Shades of Silver and Black

REGULUS BLACK'S EYES FLUTTERED OPEN, detesting that the curtains had been thrown open to allow the sunlight to bleed into his bedroom. It was the summer holidays and Regulus wished to pass time by sleeping. Sleep beckoned him with a siren's call, slowly inviting him to venture into the realm of Morpheus once more. Unfortunately, that was the moment he distinctly became aware of an unusually.

Silence.

He could hear no noise. No arguments between Sirius and Kreacher, no exchanges of threatening teases by his parents, nothing.

Knitting his brows together, Regulus willed himself awake, forcing himself to leap out of his comfortable bed to make his way downstairs. He was still disconcerted and groggy, dressed in his nightclothes and his normally carefully coiffed dark hair was for sure sticking up at all angles. However, he was home, so Regulus didn't bother with appearances.

Kreacher was dutifully waiting for him at the end of the staircase. "Master Regulus is finally awake."

Regulus yawned loudly at that moment before covering his mouth. Then, he shook his head, blinking a few times to focus on Kreacher.

"Master Regulus is not completely awake," Kreacher amendedhis earlier statement, resigned.

Regulus laughed, his sleep dwindling as he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to make it presentable. "Good morning, Kreacher," he greeted, proceeding to look around with a frown. "Where are everybody?"

"Master Sirius has gone to visit the family of blood-traitors," Kreacher informed him in a crisp and clip tone.

"And mum and dad?" Regulus asked, using his hand to rub his eyes.

"Master and Mistress are at the Planetarium."

Regulus halted his motions, returning his hands to the pockets of his trousers. "Mum and dad are at the Planetarium? So early in the morning?"

"It's nearly noon, Master Regulus," Kreacher pointed out before absentmindedly adding, "Mistress Lyra has returned."

His statement acted as a switch and Regulus instantly brightened like a firecracker. "Lyra's back!" He jumped and dashed towards the floo, tuning out Kreacher telling him to eat breakfast.

Regulus stepped inside the fire-place wearing a smile that could light up their grey town. He pinched a little bit of the floo powder and threw it down yelling, "The Planetarium", as he became embraced by the flames.

When the embers had reduced, transporting him to the gold embellished wallpapers of the Planetarium, Regulus jovially stepped out, saying, "Lyra, I'm so glad you are—"

Regulus halted mid-statement because he became distinctly enlightened of two aspects simultaneously. The first being Lyra's absence despite her having apparently returned while the second was the sombre, forlorn air of the room, along with the blank faces of his normally eccentric family members.

Regulus' brows bunched up. "Who died?"

Walburga stood up from where she had previously been seated on the sofa, telling him monotonously, "You woke up late and haven't had breakfast yet. Go eat, Regulus, you must be hungry."

Before Regulus could open his mouth to respond, his mother was pushing past him and had already floo'd away from the Planetarium. Regulus blinked. "What was that about?" He questioned aloud. "What happened? Did someone really die? Was it Theodore Nott?"

Narcissa rose from her armchair this time, following his mother's actions and floo'ing to her own house. Orion was next, only he apparated out of the Planetarium, reminding Regulus to eat breakfast before he did.

Regulus frowned at their behaviours. "What happened?" He quizzed them. "And where's Lyra? I thought she came here."

For the span of a few seconds, there was silence. Then, Arcturus vacantly announced, "The surprise party is cancelled." He stood up and walked to the kitchens, returning a few minutes later with a bottle of firewhiskey before sitting on the sofa.

"What?! Why?" Regulus demanded, recollecting all the hard work Amal had put into improving her dancing skills. Not to mention, his broken toes which had been sacrificed to serve a greater purpose. This had been an opportunity for her to cease her mother and sister's relentless teasing towards her dancing and Regulus was fuming at his grandfather's nonchalant declaration. "Look, I understand that Lyra arrived earlier than expected, but we can still have—"

"—Not everything is about Lyra! And I'm tired of her —and everyone else— making it about her!" Andromeda exploded like a volcano, pushing herself off the wall she had been leaning against with fury etched into her features.

