- ʀᴇɢᴜʟᴜs ʙʟᴀᴄᴋ ғᴀɴғɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ
"You. Me. Hogsmeade. Tomorrow" Romie demands, leaving no room for objection.
Regulus slowly lifts his head from his book, briefly wondering if he's managed to land himself into a similar alternate dimension,
"Come again...
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꧁✧✧✧꧂
𝕿he Three Broomsticks will never be the same again.
Will never be the cool grown up tavern the Marauders made one of their designated spots for solemnly sweared up to no good business by sneaking in unauthorised, pre-teen Romie, substituting the blood in her system for sugar. Will never be the fondly reminisced demanded rendezvous where ingenious yet foolish Operation Lupin-Black was negotiated and set in motion, explicit rules they should have known would fall through, be broken were made. Will never be the intimate scene for numerous unofficial dates secretly longed to be official. Real.
Those memories are core memories, holding so much emotional value, but so does the one that has her trapped in place, trapped in the tortuous replay. Her eyes slam shut in attempts to reduce the huge commotion like Cornish pixies let loose in her mind and without thinking twice, she grapples for the arm alongside her own, her grip strong like an iron vice.
They don't kick up a fuss about the intensity bound to leave a reddish mark and she doesn't kick up a fuss that it's not who she originally thought. She had entered with Regulus. This wasn't Regulus, not unless he had a rather Gryffindor-ish, spur of the moment reconsideration of his outlook on leather. His fancy, pureblood arse is too classy for leather.
"Moony's apologising to Reg. He won't be a few minutes"
Sure enough, that's precisely what's going on, what's influenced Regulus to temporarily retire from her side. He doesn't seem to be happy about it, facial expression and body language giving him away. Uninterested. He seems to be so uninterested in what's being said directly in his ear and who's saying it, it's almost comical. Romie might've snorted in laughter, shook her head at his blatant and unapologetic insolence if she weren't trapped in the vicious circle of memories, trapped in the scrupulous liquid of his eyes.
Every ounce, every trace of interest, of attention he ought to be giving Remus, the courteous, civil thing to do, is instead being siphoned to Romie, unshared and undivided. She finds the commotion starts to resolve, quieten down a great deal, finds her breaths coming easier, finds the burning of her skin bearable and replaced by a nice tingle that makes her heart beat all differently. Her vision lowers to the root cause other than him as a whole, returning the thoughtful gesture with a little rub against the initial of her own ring.
She looks back up just in time to catch the relaxation of his brow, the shine in his eyes that tells her he would be smiling, showing off those lines she loves, if it didn't threaten his demeanour. That's how they stay, locked into each other until the lame finishing up of the regretful speech has emotional amber eyes she's not ready to untangle wandering her way, hurriedly averting hers to the bar Rosmerta's waggling a knowing eyebrow to flirty advances behind. Those eyes, the ones that are after a free round of drinks and will do whatever it takes, without any shame, is a day-to-day expectation in this job field. Romie would know.
