Sir >>Reluctant Realizations<< ius

[Regulus Black]

Regulus had found himself, once again, in one of those places that he did not want to be. They were fairly few in number...mum's house, Filch's office, his brother's flat....

He raised his hand, then lowered it again. Why was he even here? He'd much rather be in any other place...even behind the old woman in the checkout line at the grocery. But then he remembered a little...Regulus raised his hand again.

Adriana and Katie. She'd threatened him...she'd yelled and insulted and did everything she could to force him to go and speak with his brother. It wasn't like Regulus would have just popped over on a social call...

...but he and Adriana needed to get out of the flat, and she had demanded that he ask his brother to babysit. Katie wasn't that much work any more, either...so long as you kept a wand away from her and didn't let her fly higher than two feet on her toy broom, she was an angel.

Regulus had complained and whined that they should ask one of her brothers, that there were a whole five of them to get favors from. The fact that she'd insisted on Sirius and sent him along to do the asking spoke volumes of the real reason she wanted to do this.

He resolutely knocked on the door. "Sirius?" Regulus called, listening intently for any sign that his brother was home. Or perhaps with company. Anything to give him a good excuse to leave.

[Sirius Black]

Sirius was in the living space of his flat, lounging on the leather sofa bed, remote control pointing at his muggle TV set. He was bored, and so had been reduced to watching daytime TV, right now Trisha was trying to make this fat woman tell the studio audience her problem in a way people could understand. Not paying much attention Sirius flipped the channel, and found himself watching a nature program about bees.

There was a knock on the door, and Sirius heaved himself off the sofa to go and answer it. Luckily for the caller it was his day off, and he wasn't hitting Bludgers round a Quidditch pitch, he was just extremely bored and wishing he was hitting Bludgers round a Quidditch pitch.taking the chain off the door and twisting the knob on the yale lock, Sirius opened the door slightly, and leaning against the door frame looked out into the corridor. The shock at seeing the person standing there must have shown on his face, as did the unspoken words he longed to hurl at his brother.

"What are you doing here?" he asked perhaps slightly more aggressively than he meant it, but this was Regulus did it really matter? Yes, after years of not speaking to each other Regulus had turned up on his doorstep, it must mean something, even if it had been Addie's doing. Perhaps it was now or never.

[Regulus Black]

Just as Regulus had been prepared to rush home and declare that unfortunately Sirius had been out when he'd called, his elder brother opened the door. Meeting his brother's shocked expression with nothing but an annoyed glare--he could call on whomever he wanted to, couldn't he?--Regulus shoved his hands into his pockets and let the awkward moment pass.

"What are you doing here?" his brother demanded, something familiar about his tone. Regulus was put in mind of a conversation they'd had long ago, where Sirius berated him for choosing to remain in the company of Death Eaters. Scowling--he knew his brother was right all along, he didn't need to hear it out loud--he looked anywhere but at Sirius and answered his question.

"Adriana sent me," he said shortly. "She wants to know if you can babysit Katie for us. Well...we want to know, I guess." Feeling that visiting his brother to ask a favor after several years of rivalry and tension between them was a lot like begging, Regulus added awkwardly, "So...how have you been?"

[Sirius Black]

Sirius smirked, and laughed quietly. He let go of the door and leaned fully on the door frame. He should have known his brother hadn't come here of his own accord, Addie was behind it one hundred percent. He was disappointed, he thought his brother had finally decided to face the music, and the obvious 'I told you so' that he very much deserved. Sirius crossed his arms, and stared at his brother, pondering for a moment.

"So," he said finally, wondering if he should say it or not. "Told you, there's no such thing as a blood traitor any more, so what category have you put me in now?" he said, looking his brother straight in the eye. After all their arguments, after all the debates about who was right, he could finally say that he had come out on top. How he wanted to Lord it over him, really make him feel small. Then again, he'd never properly met Katie before, and she was two now. He'd seen her with Addie, but that was just in passing. He'd already missed so much, and perhaps that was why he was overcompensating with Harry. He was making up for what he missed out on with Katie.

