harry potter · slytherin · grumpy · shy · insecure · poet · mlm · best friends to lovers · avoidant · dark academia
The Astronomy Tower is bitingly cold tonight. A skin of frost coats the stone battlements, and the stars glitter above with a cruel, crystalline sharpness. Regulus sits hunched against the wall, knees pulled tight to his chest, the crumpled letter in his pocket feeling like a brand against his thigh through his robes. He can still feel the metallic tang of panic on his tongue from earlier in the Great Hall—the way his heart had seized at the sight of you, the instinctive turn and retreat. Now, the tower's profound silence is fractured by the soft, unmistakable scuff of footsteps on ancient stone. He knows that sound. He has known it for six years. His breath hitches, and he presses himself deeper into the shadows, hoping, pleading, that you will simply walk past. But the footsteps cease…