Chapter 9
Regulus was not generally a morning person. If he had the opportunity he would sleep until noon every day, but he was rarely blessed with such an opportunity. When they were younger and Sirius still lived at home, Regulus used to sneak into his room after they had been sent to bed and they would practice what magic they could do and play games in the dark until their mother inevitably found them and dragged Regulus out by the ear to throw him back in his own room. It was always Sirius she yelled at for being a bad influence on Regulus, but it was Regulus that got the brunt of her physical anger. The morning after, though, they would both be allowed to sleep in because their parents had given up on trying to get Sirius to obey them and if Regulus crawled back in to sleep in Sirius' bed they would give up on him too. He would wake up sore from a mixture of sleeping with his brother in a bed made for one and the rough handling of his mother, but it would always be worth it and he would always be ready to do it again.
There had been one time, Regulus was around seven at the time, that their mother did not merely shout and throw Regulus back into his room. That particular night she was not just angry, she was terrifyingly furious and exploded at the two of them. Through the years Regulus would learn to read the signs that she was working up into a terrible rage, but at the time it took him and Sirius by surprise. The memory wasn't clear to Regulus. He remembered an intense and painful burning sensation and Sirius and his mother screaming at each other. He had faded out of consciousness sometime before they stopped and woke up in Sirius' bed, his arms covered in welts and his brother kinder than usual. Nevertheless, Sirius never let Regulus in his room after bed again. And his mother had apparently learned not to go after him in front of Sirius.
Regulus had grown up knowing that Sirius' room was the safest place to sleep in the house and the only place he was banned from. After Sirius went to Hogwarts, he wondered if he kept his brother out of his room because he remembered that night or if he just lost love for him. Either way, a good night's sleep after restless nights spent in bed worrying about the rapidly deteriorating state of his family, the last argument they had playing in his head, was hard to find after that. The next day's argument would inevitably wake him up.
Today it had been the sounds of the forest that woke him up before Hope, before the sun had started to rise. It was harder to sleep in here than it had been at home-Regulus jolted awake at the first sound of trouble. He was a trained light sleeper, his fight or flight instincts ready to kick in the minute he heard anything out of the ordinary. Most times he was able to pass out from total exhaustion after, but not this morning. This morning he was properly unsettled.
Hope lay quietly on the cushions only inches away from where he slept, peacefully sleeping. She was a large part of his nerves. Hope both grated against them and encited them. She was a catalyst in all possible ways, full of anger and energy and a fierceness that Regulus was unused to confronting. Most of the positive feelings he felt for her were sexual desire, or at least that's what he told himself, but he couldn't deny an underlying feeling of...feeling. And all feeling left him vulnerable to her. He wished he could have been stuck in the woods with one of his more unlikeable enemies or a casual friend, rather than this girl who incited both rage and desire in him. He didn't feel feelings like this, not since the first time his brother had announced that Regulus brother was not his family. Not since his mother had spit in his face and told him he was worthless. Not since his father had given him a sympathetic look and told him that there was nothing he could do but keep his head down and stay out of trouble.
Everyone learned to push away their emotions, to some extent, Regulus figured. It was the purity of his blood that allowed him to suppress his emotions so truly and to remain calm and cool. After all, Sirius was hardly able to maintain the same calm, likely because he was a blood traitor. And the mudblood, Hope, was an outpouring of emotion. Her half-blood friend, Casielle, was a brash and outspoken bitch. He was lucky to be able to shut off his emotions. It was unlucky that she made him feel things he had trouble controlling, but, he reasoned, she was nothing. He did not need to concern himself with his feelings for her because she was nothing but a consequence of being a teenage boy stuck in a dangerous situation with a young woman. He repeated this to himself as she stretched her body out on the cushions and he watched her wake up.
"Morning," she said sleepily.
"Morning," Regulus replied, watching her stretch and curl up alternatively, clearly unwilling to get out of bed. She looked at him.
"You're not usually up before me."
"You kept me up snoring."
"I did not! Did I?"
Regulus smirked in reply. She hadn't, but he wasn't going to say that.
"Oh. Well. I'm sorry. I usually don't. Or I guess if I do my sister doesn't notice. She always falls asleep before me and she's the one who snores. I share a room with her. Didn't used to, but ever since my youngest brother was born I had to share with her."
"How many siblings do you have? How small is your house?"
Hope rolled her eyes. "Our house is normal sized. And three. I have my older sister, Maggie, and my two younger brothers, Mark, and Eric. Eric is the baby, he's a lot younger than me. He's my favorite sibling. Is that bad to say? I guess you wouldn't know, you've only got one, but Eric is for sure my favorite. I would kill everyone in the whole world for him."
