HP fic "Snow Globe" (PG)
Title: Snow Globe Rating: PG Disclaimer: The characters all belong to JK Rowling. I just like to throw snowballs at them now & again. Summary: Regulus/Remus, talking about Sirius. Requested by katilara. I don't know if this is quite what she wanted, but I hope she likes it regardless. Billions of kisses to pre_raphaelite1 for the beta!
Snow Globe
It was on the wide stone steps just outside Hogwarts’ immense front doors that he finally caught up to Remus, just managing to grab the older boy’s sleeve before he entered the school.
“L-lupin,” he panted, his breath puffing out in small, stark clouds in the frigid air.
He winced at the irritation he heard in the barely suppressed sigh as Remus turned. “Regulus,” Remus said mildly, inclining his head slightly. “To what do I owe the rather dubious pleasure?”
Regulus shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “D’you see much of Sirius?” he asked, pulling his cloak more tightly around him against the December chill. He laughed self-consciously and added, “Of course you do; you share a dorm, don’t you? Of course you see him.”
“Look,” Remus said. “I’m sorry that Sirius isn’t here for you to bait and goad, and I’m sorry it was apparently not enough for you lot to drive him out of his own home, but as you can see…” – he gestured vaguely at the two of them – “I’m all alone.”
“Stop,” said Regulus. “Just stop, alright?” They glared at each other for a long moment, the snow eddying in lazy drifts around their feet.
Remus shifted his bookbag uncomfortably on his shoulder. “Regulus,” he said tiredly. “I’ve got double Arithmancy in about ten minutes, so if you really don’t mind…”
“I know he won’t talk to me,” Regulus said abruptly, trying very hard to sound as though it were the most inconsequential of matters. “I just… Sirius. How is he?”
“Why?” Remus asked.
“What?”
Remus huffed impatiently. “Why d’you care? You drove him out, you and that family of yours, with your snobbery and pure-blood mania…”
“We didn’t ‘drive him out’,” Regulus broke in angrily. “He left!”
“Same thing,” Remus said tersely. “You didn’t want him anymore. So why d’you care how he is?”
Regulus frowned. “Because I do,” he muttered. I shouldn’t have asked, he thought wildly, dropping his gaze to the snow-covered ground. Sirius doesn’t want to talk to me anyway; of course his friends are going to protect him.
“He’s doing alright,” Remus said suddenly, “though I’m sure you’d rather hear otherwise.”
Regulus flushed, guilt flashing crazily through him for an instant before pride took over. He was a Black, he reminded himself harshly, and most certainly had purer blood in his toenail clippings than this mongrel Sirius had chosen for a friend had in his entire body. He was a Black, of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, and he’d be thrice-damned if he was going to stoop to begging information about his brother (ex-brother, he thought) from a mangy specimen like Remus Lupin.
But under Remus’ cool gaze his resolve quickly withered. “Here,” he said, awkwardly thrusting a small, hastily wrapped package into Remus’ hands. “Don’t tell him who it’s from, alright?”
Remus regarded the clumsily Spellotaped box for a moment before slipping it into a pocket. “What is it?”
“Nothing much,” Regulus said. At Remus’ alarmed expression, he hastily added, “Just a trinket, really. It’s his anyway.”
He couldn’t remember how exactly they had found that Muggle gift shop the winter before Sirius had come to Hogwarts, and certainly he’d never come across it since. It had been Sirius’ idea to slip into Muggle London unchaperoned, though Regulus had eagerly gone along with the plans.
“It’ll be fun, Reg,” Sirius had whispered to him. “They’ll be at the Malfoys; they won’t be back for hours.”
And so they’d slipped out into the snow, away from the house and the house-elves, each daring the other to go further, further, until they looked around at last and realized they were utterly, hopelessly lost.
That was when they found the shop.
They’d stood for what seemed an eternity with their noses, pink with the cold, pressed up against the glass, staring at the unfamiliar trinkets in the window display.
“Like those, do you?” said a wheezy sort of voice, and they jumped.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sirius had immediately piped up. The voice had belonged to a stout, elderly lady hardly any taller than the boys had been. She laughed and waddled past them into the shop.
And wonder of wonders, she came out a few moments later with a box for each of them.
“I’ve got grandsons,” she wheezed, “though mine are all grown now. You take these, and have a happy Christmas.”
Delighted, the boys thanked her profusely and ran off into the snow. They managed somehow to find their way back to the house; they’d really only been turned around and not very far from home at all. With unspoken agreement the snow globes were hidden from their parents, who wouldn’t understand their children’s fascination with the Muggle trinkets..
In less than a week, Regulus had broken his globe, the glass and water and fake snow spilling across the floor of his bedroom. Sirius had jeered at him. “What in Merlin’s name made you think it would bounce?” he’d laughed, while Regulus silently cleared up the mess before anyone found it.
Soon after, Sirius’ attention turned to other things, and he’d forgotten about the snow globe which lay dusty and forsaken in the bottom of a drawer. The next fall he left for Hogwarts, and committed the unforgivable crime of being Sorted into the wrong House, and Regulus became the favoured son.
He stole the snow globe out of Sirius’ room, knowing it would never be missed. Sirius would never look at it again and remember what it was like to be friends, to be brothers…
“It’s a snow globe,” Regulus finally admitted. “It’s his anyway, from when we were younger.” The flurries were falling faster now, and he pulled his cloak tighter about himself, shivering. Awkwardly he added, “You’re going to be late now.”
To his surprise, Remus suddenly smiled warmly at him. “He’ll get it,” Remus said. “I’ll make sure of it.” Stamping the snow from his boots, he turned back towards the doors. As he reached them, he called over his shoulder, “Happy Christmas, Reg.”
As Remus disappeared inside the school, Regulus stood motionless in the falling snow, his eyes half-closed as he watched the fat flakes spiraling down. The school grounds were rapidly becoming blanketed in a thick cover of white. It was utterly noiseless. Like being inside a snow globe himself, he thought, just him and the snow whirling round and the silence filling everything…