Regulus watched his brother's back as he boarded the Hogwarts Express. It reminded him of the Thieves' Downfall at Gringotts bank. A subtle thing - perhaps the position of his shoulders, the way he held his head. The walk, the confidence and the beaming grin that met him when Sirius turned around and offered his hand when he realised Regulus had waited a moment too long to follow.
Regulus took the hand and pulled himself up onto the train, bracing himself before he passed through the same transformative veil.
The noise changed - the loud chatter and crashing of trolleys from the platform became muffled by the walls of the narrowed car - he squinted as the bright sunlight streaming from the glass roof of the platform was dimmed - but he remained the same. Regulus shook himself, just a little, to see if he could encourage the change to come. Whatever coated him that made him tense and watchful - the same mysterious shroud that Sirius seemed to have escaped - stubbornly clung to him.
More children climbed on behind him and he was forced forward into the gaggle of students. Sirius was ahead of him, his attention on someone in front of him that Regulus couldn't see. He watched as they lunged at each other, embracing like long-lost brothers - tighter and more excitedly even, than their own reunion at the start of the holidays. A compartment door opened to his right and two familiar faces beckoned him in. He cast a final glance to Sirius and the strange boy. The bodies of the older children around him were swallowing them up, preventing him from having to dwell on the betrayal for much longer. Regulus slipped gratefully into Rodolphus and Rabastan's compartment, tugging his trunk behind him.
There were three other boys in there that Regulus had never seen before. A tall black boy with watchful eyes, a ginger who was fidgeting in his seat in a way that would have infuriated his mother, and a dark haired boy who smiled at Regulus in acknowledgement, before going back to his conversation with Rodolphus.
"Reg, this is Lennox Mulciber, he's in my year," Rabastan introduced him to the fidgeting ginger who grinned and threw out a hand for him to shake. "Lennox, this is Regulus Black - the better Black, some may say." He winked and Regulus quickly looked away to avoid having to acknowledge the strange compliment.
"This here is Ethan Avery - don't know if you've met the family?" Regulus shook his head and took the offered hand of the older dark haired boy. He had a very careful way about him, measured and precise. He had heard plenty of the Averys from his parents' dinner table talk, but had never met them.
"Over there with Roddy is Seth Hunter - he has a little brother - Angus - who will be in your year." Regulus nodded at Seth to acknowledge the introduction, but didn't interrupt the conversation of the older boys.
"Where is Angus?" he asked Rabastan, looking for something to talk about that would have nothing to do with Sirius.
"He went to sit with Crouch and Hassan. You've met Crouch?"
Regulus shook his head. He was well aware of the family, and knew they had a young son, but their families weren't in quite the same circles. Despite being proudly pureblood, he often noticed (especially when talking to the Lestrange brothers) that they socialised with their fellow wizarding pure blood families much less than others. In fact, the only reason he had been to the Malfoy's manor house was because Narcissa and Lucius were courting. He was quite sure he was about to come face-to-face with how isolated they were compared to the other sacred twenty-eight families.
"Well, since your brother will be little help introducing you, what do you say to Roddy and I showing you around?"
Rabastan was quite sincere. That was the strange thing about Rabastan. Though Regulus could feel his sense of superiority, born from his connections and slight age advantage, he was more than willing to share it all. It stung to have him acknowledge the empty space where Sirius should be, but there was a kindness there that he'd be unfair to dismiss.
"You don't have to-" it was half-hearted and more out of politeness than anything else.
"Don't be ridiculous, Reg, it's my pleasure."
Welcomed earnestly by the older boys, Sirius eventually left his mind and a fresh wave of Hogwarts fantasies bloomed, untainted by their distance. In place of his brother, were the boys before him and those they spoke highly of, together in the common room and grounds, unsupervised and giddy with freedom. He could have it all.
