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“You look no younger than eighteen.” Is the first thing he says after an eternity of time has passed when the young boy— the Master of Death , Regulus thought dazedly—had just dropped that he is, in fact, the fabled Master of Death. Regulus has read that book, under Sirius’s (his hand shakes at the reminder of his brother) blanket and Lumos, when the whole world is suspended in time, when there’s no Orion’s wand threatening to crack them open or Walburga’s thinly-veiled manipulations to crack them apart from each other. When there was just Siri, Reg, and the Tales of Beedle the Bard. Regulus had hated the tales of the three brothers—any mentions of death, really—but Sirius loved it—because he’s a sucker for adventure. 
Oh Sirius. My brother…
 Regulus feels like drowning, again. In the lake where taloned hands gripped him down. A senseless, unnecessary act of sheer stupidity, ill-timed bravery, with no one to know, with nothing to show for. He was but a footnote in the war, unnecessary sacrifice gone unnoticed even by the person he wished for it to be known. He died alone, grabbed and drowned by ghostly hands, and the whole Wizarding world kept spinning. He was just a passing character in the background, written there to make the Horcrux hunt an even more of an epic adventure for the true heroes of the story.  No one had written of his life—of the visions that haunt him as the potion scalds its way down his throat, of the numerous crucio he endures under the Dark Lord's wand, of Orion's sharp words of expectation and derision, of Walburga’s nails (talon, like the Inferi) and even sharper words, of his and Sirius’s silent brotherhood under the onslaught of darkness that had made up their childhood. No one had known what Regulus died for, what he thought and wished for at the brink of his death. No one knew that they didn't matter anyway, because nothing had ever gone his way before. Not even the ardent wish of a dead man, desperate to save another from his fate. But they were born dead, Sirius and Regulus, before they knew it. It was written by this man who thought himself the orchestrator of their deaths, the author of a story that his and his brother’s lives just passing characters behind. Regulus shakes with the tragedy of it, the crack of his heart so loud inside of him that it compasses him—the grief, the anger, the loneliness, the regrets. He wants to flee, like the coward he is, but the ghostly whiteness stretches in all sides of him. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to cower behind. The boy’s— Master of Death’s, Regulus hisses in his mind—green eyes stare at him with blankness that belie the otherworldly omniscience of someone untouched with human sentiments like grief. Or maybe, a dawning realization hits him, touched by it many times that it is but a dull feather’s graze. In a way, Regulus envies it. His hands clenches and unclenches, forcing the emotions behind the wall of calmness in his mind. “I'm seventeen,” Harry Potter says, arms against the back of his chair. Insouciantly sitting as if he had not just dismantled everything that Regulus had known. Just like his father, a voice eerily sounding like—Merlin forbid—Severus Snape echoes in his mind. “For a thousand years.” Regulus’s logical mind wants to argue with that. The Master of Death is a mysterious figure of his childhood that had grown into a looming abstraction when he was working under the Dark Lord’s thumb that had ultimately turned into an inevitable verity that he had fallen into when the Inferi’s hands had grabbed him down. The Master of Death doesn’t look like a boy barely into adulthood, corporeal in his Muggle garb, lanky and messy haired, violet rings that underlined haunted deep set green eyes, strong jaws and hollow cheeks. The Master of Death doesn’t look like Regulus’s age and doesn’t wear the face of the person he detests the most. Alas, his logical mind wants to point out another thing. “So you’re a writer in your free time?” Regulus says, refusing to look at the seven books before him that he had pored over for an indefinite time in this weird limbo. “Terrorizing the people in various timelines because you’re bored with your eternal life?” Harry Potter’s lips curl at the corner and Regulus’s heart leaps. Unbidden, he sees Sirius in his mind—moments before outrightly defying Walburga’s orders at her face, across from the Great Hall when he and his equally moronic friends discussing an even more idiotic prank, when he was assuring Regulus that he’s okay after getting his back flayed. And Regulus remembers that Sirius had spent his last months, last days, last moments with Harry Potter before he had fallen through the veil. The green envy inside Regulus is an ugly thing. He can never perfect that wild grin.  “I’ve been looking for you, Rab, for a thousand years.” Harry Potter says, rather earnestly, openly. As if he isn’t a figure of nightmare, waiting to unhook the souls of people on their deathbeds. As if the innocence has never been taken out of him despite being touched by grief in numerous times and unimaginable ways. Regulus’s envy intertwines with the uncharacteristic nostalgia at the nickname, twisting his heart, taking his breath away. “I’ve been searching for you since I’ve mastered my ability to stretch the fabric of space and time. Leaping from timeline to timeline, but it's seems so hard to catch yours,” he continues, eerie green eyes taking on a far-away look. “You’re… it’s… your timeline is always in a limbo, you see. Unlike the rest that I lived in, where the thread of reality rights itself once, and then they disappear forever, preserving the natural flow of time. I didn't understand it, at first…” he smiles self-deprecatingly. “It took me a lifetime and a half to work it out, but by then I was writing the fifth book, and it suddenly occurred to me.” Without meaning to, Regulus’s eyes fall to the garishly orange-covered book that he hates the most of the series. It was unnecessarily long, brutal in ways that distantly echoes his reality. Corporeal punishment, children being forced to confront the political climate that they didn’t understand half of, grief and opposition. It’s where his brother died, because his godchild had been too idiotic to learn Occlumency. Harry Potter was not there, when Regulus had unleashed the ugly dry sob that crawled its way out of his grieving heart. If he were, Regulus would’ve cursed him to eternity, Master of Death or not. Harry Potter flashes him an easy smile, and it unnerves Regulus how much he resembles James Potter, in all his flamboyant, Head Boy assery. He barely controls the tremor that wracks his shoulder. Barely. “Limbos happen when something’s holding it back from unraveling. It can be anything—from an event to people… like…” Harry Potter sighed in resignation. “Your life is out of sync with the rest of the mul—” he stops, jaws working agitatedly before sighing once more. “You’re not supposed to die. At least not in that cave. Not during that time. You’ve caused,” this, his lips purse and curl, as if fighting a Langlock jinx, “quite a chaos in the fabric of reality.” It seems, to Regulus, that Harry Potter had not inherited the easy self-assuredness that flows through James Potter’s being like a cloak, so stupid yet so eloquent in his arrogant confidence. Regulus doesn’t understand anything the boy is muttering. “What do you mean by that?” Regulus snaps impatiently. “Thousand years old and you babble like an uneducated child.” Harry Potter grins dryly. “You sound like Draco Malfoy.” Regulus scoffs, affronted. “Don’t you dare compare me to a Malfoy,” he hisses. “What do you mean I’m not supposed to die?”  Harry Potter’s face dims, the open smile fading to a somber purse of lips. A flash of something inextricable shadows his eyes, casting the verdancy into haunted sharpness. Maybe the easiness is just a façade, like Regulus’s coldness under Walburga and Orion’s onslaught of brutal words, quivering under the weight of his duties at the last moments of his life. “Do you want to live your life again?” Regulus is not surprised to hear the question, but he’s surprised by the anger that grips his throat like Walburga’s fist around his shoulder. “Is that the reason you were looking for me? To live vicariously through my life?” Harry Potter quirks his lips sadly. “I can't do that. But I’ve lived long enough, been through different possibilities of my life that I just…” he stops, stares at the ground for far too long Regulus wants to snap him out of his stupor, before looking up once more. “Look, I want to give you a chance. To be with Sirius. It’s all I want for him. To be happy. And seeing as you’re causing a—a disturbance in your timeline. You can use this to fix it—your timeline—and also to fix whatever’s going on with you and Sirius.” Regulus feels an urge to smack Harry Potter across the face, surprising him with its intensity. He really, really does. Never mind that he looks like a child. It angers Regulus how easy it is for him—talking about fixing whatever’s going on between him and Sirius as if it’s a bruise that can be healed by a healer's spell. Obviously, from his autobiography, Harry Potter had never known of the wounds beneath the simple tapestry of Sirius’s hatred. Wounds that go deeper with time, festering with childish jealousy, resentment, rivalry, the unsaid and the repressed. It’s all simple for Harry Potter—with his blasted optimism and detachment from human concerns.  But him and Sirius will never be simple; Blacks never were. Everyone in the family is either dramatic, ostentatious, convoluted, and everything in between. And now this boyish Master of Death is asking him to live his life again. To relive the people of his nightmare, to go through Sirius’s soul-wrenching suspicion and betrayal, to see him deadened under Grimmauld’s roof and glowing within his friends’ protective warmth. “And you think my resurrection can fix everything in a snap do you?” Regulus snarls, frozen in his seat with the cold of his fury. Harry Potter’s face is shadowed with grief so pronounced and ancient that it’s as if the fifteen-year-old Harry Potter jumped out from the fifth autobiography, fresh from Sirius’s death and wreaking havoc in Dumbledore’s office. “Every timeline I lived through has a different—flow of events. Everything was—was different from the past and the next, but predictable. And, erm, straight? I can be a muggle professor here, or a muggle minister next, or… even a merman once. And not just me. There was a time where Greyback was a philanthropist. Or Hermione and Umbridge, in that particularly bad timeline, had swapped roles. There was even a time when Arthur Weasley became the royal British king. And I even birthed Gilderoy Lockheart!” Harry Potter grimaces at that, “but not even once did I see you, Rab. You’re not in any of the ones after the original timeline I came from. No one knows you in any of them, not even—not even Sirius. That’s why I knew you’re an anom—the peculiar one. You’re the only way to fix—fix everything!” Regulus blinks, and blinks and blinks at that. Sitting still and letting Harry Potter’s words drift over him. It’s akin to being drowned in the lake of Inferi. How many times is he permitted to feel unmoored, to be set adrift in this sea of madness? With no sight to the shore, with no light from a beacon.  The Horcrux discovery had set his fate to stone. He will die, he knows he will, and he will face it with the thought of the possibility that the Dark Lord will meet his downfall in the future. He was resigned to his death, accepted it even, despite the pathetic circumstances surrounding it. Even before that, Sirius’s betrayal, their parents’ choice to name him the Black heir after blasting his brother off the tapestry, his duty to uphold the family name… everything is set in stone. Harry Potter is destroying his anchor to reality. “You dare—” Regulus’s voice shakes. He swallows before speaking again, “I don’t want to see my brother again.” “Please Rab,” Harry Potter, the Master of Death, pleads. And he looks his age. It unnerves Regulus. “Sirius and you… both of you deserve this. This second chance. You deserve this, you know? You… after what you’ve done for the war… it’s a chance for you to change it… to change the outcome of your life… you can live. And be with Sirius…” And isn’t that why he doesn’t want to go through this again? To see Sirius, turning his back and choosing James Potter over him. To see Sirius, getting hexed raw in the back for a mistake that Regulus thought is not a mistake at all. To feel Sirius’s hands around him during the bad nights, to feel his forehead against his own, to feel his suspicious glares from the other side of the great hall. To hear Sirius’s voice cursing him in dark alcoves, condemning him to a cruel fate, just like any other Blacks before them. To hear him spit death eater in his direction, to hear his barking laughter, his French lilt, his biting humor. Regulus doesn’t want all of that. Doesn’t want to have Sirius back, all his good and bad. Regulus wants to die and he wants to stay dying. But Harry Potter makes it difficult. “You can make it known, you know?” Harry Potter whispers, his green eyes glowing unnaturally. And Regulus realizes how ancient the being is in front of him. Regulus knows what he will say next. “You can make your death sensible, your sacrifice mean something.” And Regulus Black’s indignation at being a footnote in the story of Harry Potter’s war sharpens into a blade of purposeful anger.  Regulus still wants to die but he will do it blazing in glory.  
Hands.
 
Hands.
 
Hands.
 
The muffle of the water as it engulfs him, filling his lungs with liquid fire as he stares at the oddly green light of the surface, turning muted as blackness crept in.
 
Claws.
 
Claws.
 
There are claws everywhere. Sharp and unforgiving, tearing through flesh and bones. Deep and raw, agony that echoes through his soul. 
 
Dark.
 
Everywhere. And pain. And water, in his lungs, in his eyes, in his mouth. He can’t escape.
  And then it’s gone . Regulus gasps with a wet choke, lungs wheezing painfully as if being knocked with a bludger. His skin is wet—like the river, the hands, the claws—and he realizes belatedly he has broken his glass and spill the water on himself. And blood, on his hands.  Distantly, over the ringing in his ears, he hears Orion’s deep and booming voice, saying something incomprehensible— the water, deep deep deep dark claws sharp bones — and Walburga shrieking something in return. And suddenly his arm is shaking, jolting with every slap of the stinging hex from her wand. That pulls him down to reality. Something pops in his ears, and everything clears. Distantly, he remembers. A dinner during the summer of his fourth year. When Sirius had broken Walburga’s favorite antique Egyptian vase gifted to her by the German Minister for Magic in retaliation for breaking the muggle records gifted by Lupin. Distantly, he finds himself saying it’s me, not Sirius. It’s me who broke the vase.   Body shaking with tremors, he stares at the shaking hands in front of him. He traces his eyes up to stare at the haunted look on his brother’s face.  Regulus stares at his brother, with hunger and pain and anger. In that false sense of infinity within a short amount of time under unimaginable pain, it is Sirius’s face the last thing on his mind as his body is wracked with the white-hot pain of the Cruciatus curse.

