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“You could be great, in Slytherin,” the Hat says. “You could be powerful there.”
“I don’t want to be great,” Regulus admits, quiet even in his own head. “I just want to be me, Sir Hat.”
He gets a sense of sorrow, of compassion, from the Hat. “Well, what of Ravenclaw, then, young Black? Your thirst for knowledge would be sated there, surrounded by those of like mind. You would never want for new things to discover.”
“I don’t want to get lost in knowledge for knowledge’s sake, though.”
“Hmm. Gryffindor, perhaps, like your elder brother?”
Regulus glances at Sirius—Sirius with the purple bruise on his cheek half-hidden by a subpar glamour spell—and makes a decision. “No,” he tells the Hat. “I’m not brave for myself, and they’re loud about their convictions. Besides, only Hufflepuff will make Mother and Father too angry to be upset with Sirius.”
“You would sacrifice yourself in this way, to keep your brother safe?” the Hat says, curiosity rousing.
“For Sirius?” Regulus replies, “I would do anything. He’s my brother, after all.”
“Well, let no one say you are not loyal, child of the stars. Better be… HUFFLEPUFF!”
For an agonising five seconds, silence reigns in the Hall. Then, sixth year Slytherin Prefect Narcissa Black stands up and claps for him, a smile on her face. The Hufflepuffs join in, a beat later. (But he can’t help but notice, as he sits down, that Sirius never does. He buries the hurt in an iron box, one among the many stacked behind his ribs, and firmly decides it doesn’t matter.)
Regulus Black’s first-ever hug from someone who is not Sirius or Narcissa comes from a fellow Hufflepuff firstie named Benjamin Fenwick. “Call me Benjy, everyone does,” the boy says, while Regulus is still reeling at the way Benjy’s arm across his shoulders made him feel a bit dizzy. (Though, that could also have something to do with not being allowed to eat for the last three days, as a warning of what would happen to him if he dared Sort anywhere but Slytherin.)
“O-okay,” Regulus breathes, still a bit detached from himself.
Benjy grins at him, candlelight gleaming off of bright copper eyes and ash-blonde hair. “Friends?”
He has never had a friend before. He thinks he might like it. “Friends,” Regulus agrees firmly, shaking Benjy’s hand to seal the pact.
Hufflepuffs, Regulus learns, are generally kind. They are also nosy little bastards, or at least the eleven-year-olds are. Nicholas Fleet blinks owlishly at the sight of Regulus’s shirtless torso, and he wonders in a distant sort of way if the other boy is startled by the scars or the sharp angles of his bones or both. “What… happened?” Fleet whispers, in the sort of voice someone would use at a funeral.
He considers lying, or dancing around the truth like he’s done his entire life, but he is tired and angry and hurting, and there is still a four-year-old hiding in his spine with a handprint on his face wondering what he did wrong, and he’s managed the first steps to protect his brother, so he lets himself have this.
“My parents,” he says, “aren’t exactly… nice people, Fleet.”
(The first pebble is tossed into the lake.)
Narcissa Black is betrothed to Lucius Malfoy, has been since she was twelve and he seventeen. She doesn’t quite hate Lucius—she’d have to care about him to do that. Narcissa Black is also in love with Amelia Bones, which her parents would be horrified to know about. Narcissa quietly accepted her betrothal, has never made any overtures resembling dislike or unhappiness about it, and yet. And yet, her baby cousin is Sorted into Hufflepuff, and she despises her aunt and uncle for the way the boy is so skittish the following summer, for fresh bruises and terror of raised wands and raised voices. Regulus is twelve, now, and twelve-year-old boys should not become ghosts in their own homes just to avoid their parents’ wrath. Twelve-year-old boys should not have to profess pro-Muggle ideals in an attempt to draw that wrath away from their older brothers. Twelve-year-old boys should not be gaunt and sickly-pale and using illusions to hide new pink scars on their cheeks in the shape of their mother’s House rings. Narcissa Black is betrothed to Lucius Malfoy, the wedding date set for three days after her seventeenth birthday. Narcissa Black quietly disappears the day of the wedding, finding sanctuary in House Bones.
(The ripples spread as the pebble skips to a new place.)
Narcissa Black is just as quietly burnt off the family tapestry. (It takes Walburga Black, who did not attend the wedding, six days to notice.)
