AN: If anyone's interested I imagine Bow's short program as a combination of Sasha Cohen's Dark Eyes and Yuna Kim's Send in The Clowns. Her sp music is The Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner.

Her free skate, a combination of Satoko Miyahara's Madame Butterfly and Yuna Kim's Scheherazade. Her free skate music is Sobre las Olas by Juventino Rosas.

Let me know if you want the links to those skates, I'll try to put them on my profile or something.

People have different strategies when it comes to competitions. Personally, I liked to be alone before I competed. To clear my head and just breathe. Which leads to people sometimes saying I'm unfriendly or hate other competitors, which is absolutely not true. But it's enough for me to know that.

After a competition of course there was time to celebrate, have fun and hang out, and this time it was no different, but I also liked taking a moment to analyse my performances.

So I sat in the too soft bed of my hotel room and tried to replay everything that had gone down during my compulsory, short and long programs. The compulsory figures consisted of carving certain patterns in the ice with your figure skates, the judging included a lot of measuring and analysing, so it was a pretty boring. I usually did alright. The short program was a two and a half minute routine in which you had to perform seven required elements including jumps, spins and a step sequence. The free program was a four minute routine where you were, well, free to perform pretty much any elements you wanted. These three events usually happened during three different days.

This week's performances had been good, though not the best I'd ever had. I'd landed all my jumps, though I'd struggled on a few, and my 3Lz — triple Lutz — on my free skate had been under-rotated, but other than that, the jumps had all been fine. The spins hadn't gone all that well, I'd intended to do an upright spin with a variation that required a lot of flexibility, on a good day I'd perform it with a hyperextension, but I'd backed out of it today because I felt like I was going to break something going into it.

All my other elements and step sequences had gone down without a hitch. Overall, I could've done better, but I was pleased by my performance and proud of myself. Now it was the off-season and I could relax a little, which I was very glad about.

I barely registered the knock on my door.

It was Lily.

My sister jumped onto the bed next to me. I was very grateful she was here. The first few competitions I'd done after our parents died had been incredibly nerve-wracking, I'd never not had my mum watching as I competed. Though not the same, having Lily was a comfort.

Lily put her arms around me. "How's my second favourite British Ladies' Singles skater?"

"Oh I don't know, let me go get Debbie." I tried to pull away from her but she held me back.

"You know you're my favourite in Ladies', Men's, Pairs and Ice Dance of any nationality, any level."

I laughed. "If you say so."

Lily fixed her piercing green eyes on me. "You know I'm unbelievably proud of you, though, right?"

I nodded slowly.

Lily reached across me to get my medal from the nightstand. She held it in her hand and looked at it carefully. "This is the culmination of all the hard work you've done this season. This is no easy feat, and I know this season hasn't been easy for you, but I don't want you to forget that you have a support system behind you all the time, me, Arnie, John, James. Mum and Dad were and would be so proud of you no matter what. They both wanted you to do what you love. Have no doubt in your mind that they're still watching every single one of your competitions and Dad is still shouting 'that's my daughter!' and Mum is still screeching from heaven."

Why was she getting all mushy?

We hugged. "I know." I reassured her.

I knew she was saying all of this though. Because around this time last year I'd thought about quitting. Our parents had just died, and I'd missed a lot of training. They had left us money, of course but not that much and skating was expensive. I felt bad about using up all our money on my skating.

When I'd told Lily I'd been thinking about quitting though, she had straight up told me that that wasn't happening. That as long as it was still my passion, and what I wanted, I would continue to skate. And she made it work. I don't know how, but Lily managed to make ends meet. Given, we weren't living lavish lives but we were holding up, and I was still skating.

"Thank you for being here." I muttered into Lily's shoulder.

"I will always be here."

My return to Hogwarts was a bit hectic. I had to catch up on everything I'd missed the past two weeks, and apparently a lot of people had questions about where I'd been.

At the moment I was stressed out about a Potions assignment and had just called Lily to get some help.

"But Lily, I just don't understand how am I supposed to know the effect of a bezoar on a potion? Literally how?" I complained.

"Read your textbook." Lily's voice came from the mirror.

I opened the door to the Potions classroom, and checked there was no one inside before going in. I knew I technically wasn't supposed to be here, but I needed somewhere I could talk to Lily and do my work peacefully. "Well this would certainly be far easier if I could actually do magic."

"You don't really need to do magic to do a potion." Lily reasoned.

"No, but I could break into Slughorn's supply and actually try this shit."

