#how pissed is Walburga right now?

[ayoooo3]

Imagine… that Regulus Black didn’t die that day in the cave, and instead chose to disappear, to walk away from the war and try to start again.

Imagine… that Regulus steps away from magic altogether and tries to find a place in the muggle world. Along the way he reinvents himself completely.

Imagine… 10 years down the line James stumbles into this muggle candy shop he’s heard of, where it seems like magic fills the air. His curiosity fueling the need to see it for himself.

Imagine… James getting the air knocked out of his lungs because there at the counter is his Reggie, handing out candy to customers, a smile on his face as he watches them scream and laugh and try to figure out how the candy works. James knows it’s magic even if the other customers don’t.

Imagine… Regulus looking up and seeing James, a smile creeping across his face as he presses a finger to his lips and nods towards the delighted customers.

Imagine… Regulus whispering “look at them, Jamie. If anyone can use a bit of magic, it’s them, isn’t it?”

Imagine… they get to fall in love all over again.

(This TikTok got me thinking and as always Will was there to add fuel the fire… and the perfect dialog for Reg)

[fruitcoops]

a prompt:

sirius and regulus argument. probably something which has been manifesting for a while, like it starts with short sly comments and then builds up to create tension within the family (cuz i consider them part of the dumais family) so dumo tries to comfort one or both of them in the end? kinda long prompt, it’s just something that i’ve not seen and would like to see how it would work?

Gnaw at the Bone, because I just can't leave these two alone. Character credit goes to @lumosinlove <3

TW** (please be gentle with yourselves!): canon shit childhoods (no graphic abuse), Walburga and Orion's A+ parenting, sibling parentification, panic attack, bad coping mechanisms (skating), and past minor injuries from said coping mechanisms

“Sirius.”

“Reg.”

His stomach twisted. His head throbbed. His mouth tacked over, lips sticky, chapped, too much, not enough. Years of it. Stars in orbit, on a collision course with anything that came too close—their gravity was inescapable and destructive to the nth degree. They ruined everything but each other. That gravity would rub and chafe and grind at their rough surfaces and it made him sick to think about it.

Oh, it made him sick to think about it.

--

“Sirius.”

“Reg.”

And that was it—a clipped acknowledgment from scowling lips, then resignation. Regulus disappeared down the hall with his pasta. Sirius watched him go, shook his head, and headed in the opposite direction with a white-knuckled grip on his cup.

Alright then.

“Everything okay?” Pascal ventured.

Sirius jumped, his glower lifting for a moment in surprise, as if Pascal hadn’t been sitting there for over an hour. “What?”

Pascal tilted his head toward the empty doorway and set aside the broken toaster. “Everything okay?”

His mouth dipped in a grimace; his brow wrinkled like he was trying to find the weak link in a failing play, but something simmered beneath. “We’ll figure it out,” Sirius finally answered. “We’ll—it’s Reg, you know?”

Pascal didn’t know, actually, but Sirius was gone before he could ask for an elaboration. In fact, the only thing he knew for sure was that Regulus had gone through a period of rapid character development over the past nine months and that Sirius didn’t stop loving him for a single second of it, even through the snappish attitude, even through those horrible interviews that Regulus clearly regretted. They were two sides of the same coin with the unfortunate ability to be as evasive as greased weasels.

Celeste would say he was being nosy. Pascal preferred to think of it as a natural desire to engage with his kids as a loving, supportive parent.

He looked down at the toaster, then back up at the opposing doorways and sighed. It seemed some detective work was in order.

--

“Remus! How are you, mon ami?”

“I’m…good?” To his credit, Remus recovered quickly and offered a light fist bump in greeting. “What’s up?”

Pascal waved a vague hand. “The usual. House is good? Dog is healthy? Boyfriend is happy?”

Bingo. A shadow flickered over Remus’ face before it smoothed out into his usual neutral friendliness. “Yeah, we’re doing great. We were thinking of repainting the living room soon, so if there’s a day you want to borrow the dog, I’m all ears.”

“Parfait, I’ll let you know. And Regulus?”

There it was again—the tension, the twitch, the passive smile. “I think Sirius is just glad to have him home. It’s really been great getting to know him. He’s a sweet kid.”

He might be, but he’s been getting on your nerves, too. If Pascal knew anything, that would piss Sirius off more than any insult Regulus hurled his way. “I’m so glad to hear it. It’s good for them to be near each other right now.”

He clapped Remus on the shoulder and stood before the younger man could respond. It wasn’t just a one-time problem, then; whatever the seething, festering thing between Sirius and Regulus was, it had seeped into their everyday function. Enough that it had even begun annoying Remus ‘Patient’ Lupin. Pascal might not be able to fix their issue, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t give them a nudge in the right direction.

Sirius was right where he left him, hunched on the bench with a whiteboard in hand, though his pen served more as a drumstick than a writing instrument as Pascal approached. The tip-tapping stopped when he ruffled Sirius’ hair and took the seat next to him. “Defense,” Sirius muttered by way of explanation. “There’s a gap. Tremzy’s a killer when he goes in for a shot, but we need to close his spot when he moves.”

Pascal hummed in agreement and propped his skates up on the boards, letting the battered wood take his weight and ease the ache. “Good eyes.”

“ ‘s what I get paid for.”

“You seem tense, mon fils.”

“Hmm?” Sirius blinked. His eye contact was pristine, but his attention was lightyears away. “Sorry, just thinking. Did you need something?”

Pascal offered a wry smile. “What, you’re too old to let me sit with you?”

The deep crease between Sirius’ brows smoothed out; he smiled softly. He blinked again; this time, a bit of him returned. Not beyond all hope of intervention, then. “Non. Desolé. I’m…I’m in my head today.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

A few seconds passed before Sirius nodded. Pascal watched his gaze go distant again and his cheek dimpled as he bit the flesh inside. Guilt. Perhaps frustration. A twisted mystery to solve, if Pascal had not been watching him so closely since he first blessed their threshold. It was Regulus, it was Remus and Regulus—

It was something from a time Sirius had been trying to lock down. Ghosts were hard to trap behind hasty boards, nailed haphazard and half-panicked. Sirius was better, not healed. He was safe, not exorcised. He was so goddamn brave it hurt to watch, but Pascal wasn’t foolish enough to miss the way he spooked. And Regulus was a good kid, but a fucking mess all the same.

(Privately, he questioned the decision to go headlong into university right after escaping 18 years of living hell. That was not his place to challenge and not his problem to solve.)

(But still. University? Really?)

Sirius made another note on his board. A canine tooth poked out as he worried at his lower lip. Pascal watched him fidget, hands up and over and under and between, and steadied himself with a slow exhale when Sirius began twirling his pen over his knuckles with a dull, rippling noise.

“Regulus is angry with me.”

Pascal made an impassive noise. It was Regulus.

“I think. Probably.” Sirius’ knee bounced for a five-count before going still. “He’s working through a lot. Finals were hard. It took him off-guard. He got snappy at Remus.”

Remus and Regulus. “Oh?”

“Something about changing his sheets. He didn’t like that we went in his room to clean while he was away.”

Something from a time you’ve been trying to lock down. Not mutually exclusive events, but a progression. Sirius was fixed on a far point, no longer tracking the movement of players. His hands had gone quiet.

“I think I—I think they—” Space hung between them like a bear trap. It was horrible to be right. Sirius exhaled hard and shook his head. “C’est pas grave.”

Pascal bit back his disappointment. He knew better than to think it would spill out so easily. He scooted closer on the bench, and when Sirius didn’t flinch, leaned over to bump him with a gentle shoulder. “Don’t let it eat you up, ouais? Regulus is grown. So are you. It will come in time.”

A halfhearted nod was the best he would get, it seemed. Pascal risked a soft squeeze to the back of Sirius’ neck and—there he was. The loosening of his tense shoulders, the careful lean into the contact. “We’ll talk,” Sirius said.

“Take it slow,” Pascal advised, and prayed to any god that Sirius would at least listen to that. Those who shoved their hands in the cage of a feral animal only came away bitten and rabid. For all his growth, Sirius was plenty feral without the influence of Regulus Black ripping him open again.

They watched the drills together in silence for forty-five minutes. When they were done, Sirius’ clipboard held only blank paper.

--

“Tuney and I were really close. As kids, I mean.”

A light, fluffy cloud passed overhead on the rushing breeze.

“We did everything together. Like, literally everything. Mom used to joke that we should’ve been twins.”

The pain in her voice was one he knew well.

“We started drifting when I hit junior high, I think.” A controlled, even breath followed the gentle sound of a dandelion being picked. A few bits of fluff floated in and out of view. “And then high school came around, and she hated my fucking guts. Shredded all my tights with a fork. Refused to look at me in the lunchroom. Mom and Dad didn’t tell her it was okay, but they didn’t stop her, either. They just kind of sat there and looked sympathetic.”

Quiet fell over them again. A strand of hair billowed over his vision for a half-second. Time for a haircut.

“I still don’t know what I did,” Lily confessed to the afternoon sun. “I still don’t think she’s forgiven me.”

Looking at Regulus now, Sirius thought he might finally understand what she meant.

The corner of Regulus’ mouth was turned down; not more than usual, but enough to be a scowl to anyone who knew where to look. Quietly, he hoped Regulus’ school friends could tell the difference. He deserved to have people like that. Sirius wasn’t sure he had explained that very well before sending him off. Or ever.

“It’s a good book,” he said.

Regulus made a noncommittal noise. He hadn’t turned a page since Sirius paused in the doorway.

Another try. Pull back to the midline, find an open corridor. “One of my favorites.”

“Je sais.”

“Why are you angry with me?”

Once upon a time, he would not have been so bold as to ask. Once upon a time, Regulus would have sunk further into his cocoon. One pale finger traced the edge of the worn paperback. “I’m not angry with you.”

You’re always a little angry with me. “You won’t look at me.”

“God forbid I’m busy.”

“You’re reading.”

“And I’m busy,” Regulus said waspishly. “Go get Remus to take you for a walk, or something.”

Maybe this was where Lily had failed. In one way or another, she and Petunia had missed each other in the middle. He could recall those six terrible, lonely years with too much clarity to let Regulus push him away. Losing him would never be worth an argument won. “I want to spend time with you.”

“Then get your own book.” Regulus muttered something else under his breath that Sirius didn’t care to look into.

He swallowed down a sigh and picked one at random off the shelf, then settled down on the couch opposite Regulus’ armchair. The words could have been in Portuguese, for all they registered in his mind. The edges were soft from many hands. It might have been Remus’, or from the secondhand bookstore in town. God, it could have been one of Sirius’ own favorites for all he knew. He was working on knowing more of those.

The color blue, but a specific shade.

Tater-tot casserole, preferably with meat, acceptable with just cheese.

Books with adventures, books he could run away in.

Poutine with extra gravy.

Henley shirts that stopped at his elbow.

Hoodies—not the zip-fronts—made of heavier fabric. The ones where Remus had fussed with the cuffs.

“What’s your book—”

The sudden snap of cover on page made him wince; an irritated grumble-sigh hung on its coattails as Regulus swept out of the room without a backward glance. Sirius’ stomach turned, and turned, and turned. He always fucked it up. He always tried too hard. He shut his book in silence and set it on the floor, and went to get his skates.

--

I’m not an infant. Bared teeth and clenched fists. A charge in the air, a snake ready to strike. And you are not my fucking mother.

Remus wrinkled his nose and scrubbed harder at the grout.

Nightmarish, is what it was. The summer had been sun-soaked and semi-charmed with only the awkwardness of getting-to-know-you’s to taint it. But that was Remus’ perfect wheelhouse—polite conversation, buttering up, small talk to ease Regulus into a world that wasn’t actively trying to shred him. It had all worked so well.

He didn’t know what went wrong. Worse, he didn’t know how to fix any of it. Regulus was constantly boiling with silent fury like a kettle about to blow and it was terrible. Every second Sirius and Regulus existed within each others’ eyeline was hell. And they were living together. For twelve more days.

If they all survived this, Remus was going to take himself out for a little treat. One that did not involve scrubbing the kitchen grout just to avoid running into either of the ticking time bombs.

Regulus’ hissing colliding with the low, furious timbre of Sirius’ voice was not something Remus wanted to experience again, in this life or the next. Nobody won. Everybody lost in one way or another. Sirius got angry and Regulus got angry and Sirius got defensive and Regulus got mean, flat-out and full-send. Sirius snapped back, Regulus stormed off, and Remus spent the better part of his night assuring Sirius he was not turning into his parents. Rinse, repeat, wish for death.

Commotion kicked up in the living room and went quiet in the same breath—Remus paused to watch Regulus stomp off with a book in one white-knuckled hand and listened carefully for the aftershocks.

The house inhaled with him. The office door closed hard. Sirius’ footsteps were rhythmic as a metronome all the way up the stairs and back down again—Remus bit his tongue when he saw the skates clenched in one hand—and remained that way until the basement door shut him out.

Then, and only then, did Remus let a quiet, “shit” slip through his teeth.

--

Pull back to the midline. Pull back to the midline. Watch, pull back, find your corridor, strike.

The puck skated past the goal without so much as a whisper of net. Sirius hardly heard it hit the boards.

--

Remus looked faintly ill when they arrived at practice; Pascal was grateful for the early warning to prepare himself for Sirius’ perma-scowl and overall vibe of ultimate distress. The change in the atmosphere nearly made his ears pop. Leo made a hasty retreat from the locker room after Kasey, looking as if he had taken psychic damage, and several others watched him leave with unbridled longing.

“On-ice in five,” Sirius said. Ordered. Everything about him looked incorrectly articulated. “We’re running drills, then doing dry lands.”

Not a soul dared to try the usual bitching and moaning. All cheerful conversation had met its abrupt end.

Cole lowered his head and slunk out the door like a stray bit of shadow. The rest of them followed suit within a minute or two, save for James, who steered Sirius into the ice room with a firm hand on his back.

Plastic buckles clinked softly in the empty space left. “They’re worse?”

Remus slumped forward and muffled a groan in both hands. “They’re going to fucking kill each other.”

“Any idea what happened?”

Remus spread his hands with a lost expression.

“Did this start when Regulus came home?”

“It’s just been the past three days.” Remus shook his head, leaning his elbows heavily on his knees with his pads half-done. “I can’t—Reg was fine when he got here. He was fine through Christmas. Sirius mentions we changed his sheets before he came home, and now he wants my head on a pike and my boyfriend to explode.”

Pascal picked at the peeling logo of his shorts. Sheets. What was so special about the sheets? “Were they new sheets?”

“Same ones he used all summer. I literally just washed them and put them back.”

“So…he didn’t like that you were in his space?” Remus half-shrugged, clearly frazzled by the mere memory. “You know, Adele hates it when we go into her room. Even to drop laundry off, or help her clean.”

“No, yeah, Jules is the same. That’s what started it.”

“Started…?” Understanding crept up his throat like battery acid. “He didn’t.”

“It was bad,” Remus said weakly.

“How bad?”

The laces of Remus’ skates dragged on the ground while he shuffled in his stall. The lines of his arms were rigid and upset; he scratched at the back of his wrist, curled over like he was trying to shield his middle. “His feet bled again.”

Pascal closed his eyes. He should have pushed harder against the basement rink eight years ago. He shouldn’t have let Sirius leave so soon.

He forgot, sometimes, how very alone Sirius had been.

“I fixed it,” Remus said after a minute. Of course you did. He sniffed, shaking his head like he could hear Pascal’s thoughts. “It wasn’t too bad. Blisters, mostly, some hotspots. Made him keep the bandaids on for practice. I hate—Dumo, I hate this. I hate living in it, I hate seeing them tear each other apart. It’s so quiet.”

“They need to stop,” Pascal agreed. Remus kept looking at him for—a solution, he realized. Terrible hope. Something desperate and fragile, a young man coming to a mentor for help he just…couldn’t give.

He looked away first. Remus’ exhale felt like a knife.

--

“It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, it’s me—”

“No, no, no,” Remus soothed somewhere in the catastrophe of the world.

Sirius spit, again, and pressed his hands over his eyes, again, and willed the bathroom floor to stop digging into his knees and just swallow him up already. His skin crawled and he wanted to scratch but he couldn’t take his hands away or the room would spin and tip him into nothingness.

Maybe he belonged there. But he had managed to hurt Regulus when he was a country away, so perhaps he wouldn’t even be safe in the ether.

Remus’ hand was cool on the small of his back as he frantically tried to keep his dinner down. He didn’t rub. He didn’t tap. He didn’t so much as twitch. Sirius listed to the side and flashed a hand out to steady himself. The pain of his wrist hitting the cabinet didn’t even register until Remus hissed in sympathy and took his weight in the bend of his arm.

“I am treating him just like they did,” Sirius rasped through the smoke pouring from inside him.

“No.” Remus was begging now. He sounded so tired. He was begging. The room swam in the kaleidoscope of suffering that he really should be used to by now, and Sirius pressed his elbows harder into the toilet seat as his ears began to ring.

You are not my mother.

Sirius gasped in a too-hot breath. It had been directed at Remus, not him. But.

But he was.

It was so sick and twisted and his stomach made sure to tell him that with a real-world example of both those words.

You are not my mother.

She wasn’t, either. Their nannies had come close. Sirius missed them sometimes (often) (aching) (with the hurt of a child).

Remus was not Regulus’ mother but he had been, in the same scream-worthy way he had been his father, too, and his brother. He couldn’t think too hard about how he had been the only one to cuddle Regulus without crying and fuck, there he went, Sirius the drama queen making the whole damn world about him.

“Okay, okay.” Arms came around him, easing the slicing pain of the sobs that caught him in fishhooks. The back of his hand hit the floor. His knees hurt like a bruise. His face was smushed against Remus’ chest and it really should have been uncomfortable. Remus made a noise of sympathy and gathered all the gross, slimy, bits of a Sirius-puddle into his arms because he was a saint. The patron saint of fucking messes, and Sirius was the messiest sinner of them all.

“I’m so horrible to him,” he sobbed, hitching and sticky. Probably incoherent. He mumbled. She hated it when he mumbled. “I’m so horrible.”

You are not my mother.

“It was me.” He gulped for air. Remus’ dizzying words fell quiet at the interruption. He added another note to his list of penance. “It was me, it was, I tried.”

“What did you try?” Remus’ fingertips brushed away a loose, sweaty lock and the sobs came harder after that, wracking him down to his organs, past the precious cradle of his ribs. A warm palm cupped the back of his head and Sirius heard a strangled noise interrupt his own endless babbling. He didn’t know he could make that sound. With the way his throat and body were angled against the unmovable pillar of Remus, though, it shouldn’t have surprised him.

“I was—I was his mother.” It was so hard to breathe through the gasping. “I didn’t know what I was doing but I was his mother but I won’t be her.”

“Oh, god.” Remus sounded weak for a saint. There went another beautiful thing, ruined in Sirius’ messy clumsy hands. And somehow, in the darkness, in the Blackness, a kiss nestled just near his temple.

He couldn’t help but go still, then limp, as all the fight and fear siphoned from his flooded lungs.

Remus breathed like he was going to speak several times before he did. “There are other ways.” His voice was heartbreak. Sirius closed his burning eyes. “Sirius—baby, you know my mom. You know Effie, and Celeste, and you know Lily.”

Lily. He knew Lily. Her green eyes, so much pain and regret. Don’t be like me, Pads. Her green eyes, the way she looked at Harry, the way they matched. Sirius had his mother’s eyes. Had she ever looked at him like that?

“There are other ways to be someone’s mother. And…” His hands stuttered, then began to move again, scritching the back of Sirius’ head. That feeling usually made him go comatose in their bed. “Regulus was trying to hurt me when he said that. You know that, right?”

I am not an infant. And you are not my fucking mother.

Remus kissed him again. The shell of his ear, this time. “It wasn’t about you. I promise.”

But it was. There on the bathroom floor, it was.

--

The woman was watching him with infuriating patience. Sometimes—more often than he cared to count—she would even look away to her clipboard or her phone, and that was even worse. Regulus knew how to be ignored. He fucking hated her nonchalant attention.

Either look at me and pay attention or ignore me properly, he thought with enough force that it should have beamed into her brain directly.

Heather chewed at the corner of her lip and checked her texts again.

“Aren’t you supposed to ask questions?” he finally muttered.

She looked up, milk-mild. “Are you ready to answer them?”

You can’t trick me that easily. “Are they worth my time?”

“I certainly think so.” She tilted her head back and forth for a moment. “But it’s not up to me to decide. That’s your choice.”

“So I can just walk out right now?”

“Sure.”

Regulus only let himself pause for a second before regaining his composure. “I’m pretty sure my brother would murder me if I did that.”

“Your brother didn’t set up this appointment.” A smile made her face even kinder, like a storybook bear. “And I’m not allowed to discuss my other patients’ homicidal tendencies. But yes, Mr. Black—”

“Don’t call me that or I’ll puke, I promise.”

“—yes, Regulus, you are welcome to leave whenever you feel like it. I can’t legally force you into therapy and I don’t particularly want to. If you would prefer to sit here quietly, we’ve still got twenty minutes left.”

He bit the inside of his cheek.

“I have a spare crossword,” she offered.

Gifts. Of course. What an awful woman. He plucked absently at the threads of the armrest and slouched into the too-squishy cushions.

Silence reigned supreme for another five minutes and twenty-four seconds before Heather stretched her wrists and smiled at him again. “It’s good to see you, Regulus.”

“You don’t have to say that,” he snorted.

“I know.”

“So don’t.”

“Alright.” She tapped the side of her thumb on her clipboard. “I’m glad you came back. Is that better?”

“Will you stop with the mind games, please?”

Heather’s eyes softened. His skin crawled. “Regulus, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable in my office. I would vastly prefer it if you did something you enjoy with this time, rather than forcing yourself to come and sit there and be miserable. I’ll sit with you if you’d like, but it seems like that’s not helping.”

His lip curled against his will. “So Sirius told you I’m miserable?”

“I haven’t spoken to Sirius lately.”

“You should. He’s a disaster.” Ignore that I’m a screaming teenage trainwreck.

“If he gets in touch with me, I’ll happily make time.”

“He won’t,” Regulus informed her. He wondered if she would stop him. Was there a point where he was no longer allowed to talk about her other patients? He already felt pathetic enough for refusing to use any therapist except the one Sirius had vouched for.

Heather hummed. “Guess that’s for him to know, and for me to find out.”

Push push push push push— “He’s been a mess. He’s doing that implosion thing he does when I’m mean to him. It’s like he thinks everyone in the whole world depends on him to be happy, and the second they’re not, it’s his fault.”

“And have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Been mean to him?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been terrible.” Regulus frowned slightly and sat up. “You know I’m not a nice person, don’t you? You should know that before we start anything.”

Heather seemed interested, but not confused. Infuriating. “Okay.”

“Sirius is the nice one.”

“Okay.” She nodded for a moment. “Why is Sirius nice, but you’re not?”

“You’re not—” He bit his tongue. Being mean to Heather was not what he came here to do. Wasting his time with someone who didn’t understand was not the point of this. “Sirius would have been much happier as a suburban family’s well-loved dog. He’s good like that.”

“Okay.”

“I was ignored for three-quarters of my childhood and have half a dozen complexes and attachment issues because of it. I am not a nice person at all, and so I take it out on Sirius because—I don’t know, I think it’s supposed to feel good, since he had everything and then he left me.” She was still looking at him. Mild and kind. Was everyone in Gryffindor obtuse enough to think he was kidding? “Heather, I am telling you that I’m petty and mean and use my older brother as an emotional punching bag because our parents fucked us up. There is nothing you can say to help me.”

“Supposed to feel good?”

Regulus blinked. “Pardon?”

“You said it was ‘supposed to feel good’ when you’re mean to your brother.” Heather rested her head on her hand. He wasn’t sure when she had put her clipboard aside. “Does it feel good?”

“Oh my god, no,” Regulus laughed hoarsely. “No, it feels like I’m the worst person alive. Why does that change anything?”

--

I just wanted them to like me.

It hadn’t even been about love, in the end. He had given up on that. Forget about pride—that was a lost cause. But he had yearned to be liked, to have a smile turned on him like the ones he only remembered in blurry dreams between sleep and wakefulness. Their father had light crow’s feet by his eyes. They were probably deeper by now. Their love was never going to happen but it really would have been enough to simply be liked. Regulus had been bright enough to stop hanging on to them far sooner; oh, yes, he had always been the smart one.

Heather had seemed sad when he said that. Sirius hated making her sad.

--

Pascal thought he knew where the precipice was. He thought they had more time to reel that celestial disaster back from the brink before they tipped over it, clawing at each other for grip and for hurt. Looking back, he felt like an utter fool for thinking he could have stopped them.

