Work Text:
The corridors of Hogwarts were quieter at night. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that hummed in your ears and made your heartbeat feel like a war drum.
Pandora Rosier moved carefully through the dungeons, her pale hands tucked deep into the sleeves of her too-long sweater. The stone walls pressed in around her, and her mind felt like a crowded room, every thought screaming louder than the last. She shouldn't be here. She knew that. But Regulus hadn't come to dinner, and that always meant something was wrong.
It had started with whispers. First years weren’t supposed to know about Unforgivable Curses. But when someone ended up in the hospital wing—barely breathing, their eyes wide open and blank—it hadn’t taken long for the rumors to start. And Regulus Black’s name had been whispered like a curse.
“Someone said he did it,” Pandora had heard a Hufflepuff girl murmur at breakfast, eyes wide. “They said he snapped. That he just—he just wanted to see if he could do it.”
She didn’t believe it. Not Regulus. He was cold, sharp, proud—but never cruel. Never reckless. Not like that.
But when she found him that night, sitting alone in an unused classroom, the starlight from the tall window slanting across his face like scars, he didn’t deny it.
“I didn't mean to,” he said, voice flat. “I was supposed to scare him. Not—whatever that was. It went too far.”
Pandora sat beside him, her small frame barely making a sound against the stone floor.
“I’ll tell them I did it,” she said softly.
Regulus looked at her like she’d gone mad. “What?”
“You’re a Black. They’re waiting for a reason to tear you down. But me?” She smiled a little, the corner of her mouth trembling. “No one cares about the quiet Ravenclaw girl with her head in the clouds. They won’t look too close.”
“Pandora,” he said, her name breaking in his throat. “Don’t.”
But she already had.
---
The next morning, whispers followed her like a storm cloud. She heard them before she even reached the Great Hall. And when she pushed open the door, the silence that fell was colder than any winter.
There were six of them. Seventh-years, tall, angry, and looking for someone to punish. One of them, a Gryffindor girl with a cruel mouth and nails painted black, stepped forward.
“You think we’re stupid?” she hissed. “You think we don’t know who really did it?”
Pandora stayed still. Her pale eyes blinked slowly.
“I did it,” she said again. “I hexed him. I made the magic wrong. I didn’t mean to, but—”
A spell hit her square in the chest.
She stumbled back, hitting the bench behind her. Her shoulder cracked against the edge, but she didn’t make a sound. Another hex hit her—her hair jerked back like it was being yanked by invisible hands. Someone shouted, but it wasn’t a teacher. No one came.
“Freak,” one spat. “Liar. Whore for the Blacks.”
“I bet you liked it,” another sneered. “Getting his attention. Letting him use you like that.”
She was crying now, silently. Her hands clutched at her sides, trying to hold herself together. Slurs poured over her like acid, ugly words that stuck to her skin and burned.
“Enough,” someone whispered behind her. But no one stopped them.
A curse knocked her onto the floor. She hit her head hard, and for a moment, the world tilted.
And then she saw shoes. Polished, expensive. A hand knelt beside her.
Regulus.
His face was pale with fury. His wand was already out.
“You touch her again,” he said in a voice like ice cracking. “And I will make you beg to die.”
One boy stepped forward. “She lied for you. That’s what she gets.”
“She did nothing,” Regulus snapped, his hand hovering near her face. “This is on me. You want to hex someone? Try me.”
“Don’t be noble, Black. It doesn’t suit you.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t.”
And then Regulus moved.
Pandora barely registered the duel that followed. It wasn’t sanctioned. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t clean. Spells tore through the air like lightning. The smell of burnt fabric, the sharp sound of flesh hitting stone. She wanted to tell him to stop—but the words wouldn’t come.
When the teachers finally arrived, three students were bleeding, one unconscious, and Regulus Black was standing in front of her like a storm.
---
Madam Pomfrey cleaned her up in silence. Pandora didn’t speak. Her skin was bruised and her mouth torn from where she’d bit it trying not to scream. She watched the lantern sway in the corner of the infirmary ceiling and wondered if stars would ever look kind again.
Regulus came that night, when it was dark and quiet. He sat beside her bed and held her hand without asking.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, and his voice was raw.
“I had to,” she whispered.
“No. You didn’t.”
She turned her head, the pillow damp against her cheek. “You don’t understand, Reg. If they ruined you, I’d lose something too.”
He stared at her, his hand tightening slightly. “I’m not worth saving.”
“You are to me.”
He looked down at their hands.
“You’re bleeding,” she said quietly, seeing the red smudges on his knuckles.
“I didn’t notice.”
“Can I…?” She reached for him, brushing a finger over the wound. He flinched, but didn’t pull away.
There was a long silence. Then:
“They’ll come after you again,” he said, eyes dark. “Because of me.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
She turned to him fully, ignoring the throb in her neck.
“You’re the only part of this place that feels real. You and the stars.”
He almost smiled. Almost.
“Promise me,” he said, “you’ll never take the fall for me again.”
“I can’t promise that.”
