Hate being that wall
That you hit when you feel like you gave it all
I keep taking the blame
When we both know that I'll never change
January
"Reggie. One day you're going to wake up and realise this life you've been living isn't worth a damn thing." Sirius gazed around Regulus's room, eyeing each and every news clipping the younger wizard felt important to secure to the walls of his bedroom. He ran a hand through his unruly, long hair and sighed, "And I hope when that day comes, it isn't too late."
A warm hand delicately grasps Regulus's shoulder, bringing him back to the present.
"Sirius?" He neglects to open his eyes, desperately hoping he is safely back in his bed and this whole deal with travelling nearly 20 years into the future is nothing but a fever dream.
"It's just me."
His eyes snap open to reveal a girl with curly brown hair and cautious brown eyes staring down at him. It wasn't all a dream then.
"Oh, it's you."
"I'm sorry to wake you. I brought the Dittany… for your wounds." She reaches behind her and reveals a vile, the green liquid glistens in the firelight of the room.
"I thought you were…" Why am I trying to explain myself? I don't owe her anything.
"Do you mind?" She tugs on one of the bandages she secured earlier. She's being careful, but it still hurts. "It might be easier if you sit up."
He nods and eases himself up, gnarled hair—now completely dry and smelling of dank swamp—falling into his eyes. At the very least it will hide how bloodshot they are.
"He's gone, isn't he? My brother."
He feels her hesitation, the question hanging in the air as she proceeds to carefully remove the white coverings to dab the herb to his marred skin. Its effect is immediate, his skin knitting back together—barely leaving scars in its wake.
"I'm sorry. There was… it was," she struggles to find the words, "He passed this past June. We thought he was taken prisoner and tortured by Voldemort, but it was a trick. It nearly cost all of us our lives."
His bottom lip falls loose. He isn't sure he even wants to know the next part as a lump swells in his throat. "Who… Who did it? Who killed him?"
Her hands hover above his mark, as if simply touching it would curse her. "Bellatrix Lestrange," She states after he curls his arm away from her view, hiding the hideous blemish.
It was his own cousin, his own family. It feels like a chain is wrapping around his lungs, the cold metal weighing him down. "I need to know everything."
"It won't change what happened, and I'm not sure you are in a well enough state to hear it."
She's hesitant. He can relate. Even back when he knew her, Bellatrix wore the insanity gene of the Black family well, too well. He can only imagine what she is like now. Still, this isn't the time to coddle him. He is an adult, for fuck's sake.
"I need to know. Your blood traitor boyfriend wouldn't tell me. He said that you were there, so please." Regulus knew the way he said it may not go over well, but he needed to stress the importance. For Salazar's sake, he has just been pulled through the last 18 years in the blink of an eye. He has no one. I'm all alone.
She lets out a reluctant sigh, "Fine."
He nods, urging her to continue.
"Ok… Well, it happened this past June. Harry—Sirius's godson—received a vision of Sirius being tortured at the Department of Mysteries. He wanted to go alone, but Ron and I wouldn't let him."
Of course James Potter would make Sirius his son's godfather.
"We did try to contact him, Sirius. But his house elf, Kreacher, told us he had been called away—by Narcissa Malfoy."
"Kreature's alive?" He beams. After all this time? House elves do have a peculiar long life-span, but he wasn't in the best of states when he left him.
She's shocked by his question. "Yes. Though, he is looking quite worse for wear. He doesn't favour me at all, despises me actually."
Of course he despises you. To him, you're nothing but a Mud—Regulus curses himself. Old habits die hard, but still…
"Anyways; Harry believed that it meant his vision was correct. We didn't argue with him. You see, he had other visions before. One where Arthur Weasley was attacked, which turned out to be true. So we went. Luna suggested we take the Thestrals. Which was brilliant. However, only half of us could actually see them. There were 6 of us; Harry, Ron, Luna, Ginny, Neville, and Myself."
