TW: RACISM AND BLOODISM (?)

Barty stared at Regulus, unable to find any words to say as his friend read the book that he had just borrowed from him.

Being the only Slytherin boy in his year that was taking Muggle Studies, it was obvious that Barty had been the one requested to let Regulus read through his material. Now, it's been two days and Regulus wouldn't put the book down for anything at all – that Saturday, he had even gone out of his way to request elves to bring his meal in the bedroom so he wouldn't have to stop reading. Whatever it was that Regulus was searching for, he seemed to have found.

"This is absurd," Regulus grumbled.

"You can't make commentaries on the book that nobody, but Barty read and not explain it, Regulus," Evan said from his bed, face down on his pillow, shirtless and lazy that Sunday. "It's not fair."

"Do you want to hear about Muggles?" Barty asked, confused by Evan's reaction.

"No, but I want to hear about what made Regulus so baffled," Evan explained, putting his face to the side to look at his friends.

Regulus looked away from the book.

"Did you know Muggles slaved other Muggles for centuries?" he asked. "There are several types of slaves. I knew about British slaving Irish people, but I didn't know white people slaved black people."

Evan made a noise.

"Why?"

"Because they're black," Regulus said. "They thought that made them sub-human."

Evan slowly sat down.

"Why?"

Barty sighed.

"That's the whole point," Barty explained. "It was a political and economic decision and they needed to find a way to justify it, so they put on their skin colour. The thing is that people believed it; some still do."

"That's disgusting," Evan said.

Regulus watched his friend for a second before looking back at the book.

"There was a whole war about white people that didn't like anyone that wasn't white," Regulus said. "This bloke from Germany thought he was better than everybody else, used a concept of an Arian population when he wasn't even part of such population. He was smart enough to build ranks and climb them so quickly, but he just used a hatred that was already there and raised a whole army for it. The war... it was ugly, Evan. There were camps for the people that he didn't like where they'd be forced to work and then killed."

Barty, who knew of it already leaned forward, hugging his knees.

"Sometimes, death was the least worrisome thing that happened there," he said, watching his friends' reaction. "Some people lost everybody of their family, children, wives, sisters, brothers. And at the end of the war, they were sent home to live amongst the very people that had sold them out."

Regulus' lip curled as he stared at the book in his lap.

"Why does skin colour matter?" he wondered out loud.

Barty licked his lips, wetting the bottom one as he took a deep breath to say the very thing that he wanted to say for quite some time at that point.

"Why does blood matter?" Barty asked.

Shier than his friends, Barty had never been one to express his opinions over political matters in fear that his friends would leave him. Even as a pureblood, his parents were not nearly as prejudiced as the Blacks and Rosiers; perhaps it was due the political career that his father chased, but whatever it was that made his family more accepting of everything that came from outside of their small bubble, he was thankful. Hatred was not something that Barty was good at, he never was even able to keep himself angry at something or someone for a long time... unless it was himself. For the longest time, Barty had hated himself: who he was and who he liked.

When he had admitted to Regulus and Evan that he liked boys in the way he was expected to like girls, he had expected the same disgust that he saw in the mirror whenever he caught a glimpse of himself, but there was none. Regulus had simply asked if he had ever liked him, Barty had said a flabbergasted 'no', the boy had nodded and looked back to his poetry. Evan had smiled and rolled his eyes, saying that the only problem would be if he found an annoying boyfriend. The subject had been brought up in passing only, but never again was a topic of conversation.

Regulus looked at Barty.

"It's different," Evan said from his bed, getting up slowly. "It's a security thing."

"What can you mean?" Barty asked.

"It's not safe to allow mudbloods – sorry. I know you don't like the word... 'muggleborns' study in Hogwarts. If the Muggles find out about us, we're all dead, Barty, either we like them or not," Evan explained, pushing his blond hair away from his eyes. "Look at what happened when witches and wizards were hunted."

"Hundred of years ago! When the Church was still powerful enough to condemn and have political control," Barty said.

