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They didn’t want him to come, but he’d insisted it would be fine.
‘You’re a liability, kid,’ Moody had sniffed. James wanted to take his other eye.
‘I’m fucking fine.’ He’d snapped back. And that should have been telling enough.
James had been burning on empty for weeks. Buzzing, adrenaline coursing through his veins. The manic notion that an end was coming that he couldn’t shake. Didn’t want to. Like when you’re in free fall and you don’t care if you make it when you land. Just hoped you made a bit of a mess when you did. James was gone on it, frenzied, sometimes downright vicious. Snapping for something to catch between his teeth, uncaring, at times, of what colour it would bleed.
Most of the Order had written it off as vengefulness. The Death Eaters had killed his parents, and he wasn’t going to stop until he had something to show for it. James had nothing left to lose. It was something they could all understand, in their own ways.
They were half right.
Moody looked to Remus who shrugged his shoulders, at a loss. In fairness, James had been lost to them for a while.
‘Alright, but you’re on lookout. Don’t fuck this up. Frank goes for the mirror and puts the sheet on, Black, you help him carry it. Only after it’s covered.’ He added, steely.
‘Worried he’ll get a bit distracted by seeing our Remus making eyes at him?’ Alice joked, a smattering of laughs following.
Sirius didn’t even argue, just looked smug as Remus fought a smile.
‘When,’ James said, breaking the ease that had spread. Both the boys’ eyes snapped to him, concerned.
Moody hummed. ‘Tonight.’
‘You don’t have to do this. Alice can come.’ Sirius said after the meeting, when everyone else had filtered out of the room. Remus stood close to his side, arms folded, eyes searching James’ face.
‘Cheers for the vote of confidence.’
‘That’s not what I- I just meant, no one expects-‘
‘I can make decisions on my own just fine thanks, Mum,’ Sirius recoiled as though he’d been struck.
‘James, enough.’ Remus warned. ‘You’re behaving like a child.’ A painful beat of silence. He seemed to realise what he’d said then, what this was all about. His eyes rounded in shame.
James smiled. He reckoned it wasn’t very nice to look at. ‘And I suppose I'm not, anymore, am I?’
‘Mate,’ Sirius tried, calmer, desperate. ‘We’re just worried.’ About you. Where are you?
Gone, he thinks . It’s all gone.
‘Why?’ James asked instead, feigning ignorance. ‘Frank’s a good leader. We’ll be fine.’
Hours later, James stands guard at the entrance to the dilapidated house they’d received the intel for. Can hear Sirius and Frank rooting around in the basement. He’s practically vibrating, teetering on the edge of something, when he hears it.
‘James ,’
His head whips around, eyes scanning the room, frantic. Flighty. Desperate. There’s no one there.
‘James,’ It calls, in that voice that swims around his head every time he shuts his eyes.
His gaze falls on the basement door and he’s off before he knows what he’s doing. He’s not sure how he gets down there, into the dark, how he manages to get past the others. Time doesn’t feel quite right. Feels like he’s moving through liquid, being pulled by a thread looped around his spine towards something inevitable. Something monumental. The end to his uncontrollable fire that he’s felt coming for a while.
And then he’s in front of it.
James is standing in the garden of Potter Manor. It’s summertime. The grass is lush beneath his shoes. A warm breeze carries the birdsong, rustles his shirt. The flowers are in full bloom, trimmed to perfection, the way his dad used to do it. He looks a bit older- worn, in the best way. Smile lines that run deep. Crinkles next to his eyes that capture a lifetime of joy.
Then Regulus is there.
Regulus, Regulus, Regulus.
He feels his heart, the bloody battered thing that rolls around in his chest, beat with it. The want. As real and warm as the sun that slips through the trees, laying hands on his skin. He has been so cold until this moment, now it’s like he’ll never know a bitter winter again. This , this is the endless summer.
Regulus stands beside him. There and violently whole. Alive . James could count the eyelashes that dust his cheeks. More beautiful than he has words for, from a time before there was language, or anything at all. James feels the sweet sickness of nostalgia burn in his gut, recognising it like a cosmic homecoming. Back when they were just potential, dust dancing, bits of them glowing like a solar fire. James knows they’ve met before, a long while ago, in the mouth of a celestial inferno. Two ancient stars colliding. Destiny and chance and the promise of eternity side by side. Always coming back to this. More right and true than anything he’s ever known before or since Regulus. They stand together again now, wearing human faces, somewhere outside of space and time, complete once more.
There’s a child settled on his hip, hair a riot of black curls, face turned away into the crook of Regulus’ neck in a peaceful slumber.
James feels a lifetime of peace wash over him. Feels it fill him up, spilling from his eyes. Tears of longing. An ocean of yearning.
Mine , he thinks. That’s mine, my life. My family. That’s my home.
Regulus smiles in that way he does. Like he knows something, and watching you figure it out is half the fun. James feels like he can breathe fully for the first time. Since he’d seen that same smile all those years ago on a crowded platform, young and brazen and so hopelessly captivated, he’d never quite been able to catch his breath.
‘How?’ James whispers. It catches softly on the wind.
Regulus rolls his eyes, fond. Jostles the child in his arms, smiles like it could save them. ‘Because this is how it is supposed to be, James.’
James . It thunders in his blood.
Regulus extends a hand. James reaches back, but hits something cold and hard. Unforgiving. Something so out of place in the warm haven of their home.
Wrong .
