As it was, those wards in Diagon Alley never triggered.

The fateful words shouldn't have been funny.

In retrospect, Tom didn't know what he'd been expecting. His wards, of course, ringing all the way from Diagon Alley and informing him that someone had just tried to set up anti-apparition barriers and were casting truly nasty dark magic.

He probably wouldn't have said anything when he left. He would have just would have apparated straight there, tried to evacuate pedestrians, stun arsonists, and do something besides cower and wait. Azrael would show up on his own, as he always did, and Tom wouldn't have had to say a word.

Certainly, he wouldn't have had to say a word to Regulus Black.

Instead, it was Harry quietly eating breakfast with him, glancing out the kitchen window with large pale eyes, who pointed a finger out at the yard said, "Daddy, the house is on fire."

Tom, glancing over his tea and the Prophet to the window, blamed lack of sleep for his response, "The house isn't on fire, honey, that's the lawn."

Then his words caught up with him.

The lawn, in fact, was on fire.

Only, those weren't ordinary flames quickly consuming green grass that had no business being on fire. They were still the bright red and gold of ordinary fire, but they raged and twisted as if they were fueled by far more than blades of grass. They rose high above Tom's small home into the form of several beasts with piercing golden eyes.

"Fiendfyre," Tom breathed in horror.

Oh, those stupid motherfuckers.

Tom knocked over his tea and newspaper, barely even noticing as the mug shattered on the floor. He flung himself to the other side of the table and picked a stunned Harry up into his arms only to stop in his tracks.

A few more minutes and the fire was going to eat through even his wards as well as the rest of Hogsmeade. A half hour, if these brats hadn't burned themselves alive or drained themselves of magic, and the flames would be racing across the lake to Hogwarts itself.

Tom's house warded as it was, could not withstand prolonged exposure to fiendfyre. Only his basement might, might, survive.

He could already hear the screaming, his neighbors, barely audible over the crackling of the flames as they pressed in against the wards as well as everything else. Because that was the trouble with fiendfyre, oh they'd break through Tom's wards eventually, but they'd also burn down the entire damn village while they were at it.

He couldn't take her to Hogwarts. He could only apparate to the gate, well, perhaps if he really tried he could apparte in further than that but who knew what the castle would do to him then. With it being summer he had no guarantee anyone was currently in the castle and he couldn't leave Harry alone at the gates unprotected.

Minerva was in just as much trouble as he was if she was in the village at all.

Not to mention he had no idea how many of them were out there and if they were just using this as a means to distract him from a different target.

Letting out a final curse he apparated Harry straight into the basement, ignoring Regulus' outburst of surprise. In fact, he ignored the boy altogether as he knelt and grabbed Harry's shoulders.

Harry's eyes were wide, stunned and unfocused, and Tom squeezed her shoulders harder attempting to get her to focus.

He kept his voice calm and his eyes focused on hers as he spoke, "Harry, you have to stay down here. I'm going out there to fix this but, no matter what happens, you must stay down here. Only if you see fire in this room do you leave. And then… Then you have to use magic, have to apparate, wish yourself anywhere else but here. Wish yourself to wherever mummy is, not where I am. You can't take the stairs. Can you do that?"

Harry didn't react.

"Harry, promise me you can do this."

Slowly she nodded and he gave her a small, relieved, smile and said, "I'll be back as soon as I can."

He finally spared a glance to Regulus, tied to his chair and gaping at Tom and Harry as if Tom had just told Harry he was pregnant, and gave Harry one last instruction, "And don't go anywhere near that man no matter what he says to you!"

He assumed she'd agree to that one but he didn't have time to watch her do more than swivel her head to look at the stranger tied up in her basement. Tom already apparated onto the roof. He held up a sleeve to his mouth, silently casting the bubblehead charm, and only then breathed in clean air.

The smoke was already getting through the wards.

Not all the fire was focused on his house despite what looked like the best efforts of the casters. Two of the great beasts batted at Tom's wards in annoyance, like a cat with a little toy bird dangling from a thread, but kept glancing towards the rest of the village, the far more tempting, easier pickings.

One had already completely lost control and his fiery beast was rampaging down main avenue. Cracks like gunshots sounded everywhere as terrified witches and wizards apparated out of the village. Some, undoubtedly, stayed to try and save their homes but they weren't faster than the fires. They were the ones screaming.

