Disclaimer: At this point I find it prudent to point out that, despite a few minor edits I made after I settled in London last September, the basic undertow of this story was constructed before the release of 'Deathly Hallows'

Update: August 22, 2008

Chapter 25: Time of the Turning

Albus Dumbledore and a contingent of Order members led by Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks arrived hot on the heels of Harry's group just in time to see Harry cower in pain and Arcturus pass out into the arms of a dead man. All manner of pandemonium had broken out after that, with witch, wizard and child fighting side by side to defeat the evil laid before them; victory in the battle not destined to winning them the war directly, but crucial in order to safe some of its main players. Though they now out-numbered the Dark Lord's forces two to one, the evil man would not allow his Death Eaters back; turning instead to his closest minion and proceeding to summon reinforcements that could turn the tide in his favour.

In the midst of it all stood Esmerelda Bane. As a vampire witch, she was largely impervious to the spells flying around her, and so she was able to watch, unencumbered, as the limp form of her Arcturus was cradled in the arms of his returned father. Ashamed of herself for what she had very nearly forced upon the boy, she was further mortified by the twist Voldemort had delivered in summoning the dead from their graves. Tom Riddle, in a show of malevolence she herself had not felt in over a century, had not just brought Arcturus' parents back from the dead, but had, in the midst of the ritual she had helped him ammend, he had turned the innocent couple into a pair of his beloved Horcruxes. She knew, from well over a millenia on Earth, surrounding herself in such darkness, that the only way to destroy those pieces of Voldemort's soul was to kill the unwitting hosts; just as she knew that the only people who could kill the returned couple without physical consequence were either Tom or Arcturus – the two wizards whose blood had contributed to the ritual.

Esmerelda did not want to think of the agony such a decision would put the boy through, let alone witness the teen's anguish when he inevitably learned of her part in it all. If standing by and letting his childhood friend die could evoke enough feeling to turn his blood sour, then what she had just done was unforgivable. Watching as the two sides struggled to gain ground, and sensing from their faint auras, more Death Eaters arriving in the distance, Esmerelda made a choice. Summoning her own dark forces to assist the Light win their battle, Esmerelda could only hope that, when he awoke, Arcturus would take her turnabout as the sign of remorse that it was.

It was time to sever ties with Tom.

Upon seeing his men under attack by Esmerelda's army, Voldemort conceded defeat and swiftly departed, choosing to fight his battles another day. With a lingering glance in the direction of the ressurected Blacks, he supposed that enough damage had been wrought amongst his enemies, and inwardly mused how long his Horcruxes would last amongst the righteous propaganda of the Light. Knowing Arcturus was the only one who could destroy that which he had trapped within the boy's returned parents, he secretly hoped that the child's love for his kin would drive all three to his side. If not, he was prepared to lose the two Horcruxes if it assured him a better insight into the teen's application.

After her army had served its purpose in driving the Dark Lord away, Esmerelda had disbanded the group and lingered just long enough to inform those that would listen of the Horcruxes trapped within the souls of the returned. When her claims were met with stunned disbelief, she didn't argue her point. With a sincerity none would have expected of her, she extended her apologies to the unconscious teenager and assured them that, with the right spell, the same darkness that permeated the other Horcruxes they had in their possession would be found in the minds of the returned dead.

Unnerved by the departing vampire witch's defeated tone, Sirius had found the answer in his returned brother's eyes. The man remembered little else after his son's birth and was still coming to terms with how much the child in his arms had aged, but he knew one thing for certain; he was not of one mind. Nodding to his brother forlornly, rejoicing deep down at the implications of having found Sirius and Arcturus together in the same place, Regulus Black resigned himself to death a second time, and forced himself to be thankful for but the passing glimpse he had seen of the man his son was fast becoming.

For his part, Sirius was reluctantly willing to remain behind after everyone else had relocated to headquarters for treatment and debriefing. It tore his heart out to see his brother once more, looking barely older than the son whose fall he had broken; knowing all the while that it could not last. He wished for time to re-acquaint his brother with the life he missed out on, to atone for his own failiures and assure the man he was doing everything he could for Arcturus. But to indulge oneself with such luxuries would only make things harder in the end, and Sirius knew his brother would understand why he had to return to his grave so soon... any longer a stay and it would be impossible for the torn Animagus to let him go, Horcruxes be damned.

