Chapter-II
Way to Hogwarts
Regulus pushed open the door of the cabin, where two mates of his brother dumped his trunk. He entered & settled himself at the window side sit & kept the cage beside him. The scenery outside was still a bit odd to him as they were still passing London & it seemed like they were actually making their way through different muggle streets & sometimes through some houses & to his utter bewilderment he discovered that the muggles didn’t get much bothered about it. “Ah! Must be some kind of hidden illusion charm is placed on this train.”, he thought & he mentally made a note of this that he would go to Library of his new school & would give it a thorough search to see if he could find anything about it. He heard about the library a lot from his parents & his brother. Although, both versions were so very different from each other but both confirmed the fact that The Hogwarts library is one of the finest, ancient & informative one. He also heard that there is a restricted section in it & you need a written permission from a teacher to set your eyes on those books. Actually he didn’t hear but overheard Sirius mentioned about taking a book from that section without being caught by any undesirables, to a mirror in front of him. He thought, by undesirable he meant any teachers, but he also thought that his brother is kind of obsessed with himself, as he grins & talks to himself in front of a small mirror a lot. He often caught him doing so & once or twice he saw his brother hiding something small behind his back as soon as Regulus entered in his room. Regulus smiled as he remembered this. The scenery outside had been changed to a countryside. The day was exceptionally bright & just sparkling with bright sunlight.
“Nice weather, isn’t it?” Regulus turned his head & found a girl with shoulder length wild black hair, already changed in her brand new Hogwarts robe, standing at the cabin door. He guessed the girl must be starting her first year at Hogwarts too as there was no coloured tie in his uniform & her new school robe is plain black without any usual red, blue, yellow or green hems in it. She was smiling brightly at him & smartly walked in to settle herself at the window side, opposite to Regulus. Regulus was a bit taken a back. The girl again looked at him & asked “First year?”
“Yeah…I guess you too” Regulas replied.
The girl nodded & smiled again. Regulas returned the smile reluctantly. “er…I am Stephaine…Stephaine Greene”
“Oh…I am Regulus Black.” Regulas replied.
“So you are aware with this world…”
“This world? You mean the muggleworld?” Regulus thought that like him, this girl must be wondering about this curious muggle world too.
“Er…no actually, I mean the world of magic.”
“Oh! Of course I am, as if you aren’t” Regulus grinned broadly at her, finally getting the joke.
But Stephanie continued to eying him nervously & nervously grinned.
“Wha..? don’t tell me you don’t know about our world…the normal world…”Regulus exclaimed in surprise.
Stephanie dropped her gaze & started to survey the floor of the train, didn’t say a word.
“Seriously? I mean your parents never mentioned it to you?”
The girl still remained silent. Suddenly, a thought struck to Regulus, “Hey, wait a minute! Your parents don’t know about it. Do they? They are muggles. You are muggleborn.”
Slowly the girl raised her head & look at him. He saw that she blushed a bit & slowly she shook her head, and then dropped her gaze again.
“So, how come you don’t know about it.” Regulus sighed in relief to found out that she after all was not a muggleborn or in his parents’ term “Filthy mudblood.” He remembered how his parents warned him continuously against those filth. So he wasn’t exactly letting down his parents before even setting foot into Hogwarts.
“Er…I am half blood, you see. My Mom was a witch but dad’s a muggle.” Stephanie mumbled.
“Er..was?”
“Yeah! She died after a few months of my birth & my dad brought me up. He didn’t mention it either until the letter from Hogwarts arrived. Then he explained it to me.”
“Oh! ”
Regulus didn’t understand the full story that why her father didn’t explained it to her, but didn’t press further on that subject. “Um… I am hungry, aren’t you?”
Stephanie looked up & a bit relieved at the change of the topic. She said brightly “Yeah, I am hungry. So do you have any food?”
& without waiting for an answer she started to rumble her small blue rucksack which until now Regulus didn’t notice & from the depth of it she took out a package, wrapped tightly & neatly with a brown paper.
