Jo stands on the tips of her toes and scans the platform for a head of floppy, dark curls, her eyes narrowed as she bites down on her bottom lip. But her concentration is abruptly broken when a hand wraps around the end of her ponytail and yanks her head back. Jo spins around to whack her laughing brother in the chest. "You're such an arsehole, did you know that?" she snaps at him. Jo's a bit on edge, if she's been honest with herself. And she keeps thinking that the image of Regulus, healthy and smiling down at her, will dissolve the pit of nerves woven into her gut, in her chest.
"Oh, come off it Josie," James insists with laughter lingering in his cheeks, some sort of fondness in his squinted eyes. Jo does nothing but thwack him again, teeth grinding. "Look for your friends later, this is the last time you'll get to see me for months."
"Thank Merlin for that," Jo mumbles, crossing her arms over her chest. The platform's crowded, the two Potters have found themselves surrounded by first years with their tearful mothers, third years eager to find their friends on the train, fathers who discuss the ongoing war in gruff voices. Through them all, though, a head of long, dark hair pokes through. Jo raises an eye at Sirius. "Where's Mum?" she questions.
"Lost her with Mrs. Fortescue," Sirius dismisses with a slight shrug before he tosses an arm over Jo's shoulder, pulling her close into his side, "they're gabbing about de-gnoming. Fear we may never get her back."
Jo snickered. "Classic."
There's a beat of silence as the platform continues bustling around them and suddenly it occurs to Jo, as she stands between the two of them, that this will be her first time without James, and her first time in a while without Sirius. This new emotion does not mix well with her already brewing anxieties. Jo shuffles her weight around on her feet as she leans into Sirius's shoulder and thinks about how pathetic it would be for her to start crying. A whole summer of willing time to pass so she could go back to late night walks through cold corridors and now, here she is, clinging to Sirius and wishing she could have just one more day.
It's never really occurred to her what Hogwarts might be like without them, but it's chilling to know that she is about to find out. And even though most of the time she has with her brother is resisting the urge to throttle him, Jo doesn't know what she'll do without him, really. Because James has always been there.
And now, as she prepares to leave him, he raises an eyebrow at her. "Well?"
"Well what?" she responds, head still tucked under Sirius's.
"Are you going to miss us?" James asks, a bright, smug smile so deeply etched into his features, Jo can tell he already knows the answer.
"Hardly," Jo answers with a scoff.
"Well I'm going to miss you, Little Potter!" Sirius squeals, taking a hand and squeezing Jo's cheeks together, and Jo thinks she must really be sad about leaving the two of them, because she just lets it happen. "What am I meant to do without your cheery smile to brighten my day?"
"I'll only be a floo away, you know," Jo struggles to say through her squished cheeks. "Don't have to be so dramatic."
Sirius drops his hand and shrugs. "Family trait."
Jo feels that familiar tumble in her gut. Even a vague mention of Regulus Black elicits some sort of reaction from her and she wants to kick herself. If she wasn't feeling so ridiculous before, she definitely is now. "So it is."
"Let me know if you run into any trouble, Josie," James interjects, looking sternly down at his sister like he's trying to imitate the look of their father. And if Jo's being honest with herself, the older James has gotten, the better at it he's become, and Jo feels some sort of fondness for him. "And I'm serious about that. If you need to get out for a night, I'll break you out for the night. Don't even have to tell Mum."
Jo gives her brother a rare, genuine smile. "As long as you leave this one out of it," she concedes, lightly jutting her elbow into Sirius's side.
"As if he could stop me," Sirius scoffs.
"Oh, and by the way, Josie," James says, "I think I might've left some things of mine in your trunk. But if you happen to find a very fashionable cloak-"
"Or an extremely helpful map designed by a couple of geniuses-" Sirius interjects.
"-then you can just hold onto them for me."
"Wicked," Jo grins brightly as she looks up at her very stupid and very annoying older brother, who she spends most of her time hating, and thinks that she will miss him more than she would like to admit. "Thanks, James."
It's a long train ride. Jo spends most of it with her forehead pressed against the glass of the window. She listens as her friends describe their summers. Dorcas spent another holiday in California. Alice gushes about Frank Longbottom and then Hestia counters that with gushes about Fabian Prewett and Emmeline has chopped off six inches of her hair and swears off boys.
Jo, of course, is thinking about Regulus. Like she always is.
For the past month or so, all Jo has been able to think about was how he was in her bed, how he held her hand in his as they slept and how his fingers felt against the skin of her cheek. Regulus Black has invaded every part of Jo, infested her thoughts and burrowed into her. It is almost like he has inadvertently become a part of her, like he has consumed her thoughts and therefore consumed her. Jo tortures herself with the idea of him and then comforts herself with the thought of him.
