two
The great hall was usually filled on the first day back, with everyone meeting up with their friends and catching up. That’s why Barty and Regulus avoid the whole thing.
Not this year though. No, they have to go to meet Evan and Pandora this year, and neither of them are pleased about that. They tried to get the meeting moved to literally anywhere else but both Evan and Pandora wanted to meet here.
“This is too crowded,” Barty mumbles to Regulus in disgust, and Regulus looks equally disgusted. It’s too funny for Barty to handle, and it makes him snort. Regulus turns to him in confusion, as he was just complaining about the amount of people.
“What are you laughing at? I swear, Barty, you and your mood swings. I can’t keep up.” Regulus grumbles, turning back to face his friend who, even though he annoys the fuck out of him, he also finds amusing.
“Your face was unbelievably funny when it’s scrunched up like that,” Barty tells his friend, who shakes his head at him and rolls his eyes.
“You’re ridiculous,” Regulus tells him and Barty smiles. Regulus is not a very affectionate person but Barty can tell the difference between when he’s saying something mean out of love and saying something mean because he genuinely doesn’t like you. That’s what happens when you’re Regulus’ only close friend for 4 years. You get to know him in a way most people don’t, and you can tell the difference between his moods.
“Yeah, yeah.” Barty replies, and the moment he sees him, the smile fades.
James.
It’s gotten easier to deal with them being literally everywhere.. But every once in a while it hits him that it should be him there and not Sirius.
Regulus turns around and notices the mood change in his friend. He follows Barty’s gaze to Sirius and James with their other friends saying their hello’s after the break.
James turns around, as if he could feel them watching him, and gave them a small smile. Sirius turns around when he notices James is turned around and Regulus tenses.
“Come on, Barty. We have to find Eva-” Regulus began but was cut off by Pandora jumping on his back and Evan cackling.
“You were saying?” Barty says with a shit eating grin on his face.
And just like that, both boys’ minds are off of their former best friends.
“So, now that we found you two, can we please get out of here?” Regulus asks them, and Barty is nodding beside him.
“Merlin, you two really don’t like being here on the first day? I thought you were joking.” Evan laughs to Pandora.
“Too many people,” Regulus mutters. Barty and him both know why they don’t like being here, but they’ll never admit the real reason out loud.
It’s not because there’s too many people, although both of them are not fond of people.
It’s too many bad memories.
“Incoming,” Pandora mumbles as she motions towards the Professors coming our way. It’s McGonagall and Slughorn… which is never good. It’s the first day. No way any of us did anything to the Gryffindors yet.
Barty and Regulus glance at each other and shrug their shoulders. Evan looks just as confused as them, so why are they coming over here?
Regulus feels eyes on him, and he looks over to see James and Sirius both watching them.
“Mr. Black, may we speak to you for a moment?” McGonagall says to Regulus. Barty steps up with him but Slughorn shakes his head.
“Alone,” he tells Barty. Regulus looks over to his brother again and notices the face he’s making is pure worry.
“It’s fine, Barty. Stay here, yeah?” Reg tells his friend as he pulls his eyes away from Sirius.
“Fine,” Barty mumbles as he crosses his arms. Reg is grateful for his friend, but he knows there’s no way to get around what McGonagall says. He’s learned that the hard way many times.
So he follows them out of the great hall, past his brother, past everyone and they all watch with curiosity.
Of course, on the first day he would get escorted out of the great hall.
His mother is going to love this.
Once they’re in the halls, Regulus sees someone familiar standing there and he feels a bit confused, but mostly angry. If his mother saw him even looking at her, she would think of something way worse than burning his spot on the tapestry. She’s warned him.
“Regulus,” Andromeda spoke. “I have to speak to you about something very important and I know- I know you can’t really speak to me, but I just need you to listen…”
She sounds so desperate. Regulus and Andromeda were never close. The ages are too far apart and he never understood her need to cause trouble for herself. Much like his brother.
But she’s family.
That childish part of Regulus wants to value family over everything but it’s so hard to do that with the threats from his mother hovering in his mind.
“You shouldn’t have come here…” I tell her, but it was like she was expecting that response.
