He was cornered. Back against the wall there wasn't any other option but to listen.

“You are alone in that house,” Sirius went on pretending the words didn’t hurt him. “Do you need to go?”

“Go where?” Regulus asked.

“To mine,” James Potter spoke now.

It was the first time Regulus heard him speak since he was eleven . His voice was deeper but he realized his was probably deeper too now that he was fifteen.

“You can come stay with us. You don’t have to be in that house.”

“They’re hurting you,” Sirius interjected. “I know they are.”

“You don’t know anything,” Regulus snapped. “They never hurt me and they never hurt you. You’re lying.” 

“Yes they did, Regulus,” Sirius whispered. “They almost killed me.”

Regulus had never seen that much blood in his life not even his own. The night is seared into his memory sometimes on very bad nights he finds himself thrust into the scene when closes his eyes. Like Sirius's eerily still body bleeding out on the marble was painted onto the inside of his eyelids. Regulus hadn't been wearing shoes when he rushed downstairs, he almost slipped on his brother's blood getting to him.

Staring at Sirius now, his fully healed face, not even a scar was left from that night. It was easy to ignore it, like it never happened, it was just some nightmare that Regulus had that he couldn't shake. It could've just been his boggart if he tried hard enough. Regulus couldn't take his eyes off of his brother now. His silver eyes, his perfectly symmetrical face. A spitting image of his mother. When they were young that was their mother's greatest achievement. The heir might have the Black last name but he had the Crabbe coloring. He was beautiful.

This was the first time Sirius had talked to him this whole term. Regulus saw his glance his way in the Great Hall, when their was a lull in conversation between his friends. He had a girlfriend from Regulus could gather. He had friends who loved him enough to face the Noble House of Black's rage. He was happy.

"Nothing will happen to me," Regulus looked away his brother.

It wasn't like he had much of a choice but to grit and bare it. Only his family could protect him.

"They will kill you," Sirius hissed.

"They already did," He said plaintively.

Sirius shoved him into the brick wall before he stormed off. Regulus slumped down, not because he was hurt but because he was exhausted and the thought of having to go back to that house for Christmas destroyed him. James Potter's scuffed shoes where at his eye level now.

"The offer still stands, when you need," he said before walking away from view.

When. Not if.

Walking down the hallway he made sure to stay close to the wall. The first years were getting lost and wandering the hallways until an older year finally took pity and directed them where they needed to go. Regulus avoided them like the plague. He avoided most people really. Evan and Barty were his roommates since they were lost-looking first years so they were friends and he was content with just them. Evan and Barty were racing each other down the hallway darting between a group of Ravenclaws and pushed apart two Hufflepuffs who were holding hands. Regulus kept his lazy pace.

“Regulus, I swear to gods!” Barty shouted almost to the end of the hallway now, “We’re going to be late.”

“Go on without me,” Regulus called back, running his fingertips along the rough brick wall as he walked.

“It’s the first test,” Evan huffed.

“So?” Regulus asked, smiling at their reflexive groans.

“Reg,” Barty whined, “Come on!”

Barty stamped his foot like he was a five year old having a meltdown in Diagon Alley, it made some of the second years passing giggle. He whipped around and used all his height to intimidate them, causing them to shuffle timidly past. Evan elbowed Barty in the ribs which earned him a playful shove. Regulus decided to pick up the pace before it escalated any more.

The test was not in the astronomy tower but the room right before the spiral staircase leading to it. The classroom was sparsely decorated with gray bricks on display like most of the other classrooms in Hogwarts. There wasn’t much to look at since there were no windows. It was just a room with wooden desks lined up in rows of twos. He didn’t think it made any sense but they couldn’t actually go up to the tower because it was a safety hazard for a whole class to go up there. So the tower was just for show, and for insufferable people to make out. Evan did not count even though he had started to use the tower for that very reason last year. He liked Barty and Evan, they were close not like Sirius and his friends but they could be if Regulus let them in more, but he had this nasty habit of keeping everyone at arm’s length for their protection as well as his own. Sirius embraced everyone almost immediately, it was horrible watching him get punished for that at home, but even worse watching him be loved for it from faraway.

The three of them walked into the classroom with exactly a minute to spare. He followed Evan and Barty into the room indifferently walking past his brother and company sitting in the front and slid into his spot next to them in the back. This was a mixed house class so of course it was just his luck that they would be in here.

At his desk he had the perfect view of the back of his brother’s head, but where was his other one? There was an empty spot next to Sirius where James Potter had been sitting the past week, strange considering they moved together like they shared the same body. Of course James was going to be late for the first test in the class and Professor Mayhew wouldn’t even bat an eye but if it was him or Evan or Barty it would’ve been 20 points from Slytherin and a detention. But Regulus didn’t really care. Not his circus. He reached into his bag next to him and got his quill and ink out for the exam. He looked over at Evan and Barty at the table next to him. Evan was reading over his notes one last time. He didn't see how an extra thirty seconds would help Evan any more but who was he to judge? Mayhew gave an overview sheet last class of what to study but Regulus didn’t look at it. He pressed the tip of his quill into his pointer finger, not hard enough to draw blood or anything but just to make an indent on the pad. Wasting time. He looked back up to Sirius and there was still no James sitting with him. Where was he? He looked across the first row and noticed no red hair in sight. Ah, that makes sense.

