JO HAS STRANGE DREAMS. THE SEA-SICK GREEN OF THE OCEAN, waves crashing against sharp cliffs. Salt seeping into her skin. Flashes of a sickly yellow. Her teeth cut and cracked on jagged jewels. The taste of Regulus on her tongue, minty and fresh and clean, overpowered by thick and metallic blood. Crows that circle her. Pale hands. Coughing and choking and spitting. Rocks that leave imprints on the skin of her palms. Dark caves. Regulus with his eyes closed and lips pale. Screams that she can't hear but ones she can feel. Jo wakes up gasping for air, and then forgets about them.

In the mornings, she writes down flashes she can remember. After a week she has a crushed-up bit of parchment on the bottom of her bag that reads: Rocks. Ocean. Blood. Regulus. She bites down on her lip and chews on the inside of her cheek and picks at the skin around her nails like peeling back the layers of herself will reveal some profound meaning.

And though the details are lost on her, there's one thing that lingers, and that is the unwavering and persistent feeling that there is something deeply, deeply wrong. Or that there's about to be. Jo has herself completely and utterly convinced that these feeling dreams and their subsequent anxieties are an omen. Dorcas consults her Divination books, and tells Jo, "Looks like dreams of the ocean can be indicative that you're concerned about the unknown," and Jo wants to slam her forehead into the wall.

Jo doesn't tell Regulus.

As a matter of fact, Jo realizes there's a lot she doesn't tell Regulus. She doesn't tell him about Sirius. She doesn't tell him about the falling optimism in the Order. She doesn't tell him about the P she receives on a Charms assignment. She doesn't tell Regulus about one of the Prewett twins almost maiming her at one of their practices and she doesn't tell him about the spat that happened between two of Jo's groupies.

She would've told him before. She would've told him about every thought that ran through her head, and she wouldn't have thought twice about doing it. But Regulus kisses her now and he holds her hand and smiles all the time and Jo is in constant fear of popping that bubble. So instead, she tells him about her O in Transfiguration and how she's been spending more time with Hestia and Emmeline and how happy he makes her and he squeezes her against his chest and presses sweet, gentle kisses to her forehead.

Regulus is perfect. And Jo doesn't care about any sentimentality about the word, she knows that he is, to her. He takes up all the space she has, and Jo is eager to let him. They hold hands on their nightly walks and Regulus starts telling Jo which records she's played him make him think the most of her and Jo tells herself that she has never seen him this happy.

And Jo thinks that it's her job to keep it that way. So she keeps her supposed omens to herself.

Regulus chops up aloe, thin slices, one at a time as Jo watches, and thinks about it. She's leaned up against the table, a bubbling potion in front of Regulus, thinking of how she can keep her simmering anxieties and premonitions and fears away from him. He stops, knife still in his hand as he casts a look over at her. "What are you thinking about?" he asks her.

Jo blinks rapidly a few times, pushing the images of gems and waves and rocks out of her mind. "Hmm?"

"You know I can always tell when you have something on your mind," Regulus tells her, eyes returning to the cutting board in front of him, finishing off the rest of the aloe leaf before he scoops them up and deposits them into their potion. "You go a bit cross-eyed. It's actually sort of adorable."

"Quidditch," Jo lies, and is almost ashamed at how quickly it comes to her. She rests her chin on her hand and taps her fingers against her cheek. "Are you prepared to take on Hufflepuff?"

A dry laugh rumbles through his chest. "I've been dreaming of making Ivan Reed cry for about a year now," he mumbles. "Yes, I would say I'm prepared."

Jo scoffs. She had almost forgotten about golden and shiny and lying Ivan Reed. She shakes her head. "If he so much as aims a Bludger at you, I'll be coming back for blood," she snarks, and tilts her head up at Regulus to see that he has quirked an eyebrow up at her. "What?" she questions. "I've broken his ribs before, I'll do it again."

He snickers. "You're a force to be reckoned with, Josephine," he tells her, and under the table, his fingers brush against her knee. Regulus gives her a smile. "Though, I would appreciate you maybe helping with this potion. Just a bit."

"What, you can't handle a little Hiccoughing Solution on your own?" Jo teases lightly, though her mind is still foggy, and each word that falls from her lips is accompanied by the flash of something faint from her dreams. Regulus smirks, and she reaches for the ingredients he has laid out on the table. "I'll grind the hermit crab shells, then."

