#emma004

Four days. She hadn’t spoken to him alone in four days and she knew he knew something horrible was going on. She wondered if he knew what was coming. She’d written him to ask him to see her, not even daring to ask him in person. If she saw him any sooner than she’d planned, she didn’t think she could do it. Hell, she wasn’t sure she could do this anyway. She stood outside on one of the many balconies Hogwarts had to offer, just off the fifth floor. She held a cigarette between her slender fingers but she wasn’t smoking it. She didn’t want to, but the smell of it calmed her. She tried not to think that that was only because it reminded her of him.

When she heard the balcony doors open and subsequently close, clicking in to place, Emma didn’t turn. She couldn’t. She squeezed her eyes shut and took several long breaths, dropping the cigarette down to the ground far below them so he wouldn’t see, though the smell had doubtless lingered. She stood up a little straighter, squaring her shoulders, and forced herself not to grip the railing in front of her like it was the only thing she had left holding her to the earth. She heard his soft footsteps approach, more hurried than usual. She only had seconds left and she still couldn’t turn. She didn’t know what to do. Emma knew what she had to do, but even now that the time had come, she wasn’t sure she could do it.

“Regulus…” Her voice was soft, but it cut through the silence like a knife. “I need to speak with you.”

For three weeks, things between he and Emma had been better than he could ever have imagined.  He’d asked her to Hogsmeade thinking they would have a good time and perhaps they would learn they liked spending time together.  He’d never intended to feel so strongly for her and so quickly.  Regulus was an observant being, it wasn’t lost on him how hard he had fallen for Emma but it still took him by surprise how much his world had shifted to center around her when suddenly she removed herself from it.

They hadn’t spoken since Halloween.  Not really.   They were in class together, of course, and spoke at Quidditch practices or when she couldn’t manage to avoid him.  But he’d not had a moment alone with her.  He hadn’t held her hand or kissed her lips, hadn’t seen the shy smile she wore when he called her beautiful and hadn’t seen her blush when he told her how wonderful she was.  His arms ached to hold her and every day she avoided him he wondered what he had done wrong.  

When he got the letter, just seeing his name on the envelope had been bad enough.  That she had resorted to writing him formally to ask to see him instead of coming to him herself was like a punch to the gut.  He dreaded going, knowing nothing good would come out of it, and yet he couldn’t deny himself an opportunity to see her alone.  And so he went, clammy hands slipped into pockets, stained with the smell of the cigarettes he’d been smoking relentlessly all day.  She didn’t turn when he closed the door behind him and joined her on the balcony and he used that moment to take her in as he always did, to bask in how fortunate he was to even be in her company.  But then she spoke and the tone in her voice promised an unpleasant encounter.

“Emma, what’s wrong?” he asked, his own society mask falling away when it was just the two of them together.  His concern and his worry won out over caution and indifference.  “You’ve been so distant - have I done something to upset you?"  He longed to cross the space between them and pull her into his arms but he forced himself to stay still, to keep his hands to himself. If she wanted him she would have come to him, he would respect the distance she so clearly wanted to keep.

All he had to do was speak and her breath hitched and nearly froze in her chest. She bowed her head and didn’t answer, not for three very long seconds. She counted them and gave herself no longer. She shouldn’t have needed that long. She was yelling at herself for not being better, for not being able to keep hold of her control while she was with him. She’d dropped her guard too often and now she couldn’t put it back up the way she’d done so many times before. Hearing the hesitation, the anguish in his voice was an agony she’d never wanted to know. She should never have let this happen.

“No,” she whispered. “No, Regulus. You’ve not upset me.” Her breathing was uneven and painful as it caught behind her ribs, and she pressed her hand against them to try to calm herself. Five seconds. She had five seconds to pull herself together. She didn’t speak only forced herself to breathe, to calm herself, to knit her features together in to the mask she’d worn so perfectly for years. She repeated the words her mother had beat in to her skull over and over again Be perfect, do as you’re told. Do your duty. You don’t have a choice. She focused on the words instead of him and it was the only way she could do this.

