DISCLAIMERJ.K. Rowling owns everything. I own nothing but the ideas that she supplied. Other than that, it is hers, all hers.

In this chapter, Regulus is giving a quick glimpse of his childhood to set the scene for the next chapter, which is of his first year at Hogwarts. I'm planning for this story to lead up until his death, as I think the story of Regulus is an interesting one that deserves to be told. Reviews are welcome, and I hope you enjoy it. Please note that a few names have been made up to fill for certain last names that no first names are mentioned, for example, we know there was a Nott, so I will call him David.

A Time Of Innocence

My story is not a happy one. I have put myself in a terrible predicament. A place I should have never been. Though I feel like I had no choice. I did not want my spot on the family tree to be replaced by a burn mark as Sirius' is. I wanted to be known for something. So badly, did I want this, that I've just about chosen death over being simply removed from the family tree. Aye, woe is me, woe is me. My name is Regulus Black, son of Orion and Walburga, brother of Sirius, the outcast, or "blood traitor" as Bella likes to put him. I saw how much he was disliked by a mere sorting of the house, one wrong turn was all it took to get Sirius disliked by all. One decision was all it took to get him burnt off the family tree. Sirius may not have our family's approval, but he is happy. I have more than enough family approval, but I am not. I am nothing more than a right coward, and this is my story, as I will tell it from the very beginning

I was born when Sirius was two. This meant that we were very close in age, which only made us close when it came to how we felt about each other. I was the quiet one, Sirius knew this. I was always quite nervous, and while Sirius was loud and rebellious, I kept to myself, doing what I was told and never asking the many questions that Sirius did. Sirius got his fair share of slaps across the mouth in his young years, for he never took an answer as just that. He always wanted more, more, more. I, not ever wanting to get those beatings that Sirius was often giving, stayed quiet as could be. Mother liked me best. She compared me to Sirius often, and always said how I was such a good child. How Sirius was such a disappointment. I didn't like when she said that. Sirius was my brother, and he was there for me when my parents were not. My mother was a loud and unruly woman, though thankfully, we heard very little of it. She did not want us, though father was quite pleased with the fact that we were both males, able to pass down the bloodline of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. He often pointed this out to his cousin, Cygnus, who had three girls.

Sirius was my best friend, I know this now, as I should have known all along. As an older brother of mine, I had always looked up to him. He never made me feel young, and he included me in all that we did. We were Black children, stuck inside the walls of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. It would have been so much more the awful had Sirius not been there. Together, our young imaginations made the confinements of our prison seem not quite so bad. Pretend duels were a daily occurrence, exploring was a natural activity for us. Kreacher, mother's loyal house elf, never did approve of our existence. Whenever Kreacher spotted us, fooling about, we knew that it wouldn't be long until we were payed a rare, yet increasingly often visit from our cranky mother. Walburga would march up the stairs to our room, and even now I can here her words as Sirius and I sat side by side on his bed, staring at our feet, avoiding her eyes.

"Boys?" she would say, in a truly questioning tone, a voice that you might not find quite so threatening if you didn't truly know our mother's different ways of reaction, as we did.

Simultaneously, we would speak, our voices filled with worry and guilt. "Yes, mother?" We inquired, though we already knew what was to come next. We always knew, yet we always jumped and grimaced a little bit when it came.

"HAVE I NOT TOLD YOU, TIME AND TIME AGAIN, THAT YOU ARE BLACK CHILDREN?!" Oh, how our seemingly fragile mother had a voice on her. That booming voice she used to scold us shook our floor, as though it threatened to cave in on the room beneath it.

With eyes filled with dread, Sirius and I would reply. "Yes, mother." Our tones were low, simply awaiting what would follow.

Mother only yelled truly loudly once in the conversation, though the rest was hardly a whisper. "And therefore, you will conduct yourselves as fine young men so long as you are living under this noble and most ancient house of Black. Have we understood each other?"

We could only nod, each afraid that our voices would fail us. Despite these terrible shouting matches that our mother engaged in with herself, we never stopped our play. Grimmauld place was no shack, and Kreacher was only able to catch us in the act once or twice out of ever day in three-hundred and sixty-five that we conducted ourselves in such a manner. Therefore, a couple scoldings from our ever so dear mother was nothing we weren't willing to sacrifice to be able to play together and avoid the boredom that our home otherwise offered.

