For the entirety of their pathetic existence Elizabeth Potter and Regulus Black have absolutely loathed one another. Because of what is still up for debate. Many assume it is because of the infamous Sirius Black's brotherly bond with the Potter siblings. Others believe it to be because of their competitive nature when it comes to classes. But if you asked anyone that is close to the pair they would say that they are certain the two are in denial of the glaringly obvious sexual tension between them.
Little did they know that one potions project would change the course of history.
Enemies to lovers/ Academic rivals
Chapters:
Chapter 1: The Unfortunate Pairing
Chapter 2: Welcome Speeches And Friendly Reunions
Chapter 3: The Timetable Fiasco (coming soon)
It turned into something bigger. Somewhere in the haze, got a sense I'd been betrayed.
Regulus Black has by far got to be the most infuriating person Elizabeth Potter has ever had the displeasure of meeting. The cocky bastard, who always seems to be nose deep inside his book, is currently sitting opposite her in the way too small for its purpose, prefects carriage.
She shifts in her seat when she becomes uncomfortably aware of how she is sandwiched between the two Hufflepuff fifth year prefects and tries to subtly move away from the two.
This year's Head Boy and Girl, that Elizabeth hasn't been bothered to learn the names of, are currently giving some speech about responsibility and honour which she really couldn't give two shits about at this moment in time. She really needs to get out of this room. The compartment is cramped and stuffy and Regulus Black is sat there with his fucking pristine robes, shiny prefects badge and a smug grin.
Merlin. I hate him, she thinks to herself and he glances over with that stupid smirk as if he had heard her thoughts. She wouldn’t be entirely surprised if he could.
She quickly adverts her gaze and can see Remus Lupin and Lily Evans sitting a few chairs down and gives them a small friendly wave when they make eye contact.
She zones back into the meeting when she hears the Head Girl explain how this year Professor Dumbledore wants to encourage inter house communication in hopes that the everlasting rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin would be dialled down a few notches. So, to do so he wants the prefect pairs to be mixed.
Eliza sits up straight in her seat and joins the complaints and moans about the new, not so favourable circumstances.
“I know you all aren’t too thrilled about this new arrangement but we both do ask for everyone's cooperation” reasons the Head Boy. She rolls her eyes and starts to glance around the room for the potential individual that she will be stuck with for the rest of the year.
The Head Girl starts with the seventh year prefects and Elizabeth rests her head down on the top of the chair waiting for her fate.
She catches that Remus is paired with the sixth year Ravenclaw girl and Lily with the Hufflepuff boy in her year. Elizabeth notices the relieved expression on her face when Lily glances over at Severus Snape, the sixth year Slytherin prefect that she used to be friends with before the incident last year when he called her a mudblood.
Elizabeth however doesn’t seem to be as lucky as Remus and Lily when it comes to the selection. Her head moves so quickly she is surprised that it did not fall off when she hears the next two names come out of the Head Girls mouth.
“Elizabeth Potter and Regulus Black”
Her heart stops.
No
No
No
Anyone but him.
She looks at Remus in confirmation hoping that she had misheard but the sympathetic look she receives in return shoots any hope that her hearing has failed her down.
Scowling, she reluctantly turns her gaze to the devil himself to see a matching expression on his face. They make eye contact and because the two are equally as stubborn they end up having what one could only describe as a glare off for the rest of the meeting which is only broken by the sound of chairs scraping across the ground creating a headache inducing noise.
Elizabeth bolts out of her seat and heads straight towards the Head Girl but before she could even open her mouth she beats her to it.
“No I will not change your pairing”
“How did you even know that was what I was going to say?”
“That look on your face”
“What look?” She asks, getting defensive.
“The one that says you would rather do anything else than be with Black”
“Well it’s true, I would literally prefer anything else”
“It’s not going to happen” the Head Girl responds with a look that says she is done with this conversation.
