[Chapter Thirty-Seven]

While Éponine thought she was going to be up all night wearing the stupid grin on her face that refused to go anywhere, she eventually did fall asleep, entering a full night of pleasant dreams. Sharing her first kiss had been quite unexpected, sharing it in the Hospital Wing had only added to the surprise, but having Regulus kiss her back, well, it was enough for her to believe that she could take on the world. Still, there were thoughts in the back of her head, moments where she remembered some of the horrible things that Regulus had said to her in the past, but she couldn't deny how hard Regulus had been trying in the recent months.

Since their forced summer together, he had been doing everything to get to know her and convince her that he wasn't as terrible as he had come across to her initially. Éponine finally understood where a lot of his anger had come from and while he had taken it out on her, it hadn't meant for her initially. Instead, one of the boys that she had deemed to be so perfect in her mind over the years, was possibly one of the most shattered souls she had come across. Behind the calm and composed exterior, Regulus was always calling out for some form of help.

He was the victim of a picture-perfect family that told different stories behind the frame.

Of all the families that were inside the social circle, the Black family always had to keep this facade that nothing was ever wrong and it had taken a toll on all the family members. Regulus had been the one to witness it all, he was able to see both sides of where his family had been split down in the middle. He had been a witness to Sirius leaving, he understood why his brother felt the need to leave, but he also understood why his parents had spoken to his older brother the way they did, why they expected more from Sirius but were left disappointed in some way.

Unfortunately, all that weight of expectations that had once been evenly distributed between the two brothers, all came to rest on Regulus' shoulders and under pressure he had lashed out. It wasn't an excuse, but it was an understanding that Éponine came to understand the more time she and Regulus were in the company of one another. All the time she thought that she was trying to make an impression for another family, they were trying to do the same for everyone else.

She understood that pressure plenty, the same pressure that her parents had placed on her from the time when she was so young that she didn't even know what a surname was. Being born into the families was always viewed as a privilege to many that wanted inside the social group, but to those that were actually living in it, growing up under the expectations, it was something short of a nightmare a lot of the time.

It only worked if one was able to find someone that they could confide in and perhaps lean on when the pressure became too much. In a way, it was what Regulus and Éponine were finding in each other.

So perhaps, people would never understand why Éponine had given Regulus another chance when he had been quite cruel to her in the beginning, a source of the insecurities she was still fighting to that day. But holding grudges never seemed to work in her favour either and if she was to marry him, only fighting back and forth would leave them absolutely miserable. Maybe she didn't expect for their friendship to blossom into what it did at the rate it did, but she was thankful for it.

It had been what drove her to kiss him first inside the Hospital Wing, the fact that he had been so determined to catch her off guard with a real first kiss and had been defeated twice, it just gave her the boost she needed. She remembered how much she had wanted him to kiss her earlier before he had kissed her eye and that was all she needed at the time. And no offence to Emmarentia, but her first kiss with Regulus would be the most memorable in her mind.

When she had kissed Emmarentia for the first time, she found it difficult to continue with because she felt nothing. It was nothing against the girl, she was beautiful and she had such a strong personality, but there was nothing that kept Éponine wanting to share in another one with her. With Regulus, she kissed him and wanted to kiss him again. When he kissed her in the corridors on their way back to the Common Room, she could have been killed a second later and died happily.

Emmarentia had noticed the foolish grin on her face when Éponine returned to the dorms and she didn't need to hear anything to know what had happened. There was a slight bitterness to her expression initially, but eventually, she let out a small sigh and asked Éponine how was it. She kept a patient face the entire time Éponine gushed about it, practically squealing as she fell back onto her bed with a happy smile. Despite everything around her and what she had been through Éponine managed to remain a pure soul to Emmarentia and she hoped that by her and Regulus being together, it would remain that way.

The last person that ever deserved to be hurt in the world was Éponine Rosier.

The next morning, Éponine was looking forward to breakfast as she had plans to sit with Regulus, although that had been their routine long before he had extended the invitation. She awoke early and decided to head to the Great Hall. She didn't think that Regulus would be there and it would give her a chance to make her cup of tea without facing judgement every time she added milk to it. However, after she was showered, dressed, and entered the Great Hall a half hour later, she found Regulus already seated at the Slytherin table, by himself.

