Chapter Text
Regulus Black died the day he was born.
He came into the world small and silent, his little face reddened with both suffocation and blood. Before his mother could hold him he was promptly rushed away by a handful of healers, while a handful more hurried to tend to his mother, who was herself bleeding profusely and paling rapidly.
In ironic opposition to what was to come, Walburga’s pregnancy with her first born son had gone as smoothly as could be imagined. She had no morning sickness, no dizzy spells, and minimal discomfort. She bragged to all the other wives that she hadn’t even started to show until her third trimester, and even then it was but a slight bump that she could fashionably dress and show off. The birth itself went just as smoothly, with a quick and all but painless labor, and Walburga proudly boasted about this for months to come. Sirius himself was the perfect infant, with no signs of the bold and brazen boy he would become. He hardly cried, was comforted easily, and was perfectly healthy in every way a new mother could wish. Walburga dressed him in the finest little clothes and toted him around everywhere, proud to show off what a perfect, healthy first born son she had borne. She had never had the strongest maternal instincts, but she knew her duty as the wife of Lord Black, and this perfect pregnancy and perfect newborn gave her a false sense of security. So, despite her nature, she agreed sooner rather than later to have another child, a backup heir.
Walburga’s pregnancy with Regulus was the complete opposite in every way.
The sickness was the first sign that she was pregnant. She woke up one morning with nausea swimming in her stomach, and it did not stop for the following nine months. Even when she started to show, much sooner than she had with Sirius, she still lost considerable weight due to her inability to keep anything down. She could not sleep, she could not eat, and she grew weaker by the day. By the second trimester she was bedbound, unable to do much more than get to the restroom by herself before she felt the urge to either faint or vomit.
The birth itself was so much worse. It happened several weeks too early, and the labor lasted for hours upon painful hours. After nearly a full day of bleeding and screaming and pushing she was cut open in an emergency surgery that left scars across her abdomen that Walburga never forgave her son for. Regulus was pulled out of the womb tiny and bloodied, and so, so quiet, and in that moment Walburga was in so much pain and was so desperate for it to all be over that she was not even worried when her newborn son did not make a single cry.
He took his first breath several long, desperate minutes later, away from his mother and surrounded only by the frantic healers who attended to him. They brought air back into his lifeless little body, and with his first breath he screamed. He screamed, and screamed, and he did not stop screaming.
He remained there in the care of the healers for weeks while both mother and son healed from the traumatic pregnancy and birth, and Walburga did not hold her second born son until he was over two months old. In those weeks away her resentment grew, and when she finally held him, it felt like holding a stranger’s child. He screamed and cried the first time she picked him up, and he would not be soothed by anything. She looked at that tiny, sickly, wailing little child, and she felt none of the motherly warmth she felt when she first held Sirius moments after his birth.
***
Regulus was born a premature, sickly infant, and he grew into a scrawny, sickly child.
Sirius, to his mother’s great pride, was a strong and healthy child. Sirius barely caught so much as a cold as an infant, and he passed all his milestones in leaps and bounds. He started walking early, talking early.
Regulus, to his mother’s great dismay, did not follow in his older brother’s footsteps. He had not been sent home from St. Mungo’s until he was several weeks old, and it was only a few weeks after that until he was sent back to the hospital. It was the first time of many. A sickly, premature baby that was all but quarantined to his room for the first few years of his life.
The original plan had been for Sirius and Regulus to share a nursery until the elder was old enough for his own bedroom. Instead, a makeshift nursery was hastily thrown together before Regulus was brought home, and Sirius was forbidden from entering.
This, of course, did not deter Sirius at all.
He was just shy of two and a half when his little brother was first brought home, and all Sirius wanted to do was see his new baby brother. He was excited to be a big brother! But he only got to see the tiny bundle in his mother’s arms from afar, barred from touching and barred from entering the nursery the newborn was hidden away in. In his first displays of rebellion, Sirius attempted many times to sneak into Regulus’s room.
The first time Sirius was hit by his mother was when he was caught sneaking into his baby brother’s nursery.
He had only wanted to look at the new baby, to finally get to properly meet his new little brother. He had his little hands on the bars of the crib, standing on his tip toes as he peered between the bars at the tiny, pale little infant swathed in blankets inside the crib.
Walburga had screeched when she caught him, the back of her palm flying against his cheek with a harsh slap. Sirius burst out in tears, and the sound of his crying set off a chain reaction as Regulus started wailing in his crib beside them, the sounds of confused and frightened sobs ricocheting around the nursery. At last Walburga yelled louder than them both and dragged Sirius out by the arm, locking her crying newborn away alone in his room behind her.
“It’s not safe!” she hissed at Sirius, kneeling down in front of the toddler so that she was closer to his eye level. “Your brother is not healthy like you, you must keep away from him.”
The door to Regulus’s nursery was warded against him shortly after.
That was the mantra Walburga repeated for several years to come. Regulus was sick, and Sirius was healthy, so they must be kept apart. Sirius always assumed his mother meant to keep his brother safe, to protect Regulus from anything Sirius might infect him with. Regulus, once he was old enough to begin to understand what was happening, was not so sure. Often it felt more to him like their mother was protecting Sirius, afraid of whatever ailed her sickly second born contaminating her precious first born.
***
Regulus’s first friends were ghosts.
They weren’t scary ghosts, like the ones Kreacher told him about in cautionary tales disguised as bedtime stories. They were actually very nice, and they kept him company, alone in his quiet room. He didn’t even know they were ghosts until he told Kreacher about them, and the house elf had looked at him with bewilderment.
“They're like you!” Regulus said, about four years old now. “They’re little like you, not tall like mummy and daddy.”
“When does Master Regulus see them?” Kreacher asked him cautiously.
“At night,” Regulus said. “When Kreacher can’t tell me a bedtime story. They come and say goodnight!”
