After all the general crashing, smashing, and cursing wore off, it was nice to find themselves in a normal part of the castle such as the staff room. A game of chess had been interrupted by Frank, and all the pieces were yelling at him for it, cloaks were hung over the back of a few chairs, a stack of books anyone would peg to be McGonagall's had been overturned, and Professor Sprout had apparently been in the middle of grading a few assignments upon their entrance. Someone had even been reading the paper, Frank noticed as Alice picked up the copy with today's date. He shooed away a pawn that was still berating him and went over to see it had been covering the book, but as he picked it up he looked sharply at her instead as she gasped loud enough to drown out everybody else's mutterings.
Without prompting she read out Umbridge's new position as Hogwarts High Inquisitor, and just what exactly that was. By the end all of them had a nasty pit in their stomach, and Frank was gripping the book like it had toad slime covering it. She'd only been there one week and already had equal power to the Headmaster? What madness was this?
Sirius watched in disgust as Longbottom read the chapter title as repeat of that stupid self-imposed ruling from the toad, but announced the article was read by Harry himself and was forced to reread it, as they all knew the book wouldn't let them skip. It sounded no better the second time, like a worm digging in one ear and down the throat, but sadly gave Sirius's mind a chance to wander and go back to watching Regulus with deep contemplation.
He was chasing the lost chess pieces around, and finally came up with all the white ones, offering Peter a game, who instantly agreed. He watched the two walk away, that pit in his stomach growing.
Some instinct still wanted to go over there and stop this before it went any farther. Logic told him that these two had ended up being Death Eaters without the others' influence, wouldn't them hanging out just fast forward that process?
Then he watched Regulus laugh again, and Peter actually smiled with a kind of pride Sirius couldn't claim to have ever seen.
This whole experience had gone from wierd, to kind of cool, to horrifying, to traumatizing, to now just kind of, common place. The last time he'd thought about dealing with Regulus in any capacity had been ages ago now, the Marauders' own business being blown up and finally settling into an uneasy agreement had pushed his brother far from his mind, but now watching the two, he was kicking himself more than ever for it all.
Even being forced into his company Sirius had never properly reached a hand out to Regulus, as Peter himself had once so eloquently put it. He'd begun thinking of his dorm mates as his brothers by the end of second year, and third year had all but confirmed it by the time Regulus walked into school. Peter had even sort of absently replaced Regulus in his mind, the kid brother he could give shit to but nobody else in the world could. James was his equal now, the first to turn to when he had a problem and always had a good solution. Remus even had Regulus' biting sarcasm that he wouldn't let anyone see but his real friends, otherwise he was the face of cool and calm. He'd finally admit to himself watching them now he could have two baby brothers, right?
"Padfoot?" Prongs hopped up on the table beside him where he'd landed and never moved, watching his line of sight. He tried to hide his unease Sirius was scrutinizing the pair again. If Sirius went off again about trying to get them to stay apart, James had no idea how he could step in and stop any of it. He still found it weird himself, but neither was doing any real harm.
If anything, James would have to admit the two always seemed in a better mood hanging out with each other.
"It's not too late for us, right James?" He asked quietly, eyes on Moony now as he went over to the cupboard and rubbed his hand thoughtfully along it. Harry and Ron had once hid inside it and listened to the devastating news of Ginny's death and had saved her life in impossible odds.
"No," James said instantly, even if he still wasn't entirely sure what Sirius was getting at. He, as usual, was watching Evans, sitting by Longbottom's feet with Alice and the two whispering suspiciously as Harry's lessons went through without Umbridge, yet, in History of Magic and Potions, though the later of which was still a miserable experience for all.
She hadn't defended Snivellus in some time now, he'd very pleasantly noted, and in fact as talk turned to OWL grades she hadn't even glanced up at the book through the whole class. Maybe she was finally starting to see the git he was?
Then, as the twins arrived, her eyes flickered to him and away so fast, he'd swear his eyes were playing tricks on him. She still thought he was like them, only a troublemaker and nothing more.
He didn't want to open up his own prank shop though. While a worthy cause he'd invest in, he had other goals and aspirations for his life. He'd walked away from his career advice even nurturing the idea of being an Auror. Surely she'd see that as a good thing?
"We've always made our own future," James said practically, now grinning at Moony who was hovering as close to the three as he dared, clearly very invested in this whole teacher grading outcome. None of them acknowledged him, which in itself was a kindness to the fear-filled looks he was probably expecting. "I say we keep doing that."
"Yeah?" Sirius sounded a bit hopeful now. James grinned as he shook his shoulder for emphasis.
"Yeah. You're a bloody impulsive idiot, and I'd never change that, but maybe next time you lay into them, just, think about how bad you felt last time?" He felt stupid putting it as a question, but it was more than obvious Sirius felt bad for something regarding those two in particular. The list of reasons that could be wasn't exactly short, but when James tore his eyes back away to see Sirius honestly considering his words and eyes back on Regulus and Peter, he put it together with Sirius's reaction to Percy's letter.
