Chapter Text
Regulus has a knife collection, carefully pilfered from the kitchen in the dead of night, stored safely away in the loose floorboard beneath his bed.
He dreams in shards of glass and splintered thoughts, like loose string on a windy day; he wakes with salt on his tongue from imagined water filling his lungs; he can feel the gaps in his memory like words on the tip of his tongue, just out of grasp; he ignores the sharp curl of dread in his stomach when he hears the soft pad of his mother’s footsteps.
At night, when the sounds of shouting and crashes of shattering objects filters up the stairs and grows too loud for him to ignore, he crawls across the floor, pries open his hiding spot with shaking fingers, clutches at the sharpest blade he has, and waits.
September, 1972 - Year 1
Three weeks into the start of term, Regulus gets cornered by a group of Slytherins in the hallway outside the boys’ bathroom. They are all acting holier-than-thou, taunting him for landing in Gryffindor, and Sirius warned him this could happen, Regulus has prepared for this, and he raises his wand. He uses levitating jinxes and knockback jinxes and chases three of them off before he gets hit with a stinging hex. It stuns him momentarily, the pain blinding and bright, and the Slytherin who stayed laughs nastily in his face. “Watch out, Black,” he says with a rather gruesome smile. “You’re rather useless without your brother to protect you, aren’t you?”
Regulus hits him with a stunner and then walks himself to the Hospital Wing.
“Ah,” Madame Pomfrey says when she catches sight of him. “Stinging hex?”
He nods.
“Don’t you worry, I can fix that up for you quick.” She rummages around in a cabinet before emerging with a jar of ointment, which she offers to him. “This should bring down the swelling.”
“Thank you,” he says, taking the jar.
Madame Pomfrey scrutinizes him as he applies the balm. “If I ask, will you tell me what happened?”
Regulus shrugs. “An ambush. Some Slytherins aren’t very happy with my sorting.”
Madame Pomfrey hums. “Gryffindor, correct? Like your brother?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have their names?”
“I didn’t recognize them,” Regulus tells her. They weren’t any of Narcissa’s friends, that’s for sure. “But I handled it.”
She raises her eyebrows. “And they’re alright?”
“Fine,” he says, and then adds, “besides a bruised ego.”
Madame Pomfrey nods, once, succinct, and a smile flashes over her face, so quick Regulus might’ve imagined it. “Good.”
December, 1972 - Year 1
When they go home for the winter holidays, the house is absolutely, terrifyingly, silent. Kreacher collects them from the train station. “Mistress and Master Black is away on most important business,” he tells them. “Master Regulus and Master Sirius must not leave the house.”
Regulus spends the entire month with his shoulders so tense he thinks the knots might become permanent. It’s the paranoia, the constant vigilance of it all. He jumps every time the stairs creak. He sleeps with a knife under his pillow, and nearly stabs Sirius with it when he sneaks into Regulus’s room one night.
“The hell, Reggie?” Sirius hisses.
“Sorry, sorry,” Regulus whispers. “Don’t call me that. Why are you here?”
Sirius doesn’t respond for a minute. When he does, it’s nearly inaudible. “It’s too quiet,” he says.
Regulus almost laughs. “Yeah. Never thought I’d miss the shouting.” He scoots over, and Sirius lays down next to him.
It’s still far too quiet, almost haunting, eerie, the calm before the storm. But it’s better once he can hear Sirius breathing.
Christmas is a detestable affair, but Regulus manages to convince Kreacher to procure some of his favorite biscuits. On New Year’s Eve, Sirius manages to floo James for a few minutes through the fireplace while Regulus stands guard to make sure Kreacher doesn’t discover them.
When they step back into the train platform in January, Regulus feels like he can breathe again.
September, 1973 - Year 2
On the second day after term starts back up, he finds his way to the astronomy tower and he stands there, nails digging into his palms. His mind is a great spiral staircase he cannot climb. He is not brave.
On the third day, he finds Madame Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing and asks if she can teach him Healing.
She looks at him curiously, pausing from restocking vials of potions in the cupboard. “Am I allowed to ask why you’d like to learn?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
She appraises him for a moment, maybe looking for bruises or lacerations, maybe trying to see if he’s favoring one leg over the other or nursing an injured shoulder. Nice gesture, but it’s pointless. She won’t find anything.
“Do you get squeamish at all around blood?” she asks.
Ha.
“No,” he replies. This, he is sure of.
After another moment, she nods succinctly. “Wednesday afternoons, after your classes are finished. How does that work for you?”
Regulus is not brave, but maybe he’d like to be. “Perfectly,” he says.
September, 1974 - Year 3
“You’re going to try out for the Quidditch team this year, right mate?” James asks him one morning at breakfast.
Regulus tilts his head; he hadn’t really thought about it. “Maybe.”