Kreacher had waited up that night, but he couldn’t see the other house elves that appeared at Regulus’s call. Only Regulus could see the shadowy figures. He could see right through them, but despite this he wasn’t frightened by them. They didn’t scare him, even though some of them appeared sickly, some of them bloodied, one of them missing part of his left arm.
“Do not tell Mistress Walburga of this,” Kreacher pleaded. Regulus didn’t know if Kreacher believed him or not, but he nodded all the same.
“I won’t,” he promised. “They’re my secret friends.”
He did, however, tell Sirius about them.
By the time Regulus was five years old his parents stopped warding his room against his brother. Regulus never stopped being a sickly child, but he stopped being so sickly that his parents worried about bimonthly hospital visits. Sirius’s attempts to break into Regulus’s room only increased with age, and Walburga eventually relented. His visits to Regulus were heavily regulated, but they were allowed, to both brother’s delight.
“I’m not lying!” Regulus said, lower lip jutting out in a pout. Sirius looked at him warily, brows raised up high.
“I’m not saying you’re lying,” he said slowly, “But I never had any house elf read me a bedtime story. Other than Kreacher, and he doesn’t even read me bedtime stories anymore.”
“That’s ‘cause they like me better than you,” Regulus said, folding his arms across his chest. Sirius laughed at this, nonplussed.
“Fair enough, little guy,” he said, and he ruffled Regulus’s hair with his hand.
“Stop that!” Regulus whined, and Sirius only laughed harder.
***
Regulus spent almost the entirety of the summer of his fifth year in the hospital ward. He had come down with a respiratory illness that the doctors could not diagnose, and every time he seemed to start getting better, he took another turn for the worse.
He was quarantined up in his little hospital room with only the healers for company. His family was unable or unwilling to visit him for fear of catching whatever illness he had, so he spent the long weeks alone. One of the nurses seemed to have taken pity on him and brought him a weekly assortment of library books, and he spent his days getting lost in the fantasy worlds of the novels.
Some nights he lay awake shivering with fever and gasping for breath. Some nights he woke up drenched in sweat from nightmares of dark shadowy figures and pale hands holding him down under the water. Some nights he woke up certain that his heart had stopped and he was no longer breathing, floating like a ghost over his own body.
One night, the monotony was broken by the sound of soft crying. He sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes blearily and peering around.
“Hello?” he called out, voice raspy from several coughing fits earlier in the day. “Who’s there?”
A soft sob was his response. He sat up straighter.
“Who’s there?” he said. “It’s okay, you won’t get in trouble.”
Slowly, a small figure shuffled into view from around the curtain. It was a little girl about his age, with hair sheared close to her scalp and dark rings around her eyes. A hospital gown identical to the one he wore hung loosely off her shoulders, and she hugged her frail arms around herself tightly.
“Hello,” Regulus said in as friendly a voice as he could. “My name is Regulus Black. Who’re you?”
“Sophie Braxton,” she said quietly, the words punctuated with a sniffle.
“Pleasure to meet you, Sophie,” he said, his own words punctuated with a cough.
“I’m scared,” Sophie said quietly, shuffling a little closer to him. “I want my mummy and daddy, but they’re not here, and I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too,” Regulus admitted quietly. It wasn’t something he had ever said aloud before, but the words came easy in the dark of the room with only another sick child for company. “I haven’t seen my mum and dad for awhile now. They’re scared I’m going to get my brother sick.”
“What kind of sick do you have?”
“I’dunno. The healers can’t figure it out.”
“That’s scary,” Sophie said quietly. “The healers say I’ve got cancer.”
“That sounds scary too.” Regulus frowned as a thought occurred to him. “Is it safe for you to be here? I don’t want you to get sick from me…”
At five years old, Regulus didn’t fully understand the idea of disease and contagion, but he knew enough to know that he was unsafe to touch, unsafe to be close to. He knew that there was something wrong with him that meant others couldn’t get close for fear of him making them sick and making them hurt. It was a cold, lonely knowledge for a child to have, when what he understood the most clearly was that his own family had abandoned him for weeks because he was unsafe for them.
And if he was unsafe for his strong, healthy, grown parents and big brother, then he certainly was unsafe for this sick little girl with her bony limbs and shorn hair.
But Sophie shook her head and just walked closer to him.
“No, it’s okay,” she said. “You won’t give me your sick, I promise.”
“I don’t know…” he said uncertainly, curling back in himself on his bed to try to create space between them.
Tears started to well up in Sophie’s sunken eyes. “Please, Regulus? I’m scared. I don’t wanna be alone. Will you be my friend tonight?”
Despite himself, he felt the hot sting of tears well up in his own eyes.
“Yeah, of course,” he said, voice thick. “I’ll be your friend, Sophie.”
She smiled up at him with a big, watery smile, and climbed into the hospital bed beside him. No one other than Sirius had ever gotten so close to him like that, and it made something in his chest ache.
They spent the night whispering stories to each other, until eventually Regulus drifted off to sleep. For the first time since he had been admitted to the hospital, he slept soundly and peacefully, with no nightmares or coughing fits to disturb him.
Sophie was gone when he woke.
“Excuse me, ma'am?” he called when the first healer of the day came to check on him. “Do you know Sophie Braxton?’
A strange expression crossed the woman’s face, one that little Regulus didn’t know how to interpret.
“You said Sophie Braxton?” she asked. Regulus nodded. “How do you know that name?”
“I… I met her before,” he said, suddenly afraid to tattle on Sophie for visiting his room. “We’re friends.”
The healer’s face softened into pity.
“I’m sorry, dear,” she said gently. “Miss Braxton passed away two nights ago.”
Something cold and heavy settled in the pit of Regulus’s stomach.
“No,” he said quietly. “That’s not true.”
