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Remus and Regulus sat in a comfortable silence at the back of the library. It had almost become a routine now. Remus usually slipped out when the common room became to loud and bright (something that occurred frequently in the days leading up to the full moon) and retreated to the library, the quietest corner of the castle. The younger Black always seemed to be there and both boys had claimed the dark oak desk hidden behind the transfiguration section as their own secluded sanctuary. Regulus would look up, give Remus a small nod and return to his book.
The first time they had run into each other had been far more tense. Remus hadn’t been expecting anyone to be sat there, it was common knowledge by his 5th year that this was Lupin’s table and as a prefect, he was not afraid to kick people off his seat but when he’d approached, the space was occupied. Regulus had looked up and he had just… stood there.
“That’s my seat.” he’d said eventually.
“I don’t see your name on it.” Regulus had replied coolly.
Remus had already been tired (he hadn’t slept at all the previous night) and pissed off (Sirius and James had decided to practise quidditch inside for merlin’s sake) and generally in a foul mood so he ignored Regulus’ remark and dumped his things on the table. The younger Black regarded him with curiosity as he took the opposite seat and started his charms essay.
“What?“ he shot at Regulus, who was still watching him.
“Nothing.”
“Okay. Good.”
The next week whilst Remus completed his care of magical creatures diagrams, he didn’t stop Sirius’ brother from taking the opposite seat.
Or the week after.
(Once, after a particularly bad full moon, Remus was sat with his head on the table when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He’d looked up as Regulus pushed an apple across the desk before returning to his book)
Eventually, they fell into a pattern. In fact, Remus started to enjoy his company. They didn’t talk often, but in their brief conversations Remus learnt that not only was Regulus as clever as his brother - if not cleverer - he could be just as snarky.
They were sat in silence however when Lily appeared from behind a bookcase. Her face was flushed, her red hair falling out of its ponytail and her robes covered with something that looked suspiciously like paint.
“Remus, d’you mind if I sit here? Marlene and Potter are being insufferable and there’s no other seats.” She blurted out before noticing Regulus’ dark hair buried in his book. “Oh. Hello Black”
“Evans.” came the reluctant reply.
“Err…yeah. I mean…no problem.” Remus collected his scattered pages to clear a space for Lily, who plonked herself down next to him.
“Thanks.”
She pulled out her spiral notebook and a couple of biros, (even after five years at Hogwarts she had refused to fall for the propaganda of quills, and Remus often borrowed her pens.)
“Can I ask,” Remus began, frowning, “why you’re covered with paint?”
“James’ newest scheme to ask me out. You don’t want to know.”
“Right… and Marlene…?”
“Thinks it’s hilarious of course. But she grew up with him so I think she’s used to it.” She sighed, “I don’t know how you put up with him.”
Remus shrugged and glanced back at his essay. It was the full moon in two days and he could feel a headache building behind his eyes. The letters swam on the page, drifting in and out of focus. He rubbed his eyes impatiently.
“Let’s talk about something else… wait, is that Oscar Wilde?”
Remus looked up quickly, “Pardon?”
“Are you reading Dorian Grey?” Lily gestured towards a hardback book that Remus hadn’t noticed before - it must have been hidden beneath the papers he’d cleared.
“No I…”
“That’s mine.” Regulus snatched it up and shoved it deep into his bag. He quickly stood up, his usually pale skin slightly pink.
“I didn’t know you were allowed to read muggle books Black?” Lily was staring at Regulus with a strange look in her eyes.
“I’m not.” he muttered, not meeting her gaze, “So I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention this to my brother.” And he swept out of the library.
Regulus didn’t return to their desk (Remus hadn’t realised that he considered it their desk) until after the full moon. He reached the table, noticed Lily sat beside Remus again (she was still recovering from James’ scheme - which Remus had since learnt had been Peter’s idea) and tried to disappear behind the bookcase again. He failed.
“Black.” Lily called (as loudly as you could in the library), “Care to join us?”
Regulus just continued to stare.
“Enjoy the book?”
He nodded, choosing not to look at either of them and instead staring at his rings with faked interest.
“What did you think?” Lily asked casually.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she rolled her eyes, “What did you think? About the characters, the themes, the plot?”
“You’ve both read it?”
The cold expression he always wore slipped for a second and he almost looked like Sirius, grey eyes alight with excitement.
