Chapter Text
Regulus’ foot taps angrily on the pavement. Passers-by won’t stop glancing at him and it annoys him. There’s nothing to look at. Only a teenager with lots of luggage standing still in front of a luxurious house. One of the best you can find in London, he might add.
He’s still in his uniform, a long skirt and a formal shirt. A little prefect pin reflects the beating sun. He hates this uniform.
His brother springs out of the house and locks it, a folder in hands. He swiftly hides it in his messenger bag and takes Regulus’ arm with one hand and his suitcase with the other.
“Come on, lil sis! Let’s go on a new adventure!” he exclaims with forced enthusiasm. Since they got the call yesterday, it’s been the only way he addresses Regulus. The latter knows that voice, it’s the one Sirius uses when he’s in his ‘perfect older brother’ role. Regulus doesn’t like being infantilised.
“Do you even know where we’re heading?” he hisses, pulling his hand out of Sirius’.
“The train station.”
“Which is the other way.”
“Oh shit,” he mutters while abruptly turning around.
Regulus snickers inside. It took months for his brother to find his way around their school’s campus.
The place is crowded. Laughs and cries resonate in the hall. Other students from other schools hug their family or friends, meanwhile Regulus and Sirius are running away because of theirs. The perks of having parents fond of covering tax evasion and murders. Maybe committing, Regulus can’t remember the exact term. Maybe both, it’d be their style.
No really, he doesn’t think he grew up with the best examples in terms of staying in the legality. At least they had the presence of mind to buy him and Sirius first class tickets before fleeing to another country. As if taking the train with other people wasn’t unbearable enough, they have to spend the summer with their uncle who lives miles away from the nearest city.
It’s quite selfish of his parents. Regulus had plans, and so did his brother. The younger had a perfect summer in perspective : reading all day and practicing for his next concert at the conservatoire. The chances of finding a piano where he was going were low, let alone a library as well-stocked as his.
On the opposite seat, Sirius has already put on his headphones and he’s aggressively playing on an imaginary guitar. The woman sitting near them gives him a strange look and draws her child closer. She must think he’s listening to satanic music or something similar. The eye liner and platform boots probably don’t help.
The trip isn’t as long as Regulus expected. After half an hour of staring through the window, he takes his music book out of his bag and starts studying his new score. He’s usually ashamed of doing anything slightly unusual in public but this situation is the exception. He thinks he looks –and is– smart while practicing, which is true. Still, both brothers must offer an odd show, one with his air guitar and the other with his imaginary piano.
He’s absorbed in his work and doesn’t notice they’re here until a voice announces it from a speaker. He and Sirius get their luggage back and get off the train.
On the platform, they have no idea what to do. Regulus looks at Sirius, who is the one in direct contact with their uncle, and he looks back with confusion. Great. Now they’re lost in a train station so small it could fit in their dining room and they have strictly no idea of where to go. Awesome.
“Excuse me?” a voice calls. “You’re Alphard’s niece and nephew?”
In front of them is standing a tall boy covered in scars. Regulus hopes it’s not a vagrant, mother warned him about them.
“Yes,” Sirius smiles, “and you are?”
Regulus wants to slap him. You don’t just give your identity to a stranger. One look at his brother and he knows. Sirius’ eyes are so focused on the other man, they might as well spring out. If he ever ends up murdered, he’ll blame Sirius’ hormones.
“I’m Remus, Alphard sent me.”
“Sirius,” the boy exclaims and offers his hand.
The stranger looks at it with confusion and shakes it. The black-haired boy realises how strange it is for a teenager to shake hands and removes his hand quickly, cheeks turning red. Regulus observes the scene with a blank face, he just really wants to see the house and take his shoes off. Whoever invented heels was a pure maniac.
Remus leads them through the small town. So far there is a primary school, a church and a corner shop. The rest of the buildings are houses. The summer promises to be the least interesting Regulus has ever had.
He watches his brother chatting with the boy from behind. He wonders how he got all these scars, he looks like the werewolf in one of Regulus’ childhood books. That boy should buy new clothes, his shirt is too short.
Regulus ties his hair in a tight ponytail. Having long hair during summer is unbearable. Just having long hair actually. He used to choose his own haircut when he was younger, but mother didn’t like it short. One of the conditions for going to school instead of staying home was the haircut.
He glances around him. They’re not in the village anymore but on a country road. The view of fields in the sunset is quite soothing, he has to admit it. It is comparable to Pride and Prejudice, the movie version from 2005. However, he hopes uncle Alphard’s house is not too far because there are no streetlights and he doesn’t fancy walking next to a road in the dark with only his phone to light the path.
Soon enough, a sumptuous villa appears after a turn. In the porchlight, an old familiar silhouette stands out. They’re finally here. Regulus sighs, he thinks he has a blister.
Alphard welcomes them as if the situation was totally normal and as if Sirius and Regulus’ parents weren’t in an unknown country trying to escape the police and tax authorities. He greets them the way he does at family dinners.
