there's a muggle song warbling in through the open window. somebody must be playing it in number thirteen. it's a sunny day and sirius is sitting on the windowsill, face turned towards the light, singing along.
"'cos don't forget who's taking you home, and in whose arm's you're gonna be," he mumbles along, and his accent doesn't sound quite right. too british, too slangy and londonish, the 'o's and 't's all too upper-class. tailored in the way you tailor a prison visit. "so darlin'... save the last dance for me..."
regulus watches him for a while, up til the end of the song. their parents aren't home but it still feels sort of illicit. he hovers in the doorway until the radio tapers out and then coughs.
sirius glances up at him. the faint nerve endings of a bruise sit on the crest of his forehead. "alright?"
"you shouldn't sing that stuff," regulus tells him. "they'll get angry."
"they're not here right now, are they?"
"they'll know."
sirius shrugs. "c'mon. sit with me."
july swelters against the window. it's hot today but it rained last night and all of north london is filled up with warm mist. regulus obeys. old houses like theirs have thick windowsills. they squeeze up next to one another, sirius against the glass, regulus hanging with one leg dangling on the end of the ledge.
it's only another month and a half until sirius leaves for hogwarts. his letter is sitting on the bed under him.
another song starts up. sirius doesn't sing along to this one, maybe just to humour him. instead, he searches regulus' face. "you okay?"
"fine." regulus sniffs haughtily. "they're angry with you again."
"what did i do now?"
"mrs. pettifeather says you haven't been practicing your calligraphy."
sirius rolls his dark eyes. "i'm bloody good enough at it as i am," he snorts. "she just doesn't like me."
"and you haven't been practicing."
"what does she care? they'll fire her by the time i get to school."
regulus shoves him, though not hard. they've fought a lot over the years, the two of them, and they're not strangers to violence from one another or the rest of their family. this isn't the time for it, though. "i don't want to get another one. she's nice to me."
"precisely why she'll lose her job," sirius teases. "you're too good a student."
"d'you think i'll ever be good enough?"
sirius considers that. "i dunno, reg. if one of us can do it, it'll be you."
"oh."
"not like i'm a great son, am i?"
"you're smarter than i am," regulus murmurs.
"that's cos i'm older." sirius shoves him back, a little harder. "i'm meant to show you up. but you'll get some fancy job as a potioneer or something. won't you? make them both proud. marry some bird and maintain the family fortune."
"i don't want to," regulus says like it's a sin.
he feels sirius staring at him. "you don't?"
and regulus, in a sisyphean sort of way, shakes his head. "i don't think i do," he whispers. "i'm glad i'm the spare."
sirius is silent at that. "me, too," he says after some time. "you'll be okay without me?"
"yeah."
"right."
"right."
the sun slips behind a cloud. the radio tails off as the people in the next house over close their window, and then it's just sirius and the sound of rattly his breathing, and london.
regulus is a survivor. it's sort of how he's had to grow up.
if anybody moulded him into it, it was sirius. sirius, the heir, louder and brasher, an aura about him as dark and fierce as death itself. sirius is murphy's muggle law wrapped in a person: he will find the limits of every situation and grasp and pull at them until they've stretched and broken. he likes loud noises and bad music. every eye follows him when he walks into a room. he's grown up knowing he's got the startling capacity to be dangerous and violent and mad, and he makes it clear he intends to use it.
and so regulus has spent most of his childhood living like this; they will wake up and sirius will make a number of mistakes, each pushing harder at those bright thin barriers around him, and he'll suffer painfully for his insolence, and then they'll go back to sleep, and the next morning, rising against the black sun, they will both do it all over. regulus can count on both hands the amount of times his mother has taken a hand to him. he thinks sirius couldn't sit down and count the times even if asked to.
it is some part mercy, some part torture. the truth of it is this: that regulus would like to be brave, but he's never had to be, not so long as sirius has been in his life.
two of those seven times his mother hits him through his life are in sirius' first year at hogwarts. the first is that very first night, when word reaches from narcissa that sirius has been ushered into the lion's den. they're all sitting around the dining table and mother picks up the letter and reads it once through, barely moving, and then, a pale hurricane, swipes across the table and rakes her dark nails down the side of regulus' face. they gouge out thick lines of flesh. the last of his baby teeth came out last week and there was less blood in his mouth.
violence is not a tamed thing in the black household. most pureblood families discipline their children fairly and coldly, like a bright autumn day. in 12 grimmauld place, none of them speak the language of restraint. nothing anybody does is moderate. regulus takes the pain and staggers out of his seat.
