Chapter Text
Sirius had been pacing for so long the rug had begun to look accused.
Back and forth. Door to window. Window to wardrobe. Wardrobe to bed. Bed to door. Again and again and again, every turn sharp enough that his socked feet twisted in the fibres and left angry little half-moons in the dust. He had his wand in his hand, though he was not doing anything with it. He kept gripping it, letting go, gripping it again, tapping it once against his thigh before catching himself and stopping because even that was too loud in this house.
Everything was too loud in this house.
The stairs complained if a person breathed near them. The walls listened. The portraits listened. The floorboards listened. The bloody silver-framed mirror on his dresser listened, probably, and if it could have found a way to report him to his mother, it would have done it with great enthusiasm and a smug little shine.
Sirius hated it.
He hated the wallpaper with its dark vines and black flowers. He hated the curtains that never let the room feel like it had daylight in it, even when the sun was out. He hated the smell of polish and old dust and old money and old blood. He hated the whole house, every room of it, every corridor, every locked cabinet, every respectable little torture dressed up as tradition.
He hated Kreacher muttering about proper Black sons and blood traitors and filth when he thought Sirius could not hear him.
He hated the pure-blood dinners.
He hated the lessons.
He hated the way his mother said his name like she was swallowing something rotten.
He hated the way his father looked at him like Sirius was an investment gone bad.
He hated the way every single thing in this house pressed down and down and down until there was no air left.
Tonight, he was getting out.
Tonight, he was leaving.
He had already decided it. There was no half-decision left in him, no cowardly little maybe clinging to the edge of it. He had been thinking about it for months. He had been saying it in his head for weeks. He had been meaning it for days. Tonight, after the fight, after Walburga’s voice had gone shrill enough to crack through the house like a curse and Orion had gone cold enough to make it worse, Sirius had looked at the doorway, at the staircase, at the black dark hall beyond it, and something inside him had simply stopped pretending.
He was done.
He was fifteen years old and he was done.
James had already told him to come.
He could hear it as clearly as if James were in the room, though he wasn’t, and would not be, because none of the good parts of Sirius’s life were ever allowed inside Grimmauld Place.
You come to mine, all right? Any time. I mean it. Mum and Dad won’t care. Well, they’ll care, obviously, but not in the bad way. They’ll just feed you and probably ask too many questions and then pretend not to notice if you don’t answer them. You can have my room. Or the spare. Or the sofa if you’re being dramatic, which you will be.
Sirius had laughed when James said it.
He had laughed because that was easier than making it serious.
He had laughed because saying thank you properly would have made his throat do something embarrassing.
He had laughed because the idea of a house where parents fed you and asked too many questions and wanted you to answer only if you could was so absurd it sounded like something out of a children’s book.
But James had meant it.
Sirius knew he had.
So that was where he was going. The Potters’. He could get the Knight Bus. He knew enough. He had money. He had his wand. He could stand on the pavement, stick out his arm, and vanish into the night before his parents got home. Easy.
Easy.
He stopped in the middle of the room and looked at the packed trunk on his bed.
It was not a proper leaving trunk. It was too small. He had not packed everything, not even close. There were things in this room he could not take without slowing himself down, things he had once cared about and now did not care about enough to die for. He had shoved clothes into a bag, books into another, a handful of keepsakes into his jacket pockets. The leather jacket itself lay over the top of everything, folded badly, one sleeve trailing over the edge like it was trying to crawl away first.
His broom was strapped tight. His school things were packed. His wand was in his hand.
He had enough.
He had more than enough.
He turned to grab the bag.
Then he froze.
The thought hit him so suddenly it felt like a hand closing around the back of his neck.
Regulus.
“Fuck,” Sirius whispered.
The word landed flatly in the room.
He closed his eyes.
“Fuck.”
His little brother.
Regulus, asleep one room down. Regulus, who went quiet when their parents started shouting. Regulus, who had learned too young how to fold himself into corners and make himself look agreeable. Regulus, who was fourteen and sharp and clever and so fucking scared of disappointing people who would never, ever love him right. Regulus, who flinched when Walburga said his name in a certain tone and then pretended he had not. Regulus, who would rather go hungry than ask twice. Regulus, who looked at Sirius like he was furious with him and terrified for him at the same time.
Regulus, who would not leave.
Not if Sirius asked normally.
Not if Sirius said, Come on, let’s run.
Regulus would look at him with those wide, wary eyes and say something awful and obedient, something that sounded like Mother will be angry or Father will find us or You can’t, Sirius, and he would mean it like those were reasons big enough to build a cage out of.
Sirius pressed both hands over his face and dragged them down hard.
He loved his brother.
That was the problem.
That had always been the problem.
