A/N Phew! It's been a while since I've updated. I dare not give reasons for this tardiness, but I do think a recap of last chapter might be helpful: fifth-year Christmas holiday, Sirius ran away, Regulus is the new heir. Now we move to the Wilson household...

Alex hadn't experienced a car ride this uncomfortable since the first drive to London, where her mother and she got supplies for Hogwarts. That first summer when she learned that she was a witch and that life would never be the same again.

This time it was worse. Because now, unlike then, Alex knew what she did wrong. Even though she didn't think it was wrong.

"So," Alex said jollily, looking at the darkness outside, "a long drive, huh?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Abrupt, direct. Alex wished that there was another way of doing this.

"I knew you wouldn't like it," she mumbled, looking down at her hands.

"I don't."

"I knew that," Alex said, "but—I like him, mum. Couldn't you at least try to like him?"

"No."

Frustration began to creep up from her heart, stuffing whatever pathway there was before stinging her eyes. "Why not?" she said. "If you just got to know him—he's really kind, and smart, and funny—"

"And also clueless, arrogant, and completely unapologetic about his status, which he did nothing to earn."

"You never even talked to him! How can you know any of this, if you've never even talked to him?"

"I get enough from what you've told me," Sophia said, gritting her teeth.

"I didn't tell you everything, mum…" Alex said tiredly, but realized as soon as she uttered her last word that it was a wrong thing to say. Sophia Wilson's eyes flashed.

"So you feel completely comfortable with him? Like you can tell him anything?" The accusation in her voice was clear. And Alex opened her mouth to tell her mother that yes, Regulus did make her feel comfortable, but she hesitated.

She could defend Regulus Black from accusations that he was clueless and arrogant and completely unapologetic about his status—they were all true. But that didn't make Regulus a bad person; it just made him a little naïve despite his cynical view of the society that he came from. Regulus never properly talked to a Muggleborn, or considered a possibility that he might be wrong, or that his future was uncertain. But Alex also believed that this was something that would be fixed in due time, as Regulus met more people. But comfortable? She was—always a little bit nervous around him, a little excited, a little hesitant. Sometimes she thought that Regulus would take something she said the wrong way, or that he wouldn't approve of something she did. But wasn't it like that in all relationships?

Unfortunately, Alex's visible hesitation was all the confirmation Sophia Wilson needed.

"He doesn't understand you," she said. "He can't understand you, because he has no idea where you're coming from—"

"Mom, would you just stop?" Alex said exasperatedly. "We're—we just started this, and we don't know where it's going to go yet."

"Oh, really?" Sophia Wilson's said sarcastically. "Don't tell me that the little brat doesn't have everything planned out for his own advantage." The memory of Regulus telling her that three years were relatively a short period of time came back to her and again Alex hesitated. She hated that she hesitated.

"Let me guess?" Sophia continued. "Going to join the precious league of Death Eaters and serve Lord Voldemort? Is that what you want, Alex?"

"Mom, we've just started," Alex said. "We're figuring things out. You can't just go and make all these presumptions—"

"Are you calling me presumptuous, Alexandra Wilson?" her mother's tone was mercilessly cool. Alex felt her frustration threatening to escape through her eyes.

"That's not what I meant!" she yelled.

"Don't start yelling," Sophia Wilson snapped.

"You're not listening to me," Alex said. "Whenever I bring him up, you get this ugly look on your face, you know that? You're not even willing to consider that Regulus might have decent qualities, or that he might have his difficulties, too. Did you ever consider that he's the only friend I have? Does that say nothing about what kind of a person he is?"

"It tells me that he's a self-entitled brat who picks easy targets to share his woes with," Sophia Wilson shot back.

Alex felt something sting her eyes, but she didn't want to show it in front of her mother, who was going to use all weakness she saw to her advantage, anyway. "I'm so glad you think so highly of me, Mom," she said coolly. "So I'm just an easy target, is it?"

