FOUR OF WANDS
upright — community, home, celebrations,
reunions, gatherings, stability, belonging
reversed — lack of support, instability,
feeling unwelcome, transience, home conflict
JULY 1976
TO REGULUS BLACK, every day was almost monotonous. Being stuck in a routine that consisted of meandering around his gloomy home and covering up for his older brother's reckless arse wasn't exactly anyone's ideal vacation. Even more so, when he was almost bound to 12 Grimmauld Place throughout the summer holidays.
Sure enough, he's had the pleasure (note the sarcasm) to attend the usual summer matinee alongside his pureblood family. He's also had the opportunity to spend time with his insufferable housemates, but honestly, since when had he ever been fond of them? Evan Rosier was the most tolerable of the bunch, though that would never be enough to amend for the fact that it was just an incredible waste of time.
And that's when he gets the idea to follow in his older brother's footsteps.
It's an undoubtedly stupid thought, his younger self would have argued but Regulus Black was far from foolish. Unlike Sirius, he at least had the sense to go about things in wiser ways.
The plan was foolproof. He comes up with a convincing alibi, drags his childhood friend (or rather, future sister-in-law) as an accomplice for his white lie, and hops on the Knight Bus, making use of his brother's name to pay a particular maiden a visit.
She had offered, hadn't she? And besides, it was the most trouble he'd ever dare to get into, shouldn't he be allowed to live life on the edge a little bit? His brother got to do it!
Although, the error in his judgment immediately began to surface when he had come knocking on her door that one summer morning.
.
Instead of being greeted by the blonde maiden with her pretty sapphire eyes and charming smiles as he had anticipated, Regulus Black scowls at the sight of the familiar brunette, grumbling in irritation, "Lestrange."
"Black," she expresses the same displeasure, glaring daggers at him.
They beat each other into asking as if they were the ones who owned the place, "What the hell are you doing here?"
Thankfully, the maiden manages to interrupt them before their dreadful reunion is aggravated by their clear dislike of one another.
"Reg?" Amaris pops up from behind her best friend, smiling despite the initial surprise of his visit. "I didn't know you were coming."
"You said I can drop by anytime—" he says matter-of-factly. It causes the crease between the Ravenclaw's eyebrows to deepen. The corner of her eye twitches in irritation.
"She was obviously just being kind," Pandora scoffed. "The decent thing to do is to write an owl instead of coming here unannounced."
"Dora, it was my fault. I told him to come whenever," Amaris assured her sheepishly, but she remains insistent on her stand.
"Ames, social conduct declares that he ought to give you time to actually prepare for a guest. The least he could do was notify you," the Ravenclaw argued.
"But—" the blonde glances at him worriedly. 'What if it's an urgent matter?'
"It's alright. I'm gonna go. You clearly have company," Regulus interrupts their conversation in an attempt to assure her. He didn't want to impose after all.
"No, wait. I meant what I said. You can hang with us if Pandora doesn't mind," Amaris turns to her best friend, "Can he, Dora?"
Pandora's gaze shifts back from Regulus to Amaris.
"Fine," she eventually caves, perfectly aware of how amiable the maiden can be. "But we're not going to pull any stops for this pureblood bigot."
"Thank you! I swear I'll make it up to you," the Hufflepuff beamed, leaning closer towards her friend to make way for him to enter.
"I think you're forgetting, you're part of one of the sacred families too, Lestrange," he smirked smugly as he crossed the threshold, acting like he had won this time around.
Pandora hissed despite Amaris' attempts to pacify her, "Don't lump me with you!"
Amaris Leclair's home was nothing like 12 Grimmauld Place. It was cozy and warm, reminiscent of country cottages or the Great Hall's fireplace every Yule season. Compared to the dark corridors of his own home, the sunlight seeps through the curtains, hitting the right places and illuminating the room comfortably. The flowers in the vase by the window were surely thriving, but among all those artifacts, the one that catches his attention the most is the odd box set against the center of the den.
