Work Text:
It’s been years since anyone has entered or left 12 Grimmauld Place.
At 16, Sirius left his home and moved in with his best friend James Potter. His brother left four years later after he finished school. He stayed in touch, but only to not be disowned. Shortly after that, their father died. Walburga was never seen outside of that house again. Her nieces would occasionally visit for the holidays, Regulus would make courtesy visits every once in a while until they all gave it up.
Now, several years later, it has been reported that Walburga finally followed her husband to the grave. With Sirius disowned, Regulus is the sole heir: The money, the house, and even the old house elf.
Neither Regulus nor Sirius has any interest in living in the house they had both suffered in. Two weeks after Walburga’s death, however, they decide to visit the house and start sorting through their inheritance (Regulus’ inheritance, but he won’t keep any items away from Sirius if he wants them). They plan to take things they can sell or things they actually want to keep - Regulus always wanted to get those damn fancy crystal glasses that just aren’t fucking produced anymore.
Their respective boyfriends come with them to the house.
“You know what?” James says standing in the kitchen, “This would be a nice house with a little colour.”
Regulus, grabbing glasses and expensive dishes, turns to him, “Sure, let’s turn this place into pastel heaven. You can paint the kitchen neon green for all I care, just make sure Mary can sell it.”
“Well not neon… but mint?”
Regulus looks at him for a long time. “Sometimes I question my taste in men. Go over there and get me the silverware.”
“Do you just want to take the entire kitchen? Would be easier.”
“No, just the essentials.”
James looks at the empty cupboards and the collection of plates, bowls, cups and tea sets on the ground. Even if they threw three dinner parties back-to-back for all their friends, they wouldn’t be able to use all of these.
“And what are the unessential’s?”
Regulus holds up pepper and salt shakers. “I don’t think we’ll need this… though they are prettier than the ones we have… they’ll go on the maybe pile.”
Sirius comes strolling into the kitchen. “Hey, I made the fatal mistake of showing Moony the library. I don’t expect to see him again for the next three days. What are you doing?”
“Regulus gets us enough dishes to throw a royal banquet. Love, we don’t have space.”
“Then buy me a bigger kitchen,” Regulus shrugs and puts the salt and pepper shakers on the yes pile. (There is no maybe pile)
“Hey, did you find my old cup?” Sirius starts looking through the dishes on the kitchen floor.
“Yes. I made a Sirius pile over there.”
Sirius walks through the kitchen to where Regulus has placed something on a stool. It’s a gaudy, gold cup placed on a tiny plate with a golden spoon. That is the entire Sirius pile.
“Is that made out of pure gold?”
“No, would be too soft a metal but it’s super pretty isn’t it?”
“Sure. How rich was your family again?”
“Rich enough for me to have a home with a decent kitchen and library,” Regulus says and gets his hands on the last cupboard, “But no, we don’t need that much space, Regulus. Now we do, James. Checkmate.”
Sirius smirks at James, “You remember the good old days, when you begged me for my blessing to date him? And now this is your problem. All yours.”
James looks at Regulus inspecting a collection of knives on the kitchen tiles. He smiles – he’s all his, yes.
“Love, do you want all of the silverware?”
“Only the ones of real silver. Sirius can have the gilded ones.”
“Oh, yes, give me the fancy gold forks. They’ll match my pretty gold cup.” Sirius skips over to him to inspect the utensils James has found.
James’ family is rich as well, very rich, but they never invested their money in fancy dishes and gilded forks.
“So,” Regulus gets up, “This should be enough.”
“Are you sure? Maybe we need a third salt shaker.”
Regulus rolls his eyes and conjures boxes to carefully place the kitchen inventory in. He pulls out a marker and writes R+J kitchen on them.
“Have you found something notable in the drawing room?” Regulus asks Sirius, who simply places his fancy cup and gilded forks, knives and spoons in various sizes on the boxes.
“I found some old sheet music and half-decent poetry, but you can honestly buy them in better quality. Nothing is worth keeping in there.”
James allows himself a moment to quietly celebrate his relief. No new living room decoration and no space-consuming piano.
“Alright, shall we go upstairs?”
They go to Regulus’ room first. Regulus tries to keep Sirius out, but he has never respected his brother’s rules regarding his room, and he won’t start now either.
Regulus sorts through old jewellery, photographs and notebooks on the one side of the room. Sirius decides to rummage through the wardrobe.
