A levels are horrendous! So I'm taking a break from the homework (probably not a good idea) and introducing you to the first of seven. =D

Regina

Blaise Pascal

She was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. I noticed it at the end of sixth year. Up 'til then she'd just been a girl. And girls were, well, girls. First you hated them and thought they were weird, then you hit puberty and learned about kissing and such, and suddenly girls became fascinating.

But it was the end of sixth year I noticed her. She was bent over a cauldron stirring away, with an unconscious smile on her face. It just hit me out of the blue. One minute everything was normal then BAM! Carolina Zabini became the most beautiful girl ever born.

Why had I never noticed it before?

Her eyes especially. Deep chocolate pools you could just dive into. Framed with lashes so long and black, they didn't move, they swept, when she blinked. Her full red lips stretched wide in a lazy smile or puckered up into a pout. Her little button nose. So cute you just wanted to kiss it and make her giggle. Her hair so black and shiny, it looked like the ink we used to dip girls' pigtails in. Long ago.

I was so busy staring at her I didn't even realise my own potion was bubbling over 'til Parkinson yelled and drew all eyes, including hers, to the melted blob that was my cauldron.

In the commotion that followed I saw her expression. It was full of contempt. Self preservation kicked in and I shot her a cheeky grin then shrugged my shoulders in an exaggerated display of "Aw well." I saw her laugh and shake her head.

She was so pretty when she laughed.

Like a Queen.

An Italian Queen.

My Regina.

And then we went home for summer. And when we came back she was a model. Suddenly every boy in the whole school realised what I'd realised all those months ago. She was beautiful.

They swarmed her. She loved it. But she always turned them down. It was obvious why. Those boys hadn't noticed her before she got her picture in the magazines, so why should she notice them now? She didn't want a boyfriend like that!

I'd noticed! But like an idiot I hadn't said anything. And now it was too late. If I said anything, she'd think I was like them. Only sucking up to her now she was a model. It wasn't true! But how could she know that? So I kept my distance. Fuming at my lost chance. Agonising over it at night.

Finally I couldn't take it. I had to say something.

So I hunted down the first copy of Witch Weekly. Her first shoot. She was so beautiful.

But I didn't have the courage to tell her that. Everyday I told myself that Today I would say something to her. Today was my day.

It never was.

And then it was Christmas time. She was going home in the morning, and over the holidays she'd probably do more modelling and the boys would swarm her again. And I'd lose my chance. Again.

I waited. And waited. And suddenly the common room was empty. It was just me and her. Silently I padded over to her, pushed the magazine and Christmas present I had got her across the table and murmured "You're pretty Zabini."

And then I turned and left. Didn't wait for her reply. Just ran away like a coward.

As soon as I reached the safety of the dorm I slid to the ground and groaned.

Pretty? That was the best compliment I could come up with? Pretty? Pretty!

Merlin what a fool I was!

I didn't see her again 'til after the holidays. To be honest I avoided her that last day of term. I spent the holidays thinking about what an idiot I was. What an idiot she must think I was.

And then it was term time again. And in the darkness of the deserted common room two slim brown hands covered my eyes.

"Do you really think I'm pretty?" a voice whispered.

Dry mouthed I nodded.

A package dropped in my lap.

I stared at it as the hands were removed, then turned to see where they had gone.

She stopped in the entrance to the girls dorms. Glancing at me, she smiled. A quick seductive smile that had my heart racing. Then she flitted up the stairs and was gone.

Eagerly I ripped the paper apart.

It was a green and red scarf, home made. Green and red. Christmas colours. Italian colours. I loved it.

"It isn't much," she said a few evenings later. We were in a disused classroom this time. "Nowhere near as pretty as that necklace you gave me."

She fingered her neck line.

"But I thought... I don't know what I thought."

She blushed. Colour staining her cheeks, making her look even more beautiful in my eyes. Blushing bride. The phrase leapt unbidden to my mind.

"I love it. Thanks."

The words seemed so insignificant compared to my feelings. But she smiled as though I'd paid her the greatest compliment ever.

She kissed me.

In a dimly lit old dungeon classroom, as we perched on the edge of a desk, our lips met. Slowly my arms edged round her waist, and hers round my neck. I carded my fingers through her hair and felt her sigh in happiness.

