Lottie was staring at him with a look of complete guilt on her face. Her amber eyes were wide, one cheek bulging out slightly and both her hands held behind her back as she stood in the door opening, completely frozen.
"Black…hi. What are you doing here?" she asked, very obviously trying to conceal the fact that her mouth was quite full.
"I'm a prefect," he said, which was his standard explanation as to why he was anywhere at any time, really. "What are you doing here?"
Lottie swallowed hard, which looked rather uncomfortable, and Regulus wondered whether she had just swallowed a bite of unchewed food.
"I'm…uh…" she stammered, clearly trying to come up with a plausible excuse as to why she was out of the dorm at this hour—and in the kitchen for that matter. Regulus couldn't fight the feeling of amusement bubbling up inside him, a very faint smile tugging at the side of his lips as he raised his eyebrows and stood up a little straighter, folding his hands behind his back as he patiently waited to her reply.
"Oh fine," Lottie sighed in defeat as she revealed what she had been holding behind her. In each hand she held a custard cake, one of them missing a large chunk out of a corner.
"Feeling hungry, are we?" Regulus asked, unable to keep his amusement out of his voice. Out of all the possibilities, he hadn't expected to find her here, with the same motivations as him.
"You have good taste. I was going to go for treacle tart, but if there are custard cakes I would be so inclined to get some as well."
His words seemed to puzzle Lottie for a moment. She probably expected him to give her detention, or to tell on her to a teacher, but not to make idle conversation with her.
When she finally moved, she did so by stepping over the threshold of the painting, allowing it to close again. She held out a hand to him, the second custard cake lightly glinting in the candle light.
"Would you like one?" Lottie asked, looking a bit more comfortable and relaxed now that the initial shock of running into a prefect had left her.
It was Regulus' turn to be surprised now, as he hadn't expected her to share her food with him.
"That's alright, I can get some myself," he said, hesitant to take it. Not because he thought there was anything wrong with it, but because the gesture was so simple and insignificant, but not to him. She was sharing something with him that she wanted for herself, without him even having asked for it.
"These are the last ones," she said, moving her hand a bit closer to him. "It's this one, or none."
She appeared to have found her nerve again, because she took another bite from the one she had already started eating earlier, before flashing him a smile.
He took the cake from her with a polite nod.
"Thank you," he said, holding the delicate pastry in the palm of his hand. Lottie's smile widened as his words, but he detected a hint of insecurity in her eyes just before she spoke.
"You're not going to send me to detention, are you? I was just up late doing homework and I got so unbearably hungry that I couldn't have possibly fallen asleep with my stomach growling like that," she explained in one breath.
"Are you trying to bribe me with food, Vernier?" Regulus asked, his voice lined with feigned scandalousness. He wasn't sure why he liked prodding at her like this—maybe it was because the blush that colored her cheeks made her look some type of way in the dim light of the corridor, or the way her eyes widened slightly at his accusation, her doe eyes fixed on him in a way that made something stir within him.
"Of course not," she quickly said, looking properly nervous now. "I just can't afford to go to detention—it would make me miss Quidditch practice for the whole week, and Kinney would never let me live that down."
This took Regulus by surprise. "You're on the Quidditch team?"
Lottie blinked at him, a few seconds of silence falling between them.
"I've been on the team since my fourth year," she said.
Regulus' brows drew together slightly. He had been on the Slytherin team since his third year, so ever since she had started playing for Hufflepuff, they would have been on competing teams, and yet he didn't remember ever noticing her during a game against her house. Then again, his concentration in Quidditch games always went to either dodging bludgers or catching the snitch.
"What position?" he asked, genuinely curious now.
"Chaser," she answered, a small scowl forming on her forehead. She was offended he hadn't remembered.
"Right," he said, as if he had known all along and she had only confirmed it for him. "Well, we can't have Kinney mad, can we?"
