The crash of pots and pans falling straight onto them from above may as well have caved in all their skulls at one time. The resulting noise caused just the faintest of shouting from above, but whether their own trapped magic or the age of this mansion, the door blocked out the majority of the foul language their landing had activated in the decrepit house.

Frank was the only one who landed under the table somehow, and he got the book in his face for his troubles. He'd crawled out from under the heavy wood only to see James hitting the door with a cast iron skillet, spurred into the insane task it seemed by Walburga Black's voice loudest of all calling nobody all sorts of shite once more above them.

"Um," Frank rubbed at his forehead in concern, only for the last kettle to come tumbling down as if waiting for its victim.

Alice and Lily came over to help get him to his feet while Remus and Sirius continued to watch in mild concern as Regulus told Peter, "welcome back to my place."

"The locket," Peter realized, eyes flickering to the ceiling. "Prongs-"

"There's, no, f'ng way-" he grunted as he kept fighting with the nothing, "we're sent back here, only to not, grab it!" He slammed the metal down so hard on the handle there was an actual ringing left in place and finally stood there panting in frustration.

"Why is Harry here?" Lily agreed as she watched his face grow steadily more red. "If the Ministry collapsed, this isn't exactly the first place I'd run to."

"Oh but it should be," Sirius grimly corrected as he looked around every crevice in disgust. "They were fortifying this place for their own nefarious ideas back during the first war when Voldemort was gaining power. It's only gotten worse since then, this is probably one of the most heavily guarded homes in Britain even before that messed up Fidelius Charm."

"But Snape can get in here, Harry knows that," Frank needlessly recalled as Lily pursed up her lips.

"Guess we should find out what's going on then," Sirius said slowly, eyeing the book with distaste as any number of awful possibilities could have led to this. Had Harry been taken here, was this Voldemort's new stronghold? It would be fitting.

Then his eyes settled on Regulus, who had an old familiar look on his face Sirius recognized in an instant. He was chewing on his cheek, rotating an old copper pot nearly the size of him slowly. "First though," he called grandly, as if his parents were in the room to be distracted, "we need snacks! Reg, where does Kreacher hide the good biscuits?"

His face brightened in an instant, he stopped rocking it and went jogging to the cupboards, his small frame struggling only for a moment to get himself onto the high counters. "Mum still doesn't know I can reach," he told with a familiar impish grin to Peter, but only because it was Sirius' natural state when they were planning something, it was rare to see him carry it. "Kreacher will tell me if she has him doing something that'll take a while," he opened up a cupboard door that creaked ominously and barely had to wobble or duck under it to stand completely and reach the top shelf, but he did have to put his foot on the lowest section to reach up, "so I can sneak in here and grab, aha!"

The dusty old tin didn't look like much, it was ancient and black with the Black family crest impressed in silver on the top just like every bloody thing in this house, but the lid came off with ease, and inside was an assortment of ginger snaps, chocolate fingers, and shortbread that still smelled fresh.

Sirius was the last to reach for one, despite this being his idea. That tick of his little brothers was still in full swing as he plopped on the grimy counter and enjoyed his treat, and he wished so bad he could ask. That he hadn't ruined things so badly between them it wouldn't feel manipulative to steer the conversation right into Regulus asking why he hated this place so much, if his brother would even believe it of the parents he adored so much. Maybe he was being as arrogant as he accused them of being anyways, assuming whatever question he was pondering was even about this place, them, him, and not something else on his mind.

He glanced at James, still tapping his wand restlessly on the door as Frank sat at the table, getting crumbs all over the pages as he read out A Place to Hide. Remus was hovering right behind him as usual again, playing with the cuff of his sleeve and eating his third chocolate finger. Sirius passed his, only one bite taken out of it thank you, to him and murmured softly, "go check on Prongs, yeah?"

He looked startled, and then just a bit relieved. "So it's not just been me? You know what's up?"

"He's annoyed at you," Sirius gave him a little push, at least he could fix something around here still. "Go talk to him before he decides you're hiding that horcrux." Prongs had been making faces at Remus since Sirius had told him they were sleeping together, and Moony needed to explain himself to James already.

