Chapter Text
1994 | paris
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Regulus woke up early in the morning. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the world seemed lifeless and filled with despair at that hour. The combination of Mr.Rozier’s rooster crowing, the chirping of the sparrows, the relatively cold morning air, and the stiffness in his shoulder muscles only added to the countless reasons in his mind for wanting to end it all.
“One day, I’ll slaughter that damn rooster and make stew out of it.”
he muttered to himself, pulling the blanket tighter around him. He hadn’t slept well. Sometimes, when you’re twenty-one years old, still jobless, it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep. Especially in a family where having any job other than being a lawyer was considered beneath your dignity, your honor, and your status.
For a long time, Regulus had been nothing more than the poor, unfortunate son in the eyes of his family. As the youngest child in the Black family, he had no noteworthy achievements. No high-paying job, no useful skill, no artistic talent, and not even a successful relationship. Regulus was the perfect portrait of squandered potential and buried dreams. Every night, he told himself that he couldn’t keep living this way, but when morning came, life just kept going on.
Just like today.
Lying alone in the dark, tears welled up in his eyes. There were two reasons he didn’t have the courage to cry out loud. First, he feared that if he cried, the pain would rush back into his heart. Last night, just before falling asleep, he had caught a glimpse of it, and it was far worse than any heartache he had ever experienced. He also feared that his mother would notice the redness in his eyes during breakfast and wouldn’t stop with her endless probing questions.
For a moment, he thought to himself, “What if I tell her the truth? I’m crying because I can’t face life!”
The thought of Walburga’s face made him laugh bitterly. He sighed and swallowed the lump in his throat, struggling to suppress the emotion. He needed to get up, tidy his room, take a shower, and survive another day.
Without glancing around at his dreary room, he got out of bed and walked to the small mirror. Regulus hated every little detail of the room. There wasn’t a single spot or item in the room that made him feel the slightest joy. This was how every room in the Black house was. Dreary, dark, and old, filled with antiques that seemed to trap and swallow the very essence of life within the house. Sirius sometimes mocked, “In this house, your thoughts freeze in your head.” Sometimes he wondered if they’d let him, perhaps he could have decorated his little room to suit his taste, but his mother had rejected every suggestion, and Regulus had never insisted. He never insisted on anything. He was afraid to, because Walburga couldn’t stand opposition.
The only thing Regulus liked about his room was that, if he wanted to, he could cry in it at night.
Of course, life wasn’t always this hard. Most of the time, Regulus lived in his imagination rather than in reality. But today was one of those days no matter which way he turned, he couldn’t escape from the reality. It clung to him tightly and barked at him like a rabid dog. He was 21-year-old, alone, broken, alienated, meaningless, and unloved. His life had been chaotic and gray for as long as he could remember, and the only bright spot in his life, his brother, had long since left without so much as a backward glance.
The moment someone realizes they have no reason to live—no love, no duty, no purpose, no hope—is a moment as bitter as death itself.
With that feeling lingering, Regulus made his way downstairs for breakfast.
***
Breakfast was served every day promptly at 8 o’clock.
The first sight Regulus encountered when he stepped into the kitchen was his father, sipping his green tea in small, deliberate sips while reading the daily newspaper. Orion Black was a top-tier lawyer—quiet and harsh. He hated many things, but at the top of the list were a few specific ones: peeing next to someone in a public restroom, people staring at his suit, and street musicians.
In contrast, Orion Black enjoyed: peeling long strips of wallpaper, fixing broken pipes around the house, emptying his files, organizing them, and putting them back in their proper places.
Opposite him sat his mother, Walburga Black, stirring the thickest and most bitter coffee imaginable. Walburga Black was a schoolteacher from Grucan with nerves as fragile as glass. You could never truly understand how close you were to smashing the dishes in the kitchen until you had a conversation with her that lasted more than twenty minutes. She hated unwashed dishes, Regulus’s flower pots, and strangers touching her hands. Unfortunately, Regulus never understood what his mother actually liked—reading the emotions of a Schefflera plant was easier than understanding Walburga Black.
That morning’s breakfast was an omelet, with toast and carrot marmalade, which, of course, didn’t matter much to Regulus because he hated marmalade. After exchanging the usual awkward “good mornings,” Regulus finally sat down at the table and stared at the perfectly cooked omelet on his plate. The state of the breakfast table had been like this since Sirius left the house: quiet.
“You are attending to your classes today, right?”
Regulus barely suppressed a sigh and merely nodded in agreement. Despite his decision four years ago, Walburga had not given up pushing her wishes onto him. Sometimes, Regulus wondered if his mother was right—maybe if he hadn’t spent four years studying botany, as she put it, “wasting his life,” he would have at least had a law degree in his hands by now. But all he had left now was the ficus plant in his room, which only sprouted a new leaf once every century.
“Sit up straight, Reg!”
Regulus sat up straight and then talked to his mother about the same things they always talked about. He never wondered what would happen if he tried to talk about something else. He knew the answer, which is why he never tested it. His father played no real role in the conversations and usually, after finishing his cup of tea, he’d hurry out of the house at a speed that wouldn’t catch Walburga’s attention.
After breakfast, which more closely resembled to the “last supper” and every bite was harder to swallow than a stone, Regulus grabbed his small blue watering can out of sight of his mother and retreated back to his room. After all, he had a few plants to keep alive, and he couldn’t let them rot along with him. It would be truly unfair.
There were only four plants in his room, but those four were Regulus’s only friends and companions. His favorite was an Aglonema, which, because of the small size of the room, was placed right next to his bed. He’d sometimes wake up in the middle of the night from brushing his fingers against its leaves.
