Regulus Black

regulus . arcturus . black • “To the Dark Lord…”

 The one moment Diana was ordering a strawberry milkshake for herself and the next she was pushed to the floor as rubble fell all around her. She barely had time to process what was happening neither did she dare lift her head until the sounds of hexes had moved on from the tea shop. She decided there and then that that was how it had to feel in the middle of the war. 

It was only when she looked up that she caught sight of a familiar face with a wound. She batted away one of the hands that was trying to heal her forehead and made her way to Regulus. “I am a little jittery but physically unharmed,” her hand touched the scrape on her forehead and she added, “for the most part.”

Her attention was drawn to the wounds on his body, “You are hurt. Let me help you.” As a future housewife - or so their tradition dictated - Diana was expected to know basic healing spells from a very young age. By the time she had reached Hogwarts she was already so well acquainted with them that she had volunteered her help during Quiditch matches. 

She removed her wand from her robe and rested her hand above the first cut, “Does it hurt terribly?” Keeping busy was her way of redirecting her attention. The less she thought about what might have been going on outside, the better for her state of mind.

“You’re bleeding,” he pointed out, raising his hand like he might touch her face before thinking better of it. He wasn’t, by nature, a particularly tactile person, and felt awkward reaching out to touch others. 

“No, no. It’s fine, really,” he moved to bat her hand away, wincing and demonstrating just how sore he was in the process. When she rested her wand above the cut, he didn’t protest. The sooner he was back on his feet, the better it would be in case the commotion from outside returned. He might have had his wand, but he was still vulnerable on the ground, and even more so if his movement was limited. 

“I mean…” Sirius trailed off, still looking down at the pictures as well. “I don’t know if he would have told us, but he certainly never said anything to me about it either way. Funny. Always assumed he was the one of us worst at keeping things to himself.”

It used to be, that in all the old family photographs, Sirius could see himself–– as he was and as he had been, through the resemblance of cheekbones or sunken in eyes or an artistocratic sneer or a generally defeated air. In these pictures of Alphard, though, he saw who he might one day be. How a sense of freedom and adventure might look splayed across similar features, off basking in the sun of Monte Carlo with his arm around someone he cared about–– because clearly, Alphard cared about this man, whoever he was and whyever they were traveling together. It didn’t make one ounce of difference to Sirius what the nature of their relationship was. 

At the end of the day, he was just glad to see that his uncle had had someone in his corner, someone that he’d chosen to have there and kept to himself, away from the fray and out of the limelight. That meant ––if it could be assumed to follow the patterns that Sirius himself had drummed out since childhood–– that if it was a secret, it must have been something very good. In the Black family, miseries were shared like currency. But good things? Those were hoarded, tucked away where no harm could befall them. Where they wouldn’t have to be shared. Where they couldn’t be so easily lost or taken away.

“No, I don’t think I’ll be on the verge of running out anytime soon,” Sirius said, his voice low and marked, at the very frayed edges, by the first rumblings of a dark chuckle. He’d been raised around money, but somehow that made it more awkward to talk about–– not less. There was always ‘enough’ to go around, so things like prices and bills and budgeting and mortgages were vocabulary of another class. During the few months he’d had to go without, Sirius had actually learned about all that (not that he had a lot of liquid capital to work with). It was a strange, sobering and somewhat uncomfortable thought to think that he would have to go through another round of adjustments. 

He just…didn’t know what to do with it, honestly, and on a deeper level he was also trying to keep his hopes down in case some loophole did prove fruitful and it all got taken away from him again. Sirius didn’t want to need the money; he didn’t want to get soft, to learn to lean on it again. That was a tall order for someone with such poor impulse control, though, about to be living on his own for the first time and with very, very many ideas about how he’d like to spend it all.

“I don’t think I’ll stay with the Potters either,” he mused quietly. “Not after graduation next year, at least. I don’t want to live…here, though. This was his place. I want one of my own. If I sell this off ––or even if I don’t, I guess–– I should have enough to buy an apartment in the city. Or even just rent one, in the long term. So I don’t have to be tied down to just one place forever.” A year ago, this would have been a pipe dream–– a daydream doodled in the margins of his mind, a scandal if he ever voiced it to his parents. Now, though, it wasn’t only possible. It was practical.

