Careful Tosspot. You’ve got a rat in your ranks.
A rat in your ranks.
James’s stomach twisted.
Moody thought there was a spy in the Order. Someone leaking information to the Death Eaters.
A suspicion Rosier’s note seemed to confirm.
That’s all it meant, James told himself. A confirmation of Moody’s suspicions. Except the note hadn’t said spy. Or leak. Or snitch. Or double agent, or any of the countless other words Rosier could have used. James wanted—desperately—to think Rosier had chosen the word at random. A coincidence. Just a turn of phrase. But he couldn’t.
He ran a hand through his hair, fingers clenching at the roots as his thoughts splintered.
No. It was ridiculous, treacherous, to even think. He tried to push the thought away, firmly, resolutely. He couldn’t, his mind revolted against itself, spiralling through dark thoughts that turned his stomach. Was this who he was becoming? Someone who jumped straight to the worst possible conclusion? That assumed that because he was lying, hiding things, so was everyone else? Even his oldest friends? But then again, he was lying—lying to everyone about Rosier, lying to Lily, Moody, to Sirius and Remus, and Peter—would it be so out of the realm of possibility that he wasn’t the only one who was lying?
Then again, what if Rosier was the one lying? It should have occurred to him sooner, it should have been his first thought—anger rose hot and fast, anger and shame that he had jumped straight to the worst possible outcome, that it hadn’t even occurred to him that the Death Eater who had sent the note might be lying to him, playing with him—but no, almost as soon as the idea came he dismissed it. As much as he might want that to be the answer, he didn't think it was. Rosier wasn’t like that, he didn’t play games. That felt like an oddly certain piece of knowledge, it shouldn’t have—he didn’t really know Rosier, not properly and yet he felt sure of this, Rosier had always been candid with him, direct. It’s part of what James had liked about him in school. Back when they were just boys, circling each other through petty rivalries and shared detentions. It hadn’t registered at the time—nothing more than the occasional fleeting thought that, under different circumstances, they might have been friends. But now, with the world cracking at the seams and the sides no longer symbolic but lethal, James saw it more clearly.
He liked Evan Rosier. Had always liked him.
And it wasn’t just that he didn’t want to see him dead.
It was that some part of him—some deep, gut-level instinct—wanted to trust him.
Even now.
Even knowing what he was.
Even when he didn’t want to believe what Rosier was saying.
He wanted to dismiss the note.
He wanted to call Rosier a lier.
But he couldn’t.
Because it was specific. Too specific.
Rosier was clever, despite what he might have told James the first day they’d met—he might not claim to be clever, but he was. James was pretty damn sure of that, there was a shrewdness to him, a kind of blunt certainly—so far James had never seen him bluff, never seen him claim anything that he wasn’t capable of—if he’d used the word rat then it was highly likely that there was a damn good reason he’d done it. Rosier had seen them. Him, Sirius and Peter. Had seen the three of them together the day before. Had seen James with Peter. Peter who was a rat. Literally. His Animagus form was a rat. Rosier shouldn’t know that. Couldn’t know that—unless he could.
No. No. No.
This was Peter. Peter, who’d followed him everywhere from the first day they’d met, from childhood, to Gryffindor, to war. Who’d turned into a trembling ball of fur the first time they’d all changed.
Peter would never betray them.
James would know.
Wouldn’t he?
A dark little voice crept in from the corners of his mind: would you though? the voice asked. When was the last time you saw Peter in a short-sleeved shirt? When was the last time you saw his arm? How do you know there isn’t a Dark Mark there?
James didn’t hear Lily come back, he was too lost in his own thoughts, pacing the living room.
Rat.
He jumped when she asked what he wanted for dinner.
“Are you alright?” she asked gently.
“Yeah,” James said. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
But he wasn’t fine. Not that night, nor the day after. All he could think about was the word: rat.
Rat. Rat. Rat.