“I’m very sorry about your friend, dear,” she said. “I know it’s hard to believe when someone passes.”
The healer left, and Regulus tried and failed not to cry. That night, he stayed awake all night, staring at the door and waiting for Sophie to come visit. She did not come back that night, nor the next, or any night after that.
Regulus wondered if she had died alone and scared. He wondered if that was how he would die too.
***
Sirius found him outside in the garden huddled under the large oak tree.
They were at their summer house out in the country, by the lake. At six years old, Regulus was finally old enough, and more importantly had finally been healthy for long enough, that his mother allowed him to leave Grimmauld Place and vacation at their family lake home in the south. He had spent almost the entirety of his short life thus far within the confines of the four walls of his room. Most excursions had been to the inside of the walls of St. Mungo, and Regulus was dying to finally be outside, to be somewhere new and fresh and alive.
Now he was crouched on his knees in the dirt outside beneath the tree, hands gently cupped around the limp form of a baby bird.
“What are you doing out here?” Sirius asked. “You know you aren’t supposed to be out here alone.”
Regulus looked up at his brother with watery eyes, tear tracks streaking down his cheeks.
“It’s hurt,” he said, voice wobbling. He gently motioned with his hands to show Sirius the baby bird resting in them. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help it, Siri.”
Sirius frowned and knelt down next to him in the dirt, brows furrowing as he inspected the limp animal in Regulus’s palms.
“It’s just a bird, Reggie,” he said after a moment. “It looks like its wing is broken. It’s mum probably left it here cause it’s gonna die. It happens all the time.”
Fresh tears sprouted from Regulus’s eyes and he shook his head rapidly.
“It can’t die, it’s just a baby.”
“You’re too soft, Reggie. It’s just a bird. It’s nature, it happens.”
“No! That’s not fair.”
Sirius's expression softened as he took in his brother’s desperate, teary face.
“I’m sorry, Reg,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do. It’s too young, it’s gonna die without its mum.”
“Regulus sniffled, staring pitifully at the little bird in his hands. The baby bird weakly turned its head up towards him, as if pleadingly looking toward Regulus for help.
“I can’t just leave it here to die,” Regulus said. “It’s in pain. I don’t want it to suffer.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Sirius said gently.
“Please?”
“Reg…”
“There has to be something. You always know what to do.”
Sirius sighed heavily. “Alright. Go ahead and give it to me. But close your eyes, okay? You’re not gonna want to see this.”
Regulus hesitated for a moment, biting his lip, then nodded and closed his eyes. He felt Sirius gently pry the bird from his hands, and then a moment later heard a soft snap. Regulus sniffled and scrunched his eyes shut harder.
“Okay, it’s over,” Sirius said in the soft voice he used to comfort Regulus from nightmares. “It’s not in pain anymore.”
Regulus opened his eyes to the still form of the little black bird on the ground, its tiny neck snapped. Regulus sniffled again.
“Can we bury it?” he asked, turning his teary eyes to Sirius. “I don’t wanna just leave it here.”
“Yeah, Reg, we can bury it.”
Sirius helped him dig a shallow hole by the base of the tree. Dirt coated their hands and caked itself under their fingernails, but neither boy complained. Once Regulus deemed the hole sufficiently deep, he gently placed the body of the little bird in it, and covered its still form back up until there was nothing but a fresh mound of dirt on the ground.
“Thank you,” Regulus said softly. His tears had stopped falling at some point, and his eyes and face were dry when he finally stood up from the ground.
“Anything for you, Reg,” Sirius said, bumping his shoulder against Regulus’s. “Come on, let's get washed up before mother sees all this dirt.”
***
“I bet there’s merpeople down there,” Sirius said.
“No way, we’d see them,” Regulus said.
“Nu-uh, they’re hiding. You only see them if they want you to.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Wanna bet?”
Regulus was seven years old and they were visiting their summer house again out near the lake. Though, they weren’t actually supposed to be so close to said lake itself. It had been Sirius’s idea to sneak away, and he had dragged his little brother to the edge of the dock that stretched out into the water.
“If you’re so sure there are merpeople, why don’t you go check for yourself?” Regulus said, warily eyeing the water as he folded his arms across his chest. Sirius chuckled.
“What, don’t tell me you’re scared?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh nothing, just that Mr. I’m-not-afraid-of-heights and Mr. I’m-not-scared-of-ghosts is scared of mermaids.”
“I’m not scared of merfolk,” Regulus retorted, glaring at Sirius. “I don’t even believe you about them. There aren’t any here.”
“Then why don’t you prove it?”
“You prove it.”
One moment Regulus was glaring above the water's surface, and the next he was below it. The surface of the lake felt like shattering glass and he hit it, and the cold water was a painful shock to his body. He gasped, but instead of air he inhaled a breath of cold lake water. He started thrashing, flailing around in panic, breathing in more gulps of water as he did. He had never been near a lake before let alone in one, and he certainly had never learned to swim.
The water felt bottomless, and he felt himself sinking down lower and lower into the lake. Slimy hands gripped at his legs, twisting around his ankles and pulling him down deeper into the depths. He screamed a silent scream, the precious air in his lungs vacating itself in the form of bubbles.
His vision darkened, black creeping in on the edges. He was going to die here, he was suddenly certain. The thought terrified him more than he thought it would. He had never feared death before. He already felt half dead, how could he fear what was already part of him? But the idea of drowning, of this lake being his watery grave, was more terrifying than anything else he had ever experienced.
Then, the water parted, though the burning in his lungs and the damp chill in his limbs did not ease. A path cleared from the dock, and a boat lay there at the bottom of the lake. Regulus blinked his blurry eyes, but still the boat remained. It rippled, like the reflection of light upon the water, but it was there.
