WIP | Of Family Resemblances and Like Kinds | 1/12
Title: Of Family Resemblances and Like Kinds
Part: 1
Part Summary: Regulus was in danger of losing his reason, which would only make things more difficult than they already were.
Part Rating: PG13
Part Characters: The Black Family :: Walburga, Regulus, and mentions of Sirius, 1978.
WIP Pairings: Yes, but this is not Blackcest.
Part Warnings: swearing, mild sensual reference.
Part Word Count: ~4000
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are property of JK Rowling.
::Story Summary: The Black heirs were a paradox: two selfish young wizards forced to choose selflessly as they faced a violent and corrupt society that surrounded them. Perhaps it was their family resemblance, perhaps it was their likeness to other kinds, or perhaps is was the forthcoming war that caused both Sirius and Regulus to understand that having kindred souls meant something they did not expect. Did their greatness lie in that which they disagreed? ::
____
Regulus Black was halfway home when he realised he desperately needed a shower.
His bookbag’s strap was wet from clutching it with his fist. Moist, soft leather kissing his palm was a comforting feeling for him. The strap, wrinkly and stained, laid diagonally across his heart. Over five years, Regulus formed a habit of holding on at this point at his chest. Recently it had become profoundly worse. For all his great capacity to reason, he panicked if he couldn't regularly feel a strip of leather.
Or his heartbeat.
He briskly navigated the boulevard to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, swerving to avoid the applewood branches that reached through the tall gates and into his path. When he ducked a tangle of low-hanging leaves, he saw little faces in the windows of the houses, glowing silver in the television light. It never seemed indecent to Regulus to look. No one was made vulnerable because of his modest intrusions.
This tree-lined sidewalk had been the place to go when he was a child and did not want to be at home. He had been unique and lonely then. Leaving London for Hogwarts at twelve had intervened to change that some, but being home and away from school generally caused these feelings to recur.
Not knowing any of the other neighbourhood school aged boys, or being allowed to, Regulus hadn't run in a pack. Alone, he'd walk along the fence, a safe distance from the houses, and peek between the iron bars. Past the tree trunks and formal gardens were windows of all different styles, and he'd stare into them until someone stared back.
Sometimes he'd wander and no one would be around. At other times there might be dozens of people who saw him. The friendliest would smile, and he'd take an immediate liking to them and wave then sprint off down the street towards another residence with different windows.
That was a lifetime ago.
An unbelievable stench of cigarettes filled the evening air. Regulus bobbed his head about so as to find the smokers, but they were keeping themselves a secret, suggesting they weren't legal aged.
He moved on, figuring that soon the block would smell of spice, not cigarettes. That's what he had been taught to burn to cover up the stink.
He used to keep rolling paper, tobacco, matches and a bundle of incense down the side of his boot. Without really understanding why, he learned from his older brother to turn a match into a flame by striking it on his sole. He had wondered if it would work after walking through a puddle.
What Regulus did understand was, at the time, his parents conducted a nightly check of his and his brother's wands. Of course he was scared about getting caught using underage magic, but getting caught doing something entirely forbidden to him, like smoking, scared him more. Finding incense and ignition charms in his wand raised questions that required answering with dishonest originality he admitted not having then.
Regulus' fingers curled absently around the strap, making sure it was still there. His thumb knuckle pushed into his breastbone.
At seventeen, and tall and lean, he was more bone than muscle, though unimaginably athletic. The graceful slope of his body aboard a broom and his inexplicable snitch captures on the Quidditch pitch made him something to watch for the witches. The strangest thing was that Regulus had never as much as properly kissed a girl. He rarely dared himself to think he'd be anything other than a virgin, yet he'd enthusiastically welcome not being one. However, the current outlook wasn't very good.
Even having himself a decent wank tonight seemed a long way off. His untimely discovery earlier in the evening had cut the cords connecting his nerves. Unable to barely sense his bookbag strap balled in his fist, Regulus wasn't sure he'd manage to feel himself thrusting into his own palm.
He picked up his pace. The back and forth clicks of his boot heels on the pavement created a long, steady rhythm. The bag banging against his narrow hip and his heart thudding in his chest fell into time.
The house was in sight. Its gables and panoply of pitched roofs were waiting for him. His theatrical looking playhouse on a grand scale. The mansion had always looked uneasy, like it was one generation away from being bulldozed. All the houses up and down this winding street were old. The difference was his parents’ house was already old when the others were built new.
This house was part of a legend. It truly was haunted.
In a wizard's home, it was troubling to not have ghost sightings. A house with spirit inhabitants was considered to possess the right mixture of wizard nobility and humility. But being concerned his Muggle guests would be spooked when his toys were spontaneously played with or because the ghosts with unpredictable mood swings practiced knife throwing wasn’t the reason no neighbourhood sleepovers took place at Number 12.
There were more fearful creatures than ghosts, and Regulus had taken a blood oath to shepherd them along their grisly paths.
The darkness was deepening, the moon started its slow reveal. It was night in August. Evenings were cool and dry this summer, and Regulus shivered. He was wrapped in sweat, but it wasn't pleasant sweat. It chilled him like he had been sprayed with freezing water.