Over and over again, permeating every corner of his mind, mixed in with memories of Peter that churned and distorted into the grotesque shapes as doubt and suspicion twisted them into something ugly. And in there too was Rosier, every small interaction they'd ever had coming up against the tirade of memories James had of Peter. And so it went, for three days. Back and forth. Arguing with himself over it, hating himself for entertaining the idea, and yet unable to let go of it. Until James was half-mad with it. Until he couldn’t breathe for the weight of suspicion and shame curling tight inside his chest. Until he felt like he might punch a wall just to make the noise in his head stop.
Until finally—finally—he snapped.
He needed answers. Real ones.
So despite the fact that it was stupid.
Despite the fact that it was dangerous.
He sent an owl back.
The note was short. He kept it that way deliberately. As vague as he could make it without being unintelligible. To an outsider? It shouldn’t mean a thing. How many pubs in England were there called The Queens Arms? Fifty? A hundred? Enough.
We need to talk.
Queen’s Arms. Same day and time.
The next two days were a slow, taut, a sort of hell.
What if Rosier didn’t show up? Worse, what if he did?
James avoided Remus, Sirius, and Peter, and Moody in the intervening days—Sirius was busy with something down in Cardiff. Peter was holed up in London doing vague Ministry-adjacent things James didn’t ask about. Moody had sent a note asking if he was up for another stakeout; James had said he had a cold. He was jumpy and knew he was doing a piss-poor job of acting normal. Kept misplacing things around the cottage. Put salt in Lily’s tea by accident. Put the bread in the fridge instead of the bread bin. Didn’t realise he’d been walking around with his T-shirt on inside out until Lily gently pointed it out hours later, a crease of worry forming between her brows. Took his glasses off and put them down. Not noticing he was wandering around half blind until he saw them sitting on the counter two hours later. He pottered around aimlessly, half-starting tasks and abandoning them.
Lily didn’t push, but James caught her watching him with that same small, worried crease between her brows. It made his skin crawl.
And then Thursday came, and James got lucky.
Lily had plans to see her sister—always a tense event. She was distracted. Apprehensive. Not paying attention to James and his increasingly frequent fidgeting. She left an hour and a half before James was due at The Queens Arms. James thanked his lucky stars that he didn’t have to think of an excuse to leave. He scribbled a note—vague. He'd gone out for a bit. Wasn’t sure when he’d be back. No details. No lies, just absence.
He arrived twenty minutes early. The Queen’s Arms was quiet, warm light pooling on dark wood and scuffed leather. A few old men at the bar. A couple in the corner, they looked halfway through an argument. A man reading a newspaper over fish and chips.
James didn’t sit at the bar. It felt too exposed. Instead, he found a booth in the back—corner seat, back to the wall, clean line of sight to the front door. He sat with one leg braced against the floor and the other bouncing under the table. He ordered a pint. Nursed it, one hand around the glass and the other resting on his wand, just under the table edge. Just in case.
And then he waited.
And waited.
The pub slowly filled out. Someone put coins in the jukebox and a scratchy melody filtered through the warm haze of conversation. The bar staff rotated. Still no Rosier. James finished his pint and ordered another. Not because he wanted it. Because he needed a reason to stay. He stared at the condensation sliding down the side of his glass, by his estimation he’d arrived at the Queens Arms last time sometime after six O’clock, give or take, add on the fact that he’d ordered, and ate, before noticing Rosier sat at the bar—and then another thirty minutes or so in which he’d watched him drink, that brought them to around seven. He was willing to call half seven or eight by the time he’d sat down with him. It was now almost nine.
Rosier wasn’t coming.
James downed the last half of his pint. It had gone slightly flat. Reached for his jacket.
And just as he was about to stand, someone slid into the leather-covered bench opposite him.
James froze, mid-motion.
He looked up.
Evan Rosier was sitting across from him. Relief surged through James, more than he cared to admit and he had to bite off the smile that threatened to break. Rosier eyed him carefully, there was a tenseness about him that James wasn’t used to seeing. Not on the guy who’s default emotional state seemed to be bored nonchalance. He was waiting, James realised, waiting to see what James was going to do.
