Chapter 34: Etched under his scars
Alshain – Black, not White, which was less of an adjustment than he'd expected – carefully descended with the school broomstick he'd been using for the last fifty minutes, Monisha Divekar spotting him while Lucina O'Brien, a hufflepuff girl, kept a cautious eye on the other students trying to get to the ground as their flying lesson was coming to an end.
"Black, duck!"
Alshain blinked, and barely had the time to see the dark shape of someone wobbling on their broom above him before they both ended up in a heap of limbs and broomsticks.
Ah, so that was the reason O'Brien had been so intent on watching their surroundings.
Dad – Regulus Black, not Cadfael White, and that one had been harder to process than Alshain's own family name, mostly because of all the associated history he knew little about – had taken him to a broomstick park a handful of times, so it wasn't like Alshain didn't have his own share of mishaps involving flying in his past.
He winced but didn't comment as the student who'd fallen on him tried to get back up.
Monisha and Lucina hurried down too.
"Are you alright?!"
"Honestly, Hogan! Couldn't you hold on like twenty more seconds? I mean, you managed to stay on your broom up till now, didn't you?"
The boy who'd fallen on Alshain wore slytherin robes and was too tall for his age, with brown hair and large ears. Hugo Hogan, if Alshain remembered right – and the boy was one of the three muggleborns in their year, so yes, Alshain did remember Hogan and the looks some of the older students had given him when he'd asked if someone could help him send a letter because he didn't know how to handle the owls.
Hogan winced and reached out to help his victim back on his feet – but before he could say anything, a dark-haired girl – Reade Accrington – who'd been using her broomstick like she did loops every day at home sneered:
"That's what happens when muggles pretend to be wizards, O'Brien! Maybe they make it work somehow, but it never lasts, and in the end their 'magic' fails!"
Hogan's ears were getting redder, Alshain noted, but he wasn't saying anything, looking resolutely in front of him.
Alshain took the time to dust his robes and think about what to retort – without actually angling for a fight, because he had enough on his plate with his father, and saying something too obvious now would only invite accusations he didn't want to hear more about right now.
A Hufflepuff swept in – literally, since he jumped off his broomstick with even more ease than Accrington had – oblivious to the whole situation, and Alshain saw Lucina relax slightly.
"Everyone's alright here? Madam Hooch asked me to check up on you, she's busy with Bradshaw who can't seem to get his broomstick to go down."
Indeed, another hufflepuff boy was slowly but steadily getting higher on his broom and half the class was busy watching from the ground as Madam Hooch steered him towards a balcony.
Accrington gave the interloper a dubious look.
"Just the muggleborn being unable to use a broom correctly, Denholm. Nothing we haven't seen before. You'd be better off asking Black how he is, he's the one Hogan fell right on."
Denholm turned expectantly towards Alshain, who squinted at Accrington, not deaf to the things she'd just said – but which could sound a bit less incriminating if you hadn't been there for the first part of her act.
"Do I look like I'm going to fall over? Hugo just fell on me, that's all. It wasn't even that high."
Denholm looked relieved and happier – but instead of leaving them to their own devices, he turned back towards Accrington and her group of friends, who'd made their way over.
"Alright, then! And how are you, Mustaq? I saw you almost fall a few times!"
Sayana Mustaq was clutching on her broomstick as if it'd yank her away even on the ground were she not careful enough. Accrington threw her a half-worried half-annoyed look and pinched her lips.
Lucina, Alshain noticed, had a slight smirk on her face as everyone's attention shifted onto the other slytherin girl – not really mocking or mean, but satisfied, like she knew something the others didn't.
Well, the others, but from Accrington's pinched lips, not the girl who had started it all.
Accrington crossed into Denholm's line of sight.
"Yeah, she's alright. She didn't actually fall, you know. You don't have to rub it in. It's not her fault she has balance issues."
Accrington threw one last bad look at Hogan and left for the bigger group of students waiting for Madam Hooch and the hufflepuff student who had had difficulties getting back on the ground.
Hogan sighed, finally letting himself react – Monisha awkwardly patted him on the back, and Lucina gave Denholm a bright smile.
The Hufflepuff gave them a clueless look, only vaguely aware that something was a bit weird.
"...What's happening here?"
Hogan let out a stressed laugh.
Lucina started walking to join the other students, as their lesson was finished and Madam Hooch was gesturing for everyone to come over for a few last words.
