TW: Light Smut (?) - first paragraph

Sirius groaned loudly, face contorting in pleasure as he spilled himself inside of Luna with his fingers inside her mouth, pushing her tongue down while her mouth was open, both squeezed together in a broom cupboard on the third floor right before lunch. Both were mostly dressed, Sirius' trousers just being open (and its zipper starting to hurt the back of Luna's thigh) and Luna's skirt just being thrown over his hips as he took her from behind, her underwear being pushed to the side. His chest was against her back and his breath was on the back of her neck.

"You're squeezing me so good," he said, voice gentle.

Luna sighed, feeling her muscles fluttering around his softening member.

He kissed the back of her neck as he pulled out with a hiss.

For a moment, she didn't move, hands still against the wall. She just felt the emptiness inside of her as his pleasure seeping out of her and down her thighs. He made no mention to clean it for her, but he did clean himself before tucking himself back into his trousers.

"I got to go, but thanks for meeting with me," he said, leaning forward for a quick peck to her forehead. "Do you need anything?"

Luna wondered what she could answer if she said the truth. 'You' didn't seem appropriate and would totally cause Sirius to either run away or, if he was in a good mood, try to fuck her again and neither was what she wanted from him. Therefore, to protect the little dignity that she still had, Luna just forced a smile.

"Nothing, thanks," she answered.

Sirius smiled and quickly slipped out of the cupboard, taking out a familiar piece of parchment from his cloak's pocket and looking at the map that appeared before walking away, leaving Luna alone.

He had told her of the map in one of the conversations they had after sex; conversations that mostly only happened when they were meeting out of school, so during breaks and during the last summer.

Trying to remind herself that she was quite aware of the rules of their 'relationship', Luna took a deep breath and got her wand from the ground where she had dropped during their activities, cleaning herself with a quick spell that he had already learned to do silently. With another spell, her clothes returned to its presentable state. She touched her hair, making sure the tight French-braid was still in place (she had been far too lazy to do anything more elaborate than that). She waited three minutes, as he had taught her to do before readying herself to go out again.

Opening the door of the cupboard, she walked into the corridor, closing the door behind her. Nobody was anywhere nearby, so she walked towards the Great Hall, walking down the stairs slowly, too lost in thought to do anything else other than walk.

Her thoughts were muddled and slower than usual.

Post effect of the orgasm, her mind explained quickly, but she stopped walking for a second. Something felt slightly different as she looked at the moving stairs just a few steps away from her.

She was becoming irritated with her own mind was so affected by something common, and its constant reminders that Sirius didn't really want her, he just wanted some relief of his boring routine.

Perhaps that was why she didn't hear someone following her.

"Hey! Lupin!" someone called for the third time.

This time, she heard and turned, confused and surprise. But surprise turned into shock when she saw Regulus Black, Evan Rosier and Barty Crouch standing a few steps behind her.

Evan looked handsome that day, more than usual (something that she would say to Pandora, of course). Blond hair pushed over to the left of his head, eyes not as narrowed as normally and a small hint of a smile in his lips. He didn't look as angry, nor as disgusted as he could look when talking to Luna Lupin. Whatever it was that Barty had been talking to him before he had called Luna, it had left him in a good mood.

Evan probably was talking to Luna about Pandora; it was the only reason he would do so.

"Oh. Hello," she said, hesitantly. She sounded confused to her own ears. She looked around. "I'm... I'm not sure where Pandora is. She had Care of Magical Creatures right now and I haven't met her after he came back to the castle. I think she'll be in lunch," she said, looking at Evan.

Evan raised a single eyebrow, eyes narrowing at her.

"You don't take Care of Magical Creatures?" he asked.

Luna wasn't sure why he looked so angry suddenly when she had done nothing wrong, so she hesitated a bit more to answer and just shook her head, not eager to explain to him that she took Ancient Runes at that exact time.

"This has nothing to do with Miss Rosier," Regulus said, taking a step forward before Evan frightened the girl into running away. "I'm here to ask you for a favour, Miss Lupin."

That took her even more by surprise.

Regulus Black's curls were contained, carefully pushed back with some product that had no strong smell, but one single strand of hair was curling on his forehead. The contrast between his dark hair and eyebrows against his ivory skin made him look like a marble statue of high-cheekbones, an aristocratic nose, oddly grey eyes – he had the same eye colour as Sirius, but... colder. If she ever needed to fear someone's beauty, it would've been Regulus', all sharp angles and sharp tongue.

