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Evan Rosier.

He was two years older than Regulus, in his brother’s year. He was blonde with blue eyes, charming and graceful. He played as a beater on the Slytherin Quidditch team. He was a pureblood and one of Voldemort’s fanatics. He was everything that the fourteen year old had been taught to hate by his older brother growing up.

But Sirius had abandoned him so who gave a shit about what he thought anymore.

Yes. He, Regulus Arcturus Black, sole heir to the Black Family, was hopelessly head over heels in love with Evan Rosier. Evan Rosier the future death-eater, Evan Rosier, one of the member’s of Snape’s gang (not that he had a problem with Snape, just disliked the fact that his gang terrorized muggle-borns [the key difference between them and the Marauders being that the Marauders did it to anyone who crossed them and Snape’s gang did it to any muggle-borns that crossed them] and that those were among the same people who had bullied him when he first got into Slytherin for having a Gryffindor(k) brother until he made the Quidditch team and won Slytherin the Quidditch Cup for the first time in 3 years).

And to make matters worse, the boy barely even noticed him! Outside Quidditch practice, House parties and the occasional ‘hello’ in passing they never talked. Worse still, he was pretty sure his housemates were becoming aware of his infatuation with the boy. It was Slytherin tradition for an older student to tutor a younger one to preserve Slytherin house’s above average academic rep and to give the younger student mentorship, and when he was in first year Snape had been assigned to him.

It was a pretty good deal (despite the first few sessions going badly because oh yeah, did Regulus mention he had an older brother?) since Snape was a Potions protégé (which Regulus had a few difficulties in) and he was a Charms whizz (which Snape was also struggling with), not to mention the two’s profound love of the Dark Arts. And while he wouldn’t call them especially close, he definitely considered Severus to be a friend (Though the first time he’d called Snape ‘Severus’ he’d received a harsh glare, a whack on the head, and the instruction to only ever call him ‘Snape’).

Anyways, Severus had been winking at him whenever Evan strode by Regulus in the hall, said something to him, or-heck, even during tutoring sessions when Evan came in to ask Severus for something.

It was so unfair that Severus could be this involved in his love life and he still ‘wasn’t on a first name basis’ (and yet Severus refused to call him Black).

Seriously. Not cool, Sev. Not cool.

And that brought him to what he was currently doing. Sitting in an abandoned classroom waiting for Severus. He figured it would take the boy a while to get there, he had stopped by Slughorn’s to correct an error he’d noticed on page 8 of the Sixth year’s potion’s book. It had said slice thinly but Severus believed the potion would be better if the ginger root had been dried and ground.

Seriously. He had no idea how on earth he was going to seduce- er, get Evan to notice him. They were halfway into the year already and he and Evan would be far too busy with their exams the next year to start anything.

Severus walked in at that moment. “Alright, Reg. What potion are you guys brewing at the moment?”

“Pepper-up, it’s Christmas and Slughorn thinks it’d be a good idea to teach us how to take care of ourselves.”

“He’s not wrong,” Severus chuckled. “You get sick a lot.”

Regulus blushed. Yeesh, you get sick three times in one month in second year and suddenly everyone’s pouncing on you every winter. Don’t forget your jacket! Do you need some Pepper-up? Dude, it’s like, 5 degrees out there, put some dry clothes on! If you’re going to air-dry then sit by the fire! Regulus, school started last week, how are you sick already?

In all honesty, he blamed Cissy for most of those. She’d always been protective of him, but since Sirius had left the family during the Christmas holidays she’d gone into overdrive- and she’d decided that it would be a good idea to sic all of her and their cousins on him.

It wasn’t that he didn’t understand where the coddling had come from. Aside from the fact that Narcissa had faced a similar problem when her older sister had left, he knew that the girl- who was engaged to Lucius- knew about the mounting pressure on him to join the Dark Lord since Sirius’s departure.

Did he want to? Not particularly, but his parents had already had their hearts broken, he couldn’t do it to them as well.

Goodness gracious, his mind was all over the place!

“I don’t get sick that often.”

“You were sick last month.”

“I caught it from you.”

“No, I caught it from you!”

“Reg, you were sneezing throughout that Quidditch match a week before I caught the cold, half the school would be able to vouch for me.”

“Alright, alright,” Regulus blushed. “Just- just show me how to make it.”

“OK,” Severus smiled before grabbing Regulus’s book as well as a copy of his own from that year and correcting several things in it.

“Now, let’s start.”

.

They’d finished at like 10. As Regulus trudged up the stairs a thought occurred to him. If the problem was that Evan didn’t notice him… what would happen if he made sure Evan did notice him?

Pssh! He dismissed the thought. He didn’t even know if Evan liked males… but he knew someone who might. Evan and Barty were second cousins, surely he knew a thing or two about him, and since he and the younger boy got on fairly well he supposed that it would be a good place to start.

.

“Hmm, I’m not actually sure,” Barty frowned.

“What do you mean?” Regulus frowned.

“Well, we’ve never really talked about it.”

“Is there a way you could find out?”

Barty smirked, “I could think of one,” just then he grabbed Regulus by the older boy’s collar and pulled him in for a kiss.

Regulus was wide-eyed against the smirking boy, too confused to move, before Barty moved away from him. Barty smirked. “Well, at least we know he isn’t homophobic or anything.”

Regulus frowned, confused, before Barty pointed him in the direction of the retreating male who was walking alongside a visibly shaken Severus Snape. Oh he was so going get hell from the older male.

“One more thing, is there anyway for me to get his attention?” he asked, sheepishly, still kind of rattled from the kiss.

“There is, but you’re not going to like it.”

“What is it?”

“Duelling Club.”

“What?” Regulus had contemplated joining Duelling Club in second year, but in all honesty he was always more interested in the theory of dark magic than the practicality of it.

“Come on, Reg. The only people in Hogwarts who know more about dark magic than you are Snape and Dumbledore. Besides, you’ve liked him for how long now? 2 years? If you want him to go out with you then this is only one of the things you'll need to get him into bed- er, to go out with you.”

“One of the things?”

Barty smiled. “Step one, get him to notice you,” he smirked. “Step two, make him jealous.”

Oh gods, where did Barty learn this?

.

“What the fuck were you and Crouch doing!? I thought you liked Evan.”

Regulus blinked. No ‘hello’? Well, OK then.

“You-you know about that?”

“Of course I bloody know- half the school knows! Now spill!”

“Um, uh, there’s nothing going on between Barty and me-”

“Darm right there isn’t!” Snape frowned. “Wait, if there isn’t anything going on between you and him then why were you two snogging in the corridors?”

“I didn’t know if Evan was gay, so I asked Barty if he did. He didn’t either, but said he could find out and kissed me,” Regulus explained, “Of course, all we know now is that Evan isn’t homophobic.”

“Of course he’s not, he’s bi-sexual. And you could have asked me!”

Regulus blushed, feeling guilty. He’d completely forgotten to ask Severus about Evan. “I’m sorry, Sev.”

“Snape, and it’s OK,” Severus sighed. “Well, now that you have the information you needed, what are you going to do with it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what’s your plan to get him to go out with you?”

“Uh, well, I figured that I should try and get him to notice me.”

“Smart,” Severus nodded. He thought for a moment before saying, “You need to join the Duelling Club.”

“What?” Oh crap, not him too.

“Look, Evan only loves two things more than the Dark Lord- Quidditch and the Dark Arts,” Severus said, matter-of-factly. “There’s nothing more you can do in Quidditch, you’re the best goddamn Seeker the school has seen in the past quarter-century, and even then I’m sure you’d give Bartholomew Nott a run for his money. I’d tell you to be more flashy on the pitch, but if you somehow managed to be more flashy than you already are I’m certain that you’d fall off of your broom and hit your head,” Severus rolled his eyes, despite their different interests there was no denying that both Black brothers were blatant show-offs. “Besides, you know way more about dark magic than most people in the school. He’d be super impressed. He’d ask you to show him some dark magic and then I’m sure he’d show you some of his ‘magic’ in return,” Snape snickered at Regulus’s horrified expression. “Besides, I’m not sure how I’d feel about you joining the Dark Lord.”

“What do you mean ‘how you’d feel’?”

“Nothing much, only that you’re still young and joining the Dark Lord is no small task,” Severus said, softly. “I’m just not sure that it’s for you. Besides, it’s dangerous and you’re the only heir to the Black family. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that title to go to whatever snot-nosed child Lucius and Narcissa manage to cook up.”

The corners of Regulus’s mouth twitched. Oh gods, it would be funny to watch Narcissa as a mother. Better yet, Lucius as a father… poor baby.

“Alright, I’ll- I’ll hold off on joining him,” Regulus promised. He didn’t really want to join the Dark Lord, and he was pretty sure that Severus knew it, but they were both aware of the position he was in at the moment.

“Thank you,” Severus nodded. “Now, let’s get to work on your sleeping potion.”

“Mmm, can we work on charms first?”

“Reg,” Severus sighed. “Look, I get that you’re not overly fond of potions, but we don’t have this classroom for much longer. We have to be out of here in an hour because some Gryffindors asked if they could have a session,” Regulus noted how his friend disdainfully mentioned the word ‘Gryffindors.’

“Who?”

“Your brother and his deadbeat friends.”

“He’s not my brother,” but Severus looked at him disbelievingly.

“Right. Anyways, come on, I doubt you want to run into him and the potion takes thirty minutes to prepare and twenty minutes to boil. Chop chop- actually, wait. grate grate,” he corrected, noting that the book had yet another inefficient preperation method for the Mandrake root. Honestly, chopping, that would slow the reaction down, they’d be here for an hour!

They managed to finish slightly early- but even then the cleaning up took a bit of time, even though they used magic to help them. And that was how, despite their best efforts, they ran into Sirius and his friends. Regulus kept his head down praying to all the gods above that Severus was doing the same. It would only take a moment to walk past each other. Besides, Sirius hadn’t talked to him at all since he’d ran away, so really, what was Regulus getting worried about?

“Hey, Padfoot. See Crouch Jr. snogging your brother today?” he heard Potter joke.

A few more seconds afewmoreseconds!

“He’s not my brother,” he heard Sirius reply. He felt his heart plummet. Ouch. Then again, he supposed that it would be unfair for him to complain about this. That didn’t stop Severus from reaching over and touching his shoulder for comfort as they passed the two.

He glanced up at Severus thankfully. Honestly, he and the older boy weren’t even that close but he was still more of a brother in the four years that he’d known the boy than Sirius had been since Regulus had been born.

“Oh look,” the boy whom Regulus didn’t really know’s name chimed in lowly (he knew had a rat face- Peter? Something like that), “Seems Snivellus has his eyes on him too.” He turned, furious, but Severus grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him out of the hallway and up a flight of stairs so that they could go to the unmarked area of the dungeons where the Slytherin common room was situated.

