Regulus stopped by the dormitory first. Baruk was sprawled inside the fireplace, eight legs splayed out, dark red bristles catching a faint glow from the dying embers.
Footsteps brought his head up. A single click, scattering a wisp of sparks.
Regulus crouched down. "Something's come up today. No sounds, no poking your head out."
All eight eyes swiveled toward him.
He held out his hand. Baruk crawled from the fireplace, shook his bristles clean, and climbed onto his palm, compacting into a fist-sized bundle.
Regulus slipped him into his inner pocket and wrapped a layer of magic around him.
The layer was gossamer-thin, pressed tight against Baruk's body, flattening his magical signature to nothing. To any observer he was an unremarkable shadow tucked inside a robe pocket.
Standard detection methods would find nothing. If someone still managed to notice, they'd have crossed a line.
And then he could cross one too.
He was bringing Baruk because the Acromantula needed his spell renewed on schedule. The funeral's exact timeline was uncertain, and if he couldn't make it back in time, Baruk had to be with him.
Baruk settled in the pocket, motionless.
Through the fabric Regulus could feel eight legs tucked beneath the body, chelicerae clamped tight. Even the idle clicks had stopped.
Obedient. Good.
Outside the castle gates, February wind rolled in off the Black Lake. Cold, but not biting.
Regulus waited a few minutes. The doors swung open and Sirius walked out.
He'd changed into the robes he'd worn at the start of term, presentable enough, though the collar was unfastened again, sitting crooked.
He spotted Regulus, mouth twitching, and walked straight over without a word. Just stared.
Hands shoved in his pockets, weight dumped on one leg, the other foot tapping at the edge of a flagstone.
Top to bottom. Bottom to top. Face to shoulder. When Regulus started walking, Sirius swung around and kept staring from the side.
Regulus stopped. Flat voice. "What are you looking at?"
He knew Sirius's game. The more attention you gave him, the worse he got. But this time, Regulus hadn't engaged, and Sirius was plenty energized on his own.
A few more seconds of looking, then that half-grin. Casual tone, a thread of probing underneath. "I thought you'd be..."
His tongue rolled around inside his mouth, searching for the word, failing. He gave up and settled on: "Upset?"
He was checking Regulus's state.
Pollux was their maternal grandfather. Neither of them had been close to him, but what if Regulus cared?
Sirius needed to read his brother's mood before deciding how much to rein himself in for what came next. How much restraint was appropriate.
If Regulus showed any sign of grief, he'd hold back and not make things worse.
If Regulus felt about the same as he did, then he could safely go on not caring.
Regulus glanced sideways at him, said nothing, and kept walking.
Sirius bared his teeth in a grin, fell into step beside him.
Regulus's face gave away nothing, as usual, but Sirius had his confirmation. Same page.
The two of them followed the gravel path toward Hogsmeade.
Castle gates to Hogsmeade was a forty-minute walk. The carriages made it quick, but there were no carriages now. Only legs.
Sirius grew restless after a while.
He turned to Regulus. "How are we getting back?"
No answer.
Unbothered, he tried again. "Where are we going?"
Regulus lifted his chin toward the road ahead.
"That far?" He pulled a face. "Should've brought my broom."
Then he looked at Regulus again, eyebrow cocked, smugness rising. He leaned over, bumping Regulus's shoulder.
"How's your flying? Want to race sometime?"
Regulus felt nothing in particular.
If he flew, Sirius wouldn't eat his dust. He wouldn't even see dust. A broomstick. Please.
But the mental image that followed was entertaining.
Sirius on his beloved Cleansweep, hunched over the handle, posture effortlessly cool, brimming with confidence, wind streaming his hair back, convinced he was a bolt of lightning.
Then Regulus launching from several hundred meters behind. Protego shell. Fiendfyre propulsion. An orange exhaust trail stretching ten meters out the back.
Sonic boom. One second to close the gap. The shockwave sending Sirius's broom tumbling end over end through the sky.
Sirius dangling from the handle, hair blasted into a bird's nest, mouth hanging open, face spelling out what the bloody hell was that.
Then Sirius trying to chase. Except the further he flew, the emptier the sky ahead.
And if he added a few special effects...
Voldemort's vehicleless flight Spell. Flying like smoke. Elegant, weightless, too fast to track.
He could trail a column of black smoke behind him, blotting out the sky, splitting the heavens in two. People on the ground looking up, thinking a volcano had erupted.
Dark Lord aesthetics, and all he'd be doing was flying.
The corner of Regulus's mouth twitched up, then leveled. "Fine."
Sirius had been rambling about tail-twig cant angles and cut himself off mid-syllable.
He whipped around, eyes wide, disbelief stamped across his face. "You said fine? You just said fine? You..."
Regulus nodded.
