Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns these characters; I do not.

The house is utterly silent on Christmas Eve, and Regulus finds it unbearably depressing. If he was brave, he would leave the room to come to terms with himself, but he's not the Gryffindor.

(Sirius used to sing Christmas carols, both Muggle and Wizard. He sang them so terribly, it was almost hard to recognize which carol he was singing.)

The Christmas tree is decorated heavily, gaudy ornaments almost completely covering and eclipsing the natural green. Regulus stares at the sparkling Black crests, the dangling Slytherin signs, the obvious claiming of the tree by his family as their own.

(Sirius wouldn't have minded if it had all gone up in flames. He said once that Christmas trees were remarkably flammable. Maybe he had some great prank planned that he never got to pull.)

"How are things, Dad?" Regulus asks, just to break the coarse silence that chills him to the bone, especially tonight. He ponders briefly humming under his breath, trying to recreate some atmosphere of family in the room, of warmth, but he doesn't. Any sign of Sirius, however obscure, will likely cause his mother to shout and his father to leave the room, and he doesn't want this to happen on Christmas Eve.

(Sirius would laugh, if he could see them now, empty and broken all because of him. He never thought he had this much influence on them, except to make them angry. He never would have thought he could hurt them, because they could never quite hurt him.)

Orion seems to pull out of a trance, his head jerking upward at the unexpected question from his son. "They're well," he answers, very belatedly, his voice sounding distant and detached. "The Ministry is still foolish, of course, resisting the new movement…" He trails off, his mind clearly elsewhere.

(Sirius would have argued immediately at that, jumped out of his chair, started saying it was all bullshit, Christmas be damned.)

Regulus nods. "They'll come around, I'm sure." They likely wouldn't, he thought to himself, but he won't argue on Christmas Eve. Oh, hell. He won't ever argue with his parents on politics, no matter the day. Whether this is because he agrees with them or he's afraid of a fight, he isn't entirely sure.

(Sirius always stood up to them, after he started to change. He would argue and argue and argue, never caring that they looked at him as their son a little less every day.)

His father grunts, already back in his thoughts. Regulus thinks that Sirius's desertion has made Orion second-guess everything he's done, wondering where he went wrong. Regulus wonders how he can make his father realize it isn't his fault, but never can come up with an idea. He holds stubbornly to the hope that Orion can pull out of it. After all, it's only been two days, and Regulus hopes that they will survive this. Deep down, he knows they won't.

(How could Sirius leave so soon before Christmas? Any other time, just not Christmas. Any other time. Why couldn't he have waited, just a fucking day or two?)

Sirius was their lifeblood, he thinks to himself. For a moment, he thinks it's disloyal to be thinking so much about Sirius, but then he decides that if his parents can ignore him in favor of their own thoughts, he can do the same to them. Without Sirius, Regulus muses, they have no spirit, no soul. He wants to stop living in this world of ghosts, a life without hope.

(Would Sirius agree? Does he know how much this family needs him? If he did, would he come back?)

Sirius isn't coming back, he knows, if he decides to think rationally. He never will. And they will have to live with that.

"We're going to Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella's Christmas party tomorrow, right?" he asks, finding discussion preferable to his own thoughts now that they've taken a dark turn.

(Sirius hates Aunt and Uncle's house. He wouldn't mind missing that.)

"Yes," Walburga answers, more promptly than her husband had replied before. Out of the three, she is probably the least affected. She lets her emotions out in anger; the others are afraid to feel anything at all. "Bellatrix and Narcissa will be there, I believe. Rodolphus too."

(Sirius can't stand Rodolphus, nor can he stand who Bellatrix has become. He wouldn't mind missing that, either.)

"How long will we be there?" he says, just to prolong the conversation. Every word is a struggle, for this is Christmas Eve and to him that has always represented family. This twisted gathering is not family, not without Sirius.

Walburga shrugs. "We'll go in the morning, and open gifts. Then we'll stay for lunch, and maybe dinner."

