07/08/1980
Loveday ignored Regulus Black for the rest of the day. Of course, he hadn’t exactly made himself very available to talk to – not that she cared, obviously.
She’d come back from her swim to find him sat cross-legged in front of the living room fireplace, staring emotionlessly into the crackling embers. Strange, she’d thought – it was the middle of summer, and the wizard boy was acting as though he was cold. In fact, Regulus Black had stayed there all day – whilst she nibbled at her lunch, whilst she went to deal with the unruly garden, whilst she gobbled down her dinner, even when she finally trudged up the stairs to curl up in her bed for the night.
So heaven knows why she woke up to the same Regulus Black standing at the foot of her bed the next morning.
“The fuck are you doing?” she slurred, pulling her sheets up over her chest out of instinct. “Doc’s not sent a weird little pervert to live with me, has he?”
Regulus Black scoffed, aristocratic features scrunching up ever so dramatically as he stared her down.
“Don’t think so highly of yourself,” he said, voice scratchy and quiet. “I’m hungry, and I can’t find your house elf.”
“My what?”
He was staring at her as though she were an alien now.
“Your house elf?” he tried again. “I asked for Kreacher, but Moody and Dearborn said it would look funny if he left Grimmauld Place.”
Loveday sighed and rolled out of bed, stretching her arms out over her head. The wizard boy turned his head sharply away from her, cheeks dusted pink. A wizard, a pervert, and a prude – how juxtaposing. Whatever this house elf thing was, she sure didn’t have one.
“I don’t know what you’re on about,” she groaned. “But if you’re hungry there’s a kitchen on the ground floor. You’ve been sat next to it for about 24 hours now.”
She clambered down the rickety staircase that led to the attic, walking past all the doors of the bedrooms she kept locked and ready lest some Dearborn or another decided to make their way home to her. She rolled her eyes, ears pricking up as Regulus Black followed her to the bathroom. Jesus, it was like taking care of Georgie all over again.
“But if you don’t have a house elf,” he started, eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “and you’re a squib – then how do you eat?”
Just about managing not to flinch at the word ‘squib’, Loveday turned to stare at him, gobsmacked, toothbrush hanging out the corner of her mouth.
“Forgive me, Regulus Black,” she said slowly. “But are you a bit slow?”
“Slow?”
“You know – mentally.”
Regulus Black blinked once, then twice – and then he stormed downstairs to the kitchen. Loveday spat her toothpaste out and closed the bathroom door so that she could take a quick shower. The wizard boy hadn’t said anything about her scars yet. Which was just fine for Loveday – she hated being a werewolf, and she was hardly going to announce it to some poncy, criminal wizard who she was pretty sure was some sort of magic wielding terrorist.
She hopped downstairs, hair pulled up, clad in a pair of long, patched up dungarees and a flimsy yellow vest underneath.
The boy didn’t hear her coming up behind him as he stared hopelessly at the fridge door. Her bare feet padded soundlessly against the wooden floorboards.
“Boo,” she whispered, grinning maliciously when he went stark white, stumbling away from her and the fridge. His hand flew down to the pocket of his trousers, reaching for something that wasn’t there. Loveday raised an eyebrow at him.
“Thinking about cursing me?” she asked mockingly. “Good luck with that.”
And with that she turned her back on him and opened the fridge door. She could feel him practically breathing down her neck behind her, though she wouldn’t see his wide-eyed expression till she turned back around, four eggs clutched between her fingers. Suddenly, Loveday was almost (almost!) glad to be a squib.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never seen a fridge before!” she exclaimed. “I knew you didn’t have microwaves – but fridges? How do you keep your food from going off?”
Regulus Black shrugged, still staring oddly at the fridge. “This kind of thing is just…beneath us, I suppose. The house elves get the food, cook it, and serve it. Why hasn’t Dearborn got you a house elf?”
Loveday didn’t bother replying to him, instead moving to crack the eggs into a bowl, whisking in the flower she kept in the kitchen cupboard.
“I suppose you are a squib – would a house elf even obey someone like you? My uncle Marius was a squib, and his father disowned him. I’ve never met another squib before.”
Loveday clenched her jaw as she poured her mixture into a pan on the stove – this at least, did not seem to pique the wizard boy’s interest. Perhaps he was used to a stove, what with all the potion making he’d done at Hogwarts.
“I liked it more when you kept your mouth shut,” she grunted.
“It could be worse, I suppose,” he continued on, ignoring her. Now that she turned to look at him, she noticed he looked rather glum – the bags under his eyes were even darker, his sharp cheekbones a little too sunken in to be healthy. He was likely hiding visible ribs under those dark clothes he wore. Strange, she realized, how he’d been wearing them for God knows how long and yet they still hadn’t started to smell bad. Just – strange. “You could have been a muggle-“
“What’s wrong with muggles?” she asked, flipping her pancake over. “The way I see it, they can keep themselves fed and alive. You can’t.”
