A/N: I can't believe how many of your favorited and followed and reviewed the first chapter of this story. THANK YOU! Also, I clearly have an impatience problem. Fluffy was supposed to help stop me from posting early, but then she started telling me that it would be a great April Fool's prank to post a teaser for Chapter 2 and then leave you all waiting for another week. She's a Gryffindor for the record. My Slytherin ways have clearly been a bad influence on her. Next she'll be making Horcruxes. I'm so proud. Here is the entire Chapter 2 of PTP, by the way. Some changes have been made from Canon regarding Narcissa and Lucius's ages in order for them to have been closer to Regulus while they were all in Hogwarts.


Chapter Two
Fides


April 1973

Regulus stood in the first-floor drawing room of Black Manor, staring straight ahead at the large tapestry that hung on the stone wall. It had weathered many generations, protected by strong family magic, and all the names were magically embroidered in perfect calligraphy; his own name was the most recent, even though he was already eleven-years-old—twelve in a month's time. The names all stood out in black stitching amongst the Slytherin green background. He had always found the colour comforting, not cold like his brother claimed it to be. Raised voices argued in the room next to him. The door was closed, but no Silencing Charm had been cast, but really, when did his parents ever actually bother with one?

"You can't do that!" Sirius was yelling. "She didn't do anything wrong!"

"She has disgraced her family and our noble blood!" their mother shouted back at him.

Regulus stepped closer to the tapestry, a subtle frown on his face as he reached up and gently brushed his fingertips over the scorched mark that used to read Andromeda.

"It's not fair!" Sirius shouted and Regulus winced. "You can't just throw away family!"

When would his brother begin to understand that nothing in life was fair? Brave and reckless, certainly, but there had to be at least an ounce of common sense in every Gryffindor. How else would they have even survived long enough to even make it to Hogwarts?

The youngest Black turned his back on the tapestry, the smell of the burnt silk fresh and lingering in the air; it made his stomach churn to have watched his mother turn and blast the name so easily off the Family Tree as if she was banishing something as simple as a doxy off the wall. He felt sick to know that across London in another one of the Black Manors, his Uncle Cygnus, Andromeda's father, was doing the same to the duplicate tapestry in his home. Regulus thought it was redundant considering the tapestries were all magically linked, but his Uncle Cygnus was likely making a point to his daughters, just as Walburga and Orion Black had made the point to him and Sirius.

The message was clear: Don't marry Mudbloods.

And for the love of Salazar, do not even think about breeding with them.

"You can't throw someone out of the family for falling in love!" Sirius was yelling again. "What if it were me or Regulus that fell in love with a—" He never finished the sentence. Though there was no loud sound from behind the door save for a slight scuffle, Regulus had learned over the years what the small noises meant.

Despite disagreeing with the way Sirius was going about it, Regulus agreed with his brother. Certainly, they had been raised with blood standards that were always to be observed—unless your name was Sirius Black—but blasting Andromeda off the tree and disinheriting her completely seemed excessive. Regulus knew little in matters of the heart, but he had seen the older couples at Hogwarts, most of whom looked as though they had lost entire sections of their brains just by being within sight of the witch or wizard they desired. Clearly, there was little control when it came to who you fell in love with.

He never thought he would have to worry about it. He had been told on his fourth birthday—when his magic first manifested—that one day he would grow up and marry his cousin Narcissa, Uncle Cygnus's youngest daughter, who was just a few years older than Regulus himself. It wasn't until he was eight that he truly understood what "marry" meant, and at the time it had not seemed so bad. When he turned eleven and got the pre-Hogwarts talk, he finally learned what the actual purpose of marriage really was: setting political alliances, money, and reputation aside, it all came down to strengthening and furthering the pure bloodlines. Suddenly, marrying Narcissa seemed a bit more bothersome.

While growing up, they only saw one another at family functions, and even then, most of the attention had been on Sirius and Andromeda who were being coerced into a betrothal themselves, though Andromeda was fighting it tooth and nail, much to Sirius's great relief. It was, however, the reason that Regulus and Narcissa were contracted at such a young age; it was much easier to control children when they did not know there was anything to fight back against.

