Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
AN: For the Regulus Black competition by Thanatos Angelos Girl. This can be thought of as a happier alternative ending to 'Am I A Monster?' This last update was for capitals.
Because Houses Don't Really Matter
"There's no use pretending, Reg. You're too much of a coward to ever go against what Mother says!"
"Sirius, you don't understand. I wanted to be in Gryffindor too, I really did, but…"
"But mother wanted you in Slytherin. And as always you did what she wanted you to because you're too much of a baby to ever stand up to her."
"But Sirius, I…"
"I don't want to hear it Reg. And don't pretend you care either because I know you don't!"
"Sirius please just listen to me."
"Shut up Regulus. I hate you!"
…..
Eleven-year-old Regulus tried not to cry as he sat in the dormitory unpacking his things. He was pretty sure Sirius hated him now – his brother had even said as much. It wasn't even as if Sirius didn't have every right to think that: Regulus had done everything wrong so far and he hadn't even been in the school for a day. Sirius had every reason to believe Regulus was a baby and a coward because really that was exactly what Regulus was…
Regulus quickly snapped himself out of the depressing route his thoughts were taking. He had had a choice: the hat could have put him in Gryffindor, Slytherin or Ravenclaw… whichever one he had wanted. The only reason he had chosen Slytherin was out of fear of what his parents would do, not just to him, but to Sirius as well. His father had made it explicit that if he was to be sorted "anywhere other than Slytherin", both he and Sirius would be cast off the family tree and into the streets. To Regulus this seemed like the worst thing that could ever happen. No one would want to adopt a pair of blood traitors like they were so, not only would everyone he had ever known hate them, but he and Sirius would have to live out in the cold streets of muggle London exposed to the elements and completely surrounded by scary muggle things like cars, buses, and those horrible beeping things.
He remembered the time when he and Sirius had tried to run away and live in a muggle park. He'd been five at the time and easily persuaded by Sirius that it would be better living on their own than being shouted at all the time by their parents. Unfortunately it had been February and in no time at all the two of them had found themselves soaked to the bone and shivering in a little pretend house. Even though Sirius had given him his jumper, he'd been bed-ridden for days afterwards and Sirius had moped around for three days thinking the entire thing was his fault even though it wasn't.
Regulus sighed. Sirius was impossible: one minute he would be yelling across the room at him, the next he would be feeling stupidly guilty for messing things up. Regulus couldn't be sure whether he would still be fuming about him being sorted into Slytherin or feeling like it was his fault and that maybe he should have done something to make Regulus more Gryffindor-ish. In fact, it was due to the fact that Regulus was indeed 'Gryffindor-ish' that Regulus had insisted he be put in Slytherin! Regulus did not want anything bad to ever happen to Sirius and if that meant he had to put up with being in Slytherin and pretend he had an interest in 'Dark Arts' then so be it.
He continued unpacking his belongings from the trunk, taking out a couple of books and putting them on the shelf next to the bed. He had started to take out some of clothing too when all of a sudden his new house mates started laughing
"What in Merlin's name have you brought that for?" the dark haired boy nearest to him sneered. Regulus looked down and immediately spotted the problem: a large, white, fluffy toy hippogriff that Narcissa had given him for his ninth birthday, and the toy dog that Sirius had given him when he was a baby. Of course he had known before he'd packed them that they were babyish and Sirius hadn't been able to stop laughing when he'd walked in on him packing the day before. However for some reason Regulus had still wanted to take them with him; they were something familiar in an unfamiliar place and from what he'd heard about the Slytherin dormitories from his friend Evan Rosier, he'd need all the comfort he could get.
"I just have," replied Regulus, glaring right back at him. "And if you have a problem with it, take it up with someone who actually cares." He sounded a lot braver than he felt. In actual fact he cared very much what they thought of him – he didn't want his roommates thinking they could walk all over him for the next seven years.
"Aw, poor little Reggie can't sleep without his ickle toy horsy," mocked one of the others.
"It's a Hippogriff you moron! Can't you tell the difference?" retorted Regulus.
"Same thing," said the boy. Regulus fought the urge to give the stupid idiot a lecture on the differences between hippogriffs and horses – the boy probably already knew and was just trying to get a reaction out of him. Instead, he simply put the hippogriff on the green silk pillow of his bed and proceeded to carry on rearranging the bookshelf, deciding to leave the rest of the clothes in the trunk.
When this was done he lay back on the bed and watched the others make a mess all over the floor. It took rather a long time for them to unpack and Regulus found himself wondering what his brother was doing, or even about whether Sirius was thinking about him or not. Sirius was most likely still feeling angry about him.
"Are you going to get changed any time soon, Regulus?" asked another of the boys. So far none of them had bothered to introduce themselves. "We'll be turning the lights out soon." Regulus had been so self-absorbed that he hadn't even noticed that everyone else was wearing their pyjamas.
"Just wait a minute while I get changed, will you?" he said, as he quickly started to gather his night clothes and wash kit together.
