Regulus didn't speak to me for the next couple of days, at first I just thought he needed little time to process everything we had talked about, but now I was starting to get worried he was actively avoiding me, so when I walked into the library today and saw him sitting all by himself, I made a beeline towards his table and sat right beside him.

He only half looked up from his book.

"Hey." I said.

"Hello." He tapped his foot against the leg of the table.

"Whatcha reading?" I asked.

"A Potionmaking Guide for the Modern Wizard." He answered simply.

"Mm."

We stayed quiet for a few seconds, I set my bag on the table thinking I should actually do some homework before training, as I had been planning.

But just then, Regulus decided to speak up. "I was just thinking, though I do know more about you now, there's still a lot of mystery surrounding you."

"Come on, I'm the least mysterious person ever."

He ignored me. "Like where you were the last two weeks. And I know what you've been telling people is a lie."

I sighed. "Do you have to know all my secrets? Like, is that your job?"

He pushed his chair back. "Fine, don't tell me."

What a drama queen. I sighed. "I was in Vienna."

Regulus paused. "Oh?"

"I was competing. At a figure skating meet." I confessed.

Regulus frowned. He gaped at me, probably debating if I was telling the truth or not.

I reached for my bag. "You know my trusty bag, which I've never let you know the contents of? Well today's your lucky day."

I opened the zipper and revealed my skates.

Regulus finally found the words. "Well that was easier than I expected, also not what I expected."

"Yeah, it's not that big of a deal, I just don't like making a fuss about it. Only my friends know." I closed my bag again. "I was actually heading to practice right about now, if you want to come watch, so you know I'm not pulling your leg."

Regulus stared at me as I busied myself with tying my skates. As we walked over here I'd started questioning if it was a good idea bringing him. I could feel his poignant eyes on me, and I started sweating.

I cleared my throat and without taking my eyes off my laces I said, "Don't you want to get on the ice too?"

He remained seated on the stands above me. "I'd rather not."

I smiled innocently. "Why? Is it because as someone who practices a sport that requires little to no physical movement you don't think you'd be good at this?"

He scoffed. "It does require physical movement."

I cringed. "You could argue that Chasers and Beaters require some arm and core strength but Seekers, well, not so much. But alright, prove me wrong."

I grabbed a pair of skates I thought would fit him from beside the stands. They were actually Saf's skates, yes, she had huge feet. I set them down beside him and gave him a tiny smile.

Regulus stared at the dark boots for a few seconds, if I didn't know better I would say he looked slightly nervous. He scratched the back of his head. "I just, I've never..."

I raised an eyebrow. "You've never skated before?"

He shook his head.

"That's alright. I can't tell you if it's easy or not, I don't remember the first time I skated, I was four years old, but I can promise you that I won't make fun of you if you really suck, and I won't tell anyone." I tried to sound encouraging.

The Regulus looked down sheepishly. "Alright, but I'll hold you to that promise."

I took the pair of skates and handed them to Regulus. I could tell he was a little embarrassed. It was cute. I mean, in a platonic way.

I got on the ice and waited for Regulus to finish with his skates, as he was going at a snail's pace. I extended my hand for him to take but he just stared at it like it was the weirdest thing he had ever seen.

I rolled my eyes. "If you don't want to fall, take my hand."

And he finally did. His skin was cold, his long fingers settled on a not to tight grip, and I tried not to focus on the feeling of his palm on mine. But it was hard.

Regulus let out a "Merlin's beard" as he got on the ice. His grip on my hand tightened just a little bit. He tried to seem nonchalant as he held on to the barrier and tried his hardest not to move. "You can go do your thing, you said you had to practice, right?"

Was he seriously planning to stay there the whole time? Why are men like this? Well, he could have it his way.

I skated off, leaving Regulus by himself. I did a few warm up exercises and then a few laps around the ice, while Regulus just watched. After doing some spins, I decided to do what everyone always waited for, the jumps.

