#regulus has a rivalry with James that only Regulus is aware of??

[itsjaywalkers]

I’m here not only to hit you with a twin Black brothers au but also Slytherin Sirius because Slytherin Sirius is my dearest beloved. He’s just as arrogant and spiteful and intelligent but he’s also so cunning and has big ambitions for his role as heir. He wants the House of Black to remain powerful and wealthy (obviously) but he also intends to make it stand for everything his parents despise.

“Oh Morgan it’s because he’s passionate about muggleborn rights and equality, right?” WRONG HE’S INDIFFERENT TO POLITICS AT BEST! He is passionate about his twin brother though and he’s been scheming to ruin Walburga and Orion’s lives for constantly belittling and misgendering his brother. OBVIOUSLY Regulus is trans; they’re twins and Sirius has know Regulus was trans since forever. Their parents tried to force him to wear dresses and long hair but Sirius always gave Reggie his clothes and chopped his twin’s hair off himself.

And ofc Sirius and James have the most intense and absurd rivalry; in Gryffindor together they’re besties but in separate houses they’re constantly at each other’s throats. It only gets worse when James has the audacity to develop a crush on his twin brother!!! He’d probably be better at cockblocking if James’ very tall and very attractive werewolf friend would stop distracting. (Obvi they know Remus is a werewolf and obviously they end up becoming animagi because anything James Potter can do Sirius and Regulus can do better)

OOOOOOH I LOVE THIS AU VERY MUCH MORGAN <333 i'm a sirius is a gryffindor through and through BUT i do think that he has a lot of slythetin qualities and i think he resembles walburga A Lot in many things so.. i'm always very into stories that make him a slytherin and explore that other side of him.. see what could've been and how different he would've turned out to be..

AND IF HE'S IN SLYTHERIN OFC HE HAS A RIVALRY WITH JAMES GOING ON YOU GET MEEEE their friendship and soulmatism is very important to me but also i genuinely think that if the circumstances had been the slightest bit different . they could've ended up clashing, bc they're too similar sometimes, and stubborn and proud and arrogant in their own ways. so i truly believe that the possibility of them not getting along is very much there (an unpopular opinion i'm aware)

and sirius and reg beiing twins HELL YEAH the crack and the angst material is off the roof.. especially if james is in the equation.. AND REMUS HELPING OUT HIS BESTIE JAMES BUT ALSO GETTING SOMETHING OUT OF IT HIMSELF !!! WHAT HE DESERVES !!!

[toixxx-ace]

sirius black meta, aka sirius and regulus have invaded my brain again

putting this under a read more because its long and i dont want to subject my mutuals to it too much. also this is more like characterization meta than like actual book meta please dont hate me

ive been thinking about sirius' relationship with regulus and their parents involvement. now, im not of the belief that orion and walburga were physically abusive, at least not in any unique way that other pureblood families have been shown in canon (see: the longbottoms). they were definitely no dursley family, because that isnt something i can see sirius ommitting when talking to harry. if they could connect with each other due to shared abuse, i think sirius would do anything he could to help harry out.

i can see the black parents being controlling and manipulative, however. i personally see their obsession with pureblood purity as cult-like, using fear to get their sons on board with their beliefs. a kind of rhetoric like "muggleborns and muggles are trying to breed out all the purebloods. soon there won't be any of us left! we have to prolong the purity!" i can see them putting a lot of pressure on sirius as the heir to the family to get into slytherin and marry a pureblood witch. but i can also see them giving sirius a lot of leeway as a child, kind of giving him whatever he wants. especially walburga, as she may have had a lower hierarchal status in the house as a mother (and the only woman in the house) and her eldest son being the heir of the household. sirius has been known pre-azkaban to being haughty and a bully. i can see him as a young child as a dudley or draco role; things he wants just come to him, he has a higher social status than his younger brother, and he's being told all these things about pureblood supremacy and house of black supremacy.

from my reading, it doesn't seem like young-sirius understands that any of his actions have consequences until the werewolf prank he pulls on snape in 1976 (please fact check the dates but i think i got it). despite being sorted into gryffindor and (i assume) making friends with various half-bloods and muggleborns, his attitude stays the same, just shifts towards the slytherins because of the house rivalry. he still feels that sense of superiority and power, and i dont think its a coincidence that snape, a slytherin half-blood, was james and sirius' primary bullying victim. snape checks off all the boxes that sirius was told to hate as a child and as an eleven year old and got sorted into gryffindor.

