Chapter Text
“Professor Binns resigned.”
Lizzie’s head turns in astonishment at Remus Lupin’s choice of greeting as he plops down in the chair next to her, sliding over a steaming mug of Earl Grey.
“I’m sorry - did you say the ghost professor who seemed destined to haunt these halls for eternity has resigned? And it’s so good to see you, too,” Lizzie jokes, giving her friend a slight shove before he brings his own cup to his lips and sends her a wry grin.
“I saw you last week, Liz,” Reminding the young witch of the end-of-summer Sunday dinner he and his husband Sirius had hosted at their townhouse in London last weekend. Rolling his eyes, he gives in and throws his arm over her shoulder, squeezing her tight. “Welcome back. Did you have a nice summer?”
“Oh, piss off,” Lizzie laughs and forgoes responding in favour of taking a sip of her drink. “Really, why’d he resign? Have they hired a replacement?”
Before Remus can answer, the staffroom door opens and more Hogwarts professors filter in, including Lily Potter and Minerva McGonagall, who make their way past the spare dresser and sparse armchairs to join Remus and Lizzie at their table.
“Hiya, Lily! Professor,” Lizzie nods, smiling politely at her fellow muggle-born friend and the Transfiguration professor who was also Lizzie’s Head of House when she herself was once a student at Hogwarts.
“Please, Miss Williams, I’ve asked you to call me Minerva,” McGonagall admonishes, peering at the Muggle Studies teacher over her wire-rimmed glasses.
“Only if you also call us by our first names,” Lizzie quips while wrapping Lily in a welcoming embrace.
“I take it you both settled in nicely?” McGonagall asks as they take their seats.
“Mhm,” Lizzie nods. Thankfully, she didn’t have much to cart with her to the castle, this being her third year as a Hogwarts professor and all. “Are you moved in, Lily?”
“Oh, yes! James and I made quick work of it early this morning while Sirius took Harry into Hogsmede. I’ve a feeling they stocked up on Zonko’s products, so I apologise in advance,” She sighed, shaking her head amusedly at the prankster influence Harry’s godfather obviously has on him.
“I already told Sirius there’d be consequences if I found Harry in possession of any banned items,” Remus attempts to reassure the table.
“I’ll believe it when I see it, Mr Lupin. I haven’t forgotten all the stunts you pulled during your time as a student,” McGonagall remarks, eyeing Remus warily.
“I’m sure I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,” He winks, sending her his best, innocent grin.
“Is Harry excited for his first year?” Minerva asks Lily while waving her wand, summoning plates of biscuits and sending the teapot around, refilling Lizzie and Remus’ cups before pouring ones for herself and Lily.
“Honestly, I’m not sure who’s more excited between Harry and James,” Lily laughs, smiling fondly at the mention of her son and husband.
“I don’t know. James seemed pretty upset last weekend when it finally hit him that Harry won’t be around every day anymore,” Lizzie recalls, picturing a teary-eyed James in Remus and Sirius’ back garden after one too many firewhiskeys.
“That was before he remembered that he could come and visit practically every night if he felt like it,” Lily states with an eye roll. “Harry’s agreed to Wednesday night dinners in my quarters, so he’ll at least see him once a week.”
Thankfully Hogwarts professors don’t need to spend every night in the castle, meaning James wouldn’t go too long without seeing his wife, and in turn, he could visit his son the few nights Lily remains at school.
“You know,” McGonagall says, inquisitively observing Lily. “We’ll be needing a seeker this year. I bet young Harry would be a right fit for the Gryffindor team.”
“Merlin, not you, too,” Lily halfheartedly groans. “He’s eleven. I swear James has Harry running drills in the garden every day he’s off. I keep reminding him first years aren’t allowed on House Quidditch teams! ”
“I’d be willing to look past the fact that he’s a first year if he’s as good as his father was at that age.” McGonagall shrugs with what Lizzie thinks might be a bit of a mischievous gleam in her eye.
“Minerva just can’t stomach the thought of Gryffindor losing to Slytherin for another year in a row,” Remus teases while nicking a biscuit from Lizzie’s plate.
