Tacenda
As the night stretched on more and more students crowded inside the Gryffindor common room, bumping into strangers as they jumped around to the Gryffindor's muggle music. Regulus remained on the sidelines like a wallflower, with a cup of gurgling purple punch Barty had forced into his hand before he clumsily begged Evan to dance with him. The bear mask secured around Evan’s head only partially disguises the flush of his face as he quickly declines Barty’s offer in favor of making his way to the other side of the crowd.
If anyone else in the Gryffindor common room cared enough to look in Barty’s direction they would have no doubt been alarmed at how abandoned he appeared. His feet remained planted where they were despite now facing an empty wall, and his eyes—usually expressing confidence if not arrogance—were now faintly glassy and forlorn. The muscles in Barty’s jaw were tense as he forced himself to take a quick breath of air before conjuring a faux air of indifference and walking over to slide into the spot beside Regulus
From his spot on the couch Regulus had been surveying the party—like he always did—he was an observer, he enjoyed watching the students of Hogwarts in moments of sincerity. Like how differently they behaved around professors compared to their peers or whether they sneered or flinched when catching sight of someone wearing Slytherin green.
It was quite an interesting game.
A week ago, Regulus watched as Professor Woodcroft dropped his usual mask of authority and snuck behind the bleachers to snog Madam Montmour silly during the Gryffindor’s morning Quidditch practice. Although Dorcas later claimed this didn’t count as one of his “clever observations” being; the only reason he knew of the affair was that both teachers had practically run into him while they were pre-occupied clinging to one another’s robes, luckily they hadn’t noticed Regulus in their lust-filled haze. He managed to slip away unnoticed, finding a different spot to ogle Potter’s thighs through his Quidditch kit take notes on the Gryffindor team's weak spots for their next game.
He witnessed relationships flourish; like the Gryffindor boy who had confessed to the girl he’d had a crush on since his first year behind the greenhouses after classes.
And he was an onlooker as relationships died; like the sixth-year Hufflepuff who had accidentally admitted to her boyfriend of two years that she had been flirting and mucking about with his best friend behind his back after her sister had dropped veritaserum in her pumpkin juice during breakfast.
Regulus was also on occasion the lone witness to relationships that were doomed to never make it to fruition.
In the spring of last year, across the courtyard from a table of giggling Hufflepuff students sat two sixth-year girls shoulder—to—shoulder, thigh-to-thigh as they studied for an upcoming herbology assignment. Their faces flushed scarlet whenever they accidentally brushed hands while reaching for the same quill or if their faces lingered too close together when asking a question about the textbooks laid out in front of them. Regulus watched as they abruptly jumped apart when a light-haired Slytherin boy walked up to where they were huddled underneath a tree, kneeling on the ground to kiss the girl with long pin-straight blonde hair on the cheek while ignoring the other girl pressed beside her who was near to tears by now, her short wavy brown hair covering her face from view as she ran off into the castle.
So, Regulus couldn’t help the way his eyes scanned over to scrutinize Barty’s expression like second nature and he couldn’t stop the way his brain had filled with predictions of how the night would end, with Barty curled around himself in bed with misty eyes and a trembling lip as he stubbornly refused to cry. The uncomfortable craving to cheer him up filled his chest and before he could stop himself Regulus had stupidly offered to take Evan’s place to dance with Barty instead, placing his drink down and holding out his hand palm up. He watched in relief as the Slytherin’s face broke out in a wide grin, his eyes filled with surprise from behind his scaled mask as he pulled Regulus toward the middle of the common room.
Although Regulus had ballroom dancing drilled into him from the moment he could walk he wasn’t familiar with whatever this was supposed to be, to him it mostly looked like a bunch of hormone-filled teenagers rubbing up against the closest thing they could find. So, Regulus remained loose-limbed and allowed Barty to lead their movements like he was a ragdoll.
Barty had turned Regulus around so they were chest to back as he placed his hands on Regulus’ waist just underneath his jumper, steadily guiding him through the movements of swaying his hips and raising his left arm to loosely wrap around the back of Barty’s neck as they clumsily danced to the echo of music flowing throughout the poorly lit room.
Regulus has never and would never consider exploring anything with Barty, casual or otherwise. Even with his head resting on Regulus’s shoulder as he pushed their bodies together Barty had been whispering stories about the last time he was forced to go home for the holidays and his plans to stay here to see if his father would show up to Hogwarts wand in hand as he had threatened to do previously, in return Regulus pointed out some of the people he could recognize from their house to Barty, who snickered at some of the more outlandish pairs unknowingly gyrating against each other.
From an outsider's perspective, the repeated rolling of hips while trading whispers in the dim light might appear to be quite a sensual act, but for the two Slytherins the dramatic performance was humorous at most. When Barty suddenly whispered a rushed “Play along” in his ear before nuzzling his face into the side of Regulus’s throat and giving an exaggerated roll of his hips against his behind, it didn’t take long for Regulus to piece together what was happening. Evan had likely just returned from the snack table and Barty was trying to abuse his seven-year friendship with Regulus to see if he could make Evan jealous. Sighing in half-defeat and half-irritation, Regulus tipped his head back to rest on Barty’s broad shoulder as he dramatically parted his lips and closed his eyes to mimic the expression of someone not currently being used as a pawn in their friend’s weird revenge plot.
It seemed to work well enough though, because before Regulus could process it he and Barty were roughly shoved away from one another by a vexed Evan. Regulus blearily makes out Evan fisting his hands in the satin of Barty’s black button-down through the crowds of people between them. The music's low bass tied in with the ineligible string of conversations between guests, successfully muting the curses Evan was spitting out.
Even though Regulus and Barty now had a decent five feet of space separating them, Regulus continued to be dragged through the crowds of people by the back of his green jumper, causing him to repeatedly bump into fellow partygoers on their way inside a vacant stone stairwell connecting the common rooms to the boy’s dormitory.
“I need a favor from you,” a girl stood in front of Regulus. Her arms crossed tightly over her chest but unlike how most folded in on themselves around him she stood tall, with her shoulders back and her chin held high. The red mask secured on her face accentuated her light hazel eyes outlined in smoky kohl. The cool stone digs into his skull where she has him pinned against the solid wall. Not physically, her arms remain folded in front of her torso, the short emerald-painted nails on her right hand lightly tapping against her left bicep. Her eyes are what keeps him constrained to the wall. The amalgamation of brown and green swirling in her irises pool in determination and partially masked desperation.