Black Rose [Regulus Black]

It appeared that Regulus had this odd habit of standing outside the window of the restaurant she worked in and scaring the living daylights of her.

Alessandra jumped (quite literally!) to this conclusion when she saw Regulus right outside for the thousandth time and stumbled, nearly dropping her tray of dishes.

Stalker.

Handsome stalker, that broken half of her brain whispered dreamily.

Stalker, he's a stalker, the sane half of her brain snapped.

"What are you doing?" she hissed at him after barging out the restaurant.

"Taking you out on a... what are those called?"

"What are what called?"

"Those Muggle courting things you all engage in."

"Muggle courting?" she repeated, disoriented.

"A... time?" He whipped out two slips of paper from behind his back, and upon close inspection, she realised they were tickets to an amusement park — the amusement park she'd been dying to go to but couldn't afford.

He remembered when she'd told him all those weeks ago.

"A date," she whispered, suddenly feeling weak in the knees, because nobody had done something this special for her. She was taken care of — fed and sheltered and clothed — but nobody other than her best friend had ever gone that extra mile to make her feel so special. "You want to take me to an amusement park?"

He looked alarmed when her eyes sparkled with what looked like unshed tears. "Oh, was I not supposed to- did you not want to- please don't cry."

She pulled him into a hug, his familiar scent and the feel of his arms circling her making her feel all light-headed and euphoric.

Happiness. This is what pure, unadulterated happiness felt like.

"Thank you," she told him, pulling away. Her smile only grew wider when she saw him dip his head bashfully, his cheeks pink. God, she hated to do this to him. "But I can't."

"Why not?" he asked heatedly, alarm flashing on his countenance. "Did I do something?"

"No! No, it's not you. It's not that I don't want to — nothing would give me greater pleasure."

"I can think of a few other things."

It was her turn to blush heavily now, and her stomach felt like it had flipped, but in a good way. She took a few deep breaths, trying to fight the heat in her cheeks, but Regulus had clearly noticed how flustered she was, as shown by the smirk on his face. She cleared her throat, willing herself not to say something stupid and ruin the moment. "Um, anyways, I can't come because I can't just leave in the middle of my shift."

"Yes you can. Lie. Say you're sick. Besides, you haven't missed a single day here for the past two months, they wouldn't mind."

"How do you know I haven't missed a single day?"

A sheepish look came across his face.

Stalkers. The Black brothers were both stalkers.

Why wasn't she feeling more alarmed that her boyfriend was a stalker? She remembered how Janine, a girl she knew, had a remarkably controlling boyfriend who did the same thing.

Except Regulus is better.

Wait, boyfriend?

I called him my boyfriend.

Wait...

Focus, Alessandra!

She snapped out of it, folding her arms. "The job is the only way I have just enough to eat, Reg, it pays my bills. I can't just do that."

"Don't worry about your bills, I'll take care of it," he urged her.

"Wha- no, no, that's not necessary. I don't want to be a gold digger."

"What does coal have to do with this?"

"Gold, not coal, we've gone over this before. Anyways, that's not the point. I really appreciate this but I can't right now." She glanced at the watch. "My shift ends in about an hour though, let's go then?"

"An hour," he said solemnly, and a laugh bubbled up in her throat. "Exactly an hour."

God, he was cute. Cute and hot and everything all at once, and it was overwhelming but in a good way.

⚜

Regulus probably really regretted this.

It showed in his horrified expression as he gazed up at the twisting rollercoaster that currently held people who were screaming as they went through a particularly terrifying loop.

"I think we're at the wrong place," he murmured.

"Why?"

"Because the name of this place is Dreamland but this is a place of my nightmares."

She sighed. "Come on, it's not that bad."

"The woman at the desk didn't mention that this was a death trap," he said, and then his voice morphed into something high-pitched. "'Oh, it's paradise! You feel the wind in your hair and the breeze against your skin. It's a perfect relaxation destination.' Relaxation, I can see, I'd be able to relax when I was six feet under and not breathing either."

She giggled at his impression of the woman at the welcome desk. "It's fun."

"Fun," he snorted.

"You know what will be the most fun?" she asked, knowing that he wouldn't refuse.

"Oh, no."

"You said it would be fun!" Regulus screamed ten minutes later as the rollercoaster twisted mid-air.

"It is fun!" she hollered back, lips curving up into a smile.

Based on the way Regulus was screaming, he didn't seem to agree.

But, based on the way he grinned in the picture taken at the top of the rollercoaster, he didn't seem to disagree either.

⚜

"I don't see the point of this game," Regulus said bluntly.

The person manning the gamestall glared at him before paying attention to the next customer.

"You get a prize if you win."

"Right, but you can just buy the prize somewhere else, for cheaper."

"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?"