Alshain and Monisha shared a look – they knew what had happened, but obviously they'd missed something that Lucina did know, her.
"Abel, you're just so pure! You somehow managed to shut Accrington up about blood purity because you were worried for Mustaq!"
Denholm blinked, looking everyone over.
Alshain knew Monisha's mum was a muggle too, and apparently all of Lucina's family was magical, but he didn't know to what point. Didn't really care, either, but maybe he should, if only to know why the others were acting like that.
Denholm's eyes stopped on Hogan, then looked towards Accrington, a few feet ahead of them.
"She was harassing him?"
"Hmm. And then you come, point out that Mustaq, who's at least as pure of blood as Accrington, is having problems staying on a broom too, and she can't say anything without implying that either her friend is not worth being a witch, or that staying up on a broom has nothing to do with blood status! And you do that without even meaning to. You're awesome."
Denholm looked a bit overwhelmed at the revelation of what he'd done, so he just gave a crooked smile at Hogan when they stopped with the bulk of the class. Madam Hooch was giving instructions on where to put the school broomsticks before leaving, so Denholm – Abel, right – whispered at the muggleborn boy:
"If that was your first time on a broom, you still managed better than me. Of course, I was also seven, but, hey! At least you didn't faceplant the moment someone spoke to you. I did that."
As they brought the broomsticks to the rack on the border of the training grounds, Monisha pointed at two silhouettes who'd joined Madam Hooch.
"Alshain. Isn't that your uncle?"
The boy put his broomstick down and turned around to look – he'd only ever seen newspaper pictures of Sirius Black, but the man did look an awful lot like Alshain's father.
The shiny black hair seemed right, but that didn't tell him much.
"How would I know? I never met him."
Denholm looked too, while Lucina helped Hogan with putting the broomstick he'd used on the rack.
"Looks like Sirius Black. Who's that person with him?"
They got a bit closer, and the other man turned slightly, revealing an outline Alshain knew well.
"That's... my dad."
It made sense, he guessed.
And considering the revelations of the week, it wasn't that surprising that Cadfael White – Regulus Black – would come to talk with his son. There were a lot of things that had gone unsaid when his dad had given him his full name – and now Alshain had spent three days in the wizarding world.
He couldn't really pretend that he hadn't learned what the ugly tattoo under his father's scars was.
There was a reason he'd written his first letter "to Mum".
It wasn't that Alshain absolutely didn't want to see his father at all, or that he thought his entire childhood had been a lie – but despite the claims in the newspapers, he had suspicions about his father getting his memories back. How else would you explain the revelation about his actual family name, before Dad's brother had "found him again"? The whispering between Mum and Dad that had lasted for a month?
If his father remembered, then...
Then he could answer questions about what he'd been thinking, before all this, before Mum and Alshain and his new life. About why the hell he had a dark mark etched under his scars, when it was the sign left behind when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's followers murdered someone?
Lucina gave him a push.
"Go and see them, then. It's obvious they're here for you, might as well get it done with."
She was right, of course.
So Alshain took a tentative step towards Madam Hooch, his father and the man who was apparently his uncle – and before he could decide he'd rather not go, the flying instructor looked around the training grounds and spotted him and called him over. The wizards with her turned around.
Alshain heard Lucina tell him they'd be at the Black Lake, and Monisha add she'd see him at dinner if he didn't come back sooner, but he didn't answer, his eyes jumping from his dad to Sirius Black as he made his way over.
As he got closer, it became more evident that the two were brothers. Same hair, same eyes. Similar enough head shapes – though his dad was a bit broader in the face, less sharp in his features. Dad was a bit taller, too – but both wizards were tall anyway.
Sirius Black, on the other hand, looked a tad... unreal, his outlines too defined and his presence too intense. Alshain wasn't sure how to say it – but he was growing more aware of his uncle's presence as he got closer, he could almost recognize it, a taste under his tongue that he'd only come to associate with his father and that had never been so strong before.
Madam Hooch nodded at something Sirius Black said and left just before Alshain reached them.
Dad gave him a slightly uncomfortable smile – Alshain got the feeling his father dreaded the necessary conversation as much as he did.
"Hey."
One of his uncle's eyebrows twitched and his mouth grew into a slight smirk, but the man refrained from commenting on his brother's eloquence.
It was much different from the way things were with his other uncle, the boy thought suddenly. Uncle Alex would scoff at Dad, and Mum would silence her brother with a simple, calm look.