Judging by his location on the boulevard and the length of his legs, it stood to reason that in just a few more strides he'd be staring up at the mansion. He felt clammy under his trousers and the beginnings of an annoying chafe stung between his legs.
He extended his stride.
In front of him, the light in the lamppost flickered blindingly bright then altogether vanished as he drew towards it. Above, an enormous raven circled silently like an orbiting inkblot. Around and around it went, diving low then suddenly reappearing higher than it had been.
Regulus turned up his face to the bird and merely nodded. The raven cawed once and went soundlessly out of sight.
"Bloody, gloomy bird." Regulus rolled his eyes.
The Blacks glared at the world through the eyes of their ravens, punctuating their name with an unmistakable bird so no wizard or witch would have to squint to decide whose owl was approaching. The family had chosen ravens as messengers since the very early generations and the tradition was expected to transmit without interruption to the later ones.
A far less truculent type than other Blacks, Regulus told no one that selecting ravens over owls was a pretentious display of the family name. He told no one except his brother, Sirius. He considered the Black's preference for carrion eaters an apt parody. Ravens were black death eaters, after all, he would say.
Once Sirius had a go of his own at his ancestors' notorious birds. Home on holiday from Hogwarts, he managed to procure a white-breasted goose, missing an eye. He announced with drunken bravado while playing The Benny Hill Theme on a Muggle tape deck that this bird would carry the family crest after he came into his inheritance.
It hadn't gone nicely.
He remembered thinking how boastful his brother was, taking his ideas a little too far. His brother was vulgar.
And exciting.
Regulus unfastened his jacket mid-stride. He reached around his back where his wand was tucked in his waistband. It was the least novel and most inconvenient location to stow his wand when he wasn't robed. Trouser pockets lacked the adequate depth.
He fingered the damp satin on the back of his vest. Sweat had leaked straight through to his outer layers.
"Pathetic." He crumpled his face.
Appearing as a smart English gentleman not only came naturally for Regulus but he keenly prepared himself as one. He thought it mattered. Wearing a squalid suit was not gentlemanly. Giving up the smart bit was also under current consideration given his recent error in judgment.
Performing an anti-perspiration charm before entering his parents' home crossed Regulus' mind. He hadn’t as much as farted in anyone’s presence since his eighth birthday.
Regulus decided against the charm. There was no way out of this mess. The far more fascinating question would be why he didn't have his robe. That had been tossed into a bin he passed earlier. He supposed his answer for not wearing his robe when asked would be he was sweating.
Somewhere in that old mansion, someone was waiting on him. Regulus could take that to the fucking bank. Standing in a hallway, sitting on a settee, pouring thestral barley scotch on the rocks. Not being held up too long with too many questions so he could promptly shower was the best he hoped for.
At the moment his final stride hit the base of the dark lamppost at the edge of the house, he revealed his wand.
He listened for footsteps behind him but heard nothing. The street was quiet, too. He saw no headlights. He looked up the long walk, lined by red poppies that were obscured by night, and at the house beyond, tapering into the sky.
Regulus hoisted his wand then stopped. His legs buckled and he felt a little sick.
“Fuck.” Regulus stamped his boot hard on the pavement.
He squeezed shut his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands into them. Sirius taught him to do that to see the stars. Clusters of white dots blossomed behind his lids.
It was an unfamiliar sort of sickness Regulus felt. It was caused by something other than the fierce heat in his body colliding with the chill air. It was like a sour sensation was now part of him and he would never feel wholly well again, and because it came to him like a revelation that feeling wholly well was lost, it caused him to feel even more ill.
He dropped his hands, and his head, and stroked the leather strap on his bag, catching his breath and balance at the same time. What lurked in the catacombs of his mind had to be brought under control. He was in danger of losing his reason, which would only make things more difficult than they already were.
The dark was coming hard, the house was a rising silhouette. Regulus got a hold of his head, refocused on the mansion and aimed his wand. Then, effortlessly, he carved an ornate serpentine pattern in the black sky and whispered the incantation to unlock Number 12.
Regulus apparated for the first time that night since leaving the coven of Death Eaters.
And Voldemort.
_______
Regulus gripped to the wooden banister and gulped air. He rarely fumbled apparation logistics. Arriving on the landing between the staircases to his bedroom was tonight’s target. Given his crippled concentration, he was relieved to have reached the end he specified.
The inside of Number 12 was like a honeycomb. Though a mansion, it was composed of small, conjoined rooms. No grand ballrooms or sprawling vestibules.
To the left and right were doors that lead to small halls with another door at the end, and when opened, would reveal a passage that went into stairs going upward to the main residence levels or downward to the basement. On each level, six in total, a new scenario of doors accessed more rooms in either direction.
The boys had fallen like dominoes when gamboling around the house's twisted stairs and door lined halls during their youth. It usually ended with scarlet contusions along their forearms, thighs and shins, which usually ended their gamboling.
First learning to apparate into Number 12's menacing maze of corridors was more like gambling than gamboling. Regulus compared it to dropping a ball onto a spinning wheel with numbered compartments, and the number at which the ball came to rest was left to chance.