“Oh, you hush, Mr Lupin,” McGonagall scolds.
“We don’t even know which house he’ll be sorted into,” Lily continues, to instantaneous laughter around the table.
“Oh, don’t act like we don’t all know what the sorting hat is going to say,” Lizzie snorts, trying to imagine young, gregarious and compassionate Harry, the perfect combination of his adoring parents, in a house other than Gryffindor.
“James made me promise to floo him the second the feast ends. How long do you reckon I can convince him that Harry is in Slytherin?” A grin scarily similar to her husband’s stretches widely across her face.
As the laughter dies, Lizzie leans over to interject, “So, Minerva, Remus tells me that Professor Binns retired. That can’t possibly be true, can it?” She’s desperate to know why in the world a ghost who, as Lizzie understands it, continued teaching long after he passed as if nothing was amiss is suddenly retiring.
“It is, actually. Apparently, Professor Binns decided rather suddenly that he desired more in his afterlife than teaching. I’m not entirely sure what his plans are, but he let Dumbledore know a couple of days ago that, effective immediately, he will no longer be a professor at Hogwarts.” The Scottish woman looks exasperated as if she has no time to try and work out what could have possibly triggered this hair-brained idea.
“Have they found a replacement?” Lily asks.
“I believe the Headmaster met with someone yesterday about the position. I haven’t heard as to whether they accepted or not, but I believe we’ll find out soon enough,” McGonagall answers, inclining her head towards the door where Dumbledore had just entered.
“How do you already know about it, then?” Lizzie asks Remus, narrowing her eyes at her coworker.
“Because -”
Before Remus can finish, another figure enters the staffroom and quickly settles down in the first empty seat nearest the door.
“No,” Lizzie whispers, aghast. “You’ve got to be joking,” She continues, glaring at Remus as if the appointment for the new History of Magic professor is somehow his fault.
“Is that Regulus?” Lily asks, peering around their table to get a good look at Sirius’ younger brother.
Lizzie turns toward the door again to confirm yes, in fact, the newest addition to the Hogwarts staff this year is none other than Regulus Black, Sirius’ younger brother.
Regulus doesn’t seem to notice the pairs of eyes trained on him, or he’s purposefully ignoring them, instead staring straight ahead at Dumbledore, waiting for the meeting to begin.
He’s seated with a picture-perfect posture any mother would be proud of, decked out in what looks to be brand-new, jet-black robes. Lizzie can’t help but watch as he raises a hand to brush through his dark, wavy hair, pushing back a couple of stray strands that have drooped onto his forehead.
He’s certainly no longer the gangly teenager Lizzie remembers. He’s filled out a bit since the last time she saw him what? Twelve years ago? But his dark eyes are as round and devastating as ever and so different to Sirius’ mischievous, stormy grey ones.
Lizzie hurriedly whips around in her seat and away from Regulus when her traitorous mind briefly offers that he looks well fit. Lizzie is usually the first to point out to her friends that she has a type, and Regulus Black, unfortunately, is it to a tee.
“Mhm,” Remus nods in confirmation to Lily’s question, smiling apologetically at Lizzie before leaning in to whisper to them. “Reg owled Sirius this morning to tell him Dumbledore offered him the position.”
“I’m sure Orion and Walburga loved to hear that,” Lily snorts.
“Ugh, this means that he’ll be with us on the first floor,” Lizzie complains, throwing her head back in a groan.
“Weren’t you both in the same year?” Lily recalls, looking to Lizzie for confirmation.
“Unfortunately,” Lizzie mumbles, defiantly folding her arms across her chest.
“You know, you’ve never told me why you hate him so much,” Remus states, eyeing his friend critically.
“Because he’s an arse - oh! Sorry, Professor.” Lizzie winces, suddenly remembering the Deputy Headmistress sat across from her.
Lizzie senses that Minerva is holding back a laugh at the young woman’s outburst, despite her best efforts to appear otherwise.