"Who?" There are too many names to keep track of. Harry is the only one, besides Hermione, that Theo bothered to mention.
"Oh, umm… I forgot, you have no clue who I'm talking about. Harry is—"
"Mini-Nott already told me who Harry is. Spawn of James Potter and Lily Evans, no surprise there. It's everyone else who is foreign."
"Right…" she sighs, fiddling with her fingernails. "Ron and Ginny are Weasleys, two of Arthur and Molly Weasley's kids."
Arthur and Molly Weasley. He remembers them vaguely. Only because his mother went on and on about how they continued to procreate after having more than a couple sons. She would go on and on about how useless blood traitor heirs are, regardless of how many you have.
"Luna's last name is Lovegood. I'm not really sure who her mother was, but her father runs the Quibbler. And then there's Neville Longbottom. He lives with his grandmother, but his father's name is Frank and I think his mother's name is Alice."
He remembers them only by association, Frank is an Auror and so is his wife. At least, they were. Based purely on how she said it, he has a feeling that they may not be around anymore.
Regulus starts to get a clear picture in his head. Her associates are all children of those who openly resisted The Dark Lord. He can only hope that fact won't cause an issue for him going forward.
"Anyway, the vision ended up being a trap. Sirius wasn't there. We arrived only to be cornered by Death Eaters, led by Lucius Malfoy and Theo's father," She pauses, sucking in a deep breath.
He can tell she's trying not to fall apart in front of him. In retrospect, it is incredibly ironic that the one person the young witch before him seems to trust most is actually the son of someone who previously meant to kill her.
"We attempted to escape… after Ginny smashed the wall of prophecies with a Reductor Curse, but there were too many of them. Neville, Harry, and I ended up in the Time Chamber. Nev's wand was destroyed and… I was attacked by Anton Dolohov… I was knocked out.
When I came too—Tonks, Remus, Moody… Sirius, somehow they knew we were there and came to help. I was defenceless. Nev took my wand to go after Harry in the Death Chamber, and Sirius went after them. I found out later that Bellatrix had attacked Neville, and Sirius duelled her in retaliation. It ended with her casting an Unfor—the Killing Curse, sending him into the vail.
I still have nightmares about it. I personally have scars from it. The whole thing was stupid! We were so… stupid."
Regulus is mortified. A group of students went to save his brother. Sirius was the only Black who had the bollocks enough to stand on the side of the light, and they were nearly killed in the process. Trick or no, that had to have taken a huge amount of courage to do something so… stupidly brave. But, given who they are and who their parents were, he isn't the least bit surprised.
"And I can't help but think… if I just pushed a little harder, questioned Harry further—made him see reason—Sirius would still be alive. I'm so sorry."
By this point, she's taken up residence by his side on the sofa, knees pulled up to her chest, wallowing in her pitfalls. She's fully bearing her feelings to him and he doesn't know how to respond. He's never been put in a position like this before, a girl crying in front of him. Well, at least not by someone he isn't related to.
"I—"
"What did you do?"
Theo appears out of nowhere. His hard gaze trains on Regulus as he takes a seat next to Hermione and gathers her into his arms, stroking his hand reassuringly into her hair.
"I didn't do anything," Regulus whispers defensively as he scoots as far as he can to the other side of the sofa.
He doesn't fail to take notice of how gentle Theo is with her. If anyone would have told him that, somehow, Thoros Nott would give life to a son like Theo, he would have told them to have themselves committed. Even after all Hermione has told him, Theo is somehow an enigma that may be the key he needs to finally get out from under almost two decades worth of Pureblood nonsense he has been subjected to. Or maybe I'm just going crazy?
"I'm ok," Hermione sniffles, whipping away the tears with her worn sweater sleeve. "He asked about Sirius, I told him."
Theo's expression softens, "Oh, I thought… Nevermind. Are you going to be ok?"
