The Story of Regulus Black - Years 1-4

CIX. The Trial of Sirius Orion Black: Part I

CW: unhealthy consumption of alcohol & mention of suicidal thoughts

Regulus Black wanted to see Christian. Merlin, did he want to see Christian.

More specifically, he wanted to feel the comfort that came with Christian's arms being wrapped around him. He wanted to be told that everything would be ok from someone that Regulus Black trusted more than most others. For, with Regulus especially, trust was earned, and Christian had done nothing to break that trust - not yet.

But, that was an unattainable want. So, Regulus Black turned to alcohol.

Unlike the Slug Club party, Regulus wasn't restraining himself when it came to his newfound want to drink. He would drink enough to forget all about his problems and to silence the noises in his head, and then he would drink a little bit more after that. He lived in a near-constant state of hangovers and of being drunk beyond any reasonable thought.

He was skiving off classes in favor of either sleeping off a hangover from the previous night or else getting drunk enough to give him one later. Getting alcohol wasn't a very big issue, either. A few galleons to older students or a quick pathetic scene in front of Professor Slughorn and he was set.

He knew that it was unhealthy, and he knew that he needed to stop. However, the buzz of alcohol in his veins and the feeling of being weightless - completely free from his own mind - was too good to pass up; especially in a time like this.

He had shown up drunk to his tutoring session with Gwen and had not gone unnoticed. She left only a few minutes in and ran off to find Benji. After all, she didn't know anyone else who could help Regulus and who wouldn't tell a teacher.

The three Gryffindor boys confronted Regulus on Wednesday morning when he was leaving the Great Hall from breakfast. He was very hungover and therefore was far more irritable than he was on a normal basis.

All three of them had pulled him aside in the entrance hall and expressed their concerns to him. They told him that alcohol wasn't a healthy coping mechanism and that it wasn't worth the potential long-term damages.

Regulus simply rolled his eyes at this. "Yeah, I know it's not a healthy coping mechanism. I'm not doing it for the fucking health benefits," he snapped, his voice full of venom.

They then proceeded to express the fact that they were concerned for him and that he should stop. Regulus went on a very long-winded rant about how his life wasn't any of their concern and that he could do whatever he wanted. He left them there after that and did not even spare them so much as a glance for the next few days.

Regulus Black wasn't addicted to alcohol by any means. If he wanted to stop drinking it, then he could with no problems. He had no intentions of letting it reach the state of addiction, either. It was simply a temporary fix that he expressed for the days following Sirius's expulsion and arrest.

Thursday night was the first night that Regulus weaned himself off of alcohol. He did find his thoughts quite a miserable thing to have to deal with, but he knew that he would need to be completely sober and not hungover the next day. So, he didn't drink a single drop of alcohol and instead consumed copious amounts of water to rehydrate himself.

It wasn't permanent, but it was a temporary few hours of self-control where the negative corners of his mind didn't win out. He could focus on making himself permanently better when he didn't have to deal with everything that was happening with Sirius. When that ended, he would be able to put his full focus on not letting himself slip back into his old and negative habits of self-pity and thoughts of ending his own life just for an escape.

On Thursday night, Regulus also headed to the first place outside of the dungeons that was not the Great Hall. He made the long trek up to Minerva McGonagall's office in the Transfiguration wing and knocked on the door. He knew that she had not taken up a post in the headmaster's office just yet - she was positive that Albus Dumbledore would come back eventually, and she wanted his office to be just as he had left it when he did.