Chapter 11
October 22, 1975
Regulus
Regulus has spent days and weeks looking for a place to hide the Cup but they all seem too obvious. Behind a portrait, in a secret hideout under a statue, even in the room of requirement (Remus actually approved of this one) – he thinks that the chances someone finds it in one of those spots are too high, so he keeps on thinking. As long as Bella doesn’t bother him, he has time. He doesn’t know how much more, though.
He is still unable to sleep properly, so he wanders around the castle every night. He selfishly hopes that James comes to the Astronomy Tower but he never does, so Regulus is always left to his own devices. He isn’t even sure he wants James to come there, it’s just that he’s so fucking lonely that he thinks he could find solace in any person stargazing with him at midnight. James just turned out to be the first one to ever show up there in the night-time.
Regulus does have friends. Remus, Pandora, Dorcas, Barty, Evan. Aren’t they enough? How can they not be? It’s so selfish of Regulus to be asking for something more when he already has more than he deserves. He’s flawed, he ruins everything, and the mere chance of having friends at all should be enough for him to shut up about his loneliness forever. But that’s just not how it works. Not for him, anyway.
‘Reg! Are you here?’ Pandora snaps her fingers in front of his face. ‘You zoned out again.’
‘Shit, I’m sorry, Dora. What were you saying?’ he says apologetically.
‘That’s okay, I was just asking you about your plans for Friday.’
‘What’s on Friday?’ Regulus asks wondering if he’s forgotten something important.
‘Quidditch match. Gryffindor against Ravenclaw. I thought maybe you’d like to go?’ Pandora raises an eyebrow.
‘Sure. I didn’t think you’re a big fan of Quidditch, though,’ Regulus looks at her suspiciously.
‘I’m not but the girl I like is,’ Pandora replies. ‘She’s on the team, actually. A Chaser,’ she adds.
Those fucking Chasers, Regulus thinks.
‘No way! The one who liked your tarot cards?’
‘Yes,’ she smiles. ‘I’ve been working on making a deck for her and if Ravenclaw wins, I’ll give it to her after the match.’
‘Dora, that’s amazing! Does she like you, too?’
‘I hope she does but we never really discussed it.’
‘Can’t you ask your crystals or tarot cards?’ says Regulus suggestively.
‘I can but I’d rather she told me about her feelings herself,’ Pandora bites her lip. Suddenly her face brightens up and she looks at Regulus excitedly.
‘Reg—’
‘Dora, no,’ he protests.
‘But it’s gonna be fun! You need some reassurance, you know’, Pandora says. ‘Besides, I don’t ask you any favours ever. Come on, Regulus,’ she begs.
Regulus sighs. ‘Just this one time. You know I don’t believe in tarot, right?’
Pandora smiles at him triumphantly. ‘Me believing in it is enough,’ she replies and reaches for the deck on the bedside table.
‘So,’ she starts, ‘what do you want to know? Is there anyone special?’ Pandora winks.
There is, Regulus thinks. Or there isn’t. How is he supposed to know? Feelings are difficult.
‘Not at all. Can you read someone else's fortune instead?’ he says.
‘But the point is that I read your fortune, Reg,’ she sighs. ‘Is there anything that bothers you? We can look into it instead, if you want.’
Regulus hesitates. What is bothering him? Bella? The Cup? The upcoming war? Sirius?
He’s been trying not to think about his brother but everything reminds Regulus of him. Every bite of the chocolate frog Remus takes after the full moon brings him back to when Sirius would steal sweets for him, getting inevitably punished but happy that Regulus got to enjoy a forbidden snack (well, why was it there in the first place if their parents never allowed them to eat it? Sirius would usually say). Every Astronomy class reminds him of Sirius teaching him the names of constellations, and whenever Regulus looks up at the starry sky, he searches for his brother instinctively. Thinking of James fucking Potter unavoidably leads to thinking of Sirius, too.
