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Chapter Text

Regulus wakes from what feels like it must be a nightmare.

Except he knows that it was real.

After a moment, he realises this is what death must be.

Somehow, death is his childhood bedroom.

He takes a deep breath. Predictable, that he’d be stuck in this house in death. He needs to make sure that he can get out.  

Without thinking twice (how Sirius would be proud), he rushes downstairs in his silk pyjamas and throws open the front door. 

He takes one step outside before he hears his mother scream his name. “Regulus Arcturus Black! What do you think you’re doing?”

He goes back inside. 

His mother is livid, and he feels like a child again, before Hogwarts, when Sirius would rush in to take the blame at the last minute. Why is his mother even here? He’s dead! 

“I’m sorry, Mother,” he tries. 

She grabs his arm too tightly. “Go upstairs and dress before you humiliate us further. You’re acting like your brother,” she spits. 

It’s the harshest insult from her. He swallows. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and he does as he’s told. 

Death is not so different from life, after all. 

When he gets up to the top landing, Sirius is leaning against his door, grinning like the kneazle who caught the snidget. “What on earth were you thinking?” he asks, shaking his head. 

“I was thinking that I’m dead, and I can’t be stuck in this house for all eternity.”

Sirius raises his eyebrows, and he’s young. He’s fifteen, maybe sixteen. The Sirius he remembers before he left home. 

This is torture. 

“That’s dark even for you, Reggie,” Sirius says lightly. 

“I’m not joking,” Regulus says, and he turns on his heel and goes into his room. He catches sight of the collage above his bed and tears it down with his bare hands. 

“Mummy dearest won’t be happy about that.”

“Shut up!” Regulus snaps, turning to his brother, who is still there, still fifteen. Still the big brother he remembers. 

Sirius grins. Regulus tosses the collage in his fireplace and lights the fire. 

Sirius’s grin drops. “What’s gotten into you?” He shuts the door behind him. 

“I told you: I’m dead.”

“You’re not dead. I think you’re delusional.”

If he can’t tell Sirius, who can he tell? Will Sirius be proud of him, or will Sirius call him an idiot? “Last night, I did something to betray the Dark Lord, and I was pulled beneath a lake by Inferi. I think I drowned before they could kill me.”

“And James says you’ve got no imagination.”

“It’s not imagination. It’s real.”

Sirius grabs his arm and yanks up his sleeve. “No Dark Mark. No way to betray You-Know-Who if you’re not one of his servants.”

No Dark Mark. 

Sirius is right. 

The skin of his forearm is as pale and unblemished as it was when he was born. 

“Must’ve been a hell of a dream,” Sirius says. “But if you get sick on me, I will punch you.”

He needs to make sense of this. Sirius is young. His mother is here. He’s stuck in his childhood bedroom. He doesn’t have a Dark Mark on his arm. 

“A dream,” he says, sliding easily into the lie. “You’re right. It felt so real. Inferi are terrifying, and you know how I am about water.”

“I said I was sorry for pushing you off the pier. How many more times have I got to say it?”

He doesn’t know why, but he pulls his brother in close for a hug. Sirius allows it for half a second before he pushes Regulus away. “Get off me. Merlin, are you sure you didn’t hit your head? Mum didn’t hex you, did she?”

He hasn’t hugged his brother since he’d been Sorted into Slytherin. 

“You’re my brother,” he says. 

“You should go to Saint Mungo’s. She might’ve permanently fucked up your brain.”

And then, without another word, Sirius leaves. 

Sirius leaving is a bit of a pattern, so he shouldn’t be so offended. But he can’t help but wonder why this happens in death, too. Shouldn’t Sirius be happy to see him?

Is Sirius dead, too, or this all a delusion?

Maybe this is his comeuppance. He’d never been raised to think about the consequences of his actions (except, of course, where they went against his parents’ wishes). Maybe this is the ultimate consequence. 

His stomach growls. He’s hungry. Why should he be hungry when he’s dead?

He knows his mother will skin him alive (so to speak) if he goes back downstairs less than fully dressed, so he dresses quickly. He forgoes the shower. He's sure he couldn’t stand getting wet. 

