Needless to say, you can only really go on for so long without sleep and Esme was beginning to find that out the hard way.

No matter what she tried, be it tea, meditation, or power naps, the girl could not escape her nightmares. They had now evolved, however, into being the delightful array of ways the Dark Lord would torture and kill her if he discovered what she had been up to.

So that was nice.

"Are you alright?" Dirk asked, dragging Esme's attention away from the bug she'd been watching scuttle across the floor.

"You mean besides being bored and worried and irritated? I'm just peachy." She muttered.

This earned a scoff from the boy as he replied, "Oh, you're right, you seem perfectly fine."

Levi snickered, "You must be really concerned, yeah?" as he cheekily prodded her in the side and then quickly leapt back to avoid being whacked in the stomach by the girl.

The first quidditch match of the year had ended only a couple of hours earlier and it had not ended well, hence the trio stood patiently waiting outside of the Hospital wing.

"Oh, he'll be fine." Esme shook her head.

At long last, as standing out in the hallway seemed to slow the passing of time, the door to the Hospital Wing creaked open and a rather frazzled looking Madam Pomfrey pokes her head around the frame.

"One of you may come in now, but only one. They need their rest."

"See." Esme swatted at Levi again, "If you hadn't insisting on staying behind to congratulate the Gryffindor players then we could have got here earlier and all of us could have gone in sooner."

The boy quickly moved to stand behind Dirk, hoping the Ravenclaw boy would act as a shield, and explained, "Well I had to congratulate them. We haven't beaten Slytherin in a match in years."

"Oh that hardly counted as a win!"

"Anyway..." Dirk shrugged his shoulders, as if shrugging off the conversation topic, "Go on in, Avery. We'll catch you at dinner."

So Esme bid a temporary farewell to her friends and, at long last, entered the Hospital Wing. She hadn't been inside since the last time she visited Regulus there, which was the prior school year.

If Esme hadn't known she was in the Hospital Wing, she would have thought she was down by the quidditch pitch. Each of the beds was filled with a quidditch player, and even more quidditch players were huddled around each of the beds.

At the far end of the room, under the tall stained glass windows, was a raven-haired boy lay on the last bed. He wore emerald green robes and was sat by himself with the curtains drawn almost completely closed around his bed, except with one slither open so Esme could spot him.

"Are you alright?" Esme asked, sitting down in the chair beside the bed.

Regulus grunted uncomfortably, slumping down slightly in his seat, before he sighed, "Yes, I'm fine. Just a broken arm, which Pomfrey already fixed. Still covered in bruises though." He extended his right arm to show it littered with blue and black markings.

She reclined back in her chair and folded her arms, "Did I not tell you last time you got hurt and ended up here to not do it again?

"You're right, Es, I set out on today's match with the deliberate intent of getting injured." He shook his head with a small smile.

"You're not still mad at me about the whole... You know..." Esme shrugged slightly.

"Pushing me into a pond when we were seven?" He raised an eyebrow, "Or that time you convinced me to go into the Forbidden Forest with you and we were faced with a werewolf?"

She stammered slightly before replying, "Alright, but technically, technically, neither of those things were deliberate on my part."

"It's fine, really." Regulus reassured Esme, reaching out to take ahold of one of her hands, "I'm not really sure I can get mad at you, even if I tried."

She snickered, "How sweet."

"Oh, also..." Esme leant forward in her seat, so they could talk more quietly, "Which of those bloody stupid Beaters hit the bludger at you?"

"I'm not telling you." He hurried to straighten himself up, "Don't go causing any trouble."

"Causing trouble? Me?" She held a hand to heart heart and feigned being injured, "I wouldn't dream of it."

"I'm serious, I'm not telling you." He shook his head, still holding Esme's hand, but now in an attempt to hold her back if she suddenly tried to leave.

She pursed her lips and stayed quiet for a moment, looking up at the ceiling before she burst out, "It was that new Gryffindor Beater wasn't it? I didn't see it but I told Rogers, I bet him that was who hit it. And your Beaters must be useless to let the Captain and Seeker get injured so only Gryffindor could catch the snitch."

"You do realise that was the first match I captained?" He pointed out.

"And you did wonderfully, my love." Esme added with a cheeky grin.

Then Esme turned around in her chair, peering through the gap in the curtains to survey the other players in the room. She asked, "Besides, what kind of loving girlfriend would I be if I didn't reprimand the guy who beat you up?"

Regulus muttered, "I'd prefer if you didn't say I got beat up."

"There he is!" Esme pointed to the Gryffindor Beater who was lay on his back in one of the beds on the other side of the room. He was clearly young, perhaps a second or third year student, and surrounded by three of his teammates.

