Chapter 21

Thorn awoke to see Morghana leaning over her.

"You slept with a Black!" her friend hissed.

"I did what?" Thorn yelped, sitting bolt upright, and hearing a yelp of pain from Sirius an instant before she fell off the couch and landed painfully on the floor. "…Morghana!" she growled, pushing herself to her elbows and brushing her hair from her face. Morghana just giggled as Thorn got to her feet.

"What the shit?" Sirius groaned, and Thorn looked over to see him curled into a ball, his face contorted in pain

"Oh, I'm sorry." She said quickly. He just nodded silently and swung his feet around to the ground. "Did I kick you…?" she asked softly.

"You could say that, yeah…" he agreed tightly. Thorn bit her lip, and then turned her eyes on Morghana who was watching with great amusement.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked roughly. Morghana just grinned.

"What time is it?" Sirius asked, glancing at the window.

"Almost nine." Morghana replied "You missed breakfast and you're about to be late for class."

"What do we…" Thorn looked to Morghana who replied easily,

"Potions."

"Urgh…" Thorn sighed and leaned against the couch.

"I don't have a thing…" Sirius yawned, laying back down on the couch and pulling the blanket back up to his chin, looking over it at Thorn and Morghana with a comfortable smirk on his face.

"Yeah, rub it in." Thorn sighed.

"You could blow off Potions…" Sirius said lightly.

"Oi." Morghana said "Don't be giving her ideas… You Black's are getting enough action as it is!"

Thorn turned her head to look at Morghana, confused by that statement. "Yeah, what the hell, Morg?" Sirius yawned.

"There was this thing going around at breakfast about your brother." Morghana told him. Thorn watched her quietly, waiting for the rest of that. "Gods he's disgusting." Morghana shuddered. Thorn resisted the urge to tell her sharply to get to the point, and instead sat lightly on the arm on the couch. "Sirius, you're not gonna believe this…"

"I might if you actually tell me." Sirius replied bluntly.

"Regulus screwed Angela Adamson!"

"What?" Thorn gasped.

"I know!" Morghana cried "How gross is that!"

"Ew…yeah." Sirius closed his eyes, "That's a picture I could have done without!"

"I know right!" Morghana laughed. "And Adamson is going around saying that he was the worst she's ever had!"

"…well, we can't all have the talents of some..." Sirius said offhandedly. Thorn let out a deep breath and turned quickly, heading for her dorm.

"Where are you going?" Morghana called after her.

"To get dressed." Thorn replied flatly.

Thorn climbed onto her bed and pulled the hangings shut, despite the fact that she was the only one in the room. Sitting herself in the middle of her bed she drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around herself. It couldn't be true! There was no way Regulus would go anywhere near that girl! She was ridiculous! Thorn rested her chin atop one knee and thought about Angela Adamson. The girl was a complete tramp. A total slut. She thought about how the girl had been trying desperately to get Regulus' attention that day in Potions when they had been making love potions… had she finally gotten her way?

The next thought brought tears to Thorn's eyes. This had happened to her before. Had Regulus realised that he wasn't going to be getting anything from her any time soon, and so had gotten it elsewhere? Why not? That was what Jared Levine had done… Had she been tricked? Again?

Thorn wiped her cheeks with her sleeves. No. She wouldn't believe that without specific proof. Some rumour from the school whore wasn't going to ruin this for her by word alone. Climbing off her bed she pulled on fresh robes and using her brush, fought her way through her particularly knotty hair that she really ought to have brushed the night before after getting off Sirius' bike. Finishing with her hair, Thorn looked into the mirror and frowned. Those few simple tears had already left their mark, leaving her eyes watery and red. She scowled. Too bad. Trying not to think about the entire scenario, Thorn grabbed her school bag and headed down the stairs to meet Morghana.

"You ready?" Morghana asked, pausing when she looked at Thorn.

"Yeah. Sure." Thorn replied simply. She raised an eyebrow at Sirius when he sat up to look at her properly.

"Thorn, love…" he began gently.

"-See you later, Sirius." She cut in quickly, grabbing Morghana's wrist and pulling the girl from the commonroom.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" Morghana asked after they had spent several minutes in silence as they headed for their Potions class.

"Nothing." Thorn replied simply.

"Crap." Morghana retorted. "…does it have something to do with Sirius?"

"What?" Thorn asked, completely confused by that, "No. Why?" Morghana shrugged and just looked at her.

"If it's not Sirius, then who is it?"

