The Art of Living - R. Black

thirty six

Meredith Black

After the most chaotic and terrifying 24 hours of my life, Atlas and Elio are home safe. They had never gotten off of the Hogwarts Express so I immediately alerted the Order and sent a Patronus to Regulus. He showed up within five minutes.

We didn't talk about anything other than finding the boys the whole time and we didn't sleep the whole night while searching for them.

I was flooded with relief when we got a Patronus from Fleur. Jack watched Cassie for a few hours while Regulus and I deal with everything.

Neither of the boys wants to talk about what happened yet, but judging by the state of them they will need someone to talk to in the morning. But for tonight Regulus and I let them do to bed after asking them if they were okay so many times that they got irritated.

Now, the boys and Cassie are asleep and Regulus and I are left in awkward silence.

"Are you leaving again?" I ask Regulus, closing the bedroom door.

He's standing by the dresser and is in the middle of finding pajamas to wear. "No," He shakes his head. "I'm not leaving again. Ever."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," I say.

The air is tense around us and there's so much space between us.

"I'm sorry," Regulus says. "I'm so sorry."

"Did you at least find what you were looking for?" I ask.

Regulus stares at me. "Yes," He answers. "I found one of the Horcruxes and destroyed it."

"Do you want to keep looking for them?" I ask.

Regulus barely lets me finish speaking before he answers. "No, I'm done looking. I just want to be here with you, with the kids."

"You left me, you left the kids," I remind him.

"I came back," Regulus says.

"You shouldn't have left in the first place," I say.

Regulus takes a couple of steps closer to me. There's still a few feet of space between us but not enough space. "I'm so sorry, Meredith. I'm sorry for leaving again," Regulus says. "But I came back, just like I promised." He searches my eyes frantically. "Can't that be enough?"

I pinch the bridge of my nose and have an internal fight between my head and my heart. On one hand, he shouldn't have left again, he shouldn't have left our kids to go on a possible suicide mission. On the other hand, he did come back. He came back and I still love him. He is my husband and I will always love him.

"I am so infuriated with you, I don't even know where to start," I say exasperatedly.

Regulus takes a step toward me. "I know," He says. "Be mad at me. Yell at me, tell me you hate me, that you hate what I did. I can take it."

"You are just so-," I struggle to find the words so I grab Regulus's face and smash my lips against his.

He meets me halfway and is quick to hold me. My hands are fisted in his shirt, wanting more, and more, and more.

"You're an idiot," I mumble against his lips.

"I know," Regulus says.

We kiss again and it's biting. It's angry. I kiss him hard and he reciprocates it. Regulus tugs at my bottom lip and holds me flush against him. I kiss him until I start running out of breath and all of my anger starts to dissolve and get pushed to the back of my mind.

I run out of fight. We're running out of time and I don't want to spend it being angry with him.

We go from tugging at clothes and hair to brushes of our lips. Regulus's lips brush against mine and we're out of energy, we're out of time, so we just stand there holding each other. Regulus's hand cards through my hair and our foreheads are pressed together.