"Yes!" Sophia shouted back in frustration. "You're just letting him take advantage of you, just because he's a slightly good-looking boy who showed remote interest in you—"

"Have you considered that he actually cares for me? Is that so hard to believe?" Alex was brought back to the argument that she and Reg had not few months ago, when he accused her of not trusting him enough about his feelings for her. How did the argument spiral off to this direction—

"You're sixteen! You don't know what you feel!"

"I'm only two years younger than when you decided go run off with Dad!" Alex shouted. Her words felt foreign to her ears. Sophia Wilson froze in her seat.

"I'm sorry?" she said impossibly calmly.

"It's not that hard to figure out," the words were being spat out of her mouth, except she didn't recognize the person spitting out the words. "You ran off with a Slytherin boy. Dad. Your parents decided never to speak to you again. And then he left. And you think, because Dad did this to you, Regulus is going to do the same thing."

The air inside the car couldn't have been warmer than the air outside. "He is going to do the same thing." Sophia Wilson said eventually.

"I'm not you," Alex said.

"No, you're not me," Sophia Wilson said, her voice shaking. "My parents told me my entire life to look out for types like him. They told me that I could never trust a Slytherin. I knew better, but I did it anyway, and I've regretted it for the past sixteen years. You don't know. You never had anyone telling you that they were bad for you. So I'm telling you know, and you should listen. Regulus Black will never learn what it means to do something for someone else. He'll never be there for you."

"That's not true.'

"He won't," Sophia Wilson said. "He never learned how, and he never will."

"So I'm just not worth that much effort?" Alex said. "Is that what you're saying, Mum?"

"I'm not saying it's anything about you!" Sophia Wilson screamed. "It's him, it's his fault—"

"And the fact that he's the only friend that I have? That says so much about me, doesn't it, that the only friend I have will never even care for me—"

"You're young, you never know—"

"And why do you think that I will have to go through the same thing that you did?" Alex cried tearfully. "Maybe Regulus does care for me, and maybe he won't let me down, and maybe he won't leave me alone with a child that you apparently regretted having for the last sixteen years!"

"STOP BEING SO STUPID—"

"Don't call me stupid, and stop yelling at me!" Alex screamed. "I've had enough. I've had enough."

"Fine," Sophia Wilson snapped. And even though all Alex wanted her mother to do was to just say something else—that everything was alright—that she wasn't mad at her—or even just hold her, and they would say that they were sorry to each other—her mother just drove on. When they reached the old house, she simply got out of the car and slammed the door behind her, leaving Alex to shiver in the car with a dying engine.

And it was on the day of Christmas Eve, when Alex had finished shoveling the driveway, that her mother came to the front door with a stony look.

"The Order has been in touch," she said. "They need someone to look in to the recent disturbance in southern France. I need to go."

"Let me guess, you didn't want to get out of it," Alex said. Sophia Wilson's face didn't change.

"I have to leave within the hour," she said coldly. "You'll Floo back to Hogwarts. Minerva already knows about this. Go upstairs and pack." Without waiting for an answer, her mother turned around and went back into the house. Alex trudged after her, feeling the cold snow melt insider her boots.

There hadn't been much to pack. Even less to say, apparently. It wasn't until Alex grasped the rough powder in her palm that she realized that she couldn't just go without saying nothing else.

"Hurry," her mother said. "The floo network to this house will close in five minutes."

Alex sighed. "When are you coming back to England?" she asked, staring at the fireplace. No answer came from behind her, and Alex turned around, unwilling to face her mother. For the first time since the break, there was something in her mother's face that Alex could actually rely on—regret. Regret that she herself felt.

"It won't be long," her mother said quietly. Alex nodded and stepped into the fireplace.

"Merry Christmas, Mum," she said before throwing the powder to the ground. "Hogwarts!" The last image that she saw was her living room that she'd never seen from that angle and the blurry vision of her mother crying.

"Good morning, Miss Wilson," McGonagall's usual crisp voice greeted her.

"Hullo, Professor," Alex glumly answered.