"What on earth's got into you, Regulus?" the other boy asked, probably after having noticed that Regulus looked a little upset. Regulus thought that this was a really stupid question seeing as the others had been teasing him earlier. He decided to give a different and less obvious answer.
"Sirius," he muttered, for Sirius had actually been the thing on his mind at the time the question was asked.
"If I were you, I wouldn't care what that Blood-traitor thinks."
"Sirius isn't a Blood-traitor!" shouted Regulus. The other three boys giggled but Regulus didn't care. Sirius was not a Blood-traitor – a Blood-traitor meant a Pureblood that had married a Muggle, which Sirius hadn't. If anyone in the family was a Blood-traitor it was Andromeda, but there was nothing bad about being one anyway.
"Well he hangs about with Mudbloods and Gryffindors. If that doesn't count as being a Blood-traitor then I don't know what does," said one of the other three. "Stupid, Muggle-loving git!"
"Will you shut up about my brother!"
"No, I don't think I will. You see it's quite fun seeing how worked up you get when I mention him."
Regulus didn't think he could tolerate a minute more in the boys' company. Instead of throwing something heavy at them, like he very much wanted to, he stomped out of the dormitory to sit in the commonroom. It wasn't much fun – the only people there were Mulciber and Macnair, who were both about four years older than him. The person he really wanted to talk to was Sirius – he'd talk to him and then forgive him and then teach those awful roommates a lesson. Merlin, he'd probably even go and get James Potter to help him prank them! Regulus wasn't sure what he thought about that idea: on the one hand, James messing with them would be funny, but on the other, they'd probably take it out on him afterwards because he was probably a much easier target than James was.
Anyway, Regulus's mind was set. He was going to find Sirius, apologise to him, explain why he had chosen Slytherin, and then find some way in which to make it up to him. Hopefully it would work and then he and Sirius would be friends again.
He realised that there wasn't much time before curfew and that he'd have to be quick. Sirius would most likely be in Gryffindor tower because according to 'Hogwarts: A History', that was where the Gryffindor common room and dormitories would be. Towers were usually quite high, so Regulus decided that the grand staircase would be an ideal place to start. However, even with the moving staircases it still took a long time to get right to the top. He wasn't going to give up now though…
At the seventh floor, he turned right and headed off down a long, narrow corridor. There were no windows so it incredibly dark; he had no idea where he was going or how far along it he'd come – when he turned around he couldn't even see where he'd come from either. He could make out what looked like a staircase so decided to climb it. He was already half way up when he realised that this probably wasn't Gryffindor tower (if that even existed): from what Sirius had said, Gryffindor was a cheery place and was warm and well-lit – this place certainly wasn't. Curious to find out where on earth he was, he decided to carry on anyway.
He found himself in an exposed room full of very odd-looking instruments and telescopes – presumably this room was used for Astronomy class. There were already two people in there – a boy with long-ish, black hair wearing a Slytherin scarf and a girl wearing what looked like a Gryffindor scarf. Regulus couldn't really tell what colour her hair was, or anything else for that matter, because it was still quite dark.
"Get lost, Black!" said the boy, rather unkindly. Regulus was a little taken aback at this. He hadn't said or done anything to this boy, so what on earth was his problem? He didn't even know him!
"Sorry, I was looking for Gryffindor commonroom. I didn't realise this wasn't the right tower, I'll just be going…" said Regulus very quickly, backing out of the door.
"How stupid do you think we are, Black?" retorted the girl. "I know Potter sent you to spy on us, so you can just go away."
"Oh, do you mean James Potter? I was sort of looking for him; do you know where he might be?"
"Is there something wrong with your head, Black? What part of get lost do you not understand?" sneered the boy.
"What's your problem? I haven't done anything. All I did was ask you if you knew where James was. You weren't doing anything were you? Because if so I'm sorry and I really didn't mean to interrupt, but please just tell me how to get to Gryffindor commonroom because I really don't know where it is," Regulus rambled. "What's your name by the way?" he asked, not bothering to introduce himself since they seemed to already know who he was – probably because the Blacks were quite a well-known family.
The girl just looked at him as if to say "What the hell are you on about now?", while the boy just kept glaring at him.
"You know, I thought Gryffindors were all supposed to be really nice. That's what Sirius said, but maybe he was just making it up so that I'd be sorted with him," thought Regulus out loud.
"You know, I think there really is something wrong with your head, Black, if you're talking about yourself in the third person. Maybe I had better escort you back to the commonroom," said the girl. She wasn't exactly being friendly, and her friend was still glaring at him as if he was something nasty that existed on the bottom of his shoe, but at least she was going to take him to where Sirius would hopefully be.
"You do realise I'm not actually Sirius don't you? What's your name, again?"
"Okay, that's it, Black! You're coming with me. Sorry, Sev." The girl grabbed Regulus by the arm and started to drag him down the staircase. He protested all the way but the girl was having none of it. By now he was absolutely positive that she had mistaken him for Sirius, but, seeing as she appeared to be even more stubborn and unwilling to listen than Sirius usually was, he had absolutely no hope of getting that message across to her. It was extremely annoying that people kept doing that – he didn't look that much like Sirius, did he? He was considerably smaller than Sirius, but it was dark, and he had been down a step or two from them.
