This Trying Affair • Jegulus •

X. A Dwindling, Mecurial High

When Regulus made it to the seventh floor, he paused at the top of the stairs to catch his breath before beginning to walk towards the corridor. 

Regulus walked up to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and stared at it for a brief second, wondering why James had wanted to meet him here. Before he had time to fully turn around to assess his surroundings, James Potter was ripping his cloak off himself directly across the hall with a wide smile on his lips. 

"You came," he said almost breathlessly. 

"Your note was not phrased as a question," Regulus said, crossing his arms and adjusting his shoulder stiffly. 

"Hmm... well that's true, but you've never been one to listen to others before, Reggie." 

James stepped forward with a cheeky grin and wrapped his arms around Regulus, pulling the teen towards him by his waist. Regulus scrunched his nose at the boy before sighing and wrapping his arms around James's shoulders to pull them even closer. 

After they pulled away to  look at each other, while still holding one another, Regulus asked the question on his mind. "Why are we meeting here in this random corridor?"

"Oh, right!" James pulled away from the younger boy. "Watch this!" 

With a wide grin on his face and eyes closed, James began pacing the corridor in a twenty yard section. 

Regulus quickly started worrying that James had lost any sense of intellect when the wall across from him began to shift before his very eyes. The blank corridor wall slowly moved to form a beautiful deep mahogany door. The door gave off a small flash of light. 

James stopped pacing to stand next to Regulus who was staring blankly at the door. 

"Impressed?" he said. Without looking at him, Regulus knew that James had a cheeky grin on his face. 

"Mmm... something like that," said Regulus, blandly. 

James stepped forward to open the door and hold it for Regulus. With a roll of his eyes, Regulus stepped through the doorway before James. 

The room was quite nice. It looked similar to the Gryffindor Common Room, but there was a bed where some of the study tables would be. 

"What is this place?" Regulus asked James as he walked towards the fireplace. 

"This is the Room of Requirement! Which means it's whatever you want it to be," James said grinning widely at the boy. "And right now, it's somewhere private for just you and me." 

"You and your friends found this?" Regulus said, looking at James who had flopped down on the couch. 

"Yeah, we did. But don't worry! This place doesn't show up on the map," James said mischievously. 

"But if it doesn't show on the map and you aren't on the map, won't they know where you are by default?" Regulus began walking towards James on the couch. He sat down next to him, but did it with a lot more grace than the Potter. 

"Hmm," James wrinkled his nose. "I did not think of that. No matter, Remus is keeping the map safe tonight for me anyway!" 

Regulus began biting the inside of him lip as he considered how much Remus Lupin had helped him and James since he discovered their friendship. He had already saved them from Sirius discovering them once, or at least once that he knew of. 

"Remus is really okay with this?"

"This?" James asked, shifting in his seat to face the Slytherin next to him. 

"Yes, this. Us." He gestured between the two of them. 

"Yes, he's okay with it. He quite likes you, Reggie. Tells me it might be good for me if I was a little bit more behaved and studious like you."