Once he’s dressed to his satisfaction, he goes down to the dining room. Nothing has been laid out, so rather than request a meal laid out for him, he goes down to the kitchen. 

Kreacher is in his cupboard, and at least his one ally is here. 

“Kreacher,” Regulus says gently.

“Master Regulus!” Kreacher doesn’t look any more relieved or excited to see him than any other day. Kreacher doesn’t look like Regulus is dead. Or like Regulus survived the cave.

He looks like he would look any given summer morning when Regulus was home on school holidays.

“Good morning,” Regulus says. “I’m quite hungry – would you mind making me something to eat?”

He’s always treated Kreacher differently to his brother. Sirius would order Kreacher around, make demands. Regulus tries his best to be gentle and considerate.

Kreacher rushes at the opportunity to make Regulus breakfast, and Regulus sits down at the table. A copy of the Daily Prophet is on the table.

Dully, he picks it up and starts flipping through. Then he flips back to the front page.

The date.

15 July 1976.

The day Sirius left.

This is some cruel cosmic joke.

He eats, paying no mind at all to what Kreacher serves him, and goes back to his room.

Surely dusk will fall, and Sirius will leave, and… well, Regulus doesn’t know what comes next, but something must.

Sirius leaves. Regulus can hear the shouting through his door. He rolls over on his bed and presses his pillow over his ears.

He wakes up in his bed. 

Of course he wakes up in his bed; he fell asleep there the night before. Whatever this is, it has days and nights.

When he gets dressed (he knows better than to rush out wearing pyjamas, after how his mother reacted the day before), he notices that his collage is back up.

He burnt it the day before. He’s sure of it.

Magic can be strange, but he doesn’t know why this would have reconstituted itself.

He takes it down and burns it all over again. He relishes in watching the paper curl and blacken, and he pokes at the ashes until there’s nothing left.

Once that’s settled, he extinguishes the fire.

He runs a hand through his hair. It doesn’t come away greasy, the way it does on the rare occasion he skips a shower. Stranger still, that he’d need food when he’s dead, but not a shower.

Maybe it has to do with how he died. The all-consuming thirst and drowning.

He shudders and tries to push the thoughts away.

He is hungry, though, so he goes downstairs to the kitchen.

Kreacher makes him sausage and eggs with beans for breakfast, a proper meal, and Regulus eats it all before checking the day’s Prophet.

15 July 1976.

How strange.

He stores that information away for later.

When Sirius leaves, it’s as explosive as Regulus always remembers it.

This time, Sirius slams Regulus’s door open. “I’m going.”

Regulus doesn’t know if it’s an invitation or simply an announcement. “To Potter’s, I’m sure.”

Sirius takes him in, in his green and silver room. “Fuck me, I guess.”

He slams the door shut, and Regulus can hear the curses as Sirius leaves. He tries to turn the wireless up, but it won’t get loud enough.

The next morning, Regulus is only mildly surprised when Sirius catches him on the landing. “Mother dearest is in a mood,” he says, which he doesn’t have to.

Regulus wants to thank him, but what happens is he shrugs his brother’s hand off his shoulder and says, “Just because she’s angry with you doesn’t mean that I need to be on guard.”

Has it really taken such a short amount of time for him to return to his old habits?

Two days is a pathetic track record.

He doesn’t apologise, though; he just goes downstairs to poke his head into the dining room and then head below to the kitchen.

He checks the Daily Prophet, though he knows the answer.

15 July 1976.

This is his reward, then.

To relive the day his brother left, day after day after day.

After about a week of this, he learns to be out of the house when the fight happens. It’s explosive, and Regulus has never had much of a stomach for screaming and flying curses – not when they involve his family.

(It’s different on the battlefield; he can usually separate that. It’s not his family he’s involved with – except when it is.)

Usually, he goes to Evan’s.

Evan is an acceptable companion; he’s the eldest son from an old Pureblood family. His father is one of the Dark Lord’s oldest supporters, and his family had been staunch Grindelwald supporters during the last war.  

He’s also a Death Eater. Or a future Death Eater. However that works.

The first time he leaves to go to Evan’s house, he doubts it’ll actually work. He expects to be stuck in some sort of weird limbo. But no, he gives the Floo the direction, and in a rush, he’s stepping out into Evan’s drawing room.

