Curate, connect, and discover
sirius' room was a mess.
regulus knew that what he was doing was probably, no, surely, wrong, but the reality he didn't want to face was that he missed sirius. he knew he was intruding and he knew sirius wouldn't have let anyone else in their room, but regulus was always an exception.
a picture fell of the desk. regulus picked it up and he recognized all of the people in it, but there was something that caught his eye.
sirius was happier than regulus had ever seen them around him.
james potter was on their left side, holding a butterbeer in his hand. peter pettigrew was next to james, a wide grin full of admiration on his face. and on sirius' left side, there was remus lupin, one of his arms draped around sirius' shoulder and a strange twinkle in his eyes.
regulus always knew what that twinkle in lupin's eyes meant. what the longing glares and the touches that lingered just a bit too much to be just friendship actually symbolized.
on the chair in front of the desk that regulus glanced to there was one of sirius' leather jackets.
the boy looked at it for just a bit too long, then picked it up and threw it over his shoulders.
he made his way to the mirror and, when he looked in it, he saw a slightly smaller version of sirius.
regulus smiled. the jacket was just a little bit too large for him, but it smelled like sirius. it smelt like cigarette smoke and wet dog. it felt a bit like home.
"you know," regulus started, and a tear rolled down his cheek, "when i was a kid, i used to think you were cool."
but he was still just a kid and he would have given anything in the world to be just a little bit more like his brother.