A.N. Hello all! I am incredibly stressed about this whole quarantine situation, and it has made it increasingly hard to write. I still have a two chapter cushion, but be aware that there may be some delays in posting in the near future. I have so much left to write in this story and I'm so excited to bring it all to you, but it may just happen at a slower pace. Everyone stay safe and stay healthy! Also, as always, a big shoutout to my beta rotehexe!

As always, a special thanks to Reflection Rose, WMD92, Ashes Ascending, xXMizz Alec VolturiXx, Krankykittie, Fast Frank, jadely31, brownie-123, Sincere J. Moon, and two guests for reviewing chapter 22!


"Remus…care to explain what the fuck you and my little brother are doing with an unconscious woman in my flat?"

Sirius tried to keep his voice even, but his eyes frantically flicked back and forth between his best friend, the woman he was relatively sure might be the love of his life, and the younger brother he hadn't spoken to for an extended amount of time in six years. Regulus, looking more like a man than even the last time his brother had seen him, was kneeling on the hard wooden floor next to an unconscious muggleborn witch. For a moment, Sirius thought he might be having a hallucination of some sort.

"They can't stay at my flat Pads. It's the moon tonight. She's…" Remus's eyes glanced away from Sirius's in the way they always did when he was avoiding bad news. Sirius didn't need him to answer. He could bloody well see what she was like.

"Reg." Sirius's voice called out, switching over to his ministry voice. He was still furious with the witch for erasing his memories and if he was quite honest with himself, for not loving him more than her mission. It was irrational; he knew this. Obviously putting Moldy Voldy six feet under was priority number one, but when he closed his eyes he saw her there and it was fucking unfair of her.

"Please Sirius…I don't know what to do. She's so cold." He was stalled completely by Regulus's voice. He hadn't heard his brother say his name since he was 15 years old. Closing his eyes and refocusing himself, Sirius took a deep breath.

"Do you know what happened to her?" Hit-wizard mode had been activated and Sirius was using all of the training he'd had with both the order and the ministry of healing practices. When Regulus just shook his head and wrapped her tighter in the blanket that bound her, Sirius took off at a near sprint down the narrow hallway of his flat.

Lily was an over-prepared and paranoid and had gifted all the marauders and the Longbottoms emergency kits at the start of the war. Sirius wasn't the cleanest man alive, which he much owed to being a bachelor and a hit-wizard who lived in a flat by himself, but he knew precisely where everything was in his mess. After thirty seconds of searching through his junk trunk that sat in a disused closet collecting dusk, he grew frustrated and drew out his wand.

"Accio healing kit." A faint bumping sound coming from underneath the sink in his bathroom, signifying that magic had found what he could not. When the small white zipper bag appeared around the corner, Sirius reached out his hand to catch it. Whatever had happened to her, a bezoar was probably a good place to start. Digging through the kit for the stone only took a moment or two, and the moment his hands clasped around it, he took off back towards his parlor.

When he arrived back into the parlor,

"Shove this in her mouth. Get it as far down her throat as you can." Regulus just nodded, catching the bezoar as it was thrown haphazardly towards him. Hermione's breath was quick and shallow as he tried to open her mouth. Nudging her lip with the stone, he noticed how absolutely frigid her skin was. Her mouth opened just slightly enough for him to slip the smooth stone in, and Regulus tried to push it in further.

"Reg we don't have the time for nice and gentle. Get it down her throat or she dies!" Sirius was shuffling through his potions store in his kitchen, and re-emerged with both arms full of every potion he owned. Regulus swallowed the lump in his throat of worry and pushed harder. Hermione made a small gurgling noise as the bezoar hit the back of her throat and began to fight against him, and Regulus placed his hand over her mouth to stop her from pushing it out.

After a moment of panic-instinct fighting against Regulus's embrace, Hermione's arched back finally relaxed and her breathing began to even out. "Oh thank Merlin." Regulus sighed, relieved that the color was beginning to return to her cheeks. Sirius found himself fascinated by the systematic way that the beautiful pink hue began returning to her face. She truly was so beautiful, but he was still mad at her. There she lay though, having barely escaped death and looking like his own personal sleeping beauty.

