The next morning, Éponine was surprised to find herself waking up feeling well-rested. After such a confrontational day with Regulus the day before, she figured her night would be plagued with nightmares, but it was quite the opposite actually. For the first time in what felt like forever, her dreams returned. Although, the fact that they all revolved around Regulus revealed her conflicting feelings surrounding the situation. His confession the night before had unravelled into a dream where she and Regulus were happy together.

The scene of the two of them sitting by a fireplace, reading a book together, and nothing more. Éponine was positioned in his lap, her back leaning against his chest, while Regulus read contently over her shoulder. There were no mentions of the Dark Arts, Death Eaters, Pureblood traditions or anything of the sort, it was just the two of them, sharing in blissful peace. Every so often, he would lift one of his hands and play with a lock of her hair or whisper something in her ear that brought her to smile.

It seemed rather domestic, quite the opposite of the dreams she had when she was younger when it came to travelling the world. She still wanted to do those things, maybe with the added idea of coming home to Regulus at the end of her trips or maybe have him accompany her to various parts of the world. However, as she woke up in the darkness of the dorm, Éponine realised just how far out of reach those current dreams were.

Regulus had a long way to go before any dreams of them being together were even plausible.

With the Slytherin Common Room and Dorms located under the Black Lake, Éponine and the other students didn't wake up to the luxury of sunlight, but rather a dark or dimly lit area. It made it difficult for those who weren't morning people, to begin with, find the motivation to get out of bed when it still seemed relatively dark outside. But as her dormmates stirred, Éponine quickly pushed herself out of bed and gathered her things to get ready for the day.

While having access to the Prefects' Bathroom, Éponine didn't feel like making her way all the way to the fifth floor in order to take a shower and brush her teeth. Instead, she gathered her uniform and robes, before heading to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later when she finished in the shower, she used her wand to dry her hair and found an empty sink with a mirror to continue getting ready.

Toulouse made his way into the bathroom as well, jumping up the sink to drink some of the running water. He purred in greeting to Éponine while she petted him over several times. And just as she was preparing to put some lipstick, she paused slightly when she saw Emmarentia enter the bathroom.

They made eye contact for a split second before Emmarentia looked away first. And while Éponine could at least escape Regulus in the girls' dorm, she couldn't escape from seeing Emmarentia on a daily basis. She could remember how terribly awkward it had been back in fifth year after she had smacked Emmarentia in the face after the girl decided to expose Éponine in the worst way possible. At the time, Éponine had been furious because she had confided in Emmarentia, who claimed she would be there for her friend, even if times grew tough. Only to completely turn around when Éponine needed her most.

Emmarentia had created a false sense of security, telling Éponine that they would have each other.

As time went on, Éponine understood why Emmarentia had done it. Perhaps Emmarentia wasn't looking to betray her, but she was too afraid to do anything else in that moment of time. For someone that had preached so much about confidence and not following what other people told her to do, it was obvious that Emmarentia didn't fully believe in her own spoken gospel. It was easier said than done. But Éponine thought for a girl who killed her own father to protect her mother, that Emmarentia would have been more willing to leave Toujours Pur behind.

Since then, Emmarentia's portrayal of a goddess had deteriorated. She mostly hid herself away outside of classes, didn't bother raising her hand in class, and whenever Éponine came around, Emmarentia would quickly scurry off. Part of Éponine wanted to feel sorry for her, knowing it wasn't easy growing up with such ideals, knowing it wasn't as easy as waking up one morning to fight the patriarchy and traditional upbringings.

But the feelings of betrayal still lingered because if it hadn't been for Sirius and the others taking Éponine in, she would have found herself alone with no support. Who knew where she would have ended up then?

Brushing those thoughts aside, Éponine ignored Emmarentia's existence and continued to get herself ready.

Later on, in the Great Hall, Éponine helped herself to a large breakfast to make up for the fact that she didn't eat much at dinner the night before. She looked over her timetable after Professor Slughorn had passed them around at the Slytherin table, and saw that she had Care of Magical Creatures first. It was a class that she kept even passed her O.W.L.s that many didn't bother continuing with and while she wasn't looking for a career to deal with creatures on a regular basis, she always found herself somewhat relaxed in the class.

The year before, she had been approached by Professor Slughorn, as Head of the Slytherin House, to discuss what she planned on doing career-wise when she left Hogwarts. It was a conversation that all the older students were having, in order to narrow down the classes and marks needed to proceed. However, Éponine didn't have much of an idea of what she wanted to do.

Professor Slughorn told her that nothing was ever permanent, that if she chose something and didn't like it, she could always look to do something else. While reassuring, it still didn't help narrow anything down for her. In the end, Éponine randomly chose that she wanted to become a Curse-Breaker, just to take the pressure off of her shoulders. Slughorn agreed that it sounded like a good professor for her and that she was on the right track with her performance in Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Transfiguration.

But Éponine kept her schedule full, keeping her loyalty to History of Magic, Care of Magical Creatures, and Herbology.