“I’m sure we can sell some of our old, fancy clothes, right? I cannot imagine what I would need mine for at any rate. James, imagine: I won’t dress as fancy to my fucking wedding as I’ve dressed for casual family dinners every evening.”
“Moony will be disappointed, he thinks you look hot in a suit.”
Sirius rolls his eyes and sorts through Regulus' wardrobe. “Reggie, do you need anything of your old school uniforms?”
“What on earth for?”
“I don’t know. Sexy teacher-student roleplay?”
James frowns. “Hey Pads, you remember the good old days, when you refused to acknowledge that I sleep with your brother?”
Sirius winks at his friend. He opens another set of doors of the wardrobe – it takes up almost the entire side of the room – and gasps. “Aha! I knew they’d still be here.”
He grabs the clothes and dumps them on Regulus’ old bed. They are dresses. Beautiful, glittery dresses for various occasions.
“Look at this. Each one is worth a fortune. Mother would have never spent as much money on me as she did on a single one of these.”
James lifts one of the dresses, it is an off-shoulder cocktail dress, emerald green. The fabric is soft satin under his fingers.
“This is beautiful.”
Sirius hums, “You could get all four of us and Pete a nice vacation for that thing.”
Regulus looks over to them with one eyebrow raised. He shakes his head and then goes back to flipping through his old journals.
“You could buy a house with a massive kitchen and library just from these dresses,” Sirius says, looking at every single one and sorting them into different piles.
“I think you have enough money. You’re not going to sell these. They belong to Reggie, not you.”
“I’m not going to wear them,” he says simply, “Go forth and burn them for all I care.”
“No,” James insists, “They are way too beautiful for that.”
“Then you wear them,” Regulus says with a shrug.
“I don’t think I’d fit into them.”
Sirius holds up a short blue dress, it has a flared skirt with white fabric underneath the outer layer of deep blue, giving the illusion of waves or clouds. Glittering stones form a pattern from one side of the dress over the bodice and skirt like a starburst. “I bet I could get myself into this one. I’d look hot in it, don’t you think?”
“You’d rip it. Give it here,” James takes the dress from him.
“Regulus said, he doesn’t want them, that means I can have them. And if I want to get my body in a dress to make Moony all flustered, I will do so.”
“Then get you your own dress. These still belong to Regulus not to you. So, if he doesn’t want them they go to his children, naturally.”
“My what?” Regulus looks up at them.
“Well, if we – you ever have a child maybe they’d like to wear fancy dresses.”
Regulus simply stares at him.
“You can buy them new dresses,” Sirius says and grabs for the blue dress.
“No. These are gorgeous. Regulus’ children deserve to have this option, you don’t. You’re a grown man trying to tease his boyfriend.”
“I’m a grown man who would look hot in that dress. Fine, I’ll take the red one.”
He picks up a red dress – “Absolutely not,” James insists and takes the red dress away from him, “That goes to my daughter, keep your hands off it.”
“Your what?” Regulus asks and is completely ignored by the men.
“I was here first, your imaginary kids have to get in line. I will get fucked by my boyfriend in a fancy dress tonight and if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Then get one of your mother’s dresses because these are not for you.”
Regulus pushes himself away from his desk and walks over to them. He swiftly picks a black dress and hands it to Sirius. “There you go, now leave.”
The black chiffon dress has flowy, sheer sleeves and is layered so that the outer, almost see-through layer is longer than the rest of the dress. A thin strap of fabric is wrapped around it like a belt with a bow on it. James thinks, if one would spin in it, it would look absolutely magnificent.
“No, wait, that-“
“Is mine now,” Sirius says with a grin, “I go and find Moony.”
Sirius runs out of the room calling for his boyfriend.
Regulus looks at James with his arms crossed in front of his chest. “What exactly do you need all these dresses for, James?”
James shrugs, “You never know what the future may hold. Imagine if you have a child one day and they say ‘Dad, please I want to have a gorgeous emerald green, off shoulder dress for this party that is super important to me’ and then you have to say ‘Sorry sweetheart, we used to have a dress exactly like that but then I let your uncle get his spunk all over it’.”
“And why do you want those children to wear hand-me-downs?”
James holds up a floor-length blue gown with hundreds of pearls and stones sewn into the top. “Oh please, you’re not calling your family jewellery hand-me-downs either, are you? They will be vintage, our children will love that.”
Regulus raises his eyebrows at him. “Our children, huh?”
James looks down at the dresses, he feels his face heating up. He smiles to himself. “Yes… I mean, maybe one day we’ll have children… Imagine that, how beautiful they’d be – and then in fancy clothes like these?”
