The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

Here For the Show

"I'm here for the show."

The theater door opened and Regulus stepped through into the auditorium. There was quite a crowd indeed, a good deal of nervous looking witches and wizards glancing about, and death eaters interspersed throughout, masks in place. Most of them were easy to recognize, even with their masks. Regulus glanced around, trying to spot anything that might tell him which way James Potter had gone.

"Was wonderin' if you were going to come," came a voice at his elbow and he glanced over to see Barty Crouch, shadowed by a couple other of the lads from Slytherin.

Regulus looked him over, letting his face curdle into one of disapproval or haughtiness. "Of course I came," Regulus replied. "I'm surprised you're here, rather. Usually you and --" he nodded at the rest of the gaggle of lads behind Barty, "-- hide behind the excuse of being at school."

Barty scowled. "Well it wouldn't do any good for the entire bleedin' house to be gone missing all the time would it?"

"Oh. Is it the whole house now?" Regulus rolled his eyes. "Like any one at Hogwarts would even notice with how daft they all are half the time." His eyes were scanning around, searching for any sign of James.

"Daft sure but not enough to miss it if all of us leave at the same time every other day!" Barty snapped. "Besides, they notice you goin' off with your stupid house elf... not all of us have that luxury to snap their fingers and go, some of us gotta actually work to go when the Dark Lord calls, and he appreciates that, he said that --"

Regulus cut around Barty suddenly, interrupting the obnoxious droning, "Really, your family has an elf too. If you really wanted to, you could come as quickly as I do."

"I can't use Winky!" Barty said, "I can't risk getting caught by my Father."

"Well," Regulus shrugged. "I guess it's more important for some of us to be here than it is for others... Excuse me a second." He'd just seen a curtain move awkwardly in what anyone else might've assumed was a draft, but he reckoned he knew better and so he stepped around Barty and the crew that had followed him, making his way around the edge of the auditorium.

He loitered around by the wall for a few minutes, looking around, slowly inching closer to the curtain. A man walked past with a tray full of high glasses with drinks on it and Regulus motioned and took one of them, taking another step closer to the curtain and sipping slowly. The glass covering the movement of his lips, he said, "I know you're there."

No response.

"You're lucky," he murmured, looking down as he lowered his glass, "That nobody else saw you. Your trainers don't exactly blend in with the scenery... nor do they entirely fit under your cloak."

When there was still nothing, Regulus smirked. "And by the by, what are you? Twelve? Wearing house sneakers... Merlin. You know you graduated, yeah? It isn't even that great a house, I mean--"

"Shut your trap, Gryffindor's the greatest house and --"

"There it is." Regulus's eyes twinkled. "Knew I could get you to talk."

Silence.

Regulus laughed. "Look, just stay close to me and keep your shoes covered, will you?"

He wasn't sure if James would obey or not, and he didn't have a chance to answer again as Barty Crouch came back over.

"Reg. You see that?" he pointed across the room.

Regulus looked where Barty was jabbing his finger toward. A group of men and women were talking in the main aisle between seats in the lower orchestra section, surrounding Bellatrix Lestrange, who was showing off some rather cool magic that had a great fiery snake coiling among the gaggle of onlookers, the tail of it hissing and sizzling as it moved wherever her wand bade it to.