The tests were being passed out when a boy with dark brown hair and wire rimmed glasses, that were slightly crooked, came bursting through the door with a red haired girl with startling green eyes trailing closely behind. Snickers from the Slytherins echoed in the room.

“Mr. Potter, Miss Evans,” Professor Mayhew sing-songed with a smile splashed on her face. “Perfect timing, I am just handing out the exams.”

“Sorry, we’re late Professor, it was my fault,” James apologized fiddling with the buckle to his book bag.

“Performance anxiety?” Gaunt sneered.

Sirius whipped around staring right at Gaunt, “Shut it.” 

James took his seat next to Sirius who slid closer to him like he was offering support for something but James shook his head so Sirius backed off. Lily, whose face was bright red, sat down next to Macdonald. Regulus noticed James was missing his tie. A sheet of parchment sailed onto his desk. Mayhew wasn’t even handing out the tests she was using magic in a non-magic based class. Sometimes he could almost feel all the magic here, it hung in the air, made it stale and heavy like there wasn’t enough fresh air. But no one else noticed, or at least they didn’t say anything and he was not about to bring it up. It could be a non-magical thing. He tried looking it up in the library once under the guise of a muggle studies paper but the librarian started asking too many questions like, "Why would a muggle be in a place with that many wizards and witches?” So he gave up. Sometimes he chalked it up to the people in the school, not the magic, but maybe he was just too cynical.

The exam was long considering there was only a week's worth of content. He skimmed the questions and gave vague enough answers. It seemed like he tried but wrong enough to not get an exceedingly high score. Last year he took it too far, actually failing classes. He paid for it at home but didn’t really face any consequences at school, only had to write a couple extra essays to prove he learned something to pass the year. But he had to be a mediocre student in all subjects so professors or his father wouldn’t become suspicious of the poor performance in only magic based classes.

Being this believably bad at school had become an artform. Somehow he tested into 6th year classes, along with Evan and Barty he knew he had to offset that by appearing to crack under the pressure. On this exam he was asked to name the brightest star in the sky and he put Regulus, but then he decided that was self centered even for a wrong answer so he put Bellatrix which is close enough to seem like a reasonable answer. The other questions had to do with basic conversions and what stars were made of so he made sure to get a couple of the harder ones wrong and then walked slowly to the front, which made a couple heads look up, including James Potter. Not that he cared though, he just wanted to turn it in. It was only twenty minutes into the test. He set a new record for himself. He made a show of putting it in front of Professor Mayhew, who raised her eyebrows over the book she was reading. Regulus gave a nod before heading to the door. It was too hot in there he felt like he wanted to crawl out of his skin.

It was significantly cooler out of the classroom which put him in a better mood. In the mood for exploring places he shouldn't. He looked around him and saw no one, which meant no consequences. Of course he was alone, everyone was in class, he slipped through the crack in the door leading to the astronomy tower. At the bottom of the staircase the spiral seemed endless, but he had time. What was he going to do? Wait patiently in his dorm room for Evan and Barty until they finished their exams? Boring, he started climbing.

At the top of the stairs it gave way to an open circular room with very low guard rails. Regulus stepped to the very edge of them and stuck out his hand and was met with a force pushing him back. Charmed for the sake of the students’ safety. The force field shimmered in the sun before turning back invisible. Regulus couldn’t even look out the astronomy tower without his vision being distorted by magic in some way. The telescope in the middle of the room was almost impossibly huge, the floor was definitely reinforced by magic to hold the weight. He laid down in front of the telescope, the cold tile felt nice after being in that boiler room of a classroom. Looking up at the domed ceiling, he was face to face with his birthright, a map of the constellations sprawled above him. It was also charmed to show the ones out in the sky in real time, it was light out so the dark blue ceiling with stars twinkling contrasted the bright sky blue outside. He didn't think of anything, he slipped his wand out of his holster on his pants and twirled it around between his pointer and thumb before sitting up and flicking it at the sky sending a pathetic blast at the force shield. The sparks were just swallowed up. He laid back down and put his wand away.

A glint of gold caught his eye behind one of the legs of the telescope, he dramatically rolled over and then pushed himself up, walking lazily to his new found treasure. Bending down he picked up the silky fabric of a Gryfinndor tie. A JP was embroidered to the back; the letters were slightly crooked. He traced the letters with his thumb.

So that was what Evans and Potter were doing, Gaunt guessed right. Regulus was a little surprised he didn’t take Potter as someone that predictable. He and his brother had been coming up with new and exciting ways to antagonize the Slytherins since before he got to Hogwarts. But maybe hormones trump being an enigma to James. He ran his fingers over the stitching again. It was too messy to be magically done like the initials stitched on his own tie from his mother. He stuffed it in the hidden pocket on the inside of his robes for safekeeping before turning on his heel to leave the room. Trying to spell the door shut behind him only able to get it to move a couple inches before just manually slamming it behind him.

This was his last day of freedom before he was sent back to his cell and this was how he was spending it. Alone in the Tower contemplating Potter's escapades. He couldn't say that this contemplation had not happened before.