Chapter Text
The summer before Hogwarts was the first summer Regulus Black was allowed to ride the Tube through London on his own.
His parents had discussed it for a long time, longer than Regulus had thought necessary, but that was how decisions were made in the House of Black. Every action was weighed, not when it came to Regulus’ safety, but when it came to the possible consequences for the Black name.
Walburga didn’t like the idea of her younger son traveling through the Muggle world on his own at all. She was already struggling with Sirius, who kept taking part in Muggle things during the summer holidays, and she had no desire to fight that battle with Regulus too. Orion, on the other hand, had a more practical way of looking at it. It wouldn’t hurt the boy to see how miserable the Muggle world was, he said. A lesson for life.
To Regulus’ surprise, his mother gave in.
Regulus had hardly any contact with the Muggle world, even though he had grown up in the middle of London, in the heart of Muggle England. He knew almost everything only from stories. They didn’t even own a television, not because they couldn’t afford one, but because Walburga considered it important to keep as much Muggle influence out as possible.
Regulus also wanted nothing to do with Muggles. At least that was what he told himself. Still, he sometimes wondered, mostly in secret, what their lives looked like when they could never cast so much as a single spell.
That was how he ended up traveling across the city twice a week to take piano lessons from one of England’s most famous teachers. The old wizard lived in a narrow townhouse near Notting Hill Gate and insisted that his students come to him by ordinary means. Whoever wanted to learn from him had to make the effort of getting there on their own.
The lesson lasted an hour, the journey there nearly half of one, and he sat in the same carriage every time. Second carriage, second row of seats, right by the window, from where he could see everyone getting on and off.
Regulus quickly grew fond of the rides. He didn’t like the Muggles themselves, of course. Many of them looked exactly as unpleasant as his parents had always claimed, like they were all made from the same few parts. But every new station brought new faces, and with them new possibilities to make up stories.
Regulus loved writing stories. No one would ever see them, but that hardly mattered. He wrote them for himself.
There was, for example, the pot-bellied man with a mustache and a sad little patch of fuzz in the middle of his scalp, who pretended every time to be reading the newspaper, even though Regulus could clearly see that he never turned more than one page and spent most of the time dozing. Undisciplined, his mother would say, and Regulus echoed the thought. In his story, the man was someone who had eventually lost everything. The wife. The dignity. The hair. The only thing left to him was a newspaper he didn’t even read.
Regulus’ stories all had one thing in common. They had no happy ending.
But it wasn’t only the stories. At some point, Regulus realized that the Tube itself had become something else for him. A place where no one knew his name, no one paid attention to how he spoke or how he sat or whether he held his back straight enough.
For two weeks, everything stayed the same, and Regulus could have grown comfortable with this small world of ever-same faces and self-invented tragedies.
In the third week, at the third station, a boy got on, and Regulus noticed him immediately.
He didn’t know why. Perhaps it was the way he moved. Careful and careless at the same time. Or maybe it was simply that he was new.
Regulus had always watched for shifts. In rooms, in faces, in the space between words. At home, it had been necessary.
The stranger looked a year or two older than Regulus. He was very tall for his age and slim, with light brown hair that was slightly too long, falling into his forehead. He hadn’t bothered to cut it.
He wore flared trousers and a jumper so colorful that Regulus thought it contained every color imaginable. The strange thing wasn’t the colors, though. It was that anyone would wear a jumper like that in the middle of summer.
Around his nose were countless freckles, so many that they almost blended together, as if all the sun of the summer had gathered there.
Then Regulus saw the scar that cut straight across his face, and his gaze caught on it. The stranger scratched his arm and briefly pushed the jumper up, only for a few seconds, but it was enough. Beneath it, thin lines ran across the skin, some whitish and smooth, others still red, barely healed. From that moment on, Regulus couldn’t look away.
In his stories, scars had always been traces of adventures or battles. Sirius had some too. Only his didn’t come from adventures.
The stranger sat two rows in front of him and looked out the window, and Regulus studied his neck. The place where the hair ended and the skin began.
When the Tube stopped at the next station, the boy stood up and got off without so much as a glance in Regulus’ direction.
Regulus watched him until he disappeared among the people on the platform.
He hoped he would come back. Because he couldn’t yet think of a story for him.
To Regulus’ good fortune, two days later, he got on the same carriage again.
This time, Regulus took out his notebook. A small, black book with a leather cover that he actually used for piano lessons. For fingerings and practice notes.
That day, he opened a blank page and began to write everything down.
How the stranger sat. Leaning slightly forward, shoulders drawn up a little, as though he wanted to take up less space.
Which hand he used to hold on when the train jolted.
