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All Is Violent, All Is Bright by rendezvous_hero [Reviews - 3]

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November seemed to rush by in a flurry of essays and complicated spellwork. Apparition lessons had begun at the end of the month, twice a week, limiting Isadora’s time to herself to four nights a week – unless Scarlett and Callum decided to follow her to the library, which was happening more often now that mid-year exams were upon them. At first she didn’t mind the company; being able to relax a little while still working on her homework was a welcome relief. As dank November faded into wintry December, though, their constant presence beside her was becoming more and more of a tiresome annoyance. It was virtually impossible for her to find any time to study her maps, let alone have a moment’s peace to concentrate on her homework.

Friday nights had become a reprieve from the chaos of school; Isadora never imagined she would actually look forward to one of Severus’ tutoring sessions. She found herself practically running to the Potions classroom on more than one occasion, desperate to escape the leeches her friends had become. At least Severus could go for prolonged periods of time without speaking to her.

Neither of them had said a word about their unexpected kiss by the lake the previous month. It seemed like nothing really needed to be said; it happened, it was over, and both had moved on. Isadora hated to admit it, but despite his appearance and demeanor, Severus was a decent kisser.

The first Friday after the kiss, Isadora went to her tutoring session expecting the tension in the dungeon to be tougher than dragon’s hide. When she walked in, Severus was in his usual spot, scribbling down notes from his textbook, his long nose inches above the parchment. He had pointed casually to the board, where he had written out instructions for concocting a potion she should have been able to make in her second year. Once he had brutally criticized her twice for minor errors in her prep work, Isadora relaxed; clearly things had not changed between them.

When they were outside of the tutoring sessions, however, Isadora noticed a change in Severus’ attitude towards her. It wasn’t significant, but he seemed to judge her less; he wasn’t constantly sneering at every idle remark she made. She assumed this was his way of showing his respect for her; after all, she hadn’t told anyone about their encounter, nor about his feelings for Lily.

A week before the Christmas holidays began, Isadora was lounging at the far end of the Slytherin table, taking her time to enjoy her morning tea and toast; it was a rare Saturday morning that she was able to wake up in time for breakfast. Scarlett and Callum had finally noticed her permanent look of annoyance whenever the two of them came near her, and had started sitting considerably further away from her. She was fine with this; the more quiet time she had, the better. Spending a month at home with her parents was not likely to be any fun at all.

The sound of wings echoed softly from the high ceiling of the Great Hall as the owls made their way to their owners. Mab landed softly next to Isadora’s hand, hooting softly as she nibbled on the crust of a piece of toast; a letter was tied to her leg.

Oh, joy, another letter from Mother. Isadora sighed, gently removing the letter from her owl before she took flight to find a perch in the Owlery.

Tucked neatly inside the envelope were two letters, one from each of her parents. She read her father’s first, which explained that he had secured her another summer’s work at the cartographic firm in Paris (which made her incredibly happy). Her mother’s letter was much shorter.

Darling,
I hope you are enjoying yourself at school. We are very much looking forward to your visit for the Christmas holidays.
Yesterday I learned some of the most spectacular news: Regulus is single again! I believe his mother demanded that he end the infatuation after she discovered the girl he was with was a Ravenclaw. What luck for you! I have already arranged for the Blacks to come for dinner over the break, but I am hoping that you will do your best to secure Regulus’ affections before then.
All my love,
Mother


Isadora would have been happier with a Howler. She re-read the letter, utterly shocked at her mother’s complete lack of restraint. How did she know about Regulus’ relationship ending before Isadora had found out? Had she magically wire-tapped the Black residence, keen on keeping up with their every move?

Taking notice of the looks Scarlett and Callum were giving her, Isadora gathered her things and made her way back to the common room. She slouched low in one of the chairs nearest the fire, pulling her feet up so as to hide herself as well as possible from any further interruptions. What did her mother expect her to do, pounce on Regulus the first chance she saw him? She could only imagine how embarrassing that would be, mentioning his break-up before he did. Surely he would think she was stalking him.

She heard footsteps from behind her; as she peeked out from the armchair, she noticed a shadow coming up from the boys’ dormitory. It certainly wasn’t Severus; he’d be in the Potions classroom with Professor Slughorn by now.

“'Morning, Isadora,” Regulus Black yawned as he reached the common room, bleary-eyed from sleep.

Isadora shrank in her chair, her face growing warmer by the minute. “Oh, hello, Regulus,” she said, trying to sound as casual as possible. She watched, wide-eyed, as he wandered over to the opposite chair and dropped into it, rubbing his eyes. “Have a good night?” she asked.

Regulus nodded through another yawn and pulled his robes tightly around him. “I suppose you could say that. Arguing constantly with my brother is starting to become rather tiresome,” he explained. His eyes were narrow slits as he adjusted to being awake. “Perpetual sibling rivalry, I guess. It doesn’t help that we were placed in rival houses.”

“I can imagine that makes family dinners rather awkward,” Isadora muttered with a smirk.

“You would think so, but Sirius has started spending most of his holidays at the Potters' house,” Regulus said quietly. “What’s that?” He pointed to her hand.

Isadora looked down and her eyes widened; she was still clutching the incriminating letter from her mother, the parchment now a wrinkled mess. Her face couldn’t have been any redder. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she choked and threw the letter into the fire.

Regulus laughed as he watched the parchment quickly burn away to ash. “So what are your plans for Christmas? Going anywhere special?” he asked, still clutching his robes around his body, as if he were cold.

