Once upon a Midnight Dreary - Regulus Black

Chapter 9

"𝔜ou should be sitting in the shadow instead. The sun is baking you, Lexi."

I squinted up at Isabella. Languidly lifting my hand, I shaded my brow and watched her sit down in the grass. She reminded me of an impressionist painting in her lacy white dress, with her blonde hair loose down her back. The garden flowers perfumed the air with their fragrant odors; she herself looked like one of those flowers in blossom, with her flushed cheeks and green eyes.

It was an early August morning, the hottest day of the summer so far. I had been enjoying the warm sunshine, on the verge of falling asleep when she showed up uninvited as always. Beside me lay my Hogwarts letter with the list of books I needed for the year. I still had them from the year before and only needed to buy a brand new DADA course book. I figured that we were going to have yet another new teacher this year. Somehow, they never seemed to stay longer than a school year.

"Do you remember last summer when we first got together? You came over to ask me to attend your brother's wedding with you," Isabella said in her melodious voice.

She reached out and touched her index finger to the heated skin of my cheek. She kept smiling even after I turned my head away, trying to escape her touch.

"You brought me chocolate and roses, and we talked in the garden all afternoon. You got so sunburned that day that you were lobster-red in the face for about a week and a half afterwards."

"You should stop living in the past already." I closed my eyes again. "Can't you let the bygones be bygones?"

"All my friends were jealous of me when I told them that infamous Lexi Nott asked me out," she continued as if she couldn't hear me. "Some of them stopped being my friends. They used to be dating you too, and were still crushing on you... Still, I didn't care about that. In the end, you kept coming back to me and not to them."

"You're not giving up easily, are you?" I sighed. "What's the point of bringing up old business? We've been over for more than three months now."

"It doesn't matter," Isabella replied easily. "When you broke up with me for the second time, we still ended up together after four months of not being together. What guarantees that it won't happen again?"

"That I'm with someone I love? Or that I still don't have any feelings for you and I never will?" I counterquestioned, slowly losing my patience.

I was starting to understand what Lily Evans must have gone through every time Potter asked her out in the past. I was similarly harassed by Isabella, at parties and in my own home as well. She would come and go as she pleased, using the flimsiest excuses to explain why she would visit me so unexpectedly and frequently. Louisa, being short on brains, welcomed her with open arms and failed to see how uncomfortable Isabella's company made me feel.

Today she wasn't home for a change; she had taken Theodora out for a walk to meet up with Druella and Walburga Black. Father was also out and about, on a quest to find us a new house-elf. Only Theodore and I were at home; he had locked himself up in his study as per usual, and I had spent the first half of the day out in the courtyard.

"Then tell me this," Isabella's honeyed voice altered and sounded demanding. I felt her place her tiny delicate hands on my shoulders. Her long hair came warm against my collarbone as she bent over me. "What does she have that I don't?"

I stifled a despair-filled, exhausted moan and sat up abruptly. All I wanted was some peace and quiet, preferably far away from Isabella. This was apparently too much to ask for; I couldn't even enjoy a rare moment of calm and take a nap under the burning morning sun. I had to be chased after by her when I very well could have been resting and daydreaming about Reggie, too.