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Regulus’s inherent abhorrence involving any vulnerable sentimentalities has him pulling his wand, amidst the haze of the scorching ache throbbing his whole body, and pulling on the strongest and deadliest locking charm he had picked up from his time with the death eaters, before promptly passing out in his bed.  Two days later, Regulus discovers Walburga and Orion have traveled to Germany for a political assembly involving the Twenty-eight and his moronic brother has torn himself trying to dismantle his wards. He's been going at it for the whole time that Regulus was dead to the world, only pausing to command Kreacher to patch him up before he’s banging and screaming at his door like a raging madman.  It reminds Regulus of Sirius in the third book of Harry Potter’s autobiography series, and that in itself terrifies him. To see in his mind’s eye the rotten husk of the aristocratic boy, stripped off of everything that made him Sirius, leaving behind the tattered remains of what made him entirely, purely Black. Because it is so easy—for all of Blacks, but especially Sirius—to topple down the edge of sanity and to succumb to the darkness in their twisted, defective line. With all the occasional stinging hex and the memorable black-flaying he’d endured under Orion’s wand, the dark magic-infested hallways of their teenage home, and the decade within the Dementor’s breath, it wouldn’t take long for him to break.  It is easy to see the unsoundness in Sirius of Harry Potter’s recollections juxtaposed with the youthful wildness of his own Sirius. Regulus is fresh from his own death, from the years of estrangement from his brother, and his brother’s fall into the veil. And Regulus is, above all else, a coward. He still is—a staple of his being—and not even his death and resurrection can ever erase it. His cowardness is the antithesis to Sirius’s defiance. It was the wild ways of how much they differed that severed whatever flimsy thread they both clumsily hemmed with their young, trembling hands.  And because he can never face Sirius while his own wall of calmness is on the verge of shattering, it is cowardness that decides for Regulus to flee. He pulls out the bottom drawer of his bedside table, rummages inside until he finds the object he’s seeking. Breathing, he readies the phrase on his lips when a crack has him turning around. For a delirious moment, Regulus thinks Sirius is successful in his vicious attempts of tearing the barriers down. Or somehow, Sirius manages to apparate inside his room. But it’s only Kreacher, wringing his hands and glaring worriedly at the door, from where Sirius is surely using a Bombarda against his wards. “Kreacher,” Regulus mutters. He still feels gutted everytime he stares at the elf. To think, in the end, Kreacher was the only one left loyal to him, the only one who knew about the idiotic sacrifice he’d made.  “Master Regulus,” the elf croaks. “The insolent master Sirius is being insolent again… he’s been at it, destroying mistress Black’s ancient artefacts. Oh, my poor mistress! She will be in distress if she knows…” At that, a particularly sharp crack resounds outside, surely because of the spells rebounding off of Regulus’s impenetrable wards. It had been a source of satisfaction for him during the tumultuous height of their rivalry, for how much Sirius is a prodigy in the offense, he couldn’t quite break through Regulus’s defense. Regulud had gotten even better at it during his death eater days.  Nonetheless, Regulus cringes. Walburga wouldn’t be pleased. “Do what you need to do to stop him; stun him if you must. But mother should never know this, do you understand, Kreacher?” Kreacher’s hand-wringing turns violent, shaking fingers bordering on snapping each other at every shriek of the wards and every piece of Walburga's collection blasting off in the hallway.  “Fix what’s damaged, Kreacher. Please. You can do it for me, right?” The elf furrowed his forehead. “Kreacher doesn’t understand how master Regulus is being kind to the insolent master Sirius… lying to mistress, protecting that savage, mudblood-loving Black…” “He’s my brother.” to Regulus’s mortification, his voice breaks. He swallows down the awful lump in his throat. “Promise me, Kreacher.” Kreacher looks like he’s swallowed Sirius’s unwashed socks. Well, he looks even more sour than usual. “Where is master Regulus be going?” “Evan’s.” Kreacher’s eyes appraise him. “Master Regulus cannot be going anywhere with that state!” “Don’t worry. Evan will heal me. Just… fix Sirius and his mess. I’ll be okay.” Kreacher looks like he has a lot to say, but Regulus is pushing him away. “Go, Kreacher! Before Sirius hurts himself again!” He vaguely hears the elf muttering how Sirius deserves it, but Regulus is already whispering something to the object. And the last thing he hears outside his room is a loud thud before he’s whisked away in darkness. ~~~ Regulus lands gracelessly on a cold tiled floor. Even sleeping for two days straight hadn’t helped his thirteen-year-old body recover from the after-effects of the Cruciatus curse. He feels tender and weak; phantom aches of the inferi’s talons still throbbing through his bones. Someone gasps and something crashes. Regulus looks up and sees an unfamiliar face, slack-jawed. Beside him sits Uncle Alphard, graceful and regal, but the hardly wrought sophistication of their pedigree couldn’t hide the distress he feels at the sight of him. Regulus remembers that the last time he’d seen his Uncle was before he was blasted off the tapestry. Regulus had been ten and ignorant. Regulus pulls himself off the ground with the remains of his pride, doggedly ignoring the state of their bareness. “I—I saw—! Impossible—! He just appeared out of nowhere!” It’s obvious to Regulus just who, what kind the stranger is. He couldn’t help it; his nose, as if with a mind of its own, tilts upward, as if he could smell the stranger, and he doesn’t like it. Any smells coming from a Muggle would be offensive to his delicate senses. “It’s okay, José darling,” Uncle Alphard purrs, and Regulus turns his head away completely when the older graces his lips against the Muggle’s cheek. “You don’t see anything.” “But—but—he’s there—!” “No he’s not,” Uncle Alphard says softly. Regulus turns back to see him pulling his wand. His uncle Obliviates the Muggle, stunning him and barking orders to his house elf. Regulus looks at the whole proceeding nonplussed. When they are both finally alone, Regulus sneers at him. “So you suffered the indignation of being disinherited to stay here in—America,” he spits, “frolicking about with the likes of them—” “The likes of what?” Uncle Alphard asks softly. He’s stiff in his seat, still nude to the world, a snake poised with tension. “Filthy, low-life Muggles,” Regulus hisses, and something dies in his soul when he hears himself so familiar to his ears.  “You are your mother’s son,” Uncle Alphard suddenly says. And those words are like a whip against Regulus’s skin, with a power of a thousand Stinging hexes that he grimaces. He turns away, swallowing. “Are you just gonna parade your indiscretion?” “Oh, forgive me,” Uncle Alphard says blithely. He flicks his wand, and his robes come sailing into his arms. “It’s not always that my estranged nephew suddenly makes an unannounced visit into my living room.”  Regulus doesn’t deign that with a reply.  “Are you here to castigate my lifestyle choices, mon neveu ? Trust me. Walburga and Cygnus had given me the pieces of their twisted minds. And that bitch Lucretia had left my backside aching for days that it had been impossible for me to, ah, participate in Muggle frolicking, as you put it.” Regulus opens his hand, and shows him the object, a vintage gold compass for a portkey, given to him before Uncle Alphard had been decisively branded as yet another Black blood traitor. A lifetime ago for Regulus, and the first thing he did was to act like his mother. Merlin, he doesn’t even remember how or when Uncle Alphard died in his past life. Regulus swallows down the shame threatening to choke him. “You told me to come to you when I needed… needed something.” he clears his throat and straightens. “I needed something that’s why I’m here.” Uncle Alphard’s grey eyes peer at Regulus, and they always have the uncanny ability to make him feel scrutinized from the inside, straight to his soul. “ Qu’est-il arrivé à mon doux et doux neveu ?”  Maybe he died and got resurrected by a seventeen-year-old Master of Death who wants me to reconcile with my psychotic brother , is itching at the tip of Regulus’s tongue. He feels a wild burst of abandonment, of impulsivity not like him—what would it be like to just say the words, damned the consequences?  Disaster , the logical part of his brain supplies. Always working to pull him out of the instances that he is swamped by the gloriousness of a plan designed to crash and burn. But it will never crash and burn if you learn to live by the rules. The rules of the plans that are clearly still in the making. The best thing Regulus can expect from Uncle Alphard is dismissal—expecting it to be a juvenile prank on him, as if Regulus would have half a mind to join Sirius in his schoolboy mischief. The worst thing… Well, Alphard Black may be the most whimsical, un-Black member to ever grace the Black family tapestry. But he is still a Black at his core, and Blacks are nothing if not unstable. Regulus doesn’t want to come back to Britain with his mind fraying at the edges. And if Uncle Alphard deems him unworthy, then where is he gonna pick up the pieces enough to formulate a plan? “I want—” Regulus stops. What do I want? To die, for a much louder, clearer purpose. To kill Voldemort, before it kills Sirius. Focus now. Now is also important as much as the future . “I want to stay here.” Uncle Alphard stands, gracefully walking towards him with his ostentatious gold robes. He stares at Regulus, eyebrows furrowed in a dance that only the Blacks know. It’s to express emotions that not their eyes nor their words can do. He raises his hand towards Regulus’s face and Regulus flinches. Quite stupidly.  Something resolute builds in the straight line of his uncle’s lips. “What did they do to you, my sweet nephew?” Uncle Alphard whispers. It suffocates Regulus—the concern, the thinning space, the hands that want to touch him. His skin prickles as he steps away, growing the distance between them so he can properly breathe. “I want to stay here, for now,” he says. And because he can’t help it, he adds, “I don’t want to see Sirius’s stupid face.” Uncle Alphard’s sadness is palpable. “It has gotten bad? Your squabbles? You never requested a need for space from him before.” Yes. Regulus does remember how much he clings to Sirius, how much he cries when Sirius so much as steps out of the room, how Sirius in turn shouts for his name whenever he’s isolated in the Dark room. But right now, it’s different. Has been for a few years. If you only knew. He wants to say, but a feral laugh breaks out of his tight throat instead. Uncle Alphard looks at him, alarmed. “Grimmauld place is just gloomy,” Regulus snaps, not quite understanding how his hands are starting to shake. Calm down. Pull up the wall of blankness and calm down . “I need a change of scenery.” “And… America is the change you’re seeking for?” “Anywhere can do.” Uncle Alphard smiles, though his eyes are hard and knowing. “Well. Let me show you around, mon neveu . And let us heal you. You look like you have been through quite an ordeal.” An understatement, that.When Regulus discovers the extensive wine cellar, Regulus doesn’t think. He grabs a bottle of Firewhisky, pours it down his throat, and he’s been a drunk mess for the past three days. He’d always turned up his nose at Sirius’s bottles of Muggle alcohol stashed haphazardly beneath his bed, or the odd burns at the side of his table and the glass tray filled with small rolled up paper inside the drawer. Regulus couldn’t blame him, however; Blacks have always been predisposed to addiction. He’d witnessed the wildest of Bellatrix's bloodlust for anything remotely violent, Andromeda’s room of oddities all in the name of taxidermic curiosity, and even the displeasure of knowing there was a room in the French Black estate where Aunt Lucretia filled every nook and cranny with disturbing contraption and paraphernalias. In a twisted sense of family spirit, he’d understand the ease of falling into it. Muggle addiction, however, is crass and primitive, so beneath the likes of their blood. Even understanding Sirius’s sickness couldn’t make him look past how simply Muggle everything all is. Being simply Muggle, however, Regulus realizes as he raises the bottle of whisky to his lips, is a sort of inexplicable beyondness that he can only blissfully overlook even the hard wrought propriety lessons for.  When Uncle Alphard discovers that three bottles of his expensive firewhiskey had been nicked right from under his nose, Regulus has already sifted through his precious collection of Muggle inebriants to his heart's delight. And when Regulus couldn’t get through the newly built wards, he turns to sneak into the rooms he knows, from ill-fated curious late night walks, the bacchanals are held in, and steals pre-rolled cigarettes that made the things around him float—or is he floating?—and made him want to bounce from wall to wall, cackling uncontrollably. Regulus hadn’t wondered why the hallway leading to the east wing, where his uncle had him housed, shimmered and distorted when the light hit the air at the perfect angle. When he woke up too early one morning from one of his particularly sober moments in a nightmare, he walked up to the warded west wing and happened upon three bare bodies sprawled and tangled on a sofa in one of the drawing rooms. On the table before them was a line of powdery substance that had profoundly shaken his nerves he’d felt bursting at the seams, untamed and vibrating. Regulus cannot explain the feeling—the sensation of being untethered, floating in a strange comfortable ignorance where half-baked thoughts come and go like wisps of smoke, impossible to catch and hold. And maybe that’s why he lets himself topple over the edge and free fall—the safety of detachment, where anything doesn't matter, just this hazy cloud of unawareness and uncaring. He doesn’t think, he doesn’t care to explain. He just feels. The wild abandonment, the debasement to Muggle savagery—it’s everything that Walburga had taught them against, something that goes against everything that a Black stood for. Something that finally connects him fully with Sirius. And maybe that’s why he’s plunged himself into the deep end, drawing in that earthy and piney and sharply bitter, quite addictive stupor-inducing Muggle poison. Anything just to cut himself off of that rotten tree. From one poison to another—it was an irony of comical proportions.  When Uncle Alphard discovered the intoxicated state he’s brought himself in, Regulus has all been barred from the west wing, depriving his part of the manor from any substances that can prematurely kill him. It’s been a week since he’d appeared at his uncle’s parlor, Sirius had been sending him letters of concern thinly veiled with threats, and their parents still away in Germany. In fact, they would be away for more than half of August. He wants to burn all the letters his brother had sent, but he’s been staring at the elegant curls of Sirius’s calligraphic handwriting, and he misses it—misses him—so much like a punch to the stomach. His hands shake, hovering over the crackling fire but never has the guts to let go. And so he keeps the letters and decides to stay in this blasted country until their parents are back from the assembly.  It’s with the stabbing, restless nerves that Regulus paces back and forth, creating a hot trail across the floor beside the library’s great windows, that Uncle Alphard walks in on him.  “Mon neveu,” he calls. Regulus stops, his back to him, staring unseeingly outside the window. “What has got you in this stir up, my sweet child?” Regulus turns on his heels, greasy strands whipping against his face. “Why’d you locked the wine cellar?” “Ah, yes.” Uncle Alphard smiles benignly. “It has come to my attention that you have, hm, indulged in a bit of my collection?”  A bit? Regulus barks a laugh. What a sight of his face would be if his uncle could see the empty bottles beneath his bed that he had long vanished away. “I was enjoying your acquired Muggle taste.” Uncle Alphard hums, ignoring Regulus’s tone. “It is hardly responsible of me to turn a blind eye at this juvenile impudence under my own roof.” “You’re having your barbarian revelries a few hundred meters from me, with only a silencing charm for separation,” Regulus says sharply. Uncle Alphard ignores it altogether, narrowing his eyes on Regulus’s shaking fingers. Regulus hides it behind him, but he cannot control the way his knees tremble and his foot tapping a restless hum against the carpeted floor. “Ah. Never worry about the withdrawals. You’ve only indulged for a short time, it will be gone after a day or two.” he stares at Regulus. “Tell me, mon neveu . When was the last time you bathed?” Regulus grits his teeth, looking away. “Do I stink like the Muggles you keep in your company?” He hears his uncle sigh wearily. “I put an entire continent’s worth of distance between you and your misérable mère so I would not hear her harp on about these politique de pacotille . Please do not emulate her langue venimeuse . No, no. Not in this household.” Regulus barely controls his flinch at yet again being compared to his mother. I don’t sound like her , he wants to say. I don’t believe anything she harps on , he wants to add. But it’s not easy to defend himself when everything he is and everything he’s been is not worth defending. Regulus is his mother’s son. He dies and comes back wanting to destroy the Dark Lord, but his death never really destroyed the remnants of his indecision. What did his brother say about him in that fifth book? My stupid brother… soft enough to believe them… stupid idiot… he joined the Death Eaters. Regulus hated the Dark Lord, but he never hated his mother who had fed him all the cornerstones he built himself upon. He hates himself, that’s true. But oddly enough, he never even thinks about questioning everything he is. Uncle Alphard continues. “More so when I knew in my heart that mon deux neveu does not have it in him to be just like his mother.”  I did. I did become my mother, in the end. Regulus wants to shout it, but he only feels the clawing, helpless cry in his throat. Instead, he hardens and says, “I am to join him , three years from now.” Uncle Alphard stares at him steadily. “Do you want to?” Regulus swallows hard. No one has ever asked him what he wants. It’s all for the good of the family, for the betterment of the cause. What does he even want? He doesn’t know anymore. What matters right then is to not think about things that he doesn’t know the answer for. So he says instead, “Sirius went here every summer, right? When he’s not with the Potters .” Uncle Alphard raises a sharp brow, ignoring once again his tone. “Yes, he was. Whyever you asked?” “So you continued training him?” Regulus asks. “In martial arts?” Regulus remembers clearly one of the days of the summer of his fourth year—the envy at seeing the flex of Sirius’s arms, not so defined but lean with hints of strength to the building muscles, shoulders starting to widen, stance starting to fill up space. Blacks aren’t naturally physically athletic—they are all on the side of soft elegance and graceful slenderness. But Sirius had started to show an air of effortless masculinity—refined in his sharpness, quietly imposing. He would go on to become bigger in mass, until the last time Regulus had seen him on the opposite side of the field, with his Order members and Regulus with the Death Eaters. Regulus remained the daintiness of his youth, with his muscles subtly defined by his years as a Seeker, but always soft and smooth. Regulus will never be half the man Sirius had become and will be. Regulus wants to remedy that. “I want to train, too.” Uncle Alphard appraises him, staring at him for far too long Regulus feels the urge to fidget. “Martial Arts take discipline and—” “What? Do you think I’m not disciplined enough?” Regulus snaps, feeling the horrible heat spreading on his face. Was being a Black, living under Orion and Walburga’s commands, a spare, fulfilling something that wasn’t his to claim not enough to be disciplined? “I mean to say that I do not see you as someone to pursue such interests.” Regulus doesn’t entertain the thought that he’ll be as capable as Sirius with anything related to heavy physicalities. He’s been a Seeker for his first life and in this second one, so he believes he is adequately coordinated. But martial arts takes years and patience that he currently doesn’t have. “I want something that is immediate. Something that I already have that I can work on.” Uncle Alphard’s eyes twinkle. He smiles at Regulus fondly, “you do remember how we spent the summers in your childhood? You with the fake swords and Sirius with the training bag.” Summers before Sirius’s first year are the highlight of Regulus’s childhood days. When Sirius hadn’t gotten a glimpse of Hogwarts, hadn’t been enticed by the warmth that the castle and his marauding bands of idiot friends offered, when all they both had to worry was how they might convince their parents to let them stay over Uncle Alphard’s spawning Yorkshire estate. Their days hadn’t all been dark, especially when Sirius hadn’t been sorted into Gryffindor yet and didn’t associate himself with the likes of Potter and half-breeds. It had been lighter, endless youthful giggles, play-fighting in muds without their parents’ propriety lessons, running through manor halls with not a blot of worry hanging over them, simple and carefree and light—Regulus with his wooden sword that he kept hitting his brother with and Sirius with gloves two sizes too big that he kept aiming at Regulus’s head. “You have always been oddly good with pointed things,” Uncle Alphard muses. Then he sharpens his eyes at Regulus. “Do I even want to know why you suddenly have the need for this?” “You don’t want to.” Uncle Alphard doesn’t inquire much further, but there is a hard gleam in his eyes that belied his doubts. Regulus doesn’t care to give clearance to whatever his uncle might think; he knows the older will give in anyway. “When was the last time you took a bath?” he asks suddenly and Regulus couldn’t hide his flinching even if he tries, muscles jumping reflexively. “Why’s that important?” Regulus rasps, the corner of his lips curling. Uncle Alphard’s face softens, too unusual for a face with Black features that Regulus looks away. “ Mon neveu , you can always tell me what your—” “You know I won’t,” Regulus says, a humorless chuckle clawing out of his parched throat. “We’re not like that.” Their family doesn’t like to talk about sentimentalities. They don’t talk, they just act. With as much cold ruthlessness one can muster. Dismissing any signs of a chip in the walls is just as good as tackling the problem with elegant hands, and Regulus doesn’t want to diverge from that tradition. Not now, not ever. “I see,” Uncle Alphard remains staring. “You still have to take a bath.” “You have to Imperio me into doing it,” Regulus says harshly. His uncle’s eyes widens, appalled. But Regulus’s jaws tightens, putting as much firmness to the lines around his lips. Regulus’s nerves jump at the mere thought of water, its coldness echoing the chill in his bones that even though he’s bathing a few inches away from the hearth cannot be extinguished. He’s not jesting when he prefers being Imperiod into taking a bath. “Are you sure?” Uncle Alphard asks. Regulus’s face remains firm. He nods tightly, pulling his wand. “If you insist.”  