The Untold Story of RAB

Finding Regulus

A week after that attack things had changed at Hogwarts. Mulciber was expelled, Mary was still in the hospital wing but receiving visitors. Diana had gone to see her a few days before and was surprised at how well Mary looked. Scars had healed and someone, probably Marlene, had brought down her make-up and hair accessories so even in the hospital she looked glamourous. Diana saw that Mary used makeup as a shield. To try and cover the scars, even when the scars ran much deeper, and that no makeup could hide.

Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw had formed a buddy system. No one was to go anywhere alone, not even walking from class to class. Many purebloods stepped up to be unofficial guides and protectors to muggleborns and students from "blood traitor" families. Even though this system was built to protect and grow camaraderie, it ostracized the Slytherins and the divide between Slytherins and the rest of the school grew.

Mary had been attacked on Saturday and by Monday, Diana's potions class looked a lot different. Over the weekend Ginerva had stormed into Slughorn's office and demanded that potions partners changed. Slughorn, pretty embarrassed by the recent acts of his pupil agreed and on Monday Slytherins were paired with Slytherins and Ginerva and Diana were partners.

Lots of Slytherin students had been heard making light of the Mary and Mulciber situation, saying how he didn't mean it and that Sirius shouldn't have been fighting Mulciber so why wasn't he expelled? Snape even told Lily it was "a laugh," and "Mulciber probably didn't know what the spell would do."

Diana had already decided to agree to Regulus' crazy plan. The problem now was finding him alone to talk about it.

Thursday's potions class was at the end of the day. Ginerva and Diana had been working on their essays on the difficulties of brewing a polyjuice potion in preparation for making the real thing in a few weeks.

As the bell rang for dismissal, Diana packed up her bag prepped to walk back to the common room with Ginerva.

As they were leaving the classroom Ginerva gasped and threw her face into her hands. "Oh no, I'm such an idiot!"

"What is it?" Diana asked quickly, both girls huddled against the stone wall outside the classroom.

"I totally forgot, I have detention with McGonagall right now! I'm so sorry I can't walk you back to the common room." She glanced at her watch, "it starts in like 5 minutes." She brushed her red hair behind her ear, a small tick whenever she was thinking hard. "You know what I can speed walk you back to the common room and then if I run I shouldn't be late. Ok, let's go." Ginerva began walking very quickly down the corridor, pulling Diana along.

Diana screeched to a halt, stopping Ginerva in her tracks. "Hold on, McGonagall will kill you if you're late. I'll walk back on my own, I'm sure I'll find a buddy along the way. If you run, you'll make it in time."

Ginerva looked at her with big eyes, "you're sure?"

"Yes," Diana said a little exasperated but with a smile. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

Ginerva reluctantly nodded and took off in the opposite direction running as fast as she could. Diana wasn't worried about Ginerva being on her own, even if her family were considered "blood traitors". She was very good at jinxes and hexes, that is in fact why she had detention in the first place. One of the 7th year Slytherins had called Lily Evans a mudblood and Ginerva had cursed him so he could only speak in rhyme for the rest of the day.

By now the corridor was completely empty as all the students had rushed back to their common room for the end of the day. Diana didn't like how alone she was especially in the dungeons so near the Slytherin common room.

Diana tied her hair back into a ponytail and set off towards the Gryffindor tower, wand in hand. She didn't see another soul until the second floor corridor, almost empty.

"Hey, Di!" A voice called from behind.

Remus Lupin was striding towards her, his Gryffindor robes billowing behind him. He, and his long legs, reached her very quickly.

"I saw Ginerva and she said you didn't have a buddy, thought I'd come and find you, it is such a long walk back to the tower," he said with a small smile.

Diana couldn't help but blush, so she turned away, "thanks," she managed to splutter. Merlin's beard, she wasn't cool, she thought.

It would take them probably another 15 minutes if not more to walk to the tower, what would she talk about?

"How's quidditch going?" He asked awkwardly.

At this she perked up, she could talk about quidditch forever this would be easy, "really good, we have another game on Saturday, against Slytherin. It'll get pretty heated considering what's going on."

He nodded.

"James is the best captain I've had."

Remus smiled at this, she could tell he was proud of his friend. He ran his had through his fluffy brown hair before asking, "how's Sirius?"

"He's great, him and Marlene are double trouble, fantastic players."

"That's great. I'm not much of quidditch person so I never know how well they're actually doing."

After that, they relaxed into easy conversation. Remus was nice to talk to. He was quiet and reserved but swore like a sailor and was super witty once you got him talking. Diana was laughing so hard by the time they got close to the Gyrffindor common room.

That's when they ran into him.

Regulus was turning the corner and bumped right into Remus.

He turned a bit pale and muttered a small apology. Remus stared him down with such ice cold anger Diana felt the world shift.

This was the only moment she'd had all week to talk to him but with Remus right here she'd have to be careful. She only hoped he would understand as she said, "Slughorn is looking for you, he said to meet him after dinner in the unlocked classroom across from his room to go over the work."

Regulus nodded slowly and then like a light went off in his head said, "right thanks, I'll be there, gotta make Dumbledore proud," he said with a chuckle and walked away.

Remus shook his head as they walked away, "what a weird thing to say."

"Well, he's weird, what can you expect?" Diana said, eager to change the subject, "are you going to the Halloween dance on Sunday in the Great Hall?"

Remus shrugged, "parties aren't really my thing." He paused, then said slowly, "but, I'll try and be there."

Diana bumped his shoulder with hers, "I'm glad," she said, and they both smiled.