This is a companion piece to Little Voice by RaeynnBeau and may be read alone. However, things make more sense when the two are read in tandem. This chapter takes place at the same time as "Morningside" in Little Voice.
"Le pelouse est dans une autre château," the flying cat meowed. It was made of purple cellophane and seemed to have fractal fur patterns, but the ground wouldn't stop spinning to allow for a good enough look. A badger and a snake were battling with flaming swords. There was other bizarre symbolism, but it was more or less par for the course. Of course, there was always the question of how the snake was swordfighting.
That was the thought Regulus Black woke with: how would a snake swordfight. He stared at his extra pillow, wondering why in the name of Merlin a snake would get into a swordfight. It took an unholy screech for Regulus to fully comprehend that he was awake and that in the real world, cats didn't speak broken French and snakes could not in fact swordfight.
This was when Regulus realized he needed to go to the bathroom. He probably shouldn't have had that many cups of tea before bed, but the tea tasted so good and kept his hands warm when he was doing homework. The dungeons had the tendency to be damned cold, and Regulus didn't want to get out of bed, let alone walk all the way to the bathroom. The bed was warm and comfy, and… he was never going to be able to get back to sleep if he didn't go to the bloody bathroom.
Grabbing his discarded and unpleasantly cold shirt off the floor where he had filed it, Regulus decided he was semi-presentable. The floor, of course, was freezing through his socks, but these socks like most in his possession were holey. He really needed to learn how to darn socks, because he felt bad having house elves fix things he was just going to wear another hole in. The Slytherin dungeons had no natural light aside from the dim light filtered through the lake. The lack of sunlight wreaked havoc on Regulus' emotions even more in the winter when it was dark when he woke up and dark when he was out of class, but at the moment it was probably still pitch black outside. Because of the darkness and Regulus' natural propensity to run into things, he grabbed his wand since magic was so much easier to deal with than finding a candle. Even if a candle would be a heat-source.
Of course, if he had been at home, Regulus would probably have just wandered around in the dark and bumped into walls. Sirius slept like the dead, and Mum and Dad were likely used to his lack of spatial sense by now. The more Regulus thought about them, the more he started to feel melancholy. With a sigh, he pushed any thought of his family out of his head.
Accidentally reaching the stairs a little more quickly than he intended, Regulus made a misstep, but he managed to only trip down a couple stairs and not hit the person likewise in the stairwell at this unholy hour of the night. It was what he deserved for being so lost in thought. Regulus cast a quick lumos so as he wouldn't trip over his own feet again.
"…Barty?" Regulus murmured as he recognized his friend as the one he had almost fallen onto. He was quite frankly confused as to why his friend was also—The screech. Obviously. Well, that mystery solved, this was a little awkward. Not normally, really, but Regulus had a problem with babbling and tended to follow Barty around like an idiot.
Barty froze. Regulus noted his friend was wearing those really nice if oversized pajamas his mother had given him for Christmas. They were infinitely superior to Regulus' goofy Superman pajama bottoms (Sirius had given them to him a couple years ago). The only reason Regulus noticed was that he marveled at the fact Barty could walk down the stairs in the dark and not trip over himself. There had to be at least one or two inches that pooled on the floor.
Oh, no. Barty had that aggravated set to his shoulders. Someone was going to be cranky tomorrow. Or right now. Regulus wondered what was wrong, but he knew he probably shouldn't ask. Should he apologize preemptively, just in case? Before Regulus could make up his mind, Barty turned around and clearly annoyed said, "Reg, you're blinding me."
"Huh?" Regulus realized his wand was more or less at eye-level with Barty and immediately felt embarrassed. "Oh, sorry," he apologized, feeling incredibly stupid and more slow than usual. He knew Barty had been annoyed about something, and now he'd probably made it worse. Sure, Barty might not be mad at him, but, well, maybe Regulus had done something earlier in the day to upset him? He definitely should try to apologize for that, but in the mood Barty seemed to be in, Regulus wasn't sure Barty would forgive him for anything.
And now Barty tapping his foot on the floor impatiently. He had every right to feel that way, really. Regulus must have seemed like a stalker, wandering around at Merlin knew what hour of the night, accidentally temporarily blinding people. Desperate to make the silence less oppressive, Regulus blurted, "I'm… surprised to see you up this late." Wow, that was exactly the last thing on Earth he should have said. Actually, declaring his love for Lily Evans might have barely been a bit worse, although he'd mostly gotten over that. Trying to fix his mistake, Regulus restarted, "So—" Yeah, that was a great conversation starter. So. His brain seemed to have turned off the filter between it and his mouth, because Regulus then asked, "What are you—"
And then Barty declared caustically, "Christ, Reg! What are you, my mum? I woke up and had to take a piss – no big mystery here!" Yep, Barty was angry with him. Regulus froze, wondering what he could say to make it better, but by the time he was able to even form words, Barty had done an about-face and was stalking off.