Much later he called it Grimmauld Roulette.
Far earlier Regulus understood the mansion's intentional intricacy after accidentally apparating into an ominous room, deep in the house. An apocryphal or beleaguered apparater unfamiliar with its design and unable to state the precise location to land would be vacuumed to this underground ward. A vague apparation command, inconsistent with the integrity of the mansion, would allow an intruder in and no way out.
Regulus moved his bookbag to fit it against his hip and the strap across his heart. Whatever happened next, he'd take in stride. He stowed his wand and settled into a moment of respite. He was out of breath.
He knew his mother was in his room, hunting. His mind was too clouded to see exactly for what. Being unable to turn the screw gave him some consolation.
The bedroom door swung wide and light flooded the staircase. Walburga Black stood in the doorframe. She was magnificent. Regulus knew his mother delighted in her power, in being the great beauty that other witches were obviously not.
She spread her arms wide then rested each hand on a hip. Her elbows jutted angularly outward. Her jade colored robe sleeves draped luxuriously around her curves. She looked at him, interested.
Her posture clearly suggested Regulus would be refused from entering his own bedroom if he didn’t pay with some confession she wanted. He wasn’t certain he had one to make.
“Regulus.” Walburga's voice wasn't unkind.
"Mother," he panted.
Regulus pulled himself straight, and adjusted his tie, occupying his hands purposely. Against his rising anxiety, he told himself he would not hold his bag as a pacifier in front of her like a timid child. He had clung to far too many comforts since leaving her nipple.
“A thunderbolt hasn’t just hit you.” Her brow creased. “Don’t look so shocked.”
Regulus shut his mouth. A small smile tugged at his cheeks. He wrapped his tongue around his upper lip, licking away perspiration, hiding his grin.
His mother was capable of knocking someone’s head off with her anger but she could also lampoon a tense moment with humor.
“Everything alright?” Walburga looked puzzled. “Any urgencies?”
Regulus shook his head. “No.” He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you mean about the meeting?”
He hadn’t planned on reprising the evening's details for his mother. That wasn't to say he didn't want to. It was more that he couldn't.
Walburga hesitated. “Yes.” Her tone was suspicious. “About the meeting.”
“It went well enough.” Regulus nodded once. “Brilliant, in fact.” His mother wasn't stupid yet he was prepared to play as recklessly as he could with the truth without Walburga calling foul.
“Rodolphus was bombastic, as always," he said. "He initiated a keen conversation on the repugnance of Muggle education. His drunkenness and generally appalling manners prevented him from censoring the obscene strategies on his mind, which kindled group enthusiasm. Superficially, at least," he paused. "If more were actually in his mind, and at least as much were in his heart, he'd be twice the Death Eater, and half-interesting to listen to when he was half-baked."
Walburga smirked. “He's not manor born, and his temperament is too vivid and wit too dull. He’s as stupidly excitable as a muggle. Brainless." Walburga tossed her raven locks.
Regulus nodded to show he understood, and thought she looked like an identical representation of Sirius. Deciding if Walburga was handsome or Sirius was beautiful was impossible for Regulus. Either way around, proof of his brother's blood was the embodiment of his mother.
"Bellatrix married a coward to highlight her own courage. That's it." Her voice was flatly resigned. "Control is not a bad beginning for a marriage, after all.”
Regulus could tell she was keeping up her pretense of interest. She was particularly fond of waxing contemptuously on Rodolphus Lestrange, her ridiculous, newly minted nephew-in-law. But he had caught what was riding on her thoughts, and it wasn’t Death Eaters.
“I offered him good old fashioned sympathy, and helped his argument sound more substantial where I could. Not ostentatiously, of course. Or to demoralize Rodolphus. But it surprised me how little he knows of reason.” Regulus frowned.
"He's a megalomaniac and quick to sulk. Both childish qualities," Walburga said. "And you know more of reason then most,my dear. What should surprise you most is how greatly you're shocked when finding others know it so little."
“My views did illuminate some, I must admit. Others were unreadable, utterly impassive listeners." Regulus gave a falsely sad shrug. "Taking into account my newness, I fear my proposals are considered of small importance.”
Walburga looked annoyed. Regulus was uncertain if it was for the Death Eaters or for him. “The black stain on your arm is a few months fresh but the colour of your blood was established long ago by your ancestors, and it will not fade far into the future. Remember this, Regulus."
She stepped forward and folded her arms across her chest, and Regulus backpedalled down a step.
"You already have great influence amongst all wizards." Her cerulean eyes peered into his. "Influence is your birthright.”
Unbiddenly, Regulus swore he heard deathright and lurched like he was about to vomit. He fluttered his eyelids, hoping his unsteadiness passed as sleepiness to Walburga.
"I'm truly lucky for you." Regulus feigned a smile. "And if I could, I would take you into complete confidence as nothing is lost on you, Mother. But,” he uneasily eyed the washroom door, “I’m obligated by my oath to not tell you more than the bit I have, which may have been a bit too much, as it stands.”
"Indeed," Walburga paused, "and thank you for such a compliment." Her gaze fell onto his lily white fingers idly stroking his bookbag strap. "You're a kind son."
