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Regulus watched the families of Platform 9 ¾.
Mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, and more were all packed onto the busy platform, thrumming in an always moving crowd. Some children cried, holding onto their families as hard as they could. Some walked away confidently, trunks trailing behind them. A few were alone, making their way through the throng with their heads down.
Regulus had never seen so many people. People with light skin and dark skin, people with long hair and short hair, people with thin and wide faces. They all looked so different from him, and his eyes raked over each person with a brand of curiosity he had never experienced before. In his whole life, the number he remembered interacting with could be counted on his fingers. Despite knowing going into the whole ordeal that he would be meeting an incredible amount of people, he was still taken aback by the sheer size of the group of them.
The express blew its whistle, and students began to flock to the train more rapidly. In only a few minutes, a divide had been created: families waving with smiles on one side, and a train full of school-bound students on the other. Regulus watched a few parents shed tears as their kids boarded the train.
Privately, he thought it was all a bit ridiculous. Had these children not known their whole lives that they would eventually leave their parents? Had these parents not known that they would one day have to let their children go? And in that case, what was the point of the hugs, and of the tears? It was simply a responsibility carried out.
Regulus was familiar with responsibility. He had observed the responsibility his mother and father bore as heads of a Most Noble and Ancient House, he had seen the responsibility that Sirius had suffered under as the heir. Regulus himself was familiar with the weight of responsibility himself, his mother’s voice in his head a constant litany of derision and reminders of his duty.
Perfection, she spat. You must be perfect. No ugliness, no mistakes, no annoyance, nothing except exactly what is expected. Perfection in all things is the minimum, and you must not fall short of it.
The compartment door slammed open just as the Hogwarts Express began to pull out of the station, and Regulus turned his head to look at the new arrivals.
The boy who had opened the door looked to be around Regulus’ age. He had dirty brown hair that fell into his face, and spots of acne on his chin and temples. He was slouched, with unremarkable brown eyes and average white skin. His clothes were modern and well kept, but ruffled in places, with wrinkles pressed into the corners.
Someone of middle standing, who did not care about his appearance. He was alright enough, but Regulus knew with only the first look that he wasn’t correct enough.
“What the fuck are you?” the boy asked rudely, mouth hanging open and eyebrows raised into his fringe. Regulus stared at him.
“Merlin, Barty, what is wrong with you?” a female voice derided the first boy, Barty, and pushed him further into the compartment.
This girl was perhaps older than them, with smooth dark skin and clean makeup applied to match her hair and robes. Her braids were pulled into a half-up-half-down do, and were shot with the dark green of Slytherin House. Her robes were new and impeccable, and her jewelry was a complimentary silver.
This girl was much better, Regulus thought. She could do nicely.
She, too, raised her eyebrows when she spotted Regulus, her progress into the compartment stuttering.
“Wow,” she said, obviously taking him in.
“You look wonderful,” a third person said as she entered, quickly followed by another boy, who shut the door behind him.
Both the girl and the boy were fair, though not as fair as Regulus, and had strawberry blonde hair. They shared the high cheekbones and sharp nose of a British pureblood, although both of their features were softened in a way that spoke to less inbreeding than a Most Noble and Ancient House. They stood straight and their robes were modern and clean, with expensive jewelry, although the girl wore a strange assortment of bangles and random trinkets woven into her sleeves and hair. Regulus noted the flash of a signet ring on the boy’s hand.
Good. Very good.
“Seriously, though, what are you?” Barty asked with what was possibly a sneer. He collapsed onto the seat across from Regulus, who tilted his head slightly in astonishment.
“Barty, shut up,” the other boy whispered. He looked at Regulus with recognition in his clear blue eyes, and dipped his head in an approximation of a small bow. “Please ignore Barty, he wasn’t informed you would be here.”
The other boy stood up straight again, crossing his arms in front of him.
“Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure if you would be here,” he continued, looking slightly nervous. “Mother told me there were rumours, of course, but no one was sure.”
Regulus adjusted his cane, which had been between his legs, to lean against the wall, instead crossing his legs and resting his hands on his knee. His rings flashed in the mottled light coming through the window as they sped along the English countryside, and the chains connecting them to his cuffs clinked slightly.
“And who would you be?” he asked finally, looking at the boy, who seemed to be the only one of the group who knew who Regulus was. The boy sat stiffly beside Regulus, leaving plenty of space between them. His eyes caught on Regulus’ hair, which cascaded down between them to pool just slightly above the compartment floor.
“Evan Rosier,” he said. “This is my cousin Pandora, and our friends, Dorcas Meadowes, and Barty Crouch Jr.”
Regulus looked at each person as they were introduced, nodding politely to the girls. Barty must have noticed his lack of greeting, because he leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. Dorcas, who was sitting next to him, brought her hand to her forehead in exasperation.
“So, are you, like, a veela?” Barty asked, eyes raking continuously over Regulus’ appearance. “An angel? No, you look to mean to be an angel. Maybe a very modestly-dressed succubus?"
“Really, Barty, shut up,” Evan warned him, eyes flicking nervously to Regulus.