"And how can you say that they don't anymore?" Evan said.

"Because it's the law!"

"And people don't do things against the law all the time?" Regulus asked, closing the book and putting it beside him in the bed. "While I understand where you're coming from, Muggles should not know of our existence, no matter what."

"But we're not taking of Muggles, we're talking of muggle-borns," Barty said, getting up from his bed as well in a jump. "They are witches and wizards as well. They have magic running through their veins. They bleed red like us. They learn the same level of magic that we do. How can they be any different?" he sighed loudly. "The only person studying the same number of subjects as me is Lily Evans, a muggleborn, one of the smartest people in this school."

"She's an exception," Evan dismissed.

"If there's 'exceptions', then there shouldn't be a rule at all!" Barty said, voice becoming louder.

Hesitant by the heating argument, Regulus glanced at the closed dormitory door before looking back at his friend, unsure of what to say to him.

"Do you truly believe that?" Regulus asked.

Evan scoffed, turning his back to the two boys while grumbling under his breath a string of dirty words. "Of course he believes that, Regulus, otherwise he wouldn't have spent the last three days trying to start a conversation and changing his mind whenever you were reading the bloody book. He has been waiting for you to start it for him," Evan said.

Barty blushed deeply in shame.

The worst part of it all was that Evan wasn't wrong at all.

"The situations are parallel enough for me to make a comparison in a comfortable manner," Barty said firmly and overly formal. "It's hardly unimaginable that at least a few of the muggleborns will become remarkable magic users, statistically speaking. They're a small part of the population, of course, but they create a huge number of magic users. Half-bloods are the biggest parcel of the magical population."

Evan rolled his eyes and threw himself in his bed again. That was not the conversation that he had expected to have at Sunday afternoon.

Regulus shook his head.

"I believe Barty is right," the Black Heir finally announced.

That made both Evan and Barty turn to look at him in shock, neither expecting him to go along Barty's idea.

"It's safer that muggleborns study here," Regulus said. "Their magic is well controlled like this and, therefore, our secret is kept."

"They only have magic because they steal it!" Evan said, aghast.

"If a wizard or witch lose their magic to a child younger than eleven, then they might deserve to be magic-less," Regulus snapped at Evan. The other boy looked away. "Either that, or they are truly just born with it – there are several theories. They might have been born from a distant relation with a Squib; it's one of the most famous theories up until now. Either way, they are children, and they cannot control their magic, so leaving them out in the world is dangerous."

"You cannot be in earnest!" Evan said.

"I am," Regulus said, but he sounded almost like he was lamenting the fact. "Of course, I don't see how they are our equals. Their magic is not in the same level as our – save some exceptions, of course, as Barty pointed out, Miss Lily Evans is far from a bad witch, and I fear that I'll have to admit that."

"Regulus!" Evan scolded.

Barty shook his head.

"This racism is complete ridiculous!" Barty said.

"It's not racism. I don't see people with different skin colours as less than me," Evan said.

"No, just blood!" Barty exclaimed. "Pureblood Supremacy advocates the belief in the superiority of pureblood wizards and racists believe in the superiority of their own race. How is that any different? Those ideologies have the same undertone of entitlement and fear of something that you don't know. Those are traits that people are born with, yet they are used to explain hatred and discrimination and inequality. If you as much as studied half of the things Muggles can do, you'll see they are not bad."

"They killed us!"

"Because they were scared. And now we're trying to do the very same!" Barty said, hands shaking in nervousness. "The Rosier Family was known for the biggest hunting grounds when hunting muggles was allowed, your family's land decreased suddenly after it was outlawed – they sold it because they didn't need it anymore. I don't need to wonder why."

"It was normal at the time!" Evan said.

"It doesn't make it right!" Barty said. He turned to Regulus again, hoping for an ally. "Luna was raised by muggles. Does she hate us or does she feel inadequate and lesser than?"

Regulus was speechless for a second.

