Chapter-VII
The Black Brothers
A muddy Regulus, from head to toe headed towards the castle, after a tedious first Herbology lesson. They had attained it with Hufflepuffs. Prof. Sprout, the head of the Hufflepuff house was their Herbology prof. She was a plump witch, with a patchy robe & short curly grey hair. As soon as they entered the greenhouse one, their 1st year classroom for the lesson, they were greeted enthusiastically by Prof. Sprout. They were asked to work on a particularly small but interesting plant, which, if taken care properly would grow into a very elegant looking mistletoe & would produce a soft tune while wind would ruffle its leaves. The magical plant was called “Chimerry Shimmer”. It was well known for its use in wedding parties or for decorating places in different occasions.
“The full grown plants are not higher than 2 feet from the ground but rather bushy & each one has different colours & shape, depending on the qualities of the seeds & the way they are grown.” declared by Prof. Sprout.
Regulus found them a bit too girlish. For the 1st day’s work, they all had to plant the seed properly & water them continuously. The tricky part is that, the little green seeds were really jumpy & as soon as they came in contact with the soil, they jumped out in different directions in a rather nasty sort of way & that’s why they had to pour water in an attempt to stick the seed to the soil properly. Evidently, that turned out to be the biggest messy event in the hands of the first years. They worked in groups of three & Regulus’s group included Hans & a fearful and slightly harassed Edwin. Edwin seemed like a bit scared being sandwiched between two Slytherins, while one of them was from the Legendary Black family. Regulus tried to make him feel comfortable, but couldn’t managed his best due to the fact that his other partner, Hans, was a true Slytherin & never missed a single opportunity to smirk or sneer at Edwin, who was nothing but a mere Hufflepuff to him & worst of all he was a bit clumsy.
Regulus was glad that the lesson was over. He was starving.
“That was groase.”
Regulus turned to see Hans had caught up with him.
“I am starving. What about you?”
“Yeah , me too.” Regulus replied as he drew his wand from his robe pocket & started to apply a cleaning charm to clean himself from the mud.
“whoa….you know how to do a Scourgify charm…” Hans was amazed.
“Yeah, well…that’s the advantage of being a Black you see…my parents taught me some useful spells at home, though this is my first time with my wand.” He gave a bit stress to utter the word “useful”.
Regulus decided to show off his fellow Slytherins, so that the whole lot of them would think before they would act against him. He grabbed the fact soon enough, that his “Black” surname wouldn’t shield him for long time & to survive in Slytherin house he had to stand up for himself. His situation would turn difficult & not to mention the MOST difficult soon, if he continued to be friendly with a Griffindor & a Ravenclaw. Hence he needed to be feared & admired by his house mates, if he wanted to run the things according to his will.
Entering the castle Hans headed towards his dormitory, while Regulus headed to the great hall for lunch. He spotted Stephanie & Rick at the very instant, sitting & having their lunch at their respective house tables. Both of them beamed at him. With a brief nod to them he went to Slytherin table & sat down alone. Surely he didn’t want another scene like the morning & by the understanding look from his friends he was sure that they didn’t want it either.
The Great hall was buzzing excitedly with the large crowd of students, taking their lunch & chatting happily. Regulus helped himself with some mashed potatoes & kept glancing around the hall.
“No Potter! I won’t marry you. Shove off , before I hex you.” Regulus shot his neck up towards the angry voice & found a very pretty Gryffindor girl with waist length red hair & sparkling green eyes, was on her feet, pointing her wand straight at a Gryffindor boy, with jet black & very untidy black hair, who, as Regulus recognized in an instant was James Potter.
James was on the ground, kneeling before the girl, holding out his hands towards the girl in a perfect proposing posture & seemed like doing his best to confess his undying love for her, but was failing miserably. Sirius was sitting behind him with Remus & a chubby boy. All of them, except Remus were eyeing the situation with great interest & plainly fighting an outburst of laughter while an exasperate Remus buried his nose in a book, in a false pretence to read.
With those words the girl marched off in opposite direction holding her nose high in the air.
“Oi! Evans…wait….” James tried to follow her & in his hasty attempt to get up he tripped over his robe & fell gracelessly on Sirius & Remus, burying Sirius’s face in one of the pudding bowls unintentionally. James although didn’t seem to mind to be the sole reason of Sirius’s immediate ill fate. He, however got up & took his sit beside Sirius facing Remus.
“Serve you right, for being a help…” James added acidly to Sirius & had earned an immediate blow on his head from Sirius, whose face is dripping vanilla pudding all over the table.
“Git…” murmured James.
