DETETION

Student Anne Lilian Sage, year 6, has been assigned detention:

Date: 13.05.1976 – Time: 06:30 PM – Room: Slughorn Office, dungeons.

Reason for Detention: Indecent behaviour with a male student inside a broom closet, caught red-handed by Mister Filch.

Now, that was embarrassing.

Dear readers, understand that Anne only caught one detention in all her school career, and that one time had been to save Harry's arse from getting his seventh detention that year.

She didn't even correct Filch that her middle name was actually Lily, that was how nervous she felt.

And there she was, in the year she had gone for an important job with a pink piece of paper that she was pretty sure weighted a lot more than a piece of paper would. Still, she wondered who would be notified of her detention; all the terrible alternatives she had sounded terrible: her grandparents or her actual dad, who certainly would find out about her detention in one way or another.

So, at dinner, she ate fast to go to detention that she had in an hour.

"Oi there," said Sirius, sitting beside her. "Slow down, you'll choke."

"I'm on a time limit here, mate," she answered, mouth full.

"Oh," made Remus, turning his head to her from where he was sitting on her other side. "Care to elaborate on that?"

"No, I do not," she answered, sensing she had made a terrible mistake by answering like that, because in the moment she turned her head to the side, Sirius saw the small pink piece of paper inside the book over the table.

"My, my, looks like our new Golden Child got a detention, Moony," joked Sirius, reaching for the book. "What did you do, Miss Sage? Did you wander into the wrong part of the library? Stepped on Madame Norris' tail while you were walking-reading around the corridors again?"

The movement was so fast that neither of them saw it coming, but Anne had her hand holding the book closed and determinate, angry eyes glaring at Sirius' so intensively that he froze for a second, taken aback by her reaction. He slowly backed away from the book and just looked at Peter in confusion, but the poor boy just shrugged – he never understood girls, much less angry ones.

"You did what?" James asked, turning away from where he was talking to Marlene, who turned in confusion, not having heard what had happened before James froze mid-sentence. "Anne, when the hell did you get a detention? What did you do?"

She felt her stomach churning in nervousness, shaking her head.

"It was nothing, James. A misunderstanding," she answered.

James clearly didn't believe her, because his eyes narrowed and he fixed his glasses on his noise bridge.

"Anne..." he said in a warning tone.

"I'm not lying!" she whined, sitting down again and crossing her arms.

Sirius moved faster than she ever could then, a smile growing in his lips as he took the detention slip and unfolded it, reading it and letting his smile grow even more and his eyes widen.

"Miss Sage!" he said as if scandalized. "Indecent behaviour –"

"Stop that!" she exclaimed, throwing herself towards him to get the paper from him before he could finish. "Sirius!"

He got up from the table.

"Indecent behaviour with a male student!" he said. James choked loudly, Marlene looked at him in alarm, petting his back to try to help. "And in a broom closet of all places – you're turning into a Hogwarts' student alright."

She froze in her place, feeling her face burning so much that he felt about to pass out in place or just like she would throw up. Her hands started to shake as she grabbed the paper from Sirius' hand.

"It was a misunderstanding, I swear," she said, turning to James, getting up from the table and shaking her head. "Please, don't think any less of me."

James got up from the table as well, eyes wide and hands raised as if trying to call down a wounded animal. Sirius, confused, turned to his friend before turning to look at Anne with raised eyebrows.

"He can't judge you for shit, he's done worse, I can assure you," Sirius said. "I can tell you about the time I caught him with –"

"Shut it, Sirius, you did enough today," James cut him off with a glare.

Upset and clearly offended, Sirius crossed his arms and looked at Remus in hopes for support, but nothing came. Peter, however, seemed to be much less interested in the conversation, because his eyes were stuck on someone else, someone who was moving towards them.

"James –" he started.

"Not now, Wormy," said James. "Anne, sweetheart, is alright. Don't worry. If you say that it was a misunderstanding, I believe it and you can explain it to me–"

"James!" called Peter again. "Mate!"

"Bloody hell, what?!" James asked, turning to his friend.

But Wormtail barely had time to answer before Regulus Black was standing right beside Anne, glaring at everybody that as much glanced his way.

"Come on, Sage," Regulus said. "We got detention."

Sirius jaw fell to the ground in complete shock. Peter yelped and his eyes widened, jaw slacking as well, though much more discreet than the dramatic way Sirius had done. Even Remus, the one that judged the less, had turned pale.

"Holy shit," said Marlene, trying her best to muffle a laugh of shock, she did manage when Lily slapped the back of her head.

All of James calmness and understanding disappeared in a second as he turned to Anne again.

"Regulus Black?" he asked. "That was your 'misunderstanding'?"

"D—James, I –" she started.

In her despair, she had almost called James by 'Dad', which would have been embarrassing for both him and her and very hard to explain to everybody around them without someone thinking it was some type of kinky shit that neither of them wanted to be involved in.

"Yes, or no?"

"Yes, he is," she said. "But I really –"

"It's none of your business, Potter," said Regulus, raising his eyebrows in challenge to James, who glared at him, but did not answer him directly, fearing what would escape his mouth if he said something.

