Chapter Text
At Hogwarts you should be able to feel safe.
Hogwarts was the second safest place in the entire wizarding world, only after Gringotts.
But Regulus Black would think it's all nonsense.
September had arrived faster than he would have liked, after a shitty summer the only thing Regulus wanted was to move to a different cage to be in for the next few months. Grimmauld Place had always been hideous, Regulus hated it more than he let on because he had learned not to, not to show more than necessary, letting them see his weaknesses was something that was not in his plans, after all that would be the last thing Regulus would need also, having parents like Walburga and Orion, it was impossible not to have to hide many things.
He had learned to live caged in his room during the summer, that one in particular had been very hard because Sirius had left just a few weeks after they returned from Hogwarts and Regulus definitely wanted to erase the memory of that night from his memory. After Sirius left, rumors started to spread because a scandal of this kind couldn't just go unnoticed and damn, his cousin couldn't have a friend less gossipy than Rita Skeeter's whore. That gossipy bitch made every pureblood family, and even the mudbloods, know that Sirius Black had been disinherited.
His parents had a hard time sweeping the gossip under the rug, his mother always had a cold and unreadable demeanor, but after Sirius left, she roamed the halls of Grimmauld Place looking like one of the ghosts of Hogwarts. It was difficult to decipher Walburga Black, but considering that for Regulus his mother had always been a tough woman, now in these circumstances he didn't know what to think of her. Although worrying about his parents was the last thing he needed.
That first Friday in nineteen seventy-eight, the Great Hall was full of students waiting for the first years to go through the sorting cap and at the Slytherin table there was a small group of friends, It is usually normal to see the other houses living together openly, although not in Slytherin because each person at that table has their own group of friends. This was the case with Regulus Black.
First of all, Regulus Black was never a sociable person; he was quite the opposite. But as a child, he met the Rosier twins through his cousins. The first time he saw Evan and Pandora, they seemed to him to be the strangest children in the whole world, although they certainly were strange. Pandora had large grey eyes that pierced you with a single glance, she could spend hours staring into nothing in complete silence and without blinking and although Evan looked much more normal than Pandora, he was just as good or worse than his twin, in his case, Evan was the type who would approach you with some dead insect in his hands and give you strange information about different deadly potions you could obtain from them.
So yes, Regulus was not a normal child at all but the Rosier twins disturbed him, despite that he had to learn to swallow their presence although it was difficult to ignore them and at some point when all three were eight years old, they started having these sort of secret meetings in Regulus's room where they would make tents out of sheets and pretend to see the starry sky, Regulus learned a lot from the Rosier twins, such as how they listened to him when Regulus told them about the stars, the constellations, and the names of his family and at the same time, there were times when he didn't have to say anything at all because the twins did all the talking.
And that friendly relationship lasted even when they entered Hogwarts, even though Pandora ended up in a different house. Then Barty arrived, Barty was loud, fucking loud but smart as hell at the same time, he was one of their roommates and without even asking permission Barty began to join them along with Pandora. And finally Dorcas arrived, Dorcas was a year older than them, but she still stuck quite well to the small group, Evan had met her in the Slytherin common room and then began to introduce her to the group.
What started as a childhood friendship grew into a group that no one would want to mess with.
“When is Regulus coming?” Dorcas asked, craning her neck above the sea of heads.
“He said it wouldn't take too long.” Barty shrugged as if it were no big deal.
Regulus had walked away from his friends as they were walking to the Great Hall, claiming he would catch up with them because he had something to do first. And they had already learned not to question Regulus too much, so they just accepted it and moved on. What they didn't expect was that the matter that Regulus had to attend to first was to investigate. Now that he was the heir of the Blacks, Regulus had new responsibilities such as accepting to be a Death Eater.
Much against his wishes because in reality, the purity of blood did not matter to him at all, just as he was not interested in mudbloods, both topics were the least of his concerns, but being a Black he now had to take an interest in them. The war was something that not everyone talked about out loud, whispers could be heard in the corridors, sudden news of suspicious murders without any clue about the possible culprit and especially the events that took place behind the walls of Grimmauld Place. Regulus didn't know how things were when he was at Hogwarts, but every time he returned home during the holidays, his father received strange visitors in the middle of the night, there were meetings in which he couldn't be present and Bellatrix was in a very good mood lately, which didn't bode well.
