Regulus Black
September 2nd, 1972
He sat alone in his particularly melancholy room watching the muggle vehicles speed past the rain-washed street. He wondered where they were going; or what types of places existed beyond the confines of his room and the small study at the end of the corridor. He often wondered what words awaited him outside. When he was free. Perhaps a park with a really long slide or a coffee shop or a big library.
He laid against a small group of pillows near the window with a boring cup of earl-grey tea in his hand that he wished he could spit out but it was the only hot drink they had. A crisp book laid on his lap but his eyes kept drifting from the paper. His thoughts were clouding his head and the words had begun to escape him—which he hated because the words were the only things he had left in his big, sad, room.
He thought of Sirius a lot while he was gone. His scent still filled the room as if he had never left. But he had; and Regulus was all alone now.
He didn’t like to think about that.
He thought about all the new friends Sirius was making on the train. Sirius was a very friendly person; the two always smiled together and his big brother could always make him laugh. Perhaps Regulus could meet his new friends when he himself came to Hogwarts. But now, all he had was a shelf stacked with books and a chest hollow with loneliness. Oh, how he longed for a companion. Someone he would send letters to and go on great adventures with like Sirius did with him. They would travel the grounds and scavenge the forests for creatures and such.
But mother was gone for the day and his eyes were positively aching from the thick book in his lap and all he could think about was his bright eyed brother, urging him to move.
“Don’t be a baby, Reg,” he would say.
Those the words that echoed through his head as he slipped through the crack in the window. They pounded through him as he climbed down the ladder with his heart hammering in his chest with fear.
The city was much louder outside than it was inside. Cars were blaring their too-bright lights on the streets and beeping their too-loud horns at each other and Regulus covered his ears. Sirius would’ve been able to stand the noise. In fact, it seemed that his older brother loved the noise more than anything, despite the piercing pain as it struck his ears and the blinding lights in his face as if his eyes were being pounded with a flashlight.
He would’ve been able to stand the needles pricking his eyes and that tingling as it grew too warm and too cold at the same time and his heart was hammering and his throat was burning and he was so alone—”Do you want to see my magic trick?”
He blinked. It was a slow realisation. As his eyes fluttered open and the lights weren’t so bright anymore and his weight laid against a hard, brick wall. It took him a moment to notice the pale girl, wisps of silvery blonde hair falling in soft curls as she leaned towards him. Dimly, he registered that he must’ve seen the girl before.
“A magic trick?” he asked.
She nodded quickly. Before he could even blink, the daisy she held in her hand flew off her palm and bursted. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, the daisy glowing and an almost iridescent white he’d only ever seen in the stars. It spun in the air as if the girl were a seamstress of the sky; weaving a star in her pale fingers. Particles of stardust sprinkled from the thing as it plummeted to the ground in an almost graceful way, like a woman twirling in her skirt, and rooted itself into the dark brown soil.
“Are you a witch?” he breathed. “A pure-blood?”
The girl smiled. It was a gentle smile, with her lip rising upwards playfully. Not cat-like, or biting; not with that devilish turn of the lips that seemed ever so pure, but only ended with a beating. It was pretty and rare; the moon rising after a burning, scorching heat. “My mum likes to call us that,” she said. Her voice was light and her eyes were distant, as if caught in a faraway dream. “A pureblood. But I know the truth.”
Regulus leaned in. He’d always loved truths. Truths didn’t need much unravelling, for they were bare, and they were true. They didn’t twist or turn into anything Regulus hadn’t expected, and they weren’t cruel or deceiving.
“I’m a muggleborn.”
“That’s a lie.” Because muggleborns are weak. They couldn’t produce accidental magic before Hogwarts, let alone be able to control it. It was written in the textbooks, engraved in history.
“My parents are half-bloods, but my mother,” she leaned in closer as if afraid someone else creeping in the alley was listening in. “My mother had another boyfriend. He was a muggle,” she paused and her voice was barely above a whisper. “He’s my real father.”
“That isn’t true,” he insisted.
The girl only smiled. “As true as the flower in my hand.”
But as the flower rose again, flying and sprinkling and bursting with what could only be explained by a witches touch, his retort died in his throat. And the world spun faster than the flower, whirring and bolting and so, so loud. His head was cracking; splintering into small pieces and he spun, as he fell through the cracks, grappling. Searching for a hook, for a ledge, even a log of the world he once knew to hold on to.
But as the stardust—and what only minutes ago he was sure it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his young life—sparkled upon the soil, he found that the logic, the foundation he’d known before, crumbling in his fingertips.