It didn't look like he got any sleep the night before, but not for any good reasons. In fact, to Éponine he looked terribly troubled and that left her completely nervous. She wondered if he was just being nice the night before and he was waiting to tell her that he truly didn't want anything to do with her. It was probably silly for her to be filled with so much self-doubt in those moments, but she couldn't help it. With everything running as smoothly as it had been since their arrival at Hogwarts, she had to assume that something was going to go wrong between them.

Approaching the table slowly, she was picking at the skin at the top of her hands nervously, trying to prepare herself for what was about to come. When she came upon the spot where Regulus was sitting, she took the open spot across from him and settled down. She sat for a few moments, waiting for him to acknowledge her presence, but he did no such thing as he seemed too lost in his own thoughts.

After a couple of minutes, she cleared his throat, but he still didn't react, leaving her to look around in confusion. There was a short span of time where she wondered if he had suddenly lost his hearing overnight especially as she let out several coughs. Still, Regulus didn't look up and Éponine figured that she was being ignored for the time being.

However, she honestly didn't like the idea of being ignored, especially when she didn't know what was wrong. So, rather than just walking away, Éponine started rolling up her sleeves to her robes. She looked back and forth at her two hands before looking back at Regulus, giving him one more chance to look at her, but he was still stuck.

"Alrighty then," she muttered to herself before slamming both hands on the table, "  HELLO, REGULUS!"

Regulus let out a screech and could only be thankful that they were the only two in the Great Hall as he fell back off the bench and right onto the floor. With a slight grimace on her face, Éponine stood up and leaned over the table to look down at him, seeing the look on his face.

"Sorry," she said with a sheepish grin, " and good morning. Now, were you purposely ignoring me or did you honestly not hear me?"

Regulus pushed himself up to his feet, brushing his robes off before shooting her an apologetic look.

"No, I'm sorry," he said, " I wasn't ignoring you, I swear. I was just thinking to myself, seems I got lost along the way."

"Are you alright? You look a bit peaky, did you get any sleep last night? Last I saw, you were talking to Severus, did he keep you long?"

Regulus motioned Éponine to sit down with him, but he didn't want her to be sitting across the way, so she watched as he crawled under the table and came to sit beside her. She wore a hint of a smile at his actions, only he found little to smile about at the time, merely because he had not been able to sleep the night before because of what Severus had told him after she left. The entire night he laid awake in bed, thinking about what Severus had proposed, becoming a lackey or rather yet, a follower of the Dark Lord. And while he thought it over and over, it really did seem like the only way he could protect his family the way he wanted to.

Maybe his parents had given up hope on Sirius and Regulus didn't think his big brother was going to come home, but at the same time, he didn't want Sirius to get hurt either. If he could protect Sirius, his parents, his friends, Éponine, that was all he really wanted.

"Regulus?" Éponine interjected in his thoughts once more as he didn't answer her previous questions. "Are you alright?"

"I spoke with Severus for a little bit last night," he said in a low tone, a clear sign that it was meant to only be discussed between the two of them at the time. " He was discussing the possibility of following the Dark Lord-"

He stopped as soon as he watched her eyes widen drastically in a matter of a second. It was obvious that she didn't like the sound of it, but she hadn't let him finish.

"He said that if I made a good impression that the Dark Lord would probably see me as a good follower. My cousin, Bellatrix, she's already prided herself in becoming one of his most loyal. "

"I-I'm afraid, I'm afraid I don't understand, Regulus," Éponine whispered to him in return, " what would be the purpose of joining him and his followers?

"Do you not follow his beliefs?" Regulus countered instead of answering her questions.

"No," she admitted honestly, " I do not follow his beliefs. They are too extreme for my liking and I would think they would be the same for you. He kills people, Regulus, it's been all over the news in recent times. I don't agree that Muggle-borns should attend Hogwarts, but I don't believe they deserve death. They have no control over what they are born into, just like we had no control over being born into our families. I believe in separation, not murder. What he believes in is killing, will you be willing to kill people if he tells you to?"

