AN: NoDownSide, thank you so much for the reviews, they made me so happy ! and those faceclaims for Regulus and Sirius are great ! for Sofia though, I do imagine someone with darker colouring like Diana Silvers or this girl [there was supposed to be an at sign here but this site sucks] b/./fp on instagram. But seriously, thank you so much for your kind words and I'm so so glad you like this story.

don't wanna – haim

"i don't wanna give up on you

i don't wanna have to."

Sofia didn't know what to do with herself once she got back to England. There were a few days left until she had to go back to Hogwarts and she had to face Regulus Black again. She resolved to try to take her mind off him by spending every waking moment with her siblings.

She took them to the park, to the ice rink, even to Diagon Alley after their insistence. And now she was taking Roman to the movies. She would've taken Natasha and Vanya too but Natasha had no interest in seeing that nerd film (as she'd called it), and their mum had said Vanya was too young to see it.

Sofia sat on a bench outside the game shop Roman had already spent over half an hour inside of. It was then that she spotted him.

A frown overtook Sofia's face. What the hell was happening right now?

"Are you following me?" She asked as he neared her gingerly.

Regulus scoffed. "It's not like we don't live in the same city."

"Oh and is the mall –possibly the most painfully Muggle place on Earth– somewhere you frequent? This cannot be a coincidence. You're definitely stalking me."

He sighed. "Truthfully?"

"That'd be nice."

He sat down next to her, leaving well over a foot of space between them. "I know that... you and Sirius hung out here sometimes and... I guess I was hoping to talk to you. I didn't actually think I'd find you here."

"You ever hear of these things called letters?"

Regulus scowled in annoyance. Sofia had weirdly missed that very unique expression of his. "For starters, I don't know your address. And I'm not fond of letters. Not to mention I hadn't actually fully thought of what I'd say to you once I saw you."

Sofia nodded, her heart starting to pick up the pace just thinking about the thing that he probably wanted to talk about. "Right. So you've got nothing to say?"

He shifted in his seat. "It's not that, it's just that my thoughts are... scrambled."

Sofia chuckled drily. "Yeah, I know the feeling."

Regulus looked at her. "Well, you're the one sending me mixed signals so..."

Sofia scoffed. "So this is all my fault?"

He shrugged. "It's not not your fault, at least. You were the one with the big speech about not being able to associate with me only to turn around and snog me in a hidden corridor later."

Sofia's jaw dropped in disbelief. "You initiated that! I take zero responsibility!"

"So I'm responsible for you not being able to keep your hands to yourself?"

The nerve of the boy! Sofia didn't know he had it in him. Or maybe she did. "That was a heat of the moment thing! And even if I did initiate it — which I'm not saying I did — it's your fault for insisting on associating with me."

"Which you have made pretty clear you have no interest in! And that's where the mixed signals come in."

Sofia groaned in frustration. Never in a million years did she think he'd make it so hard not talking to him. "Okay, so a lot of things piled up with the anti-Muggle attacks and Travers trying to kill me, and I..." she trailed off, not even sure where she was going with this. It wasn't like she thought she had been wrong in what she said to him, but the odd possibility that he might not turn out to be a blood purist after all made a very dangerous hope flutter in her chest. She didn't want to give up on him. Not just yet. "Did you mean what you said back in Durmstrang... in the infirmary? That you wouldn't let Travers hurt me."

Regulus seemed caught off guard for a moment but then looked at her with seriousness in his eyes. "Yes."

"And when you said you were sorry... about not being able to help me or my family?"

"Yes."

Sofia nodded once and stood. "Want to watch a movie with me?"

Regulus's eyes went comically wide. He stared at Sofia like she'd just Transfigured into a hippogriff. "What?"

"A movie? You know what a movie is? It's like... a talking picture."

He still seemed taken aback. "I... I think I've heard about them before but I never quite understood what they were."

"Well, they're fun and my brother and I are supposed to watch this new one that's supposedly really good and people went crazy for in the States. So... do you want to come?"

A pause. "Sure."