Even the fucking Cup is a constant reminder of Sirius. The sooner Regulus deals with Bella’s task and proves his loyalty to the Dark Lord, the sooner Sirius will leave for good. This has been his plan from the beginning and he’s determined to follow through with it.
So, what is bothering him?...
‘Nothing, really. Why don’t you do whatever you like?’
‘That works for me,’ Pandora smiles. ‘So, is there anyone you might possibly like? You don’t need to say their name out loud unless you want to.’
‘I don’t know, I’m not really good at these things,’ Regulus shrugs his shoulders.
‘That’s okay, figuring out your feelings may be a long and complicated process,’ she smiles at him softly.
‘I think there might be one person but that’s nothing serious,’ he murmurs at once.
‘The cards will tell,’ Pandora winks.
Regulus rolls his eyes and snorts as Pandora starts shuffling her cards. When she’s done, she closes her eyes and furrows her eyebrows, muttering under her breath and holding the deck tight in her hands.
‘Ready?’ she looks at him expectantly.
‘For what exactly? Aren’t you supposed to, like, ask a question or something?’
‘I already did,’ she replies. ‘If you had paid more attention you would’ve heard it. Now pick a card.’
Regulus focuses and tries to assess the most promising card but they all look the same so he picks the one closer to the bottom of the deck. Pandora nods at him, a silent question ‘you sure?’, and then flips the card over.
‘The Lovers,’ she breaks the silence. ‘Wow, Reg. That’s a very powerful card.’
‘So?’ he says unimpressed.
‘So,’ Pandora says, ‘you and that person are bound to fall in love! Isn’t that exciting?’
‘Not at all,’ he speaks unemotionally. Tarot cards are bullshit. They mean nothing. Don’t get your hopes up. No one can love you.
‘We shall see. Pick the second one. I want you to close your eyes and move your hand over the cards. Pick the one you feel the most connection with,’ Pandora instructs him as she spreads a set of cards in front of him.
Regulus sighs. Why is he even doing it?
He says nothing and does as Pandora says, closing his eyes and picking up the third card from the left. Regulus hands the card to Pandora without looking at it and her face literally starts beaming.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she says. ‘Oh, Reggie, you’re so, so lucky! Whoever that person is, you’ll be so happy together!’
‘Let me look,’ he takes the card from her hands and stares at it. ‘What is it?’
‘Two of Cups. Does it ring a bell?’ Pandora smiles.
‘Try to guess,’ he says mockingly.
He starts examining the card trying to see in it any signs of the love promised to him by Pandora but sees nothing.
‘You’re too close-minded,’ Pandora cuts in. ‘You won’t see it the way I do because you refuse to believe it.’
‘Whatever. I still can’t understand how it works.’
‘You don’t have to, you just have to trust your own gut. And my fortune-teller abilities,’ she winks.
‘Okay, I’ll take your words into account,’ he scoffs.
She shakes her head and looks at him disapprovingly as he suppresses a laugh and simply shrugs his shoulders.
‘At least let me know if you end up with that person.’
‘Sure, Dora.’
Pandora starts collecting the cards as Regulus stares at the two ones he picked. The Lovers do look nice: there are two men, both unclothed, their bodies intertwined in a loving embrace. They stand on a lush, green landscape, and behind them is a great tree with fruit-bearing branches.
His gaze shifts towards the second card, Two of Cups. Two women are standing facing each other with cups in their hands, a lion’s head with a bird’s wings above them, and there’s a tiny house with a red brick roof in the background.
Wait a minute. With cups? realisation hits him suddenly. Regulus fixes his gaze on the cups in the hands of the two women and wonders if he could replace one of them with the Hufflepuff Cup. If he invented a spell letting him put his Cup inside the card, the problem would be solved. Isn’t the best hiding place the one which is so obvious that you won’t even consider it?
‘Dora, listen, is there any chance that you could make me a similar deck?’ Regulus asks Pandora.
‘But you don’t believe in tarot,’ she raises an eyebrow.