It was a humble abode for pureblood standards, but something about the way everything was arranged proved that it was in fact lived in. The proximity of the furniture was always near each other likely a depiction of how close the people of the house were. Not that it was surprising to him. The story about her mother aside, he supposes it was suitable for a girl as warm as her to have been raised in a lovely environment.
"Amy, bring some tea and biscuits for your guests!" the maiden's older sister had called out from the kitchen just as she led them to the drawing room.
"Coming!" Amaris shouts back before sparing her two friends a hesitant glance. "Can you two wait for me in a bit? You can watch something on the telly but try not to murder each other, alright?"
"You think too less of me. I know how to act civil, Leclair," Regulus snorts derisively though it was certainly not enough to assure her.
"I can't promise the same, but I'll try," Pandora goes about it bluntly. There was clearly no point in lying, if anything the Hufflepuff seemed to be convinced by that compared to the boy's words.
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Amaris was still skeptical about leaving them both together, but nevertheless, she turns to Pandora. "I'll trust you to show him how it works?"
"Of course," The corners of the other girl's lips quirk up to form a smug grin, finding pleasure in the fact that she finally had the upper hand against the infamous golden boy. Knowledge, after all, was a Ravenclaw's pride.
"I'll just get you some snacks and tell my sister where we're going this afternoon," the blonde promises one last time. "Be nice to each other."
"I know, I know."
They brush her off nonchalantly, but she refuses to tear her eyes away from them too quickly as if they'd revert back to their hostile demeanor so soon.
Pandora had already made herself comfortable in the maiden's home. But a small smile envelops Amaris' face when she catches sight of Regulus, whose eyes still keep wandering around her home, slightly fascinated by Muggle trinkets despite his facade of snobbery.
Once the Hufflepuff finally leaves the room, he turns to his fellow pureblood, annoyed by the fact that he even had to ask, "...So, what is this 'telly' she's speaking off?"
Aurora Alcott was absolutely delighted to meet, not one, but two of her sister's friends on the same day. Even more so, when she realizes that one of them was a particularly dashing young man who seemed to be rather intimate with her little sister.
It wasn't always that Amaris was able to hang out with her fellow young wizards, especially since the majority of her group of friends consisted of those so-called "pure-bloods". She's had the pleasure of meeting Mary MacDonald, but learning that there were in fact more people in the girl's precious little circle was certainly relieving in a sense.
So much so, that she can't help but ask, "Is that the bloke?"
"What bloke?" Amaris furrows her eyebrows as they waited for the kettle to boil.
"The one you fancy," the older maiden smiled as she set the cookies on a plate.
"Wh-What?" the younger girl stammers, wondering if she misheard her. "I don't fancy anyone, Rory. We're all friends— Well, they're my friends. Reg doesn't particularly get along with the rest of the lot."
"Alright, let me go about it this way…" Aurora trailed on coyly, "Is he the bloke who's always sending you letters and making you smile? The one we've talked about before? No, rather, the one who made you that journal?"
"Yes, but—" Amaris protests wryly, "It's not what you think. Reg is one of my dearest friends."
Her older sister looks at her knowingly, perfectly aware that she acts differently with Pandora and Mary even if it's all based on mere hypothesis and a handful of observations, "And he feels the same way?"
"I'd like to think so," she mumbles meekly.
The woman finds it difficult to believe that a mere friend would go out of their way to make such a valuable thing, but either way, she decides it's best for her sister to realize it all on her own.
'All in due time,' she thinks before sending the maiden off with tea and a plateful of cookies.
The sound of the television envelops the room, replacing the momentary silence that hung in the air between them. Both of their eyes are plastered on the television as the moving pictures buzzed to life.
Lost in thought, Regulus fiddles with the small empty vial he had been holding in his hand; the vial which had contained the familiar turquoise liquid.
The blue-eyed maiden aside, it was the other reason why he had gone out of his way to visit her.
