The Hidden One

bonus chapter

Regulus felt like a coward. The fighting was at its worst and yet he was hiding in another country, all the way across an ocean. His own niece hadn't even ran away, and yet he was walking down the streets of a small Georgia town that he didn't even know the name of.

Regulus had made the decision to leave in less than an hour. He had already died once, and he knew that Voldemort would torture him for information and then kill him, and he didn't know if he would be able to come back a second time.

"Excuse me, do you know where the library is?"

Regulus looked up in shock, his hand curling around his wand in his pocket. The girl looking back at him was gorgeous, and she had a bright smile on her face. Nothing about her screamed witch, but Regulus decided not to take any chances and just shrugged at her before he started walking away.

"That wasn't very nice!" The girl yelled at his back.

"Neither am I," Regulus called back. He rolled his eyes as the girl caught up to him before standing in front of him to block the way.

"I'm Gabrielle."

"And I don't care," Regulus said rudely, easily moving past her. He wanted nothing more than to spend time with the girl seeing as she was the first person he's talked to in a month who hasn't been from a store, but he told himself that it wouldn't be fair of him to enjoy life in America if everyone that he loved was miserable. Even Kreacher was upset with Regulus, and spent most of his time hiding away in the attic of the small house that Regulus was renting. 

"C'mon," Gabrielle said with a little whine as she came to walk in step with him. "I'm new here and I don't know anyone or where anything is."

"And what makes you think I know what I'm doing?" Regulus asked, fighting the urge to send the girl a smirk that he knew would make her swoon.

"Well, now that I hear your fake accent, I know you probably can't," Gabrielle responded, sending him a smile that made butterflies in his stomach. Regulus was doing his best to blend in, which meant using a fake American accent but it was a lot harder than the people in the movies made it seem.

"How could you tell it was fake?" Regulus asked, trying to ignore the way his head felt lighter than it had in months just from talking to the girl.

"You have a different accent on basically every word," Gabrielle explained with a small giggle. Regulus nodded and made a mental note to practice more. "You still haven't told me your name."

"Oh," Regulus said softly. The girl in front of him seemed to have no idea who he was, and she didn't seem to be a threat, but he was in America in an attempt to find out anything about Voldemort and to hide from his followers. "I'm Reggie White."

"Reggie," Gabrielle said, scrunching up her nose. "So formal."

"Yeah, you don't even know," Regulus mumbled as they finally reached the library.

"You lied!" Gabrielle gasped, making the librarian hush them. "You said you didn't know where the library was."

"I don't think that's exactly what I said," Regulus whispered. He went over to the table in the very back, Gabrielle following him.

"What are you reading?" Gabrielle asked. Regulus was glad that he charmed the book to show the latest Stephen King novel because it was actually a history of horcruxes and how to destroy them. The hardest part was tracking them down, and he was trying to contact Harry with any knowledge that he found, but the boy was just as untraceable. He couldn't even reach Rose for whatever reason, making him worry that something had happened.

"I'd like that back," Regulus said, leaning over the table to grab the book, but Gabrielle pulled it away.

"Say please," the girl said teasingly. Regulus rolled his eyes and tried to reach again, but the girl just scooted her chair back even more.

"Fine," Regulus sighed. "Please."

"I think your book is probably more interesting than mine," Gabrielle admitted. "My college professor sent me here to study owls, but she wants me to study owl patterns from all over the world. The most interesting is in Britain because there's a special area of the forest where people report seeing snowy owls. Any tracking devices end up malfunctioning or falling off, and anyone who tries following the owls end up at home a few hours later with no recollection of what happened. People think there might be a cult, but the police haven't found anything."

Regulus snorted because he knew that she was talking about Hogwarts.

"You might not be wrong about the cult part," Regulus said sadly. He knew that with Dumbledore gone, Voldemort was in charge. Snape was going to be headmaster, which meant that Hogwarts was most likely a cult for Voldemort.

"So, what are you doing here? It's not exactly a popular town?" Gabrielle asked, leaning forward in her chair. 

"Trying to read," Regulus said shortly. 

"What are you really doing here?" Gabrielle asked.

"Honestly, I'm a wizard running away because I died over a decade ago while destroying part of someone's soul, and now that my niece brought me back to life, said person wants me dead again because I was part of his cult. So now I'm being a coward and running away from the fight because I don't want to die again," Regulus said in one breath. 

"Wow," Gabrielle said, her eyes wide. "You should write a book. But what are you actually doing here?"

Regulus rolled his eyes and went back to reading. 

"C'mon, I just want a friend," Gabrielle said, a bright smile on his face. And as Regulus looked up, he knew that he couldn't resist the girl in front of him.

"I just want a friend too."