His father's words — fun doesn't earn you profit — rose to his lips but the sight of a joyful, glowing Alessandra made him fight his urges. "But it isn't even that fun. You just shoot at a balloon with those metal Muggle wands-"

"-guns-"

"-and these guns can kill you. I heard it from the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office Head himself."

"Those are different guns. These can't kill you, unless the person holding the gun is exceptionally stupid."

Regulus' gaze moved to the little girl behind them in the line, who choked on the stuffed bear she was holding, mistaking it for cotton candy.

"It's too dangerous and I'd rather my date return in one piece, unscathed."

"You're just scared to lose," Alessandra taunted him, knowing which buttons to push.

"I'm not," he refused to rise to the bait.

"So, you think I'm exceptionally stupid and therefore can't handle a gun?" she frowned, hurt creeping into her eyes and darkening the green a little.

"Of course not, you're not stupid at all," he denied it instantly, and then relented. "We'll play one round, but only one."

The sadness in her green eyes disappeared far too quickly, much to his suspicion, and he narrowed his eyes.

⚜

Regulus Black was a sore loser.

They did not play only one round.

And nobody died (yet).

"Again," Regulus snapped, and the amusement park employee, Lenny, obediently refilled the gun, tired but amused.

BANG!

The tiny bullet hit the can holding money, sending it toppling over.

"Again."

"Reg," Alessandra sighed. "It's been thirty-five minutes."

He looked like he'd been forcibly yanked out of that world in his mind when he looked at her with wide, ghostlike eyes. "But I haven't hit the target yet."

"And it's okay," she reassured him. "I think other people want to have a go though."

He huffed. "But I've tried this nearly a hundred times and I haven't been able to hit the balloon. Is my aim truly that bad?"

One glance at the knocked over money can, the cut stuffed-bear and the broken glass bottle on the counter would compel a person to scream 'Yes!'.

"No," she lied. "It's just a difficult game."

"You got it the third try!"

"It was a fluke," she insisted. "Come on, there's thousands of other things we've got to do. We can't come to the amusement park and not share a kiss on top of the Ferris wheel, it'd be a crime."

⚜

Three hours and three trillion happy memories later, Alessandra and Regulus finally went back home at the dead of night, and Regulus eyed the lady living on Alessandra's floor suspiciously.

"Relax," Sandra mumbled, fiddling with her keyring before sliding a key into the lock. "She's just nosey."

"I don't trust her," Reg muttered.

The woman's dog growled at him.

"She's a harmless old woman who's been living here before we even went to school."

Reg did not care. What if that woman was Dabria Rosier's minion who was keeping an eye on her friend's daughter? Worse, what if she was his mother's minion who was keeping an eye on her friend's son's supposed-to-be-betrothed? Even worse, what if she was Voldemort's minion?

He then realised he called the Dark Lord by his name and began freaking out even more, and it must have shown on his face because she swung the door open and turned around to cup his cheek. "Relax. You're overthinking it."

Perhaps he was. He probably was, and it was nothing to get up-

The dog barked again and Reg jumped over the threshold, eager to maintain a good distance between him and that bloody barking creature. He knew that he was worrying too much, but he couldn't stop worrying. It had been nearly half a year since he and Alessandra had met and as the days swung by, he grew more and more worried about her safety.

She was a Muggle in the records. This automatically put her as a target on the Dark Lord's list.

But she was the Dark Lord's daughter too. That gave her priority on his list. Which list? Reg had no idea.

Either way, it was terrifying, especially now because Regulus had grown to care for her deeply. It was like six months ago, he'd felt disgust because he was in a Muggle home being treated by a (not-)Muggle girl, but now, she was so much more than a (not-)Muggle girl.

She was just about everything to him. He would do anything to protect her.

And it scared him.

"Ice-cream?" Alessandra offered, noticing the tension in his shoulders. "It'll make you feel better."

He nodded, not trusting himself to say anything, and sat down on her couch, feeling a rush of warmth when she sat down beside him five seconds later, tub of ice cream and spoons in her hand.

"What happened?" she asked him softly.

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"It's clearly not nothing. You were all smiles and laughs just a few moments ago and now you look terrified. Like, get-up-and-bolt-for-the-hills terrified. Tell me, what happened?"

"My mind gets lost in itself sometimes. Nothing to concern yourself with."

"It concerns me if it upsets you," she replied, taking a bite of ice-cream, and he followed suit. "But I'll drop it, for now."

"Thank you," he mumbled, licking some of the ice cream off his top lip, and her eyes caught to the movement.

"So," she grinned at him. "What do you say about marriage now? I was thinking a Spring Wedding in Italy, I've always wanted a destination wedding-"

Regulus choked on his ice-cream and she lost it, starting to laugh uproariously. "That was priceless! Shit, you turned so pale, it was fucking hilarous."

"So, no marriage?" he gasped out.

