Boys

The door clicked shut and Sirius lit a quick Lumos before sliding down the wall so he was sitting.

“Reg?” He asked, prompting Regulus for what he had dragged him out for.

Regulus opened his mouth, suddenly very anxious. He tried to speak; it didn’t work. The younger Black brother closed his eyes, and focused on getting out the words.

“Would you like to visit Cissa, again?” Regulus asked, opening his eyes. Sirius tensed. His face set into an emotionless mask before it slipped to an angry scowl.

“What? Has Narcissa defected to the dark side, too? Wouldn’t have expected it of her,” Sirius said, but it was clear he knew she hadn’t.

Regulus tried to speak again, but he didn’t think he could even force words anymore. He wordlessly cast a spell to silence them from anyone passing by and pulled his device out of his pocket. Regulus clipped in the hair clip and spoke with his device. He spoke while avoiding Sirius’ burning gaze.

“No. She hasn’t, and she’s not planning to. But-“

“But what?” Sirius growled. “But what, Reggie?

“She told me-“

“Oh, and you’re taking her words as gospel, now are you?” Sirius mocked, “well, I guess Narcissa’s your new god, huh? Walburga’s the fallen angel?”

“Sirius.”

“Because this seems to be a habit for you! First, it was me, thank Merlin I raised you right, and then I went to school, and Walburga dug her claws into you- and you listened to her, waiting on her every word! ‘Regulus, don’t send letters to your bloody Gryffindor disgrace of a brother’ and ‘Regulus, don’t treat his wounds, he doesn’t deserve it’ and-“

“Siri-“

“I’m not done!” Sirius bellowed. He tilted his head at Regulus, like daring him to talk. Daring him to go against his old and newly reworshipped god. Regulus didn’t. “You can’t trust her. You can’t trust anyone from that family. How do you know she won’t imperio you to go back to them? How does that sound?” Sirius rose from his sitting position, “Being just a thoughtless little puppet for the rest of your life? Not far off from how you were before-“

“Sirius-“

“No! No Regulus, of fucking course I’m not going to visit her!” Sirius stepped close to Regulus and towered over him. Regulus cowered. “She’s a blood purist, and I can assure you that when you become a godfather to her children, if you’re going to stay cousins, she will treat that child exactly like they did us!”

“She’s different-“

“No! No, she’s not different! Why would I speak to her if she hasn’t left them?! She’s exactly like them, Regulus!“ Sirius finished, panting. Each Black brother looked at eachother in silence. Regulus’ emotionless mask was on, the one he’d been trained into, but his bottom lip was quivering and that gave it all away. He’d never been able to hide from Sirius. The silence reigned for a moment longer until,

“Why did you speak to me, then?”

“What?”

“You talked to me after you left, before I did. Why won’t you do it for Narcissa?” Regulus asked, slowly. His throat was becoming tight, and even if he hadn’t gone non-verbal, he wouldn’t have gotten words past the lump in his throat. The MAAC device truly was useful. The brothers mostly ignored eachother after Sirius left, but Sirius still sent letters. He didn’t get answers, but Regulus would make sure to hide the letters well so his Mothe-no, just Walburga,- wouldn’t burn them. Why had Sirius tried for him?

Sirius exhaled, exasperated. “That’s different Reg, I raised you. I had to save you. Andy should’ve saved Narcissa if-“

“Cissa,” Regulus’ device interrupted quietly. Regulus closed his eyes against the tears threatening to spill. That wasn’t the word he was lamenting over, not really. He didn’t like Sirius using Cissa’s full name like they had never been Cissa, Siri, and Reg, but those weren’t the words repeating in his head. The words were ‘Ihad to save you’. Not wanted to. Had to. Sirius couldn’t make him sound like more of a burden if he tried. And those weren’t even the words he was spitting as a defensive fire, Regulus could hear it in his tone; it was just the truth.

“What?”

“You call me Reg, you call Andromeda Andy, Narcissa is Cissa,” Regulus pressed on, quietly. He sounded petulant, like a child complaining they hadn’t gotten a toy like the other kids had.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Sirius asked, bewildered.

“It’s- she’s not like them. She’s Cissa Black, she isn’t Narcissa Malfoy,”

“Really? Well, too bad, Blacks can’t be trusted anyways,” Sirius said flatly.

“She’s,” Regulus sighed, opening his eyes but averting them from his brother’s, “she’s good, I promise. She told me- she would let me talk to her about leaving. And- and she said she wouldn’t join, but she said if I wanted to escape, she’d help me,”

“Oh yeah? How long ago was that?” Sirius mocked. Regulus squeezed his eyes shut a bit and flinched.

“2 years,” Regulus whispered with his device. Sirius laughed, a cruel and mocking thing. The laugh was familiar. Regulus knew where he’d learnt it. This side of Sirius only ever came out when he was angry. Her side, only ever came out when he was angry.

“Really? Right after I’d run away? Well, I didn’t clock oh dear Cissa,” he hissed, “as the type to lie when comforting, but I suppose I’d never seen her comforting side,” Sirius snarled.

“It wasn’t a lie- she was telling the truth,” Regulus whimpered. It sounded like he was pleading to himself to believe it.