Their new and improved Wiggenweld Potion had worked.
It was terrifyingly effective in fact; stitching wounds and calming the drinker in a matter of seconds, just as quickly as Dittany would affect normal wounds. The Ministry of Magic would definitely want to get their hands on it, but that wasn't exactly what he found concerning.
How the maiden knew that he would need such had been weighing on his mind like an eternal plague. She had an intuition that was fairly accurate. Although he doubts that being a seer would be a blessing in disguise, he wasn't dense about how useful the ability could be. There were both pros and cons; they could go about it all day.
But.
But was she even a seer?
The maiden had a tendency to evade such questions, nor does she recall such dream-like prophecies. In fact, she could have predicted such an occurrence through Divination alone. She had a knack for it after all (and he's saying that even with his cynical outlook about such bollocks).
Perhaps he's dwelling too much about this.
Albeit, clearly not, when it turns out that he wasn't the only one doing so.
.
"She gave you the potion too?" Pandora Lestrange snaps him out of his thoughts, the empty vial in his hand was not lost on her.
"I made it with her," he found the need to explain, and not long after he queries, "Did you tell her about what happened?"
"I omitted the gory details but yes," she confirms, seemingly calmer than she had first met him today. "It's why I'm here. I take it you're doing the same?"
He nods in agreement before the sound of the television fills the air once again.
.
Pandora is the one who breaks the silence for the second time, although he finds it difficult to discern whether or not she was speaking to him or herself. There were a lot of things they had in common, and among those, they seemed to have the same thoughts in mind: about the maiden, about her seer-like sixth sense, about what this would mean for her, but beyond that—
"We're supposed to be the ones protecting her, not the other way around."
Regulus snorts, recalling how desperate Amaris was to prove her own worth, "She'd hate it if she heard you say that."
"So what are you trying to say?" the other girl hissed, animosity coming back at full force.
"Lay low," he tells her indifferently. "You can do it your way but don't let her know."
She scoffs, "Unlike you, I pride myself on being honest with my best friend."
"Suit yourself."
A part of Pandora was suppressing the urge to ask whether or not that's what he's been doing for the girl in question. Another part of her figured it costs too much of her pride to ask him outright, so she goes about it another way.
She watches silently as she always had.
Ironically, the same could in fact be said for him when an incident arose later that afternoon. They finally had the pleasure of meeting the local Muggle teens and it dawns on them that perhaps their prejudice has seeped too deeply within them. Even with the way they had opened their eyes to the truth, it's difficult to get rid of their aversion. (And that is what Amaris Leclair had failed to take into account.)
There are exceptions, of course. Amaris and her family had proven that not all "Mudbloods" were dreadful. In fact, it allows him to question his elder's teachings; what was so good about being a wizard or witch when life could be as simple as theirs? There were magical people that could do so much worse, so why was it that Muggles and Muggle-borns were regarded so lowly? Why was it that they were all defined by mere blood?
But then, there were the others.
There were infuriating insignificant little bugs acting as if they were the powerful ones when they were both ignorant and incapable of magic in the first place.
And yet, Amaris tells both Pandora and Regulus to simply ignore them. She sucks it up as she always had, and they realize just how much she had to put up with them in the past to turn out the way she had— apologetic for her own existence.
Witnessing those puny insects run their vile mouths causes rage to run through his veins. He clenches his fists tightly beside him, tempted to pull out his wand and hex those morons to oblivion.
However, Regulus Black was not a Gryffindor.
It would be unlike him to act out of impulse, to pay no heed to the penalties he'll face for not abiding by the rules. And not to mention, the Ministry would be able to track his hex from its imprint on his wand.
Using magic outside of Hogwarts would not only get him into trouble but would also cause him to defend himself from his parents, who would be undoubtedly distraught by the fact that he was lurking in a Muggle community with a Muggle-born of all kinds.
Then again, it would also be unlike him not to get what he wants.
