Note: Kuchikopi and myself have been planning to collaborate for years, and here we finally have it! We're going to be exploring the concept of Regulus surviving his snatching of the horcrux (which will be further explained and explored in the future) and the ramifications his knowledge has on the early Second War.

This chaptered series ("renascentia," specifically) starts at the very end of Goblet of Fire, leading into Order of the Phoenix. We will also be posting a lot of one-shots and mini-series companion pieces that are set during the First War/MWPP era, and at some point, probably some set during the years between the two Voldemort wars. Although those companion pieces are not required for basic understanding of this series, they flesh out events and general characterization that supports and enhances the "main" story here. Because the one-shots can't be put in order here on ffnet, we have a list of the reading order in our profile, for anyone interested in exploring those earlier-set stories. Happy reading, friends!

Please note that the main italics are spoken French while they're in France.

'Renascentia' is Latin for 'rebirth,' referring to the more spiritual sense of the word.

Chapter 1

There was a certain peace in obscurity, in the soft quack of ducks and in blades of grass that tickled the soles of your feet. To Regulus Black, comfort smelled like old books, and with his back propped against an old tree and worn pages between the tips of his fingers, there was no greater peace on Earth.

Summer sunlight peeked over the horizon, dusk settling around them and smearing vivid blood orange across the sky. A little girl ran past, tittering something in French to her little brother trailing behind, and as his eyes lifted from the book, a small smile tugged at the corner of Regulus's mouth. He had called this little French wizarding village his home for some 15, nearing 16 years now. Privacy was a gift he'd been given here, a community of witches and wizards who were content to tuck away in the countryside, to have their hobbies — be they over the table or under the table — and live out their relatively uncomplicated lives.

When first he'd come, desperate and worn, they had granted him a place among them. Trust was slow-won as community and visitor alike sized each other up, but never had he been more grateful for the years of language tutoring he and Sirius had been subjected to throughout their childhood.

"Mssr Rian!" the little girl called out, stopping only a few paces away from him. "How much longer under school starts?"

Regulus could see her teeming excitement, bittersweet in its ignorance of the horrors of the world, blissfully unaware that school could be anything but safe and thrilling. For her, perhaps it would be just that. "The school year hasn't even ended yet," he responded as he placed his hand between the open pages to mark his place, his French mirroring her own in lilt and tone. "You still have all summer."

"But I want to go to Beauxbatons now! I want to be beautiful and powerful like Fleur Delacour," the girl declared, flinging out the stick in her hand like a wand, "I wonder what the last challenge was. I bet she will win the tournament today!"

"Perhaps," Regulus said agreeably with a subtle tip of the chin.

Loose blonde hair whipped as she turned back around to face her brother. "You're stinking Harry Potter," the girl shouted back at the boy with her makeshift wand pointed squarely at him (small as he was, he had scarcely caught up on small and frantic legs). "You will never beat your dragon before me!"

As the children scrambled away again, jumping and ducking around the hedge bushes, Regulus shook his head, a small twinge of satisfaction settling in his stomach at her declaration. Though he had never met this 'Harry Potter' the papers so often spoke of now, he sounded as arrogant and inconsiderate as his father before. It was terrible, what had happened to the Potters, and Regulus could admit that, no matter how deeply he had despised the boy who had taken his brother away from him... but if this Harry was half the disaster his father was, Regulus was unsurprised he had cheated himself into a competition for the sake of glory.

Shaking his head, Regulus lifted his hand from the page and shifted back against the trunk once again, scanning the ocean of words to find his place.

(The sun would be wholly set soon, and he knew he oughtn't even bother starting up again, with the darkness creeping up on them as it does.)

Reluctantly, Regulus placed a bookmark where his hand had been just a moment before, gently shutting the book with a soft thump. He caught sight of the two children running towards their parents now, who apparently had come to the same conclusion as himself. Pushing up to a crouch, then up again to his feet, Regulus slipped back into his sandals and started walking back to his home, not far from the park and nearer still to the antique shop he'd been working at for years now. (Oh, what his life had come to. Working in a shop. It was near comical.)

He was nearly home when the pain struck, a sharp sting that flared out to a burn and slithered up the inside of his arm so suddenly he dropped the book he was carrying. Immediately his other hand clasped over the spot, as if to crush its writing head, and though his long sleeve covered the mark (always, he wore sleeves to smother his past, however long it had been) the familiar skull and snake were burned well into his mind.