“I could’ve taken them,” Regulus said, as soon as they were out of earshot. “You should have let me.”

“I don’t want you sinking low enough to fight their kind, especially not on account of me,” Severus replied coolly. “Besides, you’ll be joining the Duelling Club soon, you can get them there without losing us the House Cup.”

He knew that Severus was right. This was going to be Slytherin House’s third time win in a row. He knew it was cocky, but he felt proud that they’d stolen it back from Ravenclaw the same year he’d become Seeker for his Quidditch team. Of course there was no possible way that Gryffindor could win it with his brother’s friends always up to no good. And Hufflepuff- well, they were Hufflepuff.

“Hey, when do we sign up?”

“Just talk to Quirrell,” Snape smiled. Septimus Quirrel was their current Defence teacher. His son was a second year Ravenclaw who was pretty gifted at the Dark Arts.

“Alright,” he’d do it the next day after class.

.

“Alright, class,” Quirrell beamed. “Now, today we’re going to be learning about defending ourselves from Vampires, on Headmaster Dumbledore’s request.”

“Is this because You-know-who supposedly has Vampires on his side now?” A girl, Melissa Bones inquired.

Quirrell nodded, somberly. “Indeed, Ms. Bones.”

Quirrrell then went on to drone about using garlic and stakes and how most spells would work on a vampire, but not the Killing Curse. You’d have to stun them and drive a stake through their heart.

Regulus nodded along, barely paying attention. He knew all of this, of course, from conversations he’d had with his father as well as various books that he’d read.

When the class was over, Regulus hung behind. He knew that he would have to race to Herbology, but their next DADA lesson was on Thursday and he really didn’t want to wait that long.

“Um, professor?”

“Ah,” Quirrell smiled at his brightest student in the class. “Yes, my boy?”

“Um, I was thinking. Remember our conversation last month?”

“Ah- you have reconsidered?” Quirrell smiled hopefully.

“Yes. I would like to join the Duelling Club,” Regulus replied, smiling shyly.

“Ah! Excellent, my boy! We meet every Friday afternoon, you can join us this week, or if you’d rather wait for another new person James Goldstein is joining next Friday.”

“Ah, I think I’ll join this week,” he smiled back at his teacher.

“Excellent! Excellent! Now, off to class, I don’t want you to be late.”

.

“You ready, Reg?” Barty smiled lopsidedly at him.

First rule of Slytherin: Slytherins stick together no matter what- unless you broke a house value. After all, if they didn’t stick up for one another then who would? Since everyone outside of Slytherin seemed to associate ambition and a desire for purity with evil they didn’t exactly have a large cult following.

And that was how he found himself walking up to the Great Hall alongside Barty, Severus, Mulciber, Avery, Flint, Zabini and Evan.

The one thing he was not looking forward to in this session was seeing Sirius, who he knew took the class alongside Potter and Lupin. It was, after all, mandatory for all those who took DADA for their NEWTs to participate in the club.

They walked into the Hall and immediately felt the eyes on him. Oh, Regulus Black? Haven’t seen him here before! He imagined the thoughts running through his mind.

“Welcome, everyone,” Quirrell’s wand was pointed at his throat. “Please, gather around. Now, we have a new member to our club. Everyone, please welcome Regulus Black.”

There were boos and hisses from the Gryffindors, the Ravenclaws didn’t do anything, the Hufflepuffs politely applauded and the Slytherins cheered and clapped.

“Now,” the man smiled, “Everyone split up into pairs, today we’re just going to brush up on our fighting skills.”

Regulus and Barty paired up, as did Evan and Severus; Mulciber and Avery; and Flint and Zabini.

“Immobulus,” Barty cast at Regulus.

“Protego.” He defended.

“Furnunculus.”

“Protego. Ventus,” Regulus watched in amusement as Barty stumbled backwards, his shield charm unable to fully protect him from the effects of the spell.

Unfortunately, a student nearby (Gryffindor) had laughed and it seemed to make Barty angry. So angry that he cast the Conjunctivitis Curse. Regulus didn’t have enough time to block it but managed to dodge it thanks to his quick reflexes as a Seeker- who knew that Quidditch would pay off in the real world?

He retaliated with the Curse of the Bogies, but Barty, who knew that his shield charms weren’t yet strong enough to deal with Regulus’s curses, wisely sidestepped, causing the spell to harmlessly hit the wall.

Beside them, Evan had just shot a “Slugulus Eructo,” at Severus, who had deflected it wandlessly.

“Calvario!” Barty shot at him. He dodged and the spell hit a third year girl in the small audience that had stopped to watch the people who were still fighting- namely the upper-year Slytherins and Gryffindors.

She shrieked as her hands grasped at her bald head. Regulus decided to end their duel. “Expelliarmus!” he cried, Barty’s wand flying from his hand.

Just after Barty had picked his wand back up he heard Snape cry the same thing at Evan.

“Bravo!” It was just then that Regulus realized that everyone else had finished fighting. “That was a remarkable performance- all of you. And now, as per Duelling Club tradition, Severus, Regulus, would you two please join me up here for a demonstrative duel?”

Crap. Regulus thought. He was going up against Severus! As in super talented, spell-creator Severus. Sure, he’d dabbled in spell making himself, but he had nothing on Severus!

Maybe if he just defended himself he wouldn’t end the day totally embarrassed.

He and Severus got up on the table. They bowed, and then it was on.

He wordlessly threw up a Protego Duo. Given that Severus could go wandless and wordless, it was probably wiser to have on on the ready. And the moment that lightning-fast golden sparks hit his shield, he knew that he’d made the right decision. He allowed Severus to throw four more shots at him before striking back with one of his own.

“Vespa,” he said, aloud, drawing his wand back as a huge swarm of wasps flooded the room behind him, understandable freaking out most of the students. He mentally added ‘Oppugno,’ and directed his wand at Severus, who swiftly and dramatically divided the swarm into two where they vanished, presumably into protection barriers.

‘Sectumsempra!’ Snape countered mentally. Unfortunately, whilst his shield charm kept him mostly out of harm, the delay in casting it had allowed some semi-deep lacerations that were starting to show on his clothing and made him slightly dizzy.

OK, he was probably going to lose, but he had to at least try if he wanted any shot with Rosier, right? And besides, the whole school was watching him. Severus cast a Stinging jinx and boy was he getting weak, because he just narrowly avoided it- though his pinkie-toe would disagree.

Non-verbally casting a shield penetration charm that he’d seen in one of the darker books of the Black Family library, Regulus cast a quick ‘Steleus’ at Severus, and whilst the boy was sneezing he hit him with a wordless ‘Expelliarmus!’

The wand flew from the boy’s hand and scattered across the room as the victim of the spell fell back.

The whole room was in awe. Regulus Black, the quiet little Slytherin Seeker, the bookworm, the sutck-up twat, had just defeated Severus fucking Snape!

The silence was interrupted by Quirrell. “Well done,” Quirrell beamed, “Regulus Black, you are the victor.”

Applause rang out- though mainly from the Slytherin side. Regulus felt giddy- not just from the victory, but because he had also suffered acute blood loss and seriously needed to go to the nurse.

He walked over to Severus and helped him up. The older boy did not seem upset about his loss, but frowned at Regulus. “Reg, are you okay? I think we ought to get you to the Hospital Wing.”

Regulus nodded. “You too, you may have a concussion.”

As soon as they were out of earshot of the Hall, Regulus spun on Severus. “You let me win!” he accused.

The boy in question merely shrugged. “Hey, the whole point of this was to get Evan to notice you, and I wouldn’t have had to ‘let you win’ if you’d stop bumbling around have confidence in your abilities. You’re a skilled dueller, Little King, I don’t know what crazy thoughts you have in your head holding you back.”

Normally he hated the nickname ‘Little King’ but from Severus it had never been anything short of endearment.

So, after a brief argument on who the better dueller was followed by Severus casting some healing charm on him thrice, the two found themselves outside of the Hospital Wing.

Madam Pomfrey was able to fix the two of them within minutes and they wound up back in the Slytherin Commons.

“That was one hell of a duel, Reg,” Barty congratulated.

“Mmm, it sure was,” Abigail Bullstrode commented. She was the middle child of three siblings, and frankly the only one worth looking at.

“Wonder what else he can do with a wand,” Callypso Nott smirked.

Regulus was a flaming red by now and Severus and Barty had to do their best to hide their snickers- yes, they both knew that Regulus was head over heels for Evan, and of course they were in cahoots to get the would-be happy couple together.

“Sev,” said boy smirked, “never thought that I’d see the day that you lost a fight. Who is that, Black?”

“Goodness, Rosier,” Snape drawled, “The boy’s been your Seeker for three years, how can you not know who he is?”

Evan merely shrugged. “Never really hung around juniors much. Besides, isn’t he that blood-traitor’s brother?”

“Sirius, yes. And if you bothered to look up from the Quidditch Pitch, the articles about the Dark Lord and, yes, Duelling Club, then you’d know that he and his brother are, uh, estranged, for lack of a better word.”

“Good that he knows which side of the war he should be on,” Evan smiled. “Kind of glad that he ended up on our side, would’ve been a shame to have to kill someone like him.”

Yes, it would’ve. Snape thought, not entirely sure anymore if it was a good idea to be setting up with Evan in hindsight. Evan was as dark as they came and even though Regulus had an enormous interest in the Dark Arts he was still pure at heart, he didn’t want Evan cor- no! Hang on! When did he start worrying about that kid!? Well, he supposed, if Sirius wasn’t going to worry about his brother then there was no problem in him doing it.

Meanwhile, Crouch Jr. was fangirling in his head. OMG, Evan just said that it would be a shame to kill Regulus! OMG! OMG! He does care!

“Well, the Dark Lord’s more likely to want him for status, he’ll probably be used more to recruit than fight,” Snape drawled.

“That’d be a waste of talent,” Evan genuinely sounded disappointed.

“I doubt the Dark Lord would send the Black heir to get himself killed when there are currently no replacements for him.”

“True, true,” Evan frowned.

“Besides, young Regulus is still, well, too young to be joining the Dark Lord,” Snape mentioned- certainly too young to be dating, now that he had time to think about it- “so there’s still time to consider things,” crap, crap what had he done!?

“Right,” Evan’s smile returned. He bid Snape and Crouch Jr. a farewell before retiring to the Slytherin boy’s dormitory.

“I’m not sure that I’m still fond of this,” Snape whispered to Crouch. “Evan’s not that great an influence.”

