Chapter 4
Regulus looked around the room, contemplating who he should sit with. There were three seats open. One with a brown haired girl, another with a brown haired boy, and another with a blonde haired boy who had a lot of freckles.
Barty and Evan were seated in front of the boy with brown hair so that solidified Regulus’ choice. Sitting down he looked at the boy next to him, just doing a once over before he directed his attention to where Slughorn was at the front of the room. The boy had light brown hair, and he had very dark brown eyes. There was nothing special about him but there was nothing very special about Regulus either.
Slughorn droned on and on to the point where it seemed that practically everyone was falling asleep. Even Regulus who had been so attentive to the previous lessons found himself getting lost in his thoughts. He looked over at the boy next to him once again and noticed his Ravenclaw tie. He hadn’t noticed that before.
“It's rude to stare.” The boy said quietly. He didn’t say it in a shy way, he whispered it. But that's not what surprised Regulus, what surprised Regulus was his accent.
“Are you American?” Regulus asked, he was taken aback.
“Yeah, I am. Didn’t know if you could tell from the accent.” The boy drawled, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips.
“What’re you doing here?” Regulus asked.
“I’m going to school here. Don’t know if that's a foreign concept for you.” The boy said.
“How do you have that, the accent? How long have you been here?” Regulus asked.
“At this point you're asking for my life story. Well I spent around nine years in the states and we go back every summer so that's how I still have this accent and I moved here like a year ago. My dad's American, my mom's Irish but she moved here at a young age.” The boy said. “You never told me your name.”
“You never told me yours. You started the conversation so you should’ve introduced yourself. It's proper manners.” Regulus said.
“William Wright.” The boy said. “You can call me Will.”
“Regulus Black, and William. We aren’t friends.” Regulus said, before promptly turning to face Slughorn once more. It was wrong to talk to strangers whom he didn’t know the blood status of. For all Regulus knew, William could be muggleborn. And god forbid Regulus ever talk to a muggle born and be civil with them.
“Fine. Be like that.” William said, also turning to look at Slughorn.
They sat in silence for a few minutes listening to Slughorn talk about expectations and rules before William started talking once more.
“Y’know I’m a pureblood.” William said.
“My family doesn’t associate themselves with blood traitors.” Regulus spat as he kept his eyes trained on Slughorn.
And that ended the conversation, for now.
William observed the boy that was seated at the Slytherin table. The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black. Meaning they’re all about having their bloodlines pure, no muggle blood, no blood traitors. William thought those beliefs were absolute shit. It was stupid to care so much about someones blood status, why did it matter?
He didn’t know much about them but he knew that Sirius Black had definitely broken the pureblood beliefs chain but would Regulus? That was something that William was so confused about. Regulus just seemed so cold. What kind of eleven year old can seem so cold? William is simply baffled.
He continued watching as Regulus frowned and shook his head at something one of his friends said. He then looked extremely exasperated, and then started frantically talking about something and then he frowned again. William found that Regulus was very expressive with his friends but not very friendly or expressive with strangers at all. He was a bit expressive with William but that ended as soon as it started.
“Are you even paying attention?” Toby asked.
“Huh?” William said, looking at Toby.
“What are you looking at?” Harley asked, brows furrowed.
“Nothing.” William said, cracking a grin as he took a bite out of his sandwich.
A month into classes and Regulus was doing okay. He was managing to stay afloat even with all the schoolwork they gave out. Halloween was coming up and Regulus couldn’t necessarily say he was excited.
Regulus frowned as he walked down the corridor, thoughts were swirling through his head at an alarming rate.
William, since the first day of classes, had begun trying to befriend him. Regulus didn’t want to be friends with him so it made for some very interesting conversation. All Regulus wanted to do was pass potions and William’s constant jibes made it very hard to focus and simultaneously keep the small reserve of patience he had.
With all these thoughts about William it reminded him of earlier today. William wasn’t paying attention and crushed up two billywig wings and threw it into the cauldron when Regulus had already done that causing the cauldron to foam violently until it overflowed.
“He's so bloody annoying. Next time I see him I swear I’m going to strangle him.” Regulus muttered darkly, as he looked at his hands. His hands in question were stained blue from the foam. It frustrated him so much since the blue stain was such a stark contrast to his pale hands.
“I hope you’re not talking about me.” Someone joked, walking in step with him. Regulus looked at the person, the nerves in the back of his neck pinching at how fast he performed that action.
It was Remus.
“Not at all. I’m talking about William, y’know brown hair, brown eyes. William Wright.” Regulus said. “He’s a menace to the whole wizarding society.”
“And why is he a menace to the whole wizarding society?” Remus asked as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Penny for ‘em?”
Regulus looked at him with a confused expression on his face.
“It’s an expression that you have obviously never heard.” Remus said, letting out a slight laugh. The pair began descending the stairs at a very slow rate, this Regulus noticed. He noticed how with every step Remus a look of pain flashed across his face for a second or two.
