The Losing One || Sirius Black

35. Slytherin

Regulus Black

Friday, 1st September 1972.

12th Grimmauld Place

It was, again, hard to decipher how exactly he felt. Regulus and Sirius separated after Christmas break on great terms. Or at least from Sirius' perspective, it was great terms. When it came to Regulus... well... he didn't quite know how to feel.

After that awful Christmas night, all anger he had from Sirius' departure to attend a birthday party, somehow vanished. Regulus just saw that whole thing as something quite silly compared to what had happened. The two of them spent the rest of the Christmas break enjoying each other's company as much as possible. And as much as Orion and Walburga would allow it since Sirius was a bad influence on Regulus.

Regulus could not forget the image of his brother sprawled on the floor in his father's office. It haunted him. The sound of Sirius' lump body falling to the floor echoed in his head at night. He also could not forget the promise he made to himself that awful night. So far, Regulus kept it, he listened and obeyed everything Walburga and Orion asked of him. Even more shockingly, he found all of their requests quite understandable.

It was proved to him that his parents really did do everything for their children on one of the gala nights. The punishments for slouched posture now made complete sense to Regulus. Last gala night was held at 12th Grimmauld Place so Regulus was able to attend it. He immediately noticed how much more respect people showed him as he held his head high with pin straight back. In all honesty, he loved it. Loved the respect, the attention and not being looked at as just someone's brother.

So what if Walburga snapped from time to time and yelled at him. It was for his own good. He realized just how much trouble Sirius was causing for no reason. It was quite easy to listen to their parents and obey certain instructions which were beneficial to them.

Then Sirius came back from school at the beginning of July. Their relationship continued normally with the exception of late-night visits from Sirius because Regulus insisted on not breaking any rules. Thankfully, Sirius respected his wishes, but he still did not respect other rules.

He managed to not get in trouble for his misbehavior at school since he came top of the year, but that didn't mean everything was great for the rest of the break.

Walburga caught him more than once in the library after hours. Regulus figured his visits were replaced with books and parchment. It did sting a little, but at the end of the day, he asked Sirius to not visit him anymore.

Most of the time, when it seemed like Sirius was too tired to argue, their mom would just yell at him and sent him straight to bed. Granted, he did not have breakfast next day, but it was deserved in Regulus' eyes.

He did break the rules, he would tell himself every time he saw Sirius emerge from his room to have lunch, hungry and exhausted. He tried to justify his lack of help towards his brother and the only way he could do that was by blaming Sirius.

Other times, when Sirius wasn't tired, he would talk back to their mother which always resulted in a shouting contest and, at the end, him on the floor after she had casted the afflictio curse. Again, Regulus did feel awful for his brother's pain, but he kept telling himself Sirius deserved it. Why couldn't he just obey the rules? Regulus wasn't punished for almost a whole year and he knew it wasn't that hard to just listen.

Then the Black family went to the Lestrange's wedding.

That's when Regulus figured something out. People did still look at him with respect, but, this time, he was just a brother. They would address him like that instead of his name, which bothered him quite a bit.