12 GRIMMAULD PLACE,
Regulus' POV
♫ The Sound Of Myself - Disasterpeace ♫
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I apparated home.
Just outside the house, in the gardened square across the street. Twinkling lights wrapped around the metal spiked fence. A view of Christmas trees in peoples front rooms, in variations of colours. Before turning to face ours. I knew the muggles couldn't see our house on the street, so there was no one for Mother to dress the house up for, but I still felt disappointed to see not a single light on. Not a wreath on the door. Not a sign of Christmas to be seen.
I crossed the street and pulled out my wand, our wands enchanted to act like keys instead of having a physical form.
The door clicked at the same time my wrist quietly cracked at the movement. I stretched it out as I pushed open the black front door.
The smell of wood polish was the strongest sense, stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind me. Every light was off and the house was deadly silent in its stillness. But the smell of wood polish let me know someone had recently been home, scrubbing for my arrival.
"Kreacher?" I said, gently, as I put down my trunk.
No response.
"Hello?" I said a little louder.
And then suddenly I heard the sound of pattering footsteps from the kitchen.
"Ah, Master Regulus, Sir." I heard Kreacher's voice before I saw him. Just as he turned the corner of the staircase into plain sight.
"Welcome home, Master Regulus, sir."
I smiled gentlemanly.
"How many times do I have to tell you, Kreacher?" I laughed lightly.
"If you won't call me Regulus, Master is just enough. You don't have to call me sir, afterwards."
I had tried to allow Kreacher the privilege of being on a first name basis, without the title. Many times. Many times he has rejected my offer, prioritising my Mother and Father's request to always address us by them.
"Yes, Master Regulus." Kreacher bowed and took my coat.
As Kreacher went off to hang it, letting it fall perfectly in the coat cupboard, I realised how thin he was beginning to look.
House elves, elves in general, were very rarely beings that kept on weight. I don't think I've ever seen an elf whose bones weren't somewhat visible. It was in their structure, their DNA. Just as much as they were all small. Most were awfully thin.
Kreacher was beginning to have a painfully thin appearance, however. If it wasn't for his steely gaze and robust resilience, it looked as if a strong wind could snap him in two.
Kreacher has been old, ever since I was born. With elves living longer than Wizards, most met their freedom in retirement. When their Masters had passed. With certain elves, however, they could never be free.
Kreacher lives to serve the noble house of black, and probably will until the day he dies. Our lineage spanning and challenging generations of house elves. If I couldn't find a way to offer Kreacher his retirement, I believe he'll always be in this house serving us until his very last breath.
I believed Kreacher had paid his debts. He had proven his loyalty to wizard-kind, specifically our family, more times than I could recollect.
Though I'd never admit the weakness so confidently, I had a fondness of him and a consideration for many house elves and their well-being.
"It's awfully quiet in here, Kreacher?" I asked. Though wasn't seeking a response.
I wasn't surprised to be met with the sound of white noise. Being greeted at the station or at my arrival home, wasn't part of my families customs. They had more important commitments.
My Father, in some office somewhere or in a Manor House colluding with our kind over a glass of whiskey.
My Mother, surviving another day.
"Lady Black is upstairs, Master Regulus." He hesitated, eyes darting up the staircase. He lowered his voice.
"I believe she has forgotten of your arrival, sir."
I nodded. Pushing away the feeling it momentarily gave me.
"How has she been?" I asked.
Kreacher was always careful with his words. But not always careful with his eyes, if you paid enough attention. A flicker of sorrow and exhaustion could be seen appearing in them as he thought.
"Not good, Master Regulus." Kreacher danced around the details.
"Kreacher has been punished many times for looking after her, as you wished of me, sir."
I felt a dread beginning to settle within me, a looming sense of darkness upstairs, despite the possible sunset that was seemingly entering the windows and streaming down the stairs.
Instead the warmth, the sudden sunlight finally adding some brightness to the house, felt like fire.
I let out a hum.
"Very well."
I nodded, collecting myself in preparation.
"I've got it from here, Kreacher. You can get back to your duties uninterrupted."
Kreacher bowed once again and returned to the kitchen. Where I hoped, sneakily, he would be taste testing the food he was beginning to make for us.
The first step, felt like the hardest. My breath hitching with the pressure of my foot against the wood. The creaking under my weight. The unknown of what was waiting for me above causing my mind to quickly attempt to consider what was 'not good' this time.
'Not good' meant many things, for Mother.
It could mean something as simple as she hasn't been to sleep properly for a few weeks or several days, wandering the house as if a ghost.
It could also mean something to be cautious of. A mania scratching behind her eyes and a destructive trail often left behind her; a map of her physical grief leaving clues around the house to what she was missing. It often led to Sirius' bedroom.
Something in me felt as if it was the latter and I wasn't exactly sure how capable I was at holding that space for her, right now.
To sit and stare into his pristinely kept room, somewhere she won't even let Kreacher tidy. She goes in there herself, polishing the things he left behind. The medals and trophies we were forced to win and compete for in childhood. Wizards chess, flying competitions, ballroom and piano classes, fencing at one point. Sirius had a collection of reminders signalling both his talent and his inability to stay consistent or loyal to a hobby.
I stuck with piano. I'm rather good at it. I've been playing since I was five. It's been over a decade, and I have many the trophy and certificates from completing my piano exams and entering small competitions. Mother didn't care to enter my room and polish mine, however.
Part of me wondered if it was because I was here to do it myself. That seemed more likely. Although, a part of me would appreciate the same treatment.
I couldn't understand it. Why she kept his room in a better condition than when he left it. She ensured his bedding was washed and changed every time the other beds in the house were. No one was sleeping in his bed, and still, it was often Sirius' bed that was made beautifully presented before I came home for the holidays, the side he usually slept on folded over delicately as if to welcome him back in and mine...sometimes creased, quickly and with a spell made. His was (often evidently, with effort and intention) hand made.