Letter for Sirius Orion Black, burnt in Number Twelve’s fireplace unopened and unread:
Dear Cousin,
I would consider it a great kindness if you would come see me in my new lodgings. I think it would do your health good to come away from the city for a time. My new spouse would dearly love to meet you, and your brother, as well. Perhaps you could join us for tea? I certainly would not mind if you chose to spend the rest of your summer here afterwards, though Aunt Walburga might protest.
Regards,
Narcissa Althaia Bones
(P.S.: Please note, this letter will also act as a Portkey, should you find yourself in imminent danger.)
Letter sent to Narcissa Althaia Bones, opened with the paring knife used to peel a breakfast orange:
Dearest Narcissa,
I thank you for the kind offer of your home, but I regret to inform you that I cannot visit you until my brother has concluded his business with the family. I am hoping that will be soon; I would like to see you again, but I think Sirius will not be ready for some time yet. Perhaps next summer, though it will likely occur later than that. He has certainly never intimated any such plans to me, after all. Tea would be lovely, though, when Sirius’s business is done.
All My Best,
Regulus Arcturus Black
(P.S.: You might want to try something less flammable than postage next time, if you insist on sending Portkeys.)
(The stone sinks, joined by another. Splashing, sending out ever-widening arcs.)
Regulus spends a lot of time thinking about hands, the violence of them. Mother’s hands are cold and silk-soft, the uncalloused hands of a noble lady, and yet he tenses in fear every time those hands get near him. Father’s hands he almost can’t remember what they’re like, beyond a vague notion that they are somehow like blunt instruments, since he barely sees his father at all. Benjy’s hands are always warm, calluses striping the palms from a childhood spent on a broom, dirt from the greenhouses under the squared fingernails nine times out of ten. Nicholas Fleet has long, thin hands, fingertips capped with hard growths from playing his guitar obsessively. Martin Bullock has plump hands that match the rest of him—indolent and sleepy and a bit mischievous, when his attention can be roused. Lysander Bones’s hands are always cold, fingers pale and slightly blue-ish from a mysterious blood disorder the boy refuses to talk about. (Regulus hopes Lyse isn’t dying from the whatever-it-is; it’d be a shame for such a born politician to expire before he can terrify the Wizengamot with his brilliant ideas.) Mattias Goldstein is missing half of his left ring finger, has been since birth, but his hands are feather-light when he taps Regulus’s shoulder to ask a question. Sirius’s hands are warm, but too warm, and his touch is always a bit too harsh, like he’s trying to grind the feel of another person into his bones.
Regulus studies his own hands—bird-thin and ghostly pale, right ring and little fingers a bit crooked from when he fell down the stairs at age nine and broke a few of the bones in his hand and they never set quite right, a pale purple splotch of a birthmark over his left index knuckle, and wonders why his stomach feels weird when other people touch him. The weirdness, he has noticed, changes pitch, sort of, depending on who it is. Mother causes a hard knot of fear to settle in his belly, Father earns a pinprick-dread buzzy feeling, Sirius gets an odd push-pull sensation. Lyse, Nick, Martin, and Matty all cause a pleasant sort of warmth, like drinking hot chocolate, but Benjy is the only one whose warm-chocolate-feeling is accompanied by a peculiar swooping thing that might be a cousin of fear.
Benjy, who insists on handfeeding him bits of toast and melon whenever Regulus is too upset (or ill, Mother made good on that promise about Sorting wrong) to eat normal meals. Benjy, who is prone to plunking on top of him and pressing him bodily into the nearest available flat surface when Regulus gets so into his head he feels like he can’t breathe. Benjy, who was fully ready to punch Walburga Black in the face on the station platform, because Regulus showed up with shaky hands from yet another bout of Crucio, and the only reason he didn’t was because Regulus begged him not to. Benjy, who climbs into Regulus’s bed so often Matty has started keeping plants in Benjy’s bed. Benjy, who catalogues every new scar and bruise and mention of Cruciatus after every school break, adamant that he’s taking Walburga and Orion Black to bloody court someday. Benjy, who buys him Muggle sweets and encourages him to try on Muggle clothes and lends him Muggle books to read. (Alice in Wonderland makes no bloody sense, Narnia is interesting though he could do without the peculiar god-allegory, and Sherlock stars a right arsehole but he rather likes Watson. Peter Pan is just complete racist tripe, and if he can see that, then he thinks he’s rather justified in hating the damn book on principle. He also thinks it’s kind of funny that no one can agree on whether or not Shakespeare was a wizard, though he didn’t need to be exposed to that many flowery ribald jokes ever.) Benjy, who calls him “Regs” in a voice like warm syrup, every time, even if they’re angry at each other. Benjy, who makes him eat his greens by promising Muggle nougat bars after. Benjy, who always goes over his essays with him before he turns them in because sometimes the letters get muddled when Regulus isn’t looking.
