Chapter Text
The antique vase exploded against the wallpaper inches from Regulus's head, raining sharp porcelain shards and stagnant water across the dark mahogany floorboards of the drawing room.
"Ungrateful! Defiant little wretch!"
Walburga Black’s voice was a physical force, tearing through the suffocating air of Grimmauld Place. Her face was twisted into a mask of pure, aristocratic fury, her wand trembling violently in her grip. "You think you can stand there and look at me with that pathetic, insolent stare? After the disgrace your brother brought upon this house?"
Regulus didn't flinch. He had learned years ago that flinching only drew more blood. He kept his jaw locked, his shoulders square, and his spine rigid, playing the perfect, statuesque pureblood. But underneath the heavy, stifling fabric of his dark robes, his heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
"Sirius is gone," Walburga spat, the name tasting like poison on her tongue. She paced the length of the room, her heavy skirts sweeping through the porcelain debris. "And we are left with you. A poor imitation. A disgraceful mistake pretending to be a son!"
She stopped, turning her wand toward him, her eyes flashing with a cruelty that bruised straight to the bone. "You will never be the heir he was supposed to be. Never!"
There it was. The venom she usually kept veiled behind closed doors, now fully weaponized in the wake of Sirius's desertion. She didn't see a son when she looked at him; she saw a girl who had the audacity to correct nature, a broken spare part that could never truly replace the golden Gryffindor who ran away.
Sirius had left him here. Sirius had packed his trunks and run to the sunlit, perfect world of James Potter, leaving Regulus entirely alone to drown in the dark. Sirius had told himself Regulus was the "perfect heir" so he could sleep at night, entirely blind to the reality of what Regulus actually was to their parents.
Fine, Regulus thought. The chaotic noise of his mother's screaming suddenly dropped into a chilling, crystalline silence in his own mind. If I'm not the heir, then I have nothing left to stay for.
"Go to your room!" Walburga shrieked, her voice cracking as sparks shot from her wand. "Get out of my sight before I curse that defiant look off your face!"
Regulus gave a stiff, mechanical nod. He turned on his heel and walked out of the drawing room, his footsteps completely silent on the ancient stairs. He didn't run. He didn't breathe until he heard the heavy oak doors slam shut beneath him.
Once inside his bedroom, the cold, survivalist clarity took over.
He didn't grab his Slytherin robes. He didn't take the expensive silver heirloom watches or the heavy velvet cloaks. Instead, he dropped to his knees and dragged out the small, charmed box hidden beneath his floorboards.
Inside was his quiet, desperate rebellion. A handful of Muggle banknotes he had meticulously exchanged and hoarded over the last year. And beneath that—the clothes. A faded Muggle band t-shirt that smelled faintly of smoke, a pair of worn denim jeans, and an oversized, threadbare jumper. Sirius’s clothes. The ones his brother had discarded when he upgraded to a new life, the ones Regulus had scavenged from the rubbish bin because they were the only things that made him feel like a real boy in a house that refused to see him as one.
He stripped off the stifling, expensive pureblood robes, letting them pool on the floor like dead weight. He pulled on the Muggle clothes, the worn fabric immediately grounding him. He shoved the money and a few basic necessities into an unassuming satchel.
He took one last look at his room—the Slytherin banners, the silver family crests, the suffocating expectations. He wasn't the golden heir. He was just a boy trying to survive.
Regulus opened his window, feeling the biting wind of the outside world rush in, and slipped out into the dark.
The sheer volume of the Muggle world hit Regulus like a physical blow.
Grimmauld Place had been suffocating, but it had been quiet—a heavy, stagnant tomb of a house. The streets of Muggle London were a violent assault on his senses. Cars roared past, spewing exhaust into the freezing air, and harsh, artificial streetlights cast stark shadows against the concrete.
He pulled Sirius’s oversized jumper tighter around his frame, shivering violently. Without a warming charm, the biting wind cut straight through the threadbare wool. He kept his head down, clutching his satchel to his chest, terrified that at any moment, the crack of Apparition would echo behind him, signaling his parents or their associates had come to drag him back.
But no one came. The wizarding world remained entirely silent, entirely oblivious to the Black heir slipping through the cracks.
Regulus walked until his legs ached and his lungs burned with the cold. He had no destination. When Sirius ran, he had a warm hearth and the Potter fortune waiting for him with open arms. Regulus had nothing but a handful of unfamiliar, crinkled Muggle paper money in his pocket and an overwhelming sense of vertigo.
Seeking refuge from the bitter wind, he ducked into a sprawling, brightly lit coach station. It was crowded and smelled strongly of spilled coffee and stale floor cleaner, but it was warm. Regulus found a hard plastic chair in the darkest corner he could manage, sinking into it.
