The next morning he woke up feeling irritated, gloomy, and a tad bit apologetic.

The irritation was easy enough to explain. The argument he had with Alex the night before had left him reeling about their relationship, although it was difficult to pinpoint the exact reason for this irritation. Was it because there was suddenly someone else in the picture? Was it the fact that she didn't seem to tell him everything like she used to? Or was it the fact that despite nine months of careful insinuations and hinting, she was as clueless as ever about his feelings? He supposed that it was all three of them, but the most direct cause of this argument, Lee, got most of the blame and Regulus pulled himself out of the bed imagining various ways in which he could make life harder for the new student. Perhaps jinxing his book bag to open every time he stood up might do…

But that was too childish and he was far too gloomy to actually carry on the task. Which brought him to the second emotion. He was beginning to find out that he hated arguing with her; they hadn't had many rows (possibly because they always skirted around topics that they knew would make them argue), and the experience was hardly something he wished to occur repeatedly. Contrary to popular opinion Regulus didn't like rows or confrontations—he had seen far too many of them as a child growing up in a Black household, where his parents couldn't be bothered to reach a mutual consensus and his brother was forever going against their parents' wishes. He held a vague belief that arguments in general were pointless endeavors unless the purpose of them was to grow frustrated and experience tiny heartbreaks that made up life. He wanted many things with Alex but those tiny heartbreaks weren't one of them.

Which brought him to the apologetic feelings.

Maybe he had overreacted. Reason told him that Alex often didn't mean things in the worst possible way. When she said that she liked Honeydukes chocolate, she meant that she liked Honeydukes chocolate, and not that she wanted him to buy her some or that she found others who disliked the chocolate repulsive. When she said that she wasn't interested in Quidditch she meant that she wasn't interested in the games, not that she wasn't interested in him playing in those games. When she said that Sirius was pretty she merely meant that most people found Sirius handsome, not that she wanted to act on that observation. So Regulus knew, rather than believed, that when Alex said that there was nothing to tell about Lee and herself, she meant that there really was nothing significant enough for him to know. And she was doing her rounds that night—she had probably just ran into him out of dorms after curfew and was simply telling him to not do it again.

And yet uneasiness nagged him at the back of his mind, whispering impossible things.

Alex was—always had been—difficult. It wasn't that she was terribly obstinate or that she demanded impossible things from him. But it always seemed to him—and Regulus wasn't sure why he was feeling this way—that she was just beyond the extent of his grasp, and that she herself seemed to be ignorant of the gap he felt existed because of her. Or perhaps she wasn't creating anything at all, and it was his own fault that he felt insecure about himself. But the facts remained that he never felt like he had her the way he might with Rebecca. Regulus shook his head. That had been a rather large miscalculation on his part. He did not end up enjoying the relationship one bit and it only hurt Alex—and Rebecca too, Regulus supposed, although he had never put much weight on her feelings for him because they never extended beyond his family name and wealth.

Regulus traced the emerald tiles in the shower stall with his fingertip, feeling the weight of the warm water hitting his shoulders. His hair stuck to all sides of his head, lying flat and wet against his skin. He let out a ragged breath.

Thoughts about her in the shower never ended well.

Well, it really depended on how one defined well, he thought drily as his grip tightened on himself. He could only imagine how she would react if she could see him now in the shower, huffing slightly in his effort to reach the climax, eyes clinched tightly shut to see the imagined world in his mind where there was absolutely no one in the world but them—in a small cottage by the sea perhaps where the wind could not stir another soul but theirs. A simple bed. Her soft, dark hair (although Regulus had to admit even in his fantasy that he had no idea of knowing whether her hair was soft or not) spread wildly against the crisp, creamy sheets. Her cheeks flushed rosy. Her eyes were shining brightly and she had that lopsided smile that she had whenever they encountered a particularly delectable chocolate but a thousand times better because it was them in that bed and nothing else between them. Regulus let out an involuntary groan and bit his lips, trying to keep quiet despite the sound of the water spray against the tiled walls. Her arms reached for him, helplessly pulling him closer and he would surrender to the height of pleasure…

Alex wouldn't appreciate this very much. Alex, who froze whenever his hand came anywhere near her. But then again she sometimes surprised him in the most unexpected ways…

Regulus let out a harsh breath. Probably not the best time to test any hypothesis, considering the way they had parted the night before. He quickly dried himself with a towel and put on his robes. He would apologize to her—that is, for the parts where he was at fault—and ask her to explain as much as she could the kind of relationship that she thought they were in. He had abandoned friendship for them a long time ago, and he couldn't tell if she was just reluctant to cross that bridge or simply not interested in him that way. There had been moments, but—ah, how he disliked this uncertainty.

