Chapter Text
The new house was huge. Almost all black, with dark brick. Nothing like the airy whites and open air of the summer house in France. And none of the tall brickwork and covered windows of grimmauld place.
Regulus had to admit, he liked this house better than the other two. There was a stained glass window near the top of the house, probably going into the attic, but Regulus had already decided that he would sleep in its room at least once this week.
He had always liked gothic architecture. Tall roofs, the bay windows, the balconies connected to gorgeous doors.
Regulus’ trance was broken by his brother, jumping out of the car and snapping a penny at him.
“Ow-” regulus complained, as the metal hit his hand, just below where his sleeve hit. “Sirius, that's mean.”
His brother laughed, “you’re just wimpy.” he stuck his tongue out at regulus. “All girls areee~”
Regulus humphed and rubbed his hand, “You are an idiot,” he declared.
Orion and Meredith– the newest conquest and potential stepmom– stepped out of the limousine.
The two were talking about politics that regulus was truly and wholly uninterested in. But Regulus stayed to walk with them, while his brother ran off inside the house, no doubt to find all the flat pieces of roof he could get onto, and any trellis to climb down from.
Regulus wasn't much interested in escape routes, Orion usually let him do whatever he pleased, and there were enough ‘respectable’ families in this town for him to be surrounded by rich people and only rich people.
Inside the house was mostly dark wood, with a large brick fireplace and mantle in the formal living room. He could also see an archway that went into a nice dining room.
Regulus followed his father for a little bit, taking in the house. But eventually he lagged behind and decided to explore the grounds.
There was a gardener. That much regulus could tell immediately.
The hedges were done neatly, the plants looked perfectly in order.
But he couldn't find the gardener. And that was a problem. In Regulus' eyes.
Because he wanted to ask what could be planted here. He had had a window box on the window of his room in England.
He had grown strawberries, orange lilies, and lilies of the valley. And he wanted to continue growing them. But he wasn't sure if he even could grow them in this climate. The humidity and weather was quite similar, but maybe the sun, or the soil, or something, would ruin his plants.
The gardens smelled nice, there was honeysuckle, and an odd bush of garish pink flowers. They looked weird, the petals peeling back, there was a purple center, and a pink stamen with a white bead at the tip.
He made a mental note to ask the gardener what it was. Surely the gardener would be annoyed at the impending barrage of questions, but it was his own fault for being hidden away so Regulus couldn't find him to ask his first question.
The sky was dark, rolling clouds that gave warning to impending rain. Perhaps lightning. A storm was welcome, Regulus wanted to find a room in which he could hear the rain on the roof. He found it soothing, to sleep with the sound of the rain. Back in grimmauld place, he had often snuck up to the attic with Sirius to sleep near the dormers where the rain hit the glass.
Now he intended not to need Sirius, or to sneak up the rickety old ladder, or to be caught in the morning and to be locked in his room every night for a week. Just to hear the rain.
He caught himself staring at one of the gargoyles on the roof, it was perched on the peak of the roof, but even from from down here, regulus could see the carved ribs, the horns, the somehow leathery texture of the carved wings, the horrible eyes and open mouth.
He liked it. Maybe he could get up there somehow, he wanted to get closer so he could take a picture of it. And hopefully paint it.
He snapped out of his trance, and looked around again, spotting the gardener finally.
Regulus sauntered over to the hunched over figure, standing behind him and waiting for him to turn and notice.
The gardener was wearing a wide brimmed sunhat that looked a bit cheap, it was a pale blue, and had a flap of fabric that went over the gardeners neck. Regulus supposed that was to prevent sunburn, but it didn't really seem necessary in this weather.
When the gardener finally turned, he found that it was not, in fact, a man as Regulus had thought.
It was a woman, with a strong nose, and crows feet. Her skin was tan like she was always in the sun, which, Regulus realized, she probably did spend most of her day in the sun. She had a lot of freckles, probably she had gotten a bad sunburn and that had turned to freckles.
