Chapter 9: The Young Him and a Broken Home
August 31, 1971.
The air at the dinner table in Number 12, Grimmauld Place felt thick enough to choke on.
Sirius left for Hogwarts tomorrow, and Walburga had been preparing for it for a week, as if she could sew his future into place with repetition alone.
"Remember," she said for what had to be the tenth time, "you represent the House of Black. Once you board the train, you will sit with Slytherin. You will not associate with those"
Sirius's reply was not loud.
"I am not going to Slytherin."
Walburga's knife and fork stopped halfway to her mouth.
"What did you say?"
"I am not going to Slytherin," Sirius repeated, eyes fixed on the lamb chop on his plate as though it might offer cover. "I am going to Gryffindor."
Silence slammed down.
Even the portraits seemed to freeze. The usual muttering of ancestors cut off as if someone had shut a door. Phineas Nigellus stared out from his frame, eyes wide, mouth hanging open like a fish left in the sun.
Orion set down his wine glass with deliberate care.
"The Sorting Hat considers a student's wishes," he said, voice even, "but it also considers traits, and history. The House of Black has been in Slytherin for five hundred years."
"Then it ends with me," Sirius said, stubborn as stone. "I am not spending seven years with a bunch of snakes."
"Snakes?" Walburga's voice trembled, and the tremor was not fear. It was rage forcing its way through her restraint. "That is where your family has belonged for generations. That is honour."
"That is a cage," Sirius snapped. "I do not need Black honour. I just need to be myself."
His head whipped toward Regulus.
Regulus, ten years old, did not flinch. He cut a piece of steak with slow precision and ate it as if the room were not cracking apart around him.
"What about you?" Sirius demanded. "You will go to Slytherin, will you not? Be their perfect heir. Study. Behave. Wait for the day you take over this decaying family."
Regulus looked up.
"I will go where I belong."
"Belong?" Sirius laughed, sharp and bitter. "There is only one place that fits a Black. The Slytherin dungeons, with those lunatics whose heads are full of pure blood glory. Enjoy yourself, brother."
He pushed back from the table and walked out.
Walburga sank into her chair, colour draining from her face as if the blood had been pulled out by force. Orion's expression remained controlled, but Regulus could feel the surge of magic in the air, heavy and restless.
Regulus finished what was on his plate.
He knew what this was.
In the original story, Sirius Black was Sorted into Gryffindor, the first non Slytherin Black in living memory. He also knew that once the Hat made its choice, the household would never be the same again.
On the night of September 1, an owl brought a letter from Hogwarts.
Walburga tore it open with shaking hands. Her eyes raced over the parchment. Her face turned from pale to grey, and her lips began to tremble. Then her eyes rolled back and she toppled.
Orion caught her before she hit the floor, and at the same time he snatched the letter.
It read:
"Sirius Black has been sorted into Gryffindor House."
That night, Number 12 felt like a home in mourning.
Regulus knew it was only the beginning.
From the next morning onward, Walburga moved all her attention onto him as if she could replace what had been lost by polishing what remained until it shone.
"You must be ten times better than him," she said at breakfast, voice tight with a new kind of desperation. "No, a hundred times. You must prove the Black bloodline has not fallen. You must prove the true heir is here."
Regulus nodded and said nothing.
This was exactly the outcome he had anticipated. It was also the cost of Sirius's choice, and the cost would not stop at a school House. Sirius would drift farther and farther away until he no longer had a home here at all.
Regulus did not feel pleased.
But it was the best arrangement.
New privileges followed quickly.
Unlimited access to the library.
Permission to borrow from the family heritage shelves.
Even the right to turn the pages of lower risk experimental notes, though only under supervision.
After Sirius left, the house fell quiet in a way that felt unnatural, like a lung that had learned to breathe with one side.
Regulus spent four hours a day in the library, two in the attic, and whatever remained went to Walburga's lessons and Orion's occasional inspections.
The magic guidance circulation he had practiced for years continued to change him.
His magic capacity did not leap. It did not flare. It grew the way a well deepens when you dig it one spoonful at a time. Slow. Unforgiving. Certain.
Every night before sleep, he performed the same exercise.
Cross legged on his bed, eyes closed, breathing slowed until his heartbeat felt like a metronome.
He sensed his magic.
Then he guided it, limb to chest, chest to limb, over and over, the cycle repeating until the path became familiar.
In time he no longer needed to imagine it. The magic began to flow on its own, as if it remembered the channels he had carved.
Like a river finding its bed.