It was the left.
The stranger had a book with him. Regulus couldn’t see the title, but it seemed to be a good book, because his eyes darted across the pages and his thumb was already at the bottom edge, ready to turn.
Over the next weeks, he didn’t appear on every ride, but often enough that Regulus began to count on him.
When he didn’t get on, Regulus was disappointed.
He didn’t ask himself why.
With every ride, the pages filled faster. First with individual observations, then with entire patterns.
A web of notes spread across the pages of his book until it seemed to take on a life of its own.
He wrote down which stations the boy got on and off at. How long he read. When he looked up. Whether he moved his lips when he read.
Whether his hands stayed still or whether he tapped his fingers on his knee when the train stopped longer than usual.
Regulus realized that none of his stories fit. None properly explained how the stranger might have come by the scars.
Had his parents hit him too, the way they hit Sirius?
If someone had given Regulus a wish at that point, he would have wished to learn where the scars came from.
He would have wanted to be there when he got them.
The days between Tube rides were long. September was drawing closer, and with it schoolbooks, robes, and the last errands. Hogwarts should have consumed Regulus entirely. He had been looking forward to it for as long as he could remember.
And yet he now felt a strange pull in his chest whenever he pictured the rides coming to an end.
He didn’t understand why this Muggle didn’t fit any story.
His stomach clenched at the thought of the scars. Once, he imagined what they would feel like. To run his fingertips over them, slowly, ridge by ridge. To find out if they were rough or smooth, warmer than the skin beside them or colder. Would he flinch if someone touched them?
Regulus had never thought anything like that about Sirius’ scars.
The door to his room flew open without warning, and Sirius stood in the frame, the way he always did, legs apart and without so much as the decency to knock first.
Regulus startled. His heart suddenly beat hard against his ribs, as if Sirius had caught him doing something, even though he hadn’t done anything. He had only been lying there, imagining things no one but he knew.
“Come down for dinner.”
“Now?”
“Mother says we both have to come.”
“I’ll be right there. Give me a moment.”
Sirius raised an eyebrow. “You’re being weird. Weirder than usual. Something wrong?”
Regulus rolled his eyes. “Go. I’ll be right there.”
When Sirius had disappeared again, Regulus smoothed his hands over his hair and clothes, like he could brush the thoughts about the Muggle boy away and no one would ever know.
He walked down the familiar dark hallway, past the portraits that followed him with silent gazes.
In the dining room, Walburga and Orion were already seated, upright as pillars. The table was set, the food not yet served. Kreacher stood beside Orion, adjusting his chair with the exaggerated care he brought to everything concerning his master. The candles cast yellowish light on the enormous green tapestry bearing the Black family tree.
Sirius dropped into his seat. He was in unusually good spirits, and Regulus mistrusted him immediately.
“A friend is coming over for dinner,” Sirius said, reaching for his water glass, perfectly calm.
Walburga looked up. “Excuse me?”
Sirius shrugged. “I thought we’d try something new. Company. Might lift the mood.”
Walburga’s expression turned cold. She looked a snap away from freezing the entire table.
“Why must you always step out of line?” she asked, her voice quiet and cold.
“We’d already made plans,” Sirius said. “I can hardly cancel on him now. At such short notice, that would be terribly rude. What would people think of the House of Black?”
The tone was mocking enough that Regulus saw Walburga’s hand tighten around her glass.
Then she said slowly, placing each word on the table as carefully as if she were using tweezers:
“He is at least a pure-blood, surely.”
Sirius hesitated. Only briefly, and shook his head.
Walburga brought her fist down on the table.
“You expect me to dine in my own house with a half-blood?”
Orion threw the napkin he had just placed on his lap back onto the table.
“Kreacher, bring me something stronger at once. I’m starting with the brandy.”
“Very well, Sir,” Kreacher croaked, and vanished.
Walburga looked at Regulus.
“At least one of my sons is still capable of behaving like a Black.”
Regulus hated these comparisons. He wanted to obey his parents, and it didn’t come as hard to him as it did to Sirius. But he hated that they turned everything into a contest between them.
The strained silence was broken by a ring at the door.
Since Kreacher was currently pouring the brandy, Regulus stood up without thinking and went to the door. Only halfway there did it occur to him that his mother would likely disapprove of him opening it himself.
He did it anyway.
There he stood.
The boy from the Tube.
Regulus didn’t move.
His fingers lay around the cold brass handle. Everything around him grew quieter while a restless humming spread through his mind, like magic just before it reveals itself.
The boy was taller than Regulus had remembered.
Or perhaps he had spent all this time remembering only his face and forgotten that there was also a body.
