Chapter Text
Christmas came to Hogwarts castle in 1976 with a rapidity that Regulus felt was quite indecent. It was his second year of staying in the castle rather than going home for the holidays, though he’d been cautious that year about the decision. After all, it’d only been that summer that Sirius had run away from home, and Regulus didn’t want it to seem to his parents that he was going the same way as his brother. Yet his brother’s abandonment hadn’t given Regulus any better feeling at the thought of spending the holiday at home, as the defiance and anger—mixed with a hurt Regulus couldn’t deny—that Regulus felt whenever he thought of Sirius these days hadn’t translated to a greater love of the Black house or of his parents, whom it seemed barely tolerated him these days.
That was why it hadn’t taken too much convincing on the part of Anna Fawley, his fellow Slytherin fourth year, to stay for the holidays with her, as her parents were taking a trip that she’d declined to join them for. They’d struck up an unlikely friendship that term, one which Regulus had been slightly reluctant to enter into at first, given the Fawley family’s reputation as blood traitors, which his parents would surely not approve of. It’d started, however, with them being seated next to one another in Potions, and…well, soon enough, Regulus had had no other option for friends.
Of course rumor had flown around the school once they’d discovered that Sirius, notorious Gryffindor troublemaker and black sheep of his pureblood family, had been disowned over the summer. Regulus had tried hard to keep the news from reaching students’ ears, but obviously, his brother had had no qualms announcing it far and wide, and when it reached Slytherin house, Regulus had borne the brunt of it, as he always did.
No one listened to Regulus’ version of events this time, either. No one let him distance himself. All of them wanted the story, but few wanted something true; they preferred the lascivious details that they added on for their own benefit. The rumors only grew in intensity after Sirius caused another stir by shacking up with Marlene McKinnon, one of his best friends in Gryffindor, who belonged to her own well-known blood traitor family.
“I heard that Sirius smuggled her into his room over the summer and his mum walked in on them shagging,” a fifth-year whispered one day, smirking and casting a glance at Regulus out of the corner of her eye to see his reaction.
“Maybe McKinnon got knocked up and the Black family took care of it because they couldn’t stand another of them having a child with a blood traitor or Mudblood,” the girl’s friend replied, and both girls erupted into giggles.
Once people got tired of those rumors, however, they became even more vicious.
“You actually believe the thing about him and McKinnon?” Amycus Carrow muttered to John Selwyn in Potions one day in November, his eyes boring a hole into the back of Regulus’ head, so much so that Regulus imagined he could feel the heat of them. “I heard it’s just a cover. His family really threw him out because he’s a poof. I heard Snape say that it’s really him and Lupin who are shagging.”
John snickered loudly, and Regulus’ jaw tightened at the sound. Next to him, Anna shifted in her seat to glare back at the boys, and before Regulus even comprehended what she was doing, she’d snapped at them.
“Just admit you’re jealous and move on, Carrow,” she said. “No one will ever be starting any rumors about your lack of a sex life, as I’m not sure you’ll find someone who’d touch you without a ten-foot pole.”
Regulus stared at Anna with disbelief, his cheeks flaming at her words and a thrill of fear and exhilaration coursing through him all the same. She didn’t bother to wait for Amycus’ response before whipping her head back around to her potion, leaving everyone in the vicinity in shock and Amycus no doubt fuming.
“Blood traitor bitch,” Regulus heard Amycus mutter, but Anna either didn’t hear his words or just decided to ignore them.
After class that day, Regulus stopped her in the corridor. “You didn’t have to say that,” he told her, his eyes scanning over her face, feeling as if he’d never looked at her properly before.
Anna narrowed her strange, dark blue eyes at him for a moment before replying.
“A thank you would’ve sufficed,” she said, the hint of a rebuke in her voice.
Regulus’ eyebrows furrowed for a moment, frowning at her in confusion. He wasn’t sure why she’d said what she had, and if she’d done it for him or just because Amycus was a terrible person who she despised as much as everyone else. Still, a part of him was grateful.
“Thank you,” he said finally, reluctantly, and her eyebrows shot up in surprise, as though she hadn’t expected that response at all.
“You’re welcome,” she said, giving him a curious once over.
With that, they turned in silence and walked to lunch together, and from that moment on, they struck up their unlikely friendship.
So when Anna threw his hangings open and leapt onto Regulus’ bed to wake him up on the morning of Christmas Day, Regulus wasn’t altogether surprised, but this didn’t stop him from jerking out of sleep with a short yell, which he cut off hastily as soon as he realized who it was.
“Shit, sorry,” Anna said, looking concerned as her eyes flitted over Regulus’ sweaty face and the way his chest was still rising and falling rapidly as he tried to calm his panic. “Were you having a bad dream?”