“Relax, Sev,” Crouch grinned at the glare he received. “Look, Reg isn’t as impressionable as you think, besides, it’s not like Reg’s got much of a shot of escaping being a Death Eater, yes he’s soft and the Dark Lord may have not taken an interest in him, but since his brother became a blood-traitor,” they both grimaced, Regulus’s life had become hell since Sirius had left the Black family during the Christmas holidays. “anyways, yeah. Besides, don’t you feel more secure knowing that there’s something stopping Reg from following in the footsteps of his idiotic brother?”

Yes. Yes he did.

“Furthermore, I understand that since Sirius isn’t involved in his brother’s life that much you feel the need to, uh, step up, if you will, but calm down. Reg may not be the strongest most hard-willed person we know, but you know why he’s survived this long? It’s because he’s got a good sense of judgment when it comes to people. Nobody he’s ever gone out and made friends with has back-stabbed him or led him astray, and I don’t think Evan’s going to be the first. He’s stronger than you think, Sev, and his morals are what keep his feet on the ground.”

Snape sighed. Crouch was right, maybe he was overthinking this.

“OK, but when they sleep together they better not share any details.”

“Ditto.”

.

It took Regulus nine attempts to clean the blood off of his shirt. When was laundry day again? Oh right, he’d done his yesterday afternoon. Nuts.

He took a moment to glance at his calendar. After the next morning’s Quidditch practice they’d have four more until it was Slytherin vs Ravenclaw. Olivia Prewett was their Seeker, and she was really good- the only reason he’d won that last game was because she wasn’t able to dodge a Bludger that had been sent her way by Flint.

And there was also the fact that he’d received a ton of homework (mostly from Binns and McGonnagal) that needed completion by Monday. He figured he could do his Charms and Astronomy homework the next night and his essay on Vlad the Impaler after Quidditch. That would leave all of Sunday for his Runes homework and transfiguring the piece of straw he was given into a hat. Besides that, he and Severus had a potions tuition on Sunday which both boys had agreed would be better spent on duelling practice.

.

He walked down to the Great Hall the next morning in his Quidditch robes. He had a satchel on him that contained a few rolls of parchment as well as two books- one on historic figures and the other a biography about Vlad the Impaler- from the library as well as some clothes. He figured that the sooner he got down to the Quidditch Pitch, the sooner that he could start his 3 page long homework assignment. Right now he was just hoping to get the introduction done. He needed to write about: Vlad’s birth, his greatest accomplishments, his first killing, his marriage and children, his arch nemesis and his ultimate demise.

He was, regrettably alone, as nobody in Slytherin had breakfast on a Saturday at six a.m. He figured that given the training was at ten he could probably have a large breakfast and piled some sausages and fruits on his plate alongside a big bowl of cereal. He may not eat much at the other meals, but breaking the fast was the most important meal of the day.

He managed to get through most of his meal before the doors of the Great Hall opened. Instinctively he- as well as the ten other people in the Hall- looked at the newcomers. Crap, Regulus thought, averting his gaze and going back to his food. The Marauders. Oh well, he thought, Sirius has pretty much ignored me half my life- it’s not like he’d do anything now, right?

Thankfully, he was proven right. Then again, a part of the reason that he was proven right may have had to do with the fact that moments after the Marauders had entered the Hall, he was no longer the only Slytherin in it. Evan and Flint walked in, chatting about Quidditch.

The two boys noticed him and immediately sat down near him- though not next to him, probably because they were expecting more company.

“Hey,” Flint grinned, “ready for Quidditch?”

Flint was the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team and loved being sadistic to all of the players. If it was raining or the weather was similarly horrible, there’d be ‘last minute Quidditch practice’ and before Quidditch practice they always had to run twenty laps around the Quidditch pitch and do some drills. He understood that Flint wanted to keep them all in shape, and he appreciated it, really- just not while training was going on.

“Ready for you to make us wish we were dead? Always,” Regulus muttered sarcastically, but was unable to keep the grin off of his face.

His heart did somersaults as he noticed Evan hide a laugh. He thought he was funny! OMG!

Thankfully, Flint had a sense of humor. “Hey, someone’s got to make sure you don’t get big and fat,” he gestured at Regulus’s half-eaten plate which was still pretty full.

“I will never understand you- first I need to get more meat on my bones, then I’m too fat,” he said, playfully.

“I’m just saying, you're one strip of bacon away from having a heart attack.”

Regulus didn’t deny that he was fond of red meat. Seriously, he ought to get his blood tested.

“Fine,” he sighed. “You going to watch the Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw match next Saturday?”

“Of course, heard they got a new Chaser, Evelyn McKinnon. I’ve got to make sure we can take her.”

“Right,” Regulus smiled, before returning back to his meal.

He walked out of the Great Hall mentally high-fiving himself. He’d managed to have a conversation with Evan around and not get completely flustered. He made his way to the Slytherin broom shed. He first said the password before choosing placing some of his blood in the carving of his family crest. Ever since his brother and his friends had stolen their brooms before a Quidditch match they’d installed tight security on the broom shed.

He then went to sit on the side of the Quidditch pitch and took out some parchment and a quill before deciding against it and taking out his notebook for a first-draft of sorts. The quill was, thankfully, enchanted, so he didn’t need to write on his own, merely dictate.

“Vlad the Impaler, born Vlad III Dracula, was the second son of Vlad Dracul. He was voivode- the Romanian word for Prince- thrice before his untimely death in 1476,” he droned on, deciding it would probably be a good idea to get some notes on this guy.

He went on for another hour and a half before a familiar body settled down next to him.

“Hey, Sev,” he smiled.

“It’s Snape,” the older boy grumbled. “What’re you doing?”

“I could ask you the same question. I thought you wanted to brew some Sleeping Draught for Mikel.”

“I was,” the older boy shrugged, “but he finally fell asleep on his own after he fainted in the hallway.”

“Oh my gods!” Regulus gasped, horrified. “That’s awful!”

“Yeah. If only he’d gotten checked out sooner,” Severus drawled. Gee, trust Sev to throw shade like that.

“Hey- I went that last time!”

“No, Crouch and I dragged you that last time.”

“I didn’t say I went willingly.”

Snape looked amused. Maybe Crouch was right, maybe he was trying to fill an empty place beside the young Black, but he didn’t care. If Sirius didn’t want to hang out with his brother then it was the older Black’s loss.

“On the bright side, it’s been almost a full month since the last time you got sick, so what’s been going on on your end?” the older boy asked.

“Oh, uh, just finishing up a draft for an essay on Vlad the Impaler.” In truth he’d gotten much farther than he thought he would have. He’d not only finished a first draft, but was halfway through with a second one.

“I never understood why they let students take library books out of the school- they could get dirty,” Severus grumbled. “By the way, Duelling Club worked, Evan noticed.”

“Of course he did, I was fighting one of his best-friends,” Regulus teased.

Severus rolled his eyes. “That aside, I just wanted to make sure that there were no residual effects of Sectumsempra.”

“No,” Regulus smiled up at his friends. “Thank you. No after-effects of the Expelliarmus? I know I said it a little too hard.”

“No- though one of the wasps you conjured did sting me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need- that was a very complicated spell, I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks.” Regulus was blushing.

“Why didn’t you use one of your spells on me, though? I personally think combustumsemper is a particularly vicious spell.”

“They're all so long,” and weak compared to yours, Regulus blushed. “’sides, Charms are more my thing.”

“Right, like argentum passim?” Regulus blushed, how did Severus know about that one? Oh, right, he was a skilled legilimens.

He guarded his mind and heard Severus hum. “Ah, you’ve been practicing, I see.”

“I need to, I hang out around you all the time,” Regulus teased.

“Got nothing to do with any future endeavors then? Family secrets, perhaps?”

The mood darkened.

“That’s none of your business, Snape,” he growled.

Severus opened his mouth to say something but the other Quidditch players chose that moment to come strolling down onto the field.

“Alright!” Flint barked out. “You know the drill, 20 laps around the pitch.”

Regulus sighed, dropping his broom and ran beside his teammates. He got tired on the fifth lap, walked it, ran the sixth and- well, basically just alternately ran the remaining laps.

Then there were the suicide runs followed by sit-ups and push-ups. Why were they even doing this!?

And then there was the broom warm up. They had to fly around the Quidditch pitch thirty-seven times! Finally, Flint landed on the ground and practice began.

Mulciber, who was their lead Chaser, was playing against them (the Chasers always took turn playing this role). Regulus, on the other hand, hovered over the Quidditch pitch searching for the snitch. He saw it near where Cassia Yaxley was flying and dove for it, narrowly avoiding a Bludger sent at him by Flint.

He made a dive for it and as it flew lower and lower he jumped off of his broom, making a lunge for it. He smirked internally as he felt the wings flutter between his gloved hands. He enclosed the snitch within his left hand and used his right to grab his broom (which was hovering by him) and swing it between his legs.

Flint stopped. “Reg’s caught the snitch!”

They swapped over. Yaxley was the new opposing Chaser, Regulus cast an obliviate on the Snitch- even though his hands had been gloved, after all, their practice Snitches were recycled Snitches.

He released the Snitch, waited for three minutes, and took off back into the sky. He hovered over the centre of the pitch, dodged a Bludger sent at him by *squeals* Evan, and glanced around for the Snitch. He saw it flitting between Mulciber and Avery and shot down towards it. He flew past the others and chased after the snitch, which seemed more determined than the last time to get away from him.

He shot under Avery, and took a spectacular nosedive to the bottom of the pitch, where he got up on his broom, glided through the air for a bit before jumping off and grabbing the Snitch which was a mere thirty centimetres from his face.

“Reg’s got it again!” Flint announced.

This would be their final round- Avery as opposing Chaser. Regulus cast the memory charm on the Snitch a final time, allowing it some time to fly off.

This time was even worse than the previous time. It seemed that each charm the Seeker cast on the Snitch made it hate him more. No, this time it was going to avoid him at all costs.

It flitted through the goal post (the smallest one, naturally). He swooped in through it and ended up making a U-turn to follow it back onto the pitch. He twisted in and out of clumps of his teammates, dodging Bludgers and broomsticks and nearly got knocked off of his broom by his teammates’ arms. He gained speed on the Snitch when he was knocked off of his broomstick by a Bludger.

His arms flailed around, his hand summoning his broom. He managed to get back on it and swerved upwards about a millisecond before he became Reggie Pudding. He did a flip mid-air and grabbed the Snitch.

“He’s got it!” Flint announced, and just like that, practice was over.

Regulus grabbed his bag from where Severus was still sitting- the older boy had, apparently, read over his essay whilst they'd been playing.

“You alright? That Bludger hit your back pretty hard.”

“Nothing I can’t live with,” he offered the older male a crooked grin, before putting his broom in the shed and racing off to the locker rooms.

