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The dormitory had gone soft around the edges by the time Sirius Black dragged his trunk out from beneath his bed.
Not literally soft, though James had already tried to make that happen twice with a cushioning charm that kept rebounding off the bedposts and making Peter’s pillow inflate like a marshmallow. Soft in the way Saturday evenings went soft when no one had anywhere to be and everyone had decided, very firmly and with great ceremony, that Hogsmeade was overrated, damp, too full of couples, and not worth walking through the wind for.
The curtains were half-drawn. Rain tapped faintly at the windows. Someone had hung Fabian’s scarf from the light fixture for no clear reason. Gideon had claimed two pillows and most of the floor. Alice was sitting cross-legged at the foot of Remus’s bed with a bottle of something bright and fizzing in her hand, laughing every time Frank tried to look dignified while losing horribly at Exploding Snap.
Mary had her back against James’s bed, knees pulled up, a blanket around her shoulders like a queen’s cloak. Lily had stolen Sirius’s jumper and was wearing it with the sleeves rolled so many times they made thick cuffs at her wrists. Marlene had taken over one of the trunks as a table and was flicking cards down onto it with all the grave intensity of someone gambling for her entire inheritance.
“Frank,” Marlene said, staring at him, “you cannot keep saying ‘I thought that was allowed’ every time you cheat.”
“I’m not cheating,” Frank said, wounded. “I’m misunderstanding creatively.”
“That is what cheating is.”
“No, cheating is intentional.”
“You are intentionally misunderstanding.”
“That’s different.”
“It is not different,” Alice said, laughing into her drink. “It is exactly the same thing with nicer manners.”
Frank looked betrayed by her. “You’re meant to be on my side.”
“I am on the side of justice.”
Peter, who was lying on his stomach with his chin propped in his hands, said, “Justice says Frank is terrible at cards.”
Frank pointed at him. “You’re only saying that because you keep winning.”
Peter smiled smugly. “That’s generally how evidence works.”
James, glasses sliding down his nose, raised his bottle in solemn agreement. “Wormtail has spoken.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Remus muttered, though his mouth twitched. He was sitting on his own bed, one leg tucked under himself, looking relaxed in a way he always pretended not to be. “He’ll become unbearable.”
“Become?” Lily asked.
Peter lifted a hand without looking up. “Rude.”
Sirius had not been playing for the last ten minutes. At first, he had been dramatically narrating every round as if the cards were at war, putting on voices for kings and queens and aces until Mary threw a sock at him. Then he got bored, which was never a safe thing in a dormitory full of people, especially when he had access to his own belongings and absolutely no respect for consequences.
So now he had both arms shoved elbow-deep into his trunk.
“Careful,” Remus said without moving. “Something might bite.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Sirius said, voice muffled from inside. “If it does, I bite back.”
“Very normal thing to say,” Lily said.
James leaned over from the edge of his bed, peering down. “What are you looking for?”
“Nothing.”
Everyone in the room groaned.
“That means we’re doomed,” Mary said.
“No, it means I’m exploring.”
“Your own trunk?” Frank asked.
“My own trunk is mysterious and deep, Longbottom. Like the sea. Like my soul.”
“Your soul is not deep,” Marlene said. “Your soul is a puddle with dramatic lighting.”
Sirius emerged just enough to glare at her over the rim of the trunk. “You wound me.”
“You’ll live.”
“I may not.”
“You’ll live loudly, then.”
Fabian, sprawled backwards across the foot of James’s bed with his head hanging upside down, squinted at Sirius. “Is this the trunk with all the things you stole?”
Sirius’s grin arrived before the rest of him did.
James perked up immediately. “Stole?”
“From home,” Sirius said, as if this explained everything and also made him deeply heroic. “Before I left.”
The room shifted.
Not into silence, exactly. It was too full of Gryffindors for that. But the laughter thinned slightly. Lily’s expression sharpened. Remus looked down at his hands. James’s grin stayed, but softened at the edges. Peter glanced at Sirius and then very deliberately back at the cards, like he knew Sirius better than to make that moment tender while Sirius could still bite.
Marlene broke it first, because Marlene usually did.
“You robbed your own house?”
“I prefer liberated,” Sirius said brightly. “A revolutionary act.”
“You didn’t even know what you were taking, did you?” Remus asked.
Sirius pointed at him. “That is irrelevant.”
“So no.”
“It was the principle. I had ten minutes, two school bags, half a plan, and a truly spectacular amount of spite. Obviously I grabbed whatever looked expensive, breakable, cursed, or important.”
Mary’s eyes glittered. “That’s actually beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s not beautiful,” Lily said, though she was smiling despite herself. “That’s insane.”
“Thank you.”
“Not a compliment.”
“I make my own compliments.”
James had abandoned the game entirely. He slid off the bed and landed beside Sirius with a thump. “Show us.”
Sirius’s grin sharpened into something wicked.
“Oh, gladly.”
That was how the evening became less about cards and more about Sirius Black’s petty war against Grimmauld Place.
He pulled things out one by one.
A silver hairbrush with a crest engraved into the back, which he claimed belonged to his mother and which Marlene immediately pretended to use as a microphone. A small velvet box full of cufflinks, all shaped like serpents or skulls or both, which made Lily wrinkle her nose and Fabian put one in his ear until Alice slapped his hand away. A cracked mirror Sirius swore used to hang in the second-floor corridor and had once called him a disgrace in three different languages. A ceremonial dagger too dull to cut butter, which still made Frank sit up straighter and say, “Maybe don’t wave that near anyone’s face.”
“I know how to handle a dagger,” Sirius said.
Remus looked at him.
Sirius lowered it. “Fine. I know how to hold a dagger dramatically.”
Peter reached into the pile and picked up a small black carved box. “What’s this?”
“No idea,” Sirius said.
“You stole things without knowing what they were?”
“Yes, Peter, we have covered this. Do keep up.”
Peter clicked the lid open.
A shrill wail burst from the box.
Everyone yelled.
James threw himself backwards into Remus’s bed. Remus kicked him on reflex. Mary shrieked and then started laughing so hard she nearly dropped her drink. Frank grabbed Alice’s arm. Alice grabbed Frank back. Gideon sat bolt upright and smacked his head on the underside of James’s bed frame.
Sirius slammed the lid shut.
The wail cut off.
There was a half-second of ringing silence.
Then Marlene said, “Open it again.”
“No,” Lily said at once.
“Absolutely open it again,” Fabian said.
“No one is opening it again,” Remus said, pressing a hand over his face. “I hate all of you.”
Sirius, delighted, tossed the box onto his bed. “See? Important.”
“Evil,” Lily said.
“Important and evil.”
“Put that somewhere that is not near me,” Frank said.
“Frank, you’re a wizard.”
“And yet I value my ears.”
Sirius kept digging.
More things appeared. Old coins. A cracked crystal stopper. A tiny portrait frame with no portrait in it. A folded silk handkerchief embroidered with initials that made Sirius scoff and throw it across the room so violently it landed on Gideon’s head. Gideon wore it there for five minutes, solemnly declaring himself Lady Black until Lily told him he was being unsettling.
Then Sirius’s hand closed around something round and dark.
He paused.
Everyone noticed, because Sirius only paused when something was about to explode, insult him, or mean something.
James leaned closer. “What?”
Sirius pulled it free.
