Chapter Text
Regulus had never been the target market for the romanticisation of the school holidays - especially not the endless six-week stretch in the summer. He had begrudgingly sat through one too many American movies that insisted he ought to be having the time of his life in that sticky space between July and September, but those long weeks had lost their golden appeal somewhere around his tenth birthday - he had long since given up any hopes of enjoying them.
Mercifully, this year would be his last - and it had even started on a high note, as if the universe wanted to yank the rug out from beneath his feet with one final flourish.
Year Twelve had come to an anticlimactic end on a Friday afternoon, sealed in an envelope of just-good-enough exam results. Impressive enough for Dad to offer a rare pat on the shoulder, and disappointing enough that Mummy pursed her lips before conceding, a touch begrudgingly, that Sirius hadn’t bothered with sixth form at all - so, on a mere technicality, Regulus was miles ahead.
And it was all downhill from there.
On Saturday, Rabastan had insisted he come to his last ever ‘end of the year’ party - but with Bas leaving for university in September, it hadn’t felt like much of a celebration. It was, thankfully, the closest Regulus would ever come to the red-solo-cup stereotype that British teenagers desperately tried (and spectacularly failed) to emulate. He never knew quite what to do with himself in rooms full of half-familiar faces, surrounded by drunk acquaintances, all with a talent for turning useless small talk into something vaguely meaningful.
Still - as far as awkward parties went, it had been fine. No major disasters. Nothing so humiliating that it replayed on a loop, keeping him up at night - but nothing that had made lingering on the periphery all night feel worth it either.
By Monday, they were in France.
There had been a time when Regulus would have spent the whole summer in the sun catching freckles - and loneliness wouldn't have crossed his mind once. By seventeen, most of his cousins had outgrown family holidays, and Dad was far too busy to waste a whole month abroad. This year, they had managed a single week - just his parents and Cissa.
It had been fine.
The break moved in uneven, blurry chunks after that - they were back in London by the following Monday, and all hopes of a groundbreaking summer were quashed. July was dying, and August was already shaping up to be another predictable letdown.
The few friends Regulus had to speak of were missing in action: Rabastan had moved up to Edinburgh to settle in early, Dorcas was summering in Greece, and Cissa - who barely qualified as a friend given her obligation-by-blood to entertain him - was tangled up with her boring new boyfriend.
It was difficult not to take it all incredibly personally.
While the rest of the world soaked up the stifling heat surrounded by friends, Regulus was left to languish about the house like an afterthought, quietly lamenting his lot. Not so quietly his father hadn't noticed, of course - and promptly declared it high time Regulus got some work experience under his belt.
Regulus certainly wouldn't be the one to voice it - but he wasn't sure he was getting much out of sitting behind the desk usually occupied by his father's secretary. He would have much preferred to be sulking in a window seat at home, but at least Dad's office came equipped with air conditioning, which was more than could be said for Grimmauld Place.
Most days passed in a slow, fluorescent-lit blur. Regulus would sit at the oversized desk, half-reading emails that weren’t meant for him and doodling in the margins of someone else's stationary. The office was sterile in a way Grimmauld Place could never manage, all polished surfaces and humming machinery. While Regulus could appreciate the lack of familial ghosts lurking in every corner, he felt no less haunted - though he put it down to the artificial chill.
Someone had left a post-it note on the edge of the desk, instructions scrawled in looping blue ink. They amounted to little more than: 'Answer the phone if it rings, and check for emails every so often - should be quiet!'
And it was.
So quiet that when the phone finally did ring, Regulus jolted, nearly knocking over the desk lamp in his haste to answer. The highlighter he had been toying with slipped from his fingers and rolled across the desk, and in the scramble for the receiver, he smudged the neat row of vivid pink dots he'd been absentmindedly inking along the inside of his wrist.
"Hi," he started, wincing as soon as the words left his mouth - there was a certain lack of polish to that greeting, and he kicked himself for not preparing something better, some confirmation of competence. "Sorry, uh..."
Someone on the other end snickered.
Regulus grit his teeth. "Can I help you?"
"You’re not Rachel."
The voice was smooth and amused - accented, though Regulus couldn't place a location. It wasn't unpleasant, exactly, lilting in all the right places, but by virtue of being laughed at, Regulus was inclined to bristle anyway.
"No, I’m not," he said evenly. "If you’re looking for the secretary, she’s on holiday."
"Anywhere nice?"
"I don't..." Regulus hesitated. "Somewhere in Portugal, I think."
"Lovely."
The stranger seemed in no hurry to get to his point.
Regulus drew in a steadying breath, adjusting the receiver to sit in a comfortable nook between his ear and shoulder as he reached for a notepad. "Did you want to leave a message?"
"No," the man replied brightly, still smiling through the line. "I’d like to speak to the Minister directly, please."
Regulus blinked. "The... what?"
The silence that followed buzzed with unspoken derision. Regulus was in the unfortunate habit of sounding incredibly dense under pressure - but thankfully, the stranger showed a touch of mercy.
"Mr. Black," he clarified, still light, but unmistakably restraining a smirk. "I assume I've reached the right department?"
"Oh!" Regulus almost smiled - Mr. Black. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that his father was important - in any grander sense of the word. Beyond the vague notion of politics, Regulus had never been entirely sure what he actually did all day.
"This is the Department of Social Affairs," he confirmed. "But - uh, Mr. Black is in a meeting right now. I can take a message."
The stranger snorted. "That's exactly what Rachel always says."
"Yeah?" Regulus allowed himself a smirk, twirling his pen between his fingers. "Then I must be getting the hang of this."
"You’re not a bad substitute," the stranger admitted, smooth and unhurried. "But here’s the problem - if you don’t put me through, I’ll just keep calling. Rachel’s getting good at deflecting, but you don’t strike me as the type to hold down the fort for very long. I think you might cave."
"I won’t cave," Regulus insisted too quickly, gaze flickering toward the office door. He lowered his voice, just in case. "I’m not paid nearly enough to interrupt a meeting."
"No? How much would it take?"
"Oh," Regulus scoffed. "Probably thousands."
A low whistle came through the line. "You’re expensive."
"Mm."
Silence stretched - long enough for the line to crackle faintly with static.
The stranger's voice returned - softer, closer. "For thousands, I’d expect a lot more from you."
Regulus laughed uneasily. "For thousands, I’d consider putting him on the line. That was the deal."
"Yeah?" the stranger snickered. "Do you have a price list for extras, sweetheart?"
A sultry note had crept into his voice that made Regulus falter. He had just started to enjoy his first real conversation of the day, half charmed by someone capable of batting back sharp wit, but that kind of loaded banter always made his skin crawl. It left him feeling like the punchline to a joke in a language he had never been taught.
The smile wavered on his face. "No. I don’t do that sort of thing."
"Pity."
People could never just be fucking normal, could they?
"Look," Regulus sighed, squaring his shoulders. "If you don't have a message, I should probably clear the line."
"But I do have a message."
"Yeah?" he asked, pen hovering above the untouched notepad. "Go on, then."
Silence lingered, so long and complete that Regulus thought the line had gone dead - until a slow exhale crackled softly through the receiver.
"I’m still working on my delivery."
Regulus scoffed. "Well, when you’ve had enough time to rehearse, why don’t you call back?"
The stranger tutted. "Rachel is never rude."
"I'm not Rachel."
"No. You’re not," the man agreed. "She always gives her name; Department of Social Affairs, this is Rachel. She's very good."
Regulus rolled his eyes, leaning back in his creaking desk chair. "She didn't leave a note about that. Maybe I'll get it right next time."
"Why don’t we practice?"
"Practice?"
"Sure. Let’s start over."
The voice on the line sounded young - young enough that Regulus doubted he was anyone important. Important people introduced themselves - they came with titles and efficient agendas. This one came with nothing but an impish lilt to his voice that made playing along seem completely harmless.
"Alright," Regulus snickered, straightening up in his chair. He took a breath and adopted his best phone voice, stolen from his mother. "Department of Social Affairs, this is not Rachel."
The stranger's laugh was warm and rich - it heated Regulus from the inside out in spite of the steady hum of the air conditioning.
"Better," he mused. "But I wanted your name."
Regulus smirked. "You should’ve specified."
"I should have," he agreed, unbothered. "That’s on me. Go again."
Regulus sighed. "Department of Social Affairs, this is Regulus."
There was a beat of quiet on the line.
"Regulus?"
"Yeah."
"Like - the star?"
"Mm."
A short, incredulous laugh crackled through the speaker. "So you’re telling me Orion Black has a ‘Regulus’ answering his phones now?"
Regulus winced. "Well… yeah. We all have... yeah."
The moment hung heavy, the static thrum of the silent line filling the space where Regulus longed for something clever to say. He was starting to get the distinct feeling he had made a mistake - no one had told him not to give out his name, and Rachel apparently gave hers out willingly enough, but his own screaming gut instinct sensed a subtle shift.
The stranger’s slow breath rasped against the receiver.
Regulus narrowed his eyes. "What?"
"Nothing. Just thinking."
"Well, don’t strain yourself."
That earned a soft huff - not quite a laugh, but certainly close. "You’re funny, Regulus."
He allowed himself a faint smile. "Funnier than Rachel?"
"By a mile."
There was something almost contemplative in the way he said it, a softness that hadn’t been there before, but Regulus swore he sensed something familiar, too - the slightest drop in energy, a subtle pull away.
He tightened his grip on the receiver, glancing at the wall clock - still half an afternoon to kill.
"If I’m that funny," he started carefully, "don’t I get to know your name?"
"Now names matter?" The teasing lilt had returned. "I thought we were just voices in the void."
"We are," Regulus allowed, sitting forwards to rest his elbows against the edge of the desk. "But I bet you gave Rachel your name. It wouldn’t be fair to leave me out."
"Rachel’s very assertive."
"I’m sure she is," Regulus agreed dryly. "But I’m the one answering the phone today, so I'd like to know your name."
The line hummed. Impossible though it was, Regulus was sure he could hear a slow smirk forming on the other end; a gleaming grin was taking shape in his mind's eye.
"Barty."
Regulus raised a cool brow, noting the way he said it - measured, expectant, as if hoping for recognition to spark. He tapped the pen against his notepad. "Barty...?"
A scoff. “Just Barty.”
“You say that like I’m supposed to know who you are.”
“Maybe you are,” Barty shot back, suddenly sharp. “I know plenty about you, Regulus. I know who your father is. I know where you work. I know you’re a little prude who doesn’t know what to do when someone flirts with you.”
It felt an awful lot like the sun had slipped behind the clouds on a golden afternoon - one minute, warm and easy, the next overcast and exposed. All traces of playfulness had evaporated, leaving only the hum of the air conditioner breathing down his neck.
Regulus’s grip on the phone tightened until the plastic creaked. "Bold assumptions..."
“They weren't assumptions.”
He swallowed through the thickness in his throat, choosing his words carefully; “I never told you who my father was.”
Barty laughed, as if he had been caught out - it was a low, pleased sound that curled into Regulus like a hook. “Is that the part you took umbrage with?”
Regulus shoved away from the desk, as if proximity to it had somehow betrayed him, dropping back into the chair with a scowl. “If you’ve got nothing productive to say, I’m hanging up.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Still breezy. Still light.
But something about it made Regulus pause.
It was rare for Regulus to feel much beyond the crushing weight of apathy, and while he couldn't say the way his stomach dropped was pleasant, it was certainly an interesting change. He sat still for a beat, listening to the humming silence.
Then, he set the receiver back into the cradle with a decisive click .
The air conditioning whirred on, steady and indifferent, but it did nothing to cool the heat crawling up the back of his neck.
I know plenty about you…
No one knew much about Regulus - not by design, but he supposed he should be grateful for that fact. He sincerely doubted Barty was anything more than a bored nuisance, the latest in a long line of people with too much time on his hands, and too many numbers at his disposal.
It wasn't the first time his father had attracted the ire of some persistent prankster. Dad wasn't always popular with the public - one summer, the phone at Grimmauld Place had rung so often Mummy had yanked it straight from the wall.
That was the same year Dad had hired a new driver, taller and broader than the last, always parked at the curb at all hours of the day. Sirius had loathed him - he was tasked with shepherding them to school, making it almost impossible to sneak off and bunk.
But that had been years ago.
There was no real indication that Barty was any more dangerous than your average telesales agent - and yet, Regulus’s heart still jumped into his throat when the phone rang again, shrill and insistent.
It was irritation, not fear - at least, that was what he told himself as he reached for the receiver, raising it slowly to his ear.
Silence.
Then -
“We literally just practiced, Regulus. You should know what to say.”
Regulus let out a sharp scoff. “What do you want?”
“That,” Barty sighed, “is very fucking rude.”
Regulus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, well, you’re very...” he glanced over his shoulder at the closed door, lowering his voice to a hiss, “... fucking annoying.”
Barty tutted. “And here I thought we were bonding.”
“We weren’t.”
“Mm. You wound me.”
Regulus rolled his eyes, shifting in his seat to get comfortable.
God, he was enjoying himself - in a perverse sort of way, and wholly against his better judgement. Barty wasn't exactly being kind to him, but at least he was acknowledging his existence, which was more than anyone else had bothered to do that afternoon.
Still, silence lingered - and a very small part of Regulus began to worry he wasn't nearly interesting enough to keep Barty on the line.
Eventually, he sighed. "How's the message coming along?"
“I’m getting there,” Barty answered smoothly, like he’d been waiting for the cue. He didn't let the silence hang around that time. “Tell me something. What do you know about the Department of Social Affairs, Regulus?”
That was a loaded question - one Regulus knew to tread very carefully around.
“I know the phone rings sometimes, and I’m supposed to refresh the emails every half hour.”
"Yeah?" Barty asked, the faint rustle of movement audible through the line. "What was the last email about?"
Regulus glanced at the screen. Nothing confidential - just the usual inbox clutter.
“Reminder about the Bank Holiday.”
“Gripping.”
Regulus snorted, scrolling further. “Rachel’s got a voucher for a free glass of Chardonnay at some tacky bistro in Stratford. Someone updated the recycling policy. Oh - and good news - I was finally sent the nuclear launch codes.”
Barty scoffed. “So, the fate of the world is in your hands?”
“Looks that way,” Regulus sighed, spinning his chair toward the window. The sun blazed across the skyline, too bright to look at directly, but he tilted his head anyway, letting it sear red behind closed eyelids. “Luckily, I’m a very benevolent wielder of power.”
Barty didn’t respond.
Regulus opened his eyes, the silence stretching just long enough to feel intentional.
Before he could fill it, Barty cut in - low and amused. “I doubt that very much.”
Regulus snickered. “You think you’ve got me figured out?”
A beat of silence.
Then - a grin, unmistakable in his voice, wide and cutting. “I know I have, Black.”
The dial tone shrieked in Regulus’s ear before he could fire back.
Chapter Text
Working with Dad was nice - in a way.
It gave Regulus a chance to see him in a different light - not as the vague, parental figure presiding over the kitchen table, but as someone who knew precisely what he was doing. Regulus had always got the sense his father was out of his depth at home, hiding behind the rustle of a broadsheet in the same way Regulus hid behind a book in the common room at school.
Of course, he had seen his father animated before - but only ever on television. He came alive in a suit and tie, with a podium neatly separating him from the masses; on more than one occasion, Regulus had wondered if they swapped his father out with a body double for public engagements.
But after spending a week in the office and seeing the transformation for himself, it made complete sense - Regulus could see the winning politician in him now.
And it was... nice.
Nice, that his father smiled broadly in his direction as the meeting let out, rather than staring straight through him like the small assembly of grey civil servants shuffling past his desk. Regulus had straightened instinctively to let them pass, but he doubted any of them would have noticed if his chair had been empty. None of them looked his way, and he couldn’t say he minded much.
By that point in the afternoon, Dad had already shrugged out of his blazer, slinging it over one arm. With his sleeves rolled up and that easy, heat-hazy smile, he could’ve passed for one of the boys on the rugby field at the end of term - one of Rabastan’s friends, aloof and effortlessly cool.
"Ready to go, Reg?"
Regulus liked that, too - Reg. At some point that summer, his father had picked up on his preference, and it was starting to sound almost natural when it came out of his mouth.
Trying his very best not to smile too brightly, lest his enthusiasm scare Orion off, Regulus scrambled to his feet to power down the terminal. It must’ve been a good day by Dad’s standards; he didn’t even huff impatiently when Regulus paused to straighten his notepad, just waited in the doorway with one polished shoe propped casually between the door and frame.
Most of the other offices had cleared out for the day, save for the low murmur of voices behind one closed door and the faint clatter of typing somewhere deeper in the building. Regulus fell into step beside his father with ease, matching him stride for stride until they reached the lift, waiting and empty at the end of the corridor.
“Learn anything useful this week?” his father asked, jabbing the button for the ground floor.
Regulus hesitated. Technically, he had learned plenty - how long a highlighter could last when pushed to its limits, how to reload the paper tray without jamming it, what to say when the phone rang. None of it felt especially useful.
"Not much," he muttered.
Orion shrugged. “Make the most of next year, then. If you don’t want a job like that, you’ll need the grades.”
There was no bite in the comment, but it still landed hard. Regulus sometimes wondered if his father remembered he had two sons; he spoke as if Regulus had ever shared Sirius’s cavalier attitude toward academic responsibility.
“You saw my mock results,” Regulus murmured, aiming to keep his tone mild. “I think I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t get complacent, Reg.”
Well - at least Dad knew his name now.
The atrium was blinding - a prism of glass that fractured the late afternoon light into a dizzying kaleidoscope. Beyond it, the city gleamed gold. There was something about a London sunset that made even the greyest office blocks look almost Baroque - all gilt edges and soft burnish.
Regulus raised a hand to shield his eyes, watching Orion cross to the front desk to summon the car.
The glare blurred the street beyond, turning passing pedestrians into eerie, drifting silhouettes.
After a day under cold fluorescents, the sudden wash of natural light felt surreal - too warm, too bright, too much.
Squinting, Regulus reached into his pocket for his phone.
One notification.
[17:10] Cas: Miss you!
[17:28] Reg: Miss you too. Saw your post - Greece looks nice.
Greece did look nice.
That morning, he had swiped through an endless stream of sun-drenched limestone villas and artfully arranged gyros, sick with envy. Dorcas always smiled like she was keeping a nasty secret, but behind her oversized Matsuda's, it had looked downright savage. The artfully extended leg - posed exactly as Regulus had shown her - was just salt in the wound.
Fuck Dorcas.
And fuck Bas. And Cissa. And Sirius too - just for good measure.
It seemed Regulus had left his good mood up in the office, but before he could spiral into a truly tragic pity party, Orion whistled from across the atrium.
Regulus shoved his phone away and jogged to catch up, grateful for the fresh gust of air from the sliding doors.
Outside, the heat hit like a wall. The thick tang of hot asphalt rose instantly, clinging to the back of his throat - it was the kind of smell Regulus could only tolerate in short bursts. The waiting car, engine humming and blissfully air-conditioned, was a small mercy.
And yet - he paused as a thought occurred to him.
“You got a weird call today,” he called, raising his voice over the hum of traffic as Orion rounded the car. “Meant to tell you.”
Orion paused, one hand resting on the roof. “What kind of weird?”
"It was hard to pin down exactly," Regulus shrugged. “Just some guy who said he knew Rachel - the secretary?”
His father frowned. “Did he leave a name?”
“Uh... Barty something - wouldn’t give a last name.”
To his surprise - and quiet delight - his father laughed. Not a dry scoff or a tired smirk, but a full, genuine laugh that softened the sharp lines of his face. The corners of his eyes crinkled in a way that reminded Regulus distinctly of Sirius, and for a moment, the resemblance hit too hard.
A sudden wave of homesickness rose in his throat, hot, and stupid, and wholly unexpected.
Regulus swallowed back an involuntary sound - but thankfully, Orion was already moving, still chuckling as he slid into the back seat.
“I thought that lunatic had been sectioned.”
Regulus composed himself and clambered in after him. “What - what would he be sectioned for?”
"He’s got some fixation on a policy of mine," Orion sighed, lowering his voice as he glanced toward the driver in the rearview mirror. "I wouldn’t worry about it - but I wouldn’t entertain him, either."
Regulus dropped his voice to match. “I didn’t say much.”
"Good," Orion was already patting down his pockets, attention drifting. “From what I’ve heard, he never makes much sense anyway."
That didn’t quite add up, but Regulus couldn't decide if his input was welcome. He glanced sideways, uncertain.
"I thought he sounded sort of... well-spoken, actually," he ventured, thumb slipping into his mouth to chew on uneasily. "Educated, even."
Orion scoffed. “Just hang up next time, Reg.”
“Well, I did, eventually," Regulus muttered. “I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to.”
If he had been holding out for some vague nod of approval, he would have been sorely disappointed. Orion merely grunted, already lost in his emails, scrolling with that same half-focus he gave most after-work conversations.
Regulus told himself it wasn’t a slight.
If anything, it meant his father trusted him to entertain himself.
Which was easy - Dorcas had text back.
[17:32] Cas: I gave Mum all your best tips - did your dumb little leg trick too!
[17:34] Cas: Got some half-decent candids.
[17:37] Reg: I was wondering who took those.
[17:37] Reg: You don’t need me at all now your mum’s got the hang of it.
[17:39] Reg: Looks good, though.
[17:41] Cas: I’ll tell her you approve. How are you?
[17:41] Reg: Fine, yeah. You?
[17:42] Cas: Good. Heard Bas moved up early.
[17:43] Reg: Yeah, but he forgot about The Fringe. Apparently he’s surrounded by artsy assholes. Can’t step outside without being sold tickets to a sad one-man show.
[17:44] Reg: Call it karma, or whatever.
[17:44] Cas: Hope he drowns in tourists.
[17:46] Cas: How’s work? Are you getting paid?
[17:47] Reg: Yeah, in valuable life experience.
[17:47] Cas: Fuck that.
[17:49] Cas: We’ll go out when I’m home, yeah?
[17:49] Reg: When are you back?
[17:50] Cas: August 27th.
[17:51] Reg: Wow, we’ll have almost the whole summer left.
[17:53] Cas: Brat. We can still get coffee. It’ll be fun.
Coffee.
The whole world seemed to be going out for it lately - short and sweet, lasting an hour at most. Regulus already had one coffee date penciled in for Sunday. Sirius had sent him a pin for some shabby little café in Camden, though whether he would actually show up was anyone’s guess.
Dad would know what coffee meant.
Orion had a way of answering questions with absolute certainty - the kind of quiet, dismissive confidence that made you feel stupid for asking in the first place. He’d know if an invitation for coffee was a show of charity, or if people actually enjoyed it. If it meant something, or nothing at all.
Regulus almost asked.
He even opened his mouth, the words hovering on the tip of his tongue - but his father was still scrolling, distant and unreadable. Somewhere along the way, the politician had vanished, and Dad had slipped back into his place. Tired. Detached. Too worn out for questions.
He didn’t even look up.
Just as well, then, that the car rolled to a stop when it did.
The locks clicked open, and Regulus scrambled out first, leaving his father muttering something to the driver through the half-cracked window.
Inside, the house was cool - but not quiet. Music drifted from the gramophone in the sunroom, mingling with the sharp scent of citrus and rum. It was cloying and familiar - a summer fragrance Regulus had never quite learned to stomach.
Walburga was sprawled across the chaise like a woman painted for leisure - the picture of languid elegance.
There was something about his mother’s complete lack of urgency in any given situation that had always soothed Regulus. Around her, time seemed to stretch, melt, lose its edge. It was impossible to hold tension in his shoulders when Mummy would only lift a brow and derisively ask, why?
He came to lean on the doorframe, allowing himself a lazy smile. “Hi, Mummy.”
“Hi, darling.” She didn’t look up - just swirled the thick liquid in her frosted glass with slow, practiced ease. “You’re home early.”
Regulus checked his watch. “It’s nearly six.”
Her brow arched. “Already?”
“Mm.”
Walburga sighed, draining her glass as if she’d missed some arbitrary deadline. For a woman on her third daiquiri, her gaze was uncannily focused when she finally tilted her head back to study him. In the low, golden light, even her sharper edges had softened - like the grey tower blocks outside, suddenly gilded by sunset.
"You know," Regulus cocked his head, pretending to appraise her, “I think you look like an oil painting, Mummy.”
He could practically hear his brother retching through the ether - but it did the trick, earning him a coveted invitation in the form of Walburga patting the lounger beside her.
“And you,” she said, voice thick with amusement, “look like you’re sulking.”
It didn't take much to break him.
“I am, a bit,” he admitted, collapsing beside her with a theatrical sigh.
She reached over the narrow space between them, fingers sliding into his curls. He leaned in without hesitation, letting his carefully constructed composure slip just enough to form a pout.
“It’s Cassie.”
Walburga scoffed. “What has that girl done now?”
“Nothing bad,” he muttered. “She just said she wants to go out when she’s back from Greece - but she said let’s get coffee,” He wrinkled his nose, indignation creeping in as he looked back up at his mother for confirmation of a slight. “That’s what people say when they’ve got nothing in common, right? Like she’s only committing to an hour or two?”
Walburga hummed, still absentmindedly stroking his hair.
“And Bas already left,” he went on, watching her with wide, worried eyes. “Feels like all my friends are just... school friends. We talk, sure, but I won’t see them all summer. And after next year…”
His voice trailed off into the heavy silence between them.
Walburga narrowed her eyes, as though consulting some invisible ledger of fate. She drew a breath, but seemed to come up short on comfort, exhaling with a languid wave of her free hand instead.
“I think you’re better off without them, darling.”
Regulus groaned, letting his head thunk back against the lounger. “But I don’t want to be without them, Mummy - I like them!”
Her fingers paused mid-stroke.
When he looked up, she was watching him - not unkindly, but with a flicker of dry amusement playing at the corners of her mouth.
“Do you?”
No matter how hard Regulus tried, something always seemed to get lost in translation. He could smile when expected, ask the right questions, nod in all the right places - and still, something failed to click. Like there was a secret ingredient to being liked, and Regulus had never learned the recipe.
The few friends he did seem to have had wandered into his orbit entirely by accident, drawn in by the novelty of his stiff, sullen exterior, intrigued by the edges he hadn’t meant to sharpen. And every so often, Regulus found himself wondering - worrying - if he wasn’t a friend at all, but a project.
That would be so much worse.
“I do like them,” he insisted quietly. “I’m just not sure if they like me.”
“Well..." Walburga sighed, rapidly approaching the limits of her maternal reserves. "I like you. And I have excellent taste, so what does it matter?”
That was hard to argue with.
Despite himself, a reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth - and that seemed to settle the matter in Walburga's mind.
“There you are, darling,” she murmured, ruffling his curls before sinking back into the cushions.
Regulus opened his mouth with another worry on the tip of his tongue - but Mummy was already tapping her glass against her empty jug, eyes closed, tone light.
“Be a doll and fetch another pitcher, would you? I'd hate to have to change my mind about this whole 'liking you' business."
Chapter Text
By early August, most days felt like Sunday - hazy, lethargic, and wholly eventless.
That particular Sunday began the way all glorious summer days do: with the sky scrubbed periwinkle, the air still crisp and cool, and the birdsong starting just before five. Regulus, drifting in and out of a restless half-sleep, listened through the cracked window as the world stretched and stirred.
Sometime around seven, he had climbed out of bed to perch on the sill and watch his quiet corner of Islington blink itself awake - but the sun hadn’t hit its stride yet, and the lingering chill eventually sent him burrowing back under the covers.
Sleep never quite took hold again.
Instead, he had hovered in some liminal state, one foot in his bedroom, the other in a nondescript café, rehearsing the same clipped exchange with his brother. In every imagined scene, Sirius had very little to say; Regulus woke over and over with a churning stomach that refused to settle.
By eleven, he managed to drag himself out of bed - convinced he was late.
Of course, he needn't have bothered.
They were due to meet at noon, but Regulus had spent the last forty-five minutes alone, wedged in the corner of a shabby café, watching condensation bead against the windowpane.
It was exactly the sort of dive Sirius would choose - exposed brick, artfully peeling plaster, and mismatched furniture some idiot had deemed charming. Artisan coffee disguised itself as something humbler, sipped on by patrons who could all use a decent tailor and a good haircut.
To his right, a woman with lavender hair reeked of incense. She had hung a woven bag on the back of her chair, and the sight alone made Regulus's palms itch. Across from him, a pale boy with unfocused eyes tapped out a rhythm on his mug with slender, restless fingers. Behind him, a couple bickered over coffee beans in hushed tones that rose like an incoming tide.
Sirius blended in so seamlessly that Regulus almost missed him as he staggered inside, one hand bracing against the wrong table as he passed, unsteady on his feet.
It wasn’t until he collapsed into the chair opposite - fifty minutes late - that recognition finally clicked. It had been two months at most since their last meeting, and in that time his hair had grown another inch. His sleeves were ruched to the elbows, half-concealing what might have been a new tattoo - Regulus couldn’t be sure. Both wrists were wrapped in fraying paper bands, relics from concerts by artists Regulus had never heard of.
And just like that, all the time he had spent worrying about how Sirius was faring alone curdled into resentment.
Sirius looked like shit - and infuriatingly, he was making it work.
Bleary-eyed and bloodshot, scratching absently at his arm, he radiated an insufferable, effortless vogue - the kind that made him seem entirely at home in his own skin, even when he had no right to be.
Regulus didn’t bother hiding his disgust.
Sirius didn’t bother looking contrite.
"Overslept."
"Clearly."
The silence that followed was painful.
It lasted all of ten seconds before Sirius buried his face in both hands, groaning loudly enough to make the pale boy at the next table look up.
Regulus shifted awkwardly, turning back to the fogged-up window, choosing a drop of sluggish condensation in the top left corner to study.
"I swear I set an alarm," Sirius muttered, dragging both hands over his face and into his hair. "Jesus, it's bright in here."
"You picked it," Regulus said flatly.
"Yeah, I know - I know," he exhaled sharply, squinting at the table. "D’you want a coffee?"
"Already had one."
"D'you want another?"
"Not really."
Sirius slouched back, hands dropping into his lap. Another sharp breath escaped on a ragged sigh.
Regulus could feel his brother watching him, but he kept his gaze firmly fixed on the steamy glass, not sure he could stomach looking anywhere else. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at Sirius without feeling something squeeze in his chest.
From the corner of his eye, he caught the twitchy movement of his brother's fingers, scratching at the worn denim of his jeans. His foot tapped against the floor, erratic and edgy, like he was struggling to settle.
Regulus felt his lip curl. "Are you high or something?"
Sirius let out a breathless laugh. "Probably."
Regulus grit his teeth, finally looking his way.
"Went out last night," Sirius muttered, as if that was a sufficient explanation.
"Right."
"S'only coke."
"Amazing."
"C’mon, Reg…"
That tone - wheedling, familiar - set his teeth on edge. Sirius had a knack for making him feel like he was the unreasonable one.
And maybe he was - after all, Regulus had no idea what actually passed for normal these days.
People went out on Saturday nights. They were late and they laughed about it. They didn’t lie awake at night rehearsing conversations that always seemed to unfold differently in reality. They didn’t handle every word like it might detonate if delivered wrong. They didn’t let envy twine about their spines, scar tissue thickening with the blow of every slight - real or imagined.
Maybe Sirius was living life right - and Regulus was the one getting it all terribly wrong.
Unlikely.
Regulus scoffed sharply. "C’mon what?"
"Just..." Sirius set his wavering hand on his own knee, still bouncing like an overwound metronome. "Uh, tell me about your summer. Did you - did you finish school yet?"
"Weeks ago," Regulus glanced away. "Two A's, two B's."
"That's good, isn't it?"
"Not really," he wrinkled his nose. "I need triples by the end of the year."
“Where are you applying?”
"Oxford."
Sirius grimaced.
"What?" Regulus demanded, eyes narrowing.
"Nothing."
It was never nothing.
Regulus already knew what Sirius thought - he took issue with the idea of following in their father's footsteps. Orion had gone to Oxford, and Orion had deemed it respectable, so naturally, Sirius would scoff on principle, sure Orion had never been right about a single thing in his life.
But Regulus wasn't copying their father - not really.
He had considered Cambridge, but he wasn’t much of a scientist. Edinburgh had its charm, but Rabastan probably didn’t like him enough to make following him worthwhile. Anywhere respectable up North felt too foreign, too far from everything familiar.
So, Oxford was the logical choice. The safe choice.
The choice that - conveniently, coincidentally - would please both Regulus and his parents.
Determined not to look stiff or defensive, Regulus unfolded his arms. Unsure what to do with his hands, he pressed them firmly against the edge of the sticky tabletop, regretting it instantly. The tacky surface made his skin crawl, but he held his ground.
"You clearly have an opinion, Sirius."
"S'just..." Sirius scratched at his jaw uneasily. "You’re right - you’ll need at least triples."
"So, I’ll get them."
"You might, Reg - but don’t pin everything on Oxford, yeah?"
Regulus scoffed. "You didn’t even go to sixth form."
"That's irrelevant, isn’t it?" Sirius bit back, rapidly burning through the finite patience he’d arrived with. "Look, there are loads of good schools that would take you with the grades you’ve got, so don’t burn yourself out for something unattainable. That’s all I’m fucking saying."
"It's not unattainable."
Sirius gave a sharp laugh. "No, but it’s really fucking hard work, Reg."
"I barely had to work for the grades I just got."
Sirius scoffed - yeah, right unspoken.
Of all people on earth, Sirius was the only one who could see straight through Regulus - the only one capable of making him feel delusional without saying a word. The flush in Regulus’s cheeks was instant and mortifying. No one else would have noticed - and no one else would’ve reached across the table, offering a tentative, apologetic hand.
Regulus recoiled.
"Jesus..." Sirius growled, dragging both trembling hands through his hair. "You’re fucking impossible."
Regulus wasn't listening.
The tacky film clinging to his palms was invisible, but that made it no less unbearable. When he flexed his fingers, he could feel the residue clinging to his skin, seeping into the creases of his palms. If it got under his nails, he thought he might just scream.
Something acidic was simmering in the pit of his stomach, rising up through his oesophagus, scalding the tip of his tongue.
"You said you’d come to France."
It came out quietly - wounded, rather than accusing, as it had tasted - but it seemed to cut straight through Sirius’s last shred of patience. His chair scraped back with a violent screech as he shoved to his feet and stalked off.
Regulus didn’t look up to see which way he’d gone.
Instead, he counted down from ten - eight times over - until the droplet on the window finally slipped down to the silicone rim.
By then, the lump in his throat had dissolved - and Sirius had returned, loitering on the periphery with something extended in his hand.
"I'm sorry, Reggie."
"Mm."
A napkin landed in his lap - damp, and still cool from where Sirius had run it under the bathroom tap.
It was probably teeming with bacteria, but the less Regulus thought about that, the better. He didn't raise his head, but he did begin the silent process of scraping the sticky residue from his palm, feeling lighter with each measured pass of the towel.
Sirius eased back into his seat, eyes fixed on his brother. "Did you at least have fun?"
"It was fine."
Sirius knew what fine meant; he reached out, brushing the pad of his thumb across Regulus’s cheek, where a fresh constellation of freckles had bloomed. "Been in the sun?"
"Mm."
Sirius let his thumb linger a moment longer before his hand dropped back to the table with a soft thud, palm up and desperately open.
Regulus kept his eyes on his lap.
After a beat, he twisted the napkin into a tight ball, trying on a bright voice that didn't belong to him. "Well, maybe next year."
There was no reply - though Regulus could still feel Sirius watching him.
Maybe he hadn’t heard. Maybe he hadn't understood.
Regulus gathered what composure he had left and raised his head, speaking clearly that time. "Maybe you’ll come next year?"
Sirius stared back. His lips pressed into a thin line, the corners pulled down just enough to resemble a wince.
For all that look was worth, Sirius might as well have struck him.
Regulus felt his own mouth contort - it was supposed to be a smile, sardonic, detached, self-aware.
It didn't land quite like that.
God, he was going to be sick if the silence stretched another second longer.
He exhaled shakily, closed his eyes, fumbling for something else - anything else - to say. "You know... uh, coffee?"
It wasn't the smoothest bridge, but it held.
"I'm..." Sirius let out a short, uneven laugh as he glanced pointedly around the café. "Yeah, I’m familiar with it, Reg."
"Well - what does it mean?" Regulus asked, lowering his gaze as he folded his napkin in half, smoothing the creases flat. "Like, if - if someone asks you for coffee - what does that mean?"
"What, like today?"
“No - we’re different. Who else would you ask for coffee?”
"Dunno," Sirius leaned back, visibly relieved by the shift in topic. "It’s a good first date. Low stakes. You can leave if you realise you’re sitting across from a complete weirdo."
"Do you ever go with your friends?"
Sirius fought back a smirk, rubbing the back of his neck. "My friends aren’t exactly... civilised like that."
"Would it be weird if a friend asked?"
"Nah..." Sirius frowned, then reached across the table again, fingers twitching - half-offer, half-habit. "Why, Reg?"
Regulus looked at the hand for a long moment - then set the napkin aside to reach for it.
Quietly, almost without meaning to, he let the floodgates open. "Cassie’s in Greece. She’s not back until the end of summer, and when she is, she only wants to get coffee. And Mummy says - "
Sirius gave his hand a firm squeeze. "Whatever Mum says is shit. You know that, right?"
Regulus clicked his tongue reproachfully - but he didn’t let go.
"Look - why don't you come over one weekend?" Sirius suggested quietly, thumb running soothingly over knuckle ridges. "Maybe for your birthday? I'd have to clean up a bit. And… talk to my friends, get them to behave. But you could hang out with us. They'd like you, Reg. I know they would."
Pity burned, scalding hot.
"I - no, it’s fine," Regulus squirmed, glancing over his shoulder. "I’ve got... I’m working this summer. And I've got other friends, it’s not just Rab and Cas."
"Yeah?" Sirius ducked his head, trying to catch his eye. "Are you making friends, Reggie?"
It was stupid - really stupid - because a phone call didn’t count.
But Regulus nodded all the same. "Sort of - I met someone last week."
The sigh of relief that followed was audible. And deeply insulting.
"Where?"
"Not... not in person yet. We’ve talked."
Sirius grimaced. "Like, online?"
"Sort of - not really. He calls sometimes."
Sirius paused, his thumb gliding absently over the back of Regulus’s hand. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, almost careful. "Tell me about him?"
Regulus hesitated. "I don’t know much yet. It’s sort of new, but he’s funny. And he seems smart."
Sirius nodded slowly. "So... he asked you for coffee?"
"No. Not yet."
"But you’ve talked on the phone?"
"Yeah."
"And that’s it?"
"For now."
"Alright," Sirius leaned back, still watching him with uneasy, narrowed eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was slow - too careful, too gentle - the kind of tone he used when he anticipated an overreaction. "I think it's great that you're meeting people, Reg - really. I just think... maybe you should be careful."
"Why?" Regulus cocked his head, playing at obtuse.
Sirius grimaced. "You've never met the guy, and you're not always - you can be - other people can be weird, yeah?"
As if Regulus hadn't considered that - as if he needed some scruffy half-baked dropout to explain anything to him. What could Sirius possibly know that Regulus didn't? Those nasty thoughts were plucked straight from their mother’s playbook - but that didn’t make them wrong, not entirely.
Sirius could sit there looking as doubtful as he liked, but he wasn’t the one with the world at his feet - was he?
No, that was Regulus - even Dad had said so.
Regulus was the sensible one, the reliable one, the one who stuck at school. Regulus had the self discipline to spend his summer gaining valuable work experience - the kind that would look excellent on his stupid résumé, the kind that had absolutely nothing to do with having no friends.
And what was Sirius doing with the rest of his summer?
Probably another line, or a pill, or a fucking shot of some description in a grimy bathroom stall - grungier than the one he’d just emerged from, no doubt.
It was only just dawning on Regulus that his brother was calmer now than when he had gone in - no more restless fingers, no bouncing leg. Just a glassy sheen over his eyes, and a suspicious sort of stillness.
Regulus snorted, suddenly as sharp as Mummy. “I’ll be sure to take your expertise on board, Sirius."
Chapter Text
There was a package waiting for Regulus on Monday morning, tucked discreetly among the rest of the mail on Rachel’s desk. It was a small padded envelope with his name printed in bold Sharpie across the front - REGULUS BLACK. The office address had been printed neatly beneath in the same rigid block capitals. He nearly tossed it onto the pile meant for his father, but something about the unfamiliar handwriting had given him pause.
Not for a second did he wonder who it was from.
It weighed almost nothing, yet Barty had taken the time to cushion whatever fragile offering lay inside between two layers of bubble wrap. Of course, he couldn’t have known that Regulus would sooner die than plunge his hand into smooth polyethylene.
Instead, he slit the envelope at the seam with a pair of Rachel’s scissors and tipped the strange contents onto the desk. A battered poppy fluttered out first, snipped cleanly from its stem, its vivid red petals crumpled under the weight of the morning’s mail. Then came a single sheet of paper - thin, yellowed with age, torn straight from an anthology.
A terrible waste of resources, if you asked Regulus, though he skimmed it all the same.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row...
Regulus scoffed, flipping the page over in search of a hidden message, a signature - anything to make the gesture less cryptic.
Nothing.
Of course he recognised the verse - anyone would.
It was practically institutional, recited at every Remembrance Day assembly just before some unfortunate first-year struggled through a trumpet rendition of The Last Post . He was fairly sure it had been read at the last Remembrance Sunday he’d attended with his father too, standing stiffly at the cenotaph while senior royals laid their wreaths.
The significance of it all was completely lost on him.
A quick Google search turned up only the usual suspects: The Poetry Foundation, Wikipedia, a slew of flights to Belgium. Nothing that explained the poppy, or the poem, or why Barty had sent it now, in mid-August, instead of the first week of November, when the entire country made its annual show of solemnity.
Not that Regulus had much time to dwell on it - the mail wasn’t going to sort itself, and half the office had vanished for the summer, leaving him to the odd jobs. He spent the better part of an hour hunting for staples to secure a loose report that had been inexplicably faxed over. As Regulus wondered who on earth still used a fax machine, the envelope and its strange contents gradually slipped to the back of his mind.
When the phone rang just before noon, its sharp trill shattered the quiet like a crack of glass.
Regulus had been toying with the idea of a pilgrimage to the vending machine, if only to break the monotony of the afternoon, knowing his father wouldn't be caught dead taking a lunch break. The call interrupted that small act of rebellion, and as he wedged the receiver between his cheek and shoulder, a ridiculous flicker of hope sparked low in his chest.