“Regulus, drop the act for a moment, okay? It’s just us here and you need to listen to me.”
“First of all, it’s not a fucking act. My life…” he pauses, remembering the Professors are here. “My mother would not be pleased if she found out I’m even looking in your direction, Andromeda.”
“I just need to inform you that your parents might start getting you involved like they tried to do to Sirius… and you don’t have to do any of it, Reggie.”
“Don't call me that.”
“Okay, just hear me out.” Andromeda takes a deep breathe before continuing. “Your parents are involved in something very dangerous and you… since Sirius left, are going to be their last chance to prove themselves. We have to get you out-”
“So you came here to remind me that my own brother left me and then try and get me to leave too? No family loyalty, huh?”
The words coming out of his mouth don’t even sound like him, but he has to say it. He can’t get caught speaking to her and she knows that. She’s putting his life in danger knowingly and that is cruel. Especially knowing what they’re capable of.
“Regulus…” her voice cracks.
Stay strong. Don’t drop the mask, Reg.
“Thanks for the reminder, but I really didn’t need it. Good day to you.” Regulus says before turning on his heel and walking away. Walking back into the great hall and back to Barty.
“What happened?” Barty asks him the moment he’s back. “Are you okay? You look pale.”
“I’m fine, it was just an ambush to get me to leave my house because Sirius left.”
“Oh,” Barty mumbles and glances over towards Sirius and James. “He doesn’t look like he knew it was happening.”
“I don’t think he knew. He wouldn’t have tried again. Not so soon. Not after what was said between us the night he left.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Evan says to us. “The dorms should be empty.. Or there’s the tower.”
“Tower.” Regulus demands and they all agree.
Regulus feels like he can breathe once he’s up in the tower. They all can, really. It’s hard enough putting up a mask for the entire school, but when you’re around your friends it’s so hard. Especially when they all know it’s just a mask.
But in the tower, they can just be themselves. They don’t have to worry about being too soft or emotional. They can just… be.
James has this need to know what’s going on with someone, especially when they look like they’ve just gone through something hard. It’s his need to help and be there so no one is sad, and that’s why he can’t stop thinking about Regulus right now.
He looked so upset in the great hall once he got back from speaking with the Professors. James saw his face right before he turned to his friends and it was painful.
He needs to know what happened to make him look like that.
Sirius doesn’t seem all that concerned unless you know him enough to read between the lines. He’s a Black, so he has this mask he puts up when he’s feeling… literally anything. It’s like he’s scared to show his emotions. We’ve been working on that but it’s not just going to go away. I can read through his mask most of the time though, and I can tell he’s worried about Regulus. He won’t admit it though.
“What do you think McGonagall wanted with Regulus?” Peter asks once we’re all back in the dorm and unpacking for the year.
It’s an innocent question, but one he should know not to ask. Especially since Sirius moved out of his house this summer. There’s been a no talking about Regulus rule. Not that we ever really talked about him besides whenever Sirius brought him up but still.
Remus looks cautiously over to Sirius, who is avoiding all of our eyes and doing his best to seem indifferent.
“Who knows? Maybe they got into trouble already,” James says, even though he does not believe that. I saw his face. That was something else entirely.
Peter huffs a laugh and shakes his head, mumbling ‘probably’ and continuing to unpacking his stuff.
“Let’s not spend our first day back wondering what the Slytherins are doing, okay? Let’s make this day about us and have some fun.” James adds, trying to get their spirits up and minds off of Regulus.
Sirius bolts up, his attention grabbed by my words and it means we’re going to do something fun tonight. Once he’s in, it’s not hard to convince the other two.
“Yeah, Prongs is right. This is our year and we have a reputation to live up to, not snakes to worry about.” Sirius says, and James flinches a little. He knows those words are not what Sirius is actually feeling, but it hurts hearing him say it.
Regulus is his little brother… not some random snake that he can forget about.
Unfortunately, James can’t do anything about that right now. No, all he can do is support Sirius and let him know he’s not alone. They can get up to no good and have some fun until he’s not thinking about Regulus and this morning anymore.
