The Owlery

February 1979- Regulus is in his 7th Year at Hogwarts

Regulus slowly made his way up the stairs to the Owlery clutching the folded piece of parchment in his hands. He was going to send it this time. Today was the day that he was going to get in contact with his brother again.

Hogwarts just wasn't the same without Sirius. He had discovered that last year. Before there had always been a chance of them crossing paths in the corridor, exchanging looks. On a couple of occasions they had secretly met, assuring each other that they were doing well, maybe helping each other out of a sticky situation. It was Regulus whom Sirius had gone to after some incident with Snape which temporarily estranged him from his friends.

They never hated each other… well, until Regulus' fifth year, anyway. It was then that Sirius discovered that his brother was a Death Eater. The disappointment on his face had been unbearable and they had never crossed paths again. As soon as he was a Death Eater Regulus had lost his brother forever and he had regretted it ever since. He just didn't know how to make things right again.

He pushed open the door of the Owlery and was met with the usual smell of owl droppings and decaying rodents. Regulus screwed up his nose and stepped into the room.

It was full of owls… and a girl. She was stood talking quietly to an owl and stroking its feathers gently. She didn't seem to notice Regulus was there. Regulus had seen her before in some of his lessons into which she had suddenly appeared in September. He had noticed her in the Slytherin Common Room before but had always thought her to be in a different year to him.

She was stood right next to his owl, Icarus, an unreliable barn owl but her attentions were mainly focus on another bird. It amused Regulus when he saw how his owl was vying for her attention as well.

He made his way over to Icarus, his feet sliding on the slippery floor. The girl turned. She looked at Regulus and gasped.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. I was just coming to see my owl- he's the barn owl next to you…" Regulus cautiously stepped towards her; she looked as though she had been cornered by a lion. Her hand still held out towards the owl she had been smoothing. The bird gave her finger a nip and she pulled it away.

"Ow!"

"Are you all right?"

"Fine," she replied quietly. "I'm used to it."

Self-consciously Regulus went to Icarus, still holding the letter. He knew he wasn't going to send it. He went to the Owlery every week with a letter for Sirius but never sent it, telling himself that Icarus would probably lose it anyway. He quickly stuffed it in his pocket. He then realised how ridiculous he was going to look if he didn't send a letter to anyone. So he began rifling through his pockets for a quill and some parchment.

The girl had moved to another part of the Owlery and was feeding another owl some sort of pellet.

"You don't have some Parchment and a quill, do you?" he asked.

The girl walked over to a brown satchel and began to look through it, "I think I have some," she said quietly.

"I've seen you in some of my lessons this year, did you change subjects?" he asked, hoping to fill in some of the silence with conversation.

The girl was still going through her bag but looked up in surprise when he spoke again, "No, I missed last year… because of family problems so waited to my seventh year until now." She lifted parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink from her bag and handed them to Regulus. As the items exchanged hands the girl looked up at him for a moment, then relaxed.

"Thank you, I'm Regulus Black, by the way." He said as he began to wondering who he would write to.

"I know," she smiled slightly,"I'm Christine Rosier"

"Oh- I know your brother- Evan."

"Yes," she said shortly.

He finally decided that he would write to Bellatrix and tell her that he didn't think he could met with her in Hogsmeade due to an overload in school work. He didn't really want to meet with her anyway.

"Anyway, I think I had better be going…" she hurriedly picked up her bag.

"What about your quill and ink?"

"You'll probably see me in the common room."

"Yeah, all right then…"

And she hurriedly left. Regulus watched her go. He smiled to himself. He liked Christine Rosier, even if she was a bit shy. He gathered up the ink, the quill and the parchment and looked at Icarus and said, "No post today, Icarus," like he always did every week as part of his ritual of not contacting his brother. Somehow he never had the courage to send that message.