thinking about aria and briar’s nationalities/cultures because they are so different in such interesting ways
aria is chinese, but she was raised in england, specifically somewhere like alston moor in cumbria. very remote, very cold, very dramatic countryside, all stone walls and hills and old estates and tiny villages where everyone knows everyone else’s business. her family lives in this massive old manor estate, the kind of place that feels less like a home and more like a threat with windows.
the parkinsons own ridiculous amounts of land, including a nearby muggle town they collect rent from, because of course they do. proper old pureblood landlord behaviour. very “we don’t involve ourselves with muggles except when they owe us money.”
her chinese heritage is there, but her family mostly ignores it or buries it because they’re obsessed with seeming like the perfect old pureblood family. they care more about the parkinson name, the estate, the bloodline, the money, the image. anything too obviously cultural gets treated like something private at best, embarrassing at worst.
so aria grows up with this weird gap in her identity. she knows she’s chinese. she knows there are traditions and language and food and family history somewhere behind her, but it’s all been pushed into corners and treated like it matters less than pureblood society. she probably gets bits of it from older relatives, staff, letters, food, old objects, half-remembered stories, but not enough to feel fully connected.
and that definitely affects her.
aria being loud and punk and impossible to control is her refusing to be polished into some perfect pureblood manor girl. her family wants old money silence, she becomes noise. her family wants heritage hidden, she becomes impossible to ignore. she’s disconnected from parts of her culture because of them, but she’s also angry about it, even if she doesn’t always know how to say that.
she’s very much chinese and english and pureblood and northern countryside girl all at once, but none of those things fit neatly together for her, so she makes herself into a problem instead.
briar, meanwhile, is cypriot and british. very mediterranean, with turkish and greek sides to her family, and she grew up visiting cyprus a lot. she definitely has citizenship, speaks turkish as her first language as well as greek, knows family recipes, family gossip, family traditions, and has grown up around a lot of culture in a really everyday way.
and the greek side matters too, because briar isn’t just “turkish” or “greek” in a neat little box. she’s cypriot. that distinction is really important to her.
she grew up with both sides around her. turkish language and turkish-cypriot family stuff, greek-cypriot relatives and traditions too, similar food, similar family habits, similar music and hospitality and loud relatives and everyone acting like feeding you is a sacred duty. the cultures overlap a lot, but they’re also treated differently by the people inside them, especially because turkey and greece have so much history and tension between them.
so briar gets very stubborn about being cypriot rather than letting people split her into “turkish or greek.” she’s both, but also not fully either in the way people try to make her choose. she’s a blend. that’s the whole point.
she probably gets annoyed when people act like cyprus is just an extension of somewhere else, because to her it’s its own place, its own identity, its own home. she can speak turkish first, have greek-cypriot family traditions too, grow up british, and still be cypriot before anything else.
it makes her very aware of how identity can be complicated without being confused. other people might want a simple answer, but briar doesn’t owe them one.
she’s not “half this, half that” like someone cut her into pieces.
she’s cypriot.
the whole thing, all at once.
but she was raised mostly british, somewhere like leicester. middle-class city girl, normal house, normal streets, lots of different cultures around her, not some isolated pureblood estate situation. she has a much more rounded relationship with her background than aria does.
briar’s family still has culture woven into daily life. food, language, holidays, visiting relatives, family expectations, hospitality, music, stories, all of it. but they’re not painfully strict about it. it’s just part of the house. part of how people talk. part of what gets cooked. part of what gets argued about. part of who she is.
but she is also very accidentally colonised in the funniest way because this girl is mediterranean and still cannot handle the sun or heat. she goes to cyprus and immediately starts melting. everyone else is fine and briar is in the shade with sunglasses, water, factor 50, and the expression of someone personally betrayed by the sky.
her relatives are like “you are from here” and she’s like “emotionally, yes. physically, apparently not.”