He sighed, exasperated, but his voice cracked when he said her name again: “Pandora.”
She looked at him, quiet and brave even with bruises like shadows blooming under her eyes.
“You’re all I’ve got, Reg,” she said.
And he knew—he knew—he would burn the whole school to the ground before letting them touch her again.
---
The hospital wing never really slept.
Oil lamps flickered against the stone walls, casting dancing shadows over the whitewashed beds and clean sheets. It smelled faintly of healing potions and iron—blood scrubbed away too quickly to leave stains, but not fast enough to escape memory.
Pandora Rosier lay curled beneath the blanket, though she wasn’t sleeping. Her eyes, still rimmed with bruising and tiredness, stared blankly at the ceiling. She looked like she didn’t belong in such a sterile place—like a flower that had bloomed through cracks in the stone and been trampled for daring.
Her pale hair, almost silvery in the moonlight, was braided loosely to keep it from the cuts on her scalp. Wisps had escaped and curled around her face, softening the sharp, swollen edges. Freckles dotted her skin like constellations, and her lips were cracked and dry from the spells. But still—there was something unbreakable in the way she breathed. Gentle, but there. Still there.
Regulus sat on the chair next to her bed.
He didn’t fit in here either, but for entirely different reasons. His school robes were bloodstained at the cuffs and torn at the hem, but somehow, he still looked composed—his posture rigid, his jaw clenched. His black hair fell messily over one brow, and his grey eyes were bruised with exhaustion and something heavier. Guilt.
He didn’t speak. He hadn’t, for hours. Just sat there, watching her, like if he looked away, she’d disappear.
Pandora turned her head to look at him again.
“You should sleep.”
“I’m not tired.”
“That’s a lie.”
He looked at her properly now, and there was something childlike in the crease between his brows. “So is saying you’re fine.”
A pause. The sheets rustled as she pulled them up to her chin, like she could hide in them.
“Do you remember,” she said softly, “when we found that baby hippogriff in the forest first year?”
Regulus blinked, thrown by the memory.
“You cried,” she continued, her voice distant, “because its wing was broken, and you didn’t know how to fix it.”
He exhaled through his nose. “I did not cry.”
“You did. You turned your head away so I wouldn’t see. But I saw.”
“I was eleven.”
“I know.”
He paused. “You didn’t tell anyone.”
“I never would.”
That was the thing about Pandora. She knew him. Not the mask. Not the pureblood scion or the Death Eater's son. Just him.
“You’re too good for this place,” he murmured.
She rolled her head slightly toward him, a small smile touching her face despite the pain. “You always say that when someone hurts me.”
“Because it’s true.”
“I’m not good, Reg.”
“You’re better than anyone I’ve ever met.”
She reached out a hand from beneath the blanket. Small, pale, ink-stained fingers. He hesitated, then took it.
Side by side, they looked like opposites. He was shadow; she was starlight. His clothes were black, precise, fine wool and silver cufflinks even now. She was barefoot beneath her hospital robe, her socks mismatched and her sleeve cuffs frayed from worrying at them when she was nervous. He was sleek lines and sharp edges; she was softness, always.
But their hands fit perfectly.
He looked down at them. “Why did you do it?”
“You know why.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Pandora's eyes shimmered, not with tears—she had no more left—but with something deeper.
“Because you’re all I have,” she whispered. “You’re my person, Reg. You always have been.”
He swallowed hard.
“We don’t even like the same things,” he said, trying to smile but failing. “You think Nargles are real.”
“They are.”
“You knit scarves for ghosts.”
“They get cold.”
“You made me wear a daisy crown in public.”
“You looked like a forest prince.”
“I looked like an idiot.”
“You still are.”
They both laughed, quietly. It hurt—Pandora winced as it pulled at a bruise, and Regulus leaned forward instantly, guilt flooding his face again.
“I’d do it again,” she said, more seriously. “Take the blame. Even if it hurt worse.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d rather be ruined than see them touch you again.”
He looked away, jaw clenched. “They called you things.”
“I know.”
“You shouldn’t have to hear those words. Not you. You’re—” He broke off, unable to finish.
“I know what I am,” she said softly. “And I know what I’m not. But I also know you. And I know that you would’ve taken the fall for me without hesitation.”
Regulus said nothing.
“I don’t need us to be the same,” Pandora continued. “I don’t need you to like what I like or see the world how I see it. I just need you to be you.”
“And what if I don’t like me?” he asked bitterly.
She squeezed his hand.
“Then I’ll like you enough for both of us.”
Something in him cracked. Not loud. Just a soft, breaking thing. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against her arm.
“I’m scared,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“You could have died.”
“So could you.”
“You’re not supposed to get hurt because of me.”
“But I will. I’ll keep getting hurt if it means you’re still here, still trying.”
She didn’t say the rest. That she saw how he was slipping, every day. That he was walking closer and closer to the edge, to the people and promises waiting for him with cruel smiles and Dark Marks. That this—this moment, this night—might be the last time he chose her over them.
