Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

August air was heavy, damp with heat and dust, the kind of night that pressed itself against the skin like fever. James crouched low, wand steady though his pulse roared so loud he thought the Death Eaters would hear it. 

Twenty-three August.

His first mission that counted. Nearly two months wearing the Order’s colors, and still he wasn’t sure if Moody’s drills or the sheer lack of warm bodies had pushed him forward. 

It didn’t matter now. 

The time for wondering was gone.

The six black-robed figures appeared in a low, crackling pop of collective Apparition. The moment the battle began, James realized his training with Moody was an optimistic rehearsal for the true, feral cruelty of war.

He forced himself to focus on the Moonstone’s crates. That was what they were here for. A shipment rare enough to draw blood before it ever touched a cauldron.

The fight broke with no rhythm, only brutality. Spells cracked the air, curses shrieked against wood and plaster. James threw himself sideways, felt the scorch of heat graze his ribs. He fired back without thinking, his arm trembling with the recoil of light, the smell of singed fabric filling his nose. One curse struck the wall so close the plaster sprayed his cheek raw; he grit his teeth, shifted stance, forced his breath steady the way Moody had drilled into him. He caught the glint of a mask through the haze and aimed high, his spell tearing through the wooden beam above and sending shards raining down. For a heartbeat, his vision narrowed to nothing but the arc of his wand, the burn in his lungs, and the conviction that he could not—would not—fall here.

Then the collapse. Fabian’s bombarda tore through the ceiling—an explosion of timber, dust, iron nails. The building groaned, then screamed, then buried three masked bodies in rubble so fast they barely had time to cry out.

And Bones—Merlin—Bones fell. James only saw the flash of green, then the sound of his body breaking the floor. It was over in a blink, but it stayed like fire behind James’s eyes.

The rest scattered. Shadows dissolving, fleeing.

They had the crates, the prize. Dorcas pressed a hand to her bleeding arm, Alice clutched Frank’s shoulder, Fabian bent and lifted the weight of Bones as if the man were nothing more than stone.

“I’m fine,” James heard himself say. His throat was raw, every word a scrape. “Go. I’ll be right behind.”

And then they were gone.

Silence, except for the ringing in his ears and the slow crumble of plaster shifting above. His lungs burned. Every breath scraped. He tried to steady himself the way Moody drilled them, count the air in, count it out. Apparate now, before the Ministry or before the shadows circled back—

A sound broke through. Thin, uneven. A groan dragged up from rubble.

James froze. Turned, wand raised, body raw as a nerve. In the corner, beneath a lattice of splintered beams, something shifted. Black robes, a mask intact, chest barely lifting.

His heart slammed hard once. Leave him. Let him drown in dust, in the ruin his side had sown. Bones’s body was still warm in Fabian’s arms. This—this was no different.

And yet his feet betrayed him. He was already crossing the wreckage, palms stinging as he dragged stone aside. The figure beneath was slighter than the others, frail in the heavy cloth, breath rattling shallow. He hesitated, nausea rising in his throat, arm faltering as though it might release the weight back to the dark.

His hand lifted anyway. The mask came free with a brittle snap.

A face, grey with dust, mouth slack, bones sharp as if carved too fine. Too young. Too known.

Regulus Black.

The name flared like heat inside him. 

Sirius’s brother, the boy he’d glimpsed across corridors, the Black heir who never lowered his chin. Yet here, the poise was gone. His lashes clumped with soot, lips cracked, his body collapsing inward as though the robes had outgrown him.

James’s chest constricted. He should let him sink back into silence. Or drag him to Moody, wring him dry. War demanded it. Bones was gone. Many of them…

But Sirius—he could already see his friend’s face breaking, could already hear the ruin in his voice.

James swore under his breath. His fingers shook as he shoved the wand back into his belt. Nearby, half-hidden in the dust, lay another wand. Probably Regulus’s. James picked it up without thinking and slipped it into his other pocket.

Then he bent low, hooked his arms under the narrow shoulders, and lifted. The weight staggered him, knees nearly buckling, dust stinging his eyes.

As Regulus shifted against him, James caught a glimpse through the torn front of the robes — a clean gash across his chest, shallow but bleeding steadily, dark through the fabric.

Not fatal. Not nothing.

Regulus’s head lolled against his collarbone, skin cold, breath thin. Too fragile, too human.

James swallowed the bile rising sharp in his throat and turned.

Grabbed his wand. The world snapped tight. Stone, smoke, corpses, gone in an instant.

He landed hard on the wooden floor of his flat, breath tearing loose in ragged gasps. Silence pressed heavy, broken only by his own heaving lungs and the faint, stubborn rise of Regulus Black’s chest against his arm.

He stayed there a second, catching his breath, arms locked around the weight in his chest and arms both. The flat was dark, quiet. Blood on his hands. Dust on the floor. He moved.

He laid Regulus down as carefully as he could in his bed, sheets pulling tight beneath the frail body. A breath still moved the boy’s chest, shallow, rasping, enough that James hesitated.

The gash was clearer now in the light. Just under the collarbone, slicing across the left side. Not deep, but angry.

James muttered a charm under his breath, one of the ones Marlene had drilled into him, wand trembling slightly as he dragged it along the edge of torn flesh. The skin knit unevenly beneath the spell, sealing — mostly — but too slow, too rough. It would scar.

He exhaled through his teeth. 

“Sorry,” he murmured, low, not sure to whom.

He then focused on the wards: reinforced, sharp, precise, locking the room in silence. He considered an incarcerous, just in case, but the rise of Regulus’s ribs was already stuttered. Another restraint might smother him outright.

Merlin’s sake. If he delayed much longer, they’d notice. 

Questions, suspicion. The kind that hung in every hallway of the headquarters.

James brushed the dust from his palms, cast one last glance at the body on his bed, and turned. The room sealed itself behind him with a sound like a swallowed breath.

The Apparition took him to the edge of an old lawn. For a moment he stood still, the scent of clipped grass biting at his throat. The house loomed ahead—Potter Manor, the hushed corridors of his childhood. Now it wore different colors: maps spread across parlors, voices echoing in rooms once meant for laughter. Dumbledore had asked, his parents had yielded, and the place had become headquarters.

He had tried to live here again. For weeks after his last year at Hogwarts, he did. But the weight of war pressed too heavy on walls meant for safety. Endless meetings, footsteps at every hour, portraits waking to strangers’ faces. Better to keep distance, to preserve some scrap of memory unpoisoned.

He crossed the yard at a run, boots soft on the grass, and shouldered open the broad doors. The air inside was thick with voices, the hum of strategy. In the dining hall, Moody hunched at the head, parchment spread like battle maps. Fabian leaned forward, ash streaked across his cheek, recounting the night with measured detail.

James slid into a chair, glasses slightly askew. “Sorry,” he said, voice rough, “stopped by the flat for a new pair of glasses. Lost mine in the mess.”

No one questioned him. Too much else to tally, too much blood still ringing in their ears. Dorcas sat stiff, arm bound, Frank kept his hand on Alice’s shoulder, Fabian’s voice kept its steady cadence.

Fabian was midway through his report, voice low but clipped.

“—Crates confirmed, five in total. Dorcas took two hits shielding Frank.”

Moody’s mouth twisted.

“The eastern wall collapsed with the second bombarda,” Fabian continued, knuckles white on the edge of the table. “Took out three of them. No survivors. We scattered the rest. Frank tagged one with a Severing, might’ve clipped an artery. Didn’t stay to confirm.”

“Good,” Moody said shortly. “And the target material?”

"Secured. Already in the cellar with the rest of the potion stock, under ward."

Moody gave a grunt that might have meant approval. He scratched something onto his parchment, head bent low, eyes flicking once toward James.

“You were last out.”

