Chapter 1: I shouldn't even be surprised anymore

I don't own 'Harry Potter'

He looked around the dilapidated house and felt a sickly feeling coil in his stomach, wriggling as he considered what this place meant to him as a person. This was now his house but he wasn't sure he could consider it a home, not with that state it was in.

Wallpaper peeling off the walls, scratched paint, faint scorch-marks that infuriated him when he thought of their origins ... That didn't even touch on the innate design of the imposing house, with rooms filled with questionable objects, the imposing décor to intimidate visitors, and the sensation of dark magic emanating from the very walls. 'Nightmare' didn't even begin to describe this place.

Harry knew that cleaning out Grimmauld Place was a task for professionals, but this was the house where he'd lived with Sirius, as brief a time as it had been, and he wanted to do it himself. This house had belonged to the Blacks before it passed to Sirius, and he'd left it for Harry. Not the Order, not Remus, Harry.

This place was his now and it was where his godfather had grown up. The building housed memories of his godfather, existing as the only way into the childhood of Sirius Orion Black. He hadn't ever been the most mature person or the most open-minded, but he'd still cared for Harry as his godfather. It was the only place that connected them, and he was loathe to let others – let strangers – barge in and change everything. If things were to change it would be because he was doing it, not anyone else.

He'd never had a home to share with someone he cared about before (other than his current situation with Teddy and Andromeda which had only been happening for less than a year), and despite the dubious nature of the place he wasn't about to hand off such a personal project to some random person. He could imagine it now; they'd either brag about being the one chosen to restore the home of the 'great' Harry Potter, The-Man-Who-Conquered (and really, what was up with magicals and hyphenated titles?), or they'd gleefully run screaming to the Ministry that the oh-so-pure Harry Potter had a home housing a number of dark and illegal artefacts.

People were arseholes. Though he did think it would be hilarious to see Kingsley try and explain that he'd already been in said house and seen said artefacts.

The kitchen had finally been scrubbed to perfection, the drawing room looked genuinely impressive with its gleaming grand piano and display cases of benign heirlooms, and the bedrooms were all to order once more. He'd kept Sirius' room the way it had been, lewd muggle pictures and all, and Regulus' room too was restored to its previous state. It might seem a little odd to anyone else but he couldn't bear the thought of changing the rooms.

Sirius' room was proof that he hadn't bowed down to anyone's expectations, the Gryffindor colours and muggle decorations painting a clear picture of teenage defiance. While Harry couldn't really understand acting like that, never having had guardians who'd wanted him to become a crazy bastard for prestige, he didn't want to forget who Sirius had been. This room encapsulated all that Sirius had been and it was going to stay that way.

The other room was quite odd to him but he couldn't bring himself to desecrate the image of Regulus Black in any way. He'd joined the Death Eaters, yes, but he'd gone into that cave knowing he could die and had even sent Kreacher away instead of trying to get help. Regulus was a man to be respected for his sacrifice and Harry could easily call him a hero. Granted it was easier to deem him a hero rather than Snape; Regulus Black hadn't been a man in his thirties who liked to bully eleven-year-olds for something that wasn't their fault. Petty arsehole.

He leaned back and stretched his arms above him head, grimacing at the cracking sounds coming from his back. He shifted from side to side to try and east the tense feeling and sighed in frustration. Harry was currently in the attic and had just come across a box that more or less screamed 'illegal'. It looked beyond creepy, a jet black wood engraved with images of dead trees and flowers, and Harry could almost feel the dark magic emanating from it. He knew that dark magic wasn't necessarily evil, but this feeling was beyond awful.

The problem was that even though Harry had almost been placed in Slytherin for a reason, he wouldn't have gone into Gryffindor if he hadn't been brave in some way or another. Even worse was that Harry was a very curious individual and his bravery often translated into doing things that he logically knew he shouldn't, but he still did because he was too drawn in by the temptation. (Just because he often did stupid things didn't mean he was unaware of his faults.)