“You can do anything you want to do,” Sirius pointed out, more firmly than inspiringly. It wasn’t something he was trying to gently lead his brother toward seeing so much as something he was just…informing him off, hoping he’d wake up and realize it all at once. “And why you’d want to stay–– I honestly can’t wrap my head around. I can’t. And I won’t.” He paused for a few minutes, brow furrowed, grey eyes cast down toward the floor. He could see dust particles floating in the light streaming in through the window, like they were caught in slow motion. “I don’t think you know what you want.” 

Unlike Sirius’ feelings of renewed kinship with Alphard because of the photographs, Regulus had never felt more alienated from a member of his family. Well, aside from the little matter of Sirius leaving, but that was neither here nor there. Keeping such a thing from the family, leading a double life. The Blacks were raised to believe that outsiders were always Others. They alone could be trusted and relied upon. But apparently even Blacks had their secrets, and second lives. 

Regulus did not know the specifics of Sirius’ new found fortune. There were a great many things that he had learned about the family, but the exact net worth of everything? It was difficult to pin down, and something that his father and uncle were reluctant to reveal. No doubt it was part of a ploy, revealing the extent of the dealings piece by piece rather than all at once. Knowledge was power, and the Blacks had always hoarded power. Regulus could only control as much as he knew, and his ignorance meant that Orion and Cygnus could retain complete control. 

And even knowing this, he couldn’t find it within himself to resent his family. He was relieved, if anything, viewing it not as a noose, but a safety net. 

“Sounds like you should sell it then,” he tried to sound cold, callous like he didn’t care that his former favoured uncle’s house would be sold. 

“There has always been much that you have not understood.” Two brothers, who knew so much about one another, who at one time could even anticipate what the other would say or how they would react, and yet understood so little. Sirius might not understand the loyalty Regulus felt, but then Regulus had never understood how Sirius could so easily shuck the shackles or responsibility and duty, how he could walk away from so much opportunity. “It is different for me. They are different.” 

“And you do?” He asked, a challenge that he didn’t feel. Regulus knew what he wanted... didn’t he? To lead the family, to maintain the glory of the Black name. It was what he had always wanted. That hadn’t changed... had it? 

He wasn’t who Mary would have expected to approach her, especially since he had many family members at Hogsmeade today who she could imagine he was worried about. But then again, there was something poetic about it seeing as he was the one to find her during the New Years attack. She might have been not quite in the same state as she had been that night, but she could imagine that she still looked a mess. 

Uncurling herself a little, she looked over her body as if to take stock of how she was. “Um, yea. Yea, I’m not hurt.” Other than a few scratches that were certainly no big deal. She had been lucky to not have anything too serious happen. Lucky, she thought angrily, lucky to not get hurt in another one of these senseless attacks.

“Here we are again, I guess,” she said with what was an attempt at a laugh, but it really came out as pathetic as she felt. She took a breath as she ran her hands through her hair, trying to gather herself. She’d had enough of loosing it in front of people. Then again, what better reason to lose it than being part of a group so clearly hated in a society she used to fell a part of? “Why does this keep happening,” she asked of no one in particular.

“Yes. I suppose we are.” He didn’t know how to answer the question. It might not have been directed towards him, exactly, but he felt uncomfortable as the silence dragged on. He kept his political opinions largely to himself, but it should be no secret that they aligned with those of his parents. Regulus wasn’t really one to stand for anything on his own, and if he couldn’t even stand against Orion and Walburga for the sake of his brother, it was unlikely that he would do so for some muggleborns that he barely knew. He liked Mary, he really did. But at the end of the day, she wasn’t a Black, and that was what really mattered. So he took the coward’s way out. “I do not know.”

“But I am sure that the aurors will get them. Do they not say that they are the best?” His words felt hollow, even to himself. Nothing had happened after New Year’s, or at least evidently nothing that had worked to prevent this attack. If anything, striking closer to Hogwarts was a show of strength. The school was supposed to be secure, a haven. The masked men were demonstrating that they weren’t scared of anything, or anyone. 

Charity gave an affirmative nod to his question, giving a small shrug. “It’s nothing dramatic. My great Gran died a few years back- I miss her but she was ill, so I’m glad she doesn’t have to hurt anymore,” she said softly. The old woman herself had never been afraid of death -she’d simply called it a peaceful slumber when Charity expressed her worry, so that was how the girl decided to view it. She gave a small smile. “I thought I was going crazy the first time we rode up to school though; everyone else kept insisting there was nothing in front of us. Luckily one of the older students figured out what was going on before I made my way to Madame Pomfrey thinking I was hallucinating.”

