Les Misérables | Regulus A. Black [1]

Chapter Thirty-Eight

[Chapter Thirty-Eight]

Éponine felt a sense of pride within herself that she was able to talk to Regulus and actually be a voice of reason. He admitted to her that he felt much better after speaking with her and that left her feeling accomplished as well. However, she couldn't help but feel extremely nervous about the information that Regulus had shared with her during his consideration to join the Dark Arts. The fact that the likes of Severus Snape was doing a bit of the recruiting, baffled her as he apparently had cut all ties with the likes of Lily Evans. Even though, Éponine had seen him once or twice try to corner the red-headed girl in the corridors, in hopes that she would speak to him. And not only was he trying to promote the Dark Lord's following, he was trying to get students, younger than himself to join.

What business did a fifth-year student have joining the ranks of the Death Eaters? For him to target Regulus, was going after the vulnerable. Because while Regulus and Sirius had their differences to the point where they rarely spoke to one another without arguing, Éponine knew that both brothers still cared about each other so much. It didn't matter if Sirius had left home, he still wanted to look out for Regulus, and the same held true for Regulus as well. It didn't matter if he was the youngest out of the two, he wanted to make sure that Sirius didn't get hurt. He cared enough that he was willing to subject himself to the practices of the Dark Lord, even when he didn't believe in the same things as the dark wizard.

Just thinking about it all left Éponine with a headache, far worse than the one she experienced when in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. She wanted to advise Regulus to speak with Sirius again, hopefully in a way that the two didn't end up yelling at one another. But Regulus didn't seem ready for that because he was still hurting over the idea that in his mind, Sirius had replaced him with the other boys that he considered to be his brothers as well.

They were going to have to work on that but in the meantime, Éponine was just thankful that she had been able to talk Regulus out of the idea of joining the Dark Lord, or at least, she had put it out of his mind for the time being. Yet, whenever she saw Severus around the castle, all she wanted to do was give him multiple detentions for even suggesting such a thing to Regulus. It was all fine and dandy if he wanted to ruin his life with such a commitment, but to get others to try and do the same things, forget detention, she wanted to punch him in his large nose.

But instead, she decided a more civil approach, as she didn't think violence would be much of an answer. While Severus was older than her, Éponine was still a prefect and she knew she had right to exercise what she saw as a fit attitude towards the situation. She needed to handle it because while Regulus was very special to her, there was no telling how many people Severus had approached with such false promises.

So while Regulus was off preparing for a Quidditch match against Gryffindor, Éponine made the promise that she would be there, but didn't head out to the stands right away. Instead, she knew that Severus would more than likely skip the match, seeing as James Potter was playing and he loathed the boy more than anything. She remained in the Common Room and just as she suspected, Severus appeared exiting the boy's dorm with a book in hand to busy his afternoon.