James blinked blearily at the unfamiliar ceiling.
Floral curtains.
An ornate, slightly dusty wardrobe.
A bedside table with a doily on it—because of course there was a doily.
He frowned.
This wasn’t home.
This wasn’t even his bed.
A groan escaped him as he rolled over and immediately regretted it. His head felt like it had been trampled by a herd of wild Abraxans. Abraxan wearing Welly Boots.
His stomach rolled, low and vengeful.
Memory arrived in fragments.
Whisky.
Regulus.
Rosier.
James sat up too fast.
The room tilted sideways like it wanted him dead.
The bed beside him was empty.
Just a dented pillow. A rumpled sheet.
Gone.
James let his head fall back against the headboard—and regretted that , too.
Fresh pain knifed behind his eyes.
Brilliant.
Eventually, with the kind of determination usually reserved for escaping burning buildings, he dragged himself into the shower. Hot water hammered against the back of his neck, and little by little, he came back to life.
He scrubbed his face with both hands.
Let the steam work on his headache.
Rosier.
The man had drunk twice, if not three times as much whisky as he had. By all rights he should still be unconscious, if not clinically dead. But no. Apparently Evan Rosier could down half a distillery and still vanish before dawn, or at least before James woke up anyway.
James leaned his forehead against the cool tile.
Right.
There were probably more important things to worry about than Rosier’s terrifying alcohol tolerance.
Like the Dark Mark inked into the skin of his left arm.
The one James had seen with his own eyes.
And the fact that he, James, should probably tell someone about that.
Eventually.
Maybe after toast.
James stepped out of the shower feeling approximately fifteen percent more human. His head still throbbed. His stomach still churned. But he could open both eyes without contemplating death, and that felt like a win.
He toweled off and dressed slowly, pulling on his jeans with the grim determination of someone armouring up for battle.
The plan was simple.
Breakfast.
Then—assuming he could Apparate without vomiting—he’d get back to London.
Find the nearest apothecary with a decent hangover draught.
Buy the place out. And then he’d contact Moody. James made it to breakfast without passing out, which felt like a win. He ordered the full English—black pudding, toast, extra hash browns—and sat very still while his body debated whether food was an ally or a threat. The sausages was good. The toast, helpful. The eggs? Those were not his friend.
By the time he Apparated into London, it was just past nine, the world had mostly stopped spinning, although his head was pounding with such ferocious maliciousness that thinking felt like a herculean task. James ducked into one of Diagon Alley’s more questionable apothecaries—low light, suspect jars—and bought three hangover potions. He downed all three in the alley out back, blinking tears from his eyes at the bitter taste. He sagged against the wall in relief as the nausea in his stomach began to settle, and the pain in his head slowly subsided. The relief was temporary, because as soon as his capacity to think returned, he realised just how much trouble he was in. James had two problems. Two very big problems. The failed mission. And Rosier. James decided—with the slightly too-clear focus of someone who might still be faintly drunk—that Rosier was the lesser pressing of the two. It seemed safe—reasonably safe—to assume he hadn’t been part of the ambush, or the attempt to kill him. But someone had tried to kill him, and they’d come damn close to succeeding too.
James needed to speak to Moody.
He doubled back through Diagon Alley to the post office and sent a short message: need to speak. Urgent—J.P
Nineteen minutes later, the reply arrived.
A scrap of parchment, folded tight and handed off by a red-eyed runner.
Berwick warehouse. Rear door. 12pm. Come alone—A.M.
James checked his watch. It was quarter to eleven now, he had at least an hour to kill. He left Diagon Alley and found a muggle coffee shop off Tottenham Road. He ordered a coffee, and then another one, and then he thought about what to do about Rosier.
As far as James knew, Rosier wasn’t on the Order’s list of confirmed (or even suspected) Death Eaters. That alone would make him valuable intelligence. Which meant James should tell Moody about him.
The problem was, telling Moody would mean explaining just how James had found out about the mark on Rosier’s arm.