Pulling his shirt over his head he heard a voice.

“I hope I didn’t hurt you,” it was Evan. “Almost thought you were going to hit the ground.”

“Nah, nope,” Regulus blushed. “It’s alright, I’m OK.”

“Good.”

.

“Langlock!” Severus shouted.

Regulus wandlessly deflected it with a “Protego.”

Oh yeah, they’d decided to practice wandless magic that day!

‘Ardeopassim!’ Regulus thought, orange bolts shooting out from his hands, which Severus also wordlessly deflected.

“Sectumsempra!” crap, his wandless shield charm was not strong enough for that!

He fell to the ground in agony as slices gnawed into his skin. He heard hurried footsteps and felt the older boy over him within seconds. Severus had his wand and he lay Regulus on the ground, quickly casting a “Vulnera Sanentur.”

Regulus took a deep breath as Severus held him in his lap casting the spell two more times. “We need to get some dittany on you to stop it from scarring.”

“I think I have some in my trunk.”

Severus nodded and helped Regulus onto his feet and out of the door, where they found the Marauders. Oh, right, Regulus thought, miserably, it’s the full moon.

Thankfully his brother paid him no mind as they ushered Lupin down the corridor, though he did think he saw his brother frown for a moment when he saw him and Severus. Severus rushed Regulus down from the DADA classroom and into the Slytherin Common Room. He noticed Barty shoot them a concerned look right before Severus shoved Regulus down the corridor and up a small flight of stairs into the fourth year’s dorm room.

Severus laid Regulus down on his bed and opened the younger boy’s trunk well aware of the small crowd of Slytherins gathering around them. Aha! Dittany paste!

He got up and handed Regulus the Dittany paste before ushering everyone out of the room, he noticed Evan and Crouch lingering in the hallways. He figured it wasn’t the end of the world if the two remained there.

Crouch was talking Regulus up to Evan- figures, given that the two were his ‘OTP’ or whatever Crouch called it.

Oh yeah, best damn Seeker in a quarter century. Dark Arts? He loves those! He’s even made up a few spells- way ahead of his grade, probably stuff he knows that teachers don’t know! You should see him using non-verbal magic, he can even do it wandless! Yeah, uh huh, yeah. Well of course he’s going to join the Dark Lord, he loves the death-eaters and blood purity and all of that stuff. Of course he’s not like Sirius, Sirius got disowned. Well of course he’s the new Black Heir- geez, with all the time you two spend together on the Quidditch pitch you’d think you guys would know one another better!

Yes, Snape thought, you would. No, Barty talked to you about this, you’re being overprotective.

.

“What were you doing with my brother?” Oh, right. Since Slughorn had apparently decided that the best way to start the day was to fuck with him, Snape had been assigned to work with Sirius Black.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You damn well know what I'm talking about- last night, you two were walking through the hallways and he was limping.”

“We were sparring. Ever heard of it? It’s good practice for duelling.”

Sirius frowned. “Did you make him join?”

“No. Look, Black,” he drawled, “we have about twenty minutes left to finish this potion and I don’t intend on getting an ‘A’ on this. I recommend talking it out with your brother- you know, the one you abandoned- later, but for now we have a potion to complete.”

Sirius scowled, but both boys managed to finish the potion in time to receive an ‘O.’

.

“Regulus,” Regulus froze. Great, just great, this is what he got for leaving the Common Room to get a midnight snack whilst he did his best to perfect a new charm he’d learned from a book he’d smuggled out of their family library.

Regulus walked faster, hey, maybe he’d just been acknowledged or maybe Sirius was surprised to see him out so late or something, but he knew that he was done for the moment he felt a hand grasp his and pull him into a classroom.

The door slammed shut behind him and Regulus found himself looking at his brother. “What do you want?”

“Well, first I’d like to know why you tried to run away from me.”

“I- er, thought you had company or something,” Regulus mumbled. “Why did you bring me here, four years of school and you’ve never acknowledged me once in the corridors.”

“I want to know what’s going on with you,” Sirius said, looking his brother in the eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“Ever since I left you’ve been acting weird- well, weirder.”

“No, I mean what do you mean by asking the question? You lost all rights to know what was going on in my life when you left,” Regulus spat.

“I’m still your brother.”

“And this is the first conversation you have with me since you’ve left!? We may be brothers in blood- but in nothing else. Bye, Siri,” Regulus waved his hand over the door, opening it, and stormed out.

Sirius sighed. What was he going to do with that kid?

.

“He’s noticing you more!” Barty squealed as he and Regulus walked down to breakfast.

“Is he?” Regulus frowned, didn’t seem so to him.

“He asked me about you yesterday- ‘how long have you known him?’” Regulus blushed. Evan had asked about him omg!

His eyes widened. Did he seriously just think the word ‘omg’? Urgh, Barty must've been rubbing off on him.

On his way to breakfast he and Barty had struck up a conversation with Quirrell- the professor, not the student. He’d asked what they were going to be doing in DADA and had been told that it would be a surprise, which made him nervous. Call him paranoid, but growing up in a household where you never really had any stability other than that you would always have enough money had kind of made him averse to surprises.

He sat down and chatted with Ava Flint- Flint’s younger sister- and her boyfriend, Thomas Filch- whose uncle was the grounds keeper- two fellow fourth-years, while Barty chatted up his long time crush Penelope Nott.

Leaving breakfast he heard laughter behind him and stilled as he felt someone brush past him. OMG! OMG! Evan had just brushed past him. The older boy, of course, didn’t turn around. No Slytherin would, but even then he found himself smiling and touching his shoulder (where he’s been knocked into) like a lovesick-puppy.

He walked up to DADA alongside his classmates. He’d never really had a best-friend per say, just a couple of people that he was super close to, a larger circle of people he was fine with- and, well, everyone else was either family or a random person he didn’t really know.

When he walked in the curtains were wide open- something that one could rarely ever say about the DADA classroom. In the centre there was a cupboard which was locked and Regulus couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was in there. Doxies? A trapped Hidebehind? The possibilities were endless.

Given that Quirrell spent the first ten minutes of the lesson explaining how to perform the Riddikulus charm Regulus was going to bet on the Boggart.

First went Ava Flint. Her boggart turned into her mother- naturally. This was Slytherin house, after all, most students’ boggarts would probably be their parents. She cast riddikulus and it transformed into her mother in a onesie.

Next was Thomas Filch- kind of ironic that his greatest fear was Mrs. Norris, whom he riddikulused into Mrs. Norris with a fish for a head.

Then went Amycus Nott (A werewolf); Tristan Fawley (Himself in a Hufflepuff tie); Laura Crabbe (A vampire); Michael Greengrass (Heights); Hobart Trelawney (his sister); Rigel Shafiq (an acromantula); and finally Regulus, who gracefully cast a riddikulus at Kreacher’s tirade about how he was ‘so disappointed in him and had never cared about him,’ and gave the ‘House-elf’ his mother’s attire, the class laughing it out of existence.

Class was over, he headed on to divination.

.

“Ready?” Barty smirked at him as they walked into the Hall.

“Always,” Regulus smirked back.

Severus and the other Slytherins were already there, so they just joined them. Barty made sure to place Regulus between him and Evan, which made the darker haired male blush a lot.

Oh great, Quirrell wanted them to duel opposing houses. Bloody fantastic! Regulus ended up duelling some Ravenclaw mudblood in the year above him and Barty was duelling a Hufflepuff half-blood. Lucky, at least the half-blood would be competent.

“Avis,” Regulus conjured up a swarm of birds. “Oppugno!” they shot at the Ravenclaw who put up a shield just in time.

“Expelliarmus!” The Ravenclaw shouted.

Regulus wordlessly blocked it. “Stupefy!”

The Ravenclaw blocked it. Alright, time to use some of his own spells.

‘Facies Capillus,’ he aimed at the Ravenclaw’s forehead and laughed as the boy began to grow a unibrow. He figured the darker spells were probably off of the table, but his Facial hair hex was damn funny.

This served to infuriate the mudblood, because he cast an twitchy-ear jinx at Regulus, who managed to block it. Come on, he grew up with Bellatrix, surely the mudblood could think of a better hex.

‘Locomotor Wibbly!’ he thought, ‘Langlock! Flipendo!’ He smirked in satisfaction when the boy fell over, obviously unable to cope with the barrage of spells being sent his way- especially given that he had no idea what was being sent at him.

Now that their duel was over Regulus turned to watch Barty fighting his sixth year. The Hufflepuff was, surprisingly, not that bad. He shot spell after spell at Barty, who deflected each one. Regulus smirked, Barty was planning something, he could feel it.

Sure, Barty wasn’t as adept and the Dark Arts as, say, Severus, but the boy still knew his fair share of dark spells. He had faith in Barty.

And Barty didn’t disappoint. He started with a Horn Tongue Hex, then a Stinging Hex, then a Stickfast Hex, then a Tickling Hex, and finally, he ended it with a knockback jinx. Ouch.

Severus was duelling Thomas Creevey, a Seventh year Gryffindor. By the looks of it he was winning- but then again, when did Severus ever lose? (Minus that one match he threw).

And Evan- Evan was duelling Lupin. Regulus watched the battle in awe. They were both really good at DADA, but though he knew that Evan knew a lot of dark spells he wasn’t sure about Lupin.

He noticed Sirius also watching intently- though it was obvious that they were both rooting for a different dueller.

Evan shot hex after hex at Lupin, defending each blow from the other male with a swish of his wand- they were in Sixth year after all, Regulus reminded himself, NEWT level DADA required use of non-verbal spells. Finally, when the match had gone on for about ten minutes, Evan shot a few consecutive spells followed by a sectumsempra at Lupin who- seemingly- was taken aback by the spell and wound up with gashes along his arms. He dropped his wand in surprise. Defeat.

Regulus smirked silently to himself, good luck healing that.

The last two victors today seemed to be a mudblood girl called Sophie and a Hufflepuff Regulus didn’t know. The mudblood annihilated the Hufflepuff- who was probably only up there because he’d found a partner as incompetent as himself.

.

In the weeks that followed, Regulus found himself spending more and more time with Evan thanks to duelling club. Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw and then, just like that, it was time for Slytherin’s match against Ravenclaw.

He walked out onto the pitch besides his teammates. This was their second match of the school year (their first being an easy win against Hufflepuff).

They all got into the air and he and Olivia Prewett locked eyes, the message clear as day. You’re going down. And the game started.

Regulus hovered over the middle of the field, dodging Bludgers that got sent his way. Oh look, Ravenclaw had been practicing.

