Top Of The Class

Walburga Black clenched her jaw. “What if,” she swallowed hard, stretching her lips into a signature, top teeth only fake smile, “we made a generous donation to the school?”

“Mrs. Black, I’m not sure you understand the weight of what your son has done! The police could become involved if Professor Slughorn decides to press charges.”

“Trust me, Headmaster, I entirely understand, and believe me, Regulus will receive nothing less than adequate punishment from myself and his father. But we’d hate for his future to be compromised by a mistake.”

Regulus watched as the two stared at each other, feigning respect.

“Regulus,” she snipped, pointedly, “Step out, please.”

The thing about Walburga Black, was that she carried herself calmly and professionally, but phrased her sentences in a way that made it clear: she did not make requests.

So, Regulus slid his chair back, stood up, and left. As he pushed through the heavy double doors, making little effort to keep them from slamming behind him, he could hear his mother lean further into her concentrated, people pleasing inflection.

“Surely, there must be something that can be done.”

|||

Roughly fifteen minutes later, when she reemerged from Headmaster Dumbledore’s office, Regulus searched his mother’s face for any trace of either pride or angry resignation. She was not, however, so easily read in this particular moment. She seemed… indifferent.

She didn’t even meet his eyes, just walked past him at her typical efficient pace, heels clicking on the floor, and muttered, “follow.”

So he did. Perhaps on any other day this lack of rigid demeanor from his mother would relieve Regulus. Perhaps he’d even work up the courage to disobey, and not trot along behind her at this command like a dog.

Regulus had never been brave.

As they made their way outside, Regulus found himself wishing yet again that his parents weren’t so posh. If they were a normal family, Walburga might know how to drive, and he could at least slightly evade her presence by sitting in the backseat. But no, the Black family had a bloody driver. Chauffeur. Fucking limousine- whatever you want to call it, it was inanely pretentious.

So, Regulus spent the 25 minute ride home staring out the window, trying to avoid his mother’s eyes.

She was a small woman. Petite, more like, as she barely reached Regulus’ chin in heels. She dressed modestly, and in black, like she had a funeral to attend every goddamn day. She had thin eyebrows that outlined her deep set blue eyes, and cheekbones that were sharp and hollow like a corpse. For her hours of preening and feeding into vanity, Regulus found that she never successfully made herself look anything other than mean. Maybe he was biased.

Regulus was nearly seventeen now. He had let his hair grow out a bit over the last year, curls starting to form around his ears and at the nape of his neck. His shoulders had broadened, and he had grown a few inches as well. When he looked in the mirror, first he saw someone familiar, and then someone foreign. Someone big and strong and grown.

He looked at his mother, and he felt like a little boy with gangly arms and slicked back hair.

Say something, he scolded himself. I’ve had years’ worth of chances. Fucking say something. His ears got hot and his head got full and his throat went dry and fuck, why could he never do this part right?

“What did you-”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” She cut him off.

That was about as brave as Regulus could get, today.

|||

He stood in the center of his room. The lights were off- he couldn’t stand overhead lighting. He just stood there, in the dark, unmoving and silent.

Walburga was not a non-confrontational person, especially when it came to her children. She would scream, and yell, and smack, and hit. She hadn’t resorted to any of this within the time since she had found out about everything.

Regulus couldn’t help but feel like something worse was in store.

He didn’t really know what worse looked like. He was completely indifferent to it all. None of the punishments worked any more. His parents turned him into a corpse over the years, just like them, and if he still had it in him to feel anything at all, being like them would hurt the most.

Tomorrow morning, he prepared himself, you have to talk to them in the morning. You’re going to be brave tomorrow, because if you just get them to listen and just hear if you get it right then maybe…

Who is he kidding?

Regulus had spent years of his life convinced that he wasn’t articulate enough. He really wanted to believe that his parents needed help, just some help to understand why they were wrong and what needed to change. He would write down his thoughts in essays and lists and poetry and he would think it over and over and play into them like a politician, hoping one day he would be smart enough to earn their love. Sometime last year he snapped out of it.

I’m not going to get it right. There is no right with them. They were never going to be anything other than selfish for us.