James nodded. “Secured the perimeter. Checked for stragglers.”

“Any?”

He shook his head. “Dust. Rubble. No breathing.”

There was a pause. Not long, but pointed. Moody didn’t press.

Fabian looked down. His voice dropped, just a shade: “We lost Bones.”

Silence.

Moody’s quill stopped mid-stroke.

“How?” he asked, voice even.

Fabian’s jaw tightened. “Avada. Seconds before the ceiling came down. He was covering our flank. Didn’t see it coming.”

A long breath escaped Moody — not sharp, not shaky. Just deep. 

Tired.

“Where’s the body?”

“I took him to the family.”

Moody gave a slow nod. His eyes didn’t rise from the parchment.

“I’ll see it’s handled,” he said. “Properly.”

His hand moved again, resuming the scrawl. Nothing else in his posture shifted. But the air in the room had.

No one spoke.

“Well,” he said, shifting his weight with a creak of old leather. “You lot did what we needed.”

James swallowed. His tongue tasted like smoke.

Fabian exhaled through his nose, the kind of breath that carried everything he wasn’t saying.

“Bones fought hard,” Dorcas murmured, voice thin but steady. “He held that line longer than anyone should’ve had to.”

James nodded. That much was true. The rest—he let blur.

He didn’t speak again. Let the hum of strategy return, the shuffling of parchment, the scrape of chairs as bodies leaned in and out of argument. His hands rested open on the table. Dust still clung to the cuffs of his shirt.

No one noticed the blood on his collar that wasn’t his.

✧.*

After the debrief, his body moved without plan, legs drawing him down the corridor and through the low-lit hall toward the kitchen.

Light spilled warm from the half-open door. Laughter, too — soft, familiar.

His mother was there. Miraculously.

Leaning against the counter in her silk house-robe, teacup in hand, her hair loose at the crown. Across from her, Sirius sat cross-legged on a stool, grinning at something they’d both clearly heard a hundred times before. Some joke about the tea, or the biscuit tin, or something from when they’d both been younger and the house quieter.

For a moment, James felt it. The breath of something old and sweet rising in his chest.

Like before — before the war, before missions, before decisions that couldn’t be undone. Before Regulus bleeding out on his sheets.

It felt like summer night. When Sirius had moved in and there were extra towels in the bathroom.

Now Euphemia barely touched ground in the country. Always flitting through embassies and Ministry chambers with Fleamont, answering Dumbledore’s summons, sending owl after owl.

And Sirius — he and Moony had found a flat in London the minute they left school. Seventy square meters above a dumpling shop in Chinatown, noisy, bright, alive.

But here they were.

It was 2 a.m., and they were drinking tea and eating biscuits like the world hadn’t ended.

When James stepped into the room, his mother turned without hesitation.

“Oh, Jamie,” she said.

The cup was already on the counter. Her arms were around him before he could speak.

James instinctively leaned into his mother’s arms, letting himself press into the fabric of her robe, breathing in sandalwood and safety. He tried to absorb it — every trace of comfort, every thread of kindness still stitched into the world.

Then a hand settled on his shoulder.

He turned, lifting his head from her neck, and met his best friend’s eyes.

A faint smile tugged at Sirius’s mouth — familiar, crooked, there to reassure. But beneath it, the bruised shadows under his eyes were impossible to miss.

“Hey, Pads,” James murmured.

“How’d it go?”

“Bones is gone.”

The words didn’t echo. They just hung there, dense, final.

Neither of them spoke. Euphemia’s arms wrapped tighter for a second, the breath catching faintly in her chest — and Sirius’s hand never left James’s shoulder.

When they finally parted, Effie took his face gently in both hands. Her thumbs traced along his cheekbones like she used to do when he came scraped from Quidditch trains on the yard.

But then her gaze dropped.

To the stain on his shirt — dark, smeared, still tacky near the collar. Not his.

“What happened?” she asked softly.

James blinked. Thought quickly. “Just a minor cut. Closed it up already. Nothing serious.”

James glanced at Sirius. “Moony’s not back yet?”

Sirius’s expression darkened instantly. The softness vanished.

“No,” he said flatly. “Been more than three weeks. And neither Moody nor Dumbledore will tell me where he went. Bastards.”

“Language,” Euphemia murmured gently.

“Sorry, Mum,” Sirius muttered, already dragging a hand through his hair, fingers clenched in the strands like he could tug the fury straight out of his skull. He turned back to the counter, wrapped both hands around his tea.

James moved to join them. Sat beside his best friend in the stillness.

Euphemia reached without asking and poured him a cup. The clink of porcelain was the only sound for a while.

And for a moment — brief and brittle — they just sat there. Three souls suspended in the hush before morning.

“Where’s Dad?” James asked, voice low.

“On escort duty,” Euphemia replied, brushing a biscuit crumb from her sleeve. “I’m meeting him in an hour. Portkey out of Brussels.”

James exhaled, long and tired. “You two could map the continent from memory at this point.”

Effie gave a quiet laugh, soft enough not to stir the shadows. “Might come in handy one day.”

James managed the ghost of a smile.

Then his eyes drifted back to Sirius.

He should tell him. Should say it straight — I found Regulus. He’s alive. He’s in my flat. But Sirius looked hollowed out beneath the skin, like whatever fire usually kept him burning was flickering low.

Still waiting on Remus. Still pacing the edge of that grief with nothing to bury.

James swallowed.

Not tonight.

Better to sit, for now. To hold the weight a little longer so Sirius wouldn’t have to. To figure out what to do with Regulus before that revelation came crashing down.

So he stayed quiet. Let his tea cool between his hands.

They stayed in the kitchen a while longer, letting time fold in around them. The war stayed outside the door for once, left to pace the hallway like an impatient ghost.

They talked about nothing — the new dumpling place below Sirius’s flat, the absurd length of Dumbledore’s last memo, how Frank had gone soft for sugar lately, and how Alice kept sugar quills tucked in every pocket like a doting supplier.

James was grateful. For the warmth of the tea. For the sound of Sirius’s voice when it wasn’t sharp with fear. For his mother’s hand on his arm, steady and quiet.

When Euphemia finally rose and said goodbye with long, tight hugs for them both, Sirius lingered.

“I’m heading back,” he said, finishing the last sip of tea. “Pete’s crashing with me tonight, but I couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d come here and wait for you to come back.” 

“You want me to come with you?” James offered, already half-rising.

Sirius waved a hand, too tired to roll his eyes. “Nah. You look disgusting. Covered in dust and dried blood. Go shower. Maybe burn those clothes.”

James huffed a quiet laugh.

Sirius gave him a faint smirk, then turned toward the door.

“Hey—” James said, catching him. “Anything comes up, use the mirror, yeah?”

Sirius paused. Nodded once, the gesture small but sure. “Always.”

And then he was gone, coat thrown over one shoulder, boots soft on the floor.

James stood alone in the quiet kitchen, hands still wrapped around a cup gone cold.

Chapter Text

James Apparated back into the flat with a quiet snap, clutching a few healing potions he’d lifted discreetly from the supply shelves at Potter Manor.

The place was silent.

The bedroom door remained sealed, its protective wards still intact—sharp, untouched, exactly as he’d left them.

He exhaled, slow. Set the vials and both wands onto the sofa, and made his way to the bathroom.

It wasn’t until the scalding heat licked up his arms that he realized just how hot the water was. His skin flushed red beneath it, stinging, steam coiling like smoke around the small tiled room. Still, he didn’t turn it down.

He toweled off without thinking, pulling on the same clothes he’d left slung over the door that morning: grey sweatpants, a plain white shirt.

By the time the steam had thinned enough to drift down the hallway, James drew a breath and stepped toward the bedroom.

The door unlocked with his touch and creaked open with the faintest groan.

