James looked around as he walked. He was in London, but not any part he recognised. Red brick and a canal. He walked a few streets over, curiosity tugging at him. The neighbourhood had an in-between feel—old warehouses and factories in the process of becoming something else. Flats. Creative offices. A few trendy cafés with oversized windows and minimalist signage. Gentrification in motion. He passed a yoga studio with frosted glass, a wine bar that hadn’t opened yet, and a bakery with a truly impressive pastry display. James paused just long enough for his stomach to grumble—loudly—as he stared longingly at the bakery window. Flaky croissants, glossy tarts, something with pistachio cream and gold leaf that looked utterly obscene. He sighed. Then turned, ducked down the alley beside it, and Disapparated.
James thought about going to the rendezvous spot.
He didn’t.
His body ached, and his shoulder felt like someone had cracked it with a Beater’s bat. Worse than that—Peter knew where the rendezvous point was. If there had been Death Eaters at the Ministry, there might be Death Eaters there too, and so James went home. He stepped through the front door of the cottage and stopped dead—three stunned faces stared back at him.
Lily sat at the kitchen table, head in her hands, eyes red and tear-streaked—Remus beside her. Sirius stood by the fireplace, frozen mid-step, shoulders tense, as though he’d been pacing the room in circles.
The moment she saw him, Lily was on her feet. She crossed the room in three quick steps and threw her arms around him.
“James—Merlin—James, we were so worried,” she whispered. “We saw you go down and then the Floo was locked—we couldn’t get back. We didn’t know if anyone made it out.”
He held her tightly, burying his face in her shoulder for a moment. Her hair smelled like soot and lavender.
“I got out,” he murmured. “I don’t know about the others. Are you alright?”
She nodded against him, and he pulled back enough to look at her. Relief softened the lines of her face. Then his eyes lifted past her to the others.
“Sirius?” he asked.
“Alive,” Sirius said. “Pissed off. What the fuck happened after we left?”
James tried to shrug and regretted it immediately. “Things got messy. Managed to slip out. Got hit with a Cruciatus on the way.”
Lily’s hands tightened on his arms. “Sit,” she said sharply. “I need to check you over.”
He didn’t argue. He dropped into a chair, exhaling slowly as she knelt beside him and pulled her wand.
“You could have nerve damage. Or internal strain. Cruciatus can be unpredictable.”
She began muttering diagnostic spells, coloured lights dancing over his skin. His shoulder glowed a deep yellow, and she frowned.
“Ligament damage,” she murmured. “Rotator cuff. This looks like a dislocation.”
James shifted uneasily. “Yeah.”
Lily looked up at him, waiting.
James, thinking quickly, said, “Some bloke on the street helped me. Muggle. Said he was a Muggle healer. I was out of it, trying to get somewhere safe. He tried to call one of those, you know, flashy siren things—”
“Ambulance,” Lily supplied gently, still frowning.
“Right. I said no. He offered to help with the shoulder instead. Put it back in—hurt like a bastard, but it worked.”
Sirius raised an eyebrow, and Remus winced in sympathy.
“I stopped at an apothecary after,” James added, realising he’d better cover his tracks in case Rosier’s potions showed up on Lily’s diagnostic spells. “Got a pain potion. And a muscle relaxant. Remembered Mum saying something about relaxants helping to stop your system seizing up post-Cruciatus.”
Lily nodded, already inspecting his shoulder more closely. “That was smart. You’ve done well to stay upright. Do you know what kind it was, the muscle relaxant? Some of them don’t mix well with other potions.”
“Uh, kind of purple? Sorry. Wasn’t really taking notes at the time.”
“Bitter with a white label?”
“Er, yeah,” said James. The vial hadn’t had a label, but it had been bitter, so he assumed the answer was safe enough.
She nodded. “Spasmolytica. I’ll give you another dose in a few hours.”
Lily touched James’s hand gently before rising. She waved her wand in several short, precise movements, muttering under her breath, and the ache in his shoulder dulled to something manageable. He exhaled slowly, the tension easing for a breath.
A few seconds later, a flash of silver streaked through the kitchen wall. An enormous Irish Wolfhound skidded to a halt, sat back on its haunches, and spoke in Moody’s gruff, unmistakable voice.
“Evans. Need to talk. Kingsley and I are on our way to your cottage now. If you’re not there, get there. Telling Black and Lupin the same.”
