Disclaimer: If you know it, I do not own it.
A/N: Edited and reloaded 21 June 2013
Two of a Kind
Regulus Black found Lanta No Surname Given in an abandoned classroom near the North Tower. He liked the North Tower. He had Divination in a tiny circular classroom at the very top of the tower. His mother told him it was a soft subject, not one a Black ought to bother with. While a lot of what Regulus had learned the past two years in the class was useless drivel, he was going to get stick with it. He had a bit of Seer in his magical blood. Not a lot. He wasn't able to see anything in the crystal ball or make predictions, but he always knew where things and people were. For instance: finding Lanta. He had known where she was. At the moment, if he tried, he'd be able to find the Dark Lord. It was how he'd managed to find Andromeda when no one else could. It was how he always knew where Sirius was located.
Besides people, he would find himself looking for things: books, jewelry, potions, et cetera. He wouldn't know why he was looking, but he'd find things and know he need them later. Before returning to Hogwarts, he'd walked into his father's study and opened a drawer. In it, he found an orange egg shaped box. Upon opening it, he found a tiny vial of clear liquid. While it was in his father's study, he took it knowing his father had meant for him to find it.
He had no idea what the clear liquid happened to be. He couldn't open the bottle.
He paused on his climb up the North Tower out side a door in the curved wall. He opened to find a tiny classroom. It was shaped like a piece of pie. One end was a door and the other end was a curved wall with rows of tiny windows. Lanta was seated in the center of the room, having pushed all the desks along the walls. She was brewing a potion, a cauldron and an array of ingredients haphazardly scattered around her.
It did not appear as if it was going well. The room smelled like sulfur.
She slowly glanced up at him when he entered.
"Told you you'd find me," she said, small crooked smile on her face.
His insides twisted a bit.
Lanta had changed since dinner and was dressed in Muggle clothing, her hair pulled back and tied high on the back of her head. Regulus liked the fact her hair was so straight, like his. While Regulus would never outright admit it, he was rather jealous of Sirius's wavy hair. Regulus' hair was thick, but straight and hung in his face if it got too long. He had a feeling Lanta had a similar problem with her fringe, which seemed to be in her eyes. She blew it out of her eyes.
"That I did," Regulus said, dropping down to the ground across from her. "What are you doing?"
"Well, I was attempting to figure something out. Hence the cauldron, crazy ancient book and all this random stuff."
Regulus nodded. "Why are you up here, though? And not in the dungeons."
"It reeks and I didn't fancy being cold. I'm horrible at potions. I don't know why I try. Plus, I didn't want anyone to find me."
"I found you."
"Ah, but that's because we both wanted you to," she replied vaguely. "I'm not getting anywhere. I don't even know…God, I hate Draco."
"Who is Draco?"
"Someone I used to know. He's neither here nor there, or up or down," she said cryptically. She waved her wand in the air. "Ordopago." The smell vanished. "So, Regulus, what did you bring?"
Regulus didn't bother to ask how she knew he'd brought something. She pushed the cauldron aside, clearing a space between them. Regulus reached into his robes and pulled out the Tarot cards, setting them down in front of her. He looked slowly up at her to find her eyes glowing slightly. He figure it was from the moonlight pouring in through one of the windows. The light green eyes were shimmering with a silver light.
"I'd like to read your cards," he informed her, his tone formal. "I prefer Tarot cards over crystal balls and tea leaves."
"I always found tea leaves rather dodgy. I mean, how many times does a lump of nothingness look like DEATH!"
Regulus fought the loosing battle not to chuckle. "Too often."
"Well, go on. Do these cards have special meaning to you?" she asked, studying the top card.
Regulus picked up the stack and handed it to her. She began to shuffle through the stack. He noted happily she didn't breeze through the cards like many did, but rather studied the artwork carefully.
"No, actually. They found me," Regulus replied. "They are not from the wizarding world. I believe they are from the Muggle world. They were at the bottom of a crate in a shop on Diagon Alley. I found them and bought them."
Lanta nodded. "They depict fairy tales."
Regulus frowned, wondering why fairies had tales in the Muggle world.
"Things find me. I never put it that way, though. I buy things all the time and have no idea why I do it."
"Really?"