Regulus took another couple of deep breaths before answering her, his eyes flitting around the room as he regained his bearings. He felt a little guilty, and a little sheepish. The truth was that yes, he had been having a bad dream, the same bad dream that always plagued him around the holidays, which was full of red light and screams and broken glass on the floor. At fifteen, he’d hoped that he would’ve grown out of the nightmare by then, but no such luck.
“No, I’m fine,” he lied to her, ignoring the way her eyebrows shot up immediately in disbelief, and instead sitting up, trying to regain his grip on reality. For a moment he was confused, then he realized what she was doing there.
“Happy Christmas,” he said, trying to give her a convincing smile which she returned after a moment, obviously coming to the conclusion that he wouldn’t want to talk about whatever had made him look so panicked when she’d woken him.
“Happy Christmas, Regulus,” she said, her smile broadening until it seemed to light up her whole face. She leaned forward more cautiously this time, and Regulus let her wrap him in a hug, trying to return it as best he could.
When she drew back, Anna beamed at him. Regulus smiled back, feeling a burst of warmth go through him. He’d been grateful for Anna the past month and a half, feeling as though he was developing something he’d never truly had before: a real friend. Sometimes he chafed under the feeling, finding it strange and off-putting to have someone who wasn’t his family care about him, but mostly, it was rather nice. He knew that in return, Anna was more grateful for him than she’d say out loud, not having had any friends to speak of in her house since their first year.
“Come on, get dressed,” Anna said, getting off his bed and bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. “We can go to breakfast, and I’ll give you one of your presents.”
“One of my presents?” Regulus asked, raising his eyebrows warily at her.
While he was a little glad that Anna had been teasing what she’d gotten him for Christmas for weeks, as it was only when she’d mentioned it that he’d realized that he should be getting her something, too, Regulus was also not entirely comfortable with the whole idea of gift-giving or receiving. It’d never been a tradition in the Black household, and now Anna was saying that she’d gotten him more than one thing? How was he meant to deal with that?
Anna merely giggled at his dubious expression, however, and skipped out of the dormitory, calling over her shoulder: “Ten minutes! You’re going to have fun today, Regulus Black, whether you like it or not!”
Regulus snorted out a slight laugh as she disappeared and shook his head, then swung his legs out of bed and got to his feet, heading towards the loo. He was going to take his time getting ready, and he didn’t care what Anna had to say about it.
....
Twenty minutes later, Regulus descended the stairs to the Slytherin dormitory, not at all surprised by the impatient look Anna fixed him with when she spotted him from her spot leaning against the couch, arms crossed over her chest.
“You took ages,” she complained, standing straight and looking him over as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
Regulus merely shrugged unapologetically. “I needed to shower,” he said. “Ready?”
“You might want another layer,” Anna said instead of replying to his question.
Regulus raised his eyebrows and looked down at the thick, dark green jumper he was sporting at the moment. He looked back up at her with narrowed eyes.
“Why?” he asked suspiciously.
“Because it’s snowing outside,” Anna said, giving him an innocent smile.
“But we’re not going outside,” Regulus said slowly, still giving her the same suspicious, narrowed-eyed look.
Anna’s smile widened. “It’s your choice—change now or be cold later,” she declared.
Regulus sighed and turned on his heel, walking back up the dormitory stairs to grab a coat and a pair of gloves, knowing that there was absolutely no point in arguing with her. He’d dig his heels in later once she revealed whatever plan she’d made.
When he descended again, Anna looked satisfied, and looped her arm around his, leading him out the dormitory door into the castle beyond it. They mounted the stairs of the dungeons towards the Great Hall above, all the while Anna chattering about how exciting it was to be practically the only ones there.
“I mean, I know I’ve never stayed here for the holidays before, but is it usually this empty?” she asked Regulus. “I think Snape stayed behind, but I’m not sure there’s anyone left in Slytherin, and I haven’t even spotted him around yet, thank goodness.”
Regulus shrugged. “I think it’s usually about this empty,” he said. “Most people want to go home.”
He felt a slight pang at those words, something like guilt. He didn’t want to go home. He didn’t say it, but it was hanging in the air between him and Anna—the reason it had taken so little persuading on her part to get him to stay behind with her. Truly, Regulus probably would’ve stayed anyway, he’d mostly pretended to put up a fight so he wouldn’t seem so pathetic.
“It’s kind of great to have the castle all to ourselves, though,” Anna commented as they stepped up onto the landing to the main part of the castle, leaving the dungeons, and walked towards the doors of the Great Hall.
