Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’s in Herbology when he feels it first. A cough, scratching at his chest, trying to claw its way out into his throat. He draws in a breath sharply, and this time something crackles in his lungs.

At first, Regulus chalks it up to the pollen of the plants around him. But now that he’s acutely aware of his senses, he recognises the strange taste soured at the back of his mouth, the lightheadedness that had kept him unsteady on his feet since breakfast, the unusual trembling of his fingers.

He considers the offending limbs now, frowning down at where his wrists emerge out of thick gloves. They’re thin, the skin stretched over bone. A product of too little rest, no doubt. He has always been prone to sickness - first a mild bout of Dragonpox as an infant that left him with a well-Glamoured knot of scars embellishing his right collarbone, then a bout of some Muggle illness when he was nine.

Ever since arriving at Hogwarts, however, Regulus hasn’t gotten sick once. Maybe it’s the air out in the Scottish highlands, maybe it’s the kind of magic he’s surrounded by (not cloying, not heavy), maybe it’s that his only contact with Grimmauld most of the year is the weekly Walburga-sanctioned letter to his parents.

The flower in front of him sweetly blooms its green petals at his attention, and he redirects his focus to potting it. The soil he turns over is dark and stiff with frost.

He refuses to think too much of it either way, swallowing down the cough that peeks through his teeth.

Barty not-so-kindly reminds him of his predicament in Transfiguration.

“You look terrible,” he observes suspiciously. They’re animating objects again, because half the class complained last time that it was too hard. Barty, of course, had mastered it on the second try.

He shrugs and smiles guilelessly at Regulus’s glare.

“Thank you,” Regulus says drily. “And good afternoon to you as well.” He spells Evan’s open textbook again - well, he tries to, anyway - and it only gives a wriggle of its pages before falling back into lifelessness.

“Wow,” Pandora says, “I’ve never seen you fail a spell after more than five attempts.” She’s got her own feather quill struggling uselessly in an iron grip, and she swats it lightly in chastisement.

Regulus gives up, tipping his head onto the desk. The sunwarmed wood sends little aches reverberating through his skull, barring from him even the small mercy of a nap.

“Look, I think you should really get yourself to Madame Pomfrey.” Barty’s voice is suddenly extremely close to his ear, and his fingers are firm as he prods and pokes at Regulus’s half hidden face. He barely musters the energy to halfheartedly bat Barty away.

“I’m fine.” And he means it. The aching dulls to a bearable throb when he closes his eyes.

—

Regulus isn’t one for dramatics, but the only thought that has any clarity at the moment is that this must be what dying feels like. He can’t remember the last time he felt so terrible. Certainly not recently-

Shoulders hunched beneath the quilt, fist in his mouth to strangle the sick, gasping sounds that try to escape. The world is blurred around him, cold and numb if not for the taste of salt. Salt, salt, salt, Regulus can’t breathe.

Well. Certainly not recently.

He’s fairly sure that his face is swollen beyond recognisable proportions, raw and hot from all the tears that keep welling up of their own accord and that which he scrubs away, harshly, without mercy.

Yet the rest of his body lies locked in ice. Such a strange, abasing thing, to be sick. To lose all direction of himself, the world around him. He can’t breathe through his nose, which means he must draw breath through his lungs. It’s only that his throat feels like it’s crammed full of thistles.

He’s been lying here, huddled beneath blankets for at least several hours, though the exact number is lost to him. Time dawdles in the dark. Even the slightest movement seems like it cracks his skull apart, nevermind what a Lumos would do - he tries to suppress the shudder that comes just thinking about it, but the sharp ache that comes from the movement delivers itself anyway.

He knows that he should drag himself out of bed, walk to the hospital wing and ask for some potion to fix his sorry state, but that amount of effort seems colossal. Even moving a finger requires indiscriminate focus.

So he languishes, slipping in and out of sleep. It’s quiet murmurs outside his sealed curtains that he wakes to an indeterminate amount of time later.

He strains to catch the words spoken, which is the only thing his sensitive senses are useful for now. Must be Barty or Evan. Barty and Evan, more likely.

He’s proved right when he hears, in Barty’s voice:

“-skipped lunch.”

“Well, don’t disturb him then-”

“Unnatural of-”

Evan lifts his voice, and Regulus winces. “The last time we woke him up he nearly hexed my bones into some random goddamn muggle’s wine cellar!”

Barty sounds bored. “No he didn’t. It was just a weak summoning charm for your bones. Don’t be so gullible, Evan.”

“I’ll show you gullible, you stupid-”

Please don’t start making out, he thinks. And says it out loud for good measure. His voice comes out more as a croak, anyway.

They’re quiet. Regulus can almost hear Evan’s teeth grinding together. But then he says, gratingly gently, “Regulus?”

He takes a fortifying breath. “What time is it?” He should probably have stopped there. “Is it morning?”

Evan says in a voice that makes Regulus think he’s trying not to piss him off, “It’s 7. At night.”

Barty adds unhelpfully, “The sky’s dark.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and scrambles for an excuse. “I stayed up late studying.” His mind does not cooperate with him. It sounds feeble even to his own ears.

“Studying what? For our nonexistent tests?”

Oh Evan. Forgetful as ever. “We have Charms homework, which apparently slipped both of your minds, so I suggest you start on that.”

“I’ll bet my scapula that you haven’t done it either,” Evan challenges. If Regulus could see him now, he would probably have the corner of his mouth pinched and his eyebrows drawn together.

“Evan, nobody wants your scapula.” Barty sounds unconvinced, but he continues tiredly, “Do you want us to bring dinner?”

It’s hard to admit that he feels touched. “That’s not necessary.”

“Not necessary,” Evan mocks, but they leave. Regulus lies there and listens to the sound of their footsteps fading and the lock clicking shut. He can’t feel his lower body anymore.

He’s been sick before, however long ago it had been, and he’d always recovered. This time will be no different.

—

The next time he wakes up, bright sunlight crashes against his curtains like an avalanche.

He’s still clinging to the remnants of his dream, which had been vacant of the nightmares which had relentlessly hounded him for months. Instead, there had been trees, and a golden warmth without agonising light. Regulus woke up unreasonably irritated that it had ended.