The Patronus dissolved into silver mist. Two more followed in quick succession, addressed to Sirius and Remus. Each bore the same message: regroup at the Potters’ cottage.
The four of them exchanged uneasy glances. The atmosphere thickened.
Twenty minutes later, a knock rattled the door.
Lily stood quickly and went to answer it. Moody stepped inside before she’d even finished opening it, stomping in with purpose, wand already in hand. Kingsley followed—still in full crimson Auror robes, eyes shadowed, tired.
“Bad news—I’m afraid Potter was—” Moody stopped mid-sentence. His magical eye whirred sharply in its socket, locking onto James, who still sat at the kitchen table, a mug half-finished beside him.
What happened next was fast. Blindingly fast. James was yanked forward, then shoved down against the table. His injured shoulder twisted sharply behind his back—pain flared white-hot—and then a wand tip jabbed into the base of his neck.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lily shouted, her voice sharp with fury.
“Who are you?” barked Moody.
“It’s me,” James choked, breath catching. “It’s me, Moody—”
“What’s the password we agreed on in January?”
“Whistlejack,” James gasped.
“Name of the Muggle you hexed by accident last year?”
“Liam Weller.”
A beat.
“And what did you tell me when I said your wand form was too showy?”
“That it wasn’t,” James snapped, “and I’m not changing it.”
Moody didn’t move for a second. Then his grip loosened. James sagged into the table, wheezing. A moment later he was released completely and slumped back into the chair, his legs trembling. Moody didn’t lower his wand. His magical eye was still fixed on him.
“Bones said he saw you dragged into the Floo by a Death Eater,” he said, voice hard. “What the hell happened, boy?”
Lily gasped. Sirius made a strangled noise at the back of his throat.
James’s stomach dropped. Shit.
“I got away,” he said. The lie came quick, his brain racing ahead of his mouth, stringing things together. “Took a Cruciatus. Went down. I think whoever hit me got taken out by a rogue spell—at least, that’s what it felt like. I wasn’t exactly... lucid.”He wet his lips, heart pounding. “Next thing I knew, someone grabbed me. I tried to fight him off, but then we were already in the network.” He shook his head, as if dazed. “Managed to Disapparate. Nearly splinched myself. Was aiming for the Leaky Cauldron, but I was out of it—missed. Ended up in the road just outside. Almost got run over by a Muggle in a car.”
“Merlin,” muttered Sirius.
James powered on. “Man driving thought he’d hit me. Another bloke—some kind of Muggle healer—got involved. Said I’d dislocated my shoulder, insisted I go to hospital. I refused. He put it back in for me. Took a while to convince them I wasn’t concussed or insane.” He gave a weak laugh. “Didn’t want to Apparate again like that. So I managed to get myself into Diagon Alley, got a pain potion at some apothecary. Then came home.” He stopped talking. Let the silence settle. It wasn’t perfect. If anyone really looked too closely, they’d find holes. No record of him entering or exiting the Leaky. Timing that didn’t quite add up. But it was close enough. He hoped.
Moody stared at him for a long, unsettling moment. “Lucky to be alive.”
James nodded.
Moody grunted—and then said, “Took us by surprise. Shot up the place and then disappeared. One Auror injured—Ellis Ketteridge. Lost his leg. Three civilians dead.” He shook his head, jaw tight. “Almost had one of them, stunned him and then his buddy showed up just in time to save his neck.” His magical eye spun once, then fixed forward. “Gave me a hell of a fight.” A pause. Grim.
James said nothing.
He had a pretty good idea who the Death Eater was—the one who’d given Moody trouble—and where both he and the one Moody had stunned were now. A converted warehouse flat in East London. Maybe with a Falmouth Falcons mug still sitting on the coffee table.
“Do we know what they wanted?” Remus asked. “Were they after us, or there for something else?”
Moody turned his head. “Hard to say. Could’ve been the intel I sent you in for. Could’ve been a show of power—stirring the pot. Might’ve been coincidence.”
James shook his head. “No. They were after us.” He nodded toward the files on the table—the ones Lily had been carrying. The ones she’d managed to get out with. “They wanted those. And they knew we’d be there.”
Moody studied him for a beat. “You sure?”
“I am. The one who grabbed me—I’m pretty sure he knew who I was. That’s not coincidence.”
It was a lie, but Rosier had said he’d tried to warn James—and that must mean he’d known. Must mean Peter had told them. So James took the gamble. It was better Moody knew they’d been there for them. That whatever was in the file transcripts they’d taken was important.
