Sirius III & Regulus I
The day that was marked out on Sirius’ calender for school shopping was, as tradition, also the same as the rest of the family. Last year - and he remembered the entire ordeal with a grimace, having been left to the tender mercies of the combined might of Narcissa and Bellatrix - his brother and cousin had spent the day in their own respective timetables, none so different from the rest of the year. Only Sirius had had his summer interrupted, which, as he’d learnt from Marlene Mckinnon who took great delight in recounting her days as a youth trailing after her brothers, was not entirely… normal.
Not that he mentioned it. To anyone.
As it was, shopping with his cousins was much more enjoyable. Both Regulus and Ursa had already done their customary first-year shopping upon the arrival of their letters, which cut the time spent in his elder cousins’ presence down significantly. Ursa also drew the attention of Narcissa’s indomitable precision, which while Sirius felt bad about throwing his favourite cousin to the proverbial dogs, he also knew that the girl found her sister exasperating, at worst.
How she did so remained a mystery to both Black boys. “Perhaps it’s just experience, Sirius,” Regulus had reasoned, once.
“How many afternoons have we been forced to sit through with her?” Sirius had grumbled back. “If we haven’t gained some immunity by now, I doubt we ever will.”
And it had held true, even years later. It had given Sirius a great deal of respect for his younger cousin.
So their early morning was spent parsing through the potions’ stores in preparation for Narcissa’s potions NEWT. Sirius could hardly imagine that so many variations of a singular item could exist, nevermind that any of them held enough importance to change the entire purpose of a potion. Little green pipes of blue aconite were all separated and labelled, some dipping where the weight of their petals bowed them over; Britain, USSR, Spain. Half of the stores’ plants were kept alive only by the strength of the shopkeepers iterafolero charm, a creeping mold already beginning along the stem of Angel’s Trumpet.
Sirius offhandedly mentioned it to Ursa, who frowned. “Mold doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Well…” And the two of them watched the shopkeep’s assistant timidly place her sister’s orders into a brown bag, shivering when the keen eye of her sister’s perfectionism fell upon her shaking hands. “I’m sure Cissa knows.”
As the day began to slip into early noon, it was quickly decided that it was best to get the measuring of their Hogwarts’ robes done before they stopped for any sort of break. Sirius had never before resented going first, but in this case, he found himself warily stepping on to the shop-witch’s stool, eyeing the snapping tape with some hestitance. “Oh, do be mature, Sirius. It’s only a tape.” Narcissa scolded, and that was that. His life was signed away by his own blood, his closest family made to watch his torment, so he screwed his eyes shut and-
“All done.” Chirped the young witch. She was pretty - a blonde girl with the same striking bone structure that Sirius saw so often in purebloods - and the bright curve of her smile gave her youth that refused even Narcissa. It did not save her from the sharpness of Narcissa’s gaze.
“Thanks,” Sirius offered her in lieu of his cousin’s cold reception.
“There’s no need to thank the help, Sirius. And it’s thank you, not thanks,” Narcissa reprimanded sharply. A sigh loosed from her chest. “It’s been only a year, what have those plebian’s been teaching you?”
By noon, they had settled into a small booth in a popular restaurant off the side to Diagon Alley. With their current company, there was little doubt that the shops they had frequented had the hallmark pureblood stamp of approval. His cousin ushered them far from any lesser shops before they could so much as read the sign; if the act of existing was enough for Narcissa to have a stroke, Sirius very much would like to see her eat in a similar establishment.
A fine lunch, not at all dissimilar to his childhood fare but so far gone from his usual staple at Hogwarts that it made his stomach lurch, was placed in front of him. A platter of cheese cubes and cured meats came as a free accompaniment. Narcissa feasted on a thick bowl of spiced carrot and lentil soup, nimbly dipping slices of buttered wheaten every other minute. Ursa’s plate was speared duck in a dark sauce, and a side salad containing fresh tomatoes, lush lettuce, and crushed nuts. Both Regulus and Sirius had a plate of a fine-cut of sirloin, the juices sprinting from the interior when they split it down the center. Roasted carrots, parsnip, and silver-spooned brussel sprouts, drizzled in a steaming gravy acted as only supporting actors to the main event, but they were just as good as everything else.