Regulus couldn't find it in himself to flinch at the sight of the wand pointed at him, because before he could blink, a warm, numbing fog wraps his mind in a euphoric detachment. Go to the loo and take a bath. His body is moving, his mind tucks away peacefully as the water engulfs him from all sides. And why does he hates water in the first place? This is wonderful, like floating on honey—syrupy and sweet in a blissful perfunctory. Regulus, in the few minutes inside the tub, is the most relaxed in a long time. Regulus tries to control the erratic beat of his heart, wrestling with it to trap it behind the bars of his Occlumency. Breathe in , breathe out . His dysregulated body is becoming more common than not, sometimes suffocating him out of nowhere, slamming into him from all sides, pulling him under just like the hands of the Inferi. He pulls his hands to grip the door knob of the drawing room, exhaling shakily as he pushes the door open. It is to his unfortunate luck that his eyes unknowingly seek out Sirius’s, and they land on his grey ones. They are not haunted and shrunken, but bright with suspicion and… concern . Regulus’s breath is punched out of him, leaving him winded. When was the last time Sirius looked at him with anything other than disdain? It had been a lifetime ago for Regulus, when their childish mirth and brotherly affection turned disapproval to disgust, and later on to indifference—which hurt more than the scathing hatred before Sirius’s betrayal. Regulus is desperate for those times, the ease it would’ve felt to just fall back into the warmth and be overwhelmed by it. But being back, with all the lifetime’s worth of memories cracking beneath the flimsy thread of their relationship, isn’t so simple as that. Fortunately—or unfortunately, however you want to see it—Walburga walks into his direct line of sight, cutting him out of the spiral he’s fallen since seeing Sirius from the flesh. He barely flinches when she cups his face with her hands. “ Mon cher doux garçon ,” Walburga breathes. Her burgundy lips stretch out into a sharp half-smile. “Finally gracing us with your magnificent presence. How are you?” There is a significant difference to how Uncle Alphard and Walburga call him their sweet, soft boy . There is smooth elegance in their cadence, melodious and subtle. But Uncle Alphard’s is borne out of genuine fondness. His mother, however, doesn’t know tenderness even if it dances in front of her wearing Kreacher’s filthy rags. Hers is a haunting melody, a sweet saccharine dripping with venom, meant for mockery. Behind her, Sirius’s eyes poke holes into her hands on his jaws. It’s meant to taunt them both; offering the other so little to be greedy, showing the other enough to be envious. “ Je vais bien, maman ,” Regulus answers, and he can’t help it. There is a cloying in his stomach, nerves jumping to get away from the rotten sweetness of Walburga’s barely-there touches. But he craves it, still; the illusion of affection, so light as if he is inconsequential and that is the only amount he can afford to have. Just a taste of it, enough to make him thirsty for more. He leans in, and he couldn’t have stopped the soft sigh that escapes unbidden from his mouth. Walburga’s lips soften into a soft smile, and Regulus wants to steal it to himself, hide it from the rest of the world. It’s directed solely on him, not on Sirius’s, the favorite child she sees herself in. No. This tenderness is for him, and he covets it like a hungry, starving man. “ Maman is sorry for what I did last time, mon chéri ,” Walburga says, just as soft as her smile. “ Maman doesn’t like it when you’re lying, you see. You understand that, do you?” It’s always like that—Walburga lashing out then apologizing for it. They were expected to forgive her, to understand, because it’s not always that Walburga dishes out punishments. Not for Regulus, no. It’s Orion who threatens them with a few Stinging hex or a whole night’s isolation in the Dark room. And even his punishments were few and far between, the only remarkable among them was when Sirius came home for Yule holiday in his first year, and Orion lost his patience when Sirius showed no remorse for being sorted in Gryffindor. They spent a few hours inside the Dark room, Orion and Sirius, while Walburga and Regulus were preparing for the lighting of the Yule log. Sirius never went down for the festivities, and when Regulus stepped into his room, his brother’s flayed back was the first thing he saw—swollen and bruised and alarmingly bloody. That was the first of the two times Orion raised a wand against Sirius that did a grave job on him, and the start of Sirius’s mutinous marathon, apparently reaching the threshold of Orion’s further threats of Stinging hexes had him becoming stupidly bold and unflinchingly resistant. Orion never raised a wand against him since then—that is, until the last day Sirius vowed to never step foot inside Grimmauld Place—and Sirius never learned to take Orion’s threats seriously ever again. But it had been Walburga that both of them had been intermittently afraid of toeing and pushing at the line of enough and too much . Regulus saw that Sirius, even at the height of his rebellion, could never really shake off Walburga's talon-like grip, no matter how much he’s always pushing at the edges of her restraints. And maybe that’s why Sirius kept doing it and Regulus never did—it’s the only time they get a morsel of attention from her; Sirius getting it too much and Regulus getting too little. They’re both starving sharks ready to do anything for that little bit of bait—a soft spine for Regulus, head bowed in acquiescence to have her approval that he never got, and a steely defiance for Sirius, barking wildly back at her to have her rage that he always managed to get. “I understand,” Regulus rasps, something ugly clawing in his throat. Walburga tuts. She pulls him closer to place her chin against his temple, and the pain around his throat is even more suffocating when he stares over Walburga’s shoulder and sees the storm in Sirius’s eyes. He wants to cry, because this is like before, but so much worse—Sirius acting out, Walburga’s punishment was a little bit of attention for Regulus, Sirius’s green envy was shown in the lines of disapproval around his lips and the clip of his tone, and Regulus was just naively happy to be fed with so much attention he never dared ponder that it was veiled with derision. “No crying, Regulus,” Walburga says, quite sharply. And Regulus swallows, pulling up that wall of blankness in his mind. It was always Walburga that managed to diminish his hard-wrought Occlumency walls, not even the Dark Lord in his past life had. In this house, that wall of blankness is nothing but a distant concept of attempting to wrestle back control. But everytime he tries it shatters pathetically under Walburga’s words.  “Yes maman ,” Regulus says, softly.  Walburga pulls back, tapping his cheeks. “You look well, Regulus.” And just like that she turns around, saunters away and sits beside Orion, who was holding the Daily Prophet and hasn’t turned to him once. Regulus breathes and walks over to him, bowing his head to put a kiss on the back of his father’s proffered hand. The Black family ring feels like a cold branding iron against his lips, the centerpiece thrumming with dark intensity. “Father.” “Regulus,” Orion greets back, not taking his eyes from the newspaper on hand. Regulus sits on the sofa before them, beside his brother whose eyes are unrelenting against his face. He doesn’t turn. “How is your stay with the Rosier scion?”  Regulus knows his father doesn’t know that to be false, but there isn’t anything that Orion doesn’t know about practically everything, most specially the tepid and close waters of the Pureblood circle. Evan wouldn’t snitch on him, he’s proven that time and time again, and his parents are always out of London for whatever reasons so they wouldn’t have anything to report back to his father. But Orion’s self-assured firm tone raises Regulus’s hackles and he feels defensive. And Orion is a predator like Walburga—she’s a little subtle about it, him aggressively so. When Regulus’s words are stuck around his tight throat, Orion finally raises his head to look at him. “What is this silence about?” his voice cuts like a whip through the tense atmosphere of the room. Walburga’s spoon clinks to the inside of her teacup, rather loudly. “Do tell us what you little boys have been up to the whole time we were away.” “We’re… doing fine.” “Fine?” Orion barks, snorting as he turns the page of the Daily Prophet. “Give me more, child. At your age, there are more things your juvenile curiosity wants to indulge in, I am sure.” Regulus opens his mouth but Walburga turns sharply to Orion. “You would know about all that juvenile curiosity, wouldn’t you, husband?” Orion peered at her above his monocle. “We’ve all been there, yes, my wife.” Walburga hums pleasantly, raising her teacup to her lips. “You have precious memories of this juvenile curiosity, I see.” “Now, why are you taking that tone on me, Walburga?” “What tone, Orion?” Walburga’s face is impossibly even sharper than a chip on the iceberg. “Why do you always disturb the bygone days from its grave instead of letting it rest—” “Why don’t I let you rest early in your grave?” Walburga quips back. Orion is silent for a moment, and out of morbid curiosity, Regulus is waiting for his response. “Now, Wally ,” Orion says at last, using Walburga’s nickname that he apparently favored a lot in their teenage years, now with more bite than necessary. “Are you in a bit of strop, my wife? Is it one of your bad days—” “Oh, you are mistaken to use that woman card on me, Orion,” Walburga hisses, curling her upper lips derisively. “You and father had always liked to use that to excuse your churlish manners.” She points a talon at his direction, and Orion’s muscles around his jaws jump. “Need I remind you how repulsively you acted during our juvenile days, you with your curiosity and barbaric indiscretion, cantering off to the next skirt you see in the hallways like rancid degenerates—” Orion merely grimaces at the onslaught of creative derogatives that Walburga is sputtering behind snarling lips, the likes of which she can only do. Unbidden, Regulus turns to Sirius, and finds his brother also side-eyeing him, both sporting a look of amused befuddlement. Regulus remembers from his past life the last moments they had spent in Grimmauld place before Sirius’s untimely betrayal. The tapestry of their relationship had been hanging by a loose thread, fraying and is a step away from being cut off forever, the only thing joining them is their bemusement over the weird ways mother and father circled each other. Regulus finds, to both his displeasure and greed, that nothing’s changed in this respect, only the tapestry is still stronger. For now. Orion sighs, placing the paper down and facing Walburga. “Of course, my wife. I am deeply ashamed of what I have done. I have been rather barbaric in my youth. A rancid degenerate, indeed.” Regulus doesn’t know if father is being genuine or it’s his passive-aggressive dissent over mother’s ways. No matter how much he tries his forceful enforcement of rules against Regulus and Sirius, it would undoubtedly be eviscerated at the mere sight of Walburga’s pursed lips and cold eyes, much like Regulus’s wall of blankness. He doesn’t know why Orion is still trying to vye for control when Walburga always comes out on top. Though, as far as he can see, there’s no resentment over Orion’s part. Only resigned acceptance, and on good days, begrudging amusement. “See that you do,” Walburga hums before turning to look at Regulus, a sharp half-smile twisting her lips. “Do tell us your summer exploits with the Rosier kid, doux garçon .” Regulus breathes, something sharp in his airways that keeps on pushing against his chest. He likes the ways this differs with Sirius—the way mother and father would find time to ask about Regulus’s friends, the way they push him to make time with the Rosier kid and the Crouch junior boy (it doesn’t even matter how much they hate the senior, Barty is still of blood), how they delight in dropping insinuations with his relationship with the Lestrange girl (even if there’s nothing between him and Pandora), and how they tolerate his associations with the half-blood Meadowes since both her parents are half-bloods so she can be considered as pure as her station allows. They even arrange dates and sleepovers for Mulciber and Avery for when their respective parents travel more often than not. They like to slap it on Sirius’s face, how much they love Regulus’s friends and how much they disapprove of his. Regulus hates it, how that’s the inconsequential few that his parents prefer him over Sirius. But Regulus likes the edge all the same, no matter how minor it is. “We practice,” Regulus says, barely hiding a grimace. He hates lying to Walburga. “Some spells.” Walburga hums. “Like what?” “Decapitation spells,” he deadpans. “On Muggles.” There’s a collective suspension of breath, confused and a little disbelieving. His blankness persists at Sirius’s scoff and Orion’s thoughtful hum. But it’s Walburga’s sharp laughter that takes him out of his bubble. Her neck is slightly bent back, there's a mad glint in her grey eyes that is so inherently Black, but it’s a sight that he never dreams of witnessing, much less directed to him. Regulus revels at it all the same. “That is a sight to behold, my sweet, soft boy decapitating Muggles on his summer endeavors,” Walburga sighs, tipping her teacup at Regulus. “A mother’s dream. Oh, to witness that happening.” “Only you dream about something so foul,” Sirius hisses under his breath. She merely raises an eyebrow and Sirius sinks in his seat, crossing his hands and pulling his feet up on the coffee table.  “You wish to be hexed?” Walburga asks. For a few seconds, Sirius doesn’t budge, displaying an air of casual defiance. He merely scowls when Walburga hits his leg with a Stinging hex, spitefully dragging the sole of his shoes on top of the table, rubbing mud off the surface. Walburga clicks her tongue, vanishing it with the swish of her wand. “Now, Regulus. Tell me more about it.” Regulus has the slightly revolting but wild urge to see that laugh again. “There’s this spell we’re inventing, Barty and I,” he says, recalling some details from Harry Potter’s autobiography. “Some kind of spell that is just as deadly as a Severing charm but cuts deeper and causes, um, permanent damage. Barty decided he likes the injury permanent, and Evan thought it can’t be healed by a simple healing charm. I discovered the countercurse, and we’re on our way to perfecting the spell.” “When did you even learn to invent spells?” Sirius asks suspiciously. Regulus turns to him, snapping, “well, you certainly didn’t like talking to me at Hogwarts.” Sirius scowls at him, face reddening. But Orion clicks his tongue before his brother can say anything. “Now, now boys. What did I say about putting up a united front?” Orion purses his lips at Sirius. “You’re a Black and Regulus is your brother. You should make a point in solidifying that, no matter the travesty of your sorting.” Even though Orion was the one who punished Sirius when he was sorted into Gryffindor, it was him who quite aggressively reiterated that Sirius maintains his familial responsibilities, at least in public. Orion had shown his total dislike over their hallway squabbles and cold shoulders, a constant topic of contention during Samhain and Yule holidays. Even after Sirius had left the family, Orion was quite vehement against anything discriminatory towards Sirius’s names during both Sacred Twenty-Eight and family banquets. It had been Walburga who was slightly encouraging of Regulus’s hatred. He always thought mother was afraid Sirius’s defiance would rub off on her soft son. Well, she has a reason to fear for that happening, Regulus admits in the safety of his mind. “Yeah, because sorting into Slytherin is such a point of pride,” Sirius barks a mocking laugh. “As a matter of fact, yes it is.” They all turn towards the direction of the voice. In a burst of green flames, Narcissa and Bellatrix emerge from the fireplace, walking into the drawing room with heads held high regally and disposition as poised as one can manage out of the Floo. Regulus immediately tenses, eyes turning to look at Sirius, only to see him smirking despite glaring at the newcomers.  He’s alive. Sirius is still on the family, and oddly friendly towards Bella despite their extreme dislike of each other’s beliefs. Regulus breathes in and out, strengthening his wall of blankness. “Imagine having to wear the garish colors of that uncouth House,” Bella sneers at Sirius. “Imagine having to be a slimy, slithering git,” Sirius bites back, eyes narrowing ferally. “Oh, you don’t have to. You are a slimy, slithering git after all. ” Bellatrix guffaws, the livid glint in her eyes bright as Sirius jeers at her. Regulus shares a look with Narcissa, while Orion breathes a derogatory ‘ children ’ sharply under his breath.  “ Mes nièces préférées ,” Walburga greets with a small, welcoming smile. The newcomers both brought their lips to father’s family ring and to mother’s opposite cheeks. “So glad you can come.” “Bella has been furious to know father won’t come back for another week and mother’s stopover at Spain is extended to another five,” Narcissa responds, primly occupying the space at Regulus’s right, Bellatrix sitting at the other unoccupied divan. Narcissa touches his arm in greeting; Regulis kisses her cheek in turn. “Druella and her obsession with the Mediterranean,” Walburga sighs, calling Kreacher to serve the newcomers with tea and biscuits. “What has prompted this visit, ma chère nèice ?” “ We ,” Bellatrix sharply corrects, arching a sharp eyebrow at her sister, “must know why the Sacred Twenty-eight has chosen to convene in Germany, of all places. The Muggle-loving fools are wailing about it, aren’t they? Revolting, really. Utterly futile, the lot of them!” Regulus does wonder at that. After establishing allies with Grindelwald during his reign, the Britain-Germany relations hadn’t been mended even after decades of efforts on the latter’s part. He distinctly remembers the lack of any political assemblies done in that country at any time before. It’s particularly suspicious to have it be changed right after discovering his role in what the Master of Death considers as a loop in his timeline. Is this what he means by that? Regulus feels frustrated at not being able to just call the elusive object of fairytale to answer his questions. He wants to ask a lot of things that he wants immediate answers to. But of course, things don’t always go his way, does it? He wouldn’t even be back here if he was lucky. “We will be having that discussion right after dinner,” Walburga dismisses. Narcissa and Bellatrix share a look, the older sighing in surprising acquiescence. In Regulus’s periphery, Sirius stiffens in attention. He knows what his brother is about to do before he could open his mouth. “It’s perfectly fine to have that conversation right here right now, don’t you think?” Bellatrix laughs derisively while Walburga narrows her eyes at Sirius. “Oh, mon fils glorieux et défiant , what makes you think such a way?” “My dear cousin Bella’s anxious to know about it, see?” Sirius contends, his body moving forward insistently. Regulus itches to pull him back. “She’s practically foaming at her mouth. Why not give the bone to the slobbering dog—” Regulus gasps when Bellatrix pulls out his wand and aims a spell over Sirius, who expertly ducks and pulls out his own. In a fit of mindless panic, Regulus silently casts a hex towards Bella who just about erects a Protego charm just in time before it hits her. Her eyes are sparkling wildly, peering at Regulus in shock. Walburga watches the proceeding disinterestedly, though her eyes are straying too long at him to be considered indifferent. Orion hums, peering over the tops of the newspaper, “I hope the betrothment preparations with Lucius are going smoothly, Narcissa?” Narcissa clears her throat, holding her teacup close to her lips. “It is going well, uncle. Mother is beside herself, as always, wanting everything to be perfect and being a little too overbearing, I should say. It’s my wedding after all—” “Aww, the ickle baby thinks he can wave his little wand and play with his betters,” Bella tuts, twirling her wand mockingly. “How precious.” There’s a reason everyone calls him sweet and soft, because he is, indeed, those things. He acknowledges how sheltered he had been, naive and distant from all affairs until he had to bear the weight of the heirship after Sirius left. He was soft and sweet, and it was alright, he resigned to it at some point, because it meant that he’s not a stupid rebel like Sirius and not in danger of being blasted off the tapestry. Until it’s coming from mother and Bella, and it drips with mockery that it makes his skin crawl. Bella likes Sirius enough to be the only one who tolerates his differing views, despite being the most bigoted of all, second only to Walburga. Bella and Sirius have this twisted relationship of hatred and respect that Regulus doesn’t understand. Maybe because they’re so much alike in their wild, ferocious recklessness. It had been Bella who surprisingly came to Sirius’s defense during a family meeting after he left, railing at mother with such colorful violence enough that Walburga pulled her wand before uncle Cygnus and Rodolphus interrupted. Like father, when some of the death eaters dropped Sirius’s name, they’d found themselves at the end of Bella’s wand more times than he can count. But Regulus is back with the knowledge that Bella killed Sirius. She can kill him, and Merlin and Morgana be damned if Regulus lets that happen on his watch. Thoughtlessly, thrumming with so much untamed anger threatening to eviscerate his wall of blankness, he flicks his wand and Bella finds herself hanging upside down, cackling even at such a position. Narcissa and Orion continue their conversation about her betrothal. Walburga is still looking at him, eyes sparkling with something that has his stomach swooping with delight and revulsion. Sirius, on the other hand, gapes at him and Bella, gleeful and amazed. “You’ve got it in you, brother,” Sirius says, in his throes of mindless victory, and Regulus could cry. Brother. When had Sirius called him that? The last time he heard his brother say the word, it had been pertained to that idiot Potter, the Great Hall the witness to the permanent severing of their tapestry. Regulus—having finally bested the person who trained him in the dark arts during his stunt as a death eater—is positively elated, like he could also float at any moment into a plane of invincibility. Brother , the word stuck around his throat and rattling in his chest. “That is enough, Regulus.” Walburga’s voice cuts through his joyous haze, and immediately, he promptly drops Bella on the divan, head first. She gasps, uncharacteristically sputtering, before pulling herself with as much pride off her inelegant position. She points her wand at him, eyes glittering maliciously. “You dare—” “You too, Bella.”  His cousin slums back against the divan, chest rising and falling as she peers up at him closely. Regulus realizes how stupid he is to make himself a target of Bella’s ire. He knows she’ll remember his victory, and Bella’s nothing if not pernicious; he can imagine the future family banquet, especially the upcoming birthday of grandmother Irma. Well. Nothing to do about that now. The whole month with uncle Alphard prepared him with situations like Bella and the Dark Lord. He is, after all, good with defense. He’ll make do with that. “Well, what a very prosperous meeting this has become,” Walburga says, tone neutral but for the furrow between her brows. She places her teacup back into the saucer. “It is nigh time to prepare for dinner, mes garçons .” Both Regulus and Sirius stand up as mother walks toward them. Her hands cup Regulus’s jaws, talons too close to his eyes, not delicately this time. It’s both warm and forceful, and he wants to sink into it and escape. He breathes easily when she lets go and proceeds to hold Sirius next. His brother physically recoils from her, glaring outrightly. Walburga merely raises both her brows so Sirius relents, letting mother place a featherlight kiss on his forehead. Regulus looks away. In his recollections, Regulus never received anything resembling a kiss from Walburga. It’s always hands on his jaws and nails above his shoulder. Sirius, for as much as he abhors her touch, was always a receiver of one. It was always like that—Regulus chasing for something that Sirius hates, Sirius pulling away from something Regulus wants. The green envy coils around the glee in his ribs, completely suffocating it. “We will reconvene at the dining room for supper. Do not keep us waiting.” Before Walburga could finish, Regulus flees. But of course, Sirius is faster. In the hallway outside the drawing room, Sirius’s fingers grasp tightly around his arm.  “Not so fast, little brother,” he hisses. “We have a lot to talk about.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The talk starts as well as any other talks before this—it did not, by their already abysmal standard, go as expected.
 