His control sharpened with it.
He could make several feathers draw multiple perfect circles through the air, each line so precise that the error was less than a millimetre.
He could coax a complex ripple pattern across the surface of a cup of water and hold it there, sustained and steady, without the pattern collapsing.
This was synchronisation, magic and will moving as one, not through force but through alignment.
Then there was recovery.
Before, intense practice left him drained and sluggish. Now, by directing the circulation through his body, he could hasten the natural restoration of magic, like stretching after exercise to speed the flow of blood.
Magic, too, had its own kind of circulation.
From autumn 1971 into spring 1972, the three cousins began to see more of Regulus.
Bellatrix Lestrange started visiting Grimmauld Place more often. At twenty, she was already an early follower of Voldemort. The fanatic light in her eyes burned as if it fed on oxygen.
"The world is sick, Regulus," she told him one afternoon in the garden. "Muggle filth has polluted magic. Half bloods have diluted ancient power. The Ministry is run by cowards."
She made a sharp, sweeping motion through the air, like an invisible blade.
"We need a cleansing."
"A cleansing?" Regulus watched her hand as it cut the space between them.
"To remove impurities," Bellatrix said, smiling.
It was a smile that made a spine remember it had bones.
"The Dark Lord will lead us. He has power, vision, and the will to change reality. When he takes control, pure blood families will stand at the top again. We do not need equality. We want dominion."
"Dominion over whom?" Regulus asked, looking at the cousin who would, piece by piece, be consumed until she became a shape of Voldemort's madness.
He could not stop that process.
He did not intend to.
"Everyone," Bellatrix said, breathless with excitement. "Muggles. Half bloods. Mudbloods. They will all find their place."
Narcissa Malfoy was different.
At sixteen, she was in her sixth year at Hogwarts, a Slytherin prefect. She was controlled, practical, and sharp in a quieter way.
"Bella has her path," Narcissa said to Regulus in private during a family gathering, "but you must walk your own. Slytherin is not only fanaticism. It is also wisdom."
"Wisdom?" Regulus asked.
"Weighing options," Narcissa replied. She prodded a slice of cake with a silver fork as if testing its honesty. "Knowing when to advance and when to retreat. Knowing who is useful and who is dangerous. Knowing what should be said, and what should remain hidden."
She offered advice like tools placed carefully on a workbench.
"Always keep three excuses ready. If you are caught wandering at night, you need different reasons for different people. Tell a professor you were lost in the library. Tell a prefect you were looking for a pet. Tell the truth to a friend only if you are certain they are reliable."
"Never let anyone fully understand you. Even your closest friend should never hold all your secrets. Secrets are armour, and they are bargaining chips."
"In Slytherin, value matters more than friendship. What can you provide? Knowledge? Resources? Protection? Think clearly about your value, then look for people who need it."
Regulus listened closely. Narcissa's words were cold, but they were true in a way warmth rarely was.
Andromeda visited the least, and Regulus cared the most.
Among the three, she treated him with the most kindness.
At seventeen, she was in her seventh year. She had become a familiar outlier. She did not join the little circles of pure blood classmates. She spoke instead with half blood and Muggle born students, and for that Bellatrix scolded her endlessly for tainting the bloodline.
Her visits grew rarer, and Walburga did not hide her displeasure. Andromeda's thinking, in Walburga's view, was unacceptable.
On a rainy day in March 1972, Andromeda came to Regulus's room.
"I am leaving," she said plainly.
"To where?"
"Out of Britain." Andromeda sat in the chair by the window. Rain traced long, thin lines down the glass. "I am marrying Ted. He is Muggle born. You know what that means."
Regulus nodded.
Disowned.
Her name burned from the tapestry.
The family pretending she had never existed.
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
"Yes," Andromeda said, and there was no attempt at bravado. "Afraid of losing my family. Afraid of being shut out. Afraid of the future."
She looked at him, eyes steady.
"But I am more afraid of staying and slowly becoming someone I do not recognise."
Her voice softened, and for a moment the room felt less like Grimmauld Place and more like a place where someone could still choose.
"I know you are not like Sirius. You are smart. You are rational. You know how to compromise."
Her gaze sharpened.
"But do not let compromise become surrender. Do not let this family consume you. You have your own heart. Remember it."
Regulus did not speak for a long time.
Then he said, quietly, "Thank you."
"Take care," Andromeda said. She stood, then paused at the door and glanced back. "And if one day you need help, real help, you can find me. I will be in France."
Another Black was leaving.