Can't believe I actually managed to get to chapter 30 - as minimal as it might seem, this is the longest book I've ever written and it's all down to all of you. Thank you all for being so supporting, this story would not be at this point if it wasn't for you guys!

'But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief.....'

Euphemia sighed, flicking the page over to the next scene of the acclaimed Shakespeare novel as she settled herself more comfortably into the chair that she had been occupying for the past hour or so.

She couldn't help but wish to have the sort of love story that Romeo and Juliet had - as cringeworthy as it was, it was a truly unique love between the two of them even if it ended in disaster and tragedy.

If only she could find somebody to love...it seemed like everyone hated her right now and the hateful words from her mother repeated in her head over and over, never shutting up.

Mia, over the years, had grown accustomed to Cassiopeia's insults, almost to the point that she had started to believe them and they had become imbedded in her mind, weaved into her very brain.

Euphemia had managed to delve quite far into the play and she had found herself whisked away with the story as she had always been one for romance, she thrived off it.

The Shakespearean words took her a while to get used to but she eventually managed to understand them enough to follow the plot accurately which was helpful.

Reading the play had managed to take her mind off what had happened that morning, the whole ordeal with the Howler had actually slipped from Mia's mind as she had gotten immersed in the story.

It was quite intriguing to see what happened between the two of them, their love story was truly unique and Euphemia couldn't help but crave for the love that was between Romeo and Juliet.

She had, of course, flicked to the end and peeked at the last scene of the last act to see what happened as Mia had a tendency to do that with books - she just couldn't wait until the end to find out what happened.

Euphemia had been rather shocked to see that both Romeo and Juliet died and she thought it a waste of true love but also saw how it fitted into the story well, all love had to end in tragedy or sadness eventually.

"O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?" Mia muttered underneath her breath as she read out from the page out-loud without realising.

She chuckled a little, "Talk about bloody desperate," she scanned her eyes over the next page or so, skimming through the scene now as she found it all rather amusing but sweet that they were engaging in such a manner.

"Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?" a voice sounded from behind Euphemia and she jumped a mile, her heart thudding furiously in her chest as she placed a hand there in shock, spinning around in her seat.

She hadn't heard the door slowly open with a quiet creak nor had she seen Dumbledore lean against his vast bookshelf with his arms crossed and a slight smile on his face as he watched her read, looking rather casual for a Professor.

But it wasn't Dumbledore that had spoken for the man's mouth was sealed and so Euphemia looked around for the source of the voice.

A sheepish looking Charlus grinned at her a little nervously from where he was stood behind her chair, his hands placed on the back of it casually.

Mia glared at him for surprising her and he offered an apologetic grimace before he moved forward in what would seem to be a concerned manner but Euphemia deemed that it could not be that as it was Charlus Potter and Charlus Potter did not do the concerned friend act.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded with her arms crossed now and she sent a betrayed look to Dumbledore who simply chuckled to himself as he watched the two interact with growing amusement on his features.

Charlus looked offended and raised an eyebrow, "What, so not even a hello? Or an acknowledgement that I just quoted the Shakespeare line after the one you read out loud without even looking at the book?" he asked incredulously but he was only joking around despite wanting to check that she was okay.

Euphemia seemed okay, she had been reading with ease and had no troubled expression on her face as she had when Charlus had seen her last, when she had been led out of the hall.

She had also been laughing and making little comments that warmed Charlus' heart and her feisty spirit was obviously on full blast as she had wasted no time in retorting back to his winding up tactics.

Mia blinked a little as she realised that he had indeed quoted a Shakespeare line and she actually found herself to be quite impressed that, Charlus Potter of all people, had known a line from the play she had been reading without looking at it beforehand.

Charlus Potter, the well known womaniser and playboy had known a line from an extremely old but traditional play?

Charlus watched her in amusement as she fumbled with the hardback copy of the play in her hands, her eyes desperately scanning over the pages to try and prove him wrong.

The "eureka" moment dawned as she jabbed her finger at a point on the page and shoved it in his face, "You came in with your line too early! So, technically, it wasn't right anyway," she told him smugly, a smirk on her face as he glanced at her in utter disbelief.

Grabbing the book from her, Charlus also looked down at the text and snorted as he saw how picky Mia was being. It went as thus:

'JULIET
O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
ROMEO
(aside) Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?'

Euphemia had read the first line of Juliet's little monologue out loud and missed out the rest of it as she had simply read it in her head and not to the open air.

Charlus had then quoted Romeo's line which was indeed correct but Mia was being stubborn and refused to believe that the playboy had done it right so she made up any old excuse to prove him wrong.

Her excuse was that she hadn't said the rest of Juliet's lines out loud so the line that Charlus said wasn't technically the line after what Mia had said. It was all very confusing and she was just simply being stubborn.

