Regulus nodded. "Then let’s talk."

After receiving Bellatrix’s letter, the one dripping with accusation, and sending back a reply that dripped with indifference, he’d noticed something shift inside himself.

He knew exactly where the change came from. Strength.

Over a year of work had built a kind of ease in him, a steadiness that made things he once couldn’t be bothered with feel like they were worth a few words, a small effort, a moment of his time.

Before, he’d thought talking to Sirius was pointless. Sirius wouldn’t understand. They’d talk past each other, so why bother?

He still thought that, mostly. But now he felt like he could try. He couldn’t explain why. The steadiness was just there, and with it came the willingness to see where a conversation landed.

They walked to the end of the corridor, climbed a staircase, turned one corner, then another.

The torchlight grew dimmer. The corridors grew quieter.

On the seventh floor, Regulus turned into a side passage and stopped at a window alcove. The arch was stone, the sill recessed into the wall, covered in a thin film of dust.

He stepped forward, pushed the window open, and cold air rushed in. One hand on the railing, he looked out.

Full dark.

Across the way rose Gryffindor Tower, lit up and warm, golden light spilling from its windows. Silhouettes moved behind the glass. A few younger students scrambled into their robes, fumbling with buttons as they bolted for the door, late for dinner.

Sirius followed him over but didn’t touch the railing. He leaned back against the window, facing the corridor instead.

Hands in his pockets, one leg bent, the other stretched out ahead of him. The posture of someone who’d never once stood properly and had no plans to start.

But his face didn’t match. A crease sat between his brows, his mouth pressed down at the corners, his gaze resting on the corridor floor without settling on anything.

Regulus watched him and felt a flicker of unfamiliarity.

At Grimmauld Place, Sirius had never been like this.

There, he was either silent or erupting, or locked behind his bedroom door, refusing to come out. His moods had no pattern. One second a cold laugh, the next a slammed door.

But here, at Hogwarts, he was different.

He had friends. Places to go. People who joked with him, roughhoused with him.

He didn’t have to face Walburga’s expression every morning. Didn’t have to listen to the portraits whispering about him from the hallway walls.

He could do what he wanted. Go where he pleased.

Regulus thought about it. At Grimmauld Place, he’d never once seen Sirius look like this.

Lazy, but not defeated. Casual, but not hollow.

Leaning there like someone in a place that fit, where nothing needed to be held down or guarded against.

That was probably the biggest change since leaving home.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

"Regulus," Sirius said, and there was something in his voice that wasn’t his usual swagger. Something closer to weight. "How long has it been since we actually talked?"

Regulus said nothing. He wasn’t sure what Sirius meant by actually talked.

What counted? How long did it have to last? Or did it just mean not fighting?

He pulled himself back to the present. "What counts as actually talking?"

Sirius bared his teeth and hissed out a breath through the gap, half-frustrated, half-resigned.

He’d worked himself up to something approaching sentiment, and Regulus had answered with a definition question.

What counts as actually talking?

He thought about it. Couldn’t find an answer. Wasn’t even sure they’d ever done it.

He let the topic go.

Since leaving Grimmauld Place, he’d thought about a lot of people, a lot of things. But the person he thought about most was Regulus.

He found that strange himself. When he’d been at Grimmauld Place, he’d wanted to be as far from the place as possible, and that included Regulus.

After he left, he’d assumed he’d forget all of it. Regulus included.

He hadn’t managed it. His mind kept circling back.

Regulus eating quietly in the dining room. The feeling of Regulus’s fist connecting with his ribs in the training room. Regulus saying take care of yourself in the hallway, then turning and walking away.

He’d thought about a lot. But one thing more than anything else.

The day Bellatrix came. What she’d brought with her. Voldemort’s gift. The Dark Awakening.

He’d turned it over in his head for a long time afterward.

At first, he’d assumed Regulus had been seduced by Bellatrix’s words. Power, glory and the name of Black. Those words in her mouth, coated in a fervor that made his stomach turn.

He’d thought Regulus had caught that fever, lost his judgment, and taken the filthy thing.

But the more he thought about it, the less it held together. Regulus wasn’t like that.

He’d known since they were small. Regulus was different from other people.

