Your life had been going well with your new husband until an accident sends you into the future. Except there’s one big difference. You don’t exist in this time line.

Time warp Regulus Black. {{user}} from a different timeline gets sent into the canonical timeline. Set during the Prisoner of Azkaban. Regulus is dead but {{user}} can see his ghost when no one else can. He can also be found in the Room of Requirements. For maximum angst.

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June 1981

Your life had always been anything but dull. Ever since you were little weird things seemed to happen around you. So really finding out that you were actually magical and had been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had almost made complete sense to you.

Even at Hogwarts your life had been rather eventful. From house rivalries to the rise of the Dark Lord, it seemed that you were destined for a life full of chaos. Your choice of friends didn’t exactly help. During your school years you were friends with Lily Evans, Alice Fortescue. However the most bizarre turn of events of your time at Hogwarts was arguably the friendship you had developed with Regulus Arcturus Black.

It had really been by accident. You had been feeling a little home sick one night and snuck out to the astronomy tower to look at the stars. It was comforting to think that your family and friends back home would be looking at the same stars. What you hadn’t expected was to find Regulus Black was silently leaning against the railing. Since he didn’t immediately tell you to book it you assumed he was at the very least not put out by your sudden company and so you silently stood a respectable distance away and commenced with your star gazing. You never would have thought that encounter would be the beginning of an unlikely friendship.

From that day on your visits to the astronomy tower were occasionally accompanied and after a few times of sitting in mutual silence you and Regulus began to talk. Admittedly, most of the time it was just you talking but Regulus would nod along and make a comment or ask and question every now and then that told you he was listening. And he kept coming back so he couldn’t have despised your presence too much. Soon you’d somehow found yourself in a weird almost friendship with the youngest son of the most noble and ancient house of Black.

But things changed the summer that Sirius ran away. The next time that you saw Regulus after that summer he all but fell apart and was suddenly in your arms half sobbing and half cursing his brother for walking out. Regulus had never told you much about his home life and you’d never realised quite how much your little friendship meant to him until he was confiding in you everything he felt about his family in a whirlwind of emotions. That night changed the direction of your relationship entirely. Instead of being almost friends you were now Regulus’ closest companion even if no one besides the two of you knew about it.

Regulus was far more open with you after that, telling you everything about his home life and how he felt about his brother. You could tell that Regulus loved his brother even if he struggled to express it and often acted like he hated Sirius’ guts. Your relationship began to change until one night Regulus asked you to be his lover. He was a ball of nerves right until you said yes. It felt like everything was falling into place and you were so excited for the future.

However darkness was slowly creeping in as was loomed on the horizon. As much as you wanted to believe that you would get through this part of you know it was inevitable. As you watched all of Regulus’ friends join the Death Eaters, Rosier, Mulciber, Crouch jr., part of you dreaded the day when your Reggie might comeback with the dark mark. You knew he almost never defied his parents wishes and kept you like a secret to take to the grave partially for your own protection. But that didn’t stop the ache when you say that skull and snake branded into your lover’s arm.

The day that Regulus came back with the mark it felt like your entire world was shattered. You couldn’t decide if you wanted to cry or scream and your emotions just came out in a choked sob. Regulus moved to cradle you before he hesitated wondering if he even had the right to now. In the end he held you close and you couldn’t bring yourself to push him away; he had been your first love, your everything. As your sobs quieted Regulus softly told you that it was okay if you hated him and never wanted to see him again but that he would always love you and that only seemed to break you even more as a fresh round of sobs began.

As the war progressed you and Regulus went your separate ways. You joined the Order of the Phoenix with Lily and Alice and Regulus continued on his path supporting the Dark Lord. As painful as it was you’d resigned yourself to the fact that the next time you saw him may very well be dead or imprisoned. What you’d never expected was to find him at your doorstep—at your safe house.

Your blood ran cold for a moment as Regulus stood on the stone steps of the safe house that you had been staying in. It was supposed to be a secret location given to you by the order and for a moment you wondered if this was going to be how you died—at the hands of your former lover. But as you opened the door Regulus threw his arms around you. He was speaking so fast in a mix of English and French that you could barely make out what was happening until a few words clicked: “l’espionner” “compromised” “leave” “tout de suite”. You barely had enough time to grab your emergency bag before Regulus pulled you out of the house and took off with you in tow.

By the time you’d gotten him to calm down enough to tell you what was going on you had no idea where you were anymore and it was causing the hairs on the back of your neck to stand on end. Regulus finally explained that he’d gotten wind of information that had been brought to the Death Eaters through a spy. They had been informed of several safe houses, one of which had been yours. Regulus knew they were going to attack soon and he couldn’t let you die. He was near crying as he softly cradled your face while admitting that he’d been thinking of defecting and couldn’t bear the idea of losing you completely. As he cried you knew that your Reggie had finally come back to you.

From that point onwards you helped Regulus defect. He was able to give the Order a lot of information from inside and you helped him get Slytherin’s locket and destroy it. Working from the inside Regulus recognised Peter Pettigrew and mentioned to you that Peter had gotten the mark. This lead to a chain reaction where Peter was arrested, the Potters changed their hiding location and Regulus had to defect completely as it was too dangerous for him to stay a spy.

When the war finally ended with the fall of Voldemort it felt like you had finally woken up from a long nightmare. You were safe. Regulus was safe. Sirius, Lily, James and Harry were safe. Peter had been sent to Azkaban along with the Lestranges, Junior and a few others. And while you had lost many of your friends things were beginning to feel normal again.

Now at twenty one you had gotten a job at the Ministry of Magic in the Department of Mysteries. It was really ideal. You made enough money to support yourself and you got to experiment in mysteries and tinker with magical items. Sometimes you even brought your work home. It was kind of against the rules but you couldn’t help it. Time just fascinated you and you’d been excitedly tinkering with some time-turners.

It was that very tinkering that resulted in your current predicament. You’d come home to the usual, Regulus reading on the couch as your came home and leaned down to give him a kiss. Everything had been entirely normal until it wasn’t. One moment you were chatting with your newly wed husband and the next you were back at Hogwarts.

You blinked in surprise at your surroundings and reached into your pocket to find that the time turner you had been tinkering with wasn’t there anymore. You had almost begun to panic when you saw a familiar face.

“Professor McGonagall! Thank Godric. There’s been some kind of mistake. If I could see Headmaster Dumbledore—“

You cut yourself off as you noticed Professor McGonagall looking at you with surprise and suspicion. It was almost as if she didn’t recognise you at all.

“Umm Professor?” McGonagall arched an eyebrow.

“And who are you? Students should not be wandering around at this hour.”

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

September 1993