When they entered, Regulus’ eyes automatically flicked over the tables, lingering on the Gryffindor table for a fraction of a second longer than the rest, but it was empty. It was stupid, really, Regulus thought as he let Anna steer him towards the Slytherin table. He knew that Sirius must’ve gone to his friend James Potter’s house, as he always did. Regulus guessed that that was where he’d gone after he’d run away from home, too. On the other hand, Regulus supposed that Sirius could have stayed with Andromeda, their cousin, or even their uncle Alphard, who’d always seemed to have a soft spot for Sirius, despite the fact that both brothers had been forbidden to speak with him alone by their mother. Sirius had had many more places to go than Regulus would’ve if the situation had been reversed.
Shaking the thoughts from his mind, Regulus sat down at the Slytherin table across from Anna, facing away from the door and the rest of the house tables to resist getting lost in thought while staring at the Gryffindor one. As if waiting for someone to fill the empty table, food appeared in front of them both, and Regulus began to serve himself porridge, as he always did. One spoonful of sugar, some cinnamon, a splash of vanilla and cream—
“It’s Christmas morning, you’re really not going to change it up even today?” Anna teased, watching as Regulus meticulously mixed in the ingredients across the table.
Regulus shot her an aggrieved look. “No,” he replied, not bothering to qualify the statement.
This had been a point of interest and slight amusement for Anna ever since the beginning of their tentative friendship, and it’d taken her two whole weeks of watching him add the same things to his porridge every day in bemused silence before she asked if he ever ate anything different for breakfast, to which he’d replied with the same, simple answer: no. She’d only smiled and shook her head at the answer, looking at him with the same interest, as if he was a puzzle she’d yet to solve.
They ate in silence for a while, Regulus sipping at his tea between mouthfuls of porridge, but once Anna had pushed back her plate and downed her hot chocolate, she pulled out a rectangular, colorfully wrapped package from the inner pocket of her coat and set it on the table in front of her. Regulus looked at it cautiously as he finished the last few bites of his porridge, then pushed his bowl away, too. Putting his hand into the pocket of his own coat, he pulled out the box he’d carefully wrapped the previous morning, too, in silver, a length of string tied around it. He’d transfigured the wrapping paper and string, but the subject had never been his strong suit, so the string was all he’d gotten in his efforts to create a ribbon from a strand of floss.
Regulus hesitated for a moment, then shoved the box towards her. “This is for you,” he said unnecessarily. “If it’s rubbish, tell me so, because I’m not used to getting gifts for people.”
Anna smiled and pushed her own colorfully wrapped box across the table to him. “Well, if mine’s rubbish, I expect you to pretend to like it anyway,” she joked.
Regulus grinned, and as Anna began to untie the clumsy string-bow on her box, Regulus unwrapped the brightly-colored paper with care. It fell away to reveal a book, which Regulus had to turn over to reveal the title: Quidditch Through the Ages. He traced the embossed Snitch on the cover, then glanced up to Anna, who had paused in her unwrapping for a moment to take in his expression.
“I’ve seen that Snitch you keep in your room,” she said by way of explanation. “Even though you never talk much about Quidditch, I thought you might like this.”
Regulus, though taken aback by her, gave her a small smile. “Thank you,” he said. “Does this mean you’re trying to recruit me to the Slytherin Quidditch team?” Anna had been a Chaser on the team since the previous year.
Anna smirked. “Well, I’m not not trying to recruit you,” she joked. “I remember you being a good flier from lessons in first year.”
Regulus snorted and rolled his eyes. The truth was that he’d never flown much—never had much chance to, growing up in London. He’d done so a few times at his cousins’ house in the country, but Sirius had always been more interested in Quidditch than him. Still, he kept the Snitch that Sirius had given him for Christmas when Regulus had been eleven, which, according to Sirius, had been stolen by Marlene McKinnon after one of the Quidditch matches that year. He didn’t even know why. Perhaps it was something he could try, however. Quidditch didn’t belong to Sirius—perhaps Regulus could be good at it, too.
“I’ll consider it,” Regulus conceded, to which Anna looked delighted.
“Go on, finish opening yours,” Regulus prompted her, feeling his heart beginning to beat a little faster in his nervousness.
Anna seemed to have forgotten about the package in her hands, but she returned to it and finished opening it in a second, holding up a small glass orb in her hands. Her eyes widened as she took it in.
“It’s a moving model of the solar system,” Regulus explained, watching a little anxiously as she examined it from side to side. “It has the planets, and some of the stars, too, though it’s a little hard to distinguish each constellation. I know you like Defense Against the Dark Arts, but you always seem happiest in Astronomy, so—”
Anna interrupted him by nearly throwing herself across the table to pull him into a hug. Regulus froze for a moment, startled, then returned it as best as he could with the table between them.
“I love it,” Anna enthused after she pulled away, sitting back down and beaming at him across the table. “Really, this is beautiful, Regulus. Thank you.”
