Regulus

Regulus's parents had been so proud when he'd been chosen for Slytherin Prefect. It had brightened his mum up considerably. Before Regulus's letter came she had still been upset about 'that other son', as she liked to call Sirius, running away. Regulus didn't really care, he did like the Prefect Common Room though. It was really just an unused classroom with a notice board and a few couches but it was private. The other prefects usually preferred to hang out with their friends in their house common rooms so Regulus was usually alone which was how he liked it.

He was sitting in the common room working through his potions homework when the door opened.

Regulus frowned as Remus Lupin walked in and sat down on a couch on the other side of the common room. Admittedly, Lupin didn't seem as bad as the rest of Sirius's friends, but still, he was Sirius's friend. Regulus hadn't seen much of his brother this year, a part of him wanted to ask Lupin how he was doing since he'd ran away but he didn't. Lupin probably wouldn't tell him anyway. He wondered why Lupin was here, was he sick of the other Gryffindors?

Lupin looked over and noticed Regulus staring before he could look away.

"Oh, hello Regulus, I didn't see you there before. You're a prefect this year?"

Regulus nodded.

"That's great, your parents must have been proud."

Regulus frowned, was Lupin insulting his parents? "Yes, they were," he said defiantly.

Lupin smiled at him. Regulus was confused, he didn't know if he was being teased or not, it made him uncomfortable. "Umm, I'm going to go back to my common room," he said.

"OK," Lupin just kept on smiling.

Regulus should have known Dumbledore would pull something like this. 'Oh did you hear Regulus Black's brother ran away in the holidays? Wouldn't it be hilarious if we made him do rounds with one of his brother's best friends!' Regulus looked across at Lupin, he doubted he was happy about it either but at least he wasn't trying to hex him. They walked through the dark castle in silence, every creek and grown the castle made seemed so loud.

There was a sudden shuffling sound.

"What was that?" Regulus stopped walking and instinctively angled his body behind Lupin's.

"It's OK," Lupin said, "it's nothing to be scared of, just people out of bed."

"I wasn't scared," Regulus muttered as Lupin approached a nearby classroom door.

Lupin ignored him. "Please be dressed," he muttered before opening the classroom door and walking in. Regulus hurried after him.

Two Ravenclaw students sprung away from each other. Luckily Lupin got his wish and they were both fully dressed.

"Errr," one of the Ravenclaws said. Regulus rolled his eyes, weren't Ravenclaws supposed to be smart?

"Just go," Lupin said, "and if you get caught we never saw you!"

The Ravenclaws quickly fled the room. "Thanks Remus," one of them said.

Regulus looked at Lupin when they were gone. "Aren't we supposed to report them?" he asked.

"It's OK to bend the rules every now and again," Lupin said. "I thought you were a Slytherin?"

Regulus frowned, he wondered again if Lupin was teasing him or being friendly. Then Lupin laughed and Regulus found himself smiling back.

Regulus was not having a good day. He was tired from rounds last night, then some Hufflepuff idiot had spilt a half-finished potion all over him in potions class. He had been on his way to the prefects bathroom when he had ran into Avery and Mulciber.

"Haven't seen you in the common room Black," Avery said. "You turned blood traitor like your big brother?"

"Na, he'd actually have to have friends to be a blood traitor," Mulciber said. "He's probably just been hanging out in the kitchens with the house elves. They're the only friends he has."

That insult hit a little too close to home. "Fuck off," Regulus snapped. He immediately wished he hadn't opened his mouth.

Avery and Mulciber laughed. "Oh Black, I do love it when you talk dirty," Avery said mockingly.

"Locomotor Wibbly!" Mulciber pointed his wand at Regulus. The Jelly Legs Jinx. Regulus felt his legs wobble and then give way. Mulciber caught him under the armpits and held him up before he hit the ground. Avery stepped forward and punched him hard in the ribs. Regulus felt the air rush out of his lungs as Mulciber released him and let him drop to the ground.

"Bye Black! Talk later!" The two older Slytherins walked away laughing.

Regulus sat on the ground trying to gasp air back into his lungs and stop the tears that were starting to fall from him eyes. He was thankful the tears had at least waited until Avery and Mulciber had left before they started falling.

