a / n;; Written for the Hogwarts Online prompt of the day you're going to lose that girl. I thought I'd try a (vaguely) different style or something with this. I'd love to know what you think of it.

and sometimes, persephone goes free
Regulus & Hestia

Some days he thinks he'll marry her—the Hufflepuff with rosy cheeks and flowers in her hair and a smile like the whole war's a lie, like Hogwarts is safe and there isn't, at this very instant, spies recruiting for the Dark Lord in the dungeons.

Some days he thinks he'll settle next to her beside the lake and she won't shy away just because he's a Slytherin with a Black reputation. Some days, he thinks she'll listen, because there's something in the curve of her arms that says 'there's room here for you and your troubles, and a shoulder to rest your world on, and an ear or two nearby for your sorrows'.

Some days he feels reckless enough to curl up between her incisors, just to better imagine her voice—'you have nothing to prove to me, Regulus. you're not your brother or your house or your family. you have nothing to prove'.

He thinks there's redemption in her; that through proximity or diffusion or osmosis or airborne contagion he can somehow find absolution for meeting Mulciber in the dungeons or mingling with Bella and her crooked friends that bleed ink from their arms and spit sulfur.

Some days he thinks of telling her that he's admired her his whole life, thinks she'll love him and not for his name or potential or Gringott's vault.

Some days he thinks he'll marry her—Hestia Jones—but then he remembers Bella's slanting scrawl in his front robe pocket (we have arranged a meeting.) and Severus's stare. But then he remembers that he's Regulus Black and with a name like that he can only ever tarnish her.

He can only ever lose her.