Chapter Text
1991, September 1st
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Regulus was sitting at the head table in the front of the Great Hall. He was sitting next to Minerva's chair-as she was the most tolerable of the other staff. After so many years of working with the transfiguration professor some could even call them friends of sorts, Regulus supposed. Minerva was leading the first years through the great ornate doors and as usual the first years were starry-eyed as the observed the room around them. The bewitched ceiling and the thousands of floating candles always seemed to amaze them.
As Minerva walked in front of the head table, she put down a stout stool and a ragged old hat the looked like it was falling apart at the seams on top of it. With a roll of parchment in her hand Minerva took a step back from the stool. As the first years looked curiously at the hat the biggest seam in the front opened and began to sing-effectively startling the children.
"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,
But don't judge on what you see,
I'll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat than me.
You can keep your Bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
And I can cap them all.
There's nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting Hat can't see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.
You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart.
You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patients Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil.
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
if you've a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind.
Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folks use any means
To achieve their ends.
So put me on! Don't be afraid!
And don't get in a flap!
You're in safe hands (though I have none)
For I'm a Thinking Cap!"
Ah Yes, The Sorting Hats Song. Even though it changed every year it was a staple of the new school year. He still remembered the songs from his own school years. Getting darker every year as the war progressed. The sorting Hat was a funny thing-well not actually funny but you understand- it's like he can sense what's going to happen in the school each year and has a song to match it.
Minerva unrolled the parchment in her hand and began calling names. "Abbot, Hannah" She announced and a small blonde girl with two identical ponytails walked forward and shyly put the hat on her head and sat on the stout stool. After around thirty seconds the hat had shouted out the house the girl belongs to.
"HUFFELPUFF"
The table on the very left erupted with cheers while most of the professors politely clap. Abbot took the hat off a put it back on the stool. She had a smile on her face as she skipped over to the badger den. Minerva once again looked at the parchment and called out, "Bones, Susan."
A girl with light red hair walked up to the stool and but the old hat on. This time it took around two minutes but again the girl belonged to the badgers. It continued like this for a while-Regulus had always thought the sorting took forever. Each time his house gained a new snake he clapped a bit louder than the rest, if only because to give them a bit of reassurance that they would be looked after under his watch. And when his nephew, Draco, looked over to him after he was sorted, he gave him a small smile. Which had caused the boy to pompously walk over to the other snakes. Merlin Regulus was going to have to make Draco unlearn what his father had taught him.
Then finally The-Boy-Who-Lived was called up to the stool. Harry Potter was a short skinny boy with light brown skin, crazy jet-black hair, and Killing-Curse green eyes. He looked like a kicked puppy and Regulus had noticed he looked much too small for his age. Regulus had always thought the whole boy who lived nonsense was ridiculous. He was only a baby when that happened, and it should have not been possible in anyway and no one really knew what happened that night. Potter would grow up with all that fame for something he didn't even remember. Sometimes he wondered where the common sense was within the wixen world.
The small boy stumbled up to the hat nervously and put the raggedy hat on the covered the top half of his face. He saw Dumbledore cross his fingers and lean forward slightly. After about a minute and a half Potter started to shift in his chair and fidget with his sleeves. It was at the three minute fifteen seconds when the hat had shouted.
"BETTER BE- GRYFFINDOOR!"
The table with the lions dancing above them on the banners cheered very loudly-some even standing and applauding. He noticed Dumbledore clap louder than he had any other kids which wasn't much anyway. Potter then got off the stool and hesitantly put the hat back on it and walked to the table of the lions a small smile on his face. When he got there, he sat next to two familiar red-headed twins.
When the sorting was over-finishing up with Blaise Zabini one of his snakes-mounds and mounds of food appeared on every table causing many of the first years to gasp in surprise at the food. Then Dumbledore stood and immediately commanded silence within the hall. "Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are. Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you." Then sat back down to a few laughs from the students. Though almost immediately the children dug into the food.
Regulus filled his own plate with steak, potatoes, steamed vegetables, and all sorts of other food. Regulus spent most of dinner speaking to Minerva on his right and Aroura Sinistra to his left. Just a little while later dinner disappeared, and the dessert appeared. The steaming pies, the Cauldron Cakes, Pumpkin Pasties, Mallowsweet cheesecake, and more all looked delicious. However, Regulus just settled on a few Pumpkin Paistes. It was only about twenty minutes later that Dumbledore gave his final speech for the night. At Dumbledore's instruction the Prefects stood up and took the first years to their common rooms. The staff also stood up and went to their own rooms, Regulus as well. He walked a bit slowly so the children could be settled by the time he came down to talk to them.
He arrived in front of an unassuming wall and said "Serpentine." It was this year's password to the Slytherin common rooms. The stone wall opened up and left a hole large enough for Regulus to step through. The Slytherin common room had 3 stone fireplaces around the room, bookshelves lined the walls, tapestries of great Slytherins and their achievements hung on the walls, plush carpets on the floor. There were black couches and wooden tables and chairs littering the room. The first years were sitting on the couches closest to the entrance and looked up when he walked in. All the Slytherins looked up to him and he started to speak.
"Hello everyone. I am professor Regulus Black. Potions Master and Head of Slytherin House. You have just been sorted into the Slytherin house tonight and, this is where you will be for the next seven years of your life. Now, I will give you a warning, people in the other houses will ridicule us, talk down to us and, assume the worst of us simply because of the color of our ties. I won't ask for you all to get along but once you leave these stone walls, I will ask you to be a united front. Slytherins are cunning and smart, and I expect you to stick together. If anyone does try anything against you come to me and I will deal with it. While you are in this school you will be under my watch, and I hope you have a good seven years under me. Good night children." He offered them small smile and then left back down the winding hallways of the dungeons to his own room.
He opened the wooden door to his office and walked through. It looked a lot like the Slytherin common room. The room was immaculately decorated. There was a great ornate stone fireplace with a green couch Infront of it and an armchair to the left of it. There was a fuzzy black rug under the small coffee table Infront of the couch. There were tapestries hanging on the walls, green curtains covering the windows that lead into the black lake, and books scattered on the furniture. The floor was a brown wood that held more heat than the stone in the dungeons. On the opposite side of the room across from the fireplace the floor was raised and there were three steps leading up to the raised floor. In the middle of the raised part of the room was a dark oak desk with a plush armchair behind it. There were bookshelves lining all the walls and candles that lit the office nicely. Behind the desk there was another door that looked like the one he had just walked through that leads to his personal bedroom and bath.
It was already getting late so Regulus just went to his room immediately. When he arrived in his room, he took his shoes off and went over to the wardrobe to change. He was just about open the doors of the wardrobe when he felt something rub against his legs. He looked down and spotted his black half-kneazle cat, Étoile. "Hello girl." He says lovingly. Regulus bends down and gives her a few pets. He looked back up to the closet and changed out of his black dress pants and his white loose top and changed in his silk black pajamas.
He climbed into bed under the green comforter and drifted off it a fitful sleep dreaming of dead hands and cold water.