Pajama Party
Ursa parades through the common room and into her room. She shuts the door behind her “Hey” Amira greets her, already inside and ready for bed in a quidditch shirt, from Puddlemere United and far too big for her.
“Hi. Nice pjs”
“He likes it when I wear them”
“New boyfriend?”
“Marcel Zabini” she says proudly
“Loaded” she approves. She’s really not in the mood for another one of these conversations, but she always gets things done. She shoves the thought of Evan as far down and out of her mind as it can go, the sting still lingers though. Knowing what’s about to happen hurts too. It doesn’t stop her though, at least this one she can keep on the downlow without fearing for her safety “and his parents are definitely death eaters”
“Yeah, about that…” she sits on the corner of her bed
“It’s fine, I understand, you can’t be associated with me if you want a future death eater to propose to you”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. You know I’ve always supported your endeavors for becoming rich. You wouldn’t be one of the few people I genuinely like if you chose my friendship over his money. I’m happy for you, truly, Marcel seems very gullible”
“Oh, I love you, and he totally is!” She beams and is about to go on a ramble about him the way she always does about the current idiot she dating but she stops herself “can we still be friends in here? Can we still hang out?”
“Are you using your seductress eyes on me right now?” Ursa smirks at her and they giggle “Am I your mistress now?”
“Oh, you’ve always been” Amira winks at her and licks her lips in a purposely unseductive, seductive way that has Ursa chuckling and tossing a pillow at her face “I’ve missed you” Amira admits
“Don’t you always?” they’d always stayed in touch over the summer. After their first year at Hogwarts Amira had written to her every day, a comfort in an uncomfortable, pubescent summer she didn’t like to think about.
“I know you missed me too. And now you have to tell me all about your brother and James Potter. How the hell did that happen? Rich and hot, absolutely jacked, go Reggie” she crosses over and sits on Ursa’s bed cross-legged and ready to listen “Oh, hold on,” she gasps “What did Sirius say when he found out?!”
“Not the biggest fan. Apparently, James likes to overshare.” Ursa beams a wicked smirk at her “He’ll just beam at Sirius while he tells him all about how he just fucked his little brother. Repeatedly. Or at least he tries to, he would if Sirius didn’t instantly start begging for him to shut fuck up”
“Oh, that’s brilliant!” her giggles cuts off mid-giggle and her eyes go round, a thrilled cat-like grin takes over her face “Do you think he gets off on that?! I mean, Sirius and Regulus look strikingly similar, he can’t be into one without secretly being into the other one as well. Besides, all Blacks are hot and gorgeous” she winks at her and gasps once more when the thought strikes her “Do you think Sirius and James ever experimented together?”
“I don’t know. It’s weird because Sirius and James refer to each other as brothers but then James goes and fucks Sirius’ real brother that shares a big physical resemblance to him. I guess my family is destined for incest whether it’s literal or metaphorical” not to mention how Sirius would love to be fucking his other so called ‘brother’. In his defence though, she’s never heard him actually refer to Lupin as his ‘brother’. He has called him his family though, still incest-y
A knock on the door snaps them off the topic of incest. She’s tempted to tell whoever it is to go away, she usually is, but she puts on her usual masked smile and opens the door. It stops being a mask when she notices who it is “Missing me already?” They may have dodged the topic of incest but didn’t stray too far from family, her twin is the one standing in front of her.
“Ooh! Is that Reggie?! My boy! Tell us what it looks like!” Amira squeals in delight from her bed
“What are you talking about?” Regulus shuts the door behind him with a scowl
“She’s talking about James penis” Ursa rolls her eyes like that’s obvious.
“Just say when…” the gap between her hands grows and grows “just sa—serious—seriously? Are you seri—Are you serious?!” she reaches her shoulders width and scoffs “Okay, this isn’t possible, I’m starting over”
“I told Evan” Regulus blurts out, surprising even himself and entirely ignoring Amira. He’s not sure why those are the words that leave his mouth.
“Why does Evan get to know what James penis looks like and not me?!”
“How much did you tell him?” Ursa’s already making funeral arrangements for him in her head. Regulus swallows thickly but can’t push past the lump on his throat, his blood feels like the arctic
“Everything” why is he still lying? Maybe his boyfriend’s stupid impulsivity has rubbed off on him. When he thinks of it that way, he doesn’t feel as lame.