No aurors yet, but then, even aurors were not always equipped to deal with fiendfyre. They probably figured that by the time they showed up the entire village would be burned to the ground.

"Merlin," a familiar voice breathed next to him, "Is that fiendfyre?"

Tom let out a relieved laugh as he turned to look at Azrael, sitting next to him on the roof, stunned as the stared out at fire. It was almost as if it was half a lifetime ago and they were on the astronomy tower roof tempting death.

Just as back then, he wasn't dressed as Harry Evans, but instead as something far stranger and foreign than any muggle born could hope to be.

Tom couldn't help but smile, "You're late."

"A wizard is never late—"

"Don't steal my lines!" Tom spat back before he could even think to finish that thought.

"You stole them from Tolkien," Azrael said, as if he'd even been on Earth when Tolkien had published the novels in the first place.

Azrael didn't pay attention though, which was fair, as his eyes moved from the giant paw pounding on the wards over and over again to the wizards casting the spell, "Are three of them casting it?!"

"I almost feel flattered," Tom said.

He remembered what Regulus had said, that his band of merry friends had thought about attacking Tom's house but that Regulus had informed them that it was impenetrable. Somehow, he could just see these kids saying, "No, that can't be right, he's a Muggle Studies professor. We just need even more fire!"

To be fair, Regulus probably hadn't considered options which would burn down an entire village if not Hogwarts.

"Tell me you know how to handle this," Tom said.

There was a charm fiendfyre, not too difficult either, but the pesky thing had to be cast by the same wizard who has cast the fiendfyre in the first place. Otherwise your best hope was killing the caster and remove all the victims the flames could use for fuel. And out in the open like this… The flames might never burn out.

Azrael nodded though and stood. Once again, despite his small stature, despite the fact that he always had and always would where the face of a child, someone not quite a boy but not quite a man yet either, he looked like what Tom imagined an ancient magical emperor would. There was no hesitation in his expression, no fear, only a resolute determination as he held out a single pale hand.

Tom could see pale golden strings, the threads of time and the universe, lace around his fingers and grow taut at his attention. For a single instant, the world fell into a hush, holding its breath and waiting for him to move. Each of the fiery beasts turned their heads towards him in terrified wonder.

It was nothing more than a simple movement of a single hand, drawing his fingers into a fist, and just like that all the flames became nothing more than scattered ash. Soot drifted over the rooftops, through the streets, and down to the ground like snow.

A few heads poked out of houses, pale and wary, and didn't seem to know what to think now that the immediate danger was gone.

Only the immediate danger though. Before they could even think to cast it again or prepare to flee Tom stunned them and summoned their wands into his hand.

He spared Azrael a glance, "Why is it that I'm panicking for my life like a headless chicken and all you have to do is make a fist?"

Azrael let out a small laugh, raking his hand now through his wild hair, "Would it make you feel better if I said it's harder than it looked?"

"That depends if it was actually harder than it looked," Tom said drily.

Azrael just laughed again, "Now that would be telling."

Tom, now that his heart was no longer racing, took a moment to look down at the wizards in his yard. Only three of them, only those who had come casting fiendfyre. There were more than that, Tom had definitely seen more than three in Diagon Alley, and Regulus had seen more than three in his memories.

This was not everyone.

Each was cloaked and wearing a funeral mask over their faces, at this distance, they could be anyone, wizard or witch. Even with their wands extended Tom was too far up to begin to tell one wand from another.

He made to jump off the roof only to pause and glance back at Azrael who hadn't moved.

"Are you coming?"

Azrael frowned, "I'd think it best for me to leave this to you."

Tom blinked but then remembered that Azrael wasn't dressed as any British wizard at the moment. Mars was so far removed from the wizarding world these days that he doubted they recognized where Azrael's clothing came from or recognized his face but that didn't mean Azrael should linger either.

In fact, Tom should confound them and if he was lucky no one else in the village had paid any attention to the men on Tom Riddle's roof.

Tom nodded, "Go, we'll talk later."

Azrael opened his mouth, closed it, perhaps meaning to tell Tom not to kill anyone. Whatever he wanted to say, he decided against it, simply nodded again and then disappeared without a sound.