They work in silence, for a while. It's light, though. Jo's always been comfortable with silence, as long as it's with Regulus. She grinds the shells, focuses on the sound of the crunch, and pictures them under the weight of the waves, nestled into the sand, and she wonders what it is about the ocean.

Regulus's arm will brush against hers. She will lean into him, and she will brush the edge of her pinkie against his and that is how the rest of the hour passes. At the end of it, a perfect potion sits between them that earns them an abundance of praise from Slughorn.

Jo gently nudges an elbow into Regulus's side. "Library this afternoon?"

"Like I would pass up any opportunity to review your essays," he says as he tugs his bag over his shoulder, soft smile never wavering. "I'll see you later, Josephine."

Regulus doesn't kiss her goodbye. He would've, if it was night, if they were alone. But Regulus doesn't do that sort of thing in front of other people. That's another thing Jo doesn't tell Regulus-just how much that bothers her. She smiles at him, and he smiles back at her and he leaves without so much as grazing her skin.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Jo leans forward, biting down on her bottom lip in anticipation. "Well?"

Dorcas looks down at the cards before her, Hestia's chin propped up on her shoulder as the three of them stare down at Jo's future, sprawled out on the Hufflepuff common room floor. It's all nonsense to Jo, the bright cards mean to represent her: five swords and five cups and a hanged man and ten pentacles and the rest she can hardly make sense of. "It looks like you'll have abundant wealth in your future."

"Anything alluding to the ocean?" Jo questions, feeling dumb.

"Erm," Dorcas starts, hesitant as she examines them with narrowed eyes, "it looks like your wealth will be as vast as the ocean?"

Jo lets her head drop as a groan falls from her. "Divination is a useless subject."

"This is why I took Care of Magical Creatures," Hestia interjects, picking her head off of Dorcas's shoulder to more closely study what the fates have laid out for Jo. "You see any of those in your dreams?"

"Okay, wait," Dorcas says, hands held out cautiously, like if she moved too quickly all the cards in front of her would blow away, "I think this one says that you'll have a romantic revelation soon."

"A bit late to that one, don't you think?" Jo snarks.

"Aye, we've known about Remus for months now," Hestia agrees, and then gasps. "Unless it's someone else! Jo, you dog!" she exclaims, with a bit of a shove to Jo's arm.

Jo gives that nothing but an eyeroll, and Dorcas points to the Empress. "I think this one might mean you'll have a lot of children."

"This is extraordinarily helpful, Meadows, really."

"Well, I don't know!" Dorcas exclaims, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back, away from her work. "I'm doing my best here, Jo!"

"What about this one?" Jo pesters, pointing to a random card laid out in front of her. "No ocean? No cave?"

And she keeps staring down at them, like the longer she does, the more they might change, might reveal something new. Dorcas lets exasperation reek from her. "They're not novels, Jo. A lot of it is up to interpretation."

"I'm going to rip my hair out."

Hestia raises an eyebrow at Jo, watches as she furrows her brow and bites down on her lip. "Why do you even care so much anyways? I've had the same dream since I was twelve. Gnomes biting at my toes. 'S never happened to me."

"Dunno," Jo tells her with a shrug. "Just got this feeling that it's important, you know?"

Hestia blinks. "No."

Her shoulders slump, but her head shoots upright and Jo's eyes go wide as she asks Dorcas, "Can you like, read a crystal ball, or something?"

This question earns her a glare. "You owe me for this, Potter."

Dorcas gathers up the cards, one by one, up off the floor, stacking them back into her pile. Jo's eyes linger on one in particular, the last one to be packed back up. It's the Tower, the strike of lightning, the bodies falling to the ground. And after it is tucked away into its deck, Jo sees it after she closes her eyes.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Jo would never admit it out loud, would never let it show on her face or in the quiver of her voice, but as she strolls down the corridor, Charms notes in her hands and wand tucked safely away in her bag, fear whips down her spine, straightening her out and tensing her shoulders, at the sight of Barty Crouch, Jr.

