Chapter 1: The Beginning
Chapter Text
The day Sirius Black ran away from their family was the day his younger brother, Regulus, learned what true hatred felt like.
It was ice cold and overwhelming. Spreading over every inch of who he was. Coating everything he'd be from that day on. It consumed him, clawing at his heart and squeezing until it stopped beating. A dead, frozen thing in a cage of bones.
The day Sirius Black ran away from him, Regulus swore to himself he'd get revenge. Whatever it took. He would go to any lengths necessary. No line was too holy, no limit too hard. He'd blast through them all if it got him what he wanted.
Vengeance.
"You're not listening, are you?" Dorcas says, visibly annoyed. She waves a perfectly manicured hand in front of his face.
Regulus pulls himself out of his own head and scowls at his friend. The compartment is too crowded for his liking, but there's little he can do about it. These people refuse to leave him alone even for a minute. It's what friends do, they tell him. Yeah well, when he wants to be alone with his demons, what it is is annoying.
"No," he says, because he doesn't like lying.
Evan chuckles, shaking his head. Barty smirks at Dorcas. "Told you."
Dorcas rolls her eyes dramatically. "I was asking if you don't have prefect patrols to do, now that you are an authority figure."
This makes Regulus groan, because Dorcas is right. He had forgotten. He didn't want to be a prefect, but it turns out you can't simply return the badge in the post.
"It can't be that bad," Barty says when he gets a glimpse of Regulus' face. "You get to knock points off of people at your leisure."
Evan nods enthusiastically. Dorcas shrugs, leaning back and closing her eyes. Now that she's done her duty and reminded Regulus of his misery, she'll sleep for the rest of the journey.
Regulus stands. Adjusts his robes. His green tie. "Not on the train."
"How long's the patrol take?" Evan asks casually.
Regulus could point out to him that attempting subterfuge is futile. Everyone in this carriage knows how he feels about Barty except for Barty himself. But Regulus doesn't, because someone in this dysfunctional friend group should get to be a normal teenager. He's decided it'll be Evan, and so. He keeps his answer inane.
"I'll be back before we reach Hogsmeade. See if you can find Pandora in the meantime." With that, he leaves the compartment. A few students hurry past him, close enough that his robes rustle. He does his best not to flinch.
The prefect meeting is already underway when he arrives. Everyone turns to stare at him and Regulus endures it like he does everything else. Stoically. Quietly.
His stomach is churning something fierce, but his face is made of stone.
"There you are Black," the Head Boy, some seventh year Hufflepuff says. "Punctuality is important. See that you don't show up late for patrols again."
Severus' dark eyes find his. Regulus holds his stare, even as he gives the Head Boy a curt nod of acknowledgement. The Hufflepuff doesn't push, going back to assigning sections of the train to people in pairs. Regulus' fingers twitch inside his robes as he waits, silently willing the boy to not pair him with Severus.
He has never liked the hypocrite. In Regulus' opinion, one can either pontificate about blood purity or embarrass oneself over their crush on a muggle born. Not both.
"Remus Lupin," the Head Boy calls. This gets Regulus' attention because Lupin is one of Sirius' friends.
The boy looks tired, and a bit skinny. Like he didn't eat enough this summer or he got tall too quickly and the rest of his body hasn't caught up yet. Maybe both.
"And Regulus Black. You've got the carriages at the front."
Lupin shuffles over to stand near Regulus while they wait to be dismissed for their rounds. Regulus wonders how much Lupin knows. He wonders if Sirius has scars from what happened to him the night he left.
Regulus isn't sure whether he wants his brother to carry the evidence of such horrible betrayal on his body or not. Scars are good reminders. And it wouldn't hurt for Sirius to have a reminder never to breathe in the direction of another Black again. But also... well. Regulus knows what it's like to wish the scars weren't there. To hate looking at himself in a mirror. This line of thought makes him want to break something, so he pushes it all away forcefully.
They are dismissed and kind of suddenly Regulus finds himself walking next to Lupin towards the front of the train. They patrol in silence, which Regulus doesn't mind at all. Lupin doesn't seem to be bothered, either, and that is enough for Regulus to be curious. Most teenagers he knows - his friends included - find silence awkward. They try to fill it with whatever they can think of, no matter how innocuous or uninteresting. More often than not, it leads to random, dumb debates like 'who would win in a fight between a Hipogriff and a Basilisk.' Regulus finds these exhausting.
Lupin, however, isn't even fidgeting. He's one hundred percent not bothered.
"Where do you want to start?" Lupin asks him when they reach their section, glancing at him before refocusing on his shoes.
