- ʀᴇɢᴜʟᴜs ʙʟᴀᴄᴋ ғᴀɴғɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ
"You. Me. Hogsmeade. Tomorrow" Romie demands, leaving no room for objection.
Regulus slowly lifts his head from his book, briefly wondering if he's managed to land himself into a similar alternate dimension,
"Come again...
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꧁✧✧✧꧂
𝕿wo minutes.
Two hours.
Regulus stands, staring ahead, roots spreading into the ground where his feet are firmly planted. Two minutes it's felt like, broken into two halves. Sixty seconds of misery submerging his insides until his lungs are teeming and he's forced to gasp for breath. Sixty seconds of palpable anger, coursing through his veins like the blood that apparently means nothing. Two minutes it's felt like, two hours it's really been, completing the endless cycles of each sixty seconds.
The Fat Lady stopped asking for the password after the first ten or so, resuming her efforts to fit as many of the fresh grapes tangled up in her bird's nest of hair, in her mouth all at once. It wasn't the most pleasant of watches but Regulus is barely compos mentis and it's better than the awful wailing that sounds like a feral cat in heat.
He knows the password, not three days ago he'd climbed through the portrait hole after hearing the Hufflepuff fairies loud and clear. That wasn't the problem here, he would go in if he wished to. If he was wished for. He wasn't, he never was, there was no need to wish for Regulus, not when there's always someone better, someone preferred. His jaw clenches, previous misery evaporating away thanks to the boiling heat of his returning anger.
His reflection in the Mirror of Erised, his shooting star wish, his birthday cake candle hope, it's all Sirius Black. Sirius Black's reflection in the Mirror of Erised, shooting star wish and birthday cake candle hope is not all Regulus Black. There's someone better, someone preferred. Someone that wouldn't hesitate to leap through that portrait hole, belting out a slightly embarrassing yet unforgettably sensational rendition of Happy Birthday at the top of the lungs. Someone that Sirius could actually look in the eye of, face aglow and smiling so hard that he ends up with permanent creases in his porcelain skin.
He sighs, his hand lifting up on its own accord, feeling the lines around his own mouth, or the lack of. Regulus doesn't have laugh lines that tell stories of his life's happiness. Sirius didn't used to either, not until he met James Potter and Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. His friends, his family, who are without a doubt, all surrounding him, singing and laughing and smiling whilst Regulus stands, two minutes, two hours, watching the Fat Lady double over and choke on the eighteenth grape that didn't stuff cosily into her cheek like anticipated.
He jerks, stumbling forwards before he realises what's happening. Once finding his footing, like a fork of lightning, he whips around to the blithering idiot who's evidently incapable of seeing anything that's in front of them, hissing,
"Watch where you're going"
The culprit of the collision steps back, lowering the hands that had been gently rubbing over their eyes, and oh, fucking fantastic, Regulus thinks, internally clapping himself on the back for putting himself in this situation. Because now, staring back at him right outside the entrance to the Gryffindor tower, not the trouble-searching prefects on rounds he'd already slipped past, not stern and favouring Professor Mcgonagall checking on her house, the Elfin Bitch of Hogwarts, herself.