"Department of Social Affairs, this is -"
"Regulus."
Pathetic - the way his breath caught, pulse jumping in his throat, a sharp rush of dopamine fizzing down both arms to his tingling fingertips. He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper, but at least it saved him the indignity of smiling.
"You again," he sighed, relieved to hear he sounded suitably bored.
Barty laughed - warm, familiar. "Me again. I was worried Rachel might be back."
Regulus sank tentatively into his chair, swivelling just enough to glance at the office door - still firmly shut. "I thought you liked Rachel."
"Not nearly as much as I like you."
It could have been a joke - and it probably was.
It would have been so easy for Regulus to scoff, to roll his eyes. 'Yeah, right' sat primed on the tip of his tongue - but it didn't roll off.
A very small, horribly hopeful part of him was beginning to wonder if Barty really meant it.
Regulus let the silence stretch, privately grateful that no one could see his wide, expectant eyes. He would sooner die than speak first - certain his voice would betray him, crack an octave too high.
The line thrummed with soft, shifting static.
God, if Barty hung up now, it would crush him…
But that was a thought to unpack later - something to spiral over in the shower, to turn over restlessly in the dead hours of the night.
Maybe Sirius was right - maybe he did pin too much on the smallest wins. After all, this was just a phone call. Just a distraction. Just a stranger, playing games to pass the time.
It didn’t matter.
"Did you have a good weekend, sweetheart?"
It mattered.
Regulus let the breath leave him all at once. "Not really."
"Did something happen?"
"Why would I tell you if it had?"
"Because I asked."
No one else had thought to ask.
Some bitter, embarrassingly fanciful part of Regulus kept circling back to the fact that Barty - a stranger who couldn't even see his face - had caught something in his voice that everyone else had missed. Everyone else, who had known him for nearly eighteen years.
His mother could always tell when he was miserable, though she had the advantage of seeing him sulk in person - and only finite patience for his whining. His father probably noticed, but he seemed to believe that if he stared hard enough at his phone, the problem would eventually resolve itself. Sirius was an expert at reading Regulus, and an even greater expert at shirking his responsibility.
As for his friends, Rabastan had no clue he was in another slump - not surprising, since he hadn’t bothered to text all week. And Cassie’s half-hearted check ins were so drenched in misplaced optimism they made his skin crawl.
But Barty had noticed.
And Barty had cared enough to ask.
"Nothing happened," Regulus muttered, dragging a hand through the back of his hair. "I’m just being dramatic."
"Oh, angel," Barty drew out the word into something thick and syrupy. "Didn’t you do anything fun?"
"I…" Regulus grimaced, not quite sure why that endearment had grated on him. "I went for coffee."
"I said fun."
"Then, no."
Barty clicked his tongue, soft and scolding. "What a fucking waste."
"A waste of what?"
"You."
The air between them shifted, the static humming louder. Regulus felt the phone suddenly pressed too close, Barty’s breath dragging intimately against his ear.
"I looked you up, Regulus," his voice was softer, edged with something melodic. "If no one’s taking you out, that’s fucking criminal."
Regulus blinked, sure he had misheard. "What?"
"Don’t be fucking dense, you know what I mean…" Barty inhaled sharply; the sound scraped against the receiver, rough and greedy, like fingers raking over skin. "Christ, you’ve got one of those faces - one of those fucking faces - that makes you want to freeze it exactly how it is. Makes you want to just start fucking chiselling or something, before it has a chance to change. All that marble bullshit - Rodin or whoever - I'd never get it right, but I'd fucking try, you know?"
The scoff slipped out before Regulus could stop it that time, half instinct, half defence.
"Don't laugh at me."
It was a threat.
This wasn’t part of the strange, playful rhythm they had been carefully weaving; the warmth had drained from Barty’s voice, and what remained hummed like a twitching live wire.
A chill crawled up the back of Regulus’s neck, sudden and bracing, like the air conditioning had been inched up without his notice.
Whatever ghost of a smirk had lingered vanished from his face.
His father had warned him, hadn’t he? Barty wasn’t quite right. Unstable, Dad had said - but by the same estimation, not all that dangerous either.
So could it really hurt to placate him? Just enough to keep him talking, just enough to pass the time?
Regulus swallowed hard. "I’m sorry."
Barty inhaled again - slow and deliberate, like a long pull on a cigarette. Too controlled, too intentional, as if he wanted Regulus to feel it.
The sound crackled through the line and settled at the base of Regulus’s spine.
"Did…" he hesitated, glancing back at the door as though it might suddenly swing open and break the spell. His voice dropped to a half-whisper. "Did you have a good weekend?"
Silence.
Not a casual, thinking silence, but something purposeful - stretched tight, suffocating, airless.
Regulus closed his eyes, fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck, bracing himself for the sharp click of disconnection.
Then -
"It was nice."
Relief slipped out on an involuntary breath.
"Yeah?" Regulus heard his voice crack slightly - an embarrassment he might have felt more keenly if gratitude hadn’t overwhelmed it. "What did…what did you do?"
"I bought you flowers."
It sounded like Barty was smiling, indulging in some private joke - which, Regulus supposed, he probably was.
His gaze drifted uneasily to the solitary poppy lying on the edge of his desk, still resting atop the torn page. "Plural?"
Barty hummed vaguely. "I wanted to send more, but I didn’t think a bunch would get past security. I’ve got the rest here with me."
Regulus reached for the paper, sliding it closer for another glance.
"Well," he murmured, tracing the torn edge absently with a fingertip, "it’s pretty. And no one’s ever sent me uh… war poetry, before, so. That was… that was something."
"You understand why, don’t you?"
He didn’t - not even remotely. But admitting that felt as risky as lying outright.
Regulus cleared his throat. "Mm…"
"Clever boy!" Barty’s laughter cracked through the line, whip sharp and sudden.
Regulus grimaced.
"I wasn’t sure if you’d actually get it," Barty added, his voice tipping toward something near giddy. "I should have a little more faith in you, sweetheart. So, no one’s sent you flowers before either?"
"Uh, no," he said, fingers twisting in the back of his hair. "No, that was another first."
"Look at me, racking up your firsts," Barty hummed, thoughtful and perhaps a touch too pleased with himself. "Wonder what I’ll get next."
There it was again - another line so thick with innuendo it stuck like honey in his throat, catching any hopes of a quick retort.
Flirting had never come naturally to Regulus; he had always felt vaguely scandalised watching others do it, as though he were intruding on something deeply private and strangely dangerous. It wasn't like studying a room full of social climbers - carefully cataloguing their wit, gestures, or calculated smiles to replicate later.
No, flirting was unpredictable, messy, painfully intimate - impossible to study from a safe distance without earning a seedy, voyeuristic reputation.
Regulus was alone, forced into a rare form of authenticity - a shame, given his version of authenticity involved clenching and unclenching his fists while mouthing half-formed words into the air.
It was a small mercy that Barty couldn't see him.
Eventually, he managed; "Depends on what you want, doesn’t it?"
That landed - he could tell by the soft, satisfied sound Barty made in response.
"Are you going to give me what I want, Regulus?"
Something heavy dropped in his chest - a dull thud that might’ve been pleasant if it weren’t so disorienting. Regulus wasn’t sure he liked the uptick in his pulse, the way his leg had started bouncing, or how his fingernails pressed hard into his palm.
But the warmth coiling low in his stomach was different - not unwelcome.
He took a careful breath. "You still haven’t specified what that is yet."
It was strangely easy to picture Barty’s face.
Regulus had, over the weekend, pieced one together - fragments of people he loved stitched clumsily into an ever-shifting mirage. The soft laughter had attached itself to a gleaming smile far too much like Sirius’s, and the narrowed eyes - cruel or amused, he could never be sure - might have been Rabastan’s. Everything else flickered constantly, refusing to settle into something solid, but the voice was unmistakable, already lodged deep in his bones.
"I’ve got a long list," Barty mused, voice dipping into something casual again. "But I suppose, most of all, I want you to think about me as often as I think about you. That would be a fair place to start."
Regulus almost laughed - too easy, given how Barty had haunted him all weekend. He shifted the receiver to his other ear, letting a smirk curl at his lips now that the tension had eased. "You’ll have to give me a vague target to aim for, then. How often is that?"
"A lot."
"Yeah?" Regulus rolled his eyes, restraining his incredulity. "And what are you thinking about, exactly?"
Barty snickered - apparently he was allowed to - before pivoting abruptly. "Tell me when Rachel’s getting back."
Regulus swallowed back a flicker of disappointment and scoffed. "Do I not get any answers to my questions?"
"Not yet," Barty paused. "When’s she back?"
"Next Monday, I think."
"So, you’re just covering for her?"
Regulus shrugged. "While she’s away, yeah."
"You’ll be gone by Monday?"
"I mean, I won’t be dead," Regulus muttered dryly, "but I won’t be here."
There was a dull, muted thump on Barty's end of the line - as if he had dropped or struck something solid. His voice returned, brighter than ever.
"How old are you, Regulus?"
"Almost eighteen."
"Eighteen..." he hummed, long and low. "You’re just a baby."
Regulus arched his brow. "And you?"
"Have you got a phone of your own, Regulus?"
This one-sided conversation was beginning to wear on his patience. Regulus sighed, pushing his chair back from the desk to rummage in his pocket, freeing his phone and tossing it on the desk with a heavy thunk.
"Might do."
"Have you really?" Barty asked, his voice slipping into that slow, exaggerated coaxing adults used on uncooperative children. "Are you going to give me your number, sweetheart?"
"Don't know about that..." Regulus tapped a finger thoughtfully against the screen, pretending to deliberate. "I’m not supposed to share it with strangers."
"But I’m not a stranger," Barty insisted, too quick, too taut - something dangerous shimmering at the edges again. "You know me, Regulus. And I know you."
"I know your name. That’s about it."
"You know that I’m funny. And smart."
Regulus faltered, fingers tensing against the edge of the desk.
Those words felt familiar - and there was something in the way Barty had said them, too rehearsed, too knowing.
An uneasy sensation prickled at the nape of his neck.
"And - very modest," he managed, dryly.
A silence hung, stretched just a beat too long, before Barty spoke again.
"You know I call sometimes," he said softly.
"Well -"
"I thought ‘sometimes’ was a bit of an exaggeration," Barty continued, voice suddenly close again, practically breathing into Regulus’s ear. "I’m not sure how ‘once’ became ‘sometimes,’ but I like your forward thinking. I’ll call much more often than 'sometimes' if you give me your real number. I'm not one of those weirdos you brother warned you about, am I?"
Regulus froze.
There was no way Barty could be quoting him.
No way he could’ve been there - listening.
The café had been crowded. But not that crowded. Surely he would have noticed an eavesdropper?
Regulus squeezed his eyes shut, trying to conjure a single face from memory - but Sirius had his attention, louder, brighter, more important. His brother was a vacuum, swallowing up the room, drowning out the background noise.
Of course, there had been others - every table had been full, and the bell above the door had jingled with unsettling regularity, each chime ushering someone in or out, faceless, unremarkable, no matter how hard Regulus strained to make one stand out.
A metallic tang bloomed across his tongue, sharp and sickening.
He had been silent too long.
"Reggie?" Barty’s voice was sugar-sweet.
Regulus slammed the receiver down so violently a stack of paper clips scattered across the desk like startled birds.
Chapter Text
Regulus had stayed up until the house was still and silent. It was late enough that no one would be peering over his shoulder, and yet he still felt oddly self-conscious - like he was doing something illicit, something shameful, something best kept hidden under the cover of darkness.
Mummy had drifted up to bed hours ago, and Dad had shuffled past just ten minutes earlier, returning from the study. Regulus had waited to be sure he wouldn’t come trudging back up again - some nights, Dad was only sneaking down for a quick cigarette. Regulus always pretended he didn't notice the smoke drifting up from the patio through his half cracked window, nor the muted coughing as Dad padded back up the stairs again.
Those nights were always awful - Mummy never offered the same courtesy of feigning ignorance. But tonight, it seemed they’d all been spared an argument. Just a brief murmur of voices through the floorboards - then silence as his parents turned in, and Regulus was finally free to breathe easy.
In truth, there had been nothing stopping Regulus from searching earlier; it had been years since anyone had tapped on his door to check on him before bed, but force of habit had held him back. There was something about the hush of a sleeping house that felt like permission - like the silence gave him leave to indulge in impropriety.
Typing his own name into the search bar felt vaguely narcissistic - but the handful of results that surfaced still sent heat rushing to his cheeks. Regulus had hoped - somewhat naively - that nothing would appear at all. Instead, there he was: his mediocre achievements and hanger-on status laid bare in stark black and white, for anyone so inclined to see.
Most links led back to Harrow - juvenile articles he’d written for The Harrovian, an awkward photograph of him amidst a circle of French Society boys he hadn’t spoken to in years, and a particularly embarrassing picture of his father escorting him on his first day, complete with straw boater. Sirius lurked just out of frame, slouching in the background, hat tucked firmly under one arm - Regulus didn’t need the full photograph to remember that detail.
A chill prickled at the back of his neck as he scrolled further, struck by the quiet horror of just how searchable his life was - for anyone bored enough to indulge. Even his transfer to Westminster had been picked up by some columnist with too much time on her hands - Minister of Social Affairs withdraws support from Harrow; youngest son enrolled at co-ed Westminster School. Could this be a sign of the times?
Most of the results were tied to school, or else passing references linking him back to his father - Minister of Social Affairs Orion Black attended the ceremony with his wife Walburga and youngest son Regulus. A line here, a caption there. He was little more than a footnote in his father’s life - and that, Regulus supposed, suited them both just fine.
Regulus had been sensible enough to keep his social media locked down - but Rabastan had not. Three rows down in the image results was a photograph from last year’s Christmas party: Regulus wedged between Rabastan and Bella, with Rodolphus sprawled lazily across the arm of the chair.
It was inoffensive enough.
But one of Rabastan’s aunts had commented - Is that one of the Blacks?
Rabastan had replied - Yeah, Regulus. Bella’s cousin.
And just like that, there was a direct path.
Anyone with opposable thumbs could click on the image, land on Rabastan’s wide-open profile, hover over the tags, and find him. Regulus’s own account was greyed-out and anonymous, prudently unsearchable - but the connection was still uncomfortably direct.
He untagged himself quickly, pulse ticking a little faster, and turned back to the search bar to try again.
Orion Black.
Dad's name brought up a flurry of results - far too many to navigate.
Regulus stared vacantly at the screen for a moment, stunned by the sheer scale of it all. It had never occurred to him to look up his father before - and he certainly hadn’t expected him to have an entire Wikipedia page, complete with an automatically generated preview, like he was a historical footnote in progress.
Orion Black - Minister of Social Affairs
Orion Black, Baron of Fitzrovia, is a British politician who has served as Minister of Social Affairs since 2019. Black is the only son and youngest child of Arcturus Black III and Melania Black (née Macmillan). Born in London, he was educated at Harrow School and Brasenose College, Oxford. He became a Member of Parliament in 2001, after which he…
Regulus skimmed past the rest, barely taking it in, scrolling through the most recent headshots without really seeing them - he didn’t like his father’s gleaming teeth, frozen in place beneath a too-neat side part. Someone had surely doctored that image - it was far too uncanny.
Beneath the profile were scores of articles - some as recent as that afternoon. It would have taken all night to wade through them, and the odds of stumbling across a passing reference to Barty felt laughably slim.
It was wishful thinking, but Regulus backspaced, and simply tried Barty - which led to a shorter string of articles about some Australian tennis player who, in interviews, sounded nothing like his mystery caller. Regulus had known he was wasting his time with that one, but he hoped his next search might be more fruitful.
'Orion Black Barty’ only brought up a cluster of articles about various events his father had attended - including one particularly scandalous office party, held too soon after a devastating round of budget cuts. Regulus still vividly remembered a woman on the street shouting vague threats at them over it, while his father, unruffled, gripped his arm and steered him into a restaurant without breaking stride, muttering under his breath about “tax-dodging freeloaders.”
There was a whole world of information out there - and so little time to sift through it.
Sitting in the dark was making him antsy; Regulus hadn’t felt settled in his own skin all afternoon, jittery enough to leave the office phone off the hook, which had only triggered a fresh wave of anxiety about missing something important. Hardly anyone had called all summer, but with his luck, something vital would come through the second he disconnected.
He knew he wouldn’t survive his final days at the office running on guesswork. And he certainly wasn’t going to sleep with all these half-formed possibilities rattling around in his head.
So it was practical - inevitable, even - that he found himself standing silently on the landing, holding his breath as he listened for signs of life along the hallway. When he strained hard enough, past the dense, ringing silence of the house, he could just make out the steady, even rhythm of his father’s breathing drifting from the master bedroom. Mummy was silent, but she was never subtle when she woke; and after a nightcap or two, she’d be out cold till noon. There would be plenty of warning if she stirred.
Satisfied, Regulus crept the other way - along the strip of skirting board where the floorboards creaked less - edging toward the study. The door was unlocked, but the brass handle was temperamental, requiring a precise, practised hand to avoid the sharp screech it let out if turned too quickly. Dad had been meaning to get it greased for years.
Slipping inside, Regulus eased the door shut behind him and fumbled for the light, wincing at the sudden overhead glare. He hurried to switch on the desk lamp - still warm from Dad’s earlier session - then circled back to extinguish the overhead, leaving the room bathed in a softer, more conspiratorial glow, as if it understood the need for secrecy.
He moved quietly toward the towering Chesterfield - and hesitated. Sitting in his father’s place felt vaguely transgressive, disrespectful in a way that served no purpose.
In the end, he compromised, perching stiffly on the edge, as if settling in properly would be a breach of some unspoken rule too far.
Once the terminal powered up, the first hurdle appeared - a login screen. But Dad belonged to a generation seemingly incapable of remembering more than one password. Regulus had helped navigate enough of his father’s technological mishaps to know that 3November# would unlock almost anything - and, of course, it did.
He tried not to linger on the familiar sting of knowing his own birthday hadn’t made the cut - not memorable enough to safeguard a digital empire, despite his constant, physical presence.
Bitterness neatly shelved, Regulus found himself staring at his father’s cluttered desktop, the cursor blinking expectantly - and realised he had no idea where to begin.
After a brief internal debate, he swallowed back his guilt and double-clicked his father’s emails. The application chimed as it launched, loud enough to make him flinch, and a flood of late-night messages rushed in before he could find the mute button. Ignoring the new arrivals, Regulus clicked into the search bar, stealing one last cautious glance at the closed door.
This time, Barty’s name brought up a flurry of results - emails dating back as far as three years.
Regulus clicked on the most recent and began to scroll.
Subject: FYI — MORE CALLS FROM BARTY CROUCH
Date: July 27, 19:28
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]John -
My son’s in the office covering for Rachel Lewis this week. He mentioned a call from BC this evening. Keep an eye on reception - just in case.
OB
Subject: Re: FYI — MORE CALLS FROM BARTY CROUCH
Date: July 27, 20:32
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]Understood. I’ll alert the front desk and security.
- John
That was unilluminating, but -
Subject: Re: Barty C — Updated Psych Evaluation
Date: 3 February, 15:07
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]Just spoke with Crouch Snr - he passed along the latest clinic notes.
Dr. Jarman has raised fresh concerns regarding fixation. BC is becoming increasingly preoccupied with departmental policy decisions from late 2022 - specifically, the restructuring of recovery services and the shift toward private-sector partnerships.
Mentions of you are now frequent and specific: full name, ministerial title, direct references to recent public appearances. He seems particularly agitated by the Veterans Reintegration Grant campaign, citing hypocrisy.
Jarman stops short of using the word manic, but the subtext is clear. Crouch Snr believes closer monitoring is warranted. Let me know if you'd like to escalate.
- John
Subject: Re: Barty C — Updated Psych Evaluation
Date: 3 February, 15:46
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]Not surprising.
The cuts were always going to ruffle feathers, but the hysteria is overplayed. Wait until he’s got an elderly relative stuck on a mile-long waitlist - maybe then he’ll understand resource allocation. There’s no shortage of third-party support networks for addicts to access - something I’ve already pointed out to the boy, repeatedly.
That said, this has clearly progressed beyond the point of simple appeasement; it’s time we transition from passive observation to a formal risk assessment.
Loop in Deven - and keep our dealings with Crouch Snr minimal. He’s a useful resource, but I don’t want anyone suggesting we’ve got undue influence on the Ministry of Justice, especially with the Rosier inquiry circling. That needs to stay behind closed doors.
OB
Subject: Re: Barty C — Updated Psych Evaluation
Date: 3 February, 16:22
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]Spoken to Deven - he’s agreed to conduct a discreet first-pass review of the clinic files. Will keep the circle tight.
Also worth noting: BC turned up at the Ealing office last week. Stayed in the lobby, caused no disruption, but asked for you by name.
Security logged it as a non-incident at the time. It won’t happen again.
- John
Subject: Re: Barty C — Updated Psych Evaluation
Date: 3 February, 16:41
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]If he’s getting as far as reception, then our protocols are inadequate. That should have been escalated immediately, regardless of outcome. Hardly a ‘non-incident’ in my book, John.
I don’t want to be reactive here. Let’s not wait for something regrettable. Keep me informed.
OB
Subject: INQUIRY: E. Rosier — Containment Strategy
Date: January 1, 10:12
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]John -
I’m told Barty C is pushing for a public inquiry into Rosier’s death?
Do all we can to keep it behind closed doors. We’ll cite privacy, dignity, family wishes - whatever plays best.
I have no interest in sullying the Rosier name. His father was a decorated man. The son shouldn't be a blight on his legacy.
Keep this contained.
OB
Subject: Re: INQUIRY: E. Rosier — Containment Strategy
Date: January 1, 11:03
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]Understood.
We’ve already started drafting internal lines to lean on privacy, family grief, and precedent. Framing it as a welfare matter rather than a systemic failure gives us ground to deflect external pressure.
Deven has flagged several risks should BC escalate - he’s already been in contact with at least two journalists in the past month and seems determined to stir sentiment. We’re monitoring press activity closely, but the media gag order remains in place.
At this stage, I don’t foresee a formal inquiry. There’s no compelling reason this can’t remain non-statutory and quietly contained.
- John
So, there was a surname - Crouch, buried among a slew of other names Regulus didn’t recognise.
He had the good sense not to continue the search from his father’s browser.
Instead, Regulus slipped his phone from his pocket, thumb hovering over the keyboard, like the act of typing might conjure... someone.
Without much thought, he sat up straighter, smoothing the front of his shirt - as if tugging out the creases might somehow ready him for whatever he was about to find.
Barty Crouch.
The results weren’t as sprawling as Orion’s, but still significant; Bartemius Crouch had left his mark on the world, if only faintly.
Bartemius Crouch, Senior Counsel to the Ministry of Justice.
Appointed Lead Counsel to the Ministerial Reform Taskforce in 2021. Former Director of Litigation Strategy.
Studied Politics and Law at Magdalen College. Married. One son. Resides in South London.
It was maddeningly sterile - the sort of profile that gave the appearance of transparency while revealing almost nothing at all. A single, surgically clean paragraph rattling off titles and accolades, factual, bloodless, and wholly forgettable.
The image tab wasn’t much better - rows of stock image courtrooms and stiff press stills, each linking back to dry legal briefs and forgettable ministry statements. Only one photo gave Regulus pause: a candid, snapped on the courthouse steps, capturing a man in his late forties with a jaw set like stone and a razor-sharp side part that put Orion to shame.
Regulus stared at it.
He sincerely hoped that face didn’t belong to the disembodied voice on the line. The clipped, joyless expression didn’t match the smooth, teasing cadence he’d come to associate with Barty - that strange blend of mischief and menace that lingered long after he hung up.
If Regulus was lucky - and history suggested he rarely was - then this was Crouch Senior. There was no conceivable universe in which that man, all hard lines and hollow eyes, was the same one who mailed him poetry and waxed lyrical about French sculptors.
Then again, if luck had ever truly been on Regulus’s side, he wouldn’t have found himself fawning over a boy with a questionable grip on reality and a fixation on his father in the first place.
But Regulus wasn’t in a position to be picky; as the saying went, beggars couldn’t be choosers - and Barty, for better or worse, had chosen him.
He lingered on the photo for a moment longer, then dragged his eyes back to the search results and started to scroll again - when a very soft ping fractured the silence.
A chat window blinked open in the corner of the screen - internal messenger, still logged in under Orion’s account.
One green dot glowed beside his father’s name.
Online.
Regulus froze.
The cursor hovered, uncertain - then, before he could stop himself, he clicked the message.
[01:14] J Wright: Thought you’d turned in?
Opening the window marked the message as read.
Regulus didn’t think - just jabbed the power button, cutting the screen to black.
The low mechanical whir of the computer winding down filled the silence, joined by the steady, thunderous rush of blood in his ears.
He sat frozen, blinking into the muted glow of the desk lamp, breath shallow, pulse pounding like a particularly persistent knocker against his ribs.
Steady and slow, he reached over and flicked off the desk lamp.
Darkness settled around him, thick and absolute.
He stayed where he was, perched on the edge of his father’s chair, hands curled into fists against his knees, listening to the house creak and settle.
His brief stint as a detective - bold, reckless, foolish - suddenly felt paper-thin.
Whatever answers were buried in that inbox had nothing to do with him. Barty’s grievance, whatever it was, belonged to Orion.
Regulus had no reason to be in the middle - and even less reason to be caught snooping.
He wasn’t like Sirius - he was smarter than that.
Smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
Chapter Text
"You're really fucking testing me, Regulus!"
The accusation snapped down the line like a whip.
Regulus only hummed - noncommittal, nonchalant, the kind of sound designed to infuriate. His gaze had drifted to the sunny skyline, eyes half-lidded against the glare, teeth sinking into the softening lid of a biro.
The plastic split with a quiet crack between his molars.
Every conversation that week had unravelled in the same way - Barty had spent the last five days lurching between syrupy affection, and cold, surgical fury. Saccharine one moment, seething the next, like he couldn’t decide whether to court Regulus, or carve him open.
Regulus still hadn’t apologised for hanging up - though Barty had demanded it.
He still hadn’t handed over his number - though Barty had asked for that, too.
In fact, Regulus had said very little all week.
And still, Barty kept calling.
There was something admirable about that kind of consistency.
In little over a week, Barty had proven more reliable than any of Regulus’s so-called friends - friends who had scattered at the first sign of summer. And Barty hadn’t required the usual performance to stick around: no charm offensive, no curated interest.
Just Regulus and his undivided attention.
Lucky he could offer that in spades.
Without school - or the pressure of a public facade to maintain - Regulus was starting to relax. Freed from the scramble to keep up with the latest fixation - rugby, polo, fucking croquet, whatever posh preoccupation had ruled last term’s lunch breaks - he was finally beginning to feel like himself again.
Barty didn’t seem to mind that “being himself” meant quiet, brooding, contemplative, cutting.
Not as long as Regulus answered the phone.
Not as long as he listened.
"I’ve been really fucking good to you, Regulus. Haven’t I?"
Regulus pulled the biro from his mouth with a soft pop. "Yeah."
"I’ve sent you… every fucking day…"
The line crackled and dipped - like it always did when Barty’s voice climbed. Regulus could picture it perfectly: the pacing, the tight jaw, one hand fisted in his hair, the other strangling the receiver as that familiar edge of indignation crept in.
He assumed this particular tirade was about the flowers.
The rest of the poppies had arrived in the same sorry state - one by one, flattened beneath layers of bubble wrap, sealed in padded envelopes stamped with the same block capitals. Sometimes the writing was painstakingly neat; other times, wild and heavy, like Barty had carved the letters into the paper with a trembling fist.
Regulus wasn’t sure where Barty got them - whether he plucked them fresh each morning or had bulk-ordered and rationed them out.
Either way, Regulus took each one home.
Pressed them between the pages of an encyclopedia on the bottom shelf - the heaviest book he owned, and the one he touched the least. The poppies curled and browned there, trapped between entries on palaeontology and the Ptolemies.
"I think I get it now," Regulus said, spinning the biro idly between his fingers. "The poppies."
"You said you got it on Monday."
"I was lying," he replied, flat. "Thought that was obvious."
A snort of static.
"I have been thinking about them, though. It’s like… symbolism, right?"
Barty sounded furious again. "Symbolism?"
"Yeah," Regulus shrugged, slipping the pen back between his teeth, not caring that it muffled the rest of his sentence. "War on drugs."
"That’s your expert analysis?"
It was - and he’d been proud of the deduction. Regulus pulled the pen from his mouth and glanced down, inspecting the damage.
"Poppies. Opium. My dad hates drugs," he muttered, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. "It’s clever, if a bit on the nose. Or up it, I guess."
"You don’t usually snort opium, Regulus."
"Wouldn’t know."
There was a beat. Then Barty scoffed - short and mean.
"No. You fucking wouldn’t."
That one stung.
A reminder of his incompetence - even in an area he didn’t care to master - always did.
Regulus rolled his eyes. "Excuse me for not being a fucking junkie."
The words came out harder than intended - his teeth dragging over his lower lip as he swore with conviction, the sensation unfamiliar and satisfying in equal measure.
Satisfying, at least, until silence swallowed the line.
Sometimes he pushed too far, hit back too fast - played it a little too authentic. Barty had a habit of drifting off when he didn’t like what he heard - Regulus could already feel the space stretching between them.
He held his breath. Waited.
The silence dragged on - long enough for the sound of his own pulse to creep back into his ears.
Regulus bit the inside of his cheek. "Did - did you still want my number?"
Pathetic.
The exhale that followed sounded like it had been dragged through clenched teeth. "Yes."
At least he wasn’t the only one.
Regulus had copied the number onto a post-it two days ago - hesitated, then stuck it just within reach. He hadn’t memorised it yet; it belonged to a cheap pay-as-you-go SIM he’d picked up from a newsagent on his lunch break, under the guise of grabbing a Coke.
A burner phone for a boy he hadn’t even met.
The whole thing felt vaguely theatrical - but then, so did everything with Barty.
"You’re not going to be weird about it?" Regulus asked, picking at the curling edge of the note.
"Reggie…"
He winced. "Don’t."
"Regulus," Barty corrected, slow and heavy. "Reg… come on. Please?"
There it was again - power, settling back in Regulus’s hands.
"You know," he rolled the note between his fingers. "I’m not entirely convinced you’re capable of being normal."
First came the familiar thump - solid fist meeting solid surface.
Next would be the platitudes.
Then the pleading.
Regulus knew the rhythm by now.
"Sweetheart," Barty hissed, syrup poured over razor wire, "I am being so fucking patient with you, I am being so fucking -"
No one had ever fought this hard for his attention.
Usually, it went the other way; Regulus was used to orbiting, not being orbited.
Watching Barty circle - something half-tame and hungry - felt like catching a glimpse through the looking glass.
But Regulus knew his own teeth had never looked that sharp; there had only ever been desperation in him, never menace. His was the wild, cornered look - frightened, harmless, pathetic.
Barty's desperation came with sharp edges.
And finally, Regulus understood - what it felt like to offer scraps, what it felt like to withhold.
What it must be like on the other side.
Dizzying.
Regulus wasn’t particularly good at it, no expert handler. More like a child at a petting zoo, tossing pellets to a wild animal from behind the barrier - safe up on the mezzanine, feeding danger from a distance, knowing full well he’d never be so bold if he stepped into the enclosure.
But that was the point - he’d never have to climb down.
What bothered him most wasn’t even the hypothetical danger of a disembodied voice slipping through the phone line. It was the quieter voice in the back of his mind - the one that reminded him he wasn’t even the prize.
It wasn’t his attention Barty wanted.
It was his father's.
Regulus knew this was a foolish game to be playing - especially now, when things were finally starting to go right. Dad was saying his name properly, looking at him like he might be something. Potential, not just failure-to-launch.
Equally foolish was the quiet hope that he had become interesting on his own terms.
That Barty had seen him - really seen him - despite offering so little.
Wouldn’t that be nice? If someone - anyone - looked at him and realised he was alive in there?
Sometimes, Regulus was convinced other people thought he was empty. Like he was being puppeteered through the motions - speaking, smiling, breathing - but not quite sentient.
People looked straight through him.
But not Barty.
Barty kept hammering at the door like he knew .
Like he could sense someone crouched just out of sight, listening with bated breath.
Like he believed that if he just kept kicking, eventually, something might splinter.
"What do you even want my number for?" Regulus sighed, reaching across the desk to drag his real phone closer. "You’re not getting to my dad through me, if that was the plan."
"Fuck your dad!"
Regulus didn’t flinch. His eyes were elsewhere, scanning the wasteland of missed connections.
Rabastan hadn’t replied to anything since Tuesday. No read receipts. Just silence.
He’d posted, though - an artful bottle of whiskey against a slab of granite.
Regulus hovered over the heart. Tapped it.
Then tapped again, unliking, grimacing at the pathetic need to be seen.
"...going to find you, going to fucking…"
Dorcas had posted too - blinding white sand, long legs crossed at the knee, some summer romance cradled against her thigh like a prop.
At least she had replied.
[8:23] Reg: Tagged you in that pop-up you were talking about. It’ll be back in Shoreditch in September if you want to go.
[8:25] Reg: Want to call tonight?
[13:09] Cas: Yes! To the pop up thing.
[13:10] Cas: Sorry, shitty signal today. Going out tonight, I met a girl from Manchester in the villa next door. Maybe Sunday?
[13:54] Reg : Sure, Sunday.
"...just you wait, Regulus…"
Cissa had shown up over the weekend for garden drinks in the gazebo. She’d spent most of the afternoon snickering with Mummy, but Regulus didn’t mind - he’d lounged cross-legged in the sun, content to eavesdrop, soaking up the warmth and secondhand gossip.
"...not even interested in your stupid fucking..."
She was active now - posting lattes, sunglasses, the soft silhouettes of knees angled beneath café tables. On impulse, he sent her a message:
[13:56] Reg: Is that near Borough Market?
The read receipt blinked to life.
Three dots appeared.
Then vanished.
Meanwhile, Barty raged on - voice flickering in and out of focus like a storm trapped between signals.
"...smug, self-righteous, untouchable little…"
Regulus wasn’t listening anymore.
He was watching the green dot beside Cissa’s name, chewing the inside of his cheek.
It blinked grey - offline.
"...angel, please, I’m going to be so fucking..."
Sirius had texted, too. Mostly nonsense:
[03:18] Siri : ms
[03:24] Siri: mss
[05:42] Siri: saturday before your birthday
[05:44] Siri: ?????
[08:19] Reg: What?
No reply since.
Regulus dropped the phone on the desk. Exhaled through his nose.
Outside, the sky had taken on that strange, bruised orange London sometimes wore in midsummer - like the city had been swallowed by a dust storm. The light was thick and grainy, heavy with heat and high pollution, casting everything in a dull, unreal glow.
Barty’s voice crackled back into focus. "Are you even fucking listening?"
Regulus didn’t move.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I’m listening."
A beat.
"Reggie…"
"I told you not to call me that."
"Regulus."
He glanced down at the note in his hand.
It was Friday; Rachel would be back on Monday.
And he was always planning on reading out his number eventually.
Chapter Text
The red dot had been sitting at the top of his feed for a week.
'B has requested to follow you.'
Confirm.
Delete.
Regulus had done neither - and Barty hadn’t said a word to sway him one way or the other.
It was obvious who it was; the anonymous account had the same grey, faceless silhouette as Regulus. Zero followers. Zero following. Zero posts.
Coward.
Frankly, Regulus was beginning to like the little red dot - the quiet, undeniable proof that someone, somewhere, was paying attention. Of course, his stomach had dropped that first morning when he woke to find the request waiting. He’d cursed himself for leaving the photo tagged for so long, folding in on himself while his heart jackhammered, breathing through clenched teeth until the blur at the edge of his vision had reduced, and the world swam back into focus.
But panic aside, nothing had happened - terrible, or otherwise.
And the longer that red dot lingered, untouched, the less catastrophic it all felt.
That same morning, Regulus had slipped his new SIM card into an old phone he’d dug out of Sirius’s cluttered nightstand. He hadn’t been kept waiting long - Barty seemed intent on keeping his promise to call more often than sometimes .
And sometimes, Regulus answered.
When he wasn’t sprawled out in the sunroom with Mummy, out running errands with Dad, or FaceTiming Cassie - who rarely had signal and usually vanished after five pixelated, stuttering minutes - he was embarrassingly quick to pick up.
Barty called like clockwork.
Early, around six - long before Regulus had even powered on the burner.
Mid-morning, around ten - with mixed luck, depending on the day. Since finishing work experience, Regulus had fallen back into the habit of sleeping in.
Always at noon - when Regulus usually picked up for the first time.
And shortly after eight - once Regulus had locked himself away for the night. Those were the calls he answered every time - on the third ring, without fail.
Except on the second Saturday.
On the second Saturday, Barty didn't call until almost midnight - by which point, Regulus was feeling thoroughly and unreasonably neglected.
Routine had always mattered to him; in a way it didn’t seem to matter to anyone else. The steady rhythm of Barty’s calls - a bump in the road on an otherwise smooth, spiritless day - had become unexpectedly important. Regulus would sooner die than admit it, but his week had been ruled by that burner phone. Waking up to find three missed calls and a string of texts had become his daily hit of dopamine, and without it, he felt oddly subdued.
By eight fifteen, he was worried enough to type Barty’s name into the search bar, skimming through the news - just in case. There was no mention of either senior or junior, and Regulus, in a fit of churlish defeat, decided Barty had simply lost interest.
Still - while he scrolled aimlessly, the burner sat patiently on the nightstand, powered on.
When it finally lit up - buzzing sharp and sudden, slicing through the silence like a siren - Regulus nearly knocked it to the floor in his haste to answer.
He caught the quivering phone, vibration dulling in the curve of his palm, and turned it over to stare down at the flashing screen. Willing the thrashing creature in his chest to still, he counted down from five before answering.
Futile, really - his voice still came out breathless. "Hi."
It sounded like Barty was outside - a car roared past in the background before his voice bled through the line, muffled, the unplaceable accent thicker than usual, slurred at the edges. "Hey, Reggie."
"Told you not to call me that."
"You let your brother."
There it was again - that quiet, needling threat: I was there. I heard things you didn’t know I heard. You didn’t even notice.
In the span of one short week, every careful boundary Regulus had laid out - whilst dangling his number like leverage - had quietly crumbled away. Barty didn’t seem all that interested in negotiating these days.
Regulus sank back into the sheets as another car tore past, louder than the last - saying nothing.
"Reg?" Barty muttered, unfocused. "Fuck - Regulus?"
"Yeah?"
"Say something."
Regulus sighed. "Something."
Barty didn’t laugh.
Judging by the rustling on the other end, he probably hadn’t even heard him.
Saturday nights - it seemed like the whole world had somewhere to be.
Cassie had posted on her story: two mojitos - one for her, one for the girl from Manchester, on holiday with her own family. Apparently, everyone else had parents who could spare more than a week over the summer.
Rabastan had posted too - shots lined up on a bar, a busker filmed in shaky portrait mode, snickering off screen with a stranger. He’d already fallen in with the rugby crowd, and term hadn’t even started.
Even Sirius had posted - the boy with the scars leaning against a sticky bar, more exposed brick and peeling posters. Of course James fucking Potter was there too, with his stupidly oversized arm slung about Sirius’s shoulders, like it belonged there.
And then there was Barty - wandering a high street somewhere, probably half-cut and surrounded.
Even his stalker had a social life.
"Reggie?" Barty’s voice came through clearer that time - still a little garbled, but the background noise had faded, like he’d ducked into a side street. "Are you still there?"
"Yeah."
"Good," Barty sighed. His footsteps were audible now - quick, uneven, shoes slapping against the pavement. It sounded like he was in a hurry. "Sorry I didn’t call, sweetheart. It’s been a long day."
"It’s fine," Regulus muttered, slipping into the usual show of indifference as he shifted back, folding one arm behind his head. "Wasn’t expecting you to anyway."
Barty paused - long enough for the silence to feel pointed.
"I always call," he scoffed.
The pressure had been building all evening - every pass of his thumb over the screen, every pixelated insult, every wasted minute. All of it a reminder of how much time Regulus was losing, how miserably he was failing the biggest test of all - the one with the blurriest margins, the vaguest objectives, and no real way of knowing if you were getting it right.
Life.
It cost so much to pretend it didn’t matter - his own grand insignificance, the quiet truth that the world kept spinning without him. That tossing a like into the void, hoping it might circle back around, was wishful thinking of the highest order. Regulus knew he was entitled - so entitled to think he deserved anything, from anyone, when he could offer so little in return.
And maybe that was what had frightened him most: the idea that Barty had finally given up, tired of trying to draw blood from a stone. That Regulus had failed again - fumbled some unspoken test that everyone else seemed to have prepared for.
But here was Barty - back again, holding out the rarity that was a second chance.
Maybe this was his reward.
Maybe the universe was tossing Barty back.
"I -" Regulus sat up straighter, forcing his jaw to properly unclench. "I suppose you do."
The words got stuck in his throat, caught on the sharp edges of gratitude.
It was a small mercy that Barty seemed to misread it.
"Oh, Reggie," Barty sighed, wheedling in a way that sounded uncomfortably familiar. "You’re not mad at me now, are you?"
That would be mortifying - being upset with what amounted to a stranger.
Regulus shook his head firmly. "Nope."
"I guess I’d be rather upset with you," Barty reasoned, voice drifting like he’d turned away from the phone to glance over his shoulder for a moment. "If you stopped answering, I mean. You’re getting better at it, but I can’t say I’m thrilled with your success rate so far. It’s like… fifty-fifty."
"Maybe you call at stupid times."
"Maybe I call when I can."
And he did - more often than sometimes, just like he’d promised.
But not a single time today.
And - perhaps that had stung.
"So what stops you when you can’t?" Regulus asked carefully, glancing down at the shape of his knees, two low peaks beneath the duvet. He let the silence stretch, then added, quietly and rather bravely; "What stopped you today?"
"Regulus."
There it was - that cautionary note in Barty’s voice, the growl before the bite.
But Regulus was curled up in his own bed, safe in the low light - and Barty was just a phantom voice on the other end of the line.
What harm could there be in tugging the thread?
"It’s just - you said yourself, you always call," Regulus drew in a quick breath, tripping over his own rush of courage before it gave out. "So why didn’t you today? Not that I... I mean, it’s fine. I just - I was curious. What couldn’t wait?"
A loaded pause stretched between them.
"Tell you what," Barty said at last, tone brightening - as if forcing a reset. "We’ll trade for it, alright?"
