"Hey Orion!" Someone called and Sirius didn't need to look up from his desk as his brother used his old nickname for him.
"Hey Leo." He replied dully and Regulus frowned.
Laughter rang through the almost empty corridor and the portraits on the walls frowned at the teenage boys passing, though none seemed to have noticed. A lone figure appeared at the end and one of the boys, the tallest and probably most handsome one, stopped laughing. It was only as the smaller figure came closer that the other three noticed him and quieted.
The person was a young boy about fourteen, but something was wrong. He had dark circles under his eyes and seemed on edge and jumpy.
"What do you want?" The handsome boy said scornfully.
"Sirius…" The younger boy said, looking up at his older brother pleadingly. "I need to talk to you. In private." He shot a nervous look to Sirius's curious friends.
"Yeah, we'll meet you in the common room, Padfoot." James said and made to walk forward, but Sirius shot out an arm and held him back.
"No Prongs, stay. Anything you say to me can be said in front of them." Regulus looked unsurely at them again before speaking softly.
"Father decided over the summer that since you were gone, I had to prepare to come into my inheritance." Sirius didn't show emotion at this but crossed his arms over his chest.
"I figured that much would happen. They're obviously not giving it to me. What? Are you having problems with that?" Regulus didn't answer but also folded his arms and looked away. Sirius stepped forward and took Regulus's face in his hand, examining it slowly before looking into his eyes. Suddenly, he slapped him sharply across the right cheek and looked furious.
"I'm sorry Sirius…"
"Sorry? You've gone against me and have been high as an Augury for at least a month from the look of you. I told you not get mixed up with those people." He said angrily.
"Yes, well you also told me you wouldn't leave!" He shouted pulling away. He had tears in his eyes as he stared angrily at Sirius. "You promised me that no matter how bad it got, you wouldn't run away!"
"I tried Regulus, you know that. I just couldn't take it anymore." Sirius said softly.
"Father's going to rape me Sirius, he told me he's going to do it when I come home." He said, once again barely above a whisper. James, Peter and Remus collectively gasped.
"At least you got a warning of it…"
"What? You mean he…" James stuttered putting a hand on Sirius's shoulder.
"Every Black man goes through it. It supposedly builds character. Innocence must be tossed away and virginity given away to the person who gave a piece of himself so you would enter this world." Sirius shrugged. "Of course, he'll tell you all this while he's doing it."
"When?" Regulus asked, shocked that his brother was so calm about this.
"Same age as you are now, maybe a bit younger. I try not to think about it. I just know it was the summer before fourth year over the sofa in the sitting room." Regulus suddenly dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around Sirius's legs, hanging on tightly with his eyes shut.
"Please Sirius, I don't want that to happen. I need your help. Don't make me go through that too." Sirius looked down at him for a long moment. Finally, he spoke.
"You're not going home for Christmas, you're staying at Hogwarts." Regulus opened his eyes and looked up at him before taking Sirius's offered hand and being hauled to his feet.
"What about the summer?"
"You're coming with me." Regulus stared at him before wrapping his arms round Sirius's ribs, where his head only just reached, and hugging him tightly. To his friends' surprise, Sirius hugged him back before shooing him off to his next class.
They walked to the next class in silence and it was when they were queuing outside Transfiguration, that James caught Sirius's arm and whispered quickly to him.
"Why didn't you ever say anything? I would have helped you out of there sooner."
"I didn't and still don't want people to know about it. Even you." James looked hurt but Sirius was avoiding his eye and didn't see. "Now can we drop the subject…"
Over the next two months or so, a lot changed. Their homework took up a lot of time and an unspoken agreement had come between them not to talk about Sirius's rape. Sirius spent the occasional Hogsmeade visit with Regulus, who looked a lot healthier and more confident since that day. This cut into his time usually spent with James and the between that, James's weekend nights spent alone with Lily in his bed and their schoolwork, the inseparable two were now drifting further apart.
Like a child spinning around and finally falling down dizzy in the mud, things finally seemed to fall apart in early December, one week before the holidays. It was the rare occasion when the four were all together in the dormitory on a Friday evening, no homework and a free weekend ahead of them. Someone had banged on the door and when Remus opened, a first year had rushed in, whispered in Sirius's ear before he'd rushed out.