“Yeah right…but still it’s always you, Lily wants to get rid off, wants to hex, not to mention wanting to stump you by her feet like a nasty bit of toerag…& still it’s me…a git.” Sirius added sarcastically, maintaining a solemn look in his pudding covered face, which he obviously considered as a graceful way to retort.
“Well, atleast I don’t look like a hair wig, placed on a vanilla icecone AND she thinks about me…” James concluded with a slight triumph in his tone & wiggled his eyebrows frantically to Sirius.
Remus & the other boy, burst out into laughter. Sirius spared a glare at Remus’s direction but however turned to the other boy.
“Find it funny Peter Pettigrew? Then may be I should try this bowl of chocolate pudding on you.” Sirius picked up a bowl. Peter immediately jumped on his foot & Sirius started to laugh as he cleaned his face with a swift ‘Scourgify’ charm & James joined in. Remus shook his head a bit & returned to his book.
Regulus chuckled. He saw that, not only him, but a lot of students were staring at them but none was looking, as if they were watching that encounter for the first time, in fact some of them were staring with high admiration in their eyes but the four of them were just too busy to be bothered by it.
Regulus sighed softly. ‘Well, atleast he is happy here, away from the black house which is literally black…’ thought Regulus. He suddenly made a decision, that he just wouldn’t let his brother think that he was one of the rest of Blacks. He would tell him about his sorting. He would tell him that he was like his brother & the fact that he was quite thrilled to be the one like him. He looked over the Gryffindor table again & searched for an opportunity to speak to his brother alone. Although he liked James & Remus a lot, but still it didn’t seem like a good idea to talk to Sirius in front of them. Besides, they two were not the only ones to be there, but the table was sort of overflowing with Gryffindors by the time.
‘If only Sirius can go out for a bit, may be to his dorm or …’ Regulus thought with a desperation “….may be to boy’s bathroom.”
Suddenly he saw Sirius leaned against the table & the other three heads were leaned in too. He whispered something under his breath & got up swiftly from his place & started walking towards the giant staircase, just outside the great Hall.
Regulus couldn’t believe in his luck & his heart leapt joyfully, as he too stood up & made to follow him.
Sirius was moving quickly through the staircase, which was almost empty as most of the students & teachers were in the great hall, at the middle of their meals. 1st floor, 2nd floor, 3rd floor…Sirius made an abrupt halt. With a quick glance in left & right direction he went straight to an ancient looking statue, at the base of which “Merrypie Shunpaul, 860 BC- 1000BC, Witch of metal charm”, these words were etched with golden ink. The statue was situated at the furthest corner of the floor. Sirius bent down & pulled out his wand.
“Sirius.” Sirius jumped & turned around in alarm. He expected a teacher or worse, the caretaker Filtch but found his younger brother was standing there.
“What the hell…I mean… Regulus?”
Regulus noticed that Sirius didn’t call him “Reg” but let out a formal “Regulus”. He flinched inwardly but didn’t show it on his face.
“I want to talk to you” Regulus said in a calm voice, although his inside was waiting impatiently to see his brother’s happy reaction at the words he was about to say. He wanted the familiar warmth in his brother’s voice for him once again.
“wanna talk? To me? Why? You have got loads of Slytherin mates for that. Haven’t you? Oh, I see… you want a mentor I guess…well, you’ve got plenty of those too… Bellatrix, Narcissa… very dignified Blacks you see & will be perfect for a Slytherin firstie.” Sirius hissed venomously.
“What? No…no…I…”
But before Regulus could say anything Sirius cut in,
“Well, I must say…you are a particular good Slytherin & already has got a knack of setting traps…I thought she was your friend, Regulus …but NO, to you she was a Gryffindor & you’ve decided to invite her over Slytherin right in front of that hag’s wand point in her very first day.” Sirius spat.
Regulus’s eyes went wide in shock.
“No Sirius, I did invite her & Rick, but I was so pissed off & just wanted to….”
“Have some fun?” supplied Sirius.
“Yeah…NO… not in that way, but…I mean, I wanted to talk…” Regulus stuttered.
“Well, of course not, it would have been funny to you if you saw them to be hexed, isn’t it?” Sirius’s eyes flashed dangerously.
“NO. Siri please listen…”
“If it was some other first year, I would’ve straight jinxed him. I’ve spared you for the first & last time Regulus. Next time I won’t see you as my brother. In fact, from now on, I have no brother.I am done with all pure blood maniacs.” Sirius virtually shouted out & piercing Regulus with a glance of anger & hatred, he stormed away from that place.
Regulus couldn’t find any answer to the series of verbal blows, he received from his brother. His head mind went blank out of shock & he just stood there, wide eyed & with a vacant expression in his face.
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