He had planned to approach her the moment she emerged from the girls' dormitory but he was stopped by something unexpected.

"Regulus." Dolohov sounded unusually grave and serious.

Regulus rubbed his temples to cover up his surprise. "Dolohov," he said, trying to keep his voice neutral. "What is it at this hour?"

"We need to talk about the meeting tonight."

Regulus cursed inwardly. He'd been too preoccupied with the thoughts of her and almost forgot about the meeting that night. Unusual for him to forget his duties. His mother's shrill advice—if one could even call that advice—rang again in his ears. If you think I'm going to accept that mongrel blood-traitor as my daughter-in-law, you can just give up the honored name of Black… Regulus was not abashed enough to deny that he had been relying on Sirius to take most of his mother's outrage, as was generally the case for them.

"What is it?"

"Wilson," Dolohov whispered. "And a couple of others. Orders came from higher up. We need to start recruiting."

Regulus smiled sardonically. Trust Dolohov to make everything sound so important and hush-hush. But the contents of his words did not escape him and he sighed good-naturedly to mask his distaste.

"We can't approach them yet," he reminded Dolohov. "We haven't done enough background check to ascertain their allegiance, remember?"

"And Wilson?"

The accusation in Dolohov's tone was unmistakable. Regulus had heard it, implied or explicit, for the four years of their acquaintance. That Wilson, who was for some unknown reason linked to Black—who knows how long that'll last. The male members of the Slytherin house along with their relatives displayed interest in Regulus' "temporary fling" and sniggered behind his back, betting how long it would take before the Prince came to his senses and expressed interest in someone more suitable. Even Snape, whose friendship—Regulus scoffed at the image of Snape's longing gaze and the supposed term friendship—with Muggleborn Evans made him an object of suspicion, was skeptical about their relationship, however he understood it to be. Even Sirius, who should've been glad about his interest in someone who was non-typically Slytherin, accused him of lowering his taste. The only person who seemed to approve of their relationship was Leila Parkinson, who seemed to have developed a soft spot for Alex despite her haughty facade and rapier-quick comebacks. But a Parkinson's voice had little weight in discussions such as this and Parkinson herself knew it.

"She's still considering," Regulus said evenly, hoping for her sake as well as his own that his words were true and that Alex was at least considering the possibility of joining the ranks of the Death Eaters. But the image of her lying flushed and sweaty in their cottage by remote seaside flashed again in his mind and Regulus furled his hand into a fist in his pocket, realizing, and suppressing, for the thousandth time the contradictory feeling in himself: his desire to be was dutiful, and righteous, and just, and an equally strong impulse to abandon everything—like Sirius, although Sirius had never set a good example when it came to these sorts of things—and just whisk Alex off with him to an unknown part of the world, living out their lives in peace and quietude and small moments of happiness. He shook his head infinitesimally. Now was not the time for impossibilities. He began to stow away the image along with several others under the file titled pleasant thoughts for difficult times.

"She's already been to some of the meetings," Dolohov protested, but withered under Regulus' cool gaze. Regulus knew that behind this appearance of compliance there was resentment of being scolded by his junior and ambition to overcome the status of Black with his own power and Regulus wondered if he shouldn't at least peak into the file of pleasant thoughts for difficult times at some point and give each possibilities a serious consideration. Life like this wasn't living, it was functioning as a chess piece—a rather powerful chess piece, and Regulus would like to think that he wasn't just one of the pawns, but nonetheless a chess piece, and he didn't know who the actual players were or what the stakes were.

"Blame Lestrange for his rash decisions," Regulus said cooly. "He didn't even tell her where he was leading her." Although, in some ways, Regulus had to admit that he was at fault. He had been the one who left her on her own devices and watched as Lestrange made his move on her.

