that little king wears half a crown
Regulus blinks foggily, eyes slowly adjusting to the harsh light above him. The pain has almost faded, apart from the occasional rush of white hot sparks still buzzing around his head. There's a pale popcorn ceiling high above him, no longer dark damp oppressive rock, which means he’s no longer in the cave. He starts, panicked, and sits up, ignoring the way it made his head spin- the horcrux, the inferi, where-
There’s a man sitting in a dark corner of the room. His face is shadowed by an odd hat, and a strange, small dragon-like creature is perched on his shoulder. He’s wearing strange, unfashionable clothes, no robes in sight, and Regulus swallows hard as the man looks up at him, void-black eyes endless and unreadable.
He must be an Aubrey, Regulus thinks. They’re famous for their eyes and besides, who else would be waiting for him but some Aubrey lackey?
“You’re feeling alright, then?” The man asks expectantly in Italian, which is Regulus’ fourth language, and to his knowledge isn’t a language he’s heard an Aubrey speak before. Perhaps the man is of the House of Wilkes. Their blood is weak but they’re always eager to please. Notoriously attractive, too, a description that serves the man well.
“What happened, exactly?” Regulus demands, desperately trying to mask the panic in his eyes. He speaks in Italian back, to be polite, but it makes his head throb more and he isn’t sure it’s a good idea to keep translating. He glances around the room, notes the quality carpets and drapes, no matter how outdated they are, and is relieved that he is at least in a pureblood house. Imagine waking up in a pile of muggle filth.
He means, of course, how he was found in the cave, whether the Lord wants him dead, if his Mother knows what he’s done, if his Brother knows what he’s done, but the man frowns and says, “You fell down the stairs. You’ve forgotten?”
Regulus opens his mouth to shout something, an inner voice already reprimanding him for seeming ungraceful in any way, but finds himself empty of words. He closes his mouth again, and something catches at his throat. What about the cave? He wants to ask. The locket?
He thinks back, tries to answer the question. You’ve forgotten? So the man had been there, had seen him fall down the stairs. He knew the man in front of him, somehow. The thought makes his head pound.
“Speak English, please.” He murmurs, holding a hand to his forehead. The man seems amused, somehow. He furrows his brows, thinking back. The last thing he remembers is lying there and-
-and he’d been so sure he was going to die. He was going to die there, alone, afraid, the inferi were dragging him down, and it hurt so much-
He blinks.
“I’m not dead, am I.” It’s not really a question, more of a statement, but it worries the man a lot, he can tell. There’s a certain shift in the light of those hell-dark eyes that means he’s worried. Regulus must, somehow, know him very well to be able to deduce that.
“Skull, you’re- you can’t die, remember?” The man has a definite note of panic in his voice, there, and Regulus groans, kneading his eyes with his palms.
Remember.
That’s just the word, isn’t it. There’s a lot he seems to have forgotten. Skull, then. That’s a name. His name; apparently. And he can’t die. Can’t remember, either. What a riddle. He’d never been offered Ravenclaw, only Hufflepuff or Slytherin, loyalty or Family and he’d chosen-
Well.
He’d chosen in the end, hadn’t he?
But.
“I can. I have. Died, I mean.” He blurts out, and realises it’s true a second afterwards. “I thought- I mean, I must have, really.” Kreacher, he wonders, what happened to Kreacher? He couldn’t have told anyone, not with the House Elf Vows still in place, and he had left no hint he was going to do something stupid, except-
Sirius.
He’d been so full of grief at the betrayal of his brother, the feeling that Sirius would never accept him- he’d just been so desperate to tell him what he was going to do, that his little brother would follow in his footsteps and would fight against the Lord he’d been raised to love. He’d left a letter, in his neatest handwriting and most expensive ink, written with his finest quill on his most rare parchment. It had only said how much he regretted, how much he loved. He hadn’t said specifically what he was going to do, but...
Perhaps it had been enough. He focuses on the man again.
“Did Sirius send you? Did he save me?” He asks, but the man looks so confused, like he doesn’t know what he’s on about, and that’s when it clicks with Regulus, that this man wears strange clothes, has a strange pet, looks like a pureblood but has slightly odd features, even the room isn’t quite as clean as any manor with a brood of house elves ought to be-
This man is a muggle. A filthy creature with no knowledge of anything, little more worth than a gnome, and Regulus feels a surge of indescribable pity well up inside him.
“Oh you poor thing, you must be so confused.” He mutters, glancing over the man’s worried countenance, and then freezes again because this muggle recognises him. He knows this muggle and-
and it’s unthinkable but Regulus can’t quite dismiss the possibility that-
Had he been living with these things?
It’s a disgusting thought to entertain, but even so...
“Skull, look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I think you have amnesia, or something, alright? So I’m going to call Verde, and he’ll see what he can do.” Regulus looks blankly at the Muggle. Verde means green, doesn’t it? But why fluctuate from English to French mid-sentence? He’s honestly quite surprised that a Muggle knows about amnesia. He hadn’t thought they’d have the capacity for comprehending the mind as thoroughly as magical folk. “Right, you won’t remember Verde. Well, he’s a doctor. A scientist, really. What do you remember, exactly?” Regulus clicks his tongue disdainfully. He doesn’t know either of those words, but assumes they’re job titles, perhaps something similar to a Healer, if the mention of amnesia means anything.
“I know neither you, nor this place. I do not know the one you call Skull, either, so perhaps that answers your questions.” He tries to keep the snark out of his voice, but its a coping mechanism he’d never quite managed to train out of himself. The man makes an odd noise at the back of his throat.
“Perhaps you should introduce yourself, then.” He says, eyes light with disbelief. Again, Regulus doesn’t think the Muggle is easily read, but something in him is very accustomed to discerning this particular man’s emotions from his tiny tells.
I believe it is polite to give one’s name before asking the other’s, he wants to say, but a shrill voice in the back of his head chides him that it’s not polite to correct others, either, so he simply gives the Muggle- who probably doesn’t know better anyway- a disapproving stare. “Regulus Arcturus Black, scion and presumptive Heir of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. And you?”
The man stiffens a little, face paler than it was a moment ago. “The name’s Reborn. World’s Greatest Hitman.” His voice is clipped, and he stares unflinchingly at Regulus, and then without warning strides to the door and walks out, calling out the name he’d mentioned earlier, then muttering something outside with an unseen figure.
He’s shockingly attractive for a Muggle, Regulus can see it when he walks, and perhaps his eyes linger a little too long because the hitman (and he didn’t know what that was, could it be something similar to a hitwizard?) gives him an odd look.
The floorboard outside creaks under the weight of another person that he doesn’t recognise, a green-haired man (is that natural for Muggles?) wearing an odd white jacket that reminds him of a Healer’s robes. Yes, perhaps this was Verde.
“You remember nothing?” He monotones, and Regulus frowns indignantly.
“I remember plenty, thank you. I just don’t know how I got here.” His voice is high and haughty, he can tell. He doesn’t know why he’s so offended at the thought of not remembering when it’s something he’s obviously going to need help with, and his argument is weak even to his own ears.
“He’s not faking it, Verde. I don’t think that little trip could have done so much damage. He can’t be missing that much memory, can he?” And realisation dawns, slowly, and horrifically, that he hasn’t asked exactly how long its been.
So he does.
He asks the Doctor-Muggle how long they’ve known each other and his face is grave.
“If you remember nothing,” He says, “Then it may be a little of a shock.”
Regulus’ frown deepens, but he braces himself as the hitman-Muggle speaks.
Thirty two years.
It has to be some sort of sick joke, Sirius taking pranks too far once again.
It has to be.
The words blow the air from his lungs. He can’t be- he does the Arithmancy- almost fifty. It’s impossible!
What of Sirius? What about his parents? The Lord- was Voldemort vanquished? Would anyone know he was alive? Was anyone left that would care if he was?
Kreacher, perhaps, if the ageing old Elf was still alive. He only had to call the name and his good friend and servant would come to him, but he couldn’t in front of these Muggles, for fear of blowing their tiny, underdeveloped minds and rendering them mentally disfigured.
To add insult to injury, he had supposedly known this Muggle for over thirty years, which implies he has been staying among these dirty creatures for most of his life.
“I-“ It’s all too much. But they have no reason to lie. He feels older. There’s something nagging at him, but the throb in the base of his skull takes priority. “I can’t be-“
The Doctor-Muggle looks at him pityingly, and Regulus remembers that look from someone with red clothes and dark hair and tanned skin, flowing movements and powerful muscles, but no Gryffindor at all. Someone he knows, but not as Regulus. The throb turns into more of a buzz, and he blacks out, the world fading into nothingness—