Chapter Six - Tie
Chapter Six - Tie
September 10th, 1978
It was raining. Not the nice soft taps on the roof type of rain, downpour. And it was freezing too. It had been almost a week since the party, life carried on as normal. Josie was becoming closer with her friends after accepting that she couldn’t just go the whole year holed up in her dorm.
She was at the owlery sending a letter to her father. He hated the use of owl mail and would formally complain about it when he wrote her back. However, it was the only way mail could be sent to and from Hogwarts so he was stuck using the post.
It was a short letter, simply informing him of how school was going. If Josie didn’t write to him first she wouldn’t hear from him till Christmas. School was fine. She hardly had free time from quidditch, essays, and Prefect shifts. Josie and Regulus had fallen into a simple routine. They saw each other in class and that was it. It wasn’t that they were ignoring each other. They were just busy and it was easier to not have to find the other to complete school work.
Regulus completed the Alchemy, Potions, Arithmancy, and DADA homework. Josie completed the Transfiguration, History of Magic, Charms, and Herbology homework. Astronomy didn’t have any homework yet and so far all of the projects could be worked on in class.
Quidditch was going very well. Who knew having an entire team made up of people who were best friends would work so well. Everyone played off each other perfectly. Josie was confident they would win this year. The 3rd and 4th years did not take well to being cut. James would have probably kept some as 2nd strings or at least around for practice. She hadn’t thought of that and when she went to ask some of the 5th and 6th years to join as practice players they told her to “fuck off”. So, that was a lost cause. Josie could only pray for Gryffindor’s future quidditch teams.
With the hood of her cloak pulled as far over her head as possible, Josie made a beeline for the front entrance of the school. She could feel the rain seeping through the thick material onto her shoulders. Her shoes were soaked, leaving her socks damp.
Not being able to see where she was going, Josie slammed into someone. She was now under the overhang and quickly removed her hood, “I’m so sorry! It’s raining and I couldn’t see where I was going-”
“Sharpy!” an all too happy voice interrupted her. Barty Crouch Jr .
“Uh- hi,” said Josie, her cheeks were red from the wind and from humiliation, “again, I’m so sorry,” she said quickly, attempting to move by him.
“Wait- Wait where are you going?” Crouch said, a mocking smile on his face.
Josie looked around him, Evan Rosier was standing slightly behind him also grinning, a muggle football at his feet, Pandora Lovegood was sitting against the wall reading, and Regulus Black was sitting next to her with their potions homework spread around them. “To the Great Hall?”
“Why? Party’s right here!” said Rosier.
Regulus had looked up now; however, his face showed disinterest.
“You’re welcome to join us,” said Lovegood with a dreamy smile. Josie really liked Pandora.
“Another time,” she said smiling.
Rosier chuckled under his breath, “yeah, another time .”
“Really, my shoes are soaked from the rain,” said Josie walking again, “Again, so sorry, Crouch!”
Josie rushed away from them, it wasn’t that she didn’t like them - she hardly even knew them - it was more that anytime she was around them it felt as though they were vultures circling her. Waiting for her to make some sort of mistake. Incredibly unnerving.
The rest of the day was uneventful. Peaceful even. Regulus took very detailed small notes in every class with his head firmly on the paper, unusual as she normally took their notes, with this free time Josie sketched small designs into the desk. During her first year at Hogwarts she would feel awful “ruining” the wood, but she quickly learned a healing charm that fixed the wood in seconds.
“I’m excited to read your essays on why the Ascendio charm can be dangerous tomorrow!” said Professor Flitwick, closing his large book at the front of the class and packing up his things. The rest of the students followed suit.
Josie felt slightly frozen. She was responsible for Charms work. She hadn’t remembered to do the essay. Josie had two options and both of them sucked. She could either ask Regulus for help knowing he most likely would not help her or complete the essay all night.
Josie turned to face him. He was packing his things neatly into his bag, not looking at her. Well at least she wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes when she asked him for help.
“I forgot about the essay.”
Regulus stood up from his seat, putting on his bag, “that sucks.”
Josie narrowed her eyes at him as he looked down on her. Sighing she said, “yes, but it could be done quicker if-”
“No.”
“What? Why not?” she said, following him quickly out of the room.
“It’s not my problem.”
“It’s your grade, too.”
Regulus turned sharply towards her, “What are you just not going to do it? It’s not my problem you forgot.”
He was right. Josie probably would have told him the same thing. “Right, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she gave him a small nod before turning the other direction towards the library. It was going to be a long long night. Especially because it was an essay for Flitwick, he was known to be one of the hardest graders.
“Sharpe!”
She turned knowing it was Regulus by the sound of his voice.
“I’ll help you, come on.”
Genuine shock.
He was not walking towards the library though, Regulus was walking towards the dungeons. Josie had to run to catch up to him. Falling into step she asked, “why are we going to the dungeons?”
“I thought we’d work in the common room?” he answered, “why do you not want my help anymore?”
This was not good. He was 100% pulling this on purpose. Oh Josie, I’ll help you if you come to my secret lair.
“No, I do,” said Josie, “thank you.”
