A Tale of Two Brothers

Chapter 10

He was fine. Of course, he was.

Regulus had returned back at eight in the morning.

Jason got up to wake Sirius, but Regulus waved his hand as if to tell him to let the man sleep. He yawned and rushed inside, without saying anything.

Sirius had run into his room when he'd heard that Regulus was back.

"You were supposed to wake me up!" He yelled, running the third set of floors.

"He told me not to wake you up!" Jason was two steps behind him.

Regulus was in deep sleep when they entered his room.

"Thank Merlin. I thought... No, just leave it." Sirius trailed off, shaking his head. "Okay. Umm, we should let him rest." He snapped his fingers and a young house-elf, Tilly, appeared in the room.

"What can I's be doing, Master Sirius?"

"Tilly, can you just inform us whenever Regulus wakes up?"

Tilly looked over at the sleeping body and frowned. She then shook her head and nodded.

"Yes, Master Sirius."

"Thank you, Tilly."

They left the room then.

"I was worried for nothing, huh?" Sirius smiled tiredly at him.

"No, you were just worried." They smiled at each other, going down to the kitchen. They could already smell Molly's famous pancakes.

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Regulus did not wake up.

Not that night. Not the next day.

Not even after two days.

Poppy and Hannah had checked him, but they found nothing wrong.

"It's just.... It's like he's just sleeping."

"He hasn't woken up in three days!" Sirius yelled. He was sitting on the bed beside Regulus.

"I know, Sirius. I checked for everything. Curses, spells, poisons, wounds. Everything. He's physically fine. His brain activity is normal too."

"Then what is it, Poppy?" Lily asked, putting a hand over Sirius' shoulders.

"I don't know. I'll look into this. Until then, I can't say anything."

They left soon after that.

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Regulus did not wake up after the next two weeks either.

James was sitting beside his best friend, who hadn't left Regulus' side in the past two weeks.

"What happened to him, James? Why won't he wake up?" His voice was not more than a whisper, and it broke in the end.

James could not say anything. He just sat beside Sirius in silence, letting the man cry on his shoulder.

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All of it happened too suddenly.

One day, Regulus just disappeared.

The house-elves told them that Regulus left the house at night when everyone was asleep.

He petrified the house-elves when they tried to stop them, and apparated somewhere with a man standing outside Grimmauld Place.

They searched frantically for him but did not find anything.

A week later, Regulus was found dead in St. Mungos. A leather-bound book was found in his robes. It was the Black family's grimoire, which had disappeared years ago.

All of its pages were torn, except for a single one.

The page described a ritual in which a dead body was animated to act like a living person.

A picture of Regulus laughing and running behind a small, green-eyed ravenhead was stuck beside the page.

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"I'll kill him." Sirius whispered, looking at his brother's grave.

James and Lily said nothing.

"I am sorry, James, Lily. But I'll kill him. And I promise you that he'll die a painful death. I'll not stop even if he begs, I swear." He turned around to leave. "Our plan, it'll happen in the next week. I don't know how we'll do it, and I don't care. I just want to see Harry's blood on my hands."

Sirius left, not turning behind once.

The two of them cried silently.

They cried for Regulus.

For Remus.

For Bill.

For Frank and Albus.

For Sirius and for Harry.

For the man who'd sided with his godson when the whole was against him. He, who had once accepted Azkaban for his godson's freedom. And now that same man vowed to kill that godson.