Black Rose [Regulus Black]

Regulus would never be able to forget how his life had completely turned around a year ago.

From 1979 to 1980, his life had transformed so drastically it was like someone had taken a Time Turner and altered...well, everything, in his life. There was no other logical explanation for it. In 1979, he had virtually no real relations with anybody, was a Death Eater, hated Muggles without even knowing about their world, and was going to attempt a suicidal mission. In 1980, he was alive, had a gorgeous girlfriend (who was a descendant of Slytherin but lived a Muggle life?), was working with the Order, and had a semi-functional relationship with his brother and his brother's best friends. He'd been to Azkaban but not in the way he'd expected.

And he knew what a microwave was. A microwave.

"I think we just aren't able to have good dates in fancy restaurants," Alessandra's voice snapped him out of his reverie, and he looked up from his soup.  "We're always so silent whenever we sit in one of these places."

"Wait, wait, before you feel bad, I have a good Dumbledore joke."

She sighed. "I liked it better when it was silent."

"No, no, you'll like this one."

"Really?" she arched an eyebrow. She looked even prettier than usual... shiny golden hair, gorgeous green eyes and smile brighter than the Sun... it was like the soup was laced with Amortentia. 

"Yes, hear me out. What do you do when the light is off and you can't find your way out of a room?"

She inhaled deeply, folding her hands in front of her face as her shoulders silently shook. "What?" she wheezed, a quiver in her voice.

"You stumble-door."

She burst into laughter, causing the candles in front of them to flicker and earning them the stink eye from several diners around them. It took her a full five minutes to completely stop, It was the loudest sound in that quiet restaurant, but hearing her laugh all the time had made him stopped equating "loud" to "terrifying" at one point.

Funnily enough, Regulus was certain that a year ago, he'd have probably one of the people heavily judging and glaring at her. He remembered telling her a not-so-long time ago, what had happened had happened and there was no point wondering about the alternate universes, but he found himself wondering about it too. Would he have still found her beautiful, still harboring that prejudice against Muggles had he not sailed through her window?

Life was strange sometimes.

"I'm just laughing because I am going to get embarrassingly drunk in some time, and you're going to have to deal with it," she gulped down some water after she'd stopped laughing, narrowing her eyes back at some of the people who were glaring in the direction of their table. 

"Always."

"I'm serious. You're going to feel an embarrassment so deep you'll want to crawl out of your skin and into the core of the Earth, never to be seen again. You're going to want to pretend to not know me. But remember, Regulus, I laughed," she said solemnly.

He'd never be embarrassed to know her. The only thing he was embarrassed about was telling her that.

He made sure to lock up those thoughts deep in his mind, especially once he saw his mother eyeing him when he reached Grimmauld Palace later that night, her grey eyes holding sinister intent.

⚜

"ARE. YOU. READY?!" Sirius cheered, decked in the wildest outfit Alessandra had ever seen. The whole thing was an awful combination of colours, and with his red hat, yellow shirt and green shorts, she thought he looked like a traffic light. She had a fleeting suspicion that he knew it too, but couldn't care less and had just decided to own it. It was ironic, because traffic lights were placed to follow rules, but Sirius always did the opposite.

"No," Regulus replied flatly, glaring at his brother for forcing him into the same disgusting matching outfit. "Do I have to wear this?"

"Yes!" Sirius exclaimed, almost offended that Reg had the audacity to ask that. "We're brothers, so we should match."

"Sirius, we look like traffic lights. We can't go out in public like this."

"You sound like Mother. Except, she wouldn't know what a traffic light is, so you're the less primitive version-"

Reg took off his hat and whacked him with it, and Remus and Sandra made eye contact, their expressions a mix of exasperated and amused.

"Besides, ask Moony and Sandra. They both think we look hot."

"I just realised that I need to feed my fish," Sandra spoke up.

"I'll help you, it's a two-person job," Remus agreed, and they both scuttled off, ignoring Sirius' cries of rage.

"You don't have a fish!"

An hour later, after tons of cajoling and coercing, they were finally out the door, much to Sandra's relief. Having Sirius loaded up on the dozens of sugary foods he'd treated himself to from her fridge, that too in a closed space that was her house, was not something that she wanted.

The other visitors of the zoo gave them strange looks as they passed by, probably because of the flashy clothing Sirius was wearing... or because he was trying to kiss a lizard through the glass.

"Sirius," Remus hissed. "Get back, now."

"You're making us look like idiots," Reg added, glaring at the gaggle of girls in the corner who were pointing at them and giggling.

"They're just jealous."

"Of what?" Regulus cried out in exasperation. "The fact that we looked like we picked our clothes blindly?"

"Exactly! They only wish they could!"

Remus ducked his head in mortification, cheeks a bright shade of pink.

Two hours later, a sopping, wet Sirius sat on a bench outside an enclosure, trembling but with that forever-present grin on his face. "That. Was. Bloody. Amazing!"

