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1. The Veil
Death felt different from what he had imagined.
The moment the green light of Avada Kedavra struck his chest and he fell through the Veil, Sirius Black’s vision did not immediately plunge into darkness.
Everything before his eyes seemed abruptly paused. Bellatrix’s hateful face still wore that triumphant, twisted expression, and Harry’s heart-rending shouts still echoed in his ears.
He struggled to regain control of his body, but he could not move. All he could feel was himself falling, falling into an unknown place whose destination he did not know.
In the end, he gave up struggling. He let himself fall, and even thought with a hint of self-mockery:
Sirius Black, the man who hated being controlled and confined more than anything in the world, was letting fate push him on to his next stop.
The fall seemed to last a long time, or perhaps only an instant—Sirius could no longer perceive the passage of time at all.
Out of sheer boredom, he thought he would keep thinking of Harry, of James, of all the unfinished things. But strangely, what finally slipped into his consciousness was not any of that, but a name long buried deep in the graveyard of his memory.
Regulus.
His brother’s grey eyes, so identical to his own, intruded at an inopportune moment and disrupted all his thoughts.
Fifteen-year-old Regulus, watching him quietly and indifferently as he ran away from home; eleven-year-old Regulus, casting him a distant glance from the other side of the Great Hall when the Sorting Hat called out Slytherin; eight-year-old Regulus, appearing in the corridor as if nothing had happened when he was being chased and scolded by that old hag, and blocking her for him just a little; newborn Regulus, tiny, wrinkled, neither crying nor fussing.
He did not know why he was thinking of that weak younger brother. After Regulus chose to join the Death Eaters, Sirius thought he had long ago condemned him to death in his own heart.
After an unknown length of time, he finally fell into a mass of mist.
He stood in the grey fog without even the solid feeling of his feet on the ground. It made him feel like a ghost, but looking down, he was still wearing those robes, and his fingers still held his wand, its cold touch utterly real.
He took a step forward, and the fog parted automatically around him. A street appeared before him. Rows of terraced houses stood in uniform order, with grim black iron railings, faded brick walls, and that gloomy yet respectable air peculiar to London. He knew this place all too well; after all, he had grown up here.
His gaze locked automatically onto the house number in the very middle:
Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.
Sirius stopped where he was and did not go in. He did not know why he had come to this place after death. It was the greatest joke fate had ever played on him—he had never imagined that after death he would be shoved back into the place he had spent most of his life escaping.
Every part of him resisted this damned place, but an irresistible force pushed him little by little toward the black iron gate.
The gate opened by itself before him.
2. The Cave
When Regulus Black died, no one saw it.
He knelt before the stone basin, hands gripping its rim, the burning of the poison and an unquenchable thirst spreading from his throat through his internal organs, as if someone were pouring molten iron into his body.
He could have called Kreacher to take him away as well, but he simply bore everything in silence.
His wand was still tucked in the inner pocket of his robes, undrawn. His fingers groped over the stone floor and found the fake locket. He slipped the prepared note into it, pushed the locket into the middle of the basin, and watched it slowly sink beneath the poison.
He pressed the real locket into the house-elf’s hand and, with his last strength, instructed:
“Take it. Destroy it. Do not tell them. Do not let anyone know.”
Kreacher did not answer, only obediently took it. In a daze, he thought he heard the sobbing of the loyal house-elf.
Regulus wanted to say something more, but the extreme thirst made his willpower collapse entirely—
He scooped up a handful of icy lake water.
The next second, his ears were filled with the sound of countless Inferi beneath the lake waking from their slumber. Cold, clammy fingers seized his ankles.
His body was dragged backward, his back slamming against the rocks.
But at that moment, his thoughts suddenly became clear—
Sirius.
This name he thought he had long forgotten surfaced little by little from the depths of his memory. Sixteen-year-old Sirius, frowning and casting him one last deep look as he walked out of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place; twelve-year-old Sirius, calling to him outside a compartment on the Hogwarts Express: “Reg! Come here!”; nine-year-old Sirius, running fast down the stairs at Grimmauld Place while their mother shrieked curses behind him; six-year-old Sirius, riding a toy broomstick and saying to him, “I’ll take you flying.”
The lake water closed over his head.
Regulus did not struggle. As he sank into the darkness, there was even the faintest trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
He thought:
If Sirius knew, he would probably say, “You idiot.”
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself back at his front door. Beside the familiar black iron gate was a fog so thick he could not see through it.
Regulus hesitated for a moment, then pushed the gate open.
3. Reunion
Sirius stood in the entrance hall for a long time.
