Character notes || Potential application

[the_noble_black]

Personality

As the character has no actual screen time in the books, his presence must be relayed by context clues and the words of other characters who knew him before his death. This leaves his personality a little shaky, but still recognizable.

Regulus was a Slytherin, and proud of it- his room was a stark contrast to Sirius' Gryffindor one, decorated in the green and silver colors of his house, full of clippings of the Dark Lord's activities, and he even had a banner reading- Toujours pur ('always pure', a reference to his pure-bloodedness) hanging above his bed. It's not a difficult leap to imagine him being young and full of ideals that his parents had given him, pleased with being better than others without even having to work for it. As a Slytherin, his emphasized personality traits were his cunning, his ambition, and his sly intelligence. Slytherins are typically underhanded, working behind the scenes to bring down their competitors, and taking shortcuts to come out on top- as a Slytherin himself, these traits would presumably be recognized in Regulus' personality.

However, there's another piece of him that doesn't fit quite so well in the Slytherin box. He sacrificed himself for what he believed in, even though his opinion contrasted with everyone around him- and it wasn't even a spur of the moment martyrdom. Regulus knew he was walking to his death- that much is clear by the letter he wrote. By letting himself die instead of Kreacher, he showed a selflessness, and a sympathy for the house elf that even his Gryffindor brother couldn't muster. Regulus, like many purebloods, is named after a star- in his case, the brightest star in the Leo constellation (one of the brightest in the night sky), found at the heart of the lion. The lion, mind you, is the mascot of the Gryffindor house- the same house as his brother, where those with bravery and selflessness- much like the traits he showed the night he died- were sorted. Both his actions and his symbolic name call into question his seeming onesidedness. It seems that Regulus was indeed a multifaceted and complex character, torn between what was right and what he'd believed all of his life.

J.K Rowling has gone on record saying that Regulus was an intelligent wizard- smart enough to discover Voldemort's Horcruxes (as she has said that Regulus was able to piece together the fact that he had been using them through some small, offhand comment), intelligent enough to use his resources and work his way through the cave, and adept enough in magic to create an exact replica of Salazar Slytherin's locket. Being the seeker for the Slytherin house, he also had a certain degree of athleticism.

In his only mention of Regulus to Harry, Sirius told him that Regulus was soft- soft enough to be molded and to believe their parents' pureblooded fanaticism. Sirius seemed to be of the mind that Regulus simply didn't have the strength of character to form his own opinions, and that he was forced under their parents' own convictions as a result. This may have been true- like Draco Malfoy, Regulus was most likely meek under the Dark Lord, unsettled by the actions he was forced to perform as a Death Eater, and too 'soft' to stomach the wicked acts Voldemort forced him to do. He wasn't a bad person, he was merely influenced by the bad people around him, and pushed himself in far too deeply, an action which Sirius believed lead to his death

However, his discomfort with the methods doesn't necessarily mean that he disagreed with Voldemort- he had joined the dark wizard willingly, after all. Having been raised to be proud of his pure bloodedness all of his life, it's highly unlikely that Regulus would burn his own ideals, simply because he didn't like how Voldemort went about achieving them. Rather, I think that he maintained his elitism- but merely disagreed with the methods of enforcing it. Therefore, Regulus will still carry about with him an air of superiority, but be less violent and brutal about it than many of the other death eaters.



Background || History
There's not much we know about Regulus' early history, simply because he's not a living character during the time that the story takes place- and so all that we know about him are secondhand accounts from what other characters say about him.

What we do know is that he was born to Orion and Walburga Black, second cousins who later married- and, more importantly, purebloods. As the younger brother to Sirius Black, Regulus was suggested to be the milder of the two, growing up more reserved, more inclined to believe his parents propoganda about blood superiority and elitism. At eleven years old, Regulus went to Hogwarts for his first year of formal magic training, where he was sorted into Slytherin (unlike his brother, who, two years prior, was sorted into Gryffindor). It's implied that his parents were very pleased with this development, and encouraged him to fall in with his Slytherin crowd, further ostracizing his brother.

During his school years, Regulus played the position of the Slytherin Seeker, and was a member of the potion master's 'slug club'- basically, a handpicked group of students, chosen either for their status or their relationships or some other prowess they exhibited.

Upon looking through his room some years later, Hermione notes that Regulus must have been a fan of Voldemort while he was in school, long before he actually joined the Death Eaters. He collected newspaper clippings, and photos, and hung them about his room following Voldemort's moves as if the wizard were some kind of celebrity.

And so, before graduating from Hogwarts, Regulus recieved the Dark Mark, identifying him as one of Voldemort's trusted Death Eaters. Though he never rose to any sort of esteemed position within the Death Eaters (he didn't live long enough for that, and Sirius notes later that he wasn't very important), Regulus served Voldemort loyally for several years, even offering up the services of his trusted house elf when the dark lord requested it.