Remus grinned, “Lily’s convinced that Dorian wouldn’t have been corrupted if Henry hadn’t gotten involved but I think that Dorian was just a bitch and his pride would’ve been his downfall either way.”
Silence. Regulus just frowned at him and Remus was suddenly afraid that he’d had the wrong impression of the younger Black.
“Of course it’s Henry’s fault. That’s the entire point of the book.” Regulus pulled out his chair and sat down facing them both. “Anyone can be corrupted, that’s what Wilde’s…”
“That’s what I told you!” Lily shouted, before being angrily shushed by Madame Pince, who seemed to have materialised out of nowhere. “Sorry, that’s what I told you.” She repeated in a whisper.
“But you cannot deny, Dorian was conceited to start…”
They were kicked out of the library an hour later for ‘disrupting the learning atmosphere with raucous, childlike behaviour’.
And so two became three. Lily didn’t always join them but when she did, all homework was discarded for more pleasurable pursuits. Namely, debating and discussing which ever books they had recently read.
(When Lily leant that Regulus had never heard of Tolkien, she had been so shocked that she just sat speechless for several minutes, before apologising and asking quietly whether his parents had deliberately deprived him from wonder as a child. He had laughed and muttered something about about general wizarding prejudice but his smile hadn’t reached his eyes.
The following week, Remus spotted Lily slipping a note into her copy of The Hobbit before pushing it into his hands and the next day Regulus finally stopped calling her ‘Evans’.)
James soon found out about what he dubbed ‘Moony’s book-club’, an idea that (once he got over the idea of Remus and Lily ‘hanging out’ outside prefect duties) himself and Pete found quite hilarious. Neither boy asked to attend and Remus didn’t offer. He was privately glad; he loved the marauders but sometimes he preferred company a little less… overwhelming.
Sirius on the other hand did not find this hilarious. He nodded seriously (ha Siriusly.. god they were really infecting his brain) when Remus mentioned it over breakfast, or made sarcastic yet insightful comments on various authors during their walks around the lake, but every time Regulus’ name was mentioned he would suddenly jump topics, as if his brother’s name was an electric fence that he refused to cross.
Likewise, Remus was careful to avoid Sirius’ name in conversation with Regulus which was difficult, far more difficult than he thought it would be. The unmentionable brother seemed to crop up in the most unexpected places, so intertwined with Remus’ own life that he was almost unavoidable. But himself and Lily did their best to tread carefully around the topic, so as not to scare Regulus off.
It was winter, the shadows of mountains around the castle muffled by the incoming snow, and the two Griffindoors were discussing whether Dickens’ Christmas Carol was maybe too heavy handed with its metaphors (it was), when the fourth member of their unofficial book club was introduced.
Of course Remus had heard of Dorcas Meadows, anyone sharing a dorm with James Quidditch-is-not-just-a-sport Potter couldn’t not know who she was. The Slytherin captain was considered by most (or maybe it was just James - but he was very loud about it) as the best Hogwarts keeper in the last few decades, since a Ravenclaw ex-prefect had played for Scotland.
She was tall and dark-skinned, her long hair braided with silver thread and her sharp eyes flitting between Lily and Remus. Even on the ground, her movement was almost bird-like. She was a fast thinker, an even faster dueller and apparently the sole provider of Regulus’ steadily growing collection of muggle literature.
“Mind if I have a seat?” She asked them, then - without waiting for an answer - took a chair opposite Lily.
As it turned out, Dorcas wasn’t as stuck up as she seemed. Once Remus got over her… honesty and blunt delivery, he found her quite hilarious. She never laughed at her own jokes unlike his own friends (who often laughed so hard they couldn’t even deliver the punchline) but this only emphasised the effect. And her arguments about Dante’s Inferno were excellent (not just because she sided with Remus).
So two became three became four, and the group didn’t stop expanding. Several times, when James, Sirius and Marlene’s combined antics and Peter’s terrible taste in music turned the common room into an inhospitable hellscape, Mary would retreat to the library with Lily to hide.
She had no interest in reading, which she made very clear the first day that she sat with them, painting her nails and lounging in a chair that Lily had managed to haggle from some second years. What she did bring to the table was gossip.
Since they had become … friends? could they be considered friends? … more than acquaintances, the most surprising thing that Remus learnt about Regulus Black was that he was a gossip. Almost worse than Mary if that was possible but unlike Mary he didn’t let secrets slip. He just collected them, which Remus found almost more terrifying.
