Black Rose [Regulus Black]

Epilogue: Healing

Alessandra grunted as she was roughly thrown to the ground. Her head spun as she clutched at the grass underneath her, trying to gather herself. "I will always hate this," she groaned. "Why couldn't we have taken a ship or something? I've heard the airplane is quite good."

"You'd eat your words when that Muggle contraption comes lose and tosses us both into the sea," Regulus replied, helping her up. He was also a little unsteady on his feet, clearly, as in the process of helping her get up, he also fell down. She burst into laughter and he scowled.

"I wonder what it's going to be like," she said. "I feel like they'd kill us."

"Sirius scouldn't kill us."

"Especially Sirius. He would kill us the most."

"I highly doubt it," Regulus sniggered. "He'd probably wail and kiss the feet of our robes."

She made a face as she thought about it. 

It had been nearly seven years since they had run off in the dead of night to avoid being put in prison for all that had happened during the Wizarding War. Alessandra, Regulus and Evan all just up and left in the middle of the night a few days before their trial was to be officially announced. Of course, things had calmed down now. Barty Crouch Sr.'s power had been diminished by a lot, which meant that things were mostly safer for them now, but Alessandra still couldn't stop worrying about what would happen. What if there was a bounty on their heads? What if she entered Wizarding London, and there was a grisly mugshot of her saying something like "Mass Murderer on the Loose"? They were all valid questions.

"It will be fine," Regulus murmured, as if he knew exactly what was going on through her brain. She'd gotten used to it. 

The whole timeline of their relationship had been so topsy turvy. They'd apparently been set to be married as children, then completely forgot about each other, then they went through some really difficult times together, and then went through their honeymoon phase together. The last seven years had definitely been a breeze, compared to what had come right before it. Of course, things weren't always easy; it wasn't easy running away from your home country, especially when all the other Ministries were super wary about Britain after what had been going on.

Not to mention, everything that had happened kind of fucked Alessandra up. Even after Voldemort was dead and she no longer had to torture anybody, she found herself questioning the kind of person she truly was for being so susceptible to influence. The memories of all she'd seen and done were still imprinted on her eyelids, but the images thankfully got fainter with time.

With time, everything got better. Their normal had been so abnormal that it really took some time to adjust, but they got there. Regulus finally got the opportunity to explore his interest in Astronomy as more than just a hobby — a career at the Ministry was definitely out of the question for him, in the interest of security, but he didn't mind at all. Alessandra, on the other hand, firmly stayed away from the Wizarding World; she was sure careers in the Wizarding World were exciting, but her beginning in that side of the world had been far from positive, and she had no interest in immersing herself in that world for a while. Instead, she focused on building a culinary career. 

Every once in a while, they'd save up their money and go on a fun vacation once in a while. It was normal. Wonderfully so. They didn't have an abundance of money and they didn't mind (Alessandra didn't, at least... Regulus still struggled with it, but considering he'd grown up in the lap of luxury, he was faring well). They were happy.

Well, except right now. Regulus looked annoyed.

"Your brother is a git."

"He's just five minutes late," she defended Evan. Once the three of them had fled the country, Evan stuck around only for a couple of days before separating from them. She adored her brother, but she was secretly thankful that he'd gone - this way, she got to spend more time with Reg, really love him without any pressure. They did see each other at least twice a month anyways, so it wasn't that big of a deal.