Sirius blinked twice. Then his entire being lit up.
"Really?! You agreed?!" His voice spiked, carrying across the empty carriage road.
The words came in a torrent. "We need proper brooms. Cleansweep Seven, you know it? Came out last year, top speed goes up to... no wait, Comet 260, Comet's acceleration is better than the Cleansweep, the top end's a touch lower but on turns..."
He started walking backward, facing Regulus, both hands yanked from his pockets, carving trajectories and angles into the air.
"...Cleansweep Six works too, best stability in the line, won't flip in high wind. How do you fly? Do you use a broom? You can ride a broom, right? Please tell me you can ride a broom."
Regulus watched him, expressionless, as he nearly tripped over a stone at the road's edge.
If I fly, you being able to eat my dust would count as your win.
Sirius was fully gone now, parameters still pouring out.
From the braking distance comparison between Cleansweep Seven and Comet 260, to the beat-up old Cleansweep Five he'd test-flown in Hogsmeade last term, to James's Comet that had snapped its tail-twigs three separate times.
Then he announced, with absolute confidence, that Regulus would lose. Then pivoted to analyzing how he'd celebrate the victory.
Regulus didn't respond to a single word and kept walking.
Forty minutes of road. Sirius talked for thirty-five of them.
At the edge of Hogsmeade village, past the boundary of the castle's Anti-Apparition Charm.
Sirius finally ran out of steam, caught his breath, glanced back at the path they'd walked, and muttered, "Why can't they give advance notice? Has to be the morning of? Walking all this way just to..."
Regulus looked at him sideways.
Advance notice? You schedule a time for someone, and they die on cue?
He nearly said it out loud, but reconsidered. This was their grandfather. However distant the relationship, some things shouldn't be said.
They stood at the village edge for a moment.
Sirius drew his wand, mouth opening to say something along the lines of I'll take us...
Regulus vanished.
Crack.
Sirius's mouth stayed open, wand raised in midair.
He stared at the spot where Regulus had been standing for one second, bared his teeth, and flicked his wand.
Crack.
12 Grimmauld Place. The front steps. Regulus landed first, feet finding the stone.
A few seconds later Sirius appeared beside him, swaying once before steadying.
The front door opened inward. Kreacher emerged, bent low, and saw the two young masters. A bow. His pointed ears trembled twice in the morning breeze.
"Young Master, Master Sirius. Kreacher has prepared everything. The clothes are in your rooms."
The entrance hall was hushed. The fireplace burned with green flames, kept low, casting the ancestral portraits on the walls into shifting patterns of light and shadow.
Regulus climbed the stairs and entered his bedroom. The formal attire was laid out at the foot of the bed.
Black dress robes. Heavy fabric, dense to the touch, with hairline silver threadwork tracing patterns along the collar and cuffs.
He picked them up and studied them. The cut, the detailing, the silver motifs. This was the Black family's funeral standard, heir-grade specification.
Restrained. Understated. Nothing ostentatious, but the right eyes would recognize it.
He changed and adjusted his collar in the mirror.
Thirteen years old. Dark hair with a slight curl. Grey eyes. Wearing clothes that belonged on someone much older, and somehow not looking wrong in them.
Baruk crawled out of the old robe's inner pocket and dropped onto the bed, silent and still. Regulus held out his hand, and Baruk climbed into the fresh pocket.
He rewrapped the concealment layer.
Baruk shifted once, compressed himself smaller, and went motionless.
Regulus gave the pocket a light pat. "Good."
In the corridor, everything was still.
Ancestral portraits lined the walls. Most were dozing. A few cracked their eyes open to glance at him, then looked away.
Sirius stepped out of his own room at the same moment, robes worn properly, collar fastened for once, expression composed.
He saw Regulus and offered a single nod.
He didn't like funerals. Didn't like rules. Didn't like anything ceremonial about this house.
Especially this atmosphere. Green flames. Silent portraits. The weight pressing down through the air.
But he wasn't the boy who'd rebelled for rebellion's sake anymore. He still hated all of it, would never learn to like it, but he could at least pretend.
Not to please anyone. He'd worked a few things out on his own.
He could hate it. He didn't need to perform that hatred every time.
Who would it be for?
Regulus glanced at him and returned the nod.
The brothers went downstairs together.
At the second-floor landing, Regulus saw Walburga.
Their mother stood by the corridor window in a black dress, hair pinned without a strand out of place, gloves already on. One hand rested on the windowsill. The other hung at her side.
Her expression was calm. She wasn't doing anything. She was standing there.
Her face was turned toward the glass.
Sirius stopped walking. He went no further.
Regulus walked on alone. Walburga turned to look at him.
The emotions in her eyes were tangled and layered.
Regulus reached out and put his arms around her.