“Oh, yeah? And you’ve no problem or worries about going to see her?” Sirius scoffed. “I thought I had you pegged as smart, to make up for weak you are, at the very least.” He jerked forward in his brothers face, before stepping back and pushing his dorm door open.

A loud smash of the door slamming shut could be heard as Sirius pushed the door shut in his younger brothers’ face. Regulus stared quietly at the dorm before he heard a whimper escape his throat and felt his cheeks become wet with tears. The young black-haired boy took a deep shuddering breath before he threw the invisibility cloak he had brought out of the dorm onto himself.

He wordlessly reinforced the silencing charm as he sobbed his way to the dungeons. He said the password, he passed through the halls, he opened his door, and he threw off the invisibility cloak once he was inside. Regulus undid the silencing charm and stood before his 4 friends as a wrecked, sobbing mess.

“Oh, Reggie,” Pandora muttered, sympathy leaking through every part of her. Regulus backed into the corner and dropped into a sitting fetal position, sobbing loudly. Pandora ruffled through her bag and found a stuffed animal. She walked over to put it on the floor next to her little black-haired friend and sat a decent distance from him, but spoke sweet reassurances.

“Hi, Reggie Dear,” Pandora murmured sweetly. Regulus grabbed the stuffed animal and hugged it to his body, his sobs wracking his body entirely. “Do you want to talk about it?” She asked, glancing to the MAAC device’s hair clip still in his hair.

“No,” Regulus answered. The voice didn’t sound like Regulus would’ve, had he been talking vocally, but Sirius had said it relied on spell history. Regulus didn’t verbally cast spells often when sobbing his eyes out, so he suspected it was fair.

“Okay, darling. Can I touch you?” Pandora questioned, glad to have been given an answer. Comforting Regulus was a lot harder when he couldn’t tell her what he needed.

“No, no, no,” Regulus gasped for air, and his device’s voice mimicked that.

“Okay. How about you try breathing for me, hm? Now, pretend you’re a butterfly, and you have to take a leisurely fly. Flap your wings up,” that meant breath in. Regulus always thought it was a bit silly once he got his emotional breakdown over, but visualizing the butterfly and focusing on his breathing was really helpful. “Now, flap your wings down.”

After about 5 more minutes of butterfly-wing flapping, Regulus’ breath was nearly steady. That’s not to say he wasn’t crying, he certainly was crying. But, his hitching breath happened more steadily, and one inhale didn’t always interrupt another. Regulus’ friends would take the small wins, at that moment.

“Reg? Do you want to talk about it now?” Dorcas asked. Her voice was like honey, and she, Evan, and Barty hadn’t moved as much as a muscle since Regulus came in. Barty was fuming, and Evan was silently trying to calm down the wild animal that Bartemius Crouch Junior is while angry.

“Just say the word Regulus, and I will go torment whatever arsehole did this to you,” Barty seethed, squinting with a look of pure rage.

“Barty!” Evan hissed, exasperated. Evan shoved Barty’s shoulder a bit, giving him a scolding look. Barty turned his burning gaze onto his other bestfriend. Barty then full-on tackled Evan, needing to get his violent energy out on someone. “Barty!” Evan hissed again, pinned onto the bed. “Oh, you’re on,” Evan said, rolling them over until they switched positions, and Barty was trashing wildly under his legs. Evan was pulling Barty’s hair, and they were both making little grunts and squeaks when the other hit them enough. Regulus giggled wetly, and slowly his crying came to a stop. The two boys were horrible at comforting nicely, but they made good entertainment.

“Boys!” Dorcas swore, quickly rolling her eyes before turning around on the bed. “Petrificus totalus!” she cast twice in a quick fashion. The two got frozen with Evan full on straddling Barty, and being in the middle of pulling his hair. Regulus smiled tiredly at Dorcas.

“Sorry, darling,” Dorcas made a face, looking apologetic. “Now, what happened?” Regulus shook his head.

“I don’t want to talk about it,”

“Well, you have no choice!” Pandora said cheerfully.

“What?”

“Bottling up your emotions is not good”, Pandora scolded, “You must talk about what you’re feeling and why, in order to heal from it,” the blonde girl with butterfly-locs said, smiling.

“I’m feeling bad. There,” Regulus got up and rubbed his wet face with his hands, “done.”

“Reggie,”Dorcas admonished, a disappointed look in her eyes. “Oh come on, at least tell us about the invisibility cloak in the room, for Merlin’s sake!” Regulus didn’t look back, he just kept walking toward his bed. Once he was in, he charmed the curtains shut and cast a spell so they couldn’t hear him and he couldn’t hear them.

“That little shit,” Dorcas said fondly, staring at the bed curtains.

“Dorcas,” Pandora giggled, pointing behind Dorcas.

“What?” Dorcas raised an eyebrow. She turned around again, apparently already forgetting about twiddle-dee and twiddle-dum. Once she saw the two boys (both of them significantly more flushed than they had been before), she burst out laughing.

“Should we just leave them like that?” The black-braided girl asked between laughs.

“No, we mustn’t,” Pandora said, her eyes glinting with a playful look.

“Oh, but we must”

“No, no, mustn’t”

“No no, I insist!”

“Oh, well alright” Pandora acquiesced, giggling. The two boys were stuck staring into each others eyes for quite a bit longer after that.