2. The ruse

Regulus Black

"Oh hi Siri," Regulus begins. His forced cheerfulness lasts for exactly half a second, the time it takes him to find something in his brother's eyes that reminds him of mother. He almost wishes it was mother. She'd have helped him hide the body.

"I can explain," he adds rapidly. "It was an accident. Some friendly spellfire gone wrong," he says, laughing nervously. In the back of his mind, he can't help but notice this is the first time Sirius has ever laid a hand on him. Yet that hardly worries him right now. He is much more concerned about Evans, who still hasn't moved despite the very loud Black family drama currently taking place. "Listen, you can beat me up later. We need to get Evans help. I think she's hurt."

Sirius Black

His brother, known for his glib responses, seems to be reduced to a babbling mess. There is something Reg is not telling him. No way he could have taken down a prefect, not without the use of a Dark curse. That thought alone is enough for Sirius to want to start yelling again, when he recognizes the look his brother gives him. He lets him go as if burned.

"Stop looking at me like that." I'm not her. It's something that Sirius needs to say to himself from time to time, even after he'd been sorted in Gryffindor.

He turns to the girl lying on the floor, more to drive away the unwelcome thoughts than to heed Reg's suggestion. Blood slowly trickles from her head on the stones. Sirius has been in his fair share of fights, but even he must admit this does not look good.

"So…" He scratches his back, looking at the empty hallway and away again. "Know any healing spells?"

Regulus Black

"Well, I know a few," Regulus says. Of course his good-for-nothing brother wouldn't know any healing spells. If you need something loud and explosive, he'd be your man, but Merlin forbid he'd know a useful spell. As usual, the weight falls on Regulus' shoulders. Hope of the family. Protector of old values. And now, healer of the broken. He raises his wand and wills Evans to heal. "Episkey."

A scratch on her cheek disappears, but that seems to be about it. The sensible thing would be to take her to the hospital wing. But then everyone would find out and that would mean he'd get hexed by Gryffindors for the rest of his life. Considering Snape, that should be about three or four days. So he's going to try to fix it on his own. Even if it means exposing spells and knowledge he'd rather wish Sirius didn't know he had. With a tap of his wand, a roll of bandages sprang into existence.

He sits down next to Evans and pushes her hair aside, trying to ignore the blood clinging to her hair and the shiver that runs down his spine when his hand brushes her cheek. Probably a natural reaction when a Pureblood comes in contact with a Muggleborn.

Wand held close to her temple, he begins to murmur a series of spells. Once more, he is grateful for the tutoring of the older Slytherins, though he doubts they'd intended for this particular lessons to be applied to Evans. He goes through his whole assortment of spells, a multitude of colours springing from his wand and attaching themselves to Evans. When his repertoire is exhausted, he lets her head rest on his lap and winds the bandages around it, careful not to apply too much pressure. His fingers come away slick with blood.

"If this doesn't work, we're taking her to the hospital wing," he says. "Rennervate."

Sirius Black

Huh. He'd never have guessed that Reggie would actually be kind of useful in this situation.
'You'd make quite the little assistant to Madam Pomfrey,' Sirius teases, but his brother ignores him. For a while he watches how the spells pour out of Reg's wand, but it bores him pretty fast. Sirius has always been more interested in preventing(or better yet, inflicting) spell damage than dealing with the aftermath. Which begs the question, what the hell happened to Evans? He has seen her hex Prongs often enough to know she's more than decent with a wand.

Prongs. The thought makes Sirius shiver. His best friend is not going to like this. He is not going to like this at all. Come to think of it, none of Gryffindor Tower will be too keen to learn that their perfect prefect – or like Sirius prefers to call her, Princess Prefect – has been felled by a Slytherin, and a fourth-year to boot. Their vengeance will be swift and severe.

And while Reggie is an irritating little slimy snake, he might not deserve that.

Sirius blinks. Where did that treacherous thought come from?

"If this doesn't work, we're taking her to the hospital wing," he hears his brother say, before muttering another obscure spell. It sounds final, this time. Sirius catches himself holding his breath.

And in the silence, he hears the one thing he has dreaded since setting foot in this damn hallway.

Footsteps. Incoming footsteps.

"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck," Sirius mutters under his breath, whipping his wand out. "Someone's coming!" he yells at Reg.

There is no time left and there are only wrong decisions to make, so he grasps his last fleeting thought – his brother's going to be toast – and acts on it. Three strides, and he's standing before the statue of the one-eyed tramp in the corner.

"Fuck," he says one more time for good measure, because he's going to break the sacred law of the Marauders, not once, but twice: to never reveal the access to a secret tunnel to anyone – least of all to a person of authority or a Slytherin.

Maybe it doesn't count when one of them is unconscious, Sirius idly hopes while the statue swings open.

"Hide her in here!" he barks. "I'll distract them!"

