(A/N) Okay, so this isn't really a drabble, but it just kept growing. Gwendolyn Lennox appears, courtesy of Thessaly (thank you for reviewing). Most of this isn't mine; if it were I'd actually be publishing it. Please review. I want to know if my characters make any sort of sense.
Regulus Black, age eleven, slouched next to his Cousin Andromeda, and considered his Christmas dinner in silence. Gwendolyn Lennox was on his other side, and he was utterly terrified of her, so he thought it safest not to say anything. Besides, Andra was still sunk in misery from her mother's latest scold, and Gwendolyn was talking to Evelyn Parkinson on her other side. Stifling a yawn, Regulus wondered when the meat course would arrive. To think he'd looked forward to graduating the children's table! The grown-up were so slow, and dull beyond belief.
Finally, ages later, Regulus was sure, they were permitted to escape, but only to the sitting room. For half an hour at least his mother kept him close by, forcing him to admire the pretty picture made by his cousins and to actually attend to their music. Andromeda, no longer sulking, but now vexed at being put on show, as she would say, like a dancing dog, was at the piano, framed and dwarfed by her sisters. Narcissa sat on a high stool, French tipped fingers on ready at her harp, golden and white and almost glowing in the candlelight. Bella stood on the other side, tall, striking, and so very grown-up. Her eyes flicked to pick out a boy in the crowd, and craning a little before his mother pulled him back, Regulus caught a glimpse of Lucius Malfoy returning the notice.
After escaping his mother, Regulus crept up to the attic to hide. By now the adults should be interested enough in their own affairs to ignore his disappearance. Curling up on top of the dust cover of one of the old chairs, he poked randomly through one of the near-by trunks. This one was from the eighteen hundreds, he thought, full of old lace and calling cards. It didn't have a false bottom, strangely enough; most of the Blacks planned for any sort of subterfuge. A very dull box. He'd just resettled the lid in place when he heard voices on the stairway. Stiffening, Regulus waited for them to pass.
They didn't. The door opened and Andra entered carrying a lighted candle. Narcissa, much to Regulus' surprise, followed. Narcissa and Andromeda had always been closer to each other than either was to Bellatrix, but that had never made them friends. "I told you he'd be here," Andra said, plopping onto another ghostly sheet-covered sofa and looking back at her younger sister. "Well, sit down."
Narcissa looked disdainfully at the dust covers, then carefully cleaned a stool with her handkerchief and sat on the very edge of it. "It's not that bad," Regulus muttered, oddly ashamed of the dust. "Mother does come up here occasionally."
Andromeda rolled her eyes and said, "I don't think I've ever had a duller Christmas. How have you been, Regulus? I barely ever see you at school."
Regulus opened his mouth to reply and found himself unable to stop a yawn. Embarrassed, he ducked his head and managed to say, "Tired. My roommates at school never stop gabbling."
Andromeda laughed, a warm kindly laugh, and suggested spelling his bed curtains to keep noise out. Narcissa said, in a bored tone of voice intended to indicate her complete disinterest in the affairs, that she remembered coming across a spell Andra might be able to modify.
No one was in the library. Narcissa found the book again, but informed Andra rather shortly that she couldn't be expected to do everything. So Andra found the spell in the end and read it through, explaining the archaic language to Regulus as he hung over her shoulder. Then they set about modifying it. Changing spells was a delicate business, and something teachers actively discouraged at Hogwarts, but the Black children knew that Hogwarts spells were derivations of the Old Magic, and that if you went back to that, changing the meaning was possible, if the theory behind the particular magic was understood. Andra had learnt theory because it was something to do, and Regulus and Narcissa had learnt a smattering of it from her.
In the end, they tested it on one of Regulus' handkerchiefs. It turned out that a drop of Regulus' blood was needed to activate the spell the first time. When she figured that out, Andromeda had tried to get the others to stop, but they were both too interested by then and scoffed at her scruples. It worked to perfection. When Regulus hung the handkerchief over his head, he couldn't hear a word the other two said.
They were still laughing when they heard the click of heels outside the library door. Regulus was lying half across Andra's lap, handkerchief over one ear and Narcissa tickled his neck with her quill. By the time Regulus' mother entered the library, the three cousins sat around the table quietly discussing Regulus' schoolwork.
"So this is where you're all hiding," Mrs. Black snapped. "Andromeda, your mother wants you. Narcissa, Bellatrix was looking for you. Regulus Black, it's past your bedtime and you know it."
Andra and Narcissa slipped quietly out of the room, and Regulus allowed his mother to pull him off to his room with a meek, "Yes, Mama."