i'm such a fool for sacrifice
One of Regulus' earliest memories is actually of his brother Sirius.
He doesn't think about it often, but when he does it only takes a fraction of a second for the memory to rise in his mind, crystal-clear and sharped-edged.
He's four, maybe five, and he's running in the corridors of the Black Manor in Grimmauld Place, Sirius chasing after him in a mock game of Dark Wizards and Aurors while their parents are out.
(sometimes, he can even almost still feel the hard wood underneath his feet, and hear his own laughter echoing against the walls – the place had seemed so big then, almost infinite)
He doesn't quite remember how it happens, but one moment he's taunting his brother ("Can't catch me, can't catch me!") and the next he stumbles into a room he's never been into before.
And at four, almost five years old, Regulus has been to a lot of rooms. What can he say; he likes to wander whenever he can.
His favorite is the Library – he can't read yet, though he's already began to learn his letters as any proper young pureblood wizard should, but just the smell of books is enough to make him dream. It's always quiet in there too, and when he hides there Sirius never finds him.
(Kreacher helps sometimes too, if Regulus asks him in the right way, and the House Elf is kind of his second favorite being for that – second, because Sirius is the first, and Regulus suspects he will always be)
His second favorite is the Tapestry Room, because it showcases their entire family, even if it's slightly boring to have to learn all the names, and because when they go there Father and Mother are usually with them too.
This room though, is nothing like either of them.
It's very dark, for one, which is unusual because one of Kreacher's jobs is to make sure every room has proper lighting whenever someone enters them, but not too surprising when one considers that the room is filled with strange artefacts.
(it makes Regulus feel small, to have so much unknown magic close-by, but it's also awe-inspiring)
(the room radiates power and it brushes against the youngest Black's skin like a caress, tantalizing and ever so soft, whispering tales of grandeur and wonders yet to be done)
He touches one of them before he realizes what he's doing, before he can remember his father's stern warnings about the dangers of magic ("Never trust magic if you can't see where it comes from or read its intent, my boys," he had said to both his sons more than once, because for all that Orion Black is a distant and sometimes harsh father he values his sons' lives), and the world tilts outside of its axis.
It's a bit like falling and a lot like having the ground snatched from under your feet – and Regulus would know since Sirius' accidental magic has done that to him more than once – and it's terrifying.
He thinks he screams, but he can't be sure, because the next part is blurry.
The impressions remain though.
Stone so cold it burns through his robes as he kneels, and white hot pain in his forearm. A mad, mad laugh and a heavy hand on his shoulder.
Incomprehension and abandonment, as something – or is it someone? Regulus can't quite tell – leaves him behind.
Betrayal, as one thought worthy of respect is revealed to be using the basest, most terrible fields of magic for their own gain, and later determination as something in him urges him to take revenge, to have the last laugh.
And finally, burning in his lungs as he drowns drowns drowns in water so cold it might as well be freezing.
He comes to himself gasping for air and it feels like coming back to life, and the first thing he sees is his brother's distressed face.
Sirius' hug is so tight it's a miracle it doesn't break bones, but it's also such a welcome link to reality after this weird experience that Regulus can't find it in himself to mind.
(besides, Sirius' hugs are nice, even if they're not entirely 'proper')
"I thought you were dead," his brother whispers in an endless loop in his hair, and if he didn't know any better, he'd say his brother was crying ("Black men don't cry," his grandfather's severe voice seems to echo in his head), but it's absurd because when his brother lets go, his eyes aren't red-rimmed at all.
(but that feeling, right there, right then, of having escaped something terrible and of having someone to watch over him is one of the reason why that memory burns so fiercely at the back of his mind)
Sirius yells a lot after that, about safety and not running into dangerous rooms, and especially not picking up things that make you go limp and fall down, and together they kick the glittering brooch that had called to Regulus until it breaks apart.
It burned an imprint in Regulus' hand though, and Sirius doesn't say how he managed to get Regulus to let go of it.
Regulus doesn't ask, because he suspects he wouldn't quite like the answer.
(it's the first time though, that he has an inkling that his brother might be less inclined toward the cunning snakes and more toward the heroic lion – it hurts more than he thinks it should)
The room is gone the next day and no one mentions it ever again, but Regulus remembers.
He remembers, and he never forgets.