Chapter Text
Their first sight of Hogwarts was as enchanting and captivating as he remembered, except this time, he could also feel the staggeringly powerful wards enveloping them in a warm hug as they passed through them.
He and Draco shivered at the same time. Those wards were awe-inspiring. Erected by the four most powerful mages of their age working in a quartet, fed and maintained by hundreds upon hundreds of students that had passed through Hogwards’ halls, all but bursting with uncontrolled magic.
It didn’t take long before they were standing in the great hall, under the curious, scrutinizing attention of the entirety of Hogwarts. Regulus and Draco, of course, ended up in the front, purely because Draco couldn’t stand the thought of not being the center of attention for a single moment. What his brother failed to account for was the sheer pressure of the upcoming sorting, combined with the amount and intensity of attention the Malfoy Heir, the Black Heir, and The Boy Who Lived would gather together.
While Draco went tense as a bowstring, Potter’s shoulders hunched, and he tried to make himself as small as possible, almost hiding behind the two of them. Regulus made it easier for him by positioning himself before him, shielding him from the worst of the attention. Potter’s wide-eyed look of half gratefulness, half awe made him uncomfortable, so Regulus firmly turned his attention to the front. Draco’s hand found his own in the next second, and in a move that was as familiar to them as breathing, they settled into each other, creating an impenetrable, united front.
Regulus scanned the crowds, unsurprised to find that the Slytherin table was the most calm of the four, but also the most— intense, for lack of a better word. Their calculation was only rivaled by the Ravenclaws academic, dissecting interest. One made you feel like you were prey, an injured animal faced with a hungry predator, while the other made you feel like a mouse, already caught and bound to the examination table.
In one word—unsettling.
Regulus swept his eyes through the people again, clocking personas of interest.
It was also what he and Draco would have to conquer. Their status and money would get them far, but it wouldn’t get them where Regulus wanted them to be. It wouldn’t be for some ambitious fool to think they could control them.
“Stop scheming for a single bloody second. You’re making my head hurt,” Draco hissed in his ear.
Regulus’ eyebrow twitched, entirely too used to Draco’s complete disregard of personal space as a concept to be upset. “Well one of us has to, otherwise we would both be charging head first into whatever catches your eye next.”
“Well at least I actually do something instead of just standing there and thinking in circles until you’re blue in the face,” Draco shot back.
Regulus’ eyebrow twitched, genuinely offended, though he didn’t make a move to remove his hand from Draco’s. He did not appreciate his one true weakness being pointed out like that. What if their enemies overhear? “Someone who should be thinking about ways to avoid Gryffindor shouldn’t be talking right now.”
Now Draco looked offended. “I am not a Gryffindor!”
Regulus smirked. “Could have fooled me.”
Quiet giggles pulled both their attention behind them, where Potter was standing a little straighter than before, with his hands over his mouth as he tried to hide his mirth. When he realized he was caught, he flinched, big green eyes flickering between him and Draco. Once he realized that they weren’t angry, he lowered his hands, revealing a hesitant smile.
Regulus wanted to coo. Adorable.
“Do you always fight like that?”
Draco and he exchanged a quick look. “It’s now really fighting,” Draco said.
“But yes,” Regulus finished. “It’s pretty normal for us.”
He was glad to see that the tension had left them, not only Potter but Draco as well, who would have never admitted to being nervous but couldn’t ever hide it from him.
It only took a minute until Regulus was called, the name Black putting him at the top of the list.
He gave Draco’s hand one last reassuring squeeze, and made his way toward the Sorting Hat. He ignored the stares and brushed off the whispers, refusing to listen into them. He didn’t need to know what they were talking about to know it was nothing he wanted to hear.
The Sorting Hat fell over his eyes.
“Oh dear, what do I have here?” The voice was creaky and old, and Regulus was a little ashamed of how pleased he was to finally hear it, having missed the chance last time because the Hat sorted him before it even touched his head. “Sorting adults is always difficult, and you have already been sorted once. Hmm, difficult, very difficult indeed. You have bravery in you, oh yes, but it’s not the kind to be used in defense of others, is it?” It didn’t seem to expect an answer because it continued, “No, people need to earn your protection. Let’s see… loyalty. Well, you have that in spades, don’t you? Except you would scare the poor Hufflepuffs stiff! Hmm, interesting, very interesting… You have quite the mind, don’t you? And so much talent, oh yes. Off you go to… Slytherin!”