With his inner logic telling him it was a bad, bad idea, Harry did as he usually did when that inner voice piped up and resolutely ignored it. He opened the creepy box and took a quick peak inside to see if anything could be salvaged from the evil-feeling magic, before he heard a frantic shout coming from behind him. He stood up and spun around, eyes glimpsing an old portrait before he fell backwards onto the box, smashing its contents and landing right in the centre.

He felt a strange pulling sensation like a portkey in his stomach, accompanied by a creeping blackness behind his eyelids. His last thought before he lost consciousness was to question why Sirius' family had been so nuts. That, and why he couldn't just listen to that bloody inner voice of his for once.

Waking up, Harry groaned at the rhythmic pounding in his head. He hissed at the bright lights in the room and clenched his eyes shut, trying to block out the sharp pain. He knew he shouldn't have opened that bloody box, but once more he proved he was more curious than a box of Kneazles and completely ignored common sense. Why he did things like this he'd never know, and it was even worse to realise he'd probably end up doing something this stupid again.

He wiggled his body and resisted the urge to swear violently, knowing full well the situation was his own damn fault. Usually returning to the land of the living was accompanied by soft pillows, a warm duvet, and the smell of food wafting through the house from one of the interfering house-elves from Hogwarts who'd randomly decided to work for him after the war. (No matter what anyone said to him he was convinced the small creatures were all insane.)

Returning to consciousness this time was not as comfortable as usual, not least of all because he was tied tightly to a chair, and a rather uncomfortable chair at that. Taking a deep breath, he slowly opened his eyes and blinked rapidly to adjust to the light. He looked up and surveyed the room, realising that he was apparently still in Grimmauld Place if his eyes weren't deceiving him, and he looked to be in one of the sitting rooms upstairs.

Though it was certainly strange; the paint wasn't faded and peeling, he couldn't see the damage from any of the numerous infestations the room had suffered, and the old-fashioned décor looked cared-for instead of falling apart. The curtains hadn't been chewed through by Doxies either, and he was startled to realise there were many more artefacts in the room than he'd previously thought.

It was when someone entered the room that his mind froze, chest beating rapidly at the visage of the man before him.

Sirius.

No, wait. This wasn't Sirius. He was taller than Sirius, more refined in his wardrobe, and his facial expression was tempered by a control his over-enthusiastic godfather had never bothered with. This was Regulus. Harry recognised him from the various photos he'd seen over the years, dotted all over Grimmauld Place and the one Slughorn had shown him.

Somehow his life had once more taken a turn for the unexpected – and this seemed to be really unexpected, even for him – and he was now face-to-face with Sirius' dead brother, who was actually looking rather well for a man who'd probably been eaten by magical swimming zombies.

All in all, Harry was surprised but not too surprised by something like this happening. Either he was dead and his fellow dead man had tied him to a chair for some reason, which wouldn't be the strangest thing that had ever happened in his mad mad life, or he was in the past. Great.

He thought he could be excused for the sudden decline in his ability to care anymore.

"Am I dead?" he questioned rather apathetically.

The grey eyes looked at him with an unimpressed but confused expression, as though Harry was a puzzle he couldn't quite figure out. Given the circumstances he couldn't blame him. Harry was familiar with the puzzled expression though, it usually appearing whenever he said or did something that didn't quite conform to people's expectations of what The-Boy-Who-Lived should be like. It's not as if he was a person who had his own ideas or anything. Idiots.

"No, you are not. Would you care to tell me how you got in this house?" Oh look, he got his equilibrium back. He had a feeling it was a pure-blood thing.

Harry blinked at him, trying to figure out which way this would go. "Er, okay. I was cleaning the attic of this house, then I smashed a box, blacked out, and woke up tied to a chair."

Regulus scoffed and glared at him. "You don't honestly expect me to believe that, do you?"

"Well considering the Regulus Arcturus Black I know of is very much dead, I can only assume I'm dead too or I'm somehow in the past," he mused, "which given the crap that usually happens to me, I wouldn't be too surprised about."

