After many explanations and moments of catching up, Arsene finally went to his dorm. Adena went out of the common room, unsurprisingly finding Regulus there, waiting for her. It would always remain their routine, whether they had to patrol or no.

"You didn't wait too much?" quietly asked the girl, feeling a little guilty.

"Just a little. You were with the boy?" said Regulus, trying to show some disinterest when he was actually curious.

"Yeah, you saw him..."

"But who is he?"

"Arsene, my cousin. As in my aunt's son..." she added next hesitantly, but he didn't make any remark on that. He already knew about that situation. Instead, what he said next totally surprised the brunette.

"He looks like you."

"What? Have you seen him? With his blonde hair and his blue eyes-"

"The smile. You two have the same bright smile. Even your sister has a similar smile."

"Oh, I'd never noticed. And nobody has ever told me that."

"You two looked happy," he said, smiling fondly at her. Just thinking about her happy expression made him smile. She grabbed his hand and got closer to him.

"I felt happy. We haven't met in three years. I thought I was going to cry." As she said that, her voice broke a little with emotion. The boy looked at her, and she really looked emotional. His other hand went to ruffle her hair gently.

"Why did you stop seeing each other?"

"His mother stopped bringing him. She stated the family was still not acceptive of her marriage with that French Muggle man. But I just wanted to play with my cousin. We would always play together when he'd come by my grandmother's when we were young..." she sighed, feeling nostalgic.

"Your family wasn't acceptive? But they've changed?"

"Yeah. They accept Noah, Millie or any of Candace's friends, but they want to keep that reputation. They fear what could be said about us. But as you know some of my relatives are still close to You-Know-Who."

"Are you scared too?"

"No. I don't care about others' opinion."

"But do you care about what people could say about you dating a Black?" his tone was serious as he said that, and the girl felt surprised so she didn't answer right away.

"I don't care. I don't care about my father and my grandmother's comments about your family. Nor do I care anymore about Candace's words, or about my friends' opinions."

"I'm glad then. That's really nice of you, especially about your relatives' opinions."

"Do you care about your mother's opinions or about whatever negative thing she said about me?"

The boy paused for a moment and Adena was fixing him.

"I do care about my mother's opinion, but I prefer to ignore whatever negative things she could say about you."

"Is that a bad thing that I'm so close to Arsene?"

"Not really. This is not who I'd personally choose to hang out with, just like my half-blood cousin. But it's you and at this point it's too late to say anything about you being close to half-bloods. At least you showed enough support to my projects, you mostly correspond to my family's criteria. It's fine, I won't ever stop you from having fun your cousin."

"I mostly correspond to your family's criteria and you chose to stay with me?"

Regulus was shocked by her words but calmed down after seeing her grin. "Yes, as I said it's too late. It's you and you only, I guess I can say that's our fate."

"I'm happy to hear that," whispered the girl, her grin widening, and her boyfriend adored that joyful grin formed on her lips, making him want to kiss them with all his love. But Adena kissed him first, and he let her power do its magic on him, melting on the softness of her movements.

When Adena returned to her common room, many people were there since it was still early. She joined her friends, discussing around a table in a corner of the room.

"Oh, Adena's back."

"Yeah, hi."

"Who was the cute boy with you?" asked curiously Eugenia.

"Hm, you mean the blonde one? Well that was my cousin, Arsène."

"Really? I didn't know you had a cousin!"

"Yeah, my aunt moved to France years ago, so I don't really talk about her." She was ashamed saying her family sort of rejected her, so she avoided that part at all costs.

"You should introduce us to the boy. I'll try to get him into Quidditch," said Jacob.

"I think he does like Quidditch."

"Amazing! I'll make sure to recommend him to the youngest members of the team for next year."

"You don't even know if he's good yet..." stated Jade.

"If he has the passion then it's settled."

"Thanks, he'll be glad to talk to you about Quidditch."

The brunette really wanted Regulus to meet her cousin as well. He was rather acceptive of Noah, in spite of his blood-status, even though they barely talked, it was cordial, so if he could be the same with Arsène it would make her very happy already.

That night they went to bed late. The group wouldn't stop talking, they haven't met a lot during the summer so they could catch up with everything and anything.

The next day, everyone felt rather impatient to start classes. Adena and the others really wanted to see their timetable. When arriving in the Great Hall, they spotted a blonde boy among the few people already present and so they made their way towards him without Adena having to say anything.

"Hello, I'm Millie."

"Hey, there, my name's Jacob. I can teach you a few things in Quidditch!"

"My name's Eugenia, and you're so cute, I wish I had a brother like you!"

Eugenia already had two younger siblings that were both ten, but they were apparently very annoying.

"Guys, stop that, you'll scare the child," said Jade who sat at the table. He looked rather shocked by those seven years sitting with him and talking to him so casually, but he got reassured when Adena sat next to him.

"Hello Arsene, these are my friends. And the quiet ones are Jade, Noah and Isaac. Remember, they are the ones you should stay close to, not the others."

The boy just nodded confused as she got glares from the three others. Flitwick was passing by them at the same time.

"Good morning the seven years, here are your timetables," squeaked the small teacher.

"This is our Charms teacher," said Adena.

"He's smaller than me," murmured the boy, surprised.

"Oh no, why do we still have so many classes with the Slytherins!" groaned Jacob. "Except Herbology and Charms, they are everywhere! Bloody Slytherins!"

"Oh yeah, so many classes with the Slytherins," hissed Adena with a hint of irony which made the boy in front of her glare at her.

"Look, we have a few classes in common with all the houses too," said Millie.

"What's the problem with the Slytherins?" suddenly asked Arsène dumbfounded.

"Stay away from those jerks, boy!" exclaimed Jacob.

"I don't recommend you to be friends with them, but some aren't too bad... Right, Noah? Ivanna Flint isn't bad?"

"Hm, she isn't too bad in comparison of the others, but she can be a little annoying..." muttered the boy while drinking his some juice.

"Anyway, I'll introduce you to a Slytherin later."

"Okay, then. I'm finishing quickly. Can you lead me to my next class after? I have Transfiguration."

"Okay, if you want. We're going in DADA."

Like said before, Arsene finished his meal quickly, probably making sure he won't be late to his first class. Adena ate her toasts and drank her tea during this time as well as reading the Daily Prophet, like the routine she had started long ago. But she closed the newspaper before finishing the article she was reading as it reported the murder of a whole Muggle family in the north of England. The other day, she had read about the sudden disappearance of an old couple of wizards. Times were getting worse, it was a very stressful period.

author's note: not much happened there, it will get more interesting. i hope you like arsene so far

anyway, i know it's the seventy-sixth chapter and it's quite late to ask that but i'm just wondering what y'all thought of my writing? i mean that in terms of quality of english. tbh this is because of some issues i got with college. they gave me a b1 english level certificate when i passed the exam to get b2.... like would someone with a b1 level be able to write that much?? like idk, maybe my english isn't that good after all, but this is quite surprising considering i've been fluent since i was 15... anyway i hope you get what i mean by that, i just want an opinion solely on my grammar, syntax or how i express myself, thank you lol