August flew so fast that when Regulus realized there was only one day left from his school summer holidays. He was very excited for the beginning of his last year at Hogwarts, especially because now in addition to be the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, he had also been chosen to be the new Head Boy. He knew that this would give him enormous prestige not only at the Slytherin's but with the whole school. His hopes were that this perhaps could end up facilitating his assigned task of bringing more young followers for the Dark Lord cause.

Regulus Black was walking back to Grimmauld's place carrying seven different books under his arms. He had spent long hours at Severus Snape house. The former Slytherin – and now also a Death Eater – had accepted to help him to learn the bases of Legilimency and Occlumency in exchange for a little bit of Sirius' hair. Those were magic fields that Regulus decided that he would like to learn since he found out that the Dark Lord was extremely skilful at both if them.

Regulus caught himself pressuring his left inner arm where his brand new Dark Mark remained invisible unless his Master decided to summon him. His freshly marked skin still hurt, as a reminder that from now on his life would be forever bonded to the Dark Lord. It also meant that he had passed his initiation – had killed a homeless muggle man, like someone's crushes a cockroach. He was now a murderer. He felt bad about it, but he knew that in a war, these things sometimes were necessary. After all, he was the last male descendant of the Black family lineage - and he had become another noble vassal of the most powerful man in Britain, a man that on one day soon, Regulus was certain that would become the supreme governor of a completely new world.

The power that the Dark Lord had demonstrated to have was truly impressive, and Regulus was very confident that this side – my side, he thought proudly – would achieve victory, and for this to happen was just a question of time. Besides, he knew that fighting for restoring what he had learned since his childhood to be the 'natural order of the universe', was definitely the right thing to do. Muggles had not been blessed with the power of the Gods, and were worth less than most magical creatures – and as such, they should be treated. Muggle-borns were nothing but a cancerous cell that had contaminated the world and dared to affront this 'natural order of the universe', and therefore, like a weed should be removed from a flowery garden, Muggle-borns should be exterminated from the wizarding society.

Regulus was walking at a very quick pace while he crossed the Grimmauld Square, as he did not want to upset his mother by being late to supper. It was then that he was pulled to the floor by something – someone – who had been running diagonally to his direction. His books immediately felt off his hand and were all spread around the grass. Regulus was about to get this wand out his pocket when he noticed that his attacker was only a teenager muggle girl. Her papers and books also were spread on the grass.

"I'm so sorry, it was my fault! I was so distracted by my appraisal that I didn't see you…"

"Your stupid mu… mundane problems are not of my concern." He managed to correct himself just before he managed to recognize her as the muggle girl who had dared to affront him at that horrible muggle hospital. She was wearing a light grey knitted jumper which just covered her pink ballet uniform. Her wild long hair was flying in the wind. She took a step back as trying to digest what that rude boy had just said until something clicked inside her and she realised who he was.

"Thank God it is not!" She said in a similar cold tone that Regulus had used while she tried to gather her belongs together as quickly as possible. Regulus, on the other hand, stood up and did not move a finger to help her or to gather his own belongs.

"And Thank God Lisa have stopped seeing that stupid, arrogant, arse of a brother you have! But I must say… as horrible as he is, you probably beat him, as you are undoubtedly the rudest!"

Regulus felt his blood pulse with anger before answering her.

"I'm the one who should be happy to know that my brother no longer associates with scum like yourself. Definitely the best news of the day! Maybe I should write to Sirius… he might not be such a lost cause as my family believe him to be after all."

"You think you are something special, don't you? Marching around wearing these clothes from the last century, so self-centred and conceited of your own sense of pride. Let me tell you what you really are: nothing! You are nothing more than an arrogant, rude little person, who is sadist enough to enjoy hurting other people's feeling and doesn't care about nothing but yourself!" She finished saying just as she stood up with her papers and books completely disorganized on her hands and quickly started to walk away from him.

"YOU ARE WRONG!" Regulus shouted in her direction. "YOU ARE WRONG! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME! I AM NOT SELFISH OR SADIST!"

She turned to face him again just as she shut the park square gate with loudly bang.

"YES, YOU ARE!" She shouted back before turning on her heels and dashed in the direction of her family home.

