James lay on the couch and tried to breathe without moving his bruised ribs. He stared up at the bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. He needed to buy a lampshade. A table too. Chairs. At least he had the couch—that was something. That was progress. Taking an unfurnished flat probably hadn't been the smartest decision he'd ever made, but he'd just wanted somewhere to go. Somewhere that wasn't his parents' house. This had been the first place he'd viewed, and he'd said yes before the estate agent had finished the sentence.
He turned his head slowly and surveyed the room. It was still half full of boxes. Two and a half weeks he’d had the flat and he still hadn’t finished unpacking. He'd unpacked the kitchen things and some clothes. The rest he hadn't bothered with. None of it looked right. Boxes full of things he and Lily had chosen together for the cottage. Boxes full of things Lily had evidently decided she wanted no part of, delivered by an uncomfortable Remus and an annoyed Dorcas with them the implicit, wordless message that Lily was thoroughly done with any reminder of the life they'd built together.
It had hurt.
But less than it should have.
And that, in its own way, hurt more.
James had been coming to terms with that in small, uncomfortable increments for the last four weeks. Ever since Lily stepped into the Floo in his parents' living room after everything had finally been said. He'd sunk onto the couch in the sudden quiet, utterly exhausted, and the first wave—the initial, instinctive response to her leaving—hadn't been grief but rather relief. Relief that it was over.
His mother had taken the news of the split without much fanfare. As for the other revelations of that night—his history with Regulus, specifically—she hadn't said much at all and James hadn't been brave enough to raise the subject himself. His father on the other hand was harder to stomach. Not because he'd said anything directly. He hadn't. He'd been deliberately silent on the subject of Regulus, but the conspicuous absence of any vaguely philosophical observation on love or loss was itself a statement. It said everything Monty had decided not to put into words. James knew it shouldn't sit as heavily as it did. His father had always been enormously fond of Lily. Had loved her, genuinely. It wasn't surprising that he wasn't particularly happy with James now. It still sat in his stomach like a stone. The feeling that his father was—on some level—disapointed in him. That James had let him down. It was the primary reason he'd needed to get out of his parents' house. It was a lot easier to avoid them when he wasn't living under the same roof. A lot easier to avoid the conversation he knew his mother was quietly waiting for him to start. A lot easier to avoid his father asking, in a tone that was equal parts worry and sadness, whether he'd spoken to Lily at all.
He hadn't. Not once. Not in four weeks. Not since that night.
It should have hurt the way Regulus had hurt. But it didn’t. And as the days passed and the feeling that surfaced whenever he thought of Lily remained stubbornly guilt rather than grief, James had begun to understand what she'd seen months ago and he hadn't. And the more honest he forced himself to be, the harder the truth became to ignore. It explained too much. Explained why he’d never told her about Regulus. Why he'd been able to pack away entire pieces of himself and pretend they didn't exist. Why he'd spent years building a life with Lily while keeping parts of himself locked behind a door he never let her open. Because while he had loved her. Loved her enough that the hurt he'd caused her sat in his chest like a weight he couldn't shift. Loved her enough that he knew losing her friendship was going to hurt for a very long time. He wasn’t in love with her. He never had been. He’d never really wanted to be either—not really. Otherwise he would have let her in—but he hadn’t because he’d never wanted to feel that way again, feel the way he had after Regulus—to give someone the power to hurt him like that—and so he’d made sure Lily didn’t have that power—kept her at arm's length. He had taken her love and used it to patch himself up without ever letting her see the mess Regulus had left behind—he’d taken her heart and used it to make his whole again. If James had needed any final confirmation that he wasn't a particularly good person, that was probably it.
And facing his parents each day with that knowledge was too much for him. James was ashamed, ashamed to think that his father saw that, that his mother could too. And so James had been avoiding them solidly for the better part of the last month. As far as everyone else went—well Dorcas had been fairly vocal with her thoughts on the matter when she’d dropped off Lily’s boxs:I don’t know what the hell was going on between you and Sirius’s brother and I don’t want to—you fucked up big time—he’s got every right to be pissed at you and so has Lily. She'd also told him he was completely out of his mind if he thought trusting Evan Rosier was a good idea. She was angry with him. Thought he was an idiot. But she was still talking to him. Which was more than he could say for Sirius.