Frankly, it all made Sirius, who had sustained himself on Hogwarts' day-to-day food for nearly half the year, a bit nauseous. Narcissa seemed to be in a sympathetic mood, as she barely nagged him to sit straight when he slouched. “It’s just not the same at Hogwarts, is it?” She sighed. “Alas, we make do.”
“Hogwarts wouldn’t serve… substandard food, would they?” His little brother wrinkled his nose, a parody act of the cousin in front of them, or perhaps a genuine reaction. Sirius had spent so little time with those he’d grown up with that it worried him; already, they were equipped with functional wands, casting spells and sharing knowledge that he wasn’t privy to. He wondered if there was more he missed.
Before Sirius could jump to defend what had easily become his most beloved home, Narcissa had stolen any chance of it. “To be frank, there are times that I believe venturing into Hogsmeade for a meal might be better than enduring what they give us. They try, of course, but feeding so many children requires cutting corners, especially for the duration of the school year.”
“Do the muggle-borns like it?” His younger cousin piped up. Her voice was a small, tinny thing against the rock wall of Narcissa. But no refutation came, for everybody knew that Ursa was her favorite.
“I suppose compared to what they-”
“Yes,” Sirius interjected, stubbornly ignoring the glacial glare. He graced his two favorite family members with a smile. “Remus Lupin - and he’s a half-blood, y’know - he says that it’s better than any cooking his mother makes. Even James Potter thinks it’s good.”
“But do you?”
Sirius squirmed beneath her harsh questioning. “It’s… alright.”
“Because you are a member of the House of Black, and we only eat as due to our station. Potter is a pureblood house, but do you see them in the Sacred Twenty-Eight? Not to mention, half-bloods are only a step up from mudbloods, Sirius, you know this. A half-blood only comes about when a mudblood continues their ancestor's nefarious actions, or when a pureblood loses all sense.” She took a gentle sip of soup. “And stop being improper. You are to be Lord, one day, you mustn’t run about saying such colloquial phrases such as y’know.”
An uncomfortable silence enraptured the table, as all occupants became solely focused on their food. It was not an unusual thing. Many a dinner in their household was with scolding, and many a dinner was familiar with the kind of silence that spoke of the strong hand of discipline, and the fear of rearing it again. But he had become unused to it, and the unkindness that was his family. He had become unused to many things, it seemed.
“I imagine you wouldn’t hear much of that in Slytherin,” Ursa remarked, not unkindly. But it stung nonetheless; Sirius had known that he had failed, stepping up upon that stool, the moment it had been placed on his head, whispering, knowing, unraveling the very core of his being. You can rise above it all; and yet, his tie was gold and red. The ambition that ought to be his paradise had become his destitution. “But perhaps I mightn’t ever know. After all, Mother believes it equally capable for me to be Ravenclaw.”
“You study enough, I imagine. It’s a respectable house - better than Hufflepuff, at any rate - though you would wield less power there than if you were in Slytherin. After all, it is where Bellatrix has made our domain.” Narcissa concluded. Her eyes shone with a strange light. “But if Regulus were to… yes, perhaps, Ursa, it may be better for you to build your own kingdom elsewhere.”
“I don’t want to be alone,” Regulus murmured lowly. Dark eyes flicked between the two female forms, soft and sad, one much more calculating than the other.
A queer fondness had taken his cousin today, for she neither swatted him nor scolded him. “Do not worry, cousin.” Narcissa soothed. “I shall be there this year, and Ursa, I am sure, would be more than willing to lend a hand in any trouble you face. Isn’t that right, sister?”
“Of course!” Ursa assured Regulus with a grin.
“And what am I, chopped liver?” Sirius grumbled.
“We all have our parts to play.” Narcissa smiled. There was little warmth in it, or at least, none that was directed at him. Every day they spent in each other’s company, it seemed, drained any further fondness from their relationship. “You, my dear cousin, may be best to keep to your own track.”
Flourish and Blotts was a staple of every wizard's education. Perhaps his older family members, those exempt from the pressures of Hogwart’s education, preferred other locations that had a significantly more flexible moral (and legal) compass, but there was no denial in the inherent necessity that the bookstore had integrated itself with. But any magic it might have held on Sirius was lost upon him when Narcissa stepped into it with all the grandeur of a Black, and he saw how every humble attachment was lost upon her.
“Accompany Sirius, Regulus,” Narcissa ordered. “None of that messing around now. You are in public. Act like it. With me, sister.”
