22 - Revelations [MKAV]

{The Hogwarts Express}

{1st September 1989}

Waking up to the ceiling of yet another empty compartment, Matteo groaned.

"Time," he muttered.

~6:43pm~

~7 hours, 42 minutes since you've left King's Cross~

Matteo had opted not to meet with Angelina and Alicia. Nothing against them, but he just wasn't in the mood. He needed a moment to cool off from his latest revelation.

And while Matteo was tempted to get in good graces with every female character that he could, the transmigrator that he was... they were both going to Hogwarts. He had seven years to get to know them, so there was no reason to rush it.

Not to mention that, while they were characters, they were side characters. As well as children... now, Matteo didn't hate children, but they could be annoying. Most of them were bratty and impulsive, with Heather being an exception to the rule. Which just got Matteo thinking, 'does that mean neglect and abuse is the best way to raise a sensible child?'

He quickly discarded the thought.

"""Morning, master."""

Matteo smiled slightly, the presence of his fervently devoted maids greeting him. Waking up with both Nagini and Chloe wrapped around his body, and half a dozen more devoted maids in his shadow... it was hard for him to not instantly feel better.

Then he thought back to his latest trouble.

'The Cursed Child...' Matteo recited, frowning once more.

Time travel.

Time travel that not only changed the past, but rewrote the timeline. Maybe. Unfortunately for Matteo, the play never really delved that far into its 'time travel rules.'

All he knew was that, at any moment, someone could just... rewrite existence.

Every single moment, every waking second, someone could just decide to go backwards through time, undoing the world that once was. The thought was terrifying. As soon as Matteo realized this, he had hastily put protections in place.

But Matteo couldn't guard all of time himself, not on his own. The amount of mana required to prevent all time travel in the universe... it was staggering. Even if the gods of all of Earth's pantheons got together, they wouldn't even have a fraction of the required cost. Not to mention that such a spell would require a constant, insurmountable amount of fuel. It was simply an impossible task for the current Matteo, Mastery or not.

But while preventing time travel was impossible... summoning, scrying, and diluting time was all things that he could do.

So whenever someone went to the past with the intentions of changing the timeline, they would be brought before Matteo. It hadn't happened yet, but with the existence of Zoom, the Flash, and now 'The Cursed Child' and its experimental time-turners... it was bound to happen sooner or later.

This wouldn't happen to 'predestined' time-travelers, though.

For example, Zoom was predestined to go back in time and kill Barry's mom, so it already happened. Which Matteo honestly didn't understand. He wasn't sure how the future would even sort of resemble the one from Detective Comics enough for the Flash fanboy to come back through the pipeline.

Matteo guessed that it had something to do with the universe being a corrective force, or something to do with Fate and Destiny being very real things, but he could only guess.

Since even if Scry was a useful spell, letting him instantly get information about practically anything, Matty-Magic wasn't omnipotent.

Matty-Magic was a lot like electricity, in the sense that it took the path of least resistance. Every spell was crafted in a way that functioned in the smoothest, simplest way possible. This made it easy to learn, easy to cast. However, this meant that anything with the slightest bit of magic resistance was immune to it.

This wasn't a deal breaker, though. Whether it was willpower, mana, or prowess, spells could easily be reinforced to counter this issue. However, when it came to things like Divinity, or forces like Time... Matty-Magic struggled to affect it.

All magic did, really.

That was why when his Scry spell on the Gaunt ring had failed, Matteo hadn't pushed the issue. Knowing what he knew about Marvel and DC, as well as what he knew about the Deathly Hallows... he decided to tread very carefully.

However, he couldn't sense Divinity from it. Matteo knew that he could sense Divinity, since it was present in places of worship. Every single church, temple, and so forth was tainted with it to some degree.

But... Death was less of a goddess, and more of an integral force of existence.

In the same way that most people couldn't see the air around them, could he even perceive the entity that was Death? Matteo had killed people before, he had even watched them die... but he hadn't sensed anything 'collecting' them. They just died. He could sense their souls going somewhere, but he didn't truly know.

He honestly wasn't sure if he would ever pursue the issue, to be honest.

'Sure, Death from the comics is hot... but she's Death.'

The pursuit of that divine pussy could very well kill him... and while Matteo could admit he was a bit of a degenerate, he wasn't a desperate degenerate.

The train screeched to a halt.

"Ah..." Matteo muttered, smiling. "I guess we're here."

Rolling off the cabin's bench, Matteo stretched his arms, yawning. Shaking his head to discard his worries, Matteo decided to focus on what was in front of him. After eleven years of being in a death world, three years of being a mutant, and one month of being a part of Wizarding Britain... Matteo was finally at Hogwarts.

The rest of the world could fuck off, at least for the next few days.

***

{12 Grimmauld Place, London}

{1st September 1989}

Walking into the Black ancestral home with his brother in tow, Sirius couldn't help but feel his chest tighten as the wards didn't so much as budge. Regulus had just entered with him, untouched. Despite knowing his long lost brother well, Sirius had still been the slightest bit wary... but that was proof.

His brother, his flesh and blood, was finally home.