"Still," Dolohov looked around uneasily. People were beginning to trickle into the common room as the morning grew brighter. "It's a loose end. And you know how he feels about loose ends." The identity of the he was unquestionable. And Regulus knew how testy the Dark Lord could be. After all, he'd witnessed it firsthand at Malfoy Manor that summer, although of course he was not involved in any active capacity—not that Regulus wasn't doing anything to change that—

"She'll come around," Regulus said, his expression blank. Dolohov looked unconvinced.

"She will," Regulus repeated emphatically and Dolohov held up both his hands in mock surrender.

"Alright," he said. "If you say so." Regulus watched him leave the common room and head to the Great Hall for breakfast.

She will. She has to.

Their eyes met across the Great Hall that morning, her gaze timid and his insistent. Somehow they didn't get a chance to talk until much later as they left Herbology late morning. She had to linger in the greenhouse a little after everyone else was gone due to a particularly nasty Wobbling Wisp.

"We have to talk," Regulus stated. Alex rubbed her forehead.

"I suppose," she answered glumly. Not a particularly encouraging sign.

"I should apologize," Regulus said stiffly. He tried to make his voice softer and his pose actually penitent, but for some reason his spine refused to bend. She looked back at him without saying anything.

"That is, when I say that I should—" his mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. "I don't think I was wrong. Not completely."

She raised her eyebrows skeptically.

"About Lee," he continued reluctantly. "He does watch you. When he thinks you're not looking." And quite truthfully it wouldn't have bothered him much if he saw someone else looking at Alex. It might have put him on guard, but he wouldn't simply lash out at the person. But the way Lee was watching Alex during Herbology made him want to steal a Beater's bat from the Quidditch team and smash it against his skull. There was fire in his eyes. Regulus didn't think it was a fire of passion or even romance, per se, but something seemed to burn when he watched her, and Regulus couldn't figure out what.

"Does it even matter?" Alex replied tiredly. "I barely know him, let alone like him."

Regulus sighed, feeling more and more like he was at fault. "I guess I know that," he muttered quietly. Alex crossed her arms in front of her and frowned at him.

"I'm sorry," Regulus muttered. "I should have trusted what you said."

Alex cleared her throat, looking painfully awkward. "I'm sorry, too," she said. "I should've been more aware of how—how you saw us." The last few words seemed to embarrass her even more than his apology. Regulus didn't know what he could say, either. She probably wouldn't take well the fact that he had already thought of how many children they would have—although even he drew the line at naming every single one of them. Alex would say something about them being fifteen years old and this being too early. Regulus bit the inside of his cheek.

For him fifteen was not early to start thinking. His parents had married after they were both thirty, it was true, and wizards tended to have longer lifespans than Muggles as long as they avoided extreme dangers, but these were not normal times—the Dark Lord was rising, and even as his supporter Regulus knew that life expectancy was abnormally short for those who joined his ranks. Some died before they were even twenty. It might be due to their being incautious, but Regulus suspected that some people were simply too unlucky. He couldn't rule himself out from that possibility just because he was a Black, like his mother liked to do. If he joined the Death Eaters at seventeen as he planned, he might have five years if he in combat, maybe a few more years if he stayed behind the scenes. That would depend on the Dark Lord himself. And that meant just another variable that he had to account for in his plans.

It did not occur to Regulus at fifteen what it might mean for Alex to lose a husband at twenty-three and be left alone in the world with a child and no one else. While he conceded to the possibility that Alex may feel reluctant about joining the Death Eaters, he never considered a future where they might be fighting on opposite sides. Even though he knew from countless observations and reason that friendships and relationships rarely lasted—that most of them had to end at some point or the other—he stubbornly refused to believe that it would happen between him and Alex. She was one person in his entire life that he chose to let in for himself and himself alone. They couldn't part—he needed her. And she had to choose the life that he'd chosen, because the alternative was too horrible; the consequences of resistance would be dire.

"No," Regulus said as they walked toward the castle. "I knew how you see us."

"You don't like it." It wasn't a question.

"I'm hoping that it'll change soon enough."

A frown appeared on her face, but she didn't even seem to realize that it was there. "Alright," she said vaguely, and Regulus might have found a more tactful way to probe into the answer had it not been for the dominant imperative swirling in his mind.

"Tonight," he said bluntly, "there's another meeting." The frown deepened.

"They're expecting you," he continued.

"Who're they?"

"You know." She didn't say anything.

"Alex."

"You said you'd cover for me." This wasn't a question, either.

