The world was moving too fast.
It wasn’t a complaint, not really. This was everything James had ever wanted. More than wanted—dreamed of, worked for, bled for. Hearing his own voice on the radio, watching himself back on late-night interviews, seeing their name on festival lineups. It was what he’d always wanted. The Marauders were more than just a dream now; they were a name people knew, a name people cared about. And for the first time, success wasn’t just potential, wasn’t some golden promise hanging on the horizon—it was real and it was here. Now.
The European tour was set. He’d signed off on it; Reg and Sirius and Pete had all signed off on it. And he was thrilled. Of course he was. This was everything he’d spent years breaking himself for, working himself into the ground for. James was so busy with it all that at first he didn’t notice—didn’t notice that he wasn’t waiting for messages that didn’t come. Wasn’t stalking Reg’s social media, wasn’t wondering what he was doing at any given hour of the day. Wasn’t letting himself hope for something that was never going to happen, wasn’t pressing on the bruise just to feel it hurt. At some point, without quite meaning to, he’d just accepted that it did—and started to move on.
The offer for BST Hyde Park came through as a surprise. Last-minute, a slot opening up due to a cancellation, just over a month’s notice and a whirlwind of logistics. James expected hesitation, maybe even a flat no from the others. But then Reg spoke up, for the first time in what felt like ages.
“I want to do it.”
And that was that. James didn’t know why it mattered so much to him. But it was clear that it did. And so James said yes. He knew something was going on. He felt it in the way Sirius had been spending more time at Reg’s flat, the way they spoke in low voices, heads bent together over something James wasn’t meant to hear.
Then, two weeks before the show, Reg cleared his throat and asked, “Would you mind if I sang something, James?”
James looked at him, surprised. “You want to sing at Hyde Park?” he asked.
A flicker of something—amusement, perhaps—passed through Reg’s grey eyes. “Yes, if it’s all right with you.”
James hesitated. Not because he didn’t think Reg could do it—he could. James had heard him sing before, that voice all smoke and velvet, the kind that haunted you. It was just—
“You’ve never wanted to before,” James said carefully. A question that wasn’t quite a question.
Reg shrugged. “I do now.”
James glanced at Sirius, who was watching his brother closely, expression unreadable.
“What song?” James asked, after a silence in which no one volunteered anything.
“It’s not one of ours. Something else. A cover. I’ll do it at the end, after the set.”
“Right,” James agreed slowly. “And the band?”
“Just Sirius.”
James understood then, with sudden and irrefutable clarity. He wasn’t part of this equation, wasn’t meant to be. Whatever was happening, it was happening between Reg and Sirius alone. James wasn’t needed. He cleared his throat, smoothed a hand through his hair, and forced a grin.
“Sure,” he said. “Go for it.”
Reg nodded, something like satisfaction flickering across his face, and James knew this wasn’t just a song. Reg had something to say, and of course—someone to say it to. James decided not to think about who it was for. It wasn’t as hard as he was expecting. He kept himself busy with other things—the band, the tour, his family. Sundays were a ritual for James. Lunch with his parents, a warm, familiar thing—roast lamb, crispy potatoes, too many side dishes to count. The weekend before Hyde Park, Sirius came with him. It felt nice, normal. James’s mum pulled them both in for hugs the minute they got through the door.
“Still keeping our boy out of trouble?” Effy asked, slinging an arm around Sirius’s shoulders as she ushered them into the kitchen. Monty looked up from his copy of The Guardian with an amused expression that said he knew all too well just how much trouble Sirius had dragged James into over the years.
“Absolutely not,” Sirius said, grinning. “If anything, I’m getting him into more.”
“Good,” she said approvingly. “As it should be.”
Lunch was easy, familiar. Monty kept their glasses full, Sirius bantered with Effy, and James let himself relax into the warmth of it—the quiet comfort of home. After lunch, he and Sirius went for a walk. The afternoon sun bled through the trees, slow and golden, casting long shadows across the pavement as they wandered through Highgate. The air was thick—warm with the smell of earth and distant petrol. Sirius flicked his lighter open, the brief spark catching before he took a slow drag.
“Some bloke stopped me on the street the other day,” he said, exhaling smoke into the summer air. “Asked me to sign something.”
James nodded. He was familiar with the experience now. More than familiar.
“Weird, isn’t it?”
“Fucking surreal.”
They walked on until they reached the cemetery. Sirius stopped, grinned, and turned to James. “Nearly broke my neck climbing that blasted thing once,” he said, nodding at the wall.
