The long-awaited chapter is here. I didn't even try to hide it in the title. I can only hope that you forgive me for delaying it for so long (and for the chapter being so short). I'm actually not that good at romance writing (you can probably tell).
Anyway, thanks so much to everyone who has followed/favourited/read up until now. Hopefully, more Reg/Ems from now on.
Thanks to malecftw, Blue Luver5000, xXRosexScorpiusXx, lizy2000, creelluka and Cae-Leigh Anne for reviewing. You guys are the best!
Emma had scheduled a Quidditch practice that Tuesday evening. They all needed to let off some pent-up energy after the Defence classes that day. Amelia Bones had taken to training them on how to resist the Imperius Curse – something she deemed as very helpful in these troubling times.
She had also recently honed in on those who could not yet produce a Patronus. Apparently, Dumbledore claimed that those too far gone in Dark magic would not be able to produce one. Fortunately for the Slytherins and unfortunately for Bones, there were a great many people unable – or unwilling – to learn the Patronus Charm, notorious for its difficulty. However, that hadn't stopped the professor from eying them up during the class. Emma thanked Merlin she had taken a place near the back of the queue. Having a witch like Amelia Bones use her body as a puppet was not on Emma's list of most enjoyable things.
Her team was pretty miserable. They were all good flyers with potential, but Emma had nothing near the enthusiasm of her previous years of captaincy. They were running on auto-pilot, something that had won them their game against Hufflepuff through sheer luck. Sheer luck – and the fact that Hestia was the new Seeker. Rabastan only had to fly her way menacingly, club in hand, for her to race in the opposite direction. That had been before Regulus's father had died, though.
In this practice, paying attention as she hadn't previously, Emma noticed that Regulus had become much more reckless in his attempts to catch the Snitch. Most of the time, this paid off, but there were a few close calls with the ground. Emma had found herself reprimanding him on several occasions; if they lost their Seeker the game was as good as lost.
Finally, after two hours of gruelling practice under sporadic rain, Emma allowed her teammates to go back up to the castle. Barty had dawdled a little, glancing at Emma from time to time. Taking the hint, Emma had advised him to get changed, and that she'd come to speak with him later that evening.
In actual fact, Emma was concerned with Regulus. First the Potions incident, now this? It was so unlike her cautious Seeker that she decided it was her turn to seek him out. Informing him that she wanted him to catch the Snitch one last time, Emma had no qualms about casting a short-lived Disillusionment Charm on the winged ball – just for the time it took the others to get back to the castle.
He eventually caught it, slamming into the mud angrily.
'You did that on purpose,' he accused.
'You can't prove it,' Emma replied matter-of-factly, fastening the small ball back into the practice box.
Regulus grunted in reply, taking his gloves off and storming up to the castle.
'Wait!' Emma shouted over the wind. 'I'm not done with you yet!'
She enchanted the box into the Quidditch hut and quickly fastened it shut. To her surprise, Regulus had dawdled. He was only a few paces away from his initial spot, but she still had to run to catch up with him. He was obviously torn, wanting to get away from her, but the anger of the past few days making him more confrontational than usual.
'You could have fooled me,' Regulus said as she approached, speeding up.
'What?' Emma asked, genuine surprise making her voice higher than usual.
'You could have fooled me,' he repeated loudly. He glanced back for a second, before clarifying. 'That you were done with me.'
'What do you mean?' Emma frowned. She lengthened her strides until they were shoulder to shoulder.
'You know what I mean,' Regulus replied. 'You barely even talk to me unless there's a problem now. Our patrols are carried out in near-silence. Even your brother thinks we're not friends anymore.'
'That's rubbish,' Emma said defensively, although the pit in her stomach was telling her that it was true. Still, she tried to justify herself. 'You like silence. If you didn't, maybe you'd talk some more. Maybe I'd know what this is really about, since it can't have sprung out of nowhere. As for my brother, he doesn't know anything. He thinks I fancy Rabastan, of all people.'
'Well, is it really that surprising?' Regulus suddenly stopped; the stairs to the Entrance Hall in sight. He turned to face her, gesticulating with one hand. He was frowning when he finally said what was on his mind. 'I saw you two yesterday evening. You looked pretty close from where I was standing.'