Regulus frowned. "Trade what?"
"Stories," Barty scoffed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I don’t want to tell you where I’ve been, so we’ll trade. Think of something you don’t want to tell me ."
There were plenty of stories Regulus would rather not share with anyone, let alone Barty. He wasn’t exactly starved for strife - but none of his stories felt particularly safe to use as a bargaining chip.
The first one that came to mind was obvious.
Sirius.
That night.
The awful night he’d waited up, window cracked, sheets pulled to his chin, listening hard for the usual whistle from the street below - the sign he should dutifully tiptoe downstairs and unlock the door.
But the whistle never came.
He’d fretted until sunrise, fought to keep his burning eyes open, until he’d finally decided it was late enough to be worried - late enough to break the most important rule of all and go tell Mummy.
Only, when he’d gone to open his bedroom door, it had jammed - caught on the note that had been slipped underneath.
Regulus couldn’t hand over that story - but there were other stories, weren’t there?
Smaller, but just as sharp.
That time at swim practice when a boy had caught his ankle and held him under, just long enough to make him thrash. His first chlorine scented panic attack on the draining board at the edge of the pool - horribly public.
That Christmas when Mummy had decided he'd been given a particularly shit role in the school nativity. She had gone in to demand a better one - even though he’d quietly asked to be Villager Four. He still remembered the look on his favourite teacher’s face, like he’d betrayed her.
That first time Rabastan invited him to one of those stupid end-of-term parties, and Mulciber asked if he was 'gay or something' - apparently, he followed Bas around like a lost puppy. Bas hadn't looked at him the same since.
Any of those would do.
But none of them came willingly to the tip of his tongue.
Regulus grimaced, fingers tightening around the phone. "Don’t think I’ve got anything good enough to trade, really."
"No?"
Regulus shook his head, uneasy - gaze flickering to the bedroom door. His throat tightened; he swallowed thickly through the constriction, forcing his mouth back open with an audible pop.
"But… I was - I was a bit worried about you- today," he admitted falteringly, squeezing his eyes shut until stars burst behind the lids. "So, I’m - just - I’m glad you’re not dead. Or something."
Barty said nothing.
Long enough for Regulus to feel the weight of his own words landing.
Long enough to regret them.
There was still time to walk it back - to open his mouth again, to say something dry, something cutting, to steer them back into safer waters -
Barty got there first.
"Oh, Reggie," he sighed - not soft, never quite, but so close. Like he was using the smooth face of a blade, rather than the sharp edge. "You haven’t been worrying about me all day, have you, sweetheart?"
Regulus cringed, swallowing hard against the urge to hang up. "No…"
"Angel…"
His fingers curled into the rough seam of the duvet as the static sizzle of Barty’s breath snaked through one ear.
"You really want to know what I was doing today?"
It was a slow question - lazy, lethargic, and faintly amused.
"If..." Regulus closed his eyes. "If you want."
Barty drew in a slow breath - savoring what he was about to say. "I was visiting a friend."
It was unreasonable - the heat that flared in Regulus’s cheeks - but it ignited fast and fierce all the same.
Fuck Barty.
And fuck his so-called friend - who, despite mattering more than their reliable routine, had never warranted so much as a name drop in all their late-night calls.
"Mm."
"His name was Evan."
Was.
Regulus’s heart ticked up again.
"Today’s a sort of... anniversary," Barty scoffed around the word. "I don’t know what you’d call it, really."
Fuck.
"Is he...?"
"Dead?" Barty dragged his tongue across his teeth. "Yeah. Hope so, anyway, or burying him was a mistake."
Regulus mouthed a silent curse and slammed his head back against the wall.
If only there was a way to retract a thought - to climb into the ether where they were all surely recorded, and scrub the worst ones clean.
‘Fuck his dead friend’ would look positively awful on judgement day.
"I’m really - really sorry."
"Yeah?" Barty sounded almost thrilled, though Regulus couldn’t tell if he was imagining it.
"Yeah," he echoed, pushing himself upright as the duvet slipped down around his hips. "I didn’t know. I should have..."
"How would you have known?"
There was no reason he should have known. No real obligation.
Yet shame curled tight in his gut, sharp and sickle-shaped all the same.
Barty would have known - if it had been the other way around.
All those hours of late-night scrolling, combing through fragments of Barty’s digital footprint, and Regulus had found nothing of substance. Nothing real - certainly not a single trace of Evan, buried between the father-heavy headlines.
"Suppose I wouldn’t," he reasoned quietly. "But I’m still sorry."
"That’s sweet of you."
Regulus could hear the smile. Barty relished the shape of his regret, and Regulus knew what was coming next.
"Go on," Barty murmured. "Make it up to me, Reg."
Ever the opportunist.
"Thought you might say that," Regulus sighed, settling back against the headboard, the duvet shifting with him. He stared at the back of his restless hand, fingers fidgeting against each other, searching for an answer that wouldn’t appear there. "How?"
"Well, you could always show me that pretty face," Barty suggested, footsteps picking up again. "Let me follow you."
The suggestion hung there - heavy, deliberate. Regulus didn’t respond. He didn’t need to.
"Or..." Barty went on, snickering softly at the silence, the unspoken rejection that didn’t seem to sting one bit, "you could tell me the first story that came to mind when I said we should trade."
So, that was the mystery of ‘B’ solved - not that it had been much of a mystery in the first place. Regulus knew accepting the request would be beyond foolish, and it was firmly off the table. It would hand Barty the keys to everything he hadn’t yet managed to steal: friends, cousins, favourite haunts. Some stones were better left unturned.
Better that Barty didn’t bleed through the cracks into the neat parts of his life - not until Regulus was sure it was safe to let him.
That left only one option.
Regulus raked a hand through his hair, fingers snagging at the nape of his neck. "It’s not exactly a story," he said at last. "Just... a topic I usually avoid."
"That’ll do."
"I suppose I don't..." Regulus grimaced, forcing the words out. "I don't talk about my brother very much."
"Sirius?"
Of course he knew his name.
"Mm."
On the other end of the line, Barty’s footsteps slowed - a steady scuff of soles against pavement. "Why not?"
"Dunno..." Regulus let go of his hair, his hand drifting back to his crown, searching for a pressure point to ground him.
Barty didn’t rush him. He let the silence stretch, long enough for obligation to build behind Regulus’s ribs, shoving the words loose.
"He - he doesn’t live with us anymore."
"No?"
Regulus shut his eyes. "No."
"Why not?"
"Uh..." he drew in a sharp breath that snagged in his chest. "Dunno. Suppose he just... he just doesn’t - doesn’t want to."
It was a half-healed truth; pulling it open still stung.
Barty clicked his tongue, soft and almost pitying. "That must make you sad, sweetheart."
Regulus blinked up at the ceiling, a dull throb blooming behind his eyes.
Sweetheart.
The word scraped against something raw.
"Sometimes," he exhaled, slow and careful. "Yeah."
"You miss him?"
"That’s not..." Regulus grimaced, voice catching again. He pushed through it. "I don’t - I don’t miss how it was before he left... but I miss him. I miss how he used to be."
A beat.
"How was it before he left?"
That was too close - and the way Barty had asked felt surgical, like pressing a thumb into a wound to test its depth.
Besides, Dad had always insisted on decorum: bite your tongue, keep family matters behind closed doors. No one wanted to hear the horrible parts; Sirius was a topic best left untouched.
If someone did ask, Regulus knew the script by heart:
Sirius is exploring his own path at the moment.
That was the party line - polished, palatable.
He wasn’t expected - or permitted - to elaborate.
"Mm... just - just wasn’t good," he muttered, making it perfectly clear the door was closing.
The silence that followed was broken only by the slow, unhurried rhythm of Barty’s footsteps, echoing faintly down the line.
For a long moment, it seemed that was all there would be.
Then -
"Evan was nineteen."
The words landed like a stone dropped into deep water.
Regulus didn’t move.
"Fucked up, isn’t it?" Barty said, almost bright.
Regulus closed his eyes, a pulse of shame thudding behind them.
Another test. Another failure.
"Can you imagine, Reg?" Barty asked, almost curious. "Dying that young?"
Sirius was nineteen.
Almost twenty.
"How did…?"
The question barely made it out.
Barty snorted, short and sharp, like he’d been waiting for the cue. "Accidental fucking overdose."
He let the words hang there, then laughed again - hollow, expectant - as if daring Regulus to offer an opinion.
Regulus only managed to open his mouth; 'sorry' caught in his throat - cheap, useless.
Barty sighed, the sound thin with disappointment.
"They said it wasn’t intentional," he went on, flatter now. "But that’s bullshit. Evan knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn’t some desperate junkie, Reg. If it was an overdose, he meant it."
Excuse me for not being a fucking junkie.
Regulus had said that - just last week.
Hadn’t thought twice about why Barty had gone so quiet after.
"My brother is…" Regulus started falteringly, not sure where the sentence was headed - only that he needed to say something, to explain himself. "I don’t know what he takes, exactly, but…"
No footsteps. No static.
Just a low, humming silence.
Regulus pressed his thumb to his temple, like he could dig out the guilt by force. "He’s always coming down from something," he muttered. "So, if he isn’t completely strung out, he’s just like… fucking wired, or something. Can’t sit still. Can’t have like… the most basic conversation."
Still nothing.
"He said it was coke, last time," Regulus added, voice quieter now, like the words might do less damage if whispered.
Finally, Barty sighed - long and slow, like smoke slipping through clenched teeth. "Coke won’t kill him, Reggie. Not unless he’s very stupid."
Regulus huffed a short, ugly laugh. "Well. He acts like he is."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah - but he’s not. Could’ve gone anywhere. If he gave a shit about uni."
"Bet your dad hates him for that," Barty said lightly.
It felt like a slap.
A reminder of how easily he'd cracked himself open.
Regulus felt his jaw fuse shut again.
"You’re much smarter than Sirius, aren’t you, Reg?"
Regulus bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. Copper bloomed across his tongue.
"I’ve read all your school reports," Barty said, syrup-slick and smiling. "Clever boy."
Regulus almost said something - something cutting, something stupid - anything to drag them back into safer waters.
But -
"Is anyone else awake, Reg?"
There was something off about the question - some faint interference on the line.
An echo.
Regulus frowned. "What?"
"Just wondering," Barty said softly. "Is it just you still up?"
There it was again - that strange distortion, like Barty had picked up a mimic, just out of sync. Regulus sat up a little straighter, his pulse ticking faster as he held the phone slightly away from his ear.
"Yeah," he said slowly. "Yeah, it’s just me."
"Thought so," Barty hummed, lazy, almost pleased - like he was smiling into the words. "It’s just your light on."
Regulus jolted upright, his gaze snapping to the window - still cracked open, still waiting on a whistle that would never come.
The curtains were drawn, but thin enough for the warm glow from his bedside lamp to leak out, a soft yellow smear against the dark face of the house. His window stood out like a beacon, the only light left burning.
"I don’t have a light on," he lied, eyes fixed on the restless flutter of the curtains.
Barty snorted - but he didn’t argue.
A faint, dry crackle. Like cellophane twisting in slow hands.
Close. Too close.
Regulus couldn’t tell if the sound had come through the phone or from the pavement just outside his window.
"Come put these in water."
He stopped breathing.
"They’ll die if you leave them out all night."
Footsteps, firm against the pavement, right beneath the window.
Too steady, too deliberate to be a passerby.
Then a turn - softer now, retreating, fading into the dark.
But not gone.
Still on the line.
Chapter Text
"Well, it’s very sweet of you, Regulus," Walburga sighed, gently turning the vase beneath the harsh glare of the kitchen lights to better inspect her arrangement. "But why lilies?"
It was a question Regulus had been turning over in his own mind all morning, each pass offering fewer answers. There had to be some hidden logic behind it - didn't there? It was Barty, after all; there was always logic, always a riddle, always something sinister lurking in the subtext.
Regulus shrugged, dropping his gaze to watch the slow swirl of cream dissolving into his coffee. "There was a deal online. You didn’t get to pick."
Walburga pursed her lips. "They smell like funerals."
God - maybe that was the reason.
"Sorry, Mummy."
Walburga set the vase back down on the breakfast bar with a delicate clink, and circled behind Regulus, trailing her fingers thoughtfully through his hair on her way. Her rings snagged in his early-morning tangles, tugging jarringly, but Regulus didn’t flinch. He knew better than that - one little sign of discomfort would put her in a mood, and they had the whole day ahead together.
It had taken him almost an hour to summon the courage to go downstairs and collect the flowers. He hadn’t stayed on the phone with Barty for long - just enough time to hear him board a bus, the hiss of doors closing and the distant rumble of departure providing some small illusion of safety, of distance. Then, muttering a vague, unconvincing excuse, Regulus had ended the call.
The flowers had been waiting right where Barty had promised they'd be: white lilies, their waxy petals bright against the crinkled sheen of clear cellophane, tucked neatly to one side of the front step, as if to spare them from being accidentally crushed by Dad on his morning commute.
Regulus still hadn't decided whether the gesture was sweet or sinister, but he hadn’t the heart to abandon them to the August heat. He wouldn’t have had the faintest idea what to do with an entire bouquet, but Walburga was a fount of useless knowledge, plenty capable of turning a crushed bouquet into a tasteful display.
Mummy would probably know precisely what to do about Barty, too - or, more importantly, what Regulus ought to say to him. She had twice the politician’s instincts that his father had, without having once set foot in Parliament.
Of course, Regulus knew exactly what needed to be done - he had spent enough late nights scrolling through watered down pop-psychology threads to recognise that this was probably the moment to reassert his boundaries, or whatever the properly mature-sounding phrase was. Knowing the solution wasn't the issue. The real challenge lay in packaging his words delicately enough not to frighten away the only person who had even come close to being a reliable friend all year.
Mummy moved away before he had the chance to formulate a question - already restless and drifting toward the pantry. She lingered there a moment, humming quietly to herself as she surveyed the shelves, before glancing back over one shoulder with a conspiratorial smile.
"Shall we take a pitcher into the garden, darling?"
"Mummy!" Regulus looked up, half-scandalised. "It’s not even noon."
"Well, it’s shaping up to be a beautiful day," Walburga replied breezily, dismissing his objection with a casual wave of one hand. "What else would you rather be doing?"
There were plenty of ways Regulus would have liked to spend a bright summer afternoon, assuming he had willing company and a cast-iron guarantee he wouldn’t be mocked for making suggestions - but since he had neither at his disposal, he only shrugged.
"Dunno," he muttered, taking another sip of his rapidly cooling coffee.
"There we are, then," Walburga said with a triumphant little scoff. She leaned further into the pantry and grabbed a bottle of syrup by the neck, groaning theatrically. "God, I’m sick to death of daiquiris, darling. We really must come up with something new."
"What’s in them?"
"Strawberries and rum, mostly," she replied, squinting at the label with a sigh that suggested she’d rather be mixing anything else. "Would you like to try one?"
Regulus grimaced. "I don’t drink."
"You’re nearly eighteen."
"Nearly being the operative word, Mummy."
Walburga rolled her eyes. "You're a stickler for a technicality, darling."
"Sorry," Regulus sighed, rising from the stool to hover unhelpfully. The legs scraped sharply against the tile, creating an ugly little sound that made him flinch. "Cassie had mojitos last night. She said they were alright."
Walburga hummed thoughtfully. "Now that’s an idea," she paused, gaze drifting back toward the pantry. "Though you'd probably prefer a daiquiri - you’ve always had a sweeter tooth. Check if we have strawberries, will you? If not, you’ll need to order some."
"So we’re ignoring the technicality, then?" Regulus asked, already half-turned toward the fridge, grateful for the excuse to look busy.
"Looks that way," she agreed, turning to press both palms flat against the counter, as if to brace herself. "Now - speaking of your birthday. What are we going to do about that?"
Regulus was glad his back was turned.
What are we going to do about that?
As if his birthday was a problem to be solved.
Really, Regulus couldn't blame his mother for phrasing it that way - he would have done exactly the same, if he weren't already making such a determined effort not to think about it.
Eighteen was supposed to be a landmark; it wasn't the sort of birthday one could quietly ignore or brush aside, framed as just another day. It demanded some kind of acknowledgment - some gesture of significance.
Regulus just didn't know what form that gesture was supposed to take.
Cassie wouldn’t be back from Greece in time, and he hadn't dared to ask if Rabastan might consider making the trip back down just for him. The silence on both fronts was loud enough already.
Sirius had mentioned something vague about making birthday plans during one of their incoherent, late-night text exchanges - but whether he'd actually bother showing up for a family affair, much less manage to smile politely through it, was another matter entirely.
Regulus frowned into the sterile glow of the fridge, glassy gaze fixed on a perfectly good punnet of strawberries. Without knowing precisely why, he shoved them to the back of the shelf, drew in a tight breath, and closed the door again.
"We don’t have any," he muttered, turning back toward his mother. "I can run to the shop, though. Save us waiting half the day for Ocado."
"We’ll have to do something, Regulus."
There was no escaping the birthday talk, then.
He cringed, shifting his weight. "Like what?"
Walburga shrugged, more focused on pouring a careful measure into one of her delicate crystal glasses than on his obvious discomfort. "Perhaps dinner?"
"Here?"
"No, we’ll have to hire somewhere nice."
Regulus could taste the argument before he even spoke. "Mummy, I really don’t think - "
"Just a back room somewhere," she said breezily, waving a hand as she tossed back the drink and grimaced. "Not the whole restaurant - don’t be dramatic."
"But -"
Walburga was already halfway through listing guests. "We’ll have to invite Bella and Rod, of course. Cissa, and that boy - what’s his name?"
"Lucian?" Regulus frowned. "Or... Lucius?"
"Ridiculous, either way," Walburga sniffed - rather hypocritically, he thought, for someone who had named him Regulus Arcturus.
"Cyg and Dru," she continued, ticking them off on her fingers. "Perhaps Grandpa, if he’s in the mood. Perhaps not. He's starting to look positively ancient, which doesn't bode well for your father."
Regulus glanced down at his sleeves, fussing absently with the cuff. "Sirius?"
Walburga let out a sharp little huff, almost a laugh, but lacking any real warmth. "Next you’ll be wanting Andromeda."
Regulus sighed, sensing the inevitable. "I'll just go to the shop, shall I?"
"I suppose you’d better," Walburga murmured, setting her glass down with a soft, final clink. "And you’ll have to ask your father about him."
Regulus nodded, though he had no intention of asking his father. He knew exactly how that conversation would unfold - and he wasn’t in the mood for another frosty evening. He slipped on his shoes by the door, grabbed a pair of sunglasses from the foyer table drawer, and stepped out into the heavy heat of the early afternoon.
The street was deserted, washed in that particular brand of suburban stillness that made everything feel staged - like a film set waiting for someone to call action . Rather than lingering for his cue, Regulus tucked his hands into his pockets, ducked his head, and set off toward the high street.
At least the walk would give him time to think. Time to put a little distance between himself and the house. Time to breathe without the clink of glasses and the sound of Mummy’s one-woman, liquor-laced party planning committee buzzing around his ears.
Time to rehearse what he was going to say.
Halfway down the road, the burner phone buzzed in his pocket.
It wasn’t Sirius. It wasn’t Cassie. And it certainly wasn’t Rabastan.
It was just Barty - like clockwork.
Regulus didn’t hesitate.
He answered on the second ring - relieved, almost grateful the call had come when it did. Any longer spent rehearsing, and he would’ve lost his nerve. Regulus couldn’t afford that - not now, not when he was practicing being assertive.
"You survived the journey home, then," he started dryly, glancing both ways before jogging across the road.
"Of course," Barty snickered, noticeably brighter than he’d sounded the night before. "No one fucks with me, Reg - I’m the scariest thing on the night bus."
Regulus let out a scoff. "Yeah, I believe that."
"Frightened of me, darling?"
Regulus wrinkled his nose. He sounded exactly like Mummy when she was in one of her teasing moods - and Regulus had never liked being toyed with. "Nope," he said shortly. "But I’m glad you called. I wanted to talk about last night."
Barty said nothing.
Regulus didn’t notice at first.
He was too busy weaving around a couple with a pushchair clogging the pavement, too distracted by the flash of his own reflection in a shop window.
Overdressed again - too dark, too layered for the heat, like some miserable seminarian, the pressed white collar of his dress shirt peeking stiffly over the lightweight jacket he hadn't needed but had thrown on anyway. Regulus still hadn’t figured out how to wear summer properly - how to look casual without looking slightly unkempt in the same breath.
"Uh, so…" he mumbled, eyes dropping to his shoes. He drew a slow breath, trying to steady himself, then forced his voice into something firmer - choking it out, channeling Orion.
"You can’t come to my house again."
No reply, of course - he would need to lay out a clearer line of rhetoric, wouldn’t he?
Regulus cleared his throat. "I don’t care that you have my number - I mean, I gave it to you, so, that’s fine," he paused, the next words catching on his discomfort. "But I - I never told you where I live."
Regulus loathed how he sounded - nervous, breathless. Like a child trying to be brave.
"I get that you can look it up - anyone can. And I know my Dad isn’t very… people don’t seem to… well, people are pretty fucking weird about him. So yeah, our address is probably out there, somewhere. But you can’t just - you can’t just show up and expect me to act like that’s normal, you know?"
Regulus couldn’t be sure Barty was even listening; the silence on the line was dense.
"It doesn’t really matter - just this once," he added quickly. "But if you come back again, I’ll - I’ll have to tell my dad. Okay?"
"You’ll have to tell your Dad?" Barty’s voice was quiet, amused.
Regulus was starting to wish he had taken just a little longer to rehearse. It had sounded childish - it was childish - but it was out now, and he wasn’t going to walk it back.
He squared his shoulders. "Yeah. I will."
"Oh my god…" Barty scoffed, sharp and incredulous.
For a second, it sounded like he might laugh - but what spilled out was thinner, near hysterical instead.
"Has anyone ever told you how pathologically fucking ungrateful you are, Regulus?"
Fuck.
"I’m not," Regulus insisted, casting a surreptitious glance over his shoulder, as if half expecting someone to rescue him from this very unexpected domestic. "I swear I’m not - I just -"
"Who else shows up for you?"
Regulus winced. "I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, or whatever, but you know if my Dad found out I was even talking to you, he’d -"
"He’d what?" Barty’s voice was flat now - no teasing, no heat.
Just a cold, hovering threat.
Frankly, Regulus was sick of it - that constant flutter of dread and anticipation knotting tight in the pit of his stomach. He held more cards than Barty seemed to realise, and he was done playing the pawn.
"Look, I know exactly who you are, so you’re not playing a particularly clever game," he lowered his voice, stepping aside to let a shuffling pensioner pass, offering an apologetic grimace. "My Dad told me all about you."
"No," Barty sighed, flat and unimpressed. "He didn’t."
"Yes, he did," Regulus insisted, sharper than intended.
"So, what exactly did he tell you, Regulus?"
Regulus hesitated, heart thudding a little too fast now. "That you’re…you’re not…"
"Mm?"
Regulus grimaced, searching for something solid to throw back. "I mean - nothing nice, alright? I can't say he's your biggest fan, actually. But I know he knows your Dad. Doesn’t he?"
"Uh huh."
Barty was impossible to read. For a fleeting moment, Regulus wondered if it might be easier in person - if Barty’s face would betray something his voice refused to - but a cool stare would probably kill Regulus off just as quickly as a cool silence.
The whole conversation felt like trying to scale a slope in slick dress shoes: the harder he scrambled for footing, the faster he slid backward, while Barty’s voice only grew colder, smoother - untouched by the friction Regulus seemed caught up in.
"And I - I know you live somewhere in South," he offered, rather weakly.
"Jesus," Barty muttered, dry and scornful. "Your search history must be as dull as your calendar."
Regulus knew he was baiting him - of course he was - but the words still cut too close to home.
"Well," he sniffed reproachfully, trying for dignified and landing on petulant. "Given your father’s position - and your history - I doubt he’d be thrilled to know you’re still bothering us. Maybe I’ll let him know."
The silence on the line stretched, heavy and humming.
And, of course, lashing out blindly had been a mistake.
Regulus opened his mouth to take it back - and not for the first time, Barty got there first.
"Bothering you?" he echoed, incredulous.
Regulus grimaced. "That’s not exactly what I -"
"Is that what I’m doing, Regulus?"
"I -"
"Is that why you keep picking up?"
"I just -"
"Because I can stop," Barty cut in, voice sharp and surgical now, each syllable clipped. "Stop calling. Stop bothering you. If that’s really what you want."
Regulus froze at the corner of the street.
"Is that what you want, Regulus?"
A car rolled past - slow, indifferent - as if the world hadn’t just tilted beneath his feet.
That wasn’t what he wanted.
God , that wasn’t what he fucking wanted.
Regulus closed his eyes, suddenly and fiercely grateful for the sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose; he certainly didn't think his fragile ego would survive tearing up on a street corner in broad daylight.
Barty drew in a slow, crackling breath - he didn’t seem inclined to wait for an answer.
"Thought not," he said coolly.
The line died with a final, hollow click.
Notes:
I'm star-liit over on Tumblr if you'd like to stay updated on next releases. I'm approaching the halfway mark of the chapters I've already drafted, and it’s looking like this fic will be longer than I originally expected - but I'm locking in for the long haul!
Chapter 9
Notes:
CW for underage drinking here - by a week, but regardless, it's there.
This is also probably the moment to note that I'm a blond Barty truther - feel free to disregard in your own head if that isn't for you!
Chapter Text
Sirius lived in an artful sort of dive - the kind of grungy flat near Primrose Hill that was curated to look like it belonged to someone barely scraping by, when in reality it cost two grand a month in rent and well over a million to own outright. Everything about it screamed showcased squalor: mismatched furniture, deliberately scuffed floorboards, and an unframed abstract canvas propped casually against one wall, though neither occupant painted.
The tall sash windows looked out over a weary phone shop, its flickering neon sign permanently stuck on REP_IRS. No one had fixed it - just like no one had swept up the crumpled fast food wrappers nesting under the bench at the bus shelter, or dealt with the traffic cone lounging defiantly atop it, like a drunk passed out in the sun.
Regulus wasn’t charmed. He wasn’t even surprised. But credit where it was due - someone had, at the very least, made an effort to tidy up inside.
The ashtray on the windowsill had been emptied, though the stale tang of cigarettes still clung stubbornly to the curtains, fluttering in the breeze. Someone had cracked a window, letting the heat bleed out and the city rush in - smog and sirens and the ragged edge of a blazing argument, three doors down.
Empty bottles had been corralled into a greasy takeaway box by the front door, and the shirts draped over the backs of thrifted dining chairs at least smelled clean - rumpled, but with the telltale softness of something recently laundered and left to dry in a rush.
James fucking Potter stood at the kitchen counter, sleeves rolled, idly twirling cigarette paper between his thumb and forefinger with the heavy concentration of a man defusing a bomb. He’d been the one to open the door - a detail Regulus would never forgive Sirius for - and after a few stilted pleasantries, and an invitation to perch on the edge of a questionable little sofa, they’d shared the open-plan living room in strained silence for exactly two minutes and forty-one seconds.
James broke first.
"Happy birthday, by the way," he muttered, eyes still fixed on the cigarette paper. "Should’ve said earlier."
"It’s not my birthday," Regulus returned - only realising he’d been holding his breath when he had to let it out on a sigh to speak. The result was unfortunate: it made him sound dreadfully bored. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "It’s next week."
A familiar expression flickered across James’s face - one Regulus recognised instantly. The subtle lift of an eyebrow, the faint widening of his eyes, the slight purse of his lips. It was the universal micro-expression for alright, you pedantic little fuck. Regulus was on the receiving end of it more often than he’d like to admit.
"Thanks, though," he added, aiming for polite but landing somewhere closer to bitterly sarcastic instead.
James didn’t respond - just lifted the cigarette to his lips and sealed it with a slow, practiced drag.
The silence was excruciating.
Regulus glanced down at his hands, clasped neatly in his lap. There was probably a clock somewhere in the flat - he couldn't place it, but the ticking had amped up a notch, as if to fill the silence.
"Did he say when -"
"Sirius said you -"
They spoke at the same time.
Regulus winced, glancing toward the open window, seriously weighing up the logistics of taking a running leap.
James cleared his throat. "Sirius said... uh, something about dinner?"
"Right, yeah," Regulus reached up, sliding a hand through the back of his hair, searching for that familiar soothing spot at the crown. "That’s just with my parents."
James snorted. "And your cousins."
"Some of them," Regulus agreed mildly.
James lifted the cigarette. "D’you mind?"
It took Regulus a second to realise what he meant - and frankly, he would mind, but who was he to tell James Potter not to smoke in his own flat? He grit his teeth and shook his head.
"Cheers," James muttered around the cigarette, striking a match - though the lighter on the counter would’ve done the job just as well, albeit with less dramatic flair. He lit up, took a long drag, and exhaled slowly through his nose. When he spoke again, it was with steady purpose, as if there’d never been a pause.
"S’just a bit unfair, isn’t it? That Sirius isn’t going"
Regulus released a slow breath of his own. "It’s not up to me."
"Isn’t it?" James tilted his head, blowing smoke toward the open window. "It’s your birthday."
It was his birthday - and yet, the finer details of the day seemed to matter more to everyone else. No one seemed to register that Regulus would have much preferred to stay home and pretend it wasn’t happening at all.
Except - that wasn’t the whole truth.
No, if he was really honest, what Regulus actually wanted was to stay home and have his brother wake him up - like he used to. He wanted to spend the day in the kitchen, trying and failing to bake a cake. He wanted his mother to watch from the breakfast bar with pursed lips and the ghost of a smile. He wanted his father to come home early - as he always did on birthdays - with a box neatly wrapped by his secretary on her lunch break.
That had last happened when he was thirteen.
That evening had been wasted at a bowling alley with boys from the French society he hadn’t even liked - a final, desperate attempt at party planning from his parents, before everyone had quietly accepted that it was far cooler to throw your own illicit soirées.
Birthdays had been disappointing ever since.
James was still watching him, but the best Regulus could muster was a half-hearted shrug. "I don't even want to go to dinner, and Sirius knows that."
"Right…" James drawled, rolling the ‘r’ and practically spitting the ‘t’.
The first small mercy in what felt like forever came with the thump and scrape of the front door.
Sirius slipped in sideways through the gap, juggling a rustling carrier bag, heavy with clinking bottles. Behind him, the tall boy with the scars - Remus, if Regulus had conducted his research thoroughly enough - followed, nudging the bottle box aside with his foot to swing the door fully open.
They were mid-debate - something trivial, by the sound of it. Regulus had assumed it was an argument at first, but the snicker that slipped from Sirius gave it away as playful, sapping out the tension before it could settle in his shoulders.
Much to his relief, his brother looked good.
Really good. Like he’d slept. Like he’d washed his hair. His eyes were sharp and lucid - no glaze.
Maybe he was better.
Their conversation stopped dead at the threshold the moment Sirius spotted his guest.
"Reggie!"
He passed the bulging carrier bag to Remus without ceremony, then rounded the sofa in a few quick strides, throwing his arms around his brother’s neck. Sirius pressed a kiss to Regulus’s temple - warm, familiar, and faintly smoky.
"Sorry I’m late, angel."
Regulus ducked his head, half embarrassed, half quietly delighted. "Sorry I’m early."
"You’re always early," Sirius hauled his brother up by the arm, guiding him around the coffee table like he couldn’t be trusted to find the kitchen on his own. "You remember Remus, don’t you?"
Remus had already claimed a spot at the kitchen island, methodically unpacking the bag.
"We’ve not actually met yet," he murmured, glancing up from the bottle lineup. The tight smile he offered wouldn’t have looked out of place on Regulus’s own face. "But happy birthday."
James snorted. "It’s not his birthday."
"Yes, it is," Sirius frowned - either missing the subtext or ignoring it entirely. "It’s next week, and I won’t see him then, so today has to count."
James shot Regulus a very pointed look; Regulus answered by studying his shoes.
"You've really never met my brother, Rem?"
"Nope," Remus said, tone even. "Heard lots about you, though, Reg."
Sirius looked momentarily disturbed, as if rifling through his own memory for something that had been stolen. He gave a small shake of his head, as though trying to dislodge the unsettling thought, then slung an arm around his brother’s shoulders.
"Whatever," he muttered, tugging Regulus closer to the counter. "We’ve got more important things to worry about tonight. In honour of your eighteenth, we’re going to find you a drink you don’t despise - so you don’t end up ordering something tragic when Dad insists you have one."
Regulus thought it unwise to mention that his mother had already insisted he finish a very weak daiquiri earlier in the week - Sirius was terribly sentimental about firsts. Besides, a daiquiri wasn’t the kind of drink their father would approve of, so finding a more neutral substitute couldn’t hurt.
"If that’s what you want to do," Regulus sighed, resting his elbows on the edge of the counter; it looked clean enough.
"Watch out," Sirius snorted. "You’ll sound enthusiastic if you're not careful."
Regulus didn’t dignify that with a response.
He already knew he didn’t like beer - he’d learned that from a tentative sip of a bottle Rabastan had once shoved into his hand at a party, abandoned to go flat and warm before being quietly poured down a bathroom sink.
Whiskey and brandy were no better, and tequila was by far the worst. Rum was only tolerable if mixed with enough syrup to smother the taste, while vodka was just about manageable - if stirred into something sweet enough to disguise the bleachy undertones. Regulus couldn’t pretend he’d found his signature.
Sirius, to his credit, wasn’t entirely mad. He poured only a half-finger of each spirit into a shot glass, tempered with generous mixers - just enough for a taste. And he knew his brother well enough to spot the subtle curl of his lip, even when Regulus didn’t bother voicing his disapproval.
With the spirits ruled out, wine was next. Sweeter whites seemed to suit him - light, easy, and unthreatening - though they both agreed it wouldn’t do much to impress their father. Sirius hadn’t bothered with reds, likely mindful of Walburga and her fondness for them. Regulus hadn’t asked, and Sirius hadn’t explained.
Eventually, after much trial and error, they settled on a West Country cider - inoffensive on all fronts.
And drinking wasn’t as unpleasant as Regulus had expected.
He’d finished his first bottle, only because Sirius insisted it would taste worse if left to go warm, and at some point, a second had appeared in its place, chilled from the fridge. Regulus had always liked having something to do with his hands; nursing a cool bottle seemed to do the trick.
It was particularly helpful when one of the three pairs of eyes in the room landed on him. Sipping, peeling the label, adjusting his grip - small, mechanical distractions that gave him an excuse to look down without seeming rude. And the more Sirius drank, the less Regulus had to contribute to polite conversation anyway.
Somewhere around nine - after Sirius had pitched it as an excellent idea rather than a terrifying one - six more strangers spilled through the door, arriving in bursts of laughter and noise. Regulus knew Peter, and recognised Lily and Mary by sight, but Marlene, Frank, and Alice were entirely new.
After the initial round of pleasantries, he caught them stealing glances - surreptitious but frequent - like they’d stumbled across a rare bird in the wild. God only knew what they’d been told. Sirius was reliably biased in his favour, but James swung dramatically the other way. As polite as they’d been, Regulus was certain they were all quietly scrutinising him, and it was taking deliberate effort not to squirm under the weight of it.
That was how he found himself finishing his second drink - and reaching for a third.
That third drink was the one that flipped the switch; it turned off whatever part of his faulty brain made lights too bright and sounds too sharp. At one point, Regulus even glanced at the wall, half-convinced someone had adjusted a dimmer switch, but Sirius didn't seem to have one - it was either on or off.
It was all in his head, then; and for once, that wasn’t the worst place to be. His heart had settled down into a slow, soothing thump, warming his cheeks, and for the first time in his life, Regulus couldn’t distinguish the details of every conversation in the room. A few drinks had thrown a wonderfully hazy filter over the world.
His fingers, slightly numb now, kept worrying the label - peeling it back like damp tissue paper, coaxed by the condensation beading along the bottle’s edge.
"You know what people say about that?"
A voice cut through the humming haze - close enough to register.
Regulus glanced up and found Peter watching him from the sofa opposite, expression expectant. He raised a brow.
"Peeling the labels off your bottles?" Peter nodded toward his hands. "You know what it means?"
Regulus shook his head.
"It’s meant to be a sign of sexual frustration."
Without missing a beat, Regulus held out the bottle. "Did you want a turn, then?"
He hadn’t meant to say it - hadn’t thought it through at all, really. The words had bypassed logic entirely, and yet, somehow, six strangers burst into laughter. For once, the jarring sound didn’t even make him flinch.
Drinking really was magic.
"I’ve told you before, Pete," Sirius snickered, slinging an arm around his brother’s shoulders. "Pop psychology impresses no one - especially not my Reggie. He’s much too smart for that."
"God," someone snorted, "watching you be sweet is like falling into a fucking alternate universe. It’s adorable."
Regulus couldn’t be sure, but that was probably Marlene. He’d ducked his head to hide the horribly self-satisfied smile tugging at his lips - but the accent gave her away. Northern, he thought, or at least not from the South.
"Ah, leave me be. I’ve only got a week left of being sweet on my baby brother before he’s not a baby anymore," Sirius groaned theatrically, turning to press another firm kiss into his curls. "Got to make the most of it, don’t I, Reggie?"
Regulus only grimaced - but they both knew that counted as a smile.
"What is it that you do, Regulus?"
That was Frank.
Regulus had been quietly reciting everyone’s names on a loop to keep them straight. He looked up, clearing his throat. "Uh - still at school. Finishing sixth form."
"Last year," Sirius added, giving his brother’s shoulder a quick squeeze.
"I’d kill to go back," Marlene sighed, mock-wistful. "Low stakes, all that free time. But that attitude is exactly why I had to resit a year. What’re you thinking of doing after?"
"Oxford," Regulus said easily.
Sirius rolled his eyes. "He’s got it all mapped out."
"A man with a plan," Frank said, smiling. "What are you studying?"
Regulus glanced back down at his lap and shrugged. "Politics, probably."
There was a pause - weighted and familiar. The kind that always followed when someone knew who his father was.
"Well," Frank said after a beat, a little too brightly, "you’ll have to chat to Alice." He twisted to glance over his shoulder, nodding toward the group clustered at the counter. "She’s doing Political Science at UCL."
"Pretty good school, Reg," Sirius said, giving him another encouraging squeeze. "Remus goes there too."
"No point," Regulus muttered, lifting his bottle for another sip. "I’m going to Oxford."
Besides, Alice seemed like the homely sort - probably voted Green, knew how to operate a loom, but wouldn’t know where to begin balancing a budget. A nasty thought, the kind that could’ve come straight from Orion’s mouth.
"Guaranteed a place, are you?" Peter asked.
Regulus shrugged. On any other day, the question might have stung - but tonight, the heavy warmth in his limbs numbed the bite.
There were no guarantees in life - his father never missed an opportunity to remind him of that - but his name opened doors. And Regulus wasn’t stupid. He could earn the grades, if he really tried, couldn't he?
Not that he hadn’t tried last year - but those rogue B’s had been a fluke.
With a few drinks in him, everything seemed perfectly clear: Regulus was more capable than half that room combined - and if they couldn’t see it, then he simply couldn't help them.
"Probably," he muttered, lowering the bottle and swiping his thumb across his lower lip - half thoughtful, half stalling.
"Probably?" Peter echoed, eyebrows raised. "D’you think that’s…?"
"Right," Sirius cut in abruptly, clapping his hands as he stood. "I need a pack of menthols - James rolls like he’s got fucking hooves."
James glanced up from the counter, unimpressed. "What about James?"
Sirius grinned. "Just admiring your complete absence of flaws. Someone ought to run tests."
James rolled his eyes and went back to scrolling.
Without waiting for a response, Sirius bent, caught both of Regulus’s hands, and tugged him swiftly to his feet. "Come on. I’m not going alone."
Even under the magical influence of three ciders, Regulus would have sooner died than stay unsupervised in a room full of strangers. Besides that, the lure of having Sirius’s undivided attention - of being chosen - was a kind of blood magic that overruled all else. He didn’t so much as blink in protest as his brother guided him to the door.
Once they’d cleared the stairwell and stepped into the thick summer air, it became horribly apparent that Regulus wasn’t entirely in control of his faculties. It was properly dark by then, but a rim of periwinkle still clung stubbornly to the horizon - the way it always did in late summer - and the trapped heat rose from the tarmac in soft, shimmering waves.
Regulus came to a halt on the pavement, slightly open-mouthed, staring up at the sky in vague awe. He couldn’t remember noticing that gradient before - and if he had, he certainly hadn’t paused to admire it.
"Ah… fuck."
Sirius only smiled, clapped a hand to his shoulder, and strolled off down the street with that same easy, unhurried stride.
And just like that, Regulus was thirteen again - scrambling to keep up on the school run.
Back then, Sirius had a good five inches on him. Now it was barely one - if that - and it didn’t take Regulus long to fall into step beside him. Sirius seemed to notice; he cast a sidelong glance, eyes flicking up and down. He offered a small shake of his head, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, and extended a hand.
"Eighteen," he murmured, wriggling his fingers pointedly. "Can’t fucking believe it."
Regulus took his hand. He’d always liked the feel of Sirius’s rings - their weight, the way they cooled quicker in the evening air - but with the soft buzz in his limbs, the sensation was twice as sharp, twice as satisfying. His thumb found the ridges instinctively.
"Are you having fun, Reg?"
Fun had always been a slippery concept - hard to define, harder still to recognise in real time. But Regulus wasn’t clammy, and he wasn’t anxious. In fact, it felt like he’d stumbled across some hidden cheat code that turned the world’s volume down to something he could finally bear. That elusive, weightless feeling he’d been chasing since childhood had crept up on him like an old friend.
So he nodded - and this time he didn’t try to smother his smile. "Yeah, I think so."
"Yeah?" Sirius echoed, pleased. "Good. And don’t mind Pete - he’s just bitter you got him back."
Regulus snorted. "I didn’t mean to."
"I know," Sirius grinned, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. "You’re just a natural."
That was laughable - Regulus took to social interaction about as well as a duck to the Sahara - but he appreciated the sentiment all the same.
What he did take to - naturally, instinctively - was Sirius. And not for the first time, he found himself wishing his brother were a place, or a concept. Something he could bottle. Somewhere he could stay.
The longing came on fast, abrupt and inexplicable, and holding his hand suddenly wasn’t enough. Spurred by the sudden wave of adoration, he looped their arms together, leaning into Sirius with enough unmeasured force that they veered toward the curb.
