All it takes is a simple phrase— Wotcher, Professor— and he can barely stifle his snarl.
‘Get out,’ slamming his drawer shut, spilling ink all over his desk.
But Nymphadora Tonks is all colors of chaos (from her bright pink her to her frightfully aristocratic face) and seems to relish in his building fury.
‘But Professor—’ starts that incessant whine and Regulus, fingers trembling from withdrawals, decides to slam the classroom door instead.
He stalks down the corridor, barely making sense of yawning shadows and whistling winds, barely making sense of giggling seventh year girls trying to grab his attention. Turns the corner and the corner until he finds himself back in his room. Bed unmade and clothes strewn. Bottles of sleeping draught dusted with neglect.
A part of him itches for relief and he comes close to grasping one—
Grasping his hair instead. Curling into himself. Biting back the whimper daring to escape his throat.
He doesn’t know why and he doesn’t know how, but something doesn’t make sense.
I need to wake up but how can I wake up if all I drink is Death?
He fixes himself a cup of tea. Sugar and milk and half a bottle of Sleep.
‘— if you could come for Christmas?’
It dawns on him that this question is the tail-end of a longwinded spiel of nonsense.
It also dawns on him that he missed most of said longwinded spiel of nonsense.
For some reason (half a bottle of draught) Regulus decides to say what instead of fine, fine (which would have gotten him off the hook) and gets an owlish blink from that pinched, frightfully aristocratic face.
‘Mum said she’d like to have you over for Christmas,’ says Nymphadora, slowly, as though he were thick.
Usually, he’d have docked points off for her tone, but there’s something oddly familiar about her that makes him wonder (where on earth did it come from?).
‘Andromeda?’ says Regulus, trying to feel his way for an escape.
‘No, no. Now she goes by the universal name of Mum.’
Stifles a snarl. Fails. ‘Get out.’
‘Professor—’ that indignant whine.
‘Out.’
‘Regulus.’
‘Fifteen points off Hufflepuff.’
‘I’m sorry, I take it back!’ and she blocks him from storming off. ‘I already lost fifty for blowing up the greenhouses! I didn’t mean it!’ Then, with a glowing smile that makes him feel sick, she adds: ‘Professor.’
Complete with a wink.
He can see traces of the mudblood.
No— not traces. Smears of it.
No— not mudblood.
Muggleborn.
Sandy-haired. Stocky-looking fellow. Potbellied, last he heard of him.
When he heard it, his first thought was: Andromeda turned tail and ran for that?
‘Your father,’ says Regulus, not really knowing where he’s going with that sentence.
Which proves itself well and good because Nymphadora answers anyway. ‘The invitation comes from him too,’ she adds, beaming. ‘Dad’s great fun. Jokes are a bit on the stale side, but he gets a kick when you laugh. Well? Will you come? Mum said the family house you’re in is a drab callback to the medieval age and that your house-elf can’t cook to save his life.’
But he can down an entire basin of Despair.
His hairs stand on end.
‘Get out.’
The girl has the audacity to pout. ‘Professor.’
‘Instead of fifteen, how about I make it fifty?’
‘Fine, I’m going,’ says Nyphadora, backing away with her hands raised. ‘But I’m warning you, sir, I’ll be back. Mum, for all failings, whips up a bloody good set of scones and if that doesn’t convince you to come over, I’ll chew my own sock.’
Many individual parts of that sentence disgust him (Andromeda baking— scones— chewing socks) coming together to twist a collective bundle of nausea in his stomach. When she leaves, he grips the edge of his desk, feeling cold and lightheaded and wet (sweat dribbling down his forehead) as he tries to lock away a watery memory.
Glistening caves and ice and a bone-white fountain.
There was a chain.
There was a boat—
He grabs the waste-bin. Two fingers down his throat.
Empties his stomach.
He half-considers emptying his lungs but there’s only so much water he can take.
Middle class is the word he’d used to describe it.
Very middle class.
A part in him (molded into shape by elocution, etiquette and inbreeding) recoils at the sight of it. A very different part of him (crawling mad out of a pitch black lake) feels oddly at peace.
He barely knocks before the door swings open. Nymphadora, sporting vivid blue hair and a vivid green jumper, squeals— I told you he’d come!— and ushers him in. Let me take your coat, Professor and blimey, it’s really cold outside, isn’t it Professor and can I call you Regulus now, Professor, seeing as we’re out of hours?
And Regulus finds himself at a loss because he’s never been fussed over like this: like some casual member of a casual family, where formalities and cues have little to no presence.
