till death do us part -regulus black (the blacks, vol. 1)

chapter 2

Meanwhile, in New York, Evangeline Moira Black Black was getting ready for a new day of work as a CSI for NYPD. She was brushing her wavy blonde hair which got darker over the years and fixed her blazer. She put on the snake necklace that her husband, Regulus, gave to her on her seventeenth birthday.

She tried her best to keep her thoughts away from her lovely London, from 18 Grimmauld Place which played as her home for most of her teenage years, from the park near her home where she met the love of her life, from her son. She knew that leaving Draco with Narcissa was the best for him, he would be safe at least, not haunted by a maniac against whose back her husband went.

'Mistress Eva!' the voice of her former house elf, Kreacher, rang through her apartment. 'Mistress Eva, where are you?'

'Bedroom, Kreacher,' Eva replied and soon after Kreacher apparated into her bedroom. 'What is it, Kreacher?' she asked, politely, aware of the fact that her brother-in-law might not treat the house elf politely.

'Mistress Eva, while that blood-traitor Sirius was doing what he thought of as cleaning yours and master Regulus' room, he found out about you and even asked the portrait of my former mistress about you,' Kreacher explained.

'First of all, Kreacher, stop calling people blood-traitors and mudbloods. What have Regulus and I told you about that? It is not nice, and Walburga is not alive anymore to punish you for not saying those horrid words,' Evangeline remarked. 'Second of all, it was bound to happen, Kreacher. It's not like I tried too much to disappear,' she added.

'But, young mistress, you don't want to be involved in the war,' Kreacher pointed out.

'It's not that I don't want to participate in the war, but I won't side with Dumbledore. I've never liked that shaggy old man nor will I ever like him,' Evangeline corrected. 'Plus, if it means that my husband gets avenged and my son is safe, I'll fight to the best of my abilities, muggle or not.'

'Of course, mistress,' Kreacher said, bowing his head.

'Now, if you excuse me, I have to finish getting ready for work. Oh, and send word to cousin Cissy that she shall meet me in my office at NYPD immediately to discuss the issues at hand,' Evangeline told the house elf.

'Of course, mistress Eva! Kreacher will prepare lunch and coffee for mistress Eva,' Kreacher told his mistress.

'Kreacher, there's no need. I can do those myself,' Evangeline assured Kreacher.

'It is no problem. Kreacher lives to serve the noble house of Black,' and with that, Kreacher left the bedroom, leaving Evangeline to get ready.

Evangeline left for work by the underground, taking the lunch and coffee that Kreacher made for her. Before moving in with the Blacks when she was seventeen, Eva did not drink coffee often. But when she moved, Regulus made it his quest to introduce his girlfriend to the bitterness and loveliness of coffee. Ever since then, Evangeline has been drinking her coffee just like Regulus: black coffee with a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. She had never thought before Regulus gave her the weird combination that coffee and vanilla would go well together, but the blonde girl loved it.

When she got to work, she opened her computer to work on some samples from other cases.

Evangeline didn't always want to become a forensic chemist. When she was a teenager, she wanted to be a police officer, and when she met Regulus, she fell more in love with the idea of being a police officer since Regulus himself wanted to become if the circumstances were different, a Wizarding World version of a police officer, an Auror. But, after she left London, Evangeline decided to go to Cornell University to study science and follow in her mother's footsteps and become a forensic chemist.

'Well, well, every time I see you, you seem to become younger,' the voice of her cousin, Narcissa Malfoy, made Evangeline move her eyes away from her computer.

'Cissy,' Eva exclaimed, standing up from her chair and going to hug her cousin. 'It has been so long,' Eva muttered.

'Yes, well, there's an all-out war out there, and I'm trying to keep my godson safe to the best of my abilities,' Cissy assured the younger blonde.

'How's Draco?' Eva asked.

'Behaving as if he were a miniature version of my husband,' Narcissa admitted. 'If only his father were here, things would be so different.'

Evangeline sighed at the thought of Lucius Malfoy teaching her son that muggles were bad and also anyone who wasn't Pure-blood. It made Evangeline feel scared of the moment when Draco would find out that he was a half-blood himself. 'Yes, well, if Reg would have been here, us three would have lived here, in muggle New York, pretending to be dead, living the American dream,' Evangeline confessed.

'He looks just like you, Eva. That messy wavy blonde hair and ocean blue eyes and fair skin. But, other than that, he's all Regulus. He's nice to the house elves, and I bet that if Lucius wouldn't have thrown a fit, by now he would have freed them all. He loves reading, even muggle books when he thinks that no one's noticing. He found the trunk of yours and Regulus' things at the manor and took all your books from it. He loves his peace,' the older cousin told Evangeline, a smile appearing on Eva's face at the possibility of her son resembling her and his father even in the slightest.

It is true that over the years, Narcissa had shown her photos of her son. He indeed looked much like her, but he was as tall as his father and had the same body structure. Narcissa would also write to her whenever something new happened in Draco's life: his firsts, his birthdays and Christmases, his first day of school at Hogwarts, his first Quidditch match (she wasn't surprised when she found out that Draco, alike Regulus was a seeker for the Slytherin house team). She couldn't wait for the moment when she'd get to meet her son, to hug him, to tell him how much it hurt her to leave him with the Malfoys but how it was in his best interest to do so.

'Sirius and the Order found out about me and Draco,' Eva informed Narcissa.

'That's great news, isn't it?' Narcissa asked, and Eva stayed quiet. 'Oh, come on, Eva. You made a promise to yourself and Regulus. That you'd meet Sirius and that you'd make amends with him in Regulus' name and that Draco would meet his uncle.'

'I don't know what to do Narcissa!'

'Just promise me that you'll do the right thing, alright?' Narcissa asked, and Eva nodded.