James tried to picture it—the conversation. Telling Moody that he’d sat down in a pub with Evan Rosier after witnessing him cast an Unforgivable Curse. That he’d proceeded to get absolutely smashed with him, commiserating over the death of Regulus Black—which would also mean explaining his own history with Regulus, also inconveniently, a confirmed Death Eater. That he’d caught Rosier’s slip up, realised what it probably meant and still hadn’t left, that he’d carried a pissed Rosier back to the Bed and Breakfast despite being fairly sure he was a Death Eater, that he’d confirmed it, and still chose to get into bed and pass out next to him anyway. Moody would explode. At best, James would be pulled from duty. At worst, he might be arrested for consorting with the enemy. Even in the best-case scenario, between Regulus and now Rosier, Moody would never trust him again.
But that wasn’t the only problem. There was a bigger one—one James didn’t quite know how to face—which was that he didn’t want to tell Moody about Rosier.
Yes, Rosier had taken the Mark. Yes, James had seen him cast an Unforgivable. But he hadn’t seen him kill. Hadn’t seen him hurt anyone. And if he told Moody, it would put a target on Rosier’s back. That thought didn’t sit right. They weren’t friends, exactly, but James didn’t want to see him dead. James sighed, dragging a hand through his hair, and tried to approach the problem from another angle. He hadn’t seen Rosier in nearly three years before last night. Chances were, he wouldn’t see him again. Would it really be so terrible if he just… didn’t mention it? If he let this one thing slide?
He checked his watch. It was almost time to meet Moody.
He needed to make a decision.
And quickly.
For a long moment, James sat still, watching the blur of people passing out the window. If he named Rosier and if the Order, or Aurours got him? Killed him? That would be James’s fault.
James blew out a slow breath.
James wasn’t sure he could live with that.
No.
He wouldn’t tell Moody.
Not today.
He decided—firmly—to file everything to do with Rosier, and the entire pub-to-pillow sequence that had followed, under complicated shit to deal with later . Then he stood, left the café, ducked into an alley, and Disapparated to East London.
He picked his way through a stretch of derelict buildings until he found it: cracked windows, a rusting sign that once read Berwick & Sons Shipping Ltd. Moody was already inside, trench coat-clad and scowling.
“Potter.”
“Moody.”
James stepped through the doorway, shut it behind him, and exhaled.
“Let’s hear it,” Moody said.
And so James told him.
The ambush. The eerie precision with which the attackers had known where to be, how to strike. The sprint across five towns. The decision to disappear for the night. Moody listened the way he always did—stone-faced, one eye fixed, the other spinning in slow surveillance, scanning every corner of the abandoned warehouse. He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t ask questions. Just let James speak until the account ran out of words and silence settled like something heavy between them.
“I’ve had three increasingly angry messages from Evans,” he said finally, “and you look like something the Knight Bus reversed over.”
“I’m fine,” protested James.
“You’re alive,” Moody snapped. “Not the same thing. Go home,” Moody said. “See your fiancée. Don’t talk to anyone but me or Evans. Not a word to anyone else. Not Black. Not Lupin. No one.”
James hesitated.
Moody’s gaze hardened. “I’m serious, Potter. We don’t tip the board when we don’t know which way the pieces are falling. Far as I’m concerned, you’re still missing. We’ll use that if we can.”
James started to protest, he didn’t want to lie to Sirius, Pete or Remus—didn’t like the idea of hiding either.
“Keep your head down and stay alive,” Moody said. “Can you manage that?”
James exhaled through his nose. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “I can manage that.”.
Lily was waiting when he got back.
She opened the door before he could even knock, threw herself at him with a sound that was half a sob, half a curse. James caught her, arms wrapping tight, breathing her in—lavender, parchment, the faint trace of ink.James buried his face in her hair and let out a long breath. Only when she pulled back and smacked him on the arm did he register just how worried she must’ve been.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she snapped.
