selenophile || remus lupin

chapter fifty three

a/n: i know it wasn't released until about 30 years later, but the song that's played in this chapter is absolutely perfect, so let's pretend that it was out for the sake of good rock and roll

21 December 1976

After several days of punishment, Ophelia was more than worn down. After enduring the Cruciatus Curse more times than she could count, she had stopped pushing her parents to their limits and accepted that she would have to hold her tongue. However, while she no longer verbally disobeyed them, that didn't mean that she couldn't physically disobey them.

Ophelia lay on top of her bed, resting on the green covers, staring up at the blank ceiling above her. She heard a gentle knock on the door and called out for Regulus to open it. She knew what his knock sounded like, it was much softer than her mother or father's, on the rare occasion that they were to knock.

He stepped into the room, his face bruised a bit, but not anything near as bad as Ophelia's. He walked over to her bed and sat down.

"Hey," she whispered, not taking her eyes off the ceiling.

"Hey," he gently grabbed her hand. "How are you doing?"

"Better now that you're here."

"Look what I smuggled in. I think you could do with one of these," Ophelia sat up, largely wincing, to see that Regulus had a box of muggle cigarettes in his ringed hand. She smirked at him, to which he took as an assurance that she wanted one. He handed one to her and lit a muggle lighter.

"You know what I really want to do," she said, taking a long drag of the cigarette. Regulus nodded to signal that he was listening as he was lighting his own cigarette. "I want to have fun for once at this stupid house. And obviously, we can't leave, but that doesn't mean we can't get into a little bit of trouble around here."

"Phee, you know this isn't going to be a good idea. What are you planning?"

"I don't know, I just- I want to do something to make mother and father mad, something that they don't have control over. I want to do something that they would never know about, like wear makeup and put makeup on you. I want to blast music like Sirius did, but without them ever hearing. I want to smoke, and drink, and dance on tabletops. I want to shower with all of my clothes on until eyeliner is running down my face, and cut off all of my hair, and decorate my room like Sirius, where they can't remove anything."

She snapped out of her daydream to look at Regulus, who was looking at her in awe. She had no idea what was going on in that brain of his, but it looked like he was deciding something.

"Who says we can't?" he finally whispered. "And I know just where to start. Kreacher!" he called out. The little house elf immediately popped into the room, glancing at the two cigarettes the kids were smoking, but saying nothing.

"What can Kreacher do for Master and Miss Black?"

"Could you put the muffliato charm on this room, please? And don't tell mother and father," asked Regulus.

"Of course, Master Regulus. Is there anything else Kreacher can do for you?

"I think that's it, thank you, Kreacher!" The house elf put on the silencing charm and disapparated out of the room. Regulus took a draw of his cigarette and smiled slyly, going out of the room and promptly reappearing with Sirius' old box of vinyl records and his old record player.

"Reg! Where did you get these? I thought mother and father threw out everything they could!"

"I went in and saved a few things before they could get rid of anything."