The Tree of Blacks (English version)

Another Slytherin

1st September 1972. Hogwarts.

Alya walked at a brisk pace, swiftly weaving through the stream of people crowding the noisy King's Cross station.

Young Regulus, bundled up in his best suit, trotted faithfully by her side, flaunting an impish confidence of inscrutable gaze and austere expression. In this way, Regulus appeared as an exact copy, on a smaller scale, of his father Orion.

Although he did his best to conceal it, Alya sensed with certainty how agitated his younger brother was. The same agitation she had felt exactly a year earlier, when she was about to board the scarlet train that had taken her to Hogwarts for the first time.
Within hours, also Regulus would walk through the oak door that marked the entrance to the famous School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Regulus was undoubtedly flooded with the same mixed emotions that Alya had also felt the previous year: fear, excitement, desire to prove himself, and terror of failure mingled together creating a potent mixture of tension. Added to this was the heavy burden of carrying high the honor of the Black family, which his parents had carefully placed on his shoulders. Orion and Walburga had missed no opportunity during the past weeks to nag their youngest son with their warnings about how crucial it was to maintain behavior worthy of their noble name, and to remind him how much they expected of him. After the deep disappointment they had received from Sirius, their eldest son, who had been sorted into Gryffindor House (something of which the boy was stubbornly proud), all of Mr. and Mrs. Black's expectations had been poured on Regulus, elevating him to the sole male heir, worthy of carrying on the noble family name. The pressure of such responsibility loomed oppressively over the poor little boy, so inclined to bend to his parents' will and always eager to please them in every way.

Therefore, the anxiety that lingered in Regulus went far beyond the mere excitement that might precede a normal start of school. But young Blacks were not allowed to let their insecurities leak out, and like Alya before him, Regulus disguised the confusion of his soul with a proud muteness. He wore a false confidence, proceeding chest-high through the station's wide corridors as he pushed with some effort the trolley carrying the large trunk full of everything needed for the school of magic.

As in the previous year, the Muggles they passed along the way could not help but cast both Alya and Regulus (and the two parents behind them) puzzled glances filled with curiosity. However, none of the bizarre quartet seemed to mind the general astonishment that hovered around them. In fact, they gave the very impression that they were willing to ignore any non-magical individual who was around.

A few meters ahead, Sirius kept a calculated distance from the rest of his family. Although it was still summer, from his neck hung a long scarf embroidered in gold and red, the colors of Gryffindor. If one looked carefully at her cart and the contents on it, one could see the many trinkets depicting House coats of arms and colors. That scarlet and gold display of rampant lions was clearly intentional; every pin and sticker which adorned Sirius' trunk was a silent insult which he consciously hurled toward his own parents and their caste pride. Belonging to the Gryffindors, rather than the Slytherins (House to which all members of the Black family had been sorted) for Sirius had been a real personal victory: it meant being different from the rest of his family. For Orion and Walburga, on the other hand, it was confirmation of the fears they harbored about their eldest son, now considered the black sheep that threatened to disfigure the family's ancient nobility.

Walburga cast horrified glances at Sirius' trunk as often as it came under her glacial eyes, as if it were swarming with maggots and other creepy crawlies. Her lips were so tight that she looked as if she had swallowed a lemon. The same disgusted look turned, then, inexorably on Sirius, the ungrateful and degenerate heir who dared to mock the honor of his own blood with that insolent and childish attitude.