prologue
Chapter One.
1971
Regulus didn't get to say goodbye to Sirius as he boarded the train. Smoke was streaming from the engine and weaving around Regulus’s feet in curious patterns, and he was watching the wisps curl around his ankles like a curious ghostly cat when his brother's messy black head disappeared behind the glass door that slammed shut behind him. Regulus didn't notice. He marveled at the silent grace of the gray haze floating at his feet, and thought that his mother would rather like this smoke, it seemed the very thing she wanted him to be. Transparent, silent, beautiful. He reached up to get her attention, to point it out to her, but she was staring at the train that was now emitting ear splitting whistles. It was only then that Regulus realized his brother was gone.
“Sirius” he whispered. The train was so brightly crimson it seemed to shimmer in the hazy morning light, all around him families were sharing final goodbyes. Regulus spotted a pair of boys that looked like brothers grudgingly hugging at the encouragement of their parents. Sirius hadn’t hugged him goodbye. At least, Regulus didn't think he had. The morning had passed in a hazy blur, from the moment Regulus woke up the world seemed to be moving in different colors. He had been dreading this moment all summer, and he supposed some part of him had just found it easier to disappear until it was all over. Sirius would understand, Regulus thought. He knew his big brother would. Beside him, the taller of the two boys boarded the train with a single look back. The younger one turned with a sniffle into his mother’s waiting arms. Regulus suddenly felt very alone. Without his brother's fire flickering beside him, he was just ice. A cold, frozen ice boy standing with cold, frozen parents. A family of statues masterfully carved.
Regulus moved forward almost subconsciously, stepping towards the train that now kept his brother inside, but his mother gripped his shoulder hard. Her nails dug through the wool of his coat and Regulus tried not to wince. He looked back at his mother. She had a pinched look on her face, disappointment that deepened to distaste as she glanced over Regulus and the tearful look that must be plain on his face. Regulus tried to control himself, to draw his expression into a blank, empty mask with high cheekbones and cherry lips. He had been practicing all summer with Sirius.
“Move your brain from your head all the way down to your chest, and bury it deep. Your body is nothing, just skin and bones and muscle. It doesn’t move unless you tell it to. Regulus, mate--” even then he had forced himself to lose his posh Black family accent. “Don't let them see inside.” his brother had said to him gently. Regulus had wanted to cry in frustration. He had been envious of how easily his brother had seemed to disappear, of how frustrated that had made their mother because his head was the only one she couldn't force her way inside. Now he tried to remember those words as he forced his face into a void, slightly bored expression, pushing his tears deep deep down.
“Your brother will be back in a few months, Regulus.” his mother said harshly. “Until then I expect you to continue your lessons with twice as much rigor, now that you do not have any…” she wrinkled her nose. “Distractions. You may soon need to take on more duty to the Black family, as you should be grateful for, so be sure that you are ready. You will not fail me, Regulus.”
Regulus heard the words unspoken. As your brother has. Regulus was not quite eleven, but he had seen the way Sirius had rejected every assignment, lesson or duty given to him by their family. He had seen the anger in his mothers eyes when he jutted out his lip with that fiery will of his and said no. Regulus always thought he felt more fear for Sirius than Sirius did for himself, convinced one day he would go too far and their mother would hurt him beyond repair, and Regulus would be alone. But he was alone now, he reminded himself. And Sirius wasn't here to face his mother for him this time.
“Yes ma’am.” he said quietly, carefully keeping any emotion from showing in his dark grey eyes.
“Louder, Regulus.” his mother barked. “You are a Black, not a mewling muggle.”
“Yes ma’am.” Regulus said again, meeting his mother’s stare this time. The bitterness stewing behind his mothers gaze made him want to curl up, to run away. He wondered if it was always there, had always been there, or if he had done something to make her look at him with such critical disgust.
“Straighten your posture, and stop standing in this filthy grime, it will dirty your shoes.” his mother snapped at last, turning and striding away towards the gate where several of his older cousins were waiting. His father gave him a quick glance and hurried after her. Behind him, the train gave one last whistle and slid gently out of the station, followed by a flurry of tearful parents and wailing children. Regulus watched stonily as the train carried his older brother away from him.
Though his parents insisted Hogwarts was full of muggle borns and fools, and that only Slytherins had any value that was keeping the school together, some part of him knew that his brother would find whatever happiness he was looking for over there. Whatever Regulus could never give him. He wondered if maybe he could ever find it too. As he watched the train disappear into the haze, Regulus tried to picture what it would be like to sit in it, to watch his family slowly fade away behind as the world unfolded before him. In one year, the thought. He would be sitting on that train with his brother, flying miles away. Some part of himself knew that he would count every second until he stepped behind those crimson doors next year. But now, he was standing alone in the station as ashes from spent cigarettes danced around his ankles, feeling the warmth slowly drain out of him. Regulus watched the smoke curl around his shoes and felt the ice grow inside him, until he was just an ice boy surrounded by silence and empty smoke. The family with the two boys had disappeared, all their warmth and tears and love. Just like his brother.
He looked back towards his mother, now deep in conversation with Druella Black, and quickly caught up to them, earning a disdainful snort from Lucius Malfoy and a leer from his cousin Bellatrix. His mother grabbed his arm to walk faster, and her nails dug again into his arm, until he could feel his flesh denting and bruising, but he couldn't really feel it anyway, because he was just an ice boy, and it was so very cold.