For 15 years, he had been free of its call. Now, a terrible lurch turned in his stomach as cold reality set in. The activation of his Mark — it could mean only one thing…

"No…" he whispered to himself, fingers bone-white as they gripped his forearm. The locket was destroyed, the Dark Lord was dead, and the worst was meant to be over... (He heard it scream, saw its decaying husk. Destroyed.) He shook his head as bafflement creased thin lines in his brow. Without his horcrux, the Dark Lord ought to have been destroyed for good, yet Regulus knew of nothing else that could set their Marks burning, this brand tying them to their master.

Either he was having a terrifyingly vivid nightmare, or something had gone terribly wrong.

A haze fell over him then as he walked the remainder of the way home without really seeing, hearing, experiencing the settling bustle of the village. If anyone noticed his ghost-pale visage, he didn't notice them noticing, and when at last the heavy wooden door of his home was closed securely behind him, Regulus thunked his head back against it and squeezed his eyes closed, as if to brace.

Slowly he pulled up his sleeve, white cloth bunching at the elbow. For several stretching seconds, he just stood there, eyes shut tightly, the muscles of his forearm tensing against the burn. Forcing his eyes open was as punishing as he had expected it to be, the inky writhe of the Dark Mark striking a stark contrast with the pale skin of his arm. His breath caught in his throat, and for a moment, he was 17 again, terrified of the impossible life laid out in front of him.

Against reason, Regulus approached his desk, pulled open the drawer and brushed his fingers over the broken remains of Slytherin's locket, devoid of its eerie glow and exactly where he had left it. Clenching his fist around it, the uneven edges pressed into his palm, and with a grunt of aggravation, Regulus threw the locket back into the drawer and slammed it shut. Running restless fingers through his hair, he turned away from it once again, frustration brimming as he approached the nearest window. Planting his hands on the windowsill, he lifted his eyes to the darkening sky, where blood orange bled into deep purples and looming shadows. What was beautiful just moments ago now felt suffocating, ominous.

"Somewhere, the Death Eaters have gathered, and the Dark Lord has risen again," he whispered to himself, storm-grey eyes fixed on the darkness, as if a ghostly green skull might form above him at any moment, farfetched as the feeling was. "I suppose this isn't over, after all."

There were many reasons to pretend as though his Mark had not burned to life that night, rising like an unwelcome spectre. Regulus could name a great many: the efforts he'd silently offered, the old life he'd sacrificed, the new life he'd forged...the books and antiques he oversaw, the friendship he'd fostered, the quiet moments sitting peacefully at the duck pond. That would be shattered, the moment he stepped foot in England.

Rian would die, and Regulus would be dragged forcibly from the grave once again.

In the weeks that passed, he tried to clear his mind of the decision nipping at his heels, but the international news heralded rumors of the Dark Lord's return, told of a boy dead on the eve of the Triwizard Tournament's final task: Cedric Diggory, the proper and legitimate Hogwarts champion. He saw as the news rapidly turned on its head, vehemently denying rumors related to the Dark Lord...yet the louder the denials grew, the more certain Regulus became of their nightmare's return.

His home was in turmoil, chewing its own tongue off.

(Was he doing the same, clinging to his life here?)

No one spoke of the news openly, but he felt more eyes on him than normal in those two weeks. However expert his French, he was Rian the Englishman; it did not matter the years he had spent holed away in their community. He knew they wanted to ask him what he thought, whether he'd experienced the war, whether he'd ever seen a Death Eater (or perhaps 'You-Know-Who' himself).

They did not know the half.

It was a warm and stuffy morning, the day Regulus chose to leave his world behind for the second time. In a bag, he packed clothes, books, favoured artifacts, the crushed locket that started this whole fiasco...the catalyst for the past 16 years of his life.

He had run away from the chaos, back then — young and desperate, full of fierce purpose.

(Now, he ran towards it, like a complete fool.)

Shutting a desk drawer, Regulus raked his eyes over the surface, spotting a small white box in the corner and feeling a subtle twinge in his chest. Thumbing off the lid, he pulled the box closer and looked inside at the small collection of magical photographs. The years had worn friendship into his heart again like grooves, however buried he had once been, resigned to remain furiously alone in his misery. Their faces were now etched in his mind, familiar and fond — and strangely reminiscent of a crowd of very different faces, dimmed and distressing.

Closing his eyes, Regulus reached back in time, grasped for the memory of his once best friend, of Barty Crouch with his straw hair and bright eyes. He remembered how Barty was always the first to congratulate him after a Slytherin win in quidditch and the first to trash Sirius and his friends when they were being twats (which was always). He remembered the conspiratorial thrill the night they received their Dark Marks, teeming with misplaced anger and a desperation to be part of something grand and secret. To belong. Regulus recalled wanting to vomit, the last night he saw his friend, but it had been a decade and a half since Regulus had seen his face.