As soon as he thought his legs could support his weight Regulus pushed himself up and continued on his way to the prefect bathroom.

He was hurrying through the door when he crashed into someone.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Regulus?"

Of course, of all the prefects he could have crashed into it had to be Lupin. He was mortified when he felt his eyes start to fill with tears again. He tried to stop them but unfortunately that made them fall faster.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Lupin said gently. He placed what was probably supposed to be a comforting hand on Regulus's side but it made Regulus flinch away.

"What happened?" Lupin took his hands away.

"Nothing, I'm fine."

"You're not fine! You're hurt … and wet."

Regulus huffed a small laugh and reached up to dry his eyes.

"Come on," Lupin led him into the bathroom giving Regulus no choice but to follow. "Sit down," he nodded towards a bench, "let me see."

Regulus glared but did what Lupin said. He moved his cloak to the side and carefully lifted up his top. He glanced down and saw his ribs had started to bruise. Lupin dropped to his knees in front of Regulus and gently reached out to touch his ribs.

"So why are you wet?"

"I had potions and … ow!"

"Sorry." Lupin didn't sound sorry.

"Anderson, that idiot Hufflepuff, spilt his potion all over me."

Lupin stood up. "I don't think your ribs are broken, you should still go to the hospital wing though."

"Please," Regulus said, "I've been hit much harder than that."

Lupin didn't say anything for a moment. "Do you want me to find one of your friends?"

Regulus snorted. "Might be hard, I don't have any of those."

Lupin hesitated. "What about Sirius?"

Regulus laughed bitterly.

"He'd want to know Regulus, he'd want to go after whoever hit you himself."

"That would just make it harder for me," Regulus said. And it would be even worse if Sirius found out and just didn't care, Regulus thought. He and Sirius had been so close as kids but then when Sirius came to Hogwarts everything had changed. Regulus had thought things might get better the next year when it was his turn to come too but if anything it had gotten worse. Sirius didn't want anything to do with Regulus after he was sorted into Slytherin. Now that Sirius had ran away from home they were practically strangers.

Lupin looked unsure.

"I'm fine Lupin, I'm just going to go back to the common room and study."

"At least let me come with you then, just to keep an eye on you."

Regulus looked at Lupin carefully, he couldn't see anything mocking in his face, only sincerity. He nodded, "OK then."

It wasn't as awkward as it should have been, sitting alone in silence with one of Sirius's friends. Lupin was actually seemed nice, and he was busy reading so the silence wasn't awkward.

Regulus was trying to concentrate on his Defence Against the Dark Arts essay. Growing up a Black had given him a good understanding of all kinds of dark spell but he didn't know as much about dark creatures.

Lupin must have noticed his confused face. "Do you need some help?" he asked.

Regulus almost said no but Lupin had been nothing but nice to him so far. "I don't understand the difference between ghosts and poltergeists," Regulus admitted. "Our professor said poltergeists are different because they don't have a physical form but Peeves is a poltergeist and he does have a physical form."

"You're right," Lupin said, "some poltergeists do have a physical form. The main difference is that unlike ghosts, poltergeists were never human."

"Oh, thank you."

"That's OK. My father actually use to investigate spirits and Boggarts. I think we visited almost every haunted castle in Brittan when I was younger."

"Really?" for some reason Regulus imagined Lupin's parents both had muggle jobs.

Lupin went on to tell Regulus stories about his time spent in haunted castles. Regulus laughed as Lupin told him about a ghost who had convinced all the painting in his castle that the Lupin's were art dealers and had come to sell them. "And so as soon as we walked in they all started pulling faces and getting into ridiculous poses so we thought no one would want to buy them."

"That's funny. I wish I'd have seem that."

Lupin smiled. They sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments.

"I should actually get going if you're sure you're OK?"

Regulus nodded. "I'm fine Lupin."

"OK, Bye Regulus."

"Bye"

Regulus found himself actually looking forward to patrol that night. He tried not to think too much about why that was. His head popped up when he heard the prefect common room doors open.

"You're not Lupin."

James Potter was standing in the doorway. "Very well spotted Black. Moony said his patrol partner was a Slytherin, I suppose you're better than Snivellus … just."

Regulus clenched his jaw. "You're not allowed in here," he said.