It feels like ages since he’s been in Evan’s drawing room, when really, it’s only been a few days.

Evan is lounging on the settee. His brother, Felix, is playing with a junior potioneer’s set. When Regulus steps through, Evan looks up.

“Reg! Didn’t expect you here.”

He shoots Regulus a genuine grin, and for a moment, Regulus feels fifteen again, caught up in all of Evan Rosier’s easy charm.

(But then he supposes he is fifteen, or at least his body is.)

“Mother said she didn’t mind if I paid you a visit.”

“Well, I’ve got to supervise Felix so he doesn’t accidentally brew poison, but you’re welcome to stay.”

“I’m not going to brew poison,” Felix says. “Shut up.”

Evan holds his hand to his heart. “Is that any way to talk to your big brother?”

Somehow, it’s more difficult to watch the two of them now than it has been in the past. Maybe that’s because Regulus keeps reliving the day his own brother abandoned him, knowing in his gut that Evan would never do that to Felix.

He stays anyway, and Evan invites him for dinner.

When Regulus gets home, Sirius is gone.

He tries not to care.

After about a month (it’s so hard to keep track of time anymore, when he relives the same day over and over again) of going to Evan’s (the same thing day after day, but Regulus doesn’t mind, not when he avoids The Fight), Regulus thinks he might use some variety.

So instead of going to Evan’s, he wanders around London.

Over the next year (by his estimation, at least), he explores every inch of the city.

That doesn’t do anything to erase his annoyance at finding the collage back on his wall every morning, or the sick feeling in his gut when he comes home to find Sirius gone, blasted off the family tree.

He’d think that after so many days, it’d get easier.

It never does.

He gives up.

He goes to the library, spends his days reading through every tome his family has managed to collect over the years.

He likes this less than the repetitiveness of Evan’s, or the heat of London in summer.

He can hear the fighting.

The muffling charms don’t quite work.

It’s at Evan’s family’s library that he finds a clue.

Until this point, he’s been convinced that he’s dead.

He died, after all.

Drowned.

(He hasn’t had to shower in well over a year; one day he tries it just to see, and he lasts a whole five minutes. That’s another project he takes on, until he can stand it for hours.)

But as he works his way through the Rosier library, he finds a book about time magic.

He hauls the heavy book out to the drawing room.

“Evan,” he says.

His friend looks up. “Yeah? Oh, Merlin, not a book. I thought you were coming with something interesting.”

"Time magic,” he says, setting the book on the coffee table.

“Time magic,” Evan repeats, sounding bored. “Honestly, sometimes I wonder whether you should have been a Ravenclaw. Spend your time reading with all the other swots.”

Regulus rolls his eyes and refuses to take the bait. “What do you know about time magic?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Evan says. 

“I know this sounds mad,” Regulus says, because after all, he can always start tomorrow if Evan reacts poorly, “but I died, and ever since then, for the past – I don’t know how long – I’ve been waking up and reliving the same day. This day. The day Sirius left.”

“You died?” Evan intones.

“I know it sounds mad. I’m telling the truth.”

Evan studies his face and then shrugs. “All right. So you died.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Sirius push you out a window?”

“The Dark Lord has a Horcrux and I died trying to have it destroyed.”

All of the colour drains from Evan’s face. “That’s not funny, Reg.”

“I told you, I’m not joking.”

“Even he’d never make a Horcrux.”

“Wouldn’t he? He wants to defy death. What more foolproof way?”

Evan shakes his head. “We shouldn’t be talking about this – especially in front of Felix. It’s impossible.”

“What’s impossible is that I keep reliving the day my brother left day after day after day.”

Evan looks at him like he’s mad. Then he laughs. “Very funny, Reg. You almost had me. Horcruxes and time magic. As if anyone would believe something like that.”

He tries to convince him for the next several days, but Evan’s reaction is always the same. 

He writes Evan off as a loss. 

He does, however, finish the book on time magic and commit the relevant parts to memory. 

Time magic can be broken. Witches or wizards reliving the same day just have to do something to change it. 

The problem is, he’s been doing nothing but changing it. 

Regulus remembers the real day. It’s etched in his memory. 