It was an orb, about the size of an orange, made of smoked glass threaded through with thin veins of dull silver. It did not glow, not at first. It sat in Sirius’s palm looking old and heavy and oddly watchful.
Remus’s brows drew together. “That looks like a projection orb.”
Sirius turned it over. “I know that.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I know some things.”
“You thought powdered moonstone went in tea.”
“That was one time.”
“You drank it.”
“I was curious.”
“You were eleven.”
“Exactly. A scholar from youth.”
Lily leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “What does it project?”
Sirius stared at the orb a little longer.
For the first time that night, his grin went strange.
“I think,” he said slowly, “this is from home.”
James blinked. “All of it is from home.”
“No, I mean…” Sirius shifted, sitting back on his heels. “There were these security cameras. Old ones. My parents had them put up when we were little.”
The room eased quieter.
“Security cameras?” Mary asked.
“Magical ones,” Sirius said. “Not Muggle. They were in corners. Hallways. Nursery. Garden. Library. Anywhere they thought we might get into something or embarrass the family by existing incorrectly.”
Marlene’s expression twisted. “Charming.”
“They took them down when we started Hogwarts,” Sirius continued. “I thought that was it. Didn’t know they kept anything.”
He rolled the orb again.
The silver veins caught the firelight.
Peter sat up. “It has recordings?”
“Looks like.” Sirius’s face changed by inches, amusement returning like he had decided nothing could touch him if he made it funny first. “Merlin. That is disgusting. And also brilliant.”
“Sirius,” Remus said carefully.
Sirius looked at him.
Remus said nothing else, but the warning was there. A small one. A private one, even in a room full of people.
Sirius ignored it with the precision of someone who knew exactly what he was ignoring.
He lifted the orb higher.
“Who wants to see little Lord Black on surveillance?”
James grinned automatically. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Fabian echoed.
Lily hesitated for half a breath. Then curiosity won. “It’s not going to scream, is it?”
“I make no promises.”
Frank looked wary. “Can old security recordings be cursed?”
“Probably,” Peter said.
“That was not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Marlene shuffled closer, dragging Mary with her by the sleeve. “Start it. I want to see if tiny Sirius had the same stupid hair.”
“My hair has always been excellent.”
“It has always been loud.”
“That is part of the excellence.”
Sirius placed the orb in the middle of the floor.
He tapped it once with his wand.
Nothing happened.
He frowned, tapped it again, and said, “Come on, you creepy old bastard.”
The orb flickered.
A thread of pale silver light rose from it, thin as smoke. Then another. Then another. The strands fanned outward and upward, weaving together in the air above the dormitory floor. The fire dimmed beneath the spell-light. The rain blurred against the windows.
An image formed.
At first, it was grainy and grey.
A hallway. Grim. Narrow. Impossibly polished. Dark wallpaper. Dark wood. A vase on a plinth. A portrait sleeping in its frame.
Sirius made a low noise of recognition.
“That’s the third-floor corridor,” he said.
The projected hallway stood in the middle of the dormitory like a ghost had brought a room with it.
James leaned in, fascinated. “That is the most miserable hallway I have ever seen.”
“You should see the dining room,” Sirius said. “It looks like fun went there to be executed.”
The projection shifted.
A boy shot through the hallway at full speed.
He was a blur of black hair and knees and flying shirt sleeves, small enough that his head barely reached the height of the side table. Tiny Sirius Black tore past the camera with something clenched in his fist, laughing with his whole body, wild hair streaming behind him.
Two seconds later, a much smaller figure came barrelling after him.
The room went still.
Regulus Black, perhaps four, perhaps five, stumbled into view.
He was tiny.
Not just young, not just small in the way children were small, but almost startlingly little compared to the long dark hallway around him. He wore soft loose trousers and a jumper that had slipped off one shoulder. One sock was bunched at his ankle. The other was missing entirely. His black curls were a mess around his face, and there was something pale stuck in the front of them like he had shoved a bit of ribbon there and forgotten about it.
He stopped in the middle of the corridor, breathing hard.
Then he looked directly at the camera.
The projected image fuzzed around him as he stepped closer.
Tiny Regulus frowned.
Everyone in the dormitory leaned in.
Regulus leaned in too, filling the projection with one enormous grey eye, then half his nose, then both hands as he reached up toward whatever had recorded him.
A small voice mumbled, muffled and curious.
“이거 뭐야? Igeo mwoya?”
Mary made a sound into her hands.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “He’s adorable.”
Sirius said nothing.
Projected Regulus patted the camera. The image shook violently.
“안녕?” he tried, very serious. “Annyeong?”
Lily pressed both hands to her mouth.
James stared at the image as if it had personally betrayed him. “That’s Regulus?”
Sirius’s mouth twitched. “Unfortunately.”
Tiny Regulus squinted, then whispered in careful, clumsy English, “You… look… me?”
The camera shook again.
He gasped, delighted by something no one else could see.
Then the projection tipped sideways.
The hallway became ceiling, wall, floor, ceiling again.
“He’s taking it,” Peter said, voice rising with laughter. “He’s stealing the camera.”
Projected Regulus made a tiny triumphant noise.
“내 거야,” he declared. “Nae geoya.”
The view lurched wildly as he ran. The hallway bounced, the plinth blurred, the sleeping portrait shouted something indignant as he passed. His bare foot slapped on the floor. His socked foot slid. He nearly fell, caught himself, and giggled breathlessly.
“Sirius!” he called, the name stretched into something softer by his accent. “Siri! Bwayo! Camera! Nae camera!”
The dormitory erupted.
“Oh my God,” Marlene said, one hand over her heart in exaggerated pain. “He called you Siri.”
“He did not,” Sirius said instantly.
“He absolutely did,” Fabian said. “We all heard it.”
“Siri,” Gideon repeated, delighted.
“Do not start.”
“Siri.”
“Gideon.”
“Siri.”
“I will hex you bald.”
“You wouldn’t dare. I’m beloved.”
“You are tolerated with enthusiasm.”
The projection spun again. Tiny Regulus had apparently stopped running and set the camera down on what looked like a rug, though at an angle so the world tilted sideways. He sat in front of it, knees drawn up, face flushed from running, hair falling into his eyes.
He looked at the camera with enormous seriousness.
Then he whispered, “Shh.”
The room went quiet without meaning to.
Projected Regulus leaned closer.
“Eomma mot bwa,” he whispered. Then, with careful effort, “Mother… no see.”
His mouth pressed into a small line. He glanced over his shoulder.
Then he smiled.
It was small and bright and conspiratorial.
Mary made another strangled sound. Alice grabbed Frank’s arm and shook it soundlessly.
Regulus lifted one finger to his lips.
“Secret,” he whispered.
The projection flickered.
The hallway dissolved.
Sirius blinked.
James stared at him. “What did he say?”
Sirius looked down at the orb. “Which part?”
“The Korean part.”
Sirius’s jaw shifted. “He said Mother can’t see.”
For once, nobody made a joke.
The orb pulsed.
Another recording began.
This one was brighter. A garden, though a stiff and joyless one, with clipped hedges and stone paths and ironwork chairs arranged like no one had ever sat comfortably in them. The sky above the projected garden was pale and washed out. A ball rolled into view.
A very small Regulus chased after it.
He was older than in the first recording, though not by much. Five, maybe. His jumper was too large again, sleeves over his hands. His curls bounced as he ran. He kicked the ball and missed completely.
