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Fear. The dark-haired boy reeked of fear. It rolled off him in waves.
Padfoot was overwhelmed with the scent, his nose twitching as he took it in. He immediately felt his hair rise on the back of his neck and bared his teeth, snarling at the unknown enemy. He trotted around the clearing, sharp eyes piercing through the undergrowth to find the threat.
But there was nothing.
Slightly mollified that they weren’t in immediate danger, he turned his attention back to the pup. He’d sat, as was usual, on a large, flat stone that was embedded in the ground by the stream, staring blankly into the water.
Padfoot slunk over to him, draping himself protectively over him, nose sniffing and eyes darting around in case the threat emerged from the surrounding forest. The boy did not seem to expect anything to jump out at them and that was of some comfort.
Usually, the pup spoke to him. Sometimes he would rage, sometimes laugh with glee, sometimes break down in tears… but lately, he had been quieter, subdued, unsure. Padfoot had sensed hesitation underneath his words - not that the boy was trying to hide them, not in their secret place. Not to him.
But this unbridled fear - the pure terror that seemed to pulsate from him - this was new.
The boy wrapped his arms around the large dog, for once not bristling about the smell or the fleas (not that Padfoot had any fleas, thank you very much), and buried his face in the warm fur.
They stayed that way for a long time, sharing heat, with nothing but Padfoot’s panting breaths breaking their silence. It started snowing. Gentle snowflakes caked onto Padfoot’s fur, but he kept the boy warm, safe. It muffled all the sounds around them, brought them into a new world, one much calmer, one where Padfoot could sense the fear ebbing away.
In its stead was a new sensation. One he knew well by scent. Determination.
“I’m going to fight him. I’m going to fight him and I’m going to help kill him,” croaked the boy. Padfoot twisted to look at him, taken aback by the definitive look in his eyes. They were blazing. His jaw was set in a grim determination and for a moment he looked so much like a man than the eighteen-year-old pup Padfoot knew he was.
The blood seemed to freeze in Padfoot’s veins and he pinned his ears back instinctively. He’d seen looks like this before. Often they meant somebody was about to do something incredibly honourable and incredibly stupid.
“He thinks he’s invincible,” the boy spat, “as if nobody would work it out. Well I did! I worked it out! He thinks he can sweep into a room and manipulate all the purebloods to follow him - promise them riches and glory and eternity when he takes it all for himself. He handles power like the louse he is never having had it. I know your secret Tom Marvalo Riddle. You may call yourself Lord Voldemort, but you’ve yet to go toe to toe with Black.”
Padfoot’s ears pricked up at that.
Voldemort. The boy wanted to take on Voldemort.
He could feel his heart pumping loudly in his chest as he puffed out a long breath.
Oh fuck.
Before he could second guess himself, he jumped up from the boy’s lap, bit firmly into his robes and pulled.
The boy was startled out of his monologue, stumbling inelegantly to his feet. He took in the dog’s warning whines and its insistence to pull him across to the stream and his fear spiked again.
Padfoot watched the moment that fear returned to the boy, eyes casting around furtively at the clearing, clearly thinking Padfoot had sensed a danger approaching them.
He swore to himself lightly and then followed where Padfoot pulled, stepping easily over the little stream and out of the Black family wards. They ran a little longer, until Padfoot thought they were safe and the boy bent over with his hands resting on his thighs and catching his breath.
If Padfoot could smirk, he would have. The pup was out of practice.
Padfoot took the opportunity to nuzzle into the boy’s side and fish his wand out of his cloak pocket, pushing him over in the process - much to the boy’s bewilderment.
The boy’s startled cry was muffled by the falling snow - snow that was already covering their tracks and suspended time in the air.
The dog morphed into a human.
Not just a human.
The unmistakable form of Sirius Orion Black, shaggy hair, the shadow of a stubble marking his jaw, piercing grey eyes and an oversized black coat.
“Reggie I can explain,” he started in a rush, pocketing Regulus’ wand and holding his empty hands up in truce.
“Were you… were you spying on me?!” came the strangled reply. Regulus was still on the ground, staring up at his big brother and not even trying to hide his shock. Reggie. Nobody called him that anymore. His heart squeezed painfully.
“Oh yeah cause your rants about how much you don’t want a betrothal with Pauline Parkinson is key strategic information,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes.
“Still an arse I see.”
“I’m nothing if not consistent,” he said, smirking at Regulus. Then the smirk fell from his face, and he fell to his knees, head bowed slightly. “No, I missed you Reggie. So much. I couldn’t bare it. Nobody even knows I come to see you. I don’t know… I hope… I hope having me to speak to has helped maybe just a little?”
Regulus took in his brother. The long, black hair he insisted on keeping wild, the puppy dog eyes he was giving him now - how had he not realised the similarities sooner? The fact that he felt drawn to the dog every time he thought of his no-good blood-traitor brother - who he wasn’t even allowed to name in his own home - didn’t even trigger the warning. His mind was spinning with all the implications.
“We’re out of the wards,” he pointed out instead of answering. It was a small observation, one he’d made when he passed out of them.