Killing people had never crossed his mind at any point, but Regulus knew that he would never be capable of taking another life, no matter the circumstances, it just wasn't in his character. Éponine did bring up fair points that the Dark Lord was notorious for taking lives, especially of those that got in his way. She was right in many respects, knowing that he would never be able to take a life and knowing that the views were far beyond what they believed in.

"No," he answered, "I wouldn't be willing."

"Then why are you considering this all of a sudden?" she asked. "Why would you even give it a second thought? Because of Bellatrix?"

"Because of Sirius," Regulus told her, leaving it to fall silent for a few moments as he stared down at a scratch in the wooden table. Using his nails, he picked at it repeatedly, knowing that she was staring at him.

"I'm not following your logic," she said to him, " I'm sorry. But what does Sirius have to do with you wanting to become a follower of the Dark Lord? Your brother supports those that the Dark Lord hates-"

"That's exactly it," he interrupted, " that's exactly why I would join. To keep Sirius safe. If I become a loyal follower, I can probably intervene if it ever came down to it. If it were to happen that the Dark Lord did gain the power he wanted, Sirius would be in trouble. I don't care about the others, like his friends, but I do care about him. I don't want him to get hurt and since he's too stubborn to abandon his beliefs, it might be my only way of protecting him-"

"Regulus, listen to yourself, please. There is no way that you becoming a follower would guarantee Sirius' safety. I know you care about him, believe me, I know you do and I think it's...noble and sweet that you want to protect him, but this is not the way to do it. It's only putting yourself in danger, what do you think the Dark Lord would do to you if you refused to do something he asked of you? What...what if it came down to the idea that he wanted you to kill Sirius because he's a blood-traitor?"

It was clear that Regulus didn't consider such a thing as a wave of horror washed over his face and he quickly shook his head, not even contemplating the idea of being asked to take his brother's life. It never mattered how much Sirius angered him or hurt him, he could never bring himself to ever bring harm to his brother.

"There are other ways, " Éponine said placing one of her hands over his, " there are always other ways, it's just a matter of coming up with all of them and thinking them through. Don't listen to the likes of Severus, he's just a bitter and damaged soul. Only last year he was hanging around a muggle-born himself, Lily Evans, and now that she's stopped being his friend, he's been on this hype train, trying to recruit others? His heart is not in the right place, but yours is, Regulus.  As much as it pains you not to have Sirius around, I know you still care about him and it shows that you're willing to do so much for him, so there have to be other ways."

"But what are the other ways, Épi? How can I keep him safe? He only wants me to leave everything behind and join him, but I can't do that. And he refuses to come home because it's basically the same thing for him. How is this supposed to work?"

Éponine thought about what he was telling her and after a minute or so of trying to come up with the right thing to say, she turned to him. He was sitting so close to her at the time, mainly because they wanted to keep the conversation solely between them, but with him sitting so close, she was practically forced to look him in the eye for a few seconds.

"You build a bridge, Regulus," she answered, seeing the confusion sweep across his face.

"You mean like build a bridge and get over it?" he asked, a slightly offended tone to his voice if that were the cast.

A warm smile appeared on her lips as she shook her head. "No, Regulus, not in the sense of getting over it. But a bridge works to connect two sides. Right now, you are one side, Sirius is on the other, you're separated...but the bridge you two build is an understanding. You two don't have to agree on everything but if you build a bridge and meet in the middle, you two can reach an understanding and hold mutual respect for one another."

"I don't think Sirius would ever meet me halfway through-"

"I think he would," Éponine argued, " if he wanted nothing to do with you, he would have given up long ago, Regulus. But you mean something to him and he means something to you. It's worth a shot, don't you think? It's better than forcing yourself to follow a man you don't believe in. It's a leap, I know-"

"One where I can just land flat on my face," he grumbled.

"No, that's not possible, because even if you do fall after jumping, I'll be right there to catch you," she said, "so you might fall, but I won't let you hit rock bottom."