Black Rose [Regulus Black]

41 - embarrassing company & ominous notes

Regulus would never be able to forget how his life had completely turned around a year ago.

From 1979 to 1980, his life had transformed so drastically it was like someone had taken a Time Turner and altered...well, everything, in his life. There was no other logical explanation for it. In 1979, he had virtually no real relations with anybody, was a Death Eater, hated Muggles without even knowing about their world, and was going to attempt a suicidal mission. In 1980, he was alive, had a gorgeous girlfriend (who was a descendant of Slytherin but lived a Muggle life?), was working with the Order, and had a semi-functional relationship with his brother and his brother's best friends. He'd been to Azkaban but not in the way he'd expected.

And he knew what a microwave was. A microwave.

"I think we just aren't able to have good dates in fancy restaurants," Alessandra's voice snapped him out of his reverie, and he looked up from his soup.  "We're always so silent whenever we sit in one of these places."

"Wait, wait, before you feel bad, I have a good Dumbledore joke."

She sighed. "I liked it better when it was silent."

"No, no, you'll like this one."

"Really?" she arched an eyebrow. She looked even prettier than usual... shiny golden hair, gorgeous green eyes and smile brighter than the Sun... it was like the soup was laced with Amortentia. 

"Yes, hear me out. What do you do when the light is off and you can't find your way out of a room?"

She inhaled deeply, folding her hands in front of her face as her shoulders silently shook. "What?" she wheezed, a quiver in her voice.

"You stumble-door."

She burst into laughter, causing the candles in front of them to flicker and earning them the stink eye from several diners around them. It took her a full five minutes to completely stop, It was the loudest sound in that quiet restaurant, but hearing her laugh all the time had made him stopped equating "loud" to "terrifying" at one point.

Funnily enough, Regulus was certain that a year ago, he'd have probably one of the people heavily judging and glaring at her. He remembered telling her a not-so-long time ago, what had happened had happened and there was no point wondering about the alternate universes, but he found himself wondering about it too. Would he have still found her beautiful, still harboring that prejudice against Muggles had he not sailed through her window?

Life was strange sometimes.

"I'm just laughing because I am going to get embarrassingly drunk in some time, and you're going to have to deal with it," she gulped down some water after she'd stopped laughing, narrowing her eyes back at some of the people who were glaring in the direction of their table. 

"Always."

"I'm serious. You're going to feel an embarrassment so deep you'll want to crawl out of your skin and into the core of the Earth, never to be seen again. You're going to want to pretend to not know me. But remember, Regulus, I laughed," she said solemnly.

He'd never be embarrassed to know her. The only thing he was embarrassed about was telling her that.

He made sure to lock up those thoughts deep in his mind, especially once he saw his mother eyeing him when he reached Grimmauld Palace later that night, her grey eyes holding sinister intent.