oo1. [Accidental Video]

[the_noble_black]

[The video feed clicks on with a wet, sopping sound. The sound of waterlogged fabric slipping along itself. There's a resounding thud as the figure crashed to the floor. It's hard to see, at first- whirling, obscuring robes, collapsing in on itself, water flung off of fabric and skin and blurring the camera.

Black, waterlogged hair, clinging to soft, pale cheeks. Gray eyes, visible just for a moment, before the boy convulses on his hands and knees, retching, emptying murky water from his mouth, his throat, his lungs. The water tinges pink; blood stains at his lips. He trembles, shakes, screams, and the weight of his wet cloak overpowers him, drags him down into the ground his nails scratching bloody marks into the floor as if he's still drowning. There's only a flash of his left forearm, but the traces of a tattoo should be burned enough into the memory of anyone who cares to recognize it.

But this isn't about Regulus Black being a Death Eater, it's about Regulus Black being dead.

Or- close enough, anyway.

The feed goes black after another long moment]

Comments

[Video // Private // Unhackable]

[the-noble-black.livejournal.com]

[He tries to wrack his brain- even with the way his mind was working, Regulus still knows the uses of the wrong information. He'll never speak about the cave, the locket- but the year? Harmless enough.

But he doesn't even understand the question at first- thinking it applied to his year in Hogwarts, and he almost blurted out that he'd graduated already before shaking his head, trying to remember the way Tom had worded it.]

Uh- nineteen... nineteen seventy-nine. [That was accurate enough. Nobody would think worse of him for telling the year (why would he even want it, how disconnected was this place from his own world? Tom's quick explanation rattled in his brain for a moment, but he couldn't process it, not with everything else he was trying to come to terms with).]

[Video // Private // Unhackable]

[nexmosnonlucror.livejournal.com]

[So when he was at the height of his supposed power, according to what every other Mudblood and wizard in this world has been whispering behind his back. Tom is interested, quiet, contemplative.

Regulus surely must have come here after Voldemort murdered him.

The thought sparks a special kind of pleasure inside of him. But why did he kill him? For what purpose? Surely he must have done something idiotic to warrant the use of his talent, but what? Had he been a failure? A traitor? Why?]

From my future, then.

[Calmly, almost soothingly, to give Regulus something to focus on.]

I'm from the year ninenteen forty-five.

[Video // Private // Unhackable]

[the-noble-black.livejournal.com]

Oh.

[He can't think of something else to say to that. He tries to think of a Tom Riddle that he knows- he wracks his brain (maybe someone in the ministry? Maybe extended family?) but he can't think of a single person named Riddle. Certainly not from one of the main blood lines in Europe, he learned his ancestry charts before he could spell his own name. This was, perhaps, one of the few times that Tom's humble beginnings worked to his advantage.]

I don't know you.

[Video // Private // Unhackable]

[nexmosnonlucror.livejournal.com]

You do -- just not by my name.

[But Tom moves on relatively quickly.]

You will need to take refuge somewhere safe. I'm certain Severus will arrange it.

[Video // Private // Unhackable]

[the-noble-black.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[He knows that, somehow.]

Thank you. [For talking him through the waiting, if nothing else.]

[Video // Private // Unhackable]

[nexmosnonlucror.livejournal.com]

[A small smile.]

Of course.

We'll keep in touch.