The hat was lifted from his head, and Regulus stood up and made his way toward his House. He sat at the end of the table, a section specifically cleared for first years, and ignored the many eyes on him, attention firmly on his twin and Potter, who were now exchanging quiet words with each other, heads bent together.
He met Uncle Severus’ eyes up at the professor's table and inclined his head in greeting. Uncle Severus nodded back, before he resumed watching Draco and Potter with something like a frown. Well, a more frowny frown than usual.
When it was Draco’s turn, the hat barely brushed the strands of his silver hair before it screamed out Slytherin. Regulus smiled as he watched his brother’s tie turn green, and welcomed him with a smile when he slid into the seat next to him. Draco’s hand immediately found his, their stretched connection relaxing back into an easy flow. Being apart from each other was hard, even if they were simply on different sides of the same room. It had gotten better as their magic strength grew. Back when they were children, they could barely stand letting go of each other for long enough to eat dinner.
Slowly, the tables filled up with more people, and Regulus didn’t notice any differences from his previous life, until finally, Professor Mcgonagle called out the name that the whole school had been waiting for.
“Potter, Harry!”
The entire hall erupted in noise when Potter stepped up to the hat. He sat down stiffly, eyes once more finding him and Draco. Regulus wondered if he would be as keep in their friendship when the Gryffindors inevitably filled his head with all the ways Slytherins are evil and not to be trusted.
And then Regulus received the biggest shock of his lifetime to date, worse even than finding out that he was not a wizard in this life and that he was eligible for the Black heirship.
“SLYTHERIN!”
Harry Potter stood up, and his eyes found them at the green and silver table. Regulus felt his lips twist into an automatic sort of smile.
As Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, moved to join his new House, unaware of the danger that lay ahead, of the sharks that had already started circling, Regulus and Draco exchanged a look.
The thought that passed between them was as startlingly clear as it was heartfelt.
Fuck.
How the fuck had this happened? Was a single train ride really enough to change so much.
“Maybe this is good,” Draco suggested hesitantly.
“Look around and think again,” Regulus hissed back.
And indeed, the entirety of the Slytherin table was staring at Harry with stony faces, ranging from scrutinizing to outright hostile. Beyond them, the other Houses were slowly coming to the realization that the Boy Who Lived was a Slytherin, and Regulus could see in real time the way their faces twisted from shock and confusion to outrage and even anger in some cases.
But by the time Potte reached the table, he felt a strange kind of resolve come over his brother, and when Potter stopped next to them, contemplating where he should sit with none of the Slythering moving to make space for him, Draco resolutely let go of Regulus’ hand and scooted over.
Potter paused, unknowing of Regulus’ incredulity, and slid into the offered seat with a relieved breath.
Regulus’ incredulous look received pursed lips and furrowed brows. Regulus sat back, resigned. There wasn’t a more clear ‘go along with it’ than that.
With a mental sigh, Regulus settled in to have the most awkward welcoming feast ever.
Right. He closed his eyes, and took exactly two seconds to rearrange the world so it made sense again. When he opened his eyes again, he was calm. Draco wanted to publicly declare the most controversial person at this table a friend? Fine. It wouldn’t be the first time his twin decided to do something immature and rash without fully considering the consequences and Regulus had to do damage control. At least this time he didn’t throw another heir of the Sacred Twenty-Eight into a pond for being mean to Pansy.
Slowly, the rest of the first years found their seats, and Regulus felt a stab of satisfaction when he noticed how they arranged themselves evenly around him and Draco, putting the two of them squarely in the middle of the pack. He grew out of his obsessive need for such gestures long ago, but it was still pleasant regardless. Potter, bless his naive little soul, didn’t seem to notice.
Flicking his eyes to the side, he cataloged every pair of eyes that paused in the vicinity of him and Draco a beat too long, taking into account the usual attention granted to the Boy-Who-Lived and which students had particular reason to be hostile. The problem was, almost every single Slytherin, other than perhaps Blaize Zabini and his older cousin, Marcella Zabini, had every reason to wish Harry Potter harm. Not for anything he had done, but for what he represented. And in the eyes of many, that was almost the same thing, or as good as.