“Evan’s not even into penises! Or vaginas! I can’t believe you would tell him everything but act all mysterious when I ask!”
“I told you why I didn’t want him to know” Ursa breathes with eyes shut, pushing down her boiling anger. She may explode but it’s too late to take it back, so he goes on
“You can’t be selfish, but I can”
“It’s not like I would steal him from you!” Amira rambles on, unperturbed and unaware “Sure, he’s loaded but—”
Ursa’s rage freezes, her eyes snap open, they’re sharpened blades and blaze through him. Her shoulders sag in relief and he clenches his jaw “I could have!”
“But you didn’t. You didn’t tell him anything”
“I wanted to. He’s hurting”
“Holy shit, should I be asking about yours?! ” Amira gasps completely lost on what’s going on
“Arsehole”
“Yeah, I get it, James takes it up his arsehole, but that doesn’t mean you should leave him in pain! There’s lube and spells and—”
“Can we please go somewhere else?” Regulus cuts her off and Ursa nods for the door with a laugh.
Somehow, he still doesn’t know how, he convinced his sister to leave her very comfortable single bed she won’t have to share and follow him up the steps to the fat lady portrait. He asks a third year on his way in to fetch James Potter while Ursa chats with the Fat Lady whose apparent real name is Elizabeth Dawn, Regulus has no idea how Ursa knows this but at the same time he isn’t surprised by it, she’s even won over Peeves the obnoxious poltergeist.
James comes barrelling out the portrait, beaming, a moment later “You changed your mind, you came!” then he freezes “Did something happen?” he scans his boyfriend but his eyes come up with nothing and his shoulder relax a little
“We’re fine, nothing happened, can we stay with you tonight?”
“Of course”
“Did you just say we ?” Ursa cuts into their conversation and Regulus presses his lips into a thin tight line “Did you also hit your head with a big blunt object?”
“Evan told me you talked. You broke up”
“Yeah, you mentioned that. So?” her eyes pierce into him, studying him with intense, ready to snap back, daring him to say it
“Can we talk about this in private?”
“Well, you know where my room is” she nods to him and turns to leave. He has to say it right now, tell her the truth
“And you know where his is” he says instead, because he’s a coward “that’s the problem”
“Is it now?” She stops walking and looks at him with an amused smug. Even if she won’t let anyone see it, she’s hurting and she’s in pain, he knows it. What she said to Evan must have cut her like a blade, but she won’t ever admit to it.
“I know what you’re capable of doing to those who hurt you and Barty’s probably ready to snap your head off” he’s careful not to lie, not technically. One time when their parents were out, their neighbor yelled at them for playing in his backyard so she mailed him an extremely realistic wax sculpture of his daughter’s decapitated head and a little note. Regulus never found out what the note said, but the old man never bothered them again, even when they dug holes in his yard to hide things their parents didn’t allow inside the house, like Sirius’ black nail polish.
“You do?” her eyes bear into him and he doesn’t know what it is exactly she’s seeing, but given by the tilt of head and glint in her eyes, it’s something near the truth, maybe his desire to comfort her. He hopes she can see it, hidden behind the mask of his own cowardice “And what’s that exactly?”
“You’re dangerous”
“Then maybe you should be warning Barty not to do anything stupid instead of here talking to me”
“I can. But he’s with Evan. I thought you might appreciate him having the one person that brings him comfort. The only one has left” he holds her gaze, the words left unsaid now that he’s lost you travel between their eyes, different shades of the same gray.
“Fine.” She sighs “But I’m not sharing a bed” James stares from one Black to the other trying to process what just happened.
“What just happened?” James asks, blinking between them, because he lacks a filter in the most adorable way
James calls for a marauders’ meeting in their room. Ursa and Regulus both heavily judge him for calling it a marauders’ meeting , though Ursa’s judgment eventually lands back on Regulus because ‘ That’s who you’re in love with’, James knows it’s meant as an insult but butterflies still flutter in his stomach because somehow he’s the one perfect, adorable, gorgeous Regulus is in love with. His thoughts must be clearly written on his face because she stares at him like he hasn’t showered in a month.
