The Pureblood Princess | Sirius Black

|75| Can We Talk?

Sunday afternoon, Regulus stood outside the painting of the fat lady with his hands in his pockets, pacing back and forth past the entrance. How had everything gone so wrong so quickly? Why had he said such stupid and hurtful things? Everyone always thought that Sirius was the only one with a temper and a tendency to speak without thinking, but it was something they both struggled with. Regulus just tried harder to control it.

"Deary, are you going to knock or something?" the fat lady in the portrait asked kindly.

Regulus glanced up at her, face cold and emotionless. "I-I don't know..." he said quietly.

It seemed like a good plan when he made the hike up there, but now he was beginning to have doubts. Would she even want to talk to him? Would she hex him? Yell at him? Hate him forever? Given the things he had said and done, he wouldn't blame her.

He was just about to leave when the ever-bubbly Mary McDonald stepped out the portrait hole, nearly knocking him over.

"Woah! Reggie! I'm sorry, didn't mean to run you over!" she chuckled, smiling at him sadly. After everything went up in flames that morning, she stayed behind and tried to console him, telling him that Addy was the most forgiving person she knew... once you break through her stubbornness that is.

"It's fine..." he mumbled, dark grey eyes fixed firmly on his shoes.

"Um... Addy left a while back— went to do some therapeutic rule breaking with Sirius I think..." she said tentatively, wondering just how long he'd been out there and taking in his sad state. His normally neat hair was a disheveled mess, his eyes seemed sullen and dark, and his normal sassy demeanor was decidedly somber and cold. To be honest, he reminded her a lot of Adelaide when she was in a funk.

"Oh... I um... I wasn't here for Addy." he clarified. Mary looked confused. "I came to see Lily."

"Oh! Erm... She's just inside working on some assignments, do you want me to grab her?"

Well if there ever were a sign that this was the right thing to do, this was it. "um... Yes, please."

Mary went back inside and not two minutes later, Lily appeared, dark red hair tied up in a ponytail, looking a little frazzled, but not unhappy.

"Hi Reggie! I was just about to owl you!" she said with a smile .

"Erm... you were?" he asked in confusion.

"Yes! I just finished editing your ancient runes paper and was going to figure out a good time to go over everything with you." she said, finally taking in his somber state. "Is there something wrong?"

Regulus just looked at her in quiet disbelief. Could she really not know what he had called her? He remembered how upset Addy had been when Evan accidentally used the M-Word; all her friends knew within the hour. It was past lunch at this point, surely she would have told the others by now.  "A-addy didn't tell you?"

Lily furrowed her brows. "Tell me what?"

"Umm..."

He could take this opportunity to just leave, talk about something else, anything but say what he actually came there to say. But, it was thinking like that that got him into this mess. No, he would have to embrace some of the Gryffindor courage the sorting hat saw in him years ago and do the right thing.

"Lily, I need to talk to you... not about homework..." he said, heart beating harder with just the thought of how she might react. They had become pretty good friends the year before due to all the time she spent around Addy and Sev, and he was forever grateful for her homework help... she was almost as good a tutor as James.