Ted soothingly rubbed her arm.

Andromeda shrugged off his comfort. "When Lyra found out about Ted and me... I was so scared. Terrified, really. I slept with one eye open for days. I— I couldn't concentrate on anything because I was so afraid of Ted mysteriously disappearing. But then, miraculously, thankfully, we got married with all of your approval. I was happy. He was just starting to get accepted. Grandmother Irma and Grandfather Pollux were teaching him gardening and sharing stories, Narcissa was buying him new clothes deeming his repulsive. Even Aunty Walburga and Uncle Orion didn't comment negatively when he joined us on the trip to Australia that summer. I thought it was too good to be true, and it turns out, surprise, surprise, I was right."

Andromeda released a hollow laugh. "I had genuinely believed that Lyra liked Ted —or maybe, I had fooled myself into thinking that— but, she doesn't. She had only been pretending. I suppose she's good at acting like she is good at everything else. Including commanding attention, gathering the sympathy of all and making everyone think that she's the sole victim in the entire situation. No-one asked her to be 'perfect'. She did that all on her own. And blaming us for her misery was not okay and I hate her for making everyone believe, even momentarily, that it was."

Andromeda walked towards the exit but paused her steps below the archway and whispered, "It's always about Lyra, isn't it? She barged in and made everything about her. Now everyone is sad and nobody will care when I announce that I'm pregnant."

Regulus' eyes widened. "You are—"

Andromeda stalked out of the parlour and stomped up the stairs before Regulus could offer his congratulatory remarks. Ted rushed to follow her.

Regulus gazed around the room, now consisting of both sets of his grandparents only. Neither pair looked like they cared about Andromeda's happy surprise.

Regulus had never been more confused. "Can someone tell me what's going on?" He questioned, irritation intertwining his tone.

Pollux did.

Regulus found it hard to string words in order to express his thoughts and emotions after listening to the tale.

"Wow," he finally breathed out in horror. "I had thought that the trip to Australia had just been another historical venture that father took us to every summer," Regulus whispered. "I had thought that my parents were distraught by Lyra's absence and that's why they had invited all of you with us— to fill the void. I had thought that that picture was just another of the many, stupid pictures we took to save those moments in time. I— I hadn't realised that Bellatrix and Lyra weren't invited because since they have gotten or are getting married, they wouldn't be part of this family anymore."

"Those are the reasons why we joined you, your parents and brother in Australia, love," Melania softly insisted. "This has absolutely nothing to do with Bellatrix or Lyra's marriages. Your grandfather and I personally asked Bellatrix to join us but when she learnt that Ted was coming along, she refused. And Lyra had left only a few days prior. We couldn't have possibly pulled her out of the journey that she'd only barely begun."

"But we could have postponed the trip. We could have informed her about it, at the very least! Merlin, she must think we all purposely excluded her from the rest of the family and given how all of us collectively behaved, I can't blame her. I didn't tell her anything regarding the troubles the Court was facing because I didn't want her to worry or believe that I couldn't handle the legacy she so jovially had entrusted to me. I didn't want to write to her with bad news and make her believe that I was using her for advice or making her run the Court for me. I— I didn't want to burden her with my problems, not when I knew she was dealing with bigger issues and had worn this heavy crown for far too long. I know Narcissa felt the same way. Perhaps, that's why father and mother didn't write to her about Lady Avery's demise as well. They didn't want to weigh her down. It's rather ironic, isn't it, how we've weighted her down by doing nothing, than what we could have done by weighing her with everything?"

"At least the four of you have excuses," Arcturus interjected with a bitter laugh, pouring one of Ogden's finest into a tall glass until it touched the rim. "I told her that that picture, one of the many, silly ones we took in Australia, was a family portrait. I'm not even sure why I said that, it was a slip of tongue but now, the damage has been done, hasn't it? I can never withdraw my statement, no matter how much I want to, and the expression she carried when I did will haunt my nightmares. I'm tempted to run off to the Arabian Desert and salvage every grain of sand to find a genie lamp. I know precisely what my three wishes would be— all of them involve Lyra, all of them involve going back in time." He clutched the glass of firewhiskey and raised it in a toasting motion. "Here's to apathy. Cheers." Arcturus gulped the contents in one go and instantly poured himself another glass and repeated the process in a seemingly immortal cycle.

