Chapter 288: Chapter 288: My Little Brother’s Taller Than Me? [bonus]

Sirius pushed open the door to his room.

Clean sheets. Dustless desk. Curtains drawn. Fireplace cold.

Kreacher had been keeping it spotless. Even though the room’s owner was never coming back, the house-elf scrubbed every inch as though he might walk in at any moment.

A silver frame on the bedside table held a photograph of him at three, dressed in a miniature formal suit, grinning wide, radiating the kind of happiness that didn’t know any better.

The bookshelf held a few titles Walburga had chosen. Guide to Pure-Blood Family Etiquette. A History of the House of Black. Noble Bloodlines. He’d never cracked a single one. The gilt lettering on the spines still looked fresh.

Beside them sat his own things. A worn broomstick servicing kit. A handful of photographs with James at Hogwarts. A copy of Quidditch Through the Ages.

Two collections side by side. One half was the person the House of Black wanted him to become. The other was the person he’d chosen to be.

He stepped inside, fingers trailing along the bookshelf.

A memory surfaced. Five years old. Regulus on this floor, stacking blocks.

They’d been small then. Still together.

Regulus had built a tower, tall and steady. Sirius kicked it over. Regulus looked at him, said nothing, and started again from scratch.

He kicked it again.

Regulus looked at him, said nothing, started again.

The third time, he didn’t kick. He crouched down and placed a block himself, crooked and off-center. Regulus straightened it.

Looking back, that was one of the few warm memories between them.

He didn’t know why it had come to him now.

Sirius pulled his hand back, crossed to the window, and drew the curtains.

The night over Grimmauld Place filtered through the glass. A few streetlamps glowed in the square beyond, their light dim enough to illuminate only small patches of ground.

Three or four Muggle children were kicking a ball around, short and bundled in thick coats, running with the graceless urgency of kids in winter. The ball rolled into the hedge. One dove in after it while the others shouted from outside.

Their voices came through the glass muffled and indistinct.

Sirius leaned against the window frame and watched.

They didn’t have to worry about pure-blood or half-blood. Nobody lecturing them on the importance of lineage. No war to factor in.

He didn’t envy them. The scene looked distant, that was all.

12 Grimmauld Place sat wrapped in enchantments. The outside couldn’t see in. The inside could see out.

He’d always been standing on this side, looking at that one.

He watched a while longer, let the curtain fall, turned, took two steps, and threw himself onto the bed.

His back hit the mattress and bounced once.

Hands behind his head, he stared at the ceiling.

The whole house was silent. That particular Black family silence, thick and pressing, the kind that made you afraid to breathe too loudly.

He used to hate it. A net that swallowed every sound and left you suffocating.

Now, lying on this bed, listening to that same quiet, he didn’t feel much of anything.

Not the old hatred. Certainly not affection. It was silence, and that was all.

After a while he rolled upright and opened the wardrobe.

Several old robes hung inside. Dark ones, lighter ones, every collar embroidered with the Black family crest. The sizes were still his measurements at twelve.

No new ones had been prepared.

Of course Walburga wouldn’t have bothered.

Sirius yanked out a dark robe that looked like it might barely fit and shrugged it on, arms pushing through the sleeves.

The collar dug into his neck. The shoulder seams strained. Raising his arms sent a sharp pull through the underarms.

He made a face and muttered under his breath.

Fine. No new robes. Who cared.

He didn’t check the mirror. Tugged at the collar twice, failed to loosen it, gave up, and walked out.

Regulus returned to his room and lifted Baruk from inside his robes, setting him on the desk.

Eight legs touched down on the wood. The spider’s head swiveled left, then right, then left again. His chelicerae opened and clicked shut. Eight eyes swept the room in a single pass.

A foreleg rose and tapped the desktop twice, testing. Click.

"This is my den," Regulus said.

Two more clicks. Then Baruk sprang off the surface, all eight legs leaving the desk at once, landing facing the opposite direction.

He scuttled to the corner, hung half his body over the edge and peered down, pulled back, then launched himself toward the windowsill. His claws pressed against the glass and he stared outside.

Baruk hopped back to the desk, landing softly, fuzzy legs folding in and fanning out again. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

He circled the ink bottle once, stopped beside the notebook, chelicerae opening and closing. Click click.

"Stay here." Regulus tapped a finger on his carapace. "Don’t wander."