Sirius didn’t seem to mind; he just laughed, threw an arm back around Regulus’s shoulders, and pulled him in closer. "You’re such a fucking lightweight, Reggie."
“I’m not,” Regulus insisted with a snicker. "I’m just… I’m just - like - happy, you know? That you seem… better."
Sirius’s smile tightened.
"It’s nice," Regulus added, softer now.
"Yeah," Sirius murmured, giving his shoulder a squeeze. "It is nice, Reg."
"Mm…" Regulus’s smile faltered as another thought caught up with him. "But - James said that… that you’re upset with me."
Sirius blinked, glancing down. "What for?"
Regulus winced. "Well, he didn’t say it exactly like that…"
"Angel, c'mon…"
"I know, I know," he muttered, dragging a hand over his face, pressing a thumb into the hollow beneath his cheekbone to help him focus. "I need to get over my thing with James. But this isn’t about that. He said it’s fucked up - about my birthday. About you not coming."
Sirius said nothing - which, in Regulus’s experience, usually meant he agreed.
"But you can come," he said, trying to catch his brother’s eye without tripping over his own feet. "If you want. I want you to come."
They walked in silence for a stretch, the sound of their trainers scuffing the pavement filling the space where a reply should have gone. As they rounded the corner onto the high street, a gaggle of girls spilled out of the pub ahead, a tidal wave of laughter that seemed to shake Sirius from his reverie.
"I don’t want to see them," he said at last. His voice had gone quiet - not guilty, not apologetic. Just quiet. "And they don’t want to see me. So, I’m not going to ruin it for you by showing up, alright?"
Regulus hesitated. "I asked Mummy if you could come."
Sirius huffed out a laugh. "That was brave."
"Yeah. She told me to ask Dad."
Sirius grimaced. "Don’t. Just - don’t, Reg. I’m not coming, even if you do."
"But -"
"Ignore James. He doesn’t get it, his parents are normal."
"It’s not like you’re not invited."
"I’m not."
"It’s my birthday. So you are."
"You won’t ask Dad."
"I will."
"You won’t."
"I promise I -"
"Well, I still won’t come," Sirius said - gently, but firmly enough to close the door on an argument. "We’re doing your birthday now."
"I’ll tell them you’re better."
Sirius flinched.
And said nothing.
They’d reached the corner shop by then, and even from the pavement, Regulus knew that stepping under those cold fluorescent lights after the muted blue of evening would feel like plunging into icy water. Inside, the shopkeeper’s taste for drum and bass pulsed through the doorway - propped open with a scrap of torn cardboard.
Sirius noticed the way his brother hesitated, heels digging in. He paused, then gently guided Regulus back against the shopfront window. "D’you want anything?"
Regulus shook his head.
With a nod, Sirius disappeared inside, swallowed by the flicker of overhead lights and the throb of bass.
Left alone, Regulus let his shoulders settle against the glass.
It was nice, in a way, to stand there in the hush of the street - gathering the few thoughts he had left.
A breeze picked up, cool against his cheek. The thunk of his head against the window as he leaned back was solid, grounding. Normally, his mind would be spiralling - caught on the ache of party planning, all the unsaid things - but the chemical calm pulsing through his veins was a welcome tonic.
This version of life didn’t feel like his. It belonged to someone looser, lighter, less observed. But for a fleeting moment, Regulus let himself enjoy it.
To anyone passing by, he probably looked like he belonged. Not an imposter. Not a guest on borrowed time. Just another dreadfully ordinary person waiting on the street for a friend, or a ride. No one would guess that Sirius was his brother, or that this was a pity invitation, or that he’d be in an Uber before eleven to avoid a full-scale maternal meltdown.
Everything felt wonderfully simple.
Regulus let out a breathless laugh, tipping his head back to catch another glimpse of the sky.
But his eyes caught on something else.
Across the road, a man had just settled at the bus stop - and unless it was a trick of the light, he seemed to be staring directly at Regulus. Or maybe he was just reading the opening hours printed on the shop window; Regulus couldn’t tell.
The man was pale to the point of translucence - milky skin drawn tight over sharp bones, his face gaunt, and strangely incomplete, like a sketch without the shading. Dirty blond hair slipped into his eyes, swept back with long, slender fingers. Under the jaundiced glow of the streetlamp, he looked bleached out, almost spectral - drained of contrast, eerily unfinished.
His clothes were just as eclectic - like he’d tumbled blind through a thrift shop. Pinstriped trousers that wouldn't have looked misplaced in an office, a loose white T-shirt, and thick-soled boots that clashed in a way that felt intentional.
The longer Regulus stared, the more certain he became that the man was looking back.
And not just looking - but smiling.
A slow, creeping smirk seemed to be curling at the corner of his mouth - as if he knew something Regulus didn’t. Then again, it might have been the sweep of passing headlights distorting his ghostly features.
Regulus straightened without thinking, narrowing his eyes to squint through the gloom. He was one step from the curb - half a second from crossing to get a better look - when Sirius came tumbling back onto the pavement.
And just like that, the stranger was forgotten.
"Got you a Coke," Sirius said, rummaging through the crinkling bag to retrieve a chilled bottle. "Figured you ought to sober up a bit before I send you home."
Regulus dragged his gaze away, smiling too fast. "Told you - I’m not drunk."
"Close enough," Sirius snorted, pressing the bottle into his hand and tipping his head down the street. "C’mon."
They hadn’t gone more than a few steps when a sharp whistle cut through the air.
Regulus turned instinctively.
The man from the bus stop was standing now - still watching them with that same unsettling, unblinking calm. The smirk hadn’t moved, carved deep into his face like a permanent wound.
Sirius followed his gaze - and froze.
Then came the grimace. "Ah, shit."
"What?" Regulus frowned.
Something flickered across Sirius’s face - recognition, unmistakable. And beneath it, something far hungrier. His pupils had blown wide, jaw working furiously in tandem with his fist, clenching and unclenching like it had a mind of its own.
"What?" Regulus said again, firmer now.
Sirius didn’t answer - not immediately. He just stared, like tearing his gaze away would cost him something.
Then, finally, he shook his head.
"Nothing," he muttered, placing a steady hand at the small of Regulus’s back. "Let’s go."
The stranger whistled again.
Sirius flinched, then glanced over his shoulder. "Not tonight!" he called uneasily. "I’m good. I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah?"
Regulus turned too, but Sirius’s hand was already urging him forward, fingers pressing just a little too firmly.
"Who is that?" he asked.
Sirius grimaced, like something sour had spread across his tongue. "No one you need to worry about, angel."
Regulus wouldn’t realise until much later how wrong his brother had been.
Chapter 10
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The call came a little after midnight - Regulus hadn’t waited long. He had stumbled out of the Uber twenty minutes earlier, waved off his mother's tight-lipped inquiry with a promise to recount every dull detail tomorrow, and left her alone with her old vinyl records spinning softly in the darkened sunroom.
Sobering up had arrived in clumsy, uneven bursts while tripping through his nightly routine - twice fumbling the toothpaste tube, watching it slither into the sink with a jarring clatter and a mind of its own - before finally wriggling into his pyjamas with a surprising sense of triumph for not toppling over.
Finally bathed in the honeyed glow of his bedside lamp, Regulus found himself listening to the muted hum of distant traffic through his perpetually cracked window, smiling vaguely up at the ornate crown moulding, for reasons far out of his reach.
It didn't last long.
Left to his own devices, he enjoyed approximately ten seconds of mindless bliss before the familiar voice returned - the relentless critic that maintained a meticulous catalogue of every mistake, every hesitation, every imagined sigh or roll of someone else's eyes at a social event.
The relief when his phone finally buzzed against his bedside table was immediate and embarrassing - but Regulus didn't apologise for how eagerly he answered.
Barty was the perfect distraction; sharp, dryly amused, and surprisingly patient. He seemed content to share in the debrief, slipping comfortably back into the role of friendly, faceless journal, unusually eager to absorb every half-formed thought Regulus deigned to offer. Conveniently, Barty seemed to have forgotten all about last week's argument, which had loomed heavily over every conversation since - now just a faded footnote in the margin.
"Anyway," Regulus sighed, for the third time in ten minutes, as if attempting to conclude rather than circle back around to the same unresolved complaint he had started out with, "James is the only one who really seems to hate me. Maybe Peter too - but he’s awful, so who cares?"
"Fuck Peter," Barty’s voice was warm between indulgent drags of a cigarette - his second since the call had begun. "Tell me something though - do you like James? That part wasn’t clear."
Regulus scoffed. "No - not really. I’ve got a whole thing about him, actually."
The statement was accompanied by a flippant wave of one hand, as if the thing in question hadn’t been festering for seven quiet years, virulent roots coiling tight around the base of his spine.
"Careful," Barty teased, exhaling audibly into the receiver. "You'll make me all kinds of jealous if you start talking like that. I thought I was the only one you had a whole thing about."
Regulus rolled his eyes fondly at the ceiling. "You’re funny."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Barty took another sizzling drag. "But you do have a thing for me, don’t you?"
Regulus found himself smiling helplessly again.
It was stupid, really.
Incredibly stupid.
And a tiny bit true.
"Mm."
"Mm," Barty preened, lazy and low. "I don’t think I sound much like James, though. Makes it hard to pin down your type, doesn’t it?"
Regulus laughed uneasily, gaze flickering to the door. "I don’t know if I really have one…"
"Oh, don’t give me that," Barty scoffed, his smirk practically audible. "It's obviously not girls, is it? So, we can rule that one out right away."
Regulus huffed. "It’s not... not girls."
It probably wasn't girls.
Before Sirius had gently redirected him, Regulus had spent an awful lot of time staring at girls - not out of genuine curiosity, but because he'd been told he was supposed to. There had been a vague hope that attraction might spontaneously ignite, as though staring at them for long enough would shift something, bringing some obscure optical illusion into sudden focus.
Regulus had found plenty to admire, but his compliments always came out sounding faintly clinical. Dorcas had perfect teeth, a gleaming, sharp smile that belonged in a toothpaste advert. Cissa had beautiful hair - sleek, symmetrical, with a strawberry-blonde streak that softened the roundness of her cheeks. Bella’s eyes were keen and alert, clever like a graceful hawk. And his brother’s friend Lily had interesting skin - littered with a neat constellation of freckles, as if her face had been mapped out by a conscious hand.
Mummy was very pretty, too - though apparently, that wasn’t a normal thing to say, and Sirius made a habit of cuffing him round the head whenever he did.
So, Regulus had done his fair share of staring - but he couldn't honestly say he felt a desire to get much closer than that.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I think they can be - you know, pretty, or whatever."
"But…?"
Regulus opened his mouth - then closed it quickly, self-consciousness creeping back in. He wasn't quite drunk enough to wade into that territory - his inhibitions had loosened, but they hadn’t snapped entirely.
"You wouldn’t touch them?" Barty prompted gently.
Regulus groaned. "C’mon…"
"Or… you wouldn't let them touch you?"
He swallowed thickly. "I don’t… know."
A pause stretched intentionally.
"Would you let James touch you?"
Every now and then, Barty managed to pose a question Regulus had spent years artfully avoiding. He was profoundly grateful no one could see the traitorous flush in his cheeks, though he buried his face against the crook of his elbow to hide it all the same.
Regulus hated James Potter.
Really, truly.
Couldn’t stand the arrogant tilt of his head, or the way he seemed to think Regulus was blind to the raised eyebrows, the pointed scoffs, the thinly veiled contempt. A spoiled only child, James had clearly never learned how to tolerate anyone's little brother tagging along, quick on his heels.
But - if it was a choice between any girl in the world, or James fucking Potter? With his careful hands, that could roll a tight cigarette, whether Sirius appreciated it or not?
"Well… maybe," Regulus mumbled into his sleeve, snickering against his will. "If he... if he didn’t talk, and I didn’t have to look directly at him."
"Reggie!" Barty's laughter crackled down the line - delighted, and almost triumphant. "Are you telling me you'd let him fuck you from behind?"
“God…” Regulus groaned, rolling onto his stomach and dragging the pillow over his head, as if he could smother the entire conversation. "That's not - that is so not what I said!"
"Angel!" Barty crowed, thoroughly pleased with himself. "It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it?"
"Oh, shut up..."
The line went quiet.
Not for long - just long enough to stoke the heat in Regulus's cheeks, to let his laughter fade into a stupid, lingering smile.
Barty hummed then, soft and contemplative.
"I’d want to look at you, though."
Regulus went still.
Barty’s voice had dropped into something heavier now, unmistakably loaded.
"Ah..." Regulus heard himself answer, quiet and careful. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Barty returned, slow and coaxing. "Would you let me look at you, Regulus?"
Regulus shoved the pillow aside and turned his flushed face toward the ceiling, blinking up at the cracked crown moulding, half convinced he was dreaming.
"Look - look at me?"
"Yeah, sweetheart."
The implication dripped from every word, thick as honey, but Regulus wasn’t firing on all cylinders tonight. He was warm and half-drowsy, tangled up in the sheets, too slow to meet the moment.
Sober, he might have let his mind tick over too long, conjuring up a perfect, cutting, self-deprecating line. Tonight, loose-limbed and as close to content as he ever got, he allowed a rueful smile to spread across his face, making no effort to hide how hopelessly out of his depth he was.
"You’d… you’d probably struggle with that over the phone."
Barty sighed, almost wistful. "I bet I would."
"Mm."
Something rustled on the line.
"But I do know where you live, don’t I?"
That gave Regulus pause. He made a quiet, noncommittal sound - a softer mm, tinged now with the first real edge of caution.
"So, hypothetically," Barty murmured - low, slow, silk-wrapped steel, "if I turned up outside your house one night, and had you sneak downstairs to unlock the door, nice and quiet, and I asked, very, very nicely, if you’d bring me back upstairs - would you let me look at you then?"
"No," Regulus sighed, draping an arm over his eyes. "I'd make you close your eyes the whole way."
Barty let out a brittle laugh. "But I’d never agree to that."
"No?"
"No," Barty returned, quick and cracked, like the words tore something on their way out. "I'd want to look at you forever, Regulus."
"Well," Regulus yawned, rolling onto his side to curl around his pillow, missing the serrated edges entirely, "I don't do very much. Might not be as exciting as you think."
A short, sharp laugh burst down the line - then a dull thud, the unmistakable sound of a fist connecting with a wall, or whatever unfortunate surface Barty turned on when frustration got the better of him.
"At this rate, you'll die a fucking virgin, Reggie."
If he were sober, that might have stung. But tonight, it only made Regulus laugh - quiet and breathless, his face pressed into the sheets. "Probably."
"Ever come close?"
Regulus scrunched his nose, considering. "Not really."
"Not even with James?"
There was no teasing left in it now. Barty was grasping for something sharp - the question had claws, but they failed to sink in.
Regulus didn’t even notice. He only laughed again, soft and airy, faintly delighted to be playing such a strange, novel game.
"Nah," he answered slowly, rolling onto his back and dropping an arm across his chest like a paperweight, grounding himself in the lazy warmth of his own body. "James has always had the opposite thing about me, actually. Everything I say sort of… pisses him off."
Barty hummed - an idle sound that might have passed for boredom, if you weren’t listening closely enough to hear the calculation underneath. "And does that make you sad, Reggie?"
He really was shooting blind tonight, jabbing with a blunt needle, failing to draw blood.
Regulus shook his head, picking at a frayed thread on his sleeve, smiling like the whole thing was vaguely amusing. "I mean - it did. When I was like, twelve. He was Sirius’s first proper friend and I always - "
"Did you have a thing for him back then?" Barty cut in.
Regulus paused, blinking at the interruption. "I mean… yeah. For a bit."
"But you never let him near you?"
There was something mean in Barty’s voice now - hot and hungry - and this time, Regulus caught it.
"Well, it was just… never really like that..."
On the other end of the line, Barty inhaled, slow and deep, like he was holding back a snarling, straining hound.
Regulus knew that impatient sound - he’d heard it before, coiled and angry, concealed beneath the surface in his mother’s voice - and he had learned, in the vague, clumsy way children often do, how to patch over the cracks before anything monstrous snaked out.
He only wanted to keep the warm, soft around the edges feeling for a little bit longer - to give Barty something back, to keep him happy, keep him talking, keep him soft.
"I guess there was one time - with this boy from Harrow," he offered, tilting his head to one side, the picture of careless honesty. "But it wasn't like... we weren't dating or anything."
Barty’s interest sharpened. "Go on."
It really was so easy to please.
Regulus reached blindly for his water on the nightstand, bringing the glass closer to nurse. "He was one of Bas's - uh, a friend of a friend. But he was, like... the most closeted boy I've ever met. Seriously, if you think I'm bad -"
"I don’t think that," Barty interjected. "You’re pretty obvious."
"Right," Regulus agreed dryly, taking a sip and switching his phone to speaker to balance it on his knees. "But this boy wasn’t even on my radar as someone who would've been into... who would've wanted to... well. You know."
"Mm."
"He was kind of the worst, actually," Regulus mused, cocking his head, as if appraising it properly for the first time. "Now you mention it, I think that's probably my type - just, really awful people."
Barty snorted but didn’t speak.
"Anyway, we had this thing where he wouldn't even look at me in public," Regulus went on, settling back against the headboard. "But we were both on the swim team, so after practice, we'd talk. And it was like... he was always the last one left in the locker room with me. Like he was finding excuses to stick around, you know?"
He smiled faintly to himself.
"Anyway, I thought it was just talking - like, we were sort of… almost... friends. But after a few weeks of that, he - uh -"
"Kissed you?" Barty offered.
"Yeah..." Regulus snickered, glancing uneasily back at the door before lowering his voice. "He said he was trying to shut me up. Said I talked a lot, which isn’t even true. We did it a few times, but it wasn’t really..."
"It?"
Regulus cringed. "Not... that."
"Did he touch you?"
Regulus exhaled slowly. "Yeah..."
Barty's voice dropped lower, almost coaxing. "Did you touch him?"
"I mean… once or twice," Regulus murmured; there was something almost apologetic in it. "It stopped, pretty soon after it started, honestly. He got a girlfriend."
On the other end, Barty inhaled again - slow, deliberate - the kind of pause that made Regulus feel thoroughly examined.
"So - it's really not girls? For you?"
Regulus had never said it out loud before. He glanced down into the glass, studying the rippling surface uneasily. After a long moment, he opened his mouth.
"No."
Barty let out a breath - something heavy, like a head, thunked back against a wall. He seemed to have deflated, finally dragged back down to earth.
"Good," he whispered, a little less frantic. "That's good, Reggie. It's not girls for me either, if that helps. Not usually, anyway."
Regulus smiled faintly, his gaze drifting to the tented shape of his knees beneath the sheets. "Mm."
"And I told you, didn’t I? That you’re wasted on other people."
"Am I?"
"Yeah," Barty breathed, sliding in close again, his voice curling against the shell of Regulus’s ear. "Stupid of him, to waste an opportunity like that. I know I won’t be letting you go when I finally get my hands on you."
Regulus felt himself short-circuit - caught once again in that uneasy, breathless middle ground. Shamefully flattered. Slightly incredulous that anyone could look at him and want him.
And horrified - because this wasn’t some harmless hypothetical.
Barty knew exactly where he lived.
It was time to pull back - climb back up onto the safety of the mezzanine, leave the enclosure behind.
"Ah... well," Regulus said, aiming for levity, eyes flicking up to the ceiling. "Wouldn't rush."
"Better rush," Barty shot back, too quick, too sharp. "James might get to you first."
Regulus snickered. "Highly unlikely."
There was a beat - just long enough for him to think that maybe the moment had passed.
Then Barty spoke again.
"Gosh," he sighed, almost playful. "I wonder what Daddy would think if he did?"
Regulus’s smile faltered, the warmth draining out of him in slow, confused pulses.
He must have misheard.
"What was it your Dad said?" Barty asked; bright and cruel, the way he always sounded when he was primed to say something awful.
"I don't..." Regulus started, voice catching, trying to laugh it off.
Barty laughed in turn, sliding into mimicry - cold, clipped, precise: "I believe in marriage. Traditional marriage, between a man and a woman. Anything else is a - what was it? Oh, right - a grotesque misrepresentation of an ancient tradition."
Regulus went still.
He knew those words.
He had heard them from behind a podium.
From across the dinner table.
"That's not - that’s not fair," he whispered, his stuttering heart sliding up into his mouth. "God, why do you always have to -"
"They're not my words, Reggie."
It felt senseless - cruel, even - to bring his father into this. Especially now, when Regulus had been loosening up, letting himself enjoy an evening in someone else's shoes, stretching a muscle long at risk of atrophy.
He scoffed hard, leaning over to set his glass down on the nightstand. "I'm not doing this tonight."
"Don't hang up."
There it was again - that voice.
Low. Level. Deceptively calm.
Regulus huffed. "Or what - you won’t call back?" he dropped back against the pillows, sulking now. "Might not be such a bad thing..."
There was a pause.
Then - a subtle shift.
The dull scrape of something heavy. The soft click of a mechanism.
A whir.
A clunk.
Through the receiver, their own voices played back - tinny, distorted, but unmistakable:
"Would you let James touch you?"
His own laugh, small and breathless.
"Well, maybe… if he... if he didn’t talk, and I didn’t have to look directly at him."
Notes:
TW - homophobia, blackmail
Chapter 11
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Regulus hadn't felt much like opening his eyes that morning. He had been awake for at least ten minutes, lying stiff and silent, counting the stuttering beats of his heart and wondering whether it was normal - or whether something was terribly wrong. Every day that week, he had woken to the same strange, butterfly rhythm in his chest, and the grim diagnoses he found online had been gnawing away at his tenuous peace.
Atrial fibrillation. Tachybrady syndrome. Cardiomyopathy.
It could be anything.
Anything but anxiety, of course.
Regulus hated that word. It had popped up more than once in his research, and he couldn’t fathom how something as small as worry could claw its way into his chest, sink its teeth into his heart, make him feel like he was being chewed apart from the inside. Anxiety wasn’t supposed to hijack your body like that - Regulus was absolutely sure of it.
Doctors, naturally, were out of the question.
What if they agreed with the forums? Told him it was nothing - anxiety , nerves, a childish overreaction? What if they laughed because he was young, because he looked fine, if not a little pale? What if his heart gave out there and then in the office, and the doctor only sighed, called him a fantasist - accused him of stealing an appointment from one the pensioners who had earned their place in the waiting room?
The ones who had fought in wars. Rebuilt the country from rubble. Sacrificed things - real, tangible things. What had his generation done?
What had he done?
God, that was a question Regulus never wanted to answer.
He pressed himself deeper into the mattress, straining to catch the distant hum of his mother's records filtering up through the floorboards. If Mummy was awake, pottering around in the kitchen, it almost certainly meant his father was already at work.
Which meant there was nothing scandalous in the morning paper.
Nothing had come to light overnight.
Nothing that warranted an early wake up call.
His secrets were still safe.
Regulus blinked his eyes open, wincing as the light struck him, and stared blankly up at the ceiling, trying to decide if he felt any different. He lifted one hand, turning it over in the watery light, inspecting it like it might have changed overnight - but it was still pale, still bony, the same fine network of blue veins glowing faintly beneath the skin like ghost roads.
He didn’t feel any older, either - unless you counted the bone deep exhaustion.
It had been days since the initial, stomach-knotting terror of that call, but Regulus still hesitated before reaching for his phone - each time weighed down by the sick dread of peeling back a bandage, only to find the wound beneath still red, raw, and weeping.
Barty had seeped into his real life, now.
Bled through from the burner phone into his own.
His only request - demand, really, no matter how politely he’d worded it, no matter how carefully he’d dressed it up to sound like Regulus had a choice - had been let me follow you.
Now he was in there - lodged between the familiar names and icons, wedged among Cassie, and Mummy, and Cissa, and Bas. Regulus could never be sure which name he would see first.
That morning, it was Cassie:
[00:04] Cas: Happy Birthday! I’ve checked and your present just about fits in my hand luggage - not much longer! Miss you x
She had tagged him in a post, too - mercifully, only a disappearing story that would be forgotten by the end of the day. It was sweet, really: a messy collage of grainy school selfies stitched together with a sickly caption Regulus pretended to be embarrassed by.
After a summer of simmering resentment, it almost made him feel guilty - Cassie seemed to be thinking of him with far more fondness than he deserved.
Sirius was next - and whatever flicker of hope he’d been holding onto quietly snuffed itself out.
[04:29] Siri: miss you
[04:40] Siri: happy birthday
[04:40] Siri: come see my saturday
[04:41] Siri: me
[04:44] Siri: i’m sorry
[05:12] Siri: or not saturday
[05:13] Siri: dunno
[05:20] Siri: soon tho
[05:30] Siri: happy birthday reggie
[05:30] Siri: 18
[05:31] Siri: fuck
[05:31] Siri: how’s that real
[05:32] Siri: you’re still a baby
[05:34] Siri: sorry sorry
[05:39] Siri: you still lying to them?
[05:39] Siri: telling them i’m better?
[05:41] Siri: wish i was there
[05:41] Siri: or you here
[05:42] Siri: you should
[05:44] Siri: move out
The messages kept coming, tapering out around eight-thirty - growing more fractured, more frantic, less whole.
They left Regulus with a dull, sinking ache he couldn’t seem to shake.
[09:08] Dad: Have a good day - be ready to leave at six.
[10:12] Cissa: Happy Birthday Regulus! See you tonight x
[11:49] Dru: Happy birthday - love Aunt Dru & Uncle Cygnus.
[12:05] Mummy: Are you awake yet? x
Nothing from Rabastan.
And one direct message from B .
[00:00] B: Happy birthday, pretty boy.
Barty didn’t text much anymore - he still called - but lately, he seemed to enjoy lurking in Regulus’s personal inbox, leaving smudged fingerprints on the inner glass, a greasy reminder that he was always too close for comfort.
Cringing, Regulus tapped out a reluctant reply.
[12:31] Reg: Thanks.
Barty was nothing if not reliable.
[12:32] B: Are you alone?
[12:33] Reg: No. With Mum.
[12:33] B: I’ll call you in an hour.
[12:34] B: Make sure you answer.
Regulus huffed, impatient and shaky, and tossed his phone aside.
He swung his legs out of bed, feet planted firmly on the carpet, determined to start the day on his own terms - but his legs wouldn’t cooperate.
Instead, he folded inward, one arm wrapping tight around his own waist, trying to contain the sudden convulsion.
It was too bright.
Far too bright.
Even with the curtains drawn, the summer sun pressed in, seeping through the fabric, lighting up the room like an interrogation chamber.
Everything was different.
Nothing looked different - his hand was still thin and pale, no sudden transformation overnight. His room was still set up just so - books stacked neatly, pressed jackets hung on their designated hooks.
But nothing was the same - was it?
His phone wasn’t his own.
His heart was racing, hellbent on killing him.
He was an adult now - entirely against his will.
And worst of all - somehow, so much worse than the rest - Sirius was gone.
Or at least, the version of Sirius who could have helped - the version still in one piece.
Dad wouldn’t save him.
Not if he found out.
Not if he knew.
Not if he ever heard one of those calls.
Not if he realised just how stupid Regulus could be.
"Fuck..."
He wasn’t breathing right.
And this time, it might actually kill him.
Regulus pressed a hand to his chest - which didn’t help one bit. His heart was sprinting, hammering wildly, and the panic chased after it, sharper with every beat.
"Fuck..."
He clawed blindly through the sheets, trembling fingers closing around his phone like a lifeline - gripping it with both hands, as if it could anchor him.
His thumb slipped and stumbled through his contacts, frantic, desperate, clinging to the last frayed thread of lucidity.
Just long enough to call for help.
Just long enough for someone else to take over.
Just long enough that he wouldn’t be alone with it.
But Sirius’s phone was off - or dead.
The phone slipped through his fingers - or maybe he threw it - clattering hard against the skirting board.
"Regulus!"
Mummy’s voice - sharp, irritable - floated up from somewhere downstairs.
"Fuck!"
He shoved both palms against his eyes, grinding the heels of his hands into the sockets, pressing hard enough that the darkness burst into brilliant, painful stars - then sucked in a breath and held it, chest straining, lungs burning.
Sirius had always told him to hold his breath when he panicked.
But that had been fourteen-year-old Sirius - and Regulus felt pathetic for imagining him. He was much too old for that version of his big brother.
God, he would kill to be thirteen again - to have a brother who slept just across the hall, a brother who knew more than him, who was willing to fix every imagined catastrophe in exchange for a smile.
That being lost shattered him.
Regulus folded.
Collapsed back into the sheets, curling in tight, his face crushed against the mattress to muffle the sobs that tore free in frenzied, choking bursts.
It wasn’t remotely cathartic.
It was the kind of panic that hurt - that felt like a rupture, that caused blood vessels to burst beneath the eyes. The kind that stretched his throat raw, threatening to tear something loose.
No one came.
Eventually, the panic burned itself out - leaving him spent.
Regulus turned his head, hot-faced and damp, dragging in a breath through clenched teeth.
Later, he sat up.
Later still, he made it to the bathroom, where he scrubbed the worst of the hot, sticky horror away - leaving only the scattering of red burst capillaries beneath his eyes.
Notes:
CW; health anxiety
Chapter 12
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It was an expensive spot tucked off Garrick Street - all crafted elegance beneath twinkling lights, low ceilings made lower still by looping floral installations that clung to the exposed beams like ivy in bloom.
The main hall was intimate - clusters of tiny round tables on spindly legs, designed for two or three. But Mummy had booked a private room in the back: a long table draped in taut white linen, three candles spaced with architectural precision, and an ornate fireplace at its head - cold and purely decorative in the thick summer heat.
Noise from the main restaurant only filtered through when the waitress nudged the door open with her hip, balancing a tray - a gentle intrusion. The low hum of distant conversation and the soft clatter of cutlery weren’t nearly as grating as Regulus had feared. It settled into something ambient, like white noise. Almost soothing.
So far, he’d been coping better than expected.
He’d even managed a smile - stiff, but serviceable - in every photo his mother insisted on taking, though she was now frowning down at the last one, scrutinising the screen like it had personally insulted her.
Regulus sat in the middle, flanked by cousins on either side - Cissa leaning in, all soft eyes and symmetry, while Bella lounged back, glass half-raised, gaze tipped to one side, far too cool to be caught indulging in something as earnest as a birthday photo.
Mummy sighed - long and deliberate.
"You really must do something about your sleep, darling," she murmured, reaching over to swipe her thumb beneath his eye - as if the burst capillaries were smudges she could simply wipe away. "You look absolutely dreadful."
Regulus offered a tight smile. "Sorry, Mummy."
"What on earth have you been doing all night?"
Further down the table, Cygnus snorted. "I know what I was doing all night when I was his age."
Walburga shot her brother a withering glare. "Your table manners are regressing, Siggy."
God - what Regulus wouldn’t have given for Sirius right then. He’d have cut in with something sharp and scathing, just enough to shift the spotlight. Just enough to spare Regulus the creeping flush rising from collar to cheek.
Suddenly, he was coping about as awfully as he’d feared.
"Oh, please," Cygnus laughed indignantly. "Regulus, tell your mother - you’re eighteen. Of course you’re up all night, getting yourself off to -"
"Cygnus!"
"Wally! I guarantee if you go through his search history, you’ll find -"
Cissa kicked her father hard under the table - but it was far too late.
Regulus’s pulse had spiked - sudden, off-kilter - and for a breathless, irrational second, it felt like his lungs had been squeezed flat. He lurched to his feet, knee catching the underside of the table, drawing out a sharp, shallow gasp. Cutlery clattered in his wake - a scatter of silver on china, ringing louder than it should have.
"Just…" he grimaced, dragging in another shallow breath that barely filled him. "Uh - just going to the bathroom."
He didn’t wait for permission - simply turned and moved as smoothly as his stiff limbs would allow him, pulse still skittering - though his uncle’s low scoff caught up with him before he reached the door.
"Told you. Like clockwork."
For a moment, Regulus lingered - pale fingers locked around the door handle, knuckles white - indulging in the fantasy that he was the kind of person who snapped back. The kind with sharp retorts always at the ready. Like he’d been with Peter: quick, cruel, untouchably witty.
Of course, he wasn’t. Not really - not without help.
Regulus was the sort of person who bit his tongue; the sort of person who cringed when he walked into a restaurant that was louder than expected.
This one hit him like a slap - too bright, twinkling fairy lights strung up in the eaves, flickering like hellfire. Too bustling - not one waiter, but eight, weaving through tight-packed tables like choreographed assassins, faceless in the dappled glow of intimate light.
Smart-casual suits lounged at the bar, all legs and laughter, while conversation swelled like a hornet swarm, drawn up and caught in the florals - strung lower in this room, twining around beams and pillars alike. The air was thick with cloying perfume and the stale tang of cigarette smoke clinging to someone’s unwashed blazer.
Claustrophobic.
Regulus blinked hard against the change, breath catching in his throat as he scanned for a break in the crowd to dive into - he would simply die if he stumbled into a waiter, or knocked one of those flutes of red out of someone’s hand.
Squinting through the motion blur, he finally spotted the bathroom sign - tucked discreetly near the exit, half-hidden behind a potted fig. Of course; classy places never liked to advertise that sort of thing.
There was no clear path - too many moving parts. Instead, Regulus skirted the edges - hugging the wall, quiet and small. It was safer, that way; less risk of a collision, less chance of being seen.
No one seemed to notice when he slipped through the door, tumbling into the relative sanctuary of the - mercifully empty - bathroom.
Cool white marble gleamed under soft ring lights. Gentle jazz floated from the ceiling speakers - a lullaby for the neurotic. It was the perfect place to brace against the sink and remember how to breathe.
In for a count of seven, out for a count of seven - pop psychology or not, it usually worked.
It was going to be fine.
One more hour at most.
Regulus lifted his head and met his reflection in the mirror.
Nothing had changed.
He was still the same wan, narrow creature - all contrast, too pale, strawberries and cream in the cheeks, a dusting of freckles that didn’t quite fit on the bridge of his nose. In the low light, his pupils had blown wide, but a thin rim of arctic blue still glimmered at the edges.
He watched his own lips part, slow and uncertain, as if detached from the rest of him.
Another breath, careful and deliberate, until his lungs stretched tight against his ribs.
He was coming back to himself.
Bit by bit.
And he was doing just fine - better than fine.
It didn’t matter that Cygnus had laughed at him - because Cygnus laughed at everyone. Better yet, no one important had been there to witness it, and Sirius had always insisted that Cygnus was a prick of the highest order. Neither funny, nor worth his worry.
Of course, there were other problems to contend with. The complex, unsolvable sort - a whole flood of them, actually, barely held back by a hastily patched dam - but they weren’t immediate.
There was still time.
Regulus was going to be fine - if he could just make it through the next hour. Then he could go home - sleep on it, and wake with a clearer head. Solve the unsolvable in the morning.
He straightened, inspecting his reflection - wide-eyed, which wouldn't do.
He blinked hard.
Ruffled both hands up through his hair, dragging the curls back, shaking them free from his eyes - some bounced stubbornly back into place, but there was little to be done about that.
He softened his brow. Then furrowed it.
Better.
The narrowed gaze made him look sullen, not frightened - an expression he could work with. Maybe he could even soften it, if he unclenched his jaw.
He parted his lips, slowly.
This time, the motion felt natural, like it belonged to him. He stretched his mouth wide, just to feel the pull of skin and sinew, to see a neat row of pearly white teeth, then let it snap shut again with a soft click.
Still wrong.
His mouth always looked wrong - too dark, a stain against his skin, like he’d bitten straight through a biro.
Too pink.
Maybe it was the burst blood vessels tonight - the way they drew out the colour, made his lips look painted on, the rest of him faded by comparison.
Regulus reached up, pressing the pad of his thumb beneath one eye, as if he could coax the discolouration to the surface, drawing it out like poison.
The door creaked open.
Sound spilled in - laughter, clinking cutlery, the low swell of music rising like the tide - then vanished with a sharp thunk as it swung shut again.
Regulus felt his heart jolt into his throat - sick with the shame of being caught mid-abnormality. He fumbled for the faucet, thrusting both hands under the cold stream - anything to look occupied, composed. To avoid letting a stranger see him like that, under construction, mask off.
The chill helped.
It grounded him, pulling him back into his body, back to earth, back to the pounding rhythm of his own heart, thrumming high in his ears.
And then, the stranger spoke.
In the haze of panic, Regulus never did process the first words exchanged in person.
Only the voice - and the horrible familiarity of it.
The proximity.
When he finally gathered the courage to lift his head again, the face staring back at him in the mirror didn’t slot into place right away. It lingered in that uncanny valley between memory and invention, where dream logic blurred with reality.
It was the man from the bus stop - unmistakably. Still paler than milk, though under the saturated bathroom light, the ghostly shimmer had lifted. He looked solid now. Sharpened. Polished. As if he had siphoned off some of Regulus’s colour and made it his own.
Christ, he could’ve passed for a junior minister - all clean lines and quiet confidence, crisp white collar against a pressed blazer, hair neatly parted and swept to one side. There was no trace of the gaunt, half-drawn creature in this iteration.
That man was a chameleon, just as at ease slouched on a grime-slick bench in secondhand boots as he was here: tailored, tucked, terrifyingly composed. And that, Regulus thought, was the most unnerving part - the ease with which he swapped skins.
Only the eyes gave him away; wide, unblinking. Pupils blown so large there was no rim of colour left to discern - just bottomless black, glossy and glinting, hollow with hunger. The tilt of his head didn’t help - there was something animal in it, curious, like a predator sizing up a domesticated thing that might yet bolt.
Then came the twitch - a compulsive jerk of the jaw. Slender fingers flicking at his side, flexing in quiet rhythm.
Restless. Restrained.
Regulus knew that look.
He’d seen it before - not just at the bus stop, but somewhere else. Somewhere just out of reach, lingering at the frayed fringes of memory. And the harder he grasped for it, the faster it slipped, ricocheting down the shaft of some dark, echoing well in his mind.
Gone.
In its place bloomed a sharp, electric panic - white-hot, humming in his ears.
But he must have been mistaken - that face didn’t match the voice he knew so well.
"I…" Regulus let out a shaky laugh, flinching at the way his own voice cracked. "What?"
The stranger only smiled, one brow arched with lazy amusement.
"I said," he repeated, slow and deliberate, "I’ve been waiting for you all night, sweetheart."
It was him.
God - it really was him.
The realisation struck like a freight train, a brutal punch to the gut that drove the air clean from his lungs.
Regulus shook his head, half-smiling - still waiting for the punchline.
But somewhere, in the oldest, animal part of his brain - the part honed over millennia to spot the shadow in the grass, taste the bitter poison in the berry, flinch from the snap of glinting teeth in murky water - he knew it wasn't coming.
Every phone call. Every silence stretched a breath too long. Every gentle push against a boundary, crossed with a grin just soft enough to pass for teasing.
Warning shots, every last one of them.
Ignored.
Because Regulus was stupid.
Because there was something hollow in him - some raw, aching, insatiable cavity that would never stop wanting. Because some arrogant, self-deluding part of him had believed he could stay in control. That he could outwit anyone.
Outwit him.
As if anyone could keep Barty contained, trapped behind the glass, tangled up in telephone wire.
Stupid.
So fucking stupid.
Of course Barty had found a way through - slithered down the line, slipped between the static. He’d watched. Waited. Bided his time, just as he’d promised from the start.
And now - he had a body.
A face.
Not the one Regulus had conjured up in those private, shame-slicked moments. Not the humiliating fantasy born of that low, curling voice crackling through the receiver.
This face - under these lights - was softer.
Boyish, almost, if not for the hollows beneath his eyes.
Sweet, in any other context.
And maybe, Regulus thought wildly, if Barty caught the light at the right angle, he might have glowed. Like barley fields in August - the ones Regulus used to watch from the car window on the drive back from France, endless and golden, rolling into the distance as far as the eye could see, waving slow and lazy under the summer sun.
Regulus was certain he must have blacked out for a moment.
The next few seconds splintered into fragments, like someone had spliced together mismatched reels of film.
He didn’t remember pulling his hands from the water.
Didn’t remember turning around.
Didn’t remember Barty moving.
Didn’t remember closing his eyes.
One moment, he was frozen, staring in mute horror at the reflection -
The next, he was facing the room, spine arched against the vanity, the marble biting into him through the cling of damp satin.
And when he opened his eyes again -
Barty really had moved.
He’d crossed the space silently, impossibly, and now stood inches away. Pressing in.
No matter how Regulus angled his head, there was nowhere to look that wasn’t him.
"No…"
It didn’t sound like his voice - too thin, too breathless, slipping out of his closing throat without permission.
"No - no…"
Quicker now. Caught on the edge of a strangled breath that wouldn’t release - stuck high in his chest, not deep enough to fill his lungs, not shallow enough to escape.
"Take a breath, Reg," Barty murmured.
A hand settled on his hip.
Regulus recoiled, hissing through his teeth. "Don’t touch me, don’t -"
He twisted, frantic, lunging for the door -
But Barty blocked him with a single step - a thigh braced against Regulus’s, closing off his exit.
"Angel…"
There was that voice again - soft, patient, threaded through with something creeping, crawling. Barty's hand hovered midair, fingers twitching like antennae, hungry and indecisive. Like a spider testing the air before it drops.
Regulus shoved blindly, palm slick and shaking, leaving a wet, dark smear on the front of Barty’s crisp white shirt. His other hand scrabbled behind him, fingers slipping, sliding along the damp edge of the counter - searching for a grip, a weapon, an exit that wasn’t there.
"Reggie..."
"Don't - don't -"
Barty sighed, deep and measured; the kind of sigh reserved for tantrum throwing children, far too worked up to listen. He reached past Regulus and turned off the tap - an absurdly domestic gesture.
"You’re being awfully dramatic," he said lightly, almost amused, as if he weren’t actively pinning Regulus in place with his body weight alone. "I knew you didn’t sound right on the phone. What’s going on with you, mm?"
Regulus let out a wild sound - something between a laugh and a gasp, high and wrong, like glass cracking under pressure.
He twisted again, a graceless, another desperate lurch toward the door -
And Barty caught him.
Again.
An arm snapped tight around his waist and yanked him back, slamming him into the vanity hard enough to rattle his teeth. The shock of impact jarred up his spine, knocking the breath from his lungs.
Barty blinked down at him, brow furrowed - not angry.
Just puzzled.
Regulus had always believed adrenaline would save him. That when it mattered, his body would snap to attention - ready to fight or flee, as nature intended.
But in Regulus, adrenaline had misfired - another cruel defect.