"Just one question—" The regulation of the student body had gotten stricter since the troll attack in Northumberland a week ago. Alex nodded, sitting on a chair in front of McGonagall's desk.

"We first met when—"

"You came to talk to my mom about letting me go to Hogwarts." Alex said, frowning at the memory of her mother almost falling to her knees and holding her impossibly tight. As if she were sending her daughter to her last battle.

"Good," McGonagall nodded. Alex paused, wondering how she could put her thoughts into words.

"Is the Order short of men?"

McGonagall, who had been looking over some documents on her desk, looked up sharply and gave Alex a piercing look. "I beg your pardon, Miss Wilson?" she said.

"Is the Order—"

"You can't speak of it. Not even here. Especially not here. Hogwarts is—" McGonagall stopped herself, obviously reluctant to admit the fact that no one wanted to speak about. Hogwarts wasn't safe anymore. The new security measure spoke for itself.

"Sending a member on a mission on Christmas Eve, though. That's a bit too far, isn't it?" Alex said, trying to control her anger. McGonagall looked out the window at the snowy landscape.

"Professor Dumbledore had his reasons," McGonagall said. "Besides, Sophia was the best option we had. She's young and clever."

Alex wanted to say lots of things—words that she refused to say to her mother, because she didn't want to lose the fight by giving in—the foremost of all being that her mother and she got to spend less than three months together in a year, but the square edges of McGonagall's glasses informed her that it would be useless to vent at the professor. So instead she said goodbye to McGonagall before stepping into cold winter grounds.

The icy air refused to calm her. Alex walked quickly through the snow-covered tracks, staring at the fog of her breath clouding her vision every few seconds. The walk around the grounds did nothing to quell her apprehension—what if her mother didn't arrive safely, what if there was a trap, or a misunderstanding during a negotiation, what if—a thousand things that could have gone wrong, the thousand things that she herself did not understand. Sudden terror that their tawdry farewell might have been their last seized her and refused to let her go and Alex quickened her pace even more, trying to reason herself out of the irrational fear. Of course her mother and she would meet again, and they would finish the conversation about what a bad or good kind of boyfriend Regulus Black made—a subject which suddenly appeared most insignificant—and how grandfather was doing, and the number of N.E.W.T.s that Alex would need to graduate successfully and get a job, and—

"Fancy seeing you here," a familiar voice said, and added, after a pause, "is that the right expression?" Alex whipped around.

"Lee," she said, feeling oddly relieved. "Didn't know you were staying at school during the holidays."

"And I thought you'd gone home," Henryk replied, appraising her appearance. "Were you attacked by a hellcat?"

"It's a possibility," Alex muttered darkly. "There's the metaphorical kind."

"Ah," he replied, effectively dropping the subject. It was then that Alex noticed the wheelbarrow next to him.

"Are you still serving detention?" she asked in disbelief.

"No," Henryk replied, picking up the handles and beginning to push the cart. "Just thought that Hagrid might want some help. Winter's not the easiest season to survive outdoors."

"That's… nice," Alex said, trying not to show her surprise. Lee didn't appear to be a particularly altruistic person to her. Henryk shrugged.

"It's something to do," he said. Without quite noticing, she followed the direction he was heading.

"Can I help?" she said automatically. Henryk raised his eyebrow and regarded her for a few seconds.

"Something's wrong," he stated lightly. Alex was taken aback by the sudden remark, but Henryk was merely looking over the wheelbarrow when she looked at him.

"Maybe," she said.

"Alright."

"You're not going to ask what it is?"

Henryk grinned. "I'm not obliged to," he said, showing his teeth. Despite everything, Alex let out a scoff of laughter.

"I guess not," she said. "I'm not allowed to talk about it, anyway."

"Alright," Henryk repeated, and Alex watched him pile the logs one by one in the corner of a small lay of ground. Having stacked a high pile, he took the closest one, set it on a bench of a tree trunk, placed a small wedge in the middle of the stout log and—

Chomp.

Alex took a few steps back unconsciously as the log split neatly into two. The halves were split again before being thrown to the farthest corner.