“C’mon, Reggie, it’ll be fun,” Sirius urges. “Then I won’t be the only one James drags out of bed at five-in-the-bloody-morning.”
“Oi,” James slaps Sirius upside the head. “We have to practice some time, don’t we?”
“Sure,” Sirius agrees. “ After the sun rises.”
James turns back to Regulus. “So? You’re bloody brilliant at flying, I saw last year.”
He loves flying. The wind rushing against his face, sweeping his robes back; the swooping of his stomach when he dives; the rush of exhilaration when he perfectly executes a spinning maneuver.
But it—it’s complicated. For a multitude of reasons.
“Mother will skin me alive if she finds out,” Regulus says.
“No, she won’t,” Sirius dismisses, slathering an obscene amount of jam on a piece of toast before sliding it over to a moon-weary Remus, who takes it thankfully. “She’ll just break your wrist again.”
James chokes on his eggs. “ Again? ”
“It was only sprained,” Regulus says.
But Sirius shakes his head. “Not talking about summer.”
“Then when?”
“You were nine, don’t you remember?”
Regulus frowns. He doesn’t. “Must’ve blocked it out, I guess.”
“Wait,” James interjects. “You’re serious?”
“Always,” Sirius grins.
“Shut up,” James tells him. “She actually broke your bones?”
Oh. Regulus exchanges a look with Sirius. This is going to become a thing, isn’t it?
“She’s done a lot worse than that, mate,” Sirius says.
Remus watches on silently, like he already knows. Peter looks impassive. James looks utterly horrified. “Like what?” he asks.
“She used a Cutting Curse on Sirius two summers ago,” Regulus says, “and the bleeding wouldn’t stop.” He still dreams of it, sometimes. Pomfrey always gives him a look when his hands start shaking. She knows too much. He hates it.
James stares at him, eyes wide. “What happened?”
Sirius snorts, as if anything about this is humorous. “Well, I lived, didn’t I?”
“But—but why would she…?”
Sirius forces a smile. “I have a tendency to get on her nerves.”
“It was because of me,” Regulus corrects. “She was…upset, about my Sorting. Took it out on both of us, but mostly Sirius.”
James is silent for a moment. “This is wrong,” he says fervently. “This—that isn’t right.”
“This is Pureblood society,” Sirius says.
“Come live with me,” James says.
They stare at him incredulously. “What?” Sirius asks.
“Come live with me,” James repeats. “My parents already love you to death.”
“Jamie,” Sirius says. “I can’t do that.”
Regulus exchanges a look with Remus, who looks just as wary as him . Peter continues to watch the exchange like a tennis match.
“Why not?” James demands. “Regulus can come too, my parents can break you out if we need to—“
“Drop it,” Sirius snaps. “We can’t, okay? You can’t always save the day.”
“If this is you worrying about being a burden or something—“
Sirius slams his fists down on the table loud enough to garner looks from the people further down the table, pushes himself to his feet, and stalks off toward the exit.
James blows out a breath, looking quite worried. He turns to Regulus. “Why won’t he listen to me?“
“It’s not as simple as leaving,” Regulus says.
“Explain it, then,” Remus speaks up, meeting Regulus’s eyes, steely.
He sighs. “You’re right, we could run, right now. We could hide out at your house, maybe, or find some quiet Muggle neighborhood to hunker down in, but in a week, they’d hunt us down and drag us back. We’re the Blacks, for Merlin’s sake. They’ve got half of wizarding society eating out the palm of their hands.”
“There has to be some way—“
“James,” Regulus interrupts. “My brother is the heir. I’m the spare. They can’t lose both of us. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
James’s face falls when the realization hits. “He’d have to leave you behind,” he says, closing his eyes. “And he’d never do that.”
Finally. Regulus drops his gaze. “He’s just—he’s just gotta hold on until he’s of age. Then nobody will be able to stop him.”
James sets his jaw, eyes fixed on the spot where Sirius had been sitting. “I’m gonna go talk to him,” he says decisively, and marches off before they can stop him.
Regulus looks pointedly at Remus. “Best you’d better be there too, for damage control.”
Remus seems to agree, and hurries after James, leaving Peter and Regulus sitting with half-finished toast and the remnants of eggs and sausage.
Peter sets his fork down. “So,” he says, “what’s the verdict on joining the quidditch team, then? Because you are bloody good.”
Regulus huffs a laugh before he can stop himself. “We’ll see.”
February, 1974 - Year 2
“What is the difference between Ferula and Brackium Emendo ?”
“ Ferula bandages, Brackium Emendo heals.”
“What about Episkey ?”
“A spell only for minor injuries,” Regulus answers.
“And why would one use Murtlap Essence?”
“To soothe minor cuts and abrasions.”
“Very good,” Poppy tells him. “But you already knew all this, of course.”