So, he thought, Plan B. Maybe you can run away. There’s a shoebox full of cash for cigarettes under the bed. You could pack light, you don’t have stuff, and you could climb out the window. It’s almost spring, you won’t get that cold if you have to be on the streets for a while. And there’s buses. Or trains- you could get out of here and you could get a job, something small at first, work your way up, and you could change your name…

You have to be brave to do all of that.

I’m not going to do that. I know exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to wake up tomorrow and I’m going to go downstairs and listen to whatever heinous punishment mother came up with that rendered her silent, and I’ll take it. Because I’m not cut out for this all alone. I’ll plan out my escape all tonight to help me sleep but I’ll never act on it. I will stay here and I’ll be miserable for the rest of my sorry goddamn life so hopefully it’s not that long.

Regulus thought about dying a lot lately. It might be easier. He figured that he didn’t have to be brave to kill himself. It had nothing to do with his courage- sometimes brave people kill themselves and cowardly people keep living.

He found himself wishing that, just for a moment, he could be free of his own brain. He didn’t want to plan or worry. He just wanted to sleep, but he rarely could anymore. His joints killed him on the stiff mattress, and his neck killed him on the soft pillows, and the itchy seams of his clothes rode up on his long legs, leaving his feet cold.

Still, he plopped down on the bed, swaddled himself in blankets, and tried to sleep.

Instead, he cried, for the first time in months.

|||

Regulus didn’t ever have to face the morning conversation with his parents.

He was awoken again at around three am, by the sound of his bedroom door slamming open.

“What the fuck?” He shouted, quickly removed from his groggy state. “Who are you?” Regulus was panicking, as two hugely strong men grabbed his arms and hauled him out of his room, still in his clothes from the night before. They dragged him, kicking and screaming, through the door, which was being held open by a third man. The three of them were dressed the same- all black, ski masks, practically textbook criminals. Regulus struggled against their sturdy grips, trying briefly to reach down and bite their hands before being gagged with a bandana. They walked him quickly down the hallway toward the stairs, while Regulus tried in vain to dig his heels into the ground. It made no difference; they moved forward at an unaltered pace, and Regulus could feel little splinters of wood sinking into the bottoms of his feet. They pulled him, harsher now, down the spiral staircase, rugburns forming on the back of his legs. As he turned the curve, he caught a final glimpse of the door at the end of the hallway. He hadn’t dared to look at it in months, but he didn’t need to. He remembered that at the bottom, a long time ago, he had carved his initials in the wood, small and nearly unnoticeable.

He could think about the room past that door, and find more troubling memories, but this time, he just pictured it:

R.A.B

and somewhere above it:

S.O.B

It made him start screaming louder. Because he wasn’t brave, or strong, but someone in this house was.

“Sirius!”

“Sirius!”

It was muffled and unrecognizable through the fabric in his mouth, but still he shrieked until his throat felt cut open before giving up. Sirius could not save him.

A realization came to him- his parents weren’t there. They must have already been taken. No one could sleep through this. Which meant that there were more people; more strong people working to kidnap them. But why? This couldn’t be a crime of opportunity.

However, Regulus knew better than anyone how cruel his parents could be. Who knew how many people had vendettas for the Black family. Who knew what was going to happen to them.

He thrashed futilely, but by the time they had gotten him to the front door, his muscles were working against him. When they reached the gravel driveway, Regulus craned his neck in an attempt to inspect his surroundings. They were leading him to a car. The car was black. And it was… it was black, and

shit shit shit Regulus something else ANYTHING else you have to do something remember something FIGHT you’re being kidnapped and you’re letting it happen! The license plate what’s the license plate? It’s too dark to see the license plate oh my god oh my god bite scratch hit fight for your life Regulus kill them if you have to just get out get out Regulus don't just GIVE UP

But that was all he could do. As he moved farther away from the house, he gave up. The thrashing and smacking of his heels against pebbles turned into an out of rhythm bounce, and he let his body go limp. He looked back at the house in disbelief.

It felt like he had been staring forever, even if for only five seconds.

It couldn’t be.

He stared up at the old house, observing the warm light emitted from the topmost window. Within it, a distinct silhouette of Walburga and Orion Black.

They heard.