James swallowed, and then asked. “What are you drinking? Pretty sure it’s my round.”
Rosier seemed to relax. The tension in his shoulders ebbing a little–at least James thought so. “Guiness.”
James nodded and headed to the bar. He was already two pints in and realistically, probably shouldn’t drink too much more. Not in the company of a Death Eater, not when he should be sharp, keep his reflexes quick. But he ordered another beer anyway. Rosier had shrugged out of his coat when James returned. He was wearing a navy button down and dark grey trousers. More discreet than the all black getup he’d been in last time, and surprisingly, he looked remarkably comfortable in muggle clothes, unlike most pureblood wizards who seemed inept at dressing themselves in anything other than robes. Rosier could’ve easily passed for a young business man or a rich university student perhaps.
“You know you’re late?” asked James, setting Rosier’s Guinness down in front of him.
“Am I?”
“By about two hours.”
Rosier raised an eyebrow. “You remember how wankered I was the last time I came here? Miracle I got the day right, never mind the time.” He paused, studying James for a beat. Then, more quietly: “You didn’t think I’d show.”
James took a sip of his beer. His hands were steady, but only just. The weight of Rosier’s gaze—made his skin feel too tight, like he was bracing for something. His stomach twisted, uneasy, restless. “It crossed my mind.”
“And yet you waited.”
“I did.”
Strikingly blue eyes regarded him across the table. An image surfaced—unbidden, unwanted. That same face, but different. Relaxed in sleep, golden hair mussed against a pillow, mouth soft in a way it never was when awake.
Suddenly James didn’t just want to ask about the note, about Peter or even the safe house, why Rosier hadn’t handed him over.
No. He wanted more than that.
He wanted to know why Rosier had taken the Mark. He wanted—needed—to hear Rosier say he hadn’t wanted it. That he didn’t believe in it. That he wasn’t like the rest of them.
For some reason, that mattered more than anything else.
“Why did you do it? Why join them?”
Rosier’s answer was immediate. Unflinching. “Does it matter why I did it?” he asked. “It doesn’t change the fact that I did.”
James swallowed. It was harder than it should have been. “Tell me you didn’t have a choice,” The words came out rough. Strained. Too raw.
There was a long pause in which Rosier watched him and then he smiled, and there was something—something horribly close to pity in his blue eyes. “That would make it easier for you wouldn’t it?”
James didn’t even consider lying. “Yes.”
“The Dark Lord is a lot of things. Stupid isn’t one of them. He knows the best servants are the ones who serve willingly. Mark won’t take if you don’t want it,” Rosier’s mouth turned down at the corners, like he'd eaten something sour, “you have to mean it. If you don’t, it will kill you.”
“But you said Regulus didn’t have a choice,” said James, and he hated how it sounded, like he was pleading with Rosier.
“I said he didn’t think he had a choice but I’m not Reg Tosspot. Sometimes I wish I was, life would be easier, but unfortunately I know there’s always a choice, might be a shit choice, might not like the options, but there is always a choice.”
The words hurt in a way James hadn’t know words could. They weren’t cruel, Rosier didn’t say them with anger or malice, he said them with regret. And somehow that was worse. It was true Rosier wasn’t Regulus. He wasn’t the beautiful, infuriating, torn-apart mess that Reg had been—caught between who he was and who he wished he could be. But that wasn’t Rosier. He was blunt, direct and straight to the point. He had been from the moment James had first met him.
The answer fit.
James didn’t like it.
But it fit.
“Why didn’t you hand me over then?” asked James, “why save my life?”
“Didn't want to see you dead, definitely didn't t want to be the one to do it.”
James didn’t understand the answer, how could Rosier tell him point blank that he’d chosen Voldemort, chosen to take the mark, and then turn around tell him he didn’t want James dead?
“So what? You’re telling me you’re one of them—but you only when it suits you?” he asked bluntly, unable to hide his frustration. He wanted more than this, he didn't know how to categorise Rosier's answer. Didn't know where it placed him, was he one of them, or was he not? It didn't make sense to James.
