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"Mummy! Daddy!" It is early in the morning, not past six-thirty, and already, three-year-old Sirius Black is up and shouting.
His mother enters the room first, and in her arms is a pile of clean white cloth with the Black crest embroidered on it. The bundle begins to shake and shudder, and Sirius's mother frowns.
"Sirius!" she says reproachfully, "Be quiet, sweetie, you've woken up the baby."
His father appears next, with a quiet laugh. "Walburga, let the boy have fun," the wizard drawls, "He wants to see his brother. Isn't that right, Sirius?" He doesn't seem to want an answer; he turns back to the door, wand in hand, and begins to mutter under his breath until the entrance melts into the wall.
Sirius nods frantically, his black ringlets flying crazily in every direction. His mother suppresses a smile and seats herself on a navy blue coach. Sirius bounds on after her, wrinkling his spotless robes. He leans over and peers at the baby's red and wrinkled face. It does not take him long to come to a decision. "He's pretty ugly," the toddler lisps regretfully, prodding the baby's foot.
His father smiles slightly, and Sirius grins at his mother, who ruffles his hair with her free hand. "You looked just like that when you were born," she informs him mischievously, placing a long finger on the tip of his nose.
"I was not!"
"Oh, yes you were. And look what a handsome little boy you've grown into. When Regulus is big, I'll have two handsome young gentlemen."
"But I'll always be the handsomest, Mummy? You love me best," he adds nonchalantly.
The mother smiles and pats down her son's head.
"I will always love my Sirius."
Sirius is six years old when he receives his first broomstick. His father and mother decide to make an occasion of it. Sirius clambers onto the flying carpet and climbs into his father's lap. He bounces impatiently. "I wish Mum and Reg would hurry up," Sirius says desperately, picking at the fringe on the carpet. "I want to ride my broom."
"You must learn to be patient," his father says sternly, pulling his son's hand away from the edge of the carpet.
"I know," the child apologizes. "I try. But I want to ride my broom so bad."
"And you will. I was never allowed to ride a broom as a child," his father continues casually. "Nor was my father. No Blacks have, for generations. This is a new idea, Sirius, and I want you to be very careful."
"Why weren't you allowed to ride a broom?" Sirius is curious. His father rides brooms now—not often (Apparation is much more dignified,) but he does it all the same.
"I was the older child," his father tells him stiffly, "And the heir to the Black fortune—it was imperative I was kept whole and healthy until you were born."
Sirius nods, and leans into his father's chest. "It's hard being the oldest, isn't it, Daddy?" Sirius was sure his father would agree. Being oldest meant he wasn't allowed to do all the things Regulus was allowed to, even though Sirius was three years older.
"It's all worth it in the end, though," his father says lazily, "You'll be able to take your place in society with wizards of our class…respect, wealth…All the things that come from being a Black will be yours someday."
"What will happen to Reg?" The question is asked innocently enough.
"Your brother will inherit a portion of our money, of course," the man says nonchalantly, "And he will be able to live comfortably enough."
"But not as good as me?"
Sirius' father stares at him intently for a moment. "That's right, Sirius."
Something in his voice tells Sirius to stop talking.
His mother appears about five minutes later. Her hair hangs down her back in an elegant braid, and her violet robes are pressed and clean. Regulus walks beside her, running steadily on two chubby legs. He waits patiently next to the carpet and allows his mother to hoist him up. He crawls to where his brother is sitting. "Hi," he says, with the same uncertain lisp Sirius has just outgrown.
"Hello, little brother," Sirius says superiorly, glancing at his father to see if he hears. But if he does he says nothing, merely taps the edge of the carpet with his wand so that they begin to hover, soaring into the air.
"Sirius, hold onto Reg," their mother orders, looking fretfully over her shoulder at her two boys.
Sirius obliges, taking his little brother's hand. Regulus pulls away. "Not scared," he says stubbornly.
"I know. Mum said I have to make sure you don't fall off."
"Not gonna fall," Regulus insists.
Sirius throws an arm around his little brother, pulling him close. "Are you going to go for a ride on my broomstick with me?" He tickles his little brother's ribs, trying to make him laugh.
Regulus giggles slightly. "I dunno…it's little, and no Mum and Dad," he explains.
"I'll hold on to you," Sirius promises. "I would never let you fall."
