Homeward Bound | Regulus Black

Chapter One

This particular Tuesday afternoon in Paris was, really, just like any other. Grey clouds swirled over the city and there was the constant bustling of life running through the streets - occasionally broken up by the sound of loud construction or ambulances. Most people were still in work, in their high rise office buildings laced with the heavy scent of coffee and paper. A sense of urgency was soon to fall over these offices, however, as the school day was soon to draw to an end, flooding the city with boisterous teenagers and screaming young children who would need taking home.

A little further out of the city, a little further into the suburbs, was a small cream house. It sat in the middle of a street lined with small cream houses. It even had a dark green door, like all the other houses. Anybody in their right mind wouldn't have ever cast a second look at this particular house. At number 17.

But if you were to stop outside this house, perhaps you might even need to step past the gate and into the small garden out front, you'd see something quite unusual.

Buried in amongst the regular shrubbery outside every other house on the street, was a small plant that is not regular at all. Only some people would identify it as a Venomous Tentacular, and they'd also be able to tell you exactly what kind of people lived at number 17. For they were almost as peculiar as the venomous tentacular.

Even the neighbours, living at numbers 15 and 19, who knew nothing of the venomous tentacular plant that waved in the wind even when there was no wind, would tell you that the couple living next door were quite unique. And just a short while later, one of them was stood outside of the the small cream house with a small grey number seventeen pinned to the dark green door.

Esmerelda Avery was missing, presumed dead.

Of course the infamous Death Eater, Lucas Avery, claimed to have been the one to kill his own traitorous daughter but, without having proof, the Ministry of Magic couldn't confirm this. There was a very good reason for this.

Esmerelda Avery, now a grown woman, was standing on a street in Paris, looking up at number 17.

The nosy neighbour at number 15, a short round woman with a blotchy red face and blotchy black hair, rolled up a newspaper tightly in one hand. She swiftly strode over to the window, whacked her husband around the top of the head with the newspaper for staring at the woman outside, and then promptly took her husband's seat on the sofa to watch the woman herself.

About half an hour later, as the short round woman was chopping some onions for dinner and her husband sat at the kitchen table, she still had the curious woman on her mind. The neighbour was continuing to complain about 'those odd ones next door' to her husband who, over the years, had developed the keen skill of completely blocking this out.

Next door, at number 17, however, things were quite different.

"Sorry it took longer than expected." Esme shrugged sheepishly, swinging her legs back and forth as she sat on the cream counter of the kitchen island.

Regulus smiled with his back turned to her, "It's okay. I was busy with my writing anyway."
"It's not okay." She grumbled, kicking the cupboard with the back of her feet, "I said I'd only be gone three days and it turned into two weeks."

He hummed gently in response, continuing to mess with something on the side in front of him.
"Regulus?" Esme frowned, getting ready to push herself onto the ground when he turned around, a small mug in his hand.

"Coffee?" He offered with a grin on his face.

"You're not helping me feel better about this." She scoffed, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear before taking the mug and blowing gently on the hot drink.