Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything in it.

General Warnings: AU, GEN

Chapter Summary: Regulus' first day

Author's Notes: SURPRISE I bet y'all thought I'd finished my yearly update and gone back into hibernation! I have not! Here's a present for y'all for sticking with me since forever!

Also, this fic is going to be a bunch of small, unconnected chapters probably because I can't really think of a definite plot. Not yet anyway. So yeah, prompts would be welcomed.

An Auspicious Beginning

Discretion, Regulus decided as he snuggled further down into his warm and inviting blankets, was the better part of valor. Or so the saying went. Why bother getting up when he could endure Mother's howler just as well in bed, after all? Sleeping in just this once sounded like a wonderful idea. Unfortunately, his peace was not to be.

"Oi Black!" One of his new roommates, Ingle- something or other, shouted up the stairs. "Your brother's at the door trying to solve the riddle! Should I let him in?" A pause. "How does he even know where our common room is!?"

Regulus mumbled something into his pillow that, to nearby listeners, sounded a lot like "tell him to go away," and burrowed deeper into his blankets. He wasn't getting up for anything short of the apocalypse. At least until Mother's Howler came anyway. He had sent off a placating letter last night to ensure Bella wouldn't be able to put a spin on the story first, but that had been more for Father than Mother, because Mother likely wouldn't make it past the "I have been Sorted into Ravenclaw" before she started screaming in fury. She and Sirius were very alike in that sense, no matter how much Sirius disliked it.

Minutes later, a bouncing, black form bounded into the room.

"Reggie!" It cheered, leaping onto Regulus' bed with far too much cheer for, as the hypocrite himself had once put it, such ungodly hours of morning.

Regulus growled at the intruder, wishing he had some spells. He was supposed to be the morning person! At any other time, Sirius would be the one in his position, the berk! Was it too much to ask for some peace and quiet for once?

"I'm here to wake you up for breakfast, of course!" Sirius said brightly, apparently taking Regulus' snarl of promised doom as a question. "Hurry up Reggie, or we're gonna miss it!"

Regulus glared at him with one angry, bleary eye and burrowed back under the covers. "Go 'way."

Seconds later, Regulus had his warm and wonderful blankets yanked off of him by the brother he would, if he had any say in it, soon be burying. Without a wand. Preferably in a coffin filled with broken glass and rusty nails.

"Come on, Reggie," Said soon-to-be-corpse whined. "They have pancakes, Reg, paaaancakeeeeess. The American sort! With syrup and blueberries! Aren't you hungry?"

"No," Regulus growled peevishly, yanking his blankets back. "Leave me alone." He had never been all that interested in trying foreign food like Sirius and, with the anticipation of the Howler Mother was going to send him, he wasn't hungry at all.

There was a pause, and Sirius' weight shifted off his bed. For one relieved (disappointed) second, he wondered if Sirius had really obeyed. And then-

"Argh!" Regulus screeched as freezing water soaked through his blankets, drenching him in an instant. Above him, Sirius cackled gleefully.

Regulus threw the blankets off him with deliberate movements. Sirius had the good sense to stop laughing, taking a wary step back as Regulus got up.

"Uh, Reg? It was just a joke, I mean- I couldn't just leave you there! You're out of bed now so it worked right? Uh Reg? Reggie, could you- could you put the wand down? Please?"

What was the incantation of that spell he had read about again? Regulus wondered, smiling pleasantly at the soon-to-be corpse. Oh well, he was sure the school nurse could fix whatever mistakes he made.

~ SiSW ~

Half an hour later, Regulus headed down to his first class, dry and feeling much more cheerful. His luck seemed fortunate thus far, as he had received no mail whatsoever. Perhaps Father had managed to restrain Mother from doing anything rash.

"Oi, Black!" Regulus turned. Hurrying down the hall was one of his new roommates, whose name he couldn't quite recall.

The boy, thin, pale, and blond, halted in front of Regulus, wheezing slightly from the exertation.

"You might not remember me; I'm Damocles Belby. I'm one of your roommates."

