in which hollis rosier falls asleep in the wrong compartment
or the right one, depending on who you ask
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part one of two
editing closed, logged off wattpad (sorry only like half of it is edited, but its obviously still all good)
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#...
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"i promise"
Most unfortunately for both Regulus and Hollis, neither of them heard the glass shatter over the roaring in their own heads.
Her voice dropped to a much lower tone at his last words. They had hit her right in the chest, without a second of mercy, because she knew that Regulus was right. Without him, she would have been dead. That fear that the Slytherin boy had felt was completely warranted; there were many nights that Hollis hadn't been quite sure that she would wake up the next day.
Closing his eyes briefly, Regulus tried to calm down.
But when he shut his eyelids, the only thing he could see on their black canvas was the image of Hollis lying in that dragonhide leather chair located in the Rosier library. He thought of how sunken and hollow her cheeks, entire body, had looked, and still partly did. He thought of the bleeding cut on her shoulder, the half-dead state she had come to Grimmauld Place in within the first months of the summer. But most of all, Regulus remembered how terrified he had been every single time he was away from her.
And it wasn't just a memory anymore.
It was a constant feeling of fear that Hollis wouldn't be okay.
That she would be gone.
Opening his eyes a split second later, he looked down at her for just a second.
Teardrops were glistening on her eyelashes, the orange lamplight reflecting off the tiny bits of water. The traces of hunger were still etched across her face, with slightly sunken cheeks and now permanent bags painted with a heavy brush underneath her eyes. The girl had suffered so much, told almost no one about it, and expected nothing in return. She was the bravest, most selfless person Regulus knew. He just didn't know how to make her see it, too.
But as he watched her face, he noticed that she was looking past his arm and to the doorway behind him. His already fair complexion paled even further as he realized that Hollis was looking at not just the doorway, but people standing in it.
Turning around to the archway behind his back, Regulus's eyes landed on the six people he wanted to see the least in the world.
James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Lily Evans, Sirius Black, Marlene Mckinnon, and Remus Lupin had just heard far too much.
"Oh you've got to be fucking me," Regulus whispered with a disbelieving tone.
Hollis's head felt light and dizzy at what the Gryffindors had just witnessed.
For Remus, a million words, pictures, and phrases were echoing in his head, slowly clicking together one piece of the puzzle of her past.
"Nevermind that, her hands look like they belong to an actual skeleton."