sirius getting sorted into gryffindor was a point of contention in the family. his parents probably thought "well thats a shame. but there are still purebloods in gryffindor, he can still make connections and eventually marry a pureblood witch". i think sirius makes friends with james first, if not on the train then once he's sorted. the potters are a pureblood family, even if their name sounds very muggle, this he knows. he knows what his parents expect from him, so he gravitates towards james like his family may have wanted. but james is not a pureblood supremacist; im sure it was a sore spot in his family that they were stricken from the sacred 28 list due to rumors of "tainted blood" and james doesn't like the dark arts, associated with pureblood wizards, very much anyway. james was, however, just as pampered as sirius was and had developed just as much of a cruel streak. so i imagine his parents were giving him tentative thumbs up in approval when they learned he was friends with james potter.

but then he became friends with peter pettigrew and remus lupin. we dont really know how they all became friends, only that they were very close in later years. but those friendships really are what changed sirius' beliefs, as well as becoming aware of lilly evans. i mean, james, a pureblood, was infatuated with a muggleborn and he didnt seem very worried about the sanctity of pureblood lineage. so maybe all this is kind of bullshit, sirius thinks. maybe his parents are kind of freaks and the real world is a lot more chill with muggleborns and muggles. maybe his family is the outlier.

this is where i see the conflict coming in. sirius comes home from hogwarts, has all these questions that can no longer be answered in simple "because we're better" answers. but now they've raised him to be arrogant, so he thinks he's entitled to proper answers and to see his parents wrong. walburga stops being so gentle with him. he is being a failed heir, and that reflects badly onto her as a failed mother. (i still dont think they physically hurt sirius on the regular, even after he started rebelling)

regulus is caught in the crossfire, but i think he kinds of fades away until he goes to hogwarts and gets in slytherin. cue: his parents now comparing sirius to regulus. for regulus this is like the world has been upside down; for all his life sirius was the role model to look up to, and now his parents were using him as an example as what sirius ought to do? i imagine it messed up their family dynamics more than they already were. sirius builds resentment toward his younger brother and (gently, brotherly) bullies him at home when he can get the chance. due to the house rivalry, due to their parents, due to a whole number of things, sirius and regulus' relationship (which i imagine was quite close pre-hogwarts) starts to deteriorate.

at some point, when sirius is sixteen, he can no longer deal with the pressure. he cant deal with his parents expectations, with their bigotry, he cant do it anymore. so he, essentially, emancipates himself. i dont think his parents necessarily disowned him (i mean, he still inherited the house. they didn't pass it down to regulus when sirius left, meaning lots of things but mostly that sirius was still the heir). he ran away to the potters and by then the damage was done. his family was split forever.

he still saw regulus at hogwarts. i cant imagine they were very nice to each other. and i do think sirius leaving made a deep impression on regulus that eventually led to his decision to join the death eaters. i dont blame sirius for it, i agree that leaving was the best option for him, but it did have its consequences.

[xysidhe]

So my best friend has been forced is willingly reading the first chapters of my new starchaser/wolfstar/canon divergent everyone WILL live fic and her responses are golden.

"When i read about the Black Brothers when you are writing them, it's like a tragic melody. "

"Also, I'm already crying for these boys."

"THIS CHAPTER IS BREAKING ME"

"That's honestly where I started to tear up. Reggie's letter back is ugh, so perfect "

"The knife is such a nice touch 👌 Reggie feeling the bitterness of jealousy is my favorite thing so far"

"Omg, it was so fucking good. Chapter 2 is my favorite so far"

So thats what everyone has to look forward to once I get enough written that I feel comfortable posting! Which at the rate I'm writing should be? A week? Maybe two?