He woke up like normal, went down for breakfast, flew some laps in the green. He spent a few hours in the library. He had lunch. He wrote a letter to Cissy. He took a bath (this part still makes him shudder). He decided to work on some of his summer homework. The fight started two hours before dinner. Sirius slammed his bedroom door and stomped down the stairs and never came back. 

He hasn’t lived that day over even once. 

He never wants to. 

He goes to Sirius. 

Sirius is wholly unwilling to help him at first. Regulus tries several different methods, to no avail. 

He even tells Sirius about the Horcrux, and what’s unnerving is how similar his reaction is to Evan’s. 

He knows if he ever told either of them about that, they’d both hex him. 

He keeps trying with Sirius. 

Eventually, he gets to the thing that makes Sirius crack. 

“I was wrong,” he says. “About everything. The Dark Lord, the war, where we stand. All of it.” After all, he’s spent a not-inconsiderable amount of time in Muggle London. In some of these loops, he’s run off to live as a Muggle. 

It’s always more freeing than staying in this house. 

Sirius looks at him as if he’s not sure whether to believe him, but Regulus can see the cautious, guarded hope on his face. “Sure you don’t want to go over Rosier’s?”

He doesn’t say he’s been over Evan’s more times than he can count. He’s not taking the bait. “I’m sure,” he says. 

“You’re… wrong,” Sirius repeats, sinking down onto his bed. “Is this some trick? You tell me you were wrong and then tell Mum all the things I’ve said about her behind her back?”

Regulus rolls his eyes. He wants to ask Sirius to give him some credit, but he bites his tongue and says, “It’s not a trick.”

Sirius searches his face. “Fine. You were wrong. Now what?”

Regulus breathes a sigh of relief. “The Dark Lord is making – has made – at least one Horcrux.”

Sirius turns pale. No; that’s not quite right. He turns green. Good. Any sensible wizard would feel sick at that. Even Evan had. “You’re sure?”

“He borrowed Kreacher to help hide one. I died trying to get it back.”

“If you died then, why not relive that day?”

“The Rosiers have a book on time magic,” Regulus says, ignoring the look on Sirius’s face. “It says that the loops are often days of some significance – before the accidental magic was triggered to start the loop. That to break the time loop, I need to change something. But I’ve been doing nothing but changing things.”

“What’s so special about today?”

Regulus feels like he might be sick. “You leave.”

“I’m always leaving this place,” Sirius says. 

“Today’s the day that you never come back.”

Sirius looks thoughtful. “All right,” he says after a moment. “I can always come back. Once we break the loop, I can leave again.”

Regulus doesn’t know whether it’ll be that simple. But what he says is, “Thank you.”

Sirius coming back doesn’t fix it. 

They try a dozen times before Regulus gives up on that idea. 

So then he tries to convince Sirius to stay. 

This is more difficult. 

“Why the fuck should I stay here?”

“It’s torture, being stuck like this.”

“Maybe that’s what you deserve for joining up to fight for You-Know-Who,” Sirius says. 

“Don’t you think I’ve thought of that?” Regulus snaps. 

Sirius doesn’t say anything for a moment. “I’ll stay,” he says. “But if this works…”

“You’re leaving. I know.”

It leaves a bitter taste in Regulus’s mouth, but what can he do?

Sirius staying doesn’t fix it, either. Regulus wakes up underneath the same fucking collage that he burns every morning. 

“Maybe you need to stop doing that,” Sirius suggests. 

Regulus flips him off. “You want me to keep a collage of the Dark Lord’s greatest accomplishments?”

“Maybe it’ll help.”

“I don’t think it’ll help,” Regulus says doubtfully, but at this point, he’s not sure. 

The next day, he leaves the collage up. 

The day after that, it’s still the fifteenth of July, 1976. 

Chapter Text

Sirius remembers a flash of red and then falling. Falling, falling, falling, then waking up in his childhood bedroom with a gasp, like he’s just had a horrible, years-long nightmare. 

The red and gold are vibrant. There are no signs of disuse or decay. 

He knows, immediately, from the way his body feels, that he’s a teenager again. 

He also knows that he has to fix things. 

He hears his mother yelling, and he’s proud of himself that it doesn’t make him flinch, even though this is undoubtedly her, and not her portrait. He can tell. 

