Xander's arrival; library corridor [MB, AL, ML, RL]
WHO: Narcissa Black, Alexander Lestrange, Meda Lestrange, Rabastan Lestrange
WHERE: Library corridor, ?
WHEN: 17 September 1001
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Xander is pulled from his own time to reunite with Meda and 'meet' his parents and family. IN-PROGRESS log.


Narcissa left her books and stacks of notes behind in the library, taking only her journal and a quill as she moved toward the doors. Alexander. Meda's brother. Another child to make three - but only two now, as Draco had not ended up here either. Running a hand through her hair, she pushed the door open and moved outside.

Xander normally would have been quite calm and centered, the one in charge, so to speak, but the knowledge that he was a thousand years separated from his parents, with younger versions of them here and people who were all the wrong age...the whole things was enough to make his head ache and make him nearly ill with disorientation. He had just curled up on his side, hoping when he'd open his eyes that the world would make sense again.

Narcissa spotted him almost immediately and moved quickly to his side, dropping to her knees with a rustle of fabrics made far better than they had been with Druella's insistence. “Xander?” she questioned quietly as she rested a hand on his shoulder, the diminutive slipping out more easily in words than previously in writing, especially due to her concern for him. She moved her hand and laid slim fingers against his temple, checking for any sign of illness beyond the disorientation bound to happen to most from time travel.

Xander opened his eyes a slit at her words and touch, hoping beyond anything that his Mum would be there with her quiet strength and calming presence. He could plainly see that his wish was half true, because his mother was here, but she was far too young. "Mum..." he muttered, shutting his eyes tightly with a low groan. "Is Meda telling the truth? Have the founders decided to screw everything up?"

Sighing softly, Narcissa nodded, though he could not see the gesture. “Yes, I am afraid they have,” she said, forgoing for now the added confusion of the difference between these Founders and the ones the group had first encountered. “I know this can be terribly upsetting, but the ill feeling will pass soon.” And return again and again, but that did not need to be said either.

Xander nodded, swallowing deeply. He wasn't going to get ill, he wasn't going to faint, he was Alexander Regulus Lestrange, son of Narcissa Black Lestrange and Rabastan Lestrange, and he was too strong for such nonsense. "Thank you..." he said, opening his eyes slightly to survey her, it was clear that he was comparing her to the mother that he knew so well from his time. "For coming, Mum...." a bright flush coloured his face. "Do I call you Mum?"

Narcissa tried to make her smile welcoming and reassuring. This was so different than with Meda, who she had not greeted upon arrival and had not known their true connection until she had built an affection independent of the knowledge. This boy clearly needed reassurance and she was all there was as an adult figure, even though they were likely of a similar age if he came from Meda's time. She was out fo her element as she had been since being torn from her own time, but right now, a boy needed her. Her child. “If you like, if that does not feel strange or uncomfortable for you,” she said quietly, daring to brush back a wayward lock of hair that had slid down over one eye, much like Rabastan's did. “I am find with whatever choice you make.”

"Mum." Xander tried it out and found that though the woman was obviously different from his own mother, it did fit her. "So Dad's here too?" He asked shyly. "Is he...." Oh how to phrase this without letting his mother know more than she should. The last thing he needed was to let her know where Rabastan would likely end up and put her off of the thought of marrying him forever. "What's dad up to here?"

Narcissa smiled and nodded, though she studied him as she spoke. “Among the usual pursuits of fussing over others and trying to make sense of things, his current daily activity is taming an Aethenon to replace the one from the other reality that was Meda's birthday present. I would imagine that is the reason he did not see your journal as we did.”

"Oh..." Xander said, soaking that in, the fact Meda had been here for months and months with these people and that he was only just beginning to meet. "Does he have a job?" Xander said, trying again to slyly ask about his father's Death Eater activities. "Does he keep busy?”

“At present, we are all considered students here,” Narcissa explained, shifting on her knees slightly, “though your father and I have half a year left in our time, it actually makes little difference as your grandmother was all but done with school and is considered a student. The Founders of this place wish to minimize out impact on their reality for the moment so we most stay to the castle.” A flash of intuition or perhaps just perceptiveness and her hand stilled on his arm. “Or is it something else you are curious about?”