Sirius wanted to make amends to the two, and he didn't want it to get ripped up in his face.
He tore his eyes away from their game, Peter was winning, and grinned at him. "And you Prongs? Going to put all that practice of annoying Evans finally sink in and try something else?"
"I might," he said honestly, going in vivid detail in his mind over all the times he'd interacted with her, specifically the ones where she hadn't started calling him an arrogant birk. The ones that stuck out were when he'd stopped trying to make her laugh, oddly enough, but had just talked to her. How strange. "Worth a shot."
The two were interrupted by the book, as Umbridge entered Trelawney's class.
"Bet you a galleon someone's going to walk away from this dead," James said uneasily.
Sirius wasn't taking that bet, this was definitely going to be a horror show. It started out memorable enough for sure, Harry giving Ron the task to analyze his dream about drowning Snape gave everyone a grim laugh, even if Lily would deny any such thing. Then Umbridge started asking some routine questions that quickly devolved into Trelawney's shriek of insolence that she could not See upon command. The spectacle finally ended with Trelawney's dour announcement that Harry was to die, again, and honestly it hadn't been as bad as they thought.
"Can I still get that galleon?" Sirius asked.
"No," James huffed.
Umbridge's own lesson in fact ended up being worse, as it ended with Harry in another detention! James snarled in disgust, his hand itching to go for his wand and suspend this woman up by her ankle and leave her there for eternity if she kept doing this to his kid! Sirius was so outraged he stood up on the desk and began shouting several expletives, while Lily let her face fall into her hands. She couldn't stop herself hearing this, but she couldn't keep watching.
"I can't help but be rather impressed with him," Peter said quietly to Regulus as he watched Sirius's face start turning colors. "A lesser man would have backed down after what Harry went through, this kid's still pushing her."
"Being an idiot about it though," Regulus corrected, also frowning in concern at his brother. "You really think getting detentions would change anything but make her happier? Harry would be better off finding some other way to fight back than bowing down." He preferred the idea of getting in her good graces and destabilizing her from the inside.
"It's not as if the Order is exactly sharing how to do that," Peter disagreed, but he could definitely see Regulus's point. Both of them were very aware that if Umbridge were here now, it would be Sirius and James in those detentions and not them.
"Hopefully someone will come up with a better answer for Harry then," Regulus muttered, or the people listening to this were probably going to break the sound barrier first.
Their game forgotten, the two cringed into their seats until Remus finally came over and convinced Sirius to stop threatening for a few breaths or they'd never hear the end of it. Harry's new Quidditch captain and even McGonagall adding insult to injury was improving no one's mood though.
Still, it was nice to see Sirius's temper lash out at someone else for a change, Peter and Regulus even found themselves smiling a bit as the three's not so quiet mutters of what kind of pranks they'd be doing to that Umbridge filtered in the room.
Lily found herself listening grimly to the lot rather than Umbridge and McGonagall's back and forth. It deeply bothered her she found no ill will for listening in detail to their horrible pranking, but was she any better when she'd just been imagining slipping in a slow-acting poison into her next meal?
At least she'd only been imagining it...right? She warred with herself just how far she'd go to put a stop to this, if her own hand was being cut open, if some little first-year's was. The idea of having children was still above her, but she wouldn't deny she felt protective of Harry enough she wasn't going to stop the Marauders if they got the chance of meeting her any time when they got back.
It didn't make their vile ways of doing these kinds of things to anyone that annoyed them any better, especially Sev, but this was also not the first time she understood why they did it. It scared her just as much as her own wavering answer she realized she was actually starting to understand those idiots.
Frank found that things only continued to get worse as Umbridge followed Harry to his next class, Care of Magical Creatures. When Harry was given yet another detention for defending Hagrid from Malfoy's past stupid mistake, he had to fight the urge to join in with Lily this time as she cursed vividly, though not as loudly as Black started doing all over again.
This was beyond disgusting, his Mum would never stand for this happening in Hogwarts! Then Frank looked miserably at Lily, and glanced sadly at the godfather, and reminded himself Harry didn't have anyone to really go to this with.
When Hermione brought up the subject of them just learning Defense Against the Dark Arts straight from Harry, he and Alice exchanged another terrified look. It was such a singular moment to them, they didn't even register anyone else's reaction, this was their own bubble of worry.
Neither had spoken of it because the book itself hadn't, but what if Neville started getting these detentions as well? Was Harry the only one here? Doing this to him was bad enough they already wished someone would step in, but it seemed a disaster waiting to happen if Neville, Ron, Hermione, those twins, and a host of other students were to join Harry.
Frank still remembered Luna Lovegood and Ernie Macmillan declaring themselves publicly believing Harry, and he fidgeted with unease if Harry would still think he was in the right if those around him started suffering his same punishment.