A half-hour later, Sirius kicked the door open and rushed in with a very beaten Regulus in his arms. He put him down on his bed and babbled on to Remus, panicking more than Remus had ever seen him do in seven years.
"You know healing spells, please, save him, save my brother, Remus." Remus nodded and pulled a book from his bag, quickly flipping through it and looking for the incantations he needed.
"I'll get Lily, she's going to train to be a healer and she'll know what to do." James said and Sirius, who was now kneeling next to Regulus, growled at him.
"You can date the mudblood, but she's not coming anywhere near him with so much as a bruise healing potion." He snapped and James shot him an angry look but took his hand away from the doorknob, instead seeing if he could help Remus, who was attempting to heal the most severe looking cuts. Regulus chuckled as Remus undid his torn and bloody robes and removed his school shirt.
"You're a good big brother, Orion." He said drowsy from the pain potion Remus, who had a supply for after the full moon, had given him. It took a moment before all three looked at Sirius, who shot him back a sad smile, stroking his hand.
"No Leo, I'm not, or this wouldn't have happened. I should have stopped it."
"You are! You protect me from mudbloods and teach me important stuff, like where to sit to get the best food at the feasts and how to blame Kreacher for dropping Grandmother's necklace in the toilet." He chuckled again and his eyes drooped and eventually closed.
Sirius stood up and walked to the bathroom, his hands buried in his hair. Remus healed as much as he could and he left the boy in just his underclothes on Sirius's bed, looking considerably less beaten. Peter covered him with the blanket as Remus went looking for Sirius, finding him still in the bathroom. He was sitting in the dark and when Remus flipped the light on, he saw he was curled in the corner with his head in his knees and his hair covering his face.
Remus sat down near him and he didn't say anything.
"So, you dropped your Grandmother's necklace in the toilet… how did that happen?" He touched his hand when he got no answer and Sirius pulled away suddenly, shrinking back against the wall.
"What happened?" Remus asked him softly and Sirius looked up. He moved his hair out of his eyes and Remus saw his eyes were red from crying and tear streaks were on his cheeks.
"I found him down in the dungeons stuffed into a broom closet. He managed to tell me it was some of his housemates."
"We'll find out who when he wakes up and you can rip their heads off. Personally, I would help if the full moon was a bit closer than three weeks." Sirius laughed and gave a sniff, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
"Thank you Moony, for fixing him. I can't take him to Madam Pomfrey, she'd ask too many questions and then she'd notify father. If he knows he's been hanging around with me, he'll kill both of us."
Sirius had found the only safety from their father for both of them was to transfer Regulus to Durmstrang after Christmas, finish his own education and Hogwarts, and go over there afterwards.
Regulus had now been married about twelve years and had two beautiful children. He was shorter and had dark brown hair instead of black, but other than that, Regulus looked a lot like his brother. Marriage had done the same to him as Sirius and they now also shared similar rounder figures. He sank down into the chair in front of Sirius's desk.
"What's gotten you so upset?"
"Who says I'm upset?"
"I work three floors down and I've heard it. Everyone says you've been moping for a good three days now." Sirius slumped down on his desk again. After two days when he realised that Harry wasn't coming back anytime soon, he'd grown more and more miserable. "Sirius?"
"It's Harry."
Flashback
Standing outside the house, one of Sirius's gloved hands reached out and pressed the button, the sound of the doorbell echoing inside the house. The other however, hung onto the much smaller delicate hand of his boyfriend, giving it a small squeeze of reassurance as footsteps from inside pounded towards the door.
"It'll be ok. Just be yourself and he'll love you as much as I do." Sirius said and kissed his forehead. The door opened and a man looked out at them. He grinned at Sirius and they embraced tightly.
Sirius clapped him on the back and held an arm over his shoulder. When you looked closely, you could easily see how much they looked alike. The man was quite tall, but easily still shorter than Sirius. He was what you would call considerably chubby, not quite fat but still bulky with a plump face and potbelly.
"So, is this the one I've heard so much about?" He said and then spoke to his brother in Bulgarian. "Very nice indeed, good body, pretty face. Never thought you'd go for a carrot top though." Harry frowned as Sirius laughed.
