Transfiguration class is always dull—until a violently sleep-deprived Regulus Black arrives fresh off a brutal Quidditch practice and absolutely unravels. Delirious, glassy-eyed, and emotionally feral, he stuns both Gryffindors and Slytherins alike by blurting out the weirdest, most unhinged shit imaginable. Chaos erupts. Sirius panics. Barty ascends. And Hogwarts may never recover. Featuring emotional whiplash, murder confessions, lesbian hearts, and the ribcage of a large cat.
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The classroom was warm with magic and dull with the weight of teenage disinterest. Transfiguration on a Wednesday morning, sixth year Gryffindor-Slytherin joint class—universally regarded as one of the most insufferable periods of the week. The torches burned too brightly for how tired everyone was, casting syrupy gold against slouching bodies and twitching parchment. Quills scratched, heads lolled, someone in the back row snored softly.
Sirius Black kicked his feet up on the desk beside him and let out a slow, dramatic exhale. “I swear to Merlin, if she makes us transfigure another fucking thimble I’m throwing myself out the window.”
“You’d bounce,” James muttered, eyes glazed over. “All that ego’s gotta act like a cushion.”
Marlene McKinnon stifled a laugh behind her hand. Lily elbowed her and hissed, “Don’t encourage him.”
Across the aisle, Remus Lupin was scribbling notes, jaw clenched in quiet concentration. Peter was chewing the end of his quill like it owed him money. Mary Macdonald looked moments away from asking McGonagall if they could please be excused due to terminal boredom.
“Where is she?” Alice Fortescue muttered, checking the clock. “She’s late.”
“No, she’s stalling,” Frank Longbottom sighed. “She knows if she leaves us alone long enough we’ll start killing each other.”
“That’s just Barty and Sirius,” Evan Rosier said dryly from the Slytherin side, where the vibes were somehow worse. Everyone was either slouched, snickering, or flicking bits of parchment at each other. Dorcas was braiding Pandora’s hair with full malice while Pandora read upside down.
And in the back corner, slumped between Barty Crouch Jr. and a snoozing Evan, sat Regulus Black.
He looked, frankly, like a corpse in expensive robes.
His uniform was rumpled, his tie knotted wrong and hanging off one shoulder, and there was what looked like dried mud still smudged on his cheekbone. His hair—usually immaculate—was falling over his glassy, dazed eyes, which blinked unevenly at the blackboard like he couldn’t quite remember what it was.
“Is he alright?” whispered Lily, leaning over to Alice.
Alice stared. “I think he’s… malfunctioning.”
“Quidditch practice,” Dorcas said proudly. “Five hours last night. Coach wouldn’t let them off the pitch until Reg hit a goal blindfolded. I think he’s entered a higher state of consciousness.”
Barty was barely holding back laughter. “He hasn’t spoken a coherent sentence since breakfast.”
The door slammed open.
Everyone jumped.
Professor McGonagall strode in, brisk and sharp-eyed as ever. “Wands out. Books open. Focus up. No more delays.”
Groans rippled across the classroom. Sirius dropped his chair back onto all four legs with a thunk. Regulus blinked. The room seemed to tilt slightly to the left.
McGonagall swept to the front and tapped the board with her wand, where the words Nonverbal Transfiguration: Theory and Practice scrawled themselves in sharp chalk.
“Now, who can remind the class what differentiates nonverbal magic from silent spellwork?”
Silence.
Then: “Mister Black.”
She was looking straight at Regulus.
The room tensed.
Regulus blinked again. Slowly turned his head toward her. Then straightened in his seat like a child answering a question in Sunday school, all soft voice and polite hands folded on his desk.
“Oh,” he said gently, like it had just occurred to him. “I think a woman should be allowed to kill one man a month.”
Silence.
Stone-cold, nuclear silence.
And then—
“WHAT?” Sirius barked.
A scream-laugh burst from Marlene’s throat. James actually fell out of his chair. Remus made a horrible choking sound like he’d just inhaled his quill. Lily clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.
Barty Crouch Jr. howled.
Pandora choked on air and fell sideways into Evan, who was laughing so hard he’d turned pink.
“What the fuck, Regulus?” Sirius gasped between wheezes. “WHAT KIND OF ANSWER—?”
“It’s true,” Regulus mumbled, blinking slow and pleased. “Just one. One man. Every month. For free.”
McGonagall stared at him like she was actively calculating whether or not she could legally send a student to Azkaban for delusion-induced manslaughter.
“That was… not the question,” she said, voice barely steady.
“Oh,” Regulus said, blinking again. “My bad.”