Sirius grimaced. “Didn’t want to risk it if they’d shut me out of them - and knowing our old man I’m sure he has.”
“But they didn’t stop you coming in as a mongrel.” It was more of a statement than a question, something for Regulus to ponder the possibilities of.
“I am a fierce hound, thank you very much!” came Sirius’ indignant cry.
Regulus snorted.
“Reggie,” started Sirius, filling the stillness that had fallen between them. “If you’re going to fight Voldemort, don’t do it alone. You’ll get yourself killed. Let us help you, Reg.”
“Why would you offer to help me? You left Sirius!”
“I didn’t! I never left you! Never Reg!” Sirius shuffled closer on his knees to where Regulus sat. “I left them, I left the whole bloody concept of purebloods against muggleborns, I left the beatings and the unforgivable and that fucking awful house! But I never left you.”
A tense silence fell between them as Regulus tried to process the fact that the dog he’d confided all his thoughts and feelings to for the past two years was actually… Sirius.
“I know that as a dog I couldn’t talk - couldn’t tell you -” started Sirius quietly, “but I’m so proud you. You were a, damn it, a really amazing seeker. And I’m proud of how well you did at school… showed me up, that’s for sure!”
“You never were very good at potions,” smirked Regulus.
“No, not really my forte,” ground out Sirius.
“Or divination, or history of magic…”
“Yes, alright, we get it—”
“And Astronomy! We’re named after stars Sirius!”
“Now you’re just trying your luck—”
“Passable in runes I guess—”
“And an absolute class act in transfiguration - in fact pretty sure I was one of Minnie’s favourites!”
“Whatever makes you feel better, mutt.”
A cold, wet snowball hit Regulus square in the face, shocking him out of his teasing. He spluttered for a moment, wiping the snow from his face with narrowed eyes.
Sirius was grinning impishly ear to ear - a look Regulus knew well. It usually meant there was some wandless magic that was about to get unleashed, and usually to his detriment.
But Regulus also knew he could stop it before it started, and hastily closed his hands where they were resting in the snow and flung their contents at Sirius.
Sure, some was deflected, but some got into Sirius’ eye and broke his concentration enough for Regulus to make a proper snowball to throw at him.
Sirius acted swiftly, ducking to one side and flinging snow to his brother, scrambling to his feet and kicking some more in his direction. Regulus likewise rolled and jumped up, two snowballs in hand and flung them at Sirius - one missed, but the other got him in the neck with an undignified yelp.
Both Blacks were covered in snow and laughing heartily; for a moment there was nothing else but them and the scuffed snow on the ground, their red noses and flakes on their eyelashes. The snow was falling harder now, so when Sirius shook his head in a very dog-like manner to flick off what was trapped in it, he found that it was quickly being replaced.
He looked up at the sky, blinking quickly at the flakes falling on him and breathing heavily. Across the clearing, Regulus sobered and considered his brother.
“You tried to warn me,” he said quietly, “about them, about all of them. I can see it now. I know what they do, Sirius and it’s…” his voice broke, unable to go on.
Sirius’ grey eyes turned towards him, an exact copy of the ones that stared back at him in the mirror.
“I don’t think you can help me. Not with this. You have no idea what kind of power he holds…”
Sirius strode over to him, grabbing his freezing hands in his.
“Reg, I’ve been at this a lot longer than you have. Let me help you. Let all of us help you. We all want the same thing. Please, please, Reggie. Don’t do this alone.”
Regulus had to concentrate to blink back the tears that were forming. He’d studied how to school his expressions and cover his emotions, how to wield occlumancy to his advantage, but somehow Sirius could tell what was happening. He wrapped his arms around Regulus, squeezing him tightly to him.
“All I ever wanted was to help,” Sirius murmured into Regulus’ icy hair. “The only way I could think of doing it was as a dog, maybe being a sympathetic ear, a place you could let that blasted mask slide… but this, well I know how to do this. You want to fight? I do too. I have been since I left school. The Black Brothers together. He won’t stand a chance!”
Cold hands tentatively wrapped themselves around Sirius too, and they both pretended the silent sobs that rattled through Regulus’ body didn’t exist.
“What about the mark? Will they still help? Will you?” he asked, his words muffled from pressing his face into Sirius’ ridiculously large lamb’s wool coat.
Sirius pulled back slightly to look into Regulus’ face. “We have veritaserum to make sure you’re not trying to turn on us. You’ll be just fine.”
Regulus nodded, hoping that the cold disguised the redness of his nose and his eyes.
“Now?”
“Do you have somewhere to be?”
“No. Nobody is home. I can be gone for a while.”
A slow smile, a genuine smile, spread across Sirius’ face. He held out his hand to Regulus, wand at the ready to take them away.
“Well then, brother, let’s show him exactly who he is up against!”
Regulus felt himself smirk.
“He won’t stand a chance,” he said, reaching out and taking Sirius’ hand.
They had always survived better together. Perhaps their time apart might have weakened them, but Regulus had a feeling that, together, they might just pull this off.