God is Dead | James Potter

2 | THE TWO FACES OF COLD

REGULUS ARCTURUS BLACK
would've been easy to blend in a crowd of people, if it hadn't been for his eyes. The empty, stone cold expression in his eyes, that in consequence, hollowed out his face, made him seem like he was hardly in the world of the living. It was, perhaps, why people would deem him to be less beautiful than his elder brother, Sirius Black. Sirius brought the sun and its light, even in his grey eyes. Regulus had winter and its ice in them, the warning that life came to an end.

It was as if Sirius had been born for greatness, and Regulus for the shadows.

Regulus believed Sirius already knew that. He had finally come to realise it. But, still, something broke in him when he decided to act upon it, that summer. When he finally left him, in the shadow of what once had been home of the two brothers, something turned darker than those halls. Something that scarred, and burned, that would stay as a permanent reminder.

He carried these thoughts into the Hogwarts Express, that would take him right back to the castle for his fifth year, and he couldn't help it, he was glad. Maybe he shouldn't have been so glad to leave home, his parents, his house elf, but the feeling remained.

"Dickhead." The all too familiar thick accent of Lovina Selwyn grounded him right back to the present. "Where d'you think you're going?"

"To our part of the train, of course," Regulus answered, in an obvious tone, eyebrows furrowing at the sight of her, her hair, particularly, now blonde and bubblegum pink, "What did you do? Why are you here instead? What did you do?"

"Shaved my hair, regretted it, this was the only wig I had. Don't you like it?" Lovina deadpanned, "You don't want to be there. They'll be dropping pestilents and you'll have to take five showers. Again."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I do."

"But- but- that is the Slytherin part! We'll be surrounded by- by the commoners if we stay here! And these compartments don't even have a table, it's just ghastly!" Regulus complained, reluctantly dragging his feet inside, looking around the ridiculously small compartment. Was it just him, or did it smell like humanity?

"Merlin's good grace. No one wants to sit with us, anyway. It's this or your clothes ruined," Lovina said languidly, taking her seat back, and, having it all for herself, she put her boots up on it.

"Fine," Regulus agreed through his teeth, taking the seat across from her, making sure to keep his back very straight, "At least be civil? Keep your feet on the ground."

"What? They clean, now, don't they?"

"So what? You're adding up to the filth?" He retorted.

Lovina rolled her her eyes with feeling, but stamped her feet back on the ground, "You happy?"

"Seldomly." Regulus scoffed, but when a smile cracked into Lovina's face, he found himself doing the same.

As it would happen, the train set off, King's Cross Station became a blur, replaced by fleeting green landscapes, and the two had soon forgotten themselves between conversation, and an absentminded game of wizard chess with Regulus's marble set (not before Lovina had placed a protection charm on it, by his own request).

"You know that smoking will kill you, correct?" Regulus raised his eyebrows disapprovingly at the cigarette Lovina had whisked from one of her pockets. "Knight to E3." He looked back to the board between the two of them, his remaining black knight taking the desired position.