Wolves Without Teeth ── theodore nott ¹ ( UNDER EDITING )

chapter twenty four

      

Days floated into weeks for life at Hogwarts, and before the eldest Bulstrode child knew it, she was standing a week prior to the worst day in the world, ( and it's not something she wishes to get into. ) the worst day, that was bound to send her into a fit of over dramatic demise, was also the date of her birth and a holiday made upon pink frilly flowers and chocolate. She had been born both in the middle of a vicious thunderstorm that crackled the night skies as her mother hollered in pain, and in the middle of the one holliday in the year that was dedicated to celebrate love.

She chooses not to see the irony in both of those situations.

It was almost hilarious that the time of year where her birthday rolled around in her fifth year, was the same time when homework started stacking up. She wasn't sure when she started neglecting her schoolwork, exactly, and it wasn't as if she didn't wish to do it. It was the fact her mind couldn't focus long enough to write a complete sentence, she would find herself sitting for hours gazing at nothing lost in her mind as she thought about Cassandra Nott's notebook.

Winnie Bulstrode had taken it upon herself to find answers about the missing people mentioned in the pages, and while she certainly should be looking for something to calm her and center her instead of people long since forgotten, she found herself lost in mystery.

It didn't take much to figure out who Regulus was, for once while Winnie imagined Sirius Black being the one who was married to Charlotte Nott, with the mention of Regulus being the one who was missing and Charlotte not loving him as she should, she could easily put two and two together. It became clearer to her then, remembering Regulus A. Black's name in the family tree back at Grimmauld Place, connected to a face that had been burned off the tree. At the time, Winnie had found herself paying very little attention to the details, too lost in her emotions to observe information like she usually would.

Finding Regulus Black in Hogwarts was perhaps easier than she suspected considering nobody spoke about him at all. She had stumbled upon a picture of him in the floating glass box that held all the Quidditch trophies and past teams posted. Winnie had been walking down to the Great Hall for dinner when she passed, spotting Harry's father's name under Chaser, only to glance to the side and spot a black and white picture of the Slytherin team that same year. It was the narrowed face male, that stood out front that caught her attention, for he looked scarily like Sirius Black that she had halted in her steps completely.

Upon closer inspection, she spotted the differences between the two instantly. While Sirius' hair was straight and smooth like silk, his brothers laid in soft curls on top of his pale features. He was narrow like Sirius, tall and lanky as he held onto a broom with his gloved left hand. Winnie could tell that he held the grey eyes of the Black's, but unlike Sirius' who had grey eyes that looked like molten silver, sparking with mischief and impulsiveness that held his emotions so close to his heart. Regulus' eyes were a darker grey, clouded in a control manner. She watched as he moved, his lip only tilting up slightly in a manner before it fell away, his actions stiff and held together like every respected pureblood male she has ever seen in her life.

The differences between the brothers was striking, and if it wasn't for their last names or similar narrowed faces, she would've thought they weren't related at all.

It was Charlotte Nott who was harder to find, it was as if she didn't exist at all. While Regulus Black was mentioned in several year books she had found in the library, all for Quidditich, a small club called the Slug Club and for his high raking marks, she found nothing for Charlotte. It had frustrated the brunette to no end, for it seemed quite impossible for the female to not exist at all until she had stumbled upon a group of yearbook pictures in a book that was so deeply hidden away, she had coughed for a straight two minutes with dust filling her lungs.