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He would have sent her roses but she would have cut off the heads and posted them to him.
He would have sent her chocolates but then she would think he was trying to make her overweight again. Then she would, oh so kindly, acquaint her fist to his nose (his perfectly narrow Black nose!).
He would have tried to serenade her but he couldn't sing to save his life (and Hogwarts was conveniently out of harps). Then she would most certainly have held a knife to his throat while her three cousins looked on, smirking like Christmas had come early.
They didn't like him much. Well, Eleanor certainly didn't, but she was a MacDougal - they didn't like anyone, least of all Slytherins (and they were supposed to be a Grey family, yet considering their losses it made sense that they were no fans of the Dark Lord or his would-be followers).
That was almost funny seeing as how two of her (second, he was mostly sure of it) cousins were in his house.
Severus Snape and Pandora Nott. A strange pair, both equally quiet and equally pale.
And, a dark voice that sounded terribly like Bella whispered in his ear, equally halfbreeds.
Vampire descendants. Through their mothers (all sisters save Eleanor's) they carried the Prince's Taint.
Like Alice Harper. And it was because of his family - his - so of course the fifth year would be justified in her reactions.
He wasn't even in her year; he was a fourth year like Pandora Nott.
She wouldn't look at him twice. But if, perchance, she did...
The Ravenclaw was more likely to grant him a steel kiss across his throat with a knife than give him one with her lips... And yet, he liked her anyway. Probably because of that. His brother was right, he was a little twisted.
But then so was Sirius. He'd heard his brother say to his obnoxious gang that if she could stand to lose even more weight he'd go for Alice Harper, and all the better if she tried to castrate him. Apparently he liked a challenge.
Idiot didn't even know what he was walking into; he didn't seem to have any clue of who - what - Harper's mother was. Or Severus' for that matter. If he had Sirius wouldn't look at the paler boy the way he did. He wouldn't jeer at him the way he did. The disgraced Black would avoid the son of the Court of Prince like the plague. Or he'd try to befriend him - just as one last (and rather major) eff you to their parents. Regulus didn't doubt that for a second. That would be just like him.
As if thousands from both families hadn't slaughtered each other over the centuries (since the beginning of bloody Time, it's seemed). Over what he didn't know; no one had explained it to him properly. Was it over the Prince's being a genuinely French family - Court - like the Delacour's, as opposed to simply playing the part like the Black's?
Knowing his family and their history - probably, Regulus thought wryly.
Over the course of his fourth year he saw less and less of Alice Harper, and she looked thinner each time - like she barely ate.
That's war for you, he thought as he approached the Black Lake one evening. He wasn't alone. There was one person sitting on the soft dirt where it fell away to mud, then water.
She didn't stiffen as he approached, in fact she barely even looked at him - even as he sat some distance from her. His eyes were on the lake, but he was quite aware of her presence beside him. They stayed like that until his muscles were sore from inactivity. He wondered how long she'd been sitting there for. Just then she moved.
He didn't look up when Alice Harper left.
Their strange and silent meetings continued as the weeks went by. Christmas came and went. There were more deaths, more losses than seemed possible. Still, he went and sat by the Black Lake alongside Alice Harper. It was like a compulsion. He was drawn to what he dubbed in his head as 'their spot', drawn to her, dangerous and unhinged as she was.
They were all dangerous, those four with the Prince's Taint; it was simply a matter of who was more so.
Was it Alice? He didn't know, but she hadn't strangled him yet so maybe there was hope. For what, again he didn't know. What did he hope for, what did he want?
Then one night, under the twinkling of the brightening stars and the watchful eye of the crescent moon she spoke to him.
"You are a real pain in my arse, do you know that?" Her voice was a cracking, loud rasp, harsh in the previous silence.
"No, I didn't. Thanks ever so for telling me."
"Why don't you just piss off back to your cosy den?"
"Are you telling me to leave? After all this time we spent together - I thought we bonded."
She made a sound that may have been a scoff. "Bonded? I'd sooner bond with poor old Travers."
There was something he could latch on to. "You really scarred him, you know. Choking him and threatening him as you did."
"He deserved it, saying the things he had - you take warning from that, Black."