“Uh huh, sure, and where exactly are these children coming from?”
“Well, from you and me,” James says simply and looks at him.
Regulus stares at him for a long time. “James, if you think I will carry-“
“No,” James says quickly with widened eyes, “No, of course not. I wouldn’t ask that of you. I mean, if you wanted to, I’d support you, but I wouldn’t ever ask you to. No, of course not.”
“Good.”
James nods. “We can adopt if you want that – there must be wizard orphans somewhere, right? It’s just, I read recently that some trans women freeze their stuff to keep the option of having biological children open for themselves. I thought… I didn’t mean to start this topic now, but it made me think… before you get any bottom surgeries and organs removed, we could freeze… you know. Then one day, when we’re ready, we could have children together, carried by a surrogate.”
Regulus hums and pushes the dresses away so he can sit on the bed.
“Why is it so important to you to have biological children?”
“It’s not,” James shrugs, “I just think it would be nice… the two of us creating a new person. And you are so fucking beautiful, gods, the world would be so much more beautiful with more people like you.”
“Yes, generations of incest and a good skin care routine will do that.”
James rolls his eyes. “We can stop the incest now, you and I. We’d be great dads. I’ve been practicing my whole life by babysitting your brother.”
“Mostly unsuccessful.”
“Well, he’s still alive, happy, and in love. What more do you want for a child?”
Regulus regards him for a moment. “You’ve thought about this a lot.”
James can feel himself blushing again. “Maybe.”
“We’ve never once even talked about having children. We moved in together only a year ago.”
“I know,” James sits down next to him, “As I’ve said, I didn’t plan to breach this topic now. I wouldn’t have started with it either. I would have started with – Hey, love, what do you think of marriage as a concept? Do you want to get married, in general, to anyone?”
Regulus looks at him and pushes his hand into James’ hair. “No. Not anyone. You, though. I’d marry you.”
James’ heart threatens to burst out of his chest at that. “Really?” he whispers.
“Yes. I’d marry you in a heartbeat, as soon as tomorrow if you want.”
James smiles brightly. Regulus leans up to him and kisses him. James puts his hands on Regulus’ hips and pulls him into his lap. Regulus pushes him back on the bed and straddles his hips.
He leans over him and kisses him softly. “I love you,” he says and kisses his cheek.
“I love you, too,” James mumbles, “Do you want to have children with me, too? No matter how and when.”
Regulus smiles, “Yes. That sounds lovely. Though, our not-dress-wearing children will be terribly jealous of the dress-wearing children if you gift all of these to them.”
James shrugs, “I predict Sirius will be busy for the next hour, we can just go to his room and steal all of his old fancy clothes.”
“I think he destroyed a lot of them before leaving, and I stole some others when I moved out. So, now, there should only be the really fancy clothes in there or the old ones from when he was like twelve or something.”
“Then we will have very overdressed twelve-year-old children one day,” James says with a smile. Regulus smiles back at him and kisses him again.
It feels kind of strange to snog Regulus in this room. It’s his teenage bedroom, yet as teenagers, they never could have done this. Walburga would kill them if she was still alive and saw them like this. The thought makes him almost laugh.
Regulus pulls away an inch to kiss his jaw and his neck, “Maybe we should check what kind of fancy clothes Sirius still has here. Then you can shag me in them.”
“You’d let me?”
“Gladly. You can fuck me in front of my mother’s portrait for all I care,” Regulus whispers and kisses his lips again.
The thought is kind of disturbing but… intriguing. Disrespecting Walburga Black is a turn-on at any rate. Making her watch as they disgrace the house of Black – it sounds hilarious and fucking hot.
Footsteps come running down the hallway to the bedroom. Sirius stops in the doorway. James and Regulus pull apart and look at him. Sirius is dressed in the black chiffon dress now. As much as James hates to admit it, he looks unreasonably good in it.
“Reggie, do you have some socks, like thigh highs?” he asks hastily, panting from running.
Regulus blinks at him a few times and then just points at the wardrobe. Sirius rushes over and throws open some drawers until he finds the thigh-highs and quickly puts them on, jumping on one leg. When he is done he takes a second to look at himself in the mirror, he runs his hands through his hair. His legs do look great in the dress.
“Okay, good, do you have lipstick?”
“Why would I have lipstick? If there is any it’s four years old.”
“Alright, then this will have to do. What do you think?”
