Chapter 5
--- Regulus ---
James fucking Potter.
He’s breathing heavier than he should, but he can’t help it. Not when his thoughts are owned by James Fleamont Potter.
He can still remember when Sirius told him his new best friends entire name with golden sparks in his eyes, still in his Gryffindor robes and a new bruise already forming on his cheek. But it hadn’t mattered, all that had mattered was James and Remus and Peter.
James fucking Potter with his stupid big eyes and gentle voice and soft lips and sweet words and his fucking saviour complex.
James Potter and his fear of the woods.
He’s sitting on his bed in his empty dorm room and tries to keep his brows furrowed, his eyes pointed and glaring, but they are shifting into something else he isn’t ready to admit yet.
He hates James Potter, that’s easy to say, so much easier than admitting that he is beginning to understand why Sirius chose him as his brother, why his bruise didn’t hurt when he had the golden light in his pocket, when he knew that somehow where in the world the James Potter was waiting for you.
He really hates him, every little thing about him.
Maybe he would even kill him if he had the chance. Not maybe, maybe is for weaklings. He would.
He’s from Slytherin of course he would.
He would.
He would.
He would.
He would take away the light of the world.
He would if it meant that everyone could see the world through his eyes.
The door bursts open and Evan storms in, they make eye contact immediately. He is frowning, but his face still looks perfect and even his robes are hanging off of him in the perfect balance of cool and effortless.
“Hello”, he starts, walking over to him slowly, “we were looking for you everywhere.”
Regulus doesn’t have to ask who ‘we’ is, there are only two people who’d actually search him.
“Well, here I am”, maybe he smiles, maybe he doesn’t.
“You look horrid, Reg”, Evan says while sitting down next to him.
“Thank you, I try my best”, this is easy, sarcasm is easy.
He can tell by the way his mouth twitches that he’s trying to suppress a smile, trying to keep this conversation serious.
“OH, come on, cheer up”, he gives it another shot, “you look like you just got attacked by an owl.”
This time he laughs, and Regulus feels content.
“Come on, let’s clean all that off”, he gets up walking toward the bathroom and soon water is running smoothly.
“Where’s Barty?”
“Searching for you still, maybe talking to teachers, maybe casting a thousand spells to find you, not sure.”
“He wouldn’t do that”, he replies, falling back onto the bed, deciding to shut James Potter out of his thoughts completely.
Evan just raises his eyebrows as he re-enters the room and walks over to him with a damp cloth in his hand.
“You know he would. Now shut up.”
Evan is good at getting blood off of skin, all of them are, all of them have to be, all of them learnt far too early and all of them will never forget.
Sirius knows it too.
Maybe he should be sad about the lost childhood, but instead all he can think that this is another thing that makes his brother a Black through and though.
Another proof, another thing he could shield himself with when his brother would try to proof once more that he was a Gryffindor now. He knew the truth; he knew that his blood was black and dark through and through.
“So, you want to talk about it, or?”, Evan starts again, trying to catch his eye.
“Nothing to talk about really, just an owl delivering a letter”, his voice is perfectly steady.
“What about when it attacked your cheeks and Sirius?”, his voice is light, another positive aspect of other Death Eaters, they’ve seen worse or at least pretend to.
“Side effect”, his voice is starting to shake a little bit, “probably just carries all the hatred for my darling brother like the rest of the Black’s.”
“Ah”, is all he gets as a reply, but there wasn’t more to expect they are both aware that there’s something more, hidden from sight but you can feel it. They don’t talk about that though, “I think you’re clean, should probably just change your robe, shouldn’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah”, he stands up and walks towards the bathroom, but turns around one last time, “are classes cancelled?”
“Yup, not sure if it’s because of the attack or the fire yesterday, but whatever it was it’s because of you, so, you’re kind of a hero.”
“Shut up”, he shuts the door behind him, lets out a breath and doesn’t think about James Potter.
He changes and doesn’t think about James Potter, he hangs out with Evan and later Barty and doesn’t think about James Potter.
He forgets his existence, you may say.
“After you left the entire hall just went silent, it was crazy”; Barty is saying with his excited voice, “even Dumbledore, fucking Dumbledore, didn’t say anything for a while!”
