Chapter 1 - A Certain Romance
September 1972
Walburga fusses over Regulus’ hair excessively, not because she cares about him. But because she cares about their reputation. Sirius leans up against the wall of the platform, rolling his eyes at Regulus.
It’s his first year at Hogwarts, Sirius’ second, and apparently his brother is going to introduce him to his friends. Not that Regulus wants to meet the people who robbed Sirius of his mind. Also the reasons that Sirius’ punishments have worsened this summer, so, Regulus thinks, Sirius is stupid for staying friends with them when they’re the reason that he’s getting hurt more by their parents.
In short, Regulus does not approve of being forced into meeting ‘The Marauders’ - as Sirius had called them, which Regulus thinks, is the stupidest and most ridiculous name for a group. Like ever.
“Reghan,” his mother breaks his train of thought, “You are to come home for the holidays. Write if you would like to discuss otherwise. Board the train with your brother and do not associate with those you should not be seen with.” Regulus nods. “Oui, maman.”
Sirius and him board the Hogwarts Express, which is a scarlet red steam engine with gold lettering on the front and on the side. Sirius looks in each carriage for his friends, finding them in like the hundredth one that that looked in. Sirius slides open the door and leans against the frame, “why hello, boys. Fancy seeing you all here,” immediately dropping his posh London accent.
“Sirius!” A boy with thin, round glasses grins up at him, then moves his bag from the seat beside him. “Who’s this?”
“This, lads, is my lovely friendly sister, Reggie. Say hello, Reggie.”
Regulus rolls his eyes, frowning at his older brother. “Reggie. Smile?” Regulus smiles sarcastically for a few seconds, before returning to his scowl. The boy with glasses smiles at him, “hi, Reggie. I’m James. This is Remus and Pete.”
“I know. Sirius hasn’t shut up about you all summer. And it’s Reghan.”
Sirius smacks him in the arm, “sois gentil,” then turns his attention to the others and sits down next to James, leaving Regulus standing awkwardly in the doorway. “Putain, où suis-je censé m'asseoir?” Regulus crosses his arms at his brother.
“Pars, si tu veux être un connard. Don’t know why I bother.” Regulus looks at Sirius, raising his eyebrows, “coq,” he mutters turning away.
“Wow, Sirius. You speak French? That’s so cool, Merlin. I wish i could speak another-“ Regulus hears one of them - probably Peter, Regulus doesn’t know his surname - before cutting him off by closing the door. He finds an empty carriage a few rows in front, setting his small crossbody bag next to him and pulling out one of the three books he brought in it.
“Oh, I love The Tombs of Atuan!” Regulus looks up, seeing a blonde girl in front of him, who’s opened the door. “Sorry, there’s no more carriages free, mind if I sit here?”
Regulus shakes his head, “of course.” He puts his book away, in attempt to be polite. She sits down opposite him, “I’m Pandora. Lovegood. You’re Regulus Black, aren’t you?” That makes Regulus freeze for a second, wondering how the actual fuck she knows that he’s called himself Regulus. “No, I’m Reghan, I don’t know who you’re talking about..?”
She nods, “it’s alright. I’m a seer, don’t worry.” Regulus let’s go of a breath that he didn’t realise he was holding. “Um, nice to meet you, Pandora.” They sit in silence for a moment before she pulls out red rectangle from her bag.
“KitKat?”
“What’s that?”
“Muggle chocolate,” she opens it up, unwrapping foil from it, then snapping it in half and offering one side to Regulus. He takes it, nibbling the side. “Oh, this is good. Where did you find this?”
She smiles, “Mum’s muggle-born, so I often get muggle sweets from her side of the family. My favourite’s Crème Egg. I’ve got some in my trunk. Hoping they’re not melting.” She laughs.
The train ride goes quickly with Pandora, she sort-of gets him? It’s confusing, he’s not really had friends before other than the girls that Walburga and Orión had made him befriend as they were in business with the parents. And she knows that he calls himself Regulus, so he kind-of can’t get rid of her now.
