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Harry and Hermione exited Sirius’s old bedroom in thoughtful silence as he put his mother’s letter to Sirius and the photograph of him as a baby into the moleskine pouch that Hagrid had given him.
“How about we head down to the kitchen?” Hermione asked, “Get some breakfast. I'm pretty hungry.”
“I’ll be downstairs in a bit,” Harry replied, his voice heavy “ I wanna be alone for a moment.”
Hermione nodded with a sympathetic smile and went on down the stairs leaving Harry alone in the corridor.
He stood in the hallway for a while, staring at a small side table pushed up against the wall next to Sirius’s door. It was made of dark wood and had a faded cream lace cloth covering it; a lone oval shaped silver box stood in the middle of the lace. Overly ornate, as most things were in Grimmauld place. It was everything Sirius had hated and Harry wondered, not for the first time, how Sirius had survived so many years trapped in this house that even after his death seemed to have a personal vendetta against him.
Looking back towards the landing of the stairs he let out a harsh puff of air in an attempt to clear his mind; he started off in the direction Hermione had gone when something caught his eye. A handwritten sign was stuck on the door next to Sirius’s bedroom, it said:
Do Not Enter
Without the Express Permission of
Regulus Arcturus Black
“Regulus Arcturus Black” he muttered to himself as if trying out the feel of the name on his tongue. He remembered Sirius telling him that name during his stay at Grimmauld place in his fifth year. He had pointed to an embroidered portrait on the Black family tapestry that was next to the charred spot that had once been Sirius. Harry wondered if the tapestry would have had Sirius’s death date added in cursive by now had he not been burnt off years ago.
He had a persisting feeling of deja vu though, as if he recognised that name from somewhere else as well.
As if he had heard it somewhere important.
He gasped loud in the still corridor as it struck him, RAB! The signature on the note from the fake horcrux.
“Ron, Hermione!” He called loudly, and without waiting for their reply he unlocked the door with a quick alohomora, entered the room and began to search.
The door creaked on its hinges as he opened it, rusty from disuse. Up close the sign was yellowed and the edges were peeling away from the door where the sticking charm that had affixed it to the wood was failing.
The bedroom could not have been more different from Sirius's. It was plastered with slytherin green and silver, and in keeping with the decor that could be found in the drawing and dining rooms downstairs. In accordance with traditional pureblood taste.
Harry made his way over to the four poster bed and the table beside it. The bed was covered in a layer of dust about an inch thick that almost obscured the emerald green of the bedspread.
There was a silver frame on the table containing a photograph of a group of teenagers, a slip of parchment in the bottom of the frame read Slytherin Quiddich team 1975. Regulus was instantly recognisable as the boy sitting in the middle of the front row: he had the same dark hair and slightly haughty look of his brother.
“He played seeker,” Harry said to himself in the still air of the room.
“Ron, Hermione!” he called again and heard a muffled thunk somewhere below him.
While he waited for them to come upstairs he pulled open the top drawer in the bedside table and began to rummage around in its contents. He wasn’t completely sure what he was looking for, anything to do with Voldemort or the locket he supposed.
The drawer was filled with empty potion bottles, dusty quills, and half used ink bottles with sticky residue on the glass that turned Harry’s fingers red.
As he searched towards the rear of the drawer his hand brushed up against what he had expected to be the wooden back, but instead he felt parchment. He slid the drawer fully out of the table and tipped the contents onto the dusty bed covers, sending a plume of fine dirt up into the air. He plucked the piece of parchment from the top of the pile.
It was an envelope. He turned it over, getting red finger prints on it in the process.
“What?” he breathed to himself, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he read the name of the recipient.
On the front of the envelope in neat slanted cursive was written his fathers name; James Fleamont Potter.
What would a letter to his father be doing in Sirius’s little brother’s bedroom? He carefully broke open the brittle grey wax that had sealed it, and slid out the folded sheet of parchment inside. It was covered in the same perfect handwriting as the envelope and the sign on the door; he began to read.
Dearest,
I know that I will never send this but I am writing it anyway, just in case a miracle occurs and you care enough to come looking for me.
Just in case.
I told you when we met that I was not a good person, that you could not save me, and yet you insisted upon trying. Do not misunderstand my words -for I am not saved no matter how hard you tried- but you changed something within me. Your presence dragged me into the sun for a shining moment and now the shadow of this house feels colder than ever. You burn so brightly.
So brightly-
And I miss the warmth.
I am frozen to the marrow of my bones without you, and I realise now that I freeze others.
It was for the best that I left, I would have turned you cold.
I could see it starting to happen- but I was selfish and I clung to you, my sun, for as long as you would let me.
Sometimes Most of the time, I imagine what you would think of me if you saw me now. I doubt you would recognise me, I am no longer the boy you used to meet in the come and go room after dark. I have done horrible things, my love, truly horrible things. If I ever did see you again I wouldn’t be able to look you in the eye- and if I told you what I've done I don't think you would want me to.
