CHAPTER FIVE
✧
-: villa misapinoa :-

── IN WHICH THEY HAVE 
DINNER GUESTS

. . .

WHEN REGULUS AWOKE Melina was no longer beside him, no longer within his room.

They had managed to walk back to Verica in the light of the moon alone, clouds clearing just minutes after having soaked them through, and he believed they had sat on a bench outside the church for a moment too long and had fallen asleep. Then, sleep hazed in their minds and clinging to one another with a tight squeeze of fingers they had wandered back to the Villa in a haze of dawn as it approached, stumbled through the front door with a renewed energy to touch and kiss and hold and had found his room in a struggle of intimacy, pushing through and collapsing on his bed in welcoming.

She was prettier then ever then, in the half-light and haloed by the white bed sheets, curled up in a dress of pink-peach like the sunrise they had observed and as she danced across his heart, they had fallen into a slumber. But when he woke up, hours later, it was not to her call or touch or beckon, but to a sharp pounding on his door.

His head thudded merrily in memories of the night before and he hastened, to push himself upright and stumbled to the door. There was the click of the lock and he swept it open.

"Mother." He said, the image of Walburga Black the last he had wanted to see.

"Regulus." She greeted sharply, eyes darting over his shoulder and into his room, as though she expected to find some illicit meeting ongoing within. "What in Salazar's name have you been doing all day."

"Nothing." He replied, all too defensively. "Sleeping."

"Sleeping." She repeated.

"I stayed up too late reading." He lied, easily, some energy harnessing what magic he thought he had left in him to block his mind of anything but that thought. So she could tell of nothing but his untruths. "I fell asleep, at some point. You've woken me up."

She looked on, disapprovingly. More than anything, she disapproved entirely of the laziness he was exhibiting, somehow Victorian ideals of activity shining through. "You should not be wasting your time as such. I expect to see you at breakfast and lunch, not lounging about as though you have all the time in the world."

"But Mother, I do have all the time in the world." He replied, in a manner all too similar to Sirius's way of words. Her eyebrows pinched. "Do I not? Is there plans already to return to London?"

His mother stared, for a moment. "No, there are not. However I do not expect you to spend your time doing nothing."

"I'm not doing nothing, Mother." Regulus replied. "I'm reading, I'm listening to music. I'm spending time with Melina, as you asked. There is not much more I can do."

"I do not like this attitude you have acquired, Regulus." Walburga Black, if anything, hated being undermined, whether it was flashed around in her face or done behind her back. "Do not get to comfortable her. And do not spend as much time with that girl."

She spits the word, and to his surprise Regulus finds himself growing defensive. A year ago perhaps he would agree. To lower himself to even converse with a mere Muggle, let alone to enjoy the company of such a person, would have sent a wave of nausea down his spine and he would have doubled-down on the feeling. But now, after he found himself drifting away from the ideology that his mother and father and everyone around him had forced upon him it seemed entirely heavenly.

Muggles, whilst his head had been once filled with stereotypes that were quite obviously untrue - carrier of diseases, dirty and unwashed, half-wits and half-humans - were entirely a wonder for him to explore. They were so simple, their lives so uncomplicated when compared to that of himself and his peers. He couldn't imagine Lina, or any one of her friends, being burdened with such expectations from their family, burdened with such expectations to be exactly the same; someone they're not.

He sighed, forcefully, and looked away from his mother. His room, despite having only lived within it for a few days, was a mess. On the window seat he found the pile of clothes he was searching for a briskly crossed the room there, narrowly avoiding a stack of books.

"Where are you going?" Walburga demands, as he reaches to pull one of his hand-me-down shirts over his front. It's a light blue, and is left unbuttoned. "Where did you get that shirt?"

"One of Lina's friends gave it to me." He shrugged. "And I'm going to get something to eat. Perhaps, if I please, I'll find that girl and spend a little more time with her."

"Regulus Arcturus Black, you shall not dare-"

He rounded back on her. The hallway there was dim with a blue-like light, despite the glare of the sun outside. "What, Mother?" He asked. "I shall not dare to do what?"