Tom didn't have time to waste staring after the spot where Azrael had disappeared. Instead he jumped off the roof, relying on his magic to float him gently down to the earth. He stalked towards his victims, threw back their hoods one by one.

Goyle, unsurprising. Crabbe, also unbelievably unsurprising. And finally, to complete the unholy trinity—

"Lucius Malfoy," Tom said in genuine surprise, "I always thought you were smarter than this."

Lucius Malfoy didn't move, showed no change in expression, but then frozen in place like this he couldn't. Oh his mind could spin, likely do a tail spin into utter panic, but he couldn't actually display any of that on his aristocratic face.

"Burning down Hogsmeade," Tom said, "What will your father say?"

He wasn't getting out of this one and he knew it. Really, what had he been thinking? Had it really been that exciting? The very idea of getting back at Tom Riddle, Muggle Studies Professor, that he'd stooped to this? Had he thought they'd just light Tom's house on fire, giggle to themselves as Tom and his family burned alive, and then run back out again.

"Were you actually so arrogant you thought you could control that fire?" Tom asked.

Yes, he probably was.

Tom had been that age once, he'd been younger, and he'd had such dreams for himself. He could picture a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle all too well, thinking that of course he could control the spell that none but the greatest of wizards dared to touch. He was different, better, than everyone else.

Lucius Malfoy was a Malfoy, different and better than trash like Tom Riddle, he really thought he'd be able to control it.

Several loud cracks rang out immediately followed by loud chattering and cheers.

Tom glanced down the street towards the noise. There were the aurors, finally. They really had taken their sweet time, hadn't they? In their defense it looked as if they'd had to get out the special, enchanted, gear to help protect them from the flames.

However, if Azrael hadn't been here then it'd be more than just half the village burned down.

Already Tom's neighbors were pointing frantically towards Tom's house and the frozen wizards in the yard.

"And it looks like the calvary has arrived," Tom said with a smile to Lucius, "Isn't that smashing?"

He'd goad Crabbe and Goyle as well, but, well, he doubted they were following any of this.

With a wave of his wand Tom ever so carefully altered their memories, they wouldn't even notice, and more importantly the aurors wouldn't even notice when they went rifling through them.

Instead of Azrael, emperor of Ubik, dismissing fiendfyre with nothing more than a hand wave they now remembered Tom Riddle barely managing to dismiss the flames through the skin of his teeth and some spell they couldn't make out.

It was probably the truth they'd rather believe in anyway.

Even if it meant having been defeated by nothing more than a muggleborn Muggle Studies professor.

"Before they take you away I'm afraid I do have one question," Tom said to Lucius, "Where's the rest of you?"

There was no need to answer, instead, he focused on Lucius' eyes and began to delve through his mind. The man had some practice in occlumency, almost all the nobility did, but it was far from enough to keep Tom contained.

Tom easily sorted through irrelevant memories to find what he was looking for.

Only to immediately step back and apparate on the spot, despite the aurors shouting as they approached him, demanding he stay and talk to them as a witness.

Before he even really materialized, he was already running, one foot on the ground while the other was untangling itself from the ether, "Lily!"

Saint Mungo's, unlike Hogsmede, wasn't on fire. As Tom rushed through the front doors, sprinting towards the hospital's internal apothecary, there was in fact no sign of anything wrong.

The building was sterile as usual, white walls interrupted by cheerful singing flowers and smiling faces behind the information desk, they shouted at him to stop in his tracks, even drawing their wands out, but he was quicker.

The noise of the hospital's employees and patients became a blur as he made his way further and further in.

Just outside the doors to the potions' lab Tom could make out the shimmering of Regulus wards preventing anyone or anything from going in or out. A self-contained bubble that left the rest of the hospital completely oblivious to what was happening.

They hadn't been altered though, were far weaker than they should have been given the location they'd never intended to be used at, someone had probably thought that they'd serve their purpose anywhere. For most wizards they'd be right, but it meant that Tom who hadn't gotten the wards down last time was able to shatter them in a second without breaking his stride.

The security alarms, the spell alerting them likely cast ages ago inside the lab, began blaring throughout Saint Mungo's.

Not only would the rest of the staff know but the spell would go straight to the auror corps. A team should be arriving soon.

"Lily!"

