It took nearly the rest of the night for me to finish charming the two pieces of parchment: one for me and one for Regulus. The idea had occurred to me after I had read about a certain charm that could link multiple objects together so that they could be used for a common purpose. This charm was the Protean Charm—it was a highly advanced, N.E.W.T.-level spell, however I managed to cast it on both pieces of parchment, linking them together. I then tested out: I picked up one of the squares of parchment, took out a quill and some ink and drew a small black circle. While I drew it, the exact same circle appeared on the second square of parchment, as though I was writing on both of them.

I smiled satisfactorily to myself, though I was far from finished. The next problem I ran into was figuring out how to wipe the parchment clean. Leaving the pieces of parchment on my nightstand, I immediately jumped up and raced to the library as quickly as I could. By the time I got there, I was incredibly out of breath and my legs were numb from all of the stairs. Nonetheless, I picked out as many books as I could find pertaining to advanced charms and took them out. By the time I had retrieved all that I had come there for, I was holding a stack of seven very heavy, hard-covered textbooks, each of at least three hundred pages.

The walk back to Gryffindor Tower was much worse than the walk to the library. It felt a million miles longer with all of the heavy textbooks—and other students constantly cast me confused stares. I was hesitant to walk back through the common room, afraid that I would run into James, Sirius, Remus or Peter and have to vaguely explain what I was up to; but, as it turned out, they were still up in the boys' dormitory.

Exhausted and just about ready to collapse on my bed, I used the last bit of physical strength I had to climb up the stairs of the girls' dormitory yet again. Before sitting down to continue working, I rummaged through my trunk and pulled out a bottle of Butterbeer. My tongue was dry and I only realized just how parched I had been when I chugged about half of the bottle within ten seconds of popping it open.

Sighing in partial relief, I sat back down on my bed. It had been such a long day. I wanted nothing more than to change into my pyjamas and get ready for bed, but I decided that I would only allow myself to do so after I had finished charming. It would be a great incentive to get myself to work more efficiently.

I threw the two pieces of parchment back down onto my bed and pulled out my wand. Then it occurred to me that they would both be ruined if I happened to spill my Butterbeer on them, so I ruffled through the charm textbooks until I found a waterproofing spell and used it on both my piece and Regulus's.

Afterwards, I scoured the textbooks for perhaps an hour or two (I lost track of time completely and was afraid to check the clock). At some point, Alice and Marlene entered our dormitory. They figured that I was doing homework, so they left me alone. Lily wasn't with them, so she must've still been in the Hospital Wing for her nose. I vaguely heard Alice and Marlene gossiping and the sink running for them each to brush their teeth. Finally, they were all set to go to bed and asked me if they could turn the lights off-by then, I simply had to continue my work by wandlight.

I could not find a spell that would wipe the parchment clean only after the message had been viewed by the eyes it was designated for. That led me to think about what would happen if someone who wasn't supposed to see it—either my friends or Regulus's—happened to come across the parchment. It seemed that every time I fixed something, there came a new doubt in my mind.

My search for spells switched and after what felt like an eternity, I found two spells that I thought would work. They were quite complex, so I practiced them both on scrap pieces of parchment rather than going straight for the real thing. When I was satisfied with the results I was getting, I combined both spells and used them on the two parchment squares. I made sure to remember which was mine and which was going to be Regulus's.

Hopefully, the end result turned out well. To finish it all off, only because I was a perfectionist, I wrote his name neatly at the top of his and my name on mine. Then I grinned to myself, placing the parchment pieces one on top of the other, and stuffed them in my bag.

By the time I had finished it, I felt like I was on top of the world. Then, I decided to go down to the common room for just a moment, to see if anyone else was still there. It was like there was some force drawing me towards there, so I decided to listen to my instincts and just check it out.

I checked the clock and it was half past two o'clock in the morning. I tiptoed down to the common room, just to see if anyone was still there. I saw the back of a head—someone was sitting on the couch, and it looked like Corey.