When he had left his home behind, he had expected to die — and dead men did not need to remember. With death falling off of him like shedded skin, there was nothing he wanted more than to see them all again...his friends, his family… (Barty had been sent to Azkaban too, he recalled all too painfully, as had Bella, but if Sirius had escaped, then maybe, just maybe…)

Pressing his lips to a line, Regulus closed the box again and dropped it into the bag.

When later he faced the living-breathing-human contents of that box, it was not as easy to cover the problem as it was to close the top of a bag.

"You're not going back to England, are you?" In front of Regulus stood a man some five years his senior, the ruffled brown hair framing his face in a way that made him look as though he was always a little bit frazzled. He set the contents of some potion ingredient down on the table to extend a pointed finger in his direction. "You'd better not be, because they're saying You-Know-Who might be back, and even if they immediately said he wasn't back, we both know that only SOLIDIFIES the fact that it's definitely true."

"You should probably keep going with your potion," Regulus responded evasively, gesturing toward the cauldron. "You're going to ruin it."

"If I do, it's your fault for dropping this on me while I'm brewing," the man said defensively, picking up the ingredient once again, dripping three drops into the mixture before continuing, "But don't think I didn't notice that confirmatory deflection. Why would you want to go back there? And I don't even mean that as a jab against England, this time."

A grim shadow fell over Regulus's face as he shook his head. "It's complicated."

"That sounds like the start of a really great and non-ominous decision, right there."

"Don't act like you know what's best for my situation," Regulus said curtly, brow furrowing.

"Your situation?" In puzzlement, the potioneer threw up his hands — still holding a vial, for a beat longer, before he noticed and set it back down amongst the other ingredients. "What kind of situation are we talking, here? Is there something I should know about your 'situation'?"

"Nothing you need concern yourself with," Regulus responded cryptically, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples, thinking that he'd made a grave error, actually warning people of his departure. Perhaps vanishing without a word was not such a terrible way to go about it, after all. When he was met with further skepticism, Regulus released an aggravated sigh and approach the door to the potion shop, hand securing on the brass handle.

"Why are you being so weird about this? You're- Rian! You know I can't leave while this is brewing!"

Regulus was already several steps out the door, by then, and when he turned back, his friend was standing in the door, propping it open with a mildly irritated expression on his face. Guilt wriggled uncomfortably, but there was little that could be done. "Look- I just need to go back, at least for a little while. Don't blow this into something it's not."

"Is anyone going to watch the shop? Emile won't be back for days."

Regulus flattened his mouth to a line, some hybrid of sheepish dismissal. "I'm going to need you to tell him...I really need to go."

"You need to go, right," came the exasperated echo. "Of course, Mssr Drama. Be sure to come back, then. No getting blown to pieces by lunatics in masks storming the streets. If I have to turn 40 alone, I'm going to be really upset."

"You still have some time before that."

"Dying's permanent, though, so don't forget it."

(Dying was not so permanent as many might think — not metaphorically, not even literally, for even now, Regulus could recall the cold, choking grip of the inferi with more vividness than he could ever want. Sometimes, finality would be better.)

"As if I could."

"And this better not be some 16-year trade off thing, either. I will be way older than 40, 16 years from now!"

Rolling his eyes, Regulus smothered a wry smile, stinging with truth. "Bye, Julien."

With a brisk wave, Regulus turned back around, hands shoving deep in his pockets as he rounded a corner. As his eyes lifted to the sunny sky above, he thought how unassuming it all felt, how the clouds roamed the skies without a care, how the sun shone no less brightly, whatever the task ahead. "The least you could do is rain," he muttered upwards to no one in particular, and in response, the birds twittered in flight, swooping across his vision to land on a nearby roof.

This chapter of his life was closing, now. All he had to do was turn the page.

The sky in France may not have listened, but England was all too eager to oblige with a splash of gloomy summer rain, the clouds tucking away the moon like a child to bed and dimming an already darkening night. Though he had apparated to the spot, he could feel water soaking into his bones by the time he reached the door, the weight of his memories holding him in place.

His father had possessed something of a passion for wards and concealments, and their home had been guarded by protective bloodline spells for far longer still, spanning back to the 1300s when first this house was claimed by his House. Regulus had been 'dead' for over a decade now — could a building have some makeshift concept of time? Had he been pronounced dead, or did the spells know no difference so long as he was deemed a blood member of the House of Black?

(Now was as good a time as any to find out.)