Roman came running out of the game shop. "Sonya, come on, we're gonna be late!"

"Romy, I invited my friend Regulus to come with us, is that okay?" Sofia asked.

Roman looked away from them, abashed from being called by his pet name. "Yeah, whatever, let's go."

There was a stunned silence as Sofia, Roman and Regulus came out of the movie theatre.

Sofia stared off into space as she tried to process what she had just seen.

Regulus was the first to break the silence. "Can Muggles just... do that?"

Sofia stared at him for a second. He was completely serious. She burst out into laughter.

She doubled over as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "Can... Muggles..." she breathed out in between giggles.

Roman was clearly embarrassed by his sister's behaviour but he couldn't help the laugh that escaped him.

Sofia took a deep breath and sat at a table at the food court next to the theatre so she could recover. "I'm sorry, Regulus, I just... No, Muggles can't just do that."

Regulus looked annoyed but not mad. "But you still understood what the hell was happening there?"

Sofia shrugged. "It might have been sci-fi, but I didn't think it was that complicated. Well, maybe if you've never seen sci-fi before."

"Sci-fi?"

"Science fiction."

Regulus nodded. Clearly still trying to process. "It was just hard trying to gauge how much of that was fiction."

"Mm... most of it was."

"Well, obviously the planets they mentioned don't exist, and even if they did I hardly think Muggles could go there."

Sofia paused. Oh shit. Right, he didn't know. "Well, not to another planet but we can go to space."

Regulus looked at Sofia with eyes narrowed, as if trying to figure out if she was pulling his leg. "What?"

Roman cut in, he sounded shocked. "You mean you don't know about astronauts?"

Regulus frowned. "I'm afraid I don't keep up with Muggle news that much."

There was a gleam in Roman's eyes as he launched into a full monologue about rockets and astronauts and satellites. Regulus listened carefully.

Sofia was glad to see Roman so excited. She tried to get him to talk to her about his nerdy interests but he never seemed very inclined to do so. It was kind of odd that he wanted to talk about it to Regulus of all people, but Sofia wasn't complaining.

By the end of it, Sofia was fairly sure that Regulus now knew more about space than an average Muggle. She was just glad he'd listened without complaint.

"Sonya, I told my friends I'd meet them at the arcade after the movie," Roman said to Sofia with a little urgency in his voice.

Sofia thought for a moment. The arcade was inside the mall, so she figured it'd be fine. She sighed. "Okay, kid. An hour."

Roman grinned at her and ran off.

"Nice kid," Regulus said as they were left alone.

"I'm sorry he talked your ear off. He gets excited about space and stuff," Sofia said.

"No, it was... insightful. Made me think I should've taken Muggle Studies at some point."

Sofia laughed. "Right... but despite the confusion, did you like the movie?"

Regulus nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess I did. Did you?"

"Yeah, I think it definitely lives up to the hype."

Regulus nodded. "It was a bit odd though."

Sofia's head tilted. "Odd how?"

"I mean... the Force. Sounded an awful lot like magic didn't it? Think maybe a wizard was involved there?"

Sofia chuckled. "It did sound a bit like magic. But you know, it's just the influence from back before the Statute of Secrecy was instated. Magic has lived in Muggles' collective consciousness as a myth since then, and they have found many ways to integrate it into the stories they tell. It is a bit of a funny parallel though. With the whole Empire against the Resistance thing. Sound familiar?"

Sofia didn't really want to talk about this right now, but she couldn't help herself.

Regulus got that broody look on his face. "So, what, you're saying the Dark Lord is like what's-his-face — the breathing guy?"

Sofia snorted. "The Dark Lord? Jesus Christ, okay. Um, probably not exactly like Darth Vader but unlike your dear Voldy-cakes, I found Vader quite an interesting character, in what little we learn about him. I mean... what could compel a person to turn to the dark side and betray his loved ones like that?"

Regulus swallowed. "Maybe he made a mistake. Maybe he didn't know how to fix it."

