Star-crossed | 𝑹𝒆𝒈𝒖𝒍𝒖𝒔 𝑩𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌

The one who fell from grace

• Camille Malfoy •

„The sun watches what I do,
but the moon knows all my secrets."

As much as Camille stood behind her family and their views, she couldn't help but admire Muggles for their wild imaginations. It seemed as if they defiantly perceived the well-hidden magic around them, tried to explain it and trivialised it. The young witch could not otherwise explain where the abundance of fairy tales, stories, legends and sagas came from.

The Slytherin loved this kind of evasion of reality and once she had even had to laugh heartily at the fact that one of the gods reported on was called Minerva by another name. She wondered if Professor McGonagall was aware of that.

Camille tiptoed through the shelves of the spacious library at Hogwarts late one evening, not as well stocked as the one at Malfoy Manor, but it housed a small selection of Muggle stories that she certainly wouldn't find at home. She ran her slender fingers over the spines of some of the books, some of which were old, until she had a fairy tale anthology in her hand.

Just as she was about to move to the windowsill at the back of the room, she noticed a figure sitting on the floor. She toyed with the idea of simply turning around and smuggling the book into her dormitory. But she wasn't going to be driven away that easily, especially not by someone like Sirius Black.

Like a petulant little child, he sat leaning on the seat of his trousers against one of the shelves and seemed to be using the light of a lantern, which stood opposite him on the window ledge, as his only source of light. The lad could read?

With chin up, the blonde continued on her way, hiding the title of the book in her cloak. Astonished, she raised a brow as she stood right in front of the Gryffindor who didn't seem to have taken any notice of her yet and instead still had his nose buried in a book. It was a bloody thick book and Black was just turning to one of the last pages.

"Rather, I believe in the fairy tale Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump than you actually read every single page of that book," Camille scoffed, clutching her own tightly under her cloak as if she feared it might be snatched from her at any moment.

Sirius didn't even look at her, but his brows furrowed in annoyance. "Get out of my light, Malfoy."

The Slytherin couldn't help but wonder if the rest of the pest he affectionately referred to as friends weren't also just hanging around, or if he had actually left his pack for a while. "What are you doing here anyway?" she asked redundantly, biting her lips at the same moment. Because what he was doing was obvious. Learning to read.

"I suppose the same thing you are," the black-haired boy remarked, folding the thick book closed on his lap. Thanks to the dim light, Camille still couldn't make out what this apparently extremely exciting read was about. She jutted her chin and smiled diabolically. "But unlike you, I'm a prefect."

Sirius grinned back, unimpressed. "I know from confidential sources that this still doesn't give you the right to sneak around the library at night."

Caught, the blonde turned away and the blush crept onto her pale cheeks, hopefully not too visible in the darkness. In the meantime, the Gryffindor had stood up and let the book disappear into his pocket, apparently feeling he didn't need to take any chances by having her track it down after he had put it back in front of her. A smart move, she had to hand it to him.

"What's going on between you and Regulus?" he finally asked, shouldering his bag as if to leave. But instead he eyed her with a mixture of curiosity and disgust with his grey eyes.

"I don't know what you mean," she replied coolly, withstanding his expectant gaze, which grew icier by the second. Raucously, he laughed. "Well, the last time you had a closer relationship, you let him down. He would have needed you after..."

"No, he would have needed you," Camille hissed carelessly, a little too loudly. "Don't you dare blame me for that, Black. You were the one who decided against his family."

"And after that, you chose against him as well."

"Because of you!" Her voice was by now as sharp and hypothermic as ice chips and yet she hoped to stab him with her gaze. After all, it was his brother and also his doing that had divided the three friends. "You have brought such shame upon your family that I have been denied even a word with Regulus."

Sirius, who hadn't made a face earlier, now scowled at her in the same way. "Then you should have just gone against what your parents thought."

"I'm not like you," the Slytherin whispered dryly, turning away with her head held high. What this boy was thinking was completely beyond her. Just because he'd had a bad childhood, that didn't apply to every pureblood child. She had had a great childhood and she loved her parents, never would she dare stab them in the back like that.

Just as Camille was about to walk past her former friend, he held her by the arm and pressed a thin book he had just pulled from one of the shelves into her free hand. With a furrowed brow, she looked at Sirius, who was still staring at her abruptly. "I think you might like this, if you're already into reading books along these lines."

In an abrupt moment, she noticed piqued that her cloak had slipped. Exactly where she had hidden the fairy tale anthology and her counterpart was staring at that very spot with an amused smile. Camille swallowed and tried to hide her shame by drawing attention to the book that had just been thrust into her hand. "Romeo and Juliet?"

"A tragedy, like all our lives," Sirius explained with a shrug and a half-hearted smile, but his eyes were sad. "Lily made us all read it once."

Camille raised one of her eyebrows and put the book back on the shelf, unimpressed, before turning away. "I prefer happy endings."