There were bodies slumped everywhere, thrown against the walls and tables and out of the way. Tom didn't look closely, kept his eyes ahead, letting his magic guide him towards the one place he needed to be. There wasn't blood, they could still be alive, he hoped they were still alive. They, after all, were not the true targets, they'd just been in the way.

They could have attacked in the evening. They could have waited until Lily got off work and the entire Riddle family was in that house.

No, Bellatrix had said though, no I want to make a statement. I want to show them, all of them, that there's nowhere they can hide. We can get them in their warded homes, in their shops, in Diagon Alley, in the ministry, in Saint Mungo's, and even in Hogwarts if we want to. Anyone can burn down a house. We can get in and out of Saint Mungo's and take all the mudbloods they've hired with us.

And so, one, small, group had been sent to deal with Professor Riddle and his daughter. To show the world that one small, warded, house was nothing against the might of a true pureblood wizard. The rest had gone to deal with the wife in one of the most protected and iconic institutions in the country.

There was no sign of life in the lab itself, only eerie silence interrupted only by the sound of Tom's mad sprinting, he exited through a pair of double doors without a glance behind him.

He was now in the supply room, storing everything the potion brewers might need immediately on hand, from mundane to truly rare supplies that even Slughorn would have difficulty procuring.

And there, in the very back, he finally found her. She'd sought cover behind several of the shelves, having moved them around her to form a physical shield reinforced by a protego as well as runes scratched into the tiles beneath her feet. There was a gash on her cheek, blood pouring down her face. There was a fresh blood stain on her hospital robes, growing larger and larger, and even though her eyes were burning her wand was shaking.

Just beyond her shield five figures encircled her, each pointing a wand out towards the shield, and attacking it with dark lightening. Lily had been cornered, this was her last line of defense when she couldn't apparate, and it was only a matter of time before it collapsed.

Over the sound of the crackling magic Tom could make out the sound of high-pitched, mad, laughter.

Tom flung out his hand and sent all of them straight into the wall. There was an audible smack, some crumpled without a word, others groaned and twitched and tried to keep hold of the wands that threatened to roll out of their fingers.

Tom pulled Lily out of her wards and behind him.

One of them, Bellatrix Black, was already on her knees, dark eyes burning as she held out her wand, swishing and flicking with expert precision as she said, "Avada Kedav—"

With a swish of his own wand Tom threw her back into the wall and summoned her wand into his hand. There was a loud, sickening, crack as she hit it. Tom and Lily watched as blood gushed out the back of her head and flooded down the wall. Dark eyes rolled up into the back of her head, her body crumpled forward with the others, her mouth open and slack.

Tom didn't move, didn't let Lily move from behind him, and kept his wand extended. He summoned the other wands to him but none of them seemed capable of using them. They were all breathing, some even twitching, moaning, and trying to crawl towards him, but none of them would be able to cast a spell or even apparate away.

All except Bellatrix, that was, who didn't appear to be breathing at all. Her body, like a marionette whose strings had been cut, remained where it was. Her face grew paler by the minute while her dark hair glittered under the harsh light, matted and wet with fresh blood.

"Tom?"

Suddenly, Tom realized he was laughing. He was standing here, looking at these people who had tried so desperately to destroy him, and he was laughing. They all looked so young, so young and so pitiful, and he knew not one of them had pictured it ending this way.

But Tom still couldn't stop laughing.

"Tom," Lily said, not a question this time, and instead tried to turn him towards her.

He forced himself to breathe in and out, stunned the rest of them (including Bellatrix's terribly still body), and finally turned to pull Lily into his arms. She winced at first but then settled into the embrace.

"Can you apparate?" he finally asked.

Lily didn't say anything, just nodded.

She probably shouldn't, he should heal her or give her a chance to catch her breath and heal herself. They could go right upstairs and put her in a hospital bed. It probably wasn't just a few cuts, not with these people, it'd be poison, dark magic, and killing curses flung at her.

Lily might not know what she was hit with or was underestimating it. He should take her upstairs, he'd come back as soon as he could.

But he couldn't, he just couldn't do that, so instead closing his eyes he said, "Alright, then we're going home."

He'd leave the rest of these people for the aurors to find. If they wanted Tom, well, he'd be talking to their comrades in arms in Hogsmeade.

Tom spent the next week in and out of auror headquarters reporting on his own role in the saving of Hogsmeade.

