A/N: Okay, don't hate me, I know I haven't updated since April, but it's here now and I really think you are all gonna love it, my beta CrazyMuggleborn44 certainly did, according to her, she went mad with joy so...
Also, I have changed something in Chapter 2 you all might want to have a look at. Happy reading!
Chapter Dedications: indescribable music, Silent Whisper, mEEEm, thecompletebookworm, Yune - The Ravenclaw Writer, ForeverInsignificant, brunette-in-black, Woodrow Rynne, LadyOblivious, TZD00M83, xxlilmusicxx, and a very special dedication to Jacob M. who reviewed Chapter 20 SIX TIMES! I'm sorry I couldn't respond to you, Jacob but I admire your enthusiasm!
Chapter Twenty-One
"You'll have to visit for Christmas, then," Rain was saying as the Marauders left the robe shop. "Dustin will want to meet you."
"I want to meet him, too," said James.
"Yeah, he seems like an alright bloke," agreed Sirius.
Peter stared at the two of them, bewildered. "But we hardly know anything about him," he said, confused. "How do you know that he's alright?"
Rain glared. "There's nothing wrong with my brother!" she shouted.
"I didn't say there was!" said Peter hastily, cowering behind Remus. "I was just wondering how Prongs and Padfoot knew anything about him..."
"Well any Muggle who can learn things about the wizarding community and keep their head about it, really has some nerve," said James, shaking his head at Peter.
"Yeah," Sirius continued, "and anyone who sends his sister prank materials in the post, and then demand a blow-by-blow of the chaos it wreaks is all right by me."
"Oh," Peter said in a small voice, still eying Rain and hiding behind Remus.
"Oh, get a grip on yourself, Wormtail," said the werewolf exasperatedly, shoving the smaller boy off of him. "What do we all say to getting a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks?"
James and Sirius cheered in agreement, Peter nodded mutely, and Rain merely shrugged, not having any gold left to buy anything, but deciding to tag along anyhow.
They entered the warm pub and removed their scarves and gloves. James, Sirius and Remus walked up to the bar to buy the drinks while Rain and Peter went to find seats. As they passed a group of Slytherin girls sitting together, the sound of raucous laughter filled their ears.
"Hey, Pettigrew!" said a fifth year girl sitting at the table. "I don't think Bone fancies you."
Peter jumped and stared at her with wide eyes. "W-what?" he stuttered nervously.
"I saw you standing under the mistletoe waiting for Bone to be caught there with you just now," said the girl. Rain suddenly recognized her as Lucius Malfoy's girlfriend, Narcissa Black. "I hate to tell you, Pettigrew, but you're way too ugly and cowardly for anybody to fancy kissing you, even a Mudblood."
"I-I'm not..." Peter continued to stammer, face bright red.
"Not what? Cowardly?" Narcissa laughed. "Pettigrew, if bravery were brains, you'd be even stupider than you are now, and that's saying something."
The other girls laughed rudely. Peter said nothing and continued to flush deep scarlet.
"Shut up, Narcissa!" Rain said after determining that Peter was obviously not going to stand up for himself. "Everyone knows that you and Malfoy are together only because your parents demand it."
Narcissa turned pink and scowled. "At least I have a boyfriend, Bone. Or maybe you do like cowardly rats like Pettigrew after all."
Peter's eyes went wide at the rat comment and started stammering uncontrollably.
"How did you end up in Gryffindor, Pettigrew? You have as much backbone as the giant squid."
The girls all laughed brainlessly.
"And what of your backbone, Cissy?" came a voice behind Rain and Peter. Sirius had returned, along with James and Remus. The barely controlled anger in his voice was quite obvious as he continued. "Picking on an easy target like Peter because you know he won't fight back. Doesn't sound very brave to me."
Narcissa bristled. "Mind your own business, Sirius. I wasn't talking to you."
"Oh really?" Sirius retorted. "Because I came over here to find you bad-mouthing one of my mates. I think that makes it my business."
Narcissa stood and placed herself nose to nose with her cousin. "Butt out!" she spat. "You're no better than a Mudblood. Filthy blood-traitor!"
Sirius drew himself up proudly as the brainless girls started giggling again, but before he could retort, Rain got in Narcissa's face, pushing Sirius aside.
"I can't believe how prejudice you pure-bloods are!" Rain yelled in her face. "If this were the Muggle world and you said something as foul mouthed as that, Sirius and I would be well within our rights to give you a good slap across the face. But as we're not in the Muggle world, I think I'll curse you instead."
Narcissa instantly drew her wand in defence of Rain's statement. Behind her, the brainless girls did the same, and behind Rain, the Marauders drew theirs. Rain, however, stood calmly in the middle, wand untouched. She smirked.