The smell in the air was exactly as he remembered—the faint mustiness of old wallpaper, the cloying sweetness of floor wax, and the decaying, arrogant silence of a pure-blood family. It was as if, if he took two more steps forward, he would hear his mother’s shrill voice from the drawing room, or the sound of Kreacher muttering curses under the stairs.
But there was nothing here; the whole house was as quiet as a tomb.
Until he heard the soft clink of a teacup settling on a saucer.
The sound came from the direction of the drawing room, restrained and clear, as if deliberately meant for him to hear. Sirius tightened his grip on his wand, strode through the corridor, and pushed open the drawing room door.
Regulus sat in the armchair by the fireplace, legs elegantly crossed, holding a cup of steaming black tea. He wore the dark robes Sirius remembered him often wearing the last year he saw him, the collar immaculate. This pale-faced eighteen-year-old boy carried a calm that did not belong to his age.
Hearing the noise he made, those grey eyes turned toward him. His tone was calm and indifferent, as if greeting a relative who rarely visited:
“You’re here.”
Sirius stood where he was and suddenly felt like an uninvited guest barging into someone else’s home.
That absurd feeling lasted only a moment before it was scattered by rising anger. He let out a cold laugh, leaned against the doorframe, and crossed his arms over his chest:
“Merlin has a sick sense of humor. After I died, not only did he toss me back into this damn house, but he made me face the ghost of a Death Eater.”
Regulus had little reaction to the provocation. He simply lowered his head, took a sip of tea, and continued in that calm tone:
“Tea’s in the kitchen. Help yourself.”
Then he really did stop looking at Sirius, picked up a book from the side table, and, as on countless evenings in the past, shut himself away in another world with that maddening indifference.
Sirius’s chest felt unbearably tight. He wanted to slam the door and leave, to overturn that tea table. He wanted to grab that bastard by the collar and demand why—why he had stayed in this house, why he had obeyed them so much, why he had chosen that path, why he had died so young, why he had never once looked at him while he was alive.
But he only turned and walked out of the drawing room.
Sirius began to wander aimlessly through the ghostly reflection of the old house.
Everything was too real, so real that he could hardly bear to look closely. The initials he had secretly carved at age seven were still wedged in the crack of the fourth stair; the mounted house-elf heads at the end of the corridor still hung there, their empty eyes staring at him. He pushed open the door to his own room and saw the curtains still half-pulled-down as they had been the day he left at sixteen. Quidditch posters on the desk were slightly curled at the edges, and on the bedside table lay the mischief badges he and James had exchanged in their third year.
He shut the door almost as if fleeing.
Soon he drifted to the door of Regulus’s room. The sign on the door still read: “Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black.” He hesitated, then pushed the door open.
The room was so tidy it did not look lived in. The bookshelves were filled with thick magical texts. A Slytherin banner hung on the wall, and in the corner the wardrobe stood half-open, with several dark robes hanging neatly inside. The only thing that seemed out of place was a small Sneakoscope on the desk.
Sirius stood at the doorway and did not go in. He did not want to admit it, but his understanding of this younger brother seemed to have been severed completely after he left home. This room was like a specimen preserved from another world, belonging to someone he had never truly known.
Agitated, he went downstairs and turned straight into his father’s study.
His gaze was quickly drawn to something that should not have been there—in the center of the desk, among yellowed family trees and property deeds, lay a locket.
A golden casing, serpentine patterns, and a faintly gleaming emerald set in it. Sirius recognized it at once as Slytherin’s locket. He did not know why such a thing was in the Black house. As far as he knew, it clearly was not part of the family collection.
He hesitated, then reached out and touched it.
In that moment, he felt himself swept away to a dark, damp cave. Icy lake water flooded into his mouth and nose, his limbs seized by countless slippery hands dragging him down into the dark abyss.
A hoarse voice echoed weakly in his ears:
“Take it. Destroy it.”
“Do not tell them. Do not let anyone know.”
“I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more.”
Sirius snatched his hand back.
He staggered back, his back hitting the bookshelf, and several thick books clattered to the floor. He gasped for breath; although he was dead and no longer needed to breathe, the suffocating feeling was so real he had nowhere to escape from it.
He had seen it all. He saw that dim cave, the house-elf’s tears, Regulus kneeling before the stone basin, alone, scooping up that cup of deadly potion and drinking it down.
He saw the boy’s final expression—
calm, relieved, even with a faint gentleness as if a heavy burden had been lifted.
Sirius felt his chest hurt even more than the moment the Killing Curse had struck him.
4. Older Brother
When Regulus pushed open the door of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, he made no sound at all.