“Are you okay?” Regulus asked, concern lacing his voice.
“Yeah. I am.” Remus said. “I’ve just been feeling ill for a few days.”
“Oh. You should go to the hospital wing, wouldn’t want you to get worse.” Regulus said, his brows were furrowed as he looked at Remus.
“Yeah. I’m planning on going around supper.” Remus said, a weak smile crossing his face.
“But then you’ll miss dinner!” Regulus said, the concern growing by the minute. His mother always did tell him he cared too much and that he shouldn't care that much. Caring makes you weak. “You’ll starve!”
“I’ll be fine. I probably won’t be able to eat either way. I could barely stomach my toast this morning.” Remus assured.
“Do you think you're bad enough to stay overnight?” Regulus asked.
“I don’t feel so well, so probably.” Remus said.
“Oh. Evan mentioned that he needed a little bit of help with his Charms essay and Barty said he was going to help him but he’s already helping Aubrey.” Regulus said. “He wanted to ask if you could help but he couldn’t find you.”
“Sure.” Remus said, his features brightening slightly. “But speaking of Barty. I’ve always wondered about this but was never able to ask. He has a Scottish accent but his dad is British. His dad has one of those posh British accents. Like yours. How?”
“His mum is Scottish and she’d take him over to their home in Scotland quite a lot while growing up. His father didn’t like him spending so much time in Scotland because he was developing an accent.” Regulus said as the pair got closer to the dungeons. “You know how Barty is, so he continued spending time in Scotland with his mum. He went out of his way to pick up a lot of the slang as well. That’s why it's so thick at times.”
“Ah. I see.” Remus said, an amused smile appearing on his face. “He does like to disobey his dad a lot doesn’t he?”
“He does.” Regulus said, nodding. The pair stopped in front of the door.
“Felix Felicis.” Remus muttered, and the door lock clicked and they walked inside. The door to the Slytherin common room didn’t lead directly to the common room, no, it held a somewhat short corridor that held a multitude of paintings.
None of the paintings had any people in them. They were landscapes. You just had to find the right painting and then open it and it would then lead into the common room. The paintings were very different, one overlooked an ocean, another a pond, a lake, a river, a forest, a mountain, and more. Regulus really liked it.
The portrait apparently changed each year and if you opened the wrong portrait and went through the tunnel you would find yourself somewhere in Hogwarts. That was how no one had been able to get into the actual Slytherin common room for many, many years
The pair walked down the short corridor and stopped at the portrait of a snowy forest. Remus swung the portrait open and the pair walked through.
“I will never get over that.” Regulus said, a small smile on his face as he let out a sigh.
“Yeah I don't think I'll ever get over it either.” Remus said as they stepped through.
“Lupin! There you are!” Evan exclaimed. “I’ve been searching for you everywhere.”
“Sorry Evan, well here I am now. What do you need help with?” Remus asked politely.
“Defense against the Dark Arts. Regulus refused to help me.” Evan said.
“I didn’t refuse, I just politely declined since you wanted to copy my essay when you could easily just open your book, read the passage, and then write a small essay about it.” Regulus said.
“But you didn’t even offer to help.” Evan said.
“I did but then you declined and said you’d ask Remus for help instead.” Regulus said.
“That's because.. Reg in the most polite way, you are not the best teacher.” Evan said.
“I know. And with that I’m going to leave because I haven’t written my Herbology essay yet.” Regulus said.
“You don’t want to do that with us down here?” Remus asked. “It can be a study session.”
Regulus bothered at his lip for a moment as he fiddled with the strap of his book bag. After a minute or two he sat down.
“Sure. Barty’ll be so upset about the fact that we're having a study session without him.” Regulus said, cracking a smile.
“He’s real crazy for studying isn’t he?” Remus said, as Evan opened one of his text books.
“Uh huh. He likes learning new things.” Regulus said as he shrugged his shoulders.
“He is very bright.” Remus said as he lugged a textbook out of Evans hands.
“Yeah, his father brags about how his son is as smart as a whip.” Evan mused.
“I’m really surprised he didn’t get sorted into Ravenclaw.” Remus humored.
“I don’t think Barty wanted that and either way the second house the hat considered was…. Hufflepuff.” Regulus said, lowering his voice when he mentioned the certain yellow house.
“Actually?” Remus asked, a look of shock crossing his face.
“Yes! Barty was so upset.” Evan said, cracking a grin. “He was about ready to make sure the hat never sorted anyone ever again.”
Remus let out a slight laugh at that and smiled as they told a couple more fond stories about Barty as they continued studying. Not realising that almost an hour had passed as the two boys retold some of their own stories.
“I sure am the topic of this conversation aren’t I?” Barty asked as he sat down on the green sofa, a crooked grin on his face. “I understand that I’m such an interesting bloke but lower your voices a little. I doubt the whole of the Slytherin common room wants to hear about your fan club for me.”
At that Regulus whacked Barty on the back of the head.