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He slept through all the night until a sound woke him up.
It was faint, at first. Distant. As if it were but a whisper at the end of a long, dark corridor. It echoed through there. It grew louder and louder, closer and closer, drilling in the back of his skull, vibrating through his bones ... It was as though the sound was being put inside him by invisible hands that pushed and pushed and pushed until his defences broke.
Slowly the sound took shape, and it shaped into words, and the words clawed against the inside of his mind, desperate to escape the prison they’d been forced into. They felt wrong there, foreign. They didn’t belong to him. He tried to block it out, to focus on something else – anything else! – but it wouldn’t stop. His jaw clenched. His hands, trembling, shot up to his head, scrambling through his hair, reaching up to his ears. He plugged them with his fingers, as if he could dig the sound out of himself, rip it loose...
It only grew.
He wanted to scream.
REGULUS ARCTURUS BLACK
There was no escaping it.
The words were a name, and the name – his name – pounded into his consciousness, relentless and suffocating, rippling through his body, leaving him hollow. Thin nails scraped beneath his skin, digging, twisting, tearing…
His eyes stung. Something cold and sharp welled up inside him. He turned his head to the side, but the pain only intensified. It was bright.
Everything was bright.
He slowly opened his eyes, just a little, to see the source of the brightness – and the world cleared. The air shifted. The pressure loosened. The sound faded, and the voice behind it took form.
Mother stood by his bedside.
‘Regulus...’ she murmured, and he jerked upright; this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. She wasn’t actually here. He wasn’t actually here. He was still at the cottage with Sirius and their grandparents. He was dreaming.
This was all a dream. It had to be.
And yet, there she was, watching him. Her face was unreadable, but her presence undeniable.
He stared at her, his heartbeat still too quick, too frantic, drumming in his ears as he tried to make sense of it all.
He was in his bed, in his room, and bright rays of light came in through his window.
He wasn’t dreaming; he was home. Yes, it all came rushing back to him now, overflowing his mind with memories of the cottage and the waters and the birthday cake... the chess set he’d got from Sirius, and the quills and the parchment and... and—
Uncle Cygnus. Bellatrix. Narcissa and the way she'd taken him here, taken him home. Mother’s arms around him and the desperate way he’d clung to her, how childish and pathetic ...
And Father. Father had done something to him, to his mind, making it brittle, causing it to break and spill what had happened. It hurt. It hurt even now.
But he was home. He was here. Mother was here.
‘Good morning,’ she said, maybe for the dozenth time, but it was the first he heard. ‘I thought you’d never wake.’
‘I—’ His voice cracked. It hurt so much.
He dug his nails into his palms, to ground himself, to keep himself in his own room, to not get lost in the memories, in the pain—
‘Are you quite well?’
Mother’s voice – and face – was calm. Too calm. It wasn’t how she was supposed to sound, nor how she was supposed to look. It didn’t suit her. It didn’t feel right. None of it felt right.
‘You’re home,’ she said simply, reiterating what he already knew. ‘You’re fine.’
He nodded, unsure of what else to do. His head was still pounding.
It seemed to satisfy her.
She flashed him a small smile and said, ‘Come downstairs when you’re ready. Breakfast is waiting.’
He nodded again and watched her leave through his open bedroom door, robes sweeping behind her.
He leaned back against the headboard and sighed.
And yawned.
And sighed again.
He felt all clammy and sweaty and sickly and his immediate thought was to blame the blankets he had been wrapped in, so he tossed them aside and wished he hadn’t had them on him at all during the night, wished he could turn back time so he woke up fresh instead. But he just hadn’t been able to sleep without them. That’s why he’d wrapped himself up in them. He’d needed it. Besides, hadn’t it been relatively chilly last night? The weather had cooled down significantly in the last few days – September was around the corner, that much was obvious. Gone were the long days of Summer…
So perhaps, he figured, the reason behind his sweaty, sickly feeling was himself and not the blankets.
He sighed again, then yawned again. There was no changing how he felt either way.
With considerable effort, he swung his legs over the edge of his bed and stood. He wobbled slightly as he padded over to his wardrobe. He felt strange. Heavy. Off. It was as though something was pulling him down to the floor, into the ground below.
He opened his wardrobe and to his great surprise he found all of his robes inside, including the ones he’d bought with his grandparents that day in Diagon Alley. Mother and Father had to have gone back for them.
Perhaps at the same time they picked up Sirius...?
His head thundered painfully, letting him know now wasn’t the time to think about such things.
He dressed and went downstairs, to the dining room, which was still and quiet when he entered. Father sat at the far end, at the head of the table, silently reading the Daily Prophet. He was frowning deeply. Regulus tried to see the headline, but Father’s hand moved to block it from view.