“He really does, he’s so tiny compared to the ones I’ve seen,” Charity said. She leaned against the pen, studying the creature inside. The thestral itself gave her a quick look, but apparently decided she wasn’t all that interesting compared to Regulus. Chary twirled a loose strand of hair around her finger, glancing up at him. “So you’re taking care of him then?”

“You know, I’ve never even really thought about that. I guess not many students can probably see them. But I’m sure had you made it to the Matron, you could not be the first to do so. It couldn’t be that uncommon, could it?” He wondered just how many students could see them. There hadn’t been many - none, really, that he recalled, not that that meant anything - in his class when they had been shown the Thestral. But then he reasoned that there was probably a fair chance that some of the students would not have let on even if they could see them. How many students simply thought they were crazy until they were shown the Thestrals in class? 

“Yeah. I helped out a few months ago when his mum was unwell. The Professor thought because he already knows me that it would help him while he becomes accustomed to being without his mother.” His parents might not have strictly approved of his interest in magical creatures, but they could hardly argue against extra credit - especially if it didn’t interfere with his other studies. He held up the bucket of rats.  “Would you like to feed him?” 

“I would! I would like that,” she said, perhaps a bit too quickly. She was of an innocent mind and her mind definitely didn’t flash to anything less than above board about being walked home, but she still…did answer a bet too quickly. It was easy to tell herself that she was just eager to assure him that his suggestion was a good one that she wasn’t being strong-armed into. However, there was still a part of her, though, that was eager to snap at the chance to spend some time with him alone. What that alone time was for, she didn’t know or care to examine…but it was what it was. The excitement was there. 

Outside in the corridor, the air between them seemed to shift. Not in a way that she had a name for, but in a heavy way that tangibly settled over them. The noise of the party faded more and more as they moved away from the center of it; once they swung the door to the party shut, it became muffled entirely, like they’d been dunked underwater. Well…underwater, but with a heightened sense of clarity and clear air emerging. It was chilly out there, too, but there were warm patches rising on her cheeks that spread red high on her cheekbones. Goosebumps rose lightly on her arms.

“Hi,” she said, turning to him, clasping her hands in front of herself and smiling at Regulus as if it was the first time they’d run into each other all night. “Sure you’re ready for all these stairs?”

When she moved her hands in front of herself, effectively evading his own little reach for her hands, he shoved his hands in his pockets. He didn’t want to read too much into, and really couldn’t read too much into it, not when she was smiling at him like that. A Dorcas smile was a revelation, like a sunny day after a long winter. 

“No,” he shook his head, smiling. Quidditch aside, he did not really do that much for fitness, and getting to the Ravenclaw tower meant climbing far more stairs than he ordinarily would to get to his classes. “But at least I am not afraid of heights.” 

“And here I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to worry about you disappearing at all,” she said, pointing at him with a wooden mixing spoon, the wrinkled-nose look on her face and genuine smile taking away from the outright cheesiness of the comment and the warmth of the comment that might have otherwise felt too silly to say to him.

“Well I haven’t traveled far and wide enough to see soup served at a cocktail party, but I did once see myself spill soup on a white carpet so…yeah. I think I’m pretty worldly.” She was back in the cooking-portion of the kitchen by then, a bit away from the table, but still managed to (despite previously mentioning her own clumsiness and having provided him no shortage of examples of it over the past school year) pick up the huge cooking pot from the stove and the burner off with her hip. She wasn’t the most coordinated and she often managed to let hand eye coordination get the better of her in simple situations. Still, though, she was familiar in her surroundings and completely comfortable here; it was the place she most excelled, even when it came to picking up objects and smiling at her classmate at the table. 

No sooner could she say oh, sure, they’ll be down in a minute! before her mother was appearing in the doorway, smile on her face and hands that were occupied with pulling her hair into a ponytail.

