Dorcas’ Fault
Sirius was not a secretive person. All his life, he seemed to be determined to disappoint his parents, and what better way to do that than to always tell the truth. To them, at least.
Of course, he kept secrets from the public. Regulus knew this, because he did, too. Mostly surrounding their family.
Regulus did have one secret that he only told his closest friends. Not even Sirius, as he had been too old when he figured it out and he didn’t really even know his brother anymore.
Given all of this, Regulus was the appropriate amount of shocked when he found out his brother hooking up with someone. A man.
At first, he was disgusted. Before he knew it was a man.
Sirius barged into the room giggling. He closed and locked the door, which immediately caused Regulus to panic.
No no no! I do not need to be locked into a room with my brother and his secret rendezvous!
The only thing he could really do was grimace when he heard the springs on a bed across the room creak.
He threw up in his mouth a little when he heard Sirius gasp.
No! I do not need this picture in my head! Stop!
Alas, he couldn’t really tell them to stop without alerting them of his presence.
This was all Barty’s fault. He shouldn’t have left Regulus alone.
He let out a soft little sigh when he realized his fate. There was nothing to do.
Then Sirius spoke.
“What? What is it?”
“I think I just heard… Never mind. We should get back. People will notice that we’re missing.” Regulus was shocked to recognize the voice, but even more shocked that the voice was male.
“But Moony… come on! It doesn’t matter! Let them notice!” Sirius sounded downright whiny. Desperate.
But Moony was what Sirius called…
Regulus slapped his hand onto his mouth to stop from shrieking. There was no way anyone could’ve heard it, but he could practically already see Lupin stilling.
“Sirius. Let’s go. I’ll make it up to you later, promise,” he tried.
“You better…” Regulus barely heard Sirius say under his breath.
He was going to throw up.
Once the door shut again and the footsteps receded, he rushed out from under the bed.
Ew! Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!
Regulus would never be able to look his brother in the eye again. Luckily enough, that wouldn’t be too hard.
He pulled the hood tight over his head and crept out of the room. Looking around, he made it safely out of the hallway before his plans were foiled once again.
It was James this time. He thought that Regulus was Sirius.
“Pads! I was looking for you!” He shouted, way too excited. He must’ve been properly pissed.
Still, Regulus made sure that not a single strand of pink hair escaped his hood. Not that it would’ve mattered, he was sure that his hair was the same shade as his face right now.
See, Regulus had never actually had a conversation with James before. He’d exchanged words with him, mostly bitter ones, but never actual conversation. He was not going to let the very first one be when James was drunk and thought that he was Sirius.
So Regulus just smiled at him and tried to slip past, but James grabbed his arm.
Seemingly in slow motion, his hood fell, and James’ eyes landed in the bright pink curls immediately.
“Oh! Reg! What are you doing here?” Regulus opened his mouth to reply, but James rambled on. “Sorry about your hair. You should hang out with us! Come on, come on!”
Regulus yanked back his arm. James was almost completely unintelligible, but Regulus could tell what he was saying.
“Absolutely not.” Against his better judgement, he added, “You better sober up, Potter, before you embarrass yourself in front of your future wife. Again.” Then he dashed away. He didn’t want to hear, see, or even smell James for the rest of the month. Actually talking to him one-on-one was so exhilarating, even if the only thing he’d done was insult him. He might be obsessed.
Outside the portrait hole, he crashed into Barty.
“Woah! Calm down, Regulus! What happened?” Barty asked.
“Nothing-James-let’s head back,” Regulus was talking so fast that he could barely make out what he was saying himself, it was a miracle that Barty could.
“James? What did he do? Wait- don’t tell me. Save it for the dorm.” Just like that, they were off. It was past curfew, so they had to be a bit sneaky, but Regulus had the Prefect excuse.
Back at the dorm, he couldn’t hold it in anymore. Regulus jumped onto his bed, curled up into a ball, grabbed a pillow to shove in his face, and started screaming.
This was, unfortunately, a common occurrence. It was always about James.
“Oh, I see. Should I… get the others?” Barty asked, finally understanding. The two boys were utterly horrible in this area. The girls, though? They were wonderful.
“Yes, go! Go fast, please!” Evan pleaded. He really didn’t want to be left alone with Regulus like this.
Barty dashed out of the room and Regulus jumped up, faster than Evan could’ve anticipated, and captured him in an embrace.
“Oh my Godric, Evan! He thought I was Sirius! Which is kind of insulting, but it doesn’t matter because we actually talked! Oh! And then, and then, I was trying to get out of it, obviously, cause I was totally freaking out already, and he grabbed my arm! Evan! He touched me! His hand was so warm! Then, my hood fell off, and he-“ Regulus’ rant was cut short by the door slamming open and Dorcas stepping inside.
“I couldn’t get to Pandora, because I couldn’t figure out the riddle to get inside Ravenclaw, but I got Dorcas!” Barty exclaimed.
Evan let up a silent thank-you prayer when Regulus detached from him. Dorcas led him over to sit down on his own bed and looked him dead in the eyes, holding both of his hands.
“Tell me everything.”
And he did. Everything that he had already told Evan, and more. The others cut in occasionally, to Regulus’ annoyance.
“Wait, but you hate when we call you Reg!”
“Yes, when you call me Reg! It’s not like you listen to me, anyways, but when he does it- I don’t know!”
And-
“He apologized? Reg, that’s-“
“Dorcas, don’t! You’ll encourage his fantasies!” That had earned a pillow straight to Barty’s head.
Then-
“Merlin’s beard, Reg! Why would you make the comment about Lily? That’s the stupidest thing you could’ve done!”
“Shut up, Evan, your input is not appreciated!”
Not to mention-
“So this was all just retaliation for a prank? You know that they’re just going to get you back, right?”
“Of course I do, Dorcas! Our job is to just outdo them!”
Suffice to say, the stayed up the whole night talking about it. Regulus never mentioned what he had learned about Sirius, because it was not his secret to spill.
Really, what happened next was Dorcas’ fault for encouraging him.