James Potter

The life of James Potter isn't always easy, no matter what people might think. It's not all tossing quaffles, battling the dark arts and pulling off daring pranks. After all, is any of that really important if the one girl who matters won't have anything to do with you? He'd do anything for Lily, if only she'd let him. But instead, she prefers yelling at him. As if he's as bad as that junior death eater. As if he'd ever call her that. It just doesn't make any sense.

If only she'd agree to go on a date with him. He could show her that he'd treat her right. Wormtail tells him she'll agree eventually. He just wishes eventually was now. It makes him want to hex Snivellus again. But then he'd have to go back to the lake and right now, he isn't feeling that. To face all those people and pretend his feelings aren't hurt. Besides, Snivelly probably slithered off to the dungeons by now.

So instead he's trying to find out where Padfoot ran off to, with his promises of something that would help him take his mind of Lily. It sounds nice. Still, with how long Padfoot has been gone, either he is in trouble, or the rest of Hogwarts is in trouble. Regardless, James is here to help.

That's why he's a bit disappointed that his best friend in the whole world is just standing there in the corridor. At least Padfoot's looking like he just hid catnip in McGonagall's quarters. That's promising at least. James quickly forces a smile back on his face.

"Padfoot, there you are! What are you up to? You look guilty!" he says, giving him a punch on the shoulder.

Lily Evans

Lily wakes up in utter darkness.

A groan escapes her lips. Her thoughts are sluggish, laced with memories of loud voices and bright lights. It feels like an eternity before she decides that it could be a good idea to sit up straight. When her fingers brush something warm, she leans into the touch before she catches herself and recoils. A shiver goes down her spine, which at least seems to clear some of the fog in her head.

She is not alone in here. Lily can feel the heat radiating from a body close to her.

"Where are we?" Her voice sounds odd to her own ears.

Her head still feels fuzzy; like a memory of soreness which is muffled in a way. She touches her head gingerly and is surprised to find it bandaged.

"What happened?"

Regulus Black

James Potter. James fucking Potter. I am so dead. A single thought going through his head on repeat like Celestina Warbeck on the wireless at Christmas. In the back of his mind he is aware that Sirius somehow saved him, but that barely seems important right now. Because James Potter is here and would no doubt transfigure him into a snuff box with Gryffindor heraldry if he knew. Regulus doesn't dare to move. He hardly dares to breathe.

That is of course when Evans wakes up.

At first he doesn't even notice it. He just feels something nice and warm leaning against him. And then she's up and talking, even though James Potter is right there. He wants to shush her, but given that her last memory of him is that stupid overpowered Flipendo, that probably won't go down well. As he doesn't know the answer to her first question, that just leaves him with the second. At least it's too dark to hex him. Probably.

"Uhm. Hello. It's me. Regulus. Regulus Black," he adds, as if there is any other Regulus around here. "You remember our little duel? I may have gotten slightly overenthusiastic and hit you with something slightly too potent. I am very sorry about that. But I treated your injury," he quickly adds with what he hopes is appropriate contrition.

Lily Evans

Regulus Black. Of course. Although Lily fervently wishes she could make herself not remember it, it all comes back now. The duel. The birds. The stupid spell.

Throughout it all, one question remains. What on earth was she thinking?

She had been angry, yes, but that was hardly a reason to go after Black's little brother. A fourth year, no less. God, when did she lose the moral high ground to James Potter? At least Severus and he were the same age.

And she lost. That realization makes her apology instantly die on her lips. She lost to a Pureblood Slytherin. Right now, he's probably planning to tell the whole school that he bested a Muggleborn witch one year his senior, therefore proving once and for all that children from non-inbred parents are inferior.

But something Black said does not add up. Now she thinks about it, the whole situation is not adding up. Why would he ever care for her while she was out? Why did he sound so nervous? He's a far cry from the arrogant prick she encountered in the corridor. And most of all – what is this godforsaken place? Why would he bring her here?

Well, at least one question she can answer herself.

"Lumos!" Lily says, followed by a loud "IEK!" when cockroaches, big as teacups, scatter from behind a plastic bag with herbs and flee from the light. She stumbles backwards against Black, before finding her balance and dignity, although she's starting to suspect that the latter might never really recover.

Nasty little creatures. Better to move forward and not look back.

She musters her Gryffindor bravado, huffs, and wipes some stray hairs from her face. "So - why are we here again?"

Regulus Black

Cockroaches. Gargantuan cockroaches. And they're moving. Regulus is already halfway calling for Kreacher, but if mother hears he's relying on their house elf because Dumbledore can't keep his stupid castle pest-ridden, there will be words. Loud words. So instead he edges away from the cockroach as well, till both he and Lily are clustered in the same corner. He can feel her breath on his face when she huffs. Another tingle runs down his spine. Is he getting sick? Hopefully, she doesn't have any contagious muggle diseases.