At the helm of the boat was a dark figure, its face shadowed. Regulus couldn’t see its face through the murky water and his fading vision, but he knew anyway that the figure was looking right at him, seeing him in the way that only Sirius ever did.
His lungs burned and burned, and his eyes got heavier and heavier. He was just so tired, and everything hurt so much. Then burning started to fade, and Regulus let his eyes close, chasing the promised relief of pain.
For a blessed moment, everything was quiet.
Then, all at once, the burning was back. And there was screaming. It came from all around him, and his addled brain couldn’t place who it came from or what it meant.
There was pounding on his chest, heavy, painful thuds that were sure to bruise. Another heavy shove on his chest, and he felt something crack with the force of it. He gasped, choked, then coughed up water. Once it started he suddenly couldn’t stop, and he was on his side heaving up mouthfuls of water. His entire body wracked with the effort, something sharp stabbing into his chest with every seize of his body, and even when he finally stopped heaving he couldn’t stop trembling.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
He could finally recognize part of the screaming. It was Sirius, sounding more desperate that Regulus could ever remember him sounding.
“You could have killed him.” Of course the other source of the screaming was his mother. “What were you thinking? He can’t swim, Sirius! What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Sirius wailed. “I forgot he couldn’t swim! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Regulus tried to say his brother's name, but it came out as another ragged cough. He blearily opened his stinging eyes, blinking them rapidly until the world came into focus.
He was laying on the shore of the lake, his father knelt above him with his hand on his chest. It was almost a gentle gesture, something so foreign from his normally distant father that Regulus almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He wanted to lean into his father’s hand, to greedily soak in what little paternal affection he was able to grasp.
“Regulus?” his father said upon seeing his eyes open. “Can you hear me?”
Regulus nodded, feeling like his brain was rattling around in his skull with the movement. Everything fell quiet for a moment. His father withdrew his hand, and Regulus wanted to cry at the sudden absence left in his wake.
Sirius was at his side in a moment, gazing down at him with a tear streaked face.
“I’m so sorry,” Sirius cried. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. Oh Merlin, are you okay? Please be okay, please, please be okay, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m okay,” Regulus said, but it was undermined by the ragged wet cough that followed the weak words. Sirius let out a sob.
“Get away from him,” his mother said, roughly grabbing Sirius by the arm and dragging him away. “You’ve done enough.”
“But, mum–”
Sirius fell silent as the sharp sound of Walburga’s hand slapping his cheek echoed through the air. Regulus flinched nearly as hard as Sirius did.
“I’m okay, mum,” Regulus rasped, but he too was quickly silenced by her glare.
“Bring him inside, Orion,” she snapped. “We need to get him dried off and warmed up before he gets sick again.”
“I’m really so sorry,” Sirius said quietly. Their mother slapped him again, and he promptly fell silent.
Regulus closed his eyes and let his father carry him up off the shore, his stomach roiling with every step. Behind his eyelids he could still see the shadowy figure on the boat, waiting for him at the bottom of the lake.
***
“There you are,” Sirius said, head popping out of the window and peering up at him. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”
It was the summer before Sirius was going to go to Hogwarts. Sirius was eleven and Regulus still several months away from his tenth birthday, and he had never felt the difference in age between them so starkly as he did now with the ever present deadline of Sirius leaving looming closer and closer.
“Here I am,” Regulus said. He had come out here for peace and quiet, but he couldn’t really be upset that Sirius had found him. At least someone cared enough to even look.
“What are you even doing up here?” Sirius said, peering around warily and he pulled himself out the window and up onto the roof. “It's steep up here.”
Regulus shrugged. “I dunno. I got tired of my room. It’s peaceful up here.”
“You could try leaving your room through the door and not through the window.”
Regulus shrugged again. He didn’t know how to explain to Sirius how he was afraid that the door would be locked if he tried without inviting further questions that Regulus did not want to provide answers to. Worse yet, he didn't know how to explain his growing fear that he might not be able to touch the door even if he tried.
Regulus knew the story of his birth well, his mother never missing a chance to tell him how he nearly killed both her and himself just by being born. She resented him for it and made it clear. But sometimes, late at night while he lay alone with his thoughts in his room, Regulus began to wonder if maybe he really did die that day, and now he was only a ghost haunting this lonely house. He drifted through the halls of Grimmauld Place silently, spending almost all of his time between the four walls of his room. Unlike Sirius, who got all of his parent’s attention, both good and bad, Regulus could go for lengths of time without being spoken to. He tested it, to see how long he could go before he was remembered, and it was always invariably Sirius who found him and spoke to him.
He learned to fade into the background. When he was silent, his mother didn’t reprimand him with sharp slaps and sharper words. A ghost cannot be hit, cannot be hurt.
A ghost cannot touch the locked door of his room.
“I don’t think I like this.” Sirius's voice startled Regulus out of his thoughts, and Regulus looked over and watched as Sirius carefully stepped his way over to where Regulus sat. Sirius’s feet slipped a few times and he let out anxious yelps of panic each time.
“Careful,” Regulus hissed. “It isn’t that hard, you big oaf.”
“It’s steep,” Sirius said. “Aren’t you scared?”
“Not really.”
“How are you not scared?”
“I’m just not,” Regulus said. “Heights don’t scare me.”
He looked over at Sirius. His brother had finally settled beside him, hands firmly pressed against the shingles of the roof with a white-knuckled grip. Sirius looked back at him with a puzzled expression, brows furrowed like he was trying to figure something out.
It was unnerving sometimes, how Sirius looked at him. Regulus was used to people looking right through him, but Sirius looked at him like he could actually see him.
“Nothing seems to scare you,” Sirius said at length. He sounded wary, almost concerned. “And, honestly, sometimes that scares me.”
Regulus frowned, resting his head on his folded knees as he inspected his brother through narrowed eyelids. “What do you mean?”
