JO DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING. Dorcas doesn't say anything. They sit, eyes dancing across the room until they eventually meet, and that's it. Jo thinks that maybe Marlene did the talking for them, told Jo what Dorcas said, told Dorcas what Jo said, built a bridge that the two of them were too stubborn to start working on. Dorcas cries, Jo holds onto her hands, and it goes on like that for a while. Eventually, one of them says sorry. It comes out in hiccups, in rushed whispers. Over and over. I'm sorry. And that's. They don't talk about it again.

Dorcas fawns over Jo's healing knuckles. Together they laugh at the image of Severus Snape, proud and cruel, weak and defeated by Jo's feet. Dorcas tells her to watch out for him, for payback. Jo tells her she eagerly awaits it, anticipates it. She says nothing of her time on the ground, seeing nothing but blackness, wand wildly pointed at any noise she heard. She doesn't tell anyone.

With Dorcas back, things feel lighter, better than they did before. They link their arms together as they walk to class, they gossip and whisper and huddle closer together than anyone else and all of their friends roll their eyes and make jokes about how they never thought they would miss it. And it's strange. It's strange that Jo finds it strange to spend time with her best friend skipping down corridors and giggling over lunches instead of hiding in shadowy archways with Regulus.

And as Jo falls back into step with Dorcas, she falls back into step with Alice, with Emmeline, with Hestia. They crowd her, laugh with her, and skip down the hallways with her and she'll catch the sight of him sometimes. Tucked in the library, sitting stoic in the Great Hall, doing Prefect rounds. Jo will see him, and he will smile at her and she will think about it for the rest of the day. And even though her nights are still filled with him, she thinks only of the moon while the sun is on her skin. He saturates her thoughts.

She buzzes now, as she sneaks. Wand illuminated, footsteps careful. Moonlight pours through the windows and onto the floors and Jo tries not to rush herself, tries not to be too eager. She's already early, anyway.

Jo wasn't exactly sure when it happened. Perhaps it was the rift with Dorcas or the rift with James or the mood ring or maybe it was the first time she saw him cry but she has become consumed by this softness that lies within Regulus. The concern he's shown her. The gentleness he displays. The softness. It's something she'd never even see before. Jo's life is red, popping, explosive and grandiose. It is loud music that booms at victory parties and gulps of Firewhiskey. It is flushed cheeks and raw voices and scraped knees and laughter that leaves her ribs sore. And it is beautiful, but it is exhausting. With Regulus she can sit, soak in his soft chuckles and wry smirks and slick wit and she will have bags under her eyes but will feel more refreshed than she had before.

She stares down at her shoes as she walks, the lights from her wand washing them out. Jo feels a bit silly, in all honesty, slipping out of her pajamas into a pair of muggle jeans and a Talking Heads shirt, specifically chosen to impress Regulus (Talking Heads being the favorite of all of the records she'd shown him). Her steps, one after the other, almost rhythmic, keep her calm, level-headed. And she is so focused on her own footsteps that she almost doesn't notice the ones that stomp behind her.

It sounds like someone's tripping, stumbling over their own feet and catching themself. Jo whips around at once, wand raised and eyes wide and praying that whoever is there is not McGonagall-she doesn't think she'd live through another punishment from her. But as she strains her eyes against the darkness, she sees nothing but an empty corridor.

Jo narrows her eyes, nerves set ablaze as she slowly turns. For a moment, she stands still in the moonlight, twisting the mood ring on her finger and listening. She stands for a moment, for another, and then she sees it. Something small, furry, running along the way like it's trying to escape the light of her wand. Jo glares and turns around.

"Stupefy!"

The cloak flies right off of James as he is knocked backwards, and the rat squeaks, loud and rushing towards James and it is suddenly no longer a rat but Peter Pettigrew, kneeling by her brother's side. Jo crosses her arms across her chest. "What are you doing?" she questions both of them, unmoving as James groans, Peter pulling him to his feet.

"Merlin, Jo," Peter gapes as James regains his footing. "You couldn't have hit him with something lighter to start?"