I crept closer to make sure it really was him before scolding him for still being awake.

"Corey!" I whisper-shouted. "What are you still doing up?!"

He turned around slowly; I realized he had been lying down on the couch rather than sitting. His eyes looked glossy and sunken. "I don't feel well," he said.

My facial expression changed from sternness to worry. A frown made its way onto my face as I tilted my head and regarded my brother. He didn't look well at all-it was a huge contrast from how happy he had been earlier, when he had found out he would be playing on the Quidditch team.

"But you were all right before, during Quidditch practice, right?"

"Yeah, I just started feeling... my throat is itchy, and I have a really bad headache... and I feel kind of nauseous," he mumbled tiredly. "But I couldn't sleep, so I came down here."

Fear engulfed me as I said, "You don't feel like throwing up, do you? Please don't throw up."

I had a fear of vomit-it was a sort of phobia, and I was unsure where exactly it originated from. I knew he couldn't control it if he really did have the stomach flu, but I hoped he didn't. I involuntarily took a step back, but he shook his head.

Then I shook my head, realizing that I was his older sister and I was supposed to be taking care of him, not thinking about what would happen if he threw up on me.

I made my way towards the couch and sat beside him. "I need to make sure you don't have Spattergroit or something," I said. "You don't have any boils, do you? They would be like purple pustules." Yet again, I began to get nervous as Spattergroit was quite severe and could leave scars on the faces of its victims. I swallowed the lump in my throat as I imagined my little brother having awful scars on his face from Spattergroit.

"No, I don't have those," Corey muttered.

"Are you sure? Let me just check."

I carefully inspected his face for any purple pustules, which was most likely the first place they would appear if he did have Spattergroit. Then I checked his arms and made him lift his shirt and check his chest and stomach.

"It doesn't look like you have them," I said, sighing in relief. I bit my bottom lip. "You've probably just contracted some Muggle virus or something. Do you need anything? A drink of water? A snack?"

He carefully sat up from the couch, propping himself up. "No, I'm not hungry," he said. "I can't eat, I still feel nauseous."

"Do you want to go to the Hospital Wing? I don't think they'll be able to treat you until morning, though..."

"No, I don't want to go," he stated stubbornly.

I smiled, recognizing myself in him for a brief moment. "You're just like me."

I noticed him shivering. I placed my arm on his and laid back onto the couch, which felt very comfortable since I was tired.

Yawning, I said, "D-do you want to go back up to your dormitory?"

"No."

"Then I'm staying here with you," I said, rubbing the exhaustion from my eyes.

***

I was shaken awake by Peter and felt completely disoriented until I remembered that I had fallen asleep on the couch in the common room along with Corey, who had been feeling sick.

"Morning," said Peter with a small, dimpled grin.

I looked around and saw that the common room was bustling with Gryffindors heading down to the Great Hall for breakfast. I felt my cheeks burn bright red in embarrassment that people had seen me sleeping on the couch. Beside Peter stood Remus and Sirius, all watching me and, oddly, making me feel even more self-conscious.

It was then that I realized that Corey was gone.

"Where's Corey?" I demanded the three boys immediately.

"Don't worry, tiger," said Sirius, smugly jumping onto the back of the couch. "James took him to the Hospital Wing. When we found you two, he was having a coughing fit."

I sighed in relief, mumbling something incomprehensible.

"Pardon?" Sirius asked, holding a hand to his ear.

"I'm not a tiger, I'm a lion," I told him, exhaustion lacing my voice.

The boys laughed.

I looked down at my clothes and realized that though my robes were wrinkled, I didn't even have to get dressed. I skipped my shower that morning-I could afford to skip it. All I had to do was dart up to my dormitory, grab my bag and quickly brush out my knotted hair.

By the time I got back, James was waiting in the common room along with the other three. I noticed he looked different; somehow, he seemed just a little bit happier, more jovial.

"Oh Merlin, James, thank you!" I said, giving him a tired but grateful smile. "How was he?"

