatrix cackled again and jumped in glee. With her curly hair in a frenzy and the billowing black cloak clasped around her neck, she looked the very picture of the infamous black madness.

If this is what joining the madman leads to, Regulus wanted no part in it. The first seed of hesitation was already planted in his mind.

Regulus can’t believe that at one point in his life, he thought that maybe if he obeyed his mother’s every whim, he would finally be able to earn a scrap of her love. He thought that something was fundamentally wrong with him when he cried over the death of the stray cat he used to feed at the courtyard of Grimmauld, or when he sobbed through every instance their mother raised her hands against Sirius. He, for all his softness, genuinely believed that at least once, she would be satisfied with his achievements and embrace him, hold him and tell him that she was proud of her son. But, that elusive day never came and Regulus highly doubts it ever will.

After fifteen fucking years in this fucked up house, he’s slowly starting to see what Sirius saw since he came back from his first year in Hogwarts. That, their mother was a person incapable of love; maybe she was a doting figure years ago when she was just a kid like Regulus was, but not anymore. And no matter what lengths he went to, he would never feel her warmth or acceptance.

Besides, as much as he put up a cold front for the rest of the world, Regulus believed in blood supremacy as much as the next person did, which is to say, not at all. He is in no way a bleeding heart though. So, unlike Sirius, he didn’t find a need to put a defiant front against his parents and earn a beating. He knew that some might rather lay their lives down to fight for a moral cause and put an end to social injustices, and some might even brand him as a coward for his passivity, but at 11 years old, Regulus valued his own skin more than the necessity to defend the lives of faceless muggles and nameless muggle borns.

Needless to say, somewhere between Sirius leaving without a second glance, his mother’s eager enthusiasm in selling his son to a bloody cult and Regulus’ severe indifference towards living, he began to wonder if rotting here in Grimmauld Place was really how he wanted his life to end.

Born in a place that never saw the sun, living in nothing but the shadows of his cruel parents and his courageous brother, and dying all alone with nothing but the daunting walls of his room to witness.

What a fitting way to go.

No.

---x---

22 minutes

Time left before his mother comes barging into his room and demanding he becomes a servant for the rest of his life. 22 minutes for him to decide what the next 22 years of his life will look like.

Regulus slowly gets up from his huddled position in the corner and takes a few steps to his closet. He opens the door hesitantly, as if afraid that a boggart was magically going to appear before him. With no malignant creature in sight, he quickly rifles through the rows of neatly pressed suits and ironed coats in hangers to find an appropriate outfit to debut his new service under a megalomaniac.

Finally, he settles on a crisp black shirt and a smart pair of black trousers. Just in case, the initiation was going to involve a lot of blood.

Just as he was going to shut the closet and begin another self-deprecating monologue in his head, he spotted something shining from the depths of the wardrobe’s wooden flooring. Dropping to his hands and knees in a matter for which Walburga would have surely hit him with a crucio, he blindly feels around the ground in search of the offending item. After what felt like a good 3 minutes of groping thin air, he finally pulled his hand back with the item and a clump of dust. Shaking it clean, he stared at the delicate chain and pendant in his hand.

The chain was nothing but a chord of black leather fitted with a set of tiny metal rings on one end and a sturdy clasp on the other. The highlight of the jewelry though, was the tiny silver sun hanging from the chord.

Sitting on the foot of the wardrobe and grasping the sun like a lifeline, Regulus was momentarily transported three years back during their winter break in Grimmauld Place when Sirius was still his to hold. It was a night not unlike today, where Regulus, instead of sitting in his room wallowing in self-pity, was accompanying his brother under Sirius’ bed as they hid from the disaster that was the annual Black family dinner.

The event would have been at least a bit salvageable if it wasn’t for Regulus and his clumsy fingers.

It started with Walburga hitting Regulus and Sirius with multiple crucios before the guests arrived as a threat to maintain decorum and uphold the dignity of the Black family. Still recovering from the aftereffects, Regulus managed to hide his shaking fingers in his pockets for nearly half the event. Unfortunately, just as he was escaping the suffocating socialization in the living room, Aunt Druella pulled him into a conversation and thrust a glass of red liquid towards him which suspiciously looked like wine. Giving her the benefit of the doubt for handing a minor liquor, as she did seem to be beyond the point of tipsy, Regulus politely declined with a shake of his head.

Refusing to be deterred, she forcefully grabbed his hands hidden in the pockets of his waistcoat and pushed the stem of the glass into his right hand. However, before he could snugly grasp the bottom of the glass, it slipped and painted the front of Aunt Druella’s beige evening gown a startling, vivid red. The offending glass, after neatly emptying its contents, shattered on the floor with a deafening clatter.

As both of them stood there in mounting horror, with the rest of the extended family gaping at them in various states of shock, Sirius’s voice rang out in the room as if he used Sonorus to address them.

“ALL HAIL GRYFFINDOR”, followed by his laughter from all the way across.

The room descended into absolute chaos.

Walburga, who watched the whole scene in disbelief, now tried to fight her way through the crowd to Regulus with an expression of fury twisting her aristocratic features. Orion was more concerned with Druella and her shrieks as she frantically tried to squeeze the wine out of her dress.

But Sirius, his brother’s eyes never left Regulus and he in turn was transfixed by the satisfied grin on Sirius’ face as he rushed towards him before Walburga put her grubby fingers on his pale cheeks. Even as all hell broke loose, the two black brothers were unaware of their surroundings as they were too busy trying to find a suitable hiding spot, all the while failing to stop the reckless giggles sprouting from their mouths.