This is the best kiss of my life, I thought.

I was wrong.

The second was better.

The third even better than that.

By the fourth I was addicted to her. Or perhaps I'd always been addicted, from that first time in the classroom, when she laughed.

We didn't make a big deal of it in public. Other couples were always draped round each other, snogging the living daylights out of one another, not caring who saw. The most blatant being Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black. Sometimes I wondered how they breathed.

But we were more casual. Sometimes holding hands. The occasional hug. A very brief and chaste kiss before she buggered off to hang around with her friends.

But in the evenings... at the end of the day, when no one was around to wolf whistle, she would grab me by the face and kiss me 'til I saw stars and couldn't walk straight.

I loved her just as much as Lucius loved Cissy.

The months flew by in a haze of bliss. Soon it was June. Our NEWTS were over and we could relax under the old oak tree in the grounds. All alone with no one to bother us.

"This can't go on Blaise."

"What?"

I stared at her confused. What on earth was she talking about?

"This. Us. We're eighteen for Merlin's sake, and we've been going out for Lord knows how many months!"

"Five."

"Exactly! Normal people don't do that Blaise. They break up after a month or two. They don't just keep going and going. Something always comes up."

"But nothings come up between us!"

"I know, but all the same. It's not like we're going to stay together forever and get married is it?"

"But-"

"I'm eighteen!" She slammed her fist in her palm emphatically. "I'm far too young for a serious relationship. I wanna go out there, have a bit of fun, make a little money before I settle down. Come on Blaise, we're doomed. Nobody marries the boy they went out with in school. Surely you can understand that?"

Not trusting myself to speak I nodded.

She patted my shoulder.

"It's not that I don't like you Blaise, I do! You know that don't you? But we're just young. What we need is to get out and experiment. Meet new people. Fall in love."

"I am in love," I whispered.

"Don't be silly. Of course you aren't. We're far too young to fall in love." She shot me an appraising look. "What you need is to meet another nice girl and forget all about me."

I shook my head jerkily.

"Please Blaise. Just do it. For me."

I stared into her eyes. Her dark, dark, deep, chocolate eyes. I thought i saw tears.

"Ok," I murmured. "But I'll wait for you."

"What?"

It was her turn to look confused.

"I'll wait for you. And when you're finished with all your experimenting and your other boys I'll be there."

"Oh Blaise!"

She almost sobbed the words.

"I do love you."

I got a final hug and she was gone.

My Queen. My Regina.

Her career hit off big time. A year after leaving Hogwarts and she was a star. There wasn't a week went by, the Daily Prophet didn't have some interview with her. The glamour mags were full of her picture. I bought Witch Weekly every week. Just to see how she was getting on. I pretended it was for my sister.

Cossette of course did the sisterly thing and told me to wise up.

" Forget her Blaise. She's forgotten you."

I'd grunt in reply. And buy another magazine.

The papers told me so much about her life. And so little.

They told me of the parties she'd attended. Which dress she was wearing. What charities she donated to. Meaningless drivel. I ate it up like a starving man.

The grapevine told me more, but the grapevine was slow and biased and occasionally full of bull.

Later I found out the main events of those year apart.

Her best friend abandoned her family and ran off with a mudblood. I knew Andromeda Black at school. The title Pureblood Princess applied to her more than any other person I knew, save her own sisters. Carolina was devastated. Though not as devastated as little Cissy, whom she took under her wing.

The connection between the two families grew as Cissy's cousin Rosaline stared dating Carolina's brother Benji. They were the sweetest couple apparently. There's no love like your first love. And at fourteen years old, little Rosaline Rosier was little Beniamino Zabini's first girlfriend. And his last.

They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was a normal fourteen year old date. They had ice cream. They kissed. They giggled. They had a walk about, in early-teen boyfriend-girlfriend bliss. They didn't take note of where they were walking. They walked straight down Knockturn Alley and never thought anything of it. They'd been there before, sometimes together, sometimes with their parents. It wasn't bad. It wasn't forbidden.

But the Aurors were out looking for Death Eaters that day. They thought they'd found them too. Guilty people run was their logic. They didn't seem to realise that innocent people run too, when hexes are flying about the place.

