Regulus Black
Saturday, 25th December 1971.
12th Grimmauld Place
Sitting on the window seat in his bedroom, Regulus was currently thinking about the Black family's Christmas banquet. The celebration could not have gone any worse.
It all started when Sirius came back from the Pettigrews yesterday. Regulus was still kind of irritated by that action. It hasn't even been a week and his brother already left again. He tried to be reasonable, it was only for a day and for a birthday celebration, but the irritation didn't seem to leave him.
In his mind, Sirius should want to spend as much time as possible with him instead of wasting it on some friend who the boy will see in two weeks anyway. Their time was limited and should be more appreciated by Sirius. They haven't seen each other in four months after all while he was with the mentioned friend all that time at Hogwarts.
The first night when Sirius got back, they talked and talked. Regulus wanted to know everything about the castle, the classes the professors, even about Sirius' new friends. But the talk turned out to be only about the boy's friends which started the first spark of irritation within Regulus and since then it just grew with Sirius' actions.
Then, two days ago, during family dinner, Sirius asked Orion to visit the Pettigrews for the mentioned birthday celebration. This shocked Regulus for obvious reasons. Why did his brother want to spent time with anyone else but him when they haven't seen each other in such long time? Before Hogwarts, the two have never left each other's side, so these four months seemed way longer and lonelier than they should have been.
To his surprise, their dad agreed, even encouraged Sirius to go. Regulus couldn't hide the confusion on his face, but he saw that Sirius kept the mask he always wore in front of their parents. Orion told his big brother that the Pettigrews were a respected family in the pureblood community due to Mr. Pettigrew's skilled abilities when it came to portrait making so it will be useful for Sirius to stay friends with Mr. Pettigrew's son.
Orion instructed the boy that he must make a good impression on Mr. Pettigrew. As a Black heir, he will always need skillful people in every field of work.
The next part of the conversation was about the attendees at this birthday party. Sirius informed Orion that the only people there will be Peter, the friend, and his older brother William which seemed to satisfy their dad.
Soon after, the dinner was over and Regulus went straight to bed to try and explain to himself that this wasn't a big deal. That Sirius will leave only for a day, but the single word stuck in Regulus' head from that sentence was leave.
He spent the day before Christmas miserable, but the alone time gave him a chance to really think about everything. Regulus came to the conclusion that he was jealous, but what of was still a mystery to him.
There were two options. Either he was jealous because he didn't make any friends like Sirius had or the fact that he will have to share Sirius from now on sparked that feeling inside of him.
It has always been Sirius and Regulus, that was what he was used to. The Black brothers always had only each other. This new change scared him. Will his big brother replace him or forget about him? Regulus knew that it sounded stupid and insane but now it wasn't just him and Sirius, it was him, Sirius, James, Remus and Peter. Just the thought of the three extras made him irritated again.
Nonetheless, Regulus told himself that he was being insane and overdramatic, and that in time he will be used to all of this. After all, next year he will make friends too and some friendship could never replace the brotherly bond him and Sirius had.
At last, Sirius came back from the Pettigrews, thus began the mentioned start of chaos at the before the Christmas banquet family dinner.
The obligations Walburga and Orion put on the two of them weren't anything difficult in Regulus' opinion. All they had to do was greet the guests at the entrance and join the waltz at midnight, or better said, that was all Regulus had to do.
Besides those obligations, the Black heir had to speak with each important guest. He had to smile, nod and agree with whatever they said. Sirius immediately protested at this request, saying that he doesn't want to just blindly agree with everybody on everything.
Their dad threatened to punish Sirius if he continued to argue, but despite the threat, Sirius didn't stop. This resulted in Orion withdrawing his wand and casting a spell on the boy.
Regulus knew what that spell did, although he had experienced it only once, the memory was clear as day. Like suspected, a minute later Sirius was on his knees, but at least he looked better to Regulus compared to the incident in the library before the boy went to Hogwarts.
Orion screamed at Sirius to retreat to his bedroom and Regulus watched as his brother tried to pick himself up from the floor. Even this vulnerable, Sirius somehow looked powerful to him. The pure dedication of the boy to look adamant and proud could easily be seen even while he limped up the stairs and out of sight.
Regulus will never understand the boy's actions. In his mind, all of Sirius' rebellions were unnecessary. It was way easier to just listen to their parents and avoid punishments all together. After all, even if their ways were a bit brutal, Orion and Walburga just wanted him and Sirius to be strong and prepared for the real world. Maybe they showed it in wrong ways, but Regulus believed that the two wanted the best for their sons.
The dinner was finished shortly after and he immediately retreated to his bedroom. Regulus wanted to sneak out and check on Sirius, but he was scared that Kreacher would catch and report him to his dad. It was true that the house elf liked him more than the other Black child, but Regulus didn't want to test the limits of that likeness.