"That was in January. There's only so much that I can do." Alex clenched her fists.

"I don't think so," she said quietly. Regulus stopped in his tracks.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm not going," Alex said more loudly. "You can't make me." There was something of a petulant child in her tone, or so it sounded to Regulus, but at the same time there was something stoney and hard-set about her face that Regulus couldn't place. Had her face always been capable of carrying that particular expression? She stopped walking and looked squarely at him as well.

"And why not?"

"You hardly gave me time to think about the choices," she said quietly. "I'll choose when I'm sure."

Regulus felt annoyance rise in him despite his knowledge that her words were fair. "And when is this time?" He couldn't keep sarcasm out of his voice.

"I don't know."

"The meeting's tonight."

"And I didn't choose that."

"None of us did," Regulus spat out. "Sometimes the choice is already made for you. Like this case. You were sorted into Slytherin, and Lestrange made the choice for you. You're not in the position to choose." A strange light came into Alex's eyes and Regulus knew from experience that it wasn't love.

"Or what?" she asked quietly. Regulus tried to stand his ground against her glare.

"Retribution."

"From you?" now there was clear accusation in her voice. "What will you do, Reg? Kill me? Because you have no choice?"

"Don't be stupid," he snapped. That she would even utter such possibility enraged him more than her refusal to attend the meeting. Hurt her? As if that had ever been possible from the beginning. "The retribution will affect everyone. You. Me." He stabbed his finger into his chest for emphasis. "Everyone, Alex."

"That's not fair."

"It's never going to be fair!" Regulus shouted. Then he looked away after seeing the expression on her face. "Damn it," he swore.

"Why does it have to be this way?" her voice was low, quiet. "No one told you to choose that side."

"I believe in what he does."

"No, you don't. You never believed in senseless killing."

Regulus narrowed his eyes. "Don't try to talk me out of this."

"Then don't try to talk me into this!" Alex was now flaring up, too, red blotches tinting her cheeks in a lively color that made Regulus want to run away from her and embrace her in his arms at the same time. "I don't believe in what Voldemort does. Maybe I don't object strongly enough to do anything about it right now, but that doesn't mean that I support his actions, either, and nothing could change that."

"Not even me?" Regulus asked quietly.

"What?" she sounded astounded, but not astounded enough. Because they both knew this question had been coming.

"Won't you change your mind for me?"

The question sounded more vulnerable than he had intended. Regulus had no intention of displaying how much it would hurt him personally if she chose something else. Alex crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked away.

"I could ask you the same question," she asked.

"Everything I have depends on this. My family depends on this. My parents—imagine how much Mother will be devastated if she's kicked out of the polite society. The family standing in the social circles. Even Sirius—no one touches him now, because so far the Blacks have been supportive of this."

"So what—Alex, please become a Death Eater and kill innocent people for a cause you don't believe in because I can't stand to see my family harmed?" her eyes were becoming watery. "Was there ever a point when I was considered part of that family, Regulus?"

"That's not fair," Regulus said quietly.

"Haven't you heard? It's never fair. Get that into your pretty little head, prince." She turned around and marched toward the castle, not even sparing him a last withering look. Regulus growled into the cool cloudy air.

This was just the beginning.

Needless to say, Alex failed to turn up at the meeting, and over the next few days Regulus attempted to catch her and reason with her (it had yet to occur to him that reason was his weakest weapon at that moment), but Alex displayed unexpected talent at evading people that she didn't wish to see. Quidditch practices were so frequent that he could only rarely spare time in the evening—never mind that he scheduled those practices—and most afternoons were spent studying for homework as fifth year began to pick up pace and drag its students by the throat. Even Snape, who was by far the most talented in Potions, seemed to find something confusing in Slughorn's lectures, and Potter actually took notes in Transfiguration class now. A part of him whispered that he didn't need Alex's pardon, or forgiveness, or whatever it was that he was seeking from her, but he knew that it was his habitual pride speaking and that he would regret it if things weren't back to how they used to be.

Regulus leaned back in his chair, looking carefully interested in Flitwick's lesson on advanced levitation. Alex of course refused to sit next to him and sat with Parkinson, who had managed to extract herself from Rosier—good for both of them, he thought with a bit of bitterness. Rosier was hardly worth Parkinson's Quidditch skills and Alex seemed much happier than the last time they'd talked. If they could call fighting talking.