The woman blinked and she sniffed, noise hoisted towards the ceiling. She was itching to reach for her wand, he could tell. For years now he had memorised the actions and tensed automatically, as if awaiting the curse that had rattled his bones over and over. But here, when they couldn't use magic for fear of being discovered by those they had run from.

"Behave yourself." She sniped. "And do not dare disappoint me."

✧

"You can't tell her."

He found Melina sat beneath an peach tree. There was a cherry-coloured towel beneath her legs and she lent on the grooves of the bark, her hair wet and skin glistening with drops of water. She had a book in her hands and sunglasses over her eyes. She was reading the Divine Comedy, in Italian compared to any translation into French and English, and he couldn't fathom how she could manage to read such a book given the headache that currently plagued him.

She pushed her sunglasses to balance atop her hair. "Pardon?" She asked.

"My mother." Regulus expanded. "You can't tell her."

She sat up, threading a bookmark through the pages of her book and making to stand up. "Regulus," she said, and her voice wasn't half as as sharp as he had expected to be at such an intrusion, such a proclamation, an accusation, "it seems to had slipped your notice, however your mother doesn't particularly like me."

"I know and-"

"And I can't understand why you think that the first thing I do after I spend a night with her son is go and tell her every detail." Her head tilted and she tutted. "Seriously," she approached him slowly, placing her arms around his shoulders, "you think too much."

"I do?"

"Regulus, why would I tell your mother something that isn't hers to know?" She asked, voice as sweet as the fruit she chose to sit beneath. "Why would I tell her that her pretty son is fooling around with her housekeeper's daughter."

"Ah," his head tilted this time, enjoying the way the damp spectres of water soaked into his shirt, mind wandering so far away from the very point he had approached her intending to make, "so I'm pretty."

"A fact I told you just last night, if you remember." Melina smiled, standing up on her tiptoes to place a kiss right by his lips. "Don't you remember."

"I remember everything." He promised. "Everything." He leant down, as though to kiss her, properly, before stopping. "Biacami ancora... please."

"As you ask so nicely." She kissed him then, and somehow it was different with the sun pouring down over them. She pulled away, after he did. "And you made sure your mother wasn't too close?" Melina teased.

"You're cruel."

"Come read with me." Her arms slid away, retreating to her towel. "And have a peach, they're ripe."

He reached for one, twisting the stem because it was a little stiff. Biting into the flesh, he sat beside her. "Do they help with the headache?" Regulus asked.

"Sometimes. Did you just wake up now?"

"Half an hour ago." He rolled over, laid on his stomach and looked up at her. "To my mother banging on my door."

"To warn you of Italian girls?"

"To warn me of the French and beautiful, actually." He replied.

"But you are French." Melina told him, her eyes wide as she played along.

"Not enough to count."

"And has she not told you that you cannot be warned of the beautiful? They are like sirens, they will lure poor sailors in and..."

"And what?"

"Indulge." She kissed him again, leaning forward to meet his lips.

It doesn't seem to stop there, and she twists a hand into his hair again to steady him against her as he sits up. He's doing exactly as he was warned not to do, indulging, letting the tension in his shoulders ease out. Somehow, he managed to stay upright, and he used it to his advantage. Slowly, as though wanting to torture her, he fell into easy, languorous movements; kissing her like he had no purpose in doing so, a hand to balance himself rest on her leg, carefully pushing underneath the hems of her skirt.

Similarly, as though she can read his mind and know that he's trying to tease her, she finds the collar of his shirt, tugging him all the more closer. A siren, through and through, he doesn't care so much as proving himself as anything other the poor, lowly sailor she named him, and let her do as she pleased, because his hand is reaching further under her dress.

The hand still in his hair tugs, harder than before and it takes a level of self control that Regulus barely knew he could achieve to not let out a groan of pleasure. His eyes flash open as his lips leave her, and meets her gaze through his lashes.

"Ah," she hums, her eyes sparkling, "hoping to catch me unaware, are you?"

"Of course." He agrees, because her hand hasn't left his hair. She grins and lets go.

He manages to catch her in a kiss again, before his attention is turned elsewhere, trailing along her jaw, pushing hair behind her ear. Brushes of kisses, varying between nips and feather-light touches and he can feel her hands in his hair again.

