Go and Catch a Falling Star.
The sky opens above him, a glittering wasteland that unfolds and unfolds overhead and every time he blinks more constellations fall into his eyes, light as spring rain. He watches his own star for a few moments as it pulses blue and white, then raising his hand higher until the white expanse of his skin blocks out most of his night sky, he stares at it through the translucent tip of his nail. Regulus glows sweet and strong, the little prince who dances with the moon and with the planets and who, though far far away and never to be reached, burns - secretly - brighter than his brother.
The earth bound Regulus is twelve years old and the garden path uncomfortable beneath him but it's worth it for the evening silence which is full of communication: moonlight entangled in the arms of the leaves who whisper in her ears and the quiet noises of ants crossing, in steady lines, the bewitched undergrowth of the grass - united in pursuit of food or war or perhaps the heat of his palm - two spiders lie nestled there already. It is a better silence than the one at school. There no one will speak to him. The reasons are numerous, plausible even - the happy fact that he is a Slytherin naturally ostracizes him from the other three houses of the school and, even though they band together on occasion, scraping long nails along each other's back as they scrabble for audacity and for dreams, the other members of the House of Snakes are cruel and competitive and ignore him - his pale, useless little figure overshadowed and contaminated by the venomous golden brightness of his brother.
He pushes himself up finally, at about three in the morning according to the slow progress of the moon and rubs off the grass which has carved a map onto the backs of his legs and his arms and stretches, shivering pleasantly in the night breeze. Regulus loves the summer, it's when Sirius comes home and forgets about his 'bestial little friends' as Bellatrix calls them and instead manages to remember his brother. Last year he when he came home he had called Regulus Cor Leonis, partly to infuriate their mother but partly too to imagine that Regulus really would be in the Lion House, that he'd be another 'disgusting blood traitor' (Bellatrix has a veritable armoury of insults when is comes to the 'dog of the family') and that together with his friends, they'd all go and taunt the newly planted Whomping Willow and Regulus could use his odd, patchwork knowledge to discover forgotten spells which it would take their Slytherin victimes hours of sifting through the library to reverse.
The way Sirius's eyes flickered away from him though, as the hat rested moment after moment on his dark head, told him that mostly it had been for the hateful, despairing sake of their mother.
So now Sirius names him Reg and yesterday he made him a crown out of a Hufflepuff tie which he stole as an excuse to be wandering the kitchen corridors at night (who would be mean to a poor Hufflepuff second year, lost, hungry and terribly afraid - apparently McGonagall would be as things turned out) as it was neutral ground and they could both laugh a bit about Hufflepuff's and how Nathaniel Millard had managed to cast a love charm on his badger in Transfiguration and was now forced to take care of his 'house mascot'. They wasted the whole afternoon sitting on the landing, eating through the chocolate Potter had sent when he found out their mother disapproved of sweets.
Regulus hates Potter but he likes sweets and isn't really the type to refuse gratification on principal and besides, Sirius looked cheerful about the whole thing, especially when Regulus accidentally swalled a Firewhisky one and hiccuped his way down a flight of stairs. He choked it up afterwards of course - along with the dinner the old house elf had made and now his stomach's hurting and his mouth still tastes a bit dry and a bit acidic but ... he runs his fingers through the grass and pictures his brother in the Slytherin colours.
A/N: This is a slightly experimental project which is basically the foundation work for a much larger Regulus orientated fic which I'm mapping out the plot for at the moment ('cause their just aren't enough Reg-based ficcies out there - sniffle). So I'm writing up a series of snapshots from his life in the hopes that I can form a clearer picture of what he would have been like (as there isn't a clear cut vision of him anywhere in the books, or even to an extent, in fandom TT ) - suggestions are welcomed, about what episodes I should write and/or about what you think he would have been like.
Oh and whoever can be bothered to go and find out which poem I'm ripping off for the chapter titles get somesort of prizy thingymabob.
Please, please, please review!
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter references belong to J.K.Rowling. Everything else is a project of my more than slightly unhealthy obsession with poor Regulus Black.