"ow," he says faintly, distantly. the light overhead flickers.
his father shoves at him. "out."
mother is already on her feet too. her hands scramble and tear at father's jacket lapels and she lets out a short scream, a wordless thing. grief and anger, regulus realises that night, aren't so different.
the second time is that christmas. sirius doesn't come home. he must have forged father's signature, regulus thinks. good. brave.
like that time in september, this violence is unwarranted, untamed. the no-warning, punch-below-the-belt sort of pain like a wordless hex. walburga grabs him by the hair on christmas eve and wrenches him around and tosses regulus down the stairs. he hits every step as he rolls down. clunk clunk clunk. the portraits stare and murmur. the pain of it is unbelievable, sparking like muggle fireworks.
as he lies in a heap at the bottom, regulus thinks that the two of them have never understood one another better than when she tries to kill him.
admittedly, this attempt isn't the angriest nor smartest manner in which people will hurt him in his life. in the future, people will try to kill him in far worse ways. he only breaks half a dozen bones. after a few days, his father heals them.
he writes in a letter to sirius about it and sirius seems to think it's hilarious.
'she did that to me a few years ago,' his older brother writes back. 'cracked open my skull like a conker on the bottom step, remember it? you cried when it happened. you'd swear she forgets we're magic some days, the things she does. ironic that. anyway, i'm glad dad healed you. i had to heal james the other day, did i tell you about that? he fell out of the dorm room window.'
iii.
by the time sirius comes back for the summer, they've both hit a growth spurt. sirius still towers over him and he's still more handsome than him, and on the platform he grins at regulus roguishly before pulling him into a tight, manhandling sort of hug. steam curls around them from the train and through the smog, parents hug their children and inevitability curls a spindly hand around sirius' unbruised throat.
"alright, reg?" he asks jovially. "too bad james is already gone, would've introduced you to him. he's bloody great."
regulus pushes sirius off him. "not here," he says. "mother and father are watching."
"mother and father can piss off," sirius mutters darkly. he grabs him back again and this time regulus doesn't fight it. it's nice. sirius gives great hugs. weird considering their tragically deprived childhoods.
father's hand clamps down on regulus shoulder and pulls him away. the world shrinks down tiny and then expands around them and they're back in grimmauld place, and the dark, hovering walls seem to hum with bloodlust. they, too, know that this whole thing is crumbling at its foundations.
that first night is one of the worst regulus can remember. he sits in sirius' room and waits for him as a screaming match breaks out downstairs. there's smashing and shouting and sirius is throwing things around, breaking plates, hurling chairs. somebody must have thrown a hex because the smell of burning wallpaper furls up through the floor and regulus breathes it in.
sirius calls mother a cunt, and tells her he'll never, ever stop hating her for as long as he lives, until the day he drops dead, and that he'd rather shag a dog than any pureblood maniac freak in this godforsaken tory country. walburga bellows slurs at him, sounding more animal than person, tells him she should have murdered him in the womb, that it would have been better if she'd killed herself when they conceived. sirius is halfway up the second floor stairs when regulus hears the sound of her scalping her hands through his hair and pounding his face into the wooden stairs over and over, and then sirius kicks and kicks at her until she staggers back down onto the landing.
"suck my dick, you old cow!" he caterwauls down at her. "if you don't like my friends, send for them to be bloody assassinated, see how dumbledore likes that."
"this is not over!" father hollers. "i'm keeping your wand. you won't be healed until you return to school."
"see if i fucking care!"
"i've half a mind to transfer you to durmstrang- they don't let in lesser-borns there-"
"i'll show you a lesser-born, you filthy old bastard!" sirius shouts. he staggers across the landing and crumples boneless against the doorframe. "hey, reg."
"you're so stupid," reg tells him, as he helps him to the bed. sirius' face is a pulpy red mess. "anything broken?"
"nose," sirius says. "and there's something wrong with my eye socket. can't open it. my eye."
regulus reaches out to feel along his eyebrow. the bone under there has cracked grotesquely, split apart like a fault line. whatever was holding the eyeball in place has broken down the middle. "it's fine," he says. "nothing to complain about."
"ow."
"yeah, i know. it's your own fault."
"wasn't about to let them get away with..." sirius trails off. "oh, i think they got a rib, too. father put me through the table. sick rotten invalid, i thought he was too frail to do that these days. or i was too big."
"i've got murtlap downstairs," regulus offers. "for your face."
"nah. i'll be fine." sirius grabs at him, hands scrambling at the front of regulus' shirt. "lie down with me."
"these clothes are newly washed," regulus says. "you'll get them bloody."
"hardly the worst thing i've done," sirius says.
regulus supposes he can agree with that. he shuffles sirius under the covers and lies beside him. the bed isn't big enough for the both of them but they manage. the light isn't on and downstairs, through the dark, the sound of mother and father screaming at one another fades up through the floorboards like sickness or mould.
