Chapter Text
The Black family had always had certain values. Debatable ones, at times, but at least they were consistent. Regulus supposed that meant something. They were one of the wealthiest families in England and loved to act like it. Flaunting their riches and status to anyone willing to glance in their direction. Regulus often felt like he was drowning in it, but it was the life he knew.
Walpurga Black had once been a celebrated concert pianist, until she broke her right hand in an accident and couldn’t perform to her own unreasonably high standards anymore. Instead of continuing to play and dealing with her altered state, she took the rage she had against the world and her situation and pointed it towards her sons.
Orion Black was an artist. He made charcoal drawings that sold for hundreds of thousands. He was the sole breadwinner in their household, not that they really needed one. The next three generations of Blacks should’ve been able to get by comfortably with only the fortune in the Gringotts bank. Not to mention their investments and assets.
Their two sons; Sirius and Regulus, were raised like they were women in a Jane Austen novel, or so Sirius used to joke. The qualities they were to possess, according to their parents, were positively Victorian. They both needed to be proficient on the piano forte, be able to draw and read. Singing and dancing were not on this list for the simple reason that their parents despised them. Too much movement was found to be distracting by Orion Black and if they must make sound, Walpurga Black preferred the sound of one practising the piano. Simple as the rest of the list may seem, their parents’ demands were almost impossible to keep up with.
Sirius responded to this by rebelling. It started at a young age, for Regulus could not remember a time when he wasn’t rebelling as much as possible. When Sirius was asked to practice the piano, he took up the guitar. When asked to draw, he started painting. He did read, just not the sort of books their parents would have them read. Besides that he sang and danced as often as he could, much to Regulus’ delight. His rebellion was mostly permitted considering he was still studying music and sketching before putting his drawings to canvas. Most actual troubles began when he insisted on going to Saint Gryffindor’s high school.
Regulus, as opposed to his brother, enjoyed playing the piano tremendously. His mother was both thrilled and alarmed to learn this. Thrilled because she had a child to drill, alarmed because at four years old she already believed too much time had been wasted for him to live up to his potential. Still he drew, he read and he played the piano under the piercing gaze of his parents. His father, Orion, quickly lost interest in him as his drawings weren’t up to par with his standards for the visual arts. He spent most of his time berating Sirius about his wasted potential by painting instead of honing and cultivating his far superior gift for drawing.
Sirius was eventually permitted to join Saint Gryffindor’s, after he spent an entire summer begging their parents every single day. One year later Regulus joined Slytherin College, like all Blacks had before him. Part of the reason they accepted was that Saint Gryffindor’s was a boarding school, meaning Sirius would only be home on holidays. Slytherin College wasn’t, which meant Regulus could practise his piano without “distractions”, which was how their parents tended to refer to Sirius when he wasn’t present. In one year time, Sirius’ behaviour had changed enough for them to keep the two separated in high school, no matter how eager Regulus was to join his brother.
Sirius seemed to spend most of his schooldays making new friends and making trouble.
Regulus seemed to spend most of his schooldays missing Sirius.
Their maternal cousins: Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa, were born under the same looming presence, but they seemed to have beliefs that fitted more easily within that of their parents. After Slytherin College Bellatrix had gone on to study opera at university. When it came to anything artistic, Hogwarts School for the Arts was the best Britain had to offer. Her sister, Andromeda, soon followed to major in theatre. This was deeply frowned upon, to which Andromeda responded by never returning home again. She simply moved from home to her dorm and later from her dorm to her own apartment. Narcissa, the last of Regulus’ cousins, graduated from Slytherin College and joined Hogwarts to study ballet.
Walpurga found her brother’s affinity for the stage beneath her own ideals. He had been an opera singer himself. She believed that piano was the extend of what could respectably happen upon a stage. Dance and song were vulgarities for the rich, according to her. “A lot of yelling and quick moving,” she used to describe it. The delicacy and refinement of the piano, however, she considered to be perfection. Still, she was present at every recital. Dance or song. She was nothing if not a stickler for social status and public image. Andromeda’s performances, however, she graced not with her presence. Theatre she considered the entertainment of the rabble. Vulgarities for the commoners. As mentioned before; unreasonably high standards.
During his fourth year at high school, after an especially awful fight with their parents, Sirius ran away from home. No matter how Regulus had begged and pleaded for him to stay, he had seen no other solution than to leave. The only reason Walpurga allowed it was because he was taken in by their uncle Alphard; Walpurga’s younger brother, who had no children of his own. He was a visual artist; a sculptor. This allowed her to be rid of the child who wrecked her nerves, while still maintaining spotless social graces. “Alphard is much more adapt to provide him with the input he needs for his creational process, since I am, of course, a musician and my husband, Orion, has taught him all he knows already. Such a talent he is, our Sirius.”
As time moved on she spoke of him less and less, and instead used Regulus’ proficiency for the piano as an answer to every question. Such was the Black way, he supposed. Toujour Pur. He didn’t really speak to Sirius after that, aside from the occasional letter. He practically lived next to his best friend from school now, a boy Sirius had exclusively referred to as Prongs. Regulus soon felt replaced entirely.
After high school Regulus got into Hogwarts to further his study of classical music, specifically the piano. The fact that Sirius had started at the same school only a year earlier in the painting course had nothing to do with his decision. Nothing at all. Even though his parents had tried to persuade him on multiple occasions to go study in France. Beauxbatons was the better school, of course. And he was fluent in French, as all Black children were. They even had an estate there, to which his parents would gladly move with him, as Walpurga kept reminding him. There really was little reason not to go. The choice was ridiculously easy from an objective standpoint. Still he chose Hogwarts. The school where Sirius was. His big brother.
But, of course, this had nothing to do with Sirius.
Obviously not.
Absolutely not.
No, nothing at all.
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