"I see..." she mumbled when she found her voice.

"It's nothing bad or improper, do not worry yourself too much over it," he said to her, but his face was as serious and as judgmental as it always looked, not relaxing into a smile at all, no matter how polite he seemed to pretend to be. "How is your schedule? I fear I might ask to take some of your time."

Barty seemed to dislike Regulus' choice of words in the sentence because he seemed to wince, shoulders raising up to his neck and lip curling for the split of a second before his face was back to blank, even if his shoulders still looked tense. It was odd since he was the tallest one in the group, even when he tried to make himself look small so much of the time.

"My schedule?" she mumbled, repeating what he said.

She wondered for a second if she was fast enough to run to the Great Hall before they could get to her. Her only comfort was that she knew that Evan Rosier would not dare do anything to her, for Pandora would never forgive him if he did.

Regulus sighed, annoyed.

"I'm trying to ask you for some of your time and I wanted to know if you had some to spare me," he said. "I've been rather behind in Transfiguration and, whether I like it or not, you are the best Transfiguration student in our year. I'd like for you to tutor me if you are available. I could give you something in return, of course."

Luna felt as if she was seeing something forbidden for the very first time and her heart was heavy with guilt and fear. Seeing Regulus Black asking for help was beyond impossible, let alone to someone outside of Slytherin (especially someone outside of his pre-approved social circle that his parents probably gave him a list of before he left for Hogwarts, which certainly she wasn't part of, being a half-blood and poor as she was).

Uncomfortable, she shifted her weight from one leg to the other and looked around again, trying to understand if there was someone watching their exchange and laughing, because this conversation couldn't be anything other than a prank.

"You want me to tutor you in Transfiguration?" she asked, just to make sure that she understood.

"Are you going to repeat everything that I say? Do you enjoy your own voice this much?" he asked, voice snappy. Evan put his hand in Regulus' shoulder, a clear silent warning. Regulus took a deep breath. "Alright... forgive me if I was rude, Miss Lupin. Tell me, then, do you agree on tutoring me?"

Ravenclaw as she was, there was a slight hesitation in her mind with the idea of Regulus Black's grades surpassing her own. It wasn't that she was a competitive person (or at least, she wouldn't admit that much), but she liked having something that she could hold over the head of someone as competitive as Regulus. However, she knew that the only thinking holding him back was Transfiguration, just like it was Astronomy holding her back.

"Astronomy," she blurted out.

Regulus raised his eyebrows, confused at the sudden word. Luna blushed and looked away before clearing her throat.

"Excuse you?" he said.

"I'll tutor you if, in exchange, you tutor me in Astronomy," she said.

Regulus lips curled in hidden disgust. If there was a subject in school that came naturally to him was Astronomy, but that didn't mean that he liked it at all, besides it was so easy, he didn't understand why someone needed help with something like that.

Barty looked between the girl and his friend.

"It sounds fair," Barty gave his input in a light tone.

Regulus sighed.

"Fine. Fair is fair," he grumbled.

Leaning slightly forward, Regulus reached out his right hand, offering a clear handshake.

Luna wasn't sure why she was so nervous to the point of swallowing down her saliva so loudly that she heard the sound of it going down her throat in fear, but she took his hand, shaking it twice, hoping that she wasn't squeezing it too tightly nor making her hand too limp.

He was the one to pull back first, shoving his hand into the pocket on his trouser, his left hand still holding onto his leather courier bag's shoulder strap. And, without another word, he slipped past her and walked down the stairs towards the Great Hall, Evan and Barty following and going back into the conversation they were having before they stopped to talk to her.

Luna stood there, confused and usure of how to go on with her life, finally breathing without her chest hurting in nervousness.

"Fucking hell," she whispered to herself. "What was that?"

It took her another second or so before she started walking down the stairs again, still slightly dizzy from being so nervousness that she had gone through, and still she noticed that she was leaning heavily on the handrails of the stairs.

Luna was used to being tired after any sort of physical exertion, but it had been a while since she was so clearly having her body complaining. She took a deep breath as she continued walking, steps small and careful – she needed to get out of the stairs and –

"Luna?" Pandora asked as she walked nearer.

"Panda," she breathed out.

Pandora was standing beside Luna in a second, putting her arm around her shoulders.

"You look pale. Have you eaten at breakfast? Did you run at all?" Pandora asked, voice rushed.