Regulus glanced at Draco again, leaning towards Potter and talking about something that had his eyes lighting up. He could handle Potter for a single feast if it made his twin happy.
He exchanged a look of exasperation with Theo of all people.
“Absolutely not.”
He could not, however, handle Potter for an entire year, let alone seven.
“Why not?” Draco demanded hotly, already with that familiar stubborn tilt to his chin, that fire in his eyes that said he found something he wanted, and he wasn’t about to let go for anything.
Sometimes Regulus wished Draco was a little less like him, but that was like wishing identical drums produced different sounds. “Because we can’t make ourselves that vulnerable.”
“But he needs our help. Did you see him out there? He looked like a niffler facing a pack of chimeras!”
Regulus groaned.
They had been shown to the Slytherin common room, though the name Common room was deceiving. It was really more a shifting maze of lounges and sitting rooms and dining halls and dueling rooms and libraries and baths and tea rooms and smoking rooms and fencing rooms and game rooms and old offices and even ritual rooms. All of that and more that was undiscovered, no doubt. The main entrance, however, led to a large circular room with extremely tall ceilings and rather a gothic tilt to its architecture called the main common room. Uncle Severus had explained all the rules of Slytherin, which were long and varied but which boiled down to keep the politicking inside, always stick together when faced with outsiders even if you were sworn enemies, and do not , under any circumstances, bring up the Dark Lord.
That was about when the first years got their brief tour and then quickly ushered to their beds. Split into two adjoining bedrooms, their dormmates barely closed their curtains before Draco climbed into his bed and demanded they extend their protection to Potter in a more permanent manner.
Regulus refused. They were Malfoys and they were Blacks. If Regulus could manage to fulfill all the plans he had been putting together for eleven years, their future would be practically guaranteed. The threat of the Dark Lord loomed over them, and Regulus knew intimately of the Dark Lord’s insanity. He knew that there was no surviving him, for the Light or the Dark.
He’d been planning since his brain could put together a coherent thought without exhausting itself. The plan, in the end, was simple. Try and destroy the Dark Lord before he resurrected himself, and if he doesn’t make any progress until his minor majority when he becomes Lord Black, escape to Magical Japan and seek asylum there. Granted, the destroy the Dark Lord plan was only there because Regulus couldn’t justify simply running away without trying to himself more than any real faith in its success. After all, he didn’t even know how the Dark Lord resurrected himself, could he really expect to be able to do something about it? An alternative option would be to kill him in the Malfoy Manner where he had the advantage of Family magic, but as long as their Father was Lord Malfoy and marked, House Malfoy would obey the Dark Lord.
So he was going to wait to become Lord of House Black, and then convince his mother to move.
Simple.
And it all relied on one thing. Staying as far away from Harry Potter, the danger magnet extraordinaire, as possible. He might have tried to influence Potter away from Dumbledoor on the train ride, but he fully intended for it to be a one-time thing. He expected things to progress as they had in his last life, maybe with less antagonism between them and Potter, and if they were lucky, less blind trust in Dumbledore. He didn’t think a simple conversation was all it would take for Harry Potter, the epitome of everything good and Light and Gryffindor, to become a Slytherin.
It was insane.
“The whole plan verges on one thing, Draco. One thing.” Regulus said. “And that is not getting involved. Does throwing our lot in with Potter sound like not getting involved to you?”
Draco grimaced a little, hesitation flickering briefly over his face and posture before it firmed again. “I know that. But did you see him? He will get eaten in the first week! He’ll get torn apart! Swindled out of his fame and fortune! I won’t be surprised if he ends up dead in the Forbidden Forest before the year ends!”
“He did well last time,” Regulus retorted. “More than well, in fact. Better than us.”
“That was last time. And last time he wasn’t in Slytherin. Last time he was a Gryffindor. And now he is not. Because of us.”
Regulus exhaled sharply, trying to get rid of some of the tension. He hated how the only thing that could make him lose control was Draco. “You know what the Dark Lord is capable of. I know you do. I showed you what will happen to us. And now you want to walk into death’s arms because you pity the enemy?”
“He is not the enemy anymore,” Draco retorted. “And we’re not going to get killed. With our knowledge and power, we will win. Who do you think has more chances, a Weasley and a no-name Mudblood, or the heirs to Houses Malfoy and Black?”