"I didn't say I would do it right now, Cissy," Rain taunted, using her family's pet name for her.
"Don't call me that!" Narcissa spat.
Rain smirked again, continuing as though she hadn't been interrupted. "I'll get you one day. You won't know before it happens, but you won't like it when it does."
And then she walked away, the rest of the Marauders following, wands still out, looking warily behind them, cautious of an attack from behind.
A few people stared as they sat down, but they paid them no heed.
"Why must you always make enemies of your housemates, Rain?" Remus asked as they sat down and James and Sirius passed around butterbeers.
"I don't make enemies of them, they make enemies of me," Rain said indignantly accepting a mug from Sirius.
"How do you figure that?" James asked, holding back a snort.
"If they weren't so rude to everyone who isn't in Slytherin, I wouldn't hate them so much."
"Then you're going to be every Slytherin's enemy," Remus countered.
"No I'm not, Regulus is my friend."
"Speaking of whom," Sirius said smiling. He nodded towards the door.
Rain whipped around so fast, she cricked her neck. Wincing, she looked across the crowd searching for Regulus. Sirius and James snickered, and Rain determined from that, that Regulus had never been there.
"So you do fancy my brother," Sirius declared.
Rain turned bright red and stared at her mug of butterbeer without responding.
"Ha! I knew it!" he exclaimed.
"Calm down, Padfoot," said Remus, smiling. "Does he fancy you back?" he asked Rain. "Do you know?"
"I dunno," she said reluctantly. "But even if he does, it's not like we can be together."
"Why not?" Sirius practically shouted.
James hit him in the shoulder. "Tone it down a bit would you, Pads."
"Sorry," Sirius said sheepishly. He lowered his voice. "Why not?"
"Well, I've given it some thought," Rain said. "Our housemates already give him grief for having lunch with me, how would it be for him if he starts dating what they see as a second-class human?"
"He wouldn't care," said Sirius, "and I know for a fact that you don't."
"Okay, well what about your mother?" Rain countered. Sirius paled, so did James. "Regulus has told me a bit about your mum and from just that bit, I know that I never want to meet her. And I shudder to think what she would do to Regulus if he started dating a Muggleborn."
"She wouldn't do anything to him exactly, she'd probably just disown him or something. But if he loves you, he won't care."
"Then we get back to our original issue," Rain said. "What if he doesn't fancy me in return?"
"Why are you worrying about that?" James asked. "If you don't take a chance, you'll never know. For example:"
He turned to face a table across the pub from them and shouted, "EVANS!"
Lily looked up from her friends at the table they were all crowded around. "What?" she called back, annoyed.
"WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?" James asked, still shouting at the top of his voice. Most of the pub had stopped to listen.
"Not in a million years, Potter," Lily responded coolly and turned back to her friends.
The students crowding the Three Broomsticks tittered with laughter before returning to their conversations.
"See," said James as if that answered all of Rain's concerns.
"See what?" Rain asked. "All I saw was you getting rejected by Lily. Again."
"But you missed the part were she's mad about me."
"Where was that?"
"Give it a week, she'll be all over me."
"That's what you said last week. And the week before that. And the week before—"
"Okay I get it!" James cut her off. The other Marauders snickered.
Remus checked his watch. "We should head up to Zonko's before it gets dark."
"Okay," said Peter, draining his mug and standing up.
The others followed suit, and Rain led the way to the door.
As she went to pull open the door, someone came in from outside and crashed right into her and she went down.
"Oh, Merlin! Rain I'm so sorry, are you okay?" Regulus asked from somewhere above her.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, staring to get up.
Regulus offered her a hand and helped her the rest of the way up. He dusted her off, a little. "Are you sure, you're okay?"
"It's okay, I'm fine, don't worry I just—" Rain broke off when she heard a loud chorus of 'Oooooooh!' from two of the boys behind her.
She looked to find both James and Sirius staring at something above her head, identical smirks on their faces. Rain didn't have to look up to know what was above her head.
"Mistletoe," Regulus observed.
"Y-yeah," Rain stammered, looking into his eyes. She couldn't help but notice that they were a lovely shade of blue. She tried to think of something more intelligent to say, but it was hard to do while her heart was beating in her throat.
Before she could gather her wits together to form a coherent thought, his lips were on hers and all thought of coherency was tossed out the window. Her eyes slid closed and she practically melted into him. It was a chaste kiss and the moment lasted barely two seconds, but in that time, Rain felt like she had turned to mush.
When he pulled away, she felt both giddy and sad. Giddy that she had just kissed Regulus Black, and sad that it was over.
A/N: Well? does it make up for my uber long absence? Review and let me know! R&R!