James had sent Sirius a total of five owls asking him if they could talk in the last four weeks. Each one had been returned unopened. And on the two occasions they had crossed paths—both times through Order business—Sirius had done an impressive job of looking straight through him as though he wasn’t there. Remus was quieter. Not in the angry way Sirius was. He wasn't not talking to James, but he wasn't really talking to him either. They'd had one brief conversation when Remus dropped off the boxes from the cottage and that had been the only time they’d spoken—in which Remus hadn’t said anything about Sirius—and when James had pushed he told James that he didn’t want to be in the middle of it—he’d been—not avoiding James exactly, but making himself deliberately scarce since then.
James didn't know what to do about Sirius. Other than wait for him to be ready to talk, if that ever happened. Almost all of James's current problems seemed, in one way or another, to revolve around talking—or the lack of it. The things his father wasn't saying. The things his mother was waiting for him to say. Trying and failing to get Remus to tell him what was going on with Sirius. Waiting for Sirius himself to decide whether he ever wanted to speak to James again. Wishing Dorcas would be less enthusiastic in sharing her opinions on what a shit person he was whenever she did speak to him.
And through all of it there was no one he could actually talk to.
Not his father, who was disappointed in him.
Not his mother, who was waiting for a conversation James wasn't ready to have.
Not Remus, who was keeping his distance.
Not Sirius, who wouldn't look at him.
Not Dorcas, who thought he was an idiot.
Not Lily.
Especially not Lily.
And James knew it was his fault. He knew this isolation was of his own making. He had lied to all of them, pushed them away—but knowing that didn't make it any easier. It didn't change the fact that he was facing it alone. That there wasn't a single person he could turn to and say, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing anymore. It didn't change the fact that the one person he would have said it to, the one person he wanted to talk to, wasn't there.
And that was the real problem. James thought he could have handled everything else, unpleasant as it would have been. He could have faced everyone else's anger. Could have stood in front of his father and his mother and taken whatever they had to say. He wouldn't be hiding in an unfurnished flat in Camden if he weren't also fighting the constant, paralysing fear that something had happened to Evan. It had been four weeks, and James hadn't heard a single word from him. With every day that passed, the fear settled deeper, hardening into something colder. Something that coiled beneath his ribs and refused to loosen its grip. Because every day without news made it harder to ignore the possibility that he might never hear from Evan again. That he might never get the chance to speak to him. Never have the answers to the questions that only Evan could answer. Worse still, never get to say the things that had become increasingly impossible to leave unsaid. And every time that thought surfaced, the dread tipped suddenly into panic. The kind that tightened around his chest until breathing became an effort. The kind that dragged him awake in the middle of the night with images of Evan on Boxing Day, torn open and barely alive; pale and unconscious on his parents' dining table, looking as though he might slip away at any moment.
Suffice to say, James was not sleeping well. The only reason he was sleeping at all was Alice Longbottom. More specifically, the fact that he spent a significant portion of most days being thrown around a training room by her until he was so thoroughly exhausted that his body eventually shut down despite the relentless whirring of his brain. Alice was an outcome of coming clean to the Order that James had not expected. Or rather, she was an outcome of Moody deciding that if James needed to become considerably harder to kill.
"Can't afford for you to die Potter, not when you're the only link I’ve got to Rosier. You're under house arrest until I'm confident you can fight."
James had pointed out that he could already fight. Moody laughed. And thus it had begun. Every weekday afternoon, James reported to the large townhouse Frank and Alice shared with Frank's mother—who was terrifying—and followed Alice down into the cellar, which had been converted into a makeshift training room. A typical session lasted about three hours and involved Alice demonstrating exactly how ineffective James's current approach to combat was, followed by James attempting to prove otherwise, followed by Alice putting him on the floor. Repeatedly. Occasionally she varied things by throwing him into a wall instead. The experience had been profoundly humbling.
James had been training with Alice for two and a half weeks now and, as far as he could tell, he hadn't improved even slightly. He had, however, cracked at least two ribs and come to the conclusion that Frank Longbottom was considerably braver than he'd ever given him credit for. A thought which surfaced again as he gingerly pushed himself upright from where he'd collapsed onto the couch after that day's session. After several failed attempts, he managed to haul himself to his feet and shuffle into the shower, where he stood beneath the hot water until the tightness finally began to ease from his muscles. It felt so good that getting out was almost harder than getting in had been. He lingered there for the better part of half an hour, delaying the inevitable, before finally forcing himself back into the cool air of the bathroom. He wrapped a towel around his hips, retrieved his glasses, and wiped the condensation from the mirror to assess the damage. The bruise running along his left ribs was impressive. Alice had caught him with a Disarming Charm of entirely unnecessary force and launched him clean across the room into the far wall.
Hard.
There was another particularly ugly bruise spreading across his hip from the week before, when much the same thing had happened. That one still hurt.