Regulus Black froze in his seat and looked up at her, wide-eyed. He did have very nice eyes, she admitted. A grey so pale they almost looked like the moon – or at least what she thought the full moon looked like. She’d never seen it in her human form. Loveday watched on as the sullen boy barked a sharp laugh, pushing his fist against his lips to hide a bitter smile.
“I suppose I do have a little trouble with the whole staying alive thing, don’t I?”
It was Loveday’s turn to have a pitifully strange reaction. She slammed the next pancake down onto the plate with such force that a hairline crack appeared on its edge. “Lucky you,” she muttered under her breath.
“You should hate muggles more than me,” he said suddenly, resting his sharp jaw on his fist, lazily watching her as she cooked.
“Oh yeah?” she asked in a dull tone. “Why’s that then?”
“Well they’re the ones that stole your magic.”
Loveday tossed the last pancake onto her stack. They smelt good – she liked the cinnamon. Cinnamon had always been a nice scent. She slammed the plate down on the kitchen table and shoved a fork infront of the wizard boy.
“No one stole my magic,” she grumbled. “I was born like this. A genetic defect. It happens to muggles too.”
“What’s a genetic defect?”
He wasn’t touching the pancakes, despite how hungry he claimed to be. They smelt good to Loveday though, so she shoved a forkful into her mouth. She kept her mouth closed as she chewed – she didn’t want him to catch on too quickly. She wasn’t a total animal after all.
“Do they teach you anything at that fancy school?” she snorted.
“They teach us magic,” Regulus sneered. “Anything else is beneath us.”
Loveday glared up at him, hoping her eyes weren’t flashing a bright yellow. Her lips twisted into an ugly scowl and within seconds she’d snatched up her plate of pancakes. Regulus Black watched her warily as she took it with her towards the door to the garden.
“Well I suppose you can make your own food then can’t you,” she said nastily. “Moody the goat can have this. I’m not your house elf, after all.”
And with that she slammed the door behind her, locking it in good measure. Jesus, she’d only had the boy living in her house for a day and already she was tempted to try tossing herself off one of the taller cliffs again, just to see if it would work this time.
Hell, why not.
“Here you go, Moody,” she whispered to the goat, tossing her the plate of pancakes. “I’d rather you have them than that twat inside. You give him a good kick up the ass if he tries leaving the house, yeah?”
She took the loud bleat as a “yes” and headed off for the coast, bare feet crunching down against the drying grass beneath her feet. It was a hot day – hotter than most. It hadn’t rained in weeks – and as usual, that meant there was a mighty storm on its way. Maybe she’d be lucky enough to miss this once – and all the ones to come after it.
The sea breeze hit her faster than it should have, the smell of salt so strong it sent a slight burning sensation up her nostrils. It was a pleasant burn though – cathartic, really. She was quicker and stronger than most too, so the dash up to rocky cliff edge didn’t take long either. Maybe some poor posh tourist would see her crashing down into the waves. She hoped so, actually. They deserved a right horrid sight. Then they’d realize how she felt seeing them.
There was no need to make a big deal of it anymore – she just tossed herself off.
For a second, she felt nothing – then the thrill in her stomach as she plummeted down through the air – then, then pain as she crashed into the harsh waves and the rocks below. Then – nothing.
Three hours later, she woke up with her face pressed into the wet, sandy shore. With a pained groan, she sat up and flicked a crab off of her bruised knee. It had already turned yellow, practically healed. With a sigh, she lifted up her bloody shirt to see the pink cuts already forming scars across her stomach and thighs. What a shame.
She flicked her limp curls over her shoulders and headed back into the ocean to wash the sand off of herself. It was cold enough to shock her out of the pain her body was in. For a minute, she floated on her back, eyes closed against the harsh glare of the afternoon sun.
He wasn’t a violent one, this wizard boy she’d been sent. He wasn’t likely to do her in – not with Moody and Caradoc watching him so carefully. He was a skinny thing – tall, but far too classic in his build to be able to hold her down once her instincts kicked in. No, she was stronger than him. That she knew. Still, she was jealous of him – she couldn’t deny that. Even if he didn’t know how to cook.
Maybe if she told him the truth about what she was he’d be scared enough to trying to off her. He was one of those evil little blood supremacists anyway. Surely, they weren’t too keen on her sort. If he thought muggles were dirty, she wondered what he’d think of her. The truth hurt a little more than it should have by now.
She didn’t know how long she stayed there, floating away, further and further away from the shore. It was only by the time she could barely see the sandy coast anymore that she turned onto her font and dived down. It didn’t take her long to spot a cod fish. With a sudden twist of her body she caught it in a strong grip and brought it above water, holding it still until it stopped moving about. She swam back quickly and tugged on the dry dungarees she’d left on a rock before her climb up the cliff. Hoe convenient.
