arranged

friend or foe

"You looked..."

Violette and Regulus were paired for potions that afternoon, the scramble for a partner leaving them with each other. Violette had taken her seat silently, as though the boy sliding gracefully beside her wasn't there. Secretly she was glad to have such an advanced partner this time, having been stuck with Parkinson the last time they had a practical. But still, Regulus Black was not who she wanted to spend her time with, especially after he ignored her during the whole of Slughorn's party.

But now the silence was broken, she looked up at him expectantly. "I looked?"

Her impatience caught him off guard and the slight tint of pink dusted across his nose became more severe. "Never mind" Regulus muttered, his eyes turning back to the knife he was using to slice the Boomslang Skin needed for the potion.

His hand was unusually unsteady, a tremor causing the knife to brush close to his fingers. Violette watched him with a slight frown, taking a sharp breath intake when Regulus almost drew blood. She closed her hand over his, bringing his fingers out and forcing a drop of the knife. He tried to squirm away from her warm grip, but her hold was firm like how she would hold Anais when she got a scrape or bruise from her boisterous ways.

Regulus wanted to lean into the softness of her touch as she checked his hand for blood and attempted to steady it. But alarm bells were going inside his head and he felt a damning panic to move his hand away as her fingers neared his sleeve. He pulled harder this time, catching Violette off guard and knocking her against the table.

The noise of the collision startled the class, and Violette would have burned with embarrassment if she couldn't see Regulus's eyes. They weren't disgusted or maliciously inclined, but dilated with panic and fear. She frowned with concern.

"Are you alright, Miss Delacour?" Slughorn asked with a slight chuckle.

"Of course, Professor" she answered with a tight lipped smile. "Just a slip"

"Be careful" he winked at her and laughed heartily as he walked away.

For the rest of the lesson, Regulus did not meet her eyes. His hand shook all the more as he cut and sliced, but Violette didn't touch him again. They worked in a strained silence, and when the class was over, Regulus hurried out with Barty and Evan, his head bowed.

"What was that about? Potions?" Evan asked in the dorms later. "You haven't said anything since"

It was true. Regulus hadn't spoken for the entirety of dinner, pushing his fish around and not eating a bite.

"Nothing" he said sharply, turning a page in his book and looking as though he'd like to disappear into it.

Evan climbed into the bed beside him, and Barty sat at the end. "Come on Reg"

Barty twirled his wand and weaved it in and out of his fingers, something he'd learned in third year as a way to impress his female peers but soon became a ritualistic habit. "Should we hex her?" he grinned "I've learnt a new one. I found it in my fathers files last year. Apparently it turns your body inside out and -"

"No. We're not hexing her" Regulus sighed, staring his smirk down. "It's not to do with Violette"

Evan raised his eyebrows "Then what is it?"

Regulus looked at the two boys. He knew he could trust them with this. It was a shared experience, something they all had, but he always felt weak in admitting it. In pulling up his sleeves and taking off his shirt and pulling back his hair to reveal the constellations of injuries and scars his parents burdened him with. But meeting their eyes and seeing the raw concern they hardly let be shown besides in this room made him relent.