After Sirius left, Bellatrix began to teach Regulus spells, spells that would help him if he was going to join the ranks of the Dark Lord and although that was not what he was really looking for, not that he had much choice and he couldn't simply refuse to take lessons from Bellatrix unless he wanted to be on the floor shaking and convulsing after a crucio. Regulus's footsteps echoed through the empty hallway, it was assumed that given the dinner, no one but Filch and his cat should be lurking around the castle, so Regulus was moving slowly but surely towards that abandoned bathroom on the second floor of the castle.
His cloak moved along with the night breeze and when he finally reached the bathroom, the first thing he did was take his wand out of his cloak to light a lumos, He inspected every space in the bathroom and when he was sure he was completely alone, he went directly to the last stall. Regulus had spent his holidays studying and preparing, sometime after Sirius left he sneaked into his brother's room, he knew that Sirius was someone that he was preparing for very specific scenarios that would be impossible for them to happen, a real idiot in his opinion, but if there was one thing Regulus knew, it was that Sirius was no fool.
So one night he snuck into his room and while going through his old scrolls, Regulus found an old trunk under his bed, it took him weeks to remove all the protection spells that Sirius had implemented in the stupid trunk and when he finally succeeded, he found at the bottom scrolls of nineteen seventy-three, nineteen seventy-four and nineteen seventy-five where Sirius and his stupid friends recounted the slow process they went through to become animagus.
Complete idiots.
At the time Regulus thought they were too stupid and after spending sleepless nights doubting and reading all the scrolls, Regulus realized that they were not as stupid as he thought, after all not just any wizard managed to become an animagus with such success and despite their failures, they had succeeded. Regulus did not believe that a group of idiots would be able to achieve it. Still, they were illegal animagus and although Regulus could use it against them, he decided to use the information his brother left to his advantage. He took note of his mistakes and began his own process of transformation. It was difficult the first few days, although unlike his brother, Regulus didn't think he would fail so often, because he definitely didn't have the chance to do it.
That first Friday marked one month of success after putting the fresh mandrake leaf in his mouth.
Regulus locked himself in the cubicle and took out a clean jar from his bag where he placed the mandrake leaf along with his saliva, from his trouser pocket he took out a handkerchief embroidered with his initials, R.A.B., and wiped his lips. It had been disgusting, more than he would have thought, but he was extremely grateful that his father was as obsessed with potions as he was and had gotten the first ingredients within his reach. From the same bag, he took out another small bottle where he had managed to obtain water from rain.
He collected the rainwater in the jar along with the leaf and his saliva and placed the jar in a strategic location where it could receive light from the sun and moon until he could continue with his next step, meanwhile, he could continue preparing for the rest. And as Regulus walked back to the Great Hall, Dorcas had asked about him again.
“Are you sure he said he would join us?” she insisted as her Prefect badge shone.
“As sure as my name is Barty.”
“Pandora and I dreamed it.” Evan added, his blue-tinged gray eyes wide open. Evan may have grown up, but he still managed to get a chill every now and then.
“Weird.” Barty mentioned as he looked at Evan and grimaced.
The doors of the Great Hall opened, letting in the last students before allowing the new ones to enter, among that group was Regulus, Regulus was someone who stole glances, he was already quite famous, he was a Black, the new heir, the star seeker of the Slytherin Quidditch team and above all because he was handsome, really handsome.
Regulus' hair was black and curly but he had some white streaks that stood out at the front of his hair, family heritage or something like that because Narcissa, his cousin, had the same thing. He was also tall, maybe not that tall but his height was perfect, he had a sharp chin, his cheekbones were high and he had many moles on his face, the one that stood out the most was the one at the corner of his lips and the one under his left eye. Regulus was handsome.
His eyes were another story, they were green but they did not transmit warmth, they were cold like the forbidden forest during the nights. But despite being so damn handsome, his personality made no one want to get close to him.
“It is rude to talk about someone who is not at the table” Regulus said as he sat down next to Evan.
“Where were you?” Dorcas asked him as she leaned forward slightly and her African braids fell like an elegant waterfall over the table.
“Prefect, I don't have to answer all your questions.” was the only thing Regulus said as he raised his eyebrow slightly.