A lot.
James turned his attention to his face. Dark circles under his eyes from a month of terrible sleep. Hair that had become completely unmanageable. It was long enough now that if he left it much longer something small and magical was likely to start nesting in it. All in all, he looked about how he felt. Which was utter shit.
James turned away from the mirror and headed for the bedroom, where he pulled on a pair of joggers and an old T-shirt. Dressed, he wandered back into the living room and adjoining kitchen. There was chicken in the fridge, though he was running dangerously low on vegetables. He opened the fridge and stood staring into it. He had no desire to cook—he never did when it was just him. Cooking for one was depressing. And yet he needed to eat. It was a dilemma he was too tired and too bruised to solve.
Five minutes later, he was still standing there, staring into the fridge as though it might eventually offer him an answer, when someone cleared their throat behind him. James jumped before spinning around to find his mother standing in the kitchen doorway. A towering stack of Tupperware containers was balanced beneath one arm, and an all too familiar determined look on her face.
"Mum," said James, a little dumbly, his heart still recovering from the fright. "What are you doing here?"
She raised a single dark, arched eyebrow.
"I wasn't aware I needed an excuse to visit my son, whom I haven't seen in almost three weeks," she said coolly.
James immediately felt guilty. It must have shown on his face because her expression softened and she let out a quiet sigh.
"You don't have to talk to me. Not about anything you don’t want to," she said. "But you will eat with me. I brought makhani murgh and aloo gobi."
James suddenly felt very young—his throat tightened suddenly. He nodded. Not quite trusting himself to speak.
"You make some tea then," said his mother, moving further into the kitchen and setting the stack of Tupperware down on the counter, "and I'll heat this up."
James nodded again and set about doing as he was told. His mother didn't say anything else. She simply opened cupboards until she found what she was looking for and then got to work. The familiar sounds and smells filled the flat. The clatter of pans. The smell of proper food—the kind made because someone loved you, not because you happened to be hungry. The low hiss of something heating on the hob.
Eventually Effy loaded up two plates, balanced them effortlessly in one hand, and ordered him through to the living room. By the time he got there she'd already pushed three of his still-unopened boxes together in front of the couch to create a makeshift table. They ate in silence. The food was good. Better than good. It tasted like home. That should have been comforting. It was. But it also made a lump rise in his throat that became increasingly difficult to swallow around. Eventually he set his plate down with half the food still on it.He felt his mother's eyes on him. She didn't comment.
Instead she looked around the room and said, "You need a table. And curtains too. A home is not a home without curtains."
James glanced towards the bare windows. Outside, the sky had long since gone dark. His own reflection stared back at him from the glass. Something about it made his chest ache. He looked away. His mother set down her own nearly empty plate and turned towards him.
"A home can be temporary, Sheru," she said quietly.
The words landed with unsettling accuracy. As if she'd reached into his head and pulled out the thought he hadn't quite managed to put into words himself. Her dark eyes were warm and knowing.
"But it still needs curtains."
James let out a short laugh. Or at least he tried to. The sound caught somewhere in his chest and came out all wrong. His mother didn't ask what was wrong. Didn't ask him to explain. She simply held out her arms.
That was all it took.
Just like when he was little and had hurt himself, or woken from a nightmare, or lost a Quidditch match he cared far too much about. Just like then, the walls he'd been holding up for weeks gave way all at once. The fear. The fear that Evan wasn't alright. The fear his friends would never forgive him. The fear that he'd let everyone down. The exhausting effort of pretending he was coping when he plainly wasn't. His vision blurred. Then he was moving before he'd consciously decided to, stumbling into her embrace just as he had so many times as a boy. Giving up the fight to hold himself together. His shoulders began to shake. His throat burned.
And then he was crying.
The ugly kind. The kind that hurt. The kind that tore its way out from somewhere deep inside him until he could barely catch his breath. His mother wrapped her arms around him without hesitation and simply held on. One hand threaded gently through his hair while the other rubbed slow, steady circles across his back as he cried.
He cried for Lily and what he'd done to her. He cried for Sirius, and for the chasm between them. Cried because he didn’t know it had gotten so big, didn’t know if it was weeks, or months, or years old—cried because he couldn't remember the last time things between them had felt easy. And then he cried for Evan. For the knot of worry—that wouldn’t go away. The nightmares and the panic he felt at night when he convinced himself that he wasn’t going to see him again. He cried because he knew his father was disappointed in him—in the man he’d become—the type of man who lied—who hurt people. He cried for Remus and the slow distance that had appeared between them so gradually James hadn't noticed it happening until it was already there. He cried for Regulus. For his death—for the heartbreak—for the goodbye he'd never gotten. He cried for Mary. For Marlene. For Fabian and Gideon. For every person he'd lost. For every person he was terrified of losing next.