A marching band could not gain the same synchronicity that his cousin commanded. But Sirius would rather parse through the crowds with Regulus than with Narcissa; his little brother could just as easily waive any of his mischief as he would be convinced to participate in it, if the mood was right. Though Sirius doubted, after that disastrous lunch, his brother could be persuaded to be more than a reluctant lookout.
After all, if his luck held true, he may find some joy in this venture after all. He only hoped it wouldn’t be spoiled.
“What are you looking for, Sirius? Second-year books are right here.” Regulus rolled his eyes, exasperated with his behavior. His brother rarely wasn’t.
“Be quiet, Regulus,” Sirius muttered under his breath. No man had yet to discover where Narcissa’s hearing range ended, nor where it began. “And I’m not looking for books, don’t worry, I’ll leave that to you and Ursa.”
The crowds were thick, today. Very often had he heard the complaint aired that they ought to choose the day after the letter was sent, but it came too little too late; rearranging so many schedules were not done lazily. Attempting to manage within households was a herculean task in itself. With the addition of attempting to balance others, alongside the tentative truces’ that had been forced upon several of them, keeping it to a day marked easily the same on every calendar kept feuds and scuffles to a minimum. Yet, as his vision became a blur of bouncing reds, browns, blondes, and black, the confounding nature of the sight only equal to the roar of chatter, he found himself more agreeable to their opinion.
Come on, he thought, at least one of them should be here. And it was not that he would protest the trip if they weren’t - Grandfather, who grew more reluctant with passing months to relinquish him into his mother’s tender care, also cared little for his second cousins and their household; they had only a handful of hours as a trio reunited - but he had hoped, perhaps, that he may experience a double dose of happiness -
“Sirius Black, as I live and breathe!”
Stolen from his chest, he gasped for air as his spine hit the edge of the towering bookshelves. The month away had forgotten the rambunctious nature of his friends compared to the restrained unemotive reactions of his blood. But even as his head ricocheted off the wood to clank hard into the forehead of a bundle of black-haired excitement, his smile was too wide and his heart too happy to fathom that any sort of pain might be a hindrance. “Be careful James-”
“I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry!” James Potter retreated as quickly as he came. Over his best friend's shoulder, he could make out the smiling visages of his parents; Fleamont, a thin, gangly man with a wide, fond smile, was carrying a set of second-year books, but Euphemia was turned to the general bookshelves, muttering something unintelligible under her breath as she parsed reading material.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Sirius said, breathlessly. “I- I- we got so caught up, with - well, does it matter? I thought I’d missed you!”
It didn’t quite feel real. The absence of finery in his casual clothes, the slight scent of eucalyptus, the warmth that he so willingly emitted; James Potter remained an enigma, untouched by the world that had birthed Sirius, yet entirely understanding of the few fine strings that linked them. He remained purified in spite of them, working in tandem with two melodies that would never match. Even Andromeda, smart, cunning, caring Andromeda, had never struck that same chord in all her seventeen years of living.
James was absent of his worries; in another world, Sirius might resent his innocence, but reality reasserted itself quickly. His ignorance was a balm when he even had to think about the words he shared with his own blood brother. “You should just ask your parents to come over, y’know. Mum and Dad wouldn’t mind. Would you, Mum?”
“Yes, dear?”
But Euphemia did not stir where she was crouched. Only Fleamont gave a half-hearted shrug, burdened by his load as he was. Sirius doubted that either of them had overlooked the fact that two scion of House Black were willingly conversing with their son: Euphemia had been, before her retirement, an auror in the war against Grindelwald, and while Fleamont had been granted all the protection of a scholarly pureblood heir, his demeanor was better suited for Slytherin than Ravenclaw, sharp and edged as he so pretended not to be.
They were tools willingly blunted. Sirius wondered how that had come about - even Aunt Cassiopeia, hunched and ailing as she currently was, would surely drop dead before she became blunt or ignorant. The thought of it sent a trickle of fear down his spine.
“Ugh.” James rolled his eyes, slinging an arm around his shoulders. He’d grown only some over the summer, but it was enough to make an attempt to perch on his best friend. “We’ve been here for nearly an hour, didja know that? I think all of them are the same, basically, but she says they aren’t. You wouldn’t know the difference between a needle and a match, James! But I do so - did she not see my Transfiguration grade? Half of those aren’t even mine but she keeps - and who is this?”