His foot flew up.
He landed flat on his back.
Every Gryffindor in the room inhaled sharply.
Projected Regulus lay there for one dramatic second.
Then he lifted his head.
“괜찮아,” he told no one. “Gwaenchana.”
He patted his own chest twice like he was checking all his pieces were still attached, then rolled onto his side and pushed himself up.
“He just ate shit,” Marlene said reverently.
“He’s fine,” Sirius said, too fast.
In the projection, Regulus stood, swayed, then glared at the ball.
“No,” he said in English, pointing at it. “You bad.”
Peter wheezed.
“The ball is bad,” he said.
“The ball attacked him,” James said seriously. “We all saw it.”
Regulus backed up, tongue poking slightly between his lips in concentration. He ran at the ball again.
This time his foot connected.
The ball shot forward, struck the leg of an iron chair, rebounded, and rolled past him.
Regulus gasped.
“Oh!”
He chased it.
Kicked again.
Missed again.
Nearly toppled.
Caught himself.
“Slow,” he murmured. “Cheoncheonhi. Slow.”
He planted one foot beside the ball, drew the other back, and kicked more carefully. The ball rolled forward in a mostly straight line.
Regulus froze.
His entire face lit.
“I did it,” he said, so softly that the projection almost swallowed it. Then, louder, to the empty garden, “I did it!”
Alice’s eyes had gone huge and wet-looking in the firelight. “He’s by himself.”
The words landed harder than they should have.
Because he was.
There were no other children. No parents. No tutor. No house-elf visible. No Sirius in the background, no cousin, no friend peering over a hedge. Just one little boy in a stiff garden, teaching himself how to kick a ball because somewhere, somehow, he had seen other boys do it.
He ran after the ball again. His movements were clumsy and determined. He kept muttering to himself, half in Korean, half in English.
“Left foot. Aniya, not left. Other left. This one. Hana, dul, set—go.”
He kicked.
The ball veered wildly into a hedge.
Regulus chased it, sleeves flapping.
Lily’s voice was very quiet. “How old was he?”
Sirius swallowed. “Five. Maybe six.”
Mary’s gaze flicked to him. “Were you there?”
Sirius did not answer immediately.
The projection showed Regulus crouching by the hedge, trying to tug the ball free from beneath the branches. He huffed, pushed his hair out of his eyes, got a leaf stuck in it, then stared at the leaf cross-eyed when it fell onto his nose.
“I don’t know,” Sirius said finally. “Maybe.”
James looked at him.
Sirius kept his eyes on the projection. “I don’t remember this.”
Regulus freed the ball with a triumphant gasp, then promptly fell backwards onto his bottom.
He laughed.
Not a polite laugh. Not a cold one. Not the clipped, cruel little sound most of them associated with Regulus Black across corridors and classrooms and Quidditch stands.
A child’s laugh.
Bright. Breathless. Unwatched.
Gideon rubbed a hand over his face.
“Well,” he said roughly, “that’s unfair.”
Fabian nudged him with his shoulder, but he didn’t look much better.
The recording changed again.
This time, the view looked down into what must have been a nursery or playroom, though it had the same strict darkness as the rest of Grimmauld Place. A rug lay in the centre of the floor. Shelves lined one wall. A small table held books, parchment, blocks, and what looked like a half-disassembled toy train.
Regulus was sitting at the table.
He was a little older again. Six, perhaps.
His hair was neater at the beginning of the recording, though one curl had already escaped and fallen over his forehead. He was wearing soft clothes again, something meant for comfort rather than display, though the collar sat crooked and his socks did not match. One was black. The other had tiny silver stars on it.
He had a book open in front of him.
A very large book.
Too large for his small hands, really. He had to lean his whole arm across the page to keep it flat.
James frowned. “Is he reading that?”
“He can’t be,” Frank said, but not dismissively. More like he was trying to make sense of it.
Projected Regulus traced a line with one finger.
His lips moved.
“Trans… transfig…” He frowned, irritated. “Trans-fig-u-ra-tion.”
Remus sat forward.
Sirius went very still.
Regulus repeated it, slower.
“Transfiguration.”
Then, in Korean, with a pleased little nod, “변신술. Byeonsinsul.”
Lily lowered her hands from her mouth. “He’s six.”
“Probably,” Sirius said.
“Six,” she repeated.
Marlene whistled softly. “I was eating mud at six.”
“You were eating mud last year,” Mary said.
“It was a dare.”
“It was soup.”
“It looked suspicious.”
Regulus turned the page with extreme care and immediately got annoyed when it flopped back. He made a small frustrated sound, shoved his elbow onto one side of the book, and leaned half his body across the other.
“Stay,” he ordered.
The book did.
Regulus nodded like he had won an argument.
Then he picked up a quill.
It was too big for his hand. He held it awkwardly, brow furrowed, tongue between his teeth again. He copied something from the book onto the parchment beside him, shaping each letter slowly.
The projection was close enough that they could see the words, though not perfectly.
James squinted. “Is that… that’s a spell diagram.”
Remus’s face was unreadable. “It is.”
Frank blinked. “A proper one?”
“Yes.”
Peter pushed himself upright. “He’s copying advanced spell theory at six?”
Sirius said nothing.
Projected Regulus finished one line, sat back, and examined his own work. He frowned, then crossed out a curve and redrew it. Then he said, very quietly, “No. Wrong angle.”
Remus’s expression shifted.
He looked almost offended.
“No one knows that at six,” he said.
“Regulus did, apparently,” Alice said softly.
In the projection, Regulus turned another page and immediately brightened.
There was an illustration of a bird.
He stared at it for several long seconds.
Then he looked around the room, as if making sure he was alone.
The Gryffindors watched him slip off his chair and patter to the shelf. He took down a little wooden bird, painted blue and chipped at one wing. He carried it back to the table with both hands and set it on the parchment.
“No magic,” he told himself sternly in English. “No wand.”
He lifted both hands, palms out, as if proving his innocence to the room.
Then he leaned close to the wooden bird.
“You are bird,” he whispered. “But not real bird. That is sad.”
Mary’s face crumpled. “Stop.”
Projected Regulus stroked the chipped wing with one tiny finger.
“괜찮아,” he whispered. “I make you better.”
Lily closed her eyes briefly.
The boy picked up the quill and began drawing wings beside the spell diagram. Not childish scribbles. Careful ones. Anatomical in a way that was strange for someone so small. He glanced between the book’s illustration and his own drawing, muttering words under his breath.
“Feather… gitteol. Wing… nalgae. Bone… ppyeo.”
“He was teaching himself English with it,” Remus said, almost to himself.
“Yeah,” Sirius said.
His voice was quieter than before.
No one teased him for it.
The recording rolled onward. Regulus worked with ferocious concentration, occasionally pushing his hair back, occasionally shaking out his hand when it cramped. At one point, his eyelids drooped. His chin dipped. He jerked awake and glared at the book as if it had tried to defeat him through sleep.
“No,” he muttered. “I learning.”
James exhaled a laugh that barely sounded like one. “Stubborn little thing.”
Sirius’s mouth moved before he seemed able to stop it.
“He always was.”
Everyone looked at him.
He did not look back.
The recording changed.
The next was a hallway again. The angle was higher, tucked into a corner. Regulus appeared below it, seven now, maybe, with his arms wrapped around a stack of books nearly as tall as his torso.
He took three careful steps.