He cried for Peter too. Peter, who was still alive and yet somehow felt lost all the same. Peter, who Moody had quietly tucked away under the guise of some mission or another—something important enough to keep him occupied and far enough away that nobody had to decide what to do with him. Peter, whom James had barely thought about in months, and whose absence suddenly felt like another wound he'd forgotten he was carrying. He cried until there was nothing left. Until the grief and fear and guilt had been wrung out of him. Until he was exhausted. Empty.
After that he let his mother take charge. Let her steer him towards bed with a hand on his shoulder as though he were twelve years old instead of almost twenty-two. By the time he crawled beneath the covers, his eyes felt gritty and swollen and every muscle in his body ached. His mother settled beside him on top of the duvet, propped against the headboard. Just like she used to when he was little. Her fingers moved slowly through his hair.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
James hadn't realised how tired he was until that moment. How badly he'd needed someone else to carry things for a while. The last thing he remembered before sleep finally dragged him under was the feeling of his mother's hand in his hair. And for the first time in weeks, he slept the full night—no nightmares of Evan’s lifeless body—no waking up in a cold sweat with a sudden panic gripping his chest, just oblivion.
When James woke, the room was painted a deep orange hugh. For a moment he lay there blinking at it, disoriented. Then, slowly he sat up—felt around half blind on the bed side table for his glasses and then shoved them onto his face. The colour was from sunlight filtered through a pair of long, very orange, velvet curtains that were now drawn over the window at the far end of the room. James stretched—his body felt heavy in the pleasant way that came from genuine sleep. The sort he hadn't had in weeks, maybe months. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and crossed the room, pulling one curtain aside. The sky beyond was bright and cloudless in that rare way a winter’s day can be.
James checked his watch.
It was almost eleven.
He'd slept for over twelve hours.
The realisation was still sinking in when he became aware of music drifting through the flat. He followed the sound into the living room.
His record player had been unpacked. A Jaipur Junction record spun lazily beneath the needle, filling the room with the blend of jazz brass and sitar his mother had always been particularly fond of. Curtains now hung at the living room windows too—the same long, outrageously orange velvet ones she'd put up in the bedroom.
Books floated through the air, directing themselves out of one box and into a neat stack in the corner while his mother rummaged through another filled with what James suspected was bedding. Effy's dark hair was piled on top of her head in a precarious knot held together by what appeared to be two kitchen forks. Her glasses were tangled somewhere in the mess, and she hummed along to the music several keys off, entirely unbothered by the fact she wasn't remotely in tune.
"You put up curtains."
His mother straightened and turned to face him.
"Yes, nice, aren't they?" she said. "I bought them for one of the upstairs guest rooms—you know, the one that looks out over the orchard?" She frowned thoughtfully. "For some reason Mippy must have taken them down. I found them folded away in a box in the linen cupboard this morning while I was picking up some spare bedding for you."
James bit the side of his cheek to stop himself smiling. His mother's taste in interior design could best be described as eclectic. She had a particular fondness for bright colours, usually in combinations that clashed spectacularly and over the years, Mippy had devoted a truly impressive amount of energy to quietly undoing his mother's more ambitious decorating decisions. A lamp would vanish. A rug would be quietly replaced. A particularly offensive set of cushions would disappear overnight, only to be substituted with something remarkably similar but considerably less alarming. His mother, somehow, never seemed to catch on. It was no mystery to James whatsoever why the orange curtains—which, in fairness, weren't that bad, merely aggressively orange—had ended up folded away in the linen cupboard.
They look great, Mum," said James.
Effy gave the curtains a deeply satisfied look, then she turned attention back to him.
"Right," she said briskly. "Breakfast is on the stove. Eat and then get to work."
James did just that. And by four o'clock there wasn't a cardboard box in sight. And courtesy of a QuickFormOwlOrder catalogue his mother had thrust at him over breakfast, the flat was almost unrecognisable. A new rug covered the previously bare floorboards. A bookcase stood against one wall. There was a lamp in the corner. A table with chairs. A small side table beside the couch. A lightshade on the living room light. And, somehow, despite the fact that James definitely hadn’t included them in the order, several aggressively cheerful yellow cushions adorning the couch. James glanced around the room. It was much better. Not just because of the furniture. Because now the flat felt less like somewhere he was hiding and more like somewhere he lived.