Instead, it had turned inward, setting him alight from the inside. His limbs felt boneless, his head weightless, his whole body twitching with crackling, useless energy - a marionette with its strings hopelessly tangled.
He couldn’t even lift a hand to defend himself. Could only slump back against the sink, both hands gripping the edge, trembling with that sparking, aimless current - lips parted, chest heaving, startled by the betrayal of his own body.
Barty cocked his head, watching the collapse like Regulus had missed his cue - ruined the script.
"What’s the matter, sweetheart?" he asked, voice still gentle, still persuading - but thinner now, stretched taut with swelling impatience. "It’s me. You know it’s me. Don’t be so stupid."
His hand rose - slow, careful, deliberate - and cupped Regulus’s cheek. The pad of his thumb dragged along the bone, firm and unsettlingly tender, as if he were learning the architecture of fear.
"You’re okay," Barty whispered. "You’re fine. Would you just hold still and fucking breathe?"
Regulus tried once more to turn his head, tried to pull away -
But Barty followed.
His grip adjusted, steady and insistent, guiding Regulus back like a skittish animal, breaking resistance one small gesture at a time.
"Look at you," he murmured, ducking lower to meet his gaze. "Pretty boy. Making such a fuss. If you don’t calm down, I can’t give you your present, can I?"
Regulus dragged in a breath through tightly clenched teeth. "I don't want -"
The objection barely made it out.
Barty didn’t flinch, didn’t raise his voice.
Just let his thumb slide down and flatten over Regulus’s mouth - sealing the protest in.
"We’ve talked about gratitude, Regulus."
There had always been a moment on the phone - a split second of distance when Barty would pull away from the receiver. When Regulus would hear the dull thud of a fist meeting wood or plaster. He’d smile half-pitying, half-amused, rolling over in bed - warm, untouched, privately entertained by Barty’s volatile theatrics.
That moment always came right after he heard that voice.
That taut, trembling, I’m-giving-you-one-last-fucking-chance voice.
And there was no distance now.
No buffer of static. No safe end of the line.
Regulus could only stare - wide-eyed, breathless, bracing for the blow.
It never came.
Instead, Barty smiled.
Not a soft smile - though he might’ve meant it to be. Not a kind one either, though perhaps he’d hoped for that too. Just the slow, satisfied curl of someone who’d found an oasis - and fully intended to drain it dry.
Regulus - wracked by short, erratic tremors as the fight bled out of him - didn’t dare look away.
That was when it clicked.
A terrible, crystalline awareness.
This wasn’t a game.
And it wasn’t a nightmare he might yet wake from.
And with that realisation - the panic came unmoored, drifting further from reach.
Regulus had begun to slip - out of the moment, out of his skin.
Like those tangled marionette strings had finally been snipped, taking with them the frantic urge to fight.
Gone.
He wasn’t responsible anymore - not for resisting, not for reacting in a way that made sense.
It felt like he’d stepped sideways and left his body behind: still, vacant, compliant.
And to Barty, that looked an awful lot like permission.
He eased the grip on Regulus’s jaw, his free hand gliding down the slope of his neck, across the dip of his collarbone, tracing the faint curve of his shoulder. Down his arm and back up again - never still, like he was trying to map him through touch.
And Regulus let him.
What else was there to do?
He couldn’t really feel it - just the ghost of pressure, distant and unreal, like it was happening to someone else entirely.
But it seemed to soothe Barty.
Seemed to keep him calm.
Seemed to keep Regulus safe.
So who could blame him?
Who would blame him?
"There you go…" Barty whispered, ducking his head to catch Regulus’s gaze now that he’d gone quiet. "Hi, sweetheart. Scared you, didn’t I? Mm?"
Regulus swallowed - an action that felt mechanical, borrowed, like watching someone else pilot his body from the outside. His mouth opened, then closed.
Useless.
After a moment, he saw himself shake his head - slow, tentative, like testing movement in a dream.
"Well, don’t lie about it," Barty snickered, squeezing his shoulder as if to soothe. "Ev always says - said - I’ve got terrible timing. But I’ve been at the bar for hours. Didn’t think I’d get another chance to see you if I didn't come now."
Regulus’s gaze drifted to a patch of blank wall over Barty’s shoulder. A safe spot. Meaningless.
"S’okay," he heard himself whisper.
"Yeah?" Barty’s smile widened - soft, absurdly hopeful. He brushed back the curls that had fallen into Regulus’s eyes in the struggle, head tilting - still angling for eye contact. "You want your present now, angel?"
Regulus drew a breath. Tried to make it steady. Forced another nod.
"Now, come on," Barty coaxed, slipping a finger beneath his chin, lifting it just so. "Use your words, Reg. You never usually have trouble with that. I came all this way, and you won’t even talk to me?"
The words he wanted to use snagged in his throat.
Fuck you. Fuck this.
But they wouldn’t come; wouldn’t rise past the tight clamp in his chest, put there to ensure he placated.
Regulus closed his eyes. "Mm - sorry."
Barty exhaled, low and unsated. His thumb traced slowly across Regulus’s lower lip - leading, insistent, like he believed the right words could be pressed out of him with enough touch, enough gentle coercion. "Let’s try… yes, please."
Regulus could have killed him.
The rage curled tight in his gut - hot, sharp, humiliating. The sheer condescension of it, like he was some trembling thing to be trained.
He forced his jaw to unclench, opened his eyes, and fixed them on the clean, glossy tile just over Barty’s shoulder - cold and sterile. Anywhere but him.
"Yes, please."
Barty sighed, utterly content. "There it is."
He slipped his free hand into his jacket, rummaging for a moment before producing a small silver tin that rattled softly in his palm. He didn’t take his eyes off Regulus - not once - even as his fingers worked, practiced and precise.
With a flick, he cracked the tin open and set it on the vanity.
Inside: a neat grid of vivid blue pills - matte, uniform, clinical in their exactness.
He plucked one out with near-reverent care, balancing it on the tip of his index finger like an offering.
"This," Barty murmured, low and beguiling, "is going to make everything better, Reggie. Spent ages trying to figure out what to get you - when you’ve already got everything, you know? Spoiled little thing." He smiled as he said it, soft and indulgent, like the words were sweet rather than sick. "But I think this is perfect for you, Reg. This’ll quiet everything down. Put a stop to all that fussing."
There were a hundred things Regulus wanted to say in that moment - not one of them grateful. His jaw ached from the effort of restraint. And still, absurdly, he pulled his mouth into a strained approximation of a smile - like a show of perfect manners might save him, make this whole thing go away.
"Thank you," he started, slowly - carefully - each word measured like he was cutting through live wire. "But I don’t - I don’t do -"
"You don’t get it," Barty cut in, too fast now, the softness slipping into something more urgent, almost pleading. "This is like magic, Regulus. It’s exactly what you need, I swear it is."
The urge to laugh was overwhelming.
As if Barty knew.
As if Barty had the faintest idea what Regulus needed.
Illicit drinking was one thing. But a mystery pill, pulled from a rattling tin, offered by a boy with a twitch in his jaw and a tremor in his smile?
That was a step too far - that was a story with an abrupt and obvious ending.
Regulus drew in a shaky breath, his gaze flicking instinctively toward the door. "I can’t -"
"But -"
"My mum," he blurted, turning back to Barty, the words tumbling out faster than he could clean them up. "She’d know. If I came back like - like -"
"Like what? Happy?" Barty snickered. "Would that be such a nasty shock, Reggie?"
God.
If he wouldn’t take no for an answer -
Regulus shook his head, a stiff, jerky movement, barely more than a flinch.
"Please," he said quietly. "Not tonight."
Something twitched in Barty’s jaw - dangerous, restrained - but he only smiled.
Wider.
Too many teeth.
Without looking away, he tipped the pill onto his own tongue and snapped the tin shut with a soft click. Then, still watching, he slipped the tin off the vanity and tucked it into Regulus’s back pocket - the weight of it settling like a heavy, rattling secret.
"Think about it," Barty whispered, his hand drifting slowly from the small of Regulus’s back to settle between his shoulder blades.
He paused there, palm warm and steady, fingers splayed in a mimicry of tenderness before curling just enough to press in - to claim. Feeling the frantic thrum of Regulus’s heartbeat beneath his fingers, he smiled, small and satisfied, as though it confirmed something he’d suspected all along.
"They really will help you breathe, Reg. It’s like…" He trailed off, gaze turning glassy, breath catching faintly like the memory gave him a hit of something sweet. "…like someone reaching in, pulling out all the messy, nasty, bloody bits, and stuffing you full of cotton instead. Wouldn't you like that?"
Regulus shifted, pressing back harder into the vanity, his spine digging into cold porcelain as if the surface might split open, swallow him, and funnel him down through the pipes - anywhere but here.
"That sounds..." he drew in a breath, trying to steady the tremble in his voice, "…objectively fucking awful."
Barty barked a laugh - sharp, amused, like he’d just worked a clever trick out of a wild animal. "I’m no poet, Reg. Just trust me. It’s fucking good."
Regulus almost snorted - reflexive, bitter - but caught the sound before it slipped out, thinking better of riling him up with ingratitude now.
"I’ll…" he swallowed hard, forcing another tight, unnatural smile. "Yeah. I’ll think about it."
"Mm," Barty hummed, deeply satisfied, his hand still gliding in slow, lazy strokes along the ridge of Regulus’s spine. "You do that, sweetheart."
God, Regulus was seconds away from losing it - truly losing it.
It was unbearable, having someone this close, Barty breathing him in like he owned the space between them, like he’d laid claim to the very air.
But worse - so much worse - was the way he touched him: the slow, steady motion of his palm gliding between Regulus’s shoulder blades, gentle, rhythmic, unerringly precise.
Not random. Not careless.
Like he knew.
Like he’d somehow reached into the locked-away corners of Regulus’s mind and pulled out the muscle memory - how Sirius’s hand used to move in that same steady rhythm, tracing that exact path, grounding him through fevers, nightmares, and thunderstorms. Loosening the knots in his back.
Regulus could feel it happening.
His breath was beginning to steady, almost in spite of himself, responding to the familiar rhythm. But he would sooner choke on the tension than let it go - would rather lock every limb in place than collapse, sobbing, into a stranger’s chest, no matter how loudly his fraying, childish instincts begged him to lean in, to be held, to rest.
Barty seemed in no hurry to pull away, faintly amused by the flickering distress, plain to see on a face that was an open book.
He studied Regulus like a case file: the hard set of his jaw, the averted eyes, the tight hunch of his shoulders, the shallow, uneven breathing, the knuckles pressed white against the vanity as if it might anchor him to another reality.
"Sweetheart," Barty breathed, low and reverent. "You're just -"
The bathroom door creaked open with a sharp groan, spilling in the muffled clatter of cutlery and low conversation from the restaurant beyond.
For a single, suspended heartbeat, the room froze - caught in a tableau of guilty surprise.
"Oh, absolutely fucking not, Crouch."
Orion moved fast.
In three long strides, he crossed the room and seized Barty by the collar, wrenching him backward as the sharp squeal of dress shoes echoed off the tile. The curse sounded strange coming from him - crisp, cold, perfectly enunciated - and somehow hit harder than it would from an untrained tongue.
Regulus exhaled sharply as space cracked open around him. His hand flew to his mouth, as if trying to trap whatever was clawing its way up - sob, curse, apology, or something smaller and far more humiliating.
Barty didn’t resist.
If anything, he looked thrilled. He practically floated as Orion shoved him bodily toward the door, a crooked grin breaking across his face.
"Minister," he sang, twisting in his grip, "I wouldn’t be so quick to -"
Whatever came next was cut clean by the slam of the door, the sound sliced off mid-sentence.
Regulus stood motionless, enveloped in soft jazz.
His hand stayed clamped over his mouth, fingers pressed so hard against his jaw he could already feel the half-moon indents forming beneath his fingertips.
Notes:
I'm sure there's a trigger warning in here somewhere but I can't pick out anything specific - Barty being an incredible weirdo, implied drug abuse, dissociation, anxiety, blurred consent, I suppose. This chapter was incredibly irritating to edit, so if you spot mistakes or overdrawn motifs, please ignore them! I'll go back and proofread in a few weeks when I've recovered from how much this one pissed me off to write 😭
Chapter Text
It was an odd way to spend the last few hours of his eighteenth birthday.
Regulus sat rigid at the edge of the sofa, spine locked, shoulders tight, his gaze fixed on the twin pairs of uniform boots encroaching on the antique rug. Mummy never let anyone step on it with shoes - only the toes had crossed the fringe so far, but that alone was enough to make his skin crawl. It was a small mercy she’d gone up to bed with a strong gin to recover from the shock of the evening, or else there would’ve been blood.
Outside, the marked police car looked absurdly alien on their street lined with towering townhouses and polished sports cars, its garish decals glaring beneath the muted orange wash of the street lamps. Stranger still were the two officers perched awkwardly in the drawing room, their high-vis jackets clashing violently with Mummy’s moody plum wallpaper.
The taller one kept fiddling with his radio, releasing sharp bursts of static that snapped through the silence like tiny electric shocks. The other hunched over a small black notebook, brow furrowed in deep concentration, scribbling with such laboured intensity it seemed each word was being carved into a ledger.
"Alright, Regu-er…"
Regulus glanced down at his hands. "Just Reg is fine."
The officer exhaled, visibly relieved. "Right. Reg," he shifted forward slightly in his seat, synthetic fabrics creaking, softening his tone as if that might coax the truth out. "Can you walk me through what happened tonight? Just - in your own words."
That was a complicated question - because technically, nothing had happened.
Nothing you could write down, anyway.
Nothing that would hold up under the weight of paperwork and procedure.
If you discounted the phone calls - which Regulus fully intended to, lest he crack open a can of worms too tangled to ever shut again - then, truly, it had been nothing of consequence. And perhaps that was comforting, in a way. Without the calls, all that remained was a brief exchange in a public bathroom with a stranger who had every right to be there. His father, Regulus was convinced, was blowing the whole thing wildly out of proportion.
"I’m not - not really sure," he started carefully, gaze flicking sidelong at Dad.
Orion sat like a coiled spring; jaw tight, arms folded, fists bleached white from the pressure of clenching. Regulus recognised the expression - it was his 'barely holding it together' face. The face that always made Regulus sit up a little straighter, heart ticking faster, scrambling for the right combination of words to defuse the bomb before it inevitably went off.
"I..." Regulus swallowed hard. "I just went to the bathroom at the restaurant. And that - that man was there - or, well, he came in after me. But I don’t suppose that part really matters, does it?"
"Of course it matters," Orion bit out.
"Alright," Regulus muttered, shoulders slumping under the weight of forced neutrality. "Then... I suppose he came in after me."
"Roughly how much time passed before he came into the room?" the officer asked.
Regulus hesitated, sifting through those panicked, disjointed minutes spent alone - his uneven breathing, the way his fingers had clung to the edge of the sink, the sudden jolt of terror that had hit like a sucker punch, the slow spiral into that thick, numbing fog where the details got hazy.
All of it mortifying. None of it useful.
"Maybe - uh, maybe a minute or two," he offered at last, shifting uneasily.
The officer nodded, scribbling something indecipherable into his notebook. "And... once he was in the room? What happened then?"
Regulus rocked back in his chair, shoulders tight as wire, dragging a hand mechanically through his hair. "I - I don’t really remember," he muttered, each word filtered through his teeth, enunciation be damned. "I was washing my hands, and he said something when he came in, but I wasn’t... wasn’t really listening."
Across the room, his father let out a sharp, deliberate huff.
Regulus didn’t need to look. He could feel it - thick, smoggy disappointment creeping toward him like coastal fog, slow and suffocating.
God, he was making a mess of this.
Every word felt like it was slipping sideways in his mouth - garbled, and lie-shaped. The weight of three pairs of eyes pressed in on him, unwavering. Every twitch, every pause, every shift in tone was being catalogued and processed like evidence.
Another test he was quietly, inevitably failing.
If there had been even the faintest possibility that this story might end with his father understanding - without giving him that look, that thunderous, disbelieving, 'are-you-completely-fucking-dense?' look - maybe Regulus would have told the truth.
The calls. The flowers. The sick, creeping suspicion that Barty had recorded everything. Every reckless, mortifying secret Regulus had breathed into the receiver.
But telling the truth would mean admitting to the ugliest parts.
The parts where he hadn’t kept his mouth shut.
The parts where he’d sounded desperate, unstable.
The parts about Sirius.
The parts about boys.
About how he wanted -
"Do you remember anything specific Crouch might’ve said?" the officer asked, his pen tapping softly against the pad like a metronome measuring Regulus’s spiral.
Regulus inhaled - sharp and sudden, surfacing too fast from deep water - and curled his fingers into his palms, nails biting until it hurt.
"No," he said, forcing a shake of his head.
It didn’t feel like lying so much as performing - like he’d been possessed by the ghost of an anxious understudy, some amateur thespian shoved into the spotlight with no script and even less warning.
"Nothing - nothing all that important, anyway. It was just... small talk. I didn’t even know he was someone I should be worried about. Dad never told me what he looked like."
"Well, it didn’t seem necessary to have him on the lookout for the boy," Orion cut in, cold and clipped. He shot Regulus an indecipherable glance - impossible to read, yet unmistakably icy. "But that’s beside the point. From where I was standing, Crouch was deliberately trying to intimidate my son. He was far too close for my liking."
The officer turned back to Regulus, one brow raised in quiet expectation.
Regulus shrugged, gaze falling to his clenched hands, white-knuckled now in his lap. "I wouldn't say... uh..."
"Did Crouch mention your father at all?"
Of course Barty should have mentioned Dad - that was the whole point, wasn’t it? That was the safe explanation. The version they’d all believe - if only he could sell it. If this wasn’t going to be about the late night calls, then it would have to be about Dad.
"Yeah..." Regulus started slowly. "Yeah, he - he asked for my name. And then - then he asked if I knew Dad. Which, you know - obviously, I said yes."
The officer nodded, jotting it down. "Alright. And would you say Crouch was trying to intimidate you?"
Regulus scoffed softly through his nose, his gaze drifting toward the window. The glass had fogged at the edges, as if the panic had slipped from his lungs and gone searching for an exit - pressing itself against the glass like something trapped.
"I guess… yeah, maybe he was standing a bit too close. But it didn’t feel..." he paused, reaching for something bland, something believable, "... threatening. He just asked if I was into politics, and I said - I said no. Not really. I mean, I am, but it’s not the kind of thing you talk about with a stranger - right?"
From the corner of his eye, he caught his father’s stiff nod of approval.
Regulus let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. "And… that was really the extent of it. He didn’t ask much more. Nothing that made me think he was too interested in Dad, anyway. After that, we talked a little about my birthday - because that’s why we were out tonight. He was pretty nice about it, actually. And then - then Dad came in."
The officer didn’t look up. "So, Crouch didn't make any threats?"
There’d been pressure. Proximity.
Hands where they shouldn’t have been.
But no threats.
Nothing that could be quoted. Nothing that would hold up.
Regulus swallowed thickly. "No. No - nothing like that."
"Alright..." the officer paused, finishing his note before flipping back a few pages, squinting as he scanned the text. "Let’s talk about the phone calls, then."
Regulus froze.
"The - what?"
The room tilted, the edges of the wallpaper warping subtly, like heat rising off pavement. It felt as if someone had opened a tap at the base of his skull, draining the blood from his head in one long, icy stream.
And just like that, he was back at the edge again - on the precipice, toes curling over the drop. The fog was calling, thick and familiar, beckoning him down. Regulus didn’t much care that the rocks beneath would be jagged, cruel. If he couldn’t see them, they couldn’t hurt. And maybe it would be a relief - to let himself split open cleanly, let the pressure spill out all at once, instead of waiting to rupture.
Orion cleared his throat. "They started during my son’s work experience placement at the office. Late July into early August."
"Oh!" Regulus laughed - too quickly, too loudly.
The sound had the effect of a dropped glass - sharp, jarring, leaving a loaded silence in its wake.
Both officers looked up, heads tilting like hunting hounds catching a scent. His father’s head turned fractionally, just enough to remind Regulus how little margin there was for error. Even the static from the radio had the decency to pause.
Right - it wasn’t funny.
"God... yeah," Regulus started again, quieter now, the smile slipping from his face as he looked back down at his lap. "I’d - I'd completely forgotten about those."
The officer gave him an encouraging nod. "Could you tell me about them?"
"Well… they - they were nothing, really."
Regulus reached for his sleeve, worrying at a loose thread near the cuff - an attempt to play off his too-loud laugh, his rush of relief, as something casual. But he stilled when he caught the tremor in his fingers. His pulse was pounding in his ears, drowning out his thoughts, and suddenly he was painfully aware of how unsteady he must look - wavering smile, twitching hands, skin drawn too tight over his knuckles.
"Barty just -" Regulus drew in a breath and splayed both palms flat against his thighs, grounding himself. "Uh, he just started calling while I was there. It was only a few times, and he only ever asked to speak to my dad. Made some small talk when I said he wasn’t available. It didn’t - didn’t really seem like anything serious."
"Given the history," Orion interjected, "it is rather serious. My son isn’t privy to those details."
The officer nodded, still scribbling. "Understood, Minister."
Regulus risked a glance at his father. "Sorry. I didn’t mean it’s not serious - just… it didn’t seem that way. At the time. You know?"
Dad offered a tight smile - and precisely no reassurance.
"How many calls are we talking about, exactly?" the officer asked.
Regulus shrugged. "Maybe… one or two?"
The officer nodded, jotting it down. "Would it be possible to send someone to the office on Monday? Would there be a record of these calls?"
Regulus turned toward his father, stomach lurching.
"We should have the logs," Orion confirmed, reaching up to scratch at his jaw. "At least a digital record. Dates, times."
"Are they… recorded?" Regulus asked, the words catching halfway up his throat, voice cracking around the edges like thin ice underfoot.
"I'm not sure," Orion shrugged, maddeningly composed. "Probably just timestamps, but there might be a recording. I can certainly check."
Fuck.
There it was again - panic, sharp and seething, curling like acid beneath his ribs. It burned cold at first, then hotter, more insistent, eating away at whatever scraps of calm he'd managed to hold onto. Regulus sat back, dragging a hand through his hair, knuckles grazing his scalp as if pressure might root him in place.
Too many calls. At least three a day. And packages, too.
That’s what he should’ve said.
And - it wasn’t too late.
The officer was still writing - and no one was speaking.
He could just - tell the truth, couldn't he?
The words were rising now, blistering and corrosive, bubbling up the back of his throat. It coated his tongue, scalded his mouth, spilling from the hollow in his chest where resolve should have been. He really ought to spit it out before it burned clean through him.
They’d find out anyway, wouldn’t they?
Regulus opened his mouth.
"Alright, then," the officer said briskly, snapping his notebook shut.
The sound landed like a gavel - curt and final. He rose to his full height, the overhead light catching on the sharp edge of his badge, like a startling camera flash. The smile he offered next was all teeth - from where Regulus was sitting, it looked awfully sharkish.
"We'll be in touch."
Chapter 14
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Evan Rosier was buried in Greenwich Cemetery.
It wasn’t one of London’s grandest resting places - nothing like Highgate, with its crumbling angels, ivy-choked tombs, and gothic theatricality that Barty so admired - but Evan’s plot had its own quaint, understated charm. It was nestled at the end of a long, meandering row, shaded beneath the soft, whispering canopy of an old lime tree that would outlast them all - in spring, its heart-shaped leaves cast dappled shadows over the stone; in summer, the air beneath it smelled faintly of citrus and sap.
The cemetery sloped gently, almost imperceptibly, but from the highest ridge one could trace the land’s lazy descent. From Evan’s grave, you could see the stark white cluster of military headstones standing in solemn formation. They were carved from chalky Portland stone which seemed to glow in the sunlight - almost luminous against the deep greens of the summery grass. Someone tended them with care; the edges were always neatly trimmed, the wreaths perpetually fresh, the silence around them reverent - unlike the forgotten Georgian graves, lost in brambles and home to a flock of sparrows near the entrance.
Further down the hill, just beyond the regimented rows, stood the Commonwealth memorial - two monolithic stone slabs flanking a tall, pale cross. The names of the fallen were etched in granite for eternity - a distant Rosier, who had caught the tail end of an honourable war, among them.
It was peaceful - unremarkable, and disgustingly tasteful.
Barty could pretend to be all three when it suited him, but never with Evan. He hadn’t needed to fake it for him in life, and he certainly didn’t plan on starting in death.
The passing pensioners, of course, loathed him - shooting sharp little scowls over their glasses as he lounged in the grass, smoke curling lazily from his cigarette. His back was propped against the headstone, legs stretched out, eyes bleary from too little sleep. Now and then, he let out a low, breathy snicker, as if mid-conversation with someone only he could hear.
It wasn’t lost on Barty how deeply he unsettled people - he always had. His mother put it gently, in that careful, clipped way of hers. Evan was more direct - blunt, cards on the table. Even Dad had said as much, though he didn’t know Barty well enough for his opinion to sting.
But why should Barty care what some old widowers thought?
Let them clutch their coats tighter, cross the path to avoid him, muttering their little laments about young people and mobile phones, cigarettes and smoke, torn jeans and tattoos, and flower stealing bastards with no sense of decorum.
He’d heard worse - and they weren’t wrong.
Fuck them, though.
They’d had their decades - to argue, to grow old, to outlast each other. Barty hadn’t even had the chance to get sick of Evan, so he had more of a right to be here, didn’t he? They’d be seeing their dearly departed far sooner than he would.
So he stayed, as long as he liked - and when the silence stretched too long, he often started talking.
"I think you’d quite like him," Barty was halfway through explaining that morning, head tipped back to study the gilded lettering overhead, as if the stone might blink back - living bronzite catching the light. "He’s adorable, in that pathetic, kicked-puppy sort of way. Makes me want to throttle him half the time, too. Which - as you’d know - probably means I’m in love, or something."
His gaze drifted upward, tracking the sunlight as it bled through the thick canopy above - dappled gold flickering across his face. For a moment, he was quiet, near contemplative.
"He's not nearly as insufferable as his brother," Barty went on, voice softening in a way that didn't soothe. "And I think he'll make a much bigger impact in the end. But the funny thing is… no one’s watching him. No one’s even worried, you know?"
He snorted, sharp and amused, as though that were the most absurd thing he’d ever heard, then drew in smoke. He held it until his lungs prickled - and exhaled slow, eyes half-lidded, smoke trailing from his lips like something venomous.
"I think I’ll keep him, after all this."
He paused - just long enough to smile.
"Obviously, if you’ve got a problem with that, feel free to resurrect."
Nothing.
Just a light breeze, rustling lazily through the leaves overhead, sending a faint chill skittering down the back of his neck - but no decayed fist clawing up through the grass, no spectral voice rising in outrage.
"Didn’t think so," Barty murmured, smug and indulgent. "He’s not stupid enough to leave me, Ev. Not like you were."
He let the silence linger, like a blade hovering just above the skin - then added, almost laughing, almost light:
"I’m over it, though. Really. Not even mad. Not even considering necromancy just to drag you back and kill you myself this time."
A beat.
"I was just… thinking about how I’d do it, you know?"
Barty tilted his head back, eyes falling shut to savour the flickering light behind his lids - veins of gold and red, like capillaries trapped beneath glass, lit and writhing under a microscope, pulsing with the rhythm of something half-alive, yet utterly insentient.
"Because… I always thought you’d get deployed somewhere, right? That you’d blow yourself up, or... or incinerate yourself, or something. I figured I’d get a letter. Maybe a medal, if you Mum didn't want it," he gave a short, brittle laugh. "But the way you actually went was so boring, Ev. Catastrophically fucking dull, actually. And I’m trying - really trying - to make it count for something, but you’ve left me with so fucking little to work with. Haven’t you?"
His mouth twisted into something halfway between a sneer and a smirk, eyes still squeezed tight shut.
"Now, what’s that poem - Dylan Thomas? ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light,' or whatever the fuck? Should’ve been like that. Should’ve gone out screaming."
He opened his eyes and took one final drag, then ground the cigarette into the grass - not into the exposed forearm he could still picture so vividly. Evan had always hissed so prettily when it burned, swatting at Barty with a flick of his deft knuckles - catching him with a silver ring that glinted like an arcing lancet and stung upon landing in all the right ways.
That same ring now hung from a chain around Barty’s neck, just a little too large for his own nimble fingers.
"It’s just so fucking disappointing, you know?" he muttered, brushing ash from his palm. "If I brought you back now, I think I’d probably talk you to death. Like this. Bit by bit. You’d deserve it. Slow. Tedious. Absolutely fucking miserable."
He smiled - sharp, thin, not kind.
"But I’m over it. Obviously."
There was no point in talking.
No one left to roll their eyes.
No one left to look at him - exasperated, adoring - and declare him utterly certifiable.
Cigarette forgotten, Barty fished in his pocket for his phone, thumb snagging on the fresh crack splintering across the screen - courtesy of Regulus, who had driven him to the fucking edge and made him launch it.
Again.
But Regulus was learning. Slowly.
Of course, it helped that he was just so fucking pretty, too - Barty would’ve let him get away with murder, just so long as he kept existing in that impossibly ethereal skin.
His cousin had posted late last night - Narcissa Black, a name rare enough to trace in under a minute. Vain, too, in that old-money, mythic way. A name like her nature. She treated her life like performance art: filtered, curated, and so pathologically public it was practically a cry for help.
Barty adored her for it.
Because every now and then, there he was.
A sliver of Regulus in the back of a story - a delicate hand, the sharp curve of his jaw, a burst of that stupid, slurred Sloaney accent in a fleeting video.
Barty had saved every single one.
And yesterday - yesterday had been a gift.
A full photograph. Permanent. Posted to her feed like it meant nothing, like it wasn’t practically fucking sacred. He’d saved it, obviously - just in case it disappeared. Would’ve taken one himself, if he hadn’t been too busy pinning Regulus down, squirrelly little fuck that he was.
It was the first thing he saw when he unlocked his screen.
Narcissa beamed at the camera, radiant and electric, pressed snug against his side like she belonged there. Regulus, by contrast, looked brittle - stiff and composed to the point of fracture. His smile was tight-pressed - no teeth, which was a shame. When he did show them, they gleamed, polished and pearly.
Barty had been thinking about shoving his fingers in that mouth for months.
God - that tight, wet heat would be exquisite. Regulus would be a gagger, no doubt. He’d retch beautifully around the intrusion, tongue twitching, slick and warm - resisting, then pliant. But Barty wouldn’t stop there; he’d press deeper, feel that throat clench and convulse like a vice around his fingers.
Teeth might catch him - sharp, clamping - but that would only sweeten the deal. It would give Barty an excuse to wrench his jaw open, split him wide, see just how much he could really take.
And if Regulus bit down, he’d taste blood - Barty’s blood. Copper-bright, pulsing. A communion, swallowed, irrevocable. It might spill from the corner of those pretty pink lips - just a smear - and Barty could thumb it back in, let it pool warm on his tongue.
There was no eye contact in the photo - Regulus’s gaze dipped low and to the side, all demure restraint, like some hesitant starlet waiting for her cue.
That wouldn’t do.
Barty would’ve had him look up. Kept his head still, a fist buried in those curls - soft, not wiry - just to watch those pretty blues brim and blur. God - the whites of his eyes, the black bloom of his pupils, swallowing up the glacial vista of a midwinter morning, trapped inside a delicate snow globe skull - Regulus would wear terror like extravagant furs.
It would cling to him, flatter him…
Whoever took that photo had missed a golden opportunity.
Barty swiped it away with a sneer, barely registering the two unread messages blinking on his home screen.
[09:46] Dad: Would you like to explain why the police were at my door this morning?
[11:02] Dr. Jarman: Your father called. Would you like to bring your appointment forward?
Neither held his interest.
What mattered was the little green dot glowing beside Regulus’s name.
He was awake.
Regulus had spent the night curled on the floor beneath his open window, spine pressed to the cool plaster, limbs tucked tight to his core. It hadn’t been a logical choice - his curtains were drawn, and the neighbours across the street were friendly, forgettable, hardly the type to let Barty in to spy. But the thought of sleeping up there - at eye level, in plain sight - had scraped at something primal.
It felt wrong.
Too open. Too exposed.
So, he’d wearily dragged the sheets from his bed in a silent sweep, cocooning himself just out of sight, curled low beneath the sill. The bed stood between him and the door - a flimsy, almost laughable barrier - but somehow, it passed for placebo protection.
With the window cracked an inch, he could hear the hush of the street: the distant hum of tyres over tarmac, a fox screaming near the bins, the faint rustle of branches stirred by the breeze.
And - mercifully - no footsteps.
He’d stayed up through the early hours.
They’d bled into one another - long, indistinguishable stretches of silence, lit only by the dim glow of his phone screen and disturbed by the tremble of fingers redialing the same number, over and over. Sirius’s line had rung once - at midnight, exactly. Then nothing. Just the flat click of voicemail, over and over, as if his brother had vanished through a side door, powering down the world behind him.
The last thing Regulus remembered was the birds - shrill and bright against the slowly lightening sky - and the taste of his own dry tongue, sour from anxiety and sleeplessness. He must’ve drifted off sometime after four, swaddled in his thin duvet, lulled by the breeze and the illusion of safety.
By eleven, Mummy’s music began to play downstairs - soft jazz, drifting up through the floorboards, a mockery of that awful bathroom - and Regulus blinked awake, still curled foetal and sore from the floorboards. Sweat clung to the back of his neck. A faint draft stirred the fine hairs on his arms, but it did little to cut through the sticky weight of summer heat and a too-tight blanket.
He didn’t move for a while. Just stared at a pale chip in the varnish, where a floorboard splintered into a tiny white scar he’d never noticed before. It looked like a lightning strike.
Eventually, he writhed free and reached for his phone.
The screen lit in his palm - greasy with fingerprints, the familiar crack in the corner catching the light. He tried Sirius again. Still nothing. Still grey.
No messages. No missed calls.
And then -
A flicker.
A green dot.
Not beside his brother’s name.
But Barty’s.
Regulus knew it was coming.
It felt like waiting for the first low rumble of thunder - counting those tense, suspended heartbeats after the lightning flash, each second stretching taut with anticipation. The silence buzzed, brittle and humming, until the vibration finally bloomed in his palm.
He could have let it ring out, of course.
Could have - but didn’t.
Regulus dragged himself upright, limbs stiff, spine scraping against the cool plasterboard. He knuckled sleep from one eye, thumb already moving - accepting the call before doubt could root itself too deeply.
"Good morning, pretty boy."
Barty’s voice burst through, bright and clear, unnervingly chipper - loud enough that Regulus didn’t need to lift the phone to his ear.
He tipped his head back against the wall, drawing in a slow, deliberate breath - trying to fill his lungs with something clean. "How do you know my brother?"
That had seemed like the most urgent place to start, but the silence stretched - long enough to prickle. Regulus didn’t fill it; he let it extend, tight and crackling, pressing his thumb to activate the speakerphone - like arming a trap.
"I don’t," Barty said at last, soft, near amused. "Not like I know you."
"But you don’t know me," Regulus murmured, flexing his jaw as he spoke. He wished he’d brought up a glass of water - his throat was scraped raw. "I wasn’t the one who recognised you, was I? At the bus stop?"
Because that had undoubtedly been Barty.
Regulus had confirmed it, somewhere between waking and dreaming, in the restless churn of half-sleep - haunted by the sweep of headlights across a too-sharp face: bleached cheekbones, eyes pale and weeping at the edges, like bleeding watercolours. The details kept shifting - morphing into shadows in the mirror, looming over his shoulder, into skeletal fingers that should’ve snapped under pressure, but hadn’t. Fingers that had clung to him, leech-like. Fused to his hips like barnacles.
Regulus knew that face now.
Intimately.
Barty drew in a theatrical breath. "Well… if you must know… I sell your brother weed sometimes."
Regulus scoffed. "Is that all you sell him?"
"Yeah."
"That’s not all he takes."
"No," Barty sniffed, a performative little sound of reproach. "But I cut your brother off months ago, Reg. He just can’t handle anything harder."
Regulus closed his eyes. His jaw locked tight as his fists curled instinctively, knuckles whitening, nails digging small, crescent wounds into the meat of his palms.
"So you’re the one who ruined his fucking life, then?" he asked stiffly, voice low and loathing. "My life, too?"
"Dunno about that…"
"I do."
"I didn’t get him started, Reg."
"No?"
"No."
It might’ve been a lie - Barty thrived on slippery charm and half-truths - but there were just as many reasons to doubt Sirius. Maybe more. Sirius had been sneaking out since he was twelve, stumbling home glassy-eyed by fourteen.
That hadn’t started with Barty.
It couldn’t have - Barty didn’t look a day over twenty. He hadn’t been around long enough to be the root of everything, had he?
Barty certainly hadn’t been around as long as James fucking Potter.
Not that it mattered now. None of it did. Pointing fingers wouldn’t fix anything.
Regulus stretched his legs out in front of him, knees cracking as they unfolded. The sound was oddly grounding.
"I think…" he started slowly, already knowing he was wasting his breath. "I'd like to… to stop this, now. Please."
"Stop what?"
"This," he repeated softly, thumb absently grazing his lower lip. "Us."
There was a pause - fabric rustling, a faint shuffle as Barty moved the phone. Then came the distant, rhythmic thud of a fist hitting something solid. Once. Twice. A controlled release of something ugly and pulsing.
When Barty returned, his voice was closer again, tight as a wire.
Just as Regulus had come to expect.
"Are you fucking -" he stopped, biting off the words with audible restraint.
A long, muffled exhale followed. Regulus could picture it now: Barty dragging a palm down his face, fingers splayed in theatrical frustration. He could almost hear the rasp of skin on skin.
Then, clearer - razor-edged:
"Is there something actually wrong with you? Are you actually fucking stupid, Regulus?"
Regulus said nothing - staring at the skirting board, unseeing.
"Sweetheart, we’re not - I’m not done. I’m not done, and you’re not done. I’m trying to help you. I’m just - I'm helping you - I’m already fucking helping you. Can’t you see that? Why can’t you fucking see that?"
The words came out fractured and stilted - spat through clenched teeth, each one more brittle than the last.
It reminded Regulus, distantly, of a teacher he’d once had. The way she’d crouched to meet him at eye level, speaking in slow, deliberate syllables - her smile thin, her patience whittled down to a single trembling thread.
He’d often been inconsolable in her classroom - over what, he couldn’t remember. Only that the other kids hadn’t cried like that. They didn’t need special instructions. Didn’t ask a thousand anxious questions before they could bring themselves to touch the fucking sand tray.
Didn’t drive a kind woman in paint-splattered dungarees to the edge of herself, the way he always seemed to - to every kind stranger foolish enough to extend a hand his way.
There was something wrong with him.
There had always been something wrong with him.
Something baked into his wiring that sent him stumbling headfirst into disaster - oblivious until the headlights were bearing down, the klaxons were screaming, and all he could do was freeze, wide-eyed and fucking useless, waiting for someone else to knock him out of the way.
But no one else was coming. Because he was unbearable. Because he was broken. And maybe - maybe - it would be a relief for everyone if he was hit. If he was dragged for miles, shredded to pieces, scattered along some nameless stretch of road, and finally - finally - no one's fucking problem anymore.
Regulus hadn’t realised he was holding his breath until it tore free - a sharp, ragged inhale that punched through his ribs. He clapped a hand over his mouth, as if to shove it back down, but it was useless.
"I don’t think - I don’t think anyone can fucking help me," he gasped, words muffled against his palm. He dragged his hand down from his mouth, curled it into a fist, and slammed it - once, twice - against the side of his head, sharp and deliberate, like he was trying to knock something loose. Trying to stay present. "I think - yeah, okay - I think I probably am fucking stupid or something. Probably, alright? Is that -" his voice broke, uneven "-is that what you -? Is that it? Are we done now? Can we just be… can we just be fucking done now?"
The words tumbled out too fast, too raw, like they’d been waiting just beneath the surface for days, months, maybe years. The floodgates had cracked, and now the truth was spilling out - chaotic, desperate, unfiltered.
"Reg…"
"No, really," he choked out, curling an arm around his middle like he could hold himself in, shifting up onto his knees. "There must be something wrong - right? There must be something, there’s got to be a fucking reason I’m so -"
"Sweetheart, it’s really not that serious," Barty said softly. "You’re going to be fine. I’m not even really that pissed. Just breathe, would you? Did you take your pills yet?"
That gentle tone landed like a slap.
Regulus flinched hard, as if struck for real. His head cracked against the wall behind him, pain bursting white-hot behind his eyes - a clean jolt, grounding in its sharpness.
"Are you stupid, too? It won’t be fucking fine," he hissed. His voice was unraveling, fraying at the edges. "It can’t be fine, you're the one making it not fucking fine. It won’t - you don’t get it, you just don’t fucking get -"
"Why won’t it be fine, sweetheart?"
"My Dad!" Regulus fired back, too loud - like splintering glass.
The moment the words left him, his stomach dropped. His voice had cut through the walls - sharp enough that Mummy might’ve heard, might already be halfway up the stairs.
He recoiled into himself. Knees drawn up, arms locked around his ribs, like he could cage the panic inside.
"My Dad called the fucking cops," he whispered. "He called them. They came here. Last night. They know about you… about…"
His fingers dug in tighter, pressing beneath his ribs, as if he could hold himself together through force. He folded in, spine bowed, trying to vanish into the airless space between his body and the floor. He rocked slightly, a minute, automatic motion - instinctive, desperate to self-soothe.
On the other end, Barty inhaled - slow, deliberate, as if the world wasn't imploding around them.
"And… what did you tell them?" he asked.
"That…" Regulus hesitated. "That you called the office. Once or twice. And that I saw you - I saw you last night."
"Did you tell them you gave me your number?"
"I - no."
"That we’ve been talking?"
"No."
"About the pills?"
"No."
"Then…" Barty snickered softly, smooth and unhurried. "You did the right thing, clever boy. It’ll be just fine. You’ll see - we’ll be alright."
Regulus drew in a long, shaky breath, salt and copper bitter on the back of his tongue. His heart was still pounding - ragged - but slower now, beginning to settle.
"But… they’re going to the office," he whispered. "They’ll see you called more than once. I lied about that."
Barty let out a light, easy laugh - calm, almost indulgent. "Sweetheart, I’ve been calling for years. They’ll only tell me to cut it out. I’m not in any real trouble."
"They’re not… recorded?"
"Those calls?" Barty scoffed gently. "No."
