Stars Shine Darkly ★ Regulus Black

Chapter Two: Stronger Together Than Apart

Regulus stuck close to Kreacher as they meandered up Diagon Alley and took care to avoid getting too distracted by the colourful shop windows - and equally colourful passers-by - lest he accidentally look at something 'inappropriate'. His mother had eyes everywhere and he was sure that she would know immediately if he ever dared to misbehave.

Whenever he had dreamt about this most momentous of shopping trips he had been accompanied by both his parents, just as they had accompanied Sirius on the same occasion last year. And he didn't mind being with Kreacher, not even a little bit, but he would have appreciated at least one of his parents by his side.

But his mother had claimed a headache and his father had been engaged in some secretive 'family business', so here he was. Alone.

Sirius had said that they were making excuses because they didn't like the crowds, and Regulus thought he might have had a point. The twisting cobbled street was very busy indeed, packed with shoppers and house-elves weighed down with packages. There were groups of teenagers - Hogwarts students, probably, Regulus thought with a sudden lurch - lingering near lamp posts, families with little children digging sticky fingers into striped paper bags, and even a goblin or two dressed in the scarlet uniforms of Gringotts. Regulus craned his head to watch a tall, slender man hurry past who was being dragged along by a pair of crups on leads, and had to duck as a tawny owl swooped overhead.

He paused outside Quality Quidditch Supplies. The windows were still bedecked with bunting and pennants and posters and replica kits, all in the black and scarlet colours of the Ballycastle Bats, who had won the League at the beginning of the summer.

Regulus found his eyes drawn to the display in the centre of the largest window. A crowd of young witches and wizards were pressing their hands and noses to the glass as they oohed and aahed at the display, as if they didn't know any better, as if they didn't know that Comets were all style and no substance. He glared at the broom as it rotated in the window. He glared at the model replicas around it, at the diagrams and posters all proclaiming it "the fastest broom on the market". He glared and he glared, because good Quidditch players, good flyers, didn't need to rely on the latest fads to catch Snitches or score goals.

And he couldn't wait to prove that to Sirius and his stupid friends.

Kreacher quickly moved Regulus on when a wizard dressed in decidedly unsummery robes with a heavy hood pulled over his face tried to start talking to them about fungus, of all things.

"We oughtn't to be getting distracted, Master Regulus," he said as he glanced up at one of the countless clock faces, sundials, and metronomes that covered the exterior of Cogsworth's Chronographs. "The Mistress expects Master Regulus back in time for tea."

"Right. Sorry, Kreacher."

After throwing one last scowl in the direction of Quality Quidditch Supplies, Regulus darted across the street with Kreacher. They were forced to weave in and out of groups of pedestrians until they finally reached Ollivander's.

Regulus paused outside. He took a step back and craned his neck so he could take in the tall, narrow shop in all its glory. He had imagined coming here for years and years, had dreamt about the moment when he would push the door open and be greeted with a deferential "good afternoon, Mr Black", would count his galleons from his purse and be told that his wand was "quite magnificent, quite spectacular indeed; a great wand for a great wizard".

The reality was somewhat less appealing than his imagination had enhanced it to be. The wandmaker's shop looked downright dingy, at least from the outside: darkened windows and smoke-smudged bricks, peeling paintwork and a shabby sign that creaked sadly on its hinges.