"No, I'm not!" Regulus whispered to himself. "And I'm definitely better than you!" – He said, and after verifying that the girl could no longer see or hear him and that nobody else was there, Regulus pointed his wand to the books casting the summoning charm. This made all the books gathered themselves together in a perfect organized pile – from the largest to the smallest – before they reached his hand.

"Regulus, would you mind stopping playing with your books? It is almost midnight, for Merlin's beard! We have class tomorrow, did you know that?"

"Since when were you worried about classes, Rowle?" Regulus replied impatiently while he carried on removing book after book from inside his school trunk.

He had already tried the Summoning Charm, and for the first time ever since he mastered it, nothing had happened. It was the evening of the first of September and Regulus was desperately trying to find the book that he was currently reading. It was a book full of dark curses and rituals that he had managed to steal from his family private library. After all, as Bellatrix had pointed out, now that he was going to be a Death Eater, he would need more than ever to educate himself on this subject, as Hogwarts failed to deliver to its students.

"Regulus, for Salazar's snakes, he is right! Why don't you get what you need and bugger off to your Head boy office and let us sleep?"

"Can't you see that's exactly what I'm trying to do?" Regulus replied his dorm-mate with frustration. "I'm sure I have packed that…"

Regulus then stopped to as noticing a book he had never seen before surrounded by dozens of others. The book had a hard green and silver cover where he could clearly read 'Animal Farm - A Fairy Story, by George Orwell'. He opened the book and found a picture of twelve girls all wearing the same ballet suit – and the more astonishing is that the picture was not moving. Even though they all looked disturbingly similar he recognized his muggle neighbour immediately. Regulus then did the best he could to hide that book cover from his Slytherin classmates, and with a wave from his wand, all his books were magically organized into his bookshelf. Then without saying any other word he left their dorm with the muggle book safely kept under his arms. When he finally got there, Regulus was very glad to find a deserted Communal Room.

choosing his favourite chair near the fireplace, got the book with the intent to let it burn it. However, something he could not really explain what – stopped him from doing it. Muggle or not, that was still a book, and as such, Regulus believed it deserved some respect. He sighed, then got some fresh parchment, quill and ink to start writing a letter that he wished more than anything he did not need to write.

It was breakfast time at the residence of the White family when a white owl with yellow eyes invaded the dinner table and landed in front of Annabelle. The girl carried on talking to her Sister, and their father did not even raise his eyes from the newspaper while completely ignored the bird. After all, that was not the first owl to ever interrupt their family meal.

"Looks like Sirius needs something again!" Her brother said and tried to untighten the letter from the bird's leg. However, the hazel bird bit his hand and sat on top of the girl's breakfast to call her attention.

"Stupid Owl!" Her brother cursed while tried to cover the blood on his hand. "Why are you not letting me get my letter?"

The owl just stared at him with a deadly look as if it was daring him to get closer.

"Stop Alfie!" Helen shouted at her brother. "The letter is for Anna, can't you see it?"

Alfred looked curiously at the Twin who the letter was clearly for.

"For me? What would Sirius want with me? I hope it is nothing to do with Lisa because after what he did, I think…"

"Don't open it, Anna! I bet this have got a trick or something…"

"Oh Helen, come on! He wouldn't do such a thing… we all have grown from it, right?"

The owl started to get impatient and flapped its wings widely on their table.

"Just open, Anna. And the owl will stop making this fuss." Alfred told her seriously.

Annabelle finally freed the owl from the small parcel with trembling hands. There was a letter attached to it, and she decided to open it first.

"I'm sending your book back, and I would appreciate if you returned mine.

R.A.B.

PS – Try not to touch my book more than necessary, it is a very old and rare edition and it would be a shame if it gets contaminated."

She growled furiously and shredded the letter in a million pieces while ruminating something that sounded like 'stupid jerk'.

"Darling, can you please get this bird out of the dinner table? I hate having feathers with my eggs." Their mother said after helping herself to some more tea.

"Just go away! Tell your owner that this does not deserve an answer!" Annabelle said pointing at the shredded letter, but the owl did not move.

"This not going to work Anna. The owl will only go after you give it have a proper answer…" Alfred said amused.

