DOUBLE UPDATE: THERE IS A
CHAPTER BEFORE THIS

SEPTEMBER 23rd, 1996

        Rosalie Black can remember the first time she saw Adrian Pucey. She had just been sorted into Slytherin and it was third day at school. Snape called a house meeting, she couldn't find Daphne or Pansy, but she ran into him. Her eyes grew wide and her face went bright red, and in a state of not knowing what to do, she began rambling to him a mile a minute about mercury going into retrograde. He just stared at her, as if she were some creature from another planet. At the time, Rosalie thought she had made a fool of herself infront of her new found crush, and swore to never look him in the eye again. He was older than her, leaving the witch to think he saw her as some annoying child.

But third year came, and she was sitting on the staircase that led to the clock tower. Someone had sat beside her, and when she looked over, Adrian was right there. More beautiful than before, angelic and larger than life. He lit up a cigarette and held it out to her, and when she took it, he focused his eyes back out onto the steps below. She remembers him asking her some profound question, one so profound she felt the childish flutter in her stomach that she had the first time she laid eyes on him.

They talked for hours.

And soon enough, fourth year was spent with her wandering to the same spot after dinner, and he never, not once, missed a day of meeting up with her. Some force was driving them together, and maybe it had been that during those years they never started out with simple steps of learning the inner workings of one another. From the first time he had sat beside her, he dived head first into the sort of questions people are always too scared to ask.

But when fourth year ended and she began dating Pansy over summer, he stopped responding to her letters. It July twenty-third when she was outside of her home, sitting at the lake after a rainstorm that had lasted until sundown, that he apparated beside her.

She had never been so angry with him.

"I can't," he said, refusing to meet her eye, "I can't be close with you."

"Because I'm dating a girl?!" She remembers snapping back.

After that, he had finally met her eye, but she wished he wouldn't have. His emerald gaze spoke too much, explained too little.

"You know why." He told her, his voice tight and his throat bobbing.

Then, he was gone.

She did not speak to him for five months, never allowed herself to look his way once.

But when December of fifth year came, and the snow on the ground was thick, her and Pansy had ended in disaster after six long months together. They broke up on Yule. Rosalie sent Adrian a letter the day after, on December twenty-sixth.

She remembers sitting by her bedroom window, listening to the burning of the fire behind her and staring out at the snowflakes falling with puffy eyes.

At midnight, her door creaked open. And when she looked over her shoulder, he was right there, slipping his scarf off and hanging it up on her rack. When their eyes met, time stopped, and air wafted into her lungs in the form of a sharp inhale.

She went to hug him. She needed to.

But he stepped away, shaking his head and holding up a hand of protest.

She remembers him saying he was going to help the Dark Lord. That he wouldn't have to take the mark, or be a Deatheater, but he agreed to help with the vampires. She remembers how it felt to have her heart stop, to have her ability to breath go away.

Her hands pounded at his chest as he stayed firm, letting it happen, and she screamed and screamed, never figuring out how she didn't wake Sirius and Remus.

Adrian never wavered once, his face blank and jaw tight as she lost her mind.

But when her screams turned weak and so did her hands, he snatched up her wrist and took control. Demanding her to calm down. Demanding her to listen to him.

He explained everything, how because he was a vampire, that the Dark Lord needed him, left him with no other option. He vowed, with everything in him, that he would tell her everything.

She did not turn away from him.

If anything, her curse had always been being too understanding of others.

And when she stood there, his fingers trailed beneath her trembling jaw.

He kissed her.

He kissed Rosalie until her knees were weak and her break up seemed like a distant memory. She remembers his hesitation, and she remembers being the one to pull him back in.

She remembers the first night he slipped off her gown and laid her on the bed, the way his hands trailed over every inch of her body and his mouth marked places that had been unseen by him.

As of now, she pushed her way into his dorm around ten at night, finding it as empty as always. His roommates were in their own whirlwind relationships, their girlfriends keeping them from ever lingering in the dorm. But the curtains around Adrian's bed were drawn shut, flooding her with relief that he was there.

The minute she pulled them back though, she found the bed empty, comforter askew and pillows indented. Hair on the back of her neck stood at attention, and she didn't have to turn around to know he was standing behind her.

His hand laid on Rosalie's shoulder and spun her around, pressing her back into one of his bed poles. She craned her neck up, where he stood hovering above, the brunette fringe messy, a few pieces hanging by his temple that felt mocking to her existence.

"Why have you been avoiding me for two days?" he asked, voice tight and hollow.

"Andre told me you were using again." She spoke plainly, as if the thought didn't cut into her heart like a burning blade.

His jaw twitched, something she could see even in the low light of his beside lamp.

She tucked her hands behind her back and leaned further into the pole, taking him in with slowness and no rush to leave this moment.