A smirk, “something like that. Know that’s not the answer you want. Probably makes it harder to put me in a box that fits your world view.”
“It makes it hard to trust anything you say,” answered James, “and I want to trust you. Merlin knows why but I do but I can’t because I don’t understand where your loyalty lies.”
Rosier shrugged. “Same place it’s always been. I’m loyal to myself—and to the people I give a damn about. Past that?” He tilted his head. “Told you the first time we met: a tosser in red’s the same as a tosser in green, far as I’m concerned. That hasn’t changed.”
He paused then, like he was weighing the shape of what came next.
“Look, I had my reasons for joining. Probably makes me a bad person in your eyes—and that’s fine. I can live with that. Never claimed to be good. Not asking you to trust me either. I’m just doing what I think’s right. You want to ignore the warning, go ahead. Doesn’t make it any less true.”
James stared at him for a long moment.
Rosier took a sip of his Guinness—casual, unbothered. As if they weren’t two men on opposite sides of a war. As if they shouldn’t be trying to kill each other.
James didn’t know what to make of the answer. So he waited. Watched. Hoping Rosier would say more—would offer a reason, a justification, something to help him make sense of it. Something to help him put the world back in order.
Because Rosier was right—James did want to put him in a box. Needed to. Good and bad. Right and wrong. Death Eaters and Order members. That line had to hold.
Because if it didn’t—if it blurred, even for a moment—then everything he was fighting for became harder to see. And the darkness already threading through his thoughts, the hollow ache that had taken up permian residence in his chest... it might win. Might pull him under until there was nothing left.
And James didn’t know who he’d be if it did. A shell—someone who stopped caring entirely.
But Rosier didn't say anything, he just looked back at him.
Eventually, James looked away. He wasn’t going to figure him out by staring. “So it is Peter, then?” he asked, voice low. “He’s the Order spy?”
Rosier didn’t flinch. “Can’t say if he’s a spy, per se. Didn’t even know he was in the Order—didn’t know you were, either. Not until I saw you hiding behind that wall.” He leaned back, rolled his shoulders. His tone stayed maddeningly casual, like they were discussing Quidditch scores or weather patterns—not the possibility that James’s oldest friend was feeding intel to the enemy. “But I can tell you Pettigrew’s one of ours. Figured you lot had gone your separate ways after Hogwarts. Didn’t think much of it when I first saw him. Not until I bumped into him with you and Cousin Rebellion the other day. Then I realised you hadn’t—and knowing what I do about you, I figured there was a pretty solid chance you didn’t know about him.”
A pause. A faint tilt of the head. His smile was almost sympathetic. Almost.
“Unless I’m not as special as I thought—and you make a habit of socialising with Death Eaters?”
James shouldn’t have laughed.
It wasn’t funny. None of this was funny. These were real stakes, real lives, real deaths. But there was something so deeply absurd about the whole thing—Peter, Peter, as the spy. Rosier’s cool indifference. The fact that James was sitting in a pub across from someone he should by all rights be hexing into the wall—and it rose out of him before he could stop it. A short, sharp burst—bitter, breathless. He pressed the heel of his hand to his mouth, tried to get control. Failed.
Merlin, he thought. What the hell is happening to me?
“No,” he said, after his laughter had died. “Just you.”
Rosier’s mouth quirked—almost a smile. “Good to know.” Then, more plainly: “So. What are you going to do about him?”
James hesitated. “I don’t know,” he admitted. The truth of it sat heavy in his chest. The problem felt too big, too entangled, to even begin unpicking. “I suppose I’ll have to tell someone.”
“You could just kill him,” Rosier offered, almost helpfully.
James blanched. The thought hit hard and wrong—visceral, nauseating. Kill Peter? Peter? He shoved the idea aside, but it was like trying to ignore a shadow once you’d seen it move. “I—no. No. I’d have to prove it first. Or at least come up with a way to explain how I know. And I assume you’d prefer not to have your name dragged into it?”