“Okay, I know I might regret this but I have to ask,” Peter says from his bed, fidgeting with a candy wrapper in his hands wishing he’d wore a more conservative pajama instead of a tank top and boxers, but neither Black sibling seemed to pay his attire any mind. Did he want them to? Just in case, he hides his body under his duvet as he talks “does she really need to be supervised just because her boyfriend dumped her? I mean, she surely can’t be that bad, can she? What would she really do to him?”
“Actually, I dumped him ” she corrects him “Thanks to Regulus” she says with a smile over flowing with sweetness and tipping over to the eerie side “and he was never my boyfriend, just my fiance” she adds as an afterthought
“She won’t hurt Rosier, but she hurt Rosier so Crouch wants to hurt her but if he tries to she’ll hurt him very badly and we don’t want that” James glances at Regulus for confirmation and he nods with a twitch of his lip
“I could just talk to Bart, I’m sure we can come to an agreement”
“I don’t like the way you say agreement” James wrinkles his face at her
“And I don’t like the way your face looks”
“Hey, you said you’d be nice” Peter reminds her and she frowns dangerously close to a pout
“Can’t you just make sure Barty doesn’t go after her?” Remus says through heavy lids “Boys can’t go to the girls rooms”
“That’s just in Gryffindor”
“Palmer used to complain Marizza’s boyfriend slept all the time in their room and he snored” Peter agrees
“Slytherins and Ravenclaws figured out how to break that spell like decades ago and they told Hufflepuff how to do it”
“How do you know that?”
“Helena told me”
“Who’s Helena?”
“Not important.” Regulus herds them back to the matter at hand “Would James be able to convince you not to go after someone who broke my brother’s heart?”
“I see your point”
“Aw, Moony” Sirius leans over and coos at Remus who visibly fights with himself in order to ignore him
“Okay, you’re exaggerating, I didn’t ‘break his heart’”
“It doesn’t have to be romantic in order for you to break his heart” James notes
“Can’t you just ignore Barty until he goes away since I don’t think anyone is actually worried about him hurting you? ” Peter turns from Ursa to Sirius with a furrowed brow “why aren’t we worried about a bloke wanting to break into your little sister’s bedroom while she sleeps and hurt her?”
“Because he’s a horrible brother, that’s why”
“Because when I was twelve we funded The BBC (Black Brothers Club) and didn’t let her in ‘cause she’s a sister and not a brother, so she murdered my bunny and wrote Dead Brothers Club with its blood”
“Okay, now I’m terrified” Peter notes, visibly paling and draping the blankets further up to hide his body
“You were eleven” She corrects him, entirely soaring past the important point and ignoring Peter’s remark “And I didn’t kill it. I just swapped it up with a corpse and gave it to Bella as a lovely gift, I’m sure he had a excruciatingly painful long life” James has to hold Sirius back from strangling her and her smirk brightens
“She’s lying” Regulus calms him and turns to his sister “You’re lying.” On a less certain note, he narrows his eyes on her and adds “Are you?”
“That’s the fun part, you’ll never know” she relishes in it and Peter once again notices it’s just a game for her. Everything is just a game to her.
“You cunt!” Sirius breaks free of James’ grasp, seething
“That’s not important right now.” Regulus steps between him and their sister
“Actually, it does sort of answer my question of why we aren’t worried about a bloke wanting to hurt her” Peter observes, why worry about someone hurting her in her dorm when they have another bloke wanting to hurt her right here in the form of her older brother? “Also, that is very messed up and I am now terrified of sleeping in the same room as her”
“And if I wanted to do something, you four idiots wouldn’t be able to stop me.”
“But the fifth idiot might” Lupin nods to Regulus, Ursa smirks at him. Her eyes traveling him up and down, Peter gets the feeling she’s scanning for the best angle to play
“Wanna play chess?” Peter blurts out. At least if she’s focused on playing the game, she’s distracted from playing them. Of course, though, she can always multitask. She beams at him brightly, the sparkle in her eyes tells him she knows exactly what he’s doing. He hates how good that shimmer looks in her gorgeous gray eyes. He reminds himself she viciously butchered a bunny when she was ten and her beauty turns acidic.
“Not here though” her voice is soft and velvety, like a spider luring him into her web. It makes Sirius cringe and Peter wonders if he should’ve kept his mouth shut.
