[Chapter Forty-Nine]

After the surprise arrival of her parents, Éponine thought she would find herself in better holiday spirits, but it was quite the opposite. Once she had been confronted by Bellatrix, her stomach had yet to stop churning and her heart rate had yet to cease pounding in her chest. She felt that every move of hers was being watched. If Bellatrix knew about Gian, was it possible that other members of the Black family were aware of it too? What if Bellatrix had told Orion and Walburga, or even Regulus? What would they all make of it?

And to add to her already frazzled state, her parents' appearance wasn't making things any better. In fact, Éponine found herself angry rather than thankful that they were there. While Regulus meant well in inviting them, that was the part that irritated her the most, the fact that Regulus invited them and they took to showing up without any protest. But when she had called on them numerous times, they simply ignored her or told her that they were busy with other matters.

They weren't even married yet and already her parents were listening to Regulus, better than they ever listened to her. She certainly took offence to it because while Regulus was wonderful to think of her, it shouldn't have been him that they listened to. If she requested them to spend the holiday with her, they should have jumped on the opportunity, she was their daughter after all.

Sitting in between Victor and Heloise for dinner, Éponine had to force herself to smile but felt as though her face would begin cracking from the fake expression. She gripped her silverware tightly in her hand as her parents asked her all sorts of questions about Hogwarts, all subjects that she had covered in her letters. Which they would have known if they had bothered reading them.

Bellatrix kept eyeing her from across the table, seated next to her aunt, the only visitor left as if she couldn't spend the holiday with her own husband. And just when she felt as though her heart was going to give out from the added stress, she abruptly pushed back her chair.

The screeching sound of her chair, dragging against the wooden floor, brought all conversations to an end. All eyes fell on Éponine, who was already up on her feet, ready to storm off from the table. However, she had barely turned on her heel everyone seemed to be calling on her to explain what was wrong.

"Éponine, where are you going?" her father questioned, taking to grabbing her by the wrist gently. She shot him a look over her shoulder before snatching her hand away and returning it to her side.

"I'm tired," she said through her teeth, " I just want to go upstairs and lie down. It was nice seeing the two of you, I'll see you maybe sometime around the summer."

While Heloise and Victor appeared taken back by their daughter's words, it was Walburga who frowned first. She reached one of her hands out and placed it on Orion's leg before casting a look in his direction that told him to interfere before things became ugly. But Orion seemed at a lost for words at the moment, while Bellatrix watched things unfold with a grin stretching across her lips.

"Éponine, what has gotten into you?" Heloise attempted to take back control over the situation. "Where have your manners gone? You asked to be excused from the table-"

"Why should I ask either one of you for anything?!"Éponine snapped at her parents. "Where has that gotten me as of late? I'll tell you, absolutely nowhere, Mother. Have you suddenly forgotten that I asked the two of you to spend the holidays with me and both of you said that you would be spending them elsewhere? And then, Regulus asks of you the same and you listen to him?! You listened to him over me!"

Victor rose from his seat with the intention of calming Éponine down, but she was not willing to be silenced anymore.

"Ép-"

"If it's slipped your memory, I'm your daughter!" she continued. "I should come first! I shouldn't have to ask you to spend Christmas with me, Regulus shouldn't have to ask either, you should be willing! I'm not one of your mares that you just raise to sell off to be bred!"

With nothing else that she wanted to say, Éponine left the table as she originally planned and made her way towards the stairs to leave to her room. She could hear everyone besides her parents, telling her to come back but she didn't feel like listening. It seemed that was all she ever did was listen to whatever others told her to do and she was sick of it. Simply because when she asked others to listen to her, it was rare that they ever did.

She managed to make it up a couple of steps when she heard her father calling after her. Just as she went to take another step, Victor caught up to her.

He was red in the face, probably brought on by a mixture of anger and embarrassment at her behaviour but Éponine didn't care.

"Éponine, don't you dare take a step further!" Victor called after her. "You stop right there."