Regulus was wary, wan almost as he processed the storm that was James Potter, but he seemed trapped between bolstering his strength and curling in on himself. It was a look he’d held before when they’d been caught red-handed by either of their parents. Sirius had always taken the stand, then; more than once, the words I forced him to do it, or wrong place, wrong time, eh, Reggie had become a staple of his excuses in his home. Very rarely was it any attempt of personal defense, and he was happy to have it that way.
But never had he been the cause of it. He chanced a look at James, who was neither annoyed nor irritated, but pleasantly surprised. That the collision of his two worlds would cause friction, he’d known; but he’d never wanted it to be upon his brother as his parents did. He’ll have to grow up sometime, Narcissa had taken to saying, about all or none of them. But it had been said, and he was eleven, now.
“Reg, this is James Potter. He’s my bes- my friend at Hogwarts.” Sirius introduced his brother first, meeting his eye. Don’t worry, he wanted to say, but he knew better than to voice his thoughts to his solemn brother, who would sooner run away than face any sort of emotion. “James, this is Regulus Arcturus Black. My baby brother, next-in-line if I kick it, and resident bookworm.”
“Huh,” James said, more perturbed than intrigued. “I didn’t think he’d look like you.”
“We have different eye colors.”
“Well, yeah, but it’s hard to tell from over here. To be honest, it’s like looking at you a year ago. Maybe now, even.” A cheeky grin illuminated his face. A hand ruffled his hair, disrupting it from its elegant look that his father had pained herself to teach him. “Honestly, not even an inch, Sirius?”
“Just because your dad’s a giant doesn’t mean that mine is,” he grumbled, ignoring the fact that he’d likely never grow above five foot eight. The only Black to grow to six foot had been Callidora, who Sirius had met once on a chance meeting and had died firmly entrenched in the Longbottom family.
And James only smiled, because he was likely thinking of how tall he’d grow to be, already as lanky as his father before him, and how much more he’d lord it over Sirius’ head, not how he’d be doomed to a singular height due to the lack of new blood in his family and his estranged dead cousin who he’d met once, only learning the vaguest of information by picking gold from dirt from his mother’s long-winded rants. James thought a lot of things, many of them brilliant, and Sirius, one day, would like to share-
“You need to go.” Ursa appeared, a harried look in her eyes. She flickered between James and Sirius, and he braced for something, but she only pressured them further. “You need to go, Po- preferably before my sister catches you.”
“It’s only been five minutes!” Sirius protested.
He’s pinned beneath a dead-pan look that convinces him to move, setting his blood alight with fear. It’s a strange look, one given only to those best acquainted with it; that is to say, it’s not out of place on his aunt’s face or his cousins, nor is it a stranger to his parents, and one memorable occasion, exceptionally acquainted with his brother. He himself has never achieved it. He’d wondered over it, but his Sorting, and then the after (and knowing that-), had solved that issue without the need for an internal crisis.
“It’s been lovely to see you James, really, but, um,” he, to his great shame, stumbled over his words. What does he say to his first friend, i lied to my family saying that you all meant nothing and I was using you for status, and now they’ll know i’m lying?
“You need to go.” Ursa interrupted. “You mean well, but you need to go.”
Regulus, unraveling from the cocoon he had wrapped himself in, awoke. Compared to the three of them, he was a weak breeze, but there was no mistaking the way he captured his friend’s sole attention. “You need to go, James.”
And, so he does, but not without -
“I’ll see you on the train, Sirius,” he commanded, two hands on his shoulders, before he returned to his parents, as though anything else would be tantamount to betrayal. Sirius, so far from the concept, could hardly fathom it, even under the worst punishment dealt.
“Of course.” Sirius agreed fiercely.
-and that ended it. No more to build on there. Ursa gently took his arm, leading him back to the bookshelf as they performed the act of palming through books. When his cousin returned to find them all slightly off-kilter; Ursa, razor-sharp and smiling in a room of frowns, Sirius, quieter and gentler, testing which floorboard would creak and Regulus, hesitant to speak, each word mulled over and discarded, a new passage written into their ledgers by another hand- well.
When his cousin returned to find them all slightly off-kilter, she only scoffed. “Truly, Sirius?”
And they didn’t flinch, because they knew better, but his heart jumped to his throat and he could see the tightening of the skin around Regulus’ blank stare, the threat of a guilty look in every crevice.
