Chapter Text
It was easy, once Regulus got back to school, to not think about the long stretch of summer with his increasingly distant parents, and his brother who couldn’t just sit down and deal with it quietly. Narcissa and Uncle Alphard wouldn’t always be there to support him, after all, and he knew it was something he had to learn how to deal with on his own.
He was sufficiently distracted, for a while, by classes and homework and Quidditch matches (even though Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw, and even Max agreed that it was a great injustice, though he hadn’t seemed invested in the match itself). Half of spring term was spent in the library, revising for their exams (Regulus and Isaac revised, mostly, while Max tried to revise but always seemed to get bored and insist, in the end, that he was going to pass anyway).
At the end of year feast, the Great Hall was decked out in red and gold, because Gryffindor had won the House Cup, but Regulus was far more focused on his friends. Max, for his part, was focused on the food. “It’s not as good as Mum’s, of course, or Dad’s, for that matter,” Max said, mouth half full of pumpkin pasty, “God, I’ve missed their cooking.” He stuffed another pumpkin pasty in his mouth.
“You eat more than anyone I’ve ever met,” Isaac said, with an expression that was a cross between disgusted and intrigued, “and that includes Regulus. How are you still so skinny?”
Max threw his free arm around Regulus’s shoulders. “We’re growing boys, Isaac. And it’s not my fault both my parents are fantastic cooks.”
Max’s parents were great cooks, and Regulus could attest to that, but he wasn’t too eager to go home, or even talk about going home, so he decided to change the subject. “How do you think you did on exams?
“I think I did abysmally in Charms,” Max said.
“I’m sure you did fine,” Isaac said. “I’m not sure about my Astronomy exam, though…”
Regulus found Astronomy to be very easy, but he knew better than to say as much to Isaac. “Neither of you are about to fail anything,” he said instead. “Besides, not everyone grows up having to find their name star in the night sky.”
It had always made Narcissa furiously jealous, of course, that even her littlest Black cousin had a star in a major constellation while she was a flower . It was a story that always made Sirius howl with laughter, and he would, of course, because he and his brother both had star systems to their name, which Sirius loved to lord over Narcissa. No wonder she’d never much liked him, really.
“That’s got to be brutal,” Isaac said. “But you’ll help me out more with star charts next year, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Regulus said, although Blacks weren’t meant to help anyone. He didn’t care; Isaac and Max were his friends. “And we’ll both help Max out with Charms if he needs it.”
Max grinned. “I knew I was friends with you two for a reason: Charms help.”
Regulus really didn’t want to go home, back to Grimmauld Place with his parents and total lack of freedom and his brother picking fights, but he forced himself to think of the positives. He could always write to his friends, after all, and Max and Isaac had already sworn to him that they’d all go shopping for school supplies in Diagon Alley together. They just needed to sort out the particulars.
“David’s due to be insufferable,” Isaac said as they packed their trunks. “He’s all but a shoe-in for prefect, and either way… it’ll be nice to have someone besides Miri there to kvetch to.”
“We still need to teach you yiddish,” Max said to Regulus at that. “You already know German; it shouldn’t be that hard.”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “Er iz a goy,” he said, which… well, Regulus understood he was being talked about, but “goy” was not a word he knew at all. He knew Isaac was his friend, so it can’t have been too bad.
“Nu? Er iz nokh undzer fraynd.” Regulus knew enough to know that Max was defending him, and felt a rush of warmth. “And someone decides to lapse into yiddish at random. If you didn’t do that, we wouldn’t need to teach a goy yiddish.”
“Und,” Regulus said, unable to stop himself, “ich kann schon ein bisschen verstehen.”
“See?” Max said with a grin. “Er ken farshteyn a bisl.”
“Fine,” Isaac said. “I’ll try to stop, but no promises. I’ll be seeing Bubbe and Zeyde a lot this summer.”
“And if you don’t stop,” Max said, “we’ll teach Reg enough yiddish to get by.”
It was something that would horrify his parents to no end, and Regulus took a small pleasure in it. He didn’t even mind that Gryffindor won the House Cup, even if it meant Sirius would be gloating and looking for a fight with their mother all summer.
They found a compartment to themselves on the Hogwarts Express, and Sirius and Narcissa both deigned to leave them alone. Crouch was nowhere to be seen, and Regulus didn’t give much thought to where he might be. David stopped by, for all of ten seconds, to check in on them and say goodbye to Max and Regulus. Mostly, though, they were left in peace.
They ate chocolate frogs (Max ate four in the space of an hour) and traded books last minute and promised to write each other weekly. Regulus revelled in these last few hours of freedom with his friends, and by the time the train pulled into King’s Cross, he actually felt that maybe summer wouldn’t be so bad.
Of course, then he actually caught sight of his parents on the platform, and he realised how terrible the summer would be. He made a resolution to keep his head down and spend most of his time in his room and to avoid doing anything to upset his parents. Two months, after all, was a long time, and at the end of it… he’d get to go back to Ravenclaw tower and be with his friends again.