I do not know why, but I had to get out of the house or I would have gone completely mad. It was around noon; Father was at work, and Mother had shut herself into the drawing room. My brother and I were left to tend to ourselves. The only company we had – if it counted as such – was our old house-elf. Needless to say, I was bored.

Deciding that a change of scenery would do us good, I grabbed my brother, and we left the house. I had no plan or even an idea of where to go, but as long as it was away from Grimmauld Place, presumably very far away, I didn’t mind where it would take us. And since we were still not allowed to do magic, we had to leave the city by Muggle way.

The easiest chance to move from one place to another quickly was by using public transport. And the station nearest to our house was one of London’s underground net.

We were lucky; as soon as we arrived on the platform, an underground came in, and we went aboard.

‘Sirius, don’t we need some sort of these papers to be allowed to travel?’

I nodded. ‘Yes. And I have some. I bought them when we came in, don’t you remember?’ At first, Regulus looked as if he didn’t remember, but after some moments, he nodded. ‘Well, then, let’s find a place to sit.’

‘With what did you pay?’ my brother continued questioning me, not listening to my request for him to sit down. ‘You don’t have money.’

‘I do have money. Now, will you please sit down?’

‘But –’

‘Regulus, I didn’t steal it and I didn’t use magic, so stop bugging me about it. It was all legally done.’

The look in my brother’s grey eyes spoke volumes of doubt.

The Tube was relatively empty; only a few people were there, either being silent and reading, or quietly talking to their own company. Regulus had taken to watch out of the window once we had found a place, not speaking with me. Since there was no one else I knew and could have talked to, I remained silent as well, looking around. There was nothing very interesting though; it seemed that boredom didn’t want to let go of me.

The Underground brought us into the suburbs of London, and the masses of blocks of houses thinned out to living areas with parks or sometimes even entire woods and fields in-between. It did not only look different to what we were used to, I felt – all of a sudden – free. I looked forward to being surrounded by nothing other than nature.

When Regulus and I got off the Tube and walked towards the station’s exit, I slightly turned around and looked back. The Underground had started to move again, gathering speed rapidly. The red wagons ran past, and even after the last wagon was gone, the play of light tricked my eyes and mind to see more and more wagons. It looked like magic, this illusion in red. Muggles, though, would surely describe this phenomenon as solely science. They had no sense for the beauty of magic.

When we stepped out of the station building, sunlight met our faces, warming us. Regulus let go of my hand and started running towards the field of wheat that lay across the street. All the while, he was laughing with glee and obvious happiness. He discovered a wooden pathway – in built similar to the bridge that led over the river near the manor of Uncle Cygnus – that weaved its way through the ears. I imagined that walking along that pathway must have been like walking through endlessness. It was like a bridge over the endless sea – a sea of freedom.

I smiled.

‘Sirius!’ Regulus then called for me, waving and pointing at something at his feet. I walked over to him and recognised a wild cat sitting next to him, its coat a nice brown. The feline’s green eyes were fixed upon me. Crouching low, I shooed the cat away; not because I didn’t like cats, but because I didn’t know what illnesses the poor thing could have. And I didn’t want my brother to get infected.

The green eyes stared at me, calm, but I grew nervous on the inside and regretted having been so harsh. And as if the feline felt my remorse, it meowed satisfied, then left. The last I saw of the wild cat was how it slipped into the softly wind-swayed field, the head and tail held high in a proud manner.

After the cat had disappeared, I saw that it had been sitting on a cross scratched into the wood. In white, someone had written You are here. When I looked up and asked if Regulus had meant to show me this sign rather than the cat, he grinned happily. The gleam in his grey eyes told me he felt as free as I did at the moment. The rogue I had never seen before shone through his proper son attitude which he had put away for these moments of togetherness.

The following hours we spent discovering the place, soon calling it “gateway to freedom�. It was a world in itself, the village, although being part of greater London, and it still had been able to retain the rural character of centuries ago. The houses were small but looked very cosy from the outside. The people we saw were greeting others with a smile on their lips; it made us feel welcome.

The most memorable event that day was, however, when we saw a couple walking by, holding hands. We picked up some of their dialogue. The girl said that when holding hands, it must be done in a special way for it to mean something serious. She showed her friend how it had to be done, proper hands-holding. And Regulus mirrored her, taking my hand and holding it in the exact same way. At first, I was a bit stunned that my little brother would show openly that he felt something for me. But then pleasant warmth spread through me, making my heart blossom with love for Regulus.

Way too soon, upon the setting of the sun, our spontaneous excursion found an end, and we were travelling back to Grimmauld Place, using the Tube once more.

Sitting alone in Regulus’ bedroom, Sirius Black looked at the dried ear of wheat his brother had taken home from the afternoon in London’s outskirts. Never again afterwards had Sirius felt the same happiness that afternoon had given him.

Sighing ruefully, the man got up. He needed a hot cup of Earl Grey tea to calm down from the emotional uproar he experienced when remembering the “gateway to freedom�.

The ear of wheat remained on the old desk, lying forgotten next to a drop of a silent tear.