"McGonagall wants to see you again."

Regulus had almost managed to fall asleep when the knock came at the door and that squirrelly little third year gave him this unpleasant bit of information.

Regulus looked down at him with a hard scowl on his face. This boy was maybe five feet tall, what was he doing playing beater, anyway?

"Did she say why?" he asked, curling his lip.

The third year flinched. "No. Not exactly."

"What does not exactly mean, you little runt?"

"Er, she said that she worried..." He looked away from Regulus's face.

"She worried what?" Regulus grabbed his chin and forced the little runty face back towards his own.

"That you weren't totally honest with her." The third year squinted his eyes closed.

Regulus let go of his chin and cursed. "Have you seen Lestrange?"

"N-no. Does this mean we're going to have to forfeit?"

"No. As I didn't do anything, the answer is no. You ought to go suit up." He clapped the third year on the shoulder and moved him out of the doorway. "Did you eat breakfast? You ought to eat breakfast. Bulk you up some."

"Y-yes, sir."

Perturbed as he was, Regulus couldn't help but laugh as he walked away. "Sir" indeed.

Back in Slughorn's office with McGonagall, he found much less reason to be cheery.

"I told you the first time, I didn't have anything to do with whatever's wrong with Potter, and you can keep asking me but the answer will still be the same. This is prejudicial treatment, you know, just because my brother thinks I did it."

"Mr. Black, we are investigating every piece of information that we get, and this information seems to suggest that we ought to be asking you more questions."

"Ask away, Professor. I don't have anything else to say."

"Well, you may not." McGonagall pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "But your wand may." She stuck out her hand.

"What do you want it for?" Regulus asked, closing his fist tightly around his wand in his pocket.

"Have you done any spell work this morning?"

"No."

"Well then, if you did bewitch Potter, that should be the last spell performed by your wand. Please, hand it to me."

"Fine." He thrust it towards her. "Go ahead. I don't have anything to hide."

McGonagall gave him a sideways glance out of the corner of her eyeglasses before pressing the tip of her wand against his.

Regulus crossed his arms over his chest. He didn't know why his heart had started fluttering like a hummingbird's. He really didn't have anything to worry about.

"Prior Incantato." McGonagall's voice pronounced the words clearly and coldly. Regulus's mind rushed to find the last spell he had performed as a grayish golden glow began to coalesce around the wand tips. Suddenly, a tiny golden jet shot out of the glow and exploded like a firecracker. As the sparks fell, they formed the dusty outline of a prostrate body, which floated gently to the ground and disintegrated.

Regulus was on his feet before he realized it. "I did not. Listen, Professor, someone is trying to set me up-"

"Mr. Black, that is quite enough. If your wand had gone missing, I trust you would have had the common sense to report it immediately."

"Well, I didn't notice."

"Please don't continue this charade, it only makes the both of us look like fools."

"But, Professor-"

"That is quite enough. I must go to the hospital wing to let Madam Pomfrey know that she need not keep trying to bring Mr. Potter around with a restorative draught. You shall go directly back to your dormitory and remain there until further notice." McGonagall turned for the door.

"What about my wand?"

"You'll be lucky to see this wand again." Regulus was sure if McGonagall had been anyone else, she would have slammed the door behind her.

"So, that's what I heard." It was nearly 10:00 a.m. and Mary was leaning across the table, in the Great Hall, badly repressed glee in her voice.

"What do you mean, that doesn't make any sense." Lily scowled. "He's been practicing so hard all week, why would he?"

"Word on the street-"

"What street?"

"Sh! Word... in the hallways, is that Slytherin knew they were outmatched, so they'd do anything to stop the match from happening."

"But." Lily's scowl melted into a bemused frown. "That's so easy. Obvious, I mean. Regulus is smarter than that."

"I thought he was incompetent and needed tutoring."

"Oh, he did not need tutoring. I saw through that ruse right away."

"So, you know he's a liar and a poisoning suspect, and you still think he's innocent?"

"Well, really, the 'poisoning suspect' bit doesn't really figure in, since that's the charge I'm defending him against, not an additional thing in his history-"

"Oh, give me a break."

"And furthermore, he's not a 'poisoning' suspect. He's suspected of bewitching Potter, not putting arsenic in his tea."

"Thanks for the usage lesson, Lady Defensive."

Lily crossed her arms over her chest.

"Listen." Mary folded her hands diplomatically. "I thought you were coming around to Potter. What happened?"