[Regulus Black]

Regulus winced. Oh, how Adriana was going to pay for making him do this. Not even her wrath could make him kiss up to his brother now...too many years of loathing each other, of hurtful things said, of stubborn arguments and covert dueling where Regulus almost always had the disadvantage. That was the main problem after the war...Voldemort may have been out of the picture, but most of the enemies that had formed during his rise to power were still enemies now. Admitting that Sirius had been right all along wasn't something that Regulus was happy to do. And it also wasn't entirely true...he doubted seriously that his brother ever truly understood what Voldemort was trying to accomplish.

He took a deep breath when Sirius jabbed at him, though. He wasn't here to start another fight, to create new wounds...Adriana had told him to play nicely. Well, he could...for her. "I don't know if you've spoken with anyone in the family. Unlikely," Regulus said quietly, keeping it brief. "I'm not exactly the poster child for Black family pride any more, either, in case you didn't know. I don't know what Adriana's told you, if anything." He looked impassively away from his brother. "It's a story that takes a little time, and I'm not going to explain if you're going to cut in every few seconds to tell me how right you were all along. But we need you to babysit, and I think Adriana will be thrilled if you come back with me for dinner. Of course, I don't now if you're the type of bloke to be courteous, so..." he trailed off into awkward silence, seeing many ways that Sirius could 'get back' at him now for his previously 'evil' alliances. This situation could either go very good...or very bad.

[Sirius Black]

Sirius listened, and finally his forgiving nature got the better of him. Sighing he stood up, and stepped away from the door, giving Regulus room to get through it. "Come in," he said less aggressively, he had spent so much time telling people this gap would never be breached, but it was obvious that Regulus had changed. He was no longer the perfect son he was once seen to be.

Leaving the door open so that Regulus could come in of his own accord, and shut it behind him, Sirius went into the flat, and into the kitchen, and opening the fridge, pulled out a bottle of firewhiskey and a carton of pumpkin juice. Making his way back into the lounge, he put the bottles on the coffee table and conjured two glasses. Sirius sat down on one the arm chair, and stared at his brother now standing awkwardly in the doorway. He gestured to the sofa opposite him.

"Take a seat," he said. "Straight firewhiskey or do you want it flavoured with pumpkin juice?" He poured himself the combination, which was mostly pumpkin juice as it was before lunch time, and leaned back in the soft fabric of his chair, he would stay as relaxed as possible, for as long as he could. "What happened?" he asked causally. "I've hardly spoken to Addie, and Dumbledore won't tell me why they hunted you even though he probably knows. I want to know everything."

{{OOC - I've presumed that you came in... hope you don't mind}}

[Regulus Black]

((OOC: *gasps* Godding?!?! lol of course I don't mind, and of course I'm going to come in. ))

Regulus wasn't sure if he was surprised or apprehensive when Sirius invited him in. He could hardly remember the last time they'd spoken without dissolving into bickering or dueling. It put him in sort of a jumpy mindset--longtime rivalry wasn't going to heal overnight. Regulus, feeling as though he could be attacked at any moment, followed Sirius into his apartment. By the time he did so, his brother was putting down two glasses on a coffee table. It was nice--chairs and tables, lamps, photos of Sirius and his friends waving and smiling happily out of their frames. Not too long ago, that sight would have filled Regulus with enough resentment to start another argument. Now, he simply looked, curious rather than hurt. It was juvenile and not entirely true to think that these people had stolen his brother from him.

"Firewhisky," Regulus said instantly. He let Sirius pour his drink, looking instead at a photo beneath a little glass lamp on a table. Four smiling boys looked back at him, one of which was his brother. Frowning when Sirius asked him to hear the whole story--surprised that Dumbledore hadn't shared it with his Order members--Regulus was silent for a moment, trying to decide where to start. "Peter Pettigrew," he said quietly, looking at the photo. "He was a rat," Regulus remarked, then looked over at his brother with the shadow of an amused smile. "Literally and otherwise," he said. "Never thought he was smart enough to do animagus on his own, though. Think he had help?"

Regulus took his drink from Sirius, sitting down in one of the chairs across from his brother. He drained a large portion of his glass, the shock of the drink in his throat clearing his mind enough for him to sort out his thoughts. "Seventh year is when everything changed," Regulus explained. "I got into a little bit of...trouble with the Dark Lord. I'm terrible with the Unforgivables, I used to practice in the dungeons on rats and such...mastered the Cruciatus but that was it. I couldn't kill flies with Avada...I couldn't control a goldfish. He gave me an assignment that was outside of my magical capacity. So to make it up...I let him use Kreacher."