Regulus found freckles rather ugly. They were imperfections caused by the sun, and mother had always made regulus cover him in summer. She had even dabbled in using visards, and making regulus wear one as well.
But these freckles weren't so offensive, actually they were almost pretty on her.
“Ah- hello,” the woman greeted, pulling off her plastic gloves and wiping them on her overalls. “You must be sssiirius…?” she guessed, stretching out the word septically.
“Thats my brother,” Regulus corrected.
“Ah- Regina then,” she amended. Smiling brightly, “my name is hope, im the gardener. Did you need something?”
“Can strawberries grow here?” Regulus asked abruptly, a bit prickly after being called Regina. “And lilies.”
“Strawberries, yes, and it depends on the type of lily. Tiger lilies grow here naturally, calla lilies grow well-” hope explained, standing up properly.
“day lilies and valley lilies,” regulus interrupted.
“Well- i suppose they would grow here, i don't see why not. You mean lilies of the valley? Don't you?” hope thought aloud.
“Yes.” Regulus nodded, “what of it?”
He was used to adults thinking it was weird that he was growing poisonous plants. He never used them to actually poison anyone. But grown ups were weird and didn't trust children.
“Bit dangerous, if you have any animals. Of course, all lilies are poisonous to cats, but a bird or a dog could-"Hope looked at Regulus with light brown eyes, a beam of light that managed to get through the clouds was hitting her eyes in a way that made them reflect and almost look yellow or gold.
“I don't have any pets.” Regulus crossed his arms. “It's not something you should worry about.”
That was a bit of a lie. Regulus did actually have a pet, or he was going to get one. His uncle had promised him an exotic animal when he turned thirteen, and that was only a month or so away. Regulus planned on getting a lynx or some sort of wild cat. So maybe he should actually take the lily thing into account.
Regulus went inside, grabbing one of his trunks and hauling it up the stairs, starting to search for a room that he liked.
The house was already furnished, except the bedrooms.
There were a few things that regulus took into account when trying to find a room.
He wanted nice windows, a bathroom closeish, a place to put his easel, a decent view, and off the first floor.
He did not, in fact, find a room before a bell was rung for dinner. He sighed, mentally retracing his steps through the new manor, he set down his trunk and made his way down to the formal dining room, he had assumed that was where they were going to be eating.
He was wrong, Sirius was sitting on the kitchen floor with a turkey sandwich, wrapped in green aluminum foil.
The butler apparently did not have the time nor ingredients to make a proper dinner, and Orion was taking Madeline out to dinner, so Sirius and Regulus were left to fend for themselves.
“I made you one as well,” Sirius looked up at Regulus, wiping mustard off the corner of his mouth with a black handkerchief. He pointed up to a counter.
There were four small sandwich pieces on a piece of aluminum. White bread, no crusts, cut like tea sandwiches.
“Thank you,” Regulus mumbled, leaning against the counter and picking one of the sandwiches and taking a bite.
It was good, Sirius had long ago memorized how Regulus liked food. He hated the inside of tomatoes, he only liked the lighter, more crunchy part of lettuce, he didn't like crust, and cream cheese was always the replacement for mayonnaise.
Sirius and Regulus ate their sandwiches in silence. Sirius finished first, but didn't leave, waiting for regulus.
“What was the bell?” Regulus eventually asked, now nibbling on the second to last small sandwich.
Sirius shrugged, “I thought kreature had rang it, but he wasn't here. It sounded like the dinner bell so I just made these.”
Regulus nodded. At least he wasn't going crazy. He had been wondering that for the entire dinner.
“I'm going to go up to my room now, I've got to put up some posters,” Sirius said, “tell the creature that i don't want any tea.”
“You shouldn't call him that-” Regulus frowned, walking after Sirius. “Mr. Kreature is-”
“Shut up about Quasimodo, will you?” Sirius turned and pushed Regulus.
He did this a lot, one second he was nice, sitting with Regulus just to make him happy. The other half he was yelling and calling him a girl just to be cruel.