It was the moment that Luna understood how bad she must have been looking, for Pandora never spoke quickly unless it was a terrible emergency.

"No running," she said. "I'm just dizzy. I don't feel too bad. I just need to sit down and eat."

Pandora did not let go on Luna as they crossed the door into the Great Hall as Luna usually asked her to do whenever she wasn't feeling too well, and this time around Luna didn't try to break free from her grasp, the idea of falling a lot more embarrassing than being helped to a seat.

She could feel some people looking at them as they walked to their table, not even going where most fifth years were sitting, just using the free benches that they could get, even though they were sitting beside second years by doing that.

As Luna sat, Pandora was already filling a goblet with apple juice and shoved it into her hands. She struggled a bit to take it to her mouth without spilling anything because of the tremor in her hands (it was still a weak tremor but embarrassing all the same). Pandora sat beside her, reaching for pastries and meat to make Luna a plate and shoving it in front of her at the table, after that she made her own plate without any meat.

"Luna?" Pandora said.

"Eating," she said, as if it would make Pandora give her a second on concentrating on not throwing up.

"Your brother's coming over," Pandora said, ignoring what she had said.

Luna forced herself to look up and over her shoulder, finding Remus and his friends walking towards her.

Though he looked slightly worried, it wasn't Remus that caught Luna's attention, it was Sirius' face. Sirius was such a bad liar that she was surprised nobody had caught onto what they were doing, because his eyes were wide, and eyebrows scrunched up together - he looked overly guilty.

"I'm fine," she insisted before Remus could even begin speaking.

Remus looked at her, carefully assessing the situation as he stood to the side.

"You don't look 'fine'," he said, lip curling in disdain. He turned slightly to the side. "Hey, Pandora."

"Hi!" Pandora answered, opening a big smile to him.

Remus looked back at his sister.

"What were you doing before coming here? Did you run or something?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

"All of a sudden you care. I should let my body threaten a heart attack more times," she joked, exaggerating her situation.

Peter's eyes widened comically.

"Heart attack?" he repeated. His eyes rushed to Madame Pomfrey sitting at the High Table. "Should I call for help?"

"No, Wormy, she's just being dramatic," Remus told his friend while putting his hand on his shoulder, rolling his eyes.

"There's a difference between drama and bloody sarcasm," Luna grumbled, but Remus completely ignored what she had to say.

"Stop it, Luna. Be honest now. Mum will kill me if you are sent to St. Mungus again and I didn't do anything about it."

Luna almost raised her eyebrows in realisation but stopped herself from having any reaction. The good news was that, at least, she knew the reason for his sudden worry and curiosity in her life.

"I'll be fine," she dismissed, taking a deep breath.

"Are you feeling unwell because of physical exertion?" Remus asked again. "Or was it sudden?"

"Are you going to write a report on it or something? Take care of your own life and stop bothering me," she said. "And don't you dare write about this to Mum. If I want her to know, I'll write to her myself."

"Liar. You don't even write to her."

"I do, she just doesn't write back," she snapped quickly. "Unless her response is attached to your letter, of course."

There was a heavy silence between the two siblings as Luna tried to function as casual as she could, reaching for a pastry in her plate and taking a bite out of it, chewing carefully without looking away from Remus.

While Remus knew, to some extent, that Hope did write to him more often than she wrote to Luna, but he had not expected her to care so much about it when she barely wrote to her mother either. Apparently, however, it was a sensitive topic for her, and he wasn't sure how to react to it, his mind too busy to create a reaction, stuck in memories of him giving her the letter that his mother had answered him with so she could read the small paragraph that was intended for her.

"Your pupils are blown on your right, but not your left," Sirius said from the side, leaning slightly closer to her.

He was clearly trying to change subjects, because he leaned closer than he probably would have in any other situation and clearly too interested in staring at Luna, something that he would never do in front of Remus under any circumstance.

"Maybe you had another absence seizure," Remus said.

"I didn't. I was talking before coming down the stairs. I think I just... freaked myself out when I was talking," she said. "And even if I did, an absence seizure is nothing. I'm not dying or something like that, don't worry about it."

Pandora frowned and turned to her.

"You were alone when I found you walking down the stairs," she said.

Remus glanced at Pandora before looking at Luna again.

"I found your brother and his friends, I talked to them for a while and then they went down the stairs. Then I found you as I walked down myself," Luna answered.

"My brother? Why would you talk to my brother?" Pandora asked. "You don't talk to my brother at all, not even when you can't find me."

