ALPHA LEONIS

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

-I've written this—especially the beginning—very snapshot-like. I'm apologize if it seems impatient or jolts confusingly through time.

-About the title: Regulus was named after the brightest star in the constellation Leo positioned where the lion's heart would be.

-According to Rowling, Regulus became a Death Eater at 16 and died at 18. I'm going to push his becoming an Eater later a year; basically, if you notice timeline errors, they're purposeful.

-I've moved the year Hogwarts students learn to Apparate to seventh year in this story, again a purposeful edit, so don't bite my head off.

Enough from me—enjoy.

CHAPTER 1:WANING

She stares through my shadows

She sees something more

Believes there's a light in me

She is sure

-'In Her Eyes', Josh Groban

"I don't like you…you know?" she whispered into the darkness.

Regulus smiled as he gently brushed the neck of her school sweater down and kissed the soft, salty-sweet skin where her neck became her shoulder. He felt her reach up to run a hand into his black hair and hold herself to him. He lowered his mouth to where her sweater had been unbuttoned to kiss the top of one of her breasts where it just began to swell. He listened to the light sound she made in the back of her throat.

"I know," he replied, grinning. "Oh—watch it—it's midnight." He pulled her close in his arms as the giant hand on the glass clock face beside them ticked to align itself with its counterpart, pointing at twelve. The bells gonged long and loud above them, vibrating the floor, walls, and their bodies. Lenna laughed softly, squinting at the noise, and laid her head on his shoulder. They stared out through the glass at the glowing white crescent moon.

She turned in his arms to face him, her face close as the gonging continued to resound. "I don't like your arrogance," she murmured and leaned in to kiss him slowly, sweetly. "I don't like your disdain for your schoolwork," she breathed into his mouth and kissed him again. "I don't like your friends…I don't like your family—'cept Sirius…I don't like your closed-mindedness…I don't like how you do what your parents tell you…I don't like the way you become another person just to please people—the wrong people—and I hate the way you talk about the Dark Lord." She said the last bit with a bit of a frustrated growl, and had pulled back to look at him instead of kissing him.

"That's quite the list," he murmured.

She nodded, her mouth drawn into a line. "It is. But here I am. What's keeping me here, do you think?"

"No idea."

"Must be something."

Regulus kissed her hair, then inhaled to smell her shampoo. "Well here's something," he said softly. He took her face in his hands, brushing her dark brown hair away gently with hands that knew her. He leaned in close and pressed his forehead to hers in the dimness as the moon bleached the world into shades of black and white. "I'm in love with you."

A soft smile found Lenna's eyes. "Mm," she whispered. "I suppose that must be it."

Regulus grinned and kissed her deeply. He pressed her against the cold glass of the enormous clock face and drank her in. She moaned lightly, softly, and that sound—etched so deeply into him—made his core tremble.

He didn't know how he could be so lucky as to have her. She brought out something within him—something more than anything he had discovered on his own. Regulus closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of her hair—a smell that comforted him—as he felt her warm breath on his skin. In the beginning of his sixth year she had just been some snooty Ravenclaw assigned to teach him Potions after hours as Severus worked alone in the back of the classroom. Slughorn had required him to take extra lessons in order to reach NEWT level. He had thoroughly resented that at the time, but he had come to look forward to those late night study sessions even more than Quidditch practice by the end…

That Lenna Albeney with her chocolate eyes and soft mouth would see something in him… She was sweet, clever, accepting of Muggle-borns, and he was the stonily-silent Slytherin Seeker with an inherited hatred of Mudbloods and blood-traitors and never any professor's favorite. He admired the power of the Dark Lord and thirsted to become one of his trusted few. She thought the Dark Lord evil and corruptive. And yet their bodies required one another's, their minds hungry to hear one another's whisper, their skin inched to feel each other's touch.

In the day she was always in his thoughts, and there was always a longing within him to be near her. For her eyes to meet his, to know what she's doing and thinking, and to touch her hand, her waist, her hair. To hear the words formed by her lips and feel the peace of home that washed over him when she was close. She was a half-blood. How his parents would be ashamed of him. They might even disown him as they had done to his brother Sirius. The thought frightened him... He was not brave like his brother and did not know where else he would go.

The night waned as they sat on the black bench beside the clock face wrapped in one another as they had on countless nights before. It always grew cold, and Regulus encased her in his arms to keep her from chill. He held her to him and pressed his mouth to her hair as he listened to her steady breathing in sleep. This school year was almost over, but it had been the best of his life. Lenna had somehow wormed down deep into him passed his haughty cold silence, his Slytherin crassness, his intimidating family status. And he knew himself to be in love.

As for the future…he was too afraid to look right now.

"We still have time," Lenna murmured, pressing herself to him, holding him hostage.

"One more minute and the train will leave without us, love," he replied, sighing.

Lenna shook her head in denial and pressed her forehead to his neck. "Don't leave," she whispered.

"Lenna…"

"We could just go. Let's just go."

"You know we can't. It's only the summer. I'll write to you every day. Twice a day. You'll get sick of me."

"I don't want anything to change," she whispered. Regulus pulled back to take up her face firmly between his hands.

"Lenna, look at me," he said in a low but fervent voice. "You see me? Do you? Nothing will change. It can't change. I can't change. I don't know to not love you." He kissed her forehead hard. "It'll be fine. Just a few months and then we can be back where we were."

"I love you," she murmured, closing her eyes.

"Merlin, as I love you," Regulus breathed before gathering her up into his arms a last time and kissing her deeply. Then he disentangled himself from her and with a last look, left the dark corner of the platform and boarded the Hogwarts Express. Lenna followed a few moments later, finding her friends in a different part of the train for the ride back home.