“I didn’t exactly plan it,” pointed out James. He sank onto the couch, muscles screaming in protest. And then—slowly, carefully—he told her everything.
Well. Almost everything.
The mission. The ambush. The run through the country. The meeting with Moody. The order to keep quiet. He left out the part about Rosier, about not telling Moody about him, because–well he wasn’t really sure how to explain it, not when he didn’t fully understand the choice he’d made himself.
Lily listened.
Quiet. Still.
When he finished, she didn’t speak at first.
Then, carefully, voice low: “Do you think there’s a leak? In the Order I mean?”
“I don’t know.” James rubbed a hand over his face. “But I don’t think I was supposed to come out of that mission alive.”
The next few days passed slowly.
James wasn’t built for stillness.
Lily went to work, leaving by floo early in the morning dressed in her mint green St Mungos robes and not returning until late at night. James watched the turn of the sky and thought about Regulus, about the fact that he was gone, really gone. Three days confined to the cottage with nothing but radio updates and the slow turn of the sky out the window was enough to make him feel like he was going mad. He couldn’t run like he had before, couldn't hide behind missions and action, he was trapped—trapped alone with nothing but the hollow ache of his own grief. Rosier’s words spinning over and over again in his head.
You made him brave.
He would’ve rather died than drag you into our world.
Had Regulus lied when he’d told James he didn’t love him, didn’t want him? Had he him—tried to protect him by pushing him away? The questions choked him, turned his stomach. Made it hard to breathe. Harder to eat. He tried toast. Tried soup. Left both to go cold on the counter. The hollowness, the emptiness that taken up residence inside him before, the one caused by Marlene’s death, by Gid and Fab’s, by Mary’s—what he felt now was worse. Much worse, because at least that had been shared, but this? He was alone in this grief. Utterly alone. Well—apart from Rosier, wherever he was.
James thought a lot about Evan Rosier in those three days. More than should’ve. It was easier than thinking about Regulus. And so at night when he couldn’t sleep for the debilitating weight crushing against his chest, when memories of Regulus threatened to drown him, he thought about Rosier. Sometimes he thought about the Rosier from school, the one from the trophy room, from the broom shed, from the quidditch pitch, the hospital wing and the astronomy tower. Blue eyes and wicked smirk. The one who had made James laugh, and called him Tosspot.
Other times he thought of the adult Rosier, the one in the pub, grief stricken and drunk, of black ink on light gold skin. James wondered if he’d taken the mark at the same time as Regulus, or if he’d done it later, wondered why he’d done it. Found himself hoping, as vicious as it was: that he’d been forced into it, that he hadn’t had a choice. James didn’t want to think that Rosier was like the rest of them . Wanted to think he was better somehow, good. Didn’t want to believe that he’d chosen this, chosen them .
James didn’t know what to do with Evan Rosier. He’d seen him use an Unforgivable like it was nothing. Heard him apologise to the same girl afterwards. Seen him tip her a hundred quid. What kind of person forced someone’s will for a mid range bottle of whisky, and then tipped her more than she probably made in a week afterwards as an apology? It didn't make sense to him, Rosier didn't make sense.
James combed back through every interaction he’d ever had with Evan Rosier trying to make him fit, trying to understand him, but it did no good. All he got was a fragmented, contradictory portrait. A puzzle assembled from mismatched pieces that refused to resolve into a clear picture.
