Chapter Text
“Dragging me into your bullshit,” exclaimed the slightly shorter boy as he clumsily dragged the taller one with him through the mud. It was quite dark outside but you could pick their shadows when they walked by street lamps. “I never asked for this and you took me with you without even bothering to check in with!”
“You would rather I left you there?” asked the seemingly injured boy. They looked like each other’s twins, especially with both their hair wet from the pouring rain, but they had these little differences to the way they behaved. The shorter boy almost had a hunch on his back and the taller one stood too tall despite the fact that he couldn’t walk. “Did you really think this is something I wanted to do? I would rather die than leave you behind, Reg.”
“You almost did because you ran your mouth like an idiot,” said Regulus as he kept trying to make sure Sirius was doing okay. “You are heavier than you look.”
“I’m not,” grinned the older one despite the pain he was feeling. “You are just shit at carrying injured people.”
“Would you rather crawl?”
Sirius let out a small bark of a laughter before he pointed out to the big mansion fifty feet away from them.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t just say the full address Siri,” complained Regulus as he hoisted his brother once more.
“And risk them knowing where we were going to?” asked Sirius with an incredulous look on his face. “They would have been waiting for us by the door before we could say Quidditch, you know that.”
“You’re right,” sighed Regulus, taking one more step towards the large, crisp white mansion so different from their dark and secluded manor at Grimmauld Place,12. “You’re absolutely right. Do you think Potters would be fine with having me with you?”
“The more the merrier if you ask them,” he smirked and grimaced at the same time.
They walked the last few feet without uttering a word and Regulus politely rang the doorbell as Sirius attempted to bang the door.
“You’re going to give them a heart attack, you bloody idiot, it’s the middle of the night” he said before pushing his wet hair from his face to look a bit more presentable just like they had taught him as he was growing up. Looking good was half the job done as far as the Blacks were concerned.
Then the door opened and James Potter just blurted out a very loud sequence of blasphemies without moving an inch.
“You know it’s cold out, right?” asked Sirius holding onto the door frame while waiting for his best friend to let them in.
“Sirius, what the fuck?” he asked as he got his arm under Sirius’ other shoulder relieving the weight on Regulus’ body. James’ hand brushed Regulus’ cold one for a second and Reg could have sworn the boy was one fire.
“We ran away.”
“We?”
“Yes Prongs,” he replied calmly. “Me and my little brother than I am responsible of.”
“I am not a kid,” intervened Regulus as he looked around to understand where they were. They were obviously in the Potter Manor but where were James’ mother and father, hadn’t they heard the commotion?
“You are not a kid but I am still older than you Reg and I dragged you with me, remember?”
“Okay,” sighed James. “Let’s get you both some towels, preferably heated by my mothe—oh hi, mum!”
James greeted his mum as if there weren’t two boys standing in the entrance of their house soaked to the bone, dragging mud from the outside. One of them trying to look as if he was still a prince fixing his hair and clothes constantly and the other was all bloodied up. He said “oh, hi mum” as if every other day a stranger rang their door, said they ran away from home with their brother and took refuge in their house.
“Oh my,” was all that came out of the poor woman’s mouth before she carefully grabbed both of the Black brothers’ hands and took them to a large bathroom where she handed them towels that never got wet or cold. She slowly but surely healed Sirius’ wounds and scourgified both of them for the time being. She said they could have a shower after they explained what was going on. That, Reg thought, meant they weren’t getting in the shower for the next three hours because Sirius didn’t know how to shut up and most importantly, Reg thought, someone should know. Someone who cares should be aware of what just happened and what they just ran away from in the middle of a cold night.
Euphemia Potter was older than their mother but her features made her look younger and definitely kinder. Her voice sounded like honey on warm bread. She had the demeanour of a Healer and she was really good at it, too, but Reg knew that wasn’t her profession.
Euphemia sat with them in their living room with the fire burning in the fireplace and stared at them as she stared at her own son. Reg found that interesting, that she could feel the same way about someone else as she did for her son. She didn’t ask any questions and she gave them hot tea. Reg took one cautious sip only to realise it was proper tea, too, like the ones they had in Grimmauld Place, not like the ones they gave at the fancy places they went to for their family affairs.
Sirius seemed better than he did two hours ago which meant he was ready to speak. He went on and on about the abuse they faced in their family and how shit hit the fan when they found out Sirius was not only friends with a mudblood but he was dating one. They didn’t find out per se, Sirius shouted it at their faced right before getting struck in the face by their mother.
Sirius explained how their family values worked, what they expected of them and he even mentioned getting the Mark. That was a secret that shouldn’t have been placed on anyone else’s shoulders but theirs. Yet, Sirius seemed to trust the Potters, maybe even more than he trusted his own brother.
Reg could feel the stare of the Gryffindor chaser on him as if he wasn’t sure of what he was doing there, as if he was not wanted there and that would make sense. It wasn’t like Reg was Brother of the Year but he was there and there was nothing Potter could do about it. Sirius wanted Reg to get out of the house with him and so he had, now he was sitting on a soft cushioned sofa with a towel around him and staring at his feet.