"You know that you could use magic to do this, right?" Alex said after watching Henryk swing the axe for several minutes. He paused from his work.

"I never thought about it that way," he said, and proceeded to work through the pile without even looking up. Alex crouched on a small stone and watched him, the way his back bent with every swing, the rhythmical quality of his actions. He was obviously used to this kind of work. She wondered what kind of trouble he had gotten into that had led him to so many detentions in Bulgaria. He must have had detentions to be this skilled, wasn't he?

"Are you going to sit there all day?" his voice snapped him out of her haze of thoughts. Alex blinked. There was now only one pile of wood, neatly chopped and stacked so cleanly that she thought that she could jump up and down on it like a mattress. Alex got up hastily and dusted snow off of her cloak.

"What else are you doing today?" she asked as Henryk stored the wheelbarrow in its corner.

"Promised to visit Lupin," he shrugged. "Remus Lupin, he's—"

"Fifth year Gryffindor prefect, I know," Alex said.

"Apparently he's feeling—peaky?" Henryk frowned at the foreignness of the word. "Madame Pomfrey has him locked up in the Hospital Wing like a prisoner."

"She certainly picked the most unlikely candidate," Alex murmured. Henryk grinned.

"A week in the Hospital Wing," Henryk shook his head amused. "I don't know if it's English precaution or something else. Peaky. Back in—" He paused, obviously catching himself. Alex looked at him curiously.

"Back in what?"

"Back in Bulgaria," Henryk said, "I was poisoned once—stopped breathing, or so they told me. They kicked me out after an afternoon of examination."

"Poisoned?"

"My school preferred a more… hands-on approach."

"By poisoning their students?"

"Not all the students," Henryk hastily added. "I was just really unlucky about where I was."

"Durmstrang must be some school if students can get be unlucky about where they get poisoned," Alex said. Henryk kicked the snow under his feet, sending small bunches flying up into the air.

"Yes," he muttered. "Some school I went to." A melancholic look suddenly appeared on his face and Alex began to wonder if she'd said something wrong, but after a moment Henryk seemed himself again.

"Speaking of," he said, "do you remember anything about dueling that I taught you?"

"I realize that I'm not the brightest dueler you've met, but do you really have to ask me if I remember anything?" Alex asked drily. By the end of November Henryk had felt that Alex knew sufficient amount of defensive and offensive spells to start practicing them with a moving target—himself. Within five minutes, Alex found out to her dismay that Henryk could block her spells without even lifting his wand.

"You could be better," Henryk said mildly. "That's why I was asking. When the break started, you could barely hit me once."

"Not my fault that you move quickly," Alex muttered. Henryk shook his head.

"I wasn't even fighting back."

"Really? I thought you were just being nice to me because I was a girl."

Henryk looked at her like she was crazy. "I didn't notice," he said. "Anyway, I thought that you could do with a lot more practice."

"This is a very roundabout and misguided way of offering to teach me."

"It's not an offer," Henryk said. "I'm demanding it, actually. You'd be danger to everyone else around the way you aim." Before she could say anything against this, however, Henryk threw a snowball straight at her face and began to run off toward the castle. Alex stared after him for a few seconds, speechless, before setting off after him.

"You!" She shouted. "What's—what's wrong with you?" Even from the distance she could see that Henryk was laughing.

"Come on, Alexandra," he taunted. "Too slow to catch me?"

"You wish," Alex muttered before leaping from the ground. Somehow she managed to latch onto Henryk's back safely before they both fell into the snow, face-down. Alex felt the weight of his torso pressing down on her arms.

"Ow," Alex muttered, trying to untangle herself from the heap of limbs and snow.

"Shows you not to jump at anyone," Henryk said, chuckling.

"I wasn't jumping at anyone," Alex replied hotly. Henryk merely burst out laughing at her face.

"What's so funny?" Alex muttered petulantly.

"You," Henryk said. "Looked sad. Now you look annoyed."