Lanta snorted. "I'd have a lot more crap if I'd been wearing my TARDIS coat when…"
"When you showed up," Regulus offered.
She nodded.
"Why weren't you wearing this…uh, Tardees coat?"
"Do you know what a TARDIS is?"
"No. Is it a Muggle thing?" Regulus asked. He'd heard whispers from his fellow Slytherins the new girl (who they never called her by her given name) was Muggle lover, mostly due to the fact she carried a Muggle writing contraption behind her ear all the time. Regulus glanced over to see it was not located behind her ear at the moment.
"Well, yes. It's a time and space traveling machine. TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space." She said the name of the contraption in a strange voice that echoed around the room. "T- A-D-R-I-S. TARDIS. A TARDIS is a transport object that appears small on the outside, but once you step inside, it's bigger."
"Ah," Regulus said. "Like a wizarding house in a Muggle neighborhood."
"Kind of. Only it's fake. A Muggle made it up…dreamed it up as part of a story. Anyways, I have a coat I did a charm on to make the pockets pretty much almost never ending. So I can cram a lot into my pockets, but the coat doesn't look like it's got super sized pockets. Get it?"
Regulus nodded. That was a hard charm to perform. Even for a sixth year. "Rather ingenious."
"I thought so. It helped out carrying around all the stuff I felt compelled to have on me just in case."
"I know the feeling," Regulus admitted. "I've had those cards for years now and had no clue why. They felt special, but I wasn't sure why till I went to get my usual deck."
Lanta grinned. "Been there. Done that."
"May I do a reading for you?" Regulus asked, holding out his hands.
Lanta looked unsure for a second, but handed the deck over to him. He shuffled it a moment. Regulus didn't bother to ask her to think of a question. He was sure she had many. He had too many himself.
Where had she really come from? What was her full name? Why did the Slytherins— save Snape— seem to hate her? Why did his brother seem so focused on her? Why did Lupin look slightly freaked whenever he looked at her? What was her family life? How did she have such a musical sounding voice? What potion had she been attempting that reeked of rotten eggs?
Instead, he stuck to asking himself a basic, vague request: Tell me something I don't know about her.
He flipped the cards out. He used a spread he'd seen somewhere for past and present. Best way to get to know person was to have a clue about their past and present. Upon looking at the cards, he frowned.
"This is…confusing."
"If it were straight forward, it wouldn't be me," Lanta quipped. "So, what's the four one one?"
Regulus quirked an eyebrow.
"The story. The deal. The low down, information."
She was so…strange.
"The top two cards are an action and outcome. The next row has the past, present, action and outcome. The bottom is like the top. The middle line is what you've already done and the top and bottom are possibles," Regulus paused, glancing up at her. She nodded, so he continued. "The position of the cards in these rows is pretty self explanatory. Past and present. Though, your past…is your future."
Regulus paused again. The girl's greenish slivery eyes grew large. He half expected her to look upset, or confused. But, she looked impressed. He felt a flush of pride. Usually no one took what he had to say seriously.
"So what do all these cards mean?"
Regulus gazed down at the spread. He started with the center row. "Death. You're beginning a new life. One phase of your life is over and it is time to start anew."
"I take it that card isn't usually one looks for in the past?"
"Unless you're already dead."
"And the present card?"
"The Hanged 're waiting. It makes sense," Regulus said. "You sacrificed your present to come back to the past. You've adapted the best you could have, haven't you?"
"Indeed."
Regulus moved onto the bottom row.
"The Hermit is an action to take. You'll be needing to use discretion, but you'll seek counsel and take it. It's right face up. So you'll actually do planning and stuff. And you'll have a wise guide."
He looked up again to find Lanta smiling at him.
"But, there will restrictions on you. This…The Tower is upside down. That means restrictions on desires or imprisonment. You might suffer from drastic changes in your freedom and these changes will be out of your control."
"What's this card upside down mean?" Atlanta asked, pointing to the card at the top of the spread.
"The Moon. There's a need for secrecy. It makes sense, as if you're really from the future," Regulus paused, glancing up at Lanta. He expected her to react, but she was wearing the same expression he had before. So, Regulus went on, "If you're really from the future, you won't be able to be totally open with everyone."