Regulus put down his glass on the table, sliding back in his chair and looking up at his brother. "I don't know if Dumbledore ever told anyone what the Dark Lord was trying to do. Well, he used Kreacher on this mission...just him and our house elf. Mum and dad were so thrilled that I had gotten so close to the Dark Lord...that our house elf was the one he'd choose. You know I've always been closer with Kreacher than the rest of the house. When he came back, something didn't seem right.

"He told me that the Dark Lord had taken him to a cave...where there was a lake filled with inferi. Put a locket in the middle of it. Well, I'd done some reading in our library a few years ago...didn't take me long to work out from what Kreacher told me that the Dark Lord was making Horcruxes for himself." Regulus paused, floundering for what to say next. He knew chronologically what had happened, but...he struggled for a moment to remember what he'd been thinking when he'd decided to go there and steal it.

[Sirius Black]

Sirius poured Regulus his drink, and sat back to listened to his story. He knew Pettigrew was a traitor, the fact that he was now in Azkaban told him that much even without Dumbledore's conformation. His eyes flicked over to the picture of him and his friends, part of him wanted to cut Peter out of the picture, but then it would distroy the memory of when Peter was still a good friend, a Marauder with whom they would laugh, and tease and plan pranks.

"Never thought he was smart enough to do animagus on his own, though. Think he had help?"

Sirius snorted, knowing full well that Peter wasn't smart enough, and that he had a lot of help with his transformation. "Sorry carry on." he said as his brother took a swig of Firewhiskey. Sirius drank some of his own drink as he listened, swirling the liquid around in the glass and then taking a sip. "Horcruxes?" Sirius said, suddenly coughing on his own drink. "That sure explains a lot, no wonder Dumbledore didn't say anything. The mere though that we were up against someone that dark would have scared some people to death." said Sirius sitting up suddenly interested indeed. He knew his brother had never mastered the unforgivables, Snape had decided to taunt him with the fact that he was worse than his brother in a duel. Sirius knew this to be impossible because he had beaten Regulus countless times, but he had always hated to be compared to his brother. "So what happened then?" he asked encouraging his brother to continue his story, he didn't care about bridges, he wanted to know what had brought about the downfall. He had turned up to the Potter's house in time to see James killing Voldemort, Lily crouched in a corner of the nursery clutching Harry, who was screaming in fear.

[Regulus Black]

Regulus looked skeptically at Sirius when he brushed off the question about Pettigrew and the animagus transformation. Sirius's reaction pretty much confirmed what Regulus--and then Snape--had been suspecting several years before when Pettigrew first began to work as a double-agent...that Sirius, Potter, and Lupin had been helping Pettigrew do the work for the spell. Regulus wondered curiously what animal his brother turned into, having never felt a need to pursue the spell himself. He wondered also why they had decided to do it...Snape always seemed confident that he knew the truth, but Regulus never wanted to ask him about it.

"I stole it," Regulus said quietly. "I asked Kreacher to take me where he'd gone with the Dark Lord...we crossed a lake of inferi, and the horcrux was sitting in the bottom of this basin. I...I'd written a note," he paused, taking a deep breath, "because I thought I was going to die there. I didn't think I'd be able to take it without some serious magical protection coming down on me. Well...when I thought I was going to die, I realized that I needed to do something more to finish it. I was thinking...the Dark Lord's goals were to purify the blood, to get rid of the statute for secrecy...to put wizards in charge of muggles, rather than trying to coexist secretly. If he was making Horcruxes...

"And I thought a lot about things you'd said to me, over the years. About things being for more than blood, about the family meaning nothing in the bigger picture. You know, they decided that Adriana was a blood traitor. They were going to make me marry Berne Crouch--you remember, our cousin? And I just thought, this is what Sirius ran away from. And I hated you for it. I thought that because you ran away, I'd ended up doing all the things they'd expected you to do. That if you'd stayed, even with all the favoritism from mum and dad, they wouldn't have focused on me at all. Me or Adriana. I just decided...I was done listening to people tell me how to live my life. Mum and Dad forbidding me to ever see Adriana again--and I love her, Sirius. I think I'd rather die in a cave of inferi than ever be without her.