[thequibblah]

⭐

anon: omg hi I think I sent in a ~free choice~ directors cut a while back but if you can't think of anything you wanna talk about I would LOVE to hear more about the way you write the Snape/Lily relationship and and the way it breaks apart, and even specific scenes related to it because in this house we are Anti S/nily

i hope this person was you but if not HAHA i will take this opportunity to answer their prompt as a "free choice" if you don't mind!

so. good old.... severus. ahhh.

writing interactions between snape and lily is like, one of the most rewarding challenges of this fic. now.... pitchforks away, my lovelies.... it's such an interesting emotional space to explore on her end, to me. personally i've never had a friendship end over something big and irrevocable, so it's really brand-new water to tread.

what makes it even more fascinating is that because of the setup of CT — starting after the lake incident — snape is less a presence in her life and more an absence she's working around. if i can get boring and pretentious for a sec, this was something i worked on a lot in college creative writing classes — writing about a thing in the past by avoiding it, or touching upon it and flinching away, or approaching it sideways.

now. we none of us have the patience of serious literary fiction readers in our fic HAHAHHA so this is a lot more dialled-back (dialled-forward??). but that was basically the approach to begin with, with these two. and then it was a matter of exploring the trajectory of it — how when the wound is rawest, lily is actually most forgiving and generous towards him, as she's had less time and space away from him/their friendship, and is busy making excuses for him.

(aside: i didn't realise until actually confronted by it that so much of her attitude towards him comes from her attitude towards petunia, a relationship in which she got used to receiving barbs before she gave them back, but the blood tie keeps her from a clean break. with snape there's no blood relation, obviously, but there's a shared sense of history, of childhood, that kind of lives in the same part of lily's brain/heart. so... really, two people who loathe each other overlap quite significantly in lily's emotional landscape.)

re: lily's excuse-making — it doesn't help that the only person who pushes her on snape is james. (her friends all have learned to avoid the subject, as you do when your friend is friends with someone you don't like but you can't say anything until after they're finished, and then you're like omg thank GOD i hated them from the start!!! but of course in this case they couldn't go overboard with that sentiment, lest it come off as "you should've known better/we knew better and you didn't") thanks to the circumstances of the lake incident, some of those messy feelings towards snape are entangled in messy feelings towards james (early on in the story especially), so the resulting conflict is.... bad....

She half-stumbled backwards, as if she’d been slapped. “I don’t need you to remind me,” she hissed. To her embarrassment, tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. But if she’d thought that would make him back off, she was wrong. “Yeah, except you do need the reminder,” said James. “Because you don’t get it yet. He chose them. Not you.” Lily was shaking. “I believe in second chances,” she said, fighting to keep her voice level. “But you really, really test my faith, James.” And without waiting for him to answer, she stormed up the girls’ staircase, wiping at her cheeks.

bad.

lily's true blind spot is, of course, that she's more willing to forgive snape's missteps with her. and of course james has to go and point that out :/

“Let me put it this way. If Sni — if Snape were Mary’s friend and he’d said that to her, wouldn’t you tell Mary she ought to never speak to him again?” Lily shifted uneasily. “Well, sure, but I’ve known him since—” “—you were children, whatever. Say Mary did too. Would that change anything for her?”

so the first time lily is like wait actually fuck this!!! it's because he reminds her, in an argument, about how callous he can be — a callousness which i think she's never liked, but it's easier to forgive sharpness when it's your friend poking fun at people you don't like, and less easy when...

“Yes, do let’s talk about Potter,” she said, dangerously calm now. “Let’s talk about how your mate Mulciber used an Unforgivable Curse on him—” To her absolute shock, Severus scoffed. “It was three bloody seconds—” “Shut up,” Lily said, too stunned to think of something better to say. “Shut up, you don’t seriously think that — that because the two of you have a childish rivalry, he deserves torture?” “That’s not what I said,” he replied, looking mutinous. “I just meant, everyone’s acting like he’s some big survivor — always playing for attention—”

...well, when that.

best/worst impulses aside, lily knows that the true measure of someone is how they treat the people they dislike, not their friends, and in a sense his attitude towards james (and generally other people) in this scene makes her realise what she'd read as inconsideration or insensitivity is in fact...

"...You’re weak-willed and pathetic and you’re — you’re not a good person.”

...so there's that.

as anyone who's read lily's current petunia drama will know, she's got a bit of a problem with letting go. but after her mother's death (and the attached stick to your sister she's all you've got), she manages a weirdly good break from cokeworth — because a lot of her childhood was wrapped up in hogwarts, and in snape (whom she hasn't spent vacation time with in over a year at that point). with neither at hand, she hardly has time to process it/feel homesickness.

but note this, at the start of 7th year:

“Was last year nothing to you?” Her voice had sharpened. “I wasn’t freezing you out to punish you, Severus. I was treating you how I plan on treating you from now on.”

