Chapter Text
It was a reckless plan. Ridiculous, really. But if Regulus Arcturus Black was good at anything, it was reckless plans. And this time, it wasn’t about pleasing his family or serving a cause he’d stopped believing in long ago.
No—this time, it was about ending the war. For good.
The rain hadn’t let up in hours. It thundered against the pavement like a warning, soaking through his robes, plastering curls to his forehead and clinging to every inch of his clothes. But he’d chosen this night on purpose. Death Eaters didn’t patrol during storms like this. They didn’t like getting their boots muddy.
He stood on the front porch of a modest Godric’s Hollow cottage, shivering slightly from cold and nerves, and raised a hand to knock.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The door swung open with a sharp creak.
James Potter stood framed in the warm yellow glow of the hallway behind him, wand already in hand. His expression was unreadable for a split second—just a man answering his door—but then his mouth dropped open, his hazel eyes going wide in disbelief.
“Hello, Potter,” Regulus drawled, utterly soaked but managing to keep his voice dry. He stepped over the threshold without invitation, peeling off his drenched outer cloak and slinging it over a nearby coat rack like he had every right to be there.
James recovered quickly.
He raised his wand and leveled it straight at Regulus’s throat. “Who the hell are you? What is this?”
Regulus didn’t flinch. “It’s me,” he said simply. “Regulus Black. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hex me into unconsciousness. I’ve had a very long walk.”
From the stairs behind James, another voice cut through the tension.
“James… is that—?”
Lily Evans-Potter appeared in the hallway, one hand resting instinctively on her growing belly, the other gripping the stair rail tightly. Her expression crumpled in shock.
“Indeed,” Regulus said, offering her a faint, dry smile. “It’s me. Sorry about the dramatic entrance.”
“But… you’re supposed to be dead,” Lily whispered, eyes wide with disbelief.
Regulus gave a small, half-hearted shrug. “Rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated.”
James didn’t lower his wand. In fact, he stepped forward. “You disappeared three years ago,” he hissed. “Sirius thought you were dead. Everyone did.”
“That was the idea,” Regulus replied, still calm, still frustratingly casual. “I had to disappear, or the Dark Lord would’ve killed me himself. Or worse, sent someone else to do it.”
“Why now?” Lily asked softly, still frozen on the stairs, protective hand on her stomach.
Regulus exhaled, long and tired. “Because I have information. About Voldemort. About how to destroy him.”
The room fell silent.
James blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“I found one of his Horcruxes,” Regulus said, the words heavy on his tongue. “Three years ago. I was sixteen. Stupid. Thought I could handle it alone. I couldn’t. I knew what it meant—what he’d done to make himself immortal—but I also knew I’d die trying to act on it. So I hid. I ran.”
“You ran,” James echoed bitterly.
Regulus met his gaze. “I couldn’t kill for him anymore, Potter. Not even pretend to. I joined the Death Eaters because my family expected it, but it didn’t take long to see the truth. Voldemort’s not a leader. He’s a monster. And I refused to be a part of it.”
James’s wand trembled slightly, but he didn’t lower it.
“So now you show up at my door, in the middle of a storm, after three years, after everyone thought you were dead,” he said coldly. “And you expect me to believe you’re here to help?”
Regulus tilted his head. “Yes. Because whether you believe me or not, Voldemort has to be stopped. And I know how to do it.”
Silence again, thick and electric.
Finally, Lily moved. “James,” she said, quietly but firmly. “Call the Order.”
James hesitated, then nodded.
It took all night—messages sent by Patronus, late arrivals shivering from the storm, cautious faces filled with doubt—but eventually, the Order of the Phoenix gathered in the Potters’ sitting room.
Some stared at Regulus like he was a ghost. Others like he was a bomb waiting to explode. But slowly, as he laid out the truth—what a Horcrux was, how Voldemort had used them, how to destroy them—the pieces began to fall into place.
By morning, belief had settled into the room like the fading mist outside.
Regulus Black wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t loyal to Voldemort.
And he was their best chance to end this war.
—
Sirius was the first to yell.
“No. Absolutely not. This is bullshit!”
His voice rang out through James Potter’s guest bedroom like a thunderclap, his wand clenched tightly in a fist that trembled—not with fear, but with betrayal.
He paced back and forth, his anger a shield against the tidal wave of confusion washing over him. “You expect me to believe this? That you—you, Regulus—of all people, faked your death, turned your back on Voldemort, and came running back to us now like some sort of martyr?”
Regulus didn’t respond. Not at first.
He sat on the edge of the bed, quiet, tired, letting his brother spit fury and disbelief until the storm passed. He knew Sirius needed to scream. He’d imagined this confrontation a hundred times during his years in hiding. This was better than some of the versions he’d played out.
“I didn’t come back for forgiveness,” Regulus said calmly, when the silence finally came. “I came back to help end him.”
The quiet between them stretched like a held breath.