Angus Kinney, the captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, was hardly an intimidating person, but Regulus decided not to push her any further. He enjoyed teasing her, for some reason, but she had been kind to him yet again, and he didn't want to give her any incentive to stop that.
"Let me walk you back to the common room, in case a teacher finds you. I can vouch for you."
It was a self-serving offer: it would allow him to postpone their splitting apart to their respective dorms, and he would have more time to ask her about that morning.
His suggestion seemed to surprise her—her eyebrows shooting up slightly and she opened her mouth to speak, but she promptly closed it again before nodding.
He started to walk, slowly, and Lottie fell into step next to him.
Lottie felt like she was in a fever dream and pinched her arm inconspicuously as she walked next to Regulus. He had been the absolute last person she imagined to bump into at this hour. Not only that, but his demeanor had been quite different from the last time they had spoke. At one point during their confrontation, she thought she had even seen him smile a little, though she was sure she had imagined it.
Truth be told, he hadn't been entirely wrong about her bribing him. She really couldn't afford to go to detention, not with their match against Gryffindor coming up. She hadn't expected him to ask her about it so directly, though. If he had caught on to her nervousness, he hadn't let on.
They were walking at an excruciatingly slow pace, and Lottie had half a mind to simply start walking ahead of the prefect, but that seemed rather rude after he had just saved her from at least a week's worth of detention. She couldn't get to her dorm fast enough, the fact that she was alone with Regulus Black of all people feeling utterly surreal.
"I saw you staring at me during Herbology."
It was a statement, but it carried a question with it. Lottie's body went rigid and her stomach sank. Regulus' tone had been cool, void of any emotions. She dared to glance up at him, but his face was just as blank as his voice had sounded, his gaze fixed on the corridor ahead of them.
There was no way around it: she had been staring at him, and for the rest of the day she had tried to come up with a plausible excuse to tell him if he would ever inquire about it. She had failed to come up with anything believable, however, and he had asked her about it entirely too soon.
"You had something stuck in your hair," she blurted out, which had been the most reasonable explanation she had come up with. It was a weak one, and there was a big chance he would be able to see through her lie, but she couldn't tell him that she had been staring for no good reason. And 'I was staring at you because I realized you're kind of handsome', was not a good reason. It was the horrible, embarrassing, humiliating truth.
"I did?" he asked, and his time his voice held that same tone of amusement it had carried when he had asked whether she was hungry. He wasn't mocking her, he was humoring her.
"Just a leaf. It caught my eye, and well… you looked at me right when I spotted it. It was nothing," she continued, deciding that this was the muddy, slippery hill she would die on.
"Hmm…how curious, nobody mentioned it to me," he considered. "And when I went to the bathroom after class, there was nothing in my hair as far as I could tell."
He was on to her and he was trying to see just how she would wiggle herself out of the ever narrowing corner she was driving herself into, she was sure of it.
"It must have fell out of your hair at some point," she said, desperate to end the conversation as soon as possible, or at the very least take the heat off of herself.
"Why? Did I make you nervous?"
She wasn't sure why she asked it. Probably because he made her nervous—that morning and right now, and she was projecting her feelings onto him.
Her question seemed to have piqued his interest, because he looked down at her, the sudden movement making Lottie look up at him in surprise. Regulus' eyes searched hers as he came to a slow halt, and she stopped in her tracks as well. Had she overstepped some sort of line?
"Why would your attention make me nervous, Vernier?" he asked, his tone once again void of any kind of emotion. It was a good question; one she couldn't really answer. She was the nervous one, but she could hardly let him in on this piece of embarrassing information, so in stead she straightened herself slightly, lifting her nose in the air a little as a smile spread on her lips. She tried to look as confident as she possibly could.
"Because a pretty girl was looking at you?" she said, as if it was the most logical thing in the world.
Her words seemed to invoke some kind of emotion in the tall boy in front of her, but she couldn't figure out what it was. He surveyed her carefully and she felt her neck flush with heat—it was like he was trying to look inside her.
