The Marauders: Year Four

A Dirty Mouth

A Dirty Mouth

Regulus was rather enjoying being the center for attention at school. Growing up, it had always been about Sirius - Sirius this and Sirius that - until the wondrous day that his stupid brother had been caught looking after a muggle in the square in front of Grimmauld Place. Since then, Regulus had become number one in his parents eyes. It was odd, then, when he'd come to Hogwarts the year before and not been given the attention that he'd become so accustomed to at home. Even odder when Voldemort stepped in at Grimmauld Place after the fiasco with Abraxas Malfoy's place being raided by the Ministry, and Regulus had tried so very hard to impress the Dark Lord, only to end up placed under Severus Snape as a "mentor", like that greasy haired git was any better than he, Regulus, was! So now, walking across the Hogwarts grounds to the Quidditch pitch with his brilliant new top-of-the-line Cleansweep '75. They were all excited to see Regulus Black mount the broom and take to the skies as the new Slytherin Seeker.

He was just hoping he wouldn't be a complete spaz on the broom. After all, he'd only actually flown the Cleansweep maybe three times since he'd gotten it, only because there wasn't really a lot of places around that he could fly it at by himself - Grimmauld Place was sort of in the center of a very muggley neighborhood and Orion and Walburga were always busy with their work for the Dark Lord and couldn't bring him much of any place to test it out. The couple times that Orion had brought him out to the country, apparating far off to a cliffside seashore he knew of, he'd flown alright, but the broomstick was much, much faster than the brooms at Hogwarts that he'd learned to fly on...

"I'm the most bloody brilliant flier you've ever seen!" Regulus boasted, carrying the broom over his shoulder as he'd seen Isaac Horan do the year before, strutting along the path down to the pitch. "Best seeker in all of London, they say."

The Slytherins, whose number one player had graduated the school the year before, were eager to hear that they might have another brilliant player on board this year - wanting to positively destroy the Gryffindors on the pitch. They were eating up his boasts like children being offered candy.

Halfway to the pitch, they ran into James and Sirius, who were laughing and playing about on the path as they came walking along. James Potter had his broomstick flung over one arm the same way Regulus did, and Sirius was right beside him, making some sort of noise that sounded like a shrieking hippogriff but seemed to amuse James, because they were both laughing uproariously.

"Ohhh look, it's my ickle brother," Sirius said, interrupting his own rambunctiousness to smirk at Regulus, "Oh don't tell me someone's been stupid enough to give you a broomstick!"

"Father bought it for me," Regulus said, "When he heard that Slytherin would be needing a new Seeker this year."

"Gonna be the best broom on the pitch this term," said Evan Rosier, grinning, "Much better than that bit of kindling you've got, Black. It's a Cleansweep '75, just like --"

"Just like Puddlemere United's flying this year, yeah?" James asked, and he lowered his broom to show it, too, was a Cleansweep '75. "Looks like both Slytherin and Gryffindor are outfitted with a professional grade broom."

Regulus looked sour. "Well bully for you. You're not a seeker, so --"

"Yeah, I'm a Chaser," said James, "I'll outstrip your loser beaters' brooms with this one and sink the quaffle in your net fifteen times before you'll find the snitch once."

Sirius guffawed, "Yeah, what's it you said last term about the Seekers? Glorified Spectators?"

Regulus turned quite red. "Whatever," he said, not able to come up with a better response quickly. He'd never been as quick on his feet as Sirius had been when it came to stuff like that. Their fights had always been quick-wit coming from Sirius and short, angry bursts from Regulus, usually quickly ended by one of the two of them threatening to hex the other one - though neither of them had ever actually hexed the other successfully yet. Not really.