A/N: By request. Sirius is 7, Reg is 5.

September 1967

Regulus watched with wide eyes as his father caught the butterfly between his fingers, almost tenderly. The animal had been sitting on an open window in the parlor, its dark brown wings open as it absorbed the sun's rays.

The butterfly twitched slightly as Orion Black lifted it up and inspected it with childlike wonder on his face that made him look a little bit like his eldest son.

"How curious," the man muttered, a slow smile forming as he tilted his body towards the butterfly between his thumb and forefinger.

Regulus edged closer, his eyes on the curious thing in between his father's fingers. "What is it?"

"A Brown Hairstreak," his father said without taking his eyes off the animal. He lowered his hand, allowed his small son to take a good look at it.

"It wants to fly," Regulus said softly, watching the butterfly's legs wriggle in the air, "is it scared?"

The man scoffed. "It's just insect, son. But still, it's nice to look at."

Regulus nodded. It was odd, spending time with his father alone, but also exciting. This was the longest time he had spent alone with the man since he could remember. Usually, Sirius was always there, like a shield, placing himself between Regulus and their parents. Not today, though. Their mother had taken Sirius on a visit to relatives in The Hague and they weren't going to be back until the next morning. At first, Regulus had been very upset that Sirius had had to go - Sirius had been upset too but he'd had no choice but to come with her. It's time they both grow up, their mother had said to their father. Too much attachment isn't good for them.

Now, Regulus found that it wasn't so bad after all to spend time with his father.

With his free hand, his father closed the window, then stepped away from it. The room was darker now as the previously clear sunlight slanting through the high dirty window gained a hazy greenish quality, like a pond you wouldn't want to swim in. His back to the window, his father placed the tip of his wand against the body of the wriggling animal in his hand, murmured words in a language Regulus didn't understand. A flash of light, as though the man had taken a photograph with his wand but in green. A jolt went through the butterfly before its black legs slackened and finally froze.

Regulus' father let go of the butterfly's wings, gently placing it on the coffee table. Regulus expected it to spread its wings and flutter away. When it didn't, he wondered whether it was dead but he didn't dare to ask his father.

Orion Black moved around the table and took a seat on the sofa, inviting his son to sit next to him. "Look at those colors," he marveled, bending the stiff wings apart. "A female, no doubt given the size."

"Will you let it fly?" Regulus asked, voice soft and small. He blinked up at his father.

"Fly?" The man gave a short laugh. "It would've been a waste to let it go. I'll add it to my collection."

"What collection?"

Orion took the butterfly again, rose to his feet, the corners of his mouth curving into a smile. "Come, I'll show you."

Regulus followed his father to his study. He had only been in this room maybe once or twice as, usually, entering his parents' rooms was strictly forbidden. Its windows facing west, the room had a different light than the other rooms on the same landing, however, the air was stuffy and it was much colder and smelled of cigar smoke.

The man opened a drawer in his desk, took out several glass cases, placing them on top of his desk. Regulus stood on his tiptoes to look at them, his small fingers grasping the edge of his father's desk. They were butterfly collections, dozens of specimens pinned to the board inside a glass case with symmetrical precision, their brittle wings spread wide. Dust motes danced in the window light, swirling down like ash before settling on the glass cases. The butterflies were protected from it all, their bodies suspended in an atmosphere of their own.

His father opened an empty case, set it on the table before placing the new butterfly in the top left corner, and impaling its fragile body on a small, almost transparent pin. "There," he said, closing the case and holding it up against the light, "all done. Beautiful, isn't it?"

Regulus winced slightly as the pin perforated the insect's body. His father didn't notice.

It was late at night when the child tiptoed down the stairs to the second landing where his father's study was. He couldn't shake himself of the image of the butterfly, a pin through its heart. Maybe it was still alive. His father could make things freeze but they weren't always dead. He had done so to Sirius once when Sirius didn't stop tipping his chair onto its rear legs. It had been scary to see Sirius like that, all frozen, like a statue. Sirius had had to sit like this until the spell wore off two hours later. He had been cold afterward, moved shakily, went straight to his bed and under his covers, teeth clattering as though he had sat in a field of snow.

When his father had stored the glass cases back inside his desk drawers, Regulus had felt bad for the butterflies. Maybe they were lonely like prisoners in their cells, like Snow White in her crystal casket. Maybe they regretted their daredevilry which had led them into the parlor, maybe they missed what they had left behind at the green mound of Claremont Square just across the street - the smell of the flowers, their sweet nectar, the sound of the wind in the bushes and trees.

