Chapter 2: The Silent Regulus
In the autumn of 1962, Regulus was one and a half years old, and Sirius was three.
Sirius's side of the nursery had become a battlefield. Toy broomstick parts lay scattered like the remains of a glorious campaign. A set of biting magical spinning tops rattled in a half open box, daring anyone to pick them up. A heavy tin of metal puzzles made by Goblins sat among the chaos, several pieces missing, as if the puzzle itself had tried to escape.
Regulus's corner, by contrast, was always orderly. A few picture books sat in a neat stack. A stuffed Kneazle rested on a dark blue rug, unnervingly still.
It used to move. Sirius had broken it.
That afternoon, Kreacher cleaned the windows with magic, his ears angled toward the room and his eyes tracking both young masters without ever seeming to look directly at them.
Sirius had just smuggled a pocket broomstick from Orion's study. It was a miniature model of a real broom, a teaching tool meant to demonstrate the principles behind broom flight enchantments.
"Watch closely, Regulus!" Sirius shouted, determined to drag his brother's attention out of silence by force. "This is a broomstick! A real wizard's broomstick! I can make it float!"
He placed the broomstick on the rug, stepped back two paces, and sucked in a breath. His small face began to redden with effort, as if sheer stubbornness might count as an incantation.
"Up!" he shouted, hands lifting in a dramatic motion.
The broomstick twitched. One end rose a few degrees, then dropped back where it started.
"Up! Up!" Sirius tried again, then again. The broom rolled halfway, as if considering the request, then refused to take to the air.
Kreacher held his breath.
He knew the broomstick had a restricting charm laid over it. The enchantment would only respond to someone who understood the trick of levitation: it was not about pushing something upward, but about picturing its weight disappearing.
Orion used the tool to test comprehension.
Sirius believed he had stolen it.
That, Kreacher suspected, was precisely what Orion wanted.
And Sirius, clearly, did not understand yet.
"Why won't it work?" Sirius kicked the rug, outraged by the universe. "Father can make it fly!"
Regulus moved.
He crawled forward faster than usual, crossed the small distance to the broomstick, and sat down with a quiet plop.
Sirius looked at him and curled his lip.
"You want to try too? You can't even talk yet."
Regulus ignored him. He simply lifted his right index finger and held it above the broomstick.
Then he tapped downward, lightly, as if pressing a key.
The broomstick rose.
Slowly. Smoothly.
When it reached Regulus's eye level, it hovered there, perfectly still.
Sirius's mouth fell open.
The rag Kreacher had been controlling slipped from the air and dropped to the floor.
Regulus pressed his finger down again, gentle as a lullaby.
The broomstick descended and settled back into its original position, not even a hair's breadth from where it had been.
Sirius stammered, voice cracking with disbelief.
"You… how did you…"
He looked genuinely betrayed. How could his younger brother do what he could not?
Regulus turned his head.
In a childish voice that was nevertheless clear, he spoke his first complete sentence.
"Think, then do."
"Think what?" Sirius asked at once.
Regulus pointed at the broomstick.
"Think it is light. Do not think it is heavy."
"But it is heavy!"
"Think it is not heavy."
"How is that possible?"
Regulus tilted his head, apparently weighing how to explain something that made perfect sense in his own mind.
Then he patted the rug beside him.
"Sit."
Sirius sat down automatically, too shocked to question why his brother could speak so neatly the moment he decided to.
Regulus picked up a fallen leaf that had drifted in through the window. He placed it on his palm.
"It is light," he said.
"Right," Sirius answered, wary now, as if he was being led into a trap.
"Think it is heavy."
Sirius stared at the leaf and tried as hard as he could to imagine it as heavy as a stone. He squeezed his eyes a little, face scrunched in concentration.
Nothing changed.
Regulus spoke again, as if he had heard Sirius's exact thoughts.
"No. It is not thinking it is as heavy as something else." He tapped the leaf once with his finger. "It is forgetting it is light. Then it is heavy."
Sirius frowned. The idea slid away from him like water off glass. He scratched his head, visibly offended by abstraction.
Regulus stood, unsteady but determined, and returned to his corner.
His lesson was finished.
The realisation was still too early for a three year old Sirius, even a brilliant one.
But Regulus was different.
For perception and understanding, age was not the limit people pretended it was.
After dinner, Orion called Kreacher to the study.
Orion sat behind the desk, brows drawn together, fingertips resting on a stack of papers as if the slightest movement might disturb his thoughts.
"That teaching broomstick," Orion said. "Regulus made it levitate?"