Regulus hadn’t moved.

He lay exactly where James had left him—flat on his back, face turned toward the ceiling, skin pale against the sheets.

James stilled.

He should’ve woken by now.

Something cold curled in his gut. Without thinking, he stepped closer, leaning in to check the rise of his chest—looking for any sign of breath, of movement, of—

Regulus moved.

Suddenly. Brutally.

James hit the mattress hard as Regulus surged upward, one leg thrown over his hips, pinning him down. Fingers locked tight around James’s throat, crushing. He could smell the dust on Regulus’s sleeves, the metallic tang of old blood, the heat of another pressed against his hips.

James gasped—a harsh, stuttered sound. His lungs clawed for air that wouldn’t come. He grabbed at Regulus’s wrists, but the grip didn’t loosen.

There was nothing in his eyes. No clarity, no recognition—only the manic gleam of something feral.

James choked, voice rasping: “Going to kill me, Regulus?”

Something flickered. Not softness—but recognition, maybe. Or confusion. The pressure around his throat wavered.

Regulus inhaled sharply.

His gaze darted—past James, to the door, now wide open.

In the next breath, he was off him.

The wards flared.

James heard it first—the deep, metallic thrum of triggered magic—then saw the force of it slam into Regulus’s body like an invisible wall. The boy was thrown backwards, limbs skidding across the floor, landing hard against the base of the bookshelf.

James dragged in air, hand pressed to his throat. Each breath scraped like gravel. His fingers trembled as he pushed himself up on one elbow, eyes fixed on the figure across the room.

Regulus was already climbing to his feet.

He staggered once, caught himself, and lunged again—straight at the door.

Again, the wards lit up. Again, the force threw him back.

James sat up fully, still clutching his neck. “You won’t get through. Drop it.” he rasped, voice rough.

Regulus turned. His face was all angles, sharp with fury, wild with disbelief. His brows drew low over his eyes, as if trying to make sense of something that wouldn’t compute—rage curdling into something colder.

And then—

His body convulsed.

Collapsed inward.

Shrank.

For a blink, Regulus’s skin seemed to ripple, light bending off it, and then the black fur spilled forward like smoke swallowing his shape. The smell changed too—feral, wild, the edge of something not human.

In less than a breath, where a boy had stood, a sleek black cat now crouched, its fur bristling, tail twitching with a whipcord snap.

It darted forward, straight at the barrier.

James didn’t flinch. He already knew it wouldn’t work.

Ever since he himself learned to shift, he’d built his wards with that in mind—layers of detection that accounted for human, inhuman, magical, animal. Animagi weren’t loopholes anymore.

The cat hit the edge of the room and rebounded like a stone skipping off glass. Its claws scrabbled for purchase on the floorboards, ears flat, eyes gleaming with pure, burning frustration.

It turned, hissing at him.

A low, furious sound. Almost… betrayed.

James stayed where he was, hand still pressed to his throat.

“I wouldn’t try again,” he said quietly.

The cat growled once more, but didn’t move.

The cat turned back to the door, movements slower now. Measured. As if trying to reclaim composure one pawstep at a time.

It approached the edge of the wards with the wary grace of a predator, raised one paw, and pressed forward.

The barrier pushed back—gently, but firmly. Like wire-thin steel under silk.

Regulus held it there a moment, feeling it. Testing.

James’s voice cut through the quiet.

“Transform back, Regulus. We’ll talk.”

The cat spun, tail lashing, and hissed at him again, a sound like steam escaping from a cracked pipe. But then it paused. Held James’s gaze.

Waited.

James didn’t move.

Seconds passed. Then the cat sat, very still—and with a shimmer of warped air, Regulus was back. Standing up where the cat had been, clothes rumpled, hair sticking in sharp black tufts, chest rising and falling with silent rage.

“Drop the wards, Potter,” he said, voice low, tight. “Let me go.”

James stood now. Didn’t look away either.

“No.”

Regulus stalked toward him, eyes like twin blades, fury rippling off him in waves. “Where’s my wand?”

“Out of reach,” James replied.

That made Regulus laugh—short, sharp, the edge of hysteria curling under it. “What’s the plan, then? Keep me locked up?”

“You need to calm down,” James said, not flinching. “And then we’ll talk.”

“Talk?” Regulus spat, the word brittle. “You dragged me from a battlefield, took my wand, threw me in a room behind half a dozen wards—now you want a chat?”

“I could’ve left you there. Choking on dust.”

Silence.

James took a step forward. “I didn’t.”

Regulus’s mouth was tight, trembling at the corners. Not with fear. With something uglier. Tighter.

“You should have,” he whispered.

James didn’t answer.

James exhaled sharply and moved to the dresser. He pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a plain white shirt and tossed them onto the bed beside Regulus.

“I’ll extend the wards to the bathroom so you can use it,” he said, voice clipped. “You can take a shower. Cool down. Then we’ll talk about what happens next.”

Regulus’s hands twitched.

For a second, James thought he might go for his throat again—but this time, he was ready. He caught Regulus by the forearms and shoved him back, hard, sending him sprawling onto the bed.

“Enough,” James snapped. “I’m bigger than you and you don’t have a wand. Calm down. Take a shower. There’s food—I’ll heat something up for you.”

Regulus glared up at him, voice pure venom. “Fuck you.”

James let out a breathless laugh, not quite amused. “Have your way, then.”

He turned and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

The echo cracked down the hallway.

But the second James stepped into the corridor, the anger slipped from his shoulders like steam off his skin. He stood still, guilt blooming slow and bitter in his chest.

It had barely been a few minutes.

And Regulus was already dragging the worst out of him.

James stormed back into the flat, pacing. His mind spun, grasping at next steps, anything resembling a plan.

Whatever Regulus was—whatever he’d done—James couldn’t just leave him locked in a room with no food or water.

He went to the kitchen, pulling out the last of the lamb stew from the freezer. It was one of the meals their house-elf, Maple, had left behind on her last visit, murmuring something about “keeping the young master fed if he won’t do it himself.”

He heated it with a flick of his wand, added a chunk of bread, then grabbed a pitcher of fresh water and a cup. A quick transfiguration turned the dishware to plastic—just in case Regulus decided to throw something at his head.

Tray in hand, he walked back to the room.

When he opened the door, he stopped short.

Regulus was curled in his Animagus form again—small, black-furred, paw tucked beneath him as he licked at it in sharp, deliberate motions. Something about the way he was hunched… the angle of his body… it looked like pain. Tight, closed-in. Protective.

Was he hurt?

James stepped in quietly, placed the tray down on the desk beside the bed, then turned to face him.

“You hurt?” he asked. “Transform back. Tell me what’s going on.”

The cat looked up—and hissed again, low and sharp.

James sighed, tension rolling down his spine. He pressed a hand to his forehead.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Suit yourself.”

He stepped out and closed the door behind him with more care this time.

There was only so much he could do.

Resigned, James flicked his wand at the cushions on the couch, transfiguring them into a proper blanket and a pair of soft pillows. He arranged them the best he could, smoothing out the fabric, fluffing the corners.

Both wands—his and Regulus’s—he tucked beneath the blanket with him. Just in case.

And then, without meaning to, without realizing how heavy his limbs had grown, he lay back—

—and sleep took him almost instantly.

✧.*

James woke slowly, his eyelids still heavy. The ceiling above him blurred, then sharpened, and the memories returned in fragments.

The mission.
The collapsing roof.
Bones.
Regulus.

The flat was quiet. Daylight filtered in at a softened angle. He muttered a tempus and watched the shimmering numbers hover in the air — just past noon.

At least he’d managed to sleep.

No drills with Moody today. His parents were, as always, somewhere abroad. Moony — off on some secret assignment. Sirius — coping the best he could. And Peter was likely buried under a pile of parchment at the Ministry.