He couldn't find something in Hope Jensen to hate easily, even though she appeared colder than he had expected (Luna had always seemed warmer than most people that he knew, so he had expected her mother to be the same). And Luna had been, indeed, raised as muggle – she had even gone to school with muggles for a long time, and she didn't hate magic or wizards, she just hated being left out of the loop of a world that she never felt like she truly belonged.

"The Pureblood Supremacy isn't going to disappear, Barty," Regulus said.

That was all that he could muster.

"But it can change, and change starts with us – young people. Questioning everything is the only way that you will not be controlled," Barty said.

"You sound like a Gryffindor," Evan said, bitterly.

"The difference between them and us is that fact that I know when to shut up and look the other way. I'll change the world under the table before slamming it all onto it," Barty explained.

Evan sat up again.

"I don't hate muggleborns, I just don't want to let our magical heritage and traditions go to waste," Evan said, not liking the way his friend was looking at him.

Barty frowned.

"And can't you share your traditions? Aren't they just as magical as you?" Barty asked out loud. "They are just as capable as anyone else. Duel with any muggleborn, and you'll see."

Evan glanced at his wand in the small bedside table. All muggleborns did have wands just like him, they all took the same classes as him and the same tests.

Regulus watched the scene in silence for a second.

Swiftly, he got up and threw the book on Barty's bed.

"I've read enough," he announced before walking out of the dormitories.

Blue hyacinths meant sincerity above all, according to Pandora's whispers in Luna's ear as she took the bouquet into her hands, not looking away from Regulus' grey eyes. But not only sincerity, apparently, but also fidelity... and an apology.

"My words were ignorant and completely unexplainable, crossing – most likely – the line to unforgivable," Regulus said, watching her take the bouquet (far too big) into her arms. "Still, I dare approach to ask for forgiveness and to thank you sincerely for the chance of education that you have provided me."

"Regulus –" Luna started.

She felt uncomfortable. They were in a very public place in the corridors, students were coming and going, some even stopping to watch the scene before going to classes after breakfast that Monday. Still, she couldn't refuse his bouquet (his apology), it was in their contract that she was to accept every gift that he bought her if it was within the common worth of a courting gift; and flowers certainly were courting gifts.

"My beliefs were unfounded in true facts and I shall have to do more research," he said. "I have been reading Barty's Muggle Studies' material so I can completely understand what you said to me."

"So, you can see what I was trying to say?" Luna said.

He nodded once, stiffly.

"I understand your point of view," he offered.

Luna almost groaned. It wasn't a 'point of view', it was not being a supremacist, which apparently Regulus couldn't understand completely without reading several books, as if he was preparing for a research paper. Looking away to gather herself, she took a deep breath, ignoring the hitch of Pandora's breath behind her.

"Flowers don't make up for what you said. It was harmful," she said. Regulus looked slightly annoyed by it. "Not to me, but it was harmful. That word is a foul slur and should not be protected as a joke."

"I never said it to you."

"But you said it at some point," she said, almost cutting him off with how shortly after he finished. "And having said that is believing the 'point of view', and if you do believe it and intends on continuing believing it and protecting, I cannot..."

Regulus watched her for a moment, glaring darkly at a boy that stopped nearby – near enough to hear the conversation that they were having a low voice so they wouldn't be interrupted.

"Do you want to finish this?" he asked.

Luna hesitated.

"Will you look the other way if something like that happens again to your housemate or to someone that cannot fight back?" she asked.

"I've always been fair in my fights," Regulus said firmly. "I will not look the other way."

She sighed in something alike relief.

"Then, no. I don't want to end this," she answered.

There was a twitch of Regulus' lips as he nodded again, just once and stiffly as he had done before.

Over Luna's shoulder, Regulus found Sirius standing beside Remus Lupin, both awkwardly trying to go around a group of fourth-year girls that were giggling and trying to talk to them, but Sirius was staring right back at him, eyes wide and surprised – as if he had forgotten for a single moment that Regulus studied in the same school as him. Remus, however, had not forgotten, and was staring at Regulus with such heat in his eyes that the boy had to force himself not to blush at how exposed he felt.

