Chapter 12
It didn't work. I wake up not only with a pounding headache but a serious case of worry and guilt. I need to stand up and find Regulus but even the thought makes me want to vomit. I slowly ungracefully turn to my side to see Sirius sitting on his bed looking frightened.
I clear my throat, it feels like sandpaper, “What's wrong mate?” I ask. He looks up almost shocked to see me like he forgot I literally live in the room with him.
“Oh just thinking, never goes well for me.” He says his usual spark slightly diminished, he looks to be in shock.
“Well thinking with two brains is always better than one, you want to tell me what's up?” I offer gently, when Sirius gets into his moods he can be easily startled.
“Nah, it's just something Remus said to me.” Remus seems like he was doing the rounds in talking to people about things that shake them up. ‘Try to let go of those feelings,’ firstly what feelings, secondly I don't think I can or else I would have by now. Oh, I can see how those two points may have been contradictory, anyways.
“You want to go find him with me so we can talk to him some more.”
“Yeah later, I need to have a shower and you do too, you smell like alcohol.”
“Oh I wonder why Sirius.” We laugh and he strips in the shower. I fall back onto my bed, my hands flying to my pounding head. Why do I have to be so stupid?!
Once both Sirius and I have had showers and taken painkillers we head to the kitchen where Remus and Peter both are eating breakfast.
“I thought you were going to wait to have breakfast with us?” I ask, looking at them just as Peter stuffs another spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
“We didn’t think you’d take so long but then who are we kidding, it's Sirius.” Remus chimes back.
“Oi I don’t take THAT long to get ready.” We all turn to look at him knowingly and then end up bursting into laughter. It’s always nice with them, we have the best time and the best laughs. I pull up a seat next to Peter and Sirius sits next to me. He would normally sit next to Remus but I decide to think nothing of it because they still make eyes at each other through the whole breakfast. It’s complicated with them, communication isn't there forté, I give my advice whenever they outright ask but I learnt from year 8 to not get stuck between the two.
Once I’m done with my meal I offer to wash them up because I don’t think it's necessary for the staff to do 4 dishes on a sunday. Remus offers with me and I just know his intentions aren’t straight forward. I wash and Remus drys as Sirius and Peter chat away at the table.
“So..” I say
“So.” He says with no question in his voice that he will not be avoiding what needs to be talked about. “You haven’t seen him I suppose?” ‘Him’ of course I know he means Regulus but him saying it in such a nothing manner makes my skin spike. Regulus is not ‘him’, Regulus is a star. I know that's corny but he literally is, especially to me.
“No I have not, I have been rather preoccupied with consoling Sirius after you said something to him last night.” I can tell I said something wrong when I turn to see Remus’ shook expression.
“Consoling?”
“Well not really, I guess, he was just shaken up because of something you told him.”
“Right, well.”
“I take it you aren’t going to talk to him about it.”
“It's not like you can talk.”
“Oh but I can and I will, in fact Sirius is going to hang out with Peter and the girls today and I got out of it so that I can find him and talk to him.”
“Well that's good but are you going to talk and let it go or?”
“It's not that simple-”
“But it has to be it’s Sirius'... brother '' He says brother like it's the most scandalous thing, which maybe it is but it doesn’t feel like it.
“You don’t know, we are just friends, we talked a bit that's all.”
“That's all!? Then why did you kiss him and stare after him like he's an angel incarnate.” Because he is, I think. “Just tell him you don’t want to be friends.” My heart almost shatters knowing that Regulus’ would if I did. Conveniently I finish washing the last dish and walk out leaving Remus to dry it.
“Bye Pete, bye Sirius” I call out the leave the kitchen letting out a deep breath as the door closes. This is all too much, it's too stressful. I don’t know what I thought would happen when I took interest in Regulus, but it wasn’t this. Ever since I've known him when he was twelve and I was thirteen he was there but his presence only became important last year. Because when I looked over I would find him looking back. Either at Sirius with a cold look with a sadness you wouldn’t be able to pick up on if you hadn’t been looking at him for the past 3 years. Then sometimes he would be looking at me, the look resembled hatred but either way he was looking. Then he let me stay, he let me sit in the tower with him as he looked at the stars, then he let me go on a run with him and let me be his friend. A friend like I’ve not had, it feels like he sees into me in such a unique way and when we touch-
I am ripped out of my thoughts as I walk past Barty and Evan. I stop and reach out startling Evan as I do so. Barty catches his arm and looks at me like he wants to rip my heart out.
“Hi” I start to be unsure of myself.
“What do you want?” Barty bites and Evan looks at him confused.
“Do you by any chance know where Regulus is?”
“He’s in our room” Evan chips in before Barty can speak.
“He wouldn’t want to see you.” Barty says and my heart sinks. “Don’t go to him.”
“Alright.” I say walking away with a little less pep in my step. I lie in bed for a while trying to not stand up and go find Regulus. When I get up to use the bathroom I see that it is nearing 2. I know I had a late start but I have been lying down for about 2 hours now. I decided to get some fresh air and head out to the oval.
“I step onto the oval taking in a deep breath. I squint my eyes through my glasses to see someone sitting down leaning against a tree across the oval. As I walk closer ( I was already heading in that direction) I spot a familiar nestle of curly black hair. Regulus. The sight of him brings warmness to the pit of my stomach and I wouldn’t be able to stop my feet from approaching him even if I tried. As I get close I see him holding an embroidered journal he seems to be writing in.
