Hiraeth | Regulus Black

Chapter Ninety Three

The Potter's wedding had really been the only excuse Esme and Regulus had gotten to leave the house. At the start of 1980, the two of them had spent nearly an entire year cooped up together in various safe houses.
Sirius had been with them most of the time and had recently taken up going out for hours at a time on his new motorcycle in order to get a change of scenery.
Regulus and Esme too had picked up a new hobby which saw them spending most of their days taking cares of the various new plants they were now trying to grow. As it turned out, Regulus had a knack for caring for magical plants and Esme was particularly adept at pointing at the plants and declaring that they looked to be wilting.

"If that thing bites me again, we're getting rid of it." Esme complained as she pointed over at the Fanged Geranium sitting on the table - the newest plant they were trying to master growing.

Regulus looked at the numerous potted plants lining the counters in the kitchen. "Do you think perhaps this is getting out of hand?" He asked, "I'm not sure there's room for all of them anymore."
"Stick them in your brother's room." She replied, sitting down at the table to resume writing her letters.

The two of them had been keeping in regular contact with Piper, Dirk, and Levi over the past months. Piper was still working at the Kelpie reserve and had recently started discretely dating one of the girls she worked with. Dirk was apprenticing at the Ministry of Magic in the Goblin Liason Office. Levi and Dirk were renting a small apartment together in London, and Levi had recently started working in the British and Irish Quidditch League headquarters and was hoping to become a commentator for the League.

Needless to say, they all had a lot more going on than Esme and Regulus - particularly now that their families were being closely monitored by the Aurors.

Whilst things for the couple had gotten somewhat mundane over the past few weeks, that was abruptly interrupted by a sudden knock on the door.

"Did Sirius forget his key again? If he's not careful, I'll transfigure him into a front door key." Esme said.
Regulus finished watering the last of the plants and replied, "Well if he was a key then he wouldn't be able to leave the house. Then he wouldn't get locked out at all."

"Smarty pants." She muttered as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head before leaving to answer the front door.
But as he opened the door, he was more than a little surprised to see who was stood opposite him. Before Regulus even had the chance to speak, the person on the doorstep had barged past him into the house, and hurriedly their way through the hallway to the kitchen at the end of the hallway.

"Shut the door!" They snapped back to him.

Regulus blinked quite heavily for a moment, then did as he was told and closed the front door.

As he walked into the kitchen, he saw Esme hadn't so much as looked up from the letters she was writing.
"You'd be a bloody useless Auror." Regulus remarked.

Esme lifted her gaze to stare at Regulus in confusion, and then turned her head and locked eyes with Severus Snape.

"Oh bloody hell." She stood up, "What are you doing here? How they hell did you know where to find us?"
"Black told me." Snape explained shortly, still panting heavily.

Upon closer inspection, the greasy-haired boy was flushed red and out of breath. His hair, normally slicked back, was skewed outwards at all angles and his cloak had fallen off one of his shoulders in his hurry to get to the house.