Muggle | 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑊𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

Chapter 192

As soon as Dad got to our house and parked the car, I ran out toward our door, dying to see my mother after twelve years of waiting. I didn't know it was possible to miss someone this much.

Opening the door, I rushed inside, only to see my mum there, looking at a new painting she had just bought and observing it on the wall.

"Oh, back so soon?" she said with a half glance at us, before looking back at the frame. "Sorry I couldn't get you there myself. There was an art gallery early this morning, I had to check it out. And I bought this. What do you think about it—?"

But I cut her off when I leaped forward and brought her into a bone-crushing hug out of my own control. I felt my eyes glimmering with happy tears as I held her.

"Lexi, you haven't even been gone for two hours!" said Mum as she laughed, hugging me back. "Missed me already?"

"You can say that," I whispered with a chuckle, pulling away and trying to push back the tears from falling.

"Well, you're in time, because I've made your favorite for lunch!" she said excitedly, walking into the kitchen as me and Dad followed her to help set the table.

I spent hours on end next to them on that Saturday afternoon, which was a matter of surprise to Mum, seeing as I usually spent all my time in my room with my door shut close, reading books.

But she finally took it by surprise when I protested after she said she was going to take an afternoon nap. Although catching my dad's knowing look, I didn't say anything else and let her go upstairs.

Just then, remembering something, my eyes suddenly widened and I ran upstairs as well and into my room. Hurriedly, I walked toward my little bookshelf and took out my fifth Harry Potter book, the Order of the Phoenix.

With my heart beating rapidly against my chest, I turned to page 806, chapter thirty-five, in which Sirius's death scene was written.

This was the only way I could've figured out whether I had changed things in every timeline or not. Was I now written in the books...?

But my heart sank as I read through the last paragraph,

Harry struggled hard and viciously, but Lupin would not let go. "There's nothing you can do, Harry... nothing... He's gone."

Briskly, I put the the book down and with more rush, I took out the Deathly Hallows book with trembling hands, turning to the last page of the chapter called 'Battle of Hogwarts'.

But I went even paler once I realized that the words hadn't changed since the last time I had read this book, as it said,

Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.

I closed the books, my eyes widened as I stared into distance. What if I had only changed the things happening in one singular timeline? What if Fred and Sirius were dead...? How about Lupin and Tonks or Moody...?

"That's wrong, you know." My head snapped up as I heard my dad say, and I saw him at the doorway, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed.

"What?" I questioned.

"Those books. They're wrong," he said, walking inside and sitting next to me on the bed. "That's why I never liked them."

"Wh-what?" I gulped. "So are they —?"

"Alive? Yes." Dad nodded and I let out the breath I wasn't aware of holding.

"But — if everything has changed... then why am I not in these books?" I frowned. "How come they are written the same way as I remember them?"

"I... don't know." A long silence followed these words.

      "So," I said, putting down the book after a pause and turning to look at Regulus Black. "Mind explaining now?"

     He gave me a half smile. "What do you want to know first?"

      I thought about it for a few seconds before saying, "Why did you join the Death Eaters?"

     He blinked a few times at me, as if he hadn't expected me to ask that. "What?"

     "Why would you even join the Death Eaters in the first place? You knew all they did was to kill Muggles and Muggleborns! You had liked a Muggle girl all your life, from what Sirius told me!"

"You think that I knew?" he said in disbelief, looking slightly offended. "You think that I wanted to kill and torture innocent people? You think that I would have joined them for a second if I knew?"

"N-no I just —"

"I thought the only thing they wanted to achieve was to only allow purebloods and half-bloods to study magic and I thought that was their only goal. I thought it was simply pureblood supremacy that they were after."

     I threw my gaze down, slightly ashamed of having assumed that in the first place as he went on explaining.

     "And that idea was something I was raised to believe, so I joined them to keep my parents proud of me. But after joining... I saw the horror they created. I saw what they were really after. I saw them killing and torturing Muggles and Muggleborns. And I got scared, Lexi... I was scared for my life, and even others, for that matter. I wanted to leave, but I knew that once you become a Death Eater, there is no returning."

     "And then Voldemort took Kreacher to his cave, but Kreacher managed to escape," I completed. "And when he returned back to you, you found out about the Horcrux."

"Yes. And I knew that the only way of giving an end to all that, was to give an end to the Dark Lord himself," he explained.

"But how have you managed to hide the Dark Mark on your forearm all these years?" I questioned. "I mean, I know you almost always wear long sleeved shirts, but still..."

Dad chuckled, rolling up his left sleeve. "I gotta say... your mother's makeup concealers works like magic." I laughed as he winked at me.

      "But why would you abandon the Horcrux after getting it?" I questioned after some while. "Why didn't you try to destroy it as planned, and instead left it with Kreacher and ran away to the Muggle world?"

"You asked me something I cannot answer," said Dad with a sigh, looking away from me.

"Does this have anything to do with a girl named Alexandra?" I asked without thinking, watching his eyes widen at those words.