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How many students can manage to get hurt during their first day of school? Apparently, a lot. Darya had estimated the number to be something around forty. And at least ten of them had come from the Quidditch pitch, where Regulus was teaching first-years to fly ― and somehow, all ten were part of the Slytherin house.
Darya knew people spoke badly about her Hogwarts house. The ambition was for some reason connected to evil. Was it because of the Death Eaters? There was a possibility, but the students of the house had gotten mean comments thrown their way many decades before Tom had been born. Maybe it was because of the founder of the house, Salazar Slytherin. He had such a dubious reputation.
She thought these ten students and Regulus represented Slytherin well today. They used their ambitions to perfect their skills in flying. Bruises were part of the game. They didn't care about them, as long as they got to the top of the class. Regulus Black had always been like that. At least, that was the impression Darya had of him. Gold was all that mattered to him. With every broken bone, collapsing lung, and beating heart, Regulus reached for the gold. Like a true Slytherin.
He had spent half of his years at Hogwarts on the Quidditch Pitch. She had lost count of all the times he had woken her and the rest of her house's members, coming back to the Slytherin dorms in the middle of the night after training for many, many hours.
There was not a day with rest or a night without high hopes. Every morning, he kissed his bruised knuckles and began again. A world without pumping adrenaline and applause was not a world for him.
She tried to imagine what his life would have looked like if he had gone on to become a Quidditch star instead of a Death Eater after school ended. She imagined teams all over Europe would have fought for him. They would have fought for his attention desperately. He truly was that good.
The teams would have fallen to their knees and offered him everything he wanted, had he told them he could play for them. But it was clear that Regulus didn't wish for that. Regulus cared about traditions. More specifically, his family's old blood-mania traditions.
"What do you think of him?"
Marina froze. What did she think of him?
"He's really annoying," she said quickly.
"Just annoying?"
"Just annoying." Darya nodded.
Darya and Poppy were watching the flying lessons from the hospital wing's large windows. Regulus was helping a few children with mounting their brooms. She felt like she was back in school again, watching the infamous Black on the pitch.
He wasn't exactly bad-looking. In fact, she thought he was handsome. The Blacks were known for their good looks, and she could remember having a small crush on him when they were younger. Those feelings, however, quickly disappeared when he started to care and talk about blood purity.