James just hoped Sirius didn’t show up unannounced.

With a resigned breath, he pushed himself off the couch and headed for the kitchen. The coffee was hot, black, grounding. He drank a full cup in silence before deciding to bring one to Regulus.

He padded down the hall, balancing the fresh cup in one hand, and eased open the bedroom door.

Regulus was awake.

Still in his Animagus form. Still curled in the same corner of the room, tail wrapped tight, posture guarded.

James's eyes flicked to the desk — the plate was empty. The water, gone.

That was something.

Keeping steady eye contact, James stepped inside. He set the mug on the desk, refilled the jug with a casual flick of his wand, and picked up the now-clean plate.

Before leaving, he paused at the doorway.

“One way or another,” he said quietly, “we’re going to have to talk.”

The cat hissed again — low, disgruntled — and turned its face away.

James didn’t push. Just closed the door with a muted click.

✧.*

Two more days passed like that.

Regulus remained in his Animagus form, curled in the same damn corner, refusing to shift back or speak. But he always ate — at least there was that. James slipped in and out of the room, delivering meals and refilling the water jug. No conversation. No eye contact. Just the low growl of a warning hiss if he got too close.

He’d had to leave once or twice — a scheduled session with Moody, a brief check-in with Sirius — but every time he returned, Regulus was exactly the same. Silent. Still. Tense as a spring, like the very act of being in James’s home was punishment. He’d never actually seen Regulus go to the bathroom, though he must have in the past few days — it wasn’t as if Regulus Black would ever lower himself to use the floor, even out of spite. Still, the towel and the clothes lay exactly where James had left them, untouched on the bed.

Last night, James had cracked.

He’d shouted. Loud. Told Regulus to transform, to talk to him like a human being. Got nothing for it — just another hiss, sharp teeth, unsheathed claws, and a tail flicked high in threat.

Fine. If that’s how he wanted to play it.

This morning, James woke early with a plan already bitter on his tongue. He went down to the corner shop, picked up exactly what he needed, and returned with a small brown bag tucked under his arm.

He grabbed a bowl from the kitchen. Opened the tin.

The stench alone made his stomach twist, but he dumped the wet cat food in anyway. He stormed down the hall, pushed the bedroom door open, and crossed to the corner before the cat could react.

He dropped the bowl right in front of him.

“There,” he snapped. “If you refuse to act like a person, you can eat like a bloody cat from now on.”

And he turned on his heel, marching toward the door.

He didn’t get three steps before the bowl slammed into the back of his head.

A cold, wet splatter slid down his neck. A chunk of meat dripped from his collar.

He closed his eyes. Took a long, measured breath.

He turned slowly.

For the first time in days, Regulus was standing in his human form — pale, thin, tousled, still in his death eater clothes and boots. His eyes were dark, ringed in exhaustion, but burning.

“You’re an asshole,” he said flatly.

James inhaled through his nose. He didn’t flinch. He just lifted his wand, cleaned the mess off his neck and shirt with a flick, and tucked it back into his pocket.

“Talk to me,” he said, calm but firm. “Or it’s cat food from now on.”

Regulus’s jaw tensed. His fingers curled like claws. For a second, he looked like he might lunge again — until he squeezed his eyes shut, seething.

“What for?” he hissed. “You already said you’re not letting me go.”

“I can’t,” James said, jaw tight. “If they find out I’ve been keeping a Death Eater in my flat for days, they’ll start asking questions. Things are tense enough as it is.”

Regulus narrowed his eyes. “So what’s the plan, then? Keep me locked in here until the war’s over? Why the hell did you bring me here, Potter?”

James ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I don’t know.”

Regulus let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Fantastic…”

James exhaled harshly, pacing once before turning back to face him. “I couldn’t just leave you there, alright? You’re Sirius’s little brother. If I handed you over to Moody, they’d tear through your mind, get whatever they could, and dump you in Azkaban after.”

Regulus went still.

“Does Sirius know I’m here?” he said slowly, voice low.

James hesitated.

“No. He’s dealing with... other things right now. I haven’t been able to tell him yet.”

“You can’t drag him into this,” Regulus said sharply.

James frowned. “And why not?”

“Because it’s dangerous. He’s impulsive. He’ll act without thinking.” Regulus’s voice was tight now, strained. “When I leave here they’ll have access to everything. My memories. Him.”

James stepped forward. “You don’t have to go back.”

Regulus scoffed. “Oh, really? And what, I should join your precious Order?”

“If I talk to Dumbledore,” James said carefully, “he’ll find a way. He’ll give you protection.”

Regulus laughed then—loud, unrestrained, almost unhinged. He threw his head back as if the absurdity physically knocked the breath from him.

“Oh, Potter,” he said between sharp breaths. “You’re such a bloody idiot.”

James stiffened, visibly offended. “Regulus, there is a right side to this. If you gave Dumbledore what you know, I’m sure he’d offer you shelter. Protection.”

“I will never speak a single word to Dumbledore,” Regulus snapped.

James’s jaw clenched. “And why the fuck not?”

“Because he’s just as bad,” Regulus said, voice rising, eyes flashing with something between fury and despair. “They’re all the same. You’re just too blinded to see it.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Regulus stepped closer, shaking with anger. “You’re so far buried in his moral speeches, you don’t even think for yourself anymore. There’s no point talking to you.”

“So that’s it?” James threw his arms out. “You won’t even consider it? You’d rather be thrown into Azkaban?”

“You’re not going to let that happen,” Regulus said simply.

James stared at him, pulse ticking in his throat. “And how the hell do you know that?”

“Because,” Regulus said, quiet but firm, “you already would have.”

They stared at each other.

The air between them thickened, tense and unmoving — James said nothing, jaw tight, fingers curling at his sides.

Because Regulus was right.

He couldn’t turn him in. He wouldn’t.

Regulus let out a slow, tired breath, then glanced toward the clothes still folded on the bed. “I’ll take that shower you offered.”

James gave a single nod and turned toward the door. “Maybe it'll knock some sense into you.”

And then he was gone, leaving Regulus in the quiet, war-torn hush of the room.

Chapter Text

Regulus stood at the foot of the bed for longer than a minute, the towel clinging to his hips, his hair shedding thin threads of water along his neck and shoulders. 

He was looking at the borrowed clothes. James' clothes. 

The steam of the shower had probably emptied the last of dust from his lungs. Heat had loosened the grit lodged beneath his skin, and for a while the tiles had been an honest place, the water a kind of mercy. He resented that. He resented the relief more than he had resented the walls of the warded room, as if accepting warmth here were already a confession.

On the bathroom floor his robes lay dark and stiff with soot. He could have cleaned them with a thought and a flick of his hand, could have rinsed the weave from within. He could have, but he would not. Not yet. He would not show James Potter the reach of his hands.

Perhaps civility would serve him better. Pretending cooperation — letting James think he was softening, harmless — might buy him the opening he needed. If he wanted to escape, he’d have to make the Gryffindor drop his guard first.

He’d already shaken off most of the exhaustion from the battle, the rest was only a matter of time. A few more days until his strength and focus returned completely. Then it would come down to precision. Timing. He’d have to disarm James, break the wards, vanish before the fool could even reach for him.

And James was larger, solid in that unique, Quidditch-built way. Regulus would need to be faster — fast enough to slip through whatever sentimental hesitation might flash across those ridiculous eyes before Potter decided to play noble again.

Yes. Civil, compliant, quiet. Until it was time not to be.

He let out a thin breath and reached for the shirt.

The scent rose when the fabric opened. Clean, sun-dried cotton. Eucalyptus. He had expected the intrusion, had braced himself for it, but the body is a treacherous archive. The smell found him. It pressed its thumb to the soft part of his throat and pushed.

