Diptych

Chapter 22

Regulus' hand lay curled up beside his face. His knees were tucked up at his middle, and his covers were pulled up right over his head. It had been difficult to get warm without the use of magic, and by the time he accepted that he was moments from falling asleep, he was too far gone to move in the direction of his wand, so had merely cocooned himself the way he did as a small child. By the time he shifted, his hair had stuck to his forehead and his neck with sweat, in small curls that he was thankful always smoothed out as he combed his hair. Ink had spilled all over his pillow and sheets, bright shining blue that he might in other circumstances worry about getting out, but which he was unlikely to notice in his current state. The diary was open, trapped beneath one of his arms and pages characteristically blank. Over the course of four hours before he'd fallen asleep, Regulus had written many messages to Tom, thankfully garnering no response from the boy. He had stayed true to his word and given Regulus the space to express himself without committing to a conversation, something which had eased Regulus' mind and loosened his hand as he continued to write all he had been thinking.

My writing this doesn't mean that I want to discuss anything I talk about afterwards — only that I'm considering your suggestion and trying it out.

I want to tell Sirius about the dream I had, about the way I felt after Lupin was attacked, before I knew it was him. But if I tell him that, I'll have to tell him about the diary, and about you. How can I tell him about you without telling him that I've been to those meetings? If I told him that, he'd only explode and any thought of helping Lupin would probably be thrown out of the window. Things would be worse than ever, and I'd regret telling him in the first place. It's why I haven't so far, but perhaps that's just an excuse I'm making because I know I'm too much of a coward to go to him.

You said that you didn't want to know about your future, but how am I supposed to talk to you when I know it and you don't?

The way I feel about you isn't the way that I feel about him, and I can't imagine the two becoming the same. He's so much older than we are, and there are so many things I don't know about him. I never felt that way with you, even though I suppose it was always the case.

It's wretched that everything has to change just because I've found out something that was true all along — I wonder if he'd erase the memory for me, if I asked him. Would you?

Don't answer that, please.

Sirius would never forgive me, if I told him about the dream.

After dinner, I saw him and Potter going to the hospital wing again. I feel sort of bad for complaining about the noise they were making. It was annoying, but Potter had a point, for once in his life. If they sat around thinking about Lupin at all hours of the day, they'd probably find themselves going as mad as I am. Maybe I ought to take a leaf out of his book and find some means of distraction.

I read the first chapter of that book that Willa gave me, and it had my attention momentarily. But she and Carmen had been writing messages to each other in the margin, and it was hard to focus on the story, instead of that. I knew straight away that it was Carmen's writing, because she adds all of these extra curls to try and make it look fancier, more like Willa's.

I'm a little tired now, and I know that you'd tell me to go to sleep. I might try, but not because you'd have told me to. I won't take any more of the sleeping potion. I think that's what caused the dream last time, and I know I shouldn't blame that on you, but still — I think I'll drop off easily enough without it tonight. There's been a lot on my mind, and it's been draining just to think about, let alone to keep writing about it.