Happy Mother's Day! (either for yourself, dear reader, or your own mother/mother figure). Remember, mother is the one person that loves you dearly and unconditionally, the person you can talk without fear and that you know would do anything for you - it has nothing to do with blood.

Here it follows my mother's favourite song! Do listen to it if you can. She asked me to share with you all. It's called Samba Em Prelúdio, it's from 1964. 

Regulus wrapped his arms tighter around Luna, pressing her against him. He could feel her naked body against him, but the satisfaction blooming in his chest was more than sexual. Just having her in his arms, letting her feel comfortable enough to finally rest there, it made him feel like the strongest, most capable of men.

Luna was drawing senseless shapes in his chest with her fingernail, gently scratching the white skin there without even leaving a mark.

"I love you," Luna whispered.

"I love you, too," Regulus answered.

He rolled a bit on his side, turning just enough to capture her kiss-swollen lips into another kiss. It wasn't full of fire or passion, just liking the feeling of her being so close to him and holding him just as tight.

"Second round?" Luna asked.

Her hand snaked down his chest to get control of him, but Regulus quickly reached for her wrist, holding her back.

"No, my love, just a kiss," he said. He led the hand that had tried to cup him back to his chest and shoulder. "I love you, my Guiding Star."

Luna looked at him and raised her eyebrows.

"You only called me that in writing, in your apology letters," she said narrowing her eyes, but forcing a chuckle. There was a small wrinkle of concern in between her eyebrows. "What is it? What did you do?" she asked, trying her best to be playful somehow.

He shook his head but didn't answer out loud. He just refused to look in her eyes, just watching every other detail on her face – the way her eyes were half-lidded, sleepy and carefully watching him; the way that her reddish lips were plump, wet and twitching as if she was holding back a smile; her eyebrows, shaped and curved, making her look so soft. He could never forget the exact shade of green her eyes twinkled as she lied in his arms.

"You look so beautiful," he mused.

Luna reached over to brush his curls with her fingers.

"What are you trying to tell me, Regulus?" she whispered the question.

His constant attempts of winning himself for time stuck in the afterglow, simply taking in every ounce of love that Luna could pour on him were completely in vain. She was far too smart to be taken by charms and smiles. One look at his melancholic eyes and it was enough to put her in state of alert.

"I can't hide anything from you, can I?" he whispered back with a bitter chuckle.

"You shouldn't even try," she said.

Slowly Regulus sat up, letting the sheets slip down his chest and gather at his hips. Luna held onto the sheets against her chest, protecting her modesty even from his own eyes. Perhaps, it was for the better, there was very little he could focus completely when Luna's nakedness was in his sight.

"Something happened," Regulus admitted.

Luna fixed the pillows behind her, forcing herself to sit up so she could listen to what Regulus had to say with more attention.

"Voldemort wrote to me, telling me about the future he expects of me in the Academy. He implies something... He doesn't want us together anymore," Regulus explained. "I believe we have to do something about this situation before he decides to take it into his own hands."

She sat up, clutching the sheets against herself as if that was a lifeline.

"He knows of me?"

"Everybody knows of us, Luna. If you're not connected to me, you are connected to someone else in both sides of the fight," Regulus explained. "You are my girlfriend, your brother's sister, Evan's friend, Potter's Ward. We are who we are because of what or who we are connected to, even if we say otherwise – he knew of me because of my parents and because of my cousins, he knew of what I believed because of what people thought of me. He knew of you before I ever saw him in my life."

Luna's face was pale, the small wrinkle in between her eyebrows growing deeper in concern and fear. She clutched her hands near her chest, feeling her heartbeats quickening under her skin and bones, but it hurt against her ribs, nonetheless.

"...are you breaking up with me?" she asked.

Regulus' eyes widened at once as he took in her words, understanding what she had taken from the conversation.

"No! Of course not!" he exclaimed. He looked at her seriously. "Do you really think I'd take you to bed before breaking up with you? I'd never be that cruel to you, my love. No. We're still one."

