shooting star [s. black]

xxxii.

"Hi, Cassiopeia. How are you?" She looks up and smiles sadly at Regulus Black. The last time she had talked to him was in fifth year, when he was dead set on convincing her that his brother and his brother's friends are furries.

"I'm okay. How about you?" She asks softly as he sits down across from her. He shrugs nonchalantly.

"All good. I was just thinking how unfortunate that our only encounter was when I was telling you about my brother being a furry. So I thought I'd stop by." Regulus muses and she chuckles in slight disbelief, as she looks down.

"And here I thought you came to convince me to get back with Sirius, that he's hurting just as much as I am." She says sarcastically, making him cvuckle and shake his head.

"My brother's business is none of my business until he pays me 5 galleons to come and check on you. He didn't ask me to convince you anything, he just wanted to know you're okay. And since you've been avoiding all your friends in common, he chose moi." He says and her heart flutters a little at the thought of Sirius begging his brother to do this.

"Well, I've told you how I feel, so I guess you can go back to whatever you were doing." Cassiopeia muses and he sighs, rubbing his forehead.

"Okay, you're making me get into my brother's business. Fine! I'll tell you what I think and what I know." He says dramatically, making her look at him both amused and confused. "Whoever you think you saw in the hallway, was most definitely not Sirius and some random Gryffindor girl."

"Oh, really? So, you're just here to say what my friends have told me and say I'm a liar." She scoffs in frustration, making him shake his head.

"No. No. You did see Sirius and a girl kiss, but it wasn't Sirius and a girl. It was two Slytherine's. Polyjuice. Listen, after your encounter with Narcissa she went jabbing about it to our family. Bellatrix, thought it would be interesting to mess with you and Sirius. They have all the connections here to make it happen, without the blame falling on them. Except I just told you." Regulus rants and she looks at him in shock, her breathing batting heavy and short.

"You're saying. This whole time it wasn't actually him." She breaths out in disbelief, making him nod with a soft smile.

"I'm sorry. I know my cousins are the actual worst." Regulus says and she scoffs in agreement. "But, hey. Listen, Sirius has never felt the way about someone the way he feels about you. I've seen him with quite a few girls. But it all stopped the day he met you. The boy is madly in love with you, makes me want to puke."

"You think so?" She asks weakly and he nods encouragingly.

"Oh, yeah. Most definitely. I'd say it's cute, but we're talking about my brother so it goes against every fibre of my body." He says and she chuckles softly, shaking her head.

"You two are so dramatic." She hums and he shrugs.

"Anyway, I should go. And you should talk to the furry. See you around, Cassiopeia." He smiles, before he leaves and she sighs. She couldn't believe that she had actually believed that Sirius had done that. What if now he hated her for not believing him? She felt that she had ruined everything. If only she could go back into the past to fix her mistakes.

With a sigh she stands up, taking her stuff and slowly making her way back to her room. She needed a little time to herself, to be able to process what Regulus had just told her. She knew Narcissa and Bellatrix were known to be extremely cruel, but she never expected for them to get to that point.

She walks into her room, putting her stuff down and glancing at the broken frame on the floor, which she had never picked up. Walking up to it, she crouches down and carefully picks up the broken pieces of glass, throwing them away. She takes the picture out and throws the frame away. Taking a new canvas, she puts the picture down on the stand with her paint, before she starts to paint a copy of the picture.