LOG: Regulus/Emsy FORMAT: log WHO: Reg and Emsy WHEN: September 1976ish? WHERE: Hogwarts WHAT: The last cute log before FEELS. NOTES: FEELS.
Regulus was in a foul mood as he made his way up from the Slytherin dungeons to meet Emsy in the Great Hall. It wasn't solely the Fiona thing - though that was certainly a large part of it, given how she'd been the only person at this sodding school he'd felt remotely close to for the past four years. It wasn't even fighting with Sirius. Regulus, after all, had years of experience fighting with his brother, and even if their recent peace (and even friendliness) made this fight feel all the worse, it still wasn't as simple as that.
The truth was that Regulus was conflicted. He knew Rosier and Avery were prats. Everyone did. But he also knew that he had family members who were probably as bad, if not worse, family members he defended. So what sort of person did that make him?
Not that he wanted to turn on them. Giving details about Avery to Moody was one thing, but betraying his family, especially after what they'd gone through with Andromeda and, lately, Sirius? Was it any wonder, with behavior like that, that the purist families of England were turning to more and more extreme measures?
...and then there was Emsy. Regulus had been interested in girls before, not that he'd ever really acted on it. There was always a good reason not to, or something else to distract himself with. To be honest, he hadn't expected to like Emily Pepper as much as he had. Certainly she was pretty - he'd noticed that ages ago - but she was still a halfblood and he knew how his family felt about that.
Realistically, he knew it could never go anywhere. He liked her, quite a bit, but he was a pureblood, a Black no less, and looking more and more to be the heir of the family. And Black heirs simply did not end up with halfblood DMLE daughters.
But that was a problem he could deal with another night. For now, Fiona was in custody, Sirius was being a prat, and Emsy was the only person he even remotely wanted to see that he could see.
"Hi," he said, upon spotting her. Walking over, he pecked her on the cheek.
Emily grinned up at him. “Hey,” she said, lacing her arm through his. It was lucky, really, that Emsy didn’t have the fiery temper customary to people of her house. She hadn’t liked what Regulus had said about the DMLE, the members of which were practically her family, but she also had enough perspective, and enough empathy, to know that he was lashing out for a reason. Emily herself was worried and a bit upset about Rosier, whose comments about Matt were awful, but, as was usual for her, it was second nature to compartmentalize her own emotions in order to help the people around her. Em had a great deal of experience in the art of compartmentalizing. If she could sit the exam for it, she’d get an easy O. Losing her father so young, and the DMLE atmosphere in general, was a good teacher.
“So, I assume, not okay?” she asked, eyes wide, instead of inquiring how he was.
"Not really." Regulus walked slowly with her until they were near a table then, turning, pulled himself up until he was sitting on it. His hand slid down her arm until he was loosely holding her hand. "Jasper's a prat. He's always been a prat. I'm pissed off that he's messing with Fiona's life again."
Emily’s brow furrowed. She couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to have a brother like that. Sure, Els and Lo messed with her life, but it was usually that they’d tease her or make fun of her newest Quidditch star poster. Nothing so huge. “Yeah. It’s got to be really hard to deal with, for her.”
"Yeah." Regulus toed a knot in the bench, brow furrowed. "Brothers have a way of messing with your life."
“Mostly, mine have gross romances that I prefer not to think too hard about.” Em squeezed his hand, preparing for she was sure going to be a difficult part of their conversation. “Do you want to talk about what’s up with you and Sirius? We could also just pretend it doesn’t exist. Your call.”
"He acts like he's the one who has a right to be hurt," Regulus said, not stopping to consider whether or not he actually wanted to talk about it or not. Our family can be difficult, but he still chose to hurt them, to hurt me, and then he acts like we're the selfish ones. He's full of shit."
Emily looked down, considering. “Maybe you’re both hurt.”
"How could he possibly be the one who is hurt?" Regulus said, brow furrowed but without any anger.
“I don’t think there’s usually just one person who’s hurt when things go wrong. I mean, when there’s a fight, between siblings or friends, both sides get hurt, and do the hurting.” Emsy had been a year behind Regulus’s brother for four years, seeing him in the common room and at the Gryffindor table at meals, and she’d seen him do some nasty stuff, but she didn’t think that was all there was to him, just like there was more to Regulus than the reserved pureblood boy who’d sat near her in Transfiguration for the past four years. “Even when you’re saying really mean things, you can still love the other person. I think, anyway.”
"I do love him." Regulus glanced down at their hands, his thumb softly grazing the back of hers. "But I honestly don't think he loves us. Maybe me, a bit, but he goes out of his way to hurt everyone else. He's going to be another Andromeda and it's like he doesn't remember what that did to everyone when she left."
“I don’t think that’s true. Well, I don’t know about the second part, but I don’t think he doesn’t love you. I think that everyone loves their families, even if they don’t always get along.”
