Muggle | 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑊𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

Chapter 193

The moment the words left my mouth, I saw the expression on his face change entirely as he turned to look at me with widened eyes.

"How did you — but — how..."

"So it does!" I said loudly, talking mostly to myself. So I then turned to face him again. "What happened that night in Tom Riddle's cave? What changed you?"

He sighed, running a hand through his hair miserably. "Listen, Lexi... There are some stories that are told, but some others are just meant to be buried away. And the story of that night... it's one that I want to bury forever."

He looked so lost in his thoughts that I said nothing for long seconds, letting the silence fill the space between us.

"All I can say is," Dad started again, breaking the silence after a long pause, "I was so frightened after that night that I couldn't get myself to go back. The things that happened... it made me want to run away from the Wizarding world and never to come back."

"Is that when you met Mum again?" I mused. "After everything?"

"Yes." He nodded, now finally smiling. "Lisa and I were childhood friends. The Goldman family lived near us and we used to hang around all the time with Sirius. Before we got our Hogwarts letters, we would amuse her with the little magic we used to be able to do."

I chuckled at that, picturing little Regulus, Sirius, and Lisa in my mind in the playground as the two brothers showed off their magic to the little Muggle girl.

"So she always knew that you were wizards?" I asked and he nodded. "Didn't your mother get angry that you'd meet up with a Muggle girl?"

"She didn't know much of it, to be honest," he explained. "After Sirius got his Hogwarts letter, when he came back home, he couldn't stop talking about school and his new friends, and Lisa and I — who were both a year younger than Sirius — would spend all day listening to him go on and on about it. Although, our mother was never happy about how he was sorted into Gryffindor. Her and Sirius never got along... but that was the breaking point."

"How about you? Were you mad that your brother was sorted into another house but Slytherin?"

"No, not really." He shrugged. "But when I received my own Hogwarts letter, I was rather disappointed when we weren't in the same house. We'd always been good friends. But that certainly drew us apart a bit more."

"What happened then?"

"Well, after some while, the Goldman family decided to move away to America when many disappearances started happening. Lisa then gave Sirius and I two identical necklaces on her last day there, as something to remember her by."

I smiled, remembering the necklace Sirius had given me many years ago.

"So anyway," Dad went on, "after I ran away from the cave, I gave Kreacher the locket and asked him to destroy it. But before going away, I Confunded Mundugus Fletcher to spread the rumor that I was killed by Death Eaters for wanting to run away, yet my body was never found. I knew he was in the Order of the Phoenix."

I nodded in understanding "So that's how everyone thought you were dead."

"Yes. And after that, I was able to track your mother down. I knew I hadn't seen her for years, but she was the only person I could turn to for help," he explained. "So I went to America and Lisa agreed to help me. With the help of her, I made myself a new identity; Roger Hooper, an orphan boy with no family. I put aside my wand, promising myself to never use it again. I was disgusted with everything related to magic."

I wanted to ask him why, but I knew he wouldn't answer. Although, I could feel that it had something to do with the girl named Alexandra.

"I started to work with Lisa's father. He took me in his business and their family helped me out a lot, although all along they thought that my name was Roger Hooper."

"So my grandparents never knew your old identity?" I asked and he shook his head.

"But after a few years when we were told that the Dark Lord was defeated by a one-year-old boy named Harry Potter, I thought that we were safe and so your mother and I moved back here to England and eventually got married," he went on. "Although, as you know, your grandparents decided to remain in New York."

"What happened next?"

"Well, around twelve years after we had moved back to England, you were born in 1993. But both me and your mother were scared of what would happen."

"What do you mean?" I frowned in confusion.

"We knew that if you were born a witch, the Ministry of Magic would put the trace on you and therefore would be able to track us all down. And if the Death Eaters found out I was alive, I knew that they would come after us all."

"So you took away my magic," I stated, throwing my gaze down.

"The last magic I used until quite recently was to brew you a potion right after you were born; the Concealment Potion. The moment I gave it to you, it concealed your magic within you. You could no longer use it, and so the ministry couldn't track you. Your magic could only resurface once you were in deep danger, felt great concern, and were overwhelmed by powerful emotions all at the same time, such as fear, anger, and love. Those were powerful enough to break the concealment and let your magic free once again."

"And it all happened when I was trying to save Sirius," I muttered. "But how did you manage to fool the Black family tree? I looked at it, but my name wasn't on it. It said that Regulus Black was dead."

"It was Kreacher," he explained. "I asked him to wipe my name off the family tree."

"I — I didn't know house-elves could do such thing."

"Don't underestimate house-elves, Lexi. They're powerful magical creatures."

I grinned at that. "You should join the spew."

"The spew? What's that?" he raised a brow and I chuckled.

"It's actually S.P.E.W. It stands for — you know what? Never mind." I chuckled. "But Hermione would certainly be proud of you."

I could tell that Dad didn't understand me, but he laughed all the same at my usual silliness.

"Well..." Dad continued, "we were living here in England for a few years in peace, until you were around two years old, in 1995. That was when weird things started happening again; mysterious murders and disappearances. I started to worry that the Dark Lord had returned once more. I kept telling Lisa that we should run away. It took a while, but when I somehow heard that Dumbledore had died, we went back to New York again to your grandparents' house for a few years. And we finally returned back to England again a few years after the Dark Lord's final downfall."

But just then, we heard the doorbell ring downstairs.

"LEXI, GET THE DOOR!" I heard Mum shout.

"IN A MINUTE!" I yelled back, turning to face my dad again.

"Although," he grinned, "from what Sirius told me, you actually befriended two older guys, who were quite the troublemakers at the time."

The door rang once more. "LEXI!" Mum yelled, but I ignored her this time.

"Hang on..." my voice trailed off and my eyes widened, staring at my dad. "Sirius told you?"

The bell rang again.

"Yes." Dad just nodded, smiling. "Now why don't you go get that door?"