Christmas Holidays, 1975

The sound of a door swinging open brought Regulus' attention from the letter in his hands to the front of his room. Sirius walked in, closing the door shut behind him and leaning his back against it with his chin tilted upward. An expression covered his brother's face, one that Regulus could not place as the context needed to understand it in the first place was lost on him.

"What do you want?" Regulus asked, placing the letter to his side. They were in a staring match of sorts.

"Told Walburga I'm joining the Potters for Christmas," Sirius finally answered after a pregnant silence, tapping the door with his fingers.

"So?" Regulus snorted. "We don't even celebrate Christmas."

"And that I'll be there on the 21st." Regulus' once blasé expression dropped. His eyes to the door and then back to his brother. Sirius shrugged while making his way over to his brother's bed.

"And?"

"And she won't believe it until she sees it."

"You're going to miss the Yule Dinner?" Regulus probed, his eyes widening and his head leaning forward as Sirius sunk into the mattress. It only emitted another shrug from him.

"Couldn't care less," Sirius admitted.

"I know, but," Regulus faltered, scratching the side of his cheek. "Were you just— was it just another fight or?"

"No, I'm not going to fucking be here for Yule," Sirius reiterated, looking at his brother as if he had come from another planet. "I wouldn't fucking be here at all if it wasn't so I could get my shit before she goes and burns it all."

"You're… Okay, whatever," Regulus mumbled under his breath. "What's this got to do with me?"

"Nothing, reckon I just wanted to give you a heads up."

"Thanks," he snorted again, this time with a slight head-shake. "Merlin, Sirius."

"What?"

"What?" It was another game of one staring down the other. "You can't bloody be here for one night, one dinner— then you can run off with your friends and do as you please. It's the only thing mother gives a damn about."

"Which I don't want to be here for."

"Why not?"

"You know damn well why," Sirius said sternly. Regulus sighed, running a hand through his hair. The younger wizard had never had any influence on his older brother's choices, so he supposed him being in his room was just some sort of scheme to get out of their mother's presence as she went around, harassed, and projected her pounding onto the next breathing organism she could find.

"Whatever," Regulus succumbed with a sigh, pinching the corners of his eyes. He sunk deeper into his pillows, causing the letter beside him to rustle. Sirius' attention fell to it, his head tilted slightly as he observed the too-good cursive staining the parchment. An eyebrow cocked upward.

"Who's that from?"

"What?"

"The letter," Sirius added, gesturing to it with his chin.

"Nobody."

"Nobody?" It almost made him laugh, and before Regulus could so much as blink, Sirius had reached forward and snatched the letter into his own hand.

"Give that back!" Regulus nearly shouted at him, reaching forward, but Sirius' hand was high in the air— the letter out of Regulus' reach. Another hand was placed on his younger brother's shoulder, shoving him back with a force greater than Regulus had realized him capable of.

"Blanchet," Sirius finally chuckled as he located the signature, caring less for the contents of whatever the witch had written. He flung the paper back at Regulus. "Should've known."

Regulus repositioned himself against the bed's headboard, crossing his arms over his chest.

"She won't leave me alone."

"Because you're friends."

"Hardly."

"Hardly?" Sirius repeated, his brows lifting up again as he examined the contents of Regulus' face. "When you're not with your Quidditch mates or anyone related to us— you're with her. I reckon you spend more time with her than you do with anyone else."

"Because she won't leave me alone," Regulus reaffirmed, his voice growing cold.

"Fuck off, as if she's got you under an Imperius Curse."

"I doubt she's even capable of conjuring one," Regulus derided, a harsh squint looming over the letter between them. "She's obsessed with me."

"Uh-huh."

"And writes, non-stop."

"Because you respond," Sirius pointed out.

"Barely."

"So you're not going to respond to that letter?"

"Formalities, that's all."

"Formalities?"

"A happy holiday should do it."

"And a gift, I reckon?"

"Only to return the favor." Sirius, without invitation, pushed himself closer so that he was now seated next to his brother, one leg dangling off the edge of the bed. "Hey, watch it!" Regulus scowled, pulling the letter smashed under Sirius' leg out from under him and placing it on his lap. The act alone exerted a limited chuckle from the older wizard. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing."

"Then why're you laughing?"

"Hey, watch it," Sirius mimicked Regulus' own words from just moments ago. He then glanced over to him, smiling bemusedly. "Formalities, yeah?"