And this is how they ended up seeking cover under Sirius’s bed as his brother looked at him with nothing but pride and adoration. Regulus remembered thinking he would more than move heaven and earth if Sirius always looked at him this way forever.

Regulus, not wanting to sound like a sappy git and have Sirius poke fun at his sentiments, resorted to saying, “Hey Siri, do you…do you think we could be this close forever?”

Sirius, bless his heart looked slightly confused at the sudden question, but nonetheless replied, “Where else do you think I’ll go, Reggie? Don’t think you can get rid of me that easily.”

“It’s just, after being sorted into Slytherin and you not replying to my letters the year before, I was afraid that you…didn’t like me anymore”, Regulus’s voice progressively got quieter, till he was practically mumbling the last few words.

Sirius moved to sit in a more comfortable position before holding Regulus’s pointy chin towards him till his startlingly grey eyes met his younger brother’s.

“Whatever you are thinking, get it out of your head Reggie. Nothing can keep me away from you my darling brother.”

The absolute determination in Sirius’s voice surprised Regulus for he thought that his brother already picked his new friends and that bespectacled Potter over him.

“Promise?”, Regulus whispered, still not fully convinced of his brother’s convictions.

“Promise”.

Sirius held out his pinky to seal their promises like they did when they were little kids. Something about this gesture or the fact that his elder brother has not completely forgotten their little traditions put Regulus’s mind more at ease.

Extending his own pinky and finally enveloping Sirius’s calloused hand, Regulus felt the most happy he has ever been since before Sirius’s first year at Hogwarts.
Sirius, in turn, seemed to contemplate their aforementioned exchange for a few seconds before putting his hands behind his neck and pulling back the leather chord that he wore since his return from canoodling with the Gryffindors. Under the darkness of the bed, Regulus’s eyesight wasn’t the best but he could still see the gleam of the pendant hanging from the chord which he wasn’t aware existed since Sirius always puts it inside his shirt.

Holding it out like a peace offering towards Regulus, he could finally see the pendant for what it was; a glimmering silver sun. It was small, but for what it lacked in size, it made for in its elegant design. It was simple, unlike the grand Black heirlooms stored in various locked rooms of their house but something about its simplicity brought out the sentimentality of the little trinket.

Still marvelling at its beauty, Regulus only broke out of his staring when Sirius began speaking again.

“I know I haven’t been the greatest brother as of late, and I get why you felt like I was pulling away, but no more of that Reggie”.

Sensing that Regulus was not going to move anytime soon, Sirius carefully took Regulus’s hands from his lap and gently placed the jewellery till it coiled around in the dip of his palms.

“I want you to have this. And…and if there ever comes a time when I’m not around, this will be a reminder that I’m always there for you yeah?”

Regulus, finally breaking out of his stupor at his brother’s kind words, looked up at him with tears brimming and clumping his bottom lashes.

“Thank you Siri.”, Regulus croaked out.

The black brothers stared at each for a minute before they heard the bedroom door slam open, and Walburga walk in with angry strides.

At the sound of 3 consecutive knocks on his own bedroom door, Regulus shook his head off the memory. It will not do good to dwell on those times when he still believed in trivial things like hope and the wish of having a happy life.

“Regulus”, Walburga’s muffled voice came through, “I expect you to be dressed and ready to come down in 5 minutes. The Dark Lord does not like to be kept waiting, especially, on worthless boys like you”.

Clearing his throat to not sound like he had just been crying his eyes out, Regulus replied with a curt “Yes mother”.

---x---

5 minutes

As the sound of her footsteps receded, he looked down at the promise clutched in his hands and wondered if Sirius still remembered those memories. Or, with leaving Grimmauld Place, he left the memory of his brother with it.

After all, now that Potter has willingly given his residence and family to share as his brother’s, there wasn’t a doubt in Regulus’s mind that Sirius took the first opportunity to desert his blood.

No.

He was not going down that road again.

In all honestly, despite considering himself to be quite angry at Sirius for abandoning him, Regulus knew why his brother did what he did. This godforsaken family would have killed him if he didn’t run away that night.

At first, clouded by his anger at Sirius’ betrayal, Regulus fumed and cursed at every reminder of his so-called brother, but after hearing the plans their parents had for Sirius to get the mark, Regulus began to have a foreboding understanding of the decisions Sirius made. More than anyone in this family, Regulus understood firsthand the nature of his brother and his innate sense of right and wrong, and considering his gaggle of muggle born friends, half-breed werewolf boyfriend and blood traitor Potter, of course, Sirius would have died kicking and screaming rather than have his forearm branded like a cow.

Especially sitting in his room five minutes away from his own branding, Regulus came to a sense of stark clarity about his brother and never have they ever been quite on the same page.

The question now though, was Regulus brave enough like his Gryffindor brother to throw away his future and defy their family?

Will Regulus march to his future as a death eater or will he stand his ground and refuse to take the mark?

He heaved a deep sigh and stared at the sun in his hands for the third time and the burn of the Potters’ address which James Potter himself gave to him on his final night at the Astronomy Tower before his return, in his jacket pocket.

---x---

00:00

The clock struck twelve and Regulus made up his mind.

Let the dominoes come crashing down.