Note to MNFF Staff: A big thank you to Robin for her suggestions and for moderating my previous chapters. I’d like to request that she also review this submission.
Disclaimer: The usual, none of the characters are mine; they were created by Ms. J.K. Rowling. The only thing I can claim to own in all this is my imagination.
Harry strode through the quiet streets of Hogsmeade, a village that, now, looked so different from the way he remembered it. There was no longer the merry chatter that used to ring out from the houses. Many of the merchants had closed down their establishments, and even the ones that remained did not stay open late anymore. The streets were deserted and as Harry walked, for the second time in a week, he had the sensation of having entered a ghost town. Nonetheless, he walked on towards his destination and soon he was standing under a signboard with a picture of a severed boar’s head with blood dripping off it “ the Hog’s Head.
Cheery place, thought Harry sardonically. He had been there once before, during the day, and it had left him with a definite feeling of wishing to be someplace else. By night, it looked even more uninviting than usual.
But as Harry stepped into the pub, he realized that he didn’t need to have worried. His air “ of not wanting to be recognized “ fit in perfectly with the general ambience of the Hog’s Head. Most of the clientele were more than a little shady, and with Harry not announcing himself as he had done the previous time, he blended in quite nicely.
The pub was covered in a haze of smoke; most of the conversations were in whispers. As Harry entered, conversation ceased and most of the customers turned to look at the new entrant. Realizing that he, like them, was another who wished to be left alone, they did so and went back to their mumbled conversations. Harry cast a quick glance around the pub, to make sure that there wasn’t anyone there who would recognize him, even in his new get-up. The last time he had been there, Mundungus Fletcher had seen him, and he did not wish for the same thing to happen again. But he could not see anyone who looked like Mundungus, not unless the other man had changed himself into a Medusa-like witch whose hair was flailing around dangerously. Satisfied that there was no one watching him, he walked confidently up to the barman.
The barman, who had been cleaning a glass when Harry had entered, set it down and peered down at Harry. Harry made sure he didn’t lift his head so that he avoided any risk of exposing his scar.
“Well, what d’yer want?” enquired the barman gruffly.
Harry took a moment to answer, because his throat had become constricted with powerful emotion. He had caught a glimpse of the barman and this was what was affecting him so powerfully. For that barman was Aberforth Dumbledore “ brother of Albus Dumbledore “ and the similarity between the two, was striking.
“I ain’t serving mutes here, what d’yer want?” asked Aberforth, more impatiently.
“A butterbeer,” Harry managed to utter.
The barman took a good hard look at Harry and then, almost unwillingly, he bent down and retrieved a dusty bottle of butterbeer.
“Two sickles,” he growled.
Harry paid up and heading over to an empty table close to the entrance, he sat down and began to drink and watch the other occupants of the pub. He could still see Aberforth glaring at him and he quickly looked away. The rest of the people in the pub seemed to take no notice of him at all. Slowly, taking regular sips of butterbeer, Harry allowed himself to relax. Though the people in that pub were not the sort he would associate with in the normal course of life, at least they were wizards. Harry, who had had no contact with wizards at all since Bill’s wedding, now reveled in the feeling of being among his own kind once again.
By the time Harry had got halfway through the bottle, he began to feel quite safe and consequently he ceased to take any precautions. He was looking around himself almost benevolently, and at that moment, Aberforth came towards him and began to vigorously scrub the table that Harry was seated at. And to Harry’s great astonishment and consternation, he began to talk.
“You want to be careful round these parts, Mr. Potter,” Aberforth muttered, ”You’re too well known to be hidden for long.”
Harry was too shocked to speak and Aberforth continued.
“Most of the people here tonight ain’t too interested in you,” Aberforth whispered, “but there’s a bloke in the far corner that ain’t taken his eyes off you since you came in.”
Harry looked and for the first time, he noticed the man that Aberforth was referring to. He sat in the darkness near the far corner of the pub. Harry hadn’t noticed the man, indeed he wouldn’t have seen him if he hadn’t been specifically looking for him. The man, Harry could see was taller than him and was wearing a black traveling cloak, which did much to camouflage him. The hood of the cloak was drawn so low that it obscured everything above the man’s nose. Even looking at half his face, Harry felt that there was something very familiar about the man. And though he couldn’t see the man’s eyes, there was no doubt that they were fixed on Harry alone.
Aberforth was still speaking, “I never seen this bloke before…” his voice trailed off, then he seemed to collect himself and he continued, “Before Albus died. Since then he’s bin here most every night.”
The mention of Dumbledore’s death brought Harry back to reality and impressed upon him the danger of his situation. Quickly downing the rest of his butterbeer, Harry mumbled his thanks to Aberforth and stood up. He noticed that none of the other patrons looked at him.
Just as he stood up to leave, Aberforth spoke again in a hoarse whisper, “If you need to talk to me sometime, come on around to the backdoor in the morning and knock three times. I might be able to tell you summat useful.” Harry nodded, and as he made to leave, he involuntarily glanced to the far corner to see if the man was still watching him. And then he received a sharp jolt. The man was no longer there.
Quickly Harry scanned the rest of the pub, but he was nowhere to be seen. Feeling more and more uneasy and realizing that this idea had been reckless in the extreme, Harry almost ran to the entrance and wrenching the door open, he stepped out into the night. The streets were still deserted and Harry set a quick pace to the edge of town from where he wished to apparate back to London. And then, just as he passed the closed door of the Three Broomsticks, he heard the voice, coming from the darkened doorway he had just passed.
“Got the time on you, mate?” it asked quite civilly. Though, Harry couldn’t see the speaker, he knew that it had to be the strange man who’d been watching him at the Hog’s Head. Instinctively, he lifted his arm to check his watch, when he realized that he had left his watch at Grimmauld Place. Besides which, he had no wish to be telling strangers the time.
“Sorry, haven’t got a watch,” he replied quickly, and began to walk away.
“How interesting; the Boy-who-lived; the Chosen One, and you don’t even have a watch,” remarked the voice, sarcasm dripping from every word.
Harry froze, every nerve in his body tingling. Every instinct was telling him to run, yet he could not get himself to move an inch. Slowly, he turned around to face the cloaked figure that had stepped out onto the street.
“Please don’t run, Harry, it would be such a terrible waste of time. Besides, I have no intention of harming you,” he said. Harry noticed to his surprise, that the voice held no triumph or malice, in fact it sounded almost… friendly.
“Who are you?” asked Harry, sounding braver than he felt.
In response, the man pulled up the hood, and the light from a nearby lamppost fell on his face. Harry stumbled backwards with a cry of horror.
“Sirius!” he wanted to yell, yet his voice came barely above a whisper.
But even as he said it, he realized that the man before him wasn’t Sirius, though he looked a lot like him. This man’s skin was pale, as if he had spent too much time out of the sun. His beard, however, was neatly maintained; his hair, though long, wasn’t wild; his nose was just like Sirius’, and his cheeks were hollow. His eyes however, held a glitter in them, of a passion that had not died yet, no matter what hardships this man had faced. In height, he was slightly shorter than Sirius had been. In fact, if Harry hadn’t known different, he would have thought that this was…
At the same moment, the man began to speak, softly, each word chosen carefully; yet there was an undercurrent of laughter in his speech.
“Not quite, but close enough,” he said, and then a smile lit up his features, making him finally seem more friendly and even more like Sirius, “People did say I bore a startling resemblance to my brother.”
Harry’s mind just would not accept it, it couldn’t be. “You can’t be… you’re dead, you’ve been dead for seventeen years… you just can’t…” he stuttered.
“Oh, but I assure you, I am. Harry Potter, let me introduce myself,” he said, his smile widening, “Regulus Black.”
Harry thought he’d gone mad. He had begun to have hallucinations of men who looked like Sirius, and claimed to be Sirius’ long-dead brother. He stared at the man in front of him as if in a trance, oblivious to everything else around him. He didn’t hear the crunch of feet on gravel, coming closer. But the man claiming to be Regulus had heard the noise and his expression became serious again. He walked forward quickly and grabbed Harry’s arm.
“Harry, we must leave here. There may have been someone else who might have recognized you as well,” he said urgently, “Where are you staying right now?”
As if in a dream, Harry found himself replying, “Grimmauld Place.”
“Figures,” said the man, smiling again, “Now, looking at you, it doesn’t seem as if you’re in any fit state to apparate so hold on to me tightly.”
Harry didn’t think, he just grabbed the man’s arm in a vice-like grip and felt themselves Disapparate. The village of Hogsmeade disappeared from view, and after the usual discomfort, he found that they were standing on the street in front of Grimmauld Place. The man was looking around from side to side.
“Where’s the house,” he asked, looking thoroughly bewildered, “I can see numbers eleven and thirteen, but where’s twelve?”
It was this simple question that finally brought Harry to his senses. He released the man’s arm and stepped back.
“Wait,” he said, but his voice was shaking, “how do I know you’re the real Regulus Black?”
“Harry, didn’t you read the Ministry’s guidelines?” asked the man, sounding amused, “Just ask me a question.”
“Alright,” said Harry, racking his brains for a question to which only Regulus Black would know the answer, “Err… whose portrait hangs on the wall in the bedroom on the first floor?”
“That would be Phineas Nigellus, my great-great-grandfather and based on what I’ve heard of him, one of the most unpopular headmasters of Hogwarts,” said the man.
“Anyone who had visited his house could know that,” said Harry quickly, “One more, what’s Kreacher’s dearest wish?”
Harry wasn’t sure but he thought that for a moment, the amused expression on the man’s face faded, to be replaced by a look of dislike. Just for a moment, and it was gone and then the grin was back.
“Well, unless he’s changed it, his dearest wish was to have his head cut off and mounted on the wall like his mother,” he said, smiling.
Harry didn’t know what to do; on the one hand, he couldn’t believe that Regulus Black had been alive for so long without anyone knowing. On the other, the man had answered both questions right, so he must have been a member of the Black family. The man watched Harry’s internal struggle with amusement and then he spoke up again.
“Listen Harry, do you honestly think that if I were an imposter, I would pretend to be someone who is supposed to have been dead for seventeen years?” he asked reasonably.
Harry’s mind was buzzing with a million questions, and the man’s face turned serious and he said, “Harry, I promise I will answer whatever you ask of me, but we must get indoors. And we can’t do that if there’s no house.”
“I need some parchment and a quill,” said Harry, coming to a decision. If this man was to be believed and he really was Regulus Black, then his story would be interesting to hear.
The man dug into the pockets of his cloak and drew out a quill, some ink and piece of parchment. Harry stared at him in amazement.
“Do you carry that around with you?” he asked interestedly.
“Never know when you might need it,” the man answered, handing the paraphernalia to Harry.
Harry quickly scribbled on the parchment and handed it back to the man along with the quill and the bottle of ink, which disappeared into the man’s cloak again.
“Read it, destroy the parchment and then think about what you’ve read,” Harry instructed.
The man’s dark eyes narrowed as he read what Harry had written in the parchment. Then, he smiled and touched his wand to the parchment, which burst into flames. Together Harry and the man turned to face the gap between houses eleven and thirteen, both focusing on the words that had been written on the parchment. And before their eyes, twelve, Grimmauld Place began to inflate itself, pushing aside the two houses adjacent to it. The man whistled softly.
“Must have been Dumbledore’s idea,” he said almost admiringly, ”My father was paranoid about security but this was something that even he hadn’t thought of.”
Harry was staring at him wide-eyed. “How did you know this was Dumbledore’s idea?” he asked suspiciously.
“All questions answered inside,” said the man briskly, “We’ll draw too much attention to ourselves if we keep chatting here in the middle of the street until morning.”
The two men walked up to the door of twelve Grimmauld Place. Harry drew out his key and unlocked the door. As he pushed the door open he turned to the man and placed his finger on his lips, and with his other hand he pointed to the covered portrait of Mrs. Black.
“Mrs. Black,” he whispered succinctly, “She doesn’t take kindly to visitors, and if you are who you say you are, well, I confidently expect her to raise the roof.”
The man grinned and whispered, “Should take a peek at her, just for the heck of it.”
“Don’t you dare,” whispered Harry, glaring at the man, as the curtains billowed dangerously, “Let’s head down to the kitchen, we can talk there.”
Moments later, they were down in the kitchen and the man was strolling around, taking in every nook and cranny.
“Well, it’s cleaner than I remember it,” he remarked, then he rubbed his hands with glee, “Right, time to raid the Black family liquor stash.”
He turned to Harry, “Butterbeer for you, if I’m not mistaken…“ Harry nodded and the man went on, “And for me, how about some Firewhiskey? Accio Butterbeer, Accio Firewhiskey.”
Two bottles came skidding along the table, one coming to rest in front of Harry and the other, containing an amber liquid, stopped at the end of the table. The man got a glass off the sideboard and took a seat at the end of the table. He poured some of the liquid into his glass and then emptied the contents down his throat.
“Ahhh, that hit the spot,” he said, thumping his chest, “Right Harry, what do you want to know first?”
Harry had just got his bottle open and had raised it to his lips. Hearing his name spoken, he fumbled with the bottle, and ended up taking a larger gulp than he had intended. The man waited patiently while Harry coughed and spluttered.
When the spasm finally ended, Harry sat contemplating. He had so many questions; he had no idea where to begin.
“How did you know it was me in the Hog’s Head?” he blurted out, and immediately felt stupid.
Even the man seemed surprised by this question; obviously he had been expecting something else. Then the smile was back on his face. “You’re a famous man, Mr. Potter. I’ve seen pictures of you. You were the right height and build. More than that, I could see you were going to great lengths to keep your forehead and your eyes hidden. Now why would you do that, unless you had something on your forehead that could identify you; something, say, like a lightning shaped scar, hmmm…?”
Harry didn’t reply; he was too busy kicking himself for making his intentions that obvious. The man was smiling kindly at Harry. “Don’t curse yourself too badly; most of the Hog’s Head’s patrons have no interest in their fellow drinkers. However, the clincher was your order. Butterbeer! I ask you. In the Hog’s Head?” he said, sounding almost awed at the height of stupidity that this smacked of.
“Well I don’t drink anything stronger,” replied Harry defensively.
“Agreed, Harry, but surely you know the kind of people the Hog’s Head caters too. Why, I’ve even seen vampires go in there and be served. Although, they were probably looking for a little nip on someone’s neck, here or there.”
Harry surreptitiously checked his own neck for bite-marks, unsure whether to believe this stranger or not. The man continued talking, “The point is, ordering butterbeer is guaranteed to make you stand out in the Hog’s Head. Somehow, everyone else seemed to lose interest in you pretty soon so they didn’t notice your order. If they had, they would have been very interested.”
They sat quietly drinking for a while before Harry thought of another question, “The barman told me that you’ve only been in Hogsmeade since Dumbledore died. Any particular reason for that?”
“To find you, of course. Mind you, it was sheer luck that I saw you there tonight,” the man answered, “I thought you would have returned to Hogwarts for your final year, so I hung out at Hogsmeade, thinking I’d meet you on one of the Hogsmeade trips that Hogwarts arranges periodically.”
Then the man’s gaze, which had been roaming all over the room, suddenly zoomed in on Harry’s face, “But it became very obvious tonight, that you had not returned to Hogwarts and were, in fact, working alone.”
Harry dropped his eyes and focused on his bottle, to avoid the man’s rather penetrating gaze. He quickly thought of another question to divert the conversation, “And why were you trying to find me?”
“To help you find the Horcruxes,” answered the man simply.
This was such an unexpected response that Harry immediately looked up and saw the man raise his glass to his lips, looking quite unconcerned that he had mentioned one of the darkest objects known to wizardkind.
“How do you…” he began, and then finally, things began to fall in place in Harry’s mind. “You… you’re R.A.B,” he said.
The man looked up quickly, and Harry could see that the statement had unnerved him. He put his glass back on the table carefully and then faced Harry again.
“You found it… you found the fake locket?” he asked. Harry nodded mutely.
The man got up from the table and began to pace up and down the kitchen. “So that was where you and Dumbledore had been to, that night Dumbledore died?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Harry quietly, his mind not quite grasping the fact that he had found R.A.B, and completely forgetting that this man shouldn’t have known about his and Dumbledore’s expedition in the first place.
“Didn’t you realize that the R.A.B stood for me?” asked the man.
“We guessed it was probably a Death-Eater who had written the note,” said Harry, ”But we never guessed it was you. After all, we knew you as Regulus Black, RB; we didn’t know you had a middle name beginning with A.”
A ghost of a smile flitted across the man’s face. “Not many people do,” he said, “My parents gave me such a ridiculous middle name, that I spent my whole life making sure as few people as possible knew about it.”
“What is it?” asked Harry automatically.
The man paused and then he walked over to where Harry was seated and bending down, he whispered into his ear. Harry’s eyes widened as the man whispered.
“You’re joking,” he cried.
“You’d better believe it,” said the man, a slight smile on his face.
An evil grin spread over Harry’s face, “From now on, that’s your secret question,” he said. The man laughed and then he turned serious again.
“Flippancy aside, Harry, I think it’s time I told you the story of my life,” he said and sat back down at the table.
Unconsciously Harry sat up straighter and looked at the man in front of him. He knew that whatever the man was about to tell him now, would decide if he eventually chose to believe him or not. And under the circumstances, that was going to be a crucial decision to make.
A/N: This chapter literally took ages to come up with because things have been pretty crazy for me over the last few months. I’m really sorry for vanishing for so long and I hope that people haven’t given up on this story. I’m trying to get the next few chapters out quickly to make up for going AWOL. Hope you like the story so far.
Chow for now.
Scarhead Steve.