“Fine” she snaps, and with that she spins around ready to leave only to be met with Black's stupid face. “Move Black I am really not in the mood to fight right now”
"What? You think that I am thrilled with this decision?”
She doesn’t respond and just resorts to moving past him, not without hitting his shoulder with hers in passing. Eliza increases her pace when she notices that Remus is waiting for her at the entrance to the compartment with Lily.
“You alright?” He queries looking at her with caution out of the corner of his eye whilst they make their way back to their shared compartment.
“No” she responds with a defeated look. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.” Remus responds by opening up his arms to allow the younger girl to have one of his infamous hugs. Elizabeth can hear a muffled giggle from Lily through the cotton of Lupin's jumper and swats her hand out in her general direction hoping to make contact. She does. “It’s not funny Evans, he is insufferable.”
They continue to walk down the corridor of the train talking about their hopes for the new school year until Remus comes to a stop outside the self-proclaimed marauders compartment that they had called dibs on in their first year. The two say a quick goodbye to Lily and open the door, Remus stepping out of the way to let Elizabeth in first.
As the pair steps into the compartment they are greeted with the celebratory cheers from 3 out of 4 of the well known band of boys that cause havoc around Hogwarts and will probably cause Professor McGonagall to go into an early retirement.
“Finally, we were beginning to believe that you would never return” exclaimed the ever dramatic Sirius Black.
“Yeah well this years Heads had a lot to say and Dumbledore decided he wanted to put us with prefects from different houses to promote inter house communication or some bullshit like that.” Explained Elizabeth with a small scoff.
“You’ll never guess who Lizzy got paired with” Remus says with a small amused huff when he throws himself down onto the nearest seat, stretching out his limbs with a sigh of relief thankful for the extra space compared to the claustrophobic prefects compartment.
“Who?” Peter inquired, intrigued in why the female Potter looks so pissed off and Remus on the verge of laughter.
“Sirius’s stupid brother” Elizabeth mumbles grumpily, theatrically throwing herself on the seat in between her brother and Sirius, squeezing herself in the tiny gap.
“That's some rotten luck.” James states with a comforting look on his face, giving his sister a quick loving hug before letting go and turning his attention to Remus to ask “what about Evans?”
Everyone collectively groans, dreading another year of silly love confessions and ridiculous hogsmeade invitation attempts directed to the unfortunate Lily Evans who captured Potter's attention from the minute he met her in their first year.
“Are you still on that?” Asks an exasperated Sirius Black.
“You didn’t have to witness it during the summer.” Adds the youngest Potter, “he kept on moaning about how all Lily does is ignore him or call him an arrogant toerag and then would go on about how pretty she is and how much he is in love with her.”
“Hey!” shouts James. “This will be the year, just you wait. I will get Lily Evans to say yes to being my girlfriend.”
“That's what you say every year” says Peter with a hint of amusement at his friend's antics.
“Yeah I love Lily, but if I have to hear this speech one more time I might have to rip my ears off” Remus adds.
James slumps down in his seat with a frown and Eliza fears that they may have hurt his feelings so she gives him a playful nudge and states “hey, we’re just messing with you. Anyways I think it’s adorable how you still like Evans.”
“Speak for yourself” grumbles Sirius, slouching down in his seat in a flare of dramatics, which earns him a sharp elbow in the ribs from the female Potter. SIrius lets out a giant yelp and leaps out of his seat to hide next to Remus. “Moony, Lizzy’s being mean again” he whines, which results in the werewolf rolling his eyes at his best mate's antics.
“I’m sure you’ll live.”
The group of five settle down and for the next hour they discuss many different topics ranging from how their summers went to the next prank the group of 4 are going to pull.
Elizabeth checks her watch and realises that they are going to be arriving at Hogwarts in the next half an hour so she quickly excuses herself to go and get changed into her robes.
