McKinnon
I solemnly swear I’m up to no good has got to be the most idiotic code phrase Regulus has ever heard. Of course, Sirius and his stupid friends would choose it.
Harry paces over a patch of grass near the back of the graveyard as they discuss how they’ll go about this.
“Surely you have something that could convince them, as you convinced me?” Regulus implores.
“I’m not even really sure how I convinced you,” Harry retorts. And of course, he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what Evan looked like when they got marked. Avery and Mulciber lurked in the corner having been initiated the year before and they looked at him like they knew. How scared he was, how useless. He’s always known Evan was never going to last as a Death Eater, how he knew and Evan knew and Barty knew and that truth was killing Barty slowly day by day.
What Harry said happened. Regulus just believes it though he certainly is going to stop it. They just have to find something for the Potters and Sirius to believe.
“How can you know so little about your own parents?” Regulus asks. Harry doesn’t answer at first. He glances at him warily.
“They… died,” Harry says hesitantly. Regulus quirks an eyebrow at Harry’s vagueness. “When I was a baby.” He finishes. Ah, that would do it he supposes.
“What about Sirius?” Regulus inquires. He knows plenty about Sirius but they need information that Regulus couldn’t have fed him.
“I only met him when I was thirteen,” Harry answers. And. Regulus has so many questions.
“Sorry? ” He questions.
“Well Pettigrew was a traitor that sold my parents out to Tom, that’s when they died, and he framed Sirius for it and I didn’t meet him until after he broke out of Azkaban.” Regulus is sure now that Harry has never once gone into a conversation without dropping mental information on his unsuspecting partner.
Regulus takes a deep breath. Then he checks his watch. They’re running out of time.
“Ok, Harry, really, literally anything will do just,” Regulus thinks of any tidbit of information he may have gleaned going to school with the lot of them for six years. “In the summer after his third year Sirius was very obviously hiding something, started acting even stranger than usual and it lasted all up until he left, you know what that may have been about?” Regulus has always kind of wanted to know but they weren’t really talking at that point.
Something flashes in Harry’s eyes.
“Maybe that’s when they were all becoming animagi,” Harry states.
“They what,” the chances that any of them actually registered to become animagi through the proper channels is laughable. They’ve all been breaking the law since they were thirteen years old. “Alright, well, that’s definitely relevant information, do you have anything more like that?” Harry shrugs. Regulus supposes that things he knows seem normal to him.
“Right that should be enough to get us in the door, after that if they don’t believe us we get them to take us to McKinnon,” Regulus knows a real Seer could tell that Harry, at least, was telling the truth. McKinnon would hardly have to take more than a glance at him to know something is up if he’s really a time traveler so this will convince the Potters and set aside any doubts Regulus has himself.
“Who?” Harry asks, and Merlin is everybody dead in the future? “She’s a Seer they’re friends with, don’t worry about it,” he adds tiredly. Harry scrunches his nose as Seer and Regulus cannot stand to know at the moment.
Then a crack pierced the air. They both raise their wands and move back-to-back to cover each other instinctively and their non-dominant hands brush each other.
“Homenum Revelio,” he cast to be sure of how many people there were. “Two,” he whispers to Harry. He was under the impression Sirius and both Potters were coming. He doesn’t know what it means that there are only two.
“That spell catch animagus?” Harry asks. Fuck.
“There,” he whispers. “Under a disillusionment charm.” He’s quite skilled at them himself but this one is very good.
“Indents in the grace,” Harry whispers back. “No sign of disillusionment, must be the invisibility cloak,” how long has an invisibility cloak been part of the equation, Regulus thinks hysterically.
“We know you're there,” he shouts out a bit. “You can both come out now.” And standing in front of him is Lily Evans.
Well, he’s definitely a Potter. He’s got the same messy black hair they all do. Strangely enough, he thinks the boy's face vaguely resembles his mum.
“Well you're definitely Regulus Black,” Lils responds. James sometimes forgets that she actually knew him and not just as Sirius’ little brother. James was good at potions but not Slug Club good. Merlin his wife is brilliant.
“Yes, I didn’t make up the most ridiculous and least helpful identity I could think of to pretend to be,” and Regulus apparently has the same snarky wit Sirius does. James wonders if he’s nervous. Sirius usually starts mouthing off when he’s nervous.
“Any animagi you have with you can come out now too,” and that. That makes James pause. Had Sirius told him before he ran away? Surely Sirius would have told him if he had. Black is smart maybe he figured it out on his own.
The so-called Harry Potter is staring at him with wide eyes, almost looking shocked and he trembles a little as Sirius comes out so they’re now surrounded on three sides. Merlin. Poor kid, this is exactly why they resolved to tell Pete about this later. He’d probably be shaking too, never has been good at confrontation.
“You little shit,” Sirius growls. “How long have you known I was an animagus?” Black looks away from Lils, always a mistake she’s definitely the biggest threat out of the lot of them, and looks at his brother.
“Good to see you too brother, yes I’m fine thanks for asking,” Black sneers back. “About 20 minutes or so, Harry here’s the one that knew.” And at that, they all turn to face the other boy. None of them know him so how could he know they were animagus? How did he know about the Marauder's map?
“Er,” he says as he shifts nervously. “I’m from the future,” he blurts out. Well, that’s ridiculous. Regulus Black actually, visibly hangs his head forward in disappointment with his ally. Suppose this wasn’t the plan then.
“Right,” he says slowly.
“No, really, I’m from-” Harry starts before his companion cuts him off.
“Look,” Regulus glances at Harry from the corner of his eye turning enough that James gets a glimpse of his profile. “Why don’t we cut the bullshit and you can just take us to McKinnon who will be able to tell if we’re lying or not,” Black’s idea gives them all pause. Bringing them to Marlene would be able to get the truth out of them. But it could just be a ploy to get them to take him to Dorcas. As unquestionable as her loyalty to the order is, to Marlene, how much she misses her friends might be the worst-kept secret James has ever heard.
Lily glances at him over the others communicating silently.
“Alright,” she says finally. “Just let me ask, how exactly did you get our phone number?” It’s a good question. Most don’t bother since if they have access to a phone then they have access to a floo.
“Well,” Harry Potter says nervously. “We sort of stole it from your sister's desk.” He finishes and Lily blanches. For safety's sake, Lils doesn’t mention her sister to a lot of people and this Harry Potter keeps coming up with information he shouldn’t.
“Right,” Lily says and glances at him. “You take one, and I’ll take one and Sirius will meet us?” She asks him.
To the McKinnon’s then.
Harry didn’t think it was going to work but as he stared up at the cottage he thinks this just might.
He wasn’t exactly sure where he was besides that a Seer named McKinnon apparently lived here but everyone else seemed a bit anxious. Harry can't exactly claim to be a fan of Seer's given Trelawney's life-altering prophecies and Firenze's vagaries, but he comforts himself with the fact that Sirius and his parents are supposedly friendly with this person.
After Sirius knocked, Sirius alive, the door swung open revealing a tall woman with tanned dark skin who seemed highly unimpressed with them. Then her eyes roamed to Regulus and it was hard to tell if her expression softened or hardened because it seemed to do a bit of both at the same time. Her gaze moved back to Sirius.
“Explain,” she demanded coldly.
“Well,” Sirius responds. “This one,” he points a Regulus, “claims to have defected from the death eaters.” Maybe-Marlene's eyes widen at that but Sirius isn’t done. “And he’s brought this one,” he points at Harry, “to be some sort of time-traveling character witness and we’d figured Marlene may be able to sort a bit of this mess out.”
Her eyes brush over each of them again and linger on Regulus. A tense hand brushes against his own and Harry knows it’s a more purposeful plea for comfort than the accidental brush in the graveyard. Harry presses the back of his hand more firmly against the others.
“Alright,” she answers at last. “Might as well get them to the kitchen and I’ll fetch Marlene.” Not-Marlene turns back into her house leaving the door open for the rest of them to follow through. They do.
The others lead them to an open spacious kitchen that, like the rest of the house, has clearly seen better days. Harry is starting to think this Marlene, or this other person who may or may not live here, is a bit of a mess. Right as he thinks it a short form of pale skin and blonde hair practically throws themselves down the stairs. As she settles in front of them practically buzzing with energy Harry can make out her features a bit more. She looks practically the opposite of her… friend? Housemate? Harry isn’t sure.
Where the other girl, now trailing into the kitchen behind McKinnon, has dark brown, almost black hair, McKinnon’s is a pale blonde color even lighter than Aunt Petunia’s. Deep mahogany skin appears an even deeper color when compared to McKinnon’s chalky complexion, and the first girl's eyes were a soft warm brown that vaguely reminded him of Ginny’s while McKinnon had unnerving large blue orbs.
“Aha!” She yelled and everyone was startled a bit besides the first girl who must be used to McKinnon’s antics.
“Oh, you must tell me everything about what the future is like,” she exclaims loudly grabbing Harry’s hands. He just kind of leaves them limply in her grasp unsure how to handle this situation.
“Dorcas?” Lily turns to look at the other girl, Dorcas apparently. “Marlene gone off her rocker since the last time I saw her?” Dorcas rolls her eyes.
“As sane as the last time you were here,” she mutters while looking fondly at the girl attempting to cut off any circulation in his hands.
“Oh, Lily and James are going to have a son isn’t that wonderful? I call godmother!” She exclaims happily while everyone double-takes and examines Harry more thoroughly. Sirius and Dorcas both still seem a bit skeptical while Lily and James have both gone a bit pale.
“Right,” Sirius says doubtfully. Harry’s not going to lie it stings. The one adult Harry knew would always just be there for him because he’s him was Sirius. He loves Mr. and Mrs. Weasly but they were barely capable of remembering everything about their own children and frankly, they never treated him like an adult. It was nice to pretend with them but Sirius always understood that it didn’t matter that he was a child. Being a child wasn’t going to stop Voldemort from trying to kill him and if they had trusted him a bit more Sirius might not have died. Sirius gave him the unconditional love he’d always imagined from his parents and seeing him now as a young stranger hurt.
“No it’s true,” Marlene said, calmer this time. “If you could see what I see you’d know he’s a walking mistake!” Ouch. “It’s similar to when people have used time turners but so much worse. Although,” she says consideringly. “He doesn’t have any twists at all.”
“Twists?” Harry asks.
“The reason time turner can only go back a few hours is that going back further causes twists,” Marlene explains as if to a class of first years. “Basically wizards cheat with time a bit with time turners but going further is strictly not allowed by the universe. Anyone with twists messes up everything around them, usually a lot of people die and the time traveler definitely dies like fate is putting things back in order or something.” Harry considers this for a moment and then decides it makes just as much sense as everything else he’s learned about time and divination and the like.
“Now the strange thing about you is that you’ve clearly broken all the time rules and yet you don’t have any twists at all,” she considers him for a moment. “Have you changed anything important?” She asks and Harry goes to say yes when she interrupts him. “And not personally important, I mean like really actually-”
“Yes,” Regulus says exasperatedly. Marlene looks at him like she’s cross at him for interrupting and that none of them really knows what important means when Regulus adds a bit on. “He saved my life.” The room gets quiet then Sirius and Dorcas look at Regulus more intently while the others glance between them.
“Well,” Marlene says at last. “Why is saving your life important to the time and space continuum, exactly?” She asks and it would sound cold coming from anyone else but she manages to ask like she genuinely wants to know.
“I know how to kill the Dark Lord.”