--

“You fucking liar!”

“I wouldn’t lie to you!”

“Yes you would, you always do that!”

“I—” Sirius’ mouth snapped closed; his jaw ticked with tension. “I wouldn’t—”

“You do,” Regulus insisted angrily. “Our whole childhood, and now this. I won’t fall for it anymore.”

“I told you, I didn’t go through your things—”

“Stop it.”

“It was just changing the goddamn sheets—”

“Stop it.”

“God forbid I want you to sleep on something clean!” Sirius shouted back.

Regulus flushed red, bright against his dark hair. “Don’t yell at me!”

“Are you—you started yelling first, you pain in the ass!”

“Oh, I’m just a pain in the ass now?”

Sirius threw his hands in the air with a furious noise and folded them at his nape, shaking his head. His stomach hurt and trembled. His throat was tight, and every swallow had to fight its way around an iron fist. The inside of his cheek was raw and tender from his teeth. “You’re fucking delusional.”

Remus straightened fast. “Woah—”

“I’m delusional?” Regulus laughed humorlessly, hysterically, all dry bonfire wit. “I’m delusional? I’m not the one that tried to start a brand-new family when the old one failed!”

The insides of his ribs were scorched black. “Don’t bring Remus into this—”

“I’m talking about him!” Regulus’ arm shot out. One pale, skeletal finger hovered in midair, an executioner’s axe. A hairline tremor shivered over his skin; his eyes gleamed.

Dumo had both hands on Sirius’ broken toaster, and both eyes locked on Regulus’ hand in shock.

“You had it all planned out, didn’t you?” Regulus’ face contorted. “From the second they called your name on the television. You were going to billet and you were going to go to him and fuck the rest of us, is that it?”

Sirius couldn’t feel his hands. I still don’t know what I did. I still don’t think she’s forgiven me. “Regulus, no.”

But Regulus just nodded, tears welling up despite the guillotine edge of his voice. “You did. And thank fuck for that, because then Logan came along and a brand-new brother just dropped himself in your lap without any effort at all. Your perfect parents, your perfect brother, your perfect, perfect life. How convenient.”

He shook his head. “No. No, it’s not like that.”

But.

But it was. A little bit, it was. Dumo wasn’t his choice but he was Sirius’ escape. And Logan…Logan had been so alone, so afraid, so young, hiding under his baseball caps like Regulus used to hide under his toques. Sirius had caught too many sidelong glances of dark curls and bitten back the wrong name those first few months.

Regulus could smell it on him. Could read Sirius’ guilt like a child’s book. His eye twitched. “I told you not to lie.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Sirius said hoarsely.

“I don’t care.”

“It was not my intent—”

“Fuck your intent.”

Lightning spit up inside him and he choked it down, tasting iron as it went. “Will you let me speak? Or are you going to stand there and yell until you feel better?”

Regulus’ face turned blotchy with rage. “Don’t patronize me.”

“Then stop acting like a child,” he snapped back.

“You sound like—”

“Do not.”

Something burnt coated his tongue as the lightning licked off it in a whipcrack and sparked between them. Regulus looked away, fists balled tight against his sides.

Sirius let the burning out on a controlled breath. “Do not bring them into this,” he continued carefully, even as a scream built under his lungs, kicking its feet and howling. “Do not bring her into this. I am telling you right now that you will not like how it goes for you.”

Regulus’ mouth twisted, petulant and bitter. “You’re really going to threaten me? Now?”

“I don’t threaten, Regulus. I win.”

“Because everything is a competition,” he sneered.

“Because you know better than to start that fight.” Sirius caught his gaze and held it with clenched, snarling teeth. Regulus knew better. Always the smart one, always levelheaded. Regulus, the wordsmith, and Sirius, blowing up the ground he stood on as long as he didn’t come out on the bottom. Locked jaw or locked antlers, dragging them both over the canyon edge before any thought of retreat. He had shouted himself voiceless before bending to their father. A simple locked door couldn’t block the endless screaming matches from Regulus’ memory.

“This isn’t a tantrum,” Regulus said at last.

The slavering dog in Sirius’ head sat back and eased its hold. He jerked his chin. “Then get to the point.”

“You left.”

“I was always going to leave.”

Regulus flinched, but to his credit, kept going. “You replaced us. Me.”

“Logan was never you.” Logan, young and scared, but not Regulus. Never Regulus. It had only ever taken a moment for Sirius to right himself, and less than that to be buried alive in guilt.

Regulus stared at the kitchen table. His nailbeds were white where he clutched the back of a chair. They’d have to get more iron into him while he was home; Sirius didn’t trust the university food. “You never came back.”

“For holidays—”

“You never came back,” Regulus repeated, louder. He blinked fast a few times, inhaling sharply. “You were never there for more than a day or two. You’d go dead the second we sat down together. You never—you never came back.”

“Regulus, that house was going to kill me.”

It came out too soft for the weight of it in the room. Regulus closed his eyes and leaned forward, stretching his arms with an unsteady exhale. Sirius kept his focus despite the building sting in his eyes but he could feel Dumo’s gaze on his neck, could hear Remus’ short inhale. There was no coming back from this. Ever onward, clawing his way out of the depths.

“One way or another, it was,” he continued quietly. “So, no. I didn’t go back. I won’t.”

The blur of Regulus tilted his face toward the ceiling with another shaky breath, still blinking fruitlessly as drops of mirrored light slipped down his cheeks. “Then how—?” He broke off and cleared his throat hard enough to make Sirius wince. “How could you leave me there?”

“I didn’t want to.”

It meant nothing; they both knew that. It still felt right to get it out there.

“I thought you’d come back,” Regulus said. “I thought you’d try. Once—once you had your first paycheck, or something.”

It hurt so much more to hear old, broken hope than anger. “They knew where I lived.”

“Then we’d move.” We. A child’s daydream. They made me hate you, but I never did. A phone number memorized for six and a half years. “We’d go somewhere else.” Regulus ran his sleeve under his nose and shook his head. “I was so alone. I don’t—” He looked up and immediately, his lip curled in disgust. “Oh, god, don’t look at me like that.”

“Reg—”

“Like a fucking puppy, merde.” He yanked his sleeves down over his hands and scrubbed viciously at his face, lingering over his eyes a second longer before letting them dangle at his sides again. He sniffled, then did a double-take when he saw Remus and Dumo on the other side of the room. “Why are you still here?”

“Um.” Remus glanced over at Sirius, but he had nothing to offer. “It…felt wrong to leave.”

Regulus rolled his eyes, though the effect was dampened by his red cheeks and slight pout. “You are all so codependent.”

“Don’t be mean,” Sirius chided instinctively.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Regulus gave him a quick up-and-down look. “We’re both ugly criers. Shit. Yell at me again.”

“…no?”

“Just do it, it’ll make me feel better.”

“I’m not going to yell at you.”

“Don’t make me insult you more. My throat hurts.”

“Do you want a hug?”

“No.” They stood in silence for another fifteen seconds. Wool socks scuffed on the floor. Regulus gnawed at the inside of his lip, then stepped around the side of the table an inch. “If it’ll make you feel better.”

--

He was over six feet tall, now. His hockey muscle had yet to fade. He felt—

Small. He felt safe. A shudder ran down his aching back. It had been so long since he felt safe.

“Desolé.” Sirius’ voice vibrated in the burrow of his chest and Regulus pressed his face to it as hard as he could. “Desolé, mon etoile.”

Tears snuck up on him in bursts; he pushed closer, closer, tucking his arms between them and shuffling forward until he could stand on the front of Sirius’ stupid slippers and let the cold floor fall away. He was tired of drowning, but it was hard to remember how to let the water out.

Sirius sniffed above him. The kiss to the top of his head was more of a hard bump than anything else. His arms were tight and warm around Regulus’ back, one palm cupping the back of his head. “I never forgot you.”

“Je sais,” Regulus croaked back.

“I never forgot you.”

Don’t, don’t, don’t. He coughed to clear the brackish muck from his lungs. He wasn’t pretty like this, and he knew it. But neither was Sirius, so maybe that was okay. Just this once. He could be held like a child, just this once. It was a long time before they spoke again.

“I don’t want to see Heather anymore.” He breathed in Sirius’ laundry soap and the same deodorant they had both been wearing for years. The rushing flood in his head had become a stream, had become a trickle. His heartbeat pulsed behind his eye. “I want—I want to see someone else.”

Sirius’ shoulders relaxed enough that he could feel each muscle release. “Good.”

“I still haven’t told my friends about—the everything.” He felt Sirius nod and gathered two fistfuls of his hoodie. “I want to stay at school.”

“D’accord.”

“What if they find out?” He held on tighter, pressed his face to Sirius’ calm heart. “What happens when they find out how horrible I am?”

Sirius huffed. “You’re not horrible.”

“I am.” That was the deal. He was the villain so Sirius could be the hero. He was the junkyard. Spare parts to be hosed off and trotted out when they needed him.

“Regulus, you’re nineteen.”

He frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everyone’s horrible at nineteen.”

“What if I’m…” He wracked his brain for something smart. It blew a raspberry at him and fucked off back to sleep. “…extra horrible?”

Sirius sighed, scratching lightly behind his ears. Regulus felt his eyelids droop against his will. “If you turn out to be extra horrible by—I don’t know, 21, we’ll talk.”

“What if they fucked us both up too bad?”

He winced—Sirius’ steady motions stuttered briefly. He hadn’t meant to let that one slither out from its careful cage. That was a thought for sleepless nights in a cold hotel bed and watching the sun rise in a strange city through dry, tired eyes. When his hands were blistered and bleeding, he’d wonder whether that Black blood could ever really be gone from him.

Sirius’ head was a gentle pressure on his own. “Then it’s us against the world, isn’t it?”

--

Gryffindor airport was quiet at 7 in the morning. Dumo stifled a yawn in the back of his hand as he passed the rolling suitcase to a boy that was far too awake for the early hour, in his opinion. Youths.

“You have everything?” Sirius checked. “You’ll be safe?”

“I’m literally fine.” Regulus arched a brow. “And less than four hours away, if you speed.”

“You’ll call when you land.”

“I’ll text.”

Sirius wrinkled his nose. “If you don’t, I’m filing a missing person report.”

Regulus turned to Remus. “Can you keep him on a leash? Or just sedate him?”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Remus laughed.

Sirius fixed them both with a weak scowl. “Will you just get on the plane?”

“I thought you wanted me to stay.”

“I want you—” Sirius took Regulus by the shoulders and turned him around with a firm grip. “—to have fun and live life and not die. The bar is on the ground. Do not dig under it.”

“Killjoy.”

“Pest.” Sirius kissed the top of his head. “Fly safe. Text.”

“Wait until I’m on the place before you start crying. I don’t want your gross emotions all over me.”

“Well, we can’t disturb your delicate sensibilities.”

“Sirius?”

“Reg.”

Regulus paused, laden with his duffel and rolling bag, and kicked the toe of Sirius’ sneaker lightly. “Love you.”

Sirius’ smile was close-lipped and small and brighter than the rising sun outside the massive bay windows. He kicked him back, even more gently. “Get on your plane.”

[cressthebest]

Crimson Rivers thoughts pt. 22

chapter 38:

1. “"Right, so, your stylist?" Marlene asks, settling in as they continue to sway. "The one who looks like a fucking goddess? Yeah, so get this, she says we're friends…"”

james and marlene gossip sesh <3333333

2. 😧 MCGONNAGAL??????????

3. wait i think mcgonnagal is good. i’m pretty sure she’s from the phoenix. i’m not sure. i’m hopeful. i’m so hopeful

4. aww huey is kinda sweet. i like that’s he’s reg’s breath of fresh air when it comes to talking to the hallows

5. reg, i understand your anger, but please don’t make one of the only good sponsors feel bad

6. jealous james >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

7. “"I like your tea," James offers. "Maybe I'm biased, but it tastes better than anyone else's. What do you do to it?"

Regulus hums and lightly says, "I spit in it."

Without missing a beat, James replies, "Ah, that explains it."”

😭😭😭😭😭

8. “"Would you—" Regulus chokes on another relentless giggle, gasping a little. "Wait, would you actually drink my tea if I spit in it, James?"

"Love, I would let you spit directly into my mouth," James announces with absolutely no shame in his tone whatsoever.”

😭😭😭😭 james i love you

9. awww i love that barty is the most consistent part of reg’s life. i love barty

10. 😬 riddle is unconvinced in their love story. i- yikes

11. okay, right, mcgonnagal is good. thank god

12. dorcas wants to keep marlene out of the war, but only one of them has had a pov so far, so i’m not hopeful

13. oh shit marlene sounds hot

14. also, to add in, i’m so fucking glad there’s like no homophobia (that we know of) in this world

15. i do NOT want dorlene to be a tragedy in this universe

16. 😟 she gave back the ring. AHHHH

17. oh no. shit shit shit shit shit what did riddle do

18. “Riddle didn't even grant the liberty of leaving bodies behind for them to bury.” 😟😧

(but also, orion and walburga were dicks, so like, i’m not sad, just scared)

chapter 39:

1. aww regulus finally invites james in for tea

2. “On the day he accidentally kills a bee while tending to his flowers, he goes through the five stages of grief in less than an hour, which has nothing to do with the bee and everything to do with Vanity.” STOP! THE VANITY MENTION HURTS TOO MUCH

3. “When Regulus wants more time with him, he adds bagels, which James has now unconsciously been Pavloved into thinking of as his favorite food for that very reason.” STOP THATS SO GAY

4. sirius being dramatic about james and reg liking each other is TOP TIER in this fic, in the most realistic, aggravated, obnoxious, and completely loving way

5. BWAHAHAHHAHA JAMES GETTING A PIGGY BACK RIDE FROM SIRIUS IS GOLD

6. oh shit, (i’m not the best comprehensive reader, but i should have figured this out sooner), but from sirius’ perspective, he has to do the back and forth with remus his whole life. he doesn’t have the knowledge that i do, that a war is coming and they’ll finally get a chance to live together. he thinks he only gets to see remus once a year for two weeks at a time. this- this shit is heartbreaking yall

7. “”I watched him stand to his feet and tip himself into a river of blood in an act so tender that I'll never again be able to look at him with anything less than pure love. Every other member of the Black family, including you, fought and clawed their way home to their family, oftentimes to a family that never truly made them feel loved at all. Regulus? He fought and clawed through that arena, the entire time, for James. He's far more gentle than anyone gives him credit for."”

y’all, i’m crying over this. this is so lovely. effie is right, and i’m crying over how right she is

8. 😒 i know what’s coming. riddles a bitch. a right bitch. he’s gonna announce that previous victors are competing and i’m PISSED

9. so far, all three potters offered reggie food. they’re so hospitable, i love them

10. “He hasn't forgotten what it is to long for James. He still knows what it is to want him so badly that he'd be willing to kneel at the altar of James Potter and beg; he'd drop down on his hands and knees and crawl if that's what it took, if that would prove his devotion. He is the manifestation of longing built up with nowhere to go, and he craves, he yearns, he covets.”

both of them are so down bad

11. omg reg is so horny. his inner monologue is literally only like “”””“rip my clothes off please, read my mind and rip my clothes off”””””

12.AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I KNEW IT WAS COMING! BUT IM SO MAD!!! FUCK RIDDLE

13. effie is a queen. she is a godsend. and i’m so upset right now

14. not effie making them promise not to volunteer, and immediately james and sirius arguing over who’s gonna volunteer for her

15. i’m seething. i’m pissed beyond belief. i’m so angry it’s indescribable. my babies are going back into that arena. honestly, fuck riddle

[my-castles-crumbling]

hi cas <3

cw/tws for medical stuff, complex family relationships, discussion of death

so, for context, im a regulus black kinnie (itll make sense, give me a sec aha). ive got a difficult relationship with most of my family, but most especially my mother and older sister. my sister is a lot like our family's sirius (except if he still had walburga's narcissism, cruelty and manipulation), and she really doesnt get along with either of our parents. my mother is... a difficult woman, in that she likes to victimise herself in every situation, shes homophobic/transphobic/all the phobics, shes also very narcissistic, and likes to make uncomfortable comments without bothering to be nice about it. all in all, i try not to be around her much. im also supposed to be moving out soon, and planned to minimise contact as much as possible once i do.

to the point: my mother was diagnosed with cancer yesterday. my father (hes kind of a neutral party in the family dynamics, btw) was the one talking to me about it, since she's in hospital at the moment. he said they caught it early enough where a bit of chemo over the next few months should get rid of it and she'll be okay, but 'cancer' is a scary as fuck word. he also then told me that this isnt her first time with it — she had a different type of cancer around 20 years ago.

honestly, i feel like my brain is battling itself about how i should feel. on the one hand, ive been looking forward to not having to be around her now for years, and i hold very little love for her at this point. why should i care? she'll be fine at the end of it anyway. but shes still my mum, yknow? and i feel awful having these thoughts about how badly ive always thought of her and how much ive wanted for so long to get away from her and how it almost feels like this is some sort of sick fucking joke from the universe about how i should be careful what i wish for or something.

this whole situation keeps making me think about regulus in best friends brother(? i think thats the right fic) or p much any modern au where walburga dies so tbh ill probably end up writing a fic about it to cope, but still i just... i guess i needed to tell someone? my father asked me to keep it to myself for now so that it wasnt spread around where we live (its a small area; everyone knows everyone).

and the bit with my sister - as i said, she doesnt get along with our parents. i dont talk to her much anymore either because she seemed to inherit a lot of our mothers worst traits, but im afraid that if we do talk about this then she'll have some awful thing to say about it. she makes some really dark 'jokes' sometimes about suicide and death and such, and im nervous that she'll say something about how she hopes it kills her (again, my sister fucking sick, and has zero empathy), because shes made similar jokes about other stuff in the past. i also dont think she'd understand that im still afraid for our mother even after everything shes done, and i hate the way my sister turns on me and rips the piss out of me when she doesnt like what i do.

it all kind of circles back to how im supposed to feel, i guess. part of me wants to not care and brush it off, whatever, but theres still part of me dying for my mothers love and approval and is terrified of losing her, even with the low possibility.

sorry this got so long, and for how heavy it is. i hope youre doing well cas, and thank you for all you do for us <3

Hi hon!

My god, you ARE a reg kinnie.

Here's the thing- there is not a RIGHT way to feel about those things. You have a complex relationship with your mom, so of course you'll have complex feelings about the situation. You don't need to feel guilty for feeling any certain way, because there's no right or wring way to process this. You're allowed to feel scared and neutral and confused and ambivalent. That's okay!

Your feelings aren't a betrayal to anyone, and you have a right to them. You also have a right to any action you choose to take. Remember to do what feels right for YOU, because YOU are important.

I'm here if you ever need to talk <3

Naming you reg kin anon.

[in-flvx]

Do you ever think about how voldemort asked regulus for his elf instead of anyone else?

Bc I do now and now I have two theories as to why. First off he was probably pissed that walburga and Orion didn't follow him, so getting their son would be a hit in the face already, but then also getting their house elf to do their bidding must have been exhilarating. And to kill it doing so even better. It's a show of his power that he probably hoped would bring the rest of the family into his ranks.

The other is that he also thought that Reg wouldn't know what a horcrux was and if he did not how to destroy it. So even if regulus thought about following his brothers or his parents example, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Which he was right about, of course. Regulus didn't know what to do about the horcrux and didn't even leave kreacher instructions about how to find out how to destruct it.

Ultimately it was a test on regs loyalty, which he thought he succeeded in as he never found out about regs rebellion.

[sweetiecutie]

Some random headcanons I have about Regulus Arcturus Black:

•Since early childhood Regulus had struggled with anxiety. It’s mostly because of his parents and their “progressive” methods of upbringing their children, that included pretty harsh punishments for every smallest mistake

•Regulus truly has what’s called hands of a pianist. His fingers are long and flexible, green and blue veins run up his hands and to his arms under his thin pale skin. A sight for sore eye, isn’t it? BUT, because of said anxiety black-haired has a habit of picking on his cuticles, biting the nails and skin around them. Same with his lips and the insides of his cheeks, which are always swollen from fresh little wounds

•Sirius is known for his playful and cheeky demeanor and he used to pick up fake fight with Regulus, just for the fun of pissing his grumpy younger brother off. Needless to say that almost all of those fake-fights ended up as real slaughter with both Black boys viciously pummeling each other, leaving dark bruises and deep scratches in their wake. Once Sirius even broke Regulus’ nose, unintentionally of course, he really didn’t mean to put that much force into the punch

•Regulus is very attached to Sirius. His older brother was the only protection and support he had throughout all his life and he might not show it but he truly and deeply loves his sibling. And when Sirius left Regulus was utterly… broken. He felt so betrayed and lonely and angry and sad but mostly just terrified. He no longer had any support, Sirius was his only safe place in that damned house. And now he was gone. Regulus spent four days locked up in his room, hidden underneath his blankets, refusing to talk or eat, barely drinking any water just because Kreacher begged him to do so

•Definitely a cat person. Probably wants to get one but can’t because of Walburga. Basically, Regulus likes everything fluffy and cuddly, be it cats, rabbits etc. But wouldn’t want a dog because they’re too active

•Regulus is way better at French than Sirius

•Favorite sleeping position is on his tummy with face fully buried in his pillow. It’s really a mistery how he manages to breathe like that

•And while we’re on this topic, Regulus is a light sleeper, any slightest noise can wake him up easily - squeaking of the floor, fluttering of owl’s wings, clock that ticks bit too loud for liking. But he also falls back asleep fairly quickly after making sure that it’s still safe in the place

•Regulus’ handwriting is so neat! You know this pretty cursive, with little loops and whorls in the right places? Yes - it’s all about Regulus. His school notes look more like a work of art rather than senior’s abstract

•Handles heat horribly. Regulus hates summer because of its high temperature - all he want to do during warm season is to lock himself up in refrigerator. Constant heat makes him dizzy and nauseous, his whole body covered in sheen of sweat, lungs refuse to function properly. To put it simple - Regulus is definitely not a summer person

•Sadly, he’s very self-conscious. He’s been told hundreds of times just how beautiful and smart and amazing he is, but it’s actually hard to believe all those things growing up in a family like his. In Regulus’ eyes he’s all about imperfection - body too lanky, skin is too pale, hair way too curly for liking, face too thin to be beautiful. He envies his brother sometimes - how can Sirius be so confident in his looks all the time?

•Doesn’t really like sweets. Maybe dark chocolate or ice cream that’s not overly sugary, but overall is more of a fresh fruit lover

Likes, reblogs and comments are highly appreciated, they inspire me on creating even more content for you💖

[sirisuorionblack]

Hiya! I love your writing so much 💜 May I pretty please request a sirius x reader imagine where they have passed the honeymoon phase of their relationship and now struggles with opening up to each other emotionally. Happy fluffy ending where they promise to love, protect and comfort each other?

I hope you have a lovely time wherever you are! Much love 💜

Until the very end

Sirius Black x Fem!Reader

Warning - Cursing.

Summary - Realising you are in love is tough and expressing it is quite difficult. But for Sirius Black, it happened in a short period of time and in the place where he would have never expected to confess his undying love yet he promises.

A/N Ahhhh THANK YOU SOO MUCH! I had fun writing this although I cried a bit in the end, curse my emotional personality. I had to take some time to understand how you struggle with expressing all the emotions in being in a relationship cause I have never done that so this is practically very much based on imagination and theory. Hope you like it!

Sirius Black. Your boyfriend of two months and within the short span of time he proved you what an amazing gentleman he could be all the while make you feel loved and cherished. It was beautiful being in his arms, kissing or not. Or just stand next to him, his arm wrapped around your shoulder, pulling you to his side as he casually chatted made you feel things that you couldn’t describe in words. All you knew was you wanted to be with him till the end of your life, all the worries and hurt long forgotten with just simple grins on your face.

And Sirius was in no good condition. He was over the moon after the first month of your relationship, he knew the moment you tightly held him in your arms while a tear rolled down his eyes that you were the one. The one who would make him feel loved, safe, happy, like the luckiest human alive. The one who acted as his best friend, a sibling, a parent and…a partner for the rest of his life. He craved to just simply old you in his arms after a tiring day rather than kissing feverishly. He wanted to mutter that it would all be alright and he is right there but gulped all the words of comfort in fear.

Sirius desperately hoped he could gather the courage to at least blurt those three words. How stupid of him to think he would get the courage in two months while he had waited two years to ask you out. He always heaved a huge sigh when he thought of it and today was no different.

“Look at that,” James said, staring at Sirius who had occupied the couch in front of the fire in the comfort of his common room. Sirius sat up straight from his hunched position, rubbing his hand and pried his eyes away from the dancing fires to his best friend’s warm brown eyes, “No one is attached to your hips. What a surprise!”