He closed his eyes. 

Not now.

All of this was already unbearable. He would not yield a further inch to the domestic.

He put the shirt on, each motion precise. The fabric stuck to his damp skin and then settled.

He resented that too.

He dressed quickly, then paused at the foot of the bed again and looked at it.

The bed was forbidden. He would not lie in it. The sheets still probably breathed the his scent, steeped in heat and sleep, a trace of human warmth pressed into the weave.

It was too near. He would not let the fabric instruct his body in a lie.

He crossed to the window.

The wards sat against the glass like frost, a geometry of pale lines that refused light without appearing to catch it. He lifted two fingers and pressed, not to break them but to feel their resistance. Just like in the last days.

Still there.

The wards were elegant — he could admit that.

Their magic pulsed softly, measured, carrying the clear trace of the caster. And as if the air weren’t already close enough, James Potter lingered here too — in the walls, in the floorboards, in the faint static of his every own breath.

It was impossible to take a step without feeling him.

He turned, letting the room settle around him. The quiet held. The faint smell of dust and blood from his clothes had gone, replaced by coffee and soap and the slow drift of heat that a shower leaves in a small flat. 

He sat on the edge of the chair, closed his eyes and touched, very lightly, the line where his chest had been opened by a severing charm. The healing had closed the skin, not cleanly. The seam felt raised under his thumb. He imagined what the scar would look like when it paled, a white thread scoring the place near his heart. As if James needed to leave another mark on him.

Footsteps in the corridor. He did not startle. He opened his eyes as the lock sighed.

James entered with a cup and a plate. He moved carefully, the caution neither fear nor show, just a simple consideration for a fragile truce. He set the tea on the desk, the plate beside it, and did not look at him. 

He was still damp at the hairline from his own shower, his glasses sitting slightly crooked, smudged where his thumb had pushed them back without thinking.

“Eat while it is still warm,” he said, and the sentence, so ordinary it should have cracked under its own weight, stayed whole.

Regulus picked up the cup instead of the fork. The tea was black and bitter. He liked that about it.

James did not leave. He stood by the bookcase and looked at him.

Regulus noticed the way James’s eyes drifted — not to his face, but lower. To his forearm. To the Mark.

Something flickered there, quick and raw: revulsion, alarm... Maybe both. He tried to school his expression, but the falter was visible, a crack in the armor.

Regulus didn’t bother to cover it. No denying it now.

Then James looked at the bed and back at him.

“You’ve not been sleeping in the bed.” A beat, the smallest hesitation. “We can change, but the couch is not generous.”

“I will not use your bed.”

“It is only a piece of furniture.”

“No.”

James inclined his head, as if the refusal made sense to him, which it could not. He stripped the stubbornness from his face, and whatever he felt went under the surface where it belonged.

“You hurt?” he asked, voice rough. “From the battle, I mean. Want me to take a look?”

He wasn’t. Not anymore. He’d already treated what he could with wandless magic while James had been gone, the ache long since faded to a dull echo. But he wasn’t about to tell him that now. He didn’t need James Potter playing the hero over a few bruises, or—Merlin forbid—putting his hands on him again, seeing his bare torso and thighs already marked with... No. He wouldn't let him. The situation was overwhelming enough as it was.

“You’ve done enough,” Regulus said flatly. “Sealing the gash on my chest was quite the gesture. Thanks for the scar.”

James flushed, gaze flicking away. “Sorry. I— I’m not great with healing charms. Marlene tried to teach me, but I only ever learned the bare minimum, you know, to keep from dying in the field, and it all happened so fast, I had to leave you here and—”

“Potter,” Regulus cut in, voice sharp but low. “Stop talking. It’s done. Not my first scar, and it won’t be my last.”

James exhaled, the tension in his shoulders loosening just slightly — as if, for once, he believed him.

“I’ll be out most of the afternoon,” James said, adjusting his wand holster with a half-distracted glance toward the door. “There’s something at headquarters I can’t skip. I’ll be back tonight. Try not to leave cat fur all over while I’m gone.”

Regulus didn’t reply. He only flicked his gaze toward him long enough to make it clear he wouldn’t promise anything.

When the door closed and the wards hummed faintly, the flat sank into a silence that felt wider than before.

He ate because hunger was a discipline, not a pleasure. The stew was still too salty, but good. The tea cooled on the desk beside him while the room exhaled its slow rhythm of light and dust.

Afterward came the long hours. He had already inspected the bookshelves earlier in the week, but boredom was a crueler enemy than pride.

James’s collection was untidy but alive. Spellcraft manuals stacked beside Muggle novels, Quidditch histories crammed against philosophy texts. Romances, too — the sentimental kind with folded corners, as if someone had stopped mid-sentence just to feel something. And fantasy — thick volumes worn soft with rereading, their spines barely holding.

Regulus’s hand had hovered over one book in particular: To the Lighthouse. The name alone struck through him like the edge of a memory. When he drew it free something uncoiled in his chest. A warmth he hadn’t invited. His favorite book, of all absurd coincidences — the one he’d read under his covers and charmlight when no one was watching, the one that had taught him that silence could be language too.

He almost smiled, but the impulse died as quickly as it came. He returned the book to its place as if nothing had happened. Merlin forbid James Potter ever caught him admiring his shelves.

So the day passed.

He meditated for a while longer, sharpening his mind in the old, familiar way. Occlumency practice had become second nature — a discipline born from survival and, eventually, something close to devotion. His mother’s lessons had been brutal, precise, relentless; the pain of them still lived somewhere behind his ribs. But the self practice itself, the slow structuring of thought, the steady sorting of memory into ordered rooms — that he had come to love.

Control. Predictability. Protection.

Here, in the quiet of an unfamiliar flat, it was almost a comfort. To build walls inside himself stronger than any James Potter could cast around him.

After, he shifted into his Animagus form for the quiet it gave him — no voice, no expression, just fur and breath and the muted hum of magic. Curled in the chair by the desk, he drifted in and out of shallow sleep, the hours dissolving into the dull warmth of afternoon.

When the sound finally came — the metallic click of the front lock turning somewhere beyond the hall — his ears twitched before his eyes even opened. He shifted back, the transformation smooth from long habit, the ache of it running briefly along his spine.

James was home.

And however much Regulus wanted to avoid another moment of forced civility, he refused to let the night devolve into another humiliation over a bowl of cat food.

When the door opened, Regulus didn’t turn — he only listened. The rhythm of James’s breathing, the soft scrape of parchment against wood.

James set the paper on the desk. The Daily Prophet.

The faint smile in the moving photograph met his eyes, a ghostly echo of the real one standing just a few feet away.

BLACK HEIR DECLARED MISSING
By Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent

London — The wizarding world was shaken today by the startling news that Regulus Arcturus Black, heir to one of Britain’s most prominent pure-blood families, has been reported missing. Lady Walburga Black, speaking from the ancestral home at 12 Grimmauld Place, confirmed that her son has not been seen for four days.

Sources close to the family describe the atmosphere at Grimmauld Place as “tense and heavily warded.” The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has declined to comment, citing the family’s “sensitive affiliations.”

Speculation runs rampant regarding the young heir’s whereabouts. Some whisper that Regulus has been sent on a dangerous mission connected to recent Death Eater operations, while others suggest internal conflict within You-Know-Who’s ranks. A few less cautious voices dare to wonder if the prodigal son has followed the example of his infamous brother, Sirius Orion Black, who publicly severed ties with the family years ago.

Meanwhile, the health of patriarch Orion Black is said to have taken a grave turn. Long known to suffer from a blood illness, Lord Black has reportedly been confined to his bed for several months, his condition “weakened by worry,” according to one family associate.