A word of warning from Dumbledore, however, sent the world into a spiral. It was suggested, rather quietly, that they ascertain the validity of the vampire witch's later claim – that only Voldemort or Arcturus could destroy these particular Horcruxes – before having Sirius risk his life in such a way. It would not do, Dumbledore said, for Arcturus to awaken and realise that not only had his parents returned to the grave, but the uncle he was only just beginning to know had followed them into it.

So, it was with a heavy heart that Sirius watched his sister-in-law reunite with her freshly widowed mother, desperate in the hope that the woman understood what was to become of her daughter. Trying not to think of the young man beside her as his long-dead brother, he took the wizard's arm and sought to relieve him of Arcturus' unconscious form. But as he prepared to Side-Apparate with his burdens to their childhood home, all hopes of disassociating himself from his returned brother were dashed when the man spoke.
"You'll help him through this, won't you, Twink?" said Regulus softly. "I know what fate awaits... I know what he has to do... you'll be there for him, won't you?"

"I will, Litte Star... I will..." said Sirius, his voice choked by the lump in his throat. Regulus hadn't called him that since they were very small children. Years ago, when the two brothers had learned that their names were taken from the stars, their Uncle Alphard had introduced them to a quaint little nursery rhyme. As 'Regulus' stood for 'Little King', and he was the younger brother, it seemed appropriate for him to be the 'Little Star', whilst Sirius, with eyes that never failed to sparkle when his smile met his eyes, became 'Twinkle'... Twink, for short. Of course, as years had gone on, and they had begun to lose their childish innocence – all thanks to their mother's insecurities – Sirius' eyes lost their twinkle, and in being manipulated into competing against his sibling, Regulus had taken offence to being called 'little'. But it remained something between the two brothers and their uncle that no one else ever knew... not even James, and that was saying something.

Hearing the name spill from the man's lips so meekly, like he hadn't just been dead for the past sixteen years and the decade immediately prior to his demise hadn't happened at all, Sirius felt his heart clench. Appearing in the entranceway of Grimmauld Place to be greeted by the shocked scream of his mother's portrait, Sirius neglected to let go of his brother's arm and led him, and the teenager they half-carried, half-dragged between them, into the study.
"You know, you're really not making things easy for me, Reg," he said in a strangled voice, taken aback when he saw his brother's smirk. At the age his body had remained, it could well have been Arcturus wearing that look.

"What, you didn't think a lifetime of being dead would make me go easy on you, did you, brother?" teased Regulus, though Sirius could detect no malice in the man's tone.

"Prat," mumbled Sirius, rolling the tension out of his shoulders after they deposited Arcturus on the closest lounge. He could only watch, then, with a small amount of envy, as the boy's father positioned himself on the floor, sitting cross-legged and leaning against the arm of the chair closest to Arcturus' head. Trapped in a body identical to the one he had originally died in, Regulus Black possessed a fluidity of youth that Sirius had long lost in Azkaban.

Feeling his brother's eyes on him, Regulus met the man's intense gaze.
"Tell me about my son, Siri," he asked somberly. Seeing an unidentified pain wash over the man's face, he decided to add a little brevity to the situation. "Unless you'd rather I tell you how much like Father you're looking these days... old man..."

Sirius glowered at his kid brother, realising that he really did have his brother back, if only for a little while. Wincing as his bones cracked in protest – at twice the age of the ressurected wizard, his body was hardly as nimble – Sirius fell in an indignified heap beside his brother, mirroring his pose against the couch.
"Don't say a word, Reg," said Sirius, giving his snickering brother a warning look.

Rubbing the back of his head nervously, he took a deep breath and steeled himself for the conversation he'd never thought he'd have. Where to start?

