Bad Skittle

Chapter 12

Regulus is sitting on the train, going back to Hogwarts after visiting his parents. They had been waiting for him at the train station, and tried to convince him to stay and agree to mr. Crouch's terms, but the boy just ignored them and got inside the train.

He just wanted to hug his boyfriend and his brother.

He had been alone since the train started moving, but the door had just opened and there was a boy with auburn hair peeking inside and looking a bit embarrassed. He seemed to be on his first hear and was already wearing his school robes, he was a hufflepuff.

"Hi, I can't find anywhere to sit. Can I sit here?" The boy asks and Regulus nods.

"So, what house are you in?" The boy asks as he sit down across from Regulus, who just sighs.

"Slytherin," he answers and the boy looks at him with a questioning look on his face.

"Oh, so you're one of the bad guys," the boy says in a questioning tone and Regulus rolls his eyes.

"No, I was actually supposed to be a Ravenclaw, but my parents would kill me, so I just asked the sorting hat to put me in Slytherin," Regulus explains. He remembers that day clearly, the look on his face when the hat had said that it wasn't sure if he would do better as a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin.

"Well, you seem nice enough, do you want to be friends?" The boy asks and Regulus rolls his eyes.

"Look, I have a really bad headache, so if you stay here, you have to be quiet, if you really just want to talk to someone, I sugest you find somewhere else," Regulus tells him and the boy seems a bit disapointed, but he nods.

Regulus ends up falling asleep and he wakes up just before the train stops.

The other boy was no longer there, so Regulus was alone.

He got out of the train as soon as they said that students were allowed to do so.

He looked around and when he saw James and Sirius, he ran to them, hugging both very tight.

"Woah, were they that bad?" Sirius asks and his brother nods, so he goes serious and hugs his brother tighter, "you're not going back there," the older brother whispers as he keeps hugging his brother.

They keep hugging for a while, but then they have to go to the great hall for lunch, but they all walk together.

"Do you think we should tell him?" James asked Regulus in a whisper, the shorter boy seems to thinks for a while, but then he nods.

"Sirius," James starts, and the boy looks at him, "we have something to tell you."

"Oh, what is it? Is everything okay?" Sirius asks, and he seems genuinely worried as he looks from James to Regulus and back to James five times in a row.

"Everything's okay, I mean, more than okay," James says as he looks at Regulus with a loving look in his eyes.

"James and I are dating," Regulus says quickly, he just ripped that bandage off.

Sirius's face fell, his smile faded away and he seemed a bit angry as he looked at James.

"Don't you know that Reggie's going through a tough time?" Sirius asks James as he takes a step towards him.

"Of course, I was the first person he told this whole situation," James answered.

"So you just decided to take advantage of how fragile he is right now and date him," Sirius said, conpletely believing his words.

"Sirius, I liked James way before all this happened, he didn't take advantage of anything," Regulus explains and his brother looks at him for a second before he looks back at James.

"If I ever hear him saying that you hurt him, you're a dead man," Sirius said, and Regulus thinks he had never seen Sirius so serious, which is ironic, since Sirius and serious are pronounced the same way, but Sirius was anything but serious, at least most of the time.

"I'd rather die than hurt Regulus," James says matter of factly, and the younger boy feels his cheeks burning from how flattered he was. He probably looked like a tomato.

Sirius just nods and they all start walking again, but now James and Regulus are holding hands, their fingers intertwined as they take turns in squeezing the other's hand.

"So, what did our lovely parents say," Sirius asked, the way he mentioned his parents was dripping with venom.

"Well, they wanted me to be friends with Barty again and threatened that they would get sent to azkaban. I just left," Regulus starts explaining and his older brother interrupts him.

"You did the right thing. But did you spend the night on the street?" James asks and his boyfriend shakes his head.

"Nope, a man, mr. Dingler, saw me and he offered to let me stay at his guest room," Regulus told him.

"Oh, he works for the ministry, right?" James asks and the shorter boy nods.

The younger boy turns to his brother.

"He said that Lucius is aware of what happened," Regulus says and Sirius stops walking and turns to him, so him and James stop walking too.

"What did he say?" Sirius asks.

"He said that Lucius was on Barty's side and that he called me names, really bad things, he didn't say what he called me, but he told me to stay away from him for a while," the younger brother explains and the older nods.

"I agree that you should stay away from him, he's always been creepy, even mother said so once, she was drunk, but she still said it," Sirius said the last part in a joking tone, trying to lighten the mood, but it didn't really work and the air was still heavy.

Regulus's mind wanders to when he was around six years old, it was a sunny day and he was at the beach with Sirius, their parents, and pretty much all their cousins and aunts and uncles. It had been a happy day, the last truly happy day Regulus could remember. They all had so much fun, he remembers that Sirius and Andromeda built this huge sand castle, which probably wasn't even that big as the were about the same height as him. That was the last day their parents had given them to be regular kids, after that, they were both taught how an heir should act, how he should look, what he should say. Sirius was the heir, but Regulus had to learn everything too, because if something happened to Sirius he would be the plan B, that's the sole reason of his existence, the plan B.

He just kept walking.

He remembered the first time he'd been called 'beautiful', it had been an old lady at the pharmacy when he had gine there to pick up some muggle medicine he needed to take for his asthma, he was probably around 10 years old. At the time he thanked the lady and was all happy about it, I mean, what's there to not be happy? He had been called beautiful, that was a compliment. Well, when he told his mother, she just slapped him, but then seemed to regret it, so she just sent him to his room. He had been confused, and still was, as to why she seemed to regret hitting him, she had never done that. He now wondered if she did that because she knew that if people thought he was beautiful, they would only see that, and they'd want it, I mean, Barty was always saying how beautiful he was, the man on the taxi said he seemed like he was sculpted, and many other people had complimented him, but did they see beyond his supposed beauty? Did they notice that all of his ribs were visible? Did they notice all his scars, bruises, or cuts? Or did they only see what they wanted to, nothing more, nothing less? Regulus supposed that if they saw they just chose to ignore, because if someone looks good it's hard to see beyong that.

Regulus often wondered if his parents ever loved him. If anyone really knew how he felt.

Whenever he'd talked too much as a kid, one of his parents would slap him and say "children are to be seen, not heard." That's the main reason why he wondered if anyone payed attention to what he said, what he was feeling, and not just to how he looked. But people would never know how he felt if he didn't say.

He made a promise to himself. From now on, he would answer every question as homestly as possible, no matter how hard it was to talk about it, he would either answer it honestly, or not answer at all.