Sofia shrugged, still trying to keep the conversation light. "Had to be a pretty big mistake to kill friends over it."

"Maybe he didn't have a choice."

"Are you seriously defending the villain of the movie right now?"

Regulus exhaled sharply. "I'm just saying... you don't always know what's going on behind the scenes in someone's life."

They were silent for a minute before Regulus spoke again, tentatively. "If... if it had been the other way around, if Vader had betrayed his loved ones to turn to the light side. Would you have the same opinion of him?"

Sofia took a moment to respond. They were clearly not just talking about the movie anymore, she had to be careful what she said. "I... don't think anything is as simple as light and dark... But for the sake of this argument, light and dark. I think... that it takes a lot of courage to go from dark to light, it takes a lot of courage to desert what you know when you know it does you a lot more harm than good. And on the contrary, I think that going from light to dark is an act of cowardice."

Regulus nodded, still stoic.

He didn't reply, he just stared off into the distance.

Sofia tried to figure out what was going on inside his head but those steely grey eyes gave nothing away. She just hoped somewhere in there, her words rang true.

Surprisingly, having run into Regulus so unexpectedly had made things easier for Sofia. She had faced him after that kiss and she hadn't had a freak-out! She considered that success.

She took the next few days before going back to school to laze around with her siblings, at least until Orthodox Christmas rolled around and their dad and Tony came over for dinner and she had to pretend again like this was a totally normal situation.

Sofia had ended up reading her father's rehab letter. Her siblings had asked her to and so she had had to give in.

She'd been hoping not to talk about said letter at all but her father apparently just had to talk about it the morning right before she headed back to the castle.

"So, you read the letter?" Papa asked as they were left alone in Sofia and Natasha's room.

Sofia nodded.

He shifted uncomfortably from his seat on Natasha's bed. He was barely in his mid-forties, but it seemed as if he had aged a decade in the last couple of years. His dark blond hair almost half grey, the lines in his forehead deep. "Is there... is there anything you'd like to say to me... about it?"

Sofia crossed her arms over her chest. "I... I guess I didn't really get the point. I mean... you basically just tried to justify leaving us because you're bisexual."

He cringed. He might have come out and literally introduced his entire family to his boyfriend, but he still couldn't quite hear that word. "Sofia, I didn't expect you to understand that kind of thing, but I thought you could at least try to—"

Sofia cut him off. "Oh my god!" She buried her head in her hands. "Are you serious? Do you think that this is me being homophobic?"

"No, of course not, honey. I just think that you might not fully understand..." he trailed off.

Sofia felt a knot in her throat. She physically could not stand having this conversation. She took a deep breath to calm herself down. She looked at her father. "You know... after you left I tried really hard to understand. I genuinely did. I remember you tried to explain it to me, you said something about how being queer changes how you navigate the world... and some bullshit about how you needed to leave us to find yourself. And ever since then I really wanted to see the world through your eyes... and then it actually fucking happened."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

She chuckled. "It's ironic, isn't it? It just happened. And at first, I thought I might finally be able to understand you, but you know what, I really don't. Because I would never abandon my family because of my bisexuality, never. So, no, I don't get the point of your letter."

Papa looked like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. "Do they know?"

Sofia supposed he meant the rest of the family. "Mamá does."

She really had not been planning on telling him, but oh well.

He stood and went over to sit next to Sofia. He wrapped her in a hug. "I'm really glad that you live in a household where you feel comfortable enough to come out to your parents, that's what I've always wanted for you. It's one of the reasons why I came out, and I know I was wrong for leaving, but if I hadn't come out to you maybe you wouldn't have done me the same honour right now, and I'm grateful for that."

Sofia squirmed away from him. "I've never faulted you for the act of coming out in itself and what the hell do you mean that's what you always wanted for me?"

Papa smiled. "Well, I've never wanted to assume anything but you did always use to say you wanted to marry all the Disney princesses when you were little."

Sofia groaned and covered her face with her hands, but it was mostly to hide the very small smile on her face. Maybe a tiny little part of her had wanted to tell him all along.