He didn't see Sirius for the rest of the day. He crossed the lake with his fellow first years - sharing a boat with a curly-haired girl he didn't know - and stood sandwiched between a nervous boy with ratty looking muggle shoes and a tall blonde girl who was chatting at lightning speed with the person behind her while they waited for the Sorting to start. If he really strained his memory, he was quite sure this was the first time he would be away from the firm, guiding hand of his mother - entrusted to make the good and proper choice even when it was entirely his choice to make.
He thanked the stars for the birth year of Allen, Noel who saved him from being the first for The Sorting. Undoubtedly, Sirius was amongst the mass of faces at the four tables below, but it was far too unnerving to acknowledge them all. Instead, he stared determinedly at the floor on his way to the stool and shut his eyes once he'd sat down.
And here was the first choice, but when it came to it, his free will seemed to have shrivelled up and died. Fate could decide which path he'd go down. It was too much responsibility for him to bear.
Rabastan's excited waving cut through the confusing mess of noise and movement as the hat was lifted and he followed it like a beacon. It wasn't long before he was joined by the aforementioned Barty Crouch, Angus Hunter and Hussaina Hassan, along with the curly haired girl he'd shared a boat with, who was called Ainsley Sinclair, and another girl, Jessica Smith. He busied himself with his dinner and watched them all out of the corner of his eye, knowing for sure their names would be gone from his memory by the time he was up the next morning. Still, these would be the kin with which he would share the next seven years of his life. He would never admit it out loud, but Rabastan's guiding hand was much appreciated. More than he could have hoped for, he was in, nestled safely in the familiarity of friends of friends and of vague familiarity. Gryffindor could never give him this.
Dearest Regulus,
Your father and I are, of course, very proud to hear of your sorting. Be sure to take this opportunity to be amongst the offspring of some of the most respected and talented witches and wizards of our age - this is where you belong. You share a dormitory and classes with young Bartemius Crouch, whose father may one day become the Minister for Magic.
We heard the news through the Lestranges, but in future, I would appreciate hearing directly from you. Do not let your connection to family slip away because of physical distance. As you're quite aware, familial ties are everything.
In the same vein, since your brother has decided he values foolishness over family, I advise you to be careful. I trust that you are sensible, and know the proper way to behave, but see that he does not try to pull you into the mud with the dirty blooded ruffians he has decided are worth his time and attention.
Let me not tar this letter with any more of your brother's idiocy. Continue to make us proud - we will be pleased to hear from Professor Slughorn of your achievements in his potions class.
We await your reply.
Yours sincerely,
Mother.
There were a few boys that Rabastan spent his time with (and to his credit, had introduced Regulus to at the first opportunity) but Regulus had little interest telling one from the other.
Of course, he knew Lennox - the orange hair was unmistakable from the Hogwarts Express - but the rest were a general blur of dark-haired older boys that were interchangeable in his mind. Occasionally, his attention would be pulled towards them by either a loud laugh, or conspiratorial whispering, but on the whole he let them be. His own classmates were enough to be getting on with.
Bartemius Crouch was good company, generally. He was quick witted and easygoing in a way that reminded him somewhat of Sirius. His knack for picking up spellwork and effortless charm were certainly a match. His only complaint with Barty was the strange chemical reaction that seemed to occur whenever he was mixed with Angus Hunter.
Like a swelling solution and a firework, it was a messy and generally upsetting combination. Angus seemed to bring out a certain deranged excitement in Barty, and Barty a devious scheming nature in Angus that when combined, resulted in destruction, detention and a throbbing headache for Regulus.
The girls were slightly less troublesome, but two of them were half blood and it was too difficult to remember which, so he wrote off the four of them, just to make it easier.
Whenever they were available in the common room, he found it easier to gravitate towards his older cousins instead. Similarly to many larger family occasions at home, they were content to let him read or complete homework in their vicinity while they chatted over his head. The conversation topics of Narcissa and Henrietta Bulstrode were much more interesting than anything he'd previously half listened to.