James shot him an amused look. “You did? When?”
“Before I met you. Think I was nineteen, maybe twenty.”
“Why?”
Sirius’s grin sharpened, all teeth. “Ev had this girlfriend. Clare. You might know her—pretty sure she went to Highgate Prep. Montague, I think her last name was.”
James frowned, rifling through old memories. “Yeah, I know Clare.”
“Not a fan,” Sirius said flatly. “Cheated on him. Anyway, it was the summer before Ev moved up to Edinburgh for uni. We’d been at the pub for Clare’s birthday—must’ve been her eighteenth, because Reggie wasn’t there, probably too young. We were wrecked. Beyond wrecked. And Ev decides he wants to go see Marx’s grave, so we went.”
James hesitated, blinking at him. “Evan wanted to see Marx’s grave?”
“Oh yeah.” Sirius exhaled smoke. “Should’ve seen him in his radical Marxist phase. Iconic.”
“Just to clarify—we are talking about the same guy? Evan Rosier, as in the one you and Reg went to Harrow with? That Evan had a Marxist phase?”
“Big time. Never really left it, to be honest—just quieter about it now. Still comes out if he’s drunk enough. Next time he’s down, get a few drinks in him and bring up politics. You’ll either leave enlightened or traumatised.”
James stared at him. Genuinely surprised. He’d never heard Evan say anything remotely political, let alone leftist. He’d assumed he was apolitical at best, vaguely conservative at worst.
“Isn’t his family, you know—like yours?”
Sirius barked a laugh. “Mate, they’re so much worse.”
James raised an eyebrow. “Worse than your lot?”
“Evan’s mum, Elaine, is a proper piece of work. Makes my family seem almost friendly. And his dad? Bloke’s donated enough to the Tories to feed a small country. How Ev and Panda turned out decent is honestly beyond me.”
“Panda?” James asked.
“Pandora,” Sirius clarified. “Ev’s sister. Fair bit younger—must be seventeen now. Nice girl. Looks exactly like him.”
“I didn’t know he had a sister.”
It shouldn’t have bothered him. But it did. Having a sister and not mentioning it. James talked about his family all the time to Evan. He had assumed Evan was an only child—although come to think of it, Evan didn’t talk about his family at all really. Which was odd. Odd because James knew so many other things about Evan. Stupid little things, the kind that accumulated without you realising: that he was a tea drinker, that he avoided uppers because they made him think too fast, that he despised gin, that he’d once gotten into an actual altercation with a Spurs fan in a pub in Camden. He knew that Evan had a weird prejudice against odd numbers, refused to use cheap pens, and had strong opinions about the placement of streetlights. Knew that he hated eighties pop with a fervour that was almost personal and, surprisingly, that he really liked classic British punk.
But not that he had a sister.
Sirius shrugged. “Doesn’t talk about his family much. And for good reason. It’s usually the wrong kind of people that are interested.”
“What does that mean?” James asked.
“Social climbers, mostly. Was an issue at school,” said Sirius casually. “Lot of people tried to get close to him because of who his family are. Really used to piss him off.”
“Who is his family?” asked James—feeling suddenly a bit stupid.
“Ev’s dad is nobility, mum too—he’s got a title and all.” Sirius grinned. “Enough people die, he could be on the throne.”
James stared at him, utterly gobsmacked. “You’re kidding?”
“Nah,” said Sirius. “I mean, it won’t happen, too many before him. Shame too. Imagine Ev as king. Course he’d never do it, diehard anti-monarchist and all, but it’s a fucking hilarious thought.”
“Wait,” said James, something suddenly clicking, “I thought that was a pisstake—you’re telling me the reason that’s his Instagram name is because he’s actually ninth in line to the throne?”
Sirius shot him an amused look. “Since when do you have Ev on Insta?” he asked.
James didn’t answer—he was too busy thinking. He’d known Evan was rich—richer than his family by a lot—but he’d always assumed the Rosiers were at the same level as the Blacks: old money, aristocratic, but distant from actual power. The kind of people who had grand houses in London and country estates gathering dust, but no real influence.
But a relatively high member of the nobility? That was something else.
It was oddly unsettling—not the fact itself but the fact that he hadn’t known. Because somewhere along the way, James had begun to think of Evan as his. The Evan on the other end of his phone, the one who made him laugh when everything felt too heavy, who called him a fucking idiot at least five times a week, had become someone separate from the Evan who had known Sirius and Reg their entire lives, someone who was James’s friend too—outside of that. And yet, here was Sirius, casually revealing just how little James actually knew about Evan. Something twisted in his chest—sharp, uncomfortable.
