I don't own Harry Potter
The future is a grey seagull
Tattling in its cat-voice of departure.
Age and terror, like nurses, attend her,
And a drowned man, complaining of the great cold,
Crawls up out of the sea.
"A Life"- by Sylvia Plath
"So, remind me why we are here again?"
Harry turned to Ron, but it was Hermione who answered.
"Honestly Ronald," the man in question quirked his brow, "Dark magic has a tendency to get stronger as it ages, and Voldemort was the darkest wizard in our history. It is-"
"Hermione," Ron placed a hand on his wife's shoulder to placate the look he received from interrupting her, "I know why we are here, I don't know why we are here. I mean there are plenty of other Aurors that can do this job as well as we can, aren't there. It's not like we haven't destroyed enough dark magic to retire anyway."
Harry, who saw where Ron's argument was leading replied in place of the other man's wife, "Ron, it's exactly because we have seen magic like this before than we are even here. I know what to expect, Neville is as good as you are with dark creatures and Hermione and Teddy-" Harry gestured to the final members of their party, "both provide the necessary spell work to make Voldemort's spell work fall apart."
"Yeah, but what about me?"
Harry looked at his friend, "Ron, don't be daft, you have always been brilliant with fire spells."
"Fire spells, what has that got to do with anything?"
"They are for the Inferi."
"Inferi, great, he still has more of those lying around does he?"
Teddy answered, "Loads apparently, Do you remember the Riddle's old mansion?"
"Ugh, don't remind me."
Harry looked to his four companions, "Yes, well, that is enough reminiscing; we have to actually get to the cave before we do anything."
"Do you mean we have to swim there?" Hermione looked apprehensive. Ron took one look at his wife, watched harry jump in and held out his hand, "I'll stay with you."
She nodded and followed Teddy off the rock.
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A few minutes and a good swim later (after Hermione cast a drying spell on all four of them) they companions found themselves before a solid stone wall.
Harry took the lead, "Right, the door is right here," he indicated to a rather non-descriptive part of the wall, "but I was thinking we could destroy the wall as we leave."
Teddy took one look at the specific section of stone and flicked his wand, "It needs a blood sacrifice."
Neville simply raised his brows, "He would rely on magic like that wouldn't he?"
Harry answered with a small silver blade, made a tiny precise incision, and wiped the blood on the wall causing it to crumble away- leaving a whole to the mute-darkness that he remembered from his first visit.
The five of them shuddered slightly when the magnitude of the aura that emanated from the cave.
"Bloody Hell Harry, you've been here before and you came back voluntarily?"
Harry glanced at his best mate, "Yes, well, I had Dumbledore, didn't I? Not like…"
He trailed off, leaving Teddy and Neville somewhat bewildered, Ron pensive and Hermione slightly distraught as the golden trio remembered the fate of the youngest Black.
"Well," Neville said, giving them questioning looks, before facing the room, "Lumos Maxima."
If anything, the light just served to underline the capabilities of the wizard whose magic they were trying to undo, and magnify the malice present in the room with the ironically glowing soft diffuse light.
Teddy took a look around, and gazed at his reflection in the dark eddying water near the shore, "Merlin, this place is terrifying."
Ron seemed to agree, "Yeah, I think we should get this over with, how about you?"
Hermione raised her want in answer, and Teddy replied, "Just as practiced."
Harry pointed his wand towards the water, waved it once and caught the chain, "Ron, we are going to destroy the island," then as an afterthought he added, "Don't any of you touch the water."
The looks he received indicated that he didn't have to bother with the warning.
"And don't-"
"Get separated from your partner?"
Harry cast Teddy a half amused look then settled himself as the boat pulled he and Ron to the far side of the lake. Distantly he felt Hermione and Teddy cast their sensing spells, ones that would differentiate and elaborate on the magic that had made the cave.
"Remember Harry," came Neville's muffled voice, "the first limitations we are going to remove are those on apparating."
In the distance he could make out the diffuse glow of the potion he had forced Dumbledore to swallow and felt the bile move in his stomach.
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A few hours later, Harry and Ron successfully sunk the island, and removed all curses on it, essentially without any magical backlash.