“It’s no problem,” Regulus said awkwardly, smoothing his hair back into place where her embrace had ruffled it.
Anna didn’t dignify that statement with a response, and a moment later, she glanced over Regulus’ shoulder, her eyes brightening. He didn’t have time to look around before she was waving to whoever she’d seen enter the Great Hall.
“Stephen, finally! Come join us!”
Regulus tensed slightly in his seat. Anna hadn’t mentioned any of her other friends staying for the holidays, but he knew who Stephen must be: Stephen Macmillan, a Ravenclaw boy in their year whom Anna often chatted with in Charms, the only lesson the fourth-year Ravenclaws and Slytherins shared. He could picture him in his mind’s eye: sandy hair, brown eyes, only an inch or so taller than Regulus, with a slightly crooked smile and a small scar above his lip. Sometimes, when Regulus’ mind had drifted from the lesson in Charms class, he’d studied the back of the sandy-haired head in the row in front of him, the slope of his shoulders, and the way he’d thrown back his head and laughed one day when his partner had accidentally sent their cushion flying into the side of Alecto Carrow’s head while practicing the Banishing Charm. Still, Regulus had never spoken to him.
“Good morning to you, too, Anna,” Stephen replied in his familiar, West Country-accented voice. “Did you really expect me to get up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning?”
The bench shifted slightly as the boy sat down next to Regulus, but when Regulus glanced over at him, he was too busy reaching across the table to ruffle Anna’s hair to look back at him. Anna screeched in protest and batted him away.
“Happy Christmas, you heathen,” she said, patting her hair back into place.
“Happy Christmas,” Stephen replied, grinning at her before pulling a platter of eggs towards him and beginning to serve himself. As he started to eat, he let out a small snort, as if laughing at a private joke.
“So you do have the same food at the Slytherin table,” he remarked. “I always thought it might be different somehow. Poisoned, maybe.”
As he said it, he glanced over at Regulus and gave him a grin, as if inviting him into the joke, though Regulus was a little too startled at the casual familiarity of the gesture to grin back.
“There’s still time for you to find out,” Anna humphed, and Stephen turned away from Regulus to retort back.
....
Half an hour later, Regulus found himself out on the grounds, shivering slightly despite his jumper and coat, partly due to the snowball that had just hit him squarely in the chest, and glaring askance at Anna, who was laughing at him.
“What did you think I meant when I said we’d be going out on the grounds?” she asked. “Come on, Regulus, get in the Christmas spirit!”
Regulus wanted it noted that he’d never been accused of ruining the Christmas spirit before, but he’d also never had a Christmas quite like the one Anna was clearly attempting to give him that year. It was hard to ruin the Christmas spirit when there was none in the first place.
“I didn’t agree to any of this,” he replied, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You should’ve known what you were getting into when you let Anna convince you to stay here for the holidays,” Stephen said cheerfully as he packed a snowball together in his mittened hands, Anna already forming another of her own, glancing up at Stephen to track his movements as he did so.
“You should’ve seen her when we were kids—she’d make me stay out in the snow with her until my lips were turning blue,” he said.
“The annual snowball fight is serious business,” Anna declared. “And you always lose!”
“We’ll see about that,” Stephen said with concentration, flashing her a wicked smile.
He cast Regulus an appraising look. “What do you think—be on my team?”
Anna squawked in protest. “That’s cheating!”
Regulus snorted out a laugh and shook his head at the pair of them, a familiar spirit of competition brewing in him from all the games he’d ever played with Sirius. “I’m not on anyone’s team—I’m going to beat both of you.”
Anna let out a dubious laugh, but Stephen just grinned at him.
“Better get a move on, then!” he said.
....
They spent hours out on the grounds, and although Regulus had the initial disadvantage of never having so much as made a snowball before, he figured out quickly that it wasn’t hard. By the end, all of them had pretty much soaked through their clothes with melted snow, and they declared a tie rather than freeze to death, trudging back up to the castle to get warm.
Christmas dinner was a similarly small affair as breakfast, with the difference that Professor Dumbledore had gathered them all at a large table rather than using the house tables since there were fewer than a dozen students left. Regulus sat between Anna and Stephen and was particularly conscious of the sandy-haired boy while he ate, especially when he leant towards to speak across him to Anna, making a witty comment under his breath that made her snort into her mashed potatoes.
After dinner, Anna led both Regulus and Stephen back to the Slytherin common room, Stephen remarking along the way at how utterly depressing it must be to live under the school in a way that seemed fine-tuned to annoy Anna rather than anything else. She merely ignored him, however, and once she led them into the common room, she hurried up the stairs, leaving Regulus to stare awkwardly around the room, not sure what to say to the other boy. His eyes landed on a sprig of mistletoe that seemed to be drifting leisurely around the common room ceiling of its own accord and made a mental note to avoid it.