The preparations for the banquet began with the first rays of sunshine. While his parents and Kreacher's attention was fixated on preparing the ballroom, Regulus took his chance and snuck out of the bedroom.
His heart beat rapidly just at the thought of getting caught, but Regulus reassured himself that he could just make up an excuse and say he wanted to get some book from Sirius' bedroom. After knocking on the door, there was a muffled come in to which the boy obliged by quickly slipping inside the room.
Sirius was laying on the stomach on his bed, visibly still in slight pain, but when he saw Regulus, the boy turned and propped himself on the headboard gesturing to his little brother to come and join him. The previous pained expression was immediately replaced with a smile.
"How are you, S?", Regulus questioned not forgetting about the look on his brother's face seconds ago.
Sirius waved a dismissing hand at him, "Fine, don't worry. I have something I wanted to show to you. I wanted to show it to you yesterday, but I didn't get the chance.", he turned to his bedside table, but his movements were quite stiff. This brought concern to Regulus, but he stayed quiet on the matter. Knowing his brother, constant questioning about his wellbeing would just annoy him.
The boy turned back to Regulus with an interesting parchment in his hand which he held out. Regulus took it carefully and began the inspection while Sirius started explaining what the parchment actually was.
"William saw this machine back in his third year. It's called a polaroid camera. From what he told us it is similar to the wizarding ones, but the photographs don't move and you get them immediately after you take them."
Regulus was intrigued with the concept of getting the picture instantly, but it was silly to him that they didn't move. In the photo were two boys sharing an armchair, one was obviously Sirius and Regulus assumed that the other one was Peter.
"Why does Peter look tall here? I thought you said he was a bit shorter?"
Sirius laughed at his remark, "No, Reg. That's not Peter. That's Remus. I told you about him, he is the tall genius."
This confused Regulus because of what Sirius said to their parents, "But you told mom and dad there will only be Peter and his brother at the birthday party?"
Sirius just started to laugh, although that laugh was quickly silenced when Regulus saw him flinch and grab onto his arm, probably from the pain, "Well, they wouldn't have let me go if they knew James and Remus were coming."
What Sirius called half-truths, Regulus called lies, "But you lied to dad. What if he finds out?"
Just the thought of Orion finding out that his brother was hanging out not only with the two Pettigrew boys but with a Potter and a halfblood terrified Regulus. It was only yesterday that Sirius got cursed for disagreeing with the set rules, so Regulus didn't even want to think about what will happened if Orion found out that he completely disobeyed the set rules.
Not the same concern could be seen on Sirius' face as he gave his younger brother a sly smile, "How will he find out? Will you tell him?", the humor could even be heard in his voice.
"No. Of course I won't."
Regulus just didn't get it. Was it really that important to Sirius to go to the stupid birthday? That important that he would risk getting punished for it? Regulus couldn't even dream of lying to their dad about something stupid, let alone something he specifically told him not to do.
Soon after, he went back to his own bedroom to prepare for the banquet. Walburga bought him a very nice black suit. Granted it was similar to the ones Regulus already had, but he liked it nonetheless. While getting ready his thoughts were stuck on Sirius. He just hoped that the boy will listen to their dad and be nice tonight.
Oh, how naïve and wrong Regulus was.
Truth be told, the banquet started normally. Sirius didn't even rumple his shirt collar which should have been an indicator to Regulus that the boy was preparing something worse.
The duo greeted the guests at the entrance and then entered the ballroom as well. Regulus had a little chat with Narcissa like on the gala nights and then joined his parents while the two were having a discussion with Mr. Rosier about his son. It turned out that young Rosier was meant to attend Hogwarts next year, same as Regulus.
Unfortunately, the boy wasn't present due to the rule that only children who already started Hogwarts could attend these special gatherings. Regulus was the exception to this whenever the gathering was held at 12th Grimmauld Place, but he never attended the ones held by other families at their homes.
Everything seemed quite good and calm so far. He even saw Sirius talking to some important families like Malfoy, Macnair, Avery... which caused hope to spread inside the young boy. Maybe everything will be okay. Maybe Sirius decided to just listen to their dad and endure this one night.
But at last, it was not meant to be.
The clock struck midnight, thus the waltz began.
The first minute of it went smoothly. Regulus was dancing with Mr. Macnair's daughter while Sirius was in his peripheral vision, dancing with Mr. Travers' daughter. He even felt slight wind moving his curls around, but the only problem with that was that not a single window was open in the ballroom.
Suddenly, strong wind started to roam the closed space, moving the big, glass chandelier and making it produce a clinging sound while the ends of table cloths started whipping everything around them.
The panic spread between guests, Regulus could see different colors of disheveled hair fill the air along with some hats and blazers. He immediately remembered reading about something like this in the Daily Prophet back in summer.
Tempest in the bottle.
It was the new Zonko's product everyone was obsessed with the moment it came out. The Daily Prophet did a whole article about it because some wizard opened twenty of them at the same time and cause a small tornado which had to be explained to muggles that saw it.