Breathing out carefully, he runs his tongue over his lips and winces at the metallic taste. They’re cracked like a drought. His stomach gives a sudden jolt, and Regulus knows in seconds that he’s going to be sick.

Forcing through it blindly, he fumbles for his wand and stumbles out of bed. The floor beneath his feet is blisteringly cold to his fevered skin, and then he’s tripping over himself, the world swimming before him, to find the bathroom.

He clamps a shaky hand over his mouth and stumbles into a stall, managing only just to blindly lock the door behind him before he’s on his knees gagging.

Fresh nausea crashes over him, and he dry heaves again. When it’s clear that his stomach can turn out nothing more than blood-tinged acid, he sits back, wipes his mouth and dries his eyes. The tiles in front of him are blurred. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and breathes raggedly for a minute.

Standing up is a whole feat in itself. For a moment the whole world tilts on its axis. He closes his eyes against the dizziness and gropes his way out of the stall, ending up leaning heavily against the sink.

The intricately carved designs on the tap make his eyes hurt. When he looks up at the mirror, it steals the remaining breath away from his lungs, because the person looking back at him can hardly be Regulus Black.

Regulus Black does not have bruises underneath his eyes. He does not have flat hair and a waxy complexion because if there’s anything still linking him to his treacherous, lying, half-wit brother, it is both of their vanities.

The very thought itself is nausea inducing. He spits into the sink and cradles his head in his hands.

He really fucking hates being sick.

Regulus does, eventually, manage to pick himself up and inch back to the dormitories. His wand is stuck in his back pocket from where he’d mindlessly shoved it earlier and he grimaces, casting a Tempus.

It's 6am, and he’s tired enough that the thought of sleeping away the day is far more enticing than it should be. But it would invite suspicion, and murmurs, which would eventually find its way back to-

Such short-lived reliefs aren’t enough to convince him. His friends would notice. His House would notice. And maybe his…

He snaps his wand and the charm dissipates. Regulus entertains the idea that he’s possibly losing his mind.

The rest of his roommates are either already up or still sleeping when he finally starts to tug on his robes and cinch his tie around his neck. He pulls. The fabric tightens, heavy around his neck.

His collarbone tingles and he hesitantly grazes his fingers over the uneven skin. The Glamour, applied so deftly by Walburga’s wand, was beginning to wear off. He did not know the spell to fix it back in place.

Swallowing, he shifts his tie sideways, tugging it so that it covers his collarbone. He could look for a book on Glamours in the library. He could write to his mother and ask her for the spell (a decidedly terrifying prospect). Or he could leave it there.

Regulus looks down at his sleeves, where he hasn’t buttoned the cuffs yet. He rolls the fabric up. More and more pale skin appears, unmarked and uniform.

His head is beginning to feel light. He decides to leave the scars there, for now. They’re not too noticeable, either way. He doubts people look at him long enough to observe the change.

Drawing in a grounding breath, he shoulders his bag and slips out of the dormitories. The world is beginning to swirl again, and he reaches for the walls for support.

The Great Hall is so loud. Everywhere around him, people are talking, laughing, eating. Scraping their forks and knives on their plates. Clattering goblets. A plate falls and smashes on the floor below. Shrieks following, before fading into the crest of voices.

He doesn’t know quite how he manages it, but he somehow ends up at the Slytherin table. He sees Pandora first, her fluffy white blonde hair done up artfully in butterfly clips.

She turns around in her seat, sensing his presence behind her. There’s a smudge of red strawberry jam on the corner of her mouth. She smiles at him, encompassing all things bright and beautiful.

“Hi, darling,” she greets. “I hope you’re feeling better. You didn’t look too sunny yesterday.”

Regulus blinks and clears his throat, flicking his eyes to the not-so-subtly watching Slytherins on either side of Pandora. At his glance, they quickly slide down the bench, making a space for him to sit. “I’m fine, thank you.”

She snorts ungracefully. “Fine. A meaningless word, coming from you. I couldn’t visit you in your dorm, but I assume Evan and Barty took care of that matter.”

Her eyes are very blue, almost lambent. Regulus schools his features into an expression he knows will not dissuade her. “They did,” he replies slowly, neglecting to mention how he’d all but dismissed them immediately. “Have they eaten already?”

Pandora nods. “They went to the library for some revision.”

Regulus can’t help but raise his eyebrows. “Barty, too?”

The corner of her mouth twitches up into a smirk. “You’re not to tell anyone, but I believe they had matters other than studying on their minds.”

He blinks. “Oh.”

Pandora licks some jam off her finger, settling back in her seat. “Eat some breakfast. We have Potions first and I don’t like the thought of you keeling over in the middle.”

Regulus frowns. He has little to no appetite; the mere thought of breakfast makes his stomach churn. “That’s not going to happen.”

Pandora shrugs a shoulder and pushes a plate of eggs at him. They’re sunny-side up, just the way she knows he likes them. When he reluctantly pulls it towards him, the pale yellow yolk quivers, and bile rises into his mouth.

He withdraws hastily. “I don’t think I’ll eat this today.”

Pandora glances at him, concerned. “You always eat sunny-side up eggs.”

Regulus attempts a smile. It might have come off more as a grimace, from the way Pandora frowns. “I’m just branching out,” he lies, and from his friend’s expression, it’s obvious, because Regulus Black does not do branching out, whether into food or otherwise.

All of his current friends, save for Pandora, have known him since early childhood, ever since they had been deemed old enough to attend society galas with each other, coaxed into stiff gaudy robes they had no business wearing at six years old.

Regulus knows that he wouldn’t have chosen to be friends with Barty and Evan, if given the decision. He has warmed up to them now, unlike with the likes of Mulciber and Avery, or Merlin forbid, the Malfoys.

Lucius, fortunately, was too old at that time for his parents to force them to become acquaintances. Cousin Narcissa, however - well, there’s no age too young to trade children away in a marriage contract.