But he didn’t let go of her hand.
And for tonight, that was enough.
---
They let her out of the hospital wing three days later.
She walked slowly, her ribs still sore when she breathed too deeply, but she refused Regulus’ arm. He hovered anyway—close enough to catch her if she fell, far enough to pretend she didn’t need catching.
The castle felt wrong. It was the same—same moving staircases, same whispering portraits, same chill in the stones—but it was wrong. The corridors hissed as they passed. Students went quiet, eyes cutting sideways, mouths sneering with unspoken things.
Pandora didn’t flinch. Not even when a girl from Slytherin muttered “filthy liar” as they passed.
But Regulus heard. His face went blank in that dangerous way of his, lips pressed thin, fists clenched at his sides. She touched his arm gently.
“Don’t.”
“They don’t get to speak to you like that.”
“They’re not worth it.”
“They hexed you.”
She paused. “And they’ll do worse if you give them a reason.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do.”
He looked at her then. Really looked. Her pale face, still bruised, hair pinned back with bobby pins that didn’t quite hold. Her robes were patched at the elbow—she’d done it herself, in clumsy, stubborn stitches—and she was holding herself straight only through sheer force of will.
And still, she was the strongest person he’d ever known.
They didn’t speak much after that. But he stayed beside her the whole way to Ravenclaw Tower.
---
Nights became their sanctuary.
Regulus would sneak in, quiet and shadowlike, his wand barely lighting the path through the corridors. Pandora’s bed was the one closest to the window—by choice, of course. She liked to see the moon, even when it hurt.
He never climbed in. That would’ve broken something unspoken. But he sat on the floor by her bed, or leaned against the frame, arms around his knees, eyes tired and too young and too old all at once.
She’d talk. Soft, sleepy words. About the stars, or spells she wanted to invent, or stories her mother used to tell her before she went strange.
He listened. Always.
Sometimes she’d fall asleep midsentence. Sometimes he did.
Once, she woke up to find him curled against her side, shivering in his school jumper, face buried in the edge of her pillow like he’d needed to feel someone breathing beside him. She didn’t move. Just reached out, tangled her fingers in his jumper, and held on.
Like they were both afraid the other would vanish.
---
They were everything to each other.
He’d watch her brush stardust off her shoulders like it was lint. She’d make him tea from strange herbs she swore grew in the cracks of the castle stones. He told her she was mad. She told him he was boring.
She was soft-spoken and wild, wrapped in knitted scarves and flowers braided in her hair.
He was cold-shouldered and sharp, polished shoes and hidden knives.
But when they were together, the sharp edges softened. The wildness settled.
She would bring him chocolate when he didn’t eat. He’d cast silencing charms on her dormitory so she could cry when it all got too heavy.
They never said the words “I love you.” That would’ve been too easy, too flimsy, too romantic, and this wasn’t that.
No, this was more than that. Deeper. Truer.
They were stitched together, the kind of bond that wasn’t born but forged. Through fire and hexes and silence and loyalty that tasted like blood and ash.
---
And then things started to change.
Regulus was quieter. Not just tired quiet. Pulled away quiet. Like something invisible was dragging him backwards, and he couldn’t tell her where it was taking him.
She noticed. Of course she did.
He stopped showing up some nights. Or when he did, he smelled like smoke. Dark robes, darker thoughts. His wand hand always twitching. Eyes wide and haunted, like he’d seen too much.
She stopped asking where he’d been. Stopped trying to get him to laugh. Just curled up beside him in silence and let her hand find his.
“Stay,” she whispered once, voice barely audible.
He flinched.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
But he wouldn’t say.
So she did what she always did. Loved him anyway.
---
Then came the night he said goodbye.
He didn’t say the word—not out loud. Just stood in the moonlight outside her tower, his black cloak billowing in the wind, his face carved from stone.
She came barefoot, her nightdress too thin for the cold, a wool jumper of his thrown over it. Her eyes were wide.
“You’re leaving.”
He didn’t answer.
She reached for his hand. He pulled it back.
“You can’t,” she whispered, stepping closer. “You can’t leave me here.”
“It’s not safe.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“Then stay.”
He looked at her like he wanted to. Like the part of him that wasn’t drowning wanted nothing more than to fall into her arms and stay.
But he shook his head.
“There are things I have to do.”
“Don’t say it like you’re being noble. This isn’t noble. It’s stupid and cruel and you’re going to die—”
“I know.”
Silence fell between them. Heavy. Crushing.
She stepped forward and gripped his collar, yanking him down, pressing her forehead to his.
“Then let me die with you.”
“No.”
“I’m nothing without you.”
“Yes, you are,” he whispered. “You’re everything, even without me.”
Her tears were hot against his skin. He let her cry, let her cling, even let her kiss his cheek.
Then he pulled away, one last time.
And when he vanished into the dark, he didn’t look back.
---
Pandora waited for weeks.
And then she stopped.
Because she knew.
Because she felt it in her bones.
Because the stars that used to hum when he was near went silent.
---