“I bet he will talk to you soon though”, Evan chimes in lying in the grass in front of the school.
“I guess”, is all he responds, and he settles into the grass as well, letting the warm sun nib at his skin and the grass gently touch his entire body.
“What are you going to say?”
That’s a good question, or it should be. “Don’t know, doesn’t really matter. My parents already told me that they make sure I stay at school, so it honestly does not matter one single bit.”
The others don’t respond as if it almost feels wrong, but nothing feels wrong to snakes in green skin with black ink on their arm.
He still adds an afterthought: “Maybe I’ll just have fun.”
“Fun, huh?”, Barty uses his suggestive voice and somewhere Evan chuckles lightly, it feels so much like summer and a life a different would have dreamed of.
“Fun.”
After that everything’s said and they stay quiet, Regulus lets his eyes fall close and his mind drift away.
But instead of his usual cold room that his thoughts disappear into, they stay in the warm sun, they are just warm and light.
Lightened by a smile that has never been directed at him and big eyes he could drown in.
God, he wants to drown in him. It would a pretty way to die. Drowning while feeling alive.
Fuck.
He forces his eyes open and sits up, Barty shoots him a weird look, raising his eyebrows, but Regulus ignores it, standing up while muttering something about the toiled and disappearing toward the castle.
Of course, he never makes it to the toilets. Of course, he doesn’t even try to. Regulus lets his feet carry him away and into one of the main corridors where other students are rushing past him with hurried glances and short steps.
No one greets him.
He doesn’t blame them, he wouldn’t either.
He almost makes it to his corridor, but a firm voice stops him: “Regulus Black, your presence is requested by the headmaster.”
McGonagall’s voice is cold, if she weren’t his teacher, he’s sure it would be filled with hatred, and again he can’t blame her, in her mind he put students at risk.
Of course, she doesn’t know that he protected them, no one will ever know.
It’s almost comforting in a way, knowing that you have a secret that’s entirely yours.
He walks behind her, looking down, hiding his face from the students around him, they are near Dumbledore’s office which he is entirely thankful for. He doesn’t look when the teacher opens the door or when the staircase is revealed.
Instead, he looks at the professor and the way her feet are firmly on the ground, her fingers don’t twitch, and she does not spare him a glance, it reminds him of home.
Home.
“You can go upstairs now”, is the last thing she says before turning away and walking down the corridor, her steps echoing in his ears.
He watches her go before carefully taking the stairs, a part of him is scared he’s about to be trapped and sent away, but he knows that won’t happen. Mother has made sure of it.
Mother has saved him. His mother will always save him if he keeps embracing the ink on his skin. He touches the mark once more to feel the burning sensation flow through his body and remember how many people would kill for him if he showed that mark.
The office is beautiful, it’s open and gentle light streams through the golden windows, painting the colourful office in a calming golden, Dumbledore looks awfully peaceful as well, he fits in perfectly.
Playing the part of someone who is exactly where he’s supposed to be, but it’s all an act.
“Regulus Black”, is eyes burn into him, they make him seem alive even if part of them are hidden by old skin and wrinkles, they look young and smart.
He doesn’t reply.
“I assume you know why you’re here, don’t you?”
For a second, he’s torn between denying and owning his deeds. For a moment he wants everything to go back to the way it was, when people knew him for his name and not for him, but of course that won’t change if he just denies it here.
That will never change again, he’s now the heir and no one can change his heritage and the blood that flows through your body, Sirius is proof of that.
But just because he has accepted that this is him, does not mean that he can’t have a bit of fun. He fights off a smirk before answering.
“I do, about the vicious attack”, he takes a small break sitting down into the chair opposite of Dumbledore, “that happened to me this morning.”
His eyes must have a glint in them because he knows that he has only given him two options; either he changes topics proving that he does not care about his student, or he swallows the obvious bait and can’t talk about the actual attack.
“Ah yes”, he swallows, “Have you talked to Sirius Black?”
“Have you?”, he shoots back, trying to hide the way the name hurt him.
“No, I have not, but Minerva has informed me that he is well”, Dumbledore observes him. “But back to my question.”
“I don’t need to, do I? If you tell me that he is well, I believe you.”
“Have you been to Miss Pomfrey for your”, his wrinkled hands motions to his cheeks, “circumstance.”