“What are you really doing up here?” Sirius said in lieu of a direct answer.
“You can’t answer a question with another question, especially one that doesn’t even make sense.”
Sirius snorted. “I can if I want to.”
“Says who?”
“Me, cause I’m the big brother.”
“You can’t always use that argument.”
“I can if I want to.”
“Sirius,” Regulus groaned, and gave his brother a light shove on his shoulder.
“Hey, watch it!” Sirius swatted his hand away and tightly pressed his hands against the roof again to steady himself. “Not up here!”
“It’s really not that scary. We’re not even that high up,” Regulus said, leaning forward to peer over the edge of the roof down towards the ground about three stories below. He had been staring down there before Sirius had shown up, and once he looked back down he couldn’t tear his eyes away again.
“I don’t like you up here,” Sirius said, voice suddenly serious. “I don’t want you coming up here alone.”
“I’m not going to fall, Sirius. The roof isn’t that steep.”
“Maybe not accidentally.”
Regulus tore his eyes away from the ground below and fixed Sirius with a sharp stare. “I’m not going to jump.”
Sirius met his gaze without blinking. “Do you promise?”
Regulus opened his mouth, choked, and closed it. He swallowed thickly and tried again. “Why would you even ask that?”
Sirius held his gaze for several moments longer before turning away, letting out a long exhale as he did.
“You scare me sometimes,” he said again, so quietly it was almost a whisper.
Regulus looked back down to the ground below them. They were only about three stories up; a fall from this height would have a good chance of not even being fatal at all, if the angle was right.
“Sometimes I scare myself,” Regulus admitted quietly. He didn’t look back at Sirius, didn't want to see his expression, didn't want to be seen at all. He wanted to fade through the roof and down into the ground, down down down, until he was six feet below where he was meant to be.
He hated that sometimes it felt like Sirius could see those thoughts, as if they were written in an ink on his skin that only his brother could read.
“Come on, let’s get down from here,” Sirius said. “I’m going to feel much better when my feet are on solid ground again.”
Sirius flashed a too-wide smile at him and extended one hand out for him to hold. Regulus stared at the outreached hand, unmoving for several seconds too long, and Sirius’s smile wavered.
“Please, Reg? Come down with me? We can keep hanging out inside, I promise.”
“Alright,” Regulus finally acquiesced. “Let’s go.”
“Thank you,” Sirius said, and it came out more as a sigh of relief.
Sirius went first, inching himself down slowly.
“Coward,” Regulus teased.
“I, for one, do not have a death wish.”
Regulus didn’t have a response for that.
Once Sirius was safely back inside the window, Regulus gave one last long, longing look at the ground below, before sliding down the roof and through the window after his brother.
The moment his feet were on the ground he was swept up in a hug. He let out an undignified squeak of surprise, but after a moment he let himself return the hug with tentative arms. Sirius’s arms squeezed tighter around him in response, as if he held on tight enough he could keep Regulus tethered to the solid ground.
***
“Pssst.”
Regulus whipped his head around towards his closed door, eyes narrowing.
“Pssst, Regulus.”
Regulus stalked toward the toward and threw it open to reveal his brother.
“You know, yelling ‘pssst’ is not the same thing as whispering,” Regulus said. Sirius rolled his eyes.
“Well if I whispered, you wouldn’t have heard me.”
“And if you aren’t quiet, mother and father will hear you.”
“Well then shut up and follow me.”
Regulus peered around the dark hall outside his room before looking back at his brother suspiciously.
“It’s late, we aren’t supposed to be out of our rooms past curfew.”
“So? Where’s your adventurous spirit?”
Regulus raised his brows at his brother and didn’t bother to respond to that ridiculous question. Sirius rolled his eyes again.
“Okay, right, I forgot who I was talking to for a moment there. But come on, you’re gonna wanna see this.”
Regulus hesitated still, uncertain.
“Come on,” Sirius said. “Live a little. I promise we won’t get caught.”
“Fine,” Regulus said before he could stop himself. “But if we do get caught, I’m blaming you.”
“Deal,” Sirius said. They both knew Sirius would take the blame anyway.
Regulus quietly shut his bedroom door behind him as he followed Sirius out into the hall. Their bedrooms were on the top floor of the house, and their parent’s room was on the floor directly below them, so they had to step quietly on the old floorboards to prevent any creaking.
“Where are we going?” Regulus asked.
“Father’s study,” Sirius said as he led them down the stairs. Both of them skipped over the third step from the top; that one always creaked at the slightest touch. “He left the door open.”
That, Regulus had to admit, was actually intriguing. Their father’s study was strictly forbidden. Neither brother had ever stepped foot inside the room, and it was kept tightly locked up. Orion Black spent nearly all of his time there, and they knew he had an extensive and impressive collection of magical artifacts, but they had never caught more than a glimpse inside.
“Oh, no, father is going to literally kill us if we go in there,” Regulus hissed.
“Not if he doesn’t catch us,” Sirius said, flashing him a wide grin.
Regulus peered around nervously. Grimmauld place at night was an unnerving place, secrets and shadows lurking in every cobweb-ridden corner.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he whispered, but Sirius shushed him with a finger to his lips. They were on the second floor now, where both their parent’s bedroom and their father’s study resided. Regulus hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, but Sirius grabbed his hand and pulled him along.
Sirius was right. The door to their father’s study was slightly ajar, an ominous sliver of gaping darkness leading into the room.
“What if it’s warded?” Regulus whispered the words directly into Sirius’s ear, not daring to speak any louder than a breath. Sirius shook his head in response.
“It’s not,” he whispered back just as quietly. “I checked.”
That didn’t make any sense, Regulus thought. There was no way their father would leave this room both unlocked and unwarded. Orion Black was many things but careless was certainly not one of them. Something curled in his stomach, something suspicious and panicky, but before he could protest further Sirius was pushing open the door and pulling him inside.