If someone asked point blank if Regulus Black supported the Dark Lord's ideologies or his actions he would answer in a way that signaled affirmative without really putting in much substance. He knew that the Dark Lord's ideologies—not that they had ever been clearly defined and codified—and his actions sometimes contradicted each other, but he saw this contradiction as a necessary evil of the beginning of a grand new era. Change was by definition a messy chaotic thing, and one couldn't expect all logic and reason to survive in this messy chaotic process. Just how far he was willing to sacrifice logic and reason in the name of change was still unknown to him, but he trusted his mind enough to give him a wake-up call when things got out of hand. Then he would be, should be, able to intervene and right the wrong.

But his answer would still be ambiguous because he knew there were different ways of interpreting the same words and felt from the meetings that his interpretation was not always the common or popular one. Violence, for one (Regulus resented how Alex pointed this out of all things), had never appealed to him much, and for him it was another necessary evil of the war that had to be minimized, or abandoned at best scenarios, but some of his classmates were less weary of violence. Practicing the Unforgivables on insects and small animals was a natural part of the "initiation process" as they called it even though the Dark Lord had never come up with something like that as far as Regulus knew. So when the words said, 'purify the wizarding community of Muggles and Muggleborns,' Regulus read it as a peaceful, even voluntary expulsion (he had a theory of how this could be achieved, although the ideas were half-formed at best at this point) of Muggleborns from the wizarding community in order to ensure both party's safety. He did not understand how someone else could read it as simple extermination. Human nature had something to do with it, he vaguely thought, but his nature did not enable him to understand the other interpretations.

Another point that he found hard to digest was the emphasis on magical ability, which many creatures including humans possessed. Spilling magical blood was waste, a lot of Death Eaters said, and Regulus agreed. But Muggleborns (as well as werewolves and trolls and house-elves and a hundred other creatures) had magical blood. It was simply that some were less orthodox. But lack of orthodoxy didn't mean that their blood was any less valuable—just for a different use. He didn't hate Muggleborns. He didn't hate anyone. But the situation of the wizarding society right now was such that an order had to be imposed—or wizards could be exposed to the Muggle world for good, and no Obliviation charm, however widely cast, could make every single Muggle forget about magic. Grindelwald with his ambition wanted to make sure that the Muggle world would fear him along with the wizarding society, but the Dark Lord was making no such mistake. Some wizards resented having to hide from Muggles, but it wasn't hiding that they had to do—they had to separate themselves, and if Muggles ever got a whiff of wizards, that separation would be impossible as Muggles would grow jealous of magic. Separation was key. Domination—Regulus didn't know. Desire for power and money was rather lost on the youngest child of one of the most powerful and ancient wizarding families.

A couple of rows below him Alex rubbed her eyes tiredly after staring at Flitwick's beard too hard and Regulus felt an unwilling smile on his lips.

If he had any other alternative to the current predicament he would take it—he would not like her. Someone else, anyone else, he would fall in love with if he could. Mongrel, his mother called Alex, and as unromantic as it may sound, Regulus used to have reservations—still had reservations—about Alex and her parents. And she, not knowing any of this, tried so hard to find who her father was, and as far as Regulus knew about the pureblood wizarding society—and his knowledge was unusually extensive—the name Wymond was completely foreign. So not a pureblood, presumably. This made him pause even though he knew that Sophia Wilson was from an old bloodtraitor family. It was true. Alex probably had mixed blood and his parents would not approve. That she was raised like a Muggle didn't increase any odds, either. It would be so much easier if she was more like—Rebecca Goyle, in more than one way. But he wouldn't like her like that and he knew this.

Most of the times it confused him, how much he had to have her. It sometimes didn't even feel like a romantic interest as much as an impulse toward something. Something different—no, something brighter. Alex felt a little brighter than everything else. Someone who could contain her pain and still stand upright and shine on everyone else, who seemed to be able to retreat into herself from everything else and simply be in that small comfortable room by herself. She was one person he knew who was unaffected by the pureblood society that he grew up in and he did the only thing he knew to keep her with him, which was to try to bring her into that pureblood society and shield her from every negative, greedy influence.

"Yes, Mr. Abbott?"

"The importance of weight in levitation should be minimal, sir, as long as the spell caster focuses on the object and not levitation itself."