Narcissa had a lot to say about the Malfoys' son which Regulus would rather not hear, but occasionally there would be an interesting morsel for him to save for later. Often, that meant asking Barty - since Barty seemed to know everything.
Apparently he had found the edge of Crouch's knowledge.
"How am I supposed to know what mark Black's boyfriend has - I'm not sharing a bed with them-"
"Don't be disgusting, Barty."
"Maybe she means some birthmark on his arse?"
Regulus rolled his eyes. "Why would she tell Bulstrode that? Besides, it wasn't that kind of conversation-"
"You don't know anything about girls, Reg, how would you know what Black and Bulstrode talk about up in their dorm? Bet Bully Henry knows all about Malfoy's arse cheeks-"
"I'm going to ask someone else, you're foul."
Thankfully, Lucius Malfoy's arsecheeks were pushed out of his mind by an unexpected summons from Rabastan's weirdest friend. He stood and walked as though his head were too heavy, causing his dark hair that was long overdue a cut to fall over his face. Regulus sat up straighter just looking at him - he could almost feel the ghost of his mother's hand pulling his shoulders back.
"Black, correct?"
He could not have sounded more disinterested. Regulus closed his book out of politeness and nodded. "You're a friend of Rabastan, am I right?"
The older boy looked at him hard for a few seconds, before cracking a thin lipped smile that Regulus suspected was sarcastic.
"I suppose. I have a message for you."
Regulus raised his eyebrows expectantly. He could feel Bellatrix's eyes boring into the side of his head from the other end of the room.
"Your brother is asking after you - he wants to see you."
Regulus looked away, immediately soured now that he was forced to think of the one person he had been avoiding. Like a boggart, it was sometimes easier to not acknowledge the amorphous mass of unactualised fear than to stare into the tangled mess and face it for certain.
"Is that all?" He didn't look at Rabastan's friend, but took his receding footsteps to be confirmation.
He stayed where he was as the evening grew later, feeling Bellatrix's eyes on him, like a finger holding down a spring. What she would think, or do, if he were to explode out from under her hold was a mystery to him. He was hardly frightened of her reaction - more the case that his action would solidify reality. Too much responsibility.
His eyelids were drooping by the time the gaggle of older girls stood, stretched and moved towards the girls' dormitory corridor. On their way past, a cool hand squeezed his shoulder fondly.
"No need to study so late into the night, Reg. Your brother's set expectations nice and low for you." She snorted at her own comment and caught up with her friends, closing the door behind her so he could enact his disobedience in privacy.
He didn't spend another night in the Gryffindor common room. He suspected that Sirius might have expected, even wanted him to - reenacting those nights at home where Regulus would climb up onto his older brother's bed and they would chat into the night. The problem was, it was nice while it lasted, but the walk back into the snake pit left him with an odd squirming in his stomach and the urge to hide his face from his classmates.
It was in fear of disturbing the riverbed of shame and embarrassment again that he avoided even making eye contact with his brother all through the third of November and instead threw himself into the waiting arms of Barty, Angus and Hussaina - screaming and excitedly waving at the quidditch match instead. He watched Gideon Prewett and Grace McNair with eager, hungry eyes as they darted through the rain like hummingbirds, flitting in and out of sight. Out of the spotlight until the final, perfect, all or nothing moment - all eyes on them for the do or die.
He looked the other way on the way back to the castle, pretending he didn't see Rodolphus breathing down the neck of Severus' favourite mudblood.
He looked the other way when Sirius tried to catch his eye in the Great Hall, he looked the other way when they passed in the corridors, and he looked the other way when his brother's friends not-so-subtly pointed him out to each other and he kept his eyes firmly on his book when his older cousins spoke just loud enough for him to hear what latest nonsense his brother and his foolish friends were up to.
He was finally cornered outside of his potions classroom by his now thirteen year old brother, tugging him into an alcove with surprising subtlety.
"Still in for Christmas?" he asked, a nervous smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. Regulus' eyes were drawn to it like a flickering light.
