A no-name witch was brought to St. Mungo's in need of healing. Without any means to identify her or find her guardians, they used a spell that would tell them whatever House she belonged to and contact the Head.
So there Lord Fleamont Potter and hi...
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A/N: Hey...! Sorry I took so long to update lol. How long as it been? Nearly a year, I think. I doubt I'll be able to promise updates that are any less sporadic than this, but I do think that the updates will speed up once I get to Hogwarts with the characters. Also, this is just stuff I made up. It's not, in any way, based on old British traditions or anything like that. I just took this from fanon and ran with it.
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In the cold, baleful light of 12 Grimmauld Place, Regulus sat with his mother and his father at the dinner table, eating a meal prepared for them by Kreacher. The room was silent, a suffocating feeling in the air. The year before, Sirius had run away. It seemed that there was still tension between him and his parents. After Sirius left, they'd watched him like a hawk, waiting sharply for his reaction so they could determine his feelings, his side.
Regulus had been careful to mask his reaction to the event, pretended that he hadn't been awake while Sirius' footsteps left Grimmauld Place, staring up at the ceiling of his room while his precarious control over life slowly began to slip through his fingers.
It was odd, he'd thought wryly to himself then. How the panic had washed away, how every feeling of apprehension and fear and anxiety had disappeared as Sirius snuck through the ancient wards of Grimmauld Place.
The days following had not been so peaceful, but that was a story for another time.
Distantly, Regulus felt a ripple through Grimmauld Place's wards as the family owl flew through the nearest window. Walburga cooed as the owl landed gracefully on the table, feeding it a small piece of food from her plate. The owl stuck out its claw with the Daily Prophet in hand — something they had personally delivered with their own owls because of his family's paranoia.
Orion reached over and plucked the newspaper from the owl's claw. Walburga dismissed the owl with a dismissive wave, and Regulus went back to picking at his food.
Then—
Orion sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes roving over the front-page article. Regulus frowned, leaning over. He kept his voice carefully neutral, barely curious as he asked, "Is the news troubling today?"
But Orion didn't answer him, his hands gripping the paper so tight that Regulus worried he'd tear it. Walburga leaned over, taking a look at the headline. She stiffened, her eyes growing wide with shock.
"Most likely, it's just a gossip piece run by the Prophet to keep people from thinking about the oncoming war," Orion murmured, setting the newspaper down and going back to his food, pretending he hadn't looked to be in absolute shock just moments before.
Walburga gripped the paper in her hands, fury twisting her features. She looked up at Regulus with those same hateful eyes, and he resisted the urge to flinch when she thrust the paper in his direction. "Regulus, dear, look at this. Preposterous is what this is! That they had the gall to run something like this without solid proof—"