Sirius came up behind him, put a hand on his shoulder, and pushed him aside, as if Regulus were just another piece of furniture in the way.
“Ignore him, Remus. He’s always this weird. Come in.”
Remus.
The name lodged in Regulus’ mind like a fishhook.
He shaped it silently with his lips, still standing in the open doorway, watching the two of them as Sirius led him down the hallway.
Remus.
Each time the name sat a little heavier on his tongue.
At dinner, Remus sat between Sirius and the empty corner of the table, and Walburga asked questions.
“You attend Hogwarts, I presume?” Walburga asked.
Remus looked up, but before he could answer, Sirius said, “Of course.”
For a tiny moment, it was silent. Then Remus simply nodded.
“What family do you come from?”
“Lupin,” Remus said quietly, but without faltering.
Walburga said nothing at first. Regulus couldn’t tell whether the name meant anything to her. Perhaps it was enough that it meant nothing.
“Which side is magical?”
“My father’s.”
Walburga nodded once. Her gaze travelled over him slowly, from his face to the far too warm jumper. A different one this time, orange-brown with stripes.
“You’re remarkably warmly dressed for late August. Are you sickly?”
Remus glanced up only briefly. “No,” he said.
Sirius set down his glass a little too hard. “Mother.”
Orion lifted his glass without looking up. “The boy is eating with us, Walburga. He isn’t applying for our family crypt.”
Walburga merely arched an eyebrow.
Remus sat with his shoulders slightly drawn in, his hands in his lap. His voice was softer than Regulus had expected. Quieter too.
Regulus absorbed every word. The small clearing of the throat before an answer and the way Remus held his glass with both hands.
So he was a half-blood.
A small fire began to burn in Regulus’ chest as he understood what that meant. He would see him at Hogwarts. Perhaps in the corridors, in the Great Hall, in the library.
Without thinking about it for long, he asked, “What house are you in?”
Remus glanced briefly at Sirius.
“Gryffindor,” Sirius said in his place.
The word fell heavy into Regulus’ stomach.
Not Slytherin.
He’d sit at a different table, sleep in a different tower, and he’d hate Slytherin.
Walburga threw her fork onto the table and wiped her mouth with a curt, sharp motion.
“We agreed that the word ‘Gryffindor’ would no longer be spoken in this house.”
Sirius didn’t answer, and Remus looked down at the roast on his plate and didn’t move again, the fork motionless in his hand.
The rest of dinner remained tense, knives scraping on porcelain and silence that felt like a room in which too many people were holding their breath.
Regulus thought only one thing, over and over:
He’d see him.
Even without the Tube.
Gryffindor wasn’t Slytherin, but Hogwarts wasn’t large enough to lose someone entirely.
He hated that Sirius was friends with him. Sirius had all of it without having to do anything for it, while Regulus sat here burning every detail into his mind.
But he’d see him.
That was enough.
For now.
When everyone stood and the chairs scraped across the floor, Regulus quickly seized Kreacher by the arm, hard enough that the house-elf flinched.
“Bring me the glass of Sirius’ friend to my room,” he whispered so quietly that his lips barely moved. “Without anyone noticing.”
Kreacher looked at him in confusion, his large eyes even wider than usual, and for one terrible moment Regulus worried he’d ask why.
Then he would’ve had to answer.
Would’ve had to invent a reason smaller than the truth.
But Kreacher didn’t ask. He only nodded slowly and obediently, the way he always did.
From the window, Regulus watched them step out through the front door. Remus looked relieved to be leaving the house and its atmosphere behind.
He didn’t look up. He had most likely already forgotten that Regulus had been there at all.
Regulus ran upstairs to his room, closed the door behind him, and leaned against it until his breathing steadied.
The glass was already on his nightstand.
He walked toward it slowly, sat on the edge of the bed, and took it in both hands. Carefully. The most precious thing he owned.
He studied it for a long time, turning it in the light, and he could see the spot where Remus’ lips had touched the rim.
A faint imprint, almost invisible.
But to Regulus it was as clear as a marking on a map.
Everyone else had had water, with the exception of Regulus’ father, who had been drinking brandy, and Remus.
He had chosen grape juice. In doing so, without meaning to, he’d given away a small secret. Perhaps he preferred something sweet.
A dark drop still remained at the bottom of the glass.
Regulus stared at it for a while.
He knew that what he was about to do wasn’t normal.
Not something that could be explained.
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the spot where Remus’ lips had been. He held them there, barely breathing.
The touch was cool, smooth against his lips. Like skin he had never touched.
Then his tongue slid slowly over the rim.
His breathing grew heavier. He lifted the glass and tipped the last mouthful in.