Sirius had sat down in the chair that was across from his bed. Regulus and his brother stared at each brother for what felt like an eternity to Regulus. Eventually he decided to break the silence. "Hello." he said to his brother. His brother said hello back.
After this there was another awkward silence. Regulus felt that he had done his part in making conversation with each other so he decided to pass the time by looking at his brother.
He had not been able to really look at him since he had woken up in the future. Sirius looked very different then he remembered. Regulus could still tell that it was brother of course, but he looked different. And it was not just the normal aging that people go through, like what happened with Snape. Sirius looked more wheatherd and haggard. The Sirius that Regulus had known was confident and enthusiastic, but now Sirius had this look in his eye that Regulus had seen before but only in his dreams.
Regulus knew that this look came from his time in Azkaban. When Professor Dumbledore had told him that Sirius had been in Azkaban he was shocked. Out of all of the people that he was related to Sirius was the last person that Regulus thought would be.
Regulus was even more shocked when he had told him why Sirius was there. Regulus did not get why anyone would think that Sirius could betray the Potter family. Sirius had been so much more loyal to them then he was to his family. Regulus had actually been extremely jealous of James Potter because of how Sirius called him his brother.
So it was a very idotic thought and anyone who knew Sirius and still thought it was an idiot too. And he was very much including professor Dumbledore in that too.
Regulus thought back to the last time that he had seen his older brother. It had been a bleak and cold December day. He had just recently learned of the dark lords horcruxes and he knew that he needed help in destroying them. This of course would be difficult to get.
Regulus did not really have a lot of friends and the ones that he did have no longer trusted him due to the rumor that he was a death eater. So he went to the one person who he thought would not believe that rumor, his brother Sirius.
This hope proved to be false though. His brother apparently did believe this rumor, and that fact that he did had crushed Regulus. After that he decided to go to the lake with Kreacher. Who he knew he could always trust.
Since the silence was not letting up Regulus decided to break it by saying what was on his mind.
"I am not a death eater."
"What." Sirius said, sounding surprised at what his brother said.
"I'm not a death eater. The last time we talked you thought that I was a death eater but I am not." Regulus explained the reasoning behind what he said.
His brother looked at him like he did not quite believe what Regulus had told him. This made Regulus upset, but he did not show it on his face.
He pulled the sleeve up on his left arm to show Sirius that he did not have a dark mark.
Sirius sat shocked in the chair in his younger brother's bedroom. He stared at Regulus's blank left arm. He did not know what to think. He had thought that his younger brother was a death eater for so long, it did not feel real that he was not.
There had never been a lot of non circumstantial evidence that Regulus was a death eater, but everyone had thought he was. At Hogwarts all of the people that Regulus had hung out with had become Death Eaters and almost everyone of their generation in the Black that had not been disowned had become a death eater.
He also was not seen a lot during the war. Of course he was seen at parties and stuff like that, but after his graduation Regulus was not seen normally. He mostly stayed at his house. A lot of people found this suspicious, Sirius included.
Of course a lot of the evidence that Regulus was a death eater had just been rumors, nothing concrete. But it had made a lot of sense to Sirius so he had believed them.
But now Sirius felt guilty at this thought. He should have believed in his younger brother. Of course they were not close by the time of the war and they had not talked in a long time. But Sirius still should have known that Regulus would not have been capable of anything that the death eaters did.
Regulus had always been very kind and shy. He had never been a particularly cruel person. Which was evidence in the way that he treated Kreacher. He also spent a lot of time up in his bedroom.
Regulus had never spent a lot of time together with the rest of their family. He did when he was required too so he would not piss off their mother but he never went any further then that. At the time Sirius had not realized this. He had always made such a big deal about not hanging out with his family to piss off their mom that Regulus just not being there did not register to him. So Sirius thought that his brother enjoyed hanging out with them.
With this new information Sirius looked back at a lot of things about his younger brother Regulus with a new perspective.
He thought back to their time at Hogwarts. Sirius had never paid a lot of attention to Regulus, he had spent most of his time with the marauders. But what he had seen of Regulus he seemed to not be very popular. Of course he was not bullied or anything, being a Black mint having a certain social status in Slytherin. But he did not seem to have many friends. He also seemed to spend a lot of time in the kitchens with the house elves if the amount of time he was seen there on the marauders map was any indication.
