Party
“What are you doing here?”
Sirius’s harsh words bit through him like blades. He didn't dare look into his brother’s face and see the blatant disgust, the unmasked desire for him to leave. Regulus looked down, eyes darting to the corners of the room, looking for any escape.
“I--”
Regulus’s words failed him; the happiness that had been flowing through him only seconds ago had vanished in wisps of smoke under Sirius’s cold gaze. Remus Lupin stood a foot or so behind Sirius, watching Regulus without emotion.
“I invited him, mate” James broke in, placing a hand on Sirius’s arm. “It's alright”
“It’s not alright, James. You invited my brother and didn't tell me?”
“You didn't tell him?” Regulus asked, forgetting himself for a moment and staring at James in confusion. He had assumed Sirius knew, because James told Sirius everything.
“No.” Sirius bit out, glaring at Regulus like it was his fault. “You shouldn't have come, this is my house, not yours. This is the one place I don't have to see any Blacks.”
“There aren't any mirrors?” Regulus asked with mocking astonishment. His fear was gone, replaced with anger. “Don't pretend you aren't what you are, Sirius, you're every bit as a Black as I am.”
Sirius looked livid, his jaw clenched and knuckles white.
“There’s a difference, Regulus. I’m not a Slytherin, I’m not proud to be from a family of murders. I'm not Walburga’s little pet.” He spat, his pale gray eyes piercing holes into Regulus’s wall of indignation, the only thing holding him back from breaking down.
“I'm not her pet, Sirius” Regulus hissed. I'm just not dumb enough to tell her, he wanted to say, but he held his tongue. He couldn't know what Sirius would tell their mother when they went home in only a few weeks. Although he didn't think Sirius would try to put him in danger, the hate burning in his brother’s eyes made him hesitant to hand him weapons he could against him.
Sirius let out a strained laugh.
“Yes you are, you're just another filthy Slytherin, another fucking psychopath, and you're here to make me one too.”
“Sirius--” James tried to interrupt, but Sirius jerked out his hand and stopped him, staring at Regulus with undisguised rage.
He’s drunk. Regulus realized. His brother’s eyes were unfocused, his stance shifting slightly. Spittle flew from his mouth when he talked, and Regulus wasn't sure he even knew what he was saying. Regulus wasn't sober either, and he could feel his words pouring out of him, faster than he could stop them, his self-restraint loosened by the warmth of the firewhiskey.
“I grew up in the same house you did, you know” Regulus told him, his voice getting louder over the blaring music. “You think you're such a tortured victim, but I was there too. I saw everything too. You left me Sirius, you left me with her, for a full YEAR.”
Some of the anger dissipated from his brother’s face, replaced with wary confusion, but Regulus wasn't done.
“Do you know what she did to me? Now that you were gone and I was the only heir, now that I had nobody in the entire fucking WORLD to protect me? I alone carry the future of the House of Black and she would rather see me die than betray her like you did. You got out, Sirius, and you bought your freedom with my future. Don't you dare blame me for the life you forced me into.”
He was shouting now, but the music was too loud for anyone to hear him. Sirius heard, though, he could tell from the look on his brother’s face that not even firewhiskey could soften the blows of his words. Good. Regulus thought viciously. Self centered prick.
“Reg--” James tried again to cut in. Regulus glanced at him, surprised at the horrified look on Gryffindor's face. Was that look directed at him? No, Regulus realized, it was directed at Sirius. Behind him, Lupin was wearing the oddest expression; lips parted, eyes wide, as if he had just realized something he should have known all along. Regulus watched him jerk his head toward James, think the better of it, and close his mouth tightly. A pause dragged on between the two brothers, standing face to face for the first time in months, nearly the same height, leaves of the same tree, and both absolutely furious at the other.
“You don't care about me.” Sirius said finally, his words slightly slurred. “You let them torture me, you didn't let me escape.” Regulus thought he detected a glimmer of hurt in his brother’s expression, and he knew he was talking about last Christmas, when he had pulled Sirius from the window.
“I was a child.” Regulus bit out. “I was younger than you and I was scared.”