Sirius frowned at him—evidently something of James’s thoughts must have shown on his face. “You okay? You look kind of freaked out.”
“Yeah,” said James. “Just, er, weird. I didn’t know any of that.”
“Why would you?” asked Sirius. “Not like you’ve spent much time with him.”
But that was the problem—James had spent time with Evan. Loads of it. Sure, maybe not in person, but they talked. They talked all the time. He knew Evan. Or at least he’d thought he had. The title thing, fine—that was awkward to drop into conversation unprompted. But a sister? That was the kind of thing that came up naturally, the kind you’d mention to someone you texted on a near-daily basis.
Wasn’t it?
James wanted to ask more. Wanted to know more. Wanted Sirius to keep talking about Evan, to tell James all the things he didn’t know, the things Evan hadn’t told him—fill in the gaps, the missing pieces. But he couldn’t. Because, with a sudden jolt, he realised it would be weird. Incredibly weird. Because Sirius didn’t know about Evan. James had never told him.
He hadn’t meant to keep it from Sirius. It was just that so many of those early conversations with Evan had been about Reg—about James’s feelings, about how complicated and impossible it all was. Evan had slotted himself into it without invitation, and bringing him up to Sirius had felt awkward, because it meant bringing up Reg. So James just… hadn’t.
Besides, he hadn’t actually seen Evan in around half a year. Not since that night with the Thai food—the night Evan had looked him dead in the eye and warned him off Reg. By the time Sirius and Remus had come home, Evan was gone. And James hadn’t wanted to talk about it then—hadn’t wanted to dissect his feelings for Sirius’s brother over leftover pad thai. So he’d never told Sirius about Evan’s visit. Or the texts that followed. Or the calls. Or the fact that at some point the conversations had stopped being about Reg entirely—had started becoming about other stuff—personal stuff. At least for James, anyway. He hadn’t told Sirius about any of it.
Somehow, in the mess of the last six months, James had become friends with one of Sirius’s oldest and closest mates without ever mentioning it. Without even thinking to. And that was strange, wasn’t it? That Evan—who had known Sirius nearly all his life, who had been to his childhood home, who had probably been there during some of the most pivotal moments of his past—was someone James had kept entirely separate. That in James’s head, Evan had become his. Not Sirius’s. Not Reg’s. And now, hearing Sirius talk about Evan so easily, so casually, James felt off-kilter—like something fundamental had shifted beneath him without warning. Two versions of Evan had collided in his head, smashing into each other like tectonic plates, the impact leaving him wrong-footed and uneasy. There was his Evan—the one on the other end of the phone. His friend. His confidant. The person he relied on.
And then there was Sirius’s Evan. The Evan Sirius had known for over twenty years. The one he had stories about, memories James hadn’t been there for. The Evan who had existed long before James even knew his name. It was irrational, he knew that. Stupid, even. But it unsettled him—this sudden awareness that Sirius knew so much more about Evan than he did. That for all the hours they’d spent talking, all the texts exchanged, there was an entire version of Evan that James knew nothing about.
And then something else occurred to him. A question. Not the kind of question you asked a mate outright. And yet, now that there was someone other than Evan who could answer it—someone James could ask without it being awkward or weird—he wanted to know.
“Is Evan straight?”
Sirius shot him a look, amused. “Oh, is that how it is? Find out he’s got a title and now you’re interested?”
James felt himself go red. Heat crept up his neck, mortifying and immediate. “Fuck off.”
Because no, of course he wasn’t interested in Evan like that. He just—wondered. Back when they’d first met, he’d assumed straight—the way Evan dressed, the way he carried himself, that particular brand of buttoned-up ex-private-school energy that screamed old money and heterosexuality. And then Evan had kissed him on New Year—even if it had been to stop him making a terrible decision involving Regulus, it still wasn’t the kind of thing you did if you were straight. So James had revised his opinion. But now Sirius was casually mentioning ex-girlfriends, and James was back to not having a clue.
Sirius shrugged. “Not sure. Think he’s bi—never really specified. Got a few ex-girlfriends. But I’ve seen him go home with a bloke at least once—not sure if he has a preference or not.”
James hummed, nodded like that was the end of it, like he didn’t care. Like the knowledge that Evan was probably bi didn’t make him feel oddly relieved. Like Evan didn’t sit differently in his head now—like James hadn’t picked him up wrong and couldn’t seem to set him back down in quite the same place he’d been before.