“No.”
There is a pause between them, his eyes are still trained on Regulus, but they seem to be somewhere else almost like they are drifting away, but then something snaps, and all the focus is back on him.
“Who sent the letter?”, Regulus purses his lips, for a second, he is scared that he knows who his mother is, that he’s aware how the owl made it into the school. He doesn’t know why it terrifies him, it shouldn’t, it’s neither his secret nor his fault, but something in his stomach twists because she’ll find a way to make it all his fault.
He doesn’t reply.
“Okay, if you do not want to talk about it, I’m sure we can move on to what happened yesterday, can’t we?”, if Dumbledore wasn’t the headmaster, he might have smiled or at least let the glint in his eyes show in more places.
But of course, he does not.
“We can”, there’s no other way to answer.
“Do you know what happened in the toilets near muggle studies?”
“I heard that it caught on fire, yes”, his voice is steady and calm, it gives him some of the control back.
Dumbledore somehow intensifies their eye contact before speaking once more with the same old gentle voice, “Students have reported seeing you cast the spell that caused the fire.”
For a second, he doesn’t want to reply at all, it wasn’t a question anyway, he definitely wouldn’t have answered if he had anything to lose, but he does not, so he leans forward and replies.
“Huh.”
“Now, Regulus, I am in no way accusing you of anything, but your denial would be against several students from all houses.” He’s sure that no one from Slytherin said anything if anyone was present. He doesn’t care, doesn’t care about calling the teacher out for his lies, he wants to feel the rush of darkness fill him.
“Who said I was denying anything?”, he cocks his head and he’s sure a smile is tugging at his lips.
“So, you cast the spell, endangering students, and teachers, injuring people you’ve known for years and scaring especially the younger people, completely ignoring the war going on that is tarrying enough for them?”, that’s a tactic from Dumbledore, listing the bad stuff to get a reaction, any reaction.
Well, I certainly wasn’t ignoring the war. is what he wants to say, but he bites his tongue and instead leaning back in the chair.
“Endangering? Oh, come on, you stopped the spell, you must know that that’s not true”, he tries to read the man before me, tries to look into his soul and figure out how to break him.
“I did stop the spell”, he pauses, “I just wasn’t sure that you knew.”
Maybe it’s supposed to feel Dumbledore figured him out, maybe he’s even supposed to feel stupid for letting that slip, but Regulus does not.
“Then you must have underestimated me, huh?”
“I wouldn’t say that, but the magic you cast yesterday was very powerful for such a young boy”, he’s trying to steer the conversation into a different direction and Regulus lets him guide it.
“You know what they say about the Black blood.”
“Yes, I do. Bur still I do not believe that your cousin would have been able to do what you did today”, the words are spoken carefully and once more he wonders what the headmaster is trying to do here.
“Lucky me”, it comes out too bitter, he wants to punch himself.
“I guess, you could say it is lucky to be granted such magic”, he continues, “But of course, you have to use it for good, not setting silly bathrooms on fire.”
He raises his eyebrows, letting his eyes wander around the room: “I don’t think you called me here to discuss good and evil with me.”
“No, I did not. But- “
“Well then, let’s talk about what I did yesterday”, he interrupts Dumbledore, growing more irritated by the second, he did not come here to talk about what his stupid headmaster thinks is the line between evil and good, “I broke the rules, but I heard that my mother had taken care of that, so suspension would just seem silly, wouldn’t it?”
“So, it was your mother’s letter?”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Suddenly he’s falling, he’s losing control, suddenly everything crashes, suddenly the power leaves him.
He doesn’t let that show, but continues, forcing his voice to come out steady: “You would like to know that, wouldn’t you? Do you have any intend to punish me further?”
Dumbledore looks away for a second: “Yes, you will have detention until at least winter break, further details will be up to Professor Slughorn or McGonagall, I haven’t decided who will handle this, since most of the injured students are from Gryffindor.”
Of course, they are.
Detention is fine, it was expected, maybe if he hadn’t found out about the letter, he would not have gotten punished at all, but there’s no benefit on dwelling on something as stupid as detention.
He gets up: “Okay, goodbye Professor”, he turns to leave, already looking forward to being around his snakes again when Dumbledore speaks up one more time.
