Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

3 March, 1978 - Choices

**

He had the same eyes and it was killing her.

Lovely grey eyes, like storm clouds or stone. Or steel.

No. Not steel. She was not going to ruin this memory with thoughts like that. She was not going to taint it with her blood.

She could still feel the ghost of Regulus's arms on her waist, could still hear the speed of his heartbeat and smell the scent of his clothes. Broom varnish, light cologne and the inevitable must that came from storing clothes in dank dungeon closets. All mixed with that undefinable smell she'd always associated with the Black house.

She wanted to memorize it. Wanted to hold on to every fading trace of sensation she could because this memory would be the only one of its kind. And though she'd never been sure whether she'd loved Regulus romantically, he'd hit the nail on the head: I just wish we'd had a shot.

But they didn't. In the course of a few weeks, she would be an outcast from the world he was at the center of. A world she should have been at the center of. Walburga would be looking for a new, equally or more beneficial marriage for him and Lavinia would be drifting, with no place in those circles and nowhere to call home. Even the safety of Regulus's arms would be stripped from her because they couldn't risk being seen together, much less in such an affectionate manner. Which meant she was going to lose the only steady and unfailing comfort her life had ever known.

They didn't have a shot and it was her fault. Her doing. And she hated that. She hated also that if she hadn't thrown it away, it would have been her only choice. She would have been forced into it whether she liked it or not and it wouldn't have mattered if she'd come to realize her feelings were romantic or platonic. And that would have killed her. It would have hurt Regulus too, to know she'd had no other choice.

So, in a way, she decided, it would never have worked. Because if she'd stayed, she would have forever resented a future she'd had no say in. But since she'd left... There was no chance at that future anyway. And whether it had been what she'd intended to do or not, she'd chosen her freedom. And this was the price.

"Lavinia?" Sirius's voice interrupted her thoughts. She blinked several times, realizing she was still in the seventh floor corridor with Sirius, Remus and Peter. Evans and James had gone, though how long ago, she wasn't sure. She kept getting lost in her head. Kept getting stuck on Sirius's eyes.

"Sorry," she muttered. It sounded like he might have asked her a question but... well. She had no idea, frankly. "What did you say?"

On another night, the frown he gave at those words would have made Lavinia's heart twist, but right now it was as though she didn't have the capacity for any more pain. She ached all over from the knowledge of just what she was losing and the unsettling realization that those boys in the dungeons... they would be going to war. And it would be a miracle if all of them survived.

Because war was coming. There were disappearances and suspicious accidents reported every day and though she'd known about it for months now, it was somehow so much more real once she'd seen her friends and peers planning it. To see them in a room, half of them ready to graduate Hogwarts and step right into the ranks of the Death Eaters had shaken her to her core.

Yes, war was coming. And by the end of it, Lavinia might well lose not just friendships, but lives. And she wouldn't be the only one. They had families, friends, loved ones... By the end of this, everyone was going to lose and the pain of it all would be a price too high to imagine.

The thought made her sick to her stomach. Did none of them realize they would be walking into a battlefield? Were they really so enthralled with the cause of blood purity that they were willing to lay down their lives for it? Or were they all like Regulus, who held on to a cause he only half supported because the alternative was hell at his mother's hands? Or perhaps even the Dark Lord's.