The Four Interchanging Lives of Regulus Black (Harry Potter Fanfic)

Slytherin

"Slytherin!"

The bellowing of the hat—

How Regulus felt—

Regulus made his way to the Slytherin table, eyes to the ground, walking automatically towards Narcissa, a sweat starting on his neck and—

"I guess I'm not allowed to change my fate?" Regulus thought to himself.

And then—

"Wait? What fate?"

Regulus continued staring at his feet, still wondering what—

There existed a strange feeling similar to Deja Vu, yet the feeling—

His eyes blinked as Narcissa reached a hand out, pulling him to sit next to her the same way she did the last time he'd been sorted into Slytherin.

"It is like Deja Vu," Regulus thought to himself. "Because I am indeed here, repeating the past and headed straight for my fate."

His eyes blinked.

"What fate?"

And then—

He remembered drowning, hands pulling him down.

Regulus clamped a hand over his mouth, his eyes clamping shut, attempting to block out the memory of his past life, of his death, of—

"Nobody was there to save me."

"Regulus?"

His eyes blinked, and he looked up at Narcissa. He lowered his hand. "Yes?"

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Huh?" He looked at his cousin, always looking like an angel, yet as he'd grown older, he'd come to know how much like the other members of the Black family she could be. A shiver ran down his spine, yet he knew—there were times she'd sharp words for Bellatrix regarding whatever business she'd dragged Regulus in. "Yet all I ever did was read books at the places they went, retrieved them for..."

"Is that all you did?" A voice asked in the back of his head as Narcissa touched his forehead.

"Well, you're not running a fever."

"That's how it seemed, yes, but there was, I admit, something more to it, and no telling what he used from..."

"Regulus?"

Regulus' eyes blinked. "Cissy?"

"You're not running a fever, yet you blanched a moment ago? You didn't want to be sorted into Slytherin?"

"Well, no." He sucked in his breath, lifting his hands. "I meant yes." And then he frowned. "Wait? Which is the correct way to answer the correct way?"

"What, dear?"

"I'm trying to say I'm completely fine with being sorted into Slytherin," Regulus said.

"Funny because you were spending time with Sirius the whole time and didn't come and see Lucius and me in my compartment."

"I was?" Regulus felt his mouth twist, then remembered being in the compartment. "Uh..."

"Really?" Narcissa sighed, brushing a lock of hair away from his forehead. "How scatterbrained can you be, little one?"

Regulus closed his eyes, thinking, remembering the discussion of inferior and superior, which, like always, went over everyone's head. He sighed. "I probably annoyed Sirius and his friends."

"So you decided to be sorted into Slytherin instead, love?"

"I wasn't aiming to be sorted anywhere, really," Regulus said. "I just wanted his attention, but he and everybody never understood anything I said. It's so frustrating."

Narcissa paused, brushing her fingers through his hair, playing with it, and saying nothing.

Regulus frowned, then reached up, touching her fingers with his own, having come to find Narcissa's action of brushing locks of his hair away from his eyes as a child soothing, remembering how, as he got older, the touch became less frequent. Still, then, she'd also graduated from high school. "Cissy?"

"I was just thinking," her mouth pressed together.

"About what?"

"Maybe, oh. I don't know," Narcissa sighed. "Aunt Walburga would be livid if I even suggested it."

"What?"

"That you might be better off in Ravenclaw."

He felt his mouth twist. "She would be livid, wouldn't she." He glanced over at Sirius, who waved at him nervously. He waved back, trying to smile. "She got mad at Sirius, after all."

"Well, Ravenclaw's not the rival Gryffindor is?"

Regulus shook his head, feeling nauseous. "My fate is my fate, isn't it?"

"That's a rather..." Narcissa sighed. "Regulus, you're still a child, so don't think like that. And eat."

Taking a deep breath, he ate, and if not for Narcissa, he would not have eaten much of anything, only she kept pressing, mothering him. "She'll be a great mother one day. I wonder if she ever did end up being one. I mean, I..." He paused, thinking. "I missed so much?"

A gentle hand ruffled the top of his head while Narcissa informed him they'd been dismissed. He got up, waving at Sirius again, who looked—

Regulus blinked, his head tilting. "Is Sirius actually bummed I didn't get sorted into Gryffindor? Rather than angry, I got sorted into Slytherin?"

"Come along. There's not any time for play dates with that brother of yours," Narcissa cooed. "Not until the weekend, as you've had a very long week, but knowing Sirius, he likely tired you out."

"Oh. Yeah." Regulus followed, letting her hold onto his arm, remembering how this stood out to all the other Slytherin. They entered the dorms in the same way as before, and everything seemed all right.

But then it wasn't.

Regulus' eyes widened, his jaw-dropping, his hands reaching up as a shiver ran down his spine as his eyes widened in horror, the memory of—

He tried taking a deep breath, only—

"I forgot, I forgot! I bloody forgot!" Regulus thought to himself, trembling at the sight of the enormous window, and then—

He smelled vomit and saw black.