In fact, it wasn't until she'd mumbled some nonsensical word to a portrait and stepped through it, that she realised anything was odd at all. Regulus had stopped and stared in awe as the portrait swung open, while the girl had gone through it. She had then turned around and been surprised and shocked to find that he was a good couple of inches smaller than she was, which was not how she remembered Sirius to be. He almost laughed at the incredulous look on her face.
"What the… Black, have you shrunk yourself?" she asked.
Now that he realised what had happened, Regulus had to bite his lip to stop himself from bursting into laughter. "No, I'm Sirius's younger brother. That's why I wanted to find Sirius," he explained.
The girl's face suddenly went bright red, matching the hair that Regulus could now see was a dark red colour.
"You look an awful lot like Sirius," she said.
"A lot of people tell me that. What's your name again?"
"Lily," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you earlier. This is Gryffindor common room – I think Sirius is here somewhere. I'll help you look if you like."
"Thanks." Lily led him through the portrait hole into the room beyond. It was very warm from the roaring fire, and full of people laughing and talking – very much different to the Slytherin commonroom. Regulus was almost jealous of it. They stopped in front of a sofa where Sirius, James Potter, and a couple of boys Regulus had never seen before were sitting.
"There you go," said Lily, disappearing off into the crowds of students.
Regulus was left standing rather awkwardly in front of Sirius and his friends.
"Hi Sirius. I'm really sorry about earlier. Mother said she'd disown us if we were both not in Slytherin and you know what it was like last-"
Regulus was unable to finish as Sirius had enveloped him in a big, brotherly hug and had crushed all of the air out of his lungs.
"Reg, I shouldn't have shouted. I'm sorry. You're still the same whatever house you're in, though you have to admit it's a lot nicer here than-"
"In Slytherin," finished Regulus. He couldn't help but agree: Slytherin house wasn't exactly the cosiest of places (though it was significantly warmer than most parks were).
Sirius grinned at him. "I knew you'd do that," he said. "You know, James don't you?" When Regulus nodded he continued. "This is Remus and this is Peter. Peter, Remus, this is my brother Reggie." He pointed in turn at the boy next to James, and the boy on the other side of him. Regulus scowled at Sirius for calling him that in front of other people, then smiled and shook hands with his brother's friends.
"How did you get here?" asked James. "When we were in first year we had to get the prefects to show us for the first few nights."
"Well, I think Sirius said it was in a tower…" began Regulus. He then launched into a long tale of how he had gone to the astronomy tower and about meeting Lily.
"I can't believe she thought you were me! We look nothing alike!" declared Sirius, when Regulus had finished his tale.
"I hate to point it out, but you really do look alike," said the boy next to James. Regulus recalled that he was called Remus.
"No we do not!" they both shouted at the same time.
"You really do, though," said Peter, laughing at them.
"He's smaller than me," said Sirius, indignantly. "Look!" He stood up and used his hands to show where the top of Regulus's head came to, which happened to be just about where his chin was.
"And his hair's different," Regulus pointed out. "I'd never have mine like that – it looks a mess!"
"Hey! At least it's not as bad as James's is," commented Sirius. Regulus looked at James, whose hair looked like it hadn't been brushed in twelve years or so – even Sirius's was neater in comparison. James, however, seemed used to this sort of comment.
"Okay, so the two of you aren't identical, but it's really obvious that you're related," concluded Remus.
Regulus enjoyed talking to Sirius's friends a lot more than he did his own house mates. However, it was getting quite late and Regulus wasn't a Gryffindor so couldn't sleep with them. Luckily for him, James said that Sirius could borrow his invisibility cloak to smuggle him back. Sirius took him all the way back to the Slytherin commonroom, though Regulus was sure that this was mainly to get the password from him.
He hugged Sirius goodbye and then walked into his own dormitory. Every one appeared to be asleep; the only bed unoccupied was his own. He took a step towards it and then stopped because something really wasn't right.
It didn't take long to work out that the hippogriff was missing, and Regulus simply assumed that one of the others had taken it out of spite. He quickly changed into his pyjamas, brushed his teeth and then got into the bed.
The bed felt weird too: parts of it felt like it usually did when he and Sirius had had a pillow fight and tried to hide the lumps of feathers under the covers, and there was definitely something sharp sticking into his knee. He flung back the covers, took one look, and concluded that, even though all of the pillows were still intact, it certainly looked as if there had been a pillow fight – there was fluffy white stuff everywhere. He felt about in amongst it and drew out a pair of muggle scissors. He was pretty sure he was looking at the remains of his hippogriff.
In the morning he would tell Sirius, and then Sirius and James could deal with them. But for now, Regulus would have to make do with clearing up the mess.
…..
AN: Thanks for reading. I wrote this because my other story was taking too long. The other one is Regulus/Lily, Evan/Mary and Regulus and Lily get to have a discussion about their siblings. I hope you enjoyed this even though it wasn't Regulus/Lily.