'He was comforting me,' Emma lifted her eyes to the sky, indignant.
'Yeah, the way I comforted you before you turned around and ignored me completely,' Regulus said heatedly.
His cheeks were red, even though it had started raining again. He bit his lip, as though to prevent more words from spilling out, but his sleet-grey eyes were staring at her defiantly. Emma was vaguely aware of her freezing skin, but her blood was boiling on the inside.
'Well, sorry if I haven't had as much experience as you in that department,' she couldn't help but raise her voice. It was a low blow, but it had been preying at the back of her mind for a while. I'm the insensitive one? 'Much as it might be hard for you to believe, I'm not that cold. It's hard for me to pretend I don't remember what happened that night, to go on as if nothing had ever happened.'
'Oh really?' Regulus asked, his voice laced with sarcasm. 'Then what happened with my brother in fifth year? I guess I should have known that if you couldn't have him, then you had to settle for me.'
'What are you talking about?' Emma asked. Hot tears spilled down her face, but it felt as though the cold rain had solidified into a shard to pierce her heart. I had trusted you, she thought, before another followed immediately afterwards. Never trust a Slytherin.
She brushed the tears away angrily, mixing them with the rain. She was ashamed they had even slipped out. She couldn't help the injured tone her voice took on, though. 'You know what happened that night. I can't believe you would stoop so low as to use that against me.'
That seemed to bring Regulus up short. His eyes blinked hazily, the anger losing momentum. He stilled as he tried to process the words, make sense of them before the next volley of words.
Emma ungraciously wiped the snot from her face, blinking several times. She wanted to press her point, to scream at him for treating her the way he had everyone else, but she didn't think she could without losing her composure and fully breaking down from nerves. Instead she stared him down, thinking that maybe she could cause some guilt to appear in those mirror-eyes for once.
'So you didn't sleep with Sirius?' Regulus asked hesitantly, unwilling to relax his posture.
'Of course not, you arsehole,' Emma replied as indignantly as she could muster, though the effect was lost by her voice cracking.
She would have cursed him in ordinary times. Even now, her wand was clenched tightly in her hand, slippery with sweat and rain. But Regulus already looked like he realised his mistake. He deflated, looking less imposing, and more like a seventeen-year-old who wasn't sure of himself anymore.
'So that night... was it the first time you...' his voice trailed off into the wind.
'Yes, alright? Does that make you feel better? Regulus Arcturus Black is allowed to break hearts here and there as he pleases, but Merlin forbid the girl be anything other but besotted with him.'
Emma turned away, ashamed at the state she had been reduced to. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Regulus was the one who was never supposed to hurt her, who had always been considerate and kind. Instead, she felt like she had ended up as one of Sirius's fangirls, crying over someone who had only seen it as a fling. It was pathetic.
'Wait,' Regulus said, his voice breaking too.
'Wait,' he repeated more urgently, when she didn't react.
Emma's eyes flickered back to him. Through the rain, she could make out his grey eyes catching the light in the water. The last time they had shone that way was when they had been to the lake, and the sun had reflected on the water. Automatically, she glanced up, but there was no light. The only way that could have happened was if... Why would he be crying too? She dismissed the thought. Regulus Black didn't cry, especially not for a girl.
'Emma,' he said, his voice oddly hopeful.
He grew closer, close enough to count the individual drops on his eyelashes. His arms were warm despite his soaked Quidditch robes, drawing her closer towards him. How did he even get that close? But Emma didn't step away, her breath hitching in a treacherously weak manner. Hadn't she just promised herself Regulus wouldn't be able to make a mess of her? But the warning thought passed when the rest of her mind took over.
It was silly to hope, as though she was in a romantic ballad where the wizard who had never known love reformed his ways for his best friend, the one who had been with him until the end. If reality followed the songs, this would be the moment where Regulus would declare his undying love and they would kiss and ride hippogriffs into the sunset. Get a grip, Emma, she told herself. You've stared down werewolves. Just tell him...