June's warming weather had allowed Regulus to keep a window open on the dormitory, and though the curtains of his bed were closed, they could hear the breeze coming in and blowing the other beds' curtains to the side, its arches rattling against the metal bar.

Luna used that noise as an anchor.

"No," she said, shaking her head and pushing down her anxiety. "No, I know you wouldn't be that cruel. I'm sorry."

Regulus sighed. He didn't want her to apologise to him, but he couldn't find the words to explain that she had no fault over everything that was going to happen.

"I have no intention of breaking our relationship, Luna, but I believe it would be... intelligent to publicly announce the end of our courtship once Hogwarts is over," Regulus said.

Luna gasped. "What?!" she squeaked.

Regulus' face gained some colour.

He didn't need to ask to know what she had thought. Publicly breaking their courtship meant a few things that would be uncomfortable and awkward for the both of them; for example, Luna would receive a substantial amount of money lawfully promised to her due to their physical connection, and while he knew that she wanted (and would, had it not been written in the contract) to refuse it, she would take it in the end regardless. There was also the horrible situation that they knew that would come from breaking up: future partners.

Regulus had no intention of going after other women, but he knew all too much that other women would hound him as they had attempted doing whenever Luna wasn't nearby. Even if he announced that there was no intention of marriage, women would still find their way towards him in every ballroom with begging batting of eyelashes and pleading whispered sultry tones. He knew that Luna was a beautiful woman, and one connected to great families regardless to breaking up with him, and would end getting the attention of other men – and while he believed she would, too, have no intention of going after anyone else, the whispers of his own horrible jealous mind repeated names of men he had seen looking at her.

"I already had a deal with my parents of not finding an engagement before I was done with the Academy, that was also how long I'd be allowed to keep our courtship public," Regulus continued to explain. "I have every intention of continuing being faithful to you, even if you're not by my side the whole time."

"I not jumping in bed with anybody else if things go that way, if that's what you mean," Luna said, snappy.

Regulus shook his head.

"Of course not!" he said. "I'm trying to say that I'd have a reason to refuse people even under the pressure of my family."

Luna narrowed her eyes.

"So, you have no intention of letting your family know that we will still be together," she guessed.

"No."

"Nobody at all?"

"No."

"Not even Evan and Barty?"

"No one," Regulus insisted. "And I'd advise you to do the same, my love."

Confused by his secrecy, Luna pulled her legs to her chest. The sheets moved, accompanying her movement.

"You don't trust them anymore," she said.

It wasn't a question.

He gulped, thinking through his words deeply before answering. He didn't want to ruin the way she saw the people around her, but there were parts of those people – Evan and Barty included, unfortunately – that Luna didn't know; and he was glad she did not know it.

"I believe I know where Evan's loyalties lie, and Barty's loyalty lies on Evan. If either one cracks, we'll go public again, and that's not a good idea when Voldemort made it implicit what he wanted from me and that we'd both be watched about it in the Academy," Regulus explained. "You'll be safe, as long as you keep your head down and don't get involved in either side of the war."

"Being on top of the wall won't help either side. I'd be an enemy regardless – a traitor to half of my blood regardless of what I choose. If I don't choose either side, I'm choosing the bad one," Luna said.

For some reason that sentence stung him. He had to look away for a second to catch his breath back into his lungs.

Regulus reached forward, caressing her hair and tucking some of it behind her ear gently.

"Just until I know that I can protect you. I'll find a way," he promised. "Do you trust me?"

"With my life," she answered.

He wasn't sure he liked that lack of hesitation or the content of her answer, but Regulus felt a warmth spreading from his chest to the rest of his body – so good, so hopeful that it swallowed the fear completely.

"Then, please, trust me on this," he said.

Luna had an odd expression to her face in the half-light of an afternoon with closed curtains. While she looked terrified of their future, there was some calm in her reaction that made Regulus feel strong – his presence and his promise were calming her down, and he felt like he could end the war with his bare hands just to keep her comfortable in his bed for a bit longer.

"I love you," he said.

She attempted a smile. It didn't come through.

"I love you," she answered.

