Regulus Black has always prided himself on being rather temperate and levelheaded. He can easily say he is not as compulsive or rash as his elder brother, Sirius, is. He’s known for being serious and nonplussed. So when rumor catches that he got into a fist fight with some Gryffindor bloke he couldn’t bother to remember the name of, word of the fight spread like wildfire through Hogwarts.

Why had Regulus tarnished his undebased hands and pummeled the boy in a fashion his parents would turn their noses upon? Well, the cretin had the audacity to speak illy of you. You, who couldn’t insult somebody to save your life. It had taken all of your courage to simply reject the boy’s eager advances for your hand to the Yule ball, and what did it earn you? A nasty spouting from the bastard’s lips—that you are a prude or a whore. Both terms had left the boy’s mouth in different conversations.

Regulus only had to hear one degradation about you for him to lose all sense of his pride and composure. He could have beat the boy bloody if not for being pulled away by Evan Rosier and Barry Crouch Jr., who were dumbfounded their typically sedate friend was bloodying his knuckles over some random Gryffindor boy.

After heaving him back and scrambling to get him away from the scene of the crime, they laugh in astonishment. He’s still affronted, breathless, with his handsome face marred by a scowl unbecoming of a Black. His friends barrage him with curious questions, still in awe at Regulus’s display of barbarity. He glares at them, intent on not confronting the fact that he did indeed clobber a kid like some sort of ill-tempered brute.

His hard expression softens when he catches sight of you rounding a corner and advancing with worried haste. He watches you, apprehensive for your reaction to his witless anger. He fears you will see him differently, as though he's a violent scoundrel, a delinquent of sorts.