Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

James Potter is dead.

Regulus Black hasn't slept in three days.

James Potter is dead, and somehow, the sun is still shining. It's a cruel thing; almost a divine sort of punishment that shouldn't be possible—not now that James is gone—yet it still hangs there, hot in the sky, like a burning comet suspended in time.

Regulus can't stand to look at it.

Regulus stood before the small, cracked mirror of his bedroom in Grimmauld Place, studying the reflection of someone he no longer recognized. His skin was pale, drawn tight over his bones. His body was a shell, now ravaged by the dark magic coursing through him after each of his failed attempts at resetting time. His body ached—some sort of bone-deep pain that no amount of rest was curing. Every time he had reset, the curse had dug deeper into him, consuming parts of him that would never return.

He lifted a trembling hand toward the glass, fingertips hovering over the reflection as though he could trace the damage back to its source. The veins beneath his skin pulsed with a faint, sickly shimmer—ancient magic biting at him from the inside, marking him like burn scars. He looked older. His magic, once sharp and bright and viciously alive, now guttered inside him.

A third attempt. That was all he had left.

And lately, his magic sputtered from his wand like a flame starved of air. How much longer could he keep going? Six months, maybe? Perhaps less.

He didn’t want to go back to Dumbledore, but he had no choice. Not anymore.

He had failed. Again. And again. Each loop, each desperate attempt to save James Potter from some terrifying end, had brought him closer and closer to the brink of destruction. The first reset was supposed to work. It hadn’t. The second was supposed to fix what the first missed. It didn’t. Both times, James had died. And it was always Regulus who had to watch it happen, powerless to stop it.

Now, he was running out of time—literally.

The last reset had gutted him. His magic felt like sand slipping through the cracks in his hands. He could barely keep his wand steady, let alone wage another impossible attempt. But he had to try, didn’t he? And to try, he needed Dumbledore’s “help”—if it even qualified as that anymore.

Regulus hated needing him. Hated the thought of going back, pride stripped down to the bone. But what choice did he have?

He clenched his jaw and snatched his cloak from the bed. He didn’t want to see Dumbledore again. Not ever.

He resented him for what he’d done—for what he’d let Regulus do to himself. The man had promised answers, a way to untangle the mess Regulus had created by choosing the wrong side. But every time he got close, Dumbledore retreated, demanding more, nudging him deeper into the labyrinth.

Of course, Dumbledore would pretend nothing had shifted at all—that they were still pieces in the same game. But Regulus was finished playing.

Quite frankly, he was done with this whole fucking war.

With a sharp breath, Regulus disapparated. The familiar crack of magic split the air, and then he was standing in the Scottish Highlands. Mist clung to the rolling hills, and the stone estate where Dumbledore spent his summers rose ahead of him, half-swallowed by towering pines. Regulus’s heart pounded—not from the journey, but from the bitter anticipation clawing at his chest.

He didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to face him. But he knew—knew with a painful, unshakable certainty—that he had no other choice.

If he was going to end this, if he was going to save James—if he was going to end this war—he needed Dumbledore. Whether he liked it or not.

He drew in a steadying breath and forced himself forward, each step deliberate. The evening air bit at his skin, sharper than it should’ve been, but he barely felt it. His mind churned, cycling through scenarios, outcomes, contingencies. He tightened his mental shields, preparing for the possibility—no, the inevitability—of Dumbledore probing where he had no right to look.

Consequences didn’t matter anymore. Only the solution did.

Regulus didn’t bother knocking. He pushed the wide, grand door open and stepped inside, his boots thudding softly against the wooden floors. The interior was unchanged: shelves of leather-bound books, a massive fireplace casting a warm, amber glow that contrasted sharply with the cold crawling up Regulus’s spine. The faint scent of parchment and old wood lingered in the air. Everything was still. Unsettlingly so.

He moved down the long hall and shoved open the door to Dumbledore’s office.

And there he was.

Albus Dumbledore sat behind his immense oak desk, hands folded neatly, silver beard spilling over his robes. He looked exactly as though he had been expecting this precise moment.

He didn’t flinch at Regulus’s abrupt entrance. He didn’t even blink. His pale blue eyes regarded him over the rim of his half-moon glasses—glittering, unreadable, impossibly calm.

“Mr. Black,” Dumbledore said, his voice smooth, deliberate, cutting through the silence of the office. “It’s good to see you again.”

Once upon a time, Regulus might’ve felt the faint tug of comfort in those words. But he wasn’t a boy anymore. Irritation flared hot and sharp in his chest. He hated that voice—hated the way it always carried the weight of some secret knowledge, the smug certainty of a man who believed he already knew the ending.

“I didn’t come here for pleasantries.” Regulus said flatly. His hands curled into fists at his sides.

Dumbledore’s lips curved into that practiced, gentle smile. Too soft, too precise. Regulus felt the familiar stab of anger.

“Straight to the point, then.”

“I’ve never been one to waste time.”

He crossed the room, each step heavy. The polished floor seemed to resist him, echoing his boots back at him with soft, accusing thuds. Approaching the desk, he braced his palms on its smooth surface, leaning slightly forward. “You already know why I’m here.”

If Dumbledore was surprised, he didn’t show it. He only lifted a hand, motioning with airy elegance toward the small chair opposite him. “Perhaps you’d like to sit. Tea?”

Regulus’s gaze flicked to the chair, then back up to Dumbledore’s twinkling eyes, and his jaw tightened.

Regulus has already done all of this before. The Death Eater meetings—climbing up the ranks—tracking down Albus Dumbledore, begging him to set things right. When all is said and done, Regulus has watched James Potter and Sirius and all of his friends die, one by one, until he was the only one left standing.

He has watched them make the same choices, the same mistakes over and over again, the magnitude of their situation somehow always lost on them all—every one of them except Regulus, who has screamed and wailed and burned at the expense of everyone he’s ever loved.

Yet, here he is again. Standing in the same room as the man not quite responsible for it all, but pretty fucking close.

Despite the violent urges thrumming along his spine, Regulus lowered himself into the chair, keeping his hands still on the arms.

Dumbledore gave a small flick of his wand, and a small gust of steam billowed from the two small cups that appeared on glass saucers between the two of them. Regulus kept his eyes glued to Dumbledore’s expression, watching him closely as Dumbledore lifted his own cup to sip. Regulus waited for the usual riddled speech he’d heard three times now, but this time, it didn’t come.

“I always expected greatness out of you, Mr. Black.”

Regulus blinked. His mind snapped into focus, scanning for traps, for hidden meaning, for any indication this was another test. He forced his face neutral, a sharp pulse thudding at his temple.

“And do you know what I’ve come to realize?” Dumbledore’s voice softened, drifting airy and contemplative. His gaze flicked briefly to Regulus’s untouched cup of tea. “Greatness does not always equal capability. It demands sacrifice. And, unless I am mistaken, all your sacrifices seem to lead you right back here—back to this moment. Your... neverending story.”

“Perhaps you’ve not considered that this is a failure on your part.” Regulus snapped, the edge of his voice cutting through the quiet room.

“I don’t believe I have, no,” Dumbledore replied, gentle, almost wistful. “I offered you a second chance at life, and somehow you’re here on your third—preparing to ask for a fourth.”

“Don’t pretend you haven’t forced this upon me,” Regulus hissed. He leaned forward sharply, palms pressing against the desk, and his teacup rattled, a few droplets spilling onto the polished wood. “I didn’t want blood on my hands. That’s the only reason I’ve done this. The only reason I came to you.”

“Yet, here you are again.”

The back of Regulus’s throat was burning. Slowly, he withdrew his hands again, going quiet. He hated that it always played out like this—how Dumbledore knew just what to say to get under his skin, to get inside his head, to get him off track.

Regulus wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

Dumbledore tilted his head slightly then, curiosity glinting in the pale blue of his eyes. “That’s what you’ve come for, is it not? To throw all of it away, again? For—”

“Don’t say his name.” Regulus warned, voice low and controlled.

A pause. Then: “Mr. Black, I find that the more often we have this conversation, the less sympathy I have for your cause.”

Regulus lifted his head with a dark look, trying his best to keep his hands steady as they gripped the wooden arms of his chair. Every word came out in a bite. “I’ve followed every single plan down to the last step that you’ve given me. If it truly surprises you I end up back here time and time again, perhaps you should ask yourself why.”

“You overcomplicate my instructions.” Dumbledore said firmly, leaning forward. “Just as you’re always nearing the end of my task, you retreat—”

“I won’t let them die for you—I won’t let him die for you—”

“Everything comes at a cost, Mr. Black—”

“Then let me pay for it myself!” Regulus raised his voice, standing from his chair. The quickness with which he stood put him off balance, and his untouched cup of tea spilled as it clattered off its saucer. Regulus took in a sharp, rasping breath, eyes wild as he gripped the edge of the desk again.

Dumbledore’s expression returned to its neutral state as he glanced down at the pooling liquid. He lifted his wand, flicked it once, and the glass china vanished. When he stood from his own seat, it made Regulus feel rather small.

Dumbledore studied him for a long moment, the only sound in the room coming from Regulus’s panting. His gaze flickered briefly to Regulus’s hands, which trembled faintly before Regulus stilled them. Then his eyes traveled to Regulus’s face, lingering on the dark circles beneath his eyes, the pallor of his skin, the faint sheen of sweat on his brow.

“You’re dying.” Dumbledore stated plainly.

Regulus didn’t flinch. He met Dumbledore’s gaze head-on, his expression unreadable. “That’s none of your concern.”

For the first time since Regulus had entered the room, something in Dumbledore’s face shifted. Not pity—Regulus would have recognized that, and resented it—but a thinning of composure. A faint tremor of unease that cracked the mask of effortless omniscience. Dumbledore looked at him with the weariness of someone who had lived far too long inside the consequences of far too many choices.

“It is my concern,” Dumbledore said quietly. “Because the Vessel’s deterioration determines the reach of the Mortem Tempora.”

Regulus’s fingers curled inward, nails biting into his palms. “Is that hesitation, Headmaster?” His voice cut through the stillness. “After everything—after forcing me into your grand design—you worry for my health?”

“I believe you know better than to accuse me of sentiment,” Dumbledore replied, though the words were softer than they ought to have been. He stepped away from the desk, hands clasped behind him as he paced a small, deliberate line across the room. “If I hesitate, it is because I must consider the cost of the next collapse. You have returned twice. Your Thread is thin. Mortem Tempora is merciless to those who traverse it too many times.”

Regulus straightened his spine, forcing steel into his voice. “It doesn’t matter what it does to me.”

“It matters,” Dumbledore corrected, turning sharply to face him. “Because if you die before finishing what must be done in the next iteration, the ritual cannot be attempted again. Time will not loop. It will only proceed in the direction it has already shown you.”

The words hung heavy, suffocating. Regulus knew exactly what Dumbledore meant. The future he had already seen, twice, ending in fire, in loss, in the same cold‑bodied inevitability sprawled across the ruined floor of a war that refused to change. The future where his presence could shift the smallest things, but never the one thing that mattered.

“You don't have to remind me.”

“No,” Dumbledore agreed, “I do not.” He studied him quietly, his eyes narrowed in thought. “I know what drives you. You forget—I am the Anchor. When the timelines collapse, their remnants collapse into me. Every attempt you made, every choice, every sacrifice you offered or refused… they do not disappear. They return. I see them all.”

Regulus looked away, a muscle near his eye twitching. He hated that even his failures were not private, that each collapse left a map of grief etched into someone else’s mind. The way that Dumbledore could speak with authority on things Regulus had never spoken aloud was something he could hardly stand.

Regulus steadied his breath. “I see. You question my intentions.”

Dumbledore stepped closer, the lamplight flickering across the deep creases in his face. “I question your adherence to the plan. Not your motives.”

Regulus’s gaze snapped back to him, cold and sharp. “I told you, I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me, twice, and it didn’t work—”

“And each of those times,” Dumbledore replied, “you deviated at the end.”

Regulus’s fingers curled against the polished edge of the desk, steadying himself not because he feared Dumbledore, but because he feared what would happen if he didn’t hold the fury somewhere contained. “I deviated because I refuse to walk obediently down a path you’ve drawn when I already know where it ends.” His pulse thundered in his ears. “I refuse to accept a future where certain people die for your war.”

Dumbledore’s expression barely shifted. A tightening around the eyes, perhaps. A faint dip in his breath. But his voice remained almost tranquil. “It is not my war, Regulus.”

“Oh, but it is,” Regulus shot back, quiet but deadly. “You sit here—” he gestured vaguely toward the countless shelves, the tower of quiet knowledge, the vantage point from which Dumbledore saw everything and risked nothing “—and the entire Order looks to you for direction, for purpose. James Potter trusts you. They all trust you.” He exhaled a bitter, tight breath. “They believe you are the one person who sees the whole board. They would follow you into hell without asking why.”

Dumbledore’s gaze softened at that, as if touched. It made something ugly twist in Regulus’s chest.

“So when your plans fall apart,” Regulus continued, “when they die—when he dies—how can you tell me it isn’t your war?”

Dumbledore stepped closer, the movement fluid but heavy with unspoken warning. “And what would you have me do?” he asked, a thread of steel woven through the velvet tone. “Let the timeline progress unchallenged? Permit the horrors you fear because you lack the fortitude to see the task through?” His eyes, bright and strangely cold, bore into Regulus. “You want the boy alive. I know that. I have seen it, again and again. But hear me, Regulus: he will not live unless Voldemort dies. No amount of evasion or improvisation will create a world that erases that.”

Regulus dropped his gaze for a moment. His heartbeat thundered, too loud, too painful, threatening to shake itself to pieces against his ribs. He had watched James die twice now. Twice. He had memorized the shape of the grief each time, the precise moment the universe collapsed inward. And Albus spoke of fortitude.

When he lifted his head again, his voice was steadier, and quieter. “I know what is required to end this war.” A pause. He let Dumbledore read whatever he wished in his face. “I know.”

What he did not say—what he would not dare say aloud—was that he would not be following Dumbledore’s plan this time. Not again. He had already mapped his own route, every divergence calculated, every risk weighed. The horcruxes would fall because they needed to. James would live because Regulus would make it so. And the Anchor, for all his omniscience, could not see the paths Regulus had carved too quietly, too carefully, for anyone—even Dumbledore—to trace.

“No deviations,” Dumbledore reminded softly, as if the words alone could bind Regulus. “Not now. Not on this final Thread. You will destroy the horcruxes. All of them, as directed. No bargains. No rescues. No blind leaps toward a single life instead of the world.” His gaze sharpened further. “You will not attempt to rewrite what cannot be rewritten.”

Regulus kept his features still, but something deep inside him curled inward, coiling into a knot of defiance.

Dumbledore inhaled slowly, and the room seemed to narrow around them. “Your body will not endure another return,” he said, quieter. “Understand this—the Mortem Tempora’s final stage is destructive. When it runs its course, your body will collapse. That outcome is fixed. There is no future cycle to consider."

Regulus swallowed once, feeling the dryness of his throat, the static ache along his spine, the tremor that wanted to claw its way into his hands. He forced every trace of weakness down. “Then we don’t waste time,” he said. The steadiness surprised even him. “If this is the last chance, we take it."

Dumbledore studied him. No, examined him. Weighing, measuring, calculating where the boy ended and the instrument began. A faint shadow crossed his face then—not fear, not pity, but hesitation. The kind that came from knowing Regulus might not survive this return long enough to complete anything at all.

Still, he reached his conclusion.

“At dawn,” Dumbledore said at last. “We will prepare the Mortem Tempora."

Regulus didn’t look at him. Looking would reveal too much, and Dumbledore already saw too much. Instead he stared at the darkening window, imagining the horizon rolling backward into a past he’d already lived and broken twice. Imagining the moment he would step into the ritual, knowing it would burn the last of his lifespan out from under him.

Chapter Text

Regulus lay on the narrow cot in the spare room of Albus Dumbledore’s summer cottage, staring up at the smooth, dark ceiling above his head. His stomach still churned from the conversation downstairs, from the weight of what awaited him at dawn. A small, exhausted part of him was almost grateful they wouldn’t begin the ritual until morning. He needed sleep desperately.

Another part of him—petty, bitter, aching—found itself lingering on a different thought entirely:

How disturbingly familiar this room had become.

The room itself was hardly more than an alcove tucked off the main hallway, shaped by the odd angles of the cottage rather than any deliberate design. A narrow bed sat pushed against one wall, its metal frame chipped and cool to the touch, the mattress thin but strangely comfortable in the way it had been broken in by years of visitors. The floor was made of pale, knotty wood that creaked in soft protest whenever Regulus shifted.

Dumbledore had filled the space with an assortment of objects that made it impossible to guess its original purpose. A squat dresser held a mismatched collection of seashells, dried herbs, and old brass instruments that might have been used for astronomy—or music—or neither.

A faded tapestry depicting a moonlit forest hung lopsidedly above the cot, threads frayed and silvering with age. Across from it, an unused writing desk sagged beneath a scattering of quills, ink bottles, and neatly folded handkerchiefs embroidered with initials Regulus didn’t recognize.

Only one window served the room, high and small enough that Regulus could see little more than a slice of treetops through it. A faint scent of lavender—likely from whatever sachets Dumbledore had tucked in the drawers years ago—hung in the air, steady and calming.

The cot on which he lay was plainly conjured—Dumbledore had done that the first time Regulus arrived—but in every timeline since, it had been the same: thin mattress, single flattened pillow, blanket that smelled faintly of smoke. Regulus suspected it was the only thing Dumbledore bothered laundering between their attempts. Everything else remained exactly where it had been. Exactly as it had always been.

A wooden table sat to his right, cluttered with remnants of past preparations: burnt-out candles; the corner of a broken wardstone; a vial still faintly glowing from whatever spell residue hadn’t dissipated. Regulus hadn’t asked if these were from this timeline’s attempts, or ghosts from another. He doubted Dumbledore knew the difference anymore.

In the corner closest to the door stood a large iron basin, etched with runes too old for Regulus to translate. Dumbledore stored the ingredients for the Mortem Tempora in a locked cupboard beside it. Regulus could hear the faintest tapping from within—some of the reagents were alive, or at least had once been.

Everything in this room carried the feeling of being used again and again, as if time refused to move properly within these walls.

As if it bent here.

As if it remembered him.

Regulus rubbed his palms against his eyes and exhaled shakily. He hated how familiar it was. He hated that he could list every imperfection on the ceiling, every crack in the shelves, every creak in the floorboards. Hated that he could wake up blindfolded and still know where he was.

He rolled onto his side, pulling the thin blanket halfway up his chest, though it did nothing to chase the cold that had settled beneath his skin. His thoughts drifted—unwelcome, inevitable—toward the very thing he’d spent all evening trying not to think about.

James.

It was almost humiliating how easily his mind went there now, as if James Potter had carved out a permanent space in the back of his skull and was content to live there rent-free. Even now—especially now—Regulus felt the familiar sting behind his ribs. He tried to breathe past it.

He pressed his knuckles to his mouth, forcing quiet into his breathing. The ritual always brought this out in him—this sharp, unbearable awareness of how much depended on him, how much had gone wrong, how much time they’d lost.

This would be the third attempt. His last chance.

The first had taken months of preparation. Months in this very room, sitting on the uneven floorboards with scrolls spread around him like fallen snow. Months of Dumbledore’s voice drifting through the doorway as the man paced, theorizing, revising, arguing with himself. Months of Regulus practicing sigils until his fingers cramped, and his magic flickered raw at the edges.

He remembered the first ritual most of all: the way the basin glowed, the way the air seemed to bend and crackle around him. He remembered hope. Foolish, bright, impossible hope.

And he remembered how it all collapsed.

The second attempt had been faster. More clinical. Regulus had refused to sleep in the room then, preferring the hard-backed chair by the fireplace downstairs. But in the final hours, when everything began to unravel again and Dumbledore insisted he rest, Regulus had come back here.

The room had been the same. Down to the misplaced quill on the desk. Down to the scorch mark on the floor from the candle he knocked over during his first month here.

Regulus tightened his grip on the blanket, feeling the thin fabric strain between his fingers. He stared at the wall until his vision blurred, but nothing softened the truth thrumming under his skin:

He was dying.

Not in the abstract way Dumbledore had said it downstairs, with his somber cadence and academic detachment. Not in the poetic way people sometimes spoke of sacrifice. No—Regulus could feel it. In his bones, in the sluggish pulse of his magic, in the strange hollowness behind his sternum that had not been there before the second ritual.

Mortem Tempora took. And kept taking.

The first time, he hadn’t noticed. Not really. A little exhaustion, a little fraying around the edges of his spellwork—but he had written it off as recovery.

The second time, he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. It wasn’t fatigue. It wasn’t shock. It wasn’t even grief. It was depletion. His magic—his actual core, what made his spells instinctive and effortless—had dimmed. Like a lantern losing oil. Like something inside him had cracked during the second attempt, and was only now beginning to leak through.

If he tried to cast anything too powerful, he always felt it like a bruise beneath his ribs. If he pushed himself too far magically, he went dizzy in a way that had nothing to do with exertion. Even simple charms sometimes sputtered before catching.

Every part of the upcoming ritual would be harder.

And Regulus hated that. Hated it fiercely.

Not because he feared death—he didn’t. Not anymore. He had made peace with that months ago, across timelines and failures and funerals that never should have belonged to someone so unbearably alive as James Potter.

But he did care about his magic.

He needed it. All of it. Every shred, every scrap, every thread he had left. Anything less and the third attempt—the real attempt, his attempt—would falter. He couldn’t afford that. He couldn’t afford misfires or weakened sigils or a moment’s instability in the basin. Not when he was deviating. Not when he was hiding an entirely separate plan beneath Dumbledore’s nose.

He sank deeper into the cot, jaw tight, breath thin. The truth pressed against him like a thumb to a bruise: He might not survive the Mortem Tempora—not this time. He might not survive the reset. And even if he did—he still might not survive long enough afterward, to see if his changes held.

What truly terrified him was the thought of losing control of his magic mid-ritual. Of miscalculating. Of having his strength buckle at the worst possible moment. Of waking up in a new timeline—James alive—and finding himself too magically gutted to finish what he needed to finish.

To Regulus, a half-success would be worse than a failure. A James alive but not safe was almost worse than a James dead.

There was a doom curled inside him now, something slow and patient and certain. He had felt it since the second ritual, like a clock ticking somewhere beneath his ribs. There was no stopping it. No outrunning it. He could only work within its narrowing margins.

He closed his eyes.

The cottage was silent. Too silent. Almost as if it knew this was the last time he would ever sleep within its walls.

As dawn approached, sleep still clinging to him, Regulus silently made his way down the narrow hall and stepped into the main room upstairs. His shoulders were tight and his knees were unsteady, despite the calm he forced into his mind. His body betrayed him. Every step felt heavier, as if the air itself was resisting him. His fingers itched, his palms were damp, and his stomach had curled into a tight, familiar knot.

He did not doubt himself. He did not second-guess the plan. But his body remembered, and it remembered with relentless precision: the burn of magical backlash, the drain of life and power, the searing grip of the Mortem Tempora against his very veins.

The cottage was still cloaked in pre-dawn darkness, the curtains drawn tightly across the low, crooked windows. Only the flicker of candles and the phosphorescent glow from the iron basin at the center of the room offered illumination, and it made Regulus’s stomach tighten further.

Dumbledore was already moving in the center of the room, his hands precise, almost surgical, as he adjusted a small cluster of candles, muttering softly under his breath.

The Anchor’s motions were deliberate: he traced sigils into the air with a silver-tipped wand, rearranged faintly glowing crystals along the edges of the ritual circle, and consulted a thin, fragile parchment that seemed to hum faintly with its own energy. Every motion carried absolute certainty; every gesture was part of the lattice of magic that held the Mortem Tempora together.

Regulus’s gaze flitted across the preparations, noting each detail: the slight tilt of a candle so its flame wouldn’t flare into the circle, the shimmer of magical residue left on the basin’s rim, the almost imperceptible vibration in the floorboards as the ritual’s latent power began to awaken.

His heart hammered in his chest, and he swallowed against the dry taste in his mouth. The tension in his shoulders, the twitch in his fingers, the tightening in his stomach—they all screamed at him with memories of pain he could not erase.

He drew a long, shuddering breath, trying to anchor himself in the calm he had cultivated over all of his mental preparation. His thoughts were steady, surgical even, as he reminded himself of the mechanics of what was about to occur.

He would not falter. He would not hesitate. But his body, the Vessel that had been broken and remade in this room twice before, had its own memory. And it was screaming.

Dumbledore moved toward the basin now, hands raised as he murmured a low chant that made the air shimmer. The silvered runes on the rim glowed faintly, and the surface of the water-like substance inside rippled as though aware of the presence of the Vessel.

Regulus’s eyes followed every movement, every twitch of the old wizard’s fingers, every careful adjustment of weight, angle, and rhythm. Dumbledore’s motions were almost hypnotic, precise in a way that left no room for error. The ritual demanded perfection. There would be no room for mistakes.

Regulus stepped to the very edge of the circle etched into the floor, feeling the hum of power against his skin like electricity. His knees shook slightly, despite his best efforts to steady them.

Every fiber of his body ached in anticipation, recalling the burns and pulls of the last two attempts. His thoughts remained calm, meticulous, controlled—but the memories of pain, of his own magic being ripped and reshaped, were primal and immediate.

He clenched his fists at his sides, his eyes never leaving Dumbledore. Every movement of the Anchor mattered; every adjustment, every whispered incantation, every tiny motion of the hand or tilt of a crystal could make the difference between success and disaster.

Dumbledore did not look up when Regulus crossed the threshold of the circle—he didn’t need to. The change in the air told him the Vessel had stepped into place. The low murmur of his chant shifted, deepened, and the crystals along the perimeter responded, their glow sharpening from soft blue to a sharper, more focused white.

Regulus exhaled once, slow and thin, and stepped inward.

The moment his foot crossed further into the etched boundary, the magic reacted. A faint sting crawled up his ankle, then climbed higher, brushing over his skin like the touch of cold metal. The circle recognized him, recognized the imprint of his blood and magic that had soaked this wood twice before.

The familiar dread lodged itself beneath his ribs, cold and heavy.

Dumbledore’s voice dropped lower still, threading through the room like a vibration rather than sound. The chant formed the first layer of the Anchor’s stabilizing field, weaving itself around the circle, strengthening the barrier that would keep the ritual from collapsing inward—or blowing outward.

Regulus forced himself forward until he reached the exact center, standing over the faintly glowing sigil carved into the floorboards. It pulsed in slow, deliberate beats, syncing with his heart in a way that made bile rise in his throat.

He positioned his feet precisely where they belonged. Shoulders squared. Spine straight. Hands relaxed at his sides—at least, they were meant to be. His fingers trembled anyway.

Dumbledore lifted his hands high over the basin.

The chant cut off.

The complete silence that followed was total. Heavy. Anticipatory.

Regulus drew another breath—deeper this time, steadier—and lifted his chin just enough to meet the old wizard’s gaze. Dumbledore’s expression held no encouragement, no reassurance, no softness. Only focus. Only the absolute, unwavering certainty of a man who had done this many times before across timelines, and who knew precisely how thin the line was between success and annihilation.

“Begin,” Dumbledore said quietly.

The room lurched.

Magic hit Regulus like a hooked chain yanking at the center of his chest. His breath punched out of him in a strangled gasp as the first thread of temporal force tore through his core. The pull was immediate, violent, and blindingly cold—sinking through muscle and bone with the unmistakable sensation of something prying him open from the inside.

His vision blurred at the edges. His knees buckled for half a second before he forced them straight again, jaw locking so hard he felt something crack.

Focus.

Focus.

He dragged his eyes to the basin just as Dumbledore’s hands swept through the air, gathering the spiraling threads of magic and forcing them back into shape. The Anchor’s influence bound the pull, narrowing it, refining it, directing it into the channels carved beneath Regulus’s feet.

The pain sharpened, then twisted, then split like lightning behind his sternum.

Regulus hissed, teeth bared.

Every instinct screamed for him to pull away, to move, to curl in on himself, to protect the vital core of magic the ritual insisted on ripping wide open. But he held still—because he had to. Because this was what the Vessel required.

Because this was the only way.

Dumbledore’s voice rose again, not chanting now, but issuing steady, complex commands in a language older than any spellbook. The runes etched into the floor flared white-hot, casting sharp shadows across the cottage walls. The curtains fluttered, as if caught in a wind that didn’t exist.

The pull intensified.

Time itself seemed to tighten around Regulus—stretching, compressing, snapping in erratic pulses that made his stomach roil and his head pound. His magic writhed under the force of it, resisting, then yielding, then resisting again. Sweat broke across his forehead, cold and sharp even in the heat of the rising power.

He forced his breathing into rhythm. Forced his spine to remain straight. Forced clarity into the edges of his thoughts, scraping away everything but the ritual.

Pain tore through him again—ruthless, familiar, and unbearably vast.

Regulus felt his pulse hammering in his throat as the next wave of temporal force crashed through him, but this time—this moment—he forced his mind toward the single action that was required of him.

The ritual did not work unless the Vessel participated. He had only one task. One nearly impossible task.

While the Anchor held the external structure steady, the Vessel had to shape the internal pathway. He had to guide the temporal current through his own core and into the sigil beneath him—had to offer the thread of his magic to braid with the Mortem Tempora. If he hesitated, if he faltered, if he let instinct win—

Dumbledore’s voice cut through the air, sharp and commanding.

“Now, Regulus. The conduit.”

His stomach lurched violently.

He hated this part. Feared it, even. Memories of the last attempt flashed through him—his body convulsing as he lost control for an instant, Dumbledore forcing the ritual to constrict around him so it wouldn’t tear him apart.

He would do better this time. He had to.

The conduit was not an object, but a channel—one only the Vessel could shape, one carved directly through his own magic. Regulus lifted his trembling hands, extending them out from his sides with agonizing slowness.

His fingers twitched, stiff and numb from the cold temporal force curling through his veins. The air between his palms was already distorting, rippling.

The circle responded to his movement.

Lines of white light shot upward, weaving between his fingertips in thin, crackling strands. The sensation was immediate and excruciating—like grasping pure lightning. The magic inside him surged in revolt, thrashing against the foreign influence that demanded entry.

Regulus swallowed hard, forcing breath into his lungs. He pressed his palms together.

The world detonated inside his chest.

A choked sound tore itself from him—half gasp, half cry—as the temporal current slammed through his hands, burning a direct channel through muscle and bone until it reached his core. His spine arched sharply, heels lifting from the floor. Pain flooded every nerve, ripping along the pathways his magic had carved into him across a lifetime.

Dumbledore did not soften his voice.

“Hold. Maintain the conduit. Do not—do not—let go.”

Regulus’s arms shook violently, but he tightened his grip. The conduit blazed between his palms—thin at first, then thickening into a rope of molten white light that burned from the inside out.

The sigil beneath him flared in answer.

Its pulse quickened—one beat, two, three—until it synced with the frantic, pounding rhythm of his heart. The surge of alignment sent a fresh spike of agony ripping through his chest. His vision blurred. Dark spots crawled across the edges.

He gritted his teeth so hard a sharp crack shot through his jaw. His knees nearly gave. His breath came in thin, ragged pulls, his ribs aching with each attempt to expand his lungs. Sweat dripped off his brow, freezing instantly as it met the air stirred by temporal distortion.

The conduit bucked in his hands.

The magic inside him recoiled like a living thing.

Hold it, he ordered himself, chest heaving. Hold—hold—

Another pulse hit him—harder, deeper, sharper. It felt like a hooked wire dragged straight through the middle of his being, threading through his heart, spine, and magic all at once.

Dumbledore’s hands moved again, expanding the external lattice, pushing more energy through the precise channels that Regulus was struggling to hold open. His voice was a steady presence—unyielding, methodical, commanding the ritual with relentless control.

“Good,” the old wizard said, not in praise, but in confirmation. “Again. Draw the current inward.”

Regulus forced his locked jaw to move. Forced breath past the pain. Forced his hands—still shaking—to pull the conduit an inch closer to his sternum.

The response was immediate.

The circle surged upward in a pillar of blinding white light, swallowing him whole. This was the point that had shattered him before. The make-or-break threshold.

And then the sound hit.

A deep, resonant, all-consuming roar ripped through the cottage—an impossible, crushing force like wind and thunder and tearing metal all at once. It wasn’t just loud; it was alive. It scraped against the inside of Regulus’s skull, vibrating his teeth, shaking something loose beneath his ribs.

He felt the next impact before it even struck.

The temporal force crashed through him—a violent, downward drag that slammed into his spine. His jaw snapped open on a cry he couldn’t hear over the deafening rush. His vision blew white, then red, then back to blinding white again as the conduit in his hands bucked.

Blood burst from his nose in a hot, sudden gush.

It streamed down over his lips, down his chin before the ritual pulled it upward—sucking it into the swirling air where it vaporized into red mist. The Mortem Tempora drank everything. Every drop. Every ounce of him it could get.

He barely had a second to breathe before the next pull hit.

This pulse was sharper—an abrupt, slicing drag that ripped through his magic like talons. His knees buckled, slamming down an inch before he forced them straight again. His ribs flared with pain as another rope of temporal current lashed across his center, tightening, twisting, trying to collapse him inward.

Regulus’s breath stuttered. His fingers spasmed around the conduit.

“Steady!” Dumbledore’s voice boomed over the roar—not comforting, not guiding, but commanding with brutal precision. “Pull it inward. You must guide it!”

Regulus tried.

He forced his shaking hands toward his sternum, dragging the blazing conduit an inch closer. Light flared, exploding outward from the point of contact, and the entire room shook.

The pillar of white light surged again. The conduit writhed, then snapped taut.

The pull nearly tore him off his feet.

A strangled, raw cry scraped out of him as the current ripped deeper—through muscle, through bone, through the very center of his magic. His spine arched, his heels leaving the floor again. His breath came in broken, ragged gasps as the temporal force raked across every channel of power in his body.

His vision swam. His ears rang with the high-pitched shriek of magic under too much strain. His skin felt flayed by the wind of time whipping past him—icy cold and burning hot at once, scraping him raw.

Regulus clung to the conduit, fingers clawed tight, knuckles glowing in the white blaze.

The conduit bucked violently again, like a serpent trying to rip free of his grasp.

Dumbledore’s hands cut through the air again, forcing the external lattice to constrict, compressing the field around him. The circle around Regulus flared—too bright, too hot, scorching the edges of his vision until black spots danced across his sight.

“Again!” Dumbledore commanded. “Draw the current inward—now!”

Regulus dragged the conduit another inch toward his chest.

White fire raced through him.

The circle beneath him screamed—its carved channels glowing so brightly they seemed carved from molten steel. The boards shook beneath his feet. Cracks snapped through the floor around the sigil as the ritual strained to contain its own force.

His blood dripped faster now—spattering across his chest, his arms, the glowing light between his hands. Every drop twisted upward the moment it fell, torn into the magic and burned away in an instant.

Regulus could barely breathe.

His lungs fought for air against the crushing pressure as the pull intensified into something catastrophic.

The Tempora roared louder. The circle’s light rose higher.

The conduit flared in his hands, splitting into multiple blinding threads that tore at his fingers, his wrists, his veins—forcing themselves deeper into him, dragging him closer to the threshold.

His heart hammered—too fast, too hard—each beat sending another burst of blood from his nose. His hands spasmed. His knees buckled again. Pain detonated across his ribs, his spine, his skull. The world narrowed to light, sound, and agony.

“Now, Regulus—” Dumbledore’s voice cut through the chaos—raw, strained, commanding with absolute force.

Regulus pulled. He dragged the crackling, blazing conduit directly into his sternum—forcing the temporal current to collide with his core.

The impact was indescribable. The white pillar erupted. The sigil beneath him ignited—the air exploded outward—the roaring reached its highest pitch yet—and then, in one blinding, violent instant—time itself twisted backward around him.

The Mortem Tempora snapped into place.

Chapter Text

James Potter was nothing else if not an optimist.

At least, he used to be.

There was a time—not even that long ago, really, if you measured it by years instead of by the number of people buried—that optimism had been the defining rhythm of James’s life.

He had once moved through the world with a kind of inevitable buoyancy, certain that things would always work out, that good would triumph over anything dark enough to challenge it. For most of his life, that belief had been easy to maintain. Hogwarts fostered it. His friends fed it. His parents protected it.

The Order tore it out of him.

James had been eighteen—barely an adult, barely out of school, still flush with victory from his N.E.W.T.s when he’d first walked into Alastor Moody’s dim basement lit by a single lantern and sworn an oath he hadn’t fully understood.

Back then, he had worn the title of soldier like it meant something noble. Back then, he had believed he’d grow into the role.

By twenty-three, James Potter understood the truth: he wasn’t growing into anything. He was eroding.

These days, James woke each morning feeling as if someone had scraped him thin with a blade, leaving only the outline of a person behind. His body functioned out of obligation. His mind flickered between sharp, brittle clarity and fogged exhaustion. People looked to him now—seasoned Order members, terrified civilians, recruits—waiting for him to make decisions that could save or condemn them. They spoke to him like he was steady. Like he was certain. Like he was someone worth trusting.

James Potter didn’t feel like any of those things.

Most days he felt like he was impersonating a version of himself that no longer existed—some bright, fearless boy who might’ve laughed at the things that now made him go cold. Sometimes, he caught himself wondering if that boy had died somewhere along the way, quietly and without fanfare, and whether the current James was just whatever had crawled out of the wreckage.

The Order had a way of grinding people down without ever meaning to. At eighteen, he thought he understood what he’d signed up for. At twenty-three, he understood that the Order didn’t need believers; it needed bodies. Warm bodies who could apparate when summoned, follow orders without questioning the consequences, and stand in front of curses meant for someone else.

They weren’t soldiers with a true purpose—they were shields. Interchangeable. Breakable. Replaceable.

James had learned that during his first winter in the Order, when they’d spent weeks tracking a small Death Eater cell outside Cardiff. He remembered the cold seeping into his bones because they slept in shifts in an abandoned barn, watching a Wizarding family’s house from a distance.

They’d gotten there too late—of course they had. James still remembered finding the mother on the kitchen floor with her hand outstretched, as if she had been reaching for something, or someone, in her last moments.

He remembered stepping outside to vomit in the snow. He remembered his breath fogging in the air and thinking, numbly, that he wasn’t sure if he could keep doing this.

That had only been the beginning. Missions piled on after that, each one blurrier than the last. Raids. Recoveries. Reconnaissance that turned into ambushes. Nights where he didn’t know who was screaming until he realized it was him. Days when they brought back pieces of people instead of whole bodies.

He learned early how to keep his expression still while Moody evaluated the damage. How to nod even when every instinct told him to run. How to make decisions while his ears still rang from curses exploding too close.

People looked at him now—looked to him—as if those years had made him dependable. A leader. Someone with a good head in a crisis. They didn’t understand that the only reason James sounded calm was because panic didn’t register the same way anymore. The dial had been broken. He operated on a level of constant, low-grade terror that felt like normal life now.

But that was the job: respond even if you could be wrong. Act, even if the cost is more than you can afford. Fake certainty, until someone else mistakes it for competence.

James had grown up imagining a future that felt uncomplicated: Auror training, then marriage, maybe kids someday—a world where he didn’t sleep with his wand under his pillow. A world where he didn’t calculate escape routes the moment he entered a room. A world where waking up didn’t feel like resurfacing from drowning.

Instead, his days blurred together—long stretches of tension punctuated by moments of violence so intense he felt split open by it. He forgot what it was like to go 24 hours without blood on his hands. He forgot what it was like to laugh without feeling something brittle wedge itself in his chest. He forgot what it was like to feel young, despite still being it.

James felt like the war was peeling him layer by layer, reducing him to something sharp-edged and stripped down. A tool, almost. A weapon. Something designed to move, not feel. He went through the motions of being James Potter, of course, but the name felt like a costume that no longer fit.

The war had begun long before James even knew what it meant to fight, when the world was still half-bright and half-shadow, when the dark whispers in The Daily Prophet and the hushed warnings of adults felt distant, abstract.

At ten, it was a story told in fragments, a shadow flitting across the edges of life, something to fear, but not yet touch. By the time he joined the Order, the shadow had thickened into a tangible presence, something that could reach out and crush you without warning, without pause, without reason.

Thirteen years. Thirteen years of the war stretched out in every direction, expanding into every corner of the wizarding world, and he’d only participated in five of those years. Where once there had been the illusion of borders, of lines to hold, of pockets of safety, there was now only a network of danger.

The Ministry had fallen, St. Mungo’s had been reduced to ruins, and even Hogwarts itself was now utilized as an instrument of terror. Cities, towns, and villages were riddled with violence and mistrust. People moved as if the air itself could strike at them. Nothing remained untouched—even parts of the Muggle world—and no one could claim safety.

For five years James has been at the front, moving through that rot, feeling the slow, grinding attrition of a war without conclusion. The Order’s victories were temporary, fragile things—outposts recaptured only to be abandoned, Death Eater cells smashed only for two more to rise in their place.

The war had no rhythm anymore. It had no endgame, no climax, no hope of resolution. It was infinite. Every spell cast, every life saved, every small victory was swallowed by the tide of ongoing destruction. Every effort felt like shoveling water against a tide that had been rising for more than a decade.

He could trace the expansion of it in memory alone: towns that had been safe when he was a child, now nothing more than battlegrounds; families he had known by sight, erased; communities extinguished. The countryside itself had grown hostile.

Forests once silent at night now carried the echo of curses and screams. Roads were dangerous, skies untrustworthy. Time itself felt infected by the war—years marked not by celebrations or milestones, but by ambushes, attacks, disappearances, and losses that could not be named.

It was relentless. It crept into every aspect of existence. People stopped keeping track of anniversaries, of birthdays, of the turning of seasons. Any thought of “returning to normal” was a lie told by memory, a phantom from a world that no longer existed.

The war had long ceased to be a series of battles with beginnings and ends; it was the air you breathed, the ground you walked on, the light in the sky—it had no pause, no mercy, and no horizon. It simply was.

There were no victories left to measure. There were only holds against the tide, fragile and fleeting, each day a temporary reprieve before the next blow. Those who remained were exhausted, hollowed out by the unbroken weight of it, carrying forward because inertia demanded it, because stopping would mean immediate destruction.

On top of it all, it had been months since they’d last had anything resembling contact with Albus Dumbledore.

His absence is stark, and it is felt in nearly every area of the Order.

Moody has begun holding meetings twice as often, filling the gaps that none of them want to admit are widening. Conversations trail off whenever someone almost says Dumbledore’s name.

And yet, none of them truly broach the topic with one another. Especially not James.

Not because they’re all pretending his absence doesn’t matter. Not because they’re all too proud to admit they need him. But because questioning Albus Dumbledore feels a bit like questioning the sun. You don’t ask where it’s gone when clouds cover it. You simply trust it’s still there, burning above the haze.

For all his private doubts about the war—about the Order’s constant scrambling, about how thinly they’re stretched, about how little ground they actually seem to gain—James still believes in Albus Dumbledore with a quiet, unwavering intensity.

Dumbledore’s calm, deliberate certainty has always anchored him. Even before the Order existed, before the war seeped into every hour of his life, James had trusted the man instinctively.

When Dumbledore spoke, things made sense. Chaos arranged itself into a pattern. A path appeared.

It was always Dumbledore who brought them information that shifted the tides in their favor, who seemed to know which strings to pull, which hidden corner of the world still held something they could use. It was Dumbledore who could arrive in a room and make the air feel less suffocating. It was Dumbledore who could look at the map of their lost, scattered fronts and find a direction where none existed.

James has never been able to explain it properly—not even to Sirius, not really—but he has always felt as though the war bends around Dumbledore, as if the man carries something gravitational in him. Something that changes the tilt of whatever space he occupies.

So even now, with the months stretching uncomfortably and Moody growing shorter and the missions scattering them, James doesn’t entertain the idea that Dumbledore has abandoned them. The thought doesn’t cross his mind, not for longer than a flicker.

Dumbledore doesn’t abandon people. He reappears in surprising places, disappears into the folds of the world—but never abandons.

If he has been gone this long, James tells himself, it’s because he’s doing something important. Something necessary. Something that must be done alone.

And they—James and Sirius and Remus and the lot of them—simply have to keep the gears turning until he returns.

James wasn’t sure the safehouse had ever been a real home, not even before the Order claimed it. Back when Moody had first shoved them through its creaking door years ago, there had been a story attached—something about a squib couple who’d left for the continent before things got bad, or a Ministry official who’d been “reassigned” in the earliest purge.

James couldn’t remember anymore, not clearly. Too many houses blurring together. Too many whispered warnings about who had lived where, how quickly they’d vanished, and why no one should check the cellar.

This one was somewhere on the outskirts of Ottery St. Catchpole, tucked between two sagging farm properties and shielded by layers of wards so convoluted James sometimes wondered if Moody had invented half of them on the spot. Everything inside smelled faintly of damp earth and old wood, like the place had been holding its breath for a century.

The meeting room—if you could call it that—had once been a parlor. The wallpaper peeled in curling strips down the walls, showing older wallpaper beneath it, pink flowers faded into bruise-colored smudges. Someone had shoved the furniture against the perimeter of the room long ago, leaving only a battered table and several mismatched chairs. A single lantern burned on the table, its glow a sickly, uneven gold that deepened every shadow rather than banishing them.

The others drifted in one by one, shoulders brushing, steps muffled by exhaustion more than caution. Five years of war had worn their movements into identical patterns: quiet, deliberate, drained.

James sat near the end of the table, the wood splintering beneath his thumbs. Sirius dropped into the chair beside him with graceless heaviness. Remus leaned against the table’s edge, eyes shadowed, arms crossed as if bracing himself for whatever Moody was about to unload. Peter hovered behind them, wringing his hands.

Lily perched near Kingsley, her expression tightly composed. Mary and Marlene took the last of the chairs; Alice stood behind Frank, her hand resting on the back of his shoulder, grounding them both.

Moody didn’t sit. He rarely did. He paced. He had always paced, but now there was a kind of clipped urgency to it, as though the floor itself might give way if he paused too long.

“Next month,” Moody barked, voice gravel scraped against stone. “We’ve got a potential strike window.”

James blinked. Next month. A month felt like a lifetime in wartime—too many days where everything could go wrong, too many nights where you could lose half the people in the room before dawn. He found his focus drifting almost instantly. Moody’s words became a background hum, like dull thunder behind his thoughts.

He stared at the peeling wallpaper instead, letting his eyes trace the water stains. They looked like dark maps. War maps. He wondered, fleetingly, if there was a part of him that no longer had room for new information. As if every plan, every briefing, every emergency order had filled his mind to the brim years ago, and now anything added simply sloshed over the sides.

“…intel leads us to believe,” Moody was saying, “that Rasbatan Lestrange has been moving something between bases. Don’t know what yet, but the pattern is wrong. Too many detours. Too much security. Whatever it is, we want eyes on it.”

James’s vision blurred again.

“…which means,” Moody continued, “we’ll need to divide our forces.”

That snapped James back.

Divide. Split. Separate.

He felt the air in the room tighten.

Moody crossed his arms, gaze sweeping the table. “We’ll need at least three safehouses active. Rotating shifts. Staggered positions. No large gatherings until the mission’s complete.”

Sirius’s chair scraped sharply across the floor as he straightened up in his seat. The sound was loud, jarring. His voice came out low and breathless. “You’re talking about scattering us for a month.”

“Longer,” Moody corrected, tone maddeningly indifferent. “Maybe two.”

James could feel Sirius stiffen beside him.

“No,” Sirius said, quieter now but colder. More dangerous. “We’ve done that before.”

“We’ll do it again.” Moody replied.

Remus’s jaw tightened. He didn’t say anything, but James saw the way his fingers curled into fists against his arms. Peter’s breathing quickened; he looked from face to face like he was waiting for a blow.

Marlene leaned forward, voice sharp with an edge of fear she didn’t bother hiding. “Last time we split, we didn’t see each other for—what, ten weeks? And half of us came back with injuries we’re still treating now.”

Mary nodded, her voice tight. “And we lost contact with two outposts entirely. You can’t just—”

Kingsley cleared his throat, the sound deep and steady. “We all remember. But Moody’s right.”

Sirius turned on him, incredulous. “You call this—this butchering of our ranks—right?”

Kingsley didn’t flinch. He stood with his hands folded behind his back, posture unyielding. “If we travel in groups that large, they’ll track us. If we stay here together, they’ll find us. The last sweep in Devon proved that. We move separately, we lower the risk.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Sirius snapped, his finger raised toward Kingsley accusingly. His shoulders were rigid, his eyes bright. “Risk doesn’t disappear just because we’re alone while we die—”

“It’s strategy,” Kingsley corrected, voice still level. “It keeps more of us alive in the long run.”

James watched the exchange, feeling the familiar sick twist in his stomach. Splitting up meant uncertainty. It meant counting the days since he’d last seen the faces around him. It meant wondering if absence meant injury, capture, or a body they’d never find.

He remembered the last separation—the endless waiting for news. He remembered seeing Sirius again after weeks apart and barely recognizing him under the layers of exhaustion. He remembered holding his breath every time Remus was late to a check-in. He remembered the empty bed where Peter should’ve been.

He didn’t want to do it again, of course he didn’t—but he also knew Kingsley wasn’t wrong.

Moody slammed his palm on the table, making the lantern flicker. “Enough. This isn’t up for debate.”

Sirius turned sharply, the motion abrupt enough that the legs of his chair thudded against the uneven floorboards. His eyes found James’s—sharp, urgent, cutting straight through the haze James had been sinking into.

“James,” he whispered, voice raw at the edges. “Come on. Say something.”

James blinked, startled out of whatever hollow fog had swallowed him. His shoulders jerked almost imperceptibly, as though someone had just shaken him awake. Until now he’d been hunched forward, elbows digging into his thighs, staring past the edge of the table.

“Moody, splitting us up—”

Moody’s head snapped toward him, cane tapping against the floor with a sharp rhythm. “Potter,” he said, tone rough and clipped but not unkind, “you don’t need to weigh in on this one.” He leaned on the table slightly, eyes scanning James like he was assessing a stubborn recruit. “Remember last spring? Your call on that hit in Bristol? Fenwick, Miles, and two others… gone. You want to argue strategy again, or do you want to keep everyone breathing?”

The words hit like a cold gust, but James didn’t flinch. His hands tightened over the edge of the table, knuckles whitening, but he kept his gaze level. “I know what happened,” he said evenly. “I’m not denying it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t—”

“Can’t what?” Moody cut in, a gruff edge underlining each syllable. “You think you’ve got a better idea? You’re five years in, Potter, and you still measure the world by what could go wrong. This plan keeps people alive. That’s what matters.”

Sirius glanced back toward James expectantly, as if he expected a sharp retort to come spilling out. But James had already deflated, averting his gaze. He didn’t miss Sirius’s softened scoff behind him.

The meeting had ended without ceremony. Chairs scraped across the warped floorboards, soft murmurs drifting.

Moody, after his usual pacing and clipped commands, had eventually allowed a small concession: James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter—would remain together, accompanied by Sybill and Marlene.

The reasoning was practical. Their base would be the relocated Potter estate, far from Godric’s Hollow, moved repeatedly over the years to stay ahead of Death Eater patrols and Ministry suspicion. The familiarity of the estate’s walls, however new or hastily fortified, made keeping this particular unit slightly larger feasible.

The other groups were slightly smaller: Kingsley, Moody, Arthur, Frank, and Alice would move west; Gideon, Fabian, Lily, Mary, and Molly would take the east.

Of course, there were many more members of the Order scattered elsewhere already, but their faction had been hit with the most losses over the years.