The room was pitch black. There was not even the dim moonlight through hazy windows that had lit their way down the stairs, it was pure darkness. Panic started to grip Regulus’s chest and he took in a sharp breath. Then suddenly a flame flickered, illuminating Sirius’s face in haunting shadows.
“Here, take this one,” Sirius said as he passed Regulus a candle. Then he lit himself a second candle, casting slightly more light around the room.
They lifted their candles and peered around the room slowly.
It was… stuffy. Crowded. A large, ornate desk rested in the center of the room, surrounded by rows of bookshelves and glass cases. The desk was organized, piles of papers neatly stacked, and nothing was strewn about. It looked exactly like Regulus imagined a study would look.
“Fascinating,” he said dryly. “Okay, we’ve seen it. Now let’s go.”
“Oh, shush. This is our one chance to be in here. I want to look around.”
Regulus wanted to snap back that Sirius had absolutely no interest in anything studious, but he bit back the words, too afraid of making more noise than needed. Their parents were asleep just across the hall, far too close for comfort.
“Be quick,” he finally said. “I’ll keep watch.”
Sirius nodded at him before turning and disappearing deeper into the room. Regulus stayed where he was near the door, casting nervous glances between the door and the dark room. His heart jumped at every creak, every sound, and he found himself again wishing he really was a ghost so that he could fade into the floorboards and not get caught. But as the minutes crept on the hall stayed dark and quiet.
He had been looking out the door again when Sirius reappeared suddenly beside him and Regulus had to bite his tongue to keep down his startle. His heart pounded against his ribcage and he fought to keep his breaths quiet. He was really not cut out for sneaking around like this, he didn’t know how Sirius did it.
Sirius was grinning and motioning with his hand to follow him. Regulus shook his head firmly. Then Sirius rolled his eyes and grabbed his hand and pulled him forward, and once again Regulus found himself following his brother without protest. If he gripped Sirius’s hand a bit too tightly, well, Sirius only gripped it just as tightly back.
Sirius brought him all the way to the far corner of the room before they stopped. He lifted his candle up to illuminate a large, dark cabinet. It was almost hidden away in the room, cast unnaturally in shadows that weren’t erased by the candlelight.
“There’s something in there,” Sirius whispered. “I can hear it.”
Sirius was right, though Regulus couldn’t hear anything. Instead he could feel it. Something dark emanated in waves from the cabinet. It pulsed like a heartbeat, and it made goosebumps prickle up along his skin.
“I don’t like it,” Regulus said. “It’s…. Dark. I don’t think we should touch it.”
“Are you scared?” Sirius taunted. “I thought you weren’t scared of anything.”
“I’m scared of what father will do when he catches us in here.”
“He won’t. I’ll keep you safe, I promise. Do you trust me?" Sirius grinned at him. The candlelight cast the grin into a disturbing grimace, and Regulus was sure his own face looked just as haunting.
“I don’t trust whatever is in there,” Regulus said, “But, fine. I’m going to regret this, but I won’t stop you.”
Sirius grinned even wider, and the shadows distorted his face further. Regulus thought he looked rather like a corpse, and thought too late that might be a bad omen.
Sirius let go of his hand and surged forward, pulling open the cabinet in one quick motion. Regulus held his breath, heart rapidly pounding in his chest. The cabinet didn’t make a sound as it opened, not even the slightest creak.
Inside, the cabinet was dark. Sirius lifted his candle towards it, but the darkness did not retreat. Sirius stepped closer, one step, then another. Quietly, he said, “I don’t see anythi–”
He jumped back with a cut off gasp as a body rolled out of the cabinet and hit the floor with a quiet thud.
It was a small body, child sized, no more than nine or ten years old. Pale, with limbs so thin they were hardly more than skin stretched over bone. It lay in a motionless heap on the floor, and Sirius and Regulus stared wide at each other, both frozen.
“What–?” Sirius began, before he was cut off once again by the body moving.
It sat up slowly, movements harsh and stuttering. Its limbs seemed to be bent at unnatural angles, and when it finally lifted its head, its neck was hanging limply to the side. Blood dripped steadily down the pale face from an unseen wound, and it smiled a horrifying, joyless smile.
It was Regulus.
Sirius let out a keening sound, stepping back towards the real Regulus and grasping blindly for his hand. Regulus grabbed his brother’s hand back but otherwise could not bring himself to move, frozen as he stared back at his own ghastly face.
The Regulus on the floor was skeletal, with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. Its eyes were a milky white instead of Regulus’s pale blue, and they were sunk deep in the hollows of its skull. The figure was so pale its skin was almost grey, and there was blood on its rotten teeth as it smiled.
“Hello, brother,” the thing that wore Regulus's face said with his voice. A bloody and blackened tooth rolled out of its mouth along with the words. “I guess you failed to keep me safe after all, didn't you?"
“No.” Sirius’s voice was a keening whine. Regulus had never seen him look so horrified before, his expression one of pure terror and grief. He wished he could unsee it.
“It’s not me,” Regulus said, squeezing Sirius’s hand. “Whatever it is, it’s not really me.”
The Not-Regulus turned its glassy gaze over to Regulus then. Its neck cracked audibly as it moved, dark blood flowing faster from the gash in its neck down onto the floor as the skin on its neck twisted with the turn. There was a puddle of blood forming beneath it, and Regulus wondered if he touched it if the blood would be real.
“Are you sure about that?” the Not- Regulus said, staring straight into his eyes. A carrion beetle crawled out of its mouth as it spoke and scurried across its face, disappearing up into the darkness of its bloodied hairline. “Aren’t we dead, after all? Haven’t we always been dead?”