He was distracted from staring at her, however, by watching his younger brother look at her the exact same way. It was like he was looking in a strange and twisted mirror, watching his little brother (who was not quite so little anymore) stare with love-torn eyes at the witch whose chest now rose and fell in a less strained and more rhythmic fashion.

"You're in love with her…" Sirius blurted out, the words barely even registering in his brain before they tumbled forward like a gasp. Regulus flinched back and away from Hermione as his eyes grew dark and his posture grew stiff and tight. The Regulus Black who was trained to believe that Hermione was nothing more than dirt beneath his feet.

"You are bold to presume you know anything about me." The younger Black stood to his full height, which was just a hair taller than his older brother which he would never admit gave him the smallest hint of satisfaction. "You haven't known anything about me since you abandoned me when I was 15."

Sirius looked between Hermione's unconscious form and Regulus before swallowing down the bitter, sarcastic comment he was about to make…Hermione wouldn't want them to fight. "Lets not do this now Reg. We'll find a time, but now isn't the right one." It was perhaps the first mature thing he'd ever done in his life in reference to his family. He began to retreat towards the kitchen, towards the solace of his horridly brewed tea and the stale and half-eaten pastry he'd been in the middle of enjoying when Remus and Reg had arrived.

"No. You're not running away from this. That's all you fucking do is run away." Sirius bit back his anger, desperately searching his cabinets for his last bottle of firewhiskey, his tea forgotten. He'd been working on getting sober, ever since Hermione had come along. It wasn't that she'd told him to, but he could see the pity in her eyes that night when he reached for the flask…he never wanted to be pitied again.

"Fuck…" He swore to himself, swiping his hands rapid fire along the cabinets, until finally in the fourth cabinet his fingers caught the smooth handle of the bottle. Pulling it down from the cabinet, Sirius took a long, burning sip before facing his only family…if Regulus even considered him that.

Regulus caught up to him then, so close that their noses nearly brushed. In a fit of anger, the younger Black grabbed the bottle viciously from Sirius's grip and threw it against the wall. The sound of shattering glass made both of them flinch, but neither moved away from their position.

"What the fuck do you want from me?! Do you want me to apologize for getting the fuck out of that house? Do you want me to say that I regret it? Because I don't! You had turned your back on me, mum…Walburga wanted me bloody rotting in a coffin and dear old dad just watched it all happen." Sirius's anger coursed through his veins and he tried desperately to remember the calming breaths that James' mum had always tried to get him to use when his anger got the best of him. Regulus glared at his brother with all of his strength.

"It wasn't a fucking walk in the park for me either you wanker. Do you know what I had to deal with when you were put into the Lion's den? She beat me…everyday. She beat me every time I talked about you. Whenever I tried to write you a letter, she said I was not going to be a blood traitor too. You weren't there…you didn't…" Regulus could feel the hot sting of tears burning behind his rapidly blinking eyes and turned away.

In his mind, he had imagined yelling at his brother. For years after Sirius ran away, he imagined what he might say when he finally got to tell his older brother how hurt he'd been…how abandoned he'd felt…how much he'd wished he'd taken him with him.

"Now who's running away?" Sirius taunted from behind him, and Regulus stopped abruptly in the hallway, his hand curling into a tight fist. He wouldn't let him get the last word.

"You want to compare battle scars? You want to see who Walburga hurt more? You may have gotten away from her but you left me behind." There it was. That was the heart of the issue. Regulus finally broke, his voice tilting sadly as he looked his brother in the eye. Sirius was so caught up in his own misery when he was 16 that he never even considered that Regulus was just as miserable as he had been.

Sirius moved forward to place a hand on his brother's shoulder, only to have it shrugged off. "Reg…" The sound cut off in his throat, as he choked on his own grief. Regulus moved from the hallway, back towards the room where Hermione was now asleep rather than unconscious.

