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After Sirius dies, Regulus is there. He says, “For fuck’s sake.”
Naturally, Sirius is offended. Over the years, it had become rather easy to be offended around Regulus. His reaction is immediate: “You’re fucking dead too, smartarse.”
“It had occurred to me, yes,” Regulus says coldly, and that’s all they really say about it for a while.
=====
They try to avoid each other, which is more difficult than it seems. Being incorporeal, Sirius thinks bitterly, is supposed to simplify one’s life – or death, as it were – so why is it that it constantly forces him near his angry, complicated brother?
“Would you kindly piss off to some other section of the afterlife?” Sirius says one time, as Regulus suddenly manifests with a pop not unlike that of Apparition.
“Why don’t you piss off?” Regulus says with an unimpressed look.
“I was here first,” Sirius says petulantly. Not his finest moment by far.
“You’re such a child,” Regulus snarls, before turning on his heel and stalking off into the vast nothing that surrounds them.
When Sirius looks into the far distance, the world seems a little milky or foggy, but when he looks at Regulus he hasn’t gotten any less clear, despite having been walking in a straight line for a good while.
On a whim and motivated by a mean sort of boredom, Sirius decides to experiment. In the space of a thought, he’s willed himself to Regulus’ location, or perhaps willed Regulus back to him. In any case, Regulus startles then glares at him with all the teenage wrath Sirius remembers, and it’s so familiar that Sirius almost grins.
“Thought you wanted me gone,” Regulus says.
“Then I wanted you back,” Sirius teases, then looks uncomfortable because that sounds much too close to something better left unsaid.
Regulus looks uncomfortable too, but the next time he reappears, he stays longer before storming off in a formidable huff.
=====
Eventually, things in the afterlife become more companionable. They don’t talk much but they no longer look at each other like they’re wishing the other a painful and sordid second death. One time, Sirius seeks to lighten the atmosphere by doing loud renditions of any songs by The Kinks that he can remember, and Regulus only snaps at him twice, which is a vast improvement from their living days. And Regulus later gets back at him by doing The Smiths, which is completely new.
They’re both disgruntledly humming to “Child in Time” when Regulus interrupts to ask, “How did it happen?”
Sirius knows what he means, but he isn't about to let him have it that easy. “How did what happen?”
“How did you–” Regulus gestures around, though of course there’s nothing to gesture at. “–get here?”
“Oh,” Sirius says lightly. “I fell.”
“You fell…?”
“Through a doorway.” He frowns. “Or…something. I can’t really remember at the moment.”
Regulus rolls his eyes as if to say “and I’m Minister of Magic” but he doesn’t insist.
“What about you?” Sirius asks, since they’re on the topic anyway.
“Killed,” Regulus says stiffly, “by some arsehole in a fight. Didn’t see who.”
Sirius hums in sympathy. He can tell Regulus is lying – he always could tell – but he doesn’t insist either.
Regulus wanders away again soon after that, but not before Sirius can see him trying to pick out the opening chords to “This Charming Man”.
=====
When they’re not busy not talking about the important things, Sirius notices just how much Regulus has changed, at least physically. The Regulus he remembers is tall, formally straight-backed, with perfectly coiffed hair and perfectly pressed clothes and perfectly knotted tie. His steps are measured and his nose is always a little in the air, his hands always still, his gestures always poised. He reminded Sirius a little of their mother and a lot of their father, which is why he spent most of fifth and sixth year avoiding any contact with him. By the time he realized how stupid that was, Regulus was refusing to talk to him. Years later, Sirius is only just figuring out that was probably more his fault than his brother’s.
The Regulus he sees now is different. Older, obviously, but in a way that Sirius hadn’t expected: drawn, weary, and slightly slumped, like he is carrying a great weight. His hands shift and fiddle with his robes like he can’t think without moving them, and sometimes when he looks at Sirius his eyes flicker away when before they used to look straight on, defiantly meeting his eyes in the wide Hogwarts halls.
In truth, they haven’t seen each other since Regulus left Hogwarts. Sirius had come back home, just once, to attend Cissy and Malfoy’s wedding. That had been a little before Mother had burned his name off the tapestry.
He regrets it now, this gulf between them. That he can barely recognize his own brother breaks his heart anew every time he looks at him.
Yet, at other times, when he looks at him, something changes – the tilt of his head, the length of his stride, the curve of his spine – and suddenly he is the old Regulus again, with the coolly assessing, intelligent eyes, with the steady, practiced care in his step. And sometimes it is his entire face that transforms, and Sirius remembers in a rush the way it was to be fifteen and to scorn his own brother, to be sixteen and to despise his own brother, to be seventeen and to feel singly, irrationally stung when his own brother refused to address him in the halls.
