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Sleep does not come peacefully for Regulus, after that.
It had already been awkward when he had returned to the dormitory, meeting Evan and Barty after spending the rest of the afternoon flat-out ignoring them. They had clearly worked through something, Regulus could tell, because Barty kept cracking quiet jokes to Evan while Regulus was away brushing his teeth that, though Reg couldn't hear, knew they weren't for his ears, anyway. He only heard Evan's snickering.
He doesn't mind if they did make up, anyway. Bully for them. Reg has more important things on the mind, doesn't he?
In any case, they were asleep when he came out of the shower, so he didn't have to deal with them no matter what. Good, he'd thought—his eyelids were heavy with sleep and dreams would be the perfect escape from the travesty his life had fallen to within the last few hours.
If only life were so easy.
He tosses. He turns. He huffs his frustration in the hopes that either Barty or Evan may wake up, just so he isn't the only one struggling.
It isn't his fault, of course, but Lyra's. It all comes back to her.
When he does manage to catch sleep, all he sees is her, like a poorly framed portrait that just captures the worst bit of the scene. He sees everything he has done with her, every conversation that has taken place, every word that has rolled off his tongue in her general direction—and she's always there, in every sense. She envelopes him. She swallows him whole with her curly brown hair and her big, innocent eyes and that vile scent of citrus she always smells.
Always, always, always. Everything about her, always. Never just a little bit. Never just a sliver of Lyra. It's always all of her. Smothering him until he's sure he'll suffocate.
He never does.
Waking up is a hassle after hours upon hours of Lyra nightmares. His eyes hurt, and his throat is dry, and though he took a shower the night before he feels disgusting anyway, so he takes another one. It's Lyra, he knows; his proximity to her, at least. It veils over him like a sheen of filth. Like her impurity is affecting his own.
When he watches the water run down the drain, it's clear as crystals. Perfectly clear. Pure. For a moment—an odd one, but one that makes him genuinely curious, at least for a second—he wonders whether people like Lyra must spend longer to bathe themselves. Exert more effort. Then he wonders if the water runs clean from them anyway. It must, right? Humans aren't inherently dirty beings. They're just—humans. Like Regulus is ultimately a boy with magic in him and Lyra is just the same.
But then he is angry, and he isn't sure what at, so he nearly busts the handles as he turns the water off and gets out.
Perhaps he's upset at the prospect of humanity. The fact that he just admitted to himself something he spent his whole life in denial of. But even now, thinking back on his childhood, the morals he was raised on... what is the point? What's the point of all the blood purity, if Muggleborns and half-bloods can have magic all the same?
