Constellations ↠ Regulus Black

04

Bruised wrists

Grace was decently agitated by the end of the night. Sure, Regulus was smart, but now she also knew why he was in Slytherin. He was rude when she got a question wrong, and it seemed like his fragile persona he had showed the night before was gone.

Still, he was extremely smart, and he was very good at explaining when she didn't understand. Even if he let out an exasperated sigh beforehand. As she finally closed her Astronomy textbook, she let out a sigh of relief.

"Finally." She muttered, stretching out her stiff muscles.

"What's wrong Gryffindor, Slytherin work a bit to hard for you?" Regulus asked her, and she gave him a rude look.

"No." She deadpanned. "However the Slytherin in front of me is a bit to much to handle."

"You asked me to tutor you." He reminded her, and she let out a sigh of agitation.

"Thanks for the reminder." She snarked, rolling her eyes at him. "Do you even happen to know my name Regulus?"

"Of course I do, Grace, I'd just rather not use it." He replied, giving her another infuriating smirk.

"Tell you what, Black, if we're keep these little encounters to ourselves, at least try and be civil. It's not like you have anyone to impress with you extensive amount of insults." Grace snapped hotly, giving him another rude look.

"Sure thing, Potter, just stay out of my way during classes." Regulus' response made Grace begin to fume.

"You know what? This has been fun, but I think I'll just have someone who actually likes me help me out." She snarled, gripping her school bag tightly and racing down the steps of the astronomy tower.

She did take her time returning to the Gryffindor common room, opting to avoid any confrontation with her brother if at all possible. However it was not to be, seeing as how her brother and friends were in the same spots as yesterday, awaiting her arrival. 

"Twice in two nights, Grace? Honestly? Do you want to give me premature wrinkles?" Her brother asked her, and she simply offered him a glare before walking towards the girls dormitories.

"C'mon Grace, don't be mad at him. You know he didn't mean to hurt you last night." Peter tried to reason with her as she walked away, making her stop dead in her tracts.

"Oh, is that what this is?" She snarled, holding up her bruised wrist. "An accident, James? Do you wanna know how many times I heard that last year?"

"Grace you know I didn't mean to-" Grace however didn't want to listen to her brothers excuses, and was already livid from her encounter with Regulus.

"I thought you knew how much it meant to me when you made him stop!" She seethed, but she wasn't done yet. "I thought you knew how much Bertram affected me! Isn't that why you did what you did? You risked being expelled so he would know not to hurt me anymore!" By now tears had begun to prick behind her eyes, as her brother and his friends were all staring at her with shock, gaping like goldfish.

"I thought you understood." She mumbled before racing up into her dorm. It wasn't as late as the night before, so her dorm mates were still awake when she came bursting in with tears threatening to fall.

"Oh my God, Grace! Are you alright?" A girl sitting on a bed opposite of an empty on cried out.

"Yeah.. Yeah Florence I'm fine." Grace mumbled out. "I'm just going to go to sleep."

The girls in her dorm stared at Grace with surprise, but she simply ignored then and quickly changed, closing the curtains of her four poster bed. It was only after she cast a silencing charm around her bed that she finally let her tears flow, sobs wracking her body.

Exploding at her brother wasn't what she had planned to do once she returned from her argument with Regulus, but things happen. However the memory of her old boyfriend wasn't what she wanted to remember.

Bertram Aubrey was a Hufflepuff and the opposite of what she thought he was. He was cruel, and all over a terrible person. There was no other way to describe him. When her brother and Sirius used an illegal hex on him which caused his head to swell to twice it's size, it was clear their relationship was over. That was when the scars began to fade, even the mental ones, but physical contact wasn't something she was comfortable with, especially when they had a temper like James.

She had long ago come to terms with what had happened. When she saw Regulus in an all to familiar position, though from different circumstances, she knew she couldn't leave him alone with his demons; She knew how detrimental that could be.

Apparently, however, he didn't want her help, and now she didn't want his either. She was done trying to care about the Slytherin. One night of seeing him in a sense of fragility didn't change anything, or the fact that he hated her family for not believing the same things as her. No, she'd find someone else to tutor her in Astronomy.

Her mind drifted away from the Slytherin boy and Astronomy and instead focused on the bruises on her wrist in the shape of finger prints. She already knew James didn't mean to hurt her, that much had been clear last night. She also knew she should probably apologize to him, but she decided to save that adventure for the next day.