"Arcturus got his parents back, isn't that fantastic?" said Hermione, still awed by what had been revealed to them when they had enquired about the identity of the two people in the graveyard. She smoothed out the sheets around Harry's weary frame, perching on the the edge of the bed that the Boy-Who-Lived favoured in the Hogwarts infirmary.

After ensuring that the threat had abated, Dumbledore had sent the Thestrals back into the wild and gathered all the students around a series of Portkeys, designed to return them to the school. Once there, Madame Pomfrey had been rushed off her feet giving them all a once over, before sending those with just minor scratches away with a healing salve and keeping but a few over night. All things considered, the casualties had been minimal. Two Order members had been sent to St Mungo's for more involved treatment, and asides from Harry only Arcturus and a Durmstrang fourth year require hospital supervision.

"It's far from fantastic, Hermione," said Harry bitterly, beginning to question just why Arcturus was nowhere to be found if, indeed, he had last been seen unconscious. With a haunted look of sympathy on his face, he told his waiting friends what fate awaited the two people Voldemort had ressurected with a piece of his soul within them.

When he was done, Hermione and Ginny were weeping, and Ron and the twins looked as though they might be ill. Feeling exhausted all of a sudden, Harry fell back against the pillows and closed his eyes in defeat. Before he could drift asleep, though, his thoughts haunted with the pain he was feeling for Arcturus' latest predicament, Hermione shook him into awareness and called out for Madame Pomfrey. Seeing the fatigue in her most frequent patient, she thrust a vial of Dreamless Sleep into his hands and ushered the able bodied students out of the ward.

"Drink it," said Eleanora Black with a roll of her eyes, wishing she could laugh at the suspicious look her husband had given her but unable to bring herself to so much as smile. Her memories had stopped after her water had broken, and she was still trying to come to terms with the fact that she had died sixteen years earlier, returning to a time where her father had just been murdered in cold blood and her teenaged son had to kill them in order to defeat evil.

"What is it?" said Regulus, still sprawled on the floor next to his brother, the sleeping form of Arcturus resting peacefully on the lounge they were leaning against. Whilst he and Sirius had Disapparated to the family stronghold, Arcturus in hand, and had been left alone since by the trickle of Order members who had come and gone around them, Eleanora had left with her mother, intent on assisting the distraught woman with the body of her father. She had returned after barely an hour, it being mutually decided that things would get unbearably complicated if any of the staff within her parents' home saw her, and had come bearing gifts.

"An aging potion," she said coyly, holding one vial out for her husband to take. "When Arcturus awakes... it will be disconcerting for him to find two people barely older than himself. This will restore us to how we would have appeared, had we lived."

"Are you sure that's wise?" said Sirius with a frown, his voice failing him before he could remind them of what Arcturus had to eventually do.

"What do you think would be easier for him, brother? Killing parents who are barely older than he, or returning us to the grave after we've had the opportunity to speak to him as he would imagine us to be like?"

"Don't fool yourself, brother," said Sirius wearily. "It's going to be hard, regardless."
Suffocating in the oppressive cloud that had descended upon the room, he tried to think of a light side.
"But go on, take the damned potion... I want the chance to see what my baby-faced brother looks like as an old man," he said teasingly. "And then we'll see who has kept better joints..."

As the younger Black brother reached out to accept the potion from his wife, the sleeve of the outer Death Eater robe he still wore riding up to expose his forearm, Eleanora almost dropped her potion in shock.
"Your Dark Mark! It's gone!" she gasped, eyes wide in surprise.

"One of the upsides of being ressurected in a new body I guess," said Regulus with a shrug, a funny expression on his face. Downing the potion, he pulled a face at the taste and tugged at the robes as he felt his body begin to change. "Say, you think once this potion has run its course I could scam some decent clothes? My son shouldn't have to see me in the clothes of a killer..."
He rubbed at his arm distractedly, marvelling at the clear expanse of skin.
"This is how it should have been," he whispered to himself in self-reproach. Catching a glimpse of his older self in a floor length mirror across the room, he blinked at how he had aged. "This is how we would have been right now, if I had never gotten that damn Dark Mark..."

