The Art of Love and Regality | Sirius and Regulus Black

Chapter 1: Ballroom Dancing

Ever since Madam Madeline Maxine had taught Anna the etiquettes of ballroom dancing, she became utterly enraptured by the beauty of it. The gracious courtesies, the elegant sweeps, the swift turns, and the beautiful notes of the orchestra resonating across the ballroom. And that's when she began to romanticise the idea of balls. She imagined herself prancing around at balls in her frilly dress, giggling and indulging in merriment, only to find her destined love once the end of the dancing was punctuated by the culminating note of the orchestra. Much to her dismay, the balls hosted by her parents, Vladimir and Elizeveta Nikolaev, were nothing like the ones she had envisaged. All she had to do was sit in her crushed velvet carmine throne with her legs crossed, hands on her lap, looking like a dainty damsel waiting patiently for her prince. That was the case for each and every one of them until Sirius Black would arrive. He was Anna's good samaritan, adding excitement, adventure, and mischief to the otherwise tedious galas.
"Milady, would you care to accompany me on my little escapade," he would inquire impishly. "With pleasure milord," she would reply with a mischievous grin carved on her face. Together they would race across the ballroom, earning an earful of reprimanding and the displeasure of the throng attending the gala, not like that did anything to dispirit them. They would continue to steal goblets of champagne, spilling them all across the floor, ensuring that at least someone would slip and a good deal of hysteria would arise. Natheless, he was the topmost on the listicle of Anna's suitor, mainly owing to his opulent and pure-blood ancestry, or in other words, his family were considered the royals of the wizarding world, just like Anna's.
Regulus Black was Anna's therapist, the kind of company that is ideal for any time of the day or night. He would listen and listen to Anna going on about how much she loathed her parents, their vacuous rules, and traditions, and how much she abhorred herself for still abiding by them, occasionally adding a few emphatic smiles and nods because he knew how that was like firsthand.
They were like the sun and the moon, utter antithesis yet equivalently indispensable. One shone more luminously than the other, ensuring that he, his idiosyncratic talents, and his rebellious nature would be in no way disregarded. He made sure to procure and maintain his perpetual position in the limelight. The other was more fond of solitude, radiating his luminescent light occasionally and only in front of his most trusted comrades. Coming to accept the fact that the spotlight belonged to his brother and that he was more suited off in the obscurity.

Like his brother, Regulus too was on the top of the list for her suitors, except due to his more disciplined nature he was highly preferred. That was the sole decision of her parents she was all right with. She knew them since they were in their diapers and vice versa, marrying one of them would just mean spending the rest of her life with her closest friends. It didn't matter whether she loved them as significant others, all that mattered was that she could trust them enough with her life and that she knew they would never hurt her and always keep her happy. Therefore, she tailored her thinking to accept that when she came of age she would marry one of them and no one else.

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Settling her owl cage on the train seat alongside hers, she closed and locked the door of her train compartment, before collapsing on the onyx cushiony seat with an exhausted sigh. This year's summer holidays were like a trip to hell. Each moment was a personification of elongated misery. Every minute, her mother would be there, beside her, continually reminding her that she was the descendant of the Great Yaroslav Nikolaev, the founder of the Emancipation Movement in Russia, who had liberated innumerable misery-stricken wizards and witches who had been taken captive by those magic abhorring muggles. Then for someone reason that hadn't been told to Anna, he moved to London, England, where he sought employment in the Ministry of Magic and later, due to his conscientious dedicated working nature and his profound impact on liberating magic in Russia, he became the Minister of Magic, one of the greatest in fact. People in his time greatly revered him, told their descendants of the Magnificent Yaroslav, and gave him the title of "Salvation of magic kind".
In the words of her mother, ''His movement was of ever-lasting impact. Without him, who knows what would have happened to the future of magic in Russia. His extraordinary work and efforts have set standards for all of the Nikolaev Family, standards you must follow. And now that you have come to age, after your seventh year, the preparation for your wedding will be afoot."
"How are the preparation supposed to commence when I am not even privy to my future husband!" Anna exclaimed, greatly vexed why they wouldn't tell her. "You already know that it is one of the Black Brothers," her mother replied calmly, completely unaffected with Anna's flabbergasted stare. "But which one Mama?'', Anna questioned desperately. "That I'll tell you after you have completed your education." With sheer willpower, Anna managed to keep her mouth knowing that once her mother's mind was set on doing something, no one could convince her to do otherwise.
Shaking her head, she tried her best to obliterate that memory, it angered her to the extent where she wanted to pull her hair and shatter everything in her vicinity. Looking out the luminescent window, she began reminiscing about her first time at Hogwarts. The thundering cheers that abruptly erupted from the table adorned in carmine and gold cloth when the sorting hat catalogued her in the Gryffindor house. Fortuitously, unlike Sirius' parents, hers were tolerant about being sorted into houses other than Slytherin.
She still remembered Sirius' grimacing face when he received the howler from his mother. That thing went on for hours and hours, chastising Sirius in his mother's infuriated voice for disgracing the family name. All Anna could do at that time was offer Sirius a sympathetic smile.

A cacophonous knock tore her away from her state of recollection. She turned her head in the direction of the door and beamed, speak of the devil! She arose from her state of repose and faced Sirius' face that bore a waggish expression smushed against the pellucid door. "May I please come in?" he begged, blinking his eyes numerously to bring an innocent expression to his face. Chuckling, Anna unlocked the padlock and returned to her seat.
"I assume your holidays must have gone by just like mine," Anna spoke, sympathetically eyeing Sirius. "Well, if your holidays were replete with infuriating parents scolding you for something you might not have done every waking minute, then yes. My holidays went by just like yours."
"How's Regulus?" Anna asked softly, knowing that Regulus had received his death eater mark this summer. "Great, and why wouldn't he be? His exceptional sucking-up abilities and push-over nature have let him attain the position of Mommy and Daddy's favourite," Sirius remarked, tone laced with dense sarcasm.
"You know that he is being coerced into doing so." Sirius threw his hands into the air in annoyance, clearly exasperated, '"Well, is he really that devoid of willpower and conscience to refuse and do the right thing!"
"Well, imagine yourself in his position for a moment. All his life he has been taught that there is no option but to readily agree with whatever his parents say. Now, that he has almost come of age, how can you expect him to act in a way that differs from the teachings that have been drilled into him ever since he could talk? Look at me as well. There is no sole order of my parents that I have defied. Yes, occasionally I do argue and fight back, but in the end, I am always back to square one, being ordered around by my parents and forced to abide by the rules. Not everyone could be as courageous as you to publicly defy their parents and pursue whatever their hearts desire."
Sirius stared at the girl blankly, clearing out of words to argue back with and completely thrown off-guard by the compliment. Shaking his head, he threw Anna a playful smirk and spoke, "I have heard that you are to be wed the summer after your Hogwart's education has been completed."
Throwing her head back, Anna groaned vexedly, "Who told you?"
"Mother did. She also informed me that I am one of your two top suitors. Not that it was a surprise, I'd always known," he told proudly, adjusting his collar.
Drawing his head closer, he propped his elbows on his knees, gaze intense, "You know Anna, I think you might not make that bad of a wife."
Anna stared breathlessly at Sirius, insides twitching, hands suddenly clammy.
The train horn blared vociferously, cutting through the tension present in the train compartment like a honed knife before the train itself came to an unexpected halt.
"You might not make a bad husband yourself Sirius Black," she replied before grabbing her birdcage and belongings and making her way to the threshold of the train.