Some in the village had reported briefly seeing a second man on the roof, a strange wizard all in black. Though, through the smoke, and the fire it was difficult to tell. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had all attested that it had only ever been Tom standing there just beneath the wards.

All had agreed that it must have been Tom Riddle who'd stopped the fiendfyre in its tracks.

"How?" James Potter had asked over his desk. He looked, as always, as if he wished they were seated in the interrogation chamber instead of his office.

Tom didn't know why he always got stuck with James Potter. Either Potter had that much influence or else someone up there thought Tom really liked the kid and would open up to him more easily.

Regardless, it always seemed to be Potter.

"What do you mean how?" Tom asked, already tired and worn down, only wanting to go home and put this whole thing behind him.

"How'd you stop the fiendfyre?" Potter asked with a sigh, "That's not how that charm works."

"I didn't use that charm," Tom said rolling his eyes.

"We know that," Potter hissed, acting as if Tom was making his job ten times more difficult than it was, "We want to know what the hell you did use."

"It's complicated," Tom responded.

"Make it less complicated," Potter retorted, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and adjusting his glasses, "If you have the secret to stopping fiendfyre just like that believe me, the auror department wants to know."

First, Potter smiled wryly, no doubt thinking how much money Tom would make off of this kind of spell. Then the smile dripped away, and he looked at Tom more critically, "It's Martian, isn't it?"

Tom didn't have to answer, Potter didn't press again for exactly how Tom had done it. Instead, as far as Tom knew, the report listed that Tom Riddle had saved the village of Hogsmeade with a spell of his own invention.

They knew Tom then apparated to Saint Mungo's while the aurors apprehended Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy. They knew he had single handedly broken through the wards placed in the building, subdued five pureblood wizards, and rescued his wife.

Most of Lily's fellow potions brewers had only been stunned, some who had resisted had been cursed and were sent directly upstairs to intensive care, so far all had lived. Lily herself had recovered at home, hovering over Tom's shoulder as he brewed the necessary potions, and watching with an amused smile as Tom delved into the foreign world of healing for the first time in his life.

Tom no longer trusted Saint Mungo's security.

Despite everything, she hadn't been cursed too badly and hadn't lost too much blood. When push came to shove, she'd more than held her own in a duel.

Of Lily's attackers, all but Bellatrix Black had survived and were now recovering in Saint Mungo's before their criminal cases would be dealt with. As far as Tom knew, there was still some hem hawing in whether any of the cases should go all the way to the Wizengamot.

Even the Wizengamot, all the powers that be who had been so adamant that these kids receive nothing more than a slap on the wrist, couldn't deny that Saint Mungo's was different. Attacking the staff of Saint Mungo's, hospitalizing them with lethal spells, was not the same as burning down some muggle born knick knack shop.

Bellatrix Black was pronounced dead on scene. She'd died as soon as Tom had thrown her into that wall.

Despite the Black family's protestation, Tom was not charged.

Given the plethora of dark magic cast by her wand, not limited to the killing curse and the cruciatus curse, as well as the fact that Tom had cast nothing but stunning spells, had allowed all of his other attackers to survive, and had only thrown Bellatrix Black against a wall in the heat of the moment, Tom's actions were deemed as one of self-defense.

Tom himself didn't know. He'd only been reacting to the killing curse being cast, moving faster than she could to finish the spell. He'd thrown her harder than he should have, but he hadn't been thinking about that. If he'd stunned her earlier, if he'd had time to think and look at her, time to remember…

Maybe he really would have killed her.

Regardless, one day the auror department stopped summoning him back in. It seemed, after everything, that was that.

Of the Black children, only Narcissa and Andromeda Black were now accounted for. Only Narcissa, in truth, as Andromeda had been disowned for marrying a muggle born wizard.

Hogsmeade was slowly but surely rebuilt over the summer. It would look different when the students returned but it wouldn't look ruined. When Tom wasn't looking after Lily in those first few weeks, he took Harry down into the village and helped restore the buildings.

Mostly, they all demanded Tom spend his time placing the same wards on their houses and shops as he had his own.

For all that some of them had failed to notice Azrael none of them had failed to notice that Tom's house alone had survived the fire directly. Out of the graciousness of his heart, and the fact that Tom had never intended for it to get that far, he didn't charge them.