Regulus entered his father's study. It was dark and he could hear the muffled sound of the traffic through the window, it was louder down here than upstairs where he and Sirius had their bedrooms.

He walked over to his father's desk and opened the drawers. There were too many glass cases for him to carry all at once but he found the butterfly which his father had caught this afternoon. The child walked over to the window, pushed the heavy curtains aside before opening the window and climbing on top of the windowsill. The night air caused him to shiver. He turned the glass case over, trying to figure out how to open it. Reaching over and taking a pair of sharp scissors from his father's desk, he attempted to pry the case open by inserting the scissors blade in between the wooden frame and the glass lid.

He heard a crack, the scissors slipping off and hitting the glass. One moment, the case was whole and flawless; the next it was crazed with cracks and fissures.

"Oops," Regulus said to himself. Splinters of glass rained to the floor as he turned the case, glinting like diamonds in the yellow streetlight falling through the open window. He removed some of the glass which was still in the way, then reached into the case. As he touched the butterfly's wing, some dust seemed to rub off on his fingers, dust bearing a shadow of the brown and orange pattern of the butterfly wing. He attempted to slide the insect off the pin, however, it was dark in the study, and the pin was formed in such a way that it made sliding the small body off very difficult without accidentally leaving parts of it behind or breaking it in two. He didn't want to hurt the butterfly after all.

He didn't hear the footsteps coming up behind him.

A large hand grabbed his neck, causing the boy to let go of the butterfly. A second later, he was hauled off the windowsill.

"What do you think you're doing!" The light was switched on. The hand on his neck made it impossible for Regulus to look up, however, he recognized his father's big feet sticking in fur-lined slippers next to his own bare feet. The butterfly lay between shards, its left wing snapped off.

Regulus was too afraid to speak.

A moment later, his father grabbed him by his hair, pulled his head up before slapping him hard across the face. "I'll teach you to touch my things!"

At first, Regulus was too terrified to cry. His face burned from the slaps he had received and his hands were shaking as he collected the shards from the floor like his father had ordered him to, one by one he took them with his bare hands, carefully. His lips were trembling when he placed them on his father's desk, the man's dark eyes following his every move.

"Hold out your hands," his father said harshly.

Regulus felt his breath hitch. He held out his hands, squeezed his eyes shut. Felt his father place two large shards in his palms, the glass cool against his skin, smooth as long as he kept his palms open. Then, the man folded the child's fingers in one by one like flower petals at nighttime, a cruel tenderness in it. He wrapped his calloused hands around his son's much smaller ones, tightening them slowly.

The child howled as the sharp edges cut into his flesh.

"You like that, touching my stuff? Huh?" His father's large hands, like vices, tightening around Regulus's even more.

A thin line of blood bisected each of Regulus' milk-blue forearms, trailing from his palms down to his elbows where it was soaked up by his sleeves. He didn't pay attention to it. All he saw were his father's eyes, narrow, looking like the bullet-shaped eyes of a military man and hungry like a shark's.

"How did that happen?" Sirius asked, sitting back on his heels, his eyes fixed upon Regulus' face. The mattress sank in slightly under his feet. The morning sun painted the room in hard shadows.

Regulus turned away, brought his hands up to his chest, hiding them from Sirius' view. He didn't want to get yelled at more. Tears were burning in the corners of his eyes.

"Reg!" Sirius, shaking his shoulder. He sounded angry. "What did he do? It was him, right?"

Regulus bit his lip as he allowed his tears to slide down his swollen cheeks. They hurt on his skin. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"You - you're sorry?" Sirius sounded flabbergasted. "For what?"

The child nodded. "I t-touched the butterfly in Father's study and broke its case."

Sirius scrunched his brows as he tried to make sense of his little brother's words. "You did what?!"

Regulus' breath hitched. He hated that he had made Sirius angry too. "Don't be mad."

"I'm not," Sirius said, taking a deep breath, "not at you." He reached out, his fingers ghosting across the side of Regulus' face.

"It hurts," Regulus whimpered.

Sirius removed his hand instantly. "Did you put ice on it?"

Regulus shook his head slightly. "My hands hurt too," he whispered.

"Show me."

Slowly, the child opened his fingers.