Dorcas had gone entirely feral in the back row, kicking her desk with laughter. Gideon and Fabian had joined the Gryffindor chaos and were smacking the desk rhythmically like it was a drum. Sirius looked like he might pass out.
“That’s it,” James gasped. “He’s lost it. He’s GONE.”
“I knew he was one bad night away from murder,” Marlene crowed. “And now it’s canon!”
McGonagall pinched the bridge of her nose and moved on.
Fifteen minutes later, the class was still recovering.
McGonagall was droning about wand posture, something to do with inner stillness and intent. Regulus was listing slightly to the left in his seat, cheek pressed to his palm, eyelids at half-mast.
“Mister Black,” she called again, this time with less hope. “Do you recall the wizarding condition affecting speech we discussed last term?”
Regulus sat up sharply. “Oh! I know this one.”
Everyone braced.
He perked up with the unearned glee of a man who had just found a pound coin in the street.
“What’s that dise—he has like, a disease or something where you can’t talk—” he paused, eyes wide, “Oh! He had a stutter!”
There was a pause.
A beat.
Then chaos.
“I—WHAT—” Sirius shrieked.
“He had a stutter, oh my god,” Lily gasped.
“Do you mean, like, stammering?” Remus asked, both amused and genuinely confused.
Regulus nodded solemnly. “Yes. His words. They had... hiccups.”
Dorcas hit her head on the table from laughing too hard. Barty looked like he was having a religious experience.
“He’s speaking in riddles,” Peter whispered. “Like a cursed oracle.”
Pandora wiped tears from her cheeks. “Someone write these down. He’s like poetry.”
“‘His words had hiccups,’” Evan repeated, dazed. “Fucking Shakespeare, this one.”
McGonagall looked visibly older. Her lips were pressed into such a tight line they were nearly gone.
“Correct, Mister Black,” she said in a dead voice. “I suppose. Sit down.”
“I am sitting,” Regulus whispered, like he’d discovered something profound.
Half the class was trying not to look at Regulus anymore. The other half couldn’t stop.
He was staring at his hands now like he wasn’t quite sure how they got there. Barty had stopped trying to contain his laughter altogether and was just letting it happen.
Then, softly:
“When I was born,” Regulus murmured, “some of the doctors said I had the… ribcage of a large cat.”
The entire classroom snapped around like they were choreographed.
“What.” Sirius said flatly.
“Like a lion?” Peter asked, entirely serious.
Regulus didn’t blink. “A puma, I think.”
“No,” James whispered. “No no no no no—”
Regulus was still going.
“And some of the doctors said I had the heart of a lesbian.”
Dead silence.
No one knew what to say.
Lily dropped her quill.
Pandora froze mid-braid.
Frank looked like he’d just seen God and wasn’t sure He was real anymore.
Even McGonagall was speechless.
“You guys ever think about that?” Regulus asked softly, like he was genuinely curious. “Like how weird it is to be born.”
James made a horrible strangled noise and slid off his chair for the second time that day.
“Oh my god,” Marlene wheezed, bent double. “What is he ON?”
“My brother is… ascended,” Sirius said, staring at Regulus in horror and awe.
“I’m gonna make a tapestry,” Barty muttered. “Every word he’s said today. Gold thread. Hang it above my bed.”
By the time the class was nearly over, Regulus had gone quiet again. Everyone was watching him like he might explode at any second.
McGonagall was mid-sentence, explaining something about advanced transformation, when Regulus suddenly let out a soft sigh.
“Sorry guys,” he said, voice wobbling. “I… sighhh. My stepdad’s in the hospital.”
“Not really,” Regulus said brightly. “He actually passed a couple years back but—!”
There was a collective shriek of laughter.
McGonagall slammed her hand on the desk.
“CLASS. DISMISSED.”
They scattered like rats in a flood.
Regulus remained in his chair, blinking peacefully at the chalkboard. Barty gently slid an arm around his shoulders and guided him out like a mother cat carrying her kitten. Pandora clutched her journal to her chest, already scribbling. Dorcas was in tears.
Sirius caught up to them in the hall. “Reg, what the hell is wrong with you?”
Regulus looked up at him dreamily. “Do you ever think birds can lie?”
Oh my goodness, Barty is obsessed with his best friend’s brother, obsessed with his tattoos and piercings, obsessed with his long hair and leather jacket, obsessed with his cool motorcycle.
And Evan, who hates said best friend’s brother. Because he wants Barty to be obsessed with him instead.
Evan has a collection of monster dildos, which at first Barty was kinda intimidated by but now he cannot get enough of watching Evan stretching around them
