District six greets Regulus with dead flowers on his kitchen windowsill and a knitted hat on his bedside table with the bell inside it still not ringing.
"Nice digs," Remus comments mildly, running his finger through a layer of dust on Regulus' countertop.
Regulus understands that Remus is trying to make him crack a smile, or even scowl the way he used to, but what Remus doesn't get—what he can't get—is that the state of Regulus' home is utterly devastating to him.
It was his home. He was making it into a home. He kept it clean, and now there are cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling, and there's a faint smell of something stale over everything, the stench of absence. His flowers are wilted and brown.
The Victor's Village was empty when biological warfare was released here, so it didn't take the
brunt of it, and there are certainly other homes in the district in a worse state, but this is his home. It has the furniture Sirius built for him, and the flowers James brought to him, and books Monty gave to him, and food Effie made sure he had, and little pieces of himself left lying around because he was here, he was living here, he was alive here. And now the furniture is covered in dust, the books haven't been touched, the flowers are dead, the food has spoiled, and all the little pieces of himself from before feel foreign to him, like they're from a complete stranger.
Regulus comes home and doesn't recognize it, doesn't feel at home at all, doesn't know where home is anymore if it's not James. Certainly not here. Not this decrepit, hollow excuse for a home.
He detests it. Won't stand for it. No, absolutely not.
Without a word, Regulus starts cleaning.
It's a big house, just as all those in the Victor's Village are. Four bedrooms, two bathrooms. He only ever used one of the bedrooms upstairs, the one that conveniently faced the street out front, the window giving him the perfect view to the house right across the street. Regulus starts there.
The last time he was in this room, he and James were tangled in the sheets of his bed, lost in each other's skin and doing their very best to avoid the reaping that they never should have had to worry about to start with. The sheets are still wrinkled and tossed aside, but they don't smell like James anymore. It makes Regulus angry for some reason, so he's seething as he strips the sheets and pillowcases to wash them.
Regulus takes all his clothes to wash those, too. Goes from room to room, gathering all the sheets and blankets, wiping away dust on furniture, opening doors and windows to let fresh air in. Goes back to his room to tidy his desk, furious to find all the journals in his desk drawers covered in layers of dust that he methodically wipes away, careful not to crumble any of the pressed, dead flowers between the pages. One of the journals tumbles from his grip, an older one, falling awkwardly with the pages bent. He picks it up and straightens it out very carefully, briefly glancing at a page, and then he stops.
There are two poems on the page, both that still stand the test of time, still resonating even now. The one above is not as uplifting as the one below, the very first time he decided he would like to grow, if he could not climb. He had no idea that he would one day do both.
It's not those poems that get to him, however. It's not even his poem that makes him feel as fragile as the flower in between the pages, a curdled pink tinged with brown, the petals on the verge of crumbling like ash. No, it's what exists in the margins, ink-blotted words faded, but still visible.
Roses are red, my dad is a prick, don't make me go to work, I'd rather die — an idiot who, sadly, thinks he's a genius
Regulus swallows past the lump in his throat, reaching out to carefully trace his fingers over the words. Stupid, meaningless words said flippantly, marked down without a care in the world or any way of knowing that it'd be a quote belonging to a dead man. Regulus couldn't have imagined it, then. Barty dying. Being dead. He was safe, aged out from reapings, and he would have made it if the war hadn't taken him.