“Where did you learn that spell, Reg?” Sirius relentlessly charges into it, eyes blazing with everything that is alive and buzzing. It feels like getting punched in the stomach, to witness the Sirius in the height before their fall.

Reg

, the nickname for everything that pertains to his brother. It became

Regulus

during their Hogwarts years, when Sirius is fresh from the disappointment of Regulus’s sorting and being swept by schoolyard rivalry.

Regulus to blood supremacist bigot

, when Sirius’s attempt at distancing himself to anything and anyone that is Black had him clumping Regulus with anything that connects him to it. Regulus wants to hear it, again and again until he’s settled into this second life without having to jump at the mere sight of Sirius’s grey eyes and the sound of his barking laugh. 
 
“

Curieux, n’est-ce pas?

” Regulus asks blithely, turning to face the mantelpiece where—

ah

, here it is. The wings of Sirius’s dragon Regulus broke because he was envious of how grand it had been, compared to his which looked like a carcass beside it.
 
“Look at me, Regulus,” Sirius says sharply. Regulus rolls his eyes without turning. “Why are you being so difficult?”
 
“And why are you being such a persistent bugger—”
 
Regulus cannot help his reaction; the moment Sirius’s hand clamps around his arm and pulls Regulus to face him, Regulus’s wand comes flying into his grasp, shoving it against Sirius’s chin. Sirius sneers at him, steely eyes sharp and bright.
 
“That right there,” his brother says softly, pushing his chin against the wand’s tip. “Enjoyed your time decapitating muggles with your slimy little snake friends, did you?”
 
“Why so curious?

Tu veux apprendre à le faire, c’est ça?

” Regulus says just as softly. “Do you want a spectacle? I can gladly show you. First, we have to haunt down those filthy, lowly muggles—”
 
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Sirius hisses, pushing Regulus so suddenly that his back slams against the brick of the fireplace. His brother stares at him in utter disgust, and it shouldn’t have affected him so much, a look that is familiar to him in both of his lifetimes. But no matter how much he numbs himself to it, the look is just as sharp—even sharper in the height of his brother’s suspicion against him—and it cuts him deeper than he expects. No amount of preparation in uncle Alphard’s combat chamber or his own death could ever desensitize himself to this.
 
“Do you have any other thing to say other than to make your displeasure known about my existence?”
 
Sirius looks like his favorite pet has been stomped on, and Regulus’s hatred for his brother right then is visceral, sizzling across his skin like a Cruciatus curse. How dare he look like that, like Regulus intentionally hurt him with the truth? How dare he spin this around and make himself the victim and Regulus the villain? 
 
“Regulus,” Sirius sighs, eyebrows furrowing in a complicated dance. His hands are rubbing down his face in frustration. “Where have you been the past month?”
 
“Are you purposefully being obtuse? I told everyone that I was with Evan—”
 
“No, you’re not,” Sirius says. He narrows his eyes. “You’re not with him—”
 
“

Tu as peur d’avoir eu raison sur moi depuis le début, c’est ça?

” Regulus says gleefully, curling his lips. “That the moment I was sorted into Slytherin, I became the object of your nightmare? That hanging out with Evan and Barty and Severus and  Avery and Mulciber and the Carrow twins have made me evil beyond comprehension? Say it, oh dear brother of mine.

Dis qui je suis

. That I’m a Dea—”
 
“No, you’re not,” Sirius repeats, firmly this time. His eyes are flashing, like the stormy skies right before a lightning strikes. “You’re my brother, Regulus, and I know you like I would know my soul—”
 
“Do you?” Regulus whispers, heart pounding with something painful, cracking his ribs and opening up a dark hole in his chest. “Do you really know me, Sirius?”
 
Sirius opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again soundlessly. Regulus laughs sharply, and he’s both pleased and horrified how much he sounds like Walburga at the moment. “You’re a hypocrite, that’s what you are. A few months ago, you’re harping on about how much of a slimy git I am, just like my friends. And how much I resemble both our parents, that I’m a Black, through and through.” Regulus gets up to Sirius’s face and sneers. “And now you’re saying you know me just like you know my soul? Well, guess what,

brother

? I’m a Black and my soul is a Black. Just so you know, that makes you one, too.”
 
Sirius’s features contorts like his namesake, mad and defensive. And Regulus feels a crack in his soul, as if the reaction itself speaks of what Sirius thinks about what he said—denial, abhorrence to his own roots. Regulus steps even closer, looking up into Sirius’s clouded eyes, and he could see the conflict in them. “Do you hate me so much that it hurts your soul to recognize mine?”
 
Sirius’s snarls, and his arms are gripping Regulus’s shoulder tightly. “You’re my brother, Regulus. I could never hate—”
 
“You’re a liar!” Regulus cries, shoving Sirius back. “That’s not what you said when I was sorted into Slytherin, or when I hung out with my friends, or when I obeyed mother’s rules.”
 
“It’s because you’re being such a git about it!” Sirius yells back, a fierce expression contorting his handsome Black features. “You know how evil that old hag is, you bend your back just to follow her—”
 
“She’s our mother, obviously! She’s only evil because you don’t want to see what everyone of us sees—”
 
“And what do you see?” Sirius barks. “That Muggles are the object of your twisted, pureblood sadist fantasies? That Muggleborns are the dregs of this degenerate society and

Purebloods

are justified in wiping everything

filthy

out of existence? How fucking unoriginal.”
 
“Mother just wants the good for our family.

I

just want the good for our family,” Regulus sneers.

Unlike you

, goes unsaid. He thinks Sirius hears it just the same. 
 