Remus huffed and popped the rest of the biscuit in his mouth, but cringed as Harry and Hermione ran desperately through the wedding looking for Ron, passing every person he cared about in danger and knowing it could be his last. He swallowed around the suddenly stale tasting sweet as he was mentioned with Tonks, throwing up shield charms, staying behind to help.

Sirius leaned against the counter as he went over, only watching for a moment before tipping his head back, an oddity to have to look up at Regulus, still sitting back straight somewhere Walburga would whack him head over heels for if she found him up there. He did care to get involved dammit, he just didn't know where to start anymore. Baby steps? "Going to the Quidditch game when we get back?"

Regulus gave his brother a scandalous look. Did he even know he was on the team? "Of course! It's the finals!"

"Right," he huffed, this kid could get offended about anything. If only they knew what had spurred him into getting that locket, they could harness that into a destructive weapon.

Regulus considered him for a moment before adding, "might even be lucky enough to play."

"Yeah?" Sirius sized up the third year in surprise. "Didn't poison someone to get in there did you?" It was mostly a joke, but he wouldn't have been surprised to hear otherwise.

Regulus shoved at him to go away, expecting Sirius to laugh and join his mates and ignore him as usual after making an arse of himself for the insult, as if he couldn't get in on his own merit. He didn't though, just reached over for another biscuit and winced at the fight in the muggle shop where Harry and his friends had to defend against two Death Eaters appearing out of nowhere and just, stayed in place. He glanced at Peter, but he was sitting on the floor, being weirdly quiet as always whenever Sirius was around.

"Um, no," he finally answered his big brother. "The idiot Seeker's been going back and forth to the hospital wing for the last week because some girl shoved a toad in his ear, Madam Pomfrey hasn't figured out how to get it out yet. Keeps laying its eggs, mess has been getting all over the common room. Don't ask what he did to deserve it, I don't know, but if he wasn't cleared by classes today I was getting off reserve to go in."

"Congratulations!" Sirius, actually meant that. He couldn't hear a trace of sarcasm in him. "Don't expect us to go easy on you though," he added with that patented superior smirk.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he promised.

Remus wished he'd thought to bring a biscuit over to him, he probably looked like an ass and kept scratching at the crumbs on his lips. "If you're that eager for a bit of Voldemort's soul to possess you, I know this lovely fool, perfect for a good pretend stutter, he'll give you all sorts of advice over it."

James looked at him in surprise. "You think Qurriell knows about these things? Now?"

"You're not the only one trying to stop all this Prongs," he reminded. "He's worth looking into," he shrugged, "at least to find out where he is now. Why he'd travel to Albania. It struck me as strange back then and even now I can't imagine what was going on to instigate Voldemort being there."

And there it was. James gave him such a weary smile. "Planning on a trip Moony?"

He hesitated and looked back at the ample space of everyone else still at the far end of the room and couldn't imagine why Prongs wouldn't just tell him. "You've been annoyed at me Prongs," Remus finally couldn't take it anymore. "Please tell me."

He looked about denying it for one more second before finally sighing and saying, "was trying not to show it, sorry."

Remus snorted a laugh in surprise. "Well, you were doing a passable job, but please, out with it before the next catastrophe. Even Sirius has started to notice, the oblivious idiot," he said fondly, but then watched as James' mouth tightened in that now familiar way. "Oh bollocks," he muttered.

"It's not because you're sleeping with him prat," James said instantly, lowering his voice just a tad and still watching him from the corner of his eye, but it was still a bit menacing with that heavy metal in his hand. "No, I'm annoyed you didn't want to tell me you wanted to! I know it was you, not him."

Remus swallowed, he hadn't been expecting to be the one on the hot spot here, but tried to soothe his friend, "I didn't tell anyone, you heard us before. Not spoken a word of it ever." James didn't seem to believe this anymore though, puffing up his cheeks like he was physically holding back words and giving the skillet a toss into a corner. Remus frowned in his own bit of hurt. "You don't believe me?"