She doesn’t mind that he never makes eye contact, or repeats phrases that are nice to say. In fact, she doesn’t even think that it’s unusual, acting as though it’s normal to shake his hands. It’s sort of- nice? Instead of being berated for being weird by his parents - specifically his mother. Well, he’s never been told that by Sirius, but it’s unlikely that Sirius didn’t think it. Most people do. Sirius just never spoke out about it.
»»•««
When they arrive at Hogwarts, which is a beautiful castle-looking building that Regulus could see for a good ten minutes before getting there just because of its height. It’s dark at the platform, but a path is lit up. “First years, follow me! First years, over ‘ere!” An abnormally-tall man, with a beard covering most of his face and holding a lantern shouts over.
“Christ, he’s loud. Come on, Regulus,” Pandora pulls his arm towards the giant (maybe?). He looks around when they’ve claimed a standing point near. Regulus isn’t specifically looking for anyone, just viewing people coming out of the train. At some point, Sirius and his friends exit their carriage, all laughing and in conversation with each other. They lock eyes for a second, Sirius miming something that Regulus can’t quite make out.
They’re ushered into a cramped boat that was clearly only meant to fit two people but for some reason has four to a boat. Regulus is, unfortunately, sharing with the giant-man, but also with Pandora, and a boy who for some reason is in deep conversation with the giant-man.
He can hear talking from the Great Hall as all the first-years stand outside, being instructed by the deputy headmistress. She clearly says the same thing every year, as he’s heard the same speech from Sirius a few times when he was explaining the sorting ceremony. Regulus is expected to be in Slytherin by his family, but Ravenclaw would be their second choice. He’s thought to be in Gryffindor by Sirius, which Regulus knows will not happen but he hopes Sirius knows it to and he isn’t giving his brother false hope. Hufflepuff would be the worst, he wouldn’t be disowned but Regulus know that his family would be extremely embarrassed to have a Hufflepuff in the family.
So Slytherin or Ravenclaw are to hope for.
Apparently Professor McGonagall has finished talking as Regulus train of thought stops, the doors opening and a group of aggressively-excited eleven year olds are brought in.
“Alexander, Leonardo.” The first student is called up, and a dusty hat is put on his head by McGonagall. After a minute or two, the hate yells’ “Hufflepuff!” And a cheer is let out from one of the middle tables.
It goes on for a bit, six people called up before him. “Black, Reghan.” He stands up and walks up the few stairs to the platform, sitting on the wooden stool. The hat is placed on top of his head. Regulus thinks to himself, hopefully the people before him haven’t had lice, this hat doesn’t look like it’s been washed recently. Almost immediately, the hat shouts out, “Slytherin!” The table closest to the wall erupts in cheers and Regulus walks towards it, sitting next to a boy with greasy black hair that reaches his shoulders.
The ceremony continues, someone called Bartemius Crouch Jr - which Regulus thinks is a name that a parent could only give their son if they hated him - sits next to him, the table fills up around him. But throughout it, he feels Sirius’ eyes fall on him what could be hundreds of times.
»»•««
September 1975
“-Black! You absolute twit! Get back here!”
“If your goddamn dreams, Rosier!” Regulus sprints up to the Slytherin girls dorms, leaving Evan and Barty doing some sort of balance in which without someone to help them down, they’d both fall on top of each other. Not that Regulus thinks that’s a bad thing, they both have fancied each other for far too long without asking the other out. So Evan falling on Barty wouldn’t be the worst thing, in Regulus’ opinion.
Dorcas comes into the common room, looks at Barty and Evan, then laughs and pulls her camera out of her carry-on. She takes a photo just as Evan let’s go of the banister holding him up. “Oh, I am I so printing this out and making t-shirts!” Barty groans and Evan turns bright red.
Regulus starts to laugh, when the stairs underneath him give out, turning into a slide. “What the fu-u-uck?!” He slides down, landing with his knees up to his chin. Barty snorts, “looks like Dumbledore really has it out for you, Reg.”