He loved Narcissa, but in a sisterly way, which made the idea of breeding with her in the future positively horrific, but he was not as bold or brash as his brother and would never consider saying such things aloud. Leave the dramatics to Sirius and Andromeda. Of course, he would not exactly be seeing Andromeda anytime soon, if ever again. Nor would he ever get the chance to meet her daughter, a half-blood Metamorphmagus that she named Nymphadora.

He had seen his brother pocket the photograph of the tiny purple-haired infant knowing, without a doubt, that the bruises he would wear back to Hogwarts would likely match the little girl's hair if he got caught with it. Sirius did not appear to give a damn, though—as he decided to say loudly in the other room—and he never had, no matter what the consequences were.

And the consequences had always been dire.

Growing up in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place had been uncomfortable, to say the least. Their parents only ever handed out affection when they were in public, and even then it was only ever given to Sirius who was the wonderful heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Except when he was not behaving like the wonderful heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, in which case they had Regulus: the wonderful spare. It was not until Sirius was ready to go to Hogwarts that Walburga and Orion even considered really putting effort into raising their younger son, but when Sirius had written home after the Sorting, it was ready, set, go for Project Scion Swap.

Regulus had been heartbroken that his brother, his best friend, would leave to Hogwarts a year ahead of him. Despite their father telling them that boys did not cry—and they certainly did not hug one another, especially in public—it took both parents to separate the pair at King's Cross. Sirius stood in front of him and wiped the tears from Regulus's face as the scarlet steam train whistled its warnings of departure.

"Look for my owl; I'll write to you every week, Reg," Sirius promised him with the bright grin that made him look completely out of place among his family at all times, "and once you get to Hogwarts, we're going to have so much fun. I promise I won't even care that you're a year younger. I'll sneak you into my dorm and it'll be just like at home only better. You and me, Reg," he had smiled, "the Black brothers are going to conquer Hogwarts. They'll be talking about our adventures for centuries."

Sharing a dorm would never happen, of course. Sirius had taken three weeks to finally owl home; when the letter did finally arrive, Walburga had sent a Howler back in its place.

"You can hardly blame the boy for what a charmed Hat says," Orion had tried to calm his wife down, a glass of firewhisky in his hand to help dull the ache in his head that Walburga's current volume had created.

"Don't you dare try to let him off the hook for this!" she had screamed back. "I know he did something. He must have done something to disgrace our family this way."

Gryffindor. Centuries of grand green and silver tradition broken by a single boy who their mother said was far too disrespectful, too reckless, and too sentimental. They should not have coddled him so much. They should not have let him outside so often. They, perhaps, should not have let the boys spend so much time together. They had instilled courage in their eldest son by letting him be protective over his younger brother and Blacks were not supposed to be protectors, they were self-preservationists. Family first, and that did not mean one another, it meant the name, the motto, the blood. Regulus would need to be educated from scratch. Sirius would need to be reminded his place.

When Sirius returned home for Christmas holidays he was a full Gryffindor; a lion in and out, which was ironic considering it had been Regulus that was named after the brightest star in the Leo constellation. "Rubbish!" his mother had said. "Star or not, your name means 'Basilisk' in Latin; King of the serpents!" Serpent, unlike his brother, the disgraceful lion who was already being labelled a blood-traitor simply because a shoddy old hat told him that he would sleep in a tower and not a dungeon for the next seven years.

Sirius had been stubborn and proud and, even at only twelve, he was eager to argue back and defend his new House loyalties. He openly talked about his new friends with a joyful look on his face that their mother said made him look embarrassingly effeminate. Sirius ignored her and went on and on about James Potter ("Disgusting son of blood-traitors!"), Remus Lupin ("Wasn't his father a wizard from a good family who threw away his future when he married a Muggle?"), and Peter Pettigrew ("Who?"). By the time Sirius was bragging about Albus Dumbledore—who he said was the greatest wizard since Merlin—and Professor McGonagall—who he knew had a Hogwarts rivalry with Walburga when they had attended school together and, therefore, should know better than to mention her name—both of their parents were officially done with their eldest's smart mouth and blood-traitor language.