Lily sighed. "Even if you could do magic, you should not break into a teacher's anything." She paused. "Okay, I'm going to tell you the answer but just this time."

I sat up and cheered. I'd been trying to guilt her into telling me the answers this whole time.

I put the mirror down as Lily started rapidly dictating my essay, I scrambled to get a pen and started jotting down Lily's words messily.

As Lily finished I thought I heard a noise behind me, but I quickly looked around and found nothing. Was I imagining things now?

I put away my stuff. "Thanks, I'll talk to you later, babe." I said to Lily as I walked out of the classroom.

The halls of Hogwarts during the night felt like a different dimension. It was very quiet and it felt like the world was paused. I had considered missing practice altogether today, but I felt kind of bad about not having practiced the past couple of days.

I'd had a session with Vablatsky earlier, she hadn't been entirely pleased that I left almost right after doing my first reading, but we were making up time now. We were doing tea leaves now, and the professor believed we were on the brink of a breakthrough.

Then after the session Jem had come running to find me to tell me that Cristine was in the Hospital Wing. Cristine was one of the very few people who actually took History of Magic too. She was a good friend, so Jem and I had visited her in the Hospital Wing.

Apparently, Selwyn had a attacked her out of pretty much nowhere in the hallway. Just straight up called her a Mudblood and then hexed her. Cristine also said that Regulus had been there. He'd kind of tried to stop Selwyn, but failed, which, for some reason made me feel kind of guilty.

By the time Jem and I left the infirmary it was seven o'clock but I talked myself into changing and going down to my training room to practice for a couple of hours.

By the time I was walking back to the common room my mind was still on Cristine and how there were people here who just straight up attacked those they didn't believe were 'wizard enough'. Like I literally don't understand that logic.

As I approached the common room I saw a tall figure standing just off the side of the Runes classroom. I already knew who it was. He usually patrolled the part of the castle around where my training room was, and we usually talked a little when we ran into each other.

"So you're back." Regulus spoke first.

"Yeah." As much as I tried to deny it, his role in Cristine's attack was bothering me. And I was not the kind of person to pretend like everything was fine. "Regulus, we're friends, right?"

He looked startled at being called by his first name. He didn't answer.

I continued. "I mean, I feel like we're friendly. At least acquaintances." I took a breath. "No, you know what? I don't care how you see it, we're friends."

He didn't reply for a second, just looked at me with his calculating grey eyes. Then he said, "Okay."

"Right, and as much as your presence doesn't make me want to kill myself — ."

"High compliment." He put in.

I ignored him. "And I'm not accusing you of anything. But I could never be friends with a blood purist. And I know I'm being forward, but the fact that I don't know for sure, truly stresses the shit out of me. So I just need a yes or no answer. Are you a You-Know-Who supporter?"

Regulus looked around nervously, then he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into a nearby broom closet.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked as he shut the door.

He ignored my question. "It's complicated."

"I don't think it's all that complicated. Do you discriminate people based on their blood status? Yes or no?"

He sighed, then folded his hands together as if in prayer and placed them over his mouth. "The short answer is no."

I let out a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding. Thank god. If we were in a different situation I probably would've made a fuss out of my relief, but I just said, "Okay."

"I know that this is about what happened with Barrymore. And I'm sorry I couldn't do more to help her." He said.

Wow, this was actually much more than what I expected to get out of him.

He sighed. "I'm going to tell you something that I've never said to anyone before. Please just listen. I'm telling you this because I trust you, I don't know why, but I do." The grey in his eyes seemed to soften, he looked more... human than I'd ever seen him under the weak light of the broom closet. I gave him a tiny nod to let him know I was listening. "The way I was raised — since I was born I was raised to believe that the more pure your blood was, the more worth you had as a person. That being a powerful wizard was the best thing you could ever aspire to be. So since I was a kid I looked up to the most powerful wizard I knew of, which was Lord Voldemort. As I grew older, my obsession with him grew, and I wanted to know every little detail about him because I wanted to be as powerful as him. And then I found out that Voldemort is a half-blood, which made me rethink the beliefs I'd had my whole life. How could the most powerful wizard be a half-blood? I thought the more pure your blood the more powerful you could be. It made no sense.

'So the only conclusion I could arrive to was that it didn't really matter after all, your blood didn't matter. But by the time I figured that out, I was in too deep, I was already set to become a Death Eater, so I told myself that I was only in it because of the Dark Lord, because he was still a very powerful wizard, and I still wanted to follow him.

