bone deep
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When they got home, Regulus wanted to run to his room and cower under the covers, but Mother didn’t allow that. She grabbed his wrist in a bruising grip, and brought him around to every single portrait in the house.
“Is he beautiful?” she would ask them, with Regulus shaking next to her.
“Yes,” they would reply. “He’s perfect.”
“Much more beautiful than you ever were,” one portrait added, and that’s when Regulus finally recognized the look on his mother’s face. It wasn’t anger, but jealousy. She was jealous of Regulus. She released him, and he went to his room, and didn’t understand what had happened.
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At the age of four, Regulus Black is declared to be sick with an ancient family bone curse, and is forbidden from leaving the house.
At the age of sixteen, Regulus Black is permitted to attend Hogwarts after he assumed the role of heir due to his brother running away.
He prepares.
Series
- Part 1 of bone deep
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The express blew its whistle, and students began to flock to the train more rapidly. In only a few minutes, a divide had been created: families waving with smiles on one side, and a train full of school-bound students on the other. Regulus watched a few parents shed tears as their kids boarded the train.
Privately, he thought it was all a bit ridiculous. Had these children not known their whole lives that they would eventually leave their parents? Had these parents not known that they would one day have to let their children go? And in that case, what was the point of the hugs, and of the tears? It was simply a responsibility carried out.
Regulus was familiar with responsibility. He had observed the responsibility his mother and father bore as heads of a Most Noble and Ancient House, he had seen the responsibility that Sirius had suffered under as the heir. Regulus himself was familiar with the weight of responsibility himself, his mother’s voice in his head a constant litany of derision and reminders of his duty.
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Regulus took the first step of completing his duty: he's, for the first time in his life, at the age of 16, on the way to Hogwarts. He meets some people on the way there.
Series
- Part 2 of bone deep
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Professor Dumbledore called attention to the podium at the front of the hall, the first time in James’ time at Hogwarts that he didn’t need to speak over the students, and started the welcome speech. James didn’t listen to a word he said, until-
“As many of you may have noticed, we have a new student transferring into our illustrious school this year,” Professor Dumbledore said, humor lightening his voice. “I expect everyone to welcome him the same way we welcome all new students into our community. And, for those of you concerned about a transfer NEWT student, I assure you, Mr. Black is very capable. To Mr. Black himself,” Dumbledore turned to look through his half-moon glasses down at the Slytherin table, where James darted his gaze over to see Regulus looking back up at the headmaster, expression blank, “I personally wish you luck in the coming year, and encourage you to make many new friends.”
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James is ready for his seventh year. He's ready, because he's the best, and he's got his best friend, and-
James is breaking.
Series
- Part 3 of bone deep
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For the next four nights, James pretended to go to sleep. He waited and watched the map, grabbed his cloak, and went to see Regulus pace and slip into the room. He settled on the floor, waited, and watched Regulus leave.
It was abysmal. It was everything. He was more exhausted than he could remember feeling in his life, but the pit that grew in his stomach during the day when he could feel the need consuming him lessened and grew warm with even just the glimpses of Regulus in the moonlight.
Saturday night, his friends were having a party in the common room. James was sitting in the hallway.
He almost didn’t believe it was real when the door opened only a few minutes after Regulus had first closed it and the boy himself peered out from the room. Regulus raised an eyebrow, sweeping his gaze down the hallway.
“Would you like to come in?”---
James needs Regulus. James wants Regulus.
Series
- Part 4 of bone deep
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James was pretty sure he was in heaven.
He wasn’t a particularly religious person - his parents celebrated Samhain and Yule, but more for the spirit of the seasons than for any specific belief system. James himself simply enjoyed celebrating, and if a holiday like Christmas or Holi allowed him to do that then he was more than willing to take advantage of it, without any deeper meaning involved.
As for an afterlife, that wasn’t really something that James liked thinking about. It made his stomach churn to think about a place beyond the life he was living with all of his loved ones right then, although he could understand how the idea of a life after death was comforting to some people.
At least, he had thought all of that stuff before. At the moment, he was reevaluating.
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James talks with Regulus, and then he talks with Remus.
And then he talks with Sirius.
Series
- Part 5 of bone deep