He had expected to hear his mother’s shrill scolding, his father’s coughing, or the light patter of Kreacher’s footsteps. But the entrance hall was empty, with only grey-white daylight filtering through the cracks of the high windows.
He looked down at his arm; there were no water stains, nor that Dark Mark that could never be removed. He was still wearing the dark robes he had often worn before leaving home. Yet he knew he was probably dead, because the burning sensation that had nearly torn him apart in the cave had vanished completely.
There was another, more important reason—it was unbelievably quiet here. Although Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place had never been filled with real liveliness, it had never been silent either. That kind of silence had always been suffocating. The Black family’s three hundred years of “always pure” were like mold in the corners of the old house—silent, but eating away at everyone within it.
He walked slowly through the empty corridor, past the mounted house-elf heads. Without realizing it, he found himself at the door to Sirius’s room. The door was ajar, and on it were still those Muggle posters stuck with Permanent Sticking Charms.
The room’s furnishings had not changed at all from what Regulus remembered. The bright red-and-gold decorations sprawled messily across the room, clashing starkly with the old house’s gloomy grey-green arrangements, just like Sirius himself.
Since Sirius had run away from home, Regulus had never entered this room. He hesitated, then slowed his steps and went in.
Something stood out abruptly on Sirius’s cluttered desk. Regulus recognized it: it was Sirius’s wand, though compared to how he remembered it, this wand seemed to bear a few more marks of time and wear.
Regulus hesitated, then gently touched it.
The next second, everything before his eyes shook violently. Then scene after scene unfolded around him—
The first scene was of fifteen-year-old Sirius laughing on the Hogwarts pitch. He rode a broomstick, his red-and-gold scarf flapping in the wind. James Potter flew beside him and shouted something; Sirius looked back at him, his grey eyes filled with the high spirits and untamed freedom of youth.
The scene froze for a moment, then slowly faded of its color. The next image gradually unfolded: nineteen-year-old Sirius riding a modified Muggle motorcycle, his somewhat disheveled long hair flying in the wind. He was still smiling, but compared with four years earlier, that smile held a few more shadows.
This scene too slowly faded before Regulus’s eyes. Then he saw Sirius pinned in the mud by Aurors, still smiling, but his eyes utterly hollow.
He saw the iron gates of Azkaban close one by one, and in the darkness a skeletal figure curled up. He saw a large black dog swimming across the freezing sea, living rough and surviving on rats, but after seeing his godson, a hopeful light burned in his eyes.
Then, it was the year Sirius returned to this house and was forced to live here. Sirius drinking alone at the kitchen table, turning his father’s study upside down, shouting at Kreacher in the corridor, trading insults with his mother’s portrait, calling Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place “a tormenting prison.”
Finally, amid the chaos he saw a flash of green light—Sirius falling through that fluttering Veil.
Regulus yanked his hand back.
He gasped for breath, even though he did not need to breathe. He leaned against the corridor wall and slowly slid down to sit on the floor. He had never imagined that Sirius—who had left home at sixteen without looking back, who he had always believed would live freer than anyone—had ultimately failed to escape either.
They had both been imprisoned in the same house by different means. One through obedience, one through rebellion, and in the end both had been shattered into pieces.
After a long while, Regulus stood up again. He straightened his robes and wiped the dampness from his face. He walked slowly downstairs, turned into the drawing room, and sat down in the armchair by the fireplace.
For some reason, the teapot was full. He poured himself a cup. He knew Sirius was on his way.
He heard footsteps from the entrance hall—heavy, hurried, carrying anger. He lowered his head and took a sip of tea.
Then, he calmly looked toward the door.
5. If There Is a Next Life
When Sirius burst into the drawing room, Regulus was still in that same posture, like a motionless statue. Looking at his younger brother’s pale, young face, untouched by the passage of time, Sirius suddenly felt an uncontrollable surge of pain in his chest.
He said, somewhat incoherently:
“I saw it all—the cave, the locket... I didn’t know—”
Regulus set down his teacup and interrupted:
“You don’t need to explain.”
Sirius strode over and stopped in front of him:
“No, I insist on saying it. Why didn’t you tell me then? All you had to do was write a letter, or have Kreacher bring a message—”
Regulus’s expression finally changed a little:
“Bring a message to you? To the you who would not even speak the name ‘Black’ anymore?”
Sirius’s words stuck in his throat. Regulus continued:
“Sirius, the day you left, I stood behind the window and watched for a long time. I thought then that if you asked me, I would go with you. But you didn’t ask anything.”
“I—”
“I don’t blame you,” Regulus cut him off. “I’m only saying that from that day on, ‘telling’ was no longer an option between us.”