Sirius Black, him, seemed to have an acerbic sense of humor and no fear to let it be known, but also a sense of priorities – interrupting now would just get in the way.
Alshain looked back at his father, because no matter how curious he found himself to be in regards to Sirius Black, the one person who linked them together was Regulus Black.
"I... I wanted you to meet your uncle. Sirius."
The wizard in question tilted his head.
"Alshain, right?"
The boy nodded warily.
It was an odd situation, after all. Few children met their uncle after eleven years of even ignoring their existence – and Sirius and Regulus were, honestly, enough of a weird case to deal with without taking that into consideration. The brother who had been framed as a mass murderer and the brother who had worked for one even if no one could prove it.
Sirius was all too aware of that truth as he looked his nephew – he had a nephew, him who'd thought his brother dead for so long! – over.
Alshain was a bit small for his age – but Regulus had been smaller than Sirius at the same age until seventeen, when he'd gotten one last growth spurt and gained one inch over his older brother, as well as larger shoulders.
A side-look at Regulus confirmed this – he'd have a hard time being a seeker in an actual team now.
Did the boy like quidditch? As Regulus-as-Cadfael had apparently stayed on the borders of wizarding society, maybe Alshain didn't have much exposure to the magical sport by default.
Anyway.
Scarlett red hair that seemed a tad darker than his mother, the Black eyes. A face in between both his parents – the nose was Regulus, but the chin definitely wasn't. The boy had tied his hair with a golden thread for flying, but he seemed to wear it about the same length as his father.
Slytherin robes, but that was neither a surprise nor something Sirius could honestly comment on. He wasn't a fan of Slytherins in general, but that had more to do with the fact that most blood purists ended up there, amongst themselves, and therefore never challenged their worldview – it wasn't because he thought they were all evil to begin with.
And, once again, he'd almost ended up on that House too, so he had no legitimacy blaming anyone for their Sorting.
What he could do, however, was blame those Slytherins who became exactly the kind of assholes who'd taken only the negative character traits of their House – cunning and ambition turning into treachery and selfishness, putting your own interests before any kind of principles or loyalty. There was a difference between wanting to be someone exceptional and working for it with a commendable goal, and wanting to be powerful or rich to the point that it became the only consideration in your mind.
Part of it, back when Sirius had been in school, had of course been House rivalry – but he hadn't ever dragged a Slytherin who didn't deserve it through the mud. Had they done something right before he'd gotten at them? Maybe not. Maybe some would consider he'd gone too far a couple of times. But those students had laughed at someone who'd lost a parent because of the Death Eaters, had hexed halfbloods and muggleborns beyond what was to be expected in a boarding school, had sabotaged others' school work or hobbies because "they didn't belong here".
They weren't guilt-free either.
He could still remember Poor, Quiet Snape, always his nose in a book and working hard – insulting Remus as soon as he'd gotten an inkling of what was going on with the werewolf, trying to wriggle around the promise he'd made to Dumbledore and let others know that there was a werewolf in school. Telling grieving students to stop crying because they were keeping him from focusing on his work. Taking Mulciber and Wilkes' side whenever a teacher interrupted a bout of bullying without actually knowing what was going on. Whispering about "mudbloods" when he thought no one could hear him and his friends.
Maybe the man had grown up – in his beliefs if not always in his attitude – but that didn't change that he had been an asshole with dubious beliefs in his teens.
Sirius could remember his first true conversation with Lily – how they'd kept by their own strategies and see who got results, in the end. Trying to drag the offending party out of their chosen set and make them understand, at the cost of letting more offenses happen, or being unyielding and accepting no excuses, to the point of becoming the bigger threat.
Perhaps they had gotten in each other's way, in truth – but by what right could they force the other to abandon their principles, by what right could they be asked to let go of their own?
Sirius threw a look at the small group of children his nephew had left when he'd joined them. If they were his friends – tentative, for now, it was only the first wednesday of the year – he probably didn't have much to fear regarding Alshain's set of friends. Two Slytherins and two Hufflepuffs. Not bad, inter-Houses friendships did tend to limit how enclosed in only one mindset you got.
Sirius' best friends had only been Gryffindors, but he'd gotten along with a variety of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, and had been able to hold a conversation with anyone in Slytherin who didn't go further than "misguided" in the notebook he'd been keeping to keep track of other students.
