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Regulus’ feet were cold against the chilled bathroom tiles, toes tucked in and nails white. He shivered, the bones of his spine pressing painfully against the wall as he shuddered. There was a drumming in his rib cage — thud, thud, thud . It was heavy, and loud, and Regulus was worried his mother would hear it.
His hands worried over the caps of his knees, pulling the fabric of his pyjama pants between his fingers from where he was curled into the corner of the bathroom.
He wished Sirius were with him.
Regulus always wished Sirius was with him when alone in Grimmauld Place, but that desire to see his brother only grew when mother got like this. When she got angry .
Regulus thought that while Sirius knew how it felt to be constantly abused by their mother and neglected by their father, he would never understand how it felt to experience it alone. Whenever Sirius was hurt, Regulus would be there to help. Whenever he couldn’t take the constant beratement and crawled under his younger brother’s sheets for some ounce of love, Regulus would let him. Whenever he was put down by family members at dinner, Regulus would hold his hand to ground him back. Back to the thought that no matter what, Regulus would always be there.
Sirius could never understand how it felt for Regulus after he left.
Walking through the house, listening to the silence from the first door on the fourth floor, watching as the walls breathed a hollow sigh. Sitting alone at the dinner table with father locked up in his study and mother too upset to leave the bedroom. Watching each day tick past as if they consisted of twenty-four years instead of twenty-four hours, without anyone to talk to except a house-elf. Waking up and falling asleep to the empty silence of the house, sighing because this day will be the same as the last and the cycle will just continue.
Sirius could never understand how it felt to be lonely.
Not after running away to Potter , Regulus thought bitterly as he tucked his feet further beneath him.
Regulus didn’t like hiding in the bathroom, but mother was in one of her moods . He could hear the walls whispering to him, warning him of where she was lurking. Regulus sometimes wondered if Grimmauld Place was alive, because of the way the walls breathed and expanded like the bones of a rib cage and the whispers of secrets he felt brush his cheeks sometimes.
The house was alive, yes. He felt it warn him now, whisper that his mother was nearing. The stairway carried the message of her moving onto the fourth floor, the railings noting that she had her wand with her. And the walls told him she was angry.
( The walls always told him she was angry. )
She was nearing, and now Regulus didn’t need to listen to the house to know that. He could hear her himself; the click of heeled boots on ebony floorboards and the breathing. The breathing . Even the inhale and exhale of air sounded crazy.
“Sirius… Sirius, boy, I know you are hiding up here.”
She always called him Sirius.
( Regulus sometimes wondered if she still wished Sirius wasn’t the one who ran away.
He would understand, of course. Everyone always liked Sirius better. Even when he destroyed the family and got adopted by a Light family, people still liked him better. )
“Sirius Orion, do not make me any more angry than I am, young man,” she rasped.
Regulus held his breath as he clutched at the fabric of his pyjamas. He could hear her heels scrape against the wooden flooring, the drum in his chest beating faster, louder. She’ll hear it, he knows.
There was the sound of a brass doorknob turning, but the bathroom door didn’t move. She must be looking in the bedrooms , Regulus realised.
“Come out, you scum .”
Regulus wished he would just disappear.
He wanted it to stop. Everything. Right at that moment, he’d rather not be there. He’d rather not be existing. It must be easy to not exist. To not be over-thinking things all the time, to not have to wake up every morning and think not another day . If he didn’t exist then he wouldn’t have to feel lonely all the time. Empty. Sad. Lonely.
“Boy!”
Scared.
Regulus didn’t know when she had finished checking the bedrooms, but suddenly the door was being pushed open to reveal Walburga Black in all her glorious insanity.
He didn’t want to be here, he didn’t want to do this again. But mother didn’t seem to care, as she grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him up and out of the room.
“There you are, you insolent little boy! How dare you hide from me, Sirius Orion,” she hissed.
Regulus winced as her sharp nails dug into the flesh of his scalp, her grip on his dark curls so tight he thought the hair would come out. Mother dragged him across the floor, his feet rushing to keep himself up so that she was not holding him by just his hair. He was pulled towards the staircase, where each step stared back at Regulus.
They whispered memories to him, snapshots of every time he’d fallen down those same steps. This had happened before. And it will happen again, and again, and again.
“You must learn your lesson, Sirius,” said Walburga. “I’ve had it with your disrespect , do you hear me? The way you spoke at the Malfoy's dinner party was disgraceful . If I wasn’t such a good mother, I would have thrown you right out on the spot.”
Regulus was smart enough not to inform her that the Malfoy’s dinner party she was referring to occurred two years ago. When Sirius was still here.
( When the walls didn’t breathe like they had no life left . )
It didn’t really matter that she was wrong, since Regulus was already being thrown down the staircase. His bones shook with every thump. His shoulder, his elbow, his ankle, his hip. They’d met these steps before. When Regulus tripped down them at the age of four. When Sirius had accidentally tackled him down them when he was nine. When Mother had pushed him down them when he was thirteen— and again when he was thirteen, and again, and again.
“You are a waste of blood, boy. I could have had a proper son. I could have had a son to be proud of,” she hissed, grabbing Regulus by the scruff of his neck to spit in his face.