so briar has this softer, more grounded cultural identity where she’s connected to where she comes from, but also very obviously british-raised. she speaks turkish first, but she moves through england easily. she knows cypriot traditions, but she also complains like someone who has experienced one mildly warm day in the midlands and decided it was a human rights violation.
aria’s culture is something her family tried to bury under pureblood image.
briar’s culture is something her family kept alive in the kitchen, the language, the holidays, the relatives, and the everyday noise of home.
aria is disconnected and angry about it.
briar is connected but still awkwardly british about it.
and that contrast is so fun because aria grew up in a manor surrounded by land and silence, while briar grew up in a city surrounded by people and culture and normal life. aria is all inherited power and rebellion against it. briar is warmth, roots, and accidentally needing to sit down because the mediterranean sun tried to kill her.
Regulus Black had endured many dreadful things in his life.
Family dinners at Grimmauld Place, for one. Walburga Black’s expression when she discovered Sirius had been sorted into Gryffindor, for another. Astronomy in February. Barty Crouch Jr. discovering muggle bubblegum and deciding the entire dormitory needed to experience grape-scented horror by sticking pieces under everyone’s bedposts. Evan Rosier spending three weeks claiming he was “entering his brooding era” and staring meaningfully out of windows like a widowed governess. Pandora deciding the best way to test if flowers had feelings was to whisper increasingly unhinged gossip to them until one of the daisies visibly wilted.
Regulus had survived all of that with poise.
With dignity.
With a level of brittle, aristocratic self-control that had made several professors call him “mature” when what they really meant was “concerningly repressed”.
But Aria Parkinson had worn him down.
She had not done it gracefully. There had been no subtle courtship. No wistful glances across rooms. No secret notes slipped between textbook pages with careful calligraphy and perfume. Aria had approached the matter of having a crush on Regulus Black the way a dragon approached a sheep field: loudly, hungrily, and with absolutely no interest in property damage.
She had liked him for years.
Unfortunately, she had also made sure everyone knew she liked him for years.
She had cheered at Quidditch matches when he wasn’t even playing.
She had stolen his scarf once, returned it smelling faintly of smoke and vanilla, then tried to pretend it had “walked into her bag by free will”.
She had once appeared at breakfast wearing one of his old practice jumpers and had looked him dead in the eye while Barty laughed so hard pumpkin juice came out of his nose.
She followed him around sometimes. Not constantly. Just often enough to make him feel like he’d been adopted by a pretty, underfed, feral cat with a criminal record.
And Regulus, who did not like mess, did not like being observed, did not like being wanted so openly that even portraits had started making comments, was exhausted.
He had told her no.
Several times.
Politely, once.
Impolitely, twice.
Through Evan, once, because he had been tired and Evan had a better talent for looking disinterested while delivering devastating sentences.
Aria had accepted all of it with wide green eyes, a grin too sharp to be harmless, and the general air of someone who’d heard “no” and translated it into “try again later, but with more dramatic flair”.
It was, therefore, possible that Regulus had been pushed beyond reason.
Not excusable.
Not clever.
But possible.
It happened in the library, because of course it did. All terrible things at Hogwarts seemed to happen either in corridors, bathrooms, towers, or the library. The library had the additional cruelty of being somewhere Regulus usually liked.
It was late afternoon, grey light pressing against the tall windows, the sky outside heavy with that almost-snow colour winter sometimes wore when it couldn’t decide whether to be beautiful or miserable. The library was warm enough to make everyone drowsy and quiet enough for tiny sounds to seem enormous: the scratch of quills, the turn of pages, the distant thump of a book Madam Pince had probably thrown at someone’s head.
Regulus sat at the end of a long table with a parchment spread in front of him, though he had not absorbed a word of it in the last twenty minutes.
Opposite him, Evan had abandoned his essay completely and was carving tiny stars into the margin of his notes with the tip of his quill.
Pandora sat beside Evan, slowly building what appeared to be a tiny house out of sugar quills and scraps of parchment.