Even then, it wasn’t enough. Slytherin was up thirty points in the first five minutes- and the Snitch still hadn’t been spotted. The commentator- Ted Biggs, a third year Ravenclaw- was busy spewing some nonsense about how Flint knocking Rosa Montgomery off of her broom with a Bludger should be considered a foul- hey idiot, Beaters are supposed to do that! She was supposed to dodge or one of her team’s beaters was supposed to protect her!

There! Regulus spied the Snitch by their Keeper, Aria Greengrass. He shot towards it- after all, he was closer than Prewett. She seemed to notice and she also made a nose-dive towards it.

The Snitch flew between the players and Regulus followed suit. He dodged a Bludger before flying up after the Snitch.

He saw it coming out of the corner of his eye- the round, hard thing that was a split second away from hitting him. Crap, there wasn’t enough time. He closed his eyes, bracing himself for the imminent pain of the Bludger colliding with his- well, shoulder if he was lucky.

He opened his eyes when- after ten seconds- there was no impact. He opened his eyes to see Evan grinning at him. He breathed a sigh of relief. In the moments that he’d lost it seemed as though his opponent had lost sight of the Snitch- figured, he'd been far ahead of her after all.

There! It was currently by the opposing team’s goalposts. Quick glance to the scoreboard, Slytherin was seventy up. He flew down to them, past an incredibly confused Ravenclaw Keeper , following the Snitch around the pitch, under a Ravenclaw Beater and- yes! He flew up slightly and did a flip off of his broom. He’d caught the Snitch!

The announcement was met with boos from the Ravenclaws in the stands and a plethora of cheering from the Slytherin fans.

The rest of the players dismounted from their brooms. Slytherin had won! Yes! They had one more match- Gryffindor beaten Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, so they were pretty-much tied for the House Cup.

He saw Evan shoot him a smile and blushed. Evan!

.

They had a party that night. He and a few other Slytherins who were good at Charms went to buy Butterbeer- and the Slytherins who were seventh years bought Firewhiskey.

They had a strict rule in Slytherin house- no one under twelve could consume alcohol. No one! Firewhiskey was kept for the fifth years, so imagine his surprise when Flint handed him a cup of it.

“To our Seeker!” he announced, “The guy that caught that Snitch from right under that Ravenclaw’s grubby little fingers!”

Everyone applauded and it was at that moment he realized that he was going to have to drink. Not a huge problem, he’d done this before, naturally- after all, Sirius was his brother, but it was usually in a dark room or something. Nervously, he pressed the edge of the cup to his lips and took a swig. The entire common room broke out cheering.

He put the glass down. He’d always been somewhat of a lightweight, so he figured that sticking next to Barty would be his best option for the night… actually, on second thought, maybe not. Maybe he ought to fake an illness and head up to his dorm. Judith would be asleep soon, and he hoped to wish her goodnight.

He made his way into his dorm room, waved at Judith through the window, and promptly fell asleep on his bed.

.

1. Call it wishful thinking, but he was pretty sure that Evan had been staring at him throughout prep. He smiled a little to himself, earning himself a curious glance from Barty.

Exiting the room he blushed as he was stopped by- Rosier! OMG!

“Hey, Black, right?” Evan asked.

“Um, yeah,” he may be an incredibly articulate young man- but somehow the presence of Evan always seemed to steal the words from his mouth.

“I was wondering, would you like to join Mulciber, Snape, Avery, Flint and me this Hogsmeade weekend?”

“Uh,” why was he such a dumbass?

“Oh,” The older Slytherin smirked, “and Barty already agreed to come, so if you say no then you're going alone.”

“Ah,” of course, “uh, sure, I guess,” he blushed a little at how pathetic he sounded.

“Great. We meet outside the Great Hall, be there by eight.”

“Um, OK.”

.

Be there by eight, the words echoed in his head. Surely he didn’t seem over-anxious by appearing at the designated rendezvous point. Within moments Barty had joined him and by a minute to eight everyone was there. Of course, Slytherins were always punctual after all.

They made their way into Hogsmeade as a pack of seven and received nasty looks from certain people. Of course, Regulus wanted to laugh, not only were they Slytherins, but they also exuded a dark aura as a group. How could they not? They all dabbled in the Dark Arts.

They ended up in the Three Broomsticks Inn, all of them somehow managing to make their way into a booth. Regulus didn’t know whether to curse or thank Severus-when he slipped into the last chair- and Barty- who ushered Evan in before him- but regardless, Evan was sitting in between him and Barty. And thanks to Barty doing that thing where he invades personal space, Evan was mostly leaning towards his side. His breath hitched. Oh gods! He was like this close to his crush. OMG OMG OMG!

Damn whoever was in charge of his thoughts for rendering him incapable of thinking of a properly structured phrase to communicate his emotions at having his crush be within a hair’s breadth of him.

“I’m sorry,” Evan flashed him a charming smile, “Bartemius is being an ass.” It’s OK, he didn’t mind.

“Hey!”

All in all, the day went so smoothly that he almost missed a pair of calculating grey eyes following him from his exit of the Three Broomsticks and into the castle.

Almost.

.

In the weeks after that, Regulus found himself spending more and more time around Severus’s ‘gang.’ Was he being inducted and potentially signing a death warrant? Most definitely. Did he wish to back out? He found himself locking eyes with Evan. Fuck no.

Did he notice Sirius’s lingering stares whenever they were within sight of each other? Yes. Did he give a shit? Honestly, as long as nobody hurt anyone or anything, he didn’t give a fuck.

.

Of course the day came in Duelling Club. Ah, yes, yet another reason that he had not wanted to join.

He was putting on a demonstration at the request of Professor Quirrell. Oh, and Sirius was his partner. Seriously, how were there no school regulations against having siblings duel?

The match was over before it had begun. Sure he knew more dark spells, but Sirius had way more experience and- unlike Severus- was definitely not going to throw the match for him.

But it didn’t matter. The match lasted a good ten minutes, and when he found himself sprawled on his back, disarmed, and staring at the ceiling, who was to help him back up to his feet? None other than Evan Rosier.

“Hey,” he smiled, hoisting Regulus up, “nice duel. I really thought that you had him with that, uh, with that- what was it? The one that had him sweating and freaking out?”

“Oh, uh, just combustumsemper, it induces the feeling of being on fire.”

“I've never heard of that one.”

“It’s a personal spell.”

Evan looked surprised. “Oh, you have personal spells?”

“Yeah,” Regulus blushed.

“You should show me them sometime.”

“Um, uh, O-OK?”

“Ah, I get it,” Evan smirked. “You don’t want your spells to get out to the public- it’s alright Regulus, don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“O-OK.”

“Great,” the older boy beamed. “I’ll see you… Thursday?”

“Sure!”

He was sure Severus wouldn’t mind him skipping out on the night’s tutoring session.

.

“First things first, no kissing, definitely no sex-”

“Sev!”

“Don’t call me ‘Sev’, and if you do sleep together I don’t want any details!”

“Oh my goodness-”

“Don’t take that tone with me, young man! You took your potion?”

“Severus fucking Snape, OMG- no! This is not a fucking fuck session, this is a tutoring session, what the hell is wrong with you!?”

Severus shook his head, amused. “I take that as a ‘yes’ then.”

Blushing, Regulus nodded. “Yes, I did- don’t you dare give me that look! I always take it just in- nope, nope, it’s not like it sounds- Severus no!”

“Alright then. Have fun, Reg, be safe. Remember, if you're not in before ten then I’m going to send a search party out for you and you will be in a lot of trouble, young man,” Severus teased.

“I hate you. Bye.”

.

True to his word, the only thing that went down that night was studying. Regulus showed Evan how to perform a few curses he’d read about in Vices and Virtues and Evan showed Regulus this really dark spell that turned its victim’s body inside out- and another one that would disfigure a person permanently unless the counter-curse was performed within an hour.

Damn, Evan really knew some dark curses.

“We should do this again,” Evan laughed, his robes had patches in them from a few misfires- as did Regulus’s- and his face had a few burns and scratches, but his laugh still made Regulus’s heart do loop-de-loops.

“Uhh, sure. When?”

“Same time next week?”

“OK.”

.

“We didn’t sleep together,” yeesh, he thought Severus had been bad, Barty was a million times worse.

“Suurre, just remember Reg- I left a packet of condoms in your night stand.”

“I di-what did you?- how di- gah!”

Barty chuckled. “By the way, Snape told me to tell you that when you two do get it on, you should cast this spell called muffliato, he said he’d teach it to you on your next tutoring session.”

Regulus let out a scream before turning into the common room and heading into his dorm. Fuck his life!

.

It didn’t take long before he found himself being a regular amongst Severus’s ‘gang’- alongside Barty, of course, Sev had been clear about him not wanting Regulus to feel too left out or out of his own skin.

Maybe that is why he found himself locked in a classroom with his brother blocking the exit.

“Reg, I’m worried about you. Talk to me.”

“No! I have nothing to say to a bloodtraitor like you.”

“Bloodtraitor? Is that what mother and father told you to call me- or was it your death-eater wannabe friends?”

“Shut up! You don’t know anything about them!”

“I know that you’ve been hanging out around Evan Rosier, every Thursday night for the past month.”

“I don’t know how you know about that- but it truly isn’t any of your concer-”

“What? Is he recruiting you or something? Would certainly explain why you joined DC- I know that practical uses of the dark arts have never been your favorite.”

This was pissing Regulus off, so much so that his next words weren’t really thought through“It’s the full moon, Siri, don’t you have a friend to corral?”

Sirius’s eyes widened and his face paled. It wasn’t long, however, before the shocked look turned into an enraged one.

“I-you- was it-was it that bastard, Snivellus? Did he tell you.”

Regulus wanted to punch him- but his Slytherin instincts advised him against fighting a stronger, more powerful foe when there wasn’t a teacher around.

“No. If anything, I told him. I’m not stupid, neither are most of the people in my house…” he trailed off. OK, that last part wasn’t true and he was pretty sure that other than his brother’s group of friends as well as the teacher, only he and Severus knew (maybe Evan, another great thing about him was that he was smart- and handsome, and a Quidditch player, and sweet, and funn- OK.)

“Now,” Regulus side-stepped his brother- er, ex-brother, he supposed. “Please open this door,” he said calmly.

But he didn’t have to, any control over the doors that Sirius may have maintained had vanished the moment he’d delivered the crushing blow to his brother.

.

“OK, now you guys are friends-ish,” Barty smiled. “Finally, phase 3, it’s time to make Evan jealous.”

“But-how?”

“Well, I’m not sure that he’s considered you as a romantic partner yet, however, the easiest way to get a ‘friend’ to notice you is to date some utter piece of trash whilst said ‘friend’ mulls over how you deserve someone ‘better’ and badda bing badda boom, instaboyfriend.”

“But-but using people is wrong.”