Regulus inclined his head regally, as he was taught. "Yes, I am aware," he lied. "I am Regulus Black, of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, as you may well know."

Belby squinted at Regulus. "Are you always this formal?" he asked.

Regulus blinked, caught off guard at the unashamed bluntness. "Er- no?" Immediately, he cursed himself, subtly glancing around for any unwanted eavesdroppers. He wouldn't put it past Bella to inform Mother of even a miniscule slip like this. "Was there something you required of me?" Regulus asked, recovering quickly and smoothly before his slip could become too obvious. He eyed the snoozing man in the picture hanging on the wall suspiciously, but the man continued snoring away.

"I wanted to ask if I could follow you to the Charms classroom. You seem to know where you're going."

"Oh." Regulus searched for a reason to decline. He had no wish to allow any of the students to know that he had no clue where he was going, and was planning to wander and hope that Sirius's uncanny sense of direction was genetic. It was why he was leaving the Great Hall half an hour early.

"I have no objections," Regulus said after a brief pause, unable to think of any conceivable reason to put him off. "Do keep up."

~ SiSW ~

"We're lost."

"We are not," Regulus sniffed imperiously. "I know exactly where we are."

"Really." Belby's voice could not get flatter if he tried. "Pray tell then. Where are we?" Regulus maintained his condescending facade, valiantly ignoring the dusty and utterly abandoned corridor they were currently walking down. Why oh why wasn't Sirius's damned sense of direction genetic?

"Nearly there," He lied haughtily, turning right as the corridor split. "If you do not trust my judgement, you are free to go your own way, Belby."

The soft patter of footsteps behind him indicated that Belby had not left as Regulus had suggested. Regulus resisted the urge to sigh. He was a Black. Blacks did not do anything as unsophisticated as sigh.

"Well, it's more fun to get lost with company, right? Since we're already lost and all." Belby said offhandedly. Regulus resisted the urge to sigh again.

"Hey, Black." Belby said after a few minutes of walking in silence.

"Yes?"

Belby stopped, and Regulus halted as well in confusion. Belby pointed at a painting of a snoozing man.

"Haven't we passed this painting before?"

Now that Regulus looked at it, the painting did seem oddly familiar. The sleeping man within snorted loudly and rolled over. Regulus glared suspiciously. That man was definitely feigning. Regulus had had more than enough experience with a certain infuriating older brother to tell. He considered calling the man out on it and asking for directions. On one hand, then they wouldn't be late for class. On the other hand, it would mean admitting he had no idea where they were. Decisions, decisions...

Luckily, Belby stepped in before he had a chance to open his mouth.

"Excuse me, sir," Belby asked, much more politely than Regulus would have, considering the man had probably been silently sniggering at them when they had passed him three times in the last twenty minutes. The man snorted again and opened one eye, in a manner Regulus supposed was meant to imitate sleepiness. But Regulus was intimately familiar with what people looked like when recently and untimely awoken, so he felt absolutely no pity in opening his mouth to disparage the man's abysmal acting skills.

"You-"

Belby jabbed a sharp elbow into his stomach, effectively silencing him before he say another word. "Could you please tell us how to get to the Charms classroom?" Belby inquired, smiling politely, ignoring Regulus' homicidal wheezes.

"Eh?" The man grumbled, a grumpy scowl quickly overriding the bemused look he had had while observing their interactions. "Jus' go thatta way an' turn left 'nstead of right a' the corner." He told Belby. "Ask the red lady for more directions." He then rolled over and started snoring again, loudly.

"Belby-" Regulus snarled. Belby did not look as concerned for his life as Regulus thought he should.

"Oh, lighten up, would you?" he said. "I got our directions, didn't I?"

Both of them glanced down the hallway that the man had pointed them towards.

"Though...that's the same hallway we went down the past three times," Belby said.

"There are only two ways we can go, regardless." Regulus grumbled, stalking down the hall. "The way we just came from or the way we always go."

"What did he mean by left, though? There is no left turn, there's only right," Belby mused, hurrying to catch up. Regulus stayed silent. It wasn't as if he had any more clue as to what the man had meant, after all.