Regulus doesn’t dispute her claim.
“What is it,” Poppy says, “that you hope to gain from this?”
“From what?” Regulus asks, hoping to evade.
She frowns at him. “Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t befit you.”
He sighs. Shrugs, even though it seems to go against all of his well-bred instincts. “I don’t know.”
“Would you like to be a Healer one day?”
Definitely not. “I don’t know.”
“What do you want then, Mister Black?” Poppy presses.
He wants to be brave. He wants to—he wants—
“I want to not be useless,” Regulus says. The words crack down the middle, opening up into an abyss, wide and gaping, and it’s too much, he’s never bared this much of himself before. “I want—I can’t be useless.”
Poppy holds his gaze for a moment. Then she says, “Next Wednesday still works well for you?”
He nods.
“I expect a foot of parchment detailing the mechanics of the circulatory system,” she tells him. “Don’t dawdle, now.”
He’s got one foot out the door when she calls him back.
“And Regulus?”
He turns around.
She offers him a smile. “You’d make a fine healer one day. If you wanted.”
July, 1975 - Summer After Year 3
“James invited me to his house,” Sirius says at dinner. The clink of silverware on plates stops almost immediately. Regulus watches the way he seems to brace himself before continuing. “I’m going.”
Ah. The forward approach. Regulus braces himself too; this usually doesn’t end well.
“The Potters,” Walburga starts with a curled lip, “are blood traitors. I will not have you filthying our image by consorting with—“
“It’s one day, Mother,” Sirius says. “It’s just James, nobody else will be there. And they’re pure-bloods, aren’t they?”
“Barely,” Orion snarls.
Sirius visibly sets his jaw. “He asked me to visit next week. I’m going.” He picks up his fork once more and resumes eating the veal on his plate.
There is a moment of complete silence. Then Walburga picks up her fork as well. Orion follows suit. Regulus relaxes his shoulders.
“Regulus could come with me,” Sirius says after a moment.
Walburga looks him evenly in the eyes and says, firmly, “No.”
Sirius isn’t always an idiot. He doesn’t argue any further.
***
Once Sirius leaves, Walburga is a barely-restrained well of fury. Regulus tries his best to avoid her, but confrontation is inevitable, even in this monster of a house. He crosses paths with her on his way to the library.
“What do you know?” she hisses at him.
“What?” he asks, confused; this is his first mistake.
“Sirius,” she snaps, enraged. “He’s up to something. He wants to destroy us. What do you know? ”
“Nothing,” he says, and even though he is telling the truth, this is his second mistake. “I don’t know anything, I swear.”
Wordlessly, she grabs ahold of the porcelain vase seated on the table next to her—a gift from her mother in France—and hurls it at his head. He dodges, barely, and the porcelain shatters on the wall behind him, raining onto the floor like snowdrops, crystalline and sharp. The sound echoes in his ears.
Immediately after, Walburga sags, as if the act of violence has taken all the rage out of her, drained her dry till her veins no longer flowed so vibrantly red. “Don’t lie to me again,” she says. “Pick it up.”
Regulus crouches down, reaching for one of the pieces with his bare hand. His fingers are so pale, his skin practically translucent. He can see the blood in his veins. He wonders if it’s as vivid as hers.
“Not you,” she snaps.
He looks up, hand frozen millimeters away from a broken shard. She could use Reparo, he knows. Why would she refuse to do so, if not to punish him?
“Kreacher!” she calls, and the elf appears before her. “Pick that up,” she says, pointing at the mess on the tiled floor. “And see Regulus back to his room.” Then, in a flurry of robes, she stalks out of the hallway.
Kreacher turns to Regulus, who slowly stands up. “Master Regulus is bleeding,” he says, almost mournfully.
In a moment of confusion, Regulus looks at the veins on his wrist, expecting to see red. Then he registers the pain in his leg, and looks down to see a shard of the vase has lodged itself in his right calf after rebounding from the wall. “Ah,” he says, wincing. “It’s alright, Kreacher, it’ll heal.”
When Sirius returns, his eyes promptly scan Regulus from head to toe, lingering on his slight limp and the lump of bandages underneath his robes. His face tightens. He doesn’t broach the topic.
But he doesn’t ask to visit his friends again.
April, 1976 - Year 4 (The Prank)
As Regulus walks over to the Marauders’ dorm, Frank Longbottom steps out, looking quite shaken. He shakes his head at Regulus in warning before walking away. Regulus frowns, hearing the low murmur of angry voices from the slightly ajar door. He inches closer to listen in.
“And where was I,” says Remus, “in this grand plan of yours?” His voice is bitter, cold. Regulus has never heard him speak this way before. “Collateral damage? A means to an end?”
“Moony—“
“No. No . You said you felt powerless. How do you think I felt, waking up this morning?”