Regulus was the only good thing in this house. The only thing Sirius would miss. The only thing he could look back for. He was annoying and solemn and too quiet and sometimes a smug little brat in the way only younger brothers could be, and he stole things and denied it badly, and he snored even though he insisted he didn’t, and he still used Sirius’s old hoodie like a blanket even when he was pretending not to care about Sirius at all.
Sirius could not leave him here.
He could not.
Not because it was noble, though maybe part of it was. Not because Sirius was some great self-sacrificing hero with clean motives and a shining heart. He was not. He was angry. He was exhausted. He wanted out. He wanted to run so hard the house burned down behind him without him ever turning to watch.
But he could not take one step into freedom if Regulus was still upstairs breathing in the dust of this place.
And there was something else.
Something older.
Something childish.
Something neither of them had ever been completely sure was real.
Sirius opened his eyes and looked down at his own palm.
There was no mark now. There had not been one for years. But he could remember the sharpness of it anyway, the tiny bright sting of blood between two frightened children in a house much too big for them. Regulus had been very little then, still round in the face and furious when he cried, because even at that age he treated tears like a personal betrayal. Sirius remembered the cupboard. Or maybe it had been under the stairs. Or maybe it had been behind the heavy curtains in the sitting room. He could not remember the exact place, only the dark and the way Regulus had pressed himself into Sirius’s side, shaking and trying not to make a sound.
“Promise,” Regulus had whispered.
Sirius had been young enough to think promises were simple things. Big things, yes, but simple. You made them and then they were real.
“I promise,” he had said.
“No,” Regulus had said, stubborn through tears. “Properly.”
Sirius could not remember which one of them had found the little sharp thing. A pin. A blade. A broken bit of something. It had felt dramatic and stupid even then, which meant it was probably his idea, but Regulus had been the one to hold out his hand first.
Never abandon me.
That was what Regulus had made him promise.
Not don’t leave the house. Not don’t get angry. Not don’t shout back. Not don’t hate them.
Never abandon me.
Their blood had touched, hot and small and red, and some ugly old Black family magic in the house had stirred. Or maybe it had not. Maybe Sirius had only imagined the floor going cold under his knees, the curtains rustling when there was no wind, the portraits seeming to breathe all at once. Maybe it had been nothing but two children being frightened and dramatic in the dark.
Maybe.
Sirius was not willing to test it.
He looked at his packed things.
Then he looked at his bedroom door.
His jaw tightened.
“All right,” he muttered. “Fine.”
The house said nothing.
Sirius grabbed his bag off the bed, swung it over one shoulder, and nearly dropped it because he had packed it like a lunatic with no sense of weight or consequence.
“Brilliant,” he hissed. “Fantastic. Excellent work, Sirius. Very graceful.”
The sarcasm helped.
Barely.
He set the bag down again and made himself think. Walburga and Orion were not home. They had left after the fight, both of them in a state of cold fury that meant they were off to do something respectable and vicious elsewhere. Sirius did not know when they would be back. He was not going to find out. Kreacher was Merlin knew where, probably sulking in the kitchen or whispering to the old silver. He would not bother them unless called.
That gave Sirius time.
Not much.
Enough.
He shoved his wand into his pocket, took one last look around his room, and felt nothing.
That surprised him. He had expected to feel something. Fear, maybe. Grief. A dramatic swelling in his chest worthy of leaving forever.
Nothing came.
His room looked like a room that belonged to someone already dead.
Sirius took his things and stepped into the corridor.
The house was dark around him, deep and old and watchful. The lamps along the wall burned low, the flames small and sickly behind their glass. Everything had that late-night stillness that was not peace. Grimmauld Place never felt peaceful. It only paused, like a creature listening for weakness.
Sirius walked carefully.
His bag bumped against his hip with every step. He cursed it under his breath twice before gripping the strap and holding it still. He did not want to wake anything. He did not want a portrait shrieking. He did not want Kreacher appearing with his ears flat and his eyes bright, asking where Master Sirius thought he was going at this hour.
He did not want Regulus to wake before Sirius had a plan.
At Regulus’s door, he stopped.
For one second, his hand hovered over the handle.
He should knock.
That was the normal thing. The sane thing. He should open the door and wake his brother and say, Reg, get up, we’re going. He should explain. He should convince him.
He almost laughed.
Convince Regulus Black to run away from their parents in the middle of the night with no warning and no proper plan.
Right.
Sirius turned the handle.
The door opened with a faint click.
Regulus’s room was darker than Sirius’s, though softer somehow, or maybe that was only because Regulus was in it. The curtains were drawn. A thin bar of greyish streetlight cut through the gap and crossed the floor, touching the edge of the bed, the leg of a chair, the heap of sheets kicked almost entirely toward the footboard.
Regulus was asleep sideways.
