Regulus
Regulus has never been one for stepping out of his comfort zone. He is absolutely fine right where he is. The urge to do something has never beat the scared part of his brain telling him to stay still.
So he is currently struggling to rationalize exactly why he is standing on the quidditch pitch at six in the morning while the Gryffindor team is practicing above him.
Why would James Potter decide to make them practice at six when the pitch is open all day? Regulus can’t even begin to fathom the answer. He is tired and breakfast in the Great Hall hasn’t even started yet so he couldn’t get a cup of tea on his way here, so he’s not doing great. But, this is the easiest way to find Sirius and hopefully talk to him without any Slytherins seeing.
Barty told him he was stupid to assume that he could convince Sirius not to do the tournament but Regulus at least needs to try. If he doesn’t try to stop him from doing it then he would feel even more guilty when Sirius inevitably got hurt or worse.
No, he hasn’t talked to Sirius in a long time but they used to be so close until a few years ago. Surely Sirius has to listen to him. He’s his big brother after all. Big brothers are supposed to listen and Sirius used to.
“Regulus?”
His head snaps to the side from where he was staring into space on the pitch.
Potter.
Regulus swallows, too late to run now. “Hello, Potter.”
Damn their five words.
Potter looks laughably confused, his eyebrows are furrowed so far in his face that they reappear under the frames of his glasses.
“Can I uh- can I help you?” he asks as he scratches the back of his neck and looks around as if he just ended up in an alternate universe where they talk. He might be right, this is ridiculous.
“Oh stop looking so scared Potter, I'm not going to bite you.” Regulus rolls his eyes, “I’m looking for Sirius.”
Potter's eyes widen, “Right- right that makes sense.” he smiles sheepishly, “I’ll go grab him for you.”
As he finishes talking he bends down to pick up the discarded broom that Regulus didn’t notice until now. “Uh, give me a second.”
Regulus gives him a nod and a smile that could probably be counted as more of a grimace. Gods, this boy is annoying.
A few minutes later he sees both Sirius and Potter descending from the air after they both spent far too long whispering and making weird gestures in Regulus’ direction.
Sirius steps off his broom and Potter flies back up to presumably finish running his teams practice.
He’s taller than he used to be, he’s now got a good few inches on Regulus when they used to always be the same height. His shoulders are broader and the sadness he always held in his eyes seems to have faded. He sees Sirius in the halls but hasn’t gotten this good of a look at him in too long. His brother is becoming a man. Regulus never thought he and Sirius would be seeing each other grow up from a distance, but things change. They changed.
“Reggie, what are you doing here? You know you’ll get into trouble if anyone sees you talking to me.” Sirius says in a hushed tone.
Regulus, yet again, rolls his eyes, “Yes Sirius I know.” his fingers find the sleeve of his robes as he starts to twist it around to relieve his anxiety. “I just needed to talk to you.”
Sirius looks skeptical, “Okay…”
Regulus huffs, this whole thing is taking far longer than anticipated, he just needs to spit it out.
“You can’t do the tournament.” he rushes out and then interrupts when Sirius opens his mouth, “And don’t deny that you were going to, I know you too well for that.”
Sirius looks put out for a second until the confusion forms on his face yet again, “Where is this coming from?”
“It’s dangerous and I- it would be terrible for my reputation if you died, so- so please don’t do it.” No way in hell is Regulus going to tell Sirius he’s worried for him so that’s probably the best they are both getting and they both know it.
Luckily Sirius can still see right through him, his eyes soften as he puts a hand on Regulus’ forearm, “Yeah, yeah, sure Reg. I won’t do it.” he says then steps back, grabbing his broom. “Wouldn’t want to hurt that pretty reputation of yours.” he smiles and winks.
As he’s about to mount the broom again and return to practice, he hesitates.
“How- um, how have you been doing?” Sirius asks, the sad look that Regulus knows so well entering his eyes.
Regulus can’t do this. He can’t fake that they are okay when they don’t even look at each other in the halls. He can’t pretend he is okay when he doesn’t even know where his own brother is living now. But he can’t tell him how bad he’s doing. That would probably result in him crying on the pitch at 6:30 in the morning, and that would be terribly embarrassing for everyone involved.
Regulus decides to ignore him, “I have to go, can’t let anyone see me with you.”
He sees Sirius’ shoulder slump with either relief or disappointment, he can’t tell. It wouldn’t matter which anyways.
“Wait, Reg-”
But Regulus already left, pretending not to hear his brother calling after him. It feels like they’ve reversed roles since that night last summer.
No, don’t think about that.
He shakes out his arm, still feeling the warmth of Sirius on his bicep. Sirius was always so warm, Regulus was the cold one.
~
When he reaches the Great Hall, breakfast has started and he finds Pandora, Barty, Evan, and Dorcas all seated at the Slytherin table.
Pandora and Evan are holding back Barty’s head as Dorcas attempts to pour a gravy boat of maple syrup down his throat.
Maybe Regulus should go sit somewhere else.
He lets out a long sigh as he dejectedly slides onto the bench next to Dorcas and takes the syrup out of her hand.
“Hey!” she complains.
“Calm down, you're gonna drown the poor boy which most the time I would support but not when it’s getting in the way of me enjoying my waffles.” he mutters as he pours the syrup over said waffles that he grabbed from a platter in the middle of the table.
Evan perks up when he sees Regulus and lets go of Bartys hair as Pandora strokes his back to get him to swallow, whispering in Barty’s ear like he’s a horse.
“How was it? Did you talk to him?” Evan asks.
Evan has always been the most, well, emotionally intelligent in their friend group. He’s always the one to stop fights or make sure they are doing okay. Most of the time Regulus finds it quite annoying as he would prefer to never feel an emotion if he could help it, but this morning it’s nice. Regulus is probably just sleep deprived.
“It was fine, he said he wouldn’t do it. It was just weird talking to him.” Regulus admits, avoiding eye contact and poking at his waffle.
“You know you could talk to him more often, at least at school. Your parents aren’t here to stop you.” Pandora replies as Barty finally stops choking on syrup.
Regulus sighs, “I know but he told me not to in case Snape or Mulciber or someone sees and tells their parents who will tell mine and then I’ll get punished. It's just easier to avoid each other.”
“Is it though?” asks Dorcas, “You’ve been miserable this past year, I'm sure you guys could figure something out.”
Regulus hates this conversation. They’ve had it about a billion times and always ends with Regulus saying he’ll talk to Sirius, and then never doing it. It's getting repetitive. Correction, it got repetitive six months ago.
“Yeah, sure.” he mumbles anyways, “I’ll talk to him.”