A/N: Whoops. Fixing this because Tumblr lied and 19 years in fact takes place next year. Feeling betrayed.

I wanted to write something about the Blacks, and as always, I found myself drawn down their whirly mental rabbit hole. Oops?

Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.

Round: 11

Team: Ballycastle Bats

Position: Keeper

Prompt: Muggle AU, must start and end with the same word.

Word count: 2,995 according to Pages, where I wrote it, and 3,000 even according to Google Docs, where I edited it. There were a few things I took out that I wanted to leave, but word limits make me nervous so I went with the higher number and presumed that I didn't have any to spare.

Lots of love to anyone who gets the title reference.

"How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!"

— William Shakespeare

"I said it before, and I'll say it again for the last time, Reg: there's no such thing as magic." Cousin Andromeda looked distinctly uncomfortable with her words, shifting agitatedly on the window seat. "I know that it might — help — to imagine that there's some greater . . . meaning to it all, but reality will eventually give you more closure than your imagination will." Regulus kept his eyes fastened on his bat skeleton mobile.

"Bella believes in magic," he responded simply. Andromeda stiffened. Regulus could see peripherally as her eyes darted over to him, but remained focused on the creaking, suspended bones. The mobile spun achingly slowly in the draft from the open window.

"Has she been telling stories again?" Andromeda's tone had grown sharper. Regulus didn't blink.

"Sometimes." From the time of his birth, he had been conditioned not to lie — in fact, that was how this conversation had started — but he wouldn't sell Bella out, not when she, in a fit of poetic irony, was his last lingering hope for sanity. Sometimes Regulus wished he had the defiance to battle the beliefs instilled in him since early childhood. Then again, Sirius had ignored the household's cardinal rule altogether, and look where that had him.

Sirius had all the defiance, but he was all bluster and blunder, prone to carelessness. Bella said that while Sirius held the aggression, Regulus had an insurmountably richer stock of bravery bottled up. He just needed to find the will to unleash it and his refined ways would render it more effective — or at least so said Bella, and privately, Regulus was inclined to believe what Bella said these days.

"Reggie, you know that Bellatrix — "

"Don't call me Reggie," Regulus interrupted. Something almost akin to exhaustion passed over Andromeda's features before they settled like a hen's ruffling feathers.

" . . . Regulus, you know that Bellatrix isn't exactly . . . stable these days. I try not to eavesdrop, but I've heard Mother and Father talking, and they speak of her as though she's gone half-mad." An odd sort of laughter made Regulus's diaphragm jump as though with a solitary hiccup. At last, his grey eyes dropped to rest on Andromeda's crinkled forehead. They were backlit with an incommunicable light that almost seemed to stem from behind his head, as though he were a sliver of marble someone had shaved too thin so that dawn's rosy yawn glowed through and illuminated every vein.

"If Bella's half-mad, Cousin, what are the rest of us?" was his quiet reply. Andromeda drew herself up in a manner painfully reminiscent of Narcissa as a grimace of great offense stole the patience from her lips. For a moment, he watched her face contort and relished his victory. She could not, with her upbringing, respond as he knew she wished; Cygnus and Druella, Orion and Walburga, had bred their blood to chill and solidify at the shallowest notion of chinks in armor.

Hot ladles and horsewhips were a one-time-effective lesson, and left no scars, but remembrance was bred in something more potent than physical enforcement. It was a way of being, of thinking, of feeling — and of not feeling — with which their very blood was infused. It was no half-sucked lollipop that they could cast aside. So —

"Bellatrix may hold onto her delusions if she wishes," Andromeda determined instead, "but I will not permit you to leach her psychosis."

Regulus's gaze flickered back upward to the mobiles. They were ghastly things, rather eerie in fact, but Sirius had made them for him when he was small, undoubtedly as a joke, and somehow they had morphed into his most treasured possessions. Sometimes he liked to imagine that he was one of them.

Life would be simpler, he figured, if he were a collection of strung-together bones dangling from the ceiling.