Regulus had also tried to talk to Sirius a couple of times. Every time Sirius had given him the silent treatment because back then he had thought that Regulus was going to try and convince him to go back to there house or about some of the Black family's insane pure blood supremacy ideas.
But looking back Sirius thinks that he was wrong and that his brother was just trying to talk to him.
There were a couple other things that this new revelation about his brother was changing but the biggest one was the last time that they had seen each other.
Even before today Sirius had regretted the way that he had treated Regulus. Not as much as he did now, but he still regretted it. But now it was agonizing.
He was one of the last people that had seen him before he went in the cave and he had insulted him and he did not even give Regulus a chance to talk or defend himself.
He hated the fact that he believed horrible rumors about his younger brother.
After there conversation was done Sirius left the room to clear his head.
Sirius walked numbly to Remus's room. His head was still spinning after the conversation with his little brother. Everything he had thought that he knew about him had been turned upside down by the revelation that Regulus was not a death eater. He needed a calming presence to talk too. And Remus was that calming presence. Whenever he talked to Remus everything always felt right in the world and he needed that feeling right now. Part of him wanted to go talk to Harry. But he knew that was not a good idea. Harry already had a lot to think about. A small part of him that he hated thought that it was because Molly was right, that he did subconsciously think that Harry was James. This whole situation was making him want to talk to James and Lily more than ever.
He slowly opened the door to Remus's bedroom. He peered into the room, Remus was not in the room. He must still be downstairs with the rest of the order. Sirius sat down on Remus's bed. The room smelled like Remus's cologne. It was a cheap muggle brand, but Sirius loved the smell because it made him think of Remus.
Sirius stayed there. Sitting on the bed, smelling Remus's cologne for what felt like an eternity. But in reality it was only about twenty minutes. He stared at his shows for most of this time, lost in this many and swirling thoughts.
He looked up when he heard the door creak open and he saw Remus standing in the doorway.
Remus walked through the door and he sat down next to Sirius. He put his hand on top of Sirius's hand. They looked into each other's eyes. Remus had a soft compasinet look in his. "How was your talk with Regulus." Remus asked him compassionately. Sirius opened his mouth and everything came spilling out. The fact that his brother had not been a death eater, the last time he had seen his brother, the guilt he was feeling for ever doubting him and thinking that he could possibly commit unspeakable crimes, the fact that he had turned his baby brother away when he needed him the most. As he was telling Remus this he had tears streaming down his face and he was finding it hard to breath.
All of the internal guilt that he had felt with the way he had treated his brother was spilling out and it was all out in the open. All of the emotions that he had felt were all coming out now and it was reducing him to a sobbing, gasping mess of tears.
Throughout all of this Remus held Sirius head as he layed in his lap, telling him about his younger brother. Remus was rotating between stroking his hair and rubbing his back.
Remus had not known Regulus very well. Throughout all of the years that he had known Sirius he had rarely talked about his younger brother. And when he did, it was usually in the form of a rant or a snide comment. James seemed to take all of this at face value and he did not like Regulus despite not seeing or interacting with him very often. Peter also claimed to not like Regulus.
Remus knew that James hated all things Slytherin and Peter was just a follower so if James and Sirius hated someone or something then he would hate it too. Remus also knew Sirius was very quick to judge things and people and once he made up his mind about something he would stay in that belief unless something significant happened.
Because of this Remus never had the same opinion as his friends about Regulus. In fact he had never really formed an opinion. He did not like to judge people based on factors out of their control. This was because he was a werewolf and he was often judged because of this.
Despite all of this Remus was still slightly shocked by the fact that Regulus had not truly been a death eater. He was upset that he was shocked by this because during the war a lot of people had thought that he was one and he hated it then, so he could relate to Regulus here.
Remus hated to stereotype but most of the Slytherins in their generation had become Slytherins so it was not that much of a stretch that Regulus had become one. Not to mention the pressure from his parents.
They sat like that for a while Sirius crying and Remus rubbing his back and head.
Regulus got up out of his bed. It still hurt a bit to walk and some of his cuts stung. He walked over to his desk. He opened the top drawer, after he did this he got his wand out of the section. After he did this he moved the papers that were on top of the desk and he put his wand to the blank ones.