Then, a smile—an actual smile—formed on Regulus' lips, and to her own horror, she realized that his smile brought a whole new dimension to his handsome features. He looked softer, gentler, but not less intense than his usual scowl did, but knowing that it was her whom it was directed at, made her stomach flip over and over. God, what was he doing to her?
"You aren't the first pretty girl to look at me, you know," Regulus said, never breaking eye contact with her.
"Aha, so you think I'm pretty," Lottie noted, happy to have found a way to turn the tide and make him the focus of attention.
"I'm not blind, Vernier," Regulus said, so smoothly and casually Lottie's smile almost wavered. How was he this slick?
Desperate not to let the actual meaning of his words distract her from her goal—to get into her dorm as quickly as possible—she started walking again, but with her second step she collided with something hard and she had to keep herself from letting out a yelp. Regulus hadn't stopped walking because of what she had said to him, but because they had reached the end of the corridor.
She had walked into the portrait of Helga Hufflepuff: the entrance to the common room. The painted woman eyed gave her a meaningful glance, and if Lottie hadn't already been embarrassed enough by walking into a wall, the woman's gaze was sure to leave her red-faced.
She thought she heard a barely audible chuckle behind her, but when she looked over at Regulus, he blinked at her with a blank face.
Lottie cleared her throat as she quickly decided to pretend like the past ten seconds had simply not occurred, and quickly tapped the painting in the distinct pattern that served as a password. The portrait flew open and revealed the dark and cozy common room she longed for so much.
"Well…goodnight," Lottie said, shooting the Slytherin a polite smile, and she made to walk through the door opening, when Regulus spoke.
"Vernier."
The way he spoke her name made her freeze in her tracks, and she peered at him over her shoulder.
"Let's share in some late-night food again soon."
And with that, he turned on his heel and left, leaving Lottie to stare after him with her heart racing in her chest.
The next morning, Lottie prodded at the small pile of scrambled eggs on her plate. With her elbow planted firmly on the long Hufflepuff table and her chin resting in her hand, she couldn't bring herself to eat. It had taken her quite some time to fall asleep—her mind constantly replaying her encounter with Regulus—and by the time she had woken up that morning she had a pounding headache. Every time she interacted with him, he surprised her in some kind of way. He had mostly been the way she had always known him: aloof and unapproachable, but there had been cracks in his mask and she found herself wondering just how much of himself he kept hidden from the rest of the world.
"Rough night?" Georgia inquired as she poured cornflakes into her bowl.
"Huh?" Lottie hummed.
"You look awful," Georgia said, waving her hand in front of her own face.
"Oh wow, thanks," Lottie snorted sarcastically, but a smile lifted the corner of her mouth.
"Just saying," Georgia chuckled as she poured milk over the golden cereal.
"Didn't sleep much," Lottie said, but she didn't elaborate. She hadn't told Georgia, or Winnie, about bumping in to Regulus the night before, or the fact that she hadn't in fact moved on from what she liked to call, The Disaster Week. The last thing she needed was for her friends to pry and risk them noticing the way the Slytherin boy occupied her brain so often these days. God forbid they got the wrong idea and think she was crushing on him. She would never hear the end of it, and most likely, they would try to get involved, and that would open a whole can of worms she didn't even want to go near.
He made her nervous because he was intimidating and always scowling, prancing around the corridors with his nose stuck in the air like he owned the place. That was the only reason.
As potions was Regulus' first class on Mondays, it was his last class on Fridays. A great way to start and end a week, he found, as it had become somewhat of a comfort-subject. He didn't want to think about starting his groggy mornings just after the weekend having to make sense of Arithmancy or trying not to fall asleep listening to professor Binns, who was positively boring.
"Today's assignment will be to make a draft of Amortentia," Slughorn announced to the class, the hum of their voices changing from its casual tone to one of excitement.