And so, that afternoon, the two brothers leave the ground, their parents cheering below. Their father runs about below them, ready to catch one of them if they fall.
The broom has charms placed on it so that they can only hover about fifteen feet above the ground. But Sirius feels as if he's left it all behind completely.
Sirius is nine years old when he is allowed to go to the park by himself. But as anyone knows, it isn't much fun to play alone. He isn't allowed to talk to any of the other children, and he didn't want to. Mudbloods and Squibs were allowed at the Wizarding Park in Sirius' neighborhood. Imagine the humiliation if he spoke to speak to one of them by mistake!
And so, it seems quite natural to both boys that the Black brothers will go to the park on Regulus' birthday.
Their parents are both at work, so they can't take the flying carpet. They'll have to walk. Sirius clambers into his parents' closet, where the brooms are stowed away on a shelf. He grabs them and tumbles to the ground, panting slightly.
Regulus enters, smirking slightly. "Having a bit of trouble, there, Sirius?"
"Shut up, or I won't take you to the park, and then you won't have anything to do for your birthday. It's not as if Mum and Dad will remember…they didn't last year."
Regulus' eyes flash with anger, and Sirius immediately feels a slight pang of guilt. He does not apologize.
The silence between the brothers is heavy as they march down the pavement with their brooms over their shoulders. Any muggles who see them laugh at the sight of the solemn children proceeding to an empty corner with brooms over their shoulders. Such imaginations children have these days!
They turn onto an alleyway, Sirius in the lead, and, when they reach the end, press their palms onto the wall. A flash of white light, and the wall disappears, and the brothers walk through.
All enmity is forgotten as the two step out into the verdant field. It is busy with people, despite the fact that clouds drape the sky and it will probably rain later on.
Sirius grins and hops onto his broom, grabbing a walnut that has fallen from a nearby tree. Reg scowls at his brother to show that nothing is forgotten, before giving in and smiling slightly as he, too, begins to rise into the air.
They stop and hover at twenty feet—Sirius because that is as high as he can go, and Regulus because it is an unspoken rule. He must not rise higher than his brother, he must not go any faster.
Sirius tosses the walnut to Regulus, who dives for it and misses. Regulus glides smoothly to the ground, picks up a different one, and hurls it at his brother with all the power his tiny arm can muster. Sirius shoots forward and barely manages to catch it. When he throws it to the younger boy, Regulus once again fails to catch it.
"Can't even catch a walnut?" Sirius is condescending, and Regulus' lip trembles. "When I was your age, I was catching snitches."
Regulus' mouth hangs open for a moment. He cannot decide whether to cry or scream. Crying will win him Sirius' friendship back, and screaming will maybe, for a little while, make him feel better. But what Regulus wants from his brother is respect.
"I can fly better than you."
Abruptly, he swoops upward. He cannot go very fast, because he is dodging, trying to avoid trees, and because he has never done this before, never gone higher than Sirius. But there is his brother, at least twenty feet below, and, looking down, Regulus feels dizzy.
He has never been this high. On the carpet, maybe, but it hadn't seemed that high because Sirius and his mother had held onto him. On the rare occasions when he sat near the edge, he had never looked over the side.
But now he does, and he finds himself swaying slightly. He feels himself sliding off, and screams desperately, but manages to catch the nose of the broom. And then the broom tilts, and Regulus is falling with it, diving into a ground that has never looked quite so solid. He vaguely realizes that the blur he passes in midair is Sirius, and feels his brother's hands beneath him, but his arms don't hold and Regulus pitches forward again…falling…falling.
And then slower, and when he hits the ground its gentle. Head bounces once.
Sirius jumps off his broom about five feet off the ground and charges, white-faced, to the younger child. "Reg, Reg, are you okay?" His voice trembles as he speaks, and he strokes his brother's black hair like their mother used to do.
Regulus nods, because he is okay. He's scared, and his head is sore, but he's felt worse. He'll live, and anyway he doesn't want Sirius to think he's some kind of wimp.
Sirius pulls him up and hugs him tightly. "Don't do that, okay?" Sirius presses back tears. He is a Black, and Blacks shouldn't cry.
Regulus tries to do the same, tries to be like Sirius, tries to be brave, but he can't, and a second later he sobs and presses his face into his brother's chest.
Sirius rubs his brother's back and finally looks up. "Are you the one who stopped him from hitting the ground?"