"have they been okay to you?" sirius asks after a moment. his mangled face has turned towards the window. maybe through all the blood he can see the stars. london's sky rarely yields such wonders, though. it's mottled with light pollution and fumes tonight. brighter than the moon could ever be.
"yeah," regulus says. "she hasn't spoken to me since christmas."
"carried out your revenge yet?" sirius laughs like a dog. "make those stairs regret messing with you."
"oh, trust me, i'm planning on it."
"only a few more months to get it done," sirius warns. "then you're coming back with me."
"tell me about it," regulus instructs. "hogwarts."
sirius grins at the ceiling. it's an ugly, bloodied sight. "i love magic," he sighs. "it's bloody wonderful. everything... floats. it's bright. they've got huge windows and the stone walls are all aged and light and it's... y'know. bright."
"i meant classes."
"i'm top of my year." sirius wrinkles his nose. "for practical stuff. remus and evans trump me in tests but i'm best at magic. me."
somehow regulus believes that. he can't say it, though. "doesn't sound like you. you're not studious."
"i don't have to be." sirius bares his teeth at the ceiling. "it's about intent. you gotta mean it. i'm great at hexes."
"violence begets violence."
like it's a joke, sirius scoffs. "magic isn't violent. it's lovely."
regulus supposes he's right about that. neither of their parents has ever used magic to hurt them. as far as he knows, it's a bright, wonderful thing that couldn't hurt you if it wanted to. or perhaps sirius just has yet to grow up. perhaps he does, too.
"you have friends?" regulus asks.
"yeah. three of them. james and remus and peter."
"what are they like?"
"peter's great. really... nice. and remus, too." sirius rolls his head to the side and blood smears the pillowcase. "james is the best though. he's bloody brilliant. he's my best friend."
"i can't wait to meet him," regulus says earnestly.
"what house do you want to go to?"
"slytherin," regulus says immediately.
sirius frowns. "why?"
"would you like a mirror? or i can just describe it if you want. your face looks like somebody's run it over with the hogwarts express. it doesn't make you more handsome. you look like a bit of a dolt, actually."
sirius rolls his dark eyes. eye, regulus supposes. "come off it. they won't hurt you any less if you're in the snake pit."
"they will. you know it."
"if it's what you want," sirius sighs.
"it's not what i want!" regulus protests. "i don't... i don't want it. i just don't have a choice. i'm not like you. i'm not brave."
sirius considers him. "you're plenty brave," he says. "when she chucked you down the stairs you didn't even cry did you?"
"that's not the same."
"you didn't, though."
"sirius."
"regulus."
"you don't hear the things they talk about," regulus says. "the dark lord and the blood war. you don't hear them. our blood has kept this place alive. somebody has to keep feeding it or it'll die."
"which of them did you hear that from?"
"the maniacal blood purist one."
"ha! glad to hear you insult them," sirius says bitterly. "for a second there i thought you believed that bull."
"of course i don't," regulus says, though he says it quietly. it's like a sort of catholic guilt. it festers between them. "of course i don't believe it."
"you're sure about that."
"i'm your brother, aren't i?"
"and what difference does that make?"
"it makes the difference," regulus says, "that the wizarding world likes to play some end-of-history mindgames with us, and we pretend every day, all of us, that we've reached an impasse and we won't need to move forward any further, and we're plenty bloody progressive on this side of the divide, but our mother spent our childhood tearing your fingernails out like it was a type of worship. i know how to recognise lies."
"end-of-history?"
"i read some muggle books this year."
"oh. you should lend that one to me." sirius smiles, all bloody teeth. "like the sound of it."
"i should teach you about muggle politics someday."
"i'd like that."
they lie in the dark for a while longer. a door slams downstairs and a sheet of white dust falls from the ceiling. this place is haunted, actually, regulus thinks. by asbestos and recessive genes.
james potter is not really that funny, but sirius laughs at every single one of his jokes. they adore one another.
regulus watches them from his place in the line as they poke and pull and grab at one another, shoved up together at the front end of the gryffindor table. they move into one another as if it's how they were designed. regulus has never seen sirius, in all his life, have any sort of physical congruity with anybody. every movement sirius ever has with another person is rough-edged and mean. but not with james bloody potter. they move like they're simply orbiting one another. like they will forever exist in the same gravity.
when they call regulus' name he stumbles up to the hat and sits on the cold hard stool. the last thing he sees before the manky old thing falls over his eyes is everybody in the hall staring at him. then, darkness.
'interesting,' the hat says into his ear.
get out of my fucking head. get out of my fucking head. stop.
'no.'
please.