"Barty…" Regulus whined, angry at himself for only managing that. "Barty, I'm sorry!" he called after his friend, but it didn't seem like Barty had heard him. Too little, too late.
Trying to think of what he could have done, Regulus stood in the stairwell, just thinking. Everything had been pretty normal earlier that day. He might have been a bit more obnoxious and clingy than usual during potions, but Barty still sometimes didn't quite understand some concepts in that class. Since Sev had graduated the year before, Slughorn had decided that Regulus was decent enough to make sure Barty didn't blow the school up.
Regulus slid down to the floor and let the light go out. He didn't need anyone else witnessing his private little breakdown, especially not another Slytherin. Regulus' breath hitched as he tried not to cry. He was a fuck-up, and that was all there was to it. He couldn't even figure out what he had done to so upset his best friend. Truth be told, Barty was really Reg's only friend left at Hogwarts. God, that was so bloody pathetic. There had to be something about Reg that made people not like him, because if he didn't have some flaw he couldn't identify, then he wouldn't know what there was to fix. He couldn't bear it when people didn't like him.
Well, sure, he was selfish, but you had to be in Slytherin. This damned house wasn't like Hufflepuff, where everything was sunshine and kittens and rainbows and everyone seemed to genuinely like each other. Sometimes Regulus wondered if he would have fit in better there or if instead he would have made all the other Hufflepuffs depressed, too.
Maybe he had ignored Barty? There had been something at lunch, right? Reg had been distracted by the Gryffindor table and wondering how Sirius was doing. Maybe whatever made Sirius angry at him was the same thing that made Barty angry?
Regulus hugged his knees to his chest and tried not to think about that. Sirius was writing to him, albeit sporadically, but he wasn't … angry, really. So, hopefully Barty being angry was just an isolated incident. Yes, he had to have just screwed something up earlier. It wasn't that Regulus was a shitty human being, except—Oh, Merlin, he was. He was selfish and self-centered and vain, and he talked about stupid shit no one was interested in but him, which only served to piss everyone else off. It didn't help that he thought himself morally superior to a good number of his classmates, but then again, feeling morally superior to Voldemort's future cronies wasn't anything to write home about. It was like saying one was morally superior to a Nazi.
If Regulus fell off the face of the Earth, he doubted anyone would truly be worse off. Sirius could go be happy with James, who—let's face it—was the brother Sirius deserved. And Mum and Dad wouldn't have to know their son was a fuck-up that was more than willing to fall in love with a Muggleborn. The obvious benefit would be to Barty, who wouldn't have to deal with Regulus' bullshit all the time. He could just be himself and not perpetually bothered by his over-talkative, depressed, and clueless idiot of friend.
Eventually, Regulus managed to get himself to move again. He couldn't sit in the stairwell all night feeling sorry for himself. Also, bathroom. Where there were tissues in the form of toilet paper, because there was snot all over his hand (no way in hell was he wiping it on his shirt and especially not his pants).
Recasting the light spell, Regulus made his way to the bathroom. He washed off his hand first, thinking the entire time that the body had some very bizarre ways of regulating its nasal mucosa and that he really needed to start carrying tissues around with him. This was what? His third freak-out in the past two weeks? If this trend kept up, he would need to carry a whole box of tissues with him. He'd claim allergies.
Satisfied that his hand was de-goo-ified, Regulus finally took the opportunity to go to the bathroom.
And of course now he was thirsty.
Regulus felt like punching a wall, but there were only mirrors around. He didn't particularly believe in the superstition that breaking a mirror caused seven years bad luck, but the thought of Madame Pomfrey picking glass shards out of his hand before disinfecting with hydrogen peroxide or iodine was enough to deter him.
Settling for quenching his thirst, Regulus drank a handful of water from the washbasin tap, but he still felt awful. It was somewhat warm in the bathroom, but that was because someone had decided to shower at an unholy hour of the morning.
That was when he realized it had to be Barty. Also when he realized Barty seemed to be crying and effectively confirmed that Regulus had done something wrong. (Regulus was no stranger to talking to himself, so that Barty did also was not much of a surprise.)
Feeling a new wave of guilt, Regulus made as quick a retreat from the bathroom as he could. He didn't even bother using a spell to light his way he was so embarrassed. Barty clearly hadn't thought Regulus would have overheard him, so he couldn't say anything. Desperate for a solution, Regulus considered confronting Barty when he came back upstairs, but he knew his first thought was right. He should put it off to tomorrow. Right now, he was exhausted and emotionally overwrought. There was no good reason for him to say anything and nothing to say.
With a sigh, Regulus discarded his shirt again and crawled back into bed. It had gone cold in the time that he had been gone, but he deserved the discomfort. This was the least he could do to begin to atone for whatever he had done wrong.
Regulus tried to stay awake and wait until Barty came back, even if he wasn't going to ask what he had done wrong just then. He just wanted to make sure Barty was more or less all right, but in the end he couldn't help but fall back to sleep.