Regulus blinked down at the floor. At that hairline crack splitting the floorboard beneath him, fine as a fracture in bone - and for a terrifying second, it looked like hope. Thin, improbable, but there.
His voice came out small. Fragile.
"And… what about… you?"
"What about me?"
"The… calls," he said, throat catching. "The ones you recorded."
There was a beat - then Barty laughed again, quieter this time, low and knowing, like he was already three steps ahead, and stunned that Regulus was still hung up on something so inconsequential.
"Oh, angel, I’m not going to do anything with our calls. Not if you keep playing along so nicely. That's just like… insurance, yeah? Just something to give you skin in the game. Incentive to play along."
Play along.
Whatever that meant, it was better than the alternative. Better than sitting still and waiting for everything to implode. There was still time - still a narrow, fragile window in which he might survive this. Might even win, if he was careful. If he kept his head.
Regulus was clever. He’d always wanted to believe that. Whether Barty believed it too - or had only said it to keep him docile - it didn’t matter anymore.
He could stay afloat. He could play along.
"Are you still there, Reg?"
Regulus wiped at his face with a sleeve, dragging the damp from his eyes, smearing salt into the corner of his mouth. His vision blurred, but his chest had started to rise and fall more evenly.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Yeah, I’m - I'm still here."
"Good," Barty purred, smooth as velvet again. "You’re doing so well, sweetheart - really. You didn’t even need me to tell you what to say last night. You got it all by yourself. You’re not stupid, after all."
A quiet, noncommittal sound escaped Regulus.
"Now…" Barty's voice dipped lower, coaxing. "Did you take your pills?"
Regulus glanced at the tin on his nightstand, catching the glint of the metal in the low light. Still sealed. He swallowed thickly. "Not… not yet."
"You’ll feel so much better when you do," Barty sighed. The sound was soft and mist-thin, like breath fogging glass. "I just wish you’d let me help you, Reg. I really do. Stop making it such a fucking battle, you know?"
Regulus let his head tip back against the wall. His eyes fluttered shut. A dry, spent breath escaped him - thin, almost weightless - and then, half a laugh, scraped up from the bowels of his waning reserve tank.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Mm."
"Okay, what?" Barty asked, something sharp sliding in under the words. "Okay, as in... you’re playing my game, Reg? Not backing out? Not being stupid?"
Stupid.
He was incredibly fucking stupid, for such a clever boy - there was no avoiding that.
But Regulus nodded - stiff and reluctant - all the same. "I’m - yeah, I'm playing."
It tasted like surrender.
"That’s what I like to hear!" Barty barked a laugh. "God, you’re a fast learner when you want to be," his voice was crackling with energy again, vibrating with some freshly summoned rapture. "So... how about we start with coffee?"
Regulus didn’t answer right away. His fingers curled into the hem of his shirt. A flicker of something flitted across his face - resentment, maybe, or regret.
"Alright."
"Saturday?" Barty pressed, gleeful now. "I know a place."
"Suppose..." Regulus sniffed, glancing up at the ceiling. "Suppose I don’t have anything else going on."
"Perfect," Barty grinned. "Then it’s a date."
Regulus said nothing.
Everyone was getting coffee these days.
It didn’t have to mean a thing.
Notes:
TW - themes of emotional abuse, coercive control, gaslighting, references to suicide and grief, addiction (mentioned), self-harm, intrusive sexual obsession, and mental health distress.
Chapter Text
Monday came and went without incident.
As it turned out, Barty hadn’t been lying - not this time. Regulus spent most of the day drifting restlessly from room to room, pausing in doorways where his mother happened to be lounging, tracking her subtle shift from bored to suspicious. He felt the quiet weight of her eyes whenever he lingered for too long, each casual inquiry about whether Dad had called met with a sharp, uneasy side-eye - as if Regulus had transformed into a dog who'd mysteriously learned to speak.
Perhaps it was a fair suspicion; Dad never called during his non-existent lunch breaks, so it was a particularly unusual question to ask.
When six o’clock rolled around and that sleek black car pulled up to the curb, Orion emerged with a promising serenity - no furious footsteps crunching over gravel, no door flung wide in anger, no impatient demands for an explanation Regulus would sooner die than give.
So, Regulus had exhaled.
Waited.
Slipped in the question as casually as he could - while Dad loosened the knot of his tie with a lazy thumb, leaning against the kitchen counter, a cool glass of Macallan sweating on the rocks near his elbow.
"Anything from the police?"
Just a lone detective, apparently - there to pick up a printout of dates and times.
It was the first mercy Regulus had been shown all summer. As long as no one had actually heard the calls, he felt reasonably certain he could bluff his way through any uncomfortable questions about their frequency.
With that particular crisis temporarily shelved, he was free to fixate on the next one: Sirius hadn’t answered his phone all week.
Regulus had tried on an endless loop - each unanswered call another tight knot in his stomach.
If he could just get through to Sirius, Regulus knew that this would all be over in a matter of hours. Sirius would know who Barty really was - what he really wanted. He'd know exactly how to shut him down, break him apart, make him stop.
More importantly, Sirius wouldn't let Barty so much as look at Regulus the wrong way again, let alone touch him. All Regulus had to do was say the word - and Sirius would make sure of it.
That was what big brothers were for.
Allegedly.
If they ever answered their fucking phones.
It rang all day on Monday, but was temperamental on Tuesday - ringing one minute, and patching straight through to voicemail the next. By Wednesday, the voicemail was full. On Thursday, the phone was switched off all day, plunging Regulus into an anxious void of dead air. It had been charged again by Friday.
Of course, it still rang straight through to voicemail.
Not a single text had been returned either.
With Saturday looming, there was nothing else for it but to track Sirius down and make him fix it.
Summer was nearly spent; the sunsets were no longer golden but drained of their warmth, fading from a brilliant blaze of orange into a pale, watery yellow. It was still warm enough in direct sunlight to forgo a jacket, but by the time Regulus reached the shaded high street leading to the tube station, his teeth were chattering from the breeze.
The abrupt switch from hot to cold made his skin prickle - but nothing settled, nothing stayed. No sooner had he begun to adjust to the chill than the thick, stagnant heat of the tunnel rose to meet him, whipped up by the gust of an oncoming train, a roar that tore up the escalators as he descended.
Sirius hadn't made it far - just ten minutes on the Northern Line, screeching and sweltering in all its claustrophobic, mechanical glory. Someone had wrestled open the windows at either end of the carriage, letting in a blast of stale tunnel air that reeked of hot metal and ancient dust. Regulus had always hated the thick, gritty breeze that followed; steam engines were long gone, but the generations of tunnel grime, stirred up by the train’s passage, did no favours for his lungs.
Emerging on the other side always felt like a release.
Chalk Farm was one of those cramped, congested stations, compact and wedge-shaped, yet mercifully quick to navigate. Steps, rather than escalators, allowed him to climb at his own pace, jogging up quickly - as if he could ever outrun the eyes that had trailed him all the way from Angel.
Perhaps it had only been a stranger in the next carriage - a fleeting flicker in the corner of his eye through the open window, one unremarkable figure among hundreds. But something - bright hair, too vivid against the blurred jumble of tanned limbs and neutral summer linens that made up the motion blur at that time of year - had snagged in his periphery.
Whatever - or whoever - it was, it had sent Regulus’s heart lurching into his throat, and a coppery rush of panic spreading over his fast-drying tongue. He had fixed his gaze on the stained moquette opposite, letting his eyes glaze over, deliberately unfocused for the rest of the ride.
Looking would have made it real.
It was still daylight when he emerged above ground, blinking in relief. Half to reassure himself, Regulus ducked into the corner shop, making a quick loop beneath cool, blue lights - past the humming chiller cabinets, rows of bright, unreadable cans - then back outside without a purchase, satisfied he hadn't picked up a tail.
No one seemed to be lingering on the corner. Across the road, the bus stop hosted only a woman absorbed in her phone and a bored-looking teenager - brunette, slouched, and radiating apathy. Neither posed much of a threat.
No sign of a stalker, but Regulus didn’t slow down - if he knew Barty like he thought he did, he would never be more than a street corner away.
Sirius lived just a short walk from the station - made shorter still by long strides, lengthened by a summer growth spurt and driven by that low-grade adrenaline that doesn’t burn out without fraying every last nerve on its way. Before Regulus realised, he was already in the stairwell of the converted block, climbing through the faint scent of mildew, his limbs moving on autopilot, no longer seeking permission from his better judgment.
Barty - maddening, unshakable Barty - was the only force on earth capable of making him brave enough to climb those steps uninvited and knock, brisk and bold, on his brother’s front door - knowing full well it would be James fucking Potter who answered.
And sure enough, it was.
Bleary-eyed, perfectly imperfect curls somehow more unruly than ever, James blinked at him - momentarily frozen by the sheer improbability of Regulus fucking Black standing on his doorstep on a Friday afternoon.
Regulus didn’t miss the quick, guilty glance thrown over one shoulder - nor the way James slipped out and shut the door a little too firmly behind him. His voice, when it came, was an octave too high, a shade too bright - aiming for chirpy, landing squarely on strained.
"Well, shit," he beamed unconvincingly, "I wasn't expecting you, Reg!"
As if James had ever been pleased to see Regulus a day in his life.
"Clearly," Regulus returned, letting his gaze drift pointedly to the closed door. "I did try calling."
"Did you?" James patted himself down like a missed call might tumble out of his pocket. "Sorry… when?"
Regulus could never tell if James was genuinely that clueless, or just perpetually taking the piss. The former made Regulus feel like he had his shit together - so it was probably the latter.
"No - I’ve been calling Sirius," he said tightly, bristling despite his best efforts to stay civil. "Not…not you. Don’t even have your number, do I?"
"Right, no," James frowned, glancing down at his socked feet. "Sorry."
There it was again - that look people thought Regulus missed. Lips pressed thin, eyes flickering sideways, the faintest curl at the corner of the mouth - just shy of a grimace. James raked a hand through the back of his hair, a classic stalling gesture if Regulus had ever seen one, then took a slow, steadying breath.
"Sirius isn’t here, Reg," he hesitated on the next breath, "and if I’m being totally honest, he’s not … not really in any fit state to see you right now."
Regulus scoffed. "Is that why you shut the door behind you?"
James flinched, glancing over his shoulder. "No, that’s not - look, I’d tell you if he was here, wouldn’t I?"
"Would you?"
James bit down on whatever he was about to say - this time, the grimace was plain.
"It’s fine," Regulus shrugged, stepping back. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest - a move that was more defensive than defiant, though it didn't translate that way.
It never did.
"I can wait."
James didn’t answer right away. He just looked at him - really looked - his gaze flickering like he was weighing the cost of honesty. The silence didn't last long, but it was long enough for the air to shift - suddenly thick with everything polite society begged them not to say.
"I really don’t know when he’ll be back, Regulus."
"Can’t you call him?" Regulus pressed. "He’s more likely to answer you than me, isn’t he?"
James drew a breath.
That breath - that deep, deliberate inhale that always preceded some soft-spoken, condescending attempt at diplomacy. That I’m-about-to-speak-kindly-to-a-difficult-child breath.
Regulus didn’t give him the chance.
"Please?"
It really must have been a magic word.
James let out a sound that caught somewhere between a groan and a sigh. He dragged both hands down his face, lifting his glasses and pressing his fingers hard into his eyes, as if he could physically block out the conversation.
When he dropped them again, the fight had bled out of him.
"C’mon, then."
Regulus would have been lying if he’d claimed not to feel a sharp stab of smug satisfaction as James opened the door and stepped aside to let him in. It was a small, brittle victory - but a victory nonetheless, which dissolved the moment he crossed the threshold.
Regulus came to understand exactly why James had closed the door so quickly behind him; the smell hit him at once - cloying, faintly earthy, and all too familiar. It clung to the walls, to the threadbare upholstery, to the bleary-eyed boy on the couch.
Peter was slouched at one end, eyes glassy, a joint smouldering lazily between two fingers. He made no effort to hide it - and barely seemed to register Regulus at all for the first ten seconds. Then, he blinked, slow and sluggish; a crooked grin crept across his face as the figure in the doorway began to take shape.
"No fucking way…"
God, Regulus hated that smell.
It had ruined things - important things, irreplaceable things, like burying his face in his brother’s shoulder, or borrowing his baggy shirts to sleep in over the summer. Things like drifting off at the foot of Sirius’s bed after long, languid nights, ribs aching from laughter, feeling lighter than any one person had the right to feel.
It was the smell Sirius had started to bring back with him after sneaking out - Regulus had been too young to go with him, and far too scared to try, even if he had been invited. Besides, someone had to stay behind. Someone had to keep watch in case Dad woke up, didn’t they? That was Regulus’s job - it was cool to be selfless, to take one for the team. Best brother ever, or whatever the platitude of the week was.
Sirius always came back with a cold Coke as penance. He’d always passed out at the end of Regulus’s bed, always reeking of that nasty, earthy something. Regulus would sit on the floor under the open window, trying to breathe clean air, watching the shallow rise and fall of his brother’s chest, hoping Mummy wouldn't pick it up on his clothes in the morning.
By sixteen, the smell was gone. Sirius came home later - and more often than not, he forgot the Coke. Sometimes he didn’t even make it to bed, passing out on the bathroom floor instead. Still, Regulus sat with him, tucking a towel under his head. Tracing the bruises that bloomed along the soft skin inside his elbow. Wondering where they came from. Hoping Mummy wouldn’t notice.
It had all started with that horrible smell - and breathing it in felt like betrayal.
The blinds were half-drawn over the sash windows, filtering the last of the daylight into a dull, murky haze. The only real light came from the television - a muted music video looping pointlessly in the corner.
Regulus drew a shallow breath, careful not to inhale too deeply. The air felt thick, stale, and the swell of claustrophobia crept up his throat like an expanding fist. Peter was talking, but his voice was coming from somewhere above the surface, while Regulus was somewhere far, far below.
"...looking for Sirius?"
Regulus blinked hard. "What?"
Peter was still reclined, voice soaked in secondhand smoke. "I said, are you looking for Sirius? Because if I had to place a bet on it, I’d say he’s probably -"
"Pete," James cut in, voice edged with warning. He shut the door behind them with a soft click, scanning the room before nodding toward the doorway off the kitchen. He gave Regulus a small nudge. "Go on. We’ll call him in there."
Regulus didn’t argue. He took the out, grateful to escape the stale fog - even if it meant stumbling straight into James’s bedroom.
The window was cracked open in there, letting in a soft breeze laced with something distinctly London: warm asphalt, toxic bus exhaust, the faint tang of fresh fruit from the grocer on the corner. There was something cleaner beneath it, too - the breeze catching the scent of fabric softener from the half-folded pile of laundry slouched over the desk chair.
Regulus drew the clean air in, grounding himself as he scanned the room for threats.
A football shirt hung off the corner of the chair; a gym bag slumped beneath it, having run out of momentum halfway to the wardrobe. A pack of cigarettes pinned down a clear plastic baggie on the desk - Regulus didn’t look too closely at the contents. The bed was rumpled but made, just enough effort to keep him from wrinkling his nose as he stepped inside and closed the door behind them.
James sank down on the edge of the bed with a heavy sigh, elbows braced on his knees. His phone blinked to life as he snatched it from the nightstand, a string of notifications unravelling like bunting.
"I can’t promise he’ll answer, Reg."
"I know," Regulus muttered, leaning back against the door. "S'okay."
James huffed - something between a laugh and a scoff.
Regulus straightened, eyes narrowing. "What?"
"No, nothing," James insisted, offering a quick, tentative smile. "It's just sometimes I forget you’re his brother. But then you say something, and it's like… yeah, how fucking obvious. You sound just like him, you know? It's so fucking weird..."
"Mm…"
Regulus clenched his jaw, forcing shallow breaths through the tight ring coiled around his chest. He pushed off the door and drifted toward the open window, one arm wrapped stiffly over his ribs as he met the breeze - weak, but welcome, stirring the edge of a curtain and cooling the damp curls clinging to his temples.
Mercifully, James said nothing more.
Behind him, the phone began to ring on speaker - sharp and shrill in the heavy silence. Regulus scanned the street below, eyes catching on every flicker of movement, every pale head of hair that might’ve been Barty.
When the voicemail clicked on, something hopeful stirred in his chest - some fragile, reckless thing that couldn’t be smothered - but it was only the automated voice, flat and indifferent, like every other call that week.
At least there was some comfort in knowing Sirius wasn't picking up for James either.
"Uh… I’ll try Remus," James muttered, fingers raking through the stress-tousled mop at the nape of his neck. "He usually answers."
"Is he with Sirius?"
"Probably," James sighed, lifting the phone to his ear - this time not on speaker. He listened for a beat, face unreadable, then perked up and shot Regulus a quick wait gesture.
Regulus felt his breath catch as he turned, studying the furrow in James’s brow, like it might offer a direct line to his brother.
"Hey, Rem… yeah - no, no, I’m good. Just with Pete, and… uh, are you with Sirius?"
The twitch of James’s jaw said everything; that was a yes.
Regulus took a step closer.
James angled his back, shutting him out. "No, I figured. It’s just - yeah, his brother’s here."
Maybe Remus was the problem. He hadn’t seemed like much of a threat at Regulus’s impromptu birthday party - all knitted jumpers and awkward, jerky movements, lingering quietly on the fringes of conversation.
Not so different from Regulus himself, really.
But if he was with Sirius at the bottom of his latest spiral...
"No," James glanced over his shoulder. He offered Regulus a tight smile, then looked away just as quickly, pushing his fingers up to his crown. "That’s fine, I can - yeah, I can tell him."
Another pause. Longer, heavier.
Regulus strained to hear something - anything - on the other end of the line. But there was only the faint hum of traffic drifting through the open window. Remus spoke too softly, too calmly, with not nearly enough urgency to make out distinct syllables.
"Alright," James sighed. "Thanks. No - no, I can handle it. Yeah, I’ll see you later."
Regulus didn’t move - that couldn’t be it.
But it was.
James hung up and let the phone drop into the folds of the duvet. For a moment, he didn’t speak - just stared at a patch of carpet like it might tell him what to do. Then - finally - he sighed.
"He’ll call you."
The words were soft, lacking conviction - more wishful thinking than reassurance. If this was James handling a situation, Regulus wasn’t sure he wanted to see what falling apart would look like.
Regulus smiled wryly. "Will he?"
James reached for the phone, hesitated, then set it on the nightstand with a dull thunk. He fumbled to reconnect the charger, gaze skimming past Regulus without quite landing.
"Eventually," he muttered, "yeah."
Eventually was useless - Saturday would come sooner. Regulus let out a short huff, the ghost of a smile stretching across his face, brittle and obligatory, as he pushed off the windowsill. He was halfway to the door by the time James found his voice.
"Reg…"
"It’s fine," he muttered, trying to keep the panic sealed behind his teeth. "Thank you."
James stood abruptly, like something in him had snapped to attention.
The bed springs shrieked, loud and intrusive.
"It’s not your fault, you know."
Of all the things Regulus had been bracing for, that wasn’t one of them - and it was surprising enough to put his panic in a chokehold. He stilled, gaze dropping to a chip in the doorframe - white paint peeling back to reveal raw wood beneath. From the next room came the muted creak of floorboards as Peter shuffled around. That earthy scent was drifting under the door again - perhaps he had lit another joint.
Behind him, James shifted - the soft scrape of socked feet against carpet, edging cautiously closer.
"He’s not ignoring you specifically, Regulus."
So. This was happening.
Regulus turned - not to look, but to confront - and felt no small amount of satisfaction when James flinched back.
Good.
Good.
Anger was easier - so much easier to keep a leash on than panic.
Fuck James for speaking like he had any authority - like Regulus hadn’t grown up in the room next to Sirius, hadn’t spent his entire existence translating the same silences James had only picked up as a second language. As if a handful of messy, devoted years could overwrite a whole childhood beneath the same roof, with the same fucking ghosts.
"I never thought it was my fault," Regulus said coolly. "Or that he was ignoring me, specifically."
James forced a smile, all shallow reassurance. "Well, good - I’m glad you don’t think that. And Sirius will be too. He worries about all that - about what you think, you know?"
Regulus tilted his head, one brow arched, waiting.
There was always more - people like James could never restrain their self-importance.
"It’s just… you’ve got to understand that addiction is like a disease, yeah?"
"Jesus," Regulus let out a short, humourless laugh. "I know what addiction is, James. You don’t need to explain it to me - I’m not a fucking child."
James inhaled, slow and deliberate, like the breath might hold him steady.
Regulus didn’t let him exhale. "But you know what no one ever explains?"
James shook his head, wary.
"Why Sirius had to get it."
"It’s complicated."
"Is it?"
"Yeah."
Regulus let out a dry scoff and stepped closer, his voice edged with something sharp and clawed. "Tell me your theory, and I’ll tell you mine."
There was a heavy, loaded silence - the kind that wasn’t really silent at all. It pulsed with the tick of a clock and the low, distant thrum of traffic outside, maddeningly mundane in this pivotal moment Regulus had spent the better part of five years bracing for.
Eventually, James raised both hands - as if that absolved him from striking the match.
"I’m probably not the one you should be talking to about this," he said, slower now, like he stood any chance of walking it back. "I just - I didn’t want you walking out of here feeling like shit... blaming yourself, or whatever."
"I’ve already said I don’t blame myself, James."
"And I’ve already said that’s good," James returned, jaw tight with the effort of restraint. "Great, even, because it really isn't about you - Sirius has some serious fucking issues. He wouldn’t be like this if everything had been fine from the start, you know?"
It was too fucking rich a thread to leave hanging. Too tempting not to pull.
"So... what were his issues?" Regulus asked, a smirk ghosting at the corner of his mouth, like any of this was remotely funny. "Too much homework? Not enough pocket money to fund his fucking habit?"
It looked like James was about to say something cruel - and Regulus braced for it. He welcomed the threat, shoulders squared, that thin, near-hysterical smile already growing on his lips.
Let it land. Let it hurt.
He was ready to bleed.
But James faltered.
His weight shifted uneasily, eyes darting to the door like he was contemplating bolting. Then, after a beat of hesitation, he stepped back and sat on the edge of the bed - stiff, deliberate. The mattress dipped beneath him as he lifted a hand in a silent gesture: not quite surrender, but something close. A wordless truce.
Regulus glanced at the rumpled sheets, at the soft indent James had left, and grimaced at the implication of intimacy. But standing there, arms folded like a sulking child, felt, somehow, infinitely worse.
He pushed away from the door and turned to cross the room, lowering himself onto the far edge of the mattress, leaving as much space between them as he could. His arms remained folded, jaw locked - but the act of sitting seemed to ease something in James, sapping some tension from his shoulders, like they’d agreed, silently, to a temporary ceasefire.
"Look…" James began, dragging a hand down his jaw like he could wring composure from under his skin. "I know I’ve only heard one side of it, Reg. I know I’ve only got what Sirius has told me. But he’s my best mate. So, if he says someone’s a cunt, then they’re a cunt. If he says something was fucked up, then it was fucked up. That’s just… that's just how it goes."
Regulus sniffed reproachfully, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. "So, who’s a cunt?"
James snorted.
"Mum?"
"I'm not -" James cut himself off, rolling his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, all I know is, Sirius has never once blamed you. And he's never wanted you caught up in any of this."
Except - he had.
Sirius had asked Regulus to sleep with the window open and listen for his whistle. He’d asked him to creep down the stairs and let him back in, placing his toes just so, so the treads wouldn’t creak. He’d asked for money - birthday money, lunch money, Christmas cash. He’d begged when asking stopped working. He’d threatened, too: said he’d fuck off and never come back if Regulus didn’t hand it over.
And Regulus had handed it over.
And Sirius had fucked off anyway.
And he hadn’t come back.
James didn't know about that - didn't know the half of it, probably.
Regulus stared down at his hands, fingers splayed out over his jeans; they were starting to look like they belonged to someone else. That faint, earthy smell was curling in under the door again, thick and cloying, coating his tongue, making the edges of his thoughts go soft. He felt unmoored, like his body had lagged a few paces behind.
"Yeah," Regulus muttered, tipping his head back to study the ceiling. "He’s a real fucking saint."
James snickered and let himself fall back onto the duvet with a soft thump, one arm folded beneath his head like he could nap right there - even in such unpleasant company. "Sirius is a lot of things, Reg, but a saint’s never been one of them."
He looked absurdly at ease like that - legs stretched out, shirt rucked ever so slightly at the waist, every inch of him loose, and unguarded.
When Regulus glanced over, something twisted low in his gut. Something thorny and unnameable, though he was quick to file it under loathing - anything to avoid acknowledging the relentless ache of longing.
How could anyone be so at ease in their own skin? Like it fit them just right?
God, it must be nice…
Regulus didn’t answer right away.
Let the silence settle between them, thick and breathing.
Tilted his head back, blinking up at the cracked plaster above, throat tight, words backing up behind the swell.
"I just thought…" he exhaled slowly, blinking against the sting behind his lids. "I just thought he was getting better. He seemed better - on my birthday."
James shifted beside him, lifting his glasses just high enough to rub the bridge of his nose, the motion catching a slant of light that glinted off the frames. His nose wrinkled with the gesture - thoughtful, familiar, maddeningly human.
Regulus hated that he noticed.
Hated the way his gaze drifted sideways. Hated how he felt like a thief just for looking.
Hated himself for liking the way late afternoon light gilded James’s face, catching on his perfectly rounded cheekbones, painting him in soft, golden hues. Honey and bronze - all those warm, forgiving tones that never looked quite right on Regulus.
"He wanted to remember it," James said after a beat, voice low. "He said that eighteen was a big deal."
Regulus pressed his lips together. "So… he really was sober?"
"More or less."
Regulus turned to him.
"What happened, then?" he asked, quieter now, half afraid of the answer. "Did he just… change his mind?"
James sighed, raking a hand through his hair. "I’m not in his head, Reg. I just know he tried his best."
Regulus gave a quiet, dry scoff. "Does it really take that much effort to spend a few hours with me?"
James's mouth twitched - almost a smile.
"You’ve got a real talent for thinking the world is out to get you, Regulus."
"What if it is?"
James snorted. "It isn’t."
As if he had any idea.
Regulus reached into his pocket, thumb grazing the cool edge of the tin before settling on his phone. He slid it out and glanced at the screen - one blinking red dot. Nothing on the endless ribbon of messages James always seemed to come back to, like the world couldn’t stand to be without him for more than five minutes.
Regulus had only one notification waiting for him.
And that was one more than he had at the start of the summer.
Six messages - all from Barty.
[19:23] B: I was just about to call you. Where are you going?
[19:49] B: I don’t think Sirius is home, angel. Want me to check? I’m already close.
[20:02] B: You should leave, sweetheart. I know it’s only James in there. And I know what you’re after.
[20:08] B: You really do have a thing for him, don’t you? Twenty minutes and still talking? You barely last five with me - and I actually like you.
[20:13] B: This is getting pretty fucking rude, Regulus. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about tomorrow. We have plans. I won’t be happy if you spend all night playing house with him.
[20:15] B: Maybe I should have told you this earlier, but I'm not really the sharing type. Not into the whole ménage à trois thing. I'd be into hearing you say ménage à trois, though. You've got the accent down.
Regulus felt his heart drop - not the usual crash and surge, but something blunter.
Like a coin slipping down a drain and vanishing, landing with a soft rattle somewhere deep in his stomach.
James was probably right - the world wasn’t out to get him.
It was much worse than that.
The world was wholly indifferent.
Regulus could be murdered in plain sight and no one would blink. And the worst part was he'd probably try to fall somewhere discreet. Out of the way, so he wouldn’t interrupt someone else’s conversation.
There was already a hand around his throat, tightening by the second, and James hadn’t even noticed.
Regulus reached up, fingers brushing his neck, as if he could pry away invisible fingers.
"Can I…" he swallowed thickly. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure," James said, propping himself up on his elbows with a startling lack of urgency - like time wasn’t slipping through his fingers.
Regulus reached into his pocket. His fingers brushed the cool edge of the tin - it slipped against the lining of his pocket, loose and evasive without the bulk of his phone to pin it in place. The fabric bunched beneath his fingers, and he fumbled longer than he meant to - jaw tight, thoughts half a step behind his hands.
At last, he wrestled the tin free and tossed it across the bed.
It landed in James’s lap with a dull thump.
"Do you know what those are?"
James glanced down, hesitated, then flicked the lid open with his thumb.
Regulus watched his expression shift: confusion first, then unease, and finally - undeniably - recognition.
James looked up slowly, voice soft and somber. "Where’d you get these, Reg?"
Regulus shrugged, glancing back down at his lap. "From a friend."
James snapped the tin shut - but didn’t toss it back. Instead, he set it carefully on the nightstand, like it might go off in someone’s hands. Then, without a word, he shoved to his feet, snatching the battered cigarettes from the desk as he passed.
He didn’t look at Regulus.
He didn’t have to.
It was written all over his face - not anger.
Not even surprise.
Guilt.
There was a heaviness in the way James moved now, like something had landed on his shoulders mid-stride. His frown looked carved in - etched too deep to soften - as he climbed up onto the windowsill. Hands tense, fingers stiff and jerky, he tapped out a cigarette and jammed it between his teeth.
Only after the flare of the lighter, only after he’d exhaled a long, unsteady plume through the open window, did he finally glance back at Regulus.
"You didn’t get those from a doctor," James said quietly. "They’d have come in a blister pack."
"No," Regulus replied, twisting to face him properly now. "I told you - I got them from a friend."
A pause.
"What are they?"
James’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Prescription pills. Benzos."
"What do they do?"
"They’re meant to help you sleep," he said with a snort, gaze drifting back to the street below. "Or… take the edge off."
A beat passed.
Then, quieter: "Sirius used to steal them from me."
Regulus stood, spine aching from the angle he’d been sitting in. "So, what - you used to sell them?"
James let out a scoff, short and humourless. "No, Reg. I never sold anything. I had a prescription."
Regulus blinked. "For what?"
James shrugged without looking up. "Anxiety."
The word hung there for a moment - flat, anticlimactic. Like the first line of a story that had been running parallel to his own all along, just out of sight. Regulus watched James closely, noting the subtle twitch of his fingers against his knee - like some part of him already regretted saying it.
"Are they… safe?"
James let his head fall back against the wall with a soft thud, drawing on his cigarette like it was the only thing keeping him grounded. His next exhale came slower, shakier.
"I dunno, Reg - I’m not an expert. I just smoke a bit of weed sometimes, and I had a script for a couple months," he hesitated, eyes flicking toward the tin on the nightstand, before dropping away again. "But… yeah. I think they’re safe. Doctors hand them out, don’t they? So they must be."
Another pause.
Another drag.
"I don’t think they’re what fucked Sirius up, if that’s what you mean. I don’t think… I really don’t think that’s what did it."
It had never occurred to Regulus that James might blame himself.
If he’d been a little more generous, by nature, Regulus might have offered something reassuring.
But he wasn’t feeling generous - and he knew, before he opened his mouth, that what he was about to say would be cruel.
"It probably didn’t help."
James closed his eyes.
Regulus glanced down at his shoes. "Probably doesn’t help that you’re high right now, either."
"It’s not the same thing, Regulus."
James's voice was calm, but clipped - tired in a way that made the distinction feel practiced. He'd rehearsed this. Practiced his absolution until he came out clean.
"You're the one who started it," Regulus spoke softly, though his words were anything but. "Sneaking out to smoke, calling him to join you. Weren't you?"
James flicked his lighter. The sharp click cracked through the stillness. He took another harsh drag before answering.
"Maybe we shouldn't get into blame."
Regulus smiled - sugary sweet, and entirely false. "Why not?"
James only snorted.
They were teetering on the edge of something ugly - Regulus could feel it, feel himself toeing the rim of a steep drop. There was always that pull, that flicker of temptation, to lean the wrong way. To let himself fall. To tear himself open on sharp rocks on his descent, leaving everything raw, exposed to the air.
He wanted it, sometimes. Wanted to crack himself wide open and let it all pour out - the pressure building behind his eyes, the resentment grinding against his skull, too big now for the brittle cranium cage.
Wanted to say what he really thought. No filters, no masks, no fear of burning bridges.
Maybe this would be his only shot. Maybe Barty would make sure he never got another.
Regulus knew who Sirius blamed.
Always Mum and Dad. Their absurdly high expectations. The pressure. The rules.
They didn’t let him live. Didn’t let him breathe. Didn’t let him express himself.
Didn’t let him sneak out, get high, disappear for days, set his life on fire and leave everyone else choking on the fumes - as if that had been such an unreasonable thing to deny him.
Regulus had never liked those excuses.
Still didn’t.
"Is it my mum’s fault?" Regulus asked, voice low. "Or my dad’s? You know - the people he hasn’t lived with for years? It’s just funny, isn't it, that we were such a problem - but he got worse when he left."
James gave a tight shake of his head, jaw clenched. "You’re not going to bait me into saying something that'll hurt your feelings, Regulus."
"But you can’t even answer a simple question," Regulus stepped in, fists curling at his sides. "Do you think you've helped him? Do you think living with you - while you're not sober - is good for him?"
"Christ," James barked out a short, bitter laugh. "There’s no point having this conversation with someone like you."
"Someone like me?"
"Someone who thinks this is an after-school special," James muttered, taking another shaky drag. The cigarette had almost burned down to the filter, close enough to scorch his fingers. "You seem to think the power of peer pressure and a single joint spawns a fucking heroin addict, Regulus."
Regulus clicked his tongue. "Maybe I’m missing some nuance."
James exhaled slowly through his nose, still staring down at the street below, like he might catch sight of a better version of himself walking past.
"I probably don’t help," he admitted at last, flicking the cigarette and leaning out to watch it spiral to the pavement. "But I’ve got my own shit to deal with, Regulus. I can’t be a perfect fucking role model, alright? I love the fucking bones of your brother, I really do, but Sirius is going to have to look up to someone else."
Regulus didn’t hesitate. "You never should’ve taken him - not if you couldn’t handle him."
James snorted, brushing his hands off like the conversation had dirtied them.
"Taken him?" he scoffed. "I wish you'd listen to yourself; you’re such a fucking child sometimes."
"Am I?"
"Yeah."
A grim, humourless smile crept across Regulus’s face. He nodded once - slow, purposeful - like he’d just confirmed something he’d long suspected. Like he'd won, in some small and deeply unpleasant way, by making James bite back.
Something in Regulus settled. Not satisfaction, exactly - but something adjacent. He’d squeezed James hard enough to crack through the guilt, scrape past the self-righteousness, and find what he was looking for beneath: raw, ugly truth.
The same bitter, corrosive anger that lived in Regulus, too.
But James didn’t seem all that interested in wallowing.
"I really am sorry," he said at last, glancing over his shoulder. His voice had softened - its edge dulled by exhaustion, or resignation, or some tangled mess of both.
"I know this isn’t easy for you. And yeah, maybe it’s easier to be angry at me than at him. But I don’t want to see him like this either, Reg. He’s my best friend. It fucking hurts me too."
"Well," Regulus rolled his eyes. "Maybe if you weren’t a functioning addict - "
"Still not an addict."
"You smoke every fucking day."
James let out a ragged groan and folded in on himself, pressing his forehead against his knees. "Would you give that a fucking rest?"
Regulus’s phone buzzed - not loud, not urgent, but insistent.
Like a small hand tugging at his sleeve.
[20:17] B: I was kidding about you having a thing for him, but now I’m getting nervous. You’ve been in there a long time - wrap it up.
[20:17] B: [Audio File Attached]
[20:18] B: @jamiefp_ right?
[20:18] B: Just a little incentive.
There wasn’t space left in his chest for a full surge of fear.
Just a clean, surgical spike - like a needle prick.
Small. Precise. Unmistakable.
[20:19] Reg: I'm leaving.
Regulus didn’t look at James when he spoke. "I have to go."
James swung his legs down from the windowsill - slower now, cautious.
Like he’d caught the shift in Regulus’s voice but hadn’t yet pinned down its source.
"I’m not saying I’m perfect."
Regulus exhaled through his nose, sharp and impatient. "Okay."
"But Sirius - he’s dealing with more than whether I smoke occasionally, yeah?"
"Okay," Regulus said again, flatter this time.
He wasn't going to hand James a clean slate. Wasn't going to package up forgiveness on a silver platter, pass on the luxury of feeling blameless. If Regulus had to carry the gnawing, shapeless guilt every time he thought about Sirius, then James could live with it too.
James looked like he had more to say - something weighty. Maybe an apology. Maybe a confession.
Regulus couldn’t decide which would be worse.
Either way, he didn’t have time for it.
He glanced back at his screen.
[20:20] B: Two minutes.
Regulus took a sharp step back, then another - three in total - a retreat without ceremony.
James had launched into a monologue, but Regulus had stopped listening. His pulse was louder, pounding in his ears, drowning out the words. Only fragments cut through - faint, garbled, like static on a detuned radio.
"...honestly, you've always acted like I’m the enemy…"
Something was wrong.
Regulus patted his pockets, frowning.
The weight he expected - gone.
"...and I know we’ve always had this weird fucking thing…"
The tin.
Still on the nightstand.
Catching the last of the sun like wreckage in the sweep of a fresnel beam.
Wouldn’t it be horribly ungrateful to leave that tin behind?
"... never had a younger sibling, so, yeah, maybe I could’ve been a little more…"
Regulus lunged.
Snatched the smooth case like it would disappear if he didn't.
And when he looked up, James had stopped talking.
Something in his expression had shifted - subtle, but unmistakable.
A flicker of alarm.
"Reg…"
His voice had changed - no longer angry, no longer defensive.
Just careful.
"Can we talk about that? About the pills?"
"I can’t -"
"...about your friend?"
Maybe that was the look people gave Sirius.
Like he was feral. Like he might bite.
Regulus’s phone buzzed in his hand.
[20:21] B: Thirty fucking seconds.
"It’s just that… I wouldn’t feel right about letting you leave without asking -"
Regulus turned sharply and yanked the door open. The hinges groaned in protest as he slipped through - past a glassy-eyed Peter, through the thick, sour fog.
Ignoring the footsteps behind him.
The voice calling down from the doorway.
Down the stairs. Through the mildew. Beneath the flickering porch light.
Out.
Into fresh air.
Regulus looked left. Then right.
Nothing.
But he felt it - that electric pressure in the air, like a storm about to break.
The static hush of something crackling down the line.
His phone buzzed in his hand.
[20:22] B: Good timing. If you run, you’ll make the 8:30 tube.
Chapter 16
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Barty had sent a pin - the same dive in Camden that Sirius had dragged him to at the start of the summer. Regulus couldn’t decide if that was poetic, prophetic, or just in aggressively poor taste.
Either way, it felt deliberate.
Most things did, where Barty was concerned - like every move had been premeditated, charted out on some cold steel table in a bunker two miles underground, all red string and radio static.
The panic had bloomed in his chest the moment Regulus opened his eyes that morning - sharp and metallic, like that swallowed coin had started to rust. He’d stared at the map marker on his phone for a full twenty minutes before he finally moved.
To his credit - when he did eventually make a start - Regulus managed his morning with ruthless efficiency.
Three hours to haul himself out of bed - to gather the scattered, trembling pieces of himself from the sheets. To layer cotton over cotton, long sleeves to shield bare skin from wandering hands.
Two hours loitering in the sunroom with Mummy - fetching ice, soft-launching the idea of popping out for the afternoon. Watching her closely for creases at the brow, or a curl of the lip, some flicker of disapproval. But she stayed smooth and smiling; Regulus decided she wouldn’t mind one bit.
One hour to grab his shoes, glance at his drawn reflection in the hallway mirror, smooth down his collar, adjust the tote bag on his shoulder - then stand there, wracking his brain for a good enough excuse to stay exactly where he was.
And somehow, Regulus still arrived with half an hour to spare.
The corner table was empty and waiting - his table, Regulus had thought at first, before quickly rejecting the horrible notion. The idea of this place belonging to him made his skin crawl.
The window beside that table was still fogged on both sides, misted over with the greasy sheen of city grime and condensation - the unfortunate result of poor ventilation, coffee steam, and hipster breath.
It was, objectively, the worst seat in the café.
Every vague shadow passing beyond the glass sent his stomach into free fall.
Every sharp jingle of the bell above the door pitched his heart into his throat.
It happened seventeen times before it was actually him.
Dead on two.
The scrape of the chair sliced clean through the white noise.
Regulus didn’t look up - couldn’t. He didn’t need to. He already knew.
The air thickened, damp and humid, too dense to draw a full breath.
Regulus stayed frozen, lungs half-filled, heart clawing its way up his throat like it wanted out.
Barty dropped into the seat opposite, moving with the fluid grace of someone accustomed to the world making space for him. Without hesitation, he slid one foot forward beneath the table, hooking their ankles together, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Regulus flinched. A small, involuntary sound slipped out - half breath, half warning - but Barty didn’t so much as blink.
"Hey, sweetheart."
Regulus opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
Barty gave his ankle a sharp tug - just hard enough to jolt.
Regulus closed his eyes. "Hi."
"Jesus," Barty muttered. "I thought I was done teaching you manners."
Regulus tore his gaze from the fogged-up window and turned toward him - ready to say something petty and polished about how his parents had done an excellent job on the manners front, thank you very much.
But the words caught in his throat - and died.
Because looking at Barty - up close, in full light, sharing the same stale café air - was surreal. Not in the abstract sense, not in some dreamlike, floaty way. Surreal like déjà vu dragged into horribly sharp focus. Like Regulus had stepped back into a moment he hadn’t realised he’d lived before.
Because he knew that face.
Better than he should have.
There had been three sightings in the wild.
The third: his birthday. The restaurant. The bathroom. The smell of cologne mingling with disinfectant. That low, amused voice right behind him.
The second: the bus stop. Sweeping headlights. A too-pale face. Sharp eyes. Cider on the tip of his tongue. Woozy, washed out, charmed by a watercolour sunset - too distracted to notice he was being followed.
The first: here. This café. The start of the summer. Regulus and Sirius crammed into this exact corner table, bickering over Oxford applications. And Barty - of course it had been Barty - the pale boy at the next table, slender fingers drumming against a chipped mug, head tilted just so. Listening.
The timeline snapped into place with sickening clarity.
There was no way Regulus could have known - but he felt hot and stupid all the same.
Heat surged up the back of his neck, flushed his face, prickled beneath his collar.
Barty smiled, slow and knowing - like he could hear the thought rattling around in Regulus’s head. He leaned in, smooth as silk, all feigned concern. "Are you taking your medication, Regulus?"
As if the breathless silence between them wasn’t his own doing at all, but a personal failing - pathological. Like the flaw was in Regulus, not Barty.