"I've been waiting for this one," Rosier, who was seated next to Regulus, smirked widely as he glanced over his shoulder. "I'm going to work with Celia Rabbot on this one. She's been making eyes at me all year and this is the perfect opportunity to make a move."
"Planning on slipping her some of the potion after class, then?" Regulus asked, expecting nothing less from his friend. He had mentioned many times how he planned on seducing the girl, and wasn't ashamed of resorting to more compulsory measures.
"Merlin, no," Rosier said, shocked that Regulus would even mention it. "She already likes me, there is no need."
"Wasn't it only last week when you asked Barty if Honeydukes sells Love Hearts so you could slip one into her pumpkin juice?" Regulus said coolly, shooting his friend a glance with one raised eyebrow.
Rosier looked dumbfounded for a second, before he quickly recovered.
"That was before she came to watch us—me—at Quidditch practice. She is smitten with me, I can tell," he explained as he glanced over his shoulder again.
"Off you go, pair up. No time to lose, this potion takes quite some time and attention!"
"Good luck, Reg," Rosier grinned before grabbing his bag and making his way to Celia Rabbot's desk, a few seats behind his.
To be honest, Regulus had waited for this too. Not to brew Amortentia, but to have to work in pairs again during potions. Where he would normally do his best to either work alone or work with a friend, he had other plans for today.
He got up from his desk and crossed the classroom. There were no assigned seats, so all students were technically allowed to sit wherever they wanted, but each house usually grouped together instinctively. When he entered Hufflepuff's territory, he could feel an increasing amount of eyes set on him.
He made way for a Hufflepuff girl who had just gotten up from her seat, not paying her any mind as his gaze was fixed on the person she had been sitting next to. Lottie was concentrating deeply on the recipe in front of her, which was even more complicated than the one they had made together at the start of the year.
Regulus cleared his throat, the girls that sat behind Lottie falling silent as they peered up at him from the corner of his eye.
Lottie looked up from her book, her eyes widening slightly when her gaze landed on him.
"Black," she simply said.
"Vernier," he greeted her back in the same manner. "I was wondering if you'd like to do this assignment together?"
He had thought about this. He couldn't approach her outside of classes during the day, because his friends would grow suspicious. He couldn't exactly talk to her during their other shared classes, because there had never been any incentive to interact with her in the first place. But he had been forced to pair up with her before, with great results—their potion had been the best potion in their entire class. It made perfect sense for him to want to pair up with her again, for the purely selfish reason of wanting to stay on top of the class.
One of the girls sitting behind Lottie whispered something to the other, after which they both fell into a soft fit of giggles.
"Oh…" Lottie said—if she had heard the girls, she showed no sign of it. "Is no one else left again?"
"I'm not sure," Regulus shrugged, "but since we did so well last time, I figured we make a good pair."
Lottie's cheeks flushed pink as her eyes darted to her left, then her right, as if to see whether anyone had heard him. She seemed to think over his offer as she lightly sucked her lower lip in between her teeth. She finally looked up at him again and gave him a careful nod.
"Alright, I'm in."
They worked at Lottie's desk, the first stage of the potion making going as smoothly as Regulus could have hoped for. He was genuinely impressed by Lottie's skill—he had rarely seen anyone follow the instructions with such detail and care. He realized that he could probably sit back and let her do the whole assignment by herself and they'd get an Outstanding for their work. But for starters, he actually enjoyed potion making, and secondly, he didn't want to make Lottie do all the work by herself.
He stirred the potion steadily, as the recipe asked for for the next ten minutes, and watched the girl next to him carefully cut the thorns off a bunch of roses. Her fingers carefully worked around the prickly ends of the flower, delicately holding them in one hand as she used a small knife to remove the thick needles from their stems. She had nice fingers. They looked delicate and soft, the way her fingertips brushed against the flowers, and he remembered how her thumb had felt against his neck all those weeks ago.
