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A/N: Ack! Sorry everyone. I can't believe it's nearly been ten months since I updated this thing. But I'm not going to let it die damnit. I've been planning out episodes in my head, now I just need to get it all typed out. Let's just say some things needed to happen before I could work on this baby again, and they happened, so I can work. So now let's see if I can get it going from where I left off...

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The next morning Regulus brought Dorcas a bouquet of handpicked yellow flowers, and they sat in a vase next to her bed.

He came to see her before supper that night, but her bed was surrounded by her friends. He didn't like them terribly - especially the one with the purple hair and the nose piercing. Slipping back through the door, Regulus was pretty sure no one had seen him.

So for the next three days he visited her just early in the morning and after dinner, so he could have her all to himself. Once he came at lunch to surprise her. She'd laughed, a beautiful laugh which had made the nurse sit up, alarmed. This just made the two of them laugh harder, until their ribs ached and the nurse had to come over and give them a charm to cool off. After she left, Regulus whispered to Dorcas, "It really wasn't that funny," and she agreed that, no, it wasn't, and then they got a fit of the giggles anyway.

The kissing and flowers made Regulus feel slightly tainted. As if he were going to be sick after a bad dream. But he was never sick, he just always really wanted to go back and kiss her some more. Which he did.

Just a day later he found out that she had to leave. Apparently in addition to the removal being standard procedure for especially "at risk" students, the headmaster had ordered it as well. Her parents were arriving imminently. He had no time to waste.

-

"You're being kicked out of the school?! They can't do that; you're a great student, smart and nice and school pride and all that."

"It's not permanent. I'll be back – I just won't be going to school full-time. Healer's orders, I can't do anything about it. It'll be a few days here and there, and if I'm lucky I'll being doing a full week at a time by the end of term."

"Bullshit!"

"I know. But what can I do?"

"You could, well, tell them the truth. Show them the book."

"The book!" Dorcas hissed angrily, scanning the room for eavesdroppers. "I can't show them the book! They think I'm disturbed but I'm not, really, so I'll be able to come back when I'm 'better'. But if they take away the books I really will be committed! No, it's my riddle to solve. Besides," – she dropped her voice low – "I've cracked the code."

Regulus brushed the hair out of her eyes. "You solved it? What? How?"

She smiled mysteriously. "It's not Runes. I really didn't need to take that class. Neither did you, but there we go. We never needed it. It's blood."

"Blood?"

"Yes- my blood. That's what I'd been doing, that day you found me. Translating. And it worked, too. I just got a little impatient."

Regulus's eyes unconsciously traced the scars on her hands. He didn't remember them all. Her hands were white, crisscrossed with thin brown scars. "You got impatient and you slit – "

"Yes, yes, I know. But you see, now that I know, I know how much I can handle and how much it can handle. I can control it, really."

She believed what she was saying, that's what Regulus saw in her eyes. He flashed back to the day he brought her in here. She had been talking about voices – preying spirits. Dark, most definitely. But Dark doesn't always mean evil, he thought automatically.

He didn't know what to think.

"You have to promise me," she continued. "I can't take the book home with me, so you've got to keep it, keep it secret, keep it safe. You can't tell anyone. Please, Regulus. Just give me that."

The door of the hospital wing opened, and a pair of middle-aged, brown haired, kindly looking folks entered. Regulus had very little doubt about who they belonged to.

He inhaled deeply and sighed through his nostrils. "All right." He wasn't exactly sure to what he was agreeing. He hadn't visited the tree since he'd found her there, collapsed in a heap. He didn't even know if the book was still there. A part of him wished that the giant squid had eaten it in his absence. "All right, I'll do it. Your parents are here and I have to go. Goodbye Dorcas."

Smiling up at him from the hospital bed, she had the look of one with a heavy burden just relieved. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Goodbye," Regulus said again.

He kissed her cheek once. As he left, Regulus gave Mr. and Mrs. a cursory nod each.