Five
27th September 1976
I just wanted you to know
That this is me trying
At least I’m trying
Regulus
“Why is he still staring at us?” Pandora huffed as she and Regulus were walking to the potions classroom together.
“Ignore him Panda,” she’d been hyper aware of any lingering stares since the start of term, she felt it was her job to protect Regulus from everyone else and while he appreciated that she cared, it was a lot of energy to keep up with her, and Regulus had a feeling that Snape wasn’t going to let go of what happened over the weekend anytime soon.
“It’s like he thinks he knows something,” her brows furrowed and her nose scrunched like it did when she was getting ready to cast a particularly nasty hex.
“He does know something, his best mate’s parents were at my house last Christmas and half of pureblood society took up residence in my home over the summer,” Regulus was getting physically exhausted from all of the mental gymnastics he was having to do on a daily basis just to maintain his occlumency walls. “I’m sure he got the full rundown from every one of his sleazeball friends.”
“Was it that bad? You didn’t say much in your letters,” she started to chew on her bottom lip, a sign that she was scared of Regulus’s response and the wheels in her brain were turning. Though Regulus couldn’t say he was disappointed that she was no longer focused on coming up with a hex for Snape.
“I couldn’t really say much, they were monitoring the post to make sure I wasn’t writing to Sirius. They were just hosting a lot of meetings, you’re lucky you escaped off to France or they’d have roped you in too,” they finally made it to the potions room and took their seats next to one another.
“My parents knew that it would be an absolutely awful summer if they were stuck with my sulking. Dorcas's parents want nothing to do with any of it so I was safe from it all there. Was Barty there?” She tried to seem nonchalant about it as she skimmed over her notes for the potion they’d begin brewing that day.
“He didn’t leave Evan’s side all summer, those two are joined at the hip,” Regulus and Pandora had never explicitly spoken about it with one another, but he knew that she suspected the two boys had feelings for one another that extended beyond friendship, just as he did.
“I suspected as much, Dorcas was writing back and forth with McKinnon all summer too.”
“I’ll never understand how they got close,” Professor Slughorn walked in the room at that moment and thinking the conversation was over, Regulus turned to grab his potions book from his bag.
“Probably about the same way you and James Potter are getting close,” Pandora had a sly smirk on her lips and a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Wha-” was all he had time to get out before Slughorn cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention for class. They were going to be brewing Draught of Peace as their first potion of the year and had to stew the mandrakes that had been taken care of by the younger students the year prior. The rest of class passed with Regulus’s mind going at the speed of light trying to figure out what exactly Pandora knew and how she knew it, but as Regulus’s luck would go, Pandora was pulled away by one of her other friends at the end of the period and Regulus was forced to continue without talking to her.
When he finally saw his best friend again later that day, he still couldn’t find the right time to ask her what he wanted to know. As much as Regulus hated it, Pandora and Dorcas were actually popular amongst more than just Slytherin house and of course when Regulus needed to talk to Pandora to keep his head from exploding, she was holding court with Dorcas and around ten students from different years and houses. He could never be sure how long they would be entertaining for, they reminded him of his mother in that way, though he would never tell either of them.
“There was this cute little boutique my parents took us to, that’s where I got most of my clothes while we were there,” Dorcas was telling a few of the girls who looked eager to hear every detail she was willing to give them.
“It was right next to the bookshop I was telling you about,” Pandora said as an aside to a few of the others who clearly weren’t as interested in the boutique as they had been in the bookshop. Regulus worked his way closer to Pandora through the crowded hall of people, it wasn’t until he was almost right next to her that he noticed Lily Evans standing among the group. He didn’t personally have any issues with the red haired Gryffindor girl, however he knew he couldn’t be seen in the same area as her without needing to make some snide remark to keep up appearances, so instead he hovered several feet away and pretended to read over one of the books he was carrying.
“Is that where you got the book you sent me?” Evans looked at Pandora with wide, delighted eyes as she reverently held a brown leather book with gold foiling.
“Yeah, I thought of you as soon as I saw it,” her long blonde hair fell over her face as she looked down shyly but Regulus knew her cheeks were tinged with red. Pandora had written to Regulus over the summer to tell him about how shocked and elated she had been when she managed to find one of Evans’s favourite muggle books at the book shop she’d been frequenting. Apparently Evans had talked Pandora’s ear off about some book called The Well of Loneliness last term and how much she loved it, so when Pandora happened across a leatherbound copy in the shop she knew she had to get it for her. Regulus couldn’t say he understood why so many people seemed to be so enamoured with Lily Evans, but it put a smile on his best friend’s face to be around her so he didn’t say anything.
