Y/N Y/L/N was…loud. Or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she spoke at an entirely normal volume and Regulus was just completely unused to sitting next to someone with such a never ending stream of things to say and comment on. It wasn’t totally awful. They’d been forced together to work on a project a few months ago and, from the moment you’d sat down, you had seemed intent on acting as though you and Regulus had been friends for years. At first he’d been mortified by your chattering, and the almost comically bright smile you’d always greeted him with but, as the days went on, Regulus had the shocking realization that you were being entirely sincere. You weren’t being friendly in order to trick him, or smiling to throw him off his game, you were just kind of…like that.
It had taken time, a lot of time, for Regulus to start actually talking back. Longer for him to start smiling, but it had happened. At the end of the first month, he’d been forced to admit to himself that potions had become the best part of his day, and not because he loved Slughorn and chopping mugwort leaves. There was something exciting about having a friend that was just his, especially one who seemed perfectly content to accept his good days with his bad ones, and never pushed him to be more bubbly or open than he was ready for. Which is not to say that Regulus wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop and for you to move on to less prickly targets, but he’d bask in your attention for as long as he had it. And bask he did.
“Oi, Reg? Are you even listening to me?” You whispered, nudging his side with your elbow.
“Hmm?” He asked, softly, checking to see if Slughorn had picked up on your nattering.
You giggled, rolling your eyes with a fondness he wasn’t entirely sure he’d earned, and leaned in conspiratorially, “I asked if you were going out to Hogsmeade this weekend. Coraline Fawley has been bugging me about getting you to ask her out for weeks.”
You looked beautiful, as always, with your hair up out of your face and your usual glint of mischief dancing at the corner of your mouth. He spent a lot of time looking at your mouth recently. More time than he’d hoped, but less than he’d like. They were just so fascinating. Wait, what were you saying?
Regulus scrunched up his nose, “Fawley? Tell her I’d sooner go out with the giant squid.”
“Or,” you suggested, “you could tell her that yourself and not use me like an owl, for a change.”
Now it was Regulus’ turn to roll his eyes and he turned back to face the chalkboard, “It’s not like I ask you to meddle, Y/N, you just do it. If you want out, no one’s asking you to stick around.”
He heard you sigh and felt a momentary twinge of regret. Considering how little validation he gave you, you’d been wonderful about not holding his moodiness against him, but Regulus knew your patience wasn’t limitless. And, if he was honest with himself, Regulus was dreading the day he finally pushed you just that little bit too far.
“Alright, Black,” you agreed, albeit a little less enthusiastically, “whatever you say.”
You lapsed into a silence that stretched on longer than usual, seemingly dedicating 100% of your attention to the potion Slughorn had assigned, even though Regulus knew you had next to no interest in potions. As the minutes dragged on without a hint of your signature banter, Regulus couldn’t help but start to worry. This had been happening more and more lately. Little mean things would slip out and, rather than bouncing off your back like normal, they seemed to hang in the air like helium balloons, filling Regulus’ stomach with sand and a gnawing shame.
Maybe it was best, he reasoned, maybe this was the start of the pulling away process. It had to happen eventually, right? He might as well enjoy the silence and let you move on to your greener pastures filled with baby unicorns and endless Hogsmeade weekends with your gaggle of adoring sycophants. It was for the best, really.
“Are you going?” He heard himself ask, with a hint of pleading.
You looked up at him, your features schooled into polite neutrality, which he hated, “That’s why I asked you. I’m not sure yet. I was going to decide based on what your plans were.”
As soon as you answered, Regulus felt the knot in his chest loosen and a quiet sigh of relief slipped from his throat. It took him a second to process your answer but, when he did, his heart skipped a beat.
“You wanted to go…with me?” He asked, unsure.
In the dim light of the potions room, Reg couldn’t be sure, but he swore he saw color rise into your cheeks before you looked away, back into your cauldron.
“No. Well, yes, but not like-” you started, “Caroline wanted me to ask you anyway, but I figured that if you were going anyway we could meet up somewhere.”
Regulus fought the surge of giddiness that flooded his system out of nowhere, and smiled gently, “And if I wasn’t going?”
You shrugged with one shoulder, eyes focussed intently on the contents of your potion.
“I thought we could study. Or fly, or something.”
“Together?’
You sighed, definitely blushing now, and rolled your eyes to the ceiling, “Obviously, together, Black. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked what you were doing. Nevermind it’s a stupid idea I’ll just-” you muttered, your voice fading into a disgruntled whisper he couldn’t pick up.
Regulus was trying hard not to let the swell of conflicting emotions in his chest register on his face. Were you asking him out? Was that what was happening here? Did he want that?
Okay, that was a ridiculous question, he’d been all yours from the very first moment, of course that’s what he wanted. But only secretly. Only in the deepest parts of himself that he kept buried and hidden away from anything that threatened to come in and empty him out. What he wanted and what he could bear to have had never been the same thing. Being with you, oh Merlin, really being with you, was so far out of his realm of reality that it made him dizzy just to consider it. It was just a fantasy. Just a fantasy.
But it could be real, couldn’t it? That’s what you were offering. Alright, you weren’t declaring your love or anything, but it was a start. A whole day together, just the two of you….what a concept.
Your cauldron was starting to smoke and, by Regulus’ calculations, you were three clockwise stirs over the upper limit. He glanced at the clock. There wasn’t long left and if you submitted what you had now, he knew there was no way Slughorn would give you a decent grade. He weighed up his options for a second, not wanting to seem pushy or patronizing, but was jarred into action as you lifted your pipet of bulbadox juice to add a second drop.