Never in a million years did Éponine believe that she would be so bold to argue with her parents, let alone defy anything they ordered her to do. But at that moment, the gloves were off as she took one step up the stairs and turned to face him again in defiance.

"Have you completely lost your mind?" Victor whispered to her harshly, trying to keep the argument between them and out of the ears of the others back in the dining room. "What has gotten into you this evening? Hmm? Making a scene during dinner-"

"Really?" Éponine interjected. "That's all you took away from everything I just said.  That I was making a scene? You didn't listen to a word I said, did you?! You two brought this on yourselves! All you did was push me away when I needed you the most and then you want to show up out of the blue and act like were some happy family? No, that's rubbish and you know it! Just...go back to France and stay there! I don't need either one of you here, I've been managing things on my own, just like you've been training me."

Éponine went to leave again but she could hear her father coming up the stairs behind her. He was demanding that she make her way back downstairs and apologise to everyone for her rude behaviour.

"You go in there and you apologise to Walburga, Orion-"

"I WON'T!"

Victor had been one step below her when she whipped around and screamed directly in his face. And finally, he stopped.

Meanwhile, back in the dining room, no matter how much Victor believed he had been whispering, everyone heard the two of them going back and forth. Heloise had broken into tears and while Regulus thought his mother was going to go over and console her friend, Walburga remained in her seat. Instead of sympathy, she wore a deadpanned expression, while Orion looked confused.

Regulus took it upon himself to leave the table, noting that his cousin found the whole scenario to be humorous. He would have thought that after all the bonding time shared between Éponine and Bellatrix, that Bellatrix would have shown an ounce of concern of the fighting. All he could hear echoing in his mind was Sirius' warning that Bellatrix was nothing more than a monster driven by her own anger and insanity.

Shaking it off quickly, Regulus walked out of the dining room and approached the main stairs where Éponine was arguing with Victor. He clearly hear Victor telling her to go back to the dining room and apologise for her behaviour, all the while Éponine was trying to get away from him. But just as Regulus was about to tell Victor to leave her alone and give Éponine some space, she took it upon herself.

He watched as Éponine screamed in her father's face and everything fell completely silent for a moment. By the rapid rise and fall of her chest, Éponine was fuming as she glared directly at her father before she turned and hurried up the last bit of stairs. Regulus had seen Éponine's anger before, but he had never witnessed her lose her temper in such a way. Guilt washed over him quickly as he realised that he was the one who had invited Victor and Heloise in the first place.

And while her parents didn't want to hear it, there was truth to Éponine's words. She had called upon them many times, and they had simply brushed her off. But when Regulus got into contact with them, requesting their visit to make Éponine happy, they had readily agreed. Even if they had come out of the goodness of their hearts, wanting to see her, it didn't come across that way to their daughter.

Overall, it was an ugly situation that Regulus felt was brought on by his doing.

He debated back and forth whether he should head to Éponine's room and apologise to her for putting her in such a compromising situation or if he should leave her be for the rest of the night to calm down. But there was little time for debate as he watched Victor suddenly turn to face him, his hand clutching the front of his dress shirt.

"Mr Rosier, are you alright?" Regulus asked, noticing the discomfort on the man's face as Victor attempted to make his way back down. "Mr Rosier?"

His voice brought Éponine's attention back down the stairs, where both teens stood witness to Victor collapsing down the final steps. Immediately, Regulus rushed forward while Éponine raced down the steps to Victor's side.

Victor was rolled onto his back where he was clenching his teeth together, his hand still clutching to his chest, over his left side. His forehead broke out in a cold sweat and he appeared short of breath, leaving Regulus to call to his parents for help.

"Papa?!" Éponine's shrill voice entered the scene. "Papa? What's wrong?!"

Her father didn't seem able to answer the question, so Éponine turned to Regulus for answers. He obviously didn't know either, one more the man had been standing and arguing, the next he was lying on the ground, looking half dead. Regulus could see the fear and immediate regret in Éponine's eyes as they started to pool with tears. She shook her head, begging her father to tell her what was wrong so she could help him.