"Very good, Mr. Abbott! Five points to Ravenclaw!"

Around him students began to scribble something in their notes and Regulus realized that he should have been scribbling as well.

Charms was the last class of the day, and the practice after dinner went inordinately poorly. The Beaters somehow found their bats overly slippery, resulting in several accidents where the bat, rather than the Bludger, went flying toward the other players—with alarming accuracy that their usual playing would never have produced. The Chasers for their part grew annoyed and attempted to out-fly the Beaters, which resulted in their crashing into each other multiple times. Finally, Regulus had to signal a timeout when two of the Chasers, Willie and Nott (second and third years, Merlin save them) managed to somehow crash-land into the sandpit, each sporting a dislocated shoulder and a broken wrist.

"Alright, that's it," Regulus snapped. "Practice over. Lestrange, Flint—take Nott and Willie to the hospital wing."

"Bad practice, was it?" the usual voice quipped from behind him and Regulus turned around irritably.

"It's not a good time, Parkinson," he said. Parkinson, to her credit, looked nonplussed.

"It's never a good time," she countered. "But I think today's practice proves what I've been telling you all along."

Regulus knew perfectly well what Parkinson had been saying all along. She had been insisting that girls should be allowed to play in the Slytherin Quidditch team since her arrival at Hogwarts. The nagging grew only more insistent when Regulus became the captain; it seemed that Parkinson thought their being in the same year would work in her favor. It wasn't that Regulus particularly disagreed with anything that Parkinson said—female players in the Holyhead Harpies were probably better than most major-league Quidditch players—but that didn't mean that he felt inclined to go against everyone who felt perfectly satisfied with the way things were, with male players only. It was altogether possible that fresh talent from female players may make the team stronger. But he wasn't sure if the cost of the disunity and the trouble this change would bring could be overcome by the said benefit.

So he said, "I told you, the decision's not practical."

"It is practical," Parkinson said fiercely, "and what's more important, it's the right thing to do."

Regulus looked at her ironically in the settling darkness of the evening. "I never knew that your sense of morality was so strong, Parkinson."

"Aren't you the one always expounding the values of integral components of the magical society? What about integrating gender into the equation, eh?" Parkinson's face was becoming paler and paler, which was the sign that she was actually getting more and more worked up. Regulus went over the options he had to get out of this argument quickly. He had prefect rounds, and this time he double checked that it was with Alex. If the night was quiet then maybe he could actually talk to her and make her hate him less…

"I don't have time for this," he said, quickening his pace toward the changing room. "I have rounds."

"Fine, be that way," Parkinson spat. "But one day you'll regret making this decision, Black." Unfortunately for Leila, Regulus had heard this ominous prediction too many times before to be really intimidated by it.

Regulus quickly changed into his school robes before jogging briskly to the Slytherin dungeons, where Alex was already waiting for him by the entrance.

"Alright," she said dispassionately. "Here's tonight's schedule. Apparently both of the Ravenclaw prefects couldn't make it today because of some dodgy potion, so the grounds need to be covered as well—what?" Alex realized that Regulus hadn't been listening to a word that she'd been saying.

"We need to talk," he said. Alex sighed.

"We," she said, "need to complete this round. I have an essay due tomorrow and I need time to revise." She started to walk toward the Great Hall and Regulus followed quickly.

"No," Regulus said. "We need to talk. You can't blame me for something that I can't change, Alex."

Alex made a face. "I'm not blaming you for anything."

"You've been avoiding me."

"I needed space."

"Couldn't that happen while still talking to me?" Regulus felt the frustration and isolation of the last few days seep into his words. It had been terribly lonely without the one friend he had…

"You have the next decade planned for us," Alex snapped. "So no."

"If that's what it's all about—"

"It's not about that."

"What is it about, then?" Her eyes sparked dangerously at this question, and Regulus got a feeling that he'd unleashed something that she was keeping bottled up inside of her without her knowledge.