After he left her bed, he wrote her less. His clipped sentences got more and more spread out, more infrequent. Eventually they just became apologies. In between paragraphs and paragraphs of Jo's chunky, slanted handwriting lay his elegant script, the same thing over and over: I'm sorry.
The possibilities make Jo sick. She tries not to let him see it in what she writes back.
Dorcas asks her what she's thinking about. Jo tells her it's nothing. She holds onto Jo's arm as they step off the train and towards the carriages and Jo's grateful. She thinks she might've floated off if she didn't. Jo looks for the curls everywhere she goes.
In the Great Hall, Jo careens her head around the towering figures of the Prewett twins as they block her view of the Slytherin table. She doesn't listen to the Sorting Hat sing its song; she never does, it's just noise in her ears, a distraction. And Jo thinks back to just a year earlier, to the sight of Regulus crying in the corridor, how he always caught her staring and how she insisted she wasn't but she knew that she was.
For a moment, Jo's almost impressed with how Regulus managed to worm his way into her life in just a year.
When she does catch the sight of him, Jo feels as though all the breath in her lungs has been knocked out.
Looking at him then, it's like being struck, Jo thinks. His features, the sharpness of his nose and the green in his eyes and the arch in his eyebrows; the pout of his lips and the hollows of his cheeks and the cut of his jaw, they make her dizzy, make her mouth dry. Seeing him is like being lit aflame and it takes Jo biting down on her tongue and balling her hands into fists to keep herself still. Regulus is beautiful. That's the first thing Jo notices.
The second thing she notices is the dark purple bags that hang under his eyes, a stark contrast to his pale and sallow skin. She notices the way he locks his jaw, harshly fixated on the untouched plate before him, notices the angry, raw scar that stretches from the base of his jaw, just below his ear, to the bridge of his nose.
Jo feels a bit murderous, at that. Just a bit.
And after they are herded back to their dorms like cattle, Jo finds herself lying in the same bed that she has occupied for the past six years, with Dorcas lying on her right side and Alice on her left. She stares up at nothing, and sees the outline of Regulus's scar, more jagged and viscous in her memory, every time she closes her eyes.
She feels no satisfaction in being right about her worrying.
"Now that it's our last year," Alice says suddenly, interrupting Jo's thoughts, and she's ripped from the depths of her mind and pulled back up to the surface, "do you think we have to get all, serious?"
This makes Dorcas snicker as she lops her head to the side, cheek landing on Jo's shoulder as she peers over at Alice. "What would we have to be serious about?" she questions, voice a bit heavy, eyes half-lidded.
"I dunno," Alice responds with a shrug, hands folded on her stomach. "Jobs. Home decorating. Marriage."
"I think you're the only one thinking about marriage, Alice," Jo tells her, and means it. Jo hasn't thought about marriage since the day she realised she's not exactly Remus's type. Never thought about doing it, never thought about not doing it. Alice, though, she's been gushing about it since she started up with Frank in their fifth year.
And Alice has no objections to this. Jo can see the smile that grows on her, the way and stretches and overtakes her, like she really can't help it. Like the idea of marrying Frank Longbottom is so intoxicating to her every inch of her has become giddy. Jo can see it , can almost feel it. And maybe that's something she wouldn't have been able to understand before. But she does now. "Y'know, I think he might propose this year. Frank, I mean, obviously," Alice gushes, almost sounding like she's drunk. "We talked about it a lot over the summer."
Jo raises an eyebrow. "Aren't you a bit young to marry?"
Alice shrugs, and as she does, Jo can feel the shift. "I suppose under different circumstances, but with everything going on and Frank in Auror training," she trails off, tapping her fingers against each other and eyes somewhere far off. Alice shakes her head. "Well, we decided the earlier the better."
"Are you going to join the Order, then?" Dorcas questions, leaning in closer to Jo.
"Definitely," Alice confirms with a nod. "You?"
Dorcas doesn't seem as committed. She sighs, purses her lips together and props her chin up on Jo's shoulder and looks over to Alice. "Yeah, I think I will. Right thing to do, and all that," she concludes with a bit of a dry chuckle. "Don't even have to ask if Jo will."
"Suppose I'll be in high demand there, once I finish up my Healer training," Jo mumbles.
"Aye, suppose that's true," Dorcas says, and then drops back down to lay flat in Jo's bed. "Guess we are getting serious."
Jo blinks. "Maybe we are."
Before Jo sneaks out of her room, out of the tower and before she creeps down to the Greenhouse, she rummages through her healing kit, pockets a few vials, a salve or two, and takes off with no notice of the way Dorcas sits up to watch.