Regulus Black thinks about all of this and decides this must be what having a best friend is like. (It takes him another two years to realise he is in love with Benjy Fenwick, and half a year after that to panic about that realisation before finally asking him on a date.)
Benjy Fenwick never really… intended on being completely besotted with Regulus Black, to be fair. It started out as eleven-year-old Benjy noticing that Regs was, well, tiny for a kid his age, all his bones trying to escape his skin like the boy was dying of cancer, that he was jittery and fearful and didn’t seem to know what to do with hugs. Eleven-year-old Benjy decided he was going to do his best to take care of Regulus Black, because the people who should have taken care of him clearly weren’t, and it sort of… snowballed from there, really. (Martin says he should’ve figured it out when the handfeeding started, because casual friends don’t really… do that, but Martin is a sap who reads boatloads of romance novels, so what does he know, anyway? …Alright, so the chocolate-covered strawberries might have been a bit suggestive, shut up.)
Which brings him to now, lazing about by the Black Lake (Regulus insists it’s not named for a relative of his. Lyse doesn’t believe him.) with Reg’s head in his lap, their other friends sprawled out around them. He sighs appreciatively when Regs drags Benjy’s fingers into his mouth, sucking fig juice and honey off his skin, the barest suggestion of teeth scraping over his fingertips. Matty throws a quill at his head, grumbling about lovebirds and stupidity. Poor Matty gets no sympathy from the other boys; Lyse is too busy mooning over Heloise Burke from afar to pay attention to what anyone else is doing, and he’s pretty sure Martin is asleep in that sunbeam. (Nick is gone; sat his N.E.W.Ts and O.W.Ls early and bloody well scarpered off to France.) Regs finally releases his fingers, and Benjy decides to give him some prosciutto folded around a thick smear of Boursault cheese next. It’s so nice of the elves to make a picnic for them. Even gave them a basket and everything. He’ll have to think of a good way to thank them for it. (Matty huffs, “fucking rich people,” and storms off to read sulkily under a tree.) Regulus blinks up at him, smiling faintly.
“Alright?” Benjy murmurs.
Regulus hums drowsily, sugar-drunk and pleasantly warmed by the afternoon sun. “Hm’full,” he slurs eventually, pouting a little, though he pops a bit of chocolate orange in his mouth anyway—incurable sweet tooth, that one. “Nhmg,” he whines.
“Regret that last bit, do you?”
“Shuddup.”
“Oh, very intelligent.”
Regulus growls at him and shoves his face, “you’re an awful prick, Ben.”
“I thought you liked my prick.”
“M’gonna. Gonna kill you, Benny, jus’ watch.”
Benjy laughs and drags a hand through Reg’s hair. “Nah, you won’t. You’re a lazy kitten at heart, love.”
“Scuse you, I’m a bloody snow leopard, Ben. Not a kitten.”
“Half expected a lion, given your name and all.”
Regulus grumbles, arching into Benjy’s hands when he finds the sweet spot behind his left ear. “Ha ha, very funny. You were the one who decided to be stereotypical and turn into a prehistoric giant badger.”
Benjy wins the “argument” by cheating a bit and distracting him with enthusiastic snogging.
“I got a letter from Bellatrix,” Regulus says, out of fucking nowhere, bent over a dusty book on Runespoors in preparation for their Potions O.W.L. tomorrow.
(The lake is in perpetual motion now, little waves echoing and colliding over each other.)
“You got a letter from… please tell me it wasn’t poisoned,” Lyse says, wondering when the hell this became his life. Probably when a little shit of a Black decided to be a badger five years ago.
“No, it wasn’t poisoned, you git,” Regulus mutters, scribbling a bit about Runespoor venom onto the disorganised mess of parchment that vaguely passes as “notes”. “She’s staying with Narcissa now,” he adds, squinting and tugging the book a little closer, “apparently, her husband was a complete piece of shit and she only just got away from the bastard. Bella’s excited about taking him to court for it, at least. From the sound of things, Lestrange actually dared to use Imperius on her. Honestly, I’m surprised Cissa and Andy haven’t already murdered the stupid fuck for that.”