Regulus intercepted her sight line. He hadn't noticed that he was working the bag then quickly sensed an irrepressible, lethal tightness in his hand.
Or was it in his heart?
"However, indulge me, my kind son," she started coolly, "you've judged your evening well, even brilliant yet you certainly appear otherwise. Utterly shambolic."
He said nothing. Suddenly, his flesh prickled when it flashed across his mind what his mother had been searching for in his room. Walburga could comb its dusty corners but tonight the truth would remain untarnished. He carried what she was looking for hidden is his mind, and concealed in his bag. Well enough, he prayed.
Regulus was the first legilimens in two generations of Blacks. His family was exquisitely inbred; even his parents weren't separated by more than a few gametes. But it wasn't until Regulus' birth that this exceptional ability reappeared in their bloodline.
Part of his childhood was to practice appearing perfectly empty and unaffected after the cresting waves of someone else's thoughts crashed into his own. For all his life, he trained himself to not express his reaction to what he witnessed as a mental intruder.
He wouldn't speak, or allow his brown eyes to darken as he silently followed others inside. He could look out their eyes and appraise what they saw, extract what they thought, and never produce the slightest convulsion.
Except for tonight, and to Voldemort.
Regulus couldn't believe he had let himself squeak like a vermin. He chased the fucking cheese and got caught in the trap. It was that simple, and the truth that affected him the most, and he refused to feel, was that this trap had likely been set for some time. He knew he wouldn't be killed, but hurt, and he had no word for that feeling.
"Why do you look so hideous if your engagement was so pleasant?" Demanded Walburga.
"Death Eaters are never pleasant, Mother," Regulus snapped, and he hated it. He didn't want his reactions to convey any deeper meaning or strain.
"Yes, of course. Perhaps I've overstated your satisfaction with the meeting," Walburga whispered, studying him. "Nonetheless, I'm curious because my son looks as if he's been chased by all the legions of hell, which speaks for having faced extreme difficulties, yet he admits to having faced none."
Regulus knew he had to think fast and right from here on out if he had any chance of rounding up a shower for himself. A tightly wound ache was settling into his muscles now that the sweat had dried on his body. He didn't want to clutter their exchange with commentary that risked sounding tentative and false.
"From what were you running?" she asked. "I can smell the stink of your spoilt underarms from here."
Regulus turned away. "Please don't be crass."
"Or, to what, or to whom, were you running?" she asked as if speaking to a child. Or an idiot.
"Mother." He couldn't loose this fight. "I wasn't running anywhere."
"Alright," Walburga said, not apologetically. "I'll start with questions absolutely indifferent to armies of evil or your stench. How about that?"
"Certainly." He nodded and turned his face back to his mother. "And I will answer them."
"Where is your robe, Regulus?"
"I was sweating."
"That much is obvious."
"It's in the bin." Regulus sucked air. He made a mistake. "Rodolphus spilled liquor down my front. The alcoholic spirit was surprisingly unvanishable."
"So you threw it in the bin?" Walburga asked, unconvinced.
"Yes," he answered. "Well, no. Vanishing the liquor was proving impossible but vanishing the whole robe was not. Yes, I disposed of it. I vanished my robe."
"What was he drinking?"
"What?"
"Rodolphus. What liquor did he splash down your robe?"
Regulus looked hard at his mother. "Some potent essence he distilled himself. I didn't get the mixture exactly."
"Simple house-elf arts would have relieved your robes of an unvanishable stain, Regulus. Or relieved Kreacher of his wits trying."
"I'm sorry. Tomorrow I'll go to Monsieur Malkin's for a new robe. I'll wear one of Father's if you prefer me to not wear my layabout robe out socially. "
"That's good of you. Yes, and I'll go as well. And, just to satisfy my curiosity, I'm sending out Kreacher to sort the city bins."
Regulus curtly nodded. "Fine."
"Understand this doesn't count as me underestimating your honesty but if you honestly didn't leave your robe in a bin, why say you did?" Walburga cooed artificially. "My darling, tossing even a soiled robe in with muggle waste tells me to speculate on what you're not telling me."
Regulus gave no answer.
"I don't want to say it, Regulus, but I can't remember when you were last like how you are just now." Walburga clicked her tongue. "Are you sneering at me?"
"Am I? I can't see my face. If I am, it's because my need for a proper shower and sleep are causing me to feel despicable. "
"It is late," Walburga agreed. "Did you apparate?"
"Yes."
"Was there a problem?"
"None."
"Well, then did you take a second rendezvous tonight?"
"No. I set out for home, straight away." Regulus stared at his mother, unblinking. He had already answered in his head the question his mother was about to ask.
"Tell me." Walburga lowered her pitch and now it was her turn to sneer. She eyed Regulus’ hand on his bag, looking for a reaction.
He knew it would finally come to this, and he had loosened his grip on his strap in small installments to display his relaxed fingers when Walburga eventually unloaded.
"Did you see your brother?"
Regulus took a breath and flared his nostrils. "Most certainly not."
It wasn't a lie.
