high adventure! → regulus black

[1] strangers on a train

⋆☆.* ✧✰ .✦⋆*☆

TO BE CLEAR, STELLA DAVIES was not running away. She was nineteen, for god's sake, nineteen year-olds didn't just up and run away. No, what she was doing was looking for a fresh start, and that just so happened to involve packing a small bag and leaving the city she knew so well: London. London, where she had grown up, first under her father's care, and then under the love of the Lancasters. London, where she had spent her days working at Joe's Coffee Shop, a quaint little place owned and operated by Joe and Amy Lancaster. London, where she met Daniel Lancaster, the boy who had been her best friend since they were five, and essentially her brother since they were eleven. She loved London with all her heart, but she was nineteen, and quite frankly, she didn't want to be working as a barista all her life, no matter how much she loved the people she considered to be family. Now, did she have a clue where she was going? Absolutely not, but she figured boarding a train to Liverpool would be a nice start.

Regulus Black, on the other hand, could say that he was without a doubt running away. He was exhausted, both mentally and physically, and fearful that running would bite him in the ass one way or another, but he didn't seem to have a choice, did he? It was only a matter of time before Voldemort found out he had betrayed him, and no one betrayed Lord Voldemort and got a way with it. If he hadn't left, his parents would surely have been murdered, as would poor Kreacher, who had already been through so much at the hands of the Dark Lord and had heroically saved Regulus's life. At least this way, if he was to be searched for, they'd be too busy looking for him that they wouldn't bother harming his family.

He packed light, and made sure to put everything in a magically extended bag he could hide in his pocket in case he needed to make a quick getaway—he was eighteen, after all, and he was incredibly smart for his age. He had even bought a train ticket from London to Liverpool, where he could either go somewhere else or hide out for a while depending on the circumstances. His plan was perfect...well, almost perfect, anyhow. He may have been smart, and he was brilliant at magic, but Regulus Arcturus Black knew absolutely nothing about the Muggle world.

All his life, he had been trained to be the perfect pure-blood boy. Muggles were to be treated as scum, and Muggle-borns and blood traitors were just as bad. He had to keep every toe in line, had to call Muggle-borns "Mudbloods", had to take ballroom lessons, and sit through dinners...it was ridiculous, he knew that now. At first, he had bought into it, had hung every newspaper clipping of the famous Dark Lord he could find in his room. He had embraced the pure-blood lifestyle, had lived for the day where he could become an official Death Eater. And the power he had as a Death Eater...he thrived in his habitat, and he loved to feel the adrenaline course through his veins as he cursed an innocent. It wasn't long before he began to question his loyalties, but he didn't dare act on those questions and tried to rationalize the actions of himself and those around him. Everything changed, though, that fateful day where Voldemort had asked for a house elf, and had nearly killed Kreacher with some poison. It was then that he realized just how wrong he had been, how wrong this cause was that he was fighting for. He read up on everything he could, and the more he read, the more he despised himself for what he had become. Why on earth had he been so stupid? Why had he let himself become so horrible?

It was that day that he knew damn well what he had to do. He saved Kreacher, and the two returned to the cave, but this time, with a false locket and a note inside signed R.A.B. Regulus himself drank the dreadful potion, and it was as the symptoms took hold of him that he knew more than ever before that he had to resist Voldemort and do what was right. He nearly died, and told Kreacher to return home, but Kreacher acted against orders (using a word loophole, as he would never directly disobey) to take Regulus with him. As Regulus had done to Kreacher, the house elf nursed his favorite master back to health, and the very next day, Regulus left with no intention of coming back. He needed to protect those he cared about, protect himself, and eventually, sure, he'd do something to help the Wizarding World fight against his previous master, but that would come in time. First, he needed to stay alive long enough to figure out what to do.