"We're stronger in the places
that we've been broken."
– Ernest Hemingway

Kira enjoyed the rest of her weekend reading books in the common room or wandering the halls at midnight.

She was not very happy to be resuming school work today. Although she did enjoy learning she found some of the teachers to be unbearable and sometimes even argued that the material they were teaching was useless.

This often landed her with a few detentions when she got into heated arguments, specifically with her Astronomy and DADA professors.

Some years in DADA, they had very incompetent teachers. Last year, her teacher could barely perform spells correctly, and went back to basic spells they had either learned in their first year or didn't learn at all because of the uselessness.

Sometimes even her Astronomy teacher went off topic, rambling about topics usually taught in Divination. She called Professor Watkins out on this and often ended up with a detention.

Her parents were never happy with the detentions but left her to it because she still managed O's in nearly every class, even making prefect in fifth year.

She entered her DADA class and found all the chairs and tables had been moved to the back. She looked to Ava and raised an eyebrow. The latter shrugged and they moved to stand where a group of students had gathered.

Soon enough their teacher arrived, a short woman who thought she was better than everyone despite the fact that many of the students could beat her in a duel.

"Okay students. Today we'll be doing non-verbal spells. In a few weeks we'll be touching on wandless magic, though because of the difficulty of such a topic you will not be tested on it. So for now we'll stick to non-verbal magic."

Some of the students began whispering excitedly to one another.

The professor began speaking again. "Pair up with someone from the opposite house." We were with Slytherins. "And then try to disarm your opponent."

Ava sighed. "Well I'll see you later, may as well pair with Avery." She muttered and moved to find him.

Kira looked around for someone she could pair with and her eyes met with Regulus. She smiled and he returned the smile and made his way over.

"Need a partner?" He asked. She nodded and they got ready.

The class has split so one half stood on one side of the classroom while their partners faced them.

They began, Kira was to disarm Regulus and he was meant to try and defend himself. She expected it to be quite tricky seeing as Regulus was only just behind her in class.

She silently cast 'expelliarmus' but he quickly cast a shield charm.

She decided to distract him by casting aguamenti and shot a stream of water towards him. The spell hit him and he was soaked, while distracted she quickly cast the disarming charm again and managed to successfully remove his wand from his hand.

He stood there baffled while she smirked at him. She nearly laughed at him. She decided to do him a favour and dry him with a spell. Remaining silent throughout the whole ordeal.

"Well done, well done, Miss Rose. 10 points to Ravenclaw. Now Mr Black, you attempt to disarm her." The professor spoke.

Kira chucked his wand back and he caught it easily. He cast the impedimenta hex but Kira cast a shield charm.

Regulus cast the colour changing charm to change Kira's robes to a bright pink, temporarily distracting her. He disarmed her during this distraction and smirked at her defeat. He played her with her own game.

She glared playfully at him, while the professor congratulated him.

The rest of the classes went by uneventfully and Kira had even managed to avoid getting a detention. Ava made a joke about her being worse than the Marauders and Kira threatened to hex her if she didn't stop.

Kira didn't have a class last period but Ava did so they parted ways and Kira decided she'd be productive and finish the homework they had received.

Luck, however, was not on her side because she came face to face with Sirius Black as she rounded a corner on her way to the Library.

She sighed and made her way to go past him but he clearly wanted something.

"Kira."

She looked at him. "Yes?" She asked, slightly annoyed, especially with his behavior on Saturday. She was slightly surprised to see him without the rest of the Marauders or at least James. The two were never separated for long and this made her question if they were about to prank her.

"Why are you hanging out with my brother?" He asked.

Kira rolled her eyes, "I thought we talked about this. I don't need your permission to talk to someone."

"Yes but he's on his way to becoming a Death Eater. He probably already is."

"I doubt it." Though she started to think about it. His friends were all on their way to being Death Eaters or they were already. What if he was too? "I would have noticed." Because she would have. She could have seen the Dark Mark if he had it. Surely she wouldn't have missed something like that.

"Haven't you noticed he is always wearing long sleeves?" Sirius suggested.

"It's nearly winter Sirius. It's freezing." Kira argued. Regulus couldn't have been a Death Eater. He is far too kind to be one. Her father is a Death Eater and he is in no way similar to Regulus.