At least, it wasn't a lie that he had not seen Sirius tonight.
_______
Part: 1
Part Summary: Regulus was in danger of losing his reason, which would only make things more difficult than they already were.
Part Rating: PG13
Part Characters: The Black Family :: Walburga, Regulus, and mentions of Sirius, 1978.
WIP Pairings: Yes, but this is not Blackcest.
Part Warnings: swearing, mild sensual reference.
Part Word Count: ~4000
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are property of JK Rowling.
::Story Summary: The Black heirs were a paradox: two selfish young wizards forced to choose selflessly as they faced a violent and corrupt society that surrounded them. Perhaps it was their family resemblance, perhaps it was their likeness to other kinds, or perhaps is was the forthcoming war that caused both Sirius and Regulus to understand that having kindred souls meant something they did not expect. Did their greatness lie in that which they disagreed? ::
____
Regulus Black was halfway home when he realised he desperately needed a shower.
His bookbag’s strap was wet from clutching it with his fist. Moist, soft leather kissing his palm was a comforting feeling for him. The strap, wrinkly and stained, laid diagonally across his heart. Over five years, Regulus formed a habit of holding on at this point at his chest. Recently it had become profoundly worse. For all his great capacity to reason, he panicked if he couldn't regularly feel a strip of leather.
Or his heartbeat.
He briskly navigated the boulevard to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, swerving to avoid the applewood branches that reached through the tall gates and into his path. When he ducked a tangle of low-hanging leaves, he saw little faces in the windows of the houses, glowing silver in the television light. It never seemed indecent to Regulus to look. No one was made vulnerable because of his modest intrusions.
This tree-lined sidewalk had been the place to go when he was a child and did not want to be at home. He had been unique and lonely then. Leaving London for Hogwarts at twelve had intervened to change that some, but being home and away from school generally caused these feelings to recur.
Not knowing any of the other neighbourhood school aged boys, or being allowed to, Regulus hadn't run in a pack. Alone, he'd walk along the fence, a safe distance from the houses, and peek between the iron bars. Past the tree trunks and formal gardens were windows of all different styles, and he'd stare into them until someone stared back.
Sometimes he'd wander and no one would be around. At other times there might be dozens of people who saw him. The friendliest would smile, and he'd take an immediate liking to them and wave then sprint off down the street towards another residence with different windows.
That was a lifetime ago.
An unbelievable stench of cigarettes filled the evening air. Regulus bobbed his head about so as to find the smokers, but they were keeping themselves a secret, suggesting they weren't legal aged.
He moved on, figuring that soon the block would smell of spice, not cigarettes. That's what he had been taught to burn to cover up the stink.
He used to keep rolling paper, tobacco, matches and a bundle of incense down the side of his boot. Without really understanding why, he learned from his older brother to turn a match into a flame by striking it on his sole. He had wondered if it would work after walking through a puddle.
What Regulus did understand was, at the time, his parents conducted a nightly check of his and his brother's wands. Of course he was scared about getting caught using underage magic, but getting caught doing something entirely forbidden to him, like smoking, scared him more. Finding incense and ignition charms in his wand raised questions that required answering with dishonest originality he admitted not having then.
Regulus' fingers curled absently around the strap, making sure it was still there. His thumb knuckle pushed into his breastbone.
At seventeen, and tall and lean, he was more bone than muscle, though unimaginably athletic. The graceful slope of his body aboard a broom and his inexplicable snitch captures on the Quidditch pitch made him something to watch for the witches. The strangest thing was that Regulus had never as much as properly kissed a girl. He rarely dared himself to think he'd be anything other than a virgin, yet he'd enthusiastically welcome not being one. However, the current outlook wasn't very good.
Even having himself a decent wank tonight seemed a long way off. His untimely discovery earlier in the evening had cut the cords connecting his nerves. Unable to barely sense his bookbag strap balled in his fist, Regulus wasn't sure he'd manage to feel himself thrusting into his own palm.
He picked up his pace. The back and forth clicks of his boot heels on the pavement created a long, steady rhythm. The bag banging against his narrow hip and his heart thudding in his chest fell into time.
The house was in sight. Its gables and panoply of pitched roofs were waiting for him. His theatrical looking playhouse on a grand scale. The mansion had always looked uneasy, like it was one generation away from being bulldozed. All the houses up and down this winding street were old. The difference was his parents’ house was already old when the others were built new.
This house was part of a legend. It truly was haunted.
In a wizard's home, it was troubling to not have ghost sightings. A house with spirit inhabitants was considered to possess the right mixture of wizard nobility and humility. But being concerned his Muggle guests would be spooked when his toys were spontaneously played with or because the ghosts with unpredictable mood swings practiced knife throwing wasn’t the reason no neighbourhood sleepovers took place at Number 12.
There were more fearful creatures than ghosts, and Regulus had taken a blood oath to shepherd them along their grisly paths.
The darkness was deepening, the moon started its slow reveal. It was night in August. Evenings were cool and dry this summer, and Regulus shivered. He was wrapped in sweat, but it wasn't pleasant sweat. It chilled him like he had been sprayed with freezing water.
