New Father
Regulus had yet to give the afterlife much thought.
Sirius advocated that when you die, you get a personal piece of paradise where all your loved ones would be there waiting for you. (He often said Uncle Alphard was there.)
Father claimed that one became the magic guarding the family house, and every year, the spell would pull your spirit back to watch over the family on Remembrance day. (They light candles, set out presents, and welcome their ancestors with a feast)
The mother said that only those who had people tell their stories in life could have an existence in death. Otherwise, the wizard or witch would be thrown out of the reincarnation cycle and come back a muggle or an animal. (Being burned off the family tapestry guarantees a new life as an animal. That's why the Blacks preserved their own so fiercely.)
None of what they believed spoke to Regulus. He had always thought that once someone died, that was it. There was no existence beyond life. No one waiting, no punishment, no return, no awareness.
Regulus believed that there was nothing beyond death.
He is not happy to be proven wrong. What's more, he hated that out of all of them, Mother was the closest. Reincarnation.
He had died in the lake, drowning after a terrible battle against the undead, and woken to find himself an infant child. It took him months for his new brain to grasp and understand the knowledge that floated around his memories as Regulus.
His new mother, he concluded, had not planned his existence, for she worked as a lady of the night and conceived him during a job. She refrained from naming him as she did not want to grow attached in any way to him. Yet, she cared for him with a gentleness and attention he almost believed she would change her mind.
Alas, when he turned three, she finally deemed him old enough not to require her any longer. She placed him in a basket and walked two towns over to find his wayward father.
Regulus was saddened to know she would leave him, but he had not been overly attached to her. In the three years he spent with her; she had taken the position of a healer caring for him when his body was too weak to do it himself. Maybe if she had chosen to keep him, then Regulus would eventually have loved her.
Ultimately, after she finished yelling and arguing with her old client about keeping the child he accidentally sires, he did not shed a single tear seeing her go. He merely stood at the doorway, watching her dress swing in the wind as she marched away.
She never looked back, and Regulus never called out. Eventually, she disappeared among the crowd, and Regulus knew he would never hear from her again. He closed the door, turning to the fuming man he was left with.
Knowing the man's identity without him having to say it was jarring. After all, Regulus grew up looking at the burn mark where his name used to be in the tapestry room.
Marius Black, the only known Squib of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, had fathered him. He had died and been reborn in the past, not the future like he always believed he would be.
Of course, he knows he is not that far away from his timeline, but depending on his new father's age, Regulus could be the same age as his other father- Orion- and if that wasn't mind-numbing, he didn't know what is.
"I refuse to keep you," Marius hisses, suddenly surprising Regulus. The man ran a hand down his face with apparent frustration; then he reached out to yank on Regulus' arm. The force with which he did so cause a small cry to escape his throat before he could help it.
Marius didn't seem to care, dragging the toddler out of the house with a sneer. "I can barely keep myself fed, much less a little bastard like you-"
Regulus, claws at hand, clapped around his arms until he got fed up and used a levitation spell on the man to remove him. The Squib didn't expect that, for he is lifted off his feet for seconds and promptly dumped on the ground.
"Magic?" The man breaths, but Regulus doesn't give him a second more. He's seen all he needed of his new father. At least his whore of a mother never mistreated him.
He throws on a quick disillusionment charm with a wave of his chubby hand and has the sick pleasure of watching the man look dumbstruck before he dashes away.
"Wait! Son! Wait!" Marius yells, climbing to his feet. He gives chase as the charm did not make him invisible, merely camouflaged him, and he is slightly visible as he darts between the legs of muggles. Regulus could be better at wandless magic, able to only perform three different spells, but once he put enough distance between them, that was all he needed.
Using a more robust version of the levitation spell he threw at Marius Regulus, he could clear a wooden fence, effectively leaving the Squib behind. He hid inside a trash bin, listening to the disowned Black's desperate calls but did not head them.
He knew why Marius suddenly seemed to care. If a Squib could produce a magic child- unheard of- they were often welcomed back into the family, for the child would always be reported with far more magical power than the average wizard. It was rumored the Dark Lord Grindelwald was also a child of a squib.
Regulus had already lived a life where his parents exploited him. He was not about to let Marius, Black of all people, do the same.
Eventually, the man moved on, and Regulus emerged from his hiding place. He considered his options as he darted once more through the crowd. Neither of his new parents was suitable to raise him until he could provide for himself, and the idea of approaching the Ancient and Noble House of Black for the same issue would appear.
There was also the fact Regulus could damage the timeline, as bad things happened to wizards that messed with time. Though that brought up the question if it would apply to him as time and death were the ones to place him here.
Regulus wasn't sure, but he believed he was in the nineteen twenties or close, as he observed the muggles. Of course, he knew nothing of muggle society, so his surroundings didn't give him much to go on; he did know Marius Black appeared to be a man of seventeen, which meant he had been disowned only six years or so ago when his Hogwarts letter failed to arrive.
Usually, squibs were removed far earlier than that, either by the family accidentally killing them when trying to force magic out of them or by disownment. Still, Cygnus Black prevented this and kept Marius around for so long. He firmly believed his son would be a wizard and loved his boy until the day he could not deny it any longer.
Cygnus and Walburga were very alike, Regulus thought. Both were supposedly heartbroken to burn a loved one off the family tapestry (a son and a brother), but they did it nonetheless.
"Another one" A man's voice is all the warning Regulus gets before a muggle man clamps a hand on his shoulder. He raised his eyes to see a sneering man in a grey street uniform, who wrinkled his nose at him and yanked him off his feet. "Saw this one climb out of the rubbish."
The man spoke to two other men wearing similar outfits. They stood before a metal cart with distressed young voices yelling from it. On the side, the words "Wool's Orphanage Collection Unit" were printed.
Regulus thrashed around, yelling at the top of his lungs, cursing himself for spending all the magic he could control to escape a squib when this was far worse. He had heard horror stories of orphanages all his life, but everyone knew they were much worst before the sixties.
The crowd of walking people spared them a few glances, but none moved to help him. Regulus was again reminded that he did have no one in the world now.
"Unhand me! Unhand me!" He screamed, but his toddler body was no match for the man, and with a quick yank of the outer chain, the cart door was flung open. At once three children attempted to rush out, but they were pushed back by the other two workers as Regulus was thrown inside without a car.
The cart door slammed with a bang, and the children sobbed. Regulus pushed himself into a sitting position and took a deep breath. He would be fine; a few hours of rest and his magic would be strong enough to escape.
He just had to endure this for a while.
"I can't go back. They'll kill me, please. Let me go!" A little girl sobs. She looked about seven; her arms were thin and covered in scars.
"Shut up!" A man yells, hitting the cart. "If it were up to me, you vermin would have already been drowned instead of being a burden to the people!"
Regulus' stomach turns.
Correction, he just had to survive this for a while. But he would be fine. After all, he's survived being the heir of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, his brother's pranks, and a war with the Dark Lord Voldemort.
Surely nothing at Wool's orphanage could be as dangerous as the Dark Lord Voldemort.
The cart starts to move, taking them away as Regulus steeled his nerves. He figured a quick nap wouldn't hurt his magic reserves, so ignoring the other children who looked more and more fearful, he laid down to rest in a corner.
The cart passes by a dark-haired teenager frantically calling out for his son, begging bystanders for information. Regulus ignores him too.