“Alright, but if you’re both going to be sleeping here then we need to set some rules.” Sirius states crossing his arms and Peter braces himself for a new wave of fighting “Number one: no funny business while I’m in or near the room.” He directs it at James and his brother. Regulus rolls his eyes, James winks at him and the corner of his lip tilts up, that rule is definitely getting broken tonight “Number two: no killing anyone in their sleep” he directs it at his sister and she rolls her eyes “number three: no breaking rules one and two”
“Number four: shut the fuck up” Ursa says rolling her eyes. Her eyes land on Remus and she smirks “Number five: you sleep with Lupin and I take your bed”
“I— Don’t— You— We—" Sirius stamers over his words not really knowing much past the fluster in his cheeks. Well that was fast, one sentence and she already broke her brother
“Goodnight big brother” she blows him a kiss with a wink and tugs on Peter’s tank top. He quickly grabs a set of bottoms and James’ robe that’s on hand
“Pray for me” Peter dramatically calls to his friends
“froussards” cowards she sings to her brother and Lupin as she shut the door behind them. The door bangs shut as Sirius throws a shoe at it.
Regulus charms James’ bed into a cone of silence. Within the safety of the curtains he can admit the truth to James “I didn’t want her to be alone tonight, I know how much she cares about Evan, even if she’d never admit to it. He’s one of the few people she actually, genuinely likes”
“She won’t be alone, you’re a good brother love” James kisses his temple and nestles him closer into his chest
“I think I should tell him.” he admits in a hush “She said she couldn’t be selfish when it comes to him, but maybe…” he chews on his lip and James cards his finger through the length of Regulus’ bouncy curls
“Maybe you can be selfish for her”
“Yeah” he lets out a breath that seemed to be weighing on him “She’ll be mad, but… I don’t know, she’s the reason I’m allowed to have you, I want her to have someone.”
“She has you” he hums
“But I’m not enough, I don’t want her to have to give up Evan for me”
“Maybe she won’t have to. Maybe she’ll change her mind, or you can talk to her, maybe you can convince her. And you’re more than enough, that’s probably the only thing she’ll ever agree with me on”
“Change her mind? Have you met my family?” he turns to look at him and James smiles a gentle laugh, his chest rising and falling against Regulus, it makes him smile on reflex
“I remember you once telling me we’d never be able to be together, not really, and look at us now”
“Sometimes I think it’s a dream” Regulus admits
“Sometimes I think you’re a dream, that I made you up” he moves Regulus hands away from his face when he covers the rose flushing his cheeks. He brushes a curl off his temple and places a kiss there instead “I think he’s your friend too and if you want to tell him then you’re allowed to it, you’re entitled to tell your friend what’s going on with your life, but if you’re doing it for her… maybe she should be the one to decide”
“She is sort of obsessed with being in control” he says and James chuckles
Sirius isn’t shy to remind Regulus and James of rule number one and three
“They can’t hear you Sirius” Remus points out, the corner of his lip tugging upwards as Sirius paces the room.
“Should we go rescue Peter?” Sirius asks and Remus laughs. Sirius turns to him with furrowed brows
“Oh” Remus says “you were being serious?”
“I’m always Sirius—wait, what is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, it’s just that I don’t think he’ll mind spending time with her”
“She’s the devil reincarnated!” He wails, dramatic as ever
“She’s not so bad to him, besides…” Remus tilts his head to the side in a you know gesture
“Besides?” Sirius demands
“She’s… nice to look at” Remus admits already knowing it’s a mistake
“What?! Do you like my psychotic sister?! Is that it?” Sirius crosses his arms in front of his chest and Remus regrets every decision that’s led him here
“Of course not!” sometimes he wants to shake Sirius for being so oblivious.
“But you think she’s hot!”
“I have eyes Sirius, of course she’s fucking hot! She’s a Black!” the rage drains out of him once he realizes his slip but the fact that he is a black soars right past his head
“Right, of course, how could I forget?” Sirius spits, the words taste like poison in his mouth “Little Reggie, the most beautiful out of all of us!” round and round the same circle they go, ending up in the same place they began.
Ursa and Peter play chess in silence for a while. Peter feels the weight of stares glued on them. A Slytherin in the Gryffindor common room is bound to always draw people’s attention. Added to that, this isn’t just any Slytherin, this is Ursa freaking Black, she draws attention everywhere she goes, and she’s never stepped a foot in the Gryffindor common room before. Things are different now, and people don’t fail to notice this. Peter understands this, but do they have to be so obvious about it? He’s never been a huge fan of being scrutinized by a group of students no doubt wondering what someone like her is doing with someone like him
“Do you think they’ll actually share a bed?” Ursa snaps him off his thoughts
“Huh?”