James cracks his neck, stretches out his limbs, and gathers the cloak up off the ground but he still provides no answer. Jo glowers. "What are you doing?" she demands again, noticing a bit of crinkled parchment poking out of James's pocket.

Peter looks between the two of them, eyes wide. Jo is firm, standing still, jaw locked, while James shoots back with a question of his own. "Where're you going, Josie?"

The image of her brother's face as he saw Regulus's fingers on her shoulder, whispering in her ear, burns bright in her memory. She can see it better than she can see him now, with his expression lax and cool. "None of your business, James."

There is a silent struggle for power, one that has always existed between the two siblings. James juts his jaw, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Jo stands still. Their eye contact does not break and despite their opposition, Jo thinks that they're never more alike in moments like this. Stubborn and hot-headed, like their father always says. "I don't want you seeing him."

Jo has to swallow her tongue, hold back on the responses that come naturally to her. I don't know what you're talking about, and you can't tell me what to do anyways. Instead, she shifts the weight on her feet, taps her index finger along the length of her wand, and she shifts her gaze to Peter. "Do you think this is okay, what you're doing? Following me around with that map of yours?"

Peter gapes, mouth flapping open and closed, constantly shifting his gaze. He squirms between the two of them. Jo pities him. If James was going to do this, he should've done it on his own. "We're just trying to look out for you, Jo," Peter says, dropping his arms by his side. "You can't blame us for not wanting anything bad to happen to you."

She doesn't like how those words hit her. Familiar but twisted, feeling sour as they work their way through her. It's different, coming from him. "I don't need either one of you to protect me. I've done plenty to prove that," she snarks, eyes on Peter. "I especially don't need your help going for an innocent walk-"

"There's a war, Josie," James cuts her off, voice level, and Jo snaps her attention back to him, "nothing's innocent."

Silence pulses. Irritation rakes over Jo and she thinks that Regulus must be pacing in the spot where they met. She wonders if he's wondering where she his. She wonders if she'll tell him about this. James takes a step towards her. "Josie, listen. I've never had to worry about you before. I know you can take care of yourself. But this," he implies, raising his eyebrows and pulling out the map, " this makes me worried. This makes me feel like I've got to step in and look out for you."

Jo tightens her arms around herself, and she thinks of how Regulus exists in her head and how different that must be from how he exists in James's. How she thought of him before she truly knew him. She wants to scream. Stomp her feet and tell her brother that he's wrong wrong wrong and that he doesn't know what he's talking about and if he gave Regulus a chance, he would realize he's not bad. He's better than not bad. He would see what she sees- that she's sure of.

"Well, you don't," Jo snaps. "I'm not stupid."

James narrows his eyes at her, watches her and Jo takes what she's learned from Regulus, and she becomes unreadable, expression cool and so composed it's unnatural. "If he does anything, I'll kill him. And I mean that."

Jo inhales sharply. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing, Josie," James says, "you better hope Sirius never finds out."

And with that, James turns on his heel and takes long strides down the hall. Peter hesitates, looking at Jo with wide eyes and shaking hands. "Don't be mad, Josie. He just wants you to be safe, alright? There's a lot of rumors going about and well, he's just looking out for you. We all are."

Jo lets her arms drop to her side now that her brother is gone. "Alright," she relents. Her stomach is churning too much for her to be angry.

After Peter turns to rush after James, Jo stands there for a moment, processing and breathing and trying to shove down any emotions that her brother had brought out in her. Slowly, she unfreezes, and begins to make her way down to the Greenhouse, listing off all the things she is not: angry, nervous, nauseous. She repeats this list to herself and suppresses fantasies of hitting her brother upside the head.

He means well. Jo throws that sentence into rotation. He means well. He means well. He means well. But he's wrong. That's the most important part, Jo thinks. That he means well, but he's wrong. James has no reason for her not to be around Regulus. He has no reason to get so worked up over it that he tracks her name down on a map and follows her down the corridors. And Jo's gut drops at the idea that this wasn't his first time doing so.

She thinks of her soft conversations with Regulus being exposed to her brother and shudders.