Not even slightly properly sideways. Completely wrong. His head was near the middle of the mattress, one arm thrown above him, one leg bent, the other hanging halfway out from under the sheets. His hair was a mess, black curls pushed up on one side, the pale streak in his fringe lost somewhere in the chaos. His mouth was open just enough for the faintest, ridiculous snore to come out of him.
Sirius stopped dead.
For a moment, everything in his chest hurt.
Regulus looked small.
He was not that small, not really. Fourteen was not little. Fourteen was old enough to be sharp and cruel and proud. Old enough to argue. Old enough to look at Sirius like he knew exactly where to put a knife.
But asleep like this, he looked younger.
Younger and softer and nothing like the perfect little Black heir their parents kept trying to carve him into.
He was wearing ridiculous pyjamas, soft and comfortable-looking in a way their mother would have hated if she saw them outside the privacy of his room. Over the top was Sirius’s hoodie.
Definitely Sirius’s hoodie.
The one Sirius had been missing for two weeks.
“Theft,” Sirius whispered. “Actual theft.”
Regulus snored.
Sirius stared at him.
“You little menace.”
Regulus did not wake.
Of course he didn’t. Regulus could sleep through anything once he was properly out, which he always denied because apparently being a snoring little corpse was beneath his dignity.
Sirius moved into the room.
He shut the door behind him as quietly as he could and started packing.
At first, he tried to be careful.
That lasted roughly forty seconds.
Regulus’s things were not organised in a way that made sense to anyone except Regulus, and maybe not even him. Sirius opened one drawer and found socks, two books, a quill, three folded shirts, and what appeared to be a stolen packet of biscuits. He opened another and found neatly stacked clothes arranged by some private logic that Sirius immediately ruined by shoving handfuls into the nearest bag.
“Sorry,” he mouthed, not sorry enough to stop.
He took school things first. Books. Parchment. Quills. Ink wrapped in a shirt so it would not smash everywhere. He took clothes, whatever looked warm, whatever looked most worn and therefore most likely to be wanted. He found another of his own shirts in Regulus’s wardrobe and paused, holding it up in the dark.
“Unbelievable,” he breathed.
Regulus made a soft sleeping noise and shifted, cheek pressing further into the pillow.
Sirius packed the shirt.
He moved faster after that.
There was no time to wonder over every object. No time to decide what mattered. If it looked like something Regulus used often, Sirius packed it. If it looked like something Regulus would be furious to lose, Sirius packed it. If it looked useless but small, Sirius packed it anyway because Regulus had a habit of caring about strange, quiet little things and never explaining why until Sirius had already thrown them aside.
He packed like someone stealing a life.
Which, he supposed, he was.
From the bed, Regulus muttered something unintelligible.
Sirius froze with both hands inside a drawer.
Regulus’s brow creased. His fingers twitched in the sheet. Then he turned his face into the pillow and settled again.
Sirius exhaled very slowly.
“Stay asleep,” he whispered. “Come on. Be difficult later.”
Regulus, for once in his life, listened.
Sirius finished packing his brother’s bag and nearly swore aloud when he tried lifting it.
“For someone so small,” he whispered, glaring at the bag, “you own a deeply unreasonable amount of shit.”
He adjusted the straps. One of his own bags went over his shoulder. Regulus’s went over the other. A smaller one crossed his chest. He had to shift everything twice before the weight settled in a way that would not immediately drag him down the stairs by the neck.
Then he looked at Regulus.
This was the stupid part.
This was the part where Regulus woke up and shouted.
Sirius stood beside the bed and stared down at him.
“Reg,” he whispered.
Regulus did not move.
Sirius reached out and touched his shoulder.
“Regulus.”
Regulus made a tiny irritated sound and pulled his shoulder away in his sleep.
Sirius rolled his eyes so hard it hurt.
“Of course,” he muttered. “Of course you’re impossible even unconscious.”
He should wake him. He knew that. He should make Regulus stand up and walk. It would be easier on Sirius’s arms, if nothing else.
But Regulus would panic. Regulus would ask too many questions. Regulus would get scared loudly or quietly, and quietly would be worse. Regulus might dig his heels in, and Sirius did not have the time or the patience or the emotional stability to argue him down while still inside the house.
So Sirius bent.
He got one arm beneath Regulus’s shoulders and the other under his knees.
“Don’t bite me,” he whispered.
Regulus did not bite him.
Regulus did not even wake.
He only went boneless as Sirius lifted him, head lolling immediately against Sirius’s chest, one hand sliding uselessly down and catching in the front of Sirius’s shirt.
Sirius had to stand still for a second, adjusting to the weight of bags and brother both.
Regulus was warm.
Annoyingly warm.
Soft with sleep and heavy in the way sleeping people were heavy, all loose limbs and trust he would never have given if he had been awake. His hair tickled Sirius’s chin. The hoodie bunched under Sirius’s arm.