“Hey” I breathe out and he snaps his head up rattled.
“What are you doing here?” He asks with a tinge of distrust in his voice, he looks around as if searching for more people to be with me.
“Just getting some fresh air, you?”
“Same, I suppose.”
“May I?” I ask, gesturing to the spot on the grass next to him. He looks down at it then back up to me and I instantly forget what I asked when our eyes lock and I'm staring into his light blue grey eyes. There's so much depth to not only the colour but also the emotion that can be portrayed in them. I sit down next to him , legs outstretched leaning on my hands instead of the tree so there's some space between us. I tilt my head up looking to the sky, when I glance at Regulus I see him doing the same. We breathe. It’s always easier to breathe when Regulus is around.
“About last night, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” he said, sitting upright looking at me now. “Why would you do that?”
“I didn’t mean to.” I say and yet again it's the wrong thing, I have a way with saying the wrong thing. “I mean, it's true you were the prettiest person in the room but I wasn't planning on kissing you in front of a group of people.”
“That's not even the worst part, obviously I hate that there were people there, but those people are my brother's friends.” He says the word brother with detachment.
“The problem was there were people, not that it happened?” I ask before I can think better. Regulus stays quiet for a second realising his mistake but not denying that what I said was true. This instantly fills my heart even if he will never let me actually kiss his cheek again.
“We had a deal and you broke it, we’re friends in private.”
“Yes I know and I like it like that. We can still do that.”
“I’m not so sure, I’m not sure I can be friends with you at all.”
“Why's that?” I ask turning fully to face him and as I do I see there’s something different in the way he looks at me. It resembles a craving, a hunger from someone who doesn’t want to let themselves eat. I gulp down as he heaves in a deep breath. Then abruptly he stands up.
“Yeah, we can’t be friends at all.” He says before walking away. I stay seated, struck. I came over to apologise but after that conversation i’ve almost forgotten what for. I don’t know what I’ll do without his friendship. Well I'll go back to how I was before, secretly sad and alone. I don’t even really know when it started, maybe it was always inside of me building up. The sense of failure. It eats away at me and until I had become friends with Regulus it consumed my thoughts even if I masked it so well even Sirius couldn’t tell. But when I began to be friends with Reg, oh… My thoughts were consumed by him, how couldn’t they be? He’s the most fascinating, luring, enchanting, like an angelic siren. The only problem is that he's, well, Sirius’ younger brother. Sirius, despite trying to convince everyone otherwise (including himself) actually still cares deeply for Regulus. He used to talk about him more and the guilt he felt about leaving him when he first left. Now it's radio silence. The only time I tried recently to bring it up was after the detention since I knew they were in the same group. He simply said ‘what about him? He was there.’ Not about how his presence and close proximity made him feel. However that night when he thought I was asleep I saw him mumbling to the stars at the window next to his bed. He used to do it before Regulus came to Hogwarts and right after he left that house. He talks to the Regulus star.
Well that's not the only problem because up until lately I had no doubt in my mind that Regulus would never reciprocate anything I feel for him. Lately though, the way he doesn’t pull away from my touch and his breath relaxes when I’m near, well I might have naively gotten my hopes up just a tad.
Now due to my stupidity and optimistic thinking I am left distraught over the thought that he doesn’t want to be friends anymore. I sit in the fresh air that I came to because I needed some but it doesn’t feel right. I get up and walk back to my dorm fully wanting to go hide in my bed for the rest of the day. I end up bumping into Frank on his way to the common room and he convinces me to go with. We walk and the talk is a useful distraction. We seat ourselves on the couch in the far left corner. When he turns to me I can tell from his face that there has been a mood shift.
“So mate, what's up?”
“What do you mean?” I ask back insincerely confused.
“Somethings up with you, is it about the person you have eyes for.” I choke on air, “You know, at the party the other week when we were making out and you couldn’t stop looking over to someone in the crowd.”
“Right yeah, it's about that.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
“He just doesn’t want to hang out anymore.”
“Yeah that can be tough man, you’ll get through it, have you talked to Sirius about it.”
I laugh and he looks at me weirdly. Everyone at school knows how close Sirius and I are, some assume we are dating to which we find hilarious. It's not that we are popular, more known. Not for the best way I suppose but it's fine, for our pranks and jokes mostly. People know me from soccer since last season I played pretty well. Now I’m up for captainship this coming season so I haven’t stopped training the whole summer. Sirius used to be pretty good before he got kicked out for a stupid prank. It was right before he left the house when he was feeling extra trapped.
“Nah haven’t talked to him, what about you, eyes on anyone?” He instantly goes a pinkish colour, this is new.
“Well yeah, you know Alice?”
“Alice Fortescue”
“Yeah, I haven’t built up the nerve to talk to her yet but I want to.”
“Aah so you got it bad.”
“Hah I guess.” We sat there happily and put on a TV show. I’m extremely grateful I bumped into Frank. I seriously needed the distraction.
Sirius gets back later and we have some toasties for dinner. Ham and cheese for me and Tomato and cheese for him. We settle in on his bed and just hang out. We easily settle into our effortless flow cracking dumb jokes that we end up hysterically laughing at. To an outsider I could see how we might seem crazy but it works for us. We have an early enough night with school tomorrow and everything.