She exhaled slowly and turned to look at him, her expression calm and collected. She knew he’d see right through it, would see the truth in the way she started to reach for him but stilled her hands by grasping them together in front of her, in the way her eyes softened when she searched his face, in the tiny drop of her rigid shoulders that screamed that she didn’t want this. No one else would have seen, but he would know. He knew, and that made it so much worse.

She swallowed, her throat dry and thick like she’d tried to swallow sand. She didn’t smile when she looked at him, ignored the fluttering in her chest, the giddy bubbling she always felt when he was near her. She pushed it down and made it stay. She opened her mouth to speak, but only took another deep breath, exhaling it in a sigh. Do what you must. “I can’t be with you anymore.”

She still hadn’t turned to look at him but that didn’t stop him from taking in every aspect of her standing there at the rail.  The way she bowed her head, the way her hands gripped the rail as if it were keeping her standing.  She didn’t answer right away and while he waited he watched the muscles in her neck tense and her shoulders rise and fall with her uneven breathing.  Each second only made him want to hold her more, it was obvious she was distressed and he wanted nothing like he wanted to sooth her but he did not move, his own hands balling into fists in his pockets to keep them still.  

She said he didn’t upset her but something obviously had.  He opened his mouth to say so, to ask what had upset her if it wasn’t him, but that he stopped as well.  She had called him here for a reason, to tell him something, and it was clear to him how hard this was for her already.  He wouldn’t complicate things, asking questions quickly and without pause, until she had told him what she had asked him here to tell.  

His resolve nearly faltered when she turned around, that mask he hadn’t seen in full force in weeks firmly in place on her delicate features.  To see it there again when his own defenses were so dropped felt like a knife to his gut.  He could see through the cracks, of course, the little imperfections that told him how distressed she was thought she longed to hide it.  He wanted to take her hands and meet her eyes, to rub the tension from her shoulders and tell her whatever it was they would face it together.  

But then she spoke and the knife in his gut twisted.  Sharp pain shot through his chest as words he had not anticipated filled the air.  He hadn’t truly known what he had expected from this meeting but this wasn’t it.  He opened his mouth to speak and for the first time in his life he found himself without words.  He couldn’t find words to describe the way he felt, the confusion and the pain.  And so instead he squared his jaw, withdrew into himself, as he often did when he became too emotional to think clearly. It was the only way he knew to harness his thoughts.  "What’s happened?“ he asked again.  "Emma, please.  You know you can tell me anything.  I don’t - I don’t understand.”  He hated that he couldn’t control the pain in his voice as easily as he could control it in his face, it rang out quite against his will.

She shook her head at his question. “Nothing happened,” she said. His voice was tumultuous but hers was calmer than ever, devoid of emotion that was so clear in her stance. They were opposites that way; he couldn’t hide from his voice what she couldn’t hide from her face. “Nothing has happened,” she said again. “But it will.” He knew what she was talking about before he had to ask, before she explained, but she couldn’t leave any room for question. Not in this.

“My mother has written to me,” she said. She hadn’t written recently, but recently enough that Emma knew her days were numbered. “My husband is to be named at any time… We both know it will not be you. It isn’t right, what we’ve done. What we’ve allowed ourselves. I cannot–” Emma faltered, though her voice was still even and almost cold. No. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do it. Not like this.

Her steps were almost silent as she moved to stand in front of him. Every inch that disappeared between them made it harder for her to convince herself that this was what she needed to do. How could she ever need to be away from him? How could she ever need to hurt him? It was wrong. It was so horribly fucking wrong, but she had to do it anyway. Her fingers trembled as she lifted her hand to his face, cupping his cheek gently. When she spoke, her voice was softer, almost a whisper, but with all the gentleness she’d ever shown him before. “I can’t, Reggie,” she murmured. “Despite what I want, what I feel… you know this can’t continue.”