He didn't give Dorcas a chance to answer because the ceremony for the first years had begun and after what felt like an eternity to him, Regulus was quite busy listening what Barty had done in the summer to anger his father, which involved a new hair dye and a flashy new cut that definitely made Bartemius Crouch squirm. Regulus was trying to ignore at all costs the noise that was coming from the table next to him, the Gryffindors were as always fucking noisy and this year he had no reason to want to see them. Plus he was giving dirty looks to anyone who decided it was a good idea to say as little as possible about Sirius and his decision to leave the Black house.
Useless bullshit.
“The role of Prefect suits you well.” Regulus said to Dorcas as he pushed away his half-full plate.
“Thanks, but don't forget your damn badge, Regulus.” She told him as she placed his prefect badge on the table.
Regulus made a grimace resembling a snarl and reluctantly took the badge to place it on his cloak. “For Salazar's sake, I told the idiot Slughorn I did not want to continue being a prefect.”
“His star pupil can't just give up.” Evan said as he adjusted the paper napkin on his lap.
“As if I had asked to be one.” he muttered under his breath.
“It's not so bad, we can spend the patrols together.” Dorcas told him.
“That is if the new head girl is competent and chooses students well for patrols.” Regulus said as he rolled his eyes and at that moment, a pale hand full of bracelets slammed down on the table next to a magazine. “Pandora, what brings you here?” Regulus's voice sounded monotonous as Pandora pushed her way between him and her brother.
“The new head girl is Lily Evans.” she commented.
“And who the hell is Lily Evans? Refresh my memory.” Barty asked as he looked at Pandora.
“She's in my year, but she's in Gryffindor.” said Dorcas and automatically everyone (except Regulus) grimaced.
“It seems that Lily Evans is becoming a topic of conversation lately.” Pandora said as she opened her magazine.
“What are you reading?” Dorcas asked as she tried to look at the magazine.
“In my house we started this as an independent project. We call it Gossipclaw.” Pandora handed the magazine to Dorcas. “Xeno is the editor in chief, I write columns about palmistry and Sybill has a section about prophecies she has.”
“Gossipclaw? Really? There wasn't a better name?” Evan said as he looked at Pandora and she looked back at him without blinking.
“No.” she said. “Sybill had an interesting prophecy. According to her, two Gryffindor students will become a couple. So everyone is pointing to Lily Evans and James P—” Pandora couldn't finish speaking because Evan stepped forward and placed his hand over his sister's mouth.
There was an unwritten rule for them: No mention of James Potter's bastard at all, Regulus hated him more than he hated himself, the worst part was that for James Potter, Regulus didn't even figure in the world and Regulus despised him with all his being, he had always felt a kind of hatred towards James Potter, especially after his brother's first year at Hogwarts. Before Sirius went to Hogwarts, he and Regulus were the closest brothers, Regulus was always behind Sirius, following him everywhere and when he went to Hogwarts, he became even quieter than he already was, All Regulus wanted was to have Sirius back until he could go to Hogwarts too, but during those months Sirius never answered his letters, Regulus sent a letter every week for the first month, but Sirius never responded.
Kreacher then told him that maybe Sirius was too busy trying to fix his mistake after he ended up in Gryffindor and that was why he couldn't answer his letters and Regulus really believed it. That was until winter break came around and he realized that Sirius had changed, he seemed happier and talked all the fucking time about this new friend he made at Hogwarts. Damn James Potter.
“We don't say the P-word.” Evan said through gritted teeth and Pandora rolled her eyes.
“I don't mind.” Regulus said, picking at his food.
Everyone at the table looked at him in surprise and complete silence, because they knew that Regulus cared a lot.
“What's wrong with you?” Barty said, resting his arm on the table and using his spoon to point at Regulus. “My Regulus would never say he doesn't care about James Potter.”
“He would actually be the first to insult him.” Evan added, looking at Regulus with a frown.
And then Regulus did that thing that always made him look like an angry cat. “I don't even care that much about James Potter.” but he did care.
“Yes… I don't know.” Pandora said, holding back a laugh.
“Yes, I honestly think you're a fake double of our Regulus.” Dorcas added.
“Yes, where did you leave our real Regulus?” Barty insisted, still pointing at him with the spoon.
Regulus looked at them all, quite surprised by the way they perceived him. “I hate you all.”
★★★
The last time James Potter felt heartbroken was when Lily Evans made it abundantly clear that she would never notice him and that had been two years ago after the tenth attempt. After that, James did not insist again. He didn't even mention it and let the memory of his shameful statements simply become history. But the topic came back to the table when Xeno and those Ravenclaws published this stupid magazine.
