Chapter 27: Slytherin Welcoming Party
On the last evening of September, just as dinner was ending, two seventh year prefects rose at the far end of the Slytherin table.
Lucretius Boke tapped his goblet with a silver spoon. Beside him, Narcissa Black did the same, poised as a portrait in green and silver.
"All Slytherin students," Narcissa announced, her voice clear without needing to be loud, "please return directly to the Common Room after dinner. First year students, your attendance is mandatory."
The air at the Slytherin table shifted at once.
Older students traded knowing looks. A couple of fifth year boys wore expectant smirks, as if they had been waiting all month for this exact moment. The pure bloods, especially the ones from ancient families who formed the House's quiet centre of gravity, carried expressions that said only one thing.
Finally.
Avery Cuthbert set down his cutlery as if he feared it might run away. He dabbed his mouth with a napkin, eyes bright with a sharp, eager excitement.
Hermes Mulciber lifted his head more slowly. His dark gaze moved from the prefects to the room, then settled on Regulus at his side, lingering with a weight that felt deliberate.
Only Alex Rosier looked genuinely confused. He blinked and leaned in, whispering to Avery.
"What's happening? Why do we have to go back?"
Avery gave a small sneer, making no effort to hide the superiority and a hint of pity.
"Rosier, didn't your family tell you? Well, your family…" He let the sentence trail off with a contemptuous little sound. "Hmph."
Alex's face went pale as understanding caught up with him. He glanced at Regulus, then at the other first years, and swallowed.
"It's tradition," Avery continued, enjoying himself now. "The Slytherin welcoming programme. We see which of this year's little snakes has the sharpest fangs."
The other Houses noticed the commotion. Heads turned. Whispers started. As upper years explained in murmured bursts, the first years of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw watched with a mix of curiosity and unease.
Regulus felt more than one gaze from the High Table.
One of them was Albus Dumbledore's.
He also felt eyes from the Gryffindor table. Lily Evans. James Potter. Sirius.
Regulus did not react. He rose with the rest, silent, and followed the flow of green and silver down into the dungeons.
The moment they entered the Slytherin Common Room, the atmosphere became something else entirely.
Emerald flames flickered in the fireplace, their light sliding across dark green hangings and silver trimmed decor. Dozens of faces watched the ten first years file in, each expression different, each gaze weighing.
Upper years gathered in clusters around sofas and armchairs, talking in low voices and laughing softly. Their eyes moved over the newcomers like hands testing the balance of a blade.
The first years instinctively bunched together, though even that unity fractured into small cliques.
The core pure bloods like Avery and Hermes naturally stood close, their faces set in arrogance or a quieter, more guarded seriousness.
Two other first years stood apart, a boy and a girl in plain robes that looked slightly too nervous on them. Half bloods, almost certainly. Their eyes darted around the room, searching for something, anything familiar.
Then, as if by unspoken agreement, both of them looked towards Regulus.
Over the past month, Regulus had been noticeably different from the other high born boys. He had never leaned into blood talk for sport. He did not join in the casual belittling that passed for entertainment in certain circles. In lessons, he was rigorous and fair, and he treated group work like work, not a stage.
To the first years who were not part of the pure blood core, the second son of the House of Black was almost the only one who felt reasonable.
So they drifted closer by a step, then another, as if his presence might offer the smallest thread of security.
Regulus noticed the movement. He gave no sign of it. He simply walked to the edge of the open space in the centre of the room and stood quietly, grey eyes sweeping the crowd.
"Quiet."
Lucretius Boke stepped forward in front of the fireplace. He did not raise his voice, yet the Common Room obeyed him instantly. The silence came down like a curtain.
"The usual rules," he said, succinct. "First year students will duel in pairs. No restrictions on spells, provided you can cast them and you do not cause enough trouble for Madam Pomfrey to come looking for us."
A ripple of low laughter ran through the older students.
"The point is for you to recognise yourselves and recognise others," Lucretius continued. "Slytherin respects power. It also respects the wisdom to wield it."
The moment he finished, the hush loosened into excited murmurs.
"Bets are open, bets are open!" a sixth year boy called out, grinning as he produced a small notebook. "Wagering on which little rookie is the last one standing. Odds are live. I'm putting ten Galleons on the Black kid."
"Please," a girl beside him scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Look at him. Does he look eleven? I bet he drops everyone in under three minutes."