"I shall do precisely as I wish, Cousin," he replied simply, and Andromeda's jaw tightened. Exasperated, Regulus gave a wild sweep of his arm. "For God's sake, Andi, have some imagination!" he exclaimed. On the surface, Andromeda seemed the most average, the least remarkable of the Black family's youngest generation. The others, her siblings and cousins, all possessed at least one defining trait — Bella's savageness, Sirius's defiance, Narcissa's simpering perfection — and in comparison, Andromeda was plain. She adhered to the rules, though not with vigor; she neither looked down obediently, like Narcissa, nor glared with Bella's ferocity. She was, in all appearances, entirely ordinary.

Regulus, however, had a feeling that this wasn't even remotely true. Whether his cousin possessed an intriguing attribute that had simply gone unnoticed, or whether she was concealing it, he hadn't an idea; he simply had a feeling that someday she would shock everyone by diverging from the path.

He didn't intend to expose it prematurely — evolution had to happen of its own accord — but coaxing an unconventional reaction out of her occasionally would be something of a treat.

"Imagination is for children and lunatics," was of course her response when he was hoping for something less cynical.

Unfazed, he replied, "Preferable to be a lunatic, then," turning away, and the coffee of Andromeda's eyes iced over. Regulus grinned, unswayed by her resistance. "Imagine it, Cousin; a world of magic! There would be no more moral tug-of-war, no more futile dreaming — every enemy we fought would be guaranteed to be vanquished! We could harness the power within us; we could be invincible; we could rule the world. We could make something of ourselves so that this awful, distorted family loyalty wouldn't be our only signature. The possibilities are endless, Cousin." Movement drew his focus, and his gaze fell on Andromeda's hand. Her ring finger was twitching in a dull motion of anxiety as though imbued with something gelatinous. For some reason, the sight of it made him shudder.

"If indeed there were magic," Andromeda bit out with a sudden breath of coldness, "then I would hope it would be of the sort to cure you and my sister of this desperate and insubstantial delusion." The light of Regulus's grin dimmed.

"Cousin — "

"I don't know that I've ever known anyone so selfish," Andromeda spat, her eyelids shivering with pent-up fury. "Instead of managing the reality you're faced with, you manipulate the world to fit your needs, enjoying your sunny fantasy while the rest of us are left to suffer through reality. There is no escaping it, Reg; life is as it will always be, and by pretending otherwise you're condemning the rest of us to live in misery while you gloat. You're letting us absorb the impact of your — your nonchalance in order to enjoy yourself. I don't think I've ever known anyone more self-serving!" From the spot he had taken up by the bay window, observing the hazy London skyline, Regulus unconcernedly cracked his shoulder. A distant smile flitted across his face.

"'Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting,'" he quoted serenely before turning to face her with his hands folded solemnly in front of him. "That's from Henry V. Shakespeare must have known all shades of us Blacks in order to pen that little gem. Neither of us, dear Cousin, are fit to lecture on self-love."

In a fit of frustration, Andromeda seized his coat collar with her cold, stringy hands.

"Sirius is a traitor, Bellatrix is losing her mind, Narcissa is constantly falling prey to the folly of her youth, and you — you, Regulus; who else do I have left?"

She was projecting, Regulus realized. He couldn't tell precisely what it was, but it was clear that Andromeda was preoccupied with something. The others weren't at fault for her distraction; it was she, and no one else, who was paying the price for the paranoia she was genetically fated to no matter how vehemently she declared it a weakness.

Scrutinizing her withering glare, he found abruptly that he had no argument with that. If nothing else, it was . . . fitting.