Moody exhaled through his nose, expression unreadable. Kingsley, silent until now, stepped forward and laid a hand briefly on Moody’s shoulder. “We should get back,” he said. “Plenty to do.”
Moody nodded, gathered the files into a single tight stack, then turned to James one last time. “You need anything, you send a Patronus,” he said over his shoulder as he stomped out of the cottage after Kingsley.
The door shut behind them, and silence fell over the kitchen like a dropped sheet.
Lily stood eventually—went to the kitchen, and James heard the sound of the kettle being filled.
Sirius was the one who finally spoke. “Why didn’t you tell us you got pulled into the Floo by a Death Eater?”
James blinked, caught off guard. “I—sorry. Everything happened fast. I was just... focused on getting out. Getting back here.”
Sirius’s eyes were on him, sharp in a way that didn’t feel like concern—not only concern, at least James didn’t know what to make of it.
“Right,” Sirius said. His voice was even. Too even. “Just seems like the sort of thing you’d mention. That’s all.”
Lily returned to the table with a teapot and cups. The clink of ceramic on wood filled the silence. Remus shifted in his seat but said nothing, his eyes flicking between the two of them.
James glanced at Sirius again. He couldn’t quite read the expression—part tired, part guarded, like he was trying not to say something. Like he was waiting to see if James would say it first. “Sorry,” James repeated. “Didn’t realise how long I’d been gone until I got back. Didn’t mean to worry anyone.”
“You were gone well over two hours,” Remus said quietly. “We didn’t know if you were dead or alive.”
James opened his mouth, then shut it again. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t make it worse. Sirius didn’t press. Just nodded once, too slowly, and looked away. His jaw was tight.
They drank tea in silence. James barely tasted it. Sirius and Remus left shortly after they’d finished their mugs.
“There was an owl for you—I almost forgot,” Lily said later that evening, after they’d eaten. “Nasty thing. Nearly took my finger off.”
She stood from where she sat curled at his side on the couch, rummaged through the small drift of mail and scattered papers that had a permanent home on the antique writing desk in the corner of the room, then returned with a small square of parchment, folded and sealed with dark blue wax.
“Here.”
James took it, looked at the seal—no crest. He opened it.
One line. Neat, slanting cursive:
Rat squeaked. Coming for you today — R.B.
Rosier’s warning. Too late to change anything now—but it might have been enough. Would have been, if James had seen it in time. Then something snagged his attention. The signature.
R.B.
He stared at it, frowning. Why had Rosier signed it R.B. ?
Then it clicked. James almost laughed. Stifled it at the last second. Of course.
Rose Bucket.
Rosier had signed his warning R.B. —for Rose Bucket . James shook his head, folded the note, and slid it into his pocket. Utterly ridiculous. And yet, somehow, it tracked.
When he looked up, Lily was watching him with a slight frown. “Who’s it from?” she asked.
He smiled faintly. “No one. Just a promo from Quidditch Weekly . Forgot I signed up.” He stood, stretched. “I’m going to have a shower,” he said, giving her a quick kiss before heading for the stairs.
The cottage was quiet that night.
Too quiet.
Lily had gone to bed early—James hadn’t followed. He sat by the dying fire in the living room, slouched deep in the armchair, an untouched cup of tea cooling on the table beside him. It had long gone cold.
James stared into the embers.
And thought of Regulus. Thought of him in a way he hadn’t let himself since learning of his death.
Not the haughty fifteen-year-old with stormy grey eyes he’d kissed on the Astronomy Tower under sparse stars. Not the sixteen-year-old who’d whispered I love you against his collarbone, curled up beside him in the Room of Requirement, hair falling into those same grey eyes.
No.
He thought of the hard-faced boy who’d told him he didn’t love him only weeks later.
Told him he didn’t want him anymore. The one who, in the months that followed, had looked through him in the halls like he was nothing. Like he hadn’t mattered. They hadn’t mattered. Like he hadn’t known James at all.
“He didn’t think he had a choice.”
James hadn’t cried. Not when Regulus broke his heart. Not when he found out he was missing. Not even when Rosier, drunk and shattered, told him Regulus was dead. Not even then. He cried now. Cried for his seventeen-year-old self—who would’ve done anything to keep Regulus, who’d believed too easily that the boy he loved had simply stopped loving him back. He cried for the Regulus he’d loved. He cried for the version of Regulus he hadn’t known too.