“What part of ‘utter piece of trash’ did you not get? Besides, whoever this guy is will probably get a ton of sympathy when this whole thing blows over and find themselves someone committed or something.”

“You're not making this any better.”

“Look- they’ll be fine, the real issue at the moment is what loser you’re going to date. Can’t be a Gryffindor or your brother’d definitely get them before Evan does… hm… hey- what about Lockheart!?”

“What about Lockheart?”

“Oh come on, do I have to spell it out for you?”

“Ew! Come on, Barty, he’s like- twelve, I’m not dating a second year!”

“Why- because of the age difference?”

“Exactly!”

Barty waited a moment for Regulus to realize. “Fuck you,” the ravenette blushed, “That’s not what I meant- it’s just, twelve, really? Isn’t that a little too young? I mean, a third year maybe, but a second year?”

“Just think about it, won’t you?”

“Wait- but you realize that if I go that far out of Evan’s age gap he’ll probably think I’m a joke, not a particular suitor, right? I mean, if it was you and I went out with Lockheart… would you even momentarily find me appealing?”

Now it was Barty’s turn to pause. “Hmmm, OK, I get your point. Ooh! I know- how about Skeeter?”

“Tom?” Regulus guffawed. “Tom Skeeter? Oh wow- you can not be serious!”

“Why not? He’s only a year above you.”

“Did you forget the fact that he’s related to Rita Skeeter!? As in the bitch that wrote that nasty article about Ros’s grandmother!?”

“Exactly! He already has beef with him! Plus, he’s in Ravenclaw, and they’re almost as hush-hush as we are, the relationship won’t go public unless you want it to.”

“Al-alright, I guess.” Regulus resigned.

“Great! Since I’d marked him as a potential suitor, I have his schedule over here,” Barty whipped out a sheet of paper.

“How did you-when did you- gah!”

“Connections, my dear Regulus,” Barty smiled evilly.

.

“Sure,” Thomas smirked, as he and Regulus stood outside thee potion’s lab. “I’d love to go to Duelling Club with you this week.”

“Great,” Regulus smiled, nodding his way. “I’ll see you then.”

.

“Alright, let’s- wait, where’s Regulus?” Snape frowned.

“Oh,” Barty fought to keep the grin off of his face. “He headed down early, someone he had to meet or something.”

“OK,” Snape frowned. “Well, let’s get going, we don’t want to run into any of Potter’s scumbag friends, do we?”

“We could take them,” Evan rolled his eyes.

“Yes, but then Slughorn’d give us detention. He’s like the only House Head that enforces discipline- I hate that old ponce,” Flint huffed, arms over his chest.

“Hey, he’s a good House Head,” Avery argued. “He may be tough on us, but he doesn’t let the other houses walk over us either! Other House Heads just casually pretend that they see nothing because they think we need to figure out how to get along ourselves. He’s the only one who cares about students- even if his poncy club is a little self-indulgent.”

“Right,” Evan argued, “But that club also serves a meet-and-greet for those whom he believes to be of great potential- it’s just another reason that he makes such a great Slytherin House Head.”

“Guys!” Snape bit at them, “Be quiet, we’re out of Slytherin territory.”

They walked to the Great Hall in silence. They opened the doors and quietly (and ominously) slipped in, bringing with them a looming air of death and despair.

They settled in their nook, milling about with the other Slytherins in the area where the Slytherin table was, when Snape frowned. “What’s Black doing with Skeeter?”

Evan’s face turned into a glower (much to Barty’s glee). “Which Black?”

“Ours, you git,” but Mulciber was frowning too as they all gazed at Regulus, who was chatting a little too close to Thomas Skeeter.

“Urgh,” Flint frowned, “They’re standing close together- if they make out or something I think I’ll be sick-” Flint rounded on Barty, “Actually, wait a second, I thought that Regulus was dating you.”

“Me?” Barty frowned. “Why on earth would you- oh, oh, oh no. We just kissed that one time, nothing meant by it.”

Evan frowned. “Then why did you do it?”

To check if you were, at the least, not homophobic, and because I was curious. I mean, come on, it’s Regulus Black for crying out loud!

“Oh, um, there’d been a small branch of mistletoe that someone must have missed, I mean, it was only early January and all,” Barty shrugged.

Evan nodded. Good that Regulus and Barty weren’t together, Reg could do better than his goofy cousin. Regulus was smart, and funny, no wonder he’d chosen a Ravenclaw- even if said Ravenclaw was Rita Skeeter’s brother.

Quirrell entered the room alongside someone whom Barty knew all-too-well from his father’s Ministry galas. Mad-Eye Moody, an up-and-coming Auror who had brought Victor Dolohov- Tony’s uncle- to his knees in a duel the previous month.

“Welcome, all,” Quirrell beamed. “This is Mr. Alastor Moody, he has agreed to come in today for some demonstrative duelling. He has agreed to fight seven students- so naturally I chose one student from each year group. We will start with Mr. Henry Ollivander, please.”

Henry Ollivander, nephew of famed wandmaker, Garrick Ollivander, stepped forwards. The first-year was, truly, the best dueller in the first-year, rumor had it that his uncle had fixed his wand with a special core to enhance its power.

He shook as he and Moody bowed. Barty smirked. This would be fun.

Henry shot a ‘Stupefy’ at Moody, who deflected it non-verbally. The spell was followed by a ‘Tarantallegra’, a ‘Flippendo’ and finally, a pathetic ‘Expelliarmus!’

Nothing. Zilch. Finally, Moody must have felt that the match was taking too long, and he wordlessly disarmed young Henry.

Still, it had been a good fight for a first-year- heck, Barty was willing to bet that he could give most of the third-years a run for their money.

Next was Texas Turner- a girl with the weirdest name that Barty had ever heard of.

She did slightly better, lasting seven minutes before Moody had her out. Correct Barty if he was wrong, but he was starting to think that Quirrell had picked the best duelists from each year.

“Bartemius Crouch Jr,” Quirrell called.

He saw Moody’s head perk up in interest, clearly the man remembered him. Barty smirked, if the man was interested by his name he couldn’t wait to see his reaction to certain other people’s names *cough* Regulus Black *cough* *cough.*

Thirteen minutes. That’s how long he lasted. And Moody hadn’t been able to go non-verbal for twelve of those minutes. The older man had to deflect spell after spell, most of which were rather dark (Barty had sent a quick thank-you to Snape and Reg for their tutoring). Finally, after three failed expelliarmuses, Moody managed to rid Barty of his wand.

He bowed, smirking, and went to rejoin the rest of his house.

He didn’t need Quirrell to read off of his parchment to know that Regulus would be next. After all, the older boy was- by mass agreement- the second best dueller in the club, right after his brother (And Barty was pretty sure that Reg was just a bit rusty).

28 minutes. It took Moody 28 minutes and nine unfortunate encounters with Regulus’s spell (one of which had left the man wearing a pink dress) before he was finally able to disarm him. Moody hadn’t been able to use a single non-verbal.

Some fifth-year (Madison O’Reilly) was called up. Pity, Regulus and Barty both could have demolished her in under five minutes. But, Barty supposed, that wasn’t really a fair comparison given that both himself and the aforementioned male were within the top 10 duellers in the club (Quirrell’s list) and there were no fifth-years within the top 18.

Still, the girl put up a valiant effort and managed three minutes.

And then- the moment he’d been waiting for- the sixth years. Barty knew it’d either be Snape or the other Black to go up- and it was the other Black.

Barty had to admit, Sirius was a pretty good dueller (he’d seen Regulus do better of course) and managed a respectable twenty minutes of duelling before he was disarmed.

Last to go up was Avery. Eighteen minutes, two spells got through.

Aaand that was it. Quirrell thanked Moody and dismissed them.

Barty smiled as he and the other Slytherins deserted the room. Evan’s eyes hadn’t left Regulus during the entirety of the 28 minute duel, and even after the event was over they continued to linger.

.

Just as Barty had suspected, Thomas turned out to be a bit of a prick within ten days of dating Regulus. Sure, the two were rather intimate and were always kissing (Regulus made sure to initiate a good deal of those kisses with Evan around the corner)- but there was also the fact that, like it or not, Thomas was a Skeeter, and had a propensity to lie to get what he wanted, not to mention that he was hella possessive of Regulus- and not in a good or affectionate way.

Barty hummed, honestly, he was pretty sure that the boy had had to fight with the hat to keep himself out of Slytherin.

Then again, he reminded himself, the hat only sorted you based on a) where you’d do best and b) your defining features that mattered the most to you. And besides, just like the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were similar in ideology, but different in actions the same could be said for Ravenclaws and Slytherins. Both houses valued school and getting ahead in life, but Slytherins were more cunning than Ravens. After all, wasn’t that why their houses were allies? Why it was generally frowned upon in their house to date a ‘puff or a ‘dork, but dating ravens was fine.

Still, it was fun watching Evan try to pretend that the relationship wasn’t bothering. Oh, those two were so close to banging.

And Regulus and Evan’s nightly trysts- er, sorry ‘tutoring sessions’- hadn’t stopped. The day that both boys came back from one looking equally pissed off at each other elated Barty to no end.

Those two were so hopelessly in love! Honestly, he would never have helped Regulus seduce Evan if he hadn’t known that the older boy had had some interest in him (whether or not Evan had ever verbally admitted it [not that he needed to. A few casual glances down his end of the table as well as some ‘how’s your friend?’s had been enough to convince him that Evan at least cared about the younger boy or was intrigued by him]).

Still, things were going rather swimmingly if you asked him.

.

Regulus growled as he flopped down on his bed. Evan had been such an ass to him during their study session.

It had started with some rather distasteful comments followed by some rather cold behavior when Regulus had asked him to ‘please knock it off.’

Gods, and he’d thought that Evan was a nice guy! Goodness gracious, maybe Severus was right, maybe it wasn’t the greatest idea.

Urgh, he could not wait for Hogsmeade this Saturday. Next Saturday was the Quidditch match where he was positive that Hufflepuff would crush Ravenclaw. Yes, he said that despite the fact that Thomas was a Chaser on the Ravenclaw.

Oh. Yeah, Thomas, at least he’d have someone who wasn’t Evan to spend that weekend with. God that guy was just such an ass!

.

Friday night, almost curfew, Regulus rushed through the halls not wanting to be late- his house needed to win again this year, the streak had to stay alive!

Suddenly, he was yanked into a classroom. Gods, if this was Thomas he was going to kill him.

He was pushed a little and whilst he regained his balance he heard the door slam shut and a quick muffliato was pointed at it.

Oh gods, it was worse than Thomas, it was Sirius.

“Sirius! Are you insane!? It’s almost curfew!”