"Disapprove of my fantasies if you wish, Andromeda," he replied smoothly, as unyieldingly as she. He had removed her hands from his collar. Suddenly, he felt his patience and bright manner evaporate. Enthusiasm could only take so much criticism before it was either squashed down or transformed into angry insistence. "However, you shall simply have to absorb your disappointment as you have absorbed the impact of my . . . nonchalance, as I believe you so charmingly phrased it. Our lives having been moulded as they have, I will not relinquish what I have found to be appropriate retaliation. Perhaps the family's honor is at stake, perhaps I run the risk of losing those who have depended upon my cooperation, but if that is what is necessary to achieve some semblance of function, then so be it." It was obvious that Andromeda had noted his change in manner; drawing herself up, she insinuated herself into full assailant mode.

"You would discard your friends and family, even knowing how much they have sacrificed for your sake?"

"What others have sacrificed on my behalf is of no consequence, so long as it is in the past. It is where it has gotten me that is worth recognition." He chuckled privately when her hand lifted in the shadow of a slap. She wouldn't dare strike him, and she knew that he knew it.

Sirius would have ducked.

"You discredit our goodwill, then?" Andromeda sneered. "You would not see the debt repaid?"

"I prefer to pay it forward; I find that far more satisfying than a mutually beneficial exchange."

"You would disregard our family's values, even knowing their influence upon society, the military, peace, war, the nation — on us, Regulus?" Andromeda's voice had risen to a timbre reminiscent of blue jays — ghastly birds, in Regulus's opinion; they were thieves and desperate scavengers. Regulus couldn't abide desperation; he thought it painfully unbecoming.

It was also his private belief that magic would render desperation needless.

"I do not disregard those values, Cousin, for their effect is not mundane," was Regulus's chosen response after a long, contemplative silence. Absently, one hand twiddled his cufflinks. "I will embody them, for I fear I have not the willpower to . . . shed their embrace completely." When Andromeda's spine began to straighten in relief, he sharpened his stance, and though he did not step closer to her, his broad shoulders and flat eyes radiated unmistakable decisiveness. "However," he continued quietly, though with an incommunicable measure of strength, "I see no reason to chain the laws my body obeys to the wanderings of my mind. My thoughts will go where they must, Andromeda, as will yours, and as will Bella's. I suggest you make yourself comfortable with the notion."

He hated arguing. This conversation had begun lightheartedly. Divulging delightful fantasies of magic to his older cousin, he had felt, briefly, like a young boy absorbed in his favorite game. In a moment, though, that had altered, and the whiplash of the change had left him feeling positively ancient. In his ironed jacket and perfectly symmetrical necktie, he felt he was cut from the image of his father, and the warmth of his hands felt distinctly wrong wrapped around his glass of Bourbon, as though the liquor should have leached the sweet youth from his soul.

Andromeda's features were now rippling, twisting with something akin to rage; for a moment, something almost threatened to surface, roiling thickly beneath her skin. He envisioned her flying at him in a rage, eyes feral and nails catching in the seams of his forearms, dragging and shrieking and snarling like some wild beast. A dull chuckle rose up in his chest cavity as he found that the idea delighted him. He had never seen her let go, not completely, and something of his belief in her eventual digression from the family norm urged it on; he wanted to see her lose her collected façade. Her unruffled allegiance frustrated him.

For a moment as he watched her knuckles tensing, Regulus almost saw proof that his cousin really was a Black. She didn't even have the advantage of rumors to the contrary, not like Narcissa with her exotic looks. That would be to her advantage when she finally broke her form.

For a moment, his heart rose and his hand trembled around the tumbler in anticipation of a cheer — but then Andromeda swallowed, quelling her mounting fury with the action, and Regulus's hand fell back as he sighed.

"'Everyone can master grief but he who has it,'" he quoted softly, recognizing the moment's defeat. Andromeda shot him a scathing look.

"It is not grief we suffer from," she rattled back at him. Regulus's lips had once again attained a smile, but now resignation imbued its crinkles with weariness.

"Isn't it?" was all he said to her, and in reply, with one last glare of mingled rage, despair, and resentment, Andromeda strode boldly from the room.