I'm not saying I wanted to impress Regulus a little, but he was such a smug little shit, and skating was the only thing I knew how to do, okay? So I did my triple Axel. I know, I know, it's not a jump I did in competition and would probably never do in competition, but I'd practiced it before, and I'd landed it. And maybe I should've done it with a harness but I landed it this time, so everything was fine, okay? Stop judging me, no one got hurt. In my opinion, it was pretty huge, so I was very pleased.

I did a few other triples and some triple-double combos. My favourite jump combo I would say though, was 3Lz-3T – triple Lutz-triple toe loop –. My landing of said jump was wobbly though, I tried to hold on to the landing, but I ended up falling down. Motherfucker.

I quickly got up but not before I heard Regulus call out my name. He tried to skate over to me but immediately realised he couldn't and stopped, bending his knees to try to regain his balance.

"Stay there, I'm fine." I skated over to him. My mind just could not get over the fact that he'd called my by my first name for the first time. Wait, now that we were technically friends, should I tell him to call me Rainbow? Ugh, I'd deal with it later.

I offered my hand again, and Regulus took it without a protest. "Come, let's just skate along the barrier, we'll go slow."

Regulus agreed and we took off. But he was definitely not a natural when it came to skating.

"Okay, wait. You're trying to walk, and that is not going to work, skating is not like walking. You have to lift your feet and push your legs forward but don't push back, just put one foot in front of the other, the blades will do the rest of the work." I tried my hardest to explain and demonstrate.

He seemed to catch my drift but still struggled. I did have to admit that I was probably smiling like a maniac watching him, but at least he was so focused on his feet that he didn't look at me. I taught him how to do a swizzle — which is a basic move you learn when you start skating — next and he seemed to get a lot better with that, though he was still holding my hand for dear life.

"You're doing pretty well." I tried to lift his spirits.

"Really?"

"No, you're kind of really bad, I was just trying to make you feel better about it."

He directed a small glare towards me.

I took both his hands in mine and finally got him to let go of the barrier. He was still pretty stiff. So, I let him go. And he fell on his arse.

I held in a giggle as I offered him my hand. "Are you okay?"

He took my hand and got up. He dusted himself off. "I'm fine. Are you okay?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

"Well judging by how much that hurt, I'm assuming your fall from earlier hurt about a thousand times more." His hand rubbed his thigh.

I laughed.

"It did hurt, but I'm used to falling once in a while, it's nothing I can't handle. I've had worse falls."

"It still seemed like a nasty fall."

I blushed at this sudden attention to my well being. What the hell was he doing?

I shook my head. "It was my fault either way. I shouldn't have done a triple Lutz-triple toe, it isn't my strong suit."

Regulus's eyes narrowed. "A what?"

Ugh right, wizards really had no fucking idea about skating, at least Muggles knew there were different types of jumps. "Triple Lutz-triple toe loop. There's six different jumps that you can do in competition, and that's one of the combinations I do, a Lutz immediately followed by a toe loop, both triple, which means that I do three rotations in the air before landing." I explained.

"So you mean to tell me, all those jumps you did just now were different?"

I guffawed. "Uh yeah." I took his hand. "Come on, I'll show you."

Though I enjoyed all my classes at Hogwarts, the only one I could say I was actually good at was music class. It was also the only class where I liked every single person who attended.

When I'd started the semester, our teacher, Professor Higuchi, had informed me that at some point later we'd start putting on performances for the rest of the school, the rest of my classmates already knew this, so it was a bit of a surprise when the time finally came to start organising our performances, only Tessa and I volunteered.

Professor Higuchi had seemed disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm, which made me upset towards the rest of my classmates, I never wanted to see the look of disappointment in that tiny elderly Japanese man's face ever again, how dare they?

So now I sat nervously at the Gryffindor table along with a few of my music class mates. I was surprised none of the Gryffindors had come to crucify me yet, though I had gotten a few nasty looks. This was not a big performance per se, but I still got the pre-show jitters, the performance was right during lunch, so I felt like everyone would just ignore us.