"I was just standing there, the locket...Kreacher...and I thought about what would happen if I did die. Didn't I at least owe her some sort of goodbye? Doesn't fit that she thinks I'm a Death Eater one day and suddenly I've defected and I'm dead the next. I didn't even talk to her when I went to the cave...when I realized what the Dark Lord was doing, I just...went.

"You probably don't understand why I was thinking so much about my own death, though. Even if nothing magical had happened when I stole the horcrux, I was certain the Dark Lord would know...that as soon as I stopped coming to meetings, stopped doing as I was told, he'd send someone after me. And you know as well as everyone does that I'm not the best wizard in the school. I can hold my own, but...against people like Bellatrix and Snape, I'm nothing."

Regulus looked anywhere but at his brother when he said this last humble statement, not wanting his shoddy skills as a wizard tossed back into his face. His eyes caught on a picture not far from the framed still of Sirius and his friends...of two small children, standing against a plain wall. The elder boy was grinning widely, changing his pose for the camera every few moments and occasionally turning resentful eyes towards the younger boy in the picture. The younger boy was sitting still, bawling his eyes out. Regulus lost his train of thought when he saw it, forgetting where he was in his story. He leaned over and picked up the picture, looking down at himself and his brother and not understanding why it was there. Regulus hadn't even known that there were pictures of him and Sirius together...he'd thought that they'd all been destroyed during their Hogwarts years. He watched himself cry, not unlike the way that Katie sometimes did, though never for long because he and Adriana were always there immediately to dry her eyes. "Whiny little devil, aren't I?" he muttered distantly.

[Sirius Black]

Sirius was slightly taken a back when Regulus told him he had taken the Horcrux, he felt a sudden small surge of pride towards his brother, for finally taking the things he had been told in arguments seriously, and for defecting. a small smile spread across his face. Then Regulus started talking about how he started thinking about his death, not saying goodbye to Addie, and his not so amazing talent in spell casting.

"Regulus, you don't need to be good at duelling and unforgivables to survive in the Wizarding world. you have other things that make you who you are, don't listen to them." he was handing out the comfort of an older brother, comfort he hadn't given since he had started Hogwarts, which meant Regulus was owed a lot. He saw Regulus move towards the phot of him and his friends, and pick up the one that was next to it. He often laughed at that particular photo, especially because Regulus wouldn't stop crying. there were times when he hated the photo though, because the picture Sirius would get fed up of Regulus crying and comfort him, which would make him stop, then Sirius would give him piggy backs in and out of the picture, both children grinning widely Regulus laughing with glee. then the picture Sirius would get bored and out Regulus down, and the cycle would start all over again, but every time Regulus was put down again it took longer for Sirius to get annoyed, and he got bored with piggy backs quicker. Sometimes Sirius would leave the prtrait all together, and visit some of the other ones in the room, leaving Regulus all alone.

"Yeah you are, but you don't cry all the time. I remember the day that was taken, you cried from the moment you woke up till the moment you went to sleep. The cousins were over that day, we had loads of family pictures taken. I nicked this one before I left, the only family member I had my picture taken with that once upon a time I got on with." Sirius drank some more of his drink, and decided to press Regulus for the rest of his story. "So you were standing in this cave, thinking about death, and then what?"

[Regulus Black]

"I didn't say that I needed to be good at them," Regulus said impaitently. "It doesn't change the story if I am or if I'm not. I meant that Bellatrix--as you well know--is willing to do many more things than I am, and Snape...to me, he's the filthiest creature imaginable. He nearly killed Adriana in our fifth year, did you know that? Trying some sort of experimental spell on her...if I'd gotten there a few minutes later..." he shook his head. "Anyway."

He looked at the picture and snorted at what Sirius said, knowing it meant something but not willing to mull it over then and there. He put it back on its table, then looked up at his brother. "I stopped thinking about dying," Regulus said simply. "I thought, there's got to be a way out of this. So I took the locket...and I went into hiding. I tucked it away at home, where no one would ever think to find it, or even be able to. One of those master-of-the-house gimmicks.

"I spent a little while trying to hide on my own. Using the magic I knew and making sure no one was tracking me...even though the Dark Lord knew the moment I defected. It worked for a little while...I was living off scraps, no contact with anyone. But it got lonely...I had to see Adriana. So I slipped back into London, making sure no one recognized me. I left her a note by breaking through her window...told her how to meet me, if she still wanted to have anything to do with me after I'd disappeared on her.