“Well I can’t thank you enough Panda,” Evans’s eyes sparkled with joy which managed to turn Pandora’s already red cheeks an even deeper shade of scarlet.
“Anything for my flower.” Pandora said it so quietly and Dorcas was still managing to hold everyone else’s attention that Regulus was certain he and Evans were the only ones who heard, the three still quickly checked their surroundings to make sure. Despite the low volume of Pandora’s voice as she spoke, Regulus couldn’t miss the fondness that Pandora’s tone took on or the glimmer in her eye. Suddenly, Regulus felt like he was intruding on an incredibly private and intimate moment and slowly slunk off down the hall before he could be noticed.
The Slytherin common room had always been one of Regulus’s favourite places in the entire world, even when his life was falling apart the Slytherin common room always managed to stay the same. The leather sofas, so dark green they looked black at a distance, were soft and pillowy like clouds that you could sink into and forget all of your troubles. The rows of shelves near the windows looking into the lake held some of Regulus’s favourite books that just couldn’t be found in the library, and the low lit lamps and lanterns scattered throughout the room cast a warm and welcoming glow that would lull you to sleep late at night or refresh you early in the morning. It felt like home, more than even his own home did these days.
More than anything, Regulus loved walking into the common room and seeing his friends laid out among their claimed spots, laughing and being so truly alive together in ways they just couldn’t be anywhere else in the castle. Barty and Evan sat next to one another on one of the two-seater sofas, their ankles crossed over one another’s in a way that looked simply hazardous, usually with a book spread across their legs that they managed to read at the same pace as the other. Dorcas was laying on her chaise reading through her History of Magic textbook, likely trying to get ahead so she could slack off later in the year as was typical for her. Pandora sat on the two-seater sofa she and Regulus usually shared, her feet tucked underneath her as she sat with a book balanced on her knees, scribbling her notes in the margins. Every now and then one of them would say something, spark some conversation or bubble of laughter, and then they’d go back into their own worlds.
“Panda, can you come with me for a second?” Regulus asked when he was close enough to speak to her in a low tone. She didn’t look up, simply picked up her book, stood and walked off in the direction of the boys dorms leaving Regulus to follow after her. It wasn’t until they were sitting on Regulus’s bed with the curtains drawn that Pandora cast a silencing spell and closed her book.
“This is about what I said this morning isn’t it?”
“How do you know about Potter?” He knew there wasn’t any point in denying it, somehow Pandora always knew.
“I was out collecting potion ingredients and saw the two of you the other morning, you both looked far too comfortable up there together for it to have been a one-time accident,” she replied with an easy shrug.
“I know you won’t say anything, so I don’t have to remind you that no one can know,” Regulus gave a pointed look to his closest friend, even though he knew he didn’t need to.
“Of course Reg,” her warm reassuring smile put Regulus at ease just as it had always done. “Now, can you take a look at this please? I need your eyes.”
“Anything for you Panda,” Regulus replied with a teasing eye roll as he grabbed the book from her and flipped to the pages she’d been focused on. Pandora Rosier was quite possibly the smartest witch of their age and Regulus would never fully understand how she’d been snagged for Slytherin, but after four minutes and nearly being considered a hatstall, the hat eventually placed her with Regulus, Barty, Dorcas, and Evan who had all been sorted before her. For the longest time Pandora didn’t tell anyone why the hat had taken so long to decide on her, it wasn’t until their second year that she finally told Regulus that the hat couldn’t decide between Slytherin and Ravenclaw, eventually deciding that Pandora’s ambitious nature and cunning wit proved she belonged in Slytherin and she had proved the hat right time and time again.
“I think he’s good for you,” Pandora finally spoke after Regulus had read over her notes twice silently.
“Hm?” He wasn’t fully paying attention to what she’d said, too focused on triple checking the notes in the margins to make sure her theory was sound.
“The Potter boy, I think he could be good for you.” This made Regulus’s head snap up, his eyes landing on Pandora’s.
“What?”
“He seems like a good guy, nice,” she shrugs her shoulders as though she’s talking casually with Regulus about school and shrugging because she just doesn’t know which piece of homework interests her more.
“Nice?”
“Yes Regulus, nice, there are actually nice people in the world. You might not believe me if I told you this but people usually like those that are nice to them, that’s typically how friends are made.” She rolled her eyes and huffed before flopping back onto his pillow.