Rosalie huffed, pulling Pandora into the train with a smile and a bit of effort. Luna followed without help, but she stumbled. Fortunately, Marta held her by the arm before she could fall.

The place they were climbing onto the train didn't have stairs, but they were in too much of a hurry to get a compartment to themselves, even if they had to kick animated and doe-eyed first-years to get their last trip in the Hogwarts' Express to be perfect. Morris grabbed Marta's hand and pulled her through the corridors, looking into every one of the compartments' windows in the Ravenclaw car.

Morris found a vacant one, warned about it over his shoulder and slipped inside, barely opening the door before pulling Marta in. Amanda and Rosalie followed; arms interlocked as they giggled about something they were talking about under their breath. Pandora walked inside and Luna, just a few steps back, walked in right after.

"Oh, that's amazing. We're so lucky!" Rosalie said, opening the window and putting her head out of it. She watched some people climbing into the main door of the car and the long line that they had avoided by sneaking into the unsafe entrance. "There's so many people in Ravenclaw's first year, I swear to God."

"It wasn't that bad in our year, right? And I don't remember anyone dropping out," Marta said.

"They're just young, and loud... it makes it look like there's more of them," Amanda said in explanation. She took her book from her cloak's pocket. "They're annoying, but they could be worse."

"Worse than that?" Pandora asked, frowning and crossing her arms.

The noise had been overwhelming to her in the boarding. Morris had noticed it, and Marta had gotten the idea of climbing somewhere else. Pandora had been so upset about the noise that she didn't even complain about the change or the fact that they were climbing into the train through a forbidden passage.

"I have a baby at home, Panda, believe me when I say that it can be worse," Luna said, giving her a sympathetic look. "You'll know once you have yours."

"Maybe mine will be quiet," Pandora said, pouting.

"I doubt it. No baby is quiet," Morris said.

Marta made a little noise, nodding. "Listen to Morris, he has several younger siblings. He'd know."

Pandora grumbled. Though she had hoped for children one day, the idea of constant noise and change did make it rather uncomfortable and undesirable of a sudden. Perhaps the force of an accidental pregnancy was the only thing that would force her through the horrible feeling of the unknown.

"I think mine would be quiet," Pandora insisted. "Xenophilius wants children, but he doesn't like noise either."

"I want children as well, and I'm not into noise either," Morris said kindly, putting an arm around Marta.

He had not said that he wanted children with Marta, nor had he ever implied that he intended to marry her, which annoyed and terrified Marta beyond description. Her agony was heard by the girls in the dormitories many times, especially during the few months before the end of their last year in Hogwarts, when many couples end up getting engaged. Still, Luna insisted that she had no reason to be worried about it, because she knew – somehow – that Morris never said anything, because he never imagined the possibility of the person beside him not being Marta, strongheaded and loudly-opinionated as ever.

"I don't think I want children," Amanda said, pulling her ponytail tighter. "It's such a mess!"

"The birth scares me," Rosalie said as if she was agreeing. She turned to Amanda. "I can see myself taking care of children, but never babies. Maybe Mum was right, and I should go into teaching."

"You don't have the patience to teach me to sewn," Pandora reminded Rosalie.

Rosalie's face turned bright red as she looked down in shame, mumbling under her breath about feeling bad about it. But she didn't want to talk about it, because she found something to focus on quickly: Luna.

"And you? Do you want children?" Rosalie asked Luna.

Luna froze.

It was a much more complicated answer than Luna thought it would be in her earlier years.

She did want to be a mother; she did want to love in the same shameless and devoted manner that her mother loved her, and that Nain loved Lyall, regardless of his obvious failings. Being a parent was difficult, unrewarding and messy in the best of moments, and yet there was a part of Luna that yearned for it. The idea of holding someone that she loved her like in her arms, the necessity of being needed and the pride of not being needed when they can finally fend for themselves.

Still, there were so many reasons for the answer to be a simple 'no'.

