The Story of Regulus Black - Years 1-4

XIII. The Mind of Regulus Black

Deacon Ackland was waiting on the entrance hall stairs when the carriages arrived.

He watched eagerly as students flooded the large entrance hall before him; he watched as some of them entered the Great Hall straight away for dinner, and some of them chose to go to their common rooms first.

Deacon stood up on the stairs and extended to his full height, trying to catch sight of his two best mates.

He watched as the four Gryffindor second year boys stumbled into the Great Hall, laughing about something that anyone else probably wouldn't have even found that funny. He recognized the three Gryffindor second year girls - Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon, and Mary MacDonald - and waved at them as they walked by.

Deacon was the only one out of the three Gryffindor first year boys that had stayed at the school; not only did he just not necessarily want to go back to his house, but he wasn't entirely sure that he would be welcomed back.

The nasty letters from his family had stopped three weeks into the term, and he hadn't received a single piece of mail from anyone since. He didn't know if his family had decided to cut off contact because he was disowned, or if it was purely because they had run out of insults; but nevertheless, the letters had stopped - and he was quite glad they had.

However, this did mean spending the holiday almost entirely alone.

The only other first year who had stayed was a Ravenclaw boy named Emerson Reid, and he turned out to be quite nice.

Deacon and Emerson spent a lot of their days playing games like Gobstones or Wizards Chess, but one could only play those games so much. When they were bored of playing games, they would wander the castle together, or else just sit somewhere and talk.

It turned out that Emerson was a half-blooded wizard who was raised by his muggle father - his mother left them both when Emerson was just a baby. When Emerson was seven, his father met a woman, who he married when Emerson was ten.

Emerson confided that he didn't really like the woman that much, and so he decided to spend that Christmas at Hogwarts.

Despite Emerson's willingness to tell Deacon practically his entire life's story, Deacon didn't do the same. He told Emerson that he had stayed at Hogwarts that year because he 'wanted to make the holiday easier on his parents'; he didn't necessarily lie, he just didn't tell the whole truth.

So, his holiday hadn't been completely lonely.

He still missed his friends, though.

So, he had been sitting on the entrance hall stairs for over an hour before the students started showing up; and here he was.

He was craning his neck, trying to see over the heads of the students who were pouring up the stairs, when he heard his name.

"DEACON!" Deacon watched as a boy with light-blonde hair and piercing blue eyes pushed through the crowd of students coming into the entrance hall; Benjamin Stone.

Deacon grinned from ear to ear and ran down the stairs to meet the boy. "BENJI!" He shouted.

The two boys met in the middle of the entrance hall, and Benjamin wrapped the smaller boy into a hug. "I MISSED YOU!" he shouted, and Deacon laughed.

"I missed you, too!" he stepped out of the other boy's tight embrace, flushed with the happiness of getting to see his friends again.

He glanced around the now-emptying entrance hall, but he couldn't seem to find the third member of their small friend group. "Do you know where Fran is?"