"Get out," Regulus commanded, but it sounded more like a plea.

"Just admit you're friends."

"We are not friends."

"No, you're right, best friends, I reckon," Sirius amended.

"Best friends?" Regulus' mouth tightened as if the words themselves were rotten food. "You really believe that Blanchet and I are best friends? You really think someone like that could be best friends with me?"

"No, you're right, she could do way better," Sirius agreed, but the sudden stillness of Regulus' composure did not go unnoticed. He could be a lot of things, but Sirius was not made of honey or sugar, either, so he ran with it. "I reckon she deserves a much better friend than you, actually. Reckon she should find someone who doesn't—"

"She is the most annoying, clingy, emotional witch to have ever existed in Great Britain," Regulus began, and Sirius bit down on his lip to hold back a laugh at his brother's sudden ignition. "Who would want to be friends with that? All she does is talk about her feelings— how she feels about this, and how she feels about that, and how she feels about everything on this bloody planet. And then dares to ask me about how I feel— how I feel after a game, how I feel about an exam, how I feel about whoever or whatever is on her mind at that moment."

"Well, fuck me, Reg— at least there's one person among us with a fucking heart that feels something." They both looked at one another, the smirk that had been on Sirius' face dropping. "You're upset because she gives an actual shit about you?"

"No! What?"

"She asks you how you feel, dear brother, because she cares about how you feel," Sirius said slowly, tapping on his brother's skull as if he were a child. Regulus swatted his hand away.

"But I don't want to talk about how I feel."

"Well, that's not exactly her fault," Sirius stated, the light in his eyes fading as the proclamation registered on both of them. For this, he would be wrong to castigate his younger brother. He understood what it was to be put into a spotlight, singled out, and made to admit to things that he would rather take a stinging hex over than waste time in disentangling it all. "It's not the worst thing, you know? To talk about how you feel," he continued, imparting James' words onto Regulus as if he, himself, had ever willingly taken part in the advice. "And it's not a bad thing for someone to care about how you feel, either."

"But it's not what I want."

"You don't want someone to care about you?"

"Plenty of people care about me."

"Like who?"

"Like," but it was as if Regulus had forgotten every name at that moment. "Like Dolohov."

"Because you're his seeker. Really, that's the best you can do?"

"I'm important," Regulus muttered in response.

"You know what?"

"What?"

"Out of the lot of you," Sirius replied, nearly spitting the words at his brother as if the imaginary divide between them could take on any more division. "I reckon, she's the one I'm most fond of. Matter of fact, if she'd been a year older, I would have been friends with her just fine."

"Yeah, right," Regulus retorted.

"No, really, I would have much rather preferred Blanchet's company during the summer at the Rosiers' than anyone else's."

"I've never seen you make a single effort to do just that."

"No, because she had taken to you, and I'll have you know that I was doing you a favor," Sirius egged on.

"A favor?" Regulus' brows shot up his forehead.

"Yeah, a fucking favor because, believe me, I'm sure if she had the chance to pick between the two of us— it would be me."

A fire lit inside Regulus' chest.

"Except she's not a—" but the word never came out because Sirius' entire body stiffened next to him, and he knew if he were to speak it into existence, it would be the end of his own. "You know, now that I think of it— it would be a favor. I'd be more than happy for you and Blanchet to be friends. At least, then, she'll leave me alone."

"You want me to take your friend?" Sirius challenged, but Regulus did not respond. "You want me to take away the only real friend you fucking have, you sure about that?"

"I don't want to be friends with Blanchet."

"You've been friends since you were born," Sirius reminded him.

"That was circumstantial— we just happened to be born the same year."

"You got along just fine as kids."

"As kids," Regulus bit back. "We're not kids now. I don't want to be friends with her anymore."

"Then why not just tell her?" Sirius offered with an ugly twist lining his lips. He was unsure as to who or what had enflamed the need to put his brother back in his place— as if he needed a place to be put back into. Truly, what business was it of his of what occurred between his brother and Sophia Blanchet? As if he had any reason to defend the absent witch.