Jo's early, but Regulus is still there before she is. He leans against the wall, eyes on his shoes and the closer Jo gets to him, the faster her steps, like she can't get to him quick enough. Regulus hears her footsteps against the floor, and before she can even get a word out, Regulus is stepping towards her. He's grabbing her by the shoulders and he's holding her tight against his chest, keeping her arms pinned down to her side. Jo says nothing as she breathes in his scent, fresh and clean and she leans her head against his chest, feeling like she's melting against him. Jo can't decipher if it's relief she's feeling or if her nerves got intensified but whatever he's making her feel it's all-consuming. Everything about Regulus is all-consuming.
He holds her there for a while, like if he lets go she might disappear. Jo doesn't know what to say so she doesn't say anything, doesn't make a move, doesn't pull away, doesn't acknowledge the stray tear that falls from him and hits the top of her head. She just nuzzles in closer to his chest and waits for him to say something.
It's a while before he moves, before he shifts against her and says, "Will you play me a record?" in a voice that sounds burdened.
Jo nods against him, and takes his hand in hers and she leads him towards the seventh floor.
And as they sit on the floor of the Room of Requirement, cross-legged and knees touching, The Dark Side of the Moon playing, Regulus asks, "Can you fix it?"
Reaching into the depth of her pockets and pulling out a small tin from her pocket, Jo gives him a gentle smile. "Of course I can," she tells him.
Her fingers are steady as they scoop up salve from the tin and apply it over the tender skin on Regulus's face. It fades, slowly, with each layer, and when she's done, Regulus takes his first breath in what feels like a while.
For the next few weeks, Jo watches as the life returns to Regulus Black. As the colour floods his cheeks. As he starts to smile again, at first gentle, tight-lipped ones that eventually become fits of laughter. As he starts to speak to Jo again, going from clipped and pointed sentences to light banter and excessive, exaggerated flattery, like he did before. Jo pours as much time into him as she can; pulls him into the corner of the library for study sessions and leans into his side during potions and drifts in the corridors with him in between classes. And every time she sees him, Regulus is a little bit lighter, a little bit more like himself.
He doesn't say anything about his time at home, with his family. Jo doesn't ask.
And the more time Jo spends with him, the more she starts to feel like herself as well. She didn't realise how much time and energy she had spent worrying after him until she had him back again.
Of course, Jo realises that there's a caveat to having Regulus back, and that's having Barty Crouch Jr. back.
Crouch does not heed Jo's warning and he does not stay away from her. It seems that every opportunity he has, every time Jo is away from Regulus (which, granted, is becoming less and less frequent) Crouch does not hesitate to tease, taunt, or insult. It's almost daily with him, and Jo's just about lost it. And she quietly resolves to herself that she will not engage with him, give him any sort of satisfaction like she did last year. But she does swear that the second he crosses the line, she will destroy him.
She hasn't yet, though. And that's why she's so confused as to why she's sitting in McGonagall's office.
The older woman peers down at Jo through the rim of her glasses and Jo's not one to easily admit fear but she is squirming in her seat. "I suppose you must be wondering why I've called you in here," McGonagall says after what seems like an impossibly long beat of silence.
"Erm," Jo starts, wringing her hands together, "I haven't fought anyone this year, Professor. Not yet at least."
Jo gets an eye roll from that. "While that attitude does little to reassure me about your future decision-making, Potter, that's not why you're here," McGonagall says, and then pauses, as if she wants to stop and reassess her next words very carefully. Her lips are pursed tightly, hands neatly placed on top of one another as she says carefully, "I would like you to be this year's Quidditch captain."
"Captain?" Jo repeats back, thinking she sounds a bit dumb. Captain, she repeats back to herself. It was not something she was expecting or particularly wanting, and the idea of her being in charge of a bunch of competitive, scarlet-clad arseholes isn't exactly something she can picture herself doing. And Jo's not even really sure why McGonagall would want her as captain. "I don't really see myself as the leadership type, Professor," she says delicately, hoping her refusal is both subtle and obvious enough.
McGonagall doesn't seem interested in her reason, though. "Many of the younger students look up to you," she counters, and Jo thinks of her goggle of first years who are now second years that follow her around—and of course have recruited the new first years and is a bit disgruntled to admits to herself that McGonagall is sort of right. "And, quite frankly, I think it might do you some good."
McGonagall stares down at Jo with such an intensity that Jo thinks she might've accepted any offer that was put on the table from her. "Erm, alright then. I suppose I can do it," Jo mumbles, feeling almost half-convinced but not quite sure she has an option.
Another eye roll. "Well, try not to sound too excited about it," McGonagall quips, and waves a dismissive hand towards Jo. "Now, off you go."
Jo stands, suddenly the weight of another unwanted responsibility on her shoulders, and turns to leave. But before she places her hand on the doorknob, McGonagall calls out to her again. "Oh, and Potter, you might want to think about holding try-outs soon. I would like another trophy."