“Do you think Lupin and Sirius will share the bed?”
“In ten years they will, but not tonight” he says offhandedly and she laughs. It’s a pretty sound that makes his ears burn bright.
“You sound like you’ve thought this through”
“It’s impossible not to when you share a dorm”
“Sounds dreadful”
“It is,” he falls easily into a ramble about exasperating things those to do to make his brain bleed
It's late into the night and everyone else is asleep. Peter opens a bag of Jelly Slugs on his bed with a mouthful smudged with chocolate “Ew” Ursa says from Sirius’ bed.
“Thought you were asleep. And you said you'd be nice” Peter hides the candy wrappers behind him
“Alright then, lets go” her voice is croaky with sleep but she rolls off the bed. She reaches for the door and nods for him to follow her
“What?” he furrows his brows
“I’m being nice. If you’re gonna binge eat you might as well do it right, not the plebeian way” he raises his brows at her but follows her nonetheless, he knows better than to argue. She parades down the stairs and past the common room in a thin satin pajama top and her long legs in matching short shorts with lace trailing the hem, her long hair cascading down her back, past her waist “You coming?” she snaps Peter off his trance with a smirk. She definitely noticed him staring and he curses himself for giving her the satisfaction.
“What if we get caught?” he follows her out of the portrait. Her reply is a mere shrug “Do you often sneak around the castle after curfew?”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Do you?”
“Sometimes” she shrugs
“Where are we going?”
“Kitchens. Are we playing twenty questions? My turn, are you still a virgin?” she smirks at him and he chokes on his own saliva. He coughs and she pats his back “You alright there Pete-y?”
His cough means they don’t hear them coming “You two should be in bed” a low voice says
“Notty kids” adds another with a soft German accent, Benjy Fenwick
“Yeah?” Ursa asks through her lashes and a sultry smirk “Was wirst du dagegen tun?” What are you gonna do about it?
“Hast du nicht gehört? Ich kann Ihnen jetzt Nachsitzen geben” Haven't you heard? I can give you detention now
“ja, Weg, die Überraschung zu ruinieren” Yes, way to ruin the surprise “We were heading to the kitchens to bake you two a congratulatory cake for making prefect”
“With him?” the other boy raises a brow in Peter’s direction and he can’t help the jealousy that always rises when someone is able to do that, when he raises his eyebrow the other always comes up to match it.
“hast du nicht gehört?” haven't you heard? “he’s my new sous-chef”
“wir haben Dinge gehört…” we heard things… Benjy adds softly, his smile turns gentle and the other boy, Cardaroc, nods along
“Es stimmt,” it's true, she sighs “ich kann mich jetzt mit euch beiden in der Öffentlichkeit sehen” I can be seen with you two in public now
“Es tut mir leid, dass dir das passiert ist” I'm sorry that happened to you
“ich auch” Me too she admits with a humorless laugh. Benjy pulls her towards him with comfortable ease and kisses the top of her head
“Dibs on being your potions partner” he whispers and she chuckles, she slaps his chest but doesn’t push him away
“Alright, can we go now?” she asks through a smile while her eyes sparkle catching the few glow lighting the dim hallway
“Sure, go do your baking ” Benjy teases with a sly glance at Peter and she slaps the arm wrapped around her
“We never saw you” Cardaroc winks
“Den Mund halten!” Shut up! she squeals giggling after them. The joyous smile wipes off her face the second they turn the corner. she moves ahead towards the kitchens with a sober look on her face
“I didn’t know you were friends with them” Peter staggers after her as his mind reels over how perfectly the mask stitches to her face and how she seems to switch it on and off in an instant.
“Of course you don’t, they’re muggle-born”
“But you’re still friends with them”
“I’m 'friends' with a lot of people, coincidentally all the prefects, or those I think will become prefects”
“Not the Gryffindors”
“Nah, you’re all so easy to manipulate I don't need to” She turns to him with a smile when they reach the kitchen and he can’t help but note that at least the mask hiding her wickedness is a pretty mask