Sirius resorted to a small chuckle and stared at the fireplace again. James scrunched his eyebrows, the Sirius he knew, never, no matter what could remain silent for this long…unless he was asleep.

“You alright?” He asked, taking a seat next to him, “Are you guys fighting or something?”

The fright in his eyes scared James as Sirius hurriedly said, “No, no. Merlin, no,”

“Then what's wrong?” James asked, getting comfortable so that he was looking at Sirius with his full attention. The fire danced maliciously in his grey eyes. James would never not admire how striking they look but he never would admit it to Sirius.

“I…I want to tell her,” he said, and gulped, “I wanna tell her that, but, I just dunno how!”

“Tell her what?” James asked, confused.

Sirius looked at him weirdly and shook his head, “No wonder how Lily had accepted your date offers yet,”

“Hey!” James whacked him over the head. The two boys laughed later falling into a comfortable silence.

“Do you love her?” James asked, this time both of their eyes on the shimmering fire.

“I-I don’t think so,” Sirius sighed lightly, “It's not exactly love, you know. That would be an understatement,”

James whipped his head to look at him. “Not like the usual definition of love. That “I would die for you” and all that shit. It's more like I would live with you, hold you, protect you kinda…thing. It's like, I want to be with her for every second of my life and…do things, have things I never knew I needed or wanted for me,”

“Oh, Merlin,” James breathed, “Is this how I talk?”

Sirius looked at him for a second before laughing and pushing him jokingly, “Piss off,”

James chuckled, “I say you tell her. I am sure she would think the same way,”

Sirius looked at him, “You think so?”

“Nope. I know so,” he said, with that little smirk that Sirius had grown to find mild comfort in.

“How do I tell her then?” Sirius asked.

“Are you seriously asking me? And look what I did there? Sirius-ly,” He said.

“James,” Sirius looked at him warningly.

“Look, if it is anyone, I should be the last person for you to ask advice on how to tell a girl you love her,” James said, “I have been struggling on my own for years, mate!”

“Then should I ask Remus?”

“He would ask you to get a book for her and say “I fucking love you”,” James said.

“Right, then Peter?”

“Nope!”

”Uh, Marlene?”

“She herself is hanging on thin ice,”

“Alright then who!?”

James thought of it for a second before he said, “Think of it yourself you know, come up with a nice, new amazing idea!”

Sirius rolled his eyes.

“Where is Sirius?” you asked Remus the next morning in the Gryffindor common room.

“That shit is asleep like a log upstairs,” He mumbled.

You blinked, “Mr Potter, you gotta do something about your ward’s extensive cursing,”

James laughed as Remus rolled his eyes, “Of course, Mrs Black, I will ground him until he stops cursing.”

Your eyes widened at the name he called you. Mrs Black. You knew he wasn’t talking about Walburga Black but the feel of being Sirius Black’s was something new and exciting and beautiful. Something you loved and feared at the same time.

“Shut up, Mr Evans,” You said, wiping the smirk off his face and making him blush.

“Good Godric,” Remus shook his head looking at the two of you, “Just please for Merlin’s sake get going,”

You chuckled and walked upstairs, the sound of James saying Mrs Black echoed in your head. What would happen next? In a few days would he find you boring and leave? Will you confess…the actual feelings? What would happen then? When will it happen? The questions in your head were overwhelming and now you just needed to see Sirius.

When you reached the boys’ dormitory, you gently pushed the doors open and slowly stepped in trying to not make much noise.

Sirius laid asleep on his four-poster. His hair a wild mess on the pillow, his face turned towards the door, a small smile on his face. You tip-toed to his bed and crouched to your knees to look at him. He looked so peaceful and indeed sleeping like a log.

He looked divine. Relaxed yet gorgeous. You knew how much he impacted your life when you pushed away the hair on his face gently and leaned down to press your lips to his forehead. While you moved to pull the blanket over him properly, you felt him grab your hand with his eyes closed.

Holding your breath, you stood still for a second before realising he was still deeply asleep. He mumbled something strangely similar to “love you, puppy”, before shifting to lay straight on his back, his head inclined to the opposite side but the clutch on your hand never losing its grip. He held your hand as would at any other time.

You didn’t want to disturb him and you had no reason to either. You tried to gently pry his fingers but it was of no use as he woke up with a start. Looking around wildly before spotting you. He laid back on the bed, with his eyes wide open and looking at you accusingly but with a smile nevertheless.

“Sorry,” you muttered.

“It's OK, puppy,” he said, in his hoarse morning voice that you wished to hear for every day of your life, “C’mere,”

You took your place in his arms, snuggling closer to him. Sirius gently kissed your forehead, “Something’s wrong, my darling?”

“No,” you lied, moving closer to him. The warmth radiating off him was extremely comforting, those three words sitting on the tip of your tongue ready to slip out of your mouth any minute.

“Are you sure?” Sirius asked, shifting you in his arms so that the two of you were face to face. You nodded lightly.

With the mere months, Sirius had honestly get to know you rather than hiding behind and taking discreet looks, if he learnt anything it would be to identify every action of yours - he would immediately know if you were hiding something from him and usually Sirius wouldn’t pry the information but today was a different case. The hidden distress in your eyes was somehow blatantly visible to him, and he wanted that to disappear once and for all.

“Love, you know it’s okay to tell me anything, right?” he asked, looking intently into your eyes.

You let out a sigh, you could never hide anything from this boy, he knew every move of yours for your own good. You buried your head into his shoulder, his grey eyes too bright for you to look into.

“What is gonna happen next?” you mumbled. Sirius’ face took a look of confusion as he thought of it. What is gonna happen next?

“I dunno, get ready for breakfast?” He resorted to the more silly answer just to hear your laugh.

You pulled away to look at him, a beautiful smile on your face, “Not that, idiot. I meant like what do we next?”

Sirius leaned up to kiss your forehead, “Whatever my princess wants,”

“I love you,” You blurted without giving it a second thought. With wide eyes, you watched as Sirius' jaw dropped, a look of utter disbelief painting his handsome features.

In a state of panic, you scrambled to get out of the bed. Shaking your head, you muttered, “Forget it, forget I said that,”

“Wait, wait, darling!” Sirius threw the blanket away from him and stumbled to his feet. He rushed to you before you could leave the dorm and took hold of your wrist, pulling you flush against his chest. That’s when you saw it, the inexplicable amount of happiness mixed with disbelief in his eyes that would rival the stars themselves.

“Can you-what-can you say that again?” Sirius said, his eyes watering as he leaned down to place his forehead against yours, gently.

You wiped your own tears, taking his face in your hands as you whispered just for him to hear, “I love you,”

A dry sob escaped Sirius lips as he smashed his lips to yours, his arms around your waist tightening as he kissed you passionately with all the love poured into. He pulled away to look at you in the eyes, his chest blooming with pride and love, engulfing his entire being.

Sirius peppered your face with kisses and pulled away to look into your tear-filled eyes, “I love you too, puppy. I always have and always will, until the very end,”

“Until the very end?” you asked, smiling widely.

Sirius tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, “Until the very end, darling. I still don’t know what we are going to do next but I know whatever it is, it’s going to be with you,”

You leaned up to press your lips to his, letting the two of you drown into the pure mixture of love, bliss and happiness.

And Sirius Black finally understood the feeling of being loved and loving someone.

[siriuslyloonylove]

One Rule, and One Rule Only by siriuslyloonylove

Sirius Black has one rule, and one rule only, about his feelings: “never, ever bother someone with your feelings if they’re busy”. And he’s always stuck to this rule, for example when James has a quidditch match the next day, he won’t wake the boy up if he has a nightmare, or if Peter’s eating, he doesn’t talk about how his parents starved him over the summer.

But the most important person he doesn’t want to bother is Remus, the boy whose problems seem worse than Sirius’, even though Remus repeatedly tells Sirius that it’s okay. The raven haired boy doesn’t want to bother him because what if he thinks badly of me for complaining about my stupid family while he never complains about turning into a werewolf every month?

Sirius knows he’s being illogical with that last bit, but when are feelings ever logical? He logically knows that Remus would do everything in his power to help him, even on the days before and after the full. He logically knows that being in a relationship means having someone to lean on when you can’t stand by yourself. He logically knows that Remus is the only one, besides James, who can help him when he’s feeling down about his family.

But he irrationally thinks that no one loves him, even after Remus spends an hour every night before bed kissing each and every one of Sirius’ scars, telling the boy a different thing he loves about him for every scar on his body, and has yet to repeat the same reason twice even after a year of doing it. He irrationally thinks that he’s only James’ friend because of coincidence, even after he took Sirius in as his own brother when he ran away from home and held him when he woke up in sweats from a particularly bad nightmare. He irrationally thinks that Peter is only his friend because James is, even after Peter smuggles freshly made blueberry muffins from the kitchens when Sirius is having a bad day.

He logically knows that he thinks irrationally, which leads to him bottling up his feelings until one day they explode and there’s nothing anyone can do to calm him down other than getting Remus, because everyone knows the only person he’ll listen to in this state is the boy with scarred skin and curly blond hair.

The explosion happens on a late fall evening of seventh year in the Gryfinndor common room after an eventful meeting with Headmaster Dumbledore.

“Headmaster, you wanted to see me?” Sirius announces himself to the room after walking up the spiral steps that lead to the Headmasters office. He can hear his great-great grandfather muttering curses about Sirius from where his portrait hung on the wall, but chose to ignore the hateful man.

“Oh yes, thank you Mr Black for meeting me on such short notice, please sit” Dumbledore said, gesturing towards the chair sitting across from his desk. Sirius nodded politely and sat down, looking around the room to take in his surroundings as this is the first time he’s been in here without knowing he was in trouble - I haven’t done any pranks this month, so am I in trouble?

As if reading the boy’s mind, Dumbledore laughs and says “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble, I just wanted to have a chat with you about a pressing issue.”

Sirius sighed in relief, shoulders untensing for a short moment until he remembered what the man had said. “What issue? Has Regulus done something? I swear I don’t even talk to him anymore, well he doesn’t talk to me.” He said, nervously playing with the rings on his hands.

“No, no this isn’t about your brother, well it is but it is more about your family in general - I received some unsettling information this morning about the whereabouts of your parents and wanted to gauge your reaction.” The old man vaguely said, leaving the boy confused.

“Okay?” Sirius started, “Have they done something bad-well something worse than usual?” He corrected himself mid sentence.

The old man chuckled at his response, shaking his head in surprise, “I see you already have a gauge for their actions,” he smiled sadly, “But yes, they have done something that they don’t see is wrong.” Dumbledore said vaguely, again.

“Okay? So why am I here, I mean I’m in no contact with my family other than the occasional howler sent to me when Walburga is drunk.” Sirius says as a matter of a fact, not understanding why he has to be here when he could be spending his time with his friends, sadly not with Remus because he has an essay to write in the library with Lily.

“Yes, Mr Black I am well aware of those howlers - we really need to block those coming in, that’s on me - but I am also aware of the fact that you don’t speak with them.” Dumbledore agrees, making Sirius even more confused, “Can you tell me your feelings on that?”

This catches Sirius by surprise, no one has even dared to ask that question in fear that they might get hexed, and he can’t very well go on hexing the Headmaster, so he shakily answers, “Well Sir, it’s not really something that I know how to describe - I wasn’t surprised when they disinherited me, I saw it coming from the moment I got sorted into Gryffindor, but I was surprised when they disowned me, not the family itself but Reg, because that’s when I knew that he had picked a side and it wasn’t mine.”

Dumbledore nods solemnly, “Yes, and who’s side are you on?”, which was the wrong thing to say.

“Are you asking me this because I’m a Black? Are you asking me who’s side I’ll pick in the end because I have incestual blood running through my veins, or is it because dark magic was taught to me before I could speak? Maybe it’s because you think I’ll choose my brother over my real brothers - which you must know that family doesn’t mean blood, love does. And if you think that I’ll pick Voldemort's side, then you’re not who I thought you were, because I’d rather die than let my friends die.” Sirius says defensively, not caring that he’s mouthing off the Headmaster, who doesn’t even have the audacity to look surprised.

Before Dumbledore can even open his mouth, Phineas shouts, eerily calm, from his place on the wall “How dare you speak to your Headmaster that way you filthy little blood traitor, I cannot believe you come from the Noble House of Black-”

“-Silence” Dumbledore booms from where he’s sitting at his desk before Phineas could spit more curses at him. If he wasn’t so angry, Sirius would’ve poked his tongue out at him just to piss off his great-great grandfather even more.

“Now Sirius, I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be, but that doesn’t give you permission to talk to me like that because all I’ve done is help you.” Sirius fights the urge to roll his eyes because he knows damn well that Dumbledore only does things that will eventually benefit himself, he’s heard the exact words come from his parents. “However, I am glad to know that you feel this strongly about the war.” Dumbledore says, smiling.

“Of course I feel this strongly about the war, I’m right in the middle of it and I learned a long time ago that I can’t push myself to the sidelines because someone will get hurt.” Sirius shivers, remembering The Prank.

“Yes, and I should’ve thought of that before having you come here, well now that I know how you’re feeling, you are free to go.” Dumbledore says, making Sirius sigh in relief.

But just as he’s about to get up, he remembers what started this conversation, “What did my parents do?” he asks, looking Dumbledore strongly in the eye.

“Nothing for you to be concerned about.” Dumbledore lies through his teeth, and if Sirius would’ve been more clear headed, he would’ve pressed on but instead he nods and gets up, walking towards the staircase.

“Oh and Sirius,” Dumbledore says as Sirius is about to walk down, “I’d be more careful about who you choose to shout at, you never know if you choose the wrong person in the end” He finishes vaguely. Sirius furrows his brows but chooses not to question it, just nodding and walking down the stairs.

When Sirius gets back to the common room, he immediately goes and sits down on the comfiest chair available, not even noticing his friends trying to get his attention. The only thing on his mind is wishing that Remus was here, but Sirius knows that he won’t get to see his boyfriend until after Remus was done with his prefect rounds after the library.

“Padfoot”

“Pads”

“Paddie”

“Siri”

“S”

“Sirius���

“Black!”

“Sirius Orion Black-Potter!” James says, exasperatedly, finally catching Sirius’ attention with his name changing.

“Huh- did you just call me Sirius Orion Black-Potter-Lupin?! Me and Remus aren’t married, and why did you add Potter?” Sirius says, looking confused.

“Yes! You weren’t listening so I had to get your attention!” James says frantically, moving his hands around in exasperation. “And one, you are a Potter, two you and Moony will probably get married before me and Evans will.” James says seriously.

“I second that last one!” Marlene shouts from across the common room, stopping snogging Dorcas for a second before going back to it. Get it Marlene!

“See!” James shouts happily, excited that someone agreed with him for once, before realizing Sirius’ solemn expression. “Wait what happened? Did you just get back from Dumbledicks?” James asks, reaching up to fix his glasses on his nose.

“Yeah.” Sirius responds, “But it’s fine, I promise, we’re not in trouble” he adds shakily, quickly standing up from his seat, “I’m going to go upstairs and lay down, I’m kinda tired” Sirius ends, walking towards the stairs before anyone can say anything, especially since it’s a Friday.

He hears Peter asking James what’s wrong, but doesn’t stay long enough to hear the laters response. Sirius quickly enters the dorm room and closes the door before taking off his shoes and getting in Remus’ bed and under the covers, taking comfort in the smell of soft vanilla and chocolate.

The tears don’t come immediately, but Sirius also doesn’t realize when he starts crying so he doesn’t really know how long he’s been crying by the time he does realize it. All he knows is that he’s clutching Remus’ pillow in his arms and crying into it because I’m so overwhelmed.

Why would Dumbledore even ask me that? Doesn’t he know how much it hurts to hate someone you love? Doesn’t he know-

Sirius’ thoughts are interrupted by someone opening the dorm room door, making him settle deeper into the bed wishing that whoever it is thinks that he’s asleep. His wish goes unheard when the person sits on the bed next to him. He slowly opens his eyes to see James sitting next to him with a sad smile and Peter standing behind him with a warm muffin in his hands.

“Hey Pads, we brought you a muffin” Peter smiles sheepishly, blushing pink.

“Yeah, and we brought you a cup of your favorite tea, we had to bribe the elves with helping do the dishes for the next week.” James and Peter smile proudly, which makes Sirius start to cry even more. “Oh no, Pads don’t cry! We don’t mind it, it’s worth it to see you feel better! Well I hope you feel better…” James says, looking scared.

“No, I- thank you, I know, I just had a really hard meeting with Dumbledore and I just feel overwhelmed” Sirius hiccuped through his crying, quickly wiping away his tears. “I promise I’m fine, I just needed a moment, but siriusly thank you guys” He tries to smile at his joke, though it comes out more like a grimace.

James smiles at him softly, reaching out to gently pat Sirius’ arm and move the comforter higher up. If Sirius were clear headed, he would push James away because he’s such a mother hen, but right now it comforts him.

“Okay Pads, do you need anything else? I can take over Remus’ shift if you need him” James offers, which makes Sirius start shaking his head muttering ‘no’ over and over again, he sits up and starts quickly mumbling about how Remus is busy and he doesn’t want to bother him, James can barely make it out.

“Okay Sirius, okay, settle down, I won’t get Remus” James promises, wrapping his arms around Sirius gently trying to get him to lay back down, noticing that the tears are falling faster down his face. James looks at Peter with a look that says “go get Moony” who responds with a quick nod and sets the muffin on the bedside table before quietly leaving the room.

“Please, you can’t get him Prongs, he’s so stressed with his essay and his rounds, I don’t want to bother him, please” Sirius cries out, grabbing onto James’ wrists and looking him in the eye. “I can’t let him know how sad I am, please”, his voice breaking off.

“Okay, calm down love, I won’t get him” James says, heart breaking at the sight of his best friend crying. Sirius nods frantically, letting go of James’ wrists to latch onto the pillow again.

Remus can’t see me like this, he just can’t. Would he think that I’m weak? I mean he breaks and rebuilds his bones every month and he doesn’t complain about it, this isn’t nearly as bad as being a werewolf - family issues happen to everyone, they have to, right? What if he breaks up with me because I’m selfish and crying over something that isn’t that bad?

James can sense that Sirius is overthinking everything, so he lays down next to him and wraps his arms around the shaking boy. Fifteen minutes pass of Sirius crying in James’ arms, the later hiccups every once and a while but relatively stays silent, sobbing quietly.

The door finally opens and he gently lets go of Sirius and stands up to give Remus room to climb into the bed, James nods at him, smiling sadly. Remus just looks at him with sad eyes and gets into the bed, wrapping his arms around a panicking Sirius.

“James, you promised!” Sirius exclaims, starting to shake even more, trying to push Remus away out of fear of rejection.

“I did promise, but I said nothing about Wormtail!” James said sheepishly before running out of the room and shutting it behind him and a flushed Peter.

“Fucking dickhead” Remus hears Sirius mutter, making him chuckle sadly.

“Hi, mon étoile” Remus softly says, making Sirius blush even through the tears. Sirius lets go of the pillow and cuddles closer to Remus, laying his head on his boyfriend's chest, even though the irrational part of his brain is screaming at him for it.

“Hi, mon loup” Sirius says, blushing even more at their terms of endearment before crying a bit more.

“Wanna tell me what’s going on?” The curly haired boy gently says, running his fingers softly through Sirius’ hair, making him cuddle more into his chest.

“Not necessarily” Sirius whispers. He would never admit it, but having Remus there makes him feel a lot better even though his mind is racing with irrational uncertainties.

“Can I tell you what I think is going on, and you can tell me whether I’m right or wrong?” Remus says, pressing a soft kiss to the top of Sirius’ head.

Sirius takes a moment to think about it, what if he’s mad at me? Or what if he pities me? But what if he loves me anyways? Sirius’ curiosity takes the best of him and slowly nods his head.

“I think that Dumbledore said something upsetting, or inferred something, about your family and you’re overwhelmed and think that I will think badly of you for having feelings, which by the way is bullshit because your family sucks and I love you no matter what.” Remus says, surprising Sirius, because that’s exactly what he’s thinking.

“What the fuck Moony? Are you reading my diary or some shit?” Sirius says while smiling, wonder and tears filling his eyes while he looks up at Remus to see his face.

“Sirius, I know you, I’ve known you for seven years and have loved you for every single one” Remus says, making the boy in his arms blush, “I know you think no one truly loves you, but I’m here to prove you wrong, for almost the billionth time by the way, because I love you and you’re allowed to have feelings. I know you’re scared that I’ll think you're weak, but you’re not. You’re the strongest person I know, stronger than me, and not to compare trauma, but hateful parents is a lot worse than my furry little problem.”

“But Remus-”

“No, you can’t change my mind about this, you are so unbelievably strong and I’m so proud of you. I don’t know what happened in the meeting, but I do know that it hurt you a lot. Fucking Dumbledore, he better stay away from the shack this next full or the wolf’ll tear him to shreds and I wouldn’t even care.” Remus interrupted him.

“Moony!” Sirius exclaimed, laughing while still crying.

“I’m serious!”

“No, you’re Remus, I’m Sirius.” Sirius said proudly, the tears stopping in favor of being proud of his joke that got old years ago.

“Fuck I walked straight into that” Remus laughed.

“You’re gay.” Sirius said feigning seriousness.

“Sirius! Stop!” Remus said, now crying from laughing so hard. “I’m trying to be- well you know what I’m trying to be, but really, I love you and nothing can get in the way of that, not your family, Dumbledore, not even Azkaban.” Years later they both would look back at this, one hoping it’s true and the other hoping the other knows it’s true, but for now they laugh with tears in their eyes.

“I love you, mon étoile.” Remus says, reaching up to wipe the tears from Sirius’ face and resting them on his cheeks.

“I love you too, mon loup, so much, thank you” Sirius says, wiping Remus’ tears away and leaning up to press a soft kiss on his lips, the love overpowering the sad feelings.

⭐︎

⭐︎

⭐︎

second post for the night! i'm not really sure i like this one, it didn't turn out how i wanted it to and didn't even come close to what my original prompt/idea so yeah that sucks but it's alright. plus i think it was very fast paced and weird but oh well, please tell me what you think though! some people seemed to like it on ao3 (i still don't know how to link it in this post) so i decided to post it on here too :) i think i'm going to rewrite this sometime because it's not my favorite and i think i can improve!!

edit: bahahaha i accidentally named this the wrong name, it's supposed to be "only rule, and one rule only" lmao not "explosive feelings", i mean it was the original title but it didn't really fit so yeah sorry lmao

[gatoplanet]

Remus and Sirius having absolutely filthy sex in Grimmauld to piss off Walburga's portrait

The items of furniture in Grimmauld Place are pedigreed, cursed, or both. Usually both. Sirius and Remus’s first weeks here have been a frenetic haze of counterspells and wood polish.

They’ve also been, at Sirius’s behest, a sort of christening project.

Today, for example, the two of them spent hours working out how to stop Sirius’s great-great-uncle Cygnus’s hand-carved mahogany sitting room table from wailing whenever anyone of less than pure blood came within a meter of it, and now Sirius is sprawled out on the tabletop, legs around Remus’s waist, making noises that would put Cygnus back in his grave, if he ever managed to make his way out of it.

“Harder,” Sirius says, so Remus grabs the tops of his thighs to keep him in place, and gives him harder. “Fuck, Rem.”

Sirius hates this house. He talks to Remus about how much he hates it, mostly to fill the silence that seeps out over them whenever they let their guard down. Difficult to imagine the teenage menace Remus fell for growing up somewhere so quiet.

Might’ve been less quiet when certain people were still alive in it, though.

Case in point, this is the first christening they’ve done quite so close to the front hall. Remus has been regulating himself, but Sirius never had a volume knob, even before he spent a dozen years in a place that encouraged screaming. Which Remus loves, normally, it’s very flattering, but in this particular wing of the house-

The yowling starts, and Sirius groans much less sexily than he had been a moment before.

“That infernal-“ He sits up and bumps his forehead into Remus’s chest. “You could have reminded me.”

“You were preoccupied.”

“Ugh.” Sirius unwinds a leg and nudges Remus away with the ball of his foot. He snatches an afghan off one of the armchairs - also recently unhexed, though they may be off the christening docket after this - and wraps it around his shoulders. Some of his hair gets caught in it, which leaves the rest of it puffing out in a little tousled cloud.

“Bedroom?” Remus asks him, adjusting the sweater he never got around to taking off.

Sirius scowls for a moment, then hops off the table onto his feet, his skinny bare legs sticking out of his blanket cloak like the loveliest popsicle sticks.