Of course, Gian did not share the same love for History of Magic, claiming that one, Professor Binns had a monotone voice that easily put him to sleep, and he was terrible at remembering specific dates of historical events. And it was just his luck that he had to suffer through a double block of History of Magic first that morning.

Éponine wished him all the luck in the world to make it through when the bell finally rang and it was time for them to part ways. She swore she could still hear the boy sobbing in the corridors, long after she had made her way outside.

Professor Kettleburn greeted the students as they arrived at the outdoor classroom that mostly consisted of sitting stones that wrapped around in a circle. Éponine could see that the professor was missing another couple of fingers after the summer holiday and wondered just how long he was going to last at a professor at the rate he was losing body parts. After her initial greeting, she took a seat on one of the stones, curious as to what they would be doing that morning, only to become instantly distracted by Regulus approaching the area.

She shouldn't have been that surprised to see him, after all, they shared plenty of the same classes being in the same year and the same house. However, after her dreams from the night before and not seeing him at breakfast during the morning, it was like seeing him for the first time all over again. But she quickly snapped herself out of such a state and looked away, pretending to be completely occupied with some moss that was growing on a tree.

Regulus took a seat all the way across from her, putting as much distance between them as possible. It seemed she had finally driven her point home the night before. And after several other students from different houses came to join them, Professor Kettleburn got the lesson underway.

For the first day back to keep things simple and fun, they would be grooming unicorn foals.

But as fate would have it, there was a catch. There wasn't a foal for every student, meaning they would be pairing up in groups of two's. Éponine didn't stand the slightest chance as the other students quickly paired themselves off, leaving her with only one option.

For a moment, she looked up to the sky in disbelief. "What did I do to deserve this? Haven't I been put through enough?"

She received no answer except the fact that Regulus was making his way over to the only remaining colt and before Professor Kettleburn could tell her to get a move on, she walked over as well.

While magic could be used to complete the simplest of tasks, Professor Kettleburn always reiterated that there was nothing wrong with doing things by hand. In order to form a bond with creatures, grooming proved to be a very therapeutic practice for both the creature and person. Grabbing a curry comb, Éponine approached the colt to start.

She was quite familiar with grooming horses, remembering a time where she had groomed plenty of her father's prized studs back home. But even her father's most expensive Hanoverian could not compare to the beauty of a unicorn. At the foal stage, unicorns' coats were gold in colour, only to turn silver when they reached the age of two.

The foals were the safest to work with as adult unicorns had a tendency to dislike men, and it was said that only a woman had a chance to tame a unicorn. However, as Éponine and Regulus worked in silence, the colt they were working on, seemed to take every opportunity to try and turn his head to bite Regulus.

Each time, Regulus would jump back, looking slightly offended that the colt had a personal vendetta against him. Éponine bit down on her tongue to keep herself from laughing each time. At one point, she decided to intervene.

"You're doing it wrong," she told Regulus, "that's why he keeps trying to bite you."

Regulus shot her a look, probably wondering why she was even attempting to help him after she practically told him to go to hell the night before. He ignored her and continued to do what he was doing until the colt finally managed to bite him.

"Ow!"

As Regulus nursed his bitten hand, Éponine made her way over to his side. "First off, you're using the wrong tool.  You can't use a shedding blade the way you use a curry comb that's painful."

"I'm sorry, are you talking to me? Last time we spoke, you made it clear that we weren't talking to one another," he replied bitterly as his hand throbbed. "You could see where I would be confused-"

"I'm not talking to you for the sake of talking to you. I'm doing it for the sake of the colt you're torturing by doing things wrong. No wonder he bit you, I would too."

"Would you?" he countered.

Ignoring his comment, Éponine shoved her own curry comb into his injured hand causing him to whimper. "Use this, and brush in circles. It's supposed to work as a massage as well while stimulating natural oils. The shedding blade should move in one direction and shouldn't be used directly on any bony part. Unless you want to get bit again."

A teasing smirk formed on his lips. "Are we talking about the colt again or you?"

After the way things ended the night before between them, Regulus was in shock that Éponine went out of her way to help him, even if it was for the sake of the unicorn. She looked beautiful that morning, proving to be a hard enough distraction to actively focus on the task at hand. And it didn't help that as she stood next to him, the smell of her perfume was intoxicating. She didn't seem impressed by his appearance though, not even bothering to look at him unless she was glaring in his direction over a comment he made.

But he also couldn't help himself, it wasn't her anger that he found attractive, but rather the way she looked at him. At least she was looking at him instead of pretending that he didn't exist.

His latest cheeky comment didn't earn him a glare, but rather, she grabbed his injured hand with the comb and started directing him on how to properly use the curry comb on the colt. His entire body tensed under her touch.

"Your hand is freezing," he whispered, placing his other hand over hers. She didn't pull away immediately, just staring at their hands that rested on the colt. Finally, she seemed to come out of the little trance she entered and pulled her hand back, allowing the curry comb to fall to the ground.

"My hands have always been cold."

"I know, I remember."

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