He looked away, looking into Luna's softening green eyes.

Forgivable eyes.

Understandable eyes.

Kind...

He didn't notice what he was doing until her hand was in his and his lips rested in the back of her hand with such chaste tenderness that he was surprised with himself.

Luna's face was red when he looked at her again after such intimate farewell.

"I'll see you soon," he said, voice soft.

The squealing of some of the girls that had stopped a few feet away to watch as Luna received her flowers caused Regulus' ears to ring for a second as he dropped Luna's hand carefully, watching her face carefully for any sign of discomfort or disgust, but all he found was surprise – her flustered state made him smile.

He turned to Pandora, giving her a head-bow, which she answered with a smile.

"Miss Rosier. Luna," he whispered, voice wavering a bit.

"We'll see you soon," Pandora said, answering when Luna stayed in silence.

What managed to come through Luna's lips was a whisper that he didn't understand.

As he walked away, he put the movements together. "Regulus", she had said. She had breathed his name when she couldn't speak, as if his name wasn't a word, but a natural reaction of her body.

Luna stood beside Pandora in silence as the students walked by, allowing her friend to laugh at her speechless reaction for a few second before shaking her head to clear it off and taking a deep breath to prepare herself for her day.

Remus walked nearer.

"Those are nice flowers," Remus mused, as if he had not watched the scene from afar.

"Those are I-fucked-up flowers. Father gives the same blue flowers to Mother whenever she gets angry at him," Sirius said, undermining his brother's efforts to find such beautiful hyacinths as winter neared. "What did he do?"

"Nothing that cannot be forgiven," Luna quickly dismissed.

Sirius' top lip curled in disgust.

"You are a very forgiving person," he said.

Luna stared at him.

"Not everything that has been done to me can be forgiven," she answered, not looking away from Sirius even when Remus raised his eyebrows. "His mistakes are forgivable because he's ignorant."

Sirius scoffed, taking a look at where Regulus disappeared to. "Don't be stupid, Luna," he said, still not looking at her.

"Don't her stupid!" Pandora exclaimed, taking a step forward. "I've seen stupid, and she's not it."

Had it come from anybody other than Pandora Rosier, Sirius would've probably been offended and probably taken aback by the sudden implication that he was the stupid one, but he wasn't surprised that she had jumped into Luna's defence so quickly. Still, Pandora was Regulus' friend (he remembered when they were young enough to be left alone, all playing together without a problem, and how Pandora seemed to gravitate towards Regulus when her own brother wasn't nearby), which meant that she would defend both, nail and tooth.

Sirius watched Pandora for a second, almost pitying both girls for their naivety.

"Regulus isn't a wounded bird," Sirius said.

"I never said he was," Pandora said.

"No, you just act like he is. You want to fix somebody, Rosier? Focus on your crazy brother," Sirius dangerously said to Pandora.

The girl's hand twitched as if she had wanted to reach for her wand, but Luna stepped in front of her.

"Don't talk to her," was all that the green-eyed girl. "Leave her alone."

Sirius scoffed.

"What do you take me as, Luna? I'm not dangerous. I never hurt her –"

"Well, you are the same bloke that attacked a wandless person just a few days ago, are you not?" she asked, staring into Sirius' eyes. He stepped back. She looked at her own brother. "And you are the same cowards that did nothing to stop it, much like you're doing nothing as your friend disrespects us, aren't you, Remus?"

Like he had been slapped in the face, Remus' jaw went ajar for a second.

"Luna," he managed to stutter. "You should listen to Sirius. He knows Regulus –"

"Clearly not enough!" Pandora said over Luna's shoulder. "He knows you. He knows James Potter, but he does not know Regulus." Pandora stepped to the side, allowing Remus to see her fully. "Are you sure that you know him, Remus Lupin?"