of course lily's just making a point here, but when i wrote that i was like wow she (and i lol) are kind of onto something — snape totally does think this is like, a temporary purgatory period after which she really will come around. and through months of her getting visibly closer to his nemesis, he holds onto that belief — despite what she says. (funnily enough, childhood rose-tinted glasses make them both see what they want to see in each other, in very different ways)

that's why when he hears her say what she says to una in that hogsmeade trip, he immediately comes to his own conclusions. that was another important, interesting thing for me — for other slytherins, "loose ends" are opportunities for cruelty, for punishment, to finish what they've started. (not so for regulus, who's grown up with sadism and is frankly repulsed by the idea of pain for a flimsy cause — best believe there was absolutely a point to him orchestrating an attack on the teacher getting close to his brother. but that's another story.)

not for severus either — his loose end, in his own mind, will always be lily. he senses that something's broken, but he has absolutely no self-awareness about what it is, and his extending an olive branch was more about her coming to his level than him going to hers (aka the way apologies ought to work). he realises, over a year out, that it's up to him to fix it, but it's too late — lily's quite moved on at that point, and her residual emotions towards him are indifference and pity.

if only snape had known to leave it there!

looping full circle back to the lake incident, then, the argument in 41 is once again very personal — but rather than him pushing her away, it's him trying to get her close again. and now, stressed about all the bs in the world but also with all the petunia-related learn-to-let-go stuff fresh in her mind, lily is absolutely in the right state of mind to recognise when she's wrongly judged someone. this calls for scorched earth, she realises, or she'll never be able to shake him and move on for good.

and so what started with severus telling her that she's special, that there's a place in a new world for her, ends sort of the same way.... and the break that began with his casual, almost unintentional cruelty, ends with her very deliberate cruelty. as a bonus, she's ready now to use the one thing he's always wielded like a shield in their arguments — james, how the marauders are, etc. etc. — against him, and genuinely mean it.

(she might regret that soon. but not the way you'd think!)

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

Title: Sibling Rivalry (ao3) Characters: Regulus Black, James Potter, Sirius Black (Some McGonagall and Slughorn) Summary: The Slytherin Gryffindor Quidditch Match of Fall 1976 turns interesting when the Slytherin Seeker seems to have it in for the Gryffindor Captain. After match end, a fistfight breaks out, and Sirius learns no good deed goes unpunished and there are still some things he can run from.

Slytherin didn’t play Gryffindor in Quidditch the Fall of 1976 until the beginning of November. Tensions were already high as it was their first meeting since Gryffindor had knocked Slytherin out of cup contentions the prior season. Gryffindor, having started the season off on a low note, lost to Hufflepuff in the first game of the season but had made a bit of a come back when they beat Ravenclaw the week before. Slytherin, for their part, remained undefeated, crushing Hufflepuff and overcoming Ravenclaw twice. The game was expected to be exciting, and by the time students, trash talking and shouting cheers, poured into the stands, several students had already been sent to the hospital wing as a result of escalating fights.

What no one anticipated was the heightened tension and harbored grudge the Slytherin seeker had for the Gryffindor captain.  That James Potter had earned the ire of the entire Slytherin team was unexceptional. Exceptionally talented, handsome, charming, and well-aware of it, James Potter has led the Gryffindor team to victory so often that frequently the other Houses just wanted to see him lose. It was galling to the Slytherins in particular, who considered him egotistical and favored among professors and the referees.

What he had not was the way Regulus Black, abandoning any pretense of searching for the Snitch, flew after the Chaser, flying into him, blocking him every which way he turned, and nearly knocking him off his broom more than once. It was clear even to the spectators that James Potter was growing frustrated. He hadn’t scored even once though his game average 20; this was good for Regulus as it was the only thing keeping his own captain from yelling at him to look for the snitch himself.

Twice, James flew over to Madam Hooch, his face red, gesticulating wildly. Both times she sent him back, firmly, and once with a penalty whistle at his back for swearing so badly. Multiple times, he shoved, elbowed (thankfully without Madam Hooch seeing) and shouted back at Regulus. Finally, fed up, when Regulus blocked his path once more, coming dangerously close to a penalty, James took both hands off his broom and shoved. Regulus went cartwheeling just as the whistle blew, signifying the Gryffindor Seeker, actually doing her job, had caught the Snitch and ended the game.

James rushed back to the ground, fuming, but Regulus was still on his heels and flew directly at him.

“What’s your problem?” James shouted, jumping out of his way, whipping his wand out.