Baruk raised a foreleg and waved it through the air.

"I’ll bring food later."

Click.

Baruk found a corner of the desk, tucked himself in, drew all eight legs beneath his body, and became a fuzzy ball.

Settled.

Regulus pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk.

The rune-sealed chest Orion had given him lay in the corner. Dark wood, runes etched into the surface, nothing about its exterior betraying what was inside.

He lifted it out.

The instant it was in his hands, even through the protective runes and the layered magical shielding, the sensation bled through.

At the same time, deep in his consciousness, the containment room stirred. The virtual persona moved.

Regulus followed the mental link and glanced inside.

The containment room was the same as ever. A pure white cube, no doors, no windows, four walls and a ceiling.

The virtual persona crouched in the center, hair a tangled mess, using raw magic to scratch crooked runes across the floor.

Drawn and wiped, wiped and redrawn. Left to right, right to the walls, walls back to the floor.

The research material imported from the Dark Awakening last time had been exhausted ages ago. Everything that could be dismantled had been dismantled, analyzed, simulated.

Now it had nothing left to work with.

It was losing its mind.

The frenzy of a research addict locked in an empty room after the supply ran dry. Curiosity and the compulsion to investigate, dammed up with no outlet, pressure building with nowhere to go, taking it out on the walls and floor.

The moment it sensed the bone box’s presence outside, its head snapped up. It pressed itself against the wall, face smashed flat, nose squashed, eyes blazing, fingernails scraping the white interior.

It knew something was happening out there. Knew there was something good. Couldn’t reach it. Its mouth moved, mumbling words too garbled to make out.

Regulus listened through the filter layer and caught the gist: I know you’re out there. Give it to me. A little more. I haven’t finished. There’s still so much I haven’t figured out.

The tone was urgent, agitated, but the underlying logic was still research-driven. It wasn’t begging for power. It was demanding material.

The design was holding.

But its magic had grown dimmer since the last inspection. The edges carried a thin shadow unique to the bone box’s corrosive influence, clinging to the surface of the magical energy like a film.

The persona was oblivious, still scratching at the wall.

Regulus withdrew his observation.

Time for another session.

The last import had been too small. The virtual persona had burned through it in half a month and spent the remaining three months spinning its wheels, research efficiency at zero, doing nothing but unraveling.

Once his business with Orion was finished, he’d extract another batch of material from the bone box and feed it into the containment room.

A larger dose this time. Calibrate the filter parameters, give the persona more to digest.

Besides, the banquet would require it.

He placed the chest back in the drawer and closed it.

Baruk lay in the corner of the desk, eight eyes tracking his movements. The chelicerae opened once, silently.

Regulus ignored him, changed into a dark house robe, adjusted the collar, and walked out.

In the corridor, Sirius was emerging from his own room.

The old robe had him twisted up like a straitjacket. One hand clawed at the collar, neck craned sideways, face broadcasting pure disgust.

He spotted Regulus and let go of the collar. His gaze landed on Regulus’s shoulders first, traveled up to the top of his head, then dropped back to the shoulders.

He walked two steps closer, lined himself up side by side, and held a flat hand over his own head, sweeping it across to Regulus’s side.

He stopped.

Sirius had discovered something deeply unacceptable.

Regulus appeared to be taller than him.

He checked the shoulders again.

Regulus’s were broader too. The way their robes sat was different. His old robe strained because it was too small. Regulus’s filled out because his frame filled it.

The corner of Sirius’s mouth pulled down.

How was this kid growing?

They ate at the same school. Same Great Hall. Same food. Was the Slytherin table getting something extra?

Did the dungeons promote growth better than the tower?

Or had this little bastard been sneaking height potions?

He grumbled internally, glanced at Regulus’s shoulders one more time, and confirmed it.

Unacceptable.

He was the older brother.

How could the older brother be shorter than the younger?

It was only by a fraction. It might be an illusion. Different shoes could change everything...

But he refused to accept it.

"Regulus." His voice aimed for casual but landed somewhere near grinding teeth. "Get me a robe that fits. This thing’s trying to kill me."

Regulus had stood there through the entire performance without moving. Through the measuring, the comparing, the silent outrage. The faintest uptick at the corner of his mouth.

But at the request, his expression shifted into something harder to read. He studied Sirius, as though trying to determine whether he was serious.

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