When Regulus Black had walked into the cave with the intention of destroying Salazar Slytherin's's locket, he had known that he was going to die. In fact, he had been prepared to do so. Which was why he had been surprised when he was pulled out of t...
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-----------------> "MY PARENTS ARE IN GERMANY AT THE MOMENT," Regulus informed her. "So I guess we can use my house as a base."
Ara shrugged. "It's not like we could use mine."
Ara looked at the house that they apparatated in front of. It was just as big and gloomy as she remembered it to be.
"Eighteen years later, it still stays the same," Ara muttered.
Regulus heard her anyway and asked, "Eighteen? Are you eighteen years of age?"
"Haven't you been taught that it is rude to ask a lady her age?" Ara teased, and was pleasantly surprised to see his cheeks turn a rosy hue.
"Apologies."
"But yes," Ara continued. "I am eighteen."
"A year younger than me," Regulus muttered. "Physically, at least."
Ara nodded in reply.
"Is there any way that we could avoid the front entrance? I'd rather not have the ancestors of the Most Ancient and Nobel House of Black questioning me or worse, informing your parents about their new guest?" Ara said.
Regulus nodded. "Fair point. Kretcher, -or well, Kretchers- can pop us right into my room."
The House Elf's did as they were told.
Ara walked around Regulus's room as he went to the rest room to freshen himself up. It was exactly how it had been in the future. Kretcher -the older one- had done an excellent job in keeping everything at it's place and not moving it even a bit. Then again, Ara knew that he considered Master Regulus's room sacred and never cleaned it.
"First things first," Regulus said as soon as he and Ara were seated. "You cannot be Ara Black. We need to get you another identity."
Ara nodded. "Leave that to me. Do you remember when I told you that I was the only Black left in the future? Well, obviously I couldn't have lived by myself. I was raised by a wonderful couple who I called -and still call- my parents. I'm sure that if I explain everything to them, they will let me carry their name, since technically, they did make me their heir in the future..." She trailed off, making him a little confused. "It's hard to explain and I am getting a little confused with my tenses... But bottom line, don't worry about the name issue, I got that covered." Ara finished.
Regulus nodded before a curious expression overtook his face. "Pardon me, but I have to ask- were you a Slytherin at Hogwarts?"
Ara smiled. "Hufflepuff, actually."
"Hufflepuff?" Regulus asked, shocked. "My second guess would have been a Gryffindor and my third a Ravenclaw, actually. I did not peg you for a Hufflepuff. Mother must have been pulling her hair out by the roots and rolling in her grave. Her son is a lion and her granddaughter, a badger? Oh, the horror!" Regulus mused.
"Hey! Don't make fun of the badger," Ara warned with a grin. "After all, we eat snakes like you for breakfast."
To her surprise, Regulus chuckled. "True. Anyway, coming back to the matter of horcruxes, what do you suggest our next course of action to be?"
"The ring," Ara immediately replied. "That is one of the easiest horcruxes we can take. The next, I would suggest the cup. Bellatrix married into the Lestrange family. You can threaten -as Heir Apparent- to dissolve the marriage if you do not receive the cup. Tell it to Rudolphous though- because as hard as it is to believe even after so many years, he genuinely loves her. We can probably, hopefully, use the same tactic for the diary with the Malfoy's. And then we have to go to Hogwarts for the diadem."
Regulus nodded. "That sounds like a good outline. We shall have to add more details to the plan, however," He paused. "You still haven't told me how to destroy these... things."
"There are two ways that I know of- Fiendfyre and Basalisk venom. In the future, I had used the Sword of Gryffindor dipped in Basalisk venom mainly." Ara explained.
"I'm so glad that they are so easy to find," Regulus commented sarcastically. "Where the bloody hell did you find the sword? I was under the assumption that it had been lost."
"Inside the Sorting Hat," Ara said nonchalantly. "Once again, don't ask me how I know. And although I can control it, I am not that fond of fiendfyre, and by the look on your face, neither are you. If you can get me to Hogwarts, however, I can guarantee the Basalisk venom."
Regulus raised an eyebrow. "How can you find Basalisk venom in Hog- Merlin!" He halted mid-speech as he realised the answer. He turned to his companion and looked at her wide-eyed filled with equal measures of horror and fascination. "The Chamber of Secrets? That is the monster in the Chamber? A fucking basilisk!" Regulus said angrily. "Morgana! I was studying in a school with a basilisk!"
"Oh, don't be so dramatic about it," Ara said with a roll of her eyes. "At least you didn't have it petrifying your classmates in your second year..."
Regulus went wide eyed once again."What the-"
"-I don't want to talk about it," Ara replied firmly.
Regulus smiled warily. "You do not like to talk about a lot of things." Seeing Ara go silent, he once again ran a hand through his hair (and what a bad habit he was developing!) and sighed, "So we can get the venom at Hogwarts, right? We can get the diadem when we go there as well, then, and kill two birds with one spell."
Ara nodded. "We'll get the ring today so that when we visit Hogwarts we can destroy the locket, ring and the diadem simultaneously in the Chamber."
Regulus stayed silent for a minute, deep in thought. "How are we going to get into the Chamber anyway?"
"It's in the second floor girl's bathroom," Ara answered. "I might not be able to speak Parseltongue anymore, but I still remember a few words."
"What do you mean you can't speak Parseltongue anymore? You could speak Parseltongue?" Regulus asked, shocked. "How could you do so?"
Ara opened her mouth to reply, but Regulus cut her off. "Let me guess. You don't want to talk about it?" He asked with a slight bitterness in his voice.
Ara smiled. "I'll answer everything in detail someday. But I'm afraid that today is not that day. I'm still trying to get over the fact that I'm in the past, you are alive and all that stuff. It's a bit of an overload on my brain." She admitted.
Regulus sighed and accepted her answer. He himself was finding it difficult to believe that he was talking to his niece from eighteen years in the future.
So instead he asked, "When are we going to the Shack?"
Ara looked thoughtful. "Today, definitely. The sooner the better. We'll go after sundown in a few hours."
Regulus nodded. "Till then I suppose we must think of an excuse to go to Hogwarts?"
"I was actually thinking that we can sneak into Hogwarts through Hogsmead via a secret passage," Ara said. "Do you know any of those passages?"
"I know one," Regulus admitted, refusing to elaborate.
Ara looked at him expectantly. "Well?"
"I don't want to talk about it," He replied cheekily, mirroring her expression with a serious face and sparkling, mischievous eyes.
Ara rolled her eyes. "Stop that. It's weird."
"Weirder than your yet-to-be niece visiting from the future, saving your life and being a Horcrux expert?" He deadpanned.