On her way to the nearest bathroom she passes the compartment that houses her two roommates and best friends Pandora Rosier and Emmaline Vance and gives them a wave, for the last four years it has been silently agreed that Elizabeth would spend the train ride up to hogwarts with her brother and his friends and then on the ride back to Kings cross station she would sit with her friends.
Once she makes it to the bathroom she notices that it is currently occupied so she leans up against the wall waiting for whoever is inside to finish their business.
Except it's now been 10 minutes and they are going to be at Hogsmeade station soon. Elizabeth weighs out the pros and cons and reluctantly goes to knock on the bathroom door, however when she is about to make contact the door swings open and reveals a slightly dishevelled looking Regulus Black and a pretty black haired slytherin that she isn’t quite sure she knows the name of.
“Really? You know you and your brother are more alike than you think.”
“Piss off Potter”
“Don’t be a dick, I've been waiting for ages to use the bathroom because you were too horny to wait a few more hours.”
“Careful Potter, wouldn’t want people to think you were jealous now would we?”
“In your dreams Black” she scoffs.
The pair stop their bickering when they hear an awkward cough come from behind Regulus and they both move out of the way so the girl can escape before she gets caught in the crossfire.
Elizabeth takes this as an opportunity to squeeze past the youngest Black brother but is too slow because he blocks her path and she ends up walking straight into his chest.
“What are we ten?” He doesn’t respond and just stares at her with that infuriating smug look on his face. “Get the fuck out of my way Black.”
“Make me”
This man.
“Is your life really that boring and sad that you’ve resulted to hovering outside the ladies bathrooms. It’s pathetic really,” Elizabeth snarked. “Now if you don’t mind I would like to get changed, so you can either move or I'll make you move.”
Regulus never gets the opportunity to fight back because just as he opens his mouth to respond he is brutally shoved into the nearest wall as Elizabeth forces her way past him. He lets out a little breathless chuckle as he watches the girl walk towards the bathroom and closes the door behind her.
The boy starts to make his way back to the compartment that his two friends Evan Rosier and Barty Crouch jr are currently residing in doing God knows what and quite frankly Regulus doesn’t want to know. He gives a brief smile to Pandora as he passes her and opens the door to the compartment next to hers. Regulus is greeted with the sight of Barty sprawled across Evans lap with a book in his hand, the minister's son shoots up at the sound of the door opening with an excited grin on his face as he exclaims “Reggie! Took you long enough, we were starting to think you would never return.”
“Don’t call me Reggie, Bartemius” Regulus said with a huff as he planted himself on the seat opposite his best friends.
“What’s gotten you in such a sour mood?”
“I’ve been paired with Potter for prefect rounds”
From where he has been sitting quietly, observing the conversation, Evan stifles a little knowing smirk at his friend's misery.
“Oh, how tragic,” Rosier taunts looking up at Regulus with a teasing gaze.
“Fuck of Evan”
“He’s just saying what we are all thinking,” Barty adds and as if summoned by the conversation Elizabeth Potter hurries past the compartment, successfully capturing the attention of the three boys, especially the youngest Black. But what seems to be the main focus of Regulus’ attention is the fact that Remus Lupin is trailing the young girl deep in conversation with her and he catches himself thinking what the hell is he doing there.
“Careful Reg, jealousy looks good on no one” warns Evan.
“I’m not jealous, I'm just thinking about how I am going to be stuck with her for the rest of this miserable year.”
“Sure, tell that to the daggers you were just throwing at Lupin” says Barty and then that is the end of the conversation as the train had finally arrived at Hogsmeade station.
And Regulus could not have been more wrong as their fifth year was anything but miserable.
Anastasia Crouch and Sirius Black are more alike than one might think. Both being the eldest children to well-known pureblood families, both achieve high marks in school, both beaters on their respective teams and most importantly they both have an undying love and urge to protect their younger brothers. So what exactly went wrong in the universe for their stories to have such different, yet equally tragic endings?
Right person not enough time
Chapters:
Chapter 1: Another Fucking Ball (coming soon)
How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dying?
