The Hogwarts Express shuddered to a halt at King's Cross. Steam billowed across the platform, swallowing it in white fog.
Students poured from the carriages. Parents waved from the far end, calling names, pulling children into embraces.
Regulus and Sirius walked side by side. Hard to miss.
One wore black wizard's robes, the Black family crest pinned at his collar, stride measured, gaze still. The other wore Muggle jeans and a flannel shirt, hair a mess, impatience written across his face.
They were nearly the same height, their features cut from the same mold: high bridge of the nose, deep-set eyes, thin lips.
But the resemblance ended at the surface.
Regulus was contained, though everyone knew the edge was there.
Sirius looked ready to catch fire at any moment, and he'd burn himself as readily as anyone else.
A cluster of younger girls stole glances, whispering to each other.
The Pure-blood parents on the platform recognized the Black brothers on sight. The Muggle-born ones couldn't place them, but they noticed the two were striking, even if one of them looked thoroughly miserable.
They headed toward a quieter corner of the platform. Kreacher was already waiting.
The house-elf wore a tea towel stamped with the Black family crest and bowed so deeply his nose nearly scraped the ground.
"The young masters have returned." His voice was a raw rasp, reverent. "Kreacher has come to bring the young masters home."
Two wrinkled hands reached out and clasped each brother by the arm.
Sirius stiffened. He didn't like house-elves touching him. He especially didn't like Kreacher.
Space warped.
The platform blurred, colors smearing together, then resolving into the entrance hall of 12 Grimmauld Place.
Portraits of generations of Blacks lined the walls. Several had woken and peered down at them.
"Ah, the rebel returns." Phineas Nigellus stroked his pointed beard, dripping contempt. "Dressed in Muggle rags. What a credit to the family name."
Sirius ignored him, shook off Kreacher's hand, and strode inside.
Walburga swept out of the drawing room.
Her eyes found Regulus first, and her face broke into a wide smile.
"Regulus!" Arms spread, she pulled him into a fierce embrace. "Brilliantly done! I heard all about it, that Belmont boy who didn't know his place! You showed him the Blacks aren't to be trifled with! Defending the family's dignity, that's my son!"
The words tumbled out fast, her voice sharp-edged, ringing off the high walls of the entrance hall.
She went on for nearly a minute before seeming to notice Sirius for the first time. The smile vanished. Her mouth turned down.
"You're back too." The warmth had drained out entirely, replaced by the tone reserved for unwelcome guests.
Sirius twitched the corner of his mouth. Said nothing.
Orion acknowledged them both with a single nod, his voice flat, inflectionless. "Regulus. Sirius."
"Let's eat." He turned and walked toward the dining room.
The long table was laid with dark green cloth, the silverware polished to a gleam, house-elves ferrying dish after dish from the kitchen. Roast lamb with mint sauce, cream of mushroom soup, salad, frosted plum pudding.
Walburga sat at Orion's left and spent the entire meal talking at Regulus.
His exam marks. The reaction within Slytherin. His plans for next term.
His answers were brief, but every one pleased her. She smiled so wide her eyes nearly disappeared.
Sirius sat beside Regulus like a ghost at his own family table.
No one served him. No one spoke to him. Even the house-elves swerved around him when bringing out courses.
He stared at the mushroom soup cooling in his bowl and thought about the pile of Chocolate Frogs and Cauldron Cakes he'd eaten on the train. His stomach turned.
He scooped mashed potatoes mechanically, spoonful after spoonful, eyes fixed on the pattern in the tablecloth.
Regulus was cutting his lamb, unhurried, responding to Walburga now and then.
Sirius watched him, and something hot and nameless coiled in his chest.
How can you be this calm?
How can you stand all of this?
Why did you choose to become what they want?
He knew it wasn't fair. Regulus had his reasons, his own choices to make. Even if those reasons and choices were ones Sirius couldn't understand or accept.
But sitting in this dining room, listening to Walburga's grating laughter, feeling the condescending stares of every portrait on the wall, he couldn't keep the anger down.
He wanted to flip the table. Smash something. Scream, You're all out of your bloody minds.
