Chapter 4- Truce
It had been a couple weeks since Regulus talked to his brother, in which Regulus took his turn avoiding Sirius while Sirius tried to get Regulus to talk to him. Evan was the main reason the avoidance method had been working for Regulus, since every time Sirius would get close to them Evan would distract Sirius by talking to him and not letting him leave the conversation, giving Regulus time to walk away.
Slowly, Sirius started to give up on his attempts to talk to Regulus, seemingly being distracted by something happening with his friends. Everytime Regulus would see them they would be huddled together, laughing and whispering, and often looking at the notebook the brown haired one with scars had. Regulus tried not to think that much about it.
It was a Friday and all the classes were over, so Regulus was sitting with Pandora against the old tree in the Middle Courtyard. It was the perfect spot for Regulus, since the tree grew in a way that, when sitting against its trunk, it was hard for anyone around to see the person sitting, and easy for the person sitting to watch the people around. There was a group of fourth or fifth year students in one corner who seemingly looked to be in some sort of wizards chess tournament. A couple of the Gryffindor girls who Regulus was pretty sure were in Sirius’s year sat in a circle in the corner farthest from Pandora and him. One group of sixth or seventh year Hufflepuffs kept walking through every ten minutes or so, but would never stop to sit down. Regulus was a bit curious what they were doing, but his main focus was the group sitting next to the armillary sphere in the middle. There, Sirius and his three friends sat and were talking in the same scheming way they had been recently.
“Can I ask you a question you don't want to answer?” Pandora said, her melodic voice breaking through Regulus’s thoughts.
He hesitated, confused, but finally answered with a reluctant “sure.”
“What happened between you and Sirius? I used to hear about how you two were close and when the news of Sirius’s sorting came, I remember Bella telling my family that she hoped it wouldn't corrupt you since you followed him around like a shadow.”
“I'm sure those were not the words she used,” Regulus muttered.
Pandora gave a small smile as if to say ‘of course not,’ then continued, “I haven't seen you talk to your brother once, and now you are avoiding him like the plague. What happened?”
Regulus sighed. A part of him wanted to huff something along the lines of ‘none of your business’ but the other part of him, the part that hadn't been able to talk about any of his problems since Sirius went to Hogwarts, was more powerful.
“After Sirius was sorted, my mother… well, she wasn't happy. During Christmas break, he thought he could continue the same antics he did at Hogwarts, often bringing me into them. It was fun at first, but then we got caught changing the color of one of my mother’s favorite vases. It was all Sirius’s idea and I told him there was no way we wouldn't get caught and I wasn't going to take the fall for him. Well, we got caught, and he got punished, and then he got mad at me for not sticking up for him or at least sharing the punishment. He said something about how perfect James Potter would have shared the blame and I got mad and told him I didn't care about his stupid friends.
“The next day was when a lot of our extended family came. They spent the entire time talking about how much of a disgrace he was and that night he left and went to the Potters. My mother punished me for his behavior.”
Pandora looked at him, waiting for him to continue, so he did.
“Well, summer break came and he actually came home for a couple weeks. He said he didn't want us to hate each other and that he came back for me. Yet, the entire time all he talked about was the amazing James Potter and all the pranks their group did. When he wasn't talking about Potter or Lupin, he was antagonizing our mother. Then, he took it too far and after our mother punished him, he left for the Potters. He came back a week before we came back because my mother insisted we walk to the platform together and you cannot say no to her. It was clear he wanted to be anywhere but with us, and once we got on the train he pretended like I wasn't sitting right next to him. I don't think he even noticed when I left. So much for ‘always being there for me.’”
Pandora stared at him for what felt like an eternity. Regulus hoped she couldn't tell he was holding back tears. Tears are for babies. His mother used to tell him. No son of mine acts like a baby.
Finally, Pandora said, “You know, I think you would be a lot happier if you just let Sirius talk to you.”
Regulus looked at her, surprised. He wasn't sure what he was expecting but that wasn't it.
She continued, “I think you secretly want to make it harder for him to talk to you so that, when he succeeds at getting you to talk to him, it means he actually cares enough to put more than the basic level of effort into it.”
“That’s not true,” Regulus argued.
Pandora ignored him, “That’s why you are so upset that those four are so clearly planning something. Just like over break, he is starting to put more effort into them than he was into talking to you.”
Regulus stared at her, trying to figure out what to say.
“Next time he comes up to you, think about hearing him out,” she concluded, filling the silence.
“I…” he stuttered, then, “stop reading me,” he responded, picking up his book with a frown, refusing to address her point.