Perhaps it was the joy of feeling Regulus on her skin or the weight of her dreams or her trivial, daily monotony, but she had stopped checking the map for his name, stopped watching as he travelled from the Slytherin common room to the Quidditch pitch, from classroom to classroom, obsessively and constantly making sure his name was as far away from hers as possible. So now he stands before her, leaned up against the wall like he was waiting for her.

She suppresses as shudder and casts her gaze to the ground, trying to pretend she doesn't see him, but Jo knows that he knows that she does. "Fucking hell," she grumbles to herself, trying to tell herself that she is not a coward, and she can handle this herself.

And even though she doesn't look at him, eyes fixed firmly on the ground, Jo can see when his feet fall in line with hers, can feel the way her spine involuntarily curves inward, away from him. "Hello, Jo," he greets, jovial, light, like he always starts with her. At the sound of his voice, Jo can feel it, the parchment constraining around her wrists, digging into her skin.

"Don't talk to me," Jo spits out through gritted teeth, jutting her chin up to stare ahead. And she recalls her promise to herself and broadens her shoulders.

A sigh falls from Crouch's lips, and he rolls his head to the side, batting his eyelids up at Jo. "Do we always have to do this cat and mouse dance, Jo?" he questions with a bit of a pout, and Jo's almost eager for him to drop the theatrics. It's worse when he talks to her like this. "At first it was endearing but honestly, now, I'm getting a bit tired of it."

"Piss off."

"Is that all you're ever going to say to me?" he counters, tone dropping now.

Jo's glare hardens. "Yes."

She can see him shrug, from her peripherals. "Suppose that's fine as well, you can just listen."

"Not listening," she says, curt and quick and she picks up her pace as she turns a corner, counting the steps until she is in the library and in the comfort of Regulus's presence.

Crouch keeps her pace easily, long legs matching her stride. "I hope you know, Josie dear, that Regulus is never going to be the person you're pretending he is," he tells her, and if Jo didn't know him and didn't know his antics, she'd fall for it, the way he coats his voice in concern so much it's dripping off of him. "Not with that little tattoo of his."

Jo figures he would've gone there, an obvious sore spot, an easy target. She lets it roll off of her. Jo is not an easy target. "Good to know."

Crouch inches closer to her as they walk, steps in tandem and he is far, far too close to her. "You should ask him, you know, about the things he does when he's home, about the people he does it with."

Jo says nothing. She swallows thickly and holds her breath for ten seconds at a time and wonders if he can tell how close she is to losing her grip.

A pause. Jo can feel him reassessing, his stare boring into the side of her face. She tries to become stone. "What do you think your mudblood friends will think of that, Jo?" he presses, and Jo has to bit down on her tongue so harshly she almost tastes blood, but it doesn't stop the way she flinches or stop her from clenching fists so hard her knuckles turn white. She can feel her face heat up with rage and Crouch leans in closer, stares down harder. "Do you think they'd still respect you after you've opened your legs for a Death Eater?" he whispers in her ear, and that's it for Jo.

With a closed fist, Jo pulls her fist back and she launches it forward and before she can even truly process what it is she is doing, Crouch catches her by the wrist. His fingers are tight around her skin, and she stares into his eyes and they are the same sort of cold she used to associate with Regulus. She presses her rage and humiliation down, pursing her lips together harshly to hold it back.

"That's not going to work on me, Potter," Crouch snarls, keeping his voice low and Jo can feel each word hit her face. Her skin is burning hot and this proximity to Crouch has every muscle in her body tensed, like it is preparing her to claw and punch and kick and do anything it can to get him away from her. And as he stares down at Jo with unblinking eyes, she cannot tell if it is her anger or mortification that is taking control over her. "And I think it's about time you learn that, unlike all these other cowards, I'm not afraid of you."

Jo does the only thing she can think of doing, the first thing that crosses her mind, and she does so without hesitation. She inhales, and then spits directly into Crouch's face.

The satisfaction of watching his face twist and pout in disgust only lasts for a second before Crouch presses Jo's own forearm into her throat and uses the force to back her up, not stopping until her head is slammed directly into the wall behind her. And Jo can't help the groan that falls from her lips as blackness creeps into the corner of her sight. "You'll regret that, Potter."

Jo tries to blink back the dizziness but there is a drip of something hot and wet down the center of her neck. Her eyelids are fluttering. "You're a twat," is all she can manage through the pain that rocks through her skull. Her voice is strained, and she feels weakened, too distracted by the aching that grows in the back of her head to fight him off.

