Chapter Text
a hooded figure walks up the steps to number 12 grimuald place,
silently opens the door and enters.
regulus black has never been one for big changes, yet here he is, ending his hunt for horcruxs, and his time outside of civilization, and coming back into the world of wizards in one of the most hectic ways possible.
never in his life did he think he would end up a proffesor at hogwarts, and he deffinitly didn't see it being during dumbledores time there, but here he is, coming home from hunting for the last time. he has spent 12 years hunting horcruxs, but not all of it was alone.
in the begining it was just him, then pandora joined, but she had a child to look after. however she refused to let him do it alone, so she roped in barty and evan, after the cave he was on hiatus, evan and barty took care of him for a bit, and pandora helped a lot. he went back out, searching for hints and clues alone, until voldemort died. that night he made a visit to one minerva mcgonagle. she was surprised to say the least, but she helped him, and in the end he ended up with a lot more support and his friends no longer hunted. but thats not to say it was easy going after that. the amount of death eaters he and his friends rounded up, just to interrogate and interview, as well as take memorys from in hopes of finding more info from them, only to send them off to the aurors, well, lets just say regulus had seen far to many faces of past aquintances to last him for the rest of his life. it took 2 years for them to get their next lead, apparently albus had had info on the mans background the entire time. it only took 3 months to find the second horcrux, and it would take another 8 to find the third, after that there was a pause, most of the order had retired and gone about their life now. but regulus still had work to do, he did however start to see his family a bit, he got to know his cousins and their familys once more, with the exception of sirius and his family, as well as bellatrix as she was in prison, he had his family back. things went slower after that, and he had absolutly nothing for 6 years, but then he got the tips, one was from narcissa, she talked about lucius having a spot in his office with an odd amount of dark magic, and the other came from narcissa's friend, caroline zabinni, she said that bellatrix had bragged to her late husband about having a "treasure" from the dark lord entrusted to her. both leads turned up with profit, a notebook and a cup, this took him a year but he was getting closer. regulus believed there was 1 more, and the cup gave him an idea, he searched for the last horcrux in hogwarts, in a room he had found and used a lot during his time there, the come and go room. it took two months of searching to find it, but he did, the lost diadem, and in doing so he became rather good friends with remus lupin.
12 years.
12 years of searching, of combing through clues and leads, of chasing down death eaters and having court visits. he spent a year integrating into society, taking over the black family responsibilities. first was the laws that still needed updating, then there was the rounding up and sorting through of all dark magic artifacts. most would be held in the family vaults or in some of the family estates, some would be turned in, and a few would be kept in the house of his, in order to ensure their safe keeping.
the last thing he did was go over the family businesses, most were perfectly fine, clean things, some were a bit darker but that didn't much matter except for making sure they weren't hiding any other death eaters, and the last was hogwarts.
it came as a surprise to him that hogwarts, a school famous for allowing muggle borns and half bloods in, would be owned by the blacks. but it did mean he had a say in how it was ran. and he intended to fix the pregiduces the best he could, and so, here he was packing his things to become the first ever hogwarts counselor. he left the other 7 counselor positions up for mcgonagle to decide, much to Dumbledore's chagrin, and had absolutely no idea who she chose.
as he folded the last of his cloaks and placed it into his clothing trunk, he looked around the room. there were 3 other trunks, one with supplies for his job, one for clothes, one for personal hobbies, and one specifically for books. unsurprisingly the one for books was both the largest and had the most expanding charms on it.
he shrank the four trunks down and placed them in one pocket, grabbing the bag of gifts for the others, and the cage with hagrids gift, he called out to kreacher and they headed off to hogwarts.
this loophole was one he had found when he was much younger. he used to use it to have kreacher help him get ready and to research things, now he uses it so he doesn't have to wake up at 8 o'clock to get on a train for 8 hours before waiting for 2 hours during the welcoming ceremony, then going through the dinner, and then getting to his room with no time to unpack.
walking up the steps he passed multiple house elfs getting rooms and the castle ready. walking to the administration tower, he found the room with his name on the door and entered. the room was mid sized, with built in bookshelves and a couch inth e center facing a floo and behind it was a counter connected to the small kitchen. there was glass french door that lead to a small office, and a jack and jill bathroom connected to it that went to the bedroom, which connected back to the living room/kitchen.
heading into the bedroom he walked to the closet and placed down the first trunk, allowing kreacher to go through that one, he walks back to the office and places down the trunk with his hobbies and personal items, taking an hour to unpack that, he then began unpacking his many books, which he also ended up needing to place in the living room and bedroom bookshelves. he then moved onto transfiguring the furniture. turning the couch to a velvet green sofa and then transfigured two matching chairs. placing multiple family pictures around the room, he transfigured a plush green rug, and changed the end tables and coffee table to be ornate mahogany, and two bar chairs by the counter.
checking the time he began walking down to the great hall about 5 minutes late.