Chapter Text
Pandora awoke in a dark, unfamiliar bedroom.
It took her a few seconds to orient herself, eyes adjusting slowly to the darkness. She was at home, not Hogwarts. Spare bedroom. Her jeans chafed uncomfortably and the underwire in her bra dug into her ribs, but that hadn’t been what woke her up.
A small, muffled noise cut through the silence.
Regulus.
He lay curled up in a tight ball on the other side of the bed. In the soft, early-morning darkness, Pandora could just make out the edges of his body under the sheets—the curve of his spine, his tangled hair, the dip of his waist.
Pandora put a hand on his back and found it fever-hot and trembling. “What’s wrong?” she murmured.
“S’nothing. Go back to sleep.”
His half-hearted attempt to reassure her that he was fine was undercut by another badly stifled sob.
Slowly, carefully, so that he could pull away if he didn’t want her there, Pandora edged closer to Regulus. She tucked herself against his back. He exhaled and unclenched a bit, but the tremors remained.
Pandora rested her forehead against Regulus’s shoulder. She wanted to run her hand down his side. Curl into him until no space remained. She used her words instead. “You can tell me if you want,” she said. “You aren’t alone.”
“Had a … really awful dream.”
Visions of bruised wrists and nightmare visitors came to mind. “Are you hurt? Was it the—”
“No, it was just a normal dream,” Regulus mumbled. He didn’t sound reassured by that in the slightest. He exhaled so forcefully Pandora felt his ribcage expand under her fingertips. “I dreamed my cousin Bellatrix came and … broke through the wards and …”
She held him tighter. “It’s okay. It’s just a dream. We’re safe—”
“You’re all in danger,” he said, voice breaking. “Just because you’re helping me.”
Pandora couldn’t think of a way to answer that wouldn’t expose her feelings entirely. Some things are worth the risk. You’re so incredibly important to me. My family already loves you to bits, and I'd almost be jealous if I didn't understand it completely. You’re worthy of being safe and cared for and loved. You’re worth all of it.
He shifted as if to get out of bed. “Pandora, I need to—”
“No. Absolutely not,” she said. “You’d be the one in danger if you were back with them. You’re safe here, and you’re staying.”
Regulus didn’t respond.
“Do you really think Themis would let you stay if she wasn’t dead certain it’s safe?”
Regulus snorted, half-hearted and just a little too wet.
Pandora wasn’t getting anywhere with this argument. She sat up. “Let’s go and double-check the wards, yeah? Would that help?”
“We can’t, it’s the middle of the …”
“Come on.”
She slid out of bed and took his hand—smooth, warm. He had pianist’s fingers. She’d have to ask him if he ever played.
Pandora crept down the hallway, guiding Regulus past closed doors and creaky stairs. She didn’t let go of his hand, not once. She remembered weaving through a crowd of people at the Ravenclaw party, letting the atmosphere and the excitement carry her through the uncertainty of it all. The memory made her chest ache in a way that was entirely uncomfortable and altogether too familiar.
Moonlight illuminated the front entrance—the overflowing closet, the mound of boots and shoes piled near the door, the crooked row of hooks on the wall where five generations of her family hung all their keys.
Pandora shoved a jacket into Regulus’s arms. In the moonlight seeping in through the window, she could make out his expression, vulnerable and uncertain. By the time he donned the jacket, Pandora had already layered up and found lumpy knit mittens for both of them. Regulus frowned but didn’t protest as he put them on.
She took his mittened hand in hers as she led him out into the crisp winter night.
The hard-crusted snow crunched under their boots. Pandora’s breath clouded the air, and there was no wind to snatch it from her. It was a perfectly still and cloudless night. Above them, the sky shone bright with countless stars—like diamonds spilling out from a treasure chest, if she was feeling fanciful.
They made their way to the edge of the wards in silence. Pandora tried not to shift from foot to foot as Regulus crouched down at the treeline. He stared at the faint glimmer of magic for so long it became worrisome.
“Everything alright?”
He stood, jamming his hands into his coat pockets. His eyes still looked faraway and distant. Knowing Reg, he was probably reliving his nightmare and letting the guilt of a thousand hypothetical situations bury him alive.
“I’m fine,” Regulus said, and it was the worst lie she’d ever heard come out of his mouth—and that included the time he told her, straight-faced, that Filch had once won Witch Weekly’s Best Smile of the Year award. “Really, I’m fine.”
Pandora looped her arm around his waist and let Regulus’s blatant lie dissipate into the night air, unacknowledged. Regulus had been through a lot in the past day. If he didn’t want to talk, she wouldn’t force the issue.
