Unrequited (Regulus Black)

Chapter 13

"Are you bringing me to... a bathroom?" I ask Sirius as we approach a girl's bathroom on a floor I've never been on.

"Chill out, no one comes in here," he says as we walk in and he closes the door behind him. "I discovered this place on one of my drunken wanderings earlier in the year."

"I'm not even going to ask"

"I figured," he laughs before turning towards the stalls. "Myrtle! It's me!"

I stare at him more confused than I've ever been before a ghost flies out of one of the stalls, making me jump.

"Sirius!" the ghost who I presume is Myrtle exclaims, flying around him. "Where is Remus?"

"Oh, he's not here. This is our friend we've been telling you about-"

"No way, are you Kaia?" the ghost exclaims, facing me now.

"Uh, yes! Nice to meet you?" I hesitate.

"Kaia and I needed to have a private chat," Sirius explains.

"Alright, I'll leave you to it," Myrtle giggles, flying away and disappearing.

I stare at Sirius with a raised eyebrow for a minute while he smirks. "You never fail to surprise me, somehow."

"Why, thank you," Sirius smirks. "You know, I don't actually hate my brother."

"Can you just give me some answers?"

"There's a lot about my family that I haven't told you guys. As stupid as it is, I still am loyal to them in some ways.

"Okay...?"

"Have you ever heard of... Death Eaters?"

"That's just stupid rumors I thought?"

"It was, for the most part. Now, it's becoming real. The Dark Lord is recruiting followers to help him."

"Help him with what?"

"I'm... not completely sure. Whatever it is, it won't be good."

"Christ, Sirius," I mutter out, in deep shock, looking away.

"Regulus, he doesn't want to hurt anyone. Sure, we don't get along, but I know who he is, we're brothers."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Remember how I told you at the beginning of the term that my parents admired you? I've had suspicions about the rest for a while, but didn't tell you because I wasn't sure."

"The rest?"

"I've always seen a lot of Regulus in you. That's why I'm so protective over you, which I know you hate. Anyway, everyone knows how gifted you are. That coupled with the fact that you're pureblood when my parents started bringing you up this summer to Regulus, I suspected it was for a reason."

"They want to recruit me," I state, nearly whispering.

"Not just that. I think they want you and Regulus to work together. The whole summer, I never understood why that was the one request from my parents that he wouldn't oblige to. It wasn't until our fake relationship started when James asked me if Regulus told my parents that I started to put it all together. Surely my parents would never praise you if they thought you were with someone like me, they'd probably even somehow get you taken out of Hogwarts for making me look better. So if the reason he didn't want to work with you was hatred, why wouldn't he tell our parents about us, even if he didn't believe it himself? Why wouldn't he want you gone? Then it hit me: he's still protecting you."

"Still?" I ask, for some reason only focusing on that one word.

"You remember him and I were friends somewhat when you two first started Hogwarts, yeah? And you remember it was around that time you had the run-in with Malfoy?"