Barty looks good in formal robes. It's too bad, Regulus thinks, that he doesn't feel very comfortable in them. Not that Barty would ever admit to that – he doesn't like to think it shows that he wasn't raised property. As though liking dress robes has anything to do with how you were raised. Jack Avery has all but declared war on the dress code for evening events. But then, Regulus thinks, the Averys do have a reputation for being somewhat…scruffy. And it's not so much a matter of liking dress robes as being accustomed to them. Regulus doesn't remember himself at an age when he was too young to wear some iteration of formals to evening events.
"You look good," Regulus says, meeting Barty's gaze in the mirror, fixing his own cravat.
Barty lingers sulkily in the doorway. "You get tailoring like a girl."
Regulus hums, conceding the point. "That's what my father says."
"But I don't mean it as an insult." Finally, Barty comes forward, the light sinking into the deep velvets of his lapels and waistcoat.
Regulus doesn't answer. It's true, really, that he gets more tailoring than his father and far more than Sirius would have ever deigned to stay still long enough for. He's of slight build, narrow in the waist, so all his robes are tightly taken in at the waist. Otherwise, they would swallow him up.
Barty picks up the pair of white gloves Regulus has laid out and inspects them with something like distaste. "You don't need to wear these."
"I do at a ball. Your pair is there as well."
Barty picks them up with a demonstrative sigh. "This entire event is a waste of time."
"I think this is the first time I've heard you disapprove of anything the Dark Lord endorses with his presence."
"We should be fighting, not prancing around like a bunch of clowns."
Regulus sighs and looks down at the hardwood floor, tracing the patterns in the wood with his eyes. "Haven't you had enough of fighting, yet?" It's a valid question. They haven't even graduated Hogwarts yet and both of them have killed multiple times. It gets to Regulus, sometimes. Frequently. Far more than he would ever admit. But Barty seems to take it all in stride, feeling as at home on the battlefield as he does uncertain at a formal dinner.
Barty drops the gloves and comes over to wrap his arms around Regulus' waist. "That's not a fair question."
Regulus closes his eyes, tipping his head back, instinctively, to catch as much of Barty's warmth as he can. "Isn't it?"
"The sooner we win, the sooner we can…" he breaks off and Regulus can almost feel the embarrassment coming off of him in waves. They never talk about the future, half afraid to jinx it, half afraid they will be forced to think about reality.
Like the fact that Regulus will have to marry once the war is over. If Mother had it her way, he would be married right after graduation. Regulus doesn't want to imagine it – the poor girl he will inflict himself on, Barty's eyes at his wedding, the dream he keeps having coming to reality where all there is left is blood-red wine and shards of broken glass somewhere between his marriage bed and his lover's House scarf, abandoned on the porch of Grimmauld Place. But it's just the way things are, Regulus had told him the first and last time they had spoken of it, with a bemused smile that someone from a Pureblood family – other than Sirius – did not understand this simple concept. Barty had accepted it, like he accepts wearing formal robes and white gloves and far too much styling potion in his hair – with a bitter, scornful downturn to his mouth.
"How full is your dance card?" Barty asks, turning the conversation to something less depressing.
"Not as full as Evan's." Regulus keeps his eyes closed, remembering with a slight smile how frustrated Barty had been at the idea that he really ought to dance at a ball, even though he only vaguely knew the steps. I didn't have a dancing tutor growing up, he'd told Regulus bitterly.
There is lot old Crouch Sr. does not think matters, and dancing lessons for his son was one of them. Truth be told, Barty only had two tutors as a child – a general tutor for mathematics, language, geography, history and a Latin tutor who also taught Barty some wandwork basics using an ordinary stick. Barty was terribly bitter that all the other Pureblood children got their first wands at seven while his father made him wait and took his wand away during vacations because we must abide by the law. Not that it took long for Barty to get a second wand, the one his father does not know about. He keeps it with Regulus mostly, just in case, uses it for missions and training and everything in between when he is out of the house on vacations.
Regulus remembers a sunlit afternoon at one of the Black's country estates, his hands all over Barty's body as he led him through the figures of a quadrille and a lavolta. The waltz Barty knew to some extent and he had spun Regulus around the room in dizzying patterns and sweeps. There's such a thing as a line of dance. The sun had glowed golden in Barty's hair. There's no one here. Now Regulus thinks how nice it would be if they could dance a lavolta or a waltz when there were people to see. But what a silly thought.
"We shouldn't be late," Regulus says. "It would be rude to the Lestranges."
'Have you been to Rabastan's before?"
"Of course." It's a small world of theirs, where traditions are held dear, where culture is intertwined with every facet of life. It's hard to break into that world and hard to break out of it. No wonder Barty is so bitter about his father not bothered to give him all the attributes of a Pureblood upbringing. People can tell. And then they talk.
Regulus turns in Barty's arms and presses his forehead against the other boy's. He wants this more than he has wanted most things in life. How strange that he should long for something so outside the norms of his well-defined role. Regulus has never thought of himself as that sort. He has always been content, whether with being the near-invisible second son or with taking on the responsibilities of being heir. He has always felt himself a small part of something much grander, that magic that runs through his veins, that has existed since the start of time and will always exist. Barty is the only thing that has mattered to him on its own terms, without fitting anywhere into the context of who he is and who he is meant to be.
"We can leave early," Regulus promises. "We can stay here after."
"Won't you be missed in London?"
"Will you be missed at home?"
Barty smiles, just the corners of his eyes giving away a hint of sadness. "I doubt it. Either way, I don't care."
"Is that a yes then?"
"Yes."