Brothers ~ A Regulus Black Story

September

Everleigh
This school year has already been long and it's only the first month. So much has already gone wrong.

The first day back, I sat with Lily at dinner because I haven't seen her in a while. That part wasn't the problem. She was happy to see me and the two of us caught up. The problem started when the boys joined us.

-

"Is that Everleigh Scamander? I heard rumours that you returned to Hogwarts but I didn't believe it." James jokes as he comes over to me and wraps his arms around me, pulling me into a tight hug. 

"I'm sorry! It's been a crazy week." I reply. "I missed you."

"I missed you too." He replies. "What took you so long to come back?"

I give James a sad smile and he nods. He knows why we haven't seen each other since we got back here.

Sirius.

He's still mad at me for the whole Regulus thing.

"Oh look, it's the snake returning to her back up friends." Sirius aggressively says to me.

"Sirius, please don't." Lily begs him but he's extremely angry.

"Come on, Lily. You don't want to be her back up friend, do you?" Sirius asks her.

"You guys aren't my back up friends." I say but he doesn't care to hear me out.

"Just go back to Regulus would you?" He says. "We do not want you here."

"I do." James speaks up. "And Evans does. I bet even Remus does. It's just you."

"You can't be friends with both of us." Sirius quietly says.

-

Later that night when Regulus and I were in the astronomy tower, I told him what happened and he got really angry. He started shouting and ranting about his brother and how pissed off he was.

"Why does he act like I'm the enemy? Like you and I being friends is the worst thing in the world?" Regulus asks. I know he doesn't expect me to answer because I don't know. Neither of us know.

After that day, Regulus walked into the great hall and went straight to Sirius.

"You are an absolute asshole, did you know that?" He shouts.

"Reg, please." I beg. "Just leave it alone."

"Do you even care about her?" He continues. "I mean seriously, how can you call yourself her friend and act like the complete opposite?"

"You really want to do this here, little brother?" Sirius shouts back.

"Yes." Regulus says. "Either be her fucking friend or leave her the fuck alone."

Lily comes over to stand beside me while they're yelling at each other.

"About time they actually argue with each other instead of through you." Lily whispers to me.

"No shit." James adds, making his way beside me on the other side.

"And another thing." Regulus shouts. "Stop trying to make her friends stay away from her because you have some stupid fucking problem with me!"

"I'm not making them do anything." Sirius shouts.

"Keep telling yourself that." Regulus says. He turns away from Sirius and comes over to James, Lily and myself.

"I'm sorry." He says to me and I can tell he has been holding on to all of that for a while. I gently wrap my arms around him and he hugs me back. 

"Feel better now?" I whisper and he lets out a laugh.

"Much better."

"Can we go eat now?" I ask him, trying to change the mood.

"All that yelling made me hungry, let's go." Regulus jokes.

I turn back before leaving to see James and Lily smiling at me. I give them a nod and walk to the Hufflepuff table with Regulus. Maybe him yelling at Sirius will make him realize he's not the bad guy.

-

After the day that Regulus and Sirius argued in the middle of the great hall, Sirius avoided me as much as he could. If I was sitting with James, Remus and Lily; he wouldn't join us. It's ridiculous... but whatever. It's his loss.

Regulus and Bellatrix had another little argument. It was Bella trying to get Regulus to 'come to his senses' about me. She got pissed after he said no and her and her little group took it out on me.

I was walking to class and Lucius hexed me, causing me to fall down. He came over to me, followed by Bella and Severus. Bella kicked my books away from me and Lucious got in my face and began making threats.

"Stay away from Regulus. You're ruining his name with your reputation."

This would happen more and more often and I never told anyone because I didn't want to make things worse. I could handle threats.

It was all fine too, until one day Lily witnessed it. She was so pissed that Severus didn't do anything to stop it.

We were in the library with James when Severus came over to us.

"I do not want to speak to you." Lily says to Snape who wasn't giving up.

"Please Lily.. I just want to explain.." He begs.

"No." Lily firmly says.

"You know I have to go along with whatever they do."

"No you don't." Lily says. "Regulus doesn't."

"I'm not Regulus." Severus says. "I can't just stand up to people and get away with it."

"Then I do not have anything to say to you." Lily says.

"Lily please, let me explain." Severus tries one more time.

"I do not want to hear it Sev." Lily says.

"Lily-"

"Evans doesn't want you around Snape. Leave." James jumps in.

Severus looks between Lily and James and then shakes his head.

"You're with him now?" He asks.

"What?" I ask. "You and James?"

"No." Lily replies. "Not really."

"It's complicated." James replies. "I like her but she's being stubborn."

"Lily." I say. "You like James?"

"We will talk about that later." Lily blushes. "Potter's right, I don't want to hear an excuse Sev."

He shakes his head before walking away angrily. It almost seems like he has a crush on Lily? Kind of unbelievable since he's so rude to her in front of his friends. I guess it's kind of unbelievable that Reg and I are friends now too.. he was pretty awful to me for years.

"Why didn't you just hear him out?" I ask Lily.

"He let them do that to you." Lily whispers. "He watched as they hexed you and threw your books across the hall. That is not right."

"He's just worried about being picked on himself, or worse." I say.

"Everleigh, you can't seriously be standing up for him after what he did?" James asks me.

"I'm not." I reply. "I'm just saying it's complicated."

"She becomes friends with Regulus and understands why every Slytherin just follows Bellatrix blindly." A voice says from behind me.

"Leave it alone." James demands. "Today isn't the day."

"Yeah, come on. You've ignored her for two weeks now. Why not keep going?" Lily jumps in.

"Whatever." Sirius mumbles before walking away.

Does he ever stop? Just get over it already.