Regulus looks down the table. There are piles of toast, bowls of porridge, rashers of bacon, and baked beans. He himself has never had a taste for any of these. Normally, for breakfast he eats a piece of toast and an egg, maybe two if he’s certain he won’t throw them up in Quidditch training.

Right now, the urge to empty his guts onto the pristine oak of the Slytherin table is visceral.

He could just drink some water to quell the queasiness. But then Pandora would be absolutely certain of his sickness, and she would drag him off to the Infirmary by the ear.

Quite literally.

“I forgot to grab my Charms essay,” he tells Pandora, a little faintly. “I’ll be right back.”

He’s lying through his teeth. He won’t be back until their first class - Charms, and the essay is tucked snug at his hip. The cool darkness of the dungeons closes in on him again, stealing the sunshine from the halls, and he breathes a sigh of relief as the headache recedes along with the natural light.

He enters the Common Room, the space washed with swaying green light. There’s a fire lit somewhere, the tell-tale crackling punctuating the silence. He slips into a shower stall, and runs the water as hot as possible.

He scrubs himself with soap, trying to scour the pastiness from his skin. Every inch of his body aches, and the pounding in his head is striking a fever pitch. The soap skids roughly over his collarbones and he watches in dismay as the Dragonpox scars pinken, raising the skin.

Halfway through, he starts to feel dizzy. Drawing in a quick, sharp breath, he slams off the water and steps hastily out back into the bathroom. The sudden change makes his head swim and he grips onto the counter for balance, just barely managing to secure a towel around himself.

When he looks into the mirror, the slight fogginess of the glass hides most imperfections in his face, but it’s second nature to pick out those tiny details that don’t sit well.

He zeroes in on the slight gauntness, the puffiness under his eyes, the greyish tinge to his skin that the flush of hot water still hasn’t erased. His hair, at least, is clean, but everything is messy.

Regulus Black doesn’t do branching out, and he most certainly doesn’t do messy either.

He casts a Tempus. Six minutes until class starts. Hastily, he dresses and weaves through the flood of students all rushing to their respective classrooms, doing his best to look for all the world that he’s perfectly fine.

Evan and Barty are there already, waiting outside the Charms classroom. Barty gives him a meaningful look as he slips into line next to them.

“You still look terrible,” he says bluntly. Evan casts his eyes to the ceiling.

“I told you I didn’t get enough sleep,” Regulus says easily. “I hope you finished your essay.”

He fails at subtlety, judging by the glance Evan and Barty give each other. After a moment, Barty’s shoulders slump ever so slightly and he nods.

He says “Good,” lamely, partly because Pandora’s looking at him with that shrewd, searching look that promises further follow up, and also because he feels a tell-tale tickle in the back of his throat and his vision is beginning to tilt sideways again.

“Hey,” Barty says, immediately grabbing onto his shoulder. “Hey, are you sure you’re alright?”

The nausea rams back at him like a steam engine. He breathes in shallowly, trying to block out all the light and noise happening around him.

“I think,” he says lowly, “I should go.” Because if there’s anything more disgraceful than resorting to the hospital wing, it’s certainly passing out in the middle of a busy hallway.

“Regulus, you’re white as a sheet,” Pandora says urgently, and begins pushing him down the corridor. He lets her do so, feeling a little detached from his body. Evan makes a sound of alarm behind them.

It’s to her gentle, cold hand on the curve of his spine that Regulus pitches forward into darkness.

Chapter Text

Predictably, he wakes up in the Hospital Wing.

There’s a bad taste in his mouth, and a sharp pain stabs in his head. He blinks slowly, cataloguing his limbs the way he does after a bad Quidditch crash. Feet, legs, arms, fingers. He doesn’t get far before the monitoring charm on him flashes gold and Madame Pomfrey appears in the doorway, flicking her wand to dispel the charm.

“Mr. Black,” she greets. “How are you feeling? Any pain?”

Regulus goes to nod, but there’s a dull twinge in his neck and he pauses, grimacing.

“Neck and head,” he says hoarsely, his mouth feeling like it’s been stuffed full of cotton wool. Madame Pomfrey notices and passes him a glass of water, which he takes gratefully. His arms, at least, seem to bear no injury.

“You hit your head quite hard on the wall, I heard.” She tuts. “Attending classes while sick like that, it’s no wonder that you collapsed. Children these days…”

Collapse. Hardly a word he would have liked used, but then again he doesn’t quite remember what had happened. Perhaps he’d hit his head on the way to the floor; small mercies, after all.

He spares a moment to ponder his mother’s reaction. She would have received an owl by now from the school. Disgust, then fury, then a knife-edged calm that allows her to sit down and write a letter.

Do not bring us shame, her last had read. Hidden, within the words, had been a secret message. Do not become your brother. We will not be so lenient on our spare.

Regulus thinks of a bloodied parquet floor, a dark silhouette emerging from the hallway, something vaguely human-shaped and animal-minded contorting at the shadow’s feet.

Lenient, he decides, is worse of a word than collapse, and promptly launches into a long coughing fit. When it finally subsides, he sinks boneless back into the pillows and lets Madame Pomfrey pour potions into his mouth.

“The muggles call it pneumonia, this sickness,” she informs him. He cranes his neck, searching for a Pepper-Up Potion on her trolley, but finds none. “Characterised by coughs, a fever, shaking chills, shallow breathing, chest pain, loss of appetite and vomiting.” A shrewd look. “I assume you have experienced all these symptoms?”

He nods as best as he can while propped against the pillows. A Muggle illness had brought him to such a state.

His collarbone twinges.

“For how long?”

“Since this morning,” he lies easily.

Madame Pomfrey purses her lips, looking like she doesn’t quite believe him. “Pneumonia can be deadly,” she chastises. “Especially to wizarding children. Of course I can fix you up in no time, but I’d prefer to let Muggle illnesses run their course. It builds a natural immunity.”

Regulus doesn’t need a natural immunity. The matron turns around to leave but he reaches out and grabs her sleeve, doing his best to look wide-eyed and pleading when she looks back, slightly startled, at him.

“Madame Pomfrey, I have upcoming tests. Couldn’t you-”

“Rest,” Madame Pomfrey dictates firmly, shaking her head. “Lots of rest, and potions to soothe your symptoms otherwise. You’ll be back to normal in no time.”