"I've cleaned up the place a bit," Sirius said, grinning ear to ear. "There's also a few new portraits– oh! You had JUST missed them earlier, but you might be able to catch a glimpse of the girls... and their portrait's vacant."

"It looks... nice," Regulus said, still slightly out of it. He had never thought he'd be back here, especially with Sirius as Lord Black. As for the changes, he noticed that there was no longer a portrait of their lovely mother by the main entrance. "Is, um, Kreacher still around?"

CRACK!

His answer came in the sudden appearance of an old, decrepit house-elf.

"M-Master Regulus? Is that truly you?" he asked, tears in his eyes. "YES, YES! This is it, this marks the return of House Black! Master Regulus, you must take back the Lordship! Master Sirius sullied the Black name, breeding a filthy mudblood whore, just to produce three more little mudbloods–!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, KREACHER!" Sirius bellowed. He turned to Regulus, sighing, "why would you call for him, brother...?"

"I, uh, before I disappeared... I left Kreacher a task."

Kreacher's posture straightened at Regulus's words.

"Kreacher, where is the locket?"

Tears formed in Kreacher's eyes. "Oh, Master Regulus, I tried! I tried! But Kreacher couldn't destroy it, he couldn't. It was impossible for Kreacher. After countless years of failures followed by punishments, Kreacher decided to hide it..." the house-elf smiled, a grin that sent chills down both brother's spines. "It has been buried away, left untouched for years. No one will find it, Kreacher is certain."

"Kreacher, where is it?" Regulus repeated.

"It's buried in the perfect place," Kreacher giggled. "Kreacher might not have been able to destroy it, but Kreacher was able to use it for the good of House Black."

"Reggie, what's this about?" Sirius asked, brow furrowed.

"I..." Regulus gulped. He was going to have to talk about this sooner or later. "After I joined the Dark Lord, I quickly came to regret my decision. He wasn't the revolutionary he claimed to be, brother. He wasn't just, evil, either... V-Voldemort was unhinged. Insane. But I couldn't just back out, already branded with his mark. So I thought to stop him from within..."

"Reggie..." Sirius said softly, concerned.

"I found the secret to his immortality. He had cut his soul into pieces, storing them in artifacts, in containers. Upon death, he wouldn't move on... he'd be anchored to the land of the living."

Sirius's eyes widened. "Does that mean–!"

"No," Regulus cut him off. "It didn't work, not fully. He became something akin to a ghost, and is unable to retain a human form... he's finished. But as I was being dragged to what I thought was my death, I handed one of the containers to Kreacher..." Regulus turned to the house-elf. "A locket."

Kreacher's eyes widened. Then he smiled wickedly. "Kreacher did good, Kreacher did good!"

"You keep saying a locket," Sirius said hesitantly, his chest tightening. Not at all liking the conclusion he was reaching. "Can you describe it?"

"Uh..." Regulus frowned in thought. "I only saw it for a moment. I know it was golden, and it had a letter on it– an S. I think it was green...?"

Sirius's heart all but stopped as his suspicions rang true. The way that his wife died just days after giving birth, despite nothing indicating poor health prior to it. The way his daughters, his precious little girls, had turned out... he was loathe to admit it, but they were odd, eerie.

And last but not least, the sudden appearance of a golden locket, discovered by his wife.

Worn by his wife for years.

Worn by his wife for the full length of her pregnancy.

Worn by his wife even after death.

Sirius turned to Kreacher, filled with a hatred he didn't think possible. "You, you, you–" he couldn't even put it into words.

"DIE!" he kicked the elf full force, sending him into the wall. "DIE! DIE! DIE!" Sirius continued to kick the house-elf again and again, all while Kreacher cackled. Sirius continued to drive his foot into Kreacher's frame, and all the portraits of House Black watched in complete silence, kick after kick.

Regulus watched in silence along with them.

"I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU! I HAD YEARS AND YEARS..." Sirius wailed, finally falling to his knees. Kreacher no longer responding. "Years and years..."

Tears entered Sirius's eyes as he looked up at his wife's portrait.

An echo of Eleanor Black looked back, with very real pain and guilt etched on it's face.

'Years and years that I no longer have with you.'

"Siri, what is..." Regulus trailed off, wary. Despite his fondness for Kreacher, Regulus knew his brother. That rage... that hatred was unlike his brother. There must've been a good reason for it, not to mention that Regulus couldn't bring himself to choose a house-elf over Sirius.

"The locket, the locket..." Sirius rasped, "it was my wife's locket."

Regulus stilled.

"She found it a few years back, when we were cleaning the house," he cried. "She wore it every day, Reggy. She wore Voldemort's fucking soul around her neck for years! It... and if it really is a piece of that fucker, I think..." Sirius trailed off, his heart sinking to his stomach. Hating his next words as they left his mouth.

"I think it waited for her... for Eleanor to give birth."

Regulus stumbled backwards, falling to the floor.

"No, no no no..."

Knowing that his actions to stop the Dark Lord were fruitless, and now being faced with the aftermath of his actions... Regulus couldn't breathe.

He did this.

This was all his fault.

***

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