A/N: Sex happens in this chapter. It gets relatively explicit, but not terribly. Your normal, everyday, run of the mill smut. You have been warned. Also, a disclaimer I forgot to put in the first chapter and am too lazy to edit in: I am neither British, nor was I alive during the 70's, so I'm not even going to pretend that the dialogue between Hope and Regulus captures the fact that they are and were. Related: robes are for losers, muggle clothes for everyone.

Chapter 4

They had been lost for two days and two nights and they were both getting incredibly frustrated. Hope was barely able to walk anymore-despite his protests, she had let Regulus eat almost all the food they had. Thinking that they would be out of the woods-literally-any moment now, Regulus hadn't paced himself and was feeling quite weak himself. Additionally, they were both bruised and scratched from the various dangers the forest held-spiders, bowtruckles, tree branches and roots that came to life, and mud that stung and burned their ankles, among other things. No one had found them and they seemed to get farther and farther from finding their own way out every day.

"We're going to die out here," Hope moaned. "We're going to die. We're going to die. I'm so cold. We're going to die. I'm freezing cold. And I'm going to die."

"We're not going to die," Regulus said gruffly.

Hope nodded her head solemnly. "Die. We're dying."

"We aren't dying."

"We're dying. My mom is going to be so mad. She's going to be so upset when it turns out I died. Oh my god, my brother. My baby brother, he's going to be all alone in this world. With parents. And my other two siblings. But...he'll be Hopeless."

Regulus stared at her. She gave him a half-hearted smile.

"Your parents will probably kill everyone when they find out Hogwarts got you killed, no?"

He shrugged. "Unlikely."

"From what I've heard about the Black family, they're the type to take any excuse to kill everyone, even if they don't...you know…"

"Even if they don't what exactly?"

"Nothing. It's nothing. I just think it'll be terrible when we die, that's all."

"Well, luckily we're not going to die."

"Ok. But we so are. Are you not cold? I'm so cold."

That night they managed to kill a niffler and cook it (Hope's friend had insisted on teaching her the spells to kill, skin, and clean animals, in case a situation just like this arose, something she had felt certain she would never actually put to use until now), so they at least had something to eat. Regulus refused to eat more than half of it and stared at Hope until she ate her half, thinking about how useless she would be if she passed out and he had no help and a half-dead girl to try and care for. She seemed less reluctant to eat than she had before and once she got started she had scarfed down her food in minutes.

They both felt a bit sick from eating so much so quickly after eating next to nothing for days, but it was worth it to have a full feeling in their stomachs once again. Hope transformed the leaves on the ground to cushions to sleep on and they crawled into bed, exhausted.

Just as Regulus was about to sleep he heard Hope start to cry again. "What is it now?" he asked sharply.

"Fuck you," Hope replied. After a pause she added, "I really am quite cold. Do you think we'll freeze to death?"

"You can't be that cold. You have more layers on than I do."

"But I am that cold, I really am. I'm not going to be able to sleep like this, my whole body is shaking. I think I'm going to die."

"You always think that you're going to die. And you're always cold. That's nothing new. Just go to sleep."

Hope scooted closer to him. "Can't. Too cold. See? I'm shivering." When Regulus didn't respond she moved even closer to him until they were laying right next to each other and she could feel the warmth of his body. "This is better," she murmured.

Regulus still didn't respond, but he didn't move away either, so Hope lay her head on his chest and curled up against him. Her whole body really was shaking, he could feel her struggling to keep it still. And it was, admittedly, quite cold out; it felt nice to have her body on top of his. He reached out his arm to pull her closer and wrapped it around her waist.

Breathing a bit quicker than he normally would, he moved his hand under her five layers of clothing and touched the bare skin on her stomach. Hope winced a bit at how cold his hands were, but said nothing. They were probably going to die out here, Regulus reasoned, and she was pretty and there. Did it matter so much that she was a muggle-born? And annoying as fuck? It would shut her up, at any rate.

He continued to caress her stomach and then moved his hand towards her back and into her pants, his other hand tangled in her hair. She gasped slightly as he grabbed her ass, his heart pounding against her ears. Not hearing any objections, he continued to touch and caress her body, his hand finally coming to rest gripped against the front of her pants. Moaning softly, Hope shifted her body until she was face to face with him. They stared at each other for a bit, both waiting for the other to make a move, until Regulus closed the gap between them and pressed his lips against hers.

There was a desperate urgency in his kiss, but it was gentler than Hope had expected. One hand still in her hair, he had gone back to caressing her waist and stomach and he kissed her softly. After a moment, he opened his mouth against hers, encouraging her to do the same. His tongue was in her mouth in an instant and Regulus growled, kissing her harder and reaching to unbutton her jeans.

As his hands explored her, he began to kiss her neck, working up to her ear. His hot breath in her ear, his hand down her pants, and his lips on her earlobe made Hope forget her fear of dying and the cold temporarily. She moaned as he pulled away from her to undo his own pants. Shoving them down he reached for her hand and put it on his cock, wincing a bit when he realized how cold her hands were, but not pulling away. She reached back up to kiss him as she stroked his cock. "Fuck," she moaned quietly. "Black..."

Without needing further encouragement, he climbed on top of her and pushed her pants down to past her knees. He stopped and looked her in the eyes for a moment, propped up on his arms above her panting, as if asking permission for what they both knew was about to happen. Hope bit her lip and nodded, and he thrust inside her, leaning down to kiss her neck. Again, he was gentler than Hope would have expected. It was too cold to take off more clothes than absolutely necessary, but he caressed her face and hips and thighs continued to kiss her softly. "God, you're beautiful," he murmured. "Fuck."

"Thanks," Hope whispered and immediately felt stupid for saying it. Aren't you supposed to say "so are you" or something? Thanks seemed like the weirdest and worst response to that. Hope tried to think of a way to correct her error, but she couldn't seem to focus. She bit down hard on her lip and grabbed the back of Regulus' head, pulling him back to kiss her instead.

It felt quicker than Hope had been expecting, all said and done, but time was relative and she had been caught up in the pleasure she wasn't sure exactly how long he was inside her before he whispered an inquiry about her birth control situation in her ear. It was precisely the sort of thing Hope always imagined could not possibly sound sexy, but did when he asked her. Shortly after her confirmation that she was protected, he growled again and bit her shoulder as he came inside her. Rolling off of her, he muttered a cleaning spell and almost smiled at her.

They both put their clothes back on immediately to keep warm and Regulus turned away from her and whispered, "goodnight". Hope was still cold, but Regulus no longer seemed interested in being near her, so she curled up in a fetal position and tried to sleep.

A/N: Ok, let me tell you something, I got SO SICK of writing this sex scene that at a certain point I just said fuck it, this is good enough. So it's brief and disjointed, yeah, but I was contemplating just writing "they had sex; use your imagination", so at least I didn't do that, right? I'm not the best at writing smut and I wanted to just get on with it because I really like the next chapter. Sorry, not really sorry.