Chapter 2: The Silent Regulus
Autumn, 1962. Regulus was a year and a half old; Sirius was three.
Sirius's side of the nursery had already descended into chaos. Toy broomstick parts, enchanted spinning tops that bit, and a box of goblin-made metal puzzles lay scattered across the floor.
Regulus's corner, on the other hand, was always tidy. A dark blue rug held a few picture books and a plush Kneazle that no longer moved — it had once been animated, but Sirius had broken it.
That afternoon, Kreacher was cleaning the windows with magic, though his ears remained perked toward the two young masters and his eyes kept drifting their way.
Sirius had just retrieved a miniature broomstick from Orion's study — a scaled-down model of a real broom, a teaching tool designed to demonstrate the principles of the Flying Charm.
"Watch this, Regulus!" Sirius called out loudly to grab his brother's attention. "This is a broomstick! A real wizard's broomstick! I can make it float!"
He placed the broom on the carpet, stepped back two paces, and drew a deep breath. His small face reddened with effort.
"Up!" he shouted, thrusting both hands upward in a lifting motion.
The broomstick shifted slightly — one end rose about five degrees before settling back down.
"Up! Up!" Sirius tried twice more. This time the broom did a half-roll in place but never left the ground. Kreacher held his breath. He knew this broomstick had been enchanted with a restriction — only someone who understood that the Levitation Charm required imagining the weight disappearing could activate it.
It was Orion's tool for testing a child's magical comprehension. Sirius thought he had stolen it, but that had been precisely Orion's intention.
Sirius clearly had not grasped the concept yet.
"Why won't it work?" he grumbled, kicking the carpet in frustration. "Father can make it fly!"
But then Regulus moved. He pushed himself up from the carpet — faster than usual — walked over to the broomstick, and sat down beside it.
Sirius watched him and curled his lip dismissively. "You want to try too? You can't even talk yet."
Regulus ignored him. He simply extended his right index finger and held it above the broomstick.
Then he pressed down once, and the broomstick rose smoothly into the air. When it reached his eye level, it hovered — perfectly still.
Sirius's jaw dropped. The enchanted rag Kreacher had been controlling fell to the floor.
With a gentle push of Regulus's finger, the broomstick descended slowly, settling back exactly where it had been — not a hair's breadth off.
"You... how did you..." Sirius stammered.
He was completely bewildered. How could his baby brother do something he himself could not?
Regulus turned his head and spoke his very first complete sentence, his voice young but clear: "Think, then do."
"Think what?" Sirius asked instinctively.
"Think of it as light," Regulus said, pointing at the broom. "Don't think of it as heavy."
"But it is heavy!"
"Think it isn't."
"How is that possible?"
Regulus tilted his head, as though considering how to explain, then patted the carpet beside him and said to Sirius: "Sit."
Sirius obediently sat down, completely overlooking the fact that his brother had somehow begun speaking in perfectly clear sentences.
Regulus picked up a fallen leaf that had drifted in through the window, placed it on his palm, and said: "It's light."
"Right."
"Think of it as heavy."
Sirius stared at the leaf, straining to imagine it being heavy as a stone.
Nothing happened.
"Wrong." Regulus seemed to know exactly what Sirius was thinking. He said: "Don't think 'it's heavy like something else.' Forget that it's light. Then — it just is heavy."
Sirius frowned. This was too abstract. He had never imagined anything this way before. He scratched his head, thoroughly confused.
Regulus wobbled to his feet and returned to his corner, leaving Sirius alone to wrestle with the idea.
He had finished his lesson. But this kind of understanding was still too advanced for a three-and-a-half-year-old Sirius.
For Regulus, on the other hand, age had never been a limitation when it came to comprehension and insight.
After dinner, Orion summoned Kreacher to the study.
"That teaching broomstick," Orion said from behind his desk, brows furrowed. "Regulus made it levitate?"
"Y-yes, Master." Kreacher wrung a tea towel nervously. "Young Master Regulus made it fly. About a foot high. Very steady."