Though he was very tempted to after the fourth time that someone remarked that, for a Muggle Studies professor, he really was a great wizard.

Like Saint Mungo's, attempting to burn down Hogsmeade with dark magic, magic so out of control it very well could have been set loose on Hogwarts itself, was not so easily ignored or pushed aside.

Lucius Malfoy stated that he had been placed under the imperious curse for years by his cousin Bellatrix. He argued that he had never wanted to take part in any of the acts of terrorism, had thought it would only hurt the wizarding world as a whole even if he believed in the cause, but due to his status, wealth, and marriage to her sister, Bellatrix had taken his cooperation by force.

With Bellatrix's death he had now been freed from the curse and filled with remorse for how far she had taken what he freely admitted was a just cause. He was no lover of mudbloods and their gleeful besmirching of tradition, but he was not the kind of man who viciously attack them either.

While Tom didn't doubt that Bellatrix had placed him under the imperious once or twice, if only to see just what it did to him, the entire story was preposterous.

The Wizengamot took it with visible relief and Lucius Malfoy was cleared of all charges. A few weeks of rehabilitation, drinking potions he didn't need, and he was free to reenter society.

Crabbe and Goyle were not half so clever. They offered no excuses, no bribes or doctored memories, and instead dumbly admitted the truth to anyone who asked.

Bellatrix had told them to attack Riddle's house in Hogsmede. Regulus Black, who had been the group's expert on runes and wards until he disappeared, had previously surveyed the house and warned them that it was more protected than anything in Hogsmeade and nothing short of fiendfyre could break through. So, Bellatrix had told them each to cast fiendfyre.

They'd only meant to attack Riddle's house, but the spells had quickly spiraled out of control. Goyle's spell had immediately started in on the village of Hogsmeade and all the people who live there. He hadn't been able to redirect the spell to Riddle's house no matter how hard he had tried. Crabbe had had a bit better luck, keeping his spell focused on the house, but he hadn't been able to stop collateral damage either.

The pair were placed under five years' house arrest with their wands held by the ministry. It wasn't Azkaban, and they likely could get a wand snuck in if they bribed the right officials, but it was more than the ministry had bothered with before.

Azrael still popped in and out, often talking to Lily as she recovered, and helping to keep an eye on recent developments. Things had calmed down over the summer, all the attacks had stopped and the perpetrators went their separate ways, but neither he nor Tom thought it was truly over.

As for Regulus Black, he remained missing.

The search continued, but as Tom had thought, after evidence of his involvement came to life many concluded that he too had been coerced or perhaps even imperioed by his older cousin. Seeing no way out, many thought the Black heir had run to the continent and would be making his way back as news of Bellatrix's arrest and Malfoy's innocence made their way to the public.

If they could reassure Black he would not be thrown into Azkaban or even arrested then he would return.

As it was, as the summer progressed, Regulus Black did learn what happened to Bellatrix Black as well as Lucius Malfoy. He learned what happened to all of them, Crabbe, Goyle, and the others whose fates were still pending.

The world slowly but surely began to move past him, the wards he'd helped concoct were now shattered and never would be used again, the group he'd been a part of had been dealt a heavy if not lethal blow, and when he walked outside it would not be to the world he'd left behind.

He remained trapped in Tom Riddle's basement and quietly refused to take the vow that would grant his freedom.

"Are you happy now?"

Regulus didn't often talk to Tom anymore.

Part of this was that Tom wasn't down in the basement quite as often. He brought Regulus his meals but otherwise his time was spent in the village, with Harry, and with Lily upstairs. There was no need to loiter down here, working on wards, or perusing forgotten things that Regulus Black had no business even knowing about.

Eventually, Regulus' friends might regather, but so far all of them were accounted for and Tom highly doubted they'd be holding secret meetings anytime soon. They'd done something serious for the first time in their lives and they were now seeing that their actions had real consequences for them.

Tom doubted Malfoy would ever return into their fold. With him, there were sure to be others who abandoned the very memory of it altogether.

For now though, Tom had no need to stay down here. For the first time in what felt like years, he could finally breathe.

Regulus, though, looked like he was drowning.

This was the first time he'd spoken to Tom in weeks.