She leaves, and Regulus dutifully drinks through the remaining potions one by one before finally slumping beneath the covers.

Evan shows up first, for once without Barty at his side. Madame Pomfrey makes him swear to be quiet before she finally allows him in. An honest surprise, really.

“Pandora had to physically restrain Barty from hammering at the Hospital Wing doors,” he tells Regulus, making himself comfortable at the end of the hospital bed. The corner of his mouth quirks fondly.

“He never passes up an opportunity to try and make a fool of himself,” Regulus says dryly. A memory floats by idly. Of hands landing heavily on his shoulders, a stark juxtaposition to Pandora’s light, steady touch, and Evan- Evan’s? voice yelling.

“Not this time,” Evan admits, looking sheepish. “If anything, I made a fool of myself. Landed myself with a detention for ‘unruly behaviour in the halls’. But there were far too many people wanting to know what was going on, and I know you wouldn’t like that, so I just…”

“Raised your voice?” Regulus offered.

Evan winces. “I pointed my wand at a lot of people. Happy?”

He hummed. “Not particularly.”

“Of course. Predictable as ever.” Evan takes the chance to ruffle his hair before Regulus can snap at him. “What are you sick with anyway?”

Regulus considers telling him he’s just tired, but Evan had already seen his state, so there was no point in it. “Some muggle illness. Not too serious.” A thought occurs to him. “Did many people see it?”

“What? Oh, not really. Barty and Pandora whisked you away quickly.”

He makes a mental note to thank them quietly later.

“It was very unprecedented,” Evan says haltingly, watching him carefully.

Regulus shrugs, too tired to look into whatever secret message Evan’s hidden into that sentence. “Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?” He considers his schedule. He’s going to miss Quidditch training for at least a few days, if Madame Pomfrey’s prognosis is to be believed. “Vanity’s going to murder me in cold blood.”

“She wouldn’t,” Evan retorts obligingly. “Your mother would have Vanity’s head on a pike by the end of the day.”

He suppresses a shudder, remembering the beheaded House Elves decorating their halls. He hated them. Kreacher had always hated them more, no matter what he outwardly said. “She’s a good captain.”

Evan grins immediately and teases, “Better than James Potter?”

Regulus rolls his eyes at the familiar quip, leaning back with a wrinkle of his nose. “Who, again?”

“Your estranged brother’s best friend?”

“I will hex you.”

The threat lands somewhere far off in the corner. “Can’t, Pandora has your wand.”

“I’ll crawl out of this bed into the dormitories if I have to.”

He can see Evan weighing the probabilities. “You wouldn’t risk your pride,” he finally decides.

Regulus glares at him. “Don’t tell me what I wouldn’t do.”

“Oh, you’re like an angry cat when you’re mad,” Evan says fondly, reaching out again to pat his head. Regulus snatches it away. What was it with his friends and their apparent inability to keep their hands away from his hair? “And you’re disgustingly sick. Go to sleep, Reg. Barty will drop by later. So will Pandora, probably.”

He gets up and waves as he leaves. Madame Pomfrey appears again not long after, wheeling her trolley crammed with potions.

“He hasn’t been tiring you out, has he?” she asks severely, Levitating a couple of bottles over to him. He recognises a Calming Draught and a Dreamless Sleep potion and uncorks them first, the taste of bitter vanilla flooding his mouth.

“No,” he replies, waiting for the weariness to crash over him like a wave.

Madame Pomfrey looks unconvinced, but he supposes that she never really trusts any student’s word. Definitely not his.

“Go to sleep, dear,” she says eventually, coming around the bed to fix the rumpled duvet. The cloth scratches at his skin, but he’s suddenly too sleepy to deal with it. Or to try to, anyway.

He doesn’t really understand why she’s being so gentle, so maternal with him. Likely it’s just the disposition from becoming a Healer.

Still, his name precedes himself. The screaming fights with Sirius in the hallways, his reputation, his family’s reputation. Everything that earns him a touch of apprehension in every teacher’s words, even if their actions are neutral. Always so neutral.

It’s just his due, coming into Hogwarts hardly a year after his cousins had already graduated. They had burnt themselves into the flesh of the school. So had Sirius, only a year above.

Regulus wonders when the stone will finally rot away from beneath him.

His next visitor isn’t Barty.

He’s shaken awake, ripped away from a sleep mercifully free of dreams, and Regulus might be feeling slightly homicidal towards his waker.

“Who,” he mumbles groggily to the looming shape by his bed. He would have been more eloquent had his tongue not been plied with Dreamless Sleep and Calming Droughts. He would’ve probably pointed his wand at them too, if he had it.

As it were, he instinctively reaches out-

“Sirius?”

He forgets to be contemptuous. Instead, he jerks away as if the looming shape burns him.

Sirius is quiet, probably a product of sneaking into the Hospital Wing at some ungodly hour in the night, but he looks taller, healthier, brighter in a way Regulus hasn’t seen on him before. Even with his features muted by darkness, he’s larger than life. Compared to Regulus’s own sickness-induced sallowness, he feels somehow pale and insubstantial, like he’d been stitched together from air and gas and dust instead of flesh.

“Reggie,” his brother says gently, and something akin to rage floods him.

“Don’t call me that,” he says, softly venomous. “You lost your right-”

Realising that he’s only digging himself into a hole, he snaps his mouth shut and forcefully yanks the blankets up to his chin, turning onto his side and ignoring Sirius. “Go away.”

Sirius is silent. It’s so unlike him that Regulus starts to second guess just who the intruder by his bedside is.

“I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay,” his brother whispers. “I heard it from - actually, it doesn’t matter.

His heart sank. “What? No, I walked away first.”

He can feel Sirius’s frustration. “No you didn’t. You fucking keeled over five paces away from the Charms classroom” And then, horrified, “Have they been doing anything to you?”

He knows what Sirius is talking about. Walburga Black has a creative list of punishments as long as her ancestry.

“Not more than the usual.” And just because he’s spiteful and too petty for his own good, he adds, “More, though, now that you’re gone, of course.”