Luna was quick to turn and take Pandora's wrist into her hand, squeezing it lightly before shoving her bouquet into her friend's arms.

"Panda, please, would you take this to the dorms? I'll explain it to Flitwick. He won't mind. He always liked you better than me, anyway," Luna said.

Even Pandora knew that it was just to get her out of the situation as she shook in anger, and she was grateful.

Without farewell, she turned and walked away.

Luna turned to her brother and Sirius once more, puffing her chest as she gained confidence enough to say what she had been holding back.

"I know a lot of things that neither of you want getting out, so you either leave Pandora alone, or secrets will be spilled," she threatened.

Remus went deathly pale immediately. The betrayal in his expression hurt Luna deeply, but she didn't call for him when he walked away, struggling to breathe through his panic.

Sirius took a moment to let his shocked face fall into an angry one, deciding not to go after his friend either.

"Are you threatening your own brother?" he asked.

She looked at him and raised her eyebrows.

"Is it with his secret that you are worried, Sirius Black? Because I'm quite sure that your secret has been kept so well that you went into great lengths to never let anybody know, but I know an innkeeper near Diagon Alley that will agree with me if I ask her any question," Luna threatened. "Leave Pandora alone. Never talk to her like that again."

The pallor in Sirius' face rivalled Remus' in the day before the full moon before he started to turn slightly green.

"You wouldn't dare," he hissed, leaning forward.

"Watch me," she answered, leaning forward.

For herself, Luna wouldn't dare, but for Pandora she would.

"You're becoming just like my brother," he said, disgusted.

"Well, you fucked me because I was like mine," she spat towards him.

Sirius took a step back.

And it wasn't a complete lie. Angry in the way that she was, chest puffed, neck exposed and lip curled as if she was going to snarl at any moment did remind Sirius of Remus when he had his anger attacks or even of the werewolf itself as it snarled and attacked.

Taking a shaky breath, Sirius shook his head.

"If you truly think that you can fix him or something equally as pathetic, then you deserve whatever is coming your way," Sirius said.

"I believe in knowledge, which is something that your brother doesn't possess about the subjects that you so judge him for believing in," she said. "I believe in logic. I'm a Ravenclaw – allow me to believe in logical redemption."

"You foolish, pathetic girl."

"I prefer human."

Sirius looked away.

"Fine," he said, raising his hands in surrender. "It's your life. You do whatever you want with it, but don't come crying to me when everything ends terribly, and you're left with nobody on your corner."

Luna laughed bitterly.

"With the way things are going for you, I see that your future, not mine, Sirius," she answered.

It wasn't so hard to turn around and walk away from him without looking back this time around.

But Sirius couldn't move from his place, it was like he was stuck in the ground he was standing on, watching her walk away from him with a pit on his stomach because there was a part of him that completely agreed with her.

James had become slightly colder to him after everything that went down with Luna, leaving his disapproval for his actions clear enough while still being friendly, but clearly choking in the secret that he didn't want to keep. Peter had been stuck to James in the last few weeks and they were becoming a duo that Sirius didn't make part of – apparently, he had a crush on Luna for a year or so and was devastated to know that she was with Regulus now, which Remus did not like at all. Remus was acting awkwardly now, as well, and Sirius feared that he was putting the pieces of the puzzle together – either he had an inkling over what had happened between him and Luna or he had an inkling of his feeling for him and did not feel the same. Whatever it was, he felt alienated.

If his secret was exposed by the secret herself, then everything would blow up. If anybody found out, he was sure to be left alone.

So, when the laughter came to his ears, he felt the world stop.

All because Severus Snape stood nearby, arms crossed and a smug smirk on his lips, because he now knew everything that he needed to end Sirius' life.

TA-DAAAAA! I know. I'm mean, I'm sorry. Some of you must have already gathered what is happening next with the little context clues that I put in this chapter. Any guesses?

I'm creating a playlist, by the way. Anyone that read any of my fics know that I love creating playlists. Any songs that you think will be in it or should be in it?