Sirius looked down at him.
Something in his face twisted.
“You’re going to be so angry,” he whispered.
Regulus breathed against his collarbone.
“Yeah,” Sirius said quietly. “I know.”
He turned toward the door.
Getting out of Regulus’s room was a nightmare.
The bags tried to murder him. One strap slipped. Regulus’s foot knocked the doorframe. Sirius stopped breathing, waiting for him to wake, but Regulus only wrinkled his nose and made another faint snore that Sirius would absolutely mock him for if they lived long enough to have that conversation.
They would.
They were going to.
Sirius made himself keep moving.
The corridor seemed longer with Regulus in his arms. Every shadow stretched. Every portrait frame looked like a threat. Sirius kept his head down and his steps careful, moving past the dark mouths of rooms and the closed doors that had held too many bad evenings.
Regulus shifted when they reached the stairs.
Sirius tightened his grip.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t wake up now. This is a terrible place to be dramatic.”
Regulus’s cheek rubbed against his shirt.
“Mmph.”
“Exactly.”
The stairs were worse.
Sirius took them slowly, one at a time, because if he dropped Regulus now he was never hearing the end of it. Also because Regulus might break his neck, which would be bad, obviously, but mostly because Regulus would be insufferable about it in death.
One step.
Then another.
A bag slid forward and thumped against the banister.
Sirius froze.
The sound echoed down the stairwell.
Nothing answered.
No portrait screamed.
No footsteps came.
No Kreacher appeared.
Sirius continued.
Regulus stirred again when they reached the lower landing. This time, it was more than a twitch. His fingers curled in Sirius’s shirt. His face scrunched up. His eyelids fluttered.
“No,” Sirius whispered. “No, no, no, absolutely not.”
Regulus’s eyes opened halfway.
They were unfocused and dark and deeply annoyed.
“Sirius?” he mumbled.
“Go back to sleep.”
Regulus blinked at him.
His head lifted an inch, then dropped back immediately because he was still mostly asleep.
“Why’re you…”
“Sleep.”
Regulus blinked again.
The hall below waited.
Sirius kept walking.
For several beautiful seconds, Regulus seemed too dazed to care. His eyes drifted shut. His body relaxed again.
Then they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Regulus woke properly enough to realise they were not in his room.
He went stiff in Sirius’s arms.
“Sirius.”
The name came out small, hoarse with sleep, but sharper than before.
“Shh.”
“Sirius, what are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
Regulus stared at him.
Even half-asleep, he managed to make the silence judgmental.
Sirius sighed through his nose and kept moving toward the front hall.
Regulus’s eyes shifted around them, taking in the stairs, the dark corridor, the bags hanging off Sirius, the direction they were going.
His breathing changed.
“Sirius,” he said again, and now there was panic under it. “What are you doing?”
“We’re leaving.”
Regulus went completely rigid.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, we’re not.”
“We are.”
“No, Sirius, put me down.”
“Can’t.”
“You can. Put me down.”
“Unfortunately, my arms have stopped listening.”
“Sirius.”
“Regulus.”
“Put me down right now.”
“No.”
Regulus shoved weakly at his chest, still tangled in sleep and panic.
“Sirius, no. No, you can’t. You can’t do this.”
“I can, actually. Watch me.”
Regulus twisted, and Sirius nearly lost his hold.
“Stop it,” Sirius hissed, tightening his arms. “Unless you want me to drop you on your head.”
“I want you to put me down!”
“That’s different.”
“Sirius!”
The name cracked too loudly through the hall.
Sirius flinched and glanced toward the dark passage that led deeper into the house.
“Keep your voice down.”
“Then stop kidnapping me!”
“I am not kidnapping you.”
Regulus looked down at himself, then up at Sirius, then at the bags.
“You are literally carrying me out of the house while I’m asleep!”
“It’s more of a rescue.”
“It is kidnapping!”
“It’s brotherly intervention.”
“You’re insane.”
“Probably.”
Regulus’s breath came faster.
The panic had got its claws into him now. Sirius could feel it in the way Regulus’s hands gripped at him, not quite pushing anymore, not quite clinging either. Caught between wanting to escape Sirius and wanting to hide inside him. His face had gone pale in the low light, eyes too wide beneath his messy curls.
“You can’t,” Regulus whispered. “You can’t leave. Mother—”
“Isn’t here.”
“She’ll come back.”
“We’ll be gone.”
“Father will—”
“Not get us.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough.”
“No, you don’t.” Regulus shook his head hard, waking up more with every second and hating it. “You don’t. You don’t know anything. Put me down. Sirius, put me down. We have to go back upstairs before they—”
“They’re not here.”
“They’ll know.”
“Eventually.”
Regulus looked horrified.
“Eventually?”
“Well, I’m not leaving a note.”
Regulus made a strangled sound and shoved at him again.