The one who hadn’t thought he had a choice. The one who hadn’t even made it to nineteen. And when the tears stopped, James felt hollow.
Emptied out. He thought of Rosier then. Looking back at him from across a table in the Queen’s Arms, his words echoed through James’s mind: “ There’s always a choice.”
And he was right. There was always a choice.
And James… James had made a lot of choices in the last few weeks.
He’d chosen to sit beside Rosier after he’d seen him use an Unforgivable.
Chosen to drink with him. Not once, but twice. Chosen to crawl into bed beside him and pass out next to him, knowing full well who—what—Evan Rosier was. Chosen to keep it all a secret. Chosen to lie.
And then, today, he’d chosen to go to the Ministry not to tell Moody about Peter.
Told himself it would be okay.
The problem was, it very nearly hadn’t been. And sure, he hadn’t known anything was going to happen—but he’d known enough to know it was a possibility. And today it hadn’t just been him at risk like it had the other times.
No.
Lily had been there. Sirius. Remus.
He’d put them all at risk for the sake of keeping Rosier’s secret. He didn’t know what to do with that piece of knowledge. It twisted inside him like something dark and uncomfortable. He wondered what he’d have chosen if he’d known the truth about Regulus at seventeen. Would he have turned his back on him? Would he have walked away if he’d seen the Mark on Regulus’s arm? Or would he have lied for him too? Kept his secret? Put people in danger for him? He’d protected Rosier because it felt like the right thing to do—and it still felt like the right thing to do. Rosier had saved his life. Twice now. Surely that meant something. Meant what James was doing couldn’t be wrong? Surely that meant James was doing the right thing, even if it meant lying. That he was still on the right side. That he was still good?
The question didn’t leave him.
It stayed through the next day. Through a mission to Kent three days later—one he’d specifically arranged to exclude Peter from. There was a tip about a Death Eater sympathiser. An unregulated apothecary, working out of a ruined shop in the woods, apparently supplying illegal potions. James went with Sirius and Remus. The man ran.
They gave chase—over a field, into the treeline. They split up.
James lost sight of the others for a few minutes. The undergrowth was thick and hard to see through. Then he heard shouts. Spells. Light between the trees. He heard a scream—ragged and drawn out—and panic took over. He skidded to a halt as he burst into a clearing. Remus was on the ground, pale and shaking.
Sirius, face twisted with anger and hatred, had his wand pointed at the man. The man’s hands were up. Wandless. There was a flash of green—and then the man was on the ground, motionless. And then James was yelling. Yelling as he dropped to his knees beside the body. Hands feeling for a pulse he knew wasn’t there.
James turned on Sirius, anger and adrenaline spiking. “What the fuck, Pads?” yelled James. “He had his hands up. He didn’t have a wand.”
Sirius was breathing hard, his expression stunned. As if he wasn’t quite sure what he’d done. He looked at James, and his voice shook when he finally spoke. “He used the Cruciatus on Moony.”
James opened his mouth. Closed it.
The ground tilted.
It wasn’t the first time someone had died.
Wasn’t even the first time one of them had killed. James had killed a man. He still didn’t know the man’s name—his spell went wide, brought down a section of wall. Crushed the Death Eater beneath it. But that had been an accident. James hadn’t meant to kill him.
Hadn’t looked him in the eye and chosen it. He’d meant to incapacitate. To survive. To win. And afterwards? He hadn’t felt too bad about it. It was a war. People died. That was just how it worked.
But this—this felt different.
Looking someone in the eye. Someone disarmed. Defenceless. Choosing to take their life.
Meaning it, enough for the spell to land. That felt like a line had been crossed.
One they weren’t meant to cross. One that divided them from the bad guys—but not in the way it was supposed to.
Because they didn’t do that. They didn’t kill like that. Not in cold blood. Not the Killing Curse. Not used on a man who’d already been disarmed. James turned back to the body. Pulled up the sleeve.
No Mark.
Didn’t mean much. There were plenty without it—sympathisers, collaborators, men who’d never had to swear allegiance to do the damage. He stood, slowly. Didn’t speak again until the debrief with Moody, several hours later. And even then, only what was necessary. The following night, alone in the kitchen, he stared blankly at the teapot.
No fire. No motion. Just the heavy silence of thought. When he’d joined the Order, everything had seemed simple. Clean lines.
The Order fought to stop the war.
The Death Eaters were the ones who’d started it.