“You don’t have to like every member of staff, Miss Williams,” McGonagall impresses, removing the slight upward tick her smile had adopted at Lizzie’s swearing. “But we expect you to be cordial, especially in front of the students.”
“Yes, of course, Professor,” Lizzie agrees, feeling properly chastised. She’d hate for this news to cause any staff to see her differently. Lizzie works hard as a former student to be seen by the other professors, most of whom taught her while she was a student, as a professional. And she refuses to let Regulus Black change that.
‘But why does it have to be him?’ Lizzie whines to herself. She’s dreading spending all year across the hall from such a pompous, aristocratic, insufferable arsehole.
Godric, if there was one person on the planet who Lizzie Williams couldn’t stand, it’s Regulus Black. She hasn’t seen him in person since they left Hogwarts, only receiving the occasional bits of information about him from Sirius and Remus as they’ve become friends, and she’s been happy to keep it that way.
She’s miraculously avoided him at any of Sirius’s gatherings since the two brothers mended the gap forged during their teenage years by being sorted into different houses.
If anyone asked outright, she wasn’t purposefully avoiding him. It just lucked out that on the times he was able to attend, Lizzie was busy.
But now she’d have to spend the year across the hall, being cordial to the dickhead.
Merlin, could things get any worse?
Taking a deep breath, Lizzie straightens her back and tunes back into Dumbledore’s start-of-term speech for the professors, pushing the thought of interacting with Regulus Black again far from her mind.
📚
After their meeting, Remus walks Lizzie to the first floor. Thankfully, Regulus stayed behind to speak with Dumbledore, leaving Lizzie free to interrogate Remus on Regulus’ posting.
“Honestly, does he even have any qualifications for the role? Or did he just wave a bag of galleons under Dumbledore’s nose?” Lizzie sneers, entirely put off by the idea of being Regulus’ coworker.
Remus observes her wild hand gestures and pouting face out of the corner of his eye before responding. “You never answered my question. What did he do to make you hate him?”
“I don’t hate him. That would mean I waste a modicum of my energy thinking about him, which I don’t.” She insists, folding her arms across her chest.
They arrive outside the Muggle Studies classroom without delay since it’s only a short walk and one flight of stairs away from the staffroom. Remus stares deadpan at his friend, not believing her in the slightest.
“He was an arsehole to me in school. And a Slytherin, to boot. I just don’t like the lad, alright?” She answers, avoiding Remus’ eye and peering into her classroom.
Remus holds his hands up in surrender. “Alright. I just didn’t know you interacted with him enough to have that much of an opinion of him.”
“Well, you and I weren’t really close at Hogwarts, were we?”
Lizzie, being a year younger than Remus, never spent much time with him or his friends. Sure, they shared the same common room for six years, but the Marauders were popular. Lizzie enjoyed sticking with her close-knit group of dormmates while making it her mission to avoid the Marauders, lest she ended up the recipient of one of their infamous pranks.
Now that she and Remus work together, she surprisingly considers the four lads and Lily to be some of her closest friends.
“He’s really gotten much better over the past few years,” Remus admits. “He and Sirius have made a lot of really great strides recently. He’s even come over for dinner a few times this summer.”
“That’s nice…,” Lizzie trails off, feeling a bit guilty for immediately voicing her immense dislike for the lad. Maybe he has changed since their school years. It has been quite a long time since she’s spoken to him, and she’s grown and matured in that time, hasn’t she? It’s only likely that Regulus has, too. And this must make it seem like she thinks about him constantly when she truly doesn’t.
“You’re right,” Lizzie continues, nodding resolutely. “I should give him a chance before I go mouthing off.”
It’s hard to believe, but there was once a period in Lizzie’s life when she didn’t feel so strongly about Sirius’ younger brother. She had felt quite the opposite, in fact.
The summer following her sixth year at Hogwarts, Lizzie was given a fantastic opportunity to intern at the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.
