Author's Note: Wow... I bet you did not think that I would be back?! It has been quite some time since I have last updated... too long in fact. It feels as though a lifetime has passed since I have been on this site. So much that has happened during the time since I have been here... Well I will not go into detail at all because I know so many people will probably want to reread this story before reading this chapter! I know I had to! Anyways, without further ado... too much time has passed as it is, the long awaited next Chapter! If you haven't realised this story is a slowburn one, but I believe it will be worth the wait!

First of December, 1968

6:00 pm

"This is rubbish!" Regulus exclaims as he paces about the Room of Requirement. "I will not stand here and listen to this bollocks a moment longer! If you two are having me on, then just come clean now and I will forgive you, though it will take a bit of time for me to forgive, mind you." He stares at the two witches in front of him. Andromeda was standing further away, silent, as she digests everything Hermione said.

"It makes sense to me Reg," Andromeda states softly as she moves towards her sister and her friend. "After all, I did hear part of it when I was listening with Bella while we hid in the bushes when Hermione was talking to Mister Scamander."

Hermione turns towards Bellatrix, "How much did you hear that day?"

"Well, you didn't go into as much detail with him as you did us, now did you?" Bellatrix asks as she stares at the brunette's arm that had once been scarred by her future self causing Hermione to tug on the sleeve.

"Of course I wouldn't go too much into detail with him," Hermione answers as she moves about the room. "I haven't went hunting for Horcruxes with him like I have you lot."

"I haven't went with you either to hunt for those things," Andromeda pipes in with a smile.

"And you aren't going to!" Bellatrix exclaims as she stares at her younger sister. "I do not enjoy having you know about any of this to begin with, but since you were the one who went with me to find Hermione, I can not change the fact that you know. But... I can keep you from helping us with these dangerous artefacts."

"She doesn't have to help us with destroying them, but she can help us locate them," Hermione suggests causing the younger Black to smile brightly and Bellatrix's frown to deepen.

"Don't get her hopes up, Hermione," Bellatrix mutters as she moves away from her cousin and closer to her sister. "She is not going to help us with this matter. It is enough that she is helping to keep the Headmaster's prying eyes from us. But she is not..."

"We haven't even been able to do anything to keep Dumbledore from knowing what you are doing! No one even knew what exactly is going on!" Andromeda shouts out as she stares at the older witches and wizard in front of them. "I bet you haven't even figured out where these Horcruxes are! How can you say that you won't allow me to help when you lot have done nothing so far! Is this all just pandering on your behalf or is there something of substance?"

"Now Andi..."

"No Hermione! I am through with being in the dark! This madman is very real to all of us and has done something to my family recently! Mother and Father have never acted this way before! I want our old life back!" She crosses her arms in front of her. Her chest rising and falling from pent up rage. "I can't stand to see Father turned into a fawning school-boy in front of a man as disturbing as this Riddle fellow."

"She's right Bella," Regulus says softly as he stares at his older cousin. "She is making the same argument you did when you first found out what we had done." He glances back at Hermione who was leaning against an old curio cabinet. "I always knew something was off about you," Regulus grumbles out as he continues to stare at the brunette. "So you aren't having me on? You really are from the future?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell us earlier? I had often wondered why you were so invested in this," he continues as he starts to pace. "A witch whose parents would have nothing to do with this at all. A mother who was an American Pure-blood long deceased and a father who is a squib."

"It is still all my past, Regulus," Hermione states softly as she moves from the curio. "My grandparents on my father's side are the people who I used as my parents for this time, but since coming back in time, they are now my actual parents. I have not lied about any of this... I simply stretched the truth a bit."

He chuckles ruefully. "I would say so... but then again the Fates seem to favour this all instead of the truth. Since they helped you with the task of changing the birth certificate and all." He shakes his head at the thought of everything he had been told. "I don't understand it all. Half the things you have spoke of sound like complete rubbish, but you have yet to steer me wrong, Hermione. So, I'm with you."

Hermione smiles at his statement, then turns so she sees everyone, including the ghost that had now drifted in the room. "So now that everyone is up to speed, I think it is time to move forward." She turns to Andromeda as she digs into her robe pocket. "Now you said you didn't believe that we had even found any Horcruxes?" She pulls the remnants of the two Horcruxes from her pocket and places them on a table near the curio cabinet she had been leaning on.

All three Blacks walk over to the table and stare in wonder at the mangled bits of metal that had once been jewellery. "How did you find another one?" Bellatrix asks softly as she stares at what was once the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw.

"I remembered where Harry had found it and went ahead and destroyed it when I destroyed the locket we had found in the cliffs."

"How did you destroy them?" Regulus queries next as he stares at her.

