Chapter Text
Rain tapped softly against the windows of Ashdown Books while Adrian Vale stood alone between crowded shelves, stacking the books.
The shop smelled of dust, coffee, and old paper. Warm yellow lamps glowed against dark wooden shelves stacked so tightly with books that the narrow aisles felt almost maze-like. Outside, late autumn rain blurred the streets of London into streaks of gold and grey.
The clock above the counter read nearly half past eight.
Closing time.
Adrian absently rubbed at his left forearm as another sharp pulse of pain burned beneath his sleeve.
Again.
For three weeks now.
At first it had been occasional — a strange warmth beneath the skin, uncomfortable but brief. Then it became worse. Burning. Stabbing pain that woke him in the middle of the night gasping.
And every time it happened—
More memories came back.
Not complete memories.
Fragments.
A cave filled with dark water.
A heavy golden locket.
Green light.
Screaming.
A name : Kreacher.
Adrian pressed both hands against the counter and closed his eyes.
He had known for years that something was wrong with him.
The doctors had called it traumatic memory loss.
Sixteen years ago, a man with no identification had been found unconscious along the northern coast of England after a violent storm. Hypothermic. Half drowned. Feverish with strange scars and injuries no hospital could properly explain.
No family came for him.
No missing person report ever matched.
And when he finally woke days later in hospital, he remembered absolutely nothing.
Not his name.
Not his age.
Not where he came from.
Nothing.
The nurses had called him lucky to be alive.
He hadn’t felt lucky.
For months after leaving the hospital, he drifted through life like a ghost wearing someone else’s skin. He eventually chose a name for himself because he had needed something to write on forms.
Adrian Vale.
It sounded ordinary.
Safe.
He built a quiet life around that name.
A small flat above a secondhand bookshop. Long hours stacking shelves. Tea gone cold beside half-finished novels. Silent evenings spent staring at rain against the windows while feeling certain he had forgotten something important.
Something terrible.
Even before the memories started returning, he had always known there was darkness buried inside him somewhere.
Sometimes he woke shaking from nightmares of cold water and dead hands dragging him downward.
Sometimes he caught himself tracing unfamiliar patterns in the air with his fingers and strange things happened around him: Lights flickering. Objects moving. Windows rattling.
Instincts he could never explain.
He had stopped questioning them years ago.
The bell above the bookshop door jingled suddenly.
Adrian straightened immediately.
An elderly customer shuffled toward the counter carrying three books in her arms.
“Sorry, dear,” she said apologetically. “Didn’t realize you were closing.”
“That’s all right.”
Adrian forced a polite smile and rang up the books automatically.
The woman peered at him carefully.
“You look pale tonight.”
The pain in his arm flared again violently.
For one horrifying second—
A flash.
Stone basin.
Green potion.
A voice begging desperately:
Master Regulus, no—
Adrian nearly dropped the book in his hands.
“You all right?” the woman asked quickly.
“Yes,” he said too fast.
The lie sounded hollow even to himself.
The woman left moments later, the doorbell jingling softly behind her.
Silence returned.
Rain. Clock ticking. Pain burning beneath his skin.
Adrian exhaled shakily and locked the shop door before pulling down the sleeve of his jumper.
Then he froze.
The black mark on his forearm looked darker than ever.
Clearer.
Like ink resurfacing beneath old paper.
He stared at it.
Not a bruise.
Not a scar.
A tattoo.
A skull with a serpent twisting through its mouth.
Every instinct inside him recoiled from it.
Fear slammed into him suddenly so hard his knees nearly buckled.
Not fear of the mark.
Fear of what it meant.
Another flash hit him violently.
A pale man with red eyes.
Laughter.
Pain.
Kneeling on cold stone floors.
Adrian staggered backward into the shelves.
Books crashed loudly onto the floor around him.
“No,” he whispered.
His pulse thundered painfully.
The name came again.
Clearer this time.
Kreacher.
Why did that name matter?
Why did saying it feel like grief?
Adrian pressed a hand against his burning arm and looked around the empty bookshop as though expecting answers to appear between the shelves.
Nothing moved.
Only rain outside.
Only silence.
And yet—
The name sat in his chest like something alive.
Kreacher.
Slowly, uncertainly, he spoke aloud.
“Kreacher?”
For one second, absolutely nothing happened.
Then the air cracked apart.