Regulus is right there but Sirius misses him desperately, with an ache that just won’t fade.
=====
Sometimes, memories will come to Sirius, unbidden, like visions from a dream, and since he has nothing else to do besides think, he will usually follow the memories like a string, sliding it through his hands and pausing at every knot. Here, a dorm room moment; there, a remembered dream. Here, a romantic encounter; there, a first meeting, or a last.
Here, a childhood scene. Regulus is crying. It is not Sirius’ fault.
“Yes, it was,” Regulus interjects, then looks sheepish, like he did so quite by accident.
When Sirius stares, Regulus collects himself and manages to look defensive instead, like casually seeing into the memories of one’s brother is a normal thing to be doing around here.
“I remember it clearly,” he says peevishly, in the exact tone that used to nettle Sirius so much as a teenager. “You were being insufferable.”
“I was being insufferable?” Sirius replies with typical outrage.
“Yes, insufferable! Insupportable, intolerable, unendurable! Insufferable!”
“I was eight!”
“You learned early,” Regulus retorts with all the nastiness his entire being can contain, and something in Sirius breaks and he begins to laugh. When Regulus looks at him in mingled horror and frustration, it only makes him laugh harder. This goes on for some time.
As he’s finally winding down, Regulus huffs and says in his same grumpy voice, “I see you haven’t stopped, either.”
Which only sets him off again, of course.
=====
It takes some time for Regulus to reappear after that. He never did like being made fun of.
“I’m sorry, Reg,” Sirius says immediately. When Regulus only raises his eyebrows at him, Sirius adds, “Really.”
“For what?” Regulus says with unusual airiness. “There’s no use staying angry with each other here.”
“Isn’t it?” Sirius looks around, but the world is as featureless as it’s always been. “I thought that’s what we were here for.”
“What?”
“To talk, to be angry at each other. Why else would we be stuck here, unable to go anywhere, with only each other as company?”
Regulus looks irritated, like he's annoyed he hadn't thought of that himself, then his face takes on a thoughtful cast. "Have you tried leaving?"
"Yeah, of course." Walking, running, Apparating, and wishing had all had the same result, which is to say: none.
Regulus' features soften as he thinks. He looks suddenly years younger, more like he did when Sirius last saw him, but nostalgia hurts here, so Sirius pushes it away.
"We're here for a reason, then," Regulus says slowly.
"I should think so."
"Other than a cosmic attempt at a joke."
"I should hope not."
"Indeed you should," Regulus agrees, in that way that he has of making you think you should somehow be agreeing with him. Sirius minds it a little less than he used to.
They remain in silence for a while, together but apart as their thoughts whirl round and round. At length, Regulus sighs, crosses his arms, then uncrosses them in an effort to appear conciliatory. "All right, then."
Sirius looks at him. "All right?"
"All right. Let's talk."
"We've been talking."
"Let's really talk."
"Then what do you call this?"
"Oh, shut up."
"But I thought you wanted me to talk!"
When Sirius sobers again and Regulus finishes fuming, they do talk. They talk for hours, or days. It's incredible, the things you feel you can say when time is no longer an issue.
Sirius hears more about Regulus than he heard in all the years they were alive and living in the same house. Where there had been sullen silence behind a bedroom door, there are now accounts of Regulus' NEWTs, of his few but close school friends, of his classes. In lieu of glaring looks or cold disdain from across the room, there are dramatic stories of spells gone awry, friendships gone sour, romances gone down the drain. Sirius hadn't even known that Regulus was capable of romantic feeling of any kind and says so, in such a way that Regulus scowls and tells him to prove he can do better. So, Sirius does.
He tells the stories he's told a dozen times before and the ones he's never told. He tells the ones he was saving for Harry, for James, for Peter. He spends maybe three hours describing the entire progression of his relationship with Lily, with Gideon, with Remus. If Regulus notices he sometimes redacts details from that last one, a touch here, a kiss there, he gives no sign.
Sirius is halfway through a blow-by-blow account of the day of Harry's birth when Regulus interrupts, with more gentleness than Sirius is used to: "No, this isn't right."
Sirius knows what he means, but he doesn't know what to do about it. "I can promise you it was. James was practically purple. The colour of royalty, almost."
Regulus shakes his head. "No, I mean, this isn't what you should be saying. You're talking too much about other people. I need to hear about you."