"It wasn't easy..." she begins as she squirms slightly under his intense gaze. "Before, when we had first tracked them down, we had the Basilisk's fangs as well as Godric Gryffindor's sword that had been imbued with the monster's venom. I knew that none of my past exploits with the beast had occurred yet so I..."

"A Basilisk?" Andromeda exclaims as she steps away from the table. "Where in bloody hell did you ever run across one of those? I thought they were extinct!"

"Language Andi!" Bella intones as she gives her sister a withering look. "What would Mother say?"

"You say much worse, Bella," the middle Black sister states as she turns to look at her older sister. "I remember one day you told Lucius he could..."

"Anyway," Hermione interjects when she realises that the two were about to start an argument. "I knew that Fiendfyre could also work just as well, so I set the Room of Requirement up as a practise room and destroyed the two we had already found."

"So it shouldn't be a problem now, right?" Regulus asks as he straightens up from inspecting the detritus. "We should be able to get rid of Him now that these are out of the way."

"No, He has more," Hermione states quietly as she pulls a slim piece of parchment out of her other robe pocket. Walking swiftly away from the destroyed Horcruxes she quickly conjures another table and places the scrap in the middle of it. Waving her wand once more, the brunette enlarges the parchment. "I keep it as innocuous as possible, just in case Dumbledore happens to have a time to rummage through my robe."

"That is an odd thing to say," Regulus states as he conjures four chairs for them. "How, in Merlin's name, would he even get near your robes in the first place? Do you think him that maniacal that he would dose you with a love potion so you would..." he cringes before he could finish the sentence.

"Eww," Hermione groans out before shuddering herself as she sits down and places her hands on the table. "That is not how I imagined my reasoning. It is not an image I want in my head, thank you very much. No, my thoughts turned to more of a possible accident befalling myself and he sneaking into the room they place me in and peeking through my things."

"Nothing will befall you while we are all here," Bellatrix whispers softly as she takes a seat next to the brunette. Her hand runs around along Hermione's shoulder before squeezing the brunette's hand, dropping it before her sister or cousin could notice.

Hermione nods her head stiffly at the sentiment before clearing her throat and opening the parchment in front of them. "Now, this is a list of all of the Horcruxes we had found in 1998. Their locations are on here as well."

"By the gods..." Regulus breathes out as he pores over the page. "Seven... And here we learn that Mordred was evil!"

"Granted, there may not be as many now since He still has thirty years to accumulate more, and consider the fact that Harry's parents are barely hitting puberty right now, we can safely say he does not have seven right now."

"He does not have a snake about Him when He comes around to our parent's house, so it is safe to say that He probably doesn't have that one either." Andromeda pipes in as she points to the item on the list called Nagini the serpent. "I wouldn't think that a snake could live that long anyway."

"That is true," Hermione muses as she puts a mark beside the snake. "But we can never be too sure. Who is to say that this unholy merging of His soul within the snake does not give it an unnatural life?"

"So, maybe we should focus on ones that could be attainable?" Bellatrix suggests as she points to the word journal on the list.

"How is that one more attainable than the others?" Hermione asks as she looks at the black-haired witch beside her.

"Think about it Hermione..." Bella states softly as she points to Lucius's name beside the journal. "If Lucius had it in your time, it is still within his family. His father Abraxas was part of the Knights of Walpurgis. They tried to induct my father and Regulus's into the fold before I was born, but Father would have nothing to do with it. He wanted to remain neutral." She smirks as she leans back in her chair. "From what I hear from Narcissa, whenever she has to spend time with Lucius, he can never keep his big mouth shut about how his father is one of the Dark Lord's favourites."

"It does make sense," Hermione says thoughtfully as she taps the nib of her quill against the ink pot she had summoned from her rucksack. "But how can we find out where it would be within Malfoy Manor?"

"You can leave that part up to me, Hermione," Regulus states with a smile as he conjures a quill and writes his name on the empty space beside the location of the journal.

"And how do you expect to pull that off, Reg?" Bellatrix says with a huff as she stares at her cousin.

"All in good time, dear cousin!" he replies with a smirk that makes Hermione roll her eyes and sigh at his attempt to get under Bella's skin.

"Let's finish up here before everyone starts bickering again, shall we?" she states as she looks over the parchment again. "Is there anything anyone can think of that might be in his possession now as opposed to looking at the ones he does not have yet?"

"I have an idea," Myrtle murmurs from above their heads. She drifts slowly downwards when they all look up at her, the air becoming freezing as she descends to hover over the table. "I remember the diary... he had it when he was a student here in Hogwarts. I also remember him wearing a ring while he was here. A simple looking thing. I never spent time around him, I was too busy trying to hide from him and his cronies, but I do remember him saying that he had received it from his mother's side of the family."