Her feet echo against the floor as she rushes towards their designated spot, face now flushed with horror. Regulus is pacing when she approaches, and Jo notes his attire. While Jo has switched out her usually tattered pajamas and hole-filled sweater for a half-decent outfit, Regulus has discarded his usual heavy robes for a warm looking sweater wrinkle-free trousers.

At the sound of her approaching, Regulus looks up with a smile, eyes trailing along the details of her face.

"Lot on your mind?" he greets, halting his pacing in the middle of the hall.

Jo tilts her head as she struts towards him, falling in place at his side without missing a step. Regulus is quick to match her step as they start their subconscious walk towards the seventh floor. "You can tell that from just three seconds of seeing me?" she questions.

"You don't hide your thoughts as well as you think you do," he quips, wry smile not leaving his lips. Regulus looks down at Jo, and she looks back up at him, unable to stop herself from matching his smile. She feels comfortable by his side, and even though she is a whole head shorter than him, he always slows his pace to match her own. She thinks about that quite a bit.

Jo tears her gaze away from him, focusing her attention on her feet instead. "My brother and Pettigrew followed me out of the common room and accosted me," she tells him as they walk in tandem. "He just wanted to let me know that he has no qualms with us being friends and is very okay with me spending time with you," she says, hands working their way into her back pocket. "He made no threats on your life."

"What a relief," Regulus scoffs. "I was losing sleep at the idea that I might not have James Potter's approval."

Jo frowns. The way he spat out her brother's name pulls a string in her gut. "He's not that bad."

"No," Regulus agrees, " just a hypocrite."

Jo rolls her eyes. "Oh, c'mon."

"Made you cry at a party because you don't like Evans," Regulus continues, a bit of an edge in his voice that sounds similar to the way he vowed no one would ever hurt her again, "and then telling you you're not allowed to be friends with anyone he doesn't like."

Jo bites down on her bottom lip; she doesn't know if she should argue or not. "He's just worried about me."

Regulus looked down at her; she can feel his eyes on the side of her face. "Do you think he should be?"

"No," Jo replies swiftly, "I think he should worry about himself." Jo thinks of her brother, thinking of the way he's never really cared what Jo's done or who she's spent her time with or almost anything about her. "He's never been like this before."

"He must really hate me," Regulus smirks, and Jo shoots him a frown. "It's okay, I'm not particularly a fan of him either."

"Why not?"

This makes Regulus stop, makes him cast his gaze down and out. Jo holds her breath as she waits for his answer. She watches as he locks his jaw, grinds his teeth, and looks up towards the ceiling. Regulus inhales deeply as he says, "He took my brother from me."

His words come out so quietly that Jo thinks that she doesn't hear him. But she waits, and then they hit her. Jo furrows her brow. "That's not fair," she whispers, remembering the hallowed look of her brother the night that they took Sirius. She remembers her brother's hands covered in blood. "Your mother took your brother from you. James just gave him a place to go."

Regulus's clenched fist brushes against Jo's healing knuckles as they round a corner, approaching a staircase and taking dutiful, echoing steps up the stairs. "You weren't there," he grumbles out through clenched teeth.

"I was," Jo counters, the memory clear in her head. "I saw him that night, when he first came to stay with us," she insists in a low voice. "It's what made me want to become a Healer, seeing what she did to him."

Regulus says nothing to that. He allows a beat of silence before he speaks again. "What'd you say to your brother?"

Jo smirks. "You mean after I hit him with a stunner? I told him to piss off." She looks up at Regulus again, happy to see the way he smirks along with her. "He can't tell me what to do."

Regulus snickers. "I don't think anyone can."

"Damn right," Jo says as the pair of them peel away from the staircase, and down the seventh-floor corridor.

"I wish I could do that," Regulus says abruptly, the tone in his voice suddenly shifting. "Stand up for myself, the way you do. Being around you, it just makes me feel like I don't have a backbone. You don't let anyone take advantage of you."

Jo looks up at Regulus with narrowed eyes. "Do you?"

He purses his lips. "I'm in situations I'd rather not be in," he says, choosing his words delicately, one by one. "And I think that if I was more like you, then I wouldn't be."

"I think you have backbone," Jo counters immediately, fervor in her voice. "Backbone enough to blackmail Dolohov and enough to tell me what Reed had been saying when no one else did," she chuckles. "You're just not stupid about it like I am, and that's why I end up blinded in the corridors and you don't."

