• Regulus Black •

„You are summer
to my winter heart."

Regulus hardly listened when Professor McGonagall told the class about Animagi, although he had sworn to his mother that his grades would be even better this year. But he simply couldn't concentrate, not when Camille sat exactly one row in front of him and her perfume rose to his nose every time she tossed back her silky hair.

The young Black could still clearly remember how a wide smile had crept onto his lips when he had spotted the cheering blonde during the Quidditch match. They had been so close that day and now she seemed so far away again.

Their lips had almost touched, missing by mere inches, maybe millimetres, when they had parted and Camille had looked at him almost similarly startled out of her turquoise eyes. Almost...

"Miss Malfoy, you go to Mr Black," the professor finally brought him out of his thoughts in her parting stern voice. "Mr Avery, you go to Miss McDonald and so on. Every other seat in the row slides back one. Get to work!"

Restless, Regulus' eyes darted around the room. What had just happened? He cursed himself for not paying attention to his teacher and now not knowing why his best friend was leaving him. Exasperated, he nudged Alaric as he stood up. "What shall we do?"

"Partner work, Reg. Where have you been with your thoughts again?" he replied reprovingly, but an amused smirk played around his thin lips, for he had long been used to this behaviour from him.

Regulus sighed and watched his class partially change their seats as Camille sat down right next to him. He had almost forgotten that fact. He felt the excitement creep into his throat and form a dense lump there. Don't be an idiot, he thought, and almost choked on his own spit at the same moment. "Hey, there."

"Regulus," the blonde greeted him with a nod of her head, her scent hitting his nose once more. Without another glance from her turquoise eyes at him, she turned to the task at hand, nibbling at her quill as if she was as uncomfortable with the moment as he was.

The dark-haired boy risked a surreptitious glance at her neatly sweeping handwriting on the parchment and almost groaned inwardly, for the assignment sounded elaborate, very much so, and seemed almost impossible to accomplish in just the remaining hour.

Describe on 5 rolls of parchment the phases of human transformation and enumerate possible risks that could occur in case of a mistake and how they could be prevented.

As if Camille had read his mind, she looked up with a cautious smile. "As if McGonagall would have guessed it, right?" she asked with a smirk, laughing abruptly brightly. "How fitting that we'll be seeing a lot of each other during the holidays anyway."

"Do we?" inquired Regulus uncertainly, shifting uneasily in his chair. It seemed to him that it was more uncomfortable than in the lessons before, but perhaps this was just in his head, like so many of his unpleasant thoughts.

Her eyebrows furrowed before she raised one of them. "Well, Lucius and Narcissa's wedding will likely involve more festivities and preparations than the mere ceremony."

"Yeah..." he agreed meekly with her, staring uncertainly at the pretty pureblood. He hadn't the faintest idea what she was getting at. Of course he knew that his dearest cousin's wedding would take place in a few weeks and of course Camille would be there. Were her words an allusion to the fact that she was looking forward to seeing him often during the holidays?

Contrite, the blonde looked at him. "You weren't listening, were you?"

"No, not really... I'm sorry," Regulus finally admitted with a sigh and tried an apologetic smile, which she immediately dismissed with a fleeting wave of her hand, "We've been through this, you don't have to apologise, not for something like that. The assignment..." she shoved the work assignment under his nose and tapped it with her long slender index finger, "isn't due until after New Year, which means it wouldn't be a problem for us to work on it together during the holidays too."

"Ahh..." A little disappointed, Regulus turned to the book on his desk, for it seemed that this was indeed a long-term task. However, his joy that Camille had chosen her words merely to express that she was looking forward to celebrating with him vanished. She had only talked about how practical it was because of their school work. At least his mother would be delighted...

The young Black also began to dedicate himself to the task, after all, he did not want to disappoint his partner. Lost in thought, he ran his fingers over the dark cover of his transformation book before finally opening it and trying in vain to concentrate while Camille sat close beside him, almost threatening to drive him out of his mind.

Regulus carried his heavy textbooks under his arm as he, along with Alaric and Evan, climbed back from a short trip out of the library, down into the dungeons. On second thoughts, he would have preferred to stay there, for it had become so cold in the dungeon corridors by now that they could see their breath evaporating in the form of little white clouds in front of them.

Before they reached this step of the huge castle, however, a group of younger students blocked their way on one of the stairs in front of the great hall. "Give us some room, you little shits," Evan grumbled at the Ravenclaws, giving them such a scowl that most of them actually backed away, at least except for one of them. "You're probably looking for me, aren't you?"

Thunderstruck, the three Slytherins stared into the young smug face of Gilderoy Lockhart, which was framed by golden curls. Goldilocks, as Regulus liked to call him. "If they were looking for you, Lockhart, it was only to hex you to the moon," remarked a belligerent voice whose owner was descending the stairs behind them.