A small creature appeared in the middle of the shop with a loud pop.
Adrian stumbled backward instantly.
The creature looked ancient and half-starved, with enormous batlike ears and huge bloodshot eyes. It wore what looked like a filthy towel tied around its body.
And the moment it saw Adrian —
It froze.
The creature’s eyes widened impossibly.
A cracked teacup slipped from its hands and shattered across the floor.
“...Master Regulus?”
The words hit him like lightning.
Adrian stared.
Regulus.
The name stirred something he could not place.
Another name came to his mind.
Sirius.
The creature began shaking violently.
“No,” it whispered. “No, Kreacher saw Master Regulus die— Kreacher watched—”
Its voice broke completely.
Then suddenly the creature let out a horrible choking sob and threw itself at his feet.
“MASTER REGULUS!”
Adrian recoiled in shock.
“Kreacher?” he repeated weakly.
The creature clutched desperately at the hem of his coat, crying so hard it could barely breathe.
“You is alive,” Kreacher sobbed. “You is alive alive alive—”
Adrian's head spun violently.
Master Regulus.
The cave.
The locket.
The mark on his arm.
Memory crashed into him in broken shards.
A dark house.
A laughing boy with grey eyes identical to his own.
A screaming woman.
The name Black.
Adrian grabbed the edge of the counter to steady himself.
“Kreacher,” he said hoarsely. “Who am I?”
The house-elf stared up at him in devastation.
And slowly, carefully, as though terrified the truth itself might break him, Kreacher told him everything.
About his real name : Regulus Black.
About the Noble House of Black.
About Sirius.
About Voldemort.
About the Dark Mark burning beneath his skin.
About becoming a Death Eater at sixteen.
About the cave.
About the locket.
About the night Regulus Black chose to betray the darkest wizard in the world.
About what happened after he died.
About the dark lord being defeated by a child named Harry Potter.
By the time Kreacher finished speaking, nearly an hour had passed.
Regulus sat motionless beside the counter, face pale and hollow beneath the dim shop lights.
“I died,” he whispered finally.
Kreacher shook his head fiercely, tears still running down his wrinkled face.
“No, Master Regulus survived.”
Regulus laughed once.
A quiet, broken sound.
“Did I?”
Kreacher hesitated.
Then very softly:
“The Dark Lord has returned.”
The words sucked the air from the room.
Regulus looked up sharply.
“What?”
Kreacher twisted his hands nervously.
“He returned months ago. Harry Potter saw it. The Ministry is denying it, but the Order of the Phoenix knows.”
Harry Potter.
“The child survived?” Regulus asked faintly.
Kreacher nodded eagerly.
“He defeated the Dark Lord as a baby. Then the Dark Lord returned this summer.”
Regulus’s stomach twisted violently.
All those deaths.
All that horror.
And Voldemort was alive again.
His arm burned sharply as though responding to the thought.
Regulus stared down at the Dark Mark beneath his sleeve.
For sixteen years he had lived quietly above a bookshop believing he was no one.
And now suddenly he remembered everything.
The worst part was this:
He remembered choosing.
Choosing Voldemort. Choosing darkness. Choosing wrong.
And far worse—
He remembered failing.
“I didn’t destroy it,” Regulus whispered.
Kreacher looked heartbroken.
“No, Master Regulus.”
Silence filled the little shop.
Finally Kreacher spoke again carefully.
“The Order of the Phoenix uses the Black family house now.”
Regulus blinked.
“What?”
“Headquarters,” Kreacher said proudly. “Professor Dumbledore may help Master Regulus.”
At the mention of Dumbledore, unease curled sharply through Regulus’s chest.
But beneath it came something else too.
Hope.
Thin and fragile.
“Is Sirius there?” he asked quietly before he could stop himself.
Kreacher hesitated.
“Yes.”
The single word shattered something inside him.
Sirius alive.
After all these years.
Regulus looked suddenly terrified.
“I can’t just appear there.”
Kreacher looked at him as though the answer was obvious.
“Master Regulus belongs there.”
Regulus closed his eyes.
The rain continued outside. The bookshop lights glowed softly around them. The small flat above waited in silence.
The life of Adrian Vale.
Safe. Ordinary. Anonymous.
Gone.
Slowly, Regulus stood.
“Kreacher,” he said quietly, “take me home.”