Fandom Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Hot

[Papa Waluigi]

Regulus Black x Remus Lupin
One x One between Athena and Arabella
Plot: Regulus Black is pissed off at his brother Sirius for abandoning him for his friends, so he decides the best revenge is to take something....or someone rather that his brother loves. James Potter is straight as an arrow, but Remus...Regulus thinks he might just have a shot with that one.
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Hogwarts was one of the best places on earth. It was a place where children went to grow, to learn to be brave and face their problems head on. They make friends, they make a family. Remus Lupin was no exception. He's made a family, one who accepted him for who he is. . . flaws and all.​

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Lily Evans, James Potter. . . and Sirius Black. A "traitor" to his family for being accepted into Gryffindor. A male who, for some reason, would make Remus fall apart. It was rather scary to think about. Him, a monster, a loser, falling in love with a blood traitor, a lady killer, someone who made all the girls swoon. Despite his predicament, the young wizard has managed to push his feelings deep down, hiding away. It's been easier and easier to hide his feelings as of late. He already had a plan; hide his feelings away for his entire life until he dies with them.​

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Remus sighed, unnoticeably pushing the thoughts from his mind while walking with Lily Evans, another school genius. As well as the crush of his other best friend, James. It was funny to think about, hearing the women's talk of Potter while said male rants about her as well. Remus was the go-to for both of them when wanting to talk about their love frustrations.​

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". . . And his stupid glasses! God, that Potter makes me just, agh!" The red-head groaned, earning a chuckle from Remus. "Don't laugh! This is serious. What am I going to do? I know he wants to ask me out, it's so very obvious, but what if I screw up? What if I'm no good at dating?" She held her arms, and Remus shook his head.​

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"Don't you dare talk like that. He's head over heels for you. He'd probably find it cute if you accidently burped around him." Lily threw a punch at his arm, and his grinned. "Hey, easy! Besides, he'd be a fool to not like you. Well, he's a fool in general, but you get my point." That did seem to cheer the girl up, so Remus felt accomplished. He's always there for his friends, trying to be the best he can. It just another reason to consider them family. ​

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This walk continued for a little while until they arrived at the large doorway, an entrance to the library. one of Remus' favorite placed. "Well, this is where we part ways." Lily chimed. Remus wanted to get in some private reading, since it was so hard to while in the dorms. Merlin knew James and Sirius wouldn't be caught dead in the library on purpose, unless to wreak havoc. Thankfully, from what Remus knows now, both were busy. Lily could only tag along for the walk, so he'd be reading alone. "Don't get too lost in the books. We do want to see you again, you know." After laughing a small bit, Remus and Lily said their goodbye's and, once Lily had disappeared, he walked inside. Thankfully, it wasn't too crowded.​

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It didn't take long for Remus to find a book he liked. It was rather large to the average eye, but to the young Gryffindor, it was the perfect size. It was an old gray cover, dusty as if no one had read it in a while. But it's been taken out before, by Remus especially. With a small smile to himself, the would-be Ravenclaw sat at an open table, one without any students to push by. It was just him, in his robes, reading a dusty book. And the whole world disappeared around him.​

 

[Arabella Cauwell]

Regulus Black was an odd for a Slytherin. Despite his family pressuring him to practically be the next Dark Lord, or at least this one’s right hand man or foot stool, Regulus didn’t like a lot of what he had to put up with to do it. Don’t get him wrong, he had made Slytherin house for more reasons than that his mom would literally kill him if he hadn’t, but rather than the usual run of the mill power hungry Slytherin, Regulus felt it in more subtle ways.

Actually, the two biggest reasons he felt he’d ended up in the house of the snake rather than buried in an unmarked grave well away from the house of Black due to being disowned, was probably his acting ability and his insatiable thirst for knowledge. Now, while most people might believe that the latter was probably more of a Ravenclaw quality, they didn’t understand how far this obsession went. Regulus loved learning to the point that he wanted to know everything, including the Dark and forbidden.