He pulled the Muggle money from his pocket, smoothing the notes out on his knees with trembling fingers. He had absolutely no concept of its worth. Was this enough for a room? For food? The panic he had kept perfectly suppressed during his escape began to claw at his throat. He couldn't use magic. The Trace would give his exact location to the Ministry immediately. He was completely defenseless, utterly unmoored, and entirely alone.
He squeezed his eyes shut, resting his forehead against his knees, fighting the sudden, humiliating sting of tears. He wasn't crying because he missed his family. He was crying because he was exhausted, and his chest binder was digging painfully into his ribs, and the reality of surviving in this loud, chaotic world was crashing down on him.
"You're sitting in my seat."
The voice was rough, exhausted, and laced with a thick Welsh accent.
Regulus’s head snapped up, his aristocratic defense mechanisms slamming into place. He immediately straightened his spine, schooling his face into an expression of cold indifference, ready to completely dismantle whichever Muggle dared to speak to him with such familiarity.
The scathing retort died instantly in his throat.
Standing in front of him, clutching a battered duffel bag and a lukewarm cup of tea, was Remus Lupin.
He looked entirely different from the quiet, sweater-clad Gryffindor prefect Regulus had seen in the Hogwarts corridors. Remus looked hollowed out. There were dark, bruised bags under his amber eyes, and a fresh, angry scar cut across the bridge of his nose. He looked just as frayed and desperate as Regulus felt.
For a breathless second, they just stared at each other. The noise of the coach station seemed to fade into a dull hum.
Remus’s eyes flicked down, taking in the state of Regulus. He took in the trembling hands, the desperate clutch on the satchel, and then, his gaze locked onto the faded band t-shirt and the oversized jumper. Recognition flared in his eyes—sharp and entirely entirely painful. Remus knew those clothes. He had seen Sirius wear them a hundred times.
Remus's jaw tightened, a flash of pure, raw hostility crossing his scarred face. "What kind of sick joke is this, Black?"
Regulus stiffened, his chin tilting up instinctively in that haughty Black way, even as his teeth chattered. "I can assure you, Lupin, if I were trying to be funny, I would have better material."
Remus’s eyes narrowed, dropping to the crumpled Muggle notes still clutched in Regulus’s pale, shaking hands. He scoffed, a harsh, bitter sound. "Did he put you up to this? Did Sirius send you to spy, or is this just another one of his brilliant pranks?"
At the mention of his brother's name, something inside Regulus finally snapped. The pristine pureblood mask fractured entirely.
"Sirius didn't send me," Regulus snarled, his voice trembling with a mixture of the freezing draft and white-hot rage. "Sirius doesn't even know I'm alive. He left me to rot in that house so he could go play the perfect son for the Potters. Just like he used you and threw you away."
The words hit Remus like a physical blow. The werewolf flinched, the defensive anger in his amber eyes flickering, replaced instantly by a haunted, hollow pain. Regulus immediately regretted saying it—it was cruel, a reflexive Slytherin tactic to strike directly at the weakest point—but he was too exhausted to take it back.
They stood frozen, staring at each other. The heavy, ugly truth of Sirius Black hung suspended between them in the sterile, fluorescent light of the coach station.
Remus looked at the stolen, oversized jumper. He looked at Regulus’s cracked composure, the desperate grip on the pitiful amount of Muggle money, and the way the younger boy was practically vibrating with the cold.
Remus closed his eyes, taking a long, ragged breath. When he opened them again, the hostility was gone, replaced by a bone-deep weariness. He was looking at Regulus, but he no longer saw the pampered Slytherin heir; he saw a discarded stray.
"You don't even know how much that money is worth, do you?" Remus asked quietly.
Regulus’s throat clicked as he swallowed hard. He looked down at the notes, his innate pride warring violently with his absolute desperation. Slowly, he shook his head. "No."
Remus muttered a curse under his breath, dragging a hand over his scarred face. He was angry, he was heartbroken, and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with anyone named Black. But Remus Lupin had never been able to leave a wounded creature to bleed out.
"My coach is boarding," Remus said, his voice flat and devoid of warmth. "It's heading to Wales. I have a flat there. It's the size of a closet and the heating barely works."
Regulus blinked, entirely thrown by the abrupt shift. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because if you stay here trying to figure out how to buy a sandwich, you're going to freeze, starve, or get yourself caught by your mother's people before sunrise," Remus replied. He hoisted his battered duffel bag over his shoulder and turned away. He didn't look back as he started walking toward the departure gates. "Are you coming or not, Black?"
Regulus stood rooted to the spot for a fraction of a second. He looked back out toward the dark London streets—toward Grimmauld Place, toward the suffocating expectations and the family that never wanted him to begin with. Then, he looked at the retreating back of the boy his brother had broken.
Tightening his grip on his satchel, Regulus shoved the money into his pocket and ran to catch up.