Every morning and every night she drew his curtains, opening up his window on fresh days and...
I turned the corner, Mother in the exact position I was just thinking of.
Sat outside his room, looking in. As if she was hallucinating, trapped in her own memories, imagining him in the room.
"Mother?" I said delicately.
Her back was turned. Her posture, leant up against his doorframe, as she sat. Slightly hunched over, to suggest she had been there for some time.
"Hello." I said, forcing a smile and crouching down beside her. I didn't want to sit and look into his room. Not after this year and already the wasted time I have spent thinking about him.
I gently placed my hand on her back, softly rubbing it as if to console a small child.
Her eyes were glazed over, distant, before she turned her head agonisingly slowly towards my voice. She smiled at me. Though the smile made me feel uneasy, as if she wasn't real in this moment. As if I could see how disconnected she was from her physical form. As if she was a doll that had come alive, that still lacked a soul.
"Hello, my baby boy." She said, reaching out to cup my face. Her hands cold.
"Can I get Kreacher to make you a hot drink?" I asked. Smiling at her, encouragingly. Almost begging her with kindness to snap out of her trance.
"Wait, why are you here?" Her face suddenly changed, as she ignored my question.
"You shouldn't skip school, Regulus. Your education is of high priority." She said sternly, her face contorting into a twisted frown.
"It's Christmas break, Mother." I said reassuringly.
"I'm home for Christmas."
Her face shifted again. From a mean glance, to that of a lost soul again. More childlike this time.
"It's Christmas?" She asked softly, sadly as she shifted her gaze back into his room.
"What day is it?"
"The twenty-second of December."
"I haven't got you anything."
"That's fine."
She shook her head, and finally lifted herself up. Her bones cracking as she did. Signalling the stiff position she had sat in, for potentially hours.
"I haven't got Sirius anything." She added.
In previous years, she did. She left it on his bed on Christmas Eve and I felt a pressure to take it before Christmas morning. Hiding it in my own bedroom. She genuinely thought in some way, as if a child believing in Santa Claus, he came home and accepted the gift from her in the hours between.
One year I didn't take it. The second year he was gone. I wondered how it would be for her to know the truth, that Sirius didn't secretly come home to find a present on his bed and take it back to the Potter's. But she became so upset, she burnt the Christmas tree down. Enraged by his 'lack of appreciation' and utterly devastated seeing the beautifully presented gift untouched in his equally untouched room. The truth being too hard to handle. He was no longer here.
That was last year, and I can imagine it's why we don't have a Christmas tree up this time around. Perhaps of Father's doing, sensibly but senselessly. It was also the day he was burnt from the tapestry. With tears in her eyes and as the Christmas tree begun to fill our house up with clouds of black smoke...she had one last thing to set alight to. She had waited just over a year to do it. Maybe hoping he'd come back and redeem himself. Andromeda was singed off of the tapestry within six months of her departure. Once we all figured out where she had gone. Sirius, on the other hand, was burnt off on Christmas Day. The third Christmas he had missed. The second since he ran away from home. The moment Mother knew, he was never coming back.
This will be our fourth Christmas without Sirius. But third without him coming home at all and yet, she still wanted to leave him a present, on the end of his bed for him to 'collect'.
It made me feel sick. Creeping into his room in the early hours of Christmas morning, hoping not to be met by my Mother who would sometimes wait up for any sound of him in the house. It was a strategic task. It was one that saved her heart being broken, again.
I almost felt relieved that she had forgotten about Christmas, so that I didn't have to worry about a gift tag with his name on.
"Neither one of us needs a present, Mother." I said as I cautiously begun to close his bedroom door behind us.
"He's doing well, still?" She asked. As we began to walk down the stairs together.
A sharp pang shot in my chest.
I was stood here in front of her, and she hasn't asked about me. How I was doing. Not even a Merry Christmas upon finding out about the date.
I felt a little spiteful.
"He has a muggle born, girlfriend." I found myself saying. Usually I'd entertain her worries with soft words and politeness.
She halted in the middle of the staircase.
"The red headed girl?" She asked, knowing about Lily. Knowing about the his group, often disapproving of them.
I shook my head.
"Someone else. No one of importance. I believe she may come from a, um...working class muggle family." I heard the snobbery in my voice. I heard the judgement.
But I knew what I was doing. I was pulling her away from her idolisation of my brother who will never return to Grimmauld place. Even if he did, he wasn't welcome, despite her longing.
There was a shift in her demeanour. Her posture straightened, as if she smelt something foul beneath her. Her face grimacing at the thought.
"That boy is wasting his life with play pretend. I never raised you boys to become blood traitors." She hissed.
And here it was, finally,
"I'm so proud of you, Regulus. You'll make this family proud, by sticking to our values and knowing your place in this world is too important to denounce to inferior blood."
She passed me on the stairs, her sadness being replaced by a determined walk. Her mind returning to her body and poisoning her reminiscence with spite towards Sirius.
"It's good to be home." I said, almost convincingly. Hoping she'd give me a proper welcome now that I brought her back down to earth.
All she did was walk past me and head to the study, however, not once looking back and closing the door behind her.
Christmas correspondents, I could assume, all more important than asking me how my year had gone so far.
"Kreacher?" I found myself shouting out on the stairs.
"Yes, Master Regulus?" I heard him say back as he started to appear from the kitchen, once again.
"It's good to be home."
"A pleasure to have you back again, Master Regulus."
I nodded and gulped down the rest of my anxiety. And simply, begun to head back up the stairs, up to my bedroom. Alone.