He ached. It was a familiar ache, but he’d almost forgotten the sensation. To feel broken. To be broken.
“You think I want you as my son? You think I am happy to share names? You are a disgrace !”
Regulus had heard these things before too. Many times.
( Too many times . )
From the bottom of the staircase, he was then dragged to the second drawing room, where he was dropped ungracefully to the floor.
Regulus let out a pitiful sound that was somewhere between a tired sigh and a whimper. Walburga didn’t seem to hear it, as she turned on him with blazing eyes. Regulus watched the way the skirt of her dress swung back and forth with each of her heaving breaths. It must be exhausting to be that angry all the time. To hate so much.
“Look at me, Sirius.”
Regulus couldn’t.
“I said look at me! ”
And suddenly there was a large, phantom hand on the back of his head, turning his neck until he was looking his mother in the eye. Her wand was pointed at him, and Regulus almost cried at the acknowledgement that she was already up to the Unforgivables.
( Some days were easier, like when mother chose to simply pretend he wasn’t there. Regulus felt loneliest on those days, but at least his bones didn’t ache. )
“How could you be so cruel, Sirius? How could you destroy your family like you have done?”
Regulus wanted to know the answer to that as well. How could Sirius leave him with mother? How could he subject him to the silence of Grimmauld Place. The hollow breathing of the walls. The lonely cold beds.
The hand on the back of his neck tightened as Walburga’s magic tensed and flared.
“How could you destroy me ? Answer the question, Sirius! Answer! ”
Regulus tried to croak out something, even just one word, but his throat closed in defiance. The effort to make his vocal cords move again felt so great, and Regulus felt himself slump into the floor again.
“Will you not answer when I tell you? Crucio! ”
And then Regulus’ body was on fire.
It always hurt, no matter how many times he felt it. It always hurt .
Somehow, the curse always managed to get worse and worse every time. The fire grew hotter, the ache buried deeper, the crackle between his bones became greater. Regulus was being torn apart by his toes and fingers, his muscles stretching. He was being squished between two blocks of concrete. He was being drowned under a sea of fire. A firework was being shoved down his throat.
( It always hurt. )
And then it stopped, Regulus gagging as his body adjusted to the feeling of not being in pain. He felt like throwing up, but he knew there was nothing in his stomach to actually spew. His muscles twitched.
“I said answer me ! Sirius, why did you do this? Why did you leave me ? Do you not love me? Your mother .”
Regulus physically couldn’t answer that. His throat was raw and hot, torn to shreds by the lines of fire that the cruciatus had drawn down his neck.
“ CRUCIO! ”
The fire engulfed Regulus again, and he yelled just as loud as he had last time. He always tried to keep himself from screaming, but it never worked.
“You can scream but you cannot say you love me? Pathetic .”
( Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic . )
He wanted to say something, just so that she would stop. But he couldn’t.
“Say you love me, Sirius. Say you love your mother.”
Her voice was gravelly. Regulus wondered if she had drunk any water in a while, if she remembered that to live you must feed yourself. Maybe she thought she already had.
( Maybe she was living in the past . )
And then the large phantom hand was pulling him up onto his feet like a puppet on strings. His head was drawn up to meet his mother’s eyes. Pale grey met a deep obsidian.
“Say you love me, Sirius,” she whispered, and that was almost worse than her shouting.
Regulus opened his mouth, lips mouthing the words but no sound came out. His toes scraped against the floor, ankles rolling as he was held up on puppet strings.
The black eyes of his mother seemed to grow even darker in his silence. They watered, as if she was going to cry. Regulus wanted to cry.
( He would, if mother didn’t have him under an imperius curse . )
“I said,” she whispered, voice shaking with a sudden fragility, “say you love me.”
Regulus’ throat suddenly warmed, the sound rising unwillingly. He almost choked as the imperius curse made the words in his mouth. “I… l-love you, mother.”
( He couldn’t love her. He did, once. But now he couldn’t even bare looking her in the eye. )
Walburga inhaled sharply, as if she’d just said something she desperately wanted to hear. Regulus thought that would be the end of it, but his voice remained under her control.
“I’m s-sorry,” he croaked out unwillingly. “I’m so sorry, mother, for being an awful son. Y-you don’t des-deserve such a bad son like me. I’m sorry for- for destroying the family a-and causing you such grief. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. Sirius would never say such things, and mother might as well accept that.
“That’s better,” said Walburga, and suddenly the hand was released and Regulus was dropping to the floor like a puppet cut from his strings.
( A puppet on Walburga Black’s strings . )
His head rolled back on the floor, ear pressed into the ebony floor boards. His muscles twitched again from the cruciatus curse, hands clenching and unclenching. Regulus felt tired. And weak.
“Don’t you feel better, Sirius? Now that you’ve told me the truth.”
No, Regulus wanted to say. I feel like a pathetic liar . A fraud. I’m not the son you want.
Instead, he offered a weak nod. His breathing was loud against the floor.
“Good. I feel better too.”
Regulus wished it would all just end. If he didn’t exist then he wouldn’t have to feel lonely all the time. Empty. Sad. Lonely.
“I’ll see you again tomorrow, Sirius.”
Scared.