They reached the expected turn, but as before, there was only a large window with a nice view of the Black Lake to their left. It looked as though they were somewhere on the fourth or fifth floor. They paused.

"Well, maybe there's a secret passageway somewhere?" Belby said doubtfully, staring out of the window.

"Or the man was telling us to go jump out of a window," Regulus said cynically. It was, after all, something he would do if someone disrupted his sleep.

"Oh, shut up Black," Belby said distractedly, tapping the stones one by one. "It's not like we have any better ideas."

That was, unfortunately, true. Regulus heaved a mental sigh, glancing down the hall again before crouching down and joining Belby in his search.

"This is stupid," Regulus said, after he and Belby had tapped their way down the corridor with little result.

"Very," Belby agreed, "But, as I said before, we have no other ideas. Unless you've thought of something in the past five minutes?"

Regulus opened his mouth to snidely ask why, exactly, it was his job to think of everything, but he was interrupted by an unfamiliar voice.

"Black."

Regulus made a rather undignified squeak, spinning around to see a familiar boy with greasy hair that definitely had not been there a few minutes earlier. Said boy eyed him oddly, the hostile sneer on his face fading into something leaning more towards bemused. Regulus hurriedly composed himself, opening his mouth to ask what the boy wanted, but he was interrupted yet again. Was this going to be a usual thing?

"Do you two know each other?" Belby asked.

"No." Regulus said.

"Yes." The greasy haired boy said at the same time.

Regulus frowned at the boy. "I don't know you," he said. Which was a lie. He had a pretty good idea of who the boy was, but he suspected it wouldn't be a good idea to say as such, considering his source for said information.

"I do. You're Black's ― Sirius Black's ― younger brother." A slight sneer reappeared on the boy's face at Sirius' name.

"Evidently, my reputation precedes me," Regulus said dryly, for the lack of anything better to say. It wasn't as if it were his fault he looked like a miniature of Sirius. "And you are?"

"Severus Snape," the boy said, confirming his suspicions. "Though, I'm surprised your brother hasn't warned you about me already."

"I take everything Sirius says with a rather large pinch of salt," Regulus said, very seriously ― heh, Sirius-ly, he thought, before the horror dawned upon him. Sweet Merlin, the puns were contagious.

"A good policy," Snape drawled, eyeing him with a rather contemplative air now.

"Thank you."

There was a brief, awkward silence as Regulus wondered what else to say. Thankfully, Belby stepped in.

"So, uh. I hope you don't me asking but, we're kind of lost and we're about to be late for Charms. Do you think you could point us in the right direction? Snape's somewhat unsettling gaze lingered on Regulus for a second longer, before he turned away. Regulus looked over at Belby, wondering what that was all about, and Belby shrugged back.

"Fortunately for you, Charms is on the way to Transfiguration, where I'm heading. Come on." With that, Snape stalked off, not bothering to check if they were following. Belby hurried after the older boy, and, after a second of hesitation, Regulus followed suit. He would have time to figure out what that look meant later.

Omake:

"He cursed me! Cursed me, James! Me! His amazing and wonderful and brilliant older brother! Who, out of the kindness of his heart, had woken up early just to wake him up! Oh, the cruelty! The injustice!" Sirius wailed, flinging himself onto one of the couches of the common room, sending feathers everywhere.

James snickered with a distinct lack of sympathy. "Well, Sirius, if it's any comfort, you make a wonderful chicken."

Sirius growled half-heartedly at him, scratching his arms grumpily, feathers still molting off. "Remy, are you sure there's no countercurse?" He whined.

"Sorry Sirius," Remus said not-so-apologetically, hiding a grin. He was enjoying this, the bastard! Sirius wouldn't be surprised if Remus befriended Regulus for the sole purpose of learning this spell so he could curse Sirius when Sirius drew the short straw for waking Remus ― who was even less of a morning person than Sirius ― up again!

Grumbling, Sirius gave up on scratching the itch away and let his head fall back onto the couch again, sending another cloud of multicolored feathers into the air. The feathers helpfully arranged themselves to spell "GO BACK TO BED BIRDY" before blowing themselves back in his face. Sirius sneezed. James and Peter traded a look and burst out into another fit of giggles.