“Um, Lupin patrols here, don’t worry. Besides,” his brother cracked an infuriating smirk, “I’m a Gryffindor and you’re a Slytherin, our houses were practically founded on rule-breaking.”

“That doesn’t- how does that-? Never mind that, why are you here now?”

“Just checking up on my baby bro,” the older boy smirked. “Rumor has it you’ve got yourself a boyfriend.”

“It’s not a rumor.”

“Oh, who is it?”

“Bugger off, Siri, it’s none of your bloody business.”

“Sure it is, I want to know who’s buggering my little bro.”

“First of all there’s no ‘buggering’ going on, and secondly I’m not your ‘little bro’-”

“Reg-”

“No!” Regulus snapped. “You lost the right to call me that when you walked out on our family you asswipe! Now open the damn door.”

“Not until you at least tell me who it is,” Sirius may've been hurt by that last comment, but regardless of how Regulus felt, he was still his brother and Regulus was still young and susceptible to manipulation. His brother had to be the softest person that he knew, and even though that usually annoyed the hell out of him, it had him worried at the moment, given the circumstances. “You know I’ll find out eventually,” he added, when the only answer he got was a furious glare, combined with a stoic (what Regulus probably thought was stoic but Sirius saw as more of a pout) face and his arms held tightly over his chest.

“Fine,” Regulus rolled his eyes, knowing that his brother was right. “If you must know, I’m seeing Thomas.”

“Thomas? As in Thomas Johnson? Thomas Finnigan- oh gods,” Sirius blanched, “Please tell me you are not sleeping with Thomas Skeeter!? Gods, Reggie- he’s the worst fucking choice you could have made!? His entire family is power-hungry- hell, his sister is fucking Rita Skeeter!”

“I know,” Regulus hissed, “Now let. Me. Go!”

Sirius stood silently for a moment, looking as though he wanted to say something more, before sighing and opening the door. Regulus stormed out and, after casting like eight different concealment charms on himself, sprinted into his Common Room before anyone saw him.

.

Turns out, them going to Hogsmeade together meant them going to Hogsmeade…together.

Regulus glanced around. He’d thought that Thomas would have a friend or two with him, but as fate would have it he’d taken this as a serious sort of date. Just him, Regulus, and a lot of tongue.

Seriously though, Thomas had taken every opportunity to shove Regulus behind random buildings, shove his tongue down his throat, and do certain things to him that, given the rating of this fic, can not be mentioned.

They’d gone to Honeydukes and afterwards Thomas and him had shared some strawberry sherbert (surprise, surprise, they had some muggle candy too). Had they split the powder in half and each guzzled it down? Nope. Had Regulus poured some in his mouth and Thomas sucked it out? Yes.

Honestly, Thomas could be really nice when he wanted to. Why didn’t he just stick with him?

“Babe, take off your scarf, I want everyone to see those hickeys I gave you on that gorgeous neck off yours.”

“But I’m cold.”

“And? Do what I told you you wimp. Goodness, you're so pathetic.”

Oh yeah, that’s why.

Thomas was a mystery. He was 70% nice guy, 30% total ass, but his total ass side was too nasty for most people to deal with. Regulus scoffed internally, no wonder the boy had been single when he approached him.

Nevertheless, he complied. They walked into the Three Broomsticks and got a table for two. They got a plate of sandwiches to share and some butterbeer.

Afterwards, on the walk back to Hogwarts, the two held hands and in their free hands they each carried their shopping. Regulus had bought a pair of socks and a shirt from Galdrags, as well as some potions ingredients from Dogweed and Deathcap. He’d also gone to Horus’s hair salon to buy some shampoo and conditioner as he had run out due to some rather rainy weather and some rather unfortunate Quidditch practices.

Thomas had bought a few books from Tomes and Scrolls and a new Quill from Scrivenshaft’s in addition to the sweets they'd bought together at Honeydukes.

After dropping Thomas off, he headed to the Dungeons… and was stopped by Evan, great.

“Hey, you put your scarf back on,” Evan noted.

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason- just don’t think you should be hanging out with Skeeter so much.

“Look, Evan, if this is about your grandmother-”

“It’s not- bloody, Reg, he’s using you.”

“Shut up,” Regulus growled. “He’s not using me!”

“Have you seen the way he treats you!?”

“What!? Like he cares about me!?” OK, maybe ‘cares’ wasn’t the word, but Evan had been acting like an ass recently and Regulus was beginning to lose his temper with him.

He stormed past the older boy and down the hall.

‘Toujours Pur,” he muttered, and the door appeared. Every now and then, when they ran out of passwords, they'd use a family quote or something of the sorts. This week was his family’s.

He was so angry, in fact, that he stormed past Barty and Snape- yup, that’s right, Snape, because he was too angry to convince himself that it would be adorable pissing off the older boy by calling him Severus- and slammed the door to his dorm room shut.

He ignored the stares of Hannigan, Colby and Higgs, walked over to his bed which sat at the end by the window, ignored Judith, shut his curtains, and fell asleep.

He dreamt of fire and his upcoming exams. Oh boy, great omen.

.

As if the previous day hadn’t been hard enough on Regulus, they’d had a History of Magic test as well as a Charm’s quiz that morning, and it was only second period. Oh, and because he’d been gallivanting with Skeeter the previous day in Hogsmeade he was also late on his Transfiguration homework.

At lunch he barely ate because he was so stressed, and the day ended for him when Barty had to carry him to the infirmary because he’d felt light-headed walking to Potions and had nearly walked into a wall.

It was easily one of the worst days of his life- heck, it almost topped the day that Sirius ran away!

Madam Pomfrey muttered something about fourth-years stressing too much, handed him a sleeping draught, and sent letters to all his teachers excusing him from lessons for the rest of the day as well as homework.

Regulus wanted to cry. Didn’t she understand that less work today meant heaps more tomorrow? There was no way that he could catch up- he’d missed two periods! Worst of all, one of them had been Ancient Runes. That subject was hella hard to catch up in. And what about Divination? Professor Damocles had mentioned they’d be moving on to palm reading that day!

He took a deep breath. He was a Black- like hell was he going to cry where people could see him! Saving face in his family had always been held above trivial issues such as health and whatnot. If you wanted to commit suicide by jumping off of a tower, you damn well have made it look as though you were pushed!

He gulped the potion down as soon as he got back to his dorm. He had a nice, dreamless sleep, and woke up feeling better within the next four hours. The sun had already begun to set, so he decided he’d be better off in the common room, catching up on what he’d missed.

He settled down by the fire with Alicia Goyle’s notes and his textbook and started going through them, trying to internalize everything. He simultaneously wrote in his own notebook through means of dictation.

“… is a healing rune. First uncovered in Ireland in the mid 1500s, this rune had to be destroyed in muggle archives as it posed a great risk to their health, healing them at a rate which only magical folk are accustomed to.” he hummed. They hadn’t really done much. They’d only gotten through six runes.

OK, OK, so maybe he’d overreacted in the hospital wing, but in his defence his day had been awful.

His potions class had brewed some anxiety-relief potion. Gee. Thanks, Slughorn. He and Severus had a study session the next night where he figured that he could catch up with it.

Finally, he found out that they’d only gone through the first page of palmistry, and it hadn’t really been that difficult to catch up in.

Flipping open his transfiguration book, he decided that he’d get started on that late homework.

He didn’t even notice the two pairs of concerned, green eyes watching him.

.

In stark contrast to the previous day, his day could not have been any better. It was almost as though he were running on Felix Felicis or something!

McGonnagal had, at first, rejected the homework, claiming that a piece of writing was not worth his mental health. But after some insisting she resigned and merely told him to take it easy the next time and that a little late homework wasn’t the end of the world.

Huh, since when did Gryffs have hearts? Oh well…

There had been no tests, he found that due to a mistake in instruction he was technically ahead of his Divination class and had been asked to present on Professor Damocles’s hand. They'd had DADA! They didn’t have history (not that he didn’t like history, but sometimes he kind of wished that they had a livelier teacher).

And finally, his sort-of-boyfriend had been nothing but nice the whole day, and had him pressed up against a rod under the Quidditch spectator stands and was currently blowing his mind away with that tongue of his.

Damn. He only hoped that Thomas was getting half as good a kiss from him as he was getting from Thomas.

This night when he walked down to the Slytherin Common Room, the light-headedness was for a good reason!

.

And yup he was beginning to remember why he hated Thomas again.

‘Stop frowning, you're ugly when you frown.’ Um, gee, sorry, I just found out that someone pushed Mulciber down a flight of stairs and I’m worried about him.

‘I think you ought to talk a little less, sweetheart.’ Really? Really? Thomas, the person who did two-thirds of the talking in their relationship, thought he should be talking a little less.

‘Stop, Regulus, you’re embarrassing me in front of my friends.’ All he’d done was read a book when they walked into the classroom!

‘Babe, have you put on weight?’ If anything he’d lost weight since they'd started their little ‘thing.’

And, his personal favorite.

‘Reg, your walk needs to be sexier. Take advice from my sister.’

Oh he was so done! At this point he almost regretted not having chosen Lockhart!

Nevertheless, it was finally time for the highly anticipated Hufflepuff vs Ravenclaw Quidditch Match! He was spectating alongside the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team and Barty and Sev. The difference? Thomas had made him wear his tie, deeming it more appropriate. Seriously, one of these days Thomas was going to find himself shoved out of the Astronomy Tower- and the worst part? Regulus wasn’t even sure he'd need to be the one to push him!

Somehow, he found himself smiling despite himself at the look of Glee on Evan’s face when that Longbottom fellow sent a Bludger hard enough that it knocked Thomas off of his broom. Ah. Oh well.

.

On the bright side, he was talking to Evan again. On the down side Thomas had just asked him to close his mouth because ‘his teeth were ugly.’

Fuck him! Regulus had better teeth than the rest of the damn school thanks to years of merciless dental spells having been performed on him- but no, Thomas thought that he looked ‘like a horse’ when he smiled.

He made his way back to the Common Room afterwards, internally pleased at having not punched the boy off of the Quidditch stand they’d been necking on.

.

“So, you're dating Thomas Skeeter…” What had he expected? He knew this would happen eventually.

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing, just never pegged you as… nevermind.”

“Bugger off, Siri, next time you kidnap me I’ll hex you!”

“Kidnap? You call this a kidnap?”

“Taking an underage wizard, holding them against their will in a location they chose not to be in… yeah, fits the bill.”

“Whatever. Anyways, do you even understand how bad an idea it is for you to date him? I mean, maybe Montgommery, if you want, or Tiberius, that guy in Hufflepuff- but Skeeter? Do you know who his sister is?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then you know that he’s just using you to boost his own public image as well, right?”

