Black Rose [Regulus Black]

The next day, Alessandra found that her brain was completely scrambled.

She frowned and tilted her head to the side, eying the green earrings in her right hand.

Her scrutinizing gaze then shifted to the cute pink earrings in her other hand.

She bit the inside of her cheek as her attention moved back to the green earrings, and then finally, her eyes darted back to her reflection in the mirror.

The green ones brought out her eyes, but the pink earrings went with her dress.

Green, go with the green, a voice seemed to whisper in her head.

She wrinkled her nose, staring at the green earrings skeptically, until the doorbell rang.

Green, put on the green!

She hissed in pain as she furiously put on the earrings, putting the pink ones aside and cleaning the room with a flick of her wrist. The doorbell rang once again and she ran towards the door, almost tripping on the carpet in the process. She threw open the door enthusiastically with a large smile on her face —

Sirius stood there casually, leaning on her doorframe.

"Oh. It's you."

He scoffed. "Could you look any more disappointed?"

"No, it'll always be reserved for you," she beamed at him.

"I see my darling mother is rubbing off on you."

She shuddered. "Don't ever say that again."

"Alright but can I disagree when I enter?"

"When? More like if."

"Alessandra, darling," Sirius took a step forward.

The deadpan look she gave him was enough to send him one step back.

"I come in peace," he raised his hands hastily.

She tried to sneak a peak behind him, and then sighed and grudgingly let him in.

"So, what brings you here today?" she asked, a little skeptical of how happy he looked. She still wasn't sure where they stood: he seemed to think they were friends and it would be easy for her to go with it, but at the same time, she wanted to be careful.

He inhaled deeply and crossed over the threshold into her house, and she secretly marveled at his audacity. "I was thinking..."

"Oh, dear..."

His lips twitched upward at that. "More like stag. Anyways, I was thinking, we really have gotten off to a wrong start-"

"-gee, I wonder why-"

"-and it would be great to mend some broken bridges, blah blah blah, so maybe we could go out for dinner, all of us?"

"All of us?"

"Me, Prongs, Moony, you, Reggie, maybe Wormtail if his mother's feeling alright."

It took her a while to realise that he was actually being... serious.

"Because it went so well the last time," she drawled.

"Admittedly, no," he ruffled his hair. "But, that was due to misunderstandings."

"Yeah, misunderstanding how much of a dick you are!"

"Now, now," he said hastily, seeing the way her lips had turned downwards. "I like to think we were justified."

"You don't think."

"In my defence, hear me out, would I be wrong for assuming that he was a Death Eater when he himself admitted it to Dumbledore?

"Wouldn't you be wrong for inviting someone for dinner to reconcile and then proceeding to attack them? Wouldn't you be wrong for breaking into someone's house for no reason? Wouldn't you be wrong for revealing a secret that could potentially kill someone, the someone being your own brother?"

"That's different," he snapped, now losing his calm.

"No it's not!" she snapped back. "Stop acting like you're the righteous one when you've fucked up so many times."

"Maybe I did fuck up badly, but my heart was in the right place."

"No," a voice rang out from behind him. "You did all that so you could prove something against the family, simply so you could justify your vendetta against us. Keep in mind my parents only forced me to become a Death Eater because you had the patience of a fucking fridge, so this is all on you."

It wasn't the right time but Alessandra couldn't help but feel a little prideful because Regulus remembered what a fridge was and what her fridge was like.

She also wondered what Reg meant when he said Sirius had no patience. What did that have to do with him becoming a Death Eater?

"I didn't come here to be attacked," Sirius replied calmly, not rising to the bait. "I just wanted to extend an invitation and keep all of our wrongdoings aside, and if you accept it, I'll be seeing you at the restaurant near the corner of the street."

Awkward silence ensued for a few moments before Sirius quickly left his house through the door, brushing past Regulus, whose face looked almost emotionless as he watched his brother leave. There were a few more moments of tense silence after Sirius left, until he bridged the distance between them in a few steps.

"We're not going to accept that," Regulus told her firmly before pressing his lips against hers.

All thoughts of Sirius flew out the window as his arms circled her waist and he tilted her backwards, kissing her like he'd waited an eternity to do so. She smiled as his mouth moved against hers, frissons of warmth licking up her spine and causing goosebumps to rise on her skin, and it was the best feeling ever-

Clank.

They both pulled away from the kiss, out of breath, and looked around for the source of the sound. Annoyance surged through her when she saw where it had come from.