Christmas had always been a somber event. A time to avoid his mother’s rages and Sirius’ snide remarks. A time to hide away from his father’s watchful eyes. A time to bristle against the whispers of spare and useless and weak.
The second son, who would always amount to nothing.
‘We’re not quite there yet.’
And Nymphadora glows. ‘Is that a smile, Professor?’ And he can’t shake the feeling that he has seen her before.
Not her, per se. But the expression on her face, lit with an inner, albeit innocent, mischief.
He meets the infamous Ted Tonks in the living room (sandy-haired and pot-bellied and unremarkably kind) and Andromeda in the odd, ramshackle kitchen, putting the finishing touches on a roasted turkey. She dusts her hands on her apron (an apron?) and moves to hug him.
Very middle class.
So much so, when Regulus holds her back, the scent of her— cinnamon and spice, apple and patchouli— warms old memories of a cold and unforgiving house.
And he decides he never wants to see her again.
The meat is dry and the vegetables are bitter and the table is a mess of conversation. Andromeda smiles behind her glass of wine as Ted rambles and Dora gesticulates. Though the softness in her eyes harden a little when she catches his eye and Regulus can feel his own disdain seeping out of him.
There’s something about the house— its orange couches and grey blankets; its layered curtains and its hairy carpets; its lack of incense and its clamor of chaos— that grazes its claws against his skin.
There’s something about Andromeda too. Something suffocating. Something that so tightens at his throat he can barely swallow his wine.
‘When Dora said you were teaching, I couldn’t believe it,’ says Andromeda, setting down her glass.
Regulus lifts his own. ‘Why? Was I supposed to be dead in a ditch somewhere?’
Dora and Ted tense but Andromeda doesn’t. To the Blacks, it’s not really Christmas without a scathing remark.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Then what did you say?’
‘I never thought teaching was your forte.’
‘It’s not.’
‘That’s not true,’ says Nymphadora, cutting through the ice. She sits back on her chair (just like Sirius would do) and grins. ‘Professor here’s a school favorite. You know your name’s written all over the girl’s bathroom, right?’
Ted snorts. Andromeda blinks.
Regulus scowls. ‘Unfortunately.’
‘Wait, how do you know that?’ gasps the little imp. ‘Professor, you’re not dallying with anyone are you?’
To which he fixes her with a cold glare. ‘You do know I will find you at the start of term and I will give you detention?’
‘Do your worst,’ says Nymphadora, bringing her chair back down and her elbows the table. A very desperate part of him wants to snap: manners. ‘Professor Sprout’s already got me slotted in for every weekend for the entire term since I blew up the greenhouses, so you’re going to have to wait in line.’
Which proves itself the wrong thing to say because Andromeda, who had been glowering at Regulus, glowers at her daughter instead. ‘You did what?’
‘Oh— uh— Mum—’ Nymphadora goes all shades of red and white. ‘Um— I— well, it was— it was an accident—’
But Andromeda rounds on her husband. ‘Don’t tell me you hid the school letters from me again?’
This time, it’s Ted Tonks’ turn to sputter. ‘Well, you’re— I mean— you were busy and I didn’t want to ruin your mood and—‘
Though Andromeda doesn’t say anymore, the look she gives her daughter is enough.
The true reprimand will come later.
When they’re done with the meal (thank Merlin) and a quick spell sends the dishes to the kitchen (soap and towels soaring in their wake) Ted Tonks leads him into the drawing room for eggnog (that he has always hated) and mince pies (that he can’t stand).
Regulus excuses himself, muttering something he himself can’t understand, and makes for the outside porch.
He wishes he had something to fiddle with, but he doesn’t, so he resorts to staring out at snow-set earth and the grey-tinged skies.
‘Here,’ says Andromeda, pressing that godawful glass of cream and eggs into his hand. ‘It’s not good to stand outside in the cold without something to warm you up.’
It’s the most maternal thing he’s ever heard.
Then again, his mother rarely said anything maternal, so maybe he’s not the best judge in that department.
‘Don’t mind the cold,’ he says instead and half-considers tipping the eggnog into the snow.
‘I don’t think anyone who grew up in that house does.’
Regulus, as much as he wants to, doesn’t have the energy to snap at her for the comment.
She lost the right to talk about Grimmauld Place when she ran away.
‘Odd of you to invite me.’
‘Is it?’ And he can hear the defensiveness in her voice. ‘We’re family. It’s Christmas. It’s what families do.’
‘Extended the same invitation to Cissa?’
‘Every year.’ And she meets his surprised gaze with a cold one. ‘She’s the one who chooses not to answer.’
