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Regulus sat at a table as if he were in class; hands folded on the desk, back straight, eyes forward. Sirius paced the front row, his normally wandering hands tucked behind his back, clasped together like they had a secret. He willed himself not to twiddle his fingers, his arms not to twitch; willed his emotions to stay contained within himself. The battle was not going well, mostly noted by the large, quick strides that he took.
It was well known that Regulus would never say something first, and for a long while Sirius let the silence consume them. He tried to gather his thoughts, tried to plan out exactly what he would say. But planning his words wasn't anything he was good at; that's what Regulus did, and Sirius was not his brother. He was not Planner. He was Doer.
Regulus was Thought and Sirius was Outburst and they were so far apart the blood in their veins may as well have been different colors, much less shared strands of DNA.
"I just--" Sirius started and stopped, his pacing coming to a halt in front of Regulus' desk, "I just can't believe you." Sirius looked ashamed and hurt, his tone unusually soft. Anyone that had seen Sirius in a heated moment would know to cover their ears, for shouting was about to ensue.
Except Regulus. It was a rare day that Sirius raised his voice to his brother; not out of fear, not out of concern, but out of a deep seated understanding that Regulus would never scream back at him. There was no point in trying to pick a fight, because Regulus would not indulge him for a moment.
As children Sirius had tried to get Regulus to yell at him. To rage and screech at him like their parents did, and it had never worked.
Regulus was Quiet Seething. Sirius was Screaming Rage.
He had never thought it was healthy that Regulus didn't express himself, even as a small child. If he were upset he would cry soundlessly; if he were angry he wouldn't lash out with fists or even his wand. He would plan, and think, and take swift revenge in an opportune moment, sometimes weeks later. Whereas Sirius would shove and hit and wail, and then be done with it completely an hour later.
But as they grew older the petty fights stopped, and the real ones began. Not that they fought constantly, for they were more often quite harmonious. Stealing looks at one another during dinner parties, staying up late to talk quietly on Sirius' bed, having inside jokes. There was a silent understanding that no matter how Walburga tried to pit them against each other, as she so often did, they were brothers at the core and nothing would change that, or truly separate them.
At least, during such tender ages, they had thought so.
For a moment Regulus stayed quiet, looking up at Sirius with a blank face and masked blue eyes, "It's done."
Sirius lost it in that moment. His hands slammed down on Regulus' desk, his face came low and close and he glared at his brother. Regulus hardly batted an eyelash.
"Damn you, Regulus!" Sirius yelled at him, for several lines of swear words and shamed phrases. His face was red and he panted, and still Regulus just sat there, just took it. Stoic. Like their mother. And that was what made Sirius' blood boil so heatedly; Regulus had taken all these things from their mother, and there wasn't anything Sirius could do about it.
"Do you feel better now, big brother?" Regulus asked, slipping from the desk like smoke slipped from a lit cigarette. Sirius rounded on him, but Regulus held a hand up, bidding the elder to hold his fists high at his sides, to wait a moment, "What would you have me do, Sirius? Become like you? Forsake my family, my duty, my Black namesake? And what, then? Live like an outcast? What friend would take me in, Sirius? Would James Potter allow me into his house, as he did you? I think not."
"Regulus you're being--"
"No, no," Regulus shook his head, remained poised, "I am being diplomatic, something you have never and will never be. You made your choice, Sirius. You want to be the sheep in a pack of wolves. I don't. I am not you. Whatever fanciful ideas you have about equality of bloods, about what's 'right' or 'wrong', doesn't matter. None of it matters."
"It does matter!" Sirius' rage turned to pain, exasperation, and he slouched with the weight of it all. How had his brother turned to this? How had Regulus, whom he had tucked in at night, whom he had read stories to, turned into this? This true son of Walburga Black. This spitting image of Honor and Pride and Pure Blood and Status.
Sirius' heart ached in a way he couldn't explain even to himself, "Regulus, whatever you think you're doing, you're wrong! This is wrong! Don't let them poison you just because I'm not--"
"Because you're not there, Sirius?" Regulus smirked coldly, and his blue eyes lit with callous emotion: resentment, "Because you left, Sirius? What was I to do? Follow after you like a puppy? Let mother burn my image from the tapestry, too? You don't get it, Sirius, and you never have."
"What's there to get, Regulus?" Sirius demanded, at a complete loss as to how to reason with his brother, "What's there to get about you joining up with them? With Death Eaters, Regulus! You're the one that doesn't get it!"