He didn't. He bowed his head and kept scooping mashed potatoes.
Dinner ended. Orion set down his napkin.
"Regulus," he said. "Rest a moment, then go to the training room."
His gaze shifted. "You too, Sirius."
Sirius froze, spoon hanging in midair. A beat passed before he nodded, his voice flat and dry. "Fine."
He stood, left the dining room, and climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
The door swung open to everything exactly as he'd left it.
Fresh sheets on the bed, carrying the scent of sun-dried linen. Books from his childhood lined the shelf: Quidditch Through the Ages, Travels with Trolls, Curious Incidents in Magical History.
The desk by the window where he'd once hunched over homework while Walburga berated his handwriting, told him it looked like spiders had crawled across the page.
He circled the room, trailing a finger along the desktop, the edge of the bookshelf, the windowsill.
Barely any dust. The house-elves still cleaned on schedule.
But it didn't feel like home. It felt like an exhibit. A display case preserving the past of the Black family's eldest son, except that person wasn't him.
He was Sirius Black, and he didn't want to be the Black family heir.
He sat on the edge of the bed, hands braced on his knees, staring at the floor.
He didn't know how to face Regulus. His brother had chosen a path he despised, and there was no denying Regulus excelled at it. All O's. Chief of the Slytherin first-years. Capable of handling a seventh-year like Arnold Belmont without breaking a sweat.
Regulus thrived in Slytherin, his reputation rising through Pure-blood circles. He was succeeding in exactly the way Sirius found most repulsive.
He didn't know how to face Orion, either. His father never shouted at him, never struck him, rarely even spoke to him. But that silent, oppressive gaze was more suffocating than all of Walburga's screaming combined.
His father seemed to operate on the assumption that Sirius would simply accept the education laid out for him, would become the proper Black heir he was born to be. When Sirius rebelled, Orion neither stopped him nor supported him.
He watched. As though none of it concerned him. As though Sirius were a stranger.
At Hogwarts, surrounded by James and the others, Sirius could forget. He could laugh, cause havoc, pull pranks, and think, to hell with the House of Black.
Back at Grimmauld Place, back in this room, everything he'd pushed down came flooding back.
Half an hour later, a knock.
Sirius opened the door. Regulus stood in the corridor, already changed into training clothes: black fitted shirt, dark grey trousers, no robes.
"Let's go." A slight nod, tone even. "Training room."
Sirius followed him downstairs, wooden and wordless.
They made their way to Orion's study. At the far wall hung what appeared to be an ordinary Black family portrait. The figure in the painting saw them approach and slid slowly to one side, revealing a hidden stone door that ground open.
Orion was already inside.
He'd changed too, into something more practical: dark grey, simple cut, though the fabric was unmistakably expensive. He stood with his back to the entrance and turned at the sound of their footsteps, his gaze landing on Regulus first.
Only a few months since the Easter holiday, and the boy seemed to have grown again. Sharper definition in the jaw, deeper stillness in the eyes. Standing there, he carried himself with a composure that didn't belong to someone his age.
Good.
His gaze moved to Sirius.
Nearly a year since he'd seen his eldest. The changes were more dramatic. Taller, broader in the shoulders, the boyish softness stripped away and replaced by raw defiance in every line of his posture.
He stood there in his Muggle clothes as though waging a silent war against every tradition the Black family had ever held.
When Orion's eyes settled on him, Sirius dropped his gaze, an instinctive flinch. But a heartbeat later he raised it again, stubborn, meeting his father head-on, searching for something in those eyes.
Anger, Disgust, Resignation.... Anything.
There was nothing. Only indifference.
Something knotted in his chest. He didn't know whether to feel relieved or hollowed out. He looked away.
The brothers stood side by side. So alike: the same black hair, the same grey eyes, the same sharp nose and thin lips.
So different in everything else.
Orion pressed down whatever complicated thing stirred inside him.
Regret? Disappointment? Something without a name.
He let it go and spoke.
"Regulus. Sirius."
Both turned to him.
"Fight each other first. I want to see how much you've both grown this year."
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