Judging by his location on the boulevard and the length of his legs, it stood to reason that in just a few more strides he'd be staring up at the mansion. He felt clammy under his trousers and the beginnings of an annoying chafe stung between his legs.
He extended his stride.
In front of him, the light in the lamppost flickered blindingly bright then altogether vanished as he drew towards it. Above, an enormous raven circled silently like an orbiting inkblot. Around and around it went, diving low then suddenly reappearing higher than it had been.
Regulus turned up his face to the bird and merely nodded. The raven cawed once and went soundlessly out of sight.
"Bloody, gloomy bird." Regulus rolled his eyes.
The Blacks glared at the world through the eyes of their ravens, punctuating their name with an unmistakable bird so no wizard or witch would have to squint to decide whose owl was approaching. The family had chosen ravens as messengers since the very early generations and the tradition was expected to transmit without interruption to the later ones.
A far less truculent type than other Blacks, Regulus told no one that selecting ravens over owls was a pretentious display of the family name. He told no one except his brother, Sirius. He considered the Black's preference for carrion eaters an apt parody. Ravens were black death eaters, after all, he would say.
Once Sirius had a go of his own at his ancestors' notorious birds. Home on holiday from Hogwarts, he managed to procure a white-breasted goose, missing an eye. He announced with drunken bravado while playing The Benny Hill Theme on a Muggle tape deck that this bird would carry the family crest after he came into his inheritance.
It hadn't gone nicely.
He remembered thinking how boastful his brother was, taking his ideas a little too far. His brother was vulgar.
And exciting.
Regulus unfastened his jacket mid-stride. He reached around his back where his wand was tucked in his waistband. It was the least novel and most inconvenient location to stow his wand when he wasn't robed. Trouser pockets lacked the adequate depth.
He fingered the damp satin on the back of his vest. Sweat had leaked straight through to his outer layers.
"Pathetic." He crumpled his face.
Appearing as a smart English gentleman not only came naturally for Regulus but he keenly prepared himself as one. He thought it mattered. Wearing a squalid suit was not gentlemanly. Giving up the smart bit was also under current consideration given his recent error in judgment.
Performing an anti-perspiration charm before entering his parents' home crossed Regulus' mind. He hadn’t as much as farted in anyone’s presence since his eighth birthday.
Regulus decided against the charm. There was no way out of this mess. The far more fascinating question would be why he didn't have his robe. That had been tossed into a bin he passed earlier. He supposed his answer for not wearing his robe when asked would be he was sweating.
Somewhere in that old mansion, someone was waiting on him. Regulus could take that to the fucking bank. Standing in a hallway, sitting on a settee, pouring thestral barley scotch on the rocks. Not being held up too long with too many questions so he could promptly shower was the best he hoped for.
At the moment his final stride hit the base of the dark lamppost at the edge of the house, he revealed his wand.
He listened for footsteps behind him but heard nothing. The street was quiet, too. He saw no headlights. He looked up the long walk, lined by red poppies that were obscured by night, and at the house beyond, tapering into the sky.
Regulus hoisted his wand then stopped. His legs buckled and he felt a little sick.
“Fuck.” Regulus stamped his boot hard on the pavement.
He squeezed shut his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands into them. Sirius taught him to do that to see the stars. Clusters of white dots blossomed behind his lids.
It was an unfamiliar sort of sickness Regulus felt. It was caused by something other than the fierce heat in his body colliding with the chill air. It was like a sour sensation was now part of him and he would never feel wholly well again, and because it came to him like a revelation that feeling wholly well was lost, it caused him to feel even more ill.
He dropped his hands, and his head, and stroked the leather strap on his bag, catching his breath and balance at the same time. What lurked in the catacombs of his mind had to be brought under control. He was in danger of losing his reason, which would only make things more difficult than they already were.
The dark was coming hard, the house was a rising silhouette. Regulus got a hold of his head, refocused on the mansion and aimed his wand. Then, effortlessly, he carved an ornate serpentine pattern in the black sky and whispered the incantation to unlock Number 12.
Regulus apparated for the first time that night since leaving the coven of Death Eaters.
And Voldemort.
_______
Regulus gripped to the wooden banister and gulped air. He rarely fumbled apparation logistics. Arriving on the landing between the staircases to his bedroom was tonight’s target. Given his crippled concentration, he was relieved to have reached the end he specified.
The inside of Number 12 was like a honeycomb. Though a mansion, it was composed of small, conjoined rooms. No grand ballrooms or sprawling vestibules.
To the left and right were doors that lead to small halls with another door at the end, and when opened, would reveal a passage that went into stairs going upward to the main residence levels or downward to the basement. On each level, six in total, a new scenario of doors accessed more rooms in either direction.
The boys had fallen like dominoes when gamboling around the house's twisted stairs and door lined halls during their youth. It usually ended with scarlet contusions along their forearms, thighs and shins, which usually ended their gamboling.
First learning to apparate into Number 12's menacing maze of corridors was more like gambling than gamboling. Regulus compared it to dropping a ball onto a spinning wheel with numbered compartments, and the number at which the ball came to rest was left to chance.