His teeth scrape the skin of her neck and she gasps, quick to reach for him and kiss him properly. Hard. And he revels in the way that she's leaning into him, how he's pressing fingertip-shaped bruises into her hips because he can think of nothing worse than not holding her tight, to not hold her properly.

Regulus pulled away, not because he wants to but rather he's conscious of the villa not too far from them, and the sounds of life that come within it. Whilst he loved the hum of the summer on his skin, he knew his mother preferred sitting within the shade, but, despite her flaws, he did not believe her unable to look out of a window.

"You're hard." She comments, as she reaches for her book.

"You're pretty." He replies, and settles down with his head on her thigh.

She begins to read, and Regulus makes a poor attempt of trying to listen to her.

✧

He had helped her to set the table for dinner that night. There were two extra place settings, and he didn't ask who they were for; it was inevitable they find out soon.

Odette was cooking. Something not so traditional, a fusion of Spanish and Italian and that should have given Regulus enough of a clue. But he didn't listen well enough when Melina spoke to him. He tried, most earnestly, to take in every word but fell miles short of the mark because somehow she always looked as though a painter could seat himself a foot or so away and paint a portrait of her that would cost one's body and soul once completed.

The dish smelt heavenly, as he helped Lina cut up lemons and oranges and sprigs of mint for the water and to garnish their drinks, sipping their own little cocktails from mugs to disguise them from her mother's knowing eye. Leonardo had handmade the pasta with his father, whilst Melina and Regulus had spent hours lounging under peach trees, and when the pasta had been made the man came to visit them, bringing with him a pitcher of some kind of raspberry drink and a story about the very peach grove they were sat under and the Italian Partisans during the Second World War.

Regulus did not know that the Muggle world had experienced war. Somehow, it sounded more terrifying than the war that raged in his home.

Marcello Solara, with the same passion his son held for cooking, was an artist. He told his story as he held a notebook as big as his palm and a tiny stub of a pencil, the paint scratched off, leaving them both with portraits of one another as they lived and breathed. In his wisdom, he had gifted Regulus his granddaughter's portrait, and Melina the guest's.

She replaced her bookmark with it. He tucked it into the empty breast pocket of the old button-up.

And he had let them go upon Odette's call to help with mentions of seeing them both for dinner another evening, or perhaps in church that Sunday, They walked slowly back up to the house, shoulders brushing as they moved, comparing each of the portraits with the all too heavenly sun crashing over their shoulders.

When they had set the table, and Leonardo had thrown cotton cloths out of the window for his daughter to cover the baskets of homemade bread with, there was a knock on the door and the pretty blonde girl who had been murmuring tales and words of summer in his ear disappeared into the warm shadows of the house, feet cold against the tiles as she went to receive the guests.

Regulus was asked to fetch his mother, and despite the leaving behind Grimmauld Place and the country where their family actually meant anything to anyone creating some kind of force within him that was willing to disobey his mother's words and orders, he could feel a cold rush over him as he approached the stairs, taking them slowly.

The hairs on the back of his next rose as he stood before the door of the master bedroom, knocking gently on the frame. Once, twice, and he twisted the door knob open.

It smelt like magic in there, the curtains drawn over the windows and candles lit to replace the outside. His mother sat by a desk, a piece of parchment laid out on the desk and a peacock feather quill sat in her hand. Walburga looked up at him, turning to face him in that kind of way to shield the contents of her letter from him.

"Yes?" She asked, that glare covering her face already explicitly disapproving; of the shirt, of the hair, of the slight twinge of colour that had come to his face the moment they had entered a country with actual sun.

"Dinner's about to be served. There are guests, too." Regulus replied, hands folded neatly before him. "I do not know-"

His mother let out a sigh, akin to that of someone who had just been told some particularly awful news. "The housekeeper told me of this." She dried the nib of the quill on an ink-spotted handkerchief, one that had once held initials in the corner that were now unstitched and left with only the imprint. "Go, I can walk down myself."

Regulus didn't say anything for a moment, warily eyeing the corner of the hidden parchment paper, before turning and leaving. He made his way down the stairs, slipping not through the wide, open doors to the patio but rather into the kitchen, finding several glasses awaiting, already filled with the fresh lemonade Mafalda had made earlier that day.