That was as close as Regulus would come to an apology; too many years worth of betrayals and cold distance lay between them, and no single word could repair it. Regulus was too tired to try.
“He does care about you, Sirius mate.”
James had spoken. He was staring at Sirius earnestly, Regulus could see on his face clear as day that he couldn't understand what was happening between the two brothers. He would never understand--James had never lived through the shithole Regulus and Sirius had, he had never experienced that kind of pain so he could never imagine administering it. In James’s life, Sirius and Regulus would hug and smile and everything would be okay; Regulus had never been so lucky.
“Don't, James” Regulus said, rolling his eyes and stepping back. His brother could believe whatever he wanted, drunken pisshead.
“He stayed by your side every day.” James continued, gripping Sirius’s arm. Regulus stopped suddenly.
“What?” Sirius asked. Don't, James, Regulus thought.
“When you got poisoned, and you were in a coma, Regulus didn't leave your bedside once. He didn't eat, didn't sleep, I thought he was going to die.”
“Shut up, James,” Regulus said harshly. He couldn't believe the Gryffindor boy, he had told him not to tell Sirius. Another weakness was out in the open, another chink of his armor removed. Sirius would take the open shot.
“Why would you do that?” Sirius asked, staring at Regulus with genuine confusion. Regulus laughed humorlessly, he thought it was obvious.
“I thought you were going to die.” He said simply. His brain was screaming at him to leave, but he couldn't move his feet.
“So?”
“You're the only family I have.”
Sirius didn't need an explanation, he understood. Walburga was not family, their spineless father was not family. It was Regulus and Sirius alone, and Regulus was beginning to realize his brother had thought it was just himself alone. Sirius said nothing, just nodded at Regulus. The rage had faded from his face. Regulus nodded back.
James was looking back and forth between them.
“Are you lot alright?”
Some of Regulus’s anger returned, and he faced James with a snarl.
“I'm fine. Next time, though, when I tell you not to mention something, don't ever mention it.”
James put his palms up.
“Regulus, mate…”
“There’s that Black family bite” Sirius said, a faint grin playing across his face. Such relief coursed through Regulus at his brother’s smile that he almost forgot to be angry.
“Shut up, Sirius” he snapped, but his words held no malice. He spun around and stalked away, into the middle of the room where a crowd of Ravenclaws were chatting, and he thought he saw Pandora. Fucking Gryffindors.
“You alright?” he asked Pandora, slinging an arm around her shoulder. She leaned her head against him and nodded.
“I'm having quite a bit of fun!” she said brightly. In her hand was a glass full of a strange, silvery substance. Regulus reached out to try it.
“Moonwater” Pandora told him as he took a careful sip. “Not very popular around here, but a few of my roommates brought some from home and I think it's wonderful.”
The liquid had an odd, sweet taste that seemed to seep right through his tongue like clouded air. He could feel it traveling down his throat, not quite cold but airly crisp in a way that made his mouth tingle. Almost immediately, his head began to feel rather floaty, an odd sense of giddiness coming over him.
“I--like it, I think.” Regulus said, making a slight face and handing it back to Pandora. “Bloody strange feeling.” He sort of wished the lightheaded feeling would go away, he didn't feel in control of his body, or what was going on around him. It felt dangerous.
“Barty is certainly having fun” Pandora said casually, nodding towards a dimly purple-lit corner. Regulus could just make out Barty entwined with a brunette in Gryffindor robes, her dark hair falling over his head and hiding their faces as they moved with some foreign rhythm. Regulus suddenly felt incredibly uncomfortable.
“Good for him” he choked out, looking pointedly in the other direction. It wasn't that he hadn't seen people kissing before, he grew up with Sirius, for starters, it was that it was Barty, and it was with a girl. He tried to imagine himself beneath the Gryffindor, tried to imagine his own hands buried in her long hair, and couldn't. He felt no desire, just faint discomfort at the thought of someone else’s hands all over him. He could feel Pandora shift slightly to look up at him.
“Yeah” she said pointedly. “Have you ever snogged anybody?”