Sirius felt as if all the strength had been drained from him. He stepped back and sank into the chair opposite.
He buried his face in his hands, and a muffled voice came through his fingers:
“When you switched that damned locket, did you know you would die?”
Regulus answered calmly:
“I knew.”
Sirius pressed:
“Then why did you still go? Are you stupid?”
Regulus let out a soft laugh:
“Because someone had to go. If I didn’t do it, who else would?”
Sirius scrubbed his face hard:
“You were only eighteen. If I had known...”
Regulus replied:
“It had nothing to do with my age.”
Sirius said nothing more. His face remained buried in his hands, as if his head were too heavy to bear. Silence spread between them, like the grey fog that never quite lifted.
After a long while, Regulus shook his head and broke the silence:
“None of this is your fault. I was just too tired.”
Sirius looked up but did not know what to say. The corner of Regulus’s mouth curved, but the smile did not reach his eyes:
“If there is a next life, I don’t want to be your younger brother anymore. Being your younger brother is too tiring.”
Sirius looked into those grey eyes. In them there was a little pain, a little relief, and a great, great weariness.
Sirius felt himself about to be drowned by an unnameable pain.
He looked at this boy whose life had stopped forever at eighteen, who had carried the weight of the whole family for him and finally died alone in the depths of a cave. He had so much to say to him, but he was as if under a Silencing Charm, unable to utter a word.
The two remained silent for a long while before he slowly nodded:
“All right.”
Then he could not help adding:
“Then in the next life... let me be the one to follow you.”
Regulus looked at him for a long time, then smiled again. This time the smile finally had a little warmth, like the last fading gleam of dusk:
“Better not. You’re so annoying; following me around would be a nuisance.”
Sirius also smiled, a smile uglier than tears. His voice was a little choked:
“I know I’m a bastard.”
Regulus retorted with mock seriousness:
“No, you’re just noisy. I’d fear for my ears.”
The curve of Sirius’s mouth became a little more genuine than before. They talked for a long time after that—about childhood chases on the stairs, about the night Sirius left at sixteen, about Regulus’s solitary days in Slytherin, about the darkness of Azkaban, about Harry, about the Order of the Phoenix, about all the mistakes there had been no time to mend.
“If there is a next life,” Regulus suddenly spoke again, and this time his tone was no longer so cold, “I don’t want to be your younger brother.”
Sirius waited for the next sentence. But Regulus did not repeat the words “being your younger brother is too tiring”; instead he said something new:
“Because I want to try being your older brother.”
This time, the smile at the corner of Regulus’s mouth finally reached his eyes:
“That way I can stand in front of you.”
Sirius turned his face away and coughed:
“Dream on. I’m not giving up the position of older brother.”
Regulus said lightly:
“Then let’s try in the next life.”
6. The Fog Lifts
In the end, neither convinced the other.
Sirius stood up, walked over to Regulus, and held out his hand. Regulus looked at that hand, then stood as well and gently took it.
Both of their fingers were cold, but when their hands clasped, they seemed to regain warmth.
Sirius glanced back at everything in the old house one last time:
“Let’s go. I don’t want to be trapped in this damn house even after death.”
Regulus retorted:
“This is your home.”
Sirius snorted. After a while, he added in a low voice:
“It only barely counts if you’re there.”
They crossed the entrance hall and pushed open the heavy black iron gate. The fog outside was thinner than when Sirius had arrived, its edges lit through by brightness. The street was still indistinct, but ahead a road was slowly taking shape.
They walked out side by side. Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place closed silently behind them, like an old book finally finished.
Neither of them looked back.
As they walked, the fog thinned little by little, and the brightness ahead grew stronger. They did not know where they were going; perhaps there was not even a next stop, but Sirius suddenly felt it did not matter.
Looking at the faint light ahead, he suddenly said:
“In our next life, we’d better not be born into that family.”
Regulus, for once, did not argue:
“Fine. I agree.”
Sirius continued:
“We’d better not be sorted into two different houses.”
Regulus laughed softly:
“Then you can come to Slytherin.”
Sirius reflexively retorted:
“Dream on. You come to Gryffindor.”
Regulus did not continue this pointless, childish conversation with him.
He simply said softly:
“If there is another life, I want to be your brother properly.”
Sirius tightened his grip on his hand:
“Not if. Definitely.”
They walked into the ever-brightening light. Ahead there was no Veil and no Avada Kedavra, no freezing lake water and no clammy Inferi, only two people who had been lost for too long, walking forward side by side.
The fog had lifted completely.