"I think it's a bastardised Avifors combined with a colour changing charm and animation. Or a writing spell maybe?" Remus mused, leaning forward to study the effects of the spell in fascination. Sirius gave him an unimpressed look.

"I hope it doesn't wear off anytime soon. I want to know how he did it," James announced gleefully. "Can you imagine Snape as a chicken?" Peter burst out into sniggers at the thought, and even Sirius had to crack a smile.

"These spells are pretty advanced. I don't think we'll be able to pull these off anytime soon," Remus said, grinning. "Regulus must have inherited all of the brains in your family to be able to do all of this without seriously botching anything."

"What!?" Sirius squawked in protest, sitting up in a flurry of feathers. "My brains are a thousand times more brilliant than Reggie's! How dare you insult my genius!"

"Genius in what, eating, prancing around, and flipping your hair?" James snickered. Sirius gasped dramatically and fell back, clutching his heart.

"Oh! Woe is me! My poor, simple-minded friends have insulted my sheer awesomeness yet again!"

"Simpleminded? Who are you calling simple-minded, you pea-brain?" James inquired in mock-outrage.

"There's nothing wrong with accepting your own level of incompetence, James," Sirius consoled, grinning. "We already knew you've less intelligence than a flobberworm, but now we'll know that at least you have the maturity of a three year old."

James gasped exaggeratedly. "Why you lousy, good-for-nothing mongrel! I'll get you for that!" He cried, lunging at Sirius with a fearsome battle cry.

"Bring it on!" Sirius hollered back, tackling him in return, sending them both to the floor, feathers flying.

Remus sneezed as a cloud of feathers flew into his face and books after a particularly impressive roll and crash. He glared and carefully put his book to the side. James and Sirius continued tussling, heedless of the mess and the impending danger.

"Come on Peter, let's teach them not to get their stinky feathers into my books." Remus said cheerfully, drawing his wand.

"Wha- wait, Remus-"

"Rictusempra!"

It descended into a flurry of feathery chaos from there.

Omake for Omake:

"Mr Potter! Mr Black! What in the world happened here?!"

"Uh, Professor, I can explain-"

"Nothing happened!"

"We're innocent!"

"Minnie, Reggie cursed me! Me! His beloved older brother! Woe is meee!"

"...I daresay you deserved it, Mr Black, whatever you did. Ten points from Gryffindor, for using such improper address to refer to a professor. And see to it that you all clean this mess up before dinner. "

"But-"

"Yes, this includes you too, Mr Potter. Chop chop."

"What!? But I'm innocent I tell you! Innocent!"

"Shut up James, she left."

"Where's my sympathy? Aren't professors supposed to help students? She didn't even reverse the charms! ...Hey! Stop laughing! You're all awful friends!"

Omake for Omake for Omake:

"Ten points to Ravenclaw for the excellent piece of spellwork you performed on your brother, Mr Black. I expect to see the same level of proficiency in my classes."

Reference

The spells that Regulus tried:

Avifors = transforms target into bird

Colovaria = color changing spell

The feathers forming words was accidental magic. Regulus also botched the Avifors, so Sirius, fortunately or unfortunately, did not turn into a full bird.

Notes: Yes, Remus seems a bit more confident in this story, because I figure he was probably a Marauder for a reason right? Yeah, he might be quieter and more reserved around other people and in public, but right now he's with his closest friends. Ones that, while still unaware of all of his secrets, still accept his quirks, his "sickliness", his nerdiness, and his lame excuses and cover for him when he needs it and help him when he's in absent and stick with him when he's cranky. And besides, he's twelve years old ― a child. He's not as untrusting as adults might be. Plus, as a child, he's probably going to conform to what the standards to fit in are, which means he's going to act like a Marauder.

Also worth noting: Regulus turned Sirius into a rooster, not a chicken. Because roosters wake people up at stupid times in the morning. This was funnier in my head.

Oh yeah: Damocles Belby is NOT AN OC.

PROMPTS WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL. PLEASE HELP ME.

Please review!