He didn’t get swept up. A few passionate words wouldn’t send his blood racing. He was always calm, always controlled, always had a reason for what he did.

Someone like that wouldn’t take something like that just because Bellatrix gave a speech.

So why had he taken it?

Sirius couldn’t find an answer.

He’d spent the entire holiday thinking. Through the start of term. Up to now.

Sometimes the answer felt close enough to taste, sitting right there on the tip of his tongue but refusing to form. Other times it felt impossibly far, so far he was afraid to even reach for it.

He was afraid to know.

Afraid Regulus would say because I wanted to get stronger. Afraid he’d say because it was the right choice.

In Sirius’s mind, Regulus did have that side to him.

His drive for power seemed bottomless. He was barely home during holidays, off doing who knew what, but every time they crossed paths he’d gotten stronger. Even after a full summer of training, Sirius thought back to that moment in the Grimmauld Place training room and couldn’t imagine giving Regulus any real trouble.

The gap was too wide.

And yet, strong as he already was, Regulus acted like something was chasing him. He never stopped.

Sirius knew the situation outside.

Voldemort.

The Death Eaters.

But all of that was supposed to be far away, wasn’t it?

He was a third-year. Regulus was a second-year. Why the rush?

The thought had sat heavy in his chest for six months. From the holiday through the start of term. From the start of term to tonight.

He couldn’t hold it any longer.

"That day." Sirius’s voice came out tight, the words pressed through clenched teeth. "Why did you take that thing?"

Regulus looked at him.

Six months, and he’s still thinking about it?

But the fact that he’d asked meant he hadn’t been spiraling aimlessly. He’d been turning it over, genuinely trying to work through it.

Whether he’d gotten anywhere useful was another question, but at least he hadn’t reduced it to Regulus made a mistake and left it there.

Regulus didn’t answer directly. Instead: "Sirius, do you know what real power is?"

Sirius snapped.

The composure cracked open. He launched off the railing, spun to face Regulus, eyes wide, voice climbing. "You..." The word came through gritted teeth, anger and disappointment tangled together. "Are you saying there’s real power in that thing? That... that..."

Regulus turned his head and glanced at him. A flicker of surprise, then comprehension as he traced where Sirius’s logic had jumped.

He didn’t correct it. He kept going. "Have you thought about what would have happened if I’d refused?"

Sirius froze for a beat, then the words came rushing out without thought: "What could possibly..."

He stopped mid-sentence.

Silence. He started thinking.

If Regulus had refused, what then?

How would Bellatrix have reacted? Would she have turned on them right there? What would Voldemort have thought? Would he have seen the House of Black as ungrateful? Would there have been retaliation?

Sirius had never considered any of this before.

In his view, if something was wrong, you didn’t accept it. Consequences didn’t enter the equation.

It was a question of right and wrong. Nothing else needed weighing.

But now, with Regulus’s question hanging in the air, a chain of thoughts he’d never had before surged up all at once.

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Regulus watched him stall and understood.

Sirius’s moral framework was linear. Good things should be done. Bad things shouldn’t. End of analysis.

He didn’t think about what happened after you did the good thing, or what happened after you refused the bad one.

For him, right and wrong were reasons enough in themselves.

There was nothing wrong with that.

But that kind of thinking didn’t work against Voldemort. Sometimes it didn’t work with Dumbledore either.

It barely even worked among students.

But that was Sirius.

Sirius went quiet. He swallowed the argument he’d been building, leaned back against the railing, shoved his hands into his pockets, and fixed his eyes on the floor.

Regulus watched him.

Six months, and he managed to ask the question. That’s something.

He hadn’t thought through the full picture, not even close. But at least now he was thinking. Maybe.

"So," Regulus asked again. "Do you know what real power is?"

Sirius was silent for a long time. Then he raised his head, brow furrowed. "Being able to win. Being able to protect the people you want to protect."

"And then?"

The answer came fast. "Then making sure those people are too scared to come after you."

Regulus gave a small nod, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. "But once you’ve won, protected everyone, made them fear you... is that enough?"

Sirius opened his mouth to say yes, but the word caught before it left.

His right hand rose halfway to his head, an aborted move to scratch it, then dropped.

He turned and looked at Regulus straight on. "Then you tell me. What is real power?"