"Fine!" And she stood up and moved her arm inviting the owl to lay there as she had seen her brother doing many times before.

"I wonder what did Sirius said that made you so angry?"

"Oh, it wasn't from Sirius. It is from his stupid brother!" She answered her own brother just before she started climbing on the stairs towards her room. "So he demands an answer, right? I'm going to give him one!"

It was dinner time when Regulus received the answer at the evening owl post. He was very relieved when he saw that she brought a very well wrapped book with her. For a moment he had feared that the muggle would fail to understand his messages, or that she would not want to send it back for any other reason. However, once he opened the package, a storm of pink glitter invaded the area of the Slytherin table where Regulus was sitting. Underneath the glitter was a book that Regulus did not recognise, but it said "How to Behave and Why", which was clearly a muggle book – and worse, a Muggle children's book – which seemed to teach good manners for children.

Regulus tried in vain to cover the cover of the book while people from all the four houses seemed to laugh of him.

"Your brother excelled himself this time! What have you done to him?" Asked a girl from his year that was sitting opposite to him.

Regulus ignored her and cleared the mess on his robes and on the table with a wave from his wand before head off to the library. The only good thing was that his brother being whom he was: nobody else would doubt or question who this letter was really from. He was impressed by how that muggle had managed to pull out that prank on him, but at the same time, he was livid. She still had the book. And it was not any book, but a special book that Bella had lent him after she made him swear to be really careful with it – as according to her the book had once been read by the Dark Lord himself. He could not let Bellatrix dream about where the book was.

He needed to recover that book sooner than later. There was no way he would wait until Christmas break to get the book back. Regulus thought about asking Kreacher, but there would always be a risk that the elf would end up telling everything to his mother – no, he could not let her dream about it! There was no way around it, he would need to go there in person. Perhaps he should wait a couple of nights – maybe he should wait until the night he was supposed to patrol the school grounds, as he knew that he would need to leave Hogwarts and come back without anyone notice.

The good thing was that he already had passed his Apparition test, which meant that once he was outside the property, it wouldn't be hard for him to go to her house and hopefully, recover the book in a blink of an eye. The fact that his parents home was not far from the White's residence was a bonus, as the Ministry probably would not suspect anything if they noticed that magic was used in that area.

When that evening had finally arrived, Regulus was very glad to see how easy it had been to leave Hogwarts unnoticed. As that was a muggle house, it lacked Anti-Apparation wards, and Regulus successfully managed to apparate in the basement of the house. The first part of his plan had worked better than he previously imagined, as there was nobody there to witness his entrance who would need to be obliviated. Regulus checked his pocket watch which informed him that it was almost midnight.

Now all he had to do was to find the muggle girl's bedroom and use the Summoning Charm to recover the book and go back to Hogsmeade as quickly as possible. Even though he could simply Summon the book where he was, he thought that it was better not to risk any the muggles to seeing a flying book if he could avoid it. After all, even though he knew the theory very well, Obliviation was one of these spells that he had never performed before. As drastic consequences could happen if badly performed, he would rather not the risk, unless it was extremely necessary.

After casting silence charms on himself, Regulus walked up the stairs to the first floor: the first room that Regulus entered was an office, the second was a bathroom, the third was clearly an empty guest bedroom, but the first room on the second floor was clearly hers, it was decorated with ballerinas' pictures and dolls. It was much messier than he anticipated it to be, as pieces of clothing were lying around on the floor and furniture. He grabbed his wand and was about to say the incantation when she entered through a door that he did not notice to be there before. Her hair was wet, and she was covering herself with nothing but a bathing towel. Her eyes opened wide in fear, and before she could shout, he used his wand – which was already at his hands – to cast a Silence Charm.

Annabelle screamed but nothing came out. She walked backwards and end up tripping at one of her own clothes and she felt on the floor, causing the towel slipped from her body leaving her torso uncovered. She was shaking and squirming as if she knew that the time of her death was near. She looked at Regulus as a rabbit who will soon end up at the hands of an executioner wolf. Regulus felt disgusted by the thought that he was the cause of her suffering. Despite the fact that he had never seen a naked young woman before, he could not help but feel aroused by the sight of her breasts. He made a spell to conceal the noise inside this room to the rest of the house, and slowly approached her.

