----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'From Ancient Grudge'

Introduction

Why did he have to do it?

I stare at the faded tapestry that covers my wall, and his name is as faded in time as it is on the fabric. I'm sure that if he was here, he would have wanted his name blotted off with a fag as well... Well, perhaps not. He was incredibly loyal to the family, but now knowing what his preferences were he would have liked the cigarette burned into his flesh instead.

When Harry asked me about him last fall, I couldn't tell him all I knew, all I had heard of him in Azkaban. All I could do was scorn his name and act as if I was indifferent to the entire situation that has long since passed. Nothing could be more incorrect- it hurt to say his name, but for the sake of appearance I spoke it with the same equanimity with which the entire sentence was spoken. But I know now that he was important enough to be killed by Voldemort himself, thanks to that bastard Malfoy. Can you believe that he even came to Azkaban to tell me what happened? Fucking wanker... He didn't have to describe it in the detail that he did, but I'm sure he enjoyed seeing me finally break down and weep in front of him like one of his male whores from the underclassmen of Slytherin on their first night 'meeting him'. I didn't need for him to tell me about that- it was a public secret all through Hogwarts by the time Regulus-

Good God, his eyes when he told me... Regulus may have some intense eyes, even more intense than people had told me mine are, but when Lucius is telling somebody something that he knows will kill a piece of their soul, it's as if the devil was looking back at you. Oh wait, nevermind that statement; that would be Voldemort, or Tom, who is the devil. Lucius is just one of his demons. It made me proud to pound his face into the ground that day Dumbledore finally lost the eternal temperament that had made him headmaster. It was right before I was ushered back into the school that I saw Regulus for the last time. I know that it was him, but if I had seen him on the streets of London the very same day, I wouldn't have recognised him. He was my brother, but by that time I knew not who he was, and I blame myself for it. I shouldn't have done what I did... he was my brother, for God's sake! I'm just as terrible as Lucius, and I know that if Dumbledore had not broken us up, that non-magic bare-knuckle brawl would have gone to the death.

And I know that it is all my fault.

It didn't begin there, though. It began the summer before my seventh year, Regulus' sixth, and it is one summer that I might as well have tattooed on the inside of my eyelids- for obvious reasons that would seem clichéd if I repeated them again. Let's just say I will never forget it.

---------

The return to Hogwarts was three days away, and as always, I was glad to be going back. Returning to Grimmauld Place every summer was like being under house arrest for two and a half months. There wasn't any solace to be found in my family life, save for a few conversations with Regulus that he most likely intentionally spread out over the holiday. I craved these conversations especially that summer, for I had noticed a strange change in him the previous school year; where he was once social and amiable towards Remus, James, and myself, he was now aloof and distant. He never necessarily liked Peter- honestly, he rather despised him for reasons unknown to me, and he seemed to hate him even more so now. Regulus used to speak to us normally, like he would tag along with us in the manner younger brothers usually do, but now whenever he saw us he would turn away in that nonchalant grace of his that I had always secretly been jealous of. It made no sense, but there really wasn't much I could do at the times I did see him, which was in the hallways when I was on the way to a different place. I wanted to know what had affected him so, but up until this time I was for some reason afraid of speaking to him. It was probably not him I was afraid of, but of what he might tell me.

I had heard two years before of the sex scandals that ensued in the Slytherin and Ravenclaw houses, but I never really thought about it until I noticed the drastic change in Regulus. Of course I had known about sex in the dormitories, not as much in Hufflepuff, but certainly in Gryffindor and the others. I had come to understand that in Gryffindor it was a fairly casual thing among the upperclassmen dorms. When you were in the room with someone, you were to put your tie on the doorknob, and that was the end of it. If you really needed something, it was just common manners to knock on the door and if nobody answered, you weren't supposed to enter. Anyone under fifth year was not told about sex by older students and there was never a problem in our house amongst the younger classes. The fourth years were suspicious, of course, but upperclassmen would deny whatever the claims made by the fourth years. This is how it was in Gryffindor, and I assumed it was that way in the other houses, but obviously that was not the case. As I came to understand it, Slytherin and Ravenclaw had constructed potential food chains out of the underclassmen. I had known that though they were the most brilliant minds in the school, the Ravenclaws were definitely the most sexually adept. I swear, you could get off on any one of them just by glancing in their direction, forget even facing the Ravenclaws' table during dinner without getting hard. But the Ravenclaws were truly exclusive shags; neither Hufflepuff nor Gryffindor could lay any sort of body part on a Ravenclaw in those days. Harry tells me now that all of the houses integrate. I sort of wish that it could have been like that during our years at Hogwarts, but with Ravenclaws only- not Slytherins.

Though they were partially shady with their food chains, the Ravenclaws couldn't even shadow the Slytherins in sadism. I had heard the Slytherins started their Housemates at the beginning our their third year, whether the underclassmen had turned thirteen or not. As for the first and second years, they knew about what was to come to them, but were told to never speak to any officials about it. Obviously, word got out somehow, and the upperclassmen Slytherins, those who were reported to be the heads of this travesty, and forced to drink veritaserum as was school-accepted in those days. The truth had come out of them, and those students were expelled two months short of their Hogwarts graduation. I remember in my first year looking out the window at the Express coming and watching as the black-robed seventh years boarded the train.

"Dirty bastards," hissed a seventh year Arthur Weasley behind me, "Crass, perverted wretches..."

"What have they done?" I asked him, having heard only rumours. Arthur looked at me and shook his head, lost for words as he only gets when disgusted and flustered.

In my fourth year, a saucy Ravenclaw who sat next to me in Potions class told me about the goings-on in the Slytherin Houses during my first year. She explained to me the entire hierarchy that was enforced in Slytherin, and how the people who had been subjected to the abuse within Slytherin were now the heads of that hierarchy. Now, having Regulus in Slytherin (to my dismay and to my parents' joy), I became incredibly disturbed and found Regulus immediately after class. Regulus was always one to feed off other peoples' emotions, so when I showed up out of nowhere incredibly agitated and worried, it didn't take long for Regulus to act the same way, though he had no idea what I was up in arms about. Soon, I was being screamed at by my eleven-year-old brother to calm the fuck down and tell me what was going on. I smacked him in the head for using that kind of language, and then the situation got awkward. I wanted to ask him if anything... strange had been done to him. But I then realised that he was under the age for them to be doing that to him, and this entire commotion had been for absolutely nothing, yet.

"Look," he said, "Nobody has touched me."

It was frightening how nonchalantly Regulus said this to me, but not nearly as frightening as the fact that I hadn't said anything on the matter but was rather thinking of how to ask him delicately. Either my little brother was clairvoyant, or could just read people incredibly well.. Probably both now that I think on it.

"Nobody in Slytherin does that anymore. Whatever Ravenclaw tart told you that this stuff was still going on was lying through her teeth."

Hah.

In the years that followed, I would find that there was more deception in my younger brother's words that day than I would have ever thought imaginable, and that the lies that surrounded us would eventually lead us down a path from which there was no return.

I would swear that our family symbolises that phrase.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you all think? Should I continue?