That bloody earring.

Should've stuck with the pink ones.

"Hi," she mumbled, kneeling to pick up the earring, but he beat her to it, picking it up with alarming speed and busying himself with putting it back on her ear.

His lips quirked up. "Hello. What was that about?"

"I think you've understood what it's about," she replied, collapsing backward on the couch and pulling him along by the hand.

"We're not going to accept that," he repeated insistently.

"I know, I know, the last one was a fiasco... have some faith in me, I'm not going to drag you to another one and compromise your safety, I'm not that stupid."

"I do, and you're not stupid at all."

Stupid enough to fall for a man who's to be married to another woman.

"Right," she swallowed, the rosy haze over her mind from the previous evening clearing away, and she felt a little nervous now. "So, what exactly are we doing?"

"Sitting."

She swatted at him and he chuckled, the sound giving her more comfort than anything ever had, and she realised that she was getting a little too comfortable in this, like a child who thought they could swim simply because they had been afloat for a moment.

"You know what I mean."

The thick silence that blanketed them only intensified her nervousness.

He licked his lips, something in his eyes dancing with humour. "Perhaps you could be my mist-"

He didn't even have a moment to finish the word before Alessandra jumped on him and started pummeling him with a pillow. "You arsehole!" she shrieked as they both toppled off the couch.

"I was joking, I was joking!" he protested.

She glared at him as she relented and fell back, both their arses firmly planted on the floor, and the few seconds of eye contact between them had her rethinking her thoughts.

It was cruel to do this to Cressida, a girl who had been kind to her despite being brought up in an upper class family (and Alessandra had had some terrible experiences with people like that). But, it was cruel to her heart to not have this one thing for herself, regardless of how short-lived it would be.

Maybe they could do this until he got married, and then they would stop no matter what, no matter how they felt.

"I have no intention of getting married," Regulus declared.

"How very resolute of you."

"I'm serious."

"No, you aren't, he just walked out that door."

"You know what I mean."

"I really don't," she said. "I get that you don't want to get married, but how do you plan on doing that? Hate to break it to you, but, um... you don't look like you will be disobeying your mother anytime soon."

"Just because I don't directly disobey her doesn't mean that I don't-"

"Oh, okay, so how do you plan on doing this then?" she cut him off. "Taking away the officiant's license and nobody would be none the wiser? Faking the marriage documents? Manipulating everyone's memories into thinking you got married even though it's not true?"

"Again, I have no intention of getting married. I will find a way."

"Romeo and Juliet had no intention of not being together. They found a way - just not alive."

"Roman and who?" he asked, confused.

She then remembered that he wasn't a Muggle boy - how could she forget this? This was bad, it meant she was getting too comfortable.

He probably saw the freaked out look on her face and continued, "I don't plan on having an arranged marriage. I've seen my parents' marriage, along with several other pureblood arranged marriages, and it's not... something I want. I don't want it for myself."

"That's admirable," she said softly. "But also, words and actions are different."

"You have my word that I won't do anything with her while I'm with you," he said firmly. "I'm not that depraved. I can promise you that regardless of what happens between us, I will never subject you to that kind of emotional torture."

But, words and actions?

What about the fact that you're counting on one very unstable fact - that you'll be able to stop?

This was how addiction began. Addiction to money, addiction to alcohol, addiction to power, addiction to drugs. It started off small, with the person thinking they could control it. Little did they know, as time passed, they couldn't control it.

It controlled them.

Apparently, her mouth had disconnected from her brain because she opened it and said, "Okay."

A relieved look came over his face. "Okay?"

"Okay," she repeated, trying to relax herself.

Why worry now? It was done. It was impossible for someone to have a plan for everything. Why use physics to control the waves when she could just swim with them?

A devastating smile broke across his face, one that took her breath away, and she scrambled for something to say, anything to distract herself.  "So, um, transgiflation?"

It suceeded, because his smile disappeared and his nose scrunched up adorably. "Pardon?"

"Transfligation? Tranglifation? I don't know, that thing you were talking about last week?"

"Transfiguration?"

"Yeah, I said that."

"No, you said trans...fligation?"

"It's all in your head," she replied breezily. "So, transfiglation?"

"Transfiguration," he corrected her, amused. "And, yes. I am going to teach you the basics today."

⚜

She was terrible at it.

Absolutely, breathtakingly, spectacularly, mindblowingly, horribly terrible at it.

