Firstly, I want to apologize for this not being what you all expected of an update but would like to reassure you that the usual hodge-podge cheerful chaos that is #Uncle Skull will proceed as usual in the next chapter. But why the interruption? It's to address the chaos of this...well I wouldn't call it a story but AU, and several wishes for it to be an actual story.

The thing? I see four different stories in the 'verse.

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Ex Umbra In Solem
- From the shadow into the light.

Takes place in the "present" from where Sirius blows Skull's cover with the patronus, continuing from that very first scene.

Cool metal butted the side of his head and Skull winced, regretting taking of his helmet. "Lackey." The tone very nearly made him flinch, he'd heard it a very small amount of times but when he did…

"...ex umbra in solem…" He sighed because he'd doubted he'd be able to avoid answering or that he'd successfully obliviate them. "The dog was something called a patronus and it's, well, magic."

"You don't act like a wizard," Viper inserted their opinion and it felt like they were watching him keenly.

Skull blinked, though, as a thought occurred, "Are you-"

"No, I'm a squib." Which, from the sharp tone, was obviously a sore topic for them. It was likely that they were disowned, then.

"Magic," Verde scoffed, "Are you trying to tell me it's real?"

"I don't have to tell you anything," Viper bit, "You witnessed proof with your own eyes."

Reborn cut in, "Both of you shut up. Lackey, talk."

He didn't want, Skull really didn't want to - there was a reason he had put so much effort to keep his two lives separate (and if he were exasperatedly fond that it was Sirius who ended up exposing him well, none of the others were a Legilimen) - but he'd already decided that Obliviation wasn't an option.

"I was born in England," he started, opting against mentioning that he was a pureblood - or a Black. "And when I turned eleven I got an acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry..."

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Auribus Teneo Lupum
- I hold a wolf by the ears.

Takes place in the "future" as a 'what if' story where Sirius never sends the patronus and Skull doesn't learn about what happens to his family until he decides to return at the start of HP canon

Back when Skull was younger, when he was more impulsive and reckless to make foolish promises and with enough stubborn pride to keep them no matter how foolhardy it was, he had sworn to never return to his homeland - the United Kingdom in general and the British Wizarding World specifically.

He had been seventeen when he swore to never return, recently graduated from Hogwarts and feeling at the top of the world and as if he could achieve anything if only he tried hard enough. It was a rapid mood shift when he returned home, riding high on his achievement and the idealism that came with being a newly declared adult, and was besieged by older members of his family.

Oh, they were subtle about their intentions but the absence of those he could claim as allies - Narcissa and Alphard, even Sirius and Regulus - at was supposedly a celebratory dinner made him suspicious. For all his suspicion, he held too much...faith in his family and it was something Walburga and Cygnus took ruthless advantage of.

If Oodako hadn't decided to secretly hitch a ride with him to dinner instead of napping in his room, if Regulus hadn't asked Kreacher to help him escape, if Narcissa hadn't manage to steal back his wand, if Sirius hadn't manage to smuggle his trunk away before Walburga burned it, if Alphard hadn't had a plan for when he escaped...well, Skull's life would have been vastly different.

(It kept him up at night sometimes, the thought that Oodako hadn't acted fast enough and Skull had lost parts of himself to his family's attempt of making him better as according to their standards.)

When he'd gotten over the shock of it all and started to feel rage at how uncaring the House of Black as a whole treated family, Skull had discarded his birth name - had effectively disowned himself - and, in all the self-righteousness of a seventeen year old, swore then to never have anything to do with them and their precious Wizarding World again. It's a promise that Skull's self-aware enough to admit he'd have likely kept if not for the combination of working with the other Arcobaleno, being cursed and drastically failing the mafia's expectations of 'the world's strongest Cloud' humbling him enough that he'd entertain the idea of going back.

But, years after he swore never to return, in 1991, Skull was setting foot on UK soil once more.

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Usque ad Finem
- To the very end.

Takes place in the "future" as a 'what if' story where Sirius never sends the patronus and, in Harry's fifth year, Dumbledore asks Skull to be the DADA Professor

Skull is alone when he get the letters, one from a beautiful snowy owl and the other from a phoenix of all things. He read the phoenix's letter first, finds that it's from his old headmaster and that he's being offered a job as a teacher. The Defense Against the Dark Arts position to be specific.

"Really?" Skull asks the patiently waiting phoenix, now identified as Fawkes, gesturing to himself. "I look like a toddler and he want me to be a teacher?"

Fawkes trilled.