Regulus scrunched up his face. Then, he swivelled to face his grandfather Pollux, the only person who seemed grounded, and asked, "Sirius is not here. Where is Sirius? Did he leave before I arrived?"

"Sirius wasn't there during..." Pollux trailed off as if it brought him pain to continue. Then, he cleared his throat and answered Regulus' initial question. "Sirius is at the Potters, I believe," He echoed the words Kreacher had already told Regulus while laying a comforting hand on a motionless Irma's shoulders.

"I'll be there as well. Sirius deserves to know what happened. So do James, Aunt Dorea and Uncle Charlus," Regulus announced. Without waiting for a response, something he wasn't going to get anyway considering the distraught state of his family members, he marched to the floo.

Lyra felt numb as her feet planted themselves onto the familiar yet distant, cold marble tiles of the Malfoy Manor, which had been grandly decked in celebration of Yule the next day, but she couldn't force herself to be appreciative of that. Lucius had a hand on her back like he was guiding and grounding her, something she was grateful for.

"I think I want to wash my face before I meet your parents," Lyra could hear herself say. "Is it alright if I use your bathroom?"

She felt Lucius nod his head behind her as he retracted his hand. Lyra mourned for the loss of warmth. "That's a good idea. I'll tell them we arrived until then."

Lyra started walking in the direction of Lucius' room and subsequently, his attached bathroom. She counted her footsteps, praying the floor wouldn't fall through.

Lyra made her way to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She gripped the sink on the counter and stared at her reflection in the mirror above it. Lyra felt run dry, a sentiment that was emphasised as she spotted the tired, lifeless, rusted-steel eyes she possessed. She was burned-out but couldn't force sympathy for herself.

Lyra tried to convince herself that her words weren't such a big deal, that she hadn't tainted whatever impression her family had of her, that this was just a nightmare she had to get through before waking up.

But Lyra knew delusion when she saw it in the mirror.

And suddenly, she was sobbing uncontrollably.

Lyra had always taken pride in her appearance —the sharp cheekbones, deep dimples, liquid-mercury eyes and wild, black hair— because it spoke of the legacy she carried, of the wonderful people who shared her features, all of whom she loved with her heart.

But now, she had never loathed her appearance more. She clutched the edge of the sink tight enough for her knuckles to turn white as she stared at her reflection. She could see the ripples of her family members in it.

Lyra felt the urge to break the mirror, stopping herself before she could, knowing that Lady Malfoy wouldn't appreciate that and because broken mirrors were bad luck.

As if she needed any more of that.

So, Lyra resumed glaring at her reflection in the mirror, wishing it wouldn't display the truth of her feelings for her to view.

After Lucius finished greeting his parents, giving them a detailed explanation of what had happened and then spent the next hour or so listening to his mother alter between sympathising with Lyra and cursing her family, and his father rant about how aghast he was feeling that the Blacks could take the side of a mudblood over their daughter, Lucius felt exhausted.

Noticing that Lyra still hadn't arrived at the parlour where they were currently sitting, Lucius used it as a reason to excuse himself from hearing his parents' vents, claiming to go check up on her. He doubted his parents realised his absence considering they were deep in their anger.

As he walked up the stairs leading to his bedroom, Lucius found himself growing concerned. It was nearly lunchtime and Lyra still hadn't exited his bedroom. He quickened his pace, hoping nothing bad had happened. In one of the conversations Lucius had had with Regulus, he had been informed that girls take a long time to get ready; but he wasn't sure it would be this long.

When he entered his bedroom, he noticed she wasn't there. The bathroom door, however, was still closed.

Worried, Lucius approached it and proceeded to knock on the oak doors of his bathroom. "Is everything alright, Lyra? You've been in there for quite some time. Should I call mum?"

"No, no, I'm alright, don't worry," came Lyra's muffled voice. "The door's open! Come in, Lucius."