“He’s James bloody Potter, Panda, he’s nice to literally everybody,” Regulus rolled his eyes back at her and playfully nudged her side with his toes.
“That is so not true, or do I need to remind you of what happened last term?” Pandora did not, in fact, need to remind Regulus, he’d been standing right there.
He and Sirius hadn’t been speaking since the incident over Christmas, but Regulus hadn’t been able to stay far from his brother the entire second semester. It was June, the heat outside somehow permeated the castle and made the interior feel warmer at times than sitting out by the lake, and so most students chose to sit outside rather than in. It was the last day of exams and everyone in connection to the Black boys was higher strung than normal knowing that summer break meant a new world of hell inside Grimmauld, at the time it wasn’t widely known where Sirius would spend his summer. No one has ever been able to say for certain who started it, and Regulus would never tell anyone, but from where he sat, it was Snape.
Snape had made a comment, a very loud and very rude comment, about Sirius’s living situation to Mulciber to which Potter loudly asked Sirius if he thought ‘ol Snivellus’ had ever heard of a shower. From there the two groups flung insult after insult at one another, all of it finally culminating in Potter casting Levicorpus at Snape and dangling him over the lake, revealing Snape’s ungodly grey underpants. The greatest irony of it all is that if Regulus were to believe the boasting Snape had done in their common room that year, Levicorpus was a jinx of his own making. For that reason, and that reason alone, Regulus liked to believe that Levicorpus was Snape’s spell and Potter had managed to use it to humiliate him more than he ever had been before.
“That was different and you know it,” Pandora didn’t need to be reminded either. Evans had ended up stepping in at the last minute to defend Snape, something she was known to do and no one was taken by surprise when she did. What did take everyone by surprise however, was Snape calling her a mudblood for her efforts. Just like that, Severus ‘Hypocrite’ Snape lost any chance he could’ve ever had with the girl he’d had a crush on since he was a child.
“Yeah, it was.” Pandora’s tone was solemn and Regulus knew that she was remembering the same thing he was in that moment. “I was scared I would lose her after that.”
“No one with half a brain cell would ever think you could be anything like that Panda,” it was true, Pandora Rosier didn’t have a hate-filled bone in her body.
“No, but look at our families,” she hung her head as if she had anything to do with either of their families' decisions.
“Look at you, Pandora Rosier.” Regulus reached out his hands and grabbed both of hers between them. “You are the most brilliant witch I’ve ever met, you’re kind and gentle and you don’t have an ounce of hate to hold within you for anyone who doesn’t deserve it and anyone who thinks otherwise is the biggest idiot to ever walk the Earth.”
“Thank you Reg,” she squeezed his hands once lightly, “now, tell me what you think.” Regulus took the not-so-subtle hint that Pandora was finished with that particular conversation and wanted instead to return focus to the spell she was developing.
“I think you’re definitely on the right track, the theory seems sound so far,” not that he was surprised, Pandora had been working on this spell for over a year now and they both felt like she was getting closer every time she got a new idea.
“It always ‘seems sound so far’ and then it never works,” she huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Well three test runs ago nothing was happening and then two test runs ago yellow sparks flew out the end of your wand. I really do think you’re getting closer to working it out.” It had taken four years for Pandora to crack her last spell, a charm that allowed her to access the library catalogue from anywhere within the castle, but eventually she’d gotten it and it had proved innumerably useful since then.
“Pandora Nadine Rosier, are you in here?” Evan burst into the room before he threw back the curtains on Regulus’s bed. When he saw her laying down with her head on Regulus’s pillow, he let out a fake affronted gasp and clutched his heart. “Now just what is going on here?”
“Some mild deflowering from the looks of it,” Dorcas teased as she walked across the room before she grabbed ahold of Pandora’s hand and started leading her out of the boys dormitory. “Come on Panda, let’s let the boys have their nightly wand-fight.”
“We do not have a nightly wand-fight,” Evan replied indignantly.
“We absolutely do have a nightly wand-fight, unfortunately for the last three years Reggie has had me beat by an inch, I’m absolutely determined to win again one day.” Barty’s characteristic smirk fixed onto his face. Regulus couldn’t help but join in everyone else’s laughter as the girls disappeared down the hallway. ‘This is it’ he thought, ‘my family, my home’. Regulus would have to hold onto that feeling tighter than he ever imagined in the years to come, but for now he let it be the thing to carry him peacefully off to sleep.