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Name: Regulus Arcturus Black II
Age: 16
House: Slytherin, naturally. It's the only House worth being in.
History: If only Regulus Arcutus Black had been the first child. How different the Black household would have been; a respectable heir, for one, and perhaps Sirius as their second child may have seen fit to follow in Regulus' noble footsteps. Unfortunately, their little prince was the second born, smaller and thinner and less attractive than his elder brother was. Sirius was a natural charmer who made his old great-aunts smile when he was dragged out to be paraded; Regulus, on the other hand, was naturally sour, a trait that had him scolded regularly until he learned to reform -- learned to
conform -- to be, as his mother chastised, more like his brother Sirius. But just as Regulus had grown old enough to understand what was expected of him, Sirius had grown old enough to understand that he didn't want to fit the mold -- suddenly, Regulus was the one to be modeled after, an exhilarating feeling of being
better than the brother that he had been inferior to in every way driving Regulus to occasionally repeat back lines that his mother would scream at Sirius at night, when Sirius made an off-handed remark or sour expression or was in any way imperfect.
Merlin, it felt good.
Regulus didn't understand what it meant, of course, that his brother was rebelling in small ways; in fact, he still rather liked his brother, and secretly looked up to him. He was smart enough to hide this fact, though he modeled himself after his brother in small ways, and called him "brother" or "big brother" or various silly nicknames when their parents, ever so critical, were out of the room. He worked to make himself more likable, more intelligent, more attractive. How stupid he had been. How superficial Sirius was. How the mighty had fallen.
Regulus could not remember ever seeing his mother
livid. Angry, yes. But this was... different. For weeks she ranted and raved and screamed until she could scream no more, cursing her own son to unspeakable horrors, sending Howlers and angry letters and ending with being melodramatically bedridden for almost a week. Sirius had been Sorted into Gryffindor. Regulus didn't understand. He learned.
Regulus resented Sirius, of course. Resented him for being so unfailingly perfect and yet so unfailingly disobedient; for hanging around filth that would slowly tarnish him by association; for throwing away all that his blessed prestigious name had given him. He had been so perfect, Regulus had thought. He had so much. And now Regulus, the little prince who had not been big or good enough or
Sirius enough, was expected to fill his shoes and then some.
Regulus was nothing if not compliant.
So began his patterns of externally hating his brother and internally wanting to save him -- he wanted Sirius to be good so that Regulus could continue to model himself after him, could continue to be close to him -- but they grew more and more distant, and Regulus plainly said where he stood on the matter by the time he was in Second Year and called Sirius a Muggle-loving whore directly to his face. He had chosen his side, and Sirius had chosen his, and that was that.
While Sirius made friends with half-bloods and blood-traitor scum, Regulus was busy making sure the Black presence was still known within Slytherin. Malfoys, Lestranges, Greengrasses, Baddocks, Mulcibers, Crabbes, Goyles, Crouches, Parkinsons -- he knew every prominent Wizarding family in Britain and a few besides, knew who was known for what and who had the most number of suitors and who the largest number of brides and where the largest dowries were and which families would as soon eat each other and blink, etcetera, etcetera. Regulus fell in with Cousin Bella's crowd (Bellatrix, now, said reverently), though he preferred Cousin Cissy's (Narcissa, really) group of pretty faces, of passive but fervent believers. This continued well into his third year; he was content to fit in, to snip a bit at the various levels of scum that clung to Hogwarts' walls. And then.
Sirius decided to get his stupid arse kicked out of the house at the worst possible time. Regulus was struggling to convince his friends that they wouldn't face his brother's wrath if they so much as talked to him; Bellatrix was angry with him for not physically retaliating against Sirius, as she had done in the past; his grades were under constant attack due to the sheer level of
stress he was under; and he had discovered he was one of those god-awful pillow-biting shirt-lifting
queers he heard people talking about. It was sort of an accidental discovery, something that came about while listening to his peers talk about girls and pretty girls and things to do with pretty girls and legs up to here and tits out to there. Regulus grew slowly less interested, and with that lack of interest came the horror of interest in the exact
opposite -- the unnatural, the desire for boys and pretty boys and things to do with pretty boys and tousled hair and hard flat stomachs and he was fucked, he was utterly fucked, he was the worst heir in the history of heirs and he was just going to have to kill himself.
Sirius being blasted off the family tree awoke Regulus to the very real fear of himself being kicked out and sent away if there was so much as a whisper of his disgusting secret, and unlike Sirius he did not have anything or anyone to fall back on. Regulus realized, over the duration of that fateful year, that he did not really have any true friends, any friends that would stick by him for any of these things, no friend to say "I don't care if you're wretched you can live with my family" or "Even though you disgust me I cannot turn my back on you." Any of his friends would have disowned him for what his parents would have. Regulus made up his mind to stifle everything, to be perfect, to be so fantastic that he would never be blasted off that tree, that he would be loved and kept forever. So what if he felt ill whenever his mother discussed possible brides for him ("Oh, that Mulciber girl is nice, so pretty -- "), and so what that no, he couldn't tell a Muggleborn from a Pureblood if he was just looking at them or talking to them or
fuck even
friends with them (not that he was)? None of that mattered if everyone thought he was perfect.