"Oh, what does it matter!" Charlus exclaimed airily and waved a hand in the air casually as an offhand gesture.

"Actors forget and cut out lines all the time - the point was that I quoted a Shakespeare line without looking at the book," he told her with a smirk and Euphemia had to bite her lip really hard to stop herself from giggling at the pure ridiculousness of the situation.

She caught Dumbledore's eye and had to physically turn around so that Charlus didn't see the suppressed amusement on her face.

"Never mind about all that," Mia said, once she had composed herself and she closed the book carefully, placing it down on the desk with a slight thud.

She then span around on her heel to face Charlus and placed a hand on her hip, cocking her head to one side so that she could stare at him questioningly.

Feeling rather uncomfortable and embarrassed under Euphemia's intense glare, Charlus shuffled back and forth and ran a hand over the back of his neck as he tried to avert his eyes from hers to prevent the danger of finding her way too attractive.

"So?" Mia prompted after a few minutes of awkward silence bar when Dumbledore's heeled boots clacked across the floor so that he could sit in his chair and observe curiously.

"So what?" Charlus asked before it hit him like a wave of why he had actually come and the worry and concern built up in him again despite having seen that she was perfectly fine exteriorly.

Whether she was actually fine on the inside was another story but Charlus couldn't help but be relieved that Euphemia was at least not a sobbing mess. Yet.

Mia sighed and sunk back down in her chair, fixing him with a no nonsense stare, "Why are you here?" she asked again, repeating her question from much earlier before they had been diverted and distracted by the Shakespeare lines and Euphemia's stubbornness to admit Charlus had been right.

"I wanted to check whether....whether you were alright," Charlus replied honestly, raising his eyes from where they had been fixed on the carpet to get some reassurance from Dumbledore, who nodded encouragingly.

"Well, I'm fine so you can go," Mia told him a little tersely and Charlus felt his heart drop and it must have shown on his expression as Euphemia immediately apologised for the sudden harshness of her statement.

It was then that Dumbledore 'spontaneously' decided that he was going to teach his third period lesson after all and so the man retreated out of the room to give the two some privacy, not that Charlus and Mia actually knew that that was why he was leaving.

Dumbledore actually locked the door of his office behind him, not that they noticed or heard the click of the lock.

Dumbledore's plan was to give them time to talk and if the only way to do that was to lock them in a room together then so be it.

"I was concerned, Mia," Charlus said softly and Euphemia's heart fluttered slightly though she kept her walls up and her stony exterior remained intact.

"You looked so broken....how you kept it together, I will never know but you were incredibly brave," he carried on, a sudden courage in him now that their Transfiguration Professor had departed the room because the boy had been conscious of the Deputy Headmaster and how he might've reacted to the things Charlus was planning to say.

He was glad for the privacy, despite Dumbledore being only down the corridor.

"Well, thank you for your concern," Euphemia said stiffly and Charlus edged towards her a little bit more.

"Mia, please stop being so stiff - I've seen you loosen up and have fun, even with me. You relaxed around me that night on the Astronomy Tower, why can't you do it again?" he pleaded with her, widening his hazel eyes in almost a puppy fashion, a trick he had often pulled on his mother to get what he wanted as a child.

"I lost the will to relax and have fun with whoever I wanted this morning, Charlus," Mia told him coolly, keeping her mask up as much as she wanted to crumble and cry in his arms.

But Charlus wouldn't be silenced, he moved even closer and gazed into her blue - grey eyes that he found so dazzlingly beautiful, not that he'd tell her such as he'd probably just get a weird look and cryptic response.

"See....I knew you weren't okay," Charlus said softly and he swore that he saw something flicker in her eyes.

Mia was honestly just very confused, she remembered all the times that Charlus had been an absolute git to her and had made her feel exactly like who she didn't want to be.

She could recall many times that he had given her dirty looks and made disparaging comments when they were in each other's presence.

And yet, especially ever since Christmas, he had been acting like he actually cared about her and like he wanted to be friends.

Euphemia had accepted his offer of friendship that night on the Astronomy Tower but she still felt awkward around him after all the disputes they had had over the years.

"What makes you think that you know me?" Mia fired back, though her tone had lost some of her attitude and strength and it actually wobbled as she spoke those very words.

She honestly expected him to reply with some smart arse response that she wouldn't be equipped to deal with but he simply shrugged and said that he didn't know.

"I just know that you're obviously not coping right now," Charlus carried on, feeling a little nervous at the look on her face which seemed like she wanted to hex him.

"How could you cope? Does your mother always say those kinds of things to you?" he asked her, wincing at how insensitive he sounded but, much to his relief, Euphemia simply gulped and looked down at her feet - she wasn't retaliating. But she was clearly upset and that hurt Charlus' heart.