Someone who, at eight, had made an enemy of Sirius by standing up for his sister. Who, at eleven, had called James a tosspot and refused to give his name—but then helped him with his half of the shared detention they’d had for no apparent reason other than because he could. Who, at twelve, watched with amusement while James enchanted a chest of Quaffles—then told him, flatly, that he’d hex him if he did it again. Who, at fourteen, had warned James off Regulus—told him he couldn’t help—but then added, quietly and without agenda, that it was nice someone cared. And said he was sorry it didn’t mean more. Who shattered James’s wrist with a Bludger, admitted it hadn’t been an accident, and then apologised in a way that somehow made James laugh enough to stop being angry. Who, at fifteen, had lost his temper badly enough to put a seventh-year in hospital—but also hadn’t hit him while he was down. Who gave a warning. Gave a choice. Who fought fair even when he was angry. Who was the first person—the only person—who’d made him feel normal for loving a boy. Who admitted—coolly, unashamed—that he used dark magic and didn’t regret it, and then, had taught James to play blackjack. Who at sixteen had offered to fly drills with James. Different Houses, rival teams—and he did it anyway, because it would help. Because he could. And when Regulus broke James’s heart, when James had been crushed under the weight of his own misery—had been the only one who’d noticed, who’d stopped. Who asked, quietly, simply; are you alright?
James didn’t know what to make of Evan Rosier.
Didn’t know how to carry him in his head.
And he had no one to talk to about it.
He could already hear Sirius’s voice in his head: It’s Rosier. He’s a Death Eater, James. What more do you need to know?
And even if Sirius hadn’t hated Rosier, James couldn’t have gone to him. Or Remus. Or Peter. Because explaining Evan Rosier meant explaining Regulus. And James couldn’t face that. Couldn’t bear to hear what they might say, what Sirius might say. Not now that Regulus was gone
Besides, Moody’s instructions had been clear. Keep quiet, don’t talk to anyone but Lily.
Lily.
James could’ve talked to Lily.
But he didn’t.
Wasn’t ready to admit to Lily how broken he’d been when they’d first fallen into each other.
Wasn’t ready to admit how broken he still was now.
At the end of the third day Sirius and Remus came by, Moody had told the Order that James was missing. James stayed upstairs in the bedroom, hidden from view—he couldn’t hear the words, but he heard Sirius’s voice in the hall, heard the worry and the anger in it. Heard Lily trying to comfort him, James hated it. He hated that Moody had forbid him from letting them know he was okay, hated that he was doing this to his best friends, hated that Moody wouldn’t tell him why, that he’d made James swear not to let anyone but Lily know he was alive.
On the fourth night Moody visited. He wanted James moved. He said it was instrumental to the plan — the plan , of course, being something Moody refused to actually explain, that James remained missing.
Lily couldn’t come.
She had to stay. Had to play the part of the frantic, sleepless fiancée. That, Moody insisted, was essential .
James hated it. Fought it. Argued. He was tired of being moved around like a chess piece—tired of shadows, of codes, of plans no one explained.
But it didn’t matter.
He left with Moody that same night.
Middle of nowhere. A crumbling stone cottage with broken gates, ivy choking the chimney, and no Muggle neighbours for miles. There was a fireplace, a creaky old bed, and a kitchen stocked with tinned soup and condensed milk.
He spent two days pacing like a caged animal, wearing a groove into the floorboards. Moody hadn’t said how long he’d need to stay. Hadn’t said what he was waiting for. Just stay put .
By the second night, the silence was too much. The stillness pressed in like a weight. Out of sheer boredom and creeping desperation, James went rifling through the cupboards, searching for something —anything—to occupy his hands, his mind, the ache in his chest.
He found an old, half-empty packet of cigarettes in the kitchen drawer.
He didn’t smoke. Not really. Not anymore. He had, briefly. After Regulus. Some half-baked attempt to keep something of him. The habit had lasted through graduation and into the summer—until Lily had scrunched up her nose and told him it was vile. Told him she hated kissing him afterwards.
So he’d stopped.
But now Lily wasn’t here. And there was nothing to do. Nothing to distract him from the static in his chest, the suffocating quiet, the memories that wouldn’t leave him alone.
So he thought, why the fuck not?
He went outside. The mid may air, heavy with the damp scent of moss and woodsmoke. He stood in the overgrown garden, grass brushing his ankles, and lit the cigarette. He tilted his head back and looked up. The stars were smeared across the sky in brilliant silence. Clearer here than in London. Closer, somehow. They looked old. Indifferent. The kind of stars that had watched a thousand wars and a thousand fools who thought they could win them.