“How about talking about Alice and Frank?” said Peter as his head hung off the common room couch.
“They already graduated last year, I highly doubt it.” Remus said as he turned a page in his book.
“Let's be honest, this is definitely about James and Lily.” said Sirius as he patted James on the back.
“Oh, no. Honestly, I don't think it's about us, and who believes Sybill anyway?” James said as he pushed up his glasses, which had slipped off due to Siruis’s punches.
“I believe her. She is trustworthy.” said Peter.
“You don't count, Pete. She's your girlfriend, obviously you're going to believe her!” Sirius exclaimed as he grabbed one of the sofa cushions and threw it at Peter.
“I told you guys. It's not me with Lily.” James insisted.
And at that moment the Gryffindor entrance opened, letting in the warm laughter of Mary and the other two girls. The small group stopped at the sofas and Mary went straight to greet all the boys with a kiss on the cheek.
“Have you done McGonagall's homework yet?” Mary asked them as she leaned on the back of the sofa where Peter was.
After that Marlene joined the group greeting and finally Lily, who avoided speaking directly to James, was still upset with him because everyone was talking about her thanks to Gossipclaw. Even though James swore that it wasn't his fault and definitely not related to that supposed prophecy of Sybill's. Lily was beautiful, really beautiful. Although James had liked her for other reasons, like the fact that she treated him like he was an idiot, that she rejected all his attempts to go out with her and that she was intelligent, very intelligent.
“Lily, when will we meet to define the patrol schedules?” Remus asked, putting down his book and placing the bookmark Peter had gotten him from his trip to Austria
Lily had remained talking in monosyllables with Sirius and Mary. “Tomorrow, although I still don't know who the head boy will be, he hasn't contacted me.”
James pressed his lips into a thin line. In mid-July he had received a letter from Albus Dumbledore himself, informing him that from the beginning of the school year, he would be the new head boy of the school, James had kept it hidden from Sirius in an attempt to make it a huge surprise when school started, he hadn't even told his parents, Although they were also very curious about why Albus Dumbledore would send a letter to his son.
“It's probably a Slytherin snake, Frank had to deal with one last year.” said Sirius, pretending to get chills.
“I hope Merlin tears your tongue out!” exclaimed Mary. “Poor Lily having to spend time with them, I hope that's not the case.”
“As long as it's someone sensible and someone I can work with easily, I have no complaints.” Lily said as she crossed her arms and shook her head.
The first week of school had started the day before yesterday and the identity of the new head boy was still kept secret, but seeing that everyone was so curious about him, James cleared his throat. He crossed his arms and lowered his head with a huge smile on his face.
“You don't have to keep wondering who the new head boy is…” he said slowly as he raised his gaze. “Because you have it in front of you right now!” James immediately stood up and stretched out his arms. What followed was a long, long silence.
Everyone's mouths were wide open, and Lily looked like she was going to faint at any moment.
“You? Head boy YOU?” Marlene exclaimed as she pointed at him.
“Yes.” James said with satisfaction.
“What? Why you?” said Mary blinking.
“Because according to Dumbledore I am—" he cleared his throat. "A good leader with enough charisma and maturity to be a head boy." said James, imitating the director's tone of voice.
“Was this what you didn't want us to know?” Sirius asked, still a little confused.
“Yes.” James said again, this time with a laugh.
“I resign.” Lily said as she headed towards the stairs to go to the room she shared with the girls.
“Come on, Lily! It's going to be fun!” James shouted at her, but she didn't respond and walked away.
"Hogwarts is going to explode." Remus said as he shook his head and tucked the book under his arm to leave.
“Oh come on! I'm not going to be a bad head boy!” James raised his arms, pretending to be offended.
“No offense James, but you're definitely going to end up drowning the castle in the black lake.” Peter had already straightened up and was straightening his sweater.
“That's not true! If I wanted to do it, I would have done it already.” James replied, a little offended by the little faith they had in him.
“James, isn't that a lot of responsibility? I mean, you're going to be captain of the Quidditch team and head boy too. Can you handle all that pressure?” Mary asked, a little more worried than the rest.
“I can handle it, I promise! If I couldn't, Dumbledore wouldn't have considered me.” James said, his voice filled with pride and an overflowing confidence that could only be his own. “I'm going to prove to all of you that I can be a good head boy.”
