Rabastan was pleased that the first part of his plan had gone off without a hitch, but he was disgruntled enough about the difficulty he was having pulling off the second part to cancel out any pleasure he might have experienced.

The fact that Sirius had been reinstated had at first seemed to have a kind of impact on Regulus. He had briefly looked annoyed, and Rabastan had even convinced him to come to practice for the first time in weeks, but after thirty minutes Rabastan hadn't been able to find him on the pitch and the new third year beater shrugged and said Regulus had mentioned something about an ongoing project he needed to devote more time to. Rabastan had only been able to clench his fists around his broom and swear that the next time he saw Regulus he was going to do to him what Sirius Black had done to Quincy Hardaway, whatever that was.

The project Regulus had referred to was, of course, Lily Evans. He had spent the majority of the time since he had decided that she was his sure-fire secret weapon in the battle against Sirius following her from an inconspicuous distance and taking notes from James Potter's behavior on flirtation techniques she did not find appealing. He had at first thought he'd be able to mine Snape for information about how to cozy up to her, but Snape was for some reason unwilling to talk about her and Regulus decided it was just as well; that greaseball hadn't seemed to be getting much attention from her lately, anyway.

He was probably better off left to his own devices. After all, he wasn't a moron like Potter or congenitally repulsive to women like Snape. How hard could it really be to get close to her?

One of the things that he had learned in the few days he'd spent learning all he could about her was that Evans was generally considered the top witch in her year at Charms. And, difficult as it was to admit, he was, so to speak, unsure that Charms was really his best subject. Maybe it was due to the fact that when Professor Flitwick suggested he ought to take his studying more seriously, he was so offended that he stopped coming to class half the time and had to cheat to pass the last midterm.

This week he had managed to swallow his pride (in the hopes of acquiring a much greater pride) and started going to class again. He'd even had to put on his best Peter Pettigrew-esque groveling expression to apologize to Flitwick and ask him to recommend a tutor.

He had been concerned for a moment that Flitwick was going to see through him, but he reckoned teachers must have some kind of obligation to encourage students-even truant students. He must've been right, because Flitwick only gave him one pointed look from the top of his tall stool before saying he would talk to Evans about it (that is, after Regulus detailed why he couldn't possibly work with the top student in his own year due to scheduling and personality conflicts).

Evans approached him that day at lunch by slamming her books down on the table in front of him. When he looked up from his shepherd's pie, she was glaring at him with a look that could've sunk a thousand ships.

"May I help you, Lily?" he asked, giving her his most winning smile.

"I don't know what you're playing at, Black," she said through clenched teeth, her eyes slits, "And I don't want any part of it. But if you try any funny business, I am fully prepared to tell Professor Flitwick you tried to molest me. And he'll believe it." She hissed so violently little flecks of spit landed on the tip of his nose. "So just watch out, and meet me in the Charms classroom this evening at 6:30." She began to turn around, but changed her mind and whirled back on him with an accusatory finger pointed in his face. "And don't call me Lily."

"Looking forward to it, Evans!" he called after her as she sashayed away.

"Well, you've got your work cut out for you, mate," Evan said, nudging him in the ribs with an elbow. "You think she's that hostile to all blokes? Maybe she's one of those feminist types. I mean, I suppose she is right that you're up to something, but it seems pretty cynical of her to just assume..."

"Shut up, Rosier. She's lovely."

"Well, what do you think he's up to?" Mary MacDonald sat on her bed in the Gryffindor girls' dormitory, painting her toenails while Lily did a crossword puzzle the next bed over. "He's obviously up to something."

Lily shrugged. "That family, you know. Sirius is okay, I suppose, but I don't trust his brother one little bit."

Mary leaned over her knees to blow on her wet green toenails. "It does seem strange," she said absently. "Doesn't seem like the type of person to ask for help, even if he needed it. Or to even think he needed it."

"Yes, it's not in typical Slytherin fashion, is it?"

"You know what you should do?" Mary jabbed the air with her nail brush. Lily looked up from her crossword with raised eyebrows and Mary grinned triumphantly. "If you want to know how a Black thinks, why not ask one?"

"What, you mean..."

"Ask Sirius what he thinks Regulus is up to. Even if he doesn't know, I bet he'll be interested in finding out. And maybe more intimidating than you can be."

Lily scowled and set her jaw at a harsh angle. "I don't need Sirius Black to fight my battles for me." The tip of her pencil broke off on the puzzle.