Steeling himself, Regulus stepped forward once more, fingers clasping the handle and pushing it open, bracing himself-

-for a fallout that never came. Though he lingered in the doorway, no movement stirred, no sound drew his ear, save for the rapid pattering of rain behind him.

The thunk of the door shutting about him sounded ominous in the dark, corridor lamps devoid of life and cobwebs coating the surfaces with a dirtied glaze. Though he felt tempted to cast the string of lamps in one sweeping spell, he had no true assurance that he was alone. His mother would be older now, if she was still alive — but regardless of age, she was powerful in more ways than one, and certainly not a force that he wanted to notice him before he noticed her.

Compromising with a small and silent Lumos, Regulus crept quietly, eyes gliding over every faded cushion, every peeled corner of wallpaper, every sleeping portrait. Like stepping back in time, Regulus felt a teenager again, crushed by the staggering rush of familiarity… how this house had grown old, worn, looked as though no one had paid much care to it in ages. A measure of sadness twinged, struck with the pangs of his decaying childhood, painted in shades of grey and green and coated in grime.

Reaching the staircase at the end of the hallway, his eyes lifted to the shrunken, severed heads of house-elves past, and his stomach immediately turned. Never in his life had he liked this staircase — no matter how it was justified or explained, chopping off an elf's head and displaying it on the wall always felt more unsettling than it did honourary. With each step, his eyes retraced each elf in turn, their unique eyes, the flop of their ears…

When he reached the top step, Regulus released the breath he did not realise he'd been holding, sickness still turning in his stomach, but the suffocating dread lightened its burden when he found each head on these walls to be the same as they always had been. No sign of Kreacher — and for once, that was a relief.

Each footstep from there drew him forward like a silent siren song, and before Regulus had processed much conscious intention, he found himself standing in the drawing room, taking in the grand, sweeping sight of the family tapestry as he let his bag drop to the floor… Toujours Pur. Always pure. Generation after generation of their ancient and noble bloodline, splayed out across the wall and peppered with the charred splotches of divergence and rebellion. (Of betrayal, Regulus would have once remarked with scorn. Time was a funny thing.) Now, his fingers brushed the names — what had once been large and expansive now dwindled in death. Just three years prior, his Aunt Lucretia had passed, as had Crazy Aunt Cass (cradled in a nest of her cat children, no doubt). His grandparents on both sides, just prior to that.

His mother.

His mother had died a decade ago.

All life ended in time, or at least it ought to, yet some part of him thought of his mother as constant, some unstoppable force that did not require the dark and repulsive means of a horcrux to evade the clutches of death. (Had she been ill? He could not picture her pale and weak. Had she been alone? He left her alone.)

Beneath, his own name was still stitched in place, death assigned to the year he had left, as expected. A dark smudge bled over just slightly, flecks of char reaching over into his space… his brother's spot, burnt in rage… (So long ago, yet so fresh, kneeling in this room. Sirius Black had been a smudge on the tapestry for more years than he had ever been a name, yet Regulus remembered that night all too clearly. The uncertainty of his brother's departure in the night — the certainty of his mother's blast, the moment they returned home from that summer home trip.)

An unfamiliar name caught his eye, then, beneath the fond and familiar branch of his (favourite) cousin.

Draco. Cissa's son. Fifteen years old, now, undoubtedly possessing of a blindingly pale complexion, considering his parents. He would be a Slytherin too, of course, bedecked in silver and green, proud and pure. Regulus knew nothing of the boy, and he hated to think there was a child of Narcissa's that he had never known, even as an unborn air of excitement. Did Draco like quidditch? Reading? What type of magic did he favor? Would he make prefect, this summer? Was he the sort to float to the center of a party or linger to the sides?

(Would he be drawn into the Death Eater's fold as Regulus once had, at his age?)

Anxious dread lurched in Regulus's stomach, cold and acidic. Dropping his wandering fingers from the tapestry, he stood and took a steadying step back to take in the sweeping generations, eyes raking from corner to corner. The Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. Their blood would live pure in Draco, but he and Sirius were the last of their name — what would become of them if this war ended in blood and blasts?

Legacy hung by a thread, and he felt the clippers press like fangs, slithering up his arms and wrapping around his neck in a taunt. He hadn't a clue where the other horcruxes might be. Thematically, there might be two others, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw's relics to match the locket...perhaps four, if the Dark Lord could deign to use Gryffindor in his plots, but he had no more than fleeting speculation and no shadow of a clue where to start. No information to tip one direction or another. No one would trust him anymore…

(No one on either side. A defector, a traitor...)

Glumly, Regulus pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, the pressure and return to blackness easing his mind just slightly, if only for a moment — but when he lowered his hands and opened his eyes again, the tapestry still stretched before him, lit dimly by the wand still clasped in his fingers.