Christmas came and passed, the melting of ice became a constant drip, drip, drip and snowdrops began peaking their heads up from the frosty ground. The unofficial book club was soon joined by its fifth member (sixth if you included their local gossip).
Remus didn’t have anything against Christopher, nothing that he could really put a name to, but he wished that the fourth year would leave him alone. So when Christopher found out about the book club (which Remus reminded him was unofficial) he turned up armed with a stool, Jekyll and Hyde and far too many unnecessary opinions. Particularly regarding the youngest Black.
For some reason, completely unbeknownst to Remus, Christopher detested Regulus from their very first meeting. He sided against him in every argument, snapped at him for misquoting Shakespeare and scowled every time he made Remus laugh. On their prefect rounds when he brought it up, Lily mentioned something about Chris being ‘jealous’ but refused to expand on the matter. Whatever it was, it stopped being funny after a few days and starting being incredibly frustrating.
Luckily, after an exhausting month of pretending to smile at Chris’ attempt at wit, Christopher announced that the Gobstones club would kick him out if he missed any more meetings so he would have to drop the book club.
“Unofficial book club.” Remus reminded him, for what felt like the hundredth time.
“We’ll miss you Chris.” Lily said, kicking Remus under the desk,
“Ow.. yeah, we’ll miss you.”
Christopher beamed.
So, their numbers, to Remus’ immense relief, returned to four (five if you included Mary who, after weeks of asking, Remus had finally let paint his nails).
It was a quiet March afternoon and his exam panic had finally set in (“It’s our OWLs Prongs. That is not a joke.”) when Lily nudged him as they sat shoulder by shoulder working on their astronomy notes.
“What?”
“Somebody’s watching us.”
Remus glanced over to where she was pointing and caught a glimpse of bleached blond hair disappearing behind a bookcase.
“Is that Marlene?”
Across the table, Dorcas buried her face further into her book and Regulus grinned conspiratorially. Remus glanced at him then back at Dorcas who was trying hard to look nonchalant then back across the library where Marlene was pretending to be reading a book.
“Are you alright there Cas?” Regulus asked casually.
“I swear to Merlin Reg, shut your mouth.”
Dorcas’ not so secret admirer returned frequently, sometimes accompanied with Sirius much to Remus surprise due to Sirius’ self proclaimed hatred of quiet places (he said they were too full of thoughts, whatever that meant). Remus supposed that, as fellow Griffindoor beaters, they were partners-in-crime of whatever crackpot scheme they had hatched to get Marlene a date. However, it was difficult to focus when all he could see was Sirius between the bookshelves, in animated conversation with Marlene, or when he accidentally caught Sirius’ eye and had to quickly turn back to his book, his face feeling hot.
This new addition to the library seemed to put Regulus off as well. He became quiet again, just as he was at the start of the year, and sullen, slinking off early and taking Dorcas with him. As spring turned to summer, Lily and Remus found themselves drowning in revision along with the rest of the fifth and seventh years who now crowded the library. With the Slytherins gone, no time for leisurely reading, and their sanctuary abuzz with anxious students, the book club dispersed as unofficially as it was formed.
“Hey it was fun while it lasted.” Lily leaned back in her chair, watching James’ paper airplane fly circles over their heads. “He’s quite good at that, isn’t he?”
Remus hummed in feigned acknowledgement, biting his nails and watching the letters dance across the page. The library was so hot, and so loud…
“You alright Remus?” Lily asked, her voice laced with concern.
“Huh? Oh yeah, what were you saying?”
“Just that we could maybe try it again next year.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’ll be nice.”
Lily stared at him for a moment before closing her book with a thud. “Should we get out of here? I cannot focus with Potter’s stupid plane.”
“Please.” Remus replied, ignoring Sirius’ laughter on the next table across.
The lake was blissfully quiet, sunlight dripping from between the trees. They walked in silence alongside the bank. Usually in the summer, the marauders would spend every weekend by the lake, splashing in the cool water or trying to scare Pete senseless with false sightings of the giant squid, or in Remus’ case reading under a huge oak that offered a little shade in mid June.
However, as they approached the tree, Remus spotted two familiar figures.
“Hey.” he shouted, “that’s our seats!”
“I don’t see your names on it.” came the reply.