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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. Not in years, but in ruin. 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?

Regulus 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 Regulus 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 groaning under 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, deliberate. 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, 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. Somehow, he always seemed to forget the way Dumbledore managed to tower above him.

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—not in submission, but in containment. 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. “Sure, 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.

Four years of it—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.