THE NEXT DAY WAS SUNDAY, and Malka and Cass were in the library reading up about Polyjuice Potion. Thank goodness, Malka was done with her nightly detentions now. Books were sprawled on their laps, the desks, and most of the neighboring chairs near them, and personally, Malka had gotten enough an hour ago. That morning, she'd seen Regulus at breakfast, his brows scrunched as he Occluded. She recognized the dead look in his eyes, but another quick look made her see no physical injuries nor signs of any dark curses, and she'd breathed a sigh of relief.

"You know, the color is fading, but I actually really like it. Maybe I'll go to the girl again, she really did it quite lovely," Cass said, not paying attention to the properties of Boomslang skin as she held up the strand of pink hair.

"It looks nice," Malka said, eyes down where she thumbed the edge of page 731 distractedly. O.W.L EXAMPLE QUESTIONS, was the heading of the page, as Malka scribbled little responses in the narrow margins.

"Hm. Wait, what was h-"

"Kennedy Haskins," Malka finished crisply, turning the page. Cass didn't know any Occlumency.

"Thank you," she turned back to her textbook then, before groaning. "Ugh, Merlin, I can't do this. Why do we have to write something for Potions O.W.L.s? Can't we do a practical?"

Malka laughed. "I want to do one just as much as you, Cass," she got up and reached for a book about the Chinese Chomping Cabbage. 

Reaching on her tiptoes to find it, the book was heavy when she picked it up, and as it fell into her arms the pages opened and a giant puff of thick, dusty smoke and grime erupted from the pages like a storm. The cloud flew straight up into her nose, making her startle and stumble back, a scratchy cough breaking through her throat as her eyes stung. She kept coughing as Cass looked up, going at it so much that a sharp tightness furled around her chest. Disgusting. 

"Ew, that book is nasty," Cass squinted, casting a Tergeo on the pages. Malka shook off her cough with a frustrated sigh.

She turned back to her homework for Slughorn. List the differences in terms of ingredients and physical effects, between the Draught of Peace and the Invigoration Draught. Mumbling under her breath, she started writing about moonstone (an extremely underrated Potions ingredient, by the way! Its alchemical properties were still being uncovered) as her other hand rubbed her lower lip. Her eyes still stung in little pangs, and were watery. 

Someone cleared their throat above her. The duo looked up, and it was Reg. Malka looked him up and down as if she could see injuries through his robes.

"Hello," he said, his brows scrunched as he hid his mind. "-Can we talk?"

"Of course you can!" Cass said cheerfully, nudging Malka with her foot under the table.

Malka rolled her eyes, shoving her Potions book in her bag. But it was the first time they'd spoken since yesterday's events, so she placed her bare hand in his gloved one, and they walked out of the castle and onto the grounds. They were kept preoccupied from avoiding the glances of curious young students, but once they escaped the concrete walls of Hogwarts, the gazes disappeared, and whispering words turned into the chirps of birds and splash of rushing water.

"You shouldn't have talked to him," Reg said, eyes narrowing before loosening again, as if he had originally intended to put more bite into his words but relented. 

"It saved you from injury, did it not?" Malka said sharply. "You're my friend; of course I'll defend you. Did he do anything else?"

"No," Reg sighed, and when he looked at her again, his expression was such a unique mix of frustration, sorrow, and fondness that she almost stopped walking. "The usual verbose,"

Malka hummed. "You can stop Occluding now, you know,"

They reached the Black Lake, grey waves rippling softly against the pebbly shore. A flock of geese nested in the direction of the Forbidden Forest, and there were a few buried jabberknoll eggs in the rocks, their white, smooth heads poking out between strands of moss. A gorgeous sunset had almost finished, and as she looked, Reg was covered in a blue tint. The cloak of twilight had just barely begun to fall, and Malka thought it was quite peaceful. Regulus hadn't taken his eyes off her, but now a small smirk was playing at the corner of his lips. He wore no scarf with his Slytherin robes: it was almost May now, and the past few days had been quite warm. 

"If I was Occluding, not to say I was...but if I was, would you be able to break through?" he asked her. Malka swiped her bottom lip in thought, and as she made eye contact with her response, he was looking at the lip, as if her thumb had just left its pink surface. 