"I hated mudbl…muggleborns. I hated werewolves. I hated Potter. They took you away from me. You were gone. Walburga burnt your face off the tapestry. Then the Dark Lord comes calling. I was so proud to get his mark…to make mum and dad proud…to do the one thing I knew you would hate most." Regulus dropped into the nearest armchair and began to roll up his sleeve, exposing the hideous Dark Mark that marred his skin. Casting a heartbroken glance towards Hermione, he placed his head in his hands.

"What have I done?" Regulus mourned, his long dark hair falling around his face obscuring it slightly as he fought back tears. If he was going to have a damned breakdown, it would not be in his bloody brother's flat.

"You did what you could Reg." Sirius moved down to a squatting position, placing himself in front of his brother who seemed to be holding on to his control by a thread. "You did what I was too cowardly to do. You survived in that house. You're right…I never should have left you there…left you with that woman. I'm so…I'm so sorry Reg. I was meant to protect you and I just ran away." Sirius wrapped his arms gingerly around his brother, pulling the younger boy's head into the crook of his shoulder.

Regulus's eyes opened wide in surprise. It was the first time Sirius had touched him in a comforting way since he was a child. His original instinct was to fight against the embrace, to push away Sirius just as he had done when he was 16, but there was some magnetic energy keeping him in place. Gingerly, and slowly, Regulus's arms wrapped around Sirius's back, opening himself up to his brother.

He wasn't quite sure when Sirius had begun crying, but he could feel the sporadic movement of his chest as they held each other. All the pain and hurt that they both felt seemed to ooze out of them as if this touch was healing their souls. In this moment, Regulus was not a Death Eater and Sirius was not an Order Member, instead they were what they were born to be, brothers.

They may have sat like that for a long time had a small voice not come from their right.

"I do hate to break up such a beautiful moment, but I feel as though I may die if I don't get some water." Hermione's face was still pale, and she was so weak that her head dropped against the pillow every time she tried to lift her head. Sirius and Regulus sprung up from their healing hug and both sprinted towards the kitchen. Thirty seconds later, both men were holding out large glasses of water towards Hermione. Her brown eyes traveled between the two before weakly chuckling. Sirius and Regulus each unconsciously puffed out their chests as they silently fought over who's water she would take.

Capable of rolling her eyes even in her weakened state, Hermione grabbed both glasses, drinking Sirius's first and then Regulus's. The dryness of her throat was soothed by the intake of water and slowly, she was able to move herself into a sitting position. "Regulus…" Hermione began, as she turned her head towards where the men stood near her.

"Yes?" He responded quickly, kicking off the wall where he'd been leaning. A smug smirk crossed his face as he looked at Sirius in victory.

"Can you give Sirius and I a minute?" Her face was serious as he regarded her, somewhat deflated and a bitter glimmer behind his grey eyes.

"Fine. Can I use your shower?" Regulus asked, nearly scowling and walking away before waiting for an answer. He smelled awful and if he was going to be banished he'd rather use the time to smell less like a flobberworm.

When his little brother was gone, Sirius pulled one of his armchairs up to the couch, allowing him to sit right next to Hermione. The soft, plush fabric of the couch grazed against his knuckles as he began to reach out for her before pulling back. He was still mad at her…wasn't he?

"If you wanted me alone poppet, there were easier ways than to nearly kill yourself." Hermione's dry lips parted in an attempt at a pity laugh, but the sound just caught in her throat, leading to a heavy coughing fit. "Merlin Hermione I…you looked like you were dead when you got here. I thought…never do that to me again. What the fuck happened?"

Sirius leaned closer to her, his own dark unruly curls falling against her shoulder. Finally the urge to touch her face, to feel the warmth of her body that proved she was alive overwhelmed him and he reached his hand out to push a curl from her face.

"Regulus was very brave. He's going to need you now. The Dark Lord will believe him dead, a traitor. I need you to hide him." Sirius reared back as if Hermione had slapped him. Regulus…what happened? Why was he in hiding?

