Ravens and Asphodels | Harry Potter Marauders Era (Regulus Black x OFC)

The Nightmare that is Portkey Travel

21 June 1976

Diana hated portkey travel. It was one of the worst things about the wizarding world. It always felt like being sucked through a series of endless spinning tubes only to be then thrown against a wall, paired with a headache that felt like a wild herd of hippogriffs had been trampling through your head. Despite the alleged superiority of wizarding mechanics over No-Maj mechanisms, no one magical had as of yet made a better form of long-distance travel than portkeys.

Diana looked at her wristwatch once more, stressing herself out as the hands of the watch crept closer to the time when she would have to grab onto the small chipped teacup that doubled as her portkey to Prince Manor and be spun away from the only life she had ever known.

Looking around the now-empty living room of her childhood home, she sighed, her mind replaying all of the memories made in this room, feeling both happy and devastated. She was pleased that the memories of the events that had occurred here were still able to give her such joy, but she mourned that she would not be able to make any more memories here with her parents. She was now headed to a manor she hadn't lived in since she was three, in a country she only visited once a year for a fortnight at most, and her parents were dead and buried together in a family crypt.

Looking around the room, she saw the dent in the wall she made when she was four. Trick or treaters ringing the doorbell had scared her during their first Halloween in the States, and the fright caused her to release a burst of accidental magic, which in turn caused the candy bowl her mother had been holding to fling itself across the room hard enough to leave a mark in the wood. Diana glanced at the door that led to the kitchen, which squeaked loudly anytime anyone moved near it. Before he fell ill her father refused to let the house-elves fix the noise, claiming he wanted to do it himself, but he'd always forget about it until the next time her mother mentioned the noise.

Thinking of her father forgetting things, she checked the pocket of her trousers for the paper that she had placed there, nodding to herself when she felt the crinkle of the paper indicating it was still where she had put it. She then, once again, went through the list of things she needed to speak to her Uncle Charles about when she saw him.

Despite only being 14, she was an heiress to a noble house, and she was going to make sure her home and family prospered despite its small size even if that meant changing things drastically. Besides, she would be 15 in August, and from there, it was only two short years until she inherited her Ladyship.

She loved her Uncle Charles, Aunt Mary, and cousin Paul and was excited to meet her cousin's new fiancée, but they were Abbotts and had their own family to run. She intended to turn the Prince family into the powerhouse it should be, and to do that, she needed more immediate familial support.

Rechecking her wristwatch, she saw she only had about thirty seconds until the portkey left, so she picked up her small travel bag and grabbed the handle of the teacup, and then off she went spiraling into the awful tube, with the hippogriffs starting their stampede through her skull.

Finally, after what felt like years but realistically was likely only moments, she landed feet first, only stumbling slightly onto the dark wood floor of what she assumed was her new bedroom. Her belongings were set up in the same way she'd had them in her old bedroom, as best they could be in about twice the space. The bedding was new, as she hadn't had a king-sized bed before. She wondered briefly if the bedding was here from her parents or another previous occupant of the home or if the elves went shopping; since the bedding was a lovely shade of shell pink that her elves knew she found comforting.