"Where's your trunk?" Esme asked, not looking back as she wove her way through the bustling crowds of the train station platform.

After visiting Sirius and his friends at the Potter farm, Esme and Regulus had barely seen each other again over the Christmas holidays.

They had spent Christmas day and New Years with their respective families - mostly because Walburga was doing all that was in her power to keep her son away from 'that dreadful girl'.

So after all of that, the two of them had been very grateful to see each other again. Esme, in particular, was looking forward to returning to Hogwarts and had surprised herself by being eager to watch Regulus in his quidditch matches again - especially as Slytherin was well on the way to winning the House Cup yet again.

Regulus, following closely behind, tugged nervously on his collar as he mumbled, "I haven't brought it."

She came to an abrupt standstill, spinning round on her feet to look up at the boy, "You forgot it? Well, what are you going to do? Because I'll tell you now, Cresswell will not let you borrow his clothes. Levi might lend you a t-shirt but-" She paused to laugh, "I think his clothes stand better chance of fitting a first year than you."

"I didn't forget my trunk."

Esme's expression hardened and her dark eyes became unreadable as she stared blankly ahead, almost as if she was looking directly through Regulus.

It took a few moments for her to process exactly what she was feeling. Then, suddenly, Esme whipped around again to face away from the boy, and she began walking down the platform again.

"Esme... Stop a second! Did you hear me?" He called out as he trailed after her.

She scoffed, "Oh, I heard you alright."

Still pushing their way down the platform, eventually they emerged from the dense crowds to stand behind one of the red brick pillars where they were out of sight of everyone else.

Regulus already knew he was in trouble.

"Esme, let me-"

"Shut up." Esme held up her hand, "And I mean that."

Regulus ran a hand through his hair and reached to take Esme's hand but she stepped back and frowned at him.

"I'm not coming back to Hogwarts." He admitted quietly, unable to look her in the eye.

"Say that again." Esme's eyebrows furrowed and her eyes narrowed as she glared at him, "Because I can't possibly have heard you correctly."

"Esme-"

"Go on."

He sighed, "I'm not coming back to Hogwarts."

She stepped back again, her arms tightly folded as she replied, "I can't believe you."

"Let me explain why-"

"I don't care why! Reg, are you serious? How can you do this?" Esme retorted in an accusatory tone.

"The Dark L-"

"Shut up. Just-shut up!"

Regulus sighed with exasperation, his features tugging down into a frown, "Esme, I just-"

"At what point exactly were you going to tell me that you're leaving?" Esme rubbed her hands over her face and began to pace back and forth, "Were you just planning on letting me get on the train so I could figure it out myself? You're insane!"

"Really, it's you who's leaving."

"Regulus!"

"Esme-"

"You spout all of this about us needing to stay together and look out for each other and then... And then this? When I need you most you not only abandon me, but don't even tell me?" She ranted, her voice raising to draw attention from a few parents nearby who were bidding their children farewell.

"It's not like I've been planning this. The Dark-"

"Did I ask for an explanation? Merlin, Regulus!" Esme snapped.

He hissed through gritted teeth, "People are starting to stare-"

"Let them!" She almost shouted now, "God, just... Just leave. Better yet, I'll leave. I have to go back to school."

"Please, let me-"

"Let you what? I just... I don't know! Christ!" Esme exclaimed, "I-I can't do this!"

Regulus didn't know what to do. He'd seen Esme angry, he'd even seen her really angry before. Never like this, though. Normally the girl could rant for hours, but it was something different seeing her not even having the words to express herself.

He could see he wasn't going to snap her out of her rage now.

"I don't mean to upset you." He began with a quiet voice, "I didn't want to tell you... I didn't know how to."

Esme's jaw dropped open and her eyes were impossibly wide, "You barely even told me! I half figured it out myself!"

"I understand you're sad, but-"

"Sad?" Esme scoffed, "Sad! Regulus, I'm angry! Furious! I can't-" Her breath started to race out of control as she panted desperately for air and the urge to scream bubbled ferociously within her.

Then, a dreadful thought occurred to her.

"This... This isn't just something you found out over the holidays." Esme shook her head in disbelief, not wanting to believe what she thought but all the evidence pointed that way.

