Chapter 12
Regulus smiled at his journal. James had gotten increasingly affectionate with his words as the months went on. It had only been two months since they had returned to Hogwarts. Regulus hadn’t asked James about Lily and they hadn’t kissed again. Pandora had told him that Lily had told her that James had been distant, but that was it. He didn’t want to disrupt this fragile peace and rhythm that he had fallen into with James.
They would spend hours in the come and go room together, but they wouldn’t touch. Regulus had imagined countless scenarios where James would come in and announce that he had truly ended things with Lily and they would explore each other properly. Regulus knew that eventually James would talk to Lily, but until then he had resigned himself to keeping his hands to himself. Even though there was nothing he wanted more than to kiss James Potter one more time.
Pandora and James would talk during rounds some nights. It made Regulus smile whenever Pandora would tell him something James had said.
James Potter was the sun and Regulus could finally see the light. He understood why Sirius had left him. Why would you stay in the dark when you could be with the sun?
Regulus knew that this arrangement he had with James was extremely fragile. James didn’t know about the dark mark, and when he found out he knew that James would leave him. Just like Sirius did.
He glanced up from his journal when Barty and Evan walked into the room. They had been sickeningly sweet with each other ever since Regulus had made them their very own journals. He did not want to know what they wrote to each other in them.
“Talking to Pandora?” Evan asked when he noticed Regulus holding his journal. Regulus had made it so that only he could tell the difference between his two journals. Evan and Barty just thought that he and Pandora had secret conversations all the time.
Regulus nodded as he closed the journal.
James,
Be there tomorrow.
Regulus
Pandora and Regulus were sitting in the library with piles of books around them. She had been researching prophecies extensively, but wouldn’t tell him why.
Pandora shut a book forcefully and put her head down on the table with a groan.
“You know, I could help you better if I knew what your vision was,” Regulus mused, “You had a vision of me and you won’t even tell me what it was.”
Pandora glared at him and he froze. It wasn’t often that he was on the receiving end of that glare.
“Reg, come with me. We need to talk,” Pandora said as she stood up and walked out of the library. Regulus had to run to catch up with her. She led them all the way out to the lake.
“Pandora! What is it?”
“My vision of you? From the summer? Regulus, you died in it.” Tears streaked down Pandora’s face. She wiped at them, but they just kept falling.
Regulus grabbed her face in his hands, “What do you mean?”
“You were in a cave and there were inferni. It was so hazy, but you went under the water and you never came back up. I don’t know when it will happen, but you had that bloody mark on your arm and you mentioned something about the Dark Lord’s weakness,” Pandora explained through her tears.
He nodded slowly, letting himself process what she had said, “Pandora Rosier, look at me. We are going to figure this out. I’ll write to Narcissa, Merlin, we can go to Dumbledore if you want.”
Pandora froze, “No. We can’t go to Dumbledore. That is the last person we can go to, but I can’t tell you why. That particular vision can’t be shared.”
“Ok, we won’t go to Dumbledore. It’s me and you, we’ll figure this out,” Regulus whispered. Pandora wrapped her arms around his waist and cried.
“I won’t let you die.”
“I’m not planning on it. Remember, we have our plan for Luna and I intend to follow through.”
Regulus had already had a long day before he got cornered by Severus Snape while leaving the Prefect bathroom.
“Black. You’re the youngest person to ever get it. I need you to put in a good word for me, please,” Snape begged him while glancing at Regulus’s left arm. Regulus rolled him eyes.
“Go beg Mulciber or Avery. You may be good at potions, Severus Snape, but there is always someone better and I don’t happen to like you.”
Regulus pushed past Snape and continued walking. He didn’t have the energy to bother entertaining Snape.
He had just gotten down to the second floor when suddenly he was pulled into an empty classroom. He froze when he saw who had pulled him into the room.
“Sirius?”
“You’re one of them, aren’t you? They couldn’t get me to join, so you did instead,” Sirius accused. He sounded so angry. Regulus shrunk away from his older brother.
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Sirius scoffed, “Don’t act stupid, Regulus, we both know you aren’t. I heard you and Snivellous.”
Regulus took a deep breath and raised his chin, “Sirius, what are you accusing me of?”
“You’re a fucking Death Eater! You have the mark!” Sirius yelled.
Regulus rolled up his left sleeve and looked his older brother in the eye. All the emotion left Sirius’s body. He just stared at Regulus’s arm.
“Did you want it?”
“What?”
Sirius raised his voice, “Did you want it?”
“I am everything you were too afraid to be.”
“We are on opposite sides of this war, Regulus.”
Regulus took a deep breath, “You’re the one that left me, Sirius. You don’t get to act all high and mighty. You left me in that house and you never looked back.”
“You could’ve ran away too,” Sirius’s eyes were filled with tears.
Regulus shook his head, “They would’ve never let both of us leave. You had to go and so I had to stay.”
“Reggie,” Sirius was pleading now.
“You don’t have the right to call me that. We haven’t been brothers since you moved to Potter Manor. You only care about yourself and that makes you just like them. You are a Black through and through.”
Sirius’s jaw went slack and he seemed to be at a loss for words. Regulus took that as his opportunity to leave the room. He finished walking back to the dungeons in a haze. He had officially ended any semblance of hope for his relationship with Sirius.
Suddenly a realization hit him, “Oh no, James. He’s going to tell my James.”