nothing but a tragedy
There are times when Sirius can't remember. His memories are blurred and distorted, fragments of colour and light and almost familiar voices. He reaches for them, holds on as tight as he can, tries to make sense of things that don't seem real. Some of them are still too far out of reach, taken from him by a dark prison cell and a rat with a traitorous heart.
He can only catch glimpses, most of them of a dark-haired boy, crawling into his bed at night, tracing his long fingers over his spider web of scars and whispering into his skin that he'll soon make it all better.
But he can't quite make out his face, only a feeling, of it all being wrong, but still so fucking right.
He sees colder images too, of roars and rages and him yelling "Traitor", with Reg screaming"You fucking left us first" in return.
But it always ended up all right because they were family, no, they were brothers and nothing else mattered more.
Except then he thinks something went wrong, something fucked it all up, but he doesn't remember what.
It wasn't the skull burned into his brother's smooth skin, because he remembers touching it, Reg's skin hot beneath his fingers, beneath his lips. He remembers telling him that it didn't really matter, not to him. It was a lie, he knows now, but he hid it from himself beneath promises and soft kisses and silk sheets tangled around cold feet.
But Sirius still can't hear his voice, only see Reg's words hanging in the air like stars, bright, but years of darkness in between him and them.
It wasn't what Reg had done, because Sirius remembers his brother apparating to his flat, his shaking hands stained scarlet, and he remembers washing off the blood and fucking on the kitchen floor, praying to Merlin that Remus wouldn't walk in. He remembers a frail boy, trembling in his arms, murmuring fresh corpses' names into the still night air.
But it is not until he sees that paper, sees the rat, feels anger burning hot in his veins and then sharp sunlight warming his face that he really remembers.
Everything, not just fleeting moments darkened and dampened with age, but all of it.
Being children, protecting each other from the nightmares that seeped into their house, not just their dreams.
Going to Hogwarts, betrayal and abandonment clouding their eyes, their hearts. Until they made up, pressing apologies into each other's skin on the floor of the Shrieking Shack.
Getting older and thinking they knew everything there was to know, but really knowing nothing. Being sure that the world would go on turning and, as long as it did, they would always be family.
Then the war came, and it stopped, but they didn't and Sirius remembers thinking he had never felt so safe. Regulus thought so too, he had told him so, with feather-light kisses and eager, trusting smiles.
Sirius remembers a locket, playing with the silver noose tied around his brother's neck.
He remembers a desperate look in Regulus's eyes, hushed promises that they'd see each other tomorrow.
He finally remembers that Black promises always get broken, and the reason why he never saw his brother that day, why he'll never see Reg ever again. And he wishes he'd never remembered at all.