Sometimes Regulus wished Pandora was a little less blunt.
“No,” he said quietly. “Have you?”
“Nope,” she replied. “I do wonder what it's like, though.”
“Yeah, me too.” Regulus lied. He didn't want to kiss a girl, he imagined it would feel like kissing Pandora, like a sister. He tried very very hard not to think of James right then, wondering if James had ever kissed a girl. “You could probably grab any of these Gryffindor lads and pull them into a corner” he advised Pandora, grinning. “A desperate bunch, they are.”
“Well I’m not desperate,” Pandora sniffed. Regulus raised his eyebrows and looked away, and Pandora smacked him.
“I’m kidding, I know your standards are through the roof, Pands” Regulus said, laughing.
“Not as high as yours,” Pandora shot back. “I don't think anyone is good enough for Regulus Black, I’m lucky I even secured a spot as a friend.”
“Someone is definitely good enough for me” Regulus said carelessly, the mixture of Moonwater and Firewhiskey making his tongue loose and his words slippery.
“What?” Pandora said sharply, taking a step back and looking at him. “Do you like someone?”
“No” Regulus said immediately, using every ounce of willpower he had ever learned to keep his face cold and emotionless. “I just meant in general.”
“I don't believe you,” Pandora said. She looked delighted. “You have a crush. This is amazing. You have to tell me.”
“I don't!” Regulus protested. He wasn't lying, he didn't have a crush. He didn't know why he said that, it was just that when Pandora said nobody was good enough for him, all he could think of was how he was nowhere good enough for anyone else. James had leapt to his mind, and the idea that he was too good for James was ridiculous. Regulus realized with a sinking feeling that whenever he imagined his future, getting married and having children with some distant wife, James Potter was always there somehow. Regulus didn't want to think about what that meant.
“I really don't, please drop it, Pandora.” Regulus begged, looking at Pandora honestly and trying to communicate what he couldn't say. She had to let this go; he couldn't break down those walls then and uncover whatever ugly truth was behind them.
“Okay” she said, not bothered and with a look of supreme understanding. “But we are talking about this later.”
We are most definitely not. Regulus thought, but he nodded. In front of him, Pandora’s eyes widened and she smiled broadly at someone behind him. He felt a warm hand on his shoulder, a touch he somehow recognized.
“Oy, Reg!” James said, wrapping two arms around him and tackling him like a child. Regulus stumbled and fell into a pair of crimson beanbags behind them, laughing despite himself and wrestling the other boy off of him. They rolled over and fought for a few moments, just like two boys that Regulus had watched from cold carriage windows in playgrounds his entire life, waiting and wishing to be one of them. Giggling and panting, James collapsed next to Regulus and slung his arm around him. Regulus felt impossibly, airly, happy, every worry that had been blackening him moments ago were ghosts of the past, unimaginable in the light of James’s smile. He grinned widely. In front of the two of them, Pandora had smiled with unbearable smugness, raised her eyebrows imperceptibly at Regulus, and returned to her conversation with her Ravenclaw friends.
“You’re bloody crazy” Regulus told James, resting his head gently on James’s shoulder. The other boy didn't move. Regulus suddenly loved firewhiskey and Moonwater and everything that made him brave enough to touch the Gryffindor boy, to do what he wanted and be everything he wanted to be; affectionate, open, charming. James.
“You love it.” James replied, grinning and staring into the middle of the room, where students danced closely with each other in maroon sparkling light. Regulus could smell the firewhiskey on his breath; he was close enough to feel the soft heat on his face when the other boy spoke.
“Wanker” Regulus muttered, and James roared with delight, every action exaggerated, every emotion heightened. Regulus fought the urge to bury his face in the other boy’s hair.
“Look.” James gasped suddenly, grabbing Regulus’s leg. Regulus stilled, sure that James was unaware that his hand was far above his knee, halfway up his thigh. His skin burned through his robes where James touched it; his mind flashed to Barty and the Gryffindor girl.
“What?”
“There” James whispered, pointing. “On the floor.”
Regulus squinted, then gasped.