Mother sat next to him, sipping tea and examining him with her eyes, yet saying nothing. Sirius sat across from her, stirring sugar into his porridge. He looked up briefly as he entered, then back down at his porridge. He, too, said nothing.
Regulus didn’t dare break the silence and sat down next to his brother without making a sound. He reached for some toast, honey, and a soft-boiled egg and studied his parents and Sirius again, one at a time, as he nibbled on his food.
There was nothing special about them. They were all... normal. Ordinary. The table was normal, Kreacher was normal, yes, even the food was normal, so normal it twisted in his stomach and hurt to swallow. He chewed and chewed to make it easier for himself, but it didn’t help.
Everything was so crushingly mundane that it was almost surreal. It was as if the last few months hadn’t happened at all.
Eventually, after what seemed a lifetime, Father lowered the newspaper, saying, without looking up, ‘My study. Fifteen minutes.’
Breakfast ended in an instant.
Mother rose and left the room. Kreacher cleared away the leftover food. Father was already gone, though Regulus hadn’t seen him leave. Sirius stood. Regulus stood as well, pushing away his half-eaten plate for Kreacher to deal with, grateful he didn’t have to struggle along any more.
He followed Sirius out of the room and up to Father’s office in silence. Sirius knocked on the door and Father opened without a word, then turned his back to them, walking over to the bookshelves and busying himself with the books.
Sirius took up his seat at his desk but Regulus lingered in the doorway, unsure of what to do. Was he to sit or to stand? He nervously patted down his hair; he hadn’t combed it this morning, he’d forgotten all about it, but now he was very aware of how poorly he looked.
Father didn’t seem to notice. ‘Sit,’ he said, gesturing at Regulus’ desk.
Regulus sat.
Father turned back to the bookshelves and Regulus looked around. Everything felt far away, as if a thick glass wall separated him from the world. Even the sound of Father pulling a heavy, leather-bound book from the shelves and thudding it onto the desk was muffled.
The book opened itself somewhere in the middle, revealing some arithmetic text Regulus struggled to decipher. It, too, appeared to be behind that thick glass wall, and the glass was muddied so that the text became illegible and no longer made any sense.
Father had returned to the shelves, taking another book – just as thick and heavy – and dropped it onto Sirius’ desk. He began explaining something, but Regulus couldn’t hear him. Or rather, he wasn’t listening. He was still trying to figure out what the book in front of him said.
Then Father was behind him, leaning in close. Regulus could feel his breath on his neck. It was warm. He could smell it.
And the numbers came into focus.
Columns and columns of numbers and long rows of figures met him and it made his stomach knot. He looked over at Sirius, who already had his quill out, dipping it in ink and jotting down answers with a bored kind of ease.
Regulus dipped his own handmade quill into his own inkwell – and nearly knocked it over. Father caught it mid-tip with a flick of his wand.
But even this felt distant. Removed. As if he wasn’t really the one doing it, just a spectator trapped inside this body.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.
Father waved it away. ‘We’ll be working on Arithmetic today, son. I trust your grandmother has taught you a thing or two about it?’
He nodded.
‘Good. Read me the first,’ Father said, tapping the open page filled with rows of problems.
So Regulus read, ‘A trader in Diagon Alley sells 4 cauldrons for 8 Sickles. To get those cauldrons, he had to buy them from another wizard in Cardiff. That Cardiff wizard charged him 1 Sickle and 8 Knuts apiece. How much money does he make off one cauldron?’
And he looked up at Father, who gave a short nod to tell him to continue. Regulus drew a sharp breath. He could do this. He knew how to do this. He’d practised these sorts of sums again and again with Grandmother Irma.
‘If he pays one S–Sickle and ten Knuts for one cauldron, then... uh...—’
‘Regulus,’ Father interrupted, ‘be confident. If your voice is steady, your mind will follow.’
He tried again, firmer this time. ‘Well, he sells four cauldrons for eight Sickles, so that means... he sells... well, two cauldrons—no, two Sickles for one cauldron...’
He looked back up at Father.
‘Yes, Regulus. And he pays one Sickle and eight Knuts for one cauldron. So how much money does he make?’
‘Eight Knuts ... So one Sickle and not quite a Sickle...’ Regulus muttered, scribbling some things down.
From the other side of the room came a soft snort. Sirius. He didn’t look up. He was already halfway through the inked column of sums, and his quill scratched on smugly.
Father turned and walked over to him.
‘What makes you think a potion will brew properly with five Sickles in it?’
‘Nothing, Father. It won’t.’
‘Then why,’ he said, tapping Sirius’ parchment, ‘have you written five Sickles in the answer to this drachm conversion?’
Sirius shrugged.
‘You must learn to think before you write. And to keep your attention on your own task, rather than laughing at your brother. Understood?’