That seemed to get a reaction, and Harry was rather smug about managing to break the other man's composure. Regulus looked beyond shocked at his words, as though the apparent time travel was a complete novelty. Harry honestly thought after years upon years of his crazy life this really wasn't the worst thing that could happen by a long shot, but what did he know?

"The past?"

"Hmm, what year is it?"

"Nineteen seventy-nine. It's July," Regulus bit out, looking quite tense

Harry swore under his breath. "I'm not even born yet. Hell, I haven't even been conceived yet. Great."

The Black narrowed his eyes; it would have been more intimidating if he weren't so pale from fear. He also had the same eyes as Sirius, who hadn't been the most serious of men anyway, no pun intended.

"Who are you?"

Should he answer truthfully? Hmm … why not.

"Harry Potter."

Grey eyes widened minutely. "Potter? Like James Potter?"

"My father," he stated.

After the brief questioning Harry sat back and watched Regulus go over the new information in his head. The man was a true Slytherin and Harry knew full well that he hadn't provided any absolutely irrefutable evidence to support his words. There was no doubt in his mind that Regulus would force him to tell the truth, either through a Vow or Veritaserum. Not that Harry could blame him; despite his appearance in Grimmauld Place not having a decent explanation otherwise that didn't mean that Harry was telling the truth. Not that he could be bothered to lie about anything. Though Regulus unfortunately wasn't aware of Harry more or less being out of fucks to give and not caring who knew that time travel was a thing.

He didn't care too much about what the other man would try and do to him; he could probably break the ropes around him considering his magically-repairing and reappearing wand that wouldn't just leave him the fuck alone. (Why he'd thought simply snapping and throwing a wand bestowed by Death down a ravine would serve to get rid of it, he had no idea.) The benefit to having the Elder Wand (aka the wand that doesn't stay broken) was that it couldn't be taken from him by anyone else – one of the 'perks' of being the Master of Death. Another included the ring that was on a necklace around his neck, and he took a moment to wonder if there were now duplicates of the Hallows. What did that mean for the ring Horcrux?

"That doesn't explain how you got in the house." Regulus' voiced broke through his contemplation, and Harry looked up to see a troubled expression on the other man's face. He had a feeling that Regulus had already figured out the future wasn't all sunshine and roses if a Potter was roaming freely through a Black property.

"It's my house in the future and I inherited it from Sirius when he died. He was my godfather and the last Black left, so ironically he inherited everything even though he ran away." Harry always did think it was a funny turn of events.

"He died?" There was a broken quality to Regulus' voice as though he couldn't comprehend the words Harry was speaking. He could relate. Even after seeing Sirius fall through the Veil he hadn't been able to wrap his head around it. Sirius was Sirius, and him being dead wasn't something that should have been reality. Harry saw a flicker of misery in Regulus' eyes and felt awful that the two brothers had died thinking that the other hated them, when the reality was that the opposite had been true.

Perhaps he could change that.

He might be the sort of person who ran into crazy situations without thinking things through but he was well-aware of the intricacies of time travel. Hermione had gone on about it long enough after third year that he knew about all sorts of problems that could occur if someone messed with the timeline.

People could die, people might not be born, and things might change too drastically. On the other hand, hundreds of people had died first time around, his parents would probably get around to having a kid or two eventually without a war hanging over their heads, and people like Sirius wouldn't get fucked over by life.

Screw keeping the timeline in order.

"He was killed by Bellatrix."

Grey eyes widened. "She –"

He stopped suddenly, hissing in pain as he clutched his forearm tightly as if to cut off the feeling. He breathed in and out for a few moments to get the pain under control before he grabbed something in his pocket. Regulus started to pull it out so that he could look at it, and Harry got a brief glimpse of a gold chain before it was put back out of sight.

Regulus straightened up, breathing deeply as he did so. "Whether or not you're telling the truth is irrelevant at this point. I have places to be, so –"

The chain. Like a necklace … Like a locket.

Green eyes snapped up, startling Regulus from his words with their intensity. "You're doing it now, aren't you?"

"I beg your pardon?" he frowned.

