The Prank
For @blueeaglemoon, my Bestie, as a very delayed birthday present, I hope you like it ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
TW: physical and emotional abuse mentions
Orion’s eyes narrowed. Sirius prepared himself for a backlash.
“Nobody here values your opinion, Sirius,” he said, without turning to look at him. “Answer the question, Regulus.”
Fuck.
It wasn’t working. His attempts to antagonise his father kept failing. It was like his father was giving up on him, and all his hopes and demands and the weight of expectations were being transferred to his little brother. Regulus couldn’t handle that pressure. He was too soft, too… different. It didn’t suit him. It wasn’t fair. And all the anger and fear and constant fighting that exhausted him beyond measure, his sense of rejection, and his determination to reject them before they finally got rid of him, some day, soon – he could just about handle that. Because he had always known that any morsel of love from his parents was dependent on meeting their expectations, on doing exactly what was demanded of him.
He was not loved for who he was.
But having to watch, knowing it was his fault that his brother was burdened with all this, sensing Orion deliberately doubling his expectations, piling on the guilt and presumptions, almost hating Regulus because he wasn’t Sirius, that he couldn’t fix his broken eldest child? Was Orion letting the rage against his heir infect his relationship with his youngest son, a son he had never understood or respected? Or was it sadism, knowing Sirius cared for his brother, knowing how much it hurt him to see Regulus suffer?
Orion’s wand was pointed at Regulus, a silent incantation, and Regulus’ eyes slowing forced to look at his father, squirming with discomfort.
“Answer me!”
And Regulus was incapable of lying convincingly.
There was nothing else for it.
“Did you see the article in The Daily Prophet today, the one about muggle rights?” he said, turning to Walburga and smiling - a lazy, irreverent, smug, offensive smile.
Walburga sniffed once, wine glass in hand, before draining the blood red liquid and setting it carefully down on the table, goblin cut crystal, dating back to the fifteenth century.
“What article?” she said.
His mother was so much easier to rile up, her rage brimming so close to the surface.
“The opinion piece, by Xenophilius Lovegood,” he continued, watching the veins on her temple filling. “I found it rather wonderful. Rational. Succinct. Give muggleborns equal rights. Dismantle the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Reconstitute the Wizengamot, giving equal seats to muggleborns, half-bloods and purebloods. Reform the law, revoke pureblood supremacist legislation, make bigotry punishable.”
Silence.
Regulus’ eyes strayed towards Sirius, incredulous. He watched his mother’s horror-stricken face, raging. His father, who was usually harder to read, almost as horrified. Sirius laughed.
Only a few days ago, his mother had blasted him to the corner of the Dining Room when he called her a bitch for describing her sister Andromeda’s marriage to Ted Tonks depraved and disgusting.
“Blood traitor is next to Mudblood in my book,” Walburga hissed, sitting bolt upright.
“Oh, yes, in my book too,” said Sirius, nonchalant, tipping the legs of his chair back, a rare English 17th century walnut chair, in the Black family since then. He could see his mother’s temper rising at his flagrant indifference to their aristocratic heirlooms.
“With Voldemort-loving supremacist scum and people like Araminta Meliflua at the bottom.”
Araminta was a relative of Walburga’s, who had attempted to force the passage of a bill at the Ministry that would have legalized Muggle-hunting, as a sport. His mother rose, wand in hand.
“Lord Voldemort is trying to keep our families safe, the muggles are trying to exterminate us, as they did between 1450 to 1750*. It’s self-defence, Sirius!” Regulus said.
How could you be so stupid, his look said.
“Oh I’m not defending what some muggles did to us in the past, there are bad muggles too, we’ve learnt about them in Muggle Studies. Just like there were bad witches and wizards in the old days,” Sirius said in a condescending voice, still leaning back on his chair. “I’m talking about now. There is no muggle conspiracy against us.
“Muggle Studies?” Orion said slowly.
Fuck. He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t told his parents he was taking Muggle Studies as one of his OWL subjects. An extra subject posed no particular difficulties for him. Their Muggle Studies teacher, Professor McIntyre, in cahoots with Professor McGonagall, had agreed to issue him with two OWL certificates, the one without her subject to be handed to his parents.
Merlin, Fuck! Still, it seemed that all thoughts of Regulus were now forgotten, from the way that his parents were looking at him.
“Yeah,” he said, feeling his mouth go dry. “Got a problem with that?”
His father was standing up now too, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Regulus, leave,” Orion said.
Regulus didn’t seem to understand what was happening, still seated.
His heart rate picked up.
“Get out!” Walburga screamed at Regulus, pointing her wand at him.
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