“Regulus, your powerful magic will not get you in nor out of everything.”
He looks at the headmaster sitting behind the table with a serious look on his face and lets the glint in his eyes sparkle before responding: “Got you here, didn’t it?”
He leaves the office, stumbling down the stairs, feeling adrenaline flow through his body, His feet carry him to the exit, and he is ready to go back to his dorm and make this story seem glorious to his friend, when everything shatters.
Sirius is walking next to McGonagall, not behind, with the same red spots on his cheeks and their eyes meet. Regulus’ carefully build walls tumble and shake and when his brother tilts his head down, starring at him through thick eyelashes before brushing past him, the fall.
“Brother”, is what Sirius whispers before climbing up the stairs as well and leaving Regulus ready to drown in anything and everything, pretending that it wasn’t caused by his stupid, stupid, stupid brother.
--- James ---
Regulus Black is like a difficult potion, hardly understandable, but the small creaks that you manage to see, bring you enough energy to keep trying.
And the silver light that he could make out during their conversation has energized him in an entirely new way, his skin is almost buzzing as he walks deeper into the forest, he turns around looking at Hogwarts being painted golden by the warm sun.
It makes him smile, because that’s where he can return to, always, that’s where Sirius will forgive him and where he’ll sit in the common room later maybe finally talk to his friends, because that’s another thing he hasn’t done enough of.
And quidditch. Quidditch. It would be embarrassing to admit that he’s missing it. Because he has been going to practice, but it isn’t enough. He wants to feel the rush he used to feel when he scored or when he was in the air, speeding up, eyes focused and gaze set firmly on one of the rings.
He misses the secure warmth it brought him; he wants to be excited about it again. But the war and the effects it has on the school have changed the way he looks at it without him even noticing, it just seems so unimportant.
“Sirius”, he used to whisper, “when I’m old, I’ll be the best player in the world.”
Sirius’ reply was never the same, on some days he’d tease him for it or say that he’d be better, but one time shortly after Sirius quit the team, he just looked at him for a second before nodding and speaking in a soft voice: “Yeah.”
Of course, at that point they were too old to still believe that, and their dreams were already crumbling, their future growing more uncertain as their decision that the war would be their path became clear. But for that one second, they were back to the time where they still had dreams about being something and not ending something.
No. Don’t go there.
He shakes his head.
The sun is high when he finally makes his way back to the castle, since Regulus left maybe really only one hour has passed, but it feels longer. It feels as if someone had stretched the time period in a long line and James can’t get it back to normal.
Heavy feet carry him back to his dorm, past curious stares, worried glances, and quiet whispers. He ignores it all. Pretends it’s not even there, and it’s not like him, not at all, normally he basks in attention, bad or good. Or at least it doesn’t really matter, normally he just smiles at them and moves on, but now they are sending shivers down his spine and the cold knob of their dorm door seems like salvation.
He slips in, eyes trained on Sirius’ bed and the drawn curtains: “Hi”, he says softly, and the door falls shut behind him gently.
“Could that be James Potter?”, Remus says while his head pokes out of Peter’s bed.
James raises his eyebrows and cocks his head in response, one his favourite thing about his friends is that sometimes they pretend that the world isn’t ending: “You know it.”
He takes a quick look around, looking for his brother.
“Sirius is in Dumbledore’s office”, Peter’s voice chirps in, “we’re playing chess, want to join?”
He does not want to play chess against Peter and his steel like mind but slips onto the red sheets anyway. Remus is leaning against the pillows that are clumsily stacked up at the end of the bed while Peter is crouched over the board staring at the white Queen as if he’s trying to make her disappear.
He sits down next to Remus, it’s not hard to see how badly Remus is losing, but his queen is beautifully placed, that is his only trademark. Remus Lupin the absolute shit chess player with the perfect queen.
Peter moves another piece and grins at Remus broadly before looking at James: “Where were you? You look as if you just ran a marathon.”
“In the forest”, he pauses for a second, forcing the boy who he was with out of his mind until he’s ready to feel the tingling sensation of grey eyes on him again, “why is Sirius with Dumbledore?”
“Because of this morning”, Remus says while moving his pawn.
“Right, how is he?”