"I just, don't get why you didn't," he shrugged. "Apparently I was the last one to figure it out, but Merlin, I still don't get why you couldn't have told me."

"It was nothing personal Prongs, honestly. We did not know the others noticed. Okay, maybe Peter," he lightly amended, "we suspected he knew, but he's a twitchy idiot who watches everyone and we were trying to be subtle. At least I was, for the most part," he finished in exasperation, still a bit in wonderment he'd given up on that and could have gone over to kiss Sirius now if he wanted to.

James was still watching him, kind of scrutinizing him a bit like this still wasn't the answer he wanted. "Okay, so I'm an oblivious idiot, but, why were you keeping it a secret at all?"

Remus watched him in just as much confusion back, not following one bit. "My excuse for not telling was still the same as when we started, I had a crush on him and didn't want to admit it. I never thought he'd go for dating me, even you didn't. He didn't have a problem telling you from the beginning though, that was all me."

"Did I do something to make you think you couldn't tell me?" He finally flat out demanded.

"No, James," he promised at once. "There's nothing that I wouldn't tell you that I wouldn't tell Sirius." He ran his tongue over his teeth again and sighed. "Hell, sometimes you're a little more sane to talk to, I think Sirius has a bit of a blind spot on me and I might need your help to remind him sometimes we don't know everything about werewolves no matter how much we like to pretend out in our Forest."

"Oh," James looked appeased enough with that answer and seemed happy to let it drop, but Remus started playing back some of it now. Sirius had only asked about telling James again back in the alleyway after he'd kissed him that time. He'd gone very overtly touchy after that as well, when before he'd been a lot more subtle.

"Huh," he muttered in wonderment, chancing a glance back at him again. Maybe Sirius had started reciprocating a crush even sooner and even Padfoot hadn't realized it, he sure as hell hadn't thought to notice the change as all over the place as he'd been. He looked back at Lily and gave her a smile of thanks, now he was very positive she'd been right. She caught his eye and gave him a little smirk back.

James reached out spontaneously and gave him a little thump on the chest, his heart slammed into his ribs like Prongs had slugged him. He'd never done that to anyone but Sirius. James just walked past and finally stowed his wand away, throwing himself into a chair at the head of the table and tried to get Alice's attention, but apparently that wasn't happening while Frank was reading, she was curled into his side and listening contently even as the trio came to the uneasy conclusion this was the safest place to hide out for now. So he found himself talking to Lily. She cupped her chin on her hand and the two began an easy report of different healing charms and their varying levels.

Remus shifted restlessly and glanced at the ceiling, he couldn't decide if he wanted Harry to have the same revelation they had about the possible locket being here. He should have wanted it, but none of them liked the idea of any of the trio wearing that thing anymore than them. He went over to the table and sat by James, watching the story wearily.

Sirius gave Regulus a little pat on the knee and waited for him to smile again before jogging over. Moony sat at the table like a normal person while Sirius sprawled out nearly across three seats, leaning across them all and resting with his back on him, wiggling around, and then picking up his arm and using it as a cushion instead, draping it over the back of a chair so he could lean farther into him.

The Dusty Dumbledore was clearly giving Padfoot the creeps more than he'd admit, or Sirius was trying to distract him, both were working wonderfully. "What's the first thing you want to do when we get back?" Sirius asked out of the blue.

He let his fingers trail along Sirius' arm, just lightly over the blue sweater so Sirius would lean further into the contact, which he did. "Send a letter to my dad," he admitted, "ask if he always knew about Greyback and didn't tell me."

Sirius huffed, but when he didn't continue he prompted, "and then?"

"Don't know," he admitted. A meeting with Dumebldore would be needed, but he'd definitely prefer that to be private. Sirius would respect that, but he'd assume it was for the wrong reason until he came back with an answer. He didn't want to leave school, just maybe something else to keep him in check besides an easily pokeable tree. "Sort of jammed on that a bit, I don't even know what I want him to say. I don't even know how I'm going to say it, can't exactly go around spontaneously spouting that can I? And you," he said quickly, more than happy to change the subject.

