I Think He Knows

Affection wasn’t welcomed in the Black household. Walburga was prone to, what she described as, tough love and Orion rarely graced them with his presence. Regulus, luckily, had a few people he could rely on, Sirius, his older brother, his cousin, Narcissa, and Kreacher, the butler. When Sirius went off to high school and started spending as little time at their childhood home as possible, Regulus was left only with Narcissa and Kreacher. They practically raised Regulus. Regardless of the task, whether it was reading him stories before bed or ensuring he properly dressed, they were always there.

One day, while his cousin, Narcissa, was sitting at the table writing, Regulus got curious. Narcissa would write on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope every Wednesday, like clockwork. And so, being a child and naturally curious, he decided to ask Narcissa what she would write.

“I am writing a letter. To my past lovers.” she had responded.

“Why?”

“To put my feelings out into the world, without having to deal with the repercussions. I never send them. I write how I feel, place it in an envelope, and set it in a box so that I can reread them and remember how I felt at the time.”

“Does it make you feel better?”

“Most of the time, yes.”

Narcissa had stood from the chair and moved to her quarters to put the newest envelope away. They did not discuss the letters again. But one day, Narcissa gifted him a small green box. She did not tell him what it was for. But the envelopes and paper inside told him what she intended for him to do.

Not long after, she fell sick. The emerald box and envelopes were the last thing he had from her, once her aunt and uncle rid the world of any possible item that was hers. He never told anybody about the envelopes, deciding it would be just for them.

-

Barty Crouch Jr. moved to London when he was in elementary school due to a scandal that arose at his father’s business. He was enrolled at Hogwarts Elementary and got placed in Regulus’ class.

Before Barty, Regulus would sit alone on the grass and read during recess, but once the boy arrived, he wasn’t alone anymore. Barty had decided that Regulus would be his best friend and there was nothing he could do to avoid it, not that he would. With Barty came Evan and Pandora, and then Dorcas.

Unexpectedly, Regulus began to feel certain feelings for the energetic boy. He didn’t know how to react or how to deal with them, it wasn’t like he could act on them, so he wrote his very first letter.

He finally understood why Narcissa wrote so many letters. It was freeing. He no longer felt burdened by the feelings. Instead, he was able to continue on as if nothing had changed. Eventually, the feelings went away, but it was still nice to reread the letter and see how he had felt at the time.

-

Regulus was always an amazing student. In middle school, he was given a spot in the Hogwarts Honors Society and every couple of years they would travel to a competition in another country. In Regulus' 8th grade year, they traveled to northern France.

While at the competition, Regulus met a boy. Regulus was never the type to walk up to someone and so he watched the boy, hoping he would approach him.

Regulus walked into the male restroom just as the boy exited a stall.

They were alone.

It started out innocent enough.

“Hey, you’re from Hogwarts right.” the boy questioned. Regulus nodded his head simply. The boy walked towards the sink and began to wash his hands.

“You’re very smart,” the boy continued, grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser while walking towards him, “and cute.” Regulus' eyes widened with shock. He wasn’t expecting him to be so blunt.

“Thanks.” Regulus replied meekly. The boy nodded with a smirk. He held his hand out towards Regulus.

“I’m Louis.” The boy, Louis, introduced as Regulus took his hand apprehensively.

“Regulus.”

They stood there for what felt like an hour, but was actually a couple of seconds, with each other’s hands grasped together. Abruptly, Louis pulled Regulus forward. Barely an inch separating their noses. Louis lifted a brow, waiting for Regulus to make the next move. Nervous, he didn’t do anything for a minute, but then, he realized it wouldn’t matter what he did because he wouldn’t see Louis again. So he closed the distance.

Regulus left the restroom with kiss bitten lips and flushed cheeks. He never saw Louis after that day. He did, however, write him his own letter that went into the box.

-

Remus Lupin was letter number 3.

When Regulus entered high school, Hogwarts Academy, he was in advanced classes and would spend most of his time studying in the library. Remus also happened to spend the majority of his time in the library.

Remus being friends with Sirius made Regulus slightly apprehensive to approach him assuming he would be like Sirius; however, he soon learned how wrong he was. Remus was much quieter and more controlled than Regulus’ brother.

One day, the table Regulus usually sat at was overrun by a group of people. Conveniently, all the other tables had at least one person sitting there. Regulus desperately wanted to get some studying in for his upcoming history exam, so he decided to sit with Remus, who was alone and the only other familiar face.

When Regulus sat down, Remus looked up and nodded. They sat there quietly working on their homework. After that day, they sat at the same table every day. They never spoke, they just sat in silence enjoying each other's presence.

In the halls, they began to greet one another with a nod. After a while, they got more comfortable with one another and instead of sitting quietly at the table, they started asking each other questions. The questions were always simple and never breached past anything more than schoolwork.

After some time, that changed.

“Does Sirius hate me?” Remus startled, not expecting the silence to have been broken, especially by that kind of question. Regulus didn’t look up from his papers to meet Remus’ eyes, it was hard enough asking the question, he didn’t need to have someone staring into his soul too.

Once Remus processed what the boy had asked, he responded, “No, he doesn’t hate you. I don’t think he could ever hate you.” Regulus scoffed. “It’s true. He talks about you all the time. Albeit without meaning to, but he does nonetheless.” The conversation stops after that. Neither feeling brave enough to breach the topic further than where they had already gone.

Remus seemed to take Regulus’ question as an invitation. He started walking with him in the halls when they were going in the same direction and began to talk about more than just schoolwork. At one point, they started talking about Sirius and Regulus let it slip that he missed him. The next day, he conveniently found himself trapped in a closet with Sirius, which resulted in the brothers rekindling their relationship.

After a while, Regulus realized his heart would skip a beat when he would sit with Remus in the library and blush would creep up his neck when Remus would talk to him in the halls. Eventually, it became too much and so, he wrote another letter.

-

It wasn’t fair. James Potter had everything. He stole his brother's attention, was the captain of the soccer team, had so many friends, and to top it all off, he was hot.

Regulus had tried not to pay attention to Potter, but after Sirius invited him to the soccer game, he was also on the team, and Pandora physically forcing him to go, people would be surprised to discover she is incredibly strong and persuasive when she wants to be, he had no choice. That man commanded attention without even trying to. Regulus' eyes followed his movements the entire game. He left quickly once the game ended, not wanting to risk Sirius trying to introduce them.

This of course didn’t stop Sirius from tracking him down during lunch and dragging him off to meet his friends.

“James Potter.” the unfairly hot guy greeted, holding his hand out. Regulus reluctantly took it when Sirius kicked him, but not before sending a glare Sirius’ way.

From then on, he would sometimes have lunch with them. His friends ended up joining him too, all instantly noticing his incessant crush on the Potter boy, teasing him mercilessly once they were alone.

He didn’t want to write James a letter. He really tried to resist. But it was all for nothing, because he eventually caved.

-

His most recent letter was to Benji Fenwick.

Benji sat next to him in English and McGonagall was always assigning partner work and so them being paired up was inevitable. Usually, Regulus would do all the work and never speak to his partner, but Benji was different.

Benji insisted on meeting up after school at his house, after Regulus turned down the offer to go to his for obvious reasons, and work on the project together. They ended up becoming friends and hanging out after school even after they finished the project.

Benji being a letter recipient was unavoidable.