Harry glared at him. "The locket. You're about to go to the cave with Kreacher and swap the locket Horcrux with a fake."

Regulus drew a sharp breath, face paling rapidly and shoulders tense as he seemed to prepare himself for an attack. Or to hear something he didn't want to but needed to know nonetheless.

"How do you know that?" he whispered, looking terrified at the possible answer.

"Because when I was sixteen I found out that there was more than one Horcrux and that I had to hunt them down and destroy them," he replied, trying to ignore the flashes of memories from being on the run.

"… How many are there?"

Harry mentally calculated, going over Voldemort's life up until this point. "Right now there are five: Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup which is in Bellatrix's vault, Ravenclaw's diadem which is in Hogwarts, a diary which is in Malfoy Manor, and the Gaunt ring in their shack."

The man paled even further as Harry spoke. "He split his soul so many times?" His eyes then narrowed after catching the implications of Harry's words. "You said 'right now'. Does that mean he will make more?"

He nodded. "When I was fourteen he turned his familiar into one."

"I see."

"… And when I was a baby, he murdered my parents and accidentally turned me into a Horcrux."

Regulus looked horrified at the mere idea and Harry could understand why. When you truly considered what it was to carry a piece of someone else's soul in your body, especially the soul of such a tainted individual, the conclusion was beyond disgusting.

"You're a Horcrux?" Regulus murmured.

"Was." He didn't want to get into that right now. That night in the forest still gave him nightmares.

Thankfully Regulus dropped that line of enquiry and turned his attention inwards. The Black looked contemplative after the new revelations and Harry hoped that he could use his words to convince Regulus of the truth. There was no other way he could possibly know of the Horcruxes, which meant Harry was likely being honest about the others – which he was, but Regulus was a Slytherin and they were nothing but careful.

He knew that messing with time was dangerous but he hadn't been in Gryffindor for nothing. If he could do something to stop hundreds of people dying needless deaths he would do it. He could still remember the picture of the original Order of the Phoenix, and the people who'd died sometime in the next couple of years. Marlene McKinnon, Benjy Fenwick, Caradoc Dearborn, the Prewett twins, Dorcas Meadowes, Edgar Bones and his family … his parents. Would it really be acceptable for him to just sit here and do nothing?

"Regulus."

Said man looked up questioningly, grey eyes meeting green with an intensity not unexpected for the situation.

"Let me help you."

Regulus looked into Harry eyes, holding his gaze for the longest time as he seemed to search for something. Eventually a determined look came across his aristocratic face and he walked closer to Harry's still-bound form. He deliberately unsheathed his wand and slowly pointed it at Harry who forced himself to remain still despite the urge to blast the other man into the wall. Regulus' expression didn't waver from the blank worry and he flicked his wand casually.

The ropes vanished into thin air and Harry was enjoying unrestricted movement once more. He stood up and stretched, wincing as his bones cracked in his back again. It kind of felt like deja vu. He turned to his companion and held out his hand with a smile.

"Hi, my name's Harry Potter."

"Regulus Black."

Their hands clasped and a partnership was formed. Harry smirked inwardly.

Game on, Tom.

A/N: Hello everyone!

This is actually a story I started after trying to write a quick oneshot/drabble for my other story 'A Different Kind of Magic', but it kind of snowballed into its own multi-chapter thing and here we are :)

It won't be incredibly long, probably about 10-15 chapters, but I've already got most of it written.

I will say this: Voldemort will not be some massively terrifying villain. He isn't necessarily the focus of the story and therefore won't have much screen time. His death will actually be pathetic. I'm not joking either, it's ridiculously crappy. The only reason I'm saying this now is so I don't get tons of hate later if people get invested in the story. If you want a story with well-written action and drama, this is not the story for you. If you want Harry to be just like canon, this is not the story for you. This is entirely self-indulgent from me battling writer's block for my other stories.

Sorry for the little rant but I really hate getting massive flames from fanfiction. It's not as if it's Rowling's original story; if people want to read something just like canon why are they on this site?

Anyway, thanks for reading :) Until next time :)