Is It Over Now?

Chapter Nine

Remus walked next to Regulus, close as ever, as they wandered the quiet halls of Hogwarts, savoring the small world that they had drowned themselves in the past two weeks and mounted it now that the others were all coming back. But for all the peace that they would miss, it still felt like finally breathing once more when the rest of their strange group crashed into the pair, sly smiles and quick touches on wrist, silent assurances that they were all still in one piece.

"We have something to show you," the younger Black whispered as the five of them walked into the castle, neatly avoiding the wandering looks of three ditch year Gryffindors searching for a fourth.

"And what would that be?" Evan asks, ever the impatient one.

"You're just going to have to wait," the other snake replied, a smirk on his face that none of them found any malice in.

"Not even a hint?" Dora asked from Remus's right as the younger Barack stayed to his left. There was a soft look on the girl's face that they knew better than to believe as her curiosity won out.

"You're the Ravencalw," Barty reminded the girl. "Shouldn't you be able to figure it out?" The rest of their group ignored the way that the boy's voice rasped as if he hadn't spoken since the train ride back home for the holidays. They ignored the probability that this was exactly the case, knowing that there was nothing that any of them could do. Not right now at the least.

Remus still hit the younger boy on the back of the head though for the remark, a slight pop that sounded much worse than the slight sting that the teen would have felt in reality, and Barty scowled even as he was thankful for the normalcy of it.

The Gryffindor and Slytherin pair led the others up the stairs to the seventh floor, blatantly ignoring the way that the o other teens protested under their breaths at the long climb from the ground floor. Regulus stood back as Remus moved the stalk in front of the wall, the snake knew that the lion was better at replicating the room than he was, as if the magic in it all spoke to the older boy in a way that it didn't do so with the others.

He knew why it did so, they all did, but the lion didn't tap into the power that laid inside of him. Regulus thought that he might never do so.

Looking back one day, he would see that he was wrong.

The park was just as they had left it the last time that the pair was there, the breaking equipment and the thick grass. Remus walked over to one of the picnic tables and sat on top of it, watching as the younger teens took it in, their little hidden world within Hogwarts. The Gryffindor was surprised when Regulus sat himself down next to the lion, the younger teen atop the table as well.

"Not very proper of you," the older boy remarked as they sat flush against one another, connected fully from their knees to their sides.

"I could move..." the younger said slowly, leaning away from the lion, and Remus hooks their fingers together to make the other stay.

Regulus leans back against the older boy, connecting them more fully than the pair had been before as he lays his head on the other's shoulder without thinking anything of it. They were around family after all.

Remus moved his arm hesitantly, circling it behind the younger teen's waist with movements that were much more hesitant than the younger Black's had been. He knew that in the muggle world - and wizarding too from the way that some people talked - that even the way that the Slytherin was laying on him would get them both beat to a pulp. He didn't think that any of the others would do that, but the fear was always there, lingering like a disease.

But Dora only nodded with a soft smile as she sat down on the bench, and Barty and Evan only pressed closer to one another as they sat down in the warm grass, Evan's leg on top of Barty's with Barty's hands resting on the blond's knee.