Slytherins, after all, make the most conniving plans. He just had to go about it as cleverly as usual.
.
Pandora Lestrange surprisingly provides him with the answer to his problems. Just as irked as he was, she hands him her latest invention, a magical contraption that is just as effective as a hex (or so she claims). And before she leads Amaris Leclair elsewhere to distract her from the fact that neither of them heeded her assurances, she tells Regulus the same set of words he had told her earlier that morning—
"Lay low. You can do it your way but don't let her know."
So he does.
And with the way those Muggle kids had stared at him in crippling fear, he can attest to the fact that it wouldn't be happening again any time soon.
"How could you put up with that?" Regulus spat as soon as he met up with the two maidens who had been browsing for novels within an old bookstore.
"What do you mean?" Amaris remains unfazed despite the incident that had occurred just outside the store. Two Muggle boys, who seemed to be acquainted with her (and the unfortunate events that had occurred to her family), had so kindly gone out of their obnoxious ways to give her friends a warning.
"Those Mud—"
Pandora is too busy with the book her best friend handed her to pay him any attention (not that she wasn't already aware of what took him so long), but she does spare him a glare when the word almost slips out of his mouth.
Regulus clears his throat to catch himself, but Amaris knew him better not to be able to catch that.
"I'm a Mudblood too, remember?" she mused, unbothered by the notorious slur. The people who mattered to her already believed otherwise and that was more than enough for her, or so she'd say.
Nevertheless, the two purebloods chastise her in unison, "Don't call yourself that."
"Our roots don't matter, you know," Amaris spoke nonchalantly. "Whether or not they're a wizard or muggle, it's what you do that determines your worth. It's always been that way."
"But…" Pandora momentarily shuts the book in her hand as she eyed her friend in concern. "It's still hard, isn't it? Being a Muggle-born?"
"You don't belong in this world or the next," the maiden continued, explaining the reason why she dared to ask such a question. "Half-bloods have the pleasure of living in both worlds but, Muggle-borns find it difficult to be understood by either—"
"A little," the Hufflepuff shrugs. "It was hard learning I was a witch. It felt like I gave my sister an even bigger burden to shoulder. I mean, I'm not even her child. Can you imagine?"
.
Regulus leaned against one of the shelves, gazing back at her, looking for any sort of clue that might allow him to decipher her emotions.
And then, there it was.
She turns away from both of them, hand trailing along the spines of the books as she averted her attention elsewhere in an attempt to maintain nonchalance, "She could do better without me."
Regulus doesn't beat around the bush to admonish, "Don't be stupid."
If looks could kill, Pandora would have buried him six feet under the ground for that crass remark, but then he adds—
"Only a fool wouldn't be able to see how much they care about you."
It was the truth.
So much so that a part of him was envious because Amaris Leclair had the few things he didn't— the only things he wanted: a loving family and a warm home.
"I know… Relax, Reg. Let me finish," she smiles at him assuringly. "I like the way things are. Otherwise, I wouldn't have realized that, and I wouldn't have met people like you lot. That's good enough for me I suppose."
As fucking usual, Amaris Leclair knew just what to say to make those insufferable bugs (er, butterflies) in his stomach fly in swarms.
The sun was down by the time he was about to head home. The pitter-patter of raindrops was audible from the windowsill. Just as Amaris had once again left him with the insufferable Lestrange, searching for umbrellas, he was surprised to have the girl's older sister approach them.
In those few minutes, she and Pandora were already talking like chummy old friends. The older woman even got to show them an old photo album of Amaris' childhood pictures.
As a wizard, it was odd to see the lack of animation in each image, and yet he wonders how there's more life to them compared to his family's portraits. Despite the way that their worlds couldn't be any more different, his lips curl up ever so slightly.
"Thank you…" Aurora breaks the silence not a moment later, as she recalled witnessing how enthusiastic they seemed to get to know her precious younger sister.
"For what?" Regulus furrows his eyebrows, surprised by the sudden expression of gratitude.