"Well, your brother scares me," Luna said, shrugging. She sneaked a look at Slytherin table, catching Regulus Black already looking back at her, suspicious eyes stuck to hers as if assessing the situation. "And so does yours, Black."

Sirius made a little noise.

"He's not my brother anymore," he answered, voice firm, but insincere.

Luna looked at him in surprise, stomach dropping and flipping inside her body. A small part of her whispering that one day, somehow, her own brother would say something like about her. Luna wasn't sure if the idea was something she could live with.

Swallowing forcefully, her lips pressed against one another.

"I'll talk to Evan, maybe you had an absence seizure that you didn't realise was happening," Pandora said, getting up from the table.

Luna tried to hold her arm to pull her back to the table, but her movements were still slow. Pandora was walking away before Luna could reach her.

Remus watched the girl go to the green table.

"She's a good friend," he mused.

"Yes," was all that Luna answered.

She tried drinking again. Her hands had stopped shaking so much and she felt like her white shirt was safe from spills, so she looked away from the cup to find – once more – Regulus Black watching her, not looking away even when Pandora started talking in a low voice to her brother right beside him.

"Bloody hell, he stares," Peter grumbled from right behind her. "Does he do that a lot?"

Luna shook her head lightly.

"He never even looked at me before," she said.

Sirius made another little noise, almost like a hum but said nothing this time around.

James Potter reached forward, getting a pastry from Luna's plate with so much easiness that it looked like they were intimate friends. She turned to glare at him only to find that he was already looking at her, eyebrows raised in curiosity and lips pressed together as if he knew something that she didn't.

Luna looked away, suddenly all too aware that he was the only one that had any inkling of her rendezvous with Sirius because of the letter that she had written to him. She wondered if he was trying to decide if she was worth of Sirius' attentions (perhaps affections, her wishful thinking added) or if she needed to be gone. If she was rather unlucky, he was trying to decide if he should talk to Remus about what he knew.

Pandora found her way back, eyebrows scrunched together.

"Evan said that you acted weird when you talked, you... were confused or something like that," Pandora said. "Maybe you had a seizure right before talking to him. He said you were standing near the stairs alone, still."

Forcing her memory, Luna frowned. She didn't remember anything different or stopping near the stairs.

Remus looked at her in disapproval.

"Talk to Madame Pomfrey before going to afternoon classes," he told her.

And, as if the conversation was over even without her agreement to do what he told her to do, he turned around, grabbed Sirius' arm and dragged him along as they all walked to the Great Hall doors, the rest of his group of friends following him without a second of hesitation.

Luna turned to Pandora.

"I was... weird?" she asked.

Pandora nodded, as if the idea in itself was odd to her as well.

"You'd have to act really weird for Evan to say that you were weird," she said. "He cannot see 'weird'. He thinks I'm normal."

Luna smiled at her.

"You are normal, Pandora. The most normal of us all," Luna said kindly. "Perhaps more than the rest of us."

Regulus watched as Pandora Rosier almost dragged Luna Lupin with her into the Great Hall, helping her to sit down and moving quickly between sitting down herself and filling two plates with food and two goblets with juice.

Even from far away, it was easy that Luna's face had dropped two or three tones into paper-white paleness. There was some softness and lethargy in her movements, as if her body itself was far too heavy for her muscles to move. She looked exhausted suddenly as her body rocked back and forth, forcing herself to keep on sitting there without any back support to help her in her task.

"I believe Miss Lupin is sick," Regulus said.

Evan looked away from Barty, whom he had been talking to about the latest opera that he had been taken to watch that summer, to look at Regulus, understanding what his friend said before turning to look at the Ravenclaw table.

"Oh, my. She does look drained," Evan agreed, sounding confused by her sudden appearance. "What happened to her? Did she walk into a Dementor from the moments she was left alone?"

"Or maybe Regulus' ugly face scared the life out of her," Barty teased, though his light-tone sounded forced.

Regulus looked away from her to glare at Barty, who raised his hands in surrender, though a teasing grin continued to rest on his lips.

"Oh!" made Evan.

Barty and Regulus turned their heads to look at Luna again, finding the Gryffindor "famous" group walking towards the girls and talking amongst themselves, though some spoke louder than others (Remus did not dip his head low to get closer to Luna as they spoke as Peter had done). Luna barely moved, talking with her hands resting on the table.

Suddenly, Pandora looked at Evan and jumped up from the table, walking towards them quickly with small steps.