Madam Hooch blew her whistle in the distance, but the rest of the teams were not yet close enough to reach them when Regulus hopped off his broom and shouted a curse. James didn’t parry in time, and it hit him in the face, causing him to stumble backwards.  But James was two years older, and, for 17, a skilled duelist and he struck back with a silent fury. Several spells later, he had Regulus’ wand in his own hand.

Regulus, his face flushed red, twisting into an ugly grimace of rage, rushed him.  He hit James, full on around the torso. He hit just hard enough, and James was just startled enough, that, despite being a good foot shorter and a significant amount scrawnier,  he managed to tackle James to the ground.

The stadium was, at this point, descending into chaos. Sirius Black was, himself, rushing to the pitch, far faster than Professor McGonagall, who trailed him by virtue of having to order her students to stay put, charging her prefects and Head Girl to help maintain order, and Slughorn, who’s bulk did lend itself to such exertion.

James, with a split lip and bruised cheek, had managed to catch Regulus’ wrists by that time. He was not, as it were, exactly fighting back, which further fueled Regulus’ anger. He was yelling, almost incoherently at James, wriggling around to get his hands free, even as his knees dug into James’ ribs.

He got one hand free and even as he swung, Sirius skidded into them, trapping his wrist again, just as James uses his free hand to mash into Regulus’ face. Regulus fell back a little, and James got a leg free. He kicked out towards Regulus, maybe a little harder than the kid really deserved, and caught him in the stomach.

It wasn’t enough to knock the wind out of him, but Regulus did suck in sharply, and James scrambled away and up to his feet again.

He met Sirius’ eye over Regulus’ head. “What the--?” He started, as Sirius hauled Regulus up and away from James.

Regulus, however, did not take so kindly to this. He twisted around, and, realizing it was Sirius who was dragging him off, stilled completely. Next moment, he said, voice shaking slightly, “Let go of me.”

When Sirius neither let go, nor acknowledged him, he repeated, “Let go of me. Let go of me! Let go of me!” his voice rising until he was shouting.

He stamped his foot on Sirius’ own, digging his heel into Sirius’ nicely polished shoes. Sirius hissed and pushed him off. “You little cretin,” he snapped. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

But Regulus, it seemed, had quite lost his mind. Still wandless, with no further skill in fist fighting, he, regardless, flung himself at his brother. Sirius, a sight more prepared than James and far more willing than James to Give It to Regulus, sidestepped easily, grabbed his arm, twisted it behind him and got him back to the ground. Digging his knee into his back to keep him down, Sirius hissed every name he could think of in Regulus’ ear.

He didn’t get far on what was, undoubtedly, a very long and creative list, before Professor McGonagall’s voice interrupted sharply, “Mr. Black, up if you please.”

Sirius dug his knee in a little deeper, for good measure, before standing up and backing away a few paces. James came to his side immediately, hand touching his elbow lightly because Sirius was still throwing murderous looks at Regulus, and who knew what might start Regulus off again.

Regulus, for his part, continued to lay face down in the grass. After a long moment, he turned over and propped himself up on his arms, glaring up at Sirius and James. He didn’t look too worse for wear, lucky, James thought, that their Heads of House had interrupted before Sirius had really laid into him. He had a few cuts along his face, and he kept touching his nose like it was tender, but it wasn’t bleeding and certainly not broken. Dirt was stuck to his cheeks, and some loose grass clung to his disheveled hair.

Slughorn bustled over to him, and after a moment of quiet consultation, Regulus reluctantly allowed his professor to help him to his feet.

Professor McGongall eyed them all, assessing, and then said, nostrils flaring, “Potter, back to your common room. You two,” she leveled her stony gaze at Sirius and Regulus. “My office. Now.”

“Mine’s closer, Minerva,” Slughorn put in as Sirius’ face turned slack with surprise.

“Me?” he yelped, outraged. “Professor, I didn’t do anything!”

“He was just helping me, Professor,” James added earnestly.

She narrowed her eyes at them. “My decision is final.”

“Professor,” James started again, and if Sirius hadn’t been fuming, he might have noticed there was a worried edge to James’ voice.

“If I have to ask again, Potter, I will put you in detention.”

“Bad luck, mate,” James said, giving Sirius’ arm a pat before heading to the dressing rooms.

When he was on his way, McGonagall waved them ahead of her, and they marched down to Slughorn’s office, Slughorn trailing behind them.

