ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴏᴜʀᴛʜ ᴡᴀʟʟ | ᴍᴀʀᴀᴜᴅᴇʀꜱ ᴇʀᴀ

special chapter. trick or treat

"I didn't want to disturb her," he sighed, leaning back on his headboard. "She's busy enough with her own schoolwork. I don't want to add to that."

"Aww, what a good boyfriend you are," Sirius teased, poking his brother's cheek.

Regulus glared, swatting his hand away. It wasn't like he hated the fact of being called her boyfriend. He just hated it when Sirius would poke his nose in their business. He always just had to be there.

He was slowly disliking this sweet brother side of him. If he only knew Sirius would be this annoying, then he would've not made peace with him. Of course, that was what he would say. But deep down, Regulus never wanted to go back to their phase where the other didn't exist. He was happier now. No matter how annoying and childish Sirius might be.

"Quit it. I wouldn't have called you if you won't help."

His feisty remark only made Sirius grin wider.

"We really can't help much if you want perfection." James rose from the ground, leaning on the edge of the bed. "If you want to perfect it, the best you can ask for help is Snivellus or Callie."

Of course, he would rather ask his girlfriend for help than someone he wasn't close to. But then again...

"Callie is busy. I don't want to disturb her with my problem."

"How about this," Remus began, "you'll try one last time with how we did it last time. If it still fails, we'll just ask Callie how. Just ask how to do it, just that."

Regulus still wanted to say no. It was stressful enough as it was. And he knew how many schoolwork of Callie's were piling up. But then again, he wanted to perfect this potion so badly.

"Fine," he surrendered. "We'll try one last time. If it still doesn't work, we'll ask Callie. We won't disturb her."

"Yes, Mr. Protective," Sirius grinned again which earned another glare from his brother.

And so, an hour and a half was used to gather the ingredients and proceed with the steps of making the draught. Remus and Peter were the most helpful of all, of course. Sirius and James were, as well, albeit without their usual glare-worthy remarks.

"All right, last instruction. 'Stir seven times anti-clockwise'," Remus read from the book.

Regulus was peeking in it as well trying to see if he heard him right. Slowly, he stirred the cauldron, keeping in his mind how many times he had stirred.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Fi—

"I think you should stir it eight times," Sirius interrupted his counting, trailing Regulus off, trying to figure out how many times he had stirred already.

"What number was I at?" he asked, not minding Sirius because he was panicking even more that he forgot how many stirs he had done.

"Four?" "Three." "Seven." "Huh?" The Maraude.rs answered all at once.

An exasperated, shaky, exhausted sigh came out of Regulus. "None of you were helping." He resisted the urge to shout, keeping his teeth tightly gritted in annoyance. 

This was the last step! The final step before they could complete the potion! But a mere small interruption to his counting sabotaged it. 

"Is the cauldron supposed to bubble up?" Peter asked.