After a second, he realises she’s yelling at Regulus, which happens so rarely that Sirius is genuinely shocked. 

He goes out into the hall and can’t keep the grin off his face as he sees his brother trudge up the stairs, looking humiliated and confused.  

He asks Regulus what he could have possibly been thinking, and is surprised when he says he’s dead.

For a moment he thinks… but no. This is more of his brother’s dark humour, no matter how he insists he isn’t joking.

Because he can (and because he wants to know what the hell is going on), he follows Regulus into his room. He’s genuinely shocked when Regulus rushes at the collage over his bed and rips it down with a ferocity Sirius didn’t think he had in him.

“Mummy dearest won’t be happy about that,” Sirius teases.

“Shut up!” Regulus snaps, which only makes Sirius grin.

And then Regulus tosses the damn thing into the fire.

Regulus, who has always gone on about how wonderful the Dark Lord is, and how he’ll restore proper honour to Purebloods and make sure Muggles know their place, that wizards will no longer have to hide (as if they hide; as if they don’t flaunt the statute as it is), that Regulus has just thrown his lovingly-compiled collage of all of Voldemort’s most heinous crimes into the fireplace and burnt it to ashes.

He shuts the door and asks Regulus what the hell is going on with him.

“I told you: I’m dead.”

He’s not dead; he’s delusional. Sirius tells him as much. He can’t be dead.

Regulus hesitates, like he’s not sure whether or not to trust him. He’d be smart not to trust him. Sirius has no qualms about turning whatever Regulus tells him against him.

“Last night, I did something to betray the Dark Lord, and I was pulled beneath a lake by Inferi. I think I drowned before they could kill me.”

As if Regulus could have ever had it in him to betray Voldemort. Back out, sure. Betray Voldemort himself? Never. “And James says you’ve got no imagination.”

“It’s not imagination. It’s real.”

Sirius grabs his arm and yanks up his sleeve. He has to admit that he’s relieved when he sees that Regulus’s arm is bare and pale. “No Dark Mark. No way to betray You-Know-Who if you’re not one of his servants. Must’ve been a hell of a dream, but if you get sick on me, I will punch you.”

Regulus looks lost and confused, and for a moment, Sirius wonders whether he’s telling the truth.

But no, Regulus is a known liar, and he admits easily that he was dreaming.

Fucking prick.

The weirdest part of the whole day is that Regulus hugs him. Sirius quickly pushes him off and goes back to his own room to talk to James.

That night, when he leaves in a crescendo of curses and slamming doors, he goes to James’s house. 

Here, he can fix things. 

James greets him warmly, with a firm hug that makes Sirius feel like he’s finally come home. How long has it been since he’d gotten to hug his best friend? He can’t believe that he’s got a second chance to see James.

To make things right.

Once James shows him to his new room, Sirius sits him down.

“Listen,” he says. “I know this is going to be difficult to believe, but you’ve got to trust me…”

“Of course I trust you, Pads,” James says, because he’s James, and that simple sentence makes Sirius ache with everything that’s gone wrong.

He has to fix this.

He just has to figure out how to word this. 

“I don’t think we should trust Peter,” he tries.

James looks confused. “Why shouldn’t we trust him? He’s our friend, same as Moony.”

“Because he’s a traitor,” Sirius says.

“Is this something your brother’s told you? You know that Regulus is a liar. He’s in with Snape and Rosier and that lot.”

Sirius does his very best not to groan and drag his hand down his face. He succeeds, but just barely. 

“Regulus didn’t say anything,” he says. “What do you know about time magic?”

“Erm, it’s really complicated and no one knows that much about it? I don’t think anyone even really knows how time turners work.”

“I think I’ve been sent back in time. I was in the Department of Mysteries –”

James laughs. “Yeah, right, mate.”

“I was. I was thirty-six. Harry – you don’t know Harry yet, he’s your son – he needed my help, so of course I went, and –”

“And I don’t have a son, Padfoot.”

“Not yet,” Sirius says. “You and Lily –”

James laughs out loud again. “Lily Evans? She hates my guts! Especially after that thing with Snape – which I stand by, by the way.”

“Prongs – James – please just listen to me.”

