GYMNOPÉDIE

Chapter 04

"Sirius just say sorry!" Regulus tried to yell with hollow voice, his grey eyes began to blur from — hang on, what was it in his eyes — tears.

No man should cry, Regulus.

The toxic tone led him to rough himself up. The boy rubbed his platinum eyes with clenched palm harshly. Devils screamed to his ears; weak. weak. weak. He grunted in defiance, he was not weak. Clenching his jaw, he witnesses the way his shoulders sagged at his effort to restrain what he felt. No matter how he felt his chest soared with overbearing heat and anger. Black would rather seal the bold lines and paragraphs of screams inside his mind. The wizard would rather kick the tables and punched pillows until every swan feathers burst out of it—he had allowed Slytherian's poison to slither green down his vein—consumed him. It clouded his vision with redredred as Black colored his knuckles with flaming scarlet and iron, he had let himself bleed for the better. Because pain, scar, and blood were better than crying. Crying was not for boys like him. Crying was cowardice. Crying meant weak. He didn't want to be weak. Therefore, Regulus had sworn to himself to never cry.

Regulus' brain was like a fertile soil of Camelot, you planted anything in it, it would grow ten folds. No wonder that the young wizard was excelling his mate in Hogwarts. The fragile part was, Walburga's hatred, dogmatic warning, terror, and idealism were sowed in Regulus's pretty mind, and it blossomed.

The younger heir took his paternal mindset, the same ( if not amplified ) hatred for muggles and those nasty breeds of mudbloods. With that, not only he had become the epitome of perfect Black's heir with pure-blood superiority, he was also a soul of no mercy, no feelings, no weakness. He was perfect, he embraced blood purity as the only path to walk and breathe on. He was a lustrous diamond of the Black.

However, Regulus was a young karmic soul and he still looked up to Sirius. Despite the contrary mindset, how the elder had hung out and snogged mudbloods and traitor. The younger heir relished the cheery side of him, that was portrayed by a melody.

A guilty pleasure, but Regulus was willing to cross the line for the sake of listening to Sirius's rant on his Hogwarts day. Sirius would smuggle music sheet from one summer to another. While their parents were too busy attending business banquet, Grimmauld Place's piano would tinkle melody of Rachmaninoff, Debussy, at last Satié. Music was the strings that kept the two sides of coins connected despite both of them were completely different.

    Perhaps, the Slytherin treasured music so much that he had created a sanctuary for his own. A safe space for him to be on his own, to be himself. A tip-off from his older brother, he led himself to walk along a secret passage from the dungeon up to the third floor. The one-eyed witch statue swung opened and Regulus appeared behind it. He stirred to the side where his favorite room was, a disused muggle music class, he took out his wand promptly to unlock the door but his lips parted to find the door was left unlocked.

       Shit. Regulus briskly raised his wand and would obliviate whoever inside the room. It was his private classroom to release the stress he had in the cold, boring castle and he wasn't going to let it slip away not now at least.

      He pushed the door open and to his surprise, it was empty inside the room. The piano he retreated and cleaned, the leather chair he hoisted from the dungeon to this room was there untouched. But who could break his lock spell?

     It needed more than an unlocking spell to open the door he made sure of that. As he demonstrated it on Evan, it was foolproof. Regulus's jaw tensed at the thought of maybe a Professor found their way here. Sighing to himself, the pianist flicked his wand and locked the door behind him.