Thankfully, there wasn’t nearly the amount of prejudice against muggle-borns as there was 50-some years ago, but the transition into the Wizarding World from the Muggle one was still challenging for muggle-borns. Lizzie was extremely grateful that Professor McGonagall placed a good word in for her with the Muggle Liaison Office, as she wasn’t privy to the connections many pureblood and half-blood witches and wizards are accustomed to having.
When Lizzie arrived at Level Three on her first day, she was surprised to find that the department had another intern working in addition to herself. Regulus Black stood tall before her, his hair hanging in gorgeous waves, perfectly framing his pale face and dark, almond eyes while looking like the textbook image of a wealthy, high-class wizard.
Regulus would also be working for DMAC that summer. While Lizzie would report to the Muggle Liaison Office and the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee, Regulus would assist the Obliviator Headquarters, the Invisibility Task Force, and the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad.
Arnold Peasegood spent the morning giving the two students a tour of the office, introducing them to the different teams, and then leaving them to their already mounting to-do lists.
Lizzie and Regulus’ desks stood in what one would classify as more of a broom cupboard than an office, but they made do as they hardly spent any time in there together.
For the first couple of weeks, she and Regulus would only see each other in passing, coming to and from their ‘office’ or in the breakroom during lunch.
With the Quidditch World Cup coming up at the end of the summer, there was a constant buzz of activity in the department. Lizzie felt like she was endlessly writing memos, refilling teacups, and dashing out into the field behind her supervisors when the time called for liaising between the other departments and the Muggles they interacted with a bit too closely for the Statute of Secrecy’s liking.
During one of those excursions, Lizzie and Regulus both joined their supervisors to deal with the obliviating of a Muggle who wandered too close to the chosen location for the quidditch match. The department had yet to finish applying all the wards and Muggle-repelling charms needed to make the site undetectable.
There wasn’t much for them to do besides observe, and Lizzie quickly found herself struggling to keep a straight face as Regulus continuously muttered about their supervisors under his breath to his fellow intern.
If someone had asked her before, she would have never said that Regulus was very pleasant, let alone funny.
Sure, Lizzie knew, objectively speaking, that Regulus was attractive. Again, he was very much her type on paper. But he was intense and never seemed to have eyes for anyone who wasn’t in his core group of Slytherin friends.
Regulus and Lizzie had shared classes since their first year of Hogwarts, but they each kept to their own cliques. There was certainly less tension between purebloods, half-bloods, and muggle-borns nowadays, but students still didn’t find themselves mixing with other houses very often.
But Regulus spent that afternoon trying his best to make Lizzie laugh, and then he surprised her even further by asking her for drinks after work. They found a booth in the back corner of the Leaky Cauldron, swapping Ministry stories over fish, chips, and shots of firewhiskey.
One evening turned into almost daily occurrences of dinner and drinks in their back booth. Night after night, the space between them diminished further and further until, before Lizzie knew it, the evenings were ending in cheeky snogging sessions, pressed against rough brick walls down dimly lit alleys.
The first time Regulus kissed her, they’d barely begun the long walk to her tube stop before he slid his warm hand in her smaller one, pulled her to a stop behind a phone booth and raised his other hand to her cheek. His dark eyes felt like they were peering into her soul when he asked in a husky tone if he could kiss her.
They even met up a few times on their days off, holding hands while shopping in Muggle London or flying out to a secluded lake Regulus found a few miles outside the city.
They shared their last Saturday after their internship ended together by the lake, soaking in the warm, end-of-summer sun with a basket of food and drinks Regulus had waiting for them under a cooling charm.
They snacked on cheese and crackers, dipped their toes in the refreshing water, and spoke reverently about their upcoming final year at Hogwarts. And when Regulus gently guided her back onto the blanket he had thoughtfully spread out, yearningly removing layers of clothing as the bees buzzed overhead, Lizzie went blissfully.
But, it all came crashing to a startling stop when Lizzie found herself in a compartment aboard the Hogwarts Express on the way back for her seventh year. She hadn’t seen Regulus on the platform or when she boarded the train, and they hadn’t spoken since that day at the lake, both taking the week leading up to September 1st to prepare for their final year.