"So, if I choose to keep this all a secret, then what will happen?"
"The Sun card, upside down. It'll lead to troubled relationships. It makes sense. If you're always secretive, someone like…say Sirius, will make your life hard for you because you're never honest."
Lanta made a humming noise in the back of her throat.
"The last row you've got The Star, reversed. That means you'll doubt yourself, you'll be stubborn and unwilling to adapt to the changes. That leads to The Devil, reversed as well. Greed, evil, all bad."
"So don't do that."
Regulus grunted.
"Oh?"
"Yes, 'oh' indeed," he muttered.
"Clear as mud," Atlanta offered.
"But, you did travel through time, didn't you?"
Atlanta slowly lifted her eyes off the cards and looked at him. "Yes. In a sense."
"You're not crazy?"
"No. I spoke the truth rather too freely and appeared rather insane to your brother and his friends. Also, I'd just come from a rather…brutal battle."
Regulus gathered his cards back up. He shuffled them again, thinking. He flipped the first card out. It was The Devil again, reversed.
"True evil. That's what you were fighting in that battle," he murmured.
"Yup. Care to guess who the evil was? He's here, too."
Regulus slowly lifted his eyes back to find hers. "The Dark Lord?"
Atlanta made that humming noise. "The battle wasn't going well for my side when I found myself in 1976."
Regulus flipped another card left. It was Death.
"So, since it was going badly…major things changed for you."
"I'd say winding up in 1976 was major. And a life altering change. Unless I can figure out what Draco Bloody Malfoy did, I think I might just be stuck here."
"That wouldn't be so bad, now would it?"
He hadn't meant to voice that question, but it slipped out. He didn't dare look up at her.
"No, not bad at all, Reggie," she said quietly. It had been a long time since someone had called him Reggie. He felt a small smile on his lips. "Now that I've found someone to confide in who won't think I'm a raving loon."
Regulus flipped the next card over. It was The Lovers, upright. Peaking up through his hair that hung in his face, he noticed she was no longer paying attention to him flipping over cards, but rather was paging through the book she'd been looking at before. He looked back down at the card and shoved it back into the pile. He knew she wouldn't know what he'd mentally asked before he flipped the card over, but he was hopeful now that he knew she didn't really want to go back to where she'd come from.
He shuffled the cards a few times before extending the pack to her. She looked up and took it from him without question. She dragged her bag to her and opened it up. She rifled through it, pulling out an odd looking contraption. He handed it to him.
"What is this?"
Lanta grinned, watching him carefully as he turned the object over in his hands. He turned the hard object over in his hands. It appeared to be a food item of some sort. It was yellow and said Chicken McNuggets on the top. He raised his eyebrows up at her in question.
"Turn it over."
He did so, noticing that there were slits in the hard surface. Using his fingernail he popped one and it flipped open to reveal a green leg like thing. There were several other similar slits, so he opened each one till he had what looked like a lizard like creature.
"What is this?"
She laughed her musical laugh. "It's a Happy Meal toy from an American Muggle restaurant. It's a lizard. I think they were called transformer dinosaurs or something. I've had it for ages. It made the trip from the future with me. Clearly to come live with you."
Regulus felt flattered. He flipped it over again and noticed the bottom had a two letters written on it.
"AB?"
"My name. First, Atlanta, and surname, Black. I wrote my initials on everything when I was little."
Atlanta Black, he said the name in his head a few times. Not the typical Black name. As far as he was aware, "Atlanta" wasn't a star.
"We have the same last name."
"Yeah, but I doubt we're related. I'm American. And from what I was told, the people who birthed me were, well, not related to you by a long shot. The one that gave me the last name was American."
"Do I get to hear more of your tale?"
She smiled. "Why, yes, Master Black, I believe you will. But, not here. And not tonight. I'll meet you on the seventh floor, left corridor tomorrow after dinner tomorrow. Near the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy."
"The one he's trying to teach trolls ballet?"
"That's it."
She hitched her bag onto her shoulder and left him alone in the room. He turned the lizard object over in his hands a few times before he pushed all the legs and head back into their original places. He slipped the odd object into his pocket, then slipped out of the classroom. As he made his way to the Slytherin Dormitories, he could not wipe the smile off his face.