“Sirius!”
Sirius moved forward.
Regulus kicked once, not hard, more panic than strategy. His bare heel hit Sirius’s thigh.
“Ow. Don’t kick me.”
“Then put me down!”
“No.”
“You can’t just decide this!”
“I just did.”
“That’s not how it works!”
“It is tonight.”
Regulus stared at him like Sirius had turned into something unrecognisable.
Sirius hated that look.
He hated it because Regulus was scared, and Sirius was the one scaring him. He hated it because he did not have time to sit down and explain gently. He hated it because some part of him knew Regulus would remember this moment badly before he remembered it well.
But they were leaving.
They had to leave.
Sirius shifted him higher, ignoring the ache already starting in his arms.
“Listen to me.”
“No.”
“Reg.”
“No.”
“Regulus.”
Regulus went quiet despite himself.
Sirius held his gaze.
“We are leaving this house tonight.”
Regulus swallowed.
“No,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I can’t, Sirius.”
“You can because I’m carrying you.”
“That is not funny.”
“It wasn’t really meant to be.”
Regulus’s fingers twisted in the front of Sirius’s shirt.
“Mother will be furious.”
“She always is.”
“This is different.”
“Good.”
“She’ll—”
“She won’t touch you.”
Regulus’s mouth shut.
Sirius’s voice had come out harder than he meant it to, sharp enough to cut.
He softened it with effort.
“She won’t touch you,” he repeated. “Neither will he.”
Regulus shook his head, but slower this time.
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m not letting them.”
“You can’t stop everything.”
“No,” Sirius said. “But I can get you out of the house.”
Regulus stared at him.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
The hall pressed around them, black and gold and rotten with silence. The front door stood ahead, huge and severe, the last piece of the house between them and the street. Sirius could feel the weight of it from here. The ridiculous old locks. The cold metal. The boundary that had always felt less like protection and more like a mouth.
Regulus looked at the door too.
His face changed.
The panic came back stronger.
“No,” he said, voice trembling now. “No, Sirius, please. Please don’t. We can’t go outside.”
Sirius’s chest tightened.
“Reg—”
“No. They’ll find us. They’ll know. They always know. Kreacher will tell them. The house will tell them. Something will—”
“Nothing is telling anyone fast enough.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I know they’re not here.”
“They don’t have to be here!”
Regulus was breathing too fast now.
Sirius could feel it where Regulus’s chest pressed against his arm.
“Hey,” Sirius said. “Hey, look at me.”
Regulus did not. He was staring at the door like it was a curse.
“Regulus. Look at me.”
“No.”
“Look at me, you stubborn little nightmare.”
Regulus looked at him, furious and frightened and sleepy, eyes wet in a way Sirius would never mention unless he wanted to lose a finger.
Sirius lowered his voice.
“We’re going to be okay.”
Regulus’s face crumpled for half a second before he forced it back into place.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“You’re lying.”
“Probably a bit,” Sirius admitted.
Regulus made a broken little angry sound.
“But I know this,” Sirius continued. “I know if I leave you here, I’ll never forgive myself. I know if I stay, I’m going to—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I can’t stay. Not tonight. Not anymore.”
Regulus stared at him.
Sirius did not say everything. He did not need to. Regulus had been in the house. Regulus had heard the fight. Regulus knew the shape of it, even if he had hidden in his room and pretended he did not.
“I was going to go,” Sirius said. “I packed. I had it all planned.”
Regulus’s fingers tightened again.
“Sirius…”
“And then I remembered you.”
A wounded look flashed across Regulus’s face.
Sirius hated that too.
“No,” he said quickly. “Not like that. Not— I didn’t forget you like that. I just… I was thinking about getting out and then I realised getting out without you wasn’t getting out.”
Regulus went very still.
Sirius looked at him, really looked at him, messy-haired and terrified in stolen clothes, trying so hard to be braver than he felt.
“You made me promise,” Sirius said.
Regulus’s lips parted.
The colour shifted out of his face.
“What?”
“When we were little.” Sirius’s throat felt strange. “You made me promise.”
Regulus said nothing.
“I don’t know if it was real magic,” Sirius said. “The blood thing. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe we were just stupid little kids playing at ancient Black nonsense because this house makes everyone insane.”
Regulus’s eyes flicked down to Sirius’s hand, the one under his knees.
“But I promised,” Sirius said. “And I’m not breaking it.”
Regulus’s face did something Sirius could not read.
Then he whispered, “I was little.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Neither did I.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I do.”
“Sirius—”
“I do, Reg.”
Regulus stared at him, and Sirius watched him fight himself. He could see every instinct their parents had beaten into him. Stay. Obey. Endure. Keep quiet. Keep the family pleased. Keep the peace, even if the peace was killing you. Sirius could see all of it moving behind his eyes like shadows.