“So…” Stephen said, throwing himself down on the couch and looking up at Regulus curiously, his head tilted slightly to one side. “Why didn’t you go home to your family for the holidays?”
Regulus’ shoulders tensed at the words slightly at the words, and he went immediately on the defensive. “Why do you want to know?”
Stephen shrugged casually. “I’m just curious,” he said. “Your brother ran away from home, didn’t he?”
“Where’d you hear that?” he asked, slightly taken aback by the statement’s truth. “Most of Hogwarts seems convinced that my parents kicked him out for one reason or another.”
“A sixth year in my house said that she’d heard it straight from James Potter that Sirius ran away from home,” Stephen replied. “Also, I heard from Anna that that’s what you told her, so I figured it was the truth.”
“Stephen, don’t be an arse,” Anna said from the stairs, having returned from wherever she’d disappeared off to.
When Regulus looked up at her, she was frowning down at her friend. Whether it was for bringing up the subject in the first place or revealing that Anna had passed along Regulus’ confidence, he didn’t know. The other thing he noticed a moment later was that she was holding a bottle filled with amber liquid, which sloshed around gently as she descended the remaining stairs.
“I’m not being an arse, I’m just asking a question,” Stephen defended. He turned back to Regulus. “I was just wondering whether you stayed here because don’t like your family, either.”
Regulus bristled at the implication. “I don’t hate my family,” he said. “Just because I don’t spend the holidays with them doesn’t mean I hate them.”
“Okay, sorry,” Stephen said, putting his hands up in surrender. “So, you’re on board with all the blood status stuff, then?”
Regulus hesitated, looking at the boy with slightly narrowed eyes, not sure exactly what to make of him. Before that day, Regulus had never been under the impression that Stephen really paid attention to him before, but clearly, if he’d asked Anna about what Regulus had said about Sirius, that impression might’ve been false. Still, it was a quite unfamiliar, uncomfortable prickling sensation to have him studying Regulus with those discerning brown eyes.
“I don’t know,” Regulus replied finally, crossing his arms over his chest protectively, his eyes flitting away before flicking back again to meet Stephen’s. “That’s what I was raised with.”
The corner of Stephen’s mouth curved upward in what looked like a slightly mocking smile. “So you believe what people tell you to believe?” he asked.
Regulus furrowed his brow in a glare at the other boy, though internally he was contemplating the truth of his statement. “No,” he replied, a note of defiance in his voice.
“Okay,” Stephen said, his smile growing a little, though Regulus wasn’t sure if it was mocking anymore, or just amused, like Regulus was entertaining him in some way.
“O- kay,” Anna interjected, clearly trying to break the tension as she moved in front of Regulus to take a seat on the couch with Stephen, gesturing for Regulus to sit down next to her. “New subject, please—Who wants some of this?”
She brandished the bottle, making the amber liquid slosh still more vigorously, and Regulus, focusing his full attention on it, realized what it was at last.
“How did you get firewhiskey?” he demanded.
“My older cousin, Amelia, sent it to me,” Anna said with a wicked smile. “She said that if I’m at Hogwarts with friends, I might as well have some fun.”
“That sounds like Amelia,” Stephen said, laughing and grabbing the bottle from Anna’s hands, uncorking it, and taking a swift swig. He screwed up his whole face as he swallowed, then mimed retching before handing it back to Anna, who was laughing at him.
Anna had a similar reaction to her first sip of alcohol and then held it out for Regulus questioningly. Regulus deliberated for a moment, then took it and took a sip himself. It burned a bit as it went down, but he’d expected that, and swallowed it without comment.
Stephen whistled, seemingly impressed at Regulus’ nonchalance, and Regulus, feeling emboldened by the reaction, hid a smirk by taking another sip.
“Merlin, don’t get ahead of us, now!” Anna exclaimed, taking the bottle back from Regulus, taking another careful sip, and shuddering before handing it off to Stephen.
“Is this not the first time you’ve had firewhiskey?” Stephen asked, eyeing Regulus curiously.
Regulus laughed and shook his head. “No, once when I was nine—“
“Excuse me, nine?!” Anna demanded, sitting up straight suddenly to stare at Regulus with wide eyes. “You had firewhiskey when you were nine?”
Regulus shrugged. “Sirius and I got into our father’s liquor cabinet. It was his eleventh birthday, and we got completely drunk just to see how it was. It was definitely not worth it.”
“Did you feel awful afterward?” Anna asked, sounding both amused and sympathetic.
Regulus snorted out a laugh. “Well, yes, but our father also found out. That part was definitely worse.”
