Only the Brave

Chapter 42: Mistakes were made

The last Quidditch game of the season for Slytherin sneaks up on Regulus. To him, it feels as though he ended things with James only yesterday, and yet here they are. Second weekend of May and he's making his way from the dungeons to the pitch to get ready. He's been mostly existing, hardly living, but it gets easier with every week that passes. And they're passing quickly. Too quickly.

Next to him, Rabastan is mumbling about something related to the Hufflepuff chasers being in good form, but Regulus isn't paying him any attention. He's too busy freaking out over how fast time is moving and how that means he'll be out of school in a few weeks. Where did the weeks go?

In his defence, he's been busy. Just because he's not on a ticking clock anymore it doesn't mean that his mission is any less urgent. In fact, he's keenly aware of the fact that everyone he cares about—a grand total of three people—will be leaving school soon and not coming back. They'll be fighting in the war. A war that only Regulus can end.

Besides, keeping himself buried in his work is the only way to not crumble with the weight of how fucking much he misses James.

Understandably, he's been holed up in the library most of the time, with the occasional visit to Myrtle's bathroom. Rabastan and the rest of the seventh years are studying for the NEWTs, and even though they still have a year to go, even Barty and Evan have accepted that May is late enough in the year for them to do some revision. They do have to pass their final exams.

With a bit of clever transfiguration work, Regulus has made his Legacy book look like a potions manual and the historical accounts he's going through like charms textbooks, so no one has noticed that he's not really been revising all that much. He's been poring over the records of pureblood families trying to find other heirlooms of the Hogwarts founders, or reading through the accounts left by his ancestors, readying himself to claim their magic as soon as he's back home.

As far as he can tell, there is one heirloom for each founder—a cup for Hufflepuff, a locket for Slytherin, and the sword of Gryffindor. Regulus hasn't yet figured out how he'll go about finding the sword, because apparently it only presents itself to true Gryffindors. He wonders if Riddle ever got his hands on it. Perhaps he didn't.

The cup and the locket should be easier to find because they've never been lost. There are records of them being bought by collectors over the years. Regulus hasn't yet traced them back to modern times, because it's painstaking work, but he's on it. He'll find them, and if they're Horcruxes, he'll destroy them.

"Black," the Slytherin captain calls him as soon as he in the changing rooms. "A word."

"What does he want now," he mutters under his breath, making Rabastan laugh like it was the funniest joke he's ever heard. Embarrassing, honestly.

Since he got marked, Rabastan has been working hard to be seen as Regulus' right hand. And he gets it, he does. But it's annoying. Rabastan wants power. He wants to be important. And he'll never get it if he's only Rodolphus Lestrange's little brother, so he has to create an allyship of his own. And he's chosen Regulus because he's Lord Black, and dangerous, and popular with the Death Eaters.

Groaning, Regulus joins the captain near the showers, which is a huge problem because now Regulus can't focus on anything he's saying. He's too busy remembering. And fuck. They should have known better than to have sex in an exact replica of this place several times. He can't imagine James finds it easy to be in the Quidditch changing rooms either. He hopes he doesn't. He better not.

"Are you listening to me?" the captain snaps.

"No," Regulus replies, blinking. "I'm visualizing. You do want me to catch the snitch, don't you?"