Before it could even sink in, Regulus was shoved back into the car- no, it was a van, he was now realizing. Pinning him to the floor, one of the three men trapped Regulus in a pair of handcuffs. He then slammed the door behind him. His gag had come loose amongst the struggle, so at least he could breathe a bit better.

Just like that, Regulus was alone again. Restless, tired, confused, terrified, and alone. In the span of two minutes, everything and nothing had changed.

Oh wow, you’re really wallowing today. Stop fucking whining.

“Shut up,” Regulus groaned, “just shut up.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

Too far? Sorry.

“You should be.”

I take it back. I’m not sorry.

“Leave me alone.”

You don’t want that Reggie.

“You don’t fucking know what I want!”

If I leave you alone, you have to think about getting out of here and surviving and shit.

“Shut up shut up shut up.”

Track 13. Speak Now.

“Last Kiss. Child’s play.”

I knew you wanted me around.

|||

Maybe it was an hour later. Maybe two, maybe five, maybe literally years, maybe ten minutes. No one on earth was as horrid at estimating as Regulus. It was long enough for him to list every Taylor Swift song in order 4 times, and then some.

But the van stopped. The door opened, and it was still dark, so it couldn’t have been long. They seemed to be on a country road, surrounded primarily by woods on either side.

“Get out,” the man from before grumbled.

Regulus struggled a bit to get up with his hands cuffed, and honestly, he was embarrassed that his captor saw it.

He looked unamused. When Regulus succeeded in getting on his feet, it was barely a second before he was being man handled and hauled into another vehicle.

This one was a bus; Regulus could figure out that much. The windows were seemingly tinted, so he couldn’t see much of anything inside.

On the outside, however, something (or someone) became very apparent. A tall, slim blonde girl with a flushed face and cut up legs was bolting at full speed toward Regulus. Two men followed after her, tasers in hand, while she screeched like a banshee and ran as fast as her legs would carry her. The man holding Regulus let him go in the chaos, and started running at the girl from the front. But Regulus was frozen in place, watching the girl cartoonishly fake the man out and dodge him to the right. Which, holy fuck? How did that work? He was finally broken from his daze as the girl slammed into him.

“Go! Come on! We have to fucking go, now!”

Regulus has never performed well under pressure.

“Are you fucking dull?” She yelled, as she started pulling him along with her.

“I-” Regulus was cut off by a loud thud and wheeze as one of the captors body slammed the girl from the side. It was brutal. Despite her clear determination and bravery, she was small. Her ribs might’ve broken.

“Right choice, kid,” the man said, before yanking the girl up and leading both her and Regulus back to the bus.

Dammit, Regulus thought. He caught the girl’s eye once again, and gave an apologetic look. She only responded with a shrug, defeated. She didn’t even appear to be mad.

The bus door opened automatically with a slight squeak. The man holding them shoved the blonde girl up the steps first, as she was the apparent flight risk of the pair, and Regulus hardly needed to be pushed in after her.

The inside of the bus, Regulus noticed, was very similar to an American school bus. Sirius tended to call him on nights when he had a big game, complaining about the bus ride, and begging to be talked to no matter the time. Regulus pretended to be bothered, but really he missed Sirius.

When Sirius was first accepted into the exchange program, he burst into Regulus’ room without knocking, eager to show him the email.

“They even assigned me a roommate! They said I can reach out to him and everything! I hope he’s not a knob. Oh don’t look so glum, Reggie, whoever he is can’t be better than you.”

That wasn’t what upset him, really, at least not then. He was sad because Sirius worked so hard to qualify for the exchange program, but had very little chance of convincing their mother to let him go.

In fact, Regulus still had no idea how the conversation went down. Somehow, Sirius came back to him with the news that Mother had said yes. That was when Regulus got sad for reasons that were admittedly selfish.

Because what if Sirius loved his roommate? What if Sirius did so well in America that he wanted to return for another semester? What if he kept leaving for longer and longer and he and Regulus ended up just plain brothers? Not even friends?

But he pushed it all down for a moment, to jump up and down like a giddy child with his brother, because truly, he was proud. That could outweigh his fear for a moment.

And Sirius had hugged him. Very tightly, naturally, like they did it often. They didn’t, but it had been very nice in that moment to know that they could if they wanted to.