Dorcas was pretending to read a book on magical land disputes while actually watching Aria over the top of it.
Barty had his arm around Briar Rosewood and looked utterly smug about it, as though he had personally invented affection and deserved applause. Briar, tucked neatly into his side with her brown curls falling over one cheek, had three colour-coded sets of notes in front of her and was using none of them because Barty kept distracting her by kissing the top of her head.
Aria was sprawled two seats down from Regulus, somehow occupying the space of five people despite being all sharp elbows, pale wrists, skinny limbs, and smug chaos. Her blonde hair was twisted up messily, the dyed ends peeking out in flashes of colour whenever she moved. She was chewing on the end of her quill.
She was also staring at Regulus.
Not subtly.
Not quietly.
Not in a way that allowed for plausible deniability.
She had her chin in her hand, her lashes lowered, and a smile curling slowly at the corner of her mouth as if Regulus were a particularly pretty painting and she’d just decided she wanted to steal it.
Regulus did not look up from his parchment.
“Stop staring at me,” he said.
“I’m not staring,” Aria said instantly.
“You are.”
“I’m appreciating.”
“Appreciate a wall.”
“The wall hasn’t got cheekbones.”
Evan’s quill scratched a crooked line across his parchment as his mouth twitched.
Regulus exhaled through his nose.
Aria leaned forward, bracelets sliding down her thin wrist with a soft clatter. “You look tense.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you look like you’re mentally pushing someone down a flight of stairs.”
Regulus finally looked at her. “It’s becoming less mental by the second.”
Aria grinned, delighted. “See? Tense.”
Pandora carefully placed another sugar quill on her little house. It collapsed immediately. She sighed.
Barty, without looking up from Briar’s hair, said, “Just hex her, Reg.”
Aria kicked him under the table.
Barty yelped. “Ow, you tiny demon!”
“You offered violence against me.”
“You offer violence against the world every time you wake up.”
“That’s my charm.”
“That’s one word for it,” Dorcas muttered.
Aria turned her grin on Dorcas. “You think I’m charming.”
Dorcas looked down so fast her forehead nearly hit the book. “I think you’re loud.”
“Loudly charming.”
“Incorrect.”
“Adorably loud.”
“Stop speaking.”
Regulus pinched the bridge of his nose.
Briar glanced between them all with the slightly nervous fondness of someone who had accidentally sat down in the middle of a circus and decided she might as well take notes on the animals. “Maybe we should all do our homework?”
Barty gasped softly and turned to her with a wounded expression. “Briar, my love, my angel, my reason for getting up in the morning—”
“It’s half four in the afternoon.”
“My reason for staying up in the afternoon,” he corrected at once. “How could you betray me with homework?”
“It’s due tomorrow.”
“I’m due to suffer always. You don’t see me writing an essay about it.”
“That’s because your handwriting scares professors.”
“My handwriting has personality.”
“Your handwriting looks like a spider died in ink and crawled across the page.”
Aria snorted.
Barty placed a hand over his heart. “I have been attacked in my own home.”
“We’re in the library,” Regulus said.
“Emotionally, I live wherever Briar is.”
Briar flushed pink and ducked her face behind her notes. “Barty.”
“What? I’m being honest.”
“You’re being embarrassing.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain half a packet of sugar quills and no shame.”
“Also love.”
Briar’s blush deepened. “That too.”
Barty looked unbearably pleased with himself.
Regulus watched them for perhaps half a second too long.
It was not envy. That would be ridiculous. Regulus did not envy Barty Crouch Jr. for anything. Not his laugh, too wild and sharp. Not the way he moved through life like rules were decorative suggestions. Not his ability to drape himself over the person he loved without once appearing afraid of wanting too much.
Regulus merely noticed.
That was all.
He noticed the way Barty’s hand rested possessively at Briar’s waist, thumb rubbing small circles against the soft fabric of her cardigan. He noticed the way Briar leaned into him without thinking. He noticed the quiet certainty of it.