'no, unfortunately, i do have a job to do.' the hat seems to consider him. 'you're rather like your brother, aren't you? there's cruelty in there, and much loyalty, but... scant ambition. almost none at all. oh, and bravery. much bravery. oh, wow. yes, you're quite like him.'
you're wrong. sirius is ambitious.
'your brother is driven,' the hat agrees. 'but towards... nothing in particular. a revved up car stuck in the road.'
am i like that?
'would you like to be?'
i like my brother.
'alright, then,' the hat says. 'this will be interesting, won't it? GRYFFINDOR!'
the great hall splits into muddled confusion and applause. the hat is pulled off regulus' head and he stands shakily. he's doomed himself. narcissa and another of his stupid cousins hiss at him from across the hall, standing up at the slytherin table and scowling and hackling.
but nobody is clapping and cheering louder than sirius, who is up on his feet whooping, his friends standing and applauding too, and it's sirius who grabs him into a headlock when he gets to gryffindor table, and sirius whose hand messes through his hair, and sirius who sits regulus down between himself and james like paper between magnets.
"i'm so proud of you!" sirius says into his ear. "a gryffindor! oh, they'll kill me. they're going to kill me."
regulus grins down at the table. he'll sit and shake and panic later. for now, he basks in the attention.
across the table, sirius' scarred friend (remus?) offers him a soft smile. "welcome to gryffindor," he tells regulus. "you'll fit right in."
gryffindor is loud and warm. their common room is bright and orange like autumn or some american bushfire. it's nothing like grimmauld in here. regulus' red and gold scarf stays firmly around his neck even when it's not cold. he's not sure if it's for pride or something else. he decides not to examine it right now.
james, sirius and their other two keep a close watch on him all through that first night and throughout the first week, too.
"three people tried to poison sirius' food on his first day," james says cheerily at breakfast the morning after the sorting, sitting at regulus' side, sirius on the other. "he got fifteen howlers. but don't worry about that. they won't mess with you if you stick with us."
"it was closer to twenty howlers," remus says from across the table. "tea, regulus?"
regulus makes a handful of friends (a muggleborn gryffindor girl in his year called amelia in particular, who sells prerolled cigarettes to the sixth years and teaches regulus how to tie his tie. they become best friends almost instantly. she's wonderful). the castle is broad and extraordinary, no end to her secrets. the food is warm and simple. every day, he wakes up and doesn't fear being stabbed with a kitchen knife, which is a vast improvement.
like sirius, he takes to practical magic like an old friend, as if it's a limb he's been missing. curses and hexes come as easily as breathing. by the end of his first week, he's good enough at jinxing slytherins that the marauders (what a name) agree not to hover over him so much.
"can you blame us for worrying, though?" james asks, lolling across sirius' lap on the sofa in the common room. "you're like, honorary little brother. if sirius dies one of us'll have to take over."
"none of you would survive in grimmauld place," regulus says from over his first charms essay, which he has already drafted once and is rewriting.
sirius snorts. "he's not wrong. you're a pussy with pain, jamie."
"what? no, i'm not. i broke my leg over the summer." james scowls up at sirius without heat. "fell off my broom. i wrote you about that, right? dad almost took me to st. mungo's..."
sirius and regulus exchange looks. magic is great.
"it can't be that bad at home," the fourth (peter) says from the armchair. "right?"
"ha," sirius says. "reg, remember that first night of the summer? whatever she did to my eye, i couldn't move it for about two weeks."
"our mother put his face through the second floor stairs," regulus informs sirius' friends blandly. "it was mostly sirius' fault."
"yeah, that's fair," sirius admits. "you didn't help, though. you should've come and valiantly offered yourself in my place."
"since when do i help?"
"since you're brave and gryffindorish now?"
"i'm not stupid," regulus says, going back to his essay. footnotes, he wonders, or a reference list at the end? hmm. "i'd like to keep all my fingers, thanks."
james is looking up at sirius with a twisted, anxious look on his narrow face. "he's joking, right?"
"nope," sirius says cheerfully. "hey, at some point this week we should take your cloak and explore that new passage we found through the dungeons."
but james sits up. "she doesn't... she doesn't seriously hurt you, right?"
sirius looks mildly confused. "i'm fine," he says stupidly. "and reg is. right, reg?"
"yeah," regulus says. he thinks of how he had to drag himself around grimmauld for three days last christmas after his topple down the stairs because neither of his legs worked. "yeah, we're great."
"but she can't... she can't just..." james trails off.
"welcome to wizarding britain," sirius says, slapping james' shoulder. he stands and stretches, looking mildly uncomfortable. "we are not in need of more bad parents. anyway, i'm gonna go finish that chocolate remus got me."