"I don't think that that is appropriate, life. I don't want to intrude on anything."

"I insist, love. I want to show you something."

"...In the bathroom?"

"It's not as odd as it sounds," Lyra defended herself. "Just come in, would you?"

Lucius hesitated. Then, after Lyra repeated her command for him to enter, Lucius held the knob of the door and twisted it, swinging open the door. When his eyes fell on Lyra, his steps halted instantly, mouth dropping.

"Lyra, your hair..." Lucius' voice faded while his eyes widened as he gazed upon Lyra's visage.

Her stormy eyes were rimmed red and the glare of the noon sun was reflected by the wetness of her cheeks. Her formerly dark hair, as black as her namesake, now resembled unruly liquid mercury as it framed her face, tumbling down her back like a silver waterfall.

Lyra beamed at his speechlessness, twirling a strand of the silver locks around her index finger. "What do you think?" She asked nonchalantly and that was when Lucius realised that it didn't matter what he thought.

He wanted to ask her what brought this on. He wanted to ask her why she did it. But the truth was, Lucius already knew, having witnessed both reasons a couple of hours earlier. Forcing a smile, he sincerely commented, "The silver in your hair matches the silver in your eyes. You look lovely."

Lyra visibly brightened, swivelling to face the mirror again and ran her fingers through her hair. "I do, don't I? I didn't think I would like it as much as I do."

"I'm just concerned that if we kiss, people might mistake us for being related though. You look like a female version of me with that hair," Lucius chimed jokingly.

Lyra snorted, not deviating her gaze from her reflection in the mirror. "My parents are second cousins. I've had to deal with a lot of incest-accusatory remarks concerning that. None of it fazes it anymore. But my grandfather would steal my father's dialogue and threaten to hit them with the pointy-edge of a knife if they commented within the hearing ranges of my siblings, cousins or me. He didn't like it when people made fun of our family." Her countenance faltered, the fond look that had bloomed as she reminisced the past wilted into a frown when the word family left her lips.

The atmosphere inside the bathroom transformed into a funeral gloom. Lyra lowered her lashes, suddenly interested in the plethora of hair and face products that littered the counter below the mirror.

Lucius stared at Lyra's desolated disposition through the mirror from where he stood below the archway of the bathroom door, melancholy washing over him, similar to the emotions that had gripped him when Lyra had initially cast her gaze onto the 'family' portrait. Her steady, unflinching, resigned eyes had been fixed onto the picture while his had been locked on hers, concerned and worried.

Lucius had felt awful and angry upon not seeing her face in the family portrait. He couldn't bring himself to imagine how she must have —and was— feeling. Perhaps that's why she had dyed her family's trademark black hair into the Malfoy's characteristic platinum blond. It was a subtle act of rebellion. If they wouldn't consider her family any more, she would grace them with the same treatment.

Lyra, ever observant, spotted his troubled expression in the mirror. Without turning around, she told him with a faint smile that Lucius could see through the mirror, "Stop worrying about me, I'll be okay."

"That's what you don't understand. I can't. I can't stop being concerned because I love you, perhaps even more than myself and I can't help that nor can I make whatever feelings I hold for you abruptly stop. And that love —that stupid, stupid love— it transcends your problems into my problems and your worries into my worries. It will always be that way and it won't pause. Until you are okay, I won't be okay either."

Lyra's smile turned weak as she finally spun to face him before confessing, "I don't think I'm going to be okay." She slid down until her back was rested against the counter, stretching her legs out in front of her. Her stance appeared awkward, considering her messy state in general and the form-fitting, silk black gown she wore.

"And that's completely okay," Lucius assured her, taking a seat on the white marble bathroom tiles beside her, leaning against the bath-tub beside the counter for support. Then, to break the tension, he teasingly accused her, "You're brooding."

Lyra huffed, flipping her silver hair in a manner that tickled his cheek. "I don't brood. I sulk." She paused, adding as an afterthought, "But, attractively."

"Indeed," Lucius agreed, lulling them into tranquillity.