Regulus laughed, taunting and amused and perhaps a little pained, "You think I don't get it, Sirius? You think I'm the one fumbling blindly here? I understand better than anyone what's going on." He leant in close to Sirius now, his voice low and angry, his eyes filled with that silent rage Sirius had so often tried to coax into an explosion, "I'm doing what's right for our name, Sirius. Do you think I give a shit what's right or wrong here? None of it matters. In a hundred years it won't matter. What will matter is that Black still means Pure. What will matter is that mother and father have someone to be proud of now! And you've never cared for that, have you?" Regulus sneered and took a step back, "The most arrogant boy in all of Hogwarts and you've no sense of pride. Gallivanting about like a fool with those friends of yours. It's no wonder mother never loved you. She knew from the start, I reckon, what a disappointment you'd be."
"Shut up!" Sirius hurt as if struck, and for a fumbling moment he didn't know what else to say, so he screamed it again, and then he struck Regulus with the back of his hand, and grabbed him by the shirt collar. Regulus gasped and bled from the lip, but just began to laugh as Sirius glared into him, "You think I give a shit what that woman thinks of me?! I would spit on her! I would see her ruined!"
Regulus' hands clasped over Sirius' wrists, but gently, tenderly. He leant in, pressed their foreheads together, closed his eyes, "And yet here you are, Sirius, still wanting her love, her favor, and telling me in the same breath to throw it away. It can't be both ways, my dear brother. You either play the game or you suffer the consequences, and you stopped playing long before you left home."
And that was the truth of it, really. And it hurt, deeply, for the both of them. Sirius' head moved to the side, and for just a moment, he rest his face against Regulus' shoulder. He clung to his shirt still, made a choking noise and felt as if he would cry. Walburga Black would never love him again. Neither would Orion, for that matter. Sirius was orphaned, and however much he hated his parents, hated everything they stood for, it hurt. He hated that it hurt. He hated that some deep and secret part of him hurt and could not be mended.
Perhaps he just wanted someone to hurt with him. But that was unfair to Regulus. That was unfair to anyone. Their parents were wrong, they were cruel and conniving and grand and sophisticated and he wanted so badly for them to love him again. To be their son again. The Potter's were more than gracious. They loved him, and he loved them greatly, but they were not his parents; they were James' parents.
But that didn't matter. That pain wasn't something that Sirius was going to let fester for a moment longer. He wasn't going to let himself be hurt over this. He wasn't going to let it get to him. And so he shoved Regulus away, glared at him.
"If you side with them, Regulus," Sirius pointed a shaking finger at him, his voice croaking and strained as he held back tears, "If you go down this path, you go knowing that I will never think of you as my brother again."
It was Regulus' turn to look struck. For a moment he was surprised, and then his face settled and he nodded graciously. A somber little smile toyed at his bloodied mouth, and no tears fell from his eyes either.
But his voice strained and croaked as Sirius' did, as he shrugged with upturned palms at his sides, as there was nothing he could do to change it, as he watched Sirius start to retreat backwards for fear of what would come out of Regulus' mouth.
"It's done."
The sting was the kind that would linger. The quick harsh pain, and then the dull ache for days.
Sirius fled the room, and never spoke to his brother again. It was done, and so was Sirius. He had to be. He couldn't try to cling any longer to a family that didn't want him. To parents that didn't love him. To a brother that wouldn't stand beside him. It was self-preservation that had Sirius fleeing, but perhaps it was too late to save himself. Perhaps he had struggled too long and fought too hard to be saved.
Regulus died some years later, knowing Sirius would never forgive him. He drank the poison in the bowl and crawled towards the water's edge for a drink. His final drink. Kreacher would take care of the rest. Would replace the locket, would destroy the real one.
Would help Regulus to redeem himself.
But in those moments, as he brought a hand to the water, as the Inferi grasped his wrist, Regulus wondered if there was any Redemption to be had. He had been a good son. He had been a good Death Eater. But at the end, he had not been a good man. He had not been someone that Sirius could have been proud of.
For all their mother's love, for all their father's approval, Regulus had truly only wanted Sirius to be proud of him. To understand what he went through, why he had to. Why he couldn't run away like Sirius had.
He was dragged into the water and put up no resistance. He had come knowing he would die here. He had come knowing that it might make no difference at all. He had come knowing that Voldemort may still win the war. But he had to try, didn't he? He had to try, for himself, for all the wrong he had done in his life, for the lives he had taken, for the trust he had broken, for the game he had played. It was time to take himself out of it, as Sirius had.
And there was only one way to do that, now.
Sirius would never find out what he had done.
Regulus had come here knowing that he had no brother.
He died wishing he had been orphaned, instead.