“No!” Sirius cried out, forgetting to be quiet in his terror. Tears were streaming down his face now. Regulus couldn’t bring himself to look away from his own corpse, but it was out of more morbid fascination than it was fear. And, really, apart from the blood, was the figure on the floor really that different from the one Regulus saw in the mirror every day? The more he stared, the more of himself he recognized in the skeletal limbs, the ashen skin, the sunken eyes. Wasn’t he already halfway to this corpse? Wasn't he just one step away from this horrid creature on the ground, one step away from his own grave?
The Not-Regulus opened its mouth to speak again, but instead of words, water poured out. A torrential wave of it came gushing out of its mouth, out of its ears, its eyes. Dark water poured out in a wordless scream, flooding the room, and someone was screaming then, and there was water everywhere and the smell of rot and mold and death spread with it.
“Ridikulus! ”
The lights were thrown on and the water was gone. The corpse of the Not-Regulus was gone with it, and instead there was a much younger Regulus on the ground, dressed in a ridiculously large set of robes and a brightly-colored hat that swallowed the infant Regulus up.
Then the infant-him went flying back into the cabinet and the doors shut with a slam.
“You have exactly one minute to explain yourselves,” their mother’s harsh voice came from behind them. Regulus whirled around to the sight of both parents looming above them, looking angrier than Regulus could ever remember seeing them.
“What was that thing?” Sirius cried out. Their mother lurched forward and slapped him across the face without hesitation. Sirius gasped and stumbled to the side, caught off guard.
“I said explain,” Walburga said. “You have not earned the right to ask questions here.”
“The door was open,” Regulus said, once several moments passed and it became clear Sirius could not stop gaping up at their parents. He surprised himself by how steady he sounded. “We only wanted to take a peek inside.”
“It was my idea,” Sirius cut in, finally finding his voice again. “Regulus didn’t want to, he told me it was a bad idea, but I insisted.”
“And yet you are both here, are you not?”
“I made him come, I said he needed to be my lookout,” Sirius said.
Walburga pursed her lips, a muscle twitching in her neck. Then, she slapped Sirius again, once again catching him off guard.
A moment later, she turned her angry gaze to Regulus and backhanded him across the face as well. He didn’t flinch, meeting her gaze with steady eyes.
“I am ashamed of both of you,” she said. “Especially you, Sirius. You are going to school in a few weeks, and you cannot be acting like this when you go to Hogwarts, do you understand that? You are representing the Black name.”
She stepped back and turned towards her husband, nodding to him slightly.
“This is your study, Orion. I will let you decide how they should be punished.”
Their father looked down at both Sirius and Regulus with disdain, like this was beneath him. Orion typically left everything regarding his children up to Walburga, content to be involved as little as possible. He was less of a father and more of an imposing figure that just happened to live in the same house as them.
“Take Regulus to his room and keep him there,” Orion said at length. “I will deal with Sirius here.”
Walburga nodded once, and then grasped Regulus’s arm with a bruising grip. Regulus had only a moment to look back at his brother’s nervous face before he was dragged out the study and up the stairs.
“You disappoint me,” his mother spat at him. “You know better than this. Your brother cannot be acting like this as the heir, and you certainly cannot be encouraging him.”
“I’m sorry, mother.”
“Do not be sorry. Sorry is worthless. You must be better.”
She locked him in the empty wardrobe in his room. Regulus had always found the wardrobe especially cruel. Its only purpose was for him to be locked away in, as if being trapped in the confines of his small bedroom wasn’t enough. When he was younger, there had been just enough room for him to turn around in the narrow space, but now his limbs were just long enough to keep him from moving around, even small as he was. He was trapped there, sat with his knees folded and back against the hard wood, only a sliver of light visible through the locked doors.
It felt like it was a coffin. If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe he was buried six feet under the ground with nothing but the wooden walls of the wardrobe keeping the dirt from crushing his body.
His chest felt tight and his breaths shallow, but he did not let himself panic or cry. It never did any good. All he could do was wait.
In the darkness, he could see his own sunken, bloody face. He could see Sirius’s terror- and tear-stricken face, and tried not to let himself think about what their father was doing to him right now. He could see a flood of dark water pouring from his own corpse, rushing towards him in ominous waves.
He took in a harsh breath and smelt rot. He pressed his hands hard into the floor of the wardrobe. The hard, wooden, very dry floor of the wardrobe.
He did not know how long he was left in there. There was no way to know how much time had passed in the darkness and silence. His limbs ached and cramped, and sharp pangs of hunger stabbed at his stomach. Despite himself, he cried for his mother.
“Please, mum, I’m sorry,” he sobbed, unable to stop himself from crying. “Please let me out.”
He pushed against the door, shoved his whole weight against it again and again until his shoulder was bruised and throbbing, but it did not budge. He scratched at the door, tearing at the crack where the doors met and desperately trying to pry the wood apart. He scratched and scratched until his fingers tore and bled. After enough time had passed he was no longer able to hold in the burning pressure in his bladder and he cried as hot liquid spilled down his legs. The feeling of wetness made him think of the bleeding and waterlogged corpse in the study, and he cried harder.
“Sirius, please let me out,” he pleaded to the darkness. “Please help me.”
His brother didn’t come.
“Kreacher,” he called at another time. “Please, Kreacher. Please get me out.”
Silence was the only response.
He sobbed until exhaustion took him, and he dreamt of corpses and coffins and watery graves. When he woke, he didn’t cry anymore. He stared into the darkness and he waited.
Maybe, a small part of him thought, dying in here would be a blessing. They could bury him in the wardrobe, truly make it into a coffin. Maybe he had already died there, and that’s why no one would answer his cries.
Eventually, his mother came to let him out.
She pulled open the door of the wardrobe and peered down at him, crinkling her nose at the smell of stale sweat and urine and dried blood. He squinted up at her, even the pale light of his room harsh after the extended darkness of the wardrobe.
