Peter edged toward his own bed, shuffling his feet across the floor, terrified of making a sound.
Lupin stood at the bedside, frowning, looking from Sirius to James and back.
He wanted to say something. Nothing came.
Whatever was eating at Sirius went deeper than a funeral, and if Sirius didn't want to talk, there was no prying it loose.
James opened his mouth to patch things up, caught the look on Sirius's face, and swallowed it.
Take away insulting the Blacks and he had nothing left to work with.
Silence spread through the dormitory, thick with awkwardness.
His mind spun. After a long stretch, he forced out, "Uh... McGonagall says the Transfiguration essay's still due tomorrow."
Then, looking at Sirius, something in his brain misfired and he added, "Her words. Regardless of whether anyone in your family died."
Lupin pressed a hand to his forehead and shot him a glare.
Into that gap, Sirius's stomach growled..
James froze, then folded. His mouth dragged upward, and he tried to hold it.
Peter followed, clapping a hand over his mouth, not daring to be loud.
Lupin lowered his head. Mild-tempered as he was, he didn't want it showing, but his shoulders shook anyway.
Sirius said nothing for a moment. That sound had dragged him out of it.
He looked down at his own belly, then at the three of them.
James was laughing hard enough to slide off the edge of the bed. Peter had curled up on his own mattress, hand clamped over his face, wheezing. Lupin kept his head down, pretending.
Something in Sirius's face loosened. He scrubbed a hand over it, pushed the rest down, and put his ordinary expression back on.
Reaching up, he undid the collar, opened the black funeral robe, hauled it off over his head, and flung it onto the bed.
A shove of his hip knocked James off the edge, and he stood.
James landed on the floor, looked up at him, still laughing.
Sirius looked back down at him. "So where do we get food?"
James scrambled up, all energy again, threw an arm around Sirius's shoulders and shook him hard enough that neither of them kept their footing.
"Listen," he said, eyebrows working, leaning in with a wink and a smug grin. "Few days ago I found a place. Over by the Hufflepuff lot. There's a kitchen..."
He dropped his voice . "Guaranteed you've never been. A whole crowd of house-elves down there doing nothing but cooking. Anything you want."
He pounded Sirius's shoulder. "You in?"
Sirius shrugged the arm off and headed for the door.
James was after him at once, arm right back where it was.
Peter came scrambling over from his side of the room and nearly tripped on his own shoelace.
Lupin went out last, turning off the lamp behind them, and shrugged as he followed.
Torchlight threw all four shadows long across the stone.
James led, telling the story of how he'd found the kitchen with full theatrics.
The tapestry, the painting of the pear, how he'd tickled it and the thing swung open. By his telling it grew into an expedition for the ages.
Peter pressed for details. Lupin brought up the rear.
Sirius walked beside him with his hands in his pockets, grunting a response now and then.
Somewhere along the corridor he remembered that he'd stripped off the funeral robe and thrown it on the bed without putting his own on. Nothing over the thin shirt.
A draft swept through and he hunched his shoulders against the cold.
James caught it, grinned, waggled his eyebrows, then pointed at the strip of stomach showing where the wind had lifted his shirt and pulled an exaggerated shivering face.
Sirius glared, and smiled.
"We're here."
---
12 Grimmauld Place.
The sky hadn't lightened past a grey-blue outside the window when Regulus opened his eyes.
Before he was properly awake, one thought arrived ahead of the rest: Slughorn had only approved one day.
Thursday. Potions this morning.
He pushed up onto an elbow and sat.
Beside the pillow, Baruk had been woken by the movement and rolled back and forth in protest, legs kicking, a small dark red ball of fluff tumbling from one side of the pillow to the other with no intention of getting up.
Regulus left him to it, got out of bed in his nightclothes, sat down at the desk, drew out a sheet of parchment, dipped his quill, and wrote a request for leave.
Brief wording. Family matters still requiring attention, and a respectful request for one additional day.
He blew across the ink, folded the sheet.
On reflection, his own name alone seemed thin. A parent's signature would carry the thing properly.
He tucked the note into his robe and got up to dress.
Changed, he crossed to the bed and patted the pillow. "Time to go."
Baruk kept rolling, this time from the right side back to the left, burrowing into the crease of the pillow, refusing.
Regulus scooped him up. The spider climbed his fingers to his wrist, groped his way into the inner pocket, turned a circle in there, balled up, and went back to sleep.
Downstairs.
Orion and Walburga were already at the table.
Kreacher brought toast, bacon, fried eggs and a pot of hot tea, set it all out, then bowed himself off to one side.
The three of them ate quietly.
"Father." His face gave away nothing. "I need a signature."
Orion took it and unfolded it for a glance.
A leave request. Standard format, proper phrasing, family business requiring one further day.
His mouth twitched, close to a smile.
He'd stopped thinking of this son as a child some time ago. The boy had stood in front of Voldemort. In the study they discussed factions and the shape of the war. And then he needed a parent's signature on a note for school.
The novelty of it was not lost on him.
He raised his eyes with a hint of teasing in them.
Regulus gave him nothing, lifting his cup instead. The tea ran clear and left a sweetness behind it. Proper English black.
Orion said nothing either. A stroke of his hand at the bottom of the note and the name surfaced out of nothing, ink still wet. Orion Black.
He pushed it back across.
Walburga looked at the note, then at her son.
She wanted to ask why he wasn't returning to school today. Whether something had happened.
The words got as far as her mouth and stopped. She raised her cup and hid half her face behind it.
Since the Christmas dinner, she'd lost her old readiness to speak to this son.
Once she'd managed everything, questioned everything. Now she was afraid of asking wrong, of meeting a Regulus she didn't recognize again.
She was still learning how to be his mother.
Regulus looked up at her.
He knew what she was thinking, and he saw the state of her, the carefulness, the held posture, the swallowed questions.
Something between them had shifted that Christmas night. His mother was giving ground, yielding, feeling out a new distance.
He considered, and decided to meet her partway. She was his mother.
"Mother." He set down his cup. "Lucius Malfoy needs me today. He's asked for my help."
Walburga blinked. She hadn't expected him to volunteer it.
He never had before. Before, he told her only what she wanted to hear and buried the rest. He and his father were the pair, and she stood outside.
Something in her expression changed, the careful restraint easing, and beneath it lay something else, surprise with a little pleasure folded into it.
Regulus noted it, thought again, and added, casually, "It concerns the Dark Lord."
Her face moved again.
Once, hearing that title, her first response would have been pride. The standing of the Black family. Her son finally receiving the recognition he was owed. Her eyes would have lit.
Not this time. She was quiet for a beat, and the instinctive thrill went down.
Her fingers traced the rim of her cup. "Be careful," she said softly.
Regulus smiled. "Don't worry, Mother."
He held her gaze and added, "You know how good I am."
She sat blank for a second, then smiled too.
It had been a long time since that smile had been on her face. Nothing more than a mother hearing her son tell her not to worry.
Orion turned a page of his paper, a flicker of satisfaction crossing his eyes.
Business between mother and son belonged to the two of them. Staying out of it had been the right call.
He lifted his cup and drank again.
Breakfast finished, Regulus called Kreacher and handed over the signed note.
"Send it to Hogwarts with one of the family owls. For Professor Slughorn."
Kreacher received it with both hands, bent double, and vanished with a crack.
Upstairs, Regulus changed into robes for going out. Dark grey, everyday cut, good stiff cloth without being formal.
At nine exactly, the door knocker sounded. Not a second off.
---
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