"Amazing?" Remus asked incredulously. "You just jumped into a lake with animals more than twice your size."

"Exactly!"

"You could have died, you dumbfuck!" Alessandra snarled, rubbing Regulus' shoulders soothingly. Regulus had turned eerily pale at the sight of the waters and he froze up then and there, not even reacting when Sirius jumped in with a whoop.

"Why is he even acting like that?" Sirius nodded towards his brother. "I'm alive."

"Maybe that's why," Remus muttered.

"Hey!"

⚜

March flew by, taking the cold with it, and April came. His birthday was always a miserable affair but this year was different. He knew it.

"Regulus," his mother said stiffly.

He wanted to ignore her badly. He so badly did.

But he didn't.

"What, Mother," he sighed. "I don't want to discuss Alessandra. Not today, not ever. Can't you just let me be on my birthday?"

Her hands twisted and she looked almost... sorry. "I decided to invite the Rosier girl over here."

"You did what?!" he exclaimed, getting what appeared to be his fourth heart attack in the same year, and they were only four months into the year. "Mother, what?!"

"Oh, relax."

"Relax? Relax?! You-"

"Regulus! I just wanted to keep the peace. I thought that it isn't productive hiding from each other. Mature adults should discuss this. Therefore, I invited her for breakfast today. We are going to sit, and we are going to talk."

He didn't buy it.

"You called her a harlot."

"Months ago," she said exasperatedly. "While I don't think she's good enough for my son, if you think she's good enough, I'll consider it. I just think we should be at peace. I don't want my only son to hate me."

Ideally, he should've said something about Alessandra being too good for him, or called her out for ignoring her first son, but this was perfect. His mother seemed skeptical but Alessandra was fine - she was descended from Salazarlytherin. If he could drill that in somehow, his mother would accept them. They wouldn't have to hide as much. It would be perfect.

"Really?" he exhaled. He felt like he'd been knocked off his feet, he was that surprised.

"Yes."

He struggled for words. "I- thank you, Mother."

"I said I'll consider it," she said stiffly. "It doesn't mean we'll actually do it. I just wanted to give it a try, because she makes you happy. As your mother, I can see that."

This was shocking. This was... wow. He had no words. He felt like he'd just entered a dream, but the prospect of it being his reality made him overjoyed. There was a bit of doubt peaking in through all the hope, but he couldn't bring himself to listen to the paranoid voices in his head. Besides, it was his mother. What was the worst she would do? The only harm she could cause was through her words, it was unlikely she would resort to physical violence, especially when there were two of them against one.

"Still, thank you."

She smiled, but it looked a little like a grimace. Still, he didn't mind. As long as she was giving it a chance, if she was even considering it, he'd do his best to convince her. "Go get ready. Comb your hair, it looks too dishevelled. She'll be here in fifteen minutes. If she's punctual."

Regulus walked out in a daze, a large smile on his face. Wow. A year ago, he didn't think he'd see this birthday, but between his last birthday and today, so much positive change had happened.

For the first time in years, he decided to wear the watch his father had given him because it finally felt like it was worth wearing. Things were actually going right. He was actually humming as he entered his father's room, eyes scanning the mahogany shelves to look for the watch.

He paused when he saw a flash of blonde hair in the mirror beside his father's books, and looked behind him. Nobody was there.

Then why...?

He crouched in front of the mirror. Upon closer inspection, he realised it wasn't exactly a mirror but a shard of it, deliberately cut jagged in a way that was stylish... but the shape wasn't what was important... its contents were.

And he suspected that he wouldn't like what it held.

His breath caught in his throat as there was another flash of blonde hair in the mirror. He definitely wasn't dreaming it, although he wished he was.

He didn't know what he was looking at that moment, but he just knew. He prayed that it wasn't what he thought it was, but he already knew.

He reached for the shard, gingerly picking it up as though it had the capability to burn him. It did, really, because he felt like he'd been placed in a furnace and everything was hot and sticky, but at the same time, he'd been plunged into cold waters and had no way of coming back up-

Old memories resurfaced, ones he pushed back to the surface, and he focused on the task at hand, looking intently into the mirror, looking for that flash of blonde hair.

He flinched when it showed up within the mirror once again and stared at it with bated breath, still hoping that he was wrong.

The person in the frame turned around, only to reveal...Alessandra.

He dropped the shard on the ground. It didn't break.

Holy fuck.

His mother was like Snow White's evil stepmother.

There was a crack and Regulus flinched yet again, whirling around to see Kreacher standing there. "Master," he croaked, handing Regulus a piece of parchment. "The Rosiers' house elf gave this to me. Said it was from Master Evan."

Hands shaking, Regulus grabbed the parchment, heart dropping at the two messy words scrawled on the page, ink smudged as though the writer was in a hurry.

"They know."

⚜