Her body, even after such a great recovery as she grew up, might not take it well and there were few studies on similar situations, and the ones that existed were on men, so she had no idea if whatever she had could be passed off to the child she would carry. There was also the idea of her career, that had no proper hours and no stable income, leaving her aware from the start that there would be moments in her life that – if she worked well – she would get a lot of money, and then nothing at all for months, unless she did something revolutionary. And then there was the possibility of the child never being Regulus' – and she didn't want children if he wasn't going to be a father.

"Not really," Luna answered.

Pandora turned to look at her curiously.

Amanda tucked some of the hair that escaped her ponytail behind her ears.

"By the way, Luna, we noticed something we were a bit curious, but you can always not answer it," Amanda said.

Luna looked out the window as more people finishing climbing the train.

They were leaving soon.

"Sure thing," Luna said, disinterested.

She knew what was coming.

"Did you and Regulus fight or something? He has been... distant," Amanda said.

Marta's eyes twinkled in her curiosity, but she did try to hide her thirst for gossip as best as she could. Rosalie wasn't nearly as convincing in her attempts of being discreet and had physically leaned forward to listen to Luna's answer.

Pandora looked at her hands on her lap. "Oh," she did under her breath.

Luna bit the inside of her cheek.

"You don't need to answer," Amanda said to Luna, cheeks blushing in shame.

"No, it's fine. Hm..." Luna hesitated. "Regulus and I are no longer together. We decided yesterday that it was for the best. We will follow our own way from now on. I hadn't told anybody yet, I was just going to let it die out on its own, but I suppose I might as well tell the truth."

For a moment, Pandora looked genuinely hurt at the idea, almost more upset about the idea of her friends being broken apart than Luna was supposed to be. Then, the next second, she was looking out of the window, pretending not to hear everybody else on the compartment mumble apologies and comforting words to Luna. At first, Luna even wondered if Pandora was upset about not being told about the "break-up" before the others, but Pandora was never one to care for things like that.

Luna, too, was too busy pretending that there were no tears in her eyes to care too much for Pandora's feelings.

Thought they had not stopped loving one another and that the staged break-up was for their safety, there was a part of Luna was aching at the decision and at the freedom that she and Regulus had lost with that decision. It meant so little in the big scale of things that were happening around them; with the war and the deaths, a relationship was unimportant in comparison. And yet she felt like she was bleeding all over the train's flooring.

"Changing subjects!" Rosalie said, voice high-pitched and awkward.

Luna tried to think of something to say.

"Oh, hm... I'm visiting my brother's new apartment today with my Mum," Luna said suddenly. "He's already moved in with Sirius down in Muggle London and we're visiting them today since we're already here."

Rosalie was grateful at her attempt of shuffling the conversation along.

"That's grand!" Rosalie said. "Muggle London is a blast."

Marta gave a little giggle. "I love that they are a couple!" she said.

Morris turned to her and raised his eyebrows.

"Why?" Amanda asked.

"Two handsome men together? Sounds like a dream!" Marta said.

While Luna was glad at the idea of her friends, though not he closest friends, not hating the fact that her brother loved men, the idea of them only being comfortable about it because he was handsome and had fallen in love with another handsome man was somewhat objectifying, though she understood the acceptance of something aesthetically pleasant such as that. Oh, and the uncomfortable idea of her friends finding her brother handsome also made her a bit awkward. But she knew their opinion of it already since first-year, and later on more and more the girls would giggle at her brother's mere name.

"You are on thin-ice, Marta," Morris said playfully.

He reached down, pinching the side of her stomach, making her squeal at the feeling before laughing.

Luna looked away.

"Maybe I'll buy a few records before going back home," she mumbled to herself.

"Oh, absolutes!" Rosalie said, crossing her legs. "I heard that Blondie has something new out. 'Sunday Girl', I think."

"Anita Ward, too!" Amanda said, turning to Rosalie. "Oh, I'm so excited about being back to Muggle world. I cannot stop thinking about the number of records I'll buy as soon as I'm out in the world again – Mum and Dad will confiscate my money, I'm certain."

"Well, you're an adult, they cannot do that," Rosalie said, rolling her eyes.

Amanda gave a little laugh, mumbling about how her family was.

