Chapter 11
Bellatrix’s wedding was excruciating for Sirius due to the numerous relatives who were now quite suspicious of him, and their usual disdainful selves. Though, when it was over, the summer went back to normal. Normal being shutting himself up in his bedroom, not even Regulus to spend time with.
Halfway through August, Sirius had the terrible realisation of what he had done to make Regulus ice him out. It was actually Kreacher who let slip. Orion and Walburga were never around for breakfast, so Sirius and Regulus were eating in complete silence, Kreacher fluttering about in case they needed anything, or more specifically in case Regulus needed anything. Sirius had been thinking about sending letters to his friends, just to catch them up.
“Mistress has forbidden Master Sirius from writing to his friends,” Kreacher said, when Sirius asked for parchment, not even telling him what it was for.
“Kreacher,” Sirius sighed, his spoon clattering against the bowl, “They’ll be worried if I don’t write. Tell Mother or don’t, but I’m writing to them.”
“Master Sirius didn’t seem to care so much when Master Regulus was the one not receiving his letters,” Kreacher said under his breath as he turned away.
Sirius slapped a hand to his forehead and Regulus turned beet red. Ever since then, Sirius had been ambushing Regulus anywhere he went, trying and trying to explain himself. But his brother wouldn’t hear it.
Even when September 1st came around and they were boarding the Hogwarts Express, still Regulus would barely acknowledge him. Sirius felt horrible but wasn’t his reaction just a little dramatic?
After loading their trunks (and Sirius’s Cleansweep) onto the train, Regulus disappeared through the throng of students in the corridor, leaving Sirius relieved his brother was at least going with him this time.
Turning to try to find James, Peter, or Remus, through the crowds, Sirius came face to face with Severus. Oh, not a good way to start the year. Severus had barely changed at all, other than looking slightly older and a little more worn than he had in the spring.
“Black,” Severus sneered, catching sight of him, “Where are your half-wit cronies? Have they abandoned you already? The train hasn’t even departed yet.”
“Where are your friends, Snape?” Sirius was not having the day for this, “Hold on, you don’t have any, do you? Other than Evans, but she seems to have made friends from her own house.”
Severus’s jaw worked like he was clenching it and his eyes turned into slits,
“Isn’t your brother around here somewhere?” he glanced around.
Severus couldn’t know anything. Just trying to get on Sirius’s nerves. He was so close to snapping and pummeling him, the slimy–
There was a warm pressure on his shoulder and Sirius whipped around, on edge. It was James grinning at him like an idiot, Remus and Peter behind him.
“Piss off,” James shot at Severus as he led Sirius into a compartment down the train. They all filed in. Sirius flung himself down beside the window, crossed his arms, and grumbled,
“I could have handled him,”
“I believe you, mate,” James said, sitting opposite him. Sirius sat in silence, looking out the window at the slowly passing platform and blurred faces, still slumped in his seat. He didn’t see James, Remus, and Peter eye him warily.
“Is everything all right?” James asked, “Is Regulus alright?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sirius assured him, releasing a half chuckle.
“Well…was your mum being hard on you or something?” James guessed.
“No more than usual,” Sirius answered, then turned to them, “Regulus hates me.”
There was a beat of silence, then,
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Peter said. He was the only one out of the other three who had siblings, two older sisters, but as far as Sirius knew they were so far apart age-wise that he got on with them well enough.
Sirius didn’t say anything else, still finding his brother more or less a restricted topic of conversation. The others could apparently tell, so they let him be, twiddling his fingers as they talked about their summers between themselves. James had spent it with his parents, Peter had helped move his eldest sister out, and Remus didn’t say much about his summer but seemed happy.
The train ride passed quickly and before Sirius knew it, they were thrown into the crowd of students milling toward the horseless carriages they would be using to reach the castle this year. Carriages filled quickly so Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter stood waiting rather impatiently;
“Will we have to wait all night?”
“Freezing my arse off here…”
James and Peter groaned under their breaths.
Eventually an empty carriage did show up and they piled in before anyone could take it. Not a minute later, Lily’s face showed up through the carriage door, Marlene behind her. By the look on her face, Lily was strongly debating finding another carriage but Marlene shoved her inside. Lily took a seat, smiling politely as if she hadn’t just had a moment.
“James,” Marlene greeted, sitting beside him as the carriage jolted forward. He held out his arm to pat her on the shoulder, friendly. Sirius didn’t know James and Marlene were still such good friends.
“Nice playing with you two this summer,” she continued, glancing over at Peter as well.
“We’ve got to sneak out onto the pitch soon,” James said.
“Definitely!” Marlene exclaimed excitedly.
“Marlene…” Lily scolded. James turned to her as if realising she was there for the first time. He sat up straighter.
“Lily,” he said, an odd tone to his voice, “You should come too.”
Lily crossed her arms as if irritated but her expression gave her away,
“I’d rather not, Potter.”
“Well the offer is always there if you– er– ever…want to.”
“Good to know,” she said cooly and Marlene kicked her gently. There was a short silence in which nobody quite knew what to say, then Marlene turned to Sirius,
“Did you do anything good this summer?” she asked.
“Oh, erm, not really,” Sirius said, but tried to expand on that when he realised she was trying to expel the awkwardness, “I went up to Scotland for a while and…my cousin’s wedding. But it wasn’t all that good. It would have been better if my brother was talking to me, if I’m honest.” He internally cursed himself for saying too much.