Sirius mumbled something in response.
Father turned back to Regulus, and Regulus quickly looked back at his own problem. He pressed his palms against his thighs and forced himself to think clearly.
‘So… it’s one Sickle and eight Knuts. Not even two Sick—’
‘And how many Knuts to a Sickle?’ Father interrupted.
‘T–Twenty-nine Sickles to a Knut—no, sorry, I mean, twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle—’
‘Keep your voice steady, son.’
‘Twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle. Seventeen Sickles to a Galleon,’ Regulus said, slightly flushed.
‘So how much does he pay for the cauldron?’
‘One Sickle and eight Knuts...?’
‘No, Regulus. Convert it. Put it all in Knuts first. It’s easier to calculate that way.’
Regulus read over the problem again. Twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle. Twenty-nine Knuts plus eight Knuts made thirty-seven Knuts, so he said that, and looked up at Father for confirmation.
‘And for how many Knuts does he sell the cauldron?’
‘Two Sickles, so, er... that makes twenty-nine plus twenty-nine, so... fifty-eight Knuts?’
‘Very good,’ Father said, nodding approvingly. ‘So how much money does he make? How many Knuts does he get to keep?’
He thought. ‘Twenty-one?’
Father nodded again. ‘Well done. Now do the next one.’
Regulus looked at the next question and barely held back a groan. It was more of the same. The whole page was more of the same. And the whole morning stretched out ahead of him, problem after problem, numbers stacked on numbers, doing the same and the same and the same, so that by the time the clock struck eleven and Father told them to hand in their work, he had solved twenty such problems, and his fingers ached from the tightness with which he had gripped his quill.
Father reviewed his sheets of written-out problems in silence before handing them back.
He had made two mistakes, both careless, both easily avoidable.
‘Good job,’ he said, despite that.
Regulus nodded faintly, still not fully there, on the other side of the thick glass wall, and quite disappointed by the two mistakes.
‘Sirius, go and get your brother’s reading books,’ Father said. He waited until Sirius had left the room before turning back to Regulus, and saying, his voice quieter now, ‘You mustn’t let your nerves control you. You’ve got the ability; it’s just a matter of confidence and discipline. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Good. Do your best. That’s all I ask.’
Sirius returned with two thick readers and dropped them a little too loudly onto the desk, but Father said nothing. He only gestured for Sirius to return to his seat.
‘You’ll read the first chapter aloud,’ he said to Regulus.
And so he began to read. Carefully. Neatly. Trying to take in what he was reading but failing miserably. He kept being distracted by Sirius, who was sighing loudly at almost every word he said. Regulus felt himself burning with embarrassment as he stumbled through the text. Still, he wouldn’t look up at his brother. He wouldn’t react. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
When he eventually managed to finish the chapter, Father said, ‘Good. Go on reading in silence now. I’ll be back shortly.’
With that, he swept from the room.
Regulus let out a low breath. He still didn’t look at Sirius, who was sighing more loudly now than before. He turned the page and kept reading, eyes moving dutifully over the words even though he had no idea what they were, for the content wouldn’t stick and the glass wall was dirtier than ever.
He read until Father returned with the announcement that lunch was ready and waiting for them downstairs.
Lunch was served in the small parlour instead of the dining room, which was jarring to Regulus – he’d never eaten lunch in there before. He was glad, though; it broke with the painful normality of the day.
The curtains in the parlour had been drawn open to let in the sunlight, and there was a table which had been neatly set by Kreacher. Mother sat at the head of the table. She hadn’t spoken to either of them since this morning, and she didn’t now, either. Father wasn’t there, but they weren’t to wait for him. Food was served: soup first, then cold meat and salad.
There was no conversation. There was no sound other than that of cutlery scraping against the plate. There was nothing – until Sirius nearly choked in a piece of salad and earned one of Mother’s hard stares.
Then she said, ‘After you’ve eaten, I want a word with both of you in the drawing room.’
And she left.
They finished eating as quickly as they could, then went upstairs to the drawing room, as expected. Sirius threw open the doors and barged in. Regulus hesitated, then knocked, though it was pointless now, with the doors already wide open and Sirius inside. But he did it anyway, because it was the proper thing to do.
There came no response.
He looked inside.
Mother stood by the fireplace with one hand resting lightly on the mantle, as if she were posing for a portrait. She didn’t look at him, nor did she look at Sirius. She just stood there, deep in thought.
Regulus decided to step inside, since he couldn’t stay in the doorway forever, and made his way over to Sirius, who lay sprawled across the sofa.
Sirius seemed to take this as some kind of cue. He shifted restlessly into a sitting position, arms folded, watching Mother with an intense glare.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘You said you wanted to speak with us. So speak.’