However, Voldemort abused his house elf and used Kreacher to test the defenses of his new Horcrux, the locket of Salazar Slytherin, before leaving him at an island to die. He miscalculated, however, and didn't realize the true power that a wizard's order has over a house elf. Regulus had commanded Kreacher to return home after his task- and so Kreacher did, using his own potent brand of magic.

It's here that Regulus discovers the true depth of the Dark Lord's perversion of magic. Upon being told by Kreacher that Voldemort was creating Horcruxes- literally splitting his soul into two and storing a piece of it inside of valued items- Regulus found himself horrified at the true lengths that his master would go to. The act of creating a Horcrux was taboo and generally seen as an utterily horrific act that required not only murder, but also... well, literally tearing your soul into two.

This was the final straw for Regulus, who was implied to have been too meek and soft to withstand the harsh reality of being a Death Eater- participating in tortures, murders, slander and using overwhelming fear tactics to take control. He decided that it needed to stop, that he could do something about it.

It was with that grim determination that Regulus ordered Kreacher to take him back to the island within the cave, fully aware that he was going to his own death. He created a fake locket and put inside a letter addressed to Voldemort, should the Horcrux ever be removed from its hiding place. Regulus followed the house elf in and, in a strange act of selflessness, drank the crippling potion himself instead of forcing the house elf to do it as Voldemort had. Upon being able to retrieve the locket from the bottom of the potion pool and switch the horcrux with his fake locket, he then ordered Kreacher to take it away from the cave and destroy it, leaving Regulus himself to die. Unable to disobey an order from his master, Kreacher left.

Regulus, weakened by the potion, was murdered by the inferi shortly thereafter. But he had made sure that Kreacher would tell nobody of what happened- if anybody found out that the locket was a fake, there was risk of word getting back to Lord Voldemort, and the whole endeavor would have been in vain. So then, the rumor started to spread that Regulus got in too deep and tried to back out, before being killed for his insolence. And that was how he would be remembered- not for the hero he became, but for the coward that everyone assumed him to be.



Headcanon CR:

Sirius Black
Regulus Black got on alright enough with his older brother. They were even something of friends as children, they would play together and Sirius would often find him during one of their mother's fits and they would try to ignore her together. However, after Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor when Regulus was eight, it started a rift between them that eventually sent Regulus into the arms of his mother instead. Things simply got worse when Regulus started Hogwarts and was sorted into Slytherin- the two of them grew to loathe one another until Sirius ran away from home, and even after that, they got into fights at school often. They didn't see one another after Sirius graduated and had no contact before Regulus' death.

While Regulus now outwardly hates his brother, a small part of him feels abandoned by Sirius, which only causes his resentment to grow. And while all of that fuels his anger, deep down, the only reason he feels abandoned in the first place is because there was a small degree of attachment there. Sirius understands him more than most, and there's always going to be a small bond there that was shared between an eight year old Regulus and his eleven year old brother.

Orion and Walburga Black
Sirius claims in canon that Regulus was soft enough to believe his parent's ideologies, and he most certainly was. After his brother left, Regulus had little choice than to follow their parents, swallowing all of their words, believing everything they said. I'd imagine that Orion and Walburga were similar to Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy- except with more than a tint of madness and seclusion. Indeed, neither of the two were Death Eaters, and Orion had actually warded the house many times over against any evil that might wish to intrude. Walburga was simply mad- and while her madness only grew after the loss of both of her sons (one disowned, the other missing, presumed dead) and her husband, one cannot say that the root of madness wasn't evident during Regulus and Sirius' childhood.

Regulus respected his parents- he loved them, he lived to make them proud. The extent to which he attempted to please them was one of the main factors that lead to him joining the Death Eaters and, consequently, his own death.

Maurader-Era Slytherins
Like Sirius, I don't think that Regulus had much trouble making friends. He was at school at the same time as Severus Snape, though Snape was in Sirius' year, making him several years older than Regulus. Still, because Snape was a target for Sirius and James' antics, Regulus probably took some small note of the older boy. While I don't think they were close, there was still a companionship drawn from Snape and Regulus' mutual hatred of James and Sirius, respectively.

Regulus also was in Slytherin with Bellatrix and Narcissa Black, Rodolphus and Rabastian Lestrange, Lucius Malfoy, and several other notable future Death Eaters. Since he later became a Death Eater himself, it's easy to imagine that he fell in with their crowd and knew them on a somewhat personal level (although all of them but Rabastian were older than him).

Marauders
Regulus severely disliked James, Peter, and Remus (though perhaps James most of all)- partially blaming them for his brother's defection. While he didn't go out of his way to interact with them, when he did, it was never particularly pretty. His fights with the marauders were the only dark spots on his otherwise pristine school record.