"Oh relax Black, I'm not trying to take over your special little common room, I'm here to do patrol."

"You're … What?"

"Oh for goodness sake Black. Remus is sick, I'm doing his patrol for him. Can we go now? I have better things to do than to spend time with you."

Regulus stood with a heavy sigh. This was going to be awful.

Regulus tried to stay behind Potter to make sure he didn't get hexed. Unfortunately, it didn't work too well since Potter didn't know where they were supposed to be going.

"What the hell are you doing Black?" Potter snapped.

"Umm," Regulus flushed as he realised how awkward he must look. "Let's go this way," he hurried off, praying that Potter didn't hex him.

They walked in silence for almost ten minutes. Regulus was thinking about Lupin, he wondered if he was really sick or if he just didn't want to spend any more time with him. Regulus had thought they had been getting on earlier, maybe he was wrong.

"He's fine if you even care," Potter suddenly snapped.

"What?"

"Sirius. You haven't even asked."

"Oh, Sirius, right."

Potter just glared at him. "Unbelievable," he muttered.

Regulus clenched his jaw and kept walking, it was going to be a long night.

Remus

Remus's whole body ached. It was always like this in the lead up to the full moon. He winced as he pulled a book down from a high shelf in the library.

He saw Sirius's brother sitting alone at one of the tables and considered going over to say hi. Regulus wasn't what Remus had expected, he was shy and a bit awkward sometimes, but he certainly wasn't the pure-blood obsessed weakling Sirius had made him out to be. Remus hesitated but decided to go over.

"Hi Regulus."

Regulus looked up, the seemed to be trying to read him. Remus wished he knew what was going on in his head.

"Hello," Regulus finally said looking back to his work.

It was better than nothing. Remus wondered if Regulus had a problem talking to a half-blood like him in public. He sat down anyway, he desperately wanted to solve the mystery of who Regulus Black really was.

"You weren't on patrol last night," Regulus said.

Wait was Regulus mad about that? It was hardly his fault with the full moon coming up. He probably could have warned Regulus about James though. James hadn't said much about how the patrol had went besides a quick 'your brother's a twat' to Sirius. Maybe they had fought?

"I wasn't feeling well," Remus said.

Regulus was quite for a moment.

"Will you be back tonight or will I be patrolling with Potter again?"

"No, I'm er … still sick but James is busy too."

"So who am I patrolling with? Wait … not …" Regulus looked horrified.

It took Remus a moment to figure out why and then he laughed. "No, not Sirius either. You're with Snape tonight."

Regulus relaxed. "Oh, good."

Remus watched as Regulus went back to work. Some of his mannerisms were similar to Sirius's but he was so different. For one thing Sirius wouldn't be caught dead studying alone in the library.

"What are you working on?" Remus asked.

"My potions essay, we've been learning about …"

Remus never got to hear what they were learning about because Regulus suddenly cut himself off with a nervous look towards the library door way. Remus looked to see Sirius standing there leaning against the door way. He raised an eyebrow when he caught Remus's eye.

"Err, I should go," Remus said. Regulus had already turned his attention back to his school work. "Bye Regulus."

Sirius was waiting for him outside the library. "What was that?" he asked.

"We were just talking," Remus said as they started walking.

"Aha," Sirius sounded doubtful.

"He's my patrol partner, I was just letting him know I wouldn't be there tonight."

"Oh," Sirius said. "I forgot it was a full moon tonight."

Remus looked at Sirius stunned. How could he just forget? It must be nice not having your life revolve around the moon cycles. Remus didn't like where his thoughts were heading, it was hardly Sirius's fault.

"Why were you in the library anyway?" Remus asked, "actually thinking of borrowing a book?"

"Never," Sirius said, "just looking for my favourite nerd, figured you'd be in the library."

Remus smiled as Sirius flung an arm around his shoulder. After all these years Remus still couldn't believe how lucky he was to have found friends that accepted him.

His good mood lasted until Severus Snape found them.

"Why have you been excused from rounds Lupin?" he asked abruptly.

"That's none of your business Snivellus," Sirius snapped.

Remus rolled his eyes as Sirius and Snape started trading insults.

"I hate that guy," Sirius said as Sanpe finally stormed away. "We need to think of a good prank for him."

Remus sighed. "Sure Sirius."