They’re stuck in there waiting for me, is all James can think, touching the glass, unable to feel Regulus touching back. His only thought is to smash his fists against the thing that stands between them. The thing that dares to keep them apart after all this waiting. It won’t shatter, he can’t break it, he can’t-
Then he’s being pulled from every direction, feels his muscles straining to keep his limbs. Regulus looks scared. The faceless child in his arms begins to wail.
‘No, no no no no,’ James cries.
‘Don’t leave, don’t- don’t let them take me. Please, James.’ Regulus begs. His grey eyes are wet, gleaming like a polished mirror. The crying grows louder. Something shakes James’ vision. He can’t see Regulus anymore.
‘It’s a fucking trap!’ He hears screamed in the distance. He doesn’t care.
‘Never.’ He promises. ‘Never again.’
The worst part is that Regulus looks like he believes him. That this time it will be true. That they’ll never be apart again. Not with that edge his gaze always used to have, broken, resigned. Like he wanted to believe in James’ hushed oaths, but part of him knew it wouldn’t last, and he just didn’t have the heart to tell him. This is different. This is trust. So raw, on the face of a boy who never had the chance to hope at all, that it's almost hard to look upon. This unfounded faith shatters James into a million tiny pieces.
‘Move, James!’ Sirius’ plea cuts through the noise now, doesn’t sound like the first time he’s shouted it. His voice is hoarse. ‘James - the fucking ceiling’s coming down!’
Then suddenly there’s a tearing, and everything, all he’s ever wanted, is gone.
He’s in so much pain that he mistakes the crack of apparition for his spine. It shakes his skeleton, splinters his bones. He lands on the floor of the safe house, looks down and expects to find himself covered in blood. Expects to see his heart missing from his gaping chest, his spine, and the invisible cord attached to it, severed.
‘James,’ Sirius says, shaky, from where he kneels at his side, hand tugging desperately at his sleeve.
James looks at him, his face covered in tears, screwed up in agony. Sirius’ is pale. He’s scared.
Of me, James thinks, bitter, careless, utterly alone. He looks at his brother, and isn’t shocked to find him so far away despite the parts of their body that meet. There's a distance now that can never be crossed.
‘Fuck you,’ James snarls, rips his arm out of Sirius’ grasp. ‘You had no fucking right. Where’s Frank? Where’s he taken it?’
‘Are you insane?’ Sirius seems like he’s genuinely asking. Feels like a question that’s been coming for a while. A wet, hysterical laugh bubbles up James’ throat. Then Sirius says, ‘You punched Frank, for fuck’s sake,’ and things are less funny. He shakes his head in disbelief, looks down at his bloodied knuckles. If he’d just been stronger -
‘I hit the mirror.’ He says, though now he’s unsure.
‘You hit Frank! When he was trying to cover it you hit him! That thing fucks with your head, don’t you get it? What were you thinking!’
James can’t see straight. Shakes his head to clear it. ‘You had no right. You should have left me.’
‘We were compromised!’ He shouts, shaking. ‘Didn’t you hear the explosion? James, I just- I know you fucking miss them, alright?’
Them.
James suddenly feels sick. Regulus. Their child.
How does he know?
Then,
‘Don’t you think I miss them too? I know it’s fresh, and it feels impossible, but they wouldn’t have wanted you crushed under a fucking ceiling for it!’
Them. His parents.
He can’t stop himself from throwing up then. Sirius puts a hand to his back, and James shakes it off because of the way it burns. Because for the first time he can find no comfort in it, and the sickness swells.
His parents, he thinks, bleary, devastated, certain. They would have understood. Sometimes he thinks his mum knew, the way she’d look at him. Love like that leaves scars.
James would have let the ceiling cave in on him for Regulus. Would have razed cities. Gutted the world.
When all he'd really needed to do was save him. Just the once, that was all. Offered him a way out, taken his hand whilst he’d still been alive to hold it, when he needed it most. Now James’ palms are empty as he kneels on all the ruin he’s caused.
It wouldn’t have taken much, and still James hadn’t had enough. Been enough.
‘It won’t stop hurting, Sirius.’ He was crying again, chest heaving around the emptiness. James rubs the heel of his palm to his sternum, as though one could work the knots out of a broken heart. ‘It doesn’t stop, it just doesn’t- You don’t know. No one knows.’ It feels impossible then, for James to hold all of this on his own. The secrets, the hiding, the hope. He houses it all in his fragile, human frame, when it was supposed to be shared by another. He doesn't have enough room for all the love he was supposed to give Regulus, and now it presses up against his thin flesh, too much, too big for one boy, one body, one short life. It's so great, burns so bright, that it threatens to be the thing that kills him. This is going to kill him.
Sirius reaches for him. Tries to hold him together, tries to catch the starlight as it pours from James' eyes.
‘Then tell me,’ Sirius pleads, shattered, palms clutching James’ cheeks, grip too tight. Their eyes locked together. James hates the colour of them now. Hates himself for that, too. ‘It’s okay, it’s going to be okay, James.’ he murmurs. A distant part of James is horrified at how easily Sirius can lie to him. That this is who they are now, what they’ve become. Two strangers, clutching at familiar bodies, incapable at honesty. The only thing they know with any intimacy, any certainty now, is how blindingly the truth hurts. How mortally they can wound one another with the things they can’t say.
They stay together for a moment, foreheads touching. James knows, after what’s about to tear from his throat, it could be the last they share like this. ‘Tell me.’
‘It’s Regulus.’ James gasps. Has to say it. Watches the colour drain from Sirius’ face as he does.
‘What?’ The other boy whispers, rearing back, hands slackening, letting James go. Doesn’t want to ask. Needs to know.
‘It’s Reg. It was him. It’s him. Always.’