"You're welcome. He's fine," said James, "Madam Pomfrey just said it was the flu. She gave him a potion and made him rest. He should be good as new by tomorrow. He's going to be fine for the Quidditch match," he added, as though reassuring himself. He nodded a few times too many and then stuffed his hands in his pockets bashfully.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Yeah, he'll definitely be fine by then. Don't worry about it, OK?" I placed my hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner. I thought of asking him how he was, but I changed my mind and thought it was better to just let it go and not bring up everything that had happened the day before. "Let's go get breakfast, yeah? I'm starving."

We exited the portrait hole—for once, we were all completely silent. The silence was tangible, as though we were each lost in our own thoughts and in our own little worlds. I found myself wondering why James seemed so much happier today-perhaps he had just woken up on the right side of the bed. Finally, he broke the silence, immediately answering my unasked questions.

"I... er... I saw Evans in the Hospital Wing," said James, smiling slightly for the first time in twenty-four hours. "She was being released just this morning."

"Oh, really?" Sirius piped up. "And how's her nose? It's not permanently crooked, is it?"

"Nope, she looks as beautiful as ever," said James, running his hand through his hair. "I even told her that and she didn't punch me out, so that's a good sign."

"So is that really why you're so happy? That she interacted with you without chopping your head off?" I asked.

"Yup," he replied. "But she also said that she overreacted and that she knows I wouldn't do anything like that to her on purpose. It's the best I've ever gotten from her. Literally. She's halfway in love with me."

Peter scoffed. "Right," he drawled sarcastically. "Sure she is."

"It had to help, didn't it?" Remus started. "The fact that you were being so thoughtful in taking a younger student to the Hospital Wing."

I rolled my eyes.

"It didn't hurt," James admitted. "However, for the record, that's not why I did it. I didn't know she'd still be there. And, besides, I like Corey. He's my prodigy."

"Well you're in an oddly good mood, considering all that happened yesterday," I pointed out, taken aback. He wasn't a very optimistic person to begin with. This morning, I had been expecting his usual dramatic antics and complaints about how terrible his life was. "This can't possibly all be because of Lily!"

"It's not," he said. "I think there is also going to be a solution to my broken broomstick problem."

***

It was difficult and tedious to be forced to wait until all four Marauders had detention at the same time, no matter how frequently that happened. On one school night, when the four had gotten an evening detention with Professor Binns for talking back to the ghost, I took the opportunity to sneak to the Room of Requirement before curfew began. However, before I did this, I took extra precautions and made sure that Peter had once again forgotten the Marauder's Map stowed safely underneath his bed.

It was not long after that I had catapulted myself into Regulus's arms.

As he finally reached me, he knelt down and wrapped his arms around my waist, lifting me up off of the ground. My heart raced frantically as I wrapped my arms around his neck and bent my knees while he spun me around. His dark hair, which had grown quite a bit longer, tickled my cheek. For a mere moment, time stopped and we were frozen that way. A sense of euphoria rushed through me and I had never felt so pleasant before, because this was the best hug anyone had ever given me. It was the kind of hug that had the ability to make you feel like you were everything, as though the other person's entire world revolved around you.

And that was exactly how I felt—for a brief moment, I was absolutely everything to Regulus. I never wanted him to stop hugging me, to unwrap his arms from around my waist or to let me go. When he finally set me back down on my feet, I was disappointed; I would very well have liked for him to hold me forever.

However, the disappointment disappeared when he leaned down to kiss my cheek and then my lips. It had been too long and I hated every second that we couldn't do this in public and had to pretend not to know each other. Nevertheless, being so close to him and yet so far away for all these weeks was probably what made us enjoy our fleeting moments together even more.

"Oh—love—I've—missed—you," he said, punctuating each word with a kiss on some part of my face: my cheeks, my lips, my nose, my forehead.