He held Tom's eye as Tom silently passed him his breakfast, the same blueberry pancakes that Tom, Lily, and Harry had had upstairs. It looked so very out of place in Regulus' makeshift prison.

"You've finally done it," Regulus said with a small, trembling, smile, "You've destroyed the Black family."

Tom quietly conjured a chair and sat across from Regulus, "Narcissa's alive and well."

This just caused Regulus to laugh. He hunched over his meal almost protectively, shaking his head, "No, she's a Malfoy now. That's what happens to all the women, they marry out of the family and poof, they're gone."

Tom didn't say that, by that logic, there was no need to be upset about Bellatrix. She would have been marrying Rebastan Lestrange soon enough anyway.

Regulus shuddered, gripping the ceramic blue plate in his hands, so different from the fine china he was used to.

"The whole damn family, gone, just like that," Regulus lifted his head back up and offered Tom a weak smile, "You've done well, you really were a Slytherin after all."

"No," Tom said quietly, "No, I don't believe I've been a Slytherin in a long time."

It wasn't so much that he'd set out to destroy the Black family, not even conveniently goading them into destroying themselves, he'd just been in the right place at the right time. It had been fool's luck, after all, he'd lived in another world where it had been Bellatrix who had been the victor.

Perhaps she would have been arrested there, put on trial as some were here, but ultimately she had taken Tom's world from him and had the nerve to be able to walk away.

A Slytherin would never have allowed that to happen in the first place.

Tom shook the thoughts away, sighed, and finally noted, "The family's not ruined, Regulus, you're still here."

He'd been there when Tom had returned from Saint Mungo's. He'd been all but quaking in terror, demanding to know what had happened, but the one thing Tom remembered most was that Harry had been uninjured.

Regulus wouldn't have been able to do anything if he'd wanted to, held behind wards and bereft of a wand, but in that first second when he'd appeared the man had been speaking quietly and reassuringly to Harry even when his own death might be right around the corner.

Even when Tom had instructed Harry to leave Regulus to die if it came to that.

There'd been terror in him, but no malice, just an attempt to put on a brave face and try to distract her from whatever was coming. Not win her over, beg her to somehow release him or else enter his sphere so he could hold her hostage with him, but simply reassure her.

And Tom had finally seen that spark of good Azrael swore had always been in him.

"I'm still here," Regulus parroted back, as if Tom had said his cruelest joke yet.

"Just make the vow," Tom said, "Never reveal your time here, never harm me or my family, and never participate in activities designed to harm muggleborns and blood traitors ever again. You don't have to give up your beliefs, you don't even have to protect my family from those who would do what you can't, you can just walk away."

"They'll kill me," Regulus said weakly, "You said as much yourself."

"Bellatrix is dead," Tom responded back, "The others won't kill you."

"I'll be put on trial," Regulus said, placing his breakfast down with a sigh, knowing he wouldn't be able to get to it until Tom was finished.

"Do what Lucius did, they're practically begging you to."

"And then what?" Regulus paused, swallowing on the words that wanted to follow, before quietly saying, "And then what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to just… come back from this?"

He didn't wait for an answer, just motioned to his surroundings, "It's all gone mad, you know. There I was just standing on my doorstep and… And now, here I am, thinking I should be thanking you because you kept me out of it. I hated you, for a week I hated you more than I'd ever hated you before, but here I am anyway. I don't even have to lie like Lucius did, say I had nothing to do with burning down Hogsmeade or ransacking St Mungo's because I didn't. I didn't…"

He swallowed again, looked away from Tom, down at his hands, "But if I'd been there, if you'd sent me back that afternoon, I would have. I would have been right there with her or with Lucius, she never liked anyone sitting out you know, not anyone important. And I would have had to…"

He laughed, a harsh desperate sound, "I couldn't hear the screaming. Your little girl, Harry, bright little thing, told me this was your basement. I had thought you went all out on the house but the basement, Merlin, you went above and beyond on this bloody basement. Nothing got through here, not the fire, the smoke, or even the noise."

"She told me they were lighting everything on fire, great dragons of flame that twisted into lions and vultures, and we just sat down here waiting to see if we'd be burned alive or not. I don't… I don't know if I could have done that, cast that spell with the rest of them. No, I don't want to know if I could have done that," he said.