The promise made over three months ago felt like it had been made by a different person that shared his name and face. Still, a promise was a promise and he dug out his best smile for Sirius - trying his best to stuff it full of agreeance, apology, regret and promise rather than root around and find the words he'd need to right the wrongs he'd committed over the past few weeks.
He carefully wrote his own name down on the Slytherin common room parchment, hoping that he wouldn't be spending the two weeks alone with Severus Snape.
On the anticipated morning of the twenty-first, he woke slowly, listening to the rummaging and clattering of Barty and Angus packing the last of their belongings before their trunks would be summoned to Slughorn's office. It took less than ten minutes for them to devolve into lighthearted bickering and Regulus lay there, feigning sleep, patiently waiting for the sweet promise of privacy.
Apparently having clocked quite easily that Regulus couldn't possibly be sleeping through their nonsense, he was startled by Barty abruptly pulling his hangings back and grinning down at him.
"See you next year, Black!"
Regulus squinted up at his dorm-mate through the bright winter light and waited for his brain to catch up so he could offer a weak 'merry Christmas, Crouch' to his retreating back.
He stood under the shower for an absurd amount of time, well aware that there was no Kreacher to tell him his breakfast was waiting for him and that there were not other smelly eleven year olds waiting behind him. He stood before the old, age spotted mirror in the boys' bathroom and carefully combed his damp hair down. Without Barty to tease him, he could make sure he looked somewhat respectable.
Down at breakfast, the four house tables had seemingly been replaced with just one long, beautifully decorated table where the remaining children sat, mixed between ages and houses. He spotted Sirius sat neatly at the end, a plate and open book both in front of him. Severus sat much further down in a similar stance, though as usual his posture was abysmal.
He took the space next to his brother, making enough noise so as not to startle him from his book.
"Transfiguration?" he asked, nodding to the thick text. Sirius marked his page and put it to one side.
"My favourite." He smirked. An old but well worn memory of Sirius transfiguring a thimble into a horrifyingly lifelike severed thumb, much to seven year old Regulus' horrified amusement, resurfaced for him to enjoy.
They sat in silence for a few minutes as Regulus picked at the available breakfast options and tried to eavesdrop on Professor Slughorn and Professor McGonagall's conversation. Regulus could feel Sirius fidgeting in his seat beside him and knew he was searching frantically for a conversation. It was strange. Now that their lives were more different, he would have thought they would have had much more to talk about, but somehow the opposite was true.
"I see Snape's staying again." Apparently Sirius had settled on gossip. Regulus glanced down the table again at his housemate, dipping toast in soft boiled eggs and flicking through his book.
"He stayed last year?"
"Indeed. Seems he's not wanted home or away. Is he as much an oddball in your house as he is in the corridors? I've yet to learn what Evans sees in him."
Regulus thought it was rather bold of Sirius to insinuate that another boy was wanted neither at home, nor in Slytherin, but chose not to comment on it.
"Is Evans the ginger one?"
"The very same."
Now jealous of Snape's breakfast, he gestured for Sirius to pass him an egg.
"She was outside the common room a few weeks ago, looking for Snape," Regulus supplied, not quite as adept at gossip as Sirius and his mother were, but willing to give it a go. "Asked us to fetch him for her."
"You did?" Sirius' eyebrows disappeared into his fringe and Regulus rolled his eyes.
"I returned the favour, of course. Because I'm a gentleman."
Sirius snorted in derision and Regulus had to discard his egg.
"Don't know why you're laughing. I thought Gryffindor was all about chivalry and such."
"I'm laughing because you can't call yourself a gentleman if you're not even five feet tall."
His cheeks were hot and he dug frantically in his mind for a valid retort and, coming up with nothing, he kicked Sirius' leg under the table. Something bubbled up in his stomach again, but instead of the usual shameful regret, he couldn't hold back a self-satisfied smirk and the relief that he hadn't pushed his brother out entirely.