And, now that he thought about it, neither of the two girlfriends he'd had before Azkaban had been in Gryffindor. Larita had been a Ravenclaw – Sirius wondered how she was doing, maybe he should try to find out – and Amara a Hufflepuff.
Thinking about Amara sent a jolt of unease and pain to his chest, so he stopped.
Eleanor had gone to Slytherin. The point remained.
Focusing back on Alshain:
"Who are your friends?"
The boy gave him an uncertain look – probably as uneasy as Sirius as to what to say during this first meeting. At least the subject of friends was safe enough.
"Lucina O'Brien and Monisha Divekar. Abel Denholm is Lucina's friend, and the other boy is Hugo Hogan. Accrington was being mean because his parents are muggles and he didn't really know how to use a broom, so..."
Alshain didn't seem to know where to go from there.
Sirius frowned. He knew the name Accrington – Coriander had been older than him by a few years, but Isidore was Regulus' age.
He turned to his brother.
"Accrington? Weren't you in the same group as the younger brother?"
Regulus nodded.
"Yes, I was. Slytherin, group B. Mum didn't mind Isidore, but he wasn't exactly old blood in the paternal line, so she was usually happier if I spent time with Perseus Carrow or Obsidian Thomas."
Sirius snapped his fingers.
"Right. And he married Freydis Rowle in 82."
Which explained a lot, if the Accrington Alshain was talking about was their child and Sirius was to believe Eleanor on the subject of her cousin – not that he had any reason not to believe her.
"Suspicions of death-eaterism" were sadly not enough to simply arrest someone – you had to at least be found in the middle of a blown-up street after having been accused in public by your "victim" before the absence of hard evidence could be brushed aside, as evidenced by past facts – even if your kid went around harassing muggleborns.
Regulus was looking at him weirdly.
"What?"
"How do you know that? You were in Azkaban in 1982."
"I didn't have much to do except read books and catch up on old blood gossip through the previous issues of the Daily Prophet for the last year. Did you know Elise Zabini remarried six times after Tyrell Shacklebolt was poisoned? There's some wild speculation that her second husband did it to get her attention and she avenged Shacklebolt by creating the accident that killed him exactly one year later. Now all seven of her husbands are dead, she had two children with two of them, and it's still a mystery as to what exactly happened to three of them."
The look Regulus gave him was telling – don't talk about that in front of the kid, Sirius!
He gave his brother a contrite look, but you couldn't say he hadn't proved that he'd read way too many headlines and articles while confined to Grimmauld Place.
Well, he'd done that, and he'd drunk a lot – Sirius hadn't trusted himself not to go out and try to help if something happened even though the Ministry had still been looking for him, but he also had enough sense not to go on a battlefield impaired, so, logical outcome, get drunk and remove the temptation. It had worked well enough, actually.
Of course, Harry had gone to the Department of Mysteries on one of the very few days he'd actually been entirely sober – because Remus had been concerned and had staged an intervention. So there went that plan.
...He wasn't exactly complaining about the results, though he'd have done without dying and tying himself to Bellatrix's ghost for the rest of his life.
"Ah, well. Take care of your friends, and they'll take care of you. I'll be leaving you two alone, I think your dad has some things to tell you. I'll try to come back soon, get to really know you."
Sirius turned around, looking over the training fields – he'd sent a second year to fetch Harry as they'd made their way here. No one yet – but father and son needed to talk, especially as the brothers hadn't been overly discreet in the fact that Regulus did remember his past, now.
As Sirius wandered away, Regulus sighed.
Madam Hooch was about done with organizing the flying equipment, her wand out and tapping on the big broomsticks rack, which immediately started disappearing – it looked like a vanishing spell of higher complexity, as trying to vanish magical objects demanded to take precautions not to have one of the enchantments react negatively. That, and if you wanted to actually vanish anything bigger than an apple to an exact location – vanished things didn't actually disappear, not for long – and weren't a transfiguration prodigy, you'd better have the destination marked with a Raidho rune.
She wouldn't take long before leaving. The children had all gone back to the castle, except for three older kids who'd started playing around with their broomsticks, but they were at the other end of the training grounds.
For Regulus' purpose, he and his son were effectively alone right now.
They sat down on an old bench where children would usually look at their friends try and fail at complicated broom figures.
Alshain wasn't looking at him.
Regulus cleared his throat, ill-at-ease.
"How... How were your first three days?"
The boy shrugged.
"Alright. I'm not very good at Charms."
"You've had one charms lesson. I'm not sure you can judge your skills in charms with one lesson."