"Nobody." Thorn replied gently.

"Fine." Morghana sighed, "Don't tell me." Thorn just glanced at her and remained silent as they approached their classroom.

*

Regulus tossed his bag onto his Potions workbench and turned to look at Aeshire's empty bench. Aeshire had spent all of last night in tears and had not even appeared for Breakfast this morning. Zane had later told him that she was not getting out of bed until at least lunch. Regulus had spent all of breakfast trying to ignore Vulcan's incessant attempts at getting him to pick a girl to 'go after', while watching hopefully for Thorn to arrive. He'd become slightly worried when she did not appear

He looked around now when the classroom door opened and she walked through with her Connors friend. Regulus frowned when he saw Thorn looked as if she'd been crying. If that had anything to do with Jared Levine, the guy was going to pay for it! Regulus watched as Thorn's eyes immediately flicked to him and she frowned softly, before quickly looking away. Regulus didn't understand.

"You know…" Vulcan said as he joined Regulus at his table. "I'm glad you finally came to your senses…although, you could have told me!"

"What?' Regulus asked, slightly irritated as he looked away from Thorn, to turn his eyes on Vulcan who was now leaning back against their bench.

"Adamson." Vulcan said with a wide grin.

"…what about her?" Regulus asked, still not getting it.

"You finally took advantage…" Vulcan began before Regulus cut him off when he realised what he was saying.

"WHAT?" he looked around at Angela Adamson to see her grinning widely at him. He stalked toward her table. "What have you done?" he demanded in a low voice.

"Don't be shy, Reggie." She replied loudly enough for the entire class to hear her, "You don't have to hide it. I'm not ashamed."

"You little slut!" Regulus growled, placing his hands on her bench and leaning across it towards her. "What do you think you are doing?"

"That's alright." She continued in her carrying voice "You don't have to worry about that. I'm not angry." Regulus didn't bother to hide his contempt as he stood up straight.

"You don't want to mess with me." He told her flatly. Angela just smiled at him as he turned and moved back to his own table.

"Reg, you should have told me…" Vulcan began.

"I didn't go anywhere near that whore last night!" Regulus snapped. Vulcan raised his eyebrows.

"Then why is she…?"

"Because I embarrassed her the other night when I rejected her." Regulus replied simply. "That's my guess anyway."

"But, why are you so angry?" Vulcan asked in a low voice. "This'll prove to everyone that you're not gay."

"…nobody thought I was gay to begin with." Regulus said.

"There was some speculation…" Vulcan said evasively "You were turning down…"

"I don't want to hear it." Regulus sighed, his eyes going back to Thorn on the other side of the room. He frowned lightly when he saw that she was purposefully avoiding looking at him as she systematically lay all her ingredients out on her bench. He watched her as she more than carefully read the label on every one of her bottles before setting them carefully on the bench, and knew that she was just trying to give herself something to do. Obviously she had heard Angela's little story. …but surely she didn't believe it was true?

Regulus clenched his teeth as his eyes slid back to the little bitch at the next table. What did she think she was going to achieve by spreading her crap? She'd been trying to get him all year, did she think that by spreading the rumour that she had, that he'd just jump into bed with her? The girl was deluded.

"What's wrong with you?" Vulcan whined. Regulus turned to look at him.

"Some little slut is telling the whole school…" Regulus was cut off by Vulcan waving his hand.

"I mean besides that." He replied "You're more worked up then you would be by just that. You were pissed off last night too."

"Oh…" Regulus gave a sigh. "I guess it's probably just Cissa's wedding looming." He lied. "It's going to be so… tiring."

"Right, yeah… all that lounging about…" Vulcan muttered, "All that… leisure."
"You have absolutely no idea." Regulus replied brusquely. Vulcan snorted.

*

Thorn heard Regulus' exclamation and although she tried not to look, her eyes slid over to the other side of the room to see him stop in front of Angela Adamson's desk and lean towards her. Thorn looked away, not wanting to see more. She tried to block the whole thing out, and tried even harder not to hear what the slut was saying. In need of something to distract herself, Thorn pulled out all her bottles and decided to arrange them on her bench in alphabetical order.

She was then very relieved when Professor Slughorn walked into the room and informed them that they had a lot of work to do and not much time to do it in. 'Brilliant' Thorn thought gratefully. At least that way she could immerse herself in her work and not have to spend the entire class watching the other side of the room.

"Hey…" Artemis' voice caught Thorn's attention.