“Naive little boy,” Sirius says, and the condescension in his voice works like whip against Regulus, taunting and excruciating with the truth beneath it. “For all you brag about your fucking intelligence, you’re not too keen on thinking for yourself, are you? Does it echo there with the amount of space for how your brain shrivelled with all this pureblood nonsense—”
 
“Don’t you dare—”
 
“You are being stupid, Regulus,” Sirius snaps. “Stupid, idiotic little piece of shit who only eats from the hands that choke him. Regurgitating the same twisted rubbish that doesn’t even make any fucking sense if you care enough to think. Do you actually believe that

Tojours

fucking

pur

is anywhere near good? Let me fucking tell you something, Regulus.” Sirius’s snarl is near his face and Regulus feels his vision shaking at the proximity. “It’s not good. But you don’t see that, do you? Because you’re fucking stupid and spineless and too much of coward to believe them.”
 
Regulus’s ears ring in the heavy silence between them. The words

stupid spineless coward

pound brutally against the side of his head, occupying every recess of his brain, unearthing the things that Regulus forces down. Because aren’t all of them the reason for his undoing? He had been too spineless beneath their parent’s influence, too cowardly to be other than what was set for him, too stupid to think he could stop the Dark Lord at all.

Stupid spineless coward

are everything he is, and everything that he doesn’t want to acknowledge.
 
But Sirius is good with that, hitting you where it hurts the most like a vulture pecking at an open wound. But Regulus is good at being a petty little shit. And he will hit Sirius just as much as he’s been hit.
 
“And you’re the enforcer of morality now?” Regulus laughs mockingly. “Face it, Sirius. You’re just as bad as the rest of us.”
 
“I’m not like any of them and neither are you,” Sirius spits. There is desperation in his ferociousness, as if it could ward off all the things that make him that way. But it only further solidifies just how much of Black blood is flowing in his veins.
 
“How are you so sure about that?” he asks, tilting his head mockingly. If only Regulus can tick off all the things that destroy Sirius’s notion that he’s anything but a Black. But alas, he could only say, “you’re so self-righteously loud on your high horse, but you’re just mother’s spitting image. You’re not far from the rotten tree, Sirius. In fact, you’re just a

mudblood

away from—”
 
He is cut off from the rest of his statement when Sirius’s fist connects to the side of his face. The pain reverberates through his skull, shocking him into silence. Physical fights are an uncommon occurrence in their history; it was always barbed words, sharp hostility, and concealed sentiments coloring the flimsy thread of their tapestry. The iron tang of blood fills his mouth, just as heavy and intense as the grip of venom around his heart. 
 
“Reg—” Sirius tries to reach out, but Regulus slaps his hand away. He can’t help the sting of tears around his throat and at the corner of his eyes. Sirius sees his hurt—just as he always did, Regulus thinks with bitterness—and his face crumbles. “I’m sorry,

mon petit frère d’amour

—”
 
“

Ne t’avise pas de m’appeler comme ça

!

” Regulus snaps. Sirius hates their mother tongue, just like how much he hates everything that connects him to his roots. He hasn’t spoken French in a long time, unless of course to use it as a weapon—almost always against Regulus, who still kept it close to his heart. Regulus hates how much Sirius resembles Walburga in that regard—they both use it against Regulus; to let him feel love, to make him feel guilty, to make him spin and eat up on the palm of their hands. 
 
Sirius purses his lips, as if reading Regulus’s mind. “You don’t believe any of that rot.”
 
Regulus clenches his jaws, stepping away from Sirius’s vicinity because anger licks flame down his spine, hands itching to smash it against Sirius’s face. And after his stint in uncle Alphard’s American manor, there’s so much Muggle brutishness he can stomach before he hurls everything up and makes a huge mess of himself.
 
“I know you’re not capable of things they are capable of, Reg,” Sirius says doggedly. “I know you don’t believe the things they taught us. Because why else would you lie to mother? You’ve never done it before. Tell me, Reg. Why would you lie to her?”
 
Regulus hates and loves the warmth of Sirius’s optimism—that borders on delusion at some point—in equal measures, soothing the icy bite of his suspicion and melting all his walls against his brother at the same breath. The desperate hope is misplaced, Regulus knows it, but he also knows it’s a painstaking treasure to gain, for the Blacks are uncharitable with that sort of thing. Sirius doesn’t hope easily, but when he does, it’s an all out, encompassing zealousness, gracing against Regulus’s resolve, crumbling it down. It makes Regulus hope, too. But hope is a very dangerous thing to have for a man like him.
 
Regulus sneers, “your optimism is pathetic, Sirius.”
 
Sirius looks at him, and there is a tiredness in him that seems world-weary. As if he bears all the weight of Regulus’s existence and the weight of all his baggage. He is heavy, Regulus is.

When have I been just enough?

He can either be too lacking and too heavy a burden. A son that is spare that is only ever there when Sirius fell short of the expectations of the Black heir. Of course, Sirius would tire of him. Regulus is always tired of himself too.
 
It would’ve been nice, Regulus lets himself the luxury of dangerous yearning, to succumb into it. To let Sirius carry the weight of all he knew, of all he went through. But they are standing on a shaky ground, tied by a frail piece of thread that is a draw away from unraveling. 
 
“You’ve always been so delusional,

mon frère

.”
 
“It’s not delusion when I know—”
 
Regulus scoffs, the bitterness of his hurt cascades down his spine, burning him with its intensity that he can’t stop the venomous words out of his mouth, “Can’t accept reality, can you? Is it so hard to swallow the fact that your

real

brother can never be like that halfwitted, good-for-nothing Potter—”
 
Regulus expects the next punch, but it’s no less painful than the other one. In fact, he can feel his teeth crack, the burst of blood almost choking him. Regulus breathes harshly, shaking the dark spots in his eyes which further upsets his stomach. He stares at Sirius, and there it is, the confirmation of his hypocrisy and the fragility of their tapestry—feral and protective, always over James Potter and never over him. 
 
“Keep James’s name out of your mouth,” Sirius says, low and vicious. “How dare you call him that when you can only wish to be half the person that he is.”
 
Sirius slams the door of the drawing room, jolting Regulus out of his rage. It simmers down to a dying ember, leaving ashes in its wake. He tastes it on his tongue, in his stomach, feels it down his knees.

The thing about the Blacks is that

each

and

everyone

of them has succumbed, to varying degrees, into addiction, of all sorts. From dark magic, sadism and taxidermy, to extremist ideologies, antediluvian mythology and obscure artifacts collections. Blacks don’t do anything half-hearted—they plunged into everything with manic single-mindedness that is just one of the many facets of their tenacity. 
 
Uncle Alphard, unsurprisingly, finds his. It’s a large, domed room filled with various shining, pointed objects, mounted and exhibited in various positions in a way that resembled a shrine.
 
“Welcome, to my quite considerable niche of carved collections,” Uncle Alphard breathes reverently. “Oh,

ma fierté et ma joie

.

Le fruit de mon travail

.”
 
That might be an understatement, Regulus marvels. There’s nothing

quite considerable

about the room. Glass cases displayed daggers of various sizes and colors, each resting on soft, silky mats, adorned with gleaming gems and detailed engravings. Large swords hung on the walls, their hilts grand and formidable, the blades gleaming in the light, their sharpness hidden beneath the shine. Towering display cabinets lined the far wall, filled with spears, staffs, axes, and a variety of other weapons, many of which he couldn't recognize. It is a silent cathedral of weaponry, a magnitude that Regulus has never witnessed before. Not even Andromeda’s room of oddities could compare to the sheer portent of the room. 
 
“Wait,” Regulus says, turning to look at his uncle, who is standing before a horizontal glass display, nimble fingers lightly dancing against it, staring at the ornately gold dagger like a mother would gaze down her child. “Fruit of your labor? You don’t tell me these are—”
 
“Yes,

mon neveu

, I tell you,” Uncle Alphard mutters distractedly. “I am introducing you to

mes enfants

. Everything you are seeing is a product of my genius.” he looks at Regulus. “Designed and carved them myself.

Ne sont-ils pas d’une telle beauté?

”
 
“Why spend so much time creating when you can just buy every collection of pointy objects you can get your hands on?” Regulus, as a Black first and foremost, can’t imagine having to waste his time creating something from scratch when he can buy it with galleons. Isn’t that the purpose of their gold, to be a convenience?
 
“Oh, yes, money can do a lot but effort can bring you farther,” his uncle replies, flitting from one glass to another like a bee attracted to a flower’s nectar. “These are not merely for exhibition,

mon neveu

. I carved them out with intention, you see?” he flicks his wrist along the side of one of the glass cases. “Come. I will show you something.”
 
Regulus walks towards him but has to breathe heavily and stops. He is pushing against some kind of a force that makes it harder for him to move, suffocating in its intensity, like wading on mud or uselessly commanding a limb to raise under the weight of Petrificus Totalus. He stares at the glass case, then to his uncle, whose eyes are shining with mirth.
 
“What’s happening?”
 
“Have you, my boy, know about Runecrafting?”
 
Regulus nods. Ancient Runes had been one of his favorite subjects in the past, and one thing that they have brushed upon is the topic of crafting runes on an object for the purpose of longevity. It was an introduction to an extensive branch of magic that only a few years in Hogwarts wouldn’t suffice. Regulus hadn’t thought about that in a few years, but now it made sense, broadly, why uncle Alphard would be the kind of person to jump headlong into an obsession as exhaustive as this.
 
“My sabbatical to Mahoutokoro had offered me all the ways how magic can be…

magical

,” uncle Alphard explains. “You see, magic to a wixen of our pedigree is just a tool. For convenience. Something like a leg that is pushed to walk, or a match that you transfigure to a broom. It’s always a utility, never the beating heart, the foundation of our being.”
 
“You’re wrong,” Regulus argues. “Magic is just as part of us as our hands or hearts or brains. We won’t live without it—”
 
“We will,” uncle Alphard says placidly. “Take the Squibs, for example. The reservoir of their magic contains enough to seperate them from both Muggles and the rest of the Magical community. They’re still magical, like you and I, but they don’t need magic to function. Which begs the question of whether we will survive without it or not.” he plunges his hands through the glass and it gives way under his fingers. They grasp around the golden hilt of the dagger, pulling it out of its silky bed reverently. Uncle Alphard takes a step forward and Regulus has to take a step backward, knees weakening at the intensity of the force coming in waves from the, Regulus realizes, golden dagger.
 
There’s something so abhorrent about it despite its beauty. Regulus’s body feels weak, as if the force drains him of all vitality. He thinks its beauty is the result of the countless lives it had absorbed, and Regulus panics at the thought. Uncle Alphard is smiling through it, so he can’t have been affected by the object he’s holding. So why does Regulus feel like he might keel over anytime?
 
“Pull out your wand,

mon neveu

, and perform a spell.”
 
With a shaking hand, Regulus does and utters the first thing that comes to his mind to protect him from the revolting energy. “Protego.”
 
The shield charm fails. He tries it again for the second and third time, both times feeling like his wand is nothing more than a piece of dead wood instead of the instrument that channels his magic. Regulus feels a different kind of terror that grips him. His useless wand on his hand, his limbs shaking in its effort to stay up.
 
“What’s happening, uncle!”
 
Uncle Alphard, still smiling blithely, returns the golden dagger back to its silky bed, tapping the glass with his fingers until it solidifies. Regulus sags against the nearest shelf, relief floods his body, the kind of which comes when you are almost at the precipice of something—of a near-miss plunge to death, something familiar to Regulus.
 
Regulus scowls. “Why do you have to do that?”
 
“It does make you appreciate it all the more, doesn’t it?” Regulus wants to say he’s insane for it, but he sounds hypocritical so he bites his tongue and asks something else that intrigues him.
 
“Why aren’t you affected by it?”
 
“Ah,” uncle Alphard sighs and starts gliding away. Regulus falls into step beside him. “That’s where the curious bit of Runecrafting takes place.” He pulls a dagger with a curved blade from a glass shelf, and quite suddenly, he plunges it into his palm. It stays unharmed and unblemished, as if the blade hadn’t been gleaming dangerously under the light. “The wielder cannot be affected by the runes, given that they were the ones to craft it upon their chosen objects. It all, however, depends on how the runes manifest themselves.”
 
“Depends on what?”
 
“On whether the runes serve as protection for the crafter or destruction upon his environment. Ah, here it is,” his uncle beams as he unhooks a large trident from a wall. Unbidden, he plunges it, now towards Regulus’s neck. Regulus doesn’t have time to duck as he feels it slice through — not his skin, not his throat, but something far deeper. A lurch, like a hook through his ribs, yanks something from within him, and Regulus staggers back, gasping like a fish gutted open. There’s no wound, no blood. But the wrongness, the unbearable sense of invasion, lingers.
 
Uncle Alphard grins like a delighted child. "Relax,

mon neveu

. It only grazed the surface. A proper strike would have left you a hollowed-out husk." He spins the trident effortlessly, returning it to the wall with a flick of his wrist. "Isn’t it glorious?"
 
Regulus’s breath is shallow, panic clawing up his throat. "That—that wasn’t a spell. What was that?"
 
"It was the rune." uncle Alphard clasps his hands together, turning to face him fully. "Magic, when channeled through a wand, is a language—words with structure, intent, sequence. It’s all very tidy, isn’t it? A spell to protect, a spell to attack, always filtered through the wood, softened by the buffer of wandlore and tradition." His lip curls. "But

Runecrafting

, ah, that’s something else entirely. It’s magic unfiltered. Raw. Direct. Pas des mots, mais un pouls. A heartbeat carved into the bone of a thing, making it more than a thing. Le rendre vivant
."
 
Regulus rubs at his throat where the trident’s unseen touch still lingers. "It felt like—like it was ripping something out of me."
 
"It was," uncle Alphard says, with the air of someone explaining a clever joke. "A well-crafted weapon doesn’t just break wards or counter spells, it reaches past them. It bypasses the trappings of modern magic entirely. Why wrestle with someone’s shield charm when you can simply carve a rune that

unravels

their very presence in the space the weapon touches?"
 
"Unravels?" Regulus repeats, throat dry.
 
"Their magic. Their life force. Call it what you will," uncle Alphard says breezily, though his eyes gleam with something darker. "The runes

anchor

the blade to me—my intent, my will—and whatever the blade touches, the runes decide what to do with it. Sometimes, they strip away enchantments like peeling the skin from fruit. Sometimes they siphon magic itself. And sometimes—" He pauses, fingers tracing a long, slender sword mounted above them, its hilt worked into the shape of a coiling dragon. "Sometimes they drink a soul dry."
 
Regulus’s hair at the back of his neck stands on end. "That’s not just magic. That’s—"
 
"Alchemy, ritual, blood-magic, soul-binding—yes to all that." uncle Alphard waves an elegant hand, dismissive. "Runecrafting was never meant for the gentle-hearted. It’s an ancient art, born from need—need to defend, need to conquer, need to survive when spells alone couldn’t tip the scales. Before there were wands, there were weapons. And before there were weapons, there were hands carving meaning into the world itself."
 
Regulus stares at the collection, his mind catching up to the enormity of it all. "But the runes… You said they can either protect or destroy. How do you decide?"
 
"Ah," uncle Alphard’s smile is slow and sharp. "That,

mon neveu

, is the heart of Runecrafting,

l’intention

. The blade is only a vessel. The runes are the breath. But the will comes from the crafter. Every step, from forging the weapon to carving the first rune, is a reflection of the soul crafting it. Are you a shield, or are you a blade? Do you build, or do you raze?

Les runes savent

. They become whatever you are, amplified and made permanent. They are, in the end, a mirror."
 