It had been easy to tell the difference between right and wrong.
But now? The more he tried to pin it down—what was right, what was wrong, what kind of man he was becoming—the more everything blurred. He heard Evan Rosier’s voice in his head again: “I had my reasons to join. Might make me a bad person in your eyes—and that’s fine.”
Did James think Rosier was a bad person?
The answer should’ve come easily.
He had the Mark. That should have been enough.
And yet—it wasn’t.
Rosier had saved his life. He’d warned him. Helped him. Sat across from him drinking tea out of a novelty mug. James didn’t want to think of him as bad. He wanted—needed—to believe he was good. Or at least not beyond redemption. He wanted to believe that whatever reasons Rosier had had for joining the Death Eaters—they were somehow justifiable. Because James liked him. Because he didn’t want him dead. Because Rosier made him laugh. Because he made him feel normal. Because he reminded him—achingly, inescapably—of Regulus. Someone else who had loved him.Someone who had known him. He didn’t understand Rosier’s choices. Didn’t know the full truth of them. And, more damning still—he hadn’t asked. Not really. He could’ve pushed that night in the Queen’s Arms. Could’ve demanded an answer. And he hadn’t.
Rosier had said, I had my reasons, and James had let that be enough.
Why? Was it because he believed him? Or was it because he didn’t want to know? Because as long as he didn’t ask—as long as he kept his hands off the edges of that truth—he could keep believing it wasn’t something unforgivable.
It was naive. Dangerous.
And still—he clung to it. Because he didn’t want Evan Rosier to be someone he had to fight. Didn’t want him to be a bad person. And that made everything feel impossibly complicated as James stared blankly at the teapot. When had the world gotten so complicated? James wondered.
No answer magically presented itself. Not then. Not in the days that followed.
And then, a week after the Ministry attack, Maisie Dodgworth vanished. Muggle-born, mid-fifties, former Obliviator—quiet, competent, the kind of Order member who never made a fuss and always got the job done. She’d gone out on a routine supply run and never came back. No sign of struggle. No witnesses. No note. Just gone. Moody blamed the Wizengamot. “Leaking like a counterfeit cauldron,” he’d growled at the latest briefing, pacing like a caged bear. “We’ve got one or two of them in there at least—Malfoy and Lestrange for sure. Powerful men. Pure-bloods. Could be more.”
No one argued. No one had anything better to offer.
James stood with his back to the wall, slouched between Dorcas and Hestia Jones, arms folded, one foot braced against the plaster as if it might stop him drifting off course. Across from him, Sirius sat beside Remus, visibly tense. Peter lingered near Elphias Doge, hunched and watchful. James couldn’t bring himself to look at him for long. Every time he did, his stomach twisted. He still hadn’t found a way to expose him—still hadn’t figured out how to bring anything to Moody without implicating Rosier. And he wasn’t willing to do that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
So he was still lying.
Lying to Moody.
Lying to Sirius and Remus.
Lying to Lily, most of all.
He dropped his gaze to the floor, trying to keep the brittle edge of hopelessness from cracking him open entirely. It felt like standing on thin ice above black water. Bones was speaking when James looked up again—something about a pattern of disappearances across the Midlands. It might have been important. Probably was. James only caught fragments—half-sentences about safe houses going quiet, about Ministry informants changing sides, about a family in Coventry that no one had heard from in ten days. He let his eyes drift instead, scanning the room. Frank and Alice Longbottom stood with Dedalus Diggle near the far table. Alice looked tired. Worn. Her long brown hair listless, and the cheeky smile he remembered from school nowhere in sight. Caradoc Dearborn stood beside Kingsley Shacklebolt and another Auror James didn’t know—tallish, pale, looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He thought his name might be Quince, but he wasn’t sure. Beside him sat Benjy Fenwick, and next to him Thom Twycross—nervy and reedy and always smelling faintly of pipe smoke. Across the table: Ellis Ketteridge, still on crutches but, against all odds, sporting two legs. The Healers at St Mungo’s had managed to regrow the one he’d lost at the Ministry—something Moody kept calling “the only miracle that damn place has produced in years.”