Then Regulus shook his head.
“I’m scared.”
It was so small Sirius nearly did not hear it.
The admission landed between them like something breakable.
Sirius’s grip tightened around him.
“I know.”
Regulus swallowed.
“I’m really scared.”
“I know.”
“You’re not.”
Sirius almost laughed, but it would have sounded awful.
“I am.”
Regulus looked at him with naked disbelief.
“I am,” Sirius said. “I’m fucking terrified.”
Regulus blinked.
Sirius looked toward the door again.
“But I’m more scared of staying.”
The house creaked.
Both of them went silent.
Sirius’s heart punched once, hard.
Regulus went rigid again.
For a second, they listened.
Nothing.
Only the old house settling around them. Only their own breathing. Only the distant, muffled life of London outside, so far away it might as well have been another world.
Sirius moved first.
Regulus clutched him.
“Sirius—”
“We have to go.”
“Wait.”
“We can’t.”
“Please.”
The word almost stopped him.
Almost.
Sirius closed his eyes for half a heartbeat, then opened them.
“No.”
Regulus flinched.
Sirius hated himself for it.
But he kept walking.
The front door loomed. Sirius shifted Regulus’s weight, freeing one hand enough to reach for the locks. It was clumsy, awkward work with Regulus in his arms and bags cutting into both shoulders. One latch stuck. Sirius cursed it under his breath and yanked harder.
Regulus whispered, “Stop.”
The first lock opened.
“Sirius, stop.”
The second.
“Please, stop, we can’t—”
The third.
“Sirius.”
His voice broke on the name.
Sirius stopped with his hand on the last lock.
He looked down.
Regulus had gone pale and furious and frightened, but he was not struggling anymore. He was holding on now, both hands caught in Sirius’s shirt, head tilted up. He looked betrayed, and that hurt worse than the weight of him, worse than the bruising dig of the bags, worse than anything Walburga had screamed earlier.
“I’m not leaving you,” Sirius said.
Regulus sucked in a shaky breath.
“That’s what this is?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“You’re taking me away.”
“Yes.”
“Even if I don’t want to go.”
Sirius’s mouth tightened.
“You don’t want to stay either.”
Regulus looked away.
There it was.
The truth neither of them liked.
“You’re scared to leave,” Sirius said. “That’s not the same.”
Regulus’s jaw trembled once. He clenched it immediately.
“I hate you,” he whispered.
Sirius nodded.
“That’s all right.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“You’re horrible.”
“Frequently.”
“You’re selfish.”
“Definitely.”
“You always just do things,” Regulus said, voice rising again, but soft enough still not to wake the house. “You don’t think. You don’t care what happens after. You just decide and then everyone else has to—”
“I am thinking!” Sirius snapped, then caught himself and lowered his voice. “I am thinking, Reg. That’s the worst part. I’ve done nothing but think. I have thought myself sick in this house.”
Regulus stared at him.
Sirius breathed hard through his nose.
“I know what happens if I go alone,” he said. “I know what they’ll do. To me, to you, to whatever’s left. I know what happens if I stay. And I know you won’t walk out if I ask you, because you’ll make yourself small and sensible and scared and you’ll call it loyalty.”
Regulus looked like he had been slapped.
Sirius regretted it immediately.
But it was true.
Quietly, he said, “I’m sorry.”
Regulus’s eyes shone.
“I can’t do this,” he whispered.
“Yes, you can.”
“I can’t.”
“I’ve got you.”
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes this bit.”
Regulus let out a sound that was almost a laugh and almost a sob.
“You’re so stupid.”
“I know.”
“So stupid.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t know.”
“I know enough.”
“You keep saying that.”
“It keeps being true.”
“It doesn’t.”
“It does for tonight.”
Regulus stared at him for a long moment.
Then his face twisted, and he buried it abruptly against Sirius’s chest.
Sirius froze.
Regulus clung to him, shaking once, then again, silent and furious about it.
Sirius’s eyes burned.
“Oh,” he whispered, and then hated himself because what kind of useless thing was that to say?
Regulus’s voice came muffled against his shirt.
“They’ll hate me.”
Sirius looked down at the top of his head.
“They don’t get to have you.”
“They’ll hate me.”
“They already don’t know how to love you.”
Regulus made a small, wounded sound.
Sirius shut his eyes.
That had been too honest. Too sharp. But he could not take it back, and he was not sure he would have even if he could.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
Regulus shook his head against him, not exactly accepting it, not exactly refusing it.
Sirius pressed his cheek briefly against Regulus’s messy hair.
“I love you,” he said, because the house had never liked those words and that made him want to say them at its front door. “All right? I love you, you horrible little thief. You stole my hoodie and you snore and you’re a nightmare, and I’m not leaving without you.”