“I don’t know who put you up to this, but just because Wormtail can be a bit of a twat doesn’t mean that I’m going to turn my back on him. And neither should you.”

That, it seems, is that.

Sirius wakes up in Grimmauld Place and tries not to cry.

He doesn’t know why he does it – to provoke him, or because he genuinely wants to help him – but he opens Regulus’s bedroom door before he leaves.

“I’m going,” he says.

He’s not coming back.

This time, he’s sure of it.

Regulus looks wary, then settles into bitter. “To Potter’s, I’m sure.”

He could rise to the bait. He could snap about how James is miles better than Regulus’s own club of future Death Eaters. How Snape had it coming. How Regulus doesn’t even like Snape that much.

But he looks around. Emerald and silver assault his senses.

Regulus is a Slytherin until the very end.

“Fuck me, I guess,” Sirius says, and slams the door behind him.

His mother tries to curse him again as he leaves, this time without his trunk. Maybe that’s the key.

He makes it to James’s with time to spare.

James still doesn’t believe him.

He can’t figure it out. He wakes up again in Grimmauld Place, and it’s all he can do not to cry like a pathetic child.

He doesn’t want to be here.

He storms downstairs in his pyjamas, fully intending on helping himself to whatever’s in the kitchen.

Except, of course, his mother catches him. He can’t escape her. This is a living nightmare.

The thought occurs to him that maybe this isn’t something he can fix. Maybe it’s a punishment.

But no. He has to fix this.

He has to save James and Lily.

His mother screams at him for – well, honestly, Sirius tunes it out. He has to be able to tune it out, or else he’d have gone mad by now.

He does go right back to his room, because that’s a safe bet.

He catches Regulus on the way down. “Mother dearest is in a mood,” he warns.

Regulus blinks, then shrugs Sirius’s hand off his shoulder and grumbles about how Sirius is ungrateful or something – he’s not really paying attention. 

He’s planning how to convince James.

He has to save them.

Regulus goes downstairs, and Sirius goes into his room to plan.

It takes the better part of a year to convince James that Peter is a traitor. 

Forget Gryffindor, the prick should have been in Hufflepuff for that loyalty. 

Once he’s convinced James, they bring Remus round and make a plan. 

Peter won’t have a chance to betray them. 

Sirius will make sure of it. 

He goes to sleep in his real bedroom, in James’s house, the last place he truly felt safe. 

He still wakes up in his bed in Grimmauld Place. 

He tries everything he can think of. 

Nothing works. 

He spends probably another six months trying to fix it before Regulus approaches him. 

“I know you won’t believe me,” he starts, shutting Sirius’s bedroom door behind him. “But I need you to try.”

“Very inspiring words, Reggie.”

Maybe he’s being too cruel. After all, this Regulus isn’t a Death Eater yet. Maybe there’s hope for change. 

(Sirius has absolutely no hope that that’ll change; Regulus’s fate is sealed.)

“I’m dead,” Regulus says. 

He wants to say that they’ve been over this, but they haven’t, as far as Regulus knows. 

So Sirius reaches out to grab his wrist. “Funny, I can feel your heartbeat.”

Regulus yanks his arm away. “I was dead. The Dark Lord is creating Horcruxes.”

Sirius can feel his stomach drop. Horcruxes. Fuck. 

“At least one, anyway. And I died trying to stop them.”

That’s a hero’s death. 

The real Regulus died scared and alone when Voldemort found out he’d tried to back out. 

He was murdered. 

So Sirius rolls his eyes. “Very funny, Reggie. You almost had me, there.”

The disappointment on his brother’s face is visible. 

“You might want to work on controlling those emotions of yours, too. We both know it won’t do to show your feelings. Mummy dearest might just yell at you, too.”

After all, Regulus isn’t stuck, too.

He couldn’t be. 

This is Sirius’s chance to make things right. 

But Regulus keeps trying, like he remembers. 

Like this matters to him. 

One day, he comes straight to Sirius’s room in the morning and announces that he was wrong.  “About everything. The Dark Lord, the war, where we stand. All of it.” 

Sirius stands stock still. Is he serious? He searches his brother’s face and sees no evidence that he’s lying.