Reaching over and squeezing his brother's shoulder in support, Sirius could not bring himself to say anything; there not being any words that could turn back time and make things right.
"He'll understand, Reg," he said finally, sensing his brother's apprehension. "He'll not judge you."

"I hope so," said Regulus in a deep baritone that was a far cry from the post adolescent rumble he had died with. Using Sirius' shoulder for support, he took his wife's hand and hauled himself up into a standing position and looked at his wife appraisingly. The woman had changed into an old set of her robes whilst at her parents' home, and though she had since aged herself sixteen years, looked as shapely and radiant as she ever did.

Clapping his brother on the shoulder, feeling decidedly disconcerted by the revelation that the man still had some growing to do after the time of his death – for the pair now stood at the same height – Sirius gestured towards the door.
"C'mon, let's go get you cleaned up. If you can stand my hand-me-downs, we should be able to find something a little more appropriate than that death-munching apron," said Sirius, looking at the garb in question distastefully. Noticing his brother's hesitation, he tugged the man's arm. "C'mon, Arcturus'll be out for a while yet. Elle can stay with him, I think he'd like that..."
He locked eyes with his brother's wife and realised that they had not technically been introduced, in this life or the last.
"You don't mind if I call you Elle, do you?" said Sirius sheepishly. He extended the hand that was not pulling Regulus along. "I don't believe we've been formerly introduced. I'm Sirius Black, your, er, brother-in-law."

"Eleanora Black," said the woman with a warm smile, taking his hand in a firm grip. "And yes, you may call me Elle. If I do not get the chance to do so later, thank you for everything you have done for my son."

"I haven't really done much," muttered Sirius awkwardly, shooting his brother a look. One of the first things he had come clean about when telling the man what he knew of Arcturus, was that they'd only known each other for such a short time.

"You've done more than I think you know," said Regulus wisely. He glanced down at the sleeping form of his teenaged son and could not resist running a hand through the fine hair that rested atop the boy's head. "Don't ask me how, but somehow I just don't think he would have gone after you if you'd only known each other six months and you had failed to make an impression."

"There has to be a way to destroy those Horcruxes without taking with it the miracle that the Black's return signifies!" said Molly Weasley, aghast at the idea of taking a life, even if that person had already been dead and should never have come back.

"I don't like it," said Mad-Eye Moody. He hadn't been present at the battle, but had arrived in time for the meeting afterwards. He could see through his magical eye that the youngest Black was still asleep on the floor above, his ressurected mother watching over him, whilst the reunited brothers made their peace in an upstairs bedroom. Until the boy awoke to his task, they were on borrowed time, and he hated being the one to admit it. "Even if we could let 'em live, we have no idea how the ritual was done, and if people catch wind that Voldemort can give them back their loved ones, no strings attached, it will only lead to disaster."

As much as everyone was loath to deprive an orphan of such a miracle, no one could dispute the truth in the one-legged wizard's words. Even if the pair could be allowed to live, it would never be a normal life... no one could know outside those in the Order. But as it stood, there was still the unavoidable issue of the Horcruxes intertwined in the couple's respective souls.
"If we can't extract the Horcruxes any other way..." said Remus Lupin, his voice trailing off. He took a breath. "Must Arcturus be the one who does it, do you think? Or could it just be Bane's way of messing with his head one final time?"

"No, I am afraid not," said Albus Dumbledore, wearily. "Reports from Hogwarts reveal that young Harry is of the same opinion, and he had not been conscious to hear the vampire witch's statements."

"But couldn't that just be Voldemort, planting the same ideas in his mind?" said Kingsley Shacklebolt, one of the few Order members formidable enough to use the Dark Lord's name without cowering.

"It is possible, but then Esmerelda Bane did side her forces with us at the time where it most counted," said Dumbledore wisely. "Why would she endorse Tom's propaganda, if she had wanted us to survive?"
He looked upwards, as though peering through the floor and up at the boy who lay asleep above.
"If she had wanted Arcturus to survive?"

