Holidays
Water splashed swirled around him ferociously, he reached up toward the light on the surface but he continued to plummet deeper into the water. The edges of his vision became blurry as his lungs burned for air. He was being pulled down, hundreds of invisible hands griping onto him mercilessly. Darkness surrounded him as he lost consciousness.
Regulus jolted awake, covered in cold sweat. He breathed heavily as he sat up looked around instinctively, everyone else in the dorm was still asleep . He sighed quietly and slightly relaxed, lying back down. He stared up at the ceiling, studying the carefully painted design on it, snakes lined the edges, with clouds and vines filling in the empty space.
He glanced at the clock, 4:46 am. Since the summer he hadn’t had a peaceful night of sleep. Every time he kept getting the same dream. It confused him, and sometimes he would wake up gasping for breath, as if he was drowning in the water from the dream. No matter how much he tried to forget about it, night would fall and Regulus was right back where he started. He could hear soft breathing from Evan on the other side of the room and tried to focus on the steady inhale and exhale to try and get at least one extra hour of sleep before classes started.
After ten minutes of his mind wandering and unable to fall back asleep Regulus finally decided to just get up. He grabbed a sweatshirt from next to his book bag and quietly strode into the Slytherin common room. There was only a second year there who seemed to have fallen asleep doing some last minute studying. Regulus curled up on one of the armchairs by the window and pulled the hoodie on. He grabbed his DADA book that he’d left there last night and flipped through the pages until he found the spell for the patronus charm.
This year, he’d tried to learn more advanced magic, something in him just always had the urge to be the best at something. Quidditch had been shut down last year when his mother decided it was “too risky to have the Black heir doing such a dangerous sport that could possibly affect the family line.” She’d basically forced him to quit and threatened to punish him if he ever tried to sneak back onto the team.
The only thing left was to was excel at school. Be impressive at something. So far nothing had been too hard, but he’d been trying to conjure a patronus for months. He had the incantation perfect, the movement as precise as he could possibly go. The only problem was the memory. You had to think of tour happiest memory for it to fully form, but nothing was powerful enough to get anything more than silvery wisps of light. Regulus could hear light chatter from the dorms so he went back to get dressed before breakfast.
“Oh hey Reg,” Barty said as he pulled on his robes.
“Hey”
“‘heard they’re having a party over by Ravenclaw, you
“Probably,” Regulus answered
Soon they went to the Great Hall and went straight to the Slytherin table. Dorcas glanced up from spreading butter on a piece of toast.
“You guys took forever.”
“I’m just trying to pass the mid year exams, I barely have time to sleep,” Barty muttered.
“You’ll be fine, you just have to get decent score, none of it’s that hard,” she Dorcas replied
“Whatever, I don’t even really care, but my father will freak out and start ranting about how I’ll ’never get a decent Ministry job if I don’t step it up’ or something.”
“Well he’s a prat,” Dorcas said
Regulus grinned and looked forward past the other house tables to the Gryffindor table. He immediately noticed the familiar eyes of Sirius, he seemed to be joking about something stupid but somehow Potter, Lupin, and Pettigrew were all laughing with him. He looked so comfortable with them, unlike how he usually was at home.
Suddenly a flock of owls flew in, carrying parcels and envelopes to different tables. Sirius opened a letter that was dropped in front of him, it had the Black family seal on it . He watched as his face fell, lips pursed, and for a second he glanced up and their eyes met. Regulus looked away immediate. No doubt it had something to do with Sirius spending the holidays with the Potters, every year he asked, and the answer was always the same. This time it was different though. Walpurga had even sent Regulus a letter a couple weeks ago to make sure both he and Sirius were coming, saying they had ‘something important to discuss so they both had to be there’ That was never good, and both of them knew that.
Then most people started getting up to go to their classes. Regulus, Evan, Barty, and Dorcas followed the stream of students until they got to History of Magic. Professor Binns was already marking some review questions on the board when he walked in. A few Hufflepuffs were chatting and sneaking glances at them as they sat down.
Barty glared at them showing off his middle finger as they passed by.
“What’s their deal?” Evan said rolling his eyes at one of the boys glaring in their direction.
Regulus smirked, “everyone’s been talking about some war starting and now theres a rumor that some of the pureblood families are joining the leader of some cult or something.”
“Ok, that’s just fucking stupid,” Dorcas said.
The others smirked but to be honest he didn’t think the Black family would necessarily be above that if it meant more power to their name or whatever.
His thoughts were interrupted by Professor Binns who started droning on about the goblin wars.
Regulus basically zoned out the whole time, he wasn’t the only one, most people couldn’t sit through one of Binns’ classes without almost falling asleep’.
By time they were dismissed he practically jumped out of his seat. He left the room and started towards the Astronomy Tower. The other three didn’t have it until later. When he got there Pandora was already sitting at a table, thoughtfully gazing at a small thread magic coming from her wand.
“Hey Panda,” he said as he set his stuff near the seat next the her.”
“Hey!” She smiled, her guiding the flowing stream into a small bottle and then put it into her bag carefully.
“Didn’t see you earlier.”
“Oh, I had a dream, it seemed important, more real this time, bust still so distant, I had to see the whole thing before I could wake up.” Her voice faded into almost a whisper.
He nodded, Pandora had visions and dreams a lot, he’d learned to get used to it.
“You nervous about break,” she said lowering her voice.
“Yeah, I don’t know, kind of I guess,” Regulus said, stumbling through his words. He didn’t even know what to say, it was just too complicated.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine… just don’t agree to anything you don’t want to.” She said.
He nodded with a half smile in return.
The professor gave them a pointed stare in their direction and cleared his throat, “enough talking, pay attention” he grumbled.
They spent the rest of the time taking notes and doing a practice exam.
After dismissal they returned to the Great Hall. Food appeared on platters covering the tables as everyone piled it onto their plates mid conversation. They sat in their usual seats and Regulus just now noticed how similar Pandora and Evan looked side by side. They were twins so it wasn’t unusual but he only now realized how much they really looked the same.
“What happened to Snape!?” Evan exclaimed reaching his head up to get a better view.
Snape was frantically trying to explain to some prefects something but every time he spoke some he would say something else, there more he tried to explain himself, the more frustrated he grew. His face was turning bright red with anger.
“I swear I think i have a terrible large nose… what no!… I’m trying to say that I am a greasy haired creep with a very bad rash… no wait… I have absolutely tiny…UGH NO!” The sixth years snickered.
“Okaaay,” on of them said.
Snape groaned and stormed out.
Barty and Evan grinned.
“Ok that was pitiful,” Regulus said stifling his laughter.
“I wonder who did it…” Pandora muttered grimly.
Sure enough the Gryffindor table had erupted in laughter surrounding the “Marauders.” Of course Sirius and his friends were the ones who did it, it’s like their one joy in life was stupid pranks.
“Surprised it wasn’t all of us this time. They’ve been targeting Snape for a while now,” Dorcas said. “I’m getting a little sick of this to be honest.”
Sirius and James were now standing on the table as some third years cheered. Until Professor McGonagall told them to get down.
Regulus rolled his eyes and turned around pretending not to care, he just had to focus on getting through the next couple weeks, this was nothing.