Diptych

Chapter 24

Up in the dorm, Regulus curled his hands around his knees and stared at the diary for what felt like a lifetime. Dumbledore had told him to get a good night's sleep, but he couldn't trust himself to fall asleep with Tom's influence so near, with the constant threat of what he might do in the back of his mind, and so he endeavoured to simply stay awake. He'd avoid sleep for as long as he possibly could — at least until he was off the grounds and the possibility of Tom striking down another student while he slept was removed. That was the plan. However, at some point his eyes felt so heavy that the sheer effort of keeping them open was more than he could bear, and he was painfully aware that sleep would soon be upon him, no matter how hard he fought it. In one last attempt at preventing anything bad from happening, he shoved the diary a little further away from himself, tucked his hands beneath his chin.

Having been so aware of his descent into dream, it should have been completely apparent to Regulus that he was dreaming. But as the images changed, morphed with the disconnected thoughts of a sleeping subconscious and all of Regulus' squashed down fears, it felt just as real as anything that day had.

First, he was in Hogsmeade and Sirius was gone. Or... not gone exactly, just not there anymore. He was away running with his friends, stashing arms full of sweets and toys and clothes that were nothing like Regulus had ever seen before. Regulus called to him, but the distance was too much and the wind carried away his attempts.

Next, there was a monster. He was sure of it. He was smaller now, fingers difficult to bend and not yet accustomed to holding a wand. His shorts rubbed at his kneecaps as he ran from the noise he'd heard. Hogsmeade had morphed into somewhere familiar, a forest or something that Regulus couldn't quite place. He tried not to cry as he ran, knowing that he shouldn't. Knowing that it wasn't 'becoming'. But the noise was getting louder and louder and he was powerless to stop it. Before he succumbed to the monster's wrath, Sirius appeared from somewhere behind him, wielding a handmade sword, foil wrapped haphazardly around a tree branch. His smile and easy laughter stole away all of Regulus' fears, rendered them truly childish as he jabbed at the air and swore to protect his brother with his life.

Finally, he felt more at home in his bones. The image had shifted once more, and the clothes he was wearing were the clothes he'd fallen asleep in, and his hair was a little longer than it had been in his earliest years at Hogwarts. Regulus was walking through the empty castle, and the diary was clasped between tense fingers. He didn't know where he was going until he got there, standing nervously outside the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. As soon as his surroundings became apparent to him, he knew that he was waiting for his brother. His voice was already calling out to him, though he barely recognised it as his own. There was no moment in which Sirius emerged from the common room, or a moment in which Regulus felt his rasping, desperate calls come to an end, Sirius was suddenly just there. The heavy portrait guarding the common room was out of sight, and bright light was now pouring in through tall windows.

"Sirius, I need you to come with me," he told his brother in the dream, obviously seeing no need for explanations. Sirius would understand everything as well as he did.

"No," his brother told him, arms folded and eyes not on him. He wasn't avoiding Regulus' gaze intentionally, in anger or embarrassment; he just had no interest in looking in his direction, would rather stare off into the distant corridor, the one beyond the reaches of Regulus' dream.

"Please? I went to Dumbledore, just like you would have done."

"No."

"He said that I should ask you to—" Sirius did look in his direction then, to cut him off, show his irritation.

"Just go away, Reg."

"I can't do it without you, I don't know how!" The space between them was growing, the ground shifting beneath their feet to carry Regulus backwards, Sirius growing smaller and smaller in his vision. The walls at either side of him were closing in, and all that he could hear echoing through the school was his own pleading. His brother could still hear him that time, despite the growing distance, could still respond.