"It's not orange, just dark red." Harry said suddenly and both looked at him in shock. "Lessons for two hours three times a week. A month of that's gotta sink in somehow." Regulus laughed and moved to let Harry in. Sirius still just stood there and Harry kissed his cheek before going into the house and out of the cold.
The afternoon went well and by that evening, Regulus, his wife Opal and even Caelum, their seven-year-old son, had taken to him. Things only seemed to get better as Opal brought in their six-month-old daughter into the room once she woke from her nap. When Harry held and played with her, saying how he loved children and was used to them from his many siblings, it seemed they all accepted him into the family gladly.
Sirius leant against the kitchen counter smiling as his brother closed the door to the kitchen behind him. Sirius already knew why Regulus wanted to talk to him in private before he'd even said so.
"He's great, isn't he?"
"Yeah,just lovely,but are you sure he's right for you?" The smile left Sirius's face.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you have anything in common?" Sirius shrugged.
"We have enough chemistry. We don't need anything in common." Sirius stood up straight and frowned. "Why? Don't you like him?"
"Stop putting words in my mouth Sirius! Sometimes chemistry isn't enough. And the circumstances aren't exactly in favour of your relationship."
"And how do you come up with that one?"
"Well, look at it. He's the son of your ex best friend. He's nineteen, you're thirty-six! Ten minutes ago he didn't seem to object to the idea of marriage and children, something you've sworn since we were smaller than Caelum you'd never want!"
"Yeah, well maybe I changed my mind." He said shifting and his hand fiddling in his pocket. "Maybe I'm serious about this one."
"How serious exactly?" His hand pulled out a small box from the pocket and he stared at it. "Sirius…"
"I love him Regulus. I don't care if we have nothing in common or that he's related to him. I know he's the one, I just know it. I've never felt this way about anyone before and I'm not letting it die."
"Just wait a while before you do something you might regret, that's all I'm saying…" Sirius was already out the kitchen, the box safely back in his pocket. Regulus took a deep breath, shook his head and sighed before following him. Harry was holding Caelum's cat, but as the little boy ran out the room, shoved it onto Sirius's lap, who pushed it onto the floor immediately.
"Don't you like cats?" Sirius asked him amusedly as he took out a hankie and blew his nose. Harry sniffed and smiled slightly.
"God no! I threw my roommate's one down the stairs in fifth year when he wouldn't get rid of it." Sirius laughed loudly. " I'm allergic to them and the thing kept lying on my bed, so I just took it and tossed it out in front of everybody in the Gryffindor common room."
"How allergic are you?"
"Well, let's put it this way: I'm never getting one. I'm more of a dog person anyway." Regulus looked at his brother and saw the hand in his pocket grip what he knew must be the ring box. He knew no matter what he said, from the look in his brother's eyes, he would never be able to stop him from proposing now.
"What about him?" Sirius looked at him sadly.
"He left me Regulus. Harry left me." He said, his voice breaking. Regulus nearly fell off his chair.
"Why would he do that? Are you sure?"
"He might as well have done it. Told me he's going to do some thinking." Regulus was speechless and he saw tears in Sirius's eyes. His voice went into a horse, shaky whisper. "What if something happens to him? If someone hurts him, how will I ever live with myself?"
"Don't worry. Harry's small but he's feisty. I feel sorry for the fool that tries." Sirius shook his head.
"Not right now, I wouldn't." Regulus opened his mouth to ask why. "Not with the baby."
"You guys have had a baby? And I wasn't told this?"
"No, he hasn't had it yet. Only in about four months or so."
"Still doesn't explain why you didn't say anything. Or about why he suddenly walked out."
"We've been fighting lately. Over the past few months I don't know what's happened. Maybe he's not even coming back. He's been gone for five days already."
"He'll come back, he wouldn't leave now. Not after you two made this decision. I mean it's a major change."
"What do you mean?"
"Obviously you discussed children and he took the potion for it. You must have been prepared psychologically for it. You can't just snap your fingers and expect to suddenly adjust to a baby."
"Right..." Sirius replied, his stomach sinking even lower...
Thank you to all who have reviewed the past chapter. I'm very happy with the amount, which is why I'm updating so quickly. I've been sick for the past few days, which means I've been at home writing and getting a lot of this story done.
I apologise for the above mentions of child rape. Sirius is not as easy-going about it despite what it seems. Feelings do come out later in the story...
Review please for another quick update...