"I swear, I mean no harm to you. I'm sorry that I invaded your room, but…" He said feeling very embarrassed for the suffering he was clearly causing her.

Regulus tried to get closer at the same time he was trying to avoid looking at her. He never thought that he would feel so bad for causing harm to a muggle. After all, he was a Death Eater, for Merlin's beard! He had even killed a Muggle man once. Why was he feeling so bad? Their eyes meet, and hers were filled with fear. Even though she had stopped trying to scream – as she realised it was useless – her breathing was extremely fast, as well were her heart beats.

"I'm so sorry, I should not be here. Please, just cover yourself!" He pointed to her towel, and she looked surprised, as she had just noticed that her naked body exposed. After recovering some of her dignity, still trembling she opened her mount to say something, but no sound came out. Noticing that, Regulus quickly extinguished the silencing charm he had previously cast. She started to cry and Regulus helped her stand up. They remained quiet until she felt safe enough to talk.

"Wh- what do-do you want fr-from me?" She stuttered after her voice was restored.

"Shhh, it is ok. I'm not going to do anything bad with you. I promise. I'm only here because of my book."

"Is it… is it real then?"

"Real…?" Regulus asked confused.

"What is on that horrible book." She told him looking like she was going to faint at any moment. "Unicorn blood, murdering people to turn them into zombies, soulmate reincarnation bounding, resuscitation rituals, bounding someone's soul to matter…"

"You shouldn't have touched it! I told you not to do it!" He started angrily, but this made her contract with fear. Regulus took a deep breath to calm himself down before carrying on talking in a more civilized manner. "Please, calm down! I'm not going to harm you."

"It is real isn't? Like you did removing my voice… you could also… k-kill m-me a-and tu-turn me in-to… some monster."

"You mean an Inferi?" He said trying to remember the chapters he had already read. "I told you I don't mean harm, didn't I? Is it so hard for your muggle brain to understand that!? You should forget what you read."

"It is real." She covered her mouth in shock. "You are saying that you don't intend doing it to me now… but you have the power to do it. Am I right?"

"I'm a wizard if that is what you are asking."

"A… wizard?"

"Yes. I'm a wizard, which means I can do magic. You are a muggle, which means you cannot."

There was a pregnant silence between them, however at the same time they were uncomfortably close while gazing into each other's eyes. Until something finally clicked in Annabelle's head, making the young woman take a step back.

"So that's why you think you are better than everybody else, isn't? You think you are better because you can do all these vile things written in that horrible book!" She said in an accusatory tone.

"Not all magic is dark!" He said defensively "Actually, dark magic is a very small fraction from all the things we can do."

"It doesn't matter! You were reading that book, which means that you wanted to do those things! Being able to rip out your soul in half to become immortal by doing cold blood murder doesn't make you better than anyone! Actually, it's kind makes you the opposite of superior…" She said full of anger, without any trace of fear in her voice.

Regulus glared at her annoyed with her petulance. She had read about various morbid things that he could do, and yet she confronted him. Where had I gone all that fear that he had previously seen? And who she thought she was to give him moral lessons that way?

"You don't know anything about me, or what I did and what I'm capable of!"

"'Oh, I thought you didn't mean harm to me? Oh well, silly me believing on the words of someone who is clearly so…"

But Regulus never knew what she thought he was, as his book had flown to his hand after he quickly summoned it. The surprise of seeing the book flying from her shelf was enough to shut her up.

"I'm don't know why I am still here! You are just a muggle – a nobody. Your opinion is worthless to me!"

Feeling furious, she marched to her bookshelf and grabbed another book that he quickly recognized.

"Take that with you!" She told him and threw the book towards his face, which thankfully from his Seeker's reflexes he was able to catch and avoid being hit by it.

"Because I don't want to have anything that has been contaminated by you!"

"What am I going to do with a muggle book?"

"Maybe you might learn something! Now get out of my house!"

"With pleasure!" He said just before he disapparated in front of her bare eyes.

Once back in the same spot he had previously used to apparate to her place, Regulus realise he had forgotten to Obliviate her. However, he didn't want to go back. "She won't say anything. And if she does, nobody will believe her", he told himself before starting to walk back to the school grounds.