He picked one, taking a swig as he diverted his attention to the nook in the corner, placing down the glass and opening one of the glass cabinets. He pondered, for just a moment, before selecting a bottle of Limoncello and unscrewing the cap, deciding against proper measurement and rather pouring in just enough to replace what he had already drunk. He stirred it in with the end of the spoon and turned back to the kitchen, selecting another of the drinks to carry through with him.

As he approached the patio, the jolly ringing of laughter echoed through and as he stepped out into the early evening sunlight. Melina's eyes found him first as she twisted in her chair, closest to the kitchen door. She smiled, dimples pressing in her cheeks.

"Elena, Javi, this is one of our guests, Regulus." Melina said, as Regulus stopped behind her chair, placing down a glass before her and finding himself raising the other drink to avoid it being spilt as he was ambushed with smiling facing and hugs.

"Buonasera." He smiled, just as heartily as the guests did. "Elena, correct?" The brunette girl, who appeared no older than twenty-five, nodded dutifully. "Congratulations on your engagement!"

"Ah, he's so polite." Elena commented in the Italian he could not reply in. Instead, he just listened as Melina informed them of his inability to speak their language, Leonardo patting him on the back merrily in that sort of careless, fatherly way he had seen his classmates receive.

"And handsome, yes?" She eyed Melina as Regulus resumed his place behind her. The girl below him only smiled, glancing up at him. "Not as handsome as my Javi." She added, reassuring her fiancé as he made some kind of face, patting his cheek with her hand. The engagement ring sparked in the sun, blinding them for a moment.

"Well, I simply can't speak for the matter of Javier's looks, but Regulus... he is not too bad." His eyes flickered down to her in recognition of his name as the table burst out into laughter. Melina smiled back up at him, almost smirking at the sign of mischief in her eyes. "Not too bad." She repeated, in French.

There was a cough, and Melina's eyes flickered over to the doorway. "Mrs Black," she began as she got to her feet. Elena and Javier followed suite. Regulus, dutifully, avoided looking at his mother at all, "These are our guests for today's evening. You may have heard talk of their wedding this coming month, Javier and Elena."

And Regulus watched as his mother, too, was ambushed with hugs instead of handshakes and only he, who knew her better than anyone else there, noticed the tremors of sheer disgust as she retracted. "Mother." He said, disrupting the tension that had built in a grey cloud around her. "You're sitting here, tonight." He pulled out the chair at the centre of the table.

They were lucky not to suffer an image of disdain on her face as she was sat, not at the head of the table as she may have expected; she was the owner of the house, after all, but to the right. Regulus had listened as Melina explained the etiquette of seating to him as they lay the table; the host sat at the head, with the most important guest to the right. That seat, of course, had been taken by Walburga, but she was yet to be aware of this significance.

Elena and Javier, as the most honoured guests, would be sat in the middle seats, opposite one another. Odette automatically say to her husband's left, opposite Mrs Black, whilst the two seats at the end of the table were taken by Regulus and Melina.

"Melina!" A shout came from within, and the girl beside him let out a sigh.

"Yes, Maman?" Melina called, wandering away from the table, kicking off her shoes as she stepped back into the cool of the house.

And Regulus was left to create conversation between his mother and the couple in broken Italian.

✧

They ate frutto de mare and the flan that Javier had provided for the evening until the sun went down, and the adults made their way inside, so that Odette could play them some piano and they could enjoy several too many glasses of wine from the cellars below the outhouse that had sat there for years upon years ageing beautifully. Melina had been asked to help tidy up, and Regulus stayed without question. piling plates to take through to the kitchen.

He watched, leant against the counter with the one glass that had been left behind by Leonardo, filled extra on purpose, watching as she picked out scraps of the seafood from the plates for the stray cats. "I'm sorry my mother is such a nightmare." He murmured, as the sound of an all-too Italian cheer of joy from the living room, the jaunty tune echoing through to the dimly-lit kitchen.

Melina did not say anything, covering the bowl and placing it in the fridge, washing her hands and drying them on the skirt of her dress. She came to a stop across from him, leaning on the counter. "Do you want to go for a smoke, before we do the dishes?" She asked. 