"I don’t take any," Regulus scoffed, gaze flickering back to the window like it might offer an escape route.
"No?" Barty inched closer, elbows already on the table, steadily closing in. He watched Regulus as one might watch a skittish animal - something that might bolt, or bite, if handled wrong. "What about the pills I gave you, sweetheart?"
Regulus shook his head, throat tight. "You’re not a doctor. You can’t - just - just - "
Barty’s smile faded. "Do we need to talk about gratitude again, Regulus?"
Regulus tilted his head back, eyes fixed on the ceiling, drawing in shallow, steady breaths through his nose.
He was fucked. Utterly, irreversibly fucked.
Regulus would have preferred a different brand of crazy - the kind that wandered into traffic or argued with pigeons in the park. The quiet, vacant sort. Harmless. Not the lucid, calculating kind with steady hands and just enough clarity to twist the knife.
"I’m not taking them," he muttered stiffly. "Thank you, but I’m - I'm not."
Barty didn’t respond right away. He only watched - eyes half-lidded, unreadable - something simmering beneath the surface, equal parts amusement and calculation.
Then, with maddening composure, he slipped one hand into his jacket, pulled a napkin from the dispenser with the other, and began folding it - slow, studied, almost ritualistic. Each motion precise, practiced, like muscle memory. When he was finished, he set the small package down at the edge of the table, as if it was no more remarkable than a soiled spoon.
"I think it would make you feel much better."
Regulus frowned down at the package. "I feel just fine."
The bell above the door jingled.
"No," Barty sighed, leaning back to study him. "You don’t. You've not been yourself for days, Reg. I think you’re telling yourself a story again. Winding yourself up. I don’t know why you keep doing that to yourself when I’m only trying to help."
Regulus found himself watching as a wiry woman slipped into the café. Her eyes were hungry, flitting across the room before landing - briefly - on them. She ducked her head and started weaving through the tables, making a beeline for their corner.
She dressed like Cissa on a Saturday morning - expensive leggings with a little Greek symbol stitched near the hip, pristine workout gear untouched by actual sweat. A sleek branded tumbler in one hand, BMW keys jangling in the other.
But she moved like Sirius - jerky, twitchy, too robotic. Eyes darting. Jaw tight. She was skinny too, but not Cissa-skinny - sculpted and maintained. This was different. Hollowed, wasting. Her ponytail was lank, not glossy, swinging like an afterthought; her nails had grown out, a full inch of natural showing beneath cracked acrylic.
Something in the way she moved - swift and unblinking - made Regulus sit up straighter. His pulse ticked harder, just beneath the collar - and he opened his mouth, as if to warn her off.
Barty kicked him sharply under the table. "Look at me."
"But -"
The woman passed their table. She stumbled - caught her foot, or pretended to. One hand shot out to steady herself, fingers grazing the edge of the table.
Right where the napkin had been.
When she pulled away, it was gone.
In its place: a crumpled ten-pound note.
Barty scooped it up without blinking, sliding it into his pocket like it was little more than spare change.
Regulus turned in his seat, watching her make a slow, aimless loop of the café - then slip out the door without placing an order.
Sirius had done the same - minus the theatrics. He’d stumbled in, steadied himself on that exact table. Vanished into the bathroom, and came back… different.
"Is that...?" Regulus swallowed. "Is that what the pills do?"
Barty raised a brow, tossing a glance over his shoulder.
"That?" he scoffed. "No, don’t be stupid, sweetheart. I wouldn’t want you strung out like that. I’d never give you something so dangerous."
"Right, yeah," Regulus muttered, dragging a shaky hand through the back of his hair. "Crystal clear how much you’ve got my best fucking interests at heart."
He regretted it the moment it left his mouth - felt it like a wire snapping in his chest.
But of course, Barty lit up. Like he’d been waiting for that crack in the veneer.
That was the worst part for Regulus - the unpredictability. No clear pattern, no roadmap. Nothing to tell him what would earn a laugh and what would trigger a cold, spiralling lecture. The tightrope never slackened. One wrong breath, and you were falling.
This time - somehow - Regulus had landed on the soft side.
Barty snickered, reaching across the table to catch Regulus by the jaw. His fingers pressed into his cheeks, squeezing just shy of bruising - forcing his mouth into a shallow, artificial pout.
"You are such a fucking treat when you're not being all angsty," he sighed, thumb tracing the corner of Regulus's mouth - soft, like an apology he had no intention of making. "Go on, take your pills, Reg. We'll have a good day if you do."
Regulus recoiled, twisting sharply away. His arms snapped tight across his chest, like that might contain the rising tremor. "I didn’t - I didn’t bring them with me."
"Well, that’s alright," Barty said breezily, already reaching into his jacket. "I’ve got another one for you."
"I’m not taking -"
He didn't get to finish.
"Please don’t upset me today, Regulus."
The words were quiet. Gentle, almost. But they cut clean - no room for misunderstanding. Barty set a single pill on a folded napkin and nudged it across the table with two fingers.
"Just… take your fucking medicine, yeah?"
It sat there - vivid and obscene against the white napkin, a pale blue threat dressed up as mercy.
Regulus stared at it.
The world narrowed to a pinpoint.
The low hum of café conversation reduced to a thin, simmering static. The hiss of the milk steamer made his skin crawl. Someone laughed near the counter, loud and jarring - like they were in on the joke.
He moved.
Quick and mechanical, Regulus snatched up the pill before anyone could see, fingers scrabbling to clamp around the small, sick weight of it. His eyes darted over Barty's shoulder - searching for a witness, half afraid he’d find one.
God, he was done for.
There was a very real chance Barty would poison him - right here, in broad daylight, in a café full of people too polite, too sickeningly British, to intervene. They’d keep sipping oat lattes and staring at their phones while Regulus slumped on the tiles, seeping into the greasy, linoleum checkerboard.
Where exactly was the line in Barty’s head? Impossible to tell for sure.
Equally possible, and improbably hopeful, was the possibility that the pill was precisely what Barty had claimed. Harmless. Helpful. Medication.
If Regulus could frame it that way - like asking Mummy for an aspirin to fend off a headache - it might not feel so much like signing his own death warrant.
He drew a shallow breath and glanced up, wide-eyed. "Could I - can I get some water?"
Barty exhaled, long and theatrical. The corner of his mouth twitched - not quite a smirk, but something very close.
Regulus hesitated. "Please?"
"Fucking princess," Barty muttered, almost fond. He rolled his eyes and pushed to his feet with exaggerated effort, stretching like the request had physically pained him. "Wait here."
"Mm."
Regulus watched him saunter to the counter before he cautiously uncurled his fist.
The pill sat in his palm like a dare - pastel blue, neatly scored down the middle. Twin to the one James had identified. Probably from the same batch as the tin buried in his nightstand drawer.
Regulus turned it over with his thumb, studying the way it caught the light. Innocuous, almost clinical.
Benign, if he believed James. James, who had taken them for months. James who was… fine. For the most part.
If James had survived - after everything else he’d put into his body - then surely Regulus would too.
A glass clinked down in front of him.
Regulus startled - barely - and closed his fist on instinct.
Barty didn’t sit - he hovered right behind him, the air bending heavy with his presence. Close enough to be felt, a hot breath on the nape of his neck.
Regulus kept his eyes fixed on the glass, spine stiff, heart ticking high in his throat.
For a moment, he thought about faking it - palming the pill, tucking it under his tongue, pulling some half-baked sleight of hand.
But Barty was too close.
And somehow, he always knew.
So - Regulus slipped it onto his tongue. Washed it down with a swig of tepid water. It tasted like dust and limescale, left a bitter edge crawling down the back of his throat - but it seemed to satisfy Barty. He gave Regulus’s shoulder a light squeeze - mock comfort, carefully performed - then circled back to his seat, settling in like nothing had happened at all.
"Give it twenty minutes," he said casually. "I’ll see if you need another."
Regulus sank back into his seat, gaze flicking to the window, searching frantically for a drop of condensation to fixate on. "Is that… likely?"
Barty shrugged. "Might be. You’re excessively anxious."
Regulus let out a dry, humourless scoff.
"Oh, don’t blame me for that," Barty snickered, resting his elbows back on the table. His gaze fixed on Regulus with unnerving intent. "You were neurotic when I found you."
"Was I?"
Barty reached into his jacket. A moment later, his phone hit the table with a dull, deliberate thunk. "Want to hear for yourself?"
Regulus flinched.
He didn’t need to hear it. He already knew what it would be - his own voice, soft and stupid, trapped on tape like a bug in amber.
Mortifying.
He shook his head.
"Thought not," Barty sighed, more resigned than mocking.
He drummed a slow, intentional rhythm along the table’s edge with two fingers, then glanced over his shoulder - casual, distracted, like he was scanning the room for something less volatile to occupy their focus.
"You don’t like coffee, do you?" His gaze darted back to Regulus. "Me neither, really. I did go through a whole phase of drinking it black, though. Thought it had a certain aesthetic appeal."
Regulus sniffed. "Black was Thatcher’s go-to."
Barty snorted. "Well, that’s me put off for life."
Regulus chanced a smile.
"See, that’s what I like about you, Regulus," Barty murmured, leaning in just a little further, like he might crawl over the table given enough incentive. "You know things. You’re clever. I don’t feel like I’m wasting it all on you - because you get it, don’t you?"
A thorough private education, Regulus thought grimly, had paid off by making a maniac feel seen. Not exactly what his parents had envisioned for their quarter-million investment.
Still - if it kept him on Barty’s good side, he’d take it.
"Mm."
"It's just…" Barty reached out suddenly and snatched his hand. "Most people look at me like I’m speaking fucking Khazar or something, right? But you seem to…"
Don’t react. Don’t fucking react. Don’t pull back.
Regulus inhaled through his nose, steady and silent. His brain scrambled - Khazar? Dead language? Medieval Turkic something-or-other? Did he need to know, or just nod at the right moment?
It didn't matter - Barty had already moved on.
Still talking, he turned Regulus’s hand over in his own, tracing the ridges of each knuckle with unsettling care. His rings caught the light - darker than Sirius’s, tarnished silver, matte black. One hung from a chain at his throat, swinging faintly with every frantic gesture.
Regulus locked onto the glint of it - something familiar, something solid. He tried to anchor himself there, blinking slower now, brain lagging half a beat behind.
"…looking forward to your last year?"
Regulus blinked again.
Last year. School.
"Uh…" he nodded uneasily, arm still resting on the table, hand limp in Barty’s grasp. "I - yeah. It'll just be… a little weird, I guess."
Barty tilted his head. "Weird how?"
"Just…" Regulus glanced down. Blinked again. Tried to separate the greasy sheen of the table from the glassy film over his vision. "Endings are - are always weird."
"They are," Barty agreed mildly. "But then you’ll go to uni, won’t you? You’re looking forward to that."
Regulus shrugged. "Probably."
A pause.
Then, carefully - like he might catch Barty off guard: "What about you? What do you do?"
Barty lit up like someone had flipped a switch. "Me?"
Regulus nodded, feigning casual boredom. Like he wasn’t tracking Barty’s every movement, every flicker of expression, every shift in tone.
"PPE," Barty said at last, his gaze steady - cool and expectant.
He let the silence stretch, just long enough for it to feel like a test. When Regulus’s brow creased, Barty’s grin flickered to life.
"Philosophy, Politics, Economics," he said, almost smug. "Fascinating stuff."
Regulus gave a tight, practiced smile. "Yeah, I bet."
Barty studied him for a beat, gaze lingering just a little too long - then gave his hand a small, possessive squeeze.
"I went a little off-track in my last year, actually," he said. "Started working on my dissertation, when I fell down this rabbit hole. Tends to happen with me - I find a project, I get a little attached. Anyway, I came across this series - Dark Alliance, by some investigative journalist out of San Jose. You ever heard of it?"
Regulus shook his head. They hadn’t covered that at Harrow.
Barty didn’t seem to mind. He leaned in, eyes sharpening with interest.
"So. Early Eighties. The Cold War’s dragging on. Nuclear paranoia is practically in vogue. Everyone’s holding their breath, hoping no one hits the button. The U.S. is still licking its wounds from Vietnam - no stomach for another war, but terrified of looking weak, right?"
Regulus blinked, trying to follow, but Barty was already gaining rapid momentum. His voice had found its rhythm - measured, insistent - but the words were beginning to smear at the edges.
"Communism is the enemy, full fucking stop. It's easy to posture when it’s Russia - far away, cold, abstract. But it’s creeping closer, Cuba, Nicaragua," Barty leaned in suddenly, his free hand slapping the table - loud enough to make Regulus flinch. "That’s right in the backyard. And you can’t have communism in the backyard, can you, Regulus?"
As he spoke, Barty released Regulus’s hand and leaned back, his posture loosening. He gestured across the table like it was a map only he could see - one hand hovering near the top, the other sweeping southward in broad, studied strokes, fingers sketching crude geography into the grease-slick wood.
"So, if we look at Nicaragua, you've got this rebel group called the Contras. Reagan backs them - sends money, weapons, intel. Mostly off the books, of course. But he wants them to win because -"
"The Reagan administration was anti-communist," Regulus said quietly. "The Contras were on the same page."
They had covered that much at Harrow.
Barty grinned. "Clever boy."
He reached across the table again, gently reclaiming Regulus’s hand - like it was his to begin with - and continued.
"Now, the Contras weren’t clean - they were tangled up with drug traffickers, but The CIA don't give a fuck about that - communism is a bigger threat. So, park that for now."
His free hand slid toward the napkin dispenser, then started rearranging imaginary pieces across the table - meticulous and deliberate, like pawns on a chessboard. Regulus followed the movement with glassy focus, like he was watching a battle plan unfold in real time.
"Back in the States: civil rights are technically set in stone. Segregation is long forgotten. Everyone’s saying the right things. Reagan signs off on MLK Day, Malcolm X is on murals. Suddenly they’re celebrating men who were considered dangerous just ten, fifteen years earlier. It’s all very neat - and very fucking performative."
Barty smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
"Because some people still don’t want certain groups mobilising. Don’t want them educated. Don’t want them politically aware. Black people, poor people - when they know their rights, they get demanding. And we can’t have that, can we?"
Regulus opened his mouth. "Well, I don’t think that's…"
Barty didn’t let him finish.
"So. Suddenly - crack cocaine floods the poorest neighbourhoods. Practically overnight. And that's like a fucking atomic bomb. Crime explodes. Families collapse. Incarceration rates are through the roof. Funny fucking timing, isn’t it?"
Regulus grimaced. "I guess…"
"You can trace that shit straight back to the Contras, Regulus - the same group The CIA funded."
His voice dropped - softer now, almost reverent. One hand splayed flat on the table, as if pinning the whole narrative in place.
"Most people think The CIA let it happen. Turned a blind eye. Maybe opened the door themselves. Depends who you ask, but it doesn’t matter. The result is the same: let the drugs in, let the movement implode. Kill it from the inside. Then sweep in with ‘tough on crime’ policies, and criminalise the very same addiction they helped to create."
Regulus shifted, uncomfortable. "That’s…"
"Hard to believe?" Barty tilted his head, eyes bright. It wasn’t clear whether he was enraptured or appalled. "Sure, but it’s not just a theory, Regulus. There’s evidence - redacted memos, sealed files, whistleblowers. We’ll never know everything for sure. They drip-feed a few declassified scraps, admit to half-truths, poke holes in the rest. Keep the facts blurry. But if you’re clever -"
He squeezed Regulus's hand - hard.
"You can fill in the blanks, can't you?"
Barty leaned back again, gaze sweeping lazily across the café, like they were just talking football scores.
"Anyway. Fast forward a few decades - do you know which group still has the highest incarceration rate in the U.S?"
Regulus opened his mouth.
Barty didn't wait.
"Black men - and it’s not even close. Isn’t that wild?"
Regulus blinked, slow and glassy.
"Wild…" he echoed, barely above a whisper.
"It’s not just the U.S., of course," Barty said, flicking his hand as if brushing crumbs off the table. "Corruption’s baked into every system. You just have to know where to look."
Regulus glanced down at his lap. His free hand had curled into the fabric of his jeans, knuckles pale. He didn’t know what to say.
Harrow had taught him how to debate policy, not morality. How to sound correct - not how to determine what was.
He tried to summon something solid.
My Dad wouldn't do something like that...
It sounded feeble, even in his head. Too small. Too soft.
"No one thinks they’re the villain, Regulus," Barty leaned back in, eyes still bright with that dangerous glint. "That’s the trouble. You find an ideology that flatters you, and suddenly everything you do feels righteous."
Regulus looked up, throat tight. "What's your ideology?"
Barty's smile spread slowly, indulgently - like he’d just been handed a gift. "I’m just an academic, Regulus. I don't have one."
A beat.
"Lucky, really. I think I’d be extremely dangerous if I had something to believe in."
Regulus laughed.
It startled him - quiet, soft, a little unmoored. Loose around the edges. Like some part of him had stopped trying to make sense of the conversation, and decided to drift with it instead, letting the current pull him where it wanted.
It came as a relief to let go - to stop thrashing.
Across the table, Barty laughed too - warm, delighted. Not mocking. Not cruel.
Complicit.
"But you know what I’ve always wondered?" he asked softly, thumb stroking slowly across the back of Regulus’s hand.
Regulus shook his head - small, sluggish. His gaze flicked upward, searching for something to anchor to.
But Barty didn’t speak.
Just stared.
Long enough that Regulus began to wonder if he’d imagined the question.
They watched each other - seconds stretching, warping, elastic and strange.
Minutes?
Hours?
Finally, Barty smiled.
"What would happen if - hypothetically - someone tried that on a different demographic?"
Regulus swallowed.
Mouth bone-dry.
Barty gave his hand a gentle squeeze, then brought it up, fluid, unflinching. He pressed a kiss to the back of his hand, like it sealed something.
"I mean, how fast would we see reform," he asked silkily, "if spoiled white kids were the ones overdosing? If the children of politicians, aristocrats, or CEOs were the ones strung out on street corners?"
It took Regulus a full thirty seconds to catch up.
He lifted his gaze, blinking sluggishly, trying to parse the serene expression on Barty’s face - too calm, too pleased, like they’d just shared a secret.
Barty tilted his head slightly, still smiling.
"Just a thought," he said, voice light as air.
Notes:
TW:
Psychological Manipulation
Surveillance / Stalking / Blackmail
Non-Consensual Drug Use / Coerced Medication / Addiction
References to Systemic Racism / Real-World Political ConspiraciesOr -
The one where Barty starts monologuing? Sorry, this shit really got away with me...
Chapter 17
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Lambeth was not a borough Regulus frequented - half tourist trap, half shithole, clinging on just south of the river. Thankfully, he didn’t have long to gape at the endless scaffolding or dwell on the ripe stench of sunbaked dustbins before Barty steered him off the bus and briskly down the pavement - making a swift beeline for The Imperial War Museum.
Regulus had never been before.
There had almost been a school trip in Year Six, but the thought of cramming onto the Tube with his classmates - without Sirius there to hold his hand - had made him nauseous. He’d been going through a phase back then - panicking underground. Mummy had let him stay at home and help her pick out new curtains instead.
Now, the building loomed ahead - all stone and solemn grandeur, flanked by a pair of monumental naval guns pointing eternally skyward. At the height of summer, the grounds swarmed with families who saw nothing strange in unrolling picnic blankets beside a slab of the Berlin Wall - as if that wasn’t surreal in the least.
But the true absurdity was being led - by the elbow, no less - up the steps and into a cavernous atrium, echoing with shrieking toddlers and excitable schoolchildren milling beneath the suspended carcass of a Spitfire, hung in mournful vigil above the chaos.
Twice Regulus tried to dig in his heels. Twice Barty pulled him forward.
They were just passing under the plane’s shadow when Barty spoke - breezy as a man meandering through Kew Gardens. "What’s your favourite war, Reg?"
"I don’t…" Regulus let out a startled huff of laughter, still blinking up at the looming underbelly. "I don’t think I have a favourite war."
"Yes, you do," Barty replied cheerfully - veering left and tugging Regulus with him. "You’re a patriot, just like Daddy. Every patriot has a favourite war."
"Well…" Regulus, dragging his feet a little, asked, "what’s yours?"
Barty laughed - inches from sweetly. "I'm not a fucking patriot, Regulus."
He slipped them into a gallery where the light changed at once; abrupt and jarring.
The glare of summer sunlight streaming through the high windows vanished, swallowed by a wash of filtered grey; everything in the exhibition room was artificial. The air was cooler, thinner, and tasted faintly metallic. Regulus was forced to pause, disoriented; the hush pressed in too close - like someone had hit the mute button.
"But if I really had to choose," Barty went on softly, gaze roving the display board for the right floor, "I guess it’d have to be the Great War."
"Yeah?" Regulus asked, barely above a whisper - it was library-silent inside. "Great... poetry."
"Right?"
To a casual observer, it might have looked like a strange sort of date. Barty moved with that usual, effortless closeness - wrapping himself around Regulus like a second skin, steering him from one exhibit to the next with quiet insistence. In the windowless dark, it might have felt claustrophobic - but Regulus almost welcomed the sense of direction as his own grip on sense dwindled.
They made it to the World War galleries in record time - though he had barely clocked the transition. One moment they’d been beneath the Spitfire, the next they were deep in the trenches, threading through dim passageways lined with glass, past vitrines of rusted helmets and shattered mess kits, breathing in thick lungfuls of filtered dust.
The exhibition was a winding labyrinth; low-lit, deliberately disorienting. Panels curved inward, dead ends appeared suddenly, and turning a corner often meant stumbling upon a group of quiet strangers blinking back at them.
It didn’t feel dangerous - not really.
They were never truly alone - unfamiliar faces peered through glass cabinets and blinking red security cameras swivelled, tracking their every move.
Plenty of witnesses.
Barty’s arm anchored Regulus; the only thing holding him upright as the second benzo - slipped discreetly to him on the bus - dragged him beneath a creeping fog, thickening with every slow, tempting blink.
Despite the absence of fear, Regulus couldn't say he was enjoying himself.
The lighting bewildered him - harsh spots illuminated faceless mannequin soldiers in stiff wool uniforms, rifles fixed to their chests. Motion-sensor voiceovers erupted at odd intervals; the boom of artillery, the bark of a general, the brittle crackle of a field radio.
Children jabbed buttons and wandered off.
Everything echoed.
But it was pleasantly warm.
Not sticky, summer heat - but soft, sifted.
Like sun-warmed bedsheets.
Everything felt heavy.
Slow.
Weighted, like sleep.
Nothing was racing - not his heart, not his thoughts.
Once - just to be sure - Regulus lifted a sluggish hand to his chest.
His heart was still there - crawling along at a leisurely pace.
Eventually, they reached a quieter corner - an alcove looping black-and-white newsreels - and Barty let go.
Just long enough to coax him onto a bench pressed against the wall.
Regulus sank gratefully into the shadows.
The projector screen flickered in the dark, casting momentary flashes across Barty’s pale, pretty face. Eyes drifting shut, Regulus let the plummy voice of a wartime broadcaster wash over him - calmly announcing the hundredth day of Verdun.
"…and you know the most ironic thing, Reg?"
Regulus hadn’t heard the set up.
He wasn’t sure how long Barty had been talking - seconds, minutes, maybe more.
Perhaps he’d drifted off.
A hand slid into his hair, gently tugging.
Regulus had been slumped back against the gallery wall, head heavy, when Barty pulled him up with practiced ease. Limbs dense as sandbags, he found himself tumbling into the space between Barty’s shoulder and ribs.
"The standard-issue boots were leather, right?"
"Uh…"
"Which, obviously, wasn’t waterproof," Barty paused to jostle, guiding Regulus’s head to rest comfortably against his shoulder. "But get this - the most powerful empire in the world only handed out one pair of woollen socks. Have you ever tried drying wool, Regulus? In a fucking trench?"
Regulus blinked himself awake, eyes glassy. "I… no, I…"
"No," Barty echoed, half laughing. "And do you know what else was wool?"
Regulus didn’t answer.
Across the room, the grainy film reel had moved on: boys who couldn’t have been much older than himself scrambling over a mound of churned-up earth, bayonets fixed, faces blurred in the flicker.
"Their fucking coats."
Regulus closed his eyes again.
"Anyway, by 1917 they were issued rubber soles, which helped with the wet feet,”"Barty paused for dramatic effect. “But they never really solved the whole living in a waterlogged hole in the earth problem. Fucking crazy, right?"
"Right," Regulus murmured.
It felt like answering a question in a dream.
Barty’s hand found the base of his neck - the very same spot Sirius used to rest his hand during films. Thunder storms. Fights that ended in strained silence.
Regulus went very still.
"I - don’t…"
The words slipped from his tongue and hit the floor. Regulus chased them, sluggish and clumsy - like trying to pick up dropped coins with numb fingers - but he couldn’t get his mouth around them.
"There’s this poem I think you’d really like - Exposure," Barty went on, unruffled. "You’ve probably read it already actually, because this is embarrassingly GCSE Lit of me, but -"
"Can - you - just..."
The gallery tilted sideways.
"It’s about this soldier -"
Regulus grimaced. "I just - feel really - fucking weird…"
Barty’s hand slid down - gently but firmly - pressing over Regulus’s mouth.
Sealing it shut.
"Mm -"
"This soldier who goes completely fucking mad in the cold," Barty continued, almost conversationally. He leaned in so close his breath stirred the hair above Regulus’s ear. For one lingering moment, he pressed a firm kiss to his curls. "He’s in this trench, right? Miles from the front line, listening to the war happening in the distance. Far away enough to feel like it won't ever reach him. Dull, distant gunfire - that sort of thing."
Regulus swayed, boneless, eyes fluttering.
"So, this soldier knows he's going to die," Barty murmured, fingers sliding through Regulus’s hair. "But it's not a bullet that'll kill him - it's the waiting. It’s the cold. It’s - you know - the fucking elements. Nature personified or whatever."
He inhaled slowly, as if savouring the image.
Regulus tried to pull away, but it was like moving through ice water - every limb listless, met by resistance. With Barty’s hand still sealed over his mouth, even breathing felt shallow - incomplete - like trying to suck air through thick gauze.
"So, imagine that - you’ve been abandoned in the mud," Barty gained momentum, turning sharply toward Regulus and swinging a leg over the bench to straddle it. He jerked Regulus's head upward, forcing their eyes to meet. "It’s raining. The wind’s cutting into your face. And then it turns to snow - because even God’s laughing at you."
The instinct to recoil flared fast and furious, but rose slow and strangled - a flame suffocating under wet cloth. Regulus’s lungs felt thick, sodden. Panic stirred somewhere deep, but it was distant, muffled - an echo of artillery rumbling far beyond the horizon.
All he could do was stare.
"Your hands go numb first. Then your legs," Barty continued, fingernails pressing into soft, giving cheeks. "Something whistles overhead - probably a bullet because there’s a stray sniper across the field. But you just don’t give a fuck - because a bullet would be a mercy at that point, wouldn’t it?"
Regulus’s chin rose under Barty’s palm. He wasn’t choking -
Not quite.
But each breath felt like a fragment, sharp-edged, insufficient.
The world was pressing in: stale air, flickering light, the faint sound of distant explosions - part of the exhibit, Regulus realised dimly, some sound effect triggered by a child’s curious hand.
He wasn’t on the front lines.
But he could hear the war.
Coming for him.
See it, too.
Flickering in the pale blue of Barty’s eyes - calm, cold, unnervingly clear.
His loose curls stirred in the hum of the air conditioner, glinting under the dim flicker of the projector - barley gold, soft and sunlit, just like the fields that blurred past the car window on the road to Calais.
But even those hills would harden in winter.
Littered with frostbitten husks.
Regulus tried to turn his head.
Barty’s hand clamped down harder.
"And so you wait…" Barty whispered. "You sit very still. You endure it. You tell yourself something will change. But it doesn’t - nothing happens. It just gets colder. Darker. Quieter. Then colder still."
Regulus’s eyelids fluttered.
"And then…" Barty breathed, squeezing somehow tighter, "suddenly it’s fucking light again. And you’re still there. Still waiting. Still breathing. Still freezing. And no one’s coming - no one ever was. And you start to wonder if maybe they’ve forgotten you. Or maybe you’re already dead - maybe hell froze over. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is your forever."
A beat.
Regulus couldn't feel his hands. Couldn't feel his mouth. Only the pressing weight of Barty's palm sealing him off from the world - tight and final, like the lid on a coffin.
With a sudden surge of desperation, he clawed up, weak fingers fumbling uselessly at Barty's wrist. He tried to wrench free, to twist his face away, but Barty held firm - calm, immovable, relentless. His hand remained clamped over Regulus's mouth until the fight slowly ebbed out of him.
Regulus’s fingers weakened, slipped, then fell limply into his lap. Useless.
They sat like that in silence, eyes fixed vacantly on the flicker of history dancing across the far wall.
Eventually, Barty’s hand fell away.
Not dramatically. Not with any flourish.
It simply dropped into his own lap.
Regulus dragged in a sharp, ragged breath - breaking the surface after sinking too deep. He slumped heavily against the wall, eyes half-lidded, chest rising and falling in uneven waves.
"It’s a good poem," Barty sighed, a lifetime later. "I’ll read it to you later. Do you feel any better yet?"
The sound Regulus made was neither yes or no.
"Good…" Barty drew in a deep breath; feeding on the silence. "You know, people love history, Reg."
Christ… he was monologuing again…
Regulus closed his eyes.
Barty shifted beside him, resting a hand on his thigh and giving it a slow, rousing squeeze. "Do you know why they love it so much, Regulus?"
Another vague noise - something like a hoarse, audible shrug.
"Because everyone who was actually there is already dead. They can’t tell you you’re getting it all wrong," Barty snickered, leaning in. "People rewrite it with soldiers all the time. Romanticise them, put them on pedestals. I probably do it too, a bit. Do you know who my favourite soldier was?"
Regulus tried to speak, but the words caught - dry and useless in his throat.
He opened his eyes, blinking up at Barty through the thickening fog.
"Evan," Barty smiled, cocking his head to one side. "Remember Evan? I told you about him once. And you said he reminded you of your brother - didn’t you?"
"Mm…"
The sound slipped out before Regulus could stop it - and instantly, he regretted it. His mind snapped back to that quiet phone call all those weeks ago. The way the line had gone dead silent after he'd made the same comparison.
Barty hadn’t said a word at the time - but the air had iced over.
Regulus hadn’t understood back then that Barty hadn’t liked it.
It was always easier to pick up on those subtleties in person. It was impossible to misjudge Barty’s too-still smile pulled tight at the corners - more grimace than grin, teeth bared, like he was holding back the urge to bite.
Regulus bit his own tongue hard enough to taste blood.
Better that than speaking - clumsily, out of turn, getting it all wrong again.
"Because… your brother’s a junkie, right?" Barty prompted, leaning in - close enough to cup Regulus’s face again, gripping his jaw like he was holding something half-wild, half-tamed. The flicker from the newsreel danced across his features in stuttering flashes: cool eyes full of long-dead soldiers, frozen mid-charge. "Like Evan?"
Regulus - wisely - didn’t respond.
Barty’s voice dipped into something fond. "You know what I liked about Evan?"
Regulus blinked at him, dazed, and heavy-lidded.
Trapped.
"Evan always told me exactly what he was thinking," Barty murmured, tilting Regulus’s head like he was inspecting for cracks in a canvas. "So I’m not letting anyone turn it into some heroic, flag-waving bullshit. That wasn't him."
"Yeah, okay…"
Barty smiled sharply. "Do you know why Evan enlisted?"
Regulus gave a small shake of his head - barely a movement at all.
"He just liked guns," Barty said flatly. "Liked the uniform. Liked that it got him laid. That - and he was shit at school. His dad said joining the army was all he’d ever be good for. And his dad would know, because that’s all he’d ever been good for, too. Same with his dad’s dad. And his dad’s dad’s dad…"
He snorted, amused by the rhythm of generational collapse.
"That one died in the Great War. Still not sure what was so great about it."
"That’s not…" Regulus’s voice cracked on the way out. "That’s not why they called it great. It was just… just the scale of it."
"Oh, the scale of it," Barty repeated - and for a moment, he sounded almost deferential, like Regulus had handed him a revelation.
Regulus watched him through half-lidded eyes - drowsy, dread-soaked. He felt cornered - and he was. Boxed in on three sides with Barty closing off the fourth. There was nowhere to go but into him.
"You’re such a pretentious little fuck, Regulus," Barty murmured, with a brutal kind of affection, tightening his grip on Regulus’s jaw. "I love that about you. You literally can’t help yourself, can you?"
Regulus managed to bite his tongue.
Barty grinned, pressing his forehead against Regulus’s. "It’s gonna get you in real trouble one day - not with me. But someone’s going to throttle the shit out of you."
With visible restraint, he let his hand fall away.
Finger-shaped bruises were already beginning to bloom along Regulus’s jaw - deep, berry-dark welts where Barty’s touch had lingered too long. He eyed them with a flicker of satisfaction, fingers twitching like he wanted to touch them again.
Press a little harder.
Instead, he looked down, idly twisting one of his rings. "Now, I don’t want you thinking I’ve been lying to you," he said, quieter now. "About us. I really do like you, Reg. If you died, I’d probably spend the rest of my life trying to put it right too. So don’t go taking any of this personally, yeah? It’s not."
Regulus’s eyelids fluttered again.
It took all his strength to pry them open - to lift his gaze into the hum of artificial air, clinging to consciousness.
Somewhere, distantly, he sensed this was meant to be an important conversation.
"It’s just not fair," Barty sighed. "Evan was a good soldier. Didn’t think he would be, not at first - but he grew into it. He actually liked it, in the end. He might’ve stuck at it, if they hadn’t kicked him out."
"Why’d…"
With great effort, Regulus pushed himself upright, spine scraping against the back of the bench. One trembling hand rose to his jaw, fingertips grazing the hot spots where Barty’s grip had lingered. Thinking hurt - every thought came slow and out of sequence, like trying to translate a foreign language with half the dictionary shredded.
"Why’d they kick him out?"
Barty scoffed, twisting the ring on his middle finger. "Went to a party. Came back Monday morning and tested positive for coke on a spot check. They pulled him up in front of a disciplinary panel, and that was it. He was done."
Regulus swallowed hard.
Sirius had been kicked out of Harrow for something awfully similar.
Now wasn’t the moment to say so.
"I just…" Regulus leaned back, letting his head thunk gently against the booth. "I’m sorry - I really am. I just don’t - don’t understand what any of that… has to do with me."
Barty snickered - and said nothing.
Which didn't help one bit.
God - had he said something about Evan? Some careless comment at a function? A throwaway opinion that got twisted between champagne glasses and canapé trays? Had he been overheard - because Barty overheard everything?
It felt impossible. Regulus didn’t even know Evan. Couldn’t picture his face. Could barely remember the surname from those emails. But Barty was impossible.
Impossible to predict.
Impossible to shake.
Impossible to beat.
Regulus’s voice scraped out raw. "Do you… blame me? Is that why you’re...?"
Tearing my life apart?
Barty tilted his head. His smile curved - crooked, unreadable. It didn’t reach his eyes. But slowly, almost reverently, he reached out - trailing the back of his knuckle down Regulus’s cheek in a touch so featherlight it barely registered.
"Nah…" he whispered. "Course I don’t."
Regulus exhaled.
Relief - or something shaped like it - rushed through him, dizzying, as if it had been injected straight into his bloodstream. Maybe this was what Sirius felt when he shot up - that rush of stillness, that temporary hush.
On the wall, the Verdun newsreel had looped. Pathé News flickered back onto the screen in crisp white letters. As if it hadn’t shown a hundred days of slaughter. As if it wouldn't show a hundred more.
Regulus tipped his head back, eyes drifting to the ceiling.
He wondered, vaguely, if he could crawl into the air vent.
Live in the pipework.
Stay there forever - weightless and unreachable.
Barty’s hand slid over and rested on his thigh.
A slow squeeze. Gentle. Familiar.
Regulus closed his eyes.
Felt his pulse behind them - loud and dull, like something knocking to get out.
"I do blame your dad, though," Barty murmured, almost kindly. "But he won’t pick up the phone, will he?"
Regulus didn’t flinch.
The threat landed - some dull, hollow clunk in the pit of his stomach - but it felt distant. Disconnected. Like hearing a vault slam shut somewhere far above, on a floor he didn’t live on.
A problem for someone else.
"So," Barty said, smiling faintly as his fingers tightened around Regulus’s thigh, "you’ll have to do."
On the far wall, a group of boys - no older than the pair of them - scrambled over a mound of churned-up earth, bayonets fixed.
Their faces blurred in the flicker of black and white, caught mid-charge.
Again.
Notes:
TW:
Reference to trauma, war, and death (historical and personal)
Involuntary Intoxication
Physical Restraint
Dissociation
AddictionAnd Barty's continued monologuing? Idk man this was very weird and self indulgent of me but I'm having fun 💀
Chapter Text
Three Years Earlier
Friday afternoons during term-time were the best of the week. Boarders who lived within London hurriedly packed their bags, eager footsteps echoing down the hall as they rushed toward the promise of home-cooked meals and familiar beds. The rest who remained - too far from home to escape for the weekend - earned a small consolation: early dismissal and free rein of town, at least for the ones old enough to enjoy it.
That particular April had arrived dressed as summer, impatient and eager, bypassing spring entirely. The air hummed with life, laced with the smell of fresh-cut grass and the faint, sweet perfume of blooming lilacs drifting lazily from nearby gardens.
Regulus hadn’t yet changed out of his uniform, but he’d abandoned the stiff straw boater in his trunk upstairs. Technically, the rules insisted the hat remain firmly in place whenever a boy wore his uniform around town, but Sirius had persuaded him to let that particular rule slide. Nobody enforced it anyway, and Regulus had grown comfortable enough ignoring it.
He supposed it hardly mattered - he'd shrugged off his blazer too, draping it, warm and woollen, over one arm. Without it, he almost blended seamlessly into the street outside. If nobody looked too closely - if no one noticed the lingering softness in his rounded cheeks, or the youthful awkwardness of an almost-fifteen-year-old still waiting to grow into himself - he might pass for a serious young banker in his crisp suit and neatly knotted tie, rather than a schoolboy still in half of his uniform.
Sirius had changed up in the dorm - James and Peter had followed suit. To Regulus, he looked utterly ridiculous. He’d hacked the sleeves off an Iron Maiden shirt, eager for the world to know about the touch of muscle tone he'd gained over the summer. His jeans were torn at both knees - improbable, if he was trying to convince anyone he was hard done by, rather than simply making poor aesthetic choices.
And yet, Regulus still pushed himself off the wall where he’d been waiting, wearing the too-bright smile of a little brother who still believed the sun orbited the eldest - whether he looked ridiculous or not.
To his credit, Sirius always beamed back.
"Reggie!" he had crowed, throwing an arm around his shoulders. "Did you have a good week, angel?"
"It was okay," Regulus shrugged, leaning into his side and pointedly ignoring the way James - hanging back a few paces - narrowed his eyes. "Are you coming back with me?"
Sirius shot one of those looks over his shoulder - surreptitious, conspiratorial, like he thought he could communicate with that idiot telepathically. Regulus hated those looks - they were so obvious. He knew exactly what they meant, even if Sirius liked to pretend he was too dense to notice.
"I was heading into town for a bit, actually," Sirius started slowly, giving Regulus’s shoulder a bracing squeeze. "You think you’ll be alright getting back on your own? I can walk you down to the bus stop if you want."
Regulus shrugged again. "I guess."
It was the right answer - even if it was a lie.
Regulus was never alright on his own; the bus made him twitchy, stomach tight with nerves. Sitting at the back meant being too close to the engine’s constant thrum, which always made him nauseous, and it was where the older boys sat - the loud ones from the state school down the hill. Too close to the front, and he’d have to meet the eyes of every person who got on, bracing against the blast of perfume, smoke, and city air each time the doors hissed open. The middle was no better: a stranger’s elbow in his side, shopping bags digging into his knees, and the crushing possibility that he’d miss his stop if the panic took over.
Sirius always knew when he was lying.
"Ah… fuck," he muttered. "I’ll take you halfway. How about that?"
James scoffed. "Come on, he’s fine - he’s fifteen."
Regulus’s smile was tight. "Fourteen."
James tossed his head back with such force it was a wonder it didn’t snap off. "What an incredibly significant difference. Regulus, I can literally see the bus stop, all you’ve got to do is walk down the hill, get on the bus, and then -"
"We could just meet you in town," Peter offered with a shrug, scuffing his shoe against the pavement. "I can’t stay late anyway - I’ve got to be back for curfew, so we might as well go ahead. No point in arguing about it."
"But we already agreed," James insisted, throwing a scowl in Regulus’s direction. "We’re going to be late if you waste an hour running across town and then another coming back."
"It won’t take an hour," Sirius said firmly, wheeling Regulus around into the little circle they'd formed. "If I take him halfway, I’ll be back in, what - forty-five minutes?"
James rolled his eyes. "Regulus, can’t you just -"
"Black! Pettigrew! Potter!"
All four of them snapped around.
At the top of the steps stood the house master, still in full regalia, red-faced and thunderous.
It was a long afternoon after that.
Sirius had steered Regulus back against the wall with the hurried assurance he would be right back - though, of course, he hadn't been. The sun had dipped low enough to suck all warmth from the air, and Regulus had shrugged his blazer back on against the chill. The last stragglers had drifted down the high street, and soon he was the only one left in uniform on that quiet stretch outside the school. Thirteen buses had come and gone by the time Dad’s car finally pulled up to the curb.
It was a sure indicator that something was off - Dad never drove himself anywhere.
"Regulus?" Orion leaned out the window. "What are you still doing here?"
"Uh…" Regulus hitched his bag higher on his shoulder, casting a glance back at the school building. "I was just - just waiting for Sirius."
"Why didn’t you take the bus?"
He shrugged. No point telling the truth - it would only earn him an eye roll.
Orion scoffed. "Get in. You’ll have to wait in the car - I’ve got to go in and deal with your brother."
"What’s he done?" Regulus asked cautiously, circling around to get in the front seat.
Orion had shook his head darkly. "What hasn’t he done?"
It wasn’t much of an answer - but Regulus found out soon enough.
An hour and a half later, Sirius hurled his bag into the backseat and slammed the door shut behind him. Orion managed to keep a veneer of composure, climbing into the driver’s seat with a stiff wave to the house master lingering in the doorway, and an even stiffer nod to James’s parents as they led their son to another car.
