She didn't know when it had happened. She wasn't even sure why it had happened, but . . .but suddenly, she noticed; Lily realised she was paying attention to him. And it was confusing her.

"James is playing mighty well today, isn't he?" Marlene said next to her, smiling and cheering along with the rest of Gryffindor house. She applauded and woo'd loudly when James brought them another goal.

Lily tried smiling, but only ended up grimacing a little at her friends' enthusiasm and kept her eyes on the pitch.

"You all right, Lily?" Alice asked on her other side. The girl was showing her support as well, bundled up in her scarf coloured red and gold, but she was nowhere near as bad as Marlene (or Sirius standing in front of them) in terms of volume.

"You get them, Potter!" Sirius yelled, waving his small flag passionately.

"Go James!" Peter cheered.

Lily rolled her eyes and turned to Alice. "I'm fine. It's just that Black spotted the Snitch ages ago, but he still hasn't tried to catch it yet."

Alice blinked. "That's curious. I wonder why he would wait."

Lily didn't answer. She didn't have the faintest idea either, but what was nagging her mind was the fact that she'd noticed at all. Since when had Regulus Black been on her radar?

"And there goes a point to Slytherin! About time, that. Suppose it can't have been easy for poor Travers to perform today, I hear his girlfriend broke up with him last weekend. Speaking of performance, I hear that was part of the reason why she dumped him—"

"JORKINS!" Professor McGonagall roared.

"Sorry, Professor!" Bertha Jorkins said, and resumed commenting the game.

"What an absolute idiot," Marlene said, looking somewhat disgusted. "Doesn't she realise Travers would kill her for that if he could get away with it?"

"She does meet our house's criteria of being reckless well enough," Lily agreed.

"You're being a bit hard on her," said Alice. "I don't think she knows what—"

"Oh, she knows," Lily and Marlene chorused.

"That's what makes it worse," said Marlene.

The match continued and Lily's attention was once more on the younger Black. He was circling around above the goal posts, giving the impression of boredom, yet Lily observed the way his back never fully turned toward the left side of the Quidditch pitch. He was the definition of Slytherin, it seemed. He was pretending to be something he was not.

What's he playing at?

She wondered if her newfound interest in the boy was his doing as well. Did he spike her pumpkin juice, perhaps? He certainly was clever enough, since he too was a member of the Slug Club and according to Professor Slughorn he was the one most likely to become the male Slytherin prefect next year. And he never did act like the other imbeciles she'd seen strutting around yelling 'mudblood' at people. In fact, he minded his own business at all times.

A part of her reluctantly admired that. She never did seem able to do so herself. Perhaps if she had then . . .No, she scolded herself. Petunia would still have found something else to complain about, even if she and Severus hadn't found Dumbledore's letter.

That was another thing. The Black sibling rivalry. While Sirius Black wasn't Lily's favourite person, she still felt for his unfortunate family situation. The distance between him and his brother was predictably a sore spot and she sympathised deeply. However . . .It was a fact that the usual instigator of their public rows was Sirius. Regulus would at most sneer at his brother and friends, but nothing more to Lily's knowledge.

There was a cheer as Slytherin scored another point, and Lily snapped out of her thoughts—only to find the person in question looking back at her.

Still perched up high and elegantly on his broom, Regulus arched an eyebrow her way; his grey eyes rapidly switching from their usual reserved look to mildly amused. Lily realised that it must indeed look strange for her to be the only one not fixated on the other end of the pitch. But still she was reluctant to let her gaze go.

Regulus Black had somehow wormed his way into her brain and she wanted to figure out why, even if that meant she had to suffer his smirk.

~o0o~

A/N: A little Regulily one-shot I got inspired to write the other day! Hope you enjoyed!