Work Text:
James was in St. Mungo’s, and they wouldn’t let Sirius through to see him. They weren’t letting Remus or Peter either, but that wasn’t the point. He’d had a sodding Killing Curse cast at him, but he wasn’t dead and they weren’t telling them anything, weren’t even telling them if James was still alive.
Sirius had half a mind to hex them and find James himself, but Remus and Peter had taken his wand when he wasn’t paying attention. Or maybe they’d just asked for it? Hell, Sirius was so distracted he very well might have handed it over without a first thought, let alone a second one.
Sirius was back to arguing with the Medi-Wizard, and Peter could tell he was all of three seconds away from hauling off and punching him, so he intervened.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked, putting a hand against Sirius’s chest and pushing him back a little.
“As I was telling him, it’s family only.”
“We are family!”
The Medi-Wizard glared at him, clearly past the end of his patience. “Blood relatives only.”
“His only blood relatives just died, we’re all he has. What’s the worst that could happen if you let us see him? We’re not going to hurt him, we’re causing more trouble this way, there’s literally no downside.”
The Medi-Wizard just walked away.
“Well. Maybe I should have let you hit him,” Peter said, watching him leave, the bastard.
When they were eventually let in, Sirius rushed to James’s side. “Hey sweetheart,” he said, covering his hand with one of his own, and using the other to brush James’s hair away from his face. “How do you feel?”
His eyes filled with tears. “Mum and Dad-”
“I know. I know Jamie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He held James while he cried, waited until he started sniffling instead of sobbing. “He’s gone though. Voldemort’s gone, Mum did something and he’s gone, you’re going to be fine. You’re safe now, we’re all- we’re all going to be safe.”
There was commotion outside, and Sirius took his wand in hand and watched the doorway warily. Voldemort’s gone, it’s true, but all those Death Eaters were still out there and if word had started to spread, his promise to James may have been premature.
Through the wall they heard someone yelling, “No you don’t understand! I need to speak to him right now.” It sounded like someone tried to reason with him, but it didn’t work. “No I can’t come back later! What part of right bloody now did you not understand, I need to talk to Sirius!”
“Is that Regulus?” James asked.
“That’s… what it sounds like,” Sirius said slowly, glancing at his friends as if expecting them to disagree with him-- they didn’t. He looked at the door and gnawed on his lip as he thought. Regulus was here and wanting to talk to him, and he wasn’t the sort to attack or otherwise trick him. Merlin but he didn’t want to leave James right now, not when he’d come so close to losing him.
James made the decision for him. “Go on. I’ve got Peter and Remus, I’ll be fine.”
Sirius still hesitated, pressing a kiss to his lips and lingering longer than he’d meant to. “I’ll be quick.”
“That’s not something a fella wants to hear,” James quipped, having the desired reaction of Sirius laughing, even if it was only for a moment.
He put his wand back in his trousers before he left but remained alert, just in case.
Regulus looked relieved to see him, so much that it would have made Sirius laugh in any other case. “Sirius, I need to talk to you.”
“Why, upset that your side didn’t deliver on its promises?”
“What?” Regulus said, looking thrown. “No, what- that’s not what this is about. For Salazar’s sake Sirius! Can we talk for just two minutes?”
Sirius looked at Regulus, taking in the nervous energy surrounding him and his disheveled clothes. He nodded.
That little conversation turned into a big conversation, turned into the five of them researching horcruxes and Tom Riddle.
“Are we sure he has more than one?” Remus asked as they pored over books.
“I’m sure he’s full of himself to the point to think that he could make more than anyone else ever has,” Regulus said. “He wouldn’t stop with one.” His eyes were deep-set and haunted in his face as he stared at the page he was currently on.
“He used Slytherin’s locket,” Peter said suddenly.
The rest of them exchanged looks. “Er, yeah Pete,” James said. “We know that.”
“No, I mean, that’s pretty damn egotistical of him, don’t you think?”
“He a very egotistical person,” Regulus said, none of them seeing his point.
“Exactly, he’s on a personal power trip. He wants to remind everyone that he’s powerful by birthright, so we should be looking at his lineage and seeing if there are any other family heirlooms.”
Remus had to swallow several times to find his voice. “That’s bloody brilliant.”
This revelation found them in an abandoned shack, a black stone on a ring the highlight of the one room. “Well,” Regulus said. “This doesn’t look like a trap at all.”
“Should we be expecting more Inferi?” Remus asked, half-joking, half-serious.
“I don’t think he’d like to repeat something like that,” James said. “He wants to appear more clever than that, y’know?”
Sirius took a step forward, stopping when all of them yelled at him to. “What?” he asked, annoyed.
Regulus was about to answer, but froze as a gigantic, unnatural snake slithered into view, its too bright yellow eyes focused on Sirius. Dozens of snakes followed behind it, all of them too large, too brightly coloured to be innocent.
They all backed up automatically, crowding around the door.
“Time to go,” Remus declared, opening the door and pulling everyone out faster than they could notice. He slammed the door closed, and they all continued to back up instinctively. “Any ideas?”
“Er, the original one?” James ventured.
“We don’t even know how to destroy a horcrux,” Peter reminded them. Well, that wasn’t precisely true, but it wasn’t a method any of them had access to, so it didn’t count. Regulus wouldn’t have that damn locket with him otherwise.
“Right. About that--” Sirius got cut off as the door broke down from the weight of some of the snakes banging into it.
“I do not think this is how normal snakes behave,” Regulus said nervously.
“Toss the locket in there.”
“What?”
“Throw the sodding necklace in, Reg,” Sirius growled, gripping his wand tightly in his hand as he stared at the shack.
When he fumbled with it, James took it from him and threw it.
Sirius stepped a few paces ahead of the rest of them and…
…
Fiendfyre. Sirius bloody knew how to cast fiendfyre. Animals made of fire destroyed the dingy building, consumed the enchanted snakes and the two horcruxes that went to their death screeching. A quick motion from Sirius’s wand and the fire receded, leaving only smoldering remains.
“I didn’t know you could cast fiendfyre,” James said later, when they were in bed. Rather, he was laying down and Sirius was sitting on the edge procrastinating. They were home, and even though they were still shaken from today, they felt safe. The Potter parents were gone now, but the mansion was still home. Right now it was housing all of them, and honestly James didn’t see that changing any time soon. He and Sirius were already living there, Regulus couldn’t go to any of the Black’s even if he wanted to, Remus didn’t like being alone, and Peter’s mother had passed just after the latest school year started.
Sirius shrugged, his shoulders tense. James reached out his arm so the back of his hand was on Sirius’s back.
“Love you.”
“I left the dark arts because I didn’t like them, not because I was bad at them.”
“Okay.”
Sirius looked over his shoulder at him incredulously. “‘Okay’? That’s all you have to say?”
“I mean. Yeah.”
Sirius blinked at him, then started laughing, finally laying down. “I love you too.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You said it earlier, it counts.”
James hummed, pushing Sirius’s hair away from his face then resting his hand on Sirius’s neck. “At least you won’t have to do it again, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey…” Sirius made a little questioning noise. “Marry me?”
“James, we’re barely seventeen.”
“Fine, then don’t marry me until we’re barely eighteen.”
“Oh no, you don’t get to decide that. You proposed, now deal with the consequences of marrying before we’re out of school.”
“Oh sure. The horrible, horrible consequences of being married to you. What ever shall I do.”