Sirius sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth at the sight of the bloody cuts, some of them crusting over slightly while others were red, irritated, and still leaking. Sirius stared, at a loss of words. He took the small hands into his, didn't miss his brother wincing as he did so. "He did that?" Sirius asked hoarsely despite already knowing the answer.

Regulus nodded once more. A sob formed deep in his chest but he didn't let it out.

"It's okay," Sirius said softly, his hands trembling as he brushed his brother's hair out of his face. "You're going to be okay. I'll - I'll get you something to make it better."

"Don't leave," Regulus pleaded.

Sirius stopped mid-turn, looking back at his brother. "I'm not, I just want to get something really quickly."

Regulus began to cry in earnest, his small hands reaching for Sirius.

Sirius ignored him as he jumped off his brother's bed and hurried across the hall and into his room, found both the jar of honey and the spoon which he kept under his bed. He was only gone for a few seconds before returning to his brother's room. Regulus was sitting up, awkwardly balancing on his elbows. Blood had dried on the child's forearms.

"Here," Sirius said, unscrewing the jar's lid. It was his emergency medicine for when he was really hurt, he had mixed a few spoonfuls of Healing Potion into it. A Healing Potion just like that, raw and unsweetened, Sirius knew he wouldn't be able to force it into his brother, not in his tearful state. Sirius dipped the spoon in, whirled it around the golden liquid, spun the honey round and round until it was a thick and glistening glob. "Take it."

The child stuck the end of the spoon in his mouth. His sobs subsided a little bit as he ran his tongue over the melting honey in his mouth.

"There you go. Good boy."

"Don't leave again," Regulus pleaded, the spoon still in his mouth.

Sirius sat frozen for a moment, then turned toward his brother and lay down next to him, curling around him like he could shield him like this, the child's shaking back against his front. He bit back tears. "I told you to stay away from him, to stay in your room," he said and his words sounded harsher when he said them out loud than they had sounded in his head.

The child in his arms wept bitterly without making a sound, his small hands formed to fists once more, drawn up against his chest protectively. The spoon slipped from his mouth, a string of saliva connecting it to his lips.

"I told you," Sirius said again, desperately, felt the small body next to him shaking. "You have to mind me. Do you understand? Even when I'm gone. Especially when I'm gone."

"D-don't g-go," the child sobbed.

"I won't," Sirius promised, his fingers curling as he passed a hand through his brother's hair. "But you have to mind me, do you understand?"

"Y-yes."

Sirius leaned over the child, his stomach excruciatingly painful at the sight of Reg, hurt. He didn't know where to put all the anger at his father, he hated the man, hated him as he'd never hated anyone in his life, so much so that he thought that it might burn right through him like acid. How dare his father touch Reg, hurt him as though he had a right to - Sirius accepted it as far as he himself was concerned because they were right, he was their firstborn, their heir, but Reg - Reg wasn't theirs. Reg was his. Sirius imagined hurling all those butterfly cases against the wall in his father's study, throwing them out of the window and watching as they burst into millions of pieces on the hard asphalt below; he imagined taking the remaining shards and cutting up his father's face. He knew he couldn't, knew that he was helpless, just as helpless as Reg. But the thought of it was like honey, golden and sweet, a promise. One day, Sirius would be an adult and then he would be able to taste its sweetness.

"If I hear that you've been around him again without me - him or Mother, I don't care -" Sirius began, taking a shuddering breath, "I'll - I'll…" he struggled to think of a threat that was worse than what they could do but his mind went blank, there was nothing, nothing at all that he could do.

"I'm sorry," Regulus whispered again, eyes closed. He turned towards Sirius, snuggling up against his big brother's chest.

Sirius' anger at the child subsided. He reached out and took his brother's hands into his and kissed them, one after the other. "You'll be okay," he said, tearing up at how small Regulus' hands were, so fragile like flowers. "I'll get you some more medicine later and then you'll feel better. I promise."

Aside from the fact that he had disobeyed Sirius, Reg had done nothing wrong, Sirius had to remind himself of this. Sirius looked up, his eyes traveling over to the window through which the morning sun threw bright rectangles of light onto the hardwood floor. A butterfly was passing by the window, hovering in the air for a moment. Its shape looked blurry due to the wetness in Sirius' eyes.

"One day soon we'll be out of here," Sirius said in a low voice, his breath a whisper of air against Regulus' ear, "one day soon."