"Good to know that my annoyance is funny to you," Alex shot back. Henryk shrugged.

"Better than your sadness," he said quietly, looking up at the sky. Alex turned to her side and sat up, regarding Henryk with a frown on her face.

"Why are you nice to me?" she asked. Henryk made a face.

"I'm nice to you?"

"Relatively speaking."

"I'm not nice to you," Henryk scoffed.

"You've offered to teach me how to duel. You helped me that day with the Slytherins, and then in the Forbidden Forest. Even during detentions, you do the harder work without even telling me. You're nice to me," Alex insisted.

"Then stop looking like you're going to cry any second," Henryk said. "Have you seen your face today?"

"Why do you care? No one else cares."

"What do you want to hear, Alex?"

"I don't know," Alex said, scowling at herself. Henryk shook his head.

"There's nothing out of this conversation that I can give you."

"I know that."

"Stop asking for it."

"I'm not."

"Then why do I feel like you are?" His eyes looked straight at her and Alex drew back a little, feeling guilty.

"Sorry."

"No," Henryk muttered. "I've let you do that. I should apologize." Alex rocked back and forth in the snow, biting the inside of her cheeks.

"My mum went on a mission," she said suddenly. Henryk raised his eyebrow.

"She's in this organization. Against—you-know-who. They sent her on a mission. Today. This morning. I mean, I guess someone had to do it, but I didn't want her to go. She went anyway. We had a fight before that."

"About?"

"Reg," Alex said. "Mom doesn't like him very much."

"Well," Henryk muttered, "I don't like him very much either."

"Everyone keeps saying that."

"For a reason."

"That only I don't see?"

"He's not good enough for you."

"What does that even mean?"

"Just that: he's not good enough for you," this time Henryk looked at her in the eyes and didn't turn his gaze away. "He only understands the world through his perspective, what he can do, what he can't do, as the second son of the Black family. He just can't consider the other possibilities that he could choose. It's not a matter of stubborn will, Alex; he just doesn't know how."

"Maybe he'll learn how," Alex said in a small voice.

"People don't change that easily."

"Maybe for me." Henryk's face softened into an odd sort of a smile.

"Perhaps for you," Henryk said. "But perhaps not. In any case, you can do better."

"Oh, do you have any suggestions?" Alex said. "Perhaps the insufferable Potter?"

Henryk grinned. "No, he has a type. Besides, he needs to grow up. Next."

"What about Diggory in seventh year? He's quite nice."

"Too obsessed with titles. Next."

"Hopkins? Fifth year Ravenclaw."

"Have you seen his nose?"

"We're not discriminating against noses, Lee."

"Maybe you're not, but I am," Henryk said, laughing. "Next."

"Well, I don't know!" Alex said, laughing despite herself. "If we rule everyone with a bad nose and bad personality out, then all we have left is Reg!"

"Since when did Black have a good personality?"

"He's nice," Alex said defensively.

"Correction, he can be nice."

"He's nice to me."

"Yes, I suppose that's a redeemable feature." Henryk said carelessly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I had a girlfriend," Henryk said.

"Do I want to know?"

"I had a girlfriend," Henryk said. "She was nice to me—in fact, she was nice to everyone. I didn't realize how nice she was to everyone until I found her together with a classmate during fifth period break." Alex paused.

"I'm sorry." Henryk waved a dismissive hand.

"It was a long time ago. And I wasn't terribly attached to her. I suppose it's better that Black's nicer to you than everyone else. But that doesn't make everything else unimportant."

"I don't know," Alex said, moodily crushing a bit of snow in her hand. "Do you think he'll hurt me?" Henryk shrugged.

"Who knows," he said. Alex sighed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "This isn't your problem. It's just—you've caught me at a bad time." Henryk threw a bit of snow in her face and Alex blinked, trying to get the flakes from her eyelashes.

"It's fine," Henryk said. "And you know what—I think your mom's going to be fine."

Alex grinned faintly. "You think?"

"'Course she will," Henryk said, getting up. "In any case, Lupin must be waiting for me. You could come along, if you want. We have to get lunch anyway."