The top book slid.
He froze.
“No,” he whispered.
The book slid further.
“No, no, no—”
The entire stack collapsed.
Books hit the floor in a thunderous tumble.
Regulus vanished beneath them.
“Oh!” Alice gasped.
A small hand emerged from the pile.
Then Regulus’s head popped up, curls wild, one book balanced on top of him like a hat.
Peter lost it.
He folded forward with wheezing laughter, clapping one hand over his mouth too late.
Projected Regulus looked personally insulted by the books.
“You are rude,” he told them.
James made a strangled sound. “He told the books off.”
“He was right,” Peter said. “They attacked him.”
“Everything attacked him,” Marlene said, grinning helplessly. “The ball, the books. Little Regulus Black versus the world.”
“He was losing,” Fabian said.
“He was not losing,” Lily said, strangely defensive.
Projected Regulus began collecting the books with great dignity. He stacked them again, smaller piles this time. Then he noticed one had fallen open.
He looked at it.
His irritation vanished.
He leaned closer.
The dormitory watched as he forgot the mess entirely and sat down right there in the corridor, knees tucked under him, reading the fallen book in the middle of the floor.
Seconds passed.
Then a minute.
Then two.
Regulus turned a page.
Mary whispered, “Someone’s going to trip over him.”
As if summoned, a pair of older legs entered the projection.
Not enough to show a face. Just robes. Stiff posture. A sharp stop.
Regulus did not notice.
A cold adult voice said something in Korean, too fast and too clipped for most of the room to catch.
Regulus startled so violently he knocked his own knee into a book.
He scrambled upright.
The projection flickered faintly, blurring the adult figure at the edge.
Regulus bowed his head.
“Yes, Mother,” he said in English, careful and small.
Sirius’s face shut down.
The dormitory chilled.
The adult robes moved out of frame.
Regulus stood very still until they were gone.
Then, with the smallest possible movement, he bent, picked up the open book, and hugged it to his chest.
“Sorry,” he whispered, but not toward the vanished adult.
Toward the book.
Lily’s eyes flashed.
Marlene’s jaw clenched.
Frank looked down at his hands.
Mary said, very softly, “Bloody hell.”
Sirius reached toward the orb like he might stop it.
But then the recording shifted on its own.
A new room appeared.
The kitchen, or something like it. It looked too polished to be warm, too large to be comfortable. Regulus was perched on a chair at a table, feet not touching the floor, sleeves rolled clumsily up his arms.
In front of him sat a plate.
On the plate sat something small and broken.
A biscuit, maybe. Or a pastry. It was hard to tell. Crumbs dotted the table. There was jam on his sleeve and a streak of flour on his cheek.
He had a knife in one hand and an expression of extreme concentration.
Alice leaned forward. “What is he doing?”
Projected Regulus carefully scraped jam onto half of the broken biscuit.
Then he placed the other half on top.
It crumbled apart.
He froze.
His mouth trembled.
“Oh no,” Mary whispered.
Regulus stared at the ruined biscuit.
Then he sniffed, hard, shoved the heel of his hand under his nose, and began again with another piece.
“No cry,” he muttered. “It okay. 다시. Dasi. Again.”
He patched the next one together with jam.
It also broke.
His lower lip wobbled more dangerously.
“Is he making something for himself?” Frank asked.
“No,” Remus said quietly.
Because Regulus had just slid the least broken biscuit onto a napkin and patted it gently into place.
He looked toward the doorway.
“Siri?” he called.
Sirius flinched so slightly that James might have been the only one close enough to see it.
Projected Regulus waited.
No one came.
He looked back at the biscuit.
“For Sirius,” he told the empty kitchen, practicing the words. “I make. I made. I made for you.”
His face brightened a little at getting the sentence right.
Then he tried it again.
“I made it for you.”
His accent wrapped around the words. Careful. Proud. Hopeful.
Lily pressed her fist to her mouth.
James looked at Sirius.
Sirius stared at the projection as if he hated it.
Regulus waited another minute, swinging his feet.
“Siri?” he called again, softer.
The recording gave no answer.
Regulus’s face fell by degrees.
Not dramatically. Not loudly. It was worse because it was small. Because he tried so hard to hide it, even with no one there. He folded the napkin around the biscuit, tucked it into both hands, and slid down from the chair.
He went to the doorway, hesitated, then turned back and looked straight toward the camera.
“Don’t tell,” he whispered.
Then he hurried out of frame.
No one spoke.
The room had gone too quiet for a dormitory full of eleven teenagers.
Peter cleared his throat first, but whatever he meant to say did not come out. He rubbed at his nose and looked away, pretending to be interested in the cards.
Sirius’s voice came out brittle.
“I don’t remember that either.”
James did not say anything.
He just shifted closer until his shoulder pressed against Sirius’s.
Sirius did not move away.
The projection flickered again.
The garden returned.
Regulus was seven or eight now, still small, still all dark curls and serious eyes, but with longer limbs he had not quite figured out how to use. He had the ball again.
This time, there were books open on the grass.
Marlene blinked. “Are those sports books?”
The image sharpened enough to show diagrams. Muggle diagrams, by the look of them. Little figures, arrows, positions.
Regulus crouched over one, tracing the page.
“Football,” he said carefully.
Then, in Korean, with more confidence, “Chukgu.”
He stood and placed the book carefully on a flat stone to keep it open. Then he arranged three sticks in the grass like defenders.
James looked slowly at Remus.
Remus looked slowly back at James.
Frank said, “He set up drills.”
“By himself,” Alice said.
Regulus backed up, eyes darting between the book and the sticks. He ran, kicked the ball too hard, and sent it flying nowhere near the sticks.
It struck a hedge.
He sighed.
“Too much.”
He ran to get it.
The recording continued.
Kick after kick. Miss after miss. Then one good pass between the sticks that made Regulus gasp so happily Alice actually squeaked. He lifted both arms in the air.
“Goal!” he shouted.
Then he immediately looked around, as if afraid he had been too loud.
No one appeared.
He lowered his arms anyway.
“Small goal,” he corrected quietly. “Not loud goal.”
Marlene’s face had gone hard.
“Oh, I hate this house.”
Sirius laughed once.
It had no humour in it.
“Join the club.”
Regulus reset the ball. He started again, this time counting in Korean under his breath.
“Hana. Dul. Set.”
Kick.
Miss.
“Hana. Dul. Set.”
Kick.
Better.
“Hana. Dul. Set.”
Kick.
The ball slipped neatly between the sticks.
He smiled to himself.
Not for anyone else. Not because anyone praised him. Just because he had done it.
Mary’s voice trembled with forced brightness. “Well. That explains Quidditch, doesn’t it?”
“Does it?” Fabian asked quietly.
“He was always going to find something to chase,” she said.
Peter looked at the small boy on the projection, running after the ball with his whole soul.
“Or something to win at,” he said.
Remus watched Regulus reset the ball with precise care.
“No,” he said after a moment. “Something to understand.”
That made Sirius look at him.
Remus did not look away from the projection. “He’s not just playing. He’s studying it.”
Regulus stopped the ball under his foot, wobbled, windmilled his arms, and fell sideways into the grass.
Then he laughed.
Marlene groaned. “No, that’s illegal. That’s too cute. I’m furious.”
Lily let out a tiny laugh despite herself. “He is very sweet.”
Sirius’s eyes cut to her.