“I’ve got football tryouts today. Or should I say, soccer.” He emphasized the last word with a comically exaggerated American accent.

Sirius had called him around dinner time the first day he got into Atlanta. Which, for Sirius, had actually been lunch.

“Ah. Well, I would wish you luck, but I know how obnoxious you get about ‘soccer’, so honestly I hope you fall flat on your face at tryouts and piss your pants.”

“Piss off,” he chuckled in response.

“What about that roommate? Is he into footy?”

“Oh, yeah actually. I talked to him a bit before the flight, through his Instagram. I still haven’t met him face to face, though.”

“What if he’s, like, a million times better than you at football? That would be pretty amazing.”

“No it would not. Don’t even joke about it. You’re my brother, you’re supposed to hype me up and tell me that no one at tryouts could ever possibly do better than me.”

“Oh, am I? Guess I’ve been a shitty brother all these years.”

“Yeah.” Sirius retorted, although clearly being sarcastic. “I miss you, Reg. America is kind of gross.”

“I told you it would be, you wanker.”

“Is it horrible at home without me?”

It was.

“Are you kidding? Don’t come back home. I am growing very fond of the thousands of miles between us.”

“You wound me, Reggie.”

“Boohoo.”

“I have to go. The lunch period is almost over.”

“Oh thank God,” Regulus exclaimed, dramatically, “Call me after your tryouts, to tell me how it went, will you?”

“It will be late,” Sirius had said.

“I don’t care.” Regulus had responded.

“Alright then. I’ll call you. Bye, Reggie.”

Regulus returned to reality as he was being given an assigned seat. It even had his initials written on the armrest. R.A.B. They escaped from view when cuffs on the armrests secured his wrists in place.

The seats were two by two on either side of the aisle. It was a big bus, probably sat about fifty people. He peered around a bit. Most of the seats were filled with kids about his age, which was curious, because kidnapping this many children must have taken insane amounts of manpower and planning. Why go to all this trouble?

Regulus had an aisle seat, but the window seat next to him was still empty. He leaned over and glanced at the armrest to see the initials.

J.F.P.

Didn’t give him much information.

Across the aisle from him was a shorter boy with sandy blonde hair and baggy pants. He had visibly muscular arms covered in freckles, however his face was void of them. He looked slightly sunburnt along his cheeks and nose, which looked sculpted, with a slight ridge somewhere below his eyebrows. He had tired eyes that gave him an unbothered expression despite the circumstances. Regulus turned over his shoulder to take a look at the people further back in the bus. Directly behind him was a pale girl with wavy auburn hair that fell in uneven wisps a bit past her shoulders. She wore a black wife beater and a pair of green flannel pajama pants that bore a striking resemblance to the color of her eyes. She had chiseled cheekbones and a busted bottom lip, but the most startling injury of hers was her bloody right earlobe, torn right down the middle, where her earring had seemingly been ripped out. The other ear still held a gold dangling cross.

Regulus caught her eye as he scanned her face. She quirked an eyebrow at him, as though to say “what are you looking at?” Regulus sheepishly turned forward again.

Just in time, it seemed, to be met with his new seat partner. He wished he hadn’t turned back around.

He was tall. Just like the last time Regulus saw him. He wore a tight heather grey t-shirt and black sweatpants. He had broad shoulders and tan skin, obnoxiously unblemished. He had dark brown eyes, nearly black, that were partially obscured by his gold wire-rimmed glasses. He had a short face with appled cheeks, mauve lips and a square jaw. He was brunette, and his hair swooped almost royally past his ears and forehead. He locked eyes with Regulus for one moment, practically unnoticeable, before Regulus pointedly stared at the floor and refused to look up. Regulus had seen enough.

He awkwardly pushed past Regulus’ knees to reach the window seat, his wrist cuffs clicking into place immediately. Regulus breathed in, and out again. It was easy. He was unbothered. You grow up and you keep breathing, keep living, keep going because it’s the default. He could do default just fine.

But then James tapped his fingers against Regulus’. Regulus prayed for him to leave it at that. He couldn’t pull away, either, he was locked in place.

“Regulus.”

He couldn’t do it, right now. Or ever. But especially when his survival depended on it, and he was being held hostage. So Regulus said nothing.