"I've missed you too," I said, my cheeks tinged pink. The pieces of parchment in my pocket suddenly felt heavier and I was reminded why I had planned to meet him there in the first place. "So we don't have that much time before curfew-"

"Who cares? We can stay out past curfew, no one will notice. Remember last year, when we were locked out of the school and then I walked you back to Gryffindor Tower?"

I raised my eyebrows, my breath hitching in my throat as I found that his face was much closer to mine than it had been a just second ago. "You're a terrible prefect," I whispered, unable to hide the small smile making its way across my lips. My brown eyes found his blue-grey ones and I couldn't help but think of how beautiful they were.

"I know," he replied huskily, pulling me in for another kiss.

His lips distracted me from my task at hand and for a moment I let myself be swept up by him again.

"No, really-Reg, I have something to give you," I told him breathlessly after reluctantly pulling away. I reached into my pocket and he watched curiously as I pulled out the two pieces of parchment, which were now completely blank.

I remembered that I had placed his on the top, so I handed him that one and kept the one I knew was mine. He furrowed his eyebrows and inspected the parchment carefully, turning it over in his hands. "What is this? Are you giving me a blank piece of parchment, or does it have magical qualities of some sort?"

"You're quick," I said, smirking. "However, I'm a lot quicker. You see, I've found a way for us to be able to communicate without having to use the school owls and hide our letters from anyone looking over our shoulders."

Regulus raised his eyebrows and looked down at the parchment. "Oh really?" he asked, the ghost of a smirk appearing on his face.

"Yes," I said confidently. "You're going to need to take your wand out for this."

"Which one?" he asked me smugly.

It took me a while to get what he was hinting at, and when I did, I took my own wand from my pocket and held it to his throat. I blushed profusely, my entire face turning a deep shade of scarlet. "Idiot! Just because I like kissing you doesn't mean I won't kill you."

He chuckled, running his thumb over my cheek in a loving manner before taking his wand out of his pocket.

"All right," I said nervously, trying to shake my embarrassment off. "Now just place it on your piece of parchment and say, Revelabit—Latin word for 'reveal'."

He obliged and before his eyes, his name appeared on his piece of parchment. His eyebrows disappeared into his hairline and he turned over the parchment again to see if anything else had appeared on it.

"Revelabit," I said, casting the spell on mine as well. I smirked at Regulus's confused expression, knowing that he had no idea what this was all for. I found myself highly enjoying keeping him in suspense.

I walked over to a table where there was a quill and an inkwell. Casting a furtive glance over at Regulus, who still stood in the middle of the room, I bit my lip and said to him, "Watch."

I dipped the quill in ink and held it over my parchment. Holding my breath, I lowered the quill to the parchment and quickly wrote down just one thing in a quick scrawl.

Regulus

I heard him gasp as he noticed that what I had written on my parchment had appeared on his as well.

He looked over at me, bewildered. "Wait a moment... so anything one of us writes will appear on the other's parchment?"

I nodded, grinning widely.

"How...?"

"Very long process, actually," I began, watching as the time ran out and Regulus's name disappeared from both of our pieces of parchment. "I stayed up until two-thirty in the morning yesterday, just to do it all. It included a number of different charms to make it appear only when you say the correct incantation, as well as the Protean Charm. Oh, and whatever message we write to each other will only remain for approximately thirty seconds before disappearing—but that's only once you've used Revelabit."

Regulus gaped at me. "Anything else I should know about it?" he asked facetiously.

"Yes, its waterproof," I said. "I couldn't help but think about how much of a travesty it would have been to spill Butterbeer or some other beverage on such a wonderful magical artifact that took so long for me to perfect."

Regulus beamed at me and came to stand next to me, burying his face in the crook of my neck. "You're amazing, you know that? I hope you get told that a lot, because you really are, Bianca."

My heart leapt.

"One more thing," I said, turning around to face him. "Only use it when you want to talk to me. When you aren't using it, you must always clear it. Just say, Concelo. Then it'll disappear and no one will be able to read what I write to you."