Hey! OK, so here is just a little something that is taken from a much longer story about L+J. This is a tidbit of Sirius and Regulus, first set in Hogwarts days and the second chapter will be set after the war. I guess you'll see. This is dedicated to PinkPearl89. Anyway I hope you like it. Please excuse any misspellings. Read and Review!! : )

Spring days at Hogwarts were filled with classes and lectures, giving the seventh year students little time to really socialize. Sirius Black sat under a large ash tree near the lake, enjoying the unusually dry weather. He was reading his Transfiguration text book while the wind played idly with stray strands of his long black hair.

"Sirius?"

Sirius looked up at the sound of the familiar voice. He was met by the same grey eyes as his own, a seemingly dominate trait in his family. The boy standing in front of him pushed his own black hair out of his face.

"Can we talk?"

Sirius gestured for his younger brother to sit down beside him. Regulus took the invitation.

"What's wrong?" Sirius immediately began thinking something had to be wrong for Regulus to openly address him like this. No matter what, they were still brothers.

"You know," Regulus began, "I've always sort of admired you. You are, after all, my big brother. But it's more than that. It's because of the way you went against our family. Do you know what I'm saying?"

Sirius sat a bit straighter as his brother fidgeted next to him, "No, not really."

"There are just certain things that I believe, things that were instilled in me, in you, since birth. It's just that I've decided to follow them and you didn't."

"What do you mean Reg? What are you going to do?"

Regulus smiled forlornly at his brother, "Back to old nicknames, are we Sirius? Maybe if things had been different, maybe if you would have stayed, I would have been different too."

Becoming indignant, Sirius almost spat, "Don't blame anything on me Reg. I had to leave that house and you know that!"

"I needed your protection Sirius. I needed my brother."

"I needed my own protection. I'm sorry, Reg, I really am, I didn't know you felt that way, but I had to leave."

"I know. And I didn't come here for apologies." Regulus stayed silent for a moment and then said, "Mother has decided that I am to join the death eaters on my seventeenth birthday."

Sirius inhaled sharply, "Oh, Reg….You cant."

"I have to." Regulus stated almost as if it was resignation that forced him to that conclusion, as if he wanted Sirius to understand that. "I'm not strong like you Sirius. I'm not a fighter. Besides, I do believe in some of what the Dark Lord is preaching."

Sirius cringed at the name, "You believe in killing and raping and torture Reg? Cause that's what they do."

"No, but I do believe in the superiority of blood."

"That's it?" Sirius cried, outraged at his little brother and at his mother (mostly at his mother), "There is more to it than that! What will you do if they make you kill, rape, or torture?"

Regulus smirked, "Come on Sirius, that's not my style. You know that."

"And if they force you to." Sirius looked out on the lake. "I don't want you to die, Reg."

"Neither do I. And I don't want you to die either. I want you to join with me. You'll be safer by far than if you stayed with your muggle loving friends. You'll be back with the family; we could even put your picture back on the tree."

Sirius looked at his brother, at the inexperienced youthful hope in his eyes and turned away, "You know I won't."

"I had to try," came the defeated reply that made Sirius somehow realize that this might be the last conversation he had with his brother.

"I know…." After a moment Sirius asked, "Run away Reg?"

"I cannot."

"Why not? I did! You've got to choose, Reg. You don't have to please anyone except yourself. It's your right and your freedom to say no! Turn against the family; they are a rotten bunch as it is."

"Bella joined."

"Andromeda ran away—married a muggle born." Silence passed between the two. "Nevertheless, I always expected dear Bella to join. What about her little sister? Cissa? Did she join?"

"Not yet, but mother says it's just a matter of time. It's a righteous cause."

Sirius looked at his brother, trying to find any type of resistance and was again overcome by hatred toward his mother. "What do you want me to do Reg? I am telling you, don't join. They will kill you. If not physically, then mentally. If they make you kill someone, Reg, if they make you torture someone, will you be able to live? Knowing that you're not fighting for a cause that you are fighting for someone else's?"

"I believe in that cause too."

"You believe in it that much?"

"Maybe," Regulus stated defiantly.

"You're sixteen, Reg," Sirius said, waving off Regulus's statement, "you don't know what you believe in yet."

"Sirius, how can you say that when you moved out when you were sixteen? You seemed to have pretty solid beliefs then!"

Regulus had Sirius at that point; but how could Sirius explain to Regulus that Sirius knew, in his heart, that he was choosing the right side. That good always triumphed over evil and in this case, Sirius's side was good—Regulus's side was evil.

"What do you want from me?"

"I want your support."

"You won't get it."

"Well, then, there is nothing left to discuss." With that Regulus stood up and stuck out his hand, "Goodbye Sirius."

Sirius stood too and with surprising strength, he took the offered hand and pulled his little brother into a hug. Damn all who saw, it didn't matter.

"Please consider it Reg. Come with me, move in with me, that's the support I can offer you. Choose me, not them."

"They're my family Si." Regulus stated, finally using Sirius's nickname.

"They might be, but the death eaters are not. Voldermort is not. I am. Please consider it."

Regulus left the embrace and nodded, turned and walked back to the castle.

Sirius watched him leave, sat down and starred at the lake. Thinking about what his brother's choice would be, and knowing he was not going to resist. Sudden anger flared in Sirius. Anger at himself, at his family, at Voldemort, at the world he lived in. He thought randomly that he should have tied his brother down, forced him into hiding, done anything he could to stop him. …Maybe that's what Regulus wanted too, maybe that's why he came to speak to him to begin with…

By the time Sirius turned, he saw Regulus standing with Severaus Snape by the entrance doors. Snape, with his slimy hair and smarmy smirk waved two fingers at Sirius before he led Regulus inside.

One thought passed through Sirius's mind, "I have to get Snape back for this." Because, in all honesty (at least according to Sirius in that moment), Snape was the one who killed his brother.

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