Lily did not take it back.
The next recording began indoors.
Regulus was sitting beneath a table.
He was eight, maybe, wearing a soft shirt that had ink on one sleeve. Around him, arranged in a careful semicircle, were small toys. A wooden bird. A stuffed dragon. A rabbit with one button eye. Several toy soldiers. A chipped teacup. A folded napkin.
He was whispering to them.
“Meeting start,” he said in English.
James blinked.
Peter mouthed, Meeting start.
Regulus picked up the wooden bird and nodded gravely.
“Yes, Mr Bird, you can talk.”
He made the bird bob up and down.
Then he answered in Korean, pitching his voice slightly higher. “감사합니다, 회장님. Gamsahamnida, hoejangnim.”
“He’s chairing a meeting under a table,” Gideon whispered.
Fabian whispered back, “Show some respect. Mr Bird has the floor.”
Regulus put the bird down and lifted the rabbit.
“No fighting,” he told the soldiers. “Rabbit says no war.”
He made the rabbit nod.
“War bad.”
Mary dissolved against Lily’s shoulder.
“He made the rabbit a pacifist,” she said, muffled.
Lily was shaking with silent laughter, but her eyes were wet.
Projected Regulus continued the meeting with total seriousness. The dragon had apparently stolen the teacup. The bird had witnessed everything. The napkin was somehow a map. The soldiers were in trouble. The rabbit wanted peace. Regulus translated for all of them, slipping between Korean and English with intense concentration.
At one point, he forgot a word and frowned.
“Dragon is…” He clicked his tongue softly. “Not guilty? Innocent. Innocent.”
He repeated it to himself three times.
“In-no-cent. Innocent. Innocent.”
Remus looked like someone had taken apart something in front of him that he had thought was simple and revealed a thousand tiny moving pieces inside.
“He practiced language through games,” he said.
Sirius’s mouth twisted. “He practiced everything.”
“Did he always struggle with English?” Alice asked.
Sirius looked at the small boy beneath the table.
“For a while,” he said. “We spoke Korean at home. Mostly. Tutors wanted English. Mother wanted both perfect. Father wanted whatever made us look impressive.” His fingers curled against his knee. “Reg had a harder time switching when he was little.”
Lily’s gaze stayed on him.
Sirius added, sharper, “He got over it.”
Projected Regulus, as if to ruin that, stumbled over the word “responsibility” four times in a row, then flopped backward under the table with a groan.
“Too many letters,” he complained.
Peter whispered, “Mood.”
Marlene snorted.
The toy meeting resumed only after Regulus bribed himself with a crumb from his pocket.
The next recording was in the library.
Grimmauld Place’s library was dark, narrow, severe. Books rose up the walls like a threat. The camera angle caught the rug, a low table, the bottom of shelves, and one enormous armchair.
Regulus was curled in the armchair with a book open on his lap.
Nine, perhaps.
He still looked small, swallowed by the chair. His hair had fallen into his eyes again. One hand held the book open. The other rested on the arm of the chair, fingers tapping soundlessly in a pattern only he knew.
He read for several seconds.
Then he lowered the book and stared into nothing.
“오늘은…” he began softly. “Oneureun…”
He stopped.
Tried again in English.
“Today I will…”
Another stop.
He huffed, annoyed with himself.
“Today I will speak English all day.”
The room watched him sit up straighter.
Then he nodded once.
“Yes. Good. All day.”
A beat.
He glanced toward the door.
Then whispered in Korean, “하지만 너무 어려워. Hajiman neomu eoryeowo.”
Sirius translated before anyone could ask.
“But it’s too hard.”
The words barely left him.
On the projection, Regulus shut the book with a thump, then immediately looked guilty and stroked the cover.
“Sorry.”
Frank’s face pinched.
“He apologises to a lot of objects.”
“He was around objects more than people,” Mary said softly.
No one had a joke ready for that.
Regulus slid off the chair and went to the low table. There was parchment there, and ink, and a row of words written in uneven columns.
English. Korean. English. Korean.
He sat on the rug and began copying.
“Window,” he said carefully. “Changmun. Door. Mun. Star. Byeol. Brother…”
He paused.
His quill hovered.
Then he wrote something in Korean beside it.
“Hyeong,” Sirius said.
James looked at him.
“Older brother,” Sirius translated.
The dormitory seemed to hold its breath.
Regulus stared at the word.
Then he drew a tiny star beside it.
Sirius looked away.
The projection did not care. It went on showing what the house had kept.
Regulus tapped the quill against his lip, leaving ink there. He did not notice. He wrote another word underneath.
“Home.”
He paused for much longer.
Then, slowly, he wrote the Korean beside it.
“Jip,” Sirius whispered.
“What?” Lily asked.
“Home,” he said. “It means home.”
Regulus stared at both words.
Then he crossed them out.
Hard.
Once. Twice. Three times, until the parchment tore.
The room went cold.
Regulus looked at the tear.
His eyes filled instantly.
“Oh,” Alice breathed.
“No, no, no,” Regulus whispered to himself, panicked. “Bad. Bad. Fix.”
He grabbed another piece of parchment, placed it over the ruined one, and began copying the whole list again with trembling determination.
“Window. Door. Star. Brother.”
His voice shook on the last word.
Then, fiercely, he continued.
“Book. Bird. Garden.”
Remus rubbed both hands over his face.
Peter’s smugness had disappeared entirely. He looked younger somehow, sitting there in the projection light.
James stared at Sirius, but Sirius was rigid, every line of him daring the room to pity him.
The orb flickered.
The next recording started with chaos.
The hallway again. The camera low this time, perhaps one Regulus had stolen or knocked aside, because the view was skewed toward the floor.
Small feet darted past.
Then back.
Then past again.
Regulus, around eight, skidded into view wearing what looked like a towel tied around his shoulders as a cape. His hair was wild. His cheeks were flushed.
He pointed a wooden spoon down the corridor like a sword.
“Back!” he declared, in English so dramatic it was clearly copied from somewhere. “I am prince of—of—”
He faltered, searching.
Then switched to Korean.
“별나라 왕자다! Byeolnara wangjada!”
Sirius huffed a laugh.
Despite everything, it sounded real.
James pounced on it. “What?”
“Prince of Star Country,” Sirius said, and the corner of his mouth moved again. “Or Star Kingdom. Something like that.”
Fabian put a hand over his chest. “I would die for the prince of Star Kingdom.”
“Same,” Mary said immediately.
Marlene nodded. “Without hesitation.”
Projected Regulus spun, cape flying. He nearly tangled himself in it, stumbled, recovered, and pretended it had been intentional.
“Monster!” he shouted at an umbrella stand.
He charged.
The wooden spoon hit the stand with a dull thunk.
The stand wobbled.
Regulus’s eyes widened.
“No—”
It toppled with a crash.
Regulus froze.
Everyone in the dormitory froze with him.
For one terrified second, he looked very, very small.
Then he dropped the spoon, grabbed the fallen stand with both hands, and tried to lift it. It was almost as tall as he was. He strained, cheeks puffing.
“Up,” he hissed. “Up. Ppalli. Please.”
The stand did not move.
He planted his feet. Tried again.
The projection caught his tiny furious whisper.
“I am strong.”
Gideon made a wounded sound. “Oh, come on.”
Frank looked genuinely distressed. “He shouldn’t have had to be strong. He was eight.”