Regulus looked up at the night sky and didn’t pull away. Slowly, the tension bled out of his shoulders.
“When I went back to Grimmauld Place, I always missed the stars,” he murmured, eyes still fixed on the sky overhead. “In London, it’s impossible to see them, and … well, it was always safer to just stay in my room.”
There was a tangled web of pain behind that statement. Tonight wasn’t the night to unspool it—not when the last traces of the nightmare were finally ebbing from Regulus’s face.
“Which one are you?” Pandora asked, squinting at the night sky.
Regulus startled, just a bit. He raised one mittened hand and pointed. “There’s Leo,” he said. “And Regulus is the brightest star in Leo.”
Pandora pressed closer so she could make out the section of sky he was pointing to. She really should have paid more attention in Astronomy. “Is that it?” she asked, gesturing at a star she vaguely recognized.
Regulus snorted. “No, that’s the North Star. I said brightest in Leo.”
He looked so beautiful in the moonlight. She could look at him forever and never get tired of it. Regulus, who’d survived so much, who had to fight twice as hard to ask for the things he wanted, all the while staying effortlessly charming and sweet without ever realizing it. Even when he was prickly or grumpy or insecure, he was utterly wonderful.
Maybe that’s what adoring someone beyond measure was all about. Maybe it was something deep and steady and all-encompassing.
Regulus nudged her. “Magpie, you’re not looking. Regulus is right … there.”
Pandora was going to throw up all over him. She was so dizzy she was going to fall face-first into the snowbank and pass out. Unfortunately, her dear, darling, deeply repressed Regulus could not be trusted to instigate anything resembling an emotional discussion, so the task fell to Pandora. If things worked out, he could thank her later.
“I’m looking,” she murmured, and didn’t take her eyes off him.
“You’re not—oh.”
His breath caught in his throat. His eyes were so, so wide.
Her bravado failed her entirely.
“Regulus, listen to me for a second,” Pandora said, heart hammering so fast she felt ill. He was just looking at her like that, and she couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out. “I, err, well—alright. Firstly, err, my parents adore you and despite their whinging Sybill and Themis definitely like you, and you can stay here no matter what, yeah? Yeah. Even if you secretly hate me or I accidentally snap your wand or something daft or if things change and you find a nice boyfriend or a girlfriend and want to move in with them, but, err, even then you could still live here? Because my home is your home no matter what. And. Well ... please tell me if this is okay, and, err—oh Merlin I’m just going to—”
She leaned forward and her nose crashed into his and she stepped on his boot but then her lips slotted against his and she was kissing him.
Regulus’s lips were so cold against hers—cold and very still—and for a terrible moment Pandora was certain she’d made a mistake.
One heartbeat passed and then another.
Then Regulus took a stuttering breath and sank into the kiss. It was perfect. It was like coming home. It was like a conversation they’d begun earlier and picked up again at just the right time. Pandora cupped his face in her mittened hands and wished she had taken the mittens off earlier, but now she didn’t want to stop touching him, even for a single moment.
“You could’ve cut me off at any time back there,” she said between kisses. “Spared me the embarrassment.”
“Why? You’re adorable when you’re nervous,” Regulus said, face flushed and lips brushing her cheek as he spoke. A delightful frisson gripped her entire body from head to toe.
“I was about to pass out, that’s hardly adorable—”
He kissed her again and she gave up on trying to form words.
At first, Regulus’s kisses were sweet and shy, as if he wasn’t entirely certain what to do. She didn’t press forward, happy to take what he was willing to give. And then—something clicked. His grip on her tightened and his kisses grew fervent and fever-hot. She melted into him.
Regulus Black was hardly the first boy she’d kissed, but she knew deep in her bones that from this point forward, he’d be the last. It was him, always and forever, because nobody else could ever hope to compare.
When he drew back for a ragged breath, Pandora pressed a line of kisses against the smooth, perfect column of his throat. A stifled sigh escaped him, as if nobody had kissed him there before and he never realized how much he wanted it until now.
Oh, the things she would do to coax that noise out of him again.
Just as Regulus caught her lips in another perfect, fumbling kiss, the porch light flicked on.
Regulus broke off the kiss with a grumpy noise that was altogether too adorable. Pandora giggled and tucked her face in the crook of his neck like she’d been wanting to do for ages.
The light flicked off. And on. And back off. Pointedly.
“I’m assuming that’s not your grandfather’s ghost.”
“Probably not.”
“We should go back inside soon.”
They did not.