His question is directed at the man standing uncertainly by the maple tree. He has been there since before Sirius landed, wand drawn. A boy, a shorter than Sirius, messy blonde hair and chubby cheeks, stands beside him.
The man nods. "Are you both alright?"
Sirius narrows his eyes and stares at the man suspiciously. "Who are you?"
The man is taken aback, that much is clear, only answering, perhaps, out of shock. "Wesley Pettigrew," he says carefully, "And this is my son, Peter."
"Hi," says the Peter kid, waving.
Sirius disregards this. Pettigrew. He is sure he recognizes the name from a pureblood genealogy he read once—these people should be safe to talk to, at least the man. The son could be Mudblood for all Sirius knows. "Well, thank you, then," Sirius says, extending a hand, which the man shakes uncertainly. "Sirius Black," he says, knowing the name means something, "And this is my younger brother Regulus. We're glad you caught him."
And the man frowns slightly. And Sirius sees that the name does mean something. "I'm glad to have been here." The man is abrupt, and walks away without saying anything else.
Regulus and Sirius walk home as they came, in silence.
That night, Sirius is eager to tell his parents about the experience. "We walked to the park all by ourselves," he says, throwing it out as if it were everyday news.
His father drops his fork abruptly. "Without asking permission?"
"Yes," Sirius admits sulkily. "But it's Regulus' birthday. I thought we should do something special."
"I am perfectly aware what day it is." His father's voice is icy, devoid of the anger that Sirius is used to. "However, that does not under any circumstances, make rule-breaking acceptable. Perhaps you are not mature enough to continue these trips?"
His mother nods her agreement. "You didn't speak to anyone, did you?"
Sirius frowns at his silver plate and nods, arms crossed and cheeks flaming. "A man named Wesley Pettigrew helped us out."
His father blanches and stands up. "Never speak to him again," he orders, voice deadly low. He leans across the table to his two sons. "He is a blood traitor, and his son is a Mudblood."
"We saw a blood traitor and a Mudblood?" Sirius finds himself oddly fascinated by this; he has always wondered what a blood-traitor would be like. And to think that boy was a Mudblood! Sirius never would have guessed. "They seemed normal enough to me."
"That's because dirty blood is something you can't see. It's inside, like a rotting disease, eating true Wizarding culture from the inside out."
Sirius nods his head. "I know, Dad. I'm just saying that the boy didn't look or act any different at all."
"But he is different. He was raised by a muggle, and muggle blood is in his veins," his mother corrects him gently.
"I know. I didn't say anything like that, I know he isn't our class or anything—"
"It's not just that, he isn't even the same…species, as we are." His father is not yelling, but he has reached across the table and grabbed Sirius' hair, forcing his head back. His face is white and sweaty as he says, "I don't ever want to hear you talk like that again. Do you understand me?"
Sirius chews his bottom lip, fists clenched under the table. His father releases him.
"I think you should go to your room," his mother says quietly. "Please don't come back down until you've thought over what you said."
He is quick to obey.
Regulus comes into his room that night at about one thirty that night.
"Sirius?" He whispers, moving his lantern so that the light falls on his brother's face. "Sirius, are you awake?"
Sirius opens his grey eyes and sits up in bed hastily. "Reg, what are you doing?" He hisses softly, holding back laughter.
"I thought you might be hungry." The younger child's voice is earnest and hopeful as he offers his brother a sack of chocolate frogs.
Sirius is quick to unwrap one and shove it in his mouth, closing his eyes as it melts on his tongue.
"Thanks," he says gratefully as he finishes swallowing. "I was having trouble sleeping; I was too hungry. Here, want one?" Sirius reaches into the paper bag and offers one to Regulus, who happily accepts.
The two brothers continue their chocolate fest well into the early hours of the morning, until, without warning, Regulus falls asleep, his sleepy head falling onto Sirius' shoulder. The older boy smiles fondly and wraps a blanket around his brother before curling up beside him and drifting off himself.
When their mother finds them that way the next morning, she says nothing, and leans on the doorframe, smiling.
Sirius Black turns twelve years old the day he starts Hogwarts.
His mother and father are both working that day, and so they call for a chauffeur. Sirius sees the car pulling up in front of the house.
Regulus is seated glumly on the stairs, clutching a pillow for comfort.
"Kreacher, take my suitcases to the car," Sirius says authoritatively.