“If you’d be so kind,” Rosier said, dryly. “I’d rather not walk around with a giant target on my back.”
“And your lot?” asked James. “You’re not worried they’ll find out you spoke to me?”
“They might,” Rosier said, unbothered. “But pretending I didn’t see you the other night would probably be enough to get me branded a traitor anyway.”
He took a long swig of his Guinness, then set the glass down and rolled it slowly between his palms, eyes fixed on the motion—lazy, contemplative.
“If it were me,” he said, tone musing, “I’d feed him something dirty. Just tempting enough to pass along. Not too juicy—nothing that reeks of bait. Just useful. Bit of misdirection. A couple real threads tangled in. Make it traceable. Done right, you get proof. Take it to Moody. Or Dumbledore. Or whoever’s pulling the strings in your half of the war.”
James let out a snort. “We’re on opposite sides, and you’re giving me tactical advice?”
Rosier frowned faintly, as if only just realising. “When you put it like that, it does sound a bit... off. But yeah. I suppose I am.”
James shook his head, half-laughing. “This—us—you sitting here talking to me—it’s fucking mental. You know that, right?”
Rosier flashed a grin, sudden and bright. All teeth and dimples. “You started it, Tosspot.”
“No,” James shot back. “Pretty sure you started it—when you slapped a piss-poor Disillusionment Charm on me the other night.”
Rosier drained the last of his Guinness and set the glass down with a soft thud. “Always been shit at Charms,” he said easily. “But you knew what I was before that. Could’ve handed me over. Could’ve killed me while I was passed out drunk. Could’ve told the Order everything.”
He tilted his head, expression unreadable.
“But you didn’t. By my count, that makes this your fault. Not mine.”
Then he stood, nodding toward James’s half-empty glass.
“You want another?”
James should say no.
It was one thing to get drunk in a pub with a Death Eater once. If he squinted hard enough he could write that off as an accident. A fluke. Circumstantial.
It was entirely a different thing to do it again.
Coming here—sure. He could tell himself that it had been about information. About getting answers.
But now?
Well, he had the information. Had confirmed Rosier had meant Peter.
He should say no. Should leave now.
Instead he inclined his head, “yeah alright.”
Rosier headed for the bar, and James watched him as he leant on it, watched him say something to the bartender—not the girl from the last time, a man, around their age. Maybe a little older, brown hair and tattoos. Watched the man smile and nod, start pulling a Guinness. James wondered what the hell he was doing, why he’d said yes to another drink, why he hadn’t left, he wondered and yet he didn’t move. He stayed sitting until Rosier returned, two pints in hand. Guinness for him and larger for James.
“How’d you know that I knew?” asked James.
Rosier raised an eyebrow. “About me?” He flexed the fingers on his left hand, glanced at the forearm resting against the tabletop. “Living with a bit of ink that’ll get you killed if the wrong person sees teaches you to notice where people are looking.” Rosier looked up, “get twitchy if anyone gets too close. Sets off alarm bells. So yeah, even drunk off my arse, someone pushing up my sleeve? That’s enough to wake me up. Was too pissed to fight you off, so I let you look.” He tilted his head, studying James. “Was kind of curious what you’d do, to be honest. Didn’t expect you to climb into bed and pass out next to me.”
“So what—did you take off after I was out?”
“Fuck no,” Rosier said. “I could barely stand, let alone Apparate. Went back to sleep. Figured if you hadn’t killed me on the spot, you weren’t likely to wake up halfway through the night and change your mind.”
He paused, then smirked—and for a heartbeat, it was like nothing had changed. Like they were back at school, in the broom shed or stuck in detention.
“I’m a sleep snuggler,” Rosier said. “Apparently, so are you. Woke up in what some might call a compromising position.”
James choked on his drink, spluttering into his pint.
Rosier’s smirk spread into a grin—wide, maddening, something between angelic and sardonic, insufferably pleased with himself. “Thought I’d do the gentlemanly thing and fuck off before you woke up and got all flustered. Figured being spooned by a Death Eater might bruise your delicate Gryffindor sensibilities.”