"Regulus…" he heard Lottie say softly, her hands coming to a halt mid-air. His eyes flicked up to hers, but she wasn't looking at him. In stead, she was peering carefully into the cauldron.
"I don't think it is supposed to look like that," she said, her eyes darting between the heavy pot on top of their desk and her textbook.
Regulus tore his gaze from her face and looked at the cauldron. It should be a deep burgundy color at this stage, but right now it was a rather disgusting shade of brown.
"Shit," he mumbled, stilling his hand when he realized he was stirring in the entirely wrong direction. At some point when he had been lost in thought staring at Lottie's hands, he had apparently lost control of his basic motor functions.
He quickly started to stir in the right direction this time, frowning deeply in concentration. It should still be salvageable, but he couldn't afford to let something like that happen again, or he'd completely ruin the potion.
"Is it ruined?" Lottie asked.
"No," Regulus said with a light twitch of his head, "it should be alright. I just read the instructions wrong."
He hadn't, and it pained him to have to pretend to be so careless as to misread something, but it was less humiliating than having to admit that he had gotten distracted by her hands.
Thankfully, he managed to stay focused for the rest of the brewing process. By the time the potion had taken a pearly sheen and steady, iridescent swirls fumed atop it, a satisfied smile crept on his lips. He had been worried that his slip up could have cost them their Outstanding, but from the looks of it, it had turned out rather well.
"I think we did it," Lottie said with a grin. "I can smell all my favorite things."
"What are they?"
Regulus had asked the question before he realized he had even opened his mouth, stunning himself with his sudden curiosity.
"Jasmine tea…" Lottie started, "damp earth…and apple cinnamon muffins."
Regulus' eyebrows pulled together. "Damp earth? That sounds like it smells like mold."
Lottie shot him a scowling look, but she chuckled.
"Not like that. It's the smell the forest had after it rained. Earthy and fresh and alive."
"Hmm…" Regulus mused as he tried to imagine the scent. "I suppose that does sound nice."
"What about you? What do you smell?" Lottie asked.
"Leather book covers, butterscotch and burning firewood."
If Lottie was going to reply to him, she was cut off by the round frame and bellowing voice of their teacher.
"I can already smell success in the air!" he snickered with his recognizable airy chuckle. "I have to say, the two of you deliver extraordinary work together. Have you thought about going into the potionmaking business as partners? I expect your combined forces will result in great things."
Regulus felt himself flush at the mentions of 'partners' and 'combined forces', although he wasn't sure why.
Lottie seemed to be equally as stricken with surprise, as she stammered before being able to form a sentence.
"Oh, w-well… I am aiming to be an Auror, professor," she said, the pink of her cheeks stark against her dark freckles.
"Ah, but of course. I'm sure the Ministry will be pleased to accept you into their ranks once you complete your training. What about you, Mr. Black? What are your plans after graduating?"
To join the Dark Lord and fight in the war. To make my mother and father proud and get my Dark Mark along with my friends, to torture and kill and wreak havoc wherever I go. To harm innocent people for reasons I still can't quite grasp, but I'm too afraid to ask my parents about in case they disown me like they did my brother.
"I am still undecided, professor," Regulus said, pushing away the thoughts that raced through his mind. "I might go into potionmaking just yet."
Lottie watched as Regulus' face contorted into one that she could only describe as sorrowful and dejected. Slughorn had only asked what he wanted to do after leaving Hogwarts, and despite not being the only student who hadn't made up their minds about their career path, he seemed to take this extremely harsh. That, or he was lying.
"Excellent," Slughorn beamed when Regulus mentioned the possibility of him pursuing a career in potionmaking, clearly not having caught on to Regulus' sudden change in demeanor.
As their teacher walked away, Lottie's eyes fell upon Regulus' face again, who was staring down at their desk. Her eyes followed his gaze, and apparently he was reading his own notes, but when she looked up at him again, his eyes were unmoving.
