From Eden - Regulus Black (Complete)

Chapter Twenty-Three

POSTING A BIT MORE TODAY TO WARN THAT I'LL BE AWAY FROM HERE FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS. I HAVE A SMALL TRIP TO GO TO, BUT I'LL BE BACK BY MONDAY.

trigger warning: mentions of sexual assault, please proceed with caution.

SHAME

Regulus felt the crippling shame burn his stomach inside out as he almost started crying in his bed after his father came to his room, warning him that he had already shared a conversation with Anne about her 'place in his bed, but not in his heart'. He wanted to simply die so he wouldn't have to see anyone ever again, but he had been quite happy when Severus Snape came knocking on his door with the excuse that they had agreed on training some potions, which made his mother allow the half-blood into her house once more.

The Black boy whimpered on his pillow once more as Severus, sitting on the floor of his bedroom using his very expensive potion ingredients to make a new potion he had been training to show Slughorn to allow him to be his apprentice.

"What happened?" Severus asked, finally tired of his wordless complaints made of whimpers and groans.

"I want to die," Regulus screamed against his pillow.

Severus nodded slowly. That was something he had felt before several times in his life, but...

"Why?"

"Because my father has gone absolutely mad," he said, raising his face from the pillow and slipping to the floor, sitting beside Severus. "Anne came here to have dinner yesterday after my mother wanted to meet her –"

"Wait? What?" Severus asked. "All you said you needed her address to send her a book she wanted. I was trying to help you flirt with the girl, not bring her to meet your parents; that's messed up!"

"Well, that was the plan until my mother made sure I invited her," Regulus said. "That's not important at the moment. The important part is that everybody liked her – well, at least the men and Narcisa – and then my father went to take her back home, and I tried to get in between, but it was too late."

"What did he do?" Severus asked, rolling his eyes at Regulus' drama.

"He made sure to tell Anne that if she ever came to my bed, she would never get any ring on her finger because she wasn't good enough to marry me," Regulus said. "I never even gone out with the girl and my father already made sure she knew she won't ever even think of marrying me."

Severus winced a bit.

"That sounds bad," he admitted.

"Oh, thanks," Regulus grumbled.

"Have you talked to her since yesterday?"

Regulus's eyes widened to him, shaking his head.

"Have you gone absolutely barking mad as well, mate? We both know she'll never talk to me again!" Regulus answered. "I can't write her. She must absolutely hate me right now. I can't even think of looking at her ever again, I'd rather rip my eyes out."

"Don't be dramatic."

But that was not something that the Blacks seemed to be able to do. They had a flare for the dramatic in their blood, Severus was sure of all that; he had grown close to Regulus and he had hated Sirius with the same intensity.

"Severus, I really don't want to see anyone ever again," Regulus said.

"Sage is a smart girl, she surely understands you have nothing to do with it," Severus said. "I can ask, if you want me to?"