‘You need a bath.’
Orion didn’t argue, because there wasn’t anything to argue about. Nobody argued with Father. Ever. You simply did as you were told, even when it was unfair, even when you weren’t truly dirty, even when the whole thing had been your sister’s idea and she hadn’t got herself into trouble, because was too clever, too pretty, too perfectly a Black to be punished for silly little things like being caught looking at a Muggle.
That sort of disgrace was reserved for the failures – for Orion, in other words. And so he sat in the tub, wincing as the house‑elf poured in water that was far too hot. And he was sure it was on purpose; the elf muttered with every steaming jug about wicked little boys getting what they deserved, and Orion could do nothing but sit there, skin burning, and wait for it to be over.
As he waited, he strained his ears, trying to hear past the elf’s muttering and back towards the conversation he had been sent away from. He thought he heard laughter. Lucretia’s laughter. And Mother’s. He had tried to make Mother laugh once, at dinner, but it had earned him a lecture instead, because Blacks weren’t meant to be funny. They didn’t lower themselves to such frivolity. He ought to have known better, she’d said.
Yet when Lucretia did it …
The tub was filled at last, giving him something to do. He scrubbed at his arms, and his legs, concentrating fiercely on the motions, trying not to think about the list already forming in his mind. But when he drew up his knees lowered his head, to let the elf take care of his hair, there was no escaping it any more.
There was the goblet he’d knocked over at breakfast. And his stammered apology. And Mother’s visible disappointment. Father’s chastisement. Their comments on how Black children ought to know better, be better. Then, by lunchtime, hiding behind the hedge, listening to Lucretia and Father talking, too afraid to be seen and drawn into a conversation he didn’t understand; or worse, dismissed from it entirely because he didn’t know how to behave. But Blacks didn’t spy. Blacks weren’t like that. And then, of course, afterwards, just before dinner –
His breath hitched in a way that had nothing to do with the elf tugging too hard at his hair. His eyes were burning, despite himself, and he clenched his teeth. He would not do it. He refused to sink that low. To add that to the overlong list of failures of the day. He refused.
And then it was over.
The elf wrapped him in a towel, and Orion stood on the cold tiles staring at himself in the mirror. Staring at his long dark hair, his grey eyes, his pale face, his sharp cheekbones. Yes, he looked like a Black. Mother had gripped his cheeks and told him so just this morning, after the incident with the goblet. ‘You have the look’, she had said, and she hadn’t said anything more, but he had understood: he had the look, but not the rest. He did not walk into rooms as though he owned them. He had to be reminded, day after day, to stand upright, not slouch, not slur his words, not fumble his cutlery. He never said the right thing, never looked at the right person, never carried himself correctly – unlike Lucretia, whom everyone adored. Relatives clasped her shoulder and called her sharp, clever, promising. Meanwhile Orion was left to the edges of rooms, hovering behind whoever stood nearest, eyes fixed on the floor. And every time, he felt their embarrassment at having produced such a useless son.
Father appeared in the doorway then, the same embarrassment coming from him as he took in Orion standing before the mirror, trying his very best not to cry and looking as un‑Blackish as a Black could. And Orion heard the contempt in his voice when he said ‘Bed’, even though Father’s face was blank as ever.
Orion wasted no time, leaving for his room as quickly as he could without running (Blacks didn’t run), moving just fast enough that Father wouldn’t see the tears finally spilling down his face. Throwing himself onto his bed, he lay awake for hours, tears soaking silently into the pillow beneath his cheek.
Another failure for the list that kept on growing.
Year after year he tried to pare it down. He tried to scrape away the missteps, to stop disappointing, to outgrow the childish sins of crying into his pillow at night, of wiping the tears away before anyone could see, of tripping over his words and hovering in the corners of rooms. He tried to scrub himself clean of humiliation and shape himself into someone unembarrassing, someone worthy of the family name.
And for a time, he almost believed he was succeeding.
But then came that night Regulus stood before him, his small frame trembling, smelling of dirt and the outside world, and the old fear rose in him again; he knew that look. The desperate hunger to be good. The instinct to mold himself into whatever the family demanded, no matter the cost.
And he knew he could have stopped it, as he had promised himself he would, so long ago. He knew he should have. But the house had taught him well. Too well. So before he could silence it – before he could spare the boy from the fate that was threatening to consume him – his father’s harsh, cold words slipped from his mouth.
‘You need a bath.’