"Are you okay?" she asked in a hushed tone as she leaned in slightly to make sure he could hear her. He flinched slightly and Lottie stilled. Had she come too close to him? Was he that uncomfortable by their proximity? He hadn't reacted that way in The Three Broomsticks, when she cleaned the butterbeer off his neck, so maybe it wasn't just her.
"I'm fine," Regulus said, his voice wavering ever so slightly. She could tell he was trying to speak in his usual casual, uninterested tone she heard him use in class so often, but clearly something had struck him hard enough to let his emotions get the better of him.
"Alright…" Lottie said, not buying it at all. She didn't want to pry however—no matter how curious she was about what had thrown him off, they were hardly close enough to ask about his inner workings.
She reached out to take one of Regulus' empty flasks that stood atop the desk, and steadily filled it with the Amortentia. After stuffing it closed with a cork, she filled her own vial, then flipped her notebook to an empty page and scribbled both their names on the paper. The wet ink glistened in the light as she took her wand out of her bag and gave a flick with her wrist. The paper tore precisely in between their names, and then around the names, cutting out two rectangles: one that said "Lottie Vernier" and the other "Regulus Black". With another move of her hand, the two pieces of paper flew to their respective bottles and stuck to it.
"Thank you," she heard Regulus say softly, his voice much more timid than she had ever heard him before. It was almost unnerving to hear the otherwise daunting and authoritative voice, now laden with worry. What on earth lay in his future that had this effect on him when being asked about it?
Lottie contemplated whether she was going to ask Regulus about it—maybe at a quieter time and not in class—but after potions class ended, Regulus was the first person out of the room. She didn't spot him at the Slytherin table for dinner, nor was he in the library in the evening, although she had to admit, not many students spent their Friday evenings in the library to begin with. The only reason she was there, was to collect a few books she needed for Transfiguration research. She didn't really need them right at that moment, but it was a good enough excuse to go out and look for the Slytherin boy.
"There you are!" Georgie exclaimed happily when Lottie returned to the common room. "Where did you go?"
"I just picked up some books," Lottie said, holding up the small stack of books she had taken with her.
"Now? We have to figure out what you're wearing to the party tomorrow!"
Right, the Halloween party. Lottie hadn't exactly forgotten about it, but she had planned on deciding what to wear on the day of the party itself. Georgia clearly had different plans, because she grabbed Lottie's arm and dragged her to their dorm room, practically pushing her inside before darting to her drawer.
"If you make a mess out of my clothes, you're going to clean them up yourself too," Lottie warned, but she looked at her friend with a bemused grin as the blonde started pulling shirts, skirts, dresses and pants out of the dresser.
"I'll worry about that later. Let's see…"
Georgia took this extremely seriously, and thirty minutes (and a considerable amount of Lottie's patience) later, she had finally settled on an outfit.
"Yes, this is perfect," she said, smiling widely at an elegant, dark blue satin dress. A dress that did not belong to Lottie.
"You could have just started with your own wardrobe, you know, you didn't have to overhaul mine for nothing," Lottie said, looking at the carnage her friend had left behind. Georgia had been unsatisfied with the clothes Lottie had brought to school this year, so the girl had pulled a dress from her own collection.
"I didn't know you didn't bring any nice dresses," she defended herself, holding up the dress in front of Lottie. "This color looks lovely on you."
"Hmm…yes, it does," Lottie agreed as she peered in the mirror. The deep navy of the dress shone subtly in the light where it folded—the signature soft allure of the satin. At least she would be looking nice at tomorrow's party.
She found herself wondering if she would see Regulus there. If he was still missing by tomorrow night, something had to be really wrong, since him and his Slytherin friends were known to attend virtually every single party that was thrown. Surely, whatever had upset him wouldn't linger for that long. But he had looked so miserable, so forlorn in his seat as he stared at his notebook, that in that moment, it had seemed as if he would never smile again. Maybe he simply wouldn't be in the mood for a party.