Sirius, arms crossed, was glowering—not at Ketteridge, but at the woman beside him. Emmeline Vance. Her long dark braids were twisted into a tight knot atop her head, wand sheathed at her hip, chin lifted with that familiar, unimpressed poise she’d carried in school. She was the Order’s newest member, and James had been quietly pleased to see her walk in. She’d been brutal in school. Brutal on a broom. Smart, strategic, and deeply unbothered by his usual showmanship. Vance was vicious—and these days, that felt more like a necessary qualification than a warning sign. Sirius, clearly, did not agree. He’d been throwing her dirty looks since the moment she sat down—jaw set, eyes sharp. James wasn’t sure if it was suspicion—because of her name, her family, and the fact she’d been friendly with more than a few people on their watchlist—or if it was just principle. Because she’d been in Slytherin. And captain of the Slytherin team, to boot. Sirius—well, James wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with Sirius. He hadn’t heard more than two words from him in over ten days. No owl. No visit to the cottage. Nothing. The last time James had seen him was the day of the Ministry attack—when Sirius had looked at him with that too-watchful expression, sharp and unreadable.
Something was wrong.
James could feel it like a weight pressing against the back of his throat—tight, unfamiliar.
He knew Sirius too well not to notice when something was off.
The tension was there in the set of his shoulders, the clipped way he spoke, the way he wouldn’t quite meet James’s eye.
The problem was, this time, James had no idea what was behind it.
And he didn’t know if it was general—something to do with the war, the Order, the weight they were all carrying—or if it was personal.
If it was aimed at him.
That was what unsettled him most.
Because if it was personal, Sirius wasn’t saying. And Sirius always said. He was never subtle with his anger—he wore it like a second skin. Loud. Immediate. Understandable. But this—this quiet, distant coldness—this wasn’t normal. It made James's stomach clench with a low, creeping discomfort. The room was full—unusually so. Nearly the entire Order. That in itself said something, though James wasn’t sure what. It didn’t feel like reassurance. It felt like an omen. When the meeting finally drew to a close, James pushed off the wall, muscles stiff. He wanted to go home. Every minute he wasn’t working out how to expose Peter—how to frame him in a way Moody would believe, without revealing his source—felt like a waste of time. Worse than that, it felt dangerous. The clock was ticking. He could feel it, pulsing just beneath the surface of everything. If he didn’t find a way around the problem soon, something terrible was going to happen.
And if it did—it would be his fault.
The problem was that he was struggling. He needed help. Needed someone to talk it all through with. James had never worked well alone. He needed someone to bounce ideas off—always had. When he was a child, it had been his parents. Then at school, one of the Marauders. Most often Sirius. He and Sirius had always been brilliant together. They fed into each other. Together, they could come up with the most intricate and brilliant ideas. But alone? James felt like he was bashing his head against a wall. He was stuck. And he couldn’t take this to Sirius.
Couldn’t take it to anyone. Which was frustrating—because all he wanted was to be able to talk through it with someone.
And yet, he was alone.
In fact, James found himself alone with increasing frequency these days.
Lily was working more hours than ever.
Sirius was hardly around.
Neither was Remus.
And even when he wasn’t physically alone, he felt alone.
Felt isolated from the people around him. Isolated by how much he wasn’t saying. How much he was keeping back. The fire that had driven him when he joined the Order—the conviction, the clarity, the sense that he was doing the right thing—had burned down. Embers. Heat without light.
Another week passed.
Lily’s sister was pregnant. Three months. Lily was going to be an aunt. “They’re trying,” she said. “We all are. Even Tunie—I think she wants me to be part of the baby’s life.”
James told her he thought that was a good thing. That she should go, see them. Spend time with them. The Muggle world was safer. For now. And it suited him. It was easier to forget he was lying to her when she wasn’t there. And he didn’t have to pretend. Pretend he was okay. He knew he was off. Knew he was quiet. Staring too long at the wall. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d made her laugh. Couldn’t remember the last time they had laughed together. He didn’t want to be like that. Didn’t want to be distant. But he couldn’t seem to stop. Every time he looked at her, guilt rose up—sick and sharp.
Guilt for lying—but that wasn’t really it. No, it was guilt for not being the person she thought he was. Guilt for not knowing who that person was anymore.
And through it all Regulus sat behind his ribs like a slow, steady ache. Not scorching. Not raw. Just there—dull grief woven into the rest. Into Marlene’s name, and Gideon’s, and Fabian’s and Mary’s. But for some reason Regulus sat heavier. Because there was no one else in his life that remembered, or even cared, about the good bits of Regulus Black. How clever he was. The sharp humour. The sound of his laugh when James made him smile, properly. And so in that too James was alone.