All Of Us Are Ghosts Here (Jegulus / Wolfstar Fic)

Twenty ~ The Family We Choose

Regulus~

TW: Minor bullying (referenced), plus some heavy stuff and manipulation at the end. Overall, not too bad.

Regulus had always expected to be alone after he left his family. He assumed that Sirius would ignore him as he always had, and he'd be left by himself to handle the angry purebloods. Sirius had every reason to ignore him, to leave him to figure things out alone. It's what Regulus had done to him. He never felt he deserved his brother's help.

When Regulus looked back at his younger self, he laughed at how wrong he'd been.

These days, Regulus found a friendly face in almost every place he went. He'd even managed to block out the hisses and jeers from the Slytherins most of the time.

He ate meals with the group of Gryffindors, spent most of his afternoons with them. He got to know them well, and he couldn't help but consider them his friends.

His days were full of laughter and joy, a feeling that had once been foreign to Regulus but was becoming more and more familiar with every day.

His nights were a different story. When he passed through the common room, he was met with glaring faces and whispers. It wasn't all of them, wasn't even half of the Slytherins, but it was enough of them to make him uncomfortable in the place that had once been his refuge.

He returned to his room one night early on and found blood traitor painted across his door in red. The words weren't what hurt him though. It was the handwriting, the familiar scrawl of the letters.

It was Barty Crouch's. They'd been friends, before. Barty knew what his parents were doing to him, knew how dangerous that house was. But his friend had always followed the herd, and if they hated Regulus for leaving, then he did too.

So Regulus learned to walk quickly, keep his head down, and lock his door behind him. He was skilled in the art of becoming invisible. He'd done it all the time at Grimmauld Place.

...

"You are pure evil and I hate you," Regulus said to his brother.

"Yeah yeah, draw four."

Regulus, Sirius, and two of the girls, Lily and her girlfriend Mary, were procrastinating. While James, Peter, Remus, and Marlene did their homework, the four of them played Uno.

"I think we've found the only muggle game in the world that Regulus can't win," said Lily as Reg drew his cards, struggling to hold what must have been half the deck in his hands.

"Doesn't matter, 'cause I won. Again." Mary grinned, setting down her last card.

Regulus sighed, setting his stack of cards down and standing up. "I should probably get going." Curfew had started an hour ago, but Professor McGonnagal always seemed to "forget" to send Regulus back to his dorm. She was quickly becoming his new favorite professor.

"Aw, alright." Sirius started to deal out a new hand. "James'll walk you back. Won't you, Jamesie?"

"What?"

"You'll walk Reg down to the Slytherin dorms, won't you?"

They were definitely acting weird, but they were always being strange. "I don't need anyone to-"

"Yeah, sure."

Well, fuck. It was easy to act normal around James when there were other people around, but alone? He honestly didn't know what would happen.

"Are you serious? I'm only a year younger than you all, for fuck's sake."

"He's always Sirius," Remus deadpanned, not looking up from the essay he was working on.