"Nothing. Potter's been... nice."

"Well, maybe Regulus put a spell on him so he wouldn't pose a threat. Maybe the Quidditch match was just a cover."

"Come on, Mary, that doesn't make every one tiny bit of sense. For one, we already had a date planned when this happened, so it's not as though Potter was a 'threat' to that. And why the bloody hell would he use the Quidditch match as a 'cover' when he would obviously end up one of the prime suspects?"

Mary pushed her plate back and stood up from the table. "Well, like I said. He's not very bright."

As Mary walked away, Lily buried her forehead in her palms. "Good grief, what is wrong with this school, can't one day go by without poisonings and conspiracies and set ups?"

Frank Longbottom, sitting a few seats down from her, smiled through a mouthful of muffin. "Welcome to the wizarding world, Lily."

Regulus may have been confined to his dorm room, but that didn't mean his roommates were locked out. He'd been sitting in the room sweating his body weight out of his forehead - this was a really bad deal, this, innocent as he was, could mean expulsion - for about ten minutes when he heard the door open and close.

"Don't even start, Rabastan. I didn't do this and you know it."

"I don't know it, Regulus." He could hear the tension in Rabastan's quiet, even voice. "I know they pulled the spell back out of your wand-"

"Yeah, and it wouldn't have been too hard for you to get your hands on my wand when I was sleeping, would it?"

"Oh, that's just rich, when I've been training for months, and you can't even get out of bed except to try to stick your cock in some piece of trash Mudblood, whom, coincidentally, James Potter is also constantly trying to fuck. Yeah, it makes a lot of goddamn sense for me to have done this, you're clearly innocent."

"Well, I know I didn't do it, and I know you've been trying to kill me for the past two weeks-"

"So trying to make you work is trying to kill you, is it? If you want to see me actually try to kill you, you're almost there."

"Okay, okay." Regulus sat back and rubbed his temples. "Look, this is not productive. I know someone faked this, I don't know how-"

"I heard you get up and leave the room last night."

"No, you didn't-"

"And I know you're a damn liar, Regulus. You lie to everyone all the time."

"Er-" Regulus started to stutter out a defense, but he realized he didn't have one. He reckoned his track record was really against him.

"I just don't fucking understand why. Why." Rabastan banged his fist against the dresser and Regulus flinched. "We could've beat them this year. Why. Why did you take that away from me?"

"Look, you're right. I am a liar. But I'm not lying this time. I really didn't do this - I want to beat them just as much as you do."

"Now that's another damn lie." Rabastan, laughing almost hysterically, jabbed a finger in Regulus's face and drew it back into a fist. "And you fucking know it."

"Okay, so my commitment to the team has been, well, questionable lately. But-"

"Reg. We've been friends for years." Rabastan sank down limply into an armchair.

Though this did a great deal to relax Regulus, it also made his chest feel a little heavier. Rabastan already looked defeated, and he didn't quit easily.

"Yeah, we've been friends for years." Regulus nodded.

"But I've got to admit - and you've got to admit - all the evidence points to you. Why should I believe you when, well, when we know each other so well?"

"I feel like that sentence should usually end a little differently."

"Come on, Regulus. Why would you do this to me?"

"I didn't. I can't say anything else. I really didn't."

"Then how do you explain the wand, how do you explain that I heard someone leave this room last night?"

Regulus suddenly stopped slumping over in shame and sat up straight. "What if you didn't?" He looked over at Rabastan, who seemed, rather disturbingly, close to tears.

He managed to muster up a half-sneer before saying, "Look, I know what I heard."

"Yes." Regulus leaned forward conspiratorily. "Yes, you heard something. But what if you heard someone coming in, not going out? Of course, eventually it would have to be some kind of combination of the two. But from the beginning, I thought someone must've been trying to frame us - me, as it turns out-" Rabastan opened his mouth to interrupt, but Regulus put up his hand. "Just hear me out. Look, I know I'm not the most well-loved guy in school. Right now, especially. And at first, I thought it was you. But well, I don't think that anymore. Is it so inconceivable that someone came in here, took my wand, cursed Potter, and brought it back here? Think I'm a liar all you want, but don't you think I'd be clever enough to at least do one more spell after I cursed Potter? At least a lumos to get back to the dormitory."

Rabastan's eyes narrowed slightly.

"No, think about it." Regulus, now reinvigorated, continued. "Whoever performed that spell - if, in fact, it was not a Gryffindor - must have had at least two wands. Otherwise, how are they going to get back to their dormitory?"