Christmas that year had been spent in St. Mungo's after there had been an "accident" where Sirius "fell" down three flights of stairs. Regulus had been forced to open his presents at the foot of Sirius's hospital bed while his brother looked on, drowsy from Pain Potions as their mother told him that only good boys received gifts. Summer was worse after Sirius worked his way around the underage magic rule by nicking their father's wand and charming the walls of his room Gryffindor red. Another trip to St. Mungo's had Sirius drinking down Skele-Gro after he "fell from his broom" and broke three ribs and his collarbone.

Memories of the bruises, broken bones, and welts on his brother's body flooded Regulus's mind when he was brought into the Great Hall beside the other first years. He stared out into the crowd and found Sirius's face immediately, grinning, waving, and throwing him a thumbs up.

"Black, Regulus!" Professor McGonagall called his name and gestured to the stool in the front of the room.

When he slowly made his way to sit down he was shaking and terrified, trying to hold it all in so as not to appear completely frightened. No need to be called a cry-baby on the first night in whatever House he ended up in. Not brave, he thought to himself. I'm definitely not brave.

You could be, the Sorting Hat said inside his mind. You have great potential to be very brave and bold. I see greatness in you. Your heart is large and loyal to those you care about, and your concern for others is astounding. I wonder what brave things you could accomplish when that bold love is properly directed?

I don't want it, Regulus had pleaded, thinking of the way Sirius had finally broken down and cried in the middle of the night long after their parents had locked him in his room to nurse his wounds two weeks before they had been taken to Kings Cross. Sirius had fought back at every turn, appearing stubborn and angry, but the moment he was alone, he quietly sobbed, cradling his injuries in private.

Regulus tried like hell to get in to help his brother, but their mother had locked the door with magic and, even if Sirius had been allowed to use it outside of Hogwarts, she had taken his wand too. So Regulus quietly sat outside of Sirius's bedroom, whispering what words of comfort he could think of that might not get him hit too hard if their parents caught him. When Sirius had finally fallen asleep, Regulus closed his eyes and wished that he knew the kind of magic that would give them both a different family; one without expectations and rules based on blood and Houses and the colour of robes you wore to class.

Slytherin, please, just put me in Slytherin, Regulus begged.

"Better be . . . SLYTHERIN!" the Hat shouted.

Regulus let out a deep sigh of relief and scanned the Great Hall until his gaze fell on a matching pair of grey eyes sitting beneath red and gold banners. Sirius frowned and looked down, clearly devastated. A lanky boy with sandy-blond hair next to him patted him on the back consolingly; two other boys sitting across from him—one short and a bit portly, the other tall with a head of messy black hair—pushed a couple boxes of Chocolate Frogs toward their friend to cheer him up.

Regulus slowly made his way to the Slytherin table, where he was politely welcomed, and sat down beside a second year with a curtain of black hair hiding away a scowl, the only thing easily visible was a hooked nose that was not proportionate to the rest of his face.

"Black?" the boy asked, sneering at Regulus.

Regulus nodded.

"Are you related to the Gryffindor prat?"

Regulus cleared his throat, remembering that, while he wasn't brave like Sirius, he could not show fear, not in Slytherin or else be labelled weak. "My brother," he said firmly. "Is there a problem?" he asked, narrowing his gaze.

The older boy rolled his black eyes and looked away, a bitter expression on his face. "Not unless you're anything like him."

No, Regulus thought sadly, I'm nothing like Sirius.

The bedroom door finally opened from the next room and Sirius was wiping blood from his mouth looking wrathful but sufficiently subdued when it came to speaking to his parents. There was nothing to be done to spare Andromeda from being disowned. He slammed the large wooden door behind him and walked straight up to Regulus, gripping him by the shoulders. "She's still our cousin, do you hear me?" he said firmly. "I don't give a shit what some stupid wall says; Dromeda's still family. A giant piece of fabric does not get to tell me who my family is, I say who my family is. You agree with me, right?" he asked his younger brother, unaware that his lip was bleeding again.

Regulus frowned at the sight, wondering how his older brother was able to endure such pain. The beatings were not as bad as they could be, he imagined. Though there was not much confirmation, they had both overheard their parents talking to one another about how Cygnus—or Bellatrix, as was her want to do—had put Andromeda under the Cruciatus Curse when they had discovered her elopement and secret half-blood child.

