The Story of Regulus Black - Years 1-4

CXIII. The Essay That Went Unfinished

CW: mention of suicidal thoughts

Regulus Black was bored.

With the excitement of time travel over, Regulus was bored beyond belief. He had nothing to do except go through his classes, try not to let himself slip too deep into a negative mindset (this was, in all honesty, proving to be quite a difficult task. Apparently, he had slipped just a bit more than he thought he had in the old timeline, and that decline seemed to have carried over), and trying to act as though nothing had happened. Though, when he would look over at the Gryffindor table and be near tears because he had had a nightmare about what he had gone back to reverse, it was a bit difficult.

Barty Crouch Jr. was catching on.

He didn't know exactly what had happened to Regulus. However, he knew that he had seemingly lost mass amounts of weight overnight, changed his entire demeanor towards his brother, and had simply forgotten that the two of them were no longer friends. He was a bit worried about it, but he wasn't worried enough to try to rekindle their friendship. After all, he was still trying very hard to ignore his feelings.

The Gryffindor boys were catching on as well. Though, they had been catching on since the very beginning.

They were approaching it carefully. Continuing to hang out with Regulus, speaking with him sometimes during classes, asking how he was doing. They didn't know if it was doing anything to improve what was going on with him, but they also didn't know what else they could do.

At the very least, it appeared that Regulus was gaining back a bit of the weight that he had mysteriously lost.

But, other than that, they didn't know what to do. After all, they didn't even know what had sparked the decline. How could they help without attempting to fix the thing that had brought him back down in the first place? Could they?

On the evening of 3 March, Deacon had an idea.

"I think you should write to Christian," he suggested.

The three boys were all in their dorm room doing the homework that they had been assigned that day. Benji was sitting at his desk, Deacon was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, and Francesco was sitting on his bed. Though their homework time was interrupted by Deacon's statement, and both of the other boys looked up.

"What?" Benji asked, slowly lowering his quill.

"I think that you should write to Christian about Regulus. I mean, he's the one who helped him over holiday break, right? Perhaps he can tell us how to help him this time," Deacon explained. "Or, at the very least, he can write to Regulus about it. I doubt he's telling him everything."

Benji thought this over for a moment. Francesco took this moment of silence to look between the two of them, a confused look on his face. "Regulus and Christian hung out over the break?"

Deacon and Benji immediately looked at one another, both having forgotten that Francesco didn't know about Regulus and Christian. Deacon was the one to look toward Francesco, a sheepish smile on his face. "Uh - yeah, they're friends."

Francesco raised an eyebrow. He had become very good at telling when his boyfriend was lying, and he was doing it through his teeth. "Friends?"

"Yup. Friends."

He didn't know why Deacon was lying about it. After all, what else could they be?

"Oh. OH!" Francesco suddenly exclaimed, catching on rather quickly to what was happening. He looked between his two friends in disbelief. "Regulus is dating your cousin?" He singled in on Benji.