“No no no no, wait.” He leaned forward, his side pressed to yours as he gripped your hand to stop the movement.
You froze, staring up at him with giant eyes as he gently lowered your hand with the pipet, making sure nothing dripped into the potion.
“You’ve over stirred,” he explained gently, “if you add more juice it’s either going to curdle or explode.”
“Really? Shit, thanks for the save, Reg,” you answered with a breathless, slightly tense giggle, “reckon I can salvage it?”
“Of course, just add two flitterby wings and some crushed dragon horn and you should be good to go,” he explained, feeling his heart pound in his chest.
“Alright…” There was a long silence where neither of you moved before you nudged him with your knee and said, as gently as possible, “I’m going to need my hand back to make those changes, Reg.”
Ah.
He was still holding your hand. With his other arm practically wrapped around you. Using the back of your stool as support. Fuck. He pulled his hand back so fast the thought he might fall over, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“Sorry.” he muttered, turning back to his own potion with his ears burning.
“It’s alright,” you responded, and he could hear the smile in your voice, “your hands are very…soft. Softer than I thought they’d be.”
His heart did that funny little stutter again and he shot back, teasingly “Spend a lot of time thinking about my hands then, Y/L/N?”
He quickly glanced your way, so you could see the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile and know he was joking, just in time to catch you shooting him another fond eye roll.
“Not as much time as Caroline Fawley has, I can promise you that,” you joked back.
“Jealous much?”
“Desperately, I’ve been eyeing up Caroline for months.”
Regulus threw his head back and let out a bark of laughter so loud that everyone in class, including Slughorn tore their eyes away from whatever they were doing and gave him a warning look. Regulus mouthed sorry to Professor Slughorn and turned back to his work, stifling his laughter as best he could. One quick glance your way told him you were doing the same, though the hand over your mouth and your silently shaking shoulders told him you were losing the fight.
“Look what you made me do,” he teased, “and after I helped you too…sad.”
“Aww, poor little Reggie,” you teased back, “how about this, to make it up to you, I’ll retract my offer to hang out this weekend, since I’m clearly such a nuisance to you, and go to Hogsmeade with Ollie Macmillan instead.”
Regulus gasped, recoiling in mock horror, “You wouldn’t!”
“Try me,” you responded, leaning in, “Unless, of course, you would rather I didn’t, for some reason.”
Suddenly it occurred to Regulus that you weren’t joking, which was new. You were giving him a choice. If he wanted, you’d go out with Macmillan and, knowing you, you'd never bring up the possibility of being anything more than friends again. You were certain like that. You never pushed. It was one of the reasons he’d started falling for you in the first place.
Regulus opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again when he realized that he didn’t actually have an answer. His heart was screaming at him to say that of course he didn’t want you to go out with that oaf, Macmillan, he wanted you to go out with him. He wanted you to talk to him and laugh with him and let him stare at your mouth until he had every twist and curve and movement memorized. Of course that’s what he wanted.
But, he was Regulus Black. He didn’t get things like this, things like you, that were good and pure and normal. He didn’t get to go on dates and banter with friends and plan a future with the only person who made him feel like a living person anymore. Did he? If he leant in and kissed you, wouldn’t he just be dooming you to heartbreak? Wasn’t he just dragging you down into his shadowy world?
There was a look in your eye that made him shiver, like you were looking right through him, into the confusion, and that it made you sad. You pressed your lips together and, with a second of hesitation, reached out to touch his hand, softly. So, so softly. You only ever touched him softly, like you knew. Like you’d always known that he was fragile, that he needed tenderness like a plant needs sunlight. How had you known? How did you always know?
“Regulus,” you said, barely louder than a whisper, but with an undercurrent of fierce sincerity, “I can’t change the way you think about yourself, I know that that’s up to you, but I want you to know, whatever it is you’re thinking, you’re wrong. This, us,” you squeezed his hand, grounding him, “even just the chance of it. It’s worth it. Or at least it is to me. That won’t change, but you need to meet me halfway here. It can’t just be me putting myself out on a ledge and hoping that someday you’ll trust me enough to come out to, we need to do it together.”
He shook his head reflexively, “You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know.”
“I know you,” you countered, “that’s all I need to know. That and whatever you decide to tell me.”
The bell rang and Regulus felt a bolt of panic at the thought of you packing up and heading off. Something told him that, if he let you leave without an answer, without some indication of where his head was, he’d lose you forever.
He squeezed your hand tight, locking your fingers together and said, “Don’t go out with Macmillan.”
It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. He was going to lose you.
“Don’t go out with Macmillan,” he repeated, “spend the day with me. I don’t give a fuck about Hogsmeade, but I’ll go if you’ll go with me. Honestly, Y/N, I’ll do anything as long as you’ll do it with me.”
You pressed your lips together again, but this time Regulus could see the smile twinkling in your eyes as they watered, and he could feel the way your muscles relaxed, like you’d been bracing for an impact that never came. You were nervous. Oh my stars, you had been worried that he would reject you! The notion was so foolish that, for a moment, Regulus forgot to be scared.
“I would love that,” you answered, “really, Reg. I would love that.”
I love you, he thought to himself. But not yet. It was too soon, he knew that, but maybe one day. Maybe when he’d figured out how to tell you about that secret part of himself he’d kept buried for so long, maybe then he’d say it. Maybe, if he was lucky, you’d even say it back.
Now, wouldn’t that be something?