“Hi, Doe-si-doe,” Agatha said, wiping her hands on the front of her pants and walking over to kiss her daughter on the cheek. “Sorry, I’m going to try to stay for all of dinner tonight, but I need to be at work in an hour and–” The older woman paused, eyebrows shooting up when she caught sight of the strange boy at the table. “Oh! Oh, you weren’t kidding.” She turned to Regulus, still caught off guard but with a welcoming smile on her face. “Hello, sweetheart,” she addressed the Slytherin. “I’m so sorry, I would have come down to say hello sooner; I thought you were Davey. Which –hello there– I can clearly see that you’re not now. Welcome! Welcome, welcome, welcome.”

Smiling, he put his hands up like the brandished spoon was a real weapon, and he feared himself to be under imminent attack. “I am not going anywhere. Or at least, not until I have had the chance to try some of your wonderful dinner.”

He watched Dorcas move around the kitchen, admiring how at ease she appeared. Something of a contrast to how flustered she sometimes could be at the school. It was nice, he decided, to see her looking so relaxed. 

The moment Agatha entered the kitchen, Regulus stood up, almost to attention. For all that he usually made a good impression on parents, they still made him a little nervous. And here he was, an unexpected interloper barging in on Easter dinner. He felt that he needed to make a good impression to make up for it, even despite Dorcas’ assurances that they would not mind. 

Mary felt frozen. The adrenaline rush she had in the village, for better or for worse, had worn off, leaving her with a foggy mind filled with thoughts that she couldn’t quite piece together. Another attack on the village. Another sighting of that mark in the sky. Buildings destroyed. A student dead. Not one she knew well, but still a student. Ava’s brother. They were getting closer and closer until… until what? What would happen to them. Each thought passed by, bringing its own twinge of sadness and fear and anger, but the feelings felt far off. Everything felt far off, like she was viewing it all through murky glass and could only make out general shapes and movements.

She was curled up into herself, hugging her legs and resting her head on her knees , sitting on top of a table in the Great Hall. Even though there were people everywhere, it seemed easy to go unnoticed as everyone frantically searched for their friends and family. She knew she should find the others and make sure their okay. But she was still trying to figure out if she herself was okay. Not to mention, if anything had happened to any of her friends… she wasn’t sure how she would deal with that right now.

Finally, someone broke her out of her bubble. She blinked like someone walking into light for the first time in days, and shook her head trying to get some of the fog out. She could recognize that she was being talked to, but it took her so long to pull herself back into reality that she entirely missed their words. “I’m sorry. What was that?” she said softly, meekly, not even looking at the speaker.

Once back at the castle, Regulus could breathe again. He had taken shelter in Madame Pudifoots, but had been injured by part of the building that had caved in. Luckily for him, it was nothing too serious, and the healers had quickly been able to set him right once they had a free moment. 

It felt like New Year’s, if not worse. There had been more fighting this time, from the sounds of things, and from the wreckage that remained in Hogsmeade. But the atmosphere, the terror and the panic, it was the same. It was terrifying, but if he was honest, a little exhilarating also. 

He was trying to spot his cousins (and yes, perhaps Dorcas and Sirius also) in the Great Hall, but the first figure he recognised was Mary, looking vulnerable and small on a table. He supposed that was fitting, too, given that they had also found each other at New Years. He remembered how frightened she had been then, and couldn’t help feeling for her. Perhaps he might be able to do some good, something to balance that small part of him that had revelled in the adrenaline. He greeted her, and enquired after her wellbeing before she addressed him. 

A warm smile spread across Dorcas’s face at the touch to her arm. She wasn’t in the habit of studying Regulus or his various habits when it came to being physical, obviously, but they hadn’t been friends all that long and it didn’t take her more than a half second to realize that this was one of the only few times that they’d had comforting physical contact–– and likely the first, Easter aside, that he’d been the one to initiate it. Something about that made her feel…steady, almost. Validated, chosen, even in the purely platonic frame of mind she was working to keep. She hadn’t been making their friendship up in her head after all, then; it hadn’t been as one sided as she feared before every tutoring session when she assumed there was a probability of him just…not showing up. 

“Impromptu visits are their favorite kind,” Dorcas confirmed with a nod, and a small laugh to show that she really meant it. “And they have a tendency to forget about a lot of the planned ones, so even those come as a surprise to them sometimes. Very hectic household I live in, for just four–– sorry, for just three people. They’re not all that wild, either just…busy. Scattered. A lot like me.” Her smile was a little more wry; her parents were far better at Being People than she was, and they’d always had the knack for calming down when it was time to. Not her, no matter how much in their image she’d tried to grow. 