Sirius exhales forcefully. “I’m sorry, Reg.”

Regulus, he wants to correct, but he’s scared that if he does he might start crying and never stop. Just crying forever, weeping out all the water in his body until he’s nothing more than a dried up husk.

Sirius doesn’t say anything. In the end it’s Regulus who breaks the silence.

“I’ve apparently contracted an illness called pneumonia.”

Sirius frowns. “You haven’t gotten sick in what, six years?”

“Seven, actually.”

His brother furrows his brows in thought. “Pneumonia…it’s not magical, is it?”

He nods slowly. He expects a multitude of reactions. For placid acceptance, for disgust, for Sirius to leave for fear of contracting it too.

But what he doesn’t expect is for Sirius to cross the centimetres between them and fold him into a hug that he hasn’t given Regulus since the first time he left him.

“You haven’t been sick in so long,” Sirius breathes, voice raspy and thick, a little like the smoke from those cigarettes he adores, and Regulus tries to squirm away indignantly to no avail. “Oh, Reggie.”

“It’s Regulus, to you,” he clips out without thinking. Sirius’s face shutters.

“I- right. I’ll get going, then.”

Wait, he wants to say. But his mouth won’t open, and Sirius slips away. Maybe it’s his brother that’s the one that’s made out of air and gas and dust, because Regulus can never seem to hold onto him for long.

He sleeps, again, more fitfully than before. He wakes up early the next morning feeling slightly under the weather, but it’s a vast improvement from the previous morning. At least his face is dry, and he’s not racing to the bathroom to throw up.

Madame Pomfrey bustles in with a tray of potions ready to go. Regulus tries to convince her that he’s feeling much better, that he’s just about ready to attend classes again.

Madame Pomfrey clicks her tongue at him, but it’s good enough for her to let him go with a stern reminder to ‘drink plenty of water and rest’, or she’ll drag him back in if she has to.

“Your friend dropped off your wand early this morning.” She passes him the wand, and Regulus takes it back reverently. The last thing she gives him is a note of excuse.

Regulus smiles, nods, and burns the note as soon as he’s rounded the corner out of sight.

His return to classes is without much fanfare, although he does catch some considering looks from his classmates. He draws his shoulders back and takes notes diligently as usual.

Returning to normal, or as normal as he can pretend to be, means returning to his old schedule. Which means Quidditch training.

In hindsight, flying competitively on a broom while suffering the lasting symptoms of pneumonia was probably not on the list of Regulus’s best decisions.

But after all, it’s only one more to a list as long as his own ancestry.

The Ravenclaw versus Slytherin Quidditch match dawns on a cold, rainy, and thoroughly miserable day.

Regulus can tell from the moment he wakes up that he’s not in the right shape for battling through the tumbling rain, searching for a flash of gold Snitch. His nose is blocked again, his head feels thick and woozy, and his symptoms have returned back full force.

He dresses slowly and fishes in his bedside drawer for more of the potions Madame Pomfrey had given him, and it makes him feel well enough to eat a couple bites of breakfast at Evan’s urging. But the moment he steps into the changing room, a wave of nausea assaults him and he thinks sharply that he’s going to be sick. Again.

“Alright, Black?” Emma Vanity asks him, breezing by as he exits the changing rooms. “You look a tad bit queasy.”

“I’m fine,” he replies, forcing a smile.

Vanity stops and observes him coolly. He feels dissected by her cutting gaze, as if she can see through every pounding headache, every sore muscle, every stab of pain.

“If you say so,” she says warily, shouldering her broomstick. “Don’t faint on us. Team meeting on the pitch in two minutes.”

It’s raining so hard that he can barely see by the time they assemble, the world washed in white. Despite the downpour, the stands are packed with waterproof charms placed over every inch of the crowd. There are banners and flags and colour-coded clothing, and Regulus feels like he’s going to throw up. Or pass out.

Likely both.

“Remember,” Vanity instructs loudly, looking coolly composed and for all the world like she’s not standing in the middle of pouring rain, “Black here can outfly their Seeker any day. It’s the Chasers you’ve got to look out for.” She steps back and gives them a tight smile. “Don’t let our 5am training sessions go to waste.”

It’s as good of an encouragement that they’ll ever get from her. Regulus takes a grounding breath and steps forward, swinging onto his broom.

He’ll win them the game if it kills him, something that’s looking more and more likely by the minute.

The Ravenclaw team assembles, flashes of bronze following their every move. The referee strides onto the pitch, releases the snitch, and casts a Sonorous.

Regulus counts, eyes tracking the snitch until he can’t see it anymore for the grey fog. One. Two. Three-

“Brooms up!”, and he’s pushing off into the air, squinting against the lashing rain.

He realises halfway through the match that he’s absolutely soaked. As in, his Quidditch robes have been drenched so thoroughly in rain that they’re starting to weigh him down. The back of his throat is burning. His skin prickles, and he looks down and his wrists are almost translucent from the cold.

Vanity shouts for a time out, and Regulus descends unsteadily onto the mud below. His blood is rushing in his ears, and his fingers are shaking around his hold on his broomstick. His teammates are breathing heavily and trying not to drown when gulping down air.

Their captain gives them all a once-over and tuts. She looks just as soaked as them, but hardly as cold. She’s not even shivering.

“I would’ve looked up a waterproof heating charm for clothes if I knew you’d all start to resemble drowned rats,” she grumbles.

“Excuse you,” Barty grouses, running a hand through the hair plastered over his forehead. But he doesn’t seem to have anything else to complain, and after a few more words from Vanity and a couple hasty drying charms courtesy of Lucinda Talkalot, they’re in the air again, and Regulus’s vision is starting to swim. It’s not because of the rain.

He drifts slowly, peering as best as he can for any glimpse of gold. There are times when his gaze snags on something winking innocuously out of the rain and his heart speeds up, but it turns out to be just a stray bit of metallic paint on a Ravenclaw’s Quidditch robes.

Please, he begs. Just let me find the snitch. Just let me get out of this rain.