And that was it.
James cracked—completely. Laughter burst out of him, rising from somewhere deep in his chest. It shook him right through, a full-bodied kind of laugh. A release. It felt unbelievably good—like something in him, wound far too tight for far too long, had finally snapped. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. Properly laughed. Days? Weeks? Months? He didn’t know. He hadn’t realised, not until now, how badly he’d missed the feeling.
He shouldn’t have stayed for another drink with Rosier.
But he did.
More than one.
And it wasn’t like with Sirius or Remus or Lily, or—Peter (Merlin, James couldn't think about Peter)—when they all got together and tried to forget the war was happening. When they drank like forgetting was resistance. No. Rosier didn’t pretend the war wasn’t happening. Didn’t crack jokes to distract from it. Didn’t laugh in spite of it. He laughed at it. Dry. Dark. Sarcastic. He didn’t make the war disappear. He didn’t make James forget it existed. He made it feel like something you could stare in the face and still breathe.
He made James feel normal.
Time slipped past without James noticing, and then the bar was closing. The night outside was warm, air thick with the scent of salt and seaweed. They stood under the weak glow of a streetlamp, Rosier offered James a cigarette. He took it and stepped in as Rosier struck a silver Zippo—sharp flick, flash of flame, the metallic clink of the lid. He lit James’s cigarette first.
James inhaled, held it. Watched as Rosier lit his own.
He didn’t know why, but he always noticed that—the lighter. Not a wand. Always the same silver Zippo. He was still watching when Rosier raised an eyebrow, the cigarette resting between his lips.
James blinked. Looked away, feeling oddly embarrassed.
To break the silence, he reached for the first question that came to him—half joke, half genuine curiosity.
“What is a tosspot, anyway?”
Rosier exhaled slowly. “Unbearably stupid or Obnoxious person.”
“You think I’m unbearable?”
Rosier gave him a sidelong look. Flicked ash off his cigarette. “No,” he said. “Sirius is unbearable. You’re just... adjacent.”
“Whatever you say, Rose Bucket.”
There was a beat. Then Rosier said thoughtfully, “not the first time you’ve called me that. What’s with the bucket thing?”
James shrugged. “Didn’t know what your name was. In the broom shed—you were sitting on a bucket. I asked what you were doing, you said, what does it look like I’m doing? I said, sitting on a bucket. Starting thinking of you as Bucket-Boy after that. Learned your name after, of course, but the bucket association stuck. Kept running into you in bucket related situations. End of sixth year, detention—walked in and there you were sat on a bucket again. Quidditch pitch—bucket again. You called me Tosspot, felt fair to call you something back.”
Rosier laughed, and it caught James off guard—open, bright, unguarded.
James grinned. A little too wide. His slightly alcohol-fuzzed brain decided, quite firmly, that he liked Rosier’s laugh. Especially when he was the reason for it.
The feeling lingered as he made his way home—something light, almost buoyant, threading through the usual weight in his chest.
By the time he stepped through the front door, the house was quiet.
Lily was already in bed, but the light was still on—soft and amber, painting the room in a gentle, forgiving glow. She looked up from her book as he entered, her hair braided loosely over one shoulder.
He bent to kiss her temple. She wrinkled her nose.
“You smell like cigarettes.”
Then, after a pause—measured, casual only on the surface—“where were you?”
“Pub.”
She closed the book, thumb holding her place. “With Sirius?”
“No,” said James. “Alone. Wanted to get out for a bit. Fancied a drink.”
She didn’t push. Just watched him for a moment, something unreadable in her expression.
“I was worried.”
The words didn’t land like concern. They landed like a reminder. A weight. James felt them hit somewhere low in his chest—a dull, inward collapse.
“Sorry,” he said, already moving toward the bathroom and away, away from the lie and away from how easily it had slipped out. He didn’t look back. The smell of smoke clung to his shirt. The lie clung worse.