From Eden - Regulus Black (Complete)

Chapter Seventeen

ALLIANCE

It took hours for the boys to go back to their normal selves and for them to get up without almost passing out. Anne was asleep in James' bed, while the boys were all sitting in Sirius', talking to each other; the subject? Peter Pettigrew.

"He couldn't have done that," James said, shaking his head. "Peter would never, but still... Anne would never lie about something like that, and Dumbledore wouldn't back her up if he thought her to be lying at all."

"James, she said he was afraid," Remus said. "Forgive me, but Peter is scared of everything."

"What do we do?" Sirius asked.

"Nothing," Remus quickly answered. "You all heard what Anne said. He has done nothing to not deserve our trust and she came here to change everything, which means this might not happen at all. We can change it all, we can help her and we can protect Peter on the way."

"Remus' right," mumbled James, getting up from the bed and starting to pace. "Things are going to be different this time, either we like it or not."

Sirius nodded, taking it all in. "I can't believe Regulus would do such a thing," he said. "I always saw him agreed with Mother and Father was always so proud of him that I never imagined him going against them at all."

James hesitated, not wanting to talk about something that Anne had shared with him in secret, but yet he thought it to be necessary.

"You need to trust him a bit more," James said. "He already has gone against them and, just because he hides his pain a lot better than you, it doesn't mean it didn't hurt at all. Anne healed him."

"Oh, Merlin. How bad?"

"Nothing Anne couldn't deal with. He's fine now," James said.

But Sirius didn't feel like his brother was fine at that point, he felt the guilt choking him as he thought of any moment where he had flinched, looked sickly or did anything out of the ordinary, but he couldn't. Sirius couldn't remember a single time he had paid attention to Regulus' life in school and it could've been a death sentence if Anne hadn't found out what was going and took care of it.

"Well, at least we can know something," Remus said, trying to lighten the subject a bit. "Lily totally can be interested in you."

James turned to Remus, smiling.

"That's what I said to Dumbledore!" he said a bit too loud. Anne's eyes fluttered open, looking around. "Oh, I'm sorry, sweetheart, you can go back to sleep," but too late, Anne was already pushing herself to sit and pushing the sheet Sirius had put over her naked legs away. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," she said, pushing some hair away from her face.

Remus and Sirius took one good look at her as she got up and yawned, cracking her neck once she was standing beside James' bed and then leaning down to reach her feet and stretch her legs a bit. They looked at each other and then looked back at Anne, smiles taking over their lips.

"Mate," said Sirius, "how the hell did we not notice?"

"What do you mean?" Anne asked. "What didn't you notice?"

"You and James literally share the same braincell!" Remus said, laughing a bit. "You do the same thing when you wake up after a nap. Yawn, crack, stretching – same order, too."

"Well, Harry and Lily share one thing, for sure: the terrible mood during the mornings," she said, walking towards them and sitting in the bed in front of Sirius', which was Peter's. "Most of his detentions, when not with Professor Snape, was with any professor who had the terrible luck getting his class during before ten o'clock."