Sirius looks off into the great nothing that surrounds them. When he looks back, Regulus is staring at him, straight on, just like he used to. It's jarring, but it also makes something click into place.
But, not being one to back down, Sirius says, "You need to?"
Regulus thinks then nods. "I…I want to. To hear about you. It's been so long. How…" He hesitates, his gaze flicking away for just a moment. "…how have you been?"
The silence stretches on between them, expectant. The look on Regulus' face is entirely new: pleading, beseeching. He looks very much like a child, looking up wonderingly, hopefully at his older brother.
Sirius understands. He says, "Me? I've been beastly," and starts again.
Sirius tells Regulus about his time at Hogwarts: how he had felt when the Sorting Hat had put him in Gryffindor House, how he had spent the night in tears under his covers because he had been convinced Mother and Father would burn him off the tapestry for sure. He tells Regulus how he had loved Charms and hated Transfiguration, how he had been all right at Potions but had nearly flunked it in third year because he couldn't be bothered to do the coursework. How he had needled a particularly cranky fire crab into an apoplectic rage just to see what would happen. How he had broken at least three girls' hearts because he had gotten weary of being in a relationship and had just decided to halt everything.
He hesitates to tell of how he'd broken two or three boys' hearts as well, but decides "bollocks" in the end, and is pleasantly surprised when Regulus says nostalgically, "Dearborn, in my fifth year. He'd complain about you all the time." He looks stricken afterwards, like he has only just realized the magnitude of what he's said, and looks both incredibly relieved and incredibly annoyed when Sirius jokes, "Never thought you'd date a Gryffindor."
"There were rumours you'd sleep with anyone who asked," Regulus mentions at some point, and Sirius grimaces.
"Of course there would be," he says irritably. "It was true, after all."
He expects revulsion or at the least mild, prudish distaste, but Regulus only looks pensive, like it hadn't occurred to him that the rumourmongers could have been right.
"True," Regulus says at length, "after a fashion."
"After a fashion," Sirius admits. "In truth, not all that many people asked."
That's when Regulus' expression changes, and he retorts, "You are so full of shit."
Sirius laughs. Talking is coming easier now. It's been ages since he felt like he and Regulus were friends.
After a moment, Regulus laughs too, demurely, in his almost silent way.
"You are so full of shit," he repeats, but this time it sounds fond.
"You have no idea," Sirius says earnestly. "I'm sure everyone thought so, it's just most people were too polite to say so."
Regulus snorts, and Sirius goes on, encouraged, "I swear I could get the sweetest of Hufflepuffs to hex me by the end of the day."
"I'm sure of it!" Regulus exclaims, and suddenly he's laughing so hard he can hardly breathe. He laughs like a dam has broken. He laughs like he hasn't done so in years.
In the middle of the mess of hiccups and mirth, Regulus says something unintelligible. Laughing too, Sirius says, "What was that, little brother?"
"I said," Regulus wheezes, "I said, I…I missed you."
Sirius stops laughing. After a bit of swallowing and some deep, steady breaths, Regulus does too.
"I missed you," Regulus says again, looking Sirius right in the eyes. "I've missed you for years, all through Hogwarts, all through the war. I missed you more than anyone."
Sirius is stunned. He is stunned that he is so stunned, that he has grown so out of touch with his brother's feelings that he is surprised to have been missed.
"I tried to see you once," Regulus continues, looking uncomfortably away into the middle distance of remembrance. "After we had both left school and you were with the Order of the Phoenix and I was…I went to your flat in London, to try to get you to leave before…that autumn."
Regulus doesn't need to specify any more than that. Sirius remembers: Gideon, Fabian, Caradoc, Emmeline, Marlene, their bodies chilling quickly in the frigid air.
"You weren't in that battle," Sirius recalls.
Regulus shakes his head. "I managed to be placed elsewhere, on some other job. I was from an important, loyal family, so the Dark L–Voldemort wanted to keep me alive."
Sirius nods slowly. He is secretly glad that Regulus hadn't been there, because aside from the prospect of having to fight and possibly kill his own brother, Sirius had broken down that day, right there in the street, clutching Caradoc who was clutching Fabian, weeping over Emmeline who had died with Marlene's name on her lips. But of course Regulus sees all this the moment Sirius thinks it. His expression is one of unprecedented sorrow and guilt, like he had killed them with his own hands.
"I'm sorry," Regulus murmurs. "I should have tried harder."
"Me too," Sirius answers, because it seems like what he needs to do. "I should have tried harder too. I shouldn't have left you behind."