Lyse considers it for a moment. “They might have done, and then just raised his corpse to stand trial. I wouldn’t put it past either of them, especially Andromeda. She can be bloody terrifying when she wants to be. Why the hell would Lestrange do that, anyhow? Can’t have been easy, constantly Imperiusing Bellatrix, of all people.”
“Do you remember Alice Max?” Regulus asks, nibbling on his quill as he skims pages.
“Didn’t she marry that Longbottom bloke? Frank, right?”
“Yeah, she did, but Bella was courting the both of them before Lestrange decided to be an arsehole.”
Lyse sits back in his chair, tilting his head. “Huh. That makes… all of you, then, with the addition of Bellatrix.”
Regulus yawns, “whassit?” blinking at Lyse groggily.
“Your whole generation’s run away from their parents or intended spouses at this point.”
“Oh. Yeah. S’true.”
“…When the hell did you last sleep, Reg?”
“You’re not going to like the answer.”
Lysander whacks him with a bit of rolled-up parchment like a misbehaving crup. “Go the fuck to sleep, you insane bastard.”
“But the exams are-”
“Fuck the exams,” Lyse mutters, already packing his things so he can march an idiot back to the dorms. “Sleep is important, Reg!”
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Martin snarls, hands curling into fists.
“You’re not allowed to murder my brother, Martin,” Regulus replies, voice distorted by a split and bloodied lip. He dabs awkwardly at a messy, shallow cut on his arm—courtesy of a Slicing Hex, and the reason why Martin is so angry at Sirius fucking Black right now. The holier-than-thou complete bloody idiot is apparently convinced that Reg’s Hufflepuff loyalty means loyalty to his parents, and thinks Reg was dumb enough to join the fucking Death Eaters. Never mind that Regulus scarpered off to Benjy’s a few days after Sirius left for good. Never mind that Regulus doesn’t even believe that pureblood shit anymore, not after bunking with the lot of them for ages. Never mind that Regulus has shown up with fucking curse damage at the start of term for four years and has to wear an amulet of concealment to hide the scars from cursed weapons because he’d got it into his fool head to protect Sirius. Martin’s Animagus form is a Kodiak bear, and bears are a protective lot. He bloody well wants to put Sirius’s head on a pike for this.
He patches Reg up well enough—kid refuses to go to the hospital wing, but that’s an argument that’s gone on as long as he’s known the stubborn git—and goes hunting for a brainless Gryffindor.
He finds Sirius and Company harassing some poor Slytherin firstie, and bites out, “need to talk to you, Black.” He glares at the Three Musketeers, “alone.” He doesn’t even wait for a reply before yanking the older boy into an abandoned classroom. “Regulus Black,” Martin says slowly, like he’s talking to a particularly slow child, “is not a Death Eater.” Sirius laughs in his face, and Martin breathes through the urge to punch him in his smug pretty face.
Then Sirius says something about Regulus “always running after Mummy and Daddy, the soft idiot,” and Martin just. Snaps, really. “You don’t fucking get it, do you?” he sneers. “If Reg is loyal to anyone, he’s loyal to you. God knows why, you horrid bastard. You don’t fucking deserve that loyalty. You’re petty and cruel, Sirius Black, and you can’t see anything that doesn’t fit into your neat little boxes of How the World Works. D’you know he Sorted Hufflepuff for you, because he knew if he got made a badger your mum and dad’d be too frothing mad to bother hurting you? Do you know how many times we’ve had to try to heal him from Cruciatus damage, because that shit leaves little fractures all through his bones and he’s bloody terrified of going to the infirmary? Do you know your parents fucking well starved him most summers, because he’d been “Sorted wrong?” Do you know he left that house, but only after you pulled a runner, because he was so hell-bent on making sure you were safe? Do you know they stuffed him in a portrait frame for a month, the summer after third year, because he’d started saying he didn’t believe their precious blood supremacy bullshit? Do you know he hid that from you, because he was completely certain that if you knew, you’d never leave that hellhole?” He shakes his head, disgusted with the gormless fish-face look Sirius has on. Of course, now that Martin’s spelled it out for the thick twit, now he cares, when he couldn’t give a shit before, not when Reg needed him. “You just. You fucking- If you ever hex him again, or even say anything nasty about him, I’ll beat your stupid head in, understand?”