"You're not stupid, Josephine," Regulus says, and Jo looks him in the eye, pretending that she doesn't see the way his hand inches towards hers, hesitantly before it drops. "You're brave. It's one of my favorite things about you."

"Every Gryffindor is brave. It's one of the basic entry requirements."

They stop in the middle of the corridor, and Regulus turns to face her, looking down at her with warm, kind eyes and a soft smile that makes Jo feel like her heart is vibrating. The stone shifts against itself. "It's different on you."

The sudden door that appears before them is wide open, and Jo takes the opportunity to duck under the doorway to hide the smile that builds on her flushed face. "Enough with the flattery, Regulus," she says, rushing towards the middle of the middle of the room where Jo has stored her record collection. She reaches for the top two. "It's time to get down to business. The Runaways or Ramones?"

Regulus follows her, the door lightly closing behind them. He eyes the records in her hands. "You've already played me Ramones."

"Huh. The Runaways it is then," she decides, taking the record and twirling it between her fingers. "That's fine. Cherry Bomb 's my favorite anyways."

Music floods the room as soon as Jo places the stylus down, heavy guitar that, for a moment, makes Regulus flinch. "This one's loud," he says, voice raised to carry above it.
Jo kicks her leg up as she paces slightly, taking one step to the left and one to the right. "Well, that's the first rule of music, you know. The louder the better."

Regulus raises an eyebrow at her. "Is that right?"

"Would I lie to you?" Jo questions, smirking slightly.

"No," Regulus concedes, "I don't think you would."

Jo freezes, standing by the record player and staring across the room towards Regulus. He is still, hands tangled up in each other, looking impossibly timid and just so soft, and Jo can see him, all of him, and her gut sinks at the idea that someone could think of him the way that James does. "I'm sorry about my brother by the way. And, for the record, I would never let him kill you."

Regulus shrugs. "It's alright. I expected something from him when I stepped in the other day. Still, I just wanted to make sure that you were alright," he says, and then snickers. "And that you didn't kill Snape. I was worried you might."

Jo chuckles. "How did you know I was there anyways?"

"I was on my way back from the library, actually," he explains, "and I heard shouting. You and your brother, you're not very quiet."

"Family trait."

Regulus takes a step towards her. "I'm sorry if I'm the cause of another argument between the two of you."

"We argue all the time," Jo shrugs it off. "Constantly. Over everything. I mean, we've lived together all our lives."

"Sirius and I never used to fight," Regulus shares, "Not when we were younger. Things started to change after he first left for school."

"You two were close?" Jo presses slightly, leaning in closer to him.

Regulus nods. "We were close. He used to look out for me, stand up for me the same way you do your friends. Sirius never used to let anything bad happen to me."

Jo's mouth feels dry. "And now that he's gone?"

He looks up at her with sad eyes and a half smile. "Bad things don't happen to him."

The music swells and Jo feels her heart swell with it. There is something about Regulus standing there in front of her that makes her feel overwhelmed with affection. She wants to squeeze his hand and ensure that he'll be safe and she wants to tuck the stray curl that dangles in front of his face behind his ear and she wants to make him happy.

Jo takes another step towards him. "Do you want to dance?"

"Dance?" he repeats back to her, eyebrow raised.

"Yeah," she nods, and reaches forward to tug on his hand, "come on."

He is reluctant, firm in his spot as Jo tugs at him. "I don't really dance, Josephine."

She laughs. "You do now. Let's go."

Regulus sighs, assessing his surroundings before he relents, stepping forward and letting Jo take both of his hands in hers. "What do I do?"

"Make it up as you go along."

She swings her arms. She kicks wildly. She twirls and she swirls and Regulus, for a moment, just watches. But as the song switches and the tempo increases, Regulus starts swinging his arms. He spins Jo under his arm, and he spins her into his chest. And, after a bit, he moves as loosely as she does, wildly and freely and every movement is coated with laughter. And as Jo squeezes his fingers, she's not worried about anything that exists outside of that room. Not when Regulus is there with her.