He whispered a quick spell, and he watched as the words that he had written slowly revealed themselves. He flipped the paper that was on the bottom of the stack over. Then he got out a quill and he started writing with it. He wrote what happened and the days events. As he did this he wrote down the connections between what had happened and the dreams that he had.
While he was doing this he heard the door open slowly. Regulus turned his head quickly trying to see who it was. Hoping that it was not his brother, he did not want to talk to him right now.
But to his infinet relief it was Kreacher. He smiled at the house elf who ran to him. He pulled him into a hug. Of course since Kreacher was significantly shorter than him it ended up only being around his legs. Regulus bent down to return the hug.
Regulus was glad to see him. He loved the house elf and he was glad to see him again and based on Kreachers reaction he felt the same way.
After this they talked for a while. Kreacher told him about what he had been up to in the years since 1979. Regulus nodded along as he did this.
Harry walked slowly down the hallway of his god fathers ancestral home. As he walked he tried to tip toe lightly. He had gotten pretty good at walking quietly living with the Dursleys, it was one of the only ways that he could get stuff that they had forbidden him to interact with without him being punished. He got to the door that he was looking for, it was the door to professor Lupin's bed room. Harry was looking for Sirius and he was told by Mr Weasley that his god father was there.
Sirius looked up as he saw the door to Remus's bedroom slowly open. He saw Harry looking through the crack between the door and the wall. Sirius opened his mouth to say something but Remus spoke instead. "Come on in Harry." Sirius found himself feeling grateful to the werewolf. He did not know if he could have talked to Harry in that moment.
Harry did as he was told and entered the room. He sat in the chair closest to the door. He then sent a flurry of questions to the two men in the room. Most of them were about the events of the day that had surrounded Regulus, but a few of them were about the events of the summer. As he had not gotten over the fact that he had been left with the Dursleys while his friends and mentors were staying together at Sirius's house.
Sirius understood Harry's anger about this. He knew what it was like to be left in a house of horrors while your friends stayed in a happy place, he remembered how happy he had felt once he had run away and moved into James's house. He had only been a year older then Harry was now. Sirius tried to push down the thought that he had abandoned Regulus at this very house of horrors.
Remus and Sirius waited until Harry was done with his questions. By the end of them it had basically turned into a rant. When he was done talking they started answering his questions. Of course they could not answer all of them, this would be basically impossible because they did not know all the answers themselves.
Remus told Harry about the first war against Voldemort and how rumors were flying around about people. Everyone was deathly afraid of everyone, because of this fear of death people avoided others just based on these rumors. Since Reguls was a Black it had not been a very large leap for people to believe that he was a death eater. Harry thought about how people so easily believed that Sirius had betrayed his parents and Sirius had been a gryffindor and a part of the order of the phoenix. Remus said that if people could believe that he was a death eater, then it was not that much of the a leap to figure that the quieter Black sibling who had not publicly declared a side, could be a death eater. All of this was leading up to him revealing that Regulus had not been a death eater to Harry.
Harry seemed to be slightly shocked by this information, although not as shocked as Sirius had been. Truth be told Harry had slightly seen this revail coming. It had been the only thing that would have made since after the lead up that Remus had said.
Sirius took the information dump from there. He felt that he could talk about this better because he was still very emotional about his younger brother and he did not want to have an emotional breakdown in front of his god son.
Sirius told Harry all of the information that he had been told by Dumbledore. Although knowing him, this was probably not all of the information. Dumbledore really liked to keep some information to himself until he felt that it was necessary to inform people of it.
After they were done with this Harry sat back in the chair that he was sitting in. Remus felt bad that they had told him everything all at once, it was a lot of information to take and he hoped that they had not overwhelmed him.
"I want to meet him." Harry said.
Remus and Sirius looked up in surprise. "What!" They said this in unison, although they did have different tones when they said this.
"Your brother, I want to meet him." Harry explained, although this was not necessary because they both knew who he was talking about.
Sirius and Remus glanced at each other. "I do not think that is such a good idea." Sirius finally said.
"Why not? You guys said that he is not a death eater, and that he died trying to defeat Voldemort. What is wrong with me talking to him." Harry asked them.
Remus and Sirius could not come up with a good reason why. And they both new that unless Harry felt that the reason was good, then he would to it anyway.
"Ok, you can meet Regulus." Sirius said.
The order sat around that table in the dining room. They had a lot to discuss. McGonagall had left to go back to Hogwarts but Snape had decided to stay.