“Oh!” She said, blinking her surprise at the question. Her reply didn’t require any hesitation, though: “Yes, of course. Sure. Did you have somewhere in mind…? I know Davey won’t mind at all, he’s talking to his friend Emma.” The sentence was absurd coming from Dorcas, who’d never said more than five words to Emma Vanity before in her life, on top of the fact that the situation was apparently far more complicated than she wanted to stick her nose into, but true to form she managed to nod over into the direction of Davey and Emma standing off in the corner near an ugly status, chatted amiably. “I just need to grab my––” she shook her head, chuckling quietly to herself. “I was about to say coat. I didn’t wear a coat. We’re indoors. I just need to grab nothing, then. Let’s go.” 

“Then I am happy I could oblige them, even if it was unintentional.” He didn’t know how much of her explanation was just designed to make him feel better, and how much of it was truth, but either way it made him feel better about having visited unexpectedly, and in a less than sociable mood. 

“Anywhere but here. I could walk you back to your tower, if you like.” He might not have made the original suggestion with any sort of intention, but he was a teenage boy, and it would have been a lie to say that his mind did not wander back to the Easter break. But it was Dorcas, and he refused to assume that the evening would go in any particular direction, preferring to remain in the moment with her. 

“Emma Vanity?” He asked, curious. It was the second time his old quidditch captain’s name had come up that evening - the first time had been with Davey, He followed Dorcas’ gaze, and was amused by the sight. Perhaps he was not the only one engaging in some quiet inter-house friendships. 

He walked out of the party, and down the corridor before he lightly reached for her hand. He couldn’t take it within the party, or at least not without someone noticing and starting a minor scandal. But he wanted to hold her hand on the walk back to the tower, because he knew she was more tactile than he was, and because he knew she would understand the things the things he couldn’t really articulate: he was thankful for her, for her company and her friendship, and there was no one else he would have preferred to be with. 

For once, Charity was actually up to date when it came to homework. (At least she thought she was - she was walking around in constant anticipation for someone to spring something on her last minute, which had happened far too many times in the past.) It was a bit of an odd feeling, as she couldn’t quite remember the last time she didn’t have a book to read or an essay to be written. Chary supposed that it wouldn’t take long before she was buried in a heap of work again, so she decided to do the best of her free afternoon. 

In the end she just took a walk, deciding that with the upcoming exams a small break where she just did nothing could be nice. Charity had been lost in a daydream when she stumbled upon the paddock containing the smallest thestral she had seen. When she first took the carriages up to school during her second year, the girl had been sure that she’d gone half mad after her friends stubbornly insisted that there was nothing there. A sixth-grader had later seen her dazzled expression and explained what they were. Since then, Charity had been fascinated by the creatures but seen little of them except when riding the carriages from the train. Curious, she stepped forward, unable to hold back a grin as she watched him nudge his current caretaker. 

“Oh, he’s just gorgeous,” Charity said as she walked up to the fence of the paddock, careful as if to not startle the creature. She glanced from the thestral and over to the boy with him, giving him a soft smile. “I’ve never seen a young one before. How old is he?”

He glanced over, initially acknowledging the girl with a nod before he looked back, trying to figure out where the Thestral was. Not that it helped much. He still could not see it. It gave him a strange sense of vertigo, trying to feel for the creature and look anywhere other than where it was meant to be. Once he had figured out where it’s withers - and wings - were, and felt happy that the young colt was going to cooperate at least for the time being, his attention travelled back to Charity. 

“You can see him?” he asked, before he realised how insensitive the surprised question was. If she could see the creature, it meant only one thing - she’d seen a death. Asking someone about the time they witnessed such a thing was probably not appropriate, especially when not particularly familiar with the other person. He cleared his throat, and quickly changed the subject. 

“He’s just gone six months,” he answered the safer question. “But he’s still got a lot of growing left to do...” he paused for a moment, “Or it feels like he does.”

Sirius was already following the same thread as Regulus was. With every turned page, his eyes raked hungrily across the photographs, trying to match up patterns–– he knew everyone in the pictures or he knew nobody at all, with his uncle crossing over as the sole exception to the rule. And even he wasn’t in all of them. A stack of pages later, and there were a couple that were just this stranger, squinting at the camera with a permanently-frozen squint of something that played like amusement–– or was it contention? Either way, the man was happy and Alphard never looked happier than he did when the two were side by side in the small, contained paper frame worlds that the photos laid out. 

