Les Misérables | Regulus A. Black [1]

Chapter Fourteen

[Chapter Fourteen]

The day outside, enjoying the fresh air and sunlight was a day well-needed in Éponine's opinion and she was glad that Orion had made the suggestion. After learning that she had made prefect, she didn't want to think about it nor did she want much to do with it. However, she learned shortly after she learned of her position that Walburga had taken the time to write a letter to her parents and inform the Rosiers of Éponine's accomplishment. For some reason, Éponine had found herself extremely irritated by the thought of her parents. All throughout the beginning of summer, she had found herself begging to go home, wanting to stay back at the manor and hide away in one of the barn stalls. Yet, as the summer was coming to the end, she wasn't upset that she had hardly seen them over the course of several weeks. 

They were well aware that she had attended the wedding but neither one of them had taken at least one minute to approach her and ask how she was doing. They didn't even bother with a "hello" or a simple hug as if she wasn't their daughter anymore. Perhaps that's what they were implying, soon enough, she would be married to Regulus and she would become his "responsibility", not theirs. Maybe in their own weird way, they were trying to prepare Éponine for that, but it didn't mean that she wasn't their daughter. She had done nothing wrong in order to have her parents ignore her, in fact, they should have greeted her with praise. From the time of her first arrangement with Sirius, she had done everything she had been told to do, even if it left her feeling uncomfortable. 

Perhaps irritated wasn't even the word to describe Éponine's attitude towards her parents, maybe a better word would have been bitter. Bitter at the fact that they had simply cast her from their home into another and made her someone else's problem. Every day, Éponine fought to build her self-esteem, it wasn't as simple as someone telling her to pull herself together and see herself in a better light. If it were that simple she would have acted upon it a long time ago, but instead, it was a cold war fought inside of her and more than often, she was losing battles. 

However, Éponine realised that she didn't have too much to complain about in the most recent of days. She and Regulus had come to somewhat of an understanding of each other, at least enough that they could carry on decent conversations. Thinking back to the boy that used to laugh, as his friends ridiculed her, it was hard for Éponine to believe that the same boy that told her she could very well be a goddess was actually the same person. She never expected Regulus to tolerate her being around him and she thought the summer was going to be nothing but painful torture. But it was pleasant, she could actually claim that it was pleasant being in his company.

The two suffered their rough patches, but they were getting along and Regulus wanted her to start seeing herself in a better light. He was looking out for her, even without being told to and that was beyond what Éponine expected when it came to any sort of progress being made between them. He held the promise that he was going to help her ease into the prefect position and that other students were going to learn how to respect her name.