And then Aria sighed dramatically.
“Regulus.”
“No.”
“I haven’t asked anything yet.”
“You were about to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.”
Aria’s smile softened at that, just barely, just enough to make something in Regulus’s chest pull tight with guilt he did not want. Then she ruined it by putting on a wounded pout.
“Maybe I was just going to ask about your day.”
“My day was fine.”
“Your hair looks good today.”
“My hair looks the same every day.”
“That’s what’s so impressive about it.”
“Aria.”
“Regulus.”
“Stop.”
She leaned forward more. “Come on. One date.”
“No.”
“One walk.”
“No.”
“One deeply meaningful conversation in a corridor while snow falls outside and you realise I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
“No.”
“One morally questionable decision in an empty classroom?”
Dorcas choked on air.
Evan’s eyebrows went up.
Pandora looked interested in the ceiling, perhaps asking it for guidance.
Briar squeaked, “Aria!”
Barty barked a laugh. “Subtle, Parks.”
Aria put both hands up. “What? I’m negotiating.”
“You’re harassing,” Regulus said, though his voice had gone tight.
“I’m flirting.”
“You’re making me want to leap from the Astronomy Tower.”
“I’d catch you.”
“You are five foot nothing and built like a haunted matchstick.”
“I’d break your fall emotionally.”
“I don’t want you to do anything to me emotionally.”
There was a small, sudden silence.
Aria’s grin stayed in place.
It was bright. Too bright.
Regulus noticed it, then looked away before he had to think about what it meant.
The thing was, he truly did not mean to be cruel.
He told himself that later.
Over and over.
He did not wake up that morning intending to hurt anyone. He had simply been tired. Cornered. Needled until all his patience had frayed. He had wanted Aria to stop looking at him like he was a door she could unlock if she kept finding new keys. He had wanted to breathe without being wanted. He had wanted the room to stop tilting towards him every time she said his name.
And because Regulus Black was clever in every way except the one that mattered, he decided to solve one problem by creating a much worse one.
Aria tapped her quill against the table, still watching him. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m being clear.”
“You could be clearer.”
“I’m not interested in you.”
“You say that, but your ears go pink when I compliment you.”
“My ears are cold.”
“It’s roasting in here.”
“I’m anaemic.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Then your ears like me.”
“My ears have no opinion.”
“Coward ears.”
Barty laughed again, quieter this time, and Briar smiled despite herself.
Regulus saw it.
A flicker of an idea came into his head.
It was stupid from the very beginning.
He knew it was stupid.
Some tiny, exhausted, petty part of him picked it up anyway.
Fine, he thought.
Fine.
If Aria would not hear no, perhaps she needed to see it.
Regulus let his gaze slide away from Aria.
Across the table.
To Briar.
Briar Rosewood was lovely in a soft, quiet sort of way. Curly brown hair, warm brown eyes behind her glasses, a roundness to her cheeks and softness to her body that made her seem as if she belonged near sunlight and gardens rather than Slytherin arguments and Aria’s particular brand of lawlessness. She had ink smudged faintly on one finger and a pressed flower tucked between two pages of her notebook. Regulus knew very little about her beyond the fact that Barty was insufferably in love with her, Aria trusted her, and Dorcas looked at her plants sometimes as if worried they were plotting something.
Briar looked up because she felt him looking.
Regulus smiled.
Not his usual smile. Not the small, cold, polite knife-edge thing he gave professors and pure-blood adults and people he wanted to keep at a distance.
A warmer one.
A charming one.
A deliberate one.
Briar blinked.
Aria stopped tapping her quill.
Barty’s hand stilled at Briar’s waist.
Evan’s carving paused mid-star.
Dorcas lowered her book by exactly one inch.
Pandora whispered, “Oh no,” with the calm of someone watching a cauldron begin to boil over.
