Chapter 29: In Which Regulus Laughs

Sirius' strange expression doesn't waver all evening, yet he doesn't say anything in particular to give hint to what he's thinking. Cressida can only come to assume that he's waiting to be alone with her before it all spills out – which means that it's something that he doesn't want to the others to overhear. Or he's giving her that luxury out of his own 'kindness'.

James has been acting like a light switch all year. Sometimes he's perfectly fine around her, other times he's an arse that needs a wand up just that. And there's no change in that this evening. Through dinner, he had been cold towards her, despite their conversation that very same evening where they agreed to go back to normal. Though, she supposes, if they don't both understand why something is irregular, it is hard to fix it. Cressida just submits to the fact that it is her that will have to pretend that nothing is wrong (how unusual) and hope that James falls in line with that.

After her short snap at dinner, she still can't wash away the feeling that she has said something incredibly rude or hurtful. Yet she can't pinpoint exactly what that was. And they all were affected by whatever she said, so Cressida can't even figure out who exactly was the most offended so she can apologise. Like Sirius, she's waiting to be alone with him to ask.

As the clock strikes close to ten, the boys head back to their dorm, Cressida trudging along behind them. As habit takes her, her eyes land on James' bed as a place to perch, but Sirius hand tightly grips her wrist and leads her to his own.

That answers her question. It is James she hurt.

Sirius knows him better than she does and the only reason he would pull her away from him is if he suspected that one of them was going to hurt the other. Physically or emotionally.

Sirius isn't protecting her by bringing her into his environment, he's protecting James. The thought alone erupts a violent rising of illness and a sudden desire to crawl into a ball and cry.

"I think I might just go to bed," she whispers, barely able to hear her own words. Sliding off his mattress, the only resistance she is met with is a tightening of Sirius' hand but she pulls out of it in time.

With a head bowed in shame, Cressida slithers out of their dormitory and quickly makes her way back down the stairs. As she reaches the bottom, facing the empty Common Room, the dormitory door opens once more with a gleam of yellow light. The light disappears quickly as the figure trails down the stairs as well. The only reason Cressida waits is because it's Sirius.

"Cress," he breathes in a disappointed tone. "What was that today?"

Her jaw slackens. "You tell me!" she hisses lowly. "I don't even know what I've done."

Sirius narrows his eyes, tipping his head to the side. "Even you're not that stupid."

Cressida's eyes narrow in the same manner. "Apparently I am. All I know is that James didn't even say goodbye when he left for the break. He didn't bother to send a letter, then he doesn't talk to me for hours once he is back. We finally talk and agree to let everything go back to normal and that lasts a whole half-hour before I've said something to upset him – which I don't even know what it was!" Her lungs shudder in a shaky draw of air, stepping from side to side as her eyes flutter about rapidly. "So bloody hell, Sirius. You're going to have to tell me exactly where I've fucked up because I don't know."

Sirius glare has softened. At what point, she can't identify but something has clicked behind his dark eyes. "James didn't write to you?" Cressida shakes her head. "But he did," Sirius counters, his eyes furrowing back into confusion. "I saw him send it off with Kirk."

"Well Kirk must have sent it to the wrong person then," she sighs. At least that makes her feel a little better. James had sent something to her, she just didn't receive it. "The owl is getting old."

Sirius stares at the ground, his eyebrows continuously pinching and un-pinching. "You said that you wanted everything to go back to normal with James? Did you mean that? I mean – do you not want him to know how you feel?"

Cressida pulls her bottom lip inwards, having already thought much over this question. "I did," she confesses. "I don't want anything to change from how they were. I don't want things to be complicated. So yes, telling him is on the very bottom of my list of things to do."

He nods subtly, his tongue running over his lips. "Are you sure?" Cressida nods twice with confidence. That is, honestly, all she wants. "Okay," he agrees. He leans forward, guiding her head closer with a hand on the nape of her neck. He presses a soft kiss to her forehead – a vast contrast to the hard exterior that he's been giving her the entire evening. "I think everything's just been a misunderstanding. Everything's going to be fine, I just have to explain something to him."

Cressida isn't sure what to make of that. "Really? I thought I did something wrong?"

"No, no. But you are going to have to explain this whole McMullen thing to me tomorrow."

"Didn't expect anything else," she smiles tiredly. "Are you going to tell me what this whole misunderstanding was about? Perhaps so I don't make it again?"

Sirius exhales slowly, his hand sliding from her neck down and around her shoulder to draw her into a proper embrace. "Not this time, Cress. I keep things secret for you, and I have to do the same for my other friends. If James wants to explain, then it's going to have to come from him."

Secrets? Being kept from her?

"Alright," she mumbles.