“No,” Sirius says. “This is my bloody house, Remus.”

“It is,” Remus agrees.

Sirius turns on his heel and marches out of the room.

Remus gets his trousers back up and fastened around the time he hears a heavy rush of fabric down the hall.

“‘Lo, mum,” Sirius says - shouts, really, to be heard over the portrait.

The screaming stops. Remus holds the silence in his lungs for the long seconds it takes for the portrait to say, “Sirius?”

“That’s me,” Sirius says. “Something you’d like to share?”

Remus makes it to the doorway just in time to see Sirius laugh as the portrait screams, “Disgraceful.”

“Oh,” Sirius says, “you don’t know the half of it.”

“Polluting our home.”

“With gusto, yes.”

“Letting half-breeds besmirch the halls of our fathers.”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“I can hear them.” Glass ought to be shattering, with the pitch it’s hitting. They’ve usually covered it back up before it gets to this point. “Traipsing their filth through the halls, scheming and - and fornicating-“

“Don’t worry,” Sirius beams, “the half-breeds aren’t fornicating. That’s just me.”

The portrait screams a word that Remus doesn’t especially like hearing in reference to anyone, never mind his lover.

“Right you are.” Sirius glances over at Remus and winks. “Just for the one, though, I’ve gotten attached.”

“Profaning this noble house. Spilling your seed in polluted soil-“

“Oh, there won’t be an heir. Not unless there’s something major he’s not telling me.”

The portrait makes a sound that takes Remus a moment to parse. Best he can guess, it couldn’t pick between two unkind words, and tried to scream both of them at once.

“Anyway,” Sirius says, folding his arms, “you’re making a lot of assumptions about whose seed is spilling where, and let me tell you, you are about ninety percent mistaken-“

“Heaven’s sake, Sirius.” Remus’s cheeks are probably the same color as the curtains they cover the portrait with. “Eighty-five, I’d think.”

“You haven’t been formally introduced, have you?” Sirius holds out his arms, and Remus - Remus walks into them, of course he does. He always does. “Remus, darling, this is why I never brought you home for dinner.”

“Beast.” Making eye contact with the portrait isn’t quite like making eye contact with a person. More like trying to make eye contact with a reflection in an angled mirror. “Dumb brute.”

“‘Course,” Sirius says, “because you’re so civilized.”

“You.” The portrait turns back on Sirius. “Debasing yourself for an animal.”

“You’re damn right.” Sirius isn’t smiling anymore. “Just about every day, lately. Haven’t won him over on fucking me during the full, but ask me again in another decade, I’m tenacious.”

The portrait roars, writhes in its painted chair. Snatches forward in a facsimile of three dimensional space.

“And you know the best part?” Sirius has his arms locked around Remus in a vise grip. “I’m in love with him. In love. I worked that one out, no thanks to you.”

“It’s mutual,” Remus adds. “If that’s any comfort.”

“Froth if we’ve got your blessing,” Sirius tells the portrait.

It froths, for whatever that’s worth. Froths and spits and howls and does everything it can to claw back into the world of the living, to pluck the single fruit still clinging to the end of its rotten branch.

Sirius rests his cheek on Remus’s shoulder. “Would’ve been more fun when she was still shambling around.”

“Would’ve gotten you killed.”

“Not if the shock took her out first.”

Remus turns away from the portrait to nuzzle into Sirius’s curls. “Shall we tuck her in?”

They haul the curtains back into place, which doesn’t get rid of the noises, not yet, but muffles the harshness out of them. It’ll wear itself out sooner or later.

Remus takes Sirius’s hand and leads him back into the sitting room. They bypass the table to curl up on the biggest, most austere settee, Sirius folded into Remus’s lap. He fits the crown of his head under Remus’s chin and lets Remus hold him, which is good of him. He’s nice to hold.

“Something for you to look forward to,” Sirius says, eventually. “Twenty years, I give it, before I lose the reins.”

Remus could say he doesn’t think that’ll happen. Instead, he says, “Then we’ll just be mad together, I suppose.”

Sirius pulls back just enough to peek up at Remus’s face. “S’that mean-“

“We’re not shagging on the full, Sirius.”

Sirius hums and cuddles back in. “I’ve still got my wits a while, yet. Give me time.”

[mrsfrecklesmarauders]

Regulus Black Headcanons

• Regulus had an excellent relationship with his brother when they were little. He used to say that he wanted to be like Sirius when he grew up. Sirius loved to hear that.

• They invented the most wonderful games as kids. Involving adventures, pirates, sorcerers, researchers. It was all fun and games until Walburga got annoyed by their yelling and laughter and sent them to their rooms.

• Regulus sneaked to Sirius' room all the time. Shared the same large bed.

• Regulus has Asperger's syndrome. Very poor social skills. Very literal. Says what he thinks all the time.

• That's why he has a better relationship with Kreacher than with anyone else. He has more trust with Sirius and would speak with Sirius for hours about his favorite topics: architecture and music.

• Regulus is a piano expert. He would listen classic music all the time. It relaxes him.

• Regulus is a smoker. A bad habit he learned from his Slytherin "mates".

• Aroace. At first he thought Sirius was with Lupin to piss his parents like he always did. And he didn't understand the real feeling his brother had for that boy. And he said mean things to Remus.

Even though The Blacks hated Sirius rebellious attitude, they had hope that he would become the heir. Orion payed him more attention because he considered Regulus "weak". Everyone payed Sirius more attention. When Sirius was disowned and become a real disappointment, Regulus was now the heir. Everyone treated him differently. Like practical loyalty. The Slytherin purebloods wanted to be his friends. And Regulus enjoyed this attention. He was a lonely before and he didn't feel "normal". Now he was. Regulus let himself be influenced by the facist ideas of the people around him. Voldermort saw in Regulus a very intelligent and talented boy. More than any of his followers. And Regulus was very angry at Sirius because he saw his departure as abandonment. Something that Regulus never thought would happen because his big brother promised he would always would be by his side to protect him. He had lied.

Regulus was the only one who saw Walburga cried for Sirius. So Reggie didn't understand why Sirius could hurt their mother. How could he prefer strangers? The Potters or Lupin?

Later on Regulus didn't like the harsh methods that the Death eaters applied. They had lied to him. They weren't trying to save the Wizarding World. They wanted to kill innocent people. Regulus remembered everything that his brother told him. Sirius was right. Regulus should've believed him. Regulus became obsessed with Voldemort's immortality. And he found out about the horrocruxes. He had Kreacher's help. It wasn't long until he discovered the locket. Now he had to destroy it.

The last thing that Regulus thought before he died was his brother smiling at him. And telling him he was proud.

[kaetastic]

Bound To Be Spilled

pairing: Post-Azkaban!Sirius Black x Harry’s-Former-Crush!Reader

summary: Wrapped in the golden circle had meant Y/N was bound to run into trouble, if only she’d know the trouble was Harry Potter’s Godfather. Only, she had been oblivious to Harry’s glances, and his attempts to court her previous years ago.

word count: 4.3k

warning: fluff, angst?, happy harry, confused harry, unprotected sex, smut, interruptions because why not

note: the reader is of age, of course! she’s in her last year, 18-19 y/o :)) this is also set in order of the phoenix balalalalalalalal sirius black doesn’t die blaalalal he never dies blalalalalalal also i didn’t know what to do with the ?!Reader lmao yes

The elegant green wallpaper of the house had been the standing piece of the pureblood’s proud house. Well, not so much elegant as time paced without a sole concern for the maintenance of the quality. Even though Sirius remembered it being green during his childhood, he believed that the colours had begun to fade away in shades he thought wasn’t even possible. The walls began to look like Swiss cheese, chunks scraped off- vanished to leave a unique design. The unfortunate pieces were probably nudged under moulding furniture or swiped away by the only creature who cared to exert an effort to clean the abandoned place- Kreacher. 

The house lingered after the tragic death of the last remaining member of the Black family to place the property on the minuscule hands of a house-elf as the sole living heir to the house was locked away in the walls of Azkaban. Walburga did not only think her oldest son would rot in the prison after receiving a Dementor’s kiss, but she believed it. She knew Sirius would not come out alive. 

The passing down of the property was a reminder to the next generation who would be receiving the key of their loyalty that prided itself to the generations-worth of being sorted into the right house. To the green serpent. Except, the current holder wished he could’ve found a way to strip every bit that reminded him of his neglected childhood. Although, Sirius wasn’t sure if he was neglected, or he had been the one to avoid his parents every possible moment during his youth. It was more or less of not wanting to hear their voices and wanting to annoy every fibre of their being. 

The framed portrait of his mother that he could not find a spell to yank out of the wall, the room that had been the sole reason for the outrageous family tree, and the house-elf had been only a small list of things he couldn’t get rid of. Oh, the house-elf. It was so easy for the creature to get on the wizard’s nerves that the pureblood believed his tolerance had run short. It wouldn’t be long before Sirius Black snapped towards the elf that never took a liking to him ever since a child. That was what Sirius feared. Locked in the prison walls of Azkaban for a crime he had not committed, he feared he would be chucked back in for a crime he was sure to commit by the murdering of Kreacher.

Despite his hatred for the slimy creature, and how he wished to throw a ragged sock on his face so Sirius could be free from the torture of the elf, Kreacher had been useful in some ways such as cleaning the house. That, and accompanying his mother’s babbling portrait. It had only been a few years since he had left the tainted walls of Azkaban. Years he had tried to set himself in the right mind space, years he had tried to renovate himself, not to be the boy he was but the man he wanted to be. The same years he wanted to change things up in the house he grew up in. Except, he hadn’t found the energy and will to do so. Call it procrastination, Sirius called it refilling his wizard’s magic bar. 

There had been times when he wanted to rip everything, redo the whole house. Despite the engulfing thoughts of him doing productive chores, he could never find himself pulling his body up from the couch to enter his parents’ bedroom nor his little brother’s. The emotion- he couldn’t describe. Maybe he could if he had done a little digging with care; however, Sirius didn’t want to hear the truth. He didn’t want to know what that feeling of sympathy was. So, he steered away from their rooms. It wasn’t accidental laziness. He only intended extending the time he wasted so he didn’t have to face the obstacle. 

With his successful escape from Azkaban, numerous things had changed ever since he had been thrown into the prison. No matter the number of times the shadowy figures of Dementors had walked past him while he cowered in the corner of the cell, nothing would get rid of his youthful personality. That was probably why one name kept echoing in his head. Sirius Black was known to be a charmer during his years in Hogwarts, to say the least, he believed that it had never gone. James had placed such a label on Sirius’s head. The memory of James losing a bet to say the true words had been blurred away. There was no need for a bet as the words had been a prophecy. 

Sirius Black wasn’t sure what to feel after the meeting. It had been fiery as he had expected. Words had been thrown around, over and under the table of where the Order Of The Phoenix was to go with the terrifying news. The news that Harry Potter was to be the new target of Voldemort. He was just a mere boy for Merlin’s sake. Sirius wasn’t sure where he got it from, the sudden rush of a mother bird defending his belief that the young target of the Dark Lord should be aware of what was to come. He stood by it without a quiver in his ageing knees. Harry had every right to know what the Order suspected in the upcoming time. Hell, if it was not rights- Harry must know for his own safety. Except, the Weasley’s mother heart laid elsewhere. 

“You sure you’re all right, Harry? Gave us quite a turn.” The words fell off Arthur’s lips in a swift swerve. 

“Harry Potter.”

Parting from each other quite reluctantly, the parents of the Weasley’s stood by the wall, widening space for the Godfather and his Godson. Harry stood there, eyes dazzling at the figure in joy, a feeling he had latched on for years. The only family he had left. Sirius might’ve not been related to him by blood, but he was a family nonetheless. The young wizard didn’t waste time jumping into the embrace of his Godfather. The warmth he had been craving for so long had finally come under the roof of a house that had only sent him mere creepy shivers, “Sirius.”

Although Harry’s figure that was wrapped in Sirius’s arms had made him smaller, comparably, the pureblood wizard couldn’t help but linger on the thought of how fast the boy had grown. Just years ago, Harry had aided him onto the back of Buckbeak, now, he was a man. Well, Molly Weasley liked to believe otherwise. Despite the sentimental interaction of the two, he had no control of his eyes that trailed towards the leaning figure against the railing of the endless stairs. The pureblood wizard wore a wide smile, no doubt, everyone would assume was from the embrace he had longed for. If only they had known. Y/N returned the gesture. 

It felt so warm, the glowing feeling in his chest in knowing he had the privilege and the blessing to become the Godfather of James’ son. Sirius still remembered when the news was revealed to him. Oh, he felt as if he was swimming over the misty puffs of clouds. As the two figure pulled away, Sirius reluctantly peeled his eyes away from the woman to face the overjoyed wizard, his palms sat on Harry’s shoulders, “How about you go first? I need to grab something from my room.” The boy nodded, the corners of his lips curling up at the soft pat on his back- no different to that from a father figure. Harry could sense the speckle of sorrow at the mention of the word, yet, with everything that surrounded him: family, friends- there was nothing else he wanted more. 

Sirius’s eyes trained on the group that faded to the kitchen, some bustling noise had trickled along the hallway. It was so lively. Finally. The word sung in Sirius’s head. Not everyone was willing or free to accompany the sad old escapee. He knew no one wanted to, especially with the fact that they would have to rest in the pathetic house. The times when he would cower in sorrow had been long forgotten at the uproar of life set by the Weasleys. Especially with the twins who displayed mischief, he could only think of when he was the same age as them. The bunch of their heads were enough to create an army. 

Even though his stomach had endured enough of the sad excuse of meals in Azkaban (well, what was he to expect in such a place?) was growling in anger to why his body began pacing towards the stairs, away from the scrumptious goodness that was baking up by Molly, the wizard didn’t bother to smother care as one thing was plastered across his head. He couldn’t help the corners of his lips curling up at the figure that stood there seconds ago. Steps creaking with every kick of his leg, the pureblood wizard didn’t bother to make his haste pace stealthy. It had been some time since he had seen her. The desperation of needing her body in his arms and her lips against his had blurred out any other thoughts. 

Y/N’s eyes snapped towards the shadowy figure that barged into the owner of the house’s bedroom. It wasn’t exactly her first time in the room that screamed out ‘Gryffindor’ from the simple decorations that built up the empty room. Yet, every time she entered the bedroom, she couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the subtle things that made up Sirius’s childhood. 

There had been some things he was embarrassed about like the pictures of Muggle women clad in bikinis that were magically plastered onto a wall. Even though he had been the one to bind them to piss off his mother who would pull her hair out when she could not peel it off, he wanted to do nothing but rip it out. Especially when he would have a woman screaming his name in his room. Sirius didn’t know what spell would take it off. 

With graceful aid from the warm glow from the spherical light source, the minimal smear of light jabbing from the dim corridor splaying to blur out a smudge around his figure danced with one another to sharpen the figures. A second lingered in the air. A second where their eyes beamed onto each other’s, relishing the other’s outline- though, that only applied for Y/N as he could make out every detail of her. Sirius shut the door. He had to remind himself to make less noise to not quiver suspicion from those who were in the kitchen. Even though he knew they were waiting for him to begin devouring dinner, there was not a smear of guilt in him. Yet, with the pushing suggestion of lowering down sound, he couldn’t help but hear the ancient hinges crying out a plea for mercy. 

Then, the wishes he had begged for during the hopeless days of his pathetic soul locked in the walls of his childhood home came true. The only difference when he was in the prison than stuffed away in the house was the pesky presence of those shadowy blankets were no longer. Oh, he also had more freedom and space to wander around in the house- but still, it didn’t feel good to be bound to a house because a whole government was scrambling to throw you back to prison. A sacrifice it must. Her soft fingers rested on his cheeks, the pads grazing over the curls on his jaw. The trimmed and groomed patch of hair looked great on him. 

The pureblood wizard bit his bottom lip once they pulled away. He took in everything she had to offer, the warm gaze of her eyes, her scent, and the gentle kiss of her fingers against his skin. Sirius had no control over the corners of his lips that curled up. He basked in her appearance, in her presence. 

“Hello, darling,” Sirius slipped out, the warm puff was squeezed out of his chest, heaving the exhalation to pierce her lips. Even though the lamp that sat in the corner of the room had only splayed out a smear of light, he could tell the glint in her eyes had glittered. “It has been some time.”

“It has.” The witch chuckled out as she wrapped her arms around his neck to lower him, the gentle brushing of her skin against the prickling bristles of his hair felt more comforting- far more than when people who lived on the edge or people who cared for animals had petted him while he was in his animagus form. There were times he liked their caring pets, some had even ruffled nasty fleas. Although, some had stood on the tip of their toes as they ran their hands over his fur. It had not been a fun situation to be in. 

Sirius leaned in once again. He couldn’t- no, he didn’t want to resist the urge of his lips on hers. During his youth in Hogwarts, he had spent his time ogling girls. Somehow, he had managed to receive decent marks. Well, he had to give credit to his old pal, Remus Lupin who had been the one to drag him by the back of his shirt to the library. Remus had once also used a silencing charm on the pureblood wizard since the boy could not comprehend the terms of being under a library’s roof. But not one girl he had long histories with made him feel like what he felt when he was with Y/N. It was new. It was foreign. He liked it. His fingers trailed down onto her waist, inching her closer to him while their tongues danced; even though she wouldn’t mind him yanking her onto his chest.

“Look at you. You look dapper in maroon… or is it burgundy?” Sirius rolled his eyes, the sweet song of her laughter was silenced by his lips. Locked away in the house had only meant his head had sprinted for ideas on end. He had tried every little idea that suggested time to pass in a blink of an eye. All from trying out new hobbies such as knitting to playing chess by himself. Sirius had used magic to enchant the board given by Arthur. However, it seemed every time he was up against the spell he had cast, he would lose. Nothing helped but spacing out in dreams he could only ponder hours on end. Dreams of a life where he could saunter across the street without having to bother about being captured. Dreams of a family. 

“I look good in everything.” 

“You look better in nothing.” 

With a quirk of a coquettish smile, she had expected the man to be pulled abruptly at her uncalled words. However, it was Sirius Black. And Sirius always managed to steer away from people’s expectations. Humming at her statement, his fingers descended to grope the swell of her ass. The wizard relished in the way her breath hitched in a gasp. He didn’t bother to make his path down go by unnoticed, he wanted her to feel every drag of his rough pads. Despite their few years of acquainting one another, it felt as if Sirius had learnt a whole load about her. Especially how she liked it. With languid movements and deep gazing into her eyes, he opposed, “I look my best on you.”

“Hm? Why aren’t you looking your best, then?”

Oh. Sirius wanted to do nothing but throw her on his bed, peel off every stubborn layer that stood between the two. He didn’t even think about the guests who were still waiting for his arrival at the table. It sounded too good.

“Sirius! Move your ass, won’t you? Your seat at the head is left empty, everyone’s waiting for the news.” The sweet, sweet voice of Remus trickled into the cracks of the door. Sirius could feel his neck craned down to stare at the sad state of his floor, frustration easing into his muscles. There was great disappointment, irritation, and overall, the need to shake his old friend. Remus didn’t know about the two. No one did- fortunately. Somehow, one way or another, what the two had done behind walls did not leak out… yet. Just yet. 

The pureblood wizard was proud of his achievement; the fact that he had managed to keep such a secret without spilling it all into Remus’s ears meant a great deal. Especially with his Godson. Just the thought of Harry finding out what his Godfather- the man his father trusted his whole life with, had been doing with his former crush would just worsen the boy’s life. What’s worse is that the boy already had the bar of his life’s difficulty high up. Sirius still remembered the time Harry told him of the observing crush he had on Y/N who was roughly three years older than his age. She had been around her fifth grade when Harry was just a mere second grade. 

Sirius recalled the time when Harry confessed he had moved on from the silly crush. The boy did everything he could in hopes she would see him. The hopeless feeling for the older woman was long gone… maybe. Well, that was what he told Sirius anyway. Subtle sticks of flowers, running into her occasionally- nothing had worked. What Sirius did know was that the witch felt something for him, the Godfather of the boy. Before he knew it, he threw himself in a hole, surrounded by revolving gears that would churn boisterously with every slight movement he made. To get out of it, he would have to rest his hand upon the gears. Something was bound to go wrong. It just hadn’t. 

Y/N was more hooked onto the ‘news’ Remus was talking about while Sirius could feel steams of fury huff out of his ears. Seconds of silence hung upon the air. Sirius could feel the negative emotions lift from his chest as he swam through the elating feeling. There were only a few centimetres between their lips before Remus’s voice cladded around their heads, “Have you seen Y/N? I swear I saw her…” 

The wizard pressed his lips, a heavy exhale echoing into the air, quite audible to the man who lingered in front of the door, “No! I haven’t seen her.” Neck craned towards the door to yell out his reply, Y/N muffled her giggles with her hand at his frustration. 

“Come on, old man, don’t want them becoming suspicious.”

Even though the news cracked by some willing members of the Order of the Phoenix had cracked over the youthful heads of wizards had been terrifying which sent shivers down their spines, stolen glances were not wasted. Y/N had to swallow down the chewed up ball of scrumptious meal Molly had made with the chilling fact that the boy she knew would have an enormous red target over his head. And because he was Harry Potter, he had insisted on standing beside the Order, scratch that- join the Order to defeat Voldemort. She wasn’t exactly sure what weapon the Dark Lord wanted according to Sirius’s words, but with connecting vague dots and assumptions, she had made a large leap.

Even if her theory to the weapon had sounded astounding, the fact that Harry had been the victim of many Voldemort’s doings had proved as evidence. Cedric’s death had been a strong proof that Voldemort had returned to his body. Yet, with words and power- eyes were sculpted to narrow onto one perspective: the lies of the Minister. 

Harry bore the mark, Harry cried out for the unfortunate death of the Hufflepuff- but he was portrayed as a little boy who lied, the boy who cried wolf. It was fear. All fear. The Minister was being thrown in the palms of fear, it warped around his mind, pinching the wizard to be blinded by the possibilities of him being thrown from his powerful position. If the man was trying to not shake the entire wizard population, merits could be given for his thoughtful idea. Except, the entire population he did not want to stand on their toes were far from moving… they had been dripping icicles. Well, some. There had been people who were qualified to steer away from the captivating words.

It took some time to gulp down the words. Now, she was gulping down wanton moans even though Sirius had insisted multiple times to let out all the noises. With her knees dug into the red cover of his bed, head planted onto the staggering rocks of the mattress and wrists held by him, there was no longer pain or aching muscles for all of it were overlapped with pleasure. A growl echoed from the pureblood’s throat, guttural, swimming in pools of pleased needs. Needs that had been building up for years. Needs that made way into his mind at the thought of the woman.

He threw his head back at the clenching of her walls against his shaft, Sirius grasped her waist to thrust deeper. Beads of sweat had woven through his hair, damping strands to splay against his forehead. The creaking of the ancient bed trickled into the air, mixed in with the slamming of the wooden post against the wall. Sirius could not bother if everyone was wide-awake, listening to the banging of the walls. Free concert, he tutted. Although, the noise within the walls was much more enjoyable- to Sirius. His eyes grazed over red that had plastered all over his room. The corners of his lips curled up as he remembered his rebel-self during his youth. 

“Oh, fuck, I’m going to cum.” The words hissed out of his mouth sent shivers against her skin, pricking with teasing pinches. Y/N panted, eyes squeezed tight as his thrusts snapped harder. Her lips were parted open, sharp moans stinging out while her fingers clambered into the blanket. It wasn’t long before they chased their own release. 

Once she managed to turn herself, back splayed out on the bed, chest still heaving from the strenuous laps, her eyes narrowed onto the man. Oh, what a sight it was. 

“Full of energy even though you’re an old man.” Sirius threw his head back, boisterous cackling from his lips rebounded from the walls into her ears. The noise finally died down. Y/N finally realized how great he looked with red. Every angle she craned her neck, she would be met with the sole colour. She couldn’t see Sirius with green. 

His arm planted beside her head, the other creeping up her thighs to rest it against his hip, “Who said I’m old?” The same lust-filled eyes gazed deep into hers. 

“Sirius, there’s been some things I’ve wanted to, holy-” 

Eyes snapped onto the door that swung without creak that would cry out whenever the wizard would turn gently. Y/N was the first to react, her hands swung to yank the shivering cover while Harry stood still under the door frame as if he had been cast with Petrificus Totalus. The boy barely realized he was staring at the couple who had just finished one of their many rounds until his eyes trailed to meet his Godfather’s. Red smeared over his cheeks, quite prominently once he had gulped down the fact that he just saw the bare body of his father’s friend hovering over his former crush. Sirius hastily got off the bed, rushing across the carpeted floor- butt still open to the air. Even though he felt this day would come, where the secret would rise to the surface- he did not expect or assume it would be like so. He didn’t even spend a cent on having his Godson running on him bare.