Projected Regulus got the stand halfway upright. It slid. He nearly fell with it. Then he shoved with his shoulder, making a desperate little noise, and managed to push it back into place.
He stared at it, breathing hard.
Then he picked up the spoon and patted the stand.
“You alive,” he told it.
Lily laughed once, soft and broken. “He checked on it.”
Marlene dragged a hand down her face. “I cannot believe I have to feel emotions about Regulus Black.”
“None of us asked for this,” Peter muttered.
Sirius said, “You agreed to watch.”
“And that was clearly a trap,” Peter said.
The projection moved on before Sirius could answer.
Another clip.
The garden. Rain this time. Regulus stood under the shelter of a stone arch with the ball tucked under one arm, watching water stripe the path.
He was nine now. Thin little wrists. Serious mouth. Hair damp at the ends.
The garden was empty.
He looked at the wet grass.
Then at the ball.
Then toward the house.
Then back at the grass.
“No,” he said to himself. “Sick if rain.”
A pause.
He hugged the ball tighter.
“But practice.”
Frank exhaled through his nose. “That is such a Seeker thing.”
James frowned. “That is not a Seeker thing. That is a mad thing.”
“You would do it,” Lily said.
James opened his mouth.
Closed it.
“Not the point.”
Regulus stepped out into the rain.
Everyone groaned at once.
“No, tiny idiot,” Marlene said.
“Go back in,” Mary whispered.
Projected Regulus did not. He set the ball down, wiped rain from his face, and began.
This practice was different.
Less clumsy now. Still not graceful, not completely, but determined enough to become something like skill. He dribbled between stones. He turned too sharply and slipped. He landed on his knees in the wet grass, swore softly in Korean, then clapped both hands over his own mouth and looked toward the house in horror.
The dormitory exploded again.
“He swore!” Fabian crowed.
“He did not,” Sirius said, but his eyes had widened.
“He absolutely did,” Gideon said. “What did he say?”
“I’m not teaching you Korean swear words.”
“That means he did.”
“It means shut up.”
Projected Regulus got back to his feet, muddy-kneed and shivering. He tried again.
Kick. Step. Stop. Turn.
He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“Again,” he said.
Kick. Step. Stop. Turn.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The rain kept falling.
He did not go in until he managed it perfectly three times.
By the end, his teeth were chattering. His hair was plastered to his forehead. He picked up the ball and smiled, small and exhausted and proud.
“Good,” he whispered to himself. “Jalhaesseo.”
Sirius translated dully, “Well done.”
Mary looked at him. “He praised himself?”
Sirius’s face had gone very closed again.
“Someone had to,” he said.
The words came out like a blade, and the room bled around them.
No one knew where to look.
The orb flickered.
Another nursery clip.
Regulus sat on the floor with a broken toy train. He had tools laid out in front of him. Not toy tools. Real little instruments, sharp and delicate, probably stolen from somewhere he was not meant to have been. His hands moved with careful precision.
Remus leaned forward despite himself.
“Is he repairing that?”
Regulus squinted into the train’s open side and muttered, “Gear. Small gear. Eodie…”
He looked around, found a tiny piece near his knee, and picked it up with reverence.
“Found you.”
Peter’s eyebrows rose. “He talks to everything.”
“I’m starting to think the objects were his friends,” Alice said.
That one did not get a laugh.
Regulus worked the gear back into place, tightened something, then whispered, “Please work.”
He tapped the train with one finger.
It jerked forward an inch.
His entire face opened.
“Oh!”
He tapped it again.
The train rolled across the floor.
Regulus crawled after it, laughing.
“I fixed! I fixed!”
The train hit the leg of the table and stopped.
Regulus scooped it up and hugged it to his chest.
“You okay,” he told it. “I fix you.”
Lily’s mouth trembled.
James whispered, “He was a proper little genius.”
Sirius scoffed automatically. “He was annoying.”
The word fell flat.
Nobody picked it up.
Sirius stared at the projection.
“He was always taking things apart,” he said after a moment, as if he had not meant to. “Or putting them back together. Or asking why things worked. Why portraits moved. Why brooms flew. Why the staircase at home creaked more in winter. Why Mother’s silver warmed faster than Father’s. Why spells sounded different if she was angry.”
Remus watched him carefully.
Sirius laughed under his breath. “Drove everyone mad.”
“Sounds like he was curious,” Lily said.
Sirius looked at her sharply.
She held his stare.
Then Sirius looked away.
The recording shifted again.
The low camera. The hallway. Regulus, perhaps nine, sat against the wall beside a closed door. His knees were drawn to his chest. A book rested open on them, but he was not reading. He was humming under his breath, a tiny repetitive tune, while tapping each finger to his thumb.
One. Two. Three. Four.
One. Two. Three. Four.
His lips moved.
“English at dinner,” he whispered. “Sit straight. No fidget. No wrong fork. No too much talking. No Korean unless spoken. No—”
He stopped.
Pressed his hands over his ears.
The room had gone utterly silent.
Regulus squeezed his eyes shut.
Then he whispered, barely audible, “I don’t want dinner.”
Alice’s face crumpled completely.
Frank put an arm around her without looking away.
Projected Regulus sat there for several seconds, breathing through whatever storm was happening inside his tiny body. Then, slowly, he lowered his hands.
He picked up the book.
Opened to a page.
Started reading out loud in a shaking voice.
“Once there was a knight…”
He stumbled on knight. Tried again.
“Knight.”
He swallowed.
“Once there was a knight who was not afraid.”
His face tightened.
Then, in Korean, very quietly, “거짓말. Geojitmal.”
Sirius whispered, “Lie.”
Remus’s eyes closed.
James looked like he wanted to punch something and had no idea what.
Regulus kept reading.
“He was not afraid of dark castles. He was not afraid of dragons. He was not afraid of angry kings.”
His voice steadied as he went, as if the words were a staircase and he was climbing out of himself one step at a time.
At the end of the page, he touched the illustration of the knight.
“I’m not afraid,” he whispered.
Then, smaller, “조금만. Jogeumman.”
“A little,” Sirius said.
It sounded dragged out of him.
The orb hummed softly.
The projection went silver, then reformed.
Garden again.
Sun this time.
Regulus sat beneath a tree with a tiny bowl in front of him. A bird hopped several feet away, quick and nervous. Regulus held very still.
“Oh,” Mary whispered.
Regulus pinched a crumb between his fingers and placed it carefully on the grass.
“Here,” he whispered. “For you.”
The bird hopped closer.
Regulus’s face went slack with wonder.
“Annyeong, saeya,” he breathed. “Hello, bird.”
The bird pecked the crumb.
Regulus smiled like he had been given a kingdom.
He placed another crumb down.
“You can have. I not tell. Kitchen has many.”
The bird hopped again.
Regulus giggled silently, shoulders rising to his ears.
Marlene dropped her forehead onto Mary’s shoulder. “I’m actually going to die.”
“He’s feeding birds,” Mary said, voice high with distress. “He’s feeding little birds.”
“He has betrayed his entire current aesthetic,” Fabian said.
“His current aesthetic is being a haunted knife,” Gideon said.
“And apparently he started as a bird-feeding muffin.”
Sirius made a choked sound.
It might have been a laugh.
It might not have.
The bird fluttered away suddenly.
Regulus gasped and ducked as if he had startled it, then looked stricken.
“Sorry,” he called after it. “Sorry! Come back when you want!”