“Yeah, and he decided to kick me out of my dorm, so I can’t sleep. Epic.”
“Maybe it’s The Marauders? They pulls pranks on us all the fucking time,” Evan suggests rubbing his elbow on which he fell. “Maybe.”
Barty grabs Regulus’ hand, and pulls his towards the boy’s dormitories. “You’re bunking with us tonight. We’ll send Collins and Joelson to the hospital wing, I’ve been wanting to try that new hex that turns someone’s nose and mouth into a beak.” Evan ‘ooo’s at Barty’s statement. Dorcas, the intelligent woman that she is, looks at Regulus winks, then says to Evan, “what about you and Barty share, then Reg can have your bed.”
Barty interrupts Evan’s brain freeze, “maybe not, I’ll just share with Reg.” Evan’s face falls, but he stays silent. “Alright, come on then.” Regulus walks up the stairs into the dormitory. It’s not different from the girl’s, but with no wall-length mirror on the wall and a huge AC/DC flag-mural that Regulus assumes Barty put up.
“Why’s there five beds..?” Barty slows his speech in confusion, “last year there was four.” He turns to Evan, who’s gone to the newest bed where there’s a trunk bed to it.
“Oi, Reg, your trunk.”
What?
Why?
When?
How?
Regulus’ thoughts go over and over again, on what in Salazar’s name is happening. Did Dumbledore do this? Or Slughorn? Or was it magic? Why is it this late into Hogwarts that he’s been moved to the boy’s dorms?
Then his smile falls.
Realising that this will eventually get back to his parents. Or worse, Sirius - because then he’s going to have to come out to his brother, who Regulus had hoped to leave behind in the past once he’d left Hogwarts.
Sirius has been ignoring him for at least three years now. After the sorting ceremony of 1972, Regulus had tried to talk to Sirius, to explain. But Sirius had decided to be extra annoying that day and started a grudge. So overtime, Regulus had started ignoring Sirius back.
This will definitely be reported to Walburga and Orión, either by another Slytherin, or even a teacher.
Shit, that’s absolutely amazing! Yay!
(Please kill him now so his parents don’t do it).
“Oh my God, we can build such a cool fort with three beds instead of two! We can have sleepovers! We can play monopoly!” Barty claps his hands rapidly, pulls Regulus closer to the beds. Evan turns and grins, “Barty, you’re so right! We could make a goddamn castle with three beds!”
Regulus rolls his eyes and sits down on his bed, contemplating the consequences of this. Should he start to unpack? Or should he wait until he’s an explanation from a teacher? Ultimately, he decides, it’s not going to be told to him tonight - and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get the courage to ask a teacher and explain to them why if it was the castle that kicked him out.
So he unpacks the things he needs for tonight and prays that nobody finds out where he was tonight and why. So he takes out his pijamas - which is actually an oversized Doctor Who shirt that Barty gave him last year -, wash things and his current read.
»»•««
Jacob Collins walks into the dormitory with Ryat Joelson next to him, he stops in his tracks. “Why the fuck is Black in here? And why the fuck is there an extra bed? Is she sleeping in here now?” He squares up Regulus. Barty and Evan point their wands at Jacob. He steps away, hands in the air in a sarcastic-surrender, “alright bros. Chill. Why’s she in here? She a tranny?”
Regulus rolls his eyes and stands up, pointing his wand at Collins, “Densaugeo.” His teeth start to grow quickly, down to his hips. “Arth-hole.”
Joelson looks at Collins and snorts, walking himself down near his own bed and starting to unpack his trunk. Regulus looks over at him, somehow unbothered that Regulus has moved into their dorm. Barty and Evan both keep their wands at Collins, “you fucking say that again, you die.” Barty spits on Collins’ shoes, who groans in disgust.
“Alright! What music are we fancying? I’ve got AD/DC, Genesis, and, um, Blondie,” Evan picks his vinyls up from his trunk and fans them like cards in a Poker game, “AC/DC. I hear all of your silent agrees.” He uses his wand to float them to the record player.