“Such indecent behavior!” she snapped at them as they filed in. “Making fools of yourselves. Quite one thing to do it at home, but to brawl like that in public, in front of the whole school in the middle of a Quidditch match! I have never seen such a spectacle!”

She waited for them to get settled, and Slughorn conjured her a chair behind his desk so they could share the barrier. She took the lead, surveying both boys sternly. Sirius was slouched, as far away as possible from Regulus, almost to the point of falling out of his chair, his arms crossed over his chest, expression bored, eyes glaring right back at her. Regulus sat properly, straight-backed, his hands folded nicely in his lap, but his head was bent downwards and he refused to look at anyone.

“So why,” she started, “are we here?”

“No good deed goes unpunished?” Sirius suggested.

“Mr. Black,” she snapped. “Please try to take this seriously.”

“Take what seriously,” he demanded. “Reg went crazy. That’s not my problem.”

“Attacked your best friend and yourself,” McGonagall confirmed. She slid a glance at Regulus, who had not moved, and then quickly back to Sirius.

“Are you implying,” Sirius said, straightening up. “That I provoked him? Because I didn’t do anything!”

“Now, now,” Slughorn said, making soothing gestures. “I’m sure we can just smooth this all over. Write your mother, hmm? Let you sort it out privately?”

Sirius snorted. “Don’t bother, I don’t have a mother.”

Before either professor could react, Regulus moved for the first time. He leapt to his feet, one had balling into a tight fist at his side, the other pointing sharply towards SIrius. “Don’t you talk about her,” he said furiously. “Don’t you--not after what you did to her!”

“Regulus, dear boy, calm down,” Slughorn said, alarmed. Nobody paid him any mind.

“Me?” Sirius snapped back, straightening up, rigid. “Me!?”

“You!” Regulus shouted, staving off any of Sirius’ protest. “You broke her heart!”

Sirius was on his feet now. “I have it on good authority she doesn’t have one!”

Regulus shoved Sirius, and it was only a spell from McGonagall separating them that prevented another brawl.

“That is enough,” she said, her voice quiet and furious.

Appropriately abashed, Regulus sat back down, prim, back still straight. After a moment, breathing just a tad harder than usual, Sirius threw himself into his chair.

“Well now,” Slughorn said. “Such excitement! Minerva, it just seems to me a brotherly tiff. Boys will be boys, after all. Perhaps we should let them settle it on their own. A private family matter.”

“Your student has attacked, apparently unprovoked and extremely out of character, two of my own, Horace,” McGonagall said flatly. “And made his private business public when he did so in front of the entire school.”

Horace cleared his throat. “Yes, well.”

“Yes, Professor,” Sirius added, earnestness tainted with annoyance. “I was attacked so why am I here?  Do you want me to file a victim report or something or can I go?”

McGonagall ignored her actual charge. “Mr. Black,” she directed to Regulus. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Regulus’ mouth tightened but he didn’t say anything. This is far more the boy both she and Slughorn know—quiet, passive. A far cry from his elder brother. A far cry from a boy who had, in a fit of rage, jumped James Potter on the Quidditch pitch.

“That’s just him, Professor,” Sirius said loftily. He’d fallen back into a slouch, thrown one leg over the arm of the chair. “Does something wrong, won’t talk, makes everyone feel bad for him so he wriggle his way out of trouble.”

“Sit properly,” McGonagall snapped. “And I don’t recall asking you to be your brother’s voice for him.”

“I am not his voice,” Sirius said, furiously. He shifted hastily to a proper seated position and added, “I’m not his anything!”

“So I heard,” she said, cooly.

Sirius seemed to be missing the way Regulus’ lips pressed together and his chin dimpled and lined.

“Do you mean to tell me,” she continued, “that you are no longer living at home?”  

“I’m not living at my parents’ house, yeah,” Sirius said, casual. “Left this summer.”

McGonagall’s nostrils flared. “You are underage.”

“Barely,” Sirius snapped. “And it’s really none of your business where I live during the summer.”

“It is when it concerns my underage student with the better part of two years of school left--”

“Well now you know,” Sirius interrupted. “Send any further inquiries to the Potters.”

His face flushed a little, like he might have been embarrassed about intruding on their hospitality or needing to rely on his best friend, but he remained cool and casual, schooling his features to reflect his disinterest.