For a lineage that prides itself on control and legacy, the disappearance of its last scion could mark the beginning of a very public unraveling. Until further notice, the Black family remains silent behind their iron gates — and the wizarding world watches, waiting to see whether Regulus Black will return home… or become yet another name lost to the dark.

“You made the front page,” he said.

Regulus didn’t bother to look up. “I’m not blind.”

The silence that followed tasted heavy. He could feel James’s eyes on him — that restless, anxious stare that always wanted to fix something. Regulus had seen it before, in people too naive to understand what couldn’t be repaired.

“I need to tell Sirius,” James said.

Regulus turned his head then, slowly. “No. You’ll only make it worse.”

“Regulus—”

“Listen to me.” He rose from the chair, the motion deliberate, quiet, but sharp enough to stop whatever argument James had loaded on his tongue. “If you actually want your best friend to stay alive, keep him out of this. And preferably, take down these bloody wards so I can leave before you drag him into it too.”

James’s jaw tightened. “Not happening.”

A bitter laugh slipped out before Regulus could stop it. “Fine. Your funeral.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He met James’s gaze — steady, unflinching. “It means they won’t stop until they find me. One way or another, they’ll trace it here. And when they do, you’ll be nothing more than collateral.”

James stepped closer, voice hard. “How do you know that?”

Regulus tilted his head, studying him — all that nerve and no comprehension. “It’s a lot to expect, I know, for your brain to process basic facts about influence and power in this war. But let me simplify it for you.”

He moved toward James, close enough to see his reflection warping in the glass. “My family is one of the Dark Lord’s wealthiest assets — gold, connections, politics, loyalty bought generations deep. Orion’s been dying for years. Sirius defected. That leaves me.”

He looked over his shoulder, the corner of his mouth lifting in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “And the Dark Lord doesn’t let his assets go missing.”

“You content to be a pawn for your precious Dark Lord?” James said, blunt, ugly with accusation.

Regulus watched the syllables slide off him. The question was clumsy, moralizing.

“As much as you are Dumbledore’s,” he said. The answer was flat, deliberate. “If you think you differ from me by the imaginary side you chose in this war, your disillusionment is larger than I supposed.”

James exhaled, hands lifting in a tired, helpless gesture. “Regulus, for Merlin’s sake. Can you stop speaking in riddles? Tell me what’s in your head. Do you actually believe that— that bloody wizard supremacy? That muggles should be butchered and reduced to—”

“—Irrelevant.” The single word cut him off. It had no heat, only the hard clarity of something pared away. Regulus met James’s eyes and did not flinch.

James’s hands went higher, the gesture half plea, half surrender. “You sound like you mean it one way and live another.”

“I sound like someone who’s watched powerful men trade lives the way others trade currency,” Regulus said. “My family sells influence because it profits them. The Dark Lord takes what they give and calls it loyalty. And your Dumbledore—” his voice thinned, almost gentle with contempt— “wraps the same transaction in moral speeches and lets children pay the price. If you think that’s nobler, then you’ve only bought a prettier lie.”

“Regulus, Dumbledore fights for what’s right,” James said, his voice firm, almost pleading. “The Order’s made of volunteers. No one’s forced into it. No one’s bound by family or blood.”

Regulus laughed — low, sharp, humourless. “That’s what makes it so easy for him!” He turned, eyes catching the faint light from the window. “Dumbledore built his kingdom on conviction. He lures the brave with ideals and lets them die believing they chose it.” His tone softened, but only enough to twist the knife. “You think you’re free because no one ordered you here. But he never needed orders, did he? Just faith.”

James frowned, the words maybe catching somewhere between anger and disbelief.

Regulus stepped closer, voice quieter now, almost curious. “You don’t see it because you’re playing different games. You’re playing checkers, Potter. He’s playing chess.”

Regulus saw the exact moment his words landed. The shift was small — the widening of James’s pupils, the faint tic of his jaw, the slow grind of thought trying to make sense of something it had never dared to question. He could almost hear the machinery in that head turning, straining against its own faith.

He knew it was a battle he couldn’t win. Dumbledore’s hold ran deep, roots tangled in every mind that craved righteousness. For years the man had threaded his claws through the ones who wanted goodness most, weaving loyalty out of conscience and calling it virtue. His rhetoric was flawless — polished by decades of necessity, of grief turned into doctrine. There was no arguing with that kind of faith; only watching it tighten like a noose.

James sighed and shook his head. “It’s impossible to talk to you.”

Regulus rolled his eyes before he could stop himself.

“If your plan was to turn me into some sort of Order mascot,” he said, voice sharp and low, “forget it. I’d rather go straight to Azkaban.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m laughing?”

James’s shoulders sagged. “I didn’t think about anything when I brought you here. I just saw Sirius’s brother under a pile of rubble and— I couldn’t leave you there to die.”

Regulus let out a long breath. Of course. To James, he’d only ever be Sirius’s little brother. It wasn’t new, but it stung just the same.

“But if I let you go,” James said quietly, “Sirius would never forgive me. I have to tell him.”

Regulus pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closing as he tried to keep his voice steady. When he opened them again, his calm had an edge. “Do you want Sirius angry or Sirius dead? The choice is simple.”

“Regulus, what the hell are you talking about?”

Regulus’s patience broke. “I’m talking about the fact that if you tell him, he won’t stop until, in that thick skull of his, I’m safe and hidden from the Dark Lord! He’ll put himself between me and them. And he’ll die doing it, because he’s a stubborn idiot who thinks love is a shield!” His voice rose, trembling with fury. “And if by some miracle I go back without either of you ending up in the ground, they’ll ask me why I didn’t kill you when I had the chance— and then they’ll kill you anyway.”

James took a step forward, anger flickering. “We’re already their targets.”

“Not like this,” Regulus shot back, his voice gone cold. “Not with the trail leading straight to your door.”

The silence that followed felt heavier than the words. He wasn’t pleading — not for mercy, not for trust. He was laying out an equation, and the answer, as always, was survival.

“I need to sleep. You want the couch?” James asked, weary but trying for civility. “I was planning to extend the wards to the whole flat anyway. I’ll just need to key them between rooms at night so I don’t wake up to any surprises from you in the middle of it.”

For a heartbeat, Regulus considered it. The couch was freedom of a kind, but James had been sleeping there for days. The smell would be just as thick as in the bed.

He raised one eyebrow instead.

And then he let go.

The change rippled down his body like a slow exhale of muscle and light. Skin folded inward, bones thinned, spine realigned in a precise, practiced sequence that never stopped hurting, not entirely. His vision blurred once, twice, and then sharpened again at a lower angle — the world rearranged into shadow and shape. The air tasted different here: sharper, electric, humming with the scent of wards and dust and James.

On silent paws, he crossed the floor and returned to his corner — the same one where he had spent the last few days, small enough to feel invisible, curled tight enough to pretend it was by choice. He folded into himself, tail wrapped close, the steady thrum of his heart pressed to the floorboards.

He heard James exhale in frustration before the sound of footsteps moved away. The door shut softly behind him.

Regulus stayed still, eyes half-lidded, pretending the silence was sleep.

Chapter Text

James opened the door as quietly as he could, balancing a mug of coffee in one hand.

Regulus was on the floor still, seated cross-legged beside the desk, eyes closed, spine a flawless line. For a moment, James couldn’t tell if he was asleep upright or—Merlin help him—actually meditating.

He cleared his throat. Nothing. Not even a twitch.

James sighed under his breath. Brilliant. Just what he needed this morning.

“You don’t need to breathe that loudly, Potter,” Regulus said, voice calm and distant. “I heard you the moment you came in.”

“Right. Sorry. Didn’t mean to… interrupt your spiritual awakening or whatever this is.”

Regulus exhaled, his shoulders easing as he opened his eyes. For once, his face wasn’t all sharp edges and frost. There was something almost—soft—about him, and James found it immediately suspicious.