"hmm," remus assents, not looking up from his book. regulus gets the distinct impression that he's known about grimmauld place for some time already.
sirius leaves, pounding up the stairs to the marauders' dorm. james sits on the sofa looking a bit lost.
"i didn't... it's not..." he says uncertainly.
regulus shrugs. "we're both alive, aren't we?" he says.
"yes, but that's... that's not the point."
"then what is?"
"i dunno," james says. "i'm gonna go after him."
"tell him he owes me a new quill!" regulus calls after him. "he broke mine on tuesday."
james doesn't answer. sometimes, wizards can be very oblivious, regulus thinks. he wonders if muggles are any better.
neither of them goes home that christmas. james and remus stay with them. the four of them have a monopoly on the best sofa in the common room, right in front of the fire. regulus reads a lot. it's nice, he thinks, to be able to put down his defences and breathe. like every good thing, it'll end, but for now, he allows himself to have this.
james and remus both get him books for christmas. sirius gets him a muggle lighter and a can of magical mace marked, in red, 'AIM FOR THE EYES'.
"in case..." and he trails off. "in case."
"yeah," regulus says. they really are far too similar; he hands sirius his own gift, which is a scarf wrapped around a steel pocket knife shaped like a casket. "in case."
vii.
that summer, james tries for a month to get them to come stay with him. regulus shoves him off irritably every time he tries to corner him. sirius just laughs at him.
"if you think we can't take a bit of pain," he says, "you haven't met purebloods. we're fine, jamie. right?"
"right," regulus sighs, mildly tired of saying it. "it's only a few months."
"if you stop answering my owls, i'll..." james trails off. "i'll come get you. honest, i will."
"no you won't," sirius and regulus both say at the same time.
"it's creepy when you two do that," peter mutters from james' side.
across from regulus, remus looks deep in thought. his white, scarred face twists and then he looks up at sirius. "i'll bring healing supplies when we meet at diagon alley," he says. "just in case."
sirius doesn't meet his eye. "okay," he says, even though both of them know they won't be meeting any of them anytime soon, not before the start of the school year.
by the time the hogwarts express pulls into king's cross, there's not much more to say. sirius gives all of his friends back-slapping, hair-knuckling hugs and laughs in their anxious faces. regulus creeps off to say goodbye to amelia, who offers him a cigarette.
"for the road," she tells him. "go on, take it."
regulus thinks of how his mother's old face will contort when she sees. then, he thinks, be brave. be brave like sirius. brave like the lion of your name.
"okay," he says, and takes the cigarette. "see you next year?"
"stay alive," she tells him, and they hug for a moment. her family aren't the grandest either. funny how friends find each other like that.
"stay alive," he echoes.
viii.
"fuck," sirius says through the darkness, more than a year later. "it won't stop bleeding."
regulus shoves him off. "go back to your room."
"shut up." sirius' hands find the source of the blood again. "was it mother?"
"father," regulus says. he's thirteen and he's going to bleed out here, he thinks, and he can't even muster the energy to see the irony of it. "he put my fingers in his pill grinder."
"ah, shit. well, that sucks."
"yeah."
"everything still there?"
the tip of his forefinger's gone. the biting, burning pain of it pulses with every slow heartbeat. "yeah," regulus lies, because with the right spell, father will heal it at the breakfast table in the morning anyway. "lie down, sirius."
"i don't want you to fucking die."
"that makes one of us."
"don't say that."
"it was a joke."
"you're not funny." sirius wraps his t-shirt around regulus' hand. "it's a lot of blood this time."
he's only saying that because it's regulus and not himself that's gotten hurt. "you're only saying that," regulus starts.
downstairs, kreacher drops something heavy in the kitchen and it hits the floor with a sharp bang. despite themselves, sirius and regulus both freeze up and don't move. minutes tick by. nobody discovers them.
"you should go," regulus whispers. "you should get out of here."
"nah," sirius breathes. "we're gryffindors, aren't we? meant to be brave, 'n stuff."
"not if it kills us."
"if anything's going to kill me, it's going to be walburga black, and it's going to be when i'm old enough to kill her back," sirius says. "i can die happy."
"don't say that."
"it was a joke."
"it wasn't funny," regulus says. the world has started go blur and go hazy around him. "i miss hogwarts."
"i know." sirius brushes regulus' sweaty hair out of his face clumsily. "i know."
regulus is pulled out charms class a month into third year by mcgonagall. sirius is already outside with her, tapping his foot impatiently with his black hair in a big curly mess around his face. he nods to regulus and regulus nods back.
"come with me," mcgonagall says stiffly, though it's not forceful. she leads them to her office. it sort of feels like stepping into the belly of the beast.
inside it's surprisingly sedate. mcgonagall is a no-nonsense sort and her decorations reflect it. she sits them down on the other side of the desk and offers them both biscuits. regulus takes one.