“You don’t understand—“
“I think I understand just fine, actually. You’ve made it perfectly clear, Black. You don’t care. ”
“Remus, please —“
“Congratulations.” And Regulus can hear every bit of venom Remus pours into his next words: “Your parents would be proud.”
As Remus storms out of the dorm, he shoulder-checks Regulus on accident, and it’s just like first-year, except this time Regulus has a sinking feeling in his chest. Something is very much wrong.
Sirius walks out then, eyes red-rimmed. He sees Regulus and immediately attempts an avoidance maneuver.
Regulus grabs his arm. “What happened?”
Sirius shakes him off. “Nothing,” he snaps. “Just—stay out of it, Reg.” He makes to stalk off again, and Regulus doesn’t stop him.
Oh, yes. Something is most definitely wrong.
***
“Peter,” Regulus says.
“I don’t know anything,” Peter replies immediately.
“You’re a horrible liar. What happened?”
Peter looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll hex you,” Regulus threatens.
Peter frowns. “You wouldn’t.”
Regulus raises his eyebrows. “Care to find out what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a Jelly-Legs Jinx?”
Peter caves in ridiculously fast.
His brother is a fucking idiot.
***
“You think I should forgive him,” Remus says. He’s not looking at Regulus. “Don’t you?”
They’re sitting on one of the staircases leading to Gryffindor Tower. This particular one isn’t in use at the moment, tucked into a corner and half-hidden by a tapestry. Regulus found Remus here about a half hour ago and sat down next to him. Neither of them have said a word until now.
Regulus considers. “I think you already have.”
Remus doesn’t respond. It’s enough of an answer.
“It’s hard to stay mad at him, isn’t it?” Regulus continues. “I would know, I’ve tried.”
“I’m fucking furious,” Remus says. He bangs his hand against the banister, lightly, but the motion is full of anger. As if his rage could cleave the wood, splinter it down the middle. “I hate him, I can’t fucking look at him.”
“You can’t love Sirius without hating him. It’s part of the package.”
Remus sighs. “You shouldn’t have to hear this. You’re his brother.”
“And I’m your friend,” Regulus says. “Besides, I’m probably the only other person who understands. James can’t bloody well get his head out of his arse to see anybody’s flaws, can he?”
He gets a snort for that. “He’s fairly upset with Sirius this time, actually.”
Hm. Who would’ve thought?
“Sirius used to pick fights with our parents,” Regulus says. “A lot. Especially after his first year at Hogwarts.”
Remus turns his head slightly, not enough to make eye contact, but enough to let Regulus know he’s listening.
“I found him passed out on the stairs one night because Mother had kicked him and he’d hit his head and she’d just left him there.” Regulus pauses to take a breath. “He was so still, I thought he was dead.”
Remus’s grip on the banister tightens.
“And I helped him up and dragged him to his room and wiped the—the fucking blood off his forehead and I swear, I’d never hated him more than I did in that moment. But it was only because I cared so much.” He looks back at Remus. “Does that make sense?”
“I don’t want to care,” Remus says, and his voice sounds close to breaking.
“It’s too late for that, I think,” Regulus says lightly.
“I’m not ready to speak to him.”
“That’s fine,” Regulus shrugs. “Ignore him for a few days, a week, a month, even. He deserves it.”
“I think I might be in love with him,” Remus says. “What do you have to say about that?”
“Remus,” Regulus says, and finally Remus turns to look him in the eye. “I already know.”
Remus’s eyebrows raise. “Was I that obvious?”
“That, and Sirius isn’t really known for his subtlety. Give it a few days. Then talk to him.”
“Okay,” Remus says. “Okay, I will.”
Regulus turns to leave.
“Hey,” Remus calls out before he can go. “You’re a good friend, Reg.”
Regulus feels his lips turn up in a small semblance of a smile.
June, 1976 - Summer After Year 4
Getting on the train is always more bitter than sweet. Regulus can already feel the cold of Grimmauld Place; the mere thought of the house is enough to send chills down his spine.
James eyes them worriedly once they reach the platform. “Write me,” he says pleadingly.
Regulus watches Sirius promise he will. They both know he’s lying.
Remus waits off to the side until James and Sirius are finished with their long, drawn-out goodbye, complete with teary eyes. Regulus is only half-sure they are overdramatized. Sirius finally tears himself away, declaring himself bereft without his Prongs, and then he says, “Moony.”
Remus steps forward and they stare at each other for a moment, so much conveyed without words. “Be safe,” Remus tells him. “Both of you.”
“You too,” Sirius replies. “Good luck with the moon.”
Remus smiles tightly and then nods once at Regulus before turning and walking briskly away. Regulus puts a hand on Sirius’s arm, gentle but urging, until Sirius finally looks away from Remus’s retreating back.
Time to go.