He wanted her to give into what he saw in her stance, the way she was almost forcing herself to keep her distance from him.  He wanted that to be an invitation, for it to mean the could close that distance and pull her into his arms but he knew it wasn’t.  If she was working so hard to stay away from him, he could not intrude on that space, no matter how desperately he needed to hold her in his arms and convince himself that he wasn’t losing her.  Because this felt very much like he was losing her and that reality was tearing him apart inside.  

Her voice, unlike his, was clear and calm.  No emotion ran through it, concealed or otherwise, and it was another strike against him by that invisible weapon she was wielding so deftly.  As she spoke his ire rose, not to a hot overwhelming temper but to a cold hate of the truths she spoke.  It was the way of their society, it was the truth of their futures, and while he had always known it, it had never been so close before.  And he had never hated it with such a passion.

“How do you know?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking.  He knew he should respect her wishes but he couldn’t.  He simply couldn’t just let her pull away like this.  "What if it is me?  And even if it’s not we - “ Perhaps he wouldn’t have been so quick to buck against the tradition they’d both grown up in the shadow of if he hadn’t a month ago received news that pushed him so far away from his mother and all she represented.  So much of what he felt and had shared with Emma would never have come to pass if not for that and now that shift in his allegiance was coming back to haunt him.  

He had managed to control himself up until this point but as her hand came up to cup his cheek he couldn’t ignore it.  He pulled a hand from his pocket, lifting it to cover hers and lace his fingers through her own.  His name, shortened on her tongue, came in a different tone then the rest of her speech and it tugged at his heart painfully.  "I don’t know it,” he insisted, unconcerned with hiding his emotions from face or voice. "Nothing has been set in stone,“ he pointed out, knowing he was grasping at straws but grasping anyway.  "Nothing except how I feel for you.  It doesn’t have to be this way.”  His other hand reached out to take hers, the one on his cheek bringing her knuckles to her lips where he pressed a desperate kiss against her skin.  "We don’t have to do this.“

Her expression, for just one moment, crumpled. For just one instant she was a heartbroken sixteen year old and not a grown woman in a society that, for the first time ever, she wanted no part in. If it was going to tear this boy away from her, and she had no doubts that it would, then she hated it. She hated everything that kept them apart, that caused such anguish in him. His pain was worse than hers and she’d have done anything to stop it. She could cope with her own emotions, her own brokenness, but his? His she couldn’t handle.

He took her hand and she knew she should pull away, but she couldn’t bring herself to. This was it. This was the last time she’d ever be allowed to touch him, to be real with him. They would never see one another’s vulnerabilities again and she wanted desperately to cling to this moment, to him, forever. But she couldn’t. She wanted to show him how shattered she was, but the second she let him see, she knew he would never let go of it again. That he would cling to it and pick apart her defenses out of desperation, and she couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t because she knew he would win.

“It won’t be you,” she whispered. Her thumb brushed over his cheek until he pulled her hand away to kiss it as he had so many times before. She let him take her other hand and gripped it harder than she should have. She wanted to remember what this felt like, to be so close to him, to hold on to him even in this small way, but she knew the memory would fade far sooner than she could ever stand for it to. “You know my position, Reggie… You know your mother. What we want… it doesn’t matter.” Her voice nearly cracked and she cleared her throat to keep it from doing so again. She took half a step closer to him, nearly stepped in to his arms, but if she did she knew she’d never leave.

“Yes we do.” The words were barely audible. They were the ones she’d dreaded the most, the ones she used to argue with him. She didn’t want that. But there wasn’t another way. “I must obey. I don’t have a choice.” She reached up to cup his face in both her hands and didn’t speak til she was sure his eyes wouldn’t look away from hers. “None of this matters, Regulus,” she murmured. “None of what we want matters. You know that. We knew it when we started this.” She wanted to look away but if he couldn’t, she couldn’t either. In that instant, that gut-wrenching, horrible instant, she realized why it was so hard. “I love you, Reggie.” She hadn’t meant to say it aloud, whispered and bewildered though it was. She could only stare at him for a moment, vulnerable and weak, but there it was.