Regulus was not particularly someone who enjoyed seeing others hurt, nor did he engage in self-harm, at least not of the physical variety, but the knowledge that he could was more than enough for him. To think that with only a word or two, a few strung syllables and one could bring even the strongest brute to his knees. It was a power that was only possible with magic, and the type of thing that caused even a ‘Goody Two Shoes’ by Slytherin and Professorial standards, to question how hard it might be to break into the restricted section.

Of course with his family, particularly after Sirius had abandoned him for Gryffindors, when he expressed such interest in the Dark Arts they were more than happy to oblige, and in fact, without the influence of his brother, whom he had all but followed around like a duckling as a child, perhaps some of his studies were a sort of vengeance. So perhaps he was more Slytherin like than he gave himself credit for.

But Dark Magic wasn’t his only interest. He loved practically all types of learning except perhaps Divinations, Muggle Studies, and Care of Magical Creatures, and despite being a master of potions, Regulus was no green thumb and buying his ingredients was safer and less time consuming than Herbology was. But outside of that the universe was the limit.

Unlike most Slytherins Regulus did not try very hard to gain allies in Slytherin. He mostly kept to himself and only really conversed with Severus Snape, his cousins, and Lucius Malfoy, and even he avoided Bellatrix at all costs. Regulus had always wanted to be someone that was a mixture of his brother Sirius Black and his cousins fiancé Lucius Malfoy. They were take charge kind of guys who were smooth and did whatever they wanted. Both were attractive to whichever gender they went after, had charm, and got what they wanted. In addition his brother didn’t even care what people thought about him. Lucius didn’t seem like he did, but considering most of his actions were calculated Regulus might never know. But he knew about Sirius.

His brother Sirius had always been a wild card. Their parents had liked his penchant for pranks and evil little tricks on other families as they assumed it was an early sign that he would be the perfect heir. He was a beautiful boy even from birth and always knew how to charm whoever he came across, including early on even their cold mother. Regulus had felt very much like his brother’s shadow for many of his years, but he’d honestly been mostly fine with that. In Sirius’ shadow he had been protected from many things, particularly when Sirius got more rebellious as he aged and had started to do things that everyone knew would make his parents angry, like post half naked muggles and automobiles on his wall and listen to muggle music. His parents were way too busy to worry about quiet Regulus while they tried to whip Sirius into shape, sometimes rather literally. But the problem with being in Sirius’ shadow was that once Sirius left, kicked out or ran out, disowned either way, there was no one left to hide behind. No one to take the blame the few times Regulus did do something. No one to confide in anymore or get hugs from as the rest of the family would have spit at him for even suggesting.

One day Sirius was just gone. Regulus could remember his mother raging, braking anything Sirius had left from the room and claiming it was Potter’s influence. Regulus had never been very brave and he’d been shocked and frightened when he found out that his mother had spelled his name off the family tree. Sirius Black was disowned and Regulus was alone, really and truly.

Their parents had been concerned about their heir for some time before. Their Mother in particular had been skeptical to let Sirius associate with the Potters after finding out first year with their friendship, but at least they were Purebloods and there were not a ridiculous amount to be all that picky. Plus she was already disappointed in Sirius for ending up in Gryffindor. She said it showed a lack of ambition, but even then Regulus could not agree. His brother seemed to do rather well when he wanted something or at least he had before school. But with a Gryffindor in the family his parents decided to groom Regulus in case the heir disappointed. Their parents were nothing if not practical.

Regulus had always hated being younger than Sirius, not because he wanted to be older, but because Sirius wasn’t around much when he was at school. Regulus took to avoiding lectures and spending many hours studying in the library as he waited for Sirius’ return. In the beginning Sirius was like any other student, he came home during holidays, enthusiastic about his year and he told Regulus stories about himself and his friends. At first Regulus had not minded Sirius’ friends, not even James Potter, as they seemed to get along with his brother and helped make some very funny stories. He missed his brother and was somewhat jealous of the friends that got time with him, but at least he had the stories.

But soon enough tensions rose in the Black household. Everytime Sirius came back he would get into huge fights with their parents over stupid things. Sirius didn’t like the use of the word mudblood and refused to use it anymore. He didn’t want to kiss up to Lucius Malfoy or make more pureblood friends. Things like that kept piling and escalading and Sirius began to pull away, not only from the fights but from the family.

