Sirius Black knew how it felt to carry someone else's secrets. His brother carried a pile of secrets to the grave. Sirius found his death unclimactic to a shocking degree. One day he existed, and then, simple enough, he no longer did. Voldemort killed him.
Before it happened, months before it happened, Regulus came to him, or perhaps Sirius found him; Sirius doubted Regulus ever intended to find him, but he'd been desperate.
Sirius snuck out to meet Regulus, once a week. Each time, his brother left without a goodbye, only promising that they wouldn't meet again. But each week, Regulus returned. He came with information, stories of what the Dark Lord planned. Sirius knew that if convinced Regulus to go to Dumbledore, then his brother would gain the protection of the Order of the Phoenix. Regulus scoffed when he told him that Dumbledore could help, the first time they met.
Sirius never asked him again. Looking back, he could tell he walked a difficult balance, pulled between two ideas. One, he couldn't scare Regulus away. Two, he wanted Regulus to live. Even as a child, his brother remained fiercely independent. In his school years, Sirius took that as Regulus not caring about him, only caring about his Slytherins and his bloody purity and everything Sirius hated and denied with passion. Sirius knew now, knew too late, that his independence meant nothing like that.
He still didn't really know what it meant, but it wasn't that. After he met Regulus again, he tried to hate his younger brother; he tried to fuel a fire with thoughts of betrayal and the Dark Mark. It worked; he hated Regulus. But maintaining that was exhausting. Sirius couldn't live with all the hate running through his veins. He felt it consume him, and he trembled with indignant anger when Regulus dared to tell him that his friend – his friend – was a spy for Voldemort. He told the man to go, and Regulus did, promising they wouldn't meet again.
They did.
A better man than Sirius would have protected his brother, told him that they'd get him away from the Death Eaters. Sirius tried to, once, and Regulus laughed, telling him not to strain himself with thoughts of actually helping his younger brother. He wanted to help, of course, but he couldn't. There was too much. Everything was too much, and then Marlene McKinnon died, and it was even more.
After that happened, after Marlene was murdered, Sirius didn't go to meet Regulus. Hot fury had drowned him, trapping him, and Sirius wouldn't – couldn't! – forgive his brother for being a Death Eater, not when they killed Marlene. It was the first week since the meetings began that Regulus didn't tell him they wouldn't meet again.
They never met again.
Because then Regulus was dead. Then his brother tried to run away from Voldemort, and he was murdered like a coward. Sirius only knew this because Bellatrix told him so, in the middle of a battle. She promised it had taken a long time for Regulus to die.
Sirius hadn't cried then, and he didn't cry now. Regulus got what was coming for him; if he wanted to live, he should have taken Sirius's offer to protect him. Sirius had no reason to feel guilty for the death, but even as he thought that, he knew he didn't feel normal guilt.
Sirius wasn't guilty that he never protected his brother. He wasn't guilty that he never told anyone in the Order about Regulus. When his brother told him important information, Sirius kept it to himself still, refusing to believe that Regulus would ever tell him the truth, preferring to believe it was all a lie.
Sirius's guilt only rose, making his stomach drop, making him swallow hard as his throat burned, when he realized how little he cared about Regulus after all.
His brother died; his brother, who had confided in him so many secrets, died. Sirius found that after a day or two, Regulus stopped crossing his mind after all. That week, he passed the time he planned to meet Regulus without realizing that's what it was; Sirius had more important issues to deal with than his stupid baby brother.
He never told anyone he met Regulus again. Sirius never told anyone what Bellatrix said, and decades later, when Harry discovered the note in the locket, signed R.A.B., Sirius had already died and never got to see it.
Well that's depressing as hell. I'm a little concerned.
I may turn this into a longer fic. Something about their visits and just a lot of characterization. This week is characterization week for my writing soooooo yeah.
Daily Writing Challenge Day 2
Writing Tumblr: Speaking-Out-Loud
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