"Well, suit yourself." Mary shrugged and began on the second foot.

Lily scrunched up her nose and frowned deeply in a way that suggested she would do just that, no matter how painful it might be to her and everyone around her. "Well, it's almost 6:30. Do you think I ought to go?"

"Well, disinclined as I am to trust someone who keeps company with the likes of Mulciber..." the soft hairs on the back of her neck bristled at the mere memory of the "unpleasantness" with Mulciber. It took her a moment to remember what it was she was going to say. "Ah... disinclined... no, really, you probably shouldn't go." There most likely hadn't been a counterpoint to her first, anyway.

"But I don't want to disappoint Flitwick."

"Fine, then go. Who cares, I don't care. What do you think of this color?"

"It's a little flash for me, honestly. I think maybe I'll go. Yeah. And if he tries anything funny, well, I'll hex him blind, yeah? If he's not any good it Charms, it oughtn't be that difficult." Lily stood up and threw her scarf around her neck.

"Yeah, sure, I'm glad we had this highly edifying conversation," Mary muttered, wiggling her toes in the little foam holders that kept them apart. Lily raised herself to her full height, grabbed her knapsack, and marched to the door. "You really think the color's too flash?" Mary asked wistfully as the door slammed behind Lily.

Regulus had been waiting in the Charms room for ten minutes by the time Lily got there. He had made sure to get there early for two reasons: 1) he'd wanted to make a good impression (and to this end he'd also already placed his Charms textbook and personal notebook on a desk in order to appear immediately studious and hard-working) and 2) to give himself time to arrange appropriate mood lighting.

He'd been able to get the candles lit well enough, but unfortunately, making them float whimsically about the room was a kind of Charms-ish spell and he'd put a few fresh scorch marks on the ceiling when the candles had simply rocketed into the ceiling instead of hovering a few feet over his head (had the ceiling not been there, he was sure they would have proceeded straight into the stratosphere, which might have been all right). After this, he'd given up, which was just as well, since as soon as Lily burst through the door (which she did with the all the force and grandeur of a tempest), she snorted and made a comment about the dismal lighting before shooting little jets of light from her wand and into the main light fixture, which lit the room rather flourescently and like a dentist's waiting area (a place which Regulus, incidentally, had never seen. To him it felt something like an interrogation room).

"Hello, Li-er, Evans," he said, squinting against the sudden glare.

"Good evening, Black," Lily said, throwing her knapsack almost violently down on the floor and a pulling the chair Regulus had carefully placed beside him around the other end of the desk. "Now," she said, sitting down and settling herself, "what type of incompetence are we dealing with, exactly?" She crossed her legs and her eyebrows came down rather severely.

"Er, well." Regulus shuffled through his notebook, suddenly feeling compelled to think up something intelligent to say about Charms. "Well, I don't know if I'd say incompetence, really, I-" He glanced up at Lily and wilted under her gaze. This was not really the power structure he had hoped would develop. "A kind of general incompetence, I reckon."

Lily glanced over at the broken candlesticks lying on the ground and one of her eyebrows popped up at an alarming rate. "What're those?" He had never heard a more uncanny McGonagall impersonation.

"Er." He could feel his ears going red and thought about feigning a case of dragon pox. "That's nothing." He tried to push them out of sight with the tip of his shoe. "Just some candles."

Just then, a bit of ash fell in a trail of tiny black snowflakes onto the desk between them. Lily looked up and Regulus nearly bolted for the door. "Are those scorch marks? Did you-accio candlesticks," she said, and the broken halves rushed neatly into her waiting hand.

"I was trying to make them float," Regulus blurted before she could hazard a guess. "You know, like in the Great Hall, only they kept just, well, shooting up into the ceiling." He looked down and rubbed behind his ear.

"Oh my God, you were actually practicing. Do you-you mean this is an actual tutoring session? Do you really need help with Charms?" She sounded like she was about to laugh.

"What, did you think I was trying to trick you for some reason?"

"Well, yes, to be honest," Lily said, the tension in her shoulders visibly loosening. "I know your friends' reputation. They don't seem like very nice people."

"You just have to get to know them. They're really good people, deep down." Regulus thought this was perhaps the biggest lie he'd ever told. He was worried that, having giggled a bit while saying it, he might have given it away.

Lily just smiled archly. "Is that so? Well, let's get started. I'm sure we both have more important things to be doing."