He read the letter from the owl next, surprised to find it from a Potter- Skull had only known one Potter and that was his nephew's friend, both had stopped writing to him sometime in the late seventies, as did the rest of his family who'd kept in contact. Not that it was their fault, it was around that time he'd been cursed and forced fully into the Mafia, he didn't have time to try and contact them and when he did, it seemed...wrong to write back after years of silence.

Reading the Potter's- Harry- letter, Skull wished he had done something.

"Sirius was in Azkaban!?" Skull growled and he knew his eyes were glowing purple. He hurriedly and jerkily scribbled a not and gave it to the phoenix, "My reply." He hissed.

Fawkes disappeared in a flash of fire with a note that said: I accept. One Week.

Skull shot off a series of texts to the Arcobaleno before sitting down to write a reply to Harry, making sure to add a part for his nephew.

Harry didn't know what he expected when he sent off a letter to Sirius' uncle, who apparently disappeared completely right before his parents died, but he knows it wasn't an actual reply. But that is what he got, Hedwig looking particularly smug as she held out her leg for him from where she'd landed in front of him.

"Who's that from?" Ron asked, leaning towards him.

Harry carefully took the letter, "Sirius' uncle."

"You wrote Izzy?" his godfather gapped, "And he replied? I know he's alive- the tapestry would have said if he died- but I thought he was in a coma somewhere or something like that...what'd he say?"

Harry blinked, shifted his glasses then started reading his letter aloud, "Hey Harry, your dad was Sirius' roommate right? The one who was a chaser on the Gryffindor team? He married that one red-head, the muggle-born, huh? So I guess your her son also...that was. Err. Let me start again, it's been a while since I've written anyone and I'm a bit out of practice. Right. Hello Harry, thanks for writing me. I'm very grateful. No, I had no idea that your parents died or that Sirius was sent to Azkaban- without a trial you said - I haven't had anything to do with the magical world in years, magical Britain in decades. Honestly, I hadn't even known a war had broken out since no one- Sirius I am talking to you since I know you're there - saw fit to inform me of that little fact.

I was cursed an, well, I'm sure you'll see when I get there. Yeah, Dumbledore asked me to be the DADA professor and I agreed to teach for the year. Now, can you tell my stupidly brave nephew something for me? Tell him I love him, that I'm sorry I didn't come back and that I never thought to check on him. Tell him I'm coming home. - Skull de Mort, formerly Izar Black. And that's it."

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Astra Inclinant, Sed Non Obligant
- The stars incline us, they do not bind us.

Takes place in the "past" and is about Skull's life as a Black.

Izar has always hated his first name - what kind of person named their child Anguitenens of all things? - but he couldn't help but feel pure, unaltered glee when Professor McGonagall called out, "Black, Anguitenens!"

When he got his Hogwarts letter he was- well, not startled. He was a Black and had been doing accidental magic since he was three, of course he was getting a letter to Hogwarts. Still, it was a kind of surprised pleasure that filled him as he opened his letter, the kind one got when receiving a gift even if you were expecting it, and that pleasurable feeling only grew as he first went to Diagon Alley for his supplies then days later went to Platform 9 3/4 to ride the Hogwarts Express.

Now, being called up to be sorted, Izar was nearly bursting with joy.

If only Cissa could be standing there, watching as he was sorted then he in turn watching as she was sorted, then everything would have been perfect. But, then, that was the consequence of befriending someone younger then you. Besides, Cissa's betrothed was at Hogwarts which meant he had an entire year to test the Malfoy to see if he were good enough for his Cissa.

He's certain Bella would assist Izar in dealing with Malfoy if he decided that the blond was less then satisfactory.

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See what I mean? Anyways, for those reading on AO3 the stories, when posted, can be found in the same series that this work is now in. For those on FFN, it's a bit more tedious because there are nothing like series there and I can't put a link but if you go to my profile then follow the Sister Profile link at the top, these stories will end up being posted on my alternate account Etirdoyn

*mutter* of course there's more then four ideas, like what if Skull were a Black squid? or what if he could use his Cloud Flames earlier? what if his magic mixed oddly with the Arcobaleno Curse and basically left him as an ACTUAL child? what if Skull had stayed and fought against Voldemort before he met the Arcobaleno and they meet him not as a stuntman but a magical war veteran? what if the Arcobaleno Curse made him have outbursts of Accidental Magic? what if Skull is an Obscurial and his Cloud Flames are the reason he's lived as long as he has? what if 'godparent-hood' is magical for the wizarding world and when Sirius is sent to Azkaban, Skull wakes up to find a baby Harry in his bed? what if-