He gathered the remaining crumbs into the bowl with careful fingers.
Then he looked at the camera.
“I think bird has friends,” he whispered. “Maybe he tell them.”
Lily wiped under one eye quickly.
Peter saw and looked away like he hadn’t.
Regulus stood, holding the bowl.
“I make more.”
He hurried out of the frame.
The recording ended.
For a while, there was only rain at the actual Hogwarts window.
Then James said, too loudly, “Right. So. Regulus Black used to be the cutest child alive. Horrible news for everyone.”
The room released a breath.
Mary laughed first, helplessly. Then Alice. Then Peter, and Frank, and Fabian, and Gideon. Even Remus smiled, though it was small. Lily’s laugh came out wet around the edges.
Marlene pointed at Sirius. “I hate that you never told us your brother was a tiny genius bird prince.”
Sirius bristled instantly, almost relieved to have something easy to snap at. “I was not aware that was essential information.”
“It was extremely essential,” Fabian said. “I’ve been calling him a pale little cryptid in my head for years.”
“He is a pale little cryptid,” Sirius said.
“He was a baby.”
“He grew.”
“He fed birds.”
“He joined Slytherin.”
“Lots of people are in Slytherin,” Lily said sharply.
Everyone glanced at her.
She lifted her chin. “I’m just saying.”
Marlene made a face. “Evans.”
“No,” Lily said. “I know. I know what people say. I know what he acts like. I know who he spends time with. But we just watched a child sit alone in a garden teaching himself football.”
Frank nodded slowly. “That doesn’t erase anything.”
“No,” Lily agreed. “It doesn’t. But it… explains something.”
“Does it?” Sirius asked.
His voice was too light.
Remus looked at him. “Maybe not enough.”
Sirius’s eyes cut to him.
Remus continued, careful but not backing off. “But something.”
Sirius looked down at the orb.
The smoke-glass surface reflected his face in warped miniature.
“He wasn’t always like he is now,” Mary said softly.
Sirius laughed, sharp and ugly.
“People love saying that.”
James shifted beside him. “Pads.”
“No, really. Fantastic revelation. Children change as they grow up. Alert the Prophet.”
“Sirius,” Lily said, not unkindly.
He surged to his feet.
The orb’s projection flickered but did not vanish.
“What?” he demanded. “You all want to say it, say it. Poor little Regulus. Sweet little Regulus. How did sweet little Regulus become awful? Must be tragic. Must be complicated. Must be my fault somehow.”
“No one said that,” Alice said.
“You’re all thinking it.”
“I’m thinking your parents were horrible,” Marlene said bluntly. “Actually.”
Sirius blinked.
Marlene shrugged, angry and unapologetic. “I already thought that. Now I think it louder.”
Gideon nodded. “Same.”
Fabian raised a hand. “Incredibly loud thoughts over here.”
Frank said, “That house looked miserable.”
“It was miserable,” Sirius snapped.
The honesty seemed to surprise him more than anyone else.
The room quieted again.
Sirius stood over the orb, chest rising and falling. His hair fell forward around his face. The projection light painted him silver.
James stood too, slower.
“We know,” he said.
Sirius looked at him.
James’s voice softened. “Not all of it. But we know.”
Sirius’s jaw worked.
For a moment, he looked almost like the boy in the first projection, running down a dark hall with stolen laughter in his hands.
Then the orb pulsed again.
Sirius looked down sharply.
“No,” he muttered. “Don’t.”
But the next recording had already begun.
A bedroom.
A child’s bedroom at Grimmauld Place, stiff and immaculate except for the corner nearest the bed, where several books had been hidden badly beneath a blanket.
Regulus was sitting on the floor.
Five again.
Very small.
He had the stolen camera in both hands, though the angle suggested he had propped it up after carrying it there. He sat close to it in his soft crooked clothes, curls messy, cheeks still round with babyhood.
He looked into the lens.
“Secret camera,” he whispered.
The dormitory went motionless.
Regulus glanced toward the door, then leaned in.
“Sirius angry today,” he confided.
Sirius went pale.
Projected Regulus nodded solemnly at the camera as if it had responded.
“Yes. Very angry. He shout.” A pause. His brow furrowed. “Shouted. He shouted.”
He seemed pleased with the correction, then immediately sad again.
“He no want play.”
The dormitory seemed to shrink around them.
Regulus picked at his sleeve.
“I think he sad,” he whispered in Korean. “Siri hyeong seulpeun geot gata.”
Sirius did not translate.
He did not need to.
The shape of it was clear enough.
Regulus looked down at his lap.
“I make biscuit,” he said. “But it break.”
His lower lip pushed out.
Then he looked up again, fiercely.
“I make again. Tomorrow. Better.”
James closed his eyes.
Regulus leaned closer to the camera.
“You don’t tell,” he whispered.
He touched the lens with one finger.
The projection blurred around his fingertip.
“Sirius is good,” he said, very carefully. “He just loud.”
Sirius made a sound like he had been struck.
Nobody moved.
Projected Regulus smiled, small and certain.
“My brother,” he said.
Then, in Korean, softer than anything, “내 형. Nae hyeong.”
My brother.
The recording ended.
The orb went dark.
No one spoke.
For once, not even James had a joke. Not even Peter had a muttered comment. Not even Fabian or Gideon tried to drag the room back into laughter.
Sirius stared at the empty air where Regulus’s little face had been.
His hands were curled into fists at his sides.
The dormitory fire crackled.
Rain tapped the glass.
Finally, Mary whispered, “Sirius…”
He shook his head once.
Not harshly. Not at her.
Like something inside him had come loose and he was trying to keep it from spilling out through his ribs.
“I hated him,” he said.
No one answered.
Sirius laughed once, breathless and awful.
“I hated him so much.”
James took half a step closer.
Sirius did not look at him.
“I hated how quiet he was. How perfect. How he stayed. How he listened. How he looked at me after I left like I was the one who had—” He stopped, swallowed hard, and looked down at the orb. “I hated him because it was easier.”
Remus’s voice was low. “Easier than what?”
Sirius’s face twisted.
“Than remembering.”
The words hit the floor and stayed there.
Lily’s eyes were wet again. Alice had both hands over her mouth. Frank looked stricken. Mary was staring at Sirius like she had never seen him clearly before and hated that clarity for hurting him. Marlene’s anger had nowhere to go, so it sat in her shoulders, rigid and helpless. Peter had gone completely still, his usual restless sharpness tucked away. Fabian and Gideon sat shoulder to shoulder, unusually quiet.
James reached Sirius first.
He did not hug him. Not yet. Sirius looked like a hug might make him shatter or swing.
James just stood beside him.
“He was little,” James said.
Sirius nodded.
A tiny movement.
“So were you.”
Sirius closed his eyes.
For a moment, his whole face crumpled.
Then he dragged it back into place with visible effort, because he was still Sirius Black and the world was still watching and old habits did not die just because a smoky orb had dragged ghosts into the room.
He sank back down onto the floor.
The others stayed quiet.
After a moment, Peter moved first. He crawled forward, picked up the abandoned deck of Exploding Snap cards, and began gathering them into a messy pile. Not because anyone wanted to play. Just because his hands needed something to do.
“So,” he said, voice carefully casual and not casual at all, “we have learned several things.”
Sirius looked at him warily.
Peter held up one finger. “One. Your house is awful.”