Sirius asks him if he’s sure, and teases him about Rosier. The two of them are attached at the hip, and Rosier certainly believes in Voldemort’s pet cause. 

“I’m sure,” Regulus says, for once looking older than his fifteen years. 

Sirius makes sure it’s not a trick before letting his guard down an inch. He’s not going to fall for a lie. 

But then Regulus mentions Horcruxes again, and it starts to sink in, and Sirius starts to feel sick. Of course Voldemort’s made Horcruxes. It’s the one thing that could possibly make him more reprehensible than Grindelwald. 

“You’re sure?” he asks. 

Regulus is sure. Regulus has Kreacher’s word, and Kreacher can’t lie to him. He wouldn’t lie to him. 

Regulus is stuck, too, same as Sirius. And they’re stuck on the same day. 

When Sirius asks why not the day he died, Regulus rattles on about time magic and significant dates and breaking the loop by changing things. 

But today isn’t special for Regulus. It’s just another day, isn’t it?

When Sirius asks, Regulus turns pale. “Today’s the day that you never come back,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Has that affected him? Sirius had always thought Regulus hadn’t cared one way or the other. He’d certainly acted that way when they’d run into each other at school. 

It’s worth a shot, trying Regulus’s suggestion. If it doesn’t break the loop, he can try again. 

When he tells his brother this, he can see the relief on his face. “Thank you.”

Sirius shrugs. “Yeah, well. We’ll see, won’t we? Or I guess you’ll see.”

He doesn’t, after all, fully trust his brother. 

Coming back doesn’t fix it. 

Staying doesn’t fix it. 

Every day he wakes up on the fifteenth of July, 1976. 

This is torture. 

Maybe he didn’t die. Maybe this is an advanced torture technique. 

He tells Regulus to stop burning that fucking collage. 

That doesn’t fix it, either. 

The thing is, Sirius remembers the day he left perfectly. 

He ordered Kreacher to serve him breakfast in his room, because he didn’t want to see his family. He talked on the mirror to James for hours. Ordered Kreacher to serve him lunch. He packed his trunk. His mother came up to yell at him. He took his wand and his trunk and walked out the front door, dodging a few curses along the way. He caught the Knight Bus to James’s house, where he explained everything and vowed never to come back. James promised him he wouldn’t have to, and set him up in his own room. 

It’s seared into his memory. His first chance at freedom. 

He replayed the day over and over and over when he was stuck here with the Order, wishing it was as easy as catching the Knight Bus and walking into James’s house and hugging him close. 

He still feels relief when he hugs James, after all this time. 

At least in whatever hell this is, James and Lily are alive and well. 

When Regulus keeps pushing him, Sirius gets tired of pushing back. He just wants to see his friends. He doesn’t want whatever Regulus is doing. 

He doesn’t want to be stuck here forever. 

So one day, he cracks. 

“I’ve been stuck, too.”

He does not expect his little brother to punch him in the face. 

“Ow! What the fuck, Reg?”

“You’ve been lying to me this whole time! I should do more than punch you!”

But he doesn’t. He buries his face in his hands and starts crying, slumping to the floor of Sirius’s room. 

Well, shit. 

Sirius doesn’t know what to do. He’s never been good at comforting people, much less his brother. After a minute, he sits down beside him. 

“I should have told you earlier,” he says. “But in my defence, you’re a Death Eater.”

“As you said that first day, I’m not a Death Eater yet.”

“But you have the memories of a Death Eater.”

“You didn’t know that.”

“You said you did,” Sirius says. “Besides, ever since I was Sorted, you’ve always been the perfect pampered son. How the fuck am I meant to trust you when you’d sell me out to our mother for nothing more than a pat on the head?”

Regulus clears his throat. “I suppose you have a point.”

“Listen,” Sirius says, reaching for his hand and squeezing it. Regulus is, after all, his brother, even if he’s a stupid fucking idiot. “We’re in this together now. We need to figure out how to break this thing. From the way James reacted when I told him not to trust Peter, everyone isn’t in on it.”

“Evan reacted poorly, too,” Regulus admits. “Though I doubt he’d have reacted much differently if he had died. He’d have never believed that the Dark Lord would create a Horcrux.”

“Mum’d be exactly the same,” Sirius allows.