James exhaled smoke into the sky.
As it turned out, that cigarette probably saved his life.
Because if he hadn’t been outside, he wouldn’t have seen them.
Four figures.
Hooded and masked and moving up the road toward the cottage like smoke. Quick. Quiet. Wrong.
James’s stomach dropped.
He crushed the cigarette under his heel, hissed an oath under his breath, and bolted—low and fast—across the overgrown garden. The wet grass slapped against his legs as he dove over the crumbling stone wall, landing hard in a thicket of tangled brambles and gorse on the far side. He knelt in the dirt, breath shallow, heart hammering like it meant to escape his chest.
Not a moment too soon.
The gate creaked. Softly. Deliberately. And then the air shifted.
A low hum, almost beneath hearing, crawled across his skin—and then the night lit green.A ring of flame—emerald, silent and fast—raced out from the front step, low to the ground. James’s eyes widened as it tore around the perimeter, a perfect circle of glowing magic, blistering and silent. It swept past him by feet. Inches.
The wards didn’t resist. Didn’t flare. Didn’t even hesitate .
They simply fell . Sliced through like silk.
A sick chill spilled down his spine.
And then there was the sound of wood splintering. The cottage door being blown off its hinges. A burst of force cracked across the night like thunder. James flinched instinctively, crouching lower. Voices. Not raised—worse. Calm. Controlled. Orders barked to search the cottage, garde the exits. James crouched in the dark, heart racing, every instinct screaming. Not a random attack. They were here for him. Again .
James forced himself to remain still. Not to breathe, not to twitch. He willed his heart to slow— calm down, calm down, calm down —as he crouched deeper into the gorse, every muscle pulled taut.
From inside the cottage came a series of sharp crashes. Furniture being overturned. Drawers pulled open and dumped. Then, closer— too close —the crunch of boots on gravel. Two pairs, circling the property. And then stopping just on the other side of the wall, then a faint rustle of fabric, like a hood being pulled down.
Click.
James stiffened. That was a flint. Were they setting the place on fire?
A voice, mild and conversational. “Got a spare?”
A low noise of confirmation and then the sound of flint striking again. A seconds later, the unmistakable smell of cigarette smoke drifted through the air . James nearly laughed at the absurdity of his wood be murders stopping for a fag break. Hysteria, delirious and ubidden rose in him. He choked it down just in time.
Footsteps echoed from inside.
Then another voice cut through. This one sharp, fed-up, all jagged edges.
“Un-fucking-believable. What do you think this is, a school trip? Make yourselves useful and search the bloody area. Imbeciles. Both of you.”
There was a pause. A heartbeat of silence.
Then a third voice answered. Cool and smooth, it sounded amused. “Leave the children be. It’s not their fault this place is emptier than your family’s Gringotts vaults.”
The grunt that followed was strained. Annoyed, but clipped. Someone holding back what they wanted to say.
Boots scraped across flagstones. The garden gate creaked.
The same voice that had asked for a cigarette, spoke again: pitched lower now, clearly not meant to travel. “How does he get off calling us imbeciles? He won’t even tell us who we’re looking for—real tactical genius there.”
A low chuckle not the smooth voice, nor the rough one, or the one that just spoke. No, this was someone else and something about the laugh tugged at James’s mind, familiar. And his heart sank as he remembered the flames that raced around the property, cutting through the wards as if they were nothing, green, glowing and silent. A memory surfaced, a duel. Silent green fire.
No, he thought, please don’t let it be him. Not tonight, not here.
Then the smooth voice again, all velvet condescension.
“He won’t tell you because he doesn’t know. The Dark Lord was not impressed with his inability to turn the tide on the giant legislation—now Rookwood is playing fetch in the dark. You two take the garden. I’ll sweep the woods out front. Doubt there’s anyone here, but appearances must be kept.”