From the corner of his eyes he saw a faint smile appear on her face, as she went back to reading her own book.
~~~
As Regulus walked with Pandora to the Great Hall for dinner, the words she said earlier rang in his head. There was something so unnerving about her ability to read him. Most people weren’t able to understand a thing about him and just wrote him off as a quiet nobody who happened to be born in a powerful family. Pandora, however, seemed to enjoy figuring out his thoughts, and was able to do it so accurately, to an extent that he would have assumed she was using legilimency if he didn’t know all too well what it felt like for someone to search around in your mind. He knew he should hate her observations, that he should push her away and ignore her words, but she never used it against him.
He was still thinking about her words when he felt a tug on his arm. He quickly turned to snatch his arm away when he realized who it was pulling at him.
“Come on Reggie, please, I just want to talk to you. I’m sorry. I’m really really sorry, just give me a chance,” his brother was pleading.
Regulus stood still, staring at his brother. He didn’t know what to do. His first instinct was to run away and sit down and fade into the shadow of Evan and disappear. But when he turned his head, he saw Pandora, standing next to him, quietly bobbing up and down on her toes, seeming to be in her own world, but it was clear to Regulus that she was waiting to see whether he would listen to her or not.
He sighed. No matter how much he tried, Sirius was still his brother, and he couldn’t avoid him forever. He took a step towards Sirius, who immediately started leading Regulus out of the great hall and to a more private place, still gently holding on to his wrist as if he wanted to make sure he was following.
As soon as Regulus shut the door to the empty classroom they walked into, Sirius blurted out, “How did she hurt you?”
Regulus stared at him, not expecting that to be his brother's first words, but he understood the intent. When Sirius got in trouble, his mother would use all sorts of different spells on him. It used to be mostly pretty tame spells, causing small cuts to slice through his skin, or feelings of being punched to knock the wind out of him. However, when Sirius was ten, during a huge dinner party with a lot of powerful wizarding families, he had started throwing food at their cousin Bellatrix after she started antagonizing Andromeda, her sister, about hanging out with a muggle born. After all the guests left, their mother used the cruciatus curse on Sirius for the first time, yelling at him to never embarrass her in front of so many people again. After that, she started using more and more aggressive spells towards Sirius when he acted out. Sirius was just asking to see how bad she punished him.
Part of him wanted to spit at him and tell him every spell she used and the pain it caused him, but for some reason he didn’t have any energy to be angry. Instead, he slowly lifted up his shirt to show his brother the scars her spells had left on his body. He watched the horror on his brother’s face as he took in the row of deep cuts hatched down his stomach, some healed and some still healing.
“Did you…” he whispered, “Were those all because of me?”
Regulus didn’t answer him.
Sirius slowly lifted his hand to trace the worst of the cuts, which was healed by now but had left a nasty scar.
“That was right after you left for the Potters during your Christmas Break. Mother was furious and I told her maybe she shouldn’t be so harsh on you. That was her response.”
Sirius looked up, his mouth hanging wide in shock and his eyes full of disgust, “That bitch, how dare she!”
“Don’t. That won’t do anything and you know it. It was my fault. I should have just stayed quiet.”
“And the others?”
“You know, normal things. I got answers wrong when she was testing my history of magic knowledge, I broke a dish, stuff like that,” he answered, though he was only speaking partial truths. He was leaving out the fact that a good portion of them were because she found him crying about Sirius leaving. He wasn’t going to admit that to his brother.
“But those are only things that would get the small scratches, not cuts that would leave scars.”
“She was more harsh after you left.”
Sirius stayed quiet, still staring at the scars.
Slowly, he turned back to look at Regulus’s face, “I’m so sorry, Reg. I thought that if I was gone she would be more calm. I never thought she would ever punish you for my actions. I thought you would be safe because you were so good compared to me.”
“Its mother. When is that ever her thinking?”
Sirius looked down, his eyes full of fury and guilt, “She is not going to touch you again, I promise. I’ll come home for Christmas, and that way her anger will be away from you. I’ll pretend to be her perfect little heir again. That way you will be safe.”
Regulus looked at him, surprised. He expected Sirius to feel guilty, but didn’t expect him to actually agree to come back. Especially not if that meant leaving his perfect friends for a few weeks.
“Why would you do that? You can go to the Potters and have a good Christmas,” Regulus asked. He wasn’t sure why he was trying to talk Sirius out of coming home, but for some reason a part of him felt guilty.
“You are my younger brother, Regulus. It's my job to protect you,” Sirius said, holding out his hand, “Truce?”
Regulus stared at him, then after several silent seconds, took his brother’s hand and shook, “Truce.”