Zia had watched the back and forth between Regulus and Lycoris with a mixture of interest and wariness. It was clear that Lycoris was much more obsessed with pureblood supremacy than her brother, or at least it appeared that way to her. She was sure that Lycoris would never have come up to her and asked about muggles, and she wondered if the reason for Regulus' more accepting view of muggles stemmed from curiosity or something else. Zia also wondered vaguely if the women in the Black family were more apt to be that fixated on blood, remembering that Sirius's mother and Bellatrix had both seemed more obsessive over blood status than some of the men. Maybe they were treated differently growing up. She knew that the family must pass down a lot of dark things to their children; murderous prejudice, murderous magic. Now, as she watched Regulus point his wand at his sister, she wondered what kinds of spells he knew that would have her so afraid.
"Tacita memoriam tormentorum!" Regulus cried, his wand emitting a soft green glow. The spell seemed to seep into Lycoris instead of strike her, and Zia wondered what kind of spell had just been used. Lycoris stared at him, her anger blazing in her eyes. What did that spell do? She knew from her reading that the green color of the spell denoted that it was most likely darker magic, and was eyeing the brother and sister with a newfound sense of caution. "And for good measure… Vade," he whispered. Another flash of light, but this time it wasn't directed towards Lycoris, it instead sank into the apartment itself. Lycoris disappeared with a loud "crack."
"Is she gone for good?" Zia asked him, to be safe.
"Yes, she won't be coming back here. I've cursed her pretty well for this."
"What did you do exactly?" Zia was curious.
"Every time she thinks of what happened here, she will feel the physical pain of the experience, so acutely that it will be as if it is being inflicted again and again. And she will not be able to communicate what happened to anybody in any way under any circumstances. It will be her own silent pain to carry around. She will also be unable to set foot anywhere near this place. She won't be back," he explained, beginning to flick his wand at broken items in the apartment and supervising the repairs.
"Good. Now I'm going to go get my child. I'm not sure I want to keep living here after what happened though, even if you did enchant it. I'll have to think about this." Zia turned and walked into the back rooms. "It's okay Tom, everything is alright. You can come out now," she said in parseltongue, and Tom appeared as if out of nowhere, running up and wrapping his small arms tightly around her. It didn't take very long for her to see that he was crying quietly. She gathered him close to her.
"Is she gone? The horrible lady?" he whispered, sounding terrified.
"Yes, she's gone and she's not coming back, alright sweetheart? She can't come back. Regulus enchanted this place so she can't. He came to help clean up." Tom looked up at her, his eyes narrowing.
"You're hurt," he said simply, and she noticed that the tears were being replaced with what she could only describe as cold fury. It was eerie seeing that kind of emotion on a child's face, and she didn't like seeing it there.
"Easy fixes. I'm sure Regulus can set them all right."
"He can do that?" Tom asked, clearly impressed. Zia laughed.
"He said he could, so we'll have to see. Won't that be interesting to watch?"
"Yes! Can I do that? Make wounds go away?"
"Magic can do a lot of things if you have the right kind of training," Zia told him. He nodded, and she could tell he was considering this with interest. She wondered briefly if he might go into a career as a healer. He'd be a very powerful one if he did, she was sure of that. Zia picked Tom up and carried him out into the living room with her. It hurt, her whole body hurt, but she didn't want to worry Tom more than necessary. Regulus was almost finished putting the apartment back to how it had been before the duel.
"Almost done here, just this," Regulus pointed his wand at the gigantic snake in the middle of the living room, coils now emptied of its victim, but Zia blocked the way.
"The snake stays. I'll just shrink it," she said. He looked at her in surprise.
"But this snake was conjured, it isn't—"Regulus began, but then fell silent at the look on Zia's face.
"The snake may have been conjured, but it has its own life now. I'm not allowing murder in this apartment," she explained, pointing her own wand at the snake and carefully shrinking it to a manageable size. It was a skill she'd learned after Regulus' first demonstration on her packages. Tom watched the snake become smaller.
"Why was there a big snake?" he asked curiously.
"The bad lady thought that a snake would be a good idea to hurt me. She didn't know that snakes are special to us, most people can't talk to them like we can," Zia explained to him.
"But if she wanted to hurt you with it, why would you want to keep it?" he asked her. Zia stooped down to place Tom on the couch, and then scooped up the serpent in question. Then she sat next to Tom on the couch.
"Look at it, Tom. Watch it move. It's a very powerful living creature don't you think?" she asked him, offering the snake to him to hold. He took the snake cautiously. "Sometimes, even when things were meant to harm us, they actually make us stronger if we look at them the right way. Instead of harming me, this snake did me a favor and helped me end the fight. There are lots of things we encounter throughout our lives that aren't pleasant. Experiences we have that we wish we didn't have to go through. But in the end, if we take those experiences and learn from them and use them, they can help us to overcome other problems." Tom watched the snake twining around his fingers as she spoke, and Regulus watched from the seat he had taken on the opposite couch. It was clear that he was interested in the conversation as well.
"So instead of trying to avoid things like that, you're saying that it's good to learn from them and keep the experiences to make us better?"
"Exactly. Everybody faces hard things. It's what we do with them that matters. This snake is a living thing now, you can feel it moving in your hands. And it's something that has helped us. Wouldn't you rather let it keep living and influencing our lives than to, in essence, kill it?"
"Honovi could use someone who's a snake too as a part of the family," Tom said thoughtfully. "It might be nice. We should ask it whether it wants to stay with us."
"I think that's a good idea." Hissing from the floor caught Zia's attention and she saw Honovi. "What do you think?"
I'd be happy to have another snake with us, we could discuss the best places in the vents for mice, Honovi replied.
"We have mice?" Tom asked.
Not many, Honovi hissed smugly.
"Why don't you ask the newcomer about this Tom?" Zia encouraged him. He turned his attention back to the snake in his hands.
"Okay. Excuse me, I don't know your name, but I was wondering if you'd like to stay with us? There's another snake that lives here already too, so you wouldn't be the only one," Tom said to the snake. It raised its head to look directly at Tom.
"It's Itzli. I would be honored to stay here," the snake said. It turned its head to Zia. "Thank you."
"No problem," Zia said. She glanced up and remembered that Regulus was still there, watching the conversation taking place in front of him in parseltongue. His mouth was open slightly and she couldn't help but laugh at the look on his face.
"Just inducting a new family member," she explained. Tom looked up, clearly recalling something important.
"Can you really mend my mummy's injuries?" he asked Regulus. This seemed to pull Regulus out of his daze and he stood.
"These ones, yes. Would you like to watch?"
"Yes!" Regulus kneeled in front of Zia and motioned to Tom to come stand next to him to observe.
"It takes a bit of practice, but knowing how to fix injuries is really useful," Regulus explained, while Tom watched the wounds seal up with interest. "My family's house elf usually does this for us, but I thought it would be good to learn anyways."
"House elf?" Tom asked inquisitively.
"Of course! We've had house elves in my family for centuries. Ours helps with all sorts of things: dishes, laundry, cooking, cleaning, household chores mostly."
"Why don't we have a house elf?" Tom asked Zia. "You're always busy working but you still spend lots of time with me and do all those things and I think sometimes you get very tired."
"I don't think we're the right kind of family to have a house elf Tom," Zia explained. Regulus brightened at this.
"Why don't we pay a visit to the Office of House-Elf Relocation in the Ministry of Magic? Then you can learn all about them," Regulus suggested.
"Can we?" Tom asked, his little eyes wide and excited as he asked Zia.
"All right." Zia agreed.