Muggle newspapers were very strange.
When Professor Sprout had tasked her second-years with tearing up strips of old muggle newspaper to line plant pots with, Regulus had protested. Or, more accurately, some of the other Slytherin students had protested; Regulus had kept his head down, worried that he would be told off if he dared to speak out against a teacher. They'd said that it was improper, immoral, and downright dangerous to handle such things - and they had a point. Regulus's fingers had quickly turned a rather disconcerting colour as soon as he had begun to handle the strange, thin, muggle parchment.
But Professor Sprout was having none of it. She had told them, in her usual no-nonsense sort of way, to stop being silly. She'd told them that muggle newspaper was much more practical for such tasks than their newspapers because it was degradable. Or something.
Inferior, in other words.
Regulus had to wonder how muggles managed to read their newspapers when it was raining. He supposed Scottish muggles must be particularly uninformed since it was always raining up here. Even now, fat raindrops were splattering against the greenhouse roof above him, forcing the great iron dragon which normally stretched itself along the entire length of the greenhouse to curl up at one end beneath the shelter of an overhanging oak tree.
At any rate, the Slytherins couldn't very well keep up their protests after Professor Sprout had called them silly . Certainly not when their Hufflepuff classmates were sniggering at them and no doubt thinking they were a bunch of cowards who were too scared to touch parchment.
Regulus was a bit scared, though. Sirius might not have paid any attention to their parents' warnings about anything and everything to do with muggles, but Regulus had. He knew he ought to be wary, no matter what Professor Sprout said.
He eyed the odd, colourless, unmoving newspaper. He didn't think it was silly to hold each sheet gingerly between his thumb and forefinger, to keep his arms extended as he tore them into strips, or to hope that he was managing to keep enough distance between himself and the offending materials to avoid coming to harm.
Something among those strange, still, black-and-white images caught his eye. A headline.
TEN DEAD IN RAILWAY DISASTER
He wasn't sure why this particular headline, among the hundreds of others, grabbed his attention. Perhaps it was the phrase "railway disaster", recalling his and the other students' near-miss at King's Cross last September.
Whatever it was, he glanced up and, when he was sure that his classmates were too busy ripping and tearing and folding their own scraps of newspaper into pots to pay him any attention (not that anyone did ever pay him any attention, mind you), laid the article flat on his workbench and read.
An express train en route from London Paddington to Oxford derailed yesterday evening, killing ten and injuring a further 94 passengers. It is understood that an unsecured maintenance door fell open during transit and struck a switch point, subsequently derailing the train's ten coaches.
Regulus's stomach lurched up into his throat. Another muggle railway incident. Another muggle bomb ?
This incident hadn't been reported in the magical press. He was sure that one of his housemates would have said something if it had been in the Daily Prophet or The Parchment Knights - the only pro-pureblood weekly periodical currently in circulation - or on the Wizarding Wireless Network's News Hour .
An entire train, derailed. What if...
He swallowed.
What if whichever muggles were behind this incident had targeted the wrong train? What if they'd been aiming for the Hogwarts Express again?
YOU ARE READING
Stars Shine Darkly ★ Regulus Black
FanficYoung Regulus Black is about to join his brother at Hogwarts for the very first time. He's reluctant and worried and scared, convinced that he'll be rubbish at everything, that no one will want to be his friend, that a mudblood will suffocate him in...