James was the first to leave the cramped room. Sirius followed, steps heavy but steady, with Remus and Peter close behind, a quiet line of continuity.

Outside, the yard was narrow and uneven, a patchwork of cobbles hemmed in by stone walls that had seen better days. The night was sharp, a slight chill biting at the exposed skin of hands and faces, but it felt infinitely better than the suffocating heat of the meeting room. Here, at least, they could breathe.

Peter leaned against the bricks and let out a long, low hiss of exasperation. “Fucking hell,” he muttered. “Scattering us again. As if it’s ever done us a single favor.”

James didn’t answer immediately. He inhaled the cold air, steadying himself against the churn of adrenaline Moody’s plan had left behind. His gaze swept the yard and landed on Sirius, then on Remus and Peter.

“Alright, Prongs?” Remus spoke up, eyeing James carefully. “You seemed a little lost back there.”

“No, yeah, I just—” James starts, then sighs sharply, pushing his glasses up with one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I’m just—tired, that’s all.”

Sirius’s eyes were big, trained on James as Remus’s were. His hand came up toward James’s arm, tugging his hand from his face. “He was a bastard for bringing up what he did—about Fenwick. None of us blame you for what’s happened, James.” He spoke with certainty, gesturing back toward the safehouse.

James pulled his arm back, letting it hang loosely at his side, and stared at the cobbles beneath his boots. “I know,” he murmured, voice flat. “I just—everything’s moving too fast. Decisions, people going missing—it’s all a blur.”

If James had been paying attention, he might have noticed the glances Remus, Peter, and Sirius kept exchanging, brief but pointed, tracking his lack of response. Remus’s jaw was clenched, his arms crossed tightly. Peter’s hands twisted at his sleeves, a small, nervous habit, and Sirius—Sirius was just watching, sharp and restless, his eyes never leaving James.

They didn’t say anything. That wasn’t their way. But the concern was there, unspoken, threaded through subtle movements, slight shifts in posture, the tension in the air. They all knew the signs, knew how quickly James could spiral when everything stacked up at once—decisions, losses, the constant churn of the war. They watched, and waited, but they didn’t prod.

James didn’t meet their eyes. Instead, he let his gaze slide along the uneven cobbles of the yard, focusing on anything but their attention.

Peter’s voice cut through the quiet, light enough to land without shattering it. “At least soon we’ll be at your parents’ place,” he said, voice low. “A proper fire. Real food. Maybe even some quiet rooms we can call ours for a night.” He shrugged, as if the thought should make them smile.

It didn’t. Not really. But it was enough to pull a small, flickering warmth through James, that brief spark of something like anticipation—he hadn’t seen his parents properly in ten months, and even passing glimpses had been just that.

Again, at James’s lack of a response, Remus gave a short, almost imperceptible nod. “Let’s head back inside,” he said, his voice quiet, cautious. James didn’t answer, only followed as Sirius fell into step beside him.

The yard fell behind them, the uneven cobbles and stone walls swallowed by shadows. Inside, the meeting room waited, with its lanterns swinging faintly, the smell of wax and old wood heavy in the air. No one spoke as they stepped back among the others. No one needed to.

James kept his gaze low, tracking the floorboards beneath his boots. The noise of the room pressed in around him, and for a moment he felt the sharp edge of the night at his back still, the weight of what was coming pressing down on all of them.

Chapter Text

The sitting room of the Black family’s coastal house had always felt a little uncanny, even in childhood. It was too quiet, for one—an unsettling, suspended kind of quiet that belonged more to mausoleums than holiday homes.

The sea lay just beyond the tall windows, muted and grey, stretching out in a heavy sheet beneath low clouds. The shore was far enough south that winters had a softness to them here, the salt air warm in comparison to London’s bite, but the house itself remained cold no matter the season. It smelled faintly of brine, old wood, and dust that no one had ever bothered to scrub from the corners.

The room’s walls were paneled in dark, polished timber that had warped slightly with years of sea air. A massive, unused hearth dominated one wall; above it hung a stiffly posed portrait of some long-dead Black aunt with sharp cheekbones and a murderous expression. No fires had been lit here in years—Regulus wasn’t sure the chimney hadn’t rotted inward. The furniture was a mismatched collection of stiff-backed chairs and a sagging settee upholstered in green damask.

Once, this space had hosted long holiday dinners and forced “family bonding.” Now it served as a hideout carefully chosen for its isolation. No neighbors. No eyes. No expectations.

Today, it held five people who had no business being in the same room, much less planning treason together.

Regulus sat in the high-backed chair nearest the window, posture immaculate despite the slight tremor in his left hand. The right side of his face had a new hollow space where his eye used to be; the skin below the patch he wore was puckered and pale, the scar an angry white that dipped and healed along the line of his cheek. It was still raw enough that light cut across it oddly.

He had lost the eye in the weeks after his third Mortem Tempora, when the ritual had finished and the cost it demanded took on a more intimate cruelty. Whatever life force that had been holding it in place receded, and Regulus woke to find the socket already too far gone. It had rotted outward with an ugly swiftness that left him painfully aware of how thin he had come to be.

A worn blanket was draped over his legs—not his idea, which was obvious from the irritated way he kept shifting beneath it. A steaming mug of something herbal sat on the table beside him, untouched.

Dorcas Meadowes occupied the opposite chair, boots propped on the low table with deliberate disrespect for the Black estate. Her arms were crossed, chin dipped, dark curls falling around her face, entirely unlike the tight braids she’d worn proudly back in school. She looked like she hadn’t slept well in weeks. Though, Regulus supposed none of them had.

Pandora hovered near the table with a small notebook and a jar of something pungent that smelled faintly of rosemary and iron; she was thinner than the last time Regulus had seen her.

Barty lounged on the sagging settee with theatrical boredom, head tipped back, fingers tapping rhythmically along the fabric’s frayed armrest. And Evan sat stiffly beside him, forearms resting on his knees, foot bouncing in a tight, anxious rhythm.

The five of them had gathered because the sun had set, because the house was quiet, because plans were due. And because this was the only place in the world they could speak openly.

For days now, they’d cycled through the necessary topics over and over again—the Mortem Tempora, Dumbledore’s part in it, the first steps toward dismantling a horcrux. They’d demanded excruciating details in each area, and Regulus had given as much as he was comfortable with giving.

All of that was settled. But today’s purpose was narrower, sharper: figuring out how to pull James Potter away from the war long enough to keep him alive.

Regulus cleared his throat. “We’ll have one chance,” he said, his voice thinner than he meant it to be. “And I need the timing exact.”

Dorcas uncrossed her arms, leaning further against the back of her chair with a scowl. “You cannot expect—”

“We’ll walk it through, slowly.” Regulus interrupted her protest, resting a fingertip on the wood of the table next to his seat. “I want them to think he’s irretrievable. I don’t want search parties. If they suspect he survived—that he got out of harm—the only way they’ll stop combing is if they think he didn’t.”

Dorcas let out a low, dry laugh devoid of any humor, and dropped her boots from the table with a thud.

“Brilliant,” she said flatly. “So we’re doing arson now.”

Barty stretched his legs out, resting them upon Evan’s thighs and not bothering to hide his grin. “Oh, come on, Meadowes. You’ve set worse on fire.”

“I’ve set dark artifacts on fire,” Dorcas snapped. “Not buildings full of people who already have targets on their backs.”

Evan lifted his head, frowning. “Regulus said the exits stay clear. Everyone gets out. We’ll just take Potter and leave them with the chaos, not casualties.”

“And you think it’ll work like that?” Dorcas shot back. “You think fire has a sense of ethics? You think anyone in that house is going to just—what—stroll out calmly and form an orderly line while you two dive in and steal someone? People panic. They choke. They run the wrong way.” She stabbed a finger toward the floorboards, eyes fierce. “They die.”

Regulus didn’t flinch, but his teeth clenched. “It has to be significant, Dorcas. Loud enough to confuse them, fast enough to force evacuation. And staged—partially. Enough that he’s isolated for long enough that Barty or Evan can take him.”

Dorcas’s eyes narrowed. “You keep saying ‘take’ like he won’t fight. He will. You know that, right? Do any of you know him at all?”

Barty only shrugged, eyes flicking toward Regulus with a faint, taunting “told you so” glint.

Pandora set her notebook down carefully as if the conversation were something fragile she didn’t want to shatter. “Dorcas… I know you haven’t been around the last few years, but Regulus wouldn’t risk unnecessary deaths. And you know why James can’t stay where he is.”

Dorcas swung toward her, expression pained, exasperation in her voice. “I know James Potter, Pandora. He’s not going to simply sit tight in some remote beach house and wait for Regulus Black to explain himself. He’ll hex someone. Or jump out a window. Or swim home. And then he’ll walk straight back into the Order—straight back into danger—because that’s who he is.”

Her voice cracked, just faintly, as she added, “And I think all of you know who he’s with right now. You know who’ll try to save him if things go wrong.”

Pandora’s face pinched. Evan stared at the floor. Even Barty stopped tapping long enough to slide his tongue across his teeth, jaw shifting.

Regulus absorbed it quietly, his one grey eye fixed on her. The patch over the other cast an uneven shadow down the right side of his face. Up close, the remains of the injury were visible—slight swelling still present beneath the leather, the faint ripple of scar tissue still healing its way down the cheek toward his jaw. It made him look unbalanced, hollowed, and far more breakable than any of them ever remembered.

He knew Dorcas was right. But he also knew he didn’t have another option.

“I can manage him.” Regulus said with certainty.

Dorcas actually barked a laugh. “You’ll manage him. How? You used to faint at the sight of a scraped knee. And I say that with affection.”

Pandora gave a soft, anxious hum. “He’ll need time to recover from the shock, that’s all. Once he understands—”

“He won’t,” Dorcas cut sharply. “Not immediately. Not the way you think.”

She looked to Regulus again, and her expression softened, though her voice didn’t. “You can’t assume he’ll accept this, Black. You can’t assume he’ll stay. And you definitely can’t assume he won’t hate you for it.”

Regulus held her gaze steadily. Little did Dorcas know, Regulus had thought of all of these things. “That's fine. He can hate me. He can break things. He can scream if he’d like. None of that matters. What matters is that he doesn’t die.”

Barty let out a sweeping, dramatic sigh. “Can we get back to the fun part? The part where Evan and I set something ablaze?”

Evan shot him a look. “You make it sound like we’re lighting a bonfire for kicks.”

“I’m trying to lighten the mood,” Barty muttered, then waved a lazy hand. “Look, if we do this cleanly, we can get in and out in under thirty seconds. I can disillusion us both before stepping foot inside. Evan will handle the structural charms and the flame routes. I’ll grab Potter, apparate us out—nobody sees a thing.” Barty finished with a hint of pride, as if this were all glaringly obvious and rather simple.

Dorcas turned her glare on him. “You won’t grab Potter. You’ll try, he’ll break your nose, and the whole house will fall down on top of all of you.”

Regulus lifted a hand before Barty could fire back. He spoke carefully, choosing every word with precision.

“The fire starts outside. Back entrance. It spreads inward but not upward yet. You’ll have around two minutes before the staircase is engulfed. They’ll be forced to exit through the kitchen and courtyard. That’s where the confusion will be thickest. That’s where James will be last—he always stays back to make sure everyone’s out, no matter the situation.”

That gave Dorcas pause. She knew it was true.

Dorcas Meadowes had spent the last five years fighting alongside James Potter. She had been a proud member of the Order. She had seen James charge into battles with reckless courage, always the first to face danger, always the last to leave anyone behind.

She had argued with him, laughed with him, saved him more times than she could count—and every time, she had known, with an unshakable certainty, that he would do the same for her.

The thought of taking him away from that life, even to save him, filled her with a conflicted fire: relief at the possibility of keeping him alive, and fury at the audacity of anyone who thought they could dictate what he would or would not do.

She had grown to trust him implicitly, to anticipate his movements and moods, to understand the rare glimpses of doubt he allowed himself. And now, here she was, sitting across from Regulus Black, listening to a plan that required James to be taken—without his consent, without explanation.

Every instinct screamed at her to intervene, to refuse, to tear apart the plan before it began—but she knew the weight of the stakes, and that sometimes survival required cold, unbearable choices.

Silence pooled in the space between them.

Dorcas leaned forward, elbows on her knees, voice taut. “A fire, Regulus. A real one. Do you understand that? If this goes sideways, even a little, someone dies who isn’t meant to.” Her words hung in the air, thick and accusing. The wind outside beat once against the windowpanes, rattling the warped frames as if echoing her warning.

Inside—somewhere beneath Regulus’s rigid posture and the worn blanket and the sharp ache of his half-healed face—there was a small pulse of fear. For James.

He imagined James choking on the smoke. James stumbling down a burning hallway. James refusing to leave until everyone else had. He imagined the way James threw himself into danger like a reflex, the way he never once thought of his own body as anything precious.

Regulus’s throat constricted.

James.

James in that last moment he’d seen him properly—alive, whole, brilliant, golden in that way only he could be—and Regulus had walked away because he’d had to. Because staying had been worse. It had hurt him. It was hurting James, and Regulus hadn't been able to bear it anymore.

He swallowed, pulse skittering, shaking himself out of the drifting thoughts.

“I understand,” he said quietly.

Evan shifted beside Barty, leaning forward. “Then we need details, Reg.” His voice was low but firm—the kind of practical steadiness that had always made Evan the one Regulus secretly depended on most. “Not just where James will be. We need to know how the fire starts. How fast. What spells. Whether the Order can counter them. The wards. All of it.”

Barty groaned, tipping his head back as if dying of boredom. “Evan, must you ruin all my fun?”

“No,” Dorcas cut in sharply. “Evan’s right.”

Suddenly, Barty perked up instantly. “Fiendfyre.”

Three voices snapped at once—

“No.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Have you gone insane?”

Pandora nearly dropped her notebook. Dorcas stared at him like he’d sprouted additional heads. Evan pressed a palm over his eyes.

Barty raised both hands in mock surrender. “What? It’s effective.”

“It’s suicidal,” Evan shot back, voice sharpened. “You can’t control Fiendfyre, Barty. No one can, not fully. It would eat the whole neighborhood. It would eat half the bloody countryside if the wind picks up.”

“And it would not leave the structure intact long enough,” Pandora added, trying for clinical calm. “Fiendfyre vaporizes everything. They’d know something unnatural was used. It wouldn’t look like an accident or a freak spark. It would look exactly like what it is: a Dark attack.”

Regulus didn’t raise his voice, but the tone he used had the density of lead. “We’re not using Fiendfyre. The point is to convince them James died, not to scorch the Order into a panic and spark retaliatory raids.”

Barty slouched deeper into the couch with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “Fine. No fun allowed then. I suppose we’ll do your quaint little arson the Muggle way?”

Evan frowned. “Actually… that might be closer to what we need.”

All eyes turned to him. He swallowed, then continued. “A combination of mundane accelerants and magical ignition. Enough to burn through the lower level rapidly, but spread evenly and predictably. I can layer the fire with containment charms—direct it where we need it to go and keep anything from traveling upward too fast. Give everyone enough time to get out.”

“That still doesn’t guarantee anything,” Dorcas muttered, though she couldn’t entirely disguise that she trusted Evan’s skill more than anyone else’s.

“It’s the closest we’ll get,” Evan replied softly. “If we set a magical fire, any half-competent Auror or cursebreaker will see the signature. If we use Fiendfyre, we destroy too much.”

Barty grinned, flicking his gaze toward Dorcas. “See? Only a little arson.”

Dorcas shot him a poisonous glare. “You think this is exciting, but you’re not the one with someone you love in that house.”

That wiped the smile off Barty’s face quicker than any reprimand. His gaze snapped to hers, startled, then dipped away—uncharacteristically ashamed.

Dorcas inhaled sharply, and the sound caught, almost painful. “Marlene is there. Marlene, Barty.” Her voice wavered; she forced it steady. “You’re sitting here talking about fire like it’s a game, like she’s expendable, as if she’s—she’s just collateral in some absurd, overcomplicated scheme—”

Regulus interrupted quietly, “She won’t be harmed.”

Dorcas rounded on him. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Her jaw tightened, words spilling out before anyone could soothe her. “She’s my—she matters to me. And the idea of her being trapped in a burning building because the lot of you think you’re clever—”

Regulus felt it. A faint tremor of guilt—not enough to sway him, but enough to make him look toward her more directly. Dorcas Meadowes wasn’t afraid of much, but she was afraid of this.

He filed that away. A necessary calculation, but one he would have to handle gently if he wanted Dorcas’s continued cooperation at all.

Regulus’s jaw tightened—not at her, but at himself. “I’m not. I’m telling you what the plan requires. The fire will be contained to the first floor, fed along a controlled path. The alarms Alastor Moody placed will trigger immediately. The Order will evacuate before the structure loses integrity. Marlene will be out long before James is separated.”

Dorcas scoffed. “You’re saying all of this like James isn’t always the last one out. Like he doesn’t stay back until he’s counted every head twice.”

Regulus didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. Everyone knows it’s true, and also the thing he’s relying on most.

Evan pushed a hand through his hair, the movement jerky. “Look, if the opportunity doesn’t present itself, we pull out before it ever starts and try another time.”

Regulus’s voice cut in, cool and precise: “There won’t be another time. They’ll be moving safehouses soon—scattering them.”

The room went still. Pandora’s fingers hovered above her notebook as though she’d forgotten what she meant to write. Barty stared fixedly at the ceiling.

Dorcas stared at him with open disbelief. “Tell me this, Regulus—do you really think you can just keep him here? For how long? Days? Weeks? Months? What happens when he tries to escape? When he tries to tear this entire house apart?”

The way she spoke of James made him sound like a wild animal that needed containment. Regulus’s answer came slow, weighted, and devoid of any hope.

“I’ll make him stay.”

Dorcas froze. “By telling him the truth?”

“No.”

“Regulus.” Her voice dropped to something softer, scared. “He deserves to know. If you don’t explain—”

Regulus turned his face slightly, and the angle revealed the faint, mottled bruise-like discoloration beneath the patch—another reminder of how quickly the Mortem Tempora was thinning him out. He looked pale, hollow, fragile, and impossibly stubborn.

“This isn’t about how he feels about me. It isn’t about us. It’s about ending the cycle.” Regulus’s voice was tight.

Evan looked between them, brow furrowed. “So you’re just… what? Keeping him here indefinitely?”

“Until it’s safe,” Regulus said, his gaze drifting. “Until the horcruxes are gone. Until the Dark Lord falls.”

Dorcas leaned back, rubbing a hand across her face. “James Potter is not going to sit quietly in your little beach house while the rest of the war rages on. He’s stubborn, he’s protective, he’s reckless, he’s—”

“Alive,” Regulus finished, breathless. “He’ll be alive. That’s what matters. I need all of you to get that through your heads. I don’t give a damn about the rest.” He finished in a hiss.

Silence stretched out again—heavy, charged.

Dorcas rubbed her hands over her face, returning to the original topic they’d discussed before it had splintered into so many directions. “Fine. Let’s say the fire is clean. Let’s say it forces everyone outside. Let’s say Crouch and Rosier actually manage to control it long enough to grab James.”

She looked directly at Regulus again.

“Then what? They drag him off like a hostage? Knock him out? He’s not going to trust them. He’s not going to calmly follow them into the night, so you must have some idea of how to get him here.” Her voice softened—not in kindness, but in a tired, truthful way.

At Regulus’s silence, Dorcas scoffed slightly. She stood up, pacing now, tugging absentmindedly at her curls.

“And what about the wards?” she demanded. “I’ve been waiting for someone to mention the goddamn wards. Mad-Eye layered that house like a fortress. Protections against Dark magic, hostile magic, unregistered apparition—everything short of putting the place under Fidelius.”

Regulus waved his hand, closing his eyes for a moment. “Evan and I have already discussed it.”

Dorcas sighed sharply, sinking back into her chair, silent, furious, terrified—but she knew it was out of her control, despite how much she had clawed.

Regulus did not speak again. He simply let the silence stretch, letting it settle over them. The idea was now laid bare, the risks counted, and yet none of it felt real—not until it began.

He couldn’t deny to himself that part of this plan—to bring James here, to keep him locked within some kind of safety net that wasn’t assured outside of Regulus’s watchful gaze—was out of selfishness. But he couldn’t help himself. He could never help himself when it came to James. He always wanted every last drop of him.

Glancing around the room at each of his friends, he felt a brief calm settle over him. They’d all taken the news of his current predicament in different ways, but they hadn’t turned away from him. Hadn’t pitied him. They’d all offered themselves to him, even without knowing every piece of it.

And now, they had a plan.

Chapter Text

James woke with a violent, shuddering gasp.

His hand flew to his chest before he was even fully conscious, fingers clawing at the collar of his shirt as if something had been holding him down—smothering him, pinning him. He lurched upright before he even knew he’d moved, breath dragging fast and shallow, sweat clinging cold across his collarbones.

His heart thudded too quickly, and something cold prickled along his spine—but whatever he’d been dreaming of dissolved the second he tried to chase it. Just a smear of sound. A hand reaching.

The bedroom slowly materialized around him in the dim light leaking through the half-broken blinds. It was barely a room—more like a cupboard that had dreams of being one. The twin bed took up most of the space, shoved awkwardly against the slanted wall so James couldn’t sit up fully without smacking his head.

On the floor, curled on a thin mattress pad with a threadbare blanket James had thrown haphazardly over him the night before, Sirius was still sleeping. His hair was a dark snarl across the pillow. One arm dangled out from under the blanket, palm open, fingers twitching faintly, as if still reaching for something he’d been fighting in his own dreams.

Somehow, despite everything—the raids, the missions, the nights they didn’t think they’d even get to walk away from—Sirius always slept like the dead when he finally crashed.

James exhaled, slow and shaky.

He pushed his own blanket off and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The cold floorboards bit at his feet. He stood carefully, shifting his weight so the mattress didn’t creak too loudly, and stepped over Sirius’s outflung arm.

Sirius stirred anyway—because of course he did—and made a disgruntled noise that was half-groan, half-growl. His eyes cracked open just enough to glare blearily up at James.

“Nobody’s out there,” he mumbled, voice thick with sleep. “There never is. Go back to sleep.”

James offered a quiet, automatic, “Sorry,” even though Sirius was already drifting, the annoyance fading from his expression like a stone sinking beneath water.

In sleep, Sirius looked almost younger—almost like he had before the war had carved new lines into his face. Softer. Rounder. The furrow between his brows smoothed out, and the tension in his jaw loosened.

And for a split second—traitorous and uninvited—James saw someone else in that loosened expression. Someone whose face he hadn’t let himself picture in months.

He looked like—

James swallowed hard. The image rose without permission, unbidden and unwelcome: Regulus, younger too, always younger in James’s mind. Sirius’s features had softened in his sleep in a way that tugged sharply at the memory.

Something about the shape of the cheekbones. Or the mouth.

He shook the thought off with a small, violent twitch of his head, like he could fling the association away physically. Regulus Black wasn’t a memory he let himself linger on. Not anymore. Not when everything was so tangled and fractured and—

No. He wasn’t going there.

James crouched, grabbed his glasses from the nightstand, slipping them on and sliding his wand into his pocket.

A slight shiver ran through him—residual dread or the leftover echo of the nightmare, he wasn’t sure—and he crossed to the window. He pushed the curtain aside and peered through the warped glass, half expecting movement, shadows, something. But the yard was empty. The gate was still.

No one. Nothing.

James let the curtain fall and rubbed a hand over his face, dragging his palm from forehead to jaw in a slow, weary motion. He sighed, a soft sound swallowed by the small room, then turned toward the door.

If he wasn’t sleeping again anytime soon—and he knew he wasn’t—he might as well go downstairs. Make tea. Drink something warm.

He walked carefully, avoiding the creaky board near the foot of the bed, and slipped out into the dim hallway. He started down the stairs, one hand skimming the splintered banister. The whole house settled around him with soft clicks and sighs—old wood shifting, pipes humming, something scratching faintly in the walls.

The kitchen light wasn’t on. But there was light—soft, muted, amber—from a single lamp on the table.

And a shape sitting beneath it.

James flinched so hard his knee cracked the underside of the railing.

“Shit—Remus!” he hissed, clutching his chest for the second time that morning.

Remus lifted his gaze with a slow, deliberate blink. He’d clearly been awake a long time and was pretending he hadn’t been.

“Morning,” he murmured, voice raspy from disuse. “Technically.”

James’s heart was still racing, but his embarrassment kicked in next, hot and prickly. “You scared the shit out of me,” James scoffed lightheartedly, letting out a weak laugh as he stepped further into the room.

The kitchen was small, square, and perpetually cold. The linoleum tile had peeled back from one corner, curling like a dead leaf. Dust clung to the high window above the sink, blurring the first hints of dawn that were trying to force their way in. The table was an old, heavy oak thing one leg shorter than the rest, so everything on it tilted slightly toward Remus’s elbow.

Remus sat hunched at the edge of the table, a mug cradled loosely between his hands. Fresh cuts lined his knuckles like pale, angry threads. The sleeves of his jumper—frayed, too big, stretched thin—were pushed up to the elbows, revealing raw, newly healed lines that striped his forearms. Bite marks. Clawing.

Moony did not like being locked away in the cellar on full moons. It had been a couple days since the last one, and Remus had been more exhausted than usual.

Another mug sat beside him untouched, steam long-gone.

“That Lily’s?” James guessed, noticing the second mug.

Remus hummed. “She said she’d come down. I don’t think she made it.” His eyes flicked toward the ceiling in the direction of the bedrooms. “Figured that was Padfoot trudging in here, not you.”

“Padfoot?” James furrowed his eyebrows. “He’d throw a fit at being up this early.”

“I heard you scream in your sleep from all the way down here, James.” Remus replied mildly, casting a concerned glance toward him. “Usually he’ll come to mine and Pete’s. Guess he was pretty spent to have slept through it tonight.”

James winced. “Was it that loud?”

James was stuck on the image of his own scream jolting Sirius from his sleep. He’d known that it sometimes happened over the years, as Sirius had playfully brought it up a couple of times, but he hadn’t known it had become more frequent. It must have, if Remus’s “usually” was anything to go by.

Remus shrugged noncommittally, nudging the second mug toward him with two fingers.

“You can have hers.”

James slid into the chair across from him, the thin wood groaning under his weight, and reached for the mug. It was still warm enough to hold comfortably. He took a sip and very nearly spat it back out.

It was bitter. Unreasonably, aggressively bitter. Like Remus had brewed it with dirt.

He forced his face to stay neutral.

“Good?” Remus asked, too innocently, but was unable to hide his slight smirk.

James swallowed with visible effort. “Oh, it’s—it’s brilliant. Perfect. It’s—”

“Black coffee.”

“That explains it,” James muttered, allowing himself a sour look. “Lily drinks this willingly? Frequently?”

Remus’s mouth twitched. “She likes it strong. Says it wakes her up.”

“Wakes her up? This could raise the dead.”

The joke hung there for a moment—long enough for James to regret it, to feel it twist strangely in his gut.

Remus didn’t call attention to it. Instead, he sipped his coffee, hands cupped loosely around the mug.

The sound of Frank’s light tapping against the doorframe caused them both to lift their heads.

“Morning, you two,” Frank said, voice light, easy, carrying a warmth that seemed to ricochet off the cramped walls. There was a note of cheerfulness in him that contrasted sharply with the cold light in the kitchen and the bitter coffee in front of James. “I know it’s ungodly early for most people, but I couldn’t resist. Alice and Mary are cooking something up for tonight—it’s the last night together, and we’re going to make it count. Drinks, music, the works. One last little… party, if you can call it that.”

James felt his chest lift in an instant, the tautness of his morning panic loosening. Just seeing Frank—seeing him like this, not hardened by the constant pressure of the war, but worn and human and still mischievous—made something shift.

Remus, meanwhile, lifted his head from the mug in front of him, blinking blearily at Frank. His voice was dry but carrying a thread of amusement. “I take it the party is compulsory?”

Frank shook his head, leaning fully into the frame now, hands tucked casually in his pockets. “Compulsory? No. Strongly encouraged? Absolutely. Think of it as… morale-boosting. One last night to remember before the world drags us back into everything else, y’know?”

James, sipping his own coffee—this time without grimacing—nodded slowly. The bitter warmth did nothing to dampen the surge of anticipation building in him. He thought of the rooms full of laughter, music spilling into the hallways, and even if the Order had been ragged and bruised and constantly on edge, that night could feel almost normal, almost like the Hogwarts days he had clung to in memory. His shoulders loosened. “I’d say we could all use something like that,” James was sure to add lightly.

Frank smiled. “Exactly. Alice has the music sorted, Mary’s handling the drinks. I just make sure we all show up in one piece.” He paused, eyes flicking briefly to James. Frank clapped a hand on the table’s edge now, leaning forward, voice lower but still warm. “Now, enough of this brooding over bitter coffee. Let’s get a little energy into our veins. You two might need it, if tonight is half as loud as it should be.”

James felt a grin rise, unrestrained and genuine, the first fully unguarded one of the day. He looked at Frank and thought, not for the first time, that some people carried the world better than he ever could, and yet somehow made it feel lighter for everyone around them. And for the first time that morning, James felt like he could breathe.

~*~

By mid-afternoon the grey light outside had warmed into a hazy gold, brighter than the house deserved, slipping through the grimy panes. The living room—usually a crash-site of half-done plans and people sleeping where they dropped—was being forced, piece by piece, into party territory.

James had energy. Actual energy. It startled even him.

He moved like lightning between rooms, shoes thudding across the floorboards. There was a sort of bounce to him now, as if someone had finally cut the ropes that had been dragging him under for months. Every now and then he stopped abruptly just to grin at all the people around him.

Of course, the living room was small—too small—cramped enough that elbows knocked lamps over and every time someone turned, they hit someone else with a hip or a shoulder. But that somehow made it feel warmer.

James stood in the middle of it all, sleeves rolled unevenly, hair sticking up in its usual ridiculous way, looking bright in a way he hadn’t looked in months.

Sirius and Peter had colonized the area by the battered record player, arguing loudly over a crate of vinyls found under the coffee table—some cracked, some missing sleeves, all smelling faintly of mildew and cigarettes.

Sirius was on his knees beside it, dramatic as ever, flipping through album covers like precious relics.

“No bagpipes,” he said for the tenth time.

Peter, who had been waiting for a moment to argue, puffed up immediately. “But they’re traditional, Sirius. And it’s a farewell! They’re somber. They’re—”

“They sound like a banshee choking on a toad.”

Peter slapped a hand over his chest, scandalized. “You wound me, Sirius Black!”

Sirius held up a Fleetwood Mac record triumphantly. “We start with this. Then Bowie. Then—”

Peter leaned over the crate, squinting at a neon-coloured cassette. “What about this one? It says Disco Hits of ’78. Very cheerful.”

Sirius stared at him. Long. Gravely. “Peter. Look at me.”

Peter did.

“No.”

“I like disco,” Peter muttered, defeated.

From across the room Lily called, “We’ll vote later—if Pete helps hang lights instead.”

Peter perked immediately. “Yes, the lights!” He bolted toward her, nearly tripping over a stack of Daily Prophets.

Lily was knee-deep in a battered cardboard box she’d dragged from the hall closet. Her hair was tied up messily, red strands framing her face, and she was triumphantly untangling a set of old string lights. Half the bulbs were burnt out, and the cord was tightly knotted.

Mary entered through the kitchen archway with an armful of clinking bottles, chin hooked over their tops to keep them steady.

“Delivery!” she declared. “Wine, rum, and this mystery bottle with a skull on it. Either it’s cursed, or it’s moonshine. I’m willing to risk both.”

James turned toward her immediately, bright-eyed and boyish. “Mary, you’re a saint.”

“I know.” She winked, setting the bottles down on the scarred coffee table. “Sybill’s making some kind of ‘aura infusion’ for the punch bowl, so if anyone starts speaking in tongues later, blame her.” She muttered, casting a weary glance across the room.

At the mention of her name, Sybill drifted into the room like smoke, her shawl trailing, her huge glasses magnifying her eyes so she looked permanently surprised by something only she could see. She was carrying a jar of dried petals and what looked like crushed star anise. And a stick of incense burning with a thin ribbon of silver smoke.

The smell settled—dreamy, herbal, strange but not unpleasant. If she’d heard Mary’s remark, she did not comment on it.

James helped Lily with the lights, standing on a chair while she handed them up and Mary directed from below, squinting critically.

“No, left—no, my left—no, James, that’s the same direct—oh, honestly, you two are hopeless—”

Lily laughed, playful and bright, and James froze for a moment just to admire the sound.

He hadn’t heard her laugh like that in months.

He looped the lights over the curtain rod, and when they flickered on, warm golden glow filling the dim room, something inside of James clicked back into place. His shoulders dropped. His breath eased.

Like the universe itself was saying, Yes. This. Remember this.

Sirius turned from the record crate long enough to take the room in: the lights, the bottles, Mary arranging mismatched cups, Lily barefoot and glowing under the string of lights, Sybill perched cross-legged in a windowsill with a notebook on her knees, Peter hovering nearby her.

And James—alive again, practically vibrating with excitement.

Sirius smirked around the room, eyes softening. “Look at us,” he said, voice gentle beneath the sarcasm. “Domestic.”

Mary snorted. “Oh, please. I’d say this place looks like we’ve lost an actual fight with all the furniture.”

“No,” James corrected, hopping off the chair and clapping his hands once—loud, decisive, joyful. “It looks like we’re having a party.”

The word tasted good.

Party.

He hadn’t realized how much he needed to say it aloud.

His grin spread uncontrollably, warm and reckless. He felt like running. Like dancing.

He dragged his hand through his hair, adrenaline buzzing under his skin. He wanted music already. Wanted noise and laughter and maybe just one night without the war breathing down their necks.

He wanted the room loud. He wanted to remember, down to the marrow, that there was something left worth fighting for.

As if summoned by the thought, the front door groaned open.

Warm night air pressed into the house, thick with late-summer humidity, the last of the day clinging to the breeze. Cigarette smoke drifted in, followed by the shuffle-thump of boots on the rug.

Frank stepped through first, pushing the door shut with his heel. His shirt sleeves were rolled to the elbows, collar askew like someone had yanked on it (likely Alice, if James had to guess). His eyes flicked across the transformation of the living room, and he huffed a low laugh through his nose.

“Well,” he said, dropping his keys in the bowl by the door, “Look at you lot, bringing my vision to life.”

Alice swept in behind him, cheeks flushed from the night air, her still-lit cigarette pinched between two fingers. Her hair was wind-tangled, her boots muddy from the garden path.

She spotted the light strings, the half-set table, the mismatched chairs dragged close. Something in her softened. She tapped ash into an empty mug on the side table with practiced disrespect as Lily wrinkled her nose.

Remus entered last, shoulders tensing as his gaze cast over Sirius, who had his back turned. James thought he felt something odd shift, but he couldn’t be quite sure.

The kitchen clattered beyond the archway. Molly’s voice rose sharp as a knife, followed by Arthur’s softer hum. Pots rattled; something sizzled; a burst of garlic hit the air. The smell wrapped around the living room like comfort itself, warm and edible and home, even if none of them had a real one anymore. They would not come out for a while—Molly Weasley entered a party only when the food was perfect, and Arthur only when dragged by the wrist.

Fleetwood Mac began to hiss through the speakers—scratchy but clear enough to recognize the song. Alice stole Mary’s wine glass. Sirius declared himself in control of tonight’s music and promptly put on Bowie once the first song had faded out.

Life—messy and loud and badly lit—swelled.

And then the stairs creaked.

All sound thinned.

Marlene McKinnon descended with slow, thudding steps.

The overhead light caught the streak in her hair where bleach had grown out, roots dark and neglected. She appeared on the bottom step like a shadow: hair unbrushed, jaw set, boots unlaced, shoulders stiff beneath a dark jumper. Her expression was carved from something sharp. Something tired.

Her eyes swept the room.

The lights. The bottles. The music.

None of it touched her.

She crossed to the farthest armchair—the one half-lit by the string lights, shadow pooling like water at her feet—and folded herself into it. Arms crossed tight. Shoulders hunched forward. Eyes fixed on nothing.

The music crackled on.

Conversation faltered, then restarted quieter, gentler.

Lily’s hands slowed on the lights. Remus’s drink hovered halfway to his mouth. Even Sirius’s eyes had tracked Marlene as she crossed the room.

James swallowed.

Dorcas Meadowes had been gone for four months, presumed dead.

Her absence hung between them all.

The room’s warmth, its laughter, its bottles and music—all of it was a feast that would have delighted Dorcas, and Marlene knew it. She would have thrown herself into it, laughed with reckless abandon, dragged someone else into a dance or a toast. But she wasn’t here.

Marlene’s eyes flicked once toward James, and he caught it—the faint twitch of a jaw, the tension coiled in her shoulders. She made no move to join in on the party.

For a heartbeat, James wondered if he’d misjudged everything—if planning joy in a world missing Dorcas was arrogance, and if this was considered a betrayal. But this was their last night together before distance pulled them in opposite directions—different safehouses, different odds of surviving long enough to return.

If this was to be the final night they could call themselves young without irony, then letting it pass in silence felt like the greater cruelty. He wanted a memory bright enough to hold.

And so, the party went on.

Frank and Alice drifted toward Marlene, taking seats on either side of her, murmuring low enough for only her to hear. Lily and Mary had sprawled across the sagging sofa, shoulder to shoulder, giggling over nothing and everything.

At some point Kingsley slipped in through the back door, solid and calm as always, accepted a drink with a nod, and settled into the crowd without ceremony—just long enough for a laugh or two before he’d disappear again. Sybill lay flat on the floorboards beside Peter, limbs splayed like starfish under the warm glow of the string lights, whispering.

James moved everywhere like wildfire—carrying drinks, turning the music up too loud, starting conversations he abandoned halfway through because another one had already sparked in his mind. He was bright with restless energy, joy and fear tangled beneath his skin like wires sparking hot.

Remus and Sirius lingered near the doorway, heads bent close, hands brushing occasionally as they spoke in quiet undertones that James couldn’t quite hear.

He wove toward them through the crowded room, nearly tripping over Mary’s feet as she and Lily dissolved into another fit of laughter.

“Not including me in your little club?” James said, too loud, too cheerful, shoving himself into their little quiet pocket and slinging an arm around Sirius’s shoulders. His smile was bright enough to hurt.

Remus raised an eyebrow, smile soft and knowing. “Just talking,” he said, voice a low rasp made warm by alcohol.

Sirius chuckled—but there was a squint there, thoughtful, watching James just a bit too carefully. He nudged James in the ribs with two fingers. “You’ve been quite chipper this evening,” Sirius began lightheartedly, though the look in his eyes betrayed him. “Everything alright?”

The comment was light.

But it landed wrong.

It was small—a half-second hitch in James’s grin, a flicker of heat in his chest, a snag deep behind his ribs that felt like a bubble had been popped. The party still thrummed around them, but suddenly he could hear every off-beat laugh, every clink of bottles, the scratchy record spinning just barely too slow.

James froze just long enough for Sirius to catch it. His fingers slipped from Sirius’s shoulder.

“I’m allowed to be happy, Pads.” he said, tone still cheerful—but thinner now. Tight around the edges.

Sirius raised his palms. “I know. I didn’t mean—just… haven’t seen you this wired in a while.”

“I know what you meant.” Too quick. Too sharp. He didn’t mean to be. He loved Sirius with his whole stupid heart. But the sting sat raw and tender. “You see me smile and think I’m about to go off the rails.”

“That’s not fair,” Sirius said, words low, almost defensive, but more hurt than angry. His brows pinched. “I just worry. We all do.”

Remus shifted, sensing the current change. “He’s just checking in,” he said gently. “You’ve had a rough month, James.”

“That’s why I’m happy.” James snapped back before he could swallow it. “We’re all here tonight. We’re together. I don’t need to justify enjoying that.” He laughed again, but it sounded wrong—hollow at the edges. “Maybe don’t assume there’s something wrong with me when I’m enjoying myself for once?”

Remus shifted slightly, tension humming between them like a stretched string. His hand brushed Sirius’s sleeve—warning, grounding, subtle.

“James,” Remus said softly, voice like calm water, “he’s not accusing you. He just—”

“I know,” James snapped again. And he did. He really did know. Sirius wasn’t cruel. Sirius was scared. They all were. But knowing didn’t make it sting less. Didn’t stop the thought—why can’t I just be happy without someone wondering what’s wrong with me?

Frank’s voice lulled a little. Alice’s eyes flicked over curiously before returning to Marlene. Someone lowered the volume on the record, maybe accidentally, maybe instinctively, sensing the shift. Lily lifted her head from Mary’s shoulder across the room, eyes narrowing. Peter and Sybill paused mid-whisper.

Sirius stared at him now, dark eyes sharp. Hurt beneath it. “Why are you biting my head off? I made a comment. That’s it.”

“A shitty one.” James said, before he could stop himself.

He hated how fast the words came. He and Sirius never fought—not like this. Their arguments were stupid things about socks or who used the last bit of toothpaste. Not this. Not the tender underbelly of his mind.

He should stop. He knew he should. But his irritation had teeth and momentum.

“You always do this,” James continued, voice too loud now, too tight. “Like if I’m anything other than miserable, it must be a warning sign. God forbid I smile without a clinical explanation.”

That one landed. He saw it in Sirius’s face—something recoiling, something bristling.

“Well excuse me for giving a damn,” Sirius shot back, voice rising. “Would you rather we all pretend nothing ever happened? Pretend we didn’t spend a week taking turns making sure you didn’t walk into traffic?”

Remus winced.

“And would you rather I never got better?” James hissed. “Never laughed again so you wouldn’t have to worry?”

“Don’t twist my words—”

“I’m not twisting anything. None of you trust me to know my own head—”

Sirius stepped forward. Too close.

James’s heart hammered.

“I don’t want to do this with you, James.” Sirius spoke in a low voice.

Silence snapped through the room like static.

James felt it—like glass splintering under pressure. He’d never seen Sirius look at him like that. Sharp. Defensive.

Afraid.

He knew Sirius didn’t mean harm. Sirius loved him. Sirius had seen him at his worst—had held him through it. But it had all felt like he’d been slapped with concern or pity disguised as some sort of joke. Like his happiness had needed justification. Like joy itself was suspicious.

People were definitely watching now. Lily half-risen, Remus stiff as a wire beside them. Kingsley in the kitchen doorway, eyebrows raised. Frank whispered something to Alice with a worried tilt of his mouth. Even Sybill and Peter had gone still on the floor.

James couldn’t breathe.

He laughed—a harsh, broken sound. “Well. Good to know what you really think.”

He shoved his cup into Remus’s hand and turned on his heel, marching toward the front door before emotion could embarrass him further. The laughter and chatter behind him felt like another world. His chest ached—hot, tight, furious and hurt all at once.

He stepped outside into the night, the door slamming too hard behind him.

James braced both hands on the splintered railing of the veranda, shoulders hunched, breath sharp. The sounds of the party still leaked faintly through the walls—laughter, music, a bottle clinking against another—distant enough to feel like it belonged to different people entirely.

Footsteps followed him out. Then the door clicked shut. Sirius lingered behind him, close but not too close.

“James,” he said, quieter now, voice scraped down to something vulnerable but still defensive around the edges. “You can’t just storm off every time someone says something you don’t like.”

“You make it sound like I do this all the time.” James muttered, still facing away from him.

A pause. Sirius exhaled. “You kind of do.”

The words were soft—true, maybe—but they struck sharply. James let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head like he could dislodge the sting.

“Oh, brilliant. You’ve really got me all figured out, don't you?”

“That’s not—”

“Isn’t it?” James spun, movements jerky. “Because you said it. You think I’m unstable. You think I’m some goddamn bomb waiting to go off.”

Sirius flinched, mouth opening then shutting like he didn’t trust what might come out. He looked younger suddenly—defensive, tired, so desperately worried it bordered on pleading.

“You scared me,” Sirius said, voice rough. “That week—you scared the hell out of me. I thought I was going to lose you, James, and I—”

“You think I can’t control myself.” James cut in, words cracking. “Just say it.”

Peter had slipped outside silently and carefully, cheeks rosy from drinking. He glanced nervously between the two of them, holding a bit of distance.

“James,” he tried again, softer. “I didn’t mean to—God, I don’t know—start something. I was trying to look out for you. That’s all I’ve ever done.”

James felt something inside him twist. He should say thank you. He should breathe. He should hug Sirius like he always does, and laugh it off.

But shame had teeth. And fear. And the ugly voice whispering, you’re a burden, you’re broken, you’re ruining everything.

“You look out for me like I’m a child,” James said, too sharp, too loud. “Like you have to keep me on a leash or I’ll—what, fall apart? Run off a cliff?”

Sirius’s jaw clenched. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what? Be honest?”

“No.” Sirius’s voice cracked. “Be cruel.”

James froze.

Peter stepped in a half-step toward Sirius, hopeful. “He didn’t mean—”

“No, I do mean it.” James lied, voice metallic and shaking. “Someone has to say it. I’m not your project, Sirius. I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”

Sirius reeled. Color drained from his face, replaced by something colder. Older.

Sirius looked away first. Shoulders tense, voice barely more than breath.

“When you’re done being angry at the wrong people, you know where we are.”

He turned toward the door.

“Sirius, wait—” Peter tried, voice cracking, reaching feebly.

But Sirius pushed past him, the door opening with a groan.

Warm light and muffled music spilled out, then snapped shut as Sirius disappeared inside, leaving James on the veranda with every word he’d said echoing loudly in his ears.

Chapter Text

Past three in the morning, James still laid awake in the quiet of his bedroom.

The space beside the bed seemed to stretch—empty floor where Sirius should have been, cold and bare except for the empty, thin mattress, forgotten pillow thrown carelessly that morning. Normally, Sirius would have been breathing softly on the floor, arm over his eyes, muttering something half-coherent in his sleep.

But Sirius hadn’t come.

James had waited. Sat in bed with his knees pulled up as close to his chest as he could get them, listening for footsteps on the landing, for the door to open, for Sirius to flop down dramatically and complain about the springs in the mattress poking him through the boards. He waited long past the point where exhaustion should’ve claimed him.

But Sirius didn’t come.

James rolled onto his side, facing the dent in the blanket. His chest twisted.

You deserved this, came the thought, cold and fluent.

Of course Sirius wouldn’t come back tonight. Of course he wouldn’t sleep here after everything James had said—his sharp words, the bitterness, the way his moods had swung like a pendulum lately, cutting others without intent, but still cutting.

He had ruined tonight. Ruined everything. A strained breath trembled out of him. He pressed his palms into his eyes until colors sparked behind them—red, violet, gold—anything to drown the dark. His mind wouldn’t stop.

What happened to you?

Before, James Potter had been the center. He’d been the sun in their little solar system. Now he was a collapsing star.

Why can’t you just be who you were?

He could almost hear Sirius say it—not cruelly, never cruelly, but with that exasperated ache that meant “Come back.”

But James didn’t know how to come back. Didn’t know where the old version of himself had gone. Somewhere between the raids and the funerals and the sleepless nights, something inside of him had splintered.

He curled in on himself, pulling the blanket tight around his chest like armor. His throat burned. He wished he could cry—crying would be release, rain, something. But he just felt hollow.

He hadn’t always been like this. But something had changed. Something had rotted.

No, he hadn’t meant to bite at Sirius earlier. He never meant it. Words just slipped out of him now—sharp, defensive, mean in ways he only recognized after they’d already landed. His temper flared and unleashed without warning. He could tell himself to stop, to calm down, to breathe—but it didn’t matter. The rot always spoke first.

His mind pulled him somewhere else. Back to the old safehouse. To the incident.

He was freshly twenty-one, still riding the high of his birthday, despite celebration being minimal. The Order had been split for the first time then—it had just been James, Sirius and Dorcas in that cramped little house. And then it happened.

The memory flickered behind his eyes like lightning: the rooftop, wind whipping at his clothes as he balanced along the edge. Alive, alive, alive.

It had started small. He’d gone three nights without sleep and insisted he didn’t need any. Not with ideas like these, not with adrenaline thrumming under his skin like a live wire. He had plans—brilliant plans, he’d told Sirius. Plans to take the war into their own hands, to outrun death itself. He’d paced the living room so fast he’d worn a path into the rug, talking in circles with a speed that left Dorcas blinking and Sirius trying to keep up.

Sirius had tried to ground him—lightly at first.

“Mate, slow down. Eat something. Sit with us.”

But James couldn’t. His skin buzzed, electric, like the world was made of possibility and he was finally—finally—stepping into something grand. He’d felt weightless even then. Untouchable. His pupils too wide, his hands shaking, thoughts racing faster than words could form. Every idea brilliant. Every danger insignificant.

He remembered Sirius pulling at his sleeve a couple days into it, voice low with worry, trying to joke it off, but not quite managing to hide his concern. Dorcas had spoken softer, cautious, like one might approach a wild animal.

“James, you need rest. Just a few hours, alright? You’re not thinking straight.”

And James had laughed. Not thinking straight? He had never thought clearer.

He remembered slipping away from them—how easy it was, in that narrow house. One moment he was rambling in the upstairs bedroom, the next he was outside in the rain, climbing out the window and right up onto the roof like it was nothing. His body moved without hesitation. His mind told him to keep going. Higher.

The roof was slick. The sky split open with thunder.

He’d stood on the ledge, arms outstretched, rain plastering his hair to his face, shirt clinging translucent to his skin. Lightning lit the empty valley in front of the house.

He felt ten feet tall. Untouchable. A god. He shouted into the storm something triumphant and senseless—he couldn’t remember the words now, only the feeling. Euphoria. Limitlessness. He was alive in a way that frightened hindsight.

Sirius’s voice had torn through him.

“James, get the fuck down!”

He’d looked back, grinning, rainwater dripping from his chin. Sirius was climbing after him, furious and terrified, hair plastered to his cheeks, his shoes sliding. Dorcas had raced out to the yard, wand out, both of them soaked, both of them pale with panic.

“James—please—get down!” Dorcas had screamed over the roar of the storm, voice cracking. “You’re going to fall!”

The words had hit James, but he hadn’t heard them. All he felt was exhilaration. The world felt like it belonged to him. Like he could fly if he wanted. So he leaned forward just to see Sirius’s face twist, just to feel the thrill of the drop below. He laughed—loud, cut sharp by thunder.

Then Sirius had reached him—fist grabbing the back of his shirt, hauling him backwards with a force born from terror. They’d collapsed together onto the wet tiles, Sirius shaking, shouting, cursing.

He remembered Sirius’s hands on his face, fingers digging in too hard.

“Don’t you ever—ever—do that again,” Sirius had choked out, voice shattered. His eyes were blown wide, sheer panic in them. He’d been trembling. James had never seen him trembling.

James had just laughed again, breathless, rain mixing with the taste of lightning. He hadn’t understood why they were scared. Why they looked like they’d just watched him die.

He hadn’t understood anything until later.

Because after the high came the drop.

It didn’t happen in a moment. It crept in.

Sleep finally hit him. The light inside him burned out all at once. He couldn’t get out of bed. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t speak. His body felt like lead; his mind, like mud. Days blurred. The world grew dim. Sirius and Dorcas’s voices became muffled, underwater things.

Sirius kept trying. Gently at first again—bringing food that went cold, sitting at the foot of the mattress with soft words. Fingers in James’s hair, brushing it back. “Come on, Prongs. Talk to me.” The words were wet with worry.

James had only turned on his side, then stared at the wall. He didn’t have any energy inside him to summon a response.

Dorcas brought tea. Left it at the bedside. Whispered things to Sirius in the same room, thinking James wasn’t listening. “Something is wrong. This—this isn’t normal. We need help. He’s sick, Sirius. He must be sick.”

