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The owl came this morning from Hogwarts and since then, the whole family has been going crazy.
Yesterday, when Sirius went off to school for the first time, everyone was happy, which is unusual, because Sirius doesn't often make Mother and Father happy. For a while, Regulus had thought that Mother was happy because she'd sold Sirius to a warthog who was going to make him behave. But when he asked--timidly, because he knows that making his mother cross is dangerous, and he never knows what will set her off--she only laughed, and told him that his big brother was about to make the family proud.
That was yesterday.
Today the owl came from Hogwarts, with the news that Sirius has been Sorted into Gryffindor.
Father stomped off and locked himself in his study, which is what he does when he is angry or upset. The pictures don't like it because he turns them to the wall, and then they can't see anything or talk properly.
Mother has told the entire family, which is part of the reason that Father is angry. He wanted Mother to keep their shame a secret, he said, which is funny, because if you're ashamed of something, it's usually because others know that you did something bad, so how can it be a secret? Mother says that the Blacks and the Malfoys and the Lestranges and the DuLacs together are more than a match for Albus Dumbledore and the Sorting Hat, and that, between the lot of them, they will get this nonsense sorted out again, so to speak, in no time.
Father reminds Mother that all of their cousins won't be with them in this--not the Weasleys, not the Tynbridges.
Mother harrumphs and says that the Weasleys don't count since they are poor as church mice and blood traitors besides, with their love of Muggleness. And that Graham Tynbridge actually married a DuLac Squib and profaned his blood, so the Tynbridges don't count either.
Regulus kneels besides the bookcase and pretends to be entirely engrossed in pushing, pulling and batting his set of tiny, levitating brooms and magic carpets back and forth through the air. Meanwhile, he wonders why a mouse in church is poor, and how you can betray a liquid that runs through your body, or profane it, either. He would like to ask these questions, but he knows from experience that his father would only gaze at him with angry disgust, and that his mother would explode in rage. Kreacher would promise to tell him, and smile unpleasantly, and tell him nothing. His brother is the only one who ever tried to answer questions that no one else wanted asked, and Sirius is no longer here.
He cannot tell his parents this, but he likes the Gryffindor colours. "Crimson and gold," he heard his father say earlier, and he repeats it softly to himself, tasting the words. Crimson. There's an elegance to it. Much finer than mere red. He can even remember stories in which kings wore crimson and ermine.
He wonders, briefly, if Gryffindor will make his brother kinglike.
The thought is worrisome. Not that his parents would object to a king in the family, but Sirius wouldn't be their kind of king--sly, cunning and ambitious. A Grand Vizier sort of king, Regulus thinks, remembering fairy tales again. Grand Viziers are always trouble, possessing more magic and power than anyone else in the kingdom, and plotting in their slow, subtle, serpentine way to rule an empire. They know the most potent spells and the most unbreakable of curses. And all, of course, have minions--willing humans, inhuman beasts, demons of fire and air. They are unconquerable. And inevitable.
And yet the Grand Viziers in the stories, perfect Slytherins that they are, are always defeated by true kings. Not those who sit on thrones and wear crowns--the tales contain plenty of weak kings, vain emperors and selfish caliphs. The true kings. Noble men, brave and kind and wise. Those who rule themselves.
Strange that his mother hasn't noticed this.
The house is beginning to fill up now with relatives, all in their best robes. Most of his kinfolk seem tense and upset. Some of them look smugly pleased before they spot his mother, but the instant they see her, false expressions of grief and anger slide over their faces.
He wonders why they bother. He can understand lying to Walburga Black--he's lied to her, time and again, and so has Sirius. Sometimes she demands that they lie to her, her dark blue eyes glittering as she tells them in a sweetly reasonable voice that she knows why Sirius--it is usually Sirius who gets this speech--has done some unnamed yet wholly loathsome thing, just to upset her, to anger her, to cause her pain. Sometimes she will be silent for weeks at a time, refusing to speak to either boy, or to even acknowledge their existence. No place will be set for either boy at mealtime. If either one sits in a chair, she will sit on top of him, and Merlin help the boy who groans or moves. If one is in her way, she will walk into and over him, as if he were no more than a dust mote in her path.
Bad as that is, waiting for her to explode is worse. Waiting for a clue about what she wants them to confess to is far worse. When Regulus begs for a hint as to what he did (for Sirius never begs, and he loves, hates and envies his brother for being strong enough to resist), she is prone to vague clues that make no sense. "You want to know why I am angry, you wretched, misbegotten shame of my flesh?" she will hiss. "Very well--Tuesday."
He has learned to lie, and to confess to crimes he doesn't understand. Sirius has also learned to lie, and to never confess to anything at all.
It has been a long time since he thought of lying as wrong. Telling his mother what she demands to hear doesn't feel like a lie. He knows that when she wishes to believe them both guilty of some incomprehensible vileness so that she can punish them cruelly, she will not accept any evidence of innocence. When proof of innocence exists, it only makes her angrier.
Yes, he can understand lying to his mother. What he can't understand is anyone deliberately choosing to come to this house in order to lie to her. Why anyone bothers to come here at all is beyond him.
The relatives are clustered about Mother now, looking shocked, appalled, sickened and--momentarily--gloating. He can tell who's who by the hair colours--Blacks with hair the colour of their name, the Lestranges with their not-quite-black, not-quite-brown waves, platinum-haired Malfoys, sandy blond DuLacs. It frightens him obscurely that all the faces seem to have been stamped from the same mould. It's not family resemblance; the features of the relatives differ considerably. It's more a likeness in their expression, a haughty assurance that the world beneath their feet turns at their pleasure and theirs alone.
Perhaps that is what offends them so much about Sirius' Sorting. It was not wished for, asked for, dreamt of or planned. And yet it happened.
The relatives, like Mother, are used to getting what--and who--they want.
Come to that, he's not sure what he wants.
Part of him is pleased that Sirius has found a place where he can be himself and not be punished for it. The other part is furious, for he knows that his brother's Sorting will inevitably make his own life more difficult. Mother will demand ever more behaviour befitting a Black and a Slytherin from him. Already she demands more of him than she does of Sirius.
And she will punish him most severely should he fail.
She has three years to shape him into the perfect little golem that she wants him to be.
He will be eight on the sixth of November. Three years are nearly half his lifetime.
He has a sudden, ghastly vision of himself as a half-carved, living statue, and his mother as the sculptress who is carving away bloody strips of him as he screams.
"It is for the best," Mother says, her mallet and chisel digging deep into his mind, his heart, his soul. She gazes at him pleadingly, lovingly. "You're my good son, aren't you, Regulus? My true son. The only one like me. You don't want to be like Sirius, do you?"
Part of him does.
Part of him doesn't.
Mostly, he just wants her to leave him alone. He tries to tell her that.
But then the mallet descends.