“Oh,” he could see the wheels turning in Marlene’s brain, working out what she could say next, “Your brother is Regulus Black? It’s his first year, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Sirius hoped his voice didn’t sound small.
“You don’t think he’ll be in…” Marlene hesitated, whispering the last word as if it was unpleasant, “Slytherin…do you?” It was Lily’s turn to kick Marlene,
“Marls! Why would you say something like that? You know their whole family’s been in Slytherin. Way to make him feel horrid about it!”
Sirius couldn’t handle people talking about him like he wasn’t right there, so he shoved his feelings down and gazed through the dark window at the Hogwarts lights coming nearer. Despite everything, he felt much more comfortable the closer he was to school.
When they all exited the carriage, Lily and Marlene were still arguing in hushed voices on their way up to the castle. Unfortunately, before they were out of sight Severus stepped out of a carriage in front of them. He clocked Lily and their group, then narrowed his eyes and very purposefully bumped into Sirius on his way past. Why him, Sirius had no idea. But seeing his face, James put an arm out to remind him not to lunge at Severus. James succeeded and they sat at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall without anyone pummeling anybody.
Sirius couldn’t stop his eyes from darting around the hall as they waited for the first years to arrive, maybe Regulus had fallen in on the way over the lake and that was why they were taking so long or his mother had taken him back or he was already in trouble. But eventually McGonagall pushed open the double doors and the first years filed in. Sirius scanned all their faces until he found his brother. Regulus was one of the smaller ones, immediately recognizable because he was the only one who didn’t look excited. His face was pale and when it was his turn, he walked up to the stool like he was about to be set a death sentence. Sirius’s heart pounded as the hat was placed on Regulus’s head. He wasn’t sure what he wanted the outcome to be. If Regulus was put in Gryffindor, Sirius knew he wouldn’t be able to stand by and watch his little brother face the fury that was sure to be wielded on him. But Regulus was not a Slytherin.
Regulus shut his eyes and, after twenty seconds, the hat screamed,
“Slytherin!”
It felt like an ice cube was sliding down Sirius’s back. What? This couldn’t be right. How would he protect him, now? There was nothing Sirius could do as Regulus walked off to join Narcissa at the Slytherin table. When he looked up at Sirius, his expression was unreadable. They only stared at each other, until a rough looking curly haired boy sat down in front of Regulus, blocking his view. Sirius barely felt James slide an arm around him.
The feast passed in a blur. Too soon, they were all up in Gryffindor Tower, their pyjamas on, about to go to sleep. Sirius would be left to drown in his thoughts. He kept waiting for someone to turn out the lights in the dorm, forcing him to say goodnight. But Sirius sat cross legged in his four-poster, watching Remus seated on his own, swinging his legs and practically buzzing. James and Peter also noticed,
“Remus, mate, are you alright?” James asked.
Remus said nothing but jumped down, kneeled by his trunk and pulled out a large wooden box. He set it on the window seat, opening it. James and Peter gathered around and Sirius even found himself standing up to take a better look. It was a record player. Orion and Walburga had a record player but they only played classical music on it and only when there was company. Sirius couldn’t imagine why Remus would have brought a record player into their dorm.
“Wicked!” James exclaimed, “Do you have records?”
“Would I bring it if I didn’t have these?” Remus, uncharacteristically melodramatically, flourished multiple records out of his trunk. James and Peter came closer, inspecting them.
“I’ve never heard of any of these,” James said after a while, “Are any of them on WWN?”
“WWN?” Remus asked, confused.
“You know, the Wizarding Wireless Network,” Peter clarified.
“Oh, no, this is Muggle music,” Remus said, laying the records out on his bed. James and Peter exchanged looks,
“Muggle music?”
Remus paused, holding a record, the cover coloured dark blue and brown buildings with bright yellow specks as streetlights and windows surrounding a blond boy with what looked like a guitar slung over his shoulder. The picture made Sirius feel slightly uneasy, not only because it didn’t move like normal pictures, but the tall building surrounding the boy gave off a strong familiar feeling of claustrophobia.
“You mean…you’ve never heard of Led Zeppelin or– or even The Beatles?” Remus asked in disbelief. The three other boys shook their heads. Remus sighed as if he was disappointed to know them, already in the process of pulling the record out of its sleeve,
“This is David Bowie…” Remus leaned down to put the velvet black record on the mat and turned back around to say, “Your lives are about to be changed forever,” before carefully placing the needle down.
The moment the drums started into a rhythm and Bowie’s voice drawled out of the record player, Sirius’s somehow knew he was done for;
Pushing through the market square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in
By the time Moonage Daydream was playing, Sirius felt his heart was beating along with it. Even in his slightly stunned state, he couldn’t understand how music could be so, for lack of a better word…heavenly. If this kind of thing had been in the world for Sirius’s entire life, where had he been? Nobody spoke throughout the next five songs, until Hang On To Yourself was fading into nothing and James cleared his throat,
“Remus. How did you get this? I mean–”
“My mum bought it at the shops this summer and my dad enchanted it.”
When the record eventually stopped, Sirius had to remind himself to breathe. He couldn’t tell what his face was doing, but Remus took one look at him and chuckled, so he must have shown his shock. If ‘shock’ was the right word.
Sirius wouldn’t remember how he got to be lying horizontally on his four-poster, lights out, staring at the curtains, but he was. He absolutely had to listen to that record again. He had barely even gotten to process any of it because his mind was so full. Though, on the bright side, he hadn’t thought about Regulus the whole time.