Sirius had started shaking him after the fourth day of it. Fingers clutching at his shoulders, voice cracking. “James—look at me. Please. Please.”

“Leave me alone,” James had barely murmured, sinking back into the mattress.

Now, in the dark of his new bed two years later, he inhaled a shudder of air.

Suddenly everything felt unbearably clear—that moment had been a line drawn in his life, a crack that never quite sealed over. The rooftop. The drop. The days after.

Of course Sirius hadn’t come to sleep here. Why would he? James had pushed him away.

He shouldn’t have let himself raise his voice. Shouldn’t have let that sick, defensive selfishness twist his words. Sirius had only been trying to help. He always was, and James had thrown it back at him like a weapon.

He could still see it—that tiny flinch in Sirius’s eyes, quick as lightning, gone as soon as it appeared. But James had noticed. And done nothing.

You’re poison, the thought whispered.

James rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling until it blurred. He should apologize. He should go to Remus’s door right now, grab Sirius, and say something—anything—but the idea of facing him made bile rise in his throat.

He could ruin it with a single sentence. He’d done it before.

With Regulus.

The name alone was a bruise he’d learned not to press on, but tonight he prodded it anyway, let it bloom purple and aching through his ribs.

He never should’ve touched him. Not that first night, not the nights after, not years later when war should’ve turned them both to ash instead of pulling them back in like gravity.

But he had. Again, and again.

It should have burned out after Hogwarts, as agreed—one last kiss behind a tapestry, then goodbye. They had said it like adults, or, like children pretending to be adults. Said they’d walk away.

But they didn’t.

Six years years of all of it, but four years of secret meetings, four years of coming undone in alleyways and war-torn safehouses, four years of Regulus Black showing up in the shadows like something summoned, eyes hollow with guilt and wanting. They had treated each other like something almost real.

James hadn’t known when it shifted—when casual became dependence, when sex became comfort—when he stopped caring that Regulus wore the Mark.

None of it had been enough. None of it.

And James had ruined that too.

~*~

James wakes to the smell of something burning.

He coughs before he’s fully conscious, a deep scratch down the throat like he’s inhaled sand, dragged up from sleep like someone yanked him by the lungs.

Burning.

Sharp. Oily. The kind that coats the back of the tongue.

James’s eyes snap open.

Then another smell cuts through the fog—stronger now, undeniable. Melting plastic. Scorched fabric.

Fire.

He sits up so fast the world tilts. His lungs claw for clean air that isn’t there. It smells like scorched wood and melting insulation and something chemical—sharp enough to make his eyes water instantly. He coughs violently, doubling forward, hand pressed to his sternum.

He lurches out of bed, feet hitting the floorboards—warm. Too warm. He sways, dizzy from sleep and smoke, grabs his wand from his nightstand with trembling fingers. He barely remembers getting to the door. His thoughts spark, loud and fragmented.

Fire. Fire. Everyone. Where is everyone?

He presses the back of his hand to the door—warm but not blistering—and yanks it open.

Smoke pours in like a living creature.

Thick. Grey-black. Rolling. It devours the ceiling first, but the hallway is already drowning in it. James coughs harder, his eyes streaming, throat raw. Heat punches him. Sweat prickles instantly down his spine.

He stumbles into the hall, wandlight barely cutting through the haze. For a second, he can hear nothing but the roar of distant flames and the hollow pounding of his own pulse. The house comes alive around him—shouts, frantic footsteps, glass shattering somewhere below.

The smoke is thicker near the stairwell, billowing upward in hot waves. The railing burns his palm when he grips it. He jerks his hand back with a hiss and wraps his sleeve around the banister instead. He can’t see the bottom of the stairs, only an orange hell-glow and writhing shadows. The fire is still downstairs, but climbing—hungry.

Someone screams.

James turns toward the sound, stumbling down the hall, coughing, gagging, the smoke clawing at his throat, blinding him with its thick, choking grip.

He rounds a corner and nearly collides with Marlene, half-crouched, wand raised, muttering. Jets of water erupt from her wand, hitting the flames with sizzling violence, hissing steam that makes him cough harder.

“Move!” James shouts over the roar, grabbing her arm. “Out! Now!”

Together, they surge forward, stumbling over the scorched floorboard. Heat presses in from every side, the ceiling bending and black smoke curling down in waves.

James’s eyes sting, his lungs burn, but he keeps moving, following the scream. He thinks it’s Sirius. It has to be Sirius.

He bursts into the next room, the heat nearly knocking him back. Lily is there, looking as if she was the last of them to wake. “James—” she gasps, but he drags her toward the doorway anyway, ignoring the searing heat against his arm as he tugs the both of them toward the stairwell, thumping down them quickly.

Downstairs, the fire is climbing faster now, devouring the furniture and leaving charred skeletons of tables and chairs. Moody and Frank are near the kitchen exit, shouting instructions, dragging people toward the yard. Jets of water leap from their wands, blue streams slicing through the orange blaze, but it’s not making enough of a dent.

He swings open another door, the scream tearing through the air again. Someone throws themselves at him, coughing violently—Alice, gagging, black soot smeared across her face. James doesn’t hesitate. He grabs her under the arms, hauls her upright, forcing her toward the hallway. The heat is unbearable; sparks leap from the floorboards, rolling across the wood with a hiss.

“Keep moving!” James shouts, voice raw, lungs burning. “Out to the yard, all of you!”

Another jet of water from Frank hits a section of wall near the flames, buying them a moment, but the heat is relentless.

Marlene and Lily are pushing through behind James with their wands out, water sizzling against the fire, hissing clouds of scalding steam. James keeps moving, heart hammering, lungs screaming for air he can’t get.

At the bottom of the stairwell, he catches a glimpse of Moody, his eye wide and grim, pulling someone toward the yard. “Potter!” he shouts. “Get them out first—stop trying to fight it here!”

James doesn’t hesitate. He hauls Alice forward, dragging her through the heat-thickened air, barely seeing through the smoke that stings and blurs everything.

Remus appears just ahead, shoulders hunched, half-pulling Mary while still waving his wand, trying to send short bursts of water against the edges of the blaze. “Move, James!” he shouts through the smoke, coughing, voice ragged. “Get them out!”

James skims over to them, taking over the lead, herding them toward the yard. Behind him, Lily and Marlene stumble, hair plastered to faces, coughing, arms wrapped around each other for support. Frank sweeps past them, shoving anyone lagging forward, jets of water arcing over heads, fizzling uselessly in areas where the fire roars too fiercely.

They hit the yard, James gasping as cool night air bites at his scorched lungs, coughing violently. Sparks rain from the eaves above them, sizzling as they hit the ground. James whirls, scanning frantically, counting, checking. Everyone is moving, coughing, soot-streaked, scared—but they’re moving.

Sirius has already positioned himself near the side of the house, wand raised. James exhales sharply in relief at the sight of him. Water arcs from him in precise, controlled streams, hiss and steam mingling with the acrid smoke. He’s barking directions to people, orchestrating them to douse the fire in targeted bursts.

James runs from group to group, checking, making sure no one lags, dragging the slower ones toward safety. His chest burns, lungs raw, heart hammering against ribs, but he’s precise, methodical—always has been. Even in panic, he sees patterns, sees what needs to be done.

Remus throws a glance at him, wild-eyed, hands trembling slightly from the heat. “They’re all out, aren’t they?”

James shakes his head, scanning again. His eyes snap across the yard, counting faces, limbs, darkened features. His stomach drops. His pulse jumps.

One person—one—still isn’t there.

Peter.

James’s chest tightens, but panic drives him forward.

“No,” he rasps. His legs jerk before his brain catches up. “It’s Peter, he’s still inside—”

Remus lunges forward, grabbing his arm. “James, stop! You can’t—Peter’s not—”

“I have to!” James yanks free, coughing violently, smoke clawing at his throat. His legs move before reason catches up. “Peter!” he shouts, voice raw and desperate. “Peter!”

Sirius steps in, wand half-raised, trying to form a barrier, but he freezes, realizing James is already gone. “James, wait—”

He shoves past the last of the group, coughing, hacking, wand out in front of him. Flames leap along the walls, licking the support beams. Each step is a gamble; the house groans like it’s alive, cracking, bending under the fire’s teeth.

“Peter!” he screams again, running through the hallway now, debris falling from above. Pieces of the ceiling break, tumbling down, sending up clouds of sparks and dust. Every wall he passes hums with heat, the fire consuming everything in its path, working toward the structural bones of the house.

James stumbles over scorched floorboards, kicking aside burning fragments. Smoke fills his lungs, making every breath a stab of fire. He swings his wand, half-blinded, eyes stinging, searching, scanning.

“Peter!” he shouts again, voice raw and cracking. “Where are you?”

A beam groans overhead, blackened, sagging, the smell of molten wood thick and clinging. Dust and embers fall around him. The fire isn’t just destroying the rooms—it’s devouring the frame, the skeleton of the house.

James ducks instinctively as a piece of ceiling collapses near him, sparks scattering. He spins, wand raised, heart hammering, scanning the choking darkness and heat, calling Peter’s name again, desperation clawing through every shouted syllable.

Before he can take another step, a rough arm snakes around his head, clamping over his mouth. The sudden weight, the grip, throws him off balance.

Alarm bells go off in James’s mind as he tries to process what’s happening. He thrashes instinctively, elbowing backward hard. Pain shoots through his forearm as it connects, and the figure stumbles—but before he can turn to face them, he’s tackled against a flaming wall. Heat lashes at his back, sparks raining down, the smell of molten wood filling his nostrils.

He struggles, thrashing, trying to shove away whoever has him, but the grip is iron-strong. His wand swings wildly, cutting through smoke and flame, but it’s useless; he can’t break free.

Then a sharp, unmistakable crack splits the air. James’s stomach drops, and his world tilts violently—the fire, the debris, the heat—all streak past him in a blur.

And just like that, the roar of the burning house is replaced by the deafening snap of apparating.

Chapter Text

They hit the ground with a dull, jarring thud.

The world slams back into existence with a violent jolt, leaving James staggered and disoriented, lungs heaving.

They roll once, twice, finally coming to a stop with James half-pinned beneath the other man’s weight. His vision is swimming, ears ringing, throat raw from smoke. He blinks up into pale moonlight breaking through thin clouds—and into a face he recognizes instantly.

Sharp cheekbones. Wild eyes.

Barty Crouch Jr.

His stomach goes cold, dropping as if the ground isn’t there beneath him.

James jerks upward violently, shoving at Barty’s shoulder with the arm not trapped under him. Barty’s grip slips for a heartbeat—just enough space—and James rolls, trying to throw him off. Grass slicks beneath them, mud smearing cold against the skin of James’s wrist where his sleeve’s been burned away.

His mind began to cycle frantically—had the fire been an attack? Was this all orchestrated? Were others involved? Peter, the house—questions collided with adrenaline, each thought unfinished, looping back in terror and uncertainty.

Before he could attempt to stand, Barty’s heavy, iron grip snatched him backward. His body hit the wet grass hard, arms flailing, but the hands holding him were unyielding, pulling him upright again by the collar of his shirt.

It was only then that James remembered his wand was still in his hand. His only advantage.

James swings his arm up, aiming at Barty’s chest, trying to get enough space for a spell—any spell—something to end this—

Barty lunges before he can even form a thought.

Hands clamp around James’s wand arm, fingers digging into bone and tendon with pitiless precision. Pain shoots up James’s forearm like a struck nerve. He grits his teeth, twisting, fighting, breath tearing in and out of his lungs with ragged urgency.

His hand falters. The wand wobbles in his grip, slipping as mud coats his palm.

Another twist. Sharp, brutal. The wand tears free.

The absence is instant and gutting—like losing breath, losing footing, like falling without falling. Panic claws up James’s spine, cold and suffocating. His vision goes narrow, tunneled around the wand now gripped in Barty’s fist.

He reacts without thought.

He lunges.

They crash together again, rolling, James’s hands grabbing blindly for wrist, for wand, for anything. His breath comes in harsh, wet gasps; he’s still half breathing smoke in his head. He hooks his arm around Barty’s neck, drags with full body weight, muscles screaming.

Barty jerks, but he’s strong—corded muscle under his clothes, trained like James is trained. He shifts his hips, breaks James’ leverage, rolling them so James is forced onto his back.

James kicks up with both legs, catches Barty’s ribs. The blow lands solidly, knocking the air from Barty’s lungs—but he doesn’t loosen the grip on the wand for even half a second. His free hand fists in James’ shirt, dragging him close enough to feel breath on his cheek, hot and fast.

When Barty points the wand below James’s chin, the tip of the wood lifting his gaze, a breathless, crazed laugh bubbles right out of Barty.

“Fucking hell, Potter. You’re making this way harder than it’s got to be, aren’t you?” Barty pants harshly through his words, an irritated scowl on his face as James’s chest heaves.

They were in the middle of a wide, flat field, the grass flattened in strange, unnatural patterns from their struggle. There was nothing else—no trees, no buildings, no landmarks beyond the faint, distant outline of a forest that looked almost painted in its stillness.

James sucks in a ragged breath through his teeth, chest straining. He doesn’t dare push up again. Not with his own wand aimed into the soft underside of his jaw. The wood is ice-cold, unshaking in Barty’s grip.

His heart is a hammer against his ribs.

He stares up at Barty—mud on his cheek, soot streaked down his throat, eyes sharp. James doesn’t look away.

Barty’s scowl falls into something flatter. Harder. He studies James like prey he’s already caught.

“You’re going to stand up,” Barty says, voice low. “And you’re coming with me.”

“Like hell I am.” The words scrape out of him—hoarse, furious, defiant. His fingers dig handfuls of grass, grounding himself so he doesn’t shake.

Barty doesn’t blink. He presses the wand harder. The tip lifts James’s chin, exposes his throat. A warning. A promise.

James feels every throb of blood beneath his skin where the wand meets it. One flick—one thought—and his airway is gone. He knows it. Barty knows it.

He still forces breath into his lungs, forces the words out with feigned confidence:

“Go ahead. Kill me.” He spat, attempting to call Barty's bluff.

Barty leans down—so close James can feel the heat of his breath, can smell the ash and sweat on him.

“Sure, I’ll kill you, if that’s what it takes,” Barty says, without hesitation, “But I’d rather not waste what you’re worth. We’ve got plans for you, Potter.”

The cold in James’s stomach sinks deeper. Worth. Plans. He hears every implication.

His back stings underneath his shirt—blistered skin pulling, raw from where Barty had slammed him into fire. Pain licks up his skin with every inhale. The world swims around the edges, but he locks his gaze on Barty, refusing to flinch.

“What did you do?” James asks, voice low and venomous. “Was the fire—was that you, then?”

He doesn’t know why he asks—maybe to stall, maybe to break something in Barty’s calm—but Barty’s expression doesn’t flicker.

James’s pulse kicks violently at the cold silence that followed. He could try to wrench away. He could throw his weight, twist, break for the tree line. But his wand is against his throat. His wand. His magic.

Barty sees the thought cross his eyes.

“Don’t,” he says, almost gently—but there’s nothing soft in it. “I’ll have your neck split open before you’re on your feet.”

“You’re a fucking lunatic,” James says, baring his teeth.

Barty releases a short, sharp breath through his nose—almost amusement, almost disgust—before pushing off James's chest and rising to his feet. “Takes one to recognize one, Potter.”

The cold air rushes in where Barty’s weight had been, leaving James shaking with adrenaline and pain. For a moment he just lies there, chest heaving, but then Barty’s hand fists in his collar again, and yanks—hard.

James shifts upright with a strangled sound, dragged up to his feet. His legs barely cooperate. His knees wobble.

The wand—his wand—presses between his shoulder blades an instant later.

Barty leans in close enough that James feels the heat of him at his back.

“Walk,” he murmurs.

James doesn’t move.

The wand jabs harder—right over the spine. James’s breath stutters. Slowly, stiffly, James lifts one foot and steps forward into the black hush of the field.

Grass whispers around his ankles, wet with night dew, brushing the burns along his calves where the bottom of his trousers had been singed. His clothes cling to him, soaked in sweat. Wind cuts clean lines across his skin, colder and colder the further they get from the place they landed.

He hears nothing behind him but Barty’s steady footsteps, close enough that if James stopped too abruptly, they’d collide. Close enough that Barty could kill him before he even hit the ground.

The weight of that fact sits like lead in his stomach.

His own wand is being used to herd him like livestock toward something unknown. Every instinct in him is screaming to run, to fight, to do anything other than move forward, but his body keeps walking, rigid with the terrible understanding that he is entirely at Barty’s mercy.

His mind spirals anyway. Did this mean the fire had been planted? As a distraction? A trap? Was Peter still caught in it? Had the others gone in, had they gotten him out? How had Barty Crouch Jr. made it past the wards?

Each thought fractures, splinters, loops back into itself until they blur with the thud, thud, thud of his heartbeat.

It feels like he’s walking toward his own execution. Even the air tastes like it.

The field stretches on, endless as a nightmare. No trees. No homes. No safety. Just mud underfoot and moonlight slick on the soaked grass. James’s muscles ache from fighting; his ribs stab with every breath; sweat stings his eyes.

He tries to count steps. Fifty. A hundred. Maybe more. Maybe time is warping around him the way it does inside panic—stretching, pulling thin. His vision tunnels a little, but he forces his chin up. Forces his legs to keep moving.

Then he sees it.

A single rusted tin lantern, upright in the grass as if it had grown there. Wrong and surreal in the middle of nothing.

It’s an obvious portkey.

James slows. He doesn’t mean to—his body just does, instinct curling like a fist in his gut.

The wand digs sharply into his back in warning.

The horrible knowledge settles in his chest with finality—

He’s not just being taken somewhere. He’s being delivered.

James hesitates, stomach twisting the way it’s always done when he’s been forced to use one. He hates using portkeys—always has—hating the lurching, stomach-flipping violence of them, the way the world tears itself apart around him in a blur he can’t control.

Barty steps forward, nudging James ahead lightly. “Now,” the word is barely audible, but sharp enough.

With a shaky inhale, James wraps his fingers around the handle of the lantern at the same instant as Barty does.

The moment they make contact together, it’s like the ground vanishes beneath him. There’s a wrenching tug behind his navel, deep and unrelenting, dragging him off his feet before he can think. The world explodes into a dizzying spiral of motion and color—the wind howls past his ears, sharp and biting, and everything tilts, stretches, and spins.

His stomach coils violently, muscles seizing. He can feel the pulse of the portkey thrumming through his arm, anchoring him only to Barty’s hand pressed against his own. It’s a tether in the chaos, but barely—he’s still being pulled apart, twisted by forces he cannot see.

Then gravity returns with a brutal jerk.

James slams forward into the rough ground, chest hitting first, pain exploding through his ribs and spine. Salt stings his eyes, sand and grit scrape his cheeks, and the smell of the ocean strikes his nose, sharp and overwhelming.

Nausea takes over, sudden and brutal. James gags, retching violently onto the wet, coarse sand. His body quivers, muscles trembling from the strain of the transit and the impact, stomach heaving again as the smell of salt, the slap of waves, and the spinning of the world conspire to overwhelm him. He vomits once more, bile burning his throat, and only then does the vertigo start to subside, leaving him shaky, disoriented, and gasping.

Barty lands beside him, steady and solid, fingers still wrapped around the handle of the lantern. James is still bent forward, eyes watering, vision swimming, ears ringing with the roar of the ocean. Every nerve is raw, every sense assaulted, and for a long, shivering moment, all he can do is breathe, trying to anchor himself to the rhythm of the waves and the cold, solid weight of Barty beside him.

Barty straightens up, wand still leveled at James, but the pressure isn’t as sharp now—his movements slower, quieter. He doesn’t need to bark orders or shove; James’s body is still trembling from the portkey, mind swirling. Barty’s eyes flick briefly toward him, calculating, then back to the dark line of the beach ahead.

James takes a shuddering breath and stands, muscles trembling under the strain of both the portkey and the adrenaline still clinging to his system. The wand presses lightly against his shoulder, a subtle reminder of control, but his senses are still overwhelmed by the damp salt air, the rasping of the waves, the sting of sand pressed into raw skin. Each step is deliberate, wobbling, forcing him to focus on the uneven sand beneath his feet.

They move along the shoreline, the moonlight painting long, ghostly reflections on the wet sand. James hardly registers the direction. All that exists is the pulling sensation in his stomach, the ache in his legs, the way Barty’s presence keeps him upright.

Ahead, faint and distant, a cottage huddles against the dark horizon, its windows dimly lit. James’s mind flits over it briefly—any exit routes, whoever might be inside—but it barely forms a coherent thought. Acceptance presses down on him more heavily than fear or anger. This is where he ends up.

Barty’s pace is unhurried now, patient enough for James’s faltering steps, but firm enough to ensure they keep moving forward.

When they reach the cottage, Barty halts, the soft scrape of sand underfoot the only sound. His wand tilts slightly, still aimed at James, but almost ceremoniously now. He presses a hand to the door, thumb brushing along the worn wood before he swings it open, the hinges whining softly.

Barty steps aside, head inclining in a gesture—subtle but unmistakable—for James to enter. The light spills out across the sand, warm and alien against the dark night, the scent of firewood faint in the air. James’s stomach churns at the threshold, vision swimming. He stumbles slightly toward the door, the weight of inevitability pressing down upon him.

The door yawns wide, inviting, and the faint warmth from inside beckons. James hesitates just long enough for Barty’s gaze to meet his, then steps forward into the unknown.

James had expected something different.

Of course, he’d seen the outside of the cottage, and it had looked inviting enough—but from all it’s taken him to get here, a part of him had imagined a dark, cold room to greet him, with a long wooden table surrounded by Death Eaters in cloaks and masks.

Instead, a sitting room stretches before him. The ceiling rises high, wooden beams darkened with age. The sea beyond the tall windows glimmers dimly under clouded moonlight. The room smells of brine and old wood, of dust undisturbed for years. It sticks to James’s throat as he breathes. His eyes trace the dark, polished paneling of the walls, warped and uneven from decades of sea air. A massive, unused hearth dominates the far wall, blackened and lifeless, above it the portrait of a woman with a dark slash of hair and sharp cheekbones.

The furniture is an odd collection of stiff-backed chairs and a sagging green damask settee, arranged as if it had once hosted gatherings but had long since been abandoned to dust.

Every piece seems to lean slightly toward decay, the upholstery faded, the wood dull and scratch-marked, and the whole room radiates the sense that it has been waiting—waiting for him, waiting for something.

“James.”

He freezes on the spot. All of his muscles tense up at once.

He doesn’t immediately look up. He can’t. He knows that voice. His chest feels too tight.

A haze of anger and panic surges first, visceral and immediate. His fingers clench at his sides, digging into his raw palms, the tremor of adrenaline coiling through his arms. He forces a ragged, shallow breath that catches in his chest.

His gaze locks on Regulus now, sharp and wild and impossibly real, and James’s stomach twists. Every memory of that night many months ago, every ounce of longing and betrayal, surges at once.

Regulus is standing on the opposite side of the room, shrouded in a shadow cast by the moon—calm, unreadable, as if he knows exactly what James is thinking, exactly what James is feeling—and maybe, impossibly, exactly what James wants but cannot admit.

Eight months of trying to erase him from thought, every day fending off memories that refuse to fade, and now he’s here, in the flesh, impossibly close.

Too many emotions are flashing behind James at once. His mind fractures between fury and want, between blame and longing. The world narrows until it’s just him and that sharp, wild look, the pale moonlight catching in Regulus’s hair, and the infuriatingly familiar set of his jaw.

When no words come, Regulus steps forward, slowly, into the dim light.

James releases a sharp exhale.

It isn’t Regulus as James remembers him. Not fully.

James’s gaze snags first on the leather patch—dark, matte, fitted too neatly over the socket where an eye should be. The edge cuts across his cheekbone, held by thin straps that disappear into ink-dark hair. Scarring spirals out beneath the patch in pale, brutal ridges—like something had been torn out of him, ripped rather than lost. Angry lines, still healing. Fresh enough that the skin is tight and pink around the seams.

James goes utterly still.

All that fury, that molten, bitter heat—freezes mid-burn.

Regulus looks… smaller. Thinner. His cheekbones are sharper, not in elegance, but in illness. His skin is pale, too pale, with the fragile translucence of someone who hasn’t seen the sun in far too long. His clothes hang just slightly loose, as if he’s been losing weight quickly, like his body is paying for something terrible.

And his posture—straight as ever, chin lifted—but there’s a faint tremor in his fingers where they hang at his sides. Subtle. Almost imperceptible. But James sees it.

James has always seen him.

His heart twists painfully against his ribs. It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t. He should hold onto his anger like a weapon. Should remember the months spent forcing Regulus out of his mind, forcing himself not to ache. Should think of the betrayal, the abandonment, the silence.

But faced with the man standing in front of him, hurting and irrevocably changed, all those sharp edges dull with terrifying speed.

His voice is gone. Completely.

The pull is immediate, instinctive. The same gravitational force he has always hated Regulus for, the thing that dragged them together and tore them apart. It’s still there, stronger now, like the universe itself is tilting the floor. James’s foot shifts forward before he realizes he’s moved, his body betraying him, drawn closer like an object caught in orbit.

He stops himself only because Barty is still behind him. Because there’s still a wand in someone’s hand. Because the world is still wrong and on fire and he shouldn’t be thinking about how badly he wants to reach out and touch the side of Regulus’s face.

James swallows, throat tight, and the ache is unbearable. Months of grief and fury and longing crash over him at once, and he feels suddenly, stupidly off-balance, like one more breath will shatter him.

He forces a whisper out, hoarse and breaking at the edges.

“Regulus… What—”

The word dies halfway. Because he doesn’t know what he’s asking.

What happened to you?

Why am I here?

Do you know what you’ve done to me?

His fingers twitch at his side, aching to reach forward. To touch. To grab hold of something tangible before the night collapses around him. And for one suspended second, James steps half a breath closer—not enough to cross the room, not enough for contact, but enough that the pull between them tightens, a thread drawn taut.

“You’re hurt.” Regulus murmurs, his one eye trained intensely upon him. For a moment, James thought it seemed as if Regulus might step closer, too.

Then, Barty’s gruff voice sliced right through the tension, snapping the taut cord of it.

“Fuck’s sake, Reg,” Barty huffed, stepping forward with that impatient, self-satisfied swagger James remembered too well. “Don’t start coddling him. Everything else went to plan—except this. He’s alive, isn’t he?”

Regulus’s expression closed like a fist.

Whatever emotion had flickered there—concern, softness, something unbearably human—vanished behind that perfect aristocratic mask. Shoulders straightened. Jaw set.

James’s stomach dropped sickeningly.

He’d always hated when Regulus did that. The retreat. The disappearing act behind perfect stillness. It always made James feel like he’d imagined any softness at all—that everything tender between them had been a hallucination born of desperation.

The air in the room shifted—cold, stark, sobering. The gravity between them didn’t disappear, but it turned toxic. The fragile thread of tenderness snapped back into something jagged. The spell between them—whatever it had been—shattered.

Reality came rushing back cruel and fast.

He was in a strange room. With Regulus Black. With Barty Crouch Jr.

The Order flashed through James’s head in a rush. His family.

And James was standing here, wandless, trapped, his heart traitorously pounding because Regulus Black looked like a ghost.

Another wave of nausea rolled through him.

“What the hell do you mean everything went to plan?” James demanded. His voice reverberated in the small space, too loud, too alive. “What plan? Why—why am I here? What did you do?”

His eyes snapped back to Regulus, as if he couldn’t not look at him. As if despite everything, Regulus was the answer to any question worth asking.

Regulus was not looking back at him anymore, his eye trained on Barty. The two of them seemed to be having some sort of silent exchange as James’s temper climbed.

He took two sharp steps forward, descending upon Regulus. Barty stiffened, hand moving toward his own wand.

“Why am I here, Regulus?” James repeated, voice rising.

When Regulus avoided his gaze, James nearly shook him. “Fucking look at me!”

Regulus did not flinch. He glanced back up at James, holding his gaze with that infuriating calm, like he had prepared for this moment a thousand times and drained himself dry of reaction. His voice when it came was steady, precise, glass-smooth.

“Barty—there’s no need.”

Behind James, Barty’s fierce expression burned into the back of James’s head, wand pointed right at his back. At Regulus’s words, he scoffed quietly before dropping his hand to his side.

Regulus was peering up at James now, close enough to touch him. James noticed a flicker of something, something raw, behind the wall he had up. Just as quick as it had come, it went away again.

“You’ll be staying here for the time being. I’m aware you’ll find that cruel, but it is necessary.” Regulus spoke in a low voice, any trace of emotion gone. “The fire was something controlled. No one was ever in any danger.”

James stared at him. Staying here. Necessary. Controlled.

“That’s it?” His voice cracked, too loud in the still room. “You burn an Order safehouse to the ground, drag me all the way here, steal my wand—and that’s your explanation?”

Regulus didn’t blink. “It’s the only one you’ll get tonight.”

James laughed—hollow, disbelieving.

“You aren’t a prisoner, James.” Regulus said evenly, steeling himself slightly at James’s growing bitterness.

“But I can’t leave.”

“No.”

His eyes darted to the doorway—dark, narrow, no sense of what waited past it other than sand and sea. His skin buzzed with the urge to run, to move, to do anything except stand here under Regulus’s clinical calm.

He could try to apparate. Blindly. Into whatever trap or ward they’d wrapped around this place.

His fingers twitched uselessly. Still no wand.

“You don’t get to decide this for me,” James snapped. Anger was easier than fear. Anger was solid, sharp, alive. “You don’t get to disappear for eight months and then chain me to you like some—”

“We didn’t chain you,” Barty muttered. “Should’ve, though.”

Regulus didn’t look away from James. “Leaving isn’t an option.”

Something had flickered in Regulus’s expression again—stress, warning, something James had always been too willing to walk straight through. But his voice remained quiet, maddeningly calm.

“You’re disoriented. Exhausted. Your magic is unstable from the extraction.”

“Extraction?”

Regulus didn’t elaborate. Of course he didn’t.

For the first time, panic truly dug in—sharp, animal, clawing at his ribs. He pressed shaking hands to his hair, trying to think.

Regulus’s eye followed him as he paced. His voice remained a locked door. “I think that’s enough for today.”

“No—”

Regulus turned slightly, a finality in his posture that James recognized like a bruise. The conversation was ending. Not resolved. Just cut off.

A door in the hall creaked. Footsteps—soft, deliberate—approached. Someone else was here. James’s pulse lunged into his throat.

Regulus didn’t seem concerned. Didn’t look to see who it was. Just spoke, quiet and immovable.

“I’ll show you to your room.”

James felt something inside him snap.

“If you think I’m going to sleep here like this is normal—”

“You will rest,” Regulus interrupted, not unkind, just utterly certain. “We can speak in the morning.”

James wanted to hit him. Grab him. Shake him until he felt something. Until he gave James every last answer to every single question that was burning through him.

But Regulus was already turning away, the soft press of moonlight tracing along the edge of his jaw.

James Potter considered himself to be a loyal man. He was loyal to the Order, to Dumbledore, to his friends—it was something ingrained in him, something he was always certain of in himself. But as Regulus turned down a dark hall, disappearing into shadow, James’s feet were already moving. Logic and reason, loyalty and certainty had all been tossed aside to follow the gravitational pull of Regulus Black.

Regulus had said this was necessary. Regulus had promised answers by morning.

Guilt should’ve sunk its claws into him, should have sent him careening back toward the front door, should have forced James’s full weight into Barty Crouch Jr. in some weak attempt for his wand—but it didn’t.

Despite everything, James followed.

With every step he took, the more his anger faded, replaced by heaviness in his limbs. He kept his eyes trained on the curls at the back of Regulus’s neck, blindly walking after him, and he forced himself not to think of how ridiculous and traitorous it was to give in like this.

But Regulus had been right about one thing. James was exhausted. As Regulus stopped ahead of him by a door at the end of the long hall, James felt like his feet were trudging through deep water.

Regulus didn’t open the door immediately. He stood before it, one hand hovering just an inch above the tarnished brass knob, shoulders held with that same brittle tension James could finally see now that he was close enough.

Up close, everything was too intimate—the faint tremor in Regulus’s hand, the harshness of the scar beneath the eyepatch, the rise and fall of his breathing. He looked breakable in a way that made James’s chest feel tight and foreign, like he was standing on the edge of something he couldn’t name and couldn’t step back from.

This close, James could smell him. Not cologne like before, but sea salt and parchment and whatever antiseptic salve had been used on his wounds. Something hospital-sterile underneath something painfully familiar.

James swallowed hard. His voice came ragged, shredded.

“Regulus.”

Regulus’s back went rigid.

He didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. He just stood there, like the word had hit him between the shoulder blades.

James’s hand twitched at his side. He hated himself for the urge—for how badly he wanted to reach out and take that wrist, drag him back, see something real again in his face.

Instead, the silence drew out between them like thinning ice.

When Regulus finally spoke, it was so soft James almost missed it.

“You’re safe here.”

The part of James that might have bitten back was buried now, under layers of fatigue. The part of him that might have demanded answers now, tonight, was sinking lower and lower as each second passed them. His calves were still burning, as if he had run for miles. His throat was still raw from all his shouting. His back was still stinging from the fire he’d been pressed against. He was covered in ash.

So, as the door opened to reveal a soft, made bed, logic and reason once again dissolved.

His eyes were glazed over now as he stared into the room from outside the door, his thoughts turned to a puddle in his mind.

He was safe here. Yes. He needed that to be true, because every one of his nerves was shot.

When he glanced back toward Regulus, Regulus was looking down at the floor.

“Rest, James.” He murmured. “We will talk in the morning.”

There was no threat in it. No command, even—only certainty. A promise, or the closest thing Regulus Black ever gave to one.

Then he turned—just a small pivot of shoulders, a shift of dark hair, the click of his boots against the floor. His silhouette receded down the hallway the same way it had materialized in the sitting room—quiet, spectral, leaving James in the doorway with his pulse in his throat.

James watched him go until the darkness swallowed him whole.

He stood there for another long moment, hand braced against the doorframe, head bowed like he was trying to breathe through the weight of everything he had gone through tonight.

But his legs felt like molten lead, heavy and unsteady, and the bed was right there—soft, clean sheets, a pitcher of water on the bedside table, a window cracked open to the salt-sweet night air. A space meant for him. Waiting.

James stepped inside.

The mattress dipped beneath him. His head hit the pillow and the world swayed, his vision blurring at the edges. He forced his eyes open a fraction longer, staring at the doorway as if Regulus might reappear and confess everything—why James was here, why Regulus looked like someone had peeled pieces of him away.

He should be thinking. Planning. Doing anything but staying right here where he was. But his mind was fogged.

His eyes finally closed.

Tomorrow.

He’d figure everything out tomorrow.

He would find a wand. He would demand answers. He would escape, or confront, or do whatever had to be done.

And with that last stubborn promise clutched like a shield, James let the dark take him.

Chapter Text

Sirius Black felt like he was going mad.

The night was a smeared blur of panic: Peter stumbling out of the house with half his neck blistered and peeling and barely conscious, Remus grabbing onto Sirius by the shoulders to keep him from throwing himself back into the collapsing doorway. He could still feel Remus’s arms locked around his chest, iron-tight, dragging him backward while Sirius had kicked and clawed and begged to go after James. He’d screamed himself hoarse.

They’d put the fire out eventually, but too late. Far, far too late. The upper floor collapsed into the lower with a sound that made something in Sirius splinter in response. Even now he could still hear it, feel it in the marrow of him—the crash, the roar, the way the flames swallowed the doorway James had run through. The roof had given way with a sound Sirius knew would haunt him for the rest of his life—a heavy, final groan, then wood snapping, then the crash that swallowed flame.

And James hadn’t come back out.

Moody had arrived with the first light, barking orders. “This was a hit,” he’d said, eye sweeping the wreck like he already knew there was no body to find. “Dark magic in flames like these—complex, controlled. We relocate immediately.”

But all Sirius had seen in that moment was that James wasn’t there.

He couldn’t just leave.

Not while James might be beneath the wreckage somewhere—hurt, trapped, waiting.

So when the others began apparating quickly and quietly under Moody’s direction, Sirius stayed knee-deep in ash alongside Remus, sleeves rolled, wand hand blistered. Every surface smoldered with lingering heat. The charred remains of the staircase curled.

Sirius dug through the wreckage like a man possessed.

He tore through rubble with bare, shaking hands, ripping away half-burned floorboards, overturning charred furniture frames. He moved without thought—only instinct and dread and the frantic hope that if he just lifted one more beam, if he just dug an inch deeper, he’d find James alive. Broken, maybe. Burned. But alive.

“James!” His voice cracked, still hoarse from the night before, but he called out again anyway, voice raw at the edges. “James!”

Sirius dropped to his knees beneath what had once been the stairs and shoved armfuls of rubble aside—chunks of plaster, scorched floorboards, melted glass still warm. He didn’t care that the ash burned his palms. Didn’t care about the smoke that left him coughing so hard he saw spots. He would dig until he found him. He would dig until his body gave out.

Remus was beside him, eyes glassy from exhaustion, motions slower but no less desperate. He lifted timbers with shaking hands, his wand lighting against sagging walls and collapsed ceiling.

They dug deeper, farther—under the remains of the upper floor, beneath the collapsed hallway, through mounds of charred debris where the bedrooms had been. Remus’s breath trembled with every shift of wreckage. He flinched at each groan of settling wood, but he didn’t stop. Not until the sun sat fully above the horizon, hours later.

At last, Remus paused.

Sirius didn’t notice at first—too focused on dragging aside another slab of blackened timber. His muscles spasmed violently from overuse, but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t.

“Padfoot,” Remus said quietly.

Sirius didn’t look up. “Help me with this one—if we clear this section we might—”

“Sirius.”

Sirius’s shoulders seized, his hands going still.

“We’ve gone through everything,” Remus continued, voice ragged. “The kitchen, the hall, the main floor—all of it. If James was here, we would’ve found him. We would’ve found something. A sign. A… a body.” His throat worked. “Anything.”

Sirius sat back on his heels, breath shaking, eyes wild. “So what? We just stop? We leave him here?”

“He’s not here.”

“You don’t know that!” Sirius surged forward again, scrabbling at loose brick from the crumbled chimney. “He might be deeper—we haven’t gotten under the west side—maybe he crawled—maybe he’s alive—maybe he’s—”

Remus caught his wrist. Sirius yanked it back like he’d been burned, but Remus grabbed him again—stronger this time, both hands around Sirius’s forearm.

“Sirius, look at me.”

Sirius refused. He stared down at the rubble, chest heaving, black spots dancing at the edges of his vision.

“We would have found him by now,” Remus whispered. His voice shook as though he was saying it for his own sake as much as Sirius’s. “If he died in here, we’d see… something. Anything. But there’s nothing. Which means he either made it out, or he wasn’t here when it collapsed.”

It was the only hope Remus could cling to. The only one that made sense. But the logic of it didn’t soothe Sirius—it ignited something desperate and furious instead.

“You don’t understand,” Sirius choked, voice coming out small and desperate. “The last thing I said to him—I was awful, Moony. We—I have to fix it. I can’t—I can’t have that be the last thing. I need to find him. Please—help me.”

Sirius couldn’t just leave. It felt too much like letting James die. Despite knowing Remus was coming from a place of logic and reason, Sirius couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t stop the gnawing feeling that maybe Remus was wrong—maybe James was still here, just trapped in some place Sirius couldn’t see.

Remus sank down beside him in the ash, knees trembling from hours on his feet.

“We need to go, Sirius. We can regroup with the others, we can think of—”

Sirius shook his head violently, breaths shallow and frantic. His chest caved inward like something folding in on itself. His knees nearly buckled.

Remus caught him.

And for a long moment, Sirius leaned into him, breath shuddering, fingers curled tight in the fabric of Remus’s jumper like he might drown if he let go.

But Remus continued whispering, as though saying the truth aloud required precision. “If he was taken, he could be anywhere by now. Every minute we stand here digging blindly is a minute wasted when we could be finding where he went. We need the others. We need a plan.”

The logic was merciless, but it was the only anchor being offered.

Sirius dragged a hand over his mouth, tasting ash. His gaze drifted back to the collapsed house—the blackened bones of it, the broken beams like ribs of something dead. The place looked hollow now, picked over. Violated. They had already torn it inside out.

And James wasn’t here.

Accepting that felt like stepping off a cliff.

Sirius’s chest pulled tight. He pushed himself upright with stiff legs, ash clinging to his trousers, palms raw. Remus rose with him.

He nodded once, sharp, the movement jerking with restraint. “Fine,” he muttered, though nothing about this was fine. “We go.” His voice cracked.

He let Remus take his arm. Sirius’s feet felt leaden as he turned from the rubble. Each step away twisted something deep in his gut, as if part of him were being left behind in the ash.

He let himself be guided away from the burned-out skeleton of the house, stumbling like his legs no longer worked. Remus kept hold of him the entire time, steady and unyielding, even as his own eyes shone with grief he hadn’t had any space to feel yet.

Sirius looked back only once.

~*~

Light crawled across Regulus’s room in thin, watery bands—pale dawn filtered through salt-crusted glass. It settled over the floorboards, over the discarded cloak pooled by the door where he’d barely managed to shrug it off, and finally over the bed where Regulus lay flat on his back, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.

For a moment, he can almost pretend last night didn’t happen—that James Potter isn't here. But the memory hits him anyways, sharp as ice.

James, furious and brilliant and alive.

James, voice raw from yelling.

James stepping toward him like gravity.

James saying his name.

Regulus squeezes his eyes shut.

He knows he should get up. There are things to do—wards to check, contingency plans to review, Evan to rein in, answers to give or cleverly withhold. He has built this plan from nothing, has crafted it far, far away from Dumbledore’s knowledge. He cannot afford to waste even a morning.

But Regulus doesn’t move.

The first time he sees James each timeline always guts him. He could prepare for it for months—convince himself he’d be composed, distant, cold—and still, the moment James stands before him, raging and alive and looking at him with that brilliant, unbearable intensity, it felt like the world came back into color too quickly. Too bright. Too loud. Too much.

Last night, when James took that step toward him—just a fraction, just enough to shorten the space between them—Regulus had felt like his lungs had been stolen. Like he could breathe only if James touched him. His restraint might have been washed away, then. It would have been difficult to control himself.

He had been in that room with James Potter screaming in his face—James angry and confused and calling his name like a curse—and Regulus had felt something close to joy suffocate him from the inside.

He’d wanted—fuck, he’d wanted.

Wanted to grab James by the collar and pull him flush against himself. Wanted to apologize and explain and beg for forgiveness he didn’t deserve and kiss the anger off his mouth until neither of them could speak. Until neither of them could breathe. He wanted to feel the heat of him, the weight of him, the life of him beneath his hands.

He had nearly reached out. Nearly touched James’s cheek. Nearly confessed everything in one catastrophic exhale.

I brought you back.

I tore time open for you.

I watched you die.

Instead, he had put the mask back on—cold, measured, sane. The mask is the only thing keeping him intact.

When he’d finally left James at the end of the hall, Regulus had hardly made it around the corner before his knees gave out.

He’d stumbled into his own room, hands over his mouth to smother the sound, and then he had collapsed beside the bed, forehead pressed to the floorboards, shoulders shaking. Ugly, silent tears. The kind he would have choked on rather than let anyone see. Relief and grief tangled so tightly he couldn’t tell them apart. The pain of losing James three times before. The miracle of gaining him back again.

He had shaken until his back went stiff. Until his fingers went numb. Until the wave passed, and he was only empty.

Now, morning had come, and he felt scraped raw from the inside.

Regulus pushed himself upright. Slowly. Carefully. Every movement was deliberate, like his bones might splinter if he rushed them. His magic, at the core of him, buzzed faintly under his skin, dim and unstable after ritual depletion. He swallowed, tasting iron. He needed food. Water. A restorative draught. But none of that mattered as much as what he could hardly believe to be true:

James was here.

How ridiculous, that seeing James angry had felt like a blessing. That James’s voice raised against him had been a gift. That he would have let James hit him if that had been what James needed. He would take every ounce of fury, every accusation, if it meant James kept looking at him like that.

That want—sharp, humiliating—was something Regulus carried quietly. Locked inside him. It wouldn’t matter if James never forgave him. It wouldn’t matter if James spat in his face and left at the first opportunity once all of this was over. Regulus would take it. All of it. Because James alive was worth everything.

He swings his legs to the floor and sits for a long moment, head bowed, fingertips pressed to his eyelids. His eye socket throbs beneath the patch—phantom pain, healing wrong. He remembers James seeing the scars. The moment surprise replaced rage in James’s expression.

He moved to stand, bracing a hand on the bedpost when his legs trembled. He breathed through it. He dressed slowly, methodically. His eyepatch strap tugged slightly against healing skin, and he winced at the familiar sting.

He smoothed his collar. Straightened his shoulders. Built the mask piece by piece until nothing soft remained on his face.

When he left the room, the hall was quiet. Barty’s door was shut. Regulus walked toward the far end of the hall where another door sat closed—the one he had shown James to.

He paused there. Hand hovering inches from the doorframe. He let his fingers ghost over the wood.

James was just beyond it. Sleeping, probably tangled in sheets. Regulus let himself imagine it, just for a moment, because no one could see him here. Because this moment—this quiet, this safety—would not last.

Regulus tore himself away, had to force himself back down the hall.

He passed Dorcas’s room on his way through the sitting room—its door cracked open just enough to glimpse the unmade bed, sheets twisted, a mug on the nightstand gone cold hours ago. He didn’t bother checking for her. He knew where she was. She was always in the same place at dawn.

He stepped through the back door of the beach house.

August on the English coast was never warm in the way people imagined. The air had a bite to it first thing—cool, damp with sea mist, the kind that clung to skin and hair. The breeze coming off the Channel was gentle but persistent, lifting the hem of his shirt. The sunlight was thin for now, filtered through a low stretch of pale cloud hazy enough that the horizon melted softly into the rolling grey-blue of the ocean.

The grass was sparse this close to the shoreline—a sandy yard patched with dune plants and thistle, still wet with dawn dew. Gull cries cut through the air in irregular bursts, distant and eerie in the quiet. The smell of brine was stronger outside, carried inland by a light breeze that combed through Regulus’s hair and tugged at loose strands near his temple.

He crossed the sandy yard behind the house, boots sinking slightly in the soft ground where tufts of coarse dune grass poked through. Salt-warped fence posts leaned tiredly toward the beach.

Last night’s emotional tremor had left a weakness in his limbs, but the movement helped, grounding him. The world out here felt wide and indifferent—the kind of stillness that asked nothing of him except presence. Waves rolled in a steady rhythm below, slow and unhurried, the tide creeping up the shore inch by inch.

He walked toward the sound of the sea.

Dorcas Meadowes sat where she always did—at the edge of the tide, just out of reach of the cold froth that crept up and receded over and over in slow breaths. She was a small, still figure against the endless stretch of grey water, knees drawn up, arms looped loosely around her shins.

Her curls were wind-tangled and damp at the ends, pushed back from her face by the sea’s insistence. She wore a light jumper layered over a thin shirt, sleeves shoved to her elbows, linen trousers rolled to her calves, feet bare in the packed sand as though grounding herself through skin alone. Her wand was half-buried beside her, a slender sliver of wood sticking up like drift among the shells.

Regulus approached with soft steps, though she must have heard him long before he closed the distance.

He lowered himself beside her without a word. The sand was cool even through his trousers, dampness seeping up with slow intent.

Dorcas didn’t turn her head, but she scoffed under her breath.

“I figured it’d be you,” she said, voice low—scratchy from sleep or disuse, it was hard to tell. “You only come down here when something’s gone to hell.”

Regulus stared straight ahead at the ocean, expression unreadable. Gulls circled and dipped. The wind shifted direction. The waves breathed in and out.

Dorcas didn’t push for an answer. She never did—not at first. Silence was part of their routine. A brittle kind of peace.

He had brought her here months ago under the promise of purpose. Of a chance to strike at the root, rather than the branches. A way to cut through the war by going straight to the heart: the Dark Lord’s horcruxes.

And in all that time, they’d made no progress. Not really. The path forward had been little more than theories and dead ends and long nights of research that led nowhere. All they knew was the location of one, thanks to Kreacher, but Regulus had been too distracted to formulate something solid on retrieving it. Truthfully, since the last Mortem Tempora ritual, it was difficult for Regulus to recall exactly where they’d left off on the matter.

Regulus sat there beside her, shoulders tense beneath his shirt, mask firmly in place, and said nothing.

Dorcas flicked him a sideways glance. Cool. Assessing. Already knowing something had shifted in the night. She exhaled through her nose, long and tired, gaze now fixed on the horizon like she was trying to see something better past it.

“Told you he’d be pissed.” She mumbled absently, unable to help the petty jab from escaping her.

“It went to plan,” Regulus returned, eyes searching for what Dorcas was looking at ahead of her. “Everyone got out.”

Her head flicked toward him briefly, sharp, alert, but she didn’t soften. “Everyone?” Her voice was dry, measured. “Including Marlene?”

Regulus’s jaw tightened imperceptibly. He didn’t lower the mask, didn’t offer warmth. “Yes. McKinnon made it out.”

She made a sound—a muted exhale, more of a rasp—and her fingers dug into the sand. Not a word, not acknowledgment. But Regulus could feel her relief. Subtle, threaded with something bitter. She was letting herself process it, but only just. Her posture stiffened again, a shield.

“Mm,” she murmured, voice flat, unimpressed. “Lucky her.”

Regulus knew Dorcas felt isolated here. Only months ago, she was fighting alongside the Order, surrounded by people she’d lived, breathed and laughed with for five years. Regulus had taken her away from that. Of course, unlike James, she had come willing—he knew she would, once she’d heard the information he was offering her, despite the still-growing resentment between them.

The passing thought of James nearly made his head spin again.

James would learn of Dorcas in a matter of hours.

Regulus knew the Order had long ago presumed her dead—when in reality, she was here, at the Black family’s abandoned beach house. James would have to reconcile those two realities soon.

“I can’t wrap my head around why he would agree to it,” Dorcas spoke abruptly again, though her voice was softer now, “Knowing what it would take from you.”

Regulus knew she meant Dumbledore.

“Albus isn’t as infallible as he appears,” Regulus said finally, quiet but firm. The words were neither confession nor concession, only acknowledgment of the truth.

Dorcas turned her gaze from the horizon to him, eyes narrowing slightly, searching, trying to read something behind his expression. The wind lifted strands of her curls, brushing them against her cheek, but she didn’t bother tucking them back.

“I know that,” she said slowly, each word measured, threaded with disbelief and lingering worry. “I’ve known it for a while. But… why? Why would he think this—this entire time ritual—was justified? All this… this planning, these ideas about the future, the horcruxes, the war—it’s abstract to him. You’re flesh and blood, Regulus.”

Regulus’s jaw flexed, but he kept his eyes on the rolling surf, letting the words hang between them. He didn’t answer immediately; there was no denying the truth she saw, no pretense that could hide the subtle changes in him—the tighter movements, the slight falter in his gait, the way the mask of composure seemed just a little too heavy on his face these days.

“He believes in the… the greater plan,” he said finally, voice low, deliberately vague. “Sacrifice is necessary. I’ve been told as much since the beginning.”

Dorcas scoffed softly, a sound more bitter than amused. “Sacrifice, yes. But that’s easy to say when it isn’t your life on the line. You’ve been losing weight, Regulus. Your hand shakes sometimes. You get… weaker, every week I see you. And he knows it.” She jabbed a finger toward him, not harshly, but insistently. “And yet he still agreed.”

Regulus said nothing, merely shifted his weight, letting the sand shift beneath him. The ache in his hip protested, but he ignored it. He could feel the old worry behind her words—the worry that had lingered since school, the worry that had never entirely faded even as they chose different paths, different sides. Dorcas had been close once, closer than anyone, and that closeness had left a trace in her vigilance now.

“Do you ever wonder,” she continued, quieter now, almost a whisper, “if he’s thinking about you at all? Or is it just… the mission, the plan, the supposed greater good?”

Regulus’s fingers dug slightly into the sand. He didn’t meet her gaze. “I don’t know,” he admitted after a long pause. The words were heavy, stripped of all his usual armor. “I’ve learned not to assume anything about Albus beyond what I see. What he says… what he allows. It’s never straightforward.”

Dorcas exhaled slowly, the weight of the statement settling between them. Her eyes softened just a fraction, betraying the old familiarity, the old bond that had survived the war, the choices, the distance. She looked at him then, really looked, taking in the tight lines of his face, the subtle hollow at his temples.

“I don’t care what you say, Regulus,” she murmured, almost to herself, “I can see it. You’re not fine. And he’s not looking out for you. Not really.”

A small, bitter laugh escaped him, almost lost in the whisper of waves. “I’m not supposed to be fine.” he said, voice flat, distant. But beneath the detachment, there was a thread of acknowledgment, a quiet admission that she had guessed correctly.

Dorcas glanced away, swallowing against the tightness in her throat. The sand was cold beneath her palms, the faint grit rubbing at her skin, and she pressed her fingers into it, grounding herself. “We used to be… different,” she said finally, softer now, the words strange in their intimacy. “Before this. Before all of it. I worry about you, whether you want me to or not.”

Regulus didn’t answer. He knew her worry, recognized it, even if he didn’t return it to himself in kind. Years ago, they had been inseparable. That version of Regulus existed still, buried beneath the obligations, the rituals, the slow decay that came with Mortem Tempora, and Dorcas could see him, even if no one else could.

“I still don’t trust him,” she said, the faint edge of the old schoolgirl defiance cutting through the concern. “Never have. And I never will. I don’t care how much everyone bows at his feet, how brilliant he looks from the outside. He’s not… he’s not as careful as he pretends.”

He finally let his eyes drift to hers, fleetingly. “Agreed,” he said quietly. “He is not.”

The wind shifted again, brushing at their clothing. They both looked out over the water in silence. The distance between them remained, yes—but for the first time in many months, it felt less like a chasm and more like a bridge, tenuous and fragile, but still capable of supporting weight.

Dorcas exhaled, a little of the tension leaving her shoulders, and finally gave him a small, almost imperceptible nod. “Then we’ll just have to be careful ourselves,” she said softly, more to the sea than to him, though he heard every word.

The path back to the beach house lay ahead, and as they walked, the wind tugged at them, carrying the faint cries of gulls, the rhythm of waves, and the unspoken acknowledgment that neither Albus Dumbledore nor the war itself would determine the terms of their trust. Only they could do that—for now, at least.

Chapter Text

Sunlight knifes through the slats of the curtains. It lands warm across James’s face, and he startles awake with a sharp inhale, heart lurching as if he’s fallen mid-dream.

His vision swims. For a moment, he doesn’t know where he is.

Ceiling beams. Salt-stained wood. A window brimming with afternoon light and the distant hush of waves—

Afternoon.

He sits up too fast.

Pain detonates across his back like a white-hot lash. A bitten sound tears out of him—half curse, half gasp—and he freezes, hunched forward as burning needles pulse beneath his skin. His shirt sticks to him, damp with sweat. The fabric drags over the injured flesh and he grits his teeth, breath catching. It feels like a sheet of fire stretched across his shoulder blades, hot and swollen. When he reaches back gingerly, fingertips brush raised, angry skin—blistered, tight, tender to the slightest touch.

Right. The fire. The wall. Crouch slamming him into it.

The memories pour into him in a messy pile—fire, smoke, the safehouse, Peter, the field, the portkey, sand filling his mouth and eyes, Regulus in the lamplit room. Regulus with an eye missing. Regulus with trembling fingers. Regulus alive.

Regulus here.

James scrubs a hand over his face, trying to steady his breathing. The sheets tangled around his legs are unfamiliar, the mattress too soft compared to the one he’d been sleeping on for the last several months. This is a beach house—he remembered the sound of waves as Barty had forced him across the long stretch of sand, remembered stumbling past pale driftwood floors and peeling wallpaper.

He should leave. He had told himself he would leave the second he woke up.

No one’s tied him down. No one’s guarding his door. No spells are holding him to the bed. He could stand, limp to the window, apparate blind into the nearest patch of safe land—

Except, that would mean leaving without his wand. Barty still has it.

The window is cracked open, salty wind drifting in, tugging at the curtains. He could climb out. He could run, he could—

A knock—three light taps—cuts cleanly through the frantic rush of his thoughts. James freezes. His body goes rigid on instinct, pain flaring sharp across his back. His hand twitches toward where his wand should be—missing, gone—and the absence is a fresh sting of panic.

He moves anyway.

Three quick steps, faster than sense or caution, and he yanks the door open with more force than needed, jaw clenched around half-formed questions that burn behind his teeth.

It’s Pandora Lestrange.

She stands small in the doorway, a tray balanced lightly in her hands—bandages, a steaming mug, a glass bottle with amber liquid catching the light like honey.

James’s chest tightened as he blinked at her, expecting Regulus, expecting someone who belonged here, someone he could recognize and confront. But it wasn’t Regulus. It was Pandora, standing there on the threshold, small and light in the sun-bleached room, her tray balanced effortlessly in her hands. He froze, his back flaring with pain, his mind scrambling. Why is she here?

“Hello, James Potter.”

She hadn’t reacted at all to the way he tensed, or to the sharp edge in his gaze. She just smiled softly, almost as if she had no idea he was startled—or didn’t care. She stepped inside, placing the tray carefully on the bedside table, moving as though she had been expected—though James hadn’t expected her at all.

Pandora was tiny, a slender figure barely reaching his shoulder. Her hair was light, falling in loose waves around her face and shoulders. Tiny braids were threaded with thin, silvery strings that caught the sunlight as she moved, faintly shimmering, catching the light like stray threads of water.

James’s eyes followed her closely, trying to measure her intent. He remembered her vaguely from school—a year below him, part of Regulus’s group—but they had never spoken. Now, in this quiet sunlit room, she seemed almost unreal, like she’d been untouched by war.

She was dressed in a pale blue blouse tucked neatly into high-waisted corduroy shorts that fell just above her knees. Her sleeves were sheer, and slightly puffed at the shoulders. James noticed she was barefoot, toes curling against the pale wood floor, and a small string of seashells hung around her neck.

She moved calmly toward him, placing a hand lightly on the edge of the bed to steady herself, and explained in a voice that was low, even, and careful, “Regulus asked me to check for any burns, and apply one of my salves. There’s also a basic restorative, I brewed it myself—it’s mild, but should help.”

She didn’t pause for his response. She didn’t ask if she could. She just laid out what would happen, her tone matter-of-fact, precise, but gentle.

James hesitated at first, taking a moment to observe her. Slowly, he moved back toward the bed, muscles coiled and tense, his gaze flicking between her hands and her face.

He was aware of every detail—her small stature, the delicate braids, the slight sheen of her sleeves—but he said nothing. His voice wouldn’t come. He allowed her to take hold of his shirt. She removed it carefully, and James flinched slightly when the fabric left his skin exposed, the raw heat of the burns pressing against his nerves.

“Not too deep,” she murmured, half to herself, half to him, as she dabbed at his back with a clean cloth. Her eyes were bright and quick, moving over the injured skin with precise focus. “These are tender. Painful, I imagine.” She didn’t wait for him to answer, but her gaze lifted just long enough to meet his.

James gave a careful, measured nod. He wasn’t going to explain, wasn’t going to speak more than necessary. He didn’t know her well, and a Lestrange’s presence came with questions he didn’t yet want to voice.

When she reached for the jar of salve, she held it delicately between thumb and forefinger, uncapping it, and gave him a small, quick glance. “It smells strong, but it will help with the healing. Try not to move too much.” Her voice had that soft, drifting quality that made it hard for James to focus on anything but her words. He made a small, tight nod, silent, letting her take hold of his shoulder.

Then she began to work, spreading the paste over the raised, blistered skin, her hands steady, careful, and unhesitant. James bit back the sharp inhale the first touch caused, but she didn’t flinch at his reaction.

Occasionally, she would murmur small observations, noting the edges of the burns, the way the skin had darkened, or adjusting her touch slightly. But when another stretch of silence went on for too long, James couldn’t help but clear his throat to break it.

“Is this your home?” He asked lightly, his eyes fixed upon a distant corner of the room as her fingers moved delicately against his back.

“Mm, no,” Pandora hummed, dipping her fingers back into the salve, “This is Regulus’s house. Though, I suppose it’s Barty’s now, too.” She added thoughtfully.

“They live here together?”

“Oh, Regulus doesn’t live here. Just visits sometimes.”

James was even more puzzled now than he was before. Irritation flared hot again.

“Where is he?” he demanded, jerking more upright, his back screaming with protest.

Pandora paused mid-swipe, her hand hovering above his shoulder. Her gaze met his, unflinching, cool as stone. “He isn’t here,” she said softly, as though she were stating a fact, not answering a question.

“Do you know why I was brought here?” he demanded next, his voice rising slightly, sharp with edge. “You do, don’t you?”

Her response was infuriatingly minimal. “Yes,” she said gently, without looking away, without elaborating. “But, that’s not for me to say.”

Not for me to say. His chest tightened, a coil of frustration and utter disbelief winding up inside him once again.

He glanced around the room, taking stock—the door, the window. No one else seemed to be here but her. No one would stop him. If he wanted to leave, now was probably his best chance. His only chance.

His hand went for the chair where his shirt lay, singed, soot-streaked, carrying the bitter scent of smoke and ash. He snatched it up and pulled it around his shoulders, ignoring the sting of raw skin beneath the fabric, forcing himself to stand.

“I’m leaving,” he said, voice low but hard, a taut edge of finality in it. Every step toward the doorway was deliberate, adrenaline surging despite the flare of pain in his back.

Just as quickly as James had stood, the bedroom door slammed shut all on its own with a force that rattled the frame, a resonant echo filling the sunlit room. The tray on the bedside table jolted, the mug wobbling precariously, a thin wisp of steam twisting into the air. James froze where he stood, eyes wide as he turned to face the source.

Pandora stood before him, wand leveled, her small frame suddenly exuding a presence that filled the room. There was no softness now, no drifting calm. Her voice cut through him, sharp, commanding, cold. “Sit down.”

The shift in tone was jarring. The soft, careful girl who had applied the salve moments ago had vanished; in her place stood someone vicious and unyielding, demanding obedience without question.

James’s muscles tensed, every nerve screaming to move, to push, to run—but the weight of her gaze held him in place. The singed shirt in his hands suddenly felt like lead.

The distant hush of waves outside continued, a gentle backdrop to the tension in the room. Pandora’s wand remained leveled, unwavering, and every inch of her posture radiated control, danger, and precision. James realized, with an abrupt, unnerving clarity, that he had nowhere to go.

Begrudgingly, his knees hit the edge of the mattress with a soft, reluctant thud. He sank down once again, shoulders tense, back rigid even as the coolness of the salve pressed against raw, blistered skin. The sting from the burns flared with every small motion, and his jaw clenched tight, teeth gritting against the simmering ache.

Pandora lowered her wand with a slow, deliberate ease. She stepped back slightly, tilting her head as she studied him, eyes no longer threatening. The commanding edge in her voice softened into the quiet tone she’d carried before the door had slammed.

“Regulus will be back soon,” she said, her words calm, almost gentle, drifting over him. “But you should shower. Wash off the soot, the sweat… all of it.” She paused, letting her gaze drop to the pale, reddened skin streaked with amber salve. “Not the back yet,” she added, her voice even. “The salve needs time to soak in. It’ll work better if it isn’t disturbed.”

James felt his lips press into a thin line, a spark of bitterness curling inside him. His back itched with impatience beneath the thick layer of healing paste, and the thought of waiting, of being ordered around by a Lestrange, made a slow, hot flush of anger rise in his chest.

Pandora didn’t hurry him. She didn’t press further. Instead, she nodded toward the doorway, a small movement that left no room for argument—follow her. Her eyes lingered on him briefly, assessing, evaluating, noting the subtle twitch of his hand, the tense line of his shoulders, the way his jaw flexed with contained frustration.

James rose, slow and cautious, mindful of the burn across his shoulder blades. His bare feet pressed into the warm, pale wood, the sound of them muted against the floor. He followed her through the room, keenly aware of how her gaze seemed to trail him, pressing lightly at his back even without touch.

He couldn’t help but think back to last night—how Regulus had said he wasn’t a prisoner here. But as he felt Pandora’s eyes burning into him as they walked, James almost couldn’t help but scoff at the ridiculousness of the situation in which he found himself in.

~*~

Regulus apparated onto the edge of the property. The air was colder than it had been this morning—sharp with afternoon wind—and for a long, bracing second, he just stood there, staring out at the grey sheet of sea.

He exhaled sharply through his nose the moment his feet hit the ground—anger first, then dread, then the slow, hollow ache of realizing he had made a terrible, reckless choice and now had to sit in it.

A second crack followed. Evan Rosier appeared half a step behind him, breath shallow, the faint burn along his forearm already nearly forgotten under a crust of old healing salve.

Instead of heading for the door, Evan released a long, slow sigh, hanging his head as he and Regulus began the slow walk back toward the beach house. “Thanks, by the way. Definitely owe you one.” He mumbled. He slowed his pace a bit to match Regulus’s.

Regulus only shrugged. “I figured there was a reason you weren’t with them last night.” He commented in a low voice. Despite being out in the open in a place much more remote than where they’d just been, their tones remained quiet from habit.

Evan scoffed, smiling bitterly at the sand down below. “Yeah, well. You know how he gets.” His voice was tight.

Regulus always tried his best not to involve himself in matters that seemed strictly between Evan and Barty. At times, it was difficult for him to keep up with their moods with one another.

Truthfully, he should never have let this plan happen.

Of course, Regulus had concocted the idea himself—but he should never have let Barty talk him into the flashier components. Should never have trusted that their “contained fire” would remain contained. Should never have assumed James’s extraction would be simple. Should never have—

He swallowed hard.

He should never have been so desperate.

That was the part that really stung. Underneath everything, beneath the strategy and the cold logic and the carefully modulated voice he used to keep control—Regulus knew the truth.

He was getting reckless because it was James.

It was always James who loosened something inside him, who made him feel like he had to act now, immediately, without thought, without caution, before the world took him away again. Because every time Regulus told himself he could be measured and rational and detached, James Potter would appear in his mind like a burst of gold light—and Regulus would do something catastrophically stupid in response.

He could almost hear Dorcas’s voice: This is too much, Black. It’s too big. Too dangerous. Too unpredictable. You’re pretending you’ve thought it through, but you haven’t.

And yet, he’d done it anyway.

The rocky part of the sand crunched under Evan’s boots as he stepped up beside him. “You’re thinking too loudly,” Evan said, tone mild, almost weary. “I can hear you from here.”

Regulus didn’t look at him. His gaze stayed fixed on the veranda steps, the railings bleached pale by years of sun and sea. “I’m fine.”

Evan snorted softly. “You’re vibrating, Reg.”

Maybe he was. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Together they walked up the steps of the veranda, their movements quiet, tense. Evan joined him at the railing, leaning his forearms against the weathered wood. His burned arm brushed the sleeve of Regulus’s coat; he didn’t seem to care.

“So, Barty told you his side of everything, then?” Evan asked.

“Enough.” Regulus’s jaw tightened. “Enough to know it went wrong.”

“Not completely wrong.” Evan’s voice was low, steady. A grounding sort of voice. Always had been. “But messy.” Evan leaned his elbows on the railing, staring outward. His voice, when it came, was flat. Stripped bare.

“They stayed long after,” he continued distantly. “Black and Lupin. Hours. Maybe more. I kept my distance—the smoke covered me well enough—but they weren’t leaving. Not until the flames died down.” A pause. “Not until there was nothing left to find.”

Regulus’s fingers curled against the railing’s damp wood. He had been an idiot—an arrogant, grieving, reckless idiot—to assume that a little fire would fool Sirius Black.

He should have predicted this. Should have accounted for it. Should have remembered what Sirius used to be like when someone he loved was in danger—merciless, furious, almost feral. Of course Sirius wouldn’t accept a corpse made of smoke and guesswork. Sirius tore apart illusions as easily as he breathed. If there had ever been a hope they’d think James gone, it was foolish.

Evan continued, voice lower. “They dug through the debris by hand for a while. Sifting. Searching.” He glanced toward Regulus. “They kept calling for him.”

Regulus shut his eye.

He could picture it perfectly: Sirius’s voice. Lupin’s voice. Calling for James in the rubble.

“I should have thought of something else.” The confession was quiet, dragged out like a splinter. “A less dramatic diversion. A ward failure. A staged attack. Anything but that.” He said almost bitterly.

Evan didn’t look at him, but let out an exhale. “Well, too late for that now. It worked, didn’t it?”

Regulus’s stomach twisted.

“They stayed long after the others had apparated out. The rest of the Order went back to their last safehouse—Alastor Moody’s call, from what I could hear. They’re regrouping there. Pettigrew went too. Burns were bad.” A beat. “Not life-threatening. Could’ve been worse, but…”

Regulus didn’t need the details. He already felt the guilt threading through him again like fine wire.

“They’ll keep searching tomorrow,” Evan went on, eyes returning to the horizon. “And the next day. Someone will realize the ward lines around the safehouse shifted. They’ll track the residue eventually—if they’re clever.”

As much as Regulus tried to hang onto Evan’s words, his mind couldn’t help but drift toward James—James inside the house—alive, safe, just beyond the thin layer of wood and air separating them. It was a reality so bright it almost hurt to look at directly, like staring into the sun after too long underground. His chest tightened with something sharp, almost unruly, and he found himself unable to swallow around it.

James Potter. Inside. Here.

The knowledge didn’t sit still. It slipped and jittered, impossible to hold in place, impossible to comprehend without something in him twisting too hard. In every lifetime, in every loop, in every version of reality that Mortem Tempora had carved into his bones, James being alive had always felt like a miracle. Even now—especially now—it hit him like a blow.

He could picture him perfectly. He hadn’t even seen him yet today, but he knew—sun in his hair, exhaustion under his eyes, that stubborn tension in his jaw that he got when he was hurting but refusing to show it. Regulus’s heart thudded painfully at the thought of James just on the other side of the door.

He’d promised answers.

Now he was here, standing on the veranda with the wind in his hair, staring at the house where James waited—and he was no more prepared than he had been hours ago.

His thoughts slid, chaotic and uncontrolled. The Mortem Tempora had left him cracked open, mind messy, thoughts half-formed. He couldn’t string them together cleanly anymore. They slipped, overlapped, collided. That’s how he’d ended up with the ridiculous plan of the fire.

How was he supposed to tell James anything when he could barely think in a straight line?

What would he even say first?

I’ve lived all of this before? I’ve watched you die? I’ve undone time itself to keep you breathing? I’m the one dying now, slowly, quietly, because the ritual hollowed me out? I agreed to spy for Dumbledore? I agreed to destroy every piece of the Dark Lord’s soul?

Each truth was a blade with a different edge—sharp in its own terrible way. He didn’t know which one would cut James deepest. He didn’t know which one would push him away. He didn’t know if there was any version of the truth that wouldn’t shatter something—whatever might be left—between them.

He knew he could tell him everything. He had done it before—across timelines, across versions of James who had met him with open arms, wide belief, immediate trust. There had been versions of James who believed him without blinking, who reached for him instantly, who held every piece of truth with gentle hands.

But this wasn’t that James.

This James lived in that narrow, painful window of time where Regulus had betrayed him, and it hadn’t yet been resolved. Where Regulus had walked away, lied, broken something fragile between them. This James was still wounded. Still cautious. Still full of memory and disappointment and sharp-edged caution.

This James wouldn’t simply believe. This James might not even want to listen.

And Regulus—weak, slow, mind cracked open by ritual—did not know how to face him like this.

He hated lying to James. The very idea made his stomach twist, made something inside him recoil. He had lied to everyone else. He had played double and triple roles. He had concealed entire worlds of truth from Death Eaters, Order members, from Dumbledore himself. He had wielded secrets like knives.

But James—James had always been the one person he could not stomach deceiving. Even when the truth could hurt James. Even when the truth could hurt him. Even when honesty felt like flaying himself open.

He couldn’t lie. Not to him. Not now.

But he also couldn’t pour everything out at once. It would drown James. Break him. Maybe break them both.

So he would decide in the moment—one truth at a time, with James’s face guiding each choice. He would watch his eyes, watch his shoulders, watch the way his breath shifted. And he would choose. Reveal, or withhold. Speak, or stay silent.

He wasn’t ready. His body wasn’t ready. His mind was frayed, slow, unfocused. The Mortem Tempora had stripped him of the sharpness he once relied on—once reveled in. He used to be quick. Controlled. Cutting. Now his thoughts scattered like startled birds every time he tried to grasp them.

Except for two. Two thoughts that burned clean and bright and immovable.

Destroy the horcruxes. Keep James alive.

Everything else was noise. Every other thought flickered, wavered, fractured. But those two—those were the compass points keeping him upright.

He lifted a hand to the railing, fingers pressing into the sun-warmed wood as if grounding himself in its solidity. His muscles ached. His magic flickered weakly in his core, unsteady and unreliable.

He felt unmoored. Disassembled. A version of himself he barely recognized.

The wind whipped across the veranda, cold against his overheated skin, and his thoughts snapped back into the moment when Evan’s last words drifted through the air—steady, matter-of-fact, resigned.

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes.” Regulus finally responded, voice flat as he released the railing he’d been gripping.

The rest of Regulus’s thoughts dissolved as he reached for the front door—one last shaky inhale, one last attempt to marshal himself into something steady and cold—then he pushed it open.

To his surprise, James was already there, standing in the center of the sitting room as if he’d been pacing earlier, now frozen mid-step. His back was straight, his shoulders squared despite the pain Regulus knew had to be radiating from under that borrowed shirt.

James’s hair was still damp from the shower, dark and curling over his forehead, and the sunlight spilling in from the tall seaside windows made him look harsher around the edges—cheekbones sharp, jaw shadowed, eyes bright with something volatile and barely leashed.

He looked furious. He looked beautiful.

The moment James’s gaze locked on Regulus and Evan in the doorway, that fury sharpened into something pointed, direct, personal.

But then Regulus saw the reason for it.

Pandora stood to the side of the room, leaning one shoulder against a sun-faded bookshelf. She was perfectly calm, perfectly still. Her expression was unreadable, soft around the mouth, eyes drifting in that faraway way she had.

But it wasn’t Pandora that mattered.

It was Dorcas Meadowes.

She sat on the low arm of the couch, ankles crossed, arms folded tight. Her jaw was clenched, her brows drawn. She looked angry—defensive, prepared for whatever James might throw verbally—but her left leg was bouncing, a sharp, fast rhythm against the wood floorboards.

Regulus felt it like a splash of cold water across his chest: James had woken up here, confused and hurting, and the first thing he’d seen—after Pandora, after his burns—was a girl he had mourned. One of his own. One he would have died beside. One he had believed to be dead, for months.

Regulus didn’t need to ask to know how the last few minutes had gone.

James demanded answers. Pandora refused to give any. Dorcas would have refused, too—not out of cruelty, but because Regulus had told her not to reveal anything yet.

The air in the room was thick with the aftershock of it.

Regulus stepped inside, Evan beside him. The door clicked shut softly behind them, a quiet sound that somehow made everything feel louder.

James moved instantly. Pandora’s gaze flicked toward him in mild warning, but James ignored her completely. His attention was a weapon, and he turned it unflinchingly upon Regulus and Evan.

His posture was a challenge—chin up, shoulders stiff, arms slightly away from his sides as if bracing for recoil. His breath came a little harder than before, whether from pain or emotion, Regulus couldn’t tell.

James’s dark eyes cut across Evan for a fraction of a second—assessing, noting, recognizing—but they snapped right back to Regulus, burning with betrayal so raw it made Regulus’s throat tighten.

In the corner of the room, Dorcas went still. Completely still. Her leg froze mid-bounce, her fingers curling into the arm of the couch as if holding on.

James didn’t look at her. Not once. His attention narrowed to one point—one person—the moment Regulus stepped forward.

“Oh, look,” James said, voice cutting clean through the air. “He returns.”

Regulus held his ground. His face smoothed into that unbearable calm—the kind he wore before a duel, before a lie, before a truth he had to bury deeper than bone. The emotional wall slammed up so fast it felt like a door he was shutting in James’s face.

“You think I don’t see what’s happening here?” James asked bitterly. His eyes didn’t waver, didn’t flick to Evan, didn’t acknowledge Dorcas or Pandora. “Do you have any idea what it feels like—knowing the people who matter to you think you’re dead? And it was you who made that choice?”

Regulus’s expression didn’t change. His hands hung at his sides, still, relaxed in appearance, but every nerve, every muscle beneath that mask screamed. He let James speak, as he always did—absorbing it, holding it, weathering it.

“I’ve waited,” James continued, voice low but dangerous. “I’ve waited for answers you promised me would come hours ago. And I’ve been trapped here, surrounded by people I can’t trust, in a house I don’t belong in, and still nothing. Not a fucking word. Not a single explanation.”

Dorcas shifted, a slight intake of breath, but James ignored it entirely.

“I know you must have planned this,” James said, stepping closer, the room shrinking around them. “Not Crouch. Not anyone else. You. You set it all in motion. And I—” he swallowed hard.

The cold precision in James’s voice made Regulus’s chest tighten. This wasn’t the James from last night, screaming in hot, burning rage. This James was speaking from the depths of betrayal, from the ache of hurt that had calcified into something sharp, and surgical. Every word cut with deliberate clarity.

Regulus didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink. He let the words wash over him, let them tumble through the empty spaces he’d carved in his mind. He had no answers yet, no easy truths, no clean way to reconcile the damage.

James’s voice dropped, a whisper that seemed to carry the weight of the whole room. “Do you even realize how fragile everything is right now? How little trust I have left? And you—” his hands curled into fists at his sides, jaw tight, “—how dare you stand there, like none of it matters? Do you know what that’s like?”

A long silence followed. Dorcas held her breath. Pandora’s eyes remained calm, distant. Evan exhaled slowly, measured. And Regulus, still unreadable, finally moved—but not toward the words James wanted.

He turned. Abruptly. Swiftly.

Toward the door. Outside.

James’s eyes widened, shock and disbelief momentarily breaking through his controlled fury. Then the rage crystallized. The hurt shifted into something darker, something colder.

James followed.

The door opened, and the wind of the early evening whipped around them. Regulus walked steadily, his coat catching the gusts, his jaw tight, every movement purposeful, silent. He didn’t look back, didn’t speak, didn’t acknowledge the angry storm trailing behind him. He kept walking—down the wooden steps, across the first stretch of boardwalk, toward the narrow path that carved between dunes.

Behind him, James’s boots hit the wood with venom.

“Oh, is that it?” James’s voice cracked across the air. “You have me dragged across half of Britain at wandpoint and now you’re going to walk away, again?”

Regulus didn’t slow.

“Are you even listening to me?” James demanded.

He was. Every word felt like a fresh thread pulled too tight in his chest. But he didn’t turn. If he turned, everything would unravel.

Regulus stepped off the boardwalk and onto the sand. It shifted under his boots, sliding, sucking, slowing his pace but not his direction. He headed for the dunes—tall, sloping, shielding the view from the house.

James stomped after him.

The wind swallowed their footsteps, but not James’s voice.

“You don’t get to disappear after everything you’ve done,” James snapped, breath hitching. “You don’t get to force me here, scare the hell out of everyone I love, and then shut down the second it’s inconvenient for you.”

Still, Regulus said nothing. The sand gave way beneath his boots again as he reached the first dune and began to climb.

“You owe me an answer,” James bit out, climbing shortly behind him. “You owe me something.”

At the top of the dune, Regulus paused. Just for a moment. Just long enough for the wind to catch up and rip at the edges of his calm. But he didn’t turn. Didn’t offer even a sliver of his face.

He descended the other side.

James followed, breath louder now, anger forcing him forward.

“You know what really kills me?” James said, his voice harsher now, breaking around the edges. “You can’t even face me.”

Regulus reached the flat stretch of beach beyond the dunes—far enough that the house was out of sight, the sound of the waves swallowing everything but their voices. This was the place. The only place he could risk breaking the fragile shell he had wrapped around himself.

He stopped.

James nearly walked straight into him.

The wind was vicious here. It tore at their clothes, whipped sand against their ankles. The sea was a grey churn, restless and angry, as if mirroring James perfectly.

Regulus stared straight ahead.

James stared straight at Regulus.

For a moment, neither moved.

Then James’s voice came again—louder now, trying to be heard above the wind.

“You don’t get to do this to me. You left, Regulus,” James said, each word thrown like a stone. “No warning. No explanation. Nothing. And I spent months thinking maybe I missed something—maybe I did something. Maybe you were hurt, or afraid, or—fuck, Regulus, I don’t know. I made excuses for you, even when I shouldn’t have.” His breath trembled once, harsh. “I thought we actually—”

“Stop yelling, James.” Regulus said quietly, the words almost carried away by the wind. A command. A plea, almost. His fingers curled at his sides.

He hadn’t expected James to follow this far. He hadn’t expected the sea wind to make speaking feel impossible. He hadn’t expected that James’s voice—shaking, furious, alive—would be the thing that nearly undid him.

James froze. His mouth shut.

The wind roared. The sea crashed. And the space between them went very, very still.

Regulus exhaled—unsteady, thin. His voice, when it finally came again, was barely audible over the wind.

“You’re right.”

James’s breath hitched.

Regulus didn’t turn. Not yet. His eyes stayed fixed on the waves. He forced his voice to continue—quiet, steady, brittle as glass.

“You’re right. I hurt you.”

The words tasted like blood.

James didn’t speak. The silence behind him tightened—trembling, wounded, raw.

Regulus swallowed, throat tight.

“And I will… explain,” he managed. “But not there. Not with them in the room.” The wind whipped his hair into his eyes, stinging. “I needed—” He faltered. The words tangled. His lungs burned. “I needed privacy.”

A pause. A beat where the only sound was the sea.

Regulus finally turned enough that James could see the edge of his face, the hollow of his cheek, the scar below the patch on his eye.

“You deserve answers,” Regulus said. “And I’m not going to walk away from you again.”

James’s expression cracked for a fraction of a second—pain flickering through the anger—but then he straightened, jaw set.

“Then start talking,” James said.

Regulus lifted his chin. The truth pressed against his tongue.

“Further down,” he said quietly, turning back toward the beach. “Where the dunes block the wind.”

He began walking again—slower this time, not fleeing, not retreating, just leading.

After a moment’s hesitation, James followed.

Chapter Text

Answers were coming. James could feel it in the way Regulus’s pace had changed.

They moved past the crest of the dune where the wind had been loudest and down into a lower stretch of beach where the sound softened again. The dunes here were taller, layered like walls rather than slopes, blocking the house completely from view.

James studied Regulus’s back as they walked. The line of his shoulders. The way his coat hung looser than it used to, fabric shifting around a frame that looked… diminished. Not fragile, exactly—but worn thin. Like something essential had been scraped away, layer by layer.

James had remembered him sharp as glass. All angles and confidence, cutting words and colder resolve. This version still carried echoes of that—held himself straight, head high—but there was a subtle tremor beneath it, a tightness in the way he moved that James couldn’t unsee now that he’d noticed it.

Whatever Regulus had done since disappearing from his life, it had cost him.

They slowed in a narrow passage between two dunes that rose steeply on either side, sand held in place by coarse grass and exposed roots. The air felt different here—still, insulated. The sea was a distant presence now, reduced to a low, constant sound rather than a roar.

Suddenly, Regulus stopped.

James nearly walked into him.

He caught himself at the last second, boots grinding into the sand as he stopped short. Regulus stood motionless a few feet ahead, facing the dune wall to their right—just sand, rising steeply and unremarkably, threaded with tufts of grass and thin veins of exposed stone.

For a moment, James thought Regulus might have lost his nerve.

The thought surprised him—not because it felt impossible, but because it felt new. Regulus Black did not hesitate. He calculated. He executed. He followed through. In some ways, it had always been one of the most infuriating things about him.

But Regulus didn’t turn around. He simply lifted his wand.

Then the air shifted, barely perceptible at first—a pressure change, like stepping into a room where the temperature had been carefully regulated. James felt it brush over his skin, a faint prickle at the base of his neck.

The dune wall rippled.

The sand didn’t collapse or slide downward. Instead, it drew back along a vertical seam, grains peeling away from an invisible line as though guided by a precise, patient hand. Grass bent and shifted aside without tearing. Roots parted cleanly, settling into new positions as if they’d always grown that way.

Wood emerged beneath the sand.

Old wood. Weathered to a dull grey, edges softened by decades of wind and salt. The planks were uneven, some slightly warped, the grain raised where moisture had worked its way in and out over time. Iron bands reinforced the structure at regular intervals, their surfaces darkened and pitted with rust.

A door took shape.

It sat flush with the dune wall, framed by heavy timber sunk deep into stone. The handle was iron as well, simple and unadorned, its surface rough under layers of oxidation. Sand had gathered around the base and along the frame, untouched, undisturbed—deliberately left there to complete the illusion.

James stared at it.

James would have walked past this place without ever knowing it existed, whether the doorway had been visible or not. The door itself didn’t look magical. It looked forgotten. Like a neglected shack the beach had swallowed piece by piece and would eventually erase entirely.

Regulus stepped forward. He brushed sand from the handle with the side of his hand, the gesture absentminded, practiced. He hesitated there—not in uncertainty, James realized, but in something closer to restraint.

Then he pulled it open.

Warm air spilled out, brushing past James’s legs and carrying with it the faint scent of wood and stone.

Regulus stepped inside.

James followed.

The door closed behind them, and the beach vanished.

The shift was immediate and disorienting. The cold, damp salt air gave way to warmth. The constant sound of the sea dulled to a distant, muffled presence, like it had been pushed several rooms away rather than mere yards.

The space inside was larger than James expected.

It was a single room, but wide and solid, the low ceiling supported by thick wooden beams darkened with age. The walls were stone, fitted carefully, not the rough stack of a temporary structure, but something meant to last.

James took a few slow steps forward, his eyes moving instinctively from corner to corner. The place didn’t feel like a hideout. It felt kept. Preserved.

His attention caught on the furniture almost immediately.

A low table sat near the center of the room, its surface scarred with faint etchings—half-erased runes, shallow knife marks, the ghost of a constellation scratched by a childish hand. Around it were chairs that were slightly too short. Slightly too narrow. As if someone had transfigured adult furniture downward without quite understanding proportion.

Along one wall stood a bookshelf filled with oddities: mismatched volumes, some bound in elegant leather, others stitched crudely by hand. A jar of seashells sat between two thick tomes on advanced charms, and beside it, inexplicably, a wooden toy broom with a cracked handle.

James stopped near the center of the room and turned slowly, taking it all in again with fresh eyes.

This wasn’t a place meant for adults. The scale was wrong. Everything about it spoke of children—of making do, of carving out something private in a world that didn’t offer much of it freely.

It wasn’t the sterile secrecy James had expected.

Regulus remained near the door, wand lowered now, his posture rigid. He hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t offered an explanation. He stood like someone bracing himself. As if bringing James here had already crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.

The anger in James’s chest faltered, confused.

“This place—” he started, then stopped.

It didn’t fit with anything he knew about Regulus Black. Or the Blacks at all. It was too small. Too… human. Too clearly shaped by children who had been allowed to exist here without constant correction.

Regulus stood a few steps inside, coat still on, hands loose at his sides. He didn’t look back immediately. When he did, James caught the briefest flicker of something in his face.

“It belonged to my uncle.” Regulus answered, as if he’d known what James was thinking.

He didn’t elaborate at first. He turned away again, breaking eye contact as he moved deeper into the room, boots scuffing softly against stone. His path wasn’t random. He traced the perimeter, slow and methodical, like he was accounting for the space as he spoke.

“The house above,” he clarified, one hand lifting briefly toward the ceiling as if the dunes weren’t between them and it, “was Alphard’s.”

James’s jaw tightened, just slightly. He gave a short nod and said nothing. He kept his eyes on Regulus instead—on the way his shoulders stayed squared even as he moved, on the way his fingers flexed once, then stilled.

He hated that even now, even furious and exhausted and standing on the fault line of everything that had gone wrong, he noticed details he had no right to notice anymore. Despite everything, despite the sharp ache of it, James couldn’t stop seeing him the way he always had.

The careful way Regulus held himself. The tension in his jaw. The precise movements of his mouth when he spoke, lips shaping words he weighed before releasing them.

James had loved those lips once, had learned their habits, their hesitations. The love hadn’t vanished just because it had been wounded. It sat there now, quiet and stubborn, threading itself through him whether James wanted it to or not.

Standing here now, looking at Regulus like this—his anger had lost some of its edge. It was harder to aim it cleanly.

“And… this place?” James forced out his words, his voice tight.

Regulus stopped near the bookshelf, his hand hovering over the spines without touching them. For a moment, James thought he might deflect it. Redirect. Close himself back up.

Instead, Regulus inhaled, slow and controlled, and continued walking.

“My grandfather built it,” he said. “Before Alphard owned the property.”

He crossed to the low table, fingers brushing its edge—just enough to register contact—before withdrawing again.

“He retired here,” Regulus went on. “The house was his when my mother was young. When grandchildren came along, he added this.”

Eight months apart hadn’t dulled James’s understanding of Regulus at all. If anything, it had sharpened it. He still noticed everything—the way Regulus paced when he needed to keep moving, the way his mouth went tight between sentences, the slight hesitation before he touched anything that mattered.

James hated how easily he could still read him. Hated that the knowledge was still there, intact, waiting for him the moment Regulus stepped back into his life.

“It was meant for Narcissa,” Regulus spoke again. He said her name evenly, without emphasis, but James caught the subtle change anyway—the fractionally slower cadence. “He built it for her, but it was for us. All of us.”

Regulus moved again, stopping near the bench beneath the low shuttered window. He rested his hand on the back of it, steadying himself.

“We all spent summers here,” he continued. “Sirius. Bellatrix. Andromeda. Narcissa.”

James listened silently, eyes tracking the small, almost unconscious adjustments in Regulus’s stance.

“But this room—” Regulus paused, then corrected himself. “This place—was mostly mine and Narcissa’s.”

His hand dropped from the bench. He resumed pacing, slower now.

“The others lost interest,” he added. “They were older. Or wanted to be.”

The words were factual, stripped clean of judgment. Regulus didn’t linger on them.

“Grandfather didn’t indulge us, generally. But this place was meant to keep us occupied. Out of the way.”

James absorbed all of this in silence, eyes drifting again over the furniture. The too-small chairs made more sense now. The uneven table. A space designed for children who weren’t supposed to take up much room.

Any detail Regulus Black shared always served a purpose. The house. The room. The careful distinction between what belonged to whom. To someone else, it might have looked like control, like he was steering the conversation away from the harder things, holding them just out of reach.

But James knew better. Regulus always did this when the truth was layered, when it came with consequences he’d already weighed and found wanting.

Regulus came to a stop near the far wall and finally turned to face him.

Now that they were here, entirely alone, the differences in him were even clearer.

Regulus’s face was drawn, cheeks more hollow than James remembered. The patch over his eye pulled James’s gaze despite himself, a reminder of damage he hadn’t witnessed, injuries he hadn’t been there to prevent. The visible eye was alert, watchful—but shadowed, ringed with exhaustion so deep it looked carved in.

James swallowed.

“Did it?” James offered quietly, dragging his gaze away from the other man. “Keep all of you occupied, I mean?”

He wasn’t entirely sure what had prompted the question. Yes, he wanted the truth—wanted it badly, enough that it ached—but the beach house, the history, the careful way Regulus was laying things out hadn’t confused him. They’d signaled something else entirely.

Regulus never jumped straight into the heart of things. He circled it first, set the edges, made sure the ground wouldn’t give way once he stepped onto it.

This was Regulus deciding how much could be said, and in what order, without everything collapsing. What looked like delay to anyone else was preparation. What looked like control was Regulus steadying himself.

And the fact that James still knew that—still recognized it immediately—made something twist low in his chest.

Eight months. No contact. A betrayal that should have burned this knowledge out of him entirely. And still, his instincts lined up with Regulus’s like they always had. Still, he could anticipate him, could feel the direction he was moving before he took the step. It scared him how intact that understanding was. How little distance had actually changed.

The question had been James’s way of keeping Regulus open. Of saying, without saying it, that he wasn’t going to interrupt this process. That he was going to listen. That he could wait a little longer if that was what Regulus needed.

It was habit. Muscle memory. Care, resurfacing where James had tried very hard to bury it.

Regulus paused for only a moment, then continued.

“Bellatrix was bored of it within a summer,” he said. “She preferred the cliffs. Andromeda liked it well enough, but she was older too. Already restless.” His gaze shifted, briefly, toward the far wall. “Sirius hated it on principle.”

That earned a short huff of breath from James before he could stop himself.

Regulus’s eye flicked to him. He hesitated, lips pressing thin, then parting slightly. “When my grandfather died, he left the property to Alphard,” he said. “When Alphard died, he left the property to me. Nothing else changed.”

“But Lestrange said—”

“I don’t live here, no. But yes, it is mine.”

There was something in the way Regulus said it—the way his voice flattened and then went very precise, like he’d set something carefully back into place. He had stopped pacing. His weight settled evenly through his feet, no longer restless, no longer searching for somewhere to put himself.

One shoulder rolled back slightly, a familiar adjustment James had seen a hundred times before difficult truths, before Regulus committed to something he couldn’t revise once spoken. Even his hands changed—no longer hovering, no longer fidgeting. Still. Ready.

James didn’t speak. He felt himself brace without consciously deciding to, spine straightening, chest tightening as if he were preparing to take a blow. He knew this version of Regulus too—the one who had finished arranging the background details and was about to step forward into the center of it.

Whatever explanation was coming wouldn’t be softened by history or distracted by setting anymore. Regulus was done preparing the ground. Now he was about to tell him why it all mattered.

Regulus broke the silence quietly.

“I know you don’t trust me,” Regulus began in a low voice. There was something unsteady threading through it now, something raw that hadn’t been there before. “You have every reason not to. I’m not asking you to change that. I just—” He paused, eye flicking briefly to the stone floor, then back up. “I just need you to understand what happened, James.”

“I know,” James said automatically—and then caught himself.

Regulus was watching him now with an intensity that bordered on urgency. His visible eye was too bright, fixed on James’s face as if he were cataloguing every reaction in advance, bracing for the moment it all went wrong.

“I’m listening,” James said instead, carefully. He softened his voice despite himself. “You don’t have to convince me of anything. Just—tell me.”

Regulus exhaled through his nose, the breath controlled but not calm. He nodded once, more to himself than to James, and began to move again—not pacing this time, but drifting, slow and deliberate, like he needed the motion to keep the words from sticking.

“I didn’t bring you here to justify myself,” Regulus said. “I don’t expect absolution. I’m not asking you to forgive anything.”

James didn’t interrupt. He folded his hands loosely behind his back, anchoring himself in place. Gave Regulus space. That, too, was habit.

“But I couldn’t tell you any of this before,” Regulus continued. “Not without putting you at risk. And I won’t pretend that didn’t factor into… other decisions.” His mouth tightened briefly, then smoothed. “It wasn’t the only reason. But it mattered.”

James felt the urge to respond—to say something steadying, something that would ease the tension in Regulus’s voice—but he swallowed it down. He had learned, painfully, that interrupting Regulus at the wrong moment could derail everything.

Regulus stopped near the table again, fingers hovering just above its surface this time, not touching. He didn’t look at James when he spoke next.

“In January—”

There it was.

James felt the word hit him physically. His mind latched onto it instantly, unwilling to let go. He didn’t react outwardly. He didn’t give Regulus the satisfaction—or the warning—of a visible flinch. But internally, something had already started to rearrange itself, pieces sliding toward one another whether he wanted them to or not.

January. The word echoed, insistent. He could see it too clearly—the cold, the sharpness of that last argument, the way Regulus had gone rigid and distant, eyes shuttering as if something had already been decided. The ending that hadn’t felt like an ending at the time, just a fracture. A pause. Something unfinished.

James forced himself to breathe through it. Slow. Even.

He filed the word away, felt it catch against memories he refused to examine yet. He focused instead on the mechanics of what Regulus was saying—the cadence, the structure. The way he was choosing his phrasing with deliberate care.

“Albus Dumbledore approached me.” Regulus finished.

James’s breath caught. His faith in Dumbledore rose immediately, reflexive and ingrained, but it collided headfirst with the rest of it. A thousand thoughts surged forward at once, tripping over each other. Dumbledore wouldn’t be reckless. Dumbledore wouldn’t ask something impossible without reason.

James nodded once, sharply, more to anchor himself than to respond. He trusted Dumbledore. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the calendar unspooling in his head, the way January slid neatly into place alongside other things he hadn’t wanted to connect before.

“He—He asked me to spy. For the Order.” The words came out quiet, almost flattened. He didn’t look at James when he said it. His gaze fixed somewhere ahead of him.

“I wasn’t recruited in the abstract,” he went on, voice controlled but thin. “There were conditions. Expectations. A timeline.”

James stood frozen where he was. His thoughts were moving too fast to form words. Order. Spy. Dumbledore. Regulus. The concepts collided and rebounded, refusing to settle into anything he could grasp cleanly. He wanted to ask what Regulus had been asked to do, how dangerous it was, who else knew. He wanted to ask whether Sirius knew. Whether anyone knew.

Regulus began to walk again, slow and uneven, tracing an aimless path across the floor. His steps weren’t frantic, but they weren’t steady either. He kept changing direction—three steps one way, then a turn, then another few back—like the space wasn’t quite big enough for the thoughts he was trying to contain.

“I said yes,” he continued, the last word coming out in a hiss. “But not immediately—I had questions. Practical ones.” His voice tightened, and his pacing faltered for half a step before he recovered. “What would be expected of me. What lines couldn’t be crossed. How information would be passed. What contingencies existed if—” He cut himself off, lips pressing together. “If things went wrong.”

James’s mouth was dry. He realized he’d been holding his breath and forced himself to inhale through his nose. Slow. He could ask questions later. He could demand explanations later. Right now, all he could do was listen.

“I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it from you,” he admitted. “That was my first concern. Not whether I could do the job—whether I could lie to you convincingly enough that it wouldn’t get us both killed.”

James’s stomach twisted. He forced himself to breathe, to stay present, even as his mind raced ahead, filling in blanks he didn’t want filled.

Regulus continued, a little faster now, as if he were afraid of being interrupted. “Once I agreed, everything changed. The margin for error disappeared. I couldn’t afford anyone—anyone—who could be used as leverage.”

He stopped again, turning sharply this time to face James. There was a raw urgency in his expression now, something close to desperation but more controlled than that. Intent. Need.

James felt like he was standing in the middle of a storm, trying to keep his footing while everything familiar shifted around him. He wanted to reach out. To say something grounding. To tell Regulus to slow down.

James’s voice instead came out rough, edged with disbelief he couldn’t hide.

“Why?” he asked. He met Regulus’s gaze, heart hammering. “Why would you do it?” he pressed, quieter now, more bewildered than angry. “Why would you say yes to something like that?”

“Because I found something.” Regulus said.

The shift in him was immediate and unmistakable. Whatever agitation laid in Regulus’s movements before was gone now, replaced by a rigid stillness. He stopped pacing entirely.

“Information,” he continued. His voice was steady, measured, stripped of anything extraneous. “Something that—if handled correctly—could end the war.”

End the war.

It was an absurd phrase, when James really thought about it—too big, too clean for the mess they were living in—but coming from Regulus, it didn’t sound like exaggeration.

There were boundaries in the way Regulus was speaking now, clean and intentional. Lines drawn not out of distrust, but necessity. Whatever this information was, it sat behind a wall James wasn’t meant to approach.

“I didn’t go looking for it,” Regulus added after a moment. “But once I had it, pretending it didn’t exist wasn’t an option. Neither was handing it over openly.” A pause. “I was already positioned where I was. Dumbledore realized that.”

James nodded once, slowly, though his mind was still reeling. This—this explanation, at least—fit into a shape he could recognize. It made sense in a way he hadn’t expected it to. It aligned with the Regulus he’d known: meticulous, strategic, unwilling to leave loose ends once he’d committed to something.

And yet.

Even as the logic settled, something else surged up beneath it, unwelcome and sharp.

People were dying. The war was swallowing lives whole. And if all of what Regulus had told him was true, then Regulus had put himself in extraordinary danger for something that might actually matter, something that could change the outcome entirely.

And still—still—James couldn’t get past that night.

Because at the end of the day, whatever the reason, Regulus had walked away without explanation. Had shut the door. Had let James believe—no, had ensured James believed—that he had been the problem. That he’d pushed too hard, said the wrong thing, wanted too much. That the fracture between them had been James’s fault.

James had replayed that final argument more times than he could count. He’d examined every word he’d said, every inflection, every moment where he might have crossed a line without realizing it. He’d lain awake at night cataloguing his mistakes, convincing himself that if he’d just been calmer, quieter, less demanding—if he’d been easier to love—Regulus wouldn’t have left the way he did.

That pain had been constant. Months of it, gnawing and persistent. It had followed him into Order meetings, into training, into moments that should have felt victorious and didn’t. It had made him angry in ways he hadn’t known what to do with, had sharpened his temper and hollowed him out at the same time.

And now, Regulus was standing in front of him, explaining that it had all been necessary. Strategic. Inevitable.

For all the years he’d known Regulus—closely, intimately—they had never talked about the war like this. Not in specifics. Not in positions or ideology.

James had been vocal, outspoken, reckless in his opposition. Regulus had been… reserved. Polite. Noncommittal in ways that James had interpreted, perhaps too easily, as quiet alignment with his family. With tradition. With the side he’d been born into, if not outright devotion to it.

James had assumed. He realized that now, with a jolt of something uncomfortably close to guilt.

He’d assumed Regulus believed what the rest of the Blacks believed. Or at least accepted it. He’d assumed that whatever disagreements existed between Regulus and his family, they were personal rather than ideological. He’d never imagined Regulus actively working against them. Couldn’t picture him sitting across from Albus Dumbledore, agreeing to something like this.

The Regulus in front of him now didn’t fit neatly into the version James had carried in his head. And that dissonance was rattling, forcing James to confront how little he might have actually known, despite how close he’d thought they were.

Regulus watched him closely as the silence stretched, his expression unreadable. James wondered what he saw there—whether he could tell how fast James’s thoughts were moving, how much effort it was taking not to react.

“I brought you here,” Regulus continued slowly, “because I don’t trust anyone else with your life.”

Despite the way his heart leapt, James’s eyes still narrowed, and his lips still parted in preparation to object and question.

“You don’t understand how many variables there are now—”

James laughed. The sound cut sharp through the space between them, brittle and incredulous, and it stopped Regulus mid-sentence like he’d run into a wall.

“Don’t,” James said, heat flashing up his spine. He dropped his hands from behind his back, fingers flexing at his sides like he needed something to grab onto. “Don’t do that.”

“James—”

“No,” James interrupted, more forcefully now. He took a step forward before he quite realized he was moving, anger propelling him where confusion had frozen him moments before. “You don’t get to say that to me. Not after everything. I’m not something to be fucking managed.”

For years now—quietly, insidiously—people had started to treat James differently. Small things, at first. Someone always volunteering to come along when he said he’d handle something alone. Sirius hovering just a little too close after meetings, watching his face instead of listening to what he was saying. The way conversations would stall when James got too animated, too intense, until someone gently suggested a break, a walk, a rest.

And hearing this now—from Regulus, of all people—felt like salt in a wound that had never properly closed.

“I don’t need supervision,” James said flatly. “I don’t need you—or anyone—deciding that I’m safer if I’m kept in the dark.”

He could feel his pulse in his throat. He forced himself not to pace, not to gesture too wildly, not to give Regulus anything that could be interpreted as proof.

“I’ve been fighting this war just as long as you have,” James continued. “Longer, in some ways. Do you think I don’t know exactly what the stakes are?” He laughed again, sharper this time. “I know what I’m doing.”

Regulus’s expression tightened, and he had begun panting. “This isn’t about your ability—”

“Then what is it? Did you think I’d be grateful? Did you think—”

Regulus’s face twisted, sudden tears springing to his only visible eye. “I watched you die, James.” The words ripped out of him, abrupt and high-pitched. He was panting faster now, his shoulders shaking.

Something in the small room shifted, then.

He hadn’t really registered the meaning of what Regulus had said, but the sight of him undone had been enough to shake James out of his anger again.

Half-formed thoughts and questions and demands still swirled around his mind, but he couldn’t stop his own hands from reaching forward to take hold of Regulus’s arm gently, to steady him.

Regulus stiffened at his touch, posture rigid as he turned his gaze toward his other shoulder, away from James, in an attempt to gather himself. One of his knees buckled, and James’s grip only tightened in order to keep Regulus upright.

“You need to sit down,” James’s voice had lowered, but it still retained its earlier edge. He guided Regulus toward the nearest chair—one that was far too small—and eased him down onto it.

Regulus was still taking small, sharp breaths as James released him.

The sound startled James more than the words had.

Whatever Regulus had meant—and James still couldn’t make sense of it, not really, not yet—it was eclipsed by the immediate, visceral alarm of seeing Regulus this close to panic.

James stayed standing for half a second longer, caught between instinct and hesitation, his hands hovering uselessly in the space where Regulus’s arm had been. Then Regulus’s shoulders hitched again, breath catching like it had snagged on something sharp, and James moved.

He dropped to his knees in front of him without thinking.

The floor was cold through his trousers, the stone uneven beneath his knees, but he barely registered it. All of his focus narrowed to Regulus—his posture folded inward, his hands clenched too tight, his visible eye wide and unfocused, darting as if the room itself was too much.

“Hey,” James said again, strained, but careful. “Look at me, yeah?” He kept his voice low, deliberately even, though his chest felt tight and his heart was still hammering from the argument, from the sudden emotional whiplash.

Regulus didn’t look at him.

James leaned forward slightly, resting his weight back on his heels so he wasn’t looming. He kept his movements slow, deliberate—no sudden gestures, nothing that might push Regulus further over the edge. He’d learned this years ago, learned it the hard way, back when Regulus still let things crack in front of him occasionally. Rare moments. Brief ones. Usually followed by sharp apologies and tighter control.

Seeing it again—seeing Regulus this close to losing that control—sent a cold wash of dread through him.

“Just breathe,” James murmured. “In. Out. That’s it.”

Regulus’s breathing stuttered again, then dragged itself into something marginally slower and less frantic.

James exhaled through his nose and forced his shoulders to relax.

Being this close felt unreal.

Now, kneeling in front of him, James was acutely aware of every inch of space between them, of how little of it there was.

He could see the finer details he hadn’t been able to from across the room, or in the darkness of the hall last night. Things that had blended together at a distance, but now stood out with uncomfortable clarity.

The fabric of the eyepatch pressed unevenly against Regulus’s face. The edge didn’t sit clean; it dipped just enough to expose a sliver of scarred skin beneath. The scar wasn’t neat. It wasn’t the clean line of a curse gone wrong or a single, decisive injury.

It looked layered.

Old and new, overlapping in places, pale in some spots and darker in others. Like something that had been reopened. Like something that hadn’t been allowed to heal properly.

James’s throat tightened.

He’d noticed the eyepatch last night, of course. Noticed the way Regulus angled his head slightly differently, the way his movements compensated for a changed field of vision. James had filed it away as something to ask about later, as something he didn’t have the right to pry into yet.

But seeing it now—this close, undeniable—sent a sharp spike of something dangerously close to fear through him.

What the hell had happened to him?

Eight months of silence, of unanswered questions, of James assuming—wrongly, it seemed—that Regulus had simply chosen a different path. Eight months that had left marks James could see now, carved into Regulus’s face and posture and breath.

James had been angry. Hurt. Bitter. He still was. But kneeling here, watching Regulus struggle just to breathe evenly, that anger felt suddenly fragile—out of place in the face of something far more serious.

He wondered, briefly and bitterly, how many times Regulus had looked like this when James hadn’t been there to see it.

James reached out slowly, carefully, and rested his hands lightly against Regulus’s knees.

“You’re alright,” he said quietly, though the words felt inadequate even as he spoke them.

Regulus’s knee jerked slightly under his hands, muscles tense, but he didn’t pull away. His breathing hitched again, then evened out a fraction more.

James swallowed through the lump in his throat.

He was still buzzing with adrenaline, still wound tight from the argument, from the shock of that admission he couldn’t yet process. His own anxiety hummed under his skin, but he forced it down. This—this—mattered more.

James felt a sharp, desperate urge to know where those scars had come from. Who had done that to him. He needed to understand what had happened in the space James hadn’t been allowed into—what Regulus had endured alone, without telling anyone, without letting himself be caught.

When Regulus finally stilled, he turned his face toward James with painstaking slowness, like he was bracing himself for something.

James had just shaped the first tentative questions in his mind when Regulus’s visible eye flicked wide, sharp and startled, before he jerked his forearm to his mouth, coughing wetly and violently into the fabric.

The sound made James flinch.

When Regulus lowered his arm, James felt a cold sense of alarm take hold. A streak of blood clung to the corner of Regulus’s mouth, and his sleeve was darkened, saturated in places. James’s gaze locked on the stain silently.

“Regulus?” James murmured breathlessly, unable to tear his eyes away.

“I’m alright.” Regulus muttered, recovering. He had quickly wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, ungracefully.

James’s grip on his knees had tightened absentmindedly, but other than the slight tensing of his hands, James remained frozen.

“I understand you’re still angry with me. I told you—I don’t need your forgiveness.” Regulus continued on quietly, ignoring James’s dazed, confused expression. His voice had a twinge of helplessness to it now. “I just need you to promise me that you won’t run. Don’t—don’t force my hand to keep you here.”

His words flew right over James.

“What’s wrong, Regulus?” He spoke up immediately, voice small, his chest still seizing from what he’d just witnessed. He was looking Regulus up and down again, trying to see if there was something he had missed—if there was anything else that could have indicated Regulus was this ill. “What happened? What—”

“I need you to stay here, James. It’s important.” Regulus interrupted fiercely. His hand had snapped forward to latch onto James’s arm now, which was still leaning upon Regulus’s knee.

James shook his head slowly, still bewildered, the push and pull of Regulus Black warring within him—but he allowed Regulus take hold of him. “I—I can stay, just for now, but I—”

“Good.” Regulus pushed James’s arms from his knees, standing up from the small chair carefully. The mask had clicked back into place, shutting James back out.

James remained on his knees for a moment longer before lifting himself up, almost stumbling as he turned, trying to keep his eyes on him.

Regulus was already making his way toward the door, though he hesitated once he got close to it. He turned his face slightly, speaking to James over his shoulder.

“The bedroom you stayed in last night is yours. You’re permitted to leave the house itself, but don’t go past the wards unless I’m with you.” The flatness had returned, cold and uninvited. “Meadowes can explain where everything else you need is.”

James felt a dull ache at the mention of Dorcas, but he didn’t respond. He had accepted now when a conversation with Regulus was deemed over, no matter what he had left to say or ask. Everything he had felt when walking into this room had popped, then deflated.

He had agreed to stay—not out of surrender, not out of trust, not because he fully understood—but because Regulus’s words always landed with a weight that made arguing them impossible.

In January, Regulus had lied to him in some twisted form of protection. He had hidden the truth for months. And James had only just learned it.

And then there was the moment that refused to leave him. The way Regulus had broken down. The way he had said, in that ragged, impossible voice, that he had watched James die.

James still didn’t fully understand what he had meant. He had been too distracted, too caught up in watching Regulus come undone to push for clarification. That image—Regulus unraveling—was burned into him, overwhelming everything else.

He had wanted clarity, wanted explanation, wanted Regulus to lay it all bare. Instead he had promised not to run. And the weight of that promise pressed down on him, almost unbearable. What did it say about him if he stayed? Was he weak? Foolish? Naive? He tried not to think about it.

He followed Regulus to the door, keeping his eyes fixed on his back. Every step Regulus took reminded him of how little he truly knew, how much danger he had been in, and how completely he had been left in the dark.

The wind whipped around them as they stepped out of the hideout.

Chapter Text

Monday 5th September 1983

Time in the beach house didn’t move the way it did anywhere else. There were no meetings to break the day into pieces, no schedules pinned to walls, no shouted updates or urgent knocks. The war felt distant here—not gone, never gone—but muted, like it was being held underwater.

It had been two weeks since James reluctantly agreed to stay here.

For the first few days, he kept to his room. It hadn’t been a conscious decision at first. It had simply been easier not to leave.

When he did leave his room, it was usually because hunger finally outweighed the effort of staying hidden. He chose late hours on purpose. Midnight. Later, if he could manage it. He listened first, ear angled toward the hall, counting footsteps that weren’t there. If the house sounded settled—too quiet to mean anyone was lingering—he went.

The kitchen felt different at night. He kept the lights low and moved carefully, opening cupboards slowly, taking whatever required the least preparation. Bread. Fruit. Leftovers, if there were any, although he was never sure who had originally prepared the food.

He always ate quickly, standing at the counter or sitting on the edge of a chair, never long enough to get comfortable. Comfort felt like an invitation to be seen.

Dorcas Meadowes was the reason he left so fast.

James avoided her deliberately. Not out of anger alone, though there was plenty of that, but because he didn’t trust what would come out of his mouth if they were in the same room. He didn’t know if he would lash out, or say nothing at all. Both options felt wrong.

They had been close once. Easy. Dorcas had known him well enough to tell when he was pushing himself too hard, and he’d trusted her enough to listen. Losing that—realizing it was already gone—hurt more than he wanted to admit.

What hurt worse was that she hadn’t sought him out for a conversation, either.

James told himself that meant something. He wasn’t sure what, exactly. Maybe it meant she didn’t want the conversation any more than he did. Maybe it meant she thought there was nothing left to say. Either way, the silence between them had stretched for two weeks on top of the many months of her absence, and now it felt dense, heavy—hard to cross.

James didn’t care what noble reason Dorcas had had for leaving. He didn’t care how justified it might have been. The Order had fractured, and someone he trusted had chosen to step away. That was the part that stuck.

He knew, logically, that they should talk. That avoiding Dorcas wasn’t sustainable forever. That whatever had happened deserved to be said out loud at some point. But knowing that didn’t make him ready.

Despite his attempts to stay to himself, Pandora Lestrange kept finding her way into his days.

When James had first arrived here, she’d been the one to tend to his burns. Since then, she’d treated them a few more times. She would check the healing, reapply the salve, and move on. It became routine.

His first impression of her had been confusing. She was strange. That much was obvious. Maybe kind, if helping him counted as kindness. But she’d also pointed her wand at him and stopped him from leaving, calm and unyielding despite how small and unassuming she’d looked. The memory still sat uncomfortably in his chest. It reminded him not to relax too much around her.

Still, for the past two weeks, she had been his only real human contact.

Regulus had been clear about the wards. James couldn’t cross the property line, and there was no point testing it. So he stayed inside most days, pacing the house or sitting in his room, listening to the ocean through the open windows. Outside felt pointless if he couldn’t actually leave.

Except, Pandora was always outside.

She spent hours in the backyard, sitting on a blanket on the sand. She sorted through things she gathered from the beach—shells, dried bits of plant, jars of liquid that caught the light. James didn’t know what any of it was for. Some kind of brew, probably. He didn’t ask.

About a week ago, he’d started following her out.

At first, he’d sat a short distance away, arms folded, watching her work. They didn’t talk. Pandora didn’t look surprised to see him there, and she didn’t tell him to leave. She just carried on.

After a couple of days, the silence broke. Small comments. Questions that didn’t matter. Nothing about the war, or the Order, or why any of them were here. James kept his guard up—she was still a Lestrange—but it was easier for him to breathe outside. Easier to exist with someone nearby, even if they weren’t saying much.

Today was the same.

Pandora sat with her knees drawn in, one ankle tucked under the opposite thigh, the other foot pressed flat into the sand. She was barefoot, her toes already dusted pale from where she’d shifted the blanket earlier. She wore a thin cotton dress that hung loosely on her frame, sleeveless and faded from too much sun.

The fabric had once been white, maybe, but now it was closer to cream, patterned faintly with uneven stitching at the seams as if it had been altered by hand. Over it, she’d thrown on an oversized cardigan despite the warmth, sleeves pushed up to her elbows. It looked like something pulled from a charity bin.

Her hair was pulled back from her face with a strip of fabric knotted clumsily behind her head. Loose strands escaped constantly, catching the light, brushing her cheeks when the breeze shifted. She didn’t seem to notice. She rarely seemed to notice much beyond what was directly in front of her.

James sat a short distance away, legs stretched out, hands braced behind him in the sand. He was barefoot too, heels digging shallow grooves where he shifted his weight. His t-shirt hung loose on his shoulders, the collar stretched just enough that the pale skin of his chest showed through, faint scars visible beneath it. His shorts were worn and soft, something he’d grabbed without thinking that morning.

His hair was a mess, curls pushed back from his face by habit more than effort, already starting to fall forward again. He hadn’t shaved in a few days. He looked tired, but less so than he had when he first arrived.

Between them, Pandora’s blanket was spread with careful precision. She’d drawn faint lines in the sand around it, as if marking a boundary. Everything on it was placed deliberately, nothing overlapping, nothing random.

Closest to her left hand was a row of shells, arranged by size and thickness. There were smooth white ones, chalky and worn, alongside darker, heavier shells with ridges.

She tapped each one lightly before setting it down, murmuring a name under her breath as she did—spiral whelk, moon snail, ribbed cockle—words James recognized only vaguely, if at all. Some shells had been ground down at the edges, others left intact.

Near the top of the blanket were small piles of dried plant matter. Thin strips of seaweed, brittle and dark, bundled together with thread. Pale green fronds crushed into flakes. A tangle of fibrous roots that still smelled faintly briny. She separated these with careful fingers, testing their texture, discarding anything that crumbled too easily.

To her right sat several shallow bowls carved from driftwood, each holding a different substance. One was filled with coarse sand, grains uneven and sharp. Another held a fine powder, almost white, that looked like crushed shell. A third contained something darker, grey and damp, which she stirred occasionally with a small bone tool, watching how it shifted.

Glass vials were lined up near the edge of the blanket, stoppered and labeled in neat handwriting. The liquids inside varied—some clear, some cloudy, some faintly iridescent. When she lifted one, she turned it slowly, observing how the light passed through it, how the liquid clung to the glass.

James watched her hands as she worked. Every movement was practiced. She knew what each thing was for, where it belonged, when to touch it and when to leave it alone. Even when she wasn’t speaking, it was obvious she was cataloging everything in her head.

After a while, James shifted, brushing sand from his palm.

“What are you doing now?” he asked, quietly.

Pandora didn’t look up. “Preparing components,” she said. “I’ll brew later, when the tide shifts.”

“For?” he asked.

“A stabilizing draught,” she replied. “This beach has the right balance. Salt, mineral content, residual magic. It’ll make the potion hold.”

James frowned slightly, eyes drifting back to the careful lines she’d drawn in the sand around the blanket. He looked around the yard, the house behind them, the blanket she came back to every day. “For someone who claims not to live here, you’re here quite a lot.” He couldn’t help but comment.

“I know,” Pandora said. She returned to her work. “I come here to brew.”

That struck him as strange. He couldn’t picture her anywhere else, but he supposed he had to. Somewhere with space. Somewhere with resources.

The Lestrange estate came to mind unbidden—large, ancient, secluded. A place with rooms meant for exactly this sort of thing.

He watched her hands move again, steady and sure, and wondered why someone with a home like that would choose to sit barefoot on the sand instead.

Regulus didn’t live here either. He had told James as much. But he thought, at least, that Regulus would have been here, even once during the past two weeks.

Grimmauld Place surfaced without his permission.

He could picture it too clearly—the narrow street, the way the house seemed to fold inward on itself, dark and watchful. He wondered if that was where Regulus was now. If he’d gone back there the moment he no longer needed to be here.

James hadn’t seen him once since that night. Regulus had asked him to stay, and then he had vanished.

The longer James stayed here, the worse the feeling got.

He shouldn’t be here.

He’d only agreed to stay because Regulus had asked him to.

That fact sat badly with him. He didn’t like how easily it had overridden everything else. His instincts. His responsibility. The part of him that always ran toward the danger instead of away from it.

James shifted, drawing one knee up, arms resting loosely around it. His gaze drifted out toward the distant shoreline. He thought of Remus first.

Remus would be worried. Remus would be trying to piece together what had happened with limited information, blaming himself for being unable to stop James from storming back into the flaming house.

Then Sirius. Fury before fear, probably. Reckless plans half-formed, arguments with anyone who tried to slow him down. James could almost hear him now, pacing, voice sharp, refusing to accept uncertainty. Peter—

James swallowed.

Peter was the one that hurt the most.

The memory came without warning, sharp and vivid. Heat roaring around him. The crack and groan of collapsing beams. Smoke so thick it burned. He could still feel it—the way his heart had dropped when he realized Peter wasn’t behind him.

He’d turned back without thinking.

James could remember shouting Peter’s name, voice hoarse, barely audible over the fire.

Regulus had assured him that everyone had gotten out, but James still felt the cold sense of dread there. He wished he’d seen that with his own eyes, so he didn’t have to rely on this thin strip of trust.

The Order would be looking for him. They had to be.

He’d been taken from a burning safehouse. As far as they knew, he’d vanished into fire.

Or worse.

The idea twisted in his chest. He wondered how long it took before panic set in. How long before worry turned into planning, into desperate guesswork.

Or maybe it hadn’t. The Order didn’t have the luxury of stopping for long. People disappeared all the time now. People died. The war didn’t pause to mourn every single loss.

Maybe enough time had passed that his disappearance had been folded into the larger body count, despite the likely objections of his friends. Maybe James was just another name on a list now. Another loss chalked up to bad luck, or bad timing. The war didn’t slow down for anyone. It didn’t stop because someone went missing.

People fell through the cracks all the time now. Dorcas Meadowes was evidence of that.

The thought that they might have already moved on sat heavy and sour in his stomach.

James pressed his foot into the sand, grounding himself in the sensation. He told himself that staying here was temporary. That this wasn’t him giving up, or choosing comfort over responsibility. That he would leave soon. Soon, once things made sense again. Once he had answers.

But two weeks had passed, and nothing felt clearer.

Behind him, Pandora’s work continued, steady and methodical. The soft clink of glass. The scrape of shell against wood. The quiet rhythm of someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

James stayed where he was, caught between the pull of everything he’d left behind and the strange stillness of the place he was trapped in, wondering how long he could keep telling himself that this wasn’t his choice.

~*~

Tonight’s meeting wasn’t official in the sense that the Dark Lord would be present—but the stakes were no less severe.

In a matter of weeks, Rabastan Lestrange was to transport a mysterious “dark artifact.” Its nature remained unknown to most of those other than Rabastan himself, but Regulus felt, instinctively, that it had to be a horcrux. The Dark Lord’s obsession with the object left little room for doubt.

Regulus had been charged with overseeing the smaller-scale coordination.

This gathering, at least in theory, would handle the more delicate points: schedules, security measures, contingency plans for anyone who might interfere, and the precise handling of the artifact itself.

The room around Regulus was massive, almost cathedral-like in its proportions. The Rosier estate’s dining room stretched wide, lined with tall windows hung with heavy curtains of dark green velvet.

The walls were paneled in polished oak, carved with intricate floral patterns that seemed to shift when he wasn’t looking directly at them. A long table dominated the center, smooth and dark, stretching almost from wall to wall, gleaming beneath the crystal chandelier that hung overhead.

Evan sat next to Regulus, his posture straight, the sleeves of his dark coat rolled up to his elbows. He toyed absently with a quill, spinning it between his fingers, and Regulus noticed the subtle tension in his knuckles. Evan always had that air of calm calculation—eyes alert, constantly scanning—but the slight tap of his foot against the polished floor betrayed a restless energy underneath the composed exterior.

Barty, by contrast, looked almost unconcerned with the gravity of the room. He lounged slightly in his chair at the side of the table across from Regulus and Evan, long fingers steepled under his chin, eyes betraying his boredom.

Regulus shifted in his chair, the leather creaking beneath him, and allowed himself a moment to scan the table. Scrolls lay rolled and tied with crimson ribbon. Maps of the countryside, dotted with faint sigils, were spread at intervals along the table’s length.

The others would arrive shortly.

Regulus ran a hand over his face, trying to massage out the tension that had been knotted there for weeks. He was going through a slow recovery, of careful steps forward after the repeated strain on his body from the ritual.

Pandora’s draughts had granted him fragments of himself again. Not the entirety of what he had been before the Mortem Tempora, not even close—but enough to function more properly. Enough to sit here without feeling like a corpse reanimated, like he had when he had coughed up blood in front of James in the hideout. The memory was still vivid and uncomfortable in the back of his mind.

He had hated how weak he’d looked, hated the way James had stared at him, his concern almost painfully raw and unfiltered. Weakness had never suited him, and yet here he was, even now—mortality made grotesque, laid bare for all to see.

He flexed his fingers again and noted the subtle tremor that had been fading over the last several days. Everything depended on precision. Every gesture, every note taken, every observation made in these meetings was a brick in a structure that had to remain standing. One mistake—and it wasn’t just him who would pay.

The large, double doors to the dining room swept open, and Lucius Malfoy was the first to step into view.

He paused just long enough to assess the table, his pale eyes moving from Evan to Barty to Regulus with quiet calculation. His expression shifted into something faintly amused when it settled on Regulus.

“Regulus,” Lucius said, voice smooth. “You’re looking… improved.”

“Lucius,” Regulus replied flatly.

Lucius smiled, satisfied, and chose a seat along the side of the table, directly across from Evan. He adjusted his cuffs with care, movements deliberate, already acting as though he belonged precisely where he was.

The Lestranges, including Bellatrix, followed close behind.

Rodolphus entered first, tall and broad-shouldered, his presence filling the room. His younger brother, Rabastan, followed a step behind, quieter, eyes darting briefly to each corner of the room before settling downward. There was something tightly wound about him, something secretive, and Regulus felt his stomach tighten despite himself.

Rodolphus claimed the head of the table without hesitation, pulling out the chair and sitting as though it were a foregone conclusion—authority assumed, not requested, despite the fact this was Evan’s home. Evan’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, but he said nothing.

Rabastan took the seat at Rodolphus’s left, next to Barty.

Barty’s demeanor shifted entirely.

His shoulders locked, spine rigid, hands dropping from their careless steeple to grip the arms of his chair. The humor drained from his face in a single, practiced motion, replaced by something hollow and distant. His leg stopped bouncing. His gaze fixed on the map in front of him, as though it required his complete attention.

Rabastan noticed.

His mouth curved, subtle and knowing, eyes flicking toward Barty before returning to Rodolphus. He leaned back slightly in his chair, at ease.

Evan glanced between the two, shooting Barty a puzzled look.

Then came Bellatrix.

She swept in with a sharp, restless energy that stood in stark contrast to her husband’s restraint. Her dark curls were pulled back haphazardly, eyes bright and fevered, a grin already tugging at her lips as though she were stepping into something entertaining rather than dangerous. Her gaze locked onto Regulus almost instantly.

She dragged a chair out beside Rodolphus and dropped into it, boots braced against the table leg, fingers drumming an erratic rhythm against the wood. “You look dreadful,” she added.

Regulus inclined his head in acknowledgment, face carefully neutral. “Bellatrix.” He said evenly.

Severus Snape entered last, taking a seat without comment, choosing a place slightly removed from the others. His eyes lifted briefly to Regulus, sharp and assessing, before returning to the table.

Mild greetings followed—nods, murmured acknowledgments. Nothing warm or unnecessary.

Rodolphus cleared his throat.

“We’re here to discuss Rabastan’s assignment,” he said, voice steady, authoritative. “Let’s not waste time.”

~*~

Barty Crouch Jr. bolts the second the meeting adjourns—doesn’t wait for chairs to scrape back properly, doesn’t bother with the pretense of composure the others cling to like a religion. He’s on his feet before Rodolphus finishes his final, self-important sentence, already moving, already halfway gone.

The doors to the dining room swing open under the force of his shove.

When he makes it to the exit of the manor, cool night air hits him.

The Rosier gardens stretch wide and manicured, all sculpted hedges and stone paths and carefully arranged fountains meant to look effortless. Barty barrels through them like he’s fleeing something, coat half-falling off his shoulders, boots hitting stone too hard. He doesn’t stop until the house is a dark shape behind him and the night air finally hits his lungs.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

He fumbles for his cigarettes with hands that won’t quite cooperate, nearly drops the pack, swears again when one bends between his fingers. He lights it anyway, inhales too fast, coughs once, sharp and ugly, and then drags again because he needs something in his mouth that isn’t words.

Smoke helps. A little.

He paces.

He circles a statue, then kicks at a loose pebble hard enough to send it skittering into the dark. His jaw aches from how tightly he’s been holding it. His shoulders feel locked up around his ears, muscles pulled so tight they tremble when he stops moving.

Rabastan’s chair had been too close.

That’s the thing that keeps looping, nasty and persistent. Too close. The brush of fabric when he shifted. The way Rabastan leaned back like he owned the space, like he always does, like nothing in the world has ever told him no. Barty had kept his eyes on the map the whole time, counting lines and symbols that meant nothing just to keep from looking sideways.

Ridiculous, really. He’s not some fragile little thing. He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t freeze. He’s faced Aurors, Unforgivable curses, Dark Lord–adjacent insanity, and still come out grinning. He’s good in chaos. He thrives in it.

This isn’t that.

He drags on the cigarette again, exhales hard through his nose. “You’re fine, you’re fine,” he mutters to himself, like that’s ever helped.

He thinks, not for the first time, about why he’s even here.

It wasn’t ideology. It sure as hell wasn’t the Dark Lord’s speeches. It was Evan, first and foremost. Evan and Regulus and the promise—spoken or not—that they’d stick together. That they’d carve out some kind of place where loyalty actually meant something.

Family, in the way his father never understood the word.

And somehow, spectacularly, it’s only gotten him cornered in rooms like that one.

When the front door opens again, Bellatrix’s laugh echoes faintly from the house, wild and unrestrained, and Barty flinches before he can stop himself. He scowls at the ground for that one. Crazy bitch always drags him into things, too.

But when Barty looks up, it’s Evan he sees bounding down the steps toward him, two at a time, coat unbuttoned, sleeves still rolled up.

Barty straightens without meaning to.

“Thought you might explode back there,” Evan says lightly, stopping a few feet away. Not close yet. Evan’s always careful about distance first. “Figured I’d check before you took out a hedge.”

Barty huffs a laugh that doesn’t quite land. “Estate can afford it.”

“Mm.” Evan’s mouth twitches. “You can’t.”

That gets him. Barty clicks his tongue and turns away, dragging another lungful of smoke like he might choke if he doesn’t. “I was fine.”

“Sure you were.” Evan steps closer now, boots quiet on stone. “That’s why you bolted like your arse was on fire, right?”

“Had enough of listening to Rodolphus talk like he’s got a clue,” Barty snaps, sharper than he means to be. He knows it the second it leaves his mouth. Doesn’t apologize.

Evan doesn’t bristle. He never does. He just stops right in front of him and reaches out, knuckles brushing Barty’s jaw in a way that looks casual but isn’t. Two fingers, firm. A tilt of the chin—insistent.

Barty stills.

“Look at me,” Evan says quietly.

Barty exhales through his nose and does it, cigarette hanging loose between his fingers. Evan’s thumb presses briefly under his cheekbone, rough skin, familiar pressure.

“You’re wound up, Barty.” Evan mutters, eyes narrowing.

“Don’t,” Barty says, voice tight. “Don’t start.”

There’s a beat of silence, heavy and uncomfortable in that way that only ever exists between the two of them. Too much history. Too many almosts. Too many lines crossed and redrawn until neither of them can remember where they started.

Evan’s hand drops. He sighs and leans back against the balustrade, close enough that their shoes nearly touch. He reaches into Barty’s coat pocket without asking, pulling a cigarette from the pack and lighting it off Barty’s lighter like it’s muscle memory.

“You wanna get out of here?” Evan asks, casual.

Barty laughs under his breath. “And go where?”

Evan shrugs. “Anywhere.”

“Regulus won’t like that.”

“Regulus can handle himself.” Evan says.

Barty takes another drag, then flicks the cigarette away with more force than necessary, watching the ember arc and die against the stone. The motion gives him something to do with his hands, something decisive. Standing still feels dangerous right now—like if he stops moving long enough, something ugly will catch up to him.

There’s a thought that worms its way in whether he likes it or not—whether Evan is only standing here because he saw it—saw the way Barty locked up in that chair. Saw the way his whole body had gone wrong and still and quiet. Evan misses very little, especially where Barty is concerned.

For a split second, irritation flares—hot and defensive. The idea that Evan might be here out of pity, or concern, or because he clocked something Barty would rather leave unspoken, makes his spine stiffen.

Still, the idea of leaving sinks its hooks in deep and fast.

Getting out of here. Putting distance between himself and the manor, the meeting room. Putting space—literal, magical space—between himself and Rabastan Lestrange.

But even that thought gets drowned out by something stronger.

The itch.

That familiar, restless need that always comes on the heels of encounters like this one. The urge to feel wanted, chosen, desired—on his own terms. To flood himself with sensation and heat until there’s no room left for anything else. Until he can bury the aftertaste of being trapped in another room with Rabastan under something sharp and reckless and alive.

Evan is safe in a way very few things are. Evan doesn’t push. Doesn’t pry. Doesn’t ask him to explain the cracks in the façade. He lets Barty perform, lets him be loud and bright and unbearable if that’s what keeps him upright.

His mouth curls into something lazy and sharp. Confident. Familiar.

“Anywhere, then?” Barty repeats, voice lighter now, almost amused. He steps in closer, crowding Evan’s space on purpose. “You offering an escape, or just making conversation?”

Evan exhales a quiet breath through his nose, like a laugh he doesn’t quite let out.

“Does sound pretty tempting,” Barty drawls. He lifts a shoulder in a careless shrug, then reaches out and hooks a finger loosely into Evan’s open coat, tugging him in just a fraction. “I mean—I do have something in mind.”

There it is—that familiar surge of bravado, heat flooding his chest and limbs, drowning out everything else. The tightness. The memory. The way his body had betrayed him back in that chair.

This version of Barty is easy. This version knows exactly what he wants and how to take it.

Evan doesn’t pull away. He stills, eyes searching Barty’s face in a way that’s a little too perceptive for comfort.

“Barty,” he says quietly.

Barty grins wider, all teeth. “Come on,” he murmurs, goading him.

Evan hesitates. Barty feels it immediately—the pause, the weight of consideration. For half a second, he wonders if he’s pushed too hard, too fast again.

Then Evan reaches up.

His hand cups Barty’s jaw, thumb pressing firm against his cheek, grounding and solid. It sends a jolt straight down Barty’s spine anyway.

Evan’s thumb shifts, slow, deliberate, like he’s mapping Barty’s face from memory. His eyes flicker—hesitation, understanding, something unspoken passing between them.

Barty knows Evan sees through the act.

Barty holds the look anyway. Dares him to say something.

Evan doesn’t.

Instead, he drops his hand and grips the front of Barty’s coat. “If we go,” he says slowly, “we go now.”

Barty’s grin sharpens, relief and triumph tangling together in his chest. “Now works for me.”

Evan hesitates. It’s brief, but Barty feels it—the moment where he could still pull away, still draw a line. His fingers flex once in Barty’s coat.

Then Evan exhales. “Fine.”

Barty doesn’t give him time to reconsider. He catches Evan’s wrist, fingers warm and insistent, and leans in close enough that their foreheads nearly brush.

“Hold on,” he murmurs, voice low and bright and carefully unthinking.

Evan’s hand tightens.

The garden vanishes in a crack of displaced air, the night folding in on itself as they apparate—dragged away from the Rosier estate, from the manor, from the meeting room and everything waiting inside it.

Chapter Text

Wednesday 14th September 1983

Remus Lupin had never been very good at waiting.

Of course, he liked to think he was more patient than most—certainly more patient than Peter, and leagues ahead of Sirius—but this kind of waiting seemed to demand a kind of stillness he did not possess.

Nearly three weeks had passed since the fire, and time had settled into something flat and heavy. Days no longer felt distinct from one another. They moved when they were told to move, stayed where they were told to stay, and waited for information that never came.

The Order had followed the original plan and split them up, spreading people thin to reduce the risk of another hit. It made sense. Remus understood the logic of it. That hadn’t made it any easier to live with.

James was still missing, unconfirmed as dead or alive, and that uncertainty had stretched itself over every hour like a constant pressure upon him. Nothing about it had been resolved, and nothing had moved forward.

The new safehouse was worse than the last one, which Remus had not thought possible. It was an old terrace, sat hunched at the edge of a dead-end street, its windows filmed with grime so thick they barely let light through. The walls were thin enough that he could hear water moving through the pipes in the neighboring buildings, and sometimes voices too, muffled but close enough to keep him on edge.

It was smaller than the last place: lower ceilings, sagging floors, and only two bedrooms between five people. There wasn’t much furniture. What there was looked scavenged or borrowed, mismatched chairs and a table that wobbled if anyone leaned too hard on it. The place smelled faintly of damp plaster and old dust, no matter how often they aired it out.

Originally, their group was to be sent to stay with the Potters, but all of the initial plans had been scrapped the night of the fire.

When Remus had pressed, Moody hadn’t softened it: the attack was deliberate, aimed at the Order itself, and their location had been compromised. Their previously assigned locations were replaced with new ones, and now, they were here.

Remus, Sirius, Peter, Marlene, and Sybill.

And, if James hadn’t vanished, he would be with them.

At night, when things were quiet, Remus’s mind went back to the fire whether he wanted it to or not. He remembered the weight of Sirius in his arms as he dragged him back, the way he had fought Remus like an animal, frantic and blind with panic.

He remembered the sound the house made when it finally gave in, the wrongness of it, the certainty that something had ended in that moment, even if they didn’t yet know what.

He replayed the logic again and again because it was all he had. No body. No trace. Nothing that proved James was dead. It was thin, but it was something solid enough to stand on, and Remus clung to it because the alternative was unbearable.

Sirius clung to it, too. So did Marlene.

Marlene was already pacing when Remus stepped inside one of the small bedrooms, joining everyone else. The tattoos on her arms stood out starkly against her skin as she gestured, lines and shapes blurring as her hands moved.

“This is bullshit,” she was saying, voice tight and loud enough that Remus was vaguely aware of how thin the walls were. “Absolute bullshit. We can’t just sit here.”

She cut back and forth across the narrow strip of floor between the bed and the wall, shoulders hunched forward, hands flying as she talked. The space was too small for her energy, and she kept nearly colliding with Sirius’s knees where he sat on the edge of the mattress.

“And every day we sit here pretending this is fine,” Marlene continued with venom, “is another day that something could happen to him. Or already has.” She stopped pacing long enough to jab a finger at the floor. “I am not doing this again. I am not sitting around wondering if someone I love is alive or dead while the people in charge tell me it’s for the greater good.”

Peter shifted his weight, rubbing his hands together near the window. “They’re not doing nothing,” he said, weak and uncertain. “Moody said they’re looking into it.”

“Looking into what?” Marlene shot back immediately. “What does that even mean? Sitting in a room and speculating? Waiting for someone else to fuck up and leave a trail?” Her voice rose, cracked, then steadied again. “I’ve heard all of this before. Word for word. Different name, same script.”

She hadn’t said Dorcas’s name, but she hadn’t needed to.

Sirius dragged a hand down his face. His fingers shook. Remus watched him carefully.

Sirius and Marlene had—unofficially—been taking turns ranting and raging over the absence of James. While one of them burned hot and loud, the other simmered, waiting for an opening. It had become a rhythm over the last few weeks, ugly and relentless.

When Marlene ran out of breath, Sirius picked it up. When Sirius spiraled too far, Marlene shoved him back into motion. Remus had learned to track the handoff without thinking.

Marlene stopped pacing so abruptly it was like she’d hit a wall. Her jaw clenched, nostrils flaring. The bad grow-out of her hair—bleached blonde giving way to dark brown at the roots—made her look even more unkempt, feral with it.

She looked like she hadn’t bothered to sleep much either. Her clothes hung loose on her small frame, tank top riding up just enough to show the edge of a rib tattoo when she breathed too hard.

“He’s not dead,” Sirius added suddenly, violently, as though daring the room to contradict him. “I don’t care what anyone says. He’s not.”

Remus swallowed, forcing his hands into his pockets.

Most of Remus’s anger—his fear, his own desperate need to find James—had been folded inward, compacted into something manageable. Someone had to stay grounded. Someone had to keep Sirius from tearing himself open.

“If it were me missing,” Sirius continued, eyes blazing, “James would be tearing the fucking world apart to find me. If it were any of us, he’d already be halfway across the bloody country.”

Peter cleared his throat. “But—Pads, if we go off on our own, we could make things worse. If we get caught—”

“So what?” Sirius snapped, rounding on him. “What good are we doing him dead on our feet in this shithole?”

The room felt too small. Remus could feel the tension pressing in from all sides. He stayed quiet, letting it run its course.

“Look, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m done being reasonable about this.” Marlene said.

She pushed off the wall and started pacing again, faster now. “We need a plan. A real one. We need to talk to people who aren’t going to shut us down, and we need to start asking questions that don’t sound like official Order business. We need to look.”

Sirius nodded immediately. “Whatever it takes,” he said. “I don’t care.”

All three of them turned toward Remus.

He felt the weight of it settle on him, familiar and uncomfortable. This was always his role—slow things down, add caveats, point out risks. He could already see how badly this could go. He could already hear Moody’s voice in his head, listing reasons and consequences.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, steadying himself before he spoke. He knew how it was going to sound—but there was just no way around it.

“It doesn’t make sense to search before we know where we’re going.” Remus tried his best to sound certain as he spoke. “Showing up at a random Death Eater location and hoping we’ll find James there isn’t exactly a plan.”

Peter’s shoulders relaxed slightly, relief flooding his expression. Marlene crossed her arms, a huff escaping her, but Remus held up a hand.

“If there’s even the smallest chance he’s alive, we don’t want to be reckless with that. And Marlene, you’re right—we need to talk to the right people—”

“Like who? Mad-Eye?” Sirius scoffed out a hollow laugh. “He doesn’t do hypotheticals—”

Sybill, who had been quiet in the corner, tilted her head slightly. Her eyes were unfocused, distant. “You want someone adjacent,” she murmured. “Someone who sees the gaps.”

“Lily, then?” Sirius muttered, returning to his quieter contemplation as his shoulders deflated.

“Lily’s not a bad idea,” Remus said a bit more softly, unable to drag his gaze away from Sirius’s movements. “But I was thinking about Ted.”

Sirius’s head snapped up.

“Ted?” Sirius said, sharp with surprise—and then something lighter crept in around the edges of it. “As in Tonks?”

“Yes,” Remus said. He straightened from the wall without quite realizing he’d leaned there, the idea solidifying as he spoke it aloud. “He’s the only person we know who’s been taken and come back.”

Peter frowned. “He wasn’t… that wasn’t an extraction, though. Was it?”

“No,” Remus said quietly. “It wasn’t.”

The memory rose unbidden. It hadn’t been meant as a rescue. That was the thing that still sat wrong in his chest, even now.

The Order had gone in for something else entirely. Ted had been a complication. An unexpected variable. A man already half-dead by the time they found him, chained to a cellar wall.

Remus continued on, voice steady even as his thoughts weren’t. “The operation was meant to hit a relay point. We didn’t know he was there until we found him.”

Sirius went very still.

Remus could still see it if he let himself—Ted chained to the wall, half-conscious, wandless, blood drying dark against his collarbone. The way his eyes had focused slowly, disbelieving, when Remus cut him free. The way he’d laughed, breathless and shocked, like survival itself was utterly absurd.

“They kept him alive,” Remus said. “Ted knows what that looks like from the inside. He knows how long they wait before they decide someone isn’t worth keeping. He knows how they move captives, what kinds of places they use, what changes when a person stops being… useful.”

The word felt like cement coming out of his mouth, but there was nothing else he could think to call it.

Sirius leaned forward abruptly, elbows on his knees. The agitation that had been coiled in him for weeks didn’t vanish—but it shifted, redirected, sparking into something almost like energy.

“Andromeda’s there,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“But—but even if he led us straight to him, what then?” Peter said thinly, eyes narrowed. “Surely you don’t think we could just storm the place with just the five of us.” His eyes darted toward Sybill wearily, though she didn’t seem to notice.

“Fuck the five of us,” Marlene muttered, still wound tight. “I’d do it alone if the rest of you bailed.”

“So would I.” Sirius adds, though Remus was certain Sirius knew that would never be the case.

“If we had some sort of proposed plan, Mary and Lily would—”

“Do you want us all killed, Remus?” Peter cut in, before Remus could finish the thought. There was a flat, simmering frustration in Peter’s voice now, something tight and resentful. “Because that’s what this sounds like. Running off half-cocked, outside the Order, chasing maybes and stories until someone notices we’re gone.”

He pushed away from the window at last, turning fully toward them. As he did, the light caught the side of his neck, and Remus’s eyes snagged on it without meaning to—the pale, uneven scarring climbing up toward his jaw, pinker at the edges where the burns hadn’t fully settled, even from Lily’s attempts to heal it.

Peter gestured vaguely between them, irritation bleeding through his words. “Moody didn’t split us up for fun. The Order has protocols for a reason. You start doing this—going to safehouses unapproved, asking questions you’re not meant to—and what happens when it circles back? What happens when we get flagged?”

Sirius bristled. But it was Remus who felt something in his chest snap, sharp and sudden.

He felt it then, the thinness of his patience, how close it had been to the surface all along. He hadn’t realized how brittle he was until the sound of his own voice surprised him.

“We’re not jumping into anything,” Remus said roughly, heat flaring now that it had found air. “No one has said anything about storming a holding site or going rogue or picking a fight we can’t win, except for you. Why are you acting like our only two options are to sit on our hands or die?”

His heart was pounding harder than he liked. He forced himself to stay standing, to not pace, to not retreat. Peter opened his mouth, but Remus pressed on, the words spilling out now that they’d started.

“This is us starting somewhere,” he said, sharper than he meant to be—but not stopping. “We have to gather information—we have to talk to someone who has been there. Ted is in a sanctioned safehouse, Peter. With Order members. We wouldn’t be sneaking across borders or lighting beacons in the sky.”

Sirius’s eyes flicked to Peter now, dark and intent. His jaw tightened, something fierce and approving sparking there as Remus spoke. It was the look Sirius got when someone finally said the thing he’d been biting his tongue bloody not to scream.

“And forgive me if I find it strange,” Remus said, voice tight, “that the idea of trying to understand what happened to James—where he might be, what that could look like—seems to upset you more than the fact that he’s been missing for three weeks.”

The silence that followed was thick and awful.

Remus hadn’t meant it so harshly. He felt it immediately—the way Peter flinched, the way his gaze dropped, jaw tightening. Guilt flared, hot and unwelcome, but it came too late to stop the damage.

“I’m not—” Peter started, then stopped himself. His hands curled into fists at his sides. “I’m trying to keep us alive.”

“So am I,” Remus shot back, softer now but no less intense. “James included.”

His voice wavered despite himself. He hated that. He swallowed and steadied it again.

“We don’t have a solid plan yet,” he said, more controlled. “You’re right about that. But plans don’t appear fully formed out of nothing. They’re built. And right now, all we have is a wall and a lot of waiting.”

The room stilled. Sirius shifted, leaning forward again, eyes bright with something fierce and grateful. Marlene nodded once, sharp and decisive.

Peter looked between them, his frustration giving way to something more complicated—hurt, fear, maybe even shame. His fingers brushed unconsciously at the edge of the scar on his neck. “I—yeah, fine.” He murmured, staring down at his lap.

Remus exhaled, long and shaky, suddenly aware of how exposed he felt. He hadn’t meant to snap—but James wasn’t here, and without him, everything felt closer to the bone. The buffer was gone. The softness.

“I’m sorry,” he added, not looking at Peter—but not retracting the point, either. “But we can’t do nothing. Not like this.”

And in the silence that followed, it was clear: whether the Order approved or not, the waiting had finally cracked.

~*~

As Regulus apparates, he lands hard on wet sand, knees bending more than he intends, boots sinking slightly before he manages to steady himself. For a brief, disorienting second, the world swims in his vision and his lungs burn as if he’s run a mile instead of crossed a distance in an instant.

He’s coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that his body cannot continue to withstand disapparition if he wants to conserve his strength—but for now, it’s an unfortunate but necessary evil.

He straightens slowly, swallowing against the familiar wave of weakness that follows him everywhere now. The stabilizing draught is still doing its work—he isn’t shaking, he isn’t choking on blood—but the cost is there all the same, humming through his muscles, dragging at his limbs like gravity has doubled just for him.

The beach house rises a short distance ahead, pale against the darkening sky. The veranda runs the length of the front, boards scuffed and sun-faded.

And there—on the railing.

James.

He’s not on the steps, not pacing the yard, not standing guard like Regulus half-expected. He’s sitting directly on the veranda railing itself, one leg hooked over the side, the other dangling loosely, heel brushing the wooden slats below. His hands rested on either side of him, fingers curled around the edge as if to keep himself anchored there.

Regulus stops where he is, stilling at the sight of him.

If James had heard him arrive, it didn’t show on his face. His expression was schooled into something neutral, eyes distant as he gazed out in the direction of the crashing waves from afar.

As he stepped further into view, James finally turned his head, slow and measured, eyes tracking until they landed on Regulus. His expression barely shifted at all.

Regulus feels the silence between them sink straight down into his chest, heavy and nauseating, like missing a step on the stairs.

He hasn’t given James much reason to still be here, yet there he is.

The thought is precise and unpleasant. Regulus hasn’t offered a plan, or a timeline, or even the full truth. He’s only offered fragments. Instructions to stay put and trust him. And then he left for weeks, without saying when he’d be back.

He hates himself a little for it now, standing here while James looks at him like this. Like someone who has already adjusted to disappointment.

He had braced himself for anger, for more questions and insistence, for the tension of confrontation. He had not prepared for silence.

James had stayed here—cut off from the Order, from his friends, from the war—on nothing more than Regulus’s word. Regulus had counted on that trust, and he has done almost nothing to earn it since.

He forces his legs to move.

Walking through the sand is work. Each step pulls at his boots, resistance where there shouldn’t be any. By the time he reaches the bottom of the steps, there’s a familiar tightness building in his chest, shallow breaths stacking on top of one another. He grips the railing as he climbs, fingers curling hard around the wood, using it to take some of the weight.

James turns his head forward again but doesn’t move away.

Regulus reaches the top and walks along the veranda boards. They creak under his steps, uneven in places, and he keeps his pace slow to avoid misjudging the distance. He comes around the corner of the railing and slows to a stop beside James.

James looks over his shoulder to partially face him. His eyes move over Regulus’s face, sharp and assessing, like he’s checking for injuries or any new changes in his appearance. His jaw tightens briefly, then relaxes.

He doesn’t ask where Regulus has been, or why he vanished again, or what exactly he expects James to do with all this waiting. He simply stays where he is, shoulders loose in a way that reads as more tired than relaxed.

Without a word, Regulus turns and lifts himself onto the railing beside him.

The motion costs him more than he wants it to. His arms strain as he lifts himself, shoulders burning almost immediately. He has to pause halfway through, teeth clenched, forcing the movement to continue despite the tremor in his muscles.

When he finally swings his legs over and settles onto the railing beside James, his breath leaves him all at once. He pants quietly, chest rising and falling too fast, the sound of it swallowed by the ocean but loud enough in his own ears. His heart is racing from exertion—an embarrassing reminder of how fragile his body still is.

He keeps his gaze forward, jaw tight, willing his breathing to slow.

James finally shifts. Regulus can feel it—the slight shift of James’s attention, the way his posture changes just a fraction, arms bending as if he’s ready to move if needed. His eyes flick down to Regulus’s hands, where his fingers are curled tight around the edge of the railing, knuckles pale.

Regulus lets his breathing steady on its own. The effort leaves him drained, heavy-limbed, but he stays upright. The ocean rolls in front of them, rhythmic and constant. The railing is solid beneath him.

Sitting here, shoulder to shoulder on the railing, the silence stretches between them, heavy with everything unsaid.

James breaks the silence softly.

“What happened to your eye?”

The words are quiet, pitched low, almost conversational. James doesn’t even turn fully toward him as he speaks—his voice is directed forward, toward the sea, as if he’s giving Regulus room to answer or not answer at all.

Regulus’s throat closes instantly, the response so automatic it frustrates him. He swallows once, then again, jaw tightening as he keeps his face angled toward the sea.

The eyepatch sits snug against his face, the strap worn smooth where it disappears into his hair. He’s forgotten it’s there so many times that it feels like part of him now—less an absence than a constant pressure. Being asked about it makes it feel suddenly enormous.

He has always reacted like this to James’s gentleness.

Anger was easy to understand. Anger had edges. It could be met head-on, resisted, absorbed. Regulus knew how to brace for it, how to stand his ground and give as good as he got. James angry was loud, bright, forceful—something Regulus could orient himself around.

This is different.

James soft makes him feel exposed. Small. Like there’s no armor to hide behind. It leaves him aware of every weakness he works so hard to keep contained—his body, his exhaustion, the visible proof of things he doesn’t want examined. It makes him acutely aware of his own fragility, of the things he doesn’t want acknowledged.

Regulus cannot stand to be pitied.

The thought is immediate and reflexive. He refuses to be looked at like something broken, something tragic. He has never needed anyone’s sympathy, least of all James’s.

But even as the instinct rises, he knows that this isn’t what this is.

When James looks at him, it’s always direct. Earnest. There’s a weight to it that suggests James wants to understand, not to feel sorry. He doesn’t soften his voice out of condescension; he does it because he’s choosing care.

He keeps his eyes on the horizon. If he looks at James now, he’s not sure he’ll manage to speak at all.

“It was a blood curse.”

He keeps it brief on purpose. He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t explain the circumstances, doesn’t name the Mortem Tempora or the cost of it. He doesn’t say how long it took, or what it felt like, or what he lost besides the eye.

He leaves out everything that might invite more questions.

James turns then.

He faces Regulus fully now, attention narrowing, the easy looseness he’s been holding himself with disappearing all at once. There's something newly controlled in his expression, like he’s locking something down by force—but his alarm is obvious.

“Who was it?” James asks, teeth clenched.

The sound that leaves Regulus is thin and wrong, stripped of anything resembling humor—but an incredulous, hollow laugh bubbles out of him before he can stop himself.

“No one,” Regulus strains.

The words feel absurd in his mouth. He keeps his gaze fixed downward, on the narrow line where the edge of the veranda cuts against the open air, on the way his boots sway slightly as his legs dangle. It’s easier than looking at James.

“No one did this to me,” he repeats, more firmly now, as if the clarification matters. His shoulders lift in a shallow, almost reflexive motion, then fall again. “I did it,” he says. “I’m the one who did it.”

He risks a glance sideways then, just enough to see the edge of James’s profile. James is still facing him fully, eyes fixed on Regulus with startled attention, like he was trying to piece together something that refused to align.

“I made a decision,” he says, and the words sound practiced, like he’s repeated them to himself enough times that they’ve lost any real shape. “And this is just—this is the result.”

Regulus can feel the weight of James’s gaze like pressure on his skin. There’s confusion there, yes—but more than that, there’s something like disbelief, like James is trying to reconcile the careful, protective question he’d asked with the answer he’d been given.

“Is that—is that why you’re sick?” James whispers, pitched so carefully it almost hurts to hear.

The instinct to deny it rises in Regulus immediately—sharp, panicked, desperate. He wants to say no. He wants to say he’s fine, that this is temporary, that the weakness is just lingering magic, that he’s already improving, that everything James is seeing is exaggerated by proximity and worry.

He wants to tell James that none of this matters, that he’s going to be all right, that James doesn’t need to look at him like this—with that careful fear threading through his voice, with that protective edge Regulus never asked for and can’t bear to be the cause of.

Regulus hates when James is scared. It’s a visceral thing.

James’s fear has always come out as a readiness to step into harm without hesitation. Regulus has seen that instinct turn James reckless too many times before, and he doesn’t want to be another reason for it—but he cannot lie to him. He can’t.

“Yes,” Regulus’s voice is small now, almost swallowed by the sound of the sea. He has to force it past the tightness in his throat, and even then it comes out softer than he intends, stripped of any defense. “Yes.”

Regulus lifts his head then.

When he looks at James, he feels his heart lurch.

James looks devastated.

He’s struck still, eyes wide and intent, like the world has shifted under his feet. The fear there now is unmistakable, mixed with a helplessness James rarely allows himself to show.

Regulus can’t help himself—the words come spilling out of him.

“I’ve done something binding, James,” his voice wavers in a rush of emotion, meeting James’s eyes despite every instinct telling him to look away. “Something I can’t take back.”

He exhales slowly, the breath unsteady despite his effort to keep it even. His fingers tighten on the railing again, wood pressing into his palms.

“It doesn’t get undone,” he continues. “There isn’t a fix. There isn’t a way around it.” His throat burns. He swallows hard. The words come faster now, urgency creeping in despite his control. “I’m—James, I’m so sorry.”

The apology isn’t just for the waiting, or the secrecy, or the trust between them he’s strained to its breaking point. It’s for this—for the fear in James’s voice.

James moves without thinking.

His hand lifts from the railing, fingers already curling slightly, reaching across the narrow space between them. The motion is instinctive, immediate—muscle memory born of care and habit, of countless moments where distance was never a question.

Then he stops short. The movement falters, suspended in the air for a fraction of a second before James pulls his hand back, fingers closing in on themselves.

Regulus feels the gap between them widen. There are lines there now—unspoken, newly drawn—and neither of them seems to know whether they should be crossed.

Still, James looks at him almost earnestly. “Regulus, please—let me help you. Whatever it is you’ve done, whatever reason you have for bringing me here—”

“No.” Regulus interjected fiercely, head shaking, trembling despite himself.

But James doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t recoil. He leans in slightly, the sea wind tossing strands of hair over his forehead, eyes locked on Regulus with a deliberate firmness that feels like it could anchor him if only he would let it.

“Regulus,” James says again, voice low but unwavering, “If you want me to stay here, you need to tell me what’s happening. Everything. Not just pieces.” His hand hovers again, closer this time, reaching past hesitation, brushing against the edge of Regulus’s sleeve with more certainty than he had before. “I don’t care if you don’t want my help. I’m—I’m scared, Regulus. I need to know what’s going on, and I—I can’t put it together myself.”

Regulus’s chest tightens, ribs pressing inward as if the sound itself is pressing on him from the inside. He swallows hard, trying to will his wall back up, trying to summon the armor he’s spent years perfecting. But James’s presence is too insistent, too tender, and too real. It seeps through every crack in the barrier he thought he had rebuilt, breaking through before he can stop it.

“Okay. Okay,” He exhales, voice faltering. “But it’s—it’s important that you stay,” he murmurs, small, almost pleading. His gaze drops to the railing, then shifts to James in a swift, uneven motion. “No matter what I tell you—you can’t leave. Please.”

James doesn’t hesitate this time. He leans slightly closer, finally letting the hand he’d retracted settle lightly on Regulus’s forearm, the warmth of it firming a bridge between them. “I’ll stay,” he says, voice steady now, unflinching. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Regulus releases the railing just enough to let James’s hand rest there. He’s still shaken—every word he’s forced out, every truth admitted, leaves him raw—but with James here, present and insistent, there’s a tether that doesn’t let him drift completely apart.

“I suppose I’ll start from the beginning.”

Chapter Text

Wednesday 20th October 1976

Regulus Black was not an obsessive sort of person.

He enjoyed the things he took interest in a perfectly reasonable amount. He liked order. He liked patterns. He liked knowing where he stood. None of that, he thought, constituted obsession—just attentiveness. Precision.

But James Potter had always existed outside of those rules.

This was not new, of course. For years, James had been a recurring presence—Sirius’s shadow. A figure across the pitch. Someone whose path intersected Regulus’s often enough to register, and rarely enough to remain unresolved.

He wasn’t always watching him on purpose—but he watched nonetheless.

It wasn’t a fixation, per se. Regulus refused to call it that. Surely there had to be some other, less imposing word. It wasn’t as if he rearranged his days around James. He didn’t linger where James might be for the sake of proximity. If anything, Regulus was careful not to be seen doing any of that.

He observed from a distance, the way one might study weather patterns or fault lines: something large, unavoidable, and better understood if you knew what signs to look for.

And James Potter was full of signs.

In the beginning, Regulus had been able to catalogue him neatly: the performance, the timing of his laughter, the way he leaned into attention and seemed to draw strength from it. Regulus could see how others orbited him, how easily James slipped into the role everyone expected him to play. Golden boy. Hero-in-progress. Effortless.

Regulus kept his distance. He watched. He learned.

Over time, he’d noticed the smaller things—the way James’s smile faltered when he thought he was unobserved. The way his shoulders tensed after applause faded. The way he grew quieter when Sirius wasn’t nearby to anchor him.

James was good at performing his confidence. But Regulus had grown up surrounded by people who performed for survival. He instinctively recognized the strain beneath James’s.

That, more than anything, was what held Regulus’s attention.

It was easy, at first, to believe this awareness was neutral. Academic, even. Regulus told himself he was simply good at reading people. That James Potter was no exception—just another study, another pattern to understand and file away.

Except that, lately, he had begun to notice how often his attention returned to James without being summoned. How his gaze lingered a second too long before he looked away. How certain expressions stayed with him afterward, unbidden, resurfacing at inconvenient moments.

That was new.

And Regulus Black did not like new variables he couldn’t account for.

Today, across the library, James Potter was doing his level best to be noticed.

Peter Pettigrew was with him, failing to suppress his snickering, shoulders hunched as he crumpled a piece of parchment into a tight, uneven ball. James took it from him, weighed it in his hand with exaggerated consideration, and flicked it toward Lily Evans’s table. It missed by several feet and skidded across the floor instead.

Lily did not look impressed.

She glanced up from her work just long enough to scowl, lips tightening, before pointedly returning her attention to her book. That only made Peter dissolve into laughter again. James grinned, already folding another piece, clearly delighted with himself.

Regulus did not look up. He knew better than that.

He had learned, over time, that James thrived on reaction—that the smallest acknowledgment could be taken as encouragement. He kept his eyes on the book in front of him, though he had been stalled on the same page long enough that the words had lost all meaning.

But, inevitably, Regulus felt James’s gaze land upon him, even without lifting his head to check.

When he finally glanced up, James was looking directly at him, the ghost of a smile still on his face.

Their eyes met across the tables.

James’s smile widened, unmistakably pleased at having been noticed at last, as though this were some small victory. Regulus rolled his eyes, sharp and unambiguous, before lowering his attention back to the book.

He was halfway through rereading the same sentence for the third time when a shadow fell across the page.

Regulus paused.

He did not look up immediately. He finished the line first, out of sheer stubbornness, even though he hadn’t absorbed a single word of it. Then—slowly—he lifted his head.

James stood on the other side of the table.

He was just as irritating up close as he had been from afar. Too tall. Too casually confident. He leaned one hand against the edge of the table, posture loose, expression open and unbothered, as though he had every right to be there.

“What’re you reading?” James asked casually, almost offhand, as though he hadn’t just crossed half the room to ask it.

Regulus snapped the cover of the book shut crisply, glaring up at him. The sound made James jump.

“I wasn’t reading.” Regulus replied, already reaching for his bag he’d slung over the chair next to him.

James’s mouth tipped into a grin, clearly entertained rather than deterred.

“Well,” he said, light and easy, “it sort of looked like you were. I mean—” he gestured vaguely at the table, the book, the very obvious evidence of it all, “—book open and everything.”

Regulus did not rise to it. He slid the book closer to himself, fingers flattening against the cover, his expression unchanged.

“I was planning to, yes. But some people seem to struggle with the concept of a library.” Regulus said dryly.

James’s eyes flicked over Regulus’s shoulder, back toward his own table. Peter was still laughing at nothing in particular, entirely unrepentant. James followed the glance, then looked back again, sheepish.

“Ah,” he said, his hand moving to rub the back of his neck. “Right. Yeah. That’s—my fault.”

Regulus was suddenly, acutely aware of how close James was standing. Of the way his presence seemed to press in from all sides, too warm, too loud even when he wasn’t speaking. The space between them felt wrong—compressed, crowded with things Regulus had no interest in identifying.

From a distance, James was manageable.

From afar, Regulus knew exactly what to do with him. Watching allowed for control—for separation. James could be reduced to motion and pattern, to expression and habit, all of it filed away neatly, understood without cost. Regulus could observe the confidence, the cracks beneath it, the way James held himself together, without having to feel any of it himself.

Up close, everything arrived at once.

There was no time to sort through it. No space to decide what belonged where. Irritation tangled with awareness, with something sharper and far less welcome, until it became impossible to tell where one ended and another began. Regulus felt it all too quickly, too vividly, and it made his chest tighten in a way he did not appreciate.

He pushed his chair back and stood.

The movement was abrupt enough to draw James’s attention fully, his expression shifting as if he were about to say something else—ask another question, perhaps.

Regulus did not give him the chance.

He slipped the book into his bag with deliberate care, slung it over his shoulder, and turned away. He moved past James briskly, close enough that he could feel the heat of him, and then he was gone—threading between tables, heading for the exit without a backward glance.

~*~

Regulus Black was not an easy person to read.

That, James decided, was the problem.

People usually made sense to him. If they liked him, they were obvious about it. If they hated him, they were even louder.

Even indifference had a texture he could recognize—flat, uninterested, easy to shrug off. James had always been good at reading rooms, reading people, adjusting himself accordingly. It was instinctive. He didn’t think about it much.

Regulus just didn’t fit.

James had noticed, especially since this school year had begun, that Regulus often watched him. It wasn’t that he’d been openly staring—it was more subtle than that—but it was enough that James would catch it out of the corner of his eye and turn, half-expecting something to happen.

Nothing ever did.

It wasn’t hostile. James knew hostile. It wasn’t admiration, either, not in the way people usually looked at him. There was no warmth in it, no eagerness. If anything, it felt deliberate. Measuring. As if Regulus were trying to decide something and hadn’t reached a conclusion yet.

Normally, he wouldn’t give it this much thought. Someone watching him wasn’t exactly new. Hogwarts was full of people with opinions, expectations, half-formed ideas about who James Potter was supposed to be. He took it in stride. Always had.

But this year had stretched oddly around him.

James lay on his back on his dorm bed, hands laced behind his head, staring at the canopy above him. The room felt larger than it should have, emptier. Sirius’s bed sat untouched, sheets still neatly drawn back from that morning. Remus’s too.

It had been nearly two weeks since the incident—the prank that had nearly gotten Severus Snape killed, and Moony nearly exposed—and Remus and Sirius had been doing their best to avoid one another.

He had never thought much about how much space the two of them took up until it was gone. Now, James had far too much time on his hands with nothing pressing in on him from either side, no familiar arguments to referee, no plans to make on the fly.

Too much time to think.

Too much time to notice things he normally would have brushed aside without a second glance.

His mind, unhelpfully, kept circling back to Regulus Black.

But maybe it wasn’t Regulus at all. Maybe it was Sirius.

James’s gaze drifted to the empty bed again.

Even after Sirius had run away from Grimmauld Place last year, he hadn’t cut Regulus out of his life. He’d still made time to speak with him at school, had still mentioned him in passing comments as he’d always done—even if it was more hesitant. He still cared, unmistakably, even if things were strained now.

But that had changed over the summer, when Regulus’s letter had arrived.

James remembered it vividly. Sirius had been sprawled on James’s bedroom floor, hair still damp from the shower, when the owl tapped at the window. He’d taken the envelope without comment—but the moment he saw the handwriting, the color drained from his face.

James had noticed immediately.

“What is it?” he’d asked, trying to crane his neck to catch a glimpse. “Who’s it from?”

“My brother.” Sirius had muttered, tearing it open, eyes darting across the page almost frantically at first. He’d read it once, jaw tightening, then crumpled the parchment in his fist so hard James thought it might tear. His expression had gone tight, unreadable.

Whatever had been written there had shifted something between the two brothers.

After that, he’d stopped talking about Regulus altogether.

The absence was total and abrupt, as though a door had been slammed shut without warning.

Since the school year had begun, the brothers hadn’t spoken once.

They passed each other in corridors without acknowledgement. Sirius didn’t look at him. Didn’t react. Didn’t rise to anything. He behaved as though Regulus simply did not exist.

Maybe that was why James’s attention had shifted. Maybe Regulus had become visible precisely because Sirius had erased him from his own orbit. Curiosity filled the gap. Questions without answers always did that to James.

He rolled onto his side, propping his head on his arm, staring at the far wall as his thoughts continued to drift.

~*~

Saturday 23rd October 1976

“Black? Fuck’s sake—are you even listening?”

Dorcas’s hand cut through the space in front of his face, abrupt enough that Regulus startled, attention snapping back. The Great Hall came rushing in all at once—the clatter of cutlery, the low roar of overlapping conversations, the warm, oily smell of food hanging heavy in the air.

“The book—yes, yes, I’ve nearly finished.” Regulus shook his head, holding up his own hands in surrender.

He leaned back slightly in his seat, posture rearranging itself into something more present. Across from him, Evan sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Dorcas, picking at his food with mild disinterest, though his expression was amused.

Regulus’s gaze flicked past them once again before he could stop himself—just a brief glance, quick and practiced. He caught sight of the Gryffindor table: Remus Lupin sitting hunched slightly forward, Peter Pettigrew beside him, deep in conversation.

Two familiar absences left a gap in the lineup that Regulus clocked without effort.

Sirius and James were likely elsewhere, then.

Dorcas cleared her throat pointedly, and Regulus quickly averted his eyes, landing them back on his two friends.

“Don’t mind him, Meadowes. He’s probably looking for Potter.” Evan drawled, lifting his goblet loosely with a slight smirk.

Dorcas huffed, immediately turning in her seat to look behind her. In a frantic attempt to stop her, Regulus kicked hard, and Evan winced loudly.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Evan hissed, kicking back hard, but missing Regulus’s leg entirely—the bench Regulus sat upon shuddered slightly as Evan hissed in pain again.

“Well, I don’t see him,” Dorcas commented a bit absently, ignoring Evan’s cursing. “What’s got you so obsessed with him lately anyway?” She spoke over her shoulder, still thoroughly surveying the Gryffindor table, gaze seeming to linger on a group of girls near the end.

“Obsessed?” Regulus repeated, eyes narrowing—clearly affronted.

Evan let out a quiet laugh, clearly entertained, as if the accusation were a personal gift. He looked far too pleased with himself.

“Oh, come on,” Evan said lightly. “You do have a look.”

Regulus looked toward him sharply. “I do not.” He set his jaw, silently thankful for the way his dark curls had grown out over his ears this summer—because he was quite certain they were red. “I wasn’t looking for Potter. I noticed Sirius wasn’t there. That’s all.” He corrected, clipped.

Dorcas finally turned back around, settling fully in her seat again, interest shifting. She studied Regulus for a moment, expression thoughtful.

“He’s been a bit off recently. Don’t know what it’s all about, but he’s been sulking. Properly sulking.” She offered up readily, glancing between Evan and Regulus, as though they might have something to add in explanation.

“Not my circus.” Evan shrugged, seeming bored with the change of topic, mouth half full as he chewed through his words.

“Every time I’ve seen that lot in the last two weeks, he hasn’t been with them. Not at meals. Not in or between our classes. Nothing.” Dorcas continued.

“And?” Regulus said almost blandly, feigning disinterest in the matters of Sirius Black. Internally, however, his heart had skipped a beat.

Dorcas leaned back, crossing her arms casually. “My theory?”

Evan glanced between them, a scoff leaving him as he swallowed his food. “Oh, do tell. I’m practically on the edge of my seat.”

“They dropped him,” Dorcas said flatly. “Or he dropped them. Either way, he’s not with them anymore.”

Regulus considered this for only a moment before promptly letting go of the idea. Of course, while he no longer knew the intimate details of Sirius’s day-to-day life, the notion of his group ‘dropping’ him, as Dorcas had suggested, was a bit absurd.

While he didn’t know Lupin or Pettigrew very well, Regulus was quite certain James Potter would not simply ‘drop’ Sirius for nearly anything—especially considering Sirius lived with the Potters now.

“Who are we dropping exactly?” Barty’s voice came abruptly as he slid into the empty space next to Regulus. “Not trying to get rid of me already, are you, Meadowes?”

Regulus adjusted, scooting a bit to allow Barty more room as Barty went straight for Evan’s cutlery, shoveling a spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.

Evan huffed, kicking under the table again, and missing again. “Fuck!” He yelped, pulling his knee up onto the bench as he shot a glare toward Barty.

“Manners, Rosier,” Barty raised his eyebrows innocently, casually pointing toward Evan with the end of his spoon. “Have you ever thought about working on your shit aim?”

“Alright, I think I’m done here.” Regulus sighed, swinging his leg over the bench and pointedly ignoring the fake devastation in Barty’s expression as he leaned forward for his bag.

“Already?” Barty gasped, one hand flying to his chest as if struck. He leaned back, nearly tipping himself off the bench. “And here I thought we were bonding. Sharing. Healing as a group, even.”

Regulus didn’t even look at him as he stood, sliding his bag fully onto his shoulder. “You stole my seat and Evan’s food within ten seconds,” he said flatly. “I think we’ll survive the separation.”

Barty squinted up at him. “Cold,” he shook his head slowly, wounded. “Absolutely heartless, Black.”

“That’s me,” Regulus replied, already half turned away.

Dorcas pointed her fork at his back. “Finish the book,” she said, sharp and unmistakable. “I want it back.”

Regulus lifted his hand in response, not bothering to turn around, giving her a brief wave over his shoulder as he stepped away from the table.

As he moved away from the Slytherin table and into the wider press of the Great Hall, the noise swelling again around him, Regulus allowed himself one more glance toward Gryffindor. Just a glance. Lupin and Pettigrew were still there, unchanged. The empty spaces remained.

Wherever Sirius was, Regulus thought, he was probably with James. That’s how it usually went, anyway. You rarely ever saw one without the other.

As he turned down the corridor toward the library, Pandora Lestrange was exiting a nearby classroom with a stack of thick textbooks balanced carefully in her arms. He frowned, stopping where he was as she caught sight of him and approached.

“Thought you were supposed to be sick.” Regulus commented as she stepped forward, raising an eyebrow.

Just as she parted her lips to respond, Pandora sneezed sharply. The stack in her arms tipped forward as her shoulders jerked, several of the heavier books sliding loose and thudding to the floor at her feet.

Regulus sighed, already moving.

He crouched without thinking, gathering the fallen volumes one by one and stacking them neatly before handing them back. They were heavier than they had any right to be—dense spines, worn covers. He frowned faintly as he took them in, eyes flicking from the books to Pandora herself.

“Yes,” she said, voice thick and stuffed, accepting the books from him carefully. “I am.”

“Care to explain why you’re hauling around half the library, then?” Regulus straightened.

“Xeno is much worse off,” Pandora clarified, which earned her an eye roll. “So I went to gather our homework. Both sets.”

Regulus paused, then glanced again at the books—at the thickness of them, the worn spines, the faint smell of old parchment and dust that clung to them. “That still doesn’t account for the textbooks.”

Her eyes brightened immediately, as if he’d asked exactly the right question. “They’re relevant,” she said.

“To what?”

“To the way illness changes perception,” Pandora replied readily. “There’s a theory that when the body is compromised, magic expresses itself differently—more filtered. Older texts are better for comparison. Modern revisions smooth too much over.”

Regulus stared at her.

He exhaled quietly through his nose. “Lovegood ought to be the one doing this for you. Not the other way around.”

Her expression lit up at that, eyes warming in a way that cut through her feverish haze. “I insisted.”

She said it eagerly, as if proud of the decision. Quickly, she glanced over him, then over toward the library doors. “Catching up on studying?”

“Not today. Just a bit of reading.” Regulus offered a bit more gently now, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder. “Go get some rest, Lestrange. And tell Lovegood I said he’s not good enough for you.” He added, without contempt, eyeing her carefully.

Pandora laughed under her breath, a soft, breathy sound that turned into another sniffle. She shifted the books in her arms, nodded once—decisive, already halfway elsewhere in her head—and turned down the corridor at an unhurried pace that did not match how ill she clearly felt. Regulus watched until she rounded the corner, the sound of her footsteps fading, before turning away himself.

The library doors opened with a familiar, muted creak.

Inside, the air changed immediately—cooler, quieter, heavy with dust and ink. Candlelight pooled along the long tables, shadows stretching between shelves that rose high enough to block sightlines completely if you went far enough back. The usual low hum of whispers hung in the space, punctuated by the soft scratch of quills and the occasional rustle of pages.

Regulus didn’t slow.

He moved straight through the central aisle, past the main tables where people liked to sit when they wanted to be seen working, past the reference shelves and Madam Pince’s desk.

He angled toward the far end of the room, where the shelves curved inward just enough to form a narrow alcove—a pocket of space half-hidden between towering bookcases. It wasn’t marked, and most people didn’t notice it unless they already knew it was there.

It was where he went when he didn’t want to be interrupted.

The memory surfaced again: the last time he’d sat out in the open, thinking himself safe, only for James Potter to appear at his shoulder like an uninvited thought, loud and intrusive and impossible to ignore. The choice of where to sit tonight had been obvious from the moment Regulus stepped inside. He doubted James or Sirius would be here at all—but habit and caution pulled him deeper all the same.

The alcove came into view.

Regulus slowed, then stopped short.

Someone was already there.

The desk was occupied—chair pulled close, parchment spread out, books stacked haphazardly to one side. The figure seated there was hunched forward, elbows braced on the wood, shoulders rounded in concentration. Dark hair fell messily into his face as he wrote, quill moving fast and uneven, as if he were trying to get thoughts down before they escaped him.

Regulus knew that posture.

James Potter sat at his desk.

He was alone.

No Sirius lounging nearby. No feet kicked up, no murmured commentary, no easy presence filling the space beside him. Just James, bent over his work, parchment already crowded with scrawled lines and corrections.

The candle beside him had burned low, wax pooled thick at the base, suggesting he’d been there longer than Regulus would have expected.

Regulus scowled to himself.

Out of every table in the library, out of every chair and shadowed corner and visible surface James Potter could have chosen, he had ended up here—at the one place Regulus used when he wanted to be left alone.

The irritation was immediate and sharp, a familiar tightening behind his ribs. This desk wasn’t officially his, of course, but it might as well have been. He’d claimed it quietly over years, the way he claimed most things: by returning often enough that he’d felt a sense of ownership over it.

And now Potter was all over it.

Regulus stayed where he was, half-hidden by the edge of a shelf, watching despite himself.

Why was James here at all?

The question came to mind bitterly, trailing several others behind it. James didn’t frequent the library like this. Never alone, anyway. Never tucked away where no one would see him. Did he?

And where, more pressingly, was Sirius? Now, his brother’s absence felt louder than it had in the Great Hall, more stark in the hush of the stacks. If James was here without him, it meant something—or at least, Regulus’s mind insisted that it did.

Annoyance settled in deeper, tinged now with a reluctant curiosity.

He should have turned away. He should have remembered the book in his bag, the one Dorcas was waiting on, the excuse he’d come here for in the first place. Instead, his attention caught and held, pulled forward by habit as much as by vexation.

James was hunched low over the desk, shoulders drawn in, posture tighter than Regulus was used to seeing. There was none of the usual sprawl, none of the careless confidence that seemed to come so easily to him elsewhere.

His quill scratched quickly across parchment, then paused, then started again. Candlelight caught in his hair, dark and untidy, throwing uneven shadows across the back of his neck.

Regulus’s attention snagged there.

The birthmark was visible—just a glimpse of it, peeking above the collar of James’s robes where the fabric had shifted as he leaned forward. A small, familiar shape Regulus had noticed before without meaning to. He looked away a fraction too late, annoyance flaring at himself for it.

He should leave.

That was the sensible thing. Turn around, find another table, finish Dorcas’s book, pretend this hadn’t happened at all.

But he didn’t move.

The borrowed book remained forgotten in his bag as his gaze drifted back, against his better judgment. James exhaled sharply, shoulders rising and falling, then lifted his head as if the thoughts he’d been chasing had finally escaped him.

Regulus reacted instantly.

He stepped back into the stacks, retreating just far enough that the shelves cut his line of sight to James’s face while still leaving the desk visible through a narrow gap. He pressed himself closer to the spines, heart ticking faster than he cared to admit.

James looked frustrated now, brows drawn together as he stared down at the parchment in front of him. He read it once more, lips pressing into a thin line.

Then, with sudden finality, he crumpled the page.

James tossed it aside, where it landed near the leg of the desk in a loose, uneven ball. He stared at the desk for a moment, jaw flexing, then lowered his quill again—not to a page this time, but to the surface of the desk itself.

Regulus stiffened.

The quill dragged slowly, deliberately, carving letters into the wood.

James paused between strokes, as if choosing each one carefully. The movement of his hand was controlled, restrained in a way that didn’t match the James Regulus knew from a distance.

A flicker of irritation sparked again. That was his desk. His place. And now it was being marked.

James’s hand stilled, then pushed back his chair. It scraped against the wood floor, loud and abrupt.

Regulus turned away instantly, retreating further into the stacks, heart giving an unwelcome jolt as James stood. He moved without thinking now, slipping deeper into the narrow aisle between shelves, the books closing around him like a barrier.

By the time James might have turned, there was nothing to see.

The sound of his footsteps followed a moment later.

Regulus stayed where he was, pressed between shelves, listening as the rhythm softened and thinned and finally disappeared into the larger hush of the library beyond. He counted the seconds afterward without meaning to. His breath stayed shallow until the quiet settled again, uninterrupted.

Only then did he move.

He stepped out from the stacks slowly, half-expecting the alcove to betray him somehow—to reveal James still there, turned back, watching. But the desk stood empty. The chair was pushed in only slightly, the candle guttering low beside a mess of abandoned parchment.

He approached the desk cautiously, irritation already primed. He was prepared to see careless scratches, meaningless lines gouged into the surface in a fit of boredom or frustration. James Potter was not known for restraint. The damage, Regulus assumed, would reflect that.

Instead, he stopped short again.

The words were carved cleanly into the wood, the grooves still pale where the grain had been cut open.

What am I supposed to do now?

Regulus stared at them.

The irritation faltered, then slipped entirely, replaced by something more disorienting. The sentence sat there without adornment, without humor or bravado. Just the question, plain and exposed, etched deeply enough that it would not be sanded away without effort.

It did not fit the James Potter Regulus had constructed over years of observation.

He glanced back over his shoulder, scanning the stacks, the aisles, the long tables beyond. Nothing moved. No hint of dark hair or familiar posture. James was truly gone.

Slowly, Regulus lowered himself into the chair.

The seat was still warm.

His thoughts scattered, slipping loose from their usual careful arrangement.

Something overtook him then.

Regulus reached into his bag. He drew out parchment, quill, ink. He didn’t use a full page—didn’t even consider it. He tore off a smaller piece, the sound sharp in the quiet, then dipped the quill without ceremony. His hand moved almost immediately, precise and controlled despite the unrest beneath it.

If you’re going to ask questions like that, at least use parchment.

He stared at the words for a moment after writing them. He folded the scrap carefully, once, then again, and placed it directly over the carved question, covering the gouged letters completely.

For a fleeting moment, the absurdity of it registered. Leaving a note for someone who might never return. Responding to a question not meant for him. Pretending, for even a second, that this exchange had purpose.

Whatever he’d intended to do here—to read, to finish Dorcas’s book, to lose himself in something orderly and familiar—was no longer possible. His focus refused to settle, mind looping back to the words in the desk, the warmth of the chair, the unfamiliar shape of James Potter bent over something fragile and unanswered.

He stood then, gathering his things with more haste than care. Regulus left the alcove without looking back.

He moved through the library with his head down until the doors came into view once more. As he pushed them open and stepped back into the corridor beyond, the quieter world behind him closed off with a soft, final creak.

Chapter Text

Sunday 24th October 1976

James liked early mornings best.

The sun hadn’t even fully risen yet—it remained a pale spill of light creeping over the treeline. The air bit at James’s lungs in a way that felt clean, sharp enough to wake him properly. Grass dampened his trainers almost immediately, dew soaking through the edges as he and Marlene took off along the perimeter of the Quidditch pitch.

His muscles were already warm, and his body had settled into the rhythm easily. Sunday mornings were for this. Had been for years. James and Marlene began their jog, feet hitting the ground in even time, the pitch curving wide and familiar around them.

James liked this part. No thinking. Just motion.

Marlene ran a few paces ahead of him, dark ponytail bouncing against the back of her neck. James, for his part, felt alert in that buoyant way mornings always gave him—like the day hadn’t had time yet to disappoint anyone.

They usually ranged farther than this. Out past the stands, toward the trees and back again through the grounds. But today—

James glanced toward the infield.

Remus sat in the grass near the edge of the pitch where they’d left him, knees drawn up to his chest, shoulders hunched against the cold. The grass around him was dark with dew, already soaking into the fabric of his trousers where he sat. He wore a thick jumper, collared shirt peeking out at the neck with a long coat draped loosely over his shoulders, clearly thrown on rather than properly worn. A scarf hung half-wrapped, half-abandoned.

He looked miserable.

James still wasn’t entirely sure why Remus had come, but he had his suspicions.

He’d been halfway out the dorm that morning—trainers in hand, ends of his hair still damp from splashing his face at the sink—when Remus had stirred. Then, unexpectedly, he’d sat up and asked, voice rough with sleep, if he could come along.

James had taken one look over Sirius's empty bed. Sirius hadn’t been sleeping in the dorm, not since the incident—but he always returned by morning to get in a couple more hours rest. James hadn’t questioned Remus further.

Now he sat hunched in the grass, cigarette smoldering between his fingers. He looked profoundly unimpressed with the entire concept of being awake this early, despite requesting to join them.

Marlene couldn’t help but stare as they jogged past him again, snorting at the sight of him. “Having regrets, Lupin?” She teased, half out of breath.

Remus flipped them off without looking up as they passed him, and James grinned despite himself. Running always put him in a good mood—something about the cold air and motion shook the thoughts loose, made everything feel manageable. Even this morning, even with everything else sitting heavy lately, his body felt light.

Marlene gave James a sideways look as they rounded the far curve of the pitch again, stride loose and practiced.

“So,” she said, tone light but pointed, breath steady despite the jog. “Care to explain why Remus Lupin is sulking on our pitch?”

James huffed out a laugh and glanced toward the edge of the pitch again. Remus hadn’t moved much. He’d shifted his weight slightly, one knee hugged closer to his chest now, cigarette lifted briefly to his mouth as he turned a page of the book in his lap with his thumb. Smoke curled lazily upward in the cold air, pale against the grass.

“He wanted to come,” James said, which was true enough. “Didn’t think you’d mind too much.”

Marlene arched a brow, shooting him a knowing look. “Mm, right. Because Remus is famously fond of dawn. Loves a damp arse and frostbite before breakfast.”

He choked back his laugh this time, what managed to slip out faltering quickly. He kept his eyes forward, watching the stands blur past, rapidly cycling through what sort of excuse he could give that wouldn’t reveal too much.

She shot him another look, this one warmer, softer at the edges. “You know I don’t mind him. I mean, you know I love Remus.” She gestured vaguely back toward the pitch with her chin. “Just… Sundays are kind of our thing, you know.”

James nodded. He knew that.

Long before Hogwarts, there had been Marlene McKinnon—loud and sun-bright and utterly fearless. She’d been his first real friend, the first person who’d ever looked at James Potter and decided, immediately and without hesitation, that he was worth keeping.

They’d been nine when they met, thrown together at a Ministry gala their mothers had both been dragged to, bored out of their minds and desperate for escape. Marlene had stolen pastries off a side table and dared him to run with her before anyone noticed. James had followed her without thinking.

He’d been doing that ever since.

Even now, years later, running beside her felt instinctive in a way very few things did. Their strides matched without effort, pace naturally syncing the way it always had.

She wore running shorts despite the chill, long legs bare, a cropped jumper knotted at her waist over a fitted tank. Her trainers were scuffed to hell, socks mismatched, and she looked completely unbothered by any of it.

They were both different now, of course. Hogwarts had rearranged things. James had the Marauders; Marlene had Lily and Mary. Lives layered over lives. But this—running at daybreak—had stayed theirs.

They ran in silence for a few strides. James felt the familiar tug then—the question he knew was coming, the one he’d been dodging for weeks now. In an attempt to steer past it, he forced out more words about Remus. “He’s had a rough couple of weeks, that’s all. I doubt he came just to spectate.”

Marlene hummed, thoughtful now. Then she said, casual again but sharper underneath, “And how’s Sirius?”

The truth was, he had no idea how Sirius was doing. Not really.

The prank—the incident, as James preferred to call it—had fractured something fundamental between all of them. It had blown everything apart in a way James still didn’t quite have words for.

Sirius had crossed the line—James knew that, even if he didn’t want to. He’d nearly gotten Severus Snape killed. Worse, he’d betrayed Remus’s trust. James had been the one to pull Snape out of there. James had been the one to stand there afterward, heart hammering, knowing he couldn’t undo any of it, and that Sirius couldn’t take any of it back.

But still, when it was clear Dumbledore had sworn Snape to secrecy, James had attempted to do what he always did in a crisis. He’d tried to fix it.

But this was not something he could fix.

Remus and Sirius had fought before, but this was on an entirely different level. With this, James had no middle ground to take. There was no way to be what everyone needed him to be. He was angry with Sirius. He felt protective of Remus, almost furious on his behalf—but Sirius was still his best friend.

It hadn’t made things any easier that Peter had been quite vocal about the entire thing. He’d chewed Sirius out properly. James didn’t disagree, but Peter’s certainty only made James feel more tangled, not less. There was no neat side to stand on. Not when it was Remus on one end and Sirius on the other.

And now Sirius had vanished.

James didn’t know where he went at night. Not unless he checked the map. He suspected Sirius didn’t want to be found. Shame had a way of driving people into corners.

Peter had continued on as though things were normal, likely to appease Remus and James, but things were the farthest from normal they’d ever been. It made him uncomfortable to think Sirius had essentially been cut from their group, unofficially or not, whether Sirius had done it himself or not. The absence of him was stark and painfully obvious, and everyone had noticed.

James couldn’t bring himself to abandon him. Not when Sirius was clearly punishing himself far more harshly than anyone else ever could.

He loved Sirius. That was the simplest, truest thing he knew. Loved him fiercely, instinctively, with the kind of loyalty that had once felt unshakeable. He knew Sirius better than anyone—knew his recklessness, his anger, the way he burned too hot and too fast, especially where his family was concerned.

James didn’t think Sirius was cruel. He didn’t think he’d wanted anyone hurt. But intention didn’t erase impact, and this time, the consequences had been unbearable.

Remus was James’s best friend too. Remus carried so much already, bore it with such careful restraint, and Sirius had torn straight through that without thinking. James could still see the look on Remus’s face afterward: the shock, the betrayal, the way his trust had collapsed inward on itself.

Marlene had always had a talent for reading what James didn’t say as clearly as what he did. It was one of the reasons they’d lasted as friends for so long.

“That bad, huh?” she said lightly, but her tone had softened.

James swallowed, lungs burning as much from the weight of it as the run. He shrugged, because shrugging was easier than explaining. Easier than admitting he felt like he was failing both of them.

“He’s just—busy. And tired. And—” He stopped, breath hitching, frustration bleeding through the cracks. “I don’t know. He’s not… himself, lately.” He managed, being careful with what he chose to reveal.

Marlene paused in thought and then exhaled, letting it go—for now. She picked up her pace again, grin flashing back into place like it hadn’t wavered at all.

“Well, next week,” she said, “it’s just us again. No more brooding intellectuals allowed.”

James laughed quietly, grateful for the release, and matched her stride without thinking.

~*~

Regulus had stopped trying to sleep an hour ago. At some point—some indeterminate stretch of time after Evan’s snoring had tipped from mildly irritating into genuinely impressive—he’d given up on the idea entirely.

He laid there glaring at the ceiling, sheets twisted around his legs, listening to Evan inhale as if he was genuinely trying to consume all available oxygen in the dungeon. After silently plotting to smother him to death with a pillow, Regulus relented, deciding he might as well get up.

He slipped out of bed quietly, careful not to wake Evan—though he doubted that was possible, considering he hadn’t budged when having many objects tossed at his head throughout the night.

He dressed without thinking much about it, tugging on clothes and reaching for his notebook. If he wasn’t going to sleep, he’d at least get some writing done.

When he finally made it outside, the air was cool and smelled faintly of damp stone, morning dew drifting in through open archways.

Regulus breathed easier almost immediately.

He’d always been like this. Even as a child, he’d found himself waking early, slipping away from the rest of the house to sit by windows or wander the garden at Grimmauld Place. Writing had followed naturally. It had started small, at first—fragments of poems, annotations scribbled into margins, all sorts of thoughts he didn’t yet have language for, being so young. Over time, it had grown into routine.

Now, he tried to write every day.

Poetry had become less of an indulgence and more of a practice, something he worked at with the same seriousness he applied to everything else that felt important.

He stepped out into the ground’s courtyard just as the sky began to lighten properly.

The stone archways rose around him, tall and imposing, their surfaces worn smooth in places by centuries of hands and backs and passing bodies. Ivy crept along some of them, dark green against pale stone. The arches cast long shadows across the ground, creating pockets of even cooler shade.

Regulus slowed.

He climbed up onto the low stone ledge with practiced ease, settling himself sideways against the column. One knee bent, the other foot braced lightly against the arch, posture relaxed in a way he rarely allowed himself in front of anyone else.

But just as he flipped open the cover of his notebook, something shifted out of the corner of his eye.

Regulus froze.

Across from him, on the same stretch of stone ledge, sat a pair of feet.

They were planted casually against the stone, heels resting on the edge. Ankles crossed. Trousers hemmed just high enough to expose pale skin to the cold air.

But there was nothing above them.

Regulus blinked rapidly.

It had to be some trick of the light. Right? Exhaustion finally catching up with him, his sleep-deprived mind conjuring shapes where there were none? But his grip tightened around the notebook as his eyes flicked upward instinctively, searching for the rest of the body that should have been there.

Then he looked back down.

The shoes.

They were black, dulled and scuffed at the toes. The leather looked expensive—there was no mistaking that. Regulus owned the same pair. Had since he was thirteen.

These, however, were worse for wear.

Mud clung to the creases, dried into the seams. The heel was worn unevenly, the leather cracked faintly along one side where it had been flexed too many times. Familiar damage. Damage Regulus had seen before.

Recognition came with an unwelcome twist in his stomach.

Sirius.

Regulus stared, suspicion overtaking the initial shock. Slowly, carefully, he studied the empty space above the ankles. The air there shimmered faintly, just barely, like heat over a stove if one looked too long.

An invisibility cloak, then.

His eyes narrowed.

He hesitated, pen forgotten entirely now. For a moment, he considered leaving. Pretending he hadn’t seen anything. Letting Sirius wake on his own and slipping away before he was noticed.

Then came the sharp pang of irritation. Then concern.

What the hell was he doing here? Was he actually sleeping out here?

Before he could talk himself out of it, Regulus reached out and seized Sirius’s ankle, fingers closing hard around bone and leather.

The reaction was immediate.

A startled, half-strangled yelp tore through the quiet courtyard as the foot jerked violently out of his grasp. The invisibility cloak slid sideways in a rush of silvery fabric, collapsing in on itself as Sirius flailed upright, eyes wide, hair sticking up wildly, breath coming fast.

“What the fuck?” Sirius panted, voice hoarse as he scrambled back on the ledge, one hand flying to his ankle as if to make sure it was still attached. His eyes snapped up—and locked onto Regulus.

The shock didn’t vanish so much as calcify into something guarded.

“Oh,” Sirius said, voice flattening. “It’s you.”

Regulus didn’t move from where he sat. He hadn’t flinched when Sirius startled awake, hadn’t recoiled when the cloak fell away in a silvery heap at Sirius’s side. He only watched him, expression carved into something cool and unreadable, notebook still resting open against his knee.

“Sleeping outside now?” Regulus asked, glancing once again toward the invisibility cloak.

Sirius looked out of sorts. He dragged a hand through his hair and pushed it back out of his face. He looked half-feral in the early light—eyes ringed faintly dark, collar crooked—Regulus realized he was fully dressed in his school uniform, despite it being the end of the weekend.

“Yes—no—just—” Sirius stumbled through his words, clearly still waking up. He sighed sharply, swinging his legs over the ledge to stand. “Just lost track of time.” He muttered, avoiding looking directly at Regulus as he fumbled in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. When he opened it up, he plucked out the last one.

Regulus watched lazily as Sirius brought it to his lips, shakily lighting it.

“You haven’t been at meals.”

“I’ve been busy—”

“Too busy to eat?”

“It’s not like that. Don’t start that.” Sirius said more sharply now, finger pointing toward him, pacing as he took rapid drags.

Regulus’s eyes followed him as he moved, assessing the situation silently.

“Has something happened?” He asked hesitantly, voice low. He couldn’t stop the flare of selfish hope that something had. That perhaps Dorcas had been right—maybe Sirius isn’t with them anymore.

Sirius turned away abruptly, facing the wall. He tossed the half smoked cigarette, crushing it under his shoe.

“It’s—it’s fine, Regulus.” He said weakly, still facing away. “I’d just like to be alone.”

“No you don’t.” Regulus returned quickly, and the certainty in his voice surprised even him. The words left his mouth before he had even fully decided to say them.

He watched Sirius stiffen at the sound of them, shoulders tightening, spine straightening. That reaction—immediate, defensive—felt achingly familiar. Regulus had known it since childhood.

Sirius had never known how to sit quietly with himself. Not as a child, not as a teenager, not ever. Silence unsettled him. Being alone gnawed at him until he did something stupid and reckless. Regulus had known that since they were children, since Sirius had always filled every room he entered, always needed noise, people, friction. Solitude didn’t suit him. It never had.

And yet here he’d been, sleeping out in the cold. Avoiding everyone, it seemed. Hiding.

The thought slipped in before he could stop it, before he could shut it down.

Something had happened. It must have.

Regulus didn’t even care what it was. He didn’t need details. He just needed it to be true.

He wanted Sirius back.

It didn’t matter if it was a fight or something quieter and worse. If Sirius wasn’t with them anymore—if he’d been pushed out, or had stepped away—then there was space again. Space Regulus hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath for.

A chance.

The want was immediate and unreasonable, crashing over everything else with no regard for practicality or history or the very real fact that Sirius no longer belonged to him in any way that mattered. Sirius lived with the Potters now. Sirius had chosen something else. Their mother would never—

Regulus cut the thought off sharply.

He ignored the impossible truth that Walburga would never allow Sirius back through Grimmauld’s doors now. Even if he begged. Even if Sirius begged.

But Regulus had never been good at accepting immovable things. He had been raised on the idea that everything bent eventually, if pressed hard enough. He would find a way.

He always did.

He chose his next words carefully, still strained with tension, but slightly softer now.

“There’s a spare bed in my dorm. There’s no need to freeze out here.”

He could feel Sirius harden even from where he sat, even with Sirius still facing away.

“No. I was just about to head back, actually.”

The words landed heavier than Regulus expected.

Head back.

Back where? Back to them?

The fragile structure he’d built in his head—hope stacked on inference stacked on want—collapsed all at once. The courtyard seemed to sharpen around him, the chill more pronounced, the stone biting colder through his clothes. For a moment, he felt genuinely disoriented, like he’d misread something obvious while everyone else could see it.

So he wasn’t done with them.

So this wasn’t what Regulus had thought.

Confusion followed quickly on the heels of disappointment, tangled and unpleasant. If Sirius was going back, then why was he sleeping out here at all? Why the avoidance? Why look so wrecked and threadbare in the early light, like he hadn’t rested properly in days?

The questions crowded in all at once. Regulus felt them press at the back of his throat, each one begging to be asked. He wanted to know where Sirius had been. He wanted to know what had hollowed him out enough to make the stone courtyard feel preferable to a bed.

He had counted the absences without meaning to. Sirius missing at meals. Sirius not in the corridors with the others. And now this—curled up outside at dawn, quite literally invisible, and all alone.

Dorcas had noticed. Regulus had noticed. Surely it hadn’t all been imagined. Dorcas is always right, the defiant part of him insisted. She has to be.

Surely he hadn’t been wrong to feel that flicker of possibility. That selfish, aching thought he hadn’t let himself finish: I could have him back.

He’d only cared that Sirius might be unmoored. That he might need somewhere to land.

But there was a wall between them now, rising higher every year since Sirius had run. Since the day Regulus had realized his brother could leave and not look back. The letter had only sealed it, mortared the cracks into something permanent. Whatever space had once existed between them, where questions could be asked and answered honestly, was gone.

Regulus swallowed.

He suddenly felt foolish.

Foolish for hoping. For the way it had spiked so fast, so bright, like it had been waiting for an excuse. Foolish for offering himself up again, palm open, just to feel it slapped away. He felt stupid and small for wanting anything at all.

He straightened his posture automatically, drawing the cold back into himself, smoothing his expression into something neutral and distant once again. Ice, settling back into place. If Sirius wanted to leave, Regulus would let him. He had learned through experience not to offer himself up where he wasn’t wanted.

Still, the worry didn’t vanish.

No matter how far Sirius went, no matter how many times he turned away, that thread remained. Brothers, whether they liked it or not. Some part of Regulus would always be attuned to Sirius’s state, always cataloguing the signs.

He hated that it all still mattered to him.

“Fine,” he said at last, voice level, carefully blank. He didn’t look at Sirius as he spoke, instead looking down to his open notebook, the blank page staring back at him. “Do what you like.”

Regulus closed the notebook with deliberate care and slid it back into his bag. He shifted on the ledge, angling his body away, already preparing to stand, to leave Sirius to his choices and his secrets.

The air felt colder as Sirius gathered himself too, the invisibility cloak rustling softly. Regulus kept his gaze on the archway ahead, on the pale light creeping higher along the stone, and told himself—over and over—that if Sirius wanted to go, Regulus wouldn’t stop him.

He wouldn’t ask for more rejection than he’d already been given.

~*~

Monday 25th October 1976

“I know it’s in here somewhere—”

Mary Macdonald’s voice carried just loudly enough to earn a faint, disapproving shh from somewhere deeper in the stacks as she dug both hands into her purse with mounting indignation. James, seated across from her, watched with mild fascination.

He was back in the library. Again. He swore he practically lived here now.

Last year had done that to him—O.W.L. season had burned the layout of the library into his brain so thoroughly that he could probably navigate it blindfolded. Sitting here again, elbow propped on the table, felt strangely routine.

Across from him, Lily Evans sat with perfect posture, hair pulled back loosely, sleeves rolled just enough to keep her from smudging ink on them. She was halfway through annotating a Charms passage, expression long-suffering but fond as she glanced over occasionally to watch Mary dig.

The study group—if you could call it that—was usually just Mary, Lily, and Remus. James had inserted himself lately with very little ceremony, pretending he had something productive to do. Officially, he was “studying.” In practice, he was more so there as a buffer. Someone who could redirect a conversation if it drifted too close to… certain topics.

Someone who could keep Sirius from coming up.

Remus sat beside James, hunched slightly over his notes, jumper sleeves pulled down over his wrists despite the relative warmth inside. His quill moved steadily, even as Mary’s rummaging grew louder.

The table they’d claimed sat near one of the tall windows, where the afternoon light filtered in at an angle, dust motes drifting lazily through the air. The long oak surface was already cluttered—Lily’s neat stack of parchment aligned just so, her ink bottle placed precisely at the top right corner; Remus’s books arranged in a careful sprawl; James’s own contribution consisting of one textbook, one abandoned roll of parchment, and a quill he’d already chewed halfway to death.

Mary, however, was about to outdo them all.

“I swear,” she muttered, brow furrowed as she tipped her purse upside down experimentally, giving it a little shake. “I put it in a side pocket.”

“Mary—” Lily began impatiently.

James leaned back in his chair just in time.

The contents of Mary’s purse spilled across the table in an undignified cascade.

A lipstick rolled free, uncapped, leaving a faint pink smear across the edge of Remus’s parchment. A tangled cluster of hair ties followed, then a crumpled Honeydukes wrapper, and a handful of Sickles that clattered loudly enough to earn them another dark look from Madam Pince. A broken quill skidded toward Lily’s elbow. A folded scrap of parchment—definitely not Charms homework—fluttered down.

Remus, who had gone very still, lifted his book slightly to keep it from being buried alive, his mouth twitching despite himself. Lily pressed her lips together, valiantly attempting not to laugh, though her eyes were already bright with it.

“Oh—wait! Well, no, that’s not it—” Mary huffed, already elbow-deep again as she shook the purse harder, determination sharpening her voice. Out came a compact mirror, a packet of mints, what looked suspiciously like a half-finished Transfiguration essay, and a small vial which rolled dangerously close to the edge of the table before James caught it on reflex.

Mary crouched slightly, peering down at the mess with narrowed eyes. “Okay. Well, it was in here.”

Remus lifted his eyes at last, looking over the clutter in resignation. “How you manage to find anything at all is beyond me,” he muttered.

Lily pinched the bridge of her nose. “Mary.” She repeated with emphasis, closing her eyes as if to ground herself.

“What?” Mary said innocently, already digging through the pile now, spreading things out with no regard for personal space. “I keep everything important in here. You told me not to forget, and I didn’t forget. It’s just... temporarily misplaced.”

Lily opened her eyes. “That is not—”

Their argument picked up speed from there, familiar and well-worn, and James found himself watching the exchange with quiet amusement, eyes flicking between them.

James was faintly aware of Remus’s bouncing leg next to him. He let his gaze drift sideways, subtle as he could manage. Remus’s eyes were still on the page in front of him, brow faintly furrowed, mouth set in a thin, thoughtful line. His quill paused, hovering.

“Hey,” he murmured, low enough that only Remus would hear, nudging his knee gently with his own under the table.

Remus startled slightly, the bounce stopping mid-motion. He glanced at James, eyes flicking up too quickly, too alert.

“You alright?” James asked, casual. He kept his voice light on purpose.

Remus hesitated, then nodded once. “Yeah. Just—” He trailed off, then shook his head, as if dismissing the thought entirely. He looked back to his parchment, quill finally touching down again. “Fine.”

Mary suddenly straightened, triumphant. “HA! I knew it!”

She held up a folded piece of parchment, crumpled and clearly abused, shaking it slightly in victory. Lily groaned.

James smiled automatically, but his attention drifted again when Remus moved.

He leaned in just enough that his shoulder nearly brushed with James’s. His voice was low, pitched carefully beneath the noise of Mary and Lily’s continued chatter.

“Can you grab something for me?” Remus murmured.

James turned his head a fraction. “What?”

Remus didn’t look at him. His eyes stayed on the page in front of him, thumb pressed to the margin. “Third aisle in, near the back. Foundations of Magical Defense. I thought it was checked out, but I saw it returned earlier.”

James’s gaze flicked across the room. Specifically, the far end of the library—where the shelves curved inward and the light dimmed, where fewer people bothered to go unless they were looking for something particular.

He knew that corner well. He’d sat there not long ago, hunched over parchment, in fact.

“Sure,” he said, too quickly. He cleared his throat and pushed his chair back, more than eager to be helpful. “Yeah. I’ll grab it.”

James stood, stretching his arms overhead in a way that looked casual but felt anything but. As he moved away from the table, the noise softened behind him.

He passed Madam Pince’s desk with a polite nod and didn’t slow until the shelves rose higher around him, cutting off the light from the tall windows.

The farther he walked, the quieter it got.

The shelves rose around him like walls, tall and narrow, their spines packed tightly enough to blot out most of the light from the main windows. Candle sconces dotted the aisles at irregular intervals, their flames steady and low, casting soft pools of gold. The air back here was cooler, heavier with dust and old parchment, and it carried a faint, comforting smell James had come to associate with thinking too much.

His trainers scuffed softly against the stone, eyes scanning the shelves for the title Remus had asked for. James slowed without meaning to, fingers trailing along the spines of books as he passed, reading titles absently while his mind stayed stubbornly elsewhere.

He exhaled through his nose and reached for books at random, sliding them partway out before realizing it wasn’t what he was looking for. He shoved each one back into place and kept moving.

He instinctively recognized the shape of the space ahead—the way the shelves bent just enough to form a shallow alcove, half-hidden from the main path unless you knew it was there.

James hesitated at the mouth of it, fingers still grazing the spines beside him.

For a moment, he considered turning back. He was back here for Remus’s book, nothing else. He could grab it and go. Be efficient. Be useful.

Instead, his gaze slid sideways.

The desk sat exactly where he’d left it.

It was tucked neatly into the alcove, pushed just far enough back that it didn’t obstruct the aisle, its surface catching the candlelight. The chair was pulled in, slightly askew, like someone had stood up too quickly and never bothered to straighten it.

And there—right in the center of the desk, impossible to miss—was a cleanly folded piece of parchment.

He stepped closer, frowning faintly, curiosity stirring despite himself. The shelves closed in behind him, muting the sounds of the rest of the library until it felt like the world had narrowed to this one small pocket of space. He reached the desk and stopped just short of touching it.

As he did, he looked down to the wood itself.

The etching was still there.

The letters caught the low candlelight at a certain angle, shallow grooves carved deliberately into the desk’s surface. He felt a twist in his chest as he read them again, the words as stark now as they had been the night he’d left them there.

What am I supposed to do now?

He hadn’t planned on carving it. His quill just hadn’t been moving fast enough, and his thoughts were looping too tightly. Writing had always been how he worked things out—how he slowed himself down, how he untangled the mess in his head when it got too loud.

That night, his thoughts had felt too big and overwhelming to fit anywhere else, so he'd put them to the page.

The incident replayed itself every time James let his guard down—the split-second decision, the cold rush of panic, the sick certainty that if he hadn’t acted when he did, something irreversible would’ve happened.

Logically, he knew it wasn’t his fault.

Emotionally, that knowledge meant very little.

He was supposed to be the anchor. That was how it had always felt—James in the middle, holding everything together through sheer momentum and optimism. He’d been Sirius’s balance, or at least, he’d thought so. Best friends were supposed to stop each other from doing stupid things. He should’ve intercepted it. Should’ve seen it coming. Shouldn’t have been so wrapped up in himself.

He didn’t know how to talk to Remus now. Every attempt felt clumsy, inadequate. He knew he’d been hovering too much. But the alternative—backing off, pretending everything was fine—felt unbearable.

He had been telling himself Sirius needed space, that pushing would make it worse, but late at night the excuses rang hollow. Sirius had been disappearing nightly, and James had let him. He was still letting him.

Staring at the question he’d carved into the desk, he felt that familiar spiral tighten in his chest.

He’d been spiraling that night. Writing, crossing things out, starting again. Trying to untangle blame from responsibility. He was trying to figure out on paper what came next, but every option had felt wrong.

His gaze flicked back to the folded parchment on the desk.

Slowly, he reached out and picked up the folded note.

It was lighter than he expected, edges crisp, folded with intention rather than haste. He turned it over once in his fingers before opening it, half-expecting it to be blank.

Instead, he found a single line written in very small, very tidy cursive.

James squinted, then pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and leaned closer.

If you’re going to ask questions like that, at least use parchment.

For a second, he just stared at it. Then a quiet, incredulous huff escaped him before he could stop it.

His ears warmed despite himself.

He glanced down at the desk again, at the carved letters. The words felt heavier now that he knew they’d been read by someone else.

He bristled at first, then something close to embarrassment took over. He probably looked like an absolute prat, carving his feelings into library furniture like some dramatic first year.

James pulled his wand from his pocket and tapped the desk lightly.

The magic worked slowly, the grooves in the wood softening first, edges blurring as if rubbed smooth by invisible fingers. The letters faded shallow by shallow until the surface was whole again, unmarred and anonymous, the desk returned to what it had always been.

He watched until the last trace vanished.

Then, despite every sensible thought telling him he should go—his friends were likely waiting for him, after all, and he was meant to be finding a book—James lowered himself into the chair.

Without really deciding to, he reached for the quill resting beside the ink bottle. It was already stained from use, nib slightly bent, clearly communal. He flipped the note over, smoothed it against the desk, and began to write.

The words came easier than he expected.

When he finished, he didn’t reread it. Knowing how he’d been lately, he’d probably just overthink it. He folded the parchment once more and slid it into the side of the desk, tucking it just enough that a corner peeked out—visible to someone who knew to look, invisible to everyone else.

Then he stood.

James stepped back into the aisle, the shelves opening up around him again, library sounds filtering back in. He shook himself once, like he was resetting, and refocused.

Foundations of Magical Defense.

Right.

He headed deeper into the stacks, eyes scanning spines, the note—and the desk—left behind exactly where they were.

Chapter Text

Monday 25th October, 1976

The corridor outside the fourth-floor staircase was quiet. Being late-evening now, most students would have already retreated to their common rooms.

Remus paused at the corner, adjusting the fall of his robes out of habit, making sure his prefect badge was visible. He checked his watch, then leaned lightly back against the wall, careful of his weight. His left leg ached faintly. He did his best to ignore it.

Tonight would be his first patrol paired with Regulus Black.

He checked his watch again, despite knowing the time. He was five minutes early. He’d gotten into that habit last spring, after Lily had scolded him one too many times for his lateness.

Despite Lily’s well-earned reputation for rule-following, patrolling with her was unexpectedly easy—pleasant, even. Remus would have gone so far as to say that very little actual patrolling happened when they were paired together. They always drifted through empty corridors without any hurry, talking more than watching.

Lily treated her rounds with Remus less like one of her obligations and more like borrowed time: a chance to think out loud, to debate, to complain about professors or essays or the state of the war. She had a way of filling the silence without demanding anything from him in return.

He doubted tonight would be anything like that.

Walking beside Regulus, Remus suspected there would be no drifting, no easy detours, no conversation that meandered without purpose. Regulus had always struck him as someone who treated responsibility as something to be endured, and properly.

So—Remus adjusted his expectations accordingly.

Footsteps reached him a moment later, coming from the far end of the corridor. He straightened instinctively, pushing himself off the wall, the ache in his leg flaring and then subsiding as he stilled. The sound grew clearer, sharper against the stone, until the figure rounded the corner into view.

Regulus Black stopped several paces away.

For a heartbeat, they simply looked at one another.

He looked different than he had when they were younger—sharper, somehow. Taller than Remus remembered, though still a bit shorter than Sirius. His own prefect badge gleamed against the dark green of his trim, looking newly polished. Everything about Regulus appeared considered: curls neatly framing his face, cuffs aligned, wand holstered exactly where it ought to be.

Remus was suddenly conscious of the small differences between them. The faint crease in his own robes where he’d leaned against the wall. The way his own badge sat a fraction off-center no matter how often he adjusted it.

He had only seen Regulus properly a handful of times over the years, despite sharing the same castle. As Sirius’s younger brother, he seemed more just a presence rather than a personality, as far as Remus could tell. He remembered Regulus as pale and withdrawn, always hovering at the edges of rooms, watching more than speaking. Cold, people said. Polite, others insisted. Untouchable.

The last time they’d been in close proximity had been quite recently, actually, on the Hogwarts Express at the start of term, sitting stiffly with the Head Boy and Girl amongst other prefects while assignments were handed out.

Regulus had listened intently, hands folded, gaze fixed somewhere just over the Head Girl’s shoulder. He hadn’t spoken unless addressed, and when he had, his voice had been calm and rather succinct. Older than Remus remembered. More composed.

But really, Remus had only ever been alone with the younger Black one other time in his life.

It was nearly a year ago now, close to Halloween. Remus had ducked inside a nearby bathroom in between classes to avoid drawing attention to a nosebleed he hadn’t felt coming. He’d barely had time to register that someone else was there before he’d seen Regulus pacing back and forth erratically across the tiled floor.

Regulus’s hands had been clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles were white, his breath coming in short, uneven bursts. Hot tears streaked down his face unchecked, fury and panic tangled together.

Remus had frozen, startled more than anything else. He hadn’t meant to intrude. He’d already begun backing away when Regulus had spun, wand up, eyes wild.

The hex had come at him without warning—sloppily, and driven purely by reflex. It struck hard enough to send a sharp ringing through his ears, hard enough to make the intent unmistakable even if the pain itself was fleeting.

“Get out,” Regulus had shouted, his voice splintering, whatever control he’d had already in pieces. “Get out.”

Remus had retreated immediately, pulse thundering—not offended so much as bewildered. Confusion had swallowed everything else.

He never told anyone what he’d seen. Not Sirius, not James—not even Peter. Some things, he understood instinctively, were not secrets so much as boundaries—lines you did not cross simply because you could.

Standing here now, in the dim corridor light, it was difficult to reconcile that frantic, unraveling boy with the one in front of him. This Regulus held himself together with visible effort, everything locked neatly into place. Whatever cracks had existed once were hidden now—papered over, reinforced, and controlled.

“Lupin,” Regulus said at last.

“Black,” Remus replied automatically. The exchange felt oddly formal.

Regulus inclined his head and spoke again. “West wing,” he said. “Second floor down, I believe.”

“That’s what I have,” Remus replied. “We’ll start here and work our way down, then?”

Regulus nodded once, already turning, setting off down the empty corridor without comment.

Remus pushed off the wall and fell into step beside him. He adjusted his pace quickly, lengthening his stride just enough to match Regulus’s brisk walk. He felt the faint pull in his leg again and ignored it, focusing instead on keeping himself steady.

If Regulus noticed Remus watching him out of the corner of his eye, he gave no indication, keeping his gaze forward.

He wondered, fleetingly, what Regulus thought of him. Of Sirius’s older friends. He wondered if Regulus remembered the incident from last year, and if he carried it like Remus did.

He doubted it had been forgotten.

They made steady progress. A handful of third years loitering near a classroom doorway scattered at the sight of the silver badges; Regulus’s voice was calm and unyielding as he sent them off to bed, and Remus watched how efficiently it was done.

The corridor emptied again, and the castle settled back into its low, watchful quiet.

But as they rounded another corner, Remus nearly collided with someone moving far too quickly in the opposite direction.

Hands caught the edge of Remus’s sleeves briefly to keep them both upright. There was a sharp intake of breath, the scrape of shoes on stone as the other boy stumbled back half a step—and then Remus’s chest went tight and hot all at once.

Sirius.

Sirius released his grip on Remus as if he’d been burned. His gaze flicked from Remus to Regulus and back again, a tinge of alarm flashing across his face before something shuttered down over it. His shoulders drew back as if he’d walked straight into a trap.

Remus stood there, frozen mid-step, heart hammering so hard he felt it crawling up his throat. The sudden spike of adrenaline left him dizzy, breath catching shallow and fast before he forced it down.

He hadn’t realized how thoroughly he’d trained himself not to expect this—to see Sirius so close, so real, instead of as a blur on the stairs or a shadow slipping into the dorm at dawn. His tongue felt like lead in his mouth as he parted his lips to say something, anything—

“Sorry,” Sirius muttered first, voice low and rough, apology rushed and incomplete. He hurriedly slipped between the pair of them, pace uneven as he passed, like he was fighting the instinct to run outright.

Words crowded at the base of Remus’s throat, sudden and overwhelming as he turned to watch him go. Wait. Don’t. You can’t just—

They pressed so hard it almost burned, sharp and insistent, and for one reckless moment Remus nearly moved. His foot shifted forward without permission, instinct pulling him after Sirius down the corridor.

He stopped himself only by force.

Beside him, Regulus had gone very still.

He hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t called after his brother, or reacted outwardly at all. His expression remained carefully composed, but something had tightened along his jaw, a subtle rigidity that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. He stared down the empty corridor Sirius had vanished into, eyes unreadable.

After a beat, Regulus turned back to Remus.

“You alright?” He asked quietly, gaze flicking to the tremor in Remus’s hand.

Remus quickly shoved both hands into his pockets, exerting more control over his expression quickly. “Yeah,” he replied a bit too bitterly, “Fine.”

Regulus paused for a moment, then hummed. He resumed walking again, steps clipped. Remus exhaled sharply, once again struggling to keep up with the quick change of pace.

They passed another stretch of wall, torches sputtering faintly. Regulus didn’t look at him when he spoke again.

“You know, he wasn’t at breakfast this morning,” Regulus said. “Or lunch. Or dinner tonight.”

Remus’s grip tightened on the edge of his sleeve. “I don’t keep track of your brother’s whereabouts, if that’s what you’re gearing up to ask.”

“No,” Regulus agreed. “I imagine you don’t.”

And there it was. The edge beneath the politeness.

They walked a few more paces in silence. Remus could feel it building—whatever Regulus was circling, whatever question he was clearly not inclined to ask directly. He almost preferred it when Slytherins were blunt.

“I found him sleeping outside yesterday morning.” Regulus said at last.

Remus halted. It took Regulus several steps ahead to notice he was no longer being followed.

“Sleeping outside?” he repeated, sharp despite himself. He stepped toward Regulus now, confusion knitting quickly into something harder. “What do you mean, outside?”

“I found him asleep in the courtyard,” Regulus repeated simply. “At dawn. As if he’d slept there all night.” He finally looked at Remus then, eyes cool and assessing.

Something lurched in Remus’s stomach.

He hadn’t seen Sirius properly since that night, over two weeks ago. The last full moon.

He’d woken up the morning after his transformation instinctively knowing that something had gone terribly, horribly wrong.

The first thing he’d noticed was the blood. Too much blood. Thick, dark patches soaked into his skin and the floor beneath him.

His arms burned when he’d tried to move them. His chest felt tight, scraped raw. And his leg—his left leg—sent up a sharp, screaming protest the moment he shifted his weight, pain blooming so suddenly it stole his breath.

He was used to soreness, to bruising, to shallow cuts and raw skin. But that morning was different. His body felt torn open. There was blood crusted along his ribs and arms, tacky and stiff, and deeper gashes than he could immediately account for.

His leg was the worst of it: long, angry wounds along the muscle, reopened scars layered over older ones. The limp he already carried felt heavier afterward. More permanent.

That had never happened before. Not to this degree. Even back when he’d spent every full moon alone, he’d never woken to this level of violence.

His hands had shaken as he checked himself, methodical despite the rising panic, trying to make sense of injuries that felt excessive even by the wolf’s standards.

His first coherent thought outside of his own pain had been, Which one of them did I hurt?

He imagined frantic scrambling, someone intervening late, someone nearly not making it. The idea that the wolf had been more violent than usual terrified him. Not because of what it meant for him, but because of what it meant for them.

James. Peter. Sirius. He ran through them in his mind with mounting dread, convinced one of them must have been too close, too slow, too careless. The idea that he might have injured one of them—even accidentally—made his stomach drop out entirely.

He was so used to carrying responsibility for the wolf that his mind defaulted to guilt before reason. If something had gone wrong, it would have been his fault. It was the rule he lived by.

He hadn’t suspected an intruder. He certainly hadn’t imagined Severus Snape. The idea that someone unfamiliar had been near him never occurred to him—not then. And his own friends leading someone to him in this state, least of all, was unthinkable.

His trust in all of them was so fundamental at that point, that his mind simply couldn’t make room for any version of events where they had been responsible for this. And the notion that Sirius in particular would have engineered the situation was so incompatible with Remus’s understanding of him, that his mind simply could not access it.

He’d cycled through rapid explanations. He’d eventually come to the conclusion that the wolf must have been more agitated than usual. Locked in the Shack after being restrained, it must have turned its aggression inward—clawing at walls, at doors, at itself.

That was the explanation that made sense to him. He had always known the wolf was capable of that kind of destruction. He’d lived it for ten years, until the rest of the Marauders had given him enough freedom to roam with them instead of being caged in the Shack.

It was James who had been there in the Hospital Wing, sitting close, his steady hands anchoring Remus to the bed. He’d spoken calmly, explaining what had happened in careful pieces, as though Remus were something fragile that might splinter if handled too roughly.

Remus had listened, nodding when expected, but the words hadn’t truly sunk in. Panic had drowned out comprehension. He’d fixated instead on whether everyone was alive, intact, safe. Whether Severus Snape was alive. Whether Sirius was.

When that final piece was placed in front of him—when James explained how Snape had known where to go, how he’d been led there—the world had tipped beneath him, the floor dropping away without warning.

None of it fit together in a way that made sense alongside the Sirius he knew, trusted, relied on. Even now, his mind kept circling the information he’d been given and recoiling from it, like touching something too hot and pulling back again and again.

“That’s his choice,” Remus finally found himself saying. “Nobody’s forcing him.”

Regulus’s jaw twitched. He started to speak again, but Remus felt the rush of frustration take over him, words spilling out hot and fast.

“We didn’t throw him out, if that’s what you’re implying—”

“I was only stating a fact, Lupin.”

“Well, let me state one back,” Remus shot back. “Sirius hasn’t been barred from anything. He hasn’t been locked out of the dorm, or told to leave. If he wants a bed, he has one. If he wants to talk, he knows where we are. You don’t know what happened—”

“Then why don’t you enlighten me?” Regulus replied coolly. “At the very least, I know it involves you. And Potter. And Pettigrew.” His gaze flicked briefly back down the corridor behind him, then returned to Remus. “Sirius doesn’t run without reason.”

“If you’re accusing us of mistreating him, you can say it outright.”

“I want to know what he’s being punished for.”

An incredulous laugh bubbled its way out of Remus. He hadn’t realized, until this moment, how much Regulus even seemed to care about Sirius. Or perhaps care wasn’t the right word. Defend, maybe. Stand guard.

Remus thought, not for the first time, that he didn’t understand brothers. He’d never had one. Never had someone you were expected to protect regardless of the damage they caused.

The absurdity of it all pressed in on him—the idea that he was standing in a torchlit corridor, being interrogated by Sirius Black’s younger brother about a situation he hadn’t even spoken aloud to anyone else. Not even to himself, if he was being honest.

“Punished,” He finally echoed, a light scoff escaping him. He straightened, meeting Regulus’s gaze head-on. “If he feels punished, I can assure you he’s only doing it to himself—he doesn’t need our help with that.” Remus said, his voice low and tight, controlled only by effort. “I’m not going to stand here and catalogue my worst night for you, Black.”

Silence stretched between them again, thicker this time.

“You don’t know him the way you think you do,” Remus added, not unkindly, but with a weary certainty. “And neither do I, apparently. Not anymore.”

Regulus absorbed the words without comment.

For a moment, something flickered across his face—so brief Remus almost missed it. Something like uncertainty, as if the version of events he’d been holding up to the light had just shifted.

Then Regulus inclined his head dismissively, as if the conversation had reached its natural end.

“We should continue,” he said simply, then turned.

And that was that.

Remus stood there a second longer than necessary, pulse still thrumming, agitation settling deep and heavy in his chest. He followed after Regulus with a sharper step than before, his attention splintered.

The sheer absurdity of it all gnawed at him: being judged, however obliquely, by someone who had no place in the aftermath of that night. The idea that he might owe Regulus Black clarity or justification felt almost laughable.

He found himself glancing sideways more than once, half-expecting another veiled remark, another careful probe. It never came. Regulus remained distant, inscrutable, unaffected—or very good at pretending to be.

They completed the rest of their rounds in silence. When they finally split ways at the stairwell, they didn’t look at each other.

Remus descended alone, frustration coiling tight.

But despite himself, the image wouldn’t leave his mind. Of Sirius curled up somewhere cold, stone leaching heat from his body, pride doing the rest. Sirius asleep under open sky, choosing hard ground over a bed that hadn’t once been taken from him.

The thought gave him a sick twist of guilt.

Had it been one night? Or every night since?

Remus tried to shove it away, tried to replace it with indignation instead—with the truth he’d already said out loud. We didn’t make him leave. He wasn’t thrown out. He hasn’t been punished.

Sirius hadn’t been exiled. He hadn’t been shunned, or cast out. If he wanted to talk, the door hadn’t been locked. Remus had told him—hadn’t he?—that he forgave him. Less than a day later, still raw and exhausted and reeling, he’d said the words anyway. He hadn’t dangled forgiveness like a leash. He hadn’t demanded penance. He hadn’t iced Sirius out.

For fuck’s sake, he had forgiven him.

Remus hadn’t felt betrayed as much as he’d felt violated.

What terrified him most was how close the line had been. How easily it could have gone wrong without him ever knowing. The thought that his body, already something he did not fully control, could have been used as a weapon without his consent left him nauseated.

He had been exposed, instrumentalized, reduced to a mechanism for harm. The wolf had always taken things from him—but this time, someone else had pointed it.

And yet, when Sirius came to him afterward, unraveling and desperate, Remus did not lash out. His instinct had been containment.

He had smoothed the moment down, forced calm into his voice, told Sirius it was okay even as everything inside him had screamed that it wasn’t. Anger, to Remus, was dangerous in the same way the wolf was dangerous.

What hurt him was not the act alone, but what followed.

Sirius pulling away hurt more than any apology could have healed. Remus had braced himself for confrontation, for weeks of difficult conversations he wasn’t ready for but believed they would eventually have. Instead, Sirius had vanished, leaving Remus alone with unresolved terror and a forgiveness he had offered too early.

Peter’s fury on his behalf made him feel exposed, almost ashamed—as though he had failed to defend himself and allowed someone else to do it for him. James’s careful watchfulness felt worse: like supervision, like pity, like confirmation that something in Remus had been damaged and now required management.

He resented both responses. What he wanted was choice, not protection. To be trusted with his own pain.

He tried not to think about how Sirius used to look at him. Without flinching.

~*~

Tuesday 26th October, 1976

The Black Lake lay behind them now, dark and glassy, disturbed only by the faint ripples left behind by Barty’s tossed stones. Regulus walked back toward the castle with his hands tucked into his sleeves, boots damp from the lakeshore, the castle rising ahead of them in gray tiers.

Pandora lagged between them, arms full of small glass vials stoppered with cork and wrapped carefully in cloth. A few smooth stones clinked faintly in one pocket of her satchel each time she moved.

She still looked a bit pale around the edges, blonde hair tucked into her scarf, nose pink from the cold. She still sounded congested when she breathed, but the feverish glassiness had left her eyes. Now she just sniffed occasionally, wiping her nose on her sleeve without any embarrassment at all.

Barty trailed along her other side, already halfway through a spliff he’d been saving, smoke curling lazily around his face as he exhaled. He flicked ash toward the grass carelessly, trying to finish it quick before they made it up the hill. He’d already been reprimanded twice by Pandora for “contaminating the samples.”

Evan was already halfway up the slope toward the castle, his figure faint in the distance. He’d peeled off not long ago, complaining about an essay and promising—without conviction—that he’d meet them later.

But judging by Barty’s intense look, Regulus supposed there were other reasons.

“Grindylows don’t like the stones from the shallows, so I suppose they won’t mind I’ve taken a few,” Pandora was saying, peering into one of the vials and holding it up to the light as they walked. “They prefer the deeper ones, anyway.”

Barty snorted, smoke escaping through his nose. “They tell you that, did they? And was that before or after they tried eating you?”

“They’re not that vicious. Merpeople keep them as pets.” she said matter-of-factly, tucking the vial back into her satchel. “Xeno told me. They train them from very young. Apparently they respond well to sound patterns.”

Barty rolled his eyes hard, dragging the spliff from his mouth. “Loony Lovegood would say that,” he muttered. “Merpeople with pet grindylows. What’s next—knitted jumpers for kelpies?”

Pandora turned on him so abruptly that Regulus nearly collided with her shoulder. She swatted Barty’s arm, making him nearly miss a step.

“Don’t call him that,” she said sharply, voice cutting clean through the chilled air. Her eyes flashed, the lingering softness of illness vanishing entirely.

Barty lifted his hands in mock surrender, grinning. “Alright, alright. Sorry. He’s a visionary, clearly. But you can’t honestly expect me to believe—”

“It’s true,” Pandora interrupted, immediately, as if daring him to contradict her. She pivoted instead toward Regulus, brows lifting. “Isn’t it?”

Regulus blinked, pulled out of his thoughts, then nodded once. “It is,” he said calmly. “There are records of it. It’s uncommon, but it’s documented.”

Pandora’s expression softened at once, vindicated. She turned back to Barty with a look that clearly said told you so.

Barty groaned theatrically and took another drag. “Whatever you say,” he drawled. “All I’ve ever heard about them is that they’re a popular black market trade.”

Pandora’s brows knit. “They are not.”

“They are,” Barty insisted cheerfully. “And depending on who you ask, they’re considered quite the delicacy.”

Pandora hit him again, this time harder.

“You’re vile, Bartemius!”

Barty laughed, coughing slightly on smoke as he dodged her half-hearted third attempt. “What? I’m just saying. You spend enough time around the wrong sort of people, you hear things. Right, Reggie?”

Regulus rolled his eyes, letting their voices wash over him as they continued their walking. The castle loomed closer now, grey stone rising out of the hillside.

Barty flicked the end of his spliff away as they reached the edge of the grounds, grinding it under his heel without much thought. “So,” he said, glancing between them, “tower or dungeons?”

“I need to put these somewhere cool,” Pandora said, lifting her satchel slightly. “And then I promised myself a nap.”

“Thrilling,” Barty deadpanned. “I suppose I’ll come bother you later, then. What’ll it be, Black?”

Regulus kept walking, attention drifting ahead to the castle doors, even as his thoughts slid backward to the night before, in the darkened corridor with Lupin. When he’d realized how little he actually knew.

He wondered, distantly, whether Lupin was right. Whether Sirius was doing this to himself.

The thought sat uneasily in his mind as they passed beneath the archway, the sounds of the castle swallowing them.

“Hello? Regulus Arcturus Black?”

He registered the sound of his name a moment too late, the echo of it pulling him back into his body.

“What?” he asked, blinking.

Barty stopped short and stared at him as if personally offended. “Oh, come on,” he said, throwing his hands up. “What planet have you been on for the last five minutes? I asked if we’re heading to the tower or slumming it in the dungeons.”

Regulus frowned faintly, replaying the last few seconds in his head and coming up empty. His attention had been doing this more and more lately—slipping, wandering, catching on things it shouldn’t.

At his hesitation, Barty bent down, lowering himself to be eye-level with him.

He stared at Regulus intensely for a moment, then sighed like a man burdened by great suffering. “Ravenclaw tower or the dungeons,” he said slowly, enunciating each word as though Regulus were a particularly dense first-year. “Do you plan on abandoning me now, or later?”

Regulus shoved him harshly with a scowl, stepping around him. “Neither,” he said. “We should be getting a head start on our coursework. O.W.L.s aren’t optional, no matter how much you pretend they are.”

Barty made a face like he’d bitten into something rotten. “Merlin, you sound ninety. It’s not even Halloween. Just because you’ve taken inspiration from Evan doesn’t mean the rest of us have to suffer.”

Pandora laughed softly, already drifting toward a staircase that curved upward. “Well, I’m in full support of your academic ventures, Regulus.” She lifted one hand in a loose wave, satchel clinking as she moved. “I’ll see you both later. Don’t let Crouch corrupt you,” she added to Regulus, nodding toward Barty.

She disappeared up the steps, humming faintly to herself as she went.

Barty scowled after her, then turned that look back on Regulus. “You’re insufferable when you get like this, you know that?” he said, jabbing a finger vaguely in Regulus’s direction as they started down a different staircase. “All quiet and brooding. You’re a hundred times worse than Meadowes.”

Regulus merely rolled his eyes, not bothering with a response.

They descended in silence for a few steps. When Regulus reached the turn in the stair, Barty stepped directly into his path, blocking the staircase entirely and making him come to an abrupt halt.

He leaned in, bending at the waist, breath warm against Regulus’s ear. He was close enough that Regulus could smell the smoke still clinging to his clothes. Barty’s voice dropped low, stripped of its usual mockery.

“You need to get him out of your head,” Barty muttered softly. “It’s clearly driving you mad.”

Regulus went rigid.

His posture locked instinctively, shoulders drawing back, chin lifting a fraction in defiance. His expression was already shuttering, the easy neutrality he wore snapping into something defensive.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” he said flatly. He shoved at Barty’s chest—a clear signal to back off. It didn’t work. Barty barely even swayed, only looking down at Regulus’s hand with mild interest before meeting his eyes again.

“Oh, I think you do,” Barty said, still low, still too close. He didn’t retreat. If anything, he leaned in just a bit more, crowding the narrow stairwell until Regulus could feel stone at his back. “You’ve been miles away all week. Staring into space. Snapping when someone pulls you out of it. I don’t like what it does to you, Regulus.”

Regulus’s brow furrowed in mild confusion despite himself. His grip tightened briefly against Barty’s chest before he dropped his hand, frustration prickling. “You’re imagining things,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t,” Barty said quietly, annoyance slipping through. “Don’t do that thing where you pretend you’re above it. I can see you.”

Regulus opened his mouth, then stopped. The stairwell felt narrower than it had moments ago, stone pressing in on either side. He took a step back instead—upward, reclaiming the height, the angle, as he looked down at Barty now. The shift gave him space, leverage. He straightened, gaze cool and cutting.

“I’m not pretending,” he said, the words coming quicker than he meant them to. “I know you don’t like him. You never have. But if he’s spiraling, I’m not just going to ignore it.”

Barty raised an eyebrow questioningly, but Regulus barreled on anyway, heat climbing up his throat, each sentence tripping over the next.

“I’m not just going to sit by while he slips out of my life entirely. Something happened to him.” His hand came up again, pressing flat to Barty’s chest this time, not to shove so much as to stake space. “And I’m going to find out what it is.”

Barty’s lazy smirk vanished, his expression slow and strange, as if the conversation had just veered somewhere he hadn’t been expecting. “Wait, what?” he echoed, brows knitting. “Reg, I—”

Regulus scoffed, defensive instinct flaring harder at the interruption. “Don’t act like you haven’t noticed,” he snapped. “He hasn’t been himself for weeks. He’s not eating, he’s not with—” He cut himself off, breath tight. “He’s my brother, Barty.”

There was a beat of silence.

Suddenly, Barty burst out laughing.

It was sudden and loud, echoing off the stone walls of the stairwell. He doubled over slightly, one hand braced against the banister as he laughed harder, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Oh—oh my god,” he managed between breaths. “You’re serious? I thought this whole time you were losing your mind over Potter.”

Regulus felt it instantly—the traitorous flush crawling up his neck before he could stop it. “What?” he demanded, horrified.

Barty straightened, still grinning, eyes bright with it now. “James Potter?” he clarified, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand, laughter still threatening to spill over. “Merlin, that makes so much more sense. You’ve been walking around like you’re about to explode every time he’s in the room. Staring off into space, getting snippy—I figured you were stuck in your own head about him again.”

Regulus’s face went scarlet, the heat rushing up his neck and settling stubbornly at the tips of his ears, mortified that he’d been acting bothered enough around Potter for Barty to have drawn an entire, incorrect conclusion and felt confident in it.

“That’s—that’s ridiculous,” Regulus said stiffly, eyes wide.

Barty barked another laugh. “Is it? Because from where I’m standing—”

“This conversation is over.” Regulus glared, already shifting to move past him.

“Oh, no, it absolutely is not,” Barty said, amusement fading. He stepped back into Regulus’s space again—not crowding him this time, just close enough to remind him he could. “You mean to tell me I just gave you a heartfelt speech about James Potter rotting your brain, and you were over here ready to duel me in defense of Sirius Black?”

Regulus met his gaze again, eyes cool, guarded. “Why on earth would I ever assume you were talking about Potter?”

Barty huffed, eyes rolling. “What ever made you think I’d care enough about your brother’s personal life to stage an intervention?” he returned. “When I said you needed to get him out of your head, I was thinking about the way you go glassy-eyed every time Potter opens his mouth.”

“Well,” Regulus said, voice clipped, “you were wrong.”

Barty’s mouth twitched. “Clearly.” He drawled, softer this time, but no less amused. “I just—wow. That explains everything.”

Regulus grimaced, managing to slip past him, continuing down the stairs. His face carefully schooled back into neutrality, though his heartbeat hadn’t slowed. Behind him, Barty followed, still chuckling under his breath, clearly delighted by the misunderstanding.

They did, eventually, end up in the Slytherin common room—but it took less than ten minutes for it to become unusable. Evan and Barty together were always a disaster: loud, half-arguing, half-laughing. Whatever spat had existed earlier in the day was clearly over, or at least postponed indefinitely.

Regulus tried to open his Transfiguration textbook once, then again, before giving up entirely. After a few minutes of their antics, he closed the book, stood without announcement, and left them to it—leaving instead toward the library, where at least his mind had a chance of catching up with itself.

He didn’t slow as he crossed the library floor, boots muffled by the worn carpet between stacks. He kept his gaze forward and made a deliberate effort to empty his head as he walked.

He’d told himself—firmly—that he was just tired, that anyone would be unsettled after finding their brother like that, that losing his temper with Barty had been a momentary lapse rather than proof of anything deeper. Still, the truth pressed uncomfortably close: ever since Sunday morning, since seeing Sirius curled up and unreachable in the grey light, something in him had been off-balance. Watchful.

The library was better than the common room—cooler, quieter, structured. Orderly. He could work with that. He wasn’t here because he cared so desperately about O.W.L. preparation, despite what he’d told Barty. He was here because he needed something that required focus, something that demanded his attention completely. Studying, at the very least, would keep his hands busy and his thoughts occupied.

By the time the shelves began to curve inward near the back of the stacks, his breathing had evened out. The alcove came into view—the narrow pocket of space half-hidden behind tall bookcases.

Only then did Regulus slow, turning into it and approaching the small desk tucked away in its shadow, already resolved to sit down, open a book, and think about nothing else at all.

But it seemed fate was certainly fucking with him.

From the edge of the alcove, before he even reached the desk, Regulus caught sight of it: a corner of parchment peeking out from beneath the desk’s lip. And then he saw the slanted edge of ink visible along the fold.

There was no mistaking James Potter’s handwriting, even from a distance. Something about the slant of the letters, the impatient confidence of it, letters leaning forward as if impatient to get where they were going. Regulus felt heat spike in his chest before he could temper it, irritation flaring reflexively.

He’d come here to be alone. To think about nothing at all. How was it that no matter where he went, he was always running into exactly what he was trying to avoid?

He crossed the remaining distance in three quick strides and snatched the parchment up, anger carrying him forward before thought could intervene. That was when he noticed the desk.

The place where the etching had been—where James’s words had been carved into the wood—was gone. It was smoothed over so perfectly that the grain of the desk lay unbroken beneath his fingers. There was no sign it had ever been touched at all.

His attention snapped back to the parchment in his hand.

He unfolded it impatiently, quickly realizing that this wasn’t a new piece of parchment at all. He recognized it immediately—the crease pattern unmistakable, the faint indentation of his own handwriting ghosting the back of the page. Only now, beneath it, James’s words stared back at him.

Is this better, then?

Regulus’s eyes flicked back to the desk without meaning to, to the pristine surface where the carving had once been. His fingers tightened around the page.

Below it, written more carefully now—less flippant, more restrained—were the next lines.

Parchment this time, like you said. It’s easy to smooth over the damage when it’s something simple, but this—the word “this” was underlined, once, then again, then a third time, the ink pressed hard enough to roughen the page—is far more complicated. So, I’m still stuck on the same question, I guess. I don’t really know what comes next.

Regulus lowered himself slowly into the chair, paper still clutched in his hand. He stared at the smooth wood in front of him, at the absence where the words had been erased, and felt something cold settle behind his ribs.

It was completely undeniable now. Something was wrong.

This was about Sirius. Of that, Regulus was suddenly certain.

And worse—James was asking what to do about it.

It didn’t take much effort to connect the threads. They slid together with an almost cruel ease—his conversation with Sirius in the courtyard, his refusal to explain anything beyond a brittle it’s fine; Remus Lupin’s careful, maddeningly restrained non-answers in the corridor; and now this.

He’d been met with a kind of guarded confusion that only deepened the mystery. Each attempt to make sense of it had only added another layer of uncertainty.

And now, here it was. James Potter, of all people, had written this.

It unsettled him.

The note confirmed his suspicions, yes, but it also shattered a long-held assumption. Regulus had always believed James Potter incapable of this kind of openness. He had never thought of him as someone who sat with uncertainty. James acted. James was decisive. Wasn't he? He was someone who charged forward, who acted first and trusted instinct to carry him through.

But the handwriting on the page told a different story. The careful phrasing. The underlined this.

For a brief, treacherous moment, Regulus wondered if this—this—was the truth he’d been circling all along. Not the details of the incident itself, but the aftermath.

It bothered him deeply that this was the closest thing to an answer he’d found.

He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling harshly, as if the motion might physically shake the thoughts loose. Why did it matter to him this much? Why had he let it creep so far under his skin that Barty had noticed, that everyone had noticed? Losing sleep over it, snapping at friends, replaying conversations long after they’d ended—none of it was like him. He prided himself on distance. On control.

But this was Sirius. Sirius had always been the exception, the constant disruption in Regulus’s otherwise carefully ordered world. No matter how much distance lay between them, no matter how long they went without speaking, Sirius had a way of pulling focus simply by being off-kilter.

He could feign detachment all he liked, could ice himself over with logic and restraint, but there was a thread between them. It pulled tight every time Sirius slipped further from view, every time Regulus sensed something wrong and couldn’t name it.

He could no more ignore that than he could ignore a fire burning in the next room.

And tangled in with that was something else. Because holding James’s words now, seeing them stripped of bravado and performance, felt uncomfortably intimate. This was James without an audience. James without a script. James admitting that he was lost.

It wasn’t how he was supposed to sound.

Regulus had spent years observing James Potter from a distance, cataloguing him like a phenomenon—predictable in his unpredictability, consistent in his confidence.

But this was different. This was close enough to touch.

He read the note again, slower this time, tracing the underlined word with his eyes. The urge rose within him to pry further, to understand what James was thinking, what he was feeling, how much he knew and how much he didn’t. The same instinct that drove him to watch patterns, to seek structure, to make sense of things that resisted easy explanation.

He didn’t like that the desire extended beyond Sirius now.

That it included James, too.

He moved without thinking, almost like he was possessed. His textbook slid from his arm onto the desk with a soft, muted sound. He reached into his bag and drew out a clean sheet of parchment, then his quill, then the small glass bottle of ink, still neatly capped.

As he pressed his quill down to begin writing, he suddenly drew it back, halting mid-motion.

What the hell was he doing?

His hand stilled, suspended above the blank parchment, heart thumping.

There were too many variables here.

For one, he had no idea how to answer James’s question. It was vague in a way that had felt intentional, loaded without context. Any response he offered would be a guess, an interpretation, a risk—especially if he were trying to get more information about Sirius.

And then there was the more dangerous truth: James didn’t actually know who he was writing to.

As far as James was concerned, this exchange was with a stranger—some anonymous student who’d happened upon his moment of weakness and responded to it. Not Regulus Black. Not Sirius’s younger brother. Not someone positioned this uncomfortably close to the center of his life.

If Regulus wrote back, and James replied again, he would do so under that same false assumption. He would be confiding in someone he believed safely outside his world. And Regulus knew, with near certainty, that James would never speak like this if he knew who held the parchment. Whatever friendliness existed between them did not extend to this kind of vulnerability.

This felt far more private. Writing back would be crossing a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.

But the thought barely lasted.

This wasn’t about James Potter.

Regulus straightened slightly in his chair, jaw setting. Whatever unease curled in his chest over James’s openness, it was secondary. Peripheral. He did not care about James’s wellbeing nearly as much as he cared about Sirius’s. That had always been the truth, and he saw no reason to dress it up now.

If this was the only path open to him, then he would take it. He would not overstep. He would not reveal himself. He would listen more than he spoke, prod where it mattered, extract what was needed, and no more. Selfish or not, he wanted answers, and he intended to get them. If James happened to be the conduit through which they came, then Regulus would play the game exactly as required.

He put the tip of his quill back to the page, not stopping until he’d filled it neatly.

“It is better, yes. For what it’s worth, I don’t think not knowing what comes next means you’ve done something wrong. Most people only pretend they have a clear answer once things get complicated. It’s easier to act confident than to admit you’re unsure. You’re right, some damage is simple. You fix what you can see, and it’s done. But most things don’t work that way, either because they involve time, or waiting, or people not reacting the way you expect them to. There isn’t a spell for that, unfortunately. I suppose the only thing that ever seems to help, from what I’ve seen, is paying attention to what is happening instead of what you wish had happened instead. It’s not the same as fixing it, but it’s usually where people start.”

Regulus paused, reading over what he’d written once, then again—this time more critically, searching for anything that might give him away. He’d been careful not to include any names or specifics. Still, he searched for any trace of himself that might have slipped through unnoticed. Any hint of familiarity. Any suggestion that the person on the other end of this exchange knew more than they reasonably should.

This would do.

But for a fleeting moment, an image rose unbidden in his mind: James sitting across from him, elbows on a table, hair a mess, eyes serious in a way Regulus had never seen up close. The thought made his stomach twist. This was not a conversation he could ever picture them having face to face.

This would only work with a barrier. It would only work with complete anonymity on Regulus’s end.

The imagined conversation dissolved as quickly as it had formed.

Still, something tugged at him, a sense that what he’d written wasn’t quite finished. He hesitated, then lowered the quill again and added one final line at the bottom of the page, smaller than the rest, almost an afterthought.

“But if you’d like to continue talking about it, I don’t mind listening.”

Briefly, he considered signing the bottom with a different name, but decided against it. He left it purposefully blank.

He set the quill aside and leaned back in the chair, gaze drifting unfocused toward the narrow slice of shadow between the shelves. He folded the parchment carefully, matching the original creases, and slipped it back into the same place beneath the desk’s edge. He adjusted it just enough that the corner showed.

For a moment, he tried to picture James returning—coming back to this alcove, noticing the parchment, unfolding it. He couldn’t quite see James’s face in his mind. Not clearly. He couldn’t.

Every version of James he’d ever known failed to align with this moment. The expressions didn’t fit. The reactions refused to take shape. Whatever James Potter would look like when confronted with this response existed outside of Regulus’s understanding of him. The version of James who had written that note existed somewhere just out of reach.

He sat there for a moment longer, hands resting idly on the desk.

This was not his problem, he told himself. Not really. James Potter’s uncertainty was not his responsibility. Whatever had happened between Sirius and his friends belonged to them. He had no real right to insert himself here.

But he couldn’t help himself. It was eating at him.

While he might have spent more time in the hidden alcove studying, like he’d originally intended, he wanted to be far away from it now. The thought of James turning the corner between the stacks—of being caught there, seated at that desk, with the note so freshly written and folded—set something anxious under his skin.

Now that he’d allowed himself a measure of openness on the page, the alcove no longer felt secluded; it felt exposed. If James returned any time soon—if he came looking for the desk, for whatever reason—there was a very real chance he might find Regulus there. The risk of being discovered felt suddenly intolerable.

Regulus gathered his things quickly, pulse ticking up. He could not be caught hovering near the evidence of it.

Chapter Text

Wednesday 27th October, 1976

Transfiguration had blurred into a series of disconnected sounds and movements long before Sirius realized the lesson was nearly over.

McGonagall’s voice drifted in and out as she lectured, but it slid right off him. He sat slouched forward in his chair, elbow braced on the desk, cheek pressed against his knuckles, eyes half-lidded and unfocused, nearly falling asleep. His head felt stuffed with wool, thoughts slow and syrupy, limbs heavy.

He blinked, hard, when the room seemed to tilt. The words on the board swam uselessly. He couldn’t remember the topic being discussed.

Then, a sudden thud cracked through the haze.

Sirius jolted upright with a sharp inhale, shoulders jerking as a textbook landed on the desk beside his head. His heart lurched as he sucked in air, vision snapping back into place all at once.

“Mr. Black,” Professor McGonagall said coolly.

Her voice cut through the last of his half-sleep. Sirius straightened too quickly, dizziness washing over him in a brief, sickening wave. He swallowed it down as he forced his eyes to focus.

McGonagall looked down at him over the rim of her glasses, expression unreadable. “You will find it considerably easier to follow along if you have the correct materials in front of you,” she continued, “since you seem to have misplaced your own.”

A ripple of quiet snickers moved through the room.

Sirius didn’t react. His bag was lighter than it should’ve been, missing half the things he normally carried. He’d been drifting from place to place, crashing where he could. His robes were rumpled and wrinkled from days of sleeping in fits—on benches, in empty classrooms, anywhere that wasn’t the dorm.

He hadn’t gone back long enough to remember where most of his things even were. The idea of opening his trunk, of being in that space again, made his stomach curl unpleasantly.

McGonagall tapped the cover of the book once with her wand before turning away, already moving back toward the front of the classroom.

He swallowed, throat dry, and pulled it closer, fingers clumsy against the worn cover. He opened it and flipped through a few pages at random, the text blurring together. Diagrams of half-finished transformations stared back at him.

What page were they supposed to be on? He stared at the margins, his mind blank and frustratingly empty.

Under the desk, something nudged his knee.

Lily leaned slightly closer without looking at him, eyes fixed on her own book. “Page three hundred twelve,” she murmured, barely moving her lips.

His face went hot instantly, nodding once and flipping to the page as quickly as he could manage. “Thanks,” he muttered, barely audible.

His head drooped despite himself, chin threatening to tip forward again. He clenched his jaw and forced himself upright, nails biting into his palm beneath the desk to keep himself present.

He didn’t have to turn around to know James was staring holes into the back of his head. Sirius didn’t dare look. He knew what he’d see if he did.

When the bell rang, class ended in a scrape of chairs and a low swell of chatter. Sirius was moving before the final word had fully left McGonagall’s mouth.

Whatever fog had settled over him all lesson turned into something urgent, and he bent forward at once, shoving the borrowed textbook back onto the desk, hands clumsy as he fumbled his own things together.

He needed to be out. First, if possible.

He didn’t give himself time to register where James was, or whether Remus had already stood. Especially not Remus.

The memory surfaced anyway—two nights ago, turning a corner too fast, the shock of a solid body colliding with his, the brief, horrible clarity of Remus’s face before Sirius had muttered a rushed apology and bolted.

Remus’s Prefect rounds. Regulus, of all people, standing there beside him.

Sirius shoved his bag over his shoulder and slipped through the door with his head down. He cut left without thinking, then right again, worn shoes scuffing against the stone as he put distance between himself and the classroom.

Keeping close to the wall, Sirius slipped into an older, abandoned Charms classroom and eased the door shut behind him. The room was stripped bare, unused—just a few old desks shoved to one side, chalk dust settled thickly on the floor, the air stale and undisturbed. He leaned back against the door for a moment, eyes closed, letting the quiet press in around him as his shoulders sagged.

After a brief moment, he dragged himself over to one of the desks, dropping his bag to the floor and sinking himself into the seat as the wood creaked faintly under his weight. He braced his elbows on the edge of the desk.

His stomach rolled. Truthfully, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Monday morning? Or—maybe it was Sunday night. He wasn’t sure anymore. It was getting harder to keep track now.

The hunger there wasn’t the sharp, gnawing sort he was used to from skipping a meal or two. It was duller now. Hollow. Like something inside him had simply started running on fumes.

He wasn’t purposefully restricting himself. Well, not like he used to. This was more… circumstantial. If he didn’t want to run into Peter, James or Remus, then he was better off not loitering around the Great Hall. Luckily for Sirius, he’d had plenty of experience going without a meal or two. Or several, rather.

He’d be sure to catch dinner tonight, likely at the end of it, when he could be sure his friends had already gone.

His eyelids drooped as he leaned his cheek further into his palm. He hadn’t meant to get so comfortable, but the room was dim and quiet and he hadn’t gotten proper sleep in days. Not that this was proper—but it was certainly better than a bathroom stall, or a bench, or some cold, hidden alcove where he could be discovered at any moment.

Just for a minute, he told himself. Just for a minute.

His head tipped forward before he realized what was happening.

~*~

When Sirius jerked himself awake, the classroom was entirely dark.

For a moment, he didn’t know where he was.

His neck ached sharply where it had been bent awkwardly against the desk. One arm had gone half numb beneath him, prickling as feeling returned.

He blinked slowly, trying to orient himself.

The classroom windows were black rectangles now, reflecting faint slivers of moonlight across the floor.

Sirius straightened slowly, wincing as a dull ache crawled up his spine. His fingers rubbed across his face, dragging sleep from his eyes.

How long had he been out?

He’d—

His heart sank.

He’d missed dinner. Again.

He straightened too fast, the movement sending a brief wave of dizziness through his head. The room tilted slightly before settling again.

“Shit,” he muttered hoarsely to himself. He shoved a hand through his hair and pushed himself to his feet, joints still stiff from sleeping folded over the desk.

Quickly, he gathered his bag from the floor where it had slipped beside the desk. The strap snagged briefly on the corner before he yanked it free, slinging it over one shoulder.

He couldn’t stay here. That was one rule he’d learned very quickly over the last few nights.

Empty classrooms felt safe during the day—but at night, they were exactly the sort of place Filch liked to check. The old caretaker prowled the corridors long after curfew, creeping into abandoned corners of the castle like a vulture looking for something to scold or confiscate.

He never stayed in the same place too long. Never spent the whole night anywhere predictable.

He crossed the room quietly, pushing the classroom door open just enough to peer into the corridor.

Empty. Good.

He slipped out immediately, easing the door shut behind him with careful fingers until the latch clicked softly into place.

He lingered there for a moment after closing the door, letting his eyes adjust properly to the darkness. Only a few torches along the wall were still burning, their flames low and wavering.

The distant echo of something shifting somewhere far away drifted faintly through the corridors, but otherwise, everything was still. Most students would surely be asleep by now, warm in their dormitories. Even the portraits along this stretch of hallway had their curtains drawn.

He pulled the strap of his bag higher on his shoulder and started walking. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck as he walked, his thoughts drifting without much direction.

Mostly, he was thinking about where he was going to sleep tonight.

He hadn’t properly gone back to Gryffindor Tower in days.

Once or twice he’d slipped in briefly during the afternoon when he was sure the dormitory would be empty, just long enough to grab something he needed from his trunk. And of course, there had been a few times he’d snuck in after skipping a class or two just to have a bed to sleep in a couple extra hours. But other than that, he’d avoided it entirely, including the common room.

He turned another corner without really thinking about it, his mind still wandering, when he caught a flicker of movement ahead.

Sirius froze.

His body reacted before his brain fully caught up. He stepped back quickly, retreating the way he had come until he was pressed flat against the cold stone just around the corner.

His heart gave a sharp thud in his chest.

Someone was there.

He held perfectly still, breathing shallowly as he listened.

Footsteps echoed softly from ahead—though, they didn’t sound like Filch’s uneven scuffle he’d become accustomed to.

Sirius frowned, curiosity edging in alongside the tension. Carefully, he leaned just enough to glance around the corner.

The corridor ahead curved toward one of the spiral staircases that climbed upward through the upper levels of the castle, toward Ravenclaw Tower. In the dim light, he could just make out a figure emerging from the staircase, climbing down the last few steps.

Her hair caught the torchlight first. Copper-red, bright even in the darkness.

Sirius blinked once in surprise.

Lily Evans stepped down onto the landing.

For a moment he simply stared at her from his hidden spot, trying to make sense of it. Maybe it wasn’t as late as he thought. Maybe Lily was doing her rounds—

But as his gaze flicked to the front of her robes, the silver badge was nowhere in sight.

Sirius stayed where he was, still half-hidden by the corner. He hadn’t planned on announcing himself, and now curiosity kept him rooted there just as much as caution.

She walked straight past him. He almost went without being noticed entirely—but he’d forgotten that Lily Evans had eyes in the back of her fucking head.

She whipped around suddenly, eyes snapping toward his direction. The movement was so quick that Sirius nearly flinched.

The expression she wore looked almost guilty, as if she had just realized she’d been caught in the act of doing something she wasn’t supposed to do—which was profusely un-Lily-like, in Sirius’s opinion.

Then she saw him.

The tension in her expression shifted almost immediately. The guarded look softened, her brows pulling together slightly instead as her eyes adjusted enough to see him clearly.

Concern replaced the brief flash of guilt.

“Sirius?” She called out quietly, taking a few steps forward. Her voice sounded softer than usual in the still corridor.

Sirius suddenly became very aware of how he must look.

His robes were rumpled from sleeping. His hair, which was normally styled each day, had tangled messily since waking, and he hadn’t bothered fixing it. The strap of his bag hung crooked over one shoulder, mostly empty. He probably still looked half-asleep—and that was without counting the darkened circles underneath his eyes.

Her gaze swept over him once, quick but thorough. She stopped a few feet away.

“Are you alright?” She pressed gently.

“Well, I—fine. I’m fine.” The words came out quickly. Even to his own ears they sounded thin and meaningless.

Anyone with half a brain could see that he was clearly, obviously not fine—and Lily was already a perceptive person—which meant the next thing was coming. The barrage of questions.

He could practically feel them lining up already.

Where have you been? Why are you out this late? Why do you look like that? How long has it been since you slept—or eaten? Why haven’t you been at meals? Why have you skipped so many lessons? Why haven’t you been sitting with the others? Why haven’t you—

His stomach clenched.

Have you talked to Remus?

Sirius suddenly found himself looking slightly past Lily rather than directly at her, his gaze drifting toward the darker stretch of corridor behind her shoulder.

Because that was the real question, wasn’t it?

He was almost certain she already knew everything. Aside from the Marauders themselves, Lily had been the only one who’d figured out Remus’s secret long before anyone else had. She’d worked it out piece by piece, years ago.

And what with Remus and Lily growing so close over the last couple of years, it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility that Remus had already told her about that night—about what Sirius had done.

The thought of her already knowing made heat creep faintly up the back of his neck.

“Could you walk me back? I’d rather not go alone.”

Sirius looked back at her face now, his confusion growing. It was nothing close to what he thought she’d say. He swallowed, gaze returning to his feet, nodding stiffly. “Oh. Yeah, alright.”

He pushed off from the wall, stepping into the light as he started down the corridor, head swimming. His hands stayed shoved deep in the pockets of his robes, shoulders slightly hunched.

It took him several steps to realize he was walking by himself.

He stopped abruptly, turning to see Lily exactly where he’d left her, expression unreadable, but watching him.

He frowned faintly, shifting his weight awkwardly. “Aren’t you—”

It took her only three quick strides to get to him—to launch herself straight at him.

Sirius staggered back a half step as her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, pulling him into a fierce, crushing hug. His breath punched out of his lungs in a startled rush as he instinctively grabbed for her just to keep them both upright.

The shame crawled its way up his throat, escaping him in a strangled noise. Then it spread—thick, suffocating, rotten.

But her arms were locked around him, pulling him close enough that his chest pressed firmly against hers. One of her hands came up to the back of his robes, fingers spreading across his shoulder blade, rubbing slowly over the fabric.

Lily Evans had never been known for holding back when something needed to be said. If she was angry, she said it. If she was disappointed, you heard about it. If she thought you were being an idiot, she made sure you understood exactly how spectacularly idiotic you were being.

But right now, she was silent. There was no scolding, no hissed “Sirius, what have you done?” There was only the warmth of her locked around him.

Why isn’t she saying anything? Why isn’t she shouting?

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she really didn’t know.

Maybe she thought he’d been sulking alone somewhere, licking wounds no one else could see. Maybe she thought he’d gotten overwhelmed, or angry, or stupidly stubborn.

His shame surged harder, his arms loosening around her, as if he were afraid she might suddenly remember what he’d done and push him away.

But Lily didn’t move. Her hand kept tracing slow circles against his back.

Something inside Sirius cracked.

His fingers tightened in the fabric of her robes before he realized he was doing it. His weak hold turned into a grip. Then a desperate clutch.

He pulled her closer without meaning to.

A breath shuddered out of him, uneven and sharp.

The pressure in his chest had been building for days—maybe longer than that—and suddenly it was all too much. His throat tightened painfully, like something had wrapped around it and pulled.

His face dropped against her shoulder. The first sound that left him was small and broken, barely more than a breath. Then the rest came spilling out.

His chest heaved as the sob forced its way up through him, harsh and uncontrollable. His fingers twisted tighter in her robes as if letting go of her would send him collapsing straight through the floor.

Sirius Black cried like he hadn’t allowed himself to cry in years.

His breathing hitched and stuttered, the sound muffled against her hair. Every inhale scraped through his throat like it hurt.

Lily’s hand slid higher along his back, fingers spreading across the base of his neck as she kept that same slow, steady motion as he fell apart against her.

Sirius clung to her like she was the only solid thing left in the world. Every breath came out in broken, gasping pieces as if his lungs couldn’t quite figure out how to work properly anymore.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. The words burned through him, though they wouldn’t come out. It wasn’t Lily who needed an apology, but the urge to give it anyway still came.

Eventually, the crying that had been tearing out of him slowly lost its edge. The violent shaking in his shoulders eased into smaller tremors. His breathing still came unevenly, catching in the back of his throat every few seconds, but the desperate, gasping quality of it faded little by little.

He stayed exactly where he was. His face was still buried against Lily’s shoulder, his forehead pressed into the warm of her hair. He wasn’t clutching her like a drowning man anymore, but he wasn’t letting go either.

The silence between them stretched on, filled only with the quiet hitch of his breath every now and then. Sirius stared blankly at the stone floor over her shoulder. His eyes burned.

For a moment, he almost believed the worst of it had passed. Then Lily shifted slightly, her cheek brushing faintly against the side of his head.

Her voice came out in a quiet whisper, warm against the edge of his ear.

“We all miss you, Sirius.”

His chest seized again, the trembling that had been fading through his body surging back all at once, stronger than before. His shoulders jerked sharply under her hands.

If Lily knew—if she knew what he had done—there was no way she’d be standing here telling him that. No chance. She surely would have ripped him apart already. Lily Evans did not pull punches when someone deserved them.

The shame that had quieted for a few minutes came roaring back twice as heavy.

His throat worked uselessly. Finally, hoarse and small, the only thing he managed to force out was,

“I can’t.” The words barely made it past his lips.

Her hand stilled on his back. She shook her head gently against his shoulder. “Yes, you can.” Her voice was quieter now, but firmer.

Sirius’s head lifted abruptly. “No—” he began sharply, pulling back from her in a sudden, frantic motion, like he needed space just to breathe properly. His hands dropped away from her shoulders as he took a half step back, shaking his head hard.

The moment he moved, Lily’s hand shot out and caught his arm.

“Sirius.” She said, no longer soft.

The way she said his name made him still. It was the voice she used when someone was being particularly thick and she’d had enough of pretending otherwise.

Slowly, reluctantly, he looked back at her.

Up close, her expression had changed. The warmth was still there—he could see it in the way her eyes searched his face—but it was no longer the quiet, comforting softness she’d worn moments ago. Now, there was steel underneath it.

“You don’t understand. You don’t know what I’ve—”

“Yes, I do.” Her fingers tightened around his sleeve, tugging him forward. “And I know you must think this is what’s best, but it’s not, Sirius. This is making things worse for him. You must know that.”

Sirius was still shaking his head as if he could wish away what she was saying, but Lily continued on, voice low.

“What does punishing yourself do to make this better? Surely by now you’ve figured out that it doesn’t make what happened go away—it just drags it further out.”

Sirius let out a short, rough breath. It wasn’t quite a laugh, though it had the same edge of disbelief.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” he said again, quieter now, but no less stubborn. His gaze had dropped somewhere near the floor between them. He couldn’t quite bring himself to look at her properly anymore. The stone beneath their feet blurred slightly in his vision, though he wasn’t crying now.

Lily let go of his sleeve. “Sirius—”

“I nearly got them both killed.” The words came out suddenly, flat. His hand dragged through his hair, fingers catching briefly in the tangles before falling back to his side. “What I did—” He broke off, shaking his head once, sharply. “That’s not something you just… forgive.” His voice cracked slightly on the last word. It tasted sour in his mouth.

“Remus said he did forgive you.” Lily pointed out gently.

“Yes. He forgave me for something unforgivable,” Sirius continued, his voice rough and low. “And now I’m supposed to just walk back in and, what?” he said bitterly. “Sit across from him at breakfast like everything’s fine?”

He shook his head again, more slowly this time.

“I can’t.” The last two words came out tired rather than angry. “I can’t face him,” Sirius admitted. “Or James. Or Peter.”

He finally looked up then, and there was something raw in his expression now. “I see his face every time I think about it,” he said quietly. “And if Snape had—”

He stopped again, swallowing hard. “So no,” he muttered. “I can’t just go back.”

For a long moment, Lily didn’t say anything. She was studying him carefully, her expression thoughtful rather than angry. When she finally spoke, her voice was calm.

“No,” she said simply. “It isn’t unforgivable.”

Sirius blinked at her. His brows pulled together immediately.

“Yes, it is.”

“Sirius, what you did was reckless,” she said plainly. “And cruel. And incredibly stupid.” She didn’t soften the words. “But unforgivable?” she continued. “No.”

He stared at her like she’d lost her mind.

“You weren’t the one who almost died,” he said flatly.

“Remus forgave you,” she repeated again. “That was his choice,” Lily went on, before he could interrupt. “Not yours. You don’t get to decide that his forgiveness doesn’t count just because it makes you feel uncomfortable.”

Sirius looked away again. His jaw had gone tight. “No, that’s not what I—”

“You’re hiding because it’s easier than facing what happened,” she said. “And I understand that. I do. But you can’t vanish and claim you’re taking responsibility in the same breath.”

“He doesn’t want to see me.” Sirius defended weakly. “He forgave me because he felt like he had to, and that’s—that’s not the same.”

“How do you know what he feels?” Lily challenged. “It’s been three weeks and you haven’t even tried to ask him, have you?” Her eyes softened, stepping closer now.

Sirius kept his gaze down, feeling unable to look her in the face again. All of this was undoing everything he’d been telling himself.

Lily exhaled, her hand moving delicately to his shoulder. He stiffened at her touch, but didn’t pull away.

“He’s hurting, Sirius. I’m not anyone’s messenger, but since the two of you are so stubborn, I’ll just tell you—he feels like he’s lost you. Not because of that night, but because you disappeared afterward.”

The words sat heavily between them.

“He forgave you,” she repeated slowly, “And then you left him standing there by himself.”

“I don’t want to cause any more damage than I already have. Alright? I keep fucking it up. I don’t want to make it any worse—”

“Remus isn’t fragile glass. He made the choice to forgive because he wants you in his life.” She said quietly. “And right now, you’re deciding for him that he shouldn’t.”

Sirius’s chest rose and fell more rapidly, shaking his head slowly once again. “This is the only thing that can fix it. I can let them live their lives, I can—”

“No. This isn’t fixing anything.” She tilted her head slightly, watching him. “All you’ve done is left him to deal with it alone.”

Sirius’s expression finally faltered.

The idea hadn’t occurred to him before.

He had spent weeks convincing himself that everything he was doing was for Remus. That staying away was the right thing. That keeping his distance was some kind of twisted mercy.

If he wasn’t there—if Remus didn’t have to see him every day, didn’t have to sit across from him in the common room or the Great Hall—then maybe it would make things easier. Maybe it would give Remus space to forget the sick feeling that must come with remembering what Sirius had done.

But standing here now, something inside that reasoning shifted in an uncomfortable, grinding way.

Since that night, every memory of what had happened replayed in brutal, merciless detail. The moment he’d given Snape the information. The split second where it had felt clever and satisfying. The horrible realization afterward of what he had actually set into motion.

In his mind, every version of the aftermath had always been about Remus finding out and looking at him with something broken in his eyes. Disgust. Anger. Betrayal. The quiet, devastating disappointment Remus was so capable of when someone crossed a line he believed in.

Sirius had replayed that expression over and over in his mind so vividly that he had never once stopped to question the rest of it.

In every version of the story inside his head, Remus was safer without him. Better off if Sirius simply removed himself from the picture before he could do any more damage.

But he had failed to account for what Lily had pointed out.

What Sirius was doing now wasn’t helping Remus at all. It was hurting him.

Sirius had thought that he had been seeing the situation through Remus’s eyes this entire time. That every miserable night spent wandering the castle, every skipped meal, every empty classroom he slept in was some sort of penance carried out for Remus’s sake.

But what if it hadn’t been?

What if this had never been about what Remus needed at all?

The shame twisted deeper. Disappearing had been easier.

It was easier than standing in front of Remus and hearing the quiet disappointment in his voice. Easier than seeing James look at him differently. Easier than sitting in the common room pretending nothing had changed, while knowing that everything had.

The corridor felt suddenly smaller around him.

If what Lily was saying was true, then Remus must have said these things to her. Remus had told her he was hurt.

That thought overshadowed everything else.

It made Sirius’s own shame feel almost irrelevant by comparison.

But the guilt was still there, thick and suffocating. Lily could say it wasn’t unforgivable all she liked, but the word unforgivable had carved itself too deeply into his mind to disappear so easily. Every time he tried to imagine standing in front of Remus again, that crushing weight returned immediately.

Sirius couldn’t picture it.

His mind raced ahead to the moment it might happen—coming back into the dorm, seeing Remus look up, the silence that would follow. Trying to speak and feeling every word rot in his throat before it could reach his mouth.

What would he even say? Sorry? Again?

Sorry felt pathetic, now. Too small for the damage he’d done. Too flimsy to cover the reality of almost sending someone Remus hated straight into the path of the one thing Remus feared most about himself.

How do you apologize for that? Sirius had already done it, but thinking it over again, it no longer felt enough. How do you look someone in the eye after nearly exposing the one secret that could ruin their life?

Every attempt to imagine the conversation ended the same way: with the overwhelming urge to run. To disappear again. To avoid that moment entirely.

But the idea that Sirius himself was the reason for Remus’s pain now—not just the night in the Shack, but everything after—pressed down on him harder than any shame he felt about himself.

Because Sirius could endure hating himself. That part came easily. But the thought of Remus sitting somewhere in the castle believing Sirius had simply walked away from him was something else entirely.

For the first time since that night, Sirius realized with a dark, twisting certainty that the thing he’d been doing to “fix” everything might have been hurting Remus just as much as the mistake itself. Lily had only delivered the message.

Clearly noticing his stewing, Lily sighed as she hooked her arm with his, pulling him from his thoughts.

“You said you’d walk me back, right? Let’s get to bed before Filch catches us out here. Don’t really fancy a detention scrubbing broom cupboards.” She muttered, already tugging him along.

Sirius let himself be pulled forward without protest. There was nothing left in him that resembled resistance. His legs felt like lead.

Their footsteps echoed faintly through the quiet, the only real sound in the late hour. Every now and then Lily adjusted her grip on his arm slightly, keeping him moving at a steady pace, but she didn’t say anything. He was grateful for that.

His mind was still caught in the slow churn of everything she had said. The realization about Remus lingered heavily at the front of his thoughts, refusing to settle, but even that felt slightly dulled by the exhaustion pressing in from all sides.

His tiredness seemed to be catching up with him all at once. His limbs felt slow. Weighted. Even the act of lifting his feet felt like more effort than it should.

If Lily hadn’t found him tonight, he probably would have kept wandering until sunrise again. Maybe slept another hour in some empty corner before forcing himself through the next day half-awake and half-starved.

Instead, he was actually walking back toward Gryffindor Tower. The thought sat strangely in his mind.

He had avoided the place so carefully these past few weeks that returning almost felt surreal, like he was approaching somewhere unfamiliar rather than the place he’d spent most of the last few years living.

At least it was late enough that he could be certain his friends would be long asleep by now. He’d be able to slip into the dorm quietly, collapse into his bed, close the curtains and disappear into the dark without anyone asking questions.

The simple thought of his bed made his limbs feel even heavier. He hadn’t let himself think about it until now. It had been easier to pretend he didn’t care where he slept, easier to keep moving so he didn’t have to admit how badly he missed something as simple as a proper mattress and a warm blanket at night.

“I forgot to ask,” Sirius spoke up as they walked, desperate to distract himself from what awaited him, “what were you doing up in Ravenclaw Tower anyway?”

Her cheeks flushed almost instantly, glancing up at him with huge eyes.

“Oh—well,” she said quickly. Her eyes flicked down the corridor for no real reason before returning to him, and she frowned slightly as if she were trying to remember something complicated. “I was studying.”

“In Ravenclaw’s common room?” Sirius’s eyebrows knit together.

Lily pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, her blush deepening as she rushed to elaborate.

“Professor Vector mentioned earlier that the Ravenclaws have copies of some of the older Arithmancy charts she references in class,” she explained. “Apparently they keep them in their common room library.”

“Ravenclaw has their own library?”

“Well—more like a couple shelves,” Lily said hurriedly. “But, yes. They have a few things the rest of us don’t.”

“And what, they just let you wander in?” Sirius mumbled, amused at the idea through his haze.

“Well, no,” she admitted. “I asked Mary if she knew anyone who could let me in,” Lily continued, the words coming a bit faster now. “One of her friends knows a Ravenclaw prefect, and he said I could come up for a bit to look at the charts.”

He nodded slowly, following the explanation without much trouble. He thought to question her further, considering how late it was, but Mary Macdonald had all sorts of connections—and he could easily imagine Lily voluntarily staying up half the night bent over academic charts.

They turned the final corner toward the portrait hole, and Sirius slowed. Their arms slipped apart as he let go of her gently, his hand falling back to his side.

“Thank you, for… for talking me through.” He began a bit sheepishly, exhaling sharply. He glanced toward The Fat Lady briefly, who was already dozed off. He lowered his voice, trying not to wake her. “I hope you know I haven’t meant to make anything worse.” His eyes searched her expression a bit pleadingly.

Lily’s guarded look melted at his words, nodding assuredly. “I wasn’t trying to meddle, but I’ve been worried for both of you. And Potter as well, really. He’s not been himself.”

Sirius swallowed past the lump in his throat at the direct mention of James, nodding again. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll—I’ll try to talk to him. Both of them.”

Lily reached around him, carefully murmuring the password and pulling open the portrait, already climbing through.

They parted in the common room, Lily leaving him with a loose wave as she ascended the steps to the girls dormitory. Sirius did his best to ignore his thundering pulse as he did the same, every step closer to his room feeling more and more heavy.

When he made it to the door at the end of the hall, he slipped inside and eased the door shut behind him, careful to guide it quietly into the frame.

He’d just made two careful steps toward the safety of his bed when the toe of his boot caught something solid, sending him stumbling forward through the pitch black.

“—shit,” Sirius hissed under his breath as he lurched sideways, grabbing blindly at the nearest bedpost to keep himself upright.

The noise wasn’t loud, but in the dead silence of the room, it sounded enormous.

“Prongs?” A groggy voice, thick and slurred, cut through the darkness. The curtains on Remus’s bed shifted faintly, a soft rustle of blankets moving.

Hearing Remus’s voice directed at him landed somewhere strange in Sirius’s chest.

He glanced back toward the floor at what he’d tripped over—Peter’s shoes, abandoned right in the middle of the floor like always.

“No,” He whispered back, adjusting his stance carefully, dragging his gaze back toward Remus’s bed.

There was a long, quiet pause.

The mattress shifted as Remus moved. Sirius could just make out the vague silhouette of him sitting up, the shape of his shoulders rising against the pale strip of moonlight that cut across the floor.

Remus pushed the curtains back slightly. The movement let a bit more light spill across his face—just enough to outline his features in shadow.

He was squinting toward the door. Toward Sirius.

“…Are you back, then?”

Sirius could feel his entire body go rigid.

This was the moment he had been running from.

“Could we talk about this tomorrow?” Sirius forced out, ignoring the burn that came with it.

Remus stared, still for a second, before giving a barely noticeable nod.

Sirius tore himself away the moment he could, quietly kicking off his shoes and dropping his bag, climbing right into the bed across from Remus without even bothering to change his clothes.

~*~

Friday 29th October, 1976

James sat cross-legged on the packed earth floor of Greenhouse Three, back resting against one of the warm stone supports, legs stretched out just far enough that he could lean his forearms loosely across his knees.

The air was thick with damp heat and the sharp, green smell of crushed leaves. Somewhere nearby something dripped steadily into a metal basin.

Behind him, a Snargaluff snapped open with a violent whip of thorned vines.

“Peter—grab them, not—!”

“I am grabbing them!”

James didn’t look up.

Another crack of thrashing vines filled the greenhouse, followed by Peter’s alarmed yelp and the sound of something heavy knocking into a tray of pots.

“I told you to tie them together, not wrestle them!”

“I’m not wrestling them, they’re wrestling me!”

James absently shifted one foot a few inches farther out of the danger zone.

He had chosen the floor deliberately. It was low, out of the way, safely removed from the violent reach of the Snargaluff. Professor Sprout had waved him off the moment he’d wandered in dripping from evening Quidditch practice and asked if they needed help.

“Three people will only make a muddle of it, Potter,” she’d said briskly before disappearing into the far end of the greenhouse. “You may sit quietly if you must.”

So, he was sitting quietly. Well, sort of.

The parchment in his hands had been unfolded and refolded so many times that the creases were beginning to soften.

He read the stranger’s handwriting again.

It is better, yes.

James’s thumb rubbed unconsciously along the fold of the parchment as his eyes moved down the lines.

Most people only pretend they have a clear answer once things get complicated.

A Snargaluff vine smacked loudly into the side of a workbench behind him.

“Merlin’s socks, Peter, watch the—!”

“I am watching it!”

“You’re meant to be watching the vines!”

“I can’t watch everything at once!”

James didn’t move. He barely heard them.

You’re right, some damage is simple. You fix what you can see, and it’s done.

He had read the note so many times now that he knew the rhythm of it—where the pauses fell, where the quill must have hesitated. Once he’d found the note in the hidden library alcove, he’d pocketed it this time. Twenty-four hours later, he was still unsure of what to write back. Or if he even should.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when he’d opened it up and read it. Not half a page, that was for certain. Not someone answering back like they’d actually thought about what he’d written.

Another crash erupted behind him.

“Got one!” Peter announced triumphantly.

“Don’t celebrate yet—there’s another vi—”

“OW!”

James’s eyes had already moved to the final line. The smaller one, at the bottom.

But if you’d like to continue talking about it, I don’t mind listening.

Did he?

It was a strange thing, talking to someone who didn’t exist anywhere else in his life.

They had no name. No face. No house colors. No voice attached to the words. Just small, neat handwriting and a way of phrasing things that made it seem like they were watching the situation from the outside.

He pondered again whether the writer was a girl or a boy, but it was too difficult to tell with this little information. Lily had neat handwriting, but so did Sirius—Remus had awful handwriting, but then again, so did Marlene. James supposed he’d just have to ask.

The last pod burst free with a wet pop.

“Ha!” Peter crowed.

“Don’t drop it!”

“I’m not going to drop it—!”

The Snargaluff’s vines snapped back into the stump with sudden, eerie stillness.

Peter shuffled closer, breathing hard, clutching a sickly green pulsating pod about the size of a grapefruit. Remus followed.

They crossed in front of James, Peter delicately placing the final pod into the bucket just as James folded the parchment back up and slid it into his pocket.

Remus braced both hands on the edge of the worktable, shoulders rising and falling as he tried to catch his breath. Damp strands of hair clung to his forehead, his rolled sleeves smudged with dirt and faint green stains from the Snargaluff sap.

James finally lifted his head.

He watched the two of them for a moment, eyes moving lazily between Peter’s flushed, triumphant face and Remus’s exhausted posture, and then he let out a short huff of laughter.

“You two look more winded than I do, and I’m the one who just came from Quidditch practice,” he said, pushing his glasses a little higher up his nose.

Remus turned his head slowly toward him, still breathing a little heavily.

“That’s because we’ve been doing this since before you even left for practice,” he said, dragging a hand down his face.

James raised his brows.

“Have not.”

“Have too,” Peter said immediately, already bustling around the table, his earlier triumph giving way to frantic efficiency. He grabbed the clipboard lying beside the bucket of pods and began flipping through the parchment sheets attached to it. “Sprout told us to wait until Pomfrey finished with my hand and then come straight back and harvest the rest before they went bad.”

He squinted anxiously at the notes.

“Did you write down the time we got the second one?”

Remus leaned sideways to look over his shoulder.

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Peter ran a finger down the page anyway, scanning each line with increasing urgency, lips moving silently as he checked the recorded weights and times.

Behind them, James pushed his palms against the ground and rose to his feet in one easy motion, stretching his back as he stood. His muscles still carried the dull, pleasant ache of practice, sweat long since washed away in the showers, his hair still slightly damp where he’d hastily towel dried it.

“What’s the rush?” he asked. “You’ve already survived the murderous shrubbery.”

“Well, other than the fact that we’ve been doing this all damn evening—” he said, flipping one last page before snapping the clipboard shut, “—I’ve got a date.”

Remus’s head snapped toward him.

“A what?”

James blinked.

“You’ve got a what?”

Peter looked up then, startled by the reaction, his brow knitting in confusion.

“What?”

“A date?” James repeated. “How’s this the first I’m hearing of it?”

“With who?” Remus added immediately.

Peter stared at them both as though they were the strange ones in this situation. Then realization dawned.

“Oh—well—it’s not a date date,” he said quickly. “We’re just studying.”

Remus folded his arms. “So which is it?” he said mildly. “Studying or a date?”

Peter flushed red all the way to the tips of his ears.

“It’s a study date,” he insisted, waving a hand dismissively as if the distinction were obvious. “Ever heard of a figure of speech? Honestly, you two—”

“What’re you studying for?” James tilted his head. “You never want to study with us.”

“Divination.” Peter answered without hesitation.

James and Remus both looked at each other, then burst into identical puffs of laughter.

Peter scowled immediately. “Oh, sod off,” he muttered, clutching the clipboard a little tighter to his chest as if it might somehow shield him from their amusement.

But James had already tipped his head back slightly, laughter spilling out easily.

“Divination?” James repeated. “You’re serious?”

Peter shot him a flat look. “Yes. And?”

Remus huffed quietly, wiping his hands on a rag that had already been stained green and brown by the Snargaluffs.

“I don’t even know why you still bother taking that class,” he said, tone mild but unmistakably skeptical.

Peter made an irritated sound.

“How do you even study for it?” James added, still grinning faintly. “I mean, I haven’t taken it since third year, but I thought the whole point was that you either had the sight or you didn’t. It’s not exactly something you revise for, is it?”

Peter waved them off, already turning away from them and beginning to gather the loose bits of parchment and quills scattered across the worktable.

Remus, however, stepped forward just as Peter reached for his satchel. His hand landed lightly against Peter’s chest as he tilted his head toward the large wooden bucket sitting on the workbench between them.

“You do realize we still have to break the pods open, right?”

Peter followed his gaze.

The bucket was full of them—large, swollen green pods that pulsed faintly in slow, organic rhythms. They looked unpleasantly alive, their skins stretched tight and slightly veined.

The moment of silence that followed was heavy with dread.

Peter’s shoulders sagged.

“Oh,” he said weakly. Then he groaned—loud and dramatic—and staggered backward before collapsing onto the nearest stool. The wooden legs scraped across the floor as he slumped forward, dropping his elbows onto his knees and burying his face in his hands.

“I hope my wound reopens,” he moaned into his palms. “I hope I bleed out right here on the greenhouse floor.”

James barked out a loud laugh. It echoed sharply through the humid space, bouncing off the glass panes of the greenhouse ceiling.

From somewhere deeper among the rows of plants, Professor Sprout’s voice snapped across the room.

“Less dawdling and more work, please!”

James turned his head automatically toward the far end of the greenhouse.

Professor Sprout stood near one of the long planting tables, sleeves rolled high over her stout forearms, her broad straw hat perched firmly atop her head. She was leaning over a tray of seedlings while instructing someone beside her.

At first, James barely registered the other figure. Then his eyes focused.

A boy stood across from her at the table, dark hair bent forward as he carefully worked with a small hand spade in the soil tray.

James recognized him immediately.

Regulus Black.

His grin faded, mind drifting momentarily to Sirius. Just as he was about to comment on Black’s presence, Remus bent forward, scooping up a scrap of parchment from the floor.

“Dropped this,” Remus said casually, holding it out to James between two fingers.

James took one glance at the faint, neat scrawl peeking through the thin paper and plucked it from Remus’s hand, heart skipping a beat. He hadn’t noticed it slip out. “Thanks,” he mumbled, shoving it back into his pocket without any grace, most definitely crumpling it.

Remus watched him for a moment, then turned back to Peter with a sigh. “Come on, Pete. If you want to make it to your date, we’ll have to make this quick.”

The sounds of Peter’s complaints were drowned out for James, who suddenly felt like the humidity of the greenhouse was choking him.

Now, the note felt like it was burning a hole through the fabric of his pocket.

James Potter wasn’t a private person. That much was obvious to anyone who knew him.

James said what he thought when he thought it. Loudly, usually. He laughed easily, argued easily, and confessed things without much hesitation. If he liked someone, they knew. If he hated someone, they knew that too. His thoughts and feelings tended to arrive in the world more or less exactly as they appeared in his head.

Life was simply easier when you didn’t bother trying to hide every little thing you thought or felt.

But this—this felt much different.

The things he’d written in that first, original note weren’t the sort of thoughts he tossed out casually across the common room or during late-night conversations in his dormitory. They weren’t the kind of things you joked about over breakfast or shouted across the Quidditch pitch.

They’d come from somewhere further inside him. The sort of place he didn’t usually let people see unless the moment was right and the person was someone he trusted with it.

Yet only days ago, he’d written it down to a complete and total stranger. Not the full story of what had happened, no, but his thoughts and feelings about it, yes.

It didn’t make much sense when he thought about it too hard.

He’d just spent the last minute feeling mildly horrified at the idea of someone accidentally reading the reply—not even his own words, just the response to them. The thought alone had made his pulse spike.

“I think I’m gonna head back. See you lads later, yeah?” James said lightly, patting Remus twice on the shoulder as he went. The two boys grumbled their goodbyes, already settling back into bickering about which of them would burst the pods, and which would scoop the contents into a bowl.

James slowed slightly as he passed the last row of planting tables, his gaze lingering on the dark head bent over the tray of seedlings, faintly wondering what the younger Black was up to. James hadn’t pegged him as the type to need extra help with something like Herbology.

Regulus stood very still as he worked, one narrow shoulder angled toward Professor Sprout while his hand moved with careful, deliberate motions through the soil.

He worked neatly. It was oddly precise.

Maybe he just took Herbology seriously?

Or maybe Professor Sprout had asked him to stay behind for some reason. Detention, perhaps. Though that didn’t quite seem right either—Regulus didn’t strike him as the sort who got caught doing anything that might earn him detention in the first place.

Still, James couldn’t quite picture Sirius’s little brother lingering in a greenhouse after hours by choice. From a distance, Regulus had always seemed like the sort who moved quietly from class to class and disappeared back into the Slytherin common room without much fuss.

But then again, James supposed there was plenty he didn’t know about him.

When he finally turned and pulled the door open, he nearly walked straight into someone standing on the other side.

The boy facing him was tall—taller even than Remus—and so thin that his limbs looked almost too long for the rest of him. His shoulders were narrow, his posture slightly slouched in a way that made the height seem even more exaggerated.

It looked as though he’d been just about to reach for the handle himself.

Evan Rosier.

James recognized him immediately, though they’d never actually spoken before. He only knew the name because he’d heard it often enough—usually in the same breath as something unpleasant.

Rosier had a bit of a reputation at Hogwarts, the sort that spread quietly through the castle in half-whispered conversations and grim anecdotes. Stories about hexes that went a little too far, or about younger students leaving corridors looking shaken after crossing paths with him.

James had never witnessed any of it personally, but he’d heard enough. And he knew, more importantly, that Rosier spent most of his time in the same circle as Regulus Black.

Rosier’s pale eyes flicked briefly over James’s face, taking him in with a kind of flat, uninterested assessment.

James tilted his head up slightly to meet his gaze.

Rosier stepped aside, the movement unhurried, almost lazy, as he shifted his weight and pulled the door wider without breaking eye contact. His expression didn’t change in the slightest. Just that same flat, unreadable look.

For half a second, James considered glancing back through the doorway toward where Regulus stood at the far table.

Instead, he just gave Rosier a slow, openly scathing look, huffing quietly under his breath and stepped past him, slipping out into the cool evening air beyond the greenhouse.

As he headed back toward the castle, he considered briefly looking for Sirius to tell him about the encounter with Rosier, but quickly scrapped the idea.

Two nights ago, Sirius had started sleeping in the dorm again.

The first morning it happened, James had woken slowly, half-buried beneath his blankets and still heavy with sleep. Then he had rolled onto his side and seen Sirius asleep in the bed across from him.

James could still remember the exact feeling that had hit his chest in that moment—sudden and bright and so strong it had almost made him laugh out loud. For a few seconds, before his brain had caught up with the rest of him, it had felt like the air in the room had been pumped full of something lighter. Like things had finally—finally—started moving back toward where they used to be.

Sirius sprawled across his mattress the way he always had, one arm flung above his head, dark hair a complete disaster against the pillow. His blankets had twisted halfway off the bed in the night, one bare foot sticking out into the cool morning air.

It had been such a familiar sight that James’s heart had nearly soared.

For those few stupid seconds, he had allowed himself to think maybe this was it. Maybe Sirius had finally decided he was done skulking off to Merlin knew where every night. Maybe the three weeks of silence and distance and careful avoidance had finally run their course. Maybe things were going to start going back to normal.

But Sirius had slept through breakfast that morning. And when James and Peter had reached the Great Hall without him, Remus hadn’t said a single word about Sirius being back.

Not one.

Remus had just sat there across from them, stirring his tea distractedly while Peter talked about a Transfiguration essay, and the empty seat beside James had remained exactly that—empty.

By the time they’d left the table, the brief spark of hope James had felt that morning had already begun to fade. By the next day, it had disappeared entirely.

Now Sirius was sleeping in the dorm again—but that was all that had changed. Nothing else had.

And if James was honest with himself—which he didn’t particularly enjoy being, in this case—it was becoming painfully clear that whatever normal had existed before wasn’t coming back. Not anytime soon, anyway.

James shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his robes as he crossed the lawn.

If there was one thing he could admit—even if only privately—it was that the strain of it all was starting to get to him. Not talking to Sirius properly felt wrong, almost. His absence now felt like a missing limb.

Remus hadn’t barred James from interacting with Sirius, of course. Remus wasn’t the sort of person who issued ultimatums or told people what they were allowed to do. If James had walked over to Sirius tomorrow and started talking to him like nothing had happened, Remus probably wouldn’t have stopped him.

But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t just act like everything was fine. Not after what had happened. Not after the look on Remus’s face that night.

So instead, James had settled into this awkward middle ground. He avoided Sirius—not because he wanted to, but because it felt like the only fair thing to do. Because until Remus forgave him, acting like anything was normal felt wrong. Disloyal, almost. That was the justification James kept repeating to himself, anyway.

But the distance between him and Sirius was quietly driving him mad.

As he walked, he was more aware of the crumpled parchment in his pants pocket resting against his thigh. The urge to write something back had returned, the open-ended final line from the stranger almost pulling him forward.

His fingers twitched slightly against his side, resisting the urge to reach into his pocket again.

Despite the uneasiness that came with knowing someone out there had now seen a side of his thoughts he rarely put into words—he still found that he did want to continue the conversation.

James blew out a slow breath through his nose, stepping through the stone archway of the castle.

It was ridiculous. He didn’t even know who this other person was.

To this stranger, he was just a set of questions. Something abstract and half-formed on a scrap of parchment tucked into a hidden corner of the library.

And yet, the reply had been thoughtful. There had been a steadiness in the words that made it clear the person hadn’t written them off the cuff. They’d actually considered what he’d said. He wasn’t used to that.

Most people reacted to him quickly—laughing, arguing, teasing, snapping back. Conversations with his friends bounced around chaotically, fast and loud and full of interruptions.

This stranger had taken his thoughts seriously. And, strangely enough, they’d said something that made him think harder about his own words afterward.

Truthfully, the whole thing did intrigue him. Talking to someone who didn’t know him came with a strange kind of freedom. They weren’t expecting anything from him. They didn’t already have a version of him in their head.

They weren’t Sirius, who could read half of James’s thoughts from the way he tilted his head. Or Remus, who noticed far too much for his own good. Or Peter, who had known him long enough to fill in the gaps automatically.

This person saw none of that. Just his words on the parchment—which meant James could write things he might normally leave unsaid.

He just couldn’t help but to let himself open up.

Chapter Text

Saturday 30th October, 1976

Regulus strolled through Hogsmeade with his hands tucked neatly into the pockets of his coat, the cool autumn air brushing against his face as he moved along the crowded street.

The village was as busy as it always was on Saturday evenings—students weaving between shopfronts, laughter spilling out from open doors, and the faint smell of sugar drifting through the air from nearby cafés. Lanterns had begun to glow along the street as the light faded, casting warm golden halos across the damp cobblestones.

A thin wind tugged at the ends of his dark hair as he passed Honeydukes, pushing a few loose strands across his forehead. Regulus barely noticed.

His thoughts were elsewhere.

Earlier that afternoon he’d stayed behind in the library while the others packed up their things. They’d been studying together—if it could be called that.

Mostly, it had been Barty and Evan arguing over some obscure bit of Defense theory while Pandora read quietly beside them. In practice, very little actual work had happened, per usual.

Regulus had written most of his essay hours before. Still, when the group began gathering their books to leave for Hogsmeade, he’d lingered behind, claiming he still had a few inches of parchment left to finish.

No one had questioned it, which had been convenient.

When he’d reached the alcove, expecting James Potter’s reply to his letter, the desk had sat empty where it stood—which meant one of two things had happened.

Either someone else had stumbled across the note and thrown it away, or James had taken it and hadn’t bothered responding.

Regulus turned down the main street of Hogsmeade now, the murmur of conversation swelling around him as more students drifted between the shops.

His mouth pressed faintly into a thin line.

The whole thing had been rather stupid anyway. He’d known that from the start. Writing a note to Potter of all people and leaving it there in that alcove had been… impulsive. Out of character.

Regulus wasn’t someone who indulged curiosity for its own sake, but the situation with Sirius had concerned him. It still did. That was the simple truth of it.

But, perhaps he’d been right. Maybe James Potter’s capacity for emotional reflection was simply limited.

For some reason, it irritated him more than he cared to admit. Not because he particularly valued James’s thoughts, but because Regulus had actually taken the time to respond to his rambling.

He rarely wasted effort on pointless conversations, so the idea that James might have simply read the note and discarded the exchange altogether was, quite frankly, annoying.

Regulus exhaled quietly through his nose.

It didn’t matter. The entire exchange had been pointless anyway. A small, idle experiment—nothing more. If Potter had decided not to continue it, that was his prerogative. Regulus had far better things to occupy his attention.

He lifted his chin slightly as he reached the far end of the street, The Three Broomsticks coming into view.

Already, the thought of James Potter was fading from his mind. And with deliberate force, Regulus did his best to forget about it entirely.

The warmth hit him the moment he stepped inside the pub.

The Three Broomsticks was packed.

Noise rolled through the room in overlapping waves—laughter, clinking glasses, the scrape of chairs against the wooden floorboards. Students filled nearly every table, coats slung over chair backs, cheeks flushed from the cold outside.

The air smelled thickly of butterbeer and roasted meat, the heat from the hearth and the press of bodies making the room feel pleasantly crowded rather than suffocating.

Regulus paused just inside the doorway for half a second, letting his eyes adjust to the dim golden light, his gaze sweeping the room. It didn’t take him long to find them.

Their usual booth sat tucked into the far corner of the room, a large rounded one pressed against the wall beneath a pair of low lanterns. It was half-hidden from the main floor, just far enough away from the busiest tables that they could occupy it without constant interruption.

Dorcas and Barty were leaning forward across the table, clearly in the middle of some heated argument, their voices carrying slightly above the surrounding noise. Barty’s sharp gestures cut through the air as he spoke, while Dorcas sat opposite him with her arms folded, posture rigid.

Evan lounged beside Barty, long legs stretched lazily beneath the table, watching the exchange with an expression of open amusement. Pandora, meanwhile, sat slightly turned away from the argument, calmly sipping from her butterbeer through a brightly colored straw that spiraled in several unnecessary loops before reaching the glass.

Regulus let out a quiet sigh as he crossed the pub, slipping into the curved seat beside Pandora and shrugging his coat off as he settled into the booth.

The butterbeer closest to his seat had clearly been ordered for him already. The foam still clung thickly to the rim of the glass, only slightly collapsed from sitting there too long.

Across from him, Barty was in the middle of saying something sharp and irritated.

“—that’s not the point, Dorcas, you’re deliberately missing—”

“What is it now?” Regulus interjected blandly.

“Tell him to fuck off, Black,” Dorcas said immediately, not even glancing at Regulus as she jerked her thumb toward Barty.

Regulus reached for the butterbeer, taking a slow sip before setting it back down. Then he turned his head slightly toward Barty.

“Barty, fuck off,” Regulus said mildly, making Evan sputter out a wild laugh.

“Oh, so you’re just going to blindly take her side?” Barty scoffed incredulously, now mirroring Dorcas’s crossed arms and rigid stance.

Regulus gave a small shrug and took another sip of his drink.

“Well, Dorcas is usually right.”

“See? I told you he’d—”

“Can we get back on topic?” Pandora’s voice cut cleanly through the argument with sudden impatience. “The Halloween party is tomorrow night. Slytherin is hosting this time, yes?”

Barty’s entire demeanor shifted instantly. The irritation drained from his expression like water down a sink, replaced by something bright and eager.

“Oh—yes, actually,” he said, leaning forward with renewed enthusiasm. “I’ve got a plan.”

Regulus stared at him flatly.

“Is it a plan for the party,” he asked dryly, “or the after party?”

Barty only smirked.

“The after party is Slytherin only,” Evan added calmly.

But Barty didn’t look even slightly concerned.

“Well,” he said easily, “it’s a good thing I’ve got connections, eh?”

Dorcas let out a loud, unimpressed exhale and rolled her eyes. “Oh please.” She leaned back against the booth, arms still folded. “Not even I’m going to the after party, and I actually live with those people. It’s going to be full of pureblood aristocrat wankers pretending they’re in some little secret society.”

Her gaze flicked briefly toward Regulus and Evan. “No offense, obviously.”

Regulus shrugged, unbothered. “None taken.”

Pandora’s hand smacked down on the edge of the table, making the rest of them jump. “On. Topic.” She bit out, then settled back into her seat. “It’s a costume party, is it not?”

Evan groaned. “Don’t start with this again. Costume party or not, I won’t be caught dead—”

“So it is!” Pandora brightened, toying with her straw and stirring her drink. “Good. Xeno will be glad to hear it.”

“Wait—costume party? Since when?” Regulus blinked. His mind began automatically running through possibilities.

He wasn’t the sort of person who enjoyed dressing up for parties, but he also had no interest in being the only person standing in the middle of a crowded room clearly out of place. There was a very fine line between understated and unprepared.

“When has any Halloween party at Hogwarts ever not involved a costume, Reg?” Dorcas scoffed. “I’ve already got mine,” she added, with clear satisfaction.

Barty nodded enthusiastically. “Same.”

Regulus’s gaze slid toward Evan.

Evan was slumped in his corner of the booth like a man facing execution, one arm thrown over the back of the seat and the other loosely holding his butterbeer. He looked deeply unhappy.

“Xeno and I planned corresponding costumes, but I think I’ll leave it as a surprise,” Pandora said pleasantly, glancing between them.

“Look, I don’t give a shit what any of you wear as long as there’s booze,” Barty said plainly.

Evan reached over and patted Barty lightly on the shoulder.

“No worries, Crouch,” he said lazily. “It’s been handled. I already spoke to Rabastan.”

Barty stiffened, his expression twisting into something distinctly less cheerful.

Next to Regulus, Pandora wrinkled her nose slightly.

“I doubt I’ll partake then,” she said thoughtfully. “I know my brother’s taste.”

The conversation dulled around Regulus once he caught sight of a group of boys waltzing their way through the entrance. Avery came in first, shoulders squared, sneer on his face. Mulciber followed, broad and heavy in his movements.

Severus Snape trailed a step behind them. His black hair hung around his face, his expression as drawn and distant as ever.

Barty was already talking animatedly again—something about disguises. Regulus only half heard it. His attention had shifted inward.

Dorcas had been right about one thing: the after party would be full of aristocratic purebloods. But that wasn’t the entire picture.

People liked to imagine the Slytherin after parties as something dramatic, indulgent, and secretive. Barty clearly did. Regulus could practically see the image in his head: some dark, glittering gathering full of reckless people doing reckless things, illicit substances passed between hands, conspiratorial laughter in the shadowed corners of the common room.

But the reality was much less exciting, and far more dangerous.

Most of the people who attended those gatherings weren’t there to party—they were there to talk, to network, to align themselves with the right people.

Someone like Snape, for example. Regulus would have doubted Snape would even receive an invite if not for last school year’s gathering near the end of term—the first Regulus had ever attended. Snape had been there, looking a bit in over his head, but no less out of place than Regulus, who had been a mere fourteen years old at the time.

Now, he was certain Severus would be in attendance. Not because he appeared to enjoy this sort of gathering, but because it was useful to someone like him. Because people with the right connections would be there.

If Regulus was honest with himself, most of the discussion at the after party would likely revolve around the same subject it did the last time: the war. Who had spoken to whom, who had been seen with whom, which families were leaning which direction, and who had already pledged themselves to the Dark Lord.

Regulus had no particular desire to attend, but he would out of expectation. So would Evan now, he supposed.

Regulus lived inside a vacuum of this theoretical inevitability.

He knows what is expected of him, has always known, and has learned to survive it by treating expectation as something distant—a future problem, a role he could step into later with the same control he applies to everything else.

Becoming the heir after Sirius left had only reinforced that mindset. Regulus didn’t feel trapped so much as appointed. The future is fixed, but still abstract, still survivable, as long as it continues to remain conceptual.

But even he knows that this future is hurtling fast toward him.

Last year, when Rabastan Lestrange had lifted his sleeve and displayed the Dark Mark proudly etched into his forearm, part of Regulus’s illusion of later had unraveled.

When Orion and Walburga had tested his allegiance this past summer on his fifteenth birthday, promising him that he was due to take the Mark in a year’s time, he’d still been able to cling to the idea that this would be a problem for his sixteen year old self to deal with.

He knows he can tell himself he is choosing nothing—that he is simply continuing forward, fulfilling obligation, keeping peace—but taking the Mark is an act that cannot be reframed as passive. It is physical, invasive, and final. It is not something he agrees with or believes in, but it is something that will be done to his body, and therefore to his future.

Once the Mark is burned into him, Regulus understands with terrifying clarity, he will have crossed from inheritance into participation. Then, he will no longer be adjacent to the war. He will be in it.

~*~

Sunday 31st October, 1976

James is late.

This, by itself, was not entirely unusual. What was unusual was that he was the reason everyone else was late.

“Hurry up!” Remus’s voice carried sharply from the doorway of the dorm. “We’re already an hour behind!”

James ignored him.

He was sprawled across the edge of his bed, parchment braced against one knee, quill flying across the page in quick, uneven strokes. His handwriting had degraded significantly over the last few lines, letters slanting into each other as he rushed to finish the thought.

Remus swiftly crossed the room, eyes blazing.

“James—”

“Nearly done,” James said quickly, not looking up.

“You said that five minutes ago.”

“I mean it this time.”

Across the room, Peter’s head popped out of the bathroom doorway.

“Moony, hold on a second,” he said, already halfway through slicking gel into his hair. “This stuff takes a minute.”

Remus groaned, dropping onto the edge of his own bed, bouncing his knee impatiently.

James’s costume was already on, and he was absurdly pleased about this one.

Leather straps crossed over his chest, fastening his armor across one shoulder in what he hoped looked convincingly Roman. A short red cloak hung down his back, and the sandals had taken him a ridiculous amount of time to charm properly so they didn’t keep falling apart as he walked. On his head sat a golden laurel crown.

The wooden practice sword leaning against his bed completed the look.

Frankly, he looked fantastic.

He just needed—

James scribbled the final line of the letter.

—to finish this.

He’d meant to finish hours ago. The plan had been simple: write the letter, leave it in the library alcove sometime that afternoon, and be done with the whole odd exchange long before the Halloween party started.

Instead, he’d been late for his weekly run with Marlene—mostly because he’d been up half the night debating how to phrase the first part of the letter—then the run had turned into lingering on the grounds, lingering had turned into talking, then suddenly it had been dinner, and suddenly Remus was announcing they needed to start getting ready, and now James was sitting here, scrawling the ending of a letter he should have finished long ago.

He blew on the ink to dry it, then skimmed the page once quickly.

Good enough. Not perfect, but—

“James,” Remus said more patiently this time.

“Right. Sorry.”

James folded the parchment quickly, sliding off the bed. Without thinking, he tucked the letter into the nearest available pocket in his costume.

Peter emerged from the bathroom at that exact moment, hair now aggressively styled upward, the Superman ‘S’ sitting boldly upon his chest.

Remus stood quickly, grabbing his coat from the back of a chair.