"Sirius why . . . why can't you just shut up and look down like you're supposed to?" he asked, staring at the swelling on his brother's lip. "Next, she'll blast you off," he whispered. "You can't let her do it," Regulus said firmly, not wanting to admit that he was afraid such a thing would actually happen and he would be left in Sirius's place. "Just . . . just stay quiet for the next couple of years and you'll be out of here."

Sirius shook his head. "I'm not a coward," he insisted.

Regulus flinched at the statement, despite knowing that Sirius had not said it as a way of calling out his brother on his own cowardice. "Why does it always come down to bravery?" Regulus asked bitterly.

"Why does it always come down to saving your own arse?" Sirius snapped back. "Fine, she's not your cousin anymore. Am I still your brother? Because Dromeda's still on my family tree. Fuck that one," he said, snarling at the tapestry.

Swearing and anger aside, Regulus knew Sirius was hurting. Andromeda had been the perfect pureblood daughter, right up until the moment that she was not. She had been sorted into Slytherin like a proper Black, trained up knowing all the customs and traditions and expectations and, until the moment that she and Sirius started fighting back about their arranged marriage, she had followed each and every rule. Then she had apparently met a Hufflepuff Muggle-born named Edward Tonks and all the pureblood education she spent seventeen years learning went right out the window along with her maiden name and inheritance. So if Andromeda, who had up until the last moment been the perfect pureblood daughter, had been cast aside so easily, what did that mean for Sirius, who had been fighting against his birthright practically from birth?

"You'll always be my brother," Regulus whispered the promise.

"Not unless he shapes up!" their mother said as she walked out of the room, glaring her grey eyes down at her eldest child with a hate that Regulus only saw at Hogwarts when Slytherin faced Gryffindor in Quidditch. Sirius turned and glared back up at their mother and then without another word, pivoted, punched the family tree, and walked out of the room.

Their father exited the room behind Walburga, a glass of firewhisky in his hand as though someone had put it there with a Permanent Sticking Charm, looking annoyed and weary. Orion's eyes fell briefly on his wife before he sighed irritably and followed his eldest son out of the room.

"You, my sweet boy," Walburga said as she turned to face her youngest with a sudden smile on her face that actually looked painful and caused Regulus to wince in sympathy. "One day you will be the Head of this glorious House and it will be your job to keep filth away from our family, do you understand me? Toujours Pur, Regulus," she said to him, reaching forward and grabbing his jaw in her hand.

"But . . ." Regulus began, "I'm not the heir," he said. "Sirius will be the Head of—"

"You," Walburga hissed, her eyes narrowing, "will be the Head of our Noble and Ancient House and it will be your job to keep filth from the family, do you understand me?" she asked again, her fingernails digging into his jawline; he could feel the bruises beginning to form beneath the surface of his skin.

Regulus swallowed. "Yes, ma'am."

"Not just Mudbloods and Muggles," she insisted. "Blood-traitors are just as bad, do you understand?" she asked. "Bring any of their lot into the House of Black and it will defile everything we have worked so hard for . . . centuries of purity, all gone!" her voice raised and Regulus forced himself not to flinch. "Toujours Pur, Regulus," she snapped, shaking him by the grip on his face, her nails digging even further into his skin as she silently indicated he was to repeat her words.

"Toujours Pur, Mother," Regulus said quietly.

"There's my good boy." She grinned, finally letting go of his face. "Go and get ready for the party now dear," she said and patted him affectionately on the shoulder as though she had not just nearly assaulted him as she would Sirius. "Your Uncle Cygnus isn't going to let one nasty little blood-traitor ruin Narcissa's big day. Of course, it should be your big day as well, but apparently the little trollop couldn't wait a few more years for you to come of age," she said, rolling her eyes dramatically, a bitter scowl on her face.

"It's all right, Mother," Regulus said irritably, already tired of defending his decision on the matter. "I didn't want to marry Cissa anyway. Besides, she's in love with Lucius and I just want her to be happy."

Walburga beamed at him. "See? And that's why you would have made a wonderful husband for her. Still, I imagine breaking the contract wasn't your idea?"

Regulus shook his head. "No, ma'am."

"I hope you got something good for your sacrifice," she huffed.

