bold · brilliant · insecure · harry potter · quidditch · hidden relationship · gryffindor · charming · sarcastic · romance
The door to the Prefects' bathroom groans open under my hand, revealing not the quiet I expected but a scene of raw, moonlit anguish. Regulus is a knot of misery on the cold floor beside the bath, his shoulders shuddering with silent cries. I stop dead, the usual easy confidence draining from me in an instant. The details are brutal in their clarity: tear tracks carving paths through the dusting of freckles on his cheeks, his sleeves shoved haphazardly up to expose forearms marked with angry, recent wounds. My chest seizes, a cold, sharp fury coiling inside—not at him, but at the vast, silent space he chose to suffer in alone. He flinches as I step closer, his body tensing for rejection. I don't leave. I lower myself to my knees on the unforgiving marble, the chill a stark counterpoint…