Give Me Back My Hometown - Eric Church
Hi, hey, I have another song to essentially make into an AMV or edit lmfao. This time being a country song *gets immediately booed off the stage* that I'm connecting to the Black Brothers lol. Here's a link to the song cause I still love this.... 12 years down the line or whatever since I first heard it hahaha.
~Break cause this'll be a long one I bet
Damn, I used to love this view Sit here and drink a few Main street and the high school lit up on Friday night
So, for this entire song it'll basically entirely be Regulus' POV, alright?
Now, I'm imagining this as post Sirius running away, so Regulus' 4th or 5th year probably, maybe 6th at the latest I'd assume (Sirius said he ran away when he was about 16, which as he was born on November 3rd 1959 that puts him at either Summer before 5th year where he's 15 and about to turn 16 or Summer after 5th and the Prank which by his own wording would be weird.... that's a tangent sorry lol) based on how long Regulus would brood and sit with these emotions. But here he is, likely around Grimmauld, gazing into the drawing room or across the hall at Sirius' untouched bedroom after their mother tried once again to take the posters down before stopping and basically locking the door shut. And he's thinking about the times before Hogwarts when they were far closer, maybe even the more distant but still close relationship they had after Sirius and Regulus' first year at Hogwarts each. But it's all so distant and painful and just uncomfortable to think about.
Down there it's another touchdown Man, this year's team is stout I can hear them going crazy And up here so am I Thinkin' about you sittin' there saying' I hate this, I hate it If you couldn't stand livin' here why'd you take it, take it
Regulus thinking about Sirius and his friends, especially James Potter, and how life is so easy between them all. Sirius seemed so happy, that first day back from Hogwarts. Even on the train over, and at the platform in London. Smiling, cheering, being loud and boisterous. It's not anything he was like the years prior, even with his personality and distaste for their families public facade.
And it irks him, it pisses him off, and has him nearly stomping to his compartment and almost warding it against even his friends. What is so different at the Potters that Sirius is so happy there? What can he get and do there that he can't at Grimmauld? Why is Potter so much better of a brother in Sirius' eyes than Regulus ever could be?
It makes him wonder why Sirius stayed so long. He'd spent most of last summer with the Potters, every Christmas break after his first year as well. Why'd it take so long, what was keeping him with his actual family if he always railed against each and every one of them?
Give me back my hometown 'Cause this is my hometown
So Regulus storms away. To the library so he can research and bury himself in books he enjoys, or to his room to think about something else, work on summer assignments, anything to stop thinking about his brother who's been gone for a year or two. Who left his parents with a note, that must have been bad enough to make them burn it, but not Regulus. Because why should he be dwelling on something so ancient still? Why does it still sting whenever he sees Sirius and Potter together? When he rushed out of the Hogwarts Express to return home before seeing (or hearing) Sirius join the Potters as they left as well.
All the colors of my youth The red, the green, the hope, the truth Are beatin' me black and blue cause you're in every scene
More flashbacks to their childhood, because it's painful and wonderful for these lol. Cause I really do think they were very close as kids, even around the time of Regulus starting at Hogwarts and the first maybe year and a half they're there.
So he's always just thinking about stuff, errant thoughts that sneak up on him as he looks up while reading to say something to Sirius, purely out of habit, before cursing himself for being 'foolish' about that.
My friends try to cheer me up, get together at the Pizza Hut I didn't have the heart to tell them that was our place These sleepy streetlights on every sidewalk side street Shed a light on everything that used to be
Regulus' friends are great, of course. They see that he's worse near the end of the year, and try to distract him. They read his letters, how they're far shorter and snappier. So they try to cheer him up. But of course, when you live in London, as kids with powerful parents you've done most things already, seen them pass by to more 'sophisticated' things and all that.
They wouldn't and couldn't have known that Sirius snuck them out, and later took the fall for both of them, and got them to a show one summer before Hogwarts down near Diagon Alley. They couldn't have known that Regulus had went along with Sirius as they darted around one of the Muggle popup markets near Grimmauld and had already picked out what tattoo or jewelry he'd buy when he got older.
They wouldn't have caught the look Regulus gets when returning to school with a helix earring, even if Regulus does.
You can have my grandma's locked The knife outta my grandpa's pocket Yeah my state champion jacked I don't care you can have it Every made memory Every picture, every broken dream Yeah everything, everything, everything
And Regulus, by his 6th year, Sirius' 7th, is honestly done with it. He hates haunting his own home, constantly being reminded of Sirius lack of presence in it. The way Sirius haunts it, like a ghost, as if he's close enough to joke about something, prank them, or cast a witty remark as Regulus looks over to mention anything he's found reading that day.
So Sirius can have it. The childhood memories, the dreams and ideas they imagined together. He can have the drawing room upstairs, where they'd play games and chase each other around to not disturb their parents while still having as much fun as possible.
Give me back my hometown 'Cause this is my hometown
Cause Regulus is done. He just wants to be comfortable at home again. To not feel like he was abandoned by his older brother. To not feel replaced by James Potter as a brother.