I was deep in thought while we all waited eating lunch, it wasn't until I heard Professor Dumbledore go up to the his announcement stand that I finally reacted. I looked around to the rest of the Hall, I would say the vast majority of the school was there. I glanced towards the Slytherin table only to meet the gaze of one Regulus Black, it seemed like he'd been looking around the hall. I smiled at him.

Wait, had he been looking for me? Were we eating lunch together kind of friends now? Oh my god. I had the sudden urge to forgo my music mates and run to sit with him. But I quickly shot myself down. That was stupid, I could sit with him another day, I should calm down.

Dan nudged me just in time for me to hear Professor Dumbledore call out our names. We got up. Dan Bloom was a cool Gryffindor boy, he was a Muggleborn, and he played guitar extremely well, he was also a pretty good singer but he was a bit coy about that skill of his, I really liked performing with him. He had this sort of Bob Dylan-rocker vibe, and once we'd discovered he actually had some moves, he also seemed to have a bit of Danny Zuko in him.

Since this wasn't a big performance, our outfits were pretty simple, just some summer-y ensembles, which I loved.

"When you were lonely, you needed a man

Someone to lean on, well I understand

It's only natural

But why did it have to be me?

Nights can be empty, and nights can be cold

So you were looking for someone to hold

That's only natural

But why did it have to be me?"

Dan sang to me, and I had to admit, it did give me a few butterflies in my stomach. I smiled before starting to sing.

"I was so lonesome, I was blue

I couldn't help it, it had to be you and I

Always thought you knew the reason why."

I must've seemed a little flustered as Dan pulled me close, but he was just so... tall. I think he was even taller than Reg.

"Falling in love with a woman like you

Happens so quickly, there's nothing to do

It's only natural

But why did it have to be me?"

To my relief, the crowd seemed to actually be paying attention to us, but I tried not to pay much attention to them, just so I could stay focused. That was the worst thing about day performances, you could always see pretty much everyone in the audience.

"I only wanted a little love affair

Now I can see you are beginning to care

But baby, believe me

It's better to forget me."

Claps erupted in the Hall as Dan and I took our ending pose. This part just reminded me of my skating programs, when I also took my final pose. Though this would be more of a pairs or ice dance thing. Oh my god, someone should do an ice dancing program to this song, maybe I should switch to ice dance just so I could do this same performance on ice.

I quickly spotted my friends in the crowd, they were cheering the loudest. And next to them was Regulus who was not cheering at all, in fact, he had his jaw clenched tightly, and had a gloomy look on his face that had not been directed towards me in a while. My heart sank.

I tried not to think about him as Dan and I took a bow (which I'd forced him to include, it was rude not to take a bow) and walked offstage. But it was hard, I mean, I was meant to go back to the Slytherin table now, and for some reason Saf and Bella were sat almost next to him.

Saf and Bella immediately jumped on me to congratulate me, which was a good distraction, but then Bella leaned in close to me and whispered, "He came to ask us why you were sitting at the Gryffindor table and then said he'd wait for you to come back."

I think I knew who she meant.

I sat down next to Regulus, who seemed to be avoiding my eyes. "So um, did you like the performance?" I asked gingerly.

He still didn't look at me as he shrugged. "I guess it was alright, I mean you and Bloom..."

He seemed to drift off, as if he didn't quite know what to say.

"Yeah, he's great, he's a really uh an excellent performer." I said.

I could see the muscles in his jaw clench. He cleared his throat. "Sure, okay, I have to go now."

Before I could get another word in, Regulus stood up abruptly and left the Hall altogether.

Was he mad at me for something? Ugh, I truly did not understand that boy sometimes, or most times to be honest.

AN: I live for clout, so leave a review. Also thank you to the person who defended me from the reviewer who felt the need to leave a two page essay on why I should change Bow's name.