"Yeah?" Thorn asked, turning around to her friend at the bench behind her.

"What's up?" Artemis asked.

"She won't tell you." Morghana told Artemis. "She's not in a talking mood."

"Why?" Artemis directed her question at Thorn. Thorn just shrugged.

"I just want to do my work." She replied softly.

Thorn continued working on her potion silently, and was the first in the class to collect her sample bottle from the front of the room. She barely heard Slughorn's praise of her work, as she bottled her potion and cleaned out her cauldron. She just found herself wishing class would end so that she could go and burry herself in some book in a far corner of the library seeing as she had a free study period next.

Finally Slughorn released them and Thorn was the first out the door. She hurried down the halls and up several flights of stairs until she reached the library. She gave a light sigh of relief as she took off into the shelves to look for a quiet and secluded place to sit. She had just chosen her place, finding a large comfortable looking arm chair in a corner and had started toward it when somebody had suddenly grabbed her and pulled her to a stop, turning her around. Thorn's breath caught when she came face to face with Regulus.

"What are you doing?" he asked softly.

"…I … uh…" she gestured at the chair she was heading for.

"I didn't touch her." Regulus said firmly. Thorn looked at him quickly. "You thought I did." He added, looking down at her. Thorn looked down at her hands.

"I… wasn't sure." She replied hesitantly. "I didn't want to think that you…" she looked up at him. "But…" she looked away and bit her lip before looking back to him, "I mean, why wouldn't you? … Jared Levine…"

"Was an arsehole." Regulus cut her off. Thorn nodded, but continued looking down at her hands as she twisted them awkwardly.

"Yeah, but you're…" she began but Regulus reached out and made her look up at him.

"Listen to me." He said softly, "Jared Levine is a prat. I'm nothing like him. I can't imagine ever doing what he did to you." His eyes scanned her face, "And as for that 'why wouldn't I' business…" he brushed back a lock of hair that was falling into her eyes, "I have absolutely no interest in anyone but you, Rose." Thorn looked away, feeing herself blush, but Regulus made her look at him again. "No, I mean it." He said firmly. "He might have said the same thing, but when I say it, I mean it. You have to know that."

*

Regulus frowned when Thorn looked away again. He was going to kill Jared Levine. Reaching out his other hand, Regulus placed his fingers beneath her chin. "You have to believe me." He said gently, "Rose, please believe me." He lifted her chin to see that she was crying. Using his thumb, Regulus quickly brushed away a tear that was trailing its way down her cheek.

"I do believe you." She whispered softly, "But… I still have that doubt. That thought just keeps coming back… and I can't make it stop."

Regulus hugged her to him, touched by the way her arms immediately came around his waist and clung tightly to him. Closing his eyes, Regulus made his decision. Jared Levine was going to pay severely for this scar he had inflicted upon his Rose. The son of a bitch had done more damage than he probably even realised… and certainly more than he cared. The bastard was going to pay for it.

"I'm sorry I doubted you…" he heard her say softly. Regulus let her go and took a step back so he could look at her.

"It's not your fault." He told her softly. Thorn looked guiltily away.

"Of course it is." She replied, "I should have known better."

"None of this would have happened if Angela could just keep her mouth…and her legs… shut." He smiled lightly when he saw Thorn's lips twitch as if she were about to smile.

"Why is she saying that?" she asked quietly.

"I rejected her the other night." He said softly. "She quite literally threw herself at me… and I threw her off." Thorn gave a light smile at that and Regulus reached up, smoothing her hair down gently.

"Does it bother you that she's saying you're the worst she's ever had?" she asked shyly. Regulus shook his head.
"That's just payback for what I said to her." He replied.

"What did you say?" Thorn asked. Regulus paused. He had not decided wether he was going to tell Thorn about Angela just yet or not, but now he supposed he didn't have much of a choice.

"I told her that she wasn't very good." He said gently, "But that the main reason it wasn't going to happen again was because I didn't like her and she makes me sick." As predicted, he saw Thorn's eyes widen, before she honed in on that one word.

"…again?" she asked softly. He nodded slowly.

"I've slept with her before." He breathed, watching as Thorn took that in.

"Oh…" she said in a tone that was clearly intended to sound indifferent.

"It was a mistake." He said quickly "A horrible and unrepeatable mistake." He looked at her just watching him, waiting for his explanation. "It was once. Last year." He paused and closed his eyes before continuing. "Just after Sirius moved out."