“How is your family in the Sacred 28, and you’re allowed to listen to muggle music?” Regulus questions, looking at the back of the cover. “Dad is secretly a huge muggle music fan. Don’t tell anyone though. He’ll kill us all.”
Regulus nods, somehow wishing his dad was a muggle music fan. Instead, Orión likes to listen to wizard music that sounds like it was made thousands of years ago. Well, he liked. Regulus’ father can’t really do anything nowadays, too sick.
I met this girl for the first time on Saturday night
Standing in the queue at the Odeon alright
Oh I took her by surprise
When I gave her one of my lines
She started smiling at me real fine
That's when I said
Can I sit next to you, girl
Can I sit next to you, girl
Can I sit next to you, girl
Can I sit next to you, girl
Can I sit next to you?
»»•««
Regulus woke up early the first day of term, for no reason other than he doesn’t want to have to see Collins. So at, he checks his watch, 4:55, he gets out of the shower and gets dressed. Into his shirt and tie, the trousers that Evan gave him last year but Regulus had to give back at the end of last term, and his Mary Jane’s. He slides on his cross-body bag - which he’d packed the night before - and goes into the common room, waiting for the last five minutes before curfew lifts.
The common room is quiet, unusually peaceful, because of the masses of people. The noise often makes Regulus want to scream inside and tear everyone who’s part of it into little pieces. But this is nice. He’s alone in a room that Regulus finds more like home than his actual home.
The hands on his watch point to 5:00, so he stands up and leaves, intending to go to the library and find a books to plow through during his lessons. Hogwarts library is truly heaven, with near to every book ever written - even the unpublished ones - Regulus can pick out whatever peaks his interest.
He finds a book called ‘Carrie’ by Stephen King, which the cover makes him curious. It’s only two hundred and seventy pages so he’ll probably have it finished within two hours, starting it now.
About an hour and a half has passed before someone else comes into the library, Pandora. “Hey, Reg! How was the first night in the dorms?” He’s gotten used to her knowing fucking everything about his life now. “Eh, alright. Collins is an arse, Joelson is alright. What ‘bout you? Emmeline still pissing you off?”
She starts on about some girl in her dorm who took the nicest bed in first year and Pandora’s never forgiven her for. Apparently now, she’s stuck up a poster of a nargal that has an incorrect fact on it. Pandora is a huge nargal fanatic so she knew it was false immediately, she says that Emmeline must be stupid if she thought that nargals live in Asia when they literally can’t survive outside of Britain.
Regulus’ watch dings at 7:00, telling them that it’s time for breakfast, so the pair of them walk to the Great Hall. Pandora comes and sits next to him because the tables won’t be full for a good half hour, and Regulus will have finished breakfast by 7:23. He butters a slice of toast and cuts it into two triangles. Eating the left, then right. He pours a cup of tea, then transfigures it into coffee - because last year one of the students drank seventeen cups of coffee and had to be sent to the infirmary, so coffee was banned.
Pandora kisses him on the cheek, wishing him a good rest of day, before leaving for the forest to feed the creatures before her charms class. Regulus returns to the library to finish Carrie. He does, it’s the first Stephen King novel he’s read and Regulus decides that he’ll be waiting patiently for another book of his to be released into Hogwarts library. One line from the book stands out to him specifically.
I should've given you to God when you were born, but I was weak and backsliding, and now the Devil has come home.
King really has a way with words, to make Regulus resonate with characters unwillingly.
»»•««
“Reg, you left this morning at an ungodly hour so we couldn’t follow you,” Evan moves Regulus’ parchment so he can copy his answers, “want to tell us why?”
“Nope. Oh, look we’re doing a practical next lesson. Gotta get the ingredients down so Slughorn doesn’t kill me.”