“Just one second.” Sirius murmured, hands yanking up the trousers he had thrown haphazardly all across the room before draping his shirt on over his shoulder without buttoning. The fabric would swing with every churn of his body, exposing the marking that smeared all over his chest, proudly made by Y/N, sprinkled in the exhausting rounds.

Harry only heard the rustling of cloth brushing harshly against skin, swirled into faint mumbling between the two, “Well, time for an explanation, right?” 

“Without a doubt, Sirius,” The boy hissed to his Godfather, his body inches away. The words slipped out of his tongue in whispers. “What are you doing? Don’t you remember that this is the exact girl I told you I liked.”

“Liked, Harry. Past tense.” The pureblood wizard patted Harry’s shoulders.

“That doesn’t make this situation any better.”

“No, it wouldn’t… I don’t do too well with easing tensions, though, there are some times when I would say otherwise.” Harry let out a huff, eyes rolling at Sirius when the man craned his neck towards the woman who sat on the ruffled bed. 

“Just- when did this all happen? When did it start?” Harry gestured towards the two.

“A year ago? Maybe?” Y/N shrugged her shoulder, not remembering when the two had fallen into the routine.

“This is a lot to take in…”

Sirius grinned, his palms slammed onto his Godson’s shoulders, “Listen here, Harry. This isn’t a competition. Because if it was, I would win. Anyway, I hope you can keep this to yourself since we hadn’t really found the comforts to… bring up the story to the rest. Also, don’t say a word to your friends.”

Harry met his eyes that glared into his soul, “I’m not sure how to feel. I guess I’m glad you’ve found somebody? This is just so weird.” 

[loopsforlupin]

A Yes That Changed the World

      Sirius was sixteen when he decided he could take no more. Walburga and Orion were going to kill him. They were. Sirius was sure of it. His mother’s gaze was even colder then usual, and his father, well he had always just ignored his sons, but now Sirius could swear he had seen his father reach for his dagger that he always kept on him, only to stop right before he touched it. They were furious with him. No longer was he the silent lamb they could lead around by the rope, and force their opinions down his throat. No he was a Gryffindor, he was loud, he was opinionated. He spoke out against the dark lord, flaunted his friendships with muggle-borns and half-bloods, he proudly stated what he thought of the supposed “Dark Lord”. For every rebellion, he was beat. He was crucio’d. He was threatened with everything from disownment, to being lead before Voldemort himself for his impudence. Nothing broke Sirius’s will, made him submit to his mother’s cruel desires. Sirius’s body was in a constant state of pain, his cuts and bruises stinging and bleeding randomly throughout the day. Sirius hid how bad he was feeling. He’d give them nothing, couldn’t let them see his flinches, or how badly he was feeling with every step. There was only one thing that kept Sirius from leaving. 

      Regulus. How could he leave his baby brother with them? The tiny baby, who had been thought to weak to live, who had grown up to be a fragile toddler, who his mother had told him to protect. His baby. A tiny toddler with long black curls, who clutched Sirius’s robes and whose first word was “Siri”. Sirius had raised the boy. Had shown him how to walk quietly in the shadows, to avoid their parent’s wrath. Had taught him table manners by the age of two, so that their mother couldn’t sting his hands when he reached for the wrong fork. Sirius’s baby, who learned French and Russian, at the same time he learned English, because their mother had many French friends, and their father had Russian business partners, and it was only proper to be able to speak to their guests in a language they understood. Sirius’s baby brother who could recite the proper pure-blood etiquette word for word, and was the “proper son”, the “ proper Pure-blood”. Sirius had done everything he could to ensure his brother would never gain the wrath of his parents. Surely, now that his brother was nearly of age, surely Sirius could be selfish. Right?  

      It was late at night, long after his mother and father had went to bed, that Sirius finally recovered enough to leave. His mother had punished him severely for his “lack of respect”, because Sirius had commended his cousin Andromeda for running off. Because he had the gall to celebrate her marriage to a “no good, waste of magic mudblood”. Sirius’s cousins, Bellatrix and Narcissa and their parents had been over for a “Family gathering”. Bellatrix had mentioned her sister’s “plight into insanity” and lamented that a once proud member had fallen so far from grace. Sirius had snorted, and looking his insane cousin in the eyes, had stated that Bella should be well familiar with insanity. That hadn’t won him any laughs, and instead resulted in his current situation. His ribs were broken, and if he had to judge, based on the sharp excruciating pain emitting from his left arm, so was his forearm. Regulus had been sent to his room, and Kreacher had been instructed to ensure that the room was sound proofed. The demented elf was all to eager to follow his mother’s order, Regulus had looked scared, and almost like he was going to argue. Sirius shook his head slowly, Regulus didn’t look entirely convinced so Sirius mouthed: “Go, go!” The following couple of hours were mostly lost in the haze of pain. He thinks he remembers his mother’s cold laugh as he cried. His father’s harsh voice yelling hexes and curses so quickly that even Sirius’s naturally beater instincts were unable to dodge the colored spells coming his way. The punishment went on for hours, well into the night. 

      Now his body was yelling at Sirius. No more, it seemed to beg. He knew then, if he stayed, the next time they punished him, it would be his death. His own parents would kill him, and in his mother’s case at least, would laugh as he died an agonizing death. With every ounce of will he had left, Sirius forced himself up, and into his room. A flick of his wand had everything he wanted packed flying into his trunk which he shrunk and placed in his back pocket. He looked around one last time at his childhood room. The posters he had stuck to his walls in an effort to piss of his parents. It pleased him greatly that even when he left, his mother and father would not be able to entirely erase him from their home. Two pictures caught his attention, one of his friends at Hogwarts, their faces laughing and smiling at him from the wall. The other one a picture of his brother and him, when Regulus was younger, and Sirius was in his Hogwarts robes. His brother was clutching Sirius’s robes, his knuckles white and tensed at least to Sirius’s trained eyes. This was the last photo his mother had willingly included him in, and it was bittersweet, because Regulus was losing his brother for the year, and Sirius was about to puke from the anxiety of how he was going to be sorted. It was their eyes that Sirius noticed, both of their eyes were filled with fear. Sirius couldn’t help but remember how after they had hugged one last time, that Sirius had whispered in his baby brother’s ears to remember everything he had taught him, to behave to not make waves, to survive until Sirius was home again to protect him. Regulus had been scared but told Sirius he would try. Then Sirius had been a Gryffindor, had made friends for the first time in his life, had learned to have his own opinion, to think for himself. And from then on, Sirius was the enemy. Sirius wanted the picture, it may be the last reminder he every had of his brother. So with careful hands, he cut the wall behind the picture and stuck that in his pocket. 

      Sirius shut his bedroom door, and made his way to the door he knew almost as well as his own. He didn’t open the door, he stopped in front of it and debated. Should he wake his brother to say goodbye? Would Regulus try to rat him out? Would Regulus miss him as much as Sirius would miss him? Sirius was torn, he wanted to say goodbye, but he didn’t want to have the last memory of his brother being an argument. He had just decided to move on when the door in front of him cracked open. Sleepy slate grey eyes, peered up at him from the fragile face of his baby brother. Sirius didn’t dare to breathe. Regulus looked up at him, his eyes narrowing as he took in his brother’s attire. Sirius was wearing his favored leather jacket, jeans and his black boots. In all, it was his normal bike riding outfit. 

      “You’re leaving.” Regulus stated, his eyes slowly losing what little warmth had resided in the grey orbs. Sirius didn’t think he could physically respond, so he nodded; his head bobbing slowly just once. Regulus pulled the door open wider. 

     “Where will you go?” Sirius paused. He hadn’t actually thought it out to much, just ran on the instinct to leave as quickly as he could. 

    “Probably the Potter’s. James will let me crash for a day or two I’m sure. Then I guess I have to find a flat somewhere.” Regulus looked into Sirius’s eyes, trying to find something. Sirius was unsure what exactly his brother hoped to find, but he kept his expression sincere, he would not lie to his brother.  Regulus soon looked resigned, his face falling. 

    “I guess this is goodbye then. I wish you well Sirius.” Sirius couldn’t breathe. Here was his baby brother, who he had raised, and loved and taught how to survive their unloving and cruel parents, formerly wishing him well, like they were schoolmates who barely knew each other. And Regulus was shutting the door, his baby brother was going to close the door, and that was the last time Sirius would see Regulus. 

    “Come with me!” Sirius blurted out, his voice barely above a whisper, but his tone urgent and panicked. “Come with me Reg!” 

     Regulus stopped his action and looked at his brother. His protector. His sanity in a house full of shadows, abuse, and anger. The lion born from a pit of snakes, who roared his opinion, even when everyone around him demanded silence. His brother who took the brunt of his parent’s anger and hatred, and protected him, was standing in front of him now, telling Regulus that he was leaving, and asking him to go with him. Regulus was fourteen years old and he knew this was a defining moment of his life. If he said no, Sirius was leaving, and he would be alone in this hateful house. Regulus would have no brave lion to shield him from his mother’s anger, or to curb his father’s wrath. Regulus would most likely be pushed into becoming a follower of Voldemort. He would stand on the opposite side of his brother. Or Regulus could say yes. But what would happen to them?  No house? No family title? They would be starting from the very bottom, but Regulus would have his brother. Sirius would protect him, of this Regulus was certain. He was so sure of this in fact that Regulus found he had no good reason to stay. His entire family was in front of him right now offering to take him away from all the horrors in this house. 

      It stunned both boys when Regulus nodded his head slowly once. Then speed up as if he believed Sirius would change his mind and leave him there alone. Sirius’s heart pounded in his chest, and his lungs sucked in a greedy gulp of air. His brother said yes. HIS BROTHER SAID YES! Sirius wasn’t losing his whole family, he was keeping the most important part with him. Sirius grinned at his brother and pushed open the door to the room. Whispering for Regulus to grab his wand, and to stand back Sirius entered the room. He whispered a command to get dressed, and to keep one jacket out. Sirius began to prepare his brother to leave. A flick of his wand, had the entire contents of his brother’s closest getting packed into the trunk. Any lose books, quills, or papers also flew into the trunk as well as When everything was packed away, Sirius took one of Regulus’s formal jackets, and transfigured it into a leather styled jacket like his own. Seeing Regulus’s confused expression, Sirius grinned, the kind of grin that James and Remus would have realized meant terrible trouble. 

     “Trust me Reg, gets a bit cold traveling my way.” Another flick of his wand shrunk his brother’s trunk, which he carefully tucked into his brother’s pocket. Together to the two brothers snuck their way down and out of their childhood home for the last time. Neither of them looked back, the only thing they would have regretted leaving was beside them. Once they were quite a ways away from their old home, Sirius stopped Regulus, looked around to ensure no body was near, before he pulled a chain around his neck out from underneath his shirt revealing a motorcycle charm. With a tap of his wand, the charm grew and grew and grew until an oversized motorcycle sat in front of the brothers. A black helmet with gold embellishments, hung on the handlebars. Regulus gulped. His brother had to be kidding. They couldn’t ride this thing to the Potter’s! Sirius grinned knowing his brother’s thoughts based on his face. 

     “Come on Reg! Time to get going. Hop on after me okay. Make sure your trunk is tight in your pocket. Alright?”  Regulus nodded his head still shocked. Sirius went to pull on his helmet before he stopped. He leaned down and looked at the rocks nearby before grabbing one the size of his palm. Another tap of his wand, and he held a dark green helmet with silver details sat in his hand. 

    “Safety first Reg. Gotta have a helmet to ride Gryff.” Regulus put the helmet on, waited until his brother was seated before climbing on himself. He wrapped his arms tight around his brother’s waist. Sirius double checked that Reg was secure before he started the engine. It growled to life, before settling into a deep purr. Soon enough, Sirius and Regulus were roaring down the road the wind whipping their jackets and chilling them through to their cores. When Sirius thought they were well into the country, and therefore far enough away from prying eyes, he turned his head just enough to catch Regulus’s attention. 

     “ Hold on tight, now’s the fun part!” With no other warning, Sirius pushed a button on his handlebars, and suddenly the brothers were soaring into the sky. Regulus clutched him self tighter to his brother. Sirius let out a laugh, and took them higher, and higher until they were covered by a thin layer of clouds, for any muggle out and about at this time of night. They stayed in the cover of the clouds mostly, only dropping down for a second or two to ensure they were heading in the right direction. Sirius’s wand was occasionally pulled out and a “Point-Me” charm was used. They flew for a while, close to an hour, before Sirius yelled back to his brother again. 

      “Going to land! Hold on tight and lean when I do!” Regulus shouted back an okay, and the bike began to descend. Riding the motorcycle was different from a broom, definitely different from a broom. The descent took a little longer than their liftoff, but soon enough the brothers were lading in a secluded area outside of a beautiful manor house. It was gorgeous. Sirius pulled up to the gates, tapped them with his wand, and passed through them with ease. The pathway leading to the house lit up with their approach, little orbs of light lit up the cobble stone pathway. Eventually they reached the circle drive in front of the manor, where Sirius parked the bike. Regulus got off first, his legs feeling kind of unstable as he stood up for the first time in about an hour. Sirius also got off and stood up, stretching his muscles. With a grin, Sirius wrapped his arm around his baby brother and pulled him up to the steps to the grand door. 

    Unabashed, Sirius banged on the door. His face was bruised, his lips were split, but Sirius was smiling like a loon. His brother was beside him, and his other brother was behind the wooden doors, along with parents who loved and shared instead of shaming and hating. With a quiet creak the big doors were open, to reveal a tiny little creature with floppy ears. Sirius’s grin grew even bigger. He kneeled down and looked at the small creature. 

     “Master Siri? Master Siri hurt?!” “Wotcher Bindy! Think you can get James for me?” The elf nodded and popped away with barely a snap. Sirius turned to his brother, still standing awkwardly and sort of shivering, and flashed him a bright grin. Regulus couldn’t help but send a small grin back, they were together, and that was all that really mattered now. A minute passed before another small popping sound was heard and a shirtless, sleepy looking James was standing at the door, his wand pointed at them. His eyes were still sleepy looking but alert enough to be suspicious. Sirius situated himself in front of his brother, who was a little shocked to see the Gryffindor chaser shirtless and holding a wand on him. 

      “ What prank did I play on Lily Evans in second year?” Sirius grinned doggishly and stood up straight his posture relaxed and sure. 

    “You put a skin-color changing potion in her pumpkin juice, you made her a brilliant scarlet color but changed her hair to gold. Then you called her the Gryffindor Lioness for the next month. She hexed you twelve times.” James relaxed, and rubbed his eyes tiredly. 

      “Dammit Pads. What you doing on my doorstep at four in the bloody morning?” James looked at Sirius more closely, and seemed to finally realize that Regulus was there. Interestingly enough, he seemed to become self-conscious, reaching up and crossing his arms over his chest before acknowledging Regulus. “Uhh, hey Regulus.” An awkward little wave followed. Regulus grinned. Potter was an awkward dork. Regulus grinned and waved back over Sirius’s shoulder. 

     “Hey yourself Potter.” Regulus grinned like a shark, his teeth flashing white in the dim light. Sirius grew tired of being ignored as the other two dark haired boys looked at each other.        “Prongs, you gonna leave us standing in the cold?” That snapped James out of his stupor, and he sheepishly gestured them into his home. Both Black brothers sighed in relief, the feeling of warmth seeping into their bones a welcome sensation after the cold wind whipping at them on their journey. 

      James led them into the kitchen the whole way fussing over Sirius. He had finally realized that his friend was injured, and had began to act like a mother hen which he normally is. Sirius took all the fussing in stride, barely baiting an eye as James forced him into a chair. James called for Bindy, asking her to gather bandages, potions, and to wake his mother. Sirius did start to fuss at that last part.

     “Prongs! Don’t wake your mother for this. I can wait ‘til morning! Seriously Bindy don’t wake Mrs. Potter, I’m fine.” His voice was actually distressed at the idea of waking Mrs. Potter, causing Regulus to tense. Would Mrs. Potter treat them the same way their own mother did? Would she punish Sirius for coming to her home so late? 

    “Pads don’t be daft! You’ve got a broken arm!! I can’t fix that by myself. We need her. Bindy go wake my mother please.” Bindy popped away quickly, her own face worried as she looked at the Black heir. Sirius didn’t seem convinced, but he stopped protesting. His shoulders were still tense though, and his eyes shifted around to look at all the possible exits. Regulus tensed even more. Sirius had driven them here? With a broken arm? He had known his brother was strong, but this was next level of strength.  James having done all he could for Sirius turned his attention to Regulus. His eyes seemed nervous, but he stepped closer to him. 

     “Regulus, do you have any injuries?” James’s eyes seemed to stare through Regulus’s clothes, as if he was mentally undressing him, and imagining all the worst bruises he had seen on Sirius on Regulus’s slender frame. 

      “I’m perfectly fine Heir Potter. Sirius taught me to avoid their wrath from a young age.” James flinched at the formal title his eyes dulling even as a small smile flitted on his lips. 

      “Good, I’m glad you were safe. I’m also glad that Sirius brought you here. No body deserves to be left alone with those... those.... those MONSTERS.” James’s face made it clear that the word monster was inadequate to describe what he thought of the Black parents. Regulus just smiled, tilting his head to the side. James Potter was a strange person. He defended Sirius because they were friends, but why was he so concerned about Regulus? James seemed a little in awe from Regulus’s smile, meeting it with a wry grin of his own.

      The sound of the kitchen door opening broke the little spell Regulus was under. Mrs. Potter was a slightly older woman, but she moved quick as a whip. She was next to Sirius in the time it took Regulus to blink. Her wand was out and she was casting diagnostic spells. Her voice was slightly lower than his mother’s, but it was infused with a sense of warmth. She was muttering spells as she moved, and also fussing over his brother at the same time. Sirius’s face was an interesting color of red, as the matronly woman fussed over him. 

      “Oh you dear boy! What did that horrible woman do to you! You’re black and blue! And that arm! How in Merlin’s name did you travel here with a broken arm! You stubborn boy! You’re lucky you didn’t hurt yourself worse! Wait until I get Fleamont up, flying across the sky on that bike of yours no less! With a broken arm! I ought to to tie you to your bed for your own health! Between you boys I’m not sure who’s going to make me grey!” 

     James was laughing, as his mother was fussing. Sirius was a brilliant red color now, his eyes wide as he watched the matronly woman. He lifted limbs, and moved as she instructed. He barely flinched when she healed his arm, was practically motionless as she then strapped it into a sling to help. He did nothing until she was finished, and she planted a kiss to his forehead, when she moved he looked desperately at James, who was to busy laughing to notice his friend’s distress. 

      Mrs. Potter then turned her attention towards the only other boy in her kitchen. He was a slender thing. His hair not quite long, but definitely shaggy. His eyes were so similar to his brother’s only instead of lighting up with mirth, those grey eyes tracked her movements. She stopped about two steps away from him, her wand clearly in his sight. She noticed that while his face was unreadable, his shoulders had tensed and his eyes shifted to find his brother. He was scared. Unbeknownst to her, Sirius had caught Reg’s eyes and had nodded. She was to be trusted. 

     “Hello dear. My name is Euphemia Potter, but you can call me Effie. Do you need any healing as well? I can’t imagine our Sirius-” here she looked over at the still red faced boy with a motherly smile, “-Let anyone raise a wand to you. But you never know dear.” She turned her attention back to him. Her eyes were hazel like her sons, but where James’s were usually warm and full of laughter, her eyes were full of motherly affection. It was a sight he was unfamiliar with but his heart welcomed immensely. 

     “No ma’am. I’m fine. Like you said, Sirius never let me get injured.” Regulus gave his brother a shy smile, which his brother returned eagerly. Effie looked at Regulus with a mock stern expression. 

    “None of this Ma’am business. Effie I insist. Or if you really feel the need to be formal, Euphemia. Ma’am makes me feel old, and while I’m no spring chick, I refuse to the old hen.”  

      Sirius and James both chuckled, while Regulus grinned. 

      “Euphemia then. Thank you for letting my brother and I into your home. We appreciate your hospitality.” Regulus took her hand and kissed the back of it. 

      Euphemia chuckled, as she curtsied in response. 

      “My aren’t you a little charmer. Sirius! You could learn a thing or two from this young man.” Sirius grinned, his face finally returning to it’s normal pale color. 

      “Nah Effie, who do you think you taught him how to charm the ladies!” Sirius then glanced at James and muttered something under his breath. If Regulus had been closer he would have heard the muttered “And some blokes apparently.” But Regulus was too far to hear the comment that made James turn into a beet root red, but he was close enough to appreciate the way James looked when he was embarrassed. 

    Effie’s laugh tinkled in the room, making all three boys smile. She then called for Bindy to make some tea and some snacks for “her three boys”. Regulus and Sirius both perked up at being included, making James’s heart ache for how starved for family both young boys were. After a quick cuppa and a snack of fairy cakes, the three boys were lead up to their bedrooms. Sirius was placed in the bedroom he utilized when he stayed with the Potter’s for breaks, and Regulus was placed in the room across from his. James told Sirius he would raid his closet for a set of pajamas for the pair of brothers. 

       James returned from his closet with two pairs of pajamas. One set included a white, long sleeve shirt made out of a soft material, and a pair of sleep pants with little gold snitches on them. The other set wasn’t actually sleep wear, but instead was an old black hoodie paired with some grey sweatpants. To Sirius he threw the sweatshirt and sweatpants. He shyly held out his other offering.

        “Here. I don’t know if they’ll fit too well, but since you play quidditch I thought you’d like these. The other pairs.... are a little more Gryffindor colored. I didn’t think you’d appreciate wearing red and gold.” Regulus took the bundle of clothes, noticing that the clothes smelled like James. An interesting mix of spicy and cool, a pleasant mix of cinnamon or cloves, mixed with something citrusy, as well as something that Regulus couldn’t help but describe as warm.  

     “Thanks Potter. These will do great. Loads better than sleeping in a button down and jeans.” James smiled at him again, making a peculiar sensation take hold of Regulus’s stomach, and lower regions. Something to think about later he thought wryly. 

     The boys split up, with the Black brother’s changing into their borrowed clothes. They met up again in James’s room. Sirius, while smaller than James, filled out the clothes quite nicely, with only certain areas being baggy. Regulus however was basically swimming in James’s clothes. The drawstring on the pants, the only thing keeping them up on his slender waist. James upon seeing Regulus swimming in his clothes, had his eyes wide, and kept nervously biting and licking his lips. He also kept crossing his arms and uncrossing them as the boys chatted before bed.

    Regulus wished his brother goodnight, and turned to James. Looking up from under his lashes, he bid the Potter heir a goodnight, before thanking him again. James stuttered out a welcome and attempted to say goodnight as Regulus walked over to his own room. Right before Regulus closed the door, he swore he heard his brother say something along the lines of:

     “Merlin James, that was more awkward then you trying to flirt with Evans!” 

 To which he swore he heard James respond: 

     “ Shove of Pads! You’re no better when you try to flirt with Moony!” 

      As Regulus prepared for bed, he heard the other boys descend into a small argument, which consisted of various insults about the other’s inability to flirt, or their general lack of intelligence. It wasn’t until Euphemia shouted for them to settle down and go to sleep did they finally fall quiet. 

     For the first time in the twelve years that he could consciously remember, Regulus Black fell asleep knowing that when he woke up his brother would be safe, and they wouldn’t have to see their parent’s over the breakfast table. Sleep pulled heavily on Regulus’s eyes, until he fell into a deep slumber, where Regulus dreamed of hazel eyes laughing, a cheeky grin against tanned skin, and his brother’s infectious laughter surrounding him. It was the beginning of a whole chapter in their lives. 

[corinnesamuels]

Guarding the Gates, Chapter 10: A Question of Legacy

Cover art by the amazing @the-dream-team!

“I’m surprised you came.” Regulus says as he turns back to observe the ducks. 

“I am too.” Sirius replies. “Though, if you could get on with it, I do have things to do today.” Sirius hates how easily his voice slips back into the cadence his family had beaten into him growing up but sounding like a detached aristocrat was usually the best course of action for conversations like these. 

Regulus hums lightly. “Carrying out Dumbledore’s bidding, I presume?”

Sirius rolls his eyes in exasperation. “What is it you called me here for? It isn’t to kill me because we both know you don’t have the stomach for that. Did your master want to send a message, then?”

Regulus gives an incredulous laugh as he turns to face his brother fully. “You think you’re important enough to receive a message from the Dark Lord?”