"I don't know, Reg, maybe that everything seems to be moving forward and I'm not? Apparently we're supposed be a couple and be all—physical." She said the word as if it was the dirtiest, most disgusting collection of syllables that she had ever uttered. "And we're supposed to be thinking about Voldemort and joining or not joining and being together and I'm just trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and decide how many O.W.L.s I need to take the required N.E.W.T. classes because I have to make a decision, because it's my fucking future, and I'm supposed to keep up with classwork and be a prefect, which doesn't even make any sense to me, and meanwhile there's the whole thing with—" She stopped abruptly, as if the censoring part of her brain finally caught up with the words sprouting out of her mouth and commanded her muscles to clamp her mouth shut. Regulus decided that this was not the best time to talk about the names of their children. But her eyes looked oddly guilty and Regulus knew that he wasn't imagining that.

"What is it?" he asked. The frown on her face only deepened.

"No one," she answered defensively before her eyes widened. "I meant—"

"No one?" Regulus repeated, feeling oddly empty. No one. Who was it?

"I clearly misspoke. Besides, it's not even a big deal—what was that?" Suddenly her attitude changed. Her back tensed visibly, and she began to stare hard into the darkness outside the window like a wolf watching its pray. He thought she even sniffed into the air.

"Stop trying to change the subject," Regulus snapped, there was no conviction in his voice. The way she stared out into the school grounds was alert, discerning—she wasn't trying to distract him.

"Damn it," she swore, and began to jump down the stairwell, skipping a staircase with each step. Regulus hurried after her.

"Alex, what is it?" he asked hurriedly.

"Someone's leading the first-years to the Forbidden Forest," she answered, huffing. Despite himself Regulus felt panic rise in him.

"Who's leading them there?" he asked.

"I don't know!"

"How many of them are there?"

"I couldn't tell—ten? The group wasn't small, if that's what you're asking."

"Merlin," Regulus muttered as they reached the Entrance Hall. In the dim moonlight—the moon was only half-full, and the night landscape was poorly lit due to the clouds—he could see a small hoard of people at the periphery of the Forbidden Forest, just before they were out of his eyesight. Regulus judged them to be well over a third of a mile, but they were there—a little cluster of dark school robes and shuffling feet that his Seeker's eyes could barely make out. Next to him Alex started.

"Wait," Regulus said. "You don't know what might be out there."

"That's a brilliant observation, Reg," Alex said sarcastically, "but if you haven't noticed, we haven't got time. I doubt that whoever's leading them there will kindly look after them once they reach the forest."

Regulus opened his mouth to argue that neither of them were familiar with the geography of the forest, but his words were stopped by a terrified, heart-stopping scream.

They both froze in their spots, staring into each other's faces.

The scream came again, not from the grounds but from the castle—from the way that they'd just left, from one of the higher floors. The sound was followed by soft sobbing that managed to travel down the grand stairwells of the Hogwarts castle. Regulus was torn between straining to hear more of what was happening and being frozen by the instinctive terror that the scream brought to his heart. Alex's face paled, her eyes wide in panicking alertness, and her hand automatically sought out the wand in her pocket. Meanwhile the first-years with their shuffling feet had disappeared from their view.

"Reg," she whispered, as if her voice was incapable of proper resonation, "we have to do something."

"Right," Regulus swallowed. "Right." He didn't want to confess to Alex at the moment that the sound coming from the castle sounded awfully familiar. He had heard it as a child—he had escaped the scene as soon as he encountered it, but it was nonetheless etched in his mind. Black Manor in the countryside. Less than seven years old. No one could forget the sound of someone being tortured. His legs felt rooted to the ground even though his mind screamed at him to do something.

"We have to split up," Alex continued to talk despite everything. How could she be so calm when her face and voice expressed nothing but fear? "You—you take Care of Magical Creatures, and you're faster. You should go after them—"

"And leave you here with—with that?" Fear rang in his voice and Regulus didn't have the strength to hide it. As to prove his point, another scream rang through the halls of Hogwarts, filling their hearts again with terror. Regulus felt an involuntary shiver run down his spine. He couldn't take this anymore.

"I'll be fine. Go!" His body obeyed her orders even though his mind protested that he was leaving her alone in that terrifying danger. He legs sprinted on their own accord, and it seemed that his face almost welcomed the chill of the night air. The air was moist against his skin. So he ran, not to the danger in the dark, but from a different horror behind him.

A/N: This is the first chapter in Regulus' POV, and I'm not sure if it totally works—possibly because there are so many things that are contradictory about him. Let me know what you think! I'll also try to respond to the reviews that I've meanwhile received (sorry, I've been horrible on the lately).