“It’s been more than ten minutes. How long does it take you to find a handful of books?” She shuffled them out of her way, irritation faintly disguised by haughtiness, blonde hair flicking as sorted through the unsorted nature of the bookshop.
They shared a look behind her back and said nothing.
Regulus was eleven and scared the first time he went to Hogwarts.
The morning had been spent listening to their parent's bicker. It had been muffled by the walls; the time had passed from when they held the pretense of happily married with silencing charms, though it was on Sirius’ word that he believed it. Regulus’ parents had always been argumentative and tempered, more reluctant partners than parents, more cousins than husband-and-wife. Aries had been a demand, a response, a reaction of their mothers as Druella’s children shone and shone.
What little affection remained between them could hardly fill a cup. Regulus’ aunt and uncle, at the very least, had the haunting reminder of their lost love in three perfect children; but what does his mother have, besides a little boy who stares and cries? Even Regulus, however much he wants to do more, cannot offer her more than a consolation in the form of a natural cunning and hard-earned genius.
Regulus doesn’t resent his little brother, but he might, perhaps, see him as his father see’s his mother: annoying, irritating, incapable of anything worth more than a thimble.
But beyond his own family troubles, and the fact that he no longer understood his brother, once a book he could read without translation, there lingered the thought of returning to a household that no longer answered when he called. His father gave his little attention to his brother, and his mother retreated as the waves, returning to herself before Aries in fits. In Kreacher, old, aging Kreacher who had nearly earned himself a place on the wall last summer, he had a companion; in his cousins, he had a fellow soldier, all understanding the path he would walk. But nine months had changed his mother from bold to reluctant, his beloved brother from open to closed.
When the door swung closed and his father appeared, a cigarette falling from his lips, the two of them stood to attention. His grim grey gaze analyzed both of them critically. Even absent of his mother’s years rearing them, his father was a Black, and nit-picking faults in people was a natural instinct born and bred into them. “Fix your cuffs, Sirius.” He ordered, then- “Excellent, Regulus. We shan’t have the house of Black looking shabby, this year.”
“I assume Mother isn’t coming, then?” Sirius drawled, but the question of forgiveness lingered between the syllables.
“Your mother.” Orion began. “Is a very complicated creature, but not the one who decides your fate, Sirius.”
She loves you, he doesn’t say.
I love you, he doesn’t say.
Regulus was the fool for believing it was something he was capable of, the fool for thinking it possible, the fool for knowing that he wouldn’t and hoping he would anyway. A second-hand love, implied in what is given to his brother, would satiate him; but he receives only the northern wind.
The trip through the Floo occurs as always since that fateful day they exited St Mungos, the taste of iron and antiseptic burning his nose. His father hands them each measured pinches of gleaming green powder, a galaxy of different hues hidden in his palm, and waited, lips pinched into a developing frown. Regulus goes first, as always, and so the last stages of their queer ritual remained a secret to him, though Sirius had assured him that it was no different from his own exit.
Except, this time, he mouthed the words, “Platform Nine and Three Quarters,” without no intention of returning. Its sequel would remain a secret until his own child came of age, so far in the future, it’s as clear as murky, depthless water.
His father’s heavy hand was heavy on his shoulders. Both his brother and father had already stepped out onto the crisscrossing pavement of the train station, Regulus trapped by his own roundabout thoughts. Something he wanted to be kin to pride glinted in his pale, grey eyes. “You do us proud, Regulus.”
She loves you, he doesn’t say.
I love you, he doesn’t say.
“Thank you, Father,” Regulus said but did not smile.
He stepped onto the Hogwarts Express; his brother parted from him the moment the great glistening red hulk of metal came into sight, with no more than a whisper of a promise that he daren’t utter while the Platform’s floor was empty of all but pureblood ears. Both his aunt and uncle had long bidden their children goodbye, publicly unfazed as their last and youngest child entered the throes of the adult world. Regulus turned back, ever curious; and they were talking low and solemn to his father, who had yet to make his quick escape, as they’d done the year prior.
His chest tightened. Already, the world changed beyond his sight; but what was to be done if he refused to board, other than the shame that he would bring to their house, the oddness that he would self-inflict himself with? There would be no more tutors or dinners, no more talk of Coming-Of-Age gala’s and yule rites. It would be him, alone, in a house with his despondent, rage-fulled mother and dim-witted brother, silently seeking out a past that no longer existed.
His confidence bolstered by his admission, he turned back and went to Hogwarts.