Their chatter came much more easily after that. The Quidditch tryouts, the last match, their lessons and homework, housemates and imagining what stuffy nonsense Rabastan and Rodolphus were being forced to endure at home over Christmas. As much as he did miss his own room, Kreacher cracking his door open in the morning to wake him and the comforting sound of the piano echoing up the staircases, he was glad to have kept his promise from over the Summer.
They parted ways for the morning, both intending to battle through the majority of their holiday homework in the first few days so they could enjoy the break in peace. Regulus hadn't realised how much the footsteps and conversations of hundreds of children added to the atmosphere of Hogwarts. The silent hallways had an eerie quality that wasn't helped by the long, unusual shadows that the flames of the dungeon torches cast across suits of armour. He hurried out of the flickering hallways, back into the safety of the Slytherin common room with a little less decorum than he would have liked. It appeared thankfully deserted at first, before he spotted Snape in the far corner, his head still in his book.
None of the other second years had stayed, and there were no other Snapes that he was aware of (quite certain Rabastan would have at least mentioned in his comprehensive introductions). Surely he wasn't planning to read his book the whole two weeks.
"Can I help you?"
The same bored voice that had told him that his brother was looking for him, but Snape hadn't even looked up from his book. How rude.
"Well, not particularly. But it's only us and a girl staying back over Christmas, isn't it?"
"Sathyan is staying, yes."
Regulus scowled to himself. Snape wasn't biting. He made his way around the furniture to where the older boy was taking advantage of an ornate banker's lamp illuminating the shadowy corner.
"Won't you be bored?" he asked, spurred by a burst of boldness to pull out a nearby chair for himself.
"Fortunately, only idiots become bored. Ask your brother."
"You're rude."
"You're annoying. Go and trouble someone else."
Regulus scowled and crossed his arms over the back of the chair.
"I will not. Besides, there's no one else to trouble. I'm not an idiot, by the way. I'm in Slytherin, aren't I?"
Snape glanced up from his book for the first time since they'd started talking. He raised a single eyebrow at him and Regulus held his stare until the older boy smirked.
"Got something interesting to bother me with, then?" he asked, closing his book and giving Regulus his full attention. Regulus had been expecting the leather cover of a textbook, but instead, it seemed that Snape had been reading a jotter.
"Is that the book you were reading at breakfast?"
Severus glanced down at the cover. Regulus followed his gaze. He couldn't make out the writing on the cover, but it certainly didn't say Severus Snape.
"None of your business. Next question."
"Why did the ginger Gryffindor girl want you the other week?" He knew he was being cheeky, but hopefully it wouldn't get back to anyone that mattered. He had the sneaking suspicion that Snape was a half-blood.
"Certainly none of your business. Last chance."
Regulus thought for a moment, quite enjoying playing along with Snape's little game. It reminded him somewhat of getting on his brother's last nerve and being told he was only allowed one more question before they went to sleep.
"Is it true that you split some Gryffindor kid's lip and broke his nose last year?"
Snape grinned, showing his slightly crooked incisors. There it was. Just like with Sirius, he'd found the vein of coal that would make him go back on his word and keep him talking all night.
"Who told you that?"
"Stan," Regulus admitted, smiling smugly. "So, is it?"
"You should ask your brother - it was his friend."
This was news to Regulus. Many a story of the Gryffindor boys' adventures had been regaled to him over the Summer, but none of Severus Snape doing a number on his good friend's face. He wondered, then began to secretly hope, that it was the same friend who his brother had flung himself upon on the first of September.
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A/N
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Hey, thank you so much for reading and major thank you to the couple of people who have kindly left comments on this fic even though can be a bit of a quiet wasteland from time to time - James Birdsong and TwoToTango, you've really given me little bursts of delight when writing this fic!
This chapter was so hard for some reason! I seem to have had to wrestle with Reg all the way through, but we got there in the end.
Not sure if we'll have a bit of Sirius next, or jump straight to Peter, but either way, see you soon and thanks again for reading and reviewing.
~BS