Chapter Text
Regulus watched in horror, frozen in place, as his mother raised her wand and shouted the curse.
A flash of green.
His father crumpled.
Everything that followed blurred together. Screaming, shattering, the smell of burning from the curtains catching stray sparks. Regulus didn’t stop to think. He ran. He grabbed the Floo powder and hurled himself into the fireplace, barely able to say the name.
“Potter’s,” he choked out.
When he stumbled out of the fireplace, covered in soot, blood already drying on his cheek, the warmth of the Potter home hit him like a punch to the chest. He hadn’t even planned on what to do once he arrived. He only knew he had nowhere else to go.
Regulus moved toward the window at the edge of the sitting room. Outside, he could see them. Sirius, laughing with an unknown family. It didn’t matter. It was the way Sirius laughed. Carefree. Happy.
He didn’t belong here. He turned, ready to leave before anyone noticed him, his hand already reaching for the fireplace again. But upstairs, a window creaked open.
“Hey… REGGIE? WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE?!”
James Potter’s voice cut through the cold air like a knife. The laughter stopped. Everyone turned to look. Regulus froze in the garden, staring back up at them with wide, glassy eyes. Blood on his collar. Dirt streaking his face. His lip was split. His hands were shaking. And then the tears came. He didn’t even try to hide them.