Dawson was accompanied by his posse, with whom he liked to roam the corridors at night and get into mischief, with him in the lead, of course. Regulus knew that Evan also liked to join them once in a while and secretly leave his bed at night.

In fact, for an abrupt moment, the second-grader looked so intimidated that the young Black almost felt sorry for him. But only almost, because the next moment he was waving some kind of newspaper in the older boys' faces. "You should feel honoured that I was going to offer you to be in the next article in the school newspaper!"

Daniel Rockwood, one of Dawson's little friends, snatched up the gossip rag with a swift wave of his hand and tore it in two with a dirty grin. "If I tell Professor Flitwick, or no, better Professor Dumbledore!" indignant Lockhart said. His face was now adorned with dark red blotches that hardly looked healthy and his blue eyes had contorted into slits. "You're lucky I have enough specimens left..."

"Regulus, how about you explain to the little half-breed how we normally treat his kind," Dawson interrupted him, giving the addressed man an expectant look. His expression was one of spite, perhaps he did not expect him to actually answer. It was a test Regulus was capable of passing.

"Half-breeds are scum," he quoted his mother, who had said those words often enough that they had finally burned themselves into his memory. They sounded monotonous to his ears, as if memorised and replayed, but the seventh grader seemed satisfied. But not so much that he left him alone, on the contrary. "If you want me to put in a good word for you with the Dark Lord, you're going to have to get a little more creative than that."

Regulus exchanged a cursory glance with Alaric, who looked like he wanted to hex Dawson to the moon, not little Lockhart. Evan, on the other hand, was giving him a warning look about just saying the right thing. He couldn't imagine what would happen if he embarrassed him in front of his great role model. Inevitably, he was reminded of his parents, who demanded something similar of him. The dark-haired boy sighed and then looked the child straight in the face. "I could make a fall from the astronomy tower look like an accident, for example."

Dawson's throat let out a loud raucous laugh as he patted him on the shoulders almost with fatherly pride and murmured in his ear. "Well, look what a traitor's little brother has in mind. Who knows, I might actually propose you to the Dark Lord. After all, it wouldn't hurt your family."

He did not even bat an eyelid, but continued to stare straight ahead. He had long since broken eye contact with the trembling child, instead his gaze was fixed on the wall behind him. He just had to appear to mean what he said. Regulus could not deny that he had often thought of actually throwing the second grader off the tower, but it had always been a rather metaphorical statement, which he had said with a roll of his eyes to his friends.

"So now I suggest you finally make room, otherwise we'll actually have to put Regulus' suggestion into practice," Dawson said, turning to Lockhart with a venomous grin that left no one in any doubt that it was no idle threat. Surprisingly silent, the boy actually stepped aside while the Slytherins continued on their way to their common room.

Barely audible, Regulus exhaled, glad to have escaped the situation without actually hurting anyone. The sickening feeling of guilt spread inside him, though he was aware that half-bloods were now worth less than pure-bloods. They had to endure such things. Right?

While Alaric didn't say a word, Evan seemed unable to keep his mouth shut. Excitedly, he walked beside him. "By Merlin's beard, do you know what advantage that gives you if Dawson actually puts in a good word for you? The dark lord will have a good picture of you before you even step into his circles!"

Regulus pondered the rightness of those words. Would he thus be able to restore his family's reputation? Could the Blacks gain as much prestige as they once possessed? His mind was racing with excitement at this simple solution to bridge the gap between him and Camille once and for all.

The young Black almost hit the door leading into their common room on the head with his thoughts. Jolted back to reality, he recognised Camille, who was frowning and approaching him with a book in her hand. "Why does Dawson look like he just bullied little kids?"

"Because he did," Alaric returned, grumbling, and threw himself out of earshot onto one of the green armchairs. Regulus watched him go before looking back into the blonde's bright eyes. "They were just little half-blooded Ravenclaws."

"But they're children, Reg!" remarked Camille with a shocked expression on her face. "At least if it had been Potter or something..."

"Potter?" inquired Regulus, frowning. "Now where did you come up with Potter?"

A slight blush now adorned her cheeks, but the young Black thought he understood. He had heard about her altercation with his brother and his friends. It had probably not ended well. Evan snorted loudly. "If their blood is impure, what difference can it make how old they are?"

Camille silenced him with a mere glance, and sure enough, a moment later he turned away, shaking his head, to slurp in the direction of the dormitories. But the blonde was also threatening to leave Regulus now, for she had half turned away from him and was searching the common room with her turquoise eyes before giving him an apologetic smile.

Regulus watched her strut straight towards Dawson. An uncomfortable feeling of jealousy burned itself into his heart and all his thoughts when he saw Camille standing close to the seventh grader in one of the corners only a few minutes later, having an intense conversation with him as if they were part of a conspiratorial society.

What was the meaning of this?

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