It was only much later, when the explanation had run its course—about the Horcruxes, the locket, the cave, the magic required to destroy one—that Sirius sat down next to his younger brother, elbows on his knees, face in his hands.
“I missed you,” Sirius whispered, the words almost too fragile to carry. “Some days, I missed you so damn much.”
Regulus didn’t answer aloud, but his hand ghosted briefly over Sirius’s shoulder, a silent gesture of the same shared grief.
---
He was given one of the guest rooms in the Potter home—an act that surprised him almost as much as it had surprised James. But they were at war, and Regulus had knowledge the Order needed. And more than that, Lily had insisted.
Regulus couldn’t leave the house. It was far too dangerous; the Death Eaters still believed him dead, and there was no reason to change that. So, confined within the warm, magical safety of the Potter cottage, he helped.
He helped where he could: with household chores, ward strengthening, mail delivery via owl—whatever Lily, glowing and round with child, might need. She never asked for help, but Regulus offered it all the same.
James remained wary, reserved, his trust hard-won and slow to surface. Regulus couldn’t blame him. But over time, grudging civility thawed into something that resembled tolerance. They even shared quiet conversations when Lily wasn’t around, awkward and jagged but real.
It was Lily, however, who bridged the gap between them.
She and Regulus became fast friends in the strange stillness between war plans and nursery preparations. Her sharp wit reminded him of Pandora Rosier—his dearest childhood friend, long gone from his life. Lily's intellect, her fire, her easy laughter—it pulled something warm and familiar out of Regulus he hadn’t felt in years.
He found himself smiling more. Smiling at the ridiculous name James insisted the baby would have: Harry. Simple, utterly common, and yet somehow charming in its own magical way.
Regulus often stared at Lily and thought, Merlin, what a strange world this is. A fiery Gryffindor mother, growing life inside her, laughing with an ex-Death Eater who used to dream of her husband.
A mini James and mini Lily. What a terrifying combination, he mused with a grin.
---
The surprise came a few weeks later, bursting through the front door of the Potter home with the crack of disapparition and the pounding of fists against wood.
Regulus had barely reached the front room when the door flew open and a familiar voice shrieked, “REGGIE!”
Narcissa Malfoy, regal even while soaked to the bone, was sobbing as she flung herself into his arms, her rounded stomach between them, her sobs wracking her thin shoulders.
“I’m done,” she choked, holding him like a lifeline. “I’m done, Reggie, I can’t—he’s going to ruin everything, and I just—I couldn’t stay, not with the baby—”
Behind her, Lucius Malfoy stepped inside, soaked and eerily silent. His wand was gone, snatched the moment James appeared from the hallway with his own drawn and pointed.
Regulus immediately stood between them.
“No,” he said firmly, holding up a hand. “Don’t. Not yet.”
James looked moments away from doing something very un-Order-like, but Lily’s voice floated from the top of the stairs.
“Let’s hear them out.”
She descended slowly, cautious with each step, one hand on her stomach. Her voice wasn’t soft, but it wasn’t cruel either—measured, even, as a soon-to-be mother and soldier of the war both.
“We’ll contact the Order and see what they say.”
The tension was thick, but Lucius didn’t raise his voice or try to defend himself. He simply sat down, pale and rigid, and said:
“I had to kill a Death Eater to leave my home. The moment they learn I’m gone, I’m a target. I can’t be a spy—not anymore. But I can help destroy him. I want out.”
The silence that followed was heavy, punctuated only by the storm outside.
Eventually, the Order agreed. They couldn’t trust Lucius blindly—but his knowledge and willingness to act could tip the scales. There were Horcruxes to destroy, after all. And no time to waste.
Sirius, surprisingly, was thrilled. Ecstatic even. Both his cousin and brother were alive, in one place, and no longer chained to the nightmare of their shared family name. He rarely left their side in the coming nights, leaving poor Remus to suffer endless conversation with Peter Pettigrew, who tried and failed to bond with anyone in the house.
Regulus noticed. And he didn’t miss the way Remus quietly watched Sirius from the corner of the room when the Black brothers weren’t looking.
For the first time in three long years, Regulus felt something he hadn’t dared hope for:
A place. A purpose. A small corner of the world where he was allowed to exist.
He still didn’t know where Evan or Barty had gone—his best friends, his comrades in the youth he’d wasted. One had vanished; the other, perhaps, gone too far to be saved. The ache of their absence hadn’t gone away. But for the first time, it didn’t feel as sharp.
---
And then, just one week later—it happened.
They destroyed the locket.
The ritual was gruesome. The magic unstable. But together—James, Regulus, Sirius, and even Lucius—they pulled it off.
One Horcrux down.
One step closer to the end.
The war wasn’t over. Not even close.
But for the first time in years, the Order had scored a real victory.
One for the Order. Zero for the Dark Lord.
And now… the Hunt would begin.