"Just, be careful with him. Okay?"

"I can handle myself just fine, Sirius." She said before walking away and to the library.

Regulus Black was not a Death Eater.

Tuesday did not go as pleasantly as Monday went. Kira ended up with a detention, surprise. Her Astronomy teacher once again scolded her because she argued that she was not teaching them anything related to the topic they were supposed to be learning in class.

They had been given a theory lesson that year that took place during the day, other lessons were at midnight.

She would be serving her detention with Filch that afternoon because her Professor Watkins was apparently too busy to serve her detention. Probably gossiping with the Divination teacher.

"Kira," Ava sighed, "when will you ever learn and not get yourself a detention?"

Kira smirked, "Well I'm not learning anything in class so I may as well refresh my memory during detention." The two were now walking to the library where they would complete homework and study until Kira had to leave for detention.

They entered the library and found a table in the back where the two of them could sit and relax without many interruptions.

Kira pulled out her parchment and ink and began working on her Astronomy essay.

She looked up at Ava, "Reckon Professor Watkins will be pissed if I don't do her essay?"

Ava shrugged with a laugh before turning serious, "Come on Kira, you actually need to do the homework." She said.

Kira rolled her eyes and groaned. "At least the teacher actually gave us an essay on work in the syllabus."

"Why do you even hate that professor so much?" She snickered.

"Because she's a pain. I want to learn about the stars not about her sisters crumbling relationship issues." Kira complained. The teacher truly was a pain and Kira found herself wishing they would get a new teacher every year, like in DADA. At least then they had a chance of getting a competent teacher.

The hours passed quickly and before long Kira was making her way to the trophy room, where she would be serving her detention. She hoped she was alone because she wanted some peace and quiet.

She entered the room to find Sirius and James. She stifled a groan and rolled her eyes. She was stuck with them.

"Where's Filch?" She asked them when she entered. They had not seen her so they flinched.

They both had silly grins on their faces, James shrugged. "Said we should start cleaning so long." He said, chucking a cloth at her.

She caught it and sighed, moving to the other side of the room to polish the trophies there.

Not long after the door slammed open causing Kira to flinch. Filch came in dragging Regulus in behind him.

Regulus shook him off, muttering, "let me go you filthy squib." And straightening out his clothes.

"Get to work." Filch grumbled and left.

"Aw ickle Reggie got detention. What'd you do? Hex a first year?" Sirius sneered. Regulus rolled his eyes and clenched his fist but made no move to respond.

"Sirius, drop it." Kira intervened before it escalated.

It seemed Regulus had only just noticed her presence because he walked up to her and grabbed a cloth to help clean.

"How'd you end up in detention?" He asked after a moment of silence.

"Watkins disagreed with me. Apparently not wanting to hear about her sister's issues was the wrong thing to say." Kira answered. "And you?"

"One of their pranks," he nodded towards James and Sirius, "set off on Filch and I was closest so he gave me detention."

"Ah, at least you have me." She nudged his arm with her elbow and laughed, him joining in.

Sirius had been watching the two interact the entire time. He nudged James who looked at him in question before turning towards Kira and Regulus.

Sirius leaned towards James and whispered, "I haven't heard him laugh like that in years." He continued staring at his little brother.

The last time he truly heard Regulus so happy was when he was right before he started Hogwarts. The two were playing outside in the park across the street. No muggles were out that day.

They ran around with sticks, Regulus grinning and threatening to hex Sirius, who then replied that he would hex him first.

They were truly happy. Then Sirius got sorted into Gryffindor and they rarely spoke. They completely stopped speaking when he left a year ago.

That's when Regulus truly broke.

Regulus had been thinking of the same thing after he noticed Sirius staring at him. The day his brother left him to rot in that home was the worst day of his life.

Not even getting the dark mark could surpass that day. He swore from then on that if Sirius could walk out so easily, he would do the same.

Kira noticed that he had zoned out. She furrowed her eyebrows as she tried to think what could be bothering him and thought it must've been Sirius.

She put her hand on his arm and he looked at her, smiling softly.

At least I have her, Regulus thought.

_________________________________________

So I made a playlist for this story. It's at the beginning right after Character Aesthetics.

If you haven't seen it yet, go check it out and let me know what you think! <3

– walkingmasterpiece xx