"Of course, Master," The house elf bows low and snaps his fingers, causing the suitcases to hover above the ground. Both brothers watch as Kreacher guides them outside. When the door is shut securely behind him, Sirius bends down and hugs his brother gently. "I'll write you all the time," he promises.
"I know," Regulus says sadly, "But it'll be lonely here with just me and Mum and Dad and Kreacher. And Mum and Dad work so much…who will take care of me?"
"I took care of myself when I was your age. You can do the same, you're tough. And maybe they'll start letting you go to the park on your own sometimes."
"But I wouldn't have anybody to talk to," Regulus reminds his brother, standing up and walking to the bottom of the stairway. "We're not allowed."
"Mum and Dad will never know if you decide to talk to somebody."
"Yes—but they might find out and get mad at me. That's why they're so—funny—with you, because you never listen."
Sirius' eyes flash, and his arm twitches as if he'd like to hit his brother, but instead he pulls him into a hug.
"I'll see you at Christmas."
Three years later, and things are different.
Regulus wishes they weren't. But Sirius is wrong associating with Mudbloods and blood-traitors, and it's breaking his mother's heart.
She cried the first time she saw him speaking with that Potter boy at the train station.
Regulus doesn't want to do that to his mother. She doesn't deserve something like that to happen to her again.
On the train, he sits with Sirius, of course, but they don't have as much to say to each other as they used to. Regulus hopes that now that they will be living the same place again they can start being friends again. Like they used to be.
Soon another boy comes into the compartment. "Hi Sirius!" he says cheerfully. "And you must be Regulus. I'm Remus Lupin." He sticks out a hand.
"Are you pureblood?" Regulus is suspicious. His mother begged him not to associate with the type of people Sirius does and seeing what it has done to her, he agreed.
"Well—yes…Yes, I am."
Regulus reaches out and shakes his hand. "Good to meet you, then."
Remus frowns and whispers something in Sirius' ear. Sirius grabbed Regulus' wrist, dragging him out of the compartment.
"What is wrong with you?" The older boy is angry, and it seems that in his years with Gryffindors, he's forgotten how to hide it. His brother's face is red, and he looks for the first time as if he really could hurt Regulus.
"Nothing," Regulus replies coolly, twisting his wrist out from under Sirius' clawlike grip. "I promised Mum and Dad I wouldn't talk to Mudbloods or blood-traitors. I was just making sure. What's wrong with you, that you can do this to Mum?"
And suddenly, Sirius falls back, and a wave of sadness crashes into him. "I dunno…but Remus and James and Peter are all really nice, Regulus, you'd like them. They remind me of you."
"Well, then, I guess I'll have to miss out."
Sirius' face is blank for a minute, before saying quietly, "Then I think you should just go find somewhere else to sit."
"What?"
"I don't want you being rude to my friends."
Regulus' mind is racing, and his breathing is suddenly shallow. This isn't how it's supposed to be…he and Sirius are best friends…stupid Remus and Peter and James for taking him away.
"I won't be rude. I promise…Sirius, please…"
Sirius has already gone back into his compartment.
Regulus sits with his cousins, Andy, Bella, and Cissy, but they like to baby him, and so the train ride isn't fun at all. He stares miserably out the window, wishing he was home…wishing Sirius was home.
And when the Sorting Hat touches his head, he can barely see out from below the brim, but he does. His eyes seek out Sirius. And Sirius is whispering something in another boy's ear, pointing at him and grinning. And when he catches Regulus' eye, he waves noiselessly, grinning and pointing to the empty seat by his side.
Regulus closes his eyes. Pictures himself in that seat, Sirius laughing with him and whispering in his ear. Joking, teasing.
And then he sees his mother, thin and dazed. Sees her after she lost the baby, holding a picture of Sirius and crying. Sees her pleading face. Please be good…just one son, please…Regulus.
Please, let me be in Slytherin...
"SLYTHERIN!"
And when Regulus sees the look on Sirius's face, he wishes he could jam the hat back on his head and tell it there's been some mistake. He needs to be in Gryffindor. Like his brother.
He stumbles towards the table and takes a seat near Bella, who thumps him happily on the back. "Good job, Reg."
When Regulus looks back at the Gryffindor table, the empty seat is filled by James Potter.
That night both boys weep, heads pressed into their pillows, long after everyone else is dreaming.
They cannot comfort one-another anymore.