Much later he called it Grimmauld Roulette.
Far earlier Regulus understood the mansion's intentional intricacy after accidentally apparating into an ominous room, deep in the house. An apocryphal or beleaguered apparater unfamiliar with its design and unable to state the precise location to land would be vacuumed to this underground ward. A vague apparation command, inconsistent with the integrity of the mansion, would allow an intruder in and no way out.
Regulus moved his bookbag to fit it against his hip and the strap across his heart. Whatever happened next, he'd take in stride. He stowed his wand and settled into a moment of respite. He was out of breath.
He knew his mother was in his room, hunting. His mind was too clouded to see exactly for what. Being unable to turn the screw gave him some consolation.
The bedroom door swung wide and light flooded the staircase. Walburga Black stood in the doorframe. She was magnificent. Regulus knew his mother delighted in her power, in being the great beauty that other witches were obviously not.
She spread her arms wide then rested each hand on a hip. Her elbows jutted angularly outward. Her jade colored robe sleeves draped luxuriously around her curves. She looked at him, interested.
Her posture clearly suggested Regulus would be refused from entering his own bedroom if he didn’t pay with some confession she wanted. He wasn’t certain he had one to make.
“Regulus.” Walburga's voice wasn't unkind.
"Mother," he panted.
Regulus pulled himself straight, and adjusted his tie, occupying his hands purposely. Against his rising anxiety, he told himself he would not hold his bag as a pacifier in front of her like a timid child. He had clung to far too many comforts since leaving her nipple.
“A thunderbolt hasn’t just hit you.” Her brow creased. “Don’t look so shocked.”
Regulus shut his mouth. A small smile tugged at his cheeks. He wrapped his tongue around his upper lip, licking away perspiration, hiding his grin.
His mother was capable of knocking someone’s head off with her anger but she could also lampoon a tense moment with humor.
“Everything alright?” Walburga looked puzzled. “Any urgencies?”
Regulus shook his head. “No.” He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you mean about the meeting?”
He hadn’t planned on reprising the evening's details for his mother. That wasn't to say he didn't want to. It was more that he couldn't.
Walburga hesitated. “Yes.” Her tone was suspicious. “About the meeting.”
“It went well enough.” Regulus nodded once. “Brilliant, in fact.” His mother wasn't stupid yet he was prepared to play as recklessly as he could with the truth without Walburga calling foul.
“Rodolphus was bombastic, as always," he said. "He initiated a keen conversation on the repugnance of Muggle education. His drunkenness and generally appalling manners prevented him from censoring the obscene strategies on his mind, which kindled group enthusiasm. Superficially, at least," he paused. "If more were actually in his mind, and at least as much were in his heart, he'd be twice the Death Eater, and half-interesting to listen to when he was half-baked."
Walburga smirked. “He's not manor born, and his temperament is too vivid and wit too dull. He’s as stupidly excitable as a muggle. Brainless." Walburga tossed her raven locks.
Regulus nodded to show he understood, and thought she looked like an identical representation of Sirius. Deciding if Walburga was handsome or Sirius was beautiful was impossible for Regulus. Either way around, proof of his brother's blood was the embodiment of his mother.
"Bellatrix married a coward to highlight her own courage. That's it." Her voice was flatly resigned. "Control is not a bad beginning for a marriage, after all.”
Regulus could tell she was keeping up her pretense of interest. She was particularly fond of waxing contemptuously on Rodolphus Lestrange, her ridiculous, newly minted nephew-in-law. But he had caught what was riding on her thoughts, and it wasn’t Death Eaters.
“I offered him good old fashioned sympathy, and helped his argument sound more substantial where I could. Not ostentatiously, of course. Or to demoralize Rodolphus. But it surprised me how little he knows of reason.” Regulus frowned.
"He's a megalomaniac and quick to sulk. Both childish qualities," Walburga said. "And you know more of reason then most,my dear. What should surprise you most is how greatly you're shocked when finding others know it so little."
“My views did illuminate some, I must admit. Others were unreadable, utterly impassive listeners." Regulus gave a falsely sad shrug. "Taking into account my newness, I fear my proposals are considered of small importance.”
Walburga looked annoyed. Regulus was uncertain if it was for the Death Eaters or for him. “The black stain on your arm is a few months fresh but the colour of your blood was established long ago by your ancestors, and it will not fade far into the future. Remember this, Regulus."
She stepped forward and folded her arms across her chest, and Regulus backpedalled down a step.
"You already have great influence amongst all wizards." Her cerulean eyes peered into his. "Influence is your birthright.”
Unbiddenly, Regulus swore he heard deathright and lurched like he was about to vomit. He fluttered his eyelids, hoping his unsteadiness passed as sleepiness to Walburga.
"I'm truly lucky for you." Regulus feigned a smile. "And if I could, I would take you into complete confidence as nothing is lost on you, Mother. But,” he uneasily eyed the washroom door, “I’m obligated by my oath to not tell you more than the bit I have, which may have been a bit too much, as it stands.”
"Indeed," Walburga paused, "and thank you for such a compliment." Her gaze fell onto his lily white fingers idly stroking his bookbag strap. "You're a kind son."