"Send a letter to Andromeda," he sighed, still watching his brother out of the corner of his eye. The muffled rant of his mother just under the book had not dimmed one jot and somehow gave him even more punctuation. "She's been having issues with her own parents for ages. I don't know when things go bad exactly, not even sure if she's met Ted yet, but I'd like to talk to her."

"It'll be so weird when they have Tonks," Moony said with that same odd tone in his voice Sirius couldn't begin to guess at as he tipped his head back to see himself being watched. He didn't respond, and Remus rolled his eyes and added, "wonder why they only stopped at one kid."

It was barely perceptible, a wistfulness as he spoke of something more concrete in this future finally. Sirius heard it though, and sat up in surprise.

A wash of jealousy slammed so hard into him he wouldn't have been surprised if he glanced down and saw himself green. It was exactly that feeling though, he was completely confident of this even if it was the first time he'd ever felt it. The idea that Tonks, that others could give Remus something he couldn't hadn't even crossed his mind until this moment. "So that's why you keep bringing Tonks up?"

Remus seemed startled for only a moment, before flushed and looked at his lap. "And also why I still wasn't very convinced you, um, knew full well what a commitment even was, let alone would date me." He sheepishly agreed. "I just found it weirdly hard to believe you had no problems at all with the idea of me being with others, mister I'm so overprotective I don't care how many detentions I get for someone using the word werewolf in my presence." He quickly tried to soothe, "I kept telling myself though it was just more of your, ah, separating sex and feelings thing though. Sorry."

Sirius tipped his head to the side and thought about that for a moment, though he'd hardly been concerned, or jealous of Tonks. He wasn't exactly one to judge if Moony even had past lovers, or sideways alternate lovers in some other future, the oddball. Remus was probably right though, if they had gotten back to school and he'd found out Moony was sleeping with someone, he well might have gotten possessive and not even registered it correctly, as much as he'd been getting frustrated at Remus pulling away and hadn't even known how to put that feeling together yet. He very much doubted their keeping it casual would have lasted at any rate now.

No, he was flummoxed at the idea Remus wanted kids. Shit, should he have known that already? He certainly didn't, the idea of just being the fun Uncle and passing them back to James was more than enough for him.

"Um," he certainly wasn't going to put this off, if this was going to be a problem he definitely needed to say so now. "You and Tonks though, I, err, we don't exactly have the right equipment. If you're being, literal I mean, and I don't really, want any of my own."

"Oh," Remus went bashful rather than upset at least, rubbing awkwardly at his face, he even rotated his mouth around like he was fighting back a yawn. "Well that's perfect then, isn't it? I'd never even, Merlin, the idea of passing my affliction on to a child like that," he seemed plenty upset now, but at least Sirius got this one and reached up to gently touch his face, he could feel a ball of tension right where his jaw curved into his cheek, and felt it through his skin this time as he seemed to lick his teeth.

"We could always take one of the Weasley's kids when their parents aren't looking," Sirius teased, and at least this did sound slightly more bearable than handling an infant. Loud, smelly things that they were, why would either of them want that? Chasing after a toddler was absolutely in his wheelhouse at least. "Like Charlie, get some sanity into that dragon trainer kid before he loses his marbles. Hell, I'm kidnapping the twins on principle, you must have known that already?"

"Right, of course," Remus grinned and relaxed back at once. "I'm so sure Arthur and Molly won't even notice."

"You're always so sure of what you want," Sirius said in amazement, trailing his hand lightly across his cheek. "Do you really have your life just all planned out?"

"I'm trying," he admitted with a sick feeling growing all the time as he thought about what kind of life he had to go back to as he flexed his jaw in disgust.

Sirius heard that too, his brow ruffled up in concern as he felt the knot return under his hand and fully meant to ask just what he was still holding back, but then they were warned the chapter was almost over.

Regulus finally crawled off the counter and sat on the floor next to Peter, still a bit in awe Sirius had really been sort of trying just then, but also still hugging the biscuit tin to his chest and not quite believing he hadn't tried to run off with it.