No one said a word until they’d pulled out through the school gates and merged into traffic.
It opened up like a slashed artery after that.
"Do you have any idea how much I’ve spent on your education?" Orion asked quietly, eyes fixed on the winding trail of headlights ahead. "I’m talking pre-prep, prep, entrance exam tutors - the last two and a half years you’ve thrown away -"
"I’ll pay you back," Sirius snapped, jaw tight.
Orion scoffed. "You’ll be lucky if anyone hires you with a criminal record."
"They can’t prove it was mine, so no one’s calling the cops."
Regulus glanced back, trying to catch the context, but Sirius was staring hard out of the window, jaw clenched.
"I should call them myself," Orion muttered. "I’d be a bloody hypocrite if I didn’t, wouldn’t I?"
Regulus opened his mouth - though nothing came out. He’d been sitting on that wall - then in the car - for hours, and hadn’t thought to grab a drink from the shop on the corner. Now, his mouth felt an awful lot like sandpaper.
"You’re a hypocrite about a lot of things," Sirius muttered from the back seat.
Orion gave a short, humourless laugh. "Is that so?"
"Yes."
Orion shook his head, tapping the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. "Three more months, Sirius. If you didn’t want to stay on for sixth form, you just had to hold it together for three more months. Every fucking year - it’s something. Three years at this school, and every fucking year, you find a new way to make it worse. You were never like this at prep, you were -"
"I know, Dad!" Sirius let his head fall back with a dull thud. "You’ve said that. Over and over again. I’m fucking sick of -"
"Watch your language."
"But you -"
"Sirius!"
Regulus cleared his throat, trying to find a gap in the rising tension. "What..."
"Not now, Regulus."
A vein was throbbing at Orion’s temple, fit to burst; his furious fingers pressed hard against his forehead, as if he could wring a solution from his skull by sheer force. For a long time, they drove in silence - crawling through Friday evening traffic at a snail’s pace. Home was less than fifteen miles away, but at this rate, they’d be lucky to get there within two hours.
Eventually, Orion seemed to deflate in one long, controlled sigh.
"Here’s what we’re going to do," he began, slow and deliberate. "I’ll get in touch with a decent lawyer. We’ll build a case for discrimination - they’ve been targeting you since day one. First term, they were already pushing for ADHD testing, when we all know there’s nothing wrong with you. You made it through prep just fine."
Sirius opened his mouth, but Orion steamrolled ahead.
"We’ll file a freedom of information request. Pull the call records, or ask for a sample from other parents - see how often they’ve contacted us compared to other families. Build a pattern of bias. Show they’re desperate to pin anything on you. And we’ll get you a blood test," he added, glancing sideways at Regulus. "If we do it privately, we can send Regulus instead. Some overworked nurse won’t know the difference between the two of you - it’ll come back clean. Prove you’re not using anything."
Regulus frowned, staring down at his lap.
Orion inhaled deeply, as if calming himself. "Then I’ll get on to Westminster in the morning. We’ll pull you out - send you both there instead. It’s not ideal, given exams are weeks away, but the Lestranges seem happy enough with Westminster, and I’m not wasting another penny on Harrow. If they want to play games, fine. I’ll sue them into the ground before I let them pin a scandal on us."
Sirius tipped his head back against the headrest, eyes half-lidded, jaw still tight with the effort of keeping quiet. In the wing mirror, Regulus watched him - his reflection fractured by the glass, distant and unreachable.
Ahead, the brake lights bathed the car in a dull red glow, like the last flare of a dying sun.
It would be the last time they finished a school year together - though only one of them knew it at the time.
Chapter Text
Two Years Earlier
"Seriously, from a purely ethical standpoint, I wouldn’t be doing anything wrong," Barty said, his voice bright with conviction as he leaned in to brush Evan’s fringe out of his eyes.
Evan didn’t bother looking up; he swatted Barty’s hand away without pause, eyes fixed on whatever he was reading on his phone.
"Aren’t they supposed to shave your fucking head or something?"
"They get lax after basic," Evan replied. "You can fix it later."
Barty hovered for a beat - assessing, filing that detail away - before flopping back onto the sofa with a sigh, dramatically unsatiated.
He kept his eyes on Evan, watching him with quiet expectancy.
Like a dog waiting for the jingle of keys at the door.
Evan’s gaze flickered up at last. "So... ethically?"
Barty lit up; a grin spread across his face like fire catching on dry brush. "Ethically, I think I’m in the clear. I wouldn’t be causing the addiction, because - Ev, I swear to God - they’re all already on something."
"At Oxford?" Evan arched a brow. "I thought it’d be full of nerds."
"Exactly!" Barty slapped his knee like he’d just scored a decisive point. "That’s what I’ve been saying. They’re supposed to be the best and brightest. They’ve literally got it all, academically and-"
"Financially," Evan cut in, flat.
"Financially," Barty echoed, grinning like he was behind a podium instead of sprawled across the sofa in Evan’s miserable little bedsit. "These are the kind of people who treat cocaine like it’s Berocca. And it’s not cheap, Ev - forty-five quid a pop - but they’re tossing it back like their morning flat whites."
He paused, clearly pleased with himself. "God, that’s good wordplay."
"You should write that one down," Evan snorted, still scrolling. "But let’s not act like you’re some fucking… pauper in the wings, yeah?"
"Well, Dad’s got money - but I'm not culturally wealthy," Barty huffed. "It makes a huge difference, actually. We’re new money, and I was homeschooled - I missed the yacht club indoctrination, the secret society handshakes. I don’t even know why they’re all so pathologically obsessed with Saint-Tropez. I’m basically a tourist in their natural habitat, which makes me an excellent anthropologist, because -"
"I thought you were a philosopher?"
Barty waved a dismissive hand. "I contain multitudes."
That earned the barest twitch from the corner of Evan’s mouth.
"Sure."
Barty slumped deeper into the sofa, legs draped lazily across Evan’s lap, head tipped back toward the ceiling like he half-expected the answer to descend from the plaster above.
"But apparently," he sighed, drawing the word out, "I’m not allowed to study people without their consent. Which is fucking stupid. I mean - look at the Sentinelese, right? You can’t exactly wade ashore and ask for a signed waiver, but you can still learn a ton from the boat."
Evan scoffed. "Assuming you stay out of arrow-firing range."
"Exactly," Barty said, snickering. "Respectful distance. Ethically ambiguous, academically sound."
He let his head fall against the arm of the sofa with a dull thud. "But now… I’m stuck. I can’t think of anything else I care about enough to write a whole fucking thesis on."
"What did your tutor say?"
Barty groaned - loudly, performatively. "He wants me to write something hypothetical - a thought experiment. No stakes, no teeth. Utterly bloodless. That man is criminally dull."
"Tragic," Evan murmured, still scrolling. "M’sure you’ll ignore the fuck out of that."
Sirius Black was, without question, the worst human being Barty had ever met.
He’d first appeared in his inbox a month ago, directed there by some friend of a friend - though ‘friend’ might have been too generous a term for a classmate Barty occasionally sold weed to. The guy had mistaken Barty’s tolerance for actual camaraderie, largely because Barty hadn’t bothered to correct him when he’d overused the word ‘mate’ in his thick, plummy accent.
Sirius had tried his best to ditch his own accent - though it still slipped out when he was drunk, or lazy, or both.
He was on the hard stuff. Not your usual weekend cokehead or the anxious, Adderall-popping overachievers Barty typically profiled.
Technically, Sirius didn’t even fit the study criteria; he wasn’t enrolled anywhere prestigious. He didn’t maintain any kind of respectable veneer. He wasn’t clinging to parental approval, or performing for a trust fund.
But he was obscenely wealthy, and the disgraced son of a high-profile politician, so Barty figured - ethically grey or not - why pass up the opportunity to observe?
Sirius had asked Barty to swing by his place - a converted townhouse only inherited wealth could afford. Thick rugs thrown over stripped hardwood. Bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling like a statement. Industrial art that probably cost a small fortune; crates passing as coffee tables and other such nonsense.
"Rented by an uncle who took pity on me," Sirius had explained, laughing like his faux-tragic backstory was a punchline.
"Gosh," Barty had smiled, all teeth. "I wonder what people without benevolent millionaire uncles do when they get disowned."
Sirius had snorted, stretching out across the sofa like a cat in a sunbeam. "Fuck knows..."
From there, it was a steady decline.
Barty stayed to watch Sirius unravel - gracefully at first, then with increasing velocity. A steady stream of equally overindulged friends came and went, some offering Barty a nod of vague recognition, most drifting past like he was part of the furniture. A warm body in a corner, dispensing weed like a fucking human vending machine.
Unseen, unthreatening, uninteresting.
Sirius vanished at some point, but Barty didn’t bother to follow; he was too busy taking it all in. He made mental notes: faces, names, social media handles. It was a live petri dish, pulsating under low lights and overpriced speakers - and all he had to do was observe.
By two, the air was thick with sweat and swapped perfumes. The bass pulsed so hard it rattled Barty’s ribs. Every breath felt chemical. The strobe lights had smeared into a static ache behind his eyes, white and violet and relentless.
That was his cue.
He peeled himself away from the thinning crowd and wandered the flat, each room warmer and more airless than the last - walls sweating condensation, half-finished drinks bleeding onto coasters, their owners missing in action.
One bedroom was quieter.
The door stood ajar, listing slightly on its hinges.
A strip of light spilled from the en suite - clinical fluorescents humming faintly.
Sirius Black lay crumpled on the tile, one arm twisted awkwardly beneath him, cheek pressed to the floor like he’d melted there. A victim of Vesuvius, preserved in privilege. His shirt was wrinkled, his belt unbuckled, one shoe missing. Mouth slack.
Out cold.
On the floor of his en suite.
As if real orphans had fucking en suites.
Barty leaned in the doorway, arms folded. Observing. Cataloguing.
It looked as if Sirius might be dead; his chest wasn’t moving.
For a moment, Barty came close to hoping. He’d always been curious about the look of a fresh corpse - the stillness, the finality, the way a body became an object. In another life, he might’ve been a mortician. A pathologist. Something clean and clinical. God, there were so many new paths to probe, if only he had the time and inclination.
But - better to focus on one obsession at a time.
Tonight, he was an anthropologist - or something adjacent.
Detached. Observing. Taking notes.
A shallow rise.
A sluggish exhale.
Then another.
Not dead - just pathetic.
"Black?"
Sirius turned his face into the tile, a soft groan escaping him like a deflating air mattress.
Barty glanced down the hallway - no movement, no audience - then stepped forward and prodded him with the toe of his boot, sharp and deliberate, until Sirius flopped loosely onto his side.
There was a flicker of awareness. A furrowed brow.
Then, dazedly: "Reg?"
Barty stepped forward and crouched.
The tile was cold beneath his knees, and something damp stuck to his palm when he braced against the floor. Sirius stirred at the motion, reaching up blindly - fingers fumbling until they caught on Barty’s shoulder. His grip was weak, fingertips twitching like he wasn’t sure if he meant to hold on or push away.
"M’sorry, Angel. Just give me five minutes…"
Barty snorted. "Not exactly divine, am I?"
Sirius cracked one eye open, pupils pinprick-thin, trying to focus through the fog. "Ah… shit. Thought you - thought you were s-someone else."
"That’s alright," Barty murmured, leaning back to nudge the bathroom door shut behind him. The soft click echoed. He slid down against the wall, settling in with the air of someone preparing to take notes. "What are you on?"
"Uh…" Sirius gave a lazy, lopsided grin. "Just - just smack."
"That so?"
"Mm."
Barty pulled his phone from his pocket, thumbed open the camera app.
Framed the shot: bleary eyes, loose limbs, the quiet wreckage of someone who had never truly suffered.
"And how’d you get into something like that, Sirius?"
Chapter Text
"Are you absolutely sure it was him?"
The security guard scoffed, shooting Regulus another sideways glare.
It had been a very long forty-five minutes in the stuffy little control room waiting for James to show up. They’d asked Regulus for a parent’s number, but he’d scrolled back through his messages with heavy, uncooperative thumbs, searching for the one James had sent last week - just in case you ever need me.
At the time, Regulus had scoffed, rolled his eyes, and resolutely refused to save the number - a choice that now felt smug and stupid in equal measure.
Because somehow, hell had frozen over - and here was James, standing cagily in the doorway with a ring of keys in hand, eyes sweeping the cramped office: a wall of grainy CCTV monitors, a cluttered desk buried in takeaway wrappers and half-drained coffee cups. Regulus had been resisting the urge to line them up in size order for the past half hour - not that his fingers would have obeyed, fine motor skills chemically disabled.
"I’m absolutely certain," the guard said through clenched teeth. "Want to see the footage?"
"Well…" James shifted his weight from one foot to the other, scratching uneasily at the back of his neck. "Kind of, but that’s probably not - uh, productive…"
"I didn’t even do anything!"
Regulus had said that more than once now - and each time, it rang a little less convincing. He looked every inch the belligerent teenager with something to hide - slouched low in the stiff-backed chair, jaw clenched, arms folded so tightly across his chest they might as well have been fused there. But as far as Regulus was concerned… he really hadn’t done anything.
It was all a bit of a haze, actually. A slow, sinking blur. He remembered the pill - just one more, Barty had insisted. An arm hooked loose around his waist. The shift from the exhibit’s warm, amber glow into the sterile white bite of fluorescent lights - too sharp, too soon.
The glossy chill of tiles beneath him as he slid - or was lowered - down against the bathroom wall. The hiss of something - a vent, or a tap - whispering in the background. More talking. Words rising and falling, soft, melodic, wholly nonsensical.
Something cool and cylindrical pressed into the palm of his right hand. He hadn't managed to hold on - it had clattered on the tiles, warbling out of tune as it rolled away. The bathroom door had creaked open. Swung shut again.
Then came the fog - black and creeping, crawling in from the edges of his vision, swirling like smoke behind his eyes.
Too soon, it broke, scattering like desert sand caught in a sudden gust.
A boot nudged his foot.
A voice - stern, unfamiliar, too loud in the tiled echo.
Blinking.
Red.
Bold letters slashed across the mirror. Sticky paint - was it paint? - clinging to his fingers.
A hand, tight and unyielding, clamped around his elbow.
He was moving.
Or being moved.
Staggering into the hallway, legs like paper. Families parting around him, eyes wide, hands on their children’s shoulders, tugging them gently - and firmly - out of his path.
Christ, what an overreaction - he was practically blue-blooded, didn’t they know?
Into the control room.
With a man who would surely learn to bite his tongue if he knew who Regulus really was.
Maybe he should tell him…
"I should be calling the police," the guard declared, hands clasped over his stomach like a judge ready to pass sentence. "That was criminal damage - and kids don’t need to be reading language like that."
James frowned. "What did it say?"
"Fuck D-O-S-A," the guard scoffed, making exaggerated air quotes around the phrase, as if it was beyond his comprehension. "Whatever that means, anyway."
"Department of Social Affairs," Regulus muttered before he could stop himself - then winced, brow furrowing. "Not that I had anything to do with it…"
God, he could hear it - how pathetic it sounded, how clumsy the words felt in his mouth. Like tripping over the truth, fumbling through a script he’d just been handed.
"We're not funded by DOSA, if that’s what you think."
"I know that…" Regulus groaned, sinking deeper into the chair as if he could vanish into it. "That’s literally my whole point. It’s stupid - there’s no connection, so I wouldn’t have written it. Why would I?"
Even as the words left his mouth, they felt hollow; fog still clung to the edges of his memory, dense and impenetrable. What if he had done something stupid, while lost in the trenches? What if he had scrawled that message without thinking, his own traitorous hands moving on autopilot? What if...?
"I wouldn’t waste my breath trying to figure out why vandals do what they do," the guard said with a weary sigh. "Half of you think you’re artists, the other half are bone idle - never worked a day in your life and you think it’s funny to -"
"I’m not some fucking reprobate!" Regulus snapped, heat rising in his voice. "I don’t have some bullshit agenda, I don’t -" he broke off, fumbling for the words. "All that anti-establishment bullshit, it’s not… I’m not..."
The guard raised a cool brow.
"God!"Regulus threw his head back, exhaling like a man being asked to wade through sewage. "I can't believe I’m justifying myself to some… some..."
The guard’s mouth twitched. "Can’t find a fancy word for it, son?"
James hadn’t spoken for almost a full minute. He stood near the door, half in shadow, chewing on the inside of his cheek like he was trying to keep something in. His eyes had barely left Regulus. Watching. Measuring.
But at last, he moved.
"We’ll pay for the clean-up," James said quietly, fishing through his wallet and pulling out two crumpled twenties. He set them down on the desk with more confidence than the bills deserved. "It's a bit of bathroom graffiti - you don't need to call the police over that. Come on, Reg. We're leaving, yeah?"
"Doesn’t matter if I call the police or not, he’s banned," the guard replied, eyes fixed on Regulus like he was framing a mugshot. "Name and ID before either of you leave."
Regulus scoffed, arms locked tight across his chest. "You’re not getting my ID."
"Name, then. Full name."
God - Regulus was sick of being spoken to like a common criminal.
This idiot had no idea who he was - no idea how ridiculous it was to suggest he could be some errant delinquent. No idea what would happen if the police did turn up, if his father had to bail him out, if even one bored, half-starved tabloid hack caught the scent of blood.
Regulus tipped his head back against the chair, eyes half-lidded, and let the words spill out in one long, slurred breath. "Regulusartcturusblack."
The guard snorted, unimpressed. "And how are you spelling that?"
Regulus let his head loll forward again, fixing him with the kind are-you-fucking-dense glare Orion would have been proud of. "B-L-A-C-K."
"Alright…" James was already stepping in, catching Regulus firmly by the elbow. "That’s enough," he hauled him to his feet. "Let’s get going, Reg."
Regulus might have protested - if he’d had the time to untangle his tongue. Instead, he found himself stumbling back into the bustle of the museum.
Which was… wholly unpleasant.
Nothing was soft anymore - none of that dreamy, harmless haze from before. His hands tingled in a way that made his skin feel inside out, wrong in some unnameable way. His throat burned - raw, chemical, as if he’d swallowed battery acid.
"I feel… really… fucking weird…"
"Yeah, Reg," James sighed, steering him toward the exit with a steady hand. "You’re going to feel weird. I’ll get you some water when we’re home. Do you know exactly what you took?"
Regulus blinked, slow and heavy. "I didn’t - just those… those ones you had."
"You took a benzo?"
"Uh… three, actually."
James grimaced. "That’s not… why’d you take three, Reg?"
That was an excellent question - why had he taken three? One had sounded intimidating enough, and he’d swallowed that without so much as a flimsy protest.
Barty hadn’t forced him.
Hadn’t threatened him.
Hadn’t dangled that call over his head.
Hadn’t demanded anything, really.
Just made a suggestion - a gentle nudge, like offering someone a coat in the cold.
There’d been no gun to his head, no ultimatum.
It was implied, though. Wasn’t it? It was always implied.
"Just did," Regulus muttered miserably, staring at the floor.
James stayed silent as he guided him out onto the steps, his thumb rubbing a slow, soothing line across the crease of Regulus’s elbow as he groaned at the harsh glare of natural light; James angled him gently down into the cool shade beneath the trees.
"Think you should come back to mine for a bit," he murmured, eyes on his phone as his thumb skimmed across the screen. "Dunno if going home like this is the best idea, yeah?"
"Mm."
"I’ll get an Uber."
"I hate the bus."
"Yeah," James sighed. "I know, Reg."
But he didn’t - not really. Not in the way Sirius would have known - instinctively, effortlessly, probably before Regulus even realised it himself.
It wasn’t James’s fault. He couldn’t help not being Sirius. Couldn’t help being the almost-stranger who’d lingered at the periphery long enough to pick up a few stray facts. Couldn’t help that, in the grand scheme of things, Regulus had always been a minor inconvenience, a footnote in a much greater adventure.
Mortifyingly, seven years of unresolved everything surged up at once, burning hot behind the eyes.
James glanced up from his phone - and froze, as if the sight had landed a punch. "Reg… I’m not mad at you, I’m just trying to get a car… fuck, why are you -"
Regulus shook his head hard, scrubbing a knuckle against one eye.
"What…" James dragged a hand through his hair, drowning in discomfort. "What do you need me to do?"
"I dunno…"
Sirius would know.
James looked down, tapped something into the app, then pocketed his phone. He stepped closer, hands resting lightly on Regulus’s shoulders, dipping his head to meet his eye. "You feel sick?"
Regulus gave a shrug that didn’t commit either way.
"Think you need a doctor or something?"
"No - no, definitely not."
James grimaced. "I mean, I dunno if three is, like… fatal, but it’s definitely not good, right?"
Regulus shook his head quickly. "Can’t see a doctor. Dad would... would find out."
James glanced over his shoulder, scanning the street as if someone out there might be holding a sign: EMOTIONAL RELIEF - an airport chauffeur for strained sibling dynamics and long-standing disappointment.
"S’just… loud," Regulus whispered. "And… bright. Out here."
"Yeah? Well the car’s almost here," James offered a strained smile - thin, encouraging, the kind meant to hold fraying edges together. "Think you can walk down to the street?"
Regulus started to nod - then hesitated, the motion stalling halfway.
It was stupid. Pathetic. But what else was new?
"Could you -" he swallowed, the words catching like grit in his throat, "could you call Sirius?"
No eye-roll this time. Just that small, awkward flicker - the familiar tightening around James's jaw, guilt and discomfort gathering like a storm cloud that never quite broke. He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Of course he couldn’t call Sirius. Sirius wouldn’t answer. Sirius probably wouldn’t notice if Regulus dropped dead tomorrow - he was somewhere else, always somewhere else. With someone else. Wrapped up in something else. Choosing distance, every time.
Regulus’s throat drew tight; the back of his eyes burned hot and traitorous. The museum air still clung to the back of his dry tongue, pills churning on an empty stomach - stale, chemical - while the brightness outside pressed against him, an arm cinching around his chest.
He looked down, blinking hard, willing it all to stay behind his eyelids.
Before his trembling lower lip could betray him, James stepped forward, wordless, decisive, and hooked an arm around his shoulders. Probably for the best; Regulus had been swaying since James let go of his elbow. He let himself be pulled in, guided down the last few steps and toward the towering gates where the car waited.
"Do me a favour and don’t throw up in here, yeah?" James muttered, more weary than biting. "I can’t afford two cleaning fees in one day."
A small, breathless laugh escaped before Regulus could stop it. "I’ll try."
Chapter 21
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Dr. Jarman was a serious, ageless man who might have been anywhere between forty and sixty. He rotated his suits by day - Barty almost always saw him on Mondays, when it was a dusty blue and pink pastel pinstripe. The effect reminded him of a dentist's smock, and the office had that faintly antiseptic smell too, which was odd, since Dr. Jarman had never once put his fingers in Barty's mouth.
"How are you getting on with the medication?"
Dr. Jarman never lifted his head during the first round of questions, as though straying from his handwritten notes would throw him hopelessly off course. That was why Dad liked him: he wrote everything by hand, typed rarely, and grimaced when forced to send an email. He was old school, which apparently trumped personable.
"Good," Barty confirmed, scuffing his shoe against the desk's edge. Always a desk between them, like an audience with the headmaster. "It's been very helpful, actually."
"In what sense?"
Barty shrugged. "Seems to help with sleep - sleep comes easier."
Dr. Jarman's pen scratched out a line that looked far longer than anything Barty had actually said.
"Intrusive thoughts?"
"No, thank you."
The doctor sighed. Set down his pen. Raised his head.
"Bartemius, have you had any intrusive thoughts?"
"I was kidding," Barty rolled his eyes. "But no, not really."
They had reached that point in the session where the pens went down and the searching looks began. Barty always loved and loathed that part in equal measure - the part when the searchlights roved and found nothing worth illuminating.
The moment when Dr. Jarman, with twenty or thirty or perhaps even forty years of experience, leaned back with a frustrated little huff, like a child rattling a Rubik's cube, hoping a sudden shake might cause the axis to swing just so.
"I've had a good few weeks, actually," Barty offered, watching the doctor's spine straighten with a trace of poorly veiled interest. "I had a date this weekend."
"With...?"
"The boy I've been calling."
"I see," Dr. Jarman's attempt at neutrality twisted into something nearer disgust; it was one of many topics he and Dad saw eye to eye on. "Good. Tell me about that, then."
Barty dragged his tongue across his teeth, groping for words. None came - none that felt adequate for Regulus, just as there had been none that felt adequate for Evan. Both were too special in that helpless, hopeless way of theirs.
The likes of Dr. Jarman would never understand.
"It was all very civilised," Barty began, reluctant to share. "I took him for coffee, and we talked for a while. He's quite clever, actually. Shy, in person, but he can follow what I'm saying most of the time. Usually has something to add."
"That’s high praise from you," Dr. Jarman remarked, reaching for his pen.
"It's warranted," Barty murmured, his gaze drifting past the plastic peace lily gathering dust on the windowsill. "I took him to a museum. Showed him around some… it was nice."
Dr. Jarman arched a brow. "I'm impressed - that doesn't sound like one of your usual weekend fixtures."
"No, but Reg isn't like Evan; I know he needs something different," Barty's smile twitched, eyes gleaming with the edge of something sharp. "He's soft. I doubt he's ever set foot in a bar. Rarely drinks, never smokes. It's a bit like trying to fuck an altar boy, actually. Borderline impossible unless you pin the little bastard down, but I'm giving it my very best shot."
Dr. Jarman frowned - apparently that one hadn't earned his strained approval.
Good.
Regulus wasn't made for anyone else's approval; he was Barty's alone.
"Do you feel you've struck a good balance between this… new relationship and the rest of your life, Bartemius?"
"Yeah..." Barty nodded, too slowly, like trying the word on for size. "Yeah… I've still got projects I care about. I'm still keeping up with education, with work. I'm not neglecting anything at all, really. He fits in quite nicely."
Dr. Jarman tilted his head, a cautious mirror. "You don't feel you're slipping back into patterns of rumination? Fixation?"
"No," Barty smiled - thin, amused, just a little wild. "Thinking about someone isn't a crime, is it, doctor?"
Dr. Jarman stared back - as if he knew.
As if he had angled the searchlight just right and caught a glimpse.
If that was his game - fine.
Fucking fine.
If he wanted to read his mind, then Barty would let him. He would think about Regulus.
About the delicious deadweight of him when he slipped under, pliant and useless, slumped against Barty's side. About his mouth - soft, pink, always a little parted, like he was waiting for something to fill it. About the way he stammered, lashes fluttering, cheeks blotched red, like shame lived under his skin. About the way he looked at Barty like he needed direction.
Needed him.
Of course he did. Regulus needed him.
Regulus loved him - Barty knew it. Loved him more than Evan ever had. Evan had left, even after Barty had given him everything. But Regulus wouldn't - Regulus couldn't. Regulus didn't have anywhere else to go.
He just needed a firmer hand - that had always been the trouble with Evan. Evan had too much power, had Barty under his fucking thumb. Evan was too self-sufficient, too capable - the scales had been uneven, too much raw, desperate want on one side.
But that wasn't going to happen this time.
Regulus was going to be different.
He was already so good - so clever, so pretty, so desperate. Already a little ruined, convinced he wasn't worth much. Barty disagreed, of course, but loved him all the more for it. Boys like that clung harder, held tighter, begged without realising they were begging.
And in spite of it - in spite of how pathetically, laughably weak Regulus could be - Barty was good to him.
So fucking good to him.
Patient, when he didn't have to be. Gentle, when Regulus hadn't earned it. Restrained, when every nerve in his body was screaming not to be.
Because if he'd wanted to - if he'd really wanted to - Barty could have touched him. Could have let his thumb drag over that sharp little cheekbone, pressed down on his lip until it split, slid lower to his throat and tightened until those eyes flew open. Wide, wet, startled - stunned that Barty, of all people, would hurt him.
But he'd like it. Barty knew he'd like it.
Regulus would think he deserved it. Regulus wouldn't know what to do with soft, with gentle, with restrained. He'd recoil from kindness, shrink from tenderness, smother it with nervous laughter and make a hasty retreat before it could flare up again.
But pain - pain he would understand. Regulus ate, slept, and breathed suffering; it was the only language he spoke with any fluency.
Of course he'd want it. Of course he'd take it.
Barty was the only one who'd give it to him.
"Thinking about someone?" Dr. Jarman repeated in that slow, measured, unbearable voice of his. "No - thinking about someone isn't a crime, Bartemius."
"There we are, then." Barty sat back, agitated and defiant, yanked out of his daydream too soon.
Dr. Jarman regarded him across the gulf of the desk.
"You're a very intelligent young man, Bartemius. But of course you know that - as you know our thoughts shape our actions. You've indulged me in plenty of thought experiments, so I trust you've begun to consider the morality of action as it emerges from thought."
And where would that morality be if he lunged across the desk? If he tore the shiny biro from Jarman's thick fucking fingers and drove it into his windpipe? If he watched that ridiculous pastel pinstripe bloom into a dripping crimson cape?
Certainly might dampen the mood, if Regulus saw that splashed across the news.
Barty had only just coaxed him back into quipping - hesitant, nervous, like a newborn fawn testing its legs, but quipping all the same. It would be a shame to frighten him back into silence. There was a balance to strike: let Regulus get too cocky and he'd turn into Evan; crush all the personality out of him and he'd fold in on himself like a dying star.
Barty inhaled deeply, fixing a gleaming smile to his face. "I've given it plenty of consideration, yes."
Dr. Jarman inclined his head, clinical, unreadable.
Did he know? Could he see through him?
Barty kept the smile steady.
"I'll write you another prescription," the doctor sighed at last, frowning as he scratched away in his stupid, old-school notepad. "And I'll see you again next month."
Notes:
CW
Sexual Assault Fantasy
Graphic Violence Fantasy
Subtextual Delusions / Obsession
Subtextual Emotional / Psychological Abuse
Chapter Text
Somehow, it was September.
Somehow, Regulus was back in form, buttoned into a brand new blazer, watching rain thread down the fogged up glass - because no first day back was complete without the mad dash indoors, the narrow escape from clinging damp that would soak into thick polyester, souring the whole day.
No one really looked twice at him. Avery had flicked his eyes up from the corner crowd and offered a curt jerk of the chin, but no one else had broken from the pack to drift in his direction.
Regulus had paused at his form tutor's desk.
Good summer, Black?
Yes, sir. And you?
Two minutes of perfunctory small talk later, he'd sidled off to the front corner, setting up shop by the window.
There was nothing worse than lingering at the desk of a teacher who liked him - liked him, certainly, no doubt about that, because every teacher liked Regulus, easy, earnest, and willing to work. But this one had that soft flicker of pity in his eyes, that sympathetic tilt of the head, that look that said: I'm being extra nice to you, Black, because you have no friends. Aren't I generous?
God, he was overdue for a pep talk. One of those little speeches that wobbled between reassurance and condescension - you're years ahead in maturity, Black. Just grit your teeth - only one more year to go.
That would have been nice.
Instead, he got Dorcas - predictably late, shaking rain from her blazer, which she'd held as a shield over fresh box braids, adorned with gold beads that glinted like something out of Aphrodite's crown.
Regulus had meant to make that his opening quip, but there wasn't time; she smacked him squarely on the shoulder before he could open his mouth.
"Where the fuck have you been all week?"
So much for a clean slate.
"Nowhere," he muttered, shoving his bag off the seat he'd been saving - as if anyone else would've gone to the trouble of taking it. "Just didn't feel like getting coffee."
"Yeah, but we could've gone to Shoreditch," Dorcas frowned, reaching over him to hang her blazer on the radiator to dry. "I thought that was the plan?"
She smelled of apricots and powdered violets - pleasant enough, if it hadn't been swallowed by the heat of thirty other bodies, the sharp woodsy blend of cheap men's body spray, the chemical tang of hairspray, the damp synthetic reek of wet new uniforms.
"Sorry," Regulus shrugged, leaning back to make room. "I didn't think you actually wanted to go."
Dorcas huffed - the particular kind of huff she gave when she thought something was incredibly stupid, and certainly not worth the breath it would take to respond.
Silence settled between them, close and cloying.
Dorcas fanned herself dry, shoulder angled so more of her back faced Regulus, legs crossed out in the aisle. Regulus sat with a lump in his throat, guilty and ashamed for reasons he couldn't quite discern.
Well - no, he could hazard a reasonable guess. Dorcas was good to him, better than he deserved, and he'd been petty. Spiteful. She hadn't text back within whatever arbitrary window he'd set, and so he'd sulked.
As he always did.
And now it was awkward, the silence closing in, and the boys at the back of the room were laughing at something that almost certainly had nothing to do with him - though Regulus desperately wanted to go home, on the off chance that it did.
So, he broke the tension the only way he knew how - flattery, far from dishonest, but laced with that pathetic, fragile note he hated himself for, the note that usually cracked the softer ones, even if they could see straight through him.
"You look good," he muttered, worrying at the zip of his brand new pencil case. Mummy had insisted on one last school supply outing, and it had been torture - every aisle a gauntlet, every turn a fresh chance to run into Barty and come apart at the seams.
Dorcas shifted a degree closer, though her long legs still stretched into the aisle, ankles neatly crossed. "The sun's good for me, I think."
Regulus nodded, eyes drifting back to the rain-smeared window. "So you had a good time, then?"
"Yeah," Dorcas sighed, letting her resolve crack; she didn't want to spend the day in awkward silence either. "It was nice, Reg. Just - I don't know. I didn't want to be gone all summer. Feels like Mum and Dad are taking the whole turning eighteen thing to heart, you know? Like it was some kind of bucket-list trip, like we're never going on a family holiday again."
"Mm."
"It feels weird, this being the last year," she admitted, rummaging in her bag for a tube of Carmex. "They're treating it like the end of something bigger. Honestly, it's stressing me out more than the thought of mocks."
It wasn't the first time they'd had a conversation like that - their last just six weeks overdue. Dorcas was recklessly honest, refreshingly so, always voicing the thoughts Regulus never dared say aloud. She'd clearly never received the keep your insecurities to yourself memo.
Thank God.
Regulus exhaled, some of the tightness easing from his shoulders. "Mummy took me stationery shopping this weekend. Kept going on about how I won't need her for it next year."
Dorcas snorted. "Of course she did. As if life won't go on if you're not under her roof come September. You're only moving to Oxford, bet you'll be back every weekend anyway."
And just like that, they were friends again.
Dorcas turned, folding her legs neatly beneath the desk, chin propped in one hand as she dabbed on lip balm - steady, unblinking, staring him down like she always did. It made Regulus shift, uneasy under the microscope.
"How's that girl from... wherever?"
"Manchester?" Dorcas guessed, a guilty smirk tugging at her lips. "She's fine, probably. But it's not happening. She's too far away, and I can only understand half of what she's saying anyway."
Regulus snorted. "I'm terrified of Northerners."
"You and every other Westminster baby."
"Maybe so," he said, unapologetic. "But at least I'm self-aware."
Dorcas rolled her eyes, without much derision. She stretched, folding herself further into the desk, one neat braid slipping over her shoulder. For a moment it seemed she might let the joke settle - then her gaze cut back to him, sharp and discerning.
"So," she said, arching a brow that implied she already suspected an answer, "what have you really been doing all summer? You didn't sulk the whole thing away, did you?"
For once, there was plenty he could tell her.
Two weeks of work experience. Sirius - the café, the party, his latest disappearance. James - finally confronting him, the museum, a fractured, confusing evening in his flat. Only a handful of strange texts since.
Barty.
God, where to start with Barty?
As if summoned by the thought alone, his phone buzzed in the inner pocket of his blazer - far too close to his heart, jolt starting that sick, uneven rhythm, too low in his chest. Regulus cast a wary glance at his form tutor - he never usually had a reason to check his phone mid-morning.
[8:53] B: What time do you finish today?
His stomach lurched.
[8:54] Reg: Not sure.
[8:54] Reg: Sorry, I have to put my phone away.
There was no way Regulus was broaching the topic of Barty with someone as direct as Dorcas - it was too complicated to untangle in a single sitting, and frankly, too humiliating to pick apart raw.
How stupid he'd been. How hopelessly attached, in those first few weeks.
"I…" Regulus swallowed thickly. "I finally argued with James."
"What… James Potter?"
The incredulity in Dorcas's voice was obvious - mercifully, that was a line they could safely explore. Regulus nodded quickly, sliding the phone back into his jacket as if it burned.
That was the last he intended to think about Barty for the rest of the day - and, for the most part, he managed.
Dorcas had dropped a tourist's translation of The Iliad into his lap - a belated birthday gift, equal parts pretentious and genuinely thoughtful. Avery had slouched behind them in assembly, grumbling that he hadn't heard from Rabastan either - and he sounded just as put out as Regulus felt. Even Mummy had restricted herself to a single text - no mortifying lunchtime phone call, just a brisk check-in.
Classes slipped back into their relentless rhythm, the rain cleared, and by the time Regulus reached the gates at the end of the day, backpack a little heavier, he felt almost optimistic that things might go his way.
Almost.
Because across the street, leaning against the bus stop, was Barty - cigarette dangling from his fingers, freshly dyed green tips catching the light, jeans shredded to ruin. He'd shape shifted again - this time, he looked like he'd stepped straight out of some grainy nineties PSA about the video-game-to-violence pipeline, or something equally as trite.
And of course, inevitably, the bottom dropped out of Regulus's world, the way it always did when Barty appeared in person. Dorcas was still talking, somewhere on his periphery, wholly oblivious - her voice had already collapsed into static.
Barty was staring- wearing that sly, unreadable smile that might spell trouble, or nothing at all. Regulus hadn't checked his phone since lunch, and that was an eternity by Barty's standards. He never bore silence well, never liked being ignored. But he would have to understand that things were going to be different after the summer - he'd get that, wouldn't he?
God, he'd still want placating though. He'd still want reassurance. That had to be why he'd gone to the effort of materialising. And if Regulus turned away now, pretended he hadn't seen him?
Nothing good would come of it.
But how to play it? How to keep the game alive without Dorcas catching on? Did Barty want her to know? Would Barty care, would he mind at all, if Regulus had a friend?
Barty seemed to sense his hesitation. He drew on his cigarette and crooked two fingers in a lazy summons - and as it turned out, that was all the cue Regulus needed to haul his bag higher on his shoulder, glance both ways, and cross the street.
"Reg -"
Dorcas had been mid-sentence, but it hadn't even occurred to him to explain where he was going. He hadn't thought as far as what next - though Barty seemed to have decided for him, slipping an arm around his waist and looking him over like he was something worth unwrapping as he arrived, dazed, on the pavement.
"Hey, sweetheart. Why didn't you text me back?"
Regulus could have died on the spot. The world tilted, edges darkening in that horrible, airless way he was becoming too familiar with. He shot a frantic glance back at the gates - but no one seemed to notice the strange boy with a hand at his waist. No one except Dorcas, glaring, arms folded, waiting for a double-decker to thunder past before crossing to confront whoever was worth abandoning her mid-sentence.
He had seconds to plead his case.
"Please don't…" Regulus faltered, turning back to Barty, eyes wide, voice pitched low and desperate. "Please don't make this - please, just be nice to her, please just -"
From across the street, it would look harmless. Friends, maybe lovers, caught in a lighthearted tiff - Regulus a shade shorter, leaning in; Barty lounging, thumb hooked through his belt loop, at ease, delighted, indulging the worried pinch of his boyfriend’s brow.
That was certainly what Dorcas saw.
Barty's smirk split through the tumbling words, cigarette clamped between his teeth as he tugged at Regulus's school tie. "You're adorable in your little uniform, Reggie."
Infuriating.
"Please," Regulus grit his teeth. "Don't say anything… weird?"
Barty only cocked his head, grin widening, as if to ask - like what?
And then, before Dorcas could step up onto the curb with something cool and interrogative, Barty slipped seamlessly into charm. He plucked the cigarette from his mouth, extended a hand, and conjured the kind of polished smile every Westminster boy had been drilled to perfect. Even the lazy lilt in his accent vanished, replaced by crisp, impeccable RP.
"You must be Dorcas."
Dorcas glanced down at the offered hand, thoroughly unimpressed. "And you are…?"
"Barty," Regulus blurted, too quickly, forcing a taut little smile her way. "The one I - the one I told you about."
Her clever eyes narrowed, a muscle ticking in her jaw. Dorcas wouldn't hang a friend out to dry, and she was far too sharp to miss a hint - but it was obvious she'd been stung.
Because Regulus hadn't told her a thing.
This was the first she'd heard about Barty.
And still, she turned with a clipped smile of her own, honed and horribly dangerous.
"So you're the one who's been keeping Regulus busy this summer," she said, voice like grits as she accepted Barty's hand for a perfunctory shake. "I might've known."
Barty shot a glance down at Regulus - faintly amused by the idea he'd even been mentioned, and horribly, visibly pleased. His fingers pressed into Regulus's hip, a proprietary squeeze disguised as something casual.
Apparently, Regulus had done something right.
"Most of it," Barty agreed.
All of it. Every waking second.
Regulus's throat constricted. He risked a glance at Dorcas, but she was too busy sizing Barty up - meeting his gaze, unflinching, as though daring him to blink first.
She had no idea how dangerous that was.
"I didn't know you'd be here," Regulus muttered, nudging at Barty, desperate to break the stare, to wipe the smug, cat-who-got-the-cream grin off his face. "We - me and Cas - we're going shopping."
"Well," Barty tapped ash from his cigarette, tone light, mocking, perfectly polite. "That does sound nice."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Dorcas hitched her bag higher on her shoulder, eyes sharp, unreadable. Barty only smiled down at Regulus - patient, predatory, knowing. Regulus would snap in two if he kept trying to swallow back his good breeding; he'd hold out only as long as it took Barty's spent cigarette to burn to the filter.
Regulus bit the inside of his cheek until copper bloomed on his tongue. He tried, he really did. But Mummy would have died of the shame - he'd been raised better than to be rude. He knew the script, knew exactly how one was meant to behave when running into a friend - as Barty was so neatly posing - without any formal plans.
He drew a steadying breath, eyes closing briefly as if bracing for impact.
"Would you… would you like to join us?"
"Oh, I'd love to," Barty's smile curled wolfish as his gaze slid to Dorcas. "If that's alright with your friend?"
Her eyes raked over him, cool and appraising. She wasn't fooled by the faux Etonian twang - not with Barty dressed like a sad Sum 41 reject - but she wasn't about to hand Regulus a get-out-of-jail-free card either.
She bared her perfect teeth in a smile that looked more like a snarl.
"Sure."
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