“Calm down, Regulus Black.”
It was the firm tone that made him startle. A slap in the face after the softness and airy voice from before. He flinched. Icy cold flooded his veins and his blood was bleak with fear he should’ve known better than broadly showcase as he did then. “How do you know my name?”
A pale hand reached for his face. He couldn’t hold back his gasp as the girl wiped away the wetness in his cheeks. He backed away as if her touch was of sharp claws. His breath came in the fear-stricken breaths of a little boy. Because Regulus was not a man worthy of his name, not of his home, he was just a flinching, fearful boy who had not a clue of touch without scar.
“My name is Pandora Rosier,” the girl said finally. “We share an aunt.”
That couldn’t be right.
Because Druella Rosier was a woman of brown eyes and dark curls, and though the girl shared the same pale skin, she was of bright blue eyes and silvery blonde locks of a malfoy. Their common grandparents were of dark brown eyes, as was Cygnus himself.
“That can’t be true,” he insisted, as if more to himself than her. “The mother and her grandparents are all brown eyes. A dominant gene. The recessives can’t win.”
“I told you,” the girl—Pandora?— said, a small smile on her face. “I’m a bastard.”
Regulus found himself smiling. Smiling because it was so ridiculous, and so unbelievable that he couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. Until the girl stepped closer again and the same stupid, irrational fear pricked his heart and his smile dropped.
“Pandora?” He hated the fear in his voice. He hated the weakness that spilled out and lowered his voice to nothing but a whisper.
No claws pierced his skin and no fangs tore at his bruises and for a terrifying moment, he felt a hand in his hair. For a terrifying moment, he knew something terrible was going to happen.
But then, “All done,” she said lightly.
“What did you do?” he asked suspiciously.
If she was offended by his sudden scowl, she didn’t show it. In fact, despite his outbursts, Pandora seemed nothing but entirely serene as long as he’d known her. Instead, she smiled. “I put the flower in your hair.”
He blinked. “The flower?”
She nodded. “You look very pretty.”
His cheeks heated. “Boys aren’t supposed to look pretty.”
She looked at him. “Why?”
“Because,” he paused. Regulus didn’t speak for a long time. He racked his brain, thinking of all the times his mother had repeated those very words to him. “I-I don’t know.”
He made a mental note to ask Mother when he came back home.
Oh, how he dreaded coming home. He didn’t want to be caged in those cold black walls. He didn’t want to sit near the nook beside the fireplace, wondering why even near crackling fires, he felt ever so cold.
Pandora must’ve seen the change in his expression because before he knew it, another flower was in his hand. It bloomed and sparkled with that beautiful magic that sparkled and lingered on his clothing.
“Thank you.”
She put the new flower in behind his ear. “You’re welcome.”
Though his eyes were locked on the pavement, he was unflinching as she slid the flower through. After a few moments of silence, Regulus asked the question that was itching inside him since she’d first spoken to him. “How did you know I was here?”
“I had a feeling.”
He looked at her. “A feeling?”
“Yes.”. Another flower whirred in the air. “Sometimes I get these feelings. Feelings that something is going to happen.”
“What kind of feelings?” Regulus asked. Perhaps he could learn to predict things; he’d always wanted to learn after all. Perhaps once he learned, he would stop flinching at false claws or expecting kindness where there was none. He could be stronger, be better.
“Good feelings, mostly,” she told him. She looked away as she said the last word, a painful kind of look coming over her; a sunken thing in her eyes that made her look a couple of years older than she was. As if she was looking over a faraway memory. “Warm feelings. They lead me to nice things, like the prettiest flowers, like you.”
He looked both ways before he said the next word. “You think I’m nice?’
“Nice,” she agreed. She grinned as she placed yet another flower in his hair. “And pretty.”
Regulus knew he wasn’t supposed to be nice. He knew he was supposed to be strong; cold and unsmiling. He needed to know how to bargain, how to use cruel words and cast painful spells. But he couldn’t help the warm feeling blossoming in his chest at her words; like the flower, whirring and twirling with happiness. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t twist this smile into a scowl. He couldn’t press his mouth into a firm line of indifference. Not with the flowers in his hair and the mystical girl offering him her company and showing him everything beautiful.
The two spent the rest of that day in the small alleyway. They picked flowers and spoke of Greek legends and wizarding families; she showed him her magic and made him laugh for what seemed to be the first time in decades. By the time Regulus had found his way back home, he had four flowers in his hair, but the monster had once again set its claws on his throat.