‘Well,’ he sniffs at the drink before sipping. Regretting it immediately. Too sweet. ‘Your choice trumped it all.’
‘I’m not going to say I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t expect you to.’ Before he’s overcome with irritation. ‘Is that why you invited me here? Saw a chance to promenade your old defiance since your father’s dead, your mother’s batty and your two sisters are as good as useless?’
He can see a shadow of Bella in her smooth, sharply-featured face. He almost takes a step back.
‘Is that what you think this is?’ says Andromeda, nostrils flaring.
‘Can’t see any other reason.’
‘Of course you can’t. Like I said: you grew up in that house.’
‘So did you.’
‘I left.’
‘You definitely did.’
And she winces, as though it were an insult.
Maybe it is. He’s not so sure. Not anymore.
Vaguely, he wonders why it all matters.
‘From the way Dora talked about you, I thought you’d changed,’ says Andromeda.
‘Changed?’ And Regulus can barely believe the audacity. ‘And when exactly did you get to know me to judge whether or not I’ve changed?’
Because he had been eleven when she had left.
And no child of eleven could ever be judged for a fallen future.
‘I don’t need to know you,’ says Andromeda, her voice as cold as his mother’s. Finally, he thinks, something familiar in this suffocating farce of a holiday. ‘Your choices speak for themselves.’
For a moment, he feels torn out of his body, looking at this strange situation from a different reality.
For a moment, he feels a little less alive.
(Which makes him wonder if he’d ever been alive? )
Because the scent of eggnog reminds him that it’s all inside him: water in his lungs and water in his stomach and water in his veins.
In the pooling darkness, a mangled hand reaches out to grasp him—
His glass falls to the ground, shattering, splattering hot cream all over his shoes.
‘Regulus?’ says Andromeda and he’s forced back into his corpse of a body, staring at her wide eyes and her trembling mouth, unable to understand what it is she wants. Why it is he’s here.
What on earth is going on.
‘I’m leaving,’ he says, sharp and sudden. No room for debate. ‘Thank you for dinner. Give your family my regards. And goodnight.’
He Apparates just outside Grimmauld House. Unlike the countryside, slathered in snow, London is raining.
The house is stark and empty.
Once, it would have been decked with diamonds and silvers; the tree’s baubles passed down from stuffy generation to stuffy generation; the decor a stamp of unyielding aristocracy. This is how things were done and this is how things will be. What is the future but an echo of the past?
Especially true as he slips into the bath (viciously hot) and waits for it to cool.
When the hours pass and his fingernails go blue does he exhale, slipping into the deep.
Something panics inside him but he ignores it, trying to find familiarity the cold.
His lungs burn with desperation.
Kreacher barges in, crying out in alarm, and forces him out.
Term starts with a timid knock on his classroom door and, for some reason, he has a hunch at who it is.
Even though Nymphadora Tonks has never been timid in her life.
‘Wotcher, Professor,’ she says, but he can see her smile is forced.
There’s something sad in those mousy brown eyes. As she stands in front of his desk, wringing at her fingers, he realizes that they match her mousy brown hair.
Strands of bubblegum pink had faded.
‘Um… Mum can be blunt. And a bit… cold. But— I don’t really know what happened or what she said but… I doubt she meant what she meant and, well… I hope you don’t hold it against her.’
Oh, he realizes.
Now I see, he thinks.
This whole time, I could see a little bit of me.
Her expressions and her gestures echo too much of her father, but the angle of her face, the pinch of her mouth, the hooded shadow across her eyes— it’s all Black.
But that sadness (unnecessary and misplaced) is all him.
And Regulus wonders, if he had a life that was different, could he have grown up to be a little like her?
‘I’m used to Andromeda. And she’s…’ a twitch of the mouth. ‘Quite used to me.’ Or, really, what he means to say, is that they’re used to the Black family bitterness. It isn’t Christmas without at least one declaration of loathing. ‘There’s no burden for you to bear. Why? Did she say anything to you?’
‘No,’ says Nymphadora, looking a bit more at ease than when she first came in. ‘Mum rarely talks about herself or what she feels. She has a tendency of just locking it all up until it explodes.’
Which, with a sister like Bellatrix, doesn’t sound benign.
‘Can I ask… what it was like?’ says Nymphadora tentatively. ‘She never talks about her family. Or growing up. And she sticks out, sometimes, when we’re over at Dad’s.’ Regulus would bet she does. ’And there are a few things she says, sometimes, that…’ are the product of an altogether different upbringing?