Alphard had preferred warmer climates, as far as Sirius knew–– but…well, did he really? Sirius only knew this fact about the old man because he could remember the day he and Regulus, both notably younger at the time, had approached their uncle in this very study (their trips to the house got less and less frequent over the years, but there had been a pocket of time when they were quite common; maybe Orion and Walburga were less controlling back then, or at least had trusted Alphard with their sons more, before it was clear that something in Sirius wasn’t complying according to plan). They’d asked their uncle to accompany them to Poland, for some weekend trip Orion had set up with his business networks–– it was going to be cold and boring, but in the company of their uncle it’d held the hypothetical promise of fun. 

Was it the cold weather Alphard didn’t like, or had it been an excuse to stay behind that weekend, and hang out with whoever this mysterious man was? There had been no thought other than to accept the comment as fact, at the time. They’d never expected a lie, or even a deflection, from the older man. What secrets could there possibly be, after all, among family? It hadn’t taken long for Sirius to find out the answer to that question was ‘a lot,’ but maybe there was even more to it than he’d thought. He’d started questioning himself, his parents, even his brother and cousins–– never Alphard, though. Never until now. 

“Business partner, maybe?” Sirius asked, but he knew it wasn’t the answer as he said it–– he felt painfully naive asking it, in the hopeful tone he’d used, and that was usually a solid mark that he wasn’t thinking logically. Slowly, Sirius raised one of his brows. “Or, you know––” he aded slowly. “He never married.” 

Sirius frowned as well, but he was simply mirroring the younger boy’s expression, an instinct of his. he blinked around the study; he couldn’t imagine staying here overnight, much less forever. “No, I do not want it,” he said, as casually as if he were turning down a cup of tea. “Likely I’ll sell it, if you don’t take it off my hands.” He was crossing a line by suggesting it, but Sirius had been more bold about more offensive suggestions in the past: “You know, after graduation, having a place of your own away from…them. It’s not a bad idea.”

“No, I guess he never did.” The pictures provided Regulus with more questions than answers. Alphard looked happy. It was funny, really, now that Regulus could see the difference. He had never thought that his uncle looked sad before, but now, seeing the twinkle in his uncle’s eye in the photos with the Man from Monte Carlo? He couldn’t deny that there was a marked difference. Maybe Sirius wasn’t the only one who felt trapped by the expectations of the Black Family - he just hadn’t been as good at hiding it. “Do you think... would he ever have told us?”

“... Sell it?” He frowned, eyes searching Sirius’ face. Sirius had been close to Alphard, hadn’t he? Did he really want to cut all ties? Liquidate all of the memories into galleons? “Do you think you will run out of galleons so quickly?”

Despite their similarities, it was undeniable that there were many differences between the Black Brothers also. And not simply that they differed, but were diametrically opposed. Never did it feel so obvious than when the matter of their parents came up. 

He did not need it, had never felt the same desire to distance himself from Orion and Walburga as Sirius - in fact, quite the opposite. He wanted a good relationship with, and wanted to make them proud. Would they take it as a slight, if he suggested wanting his own place? Probably. There was no reason for it, after all. Not when he already had everything he could ever need. But perhaps they might also see it as a coup of sorts, if he returned home with the Deed to Alphard’s house... 

“And you will need a place, full stop. Unless you intend to remain with the Potters.” He sighed and shook his head. “You know I cannot move out of home. And... I do not know that I would really want to.”

“Yes, yes it is,” Dorcas said, shooting him a small smile as she paused what she was working on in the kitchen to smile over at him. “But, I will say, even if I wasn’t fond of them, I don’t think I would be entirely comfortable about them being killed and eaten, so. A little colored by my opinion on that one, but I think the fondness helped get it started. For instance,” she pointed a spoon at him, being a little too cheery for the circumstances, but knowingly so–– she wanted to cheer him up, if at all possible. “I would be very cross if somebody tried to make you into a pie.” 