Especially as the first lesson of any class was generally more than half theory, and even then most children didn't actually understand much of what they were supposed to be doing, no matter if it was one of the easiest spells in existence.
"We were supposed to make a whirligig turn without wind and without touching it, and when Mustaq asked if it was true that you are a Death Eater, my whirligig crumbled like old paper."
Regulus sucked in a harsh breath – it wasn't about charms class, was it?
Nevermind. This was exactly what he'd decided to talk to Alshain about, so at least he didn't have to find a way to bring the conversation around to what needed to be said.
"...I was."
Alshain didn't look up, didn't react at all, so his father continued.
"What you want to know... Yes, I was a Death Eater. For about two years, from sixteen to eighteen years old."
Perfect age to make life-changing decisions, like joining a group of civilian fighters – regardless of the legitimacy of the fight itself. Late teens always thought they knew everything better than anyone else and that they should be allowed to act like adults.
Sometimes they were right.
Most times they weren't.
Regulus wondered when exactly his brother had joined the Order of the Phoenix – it was an open secret, these days, much more than the vague rumors he'd started hearing in 1979, amongst the Death Eaters.
He'd likely been older than sixteen. Not by much, of course, now that Regulus could look at it as a thirty-five-year-old father, but still.
Sixteen! He was more than twice that age, now. He'd spent nearly half his life as Cadfael White.
"Sirius and me... Our childhood wasn't like yours, not at all. Your grandparents weren't exactly... effusive, but they had some very clear expectations as to who their children were supposed to be. We were pureblooded, and that meant... Well. Mostly what you saw from Accrington, I guess, though with more manners. It wasn't polite to taunt or cuss at muggleborns, but the sentiment was the same. They shouldn't be there, you see, they weren't like us. You could tolerate halfbloods, and muggleborns to a point, but you weren't supposed to mingle. And..."
Regulus swallowed – nothing, or perhaps the stupid ideas that had been going through his head at sixteen, the way he remembered them but now had a hard time even comprehending how it'd felt to think such things. How it had felt right – how ashamed he'd been as he'd realized he wasn't made for doing "what's necessary, Regulus, you should know that".
"...And if that meant reminding the populace of their real place with gruesome means, well. That was a necessity. No one wanted another muggleborn Minister for Magic to be elected, honestly. Not amongst a great many purebloods, at least."
Lucius certainly had taken example on his father on that point – doing whatever he could to remind the rabble that they weren't, and shouldn't expect to be, at the top of the food chain. Minister Nobby Leach's mysterious illness and the smear campaign on his every acts were Malfoy senior's ways – making any muggleborn who'd gotten a promotion disappear or be perceived as inadequate and dangerous to associate with wasn't much of a leap, really.
"When you're always told, by everyone you care about, people who have no reason to lie to you, that something is true and right and you have to defend it... Most people don't question it. Not enough to be convinced otherwise, at least. And you don't even think that they could be wrong, either. They are your parents, your family, your friends. You trust them. Why wouldn't you?"
Alshain slowly looked up – and this time, it was Regulus who didn't seem all that present.
Like the past was just there, a shade or two further in, and he wanted – wanted to reach out, to get some of it back – but it was a bad idea in all respects and he knew it.
"So your parents told you muggleborns should all die, and you just... believed them?"
His father snorted.
Before Alshain could ask what was so funny, the wizard shook his head and replied bitterly:
"That's not how it starts, for most of us. Even blood purists don't generally teach their children to eliminate all the 'dirty-blooded' rabble. No, what you learn is that you have more of a right than halfbloods and muggleborns to be there, that magic is yours and so should be its world. That muggleborns can't really understand magic, perhaps that they are weaker at it, too. That they shouldn't be trusted with it, because they can't know what they're really doing. You are a pureblood, you know better, you should get to decide."
It wasn't even that weird of a belief, in truth. A lot of muggleborns – and even some halfbloods, since they took some of their knowledge from their muggle relatives and experience – had wrong ideas about how the wizarding world should work, because they were making comparisons with things in the muggle world that were not, in fact, comparable.
When Regulus had only been "Cadfael", he'd wondered why no one was working harder at integrating technology and magic – but Regulus Black, him, knew the answer. Some witches and wizards specialized in technomagic adaptation – or else the Knight Bus wouldn't exist and there would be no camera working inside Hogwarts, nor would there be moving photographs – and made a fortune with their work, but it took a lot of time to find ways to enchant mechanisms without impairing their workings. There was generally something like three decades before a sure, safe way to enchant a new technology could be introduced on the market – and that, when someone bothered with looking for it. If there already was a magical equivalent available...