Regulus intercepted her sight line. He hadn't noticed that he was working the bag then quickly sensed an irrepressible, lethal tightness in his hand.
Or was it in his heart?
"However, indulge me, my kind son," she started coolly, "you've judged your evening well, even brilliant yet you certainly appear otherwise. Utterly shambolic."
He said nothing. Suddenly, his flesh prickled when it flashed across his mind what his mother had been searching for in his room. Walburga could comb its dusty corners but tonight the truth would remain untarnished. He carried what she was looking for hidden is his mind, and concealed in his bag. Well enough, he prayed.
Regulus was the first legilimens in two generations of Blacks. His family was exquisitely inbred; even his parents weren't separated by more than a few gametes. But it wasn't until Regulus' birth that this exceptional ability reappeared in their bloodline.
Part of his childhood was to practice appearing perfectly empty and unaffected after the cresting waves of someone else's thoughts crashed into his own. For all his life, he trained himself to not express his reaction to what he witnessed as a mental intruder.
He wouldn't speak, or allow his brown eyes to darken as he silently followed others inside. He could look out their eyes and appraise what they saw, extract what they thought, and never produce the slightest convulsion.
Except for tonight, and to Voldemort.
Regulus couldn't believe he had let himself squeak like a vermin. He chased the fucking cheese and got caught in the trap. It was that simple, and the truth that affected him the most, and he refused to feel, was that this trap had likely been set for some time. He knew he wouldn't be killed, but hurt, and he had no word for that feeling.
"Why do you look so hideous if your engagement was so pleasant?" Demanded Walburga.
"Death Eaters are never pleasant, Mother," Regulus snapped, and he hated it. He didn't want his reactions to convey any deeper meaning or strain.
"Yes, of course. Perhaps I've overstated your satisfaction with the meeting," Walburga whispered, studying him. "Nonetheless, I'm curious because my son looks as if he's been chased by all the legions of hell, which speaks for having faced extreme difficulties, yet he admits to having faced none."
Regulus knew he had to think fast and right from here on out if he had any chance of rounding up a shower for himself. A tightly wound ache was settling into his muscles now that the sweat had dried on his body. He didn't want to clutter their exchange with commentary that risked sounding tentative and false.
"From what were you running?" she asked. "I can smell the stink of your spoilt underarms from here."
Regulus turned away. "Please don't be crass."
"Or, to what, or to whom, were you running?" she asked as if speaking to a child. Or an idiot.
"Mother." He couldn't loose this fight. "I wasn't running anywhere."
"Alright," Walburga said, not apologetically. "I'll start with questions absolutely indifferent to armies of evil or your stench. How about that?"
"Certainly." He nodded and turned his face back to his mother. "And I will answer them."
"Where is your robe, Regulus?"
"I was sweating."
"That much is obvious."
"It's in the bin." Regulus sucked air. He made a mistake. "Rodolphus spilled liquor down my front. The alcoholic spirit was surprisingly unvanishable."
"So you threw it in the bin?" Walburga asked, unconvinced.
"Yes," he answered. "Well, no. Vanishing the liquor was proving impossible but vanishing the whole robe was not. Yes, I disposed of it. I vanished my robe."
"What was he drinking?"
"What?"
"Rodolphus. What liquor did he splash down your robe?"
Regulus looked hard at his mother. "Some potent essence he distilled himself. I didn't get the mixture exactly."
"Simple house-elf arts would have relieved your robes of an unvanishable stain, Regulus. Or relieved Kreacher of his wits trying."
"I'm sorry. Tomorrow I'll go to Monsieur Malkin's for a new robe. I'll wear one of Father's if you prefer me to not wear my layabout robe out socially. "
"That's good of you. Yes, and I'll go as well. And, just to satisfy my curiosity, I'm sending out Kreacher to sort the city bins."
Regulus curtly nodded. "Fine."
"Understand this doesn't count as me underestimating your honesty but if you honestly didn't leave your robe in a bin, why say you did?" Walburga cooed artificially. "My darling, tossing even a soiled robe in with muggle waste tells me to speculate on what you're not telling me."
Regulus gave no answer.
"I don't want to say it, Regulus, but I can't remember when you were last like how you are just now." Walburga clicked her tongue. "Are you sneering at me?"
"Am I? I can't see my face. If I am, it's because my need for a proper shower and sleep are causing me to feel despicable. "
"It is late," Walburga agreed. "Did you apparate?"
"Yes."
"Was there a problem?"
"None."
"Well, then did you take a second rendezvous tonight?"
"No. I set out for home, straight away." Regulus stared at his mother, unblinking. He had already answered in his head the question his mother was about to ask.
"Tell me." Walburga lowered her pitch and now it was her turn to sneer. She eyed Regulus’ hand on his bag, looking for a reaction.
He knew it would finally come to this, and he had loosened his grip on his strap in small installments to display his relaxed fingers when Walburga eventually unloaded.
"Did you see your brother?"
Regulus took a breath and flared his nostrils. "Most certainly not."
It wasn't a lie.
At least, it wasn't a lie that he had not seen Sirius tonight.
_______