Marmoris | Rabastan Lestrange [1] ✔︎

20 | CONTROLLING

Phoenix blinked several times before his words fully reached her mind. Her brain seemed to work in slow motion but as soon as she got the message thousands of thoughts rushed through her mind on high speed. Every single part of her body wanted to scream 'yes' although she knew very well she couldn't, not after agreeing to go with Alexander Rosier.

Her short hesitation seemed to be enough as an answer to him as he rose to his feet and mumbled more to himself than in her direction. "Of course, why should you even consider going with me?"

Immediately Phoenix jumped to her feet as well, holding him back from returning to cleaning the remaining cauldron by his arm.

"That's not it," She told him.

"What is it then? I'm a second son, I'm not an heir, which doesn't make me a fit for you. Why should you show up with me?"

She could hear the bitterness in his voice but as usual she didn't feel it. It was like there was a giant bubble around him, preventing his emotions from reaching out to her.

"I never even thought a second about that, Rabastan."

"But you should."

"No, I should definitely not. That's nothing you are in control of, you can't change it, which means it doesn't define you as a person."

Still the slightly older boy kept staring at the floor.

"I've been told different." Just as he said these words an almost shocked expression washed over his face, like he had said something he wasn't supposed to say, and he added. "What is it then?"

Phoenix glanced around the room, not looking at anything in particular. "Alex... Rosier asked me to go with him and," She interrupted herself, biting her lower lip. "I said yes."

"When?" Was his simple answer.

"Before we went down here for detention."

She heard him breathe in. "So that's what you two were talking about?"

As Phoenix nodded, he asked further. "Why didn't you tell me when I asked?"

"I don't know," She answered truthfully, shrugging. "I wasn't sure if it was the right decision, I suppose."

"Why did you do it then, if you weren't sure of it?"

Phoenix started to feel uncomfortable under his never ending questioning. He acted as if he wanted to make her feel even more guilty than she already did and some part of her wanted to just ignore his questions, but she couldn't. She couldn't tell why but she couldn't stop herself from answering and trying to justify her doing.

"I had the choice of either going alone or going with him. Every single one of my friends - Reg and you included – seemed to have a date already. Yesterday Maureen was asked by Will, Dawn has some mysterious date and Damian and Regulus are going with the Avery sisters. And when he asked me to go with him, I saw you with Cara and I was completely sure she would be your date, I mean why should you bother asking a friend if you had girl like her, who would be more than happy to be your date? That's why," She explained.

"Well, it was the wrong choice," He told her before removing her hand from his arm and leaving the room, not bothering that they weren't yet done with their task.

★

A week passed without the two of them talking to each other. In fact, Rabastan even seemed to avoid looking at her at all. At first she felt extreme disappointment every time she saw him walking past her in the hallways or the courtyard but soon the feeling was replaced by anger. He definitely had no reason to treat her in this way. She had done nothing wrong in agreeing to be Alexander's date and she would definitely not apologize to him for doing so. The more she thought about it, she actually came to the conclusion it was his fault. Who was he to have a girl clenching to his side and then, only about an hour later, ask a completely different girl to be his date? It was rude and it didn't make any sense from whichever perspective she tried to look at it.

In the end she found herself sitting on the end of the Slytherin table with Maureen and Dawn, while Rabastan and their male friends, which included her brother, sat some seats away from them.

"What's wrong with you and Lestrange?" Maureen snapped her out of her thoughts. "I thought you two were best buddies after the whole book sharing thingy."

Dawn, who sat next to the pink-haired girl, punched her in the side with her elbow and gave her a warning look, which Maureen didn't really seem to acknowledge, only giving her a look in return.

"That actually hurt."

"Which might have been on purpose to be honest."

A smile formed on Phoenix' lips as she watched them exchanging glances. To others it might have seemed strange, weird even, but she knew neither of them were serious. It was simply the way their friendship had always been.

"Book sharing thingy?" She interrupted their staring battle, lightly giggling and raising her eyebrows.

Her friends moved their attention back to her and Maureen shrugged. "Yeah, you know, your exchanging books and spending every second in the library, which was, by the way, more than weird from my point of view. So, what happened?"

As Dawn moved next to her she lifted her arms in defence. "Don't you dare punching me again."

"I wasn't going to." The brunette told her and moved plate to the middle of the table, showing she was done eating. "See?"

Phoenix watched them wordless as she didn't want them to get back to the subject of her and Rabastan. She had no clue what to tell them, as she herself wasn't even sure what was going on.

"You barely ate anything," Maureen remarked pointing at Dawn's plate, which was empty.

"Yes, I did." Dawn defended herself, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "The plate is empty, isn't it?"

Maureen frowned, looking back and forth between her friend and her plate. "Yes, because you hardly put anything on it in the first place."

The brunette simply rolled her eyes. "No, I didn't."

"Did too," Maureen argued.

Dawn jumped to her feet, nearly stumbling over the bench she was sitting on. Her eyes resting on her friend were filled with something Phoenix had expected just as much as she had expected that turn in their conversation; hurt.

"Stop controlling me, Maureen. You are not my mother, stop acting as if you were," She yelled at her, before turning on her heel and stomping out of the Great Hall.

And what Phoenix witnessed by chance was even more unexpected; Sirius, her brother who had never even talked a word to the Slytherin girl, ran after her.

Wow, I just realised Oceans Deep hit 500 views, which might be no big thing to some people out there but to me it's a lot already. So, thank you so much for reading, it means a lot to me...