By the time the last of his willpower is drained from him, he’s so cold that the thought of warmth seems impossible. A distant memory, unfeasibly far away.

He feels himself slip. Just an inch, nothing that the spectators down below could see. The air floods. He’s choking on chlorine, lungs already swollen with it. He’s too cold to shiver now, the trembling having carved itself bone-deep, slipping itself into the marrow.

There’s a yell behind him, Barty. “Black! Watch out!”

And he closes his eyes, and a sharp, devouring pain flowers on his side. A shocked breath knocks its way out of his lips, and he forgets that he’s in the air, automatically reaching for his side. Something warm and wet slithers over his fingertips.

Darkness dumbs him to an outline as he falls to the ground.

Chapter Text

He sleeps in fits, consciousness slipping over him in sweaty starts, only to be pulled back down by hands that reach and tug and drag until he splits at the seams like a stuffed toy, fluffy innards spilling out in a grotesque show of white.

He dreams of his mother’s face, sculpted in cruelty, her eyes silvered and cold and uncompromising. He dreams of his brother’s embrace, soaked in red like the wound in his side.

He wakes up on the second day, mouth dry as a desert and his eyes more so.

The monitoring charm glows gold, and Madame Pomfrey bustles out not a second later, her mouth drawn into a tight, unflinching line.

“Young man,” she starts, before stopping. She sighs, shaking her head at Regulus wryly. “You make even more trouble for me than your brother.”

Impossible, Regulus thinks, but he doesn’t attempt to say anything. He knows better than that.

“Water?” the matron asks, and when Regulus does his best to nod, she conjures up a glass and levitates it over to him. He picks it up with shaky hands and drinks, water slopping over the side onto the duvet.

It’s almost pathetic, if he cared enough. The whole situation feels a little like deja vu.

Madame Pomfrey disappears to grab some potions for him, and he uses the opportunity to take a quick inventory of his body. There’s an ache in his side, but his memory is fuzzy, swamped with weeds and undergrowth. Where did it come from?

He remembers lashing rain, a thousand deceiving glints of gold. He remembers his mother’s face.

That came after, he thinks, knowing at the very least that much. He pries further.

It was a Quidditch match. Slytherin against Ravenclaw. Vanity asked for a time out.

He remembers the cold, and then he remembers Barty’s warning.

A bludger, he realises. He hadn’t been able to swerve out of the way in time. And with that epiphany comes the uncomfortable thought that maybe he had been fast enough, but the cold…

The matron comes back, her brows knit together worriedly as she levitates the potions over to his side-table.

“You’ll get yourself badly hurt if you continue ignoring your own body’s needs,” she reprimands sharply. “You were unwell again when you played in the match.”

“Not unwell,” Regulus rasps out, wincing at the sound of his voice. “Just- tired. Very tired.”

She purses her lips and frowns down at him. “That’s not going to work on me, Regulus Black. You forget that I’ve been handling your brother and his cohort since their very first year.”

Something ugly bubbles up in his throat. His brother. He remembers Sirius visiting him in the Hospital Wing that one night. He was probably in the stands, watching his Ravenclaw friends play. What must he be thinking, now?

Madame Pomfrey sighs and flicks her wand, Vanishing the empty potion bottles.

“Just stay overnight,” she says with an air of someone driven to the very edge. There’s something vaguely sad, almost pitying in her tone. “And we’ll see.”

Regulus hates being pitied.

She walks away, and Regulus settles back into the soft pillows. He feels the air leave his lungs, feels his skin press into the mattress below.

He sleeps with the resolve of getting out of the Hospital Wing as soon as Madame Pomfrey comes to check in on him the next morning. And he does achieve that - he steadfastly ignores the sympathy in her eyes when she signs a note and passes it to him.

“Your teammate, Emma Vanity visited earlier,” she tells him as he emerges from the bathroom, uniform crisp and looking as put-together as he can manage. “She asked me to tell you that the Quidditch match had been cancelled and postponed indefinitely.”

He feels a sinking feeling in his gut. He would’ve hated if his fall meant they had lost, of course, but to sacrifice all those weeks they had spent training, just to train more without a definitive match date in mind…

He walks out of the Hospital Wing feeling slightly sick to his stomach, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice his brother falling into step beside him until it is too late.

“Sirius,” he hisses, whirling on him sharply. The movement makes him wince, something he’s sure the dark eyes of his brother doesn’t miss. “Why are you here?”

“You’re still not well again,” Sirius accuses in lieu of an answer. Out of the corner of his eye, Regulus notices him discreetly tuck a piece of parchment into his back pocket. He thinks to question it but holds his tongue.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he answers coolly, and begins walking again. Infuriatingly, Sirius meets him step for step, seemingly intent on getting answers.

“Come on, Reg. I’ve known you for sixteen years now. You’re not well, and you hadn’t been well during the match. That’s why you fell.”

“Excellent observations. I don’t know why you’re following me, if you know everything already.”

Sirius grabs his shoulder. His fingers are leaden on his skin. Regulus jerks away.

“Because you’re still sick! I’m not letting you attend lessons like this.”

“Let me? Since when did I ever need you to let me do anything, Sirius?”

“Ever since you decided to fall off a broom in the worst rain so far this year and nearly give me a heart attack!”

Regulus stops and asks, more sincerely than he’s ever spoken before,“Why do you pretend like you care?” His eyes are swimming in tears he refuses to acknowledge, and his heartbeat is pounding in his ears. It’s likely that it comes out as more of a whisper.

Sirius stops in his tracks with him, and he looks at Regulus with something akin to surprise.

“I never stopped caring about you, Reg. I never did stop, and I never will, for as long as I still live. You’re my brother.”

For a few seconds the only sound in the air between them is Regulus’s sharp, harsh breathing.

His brother looks at him sadly, earnestly.

“Skip classes for today,” he asks, but it’s not a question. “I’ll get someone to take the note to your professors. Just let me look after you.” Like old times.

He thinks of the way Sirius would do his best to care for him, even during his bout of Dragonpox when he was barricaded in his room to prevent his family from catching the disease too. He’d wake up shivering in a pool of his own sweat and he'd find fresh clothes at the foot of his bed, Levitated in through an opened window.