What was once a somewhat annoying Slytherin, one of dozens, became a perfect instrument of hate. Regulus spewed party lines like prayers, and allowed Bellatrix to manipulate him into doing whatever she wanted -- she was the most fervent, she knew the most. Yes, he would become perfect; all of 16 years old, Regulus knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to be such a good son that Sirius would
die from it. That, or kill his brother himself.
Because that's what's expected, isn't it?
Personality: If ever there was a Slytherin more obnoxiously horrid than Regulus Black, no man nor beast could have ever stood to be in its presence for a prolonged period of time. Regulus is opinionated on
everything -- and he likes to make himself and his opinions known, and anyone who disagrees instantly signs themselves up for his undying hatred. Regulus keeps horrendously long grudges, and though he is diplomat enough to hide some of his feelings towards his "superiors," he, like his mother, is quick to tear them down whenever they show signs of weakness.
Regulus is prejudiced and he's not afraid to say it. Muggleborns putrefy bloodlines, Gryffindors are simpletons and Hufflepuff is just a bunch of Muggle-loving poufs; Ravenclaw's really the only House besides Slytherin worth being in and any and every Slytherin is a gift to Wizardkind. Like many of his kind, Regulus is not at all shy about his opinions; unlike some (the Goyles, for instance, or the unseemly Carrows), Regulus has been taught how to be nice to the right people, and how to be snippy and cruel without being heavy-handed -- and taught well. Regulus is quick to belittle just about anyone for just about anything; he is immensely critical, cruel, and sarcastic, but only to people he's
allowed to be critical, cruel and sarcastic to. (Most of the time. Occasionally he slips and insults a Mulciber, but he has been trained well in the art of the apology.)
All of this usually ends up getting him in a bit of trouble, and thus Regulus has become a master in the art of running away. And hexes. He's a little terrifyingly good at hexes.
Of course, the most devout of them is usually the weakest; there are three things that mostly make up Regulus tumultuous inner thoughts. One: he is not happy. Two: he wants to be liked, and he fails miserably at it -- he doesn't even like himself. Three: he is wrong (or, at least, there are a growing number of people trying to convince him he's wrong, including his brother -- but we'll get to that). To mask this from both himself and the world, Regulus makes a big show of belittling others. From birth, Regulus has been taught that he is the Best and that everyone else
deserves to be stepped on. Slow realization that he may, in fact, be wrong, and his maturation as a human being have begun to force him to change his mind, but he doesn't want to go down that easily, much less go back on the security blanket of his family that has kept him safe and loved for so long. He has been forced to admit, over the years, that the Black name is the only thing that keeps him from being completely friendless, and it's not something he's willing to give up on the off change that a Moony, Wormtail and Prongs just
happen to be out there somewhere waiting for him. Worse is the fact that he has found himself with a shall we say
undesirable sexual preference that baffles and disgusts him. He still half-believes what he's been told, to be perfectly honest, but somewhere along the way Regulus has awoken to the fact that what he personally believes and what his political party believes are not
precisely the same thing. Not that he will ever admit it. Ever. What is is best for him is far more important than what is morally right -- that, at least, is something Regulus is willing to believe in, completely and totally.
Despite his haughty exterior, Regulus really is lonely. He was always slighter and less talented than the other boys -- the only things he could really do were flying, Potions and Charms -- and rather than allow himself to be bullied he eventually became one himself, although with his mistress language rather than physical violence. He has very few friends, or at least very few true ones, and though it comes off as a personal choice there's a tiny, secret part of him that he smothers at every opportunity that wants to be a Mudblood-sympathizer, since they all seem to have friends. Dirty blood-traitor whore friends, but friends all the same. When he does find a friend, however, he makes a special point of being a rather fantastic one -- he's lost friends before, he doesn't want to do it again.
Reputation: Regulus Black, at least within the Black family, is nothing short of the Chosen One. The only male left in his generation, at least on the family tree, Regulus has the weight of the entire Black name on his shoulders. If, by some impossible happenstance, he should
not marry and similarly produce a male heir, the entire Black name will die out. As such, there seems to be a lot more attention placed on Regulus' romantic pursuits than he thinks is strictly necessary -- it seems to be the only thing anyone in his family can talk about when they're around him. The other Wizarding families have noticed, too, and rather than appreciate Regulus for his ability to recite Pureblood doctrines like poetry or his eerie good looks, he is most often appreciated as a way to get a foot (or, in this case, bride) into the Black family tree.
Details: Flown as Seeker for the Slytherin team since his third year. Intentionally fails Defense Against the Dark Arts, even though it's one of his best classes. Is very much all bark and no bite. Sort of wishes he had been born a girl, since he's far better at the traditionally female planning of garden parties and seating of guests and all that rot.