Regulus couldn't help but flinch, he stepped back when he was pushed.
“God, I'd think you had a crush on him, but you’re a dyke freak,” Sirius spat, grabbing the front of Regulus' blouse.
Regulus and Sirius stayed in that spot for a second, Sirius breathing heavily, regulus not breathing at all.
Sirius turned and let go of regulus, storming away. Regulus scowled at Sirius' retreating form, and turned on his heel, deciding to go up the other flight of stairs.
He shut himself in the first decent room he found, and got out his scissors.
Plopping himself down in front of a mildly reflective surface, and started cutting his hair. And prayed to God and Maria or whoever was listening that the back didn't look rubbish.
Regulus sat in the mess of hair that he had made. His hair had been very long, now it pooled around his knees like ink on parchment, the white carpet stained by the perfectly curled ringlets that the maid had spent an hour on that morning back in England. The light green bow that had held it out of his face was the only hint of color in the otherwise grayscale floor below him.
He stared in the mirror, his fathers Grey eyes staring right back at him.
When Regulus was younger, he had been berated by his grandmother for looking like a boy, with a stronger nose than Sirius, and thin lips. He had always looked more like Orion than Walburga. Once he might have hated it, wearing visards to try and prevent freckles, just like his mother had. Wearing the same colors, trying to grow his curly hair, even though washing it made him want to choke on the water around him.
Now he was very glad for his stronger jawline, and the fact that his hair had always looked shorter. Though he still would probably wear a visard. Freckles were ugly.
He closed his eyes, pressing the heels of his palms into the sockets until it hurt just a little bit. He had always sort of hoped that if he stared into the sun, and read in the dark, that he would be able to make his vision bad enough to get glasses. Then he could get contacts, which meant he could get colored contacts. Which meant that he could have brown eyes. He loved how brown eyes looked, it would be so much better.
But alas. All he had ever succeeded in was giving himself chronic dry eye. At the ripe age of twelve he carried around a bottle of eyedrops and migraine medicine.
Regulus didn't like how he looked, most times. Once in a blue moon he actually found himself rather attractive, in the right lighting, in the right clothing, when the sun and stars aligned, he might have even called himself handsome. But no one else ever would.
He let his thoughts drift somewhere depressing while he laid back on the hardwood. Staring at the crown molding and the smoke marks from past candles.
The house was old, clearly. He had seen patched mouse holes; there were pulleys in a few of the rooms that might have, in the past, connected to bells in the servants quarters. Regulus was fairly sure they were still connected, and ran to the basement, but he couldn't really test it without Sirius or a second person in general.
He had seen the stairway down to the basement, it was dark, the stairs had been nearly rotted, there was no railing or light to ensure safety. Regulus thought it was very inviting.
But his father had told them not to go down there. Perhaps there was a body buried there, or something rotting. Regulus was quite curious why he was barred from part of his own house.
Regulus hadn't realized that he had fallen asleep, his thoughts had been meshing and reforming into something a bit incoherent. But he only realized this when he woke up.
There was a boy in the windowsill, looking like a deer in headlights, he was blonde, his hair like straw in the sliver of light coming from the hallway. His eyes were wholly too blue, the sclera through the pupil. Not just the iris. At least the one in the shadow.
He looked like an animal, one pupil reflecting red like a cat's in a picture.
Regulus sat up, he was fifty percent sure he was dreaming. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and got the stray strand of hair out from the corner of his mouth.
The person in the window made eye contact with Regulus, and started to backpedal, swinging his leg -that had been inside the window- out. Beginning to drop down onto the roof below.
“Hey-” regulus shakily stood up, his vision going fuzzy and black when he did so. He stumbled a bit when he tried to go forward, but made it to the window just in time to see the intruder climb onto a bike.
It was raining and storming, mud rivers flowed over the gravel driveway, pine trees swayed with the wind, and the retreating form of the intruder disappeared with a flash of lightning.