“Surely, I’ve taken down enough of his followers to have caught his attention by now.” Sirius makes a show of idly scanning the crossword.

“Enough for him to wonder why you’re turning your back on the people of our birth and the legacy of our house, perhaps.” Regulus brushes an invisible piece of lint from his sleeve. “But no, I’m here on my own accord.”

“And the purpose is?”

“My purpose is to discover why you always insist on playing for the losing side.” Regulus says. It surprises Sirius to realize how well he still knows his brother. He recognized the slight hitch in his voice. Others may have thought Regulus was taunting him, but it isn’t a taunt in his voice. It’s concern.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about me? Mother and father will be apoplectic when they find out.” 

“Yes, because you have shunned everything they wanted for you!” Regulus grips the back of the bench tightly before dropping his head in frustration.

“What they wanted for me? Pureblood fanaticism, inbreeding, and a penchant for dark magic? I’ll pass on that if you don’t mind.” Sirius tucks his newspaper into his jacket pocket and begins to stand. “Well, if that’s all—”

“Legacy, Sirius.” Regulus cuts in through bared teeth. “Does that mean nothing to you?”

“What in our legacy do we have to be proud of, Regulus?” Sirius barks out. “The only things worth mentioning are things our parents despise. I only learned those things  because  they despised them.”

“Our parents wanted so much for you.” Regulus shakes his head in exasperation. “The named you after the brightest star in the night sky—”

“Here we go again with this bollocks—”

“They placed their hopes for our family’s legacy on you. And you have treated it with scorn since the very beginning.” Regulus says. “And spending all of your time with Potter has only made it worse.”

“I treated it with scorn because that’s what any decent person would have done, Regulus. I’d tell you to try it sometime, but you love taking up the mantle I left behind, don’t you?” Sirius says it sarcastically, but something clicks in his mind as soon as the words leave his mouth. He whips his head back to Regulus. “You don’t.” 

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Regulus says dismissively, but Sirius knows better.

“Mummy and Daddy’s expectations are weighing on you more than you’d care to admit.” Sirius says as he walks closer to his brother. “Their hopes and dreams suddenly feel like burdens to you, too, don’t they?”

Regulus doesn’t answer. He just stares across the park as a means of avoiding eye contact with Sirius. Sirius takes a deep breath and takes another step closer.

“You don’t have to fight for him just because they tell you to.” he says. 

“What, you want me to come to the losing side? You want me to believe that your friends will welcome a Death Eater into the ranks?” Regulus shakes his head and laughs in disbelief.

“Who said we’re losing?”

“The people that keep deciding the terms of the fighting.”

The two brothers stared at each other defiantly, though neither of them knew quite why. It was a posture they had adopted once Sirius had moved out at 16, one that made little sense then and made even less now.

“It seems as if we disagree on who is losing.” Sirius says before giving Regulus a questioning glance. “Is that the only reason you joined them, then? Self-preservation and our parents’ expectations?”

“I couldn’t care less about power, Sirius.” Regulus waves a hand dismissively at the thought. “What else is there besides self-preservation and our family’s legacy?”

“Deciding to do the right thing.”

“The concepts of right and wrong always were so black and white with you. Until the day you found yourself in the grey area.”

Sirius clenches his fist and just barely refrains from punching Regulus, though he desperately wants to. “We have a chance to make sure our family’s legacy includes being on the right side of this.” He says through gritted teeth before sighing and running a hand roughly over his mouth. “Look, Reg, come with me to Dumbledore. He can keep you protected, and you can see what life is like when you aren’t being forced into things you know are bollocks. You don’t have to keep doing our parents’ bidding.”

“You’re willing to die behind this…this folly?” Regulus asks quietly. 

“Yes.” Sirius says simply. For a moment, he thinks he may have won Regulus over. But then he sees his brother’s eyes glaze over into the aloof unbotheredness that was the Black family’s emotional default—when they weren’t deranged and sadistic like Bellatrix or Walburga. 

They stand there for a while in silence before Regulus takes a step backward.

“Be careful, Brother.” Regulus says. Sirius shakes his head and begins to stalk away when Regulus calls out to him. “I’m surprised you haven’t changed your last name to ‘Potter’ considering how much you’ve taken to acting like them.”

Sirius stops to turn to Regulus once more and laughs in spite of himself. “And miss out on the opportunity to piss off Mother and Father by dragging the family name through the mud? Never.”

   The War was becoming more tense by the day. There were more Death Eater attacks of muggle villages, more disappearances, more suspicions of Ministry officials being under the Imperius Curse. The Order of the Phoenix was often tired, and there had been several close calls, but their resolve remained. 

Despite the dark cloud hovering over the wizarding world, or maybe because of it, many young couples were cutting their engagements short, choosing to get married quickly because they saw every day just how short life could be. People the Marauders, Lily, Dorcas, Marlene, and Mary knew from school joined in the fray. Henry MacMillan and Aurora Gade married just two months after getting engaged. Penelope Parkin and Ian Abbot married after just two months of dating. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when Alice and Frank announced after an Order meeting that they would be doing the same. They’d held hands while making the announcement, exchanging looks that were equal parts adoring, frightened, and resolved. It was new for many of the Order to see them like that. It was no secret that the two had been dating, and in the rare instances when they all gathered to let down their collective hair, the couple looked as smitten and loving any other young couple looked. But in Order meetings, they were fighters, Aurors on a secret mission flying below the Ministry’s radar. To see them this way was a rare glimpse of their private selves, the ones they reserved only for each other.

When Dorcas made a statement about it being swoon-worthy a little too casually, Lily knew her friend was refraining from letting her eyes drift over to Remus Lupin. Lily couldn’t really say for sure, though, because she had been too busy trying not to let hers drift over to the man standing next to him. Lily was happy for Frank and Alice, and she loved that they had found love in each other in ways that worked for them. A part of her wishes she felt that it was something she could have for herself, but how could she risk that now? As a muggle-born? As a member of a resistance group operating outside the confines of the law? As someone who had seen how love can be used to break people in ways that still haunt her nightmares?

Read the rest at ao3!

Start from the beginning

[fanficflaneuse]

The Party

Index 

A/N: After a few days of going MIA, I’m back with a piece taken from two similar requests. I hope you like it. If you requested something, please be a little patient. I’ve had some rough days and I’m going back to my working mood :) 

Have a very nice weekend! 

Details:

Draco x sister! Reader / George Weasley x Malfoy! Reader / Harry x Malfoy! Reader (platonic)

Word count: 3460

Summary: Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy aren’t home, so reader convinces her brother, Draco, to throw the party of the century. 

“Come on, Draco,” whined (Y/N), “it’s going to be fun!”

(Y/N) had been trying to convince her younger brother to throw a party. Their parents were in France on some distant relative’s funeral and wouldn’t be back for a whole other week. She figured that doing something fun with her brother would rekindle their relationship, which had been strained for years now.

Draco was two years younger than his sister. Before Hogwarts, they adored each other. Draco looked up to her and almost idolized her. Then, she was sent off to school. The sorting hat took a long time with her and ultimately placed her in Gryffindor, much to everyone’s dismay. (Y/N) could still remember, like it was yesterday, the fear that consumed her as she sent a letter to her parents. She was expecting a howler that would fill every corner of the castle with the news of her disownment. Their silence was deafening. For a week, she had nightmares with her father burning her face from the family tapestry.

Then, on the first Sunday after her arrival, Professor McGonagall guided her to Headmaster Dumbledore’s office. For a second, there was a glimmer of hope. Maybe it was all a mistake. Perhaps she could be sorted again and her parents would be proud. As she set foot on the headmaster’s quarters, though, her face fell. As she found herself face to face with her parents, she gulped. Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore left them to talk, not without giving the first year encouraging smiles.

As (Y/N) and her parents stared at each other, she decided she’d show her courageous Gryffindor side. She had always been very rebellious. Even when she played the part of the perfect pureblood, deep down she knew it wasn’t something she wanted for the rest of her life. A lot of what her parents said also didn’t sit very well with her. And this was the decisive moment.

“Mother, Father…I’m sorry.” Regardless of how hard she tried, her voice cracked. Her vision became blurry a few seconds later.

“(Y/N), dear,” her mother said, engulfing the girl in her arms.

(Y/N) sobbed in her Narcissa’s shoulder. She thought she would never feel her mother’s embrace again, yet here she was, rubbing her back and all. The relief she felt was crushed by the fact that she still had to face her father. Narcissa wiped away her daughter’s tears and gave her a reassuring smile, like she had done so many times before. Lucius then came forward, his expression unreadable. He put his hand on (Y/N)’s shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze.

“This was…unexpected, to say the least. But there is nothing to be sorry about,” he said. (Y/N) still couldn’t decide if this was a good or a bad thing.

“Y-you won’t disown me?” she asked nervously.

“Of course not! Where did you get that idea from?” her father said.

Both Narcissa and (Y/N) shot him an “are you serious” look. Everyone around them was way too keen on having their children sorted in Slytherin. Disownments, banishments and the likes were concepts that adhered to a pureblood’s vocabulary even before they could spell their names.

“My child, I can only imagine how scared you have been in the last few days. I am very, very sorry. If the sorting hat placed you in Gryffindor it is because you will be a great fit in that house. And that is it. Right, Lucius?” Narcissa’s voice was equanimous, but she eyed her husband sternly.

“Right,” he mumbled.

“We won’t lose a child to some tradition. We love you too much to care,” she continued.

That day, (Y/N) learned about her mother’s aunt Walburga and her cousin Sirius. Narcissa vowed to never repeat that story. Even if her father winced when she mentioned that she had befriended the Weasley twins, she knew they had her back. She left Dumbledore’s office feeling like the luckiest girl alive.

The bliss, though, only lasted a few months. When she went back home for the Christmas break, she noticed how something had changed between her and her brother. As much as her parents reassured her, she swore he treated her differently. The adventures around the manor ended, as he claimed they were too old for that nonsense. Every time they were alone, she felt guilt and shame around him, as though he was always judging her. It made her sad. And she found refuge in the letters she received from the Weasley twins, especially George, who had become her best of friends.

Things turned for the worse when Draco arrived in Hogwarts, strutting with a posse of eleven-year-old entitled purebloods like he owned the place. Of course, he was sorted into Slytherin. He never looked her way after that. (Y/N) guessed that now he was bothered by everything she did, everyone she befriended and everything she stood for. She decided not to let that get the best of her and instead shared love and friendship to her newly found Gryffindor family. George and Fred’s little brother, Ron, had come to his first year as well and she took his little gang under her wing, especially Harry who had been brought up by some horrible muggles.

As the years went by, as much as Draco tormented the golden trio, she comforted them. When he bullied them, she apologized. When he said mean things, she always had a comeback. She even told on him with their mother when he was particularly mean, warranting weeks without her famous the care packages.

This year, though, (Y/N) had decided to declare truce. When they got back for the summer, Narcissa locked herself with her daughter in the piano room. They talked for hours about everything and nothing. Narcissa begged her daughter to reconcile with her brother. She told her how afraid she was of her son’s fate now that it was very clear that the Dark Lord had come back. She knew that, if the time were to come, (Y/N) wouldn’t choose Voldemort and she wished with all her heart she could take her brother with her.

(Y/N) took this conversation to heart. She was about to start her last year in Hogwarts and she didn’t want to finish her school having lost her brother completely. She thought a party would be the best place to start. They could have fun together, an occurrence unseen for many, many years. Also, after four years of sneaking around with the golden trio and Fred and George, she realized that there’s an especial kind of complicity between people who shared a secret. She wanted that kind partnership with her brother as well.

After much convincing, Draco agreed. He was expecting a gathering with their pureblood friends and acquaintances, perhaps a very selected group of people to talk and gossip for a while. Maybe if she saw him in his element he could show his sister that he was also worth her time. Draco was definitely not expecting the avalanche of people that flooded the manor. All of a sudden, he was surrounded by people from all houses and blood statuses. The seventh years brought fire whiskey and muggle booze. The music was raging. He looked in disbelief as Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint raced their brooms in their mother’s garden. He was disgusted by two seventh year Ravenclaws getting handsy by the staircase.

As he walked around, he encountered some of his friends. Pansy was sulking because Daphne had ditched her to dance. Blaise had already joined in the fun and Theo sat on a sofa between a cranky Ravenclaw and a very shy Hufflepuff. Crabbe and Goyle were nowhere to be found. 

“Are you having fun, Dray?” as he turned around, he saw her sister. One of the twins, who he didn’t bother to identify, had his arm draped around her shoulder.

He wanted to tell her that she was in big, big trouble. He hadn’t agreed to this. And how it was annoying and disrespectful and inappropriate and…then he saw the infamous golden trio behind her. They were talking to the remaining Weasley twin and eyeing his home in awe. If he had been pissed and annoyed at her sister, he now felt like he would combust in any second.

Draco shot his sister a murderous look.

“I thought you’d have some more respect for me and our home,” he said icily before storming off.

(Y/N) was very confused. Her friends eyed her worriedly. George held her closer to him.

“(Y/N/N), are you okay?” he whispered softly in her ear.

George and (Y/N) had a one of a kind relationship. They knew they liked each other. Back in fourth year, she had told him bluntly. He admitted his feelings as well. They had never made it official for reasons unknown even to them. They had shared a couple of kisses and sometimes they’d walk around with their arms wrapped around each other. They’d flirt a lot. And yet, if anyone asked them, they were both single.

Under different circumstances, she would’ve blushed a little because of how close he was. Maybe, she would’ve even flirted. Right now, her gaze was fixed on her brother’s retreating form.

“Should we leave?” asked Hermione sheepishly.

(Y/N) looked at her wide-eyed, realizing how rude her brother had been to them.

“Of course not,” she answered coolly, “I’m sorry Draco is so rude. Enjoy the party. I’ll go talk to him.”

The group scattered around. (Y/N) pecked George on the lips before she went to find her brother. She didn’t have to search too much; she knew exactly where Draco hid whenever he was upset. She walked up the stairs, were the party was just a distant rumour, and walked towards a godforsaken wing of the manor. After passing through a series of judgmental portraits, she pushed a heavy door that lead a spacious room. The only thing inside was a huge, empty wardrobe, which (Y/N) and Draco used as their own playground.

She smiled at herself, knowing that even if they had outgrown their playground days, that place remained a safe haven for both of them. She opened that door softly and found her brother huddled in a corner of the dresser, his face hidden in his arms. (Y/N) took a seat by his side.

“It’s been a while since we last played here,” she said.

“It’s a miracle you still remember,” he sniffled.

“How could I forget, starlight? It was our favourite hiding place,” she said fondly, calling him by a nickname she hadn’t used in a while.

Draco looked at her for a minute. She noticed his tearstained cheeks. “Well, now you’re so busy with Potter and your blood traitor friends, you hardly look my way anymore,” he countered bitterly.

Something clicked in her mind instantly. “Is that what this is all about?”

“You’re replacing me with Potter. Why wouldn’t you? He’s better than I am in absolutely everything. You send him presents, you cheer for him in quidditch, you’re always looking out for him. You’re like…like we used to be.”

Draco hid his face again in embarrassment. Once she heard his sobs, (Y/N)’s heart broke.

“I honestly hadn’t realized you thought that way until now. But I’d never replace you, starlight. You’re my brother. The things we’ve been through, the things we share, the memories we have together, those things have bonded us for life. It killed me every day to think that you hated me for not being the perfect pureblood sister. You’re the person I love the most and thinking that I wasn’t good enough for you…it made me so, so sad.”

Draco lunged forward and hugged (Y/N) tightly. “(Y/N), you’re my sister. Yes, you could be less boisterous, more proper…” (Y/N) raised her eyebrow. “But I wouldn’t change you for the world. I’ve missed you so much.” (Y/N) rubbed Draco’s back, like their mother did. She remembered what she said when they first arrived for vacations.

“I’ll always be here for you, Dray. And Harry’s not better than you. You’re just two different people. I won’t lie: I really love and appreciate him and I do try my best to give him some sisterly love because Merlin knows he hasn’t had much of that.” Draco tried his best not to scoff. “But you are my real brother. I don’t prefer him over you! And I’m here to reassure you, coddle you and hide in a closet while the party of the century is happening downstairs.”

Draco chocked out a laugh and hugged his sister tighter. He didn’t feel like moving just yet. (Y/N) understood he needed the embrace and so she stayed still, combing her brother’s hair with her fingers until he calmed down. She enjoyed the moment and realized how much she had missed the role of Draco’s big sister. He was such a gentle soul and even when they were kids she knew she had to be careful.

“I think…I think we can go downstairs now,” he announced timidly.

(Y/N) chuckled and nodded, refraining from teasing him. Once they were downstairs, her eyes met George’s. He sat in a circle with a bunch of people. She identified the golden trio, as well as some of Draco’s friends. Angelina Johnson was also in the group and so was Alicia Spinnet. (Y/N) dragged her brother to the circle.

“Be nice,” she mouthed to him as she took her place by George’s side.

“We’re playing spin the bottle,” said Lee Jordan before giving the bottle a spin.

A few rounds in, everyone teased (Y/N) on how she hadn’t kissed anyone. So far, Draco had given Katie Bell a peck which left him blushing. Ron and Hermione shared a sweet kiss. Harry kissed a giggly Daphne Greengrass. Theo smooched Fred, who also brushed lips with Angelina. Pansy Parkinson stamped her lips on Vincent Crabbe’s on what must have been the most dispassionate kiss of the night.  

After George and Alicia shared a quick kiss, it was finally (Y/N)’s turn. She had to kiss Blaise Zabini, on of Draco’s friends. She wasn’t very sure about kissing a younger boy at first. She asked him three or four times if it was fine with him, until he made the first move. The kiss started slow and shy and then Blaise grabbed her hair and pulled her to him. Her breath hitched and she kissed back passionately. How old was this boy and why did he have so much experience?

When they pulled apart, her head was spinning. Draco was looking at them, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets. Some people were cheering on them, particularly on Blaise. His friends were congratulating him on being a “ladies’ man”. Her friends were shocked. She still didn’t know what to make of the situation, until she realized George had left the circle. Fred couldn’t help to shoot daggers at her.

“Excuse me,” she said standing up.

At a distance, she heard Blaise boasting and Draco threatening him. (Y/N) rolled her eyes and walked through the sea of people in search of George. ‘Why do I keep chasing after people tonight?’ she groaned when she failed to find him within five minutes.

She went out to the gardens to try and think. (Y/N) sighed in relief as she recognized the familiar mop of red hair. George was pacing around. As soon as she saw his face of disappointment, she hated herself for accepting to that stupid game with that foolish boy. She should be dancing and having fun with her crush instead of having to mend broken hearts.

They stood in front of each other. George didn’t want to meet her gaze. For years, he thought that their arrangement was the best for them. The love and attraction were there and none of the drama. They could be partners in crime without the messy bits of a relationship. So far, things had worked in their favour. But seeing her smooching that Zabini git had made him change perspectives. For one, he was jealous. He hated every second of that awful feeling. And he realized he wanted to be (Y/N)’s boyfriend. He wanted everything, including the messy bits. He wanted dates in Hogsmeade. He wanted to take her home as more than just “the twins’ friend”. Now she had kissed that Slytherin and he felt like he didn’t stand a chance.

“I know Blaise Zabini could a better match than me,” he sighed.

(Y/N) eyed him quizzically. “What are you talking about?”

“We all saw how eager he was to kiss you. He might be a bit young now, but eventually he’ll probably try to date you and marry you and be the proper pureblood family you were meant to have,” he said his fists tightening with every word.

“Don’t be silly, Weasley,” she answered, moving towards him, “you know you’re the only one I want.”

She kissed him then. It was passionate and blissful. One of his hands travelled to her hair and his fingers tangled on her ringlets. The other hand squeezed her butt. (Y/N) moaned and bit George’s lip.

“Be my girlfriend,” he said against her lips before capturing them again.

“What are you doing to my daughter?!” roared Lucius Malfoy from behind.

Like a deer in the headlights, both teenagers turned around to face the Malfoys. Narcissa and Lucius looked at her, a mixture of rage and disconcertment in their faces.

“(Y/N) Narcissa Malfoy,” her mother’s voice was stern. She might be loved and spoiled by her parents, but the look they were giving her at the moment was one that assured a punishment to kingdom come.

(Y/N) noticed her little brother standing behind their parents, a smirk on his face. She guessed he washed his hands off the matter and was waiting to see her punished for their party.

“Bloody snake,” she muttered.

“Hey, don’t call me that! You got yourself in this missy,” he huffed in response, not even concealing the pleasure this was giving her.

“I thought we had magically rekindled our relationship?”

“We did. Does it mean I’ll magically take the blame for your mess?” he said smugly.

“Your friends are also here,” George retorted. He still had his hands on (Y/N), a fact the whole family was trying to ignore until he brought the attention to himself.

“What are you…what is…why are there…drunk people…my garden!” Narcissa was so taken aback she couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. Lucius was eyeing here warily; the only other time she behaved like this he had been banished from their room.

Narcissa went back inside, were everything was eerily quiet. The teenagers who just a few minutes ago had been dancing and drinking stared at the Malfoy matriarch. The music had stopped, just as any bit of conversation. She walked to her precious mahogany table in the common room, where the students had set all of the alcohol, and took a bottle of firewhiskey that hadn’t been opened yet.

“Everybody who I did not create, get out of my house right now!” She didn’t even raise her voice, but it had such a sharp edge to it that everyone in the grounds heard and complied. A sea of Hogwarts students ran out of the door.

George made a move to leave as well, but Lucius stopped him.

“No, you stay,” he said bitterly, “if you’re man enough to touch my daughter’s arse then you’re man enough to stay and listen to what I’m about to say.”

Both (Y/N) and George blushed profusely. Draco faked gagging and Lucius was about to start a lecture when Narcissa came back. She took a swig of the firewhiskey straight from the bottle. Lucius was glaring at George; but even as intimidating as he tried to be, the three teenagers saw how afraid he was of his wife’s glare.

“You,” she said motioning to George, “out.”

“Mum…” (Y/N) tried to intervene.

“Don’t you dare, (Y/N). Don’t you dare,” her tone was almost murderous.

George kissed (Y/N)’s cheek and walked out, biting his lips to hold in his laughter.

“When I wake up tomorrow my house better be pristine or you are going to be in a lot of trouble. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, mum,” (Y/N) answered, not wanting to meet her gaze.

“You two,” Narcissa motioned her husband and son, “to your rooms. Now.”

“But mum, won’t you punish (Y/N/N)? Look what she did when you were gone!” Draco pressed on, behaving in absolute Draco fashion.

Narcissa drank from the bottle again and Draco’s eyes widened.

“Listen to me, Draco. I am going to say something to you and I’ll only say it once: stop being such a little bitch.”

As soon as she said that, (Y/N) burst out laughing.

“I love you, mum,” she said.

“Don’t push it, (Y/N).”

Tags: @cleopatera @okaydraco @naomi02hook @the-hufflefluffwriter @the--queen-of-hell @honeymarvel @blisfvll @icintliviinyiniilsiji @gloriousrebelrunaway @heistmaster69 @victorialynn7 @inkhearthes @wollymalfoy

[ourloveisforthelovely]

Mother doesn’t know best (one-shot)

Regulus Black AU 

Summary:  Walburga upsets Regulus. You will always be there to pick up the pieces.

Pairings: Regulus Black x Reader 

Rating: M- smut

______

You could tell from the moment that Regulus walked through the door that he was in a hell of a mood. It didn’t take the two of you to be together for so long to know when he was in a horrible mood. You couldn’t help but be curious about exactly what Walburga did to piss your lover off so badly.

Regulus took his coat off and let it drop to the floor. Normally he would have neatly put the garment back in the closet. Regulus hated wrinkles and would have a fit if his coat had the slightest wrinkle on it. You would spend hours listening to him bitch about how annoying and sloppy wrinkles were.

You didn’t say anything as he sat down on the sofa and stared at the TV with a glare on his face. That look...you knew that look very well. Any time that Regulus was the least bit displeased THAT was the look that you saw on him.

Giving Regulus a few moments to cool off, you hung up his coat before turning around. Regulus’ grey eyes were still locked on the television. You crawled behind Regulus and wrapped your arms around him from behind. Normally you cuddling Regulus was enough to calm him down from whatever stupidity that his parents had caused.

Touching was your method of providing him comfort. It had been from the moment that the two of you had become a couple. While you came from a family that wasn’t the least bit hesitant to show each other love and affection, Regulus didn’t. The poor boy was touch starved from the moment that he was born. At first, Regulus was hesitant about returning a hug or letting you snuggle him. It only took a month for Regulus to enjoy the cuddles enough to be wrapping himself around you at any spare moment.