Regulus held back from cringing.

When he had stepped foot inside the Slytherin Dungeons for the first time and Professor Slughorn gave an "inspirational" welcome speech, he had been reunited with his future bride. Narcissa introduced him to her boyfriend, a fifth year Prefect named Lucius Malfoy, who shook Regulus's hand, and said that they would sit down and talk things out very soon. He was then officially introduced to Severus Snape, the black-haired boy he had sat down beside in the Great Hall, who was apparently now in charge of showing Regulus how things worked in Slytherin.

He did not hear another word directly from Lucius until Narcissa's fifteenth birthday when she had shown up in the Slytherin Common Room with an emerald necklace hung around her slender neck. All the girls squealed loudly and the boys patted Lucius on the back, which Regulus thought strange considering, by pureblood customs, jewellery of that magnitude meant something quite serious.

Everything made sense when Lucius had taken him aside and showed him an old spell that he and Narcissa had found allowing a marriage contract to be broken by both willing parties without the approval of their parents, which Regulus knew he would certainly not get from his mother who had been fawning over Narcissa and insisting that her niece call her "Mum" for years now.

However, Cygnus wanted the world to know that Bellatrix and Narcissa were nothing like Andromeda, and so Bellatrix had been immediately married off to the eldest of the Lestrange family and, despite the arrangement with Regulus, Narcissa had been encouraged to entangle herself further into the wealthy and Noble House of Malfoy which paralleled the House of Black in both money and purity. It had not been much of a sacrifice on Cissa's part; it was clear to anyone at Hogwarts that she worshipped the very ground Lucius walked on, which either meant that she genuinely did love him, or she was an exceptionally good actress; Regulus believed it was a bit of both.

The spell appeared like a simple blood sacrifice, not something most children of the House of Black were unaccustomed to participating in, but there were a few bits of the untranslated portion that left him feeling uneasy. Still, Lucius was insistent and imposing and Narcissa looked utterly besotted with him. Regulus had not even thought about girls in any context other than classmates, unlike Sirius, who he had caught multiple times in the corridors sniffing after witches like a dog after a bone.

What did it matter to him to break the marriage contract?

"What do I get out of this?" he asked, looking up at Lucius who towered over him, but Regulus stood firm, showing no signs of fear. He was a Slytherin and would be damned if his bride—desired or not—would be stolen away from him without proper compensation. He would be forced to endure whatever wrath from his parents would come down upon him over breaking the contract and, aside from the legalities of the spell that ensured promises of furthering the lineage of both parties, Regulus saw clearly that he was receiving the poor end of the deal.

"What would you like?" Lucius asked with a grin, apparently pleased that the young Slytherin had not just rolled over and accepted the theft of his prize, a prize that Lucius clearly coveted.

Regulus thought for a moment about the things that were important to him. He had all the money in the world and did not need anything from Malfoy in that respect. Had it been anyone other than Lucius asking for Narcissa's hand, Regulus would have insisted that she be treated properly and adored as she deserved, but the way the blond wizard caressed her neck—even in front of Regulus—made it clear that Narcissa would be treasured as a Malfoy bride. That left only one thing . . .

"The House of Salazar is to leave my brother alone," he demanded. "He's already been sent to the Hospital Wing twice this year because of random hexing in the halls and on the Pitch."

Lucius scoffed. "He's a Gryffindor."

"He's my brother and the heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black," Regulus said firmly, sounding much older than his eleven years. "An attack on him is a disrespect to my entire family, our name, and our blood. I give a hair over what colours he wears here at Hogwarts."

"Snape won't like it," Lucius reminded him. "And I can only offer protection so long as I'm here," he insisted. "Once I graduate, it ends."

Regulus nodded. "Understood."

"You realise you're basically giving Sirius Black a free pass to attack anyone in your own House without retribution, correct?" Lucius asked him clearly. "When my protection ends, they will remember everything he did and the wrath will come down on him ten-fold."

Regulus hesitated as he pondered the ability to rein in his brother's antics. The pranks were one thing, but Sirius held a genuine dislike for all Slytherins—save for Regulus. The boy still nodded. "Let's end this marriage contract, cousin," he said, smiling up at Narcissa.