★★★
Regulus wanted to escape from there, he needed to leave urgently because if he didn't, he would end up casting an unforgivable curse on everyone in the prefects' room. When Dorcas told him he was going to fall flat on his face when he saw this year's head boy, he was prepared to wait for anything, except James Potter. And Salazar help his soul, Regulus wanted commit suicide at that moment or end up massacring everyone in that room.
“Don't even think about it." Dorcas whispered as her hand placed itself over Regulus's, who was already on his way to take off his badge and resign at that moment.
“If you don't leave me, I'm going to kill myself.” Regulus said through gritted teeth.
“This must be a joke.” Severus Snape, who was standing next to them, muttered under his breath.
Regulus looked at him sideways. He usually didn't care about the people at Hogwarts, they were generally irrelevant to him, but Severus? Severus was a pain in the ass. They had a sort of unwritten rivalry in the air, but Regulus definitely knew that Severus had some sort of absurd grudge against him because his brother used to be such a jerk to him and Regulus was also everything Severus wanted. He knew that Severus was a big blood purist, which Regulus found absurd considering he was a half-blood and well, yes, Regulus was sometimes a jerk to Severus too and took advantage of being a pure-blood Black.
But Regulus was more certain that having that damn James Potter as that year's head boy was a worse punishment. He wanted to gouge his eyes out with his own wand and throw them directly at Dumbledore for doing this to him. James kept talking and talking about his plans to do a great job that year and that he looked forward to sharing a great space with everyone there.
There was a clear grimace on Regulus's face and damn, he was about to throw himself out the window.
“Thank you, James.” said Lily Evans, finally interrupting Potter's endless speech. “The pairs for this week's patrols have already been selected.” Lily pulled the wand out of her hair that was holding it, causing her hair to fall in a perfect, shiny, red waterfall and with a gentle wave of her wand, she made the blackboard behind her turn around showing the list and upon finding his name, Regulus was determined to kill himself.
“Don't even dream about it.” Dorcas said again as she held his hands tighter.
Regulus A. Black and James F. Potter - Friday.
That was the worst nightmare he could ever have in his entire life. Who had planned the couples? Because Regulus had a couple of unforgivable spells to cast on.
“Kill me now.” was the first thing Regulus said after his prefect meeting as he plopped down on the common room sofa.
“What's the problem?” Evan asked as he stopped arranging his new bug collection.
“Regulus is going to have to do patrols with James Potter, who by the way, is the new head boy.” said Dorcas as she laid her books down on the sofa.
Barty and Evan stared at each other, mouths agape.
“You know, we can kill him and make his body disappear without a trace.” Barty said with a bit of malice in his voice.
“I can make Circe bite him, a little of her venom is lethal.” Evan said. Circe was his little pet tarantula, because of course, only someone like Evan could have a pet like that.
They remained silent, waiting for Regulus's response. He had covered his face with both hands and was breathing slowly. “No, we're not going to kill him.” he finally said as he slowly sat up. “I'm going to ignore him, yes, that's what I'll do. For James Potter I do not exist and if I do not exist things are going to be easier.”
The three looked at each other in silence.
“Yes, that's what I'll do, you know? James Potter doesn't exist, and besides, I can kill him myself if necessary.”
Regulus was already putting together his master plan to avoid James Potter during the patrols, besides hurting his stupid pride as an adored child was something he had always wanted to do, stomping it into the ground so many times that it was completely destroyed. And with that thought in mind, he stayed sane through the night. Though he couldn't let his mind be solely focused on the different ways he wanted to squash James Potter like he was one of Evan's insects, he still had work to do in his arduous effort to become an animagus and he had an important mission that night.
He waited for everyone in the room to fall asleep and when there wasn't a single noise outside, Regulus slipped out of his bed with his uniform on and left his room. He had to tiptoe out of the common room, making sure there was no one around and luckily for him, he was a prefect, so if he ran into any teachers or Filch, he could just say he was on patrol and he wouldn't have to receive a punishment. He went straight to the library because Regulus had been slightly obsessed with the subject of poisons lately, although they were not at all the animal poisons that Evan was obsessed with.
It all started when Bellatrix and her father told her that she was going to become a Death Eater now that Sirius was not there to take on that role. And his last name wasn't enough for the Dark Lord to be interested enough in him, then he would have to find a way for Voldemort to look at him and decide that a seventeen year old boy was good enough to join his ranks. Regulus thought about it a lot, what would be striking enough to attract Voldemort? Then he remembered that potions should be enough, and one afternoon while studying new deadly potions to lure Voldemort out, he discovered something that could lure him out even faster.