"Alright," Alex said quietly, following Henryk gingerly, feeling like a five-year-old following her older brother.

Remus was looking worse than Alex remembered seeing him the winter before, when she had sustained the blister around her neck. Despite this, however, Remus greeted both of them cheerfully and seemed genuinely happy to learn that she was going to stay at Hogwarts over the holidays. The conversation came to a rather abrupt stop when Henryk noticed the chessboard by Remus' bedside table.

"Oh, James left it with me," Remus said. "He's always losing chess pieces, so he thought it would be safer."

"Do you play?" Henryk asked, eyeing the set with what Alex assumed to be enthusiasm. She'd never seen Henryk enthusiastic about anything before.

"Sure," Remus said, laying out the pieces. "Alex, if you don't mind—"

"I'll watch," Alex said, seating herself down on one of the stools. Henryk sat on the bedside, already immersed in the game.

Remus was a cautious player, and, sadly for him, Henryk was also a cautious player who knew when to strike. Alex watched both of them in silence for a while, not wishing to say anything; however, it was obvious that Remus was going to lose if he kept on losing his pieces just for the sake of being cautious.

"Remus, your knight's trapped," Alex remarked.

"I know," Remus said, not looking up.

"You can spare a pawn," Alex said.

"Well I know that, too," Remus replied, frustration creeping into his voice.

"Okay," Alex said. "How about the trap that Henryk's set out for the rook?"

"What trap?" Remus said, looking up. Simultaneously, Henryk cast her a dirty look.

"We're playing a game," he said.

"Yes, it's obviously unfair," Alex retorted, sliding down next to Remus. "There's a trap for the rook, there's another trap for the bishop, although it may be for the queen, depending on how Remus moves his pieces. The pawns are all over the place."

"I give up," Remus said, throwing up his hands in surrender.

"You've spoiled it, Wilson," Henryk said, shaking his head.

"Hold on," Alex said, "I bet I can win this game."

Henryk raised his eyebrow. "Oh really?"

"Could I?" Alex asked.

"Oh, go ahead," Remus said in mock resignation. "I was going to lose anyway." With those words he produced a well-eaten chocolate bar from the drawer and began to nibble on it. Alex bent over the board, studying it.

"Tell you what," Henryk said, moving his piece. "You can't win."

"Yes, I can," Alex said, retaliating.

"You can't," Henryk said, moving another piece. "Checkmate."

"Speak for yourself," Alex grinned, indicating the board. "You just put your king in danger. Checkmate." With that Alex's tower knocked his king off the board. Henryk raised his eyebrow again.

"Huh," Remus said. "You baited your king to get his king." Alex shrugged.

"You know that in real life that would've meant that both frontiers would've been captured by the traps," Henryk said.

"Yes, but the point was to capture the king, not save as many pieces as possible," Alex said, matter-of-fact. And that was the end of it all.

The next morning Alex woke up to find a few presents lying by the foot of her bed. One of them was a complete chess set that looked too old to be really functional, but the board itself, which had an intricate weaving of different woods, was polished meticulously. She apologized to Henryk for not having gotten him a present—she had not anticipated the necessity—but he brushed off the apology. The days went by—worrying about her mother, being angry at her in other times, and wondering, sometimes, but not always, why Regulus had not responded to her last letter. But she was not going to get an answer to that particular question until a few days before the first day of class, when everyone was scheduled to come back on the Hogwarts Express. Alex watched from the stairwell as students began to trickle in from their carriage rides, looking rosy and happy. She couldn't remember the last time she'd looked that way. She must've during third year, when she'd gone home for the holidays and come back, but—

"Alex!"

The voice came from Leila Parkinson, who had the sense and lack of sense to send Alex a bottle of Italian olive oil and vinegar—from Italy. Alex stood up from the stairwell, feeling slightly better.

"Leila," Alex said, her voice strangely weak. Leila ran up the stairs in record speed and hugged her, sending her stumbling back a few steps.