It didn't take him long to be back on his empty Communal Room. As a treat to his successful mission of leaving and returning school without been seen, Regulus decided that besides the late time, he wanted to reward himself by reading some pages – maybe even a chapter – of his book. However, when he removed the book from his pocket, it was the one that had once belonged to the muggle woman that he grabbed. He looked at it for a moment, and the curiosity won the battle. He opened it to the first page and started to read it.

"Dear Miss White,

I hope this letter finds you well. Firstly, I'm sorry for invading your room yesterday night. I really had no right to do so.

I'm writing to you to tell you, that curiosity got the best of me once I was back at my school last night. I started reading the book that you gave me, and despite all my preconceptions at muggles and your society, I must admit that I have found the book extremely stimulating. I believe that it might have opened my eyes to some of my actions towards you. I had no right to assume that I was any better than you just because I was born being able to do magic and you did not. I was rude. I was selfish and blind. I want to thank you for giving me this book, as from now on I think I will think twice before judging a book by its cover.

I sincerely hope you can find in your heart to forgive me, as I apologise from my behaviour – and I don't mean for only last night, but for all our past casual encounters, as I feel I've been behaving pretty much like a 'pig'.

Yours Sincerely,

R.A.B."

"Dear Mr Black,

I'm glad to know that you might have learned something. Of course, I can forgive you – as a wise man once said, forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. Seeing you admitting some of your mistakes is enough for me.

As a gesture of peace, I'm sending with your owl another book that you might also enjoy, as it is from the same author and deals with similar themes. In fact, I like this one I'm sending you now much more than the one you already read.

Let me know if you like it.

Your Sincerely,

A.W."

"Dear Miss White,

Thank you very much for sending me the book '1984'. It was another page-turner. The way that 'Big brother' control the society… reminds me of some of the things that wizards do from time to time in order to hide magic from non-magic people like you. It also makes me wonder if similar techniques may be used by the people in power to control my own society. I assure you that they would certainly be able to verify 'thought crime' in a much more refined way.

It was sad to see the fate of Winston and Julia. Even though I must admit that I'm not used to reading romances, I enjoyed this one. As a gesture of peace, I'm also sending you a famous wizarding drama, called 'The Warlock's Hairy Heart'. I hope you find it entertaining as I did find your books.

R.A.B."

"Dear Mr Black,

Your letter left me curious: how do your people interfere with our lives? I'm asking it almost scared of your answer, and I hope it is nothing half as morbid as the things I saw written on that book. And which magic could you use to control thought crime?

The closest thing I can remember from that book was the Imperious curse… but for which I could understand that one as more about controlling someone's body rather than someone mind… please correct me if I'm wrong.

About the Warlock's Hairy Heart, it was indeed a page-turner. It was a sad fate of the wizard and the maiden. Is your heart inside your chest Regulus, or are you keeping it inside a box somewhere?

Kind Regards,

A.W."

"Dear Miss White,

The magic world – my world – does, in fact, interfere with your world. However, it is mostly in order to hide our existence from the non-magical people. Sometimes, also to protect your people form some magical creatures for example. The majority of this involves mass and individual memory charms. Strictly speaking, I'm breaking the law by telling you these things, and a Ministry official could legally Obliviate you – to remove this knowledge from your memory.

You are right and wrong about the Imperious Curse. It controls your body but it also controls your mind to some extent. It makes the person under it to want to be controlled. However, I had in mind something more grey like Legilimency – a fine art of perceiving what other people are thinking. I've been trying to learn it as well as Occlumency (mind protection), but I didn't have many successful attempts so far.

And no, we obviously can't live without a heart; that story was an anecdote of what can happen to someone who rips their soul by making a Horcrux. You can become quite a monster when you live without your soul. Or at least that is what I have been told.

I hope this letter finds you well,

Yours Sincerely,

R.A.B."

"Dear Mr R. Black,

Please call me Anna; as weird as it seems, just I realised I don't know your first name. What does 'R' stands for?

Why do your people want to hide from us so badly? Couldn't we all live in peace together? And I certainly don't want to be Obliviated! I asked my brother if Sirius had told him anything about Wizarding World and he just looked funny at me, as I had lost my mind. This made me almost doubt if what I saw you doing the other day had actually happened.