‘I don’t but I would like to have something made by you. I really love the pictures you drew on your cards,’ Regulus admits.
‘Well, you can have the ones I’ve made for the girl I like,’ Pandora offers.
‘Still not going to say her name?’ Regulus asks, and Pandora shakes her head slightly. ‘I can’t take it, though, you’ve been planning to give it to her.’
‘Only if Ravenclaw wins, which I doubt will happen,’ she smiles at him. ‘Seriously, Reg, take it, I can make her another set of cards.’
Regulus hesitates as Pandora hands him the deck, so she reaches for his open palm and puts it into his hands.
‘Thank you, that means a lot to me,’ Regulus squeezes her hand in gratitude.
‘Anything for my dearest friend,’ Pandora replies with a reassuring smile on her face.
‘Remus? Are you here?’
‘To your right.’
Regulus finds Remus in the library standing on a short ladder and examining books on the top shelf of the bookcase.
‘I’m almost done, just a minute,’ Remus mumbles.
‘Sure.’
‘How’s your leg?’
‘Better, thanks. Wait for me at the table.’
As Remus picks up another book and quickly places it back on the shelf with a disappointing sigh, Regulus sits himself in the chair at the nearest table and takes out the tarot cards Pandora gifted him.
‘So,’ Remus says dropping next to him, ‘what’s the matter?’
‘I know where to hide it,’ Regulus replies and hands Remus Two of Cups with a pointing look.
‘I don’t get it,’ Remus furrows his eyebrows as he takes the card. ‘What do Dora’s tarot have to do with our case?’
Our case.
‘I need to invent a spell allowing me to replace one of the cups on the picture with the real one.’
Remus’ eyes widen. ‘Merlin, Reg, that’s a genius move. How are we going to do it, though?’
‘We should start with Latin.’
‘I only know Welsh,’ Remus scoffs.
‘Ha ha, Remus,’ Regulus rolls his eyes. ‘We obviously need a dictionary.’
‘Do you know how to create a spell?’ asks Remus.
‘I do,’ Regulus smirks and rolls the sleeve of his shirt. ‘See this line? Mother. She’s invented so many spells you can’t even imagine. All it took for her was the right wand movement and the incantation.’
Remus keeps staring at Regulus forearm as he rolls back his shirt. ‘Reg, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know,’ he says gloomily.
‘You couldn’t, I never told you,’ Regulus replies. ‘It’s not your fault, you don’t have to be sorry. My point was that yes, I know how to create spells.’
‘You know you didn’t deserve anything of what they’ve done to you, right?’ says Remus quietly. ‘They’re sick people.’
Regulus shakes his head. A small part of him still believes that if he had been a bit more disciplined, a bit smarter, a bit less clumsy, a bit more of a loving son, they wouldn’t have hurt him. He must have fucked up at some point. It’s his fault he wasn’t good enough.
‘Forget it, Remus. You’d better start looking for the Latin-English dictionary,’ Regulus grabs his bag, throws the deck inside it and heads to the librarian rubbing his eyes and blinking fast.
October 24, 1975
Sirius
Sirius sleeps in on Friday. Classes? Skip them. Friends? Ignore them.
He has spent this entire week trying not to think about Remus, and he’s failing terribly. The full moon on Monday was worse than usually, and James blames Sirius for this (James hasn’t said a word. Sirius just knows that James does). Sirius blames himself, too. Peter is the only one unaware of the two incidents involving Remus, so he can only guess why the wolf was so irritated and unwilling to leave the shack, trying to tear himself apart instead. They can only hope that Remus ended up with few injuries, as they did everything they could to stop him from hurting himself.
Although they were more or less successful in minimising Remus’ self-injury, Sirius ended up with a huge scratch from the wooden door on his right calf. He thinks he deserved it anyway, acting too reckless while trying to block Peter and James from the wolf. He should’ve been more calm and cautious, but he wasn’t, so here are the consequences. At least both Peter and James are okay.