"There's a difference between surviving and being happy," said Snape darkly. He had not gotten the call to join the battle until just before Esmerelda Bane had turned her forces against the Dark Lord, and by the time he had arrived it was all over. After catching but a catching glimpse of his long-dead cousin and following the retreating Death Eaters to find the Dark Lord in no mood for hosting a meeting, he had returned to London for the Order debriefing, to learn then the task the unconscious Black boy had ahead of him. It was something he certainly did not envy the boy for. "Perhaps Bane is putting the boy in this position, to punish him for turning her down."

"But he did not turn her down, Severus," said Albus with a strange look. "He consented to being Turned in the hope it would buy them all some time and save the others from further harm. It is the blood loss that has rendered him unconscious, and as you know full well from this type of injury, a Blood Replenishing Potion will not help him."

"He has been Turned?" said Severus, openly showing his surprise.

"No," said Lupin, seemingly contradicting all that the headmaster had just said. The sandy-haired man elaborated. "She tasted him but could not Turn him in the end."
He looked to the headmaster, renewed understanding in his eyes.
"I think she was telling us the truth."

"And it absolutely has to be him?" said Molly Weasley, horrified. She did not know Arcturus Black too well, and what she did know of the fiercely independent boy had made her somewhat wary of the teen, but she would never condone such a task being thrust upon an orphaned child. Why, in a lot of ways, she couldn't see it as being any different from Voldemort bringing James and Lily Potter back from the dead with similar purpose, forcing Harry in the same position. Following the gaze of several other Order members, each of them looking up to where a mother was waiting to be reunited with her son for the first time in nearly sixteen years, the Weasley matriarch found herself struggling to hold back a sob. "Oh the poor dear."

"Don't ever let Arcturus hear you call him that," said Remus absently, though inwardly he was thinking precisely along the same lines. He could only hope that both Arcturus and Sirius got to make amends with the ill-fated couple first, enabling them to let go with a sense of closure.

Arcturus fought to bring himself into consciousness, the hazy fog in his mind trying to tug him back into the abyss at every turn. As he slowly became more aware of his limbs, he attempted a groan as his body protested the generous blood donation he had made earlier. The gentle humming that he had thought to be coming from the recesses of his mind stopped abruptly, the rustling of movement beside him alerting him that he was not alone. Inhaling experimentally, and feeling that which he was laid out on with the pads of his fingers, Arcturus concluded that he was on the couch in his grandfather's study, and that there was someone decidedly feminine in close proximity.

"Come on, baby, open your eyes for Mama," a soft voice urged him to open his eyes, feathery soft fingers dancing across his forehead and running through his hair in soothing, though hesitant, strokes.

Recalling the last moments of the battle, before he had succumbed to the blood loss, Arcturus' heart seized as the woman called herself 'Mama'. Remembering in the same instance, the fate that would await them should they wish the Light to win, Arcturus furrowed his brow as though in pain. His mother's ministrations upped a notch, the woman working double time to try and sooth the crease in his brow. Arcturus was close to snapping his eyes open and brushing the woman's hands away, determined not to allow himself to bond with the shell of a mother Voldemort had inflicted upon him, when the woman began to sing.

"Will you hurry up and just pick something already?" snapped Sirius, rolling his eyes as his brother tried on yet another set of his robes.

"Leave me alone, will you? This body has never worn clothes before, all right? My skin's a little sensitive..." said Regulus, looking decidedly self-conscious as he regarded his new aged form in the mirror. "And it's rather weird to be 18 one minute, and 34 the next, okay?"

"You primp yourself any more, young master, and your hair will fall out," commented the mirror helpfully.

Instinctively, Regulus reached for where his wand would normally be, intent on silencing the cheeky mirror, and scowled when he realised that he'd never possessed a wand in this new form.
"My wand..." he said, curious.

"Arcturus has it," said Sirius, pushing off against the sideboard he had been leaning against. He straightened out his robes. "C'mon, you look fine. The sooner you get downstairs, the sooner you can get your wand back."