Regulus was thankfully not very much younger than Sirius, and yet he was quite advanced in magic due to his pastime. So a year after he was in school and accepted into Slytherin. He was quite happy to not be obliterated and to make it into so prestigious a house, but Sirius had looked at him in such an odd fashion when he had seen Regulus enter his house. And another family tie seemed to unravel.

Soon Hogwarts itself separated them. Sirius was in a tower, Regulus in a dungeon, and their houses were generally hostile against them. Sirius was a blood traitor so Regulus had to deal with a certain level of bullying from that, which was beyond unfair since if he was already being bullied about it then it would be nice if he could at least speak to his brother.

Once the tension got really bad at home Sirius stopped going home except for when forced to in the summer, even then he spent most of his time at the Potter’s, and the Black’s didn’t care because they were sick of him and they had plenty of time to make sure Regulus didn’t follow in his brother’s footsteps.

Regulus was disappointed. He had been closer to Sirius than anyone else in the world and Sirius seemingly had no problem hardly ever seeing him. Even when they saw each other Sirius didn’t act much like himself. A few times Sirius even said that he would probably get along with one Remus Lupin, since he thought Regulus was quite similar in some ways. It was probably meant in a friendly way, but Regulus felt somewhat replaced.

Then Sirius was truly gone and the house felt colder and draftier than ever before. It had only been a few months now, but Regulus knew that this was all because of James Potter and company. And possibly because Regulus could be easily replaced by one Remus Lupin.

Despite everything Regulus wanted his brothers attention, but he also wanted revenge. In truth he wanted to get James Potter more than the others, but he couldn’t think up a scheme against the boy that wouldn’t either be solved by magic rather quickly or land him into Azkaban. James Potter also had very little known that could be manipulated, besides his infatuation with one Lily Evans, but frankly Regulus thought that Lily was punishing him worse than he ever could.

Plus there was something about Remus. If Sirius didn’t have him, perhaps he wouldn’t believe that Regulus could be replaced. But his brother was nothing if not loyal. It would be quite hard to get him to separate from a friend. Although come to think of Regulus did have one idea.

You see when Sirius had first mentioned his friends names Regulus had taken stock, so when he entered school he began to keep tabs on Sirius’ friends. It was how he knew of James Potters horrible courtship methods, Peter Pettigrews hero worship, and the fact that there was something different about Remus.

While keeping a close eye on Remus in particular Regulus got the feeling that Remus watched his brother particularly closely. Sirius was a passionate and unobservant type of person when he was maniac. It was unlikely that he noticed anything odd about the long stares, secret smiles, and nervous skinship that Remus seemed to sometimes display. But Regulus did, and it made him annoyed, but it did give him some level of blackmail if he needed it, until he had a better idea.

Remus was very likely gay, or at least bi, and apparently he had an interest in one Sirius Black. Regulus Black had many similar features than Sirius, but he was more fit due to Quidditch practice and the like. Regulus was also particularly good at pretending to be his brother, which he’d tried out on many occasions, although not in a romantic way so far. But if he could get Remus to fall for him than not only would his brother pay attention to him, he’d also know what it felt like.

So yes Regulus had a long term goal of getting Remus interested in him, what he didn’t anticipate was meeting the boy so soon after he’d made a tentative plan.

As previously mentioned Regulus loved learning and thus loved books, and the best place to find books when he’d read all his mother had sent for the time being was a library, which was also Regulus’ sanctuary and quite probably Sirius’ perfect hell.

Regulus felt quite at home in the library. His fingers sometimes felt like they moved of their own volition to trace the spines of books as he decided on what to read today. It was while deciding that he spotted one Remus Lupin. For a moment he questioned whether he really wanted to taint the library with such a ruse, but when he thought about how angry he was at Sirius and how much he missed him, his feet practically moved themselves.

While moving Regulus grabbed a book off of the shelf at random, before going over to stand in front of Remus. There was an extra chair near the other boy, so Regulus tapped the desk to get Remus’ attention, before pointing to the chair and saying, in what he hoped was a seductive voice,

“Is this seat taken?”