"Touch it, I dare you," Sirius whispered.
"No! It's disgusting!" Regulus replied in horror, recoiling from the pale, withered thing that had apparently once been a human hand.
"Don't be a bore Reg, just do it."
"No! Stop — we'll get into trouble!"
He tried to squirm away as Sirius grabbed his wrist and drew his arm towards the Hand of Glory but the older boy was stronger, more determined than he was. Regulus glanced over to the shop counter, father was still engaged in conversation with old Mr Burke and hadn't noticed their scuffle but still they would get in so much trouble.
Sirius used Regulus's momentary distraction to yank on his arm and then he was touching it and it was disgusting. All gnarled lumps of skin and protruding bones and it was awful. So awful.
"D'you know how they make them?" Sirius whispered into his ear as he pressed Regulus's trembling fingers around the Hand. "They cut off the left hand from a thief's dead body. Then they pickle it in salt and pee and blood and leave it out for a week to dry. D'you reckon the dead man comes looking for his missing hand?"
"STOP IT!" Regulus yelled, wrenching his hand away from the disgusting object at last.
The shop fell silent and Regulus felt his father's eyes burning the back of his neck. He stared at the Hand because between that and Orion Black it was the less terrifying option.
"Regulus Arcturus Black," came his father's cold, commanding voice. "What is the meaning of this commotion? Did I not order you to remain still, and quiet, and to not disturb me?"
"It wasn't Reg's fault!" Sirius blurted out, stepping in front of Regulus as if he could become a human protego. "It was me, I — I tripped, and fell into Reg, and he fell into that — that hand thing. It wasn't Reg."
"Insolent whelp," Orion hissed, and grabbed the back of Sirius's shirt to haul him out of the shop. "Regulus, to me."
Regulus complied, head bowed, still afraid to look in his father or brother's eyes and see the disappointment that would surely be there.