"i'm fine," sirius starts.
she waves him off. "don't be ridiculous, black. take a biscuit."
grumpily, sirius obliges.
"i've recently received," mcgonagall starts, eyes flicking between them. "an anonymous tip from a student that i endeavour to take very seriously, concerning the pair of you and your... home."
fuck. regulus stares at the table. sirius' eyes burn into the side of his head.
"sorry?" sirius says after a few moments. "our home?"
"indeed, black." mcgonagall doesn't move, just keeps watching them. "this student believed... well. they were quite worried that you and your brother are... unsafe with your parents."
"oh," sirius murmurs.
"do i need to be worried?"
"no," regulus speaks up, because he thinks sirius probably isn't able to. "no. i don't know where they would've gotten that idea, but we're perfectly safe, professor."
"i see."
"there are always rumours," sirius agrees, seeming to regain his confidence. "especially about noble and ancient kids. and since we got sorted into gryffindor and everything. i'm sure somebody just got it twisted, right, reg?"
"right," reg says. "our parents are quite controversial, politically-speaking. there's always stuff like that flying around. there's no truth to it, though. we're both perfectly safe."
mcgonagall's eyes don't change. she frowns between them. very evidently, she doesn't believe a word they're saying.
"are you sure there's nothing you would like to share with me, either of you?" she asks, in a tone so gentle she doesn't sound like herself. "you are both my responsibility, and i cannot wilfully allow for-"
"we're fine," sirius snaps.
"don't lie to me, black-"
"even if he is lying," regulus cuts in, "you can't do anything about it. you've got no proof."
"he's right," sirius agrees stiffly. "next time, professor, don't waste my brother's time."
he stands up. regulus follows. they leave mcgonagall sitting behind her desk. sirius slams the door behind him and stalks off down the corridor towards the great hall.
"bloody james," regulus hears him mutter.
x.
it's the summer after fourth year when it happens.
a fight breaks out over the dinner table. that's pretty normal, normal enough that it doesn't scare him, regulus will admit to himself, as he crouches low to avoid mother's wild swinging of her butter knife. sirius is shouting in her face, up on his feet, and father's got a fistful of regulus' robes and without hesitating, everything falls to pieces.
"fuck you, you racist old bitch!" sirius roars, and he picks up a dish of buttery garlic mashed potatoes and hurls it overarm at mother. the heavy, thick china bowl breaks her nose with a crunch like twigs breaking and she screams, toppling back onto the stone floor.
"SIRIUS!" father yells. he lets go of regulus and lunges at sirius and then they're both scrabbling at each other's hair. sirius' long skinny legs kick out as he tries to break orion's kneecaps, and orion gets a good grip of the scruff of sirius' neck and hurls him lengthwise across the room into the wall. calmly, regulus grabs every steak knife on the table and tucks them under one of the seat cushions.
typical fare in the black household.
sirius bounces off the wall, nose bloody and eyes wide with madness. "ha," he says, and gobs up a great mouthful of spit.
"sirius-" regulus starts towards him. "stand down, sirius."
"no." sirius advances on father. "i'm bloody done with this. i'm not doing this anymore."
regulus comes to a halt. is this the moment? he asks himself.
sirius raises his fists and barrels into father, pummeling and scratching, punching every inch of him he can get to. orion, even twice sirius' size, is weak with sickness, toppling towards the tall wine rack.
"oh, fuck," regulus says. "sirius, get out of the-"
the rack wobbles and falls forward over sirius and orion, cascading over their shoulders. three dozen bottles of vintage red crash down onto the floor and shatter. a wave of wine like the red fucking sea washes over the ground and pieces of broken glass bounce up into the walls.
sirius screams, a blind, hateful sound, and lunges at father, something sharp in his hand. orion hits the opposite wall. there's a huge piece of glass sticking out of the back of his meaty pale skull. he sways and falls. on the floor by the table, soaked in a wash of alcohol, mother tries to stand and slips in the wine and hits the floor again, nose pouring blood down the front of her dress robes.
regulus takes his chances. running forward, he pulls sirius out of the glass and the merlot and the malbec. sirius grapples onto his hand and they stagger out of the dining room together, clutching one another like crutches.
"go!" regulus shouts. "get our stuff, i'll hold them off!"
"you fucking idiot!" sirius snarls. he runs off up the stairs, bits of glass sticking out of his shins and his shoulders, glittering against the cold light. all the portraits are screaming and howling like a winter storm. regulus sits on the bottom of the stairs and takes stock. there's a hunk of shattered wine bottle sticking out of his knee and he's got a black eye but apart from that he's feeling pretty bloody cheerful.
a noise - movement. sobbing that rasps with anger. dripping red like carrie, mother staggers to the dining room door. she and regulus stare at one another for five or six seconds.