He reached out for the bottle again, Stephen handing it off to him silently. After Regulus took another sip, he glanced back at Anna and Stephen to find that they were both staring at him with something that looked an awful lot like pity in their eyes. When he met their gazes, however, they quickly tried to look casual.
Regulus searched around for something to change the subject, and settled on the question he’d been wondering about since the snowball fight: “So, how long have you two known each other?”
“Since we were nine,” Stephen replied, his tone light in a way that made Regulus wonder whether it was forced. “That’s when Anna’s family moved to Mould-on-the-Wold, where I live.”
“My dad moved us around a lot for his research when I was a kid,” Anna explained. “Mould-on-the-Wold was our last stop after living in Edinburgh for a year before that.”
“What’s it like there?” Regulus asked them. He’d never been to a wizarding village before—only to his cousins’ country house—but he knew that Mould-on-the-Wold was one of those places where many wizards lived alongside Muggles, unbeknownst to them.
“It’s alright,” Stephen replied. “Kind of small and quiet, but I suppose it’s nice to live around other witches and wizards. Anna and I even went to primary school together for a few years.”
“He was the worst classmate in the world back then,” Anna lamented to Regulus. “Always asking off-topic questions that confused the teacher and hovering pencils and things even though we were surrounded by Muggles.”
Stephen laughed. “And yet you still hang around me,” he teased her, prodding her with his elbow.
“Unfortunately,” Anna shot back, a smile on her face.
Regulus was quiet for a moment, taking in the information. He didn’t want to voice his surprise for fear of being seen as ignorant, but he couldn’t help but be awed at the idea that they’d attended a real school before Hogwarts, and a school with Muggles no less. Regulus had had tutors and had always assumed that other wizarding children were similarly taught to do things like read and write at home before Hogwarts, but perhaps he shouldn’t have been so certain. Instead of voicing any of this, he asked another, only slightly related question.
“So why didn’t you go home for the holidays?” he directed at Stephen.
“My family’s really big,” Stephen replied easily, shrugging and slinging an arm over the side of the couch. “I have two older brothers who’ve graduated Hogwarts and a younger sister in her second year, plus a ton of extended family who always come over for the holidays, so things get a bit hectic. When Anna told me she was staying here this year rather than going on a trip with her parents, I thought it might be a nice change of pace.”
“Your mum had words with my dad about it,” Anna giggled. “She was very disappointed that you weren’t going home, and blamed me—and by extension him—for it.”
Stephen smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I could tell she was miffed when I told her,” he admitted. “I promised to go home for the Easter holidays to make it up to her.”
Anna laughed at his expense, then hiccuped loudly, which made both Regulus and Stephen begin to laugh at her instead. It wasn’t like the two of them were unaffected, either, however, as the more time went on, the more flushed Regulus’ cheeks got, the more he laughed, and the more Stephen seemed to be looking over at him, but maybe that was also the drink making Regulus think so. At one point, Severus Snape entered the common room, cast the three a disgusted look, and then disappeared up the stairs to his dormitory. The three fourth-years glanced at one another in silence for a moment as his footsteps faded, then they all began to laugh again, Regulus clutching his ribs as they began to ache, but in the best way.
When Regulus started to slur his words slightly, which made his Queen’s English sound so comical that Anna was stifling her giggles at every word, Stephen grinned and corked the bottle of firewhiskey, officially cutting them all off. Anna pouted and called him a spoilsport, but Regulus knew it was for the best—they’d probably regret how much they’d already drank in the morning anyway.
One of them—Regulus wasn’t even sure who—had the good idea to drink water, and Anna trotted up to her dorm room to get some of the Christmas cookies her grandmother had sent her, which they shared between them. Regulus bit into the colorfully frosted cookie with wonder, much to the delight of Anna, who’d coaxed him into admitting that he’d never had one before.
“What were your Christmases like as a kid if you didn’t even have sugar cookies?” she demanded, aghast.
Regulus, far past the point of feeling sensitive about his lack of small childhood joys at that point in the evening, replied: “We just had dinner with our family on Christmas Day, not much else.”
“No Christmas tree?” Anna asked.
Regulus shook his head.
“Decorations?” Stephen asked. “Gifts?”
Regulus shook his head again.
“What about Christmas music?” Anna asked.
Regulus tilted his head in confusion. “Christmas music?”
Anna turned to Stephen with such an exaggerated look of dismay on her face that Regulus began to laugh at her. Anna was not deterred, however, and took it upon herself to begin to sing verses of her favorite Christmas songs, with many gaps with forgotten lyrics in her inebriated state. Stephen looked highly amused, joining in at some points, but mostly just laughing along with Regulus to her renditions.
It was past eleven o’clock when they all began to sober up and Stephen admitted that he should probably get back to the Ravenclaw common room.