For his part, Regulus only lifted his cheeks in a tight, thin-lipped smile, and did not answer.
“What’s your name?” Dorcas asked after a moment, cutting through the awkward tension with her own nervous smile.
“Regulus Black,” Regulus answered, shifting slightly to face the compartment better. Pandora, who was sitting next to Dorcas, clapped her hands softly.
“You’re even more stunning in person,” she told him seriously, eyes kind. “I absolutely love your hair.”
“You really are beautiful,” Dorcas agreed, appraising Regulus’. “What rituals or spells did you use?”
“I don’t alter my appearance,” Regulus answered. “I never have.”
“You’re joking.” Barty leaned back and crossed his arms haughtily. “No way that’s all real.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Regulus asked curiously. In his opinion, these people were very strange, with the exception of Evan. Although, really, Regulus wasn’t completely sure he knew what people outside of his mother’s criteria actually acted like, so maybe they weren’t strange and he was just ill-informed of traditional teenager conversation.
“You look, well-”
“Perfect,” Barty cut Dorcas off. “You look like a drawing, or a painting, or something, I don’t know. Real, actual people don’t look that perfect.”
“Regulus Black is known for that, Barty,” Evan answered sharply before Regulus could, but shut his mouth quickly when he realized what he had said.
“Please, continue,” Regulus urged him. “I’m curious to know what else I am known for.”
Evan looked hesitant, but continued, although he spoke more towards his friends than Regulus.
“Regulus Black is the second son of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black. He was born entirely perfect, except for a Bone Curse, which was triggered when he was a child. It’s, er, supposedly a familial curse. Anyway, it made him very weak and prevented him from leaving the House of Black, which is why he never attended Hogwarts. Um,” here he glanced nervously at Regulus, before swallowing and finishing quickly, “since the disownment of the first son of the House of Black, there were rumours that Regulus would attend Hogwarts as a representative of the family now that he’s the heir.”
“Quite accurate rumours,” Regulus commented neutrally.
“Are you okay, then?” Dorcas asked, her eyebrows furrowed. She smiled slightly when Regulus turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow. “I mean, is the Bone Curse mostly cured? Since you’re here, and all.”
“No.” Regulus uncrossed his legs and grabbed the head of his cane, returning it to its original position of resting in between his legs with his hands curled over the top. “There is no cure for the Curse. I simply work around it.”
“How?” Pandora grinned brightly. “I’ve been curious, since I’d heard how bad the Curse was, how you would be here.”
“You keep speaking as if you knew I would be here,” Regulus said to her, ignoring her question. “Why is that?”
“I saw you in a Dream,” she replied plainly, as if that was a completely normal response. Then again, maybe it was, and Regulus was dreadfully underprepared for how normal people talked to each other.
“Pan’s got the Gift,” Evan elaborated for him, gesturing to his forehead when he referred to ‘the Gift’. Regulus had never heard a reference to anything called ‘the Gift’, but when paired with the forehead gesture and supposedly seeing events in dreams, he had a fairly good idea of what it was referring to.
“Fascinating.” He turned back to Pandora. “Can you control it?”
“It’s a Gift, not a Belonging,” she told him sternly. “I only See what I am supposed to See.”
“And you ‘Saw’ me?” he pressed. He had, of course, never met a seer before, but, beyond that, he had never met someone who knew anything more about him than what Evan had just summarized. Pandora’s foreknowledge was a potential issue.
“Only this meeting,” she assured him, “and only in so many gestures. I knew to come to this compartment to meet you, but nothing more than that.”
Regulus nodded, giving an internal sigh of relief. Still, he was going to have to keep an eye on that. Luckily, Evan and Dorcas seemed like respectable enough allies to have, and having a seer connection could be beneficial. Barty, it seemed, was a package deal, but Regulus was confident he could find a way to work him if need be.
“You never answered Pandora’s question,” Barty said, seemingly still looking to poke a hole in Regulus somewhere. Unfortunately for him, Regulus was much too good to submit to poking of any kind, especially from a boy who didn’t brush his hair in the morning.
“I wear specially developed braces,” Regulus explained with the empty, but polite smile that he had so much practice in. He pulled his left sleeve back to show the entirety of the silver work.
The rings on all of his fingers connected to the chains made of small silver circles, which, in turn, connected to the silver cuff that sat on his wrist. More chains with a single, thin, silver support pole ran up the front and back of his forearm before connecting to the silver cuffs that surrounded his elbow on either side of the joint, which were connected to more silver chains and supports that ran up under his sleeve. All of it was inscribed with thousands of small runes pressed into the metal, the connection of which strengthened the bones under them.
All four of them seemed fascinated by the braces, with Dorcas and Evan even seemingly trying to read the small runage on the silver. Regulus pulled his sleeve down and set his hand back onto his cane.
“And you wear those everywhere?” Dorcas asked, a note of awe in her voice.
“For every bone and joint that I need to function correctly,” Regulus confirmed.
“Who made those?” Barty no longer seemed aggressive, instead leaning forwards curiously.