He thanks Remus, who smiles politely, and shows them around. A gleaming chandelier in the entrance reminds the visitors of the past panache of the house. Old velvet sofa and dust covered rug weighten the atmosphere of dark living rooms. Most of the rooms are unused and wooden doors with flaking paint extend on three floors, the fourth one being the attic. Sirius and Regulus learn they’ll sleep in first floor rooms. Their uncle had the brilliant idea to not put them in the same room, it would’ve been like starting World War III.
Once in his room, Regulus changes into more comfortable clothes. He lays the skirts and buttoned-up shirts in front of him. He borrowed some clothes from his friend Barty at school, and he discovers while rummaging through his suitcase that this crazy amazing guy slipped a few shirts and trousers under his books. Regulus is ready to bet it was Dorcas’ idea, knowing her.
He pulls on a Nirvana shirt and a pair of shorts slightly too big for him before putting the rest of his clothes into an old wooden wardrobe. Inside of it, there’s a full-length mirror. He glances at it swiftly, mostly because he doesn’t like what he’s seeing. His hair is too long, suffocating, and he literally despises the way he stands. He doesn’t like much of his reflection actually, though the bra he’s wearing flattens a bit his chest, which is pleasant. It makes Regulus feel oddly good.
Alphard calls the siblings for dinner. While his brother stomps on the creaking steps, Regulus goes down lightly. He sighs at the lack of behaviour of Sirius.
The table is empty when they arrive in the dusty dining room. Regulus wonders why it’s not set yet. As if he could read his mind, his uncle answers from the kitchen.
“Kids, the table won’t set itself!”
Great, in addition to having to spend his summer in the middle of nowhere, Regulus has to work. Does his uncle know there are people whose actual job is to do that?
He sighs and heads to the kitchen, where his brother is already gathering the plates and the cutlery. He’s wearing his headset and mindlessly singing along with whatever he’s listening to. Alphard doesn’t seem to mind. Their parents would.
The three of them take place at the table. Alphard clears his throat.
“Tonight, I made dinner. I’m counting on you to participate in daily tasks from now on.” He makes a pause and deliberately ignores Regulus’ eye rolling. “I will also ask you to clean the attic, it needs a good dusting.”
This earns him protests from the brothers.
“We’re on vacation, not supposed to work!” Regulus complains.
“Yeah, and this attic must be full of spiders!”
Alphard only shakes his head and promptly dismisses every argument.
“Remus works all summer.”
“Because you pay him for it!” Sirius cries.
“You better start eating, we wake up early in this house,” the uncle smiles, a little smug. “You’ll need to be well-rested tomorrow.”
They understand there’s nothing else to do except following Alphard’s instructions. This summer will be long.
Once in his bedroom, Regulus scrolls on his phone. His friends are living their best life while he’s stuck here. According to their stories, Pandora and Evan have an internship with a taxidermist in Paris, Barty is out who knows where clubbing –probably with a fake ID– and Dorcas is on a road trip with her girlfriend.
He opens his window and takes a picture of the sky. The only good thing here is that there isn't any light pollution. However, there are lots of bugs drawn to the light he left on near his bed. Regulus hates insects, but not as much as Sirius.
He posts the picture on his secret account. His parents know about the other one, which uses his deadname and only has pictures chosen by his mother. This way, the other mothers can see how her ‘daughter’ wins prizes and goes to important events. Regulus wonders if she knows how pathetic she is.
He hears a scream in the room next to his. He rushes to his brother’s room, only to see him standing on his bed and looking anxiously at the ground.
“You okay?” Regulus asks. He has to hide his smile in front of the ridiculous situation.
“No!” Sirius blurts. “No ‘cause there’s a bloody spider in my room!”
Regulus can’t help but laugh. He has a friend with a tarantula and it vaccinated him against arachnophobia. Evan carries his pet everywhere in his house.
He fakes leaving the room until his brother calls behind him, “Don’t you dare leave me with that…thing!”
“God, you’re such a drama queen,” Regulus says. He already knows he’ll help his brother. Even though it’d be ten times funnier to ignore him, there is no way he’s doing all the chores tomorrow because Sirius is too tired. And the latter won’t sleep with a spider in his room. “Where is it?”
“Under the bedside table.”
“Open the window for me,” Regulus asks as he kneels on the ground. He scans the floor and finds the origin of Sirius’ terror : a cellar spider.
He manages to push the spider to get on his palm.
“Hey you,” he smiles then turns to Sirius. “It’s a Pholcidae, also known as cellar spider, or daddy longlegs or thousands of other nicknames.”
Sirius looks at him, the grimace of his face expressing how disgusted he was.
“How the heck do you know that kind of stuff?”
“Try being friends with people obsessed with spiders,” Regulus shrugs.
He’s about to put the spider outside when an idea passes through his mind. He quickly turns around and raises his hand near Sirius’ face, who lets out a shriek and jumps back.
“What the actual fuck?”
“Thought it might be fun,” he snickers, “and it is.”
Regulus frees the spider and goes back to his room, leaving a furious brother behind him and ready to go to sleep. There’s nothing better than scaring someone else to relax before the night.