"Probably. If I tried hard," she said honestly as she kicked a few pebbles around. A chill ran down her spine, and she scratched at the back of her neck. 

"What's that?"

"I don't know," Malka muttered. "How is your kelpie?" 

She nodded to the expanse of the Lake, and Reg glanced at it, before slowing turning his eyes on her, with a wicked gleam. 

"...What?" Malka said lowly. 

"Nothing. Would you like to see for yourself?" The Lake lay before her, its surface a ripple of dark blue and gold, reflecting the dim sunlight above as day turned to night. 

"Now?"

"Of course." Reg said, and with one motion, he shrugged off his outer robes. Malka dropped her hands, shooting two quick looks around her as her heart pounded in incredulity. "Relax. No one is here."

"-But it's almost curfew, you-"

"-I happen to be a prefect," was his gallivanting excuse, as his true smile stretched across ghostly features. He kicked off his boots, and looked at Malka expectantly.

She huffed. I'm really going swimming thirty minutes before curfew. She rolled her eyes again. Professor McGonagall's words echoed in her head, but all her whispers seemed to fade when she took Regulus's outstretched hand. 

"Fine, Merlin, I'll go in this freezing lake. Are we going to scour the whole thing until we find it, then?" she undid the ties of her Mary Janes, kicking them off in the soft stones along with her socks. 

"Obviously not," Reg shook his head with disdain, in that same fake snootiness as he always did. "I'll cast a spell to find her."

"How do you know it's a girl?" Malka undid her braid, quickly waving her wand to cast her hair in a bubble ponytail, in order to stop it from frizzing. "Kettleburn said all kelpies look the same, and observers cannot distinguish genders from exterior features alone."

"Well, I feed her," Regulus said, as Malka took a silvery hankerchief and messily wiped down her makeup. "And Professor Kettleburn never talked about interior features. Our coverage for aquatic creatures is quite shallow, you know? Female kelpies have two throats wheras males have one. You can see it when they chew their food."

"Alright, know-it-all," Malka laughed. And her eyes crinkled, and her lips parted, and Reg saw it all. She smiled softly at him, wondering how in Merlin's name she would have gotten here if she hadn't gone hunting for Brambleberries that September day, before he gently raised one hand, shrugging off her knitted red cardigan. The fabric slid between his fingers, and he used his other hand to take it off her shoulders fully before setting it down like a gem. 

"There," he murmured so quiet, but so loud in his mind. "Let's go."

And he began wading into the shallows, letting out a pleasant hiss as the colder waters engulfed his ankles. Malka followed a bit nervously. Of course, she loved swimming, but the Black Lake, with its mysterious creatures, had always unnerved her. She cast her Bubble-Head Charm with a Warming Charm, and followed behind Reg as he swam further into the deep. 

It's beautiful. Everything was a deep green, with little pieces of algae clinging to her hair or brushing past her ankles. Malka looked down, and tall, twenty meter long strands of seaweed stretched up and waved. Small fish skirted around them, and Malka was tempted to take a closer look, but she knew there were grindylows down there. A stray bubble from Reg's wand redirected her attention, and he nodded towards the ridge of round stone coves near the other end of the Lake. 

The swim was...nice. Malka didn't realize how much she longed for the clear waters of Como again, the way her limbs felt weightless and her hair puffed behind her. Her lips stretched in a smile, and she made eye contact with Reg as they finally reached a cove. He made a whistling gesture, which sounded with a much lower frequency underwater. Malka looked at him quizzically, before a straggly bridle came into view behind one of the watery cove walls. 

The kelpie was small- Kettleburn said most kelpies took up to ten years to mature. Its innocence blinked in its amber eyes, and Malka was reminded of Prancer's gentle demeanor. It sniffed its way to Regulus, who offered Malka an outstretched hand that she declined. She still thought they were scary. 

But there was a certain austere beauty in the way that Reg gently stroked its neck, how little whistles from his lips formed bubbles. Maybe it had been tamed, as Reg had said all those months ago. Malka folded her arms, the water swirling in little swishes, as the kelpie nuzzled Reg on the face. She laughed, and though she didn't touch the creature, she began to understand. If only he could be a Magizoologist, that would make him so happy. It was so much easier for Malka to fufill her dreams than Regulus his. But she figured that if she could create the time for moments like these, he might have a taste of it.