Who would want to see into a soul so capable of horrors.
But tonight I shall do something I’d like to think you would be proud of. Something that will ensure the last bit of warmth you left in my marrow is not squandered on self pity.
The dark lord has a secret that I have discovered, and until it is dealt with he will not die. I intend to destroy the object keeping him alive. I will die in the process, but that is of no consequence. I would die freezing in this house anyway, and I doubt anyone but Kreacher will care.
I love you, still. As much as I try not to.
You are so warm, my love, and burn so bright.
Goodbye James.
RAB
Harry exhaled a shaky breath and blinked tears away from his eyes. The letter was so desperately sad and completely unexpected that he found it difficult to focus on the mention of the horcrux.
‘My love.’
He had called James ‘my love’.
Had Regulus and his dad been in love?
He thought about his mum, her letter that he had just found in Sirius's room, and the photograph of him on his toy broom. Both were still in the pouch around his neck, hanging close to his heart.
Had Sirius known, and if he had why hadn’t he told Harry?
He sank down cross legged onto the rug.
He had thought he knew his father. He had seen his parents wedding photos, used his fathers invisibility cloak and the marauders map. Had seen Snape’s memories of a cocky teenager who was too impulsive for his own good. Heard Sirius and Lupin describe how his father had loved his mother since first year. Hell, he had even spent a particularly long series of detentions sorting through his fathers old detention records in Filch’s office reading descriptions of pranks that would rival even the Weasley twin’s finest.
But the despair in Regulus’s letter spoke of a version of Harry’s father he had never heard about before.
The only person left alive that might know anything would be Lupin, and at that thought a wave of grief washed over him.
Hermione walked into the room, Ron not far behind her.
“You shouted for us-” She said, and then stopped when she noticed Harry on the floor and the letter in his hand. “What have you found?”
Harry was reminded of the reason he had called for them in the first place. He sniffed.
“The room. It’s Sirius’s brother’s, Regulus Arcturus Black.” He said, gesturing to the sign visible to the three of them on the open door.
“Regulus Arcturus Black…” started Ron, “why would-” he gasped, “Oh! RAB!”
“Sirius told me that his brother was a death eater, that he joined up really young then got cold feet and tried to leave – so they killed him.”* Harry told them.
“Is that what the letter’s about?” Hermione asked urgently, “Does it mention something to do with the horcrux?”
Harry wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to show the others the letter, but he supposed it was too late to hide it now that Hermione had caught sight of it.
“Sort of,” he said, and then he passed it over to her as he added meekly. “ It was addressed to my dad.”
“What?” said Ron, with a baffled expression.
“Just read it.” Harry replied.
Hermione started to read aloud but after the first few lines she tapered off. Ron looked over her shoulder to finish reading it with her.
Harry watched their confusion change into something unreadable as they read.
He sat in silence until Hermione looked down to meet Harry’s gaze. She saw the tears in his eyes that had welled back up and whispered,
“Oh, Harry!”
She sat down and pulled Harry into a tight hug. The letter covered in his faint red fingerprints still clutched in her hand.
Ron was quickly regaining his mostly confused expression.
“Why the bloody hell was Sirius’s brother writing the most depressing love letter I've ever seen to Harry’s dad?” He asked.
Harry pulled back from Hermione’s embrace, and threw his arm out in a passionate gesture.
“That’s what I don’t understand!” he said.
“He talks as if they were in love. But Sirius and Lupin told me, after I saw Snape’s memories, that my dad was in love with my mum since they were first years.”
Hermione opened her mouth to interject, but before she could speak Harry cut her off by continuing despondently, “And I can’t even ask anyone about this now, because all of my parent’s friends apart from Lupin are dead.”
Neither Ron nor Hermione knew quite how to reply to that statement.
Ron sat down with them and they sat in awkward silence for what was probably only a second but stretched to an hour in that abandoned bedroom shut off from the world.
“Forget it.” Harry suddenly said curtly, taking the letter back from Hermione shoving it in his pocket and shattering the quiet.
He stood and walked over to the wardrobe turning his back on the other two, and threw the doors open a cloud of powdery dust rising from them as he started to rifle through the robes inside it.
“He mentioned he was planning to destroy the object keeping Voldemort alive, that means there’s probably something to do with the horcrux in here. That’s more important that my dead dads love life. Let's get looking.”
“Are you sure you’re ok mate?” Ron asked as he and Hermione joined the search, standing to sort through the bookshelf next to the wardrobe.
“In the last half an hour I’ve found a letter written by my mum months before she died, and a depressing love letter addressed to my dad by my godfather’s death eater little brother, what do you think Ron?” Harry replied with all the sarcasm he could muster.
Ron didn’t say anything back, just grimaced and continued shifting the books off of the shelf.
Hermione however whispered tentatively into the room. “If I find anything else about your parents I'll let you know.”
Harry picked at the red ink on his fingers,
“Thanks” he said softly back.