"Oi! You!" Before Regulus could even react, Esme had pulled free from his grasp and was storming across the room to the boy she continued you point at.

The boy immediately halted the conversation he was in the midst of and, upon seeing Esme marching closer, the colour drained out of his face. "W-what? Me?" He exclaimed as his friends visibly backed off.

"Are you blind and stupid? It's you I'm pointing at!" She snapped, "What the hell do you think you're doing batting bludgers towards the Regulus Black?"

"W-I-I didn't mean to!" The boy stumbled over his words.

Esme scoffed, "Didn't mean to? So you're an idiot and terrible at quidditch?"

"What?" The boy has now become so pale he would have blended into the white sheets of the bed if not for his dark hair and eyes.

"Esmerelda!"

The sound of Regulus' call immediately caused the girl to pull back. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment before spinning around to face Regulus with an innocent smile playing across her lips.

"Yes?" She asked, tilting her head to the side.

"Come back over here!"

Esme frowned as she stammered, "B-but he-"

"Esme!" Regulus hissed, "Stop."

With a heavy sigh she gave in, mostly because she wanted to stay on Regulus' good side in case he discovered what she'd been up to over the summer, and she had a sneaking suspicion that he might already know.

"You." Esme pointed back at the Gryffindor boy, "Play better."

And with that she spun on her feet and sulked back over to Regulus' side.

"Just so you know," She began as she sat back down, "I was only going to shout at him a little bit."

He let out an airy chuckle, "A little bit? I don't think that boy will be able to look you in the eye again."

She shrugged it off, "Suits me."

"I do have something I need to talk to you about though." Regulus began slowly, combing back his hair.

"Is it about how I'm your favourite person ever? Because if it isn't, I'm not sure I want to know."

Regulus had to resist the urge to chuckle before continuing, "My brother's been writing to me a lot. Even though he's dreadfully annoying, I do still owe you thanks for helping sort stuff out between us."

"Oh." Esme relaxed slightly, "Well it's no problem, really. It got him off my back, constantly pestering me about you."

"This morning though, I got a letter from him. I didn't have time to ask you about it before the match but... Sirius said you'd been spotted over the summer with Antonin Dolohov." He stated, looking directly at Esme to watch for her reaction.

She grimaced slightly, before attempting to explain, "Ah, well, you see... That is a lovely story."

Regulus raised an eyebrow, "Would you like to tell it?"

"No." She shook her head, "I don't think so."

"Esme."

Alright!" She grumbled, "I had just been to visit Andromeda because she was offering to house this wizard who was on the run from the Death Eaters and... I was walking for a bit after I left and Dolohov was suddenly there and... I had to pretend to be nice because we're actually both Death Eaters and I'm supposed to support the Dark Lord and all that... He wanted to talk about my father and then he was asking about what I was going to do after Hogwarts and... That's it, really. It was a horrible run in."

"Merlin..." Regulus groaned, burying his head in his hands, "I thought it might have been you up to something dangerous but... I'm not sure dangerous quite cuts it anymore."

She frowned at this, "I get it looks suspicious to the Aurors or whatever, but if they ever get around to arresting any Death Eaters I'm sure it'll be the mark on my arm that sends me to Azkaban and not the chance encounter with Dolohov."

"Don't you see? It's wasn't a chance encounter that you ran into Dolohov so close to where Andromeda lives. Clearly they've found where she lives and you being there too... Well that won't look good to the Death Eaters now, will it? It's a miracle Dolohov didn't interrogate you on the spot." He explained, now lifting her head up to look back over at Esme.

She thought for a moment before replying, "We need to warn Andromeda then. She needs to get out."

"What?" Regulus, his voice now dropped to barely a whisper, asked, "Esme..." He reached out to take both of her hands in his, "Did you not just hear how much danger you could be in? I-I know why, trust me, I get it. You can't not do anything. Just, when you're going to do something reckless at least tell me, or better yet take me with you. If you just vanished one day with no explanation, I don't know.... I think I'd go insane."

Esme exhaled sharply, "I just don't want to put anyone in danger. This... It's something I have to do."

"If you can make the decision to put yourself at risk to help save others, others can make that same choice for themselves." He mumbled.

"You're right." She muttered, "And... I do love you."

A smile emerged on the boy's face, lighting up his eyes, "I love you too. You are my favourite person."

"Just..." Esme started to entwine their fingers together, "Try not to get beaten up by any more bludgers, okay?"

"I'll try, but you know how much I enjoy getting knocked out of the air and crashing violently into the ground." He chuckled at last, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles.