Introductions
Hermione waited an hour before she went to see him. Though the thrill of the mystery and her desire for answers pumped through her veins like a drug she had just enough self restraint to hold off that long.
She didn’t know Regulus Black, not really. All she had of him were snapshots, thinly veiled clues pushed through time. Was he good or bad? Sacrificing himself, trying to take down Voldemort and loving a house elf were all undeniably good things to do, her mind argued. But then he’d only been in the position to do those things because he was a death eater, a proud one if Sirius had been right. Then there was Kreacher, the elf he’d risked it all with. Kreacher didn’t exactly hold the best views, she shuddered as she thought of all the times she’d caught him muttering slurs about her. If Kreacher's views reflected his masters, could Regulus really be good?
There wasn’t an answer, at least not one that she could get sitting in her bedroom avoiding going downstairs, but she couldn’t find it within herself to go just yet. He couldn’t be dangerous or else Harry wouldn’t have told her to go see him but that didn’t mean that he was good either. Good and bad, kind and evil, such intricate little concepts.
Shockingly it was Draco Malfoy in the end who got Hermione to go downstairs. Not him exactly, but the thought of him. For years he’d been one of her biggest tormentors. He was arrogant and rude, a blood supremacist who hadn’t hesitated to look down on her but he had also been a scared little boy. He’d refused to identify Harry in Malfoy manor and he hadn’t been able to harm Dumbledore. Being a studious girl Hermione had always sought straightforward clear answers, the kind you’d find in a textbook, but she knew better now. People can’t be defined into neat boxes of good or bad, Harry had told her that and she knew that he was right and Malfoy was living proof.
Hermione stood up, took a deep breath and moved towards the stairs, unaware that outside the fog was waning and the tide was about to turn.
*
For the first time in his life Regulus Black felt completely and utterly, out of control. His brain mulled over and over the things that the boy who looked like James Potter had told him. This is the future, Voldemort is dead. His brain couldn't reconcile with the facts, after all just hours ago it had been 1979 and he had thought that he was about to die. To suddenly find himself in 1999, where everyone he knew dead or old but he was miraculously alive was disconcerting to say the least.
He tried to hold onto things he knew for certain. Sirius was alive, the Potter look alike had told him that and they knew that he had tried to help defeat Voldemort. That hadn’t stopped the Auror, Mad eye Moody from badgering him with questions and staring at him suspiciously with that magical eyeball rolling in its socket until Regulus felt sick. The Potter boy though, Harry, had seemed to think it was enough and told Mad Eye to leave him to Sirius. Regulus had thought this must be some kind of fever dream when Moody had, albeit grudgingly, listened. In what parallel universe would famed Auror Alastor Moody leave a death eater alone just because a teenager told him so? Regulus felt lightheaded.
Another fact he held onto was that this was indeed his home. He recognised the decor and the books on the shelves although everything was in a state of moth eaten ruin. Absentmindedly he thought about what his mother would say if she saw her proud house in disrepair and decay like this and he had to stifle a laugh.
Thirdly he thought about the witch from the door and the things that he knew about her. Firstly he knew that she was pretty, pretty enough to startle him into not immediately reaching for his wand when she opened the door. Secondly her name was Hermione, he knew because the Potter boy had screamed it when she had fallen into Regulus’ arms. He liked that name, Hermione, it suited her face, a face he found himself thinking about more than he should given the current situation. Wandless and bound to a chair and here he was thinking about a random girl like a schoolboy with a crush but there had just been something about her that he couldn’t place. When she’d fallen practically right into his arms he’d felt the need to keep her there, to hold her and make sure she never hit the ground, which was ridiculous because he didn’t even know who she was. ‘Hermione’ was a mystery and Regulus Black didn’t like mysteries, not unsolved ones at least. Mysteries signalled that you didn’t know something and knowledge is power, without that how could he ever stay in control?
His whole life sometimes felt like it had been about controlling his image. He remembered his mother telling him to sit up straight and slapping his knuckles with her wand when he slouched. “Blacks have an image to maintain” she had snarled, he’d only been six years old. It was ingrained into him, he was a Black and therefore he had to be better. He had to speak properly, he had to sit up straight, he had to lift his head up high. He had to have top marks and to be better than everyone else around him, he had to associate with the right sort of people so as to not bring disgrace to the family. Regulus was a Black and he felt the weight of that pushing on his shoulders his whole entire life. When Sirius left it was worse, he wasn’t just a Black anymore, he was the heir. Getting the dark mark had just been another step to prove his loyalties to his family, to prove he could be the perfect son. Control. Control over his image, control over the treatment he got, control over everything. Even when he had gone to the cave he had felt in control. He knew he would die, he had made that choice himself, he’d never lost control.
Here though, he had nothing left. He didn’t have knowledge, he didn’t have power and he felt a kind of helplessness that he had only felt once before in his life, when Sirius had left. “I want to see the girl from the door” he’d called out as Harry Potter started to leave and Potter turned to him with a quizzical expression on his face.
“The pretty one” Regulus clarified “the pretty witch from the door.”
Potter looked as though he wanted to say something, his lips twisted in an expression that almost looked like he was trying not to laugh but instead he just nodded and disappeared from the room, waving his wand as he left to remove the ties holding Regulus down.
In the hour that he waited for her, Regulus thought that he would solve the mystery of the pretty witch. He would know at least this.
______
She was prettier when she was conscious, Regulus thought. With wide curious eyes the colour of aged amber firewhiskey blinking owlishly at him and nut brown bushy hair falling in strands around her bony shoulders. He knew what his mother would say about hair like that, she’d say it was unkempt, haggard and unbecoming of a well bred witch. Regulus didn’t think that though, to the contrary he was drawn to it. Drawn to the wild hair as he was drawn to the witch herself. He thought that there was something about her which made her look free and it wasn’t just her wild hair that refused to be tamed. It was in the way that she sat, with her shoulders slumped a little and her ankles uncrossed. Her posture was undefined though not uncivilised and Regulus wondered what it was like to not have all of the expectations of being a pureblood, of being a Black pushing down on your shoulders all the time.
Even now that he found himself twenty years into the future he couldn’t quite stop that influence bearing down on him like a heavy piece of lead. His mother wasn’t here to scold him for not sitting up straight, wasn’t here to backhand his knuckles and hiss that his image was everything. She was long dead and yet still he found himself following her rules. He fought off the exhaustion he felt in every single one of his bones, an aftereffect from the cave, and willed his spine upwards, clasping his hands in his lap. Though he felt like death, he looked every bit the well bred pureblood wizard that he had always been raised to be. His mother would have been proud.
The pretty witch had been in the room for five whole minutes and they still hadn’t spoken. “Miss…” he trailed off looking at her expectantly and she swallowed, clearing her throat.
“Granger” she finished “Hermione Granger.”
Hermione. He liked the way that she said it and Regulus let it mull over his brain for a few seconds, getting used to the sound of it before he replied in turn. “It’s nice to meet you Miss Granger” he said politely, once more leaning into his upbringing. “Im Regulus, Regulus Arcturus Black.”
She swallowed again and looked down at the teacup clasped between her pale fingers “I know” she said and Regulus thought that there was something in her tone that said she knew a lot more than he thought she did. Almost as if she knew him.
He shook his thoughts away once more. That didn’t make sense. He’d been gone for almost twenty years and this witch couldn't have been older than nineteen herself, how could she know anything about him? Whatever that potion had been, it had really knocked him back. He still didn’t feel quite himself and it was perhaps only that exhaustion and fogginess in his mind that held him back from full scale panic. He was in the future, twenty years in the future if the Potter boy was to be believed, and the reality of that hadn’t quite settled in just yet.
Finally the witch - Hermione, he reminded himself - cleared her throat and looked at him expectantly. He realised that her silence from before had not been from fear or anticipation but because she had been waiting for him to address her, he had after all been the one to call her to speak to him.
“You wanted to see me?” she said eventually when it became clear that Regulus was lost in thought.
He nodded “I-” he began but then faltered, why had he asked the Potter boy to bring the girl to him? At the time it had seemed the logical thing to do, after all she had quite literally collapsed into his arms, it was only natural to wonder who she might be and if she was alright.
“I - I wanted to see if you were okay” he settled on “you gave me quite the shock, fainting like that.”