"I'll be fine. I just need a moment." She untangles herself from his grasp and reaches over to the forgotten bottles of Dittany on the coffee table. "I still need to finish applying this."
Theo takes them from her without a second thought. "I'll do it."
It's alarming. How odd and vulnerable Regulus feels to have the other wizard tend to him. Theo's just as careful as Hermione was, but more grabby when it comes to maneuvering him around.
"Merlin, how did this even happen?" Theo ponders as he heals the last of the cuts on Regulus's marked arm and tugs at his shoulder to have him turn around. "It's like you were mauled by a swarm of pixies."
Regulus scoffs, "I'm sure pixies would have been a cakewalk in comparison to an army of Infuri."
"Infuri?" Hermione pipes in after swallowing a mouthful of pumpkin pasty Theo had insisted she eat. "Where exactly were you?"
"Like I said earlier—OW!" Turns out, the cuts on his back are worse than the one's on his front. It doesn't feel like Theo is doing anything different, but the stinging sensation feels like he's being stabbed.
"Sorry," Theo mumbles, not bothering to stop.
Regulus cranes his neck to look behind him. "You could at least warn me."
"I could, but this would take twice as long if I stopped to warn you. All of these are ridiculously expansive." Theo rolls his eyes.
"Uh! Fine." He purses his lips as Theo starts on the next one, bearing the pain. He turns back to Hermione, "As I was saying, the—ow—Horcrux was hidden in a—ouch—cave, guarded by"—he scrunches his face—"Infuri." He's wincing far too much to get a full sentence out.
"Here," Hermione offers a hand out in front of him, "take my hand, it should help."
He doesn't give it a second thought before taking her up on the offer and roughly grabs her hand with his own. It is at least half the size of his and he can't help but wonder if he's hurting her as he practically crushes it. But if she was in any sort of pain, she doesn't show any sort of discomfort.
"Let's hold off from the talking until I'm done," Theo comments, "It will probably go faster, anyway."
The room fell silent, save for the occasional grunt from Regulus. At one point, he had taken to maintaining a sort of absent eye contact with Hermione and he couldn't help but think about how intimate the scene of the three of them would look if someone were to accidentally stumble in.
Come to think of it, he still didn't actually know where he was. Yes, Hermione had told him they are at Hogwarts, but he doesn't recognize this room. It was too small to be a classroom, possibly an office? But why would two students have their own office? Not even the Head Girl and Head Boy have that, not that he is aware of anyway. Also, it is a bit off putting that no one else was coming or going.
"Alright. I think this is the last one." Theo states after taking off the wrapping that was secured to his lower back and tossing it to the floor. "Hermione, you may want to hold him still, it's a… Well, let's just say it's not pretty."
"It's fine, I can take it." Regulus has a feeling it's the gash he received from the first Infuri that attacked him, before he had given up and accepted his fate. He had fought against it, causing the decaying hand to latch on deeper into his skin in the process. He hadn't seen it, but it felt like a knife was dragged across his spine, nearly cutting him in half.
"Trust me, I've seen it." She doesn't give him a chance to respond before grasping onto both of his shoulders to hold him down.
He screams, louder than he has in ages as Theo douses the last of the vile onto him. He fights against Hermione as he attempts to contort himself.
"Sirius. I think I'm more than capable of deciding what life I want to live," Regulus scoffed at his older brother. "I'm not a child anymore."
"But is it really what you want, or what our parents want?"
Regulus wasn't stupid. He knew what his parents had planned for him. But if he didn't have them, if he were to leave—what would he have left? Unlike Sirius, he didn't have a gaggle of friends to fall back on, he didn't have some Saint Potter to take him in.
"Yes. This is really what I want."
I'll tear you down, I'll make you bleed eternally
Can't help myself, From hurting you when it's hurting me
I don't have wings, To fly with me won't be easy
'Cause I'm not an angel, I'm not an angel
I'm Not an Angel - Halestorm