Regulus shrugs. "Don't care."
Lupin hums, gestures with his head towards the far end of the carriage. "From the top, then."
A lewd remark flits through his mind, but Regulus' face doesn't change. He simply nods once and takes off in the direction Lupin indicated. It's up to the other boy to follow. He does.
Silence descends once again. Once again, Regulus is impressed at how not awkward it is.
They patrol the carriages side by side, observant eyes snagging on details that reveal more than the students they're watching would want either of them to know. Or at least Regulus thinks so. He wouldn't want anyone to know things about him just by looking. It's why he's so careful to keep his face a blank mask at all times.
Some time later, Regulus is appalled to discover that he's enjoying himself. This… quiet company thing that's going on between him and Lupin is… nice. At least, until someone decides to start a fight in one of the compartments they're responsible for.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Lupin groans, eyeing the brawling kids with a suffering roll of his eyes.
He then looks at Regulus, and he isn't sure what the other boy is expecting but a blank stare isn't it based on the annoyance that crosses his eyes.
"You're not going to help?" he asks.
Regulus blinks, then turns to the brawling kids. Regulus takes a single, measured step. "You've got five seconds to stop whatever this is before I hex your teeth to fall from your mouths."
His voice is sharp. It cuts through the rage fueling the boys like a scalpel. Something in his tone makes them pause, hesitate. They stop trying to punch each other for long enough to glance up at Regulus, who's take his wand out and is holding it casually at his side.
"What he said," Lupin adds. "And we're deducting ten points from each of you."
"You can't actually hurt us!" says the other.
"Ah, but losing the teeth won't hurt at all," Regulus replies, an edge to his voice that makes the kid literally shudder.
"You can't take off points before we reach school!" the other complains, but they're both backing away. Neither of them is sure Regulus won't actually hex them, as is evident by the fearful glances they're throwing his wand every other second.
Lupin shrugs. "Says who?"
Regulus wants to smirk. Lupin has sass. Instead, Regulus stares them down in silence until they're sitting on opposite sides of the carriage and peace has been restored. Lupin gives them a warning before they both retreat.
Silence falls between them again. Like before, it's comfortable. Easy. Regulus can't remember the last time he was this unbothered around a stranger. Carefully, slowly, he glances sideways. Lupin's handsome. Objectively. He's tall, too. Taller than Regulus, so he has to tilt his face up a little to get a better view. It's annoying to him that Sirius seems to only have good looking friends. Like it's his personal fuck you to Regulus, being friends with attractive people he doesn't have a chance in hell of ever touching. Not even by accident, because Regulus is too careful for that.
Lupin blinks and Regulus stares straight ahead so fast he almost gets whiplash. He won't be caught staring at this guy. Over his dead body.
He feels rather than sees Lupin's eyes on his profile. He wants to squirm under the scrutiny, but he doesn't allow himself to move. To react.
"You're quite terrifying," Lupin says. It strikes Regulus that he sounds impressed, which is odd. He wouldn't expect a Gryffindor to understand how it's useful to be scary. To be dangerous.
"You sound petrified."
Lupin chuckles. "I'm tougher than your average Hogwarts student. But those kids back there almost shat themselves."
He swears. Remus Lupin swears a lot.
Regulus looks at the other boy. He meets his gaze head on, green on brown. There's something akin to curiosity there. It makes Regulus shut down. A friend of his brother's cannot look at him twice. For any reason.
He keeps walking without another word. Lupin doesn't push it and Regulus hates him a little bit for it. It'd be easier if he'd been annoying about it.
The day Sirius Black ran away from home, James Potter discovered he was capable of darkness. It scared the living daylights out of him, because he'd always been nice. Funny. Easygoing and popular and all the things James Potter should be.
And yet, when Sirius - his literal soulmate - showed up on his doorstep on the brink of death, James had to actively choose to help him instead of going straight to Grimmauld Place and murdering everyone in sight.
James has never felt anything like it again. He hopes he never does. It's not like him to be afraid of feelings. He's a big boy, with a big heart, and he's never been scared of showing it. It's just that he'd never had a negative emotion before or since, and well. It threw him a little.
He's good now, though. In fact, he's excellent because the train is about to pull up to Hogsmeade and his final year at Hogwarts is going to be one for the ages. They're going to make it memorable. They being himself and his three best friends.
Sirius is lounging across from him, legs tangled with his. He's grown this summer, but he's still shorter than James and Remus. Peter is reading next to James, his nose so far in the book he could be snogging it.
The door to the carriage opens and Sirius' fingers twitch when Remus steps in. James tries to hide the small smile tugging at his lips.