“I doubt Filch takes even the holidays off,” he remarked. “And I have a feeling that the later I get caught out, the worse the punishment will be. If it’s after midnight, he might hang me upside down in the dungeons by my toes until the New Year.”
“That’s probably true,” Anna admitted. “Sorry, I haven’t been thinking about the time. You could always sleep here if you wanted, there are plenty of empty beds in the boys’ dormitory.”
Stephen glanced at Regulus with an amused look that probably had something to do with Anna volunteering Regulus’ dorm room without consulting him and was probably exacerbated by the wide-eyed expression on Regulus’ face at the statement.
“Nah, I don’t really want to sleep in any of your housemates’ beds, no offense,” he said.
Anna snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, I wouldn’t either,” she conceded. “You should get going, then, like you said. I don’t want to be responsible for you getting detention. What would your mum say then?”
“Fair enough,” Stephen said, smiling and enveloping her in a hug. “Happy Christmas, Anna.”
“Happy Christmas, Stephen,” she said, returning his hug with affection.
Once they released one another, Anna got to her feet and swayed slightly before she steadied herself and set off towards the stairs. “I’m going to the loo,” she declared. She shot a look back at Regulus and said: “Make sure he leaves!”
Stephen laughed and shook his head as she disappeared up the stairs, then got to his feet, Regulus following him to the portrait hole.
“Thanks for letting me occupy your common room,” Stephen said to Regulus as they stood facing each other in front of the portrait hole. “It’s surprisingly not as creepy as I thought it’d be, and tonight was pretty great.”
“Of course,” Regulus said. “Thank you for letting me tag along with you and Anna today, with your Christmas traditions and things.”
Stephen tilted his head in slight confusion at the statement. “I think Anna wanted you here more than me, quite honestly,” he said. “And I didn’t just stay here to spend time with her, you know. I thought it sounded fun when she told me you’d be staying, too.”
“Oh,” Regulus replied, unsure what else to say at the statement. “Okay.”
Regulus noticed that Stephen’s cheeks were a little flushed, and wondered whether that was because of the firewhiskey, though he didn’t think he’d noticed it before. There was a moment of silence, then Regulus, feeling supremely awkward, gestured to the portrait hole.
“Well, you’d better get going, I suppose.”
Stephen let out a quiet laugh. “Yeah, before Anna comes back down and shoves me out herself.”
Regulus nodded, avoiding his gaze, but when the Ravenclaw boy didn’t make a move to leave, he looked back up to him, his brows furrowed in confusion. Stephen had an odd look on his face, and his cheeks were still more flushed than before.
“You’re not leaving,” Regulus said, internally wincing at the bluntness of the comment, which had no doubt sounded rude. Clearly, the firewhiskey was still affecting him.
“Yeah, unfortunately, I’m a little stuck at the moment,” Stephen said, glancing upwards with a sheepish look on his face.
Regulus followed his gaze to find a leafy green plant with white berries floating above their heads, and he swore at the realization of what it was. Because what other response was there to discovering that the mistletoe he’d spotted earlier was floating over their heads, and, no less, that it was the kind that was enchanted to not let a pair move before they’d kissed? Regulus hadn’t noticed it over the doorway before, but truth be told, he’d forgotten about it since they’d begun to drink.
Stephen raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching. “Merlin, Black, no need to get too excited,” he deadpanned.
Regulus’ cheeks filled with warmth, his eyes flicking to Stephen’s amused face and away again, not sure what to say or do. “I didn’t mean—”
“Relax,” Stephen said, smiling. “I was only joking.”
Regulus met his eyes briefly again, the color still not fading from his cheeks, and gave a bashful nod. Now, for the first time, he registered how close they had been standing, even before the discovery of the mistletoe. Regulus’ eyes focused on the tiny white scar above Stephen’s lip for a moment before he tore them away, looking back up to meet Stephen’s eyes. They had a similar look in them as they had before, like he was studying Regulus, curious and also faintly amused by him.
“What?” Regulus asked, searching Stephen’s eyes for an answer to why he was looking at him with that expression.
“What?” Stephen returned, raising his eyebrows at Regulus in equal question.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Regulus asked, flushing again and looking down, away from Stephen’s persistent gaze on him.
“I suppose…” Stephen began contemplatively. “I’m just trying to figure out if you’ll curse me if I try to kiss you.”
Regulus looked back up in surprise to meet Stephen’s gaze. “I won’t,” he replied, his brow furrowing slightly in confusion. “How else are we going to get out of here?”
Stephen continued to look at Regulus for another silent moment, the ghost of a smile on his face. “Yeah, that,” he said, sounding distracted, then his gaze flicked unmistakably to Regulus’ lips. His tongue darted out to wet his own lips, a gesture that made Regulus automatically look at them, too, and then, quicker than Regulus had anticipated, he leaned forward to capture Regulus’ lips in his.