Regulus ignored all of them.
“Briar,” he said smoothly.
Briar sat up straighter. “Yes?”
His voice softened. “That colour suits you.”
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then everything happened at once, mostly on Barty’s face.
Briar looked down at her cardigan. It was moss green, soft and woollen, with little embroidered flowers near the cuffs. “Oh. Thank you?”
Aria did not move.
Barty turned his head very slowly towards Regulus.
It was a remarkable transformation. One moment, Barty was lounging like an overfed house cat in possession of the best lap in the room. The next, he looked like someone had slapped him across the soul with a wet fish.
Regulus kept his eyes on Briar.
He should have stopped there.
Compliment given. Point made. Enough damage done.
Naturally, because the universe loved irony and Regulus had apparently left his better judgement in a drawer somewhere, he continued.
“You always look pretty in green,” Regulus added.
Briar’s mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Barty sat up.
“What,” he said.
It was not a question.
Aria’s face remained completely still.
Regulus felt a twist of unease and ignored it, because ignoring things was practically a family tradition.
“I only meant,” Regulus said, still in that soft voice, “it brings out her eyes.”
“My eyes?” Briar repeated faintly.
Barty’s chair scraped loudly against the floor.
Madam Pince hissed from somewhere behind the stacks. “Silence!”
No one listened.
Barty pointed at Regulus. His face had gone red in furious patches, which would have been funny under any other circumstance. “Excuse me?”
Regulus finally looked at him. “What?”
“What?”
“Yes. What?”
Barty made a strangled sound. “What are you doing?”
“Talking.”
“Talking?”
“Yes.”
“To my girlfriend?”
Regulus lifted one shoulder with false laziness. “She’s allowed to be spoken to.”
Briar made a tiny horrified noise.
Barty’s eyes went wide. “That’s not what I meant and you know it, you slippery little funeral candle.”
Evan, in the tone of someone making a scientific observation from a safe distance, said, “He does know it.”
Pandora nodded. “He knows it with his bones.”
Regulus gave them both a sharp look.
Neither looked remotely sorry.
Barty leaned over the table. “Mate. What are you doing?”
Regulus’s jaw tightened. “Nothing.”
“You just told my girlfriend she looks pretty.”
“She does.”
Briar’s hands flew to her cheeks. “Oh my God.”
Aria’s quill lowered silently to the table.
Dorcas noticed.
Her eyes flicked to Aria.
Then to Barty.
Then to Regulus.
Her expression darkened.
Barty laughed once, utterly without humour. “She does. Right. Yes. She does. Obviously she does. She’s gorgeous. She’s the love of my life. She’s my girl. Which is why I’m asking why you’re sitting there speaking to her like some tragic little lord in a romance novel.”
Regulus folded his hands neatly over his parchment. “You’re overreacting.”
Barty stared at him.
Briar whispered, “Barty, it’s fine—”
“It is not fine.” Barty turned to her immediately, his voice softening for half a second. “Not you. You’re perfect. Sit there and be perfect. I’m dealing with him.”
Briar looked as if this had somehow made everything worse.
Aria still had not spoken.
Regulus could feel her silence now. It pressed against the side of his face more heavily than her chatter ever had. It was strange. Aria was never quiet. Aria filled rooms. She spilled over the edges of them. She laughed too loud, swore too casually, moved too sharply, flickered like a match held too close to paper.
But now she was still.
Completely still.
Her face had gone blank.
Not angry. Not sad. Not embarrassed. Nothing so simple.
Just empty.
A pale, pretty mask with green eyes that had stopped giving anything away.
Regulus looked at her.
For one brief moment, something cold touched the back of his neck.
“Aria,” he began.
Barty’s head snapped towards her too.
And there it was.
The shift.
The fury in him did not disappear, but it changed direction. His expression went from jealous outrage to immediate, childhood-deep alarm. Like he had seen this before. Like the silence had a name.
“Parks?” he said.
Aria looked at him.
She smiled.
It was small. Automatic. Wrong.
“I’m fine,” she said.
Barty went rigid.
“Oh, fuck,” he said.
Briar’s eyes filled with panic. “What? What happened? Did I do something?”
“No,” Barty said at once.
But Briar had already begun to unravel.
She pulled away from Barty’s side, hands trembling as she gathered her notes without actually gathering them, papers sliding under her fingers and scattering more. “I didn’t mean— I didn’t flirt back, did I? I didn’t, I swear I didn’t, I just said thank you because he said my cardigan— and I didn’t know what to say, and maybe I smiled, did I smile? I shouldn’t have smiled. I’m so sorry.”
Regulus felt his stomach drop.
“Briar,” he said, quieter now, “you didn’t do anything.”
Briar looked at him with wet, horrified eyes as if he had just handed her a knife and told her she’d been holding it the whole time. “But I made Aria upset.”
“You didn’t,” Aria said.
Her voice was mild.
Too mild.
Barty flinched.
“You are upset,” he said.
Aria turned that blank little smile on him. “No, I’m not.”
“You are doing the thing.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You are. You’re doing your dead-face.”
“My what?”
Barty jabbed a finger at her face. “That. That terrifying corpse doll expression you do when you’re upset.”
“I don’t have a corpse doll expression.”
“You absolutely do.”
“I look normal.”
“You look like someone locked all your feelings in a cellar and set the house on fire.”
Evan’s eyes moved carefully between them. “That is… unusually specific.”
“Because I’ve seen it since we were six,” Barty snapped. “She does this. She goes quiet and weird and then says she’s fine, and then she disappears, and then three hours later I find her sitting in a tree or under a table or on a roof like an omen.”
Aria blinked. “I like roofs.”
“Not the point!”
Briar made a broken little sound and pressed both hands over her mouth.
Aria looked at her then, and something in her blankness trembled for half a breath. “Briar, you didn’t do anything.”
“But you’re upset.”
“I’m not upset at you.”
“But you’re upset because of me.”
“No.”
“But it happened with me.”
“Briar.”
“I’m sorry,” Briar whispered.
Aria’s fingers curled around her own sleeve.
Regulus stared at her hands.
Her knuckles had gone white.
He had wanted a small cruelty. A clever demonstration. Something sharp enough to cut the thread between him and Aria without making a mess.
But the mess was everywhere now.
It was in Briar’s tears. In Barty’s furious shaking. In Dorcas’s narrowed eyes. In Evan’s sudden lack of amusement. In Pandora’s lowered lashes. In Aria’s awful stillness.
Regulus swallowed.
“I didn’t mean—”
Barty rounded on him so fast his robes swung. “Oh, you didn’t mean?”
Regulus stiffened automatically. “Don’t shout.”
“Don’t flirt with my girlfriend to prove a point to my best friend!”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were!”
Regulus’s mouth shut.
Barty’s laugh came out sharp and disbelieving. “No, no, don’t do that. Don’t sit there like some delicate tragic prince who’s been misunderstood by the cruel common people. You knew what you were doing.”
Regulus’s face heated. “I was trying to make something clear.”
“To who?” Barty demanded. “Aria? You think she’s thick?”
Aria’s blank gaze shifted faintly.
Regulus hated the way that landed.
“I didn’t say that,” he said.
“You didn’t have to. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” Barty’s voice was getting louder, and somewhere, Madam Pince made a threatening noise that nobody cared about. “You wanted her to look at you flirting with Briar and go, oh, I understand now, Regulus Black does not want me, because apparently saying it like a normal person wasn’t dramatic enough for you.”
“I have said it,” Regulus snapped. “Many times.”
“And somehow this was better?”
“No.”
The word came out before Regulus could dress it up.
No.
It had not been better.
Barty stared at him, breathing hard.
Briar cried harder.
Aria smiled again.
That smile made Regulus feel sick.
“It’s fine,” Aria said.
Barty turned back to her. “Stop saying that.”
“It is.”
“It isn’t.”
“It’s funny, actually.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is a bit.” She let out a tiny laugh.
It sounded nothing like her.
Usually Aria’s laugh was too bright, too wild, sharp enough to cut through a crowd. This laugh was small and flat. A dead leaf skittering over stone.
Dorcas stood abruptly.
Her chair scraped.
Aria’s eyes flicked to her.
Dorcas froze, then sat down again slowly, jaw clenched so hard it looked painful.
Regulus saw it. Saw the way Dorcas wanted to go to her and could not work out if she had the right. Saw Briar breaking apart because she thought she had caused it. Saw Barty ready to tear the world into strips because two girls he loved in different ways were hurting and Regulus had put the blade in the room.
He had been so certain he was the one trapped.
Now he saw he had only flung the cage at everyone else.
“Aria,” Regulus said again, softer.
Aria looked at him.
There was nothing in her face.
That was worse than anger. Worse than tears. Worse than one of her filthy jokes, worse than a curse, worse than her calling him a prick and storming out with all the noise he had come to expect from her.
Because at least that would have been Aria.
This was someone locked behind glass.
Regulus’s voice caught slightly. “I’m sorry.”
Barty barked, “You’re sorry?”
Regulus did not look away from Aria. “Yes.”
Aria nodded once.
A tiny, polite movement.
Like he had thanked her for passing the salt.
“It’s fine,” she said for the third time.
Barty looked like he was about to climb across the table.
“It is not fine,” he ground out.
Aria stood.
No drama. No shoved chair. No slammed book. No oath spat through clenched teeth.
She simply rose from the bench with careful, silent control, picked up her bag, and looped the strap over one shoulder.
Briar sobbed openly. “Aria, please, I’m so sorry.”
Aria looked at her then. Properly.
For one second, the mask cracked.
Only one.
Her eyes softened with something tired and aching, something that had nothing to do with Briar and everything to do with wanting something for too long in front of too many people.
“You didn’t do anything,” Aria said gently.
Briar shook her head, curls trembling. “But I—”
“You didn’t.”
“I don’t want you to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I wouldn’t ever—”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
Barty stepped towards them, torn visibly in half by the need to hold Briar and the need to keep his eyes on Aria.
“Parks,” he said quietly.
Aria’s face closed again.
“Don’t,” she said.
Barty stopped.
That one word had more force than shouting.
Aria turned away from the table.
Regulus stood too quickly. “Aria, wait.”
She did not.
She walked down the library aisle, quiet as a shadow.
That was perhaps the worst part.
Aria Parkinson should not have been quiet. She should have knocked into chairs and cursed at tables and made some inappropriate comment loud enough to scandalise the portraits. She should have flicked Regulus off over her shoulder. She should have thrown something at Barty for calling her Parks in public. She should have done anything loud enough to prove she was still herself.
Instead, her boots made almost no sound against the floor.
Briar scrambled up after her so fast her papers scattered everywhere.
“Aria!” she cried, voice thick and breaking. “Wait, please, please wait, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Briar,” Barty said, moving instantly.
But Briar was already half-running after Aria, crying so hard she stumbled around the edge of the table. Barty lunged after her and swore under his breath.
Then he turned back to Regulus.
The look he gave him was terrible.
Not just anger.
Disappointment.
That was almost worse.
“You’re my friend,” Barty said.
Regulus felt the words land.
Barty’s mouth twisted. “You’re my friend, and she’s my best friend, and Briar’s my girl, and you just used both of them like chess pieces because you were uncomfortable.”
Barty gave a humourless smile. “You were so desperate to make sure Aria knew you didn’t want her that you didn’t stop to think what it’d feel like for her to have everyone else see it too.”
Regulus’s throat tightened.
Barty looked towards the aisle where Aria had disappeared, where Briar’s sobbing apologies were fading after her.
Then he looked back at Regulus one last time.
“Brilliant work,” he said. “Really. Top marks.”
He turned and ran after them.
“Briar!” Barty called, voice echoing through the shelves. “Love, slow down before you trip over your own shoes. Aria, don’t you dare vanish into a wall or whatever creepy little thing you do when you’re upset!”
From somewhere deeper in the library came Briar’s choked voice. “I’m sorry!”
Aria said nothing.
Barty’s footsteps hurried after them.
Then even those faded.
The library settled slowly around Regulus, though not into calm. It was the silence after a plate had smashed. The awful, ringing sort. The kind that still held the shape of the noise.
At the table, Evan carefully set his quill down.
Pandora looked at her collapsed sugar-quill house as if it had predicted everything.
Dorcas stared at Regulus with open, cold fury.
Then, one by one, without speaking, they gathered their things.
Evan moved first. He shoved his parchment into his bag, his expression unreadable but his mouth pressed into a thin line.
Pandora followed, gently sweeping the broken sugar quills into her palm.
Dorcas was last.
She stood with her book clutched in one hand. For a moment, Regulus thought she might say something. Something sharp enough to draw blood. Something he might deserve.
But Dorcas only looked at him.
Then she left too.
Regulus remained standing beside the table.
His essay lay open in front of him, half-finished and suddenly absurd. Ink dried on the nib of his quill. Briar’s forgotten ribbon sat near the edge of the bench. One of Aria’s bracelets, a cheap silver thing with a little star charm, had been left behind beside the place she’d been sitting.
Regulus stared at it.
He thought of Aria’s blank face.
Briar’s tears.
Barty’s voice.
You just used both of them like chess pieces.
Regulus sat down slowly.
The bench felt colder than it had before.
Around him, the library carried on. Pages turned. Quills scratched. Somewhere far away, Madam Pince muttered about disrespect and noise and children being raised by wolves. The castle groaned softly in the winter wind.
Regulus reached for Aria’s bracelet, then stopped before his fingers touched it.
For once, he did not know what to do with his hands.
He had wanted Aria to leave him alone.
Now she had.
And Regulus Black, alone at the end of the table with everyone gone and the shape of his own cruelty sitting beside him like a ghost, found that the quiet did not feel nearly as much like victory as he had imagined.
dorcas having a crush on aria is so funny because aria is somehow the loudest girl alive and still completely oblivious when someone actually likes her.
dorcas will be standing there, visibly softer around her, letting aria get away with things she would hex anyone else for, and aria is just like, wow, dorcas is being weirdly nice today. anyway where’s regulus?
regulus, meanwhile, is trying so hard to redirect aria.
“you should talk to dorcas.”
“why?”
“because she likes you.”
“everyone likes me.”
“that is aggressively untrue.”
he keeps trying to set them up purely so aria will stop following him around and flirting with him every five minutes, but aria never gets the hint.
dorcas is waiting for aria to notice.
regulus is begging aria to notice.
aria is too busy leaning over regulus’s shoulder like, “miss me, pretty boy?”
and regulus is just standing there like a haunted man watching his one escape route flirt with him instead.
ANGEL do u have a good ship name for Reg and Aria other than Regaria ?? Reg is seeker/star, what could Aria be ??
Me and Moony ( @moonflower-moonstone ) are trying to find one for Briarty, and the only good one we've come up with is pesticide, which was evolved from plantkiller 😅?? Flowerkiller is Bartylily, and Rosekiller is Evan and Barty, so 🤷
rahhhh was just talking about this with moony haha i loveeee pesticide thats funny and canon now (we also came up with venus flytrap haha), for reg/aria all i could think of was like blacksmoke or smokeseeker, either that or british oriental lmaoooo
we also think neonkiller/smokekiller for barty/aria
then Aquilegia for reg/briar cause its a star shaped plant/flower thing \/