"we're going," regulus says needlessly. upstairs, sirius tosses kreacher off the top floor landing with a shout.
"no, you're not," mother says. she raises her hand and the butter knife is still clutched in it.
"and you're going to stop us with that?"
holding herself up against the wall, mother approaches regulus. her feet are bare now, full of wine, dyed red with it, and they totter on the carpet, tilted at odd angles. sort of like a muggle knighting, she raises the knife and puts it down against the top of his head, the ridged end digging into his skin.
regulus looks up at her. she looks back down at him. yes. they understand one another just fine.
with a scream, she raises and plunges the knife down towards him. regulus barrels into her and they slam into the carpet. the grandfather clock strikes ten and they tussle on the ground like wild animals before he manages to get a good grip on her, grabbing her by the hair and cracking her face down on the banister of the stairs three times. aim for the eyes indeed.
when she hits the ground, she goes still. regulus picks up the butter knife and goes to put it in the sink in the kitchen.
by the time he returns, sirius is standing in the hallway with both of their trunks. bloody and covered in wine, they stare at one another.
"she dead?" sirius asks, and pokes at mother with the toe of his boot.
"i don't think so," regulus says. "she should be fine. did you kill dad?"
"i dunno." sirius hands him his trunk. "i hope so."
"right."
"right."
"right."
"knight bus?" sirius offers. "we could go to the potters'."
"nah," regulus says. "the aurors will look for us soon. that'll be the first place they search."
"you think she'll call the aurors?"
"i think she'll do anything. if the two of us are gone." regulus stares at her crumpled body. the shock is finally setting in and he can feel himself shaking all over. "we should hide out in the muggle world. 'til hogwarts. we'll be safe then, when term starts."
"kay," sirius murmurs. he pulls out his wand. "you want me to shrink them?"
"go for it," regulus says amicably. "won't need them anytime soon."
they spend the last month of that summer sleeping behind two muggle recycling bins in notting hill. sirius is a big black dog most of the time now, which is only the second strangest thing to happen this summer. nobody finds them. regulus has his mace and sirius has his knife. regulus steals food and sirius steals cigarettes. it's a cold, miserable few weeks composed largely of picking bits of glass out of one another and fighting over scraps of food. it's also the best summer regulus has ever had.
they sneak onto the train as soon as the platform opens the morning of september 1st. sirius engorges their trunks again and they change out of their grimy muggle clothes into clean-smelling school robes.
"you still stink," regulus tells him. "gimme a fag."
they smoke out of the window together and watch the platform fill up. no aurors come to get them.
"thanks," sirius says into the quiet, at the point when they're still alone in that compartment. "for coming with me, i mean. i've known for pretty much all of my life that i was gonna have to leave someday. i worried for a while that i would end up leaving you there."
"she tried to kill me with a butter knife," regulus says. "of course i came with you."
"yeah." sirius grins at the floor. "she did, didn't she?"
when remus lupin finds them, his pale face regains some colour. he stares from sirius to regulus and back again.
"right," he says, seemingly to himself. "i'll go tell james to call off the hunt."
"he's been worried?" sirius asks.
"there've been rumours you tried to kill your parents, sirius."
"well," regulus says fairly. "only after they tried to kill us first."
"are they after you?"
sirius puffs out his chest. "i'm seventeen soon," he says. "and regulus a year after. they can't do anything."
remus chews on his scarred lip. "we're talking about this later." regulus gets the impression that there's a lot to his and sirius' relationship that regulus doesn't know about.
"yeah," sirius says easily. "jamie's going to want to hear the whole thing too. is pete around? he owes me five galleons i didn't get back last year and i'm rather skint right now."
remus rolls his eyes and disappears back out into the hallway. when he returns, it's with james potter in tow, who gives a great roar and launches across the compartment to lavish sirius with a huge hug. regulus watches on and pretends not to be envious.
"we've been so worried," james is saying, "and the things people were saying... it never made the papers but there were so many rumours, and none of my owls could find you, we thought you were dead."
"we're not," sirius says helpfully. "dead, i mean."
"right. i could see that, pads." james draws in a deep breath and plows on. "and we thought you weren't going to come back this year and dad said we were going to have to take you in if you came to us but he was worried they would come looking for you and then you just never arrived..."
he trails off, seeming to notice it's not just sirius here.
"oh," he says. "hi, reg."
"hi, james," regulus says mildly. "glad you and my brother are getting along fine."
sirius grins through the gap in james' arms. "thick as thieves," he says. "takes more than a little attempted murder to finish that."