Mother’s nostrils flared. Her fingers tightened their grip on the mantle, her knuckles turning white as she drew a sharp, long breath.
She said nothing.
Several moments passed. Mother’s face reddened deeper and deeper, until Regulus was convinced she was going to explode into a million little pieces.
Then the door behind them clicked shut.
Father had entered and crossed the room quickly, his expression serious, his eyes narrowed. He stopped beside Mother, but they didn’t look at each other. Not even once.
‘Sit,’ Father said, and Regulus obeyed, seating himself beside Sirius.
‘I’m going to speak plainly,’ he continued, ‘because you’re both old enough to understand the importance of presentation.’
Regulus and Sirius shared a look.
‘What people see,’ he explained. ‘What they say, what they think when they look at us. We carry the Black name everywhere.’
‘But we never go anywhere,’ Sirius said. ‘Nobody sees us.’
Father shook his head. ‘It is my understanding your grandparents took you shopping in Diagon Alley, did they not? That is going somewhere. And when you do go somewhere – be it Diagon Alley, or, when you’re older, Hogwarts – you are expected to behave.’
‘We did behave,’ Sirius argued.
Father shot him a warning look. ‘Your mother and I—’
‘You and Mother don’t even behave! You can’t tell us to behave when you don’t either! I mean, look at her!’ Sirius burst out, his face furious. He was no longer slouching; he stood tall, and though he only reached up to Father’s chest, it was quite the sight. He had his finger pointed at Mother, who was still fuming, and his little outburst did nothing to calm that. In fact, it did the opposite, and she flung herself towards them both.
Regulus shut his eyes and felt panic curl in his chest. He wanted to disappear.
‘That is irrelevant,’ he heard Father say, voice distant and hidden again.
‘No, it’s not! You think if we all just pretend hard enough, everything will be perfect, but it’s never gonna be!’ Sirius’ voice was still on his side of the glass wall, sharp and angry.
‘Sirius,’ Father warned.
‘No! You never listen! Nobody ever listens!’
‘Sirius—’
‘NO! I hate it here!’ he shouted. ‘I hate this house, and you, and Mother, and all your stupid rules—!’
‘Sirius!’ Father snapped, louder now. ‘Enough!’
Silence.
Regulus opened his eyes.
Mother was no longer in the room.
Father stood still in front of them, pointing one finger at the open doors behind them. ‘Out,’ he hissed.
Sirius didn’t argue. He stormed out, stomping his feet on the floor the entire way, slamming the door shut behind him. Regulus could hear him all the way up the stairs until another door was slammed.
Sirius was in his bedroom.
Regulus breathed again.
‘You are not your brother.’
He stiffened. Father knelt in front of him.
‘I don’t expect you to be perfect,’ he said, ‘but I expect you understand that we are not the same as other families. We are above them. We are Blacks, and we carry ourselves with pride and dignity.’
Regulus nodded slowly. ‘I understand.’
‘I knew you would. As I said: you are not your brother.’
He nodded again, not quite sure what he was trying to say with that.
Father studied him for a moment, then rose. ‘Do you remember what I told you, about the dragon?’
‘Yes, that he keeps coming back for more if you feed him,’ he said.
‘Indeed. Which is quite the problem... so we train them, don’t we? We tame the beast, turn it into a harmless pet. That’s what we must do now as well. We need people capable of taming the dragon, of training it, of turning it into a harmless pet – or executing it if all else fails. Because we can’t have violent dragons running around burning the place down, can we?’
‘But I thought it wasn’t really a dragon?’
Father sighed and turned to face the window. ‘There isn’t a real dragon, no...’
‘They’re people, weren’t they?’
Father spun around. ‘Muggles aren’t people. Mudbloods aren’t people. None that sympathise with their lot are people, Regulus. They’re worse than the dung that clings to your shoes because people forgot to clean the streets. All we have to do is clean the streets. Get rid of the dung before it takes over.’
‘But... how?’
Father sighed, shaking his head to himself. ‘You needn’t concern yourself with that,’ he said. ‘I’ve already told you far more than I should have.’
Regulus bowed his head, hoping, just for a second, that Father would say even more. But he didn’t. He simply told him to be on his way and to stay away from Sirius for a while, to let him cool off.
‘Yes, Father,’ he mumbled, and he shut the door behind him on his way out, far softer than Sirius had done.
Because Father had been right: he was not his brother.
Date: 24 August, 1969.
Event: Regulus goes through the day in a haze. Father tells him and Sirius to mind their manners. Sirius gets angry. Father tells Regulus he isn't his brother and talks about cleansing the world.
Characters: Black Family:
Sirius Pollux Black
Regulus Arcturus Black
Walburga Sopdet Black
Orion Sirius Black