"He spoke?"
"A few sentences." Kreacher repeated what Regulus had said to Sirius, word for word.
When he finished, Orion was silent for a long time. The ancestral portraits on the study walls pretended to look elsewhere, but every ear was pricked.
"From now on," Orion said at last, "whatever Regulus wants to do — as long as it isn't dangerous — let him. But watch him. Take notes. Report to me every evening before dinner."
"Yes, Master!"
......
December 1963. The preparations for Christmas were underway at 12 Grimmauld Place.
Sirius Black had turned four just a month earlier and was firmly in the phase of believing himself the greatest thing since Merlin.
He stood in the center of the drawing room, hands on his hips, and issued a declaration to a half-decorated Christmas tree: "I'm going to make the bells ring by themselves!"
Walburga leaned over the second-floor railing. "Sirius, stop making trouble. Kreacher, hang the silver baubles higher — last year they were too low, and Andromeda nearly hit her head."
"Yes, Mistress." Kreacher stretched out his spindly fingers and floated the silver baubles a touch higher.
Regulus sat on the thick rug beside the fireplace, as quiet in that moment as a potted fern in the corner.
The soul from another world had inhabited this body for three years now, and he had long since accepted reality. This was a magical world. He was Regulus Black — the tragic character who had died young in the original story.
But he had no intention of replaying that tragedy. He had grander ambitions — the stars, the cosmos, realms the original story had never touched.
As for Sirius?
'Let him be,' Regulus thought. 'He'll end up a champion of justice anyway, a hero standing against Voldemort.'
'As long as I'm alive, the Black family's resources are my springboard. No need to compete with a four-year-old.'
"Regulus! Watch this!" Sirius's voice yanked him back to the present.
Sirius took a deep breath, fixed his gaze on a golden bell near the treetop, and once again scrunched his little face red with effort, hands making a grasping motion.
Magical energy began to surge.
"Move!" Sirius bellowed.
Regulus's magical perception was extraordinarily sharp — like having an extra sensory system. He could see Sirius's magic churning, and it was about to spiral out of control.
Bang!
The entire Christmas tree began to shake violently.
The star ornament on top fell off and struck Kreacher on the head. Candy canes clattered against each other, and glass baubles rang out in a discordant chorus.
A strand of color-shifting fairy lights near the crown began to flash at a frantic, seizure-inducing pace.
"Stop! Stop!" Walburga raced down the stairs.
Too late.
Sirius had been frightened by his own magic. He tried to pull back, but he couldn't. Panic spread across the young boy's face as he flailed his arms helplessly — which only made his magical output more unstable.
Boom!
Three floor-to-ceiling windows on the east side of the drawing room shattered simultaneously.
The glass shards blasted outward but were caught and frozen mid-flight by the protective wards — otherwise the entire street outside would have been showered in debris.
The chandelier swung wildly, its crystal drops colliding with a sharp, grating clamor.
"Aah!"
The portraits screamed in unison. Phineas Nigellus roared the loudest: "Barbarian! The Blacks have truly fallen!"
Walburga raised her wand and hit Sirius with a powerful Calming Charm.
He stumbled backward several steps and collapsed onto the floor, staring blankly at his own hands.
Walburga's expression was a marvel — fury first, but then, far more prominently, pride.
"Plenty of magical power," she said, her tone oddly strained, "but the aim was wrong. Next time, point it at something expendable — like those hideous vases your father collects."
Sirius blinked, uncomprehending. He had expected to be scolded.
Regulus closed his book.
'This is the trouble with wizard toddlers,' he sighed inwardly. 'Magic fluctuates with emotion — like a pressure cooker with no safety valve, ready to blow at any moment.'
Kreacher began cleaning up the wreckage. Walburga gave Sirius a complicated look and headed back upstairs.
Sirius sat on the carpet, looked at his hands, then at the shattered windows, and finally at Regulus.
"I did it," he said quietly.
Regulus nodded. "Impressive."