Xander nodded, his eyes intense as he focused on her. Somehow his father couldn't be a Death Eater, he had to find a way out of it. There had to be some purpose to this time error, he was clinging to it. Xander was nothing if not logical, and he was searching almost frantically for the meaning, the purpose of this. "Dad's not...joined yet, has he?"

Narcissa was struck silent by that gaze. He looked so much like Rabastan, yet like Meda as well – a softer set of features that matched despite the two resembling their parents and it was undeniable who he resembled. About to answer once she had prodded herself, the pounding of feet caught her attention and she turned to see Meda flying at them full tilt, Narcissa barely sliding to the side before Meda pounced at full speed on Alexander, a stream of unintelligible words and sobs and shrieking sounds emanating from her.

“XANDEROHMERLININEVERTHOUGHTI'DSEEYOUAGAINEVENTHOUGHTIWANTEDTOIDIDN'TWANTYOUSTUCKWITHUSBUTI'MSOHAPPYTOSEEYOU!” Meda clung to Alexander for all she was worth, arms and legs wrapped around the boy she had just knocked back on the hard stone floor with the force of her attack.

Xander might have been quite unhappy had just anyone tackled him when he was already so out of sorts, and he couldn't figure out the logistics that had allowed Meda months here to miss him when he had only missed her for a few hours, but from the moment she tackled him he gave up thoughts of logic and focused on his sister. "This is what happens when you wander off," he said, patting her back soothingly. "When you don't follow the rules, bratling. I searched the entire castle grounds for you and didn't see you." He gave her a stern look. "Just because Mum and Dad are young here and don't understand the rules doesn't mean you should take advantage of them here either."

It was Xander and he was so happily normal and right and perfect that Meda didn't even care he was scolding her for something out of her control, not at all. Well, except for the part where he somehow knew what she had done after getting upset at Sirius and everyone. “How did you know I ran away when I was in the here that's not here but the other here a year and another reality ago and MUM!” She looked over her shoulder at Narcissa. “You told on me, to Xander, already?! MUM!”

Narcissa held her hands up, a small laugh gently shaking her body. “I did no such thing, young lady!” she protested, shaking her head. “I only just found him a few minutes ago and we had barely covered the basic details of our predicament, let alone a list of events that occurred.”

Xander looked quite pleased with himself for all of a moment. He did understand her better than he understood anyone else, and it made him feel quite pleased to think that he could almost read her mind. However, once the fact of what he HAD read from her mind set in....

"Meda," he said sternly. "Meda, I was speaking about the fact that I couldn't find you when I was looking for you in the castle, and WARNING you that you couldn't take advantage of..." he paused, still getting used to calling the unfamiliar blonde woman 'mum' "Mum and Dad because they don't know. Have you?" he shifted his gaze to Narcissa, eyes intense once more as though trying to read her. "What exactly did my sister do while she was alone with you?"

This... was not going at all how Meda had imagined which, yes, she had imagined Xander coming back even though she knew she shouldn't. She had suspected there might be scolding until he understood this was Not Her Fault in capital letters but she had not guessed he was going to then be scolding and stern about things done when he wasn't even here! Let alone accuse her of taking advantage of their teenaged parents. She would not do that... except in rare circumstances, but still! That wasn't the norm! Not really, anyway.

Sliding off him with a pout forming, Meda gave him a sullen look and then got to her feet. Narcissa, catching the look, was quick to placate both Lestrange siblings. “We can discuss all that has gone on once we have left so public a corridor and found your father,” she said easily, shifting to make certain Alexander was able to get off his back and upright without any further signs of illness or upset at the situation.

"Meda..." Alexander said, quick to see that he had pushed himself too far. Meda had had months to settle into this, but Alexander was still recovering from thinking that he had let her wander off on his watch, so to speak, and also from the large time jump. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so snappish, I just..." He paused, shoving himself up to a sitting position and then to his feet with a grateful look to their mother. Just as always she was so quick to find the perfect way to put things into balance once more in her own graceful way, and he admired it. "I still am getting used to the fact that I'm HERE, and before that I was worried because I couldn't find you all night."