Footsteps shifted, gravel crunching underfoot.
“Come on, then,” said the first voice—closer now, sharper. “Let’s get this over with. I’m starving.”
“You should’ve eaten before we came,” came the reply—a fourth voice, low and even, carrying the faintest trace of exasperation. And something else, too. Something far worse.
Recognition.
James felt the sound cleave straight through him. It was a voice he knew. Horribly, unmistakably familiar.
And then came the sound of movement—bodies pushing through hedges, brambles snapping, boots crunching over gravel.
He didn’t move. Didn’t dare to. Five minutes dragged past like hours, and still he crouched low behind the crumbling garden wall, every nerve pulled taut, lungs barely remembering to draw breath.
Then—above him—a faint shift. Stone against fabric. Weight. Balance.
And boots hit the ground.
Right beside him.
His heart stuttered. Froze.
He stared at the boots—black dragonhide, heavy and expensive—and then, slowly, raised his gaze. A wand. Black glove. Arm. Shoulder. And finally, a face—unmasked. Because of course he would’ve taken his mask off to smoke, of course he would’ve stopped in the middle of an assasination attempt for a cigarette.
Evan Rosier. Hood pulled back. Blonde hair silvered by the moonlight. Eyes that, even in shadow, burned blue. Too blue.
James braced. Waited for the flash of green.
Waited for death.
It didn’t come.
Instead, Rosier raised a gloved finger to his lips. A silent command: Be Quiet.
And then— crack —the sharp, sudden impact of a wand hilt against the crown of James’s head.
He flinched—not from pain. From confusion.
A cold trickle slid down his neck, slow and precise, like the yolk of a chilled egg. And then Rosier was gone—vanishing in a single, fluid movement, vaulting back over the wall without a sound, like he’d never been there at all. Only the fading echo of boot leather and the sting at the crown of James’s skull remained, as if to prove it hadn’t been imagined.
Then voices drifted back—fainter now, but still clear.
“Want to check the hill behind?”
James’s stomach dropped.
The hill. The one directly behind the cottage. Behind the garden wall where he was hidden.
Rosier’s voice, even and casual. “Nah, fuck that. There’s no one here and I want a drink.”
A pause. Then:
“Reckon I can get Lucius to feed us and open his wine cellar if we’re quick.”
The first voice again, lighter now—almost laughing. “Have I ever told you just how much I adore you?”
A soft snort from Rosier. “Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The garden gate creaked once more.
James didn’t wait. He moved—low and fast—bolting through the brush, heart hammering like it was trying to break free of his ribs. Across the heather and up the back of the hill, every footstep a silent prayer. No branches cracked beneath him. No voices called after him.
He crested the ridge.
And vanished.
The crack of Apparition tore through the silence, and then James was somewhere. Newcastle.
He hit the ground hard in a narrow alley behind a Chinese restaurant, the air thick with the smell of oil, soy, and something sharp like vinegar. Damp brick loomed on either side. Bin bags slumped against the wall like slumbering beasts. A flickering streetlamp buzzed overhead.
James exhaled, chest tight, lungs burning from the run. He glanced down—and stilled, a frown drawing across his face as he noticed the shimmer clinging to his skin: uneven patches of dull grey, shifting like wet stone in low light.
A Disillusionment Charm.
The realisation came slowly, as though his brain had to wade through treacle to make sense of it. That was what Rosier had done—when he’d cracked him on the head with his wand. Not a blow. A spell. A hasty, imperfect charm, cast in the span of a heartbeat.
It wasn’t a very good one—but it had likely done enough. Enough to blur him against the dark heather of the while he ran. Enough to shield him from any glance cast back over a shoulder.
And more than that—it had been deliberate.
Rosier hadn’t just walked away. He hadn’t just held his tongue or steered the others off-course. He’d taken an active step to keep James hidden.
Evan Rosier had just saved his life.