Regulus
The Sorting Hat fell over his eyes. The little voice entered his head, just as he’d expected.
But the words that it was saying didn’t quite compute, his mind turning wildly to keep up.
Gryffindor?
NO. He thought frantically, so desperately that he might have hissed it aloud. Slytherin.
Are you sure? The hat, the stupid, stupid hat asked dubiously.
Of course I’m sure!
That was that. The hat shouted out the correct house, and he stepped shakily off the stool. The first pair of eyes that he met were Sirius’s, across the Hall. His brother watched him blankly, as if they were strangers; a stab in the chest. Regulus could almost- almost, in the deepest parts of his heart- understand why it might have been nice to be in Gryffindor.
But nice wasn’t a commodity he could afford, less now than ever. He lifted his head high and joined the closest Slytherin table.
That night, however, was a different story.
Slytherin house was just the opposite as he’d expected, at least on that first night. And in some ways it was exactly like he’d expected.
It was royal. Traditional, imperial, elegant, refined. Beautiful, sure, but not really the kind of place anyone would choose to spend time in. Not enough color, not enough sunshine for really any human life. Cold.
He’d been hoping against hope that there would be some sense of excitement, of relief, of freedom, but there wasn’t. Parents had been replaced by teachers, and relatives had been replaced by upperclassmen and prefects. Everything was still controlled.
So, after tossing and turning for hours in thin silk sheets and cold green blankets, he tiptoed out. Hogwarts without at night was just as haunted as the Black mansion, he learned, all strange noises and unfamiliar passages and cold drafts and ghostly moonlight shadows. He had left his shoes behind so as to not make noise, but the stones were so cold under his feet that he regretted it very quickly.
Let him be there.
He knew where he was headed, vaguely. Once he got there, it was a matter of persuading the woman in the portrait that he knew the password because of a friend, and not because he was a spy or an invader or a murderer.
“Paranoid old bat,” he muttered under his breath as he crept through.
Gryffindor’s common room was smaller than Slytherin’s, and a good deal comfier, with floor to ceiling windows on four of the six walls and plush couches rather than stiff wing-backed chairs.
There were a few students still there, and he froze instinctively, but none of them noticed him.
A figure lay dozing on the couch closest to the door.
Sirius, just as he’d promised.
Regulus tiptoed across the carpets, taking a portion of the quilted blanket off of his brother and placing it over himself. The sofa was really too small to pretend it was a bed, but it was quite a bit cozier than the Slytherin four-posters. Sirius had always run warmer than he did.
He mumbled a little in his sleep, something that Regulus couldn’t make out, and tried to shift positions but found he couldn’t. He mumbled a little louder, and Regulus realized he was waking up.
“Sirius, it’s me,” he whispered urgently, “Sorry.”
Sirius gained enough consciousness to blink his eyes half-open before closing them again and muttering “Slythershit” very affectionately before falling back asleep.
Regulus smiled bitterly to himself. The last thought he had before falling asleep as well was that Sirius was still a cuddler.
Sirius
He blinked awake when the first early risers began shuffling downstairs at around six the next morning. The sun was just poking its bright eyes over the forest, the last wisps of night lingering at the edges of the sky under the clouds.
Even before he gained full consciousness, he could tell where he was. The best place in the world. Home. Sunlight and mischief and apple tarts and friends who were family, and now Reg, too.
Even if it was hardly, barely a fraction.
Regulus was gone, but his side of the blanket -which was almost entirely on the floor- was still warm.
His little black cat brother who curled around himself to sleep and snored in little breaths. Who embroidered his own handkerchiefs and whose favorite spell made colorful sparks. Who scowled instead of laughing at jokes, and who refused to admit he was wrong even worse than Sirius. And who, just as he’d been so fiercely determined to be, was a Slytherin.
He smiled wanly to himself. When James bounded downstairs a few minutes later, he was still lost in thought.
Things hadn’t changed. Not too much.
They might be on the opposite sides of twisted worlds, but even the smallest wave in the halls or a discreet glance every few weeks or a little paper crane on his desk meant the same thing.
I miss you. I love you. We’ll be okay.