Stars Shine Darkly ★ Regulus Black

Chapter Seven: The Ghost's Nest

By the time spring rolled around Regulus managed, for the first time since he'd arrived at Hogwarts, to walk past the common room windows without having to conceal a shudder. Instead, he merely glanced at the leaded glass and the murky green waters that pressed up against it, at the fronds of lake-weed gently drifting past, and joined Narcissa beside one of the fireplaces to sit with his back to the Lake.

He wondered whether this new tolerance for underwater living was a result of him growing braver and more resilient, or whether it was just something that every Slytherin student had to grow used to over time.

He thought the latter was considerably more likely; he still felt very far from brave practically all of the time.

"One moment," Narcissa said. Her eyes were fixed on her parchment, which she had covered in notes and diagrams and equations, as she raised her finger to him in a request for silence.

Regulus waited quietly and patiently even though the sight of Narcissa studying so diligently did nothing but add to his conviction that he hadn't been studying nearly diligently enough for his own exams. He sat very still, watching the tiniest movements of Narcissa's eyebrows and lips as she read over her notes.

Before he had come to Hogwarts he hadn't really stopped to consider the fact that his cousin would be in her final year and thus far too busy to spend time with him, to fuss over him and coddle him and indulge him as she usually did. He had, stupidly, assumed that their relationship at school would be much the same as their relationship at home but, of course, the reality was quite different.

Narcissa didn't only have lessons and schoolwork and exams with which to occupy her time at Hogwarts, but friends, too. She had a great many of them in her year and in the year below, and those a year or two older than her who had already left school. Lucius, the Malfoy heir, was chief among them, and she often went to meet with him on Hogsmeade weekends. She had plenty of her own hobbies and interests. There was very little time left over for Regulus.

He tilted his neck to peer at the notes she was reading - something about applying alchemical processes to potion-making. It looked very complicated. And he knew that it was far more advanced magical theory than what he was required to know for his own first-year exams, but he couldn't help but worry that he ought to know this, too, that he was going to come up short because he didn't understand half the symbols on Narcissa's parchment, that he was going to fail.

He couldn't. He had to perform well. More than well. In fact, he had to be top of his class, top of his year, because somehow, against all the odds, Sirius had placed in the top five of his year, in his first year, and Regulus had to beat him. Regulus was the one who had been Sorted correctly, after all. Regulus was the one who was supposed to be fixing everything that Sirius had messed up. And he couldn't very well do that if he ended up being worse than Sirius, and—

"Alright," Narcissa said finally, as she set her notes aside and stretched her neck from side to side. "I think I've finished for the night. How are you, Reggie, dear?"

"I ought to be revising, too!"

Her hand paused mid-smoothing her hair. She turned slightly so that she was half-facing Regulus (he had always liked this about her, the way she always gave the impression that she was giving whomever she was talking to her full attention). "Pardon?"

"I— I need to do well," he said. "I need to come first, in my exams, I— how much should I revise? How much did you revise in your first year?"

"Gosh, I don't think I revised at all! First-year exams are a doddle, Reggie, and they're still months away. I wouldn't worry."

He blinked at her. "But—"