The tips of Hermione’s cheeks began to turn a rosy shade as she blushed and Regulus found himself grinning at her bashfulness. “Though I can’t say it hasn’t happened before…” he added as an afterthought “girls quite literally falling for me.”
Hermione scoffed though he was pleased to see her cheeks had gone from a light pink to a full red flush now. “Humble” she murmured sarcastically and Regulus leaned back in his chair a little.
“You could say that,” he mused. Regulus was no prude, he’d flirted with his fair share of girls in his time but he had to say that he liked Hermione’s response best. The way she’d scoffed as if annoyed while fighting the blush spreading across her cheeks, the corners of her pretty lips turning up at the edges as she fought off a smile. It made Regulus’ chest ache in a way it hadn’t in so long, something so light and innocuous as flirting with a pretty girl a welcome reprieve from the endless stretch of darkness his life had become.
“Im perfectly fine thank you Mr Black” she said a little curtly though he could tell she was amused still “It’s nice of you to check up on me. I was just…caught off guard that’s all.”
Regulus raised a perfectly arched black eyebrow at her “how so?” he asked, taking a sip of his coffee, bitter and black just how he liked it.
Hermione looked at little awkward at that question and shuffled in her chair “well we all thought you’d been dead for twenty years…seeing you on the doorstep like that…” she chuckled, self deprecatingly, looking down at her teacup once more “well I thought i'd finally lost my mind to be honest with you.”
For a moment Regulus didn’t respond, he knew what she meant. For a while, he thought he’d been losing his mind. Sitting in his dark bedroom plotting taking down the dark lord…it was utter insanity and more than once he’d wondered if he was finally succumbing to the famous Black family madness.
“I see,” he said eventually. “If it helps any, I thought I was losing my mind when I saw you too.”
She raised an eyebrow at him “but you don’t even know me.”
“Precisely, what would you do if you knocked upon the door of your own house and a complete stranger answered it? I was expecting my mother and trust me you’re much prettier than her.”
She flushed again and Regulus felt a little thrill of pleasure shoot through him at the ability to once again elicit her bashful response, at the freedom to be playful and flirtatious. His mother wasn’t here to be telling him that this was the wrong sort of girl to be talking, flirting even with. There was no Black family left to scold him for dirtying the family name, well besides Sirius who would have actively encouraged that kind of thing.
Hermione picked up her tea cup and took a long drawn out sip, letting the silence fill the air once more. “Sorry about that” she said eventually and when he looked confused her tone took on a more gentle approach “for shocking you…I I can’t imagine how hard this is for you all of your friends and family dead.”
Regulus didn’t know what to say. The truth was it hadn’t been long enough for him to have fully processed his feelings about the predicament he’d found himself in. His grief and entfremdung would all come later. Right now the only discernible emotion he could feel was relief. Voldemort was dead, his mother was dead and Regulus was free from the weight that had pressed upon his back his entire life. Not that he couldn’t still feel it of course, he’d never been as strong as Sirius, never been able to break free entirely. But without his family there to reinforce it everyday he felt as though he would have a chance to chip at it, a chance to try and figure out who he was outside of it.
He realised he’d been silent for a long time and when he broke free from his reverie he was certain he’d let his mask slip. Hermione was looking at him curiously, as though she’d seen something in the shade of his eyes or perhaps the curve of his lip, something that had betrayed his true emotions.
“Thank you” he settled on and she nodded. He liked that she didn’t press him further, despite clearly being curious about the swirl of emotion he’d just experienced right in front of her.
“I should go” she said eventually and Regulus wondered if he really had gone mad when he thought he detected a hint of regret in her tone at having to leave. “I promised Harry i'd meet him for dinner.”
He inclined his head towards her as she stood, pulling on a thick woollen scarf that contrasted with her jumper and clashed with her shoes. She was the exact opposite of the poised and preened pureblood girls he’d grown up around. She was beautiful in a raw, unfiltered sort of way and Regulus thought of tornadoes with all of their swirling storms, beautiful and oh so powerful but dangerous if one let themself be sucked in.
“It was nice to meet you Miss Granger” and though their conversation had been brief and superficial he was surprised to find that he meant it.
Her fingertips lingered on the doorframe, as she turned her shining brown eyes back to his, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “It was nice to meet you too.” And then she was gone.