Though she hadn't deigned to look upon him once in their... meetings, Regulus nodded absentmindedly. "But that was quite a feat; dragging him like that - till his face turned that ghastly purple. I'd never have thought someone of your size able to do that..."
"So I'm a psychotic, fat bitch." She spoke in a flat tone, eyes on the lake.
"You're not really that fat anymore are you?" She'd gotten... 'slimmer' wasn't the right word... Thinner, most definitely thinner. Like she barely ate, even now. War, he thought distantly, one of the many faults of the bitch that is Life.
"So I'm a psychotic bitch." Her words were still said lifelessly, but for a hint of steel within, like she didn't care what he thought of her so long as he knew what she was capable of. What she could do to him if he... Well, if he so much as looked at her wrong like that Smith girl had.
But he wanted to hear her say it, hear her threaten him openly. He wanted to know what she sounded like with anger colouring her tone, seeping into her blank expression. He wanted to see her at her worst. And he wanted her fire to be fuelled by his touch, for her to crave him as he did her.
He vaguely remembered their previous line of conversation. He said with consideration, "That's not what I meant." She turned to look at him then, and surprise, surprise - there was loathing all over her still-round face. He bit his bottom lip, hard, glancing away then back. "Though you can be. Sometimes."
"Most times." She was frank, as always. Mark of the insane, that. But he must be too for wanting her.
"There's no right answer to this, is there?"
The corner of her mouth twitched. "No."
"How delightful." He moved so he sat well in her personal space, a barrier he'd never breached before. He made his voice deeper, the drawl longer. "Now tell me, what will it take for you to..." He let the sentence trail off meaningfully as he stared at her with smouldering eyes. He raised his hand and let it skim the air above her own which rested by her side. He moved his hand over her arm, taunting her with the promise of touch. He had just reached the curve of her neck when she reached out and shoved him in the chest.
He felt winded as his back connected with the ground. Then her voice was in his ear, a sibilant whisper promising darkness and pain ("Do you think you can toy with me, Black? Try that again and I'll show you what I should have done to Travers."). His lip will become raw with all the biting he had inflicted upon it. It was everything he'd hoped for; his blood was singing. He wanted to reach out and pull her down to his level, capturing her lips with his own.
It's mad but it is what it is.
If Bellatrix, or his mother knew his traitorous thoughts they'd skin him alive. (Skin him as Pandora Nott had a chicken drumstick with her nails at dinner, while staring at her paternal cousins as if imagining it was the flesh on their bones.)
Then they'd start the real torture. Then, when they had him on the cusp of death they'd grant him sweet oblivion - only to resurrect him to do it again.
That was how much they hated Half-Breeds. And French Pureblood elitists. The latter (Prince's and Delacour's and the like) just so happened to be mostly made up of the former.
"You really are a mystery, Harper. And here I was thinking you actually did like me." He hadn't actually, and besides he wanted far more than 'like' from her.
She stood, towering over him in a way that made him feel vulnerable as she could so easily crush his throat under her boot. He sat up slowly, staring up at her through his lashes. Would she never give in? Hate was always a strong fuel for passionate relations of the scantily clothed variety. He refused to think of the real reason he was out there, and had been for so long throughout the year. But Harper being Harper dragged it up, kicking and screaming as it was and forced him to look upon it. And she'd seemed such a good distraction too.
"All I wanted was some peace and quiet. You couldn't even give me that. And like some idiot I barely mustered up enough energy to tell you to bugger off. Well, enough's enough. It ends today. They tell you war is coming - they lie! It is already here, and we have to pick a side! No tolerance for the others. I've picked mine. And I don't think you're on it. So stay away from me or I will make good on my promises."
With that she turned on her heel and marched back to the castle, leaving him... speechless - and strangely bereft.
He didn't want to pick a side. He wanted to be a (relatively) ordinary fourteen year old boy, with strange fourteen year old boy fantasies.
But he was a Black, and what's more, unlike his git brother, Regulus was a Slytherin. He had to chose which side he was on; Light, Grey or Dark. He didn't know which was truly his, but he had a feeling he'd find out soon. He only hoped it was the right side.
Written for Camp Potter, A Challenge.
History Appreciation:
Mandatory prompt: Write about Regulus Black.
Optional used: 1. Dialogue: "That's not what I meant." 2. Lake. 3. Thousands. 5. Roses.
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