Regulus cocked his head to the side as he asked, "What?"

"You've known about this for a while now, haven't you?" She jabbed a finger against his chest, "That you couldn't return to Hogwarts after Christmas."

"Oh."

"Because..." She continued, "That must be the reason why you said you couldn't stay at Hogwarts for Christmas with Dirk and Levi. You knew back then that you wouldn't be returning. That-that was ages ago and you never told me!"

Regulus didn't know what to say. He really had no excuse for not telling her sooner other than he had wanted to ignore it for as long as possible.

"You-you were so bothered when I hadn't told you what I'd been doing last summer! You insisted that we had to tell each other everything that was happening and... Merlin! Now you've gone and-and you never told me!" She tugged at the roots of her hair.

"I-I don't have a choice. You've got to let me explain-"

Esme scoffed bitterly, "Every second since you knew you weren't returning to Hogwarts, you had the choice to tell me."

Regulus shook his head, despairingly, as he tried to explain, "You don't understand why, though-"

"Oh, don't I?" She raised her eyebrows, "Because it's pretty bloody obvious. Months - we're talking months, here, months - ago you found out you couldn't return to Hogwarts due to being recruited for something Death Eater related. That fair to assume? You then lied about it continuously. You could have said something, but no. Now, you're going through with it. You're going to do whatever it is that's asked of you, because you've already committed by not returning to Hogwarts. Do you know what you're going to be asked to do?"

"No, so-"

"Because they could ask you to attack someone? Kill someone?" Esme hissed now, her voice dangerously low, "You think you'll be able to weasel your way out of that with the Dark Lord breathing down your neck?"

Regulus rubbed his hands over his face, hoping that at any moment he was going to wake up from that terrible nightmare. "Just because you don't care about your family, doesn't mean it's the same for me." He finally snapped. "Because even though they're not great, I still love my parents and I'm doing what I can to keep them safe. They could be at risk if I don't do what's asked of-"

"I'm going." Esme shook her head slowly and stepped away from him, "Because all this time you've been acting like everything was great, and I thought it was too, but you've made me out to be an idiot. Maybe you're not who I thought you-never mind. I've got a train to catch. Maybe I'll see you later."

And just like that, Regulus didn't have the energy to fight anymore.

How could it have all gone so wrong so fast?

Perhaps Regulus had deserved it. Everything had been going too well for too long, he was due some heartache. For a while, he almost felt like he'd left his old self behind - the young boy who would do whatever he needed to please his parents because he had this irrational need to do so.

That wasn't true though. That insecure shadow still lingered within him, and that was what had been at the front of his mind every time he wimped out of confessing the truth to Esme.

She was right, he hadn't known what he was agreeing to and he'd done it anyway. But at the same time, he couldn't risk his parents being threatened by the Death Eaters if he defied them.

Esme, on the other hand, wasted no time in pushing her way through the crowd and boarding the train by herself. As she sat alone in one of the compartments, she chastised herself for being so self-destructive.

It had always been a lot easier for her to hate people than to like them. It was always easier to push people away than express vulnerability or loneliness.

But then, didn't she have the right to be annoyed? Perhaps she'd overreacted. No. No she hadn't. This wasn't some sort of ridiculous spat about what movie to see at the cinema or where to go for dinner. This was getting roped into a serious crime in order to keep your loved ones alive but not telling the most important person in your life.

Yeah... Things were complicated.

Even though both Esme and Regulus knew they were feeling perhaps the worst they'd ever felt, that didn't make things simple.

Things were complicated. More so than ever.

Regulus couldn't feel bad about lying to Esme because he would have made the same decision again if he had to, and that made him feel worse.

Esme felt bad that she'd been hurt because of something someone else had done, and that wasn't fair. But she felt bad anyway, and that made things worse.

They both had the same kind of self-destructive habit. This built in idea that they couldn't be happy for too long, and if was better to cause their own pain than have someone else surprise them with it.

Perhaps if they'd had a little more awareness of that, they'd have lain the blame at someone's else's door - not their own.

And now hundreds of miles were being put between them, and it's a lot harder to patch things back together when you're stood on either side of a canyon.