"Here we go," Evan grumbled. As she walked closer, he raised his eyebrows, the glare he usually wore softening lightly. "What's happening with your friend? She looked worn out."

Regulus didn't look away from her even when she caught him staring at her. If he was honest, he feared what would happen to her if he looked away from her. She looked fragile enough to just disappear from his sights.

"Luna has anisocoria," Pandora said.

"What the hell is that?" Evan asked.

"Different sized pupils. I learned it in a book after we became friends. She usually only has them after she had seizures," she explained. "She said that she talked to you. Did she act differently from what she usually acts?"

"I don't know how she usually acts," Evan reminded her.

"Actually," Barty said, jumping into the conversation with a shy smile, "she seemed confused. She repeated a lot of what we said to her as if it took her a second to understand its meaning and she didn't look up until we called for her... what? – three, four times?" he guessed.

Evan blinked, remembering the scene.

"Oh, yeah. She was weird," Evan agreed, lips curling in disdain. "I thought that was normal for her."

Regulus looked away from Luna to look at Evan, some warning in his eyes as he looked up at Pandora.

"She was shaking," he added to the conversation suddenly. "Just her left hand, it was an odd movement – not twitching, just as if she was rolling something between her fingers, but I don't think she noticed. Other than that, she acted pretty normal. At the end of the conversation, she seemed alright."

Pandora nodded and walked away without answer at all.

Barty turned to Regulus.

"Do you think she had a seizure before we saw her? She didn't seem sick," Barty said.

Regulus shrugged, sipping his strawberry juice in silence.

He couldn't give his opinion. He knew nothing of seizures or whatever it was that Luna apparently had enough times for Pandora to learn about it in books, eager to help in her friend when she needed help. Still, he wondered what book Pandora read it all on.

Luna was already looking at Regulus when he looked at her again. This time, he looked away, unsure of what she had seen in him, but hoping that she had not seen enough, whatever that meant.

"What are you going to tell the others?" Evan asked.

Regulus looked up at him.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Are you going to allow the others to know that she's tutoring you?" Evan asked, raising his eyebrows. "It can't do much good for your reputation."

Regulus looked back at his plate, ignoring the small ball of anxiety growing in his stomach and trying to reject all the food that he had managed to eat.

"I'll just tell them that I'm tutoring her in Astronomy because the professors asked me to, I might throw in that I'm doing that for extra-credit and my grades going up will make sense," Regulus said. He had thought about it as he ate. "It wouldn't be too difficult for anybody to believe. I am good in Astronomy."

"You're named after a star, if you were bad at Astronomy, it would be beyond shameful," Evan teased. "It would be something Sirius would do."

"Ironic," Barty said, making both look at him. "It would be incredibly ironic," he repeated, unyielding under their eyes. "Besides, Evan is right, it would be rather shameful as well. Getting tutoring, however, is not shameful. Why would you hide it?"

"Are you willing to let my parents know and willing to watch the consequences of me being tutored by the one person that surpasses my grades every year?" Regulus asked, turning slightly on his seat so he was completely facing Barty. "I'd like to be able to walk during the winter break."

Barty looked down somewhat chastised. He knew that Regulus' home life was not nearly as glamourous as most people seemed to think it to be and, while he wasn't as often punished as his brother had been, he still was just human and sometimes his mistakes were so harshly consequential that he had started to deal with his problems on his own, wanting them to be resolved before he was sent home. Which was why he got into so many fights – if he had resolved the issue at hand, then he wasn't punished, and even if his methods were disapproved by the school, they weren't disapproved at home (if he won, of course).

"If only it wasn't Lupin," Evan sighed, watching the girl nod at something Pandora was saying at the blue table.

"What does that mean?" Barty asked, looking at Evan.

Evan's lips twitched in something like a smile.

"Oh, you don't know. I always forget that you didn't come to Hogwarts in your first year," Evan said, putting an arm around Barty's shoulders.

"Shut it, Rosier," Regulus warned, eyes narrowing.

"Little Regulus in his first year was absolutely obsessed with her, even went to the creepy extent of following her around for a couple of weeks," Evan said.

Regulus hated how pale he was for the simple reason that when Evan thought to open his big mouth, it usually led to his cheeks being painted crimson in a few seconds of embarrassment. He could not control himself about something so physiological, but that didn't mean that Regulus couldn't hate himself for it.

"I was eleven and I thought that she was cheating on her tests. I wasn't obsessed with her," Regulus said as firmly as he managed, but he couldn't hide his face's colour. "And it was only for a week, not two."

"It's alright if you had a fancy –"

"Don't call it that, Barty!"

Barty smiled.

"Well, it would be alright if you had one. I had a crush on Clarence Cain from Ravenclaw when I was younger," Barty said, insisting his very best in a low voice. "Remember? I had a whole breakdown about it in third year."

"Well, liking boys is not all that good. It was an acceptable breakdown," Regulus answered, dismissing. He cringed, noticing what he had said. "Not that you liking boys is a bad thing, of course."

Barty's smile had disappeared.

"I understand what you meant to say," Barty said, but his light tone had died. He looked away.

Evan glared at Regulus. He was becoming tired of Regulus' mouth – always spitting out whatever came to his mind without thinking twice of the weight of his words. Regulus had not even apologised.

But Regulus did the second-best thing that came to his mind. He ignored it and moved on.

"I think that Miss Lupin is involved with my brother," he announced to his friends, trying to change subjects. "That's why what I thought of her doesn't fit into a 'crush' or 'fancy'. She's just a girl in my year that knows the subject that I don't understand too well and that, in exchange, asked me for my help in her own difficulties. She's means absolutely nothing to me."

Even if there was a time in his life that he had wished her to be something, anything at all to him.

Evan looked at the girl again.

"Lupin and Sirius? Now, that's an image that I didn't need," he grumbled. "I knew she had a crush on him, but I never thought she'd actually go after him. That's bad taste."

"Well, she is not blind," Barty said.

Regulus frowned, looking at Barty once more.

"Are you telling me that you think my brother is... good-looking?" he asked, upper lip curling in disgust.

Barty raised his eyebrows in something like a challenge.

"Your brother is stunning," Barty answered. "Deliciously so, if I may say so."

"You may not!" Regulus said, eyes widening a bit in offense. Barty's smile came back to his lips, clearly enjoying disgusting Regulus as a light revenge for his rudeness and Regulus knew it. "This is awful. I never want to see you looking at my brother again, let alone talking to him. I will punch one of you if I ever find out that you slept with my brother – and I'm unsure of which one my fist will meet first."

Barty laughed at Regulus' outrage.

"That is something that you don't need to concern yourself with, Regulus. He may be stunning, but I have standards," Barty said.

Evan finished his juice, putting the goblet back on the table.

"I'm late for choir practice," he announced, getting up from the table and getting his back. "Control your tongue, Black. I'll see you two later."

Regulus rolled his eyes but watched his friend walking out of the Great Hall with a couple of people leaving alongside with him towards the music room.

"I still don't understand why he decided to join the choir this year," Barty said with a grumble. "It takes so much of his free time; he'll be left behind with the amount of homework we are receiving this year."

"He needed extracurricular activities time in his resume. He hates everything else that the school offers, and if there's something that Evan is good at, it is music," Regulus said. "He's got a good ear and he's wonderful at the piano."

"Is he a good singer?" Barty asked.

"I guess we'll find out at some point," Regulus said, shrugging.

He looked at the Ravenclaw table again, but neither Luna nor Pandora was anywhere to be seen.

Grey-eyes were already looking at him.

Sirius had caught his eyes searching through the Ravenclaw table and was not staring at him with a single eyebrow raising and a smug smirk on his lips, though he didn't seem to notice that he was doing the smiling part.

Regulus swallowed down his saliva, trying not to show he was taken aback by being stared at, but he was, and he wanted nothing more than to look away. He would not give him the satisfaction of looking away first, though. He blinked and crossed his arms in front of his chest, casually fixing his posture to appear taller.

In response, Sirius' shoulders shook a bit in a silent laughter as he leaned back against the wall behind him, also crossing his arms. He seemed to find whatever he saw in Regulus pathetic, which made the boy even more insecure. Still neither looked away or gave any inclination that they were uncomfortable as Sirius scratched his noise and said something at Remus Lupin beside him without looking away from Regulus.

Evan touched Regulus' shoulder, making the boy look at him.

"Come on," Evan said, clearly having noticed what was happening and giving Regulus an escape. "We're late."

They were not.

Still, Regulus took the opportunity to gather his things and walked out the Great Hall with Evan leading the way.

My university exams are coming, so I might just hold back for a few days as I usually do during this time, but I'll be back before you know it. Anyway, I hope you all liked the chapter. More is coming soon.