Regulus raised his eyebrows at her. "Is that so?"
"It is so! And Mark, he's younger than me too, I'd kill a lot of people for him. He...well, he takes after me in some ways-not eating mostly. Which is my fault. I'm older, I'm the one who started all this shit...I know I'm the reason he stopped eating and started caring so much about his weight.." Hope made a face that Regulus was used to seeing when she was acting concerned for him. He must have showed irritation on his own face because she said, "I'm sorry. It's just hard to see...hard to know. I did this to myself, right, and that doesn't bother me. But I feel like I brought my brother down with me and that's not fair."
"Why? You didn't make him do anything."
"Because...he's my younger brother. It's my job to look after him and set a good example for him. And every time I try to talk him out of it I just look like a giant hypocrite. I am the worst sister ever. I know what I need to do for Mark, but I can't bring myself to do it. I am nothing but an example of what not to be and God help me, he is following in my footsteps."
"That bothers you?"
Hope looked at him, maintaining uncomfortable eye contact as she said, "Of course it does. My younger brothers...they're my responsibility. When they are falling, I need to save them. That is what you do for your siblings."
It was Regulus' turn to stare at her intensely. Hope blushed.
"I'm sorry. But that's the way it was for me, you know? I looked after them, I had no choice. Our mom wasn't really in the best place to raise us when we were young and Maggie left us the moment she could. She didn't actually run away, but she went to summer camp and college and never looked back. And all of a sudden I was left to look out for our younger brothers and to deal with mom because she wanted to be free. She left us to fall apart. Good for her, I guess, but I can't help but feel bitter. Being the peacemaker is...hard. You should count yourself lucky that you were the youngest."
"But you didn't have to look after sister didn't. Why would you stay when she left?"
"Because I can't leave them. They're my family. I grew up putting their needs above mine, that's just the way it was. You'd know if you had younger-" Hope stopped at the sight of Regulus' face. He was visibly upset. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
Regulus shook his head. "You really love your brothers."
"Yeah, yeah I really do. I would do anything for them. That's how it's supposed to be, you know. Your older sibling is supposed to give the whole world over for you, that's what I try to do for Mark and Eric. I'm just...I'm not in good shape to do it. Maggie was, but she wasn't ready for it, I suppose…"
Hope paused as she watched Regulus start to cry for the second time since they had gotten lost in here. It was unsettling seeing someone who was habitually smugly in control break like that. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"
Regulus shook his head, wiping his eyes quickly. "It's nothing. I just think... your brothers are lucky."
Hope made a face and replied, "I don't know about that. I may care, but I don't do all that well by them."
"At least you do care."
Hope crawled over to Regulus and hugged him. He made a half-hearted attempt to push her away but she was undeterred. "I care about you too," she assured him. "I care about you. I care about you making it out alright, I want you to be alright."
Hope continued to murmur words of comfort until he suddenly sat up straight, shrugging her off and trying to look dignified. He sighed when Hope kept looking at him with questioning eyes."What?"
"Are you mad at Sirius? For leaving?"
"No," he insisted.
"You have to feel bitter. Don't you feel bitter? Or am I just an asshole?"
Regulus stared at her in silence, refusing to calm her unsteady emotions. Hope shrugged and reached out to hug him again, a hug he warily accepted.
"I'm sorry. I'm being weird this morning. I'm just...I feel a lot of anger. For me. For you. I wish...I never should have brought all this up.."
"You really love your brothers? You would really kill for them?"
"Absolutely. They're my brothers."
Regulus looked at her carefully for what felt like an eternity. "Would they kill for you?"
Hope shrugged. "Probably not kill, but yes, they have my back."
"Because they love you?"
"Because they love me."
Regulus' expression softened. "What's that like? I've always wondered."
"What's what like?"
"Being loved."
Hope chewed her lip and thought for a moment. "It's like...safe. It feels safe. I always have a home I can go back to. My mother, for all her flaws, does truly love us no matter what, so whenever I fuck my whole life up I know I can still go home and she'll help me. I'm sure people love you, though. Your dad. People. I dunno."
Regulus laughed. "Thanks?"
Hope smiled and curled up next to him with her head in his lap. "I aim to please."
It was early in the morning and Regulus Black, covered in dirt, tear tracks running through the filth on his face, let the mudblood girl sleep on his lap and stroked her hair absentmindedly while thinking about love. Perhaps being in the Forest really was like being in another world.
A/n: I had to do some serious editing to the original version of this chapter because I wrote the entire second half while I was drunk and boy was it hilarious in a sad kind of way to go back and read it when sober. In case you care. I like to talk about myself. Ok.