Does he know about dinner already? she thought, toying with the fraying edge of the black jumper she was wearing. Does he know that I know about dinner already? How was she supposed to answer this bloody question? “Not…not that I’m aware of,” she managed to squeak out. She was becoming very interested in the sleeve of her sweater.

“My mother said something about visiting your family over the break,” she heard him say offhandedly. “Have you heard anything about that?”

Isadora felt little relief that he knew about dinner. “My parents mentioned it in their last letter,” she answered, stealing a glance at him. Regulus was looking at her most intently, his pale grey eyes wide. The look startled her; she couldn’t tell if he was angry or suddenly alert.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but was interrupted by someone sweeping into the common room, dragging something very loud and metal on the ground. Isadora peeked over the top of the leather chair she was hiding in and saw a very distraught-looking Severus marching through the entryway, his eyes narrowed and determined. He nodded when he noticed her watching him, but didn’t say a word as he glided down the stairs to the sixth year dormitory, his cauldron clanging loudly behind him.

“Wonder what’s up with him,” Regulus muttered, clearly annoyed by the sudden intrusion and the racket Severus was making with his cauldron. “Aren’t you two friends?”

“I guess –” She stopped herself; she was friends with Severus, why would Regulus judge her for that? She was older than him, for Merlin’s sake! He should have been the one trying to impress her, not the other way around! “Yes, yes I am, very much so,” she said proudly, crossing her arms across her chest.

“Sort of an odd one, isn’t he,” Regulus stated matter-of-factly, staring blankly into the fire.

Isadora’s eyes narrowed at the comment. “He has his quirks, yes,” she said defensively, “but so don’t we all.”

A smirk crossed the boy’s face as he looked at her. “Very keen on defending him, are we?” he asked sarcastically.

“Honestly I’m not going to defend who I choose to be seen with, Regulus,” Isadora snapped, her tone much more forceful than she had intended.

He raised an eyebrow curiously. “I wasn’t asking you to, Isadora,” he said calmly as footsteps echoed once again from the dormitory stairwell.

“Hello, Severus,” Isadora called as he emerged from the stairs.

“Isadora,” he said curtly. He noticed another pair of eyes watching him and added, “Regulus,” before smirking knowingly at Isadora.

She glared at him, noticing that he was dressed for the outdoors; his worn scarf was thrown loosely around his neck and he was hastily buttoning his cloak. “Where are you off to?” she asked, standing and brushing herself off.

She heard him sigh as he paused and turned to face her. “Following a hunch,” he said quietly, glancing at Regulus, who was not paying any attention. “See you later.” He turned back towards the exit, his cloak fanning out behind him.

Isadora groaned. She knew exactly what hunch Severus was about to go follow, and she knew it was dangerous and stupid. She looked at Regulus and whispered, “I’ll be right back,” before rushing across the length of the common room. She had to dart out into the frigid corridor to catch Snape, grabbing on to the edge of his cloak. “Sev!”

He yanked the black fabric out of her hand as he turned. “Yes?”

“Please tell me this isn’t your ridiculous theory about Lupin again,” she moaned, her arms crossed once more.

Severus stared back at her, silent. Isadora rolled her eyes and sighed, exasperated. For weeks now, he had been going on about how strange Remus Lupin, a Gryffindor sixth year, had been acting. He couldn’t stop talking about how Lupin was always disappearing, always absent from class around the same time every month, and how his friends, Potter and Black, were usually gone at the same time. Isadora put up with his ramblings because Snape put up with hers, but this hunch of his was getting absolutely ridiculous.

“Seriously?” she mocked, rolling her eyes. “You’re just doing this to get them expelled!”

“They should be expelled, for all the bullshit they pull when Dumbledore isn’t watching,” Severus hissed, leering at her as he finished buttoning his cloak.

“You’re obsessed, Sev,” Isadora said quietly. “It’s ridiculous!”

He raised a dark eyebrow and sneered at her. “I think you have more important things to worry about at the moment,” he murmured, eyeing the portal back to the common room.

She sighed, glancing over her shoulder at the blank wall where the entrance to the common room was. “Just don’t do anything stupid, okay?”she asked.

Severus turned his back and continued walking down the corridor; Isadora watched him until the tail of his cloak disappeared around the corner and up the stairs to the entrance hall, before muttering the password and re-entering the common room. Her heart leapt when she saw that Regulus had remained in his chair, now prodding the fire with a poker.

“Everything alright?” he asked as she sat back down across from him.

“Oh, yeah,” she answered. She did not want to keep talking about Severus. “How are you? I feel like we’ve barely seen each other this term.”

He shrugged, his dark hair still messy from waking up. “Alright, I suppose. Had to break it off with that Ravenclaw girl a few days ago.”

Isadora tried not to show her excitement as her eyes darted from the rug up to Regulus. “Why is that?” she asked, feigning surprise.

“Oh, the usual, my mother wasn’t pleased to hear that she wasn’t in Slytherin,” he answered as he continued to shove the poker deeper into the flames. “A bit stupid, if you ask me, but I’m over it.”

Isadora could tell he was lying, but was in too good a mood to mention it. “Well, that’s too bad,” she said sympathetically.

“So I was thinking,” he continued as if she hadn’t said a word, “maybe, if you wanted to, we could go out over break.”

She felt her jaw drop and her face flush red again. Had he just asked her out? Was he actually interested in her?

“Only if you want to, y’know,” he reiterated.

She studied him for a moment. His voice seemed to waver when he had spoken those last words, as if he wasn’t as confident as everyone made him out to be; as if he actually was just a fifteen-year-old boy who didn’t really know what he was doing.

“Yeah, that would be fun,” she answered with a smile.

All Is Violent, All Is Bright by rendezvous_hero [Reviews - 3]

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