There were no real Death Eaters there. But Knockturn Alley had a reputation and that made it perfectly ok for the authorities to start shooting in an old pub. It became a full brawl in the middle of a crowded street.

And two teenagers got caught up in the middle of it.

Two children.

There was a joint funeral. Two pure white coffins were lowered into the ground. Coffins smaller than any coffin has a right to be.

Carolina was devastated. Truly devastated. Relatives from every end of England and Italy came. Relatives who had visited fourteen years earlier to witness the birth of a baby boy, now came to throw a handful of dirt on his grave.

Balbina fell to her knees at the graveside and wailed. "Bambino mio!" she cried. "Bambino mio!" Aldo stood behind her clutching her shoulder and letting the tears form rivers down his cheeks. His grief was silent. His wife made enough noise for the both of them.

Carolina stood with her sisters and wept as she had never wept before. Her baby brother, her Beniamino, her Benji. Gone. Forever.

She would never talk to him again. Never see him run about. Never tell him to shut up and get out she was trying to do homework! Never smirk as his cheeks reddened whenever Rosaline Rosier came up in conversation. She was gone. He was gone. Truly gone.

And as the crowd began to clear and her Father led her Mother, still weeping, to the wake, she saw her.

She stayed 'til all had gone then confronted her best friend.

"How dare you come here."

I can imagine her icy tone. I can see in my mind how Andromeda, once so proud, would have shrunk in shame.

"My Cousin... I had to-"

"You don't belong here."

Her eyes would have flashed in anger.

"I've buried my brother today. And by burying him I've learned something. There is nothing more precious on this earth than your family, especially your little brother. Especially your younger siblings. They need to be protected by their big sisters. I wasn't there to protect Benji and now he's dead. Dead, dead, dead and I'll never see him again! And you!"

How acidic her gaze would've become.

"You abandoned yours! You left them for a creature not worthy to lick their shoes. Too vile for any decent person to want near them!"

"Ted is-"

"I don't want to hear it Andromeda! All I know is you have a little sister who needs you, who is crushed at what you did, and you're too selfish to go to her."

Andromeda would have clutched at Carolina's robes.

"Please look after her Carolina. Please look after my Cissy. Please. We were friends Carolina, please just do this one thing for me. If our friendship meant anything. Please!"

Carolina would have looked at her in disgust and pried her fingers from the black material of her mourning clothes.

"I will. But for her sake, not yours. Cissy is my friend and Merlin knows she needs her friends around her after what you've done."

"Thank you, Thank you," Andromeda would have sobbed.

"Shut up. I've already told you, it's not for you. I like Narcissa. She's my friend. Of course I'm going to look after her. She's had a terrible time. First her sister runs away, with a mudblood no less, and then her cousin dies. She needs a friend. And I'm going to be there for her, the way you should be."

I can imagine Andromeda's dead eyes as Carolina walked away from her. And I agree with Carolina. She deserved it.

And walk away she did. Carolina dealt with her grief by looking after another person. She went into the wake and sat with Cissy Black and they both cried. And became better friends than even Carolina and Andromeda had been.

That day, unable to see his darling Cissy so upset and lonely, Lucius Malfoy proposed. With tears of joy, mingling with her tears of grief, seventeen year old Cissy had accepted. And when a twenty one year old Narcissa marched down the aisle on her Father's arm, Carolina stood behind her as a bridesmaid. Filling the space of the sister who wasn't present.

I was invited to the wedding. Everyone was.

And as I watched the new Mrs Malfoy twirling in her husbands arms on the dance floor, I felt a surge of longing for the woman standing beside me, in her pale blue bridesmaid gown.

Slowly her eyes sought my face. Slowly her hand reached for mine. Slowly she led me to the garden. Illuminated by a moon just one crescent away from being full.

She laid her head on my shoulder and murmured "I've missed you Blaise."

I kissed her head and replied "I've missed you too Regina." Her hair shone in the moonlight.

"You said you'd wait," she whispered. "Did you mean it."

I didn't reply.

Instead I lifted her chin and kissed her. Slowly. Tenderly. Silently.

We were married five months later.

Thoughts?