To escape from the suffocating silence, Lucius concentrated on the sounds around them, which wasn't much considering they were still in the bathroom. So, he paid attention to the rhythm of their heartbeats, the low hymns of their breathing and the loud screeches of the white peacocks outside.

"He called me Lyra," Lyra's voice cut-through the quietude like a knife.

"What?"

"The mudblood. Earlier. He called me Lyra. Not Heiress Black. Lyra. I want to kill him for it."

"Don't send in the three-day notice," Lucius advised. "Otherwise, the element of surprise will disappear. My father would be ecstatic to make that mudblood 'mysteriously disappear' for you if you'd like."

"It would be a lovely bonding activity," Lyra mused aloud before she shook her head, smiling faintly. "But it would make Andromeda sad. So no." After a while, Lyra piqued, "I know it's only been a couple of hours, but... I think I want to return to Peru."

Lucius was silent.

"I feel... I feel so, so awful for the things I said earlier. I shouldn't have said them. Everything would have been perfectly fine if I kept my bloody mouth shut. I ruined everything." Lyra's eyes moistened and her voice became thick.

"It wouldn't have been fine," Lucius intoned softly. "Keeping your mouth closed was a temporary solution, Lyra, which would have been immensely self-destructive in the long term."

"But it wouldn't have made them feel bad."

"Maybe they deserve to feel bad for what they did to you."

"But I... I think—" she halted mid-statement, weighing the word. "I feel like I've irreparably damaged the bond that I shared with my family and just torn the tapestry, you know? Even if, miraculously, spring shines on us again, it will be the way it was."

Lyra hugged her legs and buried her face into them. She felt like she was a crumpled up piece of parchment lying in a dusted corner somewhere, which could never be straightened again. Time wouldn't fly, it's like she was paralysed by it. She wanted to rewind it. She hugged her legs tighter, buried herself deeper like she was trying to make herself as small as possible.

"I want to be six again," came Lyra's muffled voice and because Lucius was capable of small mercies, he didn't comment on how it sounded like she was crying. "I want to be six again, and have my biggest worries be if Sirius found out that I ate his share of sweets. I want that to be my biggest guilt, not how much I hate my family. Not how much I made my family hate me."

"They don't hate you," Lucius insisted firmly.

Lyra raised her head and turned to look at him. Trails of tears escaped her eyes. "You don't know that. You don't know that they don't hate me."

"I do. You're Lyra," Lucius stated in a comforting tone. "Nobody can hate you."

"But nobody can love me either." Lyra bitterly laughed.

"I love you."

"You don't count," Lyra said, swivelling away from him to stare at the pastel walls of the bathroom. "It's not about those who stay, it's about those who leave."

"Your family won't leave you, Lyra. They love you."

"You're not them. You don't know that," Lyra repeated, turning back towards him. "I know my anger was justified. I know my feelings are valid. But things would be so much easier if I had bottled it up and tossed it into the endless sea inside my mind. I didn't have to express it. They didn't have to know how I felt. I could have gone on in this masquerade and pretended that their actions didn't bother me. Now, I've shattered our bonds; or at the very least, made things so awkward between us."

"If it gets awkward, let it be awkward," Lucius piqued. "That awkwardness is something they created. You don't owe anyone a performance of being okay when you are not feeling okay so that they can feel better about themselves. If you're afraid to set a boundary with someone because of how they'll negatively react, take it as proof that the boundary is necessary."

"But—" Lyra's voice faded into a sigh, unable to finish whatever she was about to say. Lucius took the opportunity to use a towel hung near the bathtub to rub Lyra's tears. "I just want to run away from all this," she admitted in a whisper after a while. "I want to run and run far away and fool myself into believing that this whole incident never occurred; but I'm afraid that if I do, I'll return later only to find out that the situation has worsened."

"It could also resolve itself," Lucius chimed optimistically, even if it looked like he didn't believe his own words.