Regulus could also feel her stares, too, but they were softer than James’. Hers were curious. She wanted to know something but she wasn’t sure if she could ask. Euphemia knew Sirius from James but him, she probably never heard about him before.
“How are you doing, Regulus?” she asked finally after Sirius had decided he dumped enough information on the poor woman. “You seem unscathed.”
“I am doing fine, Mrs. Potter,” he silently replied. “Thank you for asking and thank you for accepting me with my brother into your house. I know you don’t kno—”
“Child,” scolded Euphemia and she let her hair fall free out of the bun it was in. “You are family to Sirius and Sirius is family to us. You have a place here as long as you want to stay here.”
“Told you, it would be fine.”
“Shut up, Siri.”
“Alright boys,” said Euphemia as she got up with an agility Regulus wouldn’t have expected from a woman of her age. “Enough drama for one day, everyone to your rooms. Both of you need a good night’s sleep and you don’t need James distracting you from it.”
She waved her wand as she got out of the living room turning each light off as she kept walking towards the staircase.
“I made some arrangements in the guest room and you boys have your separate rooms once you go inside,” she smiled as she started climbing up the stairs. “If you need anything, James’ room is right across yours and our room is at the end of the corridor. Fleamont isn’t home yet, his meeting must be running longer than intended but regardless, you can wake us up anytime.”
“Don’t you have a house elf, Mrs. Potter?” blurted out Regulus before he could stop himself and earned himself a look from Sirius and his insanely raised eyebrow.
“We do, dear,” she said calmly. “But why bother her when I would enjoy helping you more than anything?”
Regulus nodded since he didn’t have an answer to that. Black brothers were raised by house elves. Their parents never took joy in any part of their raising, they were mere pawns in their game for dominance in the Wizarding World. Two sons in one of the most important Pureblood families in the Sacred 28, what a joy it must have been for two seconds after they were born.
Regulus slowly took of his clothes and put them on the dresser nearby. As he got into the soft bed he could hear his brother talk to James on the other side of the door. He tried not to pay any attention to it thinking they might be talking about the Marauders or whatever they called themselves but he heard his name and now all he could do was listen in on their conversation.
“What did you expect me to do?” whispered Sirius urgently.” Leave him behind in that wretched house?”
“Of course not!” replied James with slight shame in his voice. “That’s not what I’m insinuating Pads. I would never suggest anything like that. I’m just saying he doesn’t seem comfortable, you should make sure he is okay with staying with us. Like mum said, he can stay forever if he wants to, he is your family Pads, it makes him my family, too.”
“I’m sure it’s just shock,” answered Sirius defeated. “We are not used to people being nice to us, Prongs and your mother might have been a bit too much to handle for a boy whose understanding of love is limited to not being beaten by his mother.”
Regulus shivered at the thought of that. Sirius wasn’t wrong, was he? They never knew what parental love was. For them, parents were nothing but authority figures that happened to share their blood with them. Regulus genuinely felt overwhelmed by the reaction James and his mother had regarding the spontaneous appearance of the Black brothers. However, Regulus had previously thought, in the half an hour they spent coming here, that he would have hated it here, not that he loved the place he called home but he never thought he could fit in in a house like this where people cared. Walburga had taught them from a very young age that caring would get in the way of everything that was important to their family values. You were toujours pur until you cared and Regulus, he never really cared about anything except his brother up until this point. No one had cared about him except Sirius and Kreacher. Regulus slowly realised he didn’t know what he was getting himself into by letting himself stay and be cared for in the Potter home but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be easy for him to break down some of the walls Orion and Walburga had built for him and for Sirius’ sake he wanted to try and fit in with his best friend’s family.
As he pulled the covers over his body, Regulus heard Sirius open the door of his own room. He stood there for a while probably contemplating whether he should come in or not. Then, Regulus heard a faint knock on the door, the way he used to knock on Regulus’ door when they made their parents mad.
“You awake?” mumbled his brother.
“I am Siri,” he replied back sitting up right as Sirius made his way towards him in the dark room. He slowly sat on Reg’s bed to speak to him.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?
“For putting you through this,” he said with his head hung low. “You never had any problem with them and I put you in harm’s way because I can’t behave for shit.”
“I mean you’re right,” smiled Regulus for the first time since they left Grimmauld Place, Sirius couldn’t see the smile but he could hear it. “You really can’t behave for shit but I also think they would have made a monster out of me if I had stayed behind just to make them happy. I’m glad you brought me with you Siri, they seem amazing.”
“We’ll be fine Reg,” declared Sirius to Regulus, but mostly to himself. “We’ll be fine.”
“Sure Siri,” he replied as he but an assuring hand on his back. “Now go to sleep, who knows what expects us tomorrow.”
“Don’t remind me,” laughed Sirius as he got off of Regulus’ bed. “But it will be nice to sleep without having to think what pain tomorrow will bring though, won’t it?”
“It really will be,” said Reg before he drifted off to sleep before his brother closed the door.