The House of Sykes kept itself afloat by financing it all, and was the reason Regulus knew about it. There had been talks of him and Maude Sykes spending more time together in his sixth year – and less than a year later, Rodolphus had been saying they might perform a terror strike against Sykes' Muggled Solutions, because purebloods shouldn't dabble in muggle creations.
But the average witch or wizard didn't know about that, and all some saw was that there were no computers or neon lights, which had to mean no one cared about muggle technology.
Just like sixteen-year-olds thought they knew everything.
The problem was that the same thing was true on the other side. A lot of purebloods had simplistic ideas about the world they lived in too – but they didn't believe they did, because their entire family history was wizarding and therefore they knew better, didn't they?
"Then you start seeing muggleborns and halfbloods getting higher jobs, being considered the same as you, and you think, this is wrong, it will collapse on itself when they can't really do the job, and it is your world that will disappear because they are, of course, incompetent, because they don't understand, because they never will."
In second year, Regulus had had to do a transfiguration assignment with Constance Reedham and Luke Harbinger. Harbinger was one of the rare muggleborns in Slytherin, and Regulus could remember thinking he wasn't doing that bad a job despite being born a muggle, so he could tolerate working with him – since the other boy was apparently not a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Now that he could look at it objectively, Harbinger had been a moderately gifted student – his overall grades weren't awe-worthy, but he passed most of his classes and didn't have a hard time selecting the subjects he'd keep working on after his OWLs.
By fifth year, Regulus wouldn't have been caught speaking with his classmate for anything else than passing along school information – Slughorn wants to talk to you, no runes class next Thursday, that kind of things. It hadn't even been a conscious decision – he'd just stopped thinking Harbinger's thoughts could have any worth for anything of his concern.
He had been unimpressed when he'd overheard his classmate say he wanted to try and work for the Ministry, in seventh year. The idea that someone else was certainly better suited for the position, someone who would know what they were doing, had been there in the back of his mind. He'd been concerned, even, that Harbinger would get the job he wanted and make a mess of things.
"Then someone, someone you know, someone you trust, someone tells you you could do something about it, something to protect your world. Manipulation and murders and terror aren't presented as goals, but as means to make sure everything will stay the same, that muggleborns won't have the chance to try and wrench everything you know into an abomination of what they call progress, of what you know is a mistake."
It had been Bellatrix, of course – and behind her, Evan Rosier and Rabastan Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy and so many others he knew, second and third cousins and in-laws and older slytherin students who'd helped him with homework a couple of times. Not necessarily all Death Eaters, but all convinced the Dark Lord was in the right.
They believed they were right and he had no reason to doubt them. The logical continuation to years of indoctrination.
"So you ask: 'what can I do?', and then it's too late."
Especially if you were a prized recruit, pureblooded and from an influential family, with a solid grasp on magic and interesting results in school.
Regulus didn't have anything to add to that – he could go on, of course, about what had happened after, during the year and a half he'd spent funneling intel about his classmates' families, passing messages and experimenting with dark magic in a way only a Black could hope to survive unscathed. But the point of this had been to explain what had led him there, how his son's father could have believed it had all been for the best, back then.
Alshain was looking at him, confounded. Trying to imagine all those thoughts when he hadn't been educated that way, perhaps.
His son bit his lower lip, unsure of what to ask, of what to say.
"But... If that's... I mean, your brother didn't believe it, him, no?"
Someone had done some reading – or gossiping – about Sirius' trial, then. Because the last time Alshain had heard about his uncle, he hadn't known the prisoner accused of mass murder was his father's brother.
Regulus looked at the sky – almost no clouds, blue sky, and light everywhere, as if people weren't being murdered somewhere right this instant.
"I'm not trying to say there weren't signs, things I ignored but which revealed I was in the wrong. I just want you to understand how... how you can start with a belief and end up with a more extreme one if everyone around you believes the same as you do. If you ask your classmates in Slytherin, I'm sure some of them do believe being pureblooded is better without acting like Accrington does. Maybe they don't despise muggleborns and disagree with murdering them all, but they still think some jobs shouldn't be given to them because they won't ever believe they could efficiently do the work. Maybe they'd agree to give a muggleborn such a job, but only after that person proved themselves time and time again when a pureblood would only need to prove themselves once."
