A Few Hours of Freedom
Sirius was incredibly bored, more bored than he’d possibly ever been in his life. He found himself longing to even hear Professor Binns droning on about Goblin rebellions. And really, who gave a shit about goblins?
Being at home was an entirely different kind of drudgery, and this was a particularly bad summer. Although he’d never admit it, his parents had succeeded so far in making him a bit more cautious with them than he usually was. In other words, he was a bloody terrible Gryffindor and was definitely scared.
Unfortunately, that meant less sneaking out, less arguing, less breaking things, less fun. He was bored of boring girls, and he was so very bored of pain. In his still foggy mind, it wasn’t the terribly bad pain that bothered him. When it happened it was horrible, but it was at least something. No, it was the dull aches that were just always, always there, reminding him of where he was and driving him absolutely insane.
He was pretty sure he had a low-grade fever running almost constantly, although he wasn’t sure if it in itself was some sort of punishment, or just the product of the others. He didn’t care either way. It was there no matter what, like everything else, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
Despite the season, he was always cold, and his head always swam. His mind went in circle, after circle, after circle until he wanted to (and possibly did, but he couldn’t quite remember) bash his head against the walls.
He was doing his best to just wait it out and hope that the seemingly endless summer was actually capable of ending. He was trying to be good, but the smallest things seemed to set his parents off those days. Dropping his fork, staining his robes, looking at either of them. Sometimes it would be nothing at all, and Sirius slowly got the impression his father was reading his mind. In his unfocused state, his mental walls had crumbled and he didn’t have the energy to repair them. To make things worse, he’d been having more unwanted thoughts than ever.
Both asleep and awake, though there wasn’t much difference for him, there’d been dreams of wolves, and sweat, and fur that turned into equally soft hair halfway through. He passed it off as another symptom of the fever. Another thing to ignore.
Regulus was his one slight comfort. He was someone to talk to, someone who just might possibly be on his side when things really mattered. And, one day in late July, he truly made the miraculous happen. He got them outside.
Sirius had no idea how he’d done it. He’d come into Sirius’ room, said “you need fresh air” and an hour later they were walking through Muggle London with full permission from their parents. Sirius felt better as soon as they left the house. Some of the sickness must have truly been from spells lingering in Grimmauld Place.
“You’re fucking magical Regulus” Sirius laughed, staring at the sky to get the full force of the sun on his face. A sunny day in London was also magical.
Regulus rolled his eyes but smiled at the sun too. “Obviously. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black certainly doesn’t produce squibs.”
Sirius laughed louder than he had in months, possibly even years. Little Regulus could make jokes! It was an impossibly beautiful day.
“Where are we going?” He asked.
Regulus shrugged. “Wherever you want.” He said, showing Sirius a rather thick envelope full of muggle money.
“Where the fuck did you get that Reg?” Sirius asked in amazement.
“It’s not hard, they let you exchange it at Gringotts.”
Sirius started walking in an unknown and random direction. “Our parents are bloody hypocrites, with how much they let you do.”
“They don’t know about it. If you were nicer to Kreacher, they’d know about a lot less of your stuff too.”
Sirius just scoffed. He was proud really, knowing Regulus wasn’t completely loyal to those tyrants, but there was no way he could get away with having that much muggle money, no matter how many chocolates he fed Kreacher.
“You’re right though. They are hypocrites sometimes, when they know people won’t find out. They only care about how people see them, and us, not about what happens when people can’t see.” Regulus said it like it was the world’s darkest secret, all quiet and mumbly.
Why was Sirius’ father reading his damn mind then? It was obvious his parents cared about image, but surely they had to believe what they preached at least a little. It was all so very pointless otherwise. Sirius was still feeling a little faint.
“What do they do that goes so against the cult?” He snorted.
“None of us are perfect, Sirius. Even they aren’t perfect by their own standards. If you weren’t so loud about it all, they wouldn’t bloody care. You make them look bad.”
Sirius wanted to argue that they made themselves look absolutely nasty, and so did Regulus more often than not, but fighting wasn’t in line with the spirit of the day. So he just said, “You’re terrible at answering questions.” and pulled Regulus faster down the street.
They ate muggle ice cream, which was essentially the same as wizard ice cream but with limited flavors and no after effects. It was wonderfully calming to know that the delightful taste was the only thing you needed to expect.
Not even very far from Grimmauld Place, they found rows and rows of houses that were so much less grand but made Sirius ache for the hominess of them. They walked by and looked into the windows until they felt just a bit too creepy and continued on.
Regulus bought him a few muggle pens, and a little mirror that amazingly didn’t shout insults at him. Why couldn’t wizards just leave anything alone? He also offered to let Sirius keep them in his room, where he could apparently keep whatever he wanted. That would have been nice to know years ago, and could have saved many of Sirius’ possessions from tragic fates, but Sirius tried not to be resentful.
They also found a fruit market, and Sirius was delighted to find that Regulus still loved blackberries. They shared three containers full while they walked through the park and watched the muggles playing with their dogs.
They were on their way back (according to Regulus they were still expected for supper), taking a new route to make it last a little longer, when something in a window caught Sirius’ eye. It was simply beautiful, and he knew he needed to buy it. Even better, he knew his parents would never approve, once he was safely out of their reach again. No matter what Regulus said, he wasn’t going ‘stop being so loud’ about his disapproval of what they stood for. The fresh air had cleared his head a bit and reminded him of that. People needed to know he was different, or they would always assume he wasn’t.
“Reg, can I have the money?”
“Why?” He asked, glancing back to where Sirius had stopped.
“I want something.”
“I told you I’ll buy you what you want today.”
Sirius sighed. It was strange to see Regulus sweet. “You can’t know what it is.”
Regulus rolled his eyes, but he handed over the money anyway. “I’m just going to watch anyway you know. You’re not technically allowed out of my sight.” He admitted.
“Just pretend you didn’t, and try to think of other things to tattle on me for instead.”
“Fine.”
True to his word, when Sirius rejoined him, Regulus made no comments on the strangeness of the newest purchase. He just smirked a little and told Sirius he’d put it in his room with everything else. He was a good brother, and he’d given Sirius an actual good day. Sirius was grateful for it forever, even before he realized how much Regulus had had to do to buy him even just those few hours of freedom.