"good to know." regulus stands up. he feels... brave. "i'm going to go find my friends and tell them i'm not dead. tell peter i said hello?"
"yeah," remus says, and takes regulus' seat. regulus spies him curling his ankles around sirius' feet under the table and he knows then that his brother is going to be okay. "yeah, we will."
"good." regulus smiles faintly. "when mcgonagall calls us, tell her i died, sirius."
"got it." sirius grins like a lion. "to family."
regulus raises an imaginary glass. "to family," he says.
"bm-ba-buh-duh-bm," sirius sings along to the bowie song on the radio as he and regulus take the muggle bus to the portkey spot in central london. "bm-duh-tss-duh-ts..."
"excited?" regulus asks him, staring absent out of the window into the grey recesses of the city.
"always." sirius cocks his head like a dog. "but this isn't my first time going there. yourself?"
"always," regulus echoes. "i trust your judgement."
"wow. never thought i'd hear that out of you."
"we've matured from our youth," regulus offers.
sirius laughs brightly. "no we haven't. it's this next stop, now- you need to press the button there, the red one. not yet. give it a sec. yeah, now."
the order of the phoenix. of all the places he could've ended up working after school, even now it appears he's following in his brother's footsteps. the war isn't going to end itself, regulus thinks, and he follows sirius off the bus and into the city.
xii.
regulus has spent most of his life living on stolen time. that's what comes with being a survivor, he supposes. it's what he was made for.
every moment you keep breathing is a moment longer than you should've. you wait every day for the world to catch up with you and tear you apart. that's trauma, somebody told him once, but he doesn't think so; he thinks it's the cold, sharp face of truth, leering out at all of them. even outside of his mother's old home, he still wakes most days afraid he's going to find a knife inside his neck, jutting out against his chin. he learns as many healing spells as it is possible for a person to learn and uses almost none of them.
the war goes on for two gruelling years after he leaves school. dumbledore is wonderful and disquieting, and with every meeting, regulus wonders how many people working for him know that he's lying to them. every few months they all have to move house and one of those times, sirius and regulus end up in separate flats in separate cities. they owl each other as often as they think they can afford to.
the potters go into hiding. regulus learns how to cast a patronus. sometimes he casts the spell in his dark living room, on the loneliest nights, just to watch the large, silver sirius-dog run in circles over his charity store furniture. most nights he doesn't have time for sleep, though, let alone whimsical spellcasting. dumbledore gets him on the hunt. perhaps it's because he's the smartest one he's got. perhaps it's because nobody will miss him. perhaps it's because dumbledore sees something feral and sharp-toothed inside regulus and knows there isn't anything in the world left that he wouldn't be willing to do. perhaps, regulus thinks fancifully, it's because he's brave.
something about him is right for the job, anyway. so regulus gets on and does it.
1981 dawns and eventually, sirius stops owling.
xiii.
it's a smokey, blistery sort of day when the news comes.
remus lupin staggers out of his fireplace. he's one of two people in the entire world that knows where regulus is staying, and, sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and a book on dark magic, regulus stares at the bedraggled form on his soot rug for a few seconds before speaking.
"what happened?" he asks.
"the potters." and remus looks up at him, eyes blown huge and red in his thin face. "they're dead, regulus."
"oh." regulus drops his book.
"yes." remus breaks down sobbing on the rug.
"okay," regulus murmurs. he gets up and helps remus, who looks greyer and more haggard every time he sees him, into a chair. "calm down. you're okay. we're okay."
he's never seen remus like this. crying like he can't breathe.
"i'm not," remus gasps around a sob. he claws at his face with his knobbly pale fingers. "i'm not." and they drag down on the undersides of his eyes and give him a demonish look.
regulus pulls remus' hands away from his face. "tell me," he says. "tell me what happened."
remus stares at him. there's a subtle tremor to his body that consumes his shoulders. he looks bruised despite his clear skin. outside, it begins to rain.
"they're going to put him in azkaban," remus says. "sirius. because he killed them."
regulus stares. "excuse me?"
"sirius betrayed them." remus grabs regulus hard around the shoulders, fingers digging into his skin. "sirius betrayed lily and james, regulus. and he's just killed peter. they've got him at the ministry now."
"oh," regulus says. he sinks back on his haunches. "i see."
some part of it sets off an alarm in him. something about this is wrong. wrong at its very fundamentals.
aim for the eyes, he thinks, and then he elbows lupin hard across the face.
lupin goes to yell, stunned, but regulus is quicker. he grabs a hank of curly brown hair and hurtles lupin's head down against the arm of his chair until lupin goes still and then stands, brushing off the blood on his hands onto his robes.
he stuns lupin for good measure.
"okay," regulus says to himself. off to the ministry.
azkaban. psh. like hell.