The night we met| Jegulus

|1| Going off to university

Two weeks before...

The red-haired man drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of the old '98 Ford Escort as a song played on the radio. Beside him, a woman wearing a flowered dress had her head recklessly turned toward the back seat, delivering a speech in her stern voice.

"Are you sure you have everything?" The woman repeated over and over again, scrutinizing the young man in the back seat with her bright brown eyes. "If you need us to bring you something from your aunt's house don't hesitate to send a letter; the kids are looking forward to seeing you, if you regret it and decide that Muggles are too much for you, no one would blame you in that case. Are you sure about this dear? "

The red-haired man rolled his eyes for the fifth time on the trip, glancing sideways at a black car passing them on the right side.

"I'm one hundred per cent sure, Molly," said the voice of a young man in the back seat.

He was a young boy, in his early twenties, maybe younger. He had short curly black hair; probably if he smoothed it out his hair would almost reach his shoulders, but his curls made it barely reach the nape of his neck.

He was wearing a white coat, a redshirt, and black pants; a silver chain hung around his neck, and different coloured rings were worn on his hands, although the jewels did not look very expensive. A small cross-shaped earring dangled from his right ear, at which the red-haired woman glanced disapprovingly from time to time.

He had pale skin, a refined nose, his lips had a particular reddish colour, and on his nose he had a lot of freckles. His eyes were grey, steel-like, almost black.

"You're too paranoid about this, Molly," the red-haired man said, not taking his eyes off the road. "Reggie will be fine." Before the woman had time to respond, the man glanced in the rearview mirror for a few seconds, making eye contact with the young man in the back. "Reg, you remember my three main rules, right? First, study hard; second, learn all you can about Muggles; third, have fun."

"He's going to be surrounded by Muggles all day, Arthur!" Molly exclaimed. "Reg, be very careful with Muggles. And don't use magic outside your room! Who knows what might happen if someone sees you! And stay out of trouble! If something happens to you, you give your aunt a fit, a fit!"

"Aunt Cedrella is much less worried than you, Molly," Regulus said from the back seat. "I'll be fine, don't get upset. I'll go visit you whenever I can, and I'll send you a letter every week!"

"Your Aunt Cedrella is almost seventy years old, Regulus," Molly replied. "She's out to lunch. We took the kids to visit their grandparents' house last week and she kept mistaking Ron for Percy. I can understand she not being able to distinguish between Fred and George, I am the first who is not able to differentiate between Fred and George! But Ron and Percy are like oil and water!"

"My mother is in perfect condition," Arthur chimed in. "She knows that nothing is going to happen to Regulus! And on top of that he will be surrounded by Muggles all day! With how much you like to learn about other cultures, Reg, what a good time you are going to have in university!"

Regulus smiled from the back seat, and Molly snorted when she saw that the boy agreed with her husband and not her. "Seriously, Molly, you worry about nothing. I'm just going to study, graduate, and get a job somewhere as an illustrator, or maybe a job in a museum? I don't know, I'm still figuring that out. But anyway, I can send you a letter whenever you want so that you know that I am alive, although communication would be much easier if you bought a phone... And you know that I never get in trouble! I have not spent seven years at Hogwarts without a single detention to come to university and start misbehaving now!"