He stepped closer to her and set her down gently in her chair again, kneeling down so that he could look into her face, "You can talk to me, you know," Charlus said quietly and she lowered her head to her lap, her dark hair falling in front of her face.

I know, I know I bloody can - that's all everyone keeps saying to me Mia thought to herself but she simply nodded on the outside, not wanting to seem ungrateful.

She just didn't get why Charlus cared so much when he had always done the exact opposite before this year.

"I just don't know what to do," Euphemia's voice suddenly broke and she surprised herself that she had even spoken and let her walls fall down.

She crumbled like a cookie and tears began to fall out of her eyes, all the bottled up emotions from the entire day spilling out in one great wave.

All the tears she had held back in the Great Hall poured out of her eyes and her composure that she had been so good at keeping up finally collapsed.

Charlus was initially shocked as he had never seen Mia cry in such a way, he had never seen her cry at all, in fact.

All the times that she had been terrorised by Walburga and he had come to the rescue, she had always remained strong and he had admired her for that.

But now, Euphemia Black just broke down in Albus Dumbledore's office, seated in a chair opposite a kneeling down boy who cared about her very, very much.

Charlus quickly leapt to his feet and wrapped his arms around Mia, pulling her into him as she sobbed into his chest, dampening his maroon and gold lined jumper that he wore underneath his Gryffindor robes.

He didn't care about that though, he just hugged Euphemia tight to him as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

"It's okay....let it all out," he whispered, rubbing her on her back soothingly as you would with a baby but Mia didn't seem to care, she was just focused on releasing all her emotions that she had locked inside of her all day until it was driving her absolutely insane.

It broke Charlus' heart to see her like that and he actually began to feel rather funny as he held her in his arms, like his stomach was fluttering though he had no idea why.

Charlus didn't know what this random feeling was, so sudden and new. He just knew he had felt it the moment he put his arms around Euphemia and it was driving him crazy.

His pulse was rushing, his head was reeling and, worst of all, his face was flushing - what was this feeling?

It was fervid as a flame, Charlus was sure it didn't have a name but he wanted it to stop but, at the same time,  he also didn't want to let go of Mia because she needed him right now.

They must've stayed there for a good five minutes, Charlus running his hand up and down Euphemia's back in an attempt to comfort her as she clung onto his robes and cried into his jumper.

She eventually hiccuped and pulled away, flushing at how close they were and how wet Charlus' jumper was.

The fact that she had let down all her barriers that she had so painstakingly built up was also mortifying and she quickly covered her face, wiping away her remaining tears and sniffling in an unladylike fashion that Cassiopeia would disapprove of.

Not that Mia actually cared anymore - her mother could go screw herself.

"Sorry....I just kinda let go of everything - I've been bottling it up all day, I suppose and I just lost it. I'll replace your jumper of course, I'm so sorry I just cried into you...how terrible of me. Sorry for taking up your time by being a weak little bitch, you probably have places to be, girls to see....you can go now," Euphemia babbled a long winded apology all at once, fumbling over her words and blushing furiously at the pure embarrassment that she had cried in front of Charlus Potter.

"No worries," Charlus smiled which took Mia off guard and she blinked at him for a second before he simply waved his wand at his damp jumper and it was dry once more which made her feel rather stupid.

"Oh," she said simply and Charlus chuckled and walked towards her, a gentle look on his face that she was not used to whatsoever.

"I don't have places to be or girls to see," he told her and Euphemia shuffled a little, looking anywhere but at him.

Charlus simply sighed and tilted her chin upwards so that she had to look directly into his hazel brown eyes.

"The only girl I need to see right now is you and I want to check whether you're alright," he said gently and she gulped, aware of him leaning in a little closer and she immediately panicked, alarm bells going off as Charlus moved in closer.

Jumping up, Mia ran her hands through her hair agitatedly, "What would you suggest I do?" she asked in a strangled tone, noticing how disappointed he seemed which confirmed her suspicions of what he was going to do.

Euphemia simply wasn't going to let the playboy kiss her and it would all be alright - it just didn't work like that.

"Me?" Charlus asked, secretly beating himself up as he realised he might've just ruined the bond they had been forming but he outwardly appeared indifferent and as if nothing had happened.

"I'd suggest you do what you think is best - don't let anyone tell you what you ought to do, do what you believe is the right choice."

"Funny that - because, all my life, all I've ever been told is what to do, what to think and what to say," Mia commented a little bitterly and Charlus felt a surge of anger and sadness rush through him as another reminder of her obviously hard childhood was shoved in his face.

"Well, not anymore, eh?" he reminded her and she nodded a little hesitantly.

"From now on, I do what I want to do and what I think is best for everyone to be happy," Euphemia said with a little smile before she picked up her schoolbag and stepped outside of the Transfiguration office for the first time since that morning, beside a boy she never thought she'd ever take advice from.