Jo makes a note to learn whatever technique of persuasion that McGonagall has, because she does hold try-outs. She holds them almost immediately after she's instructed to.
With both of the Prewett twins flanking her at each side, she stands, cross-armed in front of a batch of new recruits. They are clamouring over the school brooms and nervously whispering over each other and Jo can see shaking hands and tapping feet. She feels almost bad for them, the mixed bag of Gryffindor students, a few of whom she'll be bossing around for the rest of the school year. There's mostly fifth years, a few younger students, one or two sixth years. Leo Bainbridge, the boy Jo beat out for Keeper, is standing with his chest puffed out and a new broomstick and Jo figures that it's for the better that he seems to be going out for Beater instead.
"Alright you lot, listen up!" Jo calls to the group of them, and all at once the chattering ends, and all eyes are on her. Jo gulps, feeling the weight of their stares and for a moment, she lets her eyes flash to the stands, where a head of floppy curls sits and watches. It calms her nerves a bit, knowing he's there. "There's a lot of positions open this year. I need a set of Beaters, a Seeker, and one more Chaser. And I'd prefer ones that know how to fly in a straight line, so why don't you all gear up, do what you need to do to prepare, and I'll have these two lead you through some flying drills in about five minutes, alright?" she instructs, looking through the group of hopefuls to see nothing but blank faces staring back at her. She nods. "Alright."
The clamouring and chattering resumes almost instantly, and Jo can't help but roll her eyes. One of the Prewett twins, and Jo will never know which one, leans down to her height and says to her, "Only one year on the team and already first choice for captain."
And the other one, God only knows which, matches his brother. "One might think that there's a bit of Potter favouritism going on."
"Is there a trick to telling the difference between the two of you, or does it really just come down to luck?" Jo snaps back at the both of them, not feeling particularly amused, arms still crossed over her chest but all it takes is one glance up at Regulus, seated in his same spot in the bleachers, and Jo feels her shoulders relax.
"That's easy," the one to her right says, "I'm the good-looking one."
Jo figures that one must be Gideon. "How unbearably charming," she mumbles through gritted teeth.
"Just trying to get into your good graces, eh Captain?" the same one says again, lightly elbowing her arm. And Jo doesn't remember them being this annoying last year, when she wasn't captain.
It's a long few hours. Jo sits back and watches as the recruits fly around and as about half of them nearly knock into each other more often than not. The Prewett twins lead them through flying drills and diving drills and there's a third year that almost dives as well as James does. She gets up in the goal posts for a bit and tells herself that the first potential-Chaser that scores against her will be the one to get the position and it takes a while- all those years of James forcing her to practise with him have left Jo with skills that are always sharper than she expects.
And even though it's a gruelling few hours, by the end of it, Jo has her team. Some of the rejects cry. Leo Bainbridge seems happy enough with his new position as Beater and Jo's new Seeker is a bit younger than she would've anticipated but she thinks if she holds practices like her brother did, they'll be in good shape.
Jo is on her own, cleaning up the supplies after she dismissed the rest of them, thinking that maybe she should floo James and ask him for advice on how to conduct her team but she can't even stand to imagine how that will inflate his ego.
She's just managed to wrestle the Bulgers back into their case when she hears that rough, low voice call out to her, "Oh hello, Gryffindor Quidditch captain, Josephine Potter."
Regulus stands before her, hands in his pockets and a grin on his face. Jo stands, brushing the dirt off of her robes and can't help but return the smile back to him. Seeing him like this, it warms her up. "Good evening, Slytherin Quidditch captain Regulus Black," she replies, hands on her hips. "Are you prepared for the devastating loss you are about to experience at the hands of my team?"
With a snicker, Regulus takes a step towards her. "The match isn't until October, Josephine."
"And I'll have you trembling in fear until then," she muses, and even she can tells she sounds unbearably smug.
"You're sounding awfully confident," Regulus counters, stepping closer again. "Don't you have a third year for a Seeker?"
"Yeah, but he's an absolute menace. Nearly two metres, and flies like a natural," she says, and thinks of the new Gryffindor Seeker. She's already forgotten his name but he's a lima bean of a thing that flies like he's got no regard for his own well being. Jo gives Regulus a smirk. "You've got your work cut out for you this year, Reg."
"Yes, how will I ever manage to hold my own against a thirteen-year-old?" he teases.
"Not even him you've got to look out for," Jo cautions. "You should be worried about me."
Regulus raises an eyebrow at her. "Oh?"
"Your Chasers will need a miracle to score against me."
Something overtakes his expression, warm and cloudy, as he says to her, "You are quite magnificent up in those goal posts."
Jo looks up at him and feels good. She's got Regulus back. Her Regulus.
