Mixed Tape: Regulus' Story

Chapter 7: Help!

Chapter specific content warnings: childhood abuse, talk of blood purity, slight death wish, drinking and alcohol, small sexuality crisis

This chapter is a bit intense at the end so have fun!

This Christmas was different. Along with my many fantasies about a better life, I'd always imagined that everyone would ignore the arguments and spite and decide to get along for one night of the year. We could sit around the fireplace in the sitting room, talk about nothing, share little trinkets and gifts, and be happy for a singular evening.

That was never how it went, but it was nice to think about.

Sirius was different this year too. I suppose it was unfair to expect others to remain the same year after year, but Sirius hadn't just just changed, he was pointedly different and not in a healthy way. I'd originally thought he'd only been off because of Mother's beating and the Malfoys, but after a few days it became apparent that he really was just different. His spark was gone like he was never really present, even when it was just the two of us. After days of seclusion, I finally gave in and barged into his room. I found him sitting on the floor against his bed, turning through a photo album with a bottle of beer in his hand.

I froze.

"You're supposed to knock," he mumbled.

"Where did you get that?"

"The cellar."

"What about when they realise it's missing?"

"I doubt they will. They have plenty. Mother lives to drink, haven't you noticed?"

I don't think he was fully sober for the entire holiday. Every time I found him after that he was either tipsy enough that I could tell, or hiding away in his room with an open bottle.

It was a strange sort of in between place for him. He was never drunk enough to slit his speech and swerve as he walked and certainly never enough to lose consciousness and yet he was always slightly absent, like he was watching me through a haze. I know our mother knew, she must have noticed his change in attitude and yet... maybe she never did? Maybe she'd never paid enough proper attention to him as a person—only his mistakes—to realise that his very personality wasn't what it usually was. Or maybe she just believed that she'd finally broken him. Either way, she and Father let him soak himself in booze and punished him for little things when they wanted to.

It was probably terrible and untrustworthy of me, but I kept his letter to James in a drawer in my room. After all, it was never meant for my eyes but Sirius had also never asked me about it and he either didn't care or had forgotten he'd written it. So, I let it be a forgotten secret and returned to it often.

I laid in my bed each night and carefully unfolded the parchment, Sirius' lilting and slightly messy handwriting shining under the light—even he wrote like a rebel.

I swear I'm either going insane or about to break, he'd written. But he was my older brother, he'd always been the strong one. The one with a heart of steel between us. He couldn't break. I wouldn't let him.

Would your parents hate me if I just showed up at your house?

I shut the paper and slid it under my pillow. I wasn't going to lose Sirius. I couldn't. If that meant just keeping him away from that final edge then so be it. Somehow, every time I'd tried to intervene or reason with him, it had only gotten worse. Maybe, I wondered, if I don't interfere and make sure he stays here—and alive, it'll be okay.

But when I caught him vomiting in the bathroom, I'd finally had enough.

He was leaning back into the counter as I pushed through the door. I gazed between him and the toilet and, out of some miracle, he didn't protest when I took him by the elbow and hauled him back to his room.