(A/N) I told you Regulus won't get out of my head. Thank you, Thessaly, for that Strunk and White reference; I'll take it into account. Thank you everyone for reviewing. No more philosophy, sorry, I actually do have the slightest bit of plot I want to get across, and I don't think Regulus is a particularly philosophical boy.
Regulus Black, age fourteen, shifted from foot to foot in the doorway to the dungeon room while he waited for Severus Snape to turn from his precious potions. The air was damp and heavy with the fumes from the cauldrons. Sniffing, Regulus was sure he could smell boomslang skin, myrrh, and what he thought was mandrake root. The scented smog was everywhere, filling the room from the scrubbed and sanded floor to the scrupulously clean ceilings. In the mist, a thin figure stooped over a bubbling cauldron like the evil fairy in a children's story, expertly flicking hairs into the potion The only light came from fire under the cauldron; this hidden room was far enough below the Slytherin common room that no light ever reached it, even through the vent shafts. Slytherin lore said that Lucius Malfoy had found it his first year and, with his cousin Julia, turned it into a very secret workshop for those interested in the Old Magic, what the other students called the Dark Arts. It was now the undisputed domain of Severus Snape: greasy, ugly, and antisocial but the best, everyone agreed, at hexes and potions. And Old Magic.
When Snape finally turned, Regulus wondered if it mightn't have been brighter to try and figure things out on his own. Lank hair hanging around a thin scowling face, Snape looked anything but pleased by the interruption.
"What do you want?" Snape snarled, raking Regulus from toes to head and back again with a quick, disdainful glare.
"The others-I mean, I heard-I mean-" Regulus paused, swallowed and said, all in a rush, "They say that you know more than anyone about the Old Magic and I wanted to know if you'd show me."
Snape looked more sardonic than ever. "And why should I do that?"
Regulus swallowed again under the sarcastic black eyes but to make his point as firmly as he could, "Because I want to know, and if you don't teach me, I'll likely blow myself up and Dumbledore will suddenly notice all your experiments. And because if you don't teach anyone, no one will remember the Old Magic anymore."
Snape snorted and turned back to his cauldron. Taking this as an invitation, Regulus wandered over to the ancient spell book resting on an old music stand and peered at the squiggling, slanted minuscule writing, trying to remember everything Cousin Andromeda-everything he had been taught about understanding the old texts. When he was fairly sure he had it, he peered at the ingredients Snape had used, trying understand the reasons for the substitutions and adjustments. Finally baffled, he turned to his new mentor asked, a little nervously, "I can see putting in cat fur instead of kneazle hair if Slug won't let you use the school store, but why use frankincense instead of olive oil?"