‘If you continue fidgeting with your wand, you’ll poke my eye out,’ Regulus snarled and shoved the tip of Rabastan’s wand out of his face.
Bellatrix cackled while Rabastan turned pink. ‘Sorry,’ the seventeen year old mumbled. He quickly devoted himself to his homework again.
‘Tell me again, brother-in-law,’ Bellatrix questioned in a bored voice after ten minutes of silence, ‘why do you have to be here with us?’
Rabastan, who had been practising non-verbal spells, turned towards her and said, ‘I need to talk to my brother.’ He didn’t pay attention where he was pointing his wand at, and with a thoughtless flick of his wrist, violet sparks shot out of the wand’s tip.
Flying directly to where Regulus sat.
‘OI!’ the black-haired wizard shouted, but the next moment he felt a lurking sensation around his navel; it was like travelling by Portkey.
When his head stopped spinning, Regulus carefully opened his eyes – and found himself looking into the grey eyes of an approximately nine year old child. The girl stared at him, petrified in whatever she had been doing before Regulus appeared out of thin air.
Seconds ticked by; Regulus could loudly hear an old grandfather clock behind him. Then, suddenly, the girl let the book she had been carrying fall to the floor and started screaming, running and backing up against the wall.
Regulus stood. He needed to silence her. After all, he didn’t know what had happened. He might have been sent somewhere dangerous.
‘Please, stop screaming,’ he begged her. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
But she wouldn’t fall silent.
Suddenly, the door opened, and Regulus saw something hurtling towards him. Before he realised what was going on, he was banged against his knee with a pot. ‘You leave Miss alone.’
Regulus simply stepped away from the creature. Then he took the time to notice two things: First, the girl had stopped screaming, and second, the creature was a house-elf. A rather vicious looking one with the pot in her hand. He at least assumed that the house-elf was female.
‘I’m not going to hurt anybody.’
‘Who are you?’
Regulus looked up again; the girl had asked him this. She stood still backed up against the wall, but showed curiosity. Her grey eyes sparkled with interest.
And it was something familiar in those eyes that let Regulus ask, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Isla. My name is Isla Lyrae Black,’ she answered proudly, but she also eyed him carefully. ‘What’s your name?’
He blinked several times. ‘I think we’re rela—’
But what he had wanted to say never was said because in that exact moment the lurking feeling in his navel returned and everything started spinning again. A second later, however, the swirling stopped, and Regulus stumbled forward before he was able to catch his balance.
‘Back again, cousin?’ he heard the familiar sneer of Bellatrix.
He didn’t answer but glared at Rabastan who looked guilty.
‘Sorry,’ Rabastan whispered, then ran.