"Yes… yes, Master," Kreacher answered, twisting his tea towel until it nearly tore. "Young Master Regulus made it fly. One foot high. Very steady."
"He spoke?"
"He said a few words," Kreacher replied, and repeated what Regulus had told Sirius.
Orion listened without interrupting.
For a long time afterward, he said nothing at all.
The portraits of ancestors lining the study walls fixed their gazes elsewhere with impeccable manners, but their attention was unmistakable. Every ear in painted frames was straining.
At last, Orion spoke, his tone measured.
"From now on, whatever Regulus wants to do, so long as it is not dangerous, let him do it." His eyes sharpened. "Watch him. Record it. Report to me every day before dinner."
"Yes, Master!"
…
December 1963. Number 12, Grimmauld Place was preparing for Christmas.
Sirius Black was just over a month past his fourth birthday, at the age where the world seemed to exist primarily as an audience.
He stood in the middle of the drawing room, hands on his hips, addressing a half decorated Christmas tree as if it were a rival.
"I'm going to make the bells ring by themselves!"
Walburga leaned over the banister on the second floor.
"Sirius, do not cause trouble. Kreacher, hang the silver baubles higher. They were too low last year. Andromeda nearly hit her head."
"Yes, Mistress," Kreacher said, and lifted the baubles with delicate precision until they were well out of the way.
Regulus sat on the thick rug near the fireplace, as quiet as the potted fern in the corner.
A soul from another world had lived inside this body for three years now. Regulus had long accepted the reality: this was a world of magic, and he was Regulus Black, the boy who died young in the original story.
He had no intention of repeating that ending.
He had goals far larger than survival. The stars. The universe. Places no one in the original tale had ever even bothered to imagine.
As for Sirius?
Let him be, Regulus thought, eyes still on the page of his book. Sirius would grow into an emissary of justice, a hero who fought against Lord Voldemort.
And as long as Regulus lived, the resources of the House of Black would be his springboard.
There was no need to compete with a four year old.
"Regulus! Watch closely!" Sirius's voice yanked him back.
Sirius took a deep breath and fixed his stare on a golden bell near the top of the tree. His face went bright red again as he made a grasping motion with both hands.
Magic surged.
"Move!" Sirius shouted.
Regulus's perception of magic was keen enough to feel like a second set of senses. He could tell at once that Sirius's power was swelling too quickly, slipping toward something messy and uncontrolled.
Bang.
The entire Christmas tree began to shake violently.
The star ornament at the top jolted loose and fell, clanging off Kreacher's head. Candy canes knocked together. Glass baubles jingled and struck one another in quick, panicked chimes.
A string of enchanted lights near the top, meant to change colours gently, began to flash wildly, strobing fast enough to make the room feel unsteady.
"Stop! Stop!" Walburga snapped, racing down the stairs.
But it was too late.
Sirius had frightened himself. He wanted to stop, he truly did, but his panic only fed the surge. He waved his hands helplessly, and the unstable magic bucked harder in response.
Boom.
The three windows on the east side of the drawing room shattered at the same instant.
Glass sprayed outward, then halted in midair, caught by a protection charm that slowed every shard to a standstill. Without it, the street outside would have paid the price.
The chandelier swung in a wide arc. Its crystal pendants crashed together, producing a piercing, relentless clatter.
"Ah!"
The portraits screamed as one.
Phineas Nigellus shouted loudest of all.
"Barbarians! The Blacks have truly fallen!"
Walburga raised her wand and sent a powerful calming charm into Sirius.
He staggered back, then dropped onto the rug, staring at his own hands as if they belonged to someone else.
Walburga's expression shifted in rapid succession, anger first, then something that looked suspiciously like pride wearing the mask of discipline.
"The magic is abundant," she said, voice strange with satisfaction. "But the direction was wrong. Next time, aim at something useless, like those ugly vases your father collects."
Sirius blinked, stunned.
He had expected a scolding, not a lesson.
Regulus closed his book with quiet finality.
This, he thought, was the problem with wizard children. Magic rose and fell with emotion, like a pressure cooker without a safety valve. Sooner or later, it always tried to explode.
Kreacher began clearing the mess, muttering to himself as he worked.
Walburga gave Sirius a complicated look, then turned and swept back upstairs.
Sirius remained seated on the rug. He stared at his hands, then at the frozen glass shards, then at the shattered window frames, and finally at Regulus.
In a small voice, almost reverent, he whispered, "I did it."
Regulus nodded once.
"Impressive."