Regulus lay on the shore of the lake and trembled in pain. He didn't know what had happened, didn't know if he should try Apparating—or if he could, as another bolt of agony shot up through his legs. It seemed better to call the one person who had always been loyal to him.
"Kreacher!"
The air rent itself apart with a miniature thunderclap, and the elf appeared in front of Regulus, far more hunched-over and twisted than Regulus remembered. His mouth dropped open, and he looked at Regulus, shaking so hard that he might not be able to help after all.
"Kreacher," Regulus whispered. "Take me home."
Kreacher's hands clamped onto his arms and hauled him upright and close. Regulus's head flopped, and he knew almost immediately that he wasn't going to be able to stay awake through this.
But it didn't matter. Not if he was going with Kreacher.
The air boiled around them, and they were gone—from the cave, into blackness.
"What can I tell my friends?"
Narcissa put her hand on Henry's shoulder, closing her eyes. His voice was stronger than it had been even yesterday, as he struggled with the aftermath of the ritual and a body that was free of the Horcrux for the first time since he was fifteen months old.
But she could still see how pale and motionless he had been at the end of the ritual, when he had passed out, and hear the trembling, cracking nature of his voice when he had asked for food yesterday.
"Mother?"
Narcissa opened her eyes and knelt down in front of him. Henry watched her with wide, round eyes that were identical to Draco's only in color. It was amazing how different they were, her sons, and yet how much she managed to love them both.
"I would prefer it if you told them nothing at all."
"Because Dumbledore might be influencing them?"
"That, and because they are regular teenagers."
Henry blinked. "I don't understand."
"They have little sense of discretion," Narcissa said, almost wincing at her own bluntness. But Henry was in this particular way a regular teenager, too, and she didn't want to confuse him by playing at word games. "They might blurt out the secret, or refer to it in such a way that someone else could tell what was going on. We also still do not know how much Dumbledore knows about Horcruxes."
Henry's mouth firmed. "That's right."
"Yes." Narcissa gathered her baby boy close. The idea that she would have to let him return to Hogwarts in three days was nearly too much for her. "For now, pretend that the Christmas holiday was normal, other than, of course, the attack by Crouch in King's Cross."
Henry nodded slowly. "I can do that."
Narcissa kissed his forehead, the scar that was becoming a paler and paler red by the day. "I know you can."
Regulus woke with a gasping cry, and Kreacher was immediately next to his bed, dripping water into his mouth. Regulus realized Kreacher was holding a wet cloth instead of a cup, but he didn't question why. He just closed his eyes and swallowed as soon as his throat grew wet enough.
"Master Regulus is being safe," Kreacher whispered. "But he must stay quiet."
Regulus pitched his voice low. "All right, I can do that. Has something happened to the house? Is—the Dark Lord here?" Regulus couldn't ignore the possibility that no one had managed to destroy the bastard's Horcrux yet, or that perhaps no one had managed to kill him even if he was mortal.
"Master Sirius is here."
Regulus blinked. "With Mother?"
"Mistress Walburga be dying ten years ago."
Regulus closed his eyes. He had known some time had passed since he'd entered the lake, because he had felt the ritual channeling his strength to a Black child of minor age and great strength, and there had been no one like that among his cousins when he'd gone after the locket. But he hadn't thought it would be this long.
"What year is it, Kreacher?" he whispered, and shivered as his lips cracked. Kreacher fed him some more water before he answered."
"It is being 1996 as of a few hours ago, Master Regulus."
Nearly twenty years.
Regulus wanted to shiver himself to death, but there was no time, no time. He lifted a hand in front of his eyes and stared at it. It looked no different than it had during the years, the hours, since he had last seen it.
"I didn't age."
"No, Master Regulus."
"That's going to be a problem," Regulus breathed. He had never thought of dying and coming back to life, but he had spent the short conscious time since he'd come out of the lake assuming that he would have aged and could maybe convince people that he had simply disappeared from Britain until it was safe to return. Not if he still looked like a teenager, though.
He sipped some more water, this time from a cup, and smiled a little as he recognized the taste of a healing potion. Kreacher had always been clever enough to brew it himself. "What is the status of the war against the Dark Lord, Kreacher?" he asked. "The short version."
Kreacher's ears twitched, hard. Then he said, "He is being killed by Henry Malfoy, who was Harry Potter. But only temporarily. He is coming back. No-good Master Sirius is always whining about it. He is finding the locket."
Regulus shivered, while his brain caught a bit. Narcissa. She had married Malfoy. Could her son have been the one Regulus had lent his strength to?
It didn't explain what had happened, why he would have been called Harry Potter—or Henry, a name Regulus found it hard to imagine any Malfoy or Black giving their son—or why Regulus had somehow returned to life.
He sighed. "All right. The long version. Tell me everything."
"Harry!"
Harry gave Ron and Hermione a wan smile. Hermione started to hurl herself at him, and then checked her motion, biting her lip. Ron tapped his closed fist lightly on Harry's shoulder, stared at Draco long enough to acknowledge him, and then sat down in the seat across from Harry in the train compartment. Hermione sat beside Ron, her eyes huge.
"We heard Crouch attacked you at the train station!"
"Yeah, but Father held him off."
....
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