“Alright, let’s go then. What’s first on the list of things we’re doing today?” James asks the boys.
“Uh- maybe finish unpacking our shit first.” Remus mumbles and motions to the room that’s a hurricane wreckage at the moment.
“No, Moony. We want to have fun, not clean.” Sirius argues, standing up and shaking his head.
Remus looks at Sirius for a moment, studying him cautiously and then nodding his head.
“Alright, Padfoot. We can do whatever you guys want tonight and do this tomorrow.” Remus gives in to Sirius. He always gives into him, no matter what.
“That’s the spirit, Moony.” Sirius says excitedly. Pete smiles and pats Remus’ back supportingly.
James knows they’re going to have fun and it’s going to work. It always works. Something is bugging him though, he can’t… no matter how hard he tries, he can not get Regulus off of his mind.
“First stop of our amazing night is stopping by the kitchen because we need to get some sugar in us.” Sirius announces.
“Right, and then?” Pete asks him.
“Well, how about we start with new decorations for the great hall, huh?” James smirks, and Sirius laughs excitedly.
“Thinking maybe something that’ll piss off the other houses? Mostly Slytherin because they’re so easy to piss them off.” Pete adds and Sirius smirks and nods in agreement with Pete.
“Yes, Wormtail. You’re brilliant.” Sirius says to him, “So Gryffindor decorations.”
In the kitchens on their first day back, after hours. Yeah, that’s so like them and it’s funny. It’s funny because James would’ve assumed they’d be doing what Remus wanted to do tonight. He thought they’d be unpacking and hanging out in the dorm.
Mostly because of what’s going on with Sirius, and mostly because Regulus got called away this morning. They’ve all been a little on edge recently.
But here they are, breaking into the kitchens and planning a prank.
“I think maybe we should turn the banners red and the table clothes on each table red.” Pete suggests, and Remus nods his head.
“But what if the house elves change it all back before morning?” Remus asks, offering up something none of us thought of.
“We bribe them to leave it alone,” Peter suggests and James agrees. It sounds like it would work.
“Right, tell them it’s just a stupid prank and they won’t care.” Sirius agrees.
“Alright, what else?” Remus asks us, and Sirius sits up a bit straighter.
“The food.” Sirius smirks, “It has to be red.”
“Brilliant, Pads. That will make them so mad because they’ll have to eat red food.” James tells his best friend.
“Exactly,” Sirius says and laughs excitedly. “So, finish eating gentlemen. We have some work to do.”
And that’s what we all did. We ate our food… well our candy, and then we went on our way to start setting up the prank.
Because yeah, after all of this, we have a reputation to uphold. We pull all of the pranks and make everyone here laugh. They love it. We love it.
At the end of the night, after everything was set up and we gave the dye to the house elves and instructed them to put it in the food… Of course we had to promise they had nothing to do with it when the time comes and the Professors find out, but that’s easy. Obviously we’re taking credit for the prank. We stand in awe for a moment, and then we head back to the dorms and get ready to go to bed.
“I- uh I’m going to go for a walk before bed. I’ll be back in a bit to go to bed.” James says to his friends. Sirius knows better than that.
“What’s wrong, Prongs?” Sirius asks his friend, once giving his friends the go ahead to keep going to bed while he waits for James to explain what’s going on.
“I- nothing Sirius. I just need to go for a walk.” James tries, but Sirius knows him better than that.
“James, do not lie to me. What’s wrong?”
“It’s just a lot… being back, you know? As much as I love Hogwarts, I miss the summer and… I don’t know. I want to be alone for a bit.”
Sirius feels it in his gut. James is lying. Maybe not all of it was a lie. He probably does miss his parents, but there’s more to it that he’s not saying, and Sirius hates that he’s not saying whatever it is.
“Alright, Prongs. I’ll see you in the morning then?” Sirius says to him. Even though he wants to know what’s really bothering him, he’ll give James tonight.
“Yeah, ‘course Pads. I’ll be back soon.” James says before heading to the astronomy tower for a moment of air.
A break.
Little did he know, he wouldn’t be the only one up there looking for a get away from life.