‘It’s very different to your house,’ says Regulus. ‘Complete opposite, really.’ Which was jarring. He wonders how much energy she’s put into the whole charade; Andromeda and her middle class dream. Probably not what she expected it to be. Probably is. He has no idea. ‘Not a place where you’d walk around with pink hair.’
Everyone, eventually, conformed: to silver Christmases and second sons and aged wine in goblets of dragon bone. To slithering tattoos and politics over petit-fours. To ruined futures, withering away before they had a chance to start.
‘Which is to say,’ he finds himself saying, ‘there’ll come a time when—‘ an old prejudice will take hold of her— ‘when she’ll go against things you might want. Be it a career—‘ because Black blood did not work for a living— ‘or a person—’ because mudbloods aren’t the only undesirables— ‘or a choice—’ in a war that is creeping upon them, slowly, surely, everyday. ‘And when that happens know that, more often than not, you’ll be in the right. Not because you’re some all-knowing Heaven-sent angel—‘ which earns him a smile— ‘but because you grew up in a good home. Made friends with good people. And have a generally good life. You’ll be surprised at how difficult it is to have anything half-decent.’
The smile she gives him is a genuine one. ‘Thanks, Professor.’
Regulus, who hates genuine expressions of emotion even more than unwelcome hugs, waves her off. ‘Yeah, yeah. We’re done now. You can see yourself out.’
It comes back to haunt him, this whole debacle, when the Order colonizes Grimmauld place.
Just because he’s glaring daggers at Sirius (who’s glaring daggers right back at him) doesn’t mean he misses the poorly hidden glances and the tinge of rose on her cheeks.
‘The werewolf?’ says Regulus one evening, when she’s back from a mission and he’s the one she’s meant to debrief.
He hands her a butterbeer and she chugs it like a hound.
‘That obvious?’ she says, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.
It would’ve bothered him once, the lack of decorum.
It still bothers him.
He hands her a napkin. ‘Not really. Maybe. Does your mother know?’
‘I hinted to it and she shut me down,’ says Nymphadora. ‘Apparently werewolves are where we draw the line.’
‘Your dead grandparents will be happy to know that,’ snorts Regulus. ‘Nice to know some of their teachings rooted themselves in your mother’s head.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘What I think doesn’t matter. I’m not your parent. I’m not even your teacher.’
‘But you’re family,’ and she says it with a bit of kindness in her eyes.
‘Yeah, but that shouldn’t matter either. Sirius is family and he’s a pain.’
‘You don’t mean that,’ and she leans back on her chair, ready to put her feet on the table. A warning glower makes her rethink it and she crosses them neatly instead. ‘So? Your opinion?’
Regulus grimaces. ‘Bit old for you, isn’t he?’
She props her chin on her hand (her bloody elbow on the table) and winks: ‘I always liked older men. I had a crush on you, you know. Back at school.’
He scoffs at that. ‘You and every other seventh year girl.’
‘Wow, that was surprisingly arrogant.’
Regulus takes a moment to realize what he had said. ‘Oh, uh…’ and finds himself stifling a laugh. ‘Right. Don’t know where that came from.’
‘Pent-up irritation from all that unwanted admiration?’
‘Sure,’ he laughs. ‘Whatever.’ Feeling the nape of his neck growing warm. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘Do you ever see yourself with someone? With a family?’
‘Merlin no,’ and he pours himself a bit of butterbeer. ‘It’d be a tragedy.’
‘Have you ever wanted it?’
No.
Maybe.
He not quite sure.
He never had time to think. His childhood had been a shadow of Sirius’ existence, his schooling shrouded by decisions he was forced to take, his existence a tattered memory he can never escape from. He sits here, sipping butterbeer with his cousin’s daughter— in some sad charade of normality— as though he hadn’t spent the morning purging himself of water.
(From his lungs from his veins from his stomach.)
(Unending.)
If he had grown up as she had (middle class) maybe he’d have a better idea. Not only on what he would’ve wanted, but what a family actually looked like.
Maybe then he’d understand what Andromeda really meant when she invited him for Christmas all those years ago.
He sees Lupin in the morning, fixing himself a cup of tea.
Regulus almost walks past him— before deciding otherwise, rearing back into the kitchen.
‘About time you settled down, don’t you think?’ says Regulus.
There’s that goodnatured smile on that goodnatured face, but even Lupin can’t hide the confusion. ‘Pardon?’
Regulus, who hates talking about anything remotely sentimental, claps the man on the shoulder. ‘Just think about it.’
And walks off. He’s done his bit.