“Don’t use that word,” Regulus said, at a loss of what else he could say to get through his brother’s thick head that war was not something to take lightly.
“From what you told me about her, the word fits,” Draco scoffed. “But do you really think we don’t have a chance? Do you really think running away is our best solution?” His eyes flashed, and Regulus could feel the way his magic snapped with anger. “We are Malfoys and we are Blacks; we do not run.”
“Blacks do not run,” Regulus repeated on reflex, the words drilled into him.
“Neither do Malfoys.”
He still wasn’t convinced. “We are talking about the Dark Lord here, Draco. The one that would torture our father, torture us, torture our mother, and countless other people. The one that would start a war that would result in the deaths of hundreds, our father in jail, House Malfoy disgraced and practically penniless, and House Black practically extinct.”
“Exactly,” Draco leaned in. “And we have the chance, right here, to prevent all of that.”
Regulus shook his head. “Not if it kills us first.”
Draco sat back with a sound of frustration. “Fine. If you want to be a coward, then so be it, but don’t drag me down with you. You think I don’t know that you were planning to abandon Father to his fate?”
Regulus flinched. There it was. He had been waiting for the moment Draco’s persuasion would turn vicious. “I wouldn’t abandon him.”
“Really? Then you have figured out how to get rid of his Dark Mark?”
Regulus refused to back down. He looked his twin in the eye and wrapped the cold of the Black Magic around his mind. “I haven’t. But we are in Hogwarts now, I will have a lot more resources.”
Draco sneered. “You really think you will be able to do what hundreds of mages failed to do using a carefully edited library tailored to be almost offensively Light?”
“I’ll figure it out. There are always ritual circles that shut down all the magic inside them, even this kind,” Regulus insisted stubbornly. He didn’t point out how hypocritical his brother sounded. What was more insane, defeating the Dark Lord or dismantling his coven claim?
The half-appalled, half-furious look showed him why Regulus hadn’t talked about this alternative with his brother before.
“You want to keep our father caged like an animal? Without his magic?” Draco’s face transformed into something visions and dark that Regulus honestly didn’t think he was capable of. That was something he wouldn’t be surprised to see on his own face. “You know, there are better ways to kill him.”
That finally made Regulus flinch with his full body, and he hated how his breath hitched, his stupid, eleven-year-old body making tears spring to his eyes. He refused to let them fall. That was one of Mother’s first lessons.
Blacks don’t cry.
He could almost feel Draco sigh. “You know what? Fine. You can try to undo a magical vow that has been willingly accepted, and in the meantime, we do it my way. If it looks like things are getting too dangerous, we can always leave like you wanted to. You wanted to try to defeat him, and how much do you want to bet it would be easier with The-Boy-Who-Lived on our side.”
Regulus damn well knew that wasn’t a compromise at all, but he was both too hurt and too proud of his brother to call him out on it. Break them down emotionally and then propose something that seemed like a compromise. Good strategy, even if a little heavy-handed.
(Something the Dark Lord liked to use, his mind whispered, but he ignored it.)
Regulus was too tired and too numb to resist it.
After all, he was just a man out of time, someone who shouldn’t be here in the first place. What right did he have going against Draco? His only purpose was to protect his family, protect Draco, and it was true that he had yet to figure out how to deal with the Dark Mark. He just realized that, on some level, he was already resigned to losing his father again.
That was unacceptable.
Regulus looked back at Draco, who sat there with fire in his eye and determination in every line of his body. He believed they could do this.
So naive, he thought uncharitably.
“Fine,” he finally conceded. “We do it your way, and attract all the danger and bad carma onto our heads. But I will tell you now that it’s not going to work. When the Dark Lord comes back—and he will come back—he won’t just overlook the fact that we are associated with the Boy Who Lived. We will pay for this, and so will our parents.”
Draco grinned, triumphant. “That won’t be for years yet. We will deal with it then.”
Regulus swallowed the bitter laughter threatening to burn his throat. Deal with it then. Never had it been more obvious that his twin was eleven years old and had been pampered his entire life, no matter what memories he picked up from Regulus or how much he was told about their potential future. So ignorant, so naive, so optimistic.
As they dove under the covers and Draco immediately snuggled close, Regulus thought that he would do anything to keep him that way.