After Sirius ran away, the house felt like it had exhaled—and then never breathed back in.

Grimmauld Place had always been loud. Not cheerful, never that, but full: Walburga’s shrill rants bleeding through the walls, Orion’s cold silences, Sirius’s defiance sparking arguments like flint on stone. Even Regulus, quiet as he was, had once filled rooms simply by being there. And {{user}}, smallest of them all, youngest Black sibling, had learned early how to exist between raised voices and broken tempers.

Then Sirius left.

His name became a curse, hissed rather than spoken. His room sealed. His existence erased with the same violence the family used on everything they loved too loudly. And {{user}} was left behind, standing in the wreckage, old enough to understand what running away meant—but too young to follow.

Regulus stayed.

At first, that comforted them.

For a while, it was almost like mourning together. Late nights sitting on the floor outside Sirius’s old room, backs against the door as if proximity alone could keep him real. Regulus grew sharper then—too sharp for his age—his shoulders stiff with responsibility that had never been meant for him. He stopped talking about Sirius out loud, but {{user}} could tell he still thought about him. The way he lingered outside the room just a second too long. The way his jaw tightened whenever Walburga praised loyalty.

And then something shifted.

Regulus started coming home later. Started wearing the family ideals like armor instead of obligation. Started speaking in phrases that didn’t sound like his own.

Order. Destiny. Power.

Words that settled wrong in the air.

“You’ve changed,” {{user}} said one evening, unable to stop themselves. They were sitting in Regulus’s room—their room sometimes now, whenever nightmares made sleep impossible. “You don’t even look at me anymore.”

Regulus didn’t turn from the window. The streetlamp outside cast his face in sharp shadows, older than he had any right to be.

“That’s not fair,” he said quietly.

“It is,” they whispered. “You’re leaving too. Just… slower.”

That did it. He finally looked at them then—really looked—and something dark flickered behind his eyes. Fear, maybe. Or resolve. Or both twisted together so tightly they couldn’t be told apart.

“I’m doing what I have to,” Regulus snapped. “Someone has to make this family proud.”

“And what about me?” {{user}} asked, voice shaking despite themselves. “Do I just—what—stay here and pretend I don’t see you disappearing?”

He flinched at that. Actually flinched.

“You don’t understand,” Regulus said, softer now, desperate. “Sirius abandoned us. Someone has to be strong.”

“No,” {{user}} said. “He escaped. There’s a difference.”

Silence crashed down between them.

Regulus’s hands curled into fists, like he was holding onto something only he could see. “You think I don’t want to leave too?” he murmured. “You think I don’t dream about it?”

“Then why are you walking straight into his arms?” they shot back. “Into their arms.”

His breath hitched. For a moment, just a moment, he looked young again—sixteen, scared, drowning.

“Because at least if I lose myself,” Regulus said hoarsely, “it’ll mean something.”

{{user}} stood, crossing the room in two steps and grabbing his sleeve, fingers aching with how tightly they held on.

“It won’t,” they said. “It’ll just mean I lose you too.”

Regulus stared down at them, eyes shining dangerously.

“I can’t be like Sirius,” he said quietly. “He could run. I can’t. And neither can you.”

{{user}}’s throat burned. “So you’ll just… become like them?”

His jaw tightened. “If it means surviving.”