“I would like to wash out my eyes with bleach.”
“Thanks,” Sirius winks at his brother, “James, any input?”
“I fear you will kill Moony.”
“That hot, huh? Better watch out Reggie or I’ll steal your boyfriend. If you know what’s good for you, don’t come into the library for the next hour or two.” Sirius vanishes out of the room as quickly as he appeared.
“Well, that was a turn off,” Regulus says and climbs down from James and out of the bed.
“Yes… totally,” James mumbles. He only needs to take one look at Regulus’ smirk to know he is blushing. James looks at one of the green gowns. “There is no chance in hell you’d-“
“None.”
“Yeah, thought so. It’s probably better that way, let them stay untouched so we can give them to the children.” James gets up and carefully takes the most beautiful dresses to put them into the boxes they take home. “Did you find anything worth keeping?”
“Some jewellery that is too valuable to throw away,” Regulus shrugs, “Oh, wait there’s something I need to take with me.”
He quickly drops to his knees and reaches under the bed. He takes out a rectangular wooden box and grins at it. “I had to leave it here when I left and never got to pick it up.”
James, still horny and with his mind somewhere at shagging Regulus in front of a raging portrait, doesn’t trust himself to take a guess on the box’s contents.
Regulus throws the lid back and reveals a fine silver dagger with green stones set into the hilt.
“Of course, you’re hiding a dagger underneath your bed,” James mumbles, “Of course.”
“What did you think it was?”
“Nothing,” and he knows he is blushing even deeper. Regulus rolls his eyes at him and takes the dagger, balancing it in his hand.
“Are you going to interrupt Sirius and Remus with that thing now?”
“No, I thought more about stabbing it into mother’s portrait. Also, as far as inheritances go, our child will get this once day. It’s way more practical than those dresses.”
Regulus puts the dagger back into the case and then conjures more boxes for the dresses and other keepsakes, marking them with R+J basement.
He leads James to Sirius’ old bedroom next. It is about what James has expected if he’s honest - decorated with Gryffindor symbols and pictures of motorbikes.
They do find fancy suits and evening attire. James checks under the bed this time and finds an old diary written by a thirteen-year-old Sirius Black who was already head over heels in love with Remus at that point.
“I cannot wait to tease him with this,” James grins, “Maybe I should keep it a secret that I found it and quote from it at their wedding, what do you think?”
Regulus looks at him as if he is, once again, questioning his taste in men. He loses the battle with himself eventually and smiles, “It does sound funny as shit, do it. After we’re done here, I want to take a look at my father’s study and then the library.”
“Love, trust me, I’ve shared a dorm with these two for long enough to tell you, you don’t want to enter that room for the rest of the day. We can come back tomorrow, alone… I can fuck you in your fancy clothes in front of your mother’s hateful bitch portrait then. There will be nothing she can do to stop it. You can stab it afterwards.”
“Sounds fun,” Regulus smirks and joins James on the floor next to Sirius’ bed where he reads the diary. “James, how annoyed would you be if I took the piano from downstairs home with us?”
James sighs deeply and looks at him. “We don’t have space for it, Love.”
“Yet. We have to get a bigger flat anyway because of the kitchen and I need a library after I’m done with plundering this one.”
“Okay, why don’t we just get it over with and buy a house? There is no flat with a kitchen big enough for all the shit you’ve found here. I honestly don’t know how it fit into the kitchen downstairs. Were the cupboards magically expanded?”
“Yes.”
“Of course, they were,” James rolls his eyes, “I ask Mary to find us a house and then I will buy you a fucking piano if you want. That piano downstairs gives me the creeps, it’s like Walburga screaming at the two of you left a mark on it.”
“Yeah, she once accidentally hit the piano when she tried to curse me, but that didn’t inhibit the sound.”
James stares at him, blinks then nods. “Yeah, I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Okay,” Regulus smiles and kisses his cheek, “You keep reading, I’ll be in the study. And I want to leave when I’m done, I will leave those two here if they’re not done by then.”
Regulus gets up and leaves Sirius’ bedroom. James looks after him.
One afternoon in this awful place and he has certainty he and Regulus are on the same page regarding their future, has spoken with him about marriage and kids, he has new plans to buy a house with him and very immediate plans of shagging him in the most expensive, fanciest clothes he can find.
Life’s pretty fucking good right now, he decides. In his opinion, Regulus can put as many stupid plates and tiny forks into their kitchen as he damn well pleases – as long as he stays with him forever.