He's saying something else to her. Jo can see, through her blurred vision, that his lips are moving, but there is fuzz in her ears and the only thing she can hear is buzzing. She thinks about spitting at him again, but as she's trying to piece together her next move, the weight of Crouch is ripped off of her and at once, air floods back into her lungs and its only then Jo realizes he was still using her own arm to press into her throat. Jo coughs, and slumps, and with the new gulps of air, regains a bit of her vision.

And when she straightens out, it takes her a moment to process the sight before her, a minute to realize that the force that ripped Crouch off of her was Regulus. Regulus Black, who now holds Crouch firm against the wall, hand furled tightly around the base of his neck. Regulus Black, who, save for one half of a moment, has never been anything but soft and sweet and dotting, has a snarl on his lip and a wand pointed right at Crouch.

"Keep your hands off of her," Regulus snarls, and Jo almost flinches at the sound of it. It is feral and enraged and nothing like she has ever heard before from him. It sends chills down her spine, goosebumps up her arms. And Jo figures that if she were a better person, she'd pull Regulus off of him, calm him down. But she doesn't. She stands there, feeling dizzy on her feet, and watches, hoping whatever Regulus does to Crouch is worse than what he did to her.

"Keep her on a leash," Crouch barks back.

There is a cold fire in Regulus's stance, in the furl of his lip. He presses his hand deeper into Crouch's throat. "If you ever so much as look at her again, I will make you bleed," he vows, voice low and gravelly and Jo feels something rumble in the pit of her gut.

And though he is gasping for air, Crouch still manages to let out a stale chuckle. "Look at you, Black. Fighting like a muggle, just like your blood traitor bitch."

Jo's heart is beating in her throat, and when Regulus raises the back of his hand and whips it across Crouch's face, she swears it almost jumps out of her. His blood splatters. Jo thinks some of it hit her cheek.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

In the cool corner of a Prefect bathroom Jo's never been in before, Jo gathers the ends of her hair into her hands, pulling it away from the back of her neck and tugging at her split ends. Behind her, Regulus knees, using a wet cloth to clean the bits of dried blood that cling to her skin, to her hair. She refused to go to the Hospital Wing. Regulus wasn't surprised.

She stays still, knees pulled into her chest. Regulus is careful with the way he presses the cloth into her skin-Jo can hardly feel it. "Why wouldn't you tell me about him?" Regulus asks her suddenly, voice now drained from all of the rage and fearsomeness that seemed to consume him just a few moments earlier.

Jo can't see his face, but she can picture it. She knows that he's trying to keep his composure but the twitch of his lip and the glaze over his eyes is giving him away. Jo swallows. "I don't know," she grumbles.

"Yes, you do, Josephine," Regulus insists, moving to clean the gash that's still leaking small drops of blood. Jo winces. She feels like a child. "Tell me."

She doesn't know what to tell him. There is, of course, the honest option: that she was terrified of any interaction with Crouch after what he did to her and she thought that if she kept it to herself and dealt with it herself, then that would mean she's not a coward and Crouch didn't have the one-up on her that he thought she did. She could tell him that he has enough to focus on, and that protecting her is not something he should be focusing his energy on, which is just a half-truth. Jo could tell him that there was nothing to tell him, that she didn't think anything of it and was not, in the least bit, bothered, which is just an outright lie. Jo's not really sure when lying to Regulus became an option, either.

None of them sit right with her. So she shrugs.

He sighs, dropping the cloth and adjusting to sit in front of her. Jo tries to dodge his eye contact, but his hand his under her chin and Regulus is tilting her head back, making her eyes meet his. She swallows thickly. "No one gets to hurt you, Josephine," he tells her, softly yet fervently. "No one gets to talk to you like that and no one gets to make you feel unsafe and I'm the one who gets to protect you."

His eyes are hypnotic, green and deep and beautiful. "I'm not weak," Jo insists, though in her current state it's never felt more like a lie.

"You're not weak," Regulus echoes, thumb drawing lines against the edge of her jaw. "But you're not stupid either."

And this is what does it for Jo. It knocks the wind out of her chest and makes her eyes burn and causes her to crumble. She curls inwards, falling into Regulus and he is quick to snake