Luna was glad the conversation was going on without her, because she took the time to look through the window and see that the train was starting to move. And all she did was try to get comfortable on her seat, all too aware that the long trip would be unbearably tiresome and finding comfort in the fact that it was her last.

Regulus gave a small smile to his mother.

It was painfully fake and overly formal, but his face didn't seem to want to obey him.

"Good afternoon," he said, polite.

The bubbling noise of the people moving around them in the train station barely seemed important to Orion and Walburga Black as they watched their youngest son, feeling a quiet sense of pride mixed with dread. He had graduated school as an adult. He was about to start learning of the real world they lived in.

Walburga gave another smile back, reaching forward to fix the cravat around his neck, tucking it gently in place. One last movement of the mother of a child, indulging on the fact that Regulus wouldn't dare pull away without good reason.

"Didn't your Miss Lupin fix your clothes before –"

"There no more 'my' Miss Lupin, Mother," Regulus said firmly.

The suddenness of the confession made Walburga freeze for a second, then her eyes went to her husband, searching for an answer or the correct reaction to have given the situation, but when she found similar shock in his raised eyebrows, Walburga decided to clear her throat. She finished fixing her son's clothes.

"Well, I see," she said. She tried not to sound judgmental. "Your tiredness, then, is comprehensible. It must have been a turmoil."

Regulus didn't answer.

Orion put a hand on Regulus' shoulder, then reached down and took his baggage.

"We can talk better at home. We'll speak of contracts later on, do not worry about it. She will want for nothing, as we agreed," he said. "But tonight, we will have a dinner party. Your cousins were missing you."

Regulus forced himself to nod. His cousins had nothing to do with the dinner party arranged, he was sure.

The emptiness behind his eyes and haunting pallor rang warning bells in Walburga's head as she watched him roll his shoulders back, preparing for moving again as one prepared to get into a fight. He looked ready for pain.

Quietly, her eyes searched for Miss Luna Lupin through the crowd. Selfishly and silently, she hoped the girl was hurting just as bad as her son seemed to be. She found Luna's head surprisingly quickly for someone so small, but rather because she was standing near her father. Lyall Lupin was leaning down a bit, face pinched in concern as he heard Luna speaking, face turned away from him (and away from Walburga, who could not see her facial expression).

Even though she was Regulus' mother, there was a small part of Walburga that felt bad about Luna when Lyall reached for her arm and led her looking pale through the crowd, and she followed – soulless and hollow.

"Let's go home, wife," Orion said, bringing Walburga back into attention.

Walburga nodded before she even blinked.

"I need to supervise Kreacher. He'll attempt a new sweet today," Walburga said the words before she made sense of them.

Orion watched her for a second, aware that she had been caught thinking.

"Let's go," he insisted, leading Regulus forward.

Regulus slipped through the crowd, leaving his baggage with his father and his mother alone, dismissing the polite manner of offering his arm to his mother since his father had his hands occupied. Neither one of his parents scolded or corrected his manners.

He went through the public fireplace first.

Orion organised the baggage slowly, knowing nobody would dare to hurry them.

"I'll get in contact with Lyall Lupin, see to the break in the contract as we agreed at the start of the courtship. She'll be fine," Orion said.

"I don't care for the girl. Regulus looks agonised," Walburga answered.

Her husband watched her for a moment as if she had said the stupidest thing that he had ever heard. He knew it was a lie as much as she did, but he was much more obvious in his acceptance for his wife's non-hatred over the Lupin girl.

"She'll get the money promised, and she already has a spot in the Academy. The Potters took her in. She'll be fine," Orion said, ignoring Walburga's poisonous words. "And Regulus will grow out of it. He's heartbroken. He's mourning. He'll be fine."

"Nobody is dead," Walburga said, frowning.

Orion sighed, as if he too was hurt.

"His fantasy is. All that he had imagined he could do to make sure something would work out just died. The future he imagined is dead," Orion said. He offered his hand to his wife. "He'll learn to love someone he can live with after the Academy, once he finds the need for a wife. For now, allow him to indulge in his sadness and to dwell on his grief. He'll come out stronger on the other side."