Regulus’s fingers tighten around his useless wand. "That’s why my spells failed. The runes were stronger than my magic."
 
"They were more

intimate

than your magic," uncle Alphard corrects. "Your wand channels your intent, but a rune-crafted weapon? It

is

intent. No mediation, no softening. Just raw will, carved into existence."
 
Regulus’s mind reels. "But if the runes reflect the crafter, what happens if the crafter… changes?"
 
Uncle Alphard’s smile sharpens further, bordering on predatory. It’s the most Black expression that he displays since Regulus came, and it left Regulus feeling winded. How typical for a Black—to possess an obsession with weapons and this staggering kind of magic. "Then the runes change too. They are never finished. They grow, they adapt, they remember. Every fear you deny, every hatred you bury, every desire you suppress—the runes know. You don’t just make a weapon, Regulus." He leans in, breath warm against Regulus’s face. "You make a legacy. A piece of yourself that will outlive you. And sometimes — if you do it right — a piece of yourself that might just outlive death itself."
 
Regulus shivers, the weight of the room pressing down on him, heavy with the knowledge that none of these weapons were just objects. They were all witnesses. Uncle Alphard’s silent, watchful children, each one knowing far too much about the man who had carved them into being.
 
"Is that why you keep them locked up here?" Regulus asks quietly.
 
Alphard’s smile fades into something more contemplative. "Some of them are too… personal. They know too much. They want too much. And some…" His gaze flickers to a case at the far end of the room, black cloth draped over whatever weapon lies within. "Some were mistakes."
 
Regulus doesn’t ask what kind of mistakes could drive uncle Alphard to hide his own creations. Instead, he steps back, distance the only comfort he can afford.
 
"I only ask you to teach me how to wield weapons. Why teach me any of this?" Regulus asks, though he’s not sure he wants the answer.
 
"Because you,

mon neveu

, are a Black," uncle Alphard says simply, his smile once again smooth and bright. "And Blacks don’t do things halfway. When the time comes—and it will come—you’ll have to decide if you are a shield or a blade. And I would rather you carve that truth into something real, something permanent, rather than let the world carve it into you first."
 
Regulus swallows. The weight of that truth feels heavier than any blade in the room.
 
"And when the time comes," Alphard adds, turning back to his glass cases, "you’ll know where to find me."
 
Regulus can’t help wondering, as his eyes travel along the sharp blades and ornate hilts arranged strategically through the domed room, if the runes really do remember everything, what would they carve into him? Will they see the vengeance waiting to boil over his heart and rain havoc into the world? The greed for the legacy that is intended to bleed the world dry? The pride of the broken crown on his head? Or the tattered remains of his soul and the indent of the Inferi’s hands?
 
As uncle Alphard places the trident back into its glass case, the weight of this new academic marvel twists his mind and sharpens like the mounted swords in this domed weapons room, a profoundness blooms into the debris of his mental shields, of which he affixes it into a sudden burst of focus. It has been a month since he came back to life, but as he inhales, he finds it easy to breathe for the first time. The freedom and purpose are fresh at the tip of his tongue.
 
Knowledge, for a Slytherin, is power. And it is power that Regulus intends to wield.   
 
“So when am I starting to craft?”
 
Uncle Alphard turns to him, a sharp smile on his face. It unhelpfully reminds Regulus of his mother. “You won’t be worthy of crafting for the next few years.”
 
The freedom and purpose taste ashen in his mouth. “What? I thought you—”
 
“For now, we will focus on meditation.”
 
Meditation, for uncle Alphard, means a recollection of all the things he learned about dagger-wielding. Regulus doesn’t care if he thought this is redundant. He will train and mediate until he is worthy to craft his own rune-encrusted weapon.
 
So Regulus starts his training. He doesn’t think about the new area of magic he wants to hyperfixate his time on. He doesn’t think about his death, or the things he learned in limbo, or the purpose of this blasted second life. As much as he wants to start planning, he can’t put his head into anything more than everyday necessity. His mind is a vortex of brutal thoughts that makes it harder for him to wake up in the morning, weighing him down until all he wants is the bitter oblivion of death. He feels uncontrolled and disorganized most days, like a shaking nerve waiting to be struck. His usual laser-focus is dim, constantly evading him as if he’s running after it in a dream, slow and hazy and just at the tip of his shaking fingers. 
 
Everything is unreal, and Regulus knows he’s not fine. That his death—and the things he had seen and heard and the things that happened before it all—had left a mark that he cannot just easily recover from. He wakes up drenched in sweat, a chill settling into his bone like drenched back in the lake, skin and muscles throbbing with the phantom nails of the Inferi. But everytime uncle Alphard asks about him, gently coaxing him to share, it sets him off.
 
And so he trains. He trains and trains until the muscles of his arms strain from throwing knives. Big and small, he tried them all—a spear, a trident, a sword, a tactical knife, a dagger, a balisong, an axe. He hones them to a dangerous sharpness until the blade blinks at him, and then he throws it at a target. He starts wonky, his muscles familiar with the act but unused for it for a long time. He doesn’t hit it, at first. No matter how much he adjusts his stance, or the arch of his arms, the target seems to move away from the knife’s tip.
 
It frustrates him to no end. It’s one of the few things that he should be good at, and he fails yet again. If Sirius is here, he would be hitting bull’s eye after bull’s eye. 
 
The thought upsets him more than it should. Because the fact that his brother is the brightest star in the night sky is set in stone, his literal name is a self-fulfilling prophecy—Sirius is the best at everything; he’s an academic prodigy without even trying, he’s a Quidditch star (second only to that idiotic Potter), his rebellious and savage ways only serve to charm everyone, he can practically have them all eating on the palm of his hands with a few words and shiny smiles, and every person they meet makes a point of shining a light on their obvious difference in physique. Because it’s not enough that he’s inconceivably beautiful, but he’s gotten the best of the Blacks, while Regulus has been a year later and the only thing left for him is the stubbornness to try harder to be more.
 
Regulus is not supposed to think about his brother. But he can’t help it. He can’t forget how easy it had been for Sirius to leave him, to proclaim that Potter brat his only brother in front of everyone, to sever the only connection he had with him. And Regulus hates him so much for it despite knowing how unreasonable it is. It hasn’t happened yet in this lifetime, Regulus knows it. He ought not to persecute Sirius for things he hasn’t done yet. But Regulud knows his brother enough to say that Sirius will follow upon it if given the chance, he will hurt Regulus if he has to save himself because Blacks are inherently selfish.
 
But Regulus has never been

that

selfish. He did everything that was asked of him before. And right now, he wants to do everything, destroy the world if he must, just to save Sirius. But Sirius is inherently Black, and he will leave Regulus in Grimmauld Place to rot because he prefers that ugly, bespectacled git over him…
 
Regulus doesn’t know he’s bleeding until he hears a gasp and a gentle

mon nevue

. He looks at uncle Alphard, and looks down at his hand, where his fingers curled around the dagger’s blade. The blood drips down the floor, a gentle

pat-pat-pat

that echoes in the silence of this revelation. 
 
Uncle Alphard wraps his injured hand with a bandage, he calls it. Regulus grimaces as the cloth tightens around his hand, he wonders why his uncle insists on doing it the Muggle way. He could’ve been saved from the disgrace of it all with a simple healing charm, but uncle Alphard perhaps wants to punish him this way.
 
“Say it,” Regulus says, disrupting the hypnotic silence between them.
 
“Say what?” His uncle’s voice is gentle, slightly distracted with winding the last of the cloth.
 
“I know you want to call me mad, so just say it,” Regulus snaps, and with force, he pulls his hand away and stands up.
 
“Why would I,

mon cher graçon

? I can be capricious but never hypocritical,” uncle Alphard’s voice is soothing, gentle. “We came from the same rotten branch, after all.”
 
After that, uncle Alphard is a constant, irritating presence in the combat chamber. He merely observes, even when Regulus commits mistakes—and he does commit a lot—he doesn’t talk. But the reminder of his stable, gentle presence unnerves Regulus that he purposefully throws his knife so far that it lands a foot from the intended target. The silence vibrates within his bones, rattling them until his head aches with the words he wants to pour out just to fill the void. Because the thing about Regulus is that messiness is a loud attack to the tranquility that is essential for his survival, but the chaos clangs louder against the inside of his head without the grounding mess outside it. And it’s easier to reign in the world around him than the worlds that crash and burn inside.
 
And Regulus feels the itch under his skin—the ants crawling and the words crowding. He wants to say he’s back from the dead, that a bloody immemorial creature of death proclaims him the savior of a past that should’ve stayed in its crypt. But he’s silent in his own tomb, seething and shaking with the loom of the future that had always been unchangeable but now crumbling. He’s always known what

should

become of him—a spineless heir of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, a Death Eater that had always amounted to nothing. Maybe he hadn’t expected to die, but the prospect of death had been a grail of relief to his thirsty lips, and he’d welcomed it like a yearning lover. 
 
But thinking about what he

wants

himself to become, presented with all these choices and all the trajectories his life can follow, is like balancing precariously atop a steep, and either side is a plunge towards an unknown abyss, just the right amount of leaning towards the wrong one will be a misstep that can cause Regulus everything. Because he found no safety net in this chaos, no structure to fall from, no expectations—no matter how rigid they are—that he can mold himself into and dictate the course of his life.
 
Regulus startles when a hand grasps his shoulder, and uncle Alphard just about stops Regulus’s other hand before the knife can make its bloody way into his jugular. They stare at each other for a few tensed silence seconds—Regulus with sweat trickling down his wide eyes, and Uncle Alphard with dawning horror on his own—before Regulus harshly pulls himself away, breathing deeply.
 
“Don’t ever do that again.”
 
Uncle Alphard’s face softens, “Forgive me,

mon neveu

. I should’ve learned from my mistake the first time.” A few moments of silence, before he speaks, “we should take a break,

pour le moment

. It seems to me that you need it.”
 
Regulus doesn’t need it. In fact, he should continue until all the targets are destroyed and all his blades are blunted. But when he raises his hand, it hangs limply at his side, heavy and cramping.
 
When they settle in one of the drawing rooms, Regulus expects his uncle to start the onslaught of questions. It’s not actually a secret how much Regulus is not sleeping, and how easily his hand jumps to his wand holster at the slightest sound, or how his afternoons had turned into mornings and his midnights into noons. Regulus is resigned to the fact that no matter how he tries to summon the wall of blankness, it shatters every time he so much as breathes. It’s delicate, his mind is. He tries not to exert too much effort into everything these days.
 
Uncle Alphard takes his time with his tea, while Regulus settles deeper into the sofa with his black coffee, letting the silence stretch. Only the soft rustle of leaves from nearby trees and the chirping of crickets and buzzing of cicadas occasionally cut through it, coming from the open French doors that lead to the parterre. During the early days of his visit, when Regulus decided to remain sober for a few hours, he had exhausted his soles walking down the well-kept and artistically designed landscape, only begrudgingly appreciative of its beauty when he learned from his uncle that it was courtesy to an artistic

muggle

horticulturist that designed it.
 
Regulus stares mindlessly at the dust motes floating in the golden beams passing through the window, when uncle Alphard breaks the silence, “what do you feel,

mon cher neveu

?”
 
A snort comes out before he can help it. Regulus raises an eyebrow. “Are we really doing this right now?”
 
Uncle Alphard merely stares at him. Regulus sighs and places his cup of coffee back on the table, letting the question echo in his head.

What do I feel right now?

Usually, it is harder for Regulus to

feel

, to get in touch with his feelings, when all his life had been a clear divide of

what to feel

and

what not to feel

. Sometimes, however, it is so much harder to summon the words on

what

and

how

he feels, when the divide obliterates itself by the intensity of it all. He feels so much right now, and the divide that tethers his control for so long is plunged deep under the overflow, and the current slaps him from all sides. And he doesn’t even know the words to identify them.
 
He says as much. Uncle Alphard hums, nodding his head. “I must change the question, then, something that fits you.” He smiles slightly. “What are you thinking?”
 
Even after the years that follow uncle Alphard’s estrangement, he still knows how Regulus operates. Maybe because that's how the Blacks ought to do—

think

. Straightforward, impersonal, and cutthroat to the problem. Something that, for the first time, he’s been avoiding doing because he just wants to get out of his head, to not think at all. To just get consumed by the sensations of the here and now, like Sirius always does. But right now, faced with that question, he gets immersed into the stream of his ignored thoughts, weaving through him in a mesh that is quite difficult to untangle.
 
And what is he thinking? 
 
Regulus lets himself be overwhelmed by his thoughts—the many reasons why he’s sent back to his life, why his existence has anything to do with the limbo in his universe, why his continued existence brings chaos in his reality and how he can possibly find the solution for it, what does it mean for him when he’s not supposed to die in the cave, where and when he should die... There are too many rationalities to pinpoint, possibilities to the never-ending inquiries that need to be synthesized. But one thing remains true: a vision of the Dark Lord’s head, severed from his body by Regulus’s own sword.
 
“I hate the family name,” Regulus says instead. The statement pulls a thorn out of his chest but weighs him down at the same time with how final and real they are. “I hate being a Black. But the Black legacy is a part of me just as much as the blood running through my veins.”
 
Uncle Alphard stares at him for so long Regulus thinks he might not understand. He, after all, throws everything away just for a life of freedom from it. But then he inclines his head solemnly, “I do understand,

mon neveu

.”
 
“You do?”
 
“Oh, I do get you, my dear Regulus. Such a unique perspective, stuck between the choice of two great things, deliberating whether the cost of both outweigh the greatness itself. An interesting position to be stuck in, I suppose.”
 
Interesting indeed, Regulus hums and sips on his coffee. Uncle Alphard continues, “Tell me, Regulus. Does the cost outweigh the greatness?”
 
Why does he need to ask Regulus that? They’re both in Slytherin, born from the same rotten tree with the same expectations hanging over them. It is a given that he will choose an outcome that is worthy of his pedigree. And so he says, “It doesn’t matter the cost of what I am about to choose. I will not do anything if the consequences do not yield greatness.”
 
“Hm.” Uncle Alphard drinks from his tea. He stares at Regulus for a few minutes, solemn and knowing. “Greatness comes with a price.”
 
“As I said, it doesn’t matter to me,” Regulus says. His coffee turns cold, so he puts it back down the table. He sighs and says after a few seconds of hesitation, “I don’t want to taint the family with a subservience to anything other than our own reflections. Blacks, after all, ought not to bow their heads down to someone else.”
 
And oh, what a lie that is. Blacks, as ironic as it sounds, are born and bred with both madness and loyalty. Serving devotion to those that can serve their purpose. It’s blatant in Bella and Sirius, fervent in their fanaticism. 
 
Uncle Alphard lets out a small smile. “A price that will lose your grasp on the legacy that you do not want to let go.”
 
Regulus stares at the gossamer window curtains dancing in the air, delicate but free, like his mind at the moment. “The family legacy is an invention as much as tradition.”
 
At this, uncle Alphard’s eyes flash. He raises his eyebrows as Regulus continues, “My dear idiotic brother seeks freedom that he can’t find from the very thing that I can’t let go. He’s bound… he’s bound to run away from it.”
 
“You wish to keep both your brother and the family legacy? You know you cannot serve two masters,

mon cher neveu

.”
 
Regulus juts his chin. “I’m stubborn enough to make it work.”
 
The laugh from uncle Alphard grates on his nerves. “You always get carried away by your grandiosity,

mon neveu machiavélique

. As much as arrogance looks good on a Black, a swollen head makes a weak neck.”
 