The second was a Variegated Monstera, which he had had since his first year at university. For four years, he had watched its old leaves dry up and new ones sprout, and he felt a strange sense of pride that he had managed to keep it alive this long. Something he rarely felt.
The third was a small Hedera Helix, which Regulus had initially doubted would survive more than two days. But now it had grown down from the top of the wardrobe, and every day it proudly showed off new little shoots while covering pictures of him and Sirius.
Finally, there was the Pothos, which almost took up the entire space on his desk. If his mother ever found out that Regulus talked to his plants, gently caressed their leaves, and occasionally kissed them, she would likely die of fright. But, after all, being alone does that kind of things to a person.
Regulus’s life had been like this for several years. He’d wake up, keep himself and his plants alive, go to university, and at night, more hopeless than ever, he would fall into sleep, hoping he wouldn’t see the sunrise the next morning. After endless persuasion from his mother, he had finally gone to law school and started studying again, but recently, even that had become difficult. He just went to attend classes, and during exams, the only thing he managed to do was nap.
After casting one last glance at his plants and gathering his things, Regulus announced loudly to his mother that he was going to the library to prepare for his exam next week. In reality, Regulus wasn’t going to the library, but his mother didn’t need to know that.
That day, Regulus’s destination was Dr. Pollan’s office. The night before, he had promised himself that he would visit the doctor as soon as possible to figure out the cause of this damned chest pain, and he didn’t want to run away from this one like a coward. He had already heard enough ridicule from his family to avoid adding an unwanted heart disease to his mountain of problems. Anyway, it didn’t matter what the cause of the illness was; Regulus was sure he would be blamed for it. So no, thank you. Regulus was going to visit Dr. Pollan today and, just like with all his other problems, he would solve this one alone.
***
Meeting with Dr. Pollan wasn’t as scary as Regulus had expected. The old man was as grumpy and blunt as ever, but he didn’t tell him that his illness was all his imagination. After listening to his explanations, asking a few questions, and doing a brief examination, Dr. Pollan sat for a moment and stared at him intently. Regulus thought his expression looked almost like pity. He held his breath. Perhaps his problem was serious after all.
Dr. Pollan opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the sharp sound of the phone ringing interrupted him. He picked up the phone, and Regulus, watching him, noticed the sudden change in his expression during the conversation.
“Hello… yes… yes… What?! …Oh my god!”
Dr. Pollan dropped the phone and, without even looking at Regulus, hurriedly left the room. Regulus could hear him frantically pacing upstairs, yelling at someone. Then, he quickly came back down, grabbed his hat and coat from the coat rack, slammed the door open, and rushed outside.
Regulus felt more foolish and humiliated than ever, and he couldn’t even tell why. Not only did he have no value as a son, but he also had no importance as a patient. For a moment, he was afraid he might start crying. Everything felt so ridiculous.
Then, he heard Dr. Pollan’s maid, and moments later, a blonde, somewhat plump woman appeared at the door.
“Ah, looks like doctor forgot about me.”
Regulus said with a tone that tried to avoid being sarcastic, managing to put something resembling a smile on his face. The maid smiled sympathetically and said:
“I’m so sorry, son, but it’s not too surprising. Poor man! He got a call from Marseilles. It seems his daughter was severely injured in an accident. You’ll have to come back another time. I hope your condition isn’t too serious.”
“Oh, no. It’s not that serious.”
Regulus felt a little less humiliated. It wasn’t surprising that Dr. Pollan had forgotten about him at such a moment. Still, as he walked down the street and made his way toward the small park near the clinic, he felt more downcast and depressed than ever.
The rest of the day passed in its usual slow, tedious rhythm. Regulus borrowed a few books from the library, fed the cats in the park, smoked a cigarette, and aimlessly wandered around the city until the sky slowly turned dark. After returning home, dinner was served in silence, and Regulus finally managed to return to the quiet refuge of his room, where he could shed the pretense of being the good son of the family and immerse himself in his old poetry notebook.
This notebook was something he had never even mentioned to Sirius. Writing poetry was something Regulus Black would take with him to the grave, and no one would ever know about it. To Regulus, poetry was something you were born with, even before you start writing. Regulus wrote simply to validate himself, to feel that he existed. Sometimes he thought that ordinary people were blameless. The wounded turned their pain into something beautiful. They transformed it into an art form—creating music from it, writing poems, painting it on a canvas, and embedding it in their words.
If Regulus had been an ordinary person, he would have searched for a pain within himself to turn into art. Art was the only way for the wounded to be saved. Pain was the only way to buy people’s attention.
After gently stroking the soft leaves of the pothos plant beside him, he opened a new page in his notebook and began to write:
The house, suffocated by evening’s sigh,
Like today, when my heart is tight
My father spoke:“light”
And night filled the night
I whispered to myself “One day has passed.”
My mother sighed,
He’ll be back soon
A cloud slid softly across my eye,
Then sleep took me by surprise.
Who would have thought so much pain,
Lurked in the heart of that small child?
Yes, the day someone left
I had begun to believe in their return
I didn’t know
The meaning of “never.”
Why didn’t you come back again?
Oh, this cursed word,
My heart has not yet gotten used to you.
After all these years…
I have my eyes on the road,
Hoping my loved ones will come back…
After finishing writing, he glanced at the clock. It was nine-thirty. And as Walburga always said, onward to bed. The fateful day of Regulus had come and gone. The day that began in tears and ended with them.