Smile When You Dive In

Chapter 13

Regulus was seeing James at least twice a week by the middle of May. He didn't know which part thrilled him more, the sneaking around or the way his skin jumped to life when James touched it. The rules remained in place, and Regulus often found himself disgruntled about it, but if his choice was between that and calling the whole thing off, he still wasn't willing to do the latter. It was almost a month since he first kissed James, and they had worked out a whole host of meeting places. Their latest was the one that led to Carmen finding out about them.

Regulus was waiting for James in the prefects' bathroom at the time. It was one of the nicer places he and James met up, compared to the dingy Quidditch changing room, or the owlery with all of its associated smells. The pristine tiles and gentle aromas of the prefects' bathroom let Regulus pretend he was somewhere nice with James, and that their little dalliance didn't depend on sneaking around. It had been his suggestion in the first place. After spending time in there to avoid Snape, it occurred to him that the room saw very little traffic, with only twenty-four students technically allowed in there. James wasn't one of those, since Lupin had been made a prefect in their year, but Regulus didn't see the harm in sharing the password with just one person, knowing that other prefects were far more liberal with it. Therefore, when hands came from behind him to cover his eyes, he thought that it was safe to assume he knew who it was.

"James, we shouldn't—" He was preparing to get things started with their usual denials, but Regulus turned as he spoke and was horrified not to be met by James' face looking down at him. Carmen did not share his horror. She jumped back from him, making no attempt to hide her glee.

"I knew it!" Regulus loved Carmen. He really did, but she had a habit of speaking in stage-whispers whenever she thought something was remotely exciting and when she started, he briefly considered pushing her into the large bathtub in the middle of the room just to get her away from him. "James, James, James..." Her mind was obviously whirring as she made her way through every student named James at the school. He supposed he was lucky James was a common enough name. With his name, James couldn't be afforded the same mistake.

"You shouldn't be in here, you're not even a prefect!" He doubted his argument would have much impact, but he had to at least try and change the subject if he was going to keep her in the dark.

"I don't think there are any prefects called James." Carmen pointed out and kept on grinning at Regulus. "Besides, Willa told me the password ages ago." She waved a hand dismissively at this, and Regulus made a mental note to have words with Willa later on. He might've been using the privacy of the room to his advantage, but that didn't mean she should go about inviting Carmen in there for whatever feminine things it was they did in there together.

"Look, just because I thought you were somebody called James, doesn't mean what you're assuming it does." Regulus was very aware that the real James could walk through the door any moment, and then Carmen would jump to a very correct conclusion. On the off-chance of that happening, he needed to try and minimise the damage. Carmen wasn't having any of it, though.

"Oh, please! Reggie, you've been in a good mood all week. Put that together with our conversation last month, and I already thought you were sneaking around with some boy. This just confirmed it for me."

"Fine, fine. But can we do this later?" Perhaps he could think up some random Hufflepuff to tell her about later on, once she was safely back in the dorm and he'd had his rendez-vous.

"Reggie!" She whined. "You can't just leave me wondering for hours!"

"Good, because I plan on leaving you wondering for much longer than that." Regulus grabbed Carmen by the elbows, twirling her to the direction of the door and pushing lightly so that she stumbled before frowning.