There’s a silence for a second, before Peter sighs: “His wounds are fine, was a bit annoyed at you for a second there until he just accepted it and joked about the whole situation, the usual.”
It was so Sirius and so incredibly not, it was exactly how Sirius would react, but James had just hoped that he’d never have to react anymore, ever, not in a million years, not when he was with James. Not when he was safe.
The door is opened harshly again, and Sirius voice silences his thought: “Marauders?”
“Sirius Black? Remus replies and soon black curls are climbing into the bed as well, and they are truly too old for this. Their legs are too long and even when Peter moves to the edge, Sirius still looks uncomfortable with the way he’s clutching onto the bed post for dear life, trying not to slip off the bed.
James and Sirius stare at each other for a second, he holds his breath, but the Sirius shakes his head and laughs gently.
“Check”, Peter chimes in and Remus groans throwing his head back, his thumb and index finger rubbing his nose bridge, Sirius’ head snaps to him with big eyes and mouth ajar.
Remus notices and furrows his brows with a confused smile at Sirius before looking back onto the board, and Sirius coughs helplessly.
For a moment they are silent, Remus moving a piece, gaze trained on Peter, trying to find cracks in his perfect poker face while doing so, but the Sirius breaks the silence: “Do you not want to know what we talked about?”
“No”, Remus says, eyes tracing Peter’s hand and the piece it’s moving toward the white king. In response a pillow hits his face and muffles his sharp exhale.
The pillow lands directly on the chess board, but Remus pays that now mind and stares at Sirius a wicked smile on his face, before lunging over him and both of them tumbling out of the bed.
James looks at Peter and they both nod at each other in grief as the dorm fills with grunts and giggles. Because they know this, they know them. Their stupid little fights that end in both of them lying on the ground next to each other, breathless and smiling like two idiots. In those moment they look like the best friends they are.
“Get off, Lupin”, Sirius grunts breathlessly and James glances at them next to the bed, Remus is on top of him, propped on his hands so they aren’t touching, Remus is grinning at him with that stupid dopey smile as Sirius named it.
“I’m not even touching you, Black” Remus chuckles, “Do you want me to?”
Sirius’ eyes widen and his face falls for a second: “What? No, of course not, just get off!”
But his words are betrayed by his smile coming back and his eyes tracing Remus’ features.
“Make me”, the tease is barely there anymore, it feels honest somehow, but that doesn’t make any sense, so James pushes that away, because of course it’s teasing and banter.
Sirius’ smile fades and his mouth opens and for a second, it’s just them, somewhere else. Then Sirius coughs, Remus almost flinches like he has just realized something, and Sirius hands find Remus’ shoulder and shove them lightly.
As if he has been waiting for that, Remus tumbles off of him and lands next to him: “Ow, I’ve been struck, pushed off the edge, betrayed”, his voice almost sounds normal, but there’s something in his throat that makes the word come out slightly strained, maybe it’s just exhaustion, James thinks.
“You’re just pissed, because I clearly won that”, Sirius says and his voice is worse, not smooth, but slightly shaky, Remus either doesn’t notice or tries to ignore it.
“Clearly? Excuse me? May I remind you that ten seconds ago you were underneath me defenceless and were close to begging?”
Sirius blinks.
James blinks.
Peter blinks.
Remus coughs.
Peter starts laughing.
James looks at Peter whose face is red and flushed.
“Piss off, Peter”, Sirius says his voice now very audibly strained.
“Moony’s not wrong though”, he laughs and James joins quieter, but he still joins.
“Thank you, Pete”, Remus sits up, shooting him a grin and his face is flushed as well even though he hasn’t really laughed.
“I can’t believe you are all ganging up against me, even though I was attacked by an owl this morning”, Sirius grumbles but his voice is light and almost back to normal again.
“Sirius, you threw a pillow at me?!”, Remus says climbing back into the bed, eyes falling onto the now destroyed game.
“You deserved it”, Sirius says simply and sits back onto the bed as well, “You were not interested in hearing my amazing story.”
James looks at Sirius, he looks so normal. Even though his cheeks are still bruised, and his eyes have dark circles around them he’s smiling somehow, almost beaming, it doesn’t make any sense and he knows that it’s not just because of Remus he was fine when he walked in. Somehow, he is fine.