"Me? Wouldn't somewhere else be better?" Hermione sent him one of her looks and he knew in that moment better than to question his witch. She knew more than he would ever forget. There was no way she hadn't thought this through completely.

She sighed, knowing exactly what he was thinking. In her time, she and Sirius had never gotten to talk about Regulus, but Hermione knew how the man loved. It killed him to leave his brother behind. "Don't let your past keep you from him."

"And what if he doesn't want me close?" Sirius breathed out softly. There it was, the crux of the matter.

"He needs you. Malfoy Manor is too risky, Grimmauld Place is out of the question. There are too many chances to be seen in Godric's Hollow. Lily comes over unannounced all the time. There's nowhere else for me to hide him." She could see Sirius's grey eyes grow dark and stormy as they always did when he was making a choice. Hermione used what was left of her strength to lift her hand up to his, tracing her soothing circles with her thumb. "I need you to make sure he's safe. I came back to save so many people and Reg…he's one of them. He should already be dead."

That was what broke Sirius; the image of his younger brother's dead body. He loved his brother. As broken as their relationship was, as misguided as their attempts at reconciliation were, he loved his brother. A sob fought its way up from his chest, but he bit it back, rubbing the back of his hand against his eyes.

"I'll do it." Hermione's face lit up at that, looking nearly herself as she smiled at him. His heart was heavy as he once again noticed how beautiful she was when she smiled. For the first time in over ten years, Sirius would put Regulus first.

"Thank you." Hermione breathed out, relief painting her features as she shuffled back into her resting position. "I'll be good as new in a bit I just have to…close…my eyes for…a moment." Before she could even finish her last word, her eyelids fluttered closed and her breathing began to grow shallow. Sirius chuckled sadly at her statement, leaning forward and brushing his lips against her forehead.

The flat was silent as Sirius was left alone with his thoughts. His fingers itched for the sweet relief of firewhiskey before remembering that Regulus had smashed his last bottle. Taking deep breaths, Sirius thought back to the last time he and Reg had truly been brothers. His head began to echo those self-hating insistencies that plagued him when the dull thrum of alcohol didn't fill his head instead. Minutes later, when Regulus emerged from the shower wearing one of Sirius's old t-shirts and a loose pair of joggers, the older Black knew what he had to do.

"Do you really only own ratty old peasant clothes? Honestly haven't you ever heard of a tailor…" Regulus was cut off when a large impact hit his chest. Sirius had crossed the room in an instant, wrapping his arms so tightly around his little brother that the younger wizard could hardly breathe.

"Urm…" Regulus started, not quite sure what was happening and not quite comfortable with the intimacy of this hug. "Can you get off?"

"No. Reg…I'm so glad you're alive." Sirius's arms moved to separate the two so he could look at him fully. "I'm so sorry for everything…can we…can we be brothers again? Stay with me. I'll hide you. I'll make bloody sure you survive this war. We've lost so much time just…please…please let me protect you. Let me have one more chance to be your big brother."

In all his years of knowing Sirius, he had never before seen the man beg. Not when Walburga cast the cruciatus curse on him. Not when he was being beaten. Not when she burned his face off the family tapestry. This was the first time Sirius Black had ever begged for anything. Finally breaking down, he pulled himself back into his brother's arms.

"You've always been my big brother." Regulus insisted, giving Sirius a playful shove to his shoulder. The tattooed wizard smirked sadly at the man his brother had grown up to be. He truly had lost so much time.

"How bout I make us a cuppa and we talk…really talk." Sirius threw out, beginning to move towards the corridor in the direction of the kitchen.

"Oh Sirius…" The younger Black called before the man disappeared around the corner. Sirius's large grey eyes looked at him with curiosity. "Happy Birthday…brother."

Sirius couldn't help the large smile that graced his face, nearly splitting it in half with its wideness. They certainly had a long way to go, and a lot of fucked up shit to sort through, but it was a start…it was a new beginning.