He had discovered several volumes on poisons in his home library. The Black family had a long cultural span, his mother was Japanese and his father French, so there was a lot of information to be obtained about different types of magic, one of them had been the art of poison on the part of his maternal lineage. Apparently, his Japanese ancestors were dedicated to the manufacture of poisons for deadly potions especially during the Edo period. The scrolls Regulus found were old and contained characters he was definitely unfamiliar with, although his mother had spent her childhood teaching him and Sirius about their family heritage, he never fully became familiar with Chinese and Japanese characters.
Still, he had brought along a couple of heavy tomes secretly from his parents, especially because he wanted to continue learning about these poisons. And he had already tried searching in the library, but the only thing Regulus found about poisons were things he already knew, and he didn't know which professor to go to to get permission to access the prohibited area. He knew that any teacher he asked would question him excessively about his sudden interest in poison and honestly, Regulus wasn't in the mood to answer that question.
So having no other options, he made the decision to sneak into the library and sneak into the restricted section of the library, it was a more difficult task than he thought, between the disillusionment spell and the fact that sneaking in was harder than he thought, he was about to give up, but being Regulus he simply wasn't going to give up that easily and he was finally able to force the lock to get in. Regulus knew he wasn't going to find any Japanese poisons at Hogwarts, but if there was anything remotely similar then he would be grateful, he walked through the aisles of the restricted section among the books that made noises and moved on their own, he lightly illuminated the names of the books with the tip of his wand and When he finally came to a section on poison, he stopped to read the headings carefully.
It was then that he stopped in front of one in particular, "Poison and Dark Magic” The name was quite striking, and although he hesitated, Regulus ended up taking it in his hands. He caressed the cover of the book; it was old and worn. Surely the book was over a hundred years old. He was about to open the book to read its index, until the sound of distant footsteps stopped him and he had to hide behind a shelf. He remained silent, trying to catch more noises from outside, but when he didn't perceive anything, Regulus took a step forward to leave, however as he moved forward his body collided with nothing.
His body literally hit something that wasn't there and he fell backward, hitting his back against the bookshelf. And between the sound of the impact and the books shaking, Regulus could hear what was someone else's moan, so he took out his wand and started pointing it around, even though he knew he had to get out of there immediately.
“Who's there?” Regulus whispered, spinning on his own axis. Nothing. Silence.
He remained silent for a moment and finally, having gained nothing from that little incident, was ready to ignore it and return to his room, however, he didn't even take a step forward when he felt like something wanted to snatch the book from his hands and then he got really angry.
“What the hell?” Regulus muttered under his breath as he pulled the book literally against the air. Whatever it was was starting to get on Regulus's nerves and as a last resort after struggling to no avail, he let go of the book and there was the sound of something falling and then someone complaining.
When Regulus deigned to look down at the ground, all he could see was James Potter, his body half gone, his glasses askew as he held a hand to his forehead.
“Holy crap, I should have prepared for that.” James said between laughs and shit, Regulus wasn't even able to process this.
“Potter?” was the only thing he said.
James was adjusting his glasses and looked up at Regulus with a stupid amused smile. “That's me and you are Regulus. Isn't that obvious?”
Regulus clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to punch him in the face. “What are you doin—”
“What am I doing here? I could ask you the same thing.” James was standing up as his body slowly disappeared and appeared.
There was so much going on that Regulus didn't even know which one to ask about first. What the hell was he doing there? And more importantly, how the hell did his body disappear like that?
“I definitely don't have time to deal with you, Potter.” As Regulus had dropped the book to make James fall he went straight to pick it up again, but as it had ended up near James, he was much faster and caught it in the air.
“Potion and dark magic—” James read the title.
“It's poison, not potion.” Regulus corrected him through gritted teeth and raised his wand. “Give it back to me now, Potter.”
“Why would someone like you be interested in poison? I mean, I understand the dark magic, but poison?” James looked at him curiously, raising his eyebrow.
“You don't care, give me the book or I swear I'll kill you right now.” Regulus did not lower his wand and as he moved forward to retrieve the book, James took steps back.
“It is not proper for a prefect to sneak into the prohibited section.” James said as he took another two steps back.