“I’ll have you know that my head is not swollen.”
 
Uncle Alphard laughs blithely. “Oh, you know what I mean,

mon doux et tendre

.”
 
He perfectly knows what his uncle means. Regulus had been a victim of a very vulnerable neck because his head was so high up the clouds. High from the self-righteous anger on Kreacher’s behalf, the red-hot satisfaction of finding out the weakness of the Dark Lord, and the glorious plan that crashed and burned him in the end—Regulus’s ultimate ending had been, of all things, because of his juvenile arrogance.
 
So yes, his head is starting to get swollen and his neck becoming more vulnerable. Of all tragedy that can befall a Black, and there are many, arrogance is the most noteworthy.
 
So Regulus starts scheming, like the born and bred Slytherin that he is. His vision is the most vivid, the very same he’s seen in that strange limbo between his first and current life—kill the Dark Lord, even if it kills him, but doing it blazing in glory. The cogs and machinations of his plans will revolve on that singular truth: to be the one to bring down the greatest Dark wizard in century, dead or alive. Dying saving the world will not take him away from the greatness of the Black family’s legacy. Because his blood, no matter how dark it is, is a point of pride for Regulus. And that greatness will continue on.
 
So he plots, working tirelessly for a plan that will burn the world but will not crash him down this time, not if he can also plan against it. Regulus doesn’t sleep until he burns his eyes with every fact and every variable he can account for. He doesn’t stop until he paints a stark picture in his almost feverish brain—of the future, of all the horcruxes blackened at his feet, the Dark Lord’s head beside them, and all his Death Eaters on their knees begging for mercy. Regulus will unleash his vengeful wrath upon that pathetic mudblood Tom Riddle, taking everything from him, just like how he took Kreacher from Regulus and torture him mercilessly.
 
The purposeful anger and the bright potential of his plans move Regulus so fiercely, so aggressively that he trains extra hard. The blades of his daggers and knives are sharpened, and he follows uncle Alphard’s advice with only a determined assent (“Distance and rotation awareness,

mon neveu

.” “Mind your wrist flick,

mon neveu

. Ensure that the blade lands on the bull’s eye.” “Let your throwing arm follow through smoothly, only pointing at a target when you release the dagger.” “Don’t be forceful with your wrist. You’re in danger of breaking it before hitting your intended.”). 
 
He doesn’t break a wrist, of course. In a week or so, Regulus manages to hit both moving and non-moving targets, the blades that clatter on the floor are fewer and duller. His hands shake, his posture hunch, his knees tremble, but Regulus pushes himself until the vision is pinned on the forefront of his mind with every dagger that plunges through the wood.

A few days after Sirius punches him on the face, Regulus stands in front of his door, a hesitant fist in the air.
 
He’s too tired to start anything with his brother right now; in fact, Regulus finds his bones weighed down with exhaustion, the weariness cloaked over him in a heaviness that, sometimes, even the vision of the Dark Lord’s death cannot buoy. Maybe death has frozen every bit of life in him, and he will deal with the heaviness of icy bones until he dies again, hanging over the precarious thread between the thresholds of life and death. He’s pierced with both the phantom nails of the monsters that drag him down and the bleakness of the future that is somehow thrusted upon his unwilling hands. He feels like everything he is dealing with, even breathing and blinking open his eyes for another day, is all a giant Inferi hanging heavy around his back. 
 
He’s tired and he just wants to rest. But there is no opportunity for resting when he has a mulish brother to keep safe, a legacy to own, and a Dark Lord to eradicate. Regulus strengthens his resolve and knocks on Sirius’s door before barging inside.
 
“What the bloody hell, Reg?!”
 
Regulus stops short, raising a brow on the state of his brother’s room. A shirt is strewn haphazardly on the floor and there is a pile of it on his bed, silver canisters of unknown muggle substance lay in various disarray under the bed, his sheets in a perpetual state of unmade. It’s so different from the years since he was exiled from the family—so alive, so lived in, smelling distinctly of his brother.
 
Sirius is sitting at the table, a quill on hand and a distracted frown on his face. Regulus sees the state of his bedroom for what it is.
 
“What do you want, little brother?” Sirius asks, just as sharply as his eyes shapen with suspicion. Ignoring him, Regulus walks straight to his bedside table, where he knows his brother kept his collection of Muggle fags. When Sirius realizes what he’s doing, he shouts, “Hey!” but Regulus already lights one.
 
The scoff that escapes Sirius is filled with both disbelief and annoyance. “I remember you raising your nose the last time you saw my poisonous stash of muggle substances. And now you’re inhaling one. Quite an expert at that.”
 
“There is beauty in brutishness, I reckon.” Regulus takes a long drag before flicking the ash on the tray above the bedside table.
 
“So, that’s what you did when you’re away? Beheading muggles while learning all their

uncivilized

ways of

hedonistic moral decline

?” Sirius asks casually, but he couldn’t have covered the dark suspicion in his voice even if he tries to.
 
“Let’s play a game, Siri,” Regulus says, stiffly sitting down on the other side of the bed from Sirius. The chaos of his brother’s bed vexes him so he vanishes the mountain of clothes back into the wardrobe. Sirius’s eyes glitter at the display of wordless magic.
 
“Siri again? What are we, five?”
 
“Well, I miss the games we played back then. Remember Salazar tells if Godric pays?”
 
A game they both invented that wasn’t initially called that way. Curiosity had been one of their fewest commonalities, though oriented to different areas of unknown—Regulus’s to more academic ventures and Sirius’s to the boundaries of what can cause him maximal physical thrill and what can evoke Walburga’s ire. It’s a point of tolerance that Sirius is generally as adventurous as Regulus is hungry for his brother’s validation that they both accepted each other’s discoveries and favors. The name was born when Sirius thought himself witty and ingenious. It stopped being their game when both of them were sorted into different houses and the name had been less amusing and more ironic.
 
It seems amusing to dig it back out of its grave in their situation, Regulus thinks. 
 
Sirius leans back on his chair, face flat with nothing but unamusement. “I haven’t been treasure hunting, Reggie. Whatever I have can’t amount to whatever precious gold mine you’ll bring to the table.”
 
“But I have something in mind that I want you to do, something that is perhaps far greater than what I will divulge,” Regulus says, drawing on the muggle stick. Sirius waits for him to say more, but when Regulus stays silent, Sirius scoffs impatiently. 
 
“Don’t be such a Slytherin wanker and get on with it.” He waves his hand dismissively.
 
“If it escapes your notice, I am a Slytherin, and very much not a wanker” Regulus snaps. He draws a breath one last time before stubbing the fag on the ashtray. “Before you plan to exile yourself from the family, I implore you to listen to the reasons why I think it’s not a good idea.”
 
Sirius’s face grows darker with trepidation and rage. “Is that what you learned from your summer escapades? Get your inbred porcelain nose into others’ business?”
 
Regulus rolls his eyes. “You dare insult my nose when your face is a paragon of pureblood nobility.” 
 
Sirius’s

paragon of pureblood nobility

face contorts madly, like great aunt Cassiopiea’s when she learned that aunt Lucretia’s daughter, Aquila, destroyed an artifact that had been gifted to her from an Egyptian sorceress. “You’re bloody right. All the beauty of the Blacks before and after me pale in comparison to this face.”
 
Regulus hates how obnoxiously right Sirius is. It’s a matter of contention between them in their early years. When he was not flaunting his intelligence, Sirius had been unabashed with his vanity. Both of them which he earned effortlessly, while Regulus had been accursed with perfectionism because Merlin forbade, the spare cannot amount to the first born no matter how spotless his robes are. 
 
Regulus, however, is not here to discuss the intricacies of their aesthetic differences. 
 
“So? Want to kiss mother’s arse and tattle on my party?” Sirius asks belligerently. Regulus doesn’t rise to his taunts.
 
“The game, Sirius,” he tuts. “Salazar will wager his secrets for the favor that Godric will grant him.”
 
“Bold of you to assume a

Godric

wants to grant any favor to any

Salazar

,” Sirius barks a laugh. “Never knew you to be this funny. Did you learn that in your muggle exploits?”
 
“Come off your sardonic horse and try to listen to me,” Regulus scowls, itching for his wand. Instead, he pulls another stick and lights it. “I’m sure you would be delighted at my

muggle exploits

.”
 
Sirius narrows his eyes, fiddling with the feathers of his quill. “Where’ve you been, little brother?”
 
Regulus smirks around the fag and draws on it, letting the anticipatory silence settles between them. Sirius looks to be a flicker of a hand away from pulling his wand and blasting him off his bed. But Regulus likes to have the upper-hand in the situation, with Sirius barely holding on his composure because of his curiosity. 
 
“What?! Are you—”
 
With a sudden flick of his wrist, Regulus’s dagger flies through the air, piercing the wall a few inches from Sirius’s head. Sirius springs from his chair ungracefully, and Regulus only has a few seconds to laugh before he jumps away from Sirius’s spell. Regulus stares disbelievingly at the feathers and cotton of the pillow he has been sitting earlier, floating in the air. He rounds on his brother, affronted.
 
“A Severing charm? You could’ve damaged my face!”
 
Sirius rolls his eyes, “You can’t damage what’s already—ouch! You bloody blithering tosser! My fucking gorgeous face!”
 
Regulus just hits him with a Stunning hex on his

paragon of pureblood nobility

face. It swells grotesquely, his left eye thins into a slit as the skin around it bulges and reddens. Regulus laughs but then he is hit with a Droop-ear jinx. He feels an awful sensation to his ears as they enlarge, growing to resemble like elephant’s, and he stumbles clumsily from side to side to find equilibrium. Sirius barks a laugh, cursing as he dodges a Tongue-twisting hex. A Knockback jinx hurls at Regulus, and he swings to the other side. The spell hits the dressing table, upending it all down. A blob of slimy product splashes on Regulus’s face and he hears Sirius’s dramatic cry, “Not my hair products!”
 
Regulus hits him back with a Severing charm, but Sirius ducks down and it smashes the large windows into smithereens.
 
“Fuck,” Sirius hisses in the silence between them as Regulus’s mouth falls in horror. “You fucking idiotic shit! Mother’s—”
 
Walburga’s amplified sharp voice cuts him out. “I hear you are causing quite a ruckus up there,

mes merveilleux fils

?”
 
Regulus narrows his eyes at Sirius when his brother pulls his wand to his throat. He amplifies his own voice, “

Ce n’est rien, maman

. It’s a rowdy spell that Sirius is practicing. We had it under control.”
 
“See that you do. You do not want me to exhaust myself up the stairs to fix your riotous and unruly undertakings.”
 
Regulus rolls his eyes at Sirius’s

‘Merlin fucking no’

. “Of course not,

maman

.”
 
They listen for a few minutes to the creak on the stairs, the telling sounds of Walburga’s steps. But none came, so Regulus snaps up the strongest locking and silencing charms on the door before undoing the Droop-ear jinx on himself.
 
Sirius heals his swelling face with an

Episkey

, though some of his skin is still raw and peeling. He glares at Regulus darkly. “Silencing charms so that no one can hear me screaming when you plunge another dagger to my neck?”
 
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Regulus says. “I didn’t complain when you tried to

Diffindo

me.”
 
Sirius snaps, “Well, you tried to kill me! Twice, might I add.” He waves his hand in the direction of the window and the hilt of the dagger still attached to the wall. Regulus summons it back to him. “Where’d you get that anyway.”
 
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
 
“And wouldn’t you like to know how effective my Bat-bogey hex is? I hit Mulciber once and Rosier told me he still wakes up from a nightmare where his nose has transformed into a bat’s wing.”
 
Regulus rolls his eyes at him as he fixes the dressing table and the severed pillow. Sirius flicks his wand over the shattered glass on the floor and the broken window is undid. They sit at their respective spaces before the mess of dagger and spells, and Regulus readies the right words to say.
 
“I was in North America. Pitiful, I know,” he adds, when he sees the condescension on Sirius’s arch brow. “With uncle Alphard.”
 
Now, Sirius’s eyebrows jump higher to his forehead, surprised and a little put-out. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Regulus.”
 
“America’s an epitome of gauche senses and unrefined—”
 
“There is no way the Regulus Arcturus Black would willingly subject himself to the

crudeness

,” Sirius attempts Regulus’s voice, which does not sound like his at all, “of the

ruined civilization

. Mother would clasp her gilded baubles in utter distress. What has become of her

fils délicat

? Such grievous tidings for a frail, inbred heart! Should we ready her funeral shroud as well?”
 
Regulus stares at his brother flatly. “So you’ve been to the infamous bacchanals, I gather.”
 
Sirius’s grin is dark and sharp with mischief. “Americans might offend your sensibilities, brother, but it works perfectly well for me.”

Figures

, Regulus wonders about the kind of things that Sirius might be up to in his time there last summer, but he soon realizes he doesn’t want to think of his depraved brother’s idle time at all. “How delightful. I suppose you’ve also tried the funny muggle substance that makes you fretful and jittery? Like jumping off the highest window and thinking about how your viscera would paint a glorious red on uncle Alphard’s manicured lawn?”
 
“That’s too depressing, even for you,” Sirius says after a beat, stretching his lips with that dog-like grin. “My soft, perfect little pureblood brother, spreading his soft little Icarus wings and indulging in the forbidden. I feel like crying in pride.”
 
“Stop it, Sirius. That wasn’t something I’m proud of,” Regulus says sharply, a little too revelatory.
 
Sirius rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically, “Really? Because here I thought you’re finally becoming less of a bore.”
 
“Our idea of fun has never been aligned.”
 
Sirius scoffs, “Oh, how could it align, brother? Yours is fantasizing about beheading muggles and being an all around slithering git and mine is—”
 
“Being all around marauding buffoons with your tomfoolery and Gryffindorish shenanigans,” Regulus cuts off, the side of his lips curling slightly at Sirius’s narrowed eyes.
 
“Interesting word you got there. Marauding.”
 
Regulus forgets for a moment that he’s not supposed to indicate that word in relation to his brother’s

marauding

band of idiotic friends. He digresses, “I learned this beautiful branch of magic that is original in Japan. Uncle has so graciously imparted the knowledge to me.”
 
“And it has to do with… knives?”
 
“This isn’t just a knife,” Regulus replies, gracing his fingers along the dangerous edge of the dagger’s blade, “Given it’s nothing more than what it is, currently. But once it is crafted with runes, through specific rituals and movement of celestial bodies, it can induce magic of cataclysmic magnitude.”
 
Sirius stares at him, unusually devoid of emotions bar the glint of keenness in his eyes. “What do you need to do that it can, Merlin’s saggy balls, cause

cataclysmic magnitude

?”
 
Regulus stares straight at Sirius’s eyes, drilling the weight of what he’s about to do, letting him see how grave he is with the decision that he’s made. 
 
“Regulus. What do you need that kind of magic for?” Sirius asks again, but then the frown on his face darkens. “Practicing for the Dark Lord?”
 
“Have you ever tried to think that maybe my compliance to the family is merely an exercise of my hard-wrought Slytherin instincts?” Regulus whispers. “That obedience in this family means that disownment is the least of my worries?”
 
“And that isn’t so good?” Sirius counters. Regulus can see how his brother can make light of the situation, given his self-imposed exile from the family in the past life, and Regulus simultaneously feels envious and infuriated. He could never be that offhand about a potential retraction of everything that he is and has, everything he stands for. 
 