"Oh, Reggie…" he opened his eyes to see her taking a step towards him, and as she reached out to touch him, he raised his hand, taking hers in his and kissing it gently.

"I don't know why I did it…" he told her softly, "I just… did."

"Was that the first time you'd…?"
"No." Regulus replied gently. "Ah…" he was about to continue with that until Thorn had reached up and pressed her finger to his lips.

"That's okay." She told him softly. Regulus looked at her.

"You don't want me to tell you?" he asked.

"I'm saying you don't have to." She replied slowly. Regulus nodded.

"Alright." He agreed. When Thorn nodded and looked down at her hands, Regulus reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, causing her to look back up at him. "None of them meant anything." He told her softly, "I have not been with anybody since Angela last year. It's not a regular habit of mine, and I'm not going to go looking for it elsewhere because I'm not getting it from you." He watched as her eyes widened in surprise a moment before he saw relief flood through them.

"Thank you." She said quietly.

"I just wanted you to know." He replied gently. He smiled softly then, "It's obvious that's what you were worrying about."

"Hmm… yeah." She breathed, tilting her head. "I just thought that… like Jared… once you have… you would want to keep doing it." She bit her lip and looked at him, "and because I'm not…" she shook her head, "I haven't…" This time it was Regulus who reached out and pressed his finger to her lips.

"That's okay." He told her gently.

"It is?"

"It's more than okay." He replied with a smile, delicately tracing his fingers down her cheek. "You really are something special."

*

Thorn felt herself blush but didn't look away like she normally would have. This time she held Regulus' gaze, determined not to let herself ruin anything else. "I think you're getting better at being charming." She told him softly. Regulus smiled.

"I was unaware that I needed any improvement…" he breathed, taking a step closer and gently brushing the hair away from her face.

"You didn't." she replied gently, "But you're still getting better at it."

"But I'm not even trying to be charming." He told her, his right hand sliding from her hair down past her shoulder to her wrist, which he gently closed his fingers around. Thorn felt her pulse quicken.

"You're… you're not?" she asked softly, trying to focus on what he was saying.

"I'm just telling you the truth." He whispered, brushing his lips lightly across her temple and into her hair.

"You're damn near hypnotic…" she breathed, trying not to crumble and then melt into the floor. Regulus laughed softly.

"How's that?" he asked, stopping what he was doing and just wrapping his arms around her instead.

"Everything about you." She replied, letting out a deep breath as she leaned comfortably into him. "Your voice, your scent," Thorn paused, then added "That incredibly gentle way you touch me so that I can't think about anything else…" she grinned when she felt Regulus look quickly down at her.

"…okay." He said weakly. Thorn tried not to laugh. "…Really?" he asked after a moment. Thorn just nodded. "Ha. I didn't even know that." He said softly.

"Did you know about your voice?" she asked in a quiet tone.

"What about it?" he asked, his hand stroking her hair in that familiar way.

"You have an exceptionally attractive voice, Reggie." She informed him simply.

"I do?"

"Yes." She smiled up at him, "It's beautiful. It has a lovely deep quality to it. The tone is just gorgeous and gentle… even the way you pronounce things is sexy as hell."

"You're going to make me blush in a minute…" he muttered. Thorn grinned.

"Then you'll know how it feels." She replied lightly. She watched as Regulus slowly shook his head, his eyes running over her face.

"How did we get from talking about you to talking about me?" he asked softly.

"I wanted a more interesting topic…" she suggested with a smirk.

"Nah, see… you've got it all wrong then…" he breathed, bending to kiss her gently as his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, drawing her closer. Thorn wanted nothing more than to give in to that kiss right there, but then she remembered that they were in fact in the library and anybody could come around into their little row of books at any moment. Pressing her hand gently against Regulus' chest she waited for him to stop and let her go.

"Your cousin's wedding is soon." She reminded him when he looked dejectedly at her.

"Yeah." He replied with a small smile. "Apparently all the students invited are leaving tomorrow evening."

"Portkey?" she asked. He nodded quickly.

"So… tomorrow evening we…"

"Should be able to get some time alone…" he finished for her. Thorn smiled brightly. That would be absolutely fantastic. She just hoped that her mother would not feel the need to parade her around all the important guests for the entire evening.

"Then…" she said evenly to Regulus, looking up at him with another wide smile, "tomorrow can not come soon enough."

-

-

-

Disclaimer; I am in no way, shape, or form… J.K. Rowling.

Thank you and Goodnight!