It was almost evening by the time Loveday trudged back into Hawthorne House, fish dangling from one hand, wet hair leaving a damp patch down the back of her vest. She found Regulus slumped at the kitchen table, exactly where she’d left him. He’d managed to find himself a chunk of bread out the pantry, as well as a jar of the blueberry jam, she liked to make at the end of spring.
He glanced up at her tiredly as she stopped in the doorway, and sat up, as if out of instinct. He sat with such good posture; Loveday almost felt embarrassed at the state she was in. If he thought people without magic were savages, then he’d come to the right place.
“I brought dinner,” she said uneasily. “Just don’t treat me like a house elf.”
Regulus Black frowned and cocked his head to the side. “Have you been swimming?”
Glancing down at her fish, Loveday looked back at the boy as though he were an idiot.
“Fishes don’t grow on trees,” she grumbled. “Please tell me you know that at least.”
He ignored her jibe, instead staring at her with wide eyes.
“How near are we to the coast?”
Loveday shrugged and dropped the cod into the sink, before squeezing her wet hair into her basil plant pot. “Takes about an hour to walk there if you’re quick. There’s a lot of things to climb over on the way, though.”
“Right,” he said in a choked tone.
Loveday ignored his strange behaviour and turned the oven on.
“So why is it just you here?” Regulus Black asked her suddenly, watching attentively as she began to gut and prepare the fish.
“Didn’t use to be,” she shrugged. “But I’m used to it now. My older sister left quite a while ago. She doesn’t visit all too much.”
The boy was silent for a long time – Loveday had almost finished seasoning the cod by the time he spoke again.
“Do you miss her – your sister?”
Loveday frowned and turned around to rest her hands on the kitchen counter. What a question that was. In all honesty she used to miss Dottie so much she’d spend days waiting on the bottom step of the stairs, staring at the front door, praying for her to come home. She’d done the same with her mother, wishing for her to come tuck her into her covers and kiss her forehead goodnight. She’d spent many a night waiting earnestly by the window to see if Theo would ever send her an owl from school. Drusilla was still small, and yet sometimes she’d spend an entire morning picking at an old woollen cardigan of hers’ that had somehow ended up in her possession. It still smelt like lavender. She didn’t think she’d had the chance to properly miss Georgie yet.
“Not really,” she said finally. “Not anymore, at least. I think I’ve waited for her so long that – well, everyone gives up eventually, right?”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. He was staring at her rather strangely now. His pale grey eyes were rather pretty – original, really. And that was coming from a girl with bright yellow irises. “Do all muggles live like you – alone?”
“It’s more a me thing,” she shrugged. “Most muggles live with families, friends. In cities. They have lives. I suppose a lot of squibs must end up like me. It’s not like wizards want us around – but we’re too strange for the real muggles. Sometimes I think that would have been better – being a real muggle.” And most definitely not a werewolf!
“I don’t think so,” Regulus said, his face morphed with disgust. “Muggles – they’re vapid, cruel. They’re – “
“Have you ever met a muggle, Regulus Black?” Loveday asked suddenly.
He shook his head slowly, watching her carefully as she sat down across from him at the table, fish safely in the oven.
“Because I haven’t met many wizards,” she shrugged. “But the way I see it, is that you used to be some sort of wizard terrorist. Uncle Doc says that your lot have been killing people, families – even children – just because they can’t cast a couple of fancy spells.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” he scowled, throwing up his hands in frustration. “It’s not about killing people – it didn’t start out that way. It was supposed to be a path to liberation – to strength – to no more hiding – it wasn’t supposed to end up this way. That’s why I left.”
“You ran away?” Loveday asked, and she knew she’d gone too far. Regulus Black’s eyes blazed like icy flames, and instantly the room felt colder. He stood sharply from his chair; hands planted on the wooden table.
“I have never, and will never run away,” he snarled. “From anything. You don’t know anything! You’re just like my Uncle Marius – a bitter, lonely squib who’ll never amount to anything. You’re delusional if you think Dearborn will ever let you go to London.”
Loveday blinked once, and then again. Then she smiled wickedly.
“You have jam on your chin,” she said.
Regulus Black glared at her. Hands curled up into fists when she met his heavy gaze with a cool stare.
“And you have blood in your hair,” he growled, and stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind him. He’d taken the jam and bread with him.
Loveday looked down at her badly painted nails and took a deep breath. The corners of her lips turned down ever so slightly, as she moved slowly towards the radio to turn on a soft Fleetwood Mac tune to tune out any noise from the living room. The sun was setting, so she swiftly tugged all the curtain shut.
A half hour later she ate her cod in silence at the kitchen table, alone.
For you, there'll be no more crying
For you, the sun will be shining
And I feel that when I'm with you
It's alright, I know it's right