Lyra shook her head. "I mean, that's what I did with the whole 'Dark Lord' problem as well, didn't I? I ran away. And then, I deluded myself into believing that time would take it upon itself to solve all my problems, without any effort on my part— that if I run away, I would leave them all behind and they would never be able to catch up. Time, in fact, did solve them, but not in the way that I would have wished it did. The cons out-weighed the pros by kilometres and... and I hate that."

"Understandably." Lucius sighed, reclining himself more against the bathtub. "Time is a mystical thing but..."

"It sucks."

"It does suck," Lucius agreed.

The most romantic thing in the world was feeling understood.

Suddenly, for no particular reason, Lyra began to laugh, nearly hitting her head on the counter when she tossed it back, her platinum hair dancing due to her movements. And seeing her laugh made him laugh and that's how they behaved for the next few minutes, chortling together like insanity was consuming them.

When Lyra's laughter reduced to occasional giggles, she abruptly sobered up, adorning a gaunt expression. Lucius was startled by the sudden change in her countenance.

With brows knitted in concern, he inquired, "What's wrong?"

"What's going to happen when you and I fight?" Lyra prodded in a horrified whisper.

Ignoring her use of when instead of if, Lucius hummed questioningly, asking for a quiet elaboration.

Lyra connected their eyes. "I fought with my family and I ran off with you. When you and I fight, and if I have no family, where am I going to run off to? In one day, my homes have been transformed into houses and my family has become strangers whom I share a bloodline with." She inhaled sharply, like it physically pained those words to leave her mouth. With a shaky voice, she continued to speak, "I don't want us to become silly little fools who told each other their pasts believing that we would be each other's future. Please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognise anywhere."

Lucius hugged her like she was his life-line. Lyra held him like she was afraid he would disappear.

"The moment I let you into my life, into my heart, I don't know how to let you go. I don't want you to let go," Lucius murmured into her silvery hair. "I love you. It doesn't mean we aren't gonna fight, it doesn't mean I'll never get mad at you. No. It means I'm choosing you to be in my life, whatever happens. I want to survive everything in your company."

Lyra was quiet, hanging onto every word like the gardens of Babylon. Sometimes you just have to stay silent because no words can explain what's going on in your heart and mind.

"I can't promise you we won't have disagreements, misunderstandings or arguments because I'm not a seer. I can't tell what the future holds. But I do promise to hold on to you. As long as I can, as long you allow me."

"But what if we hurt each other in the process?" Lyra whispered into his shoulders, leaning into his warmth.

"Then we hurt each other," Lucius stated like it was the simplest thing in the world. "Of course I'll hurt you. Of course, you'll hurt me. Of course, we'll hurt each other; but this is the very condition of coexistence. To become spring means accepting the risk of winter. Of course, we'll fight, Lyra, but we'll make up even better."

Noting how she was still silent, Lucius pulled back, hands on her shoulders as he gazed into her eyes. "Being with you makes caramel taste sweeter, sunsets even prettier and music even more meaningful. You make the stars align for me, Lyra. I'll fight for you. I'll fight beside you. We'll be alright."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Intuition," Lucius responded all-knowingly.

Lyra cracked a small smile at his proclamation. She adjusted herself to rest her head on his shoulder and he instinctively wrapped an arm around her, drawing her closer. Then, she slowly intertwined the fingers of her hand with his. "I've decided something."

"Oh?" Lucius arched a brow. "What is it?"

"I've decided that critical thinking skills are cancelled," Lyra absentmindedly informed him, staring at their linked fingers with a growing smile. "They have now been replaced with the constant desire to hold hands with you."

"That's a wonderful decision," Lucius complimented, resting his head on top of hers.

When Belladonna found them both asleep in the same position later in the evening before dinner, a soft smile graced her disposition; something which grew upon spotting their identical platinum-coloured hair.

Rather than waking them up, she applied warming charms and threw a blanket over them before heading downstairs to her personal study. Nearly everyone in the Black family knew about the heart-breaking events that had occurred that day, mostly because they were present when it occurred.

So, Belladonna took it upon herself to inform the remaining members —specifically, Dorea Potter, someone who she was rather close to— about the true, undistorted version that had happened, if only so she wouldn't receive the false, biased one.