You snuggled your face against Regulus’ shoulder. He didn’t say a word as you proceeded to pepper his neck with kisses.

“Want to tell me what’s eating you?”

Regulus groaned but didn’t say anything. Mentally shrugging, you continued to kiss the same path over and over before getting brave and biting down on his earlobe. Regulus wiggled himself loose and rolled his eyes.

“Just stop, would you?”

Had he not been in the mood from hell, Regulus would have seen how stunned and baffled that you looked. You looked as if you had been knocked off of your imaginary unicorn. Regulus turned and walked out the door to the back garden leaving you blinking after him.

This had been the first time that Regulus remotely took his frustrations out on you. Normally that was never an option. It wasn’t your place to take the blame for his issues “whatever they were.”

You didn’t move to go after Regulus. When he was ready to talk about whatever it was that he was going through...he would come to you.

An hour later, you sat on the couch reading a book that you had borrowed from Remus. You were so lost in the story that you hadn’t noticed that Regulus walked back in. You also didn’t notice the embarrassed expression on his face. Truth was, Regulus felt awful. You didn’t deserve him taking his frustrations out on you. It wasn’t your problem that his mother knew how to suck the life out of anyone within five minutes.

Regulus wasn’t about to tell you that the reason that he was so pissy was because of his mother’s insistence that the two of you produce an heir. You didn’t need to spend the evening and the next few days wondering if you were “good enough” to be his wife. Regulus would stop that from happening at all costs.

As Far as Walburga was concerned, it didn’t matter that Regulus told her that you weren’t physically able to do that. Walburga didn’t seem to understand the words “it will not be happening.” Regulus accepted it and it was time that Walburga did too. If she was so desperate for an heir then she needed to go talk to her eldest son. Regulus assumed that Sirius probably had a few kids running around out there. The way that Sirius “got around” it wouldn’t be surprising if the Black family had multiple new family members that no one knew about.

Regulus waited a few moments for you to say something to him but you didn’t. He smirked when he realized that you didn’t know that he was in the room. Shaking his head, Regulus gently snatched the book away.

“Hey!”

You whined. Regulus gave you a smile before kneeling down in front of you.

“Hi.”

You reached out to stroke your fingers through his hair.

“Hi... I suppose that you are having a bad day?”

You said softly. Regulus nodded, taking his hand in your and kissing each fingertip.

“Something like that. Mum knows how to suck the life force right out of you. It's no wonder my father is nothing but a glorified statue.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

Regulus shook his head. You didn’t expect him to be wanting to talk about whatever it was that Walburga had done. Regulus was never much of a talker when it came to his family. He would put the issue away in an expertly secretive little file in his mind only for it to never be seen or heard about again.

“Would you rather me take your pants off?”

Regulus’ grey eyes rolled up at the prospect of sex. This didn’t surprise you. As much as you wanted to make a comment about Regulus not being so different from Sirius; you decided not to. If you wanted to make your lover feel better comparing Regulus to his brother was not a good idea.

“That sounds nice.”

Regulus replied. He stood up and offered his hand to pull you up from the sofa.

“Bed or here?”

You asked. It didn’t matter to you where the sex would take place. The two of you seemed to have sex wherever the mood would hit.

“Bed.”

Regulus commented before picking you up and carrying you into the next room. He closed the door with his foot before gently sitting you down. You stayed in the same place as Regulus began unzipping your dress. His fingers expertly tugged the zipper down toward your bottom. Regulus wanted nothing more than to tug the fabric off of you but he knew that would get him nowhere except a shopping trip to buy a new dress. The last thing that he wanted was to spend the evening stuck in a dress shop with other husbands who were bored out of their minds. Regulus would rather be feeding you his cock instead.

The moment your dress hit the floor, you turned in Regulus’ arms and pressed your lips to his. The kiss was the same as always...sweet and timid at first before moving to fiery and possessive. You internally smiled at the memory of the first kiss that Regulus had given you. He had been so timid and embarrassed at first. Now he didn’t care where the hell that the two of you were. When he wanted a kiss your lips were his for the taking.

“What?”

Regulus questioned as you started unbuttoning his shirt and tugging the garment out of his slacks. You shook your head with an innocent smile and kissed his chin once more.

“Nothing. Can’t I smile when I kiss you?”

Regulus rolled his eyes.

“There is no such thing as nothing with you. Good try though, sugar. Now, what do you want me to do to you?”

You sat down on the bed before reaching out to unbuckle Regulus’ belt. That was a silly question for him to ask. Regulus was always the more dominant in the bedroom. You assumed this question was always to see how interested you were in what he had to offer.

“Such a silly question, love. I know what you want.”

You replied, running a hand up Regulus’ now obvious erection. He bit his lip as you finally wrapped your mouth around his length.

“I suppose you do know.”

Regulus commented as his eyes fluttered closed. You opened your eyes for a brief moment to see the ecstasy on your lover’s face. Again, you internally smiled at the memory of the first blow job that you had given Regulus. How he lasted a whole five minutes was still amusing to you. The poor love was so embarrassed at the coming so quickly and kept offering promises that once he was inside of you he could definitely last longer.

As the years progressed, Regulus gained an iron grasp on his orgasm. You often found yourself begging him to come already because your jaws or your pussy was so sore from “activities” that you needed a break. There were only a few ways to make him come super quick and he refused to talk about them. Your personal favorite was giving him an inconspicuous handjob at bad times. The most memorable was a few weeks ago at dinner with Walburga, Orion, and a few of the other Black family members. You smiled at the memory…

It was another boring dinner or listening to Walburga and Orion talk about how wonderful their family was. You sat beside Regulus as the dutiful sweet little wife that he adored so much. The less that you caught Walburga’s attention the better. Regulus hadn’t said much that evening. Granted, he normally didn’t say much around his parents. He had learned years ago to keep his trap shut.

As Walburga started talking about Christmas plans, you let your eyes fall to Regulus’ lap. Now would be the perfect time for a handjob. You knew Regulus probably wouldn’t think so. Your prim and proper lover still didn’t exactly love the idea of public displays of affection. A handjob and him coming in front of his family would be a huge “hell no.”

You let your eyes flutter to Regulus’ face. He sat watching his mother with a bored expression on his handsome face. Regulus clearly had not picked up on your playful smile and for this you were thrilled. As carefully as possible, you scooted your chair closer to Regulus.

The moment your fingers stroked over his cock, Regulus’ eyes turned to you. He gave you a warning expression that said “not now” but you weren’t going to listen. So what if he spanked you later? You would have some fun at the time being. You only blinked at Regulus before continuing to lightly stroke your fingertips over his hardening cock. Regulus reached down and wrapped his hand around yours. You assumed that he was going to shove you away but he didn’t. Instead, he forced your hand open to palm him under the table cloth.

Regulus pressed his lips together as you got braver and began unbuttoning his dress pants.

“Y/n, no...please.”

Regulus whispered in your direction. You gave him a playful smirk before wrapping your hand around his length. Regulus discreetly put his hand over his mouth obviously hoping that his parents would assume that he was carefully considering their words. Little did they know what you were actually doing to their youngest son.”

Regulus rocking his hips pulled you from the memory. He whined when you let his cock drop from your mouth. Sitting up a bit straighter, you placed a kiss to his hip bone.

“Want to take me?”

“That’s a dumb question.”

Regulus said as he gently pushed you back on the bed. You knew that he wasn’t going to just shove in. That was for inexperienced kids. He always left you needy and soaking the sheets before ever considering pushing inside of you.

He gently stroked his left hand between your bodies to stroke your pussy. Regulus groaned feeling how wet you were. He knew to expect it but it was always such a pleasant surprise. His middle finger effortlessly slipped inside your opening leaving you gasping his name. Regulus continued to tease you for a few moments. One finger became two. Two fingers were pushing in as deep as possible. He scissored and pumped you to orgasm twice. Each time, as your orgasm approached, Regulus stopped moving. His grey eyes were locked on your face and a small smirk played at his lips. Regulus knew how to drive you wild just as you knew how to push him over the edge.

“Need you now.”

You whimpered as Regulus curled his fingers. If Regulus continued to tease you like this there was no way that you would last long. To your relief, he seemed to want sex as badly as you did. Both of you sighed the moment that he pushed inside of you.

“Take it all, sugar.”

Regulus ordered, trying his hardest to resist the urge to start fucking you as if he was a careless teenager. He stopped himself each time. You didn’t deserve just to have a sloppy mess made out of your pussy. Despite this being about him, Regulus would make sure that you were taken care of. The words “happy wife, happy life” could have never been more accurate.

The soft gentle lovemaking turned hungry and desperate within seconds. You reached up to wrap your arms around Regulus’ shoulders as his skin slapped against yours. The feeling of Regulus’ cock sliding in and out of you before filling you to the hilt was enough to make you want to come alone. Your body twitched involuntarily as the arousal became more intense. Suddenly you felt your body lingering on the edge of orgasm.

“Please don't stop. Please don’t stop.”

You chanted over and over. You were trembling all over as the pleasure exploded. Regulus moaned loudly. The feeling of your body strangling his cock was enough to bring him over the edge. He knew that this wasn’t going to last long from the get-go. Regulus stopped thrusting almost instantly. You could feel his cock throbbing inside of you for a few moments before filling you.

Regulus was the first to break away. He stroked his finger over your nose before lying down beside you. You didn’t fight as he pulled you into his arms.

“Do you feel better?”

You asked, yawning. Regulus nodded and kissed your head.

“You always make me feel better. Maybe a small nap is in order?”

You didn’t argue as you wrapped your arm around Regulus’ body a bit more tightly and prepared for a nap (and round two). Before falling asleep you made a mental note to thank Walburga for whatever it was that she did to him. You would assure her that you were there to calm her baby boy down...just as you always would be.

_______

@amelie-black​ @regulusslut​ @mellifluous-cosmos​ @fandomsxxregulus​ @realgaytrash​ @acciosiriusblack​ @fific7​ @quuenofblacks​ @siriuslyceleste​ @whymyparentscheckmyphone​ @criminalyetminimal​ @hazel-eyes5​ @lucasfilms77​ @exhsle​ @spiderxalmighty​ @rubyroscoe1​ @bennyberry​ @harold-pothead​ @mimisparkle12​ @teletubiswszpilkach​ @zievyimas​ @jessyballet @knreidy1 @brokencasbutt67-writer @authoressskr @moldy-old-boot @hankypranky @summer-novak @shaylybaby2032 @emiwrites3reads @shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @knight-of-gleefulness @stuckinsaudi1 @marichromatic @untoldshortsofthefandoms @deanwherescas @sprnaturallover @shitfaceddaniel @wontlookaway @mycuddlycorner

[fanfictionaries]

Oh So Many Years: Ch. 17 - Chasing Pirates

Pairing: Hermione Granger x Fred Weasley

Summary:

Fred receives another letter from Angelina and must face some tough questions from George. 

Hermione struggles with her want to keep Harry informed, but is happy things are finally back to normal with Ron and Fred -- but are they really? And how will she cope with some unsettling news?

Warnings: Swearing, Death, Smut/18+ NSFW

Author’s Note:

We’ve got internet babies!!! 

As always, please, please, please feel free to like, comment, and reblog. I LOVE interacting with you all!!

Masterlist

<<<Chapter 16

                           In your message you said, you were goin' to bed,

But I'm not done with the night. So I stayed up and read, but your words in my head, Got me mixed up so I turned out the light.

And I, don't know how, to slow it down. My mind's racing from chasing pirates.

Fred figured it was just his luck that in the confusion of everyone running from his mother, he ended up in his bedroom with George and Hermione. He also figured it was just his luck he was too angry with his twin brother to censor his words.

“Are you fucking kidding me George?” Fred seethed, trying to keep his voice down as they were in fact still hiding from their mother.

“Oh lighten—”

“No! No, I will not just lighten up! Why?! What was going on in that evil little skull of yours?” Fred’s hand tightened on the towel around his waist as he paced back and forth. He was angry. Angrier than he had ever been at his brother, which was saying something because he’d never actually been cross with George before. Sure, he’d been miffed and on the odd occasion annoyed by his twin brother, and vice versa of course, but never like this. No, he was well and truly pissed off. Which meant this was entirely new territory for the both of them as Fred tried to manage his emotional tirade and George tried to manage Fred.

“Well, I—”

“You know how things are with Angelina right now and you knew how I felt and then you had to go and do this? I mean, why would you—they—”

“Fred—”

“—especially after what I told you this morning. I mean, I know we’re in it for a laugh and all most of the time, and to be fair this was quite funny. If it were anyone else, it would’ve been a real gut buster. But come on. This was just cheap!”

“Fred—”

“And to include Ginny in it? What? Did you tell her?”

“FRED!” George whispered harshly, putting a stop to Fred’s pacing, and clamping his hand over his brother’s mouth. At first, Fred’s instinct was to rip George’s hand off of his mouth and continue his rant. He was upset. Therefore, he was entitled to as much whinging and scolding as he pleased.

But then he saw George’s eyes flicker to a very confused and sheepish looking Hermione sitting on the edge of George’s bed and that instinct vanished. His eyes grew wide, realizing only then that he’d been freely ranting about Hermione and himself with the girl in question sitting right there. Fucking arsing balls, Fred cursed in his head. How much had he said? Enough to give anything away or only enough to make himself seem like a raving lunatic? He thought about subtly asking George but didn’t get the chance.

Their mother’s angry footsteps sounded from the top of the stairs followed by her equally angry voice, “Someone had better come out here and face me or I’ll be knocking down every single door in this hallway.”

Fred’s head swung from his brother to the door and back. “You have to go out!” Fred whispered in a panic.

“Me? Why me?” asked George.

Fred looked down at his towel-clad body pointedly and then to Hermione who was still sans shirt. “First of all, you owe us. Second, I wonder how mum will feel when she finds Hermione in here with us like this,” said Fred.

George’s face contorted in conflict as the pros and cons of taking the blame for waking up Walburga once again, or having their mother find a half-naked girl in their room. Finally he gave a sort of whiny sigh.

He was just shy of opening their bedroom door when he turned and pointed a finger in Fred and Hermione’s direction. “I want you two to know that I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart and that by going out here I’m fully proving my remorse for this afternoon’s prank.”

“Just go!” Hermione squeaked, shifting uncomfortably, and holding her arms tightly across her chest.

George took a deep breath and squared his shoulders before opening the heavy oak door with flourish and slamming it behind him quickly. “Mum! You’re looking lovely this afternoon,” said George, his voice muffled as he now stood in the hallway.

“I should have known—” she sounded aggravated and slightly defeated, thought Fred “—let’s go. You’re going to help me shut that old bag up and then I think the basement closet needs de-spidering, George Weasley.”

“Come now mum, surely by now you’d be able to tell that I’m Fred.”

Fred sighed, shaking his head, and smiling against his better judgement. Leave it to George to have the last laugh. “Wanker…” Fred mumbled as he crossed the room to his dresser. He dug into one of the drawers and pulled out an old shirt. Throwing it in Hermione’s direction, he politely averted his eyes and began to grab clothes for himself.

“I didn’t know you were a Puddlemere United fan.”

“What?” Fred turned, her comment catching him off guard. While it was a Puddlemere United shirt, you couldn’t know that unless you were familiar with the navy-blue colour and golden crossed bulrushes.

“Puddlemere United,” Hermione repeated, staring strangely at his hand, and then looking away with a slight blush. Fred look to his hand to find that he was still grasping a pair of striped, blue pants. He turned around again, grabbing a pair of trousers – a brand of muggle jeans Lee had turned him and George onto – before grabbing a clean white shirt.

“Yeah. George is a bit more of a Falmouth Falcons fan, but I’ve always preferred Puddlemere. I didn’t know you knew anything about quidditch.”

Hermione let out a snort that while rude, Fred found to be quite endearing. “Please, you can’t be friends with Ron and Harry and not know at least a little bit about quidditch. I’ve read Quidditch Through the Ages at least five times.”

“Never would have guessed it from the vacant expression you get on your face every time it’s brought up,” Fred laughed, pulling his shirt over his head. The cotton material felt nice and light in the warm room.

“That’s because it’s usually Ron going on and on about the Chudley Cannons or how much the Slytherin house team sucks. The same story gets a bit boring over time. Now, if he wanted to talk about the history of quidditch rules and legislature, or the statistical odds of certain teams winning or losing, I might chime in.

“Just when I thought I had you figured out, ‘Mione.” Fred turned but paused, looking between the clothes in his hand and Hermione staring at him once again. While he certainly wasn’t shy, he didn’t really fancy Hermione getting a full view of his…full frontal for a second time that day. Especially when she hadn’t seemed all too cheery about it the first time. “Do you mind?”

“Oh! Um, of course—” Hermione turned, covering her eyes with her hands “—sorry.”

“S’alright,” Fred laughed. Something about Hermione’s embarrassment made him feel a whole lot better about the situation. “You know, I guess I was right.”

“About what?” asked Hermione, still facing the other way as Fred zipped up his trousers.

“Last summer when I guessed you were trying to see me and George naked.”

“Oh piss off!” Hermione cried, the tremor of a laugh in the back of her throat.

If Fred weren’t trying to tease her to make himself feel more comfortable, he probably would have gaped in pure delight that Hermione Granger had just told him to piss off. But, he was, so instead he continued, “You know if you really wanted to get a look, you just had to ask. I’m taken, but George would probably say yes…and Ron,” Fred hesitated to say the last part. The words had come to the tip of his tongue without him even trying, giving him pause to wonder why his brain was at all interested in what Hermione thought of seeing Ron naked. Because you fancy her, you daft git, scoffed the little voice in his head. Ah yes, there was that he supposed.

Hermione made a disgruntled sound, “Yes, I suppose that’s why Ginny was involved. She probably told George all about how she thinks Ron has a crush on me.”

“You can uncover your eyes now. I’m all decent.” Fred crossed the room and settled himself onto his bed, crossing his arms behind his head.

“Are you sure?” asked Hermione in a teasing manner. “I’ve been burned twice already today. I’m not quite sure I’m ready for a third time.”

“Shut up. You’re fine,” Fred laughed, throwing a pillow at the bookish girl.

“Oof,” Hermione grunted, the pillow knocking her to the side but making her laugh all the same. She brought her hands down, hugging the pillow to her chest.

“And how do you feel about that?” Fred asked Hermione, trying to make his voice sound as casual as possible.

“About what?” she questioned, running her hands over her mussed hair.

“You know, about Ron liking you or whatever.”

“Honestly?” Hermione asked, sounding like it was a topic she was entirely tired of talking about.

Fred perked up at this, watching Hermione crawl up George’s bed until she was parallel with him.

“I’d rather he didn’t,” sighed Hermione, tucking her legs underneath her and scrunching her nose in the way that made Fred’s stomach flip. He watched as his shirt hung on her frame, engulfing her upper half and the top part of her legs. If he didn’t know already that she was wearing shorts, he could have easily assumed she was in nothing but her knickers and his shirt. Merlin, he really needed to stop giving her his clothes if this was the direction his brain was going to go every time. He looked away, down at his hands that he’d moved to his lap, now laced together by the fingers.

“Why? Holding out for someone else?” It was more of a joke than a serious question really – a call back to her hesitancy to accept Viktor Krum’s invitation to the Yule ball. In fact when Fred said it, it was in such a sardonic tone that he never even considered that he might be hitting the nail directly on the head. Fred’s heart gave a sort of leap in his chest when she didn’t answer right away. He expected her to tell him off, or throw a pillow at his head, but instead there was silence.

Looking up he was surprised to see Hermione had gone slightly pale, mouth open and eyes wide in panic. “I—”

Before the girl could answer a tap at the window pulled their attention. Fred hopped off his bed and walked to the window where the same stately owl he’d seen a few days prior sat on the ledge. His stomach gave a strange pull as he realized who the owl was most likely for and from. He wasn’t prepared for the harsh wave of heat that washed over him when he opened the window. It felt like it had gotten at least five degrees hotter outside. How could it possibly be any hotter? Fred wondered, taking the letter from the owl, and closing the old window tightly as it flew off into the sun-hazed sky.

He held the letter addressed to himself in sweat-slicked hands. Glancing at Hermione who now looked curiously in his direction, Fred thought for a moment that he should perhaps open it later. That way he wouldn’t have any questioning looks, or expectant faces. On the other hand though, the curiosity was killing him. He had not written Angelina back since the last time she wrote. Truthfully, the letter didn’t feel like it warranted a response and of course he’d been quite busy with the troublesome distraction that currently sat in the room with him. He’d picked up a quill a few times since but staring at the blank page he felt at a loss for words. What should he write? All things currently of interest in his life felt quite shady and untoward and everything else felt inconsequential. Finally, he decided to just get it over with quickly.

The envelope only tore a little as he opened it carefully before sliding out a letter that was pleasantly longer than the last one he’d received from his girlfriend.

Dear Fred,

I finally got to reading the rest of your letters. I’m sorry to hear that your summer isn’t going as fun as you’d hoped. Where exactly are you anyways? From your letters it sounds like you’re in London. Why didn’t you tell me you had family there, you wanker? I would have made you visit them one of these past summers and we could have hung out. London has a lot of cool spots – wish I were there to show you around, but camp lasts all summer long. I guess the only upside to that, is I don’t have to listen to my mother whing on and on about my chores or my clothes or whatever else she’s decided to have a go at for the week.

Fred laughed lightly at the mention of Mrs. Johnson. Angelina had been in a tense war with her mother for the past two years. She swore up and down that her mother was unhappy with anything she did, no matter what. Fred could relate to that. The two of them often swapped stories about their mothers’ disapproval and the wild things they’d done to stir up trouble in their families. He remembered the amount of begging Angelina had had to do that past spring in order to convince her mother to let her go to the summer-long camp. Mrs. Johnson wasn’t too pleased with how athletically inclined Angelina was – convinced that her daughter should be a bit more proper. Secretly, Fred figured Mrs. Johnson finally relented to Angelina’s request just to have an end to the constant badgering.

Have you thought about taking the day off? You’re 17 now and you’ve got all those galleons from Harry (lucky bastard). Surely you and George could sneak off to Diagon Alley for the day or even muggle London! I can give you a list of places if you’d like.

Things are still busy here.

A large drop of smeared ink painted the parchment after the last sentence, as if she’d spent a long time contemplating on what to say next, allowing the ink to drop from her quill before messily attempting to clean it up.

Oliver’s been helping me a lot these past few weeks and it’s actually been pretty great! I know what you’re thinking, how can I possibly be surviving? Don’t get me wrong, he’s still obsessed with the game in that overly intense way, but he’s not nearly as bad as he was in school. Turns out when he’s not consumed by winning the house cup, he’s quite a cool bloke.

I’m making a lot of new friends as well! There are some guys from Ilvermorny here, the American school. They’re quite loud and brash – it reminds me of you.

Anyway, I should probably wrap this up. Oliver’s promised to show me and a couple other people some defensive techniques he’s learned from Puddlemere.

Best,

Angelina

P.S. – There’s something I need to tell you once we’re back at Hogwarts.

Fred was left with a sour taste in his mouth. What could Angelina possibly have to tell him that she couldn’t have written in a letter? And what was this whole business with Oliver being a ‘cool bloke’? Up until that point he’d only ever heard Angelina talk about how much she hated him. He was a crazy, obsessive, misogynistic pig – she’d said it at least a thousand times over. Especially in the times that Oliver disregarded the women on the team and referred to them all as ‘men’ or ‘guys’. And what about those guys from Ilvermorny? What were a bunch of Americans doing in England anyways? Didn’t they have quidditch camps in the states? Lastly, there was the fact that she’d signed it ‘best’ and not ‘yours’. It was a small thing, but she always wrote ‘yours’, even when they weren’t dating.

“Who’s it from?”

Hermione’s voice startled Fred. So immersed in the letter and his thoughts of Angelina and Oliver and guys from Ilvermorny, he’d completely forgotten she was still there.

Fred cleared his throat, “Angelina.”

“Is everything alright?” asked Hermione, furrowing her brow, and staring hard at the letter in his hand.

“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?” Fred’s voice came out high and crackly, making him feel foolish and completely invalidating his statement that everything was alright.

“Well…it’s just that you’ve been frowning at that letter for about five minutes now and earlier—” she took a deep breath “—earlier you said something to George about Angelina. It sounded a bit like it was something unpleasant.”

“Oh…you caught that?” Hermione Granger had to be the most annoyingly astute witch he’d ever met.

Hermione nodded and stood from the bed, crossing the room to stand before him. She looked nervous, like she was using all her courage to say her next words, “Do you want to—”

“Hey!” The door to the room opened and Ginny and Ron came barrelling through. “The coast is clear. Mum’s got George cleaning out spiders in the basement,” said Ron, now fully clothed and looking a bit pink around the ears as he avoided looking directly at Hermione.

