"Tomorrow, you depart for Hogwarts. You know what your duty is there."
The ring felt familiar and strange all at once as his father slid it home. It encircled Vincent's finger like it belonged there and flared white-hot before subsiding to a comfortable warmth. It didn't burn him.
He stared at his hand - small hand, chubby fingers held in his father's strong ones.
Confusion.
He frowned up at his father's face, and it was a shock to see how much difference even a half-dozen years made. His beard, neat and dark, not yet thinning to grey and shorter than it had become. His shaved head bristling with short hair that hadn't yet receded far.
"I think. . . I went back in time," Vincent said, and his voice was small and childish.
"Did you?"
It had never been the Crabbe way to deceive. Truth and bluntness - some considered them incautious for it, others resented hearing it.
Vincent considered for a long moment, then another, and nodded. "I was in seventh year. He returned and I was Marked to his service."
This was quite a speech for him, especially uncharacteristic at age eleven, and his father stood up straighter.
"How?"
To this, Vincent had no answer. Time travel was not a thing their family had experience with. He'd never cared for the subtlety required to craft physical magic. He preferred jinxes and curses; sharp, direct, honest. One needn't speak to show distaste or disdain for others. Magic spoke far clearer than words.
His father saw his uncertainty and waved away the question. "Never mind. If you know the future, that is enough. What must we do?"
Vincent thought long and hard, putting together what memories he could recall. "Our alliances aren't as strong as they seem."
"Which alliances?" His father's voice held a note of tension.
Vincent jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Things changed."
His father glanced out the window, where the distant path wound toward a solitary manor nestled within its own lands. You couldn't quite see the house from here, but the indication was clear enough.
"How soon?"
Vincent shrugged. "Four, five years?" He'd never been good at maths.
His father nodded. "For now, continue as we planned. It would be dangerous to break our word now."
"Okay. That's easy."
"And now, tell me everything."