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Regulus Black, as a rule, avoided Max Scamander. He didn’t like being around him. It wasn’t just because of the debacle in first year, but, well… he didn’t like him.
Scamander was too nice. He was too friendly and talkative and cheerful and nice, and it made Regulus sick to his stomach. People were only nice when they wanted something. He knew that better than anyone. So what the fuck did Scamander want?
Everyone knew Scamander’s parents had fought against Grindelwald. Everyone knew that Scamander was friends with all sort of Mudbloods and, some said, even Muggles, like they were even worth talking to!
He had really dodged a Killing Curse by not being Sorted into Ravenclaw. How would he even function if he were in the same House as Scamander? His parents probably would have transferred him to Beauxbatons or Durmstrang. Probably Durmstrang, which just seemed cold and distant. At least Beauxbatons was in the Pyrenees, and their uniforms were much better-looking.
It was uncomfortable enough to even sit near Scamander in class, and Regulus thanked Merlin that the only classes he had with Scamander were History of Magic, Arithmancy, and Charms. That was it. Three classes out of eight. Not terrible odds. If he’d been in Ravenclaw, he’d not only have had nearly every class with him (save Ancient Runes), but he’d have also had to sleep in the same dormitory, eat at the same lunch table, and share the same common room with him.
Sometimes he’d catch Scamander looking at him, and it was enough to make him feel like Scamander was up to something. He knew, after all, that Scamander’s best friend was Isaac Goldstein, and Goldstein hated him – mostly, Regulus knew, because Barty had made a target of Goldstein after that first Charms class, but – well, Regulus didn’t need to waste his time trying to impress some Half-Blood Ravenclaw.
Goldstein hated him, and Scamander kept looking at him. Surely there was some sort of correlation between the two. They were best friends. Scamander probably only kept up that nice act to lull people into a false sense of security before he did something to completely destroy them, and Regulus wasn’t going to let himself fall victim to it.
He didn’t trust Scamander, with his too-blue eyes, deceptively “endearing” freckles, and curly reddish-brown hair. He didn’t trust how frequently Scamander smiled, or how he never seemed to shut the fuck up. It drove him mad how Scamander had to constantly touch his friends.
So Regulus had long decided that the best course of action would be to avoid him. He didn’t like how Scamander made him feel, and there were hundreds of students at Hogwarts – dozens in their classes alone – so it couldn’t be too difficult.
Except Barty had burned Regulus’s copy of Numerology and Grammatica to ashes (beyond the help of Regulus’s best-attempted repairing charms), thinking it was Selwyn’s. Selwyn was nowhere to be found, Barty refused to loan out his copy, and although Regulus sent an owl out to Flourish and Blotts as soon as it had become clear that his book was no more, it would take several days for the order to process.
And he had an Arithmancy set due in two days.
So he went to the library, avoided talking to anyone, and searched the stacks for thirty minutes before he all but decided to give up, when who should he happen across but Max Scamander? It was surely some form of supernatural torture, but Ravenclaws practically lived in the library, didn’t they? And Scamander was in Arithmancy, too.
So he tried. “Scamander.”
Scamander looked up, turning those too-blue eyes on him, and Regulus clenched a fist behind his back. He didn’t like how Scamander made him feel. Not one bit.
“Yes?” Scamander asked.
“Have you got any idea where they keep Numerology and Grammatica ? My edition has been… compromised.”
Scamander hesitated, most likely trying to think of a way to get back at him for whatever Barty had done most recently, and Regulus was about to walk away, but then Scamander said, “Two aisles that way, middle of the aisle, top shelf. Can’t miss it.”
Regulus nodded and walked to the location Scamander had specified. Sure enough, the book was there, and a cursory set of spells revealed no jinxes of any sort placed on it.
He set himself up at a desk far away from Scamander, in a secluded back corner of the library, and got to work.
He was still working when Goldstein stumbled upon him a few hours later. “Oh,” Goldstein said. “It’s you.”
“I was here first,” Regulus said. “I’m not moving.”
“I don’t want your precious spot,” Goldstein said. “Although I do want you to stay far away from Max.”
What? What could possibly possess Goldstein to say something like that. “Pardon me?”
“Max Scamander,” Goldstein said. “You and your Death Eater wannabe friends need to stay away from him.”
“Trust me,” Regulus said. “Neither I nor my friends want anything to do with Muggle-lovers who spend half their time in the company of Mudbloods. The only interaction I have had with him in the past two years, at least to my recollection, was asking him where to find a particular book. Not that I owe you any explanation, but I’d really rather you stop talking to me as if we could ever be equals, let alone as if you have any right to order me around.”
“You should just be glad that I don’t fancy getting a detention,” Goldstein said. “I ought to hex you for spewing slurs like that.”
Regulus rolled his eyes. “I don’t particularly care about your Half-Blood feelings about your Mudblood mother,” he said. He’d always been told that Mudbloods were magic thieves, and while he wasn’t totally sure he believed that, he knew enough Mudblood upstarts from his courses and from Slug Club to know that they all had delusions that they were fit to be his equal. That, alone, was enough, really.
“Just stay away from Max, all right?” Goldstein said. “I’m serious.”
“I’ve already told you that I’ve no interest in wasting any time with someone like Scamander,” Regulus said. “I thought Ravenclaws were meant to be clever.”
“I am clever,” Goldstein said. “I bloody beat you for first in our year last term! But I know Slytherins like exploiting loopholes, so I need to make this perfectly clear: do not talk to Max, do not talk about Max, do not hex him or jinx him or – do anything with him.”
Regulus wondered, idly, then, if there was something going on between Scamander and Goldstein. The idea made him feel vaguely ill, although he supposed it made sense. Scamander was gay, after all, and Goldstein was practically attached to his hip with a permanent sticking charm. And if they were together, what did it matter? Regulus didn’t care about Scamander and his disgusting freckles and inhumanely blue eyes and frizzy, messy hair.
“I really cannot overstate how little time I spend thinking about Scamander,” Regulus said. “It’s really only whenever he’s in my way or talking too loud,” – which was all the time, of course – ”or when he’s the only bloody person in the vicinity to ask where I can find the library copy of a book my roommate destroyed beyond repair.”
Goldstein’s reaction was – strange. He almost looked disappointed for a moment, but then he seemed to recover. “Good. He’s much too good for you.”
Regulus wasn’t certain that Scamander wasn’t plotting his demise. “Piss off, Goldstein. I’m not going to touch your boyfriend. You’ve nothing to worry about. I’m not a poof.”
In retrospect, he probably should have had his wand in hand the moment Goldstein had approached to cast a shield charm – sloppy, on his part – so he didn’t quite deflect Goldstein’s bat bogey hex in time. Well, shit.
“Not that it matters,” Goldstein said as he walked away, “but Max isn’t my boyfriend. I’m not even gay. But I did warn you about slurs.”
Really, Scamander wasn’t even the issue. Regulus was incredibly lucky to not have to share a dormitory with Goldstein. He’d have demanded a transfer after a week with someone so determined to be as hostile and unpleasant as possible.