For a second, he’s scared that he’s just pretending, that he is putting on a mask and hiding from them, for a second, he remembers the last time he did that and how that ended with him at his door step covered in his own blood and tears.
For a second, he thinks about the fact that he was fine when they were fine again, for a second guilt washes over him, because how can he joke with the others with everything that has happened these last three days.
That’s when it hits James, it has only been three days. Three fucking days and everything has gone to shit. Three days into this term and everything has changed already.
“Tell us”, James urges, he needs to know that Sirius is not pretending that he isn’t horrible because he let Sirius joke about everything.
“Thank you, James”, he glares at Remus teasingly, “So, I was just coming out of the office, and McGonagall was at the stairs, and she hugged me. She HUGGED me! So, in conclusion I am better than all of you and, yes, I would appreciate it if you would bow down to me.”
“Wait, did she actually?”, Peter asks with wide eyes.
“Yes, before giving me and now that is something that you lesser people can even profit from, the information that tonight after dinner all the teachers will be attending a meeting and Filch will be doing his rounds near Slytherin for obvious reasons.”
That’s when James understood, Sirius was pretending it never happened. Was shutting it away, somewhere where he couldn’t even look at it and he knew that he would have to talk to him about it and he would, but now right now, right now, he wanted to be distracted just as desperately as James.
Just for now he would let them all have the Seventh Year they had earned and deserved.
“Sirius Padfoot Black, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”, he asks, and Sirius’ eyes find his and for a second, he sees Regulus.
Regulus.
The boy who had a secretive smile when he had told him about his fear of forest and who just for a second had let his guard down and showed James every colour in this universe.
And, yes, James was being dramatic and stupid, because this was Sirius’ brother, the one whose names he still can’t say without choking up and the boy who he had never talked to before.
And while he doesn’t understands everything about the Black brother, James understands why Sirius can’t say his name because if James would have to speak Regulus’ name with bitterness and hurt and hear it lose all its beauty, he would rather never say it again as well.
No.
He shuts the thoughts out and sees the sparkle in Sirius’ eyes and it’s almost like they are having a conversation for a second, like they are connected by a cord going from his brain directly into his. The grin at each other.
“A prank!”, they exclaim at the same time, laughing when they realize.
“The first this year”, Sirius starts turning to the other marauders who looks as excited.
If Sirius wants a distraction, he’ll get a distraction.
He will find the time to ask about Regulus’ words about the fire and the meeting with Dumbledore, he will, just not today and maybe he’ll even find time to think about Regulus. Just Regulus.
----Regulus----
Regulus has no idea where Evan and Barty are, he’s in his dorm, trying desperately not to drown in the cold water. His parents taught him how to swim, but as the ocean gets deeper and larger, he can’t help but wonder if they may have taught him wrong, if they may have only taught him how to drown beautifully and not how to survive without saving face.
So, he doesn’t know how to simply survive, he doesn’t know how to set his pride aside.
Because right now he’d rather be dragged to the ground and never feel the warm sun and fresh air on his skin than moving his arms and trying to stay over water to try and bathe in the sun light a bit longer even if he looks ridiculous and stupid while doing so.
Because Regulus is everything but a fool.
The door opens and someone stumbles into the dorm, closing the door with enough force to make the walls shake.
“Hello”, Regulus says, and he doesn’t even care if it’s Barty or Evan.
“Oh, there you are”, Evan says, “You know, we have been searching you way too much this year.”
“Huh.”
“So, where did you disappear off to this time?”, he asks and his bed croaks as he presumably throws himself on it.
“Dumbledore’s”, he says casually, sitting up and peeking at Evan on his bed, face buried in his favourite dark green pillow.
“What?”, it’s muffled, but the surprise is still as clear as anything.
“Yeah, remember when Barty told us that he wants to talk to me”, he goes on, because playing it off is the easiest.
“Of course, I just thought because of this morning… you know, he’d not… or at least wait.”
“Well, he didn’t, doesn’t surprise me though.”
“Yeah, I guess”, his voice is clear again and Regulus watches him as he sits up and looks at him.
Evan wants to say something, but Regulus cuts in before any words leave his opened mouth: “Where’s Barty?”