"No! We've known each other for a grand total of six months and went out on one date, I'm not that insane," she wheezed once she'd stopped laughing.

"You never know," he mumbled. "In our world, you don't even need to know the person to be in an arranged marriage with them, as long as you have a 'suitable' background."

"That sounds horrifying."

"It's terrifying," he confessed. "They've set up betrothals for children in diapers."

Like us.

"I could never," she mumbled. "It just seems so... fixed. So inescapable. So rigid. I would want to do things on my terms, I don't get how countless others have gone along with this."

Regulus' mind drifted off to another reality, where Alessandra was raised in the pureblood world and they were betrothed to get married. If she didn't run away, she would've hated him. She would've hated him for taking away her happiness, for... armbinding her (or what those chains on Sandra's movies were called).

He liked this reality, where they got to know each other, cut off from all the expectations people had from them. He liked this reality with its flaws and stressful conditions. He liked this reality because he finally got to meet this improved version of himself that he didn't hate.

He was Regulus. She was Alessandra. They were fine.

He kissed her out of the blue, a finger tilting her chin up so her lips could meet his more easily. She gasped a little before her fingers instinctively trailed their way up his chest, his neck, his cheeks, before they tangled in his hair, tugging as they kissed and kissed until they needed air and she hadn't even realised that they were tangled on her couch, with her back to the pillow.

Regulus in her house with mussed hair, swollen lips and bright eyes.

A scene she wanted to witness every day in her life, and she realised her thoughts had gone down a dangerous path, one paved with smooth stones and lined with lilies and roses and-

"Your brother paid a visit yesterday," she blurted out, before she could do something really stupid.

Then, she realised she had done something really stupid.

Really, Alessandra? Bringing up his brother who he despises, right after you were snogging?

The clear clouds in his gorgeous grey eyes darkened, reminding her to tread carefully because what she said next could bring thunder and lightning flashing. "Really? What'd he say?"

"He asked why we didn't show up."

Reg let out a mirthless laugh. "You're joking."

"I think he really wants to mend things between you guys," Alessandra mumbled, sitting up and feeling horrible now. She was conflicted now, because which one was better: imagining scenarios that would never happen and make her even sadder, or bringing up his brother who he'd always had a strained relationship with.

The first one. The first one, a million times, because Reg's problems weren't just something she could kiss away or he could ignore.

"It's a bit late, isn't it?"

"I suppose, but the intention counts..."

He turned to stare at her in disbelief. "Alessandra, he would probably feed us to Lupin if it made his werewolf friend happy."

She grimaced. "That's morbid."

"It's true."

"I'm just saying, life's too short to hold grudges."

"I have to ask, why are you so insistent for us to make up?"

"Because," she sighed. "It's sad. The poor guy's clearly upset about it and I think he genuinely wants to mend your relationship."

"He's not upset," he snapped. "It's the hair, it's manipulating you."

"The hair," she repeated, amused.

"I'm telling you, I've seen him style it so it aligns with his agenda," Reg insisted. "If he wants to charm a girl, he messes it up and lets it grow out. Assassins' weapons are their wands, authors' weapons are their pens or books or whatever, Sirius' weapon is his hair."

She burst into laughter. "You're kidding."

"I'm not," he shook his head. "He had an entire pile of books on his nightstand solely dedicated to styling his hair."

She fell sideways, stomach burning as she roared with laughter, the visual of Sirius spending an hour styling his hair with a hair curler while glancing at a book making her laugh harder. 

She let out a shriek when she nearly toppled off the sofa, Reg's arms coming around her to stop her from falling over, and she gasped for breath, causing Reg to snicker.

"Tell me more," she made herself comfortable, leaning her head on his chest.

And he did.

He told her stories of how his father was somewhat liberal and took great pleasure in annoying his mother. He told her stories of his time at Hogwarts. He told her stories of how Sirius would love pissing his mother off and made her look like an absolute fool.

"She was furious," Regulus sniggered. "It was a sight to behold - the mighty Walburga Black, dripping in tea, her black hair all gone."

She grinned. "Surprised she didn't kill him on the spot."

"She would've, if it weren't for Father. He was the liberal one, the one who let us do what we want as long as we didn't do severe damage. I think he even liked Sirius' antics. He was the only reason Sirius hadn't been disowned until he left that summer. It destroyed Father. He died a year later."

She exhaled softly, rubbing soothing circles on his back. She could feel Reg's sadness in the air now, it was an actual, tangible presence, draped around him.

"Let me tell you something else, another more cheerful story. It would be awful if I ended the first date after telling you about my tragic family backstory."

She ruffled his hair. "I care about everything you have to say."

"I know," he murmured, pressing a kiss to her ear and starting off on the next story. "This one time, at Hogwarts, Dumbledore decided to..."

By the time he finished the story, she was asleep, a half-smile on her face.

God, she was beautiful.

⚜