"What the hell is all this rubbish?"
Regulus looked up from where he sat cross-legged on his bed, his thoughts buried deep in the Arithmancy textbook open in his lap.
His elder brother stood in the doorway of his bedroom, slouched sideways against the frame, his face twisted into a grimace of disgust at Regulus's bedroom walls.
"I wouldn't call it rubbish" Regulus replied stiffly, keeping his eyes fixed firmly down at the numbers on the page.
"I would" said Sirius as he strode into the room, uninvited but unperturbed. He lifted the silver-embroidered corner of one of the several large, green Slytherin banners that Regulus had added to his bedroom walls in recent days. "Come on, Reg, why would you want to go and plaster your walls with all this mess?"
Regulus let out a stifled huff.
"What?" Sirius demanded, folding his arms.
"That's a bit rich, is all, wouldn't you say?"
The fourteen-year-old's voice was quiet, muted, but his elder brother looked as put out as if Regulus had shouted the accusation at him.
Sirius never took kindly to remarks about his own gaudy display of red-and-scarlet Gryffindor banners.
"At least I decorate my walls with symbols of bravery and decency" Sirius replied with a haughty toss of his shaggy black hair - unconsciously handsome, as ever. "Not all this... slimy crap"
He tossed the corner of the serpent banner out of his hand, the silk rippling like water as it settled against the wall once more.
"It is not crap" Regulus shot to his brother in a voice not quite strong enough to be a snap, but enough for Sirius to know he had crossed a line.
But then, there were very few lines that Sirius had ever expressed regret in having crossed.
"Don't be daft Reg, of course it is"
The elder boy's gaze suddenly fixed on the wall above Regulus's bed.
"Bloody hell, Reg, what have you gone and done that for?" Sirius snorted a laugh as he gestured to the large image of the Black family crest which Regulus had painstakingly painted on the wall only yesterday. "Could you have been any more ostentatious?"
"It's out family's crest" Regulus replied in proud defence, stifling his growing irritation with his brother's attitude.
"Yeah, and that's precisely what's wrong with it" Sirius leaned in close to read the precise, golden, italic words carefully painted beneath the crest. "'Toujours Pur' - what a load of bull"
Regulus cringed at his brother's coarse language and buried his nose deeper into his textbook, desperately trying to focus on the numbers which stubbornly refused to imprint themselves on his mind.
"What're you reading, anyway?" Sirius cocked his head sideways to examine the book. "Arithmancy? Really, Reg? Schoolwork in the summer hols?"
"Some of us care to take an interest in self-improvement" Regulus sniffed haughtily.
"So you're telling me it has nothing at all to do with that look Dad gave you when he read that A on your end-of-year report yesterday?"
Regulus's shoulders tensed, his fingers tightening their grip on the book. His cheeks flushed with warmth.
"I knew it" Sirius snorted with a triumphant smirk. "I don't know what you're bothering for, Reg. Its only school, after all. It doesn't matter"
Regulus felt himself burn with indignation. It was easy enough for him to say. Sirius always achieved irritatingly-high marks for one who was always so openly lazy when it came to studying - marks Regulus had always had to work extra hard to have a hope of keeping up with, and never quite managing it.
"Some of us like to make an effort"
Sirius snorted another laugh and leaned back against the wall beside the bed, rumpling the silk Slytherin banner behind him.
"What's the point in worrying about academics, anyway?" asked Sirius with a shrug of his shoulders. "It's not like you've got career prospects. Not in this family"
Regulus recognised the all-too-familiar note of resentment in his brother's voice. He peeked up from his book for just a second and saw that Sirius's face had darkened dangerously.
"There are... expectations" he offered, weakly, turning back to his book.
Sirius did not bark out a laugh, did not offer a snarky reply. A moment of tense silence hung between the two brothers.
"It will never be enough for him, you know" Sirius's voice was quiet when he finally spoke. "You could chuck a bit of parchment in front of him with straight O's across the board and you still won't get a 'well done' out of him"
Regulus's stomach churned.
"That's not the point"
"Well what is, then?" Sirius demanded sharply, staring down at his brother.
Regulus did not reply. His eyes remained fixed on the sums on the page before him. He must have read the same sum ten times by now, but the information just didn't seem to absorb into his mind, however hard he tried.
Frustrated, Sirius turned away and paced across the room.
"Really - what's the point in all of it? All this?" He waved his arms in the air, gesturing to the green-and-silver walls.
Regulus peered up at his brother, who continued to pace the length of the room. He reminded the younger boy of a caged lion.
"I'll tell you what the point is - there isn't one!" Sirius ranted, his anger clearly growing. "Not to any of it. It's all just a load of crap, the lot of it"
Just as Regulus began to worry that his brother's latest fit of temper might lead to him tearing down his banners, Sirius seemed to simmer down again, his scowl replaced once more by a mocking smirk.
Regulus felt himself relax a little. The speed with which his elder brother's mood could change never ceased to unnerve him.
"I'll tell you what though, Reg, if you weren't shackled to this spectacle of a family, I wouldn't recommend you for a career in interior design, that's for sure"
The way Sirius laughed cruelly as he shook his head at the silver-and-green walls was the straw that finally broke the donkey's back. Regulus slammed his book closed and set it aside, fixing his brother with a hard stare.
"If you don't like it, leave" he snapped coldly.
Sirius froze, staring back at his brother with a look equally as chilly, his cocky smirk now nowhere to be seen.
"Alright" Sirius finally replied, quietly, his face drained of all visible emotion. "Perhaps I will"
The elder boy slowly turned to leave the room, his hands thrust deep into his pockets as he walked. He did not look back as he left his brother's room, slamming the door closed on his way out.
Regulus winced as the slam rang through the room and shuddered the banners on his walls. He felt a familiar moist feeling begin to brim in his eyes - a sensation which always seemed to coincide with an altercation with his brother - and bit the inside of his cheek hard to stifle his emotions back down.
He opened the book to the page of the sum he had been stuck on and buried his gaze deep into the numbers, hoping against hope that this time, the information would stick.