Sirius huffed weakly.
Peter held up another. “Two. Your brother was apparently a prodigy.”
Remus murmured, “Apparently?”
“Fine. Definitely.” Peter held up a third finger. “Three. He was clumsy as hell.”
That startled a real laugh out of Mary.
Marlene seized on it. “Tragically clumsy.”
“Heroically clumsy,” Fabian corrected.
“Attacked by sports equipment and literature,” Gideon said.
“And furniture,” Frank added, because even Frank apparently needed this.
“And umbrella stands,” Alice said, wiping her eyes.
“And emotional repression,” Lily said.
Everyone looked at her.
She shrugged, expression fragile and fierce. “What? It attacked him too.”
Sirius let out another sound.
This one was closer to a laugh, though it broke at the end.
James sat beside him and nudged his shoulder. “Prince of Star Kingdom, though.”
Sirius groaned and covered his face. “Do not.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Marlene said. “That is not leaving this room.”
“It had better leave this room,” Sirius warned through his hands.
Mary shook her head. “No, no, I’m keeping it. Privately. In my heart.”
“Same,” Alice said.
“Same,” Frank admitted.
Lily smiled faintly. “Same.”
Peter shuffled the cards, then looked up. “Did he really call you Siri all the time?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
Too immediate.
James slowly turned his head.
Sirius glared at him.
James grinned.
“Oh, he did.”
“Shut up.”
“He definitely did.”
“Prongs.”
“Siri.”
Sirius lunged.
James was ready, laughing as Sirius shoved him sideways into Remus’s bed. Remus yelped and kicked both of them away. Peter snorted. Mary nearly spilled her drink. Marlene cheered for violence. Alice shouted at them to mind the orb. Frank rescued the orb from being crushed under James’s elbow. Fabian and Gideon started chanting “Siri, Siri, Siri,” until Sirius threw a pillow at Fabian’s head and hit Gideon instead.
For a minute, the dormitory became itself again.
Loud. Warm. Ridiculous.
But not quite the same.
The orb sat in Frank’s hands, dark and quiet, holding the shape of what they had seen.
Eventually, the laughter settled.
James stayed sprawled half on the floor and half against Sirius’s leg, because apparently dignity had left him several drinks ago. Sirius leaned back against the bed frame, hair mussed, expression exhausted in a way he usually hid behind noise.
Lily sat with her arms around her knees.
“He’s alone in all of them,” she said quietly.
The room heard her.
Sirius stared at the opposite wall.
“Yes.”
“Were there recordings with you?” Frank asked.
Sirius’s mouth tightened. “Probably.”
“But those were all him.”
“The orb might have sorted by…” Remus hesitated. “By whoever touched the camera most. Or whoever activated it.”
“Regulus stole the camera,” Peter said softly.
“More than once, maybe,” Mary said.
Sirius looked at the orb again.
His face was hard to read.
“He liked secrets,” he said.
Then, after a moment, “Not like now. Not cold secrets. Little ones. Stupid ones. A biscuit hidden in a napkin. A bird in the garden. A toy under the table. A word he’d learned before anyone else knew he knew it.”
The others listened.
Sirius did not seem to know how to stop once he had started.
“He used to follow me around,” he said. “When he was tiny. Couldn’t say half my name properly. Always tripping on things. Always asking questions. Always getting in the way.”
James said, very softly, “You loved him.”
Sirius’s eyes flashed.
Then the anger went out.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Remus looked at him. “Yes, you do.”
Sirius swallowed.
His voice, when it came, was small enough that no one mocked it.
“Yeah.”
The word sat there.
Then Sirius reached out and took the orb from Frank.
Frank handed it over without comment.
Sirius held it between both palms.
The smoked glass looked black now, no silver light moving beneath the surface. Just a dead old thing from a dead old house that had somehow kept laughter better than the people inside it had.
Marlene leaned back on her hands. “For what it’s worth, I still think current Regulus is a nightmare.”
Sirius barked a laugh.
Lily shot her a look.
“What?” Marlene said. “I do. He glares like he’s been personally wronged by oxygen.”
Peter nodded. “He does do that.”
“And he’s smug.”
“Very smug,” James agreed.
“And terrifyingly good at Quidditch,” Frank said.
James made a face. “Do not praise enemy Seekers in this room.”
“He is, though.”
“He is,” Alice said.
Mary looked thoughtful. “He was practicing sports alone at five. That’s horribly sad, but also kind of impressive.”
“Everything about him is kind of impressive in the most annoying way possible,” James said.
Sirius stared down at the orb.
“He was always impressive,” he muttered.
The words came out before he had time to hate them.
No one laughed.
Lily’s expression softened. “Sirius.”
“No,” he said, but not sharply. “Don’t.”
So she didn’t.
The room let him have the silence.
It was Mary who broke it gently.
“Do you want to keep watching?”
Sirius’s fingers tightened around the orb.
Everyone waited.
Outside, the rain had begun to ease, tapping lighter now, like fingers instead of stones.
Sirius looked at James. Then Remus. Then Peter. Then the rest of them, all scattered around the dormitory with their drinks and cards and stolen Black family heirlooms and faces too open for him to bear.
He looked back at the orb.
“Not tonight,” he said.
James nodded immediately. “Not tonight.”
“No,” Remus agreed.
Peter reached for the screaming box and placed it very deliberately on top of the orb as if guarding it with the threat of future chaos. “We can revisit your trauma collection another time.”
Sirius snorted. “My what?”
“Your trauma collection.”
“That is not what this is.”
Peter looked at the pile of stolen heirlooms.
A cursed mirror. A screaming box. A ceremonial dagger. A security orb full of childhood ghosts.
Sirius followed his gaze.
“Fine,” he said. “Maybe a little.”
Marlene lifted her bottle. “To Sirius Black’s trauma collection.”
“Marlene,” Lily scolded, but she was laughing.
“To petty theft,” Fabian added.
“To tiny bird prince Regulus,” Gideon said.
Sirius pointed at him. “No.”
Everyone raised their drinks.
“No,” Sirius repeated.
James grinned at him and lifted his bottle higher. “To tiny bird prince Regulus.”
“To tiny bird prince Regulus,” the room echoed, some laughing, some soft, some both.
Sirius stared at them all in horror.
Then, because he was outnumbered and tired and something in his chest hurt too much to fight properly, he grabbed his own bottle and muttered, “To the little menace, then.”
Lily smiled.
Mary leaned into her shoulder.
Alice wiped her eyes again but looked happier for it. Frank smiled down at his hands. Fabian and Gideon clinked their bottles too hard and spilled fizz on the rug. Peter pretended not to notice while absolutely noticing. Remus looked at Sirius with something patient and sad and fond.
James bumped his shoulder against Sirius’s.
Sirius did not bump him back.
But he did not move away.
The orb remained dark beneath the screaming box, silent and watchful, holding its secrets for another night.
And in the strange warm mess of the Gryffindor dormitory, with stolen silver and damp socks and half-finished card games scattered everywhere, Regulus Black became, for the first time in a long time, not just a name hissed across corridors.
Not just Slytherin.
Not just enemy.
Not just the brother who stayed.
For a little while, under the low firelight, he was a child with jam on his sleeve and mud on his knees, whispering to birds, arguing with books, teaching himself how to run after something no one else had given him.
And Sirius, who had spent years trying not to remember, sat very still among the people who remembered anyway.