Regulus covers his eyes with his hand, rubs them hard with his palm. Sirius says in a breaking voice, "I'm so sorry, Reg. I'm a shit brother."
"Yeah," Regulus says in a half-laugh, half-sob. "Yeah, you are." He draws his hand away, and his eyes are clear and dry. "So am I."
"Two of a kind."
Regulus laughs briefly, his voice shaking. Sirius moves across the non-distance that separates them in this non-space and embraces him. Regulus is just a bit taller than him. He loops his arms carefully around Sirius' shoulders. They hold each other for a long time.
After minutes or hours or days, they step away from each other, clasping each other's wrists. Regulus smiles tentatively and Sirius grins in response. Then Regulus yelps when Sirius reaches up and ruffles his hair, and retaliates by kicking him in his non-existent shin, which is painful only out of the habit of living.
=====
"How did you really die?" Sirius asks, because it's one of the only questions left.
Regulus smiles ruefully, like he's trying to be brave. "Poisoned. Or drowned. Or gone mad. Maybe all three. It's hard to remember."
Sirius sees it, in bits and pieces, as Regulus says it: the furtive, careful research, eavesdropped conversations, days of travelling. He sees the cave, the lake, the boat. The green light on the walls, like lichen. The locket in the bowl. The poison in the goblet, the poison down Regulus' throat (Sirius wants to scream, to tell him to stop, to say "take me instead", but of course it's too late). He sees Regulus on the ground, trembling with pain and terror and madness, but he knows, as he watches him slowly recover, that his brother has come with a plan, that he prepared for months in advance
Sirius doesn't need to see more to know that Regulus got out with the locket that day, because he knows Regulus now, knows with fierce certainty that his brother escaped his own death for long enough, just long enough to hide the locket away.
"I never did manage to destroy it," Regulus says bitterly. For a moment, he becomes the gaunt, half-mad man he had become after the ordeal. "I wasn't strong enough. All I could do was hide it."
"It's all right," Sirius assures him. "I know what madness feels like. Hard to do anything in that state."
Regulus nods, and shudders as he sees twelve years of Azkaban through Sirius' eyes. He places a bracing hand on his brother's shoulder, a support they both need.
"And how did you die?" Regulus asks softly. "Do you remember now?"
"Yes, I…" Sirius thinks hard, his hand on Regulus' on his shoulder. "I think I do. There was a battle at the Ministry. Harry was in trouble. I ran…and she hit me. Bella." He is briefly surprised at how he can't quite seem to hate her, then goes on. "And I fell. Through the door. No…"
He frowns, remembering. "Through the Veil."
And as though in response, the world tilts, and he is summoned away.
=====
After Sirius returns, Regulus is there. He says, "For fuck's sake."
"Sorry to leave at the most important bit," Sirius says ecstatically. "But it was Harry! Harry is alive! And he's finishing what you started, Reg!"
Sirius grabs Regulus and spins him around in a wild dance of joy. Regulus shouts in protest and clings onto him for dear death until he's done.
Sirius continues excitedly, "I saw James and Lily too! They were there! And Remus as well..." His excitement fades. "…which means he's dead, of course. We all are now. I think I even saw Peter for a second, although Harry didn't call him. I think that might have been the Veil."
"So the Veil has done this?" Regulus says, puzzled. "Or is it just the way death is?"
"Who bloody well knows. All I know is Harry is going to go get Voldemort and then it'll be the end. It'll be over."
They both just stand and think about that for a while, the prospect of years of violence and fear finally being over. When Regulus only looks sorrowful, Sirius wraps an arm around his shoulders and says, "You helped, Reg. He'll finish it, now."
"Yes," Regulus agrees. "I just wish we could have seen it. All of us."
He pauses as they both see the deaths of Mother and Father, in soft detail, and Sirius misses them, despite everything, and wishes the same.
"Well, maybe now we can find them," Sirius suggests only half-jokingly. "Maybe we can talk it out with them like we did here."
Regulus nods, making that quiet, thoughtful expression of his. Looking at him, at his elegant haircut and clear, straightforward gaze, Sirius finds he loves him so much he feels he might burst.
"But before that," he says, as Regulus smiles at him to tell him 'me too', "I should tell you you've got that opening all wrong. It goes like this."
He lifts his hands and finds the familiar chords, pleased that they come easily despite years of disuse. Regulus studies his hands, then imitates him, his fingers graceful.
"F sharp?" he asks.
"I would go out tonight," Sirius agrees, "but I haven't got a stitch to wear."
And they both grin, and begin to argue over whether Marr or Morrissey was the true genius of the band.
The End