It turned out, Regulus was in the mood for a party. When Lottie, Georgia and Winnie arrived—Lottie in her friend's satin dress, Winnie in a modest pair of pants and tunic, and Georgia in full costume and make-up—Regulus and his friends were already getting drunk in the middle of the room. The party took place in the Room of Requirement, where all secret parties were thrown, and the group of boys had claimed a set of leather sofa's by a fireplace. The coffee table in the middle of the half circle was littered with different liquor bottles, and their voices carried through the whole room, despite it being filled with other students.
Lottie eyes the group carefully and for a moment she thought Regulus really hadn't shown up, until Barty Crouch got up from his seat and revealed the person sitting next to him. Regulus was sprawled on the leather couch, his head leaning back against the armrest and his arm propped up on the back of the couch. A glass with a deep russet color sat firmly in his hand, and his other hand was occupied by another set of hands. A girl with deep red hair sat in front of the couch, Regulus' arm draped over her shoulder as she toyed with his fingers.
Lottie felt a pang of something surging through her chest, and she suddenly regretted coming to the party at all, though she dreaded unpacking that feeling further. Her gaze drifted from the pair's joint hands to Regulus' face. He was peering into his glass, which he now held under his nose, as he seemed to be listening to whatever his friend Rosier was saying. The black haired Slytherin was apparently extra talkative after drinking, because Rosier had been talking for a good five minutes already. The group of friends laughed every now and then, clearly amused with his story. Everyone but Regulus. His face remained that of a statue: that scowl Lottie saw so often on his face, now permanent. He blinked slowly, clearly having had his own fair share of alcohol already, when slowly but surely, his gaze crept up directly towards her.
Lottie cursed silently under her breath, only able to look away quickly because Regulus had taken several seconds to fully focus on her. He must have had some kind of talent for being able to tell when people were looking at him, because this was happening way too frequently.
"Lottie, let's get drinks," Georgia said as Lottie suddenly got dragged along by her friend. Happy to have been distracted, Lottie grabbed a glass with sparkling pink liquid and sniffed it. It smelled of strawberry and cherry—perfect. She took a big gulp of the drink and swallowed it, then finished off the drink in a second gulp.
"Merlin, someone's in a hurry to get wasted," Georgia snorted as she picked up another glass of the pink drink and handed it to Lottie. "And I'm all here for it."
She wasn't wrong; Lottie was hoping that enough alcohol in her system would finally distract and relax her enough to stop looking at Regulus whenever he was in the same room.
Winnie had found an empty couch somewhere in the back of the room, including its own fireplace, and soon the three friends laid across the couch, giggling and snorting as they reminisced on past drunken parties they had shared.
"Oh my goodness, do you remember when I drank so much I fell halfway down one of the stairs in the grand staircase," Georgia cackled, her drink sloshing around in her glass, making a little bit spill onto her black cape.
"That wasn't even funny!" Lottie giggled, "We thought you would fall down the stairs all the way to the basement."
"We were so lucky no teacher found us, or we surely would have gotten suspended," Winnie giggled, even her now loose enough to be able to joke about suspension without shooting into a panic.
"We almost got found out, if it hadn't been for Kinney who distracted McGonagall with a stink bomb-" Lottie started, but she was cut off by Georgia who suddenly sat up, almost making Lottie spill her drink all over herself.
"What on earth— Georgia," Lottie complained loudly. "What are you—"
Georgia cut her off with a sharp shush, and Lottie scowled. Did Georgia just shush her?
"He's coming this way," Georgia hissed, her eyes fixed on something across the room.
"Who is coming—" Lottie started as she followed her friend's gaze.
Her stomach practically sank out of her ass and onto the floor. With long, slightly unstable strides, Regulus Black was stalking straight towards her, his dark eyes fixed on hers.