Dumbledore had told everyone about his conversation with Regulus Black, this included the fact that Regulus had not been a death eater. Everyone but Severus had been varying degrees of surprised by this news.
Severus had never believed that he was a death eater. For one thing he had never seen the younger Black sibling at any of the meetings. And for another he had always been too kind to be one.
Dumbledore had also confirmed that Regulus was telling the truth about Voldemort's horcruxes. This made everyone in the room anxious,disgusted and horrified. Of course not everyone on the room knew what horcruxes were. But based on Dumbledore's reaction to them they could tell that they were very bad.
And once they had been explained they joined their peers in shock and horror.
Dumbledore told them the known ways of destroying them and told them that they would do everything they could to find and destroy the horcruxes.
After this they started talking about how to proceed from here. They talked about what they were going to do about Harry's upcoming trail. Most of them thought that they were going to find him not guilty, but they could not ignore the little bit of doubt in the back of their minds, The ministry really had it out for him.
The bigger topic was what they were going to do about Regulus Black at the end of this they decided that he would attend Hogwarts. Past that, they could not decided.
Harry sat facing Regulus Black, Regulus was sitting at his desk.
"So, who are you?" Regulsu asked him.
"Im Harry, Harry Potter."
"Oh, ok Professor Dumbledore told me about you." Regulus replied.
They talked for a while after this. It was mostly small talk and Regulus seemed to be very uncomfortable through out all of it.
Harry wanted to get to know him better, but he did not know what to say. Regulus had "died" in the seventies what they could possibly talk abou.
Not a lot that was for sure.
It is not like they had any shared experiences they could talk about. Harry wanted to ask him about Harrys mom and dad but he had chickned out at the very last minute.
Regulus had been in Slytherin so its not like he would have really interacted with his parents, Harry was also kind off afriad of what he would hear.
Everyone he had talked too before had all loved his parents but they had all been very close to them.
And Harry did not know how he would react. He did not really want to piss Regulus off, because everyone said that he may be useful in taking down Voldemort.
The occupants of the house all went to bed, some slept better then others did. The next day would bring a lot of chaos and drama. With Harry's trail at the ministry of Magic. He would get off, but they did not know that at the time.
Sirius was pacing around the library, Harry had his trial today. He wanted to talk to Remus to try and calm his nerves. But he could not because Remus was not here today.
In fact it was only him, Molly, her children and Regulus in the house. Every one else had to go there jobs and Hermione wanted to spend the day with her parents, something about wanting to keep her mind off of it.
Sirius once again wished that he was able to leave this cursed house.
Even though his body was in here. His mind was with Harry at the trail.
Sirius heard the door to the library open slowly, as if the person wanted to see who was in the library before they entered.
Sirius turned around and saw that it was his brother Regulus, he was wearing a different out fit then he had been when they found him.
Sirius greeted him by saying "Hello Regulus."
Regulus waved back at him with a small smile on his face. "Hi, Sirius."
"What do you want?" Sirius said. Directly after that he inwardly kicked himself, he should be nicer to his brother. But it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, he nearly laughed at his own pun.
"I just wanted to see if you were all right. Mrs. Weasley said that you were nervous about something."
Sirius nodded and said "Yeah, Harry's in trial today."
"Why is he on trial." Regulus asked.
"They think that he improperly used magic in front of a muggle."
"Oh, did he?" Regulus asked.
"I mean technically he did, but it was to fight off dementors. And the muggle already knew about magic."
Regulus looked confused at this "Why is he being tried if he already knows about magic."
"Because the ministry is out to get him."
"Why is the ministry out to get him?"
Sirius launched into a explanation about what had happened during the previous year.
When he was done Regulus nodded but he did not seem like he fully understood why the ministry felt threatened. For the first time in years Sirius agreed with him.
When Sirius got the news that Harry got off he nearly jumped for joy, although he did feel slightly guilty because a small part of him wanted Harry to be expelled and then he could stay here with him and Sirius would not feel as guilty.
Regulus sat down with Professor Dumbledore and Severus Snape surrounding him. They were explaining that he would be going back to Hogwarts.
They would say that he was Severus's nephew.
And that you used to be home schooled.
But now he was being mentored by his "uncle".
Regulus nodded agreeing to this course of action.