Regulus’s hands tightened.
“I don’t snore,” he whispered.
Sirius almost smiled.
“You absolutely do.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re doing a brave job of lying through a breakdown.”
Regulus let out the smallest, wettest laugh.
It broke Sirius a little.
He turned the last lock.
The sound was louder than it should have been.
Regulus lifted his head, eyes wide again.
Cold air slipped through before Sirius had even opened the door properly, thin and damp and smelling like London at night. It touched Sirius’s face like a warning. Like a blessing. Like the world was proving it existed.
Regulus shivered.
Sirius adjusted him in his arms.
“Ready?”
“No.”
“Good enough.”
“Sirius—”
Sirius opened the door.
For half a second, neither of them moved.
The street outside lay dark and empty, washed in weak lamplight. The square was quiet. The air was cold enough that Regulus pressed closer without seeming to mean to. Behind them, the house waited. Ahead of them, the pavement looked impossible.
Sirius stepped over the threshold.
Regulus made a tiny sound and gripped him so hard Sirius would have bruises.
The doorframe passed around them.
Then they were outside.
Outside.
Sirius stood on the step with his brother in his arms and everything they could carry hanging from his shoulders, and for one wild second, he expected the house to grab them back. He expected the door to slam on its own. He expected a curse, a scream, his mother’s voice, his father’s hand, Kreacher appearing with a crack and a wail.
Nothing happened.
The night breathed.
Regulus was shaking.
Sirius turned carefully and pulled the door mostly shut behind them, not enough to slam, not enough to wake the whole rotten place. The click sounded final anyway.
Regulus stared at it over Sirius’s shoulder.
“Sirius,” he whispered. “We’re outside.”
“I noticed.”
“We’re outside.”
“Yeah.”
“We can’t be outside.”
“We are, though.”
Regulus looked at him with a kind of stunned horror, like Sirius had broken a law larger than law.
Sirius gave him a crooked look.
“Awful, isn’t it? Air. Very scandalous.”
Regulus did not laugh this time.
He looked down the street, then up, then back at the door.
His panic surged again.
“What if they come back now?”
“They won’t.”
“What if they do?”
“They still won’t get you.”
“What if Kreacher—”
“He’s not here.”
“What if he tells them?”
“Then he tells them after we’re gone.”
“What if—”
“Reg.” Sirius shifted the bags and nearly swayed under the combined weight. “I am begging you to panic in a slightly less imaginative way for the next five minutes.”
Regulus stared.
Then, because he was Regulus, he said, “Put me down.”
“No.”
“Sirius.”
“You’re barefoot.”
Regulus looked down, as if only just realising.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“You kidnapped me without shoes?”
“I was busy.”
“You packed my bags but not my shoes?”
“I packed shoes.”
“Then put me down so I can wear them.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I put you down, you’ll run back into the house.”
Regulus opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Sirius gave him a grim little smile.
“Exactly.”
Regulus glared at him.
“I hate you.”
“So you’ve said.”
“I’ll keep saying it.”
“Good. Means you’re breathing.”
Regulus’s glare faltered.
Sirius looked toward the pavement.
He had to call the Knight Bus.
He had known this part was coming. He had pictured it with himself alone, one arm thrust out like a dramatic idiot in the middle of a dark London street. He had imagined the violent bang, the purple blur, the whole ridiculous salvation of it. He had not pictured doing it with Regulus trembling in his arms and multiple bags slowly cutting off the feeling in his shoulders.
He shifted Regulus again.
“All right,” he said quietly. “Hold on.”
“I am holding on.”
“Tighter.”
Regulus looked offended. “I am already holding on.”
“Tighter than that.”
Regulus’s arms, after one furious hesitation, went around his neck.
Sirius’s throat tightened.
He swallowed around it.
“Good.”
“This is stupid,” Regulus whispered.
“Very.”
“You’re stupid.”
“Also yes.”
“You should’ve gone alone.”
“No.”
“You should have.”
“No.”
“You could have.”
Sirius looked at him.
Regulus went quiet.
“No,” Sirius said softly. “I couldn’t.”
Regulus’s eyes dropped.
Sirius freed one arm just enough, balancing Regulus against him with a desperate kind of awkwardness, and stuck his wand hand out toward the road.
For one second, nothing happened.
Regulus held his breath.
Sirius stared into the dark.
“Come on,” he muttered.
The street stayed empty.
Regulus’s fingers dug into the back of his neck.
“Sirius—”
“It’ll come.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“It will.”
“What if—”
With a violent bang, the Knight Bus appeared out of nothing.
Regulus nearly screamed.
Sirius nearly dropped him.
Purple burst into the street, huge and impossible, windows blazing, metal gleaming, the whole thing shuddering to a stop far too close to the pavement. The air snapped around it. Sirius’s hair blew back from his face. One of the bag straps slid dangerously down his shoulder.