"Why are we here?" he echoes, scratching the back of his head wondering how he can even put the train wreck of the last few minutes in words. "It's complicated," he begins, explaining what happened after he hit her with that Flipendo, for which he still is sorry, really.

"And then Potter showed up," he concludes. "Which is why I'm hiding here. Among the cockroaches," he adds with a shiver. "And while you are fully in your right to call out to Potter, I'd ask for mercy. We Slytherins get hexed enough as it is. But if they hear I did that?" he says with a gesture at her head. "To their prefect? I'll be a puddle of particularly pure blood by the end of the day."

Lily Evans

She rolls her eyes at his last remark but cannot stifle a smile. He obviously does not know her very well if he thinks she'd run to Potter for help. "If anyone could make this situation worse, it would be Potter." Apparently, even his most loyal henchman seems to think so if he helped his brother escape to a secret tunnel. Curious thing, that.

"I'm not a fan of House rivalry myself," she continues slowly. Maybe she should review her initial assessment of the youngest scion of House Black. But that's no reason to let his vile remarks on her parentage slide. She takes a step back, until they are no longer standing nose to nose. "But you seem reasonably smart. It must have occurred to you that if you Slytherins would not be so obsessed with your own blood status and that of everybody else, there would be a lot less hexing involved."

Regulus Black

Reasonably smart? Reasonably smart? He hasn't been this insulted since Bella laughed at his latest Twilfit and Tattings outfit, which he still stands by as being haute couture, excessive sequin notwithstanding. When he's done his O.W.L.'s in a year, they will see who is reasonably smart. It almost makes him miss her next comment. He wrinkles his nose. Of course she'd get upset about that. As if she could ever properly appreciate what is at stake here.

"Someone has to worry about it. As the other houses are dropping the quaffle, it falls to us," he sniffs. "If that means we will get hexed by jealous hoodlums, that is a burden we will gladly carry for the sake of magical Britain."

Sirius Black

'Guilty' does not even begin to describe it. Here he is, with his best mate standing before him, while his little brother and the unrequited love of his best mate's life are hiding in a tunnel. Sirius almost immediately regrets his decision, and the regret is magnified by the trust in Prongs's eyes.

Still, seeing his little brothers life is at stake, he can't very well abandon the plan now, can he? So he ignores the pit of snakes in his stomach and says: "I've forgotten the hiding place of your surprise. Searched the whole bloody castle up and down." He shrugs half-heartedly. "Maybe it's back in the dorms?"

Before he can suggest to return to the Tower, however, he hears a muffled yelp coming from behind the wall. A yelp from a girl. Sirius stands very, very still. He does not need to turn around to know from which wall the sounds originates from. Really, did his brother have a fucking death wish? James is standing right here.

"Rats sure are getting noisy," Sirius tries weakly. "Might ask Wormtail to do something about it."

James Potter

"Rats?" James laughs. "Don't tell me the O.W.L.'s took that much out of you."

Really, Padfoot is acting beyond weird. If James didn't know his best mate any better, he'd think he was worried. And then it sinks in. Padfoot acting weird. The startled cry of a girl. He raises an eyebrow and tries his best to look disappointed. Not too difficult, they've had a great example in Minnie.

"Padfoot, would you happen to have found something else while looking for the surprise? Or perhaps someone else? A girl perhaps?" he asks, fighting down a grin. "You dog. Is it Mary? Marlene?" he prods, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling in his stomach. It seems everyone is lucky in love, except for him. And Snivellus of course.

"Don't tell me you're hiding her in there. With the cockroaches. And the Acromantulas," he says in a raised voice, hoping it carries into the hidden passageway. "Shouldn't I get to know the future Miss Black?"

Sirius Black

At Grimmauld Place 12, Sirius often dreamt of changing into a dog and starting a new life with a loving suburban Muggle family in possession of a green porch and plenty of money for treats. The same idea springs to mind right now. What's more, it seems far more sane than his current strategy, which is lying to the one person in the whole wide world who can see right through him.

"It's not – eh – a girl," he stammers, seconds before his brain registers the actual words. Oh great. He doesn't even want to know what James is thinking.

This is getting ridiculous. His best friend does not deserve to be lied to, his infatuation with Princess Prefect be damned. Besides, he has done his big brother duty. If Reg has not had the brain to run like hell towards Honeydukes by this time, well, that's on him. In fact, everything about this situation is on him and his Slytherin antics.

Time to face the music.

"It's Lily. I mean – not like that," he adds quickly. "She was injured." Shit. "Not deadly – not, well, I actually don't know how serious. Which is rare, right, because I usually am." He cracks a smile at his own joke. "But she was bleeding a little bit. So, eh, we tried to move her somewhere calm and – well, we couldn't leave her lying in the hallway, anyway. But if I'm not mistaken, I just heard her scream, so I'm sure there's nothing to worry about." He blinks. Well. That went about as bad as expected. If there's ever a time to bring out the puppy eyes, it must be now.

"Please don't be mad?"