Regulus set down his tumbler, purposefully knocking his ring against the edge of the glass. It would not do to pursue her. It seemed to be an unspoken law amongst them that, like upon the stage, an exit signified the conclusion of a scene. He did wish, however, that he might be able to pry apart an unwilling mind, even by his very fingertips, in order to gift some comprehension.

Andromeda didn't understand that he and Bella were speaking of a very different kind of magic — not that wishy-washy nonsense of wands and broomsticks and evil sorcerers, but magic of a subtler, more primal breed. Imagination was a gift, but they weren't so foolish as to believe that potions and incantations would erase the faceted wickedness of mankind. Humans would remain the same regardless of the construct of their physical world.

The kind of magic they imagined, rather, would not alter the fundamentals of humanity, but enhance its desirable aspects. Growing up as they had, there had been no space yielded to humility or honor or affection, or at least not the sort based on substantial morals. There had been no love save that which was satisfyingly twisted and iron-wrought and socially, morally, intrinsically wrong. What he and Bella envisioned could only be called purity, and that — that, more than anything, would be what would finally drive them to the brink. Temptation, especially of the fundamentally inaccessible, was always the instigator of madness.

Damn them for dreaming beyond the shallow grasp of narrow-minded men.

On the walnut floor lay an open letter, the spark of the recent conversation. Bending with the creak of formal garments, Regulus lifted it carefully by the corners as though grasping a butterfly's wings. A futile endeavor that was, by all odds, for no matter how gently one touched such a creature, a few powdery feathers would always brush off on the fingertips. He had discovered that as a child. Perhaps that was the riddle of it all, for surely something that endured such a dimension-bending transformation from land to air was never meant to stand the test of time.

The words were penned in Bella's sprawling hand, so reminiscent of Sirius's even to the absence of crosses on the t's:

Itty bitty Reggie,

Time and time again I wonder who of us the clouds rain down upon . . . in the deep midwinter, cloaked, I dream of daisies, and thunderclouds dot the surface of my eyes.

The damned are not by all definitions the wicked, little cousin, and the sane are not always those who build the world. Certainly, they construct it brick by brick, edifice by edifice, but it is the milky, star-spangled fruits of the mind that the mad possess, and it is that which is the invaluable essence of humanity. That is perhaps the most important thing of all to take from me if you remember nothing else, and that I almost resent, for I gift it to you willingly, and there is something thrilling in force and plundering. No doubt you are aware of that. Regardless, you must remember it as the most important thing of all: do not covet sanity.

This world holds no tolerance for broadened minds; it yields nothing to us. Sirius, Narcissa, and even dearest Andi know nothing of anything but the ordinary. When raindrops splatter wet cement our shallow counterparts do not think to contemplate the 'why.' There is no instinct in them yearning for release, nothing in them that has learned to accept the spectacular — and the spectacularly horrid — as wondrous. For us, the drudgery that is life has rotted like putrid flesh and takes on a festering sheen, but they inhale and exhale its vapors like sips from an expensive fag. They know nothing of magic, and for that they should be pitied.

Despair, but relish misery rather than faltering. There is that other world, Reggie, the one that we know exists, can sense above all else. There is room enough for us there, I expect. Perhaps it is a conventional one of toads and cauldrons, but I feel that it is deeper-faceted than that. Perhaps we would be something there, Reggie, amongst the flickers and bangs; something dark and twisted, no doubt, but something . . . something great. I imagine that the scent of ripe magic is not unlike the crisp odor of ozone when the rain has not yet begun.

Alone of our blood — dearest, purest blood — we know firmly of that deep-bone-marrow-fried world, Reggie, and the others remain oblivious. We mustn't blame them for that choice, for we were in their Wellingtons once. Rather, it leaves us free to enjoy ourselves without having to share the world to which we made our escape, hoping to breathe in its depthless dreams as we cannot do in their company.

That world is reserved solely for you and I, Reggie; you and I.

Disclaimer: "Everyone can master grief but he who has it" is also Shakespeare's, in case anybody was wanting to raise a fuss. I figured the Henry V citation spoke for itself.