Xx

"-and then he had the audacity to make me the Seeker without even asking if I wanted the play as that. I snap at him after practice which of course he got upset about but as far as I'm aware, we moved on from that. Then he was pissed when I decided to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas – again, I'm assuming that's why he was shitty – and then I was upset because he didn't write to me. But it turns out he did and I just didn't get the letter. And that somehow caused a big misunderstanding of some sort which I still don't even have a slither of an idea what it's about, despite being in the middle of it!"

Cressida bites into her apple rather abruptly and without any sort of care for how the juices dribble over the fruit and her mouth. Regulus, on the other hand, sits on the kitchen bench with a bowl careful resting on his lap, the spoon poised midway.

"Why are you telling me this?" he questions flatly.

Cressida swallows the half-chewed chunks of apple. "Because I know you don't care and I need to vent. And even if you did, you're the most unbiased person in the situation."

Regulus shrivels his nose. "Hardly unbiased. I-"

"Hate us all," she interrupts with a yawn. "Yeah, yeah. But that's my thinking. You hate all of us. Equally… Ish"

Cressida isn't sure exactly how she came to be in the kitchens with Regulus well past midnight. She had gone off towards them by herself and somewhere along the lines, Regulus showed up. In his defence, he had simply asked her what she was doing here and her response sort of went along three different forks in the road.

"And here I thought it was just Slytherins who had in-house drama," he drawls with a smirk down at his bowl, letting out a single breath of a laugh. Cressida's interest piques.

"Really? I've never seen Slytherins fight."

"That's because we're not wild bulls like the rest of Hogwarts." His spoon dives into his custard pudding, lifting and then tilting the spoon to the side so the dessert lands back in the bowl with a thick 'slurp'. "It exists. We just don't let other people see it."

"What about?" She can't help herself.

Regulus turns his eyes away from the custard to send a withering glare straight at her. "Just because you want to spill your life's drama, does not mean I want to spill my own. Or my House's."

Plain old disappointment fills her. "I wonder what Hufflepuff fights are like," she muses off-handedly, tilting her apple around to watch the reflection of firelight move around the polished skin. "Reckon they fight with pillows?"

Her eyes snap away from the apple at the sound of something she never thought she'd hear. Regulus chuckles behind closed lips. It stops abruptly on the self-recognition of his actions and his expression quickly falls back into something stoic. "Probably something more pathetic," he growls.

Cressida sucks her lips hard to withhold a comment which would end up with the custard dripping down her face. She silently settles with the satisfaction that even a Slytherin, blood-purity crazed snake could laugh at her jokes. Damn, she's funny.

Right now, all she has to go off on Regulus is Sirius' stories. Regulus isn't being himself around her – not that she blames him – and that mask is going to be hard to lift. Sirius loves his brother, yet loathes almost his entire family. The few relatives he does speak kindly of are the ones who have already proclaimed similar political stances to her friend. Yet Regulus appears to be the epitome of the perfect Black but Sirius still refuses to speak truly ill of him. Yes, Cressida has listened to him curse his brother out, and claim to hate him. But claiming to and despising him are two very different things.

So Cressida has somehow concluded that there must be something about Regulus that Sirius still clings to for hope. Something that makes him think there's a chance to be his brother. It's the pain of being hurt that makes Sirius not admit this. But Cressida can't be hurt by Regulus' harsh words and filthy glares. And Regulus hasn't drawn his wand on her yet. What's there to lose?

Taking a leap of faith, Cressida says, "Back in your first year, at the Sorting; the hat stalled for you." Regulus instantly turns his eyes cold. "What other houses did it want to put you in?"

With an accusing tone, he points out, "You remember my sorting? That's a little… a lot disconcerting."

"Beside the point," she waves off.

Regulus' tongue runs along the inside of his cheek. "Fine." His expression shows that he just wants the topic to be over and done with. "Ravenclaw."

"Why?"

His face screws up tightly in a display of frustration. "I don't know. Maybe it thought I looked better in blue."

Cressida keeps to herself the fact that it wasn't she who noticed the hat stall in the first place, but his brother. Sirius had immediately pointed it out, but she hadn't thought about it until now. Cressida hadn't a reason to think about it. "Thank you for tolerating me," she smiles suddenly, standing back up straight from her lean on the bench. "You're not bad for a Slytherin."

She doesn't expect a reply so she heads straight for the exit without a pause.

"And you're not bad for a muggle-born."

Her fingers pause around the golden knob. Muggle-born. Not Mud-blood. Her first instinct is to point out that he's probably never actually given a muggle-born the chance to be natural around him, but Cressida realises that would be hypocritical to say. She's never exactly given another Slytherin a chance like she is with this boy. So instead of replying, her lips tug upwards slightly with one last glance over her shoulder before turning the doorknob and sneaking back to the Tower.