The year after her brother James graduates, Teddy Potter returns to Hogwarts for her final year. With the Marauders gone, it should be a quiet, peaceful year despite the mounting tensions in the world outside of school.
The problem, naturally, lies...
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"What the hell are you doing here?" Teddy demands, brow furrowing. The wine has made her thoughts slow and soupy, and she can't quite come up with any reasonable explanation for him following her like this.
Regulus lifts a hand and thumbs at his mouth, where a droplet of red wine glitters on his lower lip. He seems to have abandoned the dark robes he had been wearing at the beginning of the night, because now he stands there dressed in well-tailored woolen trousers and a beautifully embroidered vest over a loose-sleeved white shirt. The firelight reflects off the many rings adorning his long fingers.
"This is the prefect's common room," He points out. The way he over-enunciates his words suggests than he's well on his way to being truly sloshed. "I am a prefect."
"Shouldn't you be at the party?" Teddy asks, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. Seeing him here like this is unexpected, and she doesn't quite know how to feel about it. "I would have thought that whole scene was right up your alley."
Regulus hums, looking vaguely amused. He peers into the remains of the wine in his goblet and sloshes it around in his goblet. "I suppose." He says neutrally. A beat of silence passes before he looks away from his goblet and directly at her. "Got bored of Bagman, did you?"
"No, actually," Teddy crosses her arms, her face dropping into an unimpressed expression. "I was just about to go back to him."
"Oh?" Regulus works his jaw and tilts his head as he watches her. "He certainly seemed interested in the length of your dress."
"I'm not interested in doing this with you right now." Teddy says. She's tired from a truly boring party, and the way Regulus is looking at her with those hazy, heavy-lidded eyes is putting her on edge. "Go back to your friends. I'm sure they want to recount yet again how they attacked those poor Muggle-borns last week."
Regulus' expression stiffens, losing most of the lazy insouciance in his body language. "I wasn't involved in that."
"Oh, please." Teddy spits, levelling him with a look of disgust. "You agree with it, don't you?"
The common room is dead silent but for the gentle crackling of the fire as Regulus takes a breath before knocking back the rest of his wine. Once he's drained the goblet he saunters over to her with a sort of drunken confidence that Teddy has seen in Sirius so many times.
He stops just short of her, tilting his head slightly so that he can look her directly in the eyes. He's well-past tipsy, verging on the edge of drunk, but his voice is very clear and calm as he says, "I don't like to hurt people."
"But your friends do."
"Yes," He sighs, his face made open by the alcohol. "My friends do."
Teddy's temper flares, and anger slinks into her belly, sharp and hot. "You're a coward, Regulus Black." She snarls, thinking of Mary and how scared she's been since that damned attack. "Those nasty, violent friends of yours attacked those Muggleborns so viciously they had to drop out of school! They're lucky to still have all of their limbs!"
