A/N: This is for the Around the World in Thirty One days challenge on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the fanfiction writing month. 415 words.
Regulus sat on his bed and tried to ignore the sound of raised voices floating up the stairs.
It was almost a daily event during the summer since his brother Sirius had been sorted into Gryffindor, but this year seemed to be worse than the others combined.
He didn't know if it was because Sirius was more defiant and more open about his beliefs than before is what caused the tensions to run higher, or whether it was their parents intolerance to any view but their own. Something was bound to happen sooner or later and Regulus would stay out of it when it did.
When they were children Regulus had admired his elder brother greatly, but that had changed the moment that Sirius had been sorted into Gryffindor. It had felt like he had been betrayed. They were both meant to be sorted into Slytherin and get up to all sorts of mischief together. Instead he was doing that with Potter, Lupin, and Pettigrew instead.
The shouting downstairs got clearer and before Regulus even knew it the breaking point came.
"Fine! I'm leaving and I'm never coming back. I've had enough of this crap and I'm not putting up with it any longer," Sirius shouted.
"If you leave, you will never be allowed back even if you beg on your hands and knees," his mother replied harshly.
"Why do you think I would ever come back? I hate the lot of you."
"Where are you going?" his mother screeched.
"To collect my trunk. It will save you the hassle of throwing it out."
Regulus heard his brothers heavy footsteps on the stairs and enter his room across the hall from him.
It didn't surprise him that Sirius was leaving, but he thought the confrontation would happen weeks from now, or that Sirius would just take everything he owned to Hogwarts and not bother coming back after his birthday in a November.
Either way it didn't affect him the way he thought it would. They had grown apart from the moment they had been sorted into different houses and decided to take different paths.
Regulus hadn't realised that Sirius actually hated him. He had known that his brother disliked him, his house, and his beliefs, but not that he hated him with such a passion.
It was such a shame as they could have been a force to be reckoned with, but there was no point dwelling on something that was never going to happen.