“Coffee?” James offered, holding the mug out.

Regulus’s gaze dropped to the cup, then back to him. No answer, no movement, just that assessing look that made James feel like he was the one under interrogation.

“I was thinking,” James said, forcing a steady tone, “why don’t you come to the sitting room? I’ve already extended the wards to cover the whole flat. Until we figure out how this mess ends, there’s no point in keeping you locked up in here.”

Regulus’s mouth twitched. “Of course. Only locked inside the flat. A vast improvement.”

James dragged a hand through his hair, frustration prickling behind his eyes. “Look, I’m still—processing everything you said, alright? I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do yet. But for now, you stay here. So maybe we can make it a little less miserable?”

Regulus’s tone was smooth, dry as parchment. “Sure. You drop the wards, and I leave. There—problem solved.”

James let out a long, exhausted breath. “Regulus,” he said, tilting his head toward the door, “come to the bloody sitting room. Please.”

Regulus’s eyes lingered on him for a beat too long—calculating, unreadable—before he finally stood, movements fluid, unhurried.

“Fine,” he said at last, rising with a fluid grace that somehow still felt like mockery. “But only because I don’t want to watch you spiral into an anxiety attack.”

James rolled his eyes and turned toward the hall, muttering into his coffee, “And I thought Sirius was dramatic.”

Regulus crossed into the kitchen — open to the sitting room. Without a word, he went straight to the cabinets, found the mugs, and poured himself coffee as if he lived there for months.

James watched from the sofa, still cluttered with the transfigured pillow and blanket from the night he’d spent half-sleeping there, the fabric rumpled.

Regulus took a careful sip, then lifted his gaze toward him.

James tried for a smile, half-hearted, and gestured toward the armchair opposite. “You can sit, you know.”

Regulus didn’t move. His expression stayed perfectly composed, cool and sober. He stayed where he was, leaning one shoulder against the counter, mug steady in hand.

“So…” James said, searching for something that wasn’t a landmine. “You meditate?”

Regulus looked at him for a long moment — long enough that James started to feel like he was being examined rather than acknowledged. Maybe he was. The back of his neck grew uncomfortably warm under that quiet scrutiny.

“Yes,” Regulus said at last.

“Right… cool. I was never really good at it.”

No answer. Just that same level, assessing stare.

James cleared his throat. “You used to meditate before the Animagus process?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. Must’ve made it easier for you, then. I’ve read that it takes a lot of it.”

Regulus took another slow sip of coffee before replying, voice perfectly dry. “Do you always talk this much?”

“Much?” James shot back. “You do know the basics of human communication, right?”

Regulus didn’t even blink. “With my jailer? Not so much.”

James scrubbed a hand over his face, muttering under his breath. “You’re really not going to make this easy, are you?”

Regulus didn’t answer — just took another measured sip of coffee.

That was answer enough.

“I’m going to be out again today,” James said after a pause. “Might be back late. There’s food from Maple in the freezer, your towel’s clean and in the bathroom. Make yourself at home — or, you know, as close as you can get to that. There’s a TV.” He pointed toward it, trying for casual.

When Regulus didn’t so much as glance over, James added, “It’s like… a box with people inside. They tell stories, it’s called—”

“I know what a bloody television is, Potter,” Regulus cut in, sharp. “I’m not an idiot.”

James raised both hands in mock surrender. “Right. Sorry… Didn’t think you were. Just didn’t take you for the Muggle-artefact type, that’s all.”

Regulus sighed, set the mug down on the counter with deliberate care, and crossed the room. He sank into the armchair opposite James, movements measured, like even sitting down was something he refused to rush.

“How in Merlin’s name you ever made it through the meditative stage of the Animagus process, I’ll never understand,” Regulus said, tone smooth but laced with quiet mockery.

James froze. His stomach dropped so fast he almost heard it. He knows? How the hell—?
Alright. Calm. Play dumb.

“Huh? What do you mean?” he asked, voice a shade too light.

Regulus rolled his eyes. “You and your little group aren’t nearly as discreet as you think you are.”

James gave a shaky laugh, the kind that tried to sound casual and failed miserably. “What—what are you talking about, Regulus?”

Regulus tilted his head, expression flat, unimpressed. “I know you’re Animagi too. And that Lupin’s a werewolf.” He took in James’s stunned silence with something like grim amusement. “Honestly, it’s a miracle no one’s found out. Subtlety clearly isn’t one of your collective talents.”

James didn’t know what to say. His mind just… stopped. So he stayed silent.

Regulus arched a brow, the faintest ghost of a smirk tugging at his mouth. “Finally managed to shut you up? That’s a first.”

James was sweating now, pulse thudding in his throat. “Did you—did you tell anyone? How do you even know?”

“I didn’t tell,” Regulus said simply. “And it doesn’t matter how.”

James leaned forward, voice low and urgent. “You can’t tell. About Moony, I mean. I’m serious, Regulus.”

Regulus’s gaze didn’t even flicker. “Greyback already told the Dark Lord. Everyone in the circle knows.”

James blinked, cold prickling up his arms. “The Ministry?”

“I don’t know,” Regulus said, shrugging one shoulder. “Werewolves aren’t my division.”

James frowned. “Division?”

Regulus rolled his eyes, exasperated. “What, you think the Dark Lord just hands out random errands to whichever pure-blood sycophant happens to be nearby?”

“Okay,” James said slowly, trying to sound composed, though his voice betrayed him halfway through. “That… makes sense, I guess. But seriously, how did you find out?”

Regulus sighed — a long, weary sound that carried the weight of deciding whether it was worth the effort to answer him at all.

Finally, he said, “I followed Sirius once. Into the forest. At night.” His eyes flicked away, as if watching the memory play out somewhere else. “I wanted to see what he was doing out there. It was the start of my sixth year.”

James didn’t move.

“That’s when I saw the idiot transform into a black mutt,” Regulus finished, tone flat but edged with something fragile — something almost like regret.

James just stared at him, eyes wide, the colour draining from his face.

“And then,” Regulus went on, “I heard the howl of a werewolf. Wasn’t exactly difficult to connect the dots.”

“I’m guessing the idiotic nicknames tie into that somehow?” Regulus said, tone light but edged with mockery. “Wormtail… Peter’s a rodent, isn’t he?”

James didn’t answer, which Regulus took as confirmation.

“And you—well, I doubt your ego would fit into anything small. Prongs, isn’t it? Let me guess—a moose?”

James narrowed his eyes.

“No?” Regulus feigned thoughtfulness. “A buffalo, then?”

“It’s a stag, you asshole,” James snapped, exasperation bleeding through his voice.

“Ah, yes” Regulus murmured, as if genuinely amused. “Like your Patronus.”

James blinked. “How the hell do you know what my Patronus is?”

For the first time, Regulus faltered. A faint colour touched his cheeks. “As I said,” he replied, tone suddenly defensive, “you and your little group aren’t as discreet as you think. I must’ve seen it in the Great Hall once.”

“And you were paying that much attention to identify the shape?” James asked, a grin already tugging at his mouth.

Regulus let out an exasperated sigh. “Most of us possess basic powers of observation, Potter. You should try developing some.”

“Ha!” James barked a laugh. “Just admit it — you were paying attention.”

Regulus rolled his eyes so hard it was practically a full-body gesture.

“And you? A black cat?” James said, smirking. “Oh, come on — could you be any more on the nose?”

Regulus’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means it suits you,” James said, leaning back. “Cats are skittish, suspicious—always ready to bolt.”

“Cats aren’t foolish,” Regulus shot back. “They know who’s safe to approach. If one’s never come near you, that should tell you something.”

“Cats love me,” James said indignantly. “Minnie almost let me pick her up once.”

Regulus blinked. “Minnie?”

