Title: Rêves de rien
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama? Angst? Fluff? Dramatic fluff with an angsty ending? Yes.
Summary: "You see, my little Regulus. You see how your brother pleases your maman. What a good son he is."
Feedback: Yes, please
In the beginning, things were not always so; in the end, things were irreversibly so. The difference laid in acceptance, fulfillment, and loss. Above all, he understood such requirements. He was trained to understand them. And yet, to start at the beginning, the beginning of consciousness, when he knew of change yet still waited to experience it, when he knew of family as only a guiding hand on his shoulder and the laughter that followed games played in blissful ignorance, things had been different and in that difference lingered the fleeting sense of regret, naivety, and above all, hope.
…
The images flutter in and out of focus against the black backdrop of his eyelids, dreams as they were, memories as they were, so long ago refuted to be nothing more. He seeks them only in sleep.
A hand wove itself through his hair, its graceful fingers twining around the dark locks, lightened in the sun and by youth, the gentle pressure as reassuring as the constant rise and fall of his mother's chest behind him. He sat in her lap, cradled by the dip of her thighs, his head pressed into the swell of her breasts, the beat of her heart softly palpating against his thin neck. She stroked his head, whispering lovely nonsense into his ears in her native language, the long tresses of her hair, unbidden for once by clips and pins, tickling his cheek.
His brother scurried, with the energy of adolescence twice his age and the exuberance properly fitting, to and fro from the grassy plain of the yard. He fetched petite wild flowers and small creatures for his mother to transform into glorious trinkets with a secret caress of a voice men once called sultry and a shower of glittering color. His brother would laugh and run to bring back another treasure from the field.
"Watch your brother, my baby blackbird," she murmured to him in French, the wave of silky consonants soothing his mind like that of a lullaby. "Watch your brother. See how he pleases your maman."
And he watched. His brother's lanky form, clothed yet in his black trousers from his lessons with the tutor and the white pressed shirt hanging loose around his form, darted around the tall tree in an awkward blur in the search for his next prize. He stopped momentarily to push the fringe from his eyes, his hair darkening to resemble their father instead of his mother's lighter and richer chocolate brown. As he did so, he stared at the ground, the roots of the tree clawing up from the dirt and hiding exotic finds, then bent to dig something from its blanket of sooth earth. He emerged with his small fist clamped around something, his cuffs stained with the dirt, a boyish smile on his face that threatened to become roguish with age.
His mother called for him and he came, presenting her with a tiny bud of a white flower, barely alive by its size, yet seemingly beautiful in its simplicity. She smiled so that the pretty damask of her lips drew into a pleased crescent, their color deepening into a soft rouge, while her brown eyes held the ever-present sadness that betrayed her years. The smile increased as his brother's brow creased in concentration and he caused the flower to bloom. He drew near to her and placed the flower behind her ear when she lowered her head to him. With a shy kiss to her cheek, a blush shaded the skin of his brother's face and he once more retreated to farther side of the yard.
"You see, my little son," she whispered into the ear of the young boy in her lap, twisting a strand of hair the color of her own between two fingers at his left temple, "You see, my little Regulus. You see how your brother pleases your maman. What a good son he is."
Though the voice was the same subdued tone, it seemed to hold a reverence not meant for him. Though the hand on his head was the same hand that petted his hair in such similar ways, it seemed absent of its past affection, as if it longed for hair that was not his own, a son that he was not.
Regulus looked up at his mother but she did not see his questioning look. Her forever-mournful brown eyes were focused on the silhouette of his brother, the sun reflecting her reverence and love for him. A love Regulus guessed she would never be capable of sharing between two boys.
The hand fell from his hair as his eyes fell onto Sirius' form.