The Story of Regulus Black - Years 1-4

CVI. Valentine's Day 1976

Valentine's Day rolled around quicker than anyone in the castle would've liked to admit. But, before they all knew it, the walls of the castle were decked with pink and red hearts and there was a stupid little cupid shooting everyone with arrows that smarted quite a bit.

Regulus woke up this day feeling miserable. He had a headache, his throat was dry, and he missed Christian. He had, of course, sent Christian a letter a few days before that was to be arriving that morning. However, that didn't stop him from missing him quite a bit.

Regulus didn't know what he was going to do that day. His boyfriend (could he even call Christian his boyfriend since they had decided to keep it unlabeled?) was in a different country, his friends were all going on dates with either other people or each other, and it was a Friday which meant classes - more specifically, Defense Against the Dark Arts. As far as he could tell, he was not going to have a very good Valentine's Day that year.

Getting dressed was a task in and of itself. He didn't want to get out of bed that day - he just wanted to lay there and sleep and sulk. But, he knew that that wouldn't do anything for the progress that he had made with his mental health, and so he forced himself out of bed and into his clothes for the day. Since he had come back from holiday break, Regulus had made it a point to wear his full uniform every single day, not only so that Professor Johnston had no excuses to give him detention, but also because it worked to make him feel better about himself.

Barty and the others woke up around the same time as Regulus, which made for a very awkward start to the day indeed. Barty and Regulus's beds were still next to one another, so they had to pass by each other several times in the process of getting ready for the morning. In all honesty - there was no other word to put it - it sucked.

Regulus was the first one to leave the dorm room, book bag slung over his shoulder and hair having to be pushed back every few minutes. Regulus's hair and grown out quite a lot. It now hung past his jaw, a bit longer than he preferred it to be. He knew that he needed to trim it again, but he just couldn't seem to find the time.

When he reached the Great Hall it was buzzing with activity. People were filling up all of the tables, splashes of opposing house colors interspersed across the house tables where couples of different houses were sitting together. He looked around as he made his way to the Slytherin table, noting a few people that he recognized.

Gwendolyn Everett was sitting with Benjamin Stone at the Gryffindor table, across from Francesco Anderson and Deacon Ackland who were sitting a bit closer than normal. Phoebe Scott was sitting at the end of the Gryffindor table with Lottie Burton, but this had become a normal occurrence at every meal so it wasn't that odd. Lennox Wright was sitting at the Hufflepuff table with Clementine Bates, but this had also become somewhat of a normal occurrence.

One thing that Regulus noticed, however, was that there were barely any members of other houses sitting at the Slytherin table. The table was lined with nothing but green and silver, only one obstruction of blue towards the very end. This was not very surprising, really. After all, Slytherin house contained its fair share of blood-supremacists, all of which usually didn't date outside of the house. The few who did engage in inter-house dating would often try to keep their significant others as far away from the rest of the house as possible, hence the spots of green that spread throughout the other tables.

Regulus didn't know what he would do if he were to date someone in another house. Would he ask them to come to sit at the Slytherin table with him during meals, or would he go to their house table? Or - and this was also a very fair possibility - would he simply not sit with them at all to conceal them from the influence that the other Slytherins tended to have on relationships?