“I just know he’s going to lord that over my head,” sighed Ginny, leaning against the wall and crossing her legs at the ankle. “The whole thing was his idea anyways. Seems fair that he should take the brunt of the punishment.”

“You still haven’t dealt with the punishment you’ll be getting from me Ginevra,” bit Hermione, sending a disapproving look at the younger girl.

“Oh come on, Hermione. You know I only had the best intentions. S’not my fault George mucked it up and you had to see Fred’s bits as well,” said Ginny, pulling a face.

“I very much would have preferred to see no one’s bits.”

“Can you please stop calling them ‘bits’?” asked Ron, frowning. Fred had to agree with his little brother. There was something incredibly emasculating about the word.

“Men—” Ginny rolled her eyes “—such fragile egos. Come on, I think there’s some lemonade in the kitchen and I’m parched. It’s so bloody hot!”

Ginny pushed off the wall and sauntered out of the room followed closely by Ron. Hermione hesitated for a moment, looking up at Fred and then back down at the letter in his hand. Fred quickly folded the letter and shoved it in his pocket. It probably wasn’t the best moment to get into him and Angelina anyways.

“Come on, best not to keep them waiting,” he said and made his way out of the room and down towards the kitchen.

Fred didn’t see George again until dinner. His twin had emerged from the basement closet looking incredibly tired and slightly squeamish. This pleased Fred immensely as he still felt like George’s full punishment hadn’t been served. When everyone had sat themselves down at the long table for their meal, Fred made sure to put as much space between them and Hermione as possible. He needed to have a proper conversation with his brother about that afternoon. Thankfully, they had a few extra guests from the Order and so it was easy to do.

“So, you didn’t tell Ginny about me liking Hermione then?” Fred whispered as he piled potatoes onto his plate.

“Oh so now you’re ready to have a civil conversation?” asked George tiredly, taking the potatoes from him and serving himself as well.

“Oi, don’t get cheeky with me. You’re still the yob who started this.”

“You’re right, sorry—” George passed the bowl of potatoes to the wizard beside him who was currently in a deep conversation about transportation restrictions with their father “—no. I didn’t tell her. I thought she already knew but turns out she was talking about Ron. Classic case of miscommunication.”

Fred nodded. “Mmm, well that’s good at least. What were you thinking though mate? You couldn’t possibly think locking me in the bathroom with Hermione was a good idea.”

“I just thought it would be good to get you two alone together. You know, force you to actually have an open and honest conversation about how you feel,” mumbled George, cutting his ham into little pieces.

“And me being naked was supposed to aid in that?” Fred raised an eyebrow, reaching across the table and snagging a roll.

George looked down at his plate, suppressing a very pleased expression. “Thought it couldn’t hurt. You two looked very cosy this morning. Figured all you needed was a bit of provocation to get the subject flowing,” George admitted.

“You’re an idiot,” Fred whispered, laughing lightly, and shaking his head. While still quite displeased with his twin, he couldn’t dismiss the humour of the situation. “What makes you think Hermione and I don’t talk already?”

The question seemed to catch George off guard.

“What? You thought all those times we were working in our classroom and reading in the library, we were sitting there in silence?” Fred questioned hypothetically.

“Well, you certainly couldn’t have been saying anything of substance. Otherwise you’d both have finally admitted your feelings for each other.”

Fred let out a long breath. “Georgie, you know you’re my favourite person in the whole world—” Fred started.

“I’m touched, Freddie.” George brought a hand up to his heart.

“—some would say I even love you like a brother,” Fred went on.

“Not sure I could say the same, sorry.”

“But, at the end of the day I am in a relationship with Angelina. It wouldn’t be fair to her if I were to go behind her back with Hermione. And Hermione—”

“You can’t still tell me you think she likes Ron—”

“No. Actually she told me the exact opposite earlier this afternoon,” Fred confessed, trying not to focus on the way his heart lifted a little at the thought. “But it doesn’t mean she likes me either. Hermione is a nice girl. She deserves a hell of a lot better than me and even if she did like me, well like I said. That wouldn’t be fair to Angelina.”

“Is it fair to Angelina though for you to keep going out with her when you fancy someone else?” challenged George, bringing his voice to barely a whisper as they both leaned in to make their conversation more private.

“I… —” Fred struggled with the words “—it’s complicated. I still fancy Angelina too. It’s not like I’m dating her for nothing. She’s great. She’s one of my best friends, she’s tough, she’s fit, she loves quidditch, and we’ve known each other forever. I can’t just…I can’t just give that up because I also fancy someone else.”

“Do you fancy Angelina though?”

“What?”

“Do you actually fancy Angelina.”

“I just said I did, didn’t I?” Fred felt lost. What was George getting at?

“Yes, but you just listed things you like about her. Things most blokes like about her. Bloody hell, things I like about her – no offence. But, and correct me if I’m wrong, aren’t relationships supposed to be a bit deeper or some emotional crap like that? You know, something a bit more than just ‘we’re mates, and she lets me shag her’?”

“I…well on that logic then how do you know it’s not just the same thing with Hermione?”

“Are you shagging Hermione?” George asked, eyebrows raising high.

“No, but the idea doesn’t sound half bad. What if it’s more of a ‘we’re mates, and I want to shag her’ situation?” Fred took a large bite of his dinner roll and reached forward to grab his glass of pumpkin juice.

“Honestly, Freddie? That’s a bit out of my wheelhouse. But you should probably figure that out. Sooner rather than later,” said George lightly before taking a mouthful of stewed carrots.

Fred swallowed the bite of roll and scoffed into his glass. “Thanks for that. Great advice,” he said sarcastically before drinking deeply from his cup.

George grabbed his own glass and raised it lightly before answering, “Better advice than you get anywhere else. Cheers, mate.”

  Dear Harry,

How’s your summer going? I hope your aunt and uncle aren’t being too horrible.

I really wish you were here. Maybe then Ron would have someone else to play chess with. You know how horrible I am at it…

I’m sure you’ve been reading the Daily Prophet and by now you’re aware of what they’re saying about you. I’m not really supposed to say anything but, I feel like you should

Dear Harry,

I hope your summer’s going better than mine. I know I haven’t said much in my last couple of letters but it’s only because I’m not allowed.

I really wish that I

Harry,

I know I’m not supposed to say anything, but I think that’s rubbish. I think you deserve to know that you’re not alone. Despite the lack of action from the ministry, I want you to know that there are people out there taking this seriously.

When you get here, you’ll understand.

Hermione crossed out her third attempt at writing Harry before crumpling the parchment and throwing it angrily in the bin beside her. This is impossible, she thought forlornly. She’d been having an internal battle for the past two weeks on whether she should follow Dumbledore’s instructions or go with her gut. Every fibre of her being wanted to tell Harry what was going on, to let him know that he wasn’t alone in this fight. But her foolish and incessant need to follow directions and stay out of trouble stopped her every time. Professor Dumbledore was a wise man. He was smart. Most importantly, he knew a lot more about what was going on than she did. So, it would make sense for her to keep her nose out of all of this and simply follow his lead. But despite her headmaster’s in-depth knowledge on most things, Hermione knew one thing to be true. He didn’t know Harry Potter nearly as well as she did.

Professor Dumbledore had insisted that they needn’t worry Harry on the comings and going of the Order and the efforts being put in place against a now fully risen dark lord. He needed time to heal from what happened the previous year with Cedric Diggory. That was all well and nice except that if you knew Harry at all, then you knew that he never stopped worrying. He was definitely the suffer in silence, woe is me, martyr type and usually the only thing that did stop him from worrying and obsessing was action. Harry Potter needed control, or he’d go insane. Usually this control came in two different forms. The first was distraction. If he couldn’t have direct control of a situation he’d resort to quidditch or flying or something else physical to take his mind off whatever it was. The second was involvement. Harry wouldn’t stop until he’d solved the mystery, and everything was put right in his mind. That’s why they hadn’t ceased their research first year until they figured out the secret to the philosopher’s stone. Or why their second year had ended in Harry fighting a basilisk underneath the school. Or why he’d declared to kill Sirius Black himself when he’d found out what he thought to be the truth of his parent’s deaths.

But Hermione knew that Harry, currently locked in the confines of his aunt and uncle’s muggle neighbourhood, was unable to do either and so she was certain the only thing he’d been doing the past month was stewing in internal misery. The fact that he’d neglected to respond to her and Ron’s letters thus far, not even their birthday wishes, only proved her theory right.

Dumbledore may be an expert on the innerworkings of the ministry, but Hermione was an expert on the innerworkings of Harry Potter. So, surely it would be best if she told him something. She had to be able to get some sort of message to him that wouldn’t reveal too much if intercepted by the ministry or Voldemort’s people. Just something that would quell the frustration that was surely rising in her best friend.

However, the right words simply were not coming to her yet, so she rested her quill back down on the table and corked her ink bottle firmly, before moving to her bed and sitting down huffily. She needed to focus on something else or before she knew it she’d turn into Harry.

Picking up the small ball of yarn and worn wooden knitting needles on her bed, Hermione started in on her practice. Recently she’d taken up knitting as both a hobby and a way to further her work with the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. This came entirely from an event that took place a week prior when she’d simultaneously met Kreacher and seen the horror that was the Black family’s legacy of house elves.

“What ARE those?!” Hermione screamed, jumping back, and toppling into Ron who had been following her into the fourth-floor study.

They had been tasked with cleaning out the old Black patriarch’s study.

“Bloody hell, Hermione. What?!” yelled Ron, catching her in his arms and putting her right on her feet.

But Hermione ignored his question, too overwhelmed by the sickening sight before her. On the wall, sitting above the bookshelves opposite the stately mahogany desk were the heads of house elves mounted to the wall. They hung stuffed, pale, and lifeless like common animals on display. It made her sick.

“Oh that is twisted,” said Ron, having now entered the room and seen what had made Hermione scream.

“I—why—who would do something like this?” Hermione asked, torn between her inability to stomach the sight of the house elves’ severed heads, and the sheer shock of it keeping her eyes glued to them.

“That would be my dear mother again, I’m afraid,” came Sirius’ voice. Hermione imagined he must have been nearby, most likely visiting Buckbeak in the attic, heard her scream, and came to investigate.

“This is disgusting…this is barbaric. How could anyone do something like this?” she asked, feeling tears begin to well in her eyes.

“You’d be surprised. It’s an old practice in pureblood families, not really done anymore, but at one time house elves saw it as a badge of honour to have themselves commemorated like this after they died—” Sirius strolled into the room, looking up at the mounted heads, hands casually in his pockets “—I never cared for it though. Absolutely refuse to do it for Kreacher when he finally croaks.”

“Kreacher?—” Hermione was finally able to pull her gaze away from the elves to look at Sirius “—you mean there’s a house elf here?”

“Course there is!” cried Sirius in surprise, tone laced with a bitter edge.

“Don’t worry Hermione. He doesn’t do any of the cooking or cleaning or anything like that,” interjected Ron in a reassuring manner that did very little to actually reassure her.

“How did I not know about this?” she asked, feeling overwhelmed and dazed.

“Well, my mum always said a good house elf was one that got the job done but was rarely seen. Can’t say that’s very true of Kreacher though. He clearly only holds up half of that statement. In fact—” Sirius, turned looking about the empty study around him “—Kreacher!”

With a pop, a small little house elf popped into existence before him. He was different than the house elves Hermione had seen before. He seemed older, more haggard, and dirty. His nose was long and droopy, and the cloth he wore for clothes was so dirty, it looked to be more filth than it was material. Kreacher sneered nastily up at his master and then around the room, spotting Ron and Hermione. Hermione didn’t think it was possible, but his expression turned even nastier once he saw them.

“Filthy mudblood, blood-traitors alike. Tarnishing my mistress’s house like this,” mumbled the little house elf and catching Hermione completely off guard. You’d think the words would hurt less after hearing them so much in the last four years, but they held a fresh sting every time. The only thing that had changed was her ability to better mask the hurt she felt.

“Give it a rest you vile little thing,” grimaced Sirius, surprising Hermione even more than Kreacher’s words.

Ever since she’d arrived at Grimmauld Place, she’d acknowledged that Sirius held a certain disdain to his childhood home. However, she had yet to experience the level of contempt the older wizard held for the house elf before him.

“Of course Master Black. Kreacher is sorry. What can Kreacher do for you?” responded Kreacher in a mocking tone. The words, while objectively respectful, held no trace of true respect whatsoever.

“Yes, I’m sure you are,” said Sirius sarcastically. “I need you to dispose of these disgusting relics immediately.” Sirius pointed up at the row of heads, looking as disgusted as Hermione still felt about both them, and the behaviour of the two individuals before her.

“No! Those are mistress’s! Kreacher refuses,” cried the old house elf in outrage.

“It was not a request, you disgusting beast. I am your master, and I am ordering you to take those vile things down and throw them away. Do you understand me?” spat Sirius, crossing his arms, and glaring down at Kreacher.

“Yes master Black. Of course.”

Hermione had been in such a shock after that that she had left the room and retreated to the kitchen. While she truly needed a cup of tea to calm her nerves, it was still too hot and so she’d allowed Ron to pour her a glass of pumpkin juice as she processed the event. Sure, the things Kreacher said were horrible and hurtful, but look at the way Sirius treated him! Maybe if Kreacher was met with a little kindness, he wouldn’t feel the need to be so mean. And the heads…she didn’t even know where to begin with the heads…

It was at that moment, that Hermione formulated a plan. The house elves clearly needed a way out, whether they knew it or not. So, that afternoon she’d gone to Mrs. Weasley to borrow knitting supplies and get a few lessons.

“Hey Hermione, have you seen Fred and George?” Ron’s voice from the doorway, brought Hermione’s attention away from the complicated mess of yarn in her hands. She’d gotten her knit and purl stitches confused and was currently trying to figure out which direction her yarn was supposed to be facing. Looks like she needed more practice.

“Why would I know where they are?” she asked, frowning back down at her work, and cursing under her breath. A few of her stitches had slipped off her needles.

Ron gave a short laugh, snorting through his nose. “Come on Hermione. You spend more time with them these days than anyone else.”

“I’m—”

“Don’t give me that ‘I’m helping them with their schoolwork’ excuse, Hermione. I’m not thick. You’re helping them with their inventions aren’t you,” said Ron, crossing the room and leaning against one of the posts of Ginny’s bed.

“Just a little,” Hermione admitted sheepishly. There was no point in lying to Ron about it now.

“I knew it!” Ron cried enthusiastically. “Are you also helping fund them? They seem to have a lot more money these days than not.”

“No, I’m not, but I’ve actually been wondering the same thing!” said Hermione with equal fervour. The last she’d heard, the two of them were still trying to get their money back from Ludo Bagman. Perhaps her suggestion of blackmail the previous year had finally worked. Though if it did, she didn’t want to know anything about it.

“Hmm, strange,” Ron commented, staring down at the heap of yarn in her hands in confusion. He was probably wondering what she could possibly be making, but thankfully he was kind enough to not make any comments. “You know helping those two is going to become a conflict of interest when you become a Prefect, right?”

“What makes you think I’m going to make Prefect?”

Ron snorted once again. “Come on Hermione, are you telling me you’ve thought there was any other alternative.”

Hermione felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. As much as she tried to keep a level of humility to her, she had to admit that the notion that any other Gryffindor girl in their year would be chosen for Prefect felt preposterous. This was something she’d been working towards since first year.

“I don’t help them that much. Mostly it’s just a bunch of reading their notes and telling them where their magic is wrong. Nothing wrong with that – it’s educational really,” she half lied.

“Oh yeah. Educational,” Ron snickered, pushing off from the bedpost and walking towards the door. “Well if you do see them, tell them mum’s looking for them.”

“Will do—” Hermione went to return to her knitting but stopped, looking up at his retreating figure “—wait, where are you off to then?”

Ron turned, leaning in the doorframe now. “Professor Lupin’s downstairs. I convinced him to teach me how to play chess.”

“But you already know how to play chess…” Hermione gave him a wry smile.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know that. I’ve bet Sirius ten sickles I can go at least four games before he realizes I’m hustling him,” said Ron, a large grin spreading across his freckled face.

Hermione let out a small laugh and shook her head before saying, “I swear, you get more and more like Fred and George every day.”

“Those wankers? Absolutely not.”

And with that, Ron disappeared into the hallway, a little more pep in his step than usual. A smile remained plastered on Hermione’s face for long after Ron had left. She felt warm and content in the way only a cheerful and easy encounter with a friend could leave you feeling. Her and Ron had settled into an unspoken understanding after the mortifying bathroom encounter. Of course neither of them spoke of it, both choosing to act as though it had never happened. In a strange way, it was almost as if they needed the uncomfortable situation to become comfortable with each other again. Ron seemed less dopey and more relaxed around her, and as a result Ginny stopped talking about Ron’s feelings for her.

The same sentiment went for twins. It was as if the little bit of chaos was all the group needed to fall back once again into the comfortable friendships that had existed before. Hermione still felt her stomach flip and heartrate increase every time Fred entered a room or brushed past her too closely in the hallway, but she tried to ignore that as much as possible. That was her problem after all, not anyone else’s. And most of all she didn’t want to ruin her friendship with Fred over her stupid crush.

They had grown closer than ever over the past two weeks. Most likely due to their new tradition of late nights in the library of Grimmauld Place. When everyone had retired for the night, tucked in snuggly in their beds, Hermione and Fred would slip from their sheets and reconvene on the old couch of the library, till late in the night. They discussed Fred’s inventions, their interests, and their lives. It usually ended in some kind of debate, but Hermione always found herself laughing in the end. She’d never been able to talk so freely with anyone. It was both a blessing and a curse.

When her yarn had tangled for the fifth time, Hermione sighed and gave up. Instead, she opted to make her way down to the kitchen for a snack. Dinner was soon, but she’d missed tea that afternoon and was feeling too peckish to wait.

“Checkmate,” said Ron proudly as he stared smugly at the rumpled wizard sitting across from him at the kitchen table.

“Hi Professor,” Hermione greeted, eyeing a plate of Chelsea buns on the kitchen counter.

“Hello Hermione,” said Professor Lupin tiredly, his head balanced in his hands as he stared in bewilderment at the chess board in front of him. Sirius sat beside his old friend, snickering silently into his hand.

Hermione suppressed her negative emotions towards the suave, long-haired wizard. Seeing the way he treated Kreacher had left her less than pleased with him.

“You swear you’ve never played before?” Professor Lupin questioned Ron suspiciously.

Ron shook his head in mock innocence and Hermione had to turn away in hide her smile.

She grabbed a bun, taking a large bite out of it and sitting down at the table beside Ron to watch him square off with their old teacher again. The pair had gotten through exactly five and a half games before Professor Lupin had declared in frustration that there was no way Ron had never played wizard’s chess before.

Everyone in the room burst into laughter at that point, the twins and Ginny having wandered into the kitchen and joined in on the fun knowing full well that Ron was better at wizard’s chess than anyone they’d ever met. After that Professor Lupin refused to play anymore games, but Sirius and George stepped up to try and beat Ron in a combined effort.

Ron had just managed to corner their queen when Mr. Weasley came striding into the room with purpose.

“Hey dad!” Ginny greeted cheerfully. But her good humour melted away when her father ignored her greeting.

Arthur Weasley looked worried. Worried and frantic. Hermione had only ever seen that expression on his face once before – at the Quidditch World Cup.

“Remus, Sirius, emergency Order meeting now. Where’s Molly?”

“She’s upstairs I think, shall I go get her?” asked Sirius.

“No, I’ll go. Other members should be arriving soon, have them meet in the dining room.”

Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Fred, and George were all ushered out of the kitchen shortly after that. None of their pleas to stay or questions were acquiesced or answered of course. So instead, they opted to sit at the top of the stairs and gleam as much information as they could from the members that entered headquarters. Hermione assumed it must be serious. Ron told her that they had never had an emergency meeting like this before. This fact was only solidified in her mind when Dumbledore arrived looking quite grave, his long robes billowing behind him as he stormed down the entry hall and disappeared through the doorway to the dining room. Professor Snape was with him, a fact that caught Hermione by surprise.

“Professor Snape is in the Order?” she asked George sitting next to her.

He nodded and whispered back, “Unfortunately. The slimy git only comes around every once in a while. Always thought he’d be on the other side, but if Dumbledore trusts him, then he must know something we don’t.”

“It’s clear he knows a lot of things we don’t,” said Hermione, beginning to worry the inside of her bottom lip. It had to be Harry. Something this serious and this panicked always had to do with Harry.

That suspicion was confirmed a few hours later at dinner when Mr. Weasley told them that Harry had been accused of underage magic by the ministry earlier that night. Apparently, the ministry had tried to expel him outright, but Professor Dumbledore had insisted on a trial before they went to such extreme punishment. Hermione was more concerned as to why Harry needed to use magic at all than the thought of him being expelled. Apparently he had produced a patronus in front of a muggle. There was only one reason Harry would produce a patronus – dementors. Dementors in a muggle suburb? Now that was cause for concern on many levels.

Hermione ate very little at dinner, too consumed by the problem at hand. The ministry had complete control of the dementors. Only they could dispatch dementors away from Azkaban. Was this the Minister’s way of getting rid of Harry? To easily solve their problem of him? If this didn’t work, what else would they do? What lengths would they go to silence Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter?

A little voice in the back of her head proposed that perhaps Harry had gone looking for trouble that night. Or worked himself up so much that he imagined the dementors and tried to play the hero. Guiltily she thought of the half-finished unsent letters in the garbage bin in her room and wondered if this would have happened if she hadn’t been too meek to break the rules and give her best friend a glimmer of hope.

All these thoughts and questions stuck with her well into the night. Lying in bed, staring up at the darkness of the ceiling above, sleep evaded her worse than ever before. Sitting up, Hermione peaked over at Ginny’s snoring form in the bed beside hers and slipped from the covers. She padded silently out of the room, down the hall, and down the stairs to the library. While the days events had been out of the ordinary, Hermione hoped that her and Fred’s tradition would remain, and she would find him in the library. The urge to talk to him itched at the back of her head fervently.

However, when she got to library, she found the door cracked and the whispered voices of Professor Lupin and Sirius drifted out. Hermione held her breath, turning away from the door and tiptoeing back towards the stairs. She didn’t need to listen in on their conversation to know they were most like talking about Harry. Once back on the third floor, Hermione found herself at a standstill. She should go back to bed. It was no use wandering the dark and grim house at night when she was already out of sorts. However, instead of making her way to her own bed, Hermione found herself walking not to her door, but Fred and George’s. Like an invisible pull at her centre, she gravitated towards it like a planet in orbit.

Not bothering to knock considering the late hour, Hermione quietly opened the door and slipped inside. She walked silently to Fred’s bed and found him sound asleep. She’d never seen him asleep before – up until that point she didn’t think she could be any more handsome than he already was, but up until that point she’d never seen him blissfully gone to the world.

As if sensing her presence, his eyes opened, blinking slowly as he took in her presence.

“’Mione? I thought you’d gone to bed. Went looking for you earlier but Black and Lupin were in the library,” he whispered, his voice low and gravelly.

“I can’t sleep…”

They stared at each other in the dark for what felt like ages. It was as if they were experiencing group thought, both of them teetering on the edge of a decision they were both unsure of. Hermione should go back to her own room. She shouldn’t be sneaking into the room of a boy who had a girlfriend. She should be—

“Get in,” Fred whispered, lifting the covers, and pushing them both of the edge.

Hermione didn’t need to be told twice. She slipped into the covers, burying herself deeply into their warmth. It had been a heatwave for the past two weeks, but the house felt colder that night than it ever had.

“Merlin, your feet are freezing,” Fred whispered when Hermione’s feet accidentally brushed his own.

Hermione moved them away quickly. “Sorry,” she whispered back in embarrassment.

Fred surprised her by reaching down and hook his hand around the back of her leg and pulling her feet flush with his own. “Give ‘em here,” he grumbled before releasing her leg and settling back into the mattress with a deep sigh.

Hermione smiled into the darkness and rolled over onto her side. She kept a safe distance of propriety between them, making sure the only thing touching was their feet. Her head fell heavy on the pillow and for the first time that night she was able to relax.

“Fred?” she whispered tentatively.

“What?” came the soft sound of Fred’s voice back.

“Thank you.”

Fred didn’t answer, instead he shifted, and Hermione felt his hand fall atop hers, gripping it tightly. It took barely minutes for Hermione to fall asleep to the firm and grounding feel of Fred’s thumb rubbing the delicate skin on the back of her hand.

Chapter 18>>>

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