The Noble House Of Black
Contrary to what everyone, even Sirius himself, thought, he didn't hate Draco. It was hard to repress the knee jerk reaction he had to nearly every member of the Black family, but Draco . . .
He knew he should, was the thing. His little cousin was a death eater, a shining example of the hatred their family was renowned for producing, but seeing him writhe on the floor in pain, having to sedate him so he didn't bash his own head in, well, it made it quite hard to look at him the same. He was a boy. No older than Harry, and Sirius didn't think he could live with himself if he hated Draco.
After all, would he be any better than his family, condemning the boy for choices made for him? He spent so long alone and afraid, vowing to never be like them, to go back on that now was unthinkable.
That didn't mean he and Draco didn't fight, or course. In fact Sirius quite enjoyed it when they did. It was easy to fall into the sniping and cheap shots, it made him feel young in a way even Remus couldn't. They learned eventually, to avoid certain topics, like Draco’s parents, or the Potters, or Dumbledore, but almost anything else was free game.
Draco insulted his height, he insulted Draco’s face. Draco insulted his intelligence, he insulted Draco’s vanity.
He didn't mention the cane. That was too low, even for him, and part of Sirius thought if he tried, Draco would hit him with it. He didn't mention the scars either, after years being with Remus, and growing up as the Black Heir, he knew better than to think it was just a scar. That wasn't how their life worked.
He felt bad for Draco, and wasn't that just hilarious?
When his brother had been forced to do the same, Sirius disowned him completely. And Sirius would never claim to be a good man, or brother, but seeing the obvious effect The Mark had left on Draco, he couldn't help but wonder if he was a bad person.
Because Draco had that same cold look in his eye, like his walls were built so high you'd run out of oxygen before you could climb them. And Draco obviously wasn't fond of he-who-must-not-be-named, so for the first time in Sirius' life, he considered what life must have been like from Regulus' point of view.
They had been raised blood purists, of that there was no doubt, but it had taken Sirius years and several friends before he shed that way of thinking fully. Regulus hadn't had that chance.
Why hadn't Sirius given him that chance?
He knew Remus had mixed feelings about Draco too, probably more than his own, but he seemed hesitant to voice them. Sirius couldn't for the life of him figure out why his husband seemed to avoid the boy so heavily, yet also near-obsessed over his well being.
When they found themselves alone, Remus turned to him, "What are you thinking?"
"Me? Nothing. You know me, no thoughts, head completely empty." Sirius said, keeping his eyes closed as he lounged on their bed.
"Sirius." Remus said. No matter how old they got, when Remus said his name, in that tone, he caved.
He sighed, pursing his lips, "He's-" Sirius squinted his eyes open, "It's weird. Isn't it?"
Remus moved to sit next to Sirius, these kinds of conversations were easier to have when they weren't looking at each other, "He reminds me of Regulus."
Sirius drew in a breath, feeling as if Remus had hit him, "Yeah. Yeah he does."
Sirius clenched his hands over his stomach, "It's- It's hard, to not see him. Every time-" His voice broke, and Remus threaded a hand into his hair, "It's the eyes. That first time, when we were duelling, the look in his eyes-" Sirius looked to the ceiling, "It's like losing him all over again."
He didn't realise until he said it, but it was true.
That first encounter, with Draco bleeding on the floor, looking up at Sirius with a perfect mask of control, Sirius had almost killed him, but that small flash of fear behind his eyes had hit him better than any stunning spell.
All Sirius could wonder for days, was 'Is that what Regulus looked like? Did he bleed?'
'Why wasn't I there?'
Sirius hardly ever talked about Regulus. Remus had known him, of course, from the few times they had crossed paths before Sirius ran away, and when he was still incredibly young, then later through the gossip chain at Hogwarts, but even after all of these years, he still could never understand.
Regulus was his brother. Every complicated feeling that fell between them, it all came back to that fact. He had held Regulus as a baby, been there when their mother got into one of her moods, cleaned the resulting burns.
"Do you think it could have ended differently, if I had tried to help him?" Sirius asked.
"I don't know," Remus answered, "But it doesn't matter, you can't change it, no matter how much you want to."
"But it does, Remus. He was my brother, and I left him there. I knew what would happen and I still-" His voice broke, and he stopped.
He had always acted out, never fitting into the mould his parents wanted him to. With every bit of rebellion, Regulus had been forced to pick up the slack. Every time Sirius had a shouting match with his parents, it was Regulus forced to make apologies to the dinner guests. Every time Sirius wore muggle clothes around the house, Regulus' clothes got more and more old fashioned.
How had he not seen it?
When news came that Regulus had died, not even a body to bury, you would have thought that Sirius didn't have a brother at all. He scoffed, brushed everything off with, "Brother? I don't have a brother, and James is fine."
Remus had caught him later that night, sobbing desperately into an old green sweater.
"And the worst thing is," Sirius continued, "Is that I can't stop fighting him. He's dead and I can't even-" He finally broke, a sob escaping, and he curled into his husband.
The Black Family was strange, made of stone faces and glass hearts, doomed to break and chisel away at each other until there was nothing but pulverised dust. Sirius sometimes thought that they were destined to destroy each other, drawn together and repelled apart like magnets caught in a twisted game of fate. How any of them could stand it was beyond him.
Remus stroked his husband's head, cradling him in the aftermath of violence that was half unintentional. Draco was mean, but not any meaner than Sirius was.
Draco talked to Walburga's portrait sometimes, when no one was around. But Sirius knew, because he did the same.
Though Draco did it differently, deftly side stepping around any talk of blood purity. Draco would just sit and listen, taking every bit of her casual cruelty with poise, before making his goodbyes and disappearing through a random door.
Sirius would open the curtain just to scream at her. To say to his mother what he never could in her life.
It seemed in their nature for Black's to go looking for malice, to drag pain up from the bottom of their hearts and use it to craft a mask they would never take off. Not a single one of them seemed made for soft living.
Even sweet Andromeda had claws, for all the fact she was easily the nicest of Druella's children, she would still snicker behind your back, or place a few whispers into the ear of someone important when she felt slighted. Every conversation with her was a snake pit, a comely exterior hiding a real and true slytherin, just as cruel and cunning and ambitious as the rest of their family.
Sirius found he preferred Draco's brand of Black, the kind that was perfectly honest about when and how he planned to lie to you.
It was like they needed cruelty to survive. 'Like diamonds' Remus had told him, 'So beautiful, but only formed under the highest pressure.'