(Was there anything that Sirius would mind missing?)

Even though he knows it's impossible, he imagines Sirius walking through the door and smiling apologetically, full of remorse and a desire for a fresh start. He can almost feel the cold air, smell the freshness, see his brother wander into the room, full of purpose. He wants to see his parents light up despite themselves, wants to see the family function as a whole again.

(But things won't ever be that way again.)

He draws on every ounce of courage he possesses and hums.

He realizes he's just as tone-deaf as Sirius, and that only makes him more determined. He hums the Muggle Christmas carol 'Deck the Halls' and attempts a smile. His parents stare at him as if he is insane.

"What are you humming, Regulus?" Walburga asks sharply. The similarity between her two sons' behavior at Christmas, even though they have occurred at different times, is not lost on her.

(Sirius's favorite carol.)

"Oh, just a tune I know," he says, courage slipping away from him just as swiftly as it arrived. The notes do not linger on the air; they dissipate into nothingness, and Regulus isn't sure that he even hummed them at all.

"Oh." She says nothing more, and they sit there, trying hard to not look at each other.

(Can't someone just break this fucking silence?)

His eyes travel to the candles that adorn the mantle, burning away. Someday, they'll just be a pile of useless wax. He watches them burn so fiercely, and wants to tell them somehow to stop, that it's not worth it, that they'll only die because of it.

(Sirius probably has new candles now. He probably enchanted them so that they'll burn forever, or something.)

"I'm going to bed," Regulus's father says abruptly. He gets up from his chair and strides across the room to leave, as if it is that easy.

"It's only eight," Walburga says coldly.

"I'm tired tonight," Orion responds tonelessly, before leaving.

(Some Christmas.)

Regulus and his mother both watch the fire in the fireplace, avoiding looking at each other. The silence seemed less awkward with three in the room, but with two it intensifies.

He could try to repair this. He could try.

(If Sirius had wanted to, he would have repaired it. He could have done anything. He just hadn't cared enough, had he?)

But Regulus doesn't have that ability, and that's part of what hurts the most. Nevertheless, he tries, just a little.

"Merry Christmas, Mum," he says, as he departs the room, taking one last quick glance at the Christmas tree and the candles.

She says nothing in return; she hardly spares him a glance as he walks away from her. Regulus tries his hardest not to feel hurt by this reaction.

(Hope you're having a better Christmas than me, Sirius.)

As he approaches his room, he sees an owl that is not his own pecking at the window. Taking a few steps toward it, he realizes that it's Sirius's. His traitorous hopes flare again. Could his older brother be remorseful, even a little bit?

(That's not like Sirius, though. Remorse isn't a Black emotion at all, in fact.)

He lets the owl in, a flurry of wings and winter air. After petting the animal's head, he takes the letter from the owl's leg and rips it open, shedding the envelope onto the floor as he reads the letter to himself, mumbling aloud so that the message will sink in again.

Reg,

Merry Christmas to you, and hope you're doing all right without me. Just you, though. Mum and Dad can go be miserable all they want, in fact I'm kind of hoping they are, to be honest. I just hope that you're happy.

You don't have to answer if you don't want to, and I probably won't even be home until late Christmas afternoon. Trust me, traditional Christmas is terrible in comparison to how the Marauders celebrate it. Try it sometime, you won't regret it.

Have fun,

Sirius.

It's just a careless scribble, something that Sirius likely wrote right before he left to celebrate Christmas with his friends, possibly just to assuage some kind of guilt he might have been feeling about leaving his brother alone for the holidays. It's light and doesn't touch on his departure at all, but Regulus doesn't mind. And honestly, he doesn't believe that it was written just out of guilt.

He smiles, for the first time the whole day. He picks up a quill and begins to pen a reply.

(Merry Christmas, Sirius.)

Author's Note: The italics are supposed to be Regulus's private thoughts. Anyway, I know that eventually they grow to be distant and Sirius starts to resent/hate him, but...it's Christmas, and there's time for that later. Happy holidays, everyone!