McGonagall sat back in her chair and tried to exchange a look with Slughorn. Horace was watching them alertly, but with air of discomfort. For all his nosing into his students’ personal lives, it was clear he thought they were intruding in this scenario. Perhaps they were. Minerva certainly made it a point to allow familial business to stay familial...but when it had spilled over into her school--

“If you’re going to punish us, can we get on with it?” Sirius said impatiently, breaking into her thoughts.

McGonagall raised her eyebrows at his rudeness, and he offered a muttered apology. She sighed, feeling as if they had gotten nowhere. Of course she couldn’t punish Sirius--he was right when he had said he’d done nothing and McGonagall strove to fair and judicious handling of all her students.

“You may go, Black,” she said wearily. “Horace, I’ll leave your student to you.”

Slughorn looked a little put out, as though he’d wanted McGonagall to serve up punishments while he continued to be the indulgent mentor.

“You don’t have to write my mother, Professor,” Regulus said softly. He looked up, but swiftly returned his gaze to where his hands sat folded. “It would just upset her.”

He missed Sirius’ eyeroll, and Sirius missed the way his shoulders hunched, very un-Black-like.

“Ah, yes, well,” Slughorn blustered. “I’ sure you’re quite right, Mr. Black, I’m sure you know what you did was wrong, but as this is a first-time offense, I think we can be settled at a detention. If that’s all--?”

Sirius snorted derisively, but no other objections were raised, and the boys were dismissed, while their Heads remained behind.

James was waiting for them just outside the office, changed back into his casual robes, his hair damp from the post-game shower. He managed a smile, but his face was worried.

Sirius glowered, not at James in particular, but just in general. “Let’s go,” he said, walking right past James.

“Okay,” James said, falling into step. “Only--,”

“Sirius!” Regulus interrupted, following after them, looking earnest and anxious.

Sirius didn’t pause, just turned mid-step, hand jutting out to jab a finger in Regulus’ direction. “You stay away from me,” he snapped. “And keep any of that--that business away from me too. None of you are anything me to now.”

Regulus stood still for a moment, and then his face slipped into a cool, detached look, a Black staple he never quite managed to perfect. “Fine,” he said, clipped. He turned on his heel and marched back towards the Slytherin Common Rooms.

James didn’t say anything until they were back in their own Dormitory, only Remus and Peter around. “So,” he said. “What was that all about?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sirius said.

“Padfoot,” James tried again, but Sirius, coming to a stop, interrupted.

“I said,” he snapped, his voice slipping to the aristocratic accent of his family, the one he had mostly eliminated except when he was furious. “I don’t want to talk about it, James . It’s my business, not yours.”  

“Fair,” James said, his own temper rising. “Only your business is showing up on my doorstep at two in the morning with no warning and your business led your little brother to jump me, so I think I have a bit of a right--,”

“Shut it, James, you’re such a fucking martyr sometimes--,”

“Me!” James yelped. “What about you!”

Remus stood suddenly. The others weren’t used to James and Sirius fighting, and Peter was still on his bed, mouth wide open. Remus inched towards James, without him noticing.

“Going around acting like you’re the only one who’s ever had a shit family,” James continued, “and like that gives you a right to--,”

“James,” Remus said softly, suddenly right there, hand on James’ shoulder.

Sirius was stiff, his accent back again when he spoke next, “I’m sorry you find me such a difficult friend to endure,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, I won’t burden you anymore.”

“Sirius,” James said, sounding far more exasperated, “That’s not what I meant.”

But Sirius was already on his way out the door. He could hear James saying to Remus, “I’m not wrong, am I?” and Remus murmuring something back before the door slammed shut behind him.

He didn’t come back for a long time.

James fell asleep before Sirius returned, but he woke up not long after. The moon was high in the sky, filtering through the window where Sirius sat, instead of climbing into his bed. James roused himself. Still slow with sleep, he joined Sirius at the window.

“You’re not difficult,” he told him.

Sirius laughed a little. It sounded bitter and self-depreciating.  He continued to stare out the window, in one of those moods that scared James, even though they never talked about it.

James nudged him a little with his elbow, “You don’t have to talk about it, mate, and I shouldn’t have made you try. But you know where you to find me.”

Sirius finally turned to him, a ghost of a smile flitting on his lips, the moon casting just enough light to shade his face in shadows, dark eyes gleaming. “Going soft on me, Prongs,” he said.

“Hey, mate,” James said, laughing, elbowing him again, harder this time so Sirius laughed too and rubbed at his own side. “You’re family.”