The Sun & The Stars - Jegulus Oneshots

The Mirror of Regulus Black (angst)

So, I wrote this for a uni course on American Horror Fiction. What does this mean? It means it's a horror story.
Reggie murders Walburga. And jegulus is there

__________________________________

Walburga Black has mistreated and tortured her sons their entire lives. Regulus has always been complacent, always been careful and quiet.

James has asked him to leave the house so many times - but Regulus just can't. He cannot go, who knows what she will do to him then.

Just one evening, Regulus is incautious. Walburga catches him and James and locks James away in a cupboard.

Two days later, the morning of his father's funeral, Regulus snaps.

_____________________________________________________

The house has always been lonely, even when crowded. It is one of those things that are always quiet no matter with how much noise you might fill it, always dark no matter how much sunlight you force in. It is the people that make the house, make the place. The people inside are too dark to be enlightened – too quiet to make a sound in this world.

Walburga cannot stand the noise of loud children – one might ask why she had them. She has only ever done two things in her life, she didn't want to do: Getting married to her husband and having children.

The older one was long gone by this point, the younger, however, has given up all hope to leave. There is no leaving, she made that clear.

She is an immensely proud woman, his mother, always has been, always will be. The disappointment of her children made her back straighter, her eyes harder.

She has grey eyes like snow-capped mountains – he has the same. Her face is small and pinched, with a straight nose and pale cheeks – he has the same. Her mouth is cruel, in words and look, a slit carved into a mask. Only smiling in delight at the misfortune of others. He is afraid, he has the same. Her throat is thin, she smells of nothing, no one has ever put their cheek there and found comfort. Her arms are thin, spindly things, an extension of words, a tool to push away. Her hands, they pull you in. Her hands are bony and cold. They look like fragile things like they cannot touch gently because they might break. But they wrap around young wrists and older throats, pull on hair and clothes, slap against the forms that are her but aren't hers. He wonders if his are the same.

She has a slow step, a sound of coming dread, an alarm that goes off and silences the house. Her voice is high and clear and cuts like glass. Even when he shoves the words away from himself, the voice still stings, still burns his skin. When she knows about his misdeeds, her voice drops, slowly, like melted candle wax. She has all the harshness of fire but the coldness of the deep sea. Waves and waves pushing and drowning him underwater. A helpless fight for air that goes by unnoticed.

Regulus is the same age now as she has been as a bride. He is a child in fancy shoes she has forced him into. He stands in front of his floor-length mirror in his bedroom. She stands behind him, looking in the mirror over his shoulder. He sees again, how they have the same eyes. She takes his wrist and presents him with black gloves. His father has died recently. Fell with his head into his soup at supper and drowned there. He had sat next to him to his right, his mother to his left. He hadn't dared to take a breath, to even look, he hadn't moved a finger all evening. She pulls the velvet gloves straight over the purple bruises on his wrists.

"So pretty," she says, "So elegant, you will not disappoint me again today, will you?"

He stares into the mirror, "No, Mother."

"You know what will happen if you make mistakes."

"Yes, Mother."

"You know what I will have to do."