“I’ve got some homemade bread & eggs.” She added brightly & started to open the package. Beneath the brown cover a small tiffinbox was there. She opened it & there lies two pieces of homemade egg sandwiches. She lifted up one & offered it to Regulus. The whole action of her took hardly a minute & Regulus found himself sitting in front of the offered sandwiches without finding any words to say.
“Er… I meant the lunch trolley.” Regulus said goggling her.
“Lunch trolley? There is a lunch trolley?” & an embarrassed silence fell between them.
“Oh…erm.. well, I thought…” Stephanie stopped, apparently lost of words.
“Ah, I can do with a bit of sandwiches” Regulus took the offered sandwitch from her & took a bite. “It’s good.”, he said grinning.
Stephanie, looking relieved grinned too & started munching the other one.
Suddenly, their cabin door wrenched open & Sirius walked in, “Hey you forgot your moneybag Reg.” Both Stephanie & Regulus looked up. Regulas beamed at his brother as he caught his money bag thrown by his brother to him. Sirius however eyed the sandwiches. “Where did you get those from?”, he pointed at the sandwitch, from which Regulus was about to take another bite.
“Stephanie brought them from home” he pointed at Stephanie.
“Ah, found friends already”, Sirius said, eyeing Stephanie. She was nervously observing Sirius.
“I am Sirius Black, Regulus’s brother.” Sirius stretched out a hand.
“I am Stephanie Greene” Stephanie said nervously shaking his hand.
“Er… sorry, no sandwiches are left, I only brought two, didn’t know about the lunch trolley…” she finished in an apologetic tone.
Sirius chuckled, “Don’t worry its okay.” He assured her.
“You have got wizard money with you? ” Sirius asked her gently.
“Um…” Stephanie looked puzzled, “We have to pay for the food then.”
“Well, yeah, you have to.” Sirius put his hand inside the pocket of his trouser & took out a small leather pouch. He thrust it in the hands of bewildered Stephanie. “You will need them” He smiled at her & before she could say anything he strode out of the cabin, shutting the door behind him.
Stephanie sat there, as if, in a state of shock & then opened the pouch slowly. A handful of gold, silver & bronze coins were jingling within the pouch.
“Whoa! He never gives meee money like that.” Stephanie looked up to see that Regulus was looking at the pouch with a slightly amazed expression in his face.
“Anything from the trolley dears?” A voice came from the corridor & almost immediately their cabin door was opened once again by a very old lady pushing a very colourful food trolley in front of her. Regulus leaped up to his feet immediately & moved forward towards the trolley.
“Yes dear?” said the old lady looking at Regulus.
“Er… one pumpkin pasty, a liquirice wand & five chocolate frogs please. What about you?” Regulus turned his head to his side, expecting to find Stephanie there but surprised to see her sitting in her sit.
“Don’t you want anything?”
“er… I didn’t even say thanks…” she murmured.
It took a while for Regulus to understand what she meant & finally getting her, he said “Oh! Don’t worry, it’s not like…you know… you’ll never meet him. Thank him then, if you must.Now come on…”
At these words Stephanie got up & moved towards the trolley & but stood there quite helplessly.
“What…. Oh sorry, I forgot you don’t know them.”
Stephanie looked up & nodded.
“Oh well I can give them a wild try, can’t I?” She said brightly & smartly started animatedly to the lady with the trolley, “A bit of these, um…okay one pack of that, a couple of these & five those. ” She completed grinning. Regulus gaped at her with his mouth slightly open.
After five minutes both returned to their sits with different sizes of bright packets in their hands. Stephanie’s hands were close to explode with so many packets. Regulus hastily dropped his & helped Stephanie with hers.
“Barty Bott’s every Flavoured beans, two pumpkin pasties, two liqurice wands, five chocolate frogs,ten droobles….” Regulus finished counting the packets, Stephanie bought, “Whoa.. you must be really hungry…”
“Well, don’t want to miss much” Stephanie finished defensively.
They both stared at each other for a moment & then rolled down with laughter.
Without any further ado they started on those. Regulus explained the name of the food to Stephanie while finishing them.
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