Despite the fact that we were equally responsible for all havoc that we caused, mother was often harsher on Sirius, finding faults with him that she lacked to find in me. His hair was too messy, or his clothes were too wrinkled. Something was always wrong with Sirius, according to her. Once, though my heart was racing as soon as the careless words left my mouth, I ventured to ask her why she seemed to dislike Sirius so much.

"Mother," I inquired, one day when she happened to be in the same area of our home as me, and Sirius had left for a rest room break upon seeing her. "Mother, why is it that you do not like Sirius?" As soon as the words left my mouth, I seriously regretted them, though I knew far better than to dismiss it, for mother would often say that words could not be taken back or forgotten.

She raised an eyebrow at me, and I saw her face growing red, and tightening. I remember the feeling of wishing to run off and bury myself beneath a rock, or hide behind the bold self of Sirius. However, mother never responded that day, nor ever did she respond, and I still believe, to this day, that it is because she didn't really have an answer, she just wanted a reason to like one of us better, as pure blooded mothers often did.

We rarely saw either of our parents in our early childhood, but if there was one we did see more often than the other, it was most certainly not our father, Orion. He always seemed to be busy with work of some sort, though I would later realize that it was merely his time away from my mother, for they were never truly in love, and I still believe that he was actually close to despising her. He was usually off spending moments with other pure blood men, such as Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Lestrange, Mr. Avery, and all that lot. I didn't really mind. I felt like I hardly knew my father, and Sirius often expressed to me that he felt the same. Though with a bit harsher intent when he spoke it.

I, at such a young age of merely seven, thought my father a hero, someone I would grow to be just like. He had many friends, so it seemed, and had obtained his fair share of power in the wizarding world. Yes, I believed my father was just too busy being perfect to spend time with Sirius or myself, and I could not find one valid reason to blame him for enjoying time away from our wicked mother.

Sirius, on the other hand, felt an entirely different way about this. He often raved to me about what a coward our father was. How he couldn't stand up to mother, how he should be ashamed of letting her control him and keep him away from his own home. It was at these times that I felt guilty for my opinion of my father, for Sirius had been the only father, brother, and best friend that I knew.

I can remember, quite vividly, the time that Sirius was eleven, and was ready to leave me. I was sure that when he returned, I would be a skeleton, covered in cobwebs and rotting in Kreacher's arms as he brought me to my mother. I can almost hear his squeaky voice now as he explained the situation. "Sorry mistress, master Regulus has died. Appears of boredom. Too bad master Sirius will be coming home." However, Sirius only laughed in that contagious way at this notion, and we laughed and laughed as I momentarily forgot my distress.

But when the day arrived, I was swiftly reminded of it, and I felt myself getting angry, the famed Black temper working its magic on me, Regulus. I could have killed myself that day, as I waved goodbye to him and he boarded the train. He was off a first year, off to be sorted, presumably into Slytherin, as we all expected nothing less. I already knew of the children who already attended, and I saw them again, the children of my parents' friends. Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Black, and Rodolphus Lestrange, all second years. Sirius, Rabastan Lestrange, David Nott, and a few other names I knew, would all be attending alongside Sirius.

I waved him a goodbye, and watched as our father clapped him on the back and sent him onto the train, where he sat beside Rabastan. Little did I know, that when Sirius came back, our father would not be quite glad to see him, nor would much of our family or the pure blooded ones surrounding us.

My summer had been awful, and Sirius had returned none of my letters. I sent many, probably one or more each day, but he never returned them. I wondered why until we went to pick him up. Apparently, word had traveled to everyone but me that my brother had been sorted into Gryffindor. My father greeted him off the train, where he was chatting with a blond boy, a brunette, stringy boy, and a rather chubby boy. But the greeting was not the kind you expect between father and son. Orion grabbed him by his hair and pulled him aside. I grimaced as father slapped him across the face, and while I saw him growing red, Sirius' lips did not move once, though father's were moving a mile a minute. Mother simply watched with a small smirk.

I couldn't believe it. How would my own brother not tell me, his devoted companion all through life, of his troubles? I thought we had been close, I really thought we had. However, I had been so very wrong. Father had not so much as looked at him since the incident at King's Cross Station, and mother only looked at him with a look of malicious intent every time he stormed by. The brother that returned home minus well not even be there. I had been awaiting his arrival so desperately, but now he remained cooped in his room, writing and receiving letters the entire time.

When Sirius returned back, he seemed almost glad, and just offered me a look of pain, and I could see the apology in his eyes when he waved goodbye. His eyes, so dull and apologetic, I would never forget. And it was then I knew that he had been instructed by my father to leave me very much alone, for one Black disgrace was enough for him. Needless to say, I knew that if I wasn't put in Slytherin, my parents would treat me just the same awful way, except they would blame Sirius for most of it as well.