Five seconds. That was all she would give herself. She moved forward, standing on her toes as she’d so often done to press her lips to his. Four seconds. She tried to memorize what it felt like. Three seconds and she breathed him in for the last time. Two seconds and she wanted to cry. One second and she broke away. By the time that second ended, she stepped back, her hands dropping away from him. She couldn’t touch him again or she was sure she’d break from the pain of it. “It doesn’t matter.” She wasn’t sure if she was saying it to him or to herself. She lowered her eyes, couldn’t look at him anymore. “….Goodnight, Regulus.”

He knew she was probably right, the odds were stacked against them. Regulus was not one who held onto hopes that were supported only by wishes and not by actual facts or chances but to this one - and to her - he clung.  It didn’t make any sense, the idea of them being matched, but when the alternative was losing her he wished for it with every fiber of his being.  He had never questioned this before, had never dreaded the day his mother would announce his match like he did now.  He had never anticipated losing control of himself so completely as to let himself develop feelings for someone like this.  It was unlike him, out of the ordinary and unlikely in the extreme, but now that it had happened he didn’t know how to let her go.  Not when neither of them wanted it.  

Knowing she didn’t want this, that was what made it so impossible.  She took his face in her hands and his own hands covered them.  Every words she said, he rebelled against.  He didn’t care what they were supposed to do or what was expected of them, he cared only about her.  About seeing her happy.  He would have given her the world if she would have let him, would singlehandedly have cast off every worry or trouble that plagued her if only she would allow him to do it. To protect her and make her well being his sole concern.  "I don’t care,“ he found himself saying before he knew he’d decided to.  "I don’t care what is expected of us or chosen for us.  Only you matter, Emma.”  

And then she said it.  She loved him.  And if he thought that he had been in pain before, it was nothing compared to the way he felt now.  Because he knew two things instantly as he heard those words.  The first was that he loved her back.  With every fiber of his being he had fallen irrevocably in love with her.  And the second was that even though he loved her, he was still going to lose her.  He didn’t gather his thoughts quick enough to speak before she pressed her lips to his and when she did, he kissed her back.  For five seconds she was his entire world and he made sure she knew it.  Five.  It was not the fiery passionate kisses fueled with quidditch adrenaline or the deep emotional kisses they shared in one another’s arms.  Four.  He kissed her now simply and chastely.  And with every ounce of love he felt for her pouring into it.  Three.  He fought the urge to pull her into his arms, his hands resting feather light on her hips.  Two.  He could feel her pulling away and his hands tangled in the fabric of her dress, unwilling to let her go.  One second left and he imprinted this moment, as terrible as it was, in his mind to hold on to.  The last time he kissed her, the last time she was his.

When she pulled away he felt like she took all his breath and his will with her, he wanted nothing if it wasn’t her in his arms again.  As she controlled herself, dropping her eyes from his and holding her hands away, he lost all control.  His heartbreak was clear on his face and he couldn’t find the desire to hide it.  His eyes were red as if he had been crying, though no tears stained his cheeks.  "Don’t go,“ he begged as she said goodnight.  His voice was raspy and this was the only time he would beg her.  He saw how much pain this caused her and while he had to try this once, he would not drag this out if she was resolved.  He would not hurt her more than she was already hurting.  "Please Emma.  I love you.  Stay with me.”

She felt him clinging to her, felt everything in both of them screaming to stay right where they were, to allow themselves the beauty of what they’d found in each other when it was so soon going to be so irrevocably denied them. And then he begged her. He pleaded with her to stay, his voice broken to the point that she was terrified to look up at his face. She visibly cringed, her eyes closed, and turned her face away. Don’t look. Don’t look or you’ll never look away.