When Emma met Regulus's gaze his eyes darted away, then back to hers, then away again, as though unsure of where to look. Emma's thoughts died away into an incoherent babble. When grey finally met blue, Regulus's eyes were stripped of the Occlumency mirror he usually walled himself up in. Now, he looked more vulnerable than Emma had ever seen him. Against her will, her heartbeat sped up, thumping crazily in her chest as it seemed like her library fantasies would come true.
She closed her eyes when his lips touched hers, but they were nothing like the time before. The kiss was sweet, hesitant, and Emma would have sworn that his lips were trembling if she wasn't so sure that it was her own.
Suddenly, she took a step back, breaking the trance.
'I won't do that again,' she said firmly. If she didn't tell him now, then he would think she was fine being another of his Prefect's bathroom girls. 'I... It had been a mistake the first time.'
At the same time, Regulus had been forming a thought of his own.
'I love you,' he said, the words tumbling out of his mouth.
Grey eyes widened in horror as he registered what he had said, coupled with Emma's previous words. He gulped, eyes darting around as he searched for an exit. As for Emma, she froze, transfixed by those three words. As it dawned on Regulus that she wasn't running away, he seized the opportunity to kiss her again.
Emma was still staring at him when he opened his eyes, wide-eyed in disbelief. Had she heard that properly? Did he really just say the words that terrified her more than anything else? Just as she had herself convinced that she had misheard, he spoke again.
'I love you,' he repeated, brushing the loose strands of hair away from her face.
Maybe I was wrong the first time, she thought. Maybe I'm the wizard who had never known love. She wrapped her arms around the best friend who had been there since the start, meeting his lips with a kiss of her own.
Eventually, they broke apart. It could have been seconds, it could have been minutes. When Emma came to her senses again, it felt as though it had been hours. Though she would have gladly frozen time, she realised that she was shivering so badly that her teeth felt like they were vibrating.
'We sh-should p-probably go ins-side,' she said through her chattering.
'Yeah,' Regulus smiled, one of his genuine smiles that lit up his face. 'I guess we should.'
The road to the Slytherin common room was painfully awkward. For Emma's part, she felt shy, as though she didn't know what to do with herself anymore. One hand was loosely roped through Regulus's, but the other seemed to swing aimlessly by her side. As for Regulus, he kept glancing back, then glancing at their interlocked fingers, as though to reassure himself that he hadn't been imagining it.
By some miracle, the room was empty. They stopped for a minute to dry their clothes by the fire and ended up sitting side by side on the sofa. It was a start, though it didn't halt the cold that had seeped into Emma's bones. She pressed herself against Regulus for warmth, who kissed the top of her head almost instinctively. She looked up at him, suppressing her sudden urge to giggle. The voice that used to reprimand her for such frivolous behaviour seemed to be on holiday.
'So,' Regulus said, clearing his throat.. 'What now?'
'I don't know,' Emma replied. She took a step back, but kept her arms around Regulus's waist. 'This... thing. Whatever it is. I... I don't want to lose you because of it. What if we mess it up? What if someone else messes it up? What if James -'
'Emma,' Regulus interrupted. 'How could our lives be more messed up than they already are? If... if you're not sure that this is what you want then...'
This time it was Emma's turn to interrupt.
'It is what I want,' she clarified quickly. She closed her eyes tiredly, instinctively snuggling further into his chest. She realised that they had grown so close that the relationship didn't even feel different from before Halloween. A confession escaped her lips from her position of safety. 'I just want something to go right for a change. Something to last'
Regulus moved so sharply it forced her to open them again. He stared at her with as much seriousness as he could muster. He understood the unspoken words that lay between them. People close to me die, Emma thought. She didn't know if she could handle it if Regulus joined the ever-growing list.
'It'll last,' he said, so sure of himself that Emma couldn't help but believe him. 'It'll always last for me.'
Some cautious part of Emma warned her to wait until morning, to see if he was really speaking the truth, but deep down she knew he was. It felt as though it had only been a matter of time. Now she knew what James was on about when he said mushy things about Lily. Before, Emma had mocked him for his Celestina Warbeck phase. Oh, how he would make fun of her now.
In that moment, in front of the warm fireplace, and secure in the arms of the person she trusted the most in the world, she didn't think even James's teasing could ruin her happiness.