But suddenly, Lizzie saw his lanky frame pass outside the compartment she shared with her fellow Gryffindors. When she stepped out into the hallway, she watched, horrified, as he escorted Emma Vanity, a Slytherin in their year, hand-in-hand to her compartment.
Lizzie certainly thought her imagination was playing tricks on her until Regulus stopped a few compartments later and suddenly pushed Emma against the door, wasting no time before hungrily attaching his lips to hers.
He hugged Emma’s body close, with an arm wrapped tightly around her waist, arching her back as if he was trying to devour her. Lizzie felt his phantom touch on her own waist, knowing the feeling well, having found herself in the same position countless nights this summer.
Lizzie felt as if she was side-along apparating for the first time. Nausea abruptly swept over her at the image of who she wrongly assumed was her boyfriend snogging another girl.
In a matter of seconds, she had gone from picturing a year at Regulus’ side to being tossed away. The carpet was ripped from beneath her, knocking her on her arse and back down to Earth.
She watched, transfixed, as Regulus slowly peeled himself away from Emma. He placed another, rather chaste in comparison, kiss on her lips before striding off down the train in the opposite direction of Lizzie, without sparing Emma or the Gryffindor stood shellshocked down the corridor, a parting glance.
As if under the Imperius curse, Lizzie slowly slid her compartment door open and dejectedly slumped back in her seat. Her friends Dorcas Meadowes and Emmaline Vance stared oddly at her rapid behaviour change, but she waved them off, blaming the heartache on motion sickness. She put all her energy into numbing her pain and praying to Godric himself to keep the tears at bay until she could find a moment alone.
Lizzie hadn’t mentioned to her friends in their correspondence that she’d been spending most nights with Regulus Black’s tongue down her throat, enjoying that she had this special secret she could call her own.
Lizzie had hoped to share the news with Dorcas and Emmaline once they returned to Hogwarts, maybe in their dorm after the Welcome Feast or before sneaking out to meet Regulus in a deserted corridor or broom cupboard.
But that never happened, so Lizzie kept her summer fling with Slytherin’s golden boy to herself, braving the castle hallways and pretending the boy didn’t exist when they crossed paths.
Regulus had never clarified the status of their ‘relationship,’ and maybe Lizzie was too naive to assume that a summer spent attached at the hip would mean she would return to Hogwarts with a boyfriend. But she doesn’t think she was too bang out of order for that assumption.
But Regulus swiftly destroyed any hopes of spending her final year at Hogwarts by his side. And she refused to let him think he had any power over her. So Lizzie pushed her feelings down as deep as she could and moved on with her life.
In turn, 30-year-old Lizzie, who has completely found closure over her first major heartbreak, has absolutely no desire to be Regulus Black’s coworker again.
It’s not as if she still thinks of him or that he was her only relationship. She’s dated plenty since then. Nothing’s been very long-term, and she hasn’t found any nice lad to bring home to the family, but she hasn’t been exactly celibate the past 13 years.
But still, Lizzie thinks it’ll be a cold day in hell before she trusts Regulus again.
Pushing away these feelings she hasn’t dug up in quite a few years, Lizzie intends to change the subject away from her ex, if he’s even classified as that, and ask Remus about his upcoming plans for his Defence students.
“Anyway, have you made any changes to your lesson plans for the year?”
“I have, yeah. I’m gonna teach my seventh-years how to produce a Patronus.” Remus smiles, thinking of his students. He truly is a marvellous teacher.
“Oh, wow. You don’t think that’ll be too advanced?”
“Eh, hard to tell. I had a couple of students last year ask me about it, and Aurors have started using them to send messages. I know a few students interested in going out for the program, so it could be helpful to introduce the concept to them. I’m sure not all of them will master it, but it’s good to challenge them. Keep them engaged.”
“Yeah, it took me ages. But to use it to communicate? You’ll have to teach me that,” She teases, bumping shoulders with him.
Lizzie reaches over to open her classroom door, inviting Remus in and plopping herself down on the top of her desk.
“What about you?” He asks, leaning back against one of the student tables across her. “Anything new you’ve added over the summer?”