“Well, we have a garden salad, spiced lentil soup and pasta so I don’t think you want to rely on your fingers for this one,” she said, actually happy to have something to do while she bustled around the kitchen, looking back at him every few seconds to make sure he was still…okay, for lack of a better word. “We could try serving them up cocktail party style but I’m not dressed for it, and I don’t think any good can come from me trying to balance food on a tray.” She made sure to catch his eye for the last bit, as she set a stack of dishes down on one of the placemats and prepared to distribute them among the places: “Trust me.” 

“Well, that is good to know. Though, personally, I do not believe I should make a very good pie. Too lean. Possibly a little gamey.” He returned  her smile. “I don’t think you have to worry about me disappearing into pastry any time soon.” 

“At the table will be fine,” he chuckled at the image  that Dorcas painted. He smiled as she caught his eye. He didn’t yet feel normal, but he certainly felt better than he had when he had decided to set off on this little venture to visit Dorcas. It was difficult to feel glum when a girl who seemed to literally embody sunshine was also in the room. The fact that he desperately wanted to repress any and all feelings to do with his uncle helped too. “Though I have seen soup served at a cocktail party before, it never ended particularly well. Too messy.” 

“Are your parents going to join us?”

“No, no, not at all–– it was a pleasure having you over,” Dorcas insisted, an earnest nod of her head capping it off. A reassuring smile had spread across her face, but she walked it back quickly, just in case she’d misspoken. After all, he had come by after a funeral, not for a casual springtime tea. “Not that…I mean, it wasn’t a pleasure, given the circumstances, I didn’t mean to imply that I was glad about–– although, hey, you definitely wouldn’t have come over at all if it hadn’t been–– again, not that I’m glad about it, I just,” she stopped smiling down at the floor and taking a small, bracing breath. “It was good to see you, and if you had to go somewhere I’m glad that it was somewhere I also was. I would have worried, if I’d heard after.”

“And, hey,” she added, trying to perk the conversation up a little. “My mom is, like, obsessed with you if that cheers you up any. Not in a creepy way, I just mean she liked you a lot. She’s taken to calling you the little prince. Not that you’re little, or…it’s not a condescending thing. She just thinks that you’re very well-spoken, and polite, and impressive-looking. And you have a nice coat. That was all supposed to be a compliment. It took a weird turn there. She liked you, is all I meant.”  

“No, no. Doe, it’s alright. I understand.” He smiled at her, and gently brushed a hand across her arm. It was possibly the first time that he had initiated physical contact between them (perhaps, other than their kiss), but while it was brief, it felt like a big thing for him. More than anything, he didn’t want her to feel awkward about having seen him, even if the circumstances weren’t ideal. “It was good to see you, too,” he affirmed, “I am not sure what I would have done without you, actually.”

He knew he usually left a good impression on parents, He was, as far as most of Society was concerned, the perfect pureblood son. But then a lot of them also had something to gain by endearing themselves to him, or pretending that they were charmed by him. Dorcas’ parents didn’t. And while he didn’t think that Dorcas would have told him if her parents had disliked him, he didn’t think that she would make up anything either. 

He was, however, a little embarrassed that she called him little prince. It wasn’t how he really wanted to be seen by Dorcas, or her family. He smiled wryly. “Well, I suppose I am not particularly tall. And seeing as my name does mean king, she isn’t too far off the mark.”

“Well I liked her too. In a mum way not in a...” he shook his head. Apparently, awkward phrases could be catching. So he amended. “It was good to meet your parents. I felt very welcomed by them, even despite the very impromptu nature of my visit.” 

He knew there was still quite a lot of party left, but he didn’t really feel like making small talk, and there was an imminent threat that Slughorn would attempt to interrupt them to introduce someone or another. “Do you want to get out of here?” he asked, “I mean. If you don’t think Davey would mind.”

“The Man in Monte Carlo,” Sirius repeated, his voice quiet–– barely a whisper, for he hadn’t bothered putting any of his vocal chords to work to propel the speech forward. It was strange enough that he and his brother were all alone in this huge, empty house, speaking to one another. It was strange enough without their voices echoing all around them, marking the evidence of their traitorous almost-camaraderie that Sirius knew would probably end up hurting him again. What difference did it make? He was hurting a lot, already. He could afford to be dragged up into the light a little, even if he knew he’d be dropped heavily back down. 