“Specialists,” Regulus answered simply. “They took many years to develop.”
“Yeah, I would assume so.” Evan blinked and met Regulus’ eyes, seemingly less intimidated than he had been. “That was really intricate and specific rune work, it must have taken masters to do it.”
Regulus dipped his chin in acknowledgement, but didn’t respond verbally. Dorcas must have taken that as a sign that he wanted to stop discussing it, because she changed the subject rather obviously.
“What grade will you be? I’m a seventh year, and the rest of them are sixth years,” she said, relaxing back into the train seat. For some reason that Regulus didn’t quite understand, showing the group his braces seemed to make them all much more comfortable around him.
“I will be a sixth year student,” he said. Pandora made a short, excited sound.
“That’s so exciting! We’ll have classes together!” she exclaimed softly.
“Hey, we don’t know what House he’ll be in,” Barty pointed out. “Or what NEWTs he’s in. And, hey, are you even sure you’ll be able to keep up with the NEWT classes? They’re supposed to be pretty bad.”
“I’m not concerned about them.” Regulus pressed his lips together in a much smaller, but more genuine, smile than he had given since meeting them. “I’ve been tutored at home very extensively. As for which classes, I’ve been enrolled in Ancient Runes, Transfiguration, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Arithmancy, Charms, and Magical Theory. And in regards to House, I was sorted in private over the summer in the Slytherin House.”
“Holy shit, that’s a lot of classes.” Barty’s eyes widened comically, seemingly more surprised at Regulus’ class list than anything else they had discussed.
“Are you even going to be able to attend all of those?” Evan asked, sounding slightly horrified.
“I’ve already worked it all out with the headmaster and the professors,” Regulus assured them, smiling a bit wider.
Honestly, he was very excited about his classes. He had only ever taught himself, learning from the thousands of books in the Black Library. Rarely, his father had deigned to teach him a practical spell, but most of Regulus’ learning was created by himself, in every subject he could find. When you’re confined to the same four walls for twelve years, books become something beyond simply something to study.
As for the actual difficulty of the classes, Regulus wasn’t overly concerned. He flexed his hands on the head of his cane, feeling the magic coursing from the silver wrapped around his body into his bones. Nothing could be quite as difficult as figuring all that out.
“Well, if you’re in Slytherin, you’ll be living with us,” Barty said with a conspiratorial grin, nodding towards Evan. It seemed that all of his earlier animosity had vanished in the face of a new potential ally. “We’ll help you out, of course, teach you all what you need to know about Hogwarts.”
“And I will unteach you all of that, and then teach you the actually important things,” Dorcas added with a wink.
“We’ll all be great friends,” Pandora told him confidently, nodding so that her strangely large earrings swung against her jaw. Evan laughed a little, a light, hesitant sound.
“Sure, why not,” he said. “We can all be great friends with Regulus Black. I’m sure this’ll be fantastic.”
“Oh, stop,” Dorcas scoffed. “It’ll be great. Just look at him.”
As one, all four of them turned to look directly at Regulus. For his part, he swung his hair a bit more over his shoulder and gave a full smile with teeth.
“Oh, Merlin, we’re going to die,” Evan muttered, looking away. Barty made a fascinated noise.
“Seriously, how do you look like that?” he demanded. “I’m terrified and also ridiculously attracted to you. It’s not poss- hey!” He ducked as Dorcas went to swat at his head again.
“Really, would it kill you all to be normal?” she asked tiredly.
“I feel that this is going to go splendidly,” Pandora stated unprompted, a faraway look on her face. “As long as we remember to keep our fires open, of course.”
Regulus blinked at the strange statement, while Dorcas simply shook her head in defeat.
“I supposed I was asking too much.” She sighed and looked over at Regulus. “Are you normal?”
Regulus simply stared at her. He hadn’t quite interacted with enough people to know if he was considered normal. Of course, he knew how to be normal, or at least what he was supposed to do to succeed, but he wasn’t sure if knowing how to be normal and being normal were two different attributes.
Also, he didn’t fully understand what was happening, and felt that his first impression of Hogwarts being what he was starting to learn was a group of very strange individuals perhaps was not the best beginning to his schooling, especially with all that he had to do.
Regulus, however, was nothing if not determined, and, beyond that, he was perfect. It was not a question of whether or not he would succeed, because he was perfect, and perfection always succeeded.
“I should have seen that coming,” Dorcas said to the window, which is when Regulus realized she had been waiting for a response from him, though she didn’t seem overly bothered. Barty and Evan had devolved into arguing about something that Regulus wasn’t quite following, and Pandora pulled a reluctant Dorcas into a conversation about another thing Regulus didn’t understand. It seemed he still had much to learn about conversation with teenagers.
Slightly overwhelmed, Regulus turned back to look out of the window. The green and gray of the Scottish countryside blurred past them, and Regulus followed everything with his eyes, smiling slightly to himself when he spotted a lake.
He had never seen a lake before. What Regulus realized must be a swan was floating serenely on the placid water, and Regulus watched, enraptured, as it shook itself, flapped its wings, and flew away.