A jug of cool water, wobbling and slopping over the sides but managing to situate itself on his bedside table. A bundle of slightly withered yellow wildflowers, picked from the streets around Grimmauld.

“It’s probably contagious,” he says instead, his voice thick, but he feels his resolve weakening by the second.

Sirius shrugs. “I don’t play Quidditch anymore, and I can always ask Lily for her notes.”

It’s a bad plan, half-baked at most. And yet, Regulus has always been weak, has always put too much trust in his brother. He feels the last of his anger splinter and break.

“Fine,” he says, wishing his voice was a little more reluctant. It’s almost worth it, to see the way Sirius smiles, wide and bright and triumphant as he puts a hand on Regulus’s shoulder and leads him gently to Gryffindor Tower.

Almost.

Sirius’s dorm is messy, but that is to be expected considering he shares the space with the rest of his so-called ‘Marauders’. Regulus holds back a scoff as he watches his brother lazily flick his wand, clothes picking themselves off the floor and folding themselves into the drawers.

“Where did you learn that from?” he asks instead. Their mother had never deigned to lift a finger for such a mundane task. Such work fell to their house elves.

Sirius smiles again, affectionate. “Euphemia Potter.”

Of course.

Once the bed is sufficiently stripped of books and crumpled pieces of parchment as well as the stray jumper, Regulus reluctantly steps forward at Sirius’s gesture and stares down at the admittedly soft-looking bedsheets.

“You can’t expect me to sleep in Gryffindor colours,” he says flatly.

Sirius rolls his eyes. “It’s not as if you have much choice. Come on. I want to tuck you in, I’ve missed doing that.”

“I’m not ten anymore, Sirius.”

“That’s hardly too old to be tucked in!”

“Mother would beg to differ,” he mumbles, unenthusiastically kicking off his shoes and clambering into the bed. He breathes in. It smells like home, in a way that 12 Grimmauld never did..

Sirius snorts unattractively. “When have you ever known Mother to tuck anybody in?” He watches Regulus settle himself gingerly into the sheets and then eagerly springs up, hands already moving to wrap the blankets tightly around his brother.

“Stop that,” Regulus bats at his hands. “I’m fine without being tucked in, thank you.”

“I don’t think so.” Sirius just ignores Regulus’s insistence and wraps him up tighter. “Do you remember that one time when you were eight? When-”

“Shut up. That was nine years ago, it hardly counts.”

“One doesn’t change that much in nine years.”

“I hate you.”

Sirius makes loud kissy noises at him, apparently satisfied with his work. “I love you too, Reg.”

“If I weren’t so tired,” Regulus says threateningly, “I would hit you.”

“Go to sleep then,” his brother tells him, unnaturally soft, and if Regulus just- squints and pretends, it’s almost like the old times again. “I’ll give your note to your professors. Just rest, okay?”

Regulus nods, and watches as his brother leaves the room. Something warm, almost content, blossoms in his chest.

Regulus wakes up ensconced not in stiff, sterile hospital sheets, nor in the familiar green duvet of his Slytherin four-poster bed, but something thick and warm that smells of leather and damp earth and a little bit of persimmon, like those awful cakes Sirius likes.

Sirius.

The memories flood in, and Regulus hates how it’s become a cycle - pass out, wake up without remembering anything, and then have the memories swamp him in a cold, undulating mass.

Gingerly, he wriggles upright. His head is beginning to throb again, but he persists and looks around groggily at the unfamiliar dormitory.

He picks up on the red first. Red, red, swathes of crimson and scarlet so bright it pains him to sit in the midst of it all. The gold is more subtle, peeking out as curtain tassels and the lining of the four-poster beds, but it doesn’t hurt any less. There’s harsh sunlight spilling onto the stone floor, so resplendent in its glory that for a fraction of a second Regulus wonders if he’s not still dreaming.

He misses the cool quiet of the Slytherin dormitories. The green and silver there never cast sharp pains in his head. And instead of too-bright sunlight, there was the soft rocking motion of black water outside the windows, gentle and soothing and merciful. For a second, he wonders how Sirius survives up here, waking up to this every day.

And then he remembers, and the sour taste in his mouth thickens.

Frowning, he slides back down on the pillow and buries his face into the bedsheets again, breathing in guiltily. The ache that rushes in makes him feel almost sick to his stomach.

He needs to get his mind off this. He needs to get out of the bed, out of the Gryffindor dorms. He needs to- he needs to-

He needs to get to class.

Lurching forward, he scrambles for the bedside table. The surface is cleared of any objects save for an half-empty bottle of blue ink and a book with a cracked spine and dog-eared pages.

He picks it up, momentarily distracted from his search for his wand.

Jane Eyre.

It must be a Muggle book, he thinks, flipping it over. Despite the condition of the spine and the worn pages, the cover of the book is kept clean, the gold letters of the blurb still shiny.

He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Sirius has always liked reading, something he apparently still does despite popular belief, only that the Black library was choked too full of Dark magic for him to bear. It makes sense that he’d choose a Muggle book, but it still feels like a betrayal, a divide cleaving them in two. Regulus has always read from the family library.

He was five, tracing the Unforgivables on the page. He was seven, struggling to form the shapes of the Blood-Boiling curse. He was eleven, cold and splitting and just a little cruel, linking up the lines of the Imperius in the air.

He turns away, hands smoothing down his robes, which had crumpled when he slept. He cannot go to class without his wand. Maybe Sirius left it on one of his friends’ bedside tables? Probably Potter’s.

Regulus takes a step forward towards the next bed and instinctively flinches when the door swings open.

Sirius steps in, catches sight of him, and immediately curses, dropping everything in his hands and rushing over to him.

“Reggie, you stupid idiot, why are you out of bed? It’s not yet breakfast, and you’re still sick. I knew I should have closed the windows. Was it too bright? Did the light wake you-”

He seems to notice the headache that Regulus is currently sporting, and he shuts up just long enough to manhandle him back into the bed.

“Don’t you dare move,” his brother orders. “I’m going to fetch some breakfast for you, since my previous efforts are on the floor after you nearly gave me cardiac arrest. I’m too young to die, Reg.”

