Coeur Pur

The sun was hanging high above Hogwarts' grounds. In the grass, facing the lake, sat Remus Lupin, with the head of Sirius Black resting in his lap. He was gently entangling his fingers with Sirius' dark hair, as they both watched their friends Peter Pettigrew and James Potter, caught up in a game of wizard's chess. The reason as to why they so carelessly wasted time sitting on the ground was that professor Slughorn had called in sick this morning, and thus cancelled his lesson and left his students 20 pages to read, which, of course, the Marauders had completely ignored.

"I'll read it through tonight and give you guys a brief summary in the morning," said Remus, looking out at the lake where the giant squid was flapping its tentacles around.

"Oh, Moony, where would we be without you?" James said with a smile, taking out Peter's knight.

"Wait, how'd you do that?" Peter exclaimed.

"See there, Wormtail? You have to keep your eyes open in all directions."

Sirius smiled at Peter, who shrugged and smiled innocently.

"Look," said James, nodding towards the castle.

They all turned their heads to watch as a small crowd of students swarmed out of the entrance hall and towards the greenhouses to attend their herbology lesson. As the crowd came closer, the four friends could discern green and silver patches on some of the robes, as well as some black and yellow.

"Looks like the reptiles are off to herbology," said Sirius in a sarcastic voice.

"Yeah, let's just hope -" Peter began, but before he could finish his sentence, James cut him off.

"Isn't that your brother?"

They could all see that one of the Slytherin students had broken off from the others and was now heading down the hill in their direction. Sirius took one look at the boy and then turned away his gaze, looking at the giant squid instead.

"No," he replied shortly.

But as the boy approached them, they all recognized the crude facial expression that had belonged to Regulus Black for as long as they could remember. He took a halt right in front of them and looked down at Sirius, who refused to meet his eye.

"Sirius, may I have a word with you?"

"No, you may not."

There was a silence, during which it seemed like Regulus considered storming off, but he stood his ground and continued, trying hard to sound calm, "It's important."

"Still, I don't think anything could ever be of enough importance to cause me to talk to you again. Now go."

"It's about mom."

Sirius hesitated for a second and then said, "So?"

"So, if you care about her, you will listen to what I have to say."

It looked as though Regulus had to brace himself hard to not yell at his older brother, who he thought was behaving like an ass.

"See, that's just it, though. I don't care about her. Now, will you please leave? Don't you have a lesson to attend to?" Sirius said giving Regulus a hard look of despise.

"Sirius, maybe you should listen to what he has to say?" whispered Remus, "Maybe something's happened?"

"Remus, I would appreciate it if you'd stay out of this."

"Stop being so proud for once and listen to your little pet," said Regulus caustically.

"Shut up, Regulus. Why would I want to listen to anything you have to say, after all the horrible things you've done to me?"

"I told you, it's not about you, or me. It's about mom. She's become ill. Besides, I haven't told anyone about your furry friend, have I?" Regulus said, without even looking at Remus. "If I was as horrible as you claim, the whole school would know about it by now and he wouldn't be sitting her right now, would he?"

"You said no one would care if I died, so why should I care if mother's sick? In fact, I wouldn't care if all three of you were about to die, I still wouldn't want to listen to anything you'd have to say," Sirius replied, sitting up and staring angrily at Regulus. "It's very easy to come seeking forgiveness when someone is in trouble, isn't it? You think I'm just going to let everything go and come home again? You expect me to forget all the years of mental abuse just because that old hag is sick? Well, I'm not. You people are none of my responsibility anymore."

As he said this, Sirius could feel his friends looking at him, surprised and perhaps a bit disgusted at his reaction. Any normal son would want to know if his mother was having problems, right? Any normal brother would want to come back home, because who would really want to abandon his own family?

"Sirius... please," begged Regulus reluctantly. "I've never asked anything of you, but you have to at least listen. Let me explain. I don't expect you to come home or even care much about it, but please, just listen to me. I think you're going to want to know about this."

There was a brief silence and both Regulus, Remus, James and Peter eagerly, but silently awaited Sirius' response.

"Fine. But you can say it in front of my friends. I keep no secrets from them."

Regulus looked at their faces, considering his brothers proposal. Then he sat down face-to-face with Sirius and began to explain.