Regulus had gone completely silent.
Sirius looked at the bus.
Then at Regulus.
Then back at the bus.
“See?” he said, voice only slightly strangled. “Told you.”
Regulus’s voice came out faint. “I hate everything.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Regulus turned his face into Sirius’s shoulder.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I can’t get on that.”
“You don’t have to. I’m carrying you.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I hate you so much.”
“Keep your arms around my neck.”
Regulus did.
Each step was worse outside than inside, probably because now the night could see him struggling. The bags swung. Regulus clung. Sirius’s knees threatened mutiny. He made it to the pavement through sheer spite.
Regulus lifted his head just enough to look back at the house.
Sirius saw him do it.
The expression on his face was terrible.
Not longing.
Not exactly.
Something more tangled. Fear and grief and disbelief and guilt, all braided together so tightly he looked trapped even on the pavement.
Sirius stopped.
Regulus whispered, “They’ll never forgive us.”
Sirius looked at the dark windows.
“They don’t forgive anything.”
Regulus’s mouth trembled.
Sirius looked back at him.
“We’re not doing this for them.”
Regulus closed his eyes.
Sirius’s voice softened.
“Reg, listen to me.”
Regulus did not open his eyes.
“Listen anyway.”
A tiny, miserable huff left him.
Sirius held him closer.
“They can’t get us,” he said. “Not tonight. Not if we keep moving. We’re going to go to James’s. He said I could. He meant it. We’ll be safe there.”
Regulus opened his eyes.
He looked frightened by the word safe, like it was something too expensive to touch.
Sirius pushed on before Regulus could argue.
“They won’t neglect you there,” he said. “They won’t starve you. No one’s going to leave you sitting at a table pretending you’re not hungry. No one’s going to act like you’re wicked for wanting things. No one’s going to hurt you for being scared.”
Regulus looked away sharply.
Sirius followed his gaze.
“I mean it.”
“You don’t know that,” Regulus whispered, but it was weaker now.
“I know James.”
“You know James.”
“And James knows his parents.”
Regulus frowned faintly, still pale, still shaking.
“That isn’t the same as knowing.”
“It’s enough.”
“Everything is enough with you.”
“For tonight,” Sirius said. “Yes. Tonight, enough is enough.”
Regulus stared at him.
The Knight Bus waited in a low rumble beside them, absurd and bright and too real. The house waited behind them, dark and quiet and full of everything that had made them like this.
Sirius stood between the two with his brother in his arms.
“Do you remember?” Sirius asked softly.
Regulus’s brow creased.
“The promise.”
Regulus looked down at Sirius’s chest.
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Then you know.”
“Know what?”
“That I’m a bastard about keeping promises.”
Regulus let out another tiny, unwilling sound.
Sirius almost smiled.
“I promised I wouldn’t abandon you.”
Regulus swallowed.
“You’re not.”
“No. I’m not.”
“You’re dragging me.”
“Carrying you, actually.”
“Sirius.”
“Sorry.”
Regulus stared at him, and for a moment he looked so tired. Not sleepy anymore, or not only sleepy. Tired in a way fourteen should not have been. Tired in a way Sirius recognised because he felt it in his own bones.
Then Regulus rested his forehead against Sirius’s shoulder.
“Don’t let go,” he whispered.
Sirius’s arms tightened immediately.
“I won’t.”
“Even if I tell you to.”
“I already didn’t.”
Regulus huffed, shaky and almost annoyed.
“Don’t joke.”
“Right. Sorry.”
A pause.
Then Sirius added, quieter, “I won’t let go.”
Regulus nodded once against him.
Sirius turned toward the bus.
The open door waited.
The first step up looked ridiculous from where Sirius stood, carrying too much, leaving too much, taking the only thing that mattered.
Regulus’s fingers curled again at the back of his neck.
“Sirius?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m still scared.”
Sirius looked down at him.
“I know.”
“I don’t think it’s going away.”
“Not yet.”
Regulus breathed in.
It shook.
Sirius took the first step.
The bus shifted under his foot, but he kept his balance.
Regulus clung harder.
Sirius took the second step.
Then the third.
Behind them, Grimmauld Place did not shout.
It did not collapse.
It did not open its black mouth and swallow them whole.
It only sat there in the dark, old and cruel and smaller than it had been a minute ago.
Sirius did not look back again.
Regulus did, once.
Only once.
Then he turned his face into Sirius’s shoulder and held on.
Sirius carried him forward with their bags cutting into him, his arms aching, his heart hammering so hard it felt like it might crack his ribs open.
He was fifteen.
Regulus was fourteen.
The night was cold.
The house was behind them.
The bus was beneath them.
And Sirius Black, terrified and furious and shaking under the weight of everything he had chosen, kept his promise.