Thinking about Sirius and how he hadn't fallen into that trap reminded Regulus of the notebook he'd once seen open on his brother's desk back home.
Sirius had classified the other Hogwarts students into seven groups, ranging from "blood extremists", "blood snobs" and "assholes" to "misguided", "tolerable" and "neutral", with the solitary group of "great" in the very last pages. Some people were on more than one page, and a lot of Slytherins had ended up in the first three categories. Occasionally you'd see struck-through names that had been moved to another group as time passed, with notes.
He'd found his name crossed out in the "misguided" pages, and moved to the "blood snobs" ones, same as Narcissa. From "Regulus" to "Regulus Black". At the time, he'd been vaguely irritated without really knowing why, except that Sirius was once again able to adequately judge people and yet didn't seem to understand that it wasn't snobbery, just the way things should be.
"Anyway. That's what happened for me. I don't recommend it. And you should be careful, too. The entire House isn't like that, far from it, but it's the only House where it's... easy... to fall into that trap. Gryffindors are much more vocal and unyielding about what they believe right, so if one of them starts having ideas of blood purity everyone knows to be careful with the things they are saying. Hufflepuffs don't care much about principles, in general, but they especially dislike when one of their own is attacked, no matter the person's personal beliefs or qualities. Ravenclaws are argumentative, to say the least, so while some might develop... controversial beliefs... there will always be someone to challenge them in their worldview, which might not convince them otherwise, but at least onlookers will hear both sides of the debate. Slytherin... In Slytherin, there will always be people who don't argue, not because they don't disagree, but because they don't think the advantages surpass the disadvantages. So in the end you don't really know what anyone is thinking, and you can't reason against the vague feelings you get from them. If everyone around you thinks along the same lines, you get used to the results, even if you might disagree with the logic behind it, were you given a chance to think about it."
That, and there were also twice as many purebloods in Slytherin than in any other Houses, due to the general upbringing in old families, so you had more chances to find blood purists there.
Now, as to Alshain's original question:
"Sirius... You see, my brother got Sorted in Gryffindor, to everyone's surprise, so that was one less influence he had to deal with on a daily basis. But even before that... Even when we were younger, Sirius didn't trust what people told him, even if those people were our parents. He wanted a complete explanation, and didn't like it when adults provided shortcut answers. I guess he noticed a lot of... inconsistencies... that the adults had gotten used to when they were younger, and he simply reached different conclusions when he tried to make sense of what he'd been told. As he grew older, though, he started being able to guess what was going on behind everyone's prejudices, he stopped asking 'Why?' and started saying 'No.'. Like a normal teenager, he got... angry... about it, and things got worse with the family. After a time, he just... left."
Unlike a normal teenager, though, Sirius had chosen to act on his anger by aggressively stalking – like a predator making rounds – anyone he considered to be abusing others – and that had happened to be mostly Slytherins, for reasons obvious, while at school. Perhaps too aggressively, at times.
You could, Regulus guess, argue that it wasn't, maybe, the most effective way to end bigotry – that you had to teach them, to show that no, they were wrong. But at the same time, Sirius hadn't owed those people anything. Not a second chance, not consideration, not when they were putting others in danger. Between rehabilitation and intimidation, he'd chosen the second one.
Against Slytherins and for the sake of their victims, it might be a more efficient tactic, all things considered. If the cost of being assholes was too high – like having Sirius Black breathing down your neck constantly – a lot of snakes would rather stop being assholes in public. Not all of them, of course, but a lot. And if being in the wrong environment could change you without your agreement, so could being forced to act more civilly.
Regulus didn't know if he'd rather have a student using that strategy at Hogwarts today, or someone more comprehending. It depended, he guessed, on where Alshain would be standing in that scenario. If his son had been the one doing the initial bullying or if he was one of the initial victims.
There wasn't one single answer, obviously.
The war out there was the same, in the end. Sirius could deal with the battlefield and frightening the more impressionable Death Eaters – those who were like Regulus had been, if he were to be honest with himself – but there had to be something Regulus could do, too. Something different.
The things Sirius didn't, perhaps.
For that – for now – he had to finish this conversation with Alshain; about his erased dark mark and the need to keep it a secret, about the fact that he was still hiding his past from everyone else, about the things the boy couldn't go around telling everyone about.
"I have a lot to tell you, don't I? Almost... Eighteen years of it, I guess."