Sirius still thinks about the last phrase Remus said to him, that he won’t help him the next time he falls off of his broom. Was he implying that he was the one to use the pain relief charm on him? But why? Why does he even care? What if he was bluffing and it was all a part of a bigger conspiracy between him and Mulciber?
All of Sirius’ questions are left unanswered and he doesn’t know how to feel or what to do. He hasn’t told James about the subject of his conversation with Remus, or rather, he did tell him but it was all lies. Sirius is so exhausted trying to choose what to believe - Remus’ words or common sense – that he ends up trying to switch his focus to the upcoming match against Ravenclaw.
He hasn’t made up with Mary yet (frankly speaking, he made a few attempts but they all ended with Lily almost slapping him and Mary calling him a jerk) and he doesn’t know how they’ll cooperate today. During practices they’ve been okay and James was more or less satisfied with their work but Sirius could still sense the tension between him and Mary. All because of a stupid cat, he thinks. Dogs are so much better.
Sirius gets out of bed at once and takes a long shower. He has one more hour before he has to go to the changing room and he spends it napping.
‘Pads? Are you okay?’
‘Sorry, what?’ Sirius opens his eyes and looks around. James is standing in the doorway in his school robs and looking at Sirius worriedly.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, just a bit tired. How much time do we have?’
‘About twenty minutes but we’re leaving in ten. Are you sure you’re okay? You look rough,’ James furrows his eyebrows.
‘James, I’m fine,’ Sirius says offhandedly. ‘Just needed a bit of rest.’
‘If you say so,’ James shrugs his shoulders and starts unpacking his bag.
Sirius hesitates whether to tell James about what Remus really told him. But isn’t he overreacting? Isn’t he paying too much attention to the words of someone who doesn’t give a slightest shit about him? But what if he wasn’t lying?
‘Prongs,’ Sirius starts.
‘Yeah?’ James throws a glance at him. He looks so exhausted, Sirius notices huge eye bags on his face, and he wonders if he’s been missing something in James’ life all this time that he’s been focused on Remus.
‘Are you okay?’ Sirius asks him instead.
James offers him a strained smile. ‘I’m good, Pads. Like always.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes. Thanks for checking up.’
James is so clearly not okay now and Sirius doesn’t know what to do about that. James barely has any bad days and even when he does, he always talks to Sirius about it, so what for Merlin's sake is going on?
Sirius listens attentively to James’ pep-talk before the match and tries not to think about Remus’ warning. The most rational option is to simply ignore it, so that's what Sirius does.
The match starts, Sirius waves at Lily and Peter and focuses on the game. Half an hour later Gryffindor is leading, James keeps on scoring goal after goal, he and Mary are working perfectly fine, the weather is great and pretty much everything is in their favour, so Sirius relaxes and forgets about Remus and his stupid lies.
Marlene catches the sight of the snitch and rushes right after it. Sirius aims a bludger at one of the opposing chasers and smirks when it hits the target meanwhile Mary flies past Sirius and mouths ‘good job’. Sirius nods in gratitude and turns around to say something else to her when someone screams ‘Sirius!’ and seconds later he’s flying to the ground under Marlene’s weight. They both lend on Sirius’ back as he manages to get the hold of Marlene to cover her with his body right before the fall.
‘What the fuck, McKinnon?’ Sirius hisses massaging his shoulder.
Marlene doesn’t reply to him. She looks directly behind his back and cries ‘James!’ but by the time Sirius turns around to take a look at James, he’s already hit by a large fire sphere, and Sirius watches his friend fall straight to the ground as if in slow motion, with no one trying to help him. Just watching and screaming.
A quick look at Slytherins and Sirius sees Snape smirking, his wand hidden in the sleeves of his robes. He spots Mulciber and Avery under the bleachers wearing smug smiles on their faces and high-fiving each other. Sirius makes eye contact with Remus who looks just as terrified as him. He was right, then. He was fucking right.