Meda's head popped up, the pout that had formed quick to disappear at his apology and explanation. She paused only for a moment, head canted as if requiring a different angle to believe the sight of him and then she launched herself at him once more. Rather than only arms locking tight around him, arms and legs went around Xander as Meda clung to him in a full body embrace. “I'm sorry,” she whispered, squeezing him tighter. “I didn't want you to worry or Mum or Dad to worry – do they know I'm gone?” Her brightly blue-eyed gaze was worried as she pulled her head back to search his face, almost anxious, as this was the first real proof of how time moved and maybe, just maybe, they had time to get back before things were too messed up.

Narcissa was watching them both, but especially Alexander once Meda had asked her question. If time moved strangely for them as it had for her and Rabastan, there was still hope that the Black and Lestrange families were not mad with grief and worry for any of their children in any time period. A small hope, but his answer might indeed help that hope to grow.

"No.” He said gently, looking first to Meda and then to Narcissa so that they could see the sincerity in his eyes. "I had just laid in bed to think abut things and try to figure out where you had gone--you know I always lay in bed to try to figure out what nonsense you're up to--and then I was here. I wasn't going to contact Mum and Dad until the next day, and the staff certainly won't think anything of it before then, so 'd say we have months...years even, before we'd have to worry about them being concerned."

“How long has Meda been gone in your time?” Narcissa asked, already mentally counting back to Meda's arrival in the prior reality. Perhaps it was even possible that time moved slower in the source reality the longer one was displaced. Another theory to add to the long list that the Founders and they had created.

"It was..." Xander thought about the answer, quite pleased that he didn't have to lie about the time in order to please Narcissa and Meda. He would have, his father had stressed from his earliest days that he was to protect Meda and his mother as best as he could, but the actual time, he felt, was reassuring enough. "It was only three or four hours. No one else knew that you were gone, and I don't expect that anyone would guess that I was gone at least until the end of the day tomorrow."

Meda did frown a slight bit at that. “You're a prefect, they'll notice sooner than that, but still, I think probably until at least the first or second class of the day, so eight to ten hours there gives us a couple of months here at least, right Mum?” she asked and then relaxed when Narcissa nodded.

“I think,” Narcissa said, gesturing down the corridor, “we should go find Rabastan so he is aware and then go see the others. The Founders are already aware, as you were given your journal, so we can go back to our quarters after that. For now, we are housed in a separate part of the castle than the four houses and taught in a separate group from the students of the time as the Founders have yet to determine how much they should minimize contact between those that belong to this time and all of us.”

Letting go of Xander, as she realized it would be harder to go out of the castle like this, Meda dropped to the floor only to duck around behind him and leap on his back. “There, now you can walk,” she informed him with a gracious nod and tone and then ruined it by giggling.

Xander let out a loud 'Ooph!' when she jumped up on his back, a thing he normally did when he was in a playful good mood. And he was. The thought of seeing his dad again made him eager--especially if there was a chance that it wasn't too late to save this version of his dad from the fate that his own father had suffered. Xander didn't even think about the obvious things that could go wrong, to think that it might damage his and Meda's very existence, he was just like that, becoming almost singularly focused on saving someone close to him without looking at the wider implications. "How generous of you." he tossed over his shoulder at his sister, then he rested a hand on Narcissa's elbow. It was a protective gesture, one that was instinctive from the way that he had tried so hard to protect his own mother. It was odd, to see a child trying to do something like that, but it wasn't through some means of neglect or suffering that Xander came to be that way. Instead it was because he had watched his father and learned from him, and that, combined with the natural sort of awe he had for his Mum, led him to do such things from the time he was a young boy. Sometimes such things were nice, sweet things such as him being very respectful to her, cherishing her opinion as unfailing truth, or the way he doted on her like his father. Other times, however, it was hurtful, like the way he often went to bed deeply unhappy at the way someone had teased him about his father or his parents and he wouldn't go to either of them--but her especially--for fear of hurting her. "Let's go find Dad." he said, wanting to get there as soon as possible.

Grinning, Meda tightened her grip to have a better position and rested her head against his, making a sound closely resembling a content pet. Xander was here and for now she did not have to think about older!Dad and older!Mum worrying and now younger!Dad and younger!Mum would get to know Xander in case when they went home, their timeline didn't produce either her or her brother.

Looking down at her elbow and then up at Alexander, Narcissa smiled softly. Despite not wishing to think it because it meant comparing her two sons, just moments with this boy had proven that she possibly was capable of raising a well-mannered son. He had shown such concern for his sister and now the gesture she was familiar with because it was one Rabastan often used, a touch that radiated more protectiveness than just courtesy. As much as she pushed back the thought because it had no place in this moment, she once more thought that Alexander and Meda were a product of a marriage and family much better than the one Draco had grown up in.

Clinging happily, Meda spotted Rabastan walking across the grounds as soon as they exited the school and began to bounce. “Daddaddaddddddddy,” she trilled, her expression of utter joy clear, “look look looooooook, look who is here from my time!” Sudden, mischievous and slightly evil inspiration stuck and she hugged Xander tightly around the neck as she rested her cheek on his head. “He came back just to find me and now we can be blissfully happy together and you know what, I bet marriages can be done super quick in this time.” None of it was specifically a lie, just random observations combined with loaded-word truth to guide Rabastan's thoughts one specific way.

Rabastan froze when he saw Meda perched on the back of an unfamiliar male. Even if she had not egged him on with her words, he would likely have come to the same conclusion with his protective natures. Normally he was quite protective of her, but since her illness even that had been heightened. His wand was drawn the moment the word 'Marriage' was expelled from her lips and his eyes looked narrowly on all involved. "Meda Cassiopeia Lestrange, you're grounded, and you won't be marrying as long as I live. Narcissa, I have no idea what charms they put on you to make you agree to this, but whatever it was I'll break it. And you..." he turned slightly more narrow eyes to the boy, one who looked so familiar as though he remembered him from a dream, but then his anger flared again at the thought of Meda marrying him. "If you know what's good for you you'll go back where you came from.”

Xander reached back, pinching Meda's calves. He wouldn't spoil her fun, but if their father hexed him for this he was going to blame it on her.

Meda had to restrain herself from letting loose with gleeful cackling. This? Was utterly brilliant! Wait, OW! Okay, except for the pinching. Wriggling on Xander's back to quietly protest the action, she affected a horror struck expression and leapt off her brother's back.

Narcissa watched the entire exchange with a cross between amusement and worry. She knew Rabastan all too well and knew it would take little to rouse his temper to even higher levels but she could see how much Meda was enjoying her prank and that Alexander had not objected to it either. She would let it continue a few moments longer but intervene if necessary.

“No, Daddy, no!” Meda wailed dramatically as she rounded Xander, putting herself between him and her brother just in case Rabastan had any ideas. “I LOVE him, he cannot go back, he just cannot, my heart would break and my soul would be left once more adrift!” Flinging her wrist to her temple, she let out a dramatic sob which really only added to the theatricalness of her words, uttered in perfect grammar she rarely used in speech.

"Meda..." Rabastan's voice was more warning this time, though were he thinking logically he might have seen that everything about his daughter now was dramatics and none of it was real. However, now all he saw was rage, in the fact that somehow Meda had managed to conceal a secret marriage proposal from him. "Meda, get back, I'm going to send him back where he came from."

Xander sighed audibly. Yes, this was his father alright. This was the man who had nearly hit the roof when he saw a small boy doing a childish act of vandalism on the wall of a shop in Diagon Alley that said "Meda L is mine" "Meda..." Xander said, the same note of warning in his voice that had been in Rabastan's.

Meda sighed and Narcissa stepped forward, her fingers resting on Rabastan's wrist in a light but persistent touch. She would never restrain another's wand arm but she was prepared to disarm him if it came to it. She arched a brow at Meda and repressed a small smile when she saw her daughter pout slightly.

“Yes, Dad,” Meda said with a roll of her eyes as she dropped the dramatic facade, “because you can send Xander back through the sheer force of your fatherly protective whateverness when we couldn't go home this morning. But okay, introductions.” Looking over her shoulder at her brother, she gestured. “Xander, this is Dad, as you can see he's pretty much like older!Dad.” she turned back to Rabastan and pointed over her shoulder. “Dad, this is Xander. Alexander Regulus Lestrange. Your son, if the family resemblance completely escaped notice, yanked from 2020 a few hours after I left that time. I'd really like it if he stayed, so could you please put your wand down?”

Two things happened when Meda made her rather brisk introductions: Rabastan's mouth fell open in a wide O of shocked surprise and his wand arm fell down. "Sorry..." he muttered sheepishly, a bright flush coming to his cheeks--after all, he had nearly hexed his own son, his firstborn, to the moon and back. However, it seemed that Xander was alright with it from the way he was laughing heartily.

"Don't worry, Dad." he said, extending a hand which Rabastan shook. "She's always like that, I swear Dad and Mum waited so long to have her because they knew I needed two years to cherish the silence I'd never hear again after she was born."

“Now, why would anyone prefer silence to our sweet Meda?” Narcissa asked innocently which earned her a bright grin from Meda before Meda turned to face Alexander.

“Prat,” she growled, wrinkling her nose at him above a promptly stuck-out tongue, then wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him, head on his chest as she grinned at Rabastan and Narcissa. “Isn't he amazing?”

Narcissa certainly thought so from just the short time between first meeting and first impression and this point. Much like looking at Meda had made her see what in the girl was obviously like herself both externally and internally, now she was seeing the obvious in Alexander when linked to Rabastan. Even as she hoped further time to get to know him would reveal much more to be proud of, impressed by or touched to see, she already felt certain she would find it all and then some.

"He is indeed." Bastan agreed, moving to take Xanders' hand and pull him into a tight hug. "Welcome to the year 1001, Alexander." There was a sort of bond there, now that he knew who who the boy was, but it was distinctly different. No stronger, no weaker, than the bond he shared with Meda, just different.

"Thank you." Xander whispered back, quite pleased so far at the young man his Dad was, before he glared playfully over Bastan's shoulder. "You're pretty great too, you know, kiddo."

“Of course I know,” Meda declared airily, but the look in her eyes while watching the hug was far from the playful arrogance of her words and tone. In this, she had been given a whole family, even if the parts of it were different in ways, it was still the four of them now and together they could do anything. That had always been how it was and here, in this strange time, it would be just the same.

Rabastan squeezed his son extra tightly for a moment, then pushed him away a little to examine his face. "You look like your mother." He said, ignoring the obvious resemblance to himself in favor of noticing the bone structure which was Cissa's own, as well as his expressions.

“I've heard worse." Xander said proudly, his chest practically puffing out as he looked to his Mum. A look of confusion washed over him. "If Meda didn't bring us here....what exactly happened?"

Adorable. That was the only word Narcissa could summon to describe seeing Alexander look as he did at Rabastan's remark. The way his posture firmed and his chest seemed to puff out just a bit was endearing but it also felt like the grandest of compliments, to see that being like her was something that pleased him.

Meda snorted. “Brought us here, me? The world does indeed revolve around me but I think it's a bit much to claim the multiverse does too,” she teased, leaving Narcissa to explain.

“The Founders – not the ones you have and will encounter – placed a spell on the castle to bring individuals from the future to 1000 A.D. for purposes we never precisely determined,” Narcissa explained, frowning slightly for the moment. “We believe they possibly wished to judge the success of their school by seeing what students would come back and how advanced they were, what they knew of the Founders and so on. Many were pulled to that time from times spanning the natural life of the Gryffindor ghost to times after your own. But, it did not stop there, it also pulled individuals from alternate timelines, the diversion few time from a choice made. Some where similar to the timeline once thought to be the 'right' one and some... some were vastly different. This spanned several months and less than three weeks ago, something happened to your father, Meda, myself, Maman, Bella and,” a minute pause, “Andromeda to take us from that place to this, a year and a day later in time and a reality quite different in that these Founders never tried the spell. In all other ways, this timeline could be our ancient past and that is why the Founders here are trying to minimize to effects of us on this time.”