Regulus was frozen for a moment, feeling slightly lightheaded as he took in nothing but the feel of the other boy’s lips on his, but he registered that his eyes had fluttered closed of their own accord. Then, Stephen’s hand lifted to cup Regulus’ jaw, and the spark of contact made Regulus move again, and suddenly, his lips were moving against Stephen’s, and it was he who turned the kiss into a simple brush of lips to something more, his hand moving to the back of Stephen’s neck and brushing the soft strands of hair there. Once he had, Stephen was quick to respond in kind, as if he’d only been waiting for Regulus to make that move, giving him an out if he wanted to have a chaste peck that only got them unfrozen from their position. Now, though, Stephen kissed him back enthusiastically, and Regulus’ head was spinning again, his brain not fully caught up to what his body was doing but along for the ride.
Regulus wasn’t quite sure how long they’d stood there, kissing, or who exactly had pulled back first, but eventually, he found himself standing back from Stephen, staring at him. Stephen’s lips were red and slightly swollen, and Regulus knew that if he looked in a mirror he’d be just the same, but the part of his brain that would’ve otherwise cared still hadn’t caught up to the rest of him.
They were silent for a moment, then Stephen smiled, a wide smile that still lifted one corner of his mouth a bit more than the other, making it look somewhat teasing despite Regulus growing to realize that this was just how the other boy naturally smiled. Stephen moved, but this time, it was out from under the mistletoe, toward the doorway, one hand pushing the portrait open while he still looked back at Regulus, a twinkle in his brown eyes.
“Night, Regulus,” he said. “I suppose I’ll see you around.”
“See you around,” Regulus replied faintly, and Stephen turned, still grinning, and exited through the portrait hole.
Regulus stood there for a few moments in silence, his sleepy and still slightly inebriated brain processing what had happened. When he heard the sound of a throat being cleared behind him, however, he spun around, his cheeks flushing bright red.
Standing at the bottom of the stairs, Anna had her arms crossed over her chest and was smiling in a knowing manner. She took in Regulus’ flushed face and guilty expression and smirked to herself, moving over to sit back down on the couch, stretching her legs out in front of her. Regulus, feeling like a child readying himself for a scolding, also walked over to the couch and sat down on the other side of it.
“So…” Anna started, raising an eyebrow and smiling at him.
“So…?” Regulus imitated her, though he was unable to keep his voice raising at the end, nervousness showing in it.
“Having a good Christmas?” Anna asked innocently.
Regulus tried to answer the pointed question with dignity, even as his heart pounded. “I’ve had a good time, yes,” he said. “You may have been right about Christmas being fun.”
Anna beamed. “Of course I was right,” she said. “One of these days, you’ll have to admit that I’m always right.”
Regulus gave her a look. “Not likely,” he said, rolling his eyes.
Anna shot him a mischievous smile in return. “I was right about bringing Stephen,” she said.
Regulus flushed again and searched around for something to distract from the conversation at hand. “You still haven’t given me the other present you were teasing earlier,” he pointed out after a moment, praying for the color to go down in his face as he raised his eyebrows at Anna.
Anna stared at him for a moment, then began to laugh, her head thrown back and the sound echoing around the room while Regulus just stared at her across the couch, feeling more than a little perplexed by her behavior. When her laughter ebbed, she looked back down to regard him across the couch and gave an innocent shrug.
“What do you think Stephen was, Regulus?” she asked, leaning forward to give his hair a fleeting ruffle, jumping back immediately to avoid his hands going out instinctively to push her away.
“You—what?” Regulus asked, feeling more confused than ever.
Anna smiled, tilting her head at him and giving him a look that made Regulus’ throat clench, something so affectionate that he only knew one other person in his life who had ever given it to him. There was the knowing glint in her eyes, too, that told him that she hadn’t been as oblivious as he’d hoped, that perhaps he hadn’t been as subtle as he’d hoped when he’d kept an eye on the sandy-haired boy in the class they shared. And something else, something that said, indistinguishably: I don’t care.
Anna had the tact not to say any of that, though. Instead, she just grinned, then said in a sing-song, teasing voice: “Happy Christmas!”
Regulus buried his face in his hands for a moment of embarrassment, but he was already laughing through his fingers, looking up again at her and shaking his head. She began to laugh, too, and for that moment, Regulus felt as if his world was not so bleak as it usually seemed. He’d never known a Christmas like this one before, and maybe he’d never know one like it again, but for the moment, he felt as if he finally had a glimpse of what his brother had left their family for.
So Regulus let himself laugh and feel giddy, an emotion he’d hardly known he could experience, and let his dread of the following days, the following months, and the following years ebb. This felt right. This felt like home.