“You are very welcome,” he said, “dirty half-blood!”
Josie’s head whipped to look at him in shock, “Wha-”
“Too many people were getting in,” said Regulus.
“What?”
“The password was ‘pure blood’ for ages, and too many people, the Prewett Twins, were getting in, so they changed it.”
“So you changed it to ‘dirty half-blood’? What does that even mean?”
The door swung open.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know. Oh and you should probably take that off,” he said, motioning at Josie’s red and gold tie. When she didn’t make a move to take it off, he reached forward and undid it, shoving it in his bag.
She’d never been in the Slytherin common room before. It was honestly gorgeous. A very elegant and impressive display of high levels of wealth. No doubt coming from the pure blood alumni. Nobody seemed to notice that she was out of place, so they both moved further into the common room.
Even the staircases were coated in shiny black and green marble. Silver accenting wherever it could. Regulus led her into his dorm room without saying anything. As soon as they were both inside he shut the door. There were three large four poster beds in the room, each with forest green drapes. Unlike Gryffindor’s dorms, it felt cold.
“Here,” said Regulus, pulling out one of the desk chairs. Josie sat down and pulled her work from her bag.
“So I think the easiest way to write this essay is get a thesis and then we can just split the work. I can do the second body paragraph and conclusion and you can do the intro and first body?” Josie looked up from her notes. Regulus was sitting on his bed, he also had his notes out.
“Sure.”
They worked quickly and after only a few hours they were both completely done. Josie could have saved the embarrassment and just wrote it by herself. Dinner had come and gone unfortunately, and curfew was closing in on her.
“Thank you for helping me,” she said standing. It was only then did she notice that Rosier and Crouch had never come in to bother them. Josie turned to look at Regulus, he seemed to look innocent enough. Just packing his things away and refilling his ink. “Uh- hey, where are your friends?”
He looked up at her, “they won’t come in if the door is closed.”
“Why not?”
Regulus smirked slightly laughing, “why do you think?”
Josie’s eyes slightly widened, “oh, I suppose that’s a good rule.” Her face was bright red and she spoke the words way too quickly.
“Mhm,” he mumbled, handing her the last of the work.
“Right. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Black.”
“See you tomorrow, Sharpe.”
Starting with Charms on a Thursday was not what Josie needed to start the day. Finley Wilson had woken up extremely early that morning insisting that it was going to rain again today. She was right, then she and Saoirse left for breakfast. Josie had fallen back asleep as soon as they left. It was the kinda sleep where you drift in and out, waking up in a start fearing that you’ve overslept. So by the time it was 7:30am Josie was too annoyed not to get up.
“Nice of you to join us, Sharpe,” chirped Preston Fawley, as soon as she sat down at the Gryffindor table.
“We thought you were going to sleep the whole day away,” said Dirk Cresswell, handing her a cup of tea. She gave him a questioning look before he answered, “it’s black.”
“Thank you.”
“So, I was thinking-”
“That’s never a good thing,” interrupted Finley.
Gideon scowled at her before continuing, “I was thinking we could run practice today instead of tomorrow?” he said looking at Josie hopefully.
“Any particular reason?” Josie said, smiling.
“He wants to break into the Slytherin party,” said Saoirse.
“I didn’t know they were throwing a party,” said Josie.
“Yeah, it’s super top secret, invite only!” said Gideon proudly.
“Right, and you got invited?” asked Josie, “no shot.”
Preston slapped Dirk on the back hard, “nope! This player did!”
Fabian cringed, “please never say that again.”
“Who invited you?”
“Pandora,” said Dirk quietly, a small smile on his face.
“Alright, Cresswell!” whooped Gideon. They had left the Great Hall and were walking to Charms.
“There is no way that the invitation extended to you,” said Josie looking at Gideon.
“Then we’ll just have to sneak in, come on Josie, please!”
“Fine, practice today, be there at 3,” said Josie, rolling her eyes. She’d always wanted to sneak into a Slytherin party.
“Oh thank you, Joey!” said Gideon wrapping his arms around her from the side and kissing her cheek.
“Alright, alright-” said Josie laughing as she pushed him off. She looked up just before entering the Charms classroom eyes locking with Regulus, who was smirking.
“Not your boyfriend?” said Regulus as soon as Josie sat down next to him.
“Not my boyfriend.”
“Sure seems like a boyfriend to me.”
“Yeah? Is that what you do with your girlfriends?” said Josie. Of course it hadn’t looked the most platonic but everyone knew that Josie and Gideon were friends, kinda.
“I don’t do ‘girlfriends’.”
“Should’ve known,” said Josie growing increasingly upset with how pretentious Regulus was, “why do you care anyways?”
“I just wanted to know how upset he’d be,” said Regulus with a smile.
“Upset at what?”
Flitwick was still not in the room yet, everyone was chatting quietly among themselves.
“Oh- Sharpe!” Regulus said incredibly loudly, reaching into his bag, “You left this in my dorm last night.”
Everyone in the room turned to look at Regulus, clutched in his fist was a red and gold tie, glinting in the sunlight that streamed through the classroom windows.