He stares out the window. Staring, but not really seeing. His eyes are drawn to the glow of the streetlamp directly opposite his bedroom window. It’s hazy and insubstantial in the pouring rain, but that doesn’t matter. It’s something to stare at.

His cheek throbs, and he resists the urge to brush his fingers against the wound. He closes his eyes for a moment and releases a breath he hasn’t realised he’s been holding.

The truth is, he’s tired. He’s tired of over-starched collars and no one understanding. He’s tired of snot-nosed little brothers and his parents fawning over them. He’s tired of their violent outbursts (too many years of inbreeding, he thinks), and he’s tired of never being enough.

He grabs the book closest to him (just something to do with his hands) and a photo falls out. He picks it up and takes a look. There’s a waving Sirius (much younger than he is now) with his arms wrapped around a tail-wagging puppy. He almost lets himself smile, but stops when he remembers how the story ends.

“Reg, you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell Mum and Dad,” Sirius says.

“But why?” Regulus whines. He’s biting his lip and looking uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to lie.

“Because you know what Mum’ll say about him,” Sirius answers, trying to sound knowing and wise. He doesn’t quite manage it.

Regulus nods, trying to look knowing himself, but he falls even shorter of this goal than his brother did.

A few days later, Sirius and Regulus race upstairs to Sirius’ room where they’ve hidden the dog. Jack, they’ve decided to name him.

But the room is empty. They look behind the wardrobes and under the beds but don’t find him. Worry turns to panic. What if Jack’s gotten loose in the house? What if Mother finds him?

Cautiously, the two boys head downstairs and inch around the house, clinging to the walls as if to blend into them, looking for some sign of the dog. They see none. They edge into the sitting room, but when they see their mother, they stop creeping and stand a little taller than before.

Sirius studies her. There’s a sick kind of smile on her face, like a cat who has just devoured the mouse it’s been playing with; and Sirius knows what’s happened.

Regulus knows it too, because he begins to weep. Sirius treads on his foot in an attempt to stem the flow of tears.

Nothing is ever said about the dog, but both know its fate.

It was disposed of.

Sirius rubs his eyes, trying to bring himself back the present. It’s almost surprising to find himself back in his room, the same hazy streetlight glowing outside his window, a little clearer now the rain’s stopped.

Nothing is ever said.

Yes, he thinks, that’s the way things are done at the Number Twelve. Nothing is ever said, but what has transpired is always obvious (he thinks it’s because they never change).

He suddenly wishes the puppy was here, beside him. Someone to listen to him, without interrupting or judging - a single friend in his father’s house.

He’s been calling it his father’s house for quite some time now, ever since he realised it was never really his home. He merely takes up a room and space that could have been filled by a different son, one who could have made his father proud.

Almost outside himself, as though without his own consent, he begins to pack up his things into his school trunk. It will be much too heavy to carry, but Sirius doesn’t consider that (he never was one to think before acting).

In goes his clothes and school things, each bringing with them their own little memories, each their own sick surprise, as though some perverted Christmas morning.

He remembers thinking, slowly at first, how he never seemed quite right. His views never quite matched up to those of his father. In his mind’s eye, he watches himself, over and over, falling short of impossible expectations, ones he could never conform to, and then he watches Regulus fall beyond these expectations. He watches Regulus parrot his parents’ beliefs, watches him think their thoughts and express their views. He watches himself watching Regulus, sick with revulsion at his ease of conformity.

He kicks the trunk closed and looks around at the now stripped room. Nothing remains except the peeling silver and green wallpaper and the posters he’s tacked to the wall in vain hopes of covering that (and, he thinks, he hasn’t done such a lousy job).

He’s not exactly sure how he dragged his trunk down the stairs without alerting the rest of his family to what he doing (in the end, he supposes, you have to thank Merlin for small miracles).

He drags his trunk the remaining length of floor, and in looking back, he realises he’s left a long scratch on the tile beneath his feet. He grins. Some men leave legacies on gold plaques; he leaves them on marble floors.

He drags open the heavy door and kicks the trunk through it. He meant to take one last look at the place before closing the door forever, but as he’s turning to take it, he thinks suddenly that’s too good for this place. He lets the door slam shut behind him.

He walks towards the first thing he sees, the streetlamp across from his bedroom. But as he reaches it, he realises it can’t guide him forever. He leans against it for a moment or two. It suddenly occurs to him how cold it is inside his bones. Lonely, too.

He looks up through the cloud his breath has made in the frigid air, looking for something else to guide him, something more substantial than a streetlamp.

There’s dozens of lights in the distance. Light from other streetlamps, lights glowing from shop windows and the clouded glow of light behind curtained widows, but his eyes are drawn to the moon. Something to guide him, night after night.

He’s not used to dependency. He’s used to unpredictable tempers and house elves that creep up in the shadows unexpectedly and wheeze insults under their breath, and little brothers who change and grow when you aren’t looking.

Slowly, he picks up his trunk again and begins walking down the street in the direction of his new guide. He doesn’t know exactly where he’s heading, but he knows somewhere deep inside him, it’s better than where he’s been.