"I'll explain it later," Anne promised. "I'm sorry. I really got to go. I'm sorry, James. Please, don't tell –" she stopped, just nodding.

James knew she was talking about his parents, her grandparents.

"Fine," he grumbled. "You'll explain it to me when you come back."

Regulus scoffed and turned to start walking out of the Great Hall. Anne grabbed the book and started moving to follow him.

Regulus looked over his shoulder and smirked at Sirius.

"Don't wait up," he teased.

Anne started walking faster, leaving Regulus behind to see Sirius turn even paler and James jump up from his seat, being held back by Peter and Marlene.

As soon as Slughorn managed to find a reasonable excuse enough to escape from actually staying with the two in the detention, he took it and bolted from there, promising to come back to let them out in time. He locked the door on the way out.

"You know, Slughorn is not all that smart, or I just think he doesn't care for shit," said Anne, looking at the locked door. "I suppose he didn't read the reason to why we are here, but he certainly just left two teenagers alone in dimly lit room and said he was going to take a while to come back."

Regulus tries his best not to laugh or smile.

"Now that you say it like that, it is stupid," he agreed. "I could do a lot in the time we're going to be alone."

She looked up at him, feeling the right moment. Though Regulus seemed to have been making a light joke and didn't actually mean in, she still took the opportunity to confront him in private about his badly timed joke.

"Well, after the stunt you put up on the Great Hall, not really," she said.

He looked up from the two-foot essay he was writing.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Do you know how embarrassing it was to have you coming to my table and saying 'don't wait up' as if you were a bad boy in a really badly written book?" she asked, putting the quill down on the table. "Those are my friends, Regulus. I helped you and we got caught in a misunderstanding because I didn't want to expose your private life to Filch, and yet you took my kindness and stepped on it by implying anything in front of my friends – in your front of your brother!"

"He's not my brother!" he said, putting the quill down. "And I'm sorry if being seen with me is embarrassing."

"Don't twist my words!" she said.

"Oh, please, I don't have to twist anything, you were pretty straight-forward there, Sage. Do you think is nice for my reputation to be seen with you? I went there because if looked like you were about to cry and needed some help getting out of the situation. I didn't mean to make it worse," he said, rolling his eyes. "And about the joke, that was all it was. A joke."

"A joke that takes in count my private life," she said. "You don't anything about my life, you shouldn't joke about my sex life like that, especially in front of everyone."

"I think the problem is not everyone. I think the problem is James Potter, that the joke was made in front of James bloody Potter," he scoffed.

"What if it is?" she asked.

He leaned back on his table on the other side of the classroom, crossing his arms and staring right at her.

"You know, he's not good enough for you," he commented. "He's not in love with you. He's been with love with Lily Evans for years and is probably only interested in you because you look like her and takes his jokes a lot lighter."

"No!" she said.

"It's true, Sage. Potter is no saint. I grew up with Sirius telling their adventures to me, dangling his 'experiences' over my head to see if he could get me interested in going out with girls when I was as early as fourteen years old. I know a lot about him," he said. "Whatever he's saying, those are lies. He only wants one thing."

"No! Regulus Black, no!" she said, getting up from the table she had been sitting in disgust, feeling a tug on her stomach. She turned her back to Regulus, unable to look him on the face to see the haughty expression he had put on. "James and I don't have any relationship of the type. We're friends, nothing more than that – he's someone I like to have around. He reminds me of my brother."

Regulus blinks, suddenly very self-aware of every breath he took. He felt very silly. His expression fell to a shocked blank.

"I thought –"

"You thought wrong. Haven't you been taught you shouldn't make assumptions? Haven't I already said not to listen to gossip? I thought you were a Slytherin. Aren't you the type of people of 'be slow, but be sure'?" she asked, annoyed.

Regulus took a moment to lean back forward on the table, taking his time to think. He had watched James and Anne interacting for the good part she had been in the school. First it had been out of simple curiosity over the newest girl that had managed to get the attention of the Marauders so fast, then it started being out of actual curiosity to understand what was going on between them. He had assumed he knew.

And then Anne took care of him inside of a broom closet and something changed. Though he promised himself that it was because no one had showed him such selfless kindness, he knew there was something more – desire. To have a girl so close to him for the first time in his life had been exciting and thrilling, he had felt his breath get stuck on his throat and his heart skip beats.

He had several girls available in case he was interested, but none of them had awakened his interest quite acutely as Anne, and she didn't even mean to do what she was doing.

Regulus took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She turned; eyes surprised.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"I overstepped with an assumption I shouldn't have made over a very private detail of your life and embarrassed you in front of our peers," he said, detailed. "I'm sorry, Miss Sage."

She sighed. She went back to sitting.

"You know, you might as well call me Anne at this point."

It was odd to be called by a name that didn't belong to her. Other than the professors, no one called her by Sage – she had insisted of asking people to call her by Anne, even if she wasn't all that close to them. Some didn't follow her request, but she certainly had tried.

"Call me Regulus," he answered.