Thankfully, Orion was quick to react and with one flick of his wand, the wind was gone. With another flick, the tables and other objects were back to normal, even the guests' hairstyles looked the same like when they entered the ballroom.
Orion apologized to everyone, blaming the chaos on some old 12th Grimmauld Place curse that occurs every hundred years or something like that. To Regulus' surprise, everybody was kind of impressed to have witnessed such a rare occurrence from The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black's residence. He figured that everything was impressive if it was well presented.
Everything went back to normal in an instant, everything except the hosts. He saw Orion and Walburga glaring murderously at Sirius while the boy kept an uninterested and nonchalant attitude.
From the second that he figured what was happening, Regulus knew who was responsible. The panic and fear for his brother overtook him. He didn't want to even imagine what fate will be await Sirius after this scandal. Why couldn't the boy just respect the rules for one night, one stupid night?
As soon as the banquet ended and everyone went home, Sirius and Regulus were summed to Orion's study. The boys didn't get a chance to speak to each other due to Walburga being their escort.
His dad sat at the long, wooden desk in the middle of the room. Just the sight of fury in his eyes was enough for Regulus to divert his gaze back to the carpet, but he knew that Sirius still kept his head high.
"Regulus. My dear wife. Please step aside.", Orion ordered them to which they moved next to the windows on the right while Sirius was left to stand in front of the wooden desk alone.
Orion turned to the older Black child again, "Do you have any idea what you have done!", he roared, "You know how important it is for us, the Most Noble and Ancient family to keep our reputation! Reputation that was built throughout hundreds of generations!"
This time, even Sirius was smart enough to stay quiet.
Orion withdrew his wand, "Afflictio"
Just the name of the spell leaving his father's mouth made Regulus flinch. His hands started to get sweaty from fear and he tried to control his body's trembling state so that Walburga wouldn't notice, but he wasn't quite sure how much he managed to succeed in that.
It was like Regulus was having a deja vu from yesterday, but this time it was different. This time it didn't last only for one minute. Regulus could practically feel the clock ticking from above his father's head. One minute had passed. Then another one. And another one.
With each passing moment, the quiet ticking of the second hand would tighten his chest a bit more. To him, the hushed sound was like a loud banging, a loud banging that echoed in his brain making little drops of sweat form on his forehead.
The worst part was that Regulus didn't even know what was happening. Due to the nature of the spell, he could only see his father and brother staring at each other in some type of trans. Truth be told, he didn't even know if he could handle seeing the hell Sirius was going through in that moment.
With every single tic from the clock, Regulus wanted to step in, to do something like Sirius always did for him, but each time fear would overtake his legs. Each time he would think He will stop now. Just one more second and he will stop, but Orion didn't.
Regulus hated himself in these moments for being so weak and scared. He always tried to justify his lack of action by telling himself that he warned Sirius, that Orion warned Sirius, but the boy refused to listen. That it was Sirius' fault for getting himself in these situations.
That was the only way Regulus could deal with his cowardness. The only way he could justify not getting involved, not stepping in and preventing further punishment.
In the future he will understand his faults in all of this. He will understand that Sirius never asked to be tortured, because that was just what it was, torture. Not some silly punishment parents usually treated their kids with. It was pure torture.
After seeing much worse things, Regulus will finally understand that, but just like today when he was too late to help his brother who needed him, his desire to rebuilt the brotherly bond the two once had will also come too late. He won't even be able to blame Sirius for it because Regulus knew that if the roles were reversed, he would leave himself too.
Finally, after whole eight minutes, Orion stopped. As much as this was a relief to Regulus, it didn't make it any easier to watch as Sirius fell on the floor. This time with his whole body, not just on his knees.
The boy's face was turned away from him, but Regulus could see Sirius clenching his fists from the pain.
Orion just left the office, immediately followed by Walburga, leaving Regulus with his brother hurt on the floor. As soon as he came closer and tried to help Sirius to get up, the boy passed out, probably from the pain.
Regulus summoned Kreacher and begged him to just apparate Sirius to his bed. The house elf refused at first, but then he saw tears forming in the young boy's eyes from the mix of panic, frustration and helplessness. Because Orion didn't specifically forbid Kreacher from helping the Black heir, the elf was able to complete Regulus' whish in the end.
He thanked the elf immensely after he saw Sirius calmly laying in his bedroom, breathing steadily. Regulus threw a duvet over the boy and tucked him in, making sure to place a glass of water on the bedside table.
He retreated back to his own bedroom and sat on the window seat where he was currently looking into the night sky while playing with his Canis Major ring. It was already three in the morning, meaning that Regulus has been sitting there in over two hours.
After thinking for so long about all the events that happened that night, he came to a conclusion caused by fear. Regulus Black will do everything in his power to never disobey Orion or Walburga Black ever again.