"It was a little romantic, actually, but I'm not going to go into the details. Middle of the night, I meet her a good distance into the forest behind her house...no chance of being seen or heard. Adriana argues with me about hiding, says she wants to go with me...I know what it's been like, so I didn't want her to come at all...and then she suddenly just bursts into tears. We weren't even really fighting...it definitely wasn't a row like we'd had in the past. So I ask her what's wrong, and she tells me that she's pregnant.

"From there, I knew that I had to do something even more than I was doing. So I promised her I'd contact her again, calmed her down...and went knocking at Dumbledore's door. Told him everything I knew...but I didn't want to work with you and the others in his Order. Bad enough that the Dark Lord forgot his own ideals, but for me to deliberately work to undo everything I'd tried to accomplish...so Dumbledore made a few suggestions when I told him my story. Adriana and I went into hiding as muggles...a good distance away from the heart of the city. Spent nine months keeping our heads low, no contact with the wizarding world at all. Changed our gold over into a healthy muggle fortune...

"When Katie was born--bloody terrifying, muggle hospitals. Thought Adriana was going to die. Anyway--when Katie was born, we started getting a little braver. Kept up on current events, nicked copies of the Prophet when we could. Naturally, when the Dark Lord was defeated...on my information, we were among all those who celebrated. It wouldn't have happened if your people hadn't destroyed the horcruxes ahead of time, though."

[Sirius Black]

"Yeah, I know what Snape did to Addie, the stupid little prick, and we made sure we made up for his mistake for him, didn't like his own spells being used against him." he muttered more to himself than to Regulus, and then listened as Regulus continued in the telling of his anecdote.

He knew Regulus had defected, as he no longer saw his brother when the order and the death eaters ended up duelling. but he never realised the extent of what his brother had done. First stealing one of Voldemort's horcruxes, then hiding, and after finding out his girlfriend was pregnant running to spill everything he knew to Dumbledore, and then going into hiding as a muggle, the very things that his former 'elitist' group were trying to kill and maim. The small surge of pride for his brother suddenly grew, his brother had enabled them to defeat Voldemort, without him, Lily and James would be dead along with Harry, and he would be in Azkaban, alone.

"You know what," said Sirius grinning suddenly. "I'd love to babysit for Katie." he stood up and sent the firewhiskey and pumpkin juice back to the fridge with a wave of his wand. He drained the rest of the drink in his glass, and slammed it down on the coffee table. He flicked his wand at the TV and it turned off, flicked his wand at the windows and they shut and locked. He took the picture out of his brother's hands, and put it back on the table. "Lets go then."

[Regulus Black]

Regulus was surprised when Sirius suddenly agreed to babysit Katie. Taken aback at his brother's warm grin, he let Sirius tug the photo out of his hands and shut down his apartment. Standing as Sirius decided they'd leave, Regulus followed after his brother.

"Thanks," he said. He couldn't believe that explaining himself had done this--that simply telling Sirius what had happened had begun to heal the breach between them. Regulus could almost hear Adriana's voice in the back of his mind, all the times she'd told him that it wouldn't be hard to make up. "It's nothing like your flat, and we're going to have to walk," Regulus told Sirius, reflecting distantly on how odd it was that he would be the one of the two of them living like a muggle, after all they'd been through.

[Sirius Black]

"Walking's fine," said Sirius off handedly. "Tell you what, I'll be over to your place later, got to go and pick something up from Diagon Alley. I'll find yours by checking a muggle map. Where abouts do you live again?" he said suddenly realising he didn't know where their house was, only where the park they took Katie to was. Sirius picked up his leather jacket,and his house keys, and marched into the hallway. "Come on lets get going I've got things to do before I go to yours." he said chivvying his brother out of the flat, and into the corridor, shutting and locking the door behind the two of them.

[Regulus Black]

Regulus blinked, but took Sirius's errand in stride. "Alright, you know where the park is, right?" he asked. "It's just down the road from there...the address is 57 Richmond Way, in East Grinnstead. We'll be waiting for you, then...we're not going to be gone long."

He let his brother push him out into the hall, and stood back while Sirius locked his door. "Keep in mind that our neighbors are all muggles, though...I'm sure you know how."