She wanted to plead with him in return, beg him to take it back. He loved her and she knew it wasn’t a lie. She wanted to be able to laugh and kiss him and and make it the joyful moment it should have been. But it wasn’t. Knowing he loved her was the most painful thing in the world because she had to walk away. She had to. Not just for herself, not because it was what her family expected, but because it was what his family expected. Walburga Black had already lost one son and heir and she knew there would be no fury like his mother’s scorn if Emma were to cause her to lose another. She had enough sense to know it wasn’t an option. Unless she was given to him, and she wouldn’t be, it was never going to happen.

Emma was terrified. She had no idea what her future was going to bring, but she knew then it would never be a happy one. If she wasn’t with him, she knew it would never be a good and wonderful life and it scared her. Whoever she was given to, sold to, might be kind to her. It was the most she could hope for, simple decency, and she knew it was hoping for too much. Her childhood was over, and her happiness with it. She’d come to expect this outcome, come to accept it long ago but she’d never in her life imagined the sacrifice that Regulus made it.

She took in a shuddering breath and knew she had seconds left before her composure broke entirely. Her hands twisted in her skirt, wringing the fabric so harshly it might tear and she didn’t care. She couldn’t look at him again. She took one step, then another, and then she didn’t stop. She walked to him, then past him, and the moment he was behind her she forgot how to breathe. It hurt like nothing had ever hurt before in her life. She felt her shoulders starting to shake with sobs she could not utter here, not in his presence. She wasn’t strong enough for that.

Emma had no idea where to go, who to run to. She just knew she had to leave now or she’d never manage it. Her hand hovered above the handle of the door for just a moment, hesitating as though she were afraid it would burn her. She didn’t know what to say, what words to leave him with. What would possibly be good enough? She could feel burning in her eyes, feel the wetness of unshed tears gathering on her lashes.

“Thank you,” she finally whispered. “For showing me what it was to be happy.”

She forced herself to turn the handle, to push open the door and step through it. She left not a moment too soon. As soon as she left him, she started to cry, and she wasn’t going to stop for a very long time.

She wouldn’t look at him but he couldn’t look away.  His eye stung as if burned, the stinging pain of crying though his eyes were dry.  The pain he felt was beyond simple tears, it invaded him heart and soul, into his bones and his very being.  She cringed as he asked her to stay and he knew he couldn’t do it again.  One thing she had said was true, this wasn’t about what he wanted.  He wanted to beg and plead pull her into his arms, to convince her she was wrong and to tell her over and over how desperately he loved and needed her.  But she was in pain, pain he was making worse, and he couldn’t bear that.  So as much as it would destroy him, he would not ask her again.  

She began to walk toward him, though, and he stupidly allowed himself hope that she would walk into his arms, only to have those paltry hopes dashed as she walked past him.  He couldn’t breath as she did, couldn’t turn his head to watch.  She faded out of his peripheral vision and when she did he clenched his eyes shut against the loss of her image, hands curling into fists again with the strength it took to hold his ground.  When he didn’t immediately hear the door open, only then did he turn to look at her again.  She was not facing him - would never look at him again, a fact that left him desolate - and he could see her shoulders shaking with tears she refused to shed in his presence.  He clenched his teeth to the point of pain, hating ever moment she suffered that he could not ease her pain.

For the second time in his life, he found himself speechless.  There was nothing he could offer in response to her words and even if there was, he wouldn’t have trusted himself to manage it. His voice was caught in his throat, mangled there with sobs and screams he could not utter.  He watched her go and with her went every shred of his happiness, every joy he had known.  He watched her go and knew as the door swung shut behind her that any hope of future happiness was dashed without her.  He had left his heart unattended and she had stolen it, whether she was his or not she would always have that.  Once she was gone, any will to remain strong left him and he felt his legs go weak with the strain.  

He could hardly think, couldn’t make sense of any of what had just happened.  He didn’t know what to do, where to go from here.  Regulus Black was utterly at a loss.  He turned away from the door, the last place he had seen her, and instead moved to the railing.  He leaned heavily against it, looking out onto the grounds without seeing anything there.  All he could see was her face, straining so hard to hide the pain she felt as she told him she couldn’t be his. That expression would haunt him, and he knew he would carry it with him all of his days.