"They could've made fire in a jar, or a torch, or something, before setting out."

"Yes, but that's a little contrived, isn't it? I mean, I would've had to deliberately go to more trouble than necessary, just to leave extra evidence I could've so easily gotten rid of."

"Well." Rabastan's lips tightened like piano wire.

"Come on, you know it makes sense!" Regulus was on his feet by this time. "This is exonerating evidence, I - well, we - have to tell McGonagall."

Rabastan sat with a finger pressed to his lips while Regulus stood unconsciously holding his breath. Finally, Rabastan looked up at him. "If you're not lying, we could get to play this game."

"Yes!" Regulus involuntarily hopped.

"Well, we'd better try, anyway." Rabastan heaved himself up.

Ten minutes later, after Rabastan had convinced McGonagall that they had a case worth releasing Regulus from confinement for, the two of them were sitting in her office.

"Well, I must say your case is compelling. Compelling in that it does seem Mr. Black could not have committed this crime unaided. That may indicate that someone did in fact steal his wand in an attempt to fabricate evidence. However, it could equally as well indicate that Mr. Black had an accomplice in the act's commission."

Both Regulus and Rabastan fell back in their chairs with deflated expressions.

"I suppose I won't waste my breath asking you, Mr. Lestrange, if you had anything to do with this."

"You might as well not."

McGonagall closed her eyes and massaged her temples. "Forgive me, gentlemen, but sometimes I wonder why you students can't manage to act like normal, civilized people for just one day."

Regulus attempted to wipe a bit of dried blood from his confrontation with Sirius off his nose inconspicuously. "With all due respect, Professor, Rabastan and I have been acting like civilized people for at least twenty-four hours."

"Because we're innocent."

"And Rabastan didn't even beat me up when he thought I was the one who did it."

"I really wanted to, too."

"Well, that is something you two ought to be commended for." McGonagall looked like she needed a very stiff drink. "But the way it is is this: regardless of what I believe, I cannot in good conscience let this Quidditch match go on under these circumstances."

"What, you think we should catch the culprit ourselves?" Rabastan leaned forward.

"No. No. The last thing this school needs is an outbreak of vigilante justice."

"Yeah, we've got you." Regulus winked exaggeratedly. "No, ma'am, we won't track down the real perpetrator at all," he said in a voice too loud to serve only the two other people in the room. Then, lowering his voice again, he said, "So, can I have my wand back, or what?"

He thought he saw the corners of McGonagall's mouth begin to turn up, but she just as quickly wiped any traces of a smile away and sighed. "While you have made certain strides here, if not to convince me of your innocence, at least to make me doubt your guilt, even if I believed you completely, I couldn't give you your wand back now. And not just because I was not joking about forbidding you from attempting to 'crack the case,' so to speak, yourselves. This wand is undoubtedly the wand that bewitched Mr. Potter, regardless of who wielded it. It could yet yield more valuable evidence. Professor Flitwick and I will be examining it."

"What're you gonna do with it?" Regulus's pitch hit a rather fevered note.

"Not to worry, Mr. Black. It will be returned to you unharmed. If you are indeed innocent. Now, if you would just return to your dormitory." McGonagall took up her quill and began scribbling hurriedly at some parchment.

Regulus and Rabastan glanced at each other, shrugged, and got up to leave. In the corridor:

"Well, what do you think?"

"Really, the list of suspects is rather narrow."

"Right."

"Let's start with Evan."

"Obviously, I didn't do it, you morons. For one, I don't care one little bit about any of your intrigues, and sports, and whatever."

"We thought you might have done it for fun."

"Well, sorry to disappoint."

"We really just thought you'd be easiest to start with."

"And we wanted to ask you who you thought did it."

At this, Evan laughed and put his arm around Regulus's shoulders. "This one should be easy for you." He grinned insufferably and pinched Regulus's cheek.

Regulus scowled and pushed him away. "Yeah, I reckon it is."

Evan cackled. "Good luck, Reg. And Rabastan, I'd recommend leaving him to his own devices on this one, because it's going to get nasty."

"Who is it?" Rabastan turned immediately to Regulus.

Evan had started crowing again by the time Regulus opened his mouth. "It's Snape."

A/N: Well I was going to update TLYL today, but I still can't get the newest part quite right. ): It'll be up tomorrow, with any luck. In the meantime, you get this instead!