“Aren’t we all,” he says sullenly, staring up at the rich red of the bed’s canopy. “Especially me, since I’ll be getting assassinated soon by my friends for skipping a day of class.”

Sirius frowns at him. “Sounds like you need better friends.”

Regulus very nearly scoffs, even though he has on countless occasions expressed the same sentiment to Evan, Barty and Pandora. And sometimes, Dorcas, but their older friend has nearly vanished after finally getting together with her at long-last girlfriend, Marlene. Regulus can’t blame her, really. They’re not the most pleasant bunch to be around.

Instead, he just makes a considering sound. “I’ll make sure to pass that along to Barty.”

He watches as Sirius’s jaw drops open. “No, Reg, please, he’ll probably climb into my bed tomorrow night and stare at me until I wake up. That boy of yours is creepy.”

“He’s not my boy.” Nauseating to think about, when Barty and Evan have been so clearly and obliviously infatuated with each other for years. “And Barty will be delighted to hear that. He hates you.”

Sirius shudders. “Tell him that the sentiment is returned. Actually, don’t, I repeat the staring-until-I-wake-up idea. ” He spins around again and marches out of the dorm, flicking his wand to clear up the broken dishes on the floor.

Regulus sighs, dropping his head back down onto the pillow. So maybe he won’t be attending classes today. He makes a reminder to expect a social call from his friends sometime in the day.

By the time his brother is back, his headache has nearly dissipated and the sunlight is beginning to feel almost warm, instead of harsh. Sirius places the food down on Regulus’s lap with a flourish, watching him keenly.

“You brought fruit.” And lots of it, too.

“I remembered that you like lighter, sweet things for breakfast. Merlin forbid I bring you eggs or toast when you’re sick. Or has that changed, too?”

The last sentence strikes hollow, and Regulus swallows, busying himself with cataloguing each of the fruits. There are four strawberries, red and sweetly shaped, a banana cut up into slices, a few pieces of delicate pear, a few grapes, and even half of a peach. He tries to hide the hotness in his eyes. “No. It hasn’t.”

He picks up the fork and pushes it into a slice of banana. Sirius watches him silently for a few more seconds, before stepping away. Regulus feels the absence of his brother like an ache.

“I have to get to class,” he says, almost regretfully. “I got Wormtail to forge a note from Madame Pomfrey, so you should just stay here and rest.”

No chance, Regulus thinks. And then he says,

“Who’s Wormtail?”

“Ah.” Sirius looks abashed. “Peter. That’s his nickname.”

Regulus can’t help but give an incredulous scoff. “Wormtail? That’s the best you could come up with?”

“It has a long, deep history,” his brother defends in vain, pouting a little. “I asked them to keep an eye on you throughout the day.”

Regulus jerks his head up so quickly he gets whiplash. “Excuse me?”

Sirius pauses. “What?”

He smiles thinly, although his heart has just dropped to his stomach, and he feels acid curdle in the back of his throat. “Perhaps my ears were mistaken. I think I just heard you say to me that your friends are going to be checking up on me, throughout the day…?”

“You can’t expect me to leave you here alone,” Sirius defends. “While sick! Just wait till you get James. He’s the best at taking care of people.

Oh I bet. He still remembers the state Sirius was in before he left through the fireplace.

Regulus blinks at him in disbelief. “I cannot believe you.”

He turns over in a huff, and moments later, feels the mattress dip as Sirius sits down.

“Hey,” his brother says, so gentle, so incredibly gentle, “What’s up?”

“Have you considered,” Regulus snaps, feeling a little overwhelmed, “That I don’t need someone to check up on me, and that I can take care of myself perfectly fine?”

A hand reaches tentatively to smooth the curls at the nape of his neck.

“Reg,” Sirius says. “I know you can take care of yourself. If I didn’t think you’d get up the moment I left to start writing notes in Charms or to start flying a fucking broom!”

Regulus slumps backwards. “I’m cleverer than that,” he argues.

“You’re the most clever person I know, little brother, but you’re crazy. Absolutely insane. Always ready to mould yourself to everyone’s expectations, no matter how much it hurts you.”

The hotness threatens to spill again, onto his eyelashes and over his cheeks and into the world, where it will flood the room. Regulus is being dragged under.

“I hate you,” he says, but it comes out muffled into the pillow. Sirius sighs, and says in a voice so quiet Regulus thinks he might have imagined it, “Same with you.”

He drowses off into an unsteady sleep, so shallow he keeps grabbing snatches of consciousness in flashes of light, and once, a low murmuring voice - or two.

The second time he wakes up, the sunlight has eased into a soft glow that gilds the bed frame. Regulus stretches, sighing as his muscles unlock. The bed is deliciously warm, and he thinks that he might like to stay there forever.

Then he catches sight of the person sitting in the chair by his bed.

Chapter Text

UPDATE 29.09.26: IT IS FINISHED!! thank you so so much and i love you all for giving me the motivation to wrap this shit up

hi lovelies! good to see you all again (after 2 years...sorry...)

i was persuaded by a commenter some months back to continue this fic, so i began redrafting it since my main other fic (half-dreams) was going pretty well. in that time, i've come to realise that what i've been drafting is so completely different from this that it may well be a whole new fic altogether. i could finish this fic - i'm not a fan of the logistics of tge plot but it's doable - but i want to see how many people would actually read it first haha.

so i'll leave it to you guys! 

the new fic involves sirius taking regulus from grimmauld place when he runs away in his sixth year, both horribly injured. they spend the summer recuperating at the potters'. regulus is still sick and hurt and generally not doing well but james is just too lovely and charming to ignore 😏 it involves lots of healing, sirius and reg, sickfic feels and a teensy bit (a lot) of falling in love. and french. plenty of delirious sickness-induced french.

should i:

1. keep this fic but replace the chapters with the new fic

2. keep this fic and keep writing it to a finish

3. leave this fic and start writing the other one 

or if there's enough demand - perhaps both could be written! and if nobody replies...it defaults to option 3 lmao

love you all, until next time.

-hrtregulus