"It makes sense," Hermione murmurs as she circles the word ring on the list. "In my time, Dumbledore often suspected Him of using items of significance to the Founders of Hogwarts, as well as family heirlooms. His mother was a Gaunt, so He prides Himself on the fact that He is descended from Salazar Slytherin. The ring was supposedly His mother's."

"So," Andromeda pipes in after listening silently. "We destroyed two items directly related to Founders... Slytherin's locket and Ravenclaw's diadem. I assume, like most Slytherins, he would not have anything to do with Godric's sword. That is why you were able to use it during the future. So, what is the item He used from Hufflepuff?"

"A goblet," the brunette witch says as she looks at the Black sisters.

"And where did you find that?" Bellatrix asks as she looks up from parchment and stares at the brunette.

Taking a deep breath that she did not know she needed, Hermione stares back at Bellatrix. Their eyes linger on one another's for a brief moment. "Your vault," she answers quietly, her eyes closing to break contact with the other witch.

"My vault," Bella murmurs as she looks down at her hands, the conversation from before still lingering in her brain. The dark-haired witch is silent for a few moments as she lets this newfound information digest. Shaking her head to clear it, the eldest Black takes a deep breath and tries to smile. "At least we will know where that is in this time."

"Oh and where would that be?" Hermione asks, slight confusion marring her face.

Andi smirks and rolls her eyes at the brunette. "Did you not just learn that most items are passed down through wizarding families? It would be in our parents vault. If not in the house itself. It would actually be easier to get to than the journal at Lucius's manor, and with holidays coming up, it will be very easy for Bella and I to look for it. We can even have Mippy help us!"

"Who's Mippy?" the brunette asks with mild amusement at Andi's excitement.

"She's our nanny elf," Bella explains rolling her eyes slightly. "And how do you expect Mippy to help, Andi? She belongs to Mother and Father, she would rather beat herself to death than to go against anything they say?"

"But she wouldn't be going against them! She would..."

"She would be breaking their trust," Bella states softly to her younger sister. "You remember what happened to Wingely don't you?" At the name of their former house-elf, Andromeda gulps visibly at nods her head slowly, biting her lower lip to keep the tears, that had suddenly crept up, at bay.

Bellatrix leans closer to Hermione. "This summer, he had accidentally stepped into Father's office while Father was in a meeting with that man after Father had said he did not want to be disrupted. Honestly, it wasn't Wingely's fault. It had been time for supper and Mother was upset that Father had yet to show up at the table and turned to Wingely to make sure Father was present. The poor elf... he didn't want to disobey Father, yet he also did not want to disobey Mother. So he went anyway to collect Father and as soon as he stepped over the threshold, he started to beat himself uncontrollably with a cane that was propped in the corner of the door."

"That's horrible!" Hermione whispers back.

Bella nods solemnly. "He's dying words were that he could never go against the wishes of either his master or mistress and that he hoped he had served them well to the end."

"That's not just horrible, it's barbaric!" Hermione states when Bellatrix leans back into her chair. "Did this happen before He came into the picture?"

"No," Regulus answers. "It never happened in either of our households until this man showed up. So you see why we really need to help you end this quickly? We all just want our lives back to normal... our parents back to normal."

"I understand," the brunette replies with a sigh. "But do you understand why I said we need the others involved as well? We cannot do this alone. Even if it is to have the misdirect Dumbledore while the three of us..."

"Four of us," Andromeda corrects with a sniffle.

"Okay, four of us do the rest?" Hermione continues with a roll of her eyes at the middle Black's remark.

Bellatirx smirks at Hermione's exasperation at her younger sister, but agrees none the less. "You are right of course," she starts as she slowly gets up from her seat. "I see where we need more people added into the picture now, but can we trust them with this intel?"The eldest Black paces back and forth as the rest of their group stares up at her from their seats. "Now hear me out before you voice objections, Hermione," she continues as she feels the brunette's gaze upon her increase. "If we let the lion's into our den, who is to say they will not go running off to their mother? You know how they can all be, one little thing that does not adhere to their moral compass, no matter how grey it may be, and they will scamper off to find McGonagall; who will then speak with Dumbledore and then where would we go from there?"

The dark-haired witch stops her pacing and turns to stare at the rest of the group. She eyes each one carefully until her eyes fall upon the brunette's uncertain countenance. Bellatrix opens her mouth to speak again, but is silenced by Hermione's gaze as it clears. As the brunette meets Bella's gaze, the dark-haired witch feels a shudder pass through her body as a wave of understanding the shift in atmosphere around them. The brunette clears her throat bringing everyone's attention to herself. "Then if that is the case, in which I am sure you all would know best, we can always have them make an Unbreakable vow."