Adrian kept staring down at her, speaking a silent exchange that meant he knew what annoyance she was hiding beneath the surface.

She scoffed to the side. "I told you I'm not being around you when you're like that."

"I'm sorry," he admitted, arms going slack, "I don't mean to—to be this way."

"I know," she muttered, and she meant it. Rosalie never wanted much from him, except to see him keep living. They were stuck in a loop, one of him always choosing something over her. She never judged him for it, but that didn't make any part of their situation hurt less. Adrian was good to her, and he loved her. He really did.

But loving an addict is like being one yourself. Getting high on their moments of sobriety, of the moments where their pupils are not dilated and they can hold a conversation. When their laugh is pure. When they are not staring through you.

She missed the boy who used to hold her hand and help her over rain puddles.

He is lost, buried somewhere at the bottom of a pill bottle, and she doesn't know if she is ever getting him back.

But tonight she will take any love she can get, settle for any piece of him she can have.

Adrian goes stiff when her arms wrap around his neck. Until the smell of peppermint flooded his nose, and he found himself pulling her into him over and over again.

Against his neck, she murmured, "I need you."

"I'm here."

"No." She pulled back, grabbing his face in between her palms with tears clogging her eyes. "I need to feel something," she pleaded, their chests pushing together, "Make me feel something, please."

"How?"

She answered him by kissing his lips, and he melted into her. Only for a moment, before his fingers weaved into her hair and he yanked her head back. Leaving her breathless as she stared up at him, glassy eyed and waiting.

Not another minute passed, his lips desperately pushing against her own, his hands and body pushing her against his bed frame. The familiar flame of his touch slipping beneath her shirt, trailing up her back, and his nails pressing in.

But she feels it, in the way he kisses her, in the way their bodies mold together.

Rosalie pushed him off of her, leaving him to stumble back as she stared at his face.

"What's wrong?" Adrian asked, his brows pinching together.

"You're high, are you not?" She didn't need his answer, she already knew. A laugh of disbelief leaves her lungs at the realization of his face falling, and she stepped away, rushing to the exit.

His hand wrapped around her wrist, but she snatched her arm away and ripped the door open.

"Rosalie," he begged, pushing the door shut before she could slip out, and getting a teary glare in return. "Listen to me, okay? I–I can explain."

"No!" Rosalie shoved him away, fierceness in her voice, "I will not be around you like this!" Adrian reached for Rosalie again, his hand smacked down by her. "I said no, Adrian!" She shouted this time, her voice cracking, and pulled that door open, slamming it behind herself in refusal to look at him any longer.

In the boys dormitory stairwell, she stopped. Her chest moving up and down, and she told herself to leave. But she heard his forehead lay against the wood, his voice like a whisper from the otherside.

"Rosalie,"

She almost pulled the door open. Wrapped him up in her arms and told him everything will be okay. Which she will do tomorrow, but not tonight.

The numbness in her chest makes her rush down the stairs, hating herself for even being so emotional at the situation.

"Black," a voice called, from the bottom of the steps, a few feet away. Her head snapped up, to where Blaise Zabini stood. No part of her wanted anyone to see her this way, much less him. In an instant, she put her head right back down, and picked up her pace.

When she tried to step by him, his hands latched onto her arms, and she snapped, "Get out of my way, Zabini." Her eyes were furious, less intimidating with the water slipping from them.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice deep and tense.

That's when she remembered she was crying, and yanked herself away, aggressively wiping the tears away. Blaise flicked his eyes up the stairs, to the door she just came from, and everything pieced together in his head.

Despite having shedded most of his uniform, left in the button down, he somehow managed to seem perfectly put together, even with the signs of him having pulled at his collar plenty in the last hour—a sign of distress.

In the most unexpected turn of events, Blaise tugged at his collar and slid his hands into his slacks pockets, not moving an inch away. "Want to take a walk with me, Black?" he asked.

"Oh," Shock flashed over red-flushed face. "I–I dont think that's appropriate."

And your best friend tried to kill me yesterday.

Blaise tilted his head to the side, eyebrow going up. "What's stopping you?"

Nothing, genuinely nothing. Perhaps his friends were awful, one almost taking away her life, and Blaise might be an insufferable blood supremacist, but she would take any distraction at the moment.

She sniffled and shook her head, gaining a curt nod in return from the wizard before he turned right back around on the stairs and gestured her to follow.

They were silent in walking through the somewhat empty common room, not a word being spoken. Even as they stepped out into the corridor, the only sound was shoes hitting stones.

Side by side, both moving as slow as the other, and beneath the dim light of the Dungeons, it didn't feel so odd to be next to one another.

"I had a step-dad like that," Blaise said, and Rosalie glanced at him in confusion. His gaze stayed ahead, "Probably the longest one my mum ever kept around."

"Like what?" she asked.

"I'm not stupid," he said. Her eyes darted away and Blaise shook his head. "I know Pucey has a problem. A bad one, I would say."

"I wasn't crying about that." She spoke defensively, not meaning to sound so snappy. "I mean—yeah, but no...I just need to feel—alive, I guess. Anyways, what was that like? Having your step-dad be that way?" At the end of her ramble, she muttered an apology that he paid no attention to.

Blaise sighed, heavily and drawn out as they kept walking. "Well, I never get attached to my mum's husbands, but I really liked that one. He put a lot of effort into being around me, but you know..." He gestured to her, voice calm, "With addicts you never know what side of them you're getting. Some days he was the best guy to be around, other days I couldn't understand why he wasn't able to talk right or walk around. I don't think mum knew he had that problem until they married, and once they started fighting about it, he got worse. Died, eventually." He finished as if the death was nothing but a mere consequence.

"Oh Blaise," she breathed out, "I'm so sorry."

"Don't go soft on me, Black." With his hands still in his pockets, he nudged her arm with his elbow, drawing a sad smile to her lips. "So tell me, are you dating Pucey?"

"No." She laughed at that, her body halting as they came to the stairs leading up from the Dungeons. Blaise nodded, and she took it as a sign to sit down. As soon as she did, he sat right below her, turning his body in her direction. Blaise rested his arms on his knees, eye-level with her. And Rosalie sighed as he urged her to go on. "No. I mean, we hook up, but he's just one of my best friends." She leaned toward him, "I'm not in love with Adrian, if that's what your asking."

"It's never your fault what he's going through, I swear." Blaise laid his hand on her knee, the action seeming so simple. "And I know what it's like to want to feel alive, but when you do actually fall in love, that person will make you feel so full of life that you won't even realize what's happening. Save parts of yourself for that, okay? I get that you care about him, but you shouldn't exhaust yourself in that situation."

Perhaps it had been his soft eyes, or his touch that felt familiar as the autumn breeze, but she felt okay now. And she gave him a half-smile, one that was not forced.

"I know. I don't try to save him, but I have to be there...it's complicated, the things I feel for him."

"I know."

She leaned closer, her voice changing into a banterous whisper, "You do realize you just told me about your step-dad, gave me advice, and are currently touching me?"

Blaise rolled his eyes and retracted his hand, but instead patted her knee. Then he pushed her face away, "You're not so bad, Black." She laughed, quiet and soft. Blaise continued on, "I think you're just a girl desperate to get out of your own skin, and maybe someone that needs to be seen."

Rosalie kept that half-smile from before, regardless of how ill she suddenly felt. "You think you can see me?"

"I think I could." Blaise paused, "But I probably shouldn't."

Now that, him, and his sudden cold aura shifting to warmth—it all made her smile spread wide.

"Hey," She propped her chin up with a hand, and placed her other hand on his shoulder. "Maybe in another universe we're friends."

Blaise lips quirked up on one side. "You think so?"

"I can feel it." She placed her hand over his heart, "Right there."

"You're ridiculous," he laughed, her hand falling away from his chest.

"I'm serious!" She protested, making him laugh again. "Think about it Zabini, in one of those universes out there, I might be your very best friend!"

"Maybe so." He sighed, patting her knee again, "Maybe in another universe I have a weird friend that collects bugs like you."

"Hey!" She yelped, "I told you that in secret yesterday!"

Blaise dipped forward with laughter, his forehead dropping to her knee. "I'm serious, Black..." he muttered, "If there is another us in another universe, I hope you're keeping those creepy things away from me."

She made a 'hmph' sound, screwing her chin upward until he lifted his head and looked at her. "I bet I'm protecting you from all sorts of creepy things in another universe, you little twat."

He could refrain from laughing again, "Should I be thanking you then?"

"Yes!"

"Oh Salzar," He grinned. "You're a piece of work, Black."

________________________________

A/N: hysterically sobbing at the "maybe in another universe"

—did you believe me when I said things are about to get unhinged???!!!

—theo is so dreamy for trying to drown her😍😍‼️‼️

—this chapter was not supposed to be posted but I decided to go ahead and give a little background on her and adrian and get some alaise moments in 🤞🏼🤞🏼

—why is updating this book so easy for me? i love it!!

MEMES BECAUSE WE NEED A LAUGH:

Theo literally stalking Rosie:

Draco's new motto:

Rosie:

Theo when Rosie pulled him in the water and held up a knife to his throat:

Draco, in the shadows, dying of laughter when he saw Theo get pulled in:

Not a meme but, Blaise and Rosie:

xx bri