The Scenic Route

3

"Boys! Come down here!"

Sirius glanced over to his brother, eyebrows raised. "What do you reckon it is now?", but Regulus was staring guiltily at the floor, flops of hair covering his worried expression. Swallowing, Sirius stood up and walked to the landing of the first floor, once he could see his father waiting at the bottom of the steps, he turned to Regulus, who was watching him desperately.

"Please don't make me go down there, Sirius," Regulus whispered. His bottom lip wobbled, "He's going to kill me."

...

"Come on, Reg, it'll be fine. I won't let anything happen."

Reluctantly, Regulus stood up. He then ran a hand through his hair, slicking it back, and proudly squared his shoulders, but Sirius could see him tensing his fingers to try and shake off his nerves. "Do you promise?"

"Of course."

"Boys! Now!"

13 Harcourt Terrace used to be a much happier household. When Sirius had been very young, he'd thought of the green carpet as a meadow stretching endlessly down each step and along each floorboard of each room, the skirting board acting as the only divide between the grass and the walls, painted with tall gold branches entwining themselves together in rich braids and proud leaves bearing the family ancestry. Now, at sixteen as he walked down the stairs, avoiding his father's watchful gaze, all he could see was a bottomless lake that slowly drowned you, the walls nothing but seaweed to drag you under.

"What can I do for you today, Dad?" Sirius always spoke with a humourous overtone, occasionally it went down well with his father, who, in fairness, he had always been closer to, but today looked like it wasn't one of those days.

Orion Black was tall like his sons and his wife. It was probably the first thing you'd notice if you met the family standing together, they were stretched thin like four violin strings, each perfectly uniform... yet delicate, one wrong twist of a peg and they'd snap in two. Sirius was the only one who may seem out of place if you paid too close attention, his hair was grown out a bit too long, his eyes a bit too warm, his smile a bit too honest - but apart from that, the family graced the streets of London like a moving oil portrait.

"Step into my office Sirius," Orion paused at the door, "Regulus, you too." his voice ran colder when he spoke to his youngest son.

The two boys followed their father into his study and watched nervously as he stood behind his office chair. Despite the abnormally cold air in the house, it always felt chokingly humid.

"Sirius, open the top drawer of my desk," Orion spoke again, but his eyes were knowingly trained on Regulus.

"Why?"

"You'll see in a minute,"

Sirius walked cautiously over to the other side of the room until he was standing beside Orion. He opened the drawer as far as he could before it was pressed against the armrest of the office chair Orion was standing behind. Once done, Sirius looked over to his father expectantly, only to find him still watching a very ill-looking Regulus.

"Now, take out my biro pen," Orion said slowly.

Sirius eyed the armrest of the chair nervously but reached his hand into the drawer, his fingers barely making contact with the pen before Orion shoved his office chair forward, trapping Sirius' wrist painfully between two sharp grooved of wood.

"Ow! Dad, what the fuck?" Orion paid no mind to Sirius, he now leant against his chair as Sirius began to blink back tears, there was no doubt in Sirius' mind that this would leave a nasty bruise.