#ed would kind of be heartbroken when he finally figures out why he sometimes catches chess staring strangely at him though

[carewyncromwell]

𝒪𝒽 𝒢𝑜𝒹...𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒻𝒶𝒸𝑒...

x~x~x~x

For @cursebreakerfarrier​ because goddamn it, I adore our two new Black-boy-loving besties so much, I can’t stand it 💔

x~x~x~x

It had been nearly ten years since Chess Thornton had seen Sirius Black -- the man who she’d fallen in love with, only for him to be locked up in Azkaban for betraying his best friend and his family to Lord Voldemort and being responsible for their deaths. Ten years since she’d gotten her heart broken and tried to find a way to move on and survive despite it...

Then, out of the blue in 1990, Chess heard a song on the Wizarding Wireless Network at work called “Starlight.” It was for this new up-and-coming magical “boy band” called Spellb🔮und, supposedly featuring lyrics by one of the group’s members, who the radio host called “Zorro.” And yet the words -- as soon as Chess heard the words, she recognized something in them. 

Baby, you’re my starlight --

My constant light all through the night -- 

You shine so bright...help me do right!

My precious starlight --

Heal all my dreams and praise my schemes -- 

Help me prove I’m more than I seem -- 

Though no one else can see your gleam...

Lead me from the dark and pain

And help me find my way again...

My guiding starlight...

There was something so familiar, in how the lyricist stacked rhyme upon rhyme, never just resting on his laurels with the standard ABCB or ABAB rhyme schemes. It was exactly the way a boy she knew used to write his songs, back in the day...a boy who charmed his hair a bleached blond from the time he turned eleven years old, just to help him stand apart from the older brother he so resembled. A boy she hadn’t seen since before the War began, and who she hadn’t spoken to for many years before that, all due to a huge falling-out between them. 

And yet the words...without a doubt, Chess knew that that boy had written them. And based on what words had been written, she was pretty sure she knew who they were written for, as well.

Regulus Black -- Sirius’s younger brother, who, when he’d been alive, had almost always been seen in close proximity with his closest friend and (some rumored) lover, Edmund “Ed” Rosier. 

And so Chess reached out by owl. When Ed first received the letter alongside a lot of other fan mail, he almost put it aside, planning to just skim it later -- but when he saw the familiar handwriting on the front, he stopped, his heart coming to an abrupt, cold halt in his chest. Then he immediately snatched it, removing himself from everyone else to read it in private. 

He hadn’t thought in his wildest dreams that Chess would ever reach out to him -- would want anything to do with him ever again, after how he’d treated her when they were kids. He was afraid to hope -- afraid to even think of reaching back, if it meant being rejected again...but at the same time, after all the growth he’d gone through and how much he’d tried to work to improve himself all those years, he knew he couldn’t just remove himself from this. As much as he didn’t think his heart could take being rejected by Chess again -- being reminded how much he’d destroyed their friendship -- he knew after how much he’d hurt her, she deserved a full apology, and she deserved receiving it to her face, not through a letter. So he agreed to meet her. 

Their meeting was at the Three Broomsticks, where they often spent casual time together back in the day. Chess hadn’t really given much thought to how Ed might’ve changed over all those years. 

Whatever she had expected, though, it was not what she got -- for in those intermittent years, Ed had stopped bleaching his hair and gone back to his natural color. His now-once-again-brown hair had grown quite a bit too, so as to frame his steel blue eyes like two short curtains. He also dressed more casually than Chess had ever seen him dress before -- looking more like a Muggle working man going out to do some menial errands rather than the clean-cut son of a wealthy Pureblood family. 

The look didn’t bring Ed Rosier back to Chess’s mind -- but someone else entirely. In the back of her mind, Chess had subconsciously known that the Rosiers and the Blacks were related, just as all Pureblood families were -- but she’d never given that any thought until she came face-to-face with this man who looked so very much like Sirius...and yet addressed her hesitantly, his familiar, handsome steel blue gaze almost reaching out as if to tentatively touch her heart. 

“...Hello, Chess.”

Despite herself, Chess felt her own eyes bubbling up with tears.

After an entire school career of looking at Ed Rosier and not knowing who he even was anymore -- and then, after that, so many years of not seeing him at all, of thinking all she had left of him now were memories of a loyal, mischievous boy who longed so much for sincere love and approval...there he was. 

Her best friend, Eddie. 

Their friendship wasn’t completely repaired that day. There were stumbling blocks, and there were a lot of long and emotional conversations...but the two nonetheless reforged their friendship and made it stronger than ever before. Ed was unquestionably supportive of Chess in everything she did; Chess was so proud of how much Ed had grown and how good of a person he now fought to be; and both of them were so grateful that they had each other in their lives again. After so many years of them each being estranged from the person who had been the first and truest friend they’d ever had in their lives, being together again was empowering in a way neither Chess nor Ed could fully express. 

That doesn’t mean that, now and again, Ed’s resemblance to her old lover doesn’t sometimes throw Chess off.