An easy smile came to Regulus' face at the prospect of seeing not only his wand, but his wife and son again. It was strange, really, that so much time had actually gone by, because it only felt as though he'd last held his infant boy in his arms a few days ago, before he had left the child with his parents and gone to undo the damage he'd unwittingly prescribed the family House Elf to. At the scattered memory that encounter bought, the smile disappeared from his face, and he frowned.
"I don't know if I can do it, Sirius," he said meekly, sounding every bit the 18 year old he technically was. He rubbed clammy palms against the lapels of his borrowed robe. "What do I say to him? He's only a little younger than I am! Maybe this whole aging potion was a bad idea... I don't have 34 years of experience under my belt... all the mistakes I made in my life, I don't have any great pearls of wisdom to pass on to my son..."

"Did our father ever?" said Sirius, pulling his brother into a one-armed hug. He squeezed the younger man's shoulder in encouragement. "I know it sounds crazy, kid, but just being yourself is a great start..."

"I'm wearing your robes and parading around like the 34 year old wizard I'm not!" deadpanned Regulus, glaring at his brother.

"There!" said Sirius jovially, slapping his brother on the back with such force, the wizard pitched forward and almost fell over his feet. "Just like that... well, maybe not the falling over youself part... we Blacks do have our dignity, y'know."

"Do you have a status report on Black?" said Michael Kirsch, standing at the bedside of one Harry Potter. "No one is telling us anything, and the men are getting restless."

"He's going to be fine," said Harry wearily, still coming to terms with all that Tonks had come in and updated him on, confirming everything he had gleamed from Voldemort's mind during the attack on his scar. He rubbed said mark nervously. "His uncle took him home for a few days, to see to some, er, family issues."

Kirsch's eyes narrowed like a bird of prey who had just found its lunch.
"And yet you are here," he stated, one brow raised. He leaned forward. "Arcturus' return to London wouldn't have anything to do with the couple that came out of the cauldrons and a certain rumour about them being his parents, now would it?"
At Harry's startled look, Kirsch nodded in satisfaction, pleased to find he had compiled the right information. Taking another leap, he sought confirmation on another rumour.
"Is it also true, that the returned cannot stay, and must be reverted to their former state by their closest blood relative?"

Astonished by the manner in which Kirsch had just described Arcturus' predicament, Harry blinked.
"Uh, yeah, something like that," he said, not for one moment thinking that he should exercise discretion; the boy's status as Arcturus' 'second' and the manner in which the efficient teen had so effortlessly thrown him unaware not giving him the luxury of such consideration.

In a surprise move, Kirsch frowned and fell into the closest chair, burying his face in his hands. Not quite understanding the words the foreigner was muttering under his breath, Harry sat up gingerly and adjusted the glasses on his face before pushing aside the meal tray he had been eating from when the boy came in and staring at him in contemplation.
"You okay?" he asked, taken by the defeated pose the normally proud Durmstrang student paraded around strangers.

Kirsch rubbed his face wearily before looking up into Harry's eyes.
"When they come to extract you from the school, will you take me with you?" he asked, trying to keep the pleading tone out of his voice. "Arcturus and I are best friends. With Esmerelda out of his life, and Alyssa dead... I fear this on top of it all will break him. If I am there I will be able to detect, better than any of you, any signs of Arcturus burying his feelings, and help keep him away from that abyss."

Harry looked set to protest, quick to want to point out to the multifaceted Durmstrang student how strong and resourceful Arcturus was. Sensing as much just by his expression, Kirsch cut him off before he could speak.
"You may think he can take anything in his stride," he said in a quiet whisper, hoping his friend could forgive him for the slight betrayal in trust. "Indeed he is more resilient that most. But he is not infallible. He is a thinker... and if left to think about too much all at once, he will be lost."

"I'll ask," said Harry finally, casting aside his curiosity in favour of letting Arcturus keep his privacy in such matters. All he knew, was that if he was ever faced with such a horrible choice, he would most certainly want his friends around him to help him through it. "I can't make any promises, but I'll state your case like it was my own. I promise you that."

A genuine smile coming over Kirsch's face, the older boy relaxed.
"I can see why Arcturus thinks so highly of you," he observed, praising the dark haired teen and smirking as emerald green eyes widened in surprise. He went on. "You will be good for each other in the coming war, I can see that now... you balance him out in a way that cousin the Staff chose for him never could."