Heloise was the first adult to arrive on the scene, rushing over to where her husband was on the floor. But as soon as she noticed Victor's state, her focus suddenly fell on Éponine.

"What did you do?!" Heloise yelled at her.

"I didn't do anything-"

Éponine was shoved away roughly from her father's side and it looked as though Heloise was going to go in for a hit when she was stopped by Orion grabbing her by the wrist and holding her in place. Regulus was up on his feet, making his way over to help Éponine up and stand before her so that her mother couldn't get to her.

Walburga and Bellatrix weren't far behind and as Walburga was left to handle Heloise, Orion took to aiding Victor, claiming that he needed to get him to St Mungo's as soon as possible. In mere seconds, the two men were ripped from the scene, leaving Éponine and Regulus with Walburga, Heloise, and Bellatrix.

"What did you do to him?!" Heloise continued to cry in her daughter's direction. "What did you do, Éponine?"

According to the Healers of St Mungo's, Victor Rosier had nearly died on Christmas Day, after suffering a near-fatal heart attack. He had been lucky to arrive just in time for them to help him or he would have been a goner. With such news looming over her head, Éponine didn't know what to make of the situation. Her mother was throwing out the accusation that she had done something to Victor out of anger. But Éponine hadn't even touched a single hair on the top of her father's head and Regulus could confirm that as a witness.

"For the last time, she didn't touch him," Regulus growled after being questioned for what felt like the millionth time since they had been brought to St Mungo's. "All she did was yell at him because he wanted her to go apologise. That's all. Éponine would never hurt her father, no matter how angry she was at him. She didn't even have a wand on her."

"I believe you," Walburga said quietly as she sat next to him, " I think Heloise is just in hysterics over all of it. She doesn't know what she's saying right now."

"This is all my fault," Regulus sighed with a shake of his head, " I should have never invited them here in the first place. But Éponine mentioned that she wanted to spend the holidays with them, but I guess I didn't see how it would look. They wouldn't listen to her, they only came when I asked. Why would they do that?"

Walburga pursed her lips together for a moment. "You are to be Éponine's husband soon enough and that means you will make the decisions of the household, Regulus. You will get the say of who comes over during which times. You mustn't blame your-"

"No," Regulus cut her off sternly, " that's not how things are going to be. That's not how I want things to be. All decisions are going to be made by both of us, not just me."

He looked down the way where Éponine stood with a Healer, nervously biting on her thumbnail as the Healer discussed her father's condition further with her. She was nodding her head to everything, using her other hand to wipe away stray tears that fell. Regulus looked back to his mother before pushing himself up.

"If you would excuse me, Mother," he said, receiving a nod from her before he headed down the corridor.

As the Healer walked away, Éponine stood by herself for a moment. He could see that her body was visibly shaking and yet, her mother wasn't there to comfort her as she should have been. Instead, Heloise had told her own daughter to get out of Victor's room while he was at rest.

She spotted him walking over and looked down to the floor in apparent shame. "I'm sorry," she began, " I...I don't know...I didn't mean..."

Regulus didn't want to hear her apologise because he didn't think she had done anything wrong. So rather than letting her continue, he swiftly moved in and pulled her into a hug. It seemed to be the best thing to do as Éponine started bawling into his shoulder.

"I was just angry!" she managed to get out in between sobs. "I didn't want him to get hurt! I swear, I didn't want anything to happen, I just wanted them to be sorry for how they made me feel. But I didn't hurt him, I swear! I didn't touch him! I only screamed, I only scr-"

"Shh, Épi, stop," Regulus whispered, holding her tighter to muffle her cries, " I know you didn't do anything. You don't have to be sorry, you don't have to be anything right now...it's alright."

His words seemed to offer enough comfort that Éponine settled in his arms, a few sniffles escaping her here and there. But as he was holding her, his mind decided it was the best time to take a stroll down memory lane.

He knew all she had done was scream and according to the Rosier Family Rumour, that was enough.