Prologue

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Skull is alone when he gets the letters, one from a beautiful snowy owl and the other from a phoenix of all things. He reads the phoenix's letter first, finds that it's from his old headmaster and that he's being offered a job as a teacher. The Defense Against the Dark Arts position to be specific.

"Really?" Skull asks the patiently waiting phoenix, now identified as Fawkes, gesturing to himself. "I look like a toddler and he wants me to be a teacher?"

Fawkes trilled.

Which, well, it's not like Dumbledore had any way of knowing he looked like a toddler but- still!

He read the letter from the owl next, surprised to find it from a Potter- Skull had only known one Potter and that was his nephew's friend, both had stopped writing to him sometime in the late seventies, as did the rest of his family who'd kept in contact. Not that it was their fault, it was around that time he'd been cursed and forced fully into the Mafia, he didn't have time to try and contact them and when he did, it seemed...wrong to write back after years of silence.

Reading the Potter's- Harry- letter, Skull wished he had done something.

"Sirius was in Azkaban!?" Skull growled and he knew his eyes were glowing purple. He hurriedly and jerkily scribbled a not and gave it to the phoenix, "My reply." He hissed.

Fawkes disappeared in a flash of fire with a note that said: I accept. One Week.

Skull shot off a series of texts to the Arcobaleno - Family Matter, was all they said but it would be enough that they wouldn't bother him over an extended absence - before sitting down to write a reply to Harry, making sure to add a part for his nephew.

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A/N: Taken place in the #Uncle Skull 'verse - which can be found on Nyodrite's profile (there's a link at the top of my profile "Sister Profile") and which has it's own blog on tumblr (izar-black) - but basically what you need to know about it is this:

Skull is a Black who ran away after graduating from Hogwarts. He is the uncle of Sirius, Regulus, Narcissa, Andromeda and Bellatrix (Andromeda and Bellatrix are both older then him).

Usque ad Finem - To the very end - is an AU of the 'verse simply because Sirius never 'exposed' Skull as a wizard to the Arcobaleno and Skull fell out of contact with his niece/nephews until HP book 5.