That year and the summer after were just as lonely as the last, until my letter arrived, announcing that I would be entering Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Father and mother seemed to make a big deal out of, and even accompanied me to Diagon Alley to purchase my supplies, leaving Sirius behind. I knew for fact that they had not gone with Sirius to get his the past two years. Even before they had known of his sorting into Gryffindor.

We arrived in Diagon Alley and quickly went to purchasing. I got the best robes and items, and just as we were entering Olivanders to purchase my wand, father was stopped by a man I recognized as Mr. Malfoy, Lucius, who was three years older than me, was his son. Both my mother and father had a look of panic on their face when they heard his voice, and I turned as well, all three of us smiling, though inside, I knew my parents were a nervous wreck, for I had seen those faces when Sirius had told a guest that we were not really the pure blood Blacks, but a muggle family of them. It had been a joke, but boy, that had set them off.

"Good day, Abraxas, we're just here to purchase Regulus' supplies. He's to enter his first year. How old is your boy now?" My father asked, and while he did a fair job of concealing his nerves, I could still see that he had tried to avoid topic of Sirius, though to no avail.

Mr. Malfoy smirked and completely avoided the question until the end of the statement. Beside him, Lucius had a malicious look in his eyes. "Ah, I see Sirius is absent from this family outing. I am sure you are hoping for Regulus' sorting into Slytherin, Sirius's sorting was quite the...disappointment. Lucius here is to enter his fourth year. He's been on the Quidditch team four years running. Yes, helped them quite a bit, he has." He proceeded to put a pale hand on his son's shoulder and guided him away, nodding his head to both my mother and my father, and then me, though mine had a bit of a mocking grin to it.

I watched my father watch him leave and he mumbled something that did not sound very kind under his breath. We proceeded to buy the rest of my supplies and returned home.

I was now in line for the sorting, and the train ride had been far from pleasant. Sirius had run straight to his pack of Gryffindors, and I had gone with Bella, who watched over me. I heard that Andromeda, another of my cousins, had endured a difficult sorting, and I almost wished she or some other pure blood would have been sorted into another house, preferably Hufflepuff, so that my poor brother would not be alone.

"Ah, another Black, let's hope you are not like your worthless brother." A soft voice said behind me. I recognized him as Rodolphus Lestrange, and he winked at me before making his way to the Slytherin table. I felt angry at the insult thrown at my brother, but I also knew that I desperately hoped for a sorting into Slytherin. I couldn't bear the shame if I wasn't.

Black came early on, and after Avery and a few others, I was quickly guided to the stool. I felt all eyes on me, and quickly scanned the crowd. The Slytherins were looking at me and chuckling, and I noticed that Sirius was looking at me with a very serious face. I missed my brother's warmth, and for a moment, I almost wanted to be with him in maroon and gold, no matter the consequences. However, I wanted more to be accepted. I was a spineless fool back then, and I know that I was wrong in wanting what I did, nevertheless, I wanted it.

Those before me sorted into Slytherin had mostly been quick sortings. The hat barely touched their head before it declared their house, and a roar of cheers would erupt from the table. This was not so with me. The hat was placed upon my head, and I felt everyone's breath catch, including my own. From somewhere inside my head, a voice that was not my own spoke.

Ah, another Black. You care for your brother, you are intelligent and quiet. Perhaps Ravenclaw? That minus well have been my death sentence. I desperately pleaded for Slytherin. I was wrong, came the voice, eerily pondering what it had first declared, you care for yourself, and you are a spineless creature. "SLYTHERIN!" It announced, and while I let out a breath of thanks, I inwardly felt embarrassed, upset, and most of all, I felt defeat, in knowing that the hat was right.

I reached the table, greeted by many claps on the back. Glancing over at the Gryffindor table, I saw my brother smiling with his friends, but beyond that, I saw my brother was disappointed and upset. I took a seat beside Rabastan and barely heard the rest of the sortings. Though I did hear one sentence, declared by Rodolphus as he put a large hand on my shoulder. "I knew you had it in you. You're a true Black, don't let your worthless brother worry you. You're one of us now." That last sentence, your one of us now. Would ring in my head for the remainder of the feast, and the remainder of my life.

I hope you enjoyed that first chapter. It was a bit boring, I know, but the rest should be definitely more exciting.