He nodded, and watched as she turned, smile lighting up her face at the agreement, to open one of the painted drawers closest to the door, pulling a deck of MS cigarettes out from within it's depths, a lighter too. She followed him out of the kitchen, pulling the door - which had been attached to the wall within by a latch to keep it open - closed behind them, and the sound of the all too happy piano and the aura of gloom that followed around his mother blurred and fell away until it was muffled and miles from them. 

The grass was soft yet cold and felt damp beneath his bare feet, and she traipsed a treaded pathway through the middle of the trees, avoiding rogue pebbles from the path to their right until they came to a stop by the pool. She climbed up the sandstone steps and sat, back pressed against the ornate headstone where fresh water trickled into the trough through the mouth of a depiction of Apollo, who had the rays of the sun haloing around his head, entirely beautiful when carved in stone. 

He sat next to her, back to the villa, legs drifting in the cool water. She lit her cigarette and held out the pack to him, watching as he copied her actions. They sat for a moment, in silence, as each preferred to simply listen to the countryside. 

Melina stubbed out her cigarette, expert aim allowing her to throw the butt somewhere in the general vicinity of the ash tray sat next to the two loungers. The silhouette of her father appeared in the kitchen, before the light flickered off and he returned to the living room. The air was fragrant with remnants of wine and smoke

"My mother does not like anyone who is not like herself." Regulus was telling her, as swirls of smoke rose from her lips, her eyes trailing after them. "Nobody here is like her, and thus she does not like anyone." He explained, hardly able to think of anything other than his mother's austere tone when she asked if the vineyards didn't have staff to pick the grapes, upon Elena offering it as something to do later in the summer for the teenagers. "Everyone here is too full on summer, too full on the simplicities of their lives."

"And is that such a bad thing?" She asked him, head tilted. 

"No, not as such." He replied. "I believe it is... beautiful. But she has lost my father and did not expect him to die before her, he had too many problems to deal with that she could not handle, and such we are here."

"Ah, the troubles of the rich." Melina adjusted in her seat, shuffling a little closer, one leg curled beneath her as the other drifted into the depths of fresh water. "You all have money to have no troubles and with money comes troubles and then you run. Your father, he is Icarus."

"Yes, I suppose." He nodded, vaguely. "My brother, he left us, and now I am all  she has left and with those matters I am... I am nobody, so we had to run."

"And now you are here, naturally."

"Nobody knows of this villa but myself and my mother." He reached over, brushed a curl of her hair away from her face. "We are safe here. I am far happier here than I was there, besides."

"Far happier?" She repeated, leaning into his touch, smoke breathed through her nose. 

"Yes." He replied, simply. "Far happier. Here I am... free, no longer under the thumb of my mother and able to do as I please. Live as I please."

"Good. So you are happy here."

"Yes." Regulus repeated, taking the last of the cigarette from her fingers and taking a drag.

She did not press anymore, and it did not surprise him. There, people did not care more than they should, did not ask questions that provide discomfort. They were happy with what they received and no less. Melina looked content, there, and she had nothing compared to what he had. Although, he supposed, he was never to be as settled as she was, and he was insanely jealous for it.

They didn't need information, they accepted feelings for what they were. 

"We've been invited to the lake, tomorrow." She said vaguely. "When my mother shouted for me earlier, there was a call, Adriane says that everyone is going... we swim and drink and people bring food. We're invited."

"We?" Regulus repeated. 

She nodded, smiled, brushed her fingers through his hair as he stubbed the cigarette out. "They like you, I told you. And besides, you need something to do, don't you?"

"I may have to sneak out. If I don't ask my mother-"

"Your mother doesn't appear to care about what you do here, it seems." Melina shrugged, her hands resting upon his lap. "I... I was thinking, also..."

"Yes?" He asked, watching her every move.

She almost seemed prettier like this, silhouetted before him in the darkness, tan skin turned blue in the moonlight. "When your mother goes to sleep," her eyes drifted across the garden, to the light that turned on in the upstairs of the house, "now that your mother has gone to bed," she corrected, "I was thinking you could hear me play and then maybe... maybe we could actually wake up in the same room this morning." 

And Regulus pulled her close to kiss her so quickly they almost fell into the pool.

. . .

── ELENA AND JAVIER