The ugly vomit green colour of her walls, her disfigured table that now had a spout protruding from it, and Regulus' pink eyebrow were all evidence in favour of this statement.

"Again," Regulus said calmly, but she could practically see the agitation buzzing around him, "You're supposed to flick up and left, not up and right."

She hated this wand. She hated it so, so much. It was so restrictive, it felt like a handcuff even though she was the one holding it.

"Up and left," she repeated. "Up. And. Left."

She wouldn't blame him if he up and left at that point, because it was bad. She hadn't been the smartest or the dumbest kid in school, but this felt like an easy math test that she was somehow failing.

Up and left. How hard can it be?

She raised the darn stick and flicked it, and what happened next filled her with a combination of horror and mirth.

A red, hooked parrot's beak was protruding where his mouth should've been, and she let out a shriek of laughter as a squawk escaped his mouth- no, beak.

"Fuck, I'm sorry!" she howled with laughter, stomach aching and lungs burning from the hilarity of it all. Reg was now frantically clutching at his face, the expression on his face absolutely horrified, which made her laugh even harder. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she squealed, trying to get up to help him, but absolutely failing, because this was so funny.

Regulus gave her a look of reproach.

⚜

Alessandra grinned to herself later that evening as she left work, smelling like cherries and chocolate and vanilla and craving all three too. She had enough room in her budget to buy herself a treat, so she decided to head to a bakery nearby to get herself something nice.

Wearing her thick jacket, she thought about that fun-filled afternoon with Reg, and that was enough to momentarily keep the cold at bay. She understood why people called this the honeymoon phase of the relationship: it felt like she was on top of the world, floating away on a light cloud to paradise.

A light drizzle broke out but she strolled down the streets, enjoying the feel of the salty air against her red cheeks, until she wasn't. It was always a little scary walking on the streets at night, regardless of her magic or how safe the neighbourhood was, but today, it felt oddly chilling, as though there was something lying in wait... or someone.

She could hear light footsteps behind her.

She was torn between speeding up to evade whoever was behind and slowing down to take a glance. She settled for slowing down and coming to a stop right under a streetlight outside a house with illuminated windows, under the hopes that whoever it was would be dissuaded from attacking when they knew there were witnesses.

"Hello there," a familiar voice greeted her for the second time that day, and she bit back her groan of irritation. "You really shouldn't be walking out alone."

"Why, because creeps would follow me from my place of work?" she retorted, narrowing her eyes at Sirius, who casually leaned against the streetlight.

"Yes," he shot back, either not noticing or not caring about the irony in the statement. "You guys didn't show up."

She gaped at him, because holy shit, how could someone be so thick? "Are you ser- joking?"

"Usually always, but not right now."

She stared and stared at him, not believing the audacity of this man. "What?"

"Why didn't you show up?"

"Wha-" she mumbled, suddenly not craving soft pastries anymore. "Sirius, what are you- oh my God, you Blacks are so- so- frustrating!"

"I'm assuming Reggie and I bring about two different kinds of frustration from within you?" he snarked.

She was rendered speechless, and settled for thwacking him on the head with her purse. "Shut the fuck up."

"What would it take?" he asked quietly, suddenly looking very tired. "What would it take for Reggie to hear me out?"

Her heart went out to Sirius, because he was making an effort she supposed, just not in the right ways. "I don't think I'm the one you should be asking that."

"It's in our genes to be stubborn, so I don't think I'll get a good enough answer from him. Really, what can I do at this point?"

"Maybe not accusing him of being a Death Eater would be a good start," she mumbled.

"But he is a Death Eater."

"That's not the point, Sirius," she bit out. "I don't know much about your upbringings because I haven't been around here long enough, but I know for a fact that if you'd stayed in Grimmauld Place, it would have been you with a tattoo on your arm."

"Everybody has a choice."

"It's easy to say that, isn't it?" she murmured. "But you know he didn't have a choice. Your mother wouldn't let go of him once you left - your family has an unhealthy obsession with continuing the bloodline, as shown by the fact that your parents are cousins."

Sirius remained silent, but she could practically see the gears turning in his head. Whether it was for better or for worse, she could not tell, only hope.

She felt sad for how broken their relationship was. She felt hopeful because Sirius was actually making an effort. But, in the end, she knew it wasn't her decision to make.

"I'll walk you back home," Sirius offered.

The journey back home was filled with melancholic silence that had rays of hope just barely breaking through the surface.

⚜