"How was patrol?" he asks, because Sirius needs a moment to compose himself when Remus enters a room he's in these days. James is nothing if not a loyal and supportive brother, so. "Anything interesting?"
Remus sits down. Looks at Sirius. "I was paired with your brother."
Sirius sits up straight so fast the couch could have bitten him. "Reg? He's a prefect?"
Remus nods.
"Did he say anything to you?" Sirius asks, a small muscle ticking on his jaw.
"Nope. He doesn't talk much," Remus says. "Though when he does…" He makes a face like his impressed and James swears to Merlin Sirius' eyes might pop out of their sockets any moment. "He broke up a fight with a single sentence."
"Why do you sound impressed?" Sirius enquires, leaning forward. "Don't do that. Don't sound impressed. This is my brother. He's not impressive. He's a little shit who betrayed me. We don't like him."
Remus nods along to all this. "I only said he was scary, not that I wanted to marry him."
Sirius scoffs and flops back against his seat. "Not funny, Moony."
Peter looks up from his book. "It's a little funny."
James clears his throat to gather the attention before this can escalate. The subject of Regulus is unsafe. Even though it's been a year since he ran from the despicable waste of air that are Walburga and Orion Black, Sirius hasn't fully processed what his running away and Regulus' staying behind means for them. He's mourning his brother like he's dead, except he's alive and well and, apparently, terrifying.
"Speaking of things that are truly hilarious," James says. "I hear Alice met Frank's mother this summer."
They all launch into an enthusiastic discussion about the ways in which Frank's mother—there's someone terrifying for you—could have scared Alice away. The couple graduated last June and began their auror training at the Ministry already this summer because tensions are rising and more aurors are needed, but James' still in touch with Frank.
As his friends discuss the many memorable occassions during which Augusta Longbottom made them want to crawl into a hole in the dirt, James' mind drifts. He can't help it, because he's a curious person by nature. Last time he saw Regulus, on this very train on the last day of their sixth year and Regulus' fifth, the boy was a whisper of a person. Skinny, on the shorter side, and pale like a wraith, there was absolutely nothing even remotely scary about him. At least not to James, who's always been broad shouldered and tall for his age.
It's because he's curious about what Remus told them that when they get off the train and head to the carriages, James scans the crowd of students looking for the younger Black. Sirius is complaining about the rain, oblivious to James' research. Remus and Peter are a few steps ahead, merrily discussing the feast that awaits them in the castle.
Annoyingly, he doesn't spot Regulus so James has to remain curious for a while longer as he piles into the carriage with his friends.
"You alright there Prongs?" Sirius asks, running a hand through his hair to dislodge the drops of water clinging to it.
He snaps the door closed and shrugs, feeling guilty for literally no reason. "Starving."
Remus shifts on his seat, looking out the window on his side of the carriage.
"Same," says Peter. "That hat better not take too long."
They murmur their general agreement as the carriage rolls on the cobblestones towards their school.
The entrance hall is packed, and it smells faintly of rain because it's absolutely pouring and even the short sprint up the stairs was enough to drench everyone. Sirius is shaking his head like a dog—James thinks this is funny—and Remus is trying and failing to tell him off without smiling. Peter is much more civilised about the whole thing and is using his wand to dry himself off. James' about to do the same when he finally catches a glimpse of Regulus Black.
And well. Shit.
When did he grow up?
James thinks he understands what Remus meant. Regulus is taller now. Still shorter than James, but not someone to go unnoticed in a crowd. And he's… filled up? Somehow? He's still lean. Slim. Like, he's not suddenly bulky or anything but he doesn't look like he's been starved. Even his skin has a healthier colour. James is suddenly certain that he's done something to his hair, too. It's shinny, and falls quite beautifully over his face, weighed down by the rainwater. He's scowling at Barty Crouch, but Crouch doesn't seem to mind this. James understands, because Regulus' scowl is actually quite pretty and--
"James!"
"What?" He blinks, shakes his head. Remembers he was staring at his best friend's brother. "Sorry, what did you say?"
Sirius rolls his eyes and cranes his neck to try and see what James was staring at. "Evans? Really? Again?"
James notices that Lily Evans has been standing with her friends right next to Regulus and his little gang. He's so relieved he almost sighs out loud. "Yeah. Sorry, I was distracted."
Sirius makes a small noise of appreciation and pulls James by his arm towards the Great Hall. "You can ogle the girls later. Now, we want to eat. Come on."
James has to stop himself from looking over his shoulder, which is silly. His curiosity is satisfied now. There's nothing else for him to look at.