“It's not coming from the new head boy either, but here we are.” replied Regulus. “Give me the damn book.”
“What are you doing here? Don't you want to know why I'm here too?” James asked. “Now that we're going to be patrol partners, we should get along and take an interest in each other.”
And that insinuation made Regulus's blood boil and his lip tremble slightly in disgust.
“I don't give a damn what you do with your life.” he said with his jaw clenched. “And I'm not interested in you, not even as a patrol partner. So give that book back now, or Sirius will be left without a best friend.”
The space had shrunk and James had ended up with his back against a shelf, he couldn't move anymore because he had no room to do so and Regulus was cornering him. In an instant, Regulus's wand rested on James' chin and, well, Regulus was tall, but James was two heads taller than him so in this position he didn't look as threatening as he wanted.
“If you let me go, I'll give you back the book,” said James.
And Regulus laughed bitterly. “I'm not stupid, Potter. If I let you go, you'll walk away.”
“I promise I won't.”
“I don't believe you, nothing that comes out of your mouth is true.”
“Do you want to try?” James said in a mocking and flirtatious tone, causing Regulus to press his wand harder. “It's okay, it's okay. I was just playing.”
James was starting to lower the arm that was holding the book in the air and Regulus just wanted to grab the book and run away from there, however, it was the sound of footsteps and then the meow of the damn Filch's cat that made everything go to hell. The two panicked and the only solution James found was to surround Regulus's body with his arms, holding him by the waist to keep him glued to him and ended up covering them with the thing that made it disappear.
Regulus started to want to struggle away from James's body, but the bastard was so fucking strong he couldn't get his arms off him. While they were struggling, Filch and Mrs. Norris entered the restricted section, the light from Filch's flashlight made both of them struggle, Regulus had his hand on James's face to push him away and his legs were slightly raised off the ground because James had picked him up.
The scene and the position they were both in was already funny enough, but the fact that they were frozen was even funnier. Especially since James had placed one of his hands over Regulus's mouth to stifle any sound. Filch was walking through the corridors near where they were, looking for the intruders who had left their beds and when the light entered the hallway where they were and they saw the cat walking towards them, Regulus began to hit James to tell him to move.
James still had Regulus up off the ground while holding him by the stomach and carrying the poison book, and yet he was able to move them both around Filch and Mrs. Norris to get out. James led them to one of the farthest back corridors where Filch had surely already checked and when they were covered in darkness again, they both remained silent, looking towards the entrance to the corridor, listening only to their breathing and when the light from Filch's flashlight was again accompanied by his voice and a meow from Mrs. Norris, they held their breath until they heard footsteps fading away, the door to the restricted section closing again, and finally the library door being locked.
Despite that, they still stayed glued to each other for a couple of minutes, until they realized that it was no longer necessary to be in that position.
“Let me go, you damn Potter.” was the first thing Regulus said, biting the hand James had placed in his mouth. In instant pain James stopped covering his mouth, but they were tangled together and James dropped the book with a thud that filled the entire library.
Regulus tried to get off James but in the darkness his feet got tangled with James's and he fell to the ground, in an attempt to find something to hold on to, he grabbed the first thing he could find: James. So Regulus made James fall with him and his body was under James's. It was a second, James made his weight stay away from Regulus's body supporting himself on his hands and Regulus had covered his face with his hands as if that helped him cushion the blow. There was a long silence and when Regulus finally opened his eyes the first thing he saw was James's face.
And to be honest, Regulus was a weak man. He had realized his homosexuality fairly early on, and although he hated James Potter with every fiber of his being, he had to admit that the bastard was fucking hot. His brown skin shone slightly in the moonlight that filtered through the library windows and his long brown eyelashes made his brown eyes look like two precious jewels. Regulus felt breathless, had he always been this handsome?
The charm didn't last long before Regulus reacted and realized who he was in that position with and with wand in hand he did the first thing that came to mind. Cast a stunning spell. And before James's weight could fall on him, Regulus rolled to the side until there was a sharp thud and James fell face first onto the ground.
Regulus took a moment to process everything that had happened, and damn it, he was about to crucify himself as he felt his heart pounding. How was he able to accelerate just because of stupid James Potter? He had to leave immediately before the spell wore off and he literally ran over to the book they had been fighting over and hugging it like his life depended on it, he left the library leaving James behind on the ground.