Chapter Text
We all know how this story goes.
Regulus Black is 11 years old when he first sees him.
Granted it is through a glass door on a moving train but that doesn’t make the first look any less impactful.
Brown hair that curls around his ears, sun-kissed skin that accentuates the copious amounts of freckles littered over his face, almost like miniature constellations. His eyes are an odd shade of hazel, bordering on yellow, something so pungent that Regulus was sure if he saw the boy in a darkened corridor his irises would glow.
What caught Regulus’ attention the most though, were his scars.
They crisscrossed and intersected all over his face and down his neck, one splitting his upper lip and another dissecting the tail end of his left eyebrow.
Regulus wanted this stranger to look at him and show off more of his features, he wanted to commit every angle of the boys profile to memory so that he could recount it even if he were old and blind. He wanted desperately to know if his eyes did glow in dimly lit rooms and why wasn’t he looking at Regulus? Didn’t he know that the youngest Black was looking at him? Couldn’t he feel the weight of Regulus’ gaze and did he not hear the thundering of Regulus’ heart and-
Yes.
There you are, something sang in Regulus’ chest, a small rumble of approval, preening at the attention the brunette finally deemed to give him.
Something like recognition flared in the other’s eyes and he turned to his compartment mates and this boy was so intriguing, and so fascinating and so…
A flash of loose black curls finally snapped Regulus back to his own body.
He was so Sirius’. A bitter and angry thought, something that could infect the blood if left to fester.
And fester it would.
Regulus watched as Sirius spoke with the scarred boy, a small shrug from the latter and a huff of disapproval from the former.
Regulus was good at a lot of things but he was particularly good at picking up on when he was not wanted and he could tell from his brothers stiff limbs that Regulus’ presence was an unneeded and unwanted burden.
A sigh escaped him then as he flexed his fingers and took one last glance at the boy with sandy brown hair, a sort of longing starting to brew in the younger boys bones, an itch he knew would never be able to be scratched. A constant string of thoughts saying:
‘He is not yours, he is spoken for.’
Regulus Black swallowed the unwelcome feelings back into his stomach and peeled himself away from the compartment door, making his way farther and farther from his brother and the stranger. He wanted for much in life but was never lucky enough to have.
Regulus found room in a train car with a girl whose hair was as white as snow and a boy with similar locks, and one more boy who was asleep and snoring against the window.
Pandora, Evan and Barty he would soon discover. Life-long friends he wouldn’t find out until much later.
As Regulus sat, his mind kept returning to the mysterious boy and his yellow eyes and jagged scars. A fascination he hoped would ooze from his body and evaporate, it won’t, but he doesn’t know that yet.
What a pain, he thinks now as he watches Remus Lupin step into the library.