Unbeknownst to him, Sirius had very good reasons to defend the witch. He could not say that he did not know Sophia Blanchet. It was hard to not know her. She spoke more than any other witch of her standing, although it was always in line and never out of order depending on context. And she had continued to be more than cordial with him as the others he had grown up with had chosen to distance themselves from him, especially the last two years. Edmund Nott and Evan Rosier could not bother to even say his name anymore, but she did not shy away from greeting him in the halls when they ran into one another— on the rare occasions that they did. Sophia had even held a conversation with him and Remus at Hogsmeade when it had been lost on her how to order a book that had just recently been published— Remus had provided most of the council and she had not once aired any indication of perceived superiority over him, instead using every polite etiquette she had been trained in with the half-blood. It had left an impression on Sirius, he could not deny that.

Overall, Sirius found her, and he knew this only from his own experience of being assimilated into Gryffindor, normal. She was normal and, it was true— if it wasn't for the fact that she had chosen to spend most of her time with his brother, he most likely would have clung onto her at whatever pureblood thing he had been caged, threatened, and dragged to attend. All in all, Sophia Blanchet had never given him any reason to dislike her, quite the opposite— and for that, he could not help the odd entanglement of disgust and confusion towards his brother's own perspective of the witch.

"Tell her that I don't want to be friends with her?"

"Yeah, just tell her instead of being a little two-faced snake," Sirius accused.

"I wouldn't have to if she could just take a hint."

"You respond to her letters, you eat meals with her, you spend time with her at parties, at the Rosiers', you partner with her in potions… I've seen you study together in the library. How is she supposed to take a hint from that?" When he didn't receive an immediate response, he continued, "as I said, it's not as if you can't just tell her no. I'm sure Blanchet is more than capable of understanding what that means."

"As if that would change anything."

"She wouldn't take no for an answer? Have you tried?"

"No," Regulus admitted under his breath.

"Wonder why."

"To be polite."

"You think this is being polite?" Sirius' lifted his hand and let it float over his brother's body. "Lying to her, making her believe that you two are friends, if not best friends, while you sit here and insult her as if she's nothing but gum under your shoes?"

"It's not like she'll ever know."

"Not unless I tell her," Sirius threatened.

"You wouldn't dare."

"You sure?"

"Why would you do that?"

"Because why not?"

Regulus gulped because he knew that going to Sophia Blanchet and revealing the contents of their conversation was very much within Sirius' capabilities. It was not beyond his brother to take something he deemed fun and play with it until he got bored, and he would enjoy every bit of it too, weaving in dramatics and theatrics just for the sake of his own pleasure.

"How do I tell someone I don't want to be friends with them anymore?"

"Just fucking tell her you don't want to be her friend, coward."

"Fine," Regulus sneered, lifting his chest. "I will."

"I'd love to see it happen." Sirius shook his head, the conversation having tired him out more than the blast of curses and threats his mother had so easily implanted on him just before. He stood up, folding over the creases in his clothes. "Go ahead, fucking do it— I dare you. And lose the only fucking person who actually gives a shit about you."

Regulus took his brother's words, and nearly the entire conversation, as nothing more than displaced and empty statements provoked by whatever had occurred between their mother. It would not be the first time that Sirius had done it— why would this be any different. So he let his brother leave without so much as another word coming from him, frowning as the door slammed shut and the sound reverberated into the rest of the room.

Neither Regulus nor Sirius would ever understand what exactly had triggered Sirius into nearly biting his brother's head off because of his feelings towards Sophia Blanchet.

Not at any moment, neither then nor in the future, would it dawn on either one of them that Sirius had pressed the matter because of what was to occur in the upcoming days. Regulus had not been present for the onslaught that Sirius had come from when he first entered his brother's room. He had not heard the exact content of the threats that had seethed from their mother's mouth as his brother stood his ground— telling her loud and clear that he could not be fucked to spend a night with Deatheaters and their fan club, that he would rather burn the house down than be associated any longer with their kind.

He would not know that Sirius had quite literally come into that room to give him a warning. It would not be their last conversation, but it would be close to it.

He would not know that what Sirius truly meant to say was that, once he was gone, Sophia Blanchet would be the only semblance of reality left in their dark corner of the world, that she may be what Sirius could no longer be for him. But these were Sirius' hopes, and those hopes had been lost on Sirius just as much as they would be lost on Regulus.

Regulus did not even know that, in a matter of days, his brother would no longer officially be his brother. He did not know that, in a matter of days, Sirius would abandon him for a chosen family and a chosen brother. Regulus did not know that the only other person who truly cared for him would be cast out from his life forever.