“That’s. You’re not. That’s all true?” Sirius rasps, eyes wide.
Martin whips his wand out, jabbing it into Sirius’s throat. (He notices, of course, that Sirius doesn’t flinch at sudden movements. He’s never needed to; Reg shouldered that for him when he never should have had to.) “I wouldn’t fucking lie about this, Black,” he snarls, and marches out the door so he doesn’t curse Sirius’s idiot head off.
(Ripples upon ripples, waves at the shore.)
Mattias is… not the best at comforting people. That’s usually Benjy’s job. Matty just beats a hasty retreat, waits for the storm to pass, and offers a joke or some of his mum’s hamentaschen once whoever it is is done fretting. Problem is, he’s the only one here; the other two louts are still in their N.E.W.T. exams. And Reg is bloody well having a full breakdown (hell, he wouldn’t exactly be surprised if he was having a complete psychotic break, given his family’s shit record with mental health) in the Charms corridor. So Matty herds his panicking friend into the nearest bathroom and glares daggers at a passel of Ravenclaws swapping various mind-altering substances (those idiots were clearly Sorted wrong) until they leave. Then he hugs said panicking friend tightly, humming a snatch of an old Yiddish song until Reg remembers how to fucking breathe. And he offers a rugelach, just so everything is in its proper order again.
(The lake now has its own tide.)
Lysander Francis Bones dies on a sunny Tuesday, and Narcissa Althaia Bones’s first son is named Lysander in his honour. Amelia takes custody of Lyse’s baby girl with the ferocity of badgers. Sirius Black is named traitor, and only four once-Blacks (and their various spouses) know the truth of it: that Peter Pettigrew was the true Secret Keeper, the real traitor that night, but no one, not even Remus Lupin, believes them. Regulus very nearly punches Dumbledore in the face for daring to suggest that Sirius’s godson be raised by Lily’s horrid sister. He raises his godnephew, becomes a father to tiny Andromeda Narcissa Fenwick (both cousins cry when they hear the name, though Bella staunchly refuses for any child to be named after her), visits Bella, Alice, Frank, and their little Nev, petitions the Wizengamot for Sirius to have a trial, marries Benjy (he threw up all over Martin’s shoes from sheer nerves), and becomes a Potions Professor almost by accident when Cousin Nymphie writes home about how awful Professor Snape is. Harry is Sorted into Slytherin, and Regulus couldn’t be prouder. Ronald Weasley is also Sorted Slytherin, and he makes sure to check up on the lad as often as he can. He knows all about going against tradition, after all. (He also thinks it’s a little funny: Nev is in Gryffindor, Harry in Slytherin, Lyse the second, Susan, and Nymphie are all Hufflepuffs, and Cissa’s second son Leonis Draco is a Ravenclaw, so between the lot of them they’ve got Black-raised kids in every House.) Remus Lupin becomes the Defence Professor in Harry’s third year, which is slightly awkward for Regulus, but not too bad, all things considered. And then Sirius breaks out of Azkaban, the overachieving bastard. And then Lupin decides he wants vengeance and completely loses his common sense. Good thing Regulus went after the idiot and shoved a potion in his hands, because like hell was he leaving his kid to deal with his possibly-insane older brother and an unmedicated werewolf without any rational adults present. Peter Pettigrew is captured and brought to trial, and all four once-Blacks are ridiculously smug about it. Remus Lupin manages to stay the Defence Professor, beating the notorious curse on the position by virtue of already being cursed, to the great relief of 98% of the student body. Sirius happily becomes the doting uncle to a veritable horde of children (“Holy fuck all of you had a lot of bloody babies, what, did you deal with the stress by fucking like rabbits?” “SIRIUS ORION BLACK!”), and Martin bullies him into going to fucking therapy, Black, you sorely need it. Regulus makes good on a bet he once made with James Potter, and his son is named James Sirius Fenwick. Sirius calls the baby “Tiny Prongs”.
Bella assists Regulus in hunting down a madman’s Horcruxes, and there is never a second Wizarding War at all. For want of a nail, he thinks, watching as the last Horcrux dies, and he laughs. “For want of a nail,” indeed. All this, because eleven-year-old Regulus Black looked at his brother and thought, no more. All this, because Regulus Black learned where to direct his loyalty, and chose a path no one expected, not even himself, and changed the fate of his entire family when he did.
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again. -Richard Siken, Crush