Regulus didn't know about more important, but certainly he could think of things he'd rather be doing, so he just nodded.

Twenty minutes in, Lily had successfully taught him to get the candles floating in the kind of whimsical way where they bobbed gently up and down, like the air was water under them.

"Good!" she said, her cheeks red with exertion and pride, and clapped Regulus on the shoulder. "You're doing so much better."

Regulus lowered his wand with a grimace on his face. Improved though he may have been, he still didn't quite appreciate being coached by a mudblood. "Thanks," he muttered. Maybe Flitwick had been right about him needing to pay more attention in class.

"What's the matter? I've not seen anyone improve that quickly, you shouldn't be discouraged."

"I'm not." He pressed his fingers to his forehead and sat down at the nearest desk. "I mean, thanks."

"I shan't tell anyone about this. You oughtn't look so down." Lily sat down next to him, and out of the corner of his eye, he caught her hand in the middle of moving to rest on his shoulder. She pulled back right before it did, but he had to push down a smile.

"Sirius would never need tutoring. I can't imagine how hard I'd catch it if he found out."

Lily bit her lip. "It's not as though he's perfect. I'm sure you've noticed-your brother can be a bit of a sod. He and Potter will probably never stop thinking throwing stink bombs in the Great Hall is great fun."

Regulus waved his hand. "Thanks for trying, but I don't need you to tell me how much of an arse my brother is. I ought not to keep calling him 'brother,' like that."

"Because Sirius moved out of your house?" Lily said tentatively.

Regulus snorted. "'Moved out.' I reckon you could call it that." He pushed his fingers back through his hair and sat up. "But, you don't want to hear about this rubbish. Where were we?" (He was already thinking about how he could discreetly stab himself in the eye to induce crying.) He started to stand up.

"Oh, wait." Lily reached up and grabbed his arm. "That is, if you'd like to talk about it, I can listen."

Regulus had to shove a triumphant shout back down his throat.

"You know, if you keep all this bottled up, it might help to explain why you've not done as well in school. Inability to focus, you know," Lily said concernedly.

Now, he really hadn't thought about that. "You think so?"

"Oh, yes. You see, my father's a psychologist, and he sees this type of thing all the time."

"A sci-what?" Regulus squinted at her as though she were from the moon and leaned back warily. It sounded like some kind of Muggle pseudo-science.

"It's a Muggle profession; psychology is the study of the psyche, like, er... why you do the things you do, when you don't even know why you do them. The inner mind, the subconscious and all."

"Mmhmm." Regulus could feel his eyebrows flying up and his nostrils flaring, but he was powerless to stop them.

Lily laughed. "Oh, I can tell you think it's nonsense, but wipe that expression off your face. A lot of Muggles think it's a bit of nonsense, too, to be honest. But I think it's very interesting. Not that I'm any kind of psychology expert, but the biggest part of a psychologist's job is to listen, and I can do that."

"Uh-huh." Regulus took a deep breath and forced his nostrils down to normal size, but he could only manage to halfway lower one eyebrow.

"Oh, stop. You're making me feel bad." She slapped and his wrist, and he smiled.

"I'm sorry, Lily, but... this pisicology sounds like the Muggle answer to Divination or something."

"First of all, it's psychology. Sigh-call-o-gee."

"I don't need to know how to pronounce it to know it's rubbish."

"Oh, you don't, do you?"

"No. Look I bet I can even do sighcallogee without knowing how to pronounce it-"

"That was better, actually."

"No, really, let me see your head."

"What?"

"Trust me." He put his thumbs over her temples and rubbed the top of her head with his fingertips. "Oh yes, see, you have a little lump here, which means you'll marry rich, and this low spot over your ear means you're predisposed to hate cabbage. How did I do?"

Lily laughed and pushed his hands off her head. "Stupid, that's phrenology."

"Oh, they're different?"

"Yes! But, I do dislike cabbage."

"Well, there you have it." He slapped his palms against the desk and leaned back in his chair.

"I reckon all this fuss about psychology is your way of saying you'd rather not talk about it." Lily leaned on her elbow.

"Talk about what?" Regulus was alarmed to notice he was starting to feel a little clammy. He broke eye contact quickly.

"Never mind." She laughed. "Shall we try this again, same time tomorrow?"

A/N: Yes, I know, I know. Bizarre developments. But trust me!