“You know what I see this, Regulus?” Sirius says, and there is a ferocious expression on his face as he leans closer, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Cowardice.”
 
“Being called a coward by a Gryffindor doesn’t hold much value.”
 
“For someone who wants to convince me to think about my decision, you’re hardly convincing at all.” Sirius shakes his head in disbelief, his eyes are as sardonic as his smile. “There’s no such thing as a Slytherin instinct, Regulus. You

choose

what you are—”
 
“I choose what I am and what I do because I have no other choice, Sirius.”
 
Sirius is silent for a few minutes, his face devoid of his usual sarcastic scowl and taunting expression. Regulus can’t read him, and he badly wants to know what his brother is thinking at the moment. Sirius leans back on his chair, resting an ankle above his knees. The casualness doesn’t bring any comfort to Regulus at all.
 
“If I offer you a way out, for the both of us actually, would you come with me?”
 
Regulus stares at him for a few tense seconds, then whispers, in frightening honesty, “I would, Sirius,” he shakes his head when Sirius is about to interrupt, “But there is no way out for the both of us. Self-imposed exile is only possible if one of us is left behind.”
 
“There is a way if I decide there is a way,” Sirius says fiercely. “And I’m not going to leave you behind now that I know you want an out,” he stares at Regulus imploringly, “You want to leave, right?”
 
“Yes, I do—”
 
“Well then, that’s settled. We’re going to—”
 
“There’s nothing to be settled, Sirius,” Regulus cuts off sharply. “If we decide to run away right now, you know they will hunt us down. There’s not a place safe for the both of us to exist outside of this family. And if one of us makes it out alive, then… the other would bear the brunt of it.”
 
The budding optimism is immediately wiped off from Sirius’s face. And Regulus’s resolve falters a little bit. There isn’t much to be positive about under Grimmauld’s roof, and Regulus knows Sirius will waste away at every second he spends under the heavy weight of expectations that the heirship requires of him. Sirius’s blazing heat will be snuff out in the gloom and shadows of the Black family. He’s meant to shine out there, with that blasted bright Potter idiot and his equally idiotic marauding friends.
 
But Regulus is as selfish as any Black before and after him. He needs his brother there, with him. His plans won’t work without his brother, mostly because half of the reasons Regulus does it is because of Sirius himself.
 
Regulus needs him alive this time—alive and acknowledged as the heir.
 
“Then what do you have me do?” Sirius asks, an edge of frustration in his voice. Regulus stares at him, and that’s all it takes for Sirius to understand what Regulus wants. He scowls, “Absolutely not, Regulus. You can’t ask of this—”
 
“Sirius, please listen to me,” Regulus says, voice bordering on desperation. “I have a plan, but this requires both of us.”
 
“Your plan is to stay under this Godric forsaken roof? This will be the death of us—”
 
“Guess what? We’ll also die if we both get out of this house, Sirius! You know it. They’ll go desperate, and even if—if you have the

Potters

to fall back from, they can’t do anything if they’ll incur the wrath of the Blacks,” Regulus breathes harshly, “But if we stay, we can have a semblance of control. We can give them what they ask of us, and we’ll hide beneath that obedience to do everything we want without the risk of death. And we’ll get away with it without them any the wiser.”
 
Sirius stares at him incredulously. “I can’t fucking believe I’m listening to your mad ideas. But do fucking tell me what you get out of this.”
 
Regulus allows a small smirk. “We can subtly influence the family’s decisions. We’ll inherit the resources—”
 
“If you only want money, uncle Alphard has written me in his will. I’m sure we’ll arrange something for you—”
 
“That’s not what I meant,” Regulus says. “It’s not just about the money, Sirius. We are born from a family of legacy; a legacy I intend to keep.”
 
Sirius lets out a wild snort at that, sounding so much like his name and animagus form. “Who gives a toss about that Black legacy rot, Regulus? You and I can create our own when we move out of this hellhole.”
 
“You might not put too much stock on the implication of your name, but I do,” Regulus says tetchily. “It’s our birthright, and it is our right to have it. We don’t have to create our own legacy, we just have to make way for some changes in the tradition you so gracefully throw up your two fingers at.”
 
Sirius hums, chin atop his hands, head tilting and looking at Regulus with affected boredom. It doesn’t delude Regulus in the slightest. He recognizes the simmering interest in Sirius’s steely eyes, the cogs working around the plan, deconstructing it on-the-fly. Because as much as how flighty and impulsive he is, Sirius isn’t entirely mindless—it’s a simultaneous act of doing and thinking, making sense of the information through action, though ultimately throwing everything to the wind for the thrill of it. Regulus envies the easiness he navigates the world sometimes.
 
“You can escape the heirship, you know?” Regulus continues, “Stay at least until I turn legal age, and then we’ll impose exile upon ourselves. We can go to the sinking civilization that is America and hide there with uncle Alphard. Or… we take advantage of your heirship.” Regulus pauses, lets it settle between them until Sirius is impatient with intrigue. “You don’t realize the amount of privilege granted upon us by our legacy. We can do anything, Sirius. Literally anything, with you as the heir and I as the genius behind our schemes.”
 
Sirius barks a laugh, “The mastermind working in the shadows like a true Slytherin, are you?”
 
“Of course, because where would you be without my Slytherin Machiavellianism?” Regulus smirks sardonically. “You can rally and charm anyone from other Houses who are sympathetic to your Muggleborn cause. I hold countless secrets of Pureblood heirs to dissuade those in my turf.”
 
“While I don’t usually advocate for that Slytherin brand of ambition, yours is truly breathtaking,” Sirius smiles condescendingly. “I assume minor details like ‘

how

’ will sort themselves out?”
 
Regulus sniffs, “You’ve devoured Pureblood directories as punishment, Sirius. Surely you know how the Wizengamot works?” he pulls another fag and draws a breath before he continues, “The family holds the largest number of seats in the Wizengamot, liege lord to a number of Vassal houses, and an ally to different Ancient and Noble ones. You are the firstborn of an ancient house and your voice carries a weight that can upend centuries of conservative laws. You can veto anti-Muggleborn legislations or, if you want to be extreme, push for more Dark creature rights.”
 
Regulus tries to sound casual with the latter, but it seems like Sirius doesn’t hear him. His eyes are narrowed and his lips pursed. It’s the first time he looks this pensive, as far as Regulus remembers. Suddenly, Sirius stands up, walks around his bed to stand in front of Regulus. He couldn’t have prepared when Sirius cups his hands around Regulus’s neck, holding him the way he had done as children, when Regulus had woken up from a nasty nightmare. Regulus breathes sharply, clenches his jaws to control himself from shaking.

They aren’t claws, Regulus. They’re warm, and gentle, and Sirius’s hands.

“I don’t know what happened for you to grow up so fast without me seeing it, and I hate myself for it,” Sirius whispers fiercely. “But you’ll be with me, right? You’re not going to push me away. You’re never going to turn out just like them. You have to promise me, Regulus.”
 
There’s something clogging around Regulus’s throat, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Sirius’s hands.

I grew up, Sirius,

he wants to say.

And then I died and came back and I’m never the same again

. He wants to just unburden himself to his brother, the way he’d done as a child, telling him things under their lumos—dreams and fears that are never allowed to form into words under Walburga and Orion’s notices. Regulus wants to fix their tapestry, but Regulus knows it’ll never be the same—this Sirius will never be the same as the person who left him, while Regulus still has the memories and resentment over the one in his own time.
 
But the truth is insane, even in his own mind. So he will settle with schemes instead. Just to keep Sirius from running away.
 
He removes Sirius’s hands from his neck, breathing just a little lighter. “It won’t be easy, Sirius. We have parts to play. You have to pretend, reign in the rebelliousness enough to survive under our parents’ commands. The results may or may not unfold until years from now. There’s a war brewing and we might have to pick a hard choice.”
 
“A walk in the park,” Sirius says breezily. He grimaces as Regulus’s nails bite into the skin of his hands. “As long as you promise me, Regulus. We’ll do it together.”
 
“The plan entails both of us,” Regulus insists. Sirius’s brows arches. “Yes, I promise.”
 
And so, a few days after Regulus had roped Sirius into his plans, they are both standing by the fireplace, Regulus stiff and stoic while Sirius barely suppresses his buzzing energy. His brother stares at him in begrudging respect.
 
“And how’d you manage to convince our lovely parents to send us over to the enemy lines?”
 
“I

Imperio’d

them, of course,” Regulus says drily. He gasps when he feels his brother’s sharp elbow against his side, so he retaliates back but stumbles when his brother swerves to the side.
 
“My little evil overlord of a brother, doing big boy stuff. I feel like a proud mother.”
 
“Shut up,” Regulus hisses. He sends another elbow to his side, but Sirius sidesteps it easily, barking a laugh. Regulus is hit with the painful nostalgia, their juvenile days when laughing like that with Sirius had always been easier.
 
A tut sounds by the doorway and they immediately snaps toward it, backs ramrod stiff and chins tilted up. Walburga’s eyes move back and forth between them, resembling the shard of an iceberg, pointed with disapproval and scorn. She glides across the floor deliberately slowly, and Regulus holds his breath when she stops just a few inches from them.
 
“Frolicking like a pair of unkempt, ill-bred schoolboys. Have you no sense of decorum? One would think you’d outgrown such childish drivel.”
 
Sirius opens his mouth, an ill-thought out rebuttal clearly at the tip of his tongue. But then Walburga pulls his wand out, and Regulus tenses, shaking hands jumping to the wand in his pocket. But she only tightens Sirius’s dress shirt, which had been three buttons open. Walburga’s thin eyebrows show a disdainful arch as Sirius sputters ungracefully, trying to tug at the very top button of his shirt, to no avail.
 
“Where is your shame, my dear son of mine? Parading yourself with such indecent exposure like a common strumpet?” 
 
“I’m not—” Sirius huffs when Regulus’s elbow yet again connects to his side, this time hitting him right to his ribs.
 
Walburga turns to him, and Regulus’s breath escapes him in a hitched sigh at the warmth in their mother’s usual icy blue eyes—or as warm as their mother allows herself to be. And it’s all directed to Regulus, the son who, for all intents and purposes, had been just the second—the spare—a few months ago. 
 
All it took for it to change had been well-placed words of foreboding omen, of loyalty to the

family values

, of the seeming concern for the future of the most noble and ancient House.

I’m concerned for the family

, which Walburga noncommittally hummed at.

I want Sirius here with us, I don’t want him astray

, had his mother’s attention.

I will do anything for him to stay

, had her eyes shining with positive glee for the first time. Walburga had listened to him, took him seriously, had not, for once, dismissed him with a

mon doux garçon doux

. It’s evident how Walburga’s turning to desperate measures, that she is aware Sirius is slipping from her grasp and there’s nothing she can do about it. Until Regulus.
 
It confirms what Regulus had been thinking all this time. The Blacks had always been headstrong and persistent with what they think they deserve to have. Sirius’s sorting had proved him unfit for the heirship, and Orion had been insistent to revoke his inheritance. But it had been Walburga who held out in hope of having Sirius back to the Pureblood folds. Until the day Sirius chose to walk away, and Walburga had then held Orion back from the

Crucio

that he’s about to hurl at Sirius’s retreating back. The Blacks had every power to coerce Sirius back to the family, threaten the Potters, and present the case to the Wizengamot to their favor. But Orion had forbidden every member of the family to make any contact with Sirius, after Bellatrix—in vicious colored words—vowed to take him back herself. It’s clear that it had been Walburga’s orders, that she had

actively

stood behind Sirius’s self-imposed exile, without even a pretense of constraining his new found freedom.
 
And now that Regulus had presented himself as the solution, there is an eerie lightness in Walburga’s usually pinched face, and Regulus had lost count of all the positive words she had praised him with, hands soft without hidden malice in their grasp, eyes just a tad bit open. There is pride in them, as if Walburga is seeing Regulus worthy to be called her son, for the first time.
 
Regulus throat constricts, painful and heavy with buried sentiments.
 
“

Mon doux et doux fils machiavélique

,” she hums, cupping Regulus’s face and placing his forehead against her cheeks in a facsimile of the things she’d always done to put him to sleep as a child. 
 
Regulus trembles, nerves jumping at the sickening feel of skin on skin. But he tightens his resolve, brave through the discomfort just to have this temporary assurance that he’s worth being held like her son. Then the touch is gone, and Regulus breathes easily as Walburga steps in front of Sirius.
 
“

Mon plus cher héritier

,” she croons.
 
Sirius’s jaws are clenching in defiance, chin jutting out and lips pursing in an unusual display of self-control, but there is a sort of desperate glint in his eyes, and when Walburga places a chaste kiss on his forehead, Sirius doesn’t recoil; he stills, and lets Walburga have her moment, doesn’t move in a hurry when Walburga holds his face for a few seconds, eyes greedily taking in her first born’s unusually mild face. Regulus looks away.
 
“My beautiful sons, make your mother proud,” she says as she steps away, her smile softer at the edges. But the glint in her eyes tells a different story—of which Regulus understands.
 
Apparently, Sirius does too. Because it’s him who says, albeit acerbically, “

Bien sûr, maman

.” Walburga’s smile curves a little genuinely.
 
When the Floo ejects them out of their destination, Sirius turns to Regulus to fuss over his shirt, fingers flicking away soot and dust. “I still don’t know what to feel about my participation in your Slytherin schemes, but I guess it does its trick. We hoodwinked one of the most cunning Blacks to ever exist. Imagine what we can do with our joined genius, Regulus. We’ll have the world eating up on our hands.”
 
Regulus flicks his wand on Sirius’s shirt and the top three buttons are opened. “Careful right there, brother. You sound like a proper Slytherin for a second.”
 
Instead of being insulted, like he usually does, Sirius barks a laugh, face bright and euphoric with the high of their achievement. And it brings Regulus back to the days of juvenile pranks, untouched by the darkness of schoolboy rivalry, safe inside their bubble of childish mischief. Regulus’s chest blooms with warmth, because Regulus is safe within this second life to confess how much he had craved those days, that Sirius had been his anchor that he was forced to cut out of his life that at the last days of it had made him feel adrift. He was lost in the ocean of his overly grandiose ambition and so he had drowned. But now Sirius is with him, sharing the elation of what they had done and everything that will follow. A single step means so much because they were doing it together.
 
Regulus laughs with Sirius. But then a voice sounds behind them, and his delight is easily extinguished.
 
“The infamous Black brothers in my house,” James Potter sighs with exaggerated disbelief. “Never thought a day would come.”
 
The hair on the back of Regulus’s neck bristles. The earlier warmth of his and Sirius’s shared joy turns ash in the pit of his stomach.
 
“James!”
 
“Sirius!”
 
They tackle each other in a ridiculous bear hug. Regulus hides his shaking fingers behind his back, an affected cool settling over his countenance, to cover the rage simmering just beneath his skin. Just the very person who can just as easily shatter the walls of his self-control as effortless as Walburga does. And Regulus hates that he has to stay within the confines of Potter’s obnoxious orbit for Sirius.

Three days

, Regulus laments.

Three bloody days of seeing his ridiculous hair and his even ridiculous arrogant grins.

Regulus waits patiently for them to finish their disgusting display of affection before they walk toward him, Potter’s arm around Sirius’s shoulder.
 
Potter smiles widely, too many teeth and not enough warmth in his eyes.

What a phony tosser

. “Hello, Black.”
 
Regulus’s lips curl, the corners of his eyes trembling. “Hello, Potter.”