“And? What’s it to you?” Of course he knew that, Thomas had proved it time and time again, but it wasn’t like he wanted to be with Thomas.

“Reg, you’re my little brother, I-”

“Was.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was your little brother. Not. Any. More.”

He stormed out of that classroom. Goodness gracious, could Sirius not take a hint? How many times had he said something hurtful and then stormed off? How much would it take to drive it through his brother’s thick head that he wanted nothing to do with him?

.

“Why’re you so upset?” Evan frowned. Of course, he had to be the one person in the Common Room that night.

“It’s nothing?”

“Nothing as in nothing or nothing as in your brother, nothing?”

“How did you- nevermind.” Regulus had learnt from Severus in his second year that the Marauders were crafting a map. Regulus had asked if Severus and his crew were going to make one as well, only to find out that they already had one, one of about eight floating around Slytherin. Apparently that was how they got to be so sneaky, knowing where your enemies lay was a great start.

Then again, he was pretty sure the real reason for the many duplicates lay in the fact that a fire over a hundred years ago had destroyed countless invaluable objects in the Slytherin dorms, and he supposed a great number of those were maps and other dark objects that Slytherins to this day were still trying to emulate.

He knew that he and Barty had, upon admission to Slytherin House, both been placed in the group working towards recreating the earing devices which were meant to be used to spy on fellow classmen. They’d gotten the charm to hear long-distance right (courtesy of himself), but struggled to make it weightless and invisible to those who weren’t in Slytherin. It was how he'd gotten to know Snape, the older boy also working on recreating it. In fact, he had been the first to suggest that they use Doxy Eye, so that they could implant one within the locket and one upon a necklace, enabling only the wearer of the necklace to see the contraption.

The problem? Doxy eyes, due to Ministry Regulations, were not only difficult to obtain, but were near impossible to get a pair of- the only way they could would be if they managed to capture one. And when Barty and Regulus had come across one whilst hunting for them in the Forbidden Forest, neither boy had managed to stomach the idea of mutilating one.

Oh well.

He knew that Evan was working with Wayne Bennis and Irene Silverfield among others to recreate Slytherin’s lost ring- or at least the power it granted to its bearer- the power to enhance any dark curse tenfold. They were currently experimenting with Unicorn heart- of course Regulus had thought that it would make more sense for them to use Thestral hair/heart/blood. Oh well, he supposed none of them had seen a person die. He, being a Black, had seen more than enough for a lifetime, of course.

“I don’t know, he’s mad about me dating Thomas,” moment of truth, “You don’t think that it’s a mistake, do you?”

“Uhhh…” Years of growing up in solitude with nothing but him and a mirror had made him an expert at manipulating his face into positions which tended to draw empathy from the recipient.

“So, you agree with him then?” He made himself sound crestfallen.

“No, no, of course not, Reg, you know I’d never agree with your- er, the bloodtraitor, and this is your relationship, so telling you to do something would be improper- I guess what I’m trying to say is- see him if you want, but remember his sister.”

“You sound like Sirius.”

“I'm being honest, de-Reg.”

.

Regulus cruelly made sure that Evan caught Thomas with his tongue shoved down Regulus’s throat the next day in an alcove between the staircase the Slytherins used and the Great Hall. It was one frequented by Slytherins wanting to share a moment alone with their lovers- of course Slytherins being Slytherins meant that it was usually just Slytherins that frequented that area.

Regulus had his legs wrapped around Thomas’s hips as they made out- Regulus pressed so tightly against the wall that he was more of a 2d figure than a 3d one.

He also made sure that Evan caught him lying down in Thomas’s lap in an abandoned classroom. Evan had been walking with Nott, who, being a Prefect, had loudly coughed and reminded them that curfew was in five minutes.

And finally. Finally. The situation began to unfold one day before Duelling Practice when Evan caught wind of a rumor (he’d instigated) that was floating about about him and Thomas having slept together. That was, in fact, untrue, but two nights before that he’d asked Thomas if they could have a study session in the room of requirement because he was embarrassed about not knowing Toykin’s first law of duplication despite being a fourth year (a humongous lie, he’d mastered it at age seven when his mother had let him borrow his wand in an attempt to get him and his brother ahead so they could show up all the mudbloods at school).

Thomas, being a Ravenclaw, was eager to accept. He kissed the boy a bit on the mouth, sure, but that was two whole hours he was unaccounted for even if one did possess a map of the school.

Quirrell had long said that Houses should try duelling other Houses, and whilst the Gryffindors had the Marauders (a group of highly proficient wizards and Peter [though if he was being fair, Peter wasn’t a bad dueller, and he sometimes felt as though the boy was constantly being overlooked because of the group of insanely talented wizards he hung out with]), Slytherin Houses talent was widely dispersed. Almost everyone was insanely good.

That’s because we keep it within the community, Regulus thought.

So, imagine his surprise when Evan decided that he was going to duel Thomas.

That was a fight to remember.

The whole Hall stopped their fights to watch Evan send a barrage of stinging-hexes at Thomas, who did his best to deflect them. A few caught him on the hands, but after a while he managed to stabilize himself and started getting a few spells in as well.

One would give Evan rabbit teeth, the other would put Thomas in a pink dress. One would cause bats to drip from Evan’s nose, the other would make Thomas trip. One would slow Evan down, the other would heat Thomas up from the inside.

Needless to say, Evan won the duel.

.

“I don’t want you hanging around him anymore.”

“Why?” Because he beat you in a duel?

“There’s something off about him, Reg- and have you seen the people he hangs out with? Mulciber, Avery, Snape! Even that weird kid, Crouch.”

Regulus felt his blood boil. Nobody whined about Barty but him.

“Yeah, I know who he hangs out with, they're my friends too. Honestly, you're just mad because he beat you in a duel.”

“Am not! And have you seen the way he eyes you? Like you’re a piece of meat!” Oh, and you're so much better. “I’m serious Reg, either stop being friends with him or end it with me.”

“… I’ll talk to him.” Yes, he would, because he was sure that this was when Evan would do something- he didn’t have to be a master manipulator like Barty for him to know that.

.

“… doesn’t want us to be friends?” they'd just finished duelling practice. Evan had taught Regulus a nifty hex he’d picked up from a Seventh Year Ravenclaw.

“Yeah, I know. He’s pretty controlling, isn’t he?”

“Damn right,” Evan’s calm skin seemed to be shedding. “‘The hell does a fucking Ravencry ponce like him think he is? Ordering a Black around.”

“I know, Ev, I’m sorry,” he slipped in the nickname carefully. To date he’d called Evan that approximately six times, all artfully chosen.

“Honestly- you should just dump him.”

“I don’t know, he’s really not that bad.” Bitch please.

“Really?” Evan drew closer, “Well ‘not that bad’ isn’t exactly what I’d peg you to settle for.”

“Oh really- what would be my ‘settle for’ then?”

“Someone strong, who could take care of you- not a wimp like Skeeter-, someone smart and cunning, who could make you very comfortable in like- unlike Skeeter-, someone- someone who cared about you, who wasn’t so controlling of you.”

“He-”

“Shh, Reg, I've seen the way he treats you, and it’s all wrong.”

“Well how am I supposed to be treated, then?”

He saw Evan come even closer to him. Yes, yes, yes…

“Like this,” he cut off any reply Regulus could’ve made with a kiss.

Regulus closed his eyes. This felt a thousand times better than any time he and Thomas had kissed.

.

“I’m sorry, I’ve got to break up with you,” Regulus announced to Thomas. He’d originally thought of just sending a letter, but figured that ending it in person would have fewer consequences.

“What-why?”

“It’s not working out. You’re too controlling,” none of that ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ crap.

“No-no I’m not, you’re just whoring yourself to Rosier.”

1. Thomas had said a lot of degrading things to him in the past, calling him a ‘whore’ had not been one of them.

Resisting the urge to hex the hell out of Skeeter for badmouthing a Black, he bade him farewell, spun on his heel, and marched stiffly to his next class.

Sirius had always said that he was a bit of a drama queen.

.

He hadn’t seen it coming.

Yarrow- his owl- flew down with that morning’s paper the next day, he’d been casually munching on some fruit when he heard Evan give a horrified gasp.

He turned and glanced at the paper and dropped his mango.

There. On the front page. A blown up photo of Evan kissing him hard across the mouth- it must have been taken the previous night in the Astronomy Tower.

But-but they were alone.

In addition to the photo, there was a large, emboldened heading which read:

Slut Black Spreads Legs For Pretty Boy Rosier.

He didn’t even blink when he read who wrote the article- R. Skeeter.

The world around him spun. Several other students received their papers that morning- and a quick glance to the Gryffindor Table told him all he needed to know.

Bloody Werewolf trying to keep up with Wizarding times.

People passed him in the hallway that day, they shot hexes and jinxes at him, made snide remarks. He saw Thomas being comforted by Courtney Bix and Stacey Trumbull.

Of course- he was in a semi-abusive relationship for weeks, of course he had only done it to make people jealous, with an asshole, but he was the one who got all the hatred and people felt bad for Skeeter.

.

And part- what was it now? 3? 4? Of the Sirius kidnapping him into a classroom.

“What the hell, Reg?!? When I said ditch Skeeter I didn’t mean pick up Rosier!”

“What’s it to you?”

“The whole school hates you.”

“I’m a Slytherin, that’s not exactly ‘news’.”

“I warned you- you should never mess with that family, his sister’s a bitch!”

“No shit Sherlock.”

“And why weren’t you more careful about where you snogged Mr.Future-Death-Eater?”

“I was- we were in the Astronomy Tower. We were standing by one of the windows.”

“That’s impossible- for that to happen she would have had to take it from one of the windows.”

“Well I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

A moment of silence passed between the two brothers.

“Did you-did you really cheat on him- er, Thomas?”

“No. I broke up with him the day before that photo was taken, because Evan kissed me- and because Thomas is an annoying ass.”

“Alright,” Sirius nodded. “I’ll try to get this all sorted out.”

“Thank you.”

“Any time.”

.

Barty couldn’t manage to keep the smile off of his face. Evan and Regulus were finally together.

He and Snape watched from behind bushes as the two sat by the Great Lake playing with the Giant Octopus whom Regulus had (foolishly) affectionately named Judith in his First Year, when ‘she’ was his only friend.

It was night time, so they couldn’t really see what the two were doing very well-even with their binoculars-, but Barty smirked when Evan planted a hard kiss to Regulus’s mouth that sent the boy backwards. Evan got on top of Regulus and continued to kiss him like that… at least Barty was pretty sure they were kissing. It didn’t help much either when Snape gave a scandalized gasp and covered Barty’s eyes when he tried to take the binoculars from Snape.

But one thing was for sure…

Barty Crouch Jr. Was the Hookup King!