Sirius was lucky enough to not see the photo of Alphard and Cygnus–– lucky, because he didn’t think he’d have been able to handle it, at a time when he felt so perilously drawn into the family and more forcefully expelled from it than ever before. It was a paralyzing paradox, but paradoxes were what being a Black was all about, at the very core. It was the thing that drove everything else. He looked up, though, when Regulus held up the photo of his uncle and the Mystery Man in America. His brow furrowed, and he was moving toward the album ––toward his brother–– before he realized where he was going, hand outstretched and his voice sticking.

Sirius had never been to America; it was on his list, but at first he’d never wanted to make time for it, and then he didn’t have the money or means to go. He could go, now. He could go and find the place where his uncle had once stood and…then what? It wouldn’t bring them any closer; all it meant was that he could go halfway around the world and still be reminded about how much he missed his uncle. “Keep turning pages,” he said, not realizing he’d given the command (sounding entranced, like the photo album was a hypnotic force that had full pull over him. “Where else had they been?”

Another pause, as he waited for Regulus to answer and then, seemingly out of nowhere, still not looking at the younger boy: “Do you want this house?”

Regulus held the book out for Sirius, but at his brother’s command he took it back, holding it so that Sirius could look if he wanted to as he slowly turned the pages. He was quite good at doing what he was told, Regulus Black, and even more so when he was also curious about the task. 

He flipped two pages, not lingering for very long. They were photos of family members that he barely recognised, and probably from a time before he was born. He didn’t need to study them for long to spot the Black Family hall marks: dark hair, high cheekbones, and aristocratic, haughty expressions. 

It didn’t take long for the man to appear again. 

“Switzerland... I think. Though I suppose it could be anywhere in the alps... or any snowy mountain for that matter.” He tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “I thought Alphard preferred warmer climates. 

He flipped the page a few more times, similarly engrossed in this strange mystery of the man that they had never met, but had evidently been a large part of Alphard’s life. He flipped to a photo of the pair in a gondola in Venice when he realised something - in the photos it was always just the pair of them. Or if there was a group, there was no one in the group who Regulus recognised. “You know, he is never in any of the photos with the others.” 

Sirius’ question broke him from his little meditation. He looked up, frowning uncertainly. “No.” He wasn’t sure if it was a test or not. “Do you... not want it?”

“I’ll make sure to cross it off my list,” Dorcas said, smiling at him with a wry, more amused smile than she worse around most–– but she was settling into his sense of humor with time, and she’d found it genuinely, appreciably humous. The comment about the attic caught her attention. “You just keep them locked away up there? How could anyone give you a painting so awful that it needs to be hidden until they’re around? I mean, I know art is subjective but…people with eyes…” She shook her head slightly, tut-ing her tongue. “Sometimes I think people only pretend to like certain pieces of art because they think it will make them look terrible clever. That, or it’s just…over my head entirely. I’ll never get it.” 

“I’m sure he’s not bad at it, but you’d have to ask Mary for a definitive answer on that one,” Dorcas pointed out with a smile. She couldn’t place her finger on it, she didn’t know why, but something like bubbling hope was rising in her chest–– which was silly, obviously, and couldn’t have meant anything at all. There was nothing to the question, most likely. It was just a polite one, small talk. “His girlfriend.” There was nothing to that, either–– to his little ‘oh’. There couldn’t have been, not at all. But he hadn’t brought anybody with him.

“I am happy to take over hiding-you duty,” Dorcas said with a solemn little nod, like she’d just accepted an actionable mission. “I think I’m getting quite a bit of practice at it lately, actually.”

“Well I personally believe that some of them were intentionally awful. It’s just the sort of petty passive aggression that some distant family members would display, gifting something dreadful then taking pleasure in knowing it’s awful, yet must be displayed occasionally.” He shrugged. His mother put House Elf heads on display above the stair case, so what did he know about interior decoration? “But I do agree with you. I have been to several art exhibitions where it felt as though the artist was having a joke at the fawning critics’ expense.”

“Oh.” He seemed to be saying that a bit lately. He didn’t quite manage to squash the smile that followed the realisation that Davey had a girlfriend. A girlfriend who was not, in fact, Dorcas. Someone might have thought to mention that little fact to him earlier. 

“They do say that practice makes perfect. Not that you haven’t already proven to be quite adept at it.” His smile turned sheepish. He was a little embarrassed about Easter, despite all that Dorcas had done to put him at ease. “I do apologise, again, for barging in on you, unannounced like I did.”