Anyway, who would believe me if I told that somewhere in the world there are Magic people who can do terrible things with a magical stick? Yeah… they would certainly think that I had bumped my head really hard somewhere. In fact, if it wasn't this lovely owl yours coming here every other day to remind me, carrying this old looking parchment, I probably would start thinking I was dreaming.

Thank you for breaking the law to answer my silly 'muggle' questions, Mr. 'R.'

Kind Regards,

Annabelle White"

"Dear Anna,

My name is Regulus. I was named after a star – long-story-short is a family tradition. I can't believe I'm telling you this, but it feels nice to be on the first name bases with you. If anyone had told me a few weeks ago that I would be excited about exchanging letters with a muggle, I would tell they probably got hit by too many bludgers on the head.

But despite all the things I've been told about muggles, you carry on surprising me by your charming wit. Please, don't judge me by this, but I was raised with the belief that all muggles were barbaric and stupid as a doorknob. You are showing me that this is not the case… or at least, you certainly seem to be an exception to the rule.

I'm not entirely sure why muggles and wizards don't interact. I always assumed it had something to do with low intellect, but now I believe that this might not be the real case. What I know is that on ancient days, wizards and muggles used to interact much more. Nowadays, wizards who chose to fraternise with Muggles are considered to be an outcast in our society. I promise I'm going to read a little bit more about this as soon as I can, in order to address your question properly.

And please, believe me when I say that not all magic is bad like the ones you read in that book. I'm sending you another tale, this time the extended version of The Fountain of Fair Fortune.

Kind Regards,

Regulus Black

PS – Don't mention about the things we talk about to your brother. Please, don't tell anyone about magic! I'm really breaking the law, and I really don't want to risk you being Obliviated!"

"Dear Regulus,

I think I can relate a little bit of how you might be feeling for carrying on talking to me 'despite me being a muggle'. I must say that I'm also impressed by how I decided to carry on writing to you despite how poorly you have treated me before. Yes, I know I have forgiven you, but forgiving doesn't necessarily mean forgetting. However, I think that at least now I understand better where you came from. Besides, I guess, I have found you too interesting to ignore.

That said, I really enjoyed reading the fountain of fair fortune. Maybe it is because I like that in the end that fountain wasn't magic. Is the real magic similar to the one showed in those stories? Did they really happened or are they just a fairy tale?

I'm sending your book back. Let's not risk anyone else here to find about it, right? I really want to keep all my memories.

Yours Sincerely,

Anna"

"Dear Anna,

I hope you are well. I'm glad that you enjoyed it. Sorry for the delay in my reply. I have been very busy lately with my duty as Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, but I got some little reading done about Wizard and Muggle relations. Here a quote from some of the things that I found out:

"Before the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was established in 1692, wizards were not obliged to hide from Muggles. Wizard-muggle relations had started to decay during the early fourteenth century, as many witches and wizards were sentenced to death under the charges of witchcraft. However, it wasn't always like that. During the ancient times, muggles and wizards used to live in complete harmony, helping each other out through a variety of mutually beneficial agreements..."

There are also lots of historical examples of successful and disastrous interactions between witches and muggles throughout history. I will gladly go over some of my favourite ones with you when we finally meet up again. Meanwhile, would you mind sending me another muggle novel that you find interesting? I really enjoyed the other two you sent me. Another thing is that I would love to learn more things about you.

Tell me more about your family and what do you like to do in your free time.

Looking forward to receiving another letter from you,

Best regards,

Reggie"

Annabel and Regulus carried on exchanging daily letters during the entire Autumn term. Regulus academic performance suffered a slight decline, as he started to spend more time reading Muggle novels than researching for citations for his Transfiguration essay. But Regulus did not mind it too much, as very often the highlight of his days were when his personal owl would find him during Breakfast time with news from his pretty muggle penpal. He loved the trill that he got from writing and receiving letters from her - he knew that he was doomed to face a horrible punishment if any of his fellows' Death Eaters dreamed about what he was doing. Regulus didn't notice then, but at that moment, he had already lost himself to her.