"She was brave, much braver than I was," he insisted, "She'll probably be in Gryffindor even if she's too clever to be one. I asked her to go outside, peak her head out and see what was happening, but she refused to move. She was brave enough to wait for you to handle it, to get nowhere close to me even if I promised to protect her, and only run if she saw fire."

"Merlin," he said looking up towards the runes on the ceiling, "I don't even know what Hogsmeade looks like anymore."

He rubbed a hand over his face, "How the hell am I supposed to come back from that?"

He fell silent, waiting for Tom to say something, anything to that.

Finally, Tom said, "Become the Muggle Studies professor."

"What?" Regulus balked.

"When I was banished from Ubik with your father naturally I was fired," Tom explained, "Worse, unlike your father, I didn't have a knut to my name and certainly didn't have a place to stay. I had envisioned my life as a diplomat and unofficial expatriate. Suddenly, I had no future."

"I showed up on Minerva McGonagall's doorstep in the pouring rain and applied for the open Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts," Tom continued, noting now that he hadn't been that much older than Regulus back then, "Naturally, due to my age, youth, pedigree, and lack of experience I was passed over. Dippet, either out of pity or else a stroke of genius, offered me the Muggle Studies position precisely because of my lacking pedigree and experience in Ubik of all places."

Regulus, however, seemed stuck on the details, "You applied to be the Defense professor?"

"This may shock you," Tom said drily, "But I am, in fact, a superb duelist."

"I have heard," Regulus responded, equally dryly, "The Prophet couldn't stop talking about your heroics."

That was another strange consequence of Bellatrix's raid on Hogsmeade and Saint Mungo's. Tom Riddle was now a hero and celebrated wizard who had beaten out the aurors to saving the day. The Prophet and Witch Weekly, to Tom's horror, had had a field day.

Tom waved this away, "Regardless, my point is, that life goes on. Rarely the way we expect, but it does. And you're in a much better position than I was."

"How so?" Regulus asked.

"If you think about it, nothing's changed for you," Tom said, "You're still the heir to the Black line, still will inherit that seat in the Wizengamot, the world's still your oyster. For all the world knows or cares, you simply decided to take a timely vacation in the south of France."

"With this tan?" Regulus asked, laughing as he looked down at his pale skin that hadn't seen sunlight in months.

"Well," Tom said, "Perhaps not the beach then but I'm sure you'll come up with something."

"Yes," Regulus said, not so much to agree as much to say something and allow himself time to think. He was smiling though, which was more than he'd done in months, since this entire thing had begun.

"I suppose," he said slowly, "If I leave then I'll never see you again."

Tom couldn't help but raise his eyebrows, "Are you implying you'd want to see me again?"

He expected Regulus to scoff, to bluster, to hiss and spit, to try and regain his pride but he didn't. Instead he was looking at Tom with a shockingly vulnerable expression, the kind he'd always tried to disguise before now, "Yes, strangely enough… Yes, I think I rather would."

For a moment, Tom said nothing. He remembered how he'd found this boy, remembered how Regulus had proudly displayed his hatred for everything Tom Riddle was. He hadn't taken any of that back even now.

He was a Slytherin, perhaps he hadn't changed even this much, perhaps it was all a ruse. To what end, Tom didn't know.

Black certainly wouldn't be winning any favors by publicly associating with the Muggle Studies professor. His father might even disown him for it if he'd had any sons to spare. Even doing so as an attempt to get someone to look back into Black's disappearance was a threadbare plan at best.

And even if he meant it why should Tom associate with Orion Black's son? They were meant to leave and go their separate ways? Their worlds were not ones that should collide with one another and this was just supposed to be an unpleasant memory for them both.

Still, Tom smiled, and said, "Then you know where to find me."

Then, adding onto that because he always had to add something, he noted, "Unlike the ministry, Hogwarts can't fire me, I have tenure."

Regulus laughed, Tom wasn't sure if he should count that as a victory or not.

Tom held out his hand, waiting for Regulus to take it. Regulus didn't hesitate even for a moment.

And so, by the end of the summer just before the start of Hogwarts' fall term, even Regulus Black returned home.

Author's Notes: Why split this into two chapters when I can just resolve the whole damn thing in one giant chapter? Giant chapter here being the size of any normal chapter in my other stories, because I like words apparently.

Next, a new arc, hooray!

Thanks to readers and reviewers. Reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter