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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.