With that, Michael Kirsch stood in a fluid motion and bade his leave, sweeping out of the room with his head held high. Sinking back into his pillows to contemplate the conversation he had just had, Harry came to the rather astute conclusion that whilst he would never quite understand the ways of a Durmstrang student, he would do his damndest to see things through the eyes of the boy he was beginning to see more and more as the brother he never had. That wasn't to discount the way in which the Weasleys had practically adopted him as one of their own, however. But Ron was his best friend, and if he had learned anything from watching the Weasley boys interact, it was that siblings could care for one another and be there for each other without having much of a role in each other's social lives. It was just like the peculiar allegience that was forming between he and Arcturus, and Harry found that he liked that very much.

Now, to only get out of the hospital wing and back to Grimmauld Place...

"Oh my baby! It's okay, let it out..." cooed Eleanora, stunned at first to find herself with an armful of teenaged boy, easily slipping into the role with the ease of a natural mother; rearranging themselves so that she was seated comfortably on the lounge, Arcturus' head in her lap.

Arcturus tightened his hold around the woman's waist, burying his face in her knee as he tried to smother the uncontrollable sobs that had waited years to be let out. Continuing to stroke the mass of hair in her lap, as though petting an unsettled Kneazle, Eleanora smiled down at her son unseeingly as she remembered the fiesty Familiar she had found in Knockturn Alley the same day she'd met her son's father. All too aware that the boy had probably never heard the story, she stopped her absent humming and cleared her throat, beginning the tale of how she'd met her husband in the soothing tone only a mother could possess.

A few minutes later, two brothers walked into the room, only to halt in the doorway at the woman's soft words; neither mother or son seeming to have noticed their arrival. For his part, Sirius could only listen with a touch of jealousy as this woman – who was so clearly in love with her family – told the distraught child in her lap the story of how she had first visited London and met his father. Next to him, Regulus slumped bonelessly against the doorframe, a positively lovesick smile on his face as he inwardly recalled his own memories of that day. Spotting his father's Pensieve on its perch in a corner by the hearth, Regulus' eyes glistened in the way they always had whenever overcome with an idea, and he looked over at his brother; the older man having apparently reached the same conclusion, Regulus being met with a look of understanding.
"I have an idea," he said anyway, the smile that came over his face taking away all the nerves and unease he'd so recently felt.

Disturbed by the sound of voices behind them, Arcturus stiffened in his mother's arms and sat up slowly, quickly wiping his face as he sat with his back to everyone. When he could feel someone approach, knowing inwardly that it had to be his father - as the movement was different to Sirius', but not so much that it was someone outside the family - Arcturus stood abruptly and squared his shoulders, taking a deep breath and raising his chin before boldly turning to face the man.
"Hello, Father," he said in the strongest voice he could muster, feeling as though his weakness and vulnerability were emotions he could only show in front of his mother.

Across from him, and staring at his boy with open awe, Regulus could only frown at the imposition of a lounge that stood between them. He wanted nothing more than to close the distance and take his son into his arms. Had he a wand, he might have banished the couch – not caring if it would have sent his wife sprawling – but as it were he was wandless, and the soft leather settee created a gulf between them as assuredly as life and death itself.

"Hello, son," said Regulus, finally finding his voice at last.

A/N: Y'know, this story really is crying out for reviews... but I'd love you even more if you follow one of the below links and do your bit in overloading WB with HOWLERS! The Communications grad. in me is skeptical that it will promote change, but it's the principal of the matter and just because the core audience of HP fall within a young demographic, doesn't give a studio the right to walk all over them. We let this slide and next thing you know the two DH movies will be a paltry 90 minutes apiece and the only reason they were ever split was not about the length at all...

http: / harrypotter.warnerbros .com /diagonalley /newhowler .html

http: / pottersorder.blogspot .com /2008 /09 /harry-potter-november-release-email .html

...there are countless more, but I daresay you'd be hard pressed not to have seen them yourself by now! - D