“Clean yourself up and come down for breakfast,” she finally said. “You’re expected in thirty minutes. Do not be late.”
Then she turned and left the room, not waiting for his response.
“Yes, mother,” he whispered into the empty room long after she had left. His voice cracked, the words painful against his dry throat.
Slowly, inch by inch, he uncurled his tight limbs and climbed out of the wardrobe. Every inch of him ached, and by the time he was standing he felt winded and out of breath.
“Kreacher,” he called, and held his breath, uncertain if once again his call would be unanswered. But only a moment Kreacher was there, appearing in the room with a familiar pop of apparition.
“Young Master Regulus called?” Kreacher said, looking up at him eagerly. Regulus let out a sigh of relief, body sagging with it.
“Could you draw me a bath, please?” He asked, coughing with the effort of the words. “And, some water?”
“Right away,” Kreacher said, disappearing and reappearing a moment later with a glass of water. Regulus downed it with a few gulps, the cool water easing his throat.
“Thank you, Kreacher,” he said, and Kreacher smiled back at him.
Regulus bathed, washing the sweat from his body and the blood from his fingers. The water helped ease the aching of his body some, but not fully. Regulus knew if he looked he’d find bruises on his spine where his back had pressed into the wood, and bruises on his shoulder and arm where he had hit it against the door. But he did not want to look, too afraid of what else he might see if he looked into the mirror.
He dressed himself in clean clothes that blessedly did not reek of stale sweat and dried urine, and he went downstairs. Everyone else was already at the dining table when he arrived. Their plates were set, with one empty plate resting in front of Regulus’s seat.
“You’re late,” his mother said. “Sit down.”
“I’m sorry, mother,” he said, and shuffled to his seat.
Sirius sat across from him, peering at him with narrowed eyes. Regulus stared back, inspecting every inch that he could see. There was a blossoming bruise around the corner of Sirius’s mouth, but other than that he seemed whole, in one piece.
“Where were you?” Sirius asked.
“Silence,” Walburga snapped. “You are not to speak at the table unless you are spoken to.”
Sirius glared but shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth.
Regulus looked down at his own plate, still empty in front of him. His empty stomach clenched painfully as the smell of his family’s food wafted towards him. How many days had it been since he had eaten now? He had no way of knowing.
He looked at his mother, a silent question in his eyes. She met his gaze steadily and brought a forkful of her own eggs to her lips, not even blinking as she chewed.
“Where’s his food?” Sirius asked, breaking the silence. Of course Sirius would be the one to ask what Regulus didn’t dare. “Why isn’t he eating?”
“Your brother was stealing food from the kitchen last night while you were finishing your punishment,” Walburga said, still staring unblinkingly at Regulus. “He will not be getting breakfast this morning, as he ate enough sweets last night.”
“But, I–” Regulus started before he could stop himself.
“And he will also not be getting lunch, if he does not stop speaking,” Walburga cut him off sharply. Regulus pursed his lips shut.
Sirius snorted. Regulus finally tore his gaze away from his mother and looked at his brother, who rolled his eyes at him.
“Really, Regulus? I’m getting punished and you’re stealing snacks from the kitchen? Honestly.”
The disappointment in his brother’s voice killed whatever appetite Regulus had. He swallowed thickly and stared down at his empty plate and did not say another word.
***
Sirius left for Hogwarts. The house grew cold in his absence.
Weeks passed with Sirius gone, and Regulus began to feel more than ever like he was a ghost roaming the halls. He felt dead on the inside, so logic would follow that he was dead on the outside too
He hadn’t felt alive since Sirius left for Hogwarts. Sirius made it a point to seek out Regulus at least once a day, made sure to speak to his brother and remind him that one person in the house remembered and cared about his existence. But Sirius had been gone for weeks now, and Regulus’s voice had shriveled up and withered away with the lack of use in that time. His mother either forgot or chose to ignore Regulus up in his room for days on end, not bothering to call him down for meals more often than not. At first he almost welcomed the sharp pang of hunger in his stomach. At least it was a reminder that he was alive, that he was real. Eventually even that faded to a dull ache deep in the pit of him that only served to make him feel like he was rotting from within.
If he had been thinking clearly he might have realized he had become delirious with hunger, but he was ten years old and had barely eaten or spoken to anyone in days and was decidedly not thinking clearly the night he made his way down to the kitchen. He had been lying awake for hours, the rotting pit in his stomach keeping him from sleeping. All he could think was that he didn’t feel real, that he wasn’t alive, that he was only a ghost and no one would notice if he just disappeared.
His body moved almost on its own. He was out of bed and turning the doorknob before he was aware of what he was doing. The door had been locked at one point in the week, he remembered, but now it opened freely. Or maybe he just floated through the door, body incorporeal.
He made his way down to the kitchen like a ghost, unseen and unheard in the dead of night. He blinked. Suddenly he was standing at the kitchen counter with a knife in his hands. He blinked again, and he was back upstairs in his room with the knife.
He wasn’t really here. His body wasn’t real. He died when he was born and now he was only a lonely ghost haunting his room. A bloodless corpse with an empty pit where his stomach should be.
He lifted up his shirt and brought the knife to his stomach, sunken where the gnawing pit resided. He pressed the tip of the knife into his skin and–
Blood. Blood and a sharp, stinging sensation.
Regulus gasped, not in pain but in relief. Blood meant he was alive . Ghosts didn’t bleed, ghosts didn't feel pain.
He made another slice of the knife, nothing deep, just enough to feel the sting and to see the blood that welled up. It was grounding, and he held onto it desperately.
I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive.
He hid the knife under his mattress. As a reminder.
***
Sirius came home from school louder, angrier, and bolder. Regulus grew quieter, fainter, sadder.
His heart kept pounding in his chest and his blood kept running down his skin.
***