Luckily, he gets the message and takes the bait: “Not sure, mumbled something about a Rose and Prefect Bathroom and I stopped listening.”
He looks a bit sad almost, not in the abandoned puppy way, but in the bathing in self-loathing because you know you aren’t entitled to self-pity.
Regulus understands.
“Oh”, Evan’s head snaps up with wide eyes, “You like Rose?”
Evan pauses for a second as if sorting out his options, if he should tell the truth or make up some lie about how he just wanted to spend some time with Barty, Regulus thinks.
“Yeah”, he eventually says with a sigh, “She just has that sort of radiance about her, you know. Like when she smiles… I don’t smile, but my heart feels warm.”
“Didn’t know you had feelings, Rosier”, he teases, because he has no idea how to deal with this, he has no idea how to deal with feelings and especially not with his two best friends wanting the same girl. But it is a good distraction, he supposes.
Sirius was the one who came up with idea of distracting each other until it didn’t hurt anymore. At first it was to distract from physical pain of being slapped or cursed or forced to write the same sentence over and over until their hands were bleeding then they would tell each other stories or Sirius would show him the muggle children books that their uncle had gifted to him.
Later when physical pain became bearable, the thing they hoped would disappear with their distraction was the mental toll it had taken on them, the ache the words and screams of their mother left and the tiredness that was carved into their small hearts whenever their father looked at them as if they were his demons.
So, yeah, he had gotten pretty good at burying himself in distractions.
“Fuck off”, Evan says, and Regulus rolls his eyes, looking away and therefore missing the other boy grabbing his wand and whispering something.
He only notices when a cloud forms above his head and it starts pouring down on him. This is Evan’s favourite spell, so he doesn’t even act surprised just sighs and glares at Evan.
“I hate you so much”, he grumbles, looking for his wand, he threw it on the ground when he returned to the dorm, but before he can grab it, Evan screams: “Accio Regulus’ wand”, and the wand tumbles onto his bed.
Evan dissolves into laughter and Regulus stares at him, feeling the water sink into his skin and his bed. He really doesn’t want to get up and get his stupid wand, so he tries one last time: “Hahaha, Evan you are the funniest person alive, now please dissolve this terribly funny cloud and I will be grateful forever.”
He’s not even sure that he heard him still choked up in the loud laughter, so he gets up and walks over to the other bed the cloud staying in his bed.
Evan finally stops laughing and looks him dead in the eye: “What are you doing at my bed? Looking for some company?”
“Hatred can’t even compare what I feel right now”, he says sweetly before pulling on the blanket and Evan who is lying on it, off the bed and finally grinning as well as Evan lands in front of his sweet. He grabs his wand and finally casts the cloud away before gluing Evan to the floor with a simple wand flicker.
The door opens once more, and Barty walks in with a cocky smile that only widens when he sees the position they are in with Barty at Regulus’ feet and Regulus himself soaking wet with a smug grin.
“Wow, what have I walked into?”, he laughs, standing in the doorway very badly trying to sound serious, “I mean, I knew you worshipped Reg, but Jesus, Evan, you could try to hide it, you know.”
Evan seems to realize that he can still talk: “Fuck the fuck off, and Regulus, free me or there’s a high likely hood you’ll never use your wand again.”
Regulus is the most fun when he is distracting himself, because then he isn’t himself. Then he is whoever the other person will latch onto the most, negative, or positive. He’ll laugh and play and fight and for those hours that he pretends that there’s nothing else, he doesn’t think about death or his mark or his brother or Dumbledore or his parents.
And his laugh feels so unnatural whenever he pretends, but it’s a laugh, not a chuckle not a grin. A simple laugh.
He does and soon they are walking towards the Great Hall for lunch while Evan promises to kill them if they ever tell, they won’t, not like there’s anyone anyway, he thinks bitterly.
And then a horrible thought somehow finds its way in his brain, so horrible it makes him shudder, so horrible because he knows it can never happen, so horrible because it isn’t horrible at all.
James would listen.
He wants to cut his head off. What has James Potter done to him?
But James would not let him drown. He’d warm him up until he’s dry again. But James is too warm for him, he knows that too, he knows that if he let it happen, James would lead him into a drought.
He’s so warm and Regulus was never equipped to deal with warmth.