He didn’t manage to even walk the stairs before he heard her shriek. Regulus Black had never seen his mother so angry. Fire grew in her grey eyes, simmering in her veins, curling around her cruel, ashen heart. Her eyes were alive as ever as they darted around the black-and-white prophet in her shaking hands.
“Traitor,” she murmured. Her anger thrummed in her veins and filled her like nothing ever could. Not even ice-cold water or a calming drink could extinguish the flames burning inside Walburga Black.
It was when she received the letter that her oldest son was sorted into the house of the blood traitors that the fire began. And it definitely didn’t help that when she searched her son’s room, she found it empty except for an open window and a book propped open on the nook. The fire had steadily grown all day, simmering on high heat, with no one to blame but herself.
Because deep down, beneath her burning rib cage and bitter heart, she knew she’d failed. She knew that she’d failed to raise her first son; her golden son. She had trained him and warned him and prepared him for the moment he would walk up that stage and succeed but he hadn’t. And she’d failed.
And when she saw her second son, the spare, the quiet son she’d secretly held out hope for incase Sirius was completely lost, covered in flowers like a petty girl, she’d reached her last nerve.
And that fueled her drunken rage all the more as she stomped across the living room towards her youngest son. “Regulus.”
The boy sitting amongst the pillows was nothing like his brother. Although they shared the same raven coloured hair, Regulus Black wasn’t broad shouldered or angry. In fact, she could see the poorly concealed fear in his eyes as he replied. “Yes, mother?”
She tugged the flowers harshly from his hair. Each one was a disgrace, a stain on her spare. A stain on the pristine, prim image she’d tried so hard to cleanse. She ignored his cries as she pulled and she was horrified to find that the flowers were tied in his hair, embroidered by a twist evidently made of foreign fingers. She made sure to tug a little harder for that one. The last thing she needed was someone spotting the spare to the house of black decorated with flowers of all things.
“Your brother was sorted into Gryffindor house yesterday.” The mere words leaving her mouth sent a fire coursing through her. A dangerous anger that bloomed in her chest and threatened to burst. She tugged harder.
Regulus blinked. “Gryffindor?”
He knew Sirius didn’t want to be in Slytherin. He knew Sirius didn’t like their parents. But he promised. He promised that he would go to Slytherin and make friends and when Regulus eventually got sorted then they would all be friends. And it would be them against the world again. But at once, as the words registered, he knew all of that was gone.
Perhaps he could also be sorted into Gryffindor and they would be outcasts together. Perhaps he would be brave and then they’ll all have fun together. And it would be them against the world again.
But he knew a fantasy when he saw one. Sirius was in Gryffindor, and there was nothing he could do to change that.
“He disappointed all of us yesterday. The entirety of the sacred twenty eight,” she told him.
“Yes.” He cleared his throat, blinking back his tears at the harsh pull of his hair. “That’s a shame. Because if Sirius is sorted into Gryffindor, then we lose some of our noble family value and fall beneath the Rosier’s. And then Druella will win. We’ll also fall behind with the Dark Lord quite a bit.” Regulus supplied.
You mustn't say things like that,” she snapped.
She glared at him as he nodded with that cowardly fear in his eyes. Her failures were only growing before her eyes and her anger was growing with it.
“You will no longer speak to your brother about un-family related affairs,” she said sternly. “He will not come to your room or engage with you any more than necessary on family dinners.”
“But I want to speak to Sirius,” he protested. “I want him to come to my room.”
“Sirius is a bad influence. You know that he is. I don’t want him infecting you,” she snapped. “You mustn’t go near him. You must make me proud.”
“Sirius isn’t a bad influence,” he said, though the statement sounded more like a question than a fact. “He’s my best friend.”
“Sirius did something very bad,” she told him. “He’s a bad influence.”
Regulus crossed his arms. “I don’t care what he did, he’s my best friend. He’s my family.”
“You must stop acting in this childish way,” she told him. “If you keep speaking in this childish manner, there will be consequences.”
He looked confused. As if he didn’t know what he did. “But it’s the truth. So why shouldn’t I say it?”
“Your brother has made a grave mistake,” she said, her voice dangerously low. She finished her wand out of her pocket. “You mustn’t repeat it. Or there will be consequences.”
He nodded quickly. “Yes mother.”
“That is all.” Tonight, she decided, she would spare him. She couldn’t have a bruised son appear on the Christmas family photo. Just tonight. “You may go now.”
It was clear that Regulus didn’t try to hide his sigh of relief as he turned away. “And mother?” he asked. She turned to him. “Did you think I was pretty?”
Crucio.”
That was the very first time Walburga used a spell on one of her sons.