“Minerva.”

Regulus stared at him, the disbelief bordering on despair. “Unbelievable.”

“When did you start the process?” James asked, curiosity edging past caution.

Regulus crossed his arms, leaning lightly. “Right after I saw Sirius do it. I figured if he managed, it couldn’t be that hard.” His mouth curved, not quite a smile. “And it wasn’t. Three months, and I had it.”

“Three months?” James repeated, eyebrows lifting. “That’s… bloody impressive.”

James caught it — that faint touch of colour rising in Regulus’s cheeks again, subtle but impossible to miss. Before he could decide what to do with it, his wand gave a sharp, insistent chirp from his pocket.

He sighed. “I’ve got to go. As I said — make yourself at home. And don’t mess with the wards, alright? You’ll only hurt yourself.”

He lingered a moment longer than he meant to, eyes tracing the line of Regulus’s face — too composed, too guarded, as if pretending not to notice him leaving.

Then James pushed himself to his feet, grabbed his jacket, slid the wand holster into place, and left the flat, the door closing softly behind him.

✧.*

The summer hadn’t officially ended, but the air up here already carried the bite of cold. The clouds hung low over the outer edges of London — somewhere between Richmond and Twickenham — all fog and sodium light.

One of Dumbledore’s informants had passed word of a planned strike against Muggle-born families in the area that night. Him and Frank had been assigned to aerial guard duty.

Sirius had wanted to come, of course — insisted, actually — but Moody was still refusing to send him on missions after the stunt he’d pulled when Moony hit the one-month mark of his disappearance. The shouting match had been loud enough to shake the Manor.

James adjusted his grip on the broom handle, eyes scanning the dark below. Nothing. Just the quiet, the stretch of river glinting like steel.

Then — a soft rush of air to his left.

He turned just in time to see them: four figures, black-robed and masked, closing in fast on matching brooms.

An ambush.

Before he could shout a warning, the first curses ripped through the air. Colors light tore across the night.

Frank veered downward, drawing one of them off, while James rolled hard to the right, wand already raised. His body remembered the drills Moody had hammered into him — balance, pivot, aim, release. The first curse missed him by inches. The second he countered mid-spin.

He fired back, the Stupefy bursting like a flare in the dark. It hit one Death Eater square in the chest, sending the man tumbling from his broom into the treetops below. Branches cracked in the silence that followed.

Three left.

Two of them turned toward him, relentless, while the third chased Frank across the narrow band of sky.

James ducked a curse that sliced past his shoulder, the shockwave rattling his broom. Another hit — this one direct. A red flash, a crack of splintering wood — and suddenly the broom gave out beneath him.

The fall came fast. Wind and gravity and the brief, wild thought that he’d rather die landing than in the sky.

He didn’t think. With his wand still clenched in one hand, he did the only thing his panicked mind could produce — he Apparated.

The world twisted. Air became pressure, sound collapsed inward, and then he was hitting solid ground hard enough to knock the breath out of him.

He lay there for a second, blinking against the blur. Floorboards. The familiar scent of coffee. His flat.

Then the pain hit.

It ripped through his arm, bright and immediate, and when he looked down, his stomach turned — the flesh of his forearm was split wrong, torn where the Apparition hadn’t fully taken.

He’d splinched.

He heard footsteps from the hallway — quick, sharp, closing in.

“Potter? What the hell—” Regulus stopped short in the doorway, eyes widening. “What happened?”

James jerked upright, wand raised in his uninjured hand. “Stay back!” he barked, voice raw.

Regulus stopped short in the doorway, eyes widening. For a fraction of a second, the mask of cool indifference fell away, replaced by something that looked unnervingly like alarm, before it was locked back into place.

But if Regulus wanted to escape — or worse — this was the perfect moment. James could barely keep the wand steady, his left arm hanging useless, slick with blood.

“Potter,” Regulus said, staring at the mangled flesh. “You’re going to bleed out if you don’t seal that wound now.”

“Bathroom cabinet,” James ground out through his teeth. “Dittany.”

Regulus hesitated for a fraction of a second, then turned and bolted.

James kept his wand trained on the door even after he heard the sound of glass clinking — footsteps, then the rush of air as Regulus reappeared.

“Put it down,” James ordered. “And step back.”

Regulus gave a long, sharp exhale that sounded a lot like disbelief but obeyed, setting the vial on the floor beside him and backing away with both hands raised slightly, palms open.

James snatched the bottle with his good hand, yanked out the stopper with his teeth, and poured the liquid straight over the torn skin.

It hissed on contact, smoke curling up where blood met potion. The smell was sharp and metallic. He clenched his jaw, breathing through the pain as the flesh began to knit itself unevenly, the process messy but effective. Blood still streaked the floor, spattered across his sleeve, but the bleeding slowed.

It took several long minutes before the wound closed fully — the skin raw and pink, the ache deep in the muscle.

When James finally pushed himself to his feet, his breath came in rough bursts. Regulus was still standing a few feet away, wide-eyed, tense as if one wrong move might set the whole room off again.

“I have to go back,” James said, voice tight. “I’ll clean this up when I return.”

Regulus stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “Are you insane? You just splinched yourself. You can’t Apparate again.”

“It was an ambush!” James snapped, “Your precious colleagues! Frank was with me— shit, Frank!”

Regulus’s breathing quickened. “Potter, yes, it’s a disaster, but if you Apparate again, you’ll splinch worse than before—”

“Shut up!” James barked, fury and panic tangled in his voice.

Before either could speak again, a soft, glowing shape burst through the wall — a bright-winged falcon Patronus, silver light scattering across the floorboards. Frank’s voice carried through it, steady but strained:

“James! I saw you fall, then Apparate — are you alright? It was an ambush, but we managed to escape. Everyone’s safe. We’re at the manor.”

James exhaled sharply, the tension draining from his shoulders. The falcon dissolved in a shimmer of light.

Frank was alive. They all were.

James drew in a deep, ragged breath, summoning the last of his strength to cast a Patronus. The stag burst from his wand in a wash of silver light. “Frank, I’m fine. Ended up at the flat. Got splinched. Staying here for now.”

The stag bounded once and vanished through the wall.

Relief hit him hard—like someone had loosened a rope around his chest. Every muscle screamed to just collapse onto the sofa and pass out. But Regulus was still there, and James couldn’t afford to drop his guard.

As if reading his thoughts, Regulus spoke. “I’m not going to take your wand,” he said quietly, almost irritated. “You need tending. Don’t you have a Blood-Replenishing Potion here? I didn’t see one in the cabinet.”

James swallowed, throat raw. “I brought some from the Manor last time. Should be in one of the drawers. I’ll get it.”

“No.” Regulus’s tone left no room for argument. “Sit down. I’ll get it.”

A moment later he returned with a small glass vial, its deep red liquid catching the light. The metallic tang hit the air the second the cork came loose.

James was slumped on the sofa now, pale and shaking. Regulus handed him the potion without ceremony. “Drink it. All of it.”

James hesitated for half a second before tipping the vial back. The taste was sharp, coppery, thick on his tongue. It burned going down, and for a moment he thought he might be sick. Then warmth began to spread from his chest outward — slow, steady, almost too much. His fingers stopped trembling.

Regulus stayed silent, watching for signs of another collapse, his expression unreadable. When the potion’s work had steadied, he took the empty vial from James’s hand and set it aside on the table.

Neither spoke for a long moment. The silence filled the flat again, heavy but not hostile.

Regulus leaned back against the counter, arms folded. “You should rest,” he said simply.

James looked at him, exhausted but faintly defiant. “You should stop sounding like you care.”

Regulus didn’t answer. He just crossed his arms tighter, gaze flicking away, and stayed exactly where he was — silent, watchful, and unwilling to leave.