“I bought a Game Boy! Not sure if it’ll work here, but I thought it would be nice for some of the students who have never seen a gaming system to use a handheld one.”
“Brilliant! The muggle-borns will love that. And if it’s giving you trouble, I might be able to tweak it. I was able to get my Walkman working here.”
“Thanks! I’ll let you know. But other than that, I’m keeping everything the same as last year. The students seemed to really benefit from the changes I made before, so I don’t think I need to reinvent the wheel too much.”
Suddenly, Lizzie hears footsteps outside her classroom. Before she can prepare herself, a dark head of hair pops out from around the corner, and Regulus Black appears in her doorway. He raises an arm and knocks politely on her door before stepping past the threshold to greet them.
“Remus,” Regulus greets, standing tall and sticking a hand out to formally shake his brother-in-law’s hand.
“Hey, Reg,” Remus greets warmly, grasping Regulus’ hand and pulling him in for a quick hug, genially patting him on the back. “Congrats on the position. We’re excited to have you.”
“Thanks,” Regulus offers him a slight smile before directing his attention to Lizzie. The warmth unmistakably present in his eyes while greeting Remus has glazed over to aloof indifference when he makes eye contact with Lizzie. She feels insignificant under his detached gaze, and it takes quite a lot of effort for her to muster up a small smile.
“Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Regulus Black, the new History of Magic professor.”
Lizzie’s smile cleanly wipes off her face, and she stares agape at Regulus’ hand hovering awkwardly in front of her. Her eyes trail up his arm to the ridiculously handsome body it’s attached to, and she barely refrains from blurting, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I know?” Lizzie hates the shrill, high pitch her voice takes on, but she is utterly astounded that Regulus is pretending like he doesn’t remember her. There is no way Lizzie believes that he has forgotten who she is.
She immediately takes back any promises she made to herself to give him the benefit of the doubt. “We were in the same year at Hogwarts.” She continues dumbfoundedly, deciding she has no desire to mention their internship, let alone recall that they’ve literally slept together .
“Oh,” Regulus answers, not even having the decency to look embarrassed that he’s been caught out. It’s as if he was expecting Lizzie to go along with his stupid attempt to brush her off. He drops his hand and places them both deep into the pockets of his robes.
Honestly, what in the hell is he playing at here? Has he lost the plot, or is he just being a dick?
Before he can make her even angrier by asking for her name, Remus provides it for them.
“This is Professor Williams,” He introduces, gesturing unnecessarily to where Lizzie’s perched atop her desk. “She’s the Muggle Studies professor.”
“Williams?” Regulus repeats, scrunching his face like he’s attempting to place where he knows that name. “Elizabeth, right?”
“Mhm,” Lizzie nods, taking a deep, calming breath before adding, “I go by Lizzie.”
“Lizzie,” He says softly, nodding, and it takes all of Lizzie’s strength not to shiver at the reminder of how similar it sounds to how he breathed her name in her ear that summer. “Good to see you again.”
When he seems to realise Lizzie has no response to this, he adds, “Looks like the three of us will be down the hall from each other.”
The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom is technically around the corner from Regulus and Lizzie’s rooms, but they’re the only ones with classrooms on the first floor. Professor Binns previously hadn’t socialised much with the other staff, so Lizzie and Remus stuck together. They watch classrooms for each other if needed, and they often have breaks and do their patrols together.
And now, with Regulus as an addition, Lizzie doesn’t need Professor Trelawney to tell her that she’ll probably be seeing a lot more of the History of Magic professor this year.
Remus nods at Regulus’ statement and advises him to reach out should he need help.
“I should probably finish setting up my classroom and office before the Welcome Feast tonight,” Remus continues, waving to Regulus and Lizzie before heading off down the corridor to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.
“Well,” Regulus says in the direction of Remus’ retreating figure, posture stiff and awkward now that Remus has left. “I’ll see you around, Professor Williams.” Without giving her so much as a nod of acknowledgement, Regulus strides out of Lizzie’s classroom as quickly as he came.