And as the dog transformed into a dog, Regulus just stood there and watched. Watched as his older brother appeared before him, looking worse than even the night he ran away to the Potters.
"Harry Potter, how foolish of you to come here tonight. But alas, I already thought you'd come to save your little friend."
Right, that was him. It was still strange sometimes for him to be spoken to with another name, especially one as different from his own. Well, technically Harry was his name now, but inside his mind he was still Regulus and that feeling would probably never leave. Emerging from his thoughts Regulus, or Harry as he was now called, focused back to the current events, just in time for Ron to get up from the old bed and say, "If you want to kill Harry, you first need to get past me."
"That's right,"Hermoine agreed, stepping up next to Ron in front of him.
It was strange how much he, a Slitheryn, had grown protective of these two Griffindors. At first, he was a little sceptical of them, but after the events with the troll in first year, he had grown quite close with them. Not everyone had approved of this friendship at the beginning, but Regulus didn't care, and he knew that, even though he would never admit it to anyone, Draco had become quite fond of them as well.
Moments like these, reminded him why he had decided to take this life as a second chance and live a little more for himself. Not his parents, not his cousins and brother and certainly not Voldemort.
Just as Sirius was about to step forward and most likely do something very foolish, they heard footsteps thumping downstairs. Hermoine used the situation and screamed,
"Help! Sirius Black, he's here, he's going to kill us."
'Hopefully he will not,' Regulus thought to himself, after all he wanted to believe that his brother was innocent.
The footsteps became more hurried after that and out the door burst one Remus fucking Lupin, of course, who else. This situation wasn't dramatic enough as it was already.
"It's true then, you really are innocent," Remus stated.
Sirius nodded in confirmation and Remus immediately pulled him into a fierce hug, while Regulus and his friends watched in confusion.
"How did he do it? Cut off his finger, changed into a rat and fled into the sewers?" Sirius nodded once again.
"Genius, really genius," Remus muttered to himself.
"Wait a minute, rat?" Regulus spoke up the first time since they ended up in the shrieking shack, gears already turning in his head.
"That is right, Peter Pettigrew didn't die that day in November 1981. He blew up the street and shouted for the whole street to hear that it was Sirius and fled into the sewers as a rat, only leaving a finger behind. The same finger that is missing on your rat's paw," Remus finished his grand explanation, pointing at the rat Ron was gripping.
"Wait, don't trust him Ron, he's a werewolf, he's been helping Sirius Black get into the castle," Hermoine advised Ron.
"Not up to your usual standard Hermoine, only one out of two. I won't deny that I'm a werewolf, but I didn't help Sirius get in the castle. What I want to know though is how you found out. Was it the essay or the fact that I was always missing around the full moon?"
"To be honest, it was both. It was Harry who found out first though," Hermoine stammered, a little uncomfortable with the sudden attention.
"You found out as well? Impressive," Remus congratulated him.
"It wasn't that hard, all I really needed to do was keep track of the lunar calendar," He admitted, shrugging his shoulders. What he much more wanted was to find out what this whole matter with Pettigrew changing into a rat was.
And find out he did. As it turned out, Peter together with James and Sirius had all become animagi in their fifth year and Peter was the one to betray the Potters as he switched secret keepers with Sirius at the last moment without telling anybody. The traitor then had the audacity to try to claim to be innocent, but Regulus paid him no mind. It was glaringly obvious now that he was the real traitor.
"No offence Professor, but as you said, you're a werewolf and I'm pretty sure todays a full moon and Ron can't really walk with his leg. So I don't know if you two really are the best choice for this job," Regulus commented.
"Sorry for that by the way," Sirius apologized to Ron from where he stood.
Considering what Harry just pointed out, Remus transformed the stunned Peter back into a rat and stuffed him in a tiny cage he gave to Ron for safekeeping.
In the tunnel back to Hogwarts, Remus went in front, followed by Hermoine supporting Ron and in the back Sirius and Regulus.
"I don't know if anyone told you," Sirius begann, "but I'm your Godfather, so after I'm freed and you want to live with me, I would be happy to provide."
Right, Regulus had to resist the strong urge to hit himself on the head, in all the excitement of finally seeing his brother again and finding out that he was innocent after all, he had completely forgotten that Sirius was the Godfather of Harry Potter. Although he didn't do anything, something must have shown on his face, because at that moment, Siris hastily continued.
"Sorry, I just assumed. If you want to stay with your family, that's of course okay as well."
"What are you talking about, of course I want to live with you" Regulus said happily. He would do anything to get away from the Dursleys. And that was that, wasn't it?
In June of 1994 Sirius was tried under Veritaserum and found innocent of his crimes. As an apology he was pardoned and given legal custody of Harry Potter. That summer Regulus spent a lot of time with his friends, including Draco, and his ex-Professor and elder brother, now godfather or as he started calling them by the end of his summer, his Dadfoot and Moomy.
In 1997 Regulus revelled in how good it felt to finally destroy the locked that cost him his first live and as he fiercely hugged Draco in the great hall after he defeated Voldemort, Regulus swore to himself that one day he will tell him about his old life, so that one day, he could learn to forgive himself for taking the mark of a madman, even if it was just to pass on information. One day he thought, one day. Just not today, today he would bask in the feeling of having all his loved ones here and alive. Today was reserved for mourning the dead and celebrating being alive.
Epilog:
Grimmauld Place, 1997
He sat on one of the couches in the living room of Grimmauld Place, his head on Sirius' chest and Sirius' right arm around his shoulders. Just sitting there and enjoying the silence of an early morning. Getting up at the early hours of dawn was seemingly a habit neither of them could quite shake off from their childhood.
"You and Draco have gotten quite close after the war, Harry," Sirius teased.
"So what, we're friends," Regulus countered, not understanding where his brother was going with this.
"Are you sure the two of you are just friends and not, you know, dating?"
Regulus blushed bright red. "Why would you-, no we're-" Regulus sputtered embarrassed. "Draco is like a brother to me," Regulus said, indignantly.
Admitting it out loud didn't hurt as much as he originally thought it would, because he still somewhat considered Sirius his brother and he had a feeling that this won't change anytime soon. But it was more of an odd mix between father figure and older brother now, he guessed.
"Alright alright, calm down, I was just teasing," Sirius laughed. "On another note though, you never told me."
"Never told you what?" Regulus asked in confusion.
"You never told me how you knew about the locket. How you immediately knew where the original one was," Sirius specified.
"How do I say this? It's a long story?" Regulus said unsurly, still somehow hoping to escape the following explanation.
Sirius just raised an unimpressed eyebrow.
"I never told anyone, you're actually the first person I'm telling this to, but I am not who I say I am, I mean, in some way I am, but also not really?" he admitted, nervously twisting a loose thread from his sleeve around his finger. "I'm not Harry Potter, I'm... Regulus Black."
Looking up, he saw his brother still staring impassively at him. Then something he didn't expect happened. Sirius drew him into a hug, hiding Regulus face in the crook of his neck.
"God I've missed you, you idiot," Sirius whispered into his hair.
"I've missed you too, Siri"
The two brothers stayed in the embrace a little longer, before Sirius whispered, "Dadfoot? really?"
"I think it fits and Moomy agreed with me, so you're stuck with that nickname now," he grinned.
"I hate you," Sirius said.
"No you don't, you really don't" Regulus countered.
