**Chamber of Secrets**
Regulus Black
It's just a typical summer day. Regulus woke up early to finish his search for a new potion before leaving for Hogwarts. The teacher meeting would start after lunch, so waking up before seven in the morning gave her plenty of time for her potion while still reviewing the list of things that would be passed over for the students to buy.
Regulus feels a bit nostalgic for that year, mainly because he is completing ten years as a teacher. A decade of teaching and influencing people for a long time
He tried not to think that now, at the age of thirty-one, he had spent seventeen of them at Hogwarts, both as a teacher and as a student. Everything he saw and how much it changed not only his life but the world around him
There was a war that changed and almost destroyed the wizarding world, something that will always be marked in world witch history, and Regulus was part of it on both sides. He regrets having served the Dark Lord, Tom Riddle, as much as he feels it was his parents' fault for most of his problems in his youth.
Trying to be the perfect son for them led him straight into the hands of a hypocritical monster and left him so broken that when the time to sacrifice himself to stop his former master came, he accepted certain death as something inevitable and as the best way.
It took Regulus years to realize how hard headed he was, to the point that he no longer cared about living or dying. He was in a well so deep and dark that it was shocking just to realize that, but years later, he was doing treatment with a mediwizard of the mind thanks to the recommendations of Madame Pomfrey. It was a long way to realize how his disengagement with his own life almost led him to suicide; to understand what brought him to the edge of the precipice has always seemed obvious since he returned from the cave, and it wasn't just because Monster had saved his life.
Even as a child, Regulus was aware of the high standards his parents imposed on him and Sirius, although Sirius himself apparently did not strive to follow them. But it was the fear that led Regulus to become so submissive to his parents and later to the Dark Lord—the bridge to, at some point, believing that the physical and magical punishments that these figures of authority in his life caused him were deserved.
Regulus today can say that he understands how damaging his creation was to him. And if Sirius had not left when he did, his brother would have been dead instead of in Azkaban. Among the choices, it is hard to know which is the best.
[...]
Thirteen years after his near death, Regulus is a responsible adult—he hopes so—employed at Hogwarts as a ten-year teacher. He is accustomed to the pre-school year routine at that time and almost feels like he knows the whole school like the palm of his hand.
After lunchtime, Regulus used Flu from his home to his room in Hogwarts, in the basements, with a folder with his parchments for the teachers' meeting.
He left his residence in the castle and went up to the fourth floor, where the teacher's room was located, taking advantage of the calm and silence that rarely took over the school.
There is a feeling, which Regulus believes to be hope, that this year will be better than last year, which, sincerely, without a teacher possessed by Voldemort and a Philosophical Stone in the castle, makes everything easier. Then he holds on to that hope that everything will work out, and nothing more dangerous than the twins Weasley and their stitches happened that year.
"I'm back, baby. Stevens yelled in his ear as he turned in the hallway of the teacher's room.
Regulus had to take three steps back and wait one minute for the whistle to stop. He didn't jump; he will deny to death that he felt his soul leaving his body for a second.
"Stevens," he whispered. He may even be happy with the news, but now he's also somewhat deaf. The whistle in his ear is as if he had been hit with a whistling.
"Oh, this year will be great," she says radiantly as they walk slowly to the teacher's room.
"If you say", He shuddered again, the whistle finally diminished, "you'll finally meet the twins Weasley.
"Yes, I know, the most terrible students since the Marauders," she dismissed him with her hand, "I read your lamentations, I mean your letters"
"Wait till you meet them; you'll see that I'm not dramatic."
"Never, nothing will prove that you are not dramatic, she stopped in the hallway to talk, looking in her gray eyes clearly, "you are a queen of drama."
'I'm sorry you don't work here.
She laughed loudly in response.
Finally arriving in the teacher's room, they heard a voice coming from inside, even with the half-open door.
Regulus pushed the wood and opened the passage for the colleague to pass first, but froze when he saw who was giving what is between a lecture and a theatrical narrative. In a whole pink baby suit, with a foot on the accent of a chair to give some impressive look.
'Who is he?' she asked him lowly.
"Oh, hello, ma'am," the blonde noticed your arrival, turning his attention to the two, "Gilderoy Lockhart, but you surely already know. New Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher—he showed a galanting smile and blinked at her.
He took her hand, and Lockhart took her to her lips to give her a kiss, facing her in the eyes.
"Regulus Black, but you already know," said the brown with his arms crossed.
Unbelievable Dumbledore, incredible
"Professor of Potions. Regulus finished.
Stevens took a step back, closer to Regulus.
'Perse Stevens,' she replied, crossing the edge of the hand that had been kissed on the edges of Regulus's shirt, cleaning it out of sight. 'Teacher of Trousers' Studies.'
"It is an incredible matter. I myself have made great discoveries about them. I'm probably going to win a prize for that.
"Oh, seriously," says Regulus in a sour and sarcastic tone.
'Yes, a wonderful invention that will help you communicate with people at a distance. Letters without cockroaches
Before Lockhart could begin what seemed to be a long story that nobody really wanted to hear, Dumbledore entered the room to start the meeting. Stevens fled to the last chair between Sprout and Flitwick, leaving Regulus the only other seat on the table, next to Lockhart.
Fuck Albus. He thought when the blonde interrupted Dumbledore again. Quirrell seemed less incompetent; nothing can make this year worse.