"For being friends with her," the woman trailed on. "Amaris always had difficulty interacting with people her age. I myself can't truly understand her no matter how much I try—"
"I don't think it's something you have to thank us for," the boy cuts her off abruptly, earning a kick to the shin from Pandora.
"Rest assured, Mrs. Alcott," the witch smiled endearingly, "Amaris has a tendency to draw people towards her."
'Like a moth to a flame,' Regulus thinks but opted not to say.
"I'm relieved to know she has people like you—"
"Rory!"
Speaking of the devil.
Amaris nearly stumbles as she returned back to the drawing-room, mortified to see her sister bonding so closely with her friends, "Are you showing them my pictures?"
The older Leclair grins cheekily, "No need to feel embarrassed, Sis."
Just as she was about to open her mouth, the woman placed her hands on her sister's shoulders to steer her out of the room, "And also you have to go now if your friend is still planning to catch the bus."
"This isn't over," Amaris grumbles, earning a mischievous smirk from her best friend.
"Of course it isn't," Pandora tells her from the couch. "Since I'm sleeping over, I'll be going through these albums while waiting for you to get back. Mary would love to see some of these tomorrow"
"Dora!"
.
Whilst the two girls were both preoccupied, the maiden's older sister takes up the chance to walk up to the boy waiting by the foyer, "Regulus, was it?"
The boy looks at her warily, uncustomed to any form of interaction with Muggle folk, "Yes?"
"Come visit next time," Aurora smiles. "My sister's friends are always welcome in our home. Although, I do have an inkling that you're a little more special to her than you believe you are."
Before he has a chance to react to that, Amaris had already appeared from beside him, linking their arms in an attempt to drag him away.
"Rory! What are you telling Regulus, now?" she looks at her sister warily.
"I was just saying my goodbyes!" the older woman laughs, opening the door for them as she instructed, "Anyway, run home as soon as you walked him to the station."
As soon as she opens an umbrella for the both of them to share, the blue-eyed girl gratefully takes the opportunity to escape before her sister continues to divulge embarrassing things about her.
"She really said nothing?" Amaris Leclair asks for the nth time as she walked him toward the nearby park to wait for the Knight Bus.
This time around, he finds amusement in the way she's been eyeing him suspiciously, and decides to play along, "It's a secret."
She mutters something under her breath that sounded like a child's petulant whines.
It doesn't take long for Regulus to snort, "Relax. If we're talking about your embarrassing moments, I've already seen enough to start a bank, haven't I?
She gapes at him, eyebrows furrowing as she attempted another one of her angry-looks-that-always-fail-to-give-off-said-effect, but the bus arrives rather sooner than expected.
Amaris drops the farce opening her hands as she suggested, "Hug goodbye?"
"Fine," he gives in begrudgingly, returning the embrace all the while denying the slight sense of comfort it brought him.
"Don't get into trouble," she warns him just before letting go.
"Who do you think I am?" he scoffs. "Besides, it's nothing my brother hasn't already done before."
"I'll trust your word for it," she looks at him wryly, asking just as he took a step on the vehicle, "Write to me, then?"
Regulus meets her sapphire eyes, granting her the bare minimum of what could be considered a smile, "For the last time, Leclair, I will. I promise."
(Unbeknownst to both of them, it will be the first time he'll break a promise to her.)
That night two more unexpected things happen.
That night Sirius Black would have run away from home. That night Regulus Black would have lost a brother.
END OF ACT ONE
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a/n: that's a wrap for act 1! before we move on to the next one, here are just a few notes...
1. i'll be taking a hiatus before working on the next one. that way the update schedule of the next act should be regular.
2. things to look forward to in act 2: the marauders, new friendships, and a handful of epiphanies (i.e. i'll finally be fanning the flames of this slow-burn)
3. as usual, thank you so much for reading and for all your kind words. it really means a lot to me. i hope you'll stick around