"Hi," she said, holding Alex tight. "Blimey, it felt so long."

"Is there something wrong?" Alex asked. Leila broke apart and examined her face closely.

"Then he hasn't told you?" she asked. Alex frowned.

"Who hasn't told me what?"

Leila shook her head. "That coward," she spat. "Regulus Black, that's who. There's something you need to hear. It's—"

"Parkinson, that's enough," a tired voice came from behind them. Alex turned around, and—

"Alex, could we talk? I need to tell you something." Regulus' face was as pale as ever, but Alex thought for some reason that his cheeks were somehow hollow, that there were dark shadows beneath his eyes. Hadn't he had a chance to rest during the holiday?

"Alright," Alex said, uncertainly following Regulus to the third floor. She looked back one last time at Leila to tell her to go to dinner, but something on Leila's frown made her uneasy.

"What's going o—" she began as Regulus had closed the classroom door behind them, but her words became muffled when Regulus pulled her toward him and held her fiercely.

"Merlin I missed you," he said in her ear.

"You didn't write back," Alex replied quietly, slowly putting her arms around him as well.

"I couldn't," he said, burying his face in the crook of her neck, kissing little patches of skin that he could find. "My parents—they locked the family owls in a cage."

"What? Why?" Alex tried to push him away so that she could see his face, talk to him a bit, but Regulus refused to budge. She could feel him swallow.

"Sirius ran away," he said eventually. Her arms automatically tightened around him.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Alex murmured. Regulus let out a breath that wasn't quite a laugh.

"You know, you're the first person to tell me that."

"What do you mean?"

"Everyone's congratulated me on—being the next heir. I suppose they're right." Now Regulus did let go of her, but he still kept her within the reach of him, stroking her cheeks with his fingers. "I would make a better heir. Keep the family going. What's left of it anyway."

"Reg—"

"And that's what I need to tell you," Regulus said. "You can't be a part of that family."

Alex stepped back, feeling the sting of the trail where moments ago Regulus had caressed. Regulus, seeing this reaction, stepped toward her immediately, as if he couldn't bear the distance.

"No, no, that's not what I meant," he said. "I—right now. My parents won't accept you right now. But they will, eventually, just give them time, I'll find a way to—make them see. That you're what I need, more than anyone else. I—I can't do this without you, Alex."

"What are you trying to tell me, Regulus?" Alex said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "Your parents—"

"They'll see sense. They will. It's just—until they do—they must think that—that we've broken up. That we're done." Alex wasn't sure which was worse, Regulus' words or his pleading face.

"So we're breaking up?"

"No, we're not breaking up," Regulus said quietly. "But everyone will think that we have."

"I don't understand."

"We'll have to—act as we've broken up. I know, Alex, please, listen, I know that I'm demanding a lot from you—"

"You're asking me to pretend to have broken up with you."

"Yes, but we won't be really apart—"

"Because you're ashamed to be seen with me?"

"What? No, no—" Regulus began to look frustrated. "Because if the news goes to my parents that we are together, they will send me off to marry Sirius' own fiancée without a second thought the moment I become of age, and I've barely managed to convince them that I would rather focus on being the head of the family before thinking about anything matrimonial. Alex, please, I'm just asking you for a little more time."

"To convince your parents?" Alex said, feeling an odd sense of comedy despite the situation. "That's funny, Reg, because I didn't manage to convince mine." The memory of her fight with her mother came startlingly back to her and Alex had a bitter taste at the back of her throat that she had not been willing to recognize before: that her mother might be right.

"Alex," Regulus said. "I want this. I want us."

"I—I don't know," Alex said, beginning to walk around in circles.

"Don't you care for me?"

Alex closed her eyes, feeling the words sink in. "Of course I do."

"And I care for you. Why couldn't we try this?" Regulus laid down his hands on either side of her shoulders and looked straight at her in her eyes. Alex wished that she could look away, but she couldn't. It was Reg, her Reg, and—

"Okay," she said finally. "Okay, let's do this."