This was his reality. Again, and again, and again.

Stepping out into the hallway, Regulus felt a subtle dip in his nervousness, knowing his mother was not sleeping somewhere in the house, however guilty the thought made him feel. His mind then leapt back to the next closest likelihood to still walk these halls — and without delay, Regulus set down the stairs once again, forging a straight path to the kitchen where Kreacher often dwelt. Anxiety gave way to hope that Kreacher's absence from the staircase was a sign of his safety, his survival...and not a false hope veiling a worse death. (Regulus had left him — perhaps shouldn't have left him — but…)

Coming to the kitchen, Regulus crept quietly to the room Kreacher called his own, creaked open the door, and felt the first pull of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Curled on a dirty blanket and surrounded with a few family trinkets (...strange, as he was not normally the type to hoard), Kreacher was safely sleeping. Like a crushing wave, Regulus felt the onslaught of affection hit him, a flood of gratitude beyond measure, and it took every ounce of his self-control not to wake the elf right then, late though it was. "I will see you in the morning, my friend," he whispered, and only after grabbing a large cloth hand towel and draping it over Kreacher like a blanket did Regulus shut the door again and retrace his steps upstairs, pressing further still to the topmost floor where his own bedroom awaited.

Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black

A wry smile flickered again. There had been a time in his life when that had felt as though it ought to be effective enough. There was never a time in his life when it was actually effective, but he supposed perception factored a great deal into one's sense of security.

With a soft click of the handle, Regulus pushed open the door, only to be hit with another staggering wave of nostalgia. Everything was precisely as he'd left it, sleek swaths of green and silver everywhere he looked. He saw his bookshelf, brimming with texts, tall and wide and inviting as ever. He saw his broom hanging on the other side of his bed, saw the bedstand where his owl's cage had once rested, back when he'd owned an owl. Canopus would be long dead by now, and again, a pang twinged in his chest... He saw the wardrobe, presumably still full of clothes, neatly folded and hanging primly alongside a sack filled with ancient tomes telling of horcruxes, charmed to look like outdated books of quidditch history and an account of the world's greatest magical chess players.

As a treacherous yawn escaped, Regulus conceded that deeper investigations could wait until morning — and without changing from his clothes (he had left his bag down in the drawing room, too far away to be bothered with now), Regulus slipped out of his shoes and fell on the bed, arms wrapping around the largest pillow to breath deep the stale scent, so jarringly unlike it had once been, yet as he lay surrounded by the safest space he known as a child, he felt the nostalgic give way to exhaustion.

When again Regulus woke, it was to a heart-stopping screech, tearing him from a dreamless sleep into what felt like a waking nightmare. Through blurry eyes, he could see his door was still securely closed, yet his ears were full of a bone-chillingly familiar scream, muffled somewhat by the floor between...but that had never given full reprieve the last time he'd heard it, either.

"Mother?" he muttered to the air around him, answered only by another warbling shriek, presumably some tirade or another, but he couldn't make out the words. (He could not make them out, but he could guess with some confidence what his mother would be saying whilst under such distress.)

His mother was dead, he knew, or was said to be dead, at least, according to the tapestry...Blood turned to ice beneath his skin once more, as the possibility settled in that he may not be alone in the house after all...that perhaps his mother's spot on the tapestry was as accurate as his own. To have such a reaction was shameful, he knew; Regulus was meant to be the good son, and what kind of son hoped to be wrong about something like that?

Some part of him — young and uncertain and guilty — longed to see her, to apologize, to make things right again, and bile reached up in a threat as he began to wonder if it was not so farfetched a chance, after all.

Taking his bottom lip between his teeth in a fit of nerves, Regulus steeled himself to stand stepping toward his still-cracked door. Eyes flicking to the bookcase, he noticed the fresh smear of fingerprints over the surface and knew well that it had not been his fingerprints brushing over the wood. Limbs stiffening and wand held ready at his side, Regulus silently slipped into the halfway and closed the door to a crack with far more care than was needed, considering the shrieks still barrelling up the stairs in a furied stampede.

With each step down the staircase, his pace increased to a rapid patter, quickening at the pivots until again he was passing the collection of elf-heads… Only then did he slow into his turn, pausing at the corner of the staircase to first look first down the hallway of the ground floor.

For a moment, Regulus couldn't speak. The screams were deafening, down here, and only now did he realise there were two voices shouting. Against what his better judgement might have suggested, he took a few steps toward the ruckus. Ringing off the walls were the same two voices that always destroyed any semblance of peace in this place. His mother and…

"Sirius?"