“I think we should operate as if we’re the only ones stuck,” Regulus says. “If Mum remembered… neither of us would be allowed out of the house.”

He has a point, loath as Sirius is to admit it. “We keep changing things every day. Is there anything we haven’t tried.”

Regulus looks sick. “There is one thing…”

“What?”

“Living out the day exactly as it happened.”

This is no hardship for Sirius, so he agrees easily enough. Regulus, for his part, looks slightly ill.

“What’s the problem?”

“I’ve got to take a bath. I’ve not – not taken a bath since…”

Since he drowned. “You mean to say you haven’t bathed in about two years?”

“I’ve showered,” Regulus says shortly. “But a bath… no.”

Sirius squeezes his hand again. “You’ve got to try. Or else we’re stuck here.”

Living the day exactly as it happens comes to the same result: both of them waking up with the clock reset on the fifteenth of July, 1976.

“Well, that was a waste,” Sirius says genially as Regulus burns his collage.

Regulus shoots him a dark look.

“We have infinite time to plan,” Sirius reminds him.

“This is torture,” Regulus says. “This is my payback for what I’ve done: being stuck with you for all eternity, reliving a day that’s horrible for me, and lovely for you.”

Sirius frowns. “Why is it horrible for you?” He’s never asked.

Regulus has never offered it up, either.

“At first, it was because I had to live up to her impossible expectations with no more room for error. But then… it was clear she wouldn’t have… pressured me to become a Death Eater if she hadn’t felt she had to make up for you leaving.”

“I couldn’t have fucking stayed here. She’d have killed me.”

“I know.” There’s no irony in his voice. Evidently, he knows Sirius is, well, serious. “I can’t blame you. But you leaving set into motion everything else in my life.” He buries his face in his hands. “I can’t be a Death Eater again.”

“We might not get a chance to be anything again.”

“Not helping.”

“Not trying to.”

Regulus rolls his eyes. 

They try a dozen more things, small tweaks in the day, but always the same result. 

Sirius can’t help but think the resolution is right in front of their faces. 

As he arrives at James’s house this time, James says, “Surprised Regulus didn’t see you off,” and it clicks. 

He pulls James into a tight hug. “Prongs, you fucking genius!”

“Fuck, no,” Regulus says. 

“Why not? You’ve been willing to try everything else.”

“Because if we fix the time loop this way, I’ll be a fucking social pariah.”

“You said yourself that Mum’ll make you sign up if I leave you here.”

“Well, yes, maybe, but –”

“But what? No more expectations, no Death Eatering…”

“Not a word.”

“It’s a word to me,” Sirius says. “Just think about it.”

It takes Regulus another month to come around to it. He agrees to live the day just like it was in real life, except Sirius will ask him to come with him, and Regulus will agree. 

“It’ll be great,” Sirius says. “You’ll see!”

Regulus looks vaguely ill, and wholly unconvinced. “If you say so.”

They agree to start in the morning, so they play a game of exploding snap for something to do. Really, Sirius can’t wait to get back to Hogwarts. It’ll be something new every day. 

Their mother comes up to yell at them for making too much noise, and then asks them what they’re doing together.

“I wasn’t aware that I wasn’t permitted to see my brother.”

In retrospect, Sirius should have expected the stinging hex. 

He really needs to get out. 

Sirius wakes up the next morning and enacts the plan. 

He trusts that Regulus is doing the same, but the problem is, on the actual day that was, they didn’t see each other at all, so all he has is trust. 

And Regulus really wasn’t excited at the prospect of becoming a teenage runaway. 

So Sirius is pleasantly surprised, when it’s time, to find Regulus in his room, working on his homework. 

“I’m leaving,” he says. 

“I see,” Regulus says. 

“I want you to come with me,” Sirius says. “To James’s. His parents have plenty of room, and you know Mum’ll take this all out on you without me there to absorb the blow.”

Regulus looks like he wants to argue. Doesn’t he want to end this, too?

“Fine,” he finally says quietly. “Just let me pack.”

He makes quick work of it, and uses an undetectable expansion charm and a featherlight charm to shove his entire trunk and his broomstick into his satchel. It’s not magic a fifteen-year-old should know, but Sirius doesn’t point that out. 

He offers his hand.