Teddy saw them first.
"Good, you're back, we are about halfway done- it was a decent idea to come in the morning eh?"
Harry nodded absently while disembarking while Ron joined his wife.
"Right, Island's gone, what can we do here?"
"You can work on the removing the curse that binds the Inferi- Teddy's doing that Harry."
The young Lupin looked at Ron, "Weasley, get your want ready, they aren't going to like out meddling and will start attacking, I recognized function in the spell work. Harry, help me out here, I'm almost done… actually I was waiting for you two. Mrs. Weasley, Step away from the shore please. Longbottom, get ready."
Hermione complied.
Harry could feel it too, "Get ready Ron."
Teddy nodded, broke a particularly resilient aspect of the spell's weave and shouted as the magic itself began fighting him, "Harry!"
"Ron!"
The red head drew a hand through his graying hair and pointed his wand.
"INCENDIO!"
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By the time Teddy unwound the spell work binding the Inferi, Neville had already gone to aid Hermione nearly doubling the work rate. Then when all five joined to under a similar banner the work was done in the hour- with surprisingly little effort.
From the bank they watched as a magical whirlwind formed in the middle of the lake, pulling in any foul magics that remained.
First there was an unnerving muted silence that pulled the hairs on the back of her neck up. Then there came a deep rumbling, and the middle of the lake funneled down making wind and the water form a maelstrom- one that swallowed itself with a loud crack and a huge backlash. One that had Ron's ears ringing.
Teddy didn't know how he preferred the cave. Where once it was menacing with a taste of dark magic, currently it was empty- so empty it burned his nose.
It was the sort of emptiness that one expected of the barren lifeless parts of the deep ocean- where life cannot survive… except for…
Neville made eye contact with him.
"You feel it too?"
"Feel What?"
They didn't spare Ron a passing glance.
"Magic."
"Well, we did just clean the place up of Voldemort, so…"
Hermione paused by the two men, "No, Ron- Harry, They're right- Our spell targeted Voldemort's magic, dark magic, but this is-"
"Are you trying to say that it's somebody else's aura? In here?"
Teddy barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes, then focused on the thin veil of magic he sensed in the lake.
"Teddy? Can you feel it?" The younger man vaguely recognized the voice of his God-father, but in the haze he was trying to find the thin sliver of magic deep in the lake.
There!
Teddy pointed his wand, and in return there was a sound not unlike an underwater explosion. Minutes later something floated up to the surface of the lake pushed along by silver mists very similar to a Patronus.
"Bloody Hell, what is that?"
Hermione joined Teddy near the ledge and aided him in pulling the object closer- which upon reaching the ledge proved to be a mist sort of casket- a casket containing the body of the boy.
Hermione looked down, "It's a cocoon!"
Together, Harry Ron and Hermione, who already had an idea of who the boy was, lifted the bundled magic off of the water and stepped back as it unwound itself and dissipated. Then Hermione stepped closer placed two finger's to the boy's clammy skin and did nothing to hide her shock.
"Harry, he's alive."
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"Excuse me, Excuse ME! Heal- Healer. Healer Urban!"
Harry watched the medi-witch in question turn to look at him skeptically. She had long ago recognized the harried voice of on H.J Potter, though this time he didn't appear to be the one suffering damage.
"Mr. Potter, you know the rules, you have to go through the receptionist and file your medical problem there. Then you can come to me."
She smiled congenially at him and made to leave his presence. The only problem was he wasn't having any of it- he grasped her arm and apparated out of the hospital as if lives depended upon it, which, more than likely, was exactly the case.
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A.N- This will be my first attempt at a Harry Potter Fic.
Regulus is my favorite character by far- there is just something about his redemption that gets me- so in my he survive in a manner in which the details are vaguely cobbled out.
Though it starts with Regulus, the story will eventually expand to include many of the next generation characters and their problems. The focus will still stay on Regulus though.
In this story he will be a boy who is a little too mature for his age- with a problem with trust and who was never good at making friends or decisions (till the end).
Oh, and I am from the U.S, so if you see anything that is obviously not from the British English lexicon, please tell me. I went back and checked everything, but there are some phrases I might have missed.