Barty rolls his eyes and flicks Regulus on the temple, “we’ll quite literally murder Jacob if he says that again, you know?” Evan nods in agreement, who’s still copying Regulus’ work. “Thanks, Bart. But I’m good. I just left so I could get a book out of the library before it got loud.” This isn’t entirely false, he did take out a book, but only as a result of the leaving the dorm to avoid Collins.
“Alright then, if that’s what you say.”
»»•««
Regulus is in the library for the sixth time today, and it’s only 1pm. He’s read three books and finished his potions homework - which was to write a step by step manual on how to make the potion that they’re supposed to be doing next lesson.
He’s not got a letter from the Black family owl today, so if they have found out, the owl will come tomorrow. Or, they won’t find out. He reckons that nobody except his dorm-mates knows as he left so early. But only time will tell for tomorrow.
The desk he’s found is at the back of the library, so rather hidden from the other students, and Regulus has cast an opposing silencing charm around him so he can’t hear people around him. A fist hits the table, making Regulus look up.
It’s Sirius.
Sirius?
What the fuck does he want?
“Brother. For what do I have the displeasure of speaking to you.” Sirius frowns at him, “you slept with Crouch last night.” His comment makes Regulus snort. “Don’t laugh at me, Reggie. You’re like a baby and you’re sleeping with Barty Crouch Jr.”
“Who told you this?” Regulus tries his best to hide his smirk.
“Crouch, obviously.”
“No, I did not sleep with Barty last night. I slept in my own bed.”
“In the boys’ dorms?”
“How would you know that?”
“Answer the bloody question, Reggie.”
“No, you haven’t spoken to me in about two years. When I needed you, you just pretended like I didn’t exist. You don’t have the right to know anything about my life at the moment. Goodbye Sirius.” Regulus stands up, grabbing his bag and shoving his book in it. He walks out of the library.
As he walks, Regulus is trying to decide where to go. He can’t go back to the library because Sirius would see him turn around. The girls’ dorms won’t let him in anymore so he can’t hide out with Dorcas. The boys’ dorms have Collins in. So Regulus paces the moving staircases for four minutes.
He finds a third floor corridor that has no doors or windows. Just a wall. But for some reason it interests him and he walks past a few times, feeling as though something is yet to reveal itself.
His breathing rapid, on the verge of crying, he drops to his knees. Regulus tries to slow his breath, hoping that some miracle will happen.
He hears a sort of carving noise from behind him. A door? A fucking door?
Regulus opens the door, hoping inside will just be a somewhere he’s alone and can calm down. Inside there’s… exactly what he imagined?
What.
Okay so that miracle did happen.
He finds an armchair that feels like a giant hug when he sits in it and slows his breath pace. Once he’s ’normal’ again, Regulus looks around at the room. There’s a beanbag, a record player, a-
Is that a hammock?
Cool, okay.
He could get used to this.
Regulus retrieves the book from his bag and flicks go his bookmark. He’s not even sure how much time passes before he checks his watch which says that it’s, Salazar’s socks, 8pm. If this gets back to Walburga that he accidentally skipped three periods of lessons, he’s most likely be fucking killed.
That’s fine, Regulus thinks needs to embrace a more ‘no care’ attitude. Like Barty. Or Evan. Amazing. Fun. Okay.
He finishes the last page of the book and decides to test out the hammock, after putting on a record so he can imagine scenarios from the songs. Finding a David Bowie album, Regulus puts it on.
After listening to two and a half songs (Five Years and Soul Love), the door opens.
Remus fucking Lupin walks in, interrupting the fake karaoke party he was thinking of. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t think anyone knew about the come-and-go-room. I’ll leave, nice music choice by the way. Moonage Daydream, very nice.” He turns and leaves.
So Regulus is left with his thoughts again.
Part of him wishes that the music was louder, to block out the voices in his head, telling him that he’s the most embarrassing and unintelligent person on the earth.
I'll be a rock 'n' rollin' bitch for you
Keep your mouth shut
You're squawking like a pink monkey bird
And I'm bustin' up my brains for the words