'I'm not a Death Eater yet, I'm meant to become one right after graduation, and I was going to do it. But then something happened. Although I'm not a Death Eater, I've attended a few meetings. In one of those meetings, Voldemort asked if anyone had a house elf he could borrow, and I volunteered my family's elf, Kreacher. I didn't know what he wanted him for, but Kreacher was also a fan of the Dark Lord, so he was pleased to be of use for him. So I took Kreacher to the Dark Lord.

'It hasn't happened yet, but basically, Voldemort wants Kreacher to sacrifice himself for him when the time comes. I know you're not supposed to get attached to house elves, but Kreacher has been there my whole life, and he was the only friend I had after my brother left for Hogwarts. I can't let him die. This was sort of a wake up call for me, I knew before that I probably wouldn't be able to go through with becoming a Death Eater, but now I know for sure that I can't do it.

'The only slight problem with this is that you can't just cancel your Death Eater Membership, even if you're not fully in yet. If I go and tell them that I changed my mind about joining, they will kill me. So while I try to figure that out, I'm trying to just stay low."

He looked at me expectantly and I realised that he was done speaking.

I took a deep breath. "Well, that's — you're certainly in a pickle."

Oh my god, Bow, this guy just basically told you his deepest darkest secret, and that's what you have to say?

Regulus burst out laughing in a full belly laugh.

I looked at him startled. I'd never seen him look so... free before. I chuckled and let him laugh it out.

He recovered. "You could say that."

Something had shifted in his eyes, they looked softer than ever. It suited him.

Then I decided something. "I'm going to help you. You don't have to go through this alone. I promise I will help you in any way that I can."

"You don't have to — ."

"I know I don't have to, but you've made the right decision and no one else knows, so I'm going to give you the help you deserve. This is non-debatable."

Regulus let me have a tiny smile. "Thanks."

We stayed quiet before Regulus cleared his throat and said, "This is sort of awkward now, but before you started drilling me about whether I'm a Death Eater or not, I'd approached you to talk to you about something else."

"Oh. I'm sorry, what did you want to say?"

He scratched the back of his head. "Yesterday, I broke into Slughorn's Potions supply to get some ingredients for a potion I was making as an experiment, it doesn't matter. But as I was leaving, I heard the door to the Potions classroom opening." Oh no, oooh no. "I thought it was Slughorn so I disillusioned myself." He what? "But it was you, so I was going to reverse the charm when I heard you say something kind of odd. And I realise that it was wrong of me to eavesdrop but I just don't know how to interpret what I heard."

I tried hard to remember what I had said to Lily that day but I truly didn't remember at all. "Well, you know I say a lot of weird things."

"You said you couldn't do magic." Well, fuck.

I gaped at him. Oh god. I sighed and released the tension from my shoulders. "I'm only going to tell you this because I know for a fact that even if I don't tell you, you will figure it out eventually, also I'm in a secret-revealing mood. So, ready? I'm a Muggle."

Okay, yes, I know I really wasn't supposed to tell anyone this, but I had not been able to come up with a decent lie. And it felt very wrong to lie to him after he just practically bared his soul before me.

His eyes narrowed. "No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

He seemed to be in shock. "But you can't be."

"I think I would know."

He leaned back against the wall and brushed his hand through his hair. "But — you're a Seer. And when we flew together, you lifted the broom. And you go to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Yeah well, it's kind of complicated." I briefly explained how I'd ended up here.

Regulus was still processing. "Wow."

He slid down to sit on the floor.

I smiled sheepishly. "Yeah." I gingerly sat beside him with my knees pulled in. "So, do you hate me now?"

Regulus frowned. "Why would I hate you?"

"Because I lied to you. And don't most pureblooded wizards hate Muggles?"

Regulus scoffed. "Didn't I just tell you my sob story about how I discovered You-Know-Who's beliefs were wrong?"

I shrugged. "Well, you never said anything about Muggles."

"Well, I don't hate Muggles. But it's still a lot to process. I've never even heard of a Muggle attending Hogwarts. Much less a Muggle Seer."

He turned to look at me and I realised he had a tiny smile on his face. I was suddenly aware of how close we were to each other.

I cleared my throat. "I think it goes without saying that please don't tell anyone."

"Yeah same for you."

We stayed quiet for a moment and I started getting a little sleepy. I leaned my head carefully on his shoulder. "We're both messes, aren't we?"