Regulus wasn't sure she'd be saying that if she saw the way Bellatrix and Sirius fought, but he simply nodded. Some issues were just too difficult for him to ever explain to someone else. "I'm sorry if I'm whining," he told her. "Sirius just gets under my skin more so than anyone else. I don't understand him."
“No, don’t worry about it! I don’t mind listening.” Emily bumped into him affectionately. “I think that’s a brother’s job, sort of. Yours more than most, probably.”
For the first time that evening, Regulus smiled. "He's annoyingly good at it," he admitted. "Are your siblings ever like this?"
“They treat me like a kid a lot, which sometimes bothers me.” Emsy shrugged with one shoulder, her lips doing the same one-sided motion in a smile. “I get it, though. They just want to look out for me, and since our dad died they feel more responsible and everything, but yeah, it does get under my skin sometimes.”
Regulus softly patted the spot on the table next to him, indicating for her to sit by him. "What's your family like?" To be honest, he was always a bit curious about families that weren't his, probably because his was so wildly messed up in so many ways. It was both frustrating and reassuring to know that not every family had the same issues as the Blacks.
Emily hoisted herself up. “Pretty great, I think,” she admitted, feeling slightly guilty, “My mum’s amazing. She’s a force of nature. She drives me nuts sometimes, but I love her a lot. Then there’s Els, who you’ve probably seen around. He’s funny and responsible and good at stuff, and has a lot of disgusting romances. And I have one other brother, Lo, he was a seventh year when we were in first. Ravenclaw. He’s brilliant too. And then there’s my dad, who died when I was eight. He was a Hitwizard. That’s about it, really, except Professor Gordon’s my cousin.”
Regulus quietly listened to her talk, grinning when she mentioned Els's "disgusting romances," something he could sympathize with all too well, given how much of the school Sirius had gone through. He raised his eyebrows just slightly at the mention of Professor Gordon, but said nothing.
"How did he die," he asked, "If you don't mind my asking?"
“He was in Knockturn intervening with a squib getting harassed and things... got too far.” Emily looked down, picking at a nail. She didn’t mind talking about her dad, but thinking about him still hurt.
"I'm sorry," Regulus said, giving her hand a soft squeeze. "I can't imagine. I can't think of anything more awful than losing someone in my family."
“It was pretty shit,” agreed Emsy matter-of-factly. Sometimes she wondered if she had been so desperate to make sure that no one worried about her too much that she never really dealt with her dad’s death. Her mum had been so busy, and she’d had so many babysitters, and her brothers had been off at school — Emily hadn’t wanted to make things worse for everyone. She’d wanted to be brave. Suddenly, she missed her mum. This whole Hogwarts thing was probably making the DMLE nuts. “I miss him a lot.”
Regulus wondered, just then about what it was like for all the people he knew, or at least knew of, who had lost family members. There was Peasegood, of course, and even Sirius's old whatever, Wood. The Jepsen boy - that one he felt a little sicker about than the others, if only because Matt, unlike the others, had never particularly rubbed him the wrong way. For the first time, he felt a moment of sympathy for them, an emotion he'd not really anticipated (at least not for Wood, who he'd always been a bit disgusted by).
Perhaps it was the thought of losing Sirius - though leaving wasn't as hurtful as the thought of his brother dying, it still hurt - that elicited that moment of sympathy. Or maybe it was just listening to Emsy. He honestly wasn't sure. "What was he like?"
“He was a great dad. Pretty conservative. Or, more conservative than Mum anyway. Funny, protective. He loved us a lot.” Emily didn’t look at Regulus as she responded, but she smiled, a little, very sadly.
Regulus squeezed her hand again. "My Dad's conservative too," he told her, which was probably an understatement for most people, but for him, it was simply the way of it. If purist families, as a rule, were conservatives, the Blacks could be especially so. "But he cares a lot. My mother has a temper," he said with a wry smile. "But not my father."
Emily nodded, seeming to shake off the blanket of sadness she’d acquired while thinking about her dad. “Do you get along with them? On the whole, I mean.”
"Yeah," Regulus said. "More so than my brother. I think my father and I are a lot alike, to be honest," he admitted. "And I just.... I try not to upset my mother. She's not a horrible person," he told her. "It's just... she's really emotional and I think she's scared at the idea of losing Sirius, after what my aunt and uncle went through when Andromeda left."
As someone who, you know, existed in wizarding Britain, Emsy had gotten the gist of the Andromeda Black scandal. She didn’t know the nuance or details of it, but she got the basic arrangement — defection, marriage to a Muggleborn, something about clubbing? — and a vague impression of the fallout. She couldn’t even remotely understand that family situation, but Regulus’s role in it, his trying not to upset people, she understood that. “It’s a lot to deal with. The balancing.”
"Yeah. I think it'd be a lot easier if it wasn't necessary," Regulus admitted.
Regulus hopped off the table, standing up straight. "Do you want to go for a walk for a bit?" he asked, turning towards her.
“Yeah, that sounds nice,” agreed Emily, smiling as she slid down after him, sliding her hand into his.