"You can't say that for sure," a seventh year boy with glasses replied, pushing them up with an air of analysis. "The Mulciber boy has a very dark look in his eyes. Word is his family has some unconventional collections."
"And Cuthbert isn't a total pushover either."
The sixth year boy jerked his chin towards the centre of the room.
"Look at how Black is standing. Everyone else is either shaking, buzzing with nerves, or trying to look brave like Avery."
Avery's cheeks flared hot at the mention, half rage, half pride.
"But Black," the older boy continued, sounding almost delighted, "looks like he's waiting at the door of his own study for tea. I'm raising my bet. I bet his robes won't even crease."
Those words drifted plainly into the first years' ears.
Alex twisted the edge of his robes until his knuckles whitened. The two half blood students went visibly paler. Hermes remained still, but his gaze sharpened, fixed on Regulus with an intensity that felt almost clinical.
Regulus himself did not change expression at all.
Narcissa stepped forward with a small silver cup in her hand. Inside it were slips of parchment.
"Lots will determine the first round opponents," she said.
The draw was quick.
Alex was paired with another boy from a pure blood branch family who looked just as sick with nerves.
The half blood girl drew Avery, and her face drained in an instant.
Regulus drew a pure blood boy who looked as if he might cry on the spot when he read his slip.
Then a low voice cut through the murmurs.
"Wait."
Hermes Mulciber stepped out from the first years. He looked to the prefects, then turned to Regulus.
"I request to duel Regulus Black."
For a heartbeat, the room held its breath.
Then the silence broke into a louder hum. It was not common to change opponents, but nothing in the rules forbade it, not if both parties agreed.
Lucretius raised one eyebrow and looked at Regulus.
"Black?"
Every gaze in the room pinned him.
Regulus met Hermes's eyes. There was no childish provocation there, no loud swagger. Only an obsessive seriousness and something held tight beneath it.
The scorch marks on Hermes's robes flashed in Regulus's memory. The faint smell of sulphur. The nameless dark red book. The map marked beneath the Astronomy Tower.
"Fine," Regulus said, calm.
He added, evenly, "However, since these are one on one bouts in sequence, we can wait until the end. Let the others finish their duels first."
The boy Regulus had originally drawn looked as if he had been pardoned by the Wizengamot itself. He nodded so hard his hair bounced, then hurried away to the side.
No one objected. Even the first years understood that Regulus and Hermes would likely be operating on a different level than the rest.
The two prefects exchanged a glance and nodded.
"Very well," Narcissa said. "We begin with the remaining pairs."
The duels started.
An open space was cleared, older students forming a ring around it like spectators at a well rehearsed ritual.
Alex and his opponent were, in truth, more like two chicks pecking at each other than duellists. Both stumbled over incantations. Their Expelliarmus spells flared with wobbling light that barely seemed to know where to go.
In the end, Alex lost because he tripped over his own feet in a panic, earning laughter that felt sharper than it needed to be.
Avery had a much easier time against the half blood girl. He opened with a neat Impediment Jinx that knocked her balance apart, then followed with a precise Expelliarmus that sent her wand spinning.
Several older students nodded, approving. Avery lifted his chin, flushed with satisfaction.
The remaining matches followed the same pattern. Nervous courage. Half learned spells. Bursts of light. A duel ended by luck as often as by skill.
Regulus watched without expression, studying rather than judging.
First years, even the children raised carefully by pure blood families, had immature magic at this age. Their control was weak. Their practical experience was close to nothing. Even the basics from The Standard Book of Spells demanded real practice, and most of them had only had a month.
Expelliarmus. Impediment Jinx. Jelly Legs Jinx. Locking Spell. Petrificus Totalus. Fire Making Spell.
If a student could cast those reliably and hit the target, they were considered good among their peers.
For Regulus, these spells posed no difficulty at all.
Any spell that depended on precise wand movement, clear pronunciation, and basic magic guidance could be learned quickly, then refined through repetition. His control, and the calculation that seemed to run behind his magic like a second mind, was enough to produce stability and power far beyond what his age should allow.
Of course, magic was not only mechanics.
Spells fuelled by strong emotion, those that required complex conceptual understanding, and those that depended on unusual talent or special mediums were still areas he needed to approach with study and care.
Round by round, the first years exhausted themselves. Some looked thrilled despite losing. Others looked crushed. A few tried to hide both emotions behind the same stiff mask.
Finally, only two boys remained standing in the centre of the cleared space.
Regulus Black.
Hermes Mulciber.