"You two always bring out the worst in each other," Peter told him as he reached over for a short bread.

"I noticed," he agreed, "it's like it's his life mission to find everyone's breaking point and see how far he can push after that." He took out the last ginger snap and wistfully thought of maybe next time asking Kreacher if he could help to make these. Mum would have a hippogriff he was sure for trying to help the servant, but she'd see it was just in fun, right? His eyes flickered in unease to the magically sealed door and wondered if he was still a coward for not having to confront that again just yet.

He snapped it in half and offered it to Peter as he said, "I have this theory Sirius is still looking for every one of the ways to piss off our parents, but I want to try something else with them." At least he wouldn't be so blunt as outright asking, he could just subtly start doing little things and easing them into the idea.

Wormtail froze with a look on his face Regulus now belatedly recognized as the same one he'd had when he'd been keeping his mouth shut about what Sirius and Remus were up to, but not quite right. This was no indulgent silence for not saying his friend's business, as Sirius was over there sprawled half in the guys lap, but he couldn't imagine what Peter was choosing not to say.

Peter was looking guiltily back and forth between the two Black's, he had zero desire to get in between them for any reason and already knew he was probably stepping on Sirius' toes never to be forgiven for befriending the kid he'd never spoken of and kept out of his life and clearly now regretted that to some degree. He absolutely would not just sit back and say nothing though, he'd held his mouth shut before when James couldn't even get Sirius to say what all those parents of theirs had done to punish Padfoot, he didn't think he could stomach the same ignorance befalling Regulus if he really went through with that. "What, ah," he stopped and looked longingly to where Sirius was, but he was obviously having some kind of conversation with Moony not to be interrupted as he got him to blush. He didn't know how to stop where this was heading. "Sirius never, um, mentioned, well, you never wondered why Sirius hated them so much?"

"Figured it was James and Remus' influence more than anything," Regulus shrugged. "He was weird when we were younger, sure, but he still talked to me sometimes. It got even worse that first summer of his back." He'd tried so hard to play peacemaker between their parents and Sirius, doing everything right to get their praise and then trying to make Sirius smile. It was like a balancing act, tiptoeing the line between what mum and dad would smile at him for and made Sirius scowl and pick another argument with them over the silliest things like their parents didn't know what they were talking about.

Okay, so maybe they didn't know everything like he'd always thought, that line was now blurred along the edges, but he still wanted to help his brother see it wasn't so bad here. He could never have both, he knew that now, Sirius just didn't want any part of this place that he felt intrinsically tied to. "I guess now I sort of get it, having a werewolf for a friend and someone like James who wouldn't tolerate any part of this, he doubled down on those stupid arguments he'd pick with them."

"Arguments," he repeated grimly, that's all Regulus ever referred to them as and he'd never questioned it, it's not like he could judge Regulus for staying out of them, but he wasn't going to not get some clarification on that now. "You know how those arguments got resolved?"

"I told you," he muttered with the first hints of shame for being so useless. "Just avoided them."

"Right," he sighed, he'd known that too. The littlest Black wasn't just going to do that again, there would be no going back once this started. "Regulus," hell, there was no easy way to say this. "If you go back and do anything remotely like that, there's a good chance they'll shut you up the way they did him until they think you're repentant enough not to do it again. You keep asking, thing's will, get worse."

Regulus just looked at him for a long time with an unreadable expression. He'd once promised the future wouldn't affect their friendship over the act of murder, but maybe his past wasn't as easy to trifle with to him. He wasn't going to pander him though. To lie about this would be letting him walk into something blind, a stolen gift of their future he wouldn't condone on anyone.

His solid black eyes got steadily wider the longer he watched him, and then finally he looked from Sirius, back to him, and the most concerning paleness crept across his face, his jaw went slack like he'd been rendered thoughtless, and he strangled out an, "oh," as the tin fell out of his hands with a noisy clatter.

Well, at least he believed him.

Then every door in the house banged open at once, and Regulus screamed.