The Other Side: A Harry Potter FanFiction

Chapter XVI

Lana hadn't been above the first floor of the house before. The halls felt new and unfamiliar to her, but on the top landing she found two doors; one closed and one left slightly ajar. The words "Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black" were written on a sign that hung on the latter.

            Slowly, she stepped over to the door, placed her hand on the wood, and pushed it open. It creaked loudly, and she could see Sirius standing in the center of the room, seeming to not have noticed.

            "Sirius?" she whispered.

            His head turned to the side a bit but he didn't respond.

            "It's Lana," she continued, "I thought that, maybe, you'd rather have someone to talk to than be up here by yourself."

            "I don't have a problem with being alone," he said quietly, "In fact I quite enjoy silence; much better atmosphere for thinking."

            She closed the door behind her. The room was large, adorned with green and silver decorations. A crest, which she'd learned was the Black Family crest, was painted on the wall over his bed. Newspaper clippings hung on the walls, all with the words "Dark Lord" or "Voldemort" or "Dark Mark" in the titles.

            "This was his room growing up," Sirius explained, "It hasn't changed much. I doubt he's spent much time in here recently; probably just uses one of the guest bedrooms like everyone else."

            "Sirius," Lana said, "Tell me about him."

            He took a deep, shaky breath. "What do you want to know?"

            "His life," she replied, "What's his story?"

            He bit his lip. "He was born a year and a half after I was. All while I was growing up, we were best friends. Then I went away to school, and I was sorted into Gryffindor. Everything changed. He started to resent me, I started to resent him. My parents began to favor him; he was sorted into Slytherin, he was the one keeping the family traditions alive. He was a good boy, compared to me. I was always getting into trouble, he would always do as he was told. He kept doing things that would make our parents even more proud of him. I couldn't take it anymore. He was the last person I saw of my family before I ran away. He wanted me to stop. He was trying to convince me to stay. He wanted me to stay. But I was cruel to him." He swallowed and looked at Lana. "There is no excuse for the way I treated him."

            "What's done is done," Lana said, "There's nothing you can do about. Don't be so hard on yourself."

            "I'm not," he said, "I'm not hard on myself at all. I'm glad I left. I never had to deal with them...any of them, ever again.

            "I assume that he became a Death Eater at a young age. Between sixteen and eighteen is my guess. He'd become obsessed with the Dark Lord before I left, and I'm sure he continued his obsession. Somewhere along the line he had a change of heart and decided he wanted to get out of it. But no one gets out of being a Death Eater. No one.

            "Right around the end of the war, he came home to find me, alone, sitting in the drawing room. He told me he hated Voldemort and everything about him. He said he wanted to be free but freedom meant death. That was when we decided, together, to bring in refugees. It was our own, secret way of rebelling against the Dark Lord.

            "We lived that way for years. Andromeda came a few years later and helped around the house. We were taking dozens of refugees, and this place became known as the Refuge. We made allies with other rebellious Death Eaters, like our cousins, the Malfoys, and Snivellus."

            "Why do you call him that?" Lana asked, "I thought his name was Severus."

            "It's a nickname James and I came up with when we were in school," Sirius replied, "We... we weren't friends with Snape. The exact opposite, really; mortal enemies. He was part of the original Order of the Phoenix, and when Regulus told me that he was a very important ally, I didn't doubt him.

            "Snape could bring lots of people into the new Order; he was close to Dumbledore, who suggested many people who could help. We became a huge, hidden organization that helped everyone with muggle blood. But that didn't make Regulus happy.

            "Regulus wanted to take action against Voldemort. I suppose it's my fault we didn't; I told him that a failed assassination attempt would only result in the murders of millions of innocents. That was back when he went to meetings every night. A few years ago, he requested that he only be required for one meeting per week. His excuse was that he wanted to keep a watch on the neighborhood, that he thought something was up. He's kept us all safe for the past nineteen years. Now that he's gone, I can't imagine that we'll last long."

            Sirius sighed. "I was such a horrible brother. I acted as if I hated him, but... I didn't, really. I'm not sure I loved him, but I didn't hate him."

            "I'm sure he knew," Lana said with a smile, "He must've."

            He shrugged. "I never told him. He wasn't one to guess."

            "He knew," she insisted. She moved closer and looked up at him. "He's in a better